Khoon Chala - RDB

Today,my office organised a blood donation camp with Jeevan.

Donated 350 ml.

Felt Good.

Reminded me of the above song.


“Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more.” - H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Chennai-First Impressions

Contrary to popular public perception, chennai is not just about hot weather,bananas,coconut trees, beaches and madrasis who refuse to speak hindi.
it s also about........about..........ah well........

After almost two months in chennai, i can add to/modify that list :
1) "HOT" weather
2) water shortage/dirty water
3) lots of bananas and coconuts
4) long clean beaches (i have yet to visit one)
5) madrasis who are trying to learn hindi (about time too)
6) good traffic sense (far better than mumbai....you'll find traffic policemen at every signal,junction and street corner actively managing traffic.....in mumbai this happens only when a minister or some big shot visits)
7) Clean Streets (a complete contrast to aamchi mumbai)
8) well disciplined people
9) overcharging autos (there is no meter system here......autos charge as they deem fit......say if you need to got to a place 1 km away, one auto will quote 50 bucks while another one barely 5 meters behind him will quote 20!!!!!!!!!............so bargaining helps - and thats where the next problem comes in)
10) language problem- im not contradicting point no 4. its just that apart from the numbers, madrasis have still a long way to go as far as the national language is concerned.......even the limited hindi they speak is difficult to decipher because of the inherent tamil accent........so lesson learnt ....learn tamil to survive in chennai)
11) big shops.........believe me a single sarvana store can compete with any of our malls in terms of number of products and size. there are almost 10-15 such shopping complexes in my area... and god knows how many more all over chennai..the biggest of them being spencer plaza which i can safely assume to be almost as big as our crossroads and r mall put together, if not bigger.
12) all in all. its a city which was very traditional,dull and slow... and is now on the threshold of being a truly cosmo city like mumbai of delhi.my bet is that in probably 2-3 years time it will be developed enough to truly deserve the tag of being one of the four metros of India.

maybe i have missed a few points here which i will post as and when i remember but this is as much as i can think of.

How I landed in Chennai

When I got the call for an interview for a job at Irevna, it was late evening and I was just entering my building back from work. I remember, while in the lift, I had decided that I'll go for the interview for the sake of it......just to improve my interview skills(since I was to start a full-fledged job hunt next week onwards)........and partly becoz I wanted to see the Grand Maratha Sheraton. So, come tuesday Feb 7, I walked into the double doors of the G.M.S. fully expecting nothingI sat for the excel test and halfway into it, I was pulled out for the Interview. After a few technical and admin questions, they made an offer on the spot and gave me till thursday evening to confirm.

Believe me,those were the most ....(cant think of a word) ..........2 days of my life. to go or not to go? and then after going through all the pros and cons i decided to go. there were a very specific set of reasons due to which that i made that decision, but i will not reveal them as yet. they will come out in time.

but at the moment, chennai beckoned.....

"Finally" my first post

I had thought of starting my blog ever since I accepted my new job in chennai. but due a lot of reasons,i couldnt. but today since there seems to be a breather in the work sched, i decided to do my first post.
Just a quick intro - I am a mumbai bred gujju,23,C.A. and presently working as a research analyst with Irevna, Chennai; previously with NCDEX for a year.
So here goes..........