Miss my old team :-(

Vish and Raghav relocated to Sunnyvale, Bhasker visiting wife in London, Sameer moved to a different cube and Harish ill … felt really odd at work today!

I am sad.

Guess, change is the way of life.

At Madhushala

Yes, right. And this time its not one of Bacchan’s

Last night was my very first time at a pub. And contrary to my prejudices, I actually did have a lot of fun. One Blue lagoon, one screwdriver, one Romanov down, and was still sane enough to walk back home. I should admit it, I attribute most of the fun I had to the cool bunch of people that I was with. Thanks guys.

Life is a bitch, but I love it

Well, the title says it all. Not much else to add.

Transliteration Issues

I was looking for a good online Hindi-English dictionary, but my search has been vain so far. Most of the dictionaries that I found online have their own transliteration schemes and require me to enter the hindi word using that transliteration scheme. And transliteration schemes are not easy to use, I tell you. And not just that, some of these dictionaries actually give the translation scheme in terms of technical grammar words. Totally incomprehensible.

A long time back, when I was searching for a urdu-english dictionary, I found this beautiful site which uses a subtle and simple way to get around the transliteration problem. Check this site out  http://urdudict0.tripod.com/. Instead of asking you to give the entire spelling in one go, it lets you narrow down to the word letter by letter. Very simple, but extremely powerful. I never fail to find the word that I am looking for, atleast not so far.

If you are reading this blog and if you know of a good site for hindi-english dictionary, please do let me know. Thanks.

Corporate School Paranorama

This time when I went home to celebrate Sankranti, I had an opportunity to attend the awards function for the Science Talent Search Examination conducted by Dr.A.S.Rao Awards Council. This is one of the prestigious examinations conducted in Andhra Pradesh, both in terms of the quality of the question paper as well as the intent behind conducting the exam.
Anyway, The kids who got the awards were being called upon and also mentioned were the father’s name, the school and the district. The school names stuck me as highly peculiar. The school names in my time used to be simple, for example mine was a central school. Similarly there were public schools and others. But now, there are these huge gamut of other schools which are named as school of excellence, school of talent, grammar school etc etc.
The very fact that the names of the schools are renamed in such fashion speaks volumes about how the education system, and the perception of education itself has changed with time. Now, education is business too, and you got to sell it, and sell it better than the guy next to you. And having a cool brand name surely helps. What with all these parents flocking to get their children into IITs by hook or crook, the schools will flourish like crazy.

jaInaa [saI ka naama hO

It was a small get-together at Prayas today to wish fare well to the passing out members.
Very heartening.
I got this title

]ClatI kUdtI fudktI
]laJatI saulaJatI bahktI
ek laDkI saaonaprI saI
vaao rho sada hI cahktI ..

Followed by a mesaage

mauskurahTaoM kao yaUM hI ibaKorto rihe
ijanasao imailae ]nako jaIvana yaUM hI saÐvaarto rihe ..

This song came to my mind.

iksaI ik mauskurahTaoM po rUh inasaar
iksaI ka dd-imala sakotaolao]Qaar
iksaI ko vaasato hao toro idla maoM Pyaar
jaInaa [saI ka naama hO

maanaa ApnaI jaoba sao fkIr hO
ifr BaI yaaraoM idla ko hma AmaIr hO
imaTo jaao Pyaar ko ilae vaao ja,ndgaI
jalao bahar ko ilae vaao jandgaI
iksaI kao hao na hao hmaoM hao eotbaar
jaInaa [saI ka naama hO

irSta idla sao idla ko eotbaar ka
ija,nda hO hma hI sao naama Pyaar ka
ik mar ko BaI iksaI kao yaad AaeMgao
iksaI ik AasauAaoM maoM mauskuraeMgao
khogaa fUla hr klaI sao baar baar
jaInaa [saI ka naama hO

Well that is all life is, in a nut-shell.