Ita turns 2.

Happy budday. Clap clap. Gud fun this evening with kids from neighbourhood joining our celebration. Now if anyone claps for anything my little one jumps excitedly and claps Happy to you. Cute she is. :) Ummah. (pics later)

The reunion week(end)

Last week leading up to the weekend was fun for old time sake.. I met folks from my last office for lunch, then on Saturday met folks from school. Some of whom I was meeting after 19 years.... (I know it gives away my age group as well) but I am damn pleased with the dinner with as we call it chaddi buddies. The four odd hours we were together flew past like minutes on just talking of school. We didn't even play catchup on life yet. Thus We've promised ourselves to meet next time with spouses and kids. We are still trying to find more people from the class. Cheers for the old times and the new ones ahead. Good luck guys....

2wice in a row.

The planned work trip to hyderabad wound up a day early, but grounded as no flt was not available or was at exhorbitant rates. And hey did u know 'Karachi biscuits' are famous product in Hyd and they are vegetarian product (no egg, no meat, no fish). Bought some.

Airline announcements

For a change, the cabin announcements in the airline was grammatically correct. It was the Indian Airlines doing it right.... If you've heard "Outside temperature is......" it stands corrected to "temperature outside" ... i LIKES it....

Socking lessons

Ensure you wear or set aside the right pair of socks while getting ready for work and playing with your nearly two yr old at the same time. :) else end up wearing a black and a brown one.lolz

Nigerian + Phishing

Happy to see Government Consumer Affairs launching a advisory campaign on prime time tv, making people aware of Nigerian email like scam and phising attacks. Well done.

Manza

Tata Motors Manza. Kite flyers welcome to branded thread to fly your kites with this new manja. ;)

Blue again

NSW (New South Wales) win ACLT 20-20. They were playing in blue attire. Looks like IPL and such hosted by BCCI shall be won by men in blue. Cheers for wonderful cricket.

Chemical locha?

When Toinks or anyone else talks about Sai Baba's visit in dreams, I used to find it almost incredulous, until He visited me last night. Is it because I had been to his Shrine recently and followed it up with some reading. I also get reminded of the flick 'Munnabhai' sequel 2 and Chemical imbalance the protagonist goes thru. I am also drawn into reading about the other Sai from down south. Irrespective of whatever, there sure is a sense of peace at Shirdi.

The Kargil of my life.

Circa 1999. Indian army was fighting at Kargil reclaiming areas captures by the Pakistan army and its jihaadi groups. Today, 10 years later, I saw a billboard reminding me of the war. Not drawing parallels here, but it was also the same year when I was trying to establish my IT consulting biz. The battlefeild of my mind was frequently invaded by people for and against my persistenance of continuing my labour. Around 4 years later and with failures to realise payments, coupled with drying prospects (ammo) made me surrender. I lost my battle of nerves at that time. Regrets? None for having to give up, as I learned from those experiences, reclaimed the confidence on my abilities, moved into security profession and comparitive financial security.Today, I am happy where I am, the enterprising spirit continues to live in me. I guess a day shall come again when I take to the same battle again. This time to win. When? Dunno. Not before 5-10 years I suspect.

Km24 plaza cust service

Use it to beleive it. Absolute goons and very unprofessional. A written complaint gets answered in 2 mins with we shall try and thats the end of action taken. Their CSA is no less a ruffian, who dares cust to tear the complaint if needed says he doesn't care. Wat monopoly. is nhai listening?

Resigned

Last night I was chatting on messenger with a friend in the company i worked for. We were chatting about markets and how Indian software companies are planning to announce bonus at diwali etc. He said his boss "resigned" on papers. I said wat happened?. He said the boss had to do it because of mistakes in the work. I said how terrible, knowing the boss was my friend's mentor. He was surprised and asked y do i say so. And clarified re-signed (marked his sign again) on the bonus letters after getting the mistakes corrected. Wat say on that.

Indian greeting and Swine flu

Namaskaar. Vanakkam. Pranaam. Etc etc. Age old Indian tradition of greeting people with folded hands. With Swine flu menace increasing, maybe in the interest of hygeine and containment to some extent, maybe we should go back to such greetings. Wat say?

The tour ends

Had been travelling for the last 4 weeks, headed home tomorrow morning.

The more equals

A TamilNadu state emblem affixed car with red flashing beacon light at a signal. The officials don't need to follow the motor license plate norms.?

Unthinkable

I forgot to collect my laptop from the hotel conveyor belt for 2mins and walked into the lobby. Thank God someone I was with picked it. Also forgot my mobile at a charging station in office. Someone ran up to return it too. Very not me. :(

Unthinkable

I forgot to collect my laptop from the hotel conveyor belt for 2mins and walked into the lobby. Thank God someone I was with picked it. Very unlike me. Also forgot my mobile at a charging station in office. :(

The Gyan session on ISMS

Today, at the insistence of a friend, I went over to her office to present on Information Security and ISMS standards. I'm elated that I could spread the word on info-sec to a few more in a session that lasted 4 hours. The Pizza and burgers were thrown in complimentary (burp). I hope her management is convinced and would pursue their path to implemnting an ISMS. (Information Security Management System)

Coming to think of it, I havn't toiled hard in making a ppt for a long long time. It took me many many hours to bring up that 87 odd slide deck. Majority of which is done from scratch, a few taken from Internet, converting data to graphs and identifying key aspects to "sell the concept" I-S was quite satisfyine. It was after half a decade that I was cheerfully typing (not codes but just text) and enjoying the effort. And hey I do remember some music in the background... I also realised that of late I haven't been doing a readup on statistics on incidents and the likes. I was also struggling to catchup with typing the contents with my fast running "must-have" thoughts. I enjoyed staying up for last two nights preparing the deck and today delivering it. Thats what matters. I also can claim CPE's for the certification I maintain. Yay. And I know I neglected some family time.

PS: would make the uneditable version available here soon

The gang up.

The love Toinks has for this city of Delhi is obvious. Rarely would an occassion go when the language, the heat, the lack of proximity to sea, that 'sitaphal' is both a vegetable and a fruit would be made fun of with her marathi friends. Today was no different. Its as funny as 'peru' being marathi for guava, in bumbaiya 'baaju' doesn't mean the arm but means 'next to'. Nuances of respectful languages I say.

The trip to Islamabad

"Warm smiles greeted me as I walked into the municipal office in a nondiscriptive place, somewhere in the capital of Pakistan. Sitting on a bench I awaited my turn amonst a din of Urdu. The lady at the desk pointed at me. I walked up to her and said I need your NoC for Ankita's passport application. Perplexed she asked why. I had no answer. She asked me to wait til lunch time to understand the case. Dejected I walked up to the ground nearby, multiple games of cricket was on, much like any neighbourhood parks in India. Having settled somewhere in the middle of such zones, i wondered how much more time?. 'pakad pakad' woke me and instinctly I leapt and caught the ball. 'Out oye oye'. I was inducted into the team and we played for eons. Somebody lent me his cycle and I peddled a km to cross over a bridge into familiar line of hotels in India.". Dont ask me the logic. This is what I dreamt this morning.

Alzheimers?

When the shadow is not same as the man himself. When the world goes meaningless, colorless and incomprehensible. When memories fail, when nothing is a priority and everything is. When the mind forgets to express meaningfully. When the family has silent tears and heavy hearts. This and much more.

So the blues won

Consistent Hardwork

Blue shaded IPL 2?

With the way Adam Gilli ran away with a 35 ball 85. And now with Symonds pounding away, the Delhi Daredevils will not make to the finals. Will these men in Blue take the trophy like the other ones in IPL 1?

Well well

Totally wrong I say. People in family had high fever, Toinks told me about it when I had just reached work. I completely forgot till I reached home. Feel bad now. Get well soon u folks.

(a)Polling

Tainted men, money power, little care for what they do...leaders of my consituency.but so what if I couldn't standup for issues, I had to choose one of them. I did. Before the sun started its showdown. Hardly any queue then. Hail democracy.

Take to writing eh?

A colleague from the Corporate Communications department at work (almost) pestered me into writing a couple of articles for our newsletter. When push came to shove I did that. Now I await to see it printed....

I was wondering for long on how does a common man (read regular office folks) relate to the security gibberish I beat my chest about. Passwords, USBs and the works. Then wondered if the books on security have any Indian flavour at all?

The book "Art of Deception" by Kevin Mitnick, talks about common scenarios that those bad people use just their interpersonal skills (and not Technology) to get into critical information and misuse it. Such people are called Social engineers, no university degree by that name here :-D . I want to collate an Indian experience of such attacks on information and warn my community... hmmm. Need to ponder and work more.... any one in Publishing I can befriend ?

Rake my head

Wondering how to engage my head more. Need to break away from only operations. Hmmm

The law(less) enforcers

10 am 13-4-2009, near Delhi Cantt. Catch the law?

My wife stood up

Today Uma's car was caught without papers, she didn't bribe the guy as many may have. Am proud of her

Need to

Control my temper. Give up giving in.

A whirlwind tour

Returned last afternoon from a ten day India tour of sorts. Zero sightseeing. 30% time @ office, 40% on road, hotel lobby, airport lounge, 30% in air. Useful ? Yes. Taxing yes. Fun? Not exactly.

Airline announcements

Having waited for the ever eluding departure announcement from the new Hyd RGIA airport, I am trying to collate airline staff announcements i find funny (and incorrect). "....you are kindly requested to board." not requested to kindly board?. "the outside temperature is ....."