Ranjith's Castle

Confidence lost in Evolution

Ranjith — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 02:44:52 +0000

We do have theories and beliefs that man originated from Monkeys. I did a quick comparison on the confidence level betweeen Man and Monkey. Security of life is a big concern today in human life. Man want himself to stick to something before he jump out from the current state. This is applicable from Job or whatever we do. But monkeys on the contrary, while jumping will release its hands from the current branch / tree to catch the new one.

Even if they miss the intended branch, it will hold the next one.

Building better confidence like Monkeys.

Cheers - Ranjith.

Side Upper in Train.

Ranjith — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 04:19:39 +0000

Railways once introduced a berth by name Side Middle, to accompany 9 more passengers to each compartment. But it soon proved to be a bad model as the side upper went a little higher to make it tough for the passenger to get into to the berth. The side middle was removed then. A couple of days back, I took the Perl City express to come to Sattur from Chennai. I got the side upper berth. But in the compartment, I travelled, they have removed the side middle, but have not lowered the Side Upper to the previous position. It became very tough for me to get into the compartment. I saw a couple of people who are more thn 6 feet struggling hard to get in and get out.

The compartment itself is too old that it had a lot of reinforcements done for the different berths. With the revenue Railways is making and considering the cost paid by the consumer for the travel, Railways can replace such older compartments.

Cheers - Ranjith

Murugan Idly Kadai @ T.Nagar

Ranjith — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 06:51:40 +0000

Happened to be at T Nagar yesterday morning for a shopping. I was accompanied by one of my friend. It is Sunday and the parking was full even @ 10:00 AM in the morning. We got parking next to the Murugan Idly Kadai on GN Chetty Road. I havn’t been to Murugan Idly Kadai till then. So thought of checking it out.

We stepped in. It was a small place which can accomodate 35 to 40 people and was well air conditioned. The seats were 90% full almost for the whole time we were in the hotel. We took a corner table to start . We ordered two Idlies each and waited for 10 mins before we got it on the table. The idly was good and very soft. The Sambar didn’t have a very appealing taste. We went for two Dosas which took another ten minutes to land. The guys gave us plenty of Chutney for the idly and Dosa.

The climax came when the bills landed. It was Rs 98/= including tax. It is three times costlier than the hotels I take my breakfast.

Overall, the price is too costly. The Price sheet listed a coffee to be Rs 15/= and a single piece of idly to be 9. The taste is not worth the cost.

Cheers - Ranjith

Rich Biryani @ Madipakkam

Ranjith — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:58:15 +0000

After a month time, I visited Rich Briyani at the Madipakkam main road, next to the Reliance Fresh. I don’t see any improvement in the way they prepare the biryani. They have added too much of pattai, krambu and yelakkai. But the base taste is missing.

There were only a very few customers around. The cost is also too much for the quality of the biryani.

The location previously had a vegetarian hotel, which provided a very good food. But the problem with those guys was that they will be closed mostly.

My Previous tweet about Rich Biryani.

Cheers - Ranjith

My Blog and Twitter

Ranjith — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 04:46:56 +0000

Twitter is the micro blogging service, It helps you express your views and thoughts in not more than 140 characters. More than a blog, it is very easy, simple and quick.

Smaller Content :

Lesser time and lesser effort for followers.
Lesser time for me to write.
Lesser mistakes of sentence formation.

On the other side, a personal analysis of me reveals that I am more active on Twitter than on my blog.

Do follow me on Twitter also - dsmrk

Cheers - Ranjith

NGPAY for Mobile

Ranjith — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 06:13:06 +0000

The latest mobile App I am using is NGPay. The caption of the app is, “India’s Largest Mall on the Mobile”.

I am using it for the ticket reservation on IRCTC. It works cool against using IRCTC on the web. The app is surely the one to check out for Railway booking.

I tried it for paying my Airtel Bills and Recharging my mum’s Airtel Prepaid. But Mchek suits it better than Ngpay.

The Utility bill section seems to miss a lot of options. The Phone bills does not have option to pay BSNL. I tried using some of the financial applications. But little skeptical about using it on the mobile.

Cheers - Ranjith

Trip to Talakona

Ranjith — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:15:57 +0000

Last week end, we went to Talakona, a water fall near Tirumala [Thirupathi]. It was a nice place to spend a week end. It is a 200 Km drive from Chennai. We were a 20 member team from Chennai. We started around 11:30 AM on Saturday. We had Lunch @ Amulu a motel at the TN-AP Border. The food was not that good but OK to live with. The best part of the drive was the Ghats section [NH 205] from Bakrapeta. It was a 20 km stretch on the hills covered with green trees. The roads were wide enough to have a leisurely drive and enjoy the view of hills. Evening timing and the mild drizzles made them look great. We reached Talakona at 6 PM in the evening. The drive was a little slower as we had families and small children.

We reached the AP Tourism Guest House. The rooms looked very good . The Guest house had 6 ordinary rooms and 6 Deluxe ones. We took 6 ordinary room and 1 deluxe room. We got settled and ordered food for dinner. We ordered 5 Kgs of Country Chicken, chappathi, Dosa and Rice. The preparation was very good. The size of chapathi is too big that one can take only three for dinner. We ordered a little excess without knowing the actual sizes. We played Dumb Charades for some time. It took around 9 PM to deliver the food. Do make sure you order the food in advance.The other session started in parallel and it went till 2 AM before we hit the bed.

We got up around 7 AM. Thank God it was not raining till 11 AM in the morning. We went to the falls. It was a 2 km drive and a 1 km trek to reach the water falls. The falls had two steps, obviously one @ the bottom and another in the middle. We went up to the middle one and the fierceness of water was little powerful as water travels 200 fts before hitting the middle step. We returned back to the Guest house around 11 AM and went to the near by small hotel for break fast.

Visited the Siddeshwara temple of Lord Shiva near the guest house. The temple was very good and silent.

We then moved on to the Eco Tourism of Forest Department where we went for a small boating and a Canopy walk. The boating and Canopy walk was just a time killer than any fun or adventure. The Forest Guest house seems to be better than the AP Tourism Guest House. We were not able to go for the Jungle Safari which I feel may be a good one.

We returned back to the Guest house and a nice Lunch killing some more chicken and rice. Few took a short nap to get themselves ready for the downward drive. We started around 3:45 PM and reached chennai @ 8 PM.

Beware of Monkeys :

The only (wild) animal we saw were the monkeys. But we were not able to win over it. We lost a bunch of Bananas and some more fruits to it a couple of times. Keep the Balcony doors closed and Carry snacks in bags when you move to Falls and be informed that Monkeys do know to open your bags.

Good things are :

No Mobile Network, So, No worries.
Food is Very good and at the same time Cheap. It costs us Rs 3000/= for a Lunch and Dinner with 8 Kgs of Chicken included.
Rooms are good and Cheap. The ordinary room costs Rs 350/- and the deluxe costs - Rs 450/-
Easy reach from Chennai.

You need to come down 7 Km if you want any snack or any drink. So make sure you buy whatever you want from Bakrapeta. Once again, it is advised to buy it from Thirupathi or Chennai or somewhere before Bakrapeta, as everything is little costly there.

A Few Snaps taken at Talakona

Cheers - Ranjith

Mobiles & Driving

Ranjith — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:09:46 +0000

Text Messaging also called as SMS [Short Messaging Service]one more way of communication using the mobile devices. I mostly try to avoid mobile phones while driving. But the SMS beeps tempts me more than the calls on the mobile. I don’t know why ? Is it me alone in this earth having such a drive towards the SMS or You too ?

But Reading / Writing SMS is more dangerous than attending calls on the Mobile while driving. Check out the attached video I got via my friends lateinthearena

Strengthen your heart before you watch this video. I did not watch it fully.

Good to Switch off your mobile or throw it to the back seat while driving. Indian Roads are not even good to talk to your Passenger Side seated person while driving.

Happy Weekend to all.

Cheers - Ranjith

Process Paralysis

Ranjith — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:52:28 +0000

Every one in Chennai know that a bus from Koyambedu can take two routes to get out of the city.

Outer ring road from Maduravoil to Perungulathur
100 Feet road [jawaharlal Nehru road] and come via Guindy, Tambaram and proceed to perungulathur.

It takes an hour or even more if we take the route 2 depending on the Traffic. It takes only 1/2 hour to come down to Perungulathur via route 1. Most private buses take the route 1.

The south bound long distance buses fills up only the seats and they don’t allow any standing passengers as the traveling time will be more than 8 hours. The Government buses even though their seats are filled have to comes down the route 2 and the conductor has to inform / sign the booths located @ Ashok Pillar , Guindy , Pallavaram and Tambaram. This process seems to be a waste of time and enery for every one in the Bus.

With the advent of lots and lots of technology, don’t we have a simple methodology to inform the different booths that so and so bus is filled and is going to move via route 1.

Any one have any idea why such a kind of unproductive process are still followed out in Government buses. We can save a lot of fuel + time by changing this.

Cheers - Ranjith

Engineering Colleges Raided

Ranjith — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 05:07:20 +0000

Morning news says that a few colleges in the state were raided for the poor infrastructure. [new Times of India ].

Further what needed to be raided :

Standard of the education provided in the colleges.
Interaction of the colleges with the Industry.
Quality of the teachers and teaching.
Other stuffs taught beyond the subject.
and a lot more with respect to the college.

Further more the syllabus taught at this level itself needs a upgrade year on year.

Currently reading a book on what is not taught in B’Schools by Meenakshi Radhakrishnan. B’Schools which is having a lot of interaction with the industry itself is missing a lot of practical lessons for its students.

A Big question “Whether the professional course graduates coming out of college ready to take up the challenges they are thrown from the industry?”

Cheers - Ranjith