Quality surveys at TIDEL

All those folks stationed at TIDEL PARK know about the dismal quality of RKHS - the one and only caterer allowed inside TIDEL and their high-handed, tyrannical, obscenely priced food (if you could call them).

Now is a quality survey being conducted about RKHS service (or rather lack of it). Given the cynic I am, the survey and service puts even me at utter dismay. For one, in the past 14 months of my stay at TIDEL, this is the second quality survey. First one's resuts or actions taken were never revelaed to us. Nor has anyone seen remarkable improvement in service or food quality. I guess CBRE (which runs TIDEL) owes a change in caterer and visibility of survey results and actions taken.

Wonder what real action is going to be taken apart from mere fulfilment of process with such surveys! (simple reason for non-confidence in the survey is - The survey had just 3 ratings scale - Good, fair, average)

RKHS leelaigal at TIDEL:
1. As per the contract/agreement, RKHS is supposed to run the regular counters and snacks counters till 8pm, and provide all such items. BUT most of items including chutney would get over by 730pm itself. The chat counter will not stack samosa mostly. BY 7:30. the man would simply close the counter and go, no matter that the billing person billed people for some chat item.
2. At any given point of time, the coffee and tea counter will have just 20 tumblers(max) to serve the TIDEL coffee-seeking crowd of over 2000. The paper cups will not be available mostly. And the quality of cups - The cups are so flimsy that getting a hot beverage in the cup and taking it to a table is like watching a hindu pop-music video...you never know when, what would fall down! (ok, ok if that was a poor analogy, leave it - enjoy the pun about Hindi pop-video...)
3. Unlimited lunch costs Rs 30 - you have both North Indian and South Indian. In North Indian, you get chapathi and variety rice (multi-colored one - new color every day), and close to 4-5 sabjis. The person who serves the chapathi would place only 4 at a time, if you ask him to place more, he will give such a look and keep it. Mind you, this is supposed to be an unlimited meals. Similar is the case of south-indian food.
4. On floor one, they also serve limited meals - for Rs 23. It is so limited, that you limit your hunger. The serving spoons - only one scoop of any item - would be small, and half of it would have the food sticking to them. Effectively you get only half the scoop. You prompt the person to drop everything off, he will stare at you before doing it.
5. The hygiene factor! Tables would never be cleaned immediately. Worse, if some company hosts a special meal session. The tables would not be cleaned until end of the day.
6. Water - RKHS cannot invest in a bubble top mineral water cans. CBRE supplies ground water - bore - through its supposed-to-be-working-water-purifier.
7. The take-away juice cups in the juice counter are not provided with a juice-cup cap. Once again very flimsy cups.

Can go on and on...and am sure many more things can be added.

Worst part - RKHS has no competition in TIDEL Park. No other eat-outs are also nearby TIDEL for one to go and have a decent food. (Do I see a good business opportunity there?)

The point is none of the companies administrators (inside TIDEL) take any concern towards this dismal, sub-standard service from RKHS. "Its all in CBRE hands" So ask them to make a representation to CBRE in company letter head, as is the usual practice, the admins vanish out of sight. When you make a representation to CBRE personally, you get a survey!

No wonder...

(Via Instant Kaapi)
Indian farmers, instead of paying hefty fees to international chemical companies for patented pesticides, are reportedly spraying their chilli and cotton fields with Coca-Cola.

Down in the article, Anupam Verma, Pepsi sales manager in Chhattisgarh, states
"If there was any truth in these claims then we would rather be selling our product as a pesticide rather than soft drinks. "

But isnt that what a study revealed close to a year back? That pepsi/coke are mixed with insecticide???

No wonder, Anupam Verma contemplates selling Pepsi as a pesticide rather than soft drinks!!!

Blogally yours...

Chakkarai inikkira chakkarai...
Had been reading Chakra's blogs since the time I started reading dubukku's blogs. On and off, he would also leave comments on my blog. Until recently I read a post of his where he mentioned about Ramco, something was connecting. Went through his site completely, and found out this Chakra is none other than my school buddy - Chakkarapani. This guy is at UK blogging. And what a time to connect with! Am off to UK soon on workpermit, and was looking for some known people.

Another friend of mine - Venkataraman CHivukula who for some inane reason wants to call himself as CVRaman had met up with Venkat at Grenoble in France. This Venkat got known to me by having a collision with my blog name. He wanted to name his blog as "aham brahmasmi", since I had taken the name already, he made it "Tattvamasi". WHile I sent a mail to CVRaman, telling him about my acquaintance with Venkat, CVRaman sends a mail stating that this guy Venkat is dubukku's friend, and they struck a chord being Tamil guys at France and blogs being the next common factors - apart from the glaring fact that both have deceiving innocent faces which has 'n' number of pranks behind them.

Deepavaliyum TNagarum

Inspired by varied experiences of Chakra and many people who are not in India, I thought, let me narrate how it is now in TNagar. And it ended up in almost flooding chakra's comments...here is a reproduction (I am good in that - no pun intended)

Guys, you must be at TNagar to know what it is to do a deepavali purchase! Let me narrate the TNagar for sake of you guys -Offlate there have been heavy showers in the Chennai Maanagaram (Nallor oruvar ularael avar poruttu ellarkkum peiyum mazhai...antha nallor ullooril ullaar), so Deepavali purchase was a bit shadowed down prev week. Not so, in this week.

Last week it was rain and floods, but this week in TNagar it is flooded by people.

Pothys, RmKv, Nalli, Chennai Silks and Kumaran contribute to the kolakalam of Deepavali purchase. WHile RmKv proves out to be the shop for affluent and for elite middle class with their zodiac style sarees, cinderella pattu pavadai et al, Pothys is at the other end wooing the lower middle class with throwaway prices. At Pothys entrance, if you stand (even when you dont intend buying anything) you will automatically be pushed inside the shop and mostly to the first floor. Ellu potta yennai kuda vizhadhu, ellaar muthugilum poi otti kollum. Pothys and RmKv are diagonally opposite each other at Panagal park. So much crowd. And then there is Nalli and Kumaran for those traditionally inclined. Nalli 100 is also crowded with not so elite but affluent middle class.

Lot of thalai deepavali purchases at Kumaran and Nalli. (Nanna border agalama oru shaaree eduthudungo...enna athimber sherithaanay, umakku pattu vetti?). And again Kumaran and Nalli are diagonally opposite to each other. Together, Pothys, RmKv, Nalli and Kumaran contribute to the densely populated polygon of TNagar. ANd not to be left behind, if you walk (get pushed) inside the street of no return namely, the Usman Road, Chennai Silks and GRT welcome you with much bigger crowd that will put a Bryan Adams concert crowd to shame. And then comes famous and liked by the poor class - Saravana stores, Saravana Thanga maligai, Saravana this and Saravana that.

You are exhausted and tired after the nostalgic trip to TNagar. Come, let us sit, relax and have a coffee - thooya philter kaapi - at Gitanjali or Saravana Bhavan. You must be really naive to think, we will have a seat at these hotels. You must be really lucky to first get a seat in these hotels. And then, if you are luckier, one of the suppliers will come to ask you for order. No guarantee, what you ordered is what you get. I recently ordered a coffee and got a falooda, and got the bill for Panneer butter Masala and naan!!!

Encounter specialist

Can you believe that this man Mr. Vijayakumar - IPS who headed the operation cocoon is 51-years old? Does he look the age?

Wonder how many remember that encounter specialist character of Kaakka kaakka was modelled on Mr. Vijayakumar's career?

If I am not wrong, he got the following - Veeramani, Venkatesa Pannaiyaar and a few other rowdies...all encounter deaths. Now the big catch - Veerappan.

Read this God-respecting, inspiring Police officer's interview here at rediff

Duh???

Jackpot show on X TV. Question to a family man
What are the names of highest posts held in Army, Navy and Air?
Bang came the response-
Attorney general
* * * * * *
SCV channel phone-in program. Compere asks to caller on phone:
Which country has the largest number of hospitals?
Entire family discusses, the caller finally responds...
Give us a clue
The clue is it is one of the Asian countries
Family discusses further, and caller responds back
Europe
* * * * * *
Raj Digital Plus
Which batsman has scored 30runs in an over twice?
Pls give us a clue
Ok, he is a left-hander
Maninder Singh
No it is wrong...
Illainga avaru left-la thaan poduvaaru, aaduvaaru
Boss...I said batsman
Pls give us another chance
Ok, tell me now...another clue, this batsman is not an Indian
Robin Singh
* * * * * *
I dont see the same presenter Raj Digital Plus these days!
A sample of Tamilan's IQ and General knowledge as shown on TV.
Perhaps a latest example of Tamilan's IQ & GK could be Jeyalalitha's Thanga Tharagai viruthu. Read this and my comment there.

Bride and Prejudice

As far the story goes, does justice to original 'Pride and prejudice', but fails to keep up the levels in the treatment...

Was waiting with bated breath for yet another "balle balle" routine to pop out...oh man, god!!! This one can compare only with "Hum Aapke Hain Koun" in terms song numbers....

Aish looks pretty...old! Her plastic smile right from Iruvar to Jeans to Kandu..Kandu to Bride - we are used to this...give us something different, and something original, lady!

Wonder why all the cross-over movies take such a pleasure in digging at the arranged marriage system and getting married to foreign-returned? The point is such portrayals have become boring, monotonous and repetitive.

Anupam Kher should be banned as Punjabi Dad of sweet ladies who is hen-pecked but always sways to girls' sides...guess we have had enough dose of Anupam Kher.

Coming back to movie treatment of the original-

Pride and Prejudice is a sensitive story, but the Bride lacks the spirit of Pride. The prejudices have not been dealt in-depth, so the way pre-judices are overcome is unconvincing. Four daughters of Anupam Kher - Jaya, Lalitha, Lucky and Maya (I was basically waiting for the other two to be named as Sasi & Kala - oh boy, it wud have been hilarious!) are being readied for marriage to rich guys from US/UK. Daddy cool says he can't leave his daughters to be married to some unknown people abroad. Lalitha also swears by it. What more? She even admonishes the US-based Mr. Darcy for the westerner's view of India as a mere tourist destination and nothing else...I could almost hear A.R.Rehman in the background crying "Vande mataram"...Mr. Darcy who had come to invest in a tourism resort as son of big hotel chain owner of US, out of love for Aish and taking her words seriously, pulls back the investment (P. Chithambaram will be a happy man).
....
When the story unfolds, finally, Anupam Kher is happy to have Jaya married to UK guy and Lalitha married to Hotel Owner from US. True Indo-UK-US conglomeration indeed!!!
....

Despite all of this, am sure, the movie will be hailed as a new-genre movie, a classic tale retold in lighter vein from Indian perspective etc etc...

Gurinder Chadha even has a snake dance of Anupam Kher's last daughter plugged in, where she dances with a semi-open blouse...nothing artistic in the dance, it looks more like a Midnight masala jig wantonly inserted.

Gurinder Chadha makes a great Indian mockery, and she will get away with it...
In fact with few international awards, and numerous interviews on such-nothing-else-to-show news channels like Deadlines today, Star nutwork etc.

Puthusu Kanna Puthusu

Offlate, FM radio and Tamil channels keep chanting "Puthusu kanna puthusu", meaning "New Dude New"...all about new look of Kungumam - a local Tamil magazine from journalistic household of Dayanidhi Maran. Similarly, the famous Tamil Magazine - Ananda vikatan - also promised its readers a rehashed, new "aalaiyay asathidum Ananda Vikatan". Not to be left behind, the other famous Tamil magazine Kumudam also brought new sections....

After a couple of motnhs of these re-launches where do they stand actually in terms of freshness?

Ananda vikatan is now more of Kumudam flavour in it with 3 page articles on how an actress spends her day (more in line of usual Kumudam's taste for glamourous actresses photos), little bit of religion, over dose of cinema, images bordering light yellow porno, spy vs spy rehashed as vetty-karaivetty, and the likes...Ananda vikatan lacks creativity and adds dashes of Sutti Vikatan, Junior Vikatan, Kumudam, Sakthi Vikatan and the likes....

Barring stuffs like 'Katrathum, Petrathum' by Sujatha, 'Hai Madan' by Madan and a few more, to me, today's Ananda Vikatan reminds me of Kumudam, and not much of their uniqueness in also writing a lot of non-cinema, non-glamourous articles.

Then, one can ask what happened to Kumudam and its unique flavour...well, Kumudam now resembles itself more like Kungumam, when Kungumam used to publish a scoop or exclusive every week, which will turn out to be not much of scope for scoop anyway. Kumudam also lacks depth in the articles. Though Kumudam used to be splashed with lot of articles based on people from cine field, those articles used to be different. Now, they are like Kungumam, which they write something.

If Ananda Vikatan is Kumudam and Kumudam is like Kungumam, then what about Kungumam? Wasnt it supposed to be a "puthusu kanna puthusu"...frankly speaking nothing puthusu in it including their ADMK bashing. Kungumam churns out articles lifted straight from filmfare etc, and also some dramatic invention about Jeyalalitha's aatchi. Nothing more than that.

Technically all magazines have upgraded their printing quality, and use nice paper, so that one cannot miss even the sweat on Aiswarya Rai's cleavage...but, to a person craving for good reading, what have they brought on? ZERO....

So, what new sections can be added? My twenty paisas....

1. None of these magazines cover anything about advertising field...to start with they can have something like ET's Brand Equity feature - Bekaar & Best ADs...

In Tamil, vilambaram means AD. Maybe something like WOWilambaram and Uvvaylambaram...

2. Next, instead of writing junk about internet and websites, and republishing forwards, they can publish blog posts every week with an intro about the author of the post, and some URLs...

3. Explaining science - and sceintific things happening around. Instead of Demi Moore's boobs in close-up and Aishwarya's Rai's half-clad dress with half-cleavage, mags can translate nice articles from net and take science and inventions and innovations to common man who would be delighted to hear about such stuffs...(first give them, then decide whether they like them or not)

4. I remember lot of good travelogues by Sivashankari and Manian in Vikatan, Kumudam etc...Why not start some of them?

5. Original humor as in Devan, as in Madan, as in Ess. Vee. Vee, as in Packiam Ramasaamy - why not search for such good humor writers and popularize them?

....
the point is "guys, get really new...dont be such somberi copy cats!! If not possible to invent, atleast innovate"

DD - Danda Darshan???

Was reading recently this post on DDMemoirs and Memories: Telewatch...
Sat back and thought...
Believe me, none of the new age TV channels are able to give the variety that DD gave or still gives...for example, yday there was a serial which was televised version of Sundara Ramaswami's story, or their regular dial-in programmes which feature non-cinema professionals who respond to many useful queries...not to forget the Sidharth Basu's quiz time or many such programmes...and any major function/celeberation like Diwali, Gandhi Jayanti, Independence day or Pongal, its only DD that makes programmes relevant to the special day...
Ok, forget entertainment programmes, new channels may beat DD with slick sets, rich costumes and good outdoors - even abroad...but talk about such programmes like Vayalum Vaazhvum - who else covers something that is of relevance to farmers or for that matter - which television channel discusses SSLC and +2 question papers (Kaanbom Karpom)...DD also has two education channels - Gayn Darshan and Technology channel...the other day, I was taken aback when for an hour, someone taught UML...clear, crisp repsentation that taught me concepts of all UML diagrams...
Maybe it is not right to discount DD as Danda Darshan...

Krishna cottage

This is the new Teleserial being telecast every night 10 o' clock on Jaya TV. This is an outcome of "Ada" campaign of Jaya TV.

Krishna cottage(KC) is a direct lift-off of the famous teleserial "Friends". 3 guys, 3 gals, one paatti, KC owner and his staff are the key characters introduced so far. A supposedly hilarious serial that is supposed to be complete with slap-stick, PJs and situational jokes.

Bottomline - KC is a poor imitation of 'Friends'....

One good thing is the serial's key characters are fresh faces we have not seen them in the daily dish-wash bars (if the serials presented by foreign channels are Soaps, then definitely their poor couSINs here who have same "paathira padaippu" - the cast, be called dishwashbars...) Mirchi Suchi has rendered voice for Title vocals...her typical "Sema hottu machi..." reflecting in the tune of the song too...but good! A very catchy number - Machi inga vaa vaa, majaa solli thaa thaa...

When titles are being shown, it states "Moolakadhai (Original story) - Kutty Padmini"...

So far, this is the only hilarious part I have found in the four episodes of KC..because we know the original story is "Friends" ;-)

Netnography, HINDU and a bunch of Chennai bloggers

Recently read few articles about Netnography via these links from Charukesi and further observations in this post.

And a specific observation was of great interest to me...Quoting from that post

And some questions Edward of livinginindia (or elsewhere on the planet) always has...- Why are there so many bloggers from Madras ?- And what do they write about?- And from this, can we say what Madras is like - about the kind of people who live there or arefrom there - bloggers over the world with Madras 'roots'

Co-incidentally, I was wondering why no India magazine/newspaper refers avidly about blogs (except for one occasion when Kalki - Tamil Magazine referred Teakada). Its only HINDU that talks about blogs quite frequently. References to blogs and blog software comes from Netspeak column. But nothing about bloggers or some of the popular chennai blogs.

It was a plesant surprise to see for first time, though, an article on bloggers in Chennai...Cool to see Ravages and Kribs names out there on - can you imagine? - Page 3 of Hindu...thats as good as Front Page...great going guys...

Frankly, i took to blogging only after seeing Netspeak columns. I have been trying to be regular after seeing the enthusiasm shown by bloggers like Ravages, Kirubashankar and lazygeek in updating their blogs quite regularly!(I still remember the bloggorhea, Ravages had, quite sometime back - when he posted continuously for 10 days or so...)

Hightime, common media - esp print - starts acknowledging the new type of journalism in the name of blogs...and truly exploit the power of internet, to have proper reports rather than such common 3 columnar articles on Lalu Prasad Yadav's pilgrimage...there is so much in this world to write about, and blogs cover quite a bit of them...Guys, wake up and leverage power of blogging to the advantage of journalism!

UPDATE: Oh wow, cool...Times magazine carries an article on blogs as alternate media vis-a-vis mainstream media (via instantkaapi.com in a post titled Bloggers, The Truthful Media)

Tamilnadu news media beasts

Drunken driving, and accident cases are not very uncommon. But the intensity with which the recent Radhakrishnan salai accident happened that turned upside down the lives of four young stupid a**holes and causing death of a young girl is highly distressing.
As usual, the media played an irresponsible role...Indian Express reported that the lady was also drunk, and seen dancing with the boys. What started out as a playful chase ended up in the accident. Dinamalar reported it as eve-teasing case without even analysing it properly - they had other important information...while HINDU explained that girl was not under alcohol influence, and not was seen with the boys in the car...
No one can easily forget the gory poster put up by Junior Vikatan in streets of Tamilnadu when Srirangam Marriage Hall fire accident happened, with dark, burnt bodies of the groom, and other elders. Kumudam reporter crossed all limits when they flooded Tamilnadu walls with burnt bodies of small kids in Kumbakonam fire accident as their poster material. In such a tender, delicate moment, should they get all gory and dorky?
The visual media is worse - people wont easily forget the visuals of kerala's mahout done to death by an elephant, or the mad Kerala youth who killed a man, or...Well, they are countless...
And to think, it is the same print media - esp Indian Express, Vikatan were some of the key elements that behaved with social responsibility to play a vital role during independence struggle and during many calamities...offlate, all have become nuttier...Sensation is all what you guys need, and you care a damn for what you report!!! You heartless, crude, savaged beasts of news media.
A big middle finger to each one of you!!!

Veedu vs 7% floating rate

SCV Channel - Monday - Sept 13 - 10:30pm movie - Veedu by Balumahendra

Good one! Archana had acted really well. The scene when Iyengar narrates to Archana about handling the investment. When Iyengar talks about the feature of the house, Archana's eyes start glittering with enthusiasm and starts drooping again while thinking how to put in the money. Then, numerous talks and deciding on going for it.

It was  sheer poetry - more than that, it brought back the nostalgic memories of how 15 years back, my father struggled to build a house, taking lots of pains in terms of money to house and other commitments, and the sense of achievement he had - first person from the relatives clan hailing from a remote South Arcot district village to a city, succesfully settled in a permanent job and built a house also. Ok, the house is in suburbs - so what? Own house is all that mattered. No mean achievement it was - THEN.

I remember the days when my father had to go back and forth between panchayat office, builder's home and to HDFC office for getting the loan sanctioned and money released.

Cut to today!!!

I own a flat in plum Triplicane area - 50% financed by Housing Loan Institutions. Its 3 years old, and as on date, am already with my 3rd home loan institution topping up my loan every time. Bottom line is things come easy!!!

Offlate, I keep cribbing to wife and friends that something is lacking in life, life sucks etc etc...Not just me, many people of my generation feel that way. Talk to any elders, they say, "we never felt like this when we were your age". And, I know its true! With lesser salary and a bigger family to support, my dad used to toil a lot. Now, I have a fat paycheck(well, not exactly currently - but nevertheless, scaling up is not a big issue), money to spend on anything and buy anything I may need. Have switched three mobile phones already. Jobwise, am doing a better job than what my predecessor did - not clerical, but more administrative and managerial! Then, what else is lacking?

Maybe is it because everything is offered in a platter now-a-days. Not like those olden days, like in Veedu, when someone describes about having a house on my own, might not be too enticing. Because it is not a challenging task anymore. Give it to a builder, or better buy a ready-made house/flat. Only thing to do is, take half day permission (if in IT company, not even a need for permission, just sit extra hours, browse and add to timesheet as 'knowledge building activity'), go to registrar office, sign a few documents, talk crap about how bad/corruptive Govt agencies have become, have lunch with builder and get back to office. Voila - you are the proud owner.

Now there is another class which sees this class of people get things so easily, offered on a platter. They struggle so much but the results dont come easily. It's worser than in previous periods - they won't get a loan from office like in those days, because office has a tie-up with some schmuck bank, employees can apply to them directly. They don't have eligibility for a loan because their salary isn't enough.

Are we, as a society, growing healthy? People of our class say life sucks and something is lacking, because we do not have to struggle for anything. It's a buyers market for us, and we get to choose from a wide range of loans..we are the '7% floating rate' class, and there is another class which will now take a much longer time period than our predecessors to grow up. But at the same time, they become easily frustrated with this anomaly. This is not a self-sustaining model that will balance itself out any sooner.

For a country of our size, this type of divide is obscene.

Questions you wanted to ask, but never were able to!

The man on Tamizhan TV demonstrating something for Teleshopping always wears coolers...eventhough the coolers is not the product he is marketing. Why?

The accompanying lady compere in the same show wears rings in all her fingers - both hands and legs including a golden-color metti. Why does she want to wear so many rings like nadhaswara vidhwan?

Why does Kamalhassan wear coolers in any duet shot in a foreign location? That too, only in comedy movies?

In all movie-based dial-in TV shows on Indian TV channels, all comperes want to know what the caller is currently doing, who are in their family. If they are students, the comperes want to know how they fare in their studies. Comperes also want to know, whether they have a boyfriend or girl friend, and whether they have been in or are in love. Comperes of Tamil channels also specifically want to know what the caller had for dinner/lunch. Why do they want to know all this? Will they ask for meals to be sent to them as 'parcel'?

E-Mail Post!

This sounds a bit weird...earlier I used to post mails! Now, I post using an e-mail....
Uh...oh...silly jokes apart, am trying to write this post to my web blog using email...
Hope it works...
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