Saturday, January 22, 2022

With a smile on his face

The year was 1998.


It was almost noon and the sun was overhead.

Krishna and the gang marched down the Periya Veedhi - Big street, name sake - but it was the only street in Melakadaiyur. Cycles in hand, but not riding them - they were almost dragging a boy alongwith. Dust drifted from the muddy street, as the whole town (village of 42 households) watched in amusement, head held high, Krishna and gang - Velu and Panner marched down to Palani’s house near the end of the street.

Shenbagam was in the thinnai (portico seating is the closest translation we could come up with in English) shabby and wailing since she realised that her son went missing  the night before.

Flashback start

Palani had not returned back from school. Initially she didn’t give it much thought as he frequently went playing cricket after school with the town’s (village’s) favourite boy - our hero - Krishnamurthy. Everybody in the town (village) trusted Krishnamurthy. She grew more and more concerned as darkness fell. It took her till morning to realise that her son was gone.

The usual melee ensued.

They searched the whole town (village) - 42 houses didn’t take much time as the network effect took over - at a pace even today’s Facebook’s famed network can’t match.

All the women of the town (village of 42 households) gathered at Palani’s house to add fuel to Shenbagam’s fire.

Some were sent to search the fields - a few hundred acres surrounding the twin towns (villages) of Melakadaiyur and Keelakadaiyur.

The prefix Mela and Keela were supposed to mean up and down in Tamil - which was a point of contention as Keelakadaiyur folk maintained that they were really the ‘upper’ town (village). Its a different story that the prefixes actually meant west (mela) and east (keela) - but nobody was to be bothered by facts - the towns (villages) people were always at loggerheads one who was the real ‘upper’ ones.
Coming back to the main picture - some villagers later mentioned in the passing  that the search party was found hard at work at the Pannai’s pumpset and later below the palm trees. They couldn’t find Palani.

The parents complained to the Police station - which took some time as it was in Keelakadaiyur.

Somebody informed the headmaster of Palani’s school at Kesavanpudhur. This was the only school available for the kids living in the surrounding 6-9 kms (the mythical distance that all our fathers walked to go to school). It was here that Krishna heard about Palani’s plight.

Krishna was the blue-eyed boy of the school. He always fared well in studies and was a good athlete too. He was a popular student - In these parts of India - popularity meant cricket. The girls didn’t play much cricket, but grapevine was that he was popular in those circles too.

Krishna was quick to gather his gang (of two) and get on their bicycles to go in search of the missing boy. He had earlier complained to the headmaster how much he missed the headmaster’s maths class that day - but had to miss it to go in search of Palalni - for the sake of a dear friend - he reasoned. They reluctantly took some money for expenses from the kind-hearted gentleman.

They headed straight to Vetri theatre to watch the morning show of the recent Rajini movie for the 11th time. The plan was to watch the movie and then go back home. But fate had other ideas. Right at ticket counter - the Rs. 7.50 one - they spotted another uniform.
It was Palani. They were quick to nab him - after a quick fistfight - that was brought to order by the conscientious Rajini fans (who else would come to watch a 10am show on a weekday) that surrounded them.
Flashback ends

Palani felt a rain of beatings on his unprepared back - it was hard to believe that his mother was so strong, He barely finished thinking that as he blacked-out. The men interfered and carried Palani into the house.
Krishna stood in the street surrounded by the awed townsfolk (village folk) that were cursing Palani for his parents’ misery. His thoughts ran back to the fist fight at the Vetri theatre. As he reached out to give it, Palani had muttered it - between the blows.

“You are not letting me live in peace - at least let me go in peace da…” followed by a list of words that we couldn’t find in the dictionary.

Krishna stood there overcome with guilt that he had driven Palani to run away from home. It was true that the trio used to tease Palani heavily - but it was just for fun - for the gang. Palani was an otherwise studious boy who Krishna was envious of - and Krishna used every opportunity to dish it out to Palani. Krishna always got away with a-smile-on-his-face and nobody would believe Palani when he complained.

But running away from home? This was such a danger-filled world and a teenager leaping out into the world  - sent a chill down Krishna’s spine. He was covered in shame. He tried to slip away when Shenbagam-akka came running out towards the crowd.

She went straight to Krishna, took his hands in hers and started weeping.
“Thank you so much da, Krishna; I would have lost Palani without you; thank you so much….”

“Well done, Krishna.” - somebody patted him on his back. A chorus joined in unison.

“Yeah, Krishna is a model boy….”, offered an elderly.

“Always first in studies and sports - he is a real asset” was another.

“He has saved Palani’s life - that boy!”

It wasn’t long before the whole crowd was over-whelming him.

After 15 minutes of accolades, Krishna got on to his bicycle and started pedalling smoothly - with a-smile-on-his-face.


Friday, January 21, 2022

3 Steps to learn a new technology in 2022


1. Hands on video on youtube and try it out

2. Google/StackOverflow to solve issues faced

3. Udemy course/book to fill the gaps and become well-rounded


#technology #google #video #udeny #stackoverflow

Thursday, January 13, 2022

Social Dilemma

 On every birthday, I get about 200 birthday greetings - some from people whose names leave me scratching my head. All on WhatsApp. 2-3 take the time to call and rub it in by asking for my age. Almost always nobody sees me face to face to share a warm wish.


Some people wish me birthday on New Years - alerted by a dormant Facebook profile where I didn’t  even care to put in my real birthday. Facebook guessed that my birthday was on Jan 1 (how convenient). If they have the technology to recognise faces, dont they have the technology to detect our birthdays correctly, I wonder!


Some wish me on birthdays of another person with my name, lets call this guy Ram. And I get 5-10 of these on his birthdays.


My sons birthday, my daughters birthday, wedding anniversary - repeat!


Some want me to pass on their wishes to my wife on her birthday - if you don’t even have her number - what joy in wishing her! I even have the last Urban Clap plumber’s wife number (before you rush into conclusions - she controls the bank account and hence has the Gpay number) - I wonder if I should wish her on her birthday - if only Android could detect birthdays, and allow me to write a script o wish everybody on my phono book on their birthdays.


And some send wishes to Seetha - the aforementioned Ram’s wife - on her birthday.


WhatsApp, Facebook, LinkedIn  - repeat!


Needless to say that I spend a good amount of time on these special occasions thanking these messages. Don’t blame me - Social media is addictive, its hard not to respond. Thankfully, there have been no responses to my thanks messages so far!


Next come common festivals like Independence Day, New Year, Gandhi Jayanthi - A slew of wishes end up cluttering my WhatsApp which immediately spike the data usage so much that I run out of my monthly quota on a single day. I had to become a part time WhatsApp programmer to figure out the options to stop downloading this spam.  More amusing are the ones that push their company names on these posts - branding, it seems. Branded - as a spammer!


We have not even started on Diwali, Eid, Christmas and Guru Nanak Jayanthi - I don’t know a single soul who celebrates all these festivals. But apparently everybody else thinks I do.


WhatsApp, Facebook, LinkedIn  - repeat!

Tuesday, December 08, 2015

How to export all your android (google) contacts!

How to export your google contacts

  • Ever needed a backup of all your contacts phone numbers that you saved on your android mobile? What happens if your phone dies, and you need to call somebody urgently. We don’t remember any phone numbers nowadays! Wont it be handy to have a hardcopy or an excel sheet?
  • Have you ever wanted to email all your google contacts? Google doesn’t let you email ‘All Contacts’ – weird but true!

Okay, without anymore ado, here we teach you step-by-step how to export your google contacts into one excel sheet (or csv to be technically precise)

Step 1: Login to your gmail account
Step 2: Click on the ‘Gmail’ drop down right below the Google logo on the top left (you will see this just above the ‘Compose’ button

                Step 3:  Click on the ‘Contacts’ menu option as given below

                Step 4: Click on the ‘More’ Option on the left panel

You will see some more options as listed below


                Step 5: Click on the ‘Export’ option. In some cases, you might see the below popup
Click on ‘Go To Old Contacts’ to proceed

                Step 6: You will now see a list of all your contacts. Click on the ‘More’ menu, and click on the ‘Export’ option, as given below


Step 8: You will now see a popup as below. Click on the ‘All Contacts’ radio option, and the ‘Outlook CSV format’ – This will give you a readable CSV (Comma separated Values) formatted file, that you can open in Microsoft Excel.


Final Step: Now click on the ‘Export’ button, and a file will be downloaded to your default downloads folder. Go to your browser’s download area and double click the file to open it.

Ta da! You have all your google contacts, phone numbers, email ids, the works!

Friday, November 06, 2015

Culture of Success - The seen and the unseen

Poster ID : R0003



How to use this for your office:



1. Download High-Res poster FREE!! Subscribe to this list (use the form on the right navigation) and receive updates when we add more posters. Keep refreshing your wall, to keep your team motivated. 



2. We could send you a neatly printed high-res image at a nominal cost - Email madan@techartus.com with the poster id. 



LICENSE NOTE: The image can be freely printed, used and re-distributed, as long as the copyright message is retained. 


Wednesday, November 04, 2015

ENJOY THE MONSOON - 2015

Poster ID : R0002




How to use this for your office:


1. Download High-Res poster FREE!! Subscribe to this list (use the form on the right navigation) and receive updates when we add more posters. Keep refreshing your wall, to keep your team motivated. 

2. We could send you a neatly printed high-res image at a nominal cost - Email madan@techartus.com with the poster id. 

LICENSE NOTE: The image can be freely printed, used and re-distributed, as long as the copyright message is retained. 

Sunday, October 11, 2015

Posters for your Office Walls - 1

We understand your pains of maintaining and keeping the motivation of the team. We also know the importance of updating your motivational posters. Here, we start a series of motivational posters that you can use. You could use the below options to get these posters.

Poster Id: R0001



How to use this for your office:


1. Download High-Res poster FREE!! Subscribe to this list (use the form on the right navigation) and receive updates when we add more posters. Keep refreshing your wall, to keep your team motivated.

2. We could send you a neatly printed high-res image at a nominal cost - Email madan@techartus.com with the poster id.

LICENSE NOTE: The image can be freely printed, used and re-distributed, as long as the copyright message is retained.