Frozen Memories ...

I love pictures :) .. I love being in them as much as I love taking them, as for years to come they stand still and let you re live the moments. I loved posing for pics right from the time I was a kid but pics started becoming a part of my everyday life in the last few years from the time I got a camera phone. Digital photography is truly changed one's perception to photography and even more when it came in handy within a mobile phone - phono graphy !!

Pictures speak a million words - With the GBs of pics that I have, I can write a series of story books for years to come, such is the amount of memories each pic brings to me and I am so glad I was able to capture all the moments - happy, sad, funny serious .. all with the super cool cam in my phone :)

Re - living the times..


My first outing with my college friends to Queens land

At the engagement function of my child hood friend ...


View from my hostel window - Sunset above the SRM lake

Festival time with family ...

Heights of joblessness in class .. this is what we did most of the times .. posing for pics



That is the mat they specially made for my parent's wedding with their names in it.. found it when I went to my home in my native place ..

Cheering for Chennai Super Kings during the IPL 2010 at Chepauk stadium...

The day we all got placed - taken in front fo our college auditorium ..

Fun time in GOA ..

And my love for food photography goes with saying .. that now my family and friends know it so well that they cannot lay their hands on any dish without me clicking a pic of it ...

Thanks to the camera in my phone, had it not been for it I wonder if would be able to relive as many moments again :) :)


I made this post to go with the theme Phonography - one of the topics in the
Tata DOCOMO One Touch Net Phone's Share life blogger contest at Indiblogger.

Do please vote for me, if you've enjoyed this post :) Thank you !!

My other posts for this contest are:

My Friends. My Life. My Phone

The features I wish my smart phone had :)

Monday Morning Inspiration # 97

I came across this few months ago and thought how apt it is, if when followed keeps life simple and happy !


Health:

1. Drink plenty of water.
2. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar
3. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.
4. Live with the 3 E's -- Energy, Enthusiasm, and Empathy.
5. Make time to practice meditation, yoga, and prayer.
6. Play more games.
7. Read more books than you did last year.
8. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day.
9. Sleep for 7 hours. (or more)
10. Take a 10-30 minutes walk every day.. And while you walk, smile. .


Personality:

11. Don't compare your life to others'. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
12. Don't have negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment
13. Don't over do. Keep your limits.
14. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
15. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip.
16. Dream more while you are awake.
17. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need..
18. Forget issues of the past. Don't remind your partner with his/her mistakes of the past. That will ruin your present happiness.
19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Don't hate others.
20. Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present.
21. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
22. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class

but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
23. Smile and laugh more.
24. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

Society:

25. Call your family often.
26. Each day give something good to others.
27. Forgive everyone for everything.
28. Spend time with people over the age of 70 & under the age of 6.
29. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
30. What other people think of you is none of your business.
31. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will Stay in touch,


Life:

32. Do the right thing!
33. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful..
34. God heals everything.
35. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
36. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
37. The best is yet to come.
38. When you awake alive in the morning, thank God for it.
39. Your Inner most is always happy. So, be happy.


To read other Monday Morning Inspirations click here.

Enthiran - Movie review

Enthiran - Robot, loved the movie. DOT.

I am not a super crazy fan of Rajini but I liked his acting in it and Ash as always in her true graceful self added charm to the movie in her own way.

My favourite bits from the movie:

• Love all the songs from the movie and have started liking it even more after seeing the videos of those.
• Machu pichu looks beautiful where the Kilimanjaro song was shot.
  
• I liked the first half of the movie than the later half, the later half contained mostly of animation.
  
• Most of the clothes which Ash wore were awesomely cool :)
  
• loved the dance - Ash with Chitti the robot on her birthday party ..
  
• The villanious laugh by Rajini in the last few scenes of the movie.
  
• It was great to hear the claps and whistles and the uproar in the crowd after this dialogue

(A scene happening when Chitti the robot is first taken to the conference, when it is for the first time being introduced to the people in the conference)

Question from the Audience: Is there God ?
Chitti (Robot): Who is God ?
Guy from the Audience: The one who created all of us
Chitti: Then in that case, it was Dr.Vaseegaran who created me and he is my god ..

Woha !! What an uproar from the audience .. :) :)

The only thing I missed in the movie, is the typical punch dialogue which is expected of a Rajni's movie and of course the title song .. never mind Enthiran was a true entertainer in all ways :)


Wishing you all a happy Ayudha Pooja in Enthiran style ;)

My TEDxChennai weekend ..

My weekend that went by was so different from my usual ones. My friday started with the excitement of me happening to be one of the official bloggers for TEDxChennai. After getting up earlier than usual on a Saturday, made a visit to the new Lakme salon has been started a couple of blocks away from my home.

And at around 11am it was time for me to start to IIT Madras. Once I reached the place, I got so reminded of the beautiful memories I hold of that place.. Shaastra, Saarang,the CCD at IIT - got me reminded of the fun filled times I spent with my friends and family at this place and this time again it turned out to be yet another memory that I would always cherish ..

On reaching the IC&SR auditorium, I went ahead to meet Sandeep who was heading the social media team and in the process got to meet Vignesh, Aarthi, Vivek, Amar, Aska, Vasanth, Sylvian, Grace, Karthik kannan, Varun and so many many more people.. It was close to a three hour workshop starting from 2pm. So, until then it was time for me to get to know the people and it was after a very long time that I was coming across such a diverse group of people, be it the speakers, attendees or the organisers.

I also got to interact with a couple of speakers(more on the speakers front in my later posts), Sunday was at the TEDxChennai event at 8 in the morning and it was right to business from the time I reached there until the event drew to a close.. Was so much fun, loved every bit of what I was doing.. met some amazing people and I am gladly connected to most of them through Facebook as well :)

To add to it was a fun filled dinner with my friend on Saturday. Loved it on the whole :)

Live blogging - TEDxChennai

Please follow http://tedxchennai.com/blog/ for live blog updates on TEDxChennai. It is really fun and interesting to live blog and I am really enjoying it :)

TEDxChennai - 2 more days to go !

It was close to 6 weeks back, when I first heard that TEDxChennai is to happen very soon. And the first thing I did was to check out their website. The event has an interesting line up of some very prominent speakers, each of them with great accomplishments in their own line of expertise. That only added on to me wanting to attend the event more strongly. Since then, I have been asking my parents to keep themselves free on 10/10/10 - the day of TEDxChennai event ... This year the event comes with the passion to do as the tag line says..

Finally with just two more days to go - I am more than delighted to say that I and my parents are attending TEDxChennai and I would be one of the official bloggers for the event :)

There also is a workshop happening on the 9th of October'10 (Saturday) between 2pm - 5pm, it is all about organizing a TEDx event. (you can click on the picture below to have a better understanding of what the workshop is all about)



You can register online for the events at http://tedxchennai.doattend.com/ .

Admission for the workshop on 9th October is free and tickets for the TEDxChennai event is priced at Rs.3000

Watch this space for more happening at the TEDxChennai.

Updates:
Please follow http://tedxchennai.com/blog/ for live blog updates. It is really fun and interesting to live blog and I am really enjoying it :)

The features I wish my Smart Phone had :)

Mobile phones have been a part of my life for the last 8 years and right through all these times I have thought of them to be much smarter than I am in many aspects.. for one simple reason they always kept me entertained with the music, pictures, games and a whole list of contact numbers to which I could text or call up. Things only got better in the last couple of years with increased internet users - push mail and browsing using gprs and wi- fi enabled phones turned out to be the norm of the day.

With all of us learning new things each day and with growing experience, our need from our handy mobile phones also keep increasing.. Here, I have a list of features which at some point of time was a thought in the minds of either me or my family or friends.

• Mobile phone is one device that we hold close to all through the day (in literal sense) , they can be used to detect the blood pressure, pulse rate, and since we also move around with our phones most day they could also have a calorie meter in them to approximately be able to let us know of the calorie spent - keeping us all conscious of our health.
  

• The mobile phone could be used just like that of a remote control to operate the lights, fans and other electrical stuff in a given place. It does not necessarily have to be in my room or home .. one should be able to switch on or switch off any electrical device anywhere through their mobile phones.. We can save energy and electricity so much if this is adopted.Through mobile there should also be a facility where I can turn on the air conditioner in my room ten minutes before I enter home.
  * I take sole credit for this idea. Mobile phone manufactures can get in touch with me on more detailing of the same ;)

• There have been numerous occasions I have missed my charger and wished I could just like that charge my phone, probably we could have phones that charge on solar energy/ wind energy.
  

• There have also been times I wish my phone had a projector, when there is huge demand for projectors in college and at work place. There by saving lots of time and energy fighting to take the projector first and run away.
  

• I wish we could tune in to TV channels just like the way we do for FM, so we really wouldn't miss any of our favourite shows..
  

Most of these ideas are the ones that popped up in the head when we missed something else and I am sure it would have been for many others as well .. So, probably any smart phone with additional features of any of these would really bring lots of change in the way people do things. They would be called ultra smart may be :)

This post comes as a part of my participation in the Tata DOCOMO One Touch Net Phone's Share life blogger contest at Indiblogger. Do please vote for me if you feel these new ideas would be useful to you in someway.

You can also have a look at my other post for the same contest and promote/vote for me, if you like it :)

All the very best to other bloggers participating in the Share life blogger contest.

My friends. My life. My phone

Ten years ago I would have never in my wildest dream thought that I would own a mobile phone and think about getting another one which meant two mobile phones just for me. Phones have eventually turned out to be a person's best friend. So, who wouldn't like letting the world know about their best friend and they way the friendship bloomed. So, here I am writing about my best friend and our friendship tales as a part of the Tata DOCOMO One Touch Net Phone's Share life blogger contest.

The title of my blog post is one of the topics about which I could blog and get nominated to be the winner at the Share life blogger contest being held at Indiblogger. The minute I came across this topic , there was an instant rephrasing of words that happened in my mind which eventually turned to be "My Phone - friend for life", such has been the impact of mobile phones.

The first time I handled a mobile phone was during my 8th grade, when my parents got their mobile phone, three years from then when I entered my higher secondary schooling my parents gifted me one and I was so excited at just the thought of handling it everyday. But sadly I happened to be using a post paid connection back then (8 years ago) and messages were chargeable in post paid those days and the thought of the mobile bill having arrived used to send out a chill in my spine as my mobile bill was always a four digit number.

To save my self from all these I switched to a prepaid number when I entered college and text messages (SMS) turned out to be free which meant more forwards being sent across the network. Eight years have passed from the time I got my first phone and I happened to use 7 different phones until now, but I still have that special feeling for my first mobile phone which I have still safely have it with me.

With mobile phone came a lot of fun factor and factors which meant more than just fun

• With text messaging came a whole new way in which the world communicated. There used to be days when I got hundreds of forwards and in the initial days I was so thrilled I made a note of them all - jokes, friendship quotes, inspirational messages...

• games in mobile phones grew to be more than snake and bounce.

• It turned out to be an easier way to connect with family and friends. Hadn't it been for mobile phones and social networking I doubt if I would friends with half the number of people I connect with today.

• Some of the best pictures of fun times were captured with my phone camera, making me wonder if I at all I would have ever took so many pics in my life hadn't it been for the cam in my phone.
  

• The music from my phone along with the FM in it gave me company during my long journey to college and my evening walks.
  

• Now things have only gotten better with gprs that I stay connected online via phone all the time that I am awake .. which means more blog posts.. more tweets and feel so handicapped without internet and my phone.
  

• It also contributed to the eco friendliness of the society - no more phone books, no more buying of planners or calenders, no more of bits in exam.. I've seen people taking a pic of a diagram in the phone and using it for exams...
  

• There have been numerous times when my mobile phone has been my torch through darkness. To know the date and time I reach out to my phone .. my phone sends me reminders for all the birthdays and anniversaries .. it just know all that i want and gives it to me at the right time when i need them. Truly a friend indeed.
  

That is the way I got to know and have been living with my phone. I eat, sleep, work, play, dance, blog all with my mobile phone. The first thing my hand reaches out to when I get up in the morning is my phone and the last thing I do in the night before hitting the bed is to set the alarm in my phone. I am so glad to being part of the generation in which mobile phone was introduced and is being extensively used at this rate and more..

My friend has really changed the way things work in my life all for my good, it was slow and gradual but has had a lasting impact. I am sure there would be a lot more positive impacts with mobile phones getting smarter and that I am yet to own one of smarter versions.


If you like my post, please vote for me at Indiblogger. You can click on the promote this post button to vote for me. Thank you :)

Monday Morning Inspiration # 96

One day, the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the express purpose of showing him ow the poor people live.

They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family.

On their return form the trip, the father asked the son, "How was trip ? "

"It was great dad"

"Did you see how poor people live ?" the father asked.

"Oh yea" said the son.

"So, tell me what did you learn from the trip ?" asked the father.

The son answered:

"I saw that we have one dog and they had four" . We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end.

We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night.

Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon.

We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight.

We have servants who serve us, but they serve others. We buy our food, but they grow theirs.

We have walls around our property to protect us and they have friends to protect them.

The boy's father was speechless.. !!

( I got this story as a mail from my grand dad this morning and thought would share it with you all here)

Isn't perspective a wonderful thing .. Appreciate all that you have in life.. rather than worrying about what you don't have. This would make each of us more happy and the world a better place to live in :)

Enjoy your week ahead !

To read other Monday Morning Inspiration click here.

The beginning of the XIX Common wealth games - New Delhi 2010

It was a wonderful opening ceremony for Common wealth games 2010 at New Delhi .. great performances depicting Indian culture, a proud moment for many athletes representing their nations .. AR Rahman, Hariharan and a lot other performers adding the entertainment factor .. Wish it turns out to be grand success and a defining moment in the world of sports :)

Let the games begin !!Here are a few pics that the media didn't show you of the CWG preparations ..








After a whole lot of controversies the CWG saw its fabulous beginning today and may it be a huge success in the coming days as well in all aspects and be known as one of the well hosted sporting events.

A day all by myself ..

My day started with me getting up at around 10:30 or so after close to an almost 10 hrs of sleep .. Had a late breakfast at around 11 am, went through the news paper (a rare deed which I usually end up doing late into the night) .. post which followed twitter, face book and reading Enthiran reviews ... was fun reading the Enthiran wave which had views from my uncles (most of whom were die hard enthiran fans) and aunts .. Enjoyed reading it :)

After a heavy healthy lunch which consisted of keerai rice (rice with greens) and broccoli and some curd rice to end the meal, I decided on stepping out of home as I was getting restless just being online and doing nothing .. for a long time now I've been wanting to buy a good hand bag but nothing that I came across appealed much to me .. Hence decided to visit a new store in Nungambakam.

Once into the car, I suddenly had an urge to visit the landmark store near Gemini flyover and to my surprise the store had a sale going on .. Loads of books that had more than 50% off and the sale is until tomorrow .. I picked up the month's copy of Lonely planet and Entrepreneur after doing a bit of walking around in the shop .. After which headed to the new bag store in Nungambakam, they had a good collection but nothing that instantly appealed to my liking and need, so thanked the shop keeper and made way to the car.

Just, as I was to enter the car the store keeper came running to let me know there was a pit which was just infront of my car which I otherwise would have happily never noticed .. It was such a thoughtful act from him .. it made me smile :) . Now, I probably think I would go back to the shop to get a bag sometime soon :)

On my way back home I headed to a chaat shop in Anna nagar and relished on Pani Puri and Sev Puri with my friend ... Went for my evening walk after getting back home ... It was a day all by myself , was a much needed break :)

Everyday I start a post, then it goes into my drafts .. been going through mixed feelings, just don't get the positive vibes to make a feel good post and I don't want to make my blog to become a cribbing spot as well ... Hoping to get back to my usual self .. been trying to for quite a while now ..