Friday, March 11, 2011

मेरी प्यारी सी कली - My delicate little one

Just wrote this poem a few days back - it describes the mind of an elder sister, who just got married, who wants to pacify her younger sibling. The younger sibling is agitated due to the suddenness of the changing relationships in the family.

Here it is -





मेरी छोटी सी नन्ही कली
हमेशा हसती, खेलती मुसकुराती
मुशकिल की घडी मे भी मुझे सम्भालती
आज अचानक एक गैर आया
मेरि प्यारी कली को रुलाया
और मुझे अपने साथ ले गया
इस नन्हे से पौधे को प्यार से सीचंने के लिए
मै वापस आ रही हूँ
एक नया रूप धारण किये
जो आज तक बनी थी बहिन
आज से हो जायेगी माँ तेरी
फिकर न करना मेरी प्यारी जान
ये तेरी माँ कभी न होगी तुझसे अनजान

English Transliteration of the same poem - 

merI ChotI sI nanhI kalI
HameshA hastI, kheltI,muskurAtI
Mushkil kI ghadI me bhI mujhe sambhAltI
Aaj achAnak ek gair aayA
merI pyArI kalI ko rulAyA
Aur mujhe apne sAth le gayA
Is nanhe se poudhe ko pyAr se sInchane ke liye
Mai vApas aa rahI hoon
Ek nayA roop dhAraN kiye
Jo aaj tak banI thI bahin
Aaj se ho jAyegI maa terI
Fikar na karnA merI pyArI jaan
Ye terI maa kabhi na hogI tujhse anjAn


English Translation of the above poem is here - 

My delicate little one
Always smiles, laughs and plays
In hard times, also shows me direction
Suddenly, a stranger came
And decided to take me away
But to nurture the growth of my little one,
I return
To be with you always, my love,
Who was until now your sister,
Shall now transform into your mother,
Never shed a tear out of despair, O little one,
For your mother shant ever give you up for anyone.




Sunday, January 2, 2011

2010 in retrospect

Its that time of the year again. One year comes to an end and the other begins. 
2010 has been a roller coaster of a ride.
Here is a bullet point summary -
  • Got the chance of a lifetime to get involved in organizing a TED conference - read TEDxChennai
  • Solved huge loads of technical obstacles and brought my product at Unniyath to a state we can try for funding now.
  • Got over a lot of inhibitions and mental blocks that I dint know had existed in my mind
  • Got to contribute to organizing Techmeets, a ChennaiGeeks initiative to bring the fragmented tech communities in Chennai under a common umbrella
  • Realized that there is no point waiting for a better time to come to do your "favourite things". Its now or never.
  • Decided to give myself a chance and agreed to get married. Yes. You read that right, stand by for the official announcement :)
So with a renewed perspective to life, I have decided to make every moment of life worth living it, for you never know when tables will turn and you will be at the end of this road called life. At the same time, I have also decided to use the magic lens called focus and go vertically deep into specific areas of exploration.  And as Sundar quotes Brian Tracy in this post - “You can only grow if you’re willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new..”, its time to push the limits.

Agenda for 2011
So I have identitfied three areas of focus -
1. Work - Take my company Unniyath to higher levels, specifically financially.
2. Music - Contribute to the following upcoming albums of STD Pathasala - a) Thiruvaimozhi Nutrandhadhi b)Upadesha Ratnamaalai c)Thirukkural Keerthanais
3. Others - Learn Calligraphy, Learn to ride a geared motorcycle

Wish you all a happy eventful and purposeful 2011!
Follow your dreams, follow your passions and be awesome in whatever you do!


Watch out world, Here comes Vatsala :)

Khoj - Search

Khoj - The Unending Search - A small poem like piece in Hindi - My attempt at poetry.

Here the subject speaks about her quest for her "pillar of support", and how the quest leaves her warped in a time frame.


Here it is -
बहुत अरसों से हमने महसूस किया अपने आप को अधूरा
फिर निकल पड़े ढूंढ ने को अपना वो सहारा
एक बार हमारे नज़र में वो आ जाए, तो सोचा दिल संभलजाए
या फिर उसके एक झलक में हम आ जाएँ, मान लो उम्र हमारी ऐसे हि कट जाए
फूली  हुई अपनी साँसों में ढूँढा, खोये हुए खयालों में ढूँढा
रात की मजदूरी के लम्हों में ढूँढा, खाली सड़क के सराब में ढूँढा
वो न मिले जब तक, हम उनके लायक हो जाएँ, अपने आप में ऐसी काबिलियत ढूंढी
पर अब हम ये क्या कहें दोस्तों, वक्त हे उसे हमसे नही मिलाया
हम ढूंढते ढूंढते यहाँ रह गए, "उसके" साथ इंतज़ार का वक्त भी हाथ से निकलगया

Here is the English Transcript :-

Bahut arson se hamne mehsoos kiyaa apne aap ko adhooraa
Phir nikal pade dhoondh ne ko apnaa vo sahaaraaEk baar hamaare nazar mein vo aa jaaye, to socha dil sambhaljaaye
Yaa fir uske ek jhalak mein hum aa jaayen, maan lo umr hamari aise hi kat jaaye
Phooli hui apni saanson mein dhoondha, khoye hue khayaalon mein dhoondha
Raat ki Mazdoori ke lamhon mein dhoondha, khaali sadak ke saraab mein dhoondha
Vo na mile jab tak, hum unke laayak ho jaayen, apne aap mein aisi kaabiliyat dhoondhi
Par ab hum yeh kya kahein doston, vakt ne use humse nahi milayaa
Hum dhoondhthe dhoondhthe yahaan reh gaye, uske saath Intezaar ka vakt bhi haath se nikalgayaa

English Translation -

For a long time, I carried with me a sense of incompleteness
Then One day, I decided I will find Him, my pillar of support
If only I could set my eyes on Him once, I thought, my heart would find solace
Or If I could become visible to Him in some way, then I could spend the rest of my life being in His view.
I searched (for Him) in my anxious breath, I searched (for Him) in my lost thoughts
I searched (for Him) in the moments of hardship during late ending work nights, I searched (for Him) in the mirage of the empty road I travelled by daily
Until I find Him, wanting to make myself worthy of Him, I searched for that capability in me.
But what do I say now, Time did not bring us together,
In my quest, I stayed back here; With Him, Time also slipped out of my hands altogether.

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Image source: - http://yogaquest.wordpress.com/

Monday, November 8, 2010

Tech And Startup Events In and Around Chennai

[Cross-posted on my other blog as well]


Finally here it is - There are a lot of tech events that are shaping up in Chennai - and I found it next to impossible to track any of them beyond a point.  So here is a compilation of as many events that I have tried to track in the past few days - I've setup a public Google Calendar for now. Its not very sophisticated, but good enough for now.

You can track/bookmark it from here http://vatsala.co.in/events.html


Alternatively You can catch the RSS feed here http://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/c6kgpqss1v04bd10ct7t9fago8%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic
I'm wondering how to make this publicly editable - but thats for later. Siddharta Govindaraj's idea sounds good - needs to be explored - http://siddhi.blogspot.com/2008/03/tracking-upcoming-community-techstartup.html


Wednesday, October 13, 2010

TechMeets - First Edition

[cross - posted on my tech blog as well ]
A TechMeet is going to happen this saturday - The goal of the techmeet is to discuss and learn new trends,technologies,programming languages,new DBs, virtually anything thats new in the software programming world.
Here are the details:

When
Saturday 16th Oct - 10am onwards (2 to 2.5 hours)

Where
At Thoughtworks Chennai Office 
RR Tower 5, Level 2, Rishabh Info Park, 33 A Developed Plots, Thiru Vi Ka Industrial Estate, Ekkatuthangal, Guindy
Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600032
044 4395 3500

What are the topics:

Building Applications using  Cloud Computing Platforms by  OrangeScape Tech Team (http://www.orangescape.com/)

MongoDB - A NoSQL database by Vagmi Mudumbai (http://blog.vagmim.com)

How can you help. 
1. Please let us know whether you will be coming
2. Please spread the word (hashtag #techmeets)
3. Please add your questions on either (or both) topics at:
 http://bit.ly/tmc-nstalk

No registration required. You can just show up. But knowing how many people will be there will help us in terms of logistics. You can write to dorait[at]imorph[dot]com for any other questions that you may have.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Alternatives to windows media player

This is worth trying out - MoreAmp is a Audio player, transcoder and cd ripper - runs on windows and mac as welll.

SoX is  the Swiss Army knife of sound processing programs- but they run only from the command line. 

Friday, July 16, 2010

RBI Guidelines for Corrections in Cheques from 1 July 2010

Hi readers,
I would like to share this important announcement with the august readers [:)] of this blog.

RBI has issued a guideline regarding the handling of cheques which comes into effect from 1 July 2010 - Herafter, i.e. from 1 July 2010, Corrections to the cheque amount in words, cheque amount in numerals, and name of the payee will not be allowed. This means that you cannot strike or rewrite or overwrite the following -
1. The name of the person to whom you are issuing the cheque
2. The amount of the cheque in numerals(numbers)
3.The amount of the cheque written in words.

So, you are allowed to make corrections to only the date, which should have your signature next to it.
Also Banks have been instructed to print/stamp the account number on the cheque as a compulsory measure.