The Prolific Dyslexic

It has been a great time here at Vox. But dreamhost's offer was compelling.
With my hectic lifestyle, it is going to be impossible to maintain multiple blogs, so I'm going to devote my attention to the main one at http://prolificdyslexic.com/blog.

Do visit.

Yesterday when I arrived from Chennai, it had rained. And today is beautiful weather. The kind you shouldn't sit home and enjoy. Spring is here and birds are excited:

Morning sounds - mar

I was in Chennai on the 7th and 8th this month, to attend a close friend's wedding.
That I'd never been to a Tam-bram wedding before made it even more special. Plus a lot of friends were coming too. With a cheap air ticket available and always-ready me, I was off.

With my new (less than a year old) addiction, I was live tweeting the event. heh.
Some pictures from the event.

Ring Exchange.

Day 2 was the actual wedding.

Then followed by ceremonies on the oonjal or swing. Quite entertaining (for some time, at least) to watch, the old ladies sing and perform rituals.

swinging on the swing. happily

And then the next stage where the ceremonies are performed in the presence of the sacrificial fire. The last part of this is where the bride is given away by the father and the groom ties a thaali around the bride's neck.

Tying something (in a knot?)

Followed by the saptapadi (7 steps) which complete the marriage.
And then a feast. Which was quite a long one. Considering the sumptuous dinner from Day 1, the excellent breakfast and then to top off, a huge lunch. Need I say that I love Tamil food?

Some people (read: friends), made themselves conveniently scarce in the guise of gift shopping and consequently, missed all the fun, including a very animated and entertaining old uncle, and Sures, recounting the day's events.

All in all, quite good for a weekend trip, including a short detour to visit family friends, now holed up in Chennai.

Though the vox-nokia tie up has been there for long now, i never remembered to post. But since I have the blogging fever, I thought I'd give it a try. And for the E71 it does seem a very good option. Just to test, I'll also post an image, though the lens quality leaves a lot to be desired. This seems to be a good long-form alternative to twitter-twitpic.

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Looking at my last post I realise that its been a very long time since I was here.
Things have been happening that keep me busy. The ebb and flow of work, side projects and life in general have kept me busy.
First was moving to a new place in July, more spacious, in a better locality, yet walkable from work and affordable.
Then things happened at work which kept me busy.
Around early November along with Bombay Addict I conceived the concept of VoteYatra. At the same time I have been working with a few others on Startup Saturday Delhi, and launching the first edition. More details about both these can be found on my other blog. (this one is more personal).
In the rush of work, I have missed several of my friends weddings, including my college roommate's :(
This year I promise not to miss any. Several are lined up already and I am in the process of finalising my trips

2008 was also the year when I finally started actively using Twitter. I can be found posting my bite sized updates here. its probably the one thing that's kept me from blogging regularly, no complaints though.

We had a great party (hosted by me) to close the year. A few close friends came over. I made some Glögg, which everyone enjoyed. It was a time for catching up, over food and drinks, having met after a long time.

I've taken to cooking again after a long time and hopefully it should be relaxing. I find that even after a long gap, I can chop vegetables faster than before, though not as fast as I should.

Although it hasn't been a great start, This new year holds a lot of promise. Let's see how it pans out.

So he didn't actually webcast his marriage, though I had a sneaking suspicion that he might. Some of us made it there to meet, eat, drink and celebrate. And this is how it turned out.

Made it

These were some of the ones who manage to cross the miles of Jatland that is Haryana and make it in one piece. Decent roads and loads of paranthas, dal and chai also made it possible.

The tremendous work in back-end logistics of herding people makes us deserving of PhDs in supply chain :D

And then when the moment arrived, we led our man down the path of matrimony. Liberally plying him with alcohol was one of the ideas, but then we didn't want him to fall asleep at the last hurdle ;)

Lamb to the slaughter

And then they stood and posed for countless photos with numerous photos and we had our own brand of (unpublishable) fun.

Looks like he had some doubts here.

Questions

Or maybe its just a pensive pose.

The food was brilliant, piping hot kulchas and parathas and rotis and some amazing chutney. And lots of more stuff. And the water came in little plastic glasses. All sealed. Like our nimbupani. And then the ceremonies began. Lots of them. Some boring ones too. But they seemed happy through all that.

This pic though raises more questions.

Deeds

And then suddenly it was all over and time to go home.


Sounds like some sloppy fairy tale. :D

I am so happy :))
And motivated enough to post over slo-mo narrowband wireless internet :D
Coming soon... pictures

Well I have been busy and there has been no reliable access to the internet.
And now access to the site has been blocked from my workplace.
So what have I done since then?
Travelled some, worked a lot, made merry and been at home too.
I been busy on multiple projects, travelled to probably the most decrepit state capital in India for a friend's wedding, braved a night train journey through the badlands of India, but haven't blogged. I miss that.
Coming up (I don't know when) some write ups about my "adventures".
All I want for Christmas is broadband!

I love cricket. I am not a fan of cricket, but I love cricket. Especially when India is doing well. That's the time when people sit at home and enjoy the game. The streets are empty and there are no queues at the supermarket. The boss goes home early and wants you to enjoy the match too, never mind the fact that I have no TV. And the people at the substation dare not cut the power. Anyway, they'd be too busy watching the game.

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This is a nation besotted by cricket (a cliche to boot).

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Like the guy who stays downstairs from me, says, "If all the people are just going to watch cricket, who's going to run the country?"

Oh, and then they switched off lights out because we won the world cup and they wanted all to come out and celebrate. Here's to the victory, then.

P.S.:
Long after I wrote this, I happened to watch the India-England T20 match at Gordy's place. The highlights. That is probably something that I might watch. Highlights of a 3 hour match compressed to 30 minutes. All the firecracker moments. Maybe.

P.P.S.:
Now that I have a new profile at work, I think I will be very busy, so I'd rather just read about it in the newspapers.

Show us a gadget that's on your wish list.

Ipod classic

This one. iWant.

or maybe this one.

Nikon d200