Mind your Language...

Chennai , Tamilnadu, India

I went to India for my further education. I completed my undergraduate in commerce from chennai(It used to be Madras). I spent more than 3 yrs in Chennai, Tamilnadu (South India). That is the one of the hottest place I have ever been. Actually Chennai doesn’t have winter season at all. She does have three seasons and those are hot, hotter and hottest. However cool breeze from seashore sooth you some extent. You don’t have to spend too much for your clothing in Chennai. As you know winter dress is more expensive than summer clothing. Half pant and t-shirt is more than enough for whole year. However you might need a pair of jacket if you are a travel jockey.
People are very conservative and religious. They put bar to segregate male side and female side in public transportation and you are not suppose to be seated in female side, though the seat is empty. That is really bizarre. I have never seen that kind of bar culture anywhere other than Chennai. You should be familiar to run and catch the bus to board into, since buses don’t stop long enough to get in and get off. It doesn’t make a sense to a driver and conductor the number of passenger getting in and getting off. Quick stop and fast run as usual. This is oppose to the riding system of Nepal, where conductor would be waiting for you even if you have just started from your house, if he knew that you are coming to ride the bus. However public transportation is good in Chennai. That is owned and operated by the state government itself. Though Chennai is a part of India, they want to differentiate themselves from other India. That’s why they don’t speak Hindi, even though then can speak Hindi. I just want to remind you that Hindi is the national language of India. India has lots of ethnic languages and people from different places practice their own mother language. However they will speak Hindi with you if you initiate the conversation in Hindi language unlike in Chennai. They don’t mingle with other people easily if you are not Tamil. That’s why I have very handful Tamil friend compare to friend from other part of India. Normally people from northern part of India are friendlier than southern part of India. Nepalese cultures and Indian cultures are similar in various instances. Like food culture, religious culture, social culture etc. But that didn’t hold good for me in Chennai, especially in case of food. At the very beginning we had to have food from restaurant and it is very difficult to get the food of our taste. However after few days we did manage to cook food at our apartment itself that gave us some comfort. We wouldn’t have hard time if we had got north Indian cuisine, which is quite similar to our food. Famous dishes in Chennai are Shamber, Dosa, Idly, Rasam, and Uttapum.

I don’t want to put the whole list right here. At least it took more than 6 months to be use to those food. However I started missing those foods once l left Chennai. That’s why I frequently visit south Indian restaurant in USA as well. USA is the diversified country in the world, where you can get everything you need. If you are an Asian and missing Asian people and Asian food, no problem, just Google it, you will get the same. Even if you want to narrow it down and want to meet Nepali people and Nepali food, you will get it. However Indian restaurant is widely available compare to Nepali restaurant and they are cheap compare to Nepalese restaurant. If you are in big city like New York and Chicago, you will get everything you feel like to have. Oh… I am sorry, I went far away form Chennai, let me come back to Chennai again. Hmm…what I was telling is….yap! I got it. Ok I have talked enough about food mania in Chennai and want to go some other things. Chennai was my first foreign country far away from my country and of course from family. I used to miss my place very much at the beginning though I had some Nepalese friend along with me. I feel very happy when I see Nepalese over there. Once I meet Nepalese I break the ice and start asking their name and the place in Nepal they are from. In this way I had become familiar with lots of Nepalese within short span of time. But later on I got to meet lots of Nepalese almost every day and I got to know there are lots of Nepalese working in different field including students.
Let me tell you one very funny and critical incident took place in Chennai, which I would never forget in my life and I keep telling this to my friend and colleague whenever I get a chance. It goes like this: we were new to the place and had to go to our institute. One of a senior gave us a direction, bus route and the stop to get down. And he told us to look at the flyover (Anna flyover) coz the stop after that flyover is our destination. I and two of my friend left home for institute as per his direction. Everything was smooth till we find the flyover; once we saw the flyover we were so excited and happy since we were on track. As you know how curious and excited you would be when you have to find out a new place, moreover you would have kind of fear to lose. Due to that fear one of my friend suddenly shouted pointing at the flyover, “Pool ayo pool, sathi aba aune stop ma ta hami jharnu parcha”. That means flyover has come, so next stop is our destination. Suddenly people started looking at us like they have never seen people like us before. At the same time other friend supported his statement and repeated the same. The environment turned into hostile. Then I told them to keep quite. We got off the bus and went to the institute and get our job done. But we were thinking about situation and trying to figure out that, why people stared at us. Everything was fine before that. We went back home and told seniors about the incident. Even they didn’t get any clue.The day passed with curiosity being unsolved mystery. Tomorrow we asked a guy next door. He is from Bihar and Muslim, you could imagine what kind of guy he would be, I bet you are thinking something bad about him, and if so you are 100% wrong. He was very nice and helpful guy. He speaks Hindi, English and Tamil as well. He has been Chennai for 6 yrs. It had come to our knowledge that unknowingly we had spoke out very bad word in Tamil. Then he told;" Bach Gaye ho tum log”. That means thank god you guys are safe. The word pool means male sexual organ in Tamil. Now you could imagine the situation where some guys are calling out male organ in public bus. Heheheh…..One more secret, don’t tell anybody o.k., then after I learnt all bad words in Tamil language. I still remember some of them. “W…..t……” fill in the blanks and try to read it if you know Tamil, else just forget it…

Narrow escape from jaywalking

Seattle, WA, USA.
Today I have encountered amazing incident. I have never come across that kind of incident in my life so far. I was crossing the road over crosswalk; suddenly I heard a sound of police vehicle siren and calling somebody at the same time. I turned back and saw a cop was calling the pedestrians walking on the pavement. Unfortunately all of them have just crossed the road on red light (Don’t walk) signal. I am the one of them. All of them were surprised and looking at the cop whereas cop was shouting at them and saying them to come close by. Some of them went to the cop and some of them pretended as nothing had happened and simply passed by. I chose the second option and didn’t look back and kept moving toward my office. I had realized at that time itself that I violated the traffic rule and he is going to give us a ticket. However I didn’t know that rule before. Just because of one incident I saw the day before yesterday help me to escape from the cop. A cop sitting over the motorbike was giving a ticket to a couple. I looked around for the vehicle stopped by thinking that they got pull over, I hate pull over and feel sorry for them whoever get the same, coz that mean your $100-$200 is about to go away from your pocket, but I didn’t see any and thought they might be a friend. Today I realized, they were not a friend, moreover that incident clicked on mind at the time when the cop was calling us. Thank god. I managed to escape somehow and thank that couple…

What other people say about the jaywalking in Seattle:
Hilarious! I lived is Seattle for ten years. Coming from Boston one of the toughest things to get used to was the fact that THEY DON'T JAYWALK in Seattle. People will gather at a corner when there is not a car for miles and patiently wait for the signal. That used to drive me crazy. I once received a $75 ticket which goes against your driver license. Watch it Manny, they'll cuff 'ya. - Barron Herald.

In Seattle jaywalking is considered a very serious offense. I got a ticket for jaywalking even though they were doing construction and I couldn't get to the corner. Oh, and once I jaywalked and two other pedestrians gave me a very stern lecture. They weren't even cops and didn't say anything about tickets but said, "don't you believe in traffic lights?" like it was a religion or something (it was a tiny side street and no car in sight). That city really needs to get their priorities straight. - Marc Benjamin.

I lived in Seattle and the cops there are Jaywalking Nazis, I've never seen anything like it. When you need a cop in Seattle they are never around, but when you are crossing the street and there's no traffic, but the signal does not indicate walk, you better believe you will get a fine. Drove me insane!!!!- John Shana

Believe it or not...

Interesting Questions and Answers

By-Anonymous

INDIAN ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES(IAS) /Union Public Service Commission(UPSC) Exam Interview-1998

Question and their Answers given by Candidates:
Q. How can you drop a raw egg onto a concrete floor without cracking it?
A. Concrete floors are very hard to crack! (UPSC Topper)
Q. If it took eight men ten hours to build a wall, how long would it take four men to build it?
A. No time at all it is already built. (UPSC 23 Rank Opted for IFS)
Q. If you had three apples and four oranges in one hand and four apples and three oranges in the other hand, what would you have?
A. Very large hands.(Good one) (UPSC 11 Rank Opted for IPS)
Q. How can you lift an elephant with one hand?
A. It is not a problem, since you will never find an elephant with one hand. (UPSC Rank 14 Opted for IES)
Q. How can a man go eight days without sleep?
A. No Problems, He sleeps at night. (UPSC IAS Rank 98)
Q. If you throw a red stone into the blue sea what it will become?
A. It will Wet or Sink as simple as that. (UPSC IAS Rank 2)
Q. What looks like half apple?
A: The other half. (UPSC - IAS Topper)
Q. What can you never eat for breakfast?
A: Dinner.
Q. What happened when wheel was invented?
A: It caused a revolution.
Q. Bay of Bengal is in which state?
A: Liquid (UPSC 33Rank)
Q: what is the opposite of Nagpanchmi?
A: Nag did not punch me.

The Difference between Focusing on Problems and Focusing on Solutions.

By-Suraj Pradhan

Case 1When NASA launched an astronauts into the space,they found out that the pens wouldn't work at zero gravity (ink won't flow down to the writing surface). To solve this problem, it took them one decade and $12 million. They developed a pen that worked at zero gravity,upside down, underwater, in practically any surface including crystal and in a temperature range from below freezing to over 300 degrees C. And what did the Russians do...?? They used a pencil.

Case 2One of the most memorable case studies on Japanese management was the case of the empty soapbox, which happened in one of Japan's biggest cosmetics companies. The company received a complaint that a consumer had bought a soapbox that was empty. Immediately the authorities isolated the problem to the assembly line, which transported all the packaged boxes of soap to the delivery department. For some reason, one soapbox went through the assembly line empty. Management asked its engineers to solve the problem. Post-haste, the engineers worked hard to devise an X-ray machine with high-resolution monitors manned by two people to watch all the soapboxes that passed through the line to make sure they were not empty. No doubt, they worked hard and they worked fast but they spent a whoopee amount to do so. But when a rank-and-file employee in a small company was posed with the same problem, he did not get into complications of X-rays, etc., but instead came out with another solution. He bought a strong industrial electric fan and pointed it at the assembly line. He switched the fan on, and as each soapbox passed the fan, it simply blow the empty boxes out of the line.

Moral

Always look for simple solutions. Devise the simplest possible solution that solves the problems. Always Focus on solutions & not on problems.