expressive signatures…

Off late people have started being creative with the signatures on their e-mails. They try to convey a message through a carefully selected quote. I come across many such signatures through my club (Chennai Trekking Club) e-mails ranging from outright funny to thought-provoking quotes.  The signature of one of the members, whom I have found very helpful in our treks together, attracted me this morning.

“I shed my inhibitions, my fears, I traveled light.

I traded my stock options for a lonely planet, my cell phone for a compass.

My briefcase for a backpack. I took off.

I wandered in the company of tourists, revelers & a guitar as old as me.

I learned that people are good. Strangers are fascinating.

And that every journey reveals another.

I’ve lost track of time.

And perhaps my job, my apartment & my fiancé.

But I have my compass & I know it’s pointing me in the right direction.”

 

With my own humble message on my signature being “you can plant trees, but you can not create forests” I was out-right impressed with such expressive lines challenging the secure, reserved attitude of people who still consider travelling and exploring a waste of time. Curiosity and my beloved Google led me in to the fact that this was once seen in an advertisement published in a popular magazine for the fairer ones. I remember having seen one more set of lines which a bulleteer has proudly quoted on his web space, I will come back with it very soon.

top slip trek…

Gandhi Jayanti week end, perfect 3 days for trek. So I was at Top slip trekking among wild animals, leeches and members of CTC.

 read more at http://sathitharan.wordpress.com/my-trek-log/top-slip-varagalilar-perungundru/

nagala- a trek with children…

Last weekend I was on a trek with 25 underprivilaged children from Royapuram Boys’ home, Chennai. My other treks game me a sense of achievement, but this trek showed me the meaning of giving back to the society.

Follow the link to know more on the trek http://sathitharan.wordpress.com/my-trek-log/nagala-a-trek-with-children/

for the need of a bank account…

It has always been the same, every time I opened a bank account. The routine was and would always be a phone call followed by a visit of the executive, easy to understand application barely a sheet, and instant issue of card and cheque leaves.

I walked in to the country’s largest Public Sector bank, nose thrust in the air and demanded for an application form. Her stare was worse than a punch into your kidneys, worse was her question accompanied by the arch of her eyebrow, “reference?”. I thought this was the worse, always failing to sense the iceberg beneath. I then went on to declare that I am not from the same place, but just happen to work here, at that she just clammed up and refused to answer any more questions.

It took me a while to understand that you need to be resident of the city to be eligible !!! for holding an account wih the bank, what happened to all that about Republic Of India? OK fine, I understood the time was right to pick a leaf from their book, I obtained and sent a completed form to my dad, who then was to open an account with the bank in my native, praising my ingenuity. But who am I against the might of her majesty, my application was rejected saying the applicant should come in person, after a woeful wait in the line, much to my dad’s agony. 

So I had the application sent back to me, after a couple of visits to the local branch of the city where I earn my rice and rasam and after much persuation the branch manager agreed to open an account in my name, did I mention the indefinite wait on a friday and the vist on saturday to handover the application form.

tirupur- a movie about it…

It was in late June 2007 when I shifted to Tirupur after a brief stint at Bangalore and still in my induction period I started looking out for the history of Tirupur which I then assumed would be my home for the next three years at the least.

Digging for the history turned out to be difficult, with no proper documentation on the banian city I even visited the local library to refer the previous news paper publications. It was after a month that I came with the basic frame work on the history. The export volume data was hard to come by and I spent more than a week searching on the internet.

When finally I had all the data, I being a human being looking out to do things differently started working on the project with Microsoft Movie Maker with a bit of Corel Photo Paint and Picassa. I present the outcome of the work titled Welcome to Tirupur below . It has more than an year since I actually made it for my office.

Turn your speakers on, sit back and enjoy !

Keep me posted on how you feel on my work.