Venkatarangan's Spaces

Though Lagaan was a very popular Hindi movie that came early this decade, I haven’t seen it so far. I bought the collector’s edition of the DVD few years back, but it has been sleeping in my CD rack. Today with the rains in Chennai, I was not able to go out, so I watched this movie.

The first impression anyone seeing the film is that it is an excellent movie, must see. Initially I was worried on how I will sit through for a Three-and-Half hour movie, but the director & actors keep the interest level high all the time. The other significant things that impresses you is A.R.Rahman’s brilliant background score, the choreography and the dialogs.

Today my mother while cleaning her book shelf, found few of my envelopes. They were from my High School days. One was Rs.51 Cash Prize I won in Twelfth Standard for “Most Deserving Student of the High School”. The other was a First Prize with Rs.150 for “Best Speaker” in a debate competition – I am trying to recollect whether this was in any Inter School or Intra School event. Going back nearly two decades is quite challenging, but nevertheless seeing the prizes feels good.

The other day I was visiting the residence of Prof.M.Anandakrishnan (Former VC of Anna University, Chairman IIT Kanpur, Advisor INFITT). I noticed the display in his living room of his “Padma Shri” award (2002) from President of India. Immediately I requested “Prof” (as many call him) for a quick photograph next to it, he readily obliged.

I came back to Chennai after a 5 days trip to Cologne (Germany) for TIC 2009. INFITT had appointed Cox & Kings (Chennai office) as the official Travel Agency for the conference since nearly 30 participants were from Tamilnadu & many first time travellers. Cox & Kings (Trade Fair Division) came up with a package deal costing about Rs.84,000. This included:

1. Air India Air fare (MAA-BOM-FRA-BOM-MAA) Transport from Frankfurt to Cologne and back
2. Accommodation in Ibis Koln 2** Hotel (Twin Sharing)
3. Buffet Breakfast
4. Local Travel from Hotel to Conference venue
5. Daily Indian Dinners in Indian restaurant
6. Return group airport Transfers (Frankfurt to Cologne and back)
7. City tour of Koln with cruise, Dome, museum  with Entrance Ticket
8. Overseas Medical Insurance
9. Cox and Kings Travel bag
10. Services of a German speaking Cox and Kings Tour Manager

Out of the 30 participants from India, we had about 15+ take up the package from C & K. Initially the airline was Emirates (via Dubai) but it was changed to Air India as many of the participants were from Universities/Colleges that required they fly Air India for UGC funding and for official Tamilnadu government delegates have to fly only by Air India. After my experience I am not surprised why Government has to force this dictum – without which no self respecting traveller will put up with awful Air India Ground service.

Air India and its awful service

I haven’t flown Air India for long-haul flights, so I was very sceptical. I hate the transit in Mumbai and will always prefer to fly international directly from Chennai. I consider the Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Airport’s transit service to be the lousiest and most inefficient way to transfer passengers between International-Domestic terminals, I am surprised this same pathetic service continues even after privatization (to GVK).  I was told that I don’t need to do the transfer from Domestic to International (or vice-versa). Everything went well as told during onward journey, AI191 from Chennai to Frankfurt, departed from Chennai International Terminal with customs/immigration done in Chennai itself. We landed in Mumbai International Terminal and continued the journey to Frankfurt from the same terminal – thereby saving me from the horrible terminal transfer.  But I was not fortunate enough on return, the flight AI144 from Frankfurt departed 3 hours delayed and hence we missed the connection from Mumbai to Chennai (same flight number). We landed at 2AM today instead of 10AM (yesterday) in Mumbai and the flight from Mumbai had departed at 1:15AM as scheduled.

We were asked to claim baggage and get out of Intl. Airport in Mumbai and transfer to domestic airport to catch IC571 17:35 (15 Hours wait in Mumbai to go to Chennai). I checked online  and found seats available in many of Air India’s morning flights but  I was not offered seat in any of them. So instead of waiting 15 hours and losing a full working day I bought a ticket in KingFisher leaving Mumbai at 6:25AM and reached Chennai, paying Rs.5000+ extra for Air India’s fault.

As always, there were simply no Air India staff to help us - I suppose all Air India ground staffs will hide inside their cabins fearing Passengers Queries. They probably have read Mahatma Gandhi’s quote on Customer Service wrongly – you wonder whether Air India Ground staff consider customer(s) to be a nuisance who disturb their peaceful naps. Even if they do a pathetic service (which they do) Government of India may never penalize them and is more than happy to even bail them out!

To be fair Air India flights were modern, neat & clean, entertainment consoles worked and Crew were friendly and helpful.

Cox & Kings

Overall Cox & Kings service from the time of booking to completion was good. Their account manager and tour manager who accompanied us both were professional and nice. I wish the side-seeing tour they had planned for us was thought-of and executed better. The Indian Food offered in a local Indian Restaurant (Ganesha, Cologne) on all the days was very nice and tastier.

Cologne City

This is my first trip to continental Europe and it was more or less just as I expected. We spent good amount of time seeing the Kölner Dom (Cologne Cathedral) and the near-by shopping streets, we got used to using the Tram (S-Bahn) service to commute from our Hotel to New Market area. Since our sight-seeing trip was on the Monday (weekly holiday for Museums) we missed seeing the museums including Cologne Chocolate museum or EL-DE Haus. The City has River Rhine running through it, which gives it many beautiful places. We took a boat trip on the river and also went in the Cable car. Other than these activities we didn’t find anything else to do in Cologne.

தமிழ் தகவல் தொழில்நுட்பம் குறித்த இன்றைய சாதனைகளையும், எதிர்கால சவால்களையும் அறிஞர்கள், வல்லுநர்கள் கூடி விவாதிக்கும் தமிழ் இணைய மாநாடு கடந்த மூன்று நாட்களாக (அக்டோபர் 23ம் தேதி முதல் 25ம் தேதி வரை) ஜெர்மனியில் நடைபெற்றது. தமிழ் தகவல் தொழில்நுட்பத்திற்கான அனைத்துலக மன்றமான உத்தமம் (International Forum for Information Technology in Tamil- INFITT) அமைப்பும், ஜெர்மனியில் அமைந்துள்ள கோலென் பல்கலைக்கழகத்தின் இந்தியயியல் மற்றும் தமிழ் ஆய்வு மையமும் (Insitute of Indology and Tamil Studies, University of Cologne) இணைந்து இந்த மாநாட்டிற்கு ஏற்பாடு செய்தது.

இந்த ஆண்டு முதல் முறையாக ஐரோப்பாவில் தமிழ் இணைய மாநாடு நடைபெற்றது. "கணி வழி காண்போம் தமிழ்” என்பது இந்த மாநாட்டின் மையக் கருத்தாக இருந்தது. உலகெங்கிலுமிருந்து தகவல் தொழில்நுட்பத் துறை வல்லுநர்கள் பலர் பங்கேற்றார்கள். ஆழ்ந்த விவாதங்களுக்குப் போதுமான நேரம் கிடைக்க ஏதுவாக 100 பேராளர்கள் மட்டுமே மாநாட்டில் பங்கேற்க வகை செய்யப்பட்டது.

சில மணி நேரம் முன்பாக நடந்த முடிவுரையில் உத்தமம் சார்பாக வெளியிடப்பட்ட மாநாட்டின் அறிவிப்பை நான் படிக்கும் வாய்ப்பு கிடைத்தது (முழுமையான பிரதியை இங்கே பெறலாம்).  இதில் மிக முக்கியமான அறிவிப்பாக நான் கருதுவது ஒருங்குறி (Unicode) முறையைப் பற்றியது.

“ஒருங்குறி (Unicode) முறை தற்பொழுது பெரும்பாலான வணிக நிரலிகள், செல்பேசி நிரலிகள், மின்னியல் ஊடகங்களில் பயன் படுத்தப் படுவதனால், உத்தமம் ஒருங்குறி முறைத் தரத்தையே தரமாக, அறிவிக்குமாறு தமிழ்நாடு, இந்தியா, இலங்கை, சிங்கப்பூர், மலேசியா, மொரிசியசு அரசுகளைக் கேட்டுக் கொள்கிறது”

சுமார் பத்தாண்டுகளாக தமிழக அரசில் நிலுவையில்  இருக்கும் இந்த பரிந்துரை இத்தோடு அரசாலும் (பயனாளர்களால் ஏற்கனவே பயனில் உள்ளது) எற்றுக் கொள்ளப்படும் என நம்புவோம். சில வாரங்களுக்கு முன் தமிழ் இணைய பல்கலைக்கழகம்  ஒருங்குறி முறைக்கு மாறியது மற்றும் அரசின் பல்வேறு இணையவழி சேவைகள் ஒருங்குறி முறையில் செய்யபடுவது முன்னோட்டம் என கருதுவோம்.