Back in school days, the 1st wed of March is always a half-day at school..wait.. that was when my school wasnt working in shifts.. reason being the annual car festival(தேர் திருவிழா) of 'Koniamman' temple, often heralded as the guardian temple of the city. Sources say that the Coimbatore was earlier called 'Koniamman pudur' and some traversing over a period time thru a lot of changes, the city is now called Coimbatore..
Last sunday me been there to the temple with mom for the 'mavilaku' function.. a special diya made out of jaggery and rice...offered to the deity. This is typically celebrated for a week with various rites like "1008 diyas", "mavizhaku" etc.. along with some classical music functions happening daily.
Highlight of the week-long function is the CAR festival that usually happens during the 1st wed of March and that closes the week-long celebration. The deity is proceed around the streets (for a few Kms) in a mammoth chariot/car(தேர்) which is abt 50 ft tall with stone wheels of abt 2-3 m in diameter often pulled by ropes.. Koniamman தேர் is one of the tallest ones in TN.
Lots of ppl seeking blessing pull the ropes of the cararound the streets. Since the car is taller than the elec poles, the wires are removed temoved temporarily and the electricity is cut around the time the procession takes place. Huge amt of ppl throng the streets trying to get a glimpse of the deity.
Nice celebration, too bad I miss it after I moved to blore.. Anyways I went the temple and saw the தேர் being built while coming back. Dont miss this when u r at cbe during the 1 week of March by any chance.
Yday, me had been to the 2nd largest Barista in India..yeps, at East.Tv swamy rd, RS puram, Coimbatore.. It's a duplex one with good lounges and importantly, good private space.. surely better than the CCD across the road. Has a separate section for the 'I wanna have a fag with coffee' ppl and also an open-air division.
Cosmo looking crowd with mostly "Dad's an ATM" kids. Nice hangout place if u are suited to such kinda places..wud surely pose a biz threat to CCD.
I have always wondered why expletives are always related with sex or sexual organs .. Also, most of them are the same across all languages.. Interesting part is, for conventional usage, they are replaced with animal names.
What curse did a dog, cat or a chicken had for such a usage ?!?! I do not want to use any othe profanities here ;)
One thing that never cease to amaze me is Google, started in 1998 as a search engine with jus 23 words on its home page and now the fastest growing company on Earth. Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, I would surely call them magicians. Now google is synonymous with search and it has become a verb as in 'Google it up!'
Gmail, well over 2 Gigs per id and still counting, when introduced, created a mass hysteria, now they have 'chat' within Gmail..cool.
Orkut - Half my time on net is spent on this.. Was able to meet my school buddies, long lost friends, interesting ppl, interesting discussuions n what not..tho other networking sites like ryze, Hi5 were there, u cannot beat orkut.
Google reader, print, videos, Google Talk, Froogle, Adsense all seriously amazing stuff ! Get them all here.
Now they have Google Base, where u can store all kinds of data to be searched. My personal fav is Google Earth, I am sure, the day isnt far when I can see myself thru satellite thru google.
In fact, blogger is also a part of Google. (Google bought it in 2002)
Hats off to Larry, Sergey and Dr. Schmidt (CEO)..
ps : I love google except for this. :D
I almost screamed over the fone , "SO, what are you gonna give me ?? a personal loan or a life time free gold credit card or house loan or a gal friend ??? ..this was when I heard a feminine voice saying 'Hello'.. I generally say a patient 'no' to these spam calls, but this was when I rushing to catch my office shuttle, early in the morning, 10.30 AM !!
I held back from screaming (huh!) and said hello !... suprisingly it was from a buddy..She was just returning a call as I had called her when she was busy.
On contemplating over the call, I realised that the only feminine voices I hear over the phone were from call-centre executives and I assumed the same when my friend had called and almost screamed at her.
Wow !! good going, I said to myself .. What a life ?! :)