Earthquake at technopark trivandrum, kerala

I was at work at Technopark when all of a sudden everyone experienced a mild earthquake! I had never thought that Kerala was earthquake prone, and that too an earthquake in the Technopark area in Trivandrum!! apparently Kerala does have seismic activity in areas like Idukki!

UPDATE: Someone in twitter is saying that the earthquake that hit us in technopark it was richter scale 3.4 . Unsubstantiated. Im off to wikipedia to read this up. Someone else is telling these richter scale points are exponential so there is a big difference between each point.

The odd thing is that i had rented out the bottom of my house (in Trivandrum, but around 12 kms from Technopark) to a couple who had been in San Diego California. And the woman swore yesterday that she felt tremors! And we dismissed it (perhaps the sheer boringness of Trivandrum got to them – apparently they were lured by the laid back lifestyle at Technopark!) . But turns out she was right! In San Diego they have mild shocks every few days and people are used to it.

Another interesting thing is that of all the comments in different blogs, most  people use their town name, or their specific area of living like “I experienced the earthquake at Pattom” etc but for us ‘Technopark’ians we mention our company name or the name of our building.  This kind of shows a different psyche. We define the space around us in a way different from normal people.  Our company, our building and then everything else!

Technopark comments on the Trivandrum Earthquake also include a lot of humourous (or not!) flak for the project managers et al. Apparently some stoic project managers and team leads have asked the teams to meet the ‘dead’ line before they leave today 🙂

Another thing – i expect flat prices around Technopark to come down quick!  SFS and co are going to have some emergency meetings to dispel any rumours. Particularly since they were banking heavily on the boom near Technopark. And we are soon going to see some advertisements about ‘safety features’ of the upcoming buildings. Its about high time we focussed on building safety too.  This might be as good a time as any, and those who invest in building safety should deserve the publicity. One of the first links i got when searching for ‘Technopark Earthquake’ was an entry about the new leela buildings earthquake safety norms! (Leela has set up a 400 000 + floor space building in Technopark, near the Nila building.  Ironically Nila is one of the oldest buildings in Technopark.)

Its not like we are minting money in Technopark – its pretty hard work (well atleast most of the time : ) ) So the construction folks better start spending some of our ‘flat booking’ money into making their buildings a bit more safer in case a stronger earthquake hits us in the future.

As soon as everyone started to feel the Earthquake, the phone lines started to get jammed and i get the feeling that the internet lines clogged up a bit. Maybe it just my connection. Or maybe WordPress doing some updates.

Twitter seems to be the fastest of the lot in covering the news. Within 5 minutes there were pages of comments covering the event. I checked Orkut and Facebook but no movement(even though quite a few Technopark folks have active profiles  – though many companies in technopark block these social networks at work) . Neither the Gmail chat symbols. The Technopark oriented websites made some updates after taking a bit of time. Maybe the adminstrators are having a drink at the local Technopark watering hole B6.

Being into online marketing myself, was curious to see how quickly google picks up the different postings (including mine) and they didn’t let me down – it was up in just a few minutes. Not bad. Infact someone’s already picked up content from my posting and plastered it over their own blog site 🙂 Thats not bad – updates, plagarism, and what not – in just minutes.

Speaking of B6 , the rumour in Technopark was that they were the only people who didnt know about the earthquake at technopark. They just thought it was a stiff drink shaking them up!!

For those living under rocks – B6 is the only ‘Bar’ within crawlable distance of Technopark. Its the lifeline of Technopark and might even get some venture capital from Technoparkies, if it ever threatened to shut down. But thats unlikely because half of the Technopark salaries go straight and quick into the drains right there!)

Anyway thank god everyone is safe. I heard there were mild earthquakes  after-shocks  in Pattom, Nalachira etc from the comments on the other blogs.

Hope there is no damage to the big dams like Mullaperiyar etc due to the earthquake. Right now the news we have is that its the Trivandrum district that experienced the quakes.

Need to check up the Manorama, Mathrubhumi and Kaumadi channels to see which one picks up the news quickest.

Another pleasant/unpleasant shock is how quickly technoparkians recover from this kind of potential crisis. Everyone is playing around and cracking jokes. Wonder if the IT ‘crisis management’ culture has made us a bit too fatalistic or downright ‘come-as-it-may’ in our attitude. Anything short of the Dollar dropping in value equivalent to the Rupee, is not going to fluster us Technopark folks (that would be an Earthquake of historic proportions if it even happened).  On the other hand, worrying is not going to help.

Gender Bender – matrimony style

Another one of my conversations with friends (in this case a girl who shall remain unnamed). She is all ready to get married and is currently scouring matrimony sites with the enthusiasum usually reserved for business analysts, one day before they are to submit a path breaking, company defining report to the head of business development.

Me: So this guy.. he should be educated? – B-tech atleast  suppose?

She : Well im B-tech so he should be atleast one degree above me, preferably MS or MBA. (‘From a premier institute’ she adds after a moment)

Me: Ok

Me: Uh, how about height , weight etc

She: Tall, (taller than me of course <rolls eyes> ) and well, should be slim but not too slim..Atleast strong looking enough to make me feel secure..

Me: Sounds fine.

Me : (Obviously a link bait kind of  question) I guess he should earn more than you right?

She: Of course..He should because he has more experience than me, as he is older than me.

Me: (making an effort to mentally tabulate) : Ok so more age, more experience, more income..sounds reasonable

Me : So this guy, he should be better than you in every aspect right? – I mean more educated, taller, stronger, earning more income, more experi..(gets cut off in mid sentence)

She: Of course not, we are equals. Im not like these traditional women who remain subjugated to their husbands. I believe in equal rights because we are equal in all respects…

Me : (Bleary red eyes from the thinking) <blinks twice>, says nothing…

She (senses something is wrong) : Plus im making the effort to move into his life, which is a lot tougher for me…

Me: Starts playing solitaire on my laptop…..

She : Glares at me and then shifts back to filling up the search filter forms on keralamatrimony…

Go figure.

(disclaimer: Im not one of those male chauvinist pigs, neither a feminist supporter. I’am a woman worshipper (not the add -on-accessory kind of guy which you find occasionally with every group of girls), the kind who admires women who balance work and life, and positively think all mothers rock (in all sizes and shapes) 🙂

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Plus i think women are absolutely entitled to equal rights and protected from abuse. This is just a commentary on the state of the marriage ‘marketplace’ which seems similar to a stock market right now. We can just as well write a commentary on the male side of things.

Marriage induced attrition, and impact on entrepreneurship

Ahem. The cryptic title of this post can also be translated as – “as you are about to reach marriageable age, people scare you shitless on risk taking”. You get treated like that sick (financially sick for those with a limited repertoire) company being window dressed by investors for a firesale to some other company…

As a follow up to my earlier post on the marriage ‘marketplace’ in India, particularly for software people, i take a look at how the median marriageable age is inversely proportional to risk taking.

Once guys start to cross 26-27 they start to get worried about taking risks because they dont want to have a sloshed profile by the time their parents start to ‘hunt’  girls for them. ( ‘failed business man’ sounds infinitely worse than ‘sorry ass job in a big company where the next 6 months hike is all you know about your future’

So they drop all plans for further education (you need a steady income right?) and absolutely throw away any idea of starting a new business by themselves. Its probably more prevalent in the south of India then the north. Then again, i don’t know. So either you need to shoot straight for an MBA as soon as your fresh out of college, or risk losing the chance to do it afterwards. After all an MBA makes much more sense once you have 5-7 years of experience under your belt. Speaking of MBA’s its strange that in the US they usually take MBA’s to be able to start a business or run one better. Here its still to end up being an employee.

Over my working career i have seen several people shift jobs to a more recognized brand name simply because its pushes their profile up on the ‘market’. Sadly it is true.

In many ways this narrowly defined marriageable age does damp entrepreneurship and encourage a strange form of ‘socially upwardly mobile’ attrition.

The only way out of it is to raise the acceptable age for marriage to 35 for guys. Im sure it will encourage more risk taking, more structured and continuing education and perhaps more productivity over the long term. The other way is for people to accept that their children or son/daughter -in-law might want to do something different and encourage that….

Memories of College

The following chronicles of eclectic hostel memories may make sense only for my deepest friends & college mates who know what its all about. Includes things done & the horrors seen 🙂 If it reminds you even remotely of the best part of your life, consider yourself blessed.

Inches of dust., faraway sickly sweet smell of sweat, alcohol & deodorant, mixed nicely with cheap powder. Shaving razors molested to blunt impotency by legions of adolescent males community-sharing it. Chain sharing of saliva drenched cigarettes. Early morning mix of cigarette smoke & weak, piping hot, sugary tea. Congress bashing. Lots of dandruff. Strangely aromatic termite dust.Shirts tattered from years of ‘armpit & collar only’ washing. Smell of mouldy marklists. two frogs in the toilet for company. Red oxide flooring, (or was it paan stains?) three years of news papers, with a generation of cockroaches within. Smell of burnt mobile phone chargers.The dusty bible/bhagwat geeta you brought when you came for the first time. Searching for reusable disposed cigarette butts in candlelight. Powercuts – when your bathing – groping for the soap in the dark, & hoping it is the soap. Watching the same dust flecks in early morning sunlight & midnight moonbeams. Dirty emulsified tea & cup from two months ago.A myriad insects. Painfully pleasurable mix of relief & stoicism when you make the decision to skip a major exam.Spending the next few hours trying to spoil everyones studies. 20 different french beard styles, all equally bad. Coaxing toothpaste from an empty tube. Using news papers to protect the feet from the dirt in the shoes.Towel washing hair to avoid bathing.Keyboards with undescribable shiny coating. Listening to music during powercuts, till the invertor runs out. Group singing raunchy songs stacked with double entrendes.Swimming in the pamba, barely clothed, & barely afloat. the first colorscreen mobile & cameraphone. The complex maths of minimum pass marks & attendance. Staying awake during election nights, & stocking cricket bats, just in case. Bathing in brackish brown water. ‘Study’ tours- enough said. Dust caked electric fans. Smell of cheap rubber cricket balls. Stretch ironing shirts. Labs. Hiding from the news paper guy. Lungi cricket. Towel fishing. A 1000 shampoo sachets. Last Clean Underwear. A single bottle of homemade oil. Imported shaving cream. Vomit clogged basins. Someones shoes. Everyones shoes. Dirty Wet leather. SMS messages at midnight. Tortoise hunting. Dirty pillows.Smell of fish fat from snake boats. Ticketless travel. WorldCup Cricket.Taking a leak against the wind. Sweat caked hairstyles. Strategies for girls. politics, love,hate & Exams. Ruining others love lives. Exam day mornings & evenings. Exams. Walking to college just to see if the invigilator is a ‘copying’ friendly type. & if the roll number next to you has learnt anything. Writing formulas on your hallticket. Teacher bashing. Going 15 kms to watch a bad movie. Guest lecturers of the female kind. The strange silence before a group fight. & the uneasy comraderie afterwards. Lying in the middle of a wet road, dreaming of redemption. Riding on petrol fumes. Cold water in summer, & winter. Last Clean Socks. mosquito coils in the bathroom. Squashing leftover soap bars to make a new one. Going for a week on bread & tea.Strikes. Elections.Smell of victory & defeat. Dil chahta hai hairdo – disaster. Chicken & dosa. Bullseye & dosa. Finally , just dosa. Chalk dust & machine oil. Cheap foam & aluminium roofs. Goats & Chickens in the classroom. Smell of freshly photocopied exam chits. Light grey shirts dirty with dust. Dark grey shirts with island like sweatmarks. And all the colors of gray in between. The testosterone inspired bravado to seek an omlette at 3 am in the night. Dry tar & wet grass.

And a million more sights & smells, all rolled into one intoxicating, obnoxious, delicious 4 years. Somewhere along the way, we studied a bit, but learnt a lot. And guess what. We didn’t turn out so bad. Infact we turned out just fine 🙂