Rain in Chennai city

It was a rainy evening yesterday (24-Sep-2008). It was a pleasant surprise after the unusual hot days for this time of the year. In my view, "rain" refreshes the mind. After few spells of rain, the trees are cleaner and show deeper, brighter green colors. The voices of birds also seem to have joyous notes. Though I live in Chennai - one of the crowded metro cities of India, I'm lucky enough to have a great view of mango trees and parrots of my neighbors plot. On a rainy evening, sitting in the balcony with a hot cup of tea and seeing the squirrels and screeching parrots on mango trees is something of deep feeling. That ecstasy can't be explained in words.

Indian festivals and faiths

There was Ganesh Chathurthi last week, 3-sep-2008.

It was Veilankanni festival on 8th September. It is believed to be Mother Mary's birthday. I'm really wondering whether there is any references to Mother Mary's birth date in the Bible.

You might know that Veilankanni is an important pilgrimage for Roman Catholic Christians in Tamil Nadu. About five hundred years back, Portugese sailors met with heavy storm. They prayed to Mother Mary and they believed that Mother Mary saved them and they built a church there.

Once, a man expressed that, "Mother Mary" and the Hindu God "Mari-amman" are the same. In his view point, the portugese called Mari-amman as Mary.

Whatever be the founding reasons for festivals, festivals are in general good. Festivals are good stress relievers.

இது தமிழை டெஸ்ட் செய்வதற்காக எழுதப்பட்ட ப்லோக்.

Alchemist

I finished reading Alchemist by Paulo Coelho for the second time. Such a great book with simple truths.

It is indeed lucky to know our own destiny. Not knowing our hearts calling is a misery. I recently came across a friend who was saying that she does not know what to do with life. She has got everything for a good materialistic life, but she feels empty. Quite a lot of people are succumbed to daily events. Very few pause and think what to do with life.

Maarg Chennai marathon 31-Aug-2008

I went for the 7km run (walk, actually) of the marathon organized by GiveLife Charity on 31-aug-2008. The charity is aimed at providing education for underprivileged children. Participating that event was fun. We went as a group involving children and some more people who are interested in sports. BTW, GiveLife charity is an NGO headed by Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi's daughter M. Kanimozhi.

It was quite crowded. I was quite happy to participate. There were quite a lot of school children with their school bands drumming. There were students doing pole walking. It was really a fun walking along with so much crowd. The event organization was better than what I expected. The traffic was diverted, there were quite a lot of security people on duty, there were ambulances for emergency care, etc. Good care was taken to avert stampede. But, the organizers failed miserably in providing water and sanitation facitilities. I saw a truck loaded with Aquafina water bottle cartons was swamped by young boys. They climbed the moving truck and picked the water bottles from cartons and passed on to the people. People were literally running for water!

Two things grasped my attention a lot. One made me feel good and the other made me feel terrible.

I heard three different conversations where some young students were talking out their despair and frustration in people throwing away plastics recklessly. The road was full of empty water bottles and packets. The Eco friendly awareness is certainly there in the young blood of Indians.

The next thing was heart breaking. There were small children aged less than 8, bare footed, picking up those plastics for their living. I have taken some photographs from my mobile and I'll upload that once I figure out how to upload into blog. The very reason for which this event was organized seems to be a terrible failure. The person who was compering was ecstatic in shouting "I love Chennai", "Yengal Chennai, Thanga Chennai (meaning Our Chennai is Golden Chennai)", etc. Amdist that he started shouting the corporate/companies/ personalities, etc like "The Hindu", "IOB", "Cavinkare", "SRM university", etc. I would call that event a success if they have registered atleast those rag pickers in schools !!


My Drupal took back burner over the last weekend. With Chennai marathon and some functions to attend, didn't get much time at all for Drupal. However, I did get bit of time to read Rajesh Setty's "Beyond Code". I didn't get much out of that book. Whatever he has said, I have read it in the Opportunity supplement of "The Hindu" news paper. I follow most of that as well!

Kung Fu Panda & my drupal

Sure, it is a great movie. Very entertaining. I recommend that movie for everyone who wants to relax. Children will enjoy a lot too.

I bought the Pro Drupal Development 2nd edition eBook (by John K. VanDyk) . It is quite good. I was really groping for information through the Drupal online documents and did not find the documents very easy.

Drupal - multisite configuration

In the weekend, I tried Drupal multisite configuration. It could have been so easy but I did struggle on one thing.

I kept on setting DocumentRoot to 'C:/Program Files/Apache Software Foundation/Apache2.2/htdocs/drupal-6.3/sites/testmultisite2' in the file httpd-vhosts.conf. However, it just needs to be set to the drupal installation root directory. Nowhere it is given explicitly and that created some confusion.