Friday, December 25, 2009

Remembering Tsunami

5 years and 2 hours to be precise. It was Dec 26 2004, Boxing day hasn't started well for Eastern Asians.

I was in my Anna University, Block 5 Hostel walking out to Block 4 Hostel to my friend's room along with my buddy Arun Prasad. Suddenly I got a call on my 1 Month old mobile saying "there has been an earth quake in Chennai and do not go outside anywhere". I took it seriously as it was my friend's Mom who warned me. Then immediately we both went back to our Block TV Hall to watch what has happened. God, yes, it was real. Tsunami has hit the coastal parts of Tamil Nadu and it was the highlight news on all channels. Then with my regular gang, we went to hostel canteen for our break fast.

Myself and Arun were not able to restrict ourselves. Around 9:30 AM, both of us started to Marina Beach in Chennai on my bike [Probably not a wise decision that we took]. The scenes that I saw on the way at Santhome Beach are a mass of people carrying blood shedded bodies, a group of rescue team serving food packets to the affected people, ambulance carrying dead bodies etc..We were at Santhome Beach, 2 KMs ahead of Marina beach. Santhome beach was one of the highly affected areas in Chennai city with more casualties. We were not allowed to go into the beach area there. So we proceeded further to Marina.

Here is the real Marina Beach. As we entered, the beach, almost the entire beach sand has been flooded with water along with scattered cars upside down, auto rickshaws, Motor cycles etc..The beach totally had its worst scene ever. The water was accumulated over the entire beach spreading across the roads until the DGP office, Queen Mary's college etc.

The scenes that I wont forget for my lifetime. Scary as well. Again here as well, the Police dint let us inside the beach. This earth quake has take almost 2,00,000 lives across the world and almost 10000+ lives in Tamil Nadu. Apart from lives, this has taken away the fishing vessels and houses of almost all the fishermen along with coastal Tamil Nadu especially in Nagapattinam, the worst hit place in Tamil Nadu. Some villages of this town has been reported as completely washed away without even a single survivor.

Its been 5 years now and each horror scenes that I saw are still in my eyes. Till date, some of the affected people who lost their homes and lives have not even got a permanent house to stay. After this incident, whenever I go along ECR Road along the East coast beach, I will always see some temporary houses built for the Tsunami affected people. But still many people are yet to be given permanent residence. Thanks to the govt of Tamil Nadu which is trying to provide a permanent house to these affected people.

Its been 5 years now and this morning, I just thought about the worst incident I have ever seen in my life. Praying for all the brothers and sisters who have lost their lives in this devastating incident that occurred on 26th Dec 2004. Let their soul rest in peace.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Twitter - The Don of Microblogging

I have been a hard core user of Twitter for almost more than 6 months now [of course I use Oratweet more than Twitter, More loyal to Oracle :-)].
If I call Twitter as The Don of Microblogging, I should call Oratweet as The underworld Don. Yes, I love Oratweet more than Twitter. Doesn't matter which I like most, but both of them are real good tools that helps this generation to effectively collaborate with each other. I really cant believe the way information is shared across the the people in a day. Believe me, upload a video to youtube and tweet the link, in case if the youtube video is a useful one, minimum you will have guaranteed 200 hits in a day based on average followers of 100. And if it is more useful video, then I really don't have to tell the approximate hits. You can guess!!

Does every one login to Twitter website to see the tweets? Unlike Orkut scraps or Facebook wall updates, you can get the tweets right on your Desktop using Echofon, a firefox add-on or Pidgin, a chat client. No one wants to log on using browser every 10 mins or 20 mins to see their new tweets. Any new tweets will be pushed to your Desktop apps and you will be forced to see them :-) Thanks to the exposed Twitter APIs which has helped people to come up with such cool apps including one for Iphone as well.

Impressive tweeter whom I love to follow, Mr. Sashi Tharoor - Communicates effectively in 140 characters about his daily updates and actions that he does as an Esteemed External Affairs Minister. I don't miss even a single tweet of his. Thanks to Twitter which helps to directly tell my view to Mr. Tharoor in 140 characters.

Also power of Twitter can be explained on the fact that the Foreign Ministers of India, Egypt and Bahrain had a Tripartite Meeting on Twitter :-) [Posted on Mr. Tharror's website].

Twitter dominates the entire microblogging world and its a lovely tool friends. Start using it and follow me on http://twitter.com/go2kavinkumar.