Destination Infinity's Blog, page 24

Sri Vaari Party Hall @ Kolathur, Chennai

Above embedded is the promo video made by me for Sri Vaari Party Hall, located at Kolathur, Chennai. Actually, this party hall belongs to a good friend and a fellow blogger Sarath Babu and his father. They invited us to the opening ceremony where we got a chance to click a few photos and videos.

This is a 1700 sq. feet A/C Hall with a seating capacity of around 100-120 people. It is targeted smaller events like birthday party, engagement ceremony, seemantham, get-togethers, etc. It seems they are already getting requests for hosting small wedding receptions too!

They have tie ups with event management/catering firms, which customers might want to avail. Ample bike parking is available in the venue, but cars may need to be parked at the neighboring empty grounds. There is a lift to carry everyone to the second floor, where the hall is present.

Sri Vaari Party Hall is located within the city at #6, Saravana Nagar, Kadappa Road, Kolathur, Chennai and is close to the EB Office there.

For enquiries contact Mr. PK Sathyanarayanan – Ph: 7200008551 or 7845565521. 

If you are planning to host a small event in Chennai, why not host it at the friendly, convenient and impressive Sri Vaari Party Hall?

Viswasam is 100 Times better than Petta

Script wise, Viswasam is at least 100 times better than Petta.

Viswasam has a strong antagonist – the situation, not Jagapathi Babu. Petta, in spite of having three capable actors – Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Vijay Sethupathi & Bobby Simha, couldn’t match one Raghuvaran, one Ramya Krishna or one Radha Ravi.

Sad.

I am surprised that a ‘Superhero’ like Ajith even agreed to do such an offbeat movie – given his established mass hero status. Kudos to his selection. And Nayantara keeps proving how good her script selection is – quite regularly, nowadays!

These two movies, accidentally released at the same time, proves that even Superheroes need strong antagonists, they need to have some fallacies and become closer to normal human beings for their movie to resonate with viewers. Or at least with me.

‘Infalliable’ Superheroes create forgettable movies.

I must make a special mention about how Petta’s climax left me in such a bad taste. I mean, there was an element of surprise and all, but it didn’t click with the theme or the characters. I can only sympethise with how Makkal Selvan’s fans may have felt after watching that climax.

People, do watch Viswasam in the theater. The music accentuates our emotions and the second half — in particular — is good. It could have been better, but after just having watched the other movie, Viswasam’s climax felt like a gem.

Of course, this is only my opinion and remember that tastes & likings differ from person to person. You have every right to have your own opinion and express it, like how I do.

Disclaimer: I am not a fan of either of the superheroes.

Destination Infinity

Highway Eat-Gazing

Don’t search the meaning of eat-gazing in dictionaries. You won’t find it – I just inveted the term

What is Cleft and How can it be Prevented/Cured?

Image Credit: Anamaya Indo Pacific Facebook page.

Summary: Cleft is an opening that appears in-between the upper lip and the nose (on the outside) or/and on the upper mouth (on the inside). Clefts develop in babies during early pregnancy due to factors like genetics, bad eating/drinking choices, medication side effects, or even due to diabetes. Clefts can be prevented by taking pre-conception folic acid supplements, or after birth via surgery and therapies.

What is Cleft?

Cleft is a birth defect in kids that happens because the skin/tissues that should have surrounded the lip/mouth area did not connect fully during the early-stage pregnancy. It appears as a hole/opening on the upper lip area or upper mouth area, or both.

What are the Issues Children Face due to Cleft?

Speech issues
Tooth growth problems
Frequent fluid in the ears
Difficulty in eating/drinking
Physical feature deformation that induces societal/psychological stigma

What are the Major Causes of Cleft in kids?  

While the exact cause of cleft is not well known, researchers have mentioned that the most probable reasons for cleft in children could be genetic factors (someone in the family tree might have had it and they pass it via genes), poor food/drink choices (bad habits like smoking and drinking especially during pregnancy increases the chances of cleft in babies), medication side effects (certain medicines taken during pregnancy might induce side effects that become the cause for cleft), and even simple conditions like diabetes and over-weight.

Does Cleft affect both boys and girls? 

Yes. However, boys have a higher chance of getting affected by cleft than girls.

Is Cleft diagnosed Before child birth or After?

Both. Lip Cleft (that occurs on the lips and is easily visible) can be diagnosed before birth via ultrasound scanning. Cleft Palate (that occurs inside the mouth) can be diagnosed after child birth. Some babies have both but some are affected by only one of the above conditions.

Can Cleft be Prevented?

Yes, there is suggested preventive medication available for cleft. Women who take folic acid supplements before and during their pregnancy (especially during early stage pregnancy) have better chances of giving birth to children without facial cleft.

Folic acid (a man-made form of Vitamin B) supplements and fortified cereal also offer other benefits to women who consume them before and during pregnancy. It can prevent birth defects in spinal cord and brain. It can also help in the production of RBCs (Red Blood Cells) that are critical for good health and to fight various infections/diseases. Folic acid is naturally found in certain vegetables, fruits and cereals. Or, one can consume it as a supplement (pills) along with pre-natal vitamin, as well.

If you are located in Chennai or Tamil Nadu have a look at the good work done by Anamaya Indo Pacific founded by Dr. Shreekala, BDS. It is an NGO committed to the cause of prevention of birth defects in children. They are running a multi-center cleft prevention program in India in association with the International Cleft Foundation. Do consult them for more information on cleft preventive measures and treatment.

Can Cleft be cured After child birth? 

In most of the cases, cleft can be cured to a reasonable level, even post child birth. Treatment may involve few surgeries spread over a few years starting from the first year of the child. It generally involves medical fraternity from multiple disciplines. It is possible to achieve near-normal speech, hearing, breathing, eating and appearance for cleft-affected kids via medical intervention.

Who are the Medical Professionals involved in Cleft Treatment?

Some medical professionals involved in the treatment of lip cleft and palate cleft include Dental Professionals, Orthodontists, Pediatricians, Oral Pathologists, Speech Therapists,  Epidemiologists, Gynecologists, Plastic Surgeons, Maxillofacial Surgeons, Geneticists, etc.

Our New Mobile Phone with a STYLUS – LG Q Stylus :)

So, presenting to you our new mobile phone(s) with a Stylus – the LG Q Styuls Smartphone

Pettai: Fan-made Video

Here is a fan-video I made for upcoming Rajinikanth’s Tamil movie – Petta. This is a crafts-themed video, with the woollen thread craft made by Ramya and the paper cup craft made at a recent show we went to. I have animated Tamil characters for the first time. Do you like it?

Minimal Silk Thread Chain

via GIPHY

Here is a Minimal Design-based Silk Thread Chain made by Ramya. Customers can choose any colour for the silk thread – a good option to match the jewellery with their dress.

The special price mentioned above is for a short time, and of course for one chain. Other silk thread jewellery models are also available – have a look at this page.

Destination Infinity

New WordPress Gutenberg Editor & Atomic Blocks Theme ROCK!!

As you maybe knowing by now, I have a Video & Powerpoint Creation Website. I am using self-hosted version of WordPress in that site also. 

Recently, WordPress released an update (5.0) where they changed the current TinyMCE editor to blocks-based Gutenberg editor.

For my other website, wowsuper.net, I had used a premium theme with a theme-builder that enabled me to build my homepage using sections. But this update broke that theme-builder plugin, so I was looking for alternative themes – preferably one that was built for/supports Gutenberg editor. 

WordPress themselves have released the Twenty Nineteen theme that integrates fully with Gutenberg. In fact, in the distraction-free version of the editor interface, you can see what the changes on the editor will look like on your web page. Almost WYSIWYG. 

Although the concept is amazing, the theme was a little basic for my website. It would suit blogs perfectly, but for a services-based website I wanted something else. That’s when I came across the free Atomic Blocks theme. 

This is a popular theme that was built for the Gutenberg editor and it even adds its own good looking blocks (via a plugin) that we can use. I have applied this theme to my website and used Gutenberg editor to build the front page. What I was able to achieve, that too with just the native wordpress editor, was amazing! Head over there and see for yourselves. 

What are blocks?

Blocks are rectangular areas on the web page. The text you see here were written on a full-width text block that I placed here on the editor. There are other blocks for quote, image, video, list, embeds, etc. 

The best thing about the block editor is, you can move blocks from one place to another. You can move this paragraph over the above with a single click, for example. 

You can also have columns and each column can have its own blocks and own content. If you head over to wowsuper.net, you’ll find that I have used two-columns on the front page to display my video services for ‘personal’ and ‘business’. 

I love the fact that the editor is able to display pictures and video, over the entire width of the screen. In fact, you can convert full-width pictures into ‘Cover block’ that gives a parallax effect along with short overlay text (optional). I have used this future extensively on the homepage there

3 success stories of young people who became wealthy after investing

Is there a sure short mantra that one can apply to investing? After all, the core purpose of investing is to create wealth for the future. But there is nothing like any one single way or one simple way. As Euclid put it very succinctly, “Excellency, there is no royal road to Geometry”. Similarly, there is no royal road to investing. An investment journey has to necessarily combine home work, diligence, patience, discipline, conviction and pragmatism. It is only when you combine these 6 attributes that you can actually create wealth through investments. Before we get into specific cases and approaches to how this is done, let us look at what these 6 attributes actually mean?

Home work is the research and preparation that has to go into any investment decision. It has to be a good investment. The bottom line is that you must be willing to reject 100 bad investments before arriving at a good investment. Diligence is all about the investing process. You should define and execute each of the process to perfection. From the stop losses to the risk management and to the order types, you need to do good execution. Thirdly, you need patience. Whether you are investing in a stock through demat account or in an equity mutual fund, you need to stay in the investment long enough to reap the benefits. Fourthly, discipline is a must. When you have a 5 year perspective on a stock then don’t get distracted by noise. Above all, it will also boil down to your own conviction and that is the key to success. It is like how investors like Buffett have persisted with stocks like GEICO, AMEX, and Coca Cola etc. Lastly, you need to be pragmatic. Even the likes of Buffett gave up on IBM when it was not working and as sold on to technology despite apprehensions.

(1) How Manish Shah leveraged equity SIPs to create wealth

From the very beginning, Manish was clear about his preference for diversified funds. According to Manish, it was not worth taking the risk of direct equities, so he preferred the phased SIP approach to creating wealth. His view was that the large caps and the mid caps should vastly outperform the indices provided good stocks were selected. Since he was an engineer and not skilled at stock picking, he decided to leave it to a professional fund manager. It is with this perspective that Manish investing Rs.2,500 per month in HDFC Equity Fund (G) option. Manish was not a finance man but he knew that if the fund paid dividends then he would use it for other needs. He therefore decided to opt for the growth plan. He actually started off in 1998 after the world had imposed sanctions on India in the aftermath of the Pokhran tests. He never thought of increasing that allocation although his income kept increasing. But the good thing was that he kept up the discipline. This is what happened.

Data Source: Value Research

That was an amazing piece of wealth creation by Manish. Over the last 20 years, he just allocated Rs.6 lakhs to the fund. But that small investment had grown to Rs.80 lakhs at the current juncture. What is more, he had earned an annualized return of 21.87% over the last 20 years and through the crashes, corrections and global turmoil, Manish had emerged truly wealthier.

(2) How Palak Joshi used his severance pay in 1996

For Palak Joshi, completing his MBA from Ferguson College, Pune was a dream-come-true, He came from a family of farmers and there were hardly any graduates. He felt doubly blessed when he was got a job as an equity research trainee in a top-notch brokerage firm. By 1996, he had not only made a name for himself but had also grown in income and stature. The stock market cycle turned downward in 1996 and his employer decided to exit broking altogether. Palak was just left with his last severance pay of Rs.50,000. He was lucky to be picked up by another company so money was not really the issue. But he took it as a challenge! He had been tracking consumer goods stocks at the brokerage house and had identified Havells as an emerging star in the market. It had everything going for it. It was radically changing the electrical goods market and was able to deliver world class quality. Palak decided to put his money where his mouth was and invested the severance package of Rs.50,000 in buying Havells.

Exactly 22 years later, Palak runs his own consultancy for corporates but he is still holding on to Havells. Interestingly, his small investment of Rs.50,000 in Havells has grown to Rs.19 crore today. Yes you heard it right! Palak does not even bother to calculate the CAGR returns because his dividends from Havells help him to recover twice his initial his initial investment each month. The capital gains are just the icing on the cake.

(3) Rakesh Arora believed that markets were all about opportunities

Back in 1997, when Rakesh Arora, a software developer, first spoke to his friends about buying software stocks, there were few takers. He spoke to some fund managers and analysts and realized that most of them could not see a shift, which he could see as a software insider. He decided to take some surplus funds in his bank and bought stocks like Satyam, Wipro, and KPIT etc. His idea was to make hay at some time in the future but he was pleasantly surprised when investment of Rs.1 lakh grew to nearly Rs.45 lakhs in less than 2 years. He was lucky to get out before the crash as his principle was that “If something was too good to be true, then it was not true”. He missed the last leg of the rally but Rakesh has no complaints. Over the next 20 years, he caught the capital goods rally in 2002, the real estate rally in 2006, pharma rally in 2010 and the automobile and metals rally in the recent past. Rakesh has churned money opportunistically through over 7 thematic rallies and his corpus of Rs.1 lakh in 1997 stands at Rs.6 crore as of today. There are times he could have done better but Rakesh has no complaints.

What the story of Manish, Palk and Rakesh underline is that there is no single secret to creating wealth. Of course, one needs to be in equities and one needs to give themselves time and patience. 

This is a guest post by Raj Malviya. Facts and opinions expressed in guest posts are of the guest authors, not of the blog owner.

Boating in Chennai: Chetpet Eco Park

I have written about my Chetpet Eco Park boating experience before. That was 3-years ago. So I thought why not revisit the park now and see what new amenities have been added for tourists, so this blog post. Let’s start with a short overview video of the Chetpet Eco Park. 

The first striking difference I noticed was the addition of new paintings and information boards. These are really beautiful. I saw a few stone models/sculptures too, but I have seen them during my previous visit. 

Last time, there was a small food court near the children’s play area. But this time, they have made a (separate) larger food court on the second floor of the building where the vehicle parking is located. There were a few food stalls serving South Indian/North Indian food, and there were other stalls for pizza, ice creams & western food. 

There is a new 3D theater now. I think they charged around sixty rupees per head to show a short 3D movie (maybe 20 minutes long). It’s good – similar to the ones you find in exhibitions and theme parks. They are also constructing a new globe-shaped building nearby, which may house an aquarium. Not sure, though. 

The water in the lake has slightly decreased, but boating is going on as usual. They charged us around 60 rupees per head for a 20-minute boat ride around the lake. This time, we went in a pedal boat, unlike the row boat that we got last time. One staff member accompanies us on a pedal, another pedal has to be managed by one of us. I think four people can go in a boat. The pedal boats come with a small roof though. 

Other things were same as our previous visit. Just make sure not to carry any food items or camera – they will ask you to deposit them in the ticket counter for the park. We can take photos/videos on our mobile phones though.

They charge Rs. 25 per head for entering the park, and that’s sufficient if you want to just walk around the park and access the children’s play area. I have to mention that the kids’ play area has been enhanced with beautiful wall paintings. There is paid parking space available for both bikes and cars. 

The biggest advantage of this place is, it is easily accessible for a short picnic/trip as it is located in the heart of Chennai city. If you have the time to travel to ECR, there is another boating venue which is larger and has more boats. 

Destination Infinity