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New hit on the block
Wednesday,January28,2009
ABYTE OF LIFE
POWER OF GREEN
E-learning makes inroads
FREE CIRCULATION
Vol. 3No. 16
WINDOW SHOPPER
Uniq for accessories
0503
Saranya Mohan of
Yaaradi Nee Mohini 
fame on new releases, Nayanthara and Fazil
»
PAGE 10
PHOTO: R. RAVINDRAN
 
I
t’s a blessing to have a restau-rant around one’s neighbour-hood or office, especially more if it serves food thattastes like home food. S.R. Foodsat Karpagam Avenue in R.A. Pu-ram is located amidst a residen-tial area.The joint was started in 2005 by Dhayalan Divakar mainly for of-fice goers, where he started by serving only South Indian break-fast, lunch and dinner.“I chose this areabecause I knew there was a huge potentialfor corporates and ourfirst client was ICICIBank (corporate of-fice), which is downthe road,” says Diva-kar. “Within a year’stime, our businesspicked up and westarted getting many North Indian clients too fromTVS Infotech, Sundaram Towers,Tripple C Constructions and afew more. So we introducedNorth Indian thali for lunch.”
Food galore
 When it comes to breakfast, you have idlis, dosas, vada, pon-gal, suji kichdi, puri with potato –served with coconut chutney.Plus, chutney made of ginger oronion urud daal and sambar. Thebreakfast is priced from Rs. 12 toRs. 25.Divakar says, “The podi dosaiand onion dosai are the most pre-ferred.” While the South Indianthali is priced at Rs. 30, the NorthIndian one is Rs. 35.In the evening, they havesnacks like samosa, kachori andboiled chundal (lentils). The din-ner is very light when comparedto the lunch. Divakar adds, “Wechange the menu every day toadd variety.” What I liked about the food isits preparation – it is not oily orspicy but very light, served in suf-ficient quantity. Vinod Kumar, re-lationship manager at ICICIBank, who has been a regularto the place for the last two years, says, “The food is tasty andvery homely. I liked the dry pota-to sabji, raw banana chips andpayasam. The service is very fastand the price is reasonable.”They also do catering for theBritish Council library, Judicial A-cademy and Ashok Leyland. Ask Divakar about his future plans,and he says, “We plan to startcafeterias in offices and ventureinto outdoor catering soon.”
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(Too Good for Critics is a weekly column to celebrate NammaChennai’s ‘Kaiyendi Bhavans’ and small eateries. If you can think of asimilar place, mail us at  feedback@goergo.in)
S.R. Foods’ light and tasty meals are a hit with office-goers
DEEPA VENKATRAMAN
deepav18@gmail.com
How about somequick lunch?
How to get there:
Walk straight from ICICI Corporate office,located at R.A. Puram. It is on the 3rd street of KarpagamAvenue
Best time to go:
From 8 a.m. to 10.30 a.m., they servebreakfast. Although the lunch starts at 12.30 p.m., and youare busy in a meeting, don’t worry as this is one outlet whereyou get lunch till 3.30 p.m.
My favourite:
Potato palak and payasam
Phone:
4203 5000/ 4210 0551
ERGO
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
NAMMA CHENNAI
02
 Y 
ou love films? And one day aspire tobecome a filmmaker? Here’s your chance.1takemedia.com, an entertainment jobs andresource portal, has launched the1takemedia.com film competition.The competition is open to all aspiringfilmmakers who wish to make in-roads inthe entertainment industry. The competitionwill be judged by filmmakers like KetanMehta, Vikram Bhatt, John MathewMatthan, Jabbar Patel and Mike Pandey.There are three categories to thecompetition: Segment 1 (under 10 minutes),Segment 2(10 to 30 minutes) and Segment 3(30 to 60 minutes). So if you have ahandycam and an idea, just go on.
Entries must reach by March 31. For entry forms and details log on towww.1takemedia.com
 View from Ladakh
Wander Lust – an exhibition of photographs on canvas byVarun Gupta during his travel to Ladakh – will open todayat Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan. The exhibition ison view till February 14 at Goethe-Institut, No 4, RutlandGate 5th Street. Ph: 2833 2343/ 1314
Movie mania
1takemedia calls all aspiring filmmakers
   P   H   O   T   O  :   R .   R   A   V   I   N   D   R   A   N
 
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
03
P
icture this: Motorola is launching a new mod-el, before which it wants to train its em-ployees across the world about thenitty-gritty of the new handset.The typical scenario: A team from the company’sheadquarters flies down to each of their major loca-tions to take the staff through gruelling hours of Power Point presentations, written notes, discus-sions and so on. That’s the traditional classroomtraining each of us has got accustomed to. The new scenario: The mobile major decided to cash in onsomething more cost-effective. It got an e-learning tool developed, which it installed in its main server whereby all the sales staff were asked to take les-sons and also undergo tests after that. While for thestaff it was flexi and interactive hours of training that could be taken at one’s pace and convenience,for the company it was channelising money, energy and time on a long-term initiative.
Green 2009
 Welcome to green IT or green 2009 – a mantramost companies are chanting these days to combatrecession or as a cost-cutting measure. E-learning has increasingly been found to be an effective train-ing tool companies have resorted to in these toughtimes.“Green learning has been part of the Indian psy-che since years, but what is more interesting is tosee companies convert from the traditional Instruc-tor Led Training (ILT) to e-learning, thus saving onthe training cost, reducing carbon footprint, among others benefits,” says Dr. Prabal Mall, content head,Expertus Infotech. “On an average, a company spends between Rs. 10,000 and Rs. one lakh on atrainer. In e-learning, around four hours of ILTtraining is converted into an hour of interactivelearning.”BPOs, IT services, technology and pharmaceu-tical companies have adopted e-learning in a major way. The Tatas have embarked on green learning ina big way.“Almost all major companies have implementedgreen learning initiatives, but it is still at a nascentstage in India. It has to gather momentum,” saysShailesh Mehta, CEO, Gurukul Online Learning So-lutions. “Today, over 15 corporates have adoptedgreen learning enterprise wise or division wise.”Go green seems to be the way ahead!
■
LIFFY THOMAS
liffythomas@goergo.in
Go Green…
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It reduces use of paper and manual work aseverything is online
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Reduces cost incurred in classroom training,which requires companies to invest on travel,stay, etc.
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E-learning content is reusable or can bemodified, thus reducing cost of learningmaterial
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It is fun and interactive. Also, there is nocompulsion to sit in a classroom – one cantake it according to one’s pace
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Social networking sites or blogs can also beused for training purpose
Green
IS IN
 At a time when companies are finding it difficult to keep purse strings tight, greenlearning only promises to show the way 
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