Random Musings

The original Don 2 and Hawa Hawa

2011-12-26T02:17:00.000-08:00

Now that Don 2 is released, this reminds me of the original Don 2.
Yes, just like there was an original Don starring Amitabh that SRK's Don was based on, there is also an original Don 2, but SRK's Don 2 is mostly not based on that.
People who were of the time when Doordarshan was the only channel around and Wednesday's Chitrahaar was religiously watched and not missed, might remember. There was even a song that became famous from this Don 2. And that song is...believe it or not...

Hawa Hawa.

Yes, the same dhin-chak number which is a strong favorite of mine even now! It used to get the pride of place during the assembly and classroom discussions after the week's Chitrahaar was aired.

Well, the story supposedly goes like this. It seems they wanted to release Hasan Jahangir's hit songs, including the iconic Hawa Hawa, and so made a direct-to-video cheesy movie titled Don 2 starring Jeet Upendra. He's the guy who's in the video of the song dancing around the Bandra seaface. I remember him from the serial 'Ajnabee' starring Danny Denzongpa that used to air on DD.

Also, see if you can spot SRK's Mannat during the song before it was bought and renovated by SRK. It is a 3:33 in the video.

Hawa Hawa itself has multiple copies. Bappi Lahiri lifted the tune for Govinda's Java Java.
And well, Hawa Hawa was not Hasan Jahangir's original as well. He lifted it from an old Iranian song titled Havar Havar. Listen to that below.

Rajanikanth typed "Let it snow" in Google and...

2011-12-19T22:23:00.000-08:00

By now, all of you must have tried out typing "Let it snow" in Google search and seeing the effects.
Some told Rajanikanth also to try it. He wanted to check it and typed that and....

(Photo original link: https://plus.google.com/106517092226488584705/posts/RqSaTEfFkQW)

P.S: Also check out "Do a barrel roll" on Google Search. Cool Easter eggs.

Bangalore-Mangalore drive

2011-04-19T03:41:00.000-07:00

NH48 connecting Bangalore to Mangalore has not been in a better condition in a long, long time than it is now. We traveled on this route on 8th April and it was an easy trip.
The condition of the main culprit, the Shiradi Ghat between Sakleshpura and Uppinangady has been repaired recently. All the potholes have been patched up, the curves are concretized and generally the drive is a smooth one. So until the rains come puring in, if you have travel plans towards Mangalore, surely take the Shiradi Ghat route. Also
Also with the Goraguntepalya-Nelamangala flyover operational which lets you cover the stretch within 20-30 minutes, has led me to avoid the Magadi route which is slightly dangerous (due to the private bus traffic as well as the curvy TG Halli stretch where I've had one nasty experience already) and bad (you got to search for the road among the potholes in the 5Km stretch within Magadi town).
The Nelamangala-Kunigal highway is also smooth and the earlier jarring speed breakers/humps have been removed.
So except for the Kunigal-Yediyur stretch which passes through Kunigal town, the rest of the route is nice and smooth. Once they complete the laning work on this stretch, it should be even better.
Additionally we got an elephant herd sighting near the Kemp Hole. There were 4 of them, 2 baby and 2 bigger ones, standing on the side of the road, we let them be and passed by.

Because of the good road condition we made quick time and were able to reach the destination for the yakshagana and puja that night.

16:15 -> Leave Bangalore
20:30 -> Reach Sakleshpura and stop for picking up an uncle
21:55 -> Reach Puttur via Uppinangady
22:20 -> Reach Vitla and stop to meet a couple of relatives
23:15 -> Reach destination Bayar, Kasargod

Here is a map of the route:

View Larger Map

K-Tea!

2010-09-14T00:50:00.000-07:00

K-Tea - This might just be the most different tea I've ever tasted. And tasted very good as well, right up with the best.
The place this is available at is a small nondescript hotel, Sri Lakshmi Nivasa on the Bangalore Mangalore highway at Kalladka, about 35km before entering Mangalore.
The specialty of this K-tea (Kalladka tea) is its double color. Usually, you might have seen your tea with a white creamy layer on top of the browny tea layer. But in K-Tea, this is reverse. The brown tea layer is at the top while the milk is at the bottom. Looks totally cool!

Anyone who is passing by, should definitely have this,a long with the dosa and goli-baje. Anyone who's not passing by should have it in their itinerary to check this out :-)

IPHell

2010-04-19T08:37:00.000-07:00

The IPL has redefined cricket. And anything cricket related.
Isme ab cricket hai, Bollywood hai, politics hai aur underworld bhi. We just wait for some religious type to be a part team owner and then we would have all required elements that the public savors.

Finally, the commentary team comes into its own during this IPL.
Until now, commentary was always an invisible parameter during a match. Kind of like a background score in a movie. You would not notice it unless it was really awesome or really banal.
The rest were all in between who managed rare insights (by rare I mean once in a while :)) to the game.
And then IPL came along. Along came its DLF maximums, and Citi moments of successes and Karbonn kamaal catches. Commentators must have their commissions linked to how much they use the brand names, the way they have been doing it all this while now. And each of them is unique in their style.
Let's start with Mpulelo Mbangwa (imagine if the other commentators had to introduce him with his actual name. No wonder he turned into the more easier Pommie Mbangwa). He actually speaks well, has good insights. But it all goes for a toss (literally!) when a player hits a six. It seems the ball actually travelled all the way to the commentary box, irrespective of the direction it was hit, and thudded into Pommie's umm...errr...box. He lets out a "Aaaaaaarrrrrgggggghhhhhhh.....", which sounds eerily similar to the Hindi rapist villain's exclamations when the heroine knees him one in the box. Just listen for it next time around.

Then there is L Sivaramakrishnan. His commentary is as sing-song as the effort required to say his name. Complete with the thaala and the introductory pallavi. "¶¶It's got the elevation¶¶... ¶¶and gone the distance¶¶¶". And some of the words he uses "Whatacatch. He's got lovely hands".
And Ravi Shastri with his tracer bullets. "Once he hits them, they stay hit". What about the rest? Once they hit them, it turns into water and flows away? Or dissolves into the atmosphere?

His commentary is usually made of screaming the player's name or the expression, like the Bollywood heroes do when searching for the villain in their lair. Just compare "YUVRAJ!! SIX!!" to "BALWANT RAI!!!BAAHAR NIKAL!"

Now coming to the other IPL highlights. I was wondering why there was no MRF blimps during the Kings XI matches. Then I realised MRF had stuck their logos on Ramesh Powar and Yuvraj Singh!
Talking of Yuvraj, he's really put on so much weight that the IPL committee is planning to make a rule that umpires point to Yuvraj when signalling a wide. And he could sponsor the wide. So next we can hear the commentators admonishing a Yuvraj Singh wide bowled by bowlers.
On the same lines, Lalit Modi is coming up with a new idea to make even more money by planning to approach the cricketers themselves to sponsor some of the happenings. After the Yuvraj Singh wide,
John Buchanan wide - Wide which goes high over the batsman's head, much like Buchanan's theories,
Kumar Sangakkara appeal - Appeal by the bowler/keeper when the batsman is no where out,
Kevin Pietersen tantrum - Glares/shouts by the batsman at his mate who's just got him run out,
Inzamam ul Haq runout - Batsman setting of for a easy single and somehow running himself out,
Badrinath shower - A heavy downpour disrupting the game, much like Badri's sweating,
Venkatesh Prasad slower ball - Bowler delivers a slower ball slower than his actual run up,
Glenn McGrath corridor ball - One in the corridor of uncertainty,
Robin Uthappa Six - Six that should actually be a 12 because of the distance it traverses,
Kamran Akmal drop - Simple catch (a.k.a dolly) fluffed by the keeper/fielder.
Shoaib Malik catch - To complement the Karbonn kamaal catch where one fielder drops the catch but another fielder manages to hold on to the rebound.
Harbhajan Singh celebration - Wicket taking bowler shouting like Tarzan and running all round the ground like a headless chicken.
Andrew Symonds no ball - Well, because he has no baal (as in hair)...hehehehe.

Speaking of bald players, insiders tell me that Modi has already plans to tattoo up some more logos on the bald pates of Symonds, Sehwag, etc. There could even be a new rule in place by IPL4 for all players to turn up with shaven heads so that sponsor logos can be displayed on the heads.
Next is what? Imagine :)

Negotiations are on with the players to check how much money are they willing to pay to have their names chanted by commentators whenever these events happen.

Also, Rupa Vests and Briefs has tied up with IPL to sponsor the toilet break for the players. So now, whenever a fielder or bowler or even the umpire goes to take a leak, they would be going for the Rupa Vest and Briefs Toilet Break - Yeh Andar ki baat hai!

Funny joke

2009-06-01T22:35:00.001-07:00

Not my own, but this joke cracked me up :-D

PATIENT: "Doctor, I've got a strawberry stuck up my bum."
DOCTOR: "I've got some cream for that."

Hehehehehe

Mobiking to Mysore and around

2008-01-10T22:01:00.000-08:00

Long pending blog to be published. Procrastination rules! :(
The last weekend of November was good with a long pending bike trip done. A total of 550km in 2 days was great fun. My stressed back wouldn't share the same opinion, I guess :)

So late Friday night we decided to go to Mysore. We set out pretty early on the Saturday morning. There were three bikes - my brother on an Enticer, my cousin on a Unicorn and myself on a Pulsar. The other 2 were already long trip experts after doing a Bangalore-Mangalore trip few months back.

After topping the tank, we quickly reached Mysore Road and started roaring on the highway. The road were unusually empty, for it being a weekend, there are usually lots of holiday travelers going to all the scenic places between Bangalore and Mysore. We kept up speeds up to 90kmph easily on all the 3 bikes. Soon reached Ramnagaram and decided to check out the hillock and temple nearby. This was the location where the movie Sholay, arguably the best Indian movie, was shot. Climbing the stone steps up to the temple literally took my breath away. Been sometime since I did any sort of strenuous work, and this wasn't even that difficult. But the sedentary lifestyle does take its toll during such times. We went past the temple and there was an elevated place that gave a good panoramic view of the surroundings. The wind was pretty strong up there. A specialty of this hill is that there are no crows around! Think about that. Do crows have vertigo?

After resting there for sometime, we headed out and stopped at Mandya for lunch. After a pretty ordinary lunch, we were on our way again. The stretch between Mandya and Mysore is really good with long straight roads with good visibility and all of us did 100+ with ease, though the engine started to purr in a complaining tone.
We deviated into the historical Srirangapatna that was once the capital of Tipu Sultan. We checked out the different monuments like the temple, obelisk, jail and the not-anymore palace.
From there, we decided to go to Ranganthittu to pass time before going to KRS/Brindavan Gardens for the evening musical fountain show.
Ranganthittu was a disappointment as we did not get to see any variety in birds. The only thing interesting were the crocodiles lolling around after having their rich feast of different fishes of the Cauvery river. They are so full of fish food that they find it difficult to even move around. One of them gave us a good pose with its mouth wide open baring it's razor sharp dental set.
We had some refreshments nearby and then headed off to KRS. The Brindavan Gardens built next to the KRS dam is a pretty amazing place with different kinds of fountains competing for eye space from the viewers.

The musical fountain show attracts hordes of people and the place resembles any rush day at Tirupati. Huge crowds throng to view the albeit short 15minute spectacle of the fountain dancing to nationalistic and regional songs. The different colors the fountain takes on is a treat to watch though.

Then we headed to Mysore, visited one of the pubs in town, Opium, which had pretty good popular rock numbers playing.
We hit the sack in a cousin's place and prepared to the next day's journey to Himvad Gopalaswamy Betta (Hills). We started off at 9AM. The road between Mysore and Nanjangud was pretty treacherous with potholes and private buses competing with each other to be first. Though, all of us safely negotiated the mad traffic. Once past Nanjangud, the roads became better and emptier and we were again free to talk to the wind at 90-100kmph.
Finally reached the hilltop at 1130AM which was a wrong time as the usually enchanting mist (hence the name Himvad) had lifted off and the top was bare in the afternoon sun. But still, there was a chill there and you can actually touch the mist inside the sanctum sanctorum of the Gopalaswamy temple. The priest actually wipes off the mist off the ceiling and sprinkles over you.
We then took a short hike onto one the hills nearby and just lazed there till we were bored and hungry. Finally, around 2, we were back on our way to Mysore.

Rested a lot more at my cousin's place and then finally were on our way back to Bangalore by 830pm. The weather was pretty chill and 2 shirts and a jacket with a cap along with a helmet couldn't stop me from shivering in the chilling winds. My attire could have given a complex to an Eskimo.
After some snacks at Maddur, somehow me and the other 2 bikes got separated and I was left to myself (and couldn't reach my bro on the phone as well). So I just took off and rode at 100+ speeds. A bit dangerous, people might say, but it wasn't really that bad. Except for the oddball driver who would drive crazily, most of the other drivers on the road were pretty cool and could be trusted not to make any surprise moves with their vehicles.
I was in Kengeri by 11 which was pretty good time, 2hours of riding between Mysore and Kengeri. Reached home and just crashed on my bed in the warm comforts of my thick blanket.

Here is a summary for any of you interested in planning any trip to Mysore for 2 days.
Saturday: Bangalore - Ramnagara Sholay hills (if interested) - breakfast at Kamat Lokaruchi - Visit Janapada Loka - Stop at Maddur Coffee Day (just for the experience) - Lunch at any place between Maddur and Srirangapatna - Visit Sriragapatna - Visit Ranganthittu - Musical fountain show at KRS Bridavan gardens at 630pm - Overnight stop at Mysore - Hit the hangouts in Mysore
Sunday: Off to Gopalaswamy Betta (better leave by 6 to reach there by 9 to see the early morning splendor) - Back to Mysore - Chill out - Visit the Mysore palace - Stay for palace lighting between 7-8pm on Sunday - Back to Bangalore - Pit stop at Maddur Coffee Day again!

PJ time...?

2007-12-21T00:58:00.000-08:00

When was the last time I posted a PJ. I myself don't remember :)

Tom and Jim were good friends. One day, while Tom was visiting Jim's house, they decide to cut vegetables for lunch. While doing so, Tom cuts his finger and blood starts falling on the new rug Jim had put in his living room.

As soon as this happened, Tom and Jim looked at each other and realized they were long lost brothers and hug each other in happiness.

How did they figure out they are brothers?

Kyunki Jim ge RUG mein Tom ka khoon bah raha hai!

Ironic...

2007-12-10T05:44:00.000-08:00

Was an ironical incident last weekend.
I was on my way to participate in a Walk for the Disabled at the Kanteerava stadium and ended up being temporarily disabled after meeting with a minor accident.
A few kms down and suddenly found myself flat on the road after being thrown off from the bike. There was some mud and stones collected in a pit-like thing on the road, and the tyres just skidded off.
Got some injuries on my knee, wrist, chest and cheek. But for the helmet, my face would have been smashed as my head had a pretty hard impact onto the ground, which left me momentarily stunned. No broken bones or ribs, luckily.
So, here's hoping to get to full fitness soon and start jumping around again!

Passive-aggressive notes - COOL with a capital K :)

2007-11-02T06:06:00.000-07:00

This is fun. I am hooked onto it now :)

Passive-aggressive notes from roommates, neighbors, coworkers and strangers
http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/

Back in Bengaluru!

2007-10-26T03:24:00.000-07:00

Phew. Am back in Bangalore. Feels good to be back.
I had started to miss the typical Bengaluru stuff. Like gaadi chaat :-D
I used to love eating chaat at the roadside pushcart vendors. The pani-puris and masala puris. Yumm. Mouth-watering. I need to get my fix of chaat soon.
Also was missing the anarchy on the roads. Took out my car to office and bam, there is no escaping the helter skelter flow of vehicles. It just hits you square. No let up. Though, I felt it wasn't too bad from the time I left. Only thing is that number of vehicles has increased. And with it, so has the number of bad drivers (who should not be allowed to operate a Hot Wheels car, let alone a full blown Tata Indica!)
The travel back was pretty uneventful except for a few stray pain points. Had to pay a fine for excess baggage. Can't believe chocolates can weigh that much! But didn;t want to dump any stuff back there so just paid the $50 fine and got on with it.
Took the Delta+Air France flight from Memphis-Atlanta-Paris-Bangalore. I had read too much about the irritations in Paris airport but was lucky to not encounter any problems. I had anyways learnt a little French to help me cope - "Parlez vous Anglais? Si. Merci." :-D Reminds me of the "Kannada gothilla" line alien people soon learn out here in Bangalore.
The funny thing was the Delta flight between Atlanta and Paris had a good collection of Hindi movies. I wondered if there was a sizeable desi population that traveled on that route. The movies included Partner, Shootout at..., Life in a Metro. I watched Life... on that leg along with Shrek3 and Knocked Up.
Life in a Metro is a definite recommendation. Very nice character definitions and portrayal by all the actors, except Shilpa Shetty. She just shrieked her way through the movie. Which was all the more irritating that she was given huge poster space on the movie sleeve cover.
Shiney Ahuja, Konkona, Irrfan(who was the best, according to me). Kangna Ranaut was good in patches. She was good as long as she didn't have to speak a lot. Her voice just grates on my nerves.Something like scratching a nail on a blackboard. Awfully irritating.
Food on the plane was good as was the wine and champagne. On the Paris-Bangalore leg, I got the aisle seat on the 4-seater central line, and the 2 seats next to me were empty. So had a nice stretchy time. Slept most of the flight. Post landing at Bangalore was another crazy time. 3 international flights landed at the same time and there was a line at the security check that was as long as the queue for a FDFS of an SRK movie! There was just one security screening counter and the line almost reached past the immigration check counter. And then the baggage. It was a mad rush with people pushing trolleys all over the place searching for the baggage.
My baggage took more than an hour to find it's way onto the baggage carousel. Finally wound my way out of all the commotion and came out of the airport to find my parents waiting patiently near the gate.
Finally dumped all the stuff in the car and was back on the potholes, humps and pits that were waiting for me with arms wide open. Some things never change :)

Fun weekends on the East Coast

2007-10-11T01:42:00.000-07:00

The last 2 weekends have been pretty eventful and fun. Had been visiting the East Coast - Boston and New York, where I have quite a few good old friends stationed.
First weekend was spent loafing in New York and the second weekend spent admiring the fall colors in New Hampshire up north of Massachusetts.
Will be a detailed update later. For now, check out the pics from the New Hampshire trip:

My Flickr page

and here:

Adios.

Skydiving - Fly like a bird!

2007-08-27T23:08:00.000-07:00

Well, finally I did it. Fulfilled a long-standing dream that I had. When I first used to think about it, I used to wonder if I would ever be able to do it. Lots of questions swirled through my mind. Would I be able to take the plunge? Would it be like others have recounted? Adrenalin rush in the beginning, calmness in between, and then back on terra firma with all it's usual stark realities and finally ends with a pain in your neck, b*tt or whichever organ you highly prefer?
Sounds like how many people describe marriage..or love.

Hahahaha, I found that funny!

What I really did was an equally, if not more, crazy nutcase thing.
I SKYDIVED!!
skydived? Now, is that a word? Isn't it skydove? That sounds more like some low-cost airline! Kingfisher, Indigo, Skydove...fits perfect, what say?
Who cares. I just got sucked into 14500 feet of blood-pumping gravity. And wasn't it amazing. No, incredible. No, awesome. Well, I can't find a word to describe it (though if you ask my mom and dad, they would easily describe it a "perfectly idiotic suicide attempt"). No prizes for guessing if I asked their permission before taking the plunge! :D

It all started off with me checking out random skydiving videos on youtube. And on an impulse, started checking on skydiving near Memphis. Generally, Memphis has very little to offer to a person like me. So wanted to try something different. Found a place called West Tennessee Skydiving, rated one of the best in the country run by a person called Mike Mullins. I threw the idea across the table to my two colleagues who also showed as much enthusiasm as me (and one of them was even married, which I found all the more amazing!).
We called up the drop zone and fixed up Sunday morning for the daredevilry. So on the bright and sunny Sunday morning we set off to test how far our hearts would jump up the windpipe and reach the mouth. Incidentally, on the way, we passed the biggest Indian temple in Memphis. So we stopped there and prayed to the God of Skydiving, Hanuman, for his blessings and continued to Somerville to the drop zone.


Free...free falling!	That says it all!

(click on the thumbnails for bigger images)
We reached at almost noon. The sun was blazing hot but we knew that the weather up above the clouds would be much colder than that. So we met up with Mike who led us to a room with a small TV and handed us legal forms that we needed to fill. The video was basically an explanation of the risks involved with skydiving and ensuring that we understood the risks before deciding on it. The video had a very uncanny resemblance to the Dharma Initiative videos (LOST series fans will know what I'm talking about :-D) with a long-bearded lawyer giving a discourse.


Terminal Velocity! Gonna be my speed :)	The legal video :O

The forms basically stated that I am solely responsible for this suicidal mission and no one but me is responsible if anything untoward happens. I guess signing the forms itself psyches out most people. There are like some 25 places we need to put our initials stating agreement to various clauses. And a place for emergency contact in case of accident! So finally, after wading through the signatures, we paid the fees (heh heh, reminds me of the one liner - Free fall is no way near free! It costs the sky!)
I opted for the video and still snaps shooting which I later was glad I took. I was the only one shot with a Digital Rebel XTi, while other had to do with still cameras :D
Yeah yeah, I know, I was geeky enough to notice the camera model through all the excitement and nervousness.
My jump instructor was Mark Gerlach, an affable, chilled out Aussie. So he was the one whom I was entrusting my life with for the next half hour. He, as expected, tried to make light of it and keep us in good cheer. And succeeded at it with me as well. I immediately felt completely safe hading over my safety into his hands.
He ran us through the arch mechanism, stepping of the plane process. It was a general fun atmosphere in the hangar where all the jump instructors were hanging out joking and ribbing each other.


Sajnaaaa hai mujheyyy..udne ke liye :))	Goin' up, baby!

We were given out jumpsuits which, at first, looked like factory overalls (the blue reminded me of our Ramaiah workshop uniform :-D), but once the harness equipment was provided, we looked like characters straight out of Top Gun, minus the helmets! Was a good feeling.
Joe was my camera buddy who was going to film and snap me throughout my jump and we took some customary interviews prior to the flight. Both Mark and Joe immediately put me at ease with the whole jump thing. Strangely, as expected, I didn't feel any nervousness once I was all decked up.

So we all filed into the small Cessna plane piloted by Mike himself. As we took off and the foliage on dear earth became tinier and tinier, I wondered my usual wonder "WTH am I setting out to do?". But the constant chatter from Mark kept me in sane spirits still.


No Fear!?!	14500 feet, and we're there!

At 14500 feet, about 3miles up from the ground (just realised 14500 feet is 4419 metres! half the height of Mount Everest! whoooo!), we were way above fluffy clouds which were laid out below us like huge cotton puffs inviting to lay comfortably on it. But the mood was anything but comfort inside of the plane. The plane suddenly jolted and stood still, and we were almost floating inside of the plane. First, few solo jumpers took off. From our group, the order was Arun, Deepak and finally, myself.
Finally, it was my turn. When I stepped on the ledge, looking down to the green earth far, far below, my WTH turned into a full WTF. If someone connected a turbine to my heart at that moment, it would have been enough to provide electricity for Bangalore for a day. But there was no going back now. I gave a huge whoop of joy posing to the camera and set off. The first few seconds.....INCREDIBLE. Any trace of fear or nervousness just vanished. It was just pure rush at terminal velocity!


Here we go, NOW! Suuiiciide!	The first few seconds. Time stops still!

We just kept hurtling down, all submitted to sucky gravity. We kept going and going, the best being going right through the clouds. No feeling of comfort pillows anymore. The misty coldness of the clouds felt so damn fresh! The freshest air I could breathe. It was pure adrenalin! The wind was making my cheek jowls flail around and I was having a hard time trying to put up a grin for Joe who was right in front of me with the cameras.
And was I loving it!! I was a bird! Now I know why birds sing. Cause, they can fly! And right now, I was flying too. As someone said, if sitting in an airplane is flying, then sitting in a boat is swimming!! One has to sky dive to know what flying means.


Across the clouds I see my shadow fly...	Inside Cloud Number 9 :D

After a minute of exhilarating free fall, Mark yanked the ripcord and we were violently jerked up when the parachute opened up. Mark very sweetly whispered into my ear (Actually he was shouting full throttle, but at 15mph winds 2 miles up in the sky, everything sounds like sweet nothings) that the parachute thankfully looked good and let me control the parachute all round the place. We floated for quite some time taking in the beautiful scenery from a bird's eye view. He told me I was his 4999th jump. That's a pretty cool number.


I believe I can fly!	60 seconds of free fall and 2 thumbs up!

Then it was time to land. Mark made an almost perfect landing. And finally back on terra firma. But the adrenalin rush was still intact.

Now this seems something which I would really love to do again, maybe go solo sometime and check out the feeling! Wonder when that's gonna happen. I cross my fingers for that.

For those around Tennessee, check out skydivekingair.com. They were great, cordial, friendly people willing to answer any question you may have and keep you at ease.

And finally, here's the video of the jump. Can rival any action movie for all the thrills! :D

"Gravity isn't just a good idea. It's the LAW!"
"Football, baseball..most sports require one ball to play. Skydiving needs both!"
-- seen on a cotton tshirt, West Tennessee skydiving, circa 2007

Drive me crazy

2007-07-26T23:39:00.000-07:00

Well, a favorite topic of anyone who has traveled westwards from India is the traffic and ease of driving.
I have my own take on that. I actually like driving in India more. Driving in the US is monotonous, almost soporific. Follow lanes, no sudden stops, no maniacal turnings. Boring. Like the assemblies we used to have back at school. Everyone stand in line and follow each other. Curbs our independence.
Driving back home is an altogether different thing. Its excitement every kilometer, you need to be alert guessing if the old man would walk across your path right when you are too close. Keeps the reflexes well oiled.No way can you switch on the music and have a relaxing drive. Except maybe at 2 in the night. But not anymore in Bangalore. The call center cab drivers make sure you relax only after the car's safely parked in the garage (well, whoever can afford having a garage, else it's just the public road with all the alarms on high alert).
Drivers in America drive like the American do (always on the right). While back home, half the drivers drive like Indians should, on the left and the other half drive the American way, on the right.
You miss a turn in India, just turn around on the same side and merrily merge into the oncoming traffic to find your way back. And if your bike or car is upto it, just drive it right over the divider and across. Other drivers will generally understand. You must be in a hurry to get somewhere. Though some drivers might think you are really in a hurry to meet Him up there.

And you really get a good brushing up of your vocabulary on the road. Either directed at you or you directing at someone. While in America, everyone gets along with a wave of the finger.
It is like an nationally approved signal. Can imagine air hostesses showing the finger while welcoming you into the country. Can imagine AirIndia's Maharaja proudly showing off the finger instead of the famous bow. Hehehe.

A pedestrian crossing a busy street in Bangalore is really testing in the ancient scriptures of the belief in karma. Every time I have to cross a road, I say to myself "God, if I have been good through my life, let me reach the other side safely".

Why did the chicken cross the road in Bangalore?
It didn't. It just chickened out.

I have had quite a few incidents on the road myself. Once, I ran across after my friend and got hit by a bike. Nothing much except bruised elbow and knee skin. Another time, I jumped off a bus and chipped off my front tooth. Stupid driver didn't stop at the busstop.
Every time I look in the mirror, it's a grim reminder of what could have happened. I was lying face down on the road, arms flayed. Any vehicle coming behind the bus, and they would have had to scrape me off with a spatula off the road. Heh heh. shouldn't make fun. that could have been much more serious :(

Here's a nice time lapse video of the traffic in India. Funny to watch all the chaos. But what the heck, I revel in it. trying to sleep now. Maybe I should go for a drive. That should do the trick.

Another funny sign I came across...

2007-06-24T22:06:00.000-07:00

Was strolling in downtown Memphis, and found this on Beale Street. Nice sense of humor, the artist has :)
I should have got my portrait just for the humor put in by the artist, but then I knew I wasn't up for the discount!

Watched 2 good Bollywood movies over the weekend - Pyar ke Side effects and Khosla ka Ghosla.
PKSE was a fun movie - Rahul Bose in a role tailor made for him (he seems to be getting slotted, though), Mallika showing enough character (and enough of the character, if I may add! :D) in a very unlike-her role and Ranvir in a typical over-the-top performance. The dialogue on superheroes and marriage was a ROTFL-er!
KkG was another well made movie - on the land sharks and grabbing, which anyone in an Indian metro would be aware of.
Ranvir was the common link in both movies - I always enjoyed watching his antics right from his MTV days with Vinay, and more recently, the GretIndianComedyShow. His mimicking of Amitabh is especially howlarious on the show!

Also watched Cheeni Kum last week. A sweet movie. The dialogues are really great throughout. I heard they are making a 3-part series for this?
Cheeni Kum, Cheeni See, Cheeni Conquer!

And the Chinese are flocking to see it - the title welcomes them!
Hehe, I can think of much more poor jokes - but then, they would need to carry a censor rating :D

P.S: My Yosemite update still is to happen, but then a grand place deserves a grand scale. Any description of that place would run into pages. Needs some time :)
So keep waiting (if you are!).

Yo San Francisco!

2007-06-05T17:13:00.000-07:00

The long weekend for Memorial Day was a welcome one with a well-deserved vacation. This was the first weekend that I was traveling out of Memphis after coming to the United States.
After much deliberation, we had zero-ed in on San Francisco with a 2 day visit to the Yosemite National Park, the oldest national park in the United States. Sups and Mitesh agreed to be our gracious hosts :-)
After initial hiccups, with everyone having last minute speed breakers, we met up on the morning of Friday. It was good meeting Vikas after a long time. But unfortunately, my baggage got delayed which led to a day of inconveniences (am still fighting with the airlines for that). Had to get new sets of clothes, chargers, etc. But then, the charm of SJ and SFO went a long way in lessening the pain of the delayed baggage.
After a sumptuous breakfast of dosas and biryani, thanks to the ladies cooking (a special mention for the yummy Harissa, thanks Sups), Mitesh took me shopping for emergency clothes. Finally, by afternoon, we were freshened up and ready to hit the town. First stop was the Indian cafe, Amber, where we had some tasty kaati rolls and veg frankies, which satisfied out palate with great Indian taste. Next was the visit to the world-famous Golden Gate bridge. We first stopped at a Sunset Point outside Mountain View and then drove through the Pacific Highway Coast on the way. We stopped at one of the ocean shores to take in the might of the Pacific. We reached Vista point to see the bridge shrouded in a thick fog. It was impressive, nevertheless. We decided to return when the lights were switched on at the bridge. We visited Sausulito, a sleepy town with a good view of the Alcatraz - The Rock, the famous prison from where there is no escape. It was tough to get a clear view of it in the encompassing clouds.

You can see the outline of Alcatraz just to the left of the boat, way back blurred in the fog.
After having some hot coffee at a quaint little cafe, we shopped for souvenirs. I picked up some fridge magnets and an Alcatraz t shirt.
By then it was past dusk and we drove up to a higher point to get a view of the bridge from top. It was so windy out there that the cameras left alone, could have flown off. And mind you, the S1 IS with 4 batteries, is no ballet dancer! But the views were amazing. A fully lit Golden Gate really lives up to its name. Covered in swathes of golden light and the ensuing fog added to the magic effect. Thought not too good for photography. But who cares. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, not some Carl-Zeiss lens :-D

It was time for dinner and Mitesh had arbitrarily picked a Greek restaurant, Mezes in SFO. And what a good choice it was. To say that the food was great, would be a gross understatement. Each and every dish we ordered was something special. And the wine did help in adding its bit of taste. I surely recommend it to anyone who's in that part of the town to try it out. You wouldn't be disappointed.
After dinner, we drove down the Lombard Street, the crookedest street in the world. I had seen videos of this street earlier, and the experience was just as good.
Finally, reached and and everyone crashed expecting the early start to Yosemite the next morning. I stayed up still trying to locate my baggage from a pretty customer-unfriendly service at Aloha Airlines. They didn't have the courtesy of calling me with updates all through the day. I had to keep calling them to check for updates. Finally, slept thinking the baggage was a goner for ever.
Woke up pretty early next morning and got the news that my baggage was found. Had to make a change in the travel plan to drive to the airport to pick up the baggage. Had breakfast at the highly recommended iHop, which we found on the way. It was true to the recommendation. The omelettes and pancakes were really some tasty stuff. Finally, we were on our way, stomachs filled with food and hearts filled with anticipation :)

Wait for PartII for the Yosemite update!

Until then, check out the pics at www.flickr.com/photos/prashanth_ak

Also, this kept us in splits -> http://www.makkadman.com
Especially the background score! Man, was it awesome!! Complete ROTFL material!!

Insane Ramblings...

2007-05-21T22:30:00.000-07:00

Just came across this piece of poetry that circulated among our Jundk group (people in the slideshow up above at the top of the page) with each one contributing. Just started off as a harmless reply to fun mail...and boy, did it snowball into a poetic free-for-all! We rock! 'Twas fun! And I thought I should post it here. Vikas even put it up on the NDTV poetry site :D

Insane Ramblings
- Jundk

Unknown:
In the confines of cubicles by artificial light,
Sipping coffee from the machines day and night.
Speaking on phones , in meetings we sit.
Staring the monitor, the keyboard(s) we hit.
Far away from loved ones whom for days we do not meet.
Remembering them, working, on our seat.
This is life for us,
Working away from homes and loved ones in places afar.
What a life, techies we are.

Prashanth, Software Engineer echoes his heart:
What you say is true, my friend
Sitting on the revolving chair, the misery never seems to end
But there are the plus points too, you bet
Which include free phone, email and Internet
But when the month reaches its last day
And the bank accounts are credited with your pay
One's joy knows no bound
Because ultimately, its money that makes the world go round.

A Friend, Vidya asks
Did you just write that??

Prashanth replies:
Yes, I did write that now
But even I wonder how
Coz with so much work to do
The insides of my head feels like a zoo
To tell you, for writing things like this
For a brief while, I can afford to give the work a miss

Suprada an MS Student from Arizona State Univ adds:
And there are us student too
With deadlines to meet and profs to greet
Day or nite means nothing to us
Slog all the time..Thats our curse

We speak to the comp, our best pal
And Everybody thinks we're slightly off
All we want are no deadlines
And then its Partytime!

A frustrated sleep deprived Vybhav,
Onsite support bemoans;
And then there are blokes like me,
That wake up in the hours of wee.....

Just to receive some stupid phone call.....
Only wishing it was some cool gal

But there alas, goes the system crash .....
Here it is, the same old trash .......

There are phone calls from everywhere , left , right and centre ...
Away then from your TL , you want to canter ...

Sorry life it is of a software engineer
Away from everything you want to meander.

Suprada continues in a blaze:
For some its day, for the others, nite
But similar is our plight
This misery we share...
Of the comp and its stupid software
Ah how nice it would be, to sit and chill
As once we all did!
Gone are those days...
All's left is my mind in a daze!

Vikas Pitches in shyly:
Are you guys good or what !!
Thought would try my hand too, in that
Be it Student Be it Engineer
All of us have the same veneer
Of taking on the world and making a Difference
Of deciphering this thing called Life and making some sense
To write such stuff and give ur work a miss is no crime
Hey, know what? I can also rhyme :)

Another Novice Sathwick says "NOW EAT THIS":
And then there are other folk,
Who sit all day looking ard for work,
And when it comes there is hardly any,
Surf and chat, happily,
Plan for the weekend,
And thus week ends
By painting the town RED... !!

The Grateful Prash:
Thanks for collating the poems Charlie
Tis really wonderful to see
All you people writing ode upon better ode
Which is really better than looking at ____ing software code
And for all you students
There is no reason to get tense
Coz JundK is always there
In times of joy, to share
And in times of strife, to care
That is what makes each one of you, a friend rare!

Vidya says ruefully:
Well, well, well,
All this hullabaloo rings a bell
I was a Software Engineer
Only to move from the pan to the fire!
I fear
Now that I'm here
I'm no longer free,
The best of my life is now behind me
:-(

And Rashmi has a valid Point:
I feel sorry for all u'r plights
Being a S/W engineer's wife is my plight

S/W Engineer's work is never ending
And their wives frustrations beginning.

Only the four walls of my house is my sight
Which is making me lose my insight
Atleast You guys get a better bait.
Hope to see a "coming home early" side of my mate..

Cool Firefox extensions

2007-05-14T14:21:00.000-07:00

Cool Firefox Extensions:

For all those who are Firefox fans, here are some cool, funky extensions.
There are guaranteed to make heads turn towards your monitor (even if you are not having a page with Pamela Anderson photos all over it!)
Beware, these may not be the best in terms of memory utilization and all the geeky stuff. So if you are one who cringes at the task manager turning Matrix-like green, then this might not be your cup of tea. But they are kinda fun to have.

Tab Effect -
One of my favorites. But a resource hog. It makes a cool 3D transition when changing tabs. Its like a whole cube moving around to the next tab. It does take a second to do it, considerably slower than the normal tab shifting. But its fun.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4258

Firesomething -
A timepass funny add-on. It has a cache of different names and changes your browser name (on the top left of the browser screen) from Firefox to random names - I have had names ranging from ThunderElephant to SuperPorcupine to FireUnicorn..it guarantees you some humor whenever you notice the names. But you might need to do some fix for it to work on Firefox 2.0
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/31

Dictionary Tooltip -
A pretty useful add-on. When on a webpage, double click on any word and see its meaning in the accompanying slide-out window. No more opening dictionary.com and keying in a word to find out its meaning. Gives you dictionary, thesaurus, synonyms and antonyms as well!
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1171

Galleropa -
Again an useful tool rather than a cosmetic one. You can load your frequently used webpage links into galleries and use it as the default page when Firefox loads up. If there are a host of sites you log into each morning regularly, save them in the gallery and make it your Firefox default. So you have easy access to the links to each of this pages. And get to it without much navigation.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3374

VideoDownloader -
Use this download any video file from youtube, google videos, metacafe, etc. This saves the file as a flv file which then needs an FLV player to playback the clips.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2390

Other cool tools

ATNotes -
A very, simple Post-It notes software. You can configure colors, sizes, etc. You can even send each note to a different computer connected on the network.
Looks like I am not able to find the link to it. Google and find out yourselves.

Process Explorer -
Its an advanced version og your Windows task manager with lot more advanced features. One use I used to put it to is to find where the downloaded youtube/metacafe files are being stored by IE. And fine details of unknown processes that somehow appear.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Security/ProcessExplorer.mspx

BGInfo -
It gives information about you hostname, MAC Id, ip address, free space, memory used and available and can be displayed on the desktop. It gives an easy snapshot of the system at any given time (not real time though. You need to update/restart it every time you need to exact current information). But good, all the same.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/BgInfo.mspx

Funny signs...

2007-04-28T22:54:00.000-07:00

Signs (the road-signs kind, not the spooky Manoj-Night-Shyamalan kinds), slogans (like the ones on tshirts. There was a phase where I only bought tshirts with slogans printed on them) have long piqued my curiosity. And there is never a dearth of signs that are amusing - either due to spelling mistakes or the thoughts they express. So I try to capture the funny ones and have had a collection from quite some time. Here are a few that I really found funny.

This was on the road right next to the state secretariat. Talks true about much of the development happening here. Never "In Progress". Always "Under Progress". They might never reach par or over progress :)

At the Pune zoo. Molest? Tantalise animals? I can imagine Rakhi Sawant doing an item number in front of them to tantalise them! Or an eve teaser behind the female chimp! And what about the poor badger. Please don't badger the badger!

At a bird sancutary outside Pune. Complete family harmony at a jinks joint? And I didnt get the camel in the pic.

At a roadside intersection at Pune. Passed out? That must have been lot of casualties! Well, that shows the quality of teaching.

At Mahabalipuram. Teach "male-to-male and female-to-female"? I'm getting doubts about this. And 20-year experians. Are they different from Aquarians or Saggitarians?

At Mahabalipuram. B****, m****, Sutta na milaaa? No way! Check this out, dude.

At Pondicherry. I just loved this clay Maaama and Maami at a shop!

At Pondicherry. Never seen such a thing earlier. Would you be comfortable in it? What if it goes over a hump? Hmm...never mind! (But nonetheless, a great way to keep the city clean)

At Pondicherry again. Some menu, this. And Chutnet? Misspelling it once it fine, but twice over?

At Pondicherry. Nothing funny about this. Just was impressed by the idea of communal integration coming through simple calendar placements.

Back of a car somewhere in Bangalore. Literal translation from Kannada reads
"You only come.
Who?
Not you.
He...?"
If anyone could decipher this code, leave it as a comment!

On the Bangalore-Mysore highway. Big Banian tree! What about Big Underwear tree? :)) (Brought to you by Rupa Underwear and Banian! Thanks Rupa)

At Nandi Hills. It's a warning, Amrutha and Sarovara. Both of you don't get into them. But into what?

At Nandi Hills again. This sign is at the edge of the cliff. Getitng there needs Hanuman-ish caliber. Looks like the painter didn't heed to his own sign!

This was at Hampi from a moving auto. The line in red at the bottom read 'South Africa'. Was the sign really exported from SA? Or maybe a promotion of free parking in SA? Can't park in India? Please visit SA and park your vehicles for free there!

In a bus in Goa. Sealing? Maybe 29 can be cramped and sealed into one!

At a tourist spot outside Bangalore. Do they mean the art gallery is inside the...?

Night Rider...

2007-04-25T10:18:00.001-07:00

An attempt at being funny, that I had tried a long time ago...found it in my archives. Thought will put it up here. WTH, anything in the name of creativity. That's what blogs are there for, right :-D

The stars were shining, the moon was bright
And I didn't sleep a wink last night

Neither she slept, neither let me sleep
Slowly and softly, up on me she would creep

Hiding in the shadows, she harassed me
How she was, I could not see

After a long time, I caught her sight
And finally clasped her tight

I can never forget the time we had
Thinking of it makes me go mad

Who it was, I am sure you would want to know
What can I say? She was a female Anopheles mosquito!

In top Gere

2007-04-18T13:57:00.000-07:00

Well, Shilpa Shetty is in the news again. And the title matches perfectly for her. She has made it a habit now to be in the news. Quite a newsmaker now - step aside, Amar Singh, who must be busy making arrangements for the other Mangalore gal. Abhi toh woh Aish kar rahi hai, Rai-ght?
Coming back to Shilpa, this seems such a no-brainer. From what I have heard and pics I have seen, it seemed a harmless kiss on the cheek. Much less controversial than the stuff she or any of the other actresses do on-screen, from time immemorial. Remember the Aamir-Karisma canoodle in Raja Hindustani. Or Madhuri-Vinod Khanna in Dayavan. Or more recently, one which I was wide-eyed, Madhavan and Vidya Balan in Guru (I gave all the info for any of my voyueristic readers who will go rushing back to youtube or the friendly neighborhood CD guy. But come to think of it, I doubt if I have any readers, let alone voyueristic ones ;-D)
Now there are people demanding apologies from both the parties. Maybe Richard can apologize by saying - hum to appke apne hain, koi Gere nahin! Maine koi Gere-oni harkat nahi kiya...
And hope he doesn't get arrested for Gere-kanooni acts of pecking our actresses who epitomise the sabhya nari image. Well, that is the bastion of the one-and-only Emraan Hashmi. And Mika :))

What did Mika sing after kissing Rakhi?
Sawan-t mein lag gayi aag, dil meraa.......
(Surprising I never heard or came up with this earlier!!)

As I read someplace else, most of the protest must be by people who are just envious that they couldn't get the chance which Gere did with so much ease. He showed us hum kiss-ise kam nahi.

Sidetracking, the cricket World Cup seems to have lost its charm. The Ozzies look like the only true team and we do not have the two short-fused teams - India and Pak - to provide the uncertainites and twists. So long to that.

The Formula One season also seems to be pretty interesting this year. What with Kimi in a Ferrari. At last, he gets a stable set of wheels under him. Until now, he must have been the unluckiest guy around.
But somehow, the Ferrari colors don't suit him. He looked the Iceman part in the silver flannels of McLaren. The red just doesn't jell with his outlook. Red is more flashy and suited Schumi best. More for the jumpy-jumpy types. Not the brooding, Kimi types!

Want to be a millionaire?

2007-04-12T21:34:00.000-07:00

How many of you have received email notifications informing you that you have won obscene amounts of money through some online lottery business promotion?
Or that there is a vast sum lying in an unattended account in some remote unknown city in Africa -ever heard of Ougandongou something?- where the account owner was killed in a plane crash or a dictator who fled during some coup. I have got mails from people ranging from Nigeria to SAfrica to Congo.
Other common ones are UK National lottery and Microsoft lottery. The funniest thing is is the Microsoft winning notification is always sent to my GMail account. Could it BE anymore
If I claimed all the amount that was promised in each mail I have received till now, by now I would have had more money than the GDP of any G-8 nation. Heh heh.
Coming back to the topic, the accounts which receive these sort of the mails are the ones that are exposed on the Internet. And its almost a daily phenomenon.
Wonder how many people really fall for these scams. I should sometime reply to one of them and see where it goes. Maybe one of them is really true!

Went to a basketball game at the FedEx Forum couple of weeks back. It was an awesome experience. It was a match between the home team, the Memphis Grizzlies and the Chicago Bulls. The Grizzlies won by a solitary point in the last 4 seconds, so that was really a great match to watch. And we had court side seats where we got a good view of the proceedings. The mid-game entertainment events were fun as well - the cheerleaders, the band and the very flexible acrobats. It was St Patrick's Day as well. And I got a first hand experience of the celebrations at the Irish pub in downtown Memphis. IT is basically an Irish festival where people wear green and drink their hearts out - in true Irish tradition. Saw it all - beer guzzling, boisterous, crowd with a fair mix of the fairer sex :) It was originally a religious festival which has become a community celebration over time and American influence. I went with my colleagues - one of them an American of German-British descent who gave me quite an insight about the festival. You can find the photos on my Webshots page.

Lucifer finally convinced me to overcome my procrastination and set up my Flickr account for putting up snaps online. Thank you! It is a very interesting thing. Improves perspective, for me. Check it out from the link in the sidebar.

Onsite diary..initial days!

2007-04-02T22:42:00.000-07:00

After the welcome surprise of the first class seat in BA, I finally landed in Memphis on 19th Feb.
I did not have any trace of jet lag though (I know all you jealous buggers would say it was due to the first class seat. But then, I pride myself in my body adjusting to different clocks easily)
Right now am nicely settled out here. The company had a brand new apartment ready for occupation. And completely furnished to go with it. With cable and DVD as well.
First thing in the US, get a car. At least in Memphis. Public transport is as common as an empty road at 9 AM in Bengaluru. That should give you an idea. Cabs have to be always dialed for and buses are like 2 in a day. The roads are practically deserted during non-peak hours. Though, a reason for this might be the distance from Memphis downtown. But I like the area. Quaint houses giving an impression of a old-time township. My apartment has a gym, tennis court and swimming pool as well, to boot. Planning on being regular to at least 2 of the 3 of them. The cold weather's not been to kind to make any plans until now. It also has a nice lake for a leisurely walk with your wife or girlfriend around. But then, I have to make to with walking hand in hand with my camera.

The variety in food is also amazing. I've tried almost every kind of cuisine - American (obviously, duh!), Japanese, Chinese, Italian, Mexican, Thai, Vietnamese, lots of Indian too. Of them, found Vietnamese pretty close to Indian food, at least in spiciness. But I liked Japanese among all, their sushi was really nice. And at another place, they cook the whole meal right in front of you at your table. The cook was a juggler with all is cutlery as well. Was entertaining to watch him cook. But once in a while wondered what if the butcher's knife he was juggling around just missed the mark and flew towards one of the patrons happily dining (that's so much Calvin-like thinking).
Heh heh. Would make a good headline in the papers the next day -

JUGGLER GOES FOR THE JUGULAR

Hahahaha. I found that pun damn funny.

Rented my first car as well. Since I am alone, didn't feel the need for a big car anyways. So went for a compact for now. It a cute little Chrysler PT Cruiser. I am sure some of you will hate the look and some will like it. At the beginning, I hated the look. Looks like a lovechild of the Ambassador and the Swift. But it kind of grows on you gradually. The interiors are really spacious with some really cool designs. Its inspired by the retro cars of the 60s or 70s. The door handles are the button press and pull type - you might remember them from the good ol' sturdy Ambassador cars back home. anyways, enjoying driving around here. didn't take too long to adjust to the left-hand driving out here. I guess, this is better for a left hander, somehow. Just perception, I guess.

Been watching a lot of movies as well. Watched 300 at a theater recently. Pretty nice - the comic book style of picturisation. But I felt there was too much blood and gore all around. And man, did Xerxes really look like that man-giant, bathed in gold ornaments?
Also watched Babel today. Brad Pitt if just amazing in this movie. A thoroughly restrained performance. Had just watched Fight Club a few days back. 2 entirely different characters. And he did justice to both.
Seems like too many movie reviews, heh heh. That's because of the sheer number of movies that I have watched in the last 3 weeks. Easily 2 movies a day on average.
More for another day.

See more snaps at http://travel.webshots.com/album/558394527zfTdMv?start=0

The Kiterunner...

2007-03-26T15:29:00.000-07:00

On the way to the US, all through my flight, I was engrossed in reading 'The Kiterunner' by Khalid Hosseini. It had been long since I had got down to reading any book, and this book was a welcome return to book reading. Picked it up in Pune on an impulse, during one of my umpteen rounds on FC Road during my 2 week stay in Pune.
What a rivetting book it was. Beautifully written, I could almost feel the angst coming through the literature.
The book is set in Afghanistan of the 70's-80's when the Taliban was just finding their foothold in the country's larger spectrum and come into power. It traces the life of 2 friends - Amir and Hassan - the loyalty, sacrifice, jealousy and redemption. And written so realistically - it cannot fail to make you feel for the protagonists. Though the ending was a bit Bollywood-esque. Still left me with a good feeling at the end of it.
I was so engrossed in the book that I couldn't keep it down even while in the queues for checking in and boarding the flights. A must-read, really.
And looks like its on its way into being made into a movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419887/). Guess it should be a good watch.
But then again, looking at past movie adaptations of acclaimed books, one can never be sure of how the movie will turn out to be.
But it would surely make a good Bollywood movie, for sure.

The best Rube Goldberg I've seen...

2007-03-16T17:14:00.000-07:00

Remember the Honda commercial everyone was raving about sometime back...see this as well!

Click Here for more great videos and pictures!

About Rube Goldberg:
Reuben Garret L. Goldberg (July 4, 1883 - December 7, 1970) was a cofounder and president of the American National Cartoonists Society. He is one of the most famous cartoonists in history, who earned lasting fame for his Rube Goldberg machines (exceedingly complex devices that perform simple tasks in very indirect and convoluted ways). (more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rube_Goldberg)

Visiting Uncle Sam's land...

2007-02-20T17:05:00.000-08:00

So here I am. Sitting in the erstwhile busiest airport in the world - O'Hare at Chicago - just landed from the busiest international airport, Heathrow at London and waiting for the American Airlines flight to take me to the busiest cargo airport, Memphis. Seems like I am stuck to being busy now..
Long wait and nothing to do, so thought will take out my laptop and write about the travel experience at least. After all, my first international travel. And until now, loving every moment of it!!
The route I took was interesting. Didn't get tickets from Bangalore to Chicago directly, so had to take detour to Delhi and then land here. Travelled by Kingfisher Airlines to Delhi. From there, took British Airways to London and a change of flight to Chicago. It would have been technically cool if I had travelled by Indian (Indian Airlines' new avatar) between Bangalore-Delhi. That would have made my travel like this - Indian (Airlines) in India, British (Airways) in London and American (Airlines) in Chicago :-D Cool, eh?
Oh, but haven't told the best part yet - the travel between Delhi and London on a British Airways 747 Boeing! My flight ticket was upgraded from the normal World Traveller to the Club World business class ticket - and I got like these awesomely comfortable cabin to sit in (Explore the Club World cabin) - there were only about 20-30 seats in the cabin with each seat separate from each other facing each other and separated by a divider. Got the best of the wine and dine available on British Airways and a beautiful view. And some really beautiful girls as well. Too bad that I didn't pack the camera batteries in my cabin baggage. The views - especially the snow capped mountains on the Pakistan-Afghan border were a sight to watch. I am now a fan of British Airways for the preferential treatment they offered me.
Actually, when they announced my name over the PA system at Delhi, I was apprehensive for sometime wondering why might they be calling out my name. Different questions started forming in my head - excess baggage? taking illegal substances or something? I approached the helpdesk with trepidation and asked them about it - they just said that they are gonna change my seat numbers. They didn't even gimme a clue that it might an upgrade. Was a pleasant surprise when I finally got to my seat :-)
Rest of the flights were normal. Tried to get enough sleep and keep my body in track with the changing time zones. The food was really great and I filled myself every time something was offered. The wines were good as well.
Chicago is beautiful to look at from the air. Seemed like some graphics professor has drawn it using all available instruments with meticulous planning. Also, got to see snow at Chicago. The whole place was looking like white dust all over - again felt foolish at not getting my camera batteries - all Kingfisher's fault coz they said batteries would not be allowed in cabin baggage. But BA was cool about it.
Wanted to go out and play in the snow and see how it felt like. But didn't want to take a chance by getting lost at the airport :-)
At Chicago, got my I-94 for 3 years. Only question he asked was about my designation which he had to write on the form. Got selected for extra security check at O'Hare. But luckily, no strip searching :-))
Hopefully, Memphis also will be fun for the time I shall be here. The apartment I am gonna be staying has already been booked by the office and they have a cool website as well - www.bailey-creek.com. Did a Google Earth search on it and found that its just half a mile away from the office I'll be working in.
Almost time for boarding the flight - will update more later. Hopefully, all my stuff in the checkin baggage are still intact as I had packed - after all the throwing and lugging it might have encountered in the holds of different airplanes!

Work of art...

2007-01-24T03:36:00.000-08:00

A funny sign that I came across recently...
wonder what they were trying to say...where is the art gallery? Inside? ;-))

If Bipasha played the role of tawaif instead of Ash, the movie would be....

Umraao John!

Hampi Travelogue

2006-12-27T11:13:00.000-08:00

Hectic work has surely put a major roadblock on regular blog updates. And with December being the holiday season and lots of friends visiting from abroad, weekends are generally busy. So there you have it, excuses for no update in a long time.
Finally went on a long-wanted trip to Hampi. I had always been fascinated by the rise and fall of the Vijayanagar empire right from the time I read it in the history books. Who wouldn't be - with gold and diamonds sold like peanuts on the roadside, it must have been some empire!
Hampi is an interesting place to visit with something to offer to every kind of traveller - historically-inclined, touristically-inclined, religiously inclined, cinematically-inclined, herbally-inclined...
For the cinematically inclined, many national and international movies have been shot at Hampi - most recently Jackie Chan's THE MYTH and Mani Rathnam's GURU (you can catch Ash dancing in the rain around the Hampi ruins). Guess the place lends a magical touch in the background.
For the herbally inclined, Hampi is now supposedly a major rave destination. A discerning person can catch chillum smoking sadhus around Anegundi which is across the Tunga river.
And here is some fodder for the historically inclined. Will come to the touristically inclined later on.

Hampi was the erstwhile capital of Vijayanagar empire, of which KrishnaDevaRaya is the most famous and well-known ruler during whose reign the empire stretched from Orissa to Kanyakumari. It is about 12 km from Hospet (which boasts of the Tungabhadra dam). The story of how the empire was built is a fascinating one to hear. Legend has it that 2 soldiers from Warangal, Harihara and Bukka from the Sangama dynasty wanted to establish a strong Hindu rule in South India. At this place, they saw a strange sight where a rabbit was chasing down a scared hound-dog. When they narrated it to their guru, Sage Vidyaranya, he pointed out the powerful qualities of this place, its secure environs with hillocks on 3 sides and the Tungabhadra river nearby which could foster a teeming capital city. Thus, Hampapatna was established. Since this was to difficult for the later British rulers to pronounce, they simply butchered the named to Hampi (a la Oooty from Ootacamund) which stuck on. The city was plundered and ransacked after the Bahamani Sultans of Golconda defeated the Vijayanagr rulers. According to locals, the idols of all the temples have been broken and disfigured by marauding soldiers looking for treasure believed to be stuffed inside the stone idols during their consecration. Now, all that is left of it is in ruins. After it was recommended in the Lonely Planet guide, Hampi has seen a major inflow of tourists - both Indian and foreign - since then. This provides a major source of income for the locals who are all in the service industry ranging from accommodation to artisans selling authentic Indian artifacts. This year the Hampi Utsav in November was a grand event attracting around 2lakh people.
So took off on a Friday night along with friends in a rickety KSRTC Rajahamsa bus (they used to be pretty good, but the advent of Volvo Airavatas looks to have consigned the Rajahamsa to step-motherly treatment from the authorities). Couldn't get enough sleep on the bus and was pretty groggy in the morning. We were advised to stay at Malligi Hotel in Hospet, but since we didn't have any advance booking, we didn't find any room there. The hotel seemed to be teeming with foreigners attending some conference out there. The rude receptionist just as much dismissed us without even the slightest courtesy (Looked like athiti devobhava applies only to foreigners?? ;-))
Anyways we decided to have breakfast at the restaurant there and one of the waiters provided us with info on guest houses in Hampi itself.

So, on we proceeded to Hampi in a huge auto (which usually runs on shared basis). First thing you notice in Hampi are the rocks! The rocks really rock!! Whichever way you turn, seems like some divine force just sprinkled rocks out of a humongous salt/pepper-shaker all over the place.
We found a basic but good enough accommodation just next to the Tungabhadra riverbank called Keerthana Guest House. An early morning walk by the riverside and caught sight of the temple elephant being given a good scrubbing and it enjoying every moment lazing in the water. By the time we were ready to get out, it was around 11. We decided to hire cycles and roam around town. And one ride uphill and we promptly were convinced that cycling was not the easiest of stuff to do for people in the IT industry. We then returned the cycles and got ourselves 2 mopeds and a kinetic. It was fun to ride a TVS XL Super all around the place (made me nostalgic about the time I used to ride my mom's Luna way back in school :-D)
We first visited the eastern part of Hampi which included 2 huge Ganesha statues, Krishna temple complex and the Pushkarni lake. all of us were having a good discussion on the different sculptures in the temple.

It was almost noon and an autodriver there guided us to a place called Mango Tree for lunch. And that place was just awesome. They had seating on the ground and on different levels on the wall overlooking the river. So one could just relax and eat under the shade of the huge mango tree taking in the sight of the serenely flowing Tunga in front. After a hearty and rejuvenating meal, we resumed our sightseeing and visited the LaxmiNarasimha temple, Queen's bath and the Mahanavami Deepa complex. We had fun discussing how the queen would have taken bath on that huge complex and how the guards would have had to keep a hold on themselves lest they get their heads cut or something. The MahanavamiDeepa was really regal to look at. This was the place where the festivities used to happen and the king would watch different contests sitting on his high perch. Hampi is an awesome place just because of its ruins. The ruins provide a mystical quality to the whole place. It was such a difficult fact to digest that so powerful and rich an empire could just be reduced to such abject ruin. As Suppi recollected, it was very much like the poem Ozymandias we studied way back in school - however powerful you are, someday you are just reduced to dust and rubble. It was almost dusk and we caught the sunset from here.
Now came the most adventurous journey I have been part of in a long time. One of us wanted to withdraw money for shopping and the ATMs were all at Hospet. We decided to go to Hospet but realized that none of our vehicles had headlights. The 12km journey from Hampi to Hospet in the dark on the highway with all types of vehicles zooming past and in front of you, with their high beams, man! that was some journey! We somehow managed to reach Hospet without any mishaps. After fiddling with the light systems, we realized 2 of the vehicles had their headlights working and we that reassured us about our return journey. Else it would have been too difficult since the last 4km to reach Hampi is absolutely deserted and has absolutely no streetlights. After finishing the ATM work, we safely rode back to Hampi with the 3 vehicles following one behind the other. I chose the one without headlight. In hindsight , it was actually fun to ride it.

We then returned the bikes, had a leisurely dinner watching highlights of South Africa's collapse on the 2nd day at Wanderers at a funky restaurant. We finally retired for the day and decided to wake up early for sunrise. But the previous day's journey was so tiring that I was the only one awake at dawn. Seeing that the others were fast asleep, I went back to my much-desired sleep.
Finally woke up fresh at around 9. Had breakfast at a roadside thela where we gorged on lip smacking idlis and bajjis. Coffee was served in a huge glass which was worth every drop. One thing we sorely missed on the first day was a guide. Without a guide, it was just as good as walking down on MG Road looking at shops. You really don't get to feel the history of the place. So second day, we trooped into the KSTDC office there and booked a guide. All morning was spent in shopping. And since there were 3 girls, it was a major item on our to-do list. The sheer variety of stuff available was so enticing that we too picked up some stuff for ourselves. Finally, at 1 we started on our sightseeing - the guide took us to the Vitthala temple. Here was the most fascinating stuff - the musical pillars. The temple complex has these set of pillars all round the temple, which one tapping the pillars, emit different musical notes - one set of pillars had the Sa Ri Ga Ma tune, one the jal tarang tune, one the calling bell tune, one the mridnagam sound - it was truly amazing. Whoever sculpted this was someone par excellence.

Next we crossed the Tunga river near the unfinished bridge. The bridge was supposed to be the connection of Hampi with Anegundi village across the Tunga. It remains unfinished since the UNESCO feels that movement of vehicles on the bridge will weaken and finally result in falling of the Vitthala temple. So the only way the Anegundi can be reached is by a coracle ride. One can see bikes and people together on the coracles crossing across. People have the sit on the bikes to balance them. It is a pretty funny sight. After crossing the river, we had lunch at a dhaba and from there, proceeded to Anjanadri hillock. This place has another legend attached to it. There are multiple versions of Ramayana - Valmiki, Tulsi, Skanda - according to Skanda Ramayana, Anegundi is the birthplace of Hanuman. Climbing on Anjanadri, one could find innumerable monkeys all over the place. There is a Hanuman temple at the top of the hillock where we paid obeisance to Hanuman, whom we consider the God of rock-climbing, actually any sort of climbing ;-)
We caught the sun going down from the top of the hillock. A funny sight was a small baby monkey playing bashfully with a coconut it had laid its hands on. It was a true showman, playing to the gallery and pleasing all of us camera-toting enthusiasts.
Finally reached back to the guest house, which included a motorboat ride powered by a RX-100 engine.
Got another auto back to Hospet, had a nice, leisurely dinner at Temptations in Malligi and were at the bus stop waiting for another Rajahamsa to fly us back to Bangalore and the same old office the next day!

Hampi Facts:
Post monsoon and pre-summer are the best times to go. Summer will be scaldingly hot out here. If you want star accomodation, stay at Hospet. Most people recommend the Malligi Hotel, but going by our experience, I wouldn't comment on that.
For taking in the full splendor of Hampi, stay at any of the budget guest houses at Hampi which allows you to explore the ancient city till late evening and then spend the rest of the time shopping. It's definitely a shopper's paradise with numerous atrifacts and clothes to choose from. There are enough places inside Hampi to rent cycles and bikes from. Most of the restaurants would have a "Recommended by Lonely Planet" sign, and their menu if definitely not South Indian. We had to really struggle to find places which sell idlis and dosas for our desperate-to-eat-idli US-returned friend :-)
But food is generally good out there. Go to the state tourism office and they are very helpful with giving directions to visit as well as helping with getting guides. They even have some interesting books and maps on Vijayanagar.

Diwali Cracker!

2006-10-23T10:17:00.000-07:00

Right on the heels of this news item...http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2223366.cms...

Hema Malini, Laxmi and others are passé. The most interesting branding of a firecracker I have come across till now :-)

Wonder what he catchline would be...
Mein Kampf-or?? (as in Main Camphor...jal jaaaooongaaa!!)

Weekend fun...

2006-10-05T07:38:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was a long one, owing to Dasara and Gandhi Jayanti. So decided to take off to my native place to attend some pujas and generally meet relatives. Since we heard that the normal Bangalore-Mangalore route was a bone-jarring one, we decided to take the alternate route through Mysore and Madikeri. And what a beautiful decision it was. We got to drive on the smooth flat Bangalore-Mysore highway, the enchanting Madikeri section and the neat Kerala roads. The weather was just perfect for the long drive - neither too hot not too cold and spells of rain in between giving a magical touch to the hilly countryside.
And stay there was perfect. Our house is nestled way up in the hills right under the shade of the highest peak (Posadi Gumpe) in Kasargod district. All round, one can see the Western Ghats looming high in the sky. Now I understand why I dont get as excited as the other city-bred friends when we come across an impressive hill terrain during our treks. Guess I have been so used to such sights from my childhood days :-) I used the opportunity to get some good trekking and photography done. The monsoons which had just completed had left a lush green tinge on everything available.

Standing on top at the peak, one can get a clear view of the Arabian Sea far on the horizon. Though, this time, the view was blocked by huge rain clouds. On a clear day, you can also see the Kudremukh peak far up north from Gumpe. Another feature of this peak is the 5 deep, yawning holes situated just near the peak. According to my uncle, legend has it that the Pandavas used these to hide during their vanavaas. One can drop a stone in one hole and hear a clunk deep down through the other hole which means that all of them are interconnected somewhere deep down.
Here are two panaroma shots I took of the view from Gumpe - one a 360 degree view from the peak and another of the hills merging into the Arabian Sea.

Well, the blogger pics aren't large enough to make out the details. You can find bigger, clearer shots here and here(I uploaded them on Webshots).

One can see the Arabian sea waters shining under the sunlight escaping from the clouds bang in the center of the below pic on the left. Another one of me just waiting to take off into oblivion :-D

We climbed up the hill at around 5 in the evening. Could see huge rain clouds pouring their fury on some hapless town far away. Enjoyed being on top for about 2 hours and then descended down. About halfway down the hill, we visited the house of one of our relatives who lives up there. By them time we started down again, it had started raining and the rocks became slippery. But the experienced cousin of ours directed us in the dark and we safely reached our destination.

Another fun thing was the Hulivesha - which is an integral part of South Kanara and Kasargod during the Dasara festival. Troupes of people (as part of a religious vow) dressed up as tigers/lions/cheetahs, hunters, jokers go house to house and dance for each household in return for some money. The music is really foot-tapping and its pretty interesting to watch the dance. We had one troupe visiting our house which I have captured on camera.

On our way back to Bangalore, near Sullia, we saw a hanging bridge built by Infosys and the Rotary Club of Sullia. It was a really cool experience walking on that bridge. Pretty surprised to see the Infosys name in Sullia. Never knew that bridge existed until now. Walked on it and clicked some pics around.

The roads in Kerala are just too good. Even the roads connecting the remote villages and towns like our village have smooth tarred roads. The best example was while returning, near Sullia, they have a huge board saying "Welcome to Karnataka" and just beyond one could see gaping potholes welcoming us with open arms, feet, everything! Was too overwhelmed at that time to remember to click it on the camera, though.
While the same road until then in Kerala state was a featherbed. Same was the case when moving from Londa to Ponda on the way to Goa. Guess its just one of the pitfalls of being a larger state with larger area to be administered. But still, something to learn from the neighbouring states.

Stopped at an uncle's place at Virajpet near Madikeri on the way back. That is a beautiful town in itself. There is a clock tower at the town center which was built to commemorate King George's coronation in 1911!! Also, got a view of the Western Ghats rising above the forests far in the background.

On the whole, a pretty interesting and satisfying trip. It helped that I wasn't driving this time as my brother took complete control. Just chilled around in the backseat humming (or is it nose-ing??) away to Himesh's tunes :-D

Directions to Gumpe:
From Mangalore - Take a left at Pumpwell towards Kasargod. Travel about 35km to Uppala. There is a left turn here which leads you to Bayaru village past Paivalike. Take the right turn at Bayaru and proceed on the winding road among the hills towards Gumpe. The Kerala Government has put up tourist signboards at various places for assistance. Or any local can easily guide you to Gumpe.

From Kasargod - Travel about 20km and take the right turn at Bandiyodu. Travel on the Dharmatadka road for about 20km and follow the road directions to Gumpe.

You will get buses that go till the foothills of Gumpe. From here, its short 20minute walk uphill to the peak. There are no eating/resting places at Gumpe itself. Nearest hotel is at Bayaru while the nearest town is Uppala.

On to Shivansamudra (Bluff) - Ganganachukki, Bharachukki

2006-09-19T09:16:00.000-07:00

The extra-curricular activites club in office decided to organize a one-day trip to Shivanasamudra last Saturday.
The day dawned,cold and cloudy. Perfect weather for an outing. Too much sun just drains out the energy!
We were supposed to leave at 6.30AM from office but by the time everyone arrived, it was 7.30. And we still had people to pick up on the way. Finally we hit Mysore Road at around 8.30 and chugged along the smooth road. The final count was 27 people including family and friends. The 28-seater bus was just about filled to the brim. Though we found the seats a bit uncomfy in the beginning, we soon relaxed and started enjoying the journey. The bus had a surprisingly good speaker system. Usually, on buses, you find speakers either too high on treble which jars the eardrums or too low on volume which is again ueless! Here it was just great. Almost Bose-quality sound I should say (I could almost hear "give me blood, I'll give you freedom" ringing in my ears! Ok, ok...sorry for the PJ. For those who didn't get it, try connecting the quote and Bose :-p).
There was quite a bit of holiday traffic going towards Mysore so the speed was not great. And our bus wasn't going anywhere near 60kmph. Felt like Narain Kartikeyan in a Jordan against the Ferraris and Renaults.
Stopped for breakfast at Kamat Lokaruchi adjoining Janapada Loka at Ramanagaram. I guess people go from Bangalore to just have breakfast out there. It was more crowded than any of our Darshinis out here. After settling down, we had some yummy dosas and idli-vadas.
We also packed lunch from there in a humongous tiffin carrier. They charged a deposit of 1500 for the carrier. Wonder if it was made of silver or platinum ;-)

After driving through roads right out of the moon with its craters (that would give Koramangala roads a complex), we reached Shivnasamudra at around 1230. That was 4 hours from Bangalore including the 1.5 hour Kamat break.
Here let me give some trivia on Shivanasamudra itself. It was here that the first hydro-electric station in India was built by the great Sir M.Visverwarayya. It was the hydel power from Shivanasamudra (also called Bluff) that lit the first electric bulb in India at the K R Market in Bangalore!! And way back in 1905!! How many knew that??
Bluff comprises of 2 falls - Gaganachukki and Bharachukki. Cauvery divides itself into 2 arms and each of the arms fall into a gorge creating these two spectacular falls. Gaganachukki is the larger, voluminous one where one cannot get into the water (lots of lives have been lost there trying to be adventurous). When one comes from Malavalli, there is a deviation which says Shivansamudra/Gaganachukki. This will take you to the hydro-electric station and the viewpoint from which one can see the falls from the opposite side. Instead of taking this left, go further about 10kms, and then after passing a bridge, you will get another deviation that takes you to the head of Gaganachukki near a dargah. There are steps from near the dargah which lead right to the head of the falls.
1KM further down from the dargah, Bharachukki is the smaller, wider one which falls in a U-shape breaking into different small falls. You need to climb down about 900 steps to reach the base of the falls.Here, there are lots of places where one can sit right under the water.

We passed the dargah and went directly to the Bharachukki falls. After getting down the steps, we reached the base of the falls. No sooner we reached there, the water was too alluring and everyone strode off in a line to enjoy the falls. After changing into water wear (whatever that means :-D), we were all under the falls feeling the hard jet of water on our backs and ears. Was ultimate refreshing! The government should actually advertise this as a natural massage unit. Am sure it will be a hit. (Actually was quite surprised at the government apathy towards most tourist destinations in Karnataka. There is not one hotel/rest house/shops nearby and if one does not carry food and other essentials, it is quite painful!)
Shilu discovered a route by which one could go behind the waterfall, under a ledge, into a cave like enclosure. That was an awesome place to sit and enjoy the falls standing on the ledge and watching the water fall from behind over your head.

There were the customary snaps and videos that were shot. We played long into the afternoon and by the time we climbed the steps back to where the bus was parked, we were damn tired, and hungry to boot! After refreshing ourselves with coconut water and cucumber slices, we went to Gaganachukki near the dargah and had a great view of the majestic falls!

Even though the water was less, it was a breathtaking sight nonetheless! By now, people were restless with hunger. We drove to a meadow with lots of coconut and plantain trees where we had our lunch. The lunch tasted delicious and was consumed ravenously by all.

Finally, we were back on our way to Bangalore after an enjoyable time. We played some dumb charades and antakshari and before long, we were back in Bangalore!

Route:
There are 2 routes to Shivansamudra - the shorter but bumpier Kanakapura Road route or the slightly longer but excellent Mysore Road route. We took the Mysore road route. The road progressively become sbad after Malavalli, though.
From Bangalore, get on to Mysore Road. Drive past Bidadi, Ramnagaram and Maddur. Take the left fork at Maddur and proceed onto Malavalli. From here, take the road that goes to Kollegal. About 30km into it, you will find signboards annoouncing Shivanasamudra. Take the left if you wat to see the hydroelectric station and a far frontal view of Gaganachukki. Else, keep going straight for about 10km, cross the Forbes bridge, and then take the deviation that takes you to the dargah. From here, you can either decide to go to Gaganachukki or to Bharachukki which are just 1km apart.

Lunar Eclipse shots

2006-09-09T07:36:00.000-07:00

We had a partial lunar eclipse (about 20%) in Bangalore. Sat up through the whole thing on mt terrace trying to capture it on my S1 IS. Interesting effort, it was. Put the camera on intervalometer and took shots every 1 minute. It was damn, damn difficult without a tripod to adjust the angle of the camera to click the pics. Used everything from keys to camera case to coins to get the right angle. Decided my next major buy will be a tripod for the camera.
Here is the result of my effort. USed Picasa and Gimp together to get the composite picture. The bigger moon on top is just for effect ;-)

Click on the picture to get a bigger image.

Are you a geek?

2006-09-05T02:39:00.001-07:00

Been taking some online quizzes lately. And they give output to paste it on any webpage. So here goes...

Weekend Trip - Hogenakkal Falls

2006-09-02T10:07:00.000-07:00

Vinay is one of our colleagues who had come down from the US to work in the Bangalore office for the past 8 months. Now he was going back to the US. Since we were a close band of friends, we decided we should go on an outing last Sunday, which incidentally was his birthday as well.
After much deliberations, we zeroed in on Hoganekkal Falls, touted as India's own Niagara. So early morning at about 5 AM, we were off to the redezvous point at Silk Board junction. 7 of us comfortably seated in 2 cars - a Corsa and a WagonR. The route decided after much googling was Bangalore-Hosur-Krishnagiri-Dharmapuri-Hoganekkal (though later we found that this wasn't the shortest or ideal route).
After zipping along the 4 lane highway and crossing into Tamil Nadu, we stopped for breakfast at Saravana Bhavan at the entrance to Hosur. The name sprang thoughts of yummy dosas and pongal as expected froma Saravan Bhavan chain. But sadly, this one surely did not belong to that chain as the food was just about okay.

After filling our stomachs, we were again back on the smooth road listening to cool techno musicon the Corsa. After Krishnagiri, the 4-lane heaven ended abruptly and from then on, it was a slow journey on a two lane highway lined with slow moving trucks and Schumi-competing autos. Not to forget the forlorn two-wheelrs carrying just about the whole joint families that live around Krishnagiri. Each bike easily had about 4 passengers on it balancing precariously and often getting off the road into the gravel when any huge truck passed by. The road got progressively bad till Dharmapuri but the Corsa took the potholes well. The WagonR was not that lucky and a particularly nasty pothole put a really bad dent on its alloy wheels.
Luckily, there was a Maruti garage nearby where they re-did the wheel. This put us back by an hour and by the time we reached Hoganekkal it was almost 12. That was about 5 hours of driving, almost nonstop.

Hogenakkal is on the Karnataka-TN border where the Cauvery falls almost 150 feet with such force that it gives rise to much mist! Hence the name - Hoge means smoke and Kal means rocks in Kannada.
The first thing that we realised when we landed there was the heat. It was baking hot and the rocks all around weren't helping the cause any little bit! Any spray of water coming towards us was instatly lapped up by the dry skin.
We walked around the bathing ghats where men were getting massaged all over the place and women were selling freshly caught (?) fish, fried in some deep red sauce!! Almost every local there seems to have taken up massaging as a profession and one could see people getting thumped and fisted in different ritualistic moves. Most of the sights were too funny.

We then got to know that to see the main falls, we need to get onto coracles (round boats made of cane with tar smeared all over the bottom of it). At Rs100 per head, we set off in 2 coracles. The first stop was at a place from where we could see about 5-6 falls together from the top of the rocks. The songs from Roja were supposedly shot out here.

It was a beautiful sight to see so much water gushing all round. After clicking the mandatory pics and doing some adventurous descents to the base of the rocks, we were off again to see the main falls. One the way, we saw the ultimate in selling strategy - mobile shops on coracles selling everything from biscuits to soft drinks to fried fish!

The main falls was too good though. It was worth all the deep tan that we got coracle-ing under the harsh sun. Water gushing from about 5-6 points to about 100 feet deep. It truly lived upto its name - Hogenakkal - the smoking rocks! The spray of mist was like manna from above under the intense heat of the sun. The lens of the cameras kept getting clouded by all the spray around. We found a nice vantage point to sit and take pictures right at the tip of the cliff overlooking the falls. One false step and it would have been chapter closed! Treading carefully, and continuously warned by the boatmen not to venture too close to the edge, we took lots of pics.

After that, it was back to the starting point. The boatman too us through some mini rapids in the Cauvery which was a thrilling experience. Then we decided to head back and have lunch at some big town. On the way we decided to have all the snacks that we had with us for lunch under a shady tree.
Coming back, we luckily caught sight of signboard which turned out to be a shorter route to Bangalore - almost shaving off 35-40km. We were back in Bangalore by sundown and caught the sunset view near Electronic City. The amber colored sky was a sight to behold! Got some good shots of the sunset from the car. We were back in office, all tanned and tired, but satisfied with the journey.

Loved this pic - Water droplets close-up
Since, it was Vinay's birthday as well, he treated us at a funky Italian place called Fiorano's near office. The food was extremely good, but tasted all the more so to us hungry travellers.

Here are some direction pointers to Hogenakkal if you decide to go there. There are multiple routes one can take.

Route 1: Bangalore-Hosur-Krishnagiri-Kaveripattinam-Dharmapuri-Hoganekkal ~ 170KM: The road starts off a 4 lane express highway which continues all the way to Krishnagiri. After this it turns into a single road with 2 lanes. After Kaveripattinam, the road turns pretty bad with huge potholes springing up from nowhere. From Dharmapuri, take a right and 46km onwards to Hogenakkal.

Route 2: Bangalore-Hosur-Rayakottai-Hogenakkal ~ 140KM: This is the route we can back on. At Hosur, you need to be on the flyover and take a right turn immediately onto Rayakottai. The road is 2-lane all the way, but generally good. Also, its been recently tarred in most places which made it a smoother drive altogether.

For snaps, go to my Flickr page

Also read Vinay's blog for another write-up on the same trip.

What Calvin & Hobbes character are you?

2006-08-28T08:32:00.000-07:00

Well, I turned out to be Hobbes! Heh, heh...the philosophical one ;-)
The first time I took the quiz, my mind was clouded by how Calvin behaves. Hence, I scored highly as Calvin. Took the quiz again more objectively, and there was a 3-way tiebreaker :-O
I could have been either Mrs Wormwood or Mom/Dad. Am I that preachy? :-D

You scored as Hobbes. You are Hobbes! Resourceful, laid back, optimistic, understanding, and able to put up with Calvin on a day-to-day basis. You are the best type of friend, someone who you can get in fights with and look at comic books with, someone who will send prank letter to you through the amil and someone who leds over cliffs with you. What more could anyone ask for?

Mrs. Wormwood

57%

Mom and Dad

57%

Hobbes

57%

Susie

50%

Calvin

43%

What Calvin & Hobbes character are you?
created with QuizFarm.com

Pj time...

2006-08-23T04:22:00.000-07:00

Precious little interesting happening in my life. So nothing much to blog about :-DSo to fill up the space, will put up some PJ's that I thought of recently.

If R K Narayan was to write about the days and times of Barbie (or Mallika Sherawat), what would he title his book?

Maal-gudiya Days

If R K N was to write about Abu Salem, then....?

...Moll-Ghoda Days

And a book on Jaya Bhadhuri's film career?

Small-Guddi Days!

And what is this! Shah Rukh is DON???? I say, DON'T!!!!

A long wekend in Pondicherry and Mahabalipuram...

2006-07-16T07:57:00.000-07:00

Well, the blog's been due for an update but haven't got the time or thought to fill it up. The travelogue on the Pondicherry-Mahabalipuram trip is still pending. Umpteen reminders from friends have got me down to penning that down now.

It was after a long time that the gang boys decided to et out of town and this wasn't a chance to be missed. So off we were to Pondicherry on a sultry June 21st night - Vikram a.k.a GA, Sathwick, Sudhakar and myself.
Reached Reached Pondicherry at about 5:30 in the morning and could immediately feel the coastal stuffiness hit us. We packed into a city bus and were off towards our abode - St James Beach Resort. Landing there we found the accommodation not bad at all. The last room before the beach begins and tall, shady coconut trees swaying in the coastal breeze.

Soon we were off to explore the city that was a French colony not so long ago. First stop was near Auroville where we rented 2 scooters - A Kinetic and an Activa for the two days. Had breakfast at a cozy little bakery which served some really good bread-based stuff and omelettes.
Then took a walking tour of Auroville. It was a disappointment to say the least. First the caretakers weren't helpful in room enquiries (the thing is unless one has a guest pass, one cannot visit all the places inside Auroville, like the kitchen). When we went to the Matri Mandir, we saw that it was under renovation and could not go inside it. So effectively, there was nothing to see inside Auroville. After the disappointment in the first half of the day, we then went and had a hearty lunch at Saravana Bhavan. Almost completely wiped the plate clean off their Special meals :-)
Still, we were in the dark as to what to do in and around Pondicherry. So we headed straight to the tourist office on Beach Road where we collected brochures and maps of all the tourist attractions in Pondicherry. Beach Road in itself was a good sight - a scaled down Queen's Necklace-kind of road. Then we sat down to tick off the tourist places one by one. The vast expanse of the sea was a treat to watch!

Pondicherry as a city is a planned one by the French. You can see the clear demarcation between the French section and the local section of the city which is demarcated by a long moat-like drain. On the French side of the moat, you find all the French style buildings while on the other side, it is the typical Indian look. We decided the tour the French section first. Having a beach on that side helped pretty much to favor that decision.
First we were off to the Chunnambar Boat House which boasted of adventure sports and a tree house to stay in. When we reached there, again, it was a major disappointment. The only adventure sport they had was a motor boat ride which was pretty worth it. The only other attraction was a swing tied to a tree on which we tried all kinds of stunts!
Then we were back on Beach Road. Sat on the beach for quite some time and made use of all the photo-ops. There is a Gandhi Statue, A Nehru statue, a Indian army war memorial, a French WW1 war memorial, and an imposing lighthouse. By then it was darkening already. We just rode around till dinner and decided to catch the live football action (it was a Czech Republic match, I think) at one of the French ristorantes. We reached our resort pretty late around 12 and then almost immediately went off to sleep. It was an early morning for myself, Sath and Sud as we wanted to catch the sunrise on the beach. Ga didn't want to give up his precious sleep so he stayed back :-D

After clicking a lot of sunrise shots, we decided to play footer on the beach. Good fun to do it early in the morning. Soon, we were pretty tired and headed back to the room the freshen up and begin day number two at Pondy.
First, we zeroed in on Hot Breads for our breakfast, and what a spread they had! Each item at the bakery was delicious and fulfilling. After stuffing ourselves properly, we were off to the famous hand made paper factory. After browsing and buying several items at the retail outlet, we toured inside the paper factory awed by both the manual and mechanical process that goes into making this paper. It was a great sight to watch. Lunch was at another popular hangout, La Tasserie. Post lunch we visited the Vinayakar temple and Aurobindo Ashram that contains the samadhi of Aurobindo.

After that, we visited the various big churches listed in the map as well as the railway station. Late evening and we went to the bazaar part of the city with the huge market (it seemed an exact replica of KR Market). Then we caught up on a play by a Bangalore troupe at Alliance Francaise.
Later, we had dinner at Hotel Mass near the main bus stand. Then we were back to the resort for the night. Early next morning, shopped for some port wine, dropped off the rented bikes and were of the Mahabalipuram on the neat East Coast Road which runs parallel to the beach all the way.

Reached Mahabalipuram at around 1230 and found a pretty good accommodation to stay, again a stone's throw away from the beach. And a very inexpensive one as well. It had a verandah with a hanging chair in it as well. Soon after, we had freshened up and started out by visiting the world famous Shore Temple, a UNESCO world heritage monument. It was amazing to know that this was reclaimed from the sea in 1973 and preserved. The erosion due to the sea water and salts are plainly visible on all the sculptures. This temple is part of 6 other temples that are collectively referred to by ancient sailors as "the seven pagodas". The guide did tell us that the other 6 temples were visible when the sea water had receded just before the tsunami that hit coastal Tamil Nadu in Dec 2004.

After this, we were back at the room to wake up GA, have lunch and proceed on to Arjuna's Penance, a 27m long sculpture marvel depicting the 12 year penance of Arjuna (or is it Bhaaageerath's penance for Ganga?).
Then we walked around the place checking out the Varaha Cave, the light house, the Ganesha temple and Krishna's butterball. The butter ball is a natural rock which looks precariously balanced at the top of a slope, looking ready to roll down a tthe slightest push. Awe-striking stuff!

At around 8, we went and sat at the beach taking in the cool evening sea breeze on an empty beach. Dinner was had at Moonraker's, which seemed to be the most popular hangout in Mahabalipuram. Especially interesting were the photos and news clippings adorning the walls of the restaurant - they were all of our freedom fighters which was good to see. After dinner, we were back to our accommodation to catch up on some well deserved sleep.
Next morning, we visited the Five Rathas, which has different temples carved out of a single rock. The best fun we had was jumping around for 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon' type snaps.

Post-lunch, we were off to Tiger Caves, a sculpture which is in the form of a tiger's face. There was a huge rock which provided nice shade and wind just outsie the beach. All of us just lied down there and dozed off on the cool grass for about an hour. After a while, we just walked around on the pristine beach and then we were ready to leave. We went to the hotel, checked out and left for Chennai to catch the train back to Bangalore.
On a parting note, here is a funny board I came across in Mahabalipuram :-D

More pics from the trip can be found HERE

Was watching parts of Neal n Nikki over the weekend...
Seeing Uday's nothing-acting and Tanisha's clothes, guess it should be called "Nil n Naked" :-)

Coorg (Madikeri) trip and other sundries!

2006-06-12T10:08:00.000-07:00

Well, the reason for not been writing is that weekends have been generally been spent being out. So not finding enough time to sit and blog!
Was in Chennai for a day, then onto to Coorg.
The Coorg trip was especially good.
(Snaps from the trip can be found here and here)
Spent it at an adventure camp about 30km from Madikeri. It rained almost all the time. Was supposed to be an adventure but ended up being a relaxing weekend what with the rains not abating! We were 8 of us in a Tempo Traveller. So the journey was not too cramped or difficult as each person has enough space to stretch and sit around. Reached Virajpet at about 7 in the morning and then onwards directly to Jungle Mount Adventures near a place called Kakabbe. This base camp is right at the base of Thandiyendamol, the highest peak in Coorg. The Western Ghats lining the horizon was an awe-inspiring sight.

The owners of the base camp - Sagar and Bhavani - were pretty good hosts. The accommodation itself was pretty neat with cottage rooms (with attached bathrooms!) and a thatched hut. We passed on the hut since the rains had really brought a chill in the air.

After a leisurely breakfast, we just lay around the place. There was a river that flows right next to the camp where Sagar had put up a bamboo catamaran and a long strip of bamboo to walk on. Was fun to stand around on that. Since we didn't have much to do because of the rains, just walked around the fields. For some of us, it was an ideal opportunity to test out the digital cameras on the scenic surroundings. Then walked to a small waterfall-cum-rapids place where all of us generally jumped around on the rocks and water. Then we were back for lunch.

After a sumptuous lunch, we were ready to try out kayaking. This is where 2 people sit facing each other on a conical shaped boat and row in opposite directions to propel the boat. It was great fun to kayak in the rains. There was a good flow of water in the river and rowing was a pretty exciting though tiresome exercise.

After kayaking for about an hour, it was almost evening time and we just relaxed around. Then it was time for tea and snacks. As it was about to get dark, we set out on a night walk taking an aimless path. walked along the path which slowly turned into a ditch and finally ended at the bank of the river further upstream. By this time, it was completely dark and almost impossible to see anything. Luckily, we had borrowed torches from the camp helpers with which we could guide our way back to the comforts of the cottages. by now, it was raining cats and dogs. Reached back and Sagar was ready with some hot snacks which they had cooked from home. After that, the girls were playing antakshari while the guys cleaned up Sagar's stock of vodka and beer with the pakoras.

Then it was time for dinner which was had under lanterns as the rains had cut the power off. After a heavy dinner, it was time to retire and after the long walk, everyone almost immediately fell asleep. All night, the sound of pouring rains was the only sound we heard. Next morning, the level of water in the river had risen by almost 6 feet. The catamaran on which we had been standing the previous day had almost submerged and drifted to the middle of the river. It was pretty amazing to see the branches that we rowed under in the kayaks were now completely under water. After freshening up, we were ready to leave. After some customary photo sessions, we were off on our way again. It was past noon when we reached Madikeri and still raining hard. Had lunch at Athithi (they had a good buffet for Rs 30!), decided to skip Abbe Falls as it was no point in going in the rain.
We then proceeded onwards to Bylakuppe which is the largest settlement of Tibeteans in India. The Golden Temple is pretty awesome with all the extricate murals and sketchings on the walls.

And in all possible colors! And the three gold-plated 60-foot Buddha statues were a sight to look at! Spent quite a bit of time around here as the girls were never tired of shopping around the complex for various Tibetean artifacts! We finally left Bylakuppe at around 530 in the evening and then the next stop was the MTR for a late snacks-cum-dinner. Finally reached office at around 1115.
All in all, an unexpected relaxing weekend it was. The base camp was pretty good. Am sure to retun there once more after the monsoons for the rest of the activities like trekking, rock climbing etc, a lot of which is on offer by Jungle Mount. A pretty good and affordable outing place, this!

So this blog turned out to be a travelogue, albeit a bad one :-D
(More snaps from the trip can be found here and here)

This weekend was an all-spoty weekend with football, cricket, Formula-1 and tennis! I hate the West Indian tours because of the time difference. They just don't let me sleep! Now with football World Cup all month, my sleep quota is definitely falling like the Sensex in the past few days! And the electricity bills? Well they are almost competing with my fuel bills! And as usual, I am rooting for Argentina! They have always been my favorite ever since I started watching football and Maradona!
And as is my wont, here is a PJ I made up this weekend!

There is this girl who was first madly in love with Subba Rao. At that time she was all interested in the geeky nature of Rao. but slowly, later she was impressed by the flashy Delhi-ite Shyam Ahuja and broke off with Rao. There she found her true happiness, became Mrs Ahuja and lived happily ever after.
Whenever people speak of her love story, they always have a title for it. And that is...?

Subba se lekar Shyam tak!

Listening to lots of Himesh Reshammiya nowadyas. Donno why, but I relly like that guy's voice! God nose!! :-))

UNIX-ed...

2006-05-09T22:19:00.000-07:00

Was sitting through a session on basic Unix skills and were having a discussion on man pages when I came up with this:

If 'man' pages in Unix give information of the different commands, certainly 'woman' pages give gossip about the same command ;-)

On a straighter note, googled and found that there is something called woman in Unix: it is used to browse man pages without man...get the drift? WithOut Man = WO-Man!!
Great thinkers, those! :-)

On the same subject, Unix has a quite a few recursive acronyms:
GNU - GNU's Not Unix
RPM - RPM Package Manager
PHP - PHP: Hypertxt Preprocessor

Football World Cup fever....

2006-04-27T08:24:00.000-07:00

Well, with the World Cup just around the corner, its just a great overdose of football everywhere! Newspapers, TV, everywhere! That inspires me to get back to my jokes. Here is one:

What did Pele tell when he met Rishi and Dimple after Bobby?

Yeh kya aap "Pele tum, Pele tum" kar rahe the movie ke gaaane mein, asli Pele toh main hoon na!!

If Walt Disney created football cartoons we would have had main characters like Bechkie Mouse, Donaldo, Donaldinho, Pluto-ni, etc, etc....

Been long....

2006-04-04T07:42:00.000-07:00

"Been long since my last update" - It has been my opening line for most of my recent updates! That shows how hard I am working (heh heh, for once, it is true!)
There were a few people visiting from the client place so had to be well prepared. Gave me an idea of how much I really know on the product as well! Was an eye-opening session as in always struggling to keep the eyes open (just joking, it wasn't that bad also!) :-D
Another new interest is Orkut - its for some weird reason, blocked from our office servers! So once in a while, access it from home. Once I had access to broadband, started orkut-ting (new adjective?) from home. A friend told me your worth is known by the number of scraps you get for your profile - well in that case, any girl would beat me hands down (they literally beat me in any case though :p) with all their "Hi, you are beautiful. Can we be friends" scraps!! Am not complaining - just an observation!
But yeah, Orkut's really the place to find old, long-lost friends and acquaintances. You can spend like hours together looking for people and finding them as well! Pretty neat!
Connected trivia - Did you know orkut means 'orgasm' in Finnish? The creator of Orkut, Orkut Büyükkökten, is Turkish. Just a chance maybe that his dad had taken Finnish classes during his naming ceremony? ;-)
From Wikipedia:
As of March 2006, with 72.72% of orkut's members were from Brazil, followed by 10.92% from the United States, 2.61% from India, 2.43% from Iran and 2.28% from Pakistan.
Another interesting thing I am into is Google PageCreator http://pages.google.com. Got an account recently and got to see what good can I make of it! Google just keeps coming out with these variety of tools each passing day! Well, its sounding like an ad-byte for Google now! But man, I really admire that company for the stuff they come out with!

Then, there were major Holi celebrations outside our office where we caught unsuspecting colleagues on their way home and (with their permission) colored them all over! Here is a pic from then. Try figuring out who is who (that is, if you know anyone at HCL EAI/Aal other than me :p)

For Ugadi, we had Ethnic day in office. There was considerable enthu shown by the junta out here, though most guys showed up in the ubiquitous kurta pyjama, while a few were in real wacky stuff! Like Siva who had come dressed as a traditional Tamilian with dhoti/shirt complete with vibhuti (sacred ash) on his forehead and Tejabhai who was dressed in a pure silk shirt and dhoti and looked like a character right out of these early-90's Telugu movies! I went dressed in a complete Kodava outfit, accompanied by a dagger and a fake pearl necklace as well. Though am not Coorgi, took the liberty considering Mangalore is neighbour-of-Coorg ;-)
Question - Is Ugadi pronounced as You-gadi or Oo-gadi? Which is the correct one? I guess the first one is the Anglicised version?
If interested, check some pics from ethnic day out here - Click on this (needs a registration but pretty good photo-site). It was good fun all day. We had a few clients visiting and one of them, an American, was pretty impressed with all the costume. I surely would have reminded him of Halloween though!

April 1st was a Saturday so not much scope of fooling anyone. The only person I ended up fooling was myself! The clock had stopped ticking at 1045AM and I slept all the way upto 1500PM thinking it was still 1045!! And I must have looked at the clock maybe 3-4 times stuck at the same time without realising that!
Spent rest of the day watching MTV Bakra where Cyrus did a recap of all the old Bakras they had carried out. Some were truly hilarious! Like the Parthiv Patel one! Was genuinely funny!

Next on is a trip to Ooty on the famous narrow gauge train (or more famously, the Chaiyya Chaiyya train). Let's see when it happens!

Finally, the main road to our office seems to be getting done! Guess the BCC finally realised 80 Feet Road doesn't mean 80 feet deep but really means 80 feet wide!

Listening to Bent by Matchbox Twenty! Yeah, really a mad season!

Go Goa!!

2006-03-17T09:19:00.000-08:00

Tuesday and Wenesday was Holi - the festival of colors. But before that, another update. Pre-Holi weekend was spent enjoying in Goa - the tourism haven of India. Actually, once in Goa, especially Panaji city and its environs, it doesn't look much like rest of India. Its like being transported to a foreign land - there are so many forigners out there who are either relaxing or holidaying. The fact that the summer sun was beating pretty hard didn't seme to make much of a difference. Actually, most took the opportunity to take their clothes off and get a good tan. We were just so jealous coz we could see ourselves turn darker and darker day by day frolicking on the beach sands or the smooth paved roads in Goa. That is one the main things that you - especially if you are a Bangalorean - the absolute absence of traffic signals, traffic cops, traffic jams and the biggest peeve, potholes. We did not find even one of them in all our 4 days of tripping around town. We had rented 4 good, powerful bikes - 3 Pulsars and a Karizma for the 4 days. And I got the honor of riding the Karizma :-D the machine is just awesome - compared to other bikes I have ridden - its pickup it just so fast, blink and you'll miss it! Was a real pleasure riding it around. and Goa provides th long, empty stretches to really give a rip on the throttle! Biking was one of the high points of the trip for me!
Travelling in the train was time for chatting and discussing all sorts of topics under the sun. While on the contrary, travelling in the buses (from Londa to Panaji) was for catching forty winks and reading up the Outlook Traveller's Guide to Goa :-)
The infrastructure difference was starkly contrasted in the state of the same National Highway in different states. NH 4A goes through Londa in Karnataka onto Ponda in Goa and further onwards to Panaji. The highway on the Karnataka side was so bad, even the roads here in Koramangala seemed better. And as soon as we crossed over into Goa state, the roads were as smooth as they could get! We were really shocked by this contrast!
Another great thing was the accomodation we rented out (West Horizon) - it was as close as we could be to the beach - the last house before the town gives way to the sand and water. And very light on the wallet as well - it was big enough to easily accomodate 8 of us in one single room. Additional facilities included 2 hammocks right outside hung on the trees surrounding the house and hardly 5 metres walk to the beach! Each of the nights were spent lying on the beach reclining chairs gazing away at the almost-full moon and the waves glistening under the moonlight with a (sipping either a beer or vodka acording to preferences ;-)).
The beach shacks lining the beach too provide cool comforts agains tthe hot sun with nicely thatched roofs, cushy sofas to sit and watch the waves crash into a surf, with a pool table to pot stripes and solids away!
Parasailing was another thing we literally got high on (lots of other stuff you can get high on as well :-D). We are taken about a kilometre into the sea and then set aloft with the boat doing a ballet in the water and you synchronize the same high up in the air. For many, it was a great experience. But if you have done the bungee jumping or been already airborne glider/microlite, its not as much thrilling. But once up there in the middle of the sea, you can't hear any sounds and its a very beautiful silence that engulfs you! And the sea does not actually look threatening from up there. Since I was the first person to go, I was skeptical to take my camera up there - who would want to let an S1 IS just go plunk into the water (Sath, Vikas and Vyb would have all killed me just for that!). But it seemed safe and now I regret not taking the camera up there :-(
We also went to the Saturday Night Bazaar at Arpora between Calangute and Anjuna beaches. Once inside, it was as if we were transported to a fairground in Europe - there was not an Indian in sight except a few Rajasthanis who were selling stuff a the stalls and the security guards. The place was filled with foreigners. Even the foodstalls were stacked with cusines ranging from American to Thai to authentic Chinese to Continental. We walked around a bit there and bought some stuff from the stalls there.
Sunset is another attraction on the beaches in Goa. Friday's sunset was a Calangute beach sipping beer, Saturday was at Anjuna beach which was an awesome sight, Sunday was in the interiors of Goa perched on top of a hillock watching the Sun go down in between the hills. The sight was great and the photographs completely do justice to it as well. We had 4 cameras between us - my Canon S1 IS, Vinay's Canon A210, Aravinth's Sony Cybershot and Niru's Sony again. Had about 200 pictures per day/night!! Man was it difficult going through the pics.
A few of us also visited the trendiest nightspot, Tito's. Man, it sure does live up to its tag. The people were trendy and hot and the dances even more so. We too shook a leg along with the crowd amidst all the smoke and alcohol flowing like water out there.
For drinkers, Goa is absolutely heaven with cheap alcohol prices than in the rest of India. Though, if you order at the beach shacks, they do cost quite a bit!
The big disappointment was the cruise thingie. They just take you for an hour on the Mandovi river with some people dancing on a stage erected on the boat. We regretted not planning to go to the casino instead. At least could have got a first hand view of what a casino looks like! Wonder when I'll go to Las Vegas and see the original one though! :-D
Finally, tanned and tired we returned to Bangalore but not without fond memories of white sands, crashing waves, sun bathing foreigners, winding country roads and amazingly architectured buildings.
The 4 days were hardly enough to cover North Goa. We would need another 4 days to go exploring south of Panaji beyond Margao. All that for next time though!

Here is the lowdown on the trip:

9th March - 13 March 2006

Bangalore-Londa-Ponda-Panaji-Calangute-Baga-Anjuna-Vagator-Arpora-Candolim-Aguada fort-Sinquerim-Old Goa-Mayem Lake-Mandovi-Panaji-Ponda-Londa-Bangalore

Prashanth, Ajay, Vinay, Aravinth, Niranjan, Praful, Bharath, Badri

See the pics of the trip at http://www.flickr.com/photos/djgraphite/sets/72057594083889853/

Here are a few choice pics from the lot:

Current Music - All around me i can hear the nasal Himesh R singing "Jhalak Dikhlaa Jaa". Also Dont Cha by the Pussycat Dolls and In the Shadows by The Rasmus

Tagged with 20 things!

2006-03-06T02:47:00.000-08:00

Well, Charlie tagged me and Sath to write 20 things about myself! Wow! A pretty exhausting job it is, I must say. Is it really so hard to know and remember 20 things about oneself?? anyways, here goes my 20 things :-D

1. Love Bangalore and exploring it. Know almost all the areas in Bangalore like the back of my hand. For a few days, my favorite pastime was to pore over the Eicher map of Bangalore and check out shortest routes between different areas!

2. Avid information seeker. Google is my God. If I feel curious about anything, which is almost about everything, I immediately start googling!

3. Have a weird sense of humor - can come up with jokes (usually bad ones) anytime. Love humor of all varieties - from the intellectual to subtle to toilet humor. Very easy to make me laugh and keep me laughing :-D Have been called different names from Hasmukh to smiloo which speaks a lot about my default state of expression! Can sometimes play dirty practical jokes on people but I try to take care not to hurt their sentiments!

4. A great listener. Can listen to anyone talking about anything.

5. Am a pretty accommodating person with a block against saying No to people. Philanthropic I am. I hate very, very few people in this world, maybe not even a handful :-)

6. Can be irritating at times with my mood which swings from good to spoilt and back within short spans of time

7. Love cricket and very passionate about it. Try to absorb all info about it and follow every match from U-15 to Seniors cricket, if not on TV, then in Cricinfo and newspapers. Did you know I was impressed by MSDhoni about 2 years back when he was part of the U-19 team in Kenya! Thought at that time that he has to surely make it to the Indian team soon. Though it took 2 years I guess!

8. Non-fussy person. Can eat anything that is served without complaints or issues. I rarely complain of less sugar, very salty, too bland, etc, etc. Mom says wife will be lucky in that respect!

9. Very resistant health-wise. I fall sick maybe once a year - though I eat and drink anywhere - a roadside thela to a 5-star hotel. Touchwood! I hate going to doctors - no I don't mind the medicines or injections - but its just a pet peeve that I have.

10. Love travelling. While on trips, can stay up all night and still be fresh and fit all of next day. I like to have fun all the time when I am out somewhere. Don't like people who prefer to sleep rather than have fun!

11. Am a left hander. Slowly learning to be ambidextrous!

12. Family and friends mean a lot to me though I don't flaunt it. Also keep both of them separate from each other. Parents don't know who my friends are and much about them and friends don't know much about my family. People sometimes feel I don't care about either. But not always right!

13. Tend to be shy at the beginning with people, but once they know me well, God save them!

14. Pretty good at the English language. Love doing crosswords, scrabble, and any related word games.

15. Have a good memory. Can vividly remember small events that occurred years back, stuff people tell me, phone/vehicle numbers of friends, etc. Though, anything related to academics and it just fails to work! :-D

16. I try to be self reliant and not depend on anybody to get my tasks done.

17. Don't really have any strong likes or dislikes with regard to entertainment like movies, books, music. If its recommended, I try it out!

18. Can sleep for long hours at a stretch.

19. Can never sleep early! Even if I am done with everything early, will almost always sleep after midnight.

20. Love riding/driving - can ride/drive any number of ours without getting bugged of it. Though getting stuck in a jam is a bit off-putting!

Now I got to think on another 8 things I want in a perfect lover! Hee hee! That should be fun. Until I think of them and post, adios!

Of Namma Bengalooru and mobikes...

2006-03-01T06:38:00.000-08:00

Well, Friday was a lucky for me. Was on my way to office riding on Hosur Road. Suddenly, I felt like one of the Gaulish villagers in Asterix comics who are always worried that the sky would fall on their heads. I felt something go 'thunk' on my head. Slowed down my bike and looked around. Realised that it was a big piece of the overhanging branch from the one trees that line the road. Patted myself for wearing my helmet. Else, it would have been a closed chapter! Not that I am a major fan of helmets or anything, actually I would prefer not wearing them! Today was travelling in an auto, and was thinking about different, innovative uses for bike accessories in Bangalore. Here goes:

Helmet - Used commonly as an oversized elbow guard. You can see most younsters on bikes with the helmet neatly safeguarding the elbow. Uh sure, the head is stronger than the elbows, so they need more protection ;-)

Horn - Used as a musical instrument. Especially at traffic signals and traffic jams! Any of them could give Rahman and Reshammiya a run for their money! I guess the typical Bangalorean is taught when learning to ride/drive that at any point of time, either the brakes (ref:see below for brakes) or the horn has to be used! Not using any one of the two would lead to harmful consequences!

Brakes - Used as an alternate to the horn in most vehicles in Bangalore - especially buses. When they got to slow down or stop, it almost sounds like an earthquake ready to occur!! Also vividly reminds me of the Hercules MTB bicycle (a brown colored one on which the guys used to try circus tricks and patao-fy the school babes ;-)) They used to have the loudest brakes around! (not the babes, the cycles)!

Rear View Mirror - Used almost ubiquitously as a green-room mirror - adjusting hairstyles, counting pimples, applying lipstick/kajal, and also to check out the Python (for the uninitiated, Pretty Young Thing on a kinetic HONda/HONda Activa :-D) behind you!

Petrol tank - Used commonly as an extra seat (especially where the family has 2 children). Usually the youngest child gets the dreaded tank seat. Something similar to the silly-point/short-leg position in cricket, where the newest team member has the honor of being in the firing line! No wonder the kid would grow up permanently scarred for life (no pun intended)

Headlights - Used as a WMD. Blind 'em out seems to be the motto! Always used on high-beam except for during daytime when they flash winking signals at passers-by.

Tail-lights - Eh? What are they? Does something like that even exist??

Another joke...

2006-02-02T08:48:00.000-08:00

My sister-in-law was a major fan of Anil Kapoor. Right from Ram Lakhan/Mr India days. Her major aim in life was to meet him in person. At last, last month, when he was in Bangalore she had a chance to meet him. Now the meeting is known by a particular name -

"When Hairy met Saali"

We screened "When Harry Met Sally" in office this evening. The joke struck me when I was watching the movie. Nice, cute movie. Dialogues are just too good. I especisally liked the background track that goes "Tomaitoes Tomaatoes Potaitoes Potaaatoes" :-D
And the famous restaurant scene! Good timepass!

Listening to Lose Control from Rang De Basanti -neat, fast, hummable track!

New Year, new beginnings

2006-01-30T08:10:00.000-08:00

Well, been a long time since I came visiting this part of town :-D

Life's been hectic with both official and extra-official work. There were a few requests for an update. Didn't know that I had such a dedicated following albeit it might just be a forced one ;-)
Well, the latest hot news is that I have got rid of my long, luscious locks! It was just an on-the-spur-of-the-moment decision. Decided will get a haircut, didn't think twice and before I changed my mind, got it done. People say I look smarter. And they somehow take the pain to point out that "smart" is more in a relative sense of way to my earlier appearance rather than an absolute scale.
Well, from my side, I would surely miss all the tending and nurturing of my hair. Truly the metrosexual male :-D (its the new buzzword. No idea what it means tho')!
So what's made me busy these days? Work as usual. In a new project, so lots to learn and grasp. That does take quite a bit of time. Other than that, there have been quite a few happenings. We now have a proper cricket team in office. So pretty involved in the practice and other team management decisions ;-) After all this, I don't envy the BCCI selectors at all. What all permutations and combinations they got to go through to pick 15 out of maybe a hundred contenders! Seriously WOW!
Another event were the cultural events in office. And I actually danced. Well, I can already see you people ROTFL-ing imagining a Sunny Deol-like dance. Well, I should say I am slightly better. And the hair. That made all the difference. It always blocked my view of the audience and so I could conveniently not see the audience convulsing with laughter in their seats :-D
But some people did say I did it well. So at least for it, it was worth while.
Watched 15 Park Avenue today afternoon. Was dumbstruck at the end of it. The acting was good, but the story. Well, this story flew way over the cuckoo's nest. Into space and beyond. But one thing was the portrayal of different female characters - true to stereotype - the monster-like female who bosses over everyone and has to have it her way; the insecure, suspicious wife; the mother who would go emotional and boo-hoo at the drop of a hat; but all in all very good acting from all, especially Konkona. Powerhouse performance. But not the ideal Monday afternoon watch.
Rang De Basanti also is supposed to be good. Heard rave reviews from almost everyone who watched it. At office, it seems like I am on one side who hasn't watched RDB and the entire world on the other side who already watched it and then discuss it in hushed tones whenever I pass by.

Watched Neal and Nikki on DVD last weekend as well. Wow. What a movie. As I heard Shekhar Suman on TV saying " Neal n Nikki is a cute little love story - between a piece of wood and a bra/panty" :-)) It was exactly that. To add to the comment, it was a "made-up" piece of wood. Wow. The make up on the hero's face is so conspicuous! Maybe it was a ploy that would absorb all of Tanishaa's screams bfore reaching the eardrums! I really pity the people who watched it on the big screen and had to hear her screaming in full Dolby DTS!

There are so many malls mushrooming all over Bangalore these days. Be out of town for a few days and you would feel exactly like how Rip Van Winkle did! The college crowd now has new terminology. Girrls are no more classified as Mounts or JNC's or Anne's. Now the classification is like this - Garuda Maaal, Forum Maal or Sigma Maaal (depending on the mall they visit)! Go on weekends and there is no place in any of these places to even keep a toe inside let alone a whole foot! The erstwhile popular hangouts, Brigade and MG Road, are deserted as never before on a Saturday evening!

Pretty long update. Let me hope to be a bit more regular on this from now on. Now that there is not much hair to take care of ;-)

Hibernating...

2005-12-01T10:52:00.001-08:00

Well, the chill has really set down on Bangalore with the minimum temperature falling to 13-14 deg! For a guy who likes riding late in the night, well, its a mixed feeling. The fingers get numb after a few minutes on the road and you do not know if you are pressing the horn or the start button :-D Hence, been in hibernation for some time and not been visiting the blog world of late. Got a few moments today and thought that I shall resurface. For people who missed my updates, well, thanks for the return visits. For others, well, you don't miss much anyways!
Talking of horns, most Bangalorean drivers have a peculiar habit. I guess during driving classes, they teach that at any point in time, your hand should be either on the accelerator or the horn. Always! You see people who, as soon as they depress the accelerator, start honking! Very irritating. My vocabulary during my 30-40 minute drive to and from office is pretty limited. For example - "You ****** ***** $%$%# #$%#$%^# %^^& ~%%&^ ********". Whoever said driving improves your swearing skills was right on dot! I even invent custom ones as well ;-)
And then the usual bike stickers et al. Almost all auto rickshaws have "Hai so-and-so". Always wondered what it meant. Was it a greeting or a put-downer??
I saw one a few days back - "Babu Doll". Make your own meanings out of it :-D

Had been to Rajajinagar Habba and Bangalore Book Festival few weekends back. Will talk about them in more details some other day. Me too sleepy now. Hope to be more regular.

Listening to Yellow by Coldplay. Very good. Period.

~prashanth

Post-Diwali update

2005-11-07T07:16:00.000-08:00

Well, the last weekend was really long. We got 2 days of holiday - 31st and 1st on event of Diwali and Rajyothsava. And since Saturday and Sunday were off anyways, it was a 4-day long binge :-D
But how else waste a day than by lazing around! ;-) Lazed around like a log all day in front of the TV. Watched about some 6 movies on TV - Mummy, XXX, Lost, (and a horde of others that I dont recollect) and 3 movies on DVD - No Entry, Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya and Chocolate. Among the three, No Entry was the personal best. Funny acts put up by Fardeen and Anil Kapoor.
Salman Khan in a highly exaggerated role of a philanderer husband who is not even doubted an ounce by doting wife, Esha in a horrible role! Lara, in a surprisingly deglamourised role and Bipasha, trying to look hot but somehow failing. Maybe only John can get it out of her :-D The climax had me in splits!
MPKK was pretty ok as well, though Sohail was over the top and Katrina under the top (in terms of acting, people! No double entendre here ;-)). Sush looked ravishing and was easily the best part!
Chocolate, hmm...watched it from 2-5 in the morning so wasn't really able to appreciate its slickness! No one's touting Tanushree as the new Mallika yet? Surprising! Though the frivolity of the ending really took away the sheen off the rest of the movie. Maybe people would like it. I surely for one, didn't!
Was so bugged by Tuesday that I had to go out somewhere! So went out to a movie (Oh yeah! pretty innovative eh?). First tried at Inox at the Garuda Mall. Even with the ticket prices at 170 bucks, there was a huge rush! Man do these Bangloreans have lots of disposable cash! The madding crowd surely drove us away from there and thus we decided to try out Rex, our favorite English cinema since Pre-Univ days (11th/12th Std days, for the uninitiated). Sure enough, we easily got tickets at 625 for the 630 show of 'Legend of Zorro'. The movie itself was so-so, pretty similar to the prequel with all the swishing swords and funny moments! The funniest was the addition of Zorro's kid who imbibes some of the legendary fleet-footedness which he displays at school. And Catherine Zeta-Jones. Beautiful as ever! Sultry as ever (hee hee, thankz to Vyb for introducing this word in my dictionary :-D)!
Movie over and the now common rains made its appearance, albeit after a week's let up.
Week's been pretty busy; and cloying with all the Diwali sweets coming in from everywhere. Office, friend's place, relatives' houses, wherever I land, there are sweets! And crackers too! Though as a personal decision, didn't burst any of them. Though watched them polluting the air in all their fiery, smoky splendor! (nothing against people who burst! I used to do it till about 2 years back. Then stopped!)
Before I go, as is the flow in the recent past, an attempt to make you people groan!

If Zeenat Aman had an affair with almost every man she met, and each of them fathered a child with her, she would be singin this for each of them.....

...Aap jaisa koi mere zindagi mein aaaye, to Baap ban jaaaye, haaan, haaan, Baap ban jaaaye!

Till then, Adios Amigos!

Baar, baar Baarish!!

2005-10-27T06:26:00.001-07:00

After three days of incessant rain, all I am reminded of nowadays is the nursery rhyme 'Rain rain go away'. Not so much because lil' Johnny wants to play, but more because big John wants to get to work and back! It was never a new story of the Bangalore roads getting clogged whenever there was a slight bout of rain. After the Mumbai deluge, the proud Bangalorean used to say 'It can't happen in our Garden City. We are not near the sea, but on a plateau. So all the water's gonna flow down'. Well, I guess the average Bangalorean doesn't know that there were 255 lakes in 1965, out of which only 88 exist now. The rest of them are either shopping malls, apartment high-rises or IT companies. Well, all it needed was 88mm of rain to get the reality check. Whole of South Bangalore resembled a big lake with buildings in it. Every lake overflowed onto the roads. At the same time, all the older localitites, be it Malleshwaram or Vijayanagar or Basanvangudi, were pretty dry. They have better natural drainage, I guess. All the water drains towards the outskirts of the city, which bore the brunt. At the IT lifeline, Hosur Road, traffice was moving at 0.5Kmph all day! Wow! Unimaginable! All this rain is really turning the climate into a dull mood! Shopping establishments are really taking a hit with not many people venturing out for Diwali shopping.
Enough of all this ranting. Am bored talking about it. Had been to Hebbal lake last Sunday. Was passing by the lake and saw it full and overflowing. So just stopped the bike, went into the adjoining park and clicked some snaps. The park was half submerged with the overflowing water. But still, lots of couples found the marshy environs romantic enough to cuddle up ;-). And there were an equal number of peeping Toms who were very interested in the activities of the couples there. Here are some of the pics I took.

Well, as has been my wont these days, still in the mood for my PJs. Here goes another one. Bang your heads people, bang your heads ;-)

There was this atheist who always pooh-pooh-ed the idea of God and such religious principles. One day, another person took up the challenge and decided to try and convincing the atheist about God and his power. After days and days of discussion and argument, finally the religious man could make the atheist believe in God. After this, the ex-atheist started singing a song....

Aasthik Banaya Aapne...

Its raining....and how!!

2005-10-21T03:37:00.001-07:00

Bangalore's been getting a fresh bout of rains from the past week or so. And its not the normal Bangalore showers that last for about an hour and disappear. Its more like the ad for Energiser - Goes on and on and on...! Today's been a bit of respite, though the clouds look murky and threaten to burst open anytime soon.
Got lots of expected 'ugh' reviews for my last mongol pandey joke. Heh heh, am so used to those groans in response to my jokes :-D But I loved it :-)
I go through those phases - there was a phase when I was into PJs.
And then poems (had posted them here. Take a look - My Collection of Poems); well that is a pretty niche area. You really need to tax your thoughts to come up with a poem - even a bad one requires quite a bit of effort. Wonder about Wordsworth and the like. They must have been driven by a strong passion. And yes, a love of nature. I can never forget 'Daffodils'. I think it was it was in 8th Std that we had it in our English textbook. Still haven't forgotten it. 'They flash upon the inward eye, Which is the bliss of solitude'. Beautiful, that poem is.

Next there was a phase for really short stories. Captured my imagination for a while. Need to think to write such stuff as well, the 55-word kinds.
Now I am back to my PJs. I have always been interested in the 'pun'-ny side of words. Just a small play on them words and you have a good laugh in your hands. Here's one more. This was inspired by the Federation Cup ads that are on Zee TV. Noticed one of the hoardings near Forum Mall.

In Italy, they have special road crossings for ladies in lingerie. In fact, they even have a special nomenclature for such crossings. And they are...

Ze-bra crossings.

Ha ha, I know I know. Maybe its not funny at all. Big deal, get out your guns and shoot me. I laughed out loud when I made it up.

Here are some of the pics that I took during my visit to Mangalore last weekend. Nothing great. But, am still learning and still very low on the learning curve. Need to keep taking pics to get to some level. I have pretty good friends in whose steps I can follow - Suprada, Vikas and Sathwick. Who, not long ago, used to think a camera is to capture social occasions and functions. Now its a lot more. And with digital cameras, no requirement of developing the film, one can really make it a passion. (Click on each of the pictures to get a larger image)

Back to my jokes...

2005-10-17T07:53:00.000-07:00

Benn some time since I posted...more because I was out of town last weekend during Dussera to Mangalore and my native place. Was raining pretty much there and the whole place looked like a hill station. Felt good to drive around there amongst the hills and wafting mists.
Did take quite a few snaps which I am too bored to upload now. Will upload them soon.
Here a joke I just created few hours ago.

Genghis Khan, after beingn defeated, came to Uttar Pradesh and settled in Benaras and started a small paaan shop. This post-war life of his was chronicled in a famous Hindi movie titled....

Mongol Paaan-De

I know, I know...but I am like this only :-))

Short of the Day...

2005-10-03T23:33:00.000-07:00

Well, its raining cats and dogs agian in Bangalore. Strange to have so much rains in October. And its slated to continue for another week at least. Guess lots of Navratri festivities are going to be dampened. So, if any place, Mysore is the place to be during Dasara. Grand grand spectacle it'll be.
Here's another short one:

He loved her. A lot! To the point of obsession. But she never reciprocated. So here they were, all alone, and he scanned the horizon for company. There was no one. He realized the opportunity he had and grabbed her from behind close towards him. She expected this. She wheeled around and let go a fierce kick towards him. He stuttered, then fell headlong. She too couldn't hold her balance and stumbled forth and rolled downwards behind him. He checked himself - a broken collarbone. Damn! She had better luck and only a few scratches.
Down below, their uncle thundered - "I sent you to get water. Jack! What the $&@!# were you doing up there with Jill?"

~prashanth

Team outing...and another short story!

2005-10-01T01:00:00.000-07:00

We had our team outing today to Guestline Resorts on Hosur Road. The funniest thing was that we almost spent as much time at the resort as the time travelling to it :-)) Hosur Road past Silk Board junction is a nightmare if you drive/ride! I really pity all those software engineers who drive to E-City and around! (maybe that is how they are able to handle and cope with all the stress on the job ;-)) As I read in a cartoon a few days back, Life's like Hosur Road - no shortcuts!
The outing itself was good fun - to start off, the eternal favorite of all trip bus journeys, Antakshari. Heard some songs which I didn't even know existed :-) Once we reached the resort and refreshed ourselves with a welcome drink grape juice - which suspiciously tasted like wine to me (ona tangent, isn't wine old grape? Is there a connection, I wonder), we immediately started off playing cricket. Wonderful game we had, in the end, it was tie. Great effort by Bharath who took a lost cause (we were 0 runs /3 wickets after 1 over) almost to a win. Yours truly also helped a bit in the resurrection. After cricket, it was the badminton courts that needed to be conquered. Did that, then it was time for lunch. There were about 3 companies who had their outing that day. So it was clear struggle for the lunch and desserts. They should have put up a first-come first-serve board out there :-D After lunch, it was again some badminton, then fooling around in the swimming pool and finally after the customary group snaps, head back home. And as usual, the Hosur Road traffic didn't disappoint in the least. 2 hours for 15KMs. Government, please note. At this rate, making Bangalore Wi-Fi is the best option. People can work from a traffic jam itself!

And yeah, these short stories have really caught my imagination. Here's another try fro me (though I don't promise that this will be less than 55 words. Give an artist some leeway, yaar. No good constricting creativity ;-)).

He was the most brilliant in the class. He knew it. As usual, he sat dreamily under his favorite tree in his uncle's garden. At the same time, few of his jealous classmates were plotting against him. They discussed - "He's such a teacher's pet. And he gets all the girls' attention". Another one said, "Let's take revenge." All agreed to this.
They hid under the huge apple tree and the best marksman amongst them picked up a rotten apple fallen on the ground and aimed at their adversary. The aim was perfect. It hit him right on the center of his head.
Isaac stumbled from his dream with a start. He could feel a sharp pain on his head.
Immediately he wondered - "Why did the apple fall down instead of flying up?".

~prashanth

Tagged!

2005-09-26T04:10:00.000-07:00

Well, was just wandering and came to know that pensive Meeta had tagged me. Well, its simple. You got to try and tell a story in 55 words! Well here's my try. Fictional, of course :-)

The tall, young man was despondently thinking at VT. All his efforts had come to naught. He had bought the ticket back to Allahabad. Suddenly he felt one ray of hope surge within. He told himself determinedly - "Amitabh, you are destined to succeed". He tore the ticket and walked back into the milling Bombay crowd.

Let's see what they come up with. By the amount of posts I am putting up today, looks like I don't have much work. Which is definitely not the case. I am an efficient worker, you see (this is just in case my manager comes across this blog ;-))

~prashanth

My online collection of snaps...

2005-09-26T03:53:00.000-07:00

Am trying to create an online consolidated album of sorts of all my trips/treks...
Have put up 4 albums till now..will add the rest later!

check out http://community.webshots.com/user/prashee26

Lemme see if Google offers something...there is somethnig called 'Hello'..haven't yet gotten around to trying it!

Ping pong and much more...

2005-09-25T23:13:00.000-07:00

Well, this weekend turned out be lazier than the earlier adventurous weekends! Just lazed around at home on both the days and donned the role of a couch potato.
Watched almost all the movies that were aired on television in the 2 days (with a pleasant overdose of good, recent Amitabh movies) - Black, Aankhen, Khakee, Hollow Man, Rocky, Zeher, Paheli. Watched reruns of F.R.I.E.N.D.S for the umpteenth time.
Also watched Salaam. Guess you wouldn't have heard of that movie (chuckle!). Actually, watched half of Salaam Namaste...that makes it Salaam right (guffaws!). First half was pretty funny. Saif in his elements and Priety, bubbly as usual. But the scene stealer for me was Jaaved Jaffri (or Jaffrey or Jaaafri or whatever!). His aaastraaalian accent was too hilarious! I very much THE like THE ozzie accent. Got it mait? (sorry)? Eggjacktly!! Ha ha ha! Truly hilarious!

Listening to Mann ki Lagan from Paap! Nice soothing song to the ears! With that nice little classical touch to it!

Signing off now with a tickler (my modification to an existing joke):

What is similar to a king's son, a monkey's mother, a PTA meeting, spilt sugar, and a
bald man?

One is a Heir Apparent, one a Hairy Parent, one Hear a Parent, one Here Appear Ant and
one No hair apparent.

~prashanth

P.S: Late update: ping-pong refers to the TT tourney happening in office :-D There is a real crowd nowadays! Strange that people who never got one stair above the training room, are now flocking the TT room in droves!

Few Snaps from my Canon S1 IS

2005-09-19T00:26:00.000-07:00

(click on each snap for a larger picture)

From last weekend's trip:

Adventurous Weekend at Sitanadi Rafting Camp

2005-09-17T07:41:00.000-07:00

My blog's turned out to be more of a weekend update now :-)

Finally got some time this weekend to just chill out and relax. Last weekend was pretty hectic what with white watwer rafting and beach-ing. Good fun it was.
Rafting was a great experience as you try to conquer to rapids in a rubber boat that looks like more of a garden pool tub. But looks do deceive and it was as sturdy as Rahul Dravid (and Steve Waugh) in a crisis situation.
We were at Sitanadi Nature camp in the wee hours of Saturday morning where we were supposed to spending the night as well. There were 10 of us. As soon as we reached, we were taken in by the splendor of the jungle and the river.

We were quickly shown our accomodation - spacious tents each having 2 beds. Each tent could have easily accomodated about 20 people sleeping on the floor. But we had the luxury of 3 per tent. All the tents were facing the jungle and the sounds of crickets were something different altogether!

After breakfast, we were told that our rafting session would be post-lunch so we just walked around into the jungles on a beaten track. After about half an hour of walking, we reached the main road where we just lolled around. Then we reached the camp in time for lunch. Had a sumptuous lunch that almost put us to sleep :-D
Finally, we got into our rafting gear (life jackets/helmets et al) and onto our dinghies. The ride was too good. Vikram once fell off the raft. Pulling as person back is pretty diffucult from both pulling and pulled parties :-))
Then at the midlle of the journey, you get a calm spot where you can dive into the river off a huge rock. All of us took a dip into the river which was refreshing after the rowing.
Finally, after about 3 hours of rafting, we were at the destination point after crossing about 6-7 rapids.

On the way back to the camp in the jeep, we shopped for the night. Snacks, soft drinks and the like.
Once darkness fell, the jungle really came alive with all the insects creating a real racket of a noise. We took a walk again just to savor the darkness.
Finally, went to sleep, exhausted. Next day was a trip to Udipi temple where we had our lunch, ice cream at Diana parlour, then off to TannirBavi beach in Mangalore. Frolicked around in the sand, played football as well (we bought a football especially for that).
That was how our weekend went. Next day morning, it was back in office as usual, tired n sleepy.
Photos can be found at http://community.webshots.com/album/452401787YqqMVe

Listening to songs from Aashiq Banaya Aapne. Good one. All the songs are catchy n peepy with a few remixes thrown in as well. Aapki Kashish especially is a great track! Again looks to be sung by a Pakistani singer...at least sounds like one.

Till next time, adios!

Sporting Weekend

2005-09-05T06:57:00.000-07:00

Well, this weekend, for a change, was completely sporting. A move away from the recent wanderlust. Stayed put at home and stuck in front of the TV. There was lots of sports to look forward to over the weekend. US Open, WC2006 qualifiers, F1 Italian GP, Tri-Nation Series cricket..well, my two days were just packed!
Yesterday was the best..first the fightback by Yuvraj and Dhoni against Zimbabwe. When Yuvraj is in form, he is atreat to watch. And Dhoni was a revealation with his controlled innings. He earns new respect from me from now onwards. Hope India can break its finals jinx and lift the cup on Tuesday.
Another awesome match was the Sharapova-Sania US Open match. The final scoreline did not do a bit of justice to the fight that Sania put up. Her groundstrokes were consistently harder and faster than Sharapova's. It was only her serve that let her down. Too many double faults and also Maria took Sania's second serves to the cleaners! Otherwise it was almost an even match-up between the two talented (and hot!) 18-year-olds. I guess now Sania's raking should go up to the high-30's which would automatically seed her for all the Slams. Way to go, Sania. Sania Mania was visible all over town, on TV channels and even the crowd at Centre Court at Flushing Meadows. So here's looking forward to a Top-tenner from India soon.

F1 too was pretty enthralling with Kimi trying to pull Alonso off his perch. But the 11th placed start didn't help and looks like Renault will be on tops finally. But that Mclaren is one helluva car. Nothing even closely as fast! And with is funky styling, the car really stand out among the rest of the F1 crowd. JPM did a good race which is so much of a rarity nowadays! Good for him! But still, my mantra will be Gooooooooo Kimi!

Other than sports, Saturday was lunching outside at Magnolia, the quaint little place near BDA complex in Koramangala. The cuisine is mainly Chinese with a dash of Thai (though I could not make out the difference between both :-D). The food is good and is not too hard on the pockets as well. Good place to try out if Chinese is the one that tickles your palate.

Watched Mr and Mrs Smith on Saturday. Drab movie, except for the sparks between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (how hot can one get man! she's just drool-maaal). The chemistry between them is pretty evident. Some of the one-liners were moderately funny but nothing to write home about. Can easily give it a miss unless you are a Jolie fan (which most are).

Listening to the remix of Aashiq Banaya Aapne title track. Very good sounding and seems to be following on the footsteps of Woh Lamhe remix as a chart topper. But that guy Emraan Hashmi is one lucky dude. Gets a chart topper song every movie, gets to do the lip-locking thingie with each of his heroines (is that a rider when he signs a film??).

The rain gods seem to be in a playful mood this week. Been raining in and out. Got drenched to the bone thrice in 3 days! And still no signs of any cold/cough/etc. Touchwood! But my bike's getting a good beating treading watery roads (umm, ok no roads, streams rather). Got to take of it now.

Am tired now. Will update more later. Still got to write my travelogues of all my journeys! Btw, got a new Canon S1 IS camera. Fell in love with it! Awesome camera. Still fiddling around with the controls to get a good hang of it!

Random Thought: Why is Roomali Roti called so? It is because it looks/feels (and tastes?) like a roomal/handkerchief or because it was first made in Ali's Room?

Guess?

2005-08-31T07:44:00.000-07:00

Ha ha...another day...another funny thing.
Was going to lunch with 2 of my colleagues in Koramangala. Then there's this girl walking towards us. I usually have a fascination for reading printed messages on tee-shirts and this female had one. With bold letters it was written "Guess?" right across the tee-shirt. My almost immediate reaction was to go ask "32C?". Then better sense prevailed and I decided to shut my mouth and grin to myself.

Lightning Update from BizziMan!

2005-08-19T12:41:00.000-07:00

Well, came by my blog after long and felt that it lacked something...was thinking hard what it could be....after long hours under the peepal tree and various other flora, it STRUCK me..what this blog missed most was updates :-D guess I need to be more regular...

Here is a hilarious thing I witnessed a few days back...
the ride to office in the morning is pretty boring and I tend to look around others driving and at signals. Thus there was this young female (ooops...lady) who I guess was working for Huawei Technologies (wait...I'll tell how I found out!) who was riding a scooty in front of me on the Mysore Road flyover. She was wearing her company jacket with the company's slogan boldly splashed across. I was trying hard to read what it was. And guess what, the slogan read "Ovation Never Stops". I couldn't help not notice and wonder. Then it struck me. She had a bit more than shoulder length hair and her hair had blocked the "Inn" in the beginning. Man, was that a funny sight.

More for later. Me tired.

Emotion: Sleepy. Much more.

Music: Crawling - Linkin Park

Wanderlust!

2005-07-02T00:04:00.000-07:00

Been long since I posted...but then its understandable. Every weekend has been pretty interesting. Was out on trips in 3 of the last 4 weekends. Good to get back to travelling days. Wanderlust hits back with a vengeance!
So first weekend stop was to Agumbe. It almost didn't happen for me, as I was a last-minute entry and there was no place in the Sumo we were supposed to be travelling in. I had opted out but then, just as luck would have it, we somehow managed to squeeze me in. So, finally left Bangalore at 2AM on Saturday morning putting a tyre puncture and change of vehicles behind us. I generally don't sleep on journeys and this was no exception. Was awake and watching the driver skillfully manoeuvre the Qualis along the highway with reckless truck drivers and idiots driving on high beam always! Was just thinking thatb the Qualis should have been just about 3-4 inches wider. Would have fit in all of us snugly. Right now, it was just a bit less shoulder room. The driver drove continuously until we took our first break for tea sometime at 7AM at Aldur on the Chickmagalur-Sringeri highway. The greenery looked awesomely fresh and it was just nice to walk around there. We had our tea and set off to Sringeri. Reached Sringeri at about 10AM and booked into a room very near to the famous Sringeri Math (. It was a weekend so it was pretty diofficult to get a room but we managed to get ourselves a huge room capable of accomodating about 15 people. We then freshened up and had a bit of breakfast. After that, all of went went to the math (established by Adi Shankaracharya loong, loong ago!). The whole area was calm and serene compared to the cacophony just outside with all the vehicle drivers and shopkeepers blaring songs of different genre in different languages. The Math is situated right at the banks of the Tunga river. One unique feature here are the huge number of catfishes that swim at the banks. They are fed puffed corn by the thronging devotees. Some of the catfishes are so big, they could give even Garfield a complex. We sat at the banks for sometime and then visited the temple for the 'aarthi'. Then, we had lunch at the temple itself where they serve food for all the people who visit the temple. Though the food was just plain rice with sambar/rasam/curd, it was pretty tasty. There was even payasam as well. Its pretty mind-boggling to see the logistics that they need to take care of feeding thousands of devotees each day.
After that [i am bored now...will write some other time :-D].

My collection of poems...

2005-06-24T07:45:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while, when I am usually in a despondent mood, I start writing bits of writing that finally tend to look like poems. I feel pretty happy with that. Am posting the stuff that I penned...

A Friend in Need

Life feels like nothing more than a bubble
One moment glistening, the next, mere rubble
All the dreams that are built along the way
Comes crashing down in less than a day

Tears stream down, the sobbing gets loud
Where is that silver lining in the dark cloud?
That is when you yearn for a friend
Who can give your broken heart a mend

In the times of joy, be there to share
In times of grief, be there to care
Oh, how I wish for such a pal
Will I ever come across one at all?

Contemplating Life

Its the feeling I get then and now
And it is not any idle thought
Everytime I wonder how
Whether this life is really worth or not

Somedays it is boring existence
With nothing to look forward to
And all around, you feel a pretence
True friends too far and few

But most days is filled with sun and shine
A jump in the step, a lilt in the voice
Then life feels all good and fine
Bantering with friends, with lots of noise

And as this wondering turns deep
Life, I realize,sometimes make you smile
And sometimes makes you weep
But all in all, its been worth this while

Leaf In The Wind

I am drifting all alone
In this wide, wide ocean of life
There is no one to call my own
Empty feelings and loneliness cut like a knife

I have so many questions to ask
But still they remain unanswered
Now I am just wearing a mask
Nothing is as it seems, nothing is as is heard

Once upon a time, I was wild and reckless
Willing to take on life's idiosyncracies
Now, after the fight, its just a mess
I have been humbled, and brought to my knees

Life will still take its own course
More twists-and-turns, bump-and-grind
And I cannot stand against its force
I am but just a leaf in the wind

Boats On the Shore

The boat is moored at the shore
After getting thrown about in the tempest
Wondering what the future has in store
After the trough, waiting for the crest

All that has happened, all that is done
Is left behind as the forgettable past
Battles may be lost, but the war needs to be won
And that is what matters final and last

In the run of life, sometimes you may fall
Tripped and pushed by the ones you believed
But the one who gets up and stands tall
Is the one who truly has lived

Life has always got the high and the low
Both ways the pendulum will swing
Sometimes utter darkness, sometimes that bright glow
Hopes that are shattered will again take wing

Shadows

As I stand in this bright light
And all around me is a glow
Something suddenly catches my sight
Oh yeah, its my very own shadow

It is your best friend for ever
Though its form is not complete
It will leave your side never
Also it makes your imitation neat

When no one is around, and you are all alone
Your shadow is there, ever by your side
It is one thing you can call your very own
There is nothing from it, that you can hide

But among all these brighter comments
Sometimes the shadow has a question mark
Because it is there at your brighter moments
But leaves you all alone in the dark

Raining cats and dogs...

2005-06-06T08:07:00.000-07:00

...the euphemism does not hold good for the Bangalore weather anymore. It can be more well-described as raining elephants and horses! Man, did the rain pour! It was like someone up there just forgot to shut the tap after the water tank was full...gushed down from the heavens. And then, the Bangalore roads..the less said the better. The authorities have got this ability to get their timing right upto a split second to dig up the roads just before the rain starts. And once it rains, God save the pedestrians and motorits. Where the road stops and drain starts, nobody knows. Its just based on pure luck and providence. The area that I work in, Koramangala, is especially terror-inducing. There is no road that does not turn into a veritable slush pool. The authorities seem to have taken to name 80-feet road in the wrong sense. Rather than 80-feet wide, they are turning it into an 80-feet deep road. Half the road is a mud path, the other half pothole-ridden. As someone said, it looks exactly like Om Puri's face!
Today has been relatively non-rainy in that sense. Could walk around office a bit. Though the road in front of office is again pathetic, the less said the better. Wonder if ever the infrastructure will get better.
This weekend was a bit lazier in terms of things to do. Sunday was spent at home entertaining relatives of various shapes and sizes. Now, I have perfected the art of smiling and lolling my head when faced with weird questions and comments on things like marriage and kids and the like. Painful moments, those. Had a sumptuous lunch and then spent the rest of the time chatting away with cousins.

Return from a hiatus

2005-06-04T06:19:00.000-07:00

Music of the Moment: Sing (Travis)

Back after a long time. Though I wasnt too busy as such, never found the opportunity to sit back, relax and blog away. Been making good use of my weekends though.
Let me see...Bunty Aur Babli...ok, review time!
One phrase would sum up the movie - flattered to deceive - The promos looked promising, the previews from different sites looked inviting...but in the end, it turned out to be a damp squib. The diector had a golden chance to create a runaway hit...but falters in trying too many things. Not one of the situations are well-developed. Before we know what happened, the twosome are already escaping. Though Abhishek and Rani have put in good performances, the story lacks the fizz. Even Amitabh in a different style doesn't appeal. And the Taj Mahal caper, hah, lacks any conviction. And once, they are caught, the story takes the usual melodramatic route - which could have been completely avoided. But the movie does have its good points too - some of the one-liners and repartees from the lead actors are worth rolling over with laughter. Like Dashrath (Amitabh's comment about people doing such big hungama over 'itni chhoti cheezein' - wonder how many got the joke but), Rani's comments to Dashrath about Abhishek (saying 'aap hi ka rishteydaar lagta hai), Rani's Miss India struggles, are pretty funny. But it does not sustain the length of the movie.
Looks like a sequel will be on the way soon, seeing the way it ended. And yes, please, someone tell Rani she acts well enough and does not need to shed her clothes to gain viewership. She might have lost weight but all those costumes in the song 'Aaja Udiye' look absolutely revolting.

Well, that's it for the review. I had been wanting to write about other stuff too. Which absolutely captured my imagination in the past few weeks. Like Liverpool's back from the grave comeback in the Champion's League final - absolute champagne stuff! Though I am not a Liverpool fan by any means, I couldnt help clapping and saying 'We'll never walk alone' after that dramatic final. They now have a new-found place in my 'better' teams list.
Another was the Formula-1 races - both at Monaco as well as Nurburgring. What awesome driving.
At Monaco, the overtaking was just breath-taking. The track looks treacherous with its winding curves, but still the drivers managed to rule over it.
The Nurburgring race was amazing because of the way the drivers were tested. My heart went out to Kimi when he crashed out at the last lap. Well, that is the beauty of Formula-1, I guess. Well, Alonso really seems to be turning the heat on this season. The McLarens and the Ferraris, nowhere to be seen in the initial races, look like staging a comeback. Though Michael Schumacher looks pretty pale compared to his previous red-hot seasons. The other cars seem to have got a measure of Ferrari this season, which is good to see. Formula-1 was really getting boring. This season has seen renewed vigour which is good for us viewers too.

Been listening to varied music of late. Alternative rock to Hindi movie to Kannada Devotional. Well, that would be as varied as it would get. Travis has me hooked for the moment with their 'Sing' and 'Why does it always rain on me'. Then, the new song from Dus looks great too - 'Dus bahane karke'. Sounds pretty cool, looks pretty cool!

Well, my hands are aching now. Will step out for a while. Ciao!

Weekend Blues!

2005-05-21T03:24:00.000-07:00

Come weekend and I am in a fix as to what to do..well I could come here and put in some words, but then sitting a whole week in front of a monitor tap-tapping away, its a bugging thing to do again over the weekend. Well, till I decide what to do now, will keep tap-tapping away :-)
Well, let me try writing a review. Will start of on restaurants - we were treated at Bamboo Shoots last weekend by a friend of ours who is getting into marriage bliss (did i hear some guffaws? :-D).
Well, coming to the reastaurant, it had authentic Chinese and Thai food. Authentic as in real chinese/Thai chefs preparing the food I guess - not any Indian chef who would put in a whole pack of Garam masala into a bowl of Gobi Manchurian (well, I do hope garam masala is not put into gobi manchurian, its just a guess, what with my culinary skills and all). Well, we started off on the starters (yeah, I know, lame sentence!). We ordered a lot of them, veg and non-veg. The Tiger prawns were especially yummy. We ordered only the Chinese stuff as we didn't want to take any chances with Thai about which none of us knew. And, we always have this scare where we might get a moving reptile on our plates (again I know, a cliched view).
Well, the starters were sumptuous enough that we actually didn't order much of the main course. It usually happens that we end up wasting a lot coz none would have the enthu to eat after the starters.
We just had one item of rice which we shared among 5 of us. We were that full. The rice wasn't too heavy and the gravy went well with the rice.
Then the best part- desserts. That is what everyone waits for.We ordered some 2 items which had all exotic sounding names and the usual lychee with ice-cream :-). Good one!
Really a good place to go to. And not verrrrry expensive as we had thought. 1500 for 5 of us. That looked like a good deal.
Well, thatz about for my review. Looks more like a dear diary thing than a review. But what the heck, its a start!

Another funny incident was the interview I took yesterday. The candidate was really interesting. You try asking him a question- he listens to part of it and then starts off without giving us a chance to complete the question. This is how it went -
Q1. Ok, tell us abt urself.
A. I am so-and-so doing this-and-that. My project was ...blah....blah..3 minutes....blah blah!

Q2. Ok, tell us, in the XML you used in......
A. Oh, XML...that...this...blah...SAX.....DOM...<8minutes>...and that is how it is!

We were fully zapped at this. We were trying to aska question that should have elicited a one-line answer and he went on for 8 minutes! And everytime we tried to cut in, he cut us right back and carried on with his monologue.

Qn. You have used software X?
A. Hmm...not too much, but have downloaded the trailer (?) version and run a couple of examples.

And then finally the ultimate Miss India answer - being in any stream of SDLC is fine but what is important is to contribute as much as you can with your expertise. Phew!!!
Let us a bit dazed after the interview.

Well, am, tired now. Think will sleep for a while and then decide what to do. Have another interview to take this evening. Man, hope that this guy is something good.

Prashanth