Friday, December 31, 2004

Personal 2004

  • Work went asusual.

  • No new entry into the family.

  • 3 cousins and 2 close friends got married.

  • Travelled to some beautiful locales in South India...mostly trek trips.

  • Made new friends in office and met a lot of old friends.

  • I lost my grand father, 2 uncles, 3 other slightly distant relatives and a very good neighbour.

As my mom puts it, 2004 was the year of death.

Awaited things in 2005

Atleast in the first half
  • India thrashing Pakistan in India in cricket

  • Bangalore’s infrastructure improves

  • Bihar’s election results

  • Sensex touches 8200 points

  • Good progress on India’s mission to moon

  • Chelsea wins EPL and Champions trophy

  • Rs 1 lakh car on road

  • Oracle – Peoplesoft merger - Success or flop

  • Dan Brown’s “The Solomen key”

  • Functioning of the Golden quadrilateral


Tops of 2004

Surprises of the year
  • NDA losing power in the center

  • Greece winning the Euro 2004 football championship

  • FC Porto wins the UEFA champions league

  • Sehwag scores triple century against Pakistan

  • Sensex rocks

Scandals of the year
  • US soldiers caught abusing Iraqis on camera

  • DPS - MMS scandal

Movies of the year
  • Apthamitra

  • Kill Bill

Happy news of the year
  • Super monsoon in Karnataka

  • India flies its indigenous aeroplane “Saras”

  • Rajyavardhan Rathore gets silver for India in Olympics

  • India thrashes Pakistan in Pakistan in the Friendship Cricket series

Disappointment of the year
  • Bush comes back to power

  • Deve Gowda becomes the kingmaker in Karnataka

Deaths of the year
  • Tsunami rocks south Asia including India and takes thousands with it

  • Soundarya dies in a plane crash in Bangalore

  • Veerappan is shot dead in Tamil-nadu by the STF

  • Christiano Junior dies on the field in Bangalore after scoring a goal

Flops of the year
  • India-Shining advertisement campaign and Bharat Uday yatraof BJP

  • Kannada filmdom’s 7 week moratorium on non-Kannada movies

Tussels of the year
  • Ambani brothers fight out

  • Kanchi seer Vs Govt of Tamil-Nadu

Stupid moments of the year
  • Wardrobe malfunction of Janet Jackson

  • David Beckam admits of purposefully fouling and no action against him

  • Pak scientist Abdul Q Khan admits of selling nuclear secrets to Libya and Iran and that is termed as an internal matter of Pakistan

  • Uma Bharti is thrown out of BJP, but is taken in again citing no reason

People of the year
  • Sonia Gandhi
    For managing the Indian government by sitting outside

  • Citizen of USA
    For voting Bush back to power

  • Michael Schumacher
    For beating all F1 records and making others look like carting drivers

Thursday, December 30, 2004

Power of AND

There is a wine store near Banashankari. The name of the store is “Wine”. This is the first time I have seen a type of product as the name of the store. May be I haven’t noticed earlier. But two types of products combined can form a proper noun (name of a store in this case). There are many examples for this. “Greens and grains”, “Cakes and breads”, “Sugar and Ice” are names of vegetable stalls, bakery, eatery respectively in Bangalore. What makes the difference between “Type of product” and “Type of product AND Type of product”? The difference is “AND”. “And” can make proper nouns.

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Foxes can’t trick crows

I remember a story which was told to me during my first days in school (LKG). I am sure lot of people would remember this as well. The story went like this.
There is a crow sitting on tree with a piece of cake in its mouth. A fox saw this crow and wanted to get the piece of cake from the crow. The fox hit upon a sly plan. It said “Dear Crow, I have heard that you are a very good singer. I want to hear a song from you.” The crow swelled its chest in pride and thought that this was a genuine appreciation. It opened the mouth to start a song. The piece of cake fell down and the fox took it away. And so the crow was tricked.

Yesterday, I had a look into my niece’s LKG story book. The story has now changed. The part till the fox asking for the crow to sing remains the same. Then kahani mein twist. The crow takes the cake piece from the mouth to the legs. Then it starts singing. The fox’s trick failed and had to go back disappointed.

Actually my niece told me this story and I was about to say her that she was wrong. Then I decided to check in her story book. She was correct.
I did not understand the reason behind the change in the story, but it is a welcome change.

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

North Vs South

I happened to visit a pooja at the house of a north Indian colleague of mine. It was a “Satyanarayana pooja”. I could find some stark differences between the South Indian and North Indian traditions.

  • The purohit was fully dressed, shirt, sweater and a woolen cap. In the South Indian way generally the purohit is topless, with a shawl only.

  • The couple who performed the pooja were dressed fully which is not the case with South Indians. The guy who performs the pooja dresses like the purohit - half dressed.

  • The prasad was prepared by a visitor like me. He just washed his hands and legs and was ready to put his hands into the prasad. Among South Indians, a bath is a must and mostly the person who prepares the prasad is also half dressed.

  • The “saligram” could be touched by anybody present for the pooja. It was like any other photo of the God. South Indians regard the “saligram” as the most auspicious stone. Only a few who are in madi (people who have taken bath and not touched anybody after bath, generally in wet towels...considered to be pure) can touch “saligram”.

  • After washing the “saligram”, the stone was dried using a towel that was used for general purposes. This is totally unacceptable (the above being the reason) among South Indians.

  • The God had only a few flowers on him. This is the case even in north Indian temples. Down south, flowers hide almost everything of the idol\photo. In fact the expenditure on flowers for such a flower is really very high. Fewer the flowers, lesser is the beauty of the deity.

  • The aarti style was different. An oiled lamp was taken and held in front of the deity. The guy performing the pooja, held the lamp in one hand and moved his other hand from the lamp towards the photo without moving the lamp. It was like waving the smoke towards the photo. This was unusual, as even in temples of North India the style was not this. In south India, the fire is moved in circles, up and down all over the photo.


I asked the purohit why is it that north Indians are not so strict on the madi aspect. The purohit has been staying in Bangalore for more than 20 yrs and seemed to have answered this question hazar times. He said North India is considered pure because the Goddess of purity “Ganga” flows there. Hence they don’t need any more madi.

May be the river linking project will let Ganga flow down to South India aswell and reduce the differences in the traditions.

Madi - This is a Kannada word. I don't know the exact version in Kannada or English. It roughly means purity or Immaculateness.

Monday, December 27, 2004

Tsunami sucks

South India was rattled by something known as tsunami. Thousands have died and hundreds are missing. There is very less news trickling from Andaman. If Tamil Nadu was hit so hard, then what about Andaman? Islands would have been submerged.
I heard in Kannada news that some parts of Bangalore also experienced mild tremors. Nobody in my area experienced anything.
Indonesia and SriLanka will take months or years to come back to lively life.
If the tsunami had hit the west coast, my native village would have been washed away. There were some high tides there too. My grandma is in Bangalore now. She getting tense and wants to rush back home. A home in which she lived for 60+ yrs. Neighbors have assured her that everything is safe there over phone.
I have lots of friends in Chennai. I am not able to reach them for whatever reasons. But I think all of them are safe.
Whenever there is such a tragedy, I try to look for pictures of the tragedy. May be that’s a sadistic feeling...Anyway I found a few old tsunami pictures.

Friday, December 24, 2004

I am nicknamed "The Goat"

Yesterday we had our quarterly team outing. After having visited lots of resorts in the past quarters, we decided to go to an adventurous spot. We chose Ramnagar as the location for our adventures.

As planned, we left office at 11:30am with the lunch packets. We picked up a couple of cans of water on the way. The trainer got into the swaraj mazda in Banashankari. On the way we had our lunch (sandwich, burger, 2 bananas, 1 frooti and unlimited water!). Time pass activity this time was not anthakshari or dumbc but discussion about the life and times of each individual of the team. The concentration was on the 1st crush and worklife crush. Amazingly many guys experienced the first crush in standard 3 -4 and the crush happened to be a teacher! We reached Ramnagar by 2pm. 3 more trainers joined us there. They made preparations for our 1st of the two adventurous activities.

The place
It’s a really small village in the interiors of Ramnagar. This was the place where Sholay was shot. The place has some 10 -15 huts. There is no hotel or restaurant nearby. Nature is the toilet. About 500 mts from the place is the famous temple of Sholay. The village has power supply with street lights (rather path lights, because there are no streets). It has a small 2 room government school. There is a pond where some people were fishing (may be for dinner). There were some vegetable crops around the huts.

Chimney climbing
Two rocks of about 30 foot high stand apart with a gap of about 2 foot between them. This is the chimney! We need to climb the rock pressing against the other rock using the hands, legs and back only. I cannot describe this without a photo, but without experiencing it there’s no fun.

Seeing the demo was a bit scary, though he said that we would never fall. I took the initiative to go first. To everybody’s surprise (including mine) I could go up the rock in no time with great ease. It was a morale boosting display for the guys who were down. But all their hopes sagged when the second guy failed to reach the top and had to come down from midway. People struggled to come up and only 8 of the 13 guys could reach the top. None with the ease I had displayed ;-). The trainer had initially said that the posture midway is called a goat posture. So everybody nicknamed me as “The Goat”. Later the trainer said that lighter guys have flexible body and it’s easier for them to push up. So that’s the reason for my quickness.

Rappelling
This was on another rock and again there were lots of precautions so that we would never fall off.
What is rappelling?
A descent of a vertical surface, as a cliff or wall, by sliding down a belayed rope that is passed under one thigh and over the opposite shoulder or through a device that provides friction, typically while facing the surface and performing a series of short backward leaps to control the descent.
In short, descending from a rock\cliff backwards but with the feet of the rock\cliff is rappelling. This is shown in many movies.

The initial few steps are a bit scary. A couple of guys were so terrified by their experience of Chimney climbing that they hesitated to do this. But this was not as thrilling as the previous one.

By 6:30 we were done with the activities and the stomachs started making their presence felt. We decided to go to “Kamat Lokaruchi” and had a great North Karnataka meal.

After a rocking day, I went to sleep by 10:30pm. I still felt that Bungee was the most adventourous event, followed by river crossing experience in Masinagudi.

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Positive from negative

I am not talking about the surge in share prices! I am justifying Bangalore's bad infrastructure.
I had written about my aunt losing her golden chain. My house and my aunt house lie on either side of the ring road in the same area within a radius of 1 km. There has been no chain thefts in my area, whereas there have been more than 4 such incidents near my aunt's place. Why is this?
My aunt's place is a pure residential area, with most of the houses occupied by the upper middle class people. The roads are smooth and there are fewer shops.
My area has lots of small shops like bakeries, condiments, grocery shops etc. The road (we call it a road because once upon a time it was a very good road!) is full of potholes. People don’t follow any kind of rules. Pedestrians are ignorant of something called the footpath which is covered with heaps of stones, mud and even filth sometimes. The rusty (no) parking signs have Devegowda's pictures stuck on them. Thanks to all these things, traffic is at snail's pace. Blood pressure will surge if you drive in the roads here. Now how can a thief rob anybody in such an area and flee on his bike at 60kmph?
Crime rates are down because of roads.
The Bangalore mayor should quote this and justify the inaction to improve the roads and infrastructure of Bangalore.
Hope the mayor, Premji and Narayana murthy are reading this ;-)

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Witty laloo in action

Its election time again. This time in Bihar. The debates and controversies have already started. I am enjoying it. The biggest showman of Indian politics Laloo Yadav is in full action already within 2 days of the announcement of election dates. The latest controversy is regarding the STAR NEWS clipping which showed Laloo distributing Rs 100 and Rs 500 notes to the poor women. This seems to be against the code of conduct laid by the election commission of India. Every party does this behind the cameras. During the last elections, some people died in Lucknow in a free saree distribution ceremony organized by BJP. EC did not care to take any action. Now why is this made a big issue? Laloo’s dialogue was very good. >“Thank God, I was caught on camera giving money, not taking it”. What a shot to the Tehelka tainted guys.
If these witty statements could solve problems, Bihar would have been a no problem state!
Expect more from this guy in the next 2 months.

Monday, December 20, 2004

"Evam Indrajit"

Rating - 9/10
What is this play about?
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9...9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1...1,2.....
No nothing about symbology or anything very complex. It’s about all of us. It’s about people and their struggle called life. Everything in life goes round and round and there is no start or end. I don’t want to reveal much about this, as this play will be staged many more times and people would like to have the element of suspense as it is.
I had been to this play on Saturday in Rangashankara. The place is damn good. The play started with a solid "chamak" entry by the actors. The comedy scenes mocking the current affairs were very good. The final ending scene where 3 people hold hands and make a complex tangling exercise was done well. 3 guys forming a robotic train and spelling the different options in life which cause confusion (like this sentence) was splendid. All in all, a fabulous way to spend the time on a winter weekend.

Friday, December 17, 2004

3 good forwards

Paradox!
Few centuries ago, a Law teacher came across a student who was willing to learn but was unable to pay the fee. The student struck a deal saying ' I would pay your fee the day i win my first case in the court'.

Teacher agreed and proceeded with the law course.
When the course was finished and teacher started pestering the student to pay up the fee, student reminded the deal and pushed days. Fed up with this, the teacher decided to sue the student in the court of law and both of them decided to argue for themselves.

The teacher put forward his argument saying: “If I win this case, as per the court of law, student has to pay me. And if I lose the case, student will still pay me because he would have won his first case. So either way I will have to get the money ".

Equally brilliant student argued back saying: "If I win the case, as per the court of law, i don't have to pay anything to the teacher. And if I lose the case, I don't have to pay him because I haven't won my first case yet. So either way, I am not going to pay the teacher anything".



Normal PJ...I call it creative
Question: You are in a boat in the middle of a river. You have 2 cigarettes and have to light any one cigarette. You don't have anything else with you in the boat? How will you do it?

Answer 1: Take one cigarette and throw it in the water. So the boat will become LIGHTER...using this LIGHTER you can light the other cigarette.

Answer 2: You throw a cigarette up and catch it. Catches win Matches. Using the matches that you win, you can light the cigarette.

Answer 3: Take water in your hand and drop it drop by drop... (TIP - TIP)
"TIP TIP barsa Pani.
Pani ne aag lagayee."

us aag se hamne cigarette jalayee.

Answer 4: Start praising one cigarette, the other will get jealous & "jalney lagega"



Faith
The fields were parched and brown from lack of rain, and the crops lay wilting from thirst. People were anxious and irritable as they
searched the sky for any sign of relief. Days turned into arid weeks. No rain came.
The ministers of the local churches called for an hour of prayer on the town square the following Saturday. They requested that everyone bring an object of faith for inspiration.
At high noon on the appointed Saturday the townspeople turned out en-masse filling the square with anxious faces and hopeful hearts. The
ministers were touched to see the variety of objects clutched in prayerful hands - holy books, crosses, and rosaries.

When the hour ended, as if on magical command, a soft rain began to fall. Cheers swept the crowd as they held their treasured objects high in gratitude and praise.
From the middle of the crowd one faith symbol seemed to overshadow all the others:
A small nine-year-old child had brought an umbrella!
When you do something in life, have complete faith that you will definitely succeed.

Thursday, December 16, 2004

"No model" advertisings

How many TV advertisements are there which do not have a model? I consider animals and cartoons as models. At the max - a handful.
Recently, I saw a beautiful advertisement on TV which doesn’t have a model. This is the advertisement of an undie (Frenchie X to be precise). A panty which is put for drying just flies and flies and finally comes and settles down next to Frenchie X which is again put for drying somewhere else. Finally, the caption appears “Makes a big impact”. Super adv.
It may be a copy from the Axe affect ads, where the females are attracted to the males. But the way it is shown really makes a big impact.
I see a good ad on TV after the days of Hutch’s dog and boy show. Somehow there is lack of innovation in this area. Companies just pour money on stars instead of some good stuff. Yesterday ING put an ad in one of the channels. The ad starts with a dog trying to catch its tail and ends with the dog still trying to catch its tail. The caption “Why try hard to get your own money? Invest with ING.” (The words may not be exact, but this was the meaning conveyed). This is an example of another good campaign.
There are other no model ads. Buy 2 soaps and another soap box jumps in, saying that it’s free.
This is an example of stupid modeless ads.
Now what am I trying to write here? Huh...

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

Junk packed as "Ocean's 12"

"What a pathetic movie!"...This was the expression of all of the guys in the group when we walked out of the show. This movie seemed to be an insult to Ocean's 11.
Why is it so bad?

  • The 11 guys don’t have a role to play in the robbery this time. Their "skills" are of no use.

  • The supposed to be comedy scene involving Bruce Wills and Julia doesn’t bring a faint smile on your face forget laughter.

  • There is no hep robbery. The robbery finally is like a pickpocket. This looks stupid escpecially after the sophisticated robbery in Ocean's 11.

  • The story is a big drag and is of no significance. The robbery has been done 6 days before the actual planned robbery. Now I don’t understand the reason for this.


The director has just attempted to cash in on the fame of the previous version. If it was not named "Ocean's 12", this movie would have been another English movie in the drain.

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Brahma, Vishnu, Maheshwara

I heard this story during a pooja in my colleague’s house.

Once there started an argument between Brahma and Vishnu. Each claimed that he was greater than the other. They could not come to any conclusion. So they decided to approach Maheshwara (popularly known as Shiva). When Shiva heard this argument, he thought for a moment. Then he installed a big lingam in front of the two parties. He asked Vishnu to go down and identify the starting point of the lingam. He asked Brahma to go up and identify the tip of the lingam. “Whoever comes back first is the greatest” he said. Both started off the search. Vishnu couldn’t find the base of the lingam after a long search so came back and told Shiva that he had failed. Brahma too couldn’t find the tip. But fearing a humiliation, he came back and lied to Shiva that he found the tip. He used “Ketaki” flower as a witness. Shiva got angry and gave Brahma and Ketaki a “shaapa”. “Though you are the creator, nobody in the world will pray you. Everybody will pray Vishnu and his avatars like Ram and Krishna. Ketaki will not adore any God anymore.” he said. This is the reason for not finding any Brahma temple. The story doesn’t end there. Brahma pleaded Shiva to relax this a bit. Shiva obliged and said “There will be only 1 temple for you”. So there’s one Brahma temple in Pushkar, Rajasthan. Here ketaki flowers are used.

Wonder how many such stories exist in the Vedas!

Monday, December 13, 2004

Habba on MG Road

I had been to the "Bengalooru habba" on the MG Road yesterday. The pavement was filled with stalls. There were some colleges apart from the businessmen, who had set up stalls and selling some goods. Surprisingly there were fewer food stalls.

All through the pavement there were artists sitting and drawing portraits of people who had the patience to sit opposite to those guys for 15-20 mins. How talented and lucky these guys are! Can you imagine beautiful girls sitting opposite to you for 15 mins and just stare at you eye to eye. And with mouth shut ;-). One deserves that experience if one is talented as these painters. There were guys who made caricatures also. One amazing guy made small clay faces of people who sat in front of him.

Denser crowd was seen near the fashion accessories stalls. There were handloom stalls. One stall sold earrings, bracelets and rings made from sea shells. They were awesome.

Guys were there who wrote the names on a grain of rice. I remembered the one grain my father got as a present from his friend back in the 70s. Dad had preserved it with great care, until I spoilt it when I was young. Now I realize the mistake and its value. It had a flower and my parents’ names written on it. Some things can never be got back.

Friday, December 10, 2004

Rasterbator

I found this software yesterday on Google.
What is this all about?
You have an image of say Mother Teresa of the size of a post card. You want an enlarged version (say a picture of size 2ft by 4ft) of this picture for hanging on your room wall. Give this file as input to this software and set the size you want. It gives you a pdf file as output. This file will have only dots (diameter of which you can set in the software) of black and white (there’s a color option as well). Take a printout of this pdf and arrange to get a big enlarged version of Mother Teresa.
So this tool splits and enlarges the image. View the gallery in the site. Some really amazing pictures are present. I tried with the picture of Mickey Mouse. It's super.
I felt that this tool is particularly useful to make some stage settings for plays.

Thursday, December 09, 2004

Jogging to the cab-stop

I am mostly an early to bed and early to raise guy. Sleep at 10:30pm (if work permits) and get up at 5:45am - 6am. And I don’t need an alarm for this. But this winter has been different. I am not able to wake up till 6:30am. The darkness inside the room just doesn’t let my eyes open. The bed sheet and the warm woolen rug protect my body from the coolness of the December winter. All this are factors I feel. But that affects my morning activities. The remaining processes are getting delayed. I have to read the newspaper, watch "Headlines Today" and eat my breakfast all simultaneously. After doing all this I still have to jog to my cab stop to catch the 1st shuttle to office. So getting up late is making me healthy! Haha...

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

Festival of groundnuts

Yesterday evening I went to the final day of this year's "Kadalekai parishe" (festival of groundnuts). I make it a point to visit it if I am free during the time. There were more shops. There was more variety of nuts. There were more crowds. There were more food stalls. But there were fewer crowds at the big bull temple.

My personal preference was the half fried nuts, though my friends took raw nuts to munch on. The restaurant "Halli thindi" had opened a set of food stalls with a variety of dishes. Some specials were the "Mangalore buns" and "Davangere mensinkai bajji" (Chilli bajji). It was not just mouth watering but also eye watering. But I find things really missing in these festivals are drinking water and the loos.

We took the 5 Rs entry ticket to avoid the not so long queue and go straight in front of the amazing big bull. The decorations were splendid. I spoke to the ticket vendor who happened to a friend of a friend of mine. He has won the tender for ticket vending. He can charge whatever he wants, but he fixed it at 5 bucks. He said that on Monday he had a good collection and the entire business was a profit :-).

After sitting on the stone slabs for sometime and discussing politics, shares etc…we bid goodbye to this year's fest. Wait for another "Karthika Somavara" (last Monday of the month of karthika in hindu calendar) for the fest.

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

Cribbing of a loser

Yesterday we did not finish in top 3. It was sad. We knew that we would not finish in the top as soon as the demo was done. The judges somehow seemed to have no interest in our presentation.
Why dint we win?
• 3 of the 5 judges were HR related managers…How will they know the technicality of AI or BI?
• 1 of the 5 judges went out for a leak just before the presentation started. Still we were asked to start. He was a techie and would have understood our concept.
• We had added some features especially for demo purposes. When we showed that the speakers did not talk about the importance of that features.
• The UI was very simple, unlike the jazzy stuff shown by others. Packaging is more important than the product itself.
Huh...we lost.

Monday, December 06, 2004

Death of a goal scorer

I saw the death of Cristiano live on DD sports yesterday. Such a big tragedy. The idiot goalie should be banned for life. I read that Cristiano was the top scorer in the Indian league last year. A tragic end.

The facilities are really of a great concern. The commentator told that the footballer was breathing when he was taken to the ambulance. I heard in the morning news that the ambulance did not have a oxygen cylinder. Why the hell do they call it ambulance! Common sense would say that take him to the nearest hospital when there is no oxygen. And Mallya hospital was right opposite to the Kanteerava stadium. But the stupids took him to HOSMAT in the busy traffic of Bangalore. The persons involved should be charged of murder. If the govt tries to protect, then no major sports event should be alloted to Karnataka. They should be made to pay thru their nose. Just fuck them.

KnowBots

After a long time I did a night out at office. The work was not the usual project work. It was a inventive work. Work on AI! Yes, Artificial Intelligence in combination with Business Intelligence. The occasion was a code competition. There were 17 teams and we are in the top 5. The top 3 will be rewarded. But to know if we the "KNOWBOTS" are in the top 3, we would have to wait till evening. A real anxious wait.
Now the details…
Friday afternoon we started the installation of some new tools. As expected we faced lots of problems and the problems just increased as there was no expertise on the tools in India. ISD calls to Germany dint give any positive results. Google was of no use. Hopes were started fading as the daylight started to fade. By 9pm, it was decided to scrap the original concept and work on a alternative. A couple of us continued to work on the problems. Finally we decided to call our American office which developed the tool. I used crib about the time difference. For the first time the time difference turned out to be an advantage. 30 mins of net meeting and phone call solved all our problems and our project was back on track. Satisfied with the work we took a fag break and watched some juicy scenes from the Hindi movie Girlfriends. Welcomes break indeed ;-).
Morning was again tense as we started integrating the modules. It was smooth. By 1 in the afternoon, the atmosphere was cool in the prj team. At 5 the demo was to happen in front of a highly knowledgeable panel of judges. At 4:45 Murphy's Law took over. Reports failed to come up. A last minute code change was the culprit. At 4:50 we get a call that the presentation has been postponed to 6:45 as one of the judges could not turn up. We just couldn’t help believing in LUCK. By 6 everything was up again. The demo went smooth and the by the time the results were told at 10:30 in the night half the team was in bed in some part of Bangalore. SMSs flew around in jubilation. Today we need to demo again in front of the whole company.
Waiting for the final outcome.

Thursday, December 02, 2004

Actually seen

After reading the Chain Snatched blog, my friend sent me what he has seen. Just wanted to share it.

"Something similar to this happened about 4.5 years just in front of my house at about 9.30 pm.
In this case the lady was lucky - the chain was broken but got stuck in the saree and the pendant was recovered from the road."

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

Top ten words of 2004

The Merriam-Webster has announced the most famous words of 2004.
The number one word is blog.
The list of words are as follows.

  • Blog

  • incumbent

  • electoral

  • insurgent

  • hurricane

  • cicada

  • peloton

  • partisan

  • sovereignty

  • defenestration

Tuesday, November 30, 2004

Chain snatched

It was 10:30am on a normal working day in Bangalore. My aunt was walking down the lonely residential street on which stands her house. A guy came walking opposite to her and within a second pulled her "mangal sutra" away. Before my aunt to could turn he had covered some distance. As a usual response, my aunt shouted "Thief!! Thief!!" (In Kannada). A guy in "Suzuki Samurai" came driving towards her. For a second he seemed to chase the robber, but he stopped next to the thief to help the thief get onto the bike. Both drove away. 45gms of gold was lost in less than 45secs. A small wound was left on the neck area.

Totally dumbstruck, she walked back to the house and called her neighbor. Both of them together went to the nearby police station and lodged a complaint. The police assured her that the gold will be given to her either as the "mangal sutra" or as a lump. Police have also increased the patrolling in the area after a few more of such chain snatching event.

It was 6:30pm, when she received a phone call from the police. They said that they have a thief caught and wanted her to come and recognize him. A new dilemma! Firstly she was not sure of the face of the guy and secondly she was afraid to testify fearing some revenge action. So she decided not to go to the police station.

This was a great discussion in our family circles and I have collected the suggestions from those meetings.
1. Avoid wearing gold chains (as if it's not obvious). As a corollary - Wear duplicate chains if you really want to.
2. Cover the neck portion with your saree or dupatta.
3. If you are wearing a blouse and saree, put the chain in-between the hooks of the blouse. Even if the chain is pulled, there is a chance that it breaks and stays with you.
4. Even if you loose something like this, please search the spot where the incident happened. According to police, many times there could be some piece dropped there.
5. Please also check the dress you are wearing. There could be some cut piece in the dress itself (especially if it's a saree).

Monday, November 29, 2004

City in GOLD

Yes, Bangalore wore a festive look on this weekend. Ladies were seen in silk sarees all over the place. The ornaments on the face just sidelined their natural beauty. The chests rose in pride to display the layers of gold ties. Hands rose frequently like the Rajnikanth drill dance to show off the pearl studded bangles. Guys never want to be left behind!! Dark fingers adored rings with diamonds or initials of their names. One friend of mine sported a chain weighing 60gms which he called "Sachin Tendular chain". There were 1 inch thick bracelets to be shown.

It was a very auspicious day in the Hindu calendar. All the wedding halls were booked. One could see flowery boards displaying "AAAA" weds "BBBB" in front of the halls. Colorful lights glittered on the otherwise dull walls of the buildings. I attended 2 marriages. I guess only 30-40% of the people cooked and ate in their houses. I saw a capsule on the "Headlines Today" news channel. It said that in Delhi alone, there were 14000 weddings. (Yes, you read it right...fourteen thousand weddings.) The best parts of the weddings are the friends, relatives, the crowd and the food. I enjoyed every bit of the weekend.

Friday, November 26, 2004

CTRL-ALT-DELETE without keyboard!

This is a interesting piece of info that you can use to lock your work-stations without using the combo key "CTRL- ALT- DEL".
If CTRL-ALT-DELETE seems like too much of a hassle, try this instead:

1. Right click an empty spot on the desktop, point to New and click shortcut.
2. In the Create Shortcut dialog box, type the following into the Type the location of the item text box:
"rundll32 user32.dll,LockWorkStation" (remove quotes while typing)
3. Click Next.
4. In the Select a Title for the Program dialog box, type whatever you want in the type a name for this shortcut text box. Click Finish.

Now the desktop will lock when you click your new Lock the Desktop icon.

Now CTRL-ALT-DELETE is accessible!!

Thursday, November 25, 2004

Devotional morning

It was so different in the morning. I got into the cab and instead of the usual Radiocity FM; we could listen to VidyaBhushana's devotional songs. I am not a great fan of devotional songs but today somehow I liked the songs. It was soothing. A guy in the cab had got the cassette and asked the co-travelers the permission to play it. To my surprise everybody nodded in unison. At the end of the trip nobody repented! I could not read the book which was usually my routine in the cab.

Wednesday, November 24, 2004

Bangalored

Read in "The Week" about the word "Bangalored".
This word in UK business means a company which has outsourced its jobs to India.

Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Yuck!

There are 3 wash basins with huge mirrors in front of them. There are 3 pissing pots hung on the walls and there are 2 shit pots within closed doors. All this in a space of approx 15ft X 15ft. This is roughly the description of restroom of my floor in my office. Now the true incident as told by a friend of mine.

"I entered the empty restroom. I pissed in the piss pot when I saw a guy entering the restroom and moving towards the wash basin. I went near the wash basin to wash my hands. Through the corner of my eyes, I could see something unusual about the posture of the guy in the wash basin next to me. When I turned to see him, I was shell shocked. The guy was holding his organ in his hand and pissing into the wash basin!! I said "Boss?" He immediately said "Sorry" and moved away to the pissing pot to continue his job. As I left the restroom, I could see some yellow drops in the clean wash basin. Such guys also exist in here. Huh!!!"

Monday, November 22, 2004

Saffron sins

The recent arrest of Kanchi swami has come as a shock to this country. There are some statements flying allover saying that it’s an insult to Hindus and Hinduism. I believe in God am a Hindu and perform pooja daily in my house. In short, I am a religious Hindu. But to me this is no insult to my religion. Never was Hinduism (for that matter any religion) depending on 1 individual. So nothing is lost because of this arrest. I don’t think it’s correct if somebody visits a temple to see a swami and not the main God in the temple.

If that’s the case then why this huge hue and cry over the arrest! It is unfortunate that such a incident happened. Unfortunate not because the swami was arrested, but because he seems to be in someway involved in a blood bath. If the swami is innocent, then who will take the blame fro pushing a swami to prison? If the swami is proved to be involved in the murder in someway, then the severest of the punishment needs to be served. I say this because, in Hinduism, we still give a very high status for swamis. Especially for those who perform poojas in these ancient temples like the ones at Kanchi, Sringeri and Udupi. They and their juniors are the only ones who have the right to perform the pooja in their respective temples. Swamis are considered as semi-gods in some places. When such is the case, the swami is supposed to behave in a way that respects the status he has been given. If a software under performs many companies throw him out. The same should apply to swamis, though I accept that it’s not business.

Swamis are also humans, so mistakes do happen. Agreed. When that happens they should just walk out. A swami of the great Udupi Krishna mutt fell in love with a girl and wanted to marry. He just quit the post of swami. Another swami from the Udupi went to some foreign land. This seems to be a mistake according to Vedas. The swami was removed from his post. Right or wrong is not for us to decide but the truth is that Udupi mutt did not loose any of its devotees, nor anybody treated it as an insult to Hinduism. Just because it was not.

Recently, I went to a public function where a very famous swami was to wish a big businessman on the tycoon's birthday. This swami has lot of political clout. This swami made a speech in which he said this. "In udupi there is a Krishna, here is an avatar of Krishna in the form of the tycoon." What a statement and by whom!! Comparing the God to a businessman by a swami who is supposed to have all the Vedic knowledge!! Nowadays it’s become a fashion to compare humans with Gods.

Lot of people says that this Kanchi swami has been made a scapegoat by politicians. What is the duty of a swami - Dharma related work. What is the duty of politicians - Rajya related work. Can these two go hand in hand? I have no answer to this query. May be he is made a scapegoat. Politicians need Dharma for their survival but the viceversa is not true. But when the viceversa happens the result could be something like what happened to Kanchi swami.

Friday, November 19, 2004

Suicide attempt

I was traveling along the Bangalore Hassan road (NH 48) yesterday. About 50 kms away from Bangalore, the bus came to a sudden stop. I got up from the rock hard seat and saw thru the glass in front to see a man (in shorts) lying on the centre of the road. He wanted to die rather he wanted to commit suicide. He was being persuaded by a lady (who seemed to be his wife) to get out of the road. She was pulling him off the road. The place was not a village or a town and was surrounded by agricultural fields. So she could not get any help from anybody else. Without bothering much, my driver slowly started and went extreme left and got his front wheels away from the man lying on the road. As I kept my eyes of this man via the window, in one rush of blood the man threw the lady away and came in-between the front and the rear wheels of the bus. The entire bus shouted in unison. The driver was also watching this thru his rear view mirror and applied brakes. The women came again and pulled the guy away with all her strength. The driver caught the chance and eased his mighty bus ahead of him. As we passed this maniac, I could see a lorry slowly down in the opposite direction.

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

My favorite song

I just felt like writing about my favorite song.
Guys, understand the lyrics...they are just too good.

Zindagi Ek Safar Hai Suhana
Movie: Andaaz (1971)
Music: Shankar Jaikisan
Lyrics: Shailendra
Singer: Kishore Kumar
On screen: Rajesh Khanna and Hema Malini on a bike


(Zindagi ek safar hai suhana
Yahan kal kya ho kisne jaana) -3
Arey o leiyo leiyo, oleiyo leiyo
Oleiyo leiyo, oleiyo leiyo
Oleiyo leiyo, oleiyo leiyo

(Chadh taaron se chalna hai aage
Asmaanon se badna hai aage) -2
Pichhe reh jayega yeh zamana
Yahan kal kya ho kisne jaana
Zindagi ek safar hai suhana
Yahan kal kya ho kisne jaana

(Haste gate jahan se guzar
Duniya ki tu parvah na kar) -2
Muskuraate hue din bitana
Yahan kal kya ho kisne jaana
Haan zindagi ek safar hai suhana
Yahan kal kya ho kisne jaana

(Maut aani hai ayegi ik din
Jaan jaani hai jayegi ik din) -2
Aisi baaton se kya ghabrana
Yahan kal kya ho kisne jaana
Zindagi ek safar hai suhana
Yahan kal kya ho kisne jaana
Di di di, du du du
Oleyo leyo ha haa haa

Sunday, November 14, 2004

VaastuShastra

Good horror movie.
It has all the elements of a horror movie.
Creepy gates, horror tree, bathing scene, scray makeup etc.
If you are having kids of the age of about 7yrs, then this movie is a clear NO to you.
But this is no comparison to Bhoot. Urmila is better than Sen i think.
Just go and watch the movie if you are not weak hearted.

Saturday, November 13, 2004

Ramallah !!!!

What a name! Ram + Allah = Ramallah
Ram, the great Hindu god and Allah, the Islam icon in one place!! I was surprised to hear and see such a name. Yasser Arafat is buried in this place yesterday. The number of people with guns in the final procession of this funeral just amazed me. I can imagine how Palestine is now.
But the more important thot I got (and I researched on it a bit yesterday) is "Where was Ram from?" Was he an Arabic? There is no meaning for the words Ram, Lakshman, Hanuman in Sanskrit or in any language I know. May be I am wrong. I checked the Sanskrit dictionary oly to find Rama - son of Dasarata, Hindu God.
How did these names originate? How did Ramallah became a city in the west asia?

Friday, November 12, 2004

Festival traffic

The festival weekend had just started when I went to the Majestic bustand on Wedenesday evening. The bustand was jam packed and there was no place for people to stand forget sitting. There were a lot of extra buses to many places to accomadate the big crowd.

Its difficult to control such huge crowds all coming to Majestic, but the attitude of the police was really pathetic. A group of 4 policemen stood on the pavement smoking and chatting without even bothering the to answer some guys who were asking "Where does Tumkur bus stop?". Some drivers and conductors were really helpful. Better management is the key.

The traffic was almost crawling in the huge KG road from Hudson circle onwards. It was not a pleasant breathing the smoke inside the auto all along that road. God knows how many missed their trips and how many got delayed!

Its rare that Ramzan and Diwali come in successive days (in one big weekend of 5 days).

Wednesday, November 10, 2004

Saree and Bindi

Yesterday Diwali was celebrated in my office. People had come in ethnic dresses. Guys had come in Kurta and pyjama. One guy had come in Kurta and panche\vaistiand a towel over his shoulder. Or simply putting it "Mandya gowdru" style. Girls who generally wore salwars had moved to sarees and who generally wore trousers sported salwars! Of course there were exceptions in both the sexes.

I was particularly impressed by the girls who came in the traditional Indian dress. I mean not because they are tradional but because of their looks. (Did I need to say this explicitly ;-))? Saree and bindi gives some oomp feeling. People talk about exposure, clear visibility of the figure etc. I don’t know the reason. All I know is that it’s a general feeling among guys that girls are better in sarees and I agree with this. There are companies in the US which prohibit ladies from wrapping themselves in the 5+ foot piece of cloth because it excites the guys around. It’s just sexier than the minis, low cuts or the “Brigade road clothing”.

Indian film industry seems to recognize this fact. Raveena in “Shool”, Juhi in “3 Deewarein”, Sreedevi’s seducing song in “Mr India” and Soundarya in “Apthamitra” all got special recognition for their dressing which was designer sarees. There are sarees named after many films.

If you see a lady in a saree daily, then the charm may just fade away. So wait for the next ethnic day.

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Fool around

A new software, Simedia SounderCover that runs on Nokia mobile phones allows you to play background sounds that help you to pretend to be where you are supposed to be, or are not: a hip party, a traffic jam or by the sea. Your voice will be heard on top of the appropriate background noise.
After having downloaded the program, when you get a call on your mobile phone, a small window alerts you to whether you would like to play some background sound.
Simedia SounderCover offers nine background noises, like traffic, the grinding of machinery, a storm, etc.
I need not tell when to use this and with whom. Also I don’t know if this is available in India.

Monday, November 08, 2004

A process called Death

I always thot that death is an event unlike birth. The heart snaps and in a split second the person is dead. But I was wrong, death is not an event..its a process. I sat and watched death from a distance of less than 5 foot for around 5 hrs. Its a terrible experience. My uncle was gasping for air since 10pm in the night. The doc asked us to inform the near and dear ones. He said that it was the last few minutes not even hours. Cancer was going to kill him. The hospital room was filled with around 25 relatives in no time. Thanks to mobile phones. But the doc was wrong. Uncle had hours remaining. The oxygen pumped into the nose nor the drips pumped into the veins would help. I counted that uncle used to take 20 deep gasps every minute. The mouth would not close. The eyes were semi open. I got the "Ganga jal" in a small sealed container and kept it in the drawer next to the bed.

11:30 night
Uncle could hear and he would turn his face towards the voice. Eye balls used to move. BP was very low 90-60. He would close his mouth to gulp in the water put into the mouth.
12:30 night
He wouldnt recognise voices. The eye balls still moved in pain I belive. Hands and legs stopped moving. He would still gulp the water. Death has started.
2am
My cousin who is another doctor checked BP. There is no BP. No pulse. She says the heart is not powerful enuf to pump blood to the hands and legs. But the heart still beats. The beats are just enuf to pump blood to the head and heart itself. Water still goes in. She touches his chest and after some examination says that the lower body has reached coma. She puts light into his eyes using torch, and the eyeball moves indicating that brain is active. Death is continuing.
3am
The gasping reduces to 12 per minute. Water can still be gulped in. Eyeballs wont move. Heart continues to beat. Legs and arms turn cold. This was the first time I touched and to my surprise it was ice cold. Head is still warm indicating blood circulation. Tears (I will call it fluid) starts flowing out of the eyes slowly. Was it because of the pain caused by the cancer? Death is winning the battle with life.
4:15am
There is a loud cough and gasping stops. Cousin puts stethescope on the chest and tries to hear. She can't hear anything. The mouth is still open. The eyes are semi open. Death has taken over.

It took 5 long hours to kill. I have lost 2 more relatives in this calender year. But their death was less painful. One died in sleep and the other just collapsed in a shop. This was terrible. You know that the person will die but you wait for death. It's really painful to sit. To be honest when all hopes were lost I prayed for the death to take over quickly. After death events are even more painful. To console the family is in itself a big task. Experience helps in this.

Like finger prints and DNA, they say that no two death process are similar.

Friday, November 05, 2004

Impossible figures

In the Landmark quiz, there was a visual that showed Uma Thurman walking up and down a stairway in the movie "The Avengers". The question was "Whats the structure?" Answer - Penrose stairway.
I did a google on this and found that there are a category of figures known as "Impossible figures". These can only be drawn but they can't be realised. Wondering what is so great about drawing something that can be real? Check out the pictures in the link and it looks so stupid. Somebody draws something and people all round the world start doing phds on it. People like me discuss and blog it aswell!!!
Other funny aspect is that these figures fall in the maths category. I just had a discussion about this with my friend here. His arguement was that its all geometric shapes, so its geometry and so its maths.
I dont agree with this. Then any drawing is maths!
By the way, Penrose stairway is a staircase which neither goes up nor goes down...Huh!

Thursday, November 04, 2004

Lord watching strip-tease

Near my house there was the Ganesha festival organized by a group (Don’t wonder that’s its Nov and still Ganesha festival…that’s how we celebrate). As part of the celebration, in the evening there was an orchestra and dance show. Film songs were being sung. I somehow love orchestras. I had been there to see it. 3 girls in jeans and full arm shirts came on stage for a dance. After some jhatkas, the girls took off their shirts and threw it to the crowd. Now they were in sleeveless body hugging T-shirts. I am stunned by this behavior. Look at the occasion. Ganesha festival and a semi striptease.
Where am I?

Wednesday, November 03, 2004

Where is Vanamahotsava?

Does anybody remember Vanamahotsava?
It was the day we used to plant trees(plants) when we were in schools. I remember taking some plants in plastic covers to the school and planting it in some pre-planned locations, watering it etc. Now we dont even remeber that such a day existed. Nowadays we celebrate every other stupid day like Smile day, Heart day, Hug day...but not the important ones like this plant day. We need this more now in most parts of Bangalore. The garden city is slowly loosing its green charm. There used to be lots of plants in all the new layouts with the protection (black sticks with mess, to prevent cows from eating). Now I dont see this here.
Sometimes I get this sudden josh of we should do it...But there it stops...
I was googling for some forest trek spots and hit upon this festival in one site. I then read an interesting article regarding this.

Tuesday, November 02, 2004

All in 3 days...

Saturday
Finally, I found a library which has English novels near my house. It has old collection but there are lots of magazines, kannada books etc.
I had been to the play "Love letters" along with my friends in the evening. The seating arrangement, the crowd and the play were all good. The play is actually reading of letters exchanged between a male and a female friend. They start off from childhood till they die. It shows the different feelings of friends as they age and how business etc affects them. Also talks about the same "Men are from Mars, women are from Venus" stuff. How true!

Sunday
After lots of planning, finally 4 friends of mine decided to meet and go for a movie. At the nth moment rain spoilt the plans and 2 guys couldnt turn up. It was a big dissappointment. 2 of us went to Collateral. Oops, such a horrible movie. No story, just mindless drives and killings. No philosophy also. Please avoid this crap.

Monday
Some sudden development and spent the entire day in hospital. Looks like alls well now. Hopefully!

Back to work now..after the hectic long weekend..

Friday, October 29, 2004

Gmail news

Just read on my friend’s blog that 1GB of gmail space can become 1GB on your hard disk. Interesting!!

Thursday, October 28, 2004

Bribe and Tips

About 2.5 yrs ago my mom was admitted to a hospital. One day when my mom was in the hospital, my dad's vehicle which was parked in front of the hospital fell off (because of uneven ground). The guard came and lifted the vehicle up and helped my dad put it in a side. My dad gave him Rs10 as TIPS for his helping nature. My dad and mom used to visit the hospital for the regular check ups. Recently, my sister's kid was admitted to the same hospital. Though it is a small hospital, they have some standard rules like visiting hours etc. During non visiting hours only 2 people can stay with the patient (because the patient is a 1yr kid). But because the guard knew my father, he allowed my father and mother to go the ward even during non visiting hours. I know that this is a mistake committed by my father and mother. When I shared this with one of my friends he said casually that my dad's bribe worked. On that moment I laughed it away. But now I realize that it was TIPS and not BRIBE. But the TIP has converted into BRIBE.
BRIBE is defined as "Something, such as money or a favor, offered or given to a person in a position of trust to influence that person's views or conduct."
TIP is defined as "A small sum of money given to someone for performing a service; a gratuity."
My dad paid him for performing a service (so by definition it’s a tip), but that has influenced the guard's behavior (so by definition it’s a bribe).
May be its just gratitude or just acquaintance.
I am Lost in Thoughts.

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

Development errors

Entire yesterday went in debugging some crap. Finally at the end of the day, I got to know that my collegue had not checked in the correct version into version control. So stupid! MS errors are also so cryptic, that the message wont say anything to the developer. Just imagine - You get a error message "Invalid number of parameters to the function". Guess the solution - Restart the computer. It really works.
The tussle between developement and testing seems to build up. Interesting things expected in the coming days. Its difficult to see friends getting screwed because of bad management of projects. But thats how things work in software.
This tussle has been there since the day SDLC was invented. It could take the shape of Ind Pak matches.
Waiting anxiously.

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

Who let the dogs out?

Yesterday was a busy day and I had to stay late at office. I left office by 9pm in the taxi. As I was nearing my house, I could see a bike at some distance ahead of us in the lonely road. A group of stray dogs, barking loudly were literally chasing him. The biker had both his legs in air and was speeding away.
Flash back – It was the night my uncle died. It was 10:30 in the night and I went to his house at Kumaraswamy layout. After 12 in the night, I and my cousin decided to get some coffee for the people there, as they were not supposed to light a fire in the house. I took my BMW (Bajaj motor works) scooter and started the drive towards my house. A group of stray dogs really attacked us. My cousins legs were up in air which made be loose balance. Frantic shouts from my cousin and the steep uphill road made me nervous. I was trying to speed away but was not able to. Shit scared we somehow (God knows how) escaped unhurt.
Dogs in groups at night are really dangerous. They scare the hell of you. On the way back we avoided the road. In Bangalore this stray dog menace is increasing. They get food from bakery spoils and meat shops, and of course from the house hold remains. I think the only way to avoid it is just don’t enter the road if you see dogs there in the night. May be this is not possible all times. Then use your driving skills and Pray God.

Monday, October 25, 2004

Back to office

It’s really boring to come to office after 4 days of holidays. But life goes on.
The weekend went very well. I experienced some amazing stuff.
Thursday
I finished Dan Brown's Deception point. Not so good book. The ending is not that exciting. But as always, Brown has compiled are lots of truths together. One of the interesting facts I got to know was that White house occupies 18 acres of land only. My office is much bigger (21 acres)!! As my friend puts it “If you want to enhance your GK, read Dan Brown books.”
I bought 2 new books. Sidney Sheldon’s “are you afraid of the dark?” and “Men are from Mars….” The rest of the time I spent in the home watching TV etc.
Friday
Cleaned the vehicles for the Ayudha pooja. Decorated with flowers and dad did the pooja.
Right from morning, I started getting calls from friends for a days trek to some near by spot. Finally at 11:30am we decided to go to Muthyalamaduvu. This nice place is worth half a day only. We went in a car and all the way, had discussions about marriages, office life etc. The place is a cool valley. We walked down one hill and became a bit adventures and climbed another hill. It was tiring and steep. On the top we were welcomed by some nice drizzles. On the way back a couple of ox gave us some scary movements as they chased us for some time. When we reached down, we realized that we had not seen the actual water falls. We dint know that there was a water falls in that area. The falls is not from a river or so. It’s just ground water. My friend described it as “Gorilla piss”! But the specialty of this falls is that we can climb the falls. That’s a nice experience. The place has a KSTDC restaurant which serves drinks and north Indian menu.
Saturday
The highlight was the musical concert from Kunnakudi. This fellow is too good. He is a proper artist. I stood and listened to him for 1.5 hrs. It was really worth the effort in the rain. He is an artist in the sense; he not only plays the violin, but makes facial expressions which are rhythmic to the nodes. That makes him not just listenable but watch-able too. Listen to some of his tunes here.
Sunday
Cousins had come home and so the morning just flew away. In the evening, went to a Kannada movie “Apthamitra”. I heard that it will be remade in Tamil with Rajni as the hero! Movie has no vulgar dialogues and the ladies wear sarees only through out the movie. It’s Soundarya’s last Kannada movie. Scary at times but the songs are really very good. Vishnu in his Nike bandana is very smart. This movie is worth watching.

Sunday, October 24, 2004

Ramayana and Rajayana

I had written this when Rajkumar was kidnapped and released by Veerappan. I found this when cleaning my papers. Still relevant and so thot of putting in permanently in the blog ;-)
I am very sorry Lord Ram and Co. for comparing you with Raj and Co.
Modern Rajayana (The story of Raj)
Let us start off with Aranya kanda...

Ramayana: Ram went to forest because of his father
Rajayana: Raj went to forest because of his son
Ramayana: Sita was kidnapped by Ravana
Rajayana: Parvati was not beautiful enuf for Veerappan, so Raj was kidnapped
Ramayana: Lakshman went with Ram
Rajayana: Nagesh, Nagappa went with Raj
Ramayana: Sita was kidnapped because of Shoorpanaka's nose
Rajayana: Raj was kidnapped because of Puneet's granite quary
Ramayana: Sita was taken outside the country in a plane..:-)
Rajayana: Raj was not so lucky..he dint have the visa\passport
Ramayana: Sita dis not give a 2nd look at Ravana
Rajayana: Raj treated Veerappan as his brother(Anna)
Ramayana: Sita was sure that Ravana will be killed in a battle
Rajayana: Raj ensured that there was no blood shed..!!
Ramayana: Sita's rescue mission was headed by Ram aided by Hanuman and Co.
Rajayana: Raj's resuce mission was headed by Gopal aided by Karunanidthi
Ramayana: Hanuman visited Sita and gave Ram's ring
Rajayana: Gopal visited Raj and gave him Parvati's love cassettes
Ramayana: Sita sent back a token of love to Ram
Rajayana: Raj sent back video cassettes
Ramayana: Hanuman burnt Lanka and put any negotiations off track
Rajayana: Kareem went to SC and supposedly put negotiations off track
Ramayana: Hanuman and Co. built a bridge to goto Lanka
Rajayana: There was no necessity because the route was already there and was know by all!!
Ramayana: Hanuman was successful in his mission along with Ram
Rajayana: Gopal failed and so entered Hanuman II...Bhanu(Raj's so called "DEVATHE") and Nedumaran
Ramayana: Hanuman is God
Rajayana: Naedumaran and Bhanu are treated as Gods
Ramayana: Lakshmana ended with a wound and was treated by Sanjeevini
Rajayana: Who cares for what happened to the people who went with Raj
Ramayana: Ram was fit after the battle
Rajayana: Raj has ended with insect bites and tanned skin..:-(
Ramayana: Ram was welcomed to Ayodya with great festivities
Rajayana: Raj was welcomed to Bangalore with great festivities
Ramayana: Ravana and his associates were mercilessly killed
Rajayana: Veerappan and his associates were gifted for their deed
Ramayana: Ravana was the villain and died
Rajayana: GOD knows who the villain is...Raj or Puneet or Gopal or Kareem or SC or...the list never ends
Ramayana: Everything ended happily
Rajayana: Everything ended happily...even Veerappan and associates were happy

After all, we the people of India, are from the land of Gandhiji...non violence, ahimsa and what not..
After all....Gandhi is a human and Ram is GOD...Humans can never be GODs

Thursday, October 21, 2004

Sunaina out – Basanti in

For many Bangalorians Sunaina needs no introduction. An RJ in the FM91 station, her Josh91 program in the morning shuttles was a nice timepass. For people like me who travel for an hour or so to the workplace, her “Josh” and voice was a routine, something like brushing teeth, bathing etc. Last Friday was her last working day with Radiocity91. She has quit. For the last couple of days invariably in the coffee corner or in the shuttle we take her name. One insane guy said that he had fallen in love with Su. Oh my god! Recently I read that somebody is writing a story for a movie in which the hero and heroin haven’t met, haven’t spoken, haven’t touched, haven’t seen but are in love. Now I know the story….ha-ha…
Basanti has replaced Su on the show and I am sure, we will get used to her very quickly. The program name has changed to “Good morning Bangalore”.

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

"You will die"

Can you believe it! This is the caption for Ramgopal verma's latest movie. This guy is unique in everything. After his previous horror movie "Bhoot" which was a great movie and a success story, here comes "Vaastu shastra". The trailor starts in this way "If Bhoot scared you, this will kill you". I am waiting for this movie. Hope I can see this with this film jagda. I hope Verma is innovative as ever.
Mughal-e-Azam is being released again in colour and digital sound. The trailors are good.

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Cancer

Cancer is a dirty disease. When you are alive it pains you, it loots you of your wealth and finally it kills you. On Sunday I listened to Raghu on the corridors of Adichunchangiri hospital. He had tears in his eyes. I could not cry. Am I strong? He narrated the story of the biopsy result, the doctor’s opinion, the 20-80 chances of survival phenomenon and then Siddarta’s ayurvedic medicines. Uncle is suffering since 1 month with considerable decrement in health condition. Astrologists say his lifeline is there for 80 years. The list of Gods, to whom special prayers have been sent never ends. English medicinal treatment is ruled out. Now it’s all ayurvedic. The only hope is his co-brother who has survived a Cancer with those ayurvedic medicines. It is 14 * 8 cm in the liver\stomach area. When I and Raghu took him for a piles checkup yesterday, the doctor asks “Was the piles problem existing before the discovery of cancer?” Raghu says “No”. With the shake of the head and a revisit to the examination room the doctor scares us. After Raghu and uncle left, I ask the doctor. He says the piles may be the extension of cancer. Holy shit!! The only symptoms he showed was drastic reduction in food intake. And within a month he is diagnosed with 4th and last stage of cancer.
But miracles do happen. He may still live till 80. He is living on hope!
Another cancer died yesterday. Veerappan was shot by the STF. That’s real good news.

Monday, October 18, 2004

Weekend and short week ahead

Saturday was spent in front of the TV and books. "Deception point" is going well. I have become a fan of Dan Brown after I read DaVinci Code. Plans to see "Omkara" dint materialise.
On sunday I travelled to my uncle's place with my mom. The road was amazing but the bus seat was hard as a rock. As we software guys are used to seat on soft chairs, the KSRTC red bus seats seemed like rock to me. In the bus it was again Dan Brown.
This week has only 3 working days and I am eagerly waiting for the long Dussera weekend.

Friday, October 15, 2004

Dragon fly phenomena

Yesterday, during our regular after lunch walks, the discussion came to the amazingly huge number of dragon flies in the sprawling lawn of our office. One guy suggested that this is an indication of rain to come. I have heard of this phenomenon by one of my classmates in the last week cricket match. But then it did not rain. But yesterday it rained cats and dogs. I went home drenched in the rain. It did not stop raining till midnight. Bangalore has been getting rains almost everyday this year.
Another thing I noticed yesterday was that dragon flies don’t fly. They float. Once in a couple of seconds or so they flap their wings and the remaining time, they are floating with their wings in a static position.
Hmm, interesting!!

Thursday, October 14, 2004

Election time

Today I was woken up at 5:30 not by the hen or the cock, but by the crows. A crow had got electrocuted next to my house. A group of crows (I don’t know if it has a term), gathered together on the electric wires and grieved the death of their pal by waking the entire neighborhood.
Its election time and I won’t be doing justice if I don’t write about my favorite topic. Maharastra voted yesterday along with some other constituencies like Bidar, Madepura etc. I remembered one incident that happened with one of my neighbors (call him X) during the last general elections in Karnataka. In the voters queue just ahead of X was X's housemaid. She casually asked X whom to vote. X gave his fundas, like it is secret ballot and whomever you want you vote for that person. The housemaid immediately replied "I will vote for any party other than party AAA". Curious as ever, X asked her the reason. She said she won’t vote for AAA because AAA guys gave her husband alcohol last night and he is not working today. Her answer is learning for all the political parties. The person, who drank, never came to vote and they lost the vote of his wife too. So they lost 2 votes. So sad...I mean so good.
If you are in Karnataka and plan to stay here and you don’t have the right to vote (as you are not in the voters list). Here is a chance to get you the right to vote. Details are here.

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Weekstone

I have caught a bad cold. Yesterday skipped office. Today I forced myself into my cubicle. No mood to do anything.
Today I have the monthly milestone meeting. It’s irritating. I always say “I hate milestones”. I think somebody heard it. Now they introduced a weekstone aswell. Oh shit!

Monday, October 11, 2004

In Cricket stadium with classmates

It was the first time I had been to Chinnaswamy stadium, Bangalore. The occasion was the 1st test between India and Australia. We had booked the tickets for the 4th day of the match (Saturday) via the mobile booking system. Indian batting performance on the 2nd day had damped our hopes. In fact, I thought the match could get over on the 3rd day and so my 300Rs (100 per head) for the tickets would go down the drain. By the end of the 3rd day it was clear that we will get to see both Aussies and Indians batting.
We reached the place by 8:30am. There were people on the road distributing sunshades, 4-6 cards and painting faces. At the gate was the heap of water bottles which were taken from the spectators, as bottles were not allowed inside. They can be used as missiles at the players. Inside the stadium, people though were making paper rockets and throwing it on the field. One guy got applause for creating a rocket that traveled a great distance. After we exchanged the SMS with tickets, we were off to the C-stand to see that most of the good places were already occupied. We moved the chairs and got ourselves into a good place. Aussies were practicing. Indians were not to be seen. C stand is the stand where the cameras for the 3rd umpire runout decisions are kept, not the ideal position to watch a cricket match in stadium. The best position is the straight camera position. Along with me were 2 classmates of mine, one of whom I was meeting after 5 yrs (i.e. after I left my college, I was meeting him for the 1st time.) We had nice flashback talks when the drummers of the stand arrived and started blasting. The atmosphere was splendid. Lots of Indian flags were being waved. In the neighboring A-stand there were a few Australian supporters in the yellow shirts waving the Aussie flag. As soon as the match started, there were loud claps and drum beat speeds increased. The first thing we missed was the replays. The ball used to fly away and no clues for us how close were the appeals and how close the fielders were when they stop the ball near boundaries. Bhajji bowled well and made the crowd happy. He finished the Aussie innings after lunch. He came to field near us and encouraged the guys to shout and encourage them. The same was repeated by McGrath when he came to field. The pigeon made a “Namaskara” to the crowd and got loud cheers. From where we sat, the catch Yuvi took to dismiss Warnie was very clear and everybody appreciated the sharp response of Yuvi. The Indian batting was horrible. Umpires sending 3 of the top 4 batsmen back to pavilion through lbws earning the ire of the public. There were posters like “Umpires suck”, “Umpire for sale, real cheap”. The local boy “Wall” stood tall and ended the day on 47*. We got a nice day of cricket, though not for India. We had bajjis, cokes, chips etc as our food.
All through we discussed about the adventures in class, the girls of the class, lecturers, the companies where our guys are working etc. After tea, we prepared the list of our classmates, with the roll numbers. We added attributes like marital status, company working in etc. That was real timepass stuff. Interesting finding was - 2 of my classmates have chosen to be different. One is a journalist and another politician. All others work in software and hardware.
After the match we decided to see “The Terminal” after dosas and coffee. The movie was okish. I reached home by 10pm. So that was the great Saturday for me. Sunday went as usual, watching TV, sleeping, talking etc.
India lost the match by 217 runs after the tail wagged and frustrated the Aussies for more than a session on the 5th day.

Friday, October 08, 2004

Accident, escape and settlement

8:25am October 6th 2004, Bangalore
It's always a problem to go thru the traffic of BTM layout, one of the busiest spots of Bangalore. Our new cab driver is fast and has a skill to drive in zig zag path in busy traffic. In one such zig zag drive, an auto in front applied sudden brakes (for whatever reasons). My cab was so close to the auto, that even with a sudden brake the kiss between the auto and cab could not be avoided. Immidiately mom and sister abuses sparked off from the auto driver. Our cab driver promptly got down and checked the bumpers. There was a small dent on the back bumper of the auto and the front of the cab. By this time there was a huge traffic jam behind us. The police came and asked us to leave the junction and go ahead and have the settlement!!! My cab driver promtly came inside started the vehicle and drove in his zig zag mode without stopping till the Silk board junction signal even in the heavy traffic. None of us thought that our driver has planned an escape. The auto driver frantically followed us. But the traffic and the driving skills just did not let him come near us. The escape was perfect. But was it the right thing to do? Who cares?

8:30am October 8th 2004, Bangalore
The same spot, a police man along with the autodriver stops the cab. The police man calls the driver out and some hard talking seems to go on between the 3. After 10 mins, we got down from the cab and asked the police to leave us as we were getting late to office. The police asked us to go in and said that it would get solved. Afetr another 5 mins, the driver came in and we left the place. The settlement went this way. The police asked our cab driver to pay Rs 500 to the auto driver. After some bargaining, our driver coughed out Rs 150. The autodriver paid some undisclosed amount to the police for having helped him catch our driver!!!

I am not stunned by the events. It's usual thing in Bangalore and my driver deserved it.

Thursday, October 07, 2004

Chou Chou bath

Kannada and Other languages songs
Yesterday evening, on my way back to home, I listened to Rainbow FM channel for a change. I was the only person in the cab and the driver had switched on this channel instead of the regular RadioCity FM. I got to hear the new Uppi starrer Omkara's song. Whoever has written the song is a innovative character. The song is just "I love you" in many languages. Any person (even a Italian, as long as he knows that langauges like benagli exists!!) can understand the song. The music just blends with the lyrics. This is not new in Kannada industry. A lot of new songs are english based. On a recent team outing we played Antakshari. A north indian friend (with zero knowledge of kannada) of mine started singing a kannada song. First couple of lines is just "Excuse me, Excuse me" repeated. These songs not only have catchy tunes but lyrics too attract people of all languages. When kannada filmdom is fighting hard for getting audience, attracting people of other languages though these type of songs is a good idea. The recent Kingfisher beer's kannada advertisement "Yaake Cooldrink..." has caught people of all languages. Atleast they have learnt a new kannada word in Bangalore. I heard that the latest "I love you" SMSs are multilingual. Thanks to Bhalo Bhashi.
Don't be surprised if you are in a Bangalore pub and somebody orders 2 mugs of "Yaake"!!!!.

Yaake in Kannada means Why?

Wednesday, October 06, 2004

Steganography

Steganography

I just came across this word through one of the mails from a friend. This is a good technique to hide data. What is Steganography? It is a method to hide one information inside another. Putting it in a way a layman can understand. I have a picture A. And I have some secret file B to be sent. This method helps in embedding B inside A (call the new picture as C), using an algorithm but without distorting the image to a great extent. At the receiver end the data can be extracted from C. This is just an example. Watermarking of the images is a form of Steganography. There are software tools to do this. I found a C# code for Steganography from Corinna John. The algorithm details are well written by Vlad Rabinovich.
I just liked the technique and tried a few free downloads. They worked fine!!!

Tuesday, October 05, 2004

Girish Bharadwaj

Girish Bharadwaj
Girish is an amazing mechanical engineer from Sulia, Karnataka. He has achived something very unusual. He is the architect of most of the Karnataka's rope\hanging bridges. His most known rope bridge is the one at the Cauvery Nisargadhama, Madikeri.
This person through his innovation has connected lot of villages across the rivers and so has changed the lifestyle of those in the villages.
Hats off to you.

Monday, October 04, 2004

Ramayana, Hum Dono and Gudiya

Ramayana, Hum Dono and Gudiya
Ramayana, the story which supposedly tells humans what is an ideal life has a peculiar incident. When Sita returns from Lanka, Rama asks her to take the agni-pariksha to test her “purity”. Even after passing this test, Rama sends her off hearing some dhobi talking ill about Sita’s purity. This was in BCs.

Yesterday I watched the last scene of the dev anand starer Hum dono. From what I could make out from the last scene was this. There is an army major who is gets lost in the battle and also looses his one leg. But to the Indian army he is dead. His friend (who is lookwise ditto of this major, dev anand in double role) comes to tell this message (that the major is dead) to the major’s wife. But the major’s wife has some health problem and if the truth is told to her, she will die. So this friend is forced to act as her husband. In the end, the major returns to see that his wife is living with his friend. He is shocked. The friend explains him the scenario in which he had to act as hubby. He also explains that though they act as hubby and wife, in the real sense she is still his bhabi. To be precise they don’t have any physical relationship. After some talks both agree to meet in a temple. With the major hiding behind some pillar, the friend brings the wife (actually bhabi) to the temple. Friend asks what if, your hubby looses legs, eyes, arms etc, would she still love him. She says that she was never in love with her hubby’s jism but she always loved him irrespective of the looks. She finally meets her lame real hubby and ofcourse both live happily ever after like all movies. This was in 1960’s.

Most of you would have read about Gudiya case. Gudiya was married to an army jawan. This guy went missing in the battlefield and the Indian army declared him as dead. Gudiya married another guy and became pregnant. Now the 1st husband who is supposedly dead returns. He wants his wife back but without the kid in the stomach. He is ready to remarry her. This is 2004.

There are obvious similarities in these 3 cases.
• The wife is away from husband for a considerable amount of time.
• The wife stays with another male. (Enemy, friend and hubby respectively!!)
• All 3 did not know what was happening to their husbands. (Until Hanuman did his messenger job, in case 1)
• Nobody questions the males.
There are also obvious differences in these 3 cases.
• Sita was proven to have no physical relationship. (by none other than Agni)
• Major’s wife was not proven but accepted after some talking.
• Gudiya had physical relationship with a proof of it.
But the key difference is the mentality of the men. Men have changed. Rama could never accept Sita again. Major accepted his wife after knowing that she did not have relationship. Army jawan accepted Gudiya even after knowing that she was another person’s wife (I don’t know the reaction of her 2nd hubby). Though it is very obvious that these stories cannot be generalized, but this is a definte improvement. Men are going forward.