Gmail news

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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”.

"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.

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.

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.

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!!

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.

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!

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.

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.

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?

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!!!

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.

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.