tekurlife

Wedding - Part 1 (the proposal)

2009-12-06T12:40:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking about writing this series of blogs on our impending wedding for a while now but as always I have been very lazy about it. This is mainly for a personal record of the funny anecdotes and incidents that we have had and we are going to encounter during the course of our wedding. For the uninitiated, I am going to be married to the love of my life, Urmila on March 11th 2010. I have to admit that patience is running thin as the date approaches. :)

I am going to start off by talking about the proposal. I always wanted to propose to Urmila in a romantic way and was waiting for the right opportunity.

The Date: Since, it was kind of decided that we would get married early next year, I did not have much time left. Sometime during the summer of 2009, I decided that I would propose to her on her Birthday which is on Sept 1st. As it happened, Urmila went to Seattle for a couple of weeks and was coming back to Germantown only by Sept 4th and so that was the day I chose for the proposal.

The Ring: Having never shopped for jewelery in my life, I had no clue how I needed to go about it. I started with the most unlikely of places, a radio ad for Mervis Diamonds. I went to their website and checked out their collection. I did not want to be hasty about it and so using google maps I made a quick survey of all the jewelery stores close to my house and then I started reading reviews for these stores and technical details about picking up diamonds (the videos on mervis' site helped). Co-incidentally, Mervis Diamonds seemed like the best place to shop for the ring, they had some really good reviews and their online collection suggested that they had the better set of diamonds for similar price range when compared to the other stores. So as soon as Urmila left for Seattle, the very next day I was in Mervis' Rockville store.

Even though I hadn't been to many jewelery stores before, I was surprised by how Mervis operated. At Mervis you are made to sit in small cubicles and the diamonds and the settings are brought to you for inspection instead of you looking at a display. Michelle Axelrod was the salesperson who assisted me and within a short period we narrowed down our options to what I could afford. Disappointingly this was a yellow gold ring with a platinum head and a 0.5 C diamond. I had definitely hoped for much more, at least for a complete platinum setting but then I had to reconcile with my current financial situation . Having given the order I came back home, still feeling not too happy about the ring. I was pretty convinced that I had seen an all platinum setting on Mervis' website that fit my budget. So on coming back home and doing some research I did find a platinum setting I liked which was listed at an unusually low price. To cut the long story short, Mervis had made an error while listing the setting and so I got the platinum setting for the same cost as the other setting. :) I got the ring for half its actual value and more importantly this was the ring I felt Urmila deserved. :)

The Venue: This was the next big decision. I wanted everything to be perfect but there was a big constraint while booking a place. Urmila was flying in at 10pm and unfortunately most places in and around my home would have closed soon after. I always wanted to make the proposal personal and so I decided that I will organize it in my apartment and cook all her favourite food. So everyday I came home after work and worked on decorating my room, one piece at a time. I got some helium balloons, some buntings, stuck some photographs on the wall. Tried to make the best out of the limited space that I had. I was kind of hoping Urmila would love the setting as she has always been a person with simple tastes.

The Food: Deciding food for the event was easier. Urmila had told me once that she would like a dinner consisting of Sweet corn soup, Lasagna and chilli corn. Though this was dated, I felt she would still like these things. So that's what she was going to get for the proposal. Added to this I planned to make her current favourite, Falafel with some Tzatziki. Only issue; I hadn't made any of these dishes ever in my life. So, I googled around for the recipes and also got all the ingredients the previous day itself. Ground the falafel paste the day before the D-Day and cut a few vegetables and stuff to make sure I get done in time. For dessert I ordered a cake with her favourite cartoon character Calvin on it (She always claimed to want to eat Calvin, him being so cute).

D-Day: Sept 4th finally arrived. I came back early from work and picked up some roses on the way. Unfortunately the flower lady was not arround to wrap it up in a neat way for me and I did not have enough time to rush to another florist. So I had to improvise the packing a little and hoped that she wouldn't throw it back at me.

I came home soon after that and started preparing all the dishes. I was most tensed about the lasagna. Having had a fair share of bad lasagnas, I did not want to mess it up. Thankfully there weren't anymore hiccups and I left in time to receive her at the airport. She knew that I would have planned something for her birthday but she had no idea what it was going to be. I reached the baggage area early and was impatiently waiting for her. Finally after much delay (or so it seemed) she arrived in the baggage area, she saw me being formally dressed and with flowers and she instantly knew something was up. As we were driving home, she could not stop speculating about what I had planned for dinner. We came home and covered her eyes and walked her into the room. It seemed like she liked the setting, so that gave me some confidence for the rest of the proposal. I started bringing in the food one after the other and I must admit that I managed to surprise her with every one of them. I was glad that she liked everything and I thanked my stars that I didn't mess up any of them. At the end of the dinner, I got the cake out and she did like the idea of eating Calvin. :)

So until this point she was under the impression that this was all her birthday celebration. Then came the moment, I acted as if something had fallen on the ground, got down on one knee and popped the ring box open. I did have some stuff rehearsed to tell her but the girl just went berserk after seeing the ring. She was so excited seeing the ring that everything else seemed to have faded into oblivion (including me). I had to literally ask her hand to put the ring on her fingers. :) The ring was a little big but I was glad that she loved it. We got it re-sized the next day. I was delighted that everything turned out perfect and that there were no major hiccups.

Gandhi, 1984 and today

2008-07-12T23:20:00.000-07:00

I recently saw Richard Attenborough's Gandhi for old time's sake. This movie was (may be still is) played on Indian Television on October 2nd every year. This was the day the great leader was born and he went on to make such an audacious mark on history. The movie was quite an inspiration when I was a kid and I remember being in awe with Gandhi. It gave me a glimpse of who Gandhi was well before I read about him in my history books.

At around the same time I read the book 1984 by George Orwell. This is a book about Totalitarianism, but I feel that it is also a book which delves deeply into the psychology of violence. The excesses of the administration in controlling its populace is explained brilliantly by Orwell in this book that he wrote in 1949. Thankfully for all of us the reality in 1984 was not as grim as the image he portrays of the fictitious 1984.

Why talk about these seemingly disjoint works of art? Today, more than at any time in the past, the teachings of Gandhi have relevance and so does the warnings of Orwell in 1984. We are at a epoch where violence seems to be exploding in our face both in the real as well as fictitious world. There is no end to violent movies or to violent bombings.

First of all, is Gandhi believable today? I saw the movie Gandhi and asked myself the question "Would I follow Gandhi if I were a youth during the independence struggle?". As simple as the question might sound and as easy as it is to answer with an emphatic "yes" given the apparent emotional tug that we feel for our country, I personally feel that most of us would have been in a dilemma. In this time of rippling muscles, macho attitude, perceived patriotism, self obsession, amorous thirst for wealth it is hard to picture our self sacrificing totally to the cause of patriotism and then in a peaceful way at that is impossible to perceive. Is it possible to get slapped and then turn the other cheek? Do you really have the guts to do it? Yes, I say guts because it takes far more courage to hold your temper than to blow it at the first outlet.

This thought again took me to another question "How did he do it?". Yes, how did Gandhi do it? Here was a man who not only made himself strong enough to bear the violence brought forth on him but he also inspired and lead millions of people to follow his principles. Just imagine if some one suggested that an Indian soldier should go to a terrorist and bear the brunt of all his violence without retaliation then wouldn't that person be called senile and yet what would Gandhi's solution be to the biggest problem that we face today?

All this lead me to the present, "What would Gandhi have done today?". There is an extremely remote chance that we are going to see a leader of the same stature as Mr. M.K. Gandhi and so we will never know the answer to this question. But we need to still think about it. How can we implement the principles of non-violence in our lives. Non-violence against the violence of spirit and mind as much as the violence of action. I do believe that Gandhian principles can still be relevant today.

Did Gandhi facilitate India's independence for us to say, "Bloody Muslims, deserve to die.", during the Godhra riots or was it for us to say, "Goddamn Hindus, need to be killed or else they will never stop abusing us minorities", just before a fundamentalist blew a whole city up. If you were amongst either one of the group you are equally culpable. Lets give peace a chance. Lets try to answer the difficult questions that we face today. Lets make our world Gandhi's 1947 rather than Orwell's 1984.

Season of Realism

2008-04-27T17:58:00.000-07:00

This article is kind of an sequel to my earlier article Season of love . I was reading this article recently and I felt I had very strong feelings about it. Reading Karthik's article just confirmed the general state of mind I have been in.

First things first. I absolutely pan my article Season of love. The last two years has certainly made me mature and I frankly feel that the article was largely juvenile and outright silly. My highly contrasting view might be due to the incidents that have unfolded in the past few months or due to me obtaining a more practical outlook to life. Indeed Sachin and Vikram did voice their reservations towards my article and I must frankly agree with them now. Finally the bubble has burst. It is time for me to step out of the silly, romantic, optimistic view of life and change to a more practical view of life.

When I wrote the Season of love article, there was something positive going on in out our lives. To a large extent, all of us had trouble free lives and did not have any major problems in life. All we cared about was having a good time in life and we were full of optimism about the life in front of us. I had the belief then that there was a solution to any given situation or problem. I had myself come out of difficult situations without baring any long term scars. But then we just grew up.

One of my friends who was having a great relationship had to break up with his girl friend due to parental pressure. This is when I realized that there might be no solution to certain problems. The silly optimism with which I thought that most of these relationship will work out, seem to waver a bit. Again I was shaken out of my comfort zone when one of my other friends, a wonderful guy, had a very messy break up with his girl friend. This was definitely not foreseen by me or any of my friends. This was just the beginning though as two of my other friends who were having long distance relationships with their girl friends also had messy breakups because of compatibility issues. Just as an information and not trying to imply anything, in all these cases it was the girls who chose to break up. This was the real eye opener for me (eye opener being that the breakups happened and not that the girls chose to break up). If you had seen any of these relationships you would bet on them of being the "once in a lifetime" long term relationship. Why did this happen? Again we just grew up.

No, Sir, this is not an article about a point of time when all of my friends had just started dating and another point of time when most of them broke up. It is about how the bunch of us matured in this short interval of time and about how our opinions changed in this period. The reason why most of the above breakups happened were because people got more practical. These people realized that the reasons they had based their relationships on were not as concrete as they had earlier perceived. From a state of taking our relationships for granted, we had moved on to realize that any relationship requires time and effort to evolve and develop. It was also a case of people growing apart instead of growing together. Anybody who assumes that two individuals do not change over any given length of time is making a huge mistake. The most important thing is to be aware of the other persons current state of mind, feelings, aspirations and the works, but it is not as easy as it sounds.

Moving away from the topic of love or relationships totally, let us focus on the general day to day life as we grow up. It is more than obvious that complications increase exponentially as you start growing up. What's the main reason for these complications? EGO. Yes, Sir, whether you agree or not, all of us tend to grow this big ego inside us as we grow up. All of a sudden your pride and self respect is more important to you than having a good relationship. Think about it, did you care if someone abused you when you were a kid? You would fret for a day and then make up the very next day. Why is it so difficult to do that when we grow up? Haven't you felt that you have had greater number of misunderstandings now rather than when you were growing up as a kid.

The more I think about it, the more I feel that the adult life is screwed up in more than a few ways. There are far more issues which are so complicated that there are no easy solutions to them. What is the way out of it? In my humble opinion I think there is a solution. Along with maturing with age to obtain heightened sensitivity to things, we also need to retain the humility of a child. Having limited ego is very important for any relationship to progress. Also it is paramount to develop a practical outlook to life as early as possible. But again these are the incidents (breakups and other hiccups in a relationship) that make us mature and make us more practical in life.

Now I return to the title again. "Season of Realism". Yes, as the title suggest we have all matured as a group of people and today we stand at the cusp of adulthood. Still having the exuberance of youth but with quite a bit of realism thrown in. I think most of us can claim to make better decisions now than we did two years ago. Hopefully whatever the path we take, we will all find long term happiness in our lives. I have learnt to be more practical when it comes to perceiving a relationship. I now understand that it is just not enough that two people are "good" for a relationship to work. There is much more to it and the answer is gray not black and white. I also understand that it is better to get out of a messy relationship instead of trying to make it work no matter what happens.

PS: I have tried to avoid any pointed reference to anyone in this article. I apologize if I have offended anyone. Also there are quite a few of those relationships mentioned in Season of love still going strong. Not all of them collapsed. I am one of the lucky few to be still involved with the love of my life.

Beautiful India - Hampi it is. PART - 4 (of 4)

2008-04-20T19:22:00.000-07:00

Day 4 - 7th Feb 2008

Again we got delayed. No power and so no hot water at the hotel. Forced delay. :(. We left the Chalukya Mayura at 9:45AM and byt the time we had breakfast it was 10AM. Way behind our schedule.

We planned to go to the Badami Caves first. Exquisite is the word that came foremost to me. There was some issue with the guides there and so we had to do our own exploring. The rock-cut temples were simply mind blowing. Imagine carving a cave out of a rock while also carving out an entire temple within. What did they do if they made a mistake? From this high position we could see the Bhoothnath temple at the edge of a pond. Perfect picture opportunity. There are four caves, 1st is Shiva temple, 2nd is a experimental cave, 3rd is a Vishnu Temple and 4th is a Jaina temple. The most impressive carvings amongst them is the Natraja, with 81 poses in one sculpture. I also noticed that there was abundance of erotic art here when compared to Hampi. These caves being older than the ruins in Hampi, this seems to suggest that the Indian society has grown into being a very narrow minded and closed society in its recent history and traditionally we were very liberal minded people.

Next we went to the Bhoothnath temple. The most impressive part here was a carving of Mahavir in a very narrow dingy cave. I was fortunate to be in the presence of a group of English tourists. They seemed to have come for some sort of a literary survey. What was fascinating was that one amongst them was talking about the carving of Mahavira and he was telling how he felt that the carving could have been Buddha actually as it had ornamentation and hair styling which are usually absent in the minimalistic Jain sculptures. This made me feel guilty as to how little I knew about my own culture. This really got me interested and now I really want to read about the history of Badami, Hampi etc.

After that we carried on to Banashankari and Mahakoota. These are mainly religious places and did not impress me a lot, especially because they were dirty and crowded. The next stop was Pattada-kallu (Coronation Stone). This temple complex impressed me immensely. The most important part of these temples according to my opinion are the exquisite pillars. They are filled with stories from the Ramayana, Mahabharatha and Panchathantra (Hindu/Jain moral stories). They were extremely descriptive and beautiful. There were also few pillars depicting the vagaries of everyday life. Some of the temples present here are the Jambulinga temple, Galaganatha temple and Kada Siddeshwara temple. All predominately shaivite temple, the two main temples being commissioned by the two Queens (sisters I believe) of Krishna Deva Raya after his victory over the kingdom of Orissa. Shiva temples were usually not destroyed as Shive being an ascetic was not supposed to have any riches with him and so these temples were supposed to be devoid of treasures. But apparently nothing stops the pathetic treasure hunters who have desecrated these temple, going to the extent of destroying the linga's too. In the 1950's, they started performing daily pooja in the Galaganatha temple after the temple complex was taken over by the Government. These temples more than made up for the disappointment of Mahakoota and Banashankari.

We went to the Aihole temple complex again after this. The temples here predate the ones in Pattadakallu. Aihole is known to be the cradle of temple architecture. There are supposed to be more than 200 temples in Aihole. Apparently the Chalukyas used this as the base of temple architecture and so there are temples of all possible architecture to be found here. Unfortunately the locals had usurped these temples in the near past and they had been leaving in these temples over a long time. The name of the temples hence has the name of the family who lived there or the profession of the people who were leaving in those temples. Unfortunately due to absence of the main deity in the temples and a lack of clear indications to be obtained from the architecture not much is known about these temples. Scientifically these temples are very well designed: including water ducts for rain water to seep through, air ducts, beautifully designed light ducts etc. One of the proof of this being the cradle of early temple architecture is clearly seen in the layered disc-designed pillars which are found in the Belur-Halebid temples which were constructed much earlier. Another interesting architecture that I found very interesting was this weird Chinese-looking temple architecture. The reason for this observation of mine was that the temple roof was constructing by placing stone slabs next to each other and then placing a log shaped stone over the crevices between the slabs to avoid water leakage. There are insignia of the Chalukya's found in these temples to clearly indicate its origin. We just had enough time to visit one more cave temple. This temple was in a pretty bad shape. The Nandi outside is hardly recognizable but the Natraja figure inside the temple is in pretty good shape. The temple had a very eerie feel to it and I was glad to be leaving the place.

After this as usual we went to the KSTDC hotel to have food. It was about 5 kms from the temple complex in Aihole. The food as usual was pretty good. I also suggest that you have buttermilk in these hotels. It is simple mind blowing and ended up having 2 glasses of it each. This meal drew over trip towards conclusion. We had a long 9 hours drive back to Bangalore ahead of us. On the way back we had 2 major troubles. There was some major Truck traffic near Hospet and believe you wouldn't have seen so many trucks in your life. There were literally hundreds of trucks on either side. I was actually very stupid and I went on the wrong side of the road to gain some ground but then came head on in front of a truck coming from the opposite side and caused a traffic jam. Very stupid of me and it freaked dad out, but we got out of it without much trouble. The other part which annoyed me a lot was that there were a lot of road bumps which were not visible in the dark and there was no signs warning me about them. So I bumped over many road bumps at full speed and we were lucky not to damage the car. We finally reached Chitradurga at 9:30PM and we had 200 kms still to cover. After some arguments with dad about where to eat our dinner, we ate at this ok but a little dirty hotel in Chitradurga. After this is it was plain sailing on the NH-4 again. I was delighted to drive on this highway again. Covered the 200kms in 2 hours and then took another hour to get home from Nelamangala. We lost our way a couple of times again but still made it home by 2:00AM which was pretty good time.

What a trip? It was absolutely fabulous. Will cherish it forever. Have included some statistics below.

Date Time Mileage Event
4th Feb 2008 6:00AM 38550 Left Bangalore
4th Feb 2008 3:30PM 38930 Reached Hampi
6th Feb 2008 8:00AM 38993 Left Hospet (Hotel Shanbog)
6th Feb 2008 9:00AM 39009 Filled fuel at Hospet
6th Feb 2008 5:30PM 39245 Reached Badami
7th Feb 2008 4:30PM 39303 Left Aihole towards Bangalore
7th Feb 2008 10:30PM 39570 Left Chitradurga towards Bangalore
8th Feb 2008 2:00AM 39793 Reached Bangalore.

Total miles covered = 1243 Kms
Mileage = approx 25kms/liter

Beautiful India - Hampi it is. PART - 3 (of 4)

2008-04-20T16:21:00.001-07:00

Day 3 - 6th Feb 2008

Let me start by saying that today was eventful but the least productive day of the trip. We started off at 8AM, not very early, but we did not have much of a choice as appa did not want to get up early. We had breakfast at Shanbog, the place where we had beer a couple of days ago. Then started the adventure or the misadventure. We started driving towards Badami. I was all excited and thought we could see everything in a day.

We went to the Tunga Badra day. It was very beautiful to see so much water. We could hardly see land at the end of the horizon. A cheeky policeman allowed me to taje some pictures too. He told me, "Who told you can't pictures but please don't take it in front of me, Sir." Funny, ain't it?

We continued towards Badami after this brief break. Unfortunately our luck ran out. What could be worse thing to happen on a highway? Puncture!!! We started hearing some hissing sound from one of our tires. I was cruising at 120 kph when this happened. Not wanting to take any risk, I immediately stopped the car. This is when we had the classic Dad-Son moment. Guess what? We didn't have a spanner in the car. We played the usual game of blaming each other for not getting the tool kit. Thankfully for us a helpful officer and a villager on a bike came to our rescue. They went to their village and got a spanner, thankfully it fit prerfectly. He even changed the tire for us. 30 minuted down the tube, or rather the tire. We went to a puncture shop ahead and we were in for more surprise. There was no puncture in the tire. Thats when I realised what exactly is the worst thing that can happen on an highway? A fake puncture!!!! We have still not yet figured out where the hissing sound came from. May be it was just excess air coming out of the tube as we filled in air just before we got onto the highway. Another waste of 30 minutes.

Then we proceeded towards Kudala Sangama Deva, as we thought it came on the way to Badami. We reached Kamath Hotel at Kudala Sangama Deva by 1:40pm. We had one of the best Rotti oota there, though the waiter claimed that the Rotti oota at his home town was much better. The we saw Sangameshwara and the beautiful Basavana Vedike. But I felt tat we would have been better off not visiting this place. I was not exactly on a religious pilgrimage and it did not have much to offer with regards to architectural beauty, bad piece of advice from my brother who asked me to visit this place.

After missing our way once and also due to the winding village roads, we ended up at Aihole at 4:20PM. The KSD detour proved to be very costly with respect t0 time. I still had hopes of seeing Aihole and Pattadakal by the end of the day. But one walk through the Durga temple at Aihole proved it to me that this was not possible. We needed a guide desperately . On inquiring we found out that we would get guides only from tomorrow morning.

So we figured that the best thing to do was to call it a day and see all these places the next day, so that we could see everything in peace. We then drove to Badami, the road was quite smooth and nice. Pretty amazing for a village road. Looking forward to a active day tomorrow. We drove to the Mayura Chalukya Hotel, Government place but very decent accommodation. After some driving around the town to buy to buy some soap, mosquito repellent etc, we came back and had a very nice dinner. Almost like home food. Will miss all this food in US. Looking forward to tomorrow, tired as usual.

Beautiful India - Hampi it is. PART - 2 (of 4)

2008-03-18T16:57:00.000-07:00

Day 2 - 5th Feb 2008

Wooo!!! Hoo!!! What a day?? Let me write the one thing that I have been dying to write the entire day - "Every stone in Hampi has a story to tell". Wow!!! Hampi is truly fabulous. Well I guess you need to be a history enthusiast to appreciate Hampi as much as I did. Dad liked it quite a bit but all the walking got to him and he felt Hampi was just a little bit more than ok.

We started off at 8 in the morning, a little late but again not bad by appa's standards, he took only 1 hour to get ready. We had some egg and bread for breakfast, nothing great about it. I felt awful coming to my country and then having an all American breakfast but there aren't many options here. Yes that's right, idli and vada are harder to get here when compared to egg, bread, falafel, pasta etc. Strange you would say but I guess it makes sense as there are definitely more foreigners here when compared to Indians. This definitely is not good business by the Tourism Department. They are sitting on a gold mine here, doing nothing.

Anyways let me get on with it. We started the morning at Virupaksha temple, the only temple in Hampi where they actually do pooja even till today. Frankly speaking keeping the religious aspect aside, I feel it was not very impressive. I would go as far as saying that it was the most over-hyped places around. The best thing about the place was a beautiful and rare three headed Nandi (bull), vehicle of Shiva. The only other things of note here is the wall carving of Krishna Deva Raya, the pool and the inverted pin hole image of the gopura.

Next we went to the Rama Deva temple. It was not out of this world but it had some key interesting points. The entire garbagudi or inner sanctum is enclosed within a huge boulder. I had never seen anything like that. More importantly this is supposed to be the only place where Rama is depicted as sitting rather than standing and so there are a lot of Rama Bhaktha's doing penance here. Also the view from top of the hillock behind the temple was most impressive. With ruins visible in all the 4 directions. This is also the place of another mythology concerned with Ramayana. This is the place where Lakshmana, Rama's brother is supposed to have shot an arrow into the rock to get water. The highlight of this temple though is the musical pillars which are similar to the ones in Vittala temple. The musical pillars in Vittala temple can no longer be touched let alone be played so this is a nice substitute. Our ancestors truly had an immense grasp on science.

After this we went to the highlight of Hampi, the Vittala temple. The path leading up to the temple itself was amazing and it was a very good precursor for things to come. The first thing I noticed as soon as I entered the temple is the most impressive stone chariot. It was so realistic that a few villagers who came just after we came were speculating whether it was an actual moving chariot. Just for the record, the chariot was always stationary and has been the temple of Garuda (eagle), the vehicle of Vittala or Vishnu. The wheels of the chariot were moving earlier but they have since been cemented into place to avoid damaging the stone axle. Unfortunately as I mentioned earlier, we were not allowed to listen to the musical pillars as it has been damaged by numerous people banging on them with hands, keys, stones etc. When will our people learn to protect our heritage? But nevertheless this temple is absolutely amazing. The temple architecture is beautiful and the sculptures unique. There was a 2 in 1 monkey sculpture, 5 in 1 Lion/panther sculpture, a miniaturized plan of the temple etc embedded on the exterior of the temple. You could thing of this as the Colosseum of Hampi.

Driving around the place we saw the Raja Tulabara or the King's balance. The kings used them to weigh their weight in gold, silver, silk etc and distributed them to the brahmins (castism at its peak). Other impressive places around we saw were purandara peeta, the broken bridge which people say was never completed and other small attraction. Definitely made a perfect day for some photography.

We then went to a museum on Hampi which was badly maintained and badly archived. Very shoddy work by the tourism department. This was followed by a lunch at the KSTDC hotel, Mayura Bhuvaneshwari. Appa was hugely impressed by the lunch. He wants to stay there the next time he comes here. We finished up soon and continued our sight seeing.

Next stop was the palace complex. Phew!!! I wish Bangalore planners had studied Vijaynagar's layout. The layout of the city is so well designed that it has surprised many foreign visitors over the centuries. We started off by seeing the Queen's bath, definitely a place fit for a queen. It is a small building with a large bath at the center with changing rooms on the side. What was very funny is that it had a moat around it. I guess even the queens had to be protected from peeping toms (;-)). (let me state here that it is disputed that this place was ever used by the queens :P)

Next we went to the main Palace area where the first thing that we noticed was the magnificent Mahanavami dibba, it is about 30-40 feet high with a platform on top of it. This is where the King is supposed to have presided over the great nine (Mahanavami) days of Dussera, one of the most important festivals for Hindus. The Dibba or platform is exquisitely designed with the exterior telling the tale of the Dussera and also depicting the different aspects of the celebration during that time. Human as well as animal sacrifices were common during those days I believe. What was even more amazing was the view from the top of the Dibba, with all the diffent pools and platforms visible. What is striking here is that most of the structures in Vijaynagar were made of sandalwood and these were burnt down by the Bahamani rulers when they defeated and destroyed the Vijaynagar empire. As a result of this, what is left now is just the platforms of once great buildings and also the beautiful stone pools. The most brilliant part of this complex is the amazing canal system that you can see here. Believe it or not, water from the Tunga Badra was harvested using this canal system and this water was supplied to the fields as well as to the the plenitude of pools found here.

After this we drove to the Queen's chambers a little distance away. The most beautiful place here is the Lotus Mahal, the place where probably the most pictures is taken at hampi. Indo-islamic architecture at its best, goes to prove that the Vijaynagar rulers might have been tolerant. Close-by places which are watchable are the guards tower, horse stable, elephant table, Ranga temple and a small museum.

We passed by the Hazara Ramana devalaya but could not see any of it as our by-now-impatient guide would not allow us to. We tried to be stingy and had agreed for a fee of Rs.500 for which he was not willing to spend more time. We also passed by the underground Shiva temple without seeing it and thats when I realized that Hampi could not be seen in a day. I am sure to come back here one day and I hope that Hampi remains as it is today even then.

We wound up the tour by seeing the Ugra Narasimha and Badavilinga. Ugra Narasimha called so because the lower part of the Lion god's face had broken down giving it a very angry(Ugra) look and the Badavi Linga is called so as legend goes that a poor brahmin lady(badavi) had got the Linga(form of Shiva) installed here. This was followed by a visit to the Krishna Temple and the Kadale Kayi (peanut) Ganesha. At this point we bid goodbye to our guide.

But my appetite for Hampi was still not whetted. So just to whet my curiosity we took a walk down the Hampi bazaar in front of the Virupaksha temple and this took me to a picture museum. This was a very interesting experience as they have pictures of the different Hampi monuments from 1856, 1983 and 2004. It was interesting to see the changes in these monuments . Few of the things that were striking (a) Gopura of the stone chariot has fallen now. (b) Deepa Kamba at Vittala temple has fallen. (c) Entrance of the Vittala temple has fallen. (d) Non-existent entrance to Kadalekayi Ganesha has been assembled together again by the ASI (Archaeological Survey of India). (e) Ugra Narasimhan totally transformed. This was remarkable, it was a whole new statue altogether.

Along with this, I also saw the monolithic, Nandi and also the path to Acyuthraya Temple. Being too tired already, I din't have the energy to carry on and see Achyutharaya temple and Mathanga hill. Truly every rock in Hampi has a story. We then headed to the guest house and then slept for couple of hours. Blissful sleep, both being extremely tired. We got up to have our dinner at around 8pm. I had veggie sizzler, yes believe it or not at this place recommended by anna. Though it was not the "best sizzler in the world" as described by him, it was quite good.

We wound up the day at around 10:30pm, looking forward to Badami, Aihole, Pattadakal and Kodala Sangama Deva tomorrow. Having lots of fun, but missing both Dummis.

Beautiful India - Hampi it is. PART - 1 (of 4)

2008-03-06T16:31:00.001-08:00

I was India early this year, from 14th Jan to 14th Feb. I had a fabulous time over there and enjoyed my stay. One of the highlights of my stay there was my trip to Hampi during 4th-7th Feb. Here I reproduce the diary (in a Rs.5 notebook) that I maintained during the trip. I have reproduced it as it is with some editing only when it was totally not understandable. Pardon me if you find it repetitive or cliched. Check out the pictures at Hampi Pictures -- FEB 2008. Here goes nothing, hope you enjoy it. :)

Day 1 - 4th Feb 2008

It is very funny for me to be writing in a notebook rather than typing. I haven't done much of writing in a while and part of the reason I hate writing is my dreadful handwriting. Well I do have a valid excuse this time around. I am tired (half-dead actually) and I don't even have a table to keep the book on. Anyways lets get down to business now.

I did it finally. I am in Hampi right now, my long term dreams finally achieved. Lets start from the beginning. I got up at 4 in the morning after sleeping at 1 AM. Not much of sleep but I was reading about Hampi and I just wanted to collect as much information as possible. I so wanted to do this and the excitement certainly helped me get up that early. Waking up dad was a different ball game altogether. He LOVES his sleep and if there is one thing he has to do everyday, it is to get his full 8 ( most of the times 9 :P) hours of sleep. In the process of waking up, I also got to play a game of NFS-II hot pursuit, not a good practice for the long drive ahead but the noise did wake appa up.

Surprise!! surprise!!! Our trip started off on the right note, we actually left 5 mins ahead of schedule at 5:55AM. Now for people who don't know appa, this is quite an achievement. We set off in full gusto but "ahem!! ahem!!" we hit our first road block, quite literally. The road leading up to west of chord road was blocked but my confident appa told me that he knew an alternate route and he conveniently got us lost, little did I know this would be the order of the day. Thanks to appa being a great navigator we lost about an hour over all, losing our way and then find it again.

But anyways that apart, the drive was simply awesome. The NH-4, Bangalore - Pune highway is probably one of the best highways I have been on, including the ones in USA (no jokes). It was smooth and silky, just like butter as my dad put it. I reached a high speed of 135 kph, my personal speed record and when you consider the fact that I did it in a very modest Maruthi 800, it is quite an achievement. There are a few negatives though (a) exits are clumsily designed sometimes cutting across the opposite lane. (b) Significant portions are not complete yet. (c) No highway patrol at all, safety issues. (d) Good food is not easily available all along.
But it was great fun anyways.

We reached Chithradurga at 10:30AM. The fort is truely majestic and I was totally surprised by its size and beauty. I wanted to see the main attraction, Onake Obavana kindi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onake_Obavva). We walked for quite sometime in dry heat to reach the place. It was quite dissappointing actually. It almost seemed insignificant compared to the other beauties that the chitradurga fort had to offer. But it was good to see and experience ( yeah, I tried to climb out of the hole and stuff) this piece of history and folklore.

Having made Hampi my focus, I wanted to wind up soon at Chitradurga. But I do want to go back there and see it thoroughly. After a visit to a surprisingly clean rest room we set off to Hampi and we reached Hampi at 3pm after getting lost twice. NH-13 leading up to Hospet/Hampi was just about ok. It was quite a challenge to drive on NH-13 because of all the trucks. (Oh!!! There were so many). It felt very good to be in Hampi and it felt as if there was a whiff of history in the air at Hampi, truly magnified by the abundance of ruins visible to you as soon as you enter Hampi.

After having some torturous food we fixed up the guide for tomorrow and then we went to Hema Kuta parvatha, one of the 3 hills around hampi, to watch the sunset. Wow!!!! What a sunset it was? On the slope of the hills I got a glimpse of Hampi. There were dilapidated ruins everywhere in such beauty that I was awestruck. The beautiful sunset and ruins excited the photographer in me. It was picture perfect and it was probably one of the best sunsets of my life. After this amazing experience we headed down the hill. This is when I hit jackpot.

One of the things that I always wanted to do is go out for a drink with dad. After much persuasion I convinced dad to have beer with me. Again for people who don't know dad, this was a big achievement. We drove all the way to Hospet which is about 30 mins away to have beer. After asking around for a while we finally ended up at a lousy place called Shanbog bar and restaurant (one of the most dreadful toilets). It was a very nice experience and it was nice bonding with appa. We discussed our drinking habits, our first drinking experiences etc. We headed back shortly and yeah I drank and drove, not a good thing to do but was well worth it when you consider the fact that this was the first time appa accepted me as an adult and had a drink with me.

Oh!! By the way we are staying at this place called Padma Guest House. Appa haggled with the land lady, Padma, for half a day. Not a bad place if you ignore the bed bugs and mosquitoes. Final note: Looking forward to a exciting tomorrow and missing the two women in my life. Love them both.

PS: Excuse the handwriting, little drunk and very sleepy.

"Work" and "Morality"

2006-11-16T09:13:00.000-08:00

A couple of things motivated me to write this blog. I was reading a book and then I read a couple of articles in the newspaper.

I am reading "Atlas Shrugged" and I am almost done with it. In my personal opinion it is a "just ok" book. It has some high points to it but the world that Ayn Rand describes is overly exagerated. The good guys are perfect and the bad guys are pure evil. I hate that kind of characterization. I feel all of us are grey rather than black or white. Also her description of love defies my logic. Initially I thought I understood what she was saying but I was disillusioned as soon as the female lead starts sleeping with almost all the male leads of the story. That was a bit too much for me to digest. It is as if, everytime she found the perfect man to sleep with, she found someone even more perfect. It is a fair assumption that Ayn Rand must have been sexually frustrated in life as all the sex scene in all her books are so violent that at the end of it the lady involved is always left with bruises all over her body.

For all it's flaws there is something to be got out of the book. The main premise of the book is about "work". As in how dedicated you are to your work and how well you do it etc etc. It, rightly, glorifies people who are mighty good at their work and are ready to undertake any hardship to make money. To cut the long story short, she suggests that "work" and money are the only moral codes of a man's life and anything done in order to achieve the best in your work is justified.

Just as I am about to finish the book I read an article (http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/nov/03msg.htm) which got me thinking. The article pertains to the Jessica Lal murder case. The country's top lawyer Ram Jethmalani is defending the accused, Manu Sharma after the case was reopened following a huge media campaign and public outcry against the acquital of Manu. Based on the initially evidence and eyewitness accounts it has been wildly publicised and accepted that Manu Sharma is the murderer (though none of us other than the eye witnesses and Manu himself, know what happened on that unfortunate day) . The article questions "Do you agree with Ram Jethmalani's decision to defend Manu Sharma?" and there are 512 replies to the query. All of them berating Ram Jethmalani, the former law minister, the well respected lawyer and declare him to be a senile old man.

What is the connection is between "Atlas shrugged" and the "Jessica Lal case"?

The point I want to focus on here is Mr. Ram Jethmalani and his work of being a defending lawyer. Are we justified in questioning Ram's choice of clients? According to the moral codes popularised by Ayn Rand, you are not supposed to question a man who is true to his profession, who does his best with whatever job he takes up. Ram is doing just the same. He is one hell of a criminal lawyer. His cross examination skills are supposed to be the best in the country, he is true to his profession, he tries his best to win all his cases. But does that justify his choice of clients? Now before you start damning me, pause for a second and think about it. It is not as straightforward as you think it is.

Everyone in the modern society accepts that "a man is innocent until proven guilty". So Manu Sharma (like Sadam Hussein) is innocent until he is proven guilty. So if you have to try him at all, then why should'nt he have the best defense lawyer in the country. He has all the right's to hire Ram. From Ram's perspective, there is a man charged of murder to be defended. He is the best so he is getting a payment worthy of his talent. So why is'nt iy acceptable that he chooses to defend Manu Sharma? Think about it and leave me your comments.

Change of action or rather action of change.

2006-10-05T13:17:00.000-07:00

Oh my god!!!!! The number of changes that have taken place in my life and that of the people around me is phenomenal. In the past month and a half my life has taken a 180 degrees turn. (yeah the usual 360 degrees is wrong because u end up being at the same place then :P : source (townsend)).

Life as I knew it has changed. I am not sure whether it for the better or for the worse.

Before I moved to the US of A, I had never lived away from my parents. As my mom was working, we (my bro n me) were well disciplined and took some responsibilities at home but I must say that we were pretty much pampered. There used to be food ready for us all the time. If mom had' nt cooked anything Dad would take us out and I can say we lead a comfortable life. I had loads of friends. I used to go out with them , blew my parent's hard earned cash. There was no real responsibilities at all. I used to be one lazy bum. All i did was eat, drink , sleep, hang out with friends, thats it. I had all the time in the world and did nothing with it.

After I moved to Us of A, things changed. I moved in with 3 other guys from bangalore (subbu, Harsha and Vinay). Initially i felt like we were runnin a family. We had so many decisions to take. N I am sure we din't necessarily take the right decision all the time. everything happened so fast that I can gladly say that after one and a half month I am kinda well settled into this place. Of course, having nice roomies helped a lot. We get to here a lot of stories of roomies not getting along but we guys are having loads of fun. I think we have learnt to keep our ego aside and work together to run the house. The biggest change ofcourse is how much of work we do here. We cook, wash our own clothes, wash vessels, clean our toilets and all this besides studying and doing assignments. It has almost become natural to us. All of us were hesitating to cook in blore. One of my roomies dint't even know how to break a egg till recently and now we make good tasty food to eat. So far everything has been a "almost" smooth ride and hope it continues.
I say " almost because there have been days when we goofed up and there has been no food to eat at home and we went hungry and stuff like that. But overall we r not doing that bad.

We owe a lot to the seniors who have helped us out here, especially Prem Swaroop ( we call him our god sent angel :P). We also have made lots of amazing friends here, from different backgrounds and its been quite a experience. I can confidently say I am having a good time.

On the hind side being here also means that I cannot talk to our stay in touch with all my close friends as often as I would liek to do. I used to meet these ppl almost everyday and now I would n thave spoken to them for days. My friends back home have become very busy with there work and even they are hard pressed for time. I just hope that we don't lose touch with each other altogether. It would be tragic if that happened. Also the added responsibilities can be a pain sometimes. Like we almost forgot to pay our rent on time this time around. In a country where everything depends on your credit history that was a huge risk to take. There is no if and but here. If we screw up the penalty is very huge and we don't get second chances often.

Like they say only thing constant in this world is "change". I hope we all change for the better.

In US finally.

2006-08-14T16:51:00.000-07:00

Yeah people, I am in the US right now. Everything is fine here, but India has improved so much in the past few years, I dont feel the difference between India and the US ( except for the girls and cars and bikes ofcourse ;)).

One thing I don't want to do in this blog is to bore you about my flight and my life here. All I have got to say is I am fine and this place is very pleasent to live in. I have nt had major difficulties as yet. I got a nice apt and luckily nice room mates. We are having a lot of fun. The icing on the cake would be when I get a job.

Anyways let me entertain you with one of the most stupidest mistake that anyone could do. It all started when we set on friday, 11th aug to the Uni to apply for the on campus job. Now in order to get there we need to take a bus called wolfline, run by the uni. We went there and we walked around a lot and got extremely tired and hungry. Oh ya and I forgot, before we went to the uni, we went to the university surplus and got a few chairs ( 1 dollar each) and stuff. So by around 5 pm when we got into the bus to head back to our apt we r freaking tired and hungry.

So we got into the bus and as usual the bus is full of indians. (there are so many of them here that I sometimes doubt whether I am in India or in US. hehe) We got chatting and I met these 2 guys for the the first time and we struck a conversation. We then got off the bus near our house. I was still talking to this new guys when my room mates subbu and vinay started yelling at me to get going. Then suddenly I realized that something was amiss. I realized that I dint have my bag with me anymore. Now people this is not an ordinary backsack, it contains my PASSPORT, VISA, I 20, ALL MARKSHEET and in short it was the record of my entire life till date. So in short I was instantly an alien in this big bad country.

Panic instantly set in and I came running towards my roomies and shouting that i left the bag in the bus. All of us became instantly tensed. We started running on the return route of the bus. then a brain wave hit me and I asked nmy friend Vinay to wait on the main road as the bus usually takes 2 different routes on the return journey but laways crosses the main road. Then I called the bus service from subbu's cell and reported that my bag was mising. Unfortunately it was the start of the weekend and there was no one to answer the phone.

Now I started freaking out, i started running as fast as I could on the bus route. Subbu came along with me, panting and struggling to keep up as he was also trying to call the bus service. So we went running all the way to where we thought was the last bus stop and there was no bus to be seen. I was thinking about the consequences now. It was a disaster in all respects. I would have to probably go to washington n get a new passport. I have to call home n get new transcripts. It was going to be a pain in the ass. i could also get deported back to India without even attending a single class. I started abusing myself for being so careless.

Finally subbu caught up with me and we started going thought our options. We called up this senior and he suggested that we mail the bus service guys and tell them about this. he said there was a good chance of getting the bag but nothing could be done till monday. I was devasted. How could I go through the 2 days till monday. I was totally wrecked. subbu and me started walking to the computer centre to send the mail. We were scared, we were exhausted by the running and dint know what to do. Then we see our friend Vinay running towards us fromt he other side. Initially I was not very positive about what was happening and thought he was running towards us because even he dint know what to do standing on the main road all that time. Then subbu told me " dude look at his hand is that your bag in it?". Now I became alert and started concentrating. Before I could react, Subbu started shouting to vinay " Is that the bag, did u get?" and all we got in return was a "what? what?" and a million dollar smile. Man was i relieved at that point.

the bus had indeed come on the main road on the return journey, and my friend Vinay was able to stop it. He was able to somehow convince the driver that it was his friend's (my) bag and so he had to hand it over. I was so relieved I could have cried easily. Anyway after promising to buy these guys a 24 pack for their invaluable help, we finally headed home.

I owe these guys a lot for getting my bag back. I would have been in deep shit without them. Thanks a lot buddies. Anyways, now I have kept all my documents at our home and only carry the stuff required for the day. Who says miracles don't happen? With friends like this it could happen everyday.

Oh by the way Harsha is our other roomie and at present we are having a ball of a time. We are having awesome fun. Will keep you posted about my other misadventures. [:)]

BE or Not to BE!!!!!!!

2006-06-17T00:34:00.000-07:00

Could not help but use this title. Sounds cliched as I have seen it on many orkut profiles as well as on yahoo but what the hell, who cares? Finally all of us from VTU are done with our BE, hopefully. Waiting for the results now, lets see what happens?

The project VIVA was blown to nightmarish proportions by some tension party's of our class including my project mate DD. We were all freaking out and seeing that our great KN Raja Rao, HOD, was the internal evaluater did not soothe our nerves. Our batch was supposed to start at 2 but it eventually started at 3 30. By then DD had almost shit his pants. I agree that I was also a bit shaken seeing DD. He is usually the cool cat kinds who is not tensed about any exams. But seeing him sweat for the Viva created a doubt in me too.

Finally at 3 30 we entered the lab. We had to write some shit for half an hour in our papers. we had discussed what all to write before we entered but eventually I realized I had nt written even half of it though i filled up 8 pages :P. So that should do. Next we had our PPT for which we had to wait until the previous batch finished theirs. Hod grilled them properly which increased our tension levels. Then our PPT started and I can safely say that it went smoother than what all three of us had expected. There was no hiccups, stammering or hesitation of any sort. I was a little tense when Hod asked me to explain an equation during the PPT but we had expected it and I think HOD was convinced by the reply. DD and Goof finished their parts without much ado.

We sat down for the viva after this, expecting that we would get properly grilled. But thankfully, HOD dint ask a single question. He just went thru the report and pointed out one amongst the zillions of mistakes we had made in it and after that nothing. He just asked us to show him the demo. I believe that the HOD could have
1) been just too bored of grilling ppl as we were the last batch for the day and so let us go.
2) dint understand a thing bcoz he does nt now much about antennas or signal processing, the premise of our project
3) thought that we had done a stupid project in which there was nothing much to ask anyways.

But whatever the reason we got away cheaply and I am pretty sure he will surely pass us, so all three of us were not too bothered about the marks he gave us.

So this is how my engineering ended, fortunately, rather uneventfully. Hope my MS would be a smooth sailing too. :P. too much too ask I guess.

Liberated!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Or are we?

2006-06-08T03:34:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, been away for a while. Not sure whether anyone bothered to see the blog in the mean while. Anyways, I am finally done with my BE. hurrrah!!!!!!!!!!! I am not thrilled to bits though beacuse whatever I am going to do from now on will most definitely shake me from the comfort zone I am in right now. I think I am ready for it but only time will be the true judge. Will write soon. feeling very sleepy now. Oh ya I also bought my tickets for the big bad US of A. Will be flying on aug 3rd if I clear my VISA interview.

Religion

2006-05-15T09:57:00.000-07:00

I had written this about my favourite topic "religion". I just found it somewhere. Posting it now. Hope u like it. Sorry if i hurt any religious sentiments.

Hey i know long time no c. But this is how i am " LAZY". I really appreciated a certain Mr. sara n goof who have been blogging regularly. ok let me start off.

I read this weird book on christianity or faith rather called " blame it on the mountains" and now i dont know why i read it. It is a well written book n goes to the very depth of human faith but leaves a lot of questions unanswered. I kept searching for answers and found none by the time i read the last page. I want to talk to all these religious leader n ask them many questions thats been intriguing me.

I beleive that faith is important for the existance of any man whether a atheist or not. The perspective changes but the core of the issue is the same. Man is weak and strong because of his biggest tool "the brain". I mean at one end he believes he rules as he can think, control things and other animals and all that. But the other end of the spectrum is that he also realizes that this universe is too huge a canvas to be centred around millions of tiny creature "us" humans. So wats the solution he thinks about a greater power than himself "god". And who is this god, he is one amongst us. Please stop the crap.

In any religion u see u see god or "god's children" in the form of humans. Whether its rama, krishna, jesus, mohommed all r simple humans. How can we be so presumptous to think that god, if he existed at all, would go to such lengths just for the upliftment and better life of humans who are just one of the millions of species existing on earth ( ignoring the possibilities of a billion more being elsewhere). It is obvious in the history of religion that humans are probably the most ego centric bastards on earth and the whole concept of religion and god is his dumbest ideas.

Now believe me folks I have no problem with faith. It s hard to imagine that there is no higher power governing this universe. So u fear that power and blah blah blah. I am comfortable with that, no issues. But then when things take a communal turn because of ppl getting fanatic about religion, it really pisses me off. Keep ur religion in ur home or rather in ur closet. Don't impose it unto others. Show tolerence not beligerence towards a fellow human being.

Think about it and leave ur comments

Be Cool

2006-05-13T04:57:00.000-07:00

Have you lost your cool recently? think about the reason. Was it worthwhile? I am sure that you will anwer yes for the former and no for the latter. More ppl r getting angry easily these days. y can t everyone exercise a little patience. Y do ppl need to yell so much?

Off late evryone s temper level is rising. Ppl get angry more easily. I think it has got to do with the stresses in ones life. The worst part about the situation is that its like a chain reaction. If one person is angry the others dont try to calm him down, instead they too get angry and start howling. this eventually leads to lots of misunderstandings,fights and eventual souring of the relationships.

According to me any person has a threshold level. A person gets angry only if u push him beyond this threshold. Now its very important where we place our personal anger threshold. We need to balance this threshold such that we dont place it too low and get angry easily or place it too high and never get angry at all. we need to kno wen to get angry and wen not too. When you push a person to the threshold all it takes is to control ur anger for that brief period of time. When the moment passes there wil b no anger left. :). Sounds simple but hard to implement as we all know.

The problem withmost ppl tode is that they have a very low threshold of anger these days. its frustrating to get yelled at all the time. But if u respond where is it going to end. I suggest that ppl shud go away from the place wen someone is angry. y blow ur head off too and regret it later. if we get more patient i think we will have lesser fights. Most fights in the world or avoidable.

Let us all try to be a lil more patient from now on. I think we will need a more peaceful and blissful life. Tell me about ur expiriences with anger.

Tiring day

2006-05-08T10:34:00.000-07:00

What a day? it might not b the most tiring day of life but ranks pretty high. It was a also a day of added frustrations, though finally it ended with some good news :).

Today was our proj demo day. we were supposed to be showing our code to to our profs. After a long time of struggling with the code, we had finally got it working (all thanks to goof). We were pretty confident bout it ( a bit over confident i might say). We had done significantly more work than wat our LRDE guide had asked us to do. We generally wasted the morning commenting the code n fooling around. With full confidence we called prof. Ananda babu (AB) n our beloved prehistoric, Rukmini (unfortunately our internal guide) for the demo.

Fully confident that we gonna get some "wah wah!!!!!!" from them we went ahead n showed our code. Then we got hit by nothing less than a nuclear bomb. AB was nt really happy with wat we had done. We had made the best out of the limited guidance we had in a rather difficult fieldof adaptive beam forming to get decent results. but he expected us to have done more. The most hilarious part of the whole incident is that he refused to understand what we had done and kept on forcing his ideas on us (he has worked in the field). He had a problem with one our graph for which i gave a reasonable explanation and he was satisfied. He also asked to implement this set of insanely complicated algoithms (k I am exageratting a bit) within the next 2 days we r left with. Luckily he was better than Ruku who went on flapping around like a fish out of water. She wanted to yell at the LRDE guy bcoz according to her he exploited us. h eh eh e. i cant help but grin at this. We were almost on the verge of killing her, she shud have been long dead neways.

Now our man goofy the gr8 drops the second bomb of the day. He tells me that the explanation that i gave for the graph might not be r8 for the graph we have plotted. Now this was serious news. This could ruin our entire proj. We were all stunned. Belted Ruku n AB n every other person in this world. Thought of all possible solutions. Got off full tension. Only thing we dint do is pee in our pants. So we decided to go work om the prob immediately. But as luck would have it the labs were occupied by our juniors for there scheduled lab. There was no use staying back so we decided to go home n start working. We were itching to get done with the work. As I dont have Matlab I decided to go to either goof or DD s place. I decided to go to DD s place coz neways we needed to start working on our report.

DD stays in indranagar and our college is on mysore road. It is 25 kms to his house. We catch 2 buses and 1 n a half hours later we r at DD s place. As soon as we land ther Goof calls n says our graph adhering to the explanation I had given to AB. What it essentially meant was that there was no necessity to go all the way to DD s place. Ok so we decide to work on the report and guess what happens; power failure. Now I thought I have come al the way here anyways so I decided to stay back till the power came back. It is freaking hot in blore these days and I almost got half baked due to the heat. Finally after an hour chit chatting and eating some snacks the power came n we started working. We cut pasted a few paragraphs from an older article and did q lil work n then realised that DD does nt have too much material on the stuff we need and plus he does nt have net. So we decided to call it a day and I left his place at 6, which was much earlier than the time i was supposed to leavehis place.

I reach the bus stop walking. There very few buses from there to my place, so even though the bus which came along eventually was totally crowded I got into it. Then began one of the worst expiriences of my life. I have kinda started enjoying my recent bus journies across the city but today was living hell. At the very next stop a zillion ppl got into the bus. There were ppl literally hanging onto the bus. I was smashed between an array of ppl whom I cud nt see or dint bother to notice. As i mentioned earlier the merscury is soaring. Everyone were sweaty and smelly and pushing each other. I almost felt like puking when standing next to this gentleman who had a horrible stench around him. I had no idea that my body cud be twisted into the many shapes it was twisted into on the bus. Finally lady luck decided that I had enuf for the day I guess. I got the most priced posesssion in the bus, an empty seat. :D. My joy knew no bounds. The rest of the journey was less unpleasant. I finally reached home walking from the bus stop at 8.30. Totally exhausted.

I would' nt like to have more days on the same lines. I am a rather lazy person and hope I this was a one off expirience. But I am happy to note that the proj is almost done. we might try one or more algorithms just to pleae AB. But what code we have now is good enuf as such.

Misunderstandings.

2006-05-07T04:44:00.000-07:00

Whats with the ppl around me? They always tend to misunderstand me. I mean I can't understand how innocent gestures of mine are twisted in a such a way that I end up being potrayed as an evil fiend. Let me tell you y i think so.

I meet (rather saw) this girl X at a friend s party. I don't talk to her nor does nebody introduce me to her. Ya, I am the sort of guy who usually talks to ppl only after being properly introduced. Neways next I see her in a coll fest. Again I dnt show ne special interest in her especially as I was preoccupied with someone special over there ;). X herself talks to me for a bit. After this i see her again in some other coll fest. Again she talks to me generally , so i respond.

So the situation at this point was that I knew her name n I knew that she was a friend of my friend. She also seems to be a sweet person. Except for this I had no clue about who she was? While scrapping our common friend I see that she is also a member of orkut and so I add her as a friend and i leave a coupla scraps on her scrapbook. Now I dnt know nething bout her, which coll,? how does my friend kno her? nothing. So I decently ask my friend " hey buddy who is this girl?". He asks me to ask another friend. :P. Ok fortunately the other friend is also online. So i buzz n ask him who she is? but apparently our dude gets pleasure from being online n not being around the comp. So he does nt reply.

Being the cocky guy I am I got sudden enthu n thought wat the hell neways no one is teling me bout her y not i ask her myself, so i left her a scrap saying " hey y haven t u put up a pic." She replies saing i dnt have one. So i say " Oh u dnt have a snap. K u shud have told me I wud have taken a snap on my cell n sent it to u. n hey tel me more about urself i hardly kno u." I wrote this with honest intentions.

The repercussions were hardly nething I expected. Apparently she thought I was hitting on her. She tells my dear friend. He scraps me saying "what da hitting on chick n all". I dint realize who he was talking about immediately but later realized what has happened. Now this left me totally confused. I mean can't a guy get to know a girl just like that. I was confused whether the way I frame sentences gives that impression or its just ppl misunderstanding me. This incident is not the first though, I mean as mentioned in my previous blog there was a HUGE misunderstanding wen I had tried to ask this girl out for a party.

All this has put me in a spot of bother. Should I change being who I am, or should atleast change how I talk or how I express myself. Leave ur comments n of course u can recall any similar incident that u have had to face.

N ppl dnt ask me who that girl is coz i ain't telling u n please dnt go probing into my scrapbook, its of no use I have deleted the relevent scraps :).

Season of love

2006-05-06T01:07:00.000-07:00

Hey ppl,

Believe me it most definitely is the season of love. After years of inactivity in my friend s group, largely due to the fact that we r doing engineering, ther is lot of lovvvvvvvvvvvely activity going on. I don't know whether this is a harmonal thing or whether it is because we r maturing or some crap like that. But I know for sure that in the past year most of my friends have found a partner for themselves. Including urs truely. It is really fascinating to think about it you know.

Let me start of by explaining the situation before this whole thing started. All my friends belonging to different groups were single. Don't ask me for the reason, there are many to give I guess, but nothing wil explain why "ALL" of us were single. Everywhere we went we went like one stupid gay group, gawking at the girls [not that we have stopped it now]. We used to struggle finding ladies to go with us to the Discos. We were pathetic. Not that we din't try at all. But every effort we made ended in a disaster. We were lucky that none of us got slapped in the process :P. I myself had a really bitter expirience trying to call a girl out for a date n also proposed to a girl 7 times before giving up :D. But we also had over share of freedom, the time to meet each other often , speak our mind out without anyone getting offended n stuff. That was fun.

But all this changed about an year back. I don't know whether we guys became more attractive or the girls just got dumber, but all of a sudden everyone started finding girls interested in them. It is so funny that the last time a group of us friends had gone out for a vacation we were all single n this time wen we went to kerala all of us were hooked. Everyone had a girlfriend. The situaton was comical at times n irritating at others with most of us clamoring for the phones to stay in touch with our girls. Now today I hear one more close friend of mine is hooked.. I just cant believe it. 100% of my friends were single an year ago and now 60% of them r hooked. I mean what are the odds of that happening? I can't explain this if anyone can please leave a comment. There is also the usual changes that can be seen, we have become more busy, lesser time for us boys to meet etc etc. But I don't think anyone of us is complaining. We r having the time of our lives and don't mind the added baggage at all.

So congratulations guys lets celebrate the season of love and all the best to everyone who has not found someone yet.

Been away for a long time.

2006-04-28T21:26:00.000-07:00

I am not sure if anyone has read my blog ever, but I have been away for a loooooooooong time. Its a rather long delay and the the only excuse that I can give is that I am plain lazy. But recently i realized that I have a lot of things to say and too many opinions about everything to not use this wonderful avenue to express my thoughts.

The incident that infuriated me enough to start blogging again is the whole reservation issue happening in India. Already India is burdened by the whole reservation system existing for the Sheduled caste/ tribes. A bit of a background first. When the fathers of our nation sat down together to frame the constitution of our country they chose Mr. B.R. Ambedkar as the head of the committee. He, being the champions of the scheduled caste people (or as the mahatma called them the harijans), included reservation for these people. 12.5%reservation in all governmemt institutions was implemented. In 1970 due to the increase in the number of ppl belonging to SC/ST according to the 1961 census, the reservation was increased to 15%. Now if u include the reservation for minorities that becomes a huge % for reservation. Now our "esteemed" human resource developement minister Mr. Arjun "vote bank" Singh wants to incread the reservation for SC/ST to 16.25% because according to the latest census the number SC/ST ppl has increased again. It does nt end there now he wants to introduce 27% reservation for OBC s. This brings the total reservation to a lil more than 50%. This is an astonishing figure.

Now why did this happen. The intentions with which reservations were introduced were quite genuine. Due to illogical caste systems in the Hindu society, the SC/St s had suffered humiliation and abuse from the higher classes for centuries. These ppl were at the lower strata of the society when our country became independent. The aim of the reservation was to alleviate the position of these ppl. to help them gain respectability in the society. It was supposed to be implemented for a few years and the situation was supposed to be reviewed after the period expired.

What exactly happened? though the intentions were right as always the implementation went horribly wrong. After more than 50 years of independence the situation of the Sc/ST has nt improved a lot. Untouchability and other crude practices against such ppl is still going on in remote villages all over India. These ppl who actually deserve the benifit of the reservation are still struggling. Who is getting the benifit? Rich well to do ppl and ppl who have no barriers to achieve what they potentially can are recieving the benifit. I wish to state that this is not always the case but is the case with majority of the cases. I am an engineer and I was horrified to realize the kind of benifits that these ppl get. They get free scientific calculators, drafter kits, books, lesser fees etc etc along with of course the quota of seats RESERVED for them. do they deserve it?

Parallely let me tell you about this classmate of mine who had come from a remote village Channapatna which is in Bangalore district. He was a hard working student. He was the first person in his family to have entered an engineering college. He din't know english while the medium of instruction in all the colleges in karnataka is english. Now what were the facilities given to him? nothing. Ya thats the whole worrying issue. He was forced to live in a cheap hostel with 5 to 6 ppl in a room as he could nt afford the college hostel or the other boarding facilities near the college. He was harassed by his peers and his seniors at his hostel for studying too much. He generally used to skip his lunch because he could nt afford it. Inspite of all this he achieved an amazing 78% in 3rd sem which a lot of us, including me, could nt score. But the whole system finally caught up with him. As the subjects got more difficult and as the pressures on him increased, he started dropping subjects, he stopped coming to class because he felt frustrated and finally he dropped an year. All he needed was encouragement which came from no where. Who will tell the HRD minister his story.

Y r they pursuing the reservation policy even though it is nt showing much success? Dirty Vote Bank politics. No politician or party has the balls to try and remove it. They need to appease their votebanks. It has to be noted that SC/ST s make a significant percentage of the total population. By appeasing them the future of the party is secure. What about the future of the country? which politician bothers about it. Most politicians are power brokers to do wanting more and more power and money for themselves.

Reservation is evil because its a burden on the society. No one is getting benifitted by it. A meritous student cant get a seat because there is no reservation for him. A SC/ST student does nt achieve his best because he knows there is loads of reservations to take care of him right from his schooling to his job. It is pathetic when u think of the situation now. We have under qualified ppl getting plush jobs. SC/St doctors engineers and lots of other professional with limited skills are making more errors by the day and causing huge problems.

What is the solution? Now its easy to comment on this issue and say that there should be no reservation. But what about the truely deserving candidates, why should they suffer. Who will help the SC/ST ppl. I propose a list of probable solutions. it is thoroughly my opinion

1) any form of aid or incentive should be performance based. Only ppl who prove there worth should be given the benefits. Like only the top few studentsshould be given the free calculators, books n stuff.

2)any form of aid or incentive should also be need based. Only ppl who clearly cant afford it should be given aid.

3) setting up of technical professional colleges which teach in the local language. This might be depended upon but I am sure this wil help in a big deal. The Russians teach in russian, the japanese teach in japanese, the chinese teach in chinese n so one. So y do we have only english as the medium of instruction in India. If u dnt have books get it translated more than a few authors will be glad to allow it. I am sure it will help rural students who have undegone their entire education in the local language to continue their education in the language of their choice.

4) Reservation if it needs to exist at all, must consider the economic stature of the person only. The supressed class must be helped only when their is a genuine case of ill treatement or lack of oppurtunity.

5) there must be a definite plan to phase the reservation out. It is like they say " if u give a man some food its no use, teach him how to earn it". As long as there is reservation the ppl for whom these reservation exists will never work hard enough and so the quality is always going to suffer. They will know that whatever happens they r protected. Instead set deadlines and the situation should be reviewed at each deadline. This will benifit everyone in the picture.

6) Improve the distance eduction schemes in the country. every remote village in India should have access to these schemes through which technical education and expertise can be gained.

All the above suggestions and opinions are that of my own. I apologize if my thoughts have hurt anyone but I think the points have are very much valid. I would love to here from u after u have read this. [if neone does that is]

life goes on

2005-07-21T07:37:00.000-07:00

rather soon to publish my next blog but could'nt resist myself. I wanted to mention what's written in jurrasic park a dumb book but none the less containing a really good point.. I am referring to the statement that the chaos theory expert ( i don't remember his name) had to say about earth. The statement goes something like this.

Life goes on no mater what. We talk about all the crap like world war 3, global warming etc etc and we feel that the way the man is destrying everything there will be no life on earth eventually. But this is just an example how self centred man is. Of course man will be destroyed by all of the above mentioned disastors.....but will all life be destroyed? No, because as many microbiologist can tell u there will be some minuscle life left on earth no matter and over a period of time it will evolve into larger and more functional beings as we did.......So basically life goes on no matter what.

I like this philosophy a lot because it humbles all of us human beings. Here we are thinking that humans are the rulers of the planet when the truth is that minuscle microscopic life is what has more prominence. We are only temporary so lets not give overselves too much credit for acheiving anything as humans.

me blogging

2005-07-21T07:27:00.000-07:00

Trying to discover the fun yet..........blog blog blog its been all over the place...........i fine it funny that such a fabulous way of expressing oneself is given a dull name, blog.........anyways i have always loved to write my thought so will continue to do so...........hope u like it....