Nikhil Kulkarni (nikhilnk) Blog

The Blog Has A New Address

2009-11-06T22:42:00.002+05:30

I am consolidating all my online presence and will be using nikhilnk as the handle.

Naturally, the new blog address is http://nikhilnk.blogspot.com

Will set up the feeds etc soon.

PS. I've been all this blog from the time I started blog. Some people even refer to me by this blog name. Thank you for following the blog (don't you follow only on Twitter?) and hope you will follow me on the new blog as well. Hopefully, the new blog will make me blog more often.

What Is The New New?

2009-11-06T22:38:00.002+05:30

Old-fashioned is the new Modern.

Che Guevera is the new capitalist icon.

Sleeping is the new Awake.

Giving up is the new Acquisition.

Hopeless is the new Hopeful.

Getting Lost is the new Finding Yourself.

Non-conformity is the new Conformation.

Dropping Out is the new Joining In.

Working Hard is the new Laziness.

Resignation is the new Acceptance.

Minimizing Damage is the new Gaining.

Reducing Problems is the new Finding Answers.

And this is the new blog.

All the posts and comments have been moved and surprisingly, it was quite easy. Thank you, Blogger.

You Can Call Me On My Mobile Phone

2009-09-15T17:50:00.004+05:30

No wonder they call it the Xtreme Sports Bar. Because we visit that place bar bar (not just because it's a bar) and extreme things happen while we are there. For example, Zee Sports is the channel they were playing on the TV screens the first time we went there. And why not, doesn't that qualify as a sports channel? Yes Sir, it does. While there has been definite improvement now, it is only to the level of playing Ten Sports these days. Yes yes, even that qualifies as a sports channel.

No problems about it at all, because just the act of playing a any sports channel on TV justifies its billing (we'll get to the billing part in a while) as a Sports Bar. Speaking of bills, they have a couple of billiards tables too, and you can snook around as well. Considering how crowded it is, no one really pays any attention to what one does there. Whether or not you pay attention to what others are doing, you have to pay the bill. Ok, I'll stop.

And continue here. Because Kaak had returned from Singapore and we had to make him feel premium, we decided to check the (then) newly opened Xtreme Sports Bar that Friday evening when they also have the karaoke nights.

One got excited about karaoke and decided to give singing a try. And try one did. Confidence stemmed from the fact that except for Kaak and Pole, occasionally only, no one would really take notice of (pay attention to is way too off, not even worth twelve grams of that) my singing and I could sing, scream, blare, be silent (there was the loud karaoke music anyway) and take it out in the name of singing. More importantly, have one thing checked in the list of things I have done. And sing (put voice to words in a rhythm I thought was right) , I did - this one and this one . Sorry Stipebhai and Gallagher bandhu, I hope you will pardon me for this transgression. But then, maybe I made a few people hear your songs for the first time. Hope that's redemption enough.

After all that is ~~said and done~~ written till now, the singing was actually nothing much to write about. Seriously, it was so mediocre (even that's a compliment) that even I don't remember it. The singing apart, the DJ(or the karaoke conductor?) was a very interesting man. One was quite pumped up after the singing (there was some jumping with the singing as well. Mostly because I could not see the screen from where I was standing and there were many people walking in between) and went to the DJ(or the karaoke conductor?) to say Hi and thank him. Here's what happened.

Me: Hey, thanks man. It was good fun.
He : Great! (Nodding his head, like the way a grandfather would to his grandson after the grandson comes running to him after his first cycle ride)
Me: Looks like a good place. Hope to see you here sometime soon.
He: I'm here every Friday, come have a good time.
Me: Nice, see you soon....your good name?
He: Val. My name is Valentine, you can call me Valentine.
Me: My name is Nikhil. You can call me on my mobile phone.

Val was not amused. I don't think it's fair to have expected him to be amused in any way. I still find it amusing though.

And then, the other day while we were there, those girls we vacated our seats for.....

Speaking At The Facebook Developer Garage

2009-09-14T19:15:00.011+05:30

One was part of the Speaker Panel at the Facebook Developer Garage held in Bangalore on the 28th of August at The Taj West End.

Having worked on building applications on the Open Social and the Facebook platforms, growing them to be among the top applications, building an active user base and monetizing the apps by running some interesting brand campaigns, I shared my experiences on treating applications as products and took the audience through the various stages of development and growth of these apps and the important elements involved in each of the stages.

It was a great experience sharing my thoughts and experiences with a very enthusiastic developer audience and sharing the panel with peers from the internet industry from companies like Facebook, Games2Win, Chakpak, Position2 and WeRead.

Below are some photos from the event -

Here is my presentation from the event -
(Suggested full screen viewing)

Nikhil Kulkarni - Facebook Developer Garage Bangalore

View more presentations from Abhishek Goyal.

Are You Really That Hot Then? Curious Incidents In The Life Time

2009-07-28T18:40:00.006+05:30

Are You Really That Hot Then?

Location: Aboard AI 620, Mumbai to Bangalore.
Time: Between 2:15 and 2:30 am.
Date: January 17, 2009.
Feeling before the incident: One of immense relief having reached the airport only minutes before the departure and miraculously enough, being able to clear the security, customs and the immigration check (Yes, it was a domestic flight. But since it was Air India, the boarding was from the international terminal and hence the customs and the immigration checks). And why not miracle, for I had met God himself just before reaching the Airport. And I am sure that the miracle was only because I had met God and not Cyrus Sahukar. Yes, this gentleman. A gentleman, he indeed is.

Story Before The Story:
Dear God insisted that I visit him in Chembur, fully ~~aware~~ ignorant of the fact that I had reached Bombay at around midnight after a tiring, but very enjoyable trip to Bhopal and that the next flight to Bangalore was only an hour and a half from then. And when Inshah Allah and one suggested that we meet at Hiranandani, we were told by God that Chembur is only 20 minutes from Hiranandani and that we should immediately head to Chembur. And the plan of action from then on was straightforward. Listen to whatever God says - check. Agree to whatever God says - check. Do whatever God asks you to - check. I don't know what means of transport God uses to reach Chembur from Hiranandani in 20 minutes, and please don't tell him this, it took us at least 12 minutes to find an autorickshaw-wallah who would take us at that ~~unGodly~~ hour.

Masha Allah was not able to make it to the meeting with God as he was busy vodka pastry* eating and doing what not-ing with God knows who(oh, God definitely knows everything!) at Theobroma. Anyway, through a Facebook photo comment later, he informed us that he had to go to office early the next morning and hoped that Inshah Allah compensated for volume. Compensate, Inshah Allah did. But what about mass and density, Mashah Allah?

And then God worshipping and receiving blessings happened, which included ending up as the last customers in a restaurant cum bar (zyaada) and eating more than the money we had to pay. The restaurant owner taking pity on us (what else could he take out , not his anger definitely. After all, God was with us) and giving us 30 rupees to be able to pay for the auto.

We returned to heaven, picked up my luggage and headed to the Airport. Inshah Allah got down at Vikhroli leaving me and the auto-wallah to calculate the probability of reaching the airport ~~on time~~ before the flight took off.

Then, with a miracle leaving me feel very blessed for spending that time with God, I was able to board the aircraft.

The Story:

I will not say that the Air India air hostesses are nothing much to write about. There is lots to write about, but then maybe that is not something you would not be interested in. But there is something about all air hostesses I would like to write. Looks like the passengers they hate the most are the male passengers (guests, if you are flying FingKisser) in their early 20s and traveling alone. I feel miserable for making them feel miserable. The worst thing one can do to another person is not acknowledge the other person's presence and I credit the air hostesses for giving me this insight. Sad part though, is that I was and still continue to be at the receiving end. Not receiving perhaps, their attention that is.

Leave alone free snacks or meals, except for a few toffees, the air hostesses don't give you any attention on the Mumbai-Bangalore route. (Another matter that it's the same case on all routes!). So I was pleasantly surprised when the AI airhostess woke me up to serve tea and biscuits. I was tired and it took me a while to register what the lady was saying to me. Then, I realised that she was serving tea and was asking me to hold the cup - plastic, with a handle. Used to holding the cup the way I used to, I did not hold the cup by the handle. While I was pleasantly surprised that she was able to tolerate me for that long, I sensed that her patience was wearing thin. 'It is fine, serve me the tea', I said. Still, managing to maintain her calm^, she said, 'Sir, I will burn your fingers with the tea'. Then, in a moment of sheer genius, one said,'Oh, is it? Are you really that hot then?'.

If looks could kill, I would not be writing this post.

I am glad that
- looks don't actually kill.
- she din't have me thrown of the plane mid-air.
- she din't have me arrested after we landed in Bangalore
- I met God in Bombay.

* Mashah Allah, pardon my memory and lack of sophistication and propriety. I know it's name is not exactly the Vodka Pastry. What is it? How is Theobroma doing now? Do you still Page 3 there? Are you alive?
^ She has to maintain her calm because it is her kaam. Work kaam, not desire kaam.

Hello, Is There Anybody In There?

2009-07-24T15:28:00.002+05:30

Really, does anyone *still* come and visit this blog? If you do, please let me know. I shall make a shrine for you In My Place. Really, I will.

Regular blogging will (hopefully) resume soon. A fair amount of traveling, reading, writing, listening to music, movie watching, cooking, eating, sleeping has happened in the meanwhile. I'm stopping. I go any further and I know a fair amount of boring and subsequently, killing will also happen.

Keep making things happen.

And Then One Voted

2009-04-23T09:07:00.008+05:30

What I had to go through to get my voter ID card will take up two and a half blog posts, but after having cast my vote now, I feel it was worth all the effort.

Here's to Indian democracy -

Wrong finger?

Thank you very much, DNA. Huh.

Old Airport Road, Bangalore at 6:45 am.

The Polling Station

List of candidates and alternate ID proofs.

The polling booth at 7 am. There were problems with the EVM and polling began only by 7:15.

Heartening to see the queues getting longer!

Do follow our analysis, opinions, agreements, disagreements on these polls on the election blog - http://indiapolls2009.blogspot.com.

It Is The Time

2009-03-13T14:21:00.005+05:30

While a few very insignificant things have happened since this blog saw a post, like meeting Shri Thomas Friedman, frequent trips to the Western region of the country, getting the best deal on Douglas Coupland books, rediscovering music on a wonderful mobile phone, the earth still continues to revolve around the sun and it's still water that pours when it rains.

Nevertheless, what is definitely happening are the General Elections and I consider myself to be very fortunate to be around and to be able to look at events leading to how our country will be shaped over the next five years. I hold my hands together or keep them separate, no pun intended, praying to God to bless us with a stable government that doesn't have to bend over backwards to appease sickle-minded, elephant-sized allies to make sure that the government's policies remain consistent and not change the direction according to the whims and fancies of those with narrow, regional and irrelevant ideological interests.

And what have I done? Doing what I do best - start another blog. Well, let me start the campaign then. Here is the blog - http://indiapolls2009.blogspot.com/

Through the blog, I hope to capture various activities from the ground on how parties mobilize workers and voters, on how the rallies and other campaign activities are held, how various media - different forms, languages and affiliations are reacting to the the election events and what do those who matter the most - the people have to say, or not have to say about the elections. I will also be keen on observing how the urban youth respond to the election activities and see how much of an interest they have in contributing to the most important activity in our democratic process - the elections.

I shall be cross-posting on this blog whenever it is appropriate. Hope all you readers (there are?) are doing well. Enjoy your meal, books, music, movies and sleep.

Literacy For A Billion - How Can You Help?

2008-11-25T13:53:00.001+05:30

The Trip To Talakadu

2008-10-19T19:43:00.003+05:30

Photos from the trip to Jaladhama, on the banks of rivers Kaveri and Kapila at Talakadu, about a couple of hours drive from Bangalore.

Flower Power

Photos taken during the breakfast stop-over at the Kamat Upachahra on Mysore Road.

Scattering of Light?

Barb Wire?

Photos of the fields on the way - the Well Fielded Series

I am quite pleased with the way these photos of the clouds came out. This is the Cloud Cult Series, dedicated to Cloud Cult, an indie rock band whose song Love You All I really like.

Photos from the resort.

Love As Seen in Bollywood Movies

Drops of Jupiter

Drops of Jupiter (on green leaves?!)

Leafing Through the Past

Contrasting Focuses

Coffee - Bean There Done That

What are these called?!

The Lonely Soldier

What Are You Getting Antsy About?!

And we all went dinning at the end of it!

All these and more pictures of the previous trips on Flickr - here.

Mysore Dasara Trip 2008 Or Why I Can Now Die A Happier Man - I

2008-10-10T16:42:00.012+05:30

The Theory of Happening Trips has been proved once again. That the best trips are those which are decided at the spur of the moment with minimum fuss about the planning, stay, travel and the company. And that the ones that are planned and thought over, over and over, never quite happen.

The Mysore Trip for the Dasara celebration started by proving the The Theory of Happening Trips right. Plan Zero was that Ashutosh and I weould leave from Bangalore on his bike either on Wednesday night or on Thursday depending on how fried a day Wednesday would be. Plan Zero never took off as Ashutosh found out that he was the only resource for a project that would save the world from global warming and end poverty. Plan One involved asking Joshi if he could come and turned out that he had to work the next day on a project to bring about world peace. I cannot blame him too, for he'd have only a couple of hours to decide. But then all of us are not like and me, who set out on the Wayanad Trip with just a day's notice. The rest, of course, were too busy with more important things in life. Taking inspiration from them all, I realised even I could not waste more time on trivial things anymore and did a very important thing - start on the trip rightaway. After a quick call to Prasanna (THE man, the selfless friend, philosopher and Mysore guide, gracious and tolerant host, and to be called as SP henceforth ) informing him about my late-night arrival in Mysore, followed by a packing of trip essentials and a quick bath, I found myself jostling for space in the Bangalore City Volvo bus, since 67% of those working in and around Airport Road were heading towards Majestic area to take buses or trains to travel to their homes.

Kempegouda Bus-stand, Bangalore ~ 10:30 P.M

On reaching Majestic, I realised that 73% of Bangalore had arrived there, looking for a bus to travel out of Bangalore. I know 73% is exaggerated as it can get, but looking at the current economic downturn and the threat of massive lay-offs in the IT industry looming large, will there be a day in the near future where we could possibly see such an exodus out of Bangalore? I'm sure the copywriters in the media would be salivating at such a prospect. I can bet my left index finger that at least 38.2% of them would have thought of such a headline - [Insert well-known IT company name] Shuts Down Bangalore Operations, Employees Asked To Log Out. Even that, I think, is a fairly exaggerated scenario. That of a mass exodus of those working in the IT/BPO industry in Bangalore. Definitely not the copy-writers, they have their copies ready I'm sure.

I pushed, shoved, shouted, tripped over, bumped into and apologised my way through an ocean of people and reached the area from which buses depart towards Mysore. Discovered that KSRTC has launched a low-cost version of their popular air-conditioned buses named Sheetal(meaning cold). These buses run at a fairly good frequency and I did not have to wait for too long to find one with a comfortable seat. At Rs. 137 per passenger with comfortable seating and air-conditioning, I'm sure even those at Capitol Hill will have no problems in voting for this deal.

With Radio Indigo giving me good company and a refreshing coffee stop-over at Maddur, the journey was smooth and comfortable.

Maddur Bus-stand. ~1:30 A.M

On entering Mysore, I called up SP so that he could reach the bus-stand by the time I reached there. And by the time I finished the call, the bus stopped and I realised that we were already at the bus-stand. I was glad that Mysore wasn't like Bangalore that it would take one at least an hour to reach the bus-stand on entering the city, even though it meant that I had to wait for SP for about fifteen minutes to come and pick me up.

Mysore Bus-stand ~1:00 A.M

The warm and thoughtful man that SP is, he had brought a jacket for me in his room-mate's car that he had come in to pick me up. Now this is non-sense and I'd advise you not to read further as the previous sentence made no sense except that I tried to play on the word warm. But yes, it was really thoughtful of SP to have brought that jacket for me.

After straight and few cover drives through the deserted streets of Mysore, which only a few hours from then, would be teeming with people wanting to catch a piece of the Dasara action, we reached SP's home. Again, there was no reason for me to mention to the straight and the cover drives because we were not on a cricket field, but then I plan to go to watch the third and fourth day's play at India-Australia Test match here in Bangalore. That thought was playing on my mind while we were driving and I was hoping that I'd get to watch Dada's cover drives and Sachin's straight drives, Dravid's defences and Laxman's drives and defence. Hence the drives find themselves tossed up into this post. But then before this post goes on to become a post on Dada's retirement, which is definitely coming soon, I better get back on track than queer the pitch. We reached SP's place with out wickets intact(it would be redundant and cliched to say that there were no maidens on the road to bowl us over and hence our wickets were intact) and danced to Koyal Si Teri Boli from Beta. No, we did not do any dancing and I'm writing all non-sense. I'm really exhausted now and will continue writing this post once I've returned to sanity after a good night's sleep. Now, are you really reading till this point? Then there's one more thing I want to tell you and want you to listen. Listen, not to me, but to Mar Jaava from Fashion. I think Shruti Pathak will go places and I should go to bed. I promise to keep the next post relevant and write about what we saw at Mysore the next day. Till then, Mar Jaaava..

Sri Lanka, Lakshadweep or Kashmir?

2008-10-06T16:10:00.003+05:30

It's either the top or the bottom, and nothing in between. Before you start getting any ideas about this tongue in cheek(or tongue in whatever else) remark, a clarification that the remark is an observation about the options for a possible trip towards the end of this year with Pole.

2008 has been a fairly mixed year, and in some cases probably the Blankest. But it has been a good one for travel. Varanasi, Kurseong, Darjeeling, Tiger Hill and Gorkha War Memorial, Gangtok, Chhangu Lake, Siliguri, Nepal, Bhutan, Kolkata, Delhi and the Wayanad Trip. And of course, the trip to Mysore and Srirangapattana with family. There's a feeling that I get, when I look to the west that even the travel that has happened till now isn't quite enough. So while we plan the year end trip to either the top or the bottom, here's looking forward to the Mysore trip for Dasara in a couple of days from now. And also looking forward to finally sitting down and writing about all those trips.

Why I Can't Have Enough of Gujarat

2008-10-05T11:05:00.004+05:30

I find it quite strange that during the four years I was at Surat and even during my trips to Gujarat before that, I had not come across Sanedo. I had not even heard or discussed about it with any of my friends from Gujarat. It was only at the Garba here in Bangalore that we went to last night that I actually got a first hand experience of what Sanedo is. First hand experience is very essential, especially when one's talking about Garba!

The garba was great fun. Among other things, the gentleman on the mike ought back umpteen memories of the goof-ups of our teachers and those emceeing on the stage during various events in the college. During the break between Sanedo and Raas, I kept on hearing Pregness over and over again and while I was wondering if it was some unknown power indicating a person's prowess to get someone preganant (Old article. Nevertheless, read on - Condom sales up by 50% during Navarati in Gujarat) and turns out someone was shouting out for one Pragnesh. My jokes on Gujarati names began and ended with Hitess, Jigness, Paress, Naress being brothers of Business, but now I have Pregness as a welcome addition to the list. Jokes apart, I played Raas for the first time and I believe I've begun to understand how such events provide a casual and an informal environment for young men and women to meet and interact Not that I did not know of it earlier, but again, it's like that dialogue in Munnabhai which goes something like Life mein bahut kuch first time hota hai maamu. It was a really enjoyable and a very interesting experience. And Ms. Nimmi, I hope you had a good time too!

And how can any garba be complete without the garba remixes of the latest hits? Hare Krishna Hare Ram from Bhool Bhulaiyya was fine, but I found it quite funny playing raas with small children singing Zara Zara Kiss Me from Race with more energy than the quintessential male garba singer - fully blonde hair, a blazer made out of the material Kajol's blouse was made out of in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai(chiffon?!) and an uncanny ability to catch dancers unawares by shouting praises of the Godess during the music pieces in a song, lest they forget why they are dancing in the first place. It was a pleasant surprise to hear Main Koi Aisa Geet Gaaon and Chaand Taare at a garba event and dance to it. Couldn't have asked for a better end to the day, which though came at 3 a.m the next day, after a very satisfying quiz at BrewHaha with Chirag.

Thank you Gujarat. Thank you Surat. Thank you Arvind Barot and Maniraj Barot. Thank you Kaka for getting us passes to the indoor stadium in Surat. Thank you Fagun. Thank you Viral. Thank you Nilesh for making that phone call and trying to get me closer to Ms. Nimmi. Thank you Mehul.

PS. Mental note: Blog more often!

Dear Aniruddha Bahal, It's Not Funny

2008-09-22T01:02:00.006+05:30

Dear Aniruddha Bahal,

Not a week passes in my life without I ~~mentioning~~ strongly recommending Bunker 13 to people I come across and who seem even remotely interested in reading among those. If I were deeply religious, one would have observed that I go back to Bunker 13 more often that I go to the religious texts. Of course, one needs the kind of madness that made MM the man he was. When I die, I will be glad that I introduced you and your writing to a lot of people around me. While I most eagerly look forward to another Bunker 13 and another MM from you, I really can't understand the need for you to invent Tony M at this moment. Yes, we Indians are starved for quality humour and what we are being served now does no justice to our discerning intellect, but I will remain skeptical of this attempt of yours till I watch the said show and find out if it really deserves you. Tehelka was excellent work and I admire you not only for what you brought to the rot to light, but also how you withstood all the persecution that followed. I really admire Shankar Sharma and Devina Mehra for the same. Please convey my best wishes to them and to Tarun as well. One need not look beyond you guys for inspiration on how to fight back in the face of all odds and come back and come back doubly strong. You started Cobrapost much before those of us in the web 2.0 infected world starting throwing about terms like RSS feeds and news aggregators. For all we know, Cobrapost might just take off and make a strong comeback if you spend more time on it that trying to humour us by being Tony Bhasand. And what is this? Is this what Aniruddha Bahal has become?

Is your absurd sense of humour your forte?
Humour is not the fort. If the truth in the joking then the peoples laughing and spreading all over out from the Naini fort on the river.

I really hope you and your publisher are working on another Bunker 13 and you won't disappoint your followers and readers. Maybe your following is a billionth of that of Sharukh Khan and you are not Arundhati Roy, reading whose work kids think they become intellectuals overnight and go around telling the entire world about it. We are you fans by choice, not by the lack of it. Hope you know that.

Maybe I'm over-reacting just on the ten questions you answered for the Outlook interview. But I hope you understand that you are at your best when you are either stinging or you are writing. And please don't meet Vipul Shah or Akshay Kumar, otherwise we'll soon be watching a movie titled Stingg is Kinng, with the unnecessary extra alphabets and there is also the threat of them wanting you to write the script.

Hope to see you back to writing soon.

Regards,
Nikhil

PS. I must mention here that I immensely enjoyed reading A Case of Exploding Mangoes. Just a note that you now have some competition in fiction writing about military, politicians, war, spying and espionage in the sub-continent.

Image Credit: Outlook

Welcome (to) Ashok Mishra

2008-09-19T10:09:00.002+05:30

Just when we thought no one except Gulzaarsaab, Javedsaab, Kirkireji and to a certain extent Neelesh Mishra could write enjoyable songs for Hindi movies, we have a welcome addition to this honoured club. Let's extend a warm welcome to Ashok Mishra. Ashok Mishra debuts as a lyricist with Welcome to Sajjanpur. Forget all this nonsense about how the songs try and put the cool back in the gaon, or how the songs try and show that it's all happening in the hinterland, or even how the album really tries hard to bring out the latent “gaon-waala / gaon-waali” in all of us. Just sit back and take a good listen to the songs and I'm sure you will come round to appreciate the talent that Ashok Mishra is. And it definitely doesn't harm one's chances if he's in the good company of Swananand Kirkire and Shantanu Moitra and moreover for a Shyam Benegal movie. If I were to start writing songs for Hindi movies, this would be my dream team to start working with.

You can listen to the songs here or better still, buy the CD. Or download the songs and make sure you at least ten people around you listen to each song! My picks are Sita Ram, Aadmi Aazad Hai and Ek Meetha Marz De Ke.

PS. Found out that there was no Wikipedia entry for Ashok Mishra. Here's the page I've created. If you more information about this talented lyricist, please go ahead and add it to the page.

The Real Hero of Rock On !!

2008-09-15T19:43:00.003+05:30

None of the following are the real heroes of Rock On!!

Farhan Akhtar

Arjun Rampal

Shahana Goswami

Prachi Desai

Javed Akhtar(Only he can write both - Zehreeley Zehreely Kaale Neele Peele and Jo Tum Ho Toh Hawa Mein Bhi Mohabbaton Ka Rang Hai with equal ease. Yes he wrote Dard-e-Disco.)

Jason West (He's the cinematographer)

Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy (As Ehsaan mentioned, it was just another jam session for them. Western music comes naturally to Ehsaan and Loy and I'm sure if ever there's a Rock On!! 2, they'l do much much much better.)

Ritesh Sidhwani (He does remain a hero for me, not only for this movie but also for the way he and Farhan have carried their friendship and passion to this level)

And not Purab Kohli, Luke Kenny or even Chakravyuh!

To me, the hero of Rock On!! is Anu Malik. Why, you ask? Because it takes something to play yourself in a role in which you know you are being ridiculed. Well, almost. Some of us know it as the ability to laugh at oneself. Perhaps that's Anu Malik's idea of laughing at himself. Hats off to you Anubhai!

PS. Hats off definitely, but I don't know about the wig inside the hat/cap!

Image Credit: www.radiosargam.com

Who Cares What Obama Says...

2008-09-03T21:46:00.003+05:30

...when he makes an entry for his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention with City of Blinding Lights. Turns out he's been using this song to open his performances since 2007. Yo! Bama, shall we say then?

Koel - Kahaan Gayi Teri Boli?

2008-09-03T00:11:00.004+05:30

[Promise to myself - This is the first and last time that a post is entirely about a celebrity]

Maybe this post was supposed to be about Rock On!! Or it was supposed to be about my our music story or about Vajra, our college band comprising of Mrinabh, Joji, Chinsi and Shubam which I briefly managed during our final year. No, it's about none of them. Instead, turns out that it's about Koel Purie. I'm no style or fashion expert for I still don't understand all the brouhaha over Vidya Balan's sense of dressing or even the apparent lack of it and surely will never understand it. But I can definitely see how worn down Keol appears now, compared to her Everybody Says I'm Fine days.

Dear Koel,

Congratulations on your new TV show - On the Couch with Koel. ~~Definitely helps when you have a father like him,, doesn't it?~~. If you are listening, can you please clarify this for us? Were you drunk or high on drugs while interviewing Salman Khan on your show? And what's with that forlorn look in Rock On!!? For God's, discerning viewers', your followers and my sake, you looked like Purab's mother in the movie! Did Niharika Khan have some evil designs for you?! Please take care of yourself and your appearances in forthcoming TV shows and movies. We are watching you. Hope you are listening to us.

Regards,
Nikhil

PS. Rock On!! is good. And sorry guys, I downloaded the songs. But then I have the lyrics of all songs except Zehreelay by heart and have made at least ten people around me listen to at least two songs each from the movie. Hope that makes it up for downloading the songs. I'd have been really glad if you guys made the album available for free download and recovered the money on the music by touring across the country and performing with Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. That perhaps wouldn't be BIG money, but you'd have done more than your bit to promote good music in India and encouraged other musicians to try and work towards a better solution to end piracy.

PPS. Technically, this post still remains about Koel, right? Post scripts aren't considered a part of the main post, are they?

A Mistimed, Rather A Mistyped Shot!

2008-08-27T17:42:00.002+05:30

Nice catch, what say? Or is it a great (screen)shot?

Hazaaron Khwahishein Nahin, Bas Ek Khwahish

2008-08-25T21:05:00.005+05:30

Dear Kirkireji,

I hope you, like I do, believe that this is your best song till date. I do not say best song ever because I believe, hopefully you also do, that there are many more such gems to come from you, both as a writer and a singer. It hurts me no end when I see such a beautiful composition being trivialised by being used in a television commercial*. I understand that perhaps you did not have as much say as folks at Virgin Records or at PNC, but this is still something we find hard to digest. Not music to our ears, if I may say.

I earnestly request you not to hurt your fans henceforth by letting your songs, either sung or written, be used for purposes other than for reaching musical ecstasy. Yes, there's an odd aberration like this one, but we know you're back in tune after this. Your songs, like this one, are music lovers' secrets, and only those in the know of it really understand how valuable they are. Please let them remain that way.

Please convey my regards to Jhingranji, Shantanuda and Mishraji.

Regards,
Nikhil

* The television commercial in question is the new Airtel+Nokia ad featuring Abhay Deol and Raima Sen. Glad that it's not up on YouTube yet. Glad that I'm not linking to it from my blog.

Happy Independence Day - II

2008-08-19T23:12:00.003+05:30

I only have this to say. If it takes a jazzed up version of the National Anthem to market our national anthem to our youths , then God save our country instead of the Queen. Maybe I am a little old-school, finding such an experiment with our National Anthem hard to digest. I'm definitely not against any form of display of patriotism that happens these days, which is nothing but wonderfully disguised marketing campaigns, but this one is taking it a bit too far. There's a sense of aesthetics associated with any National Anthem and this new experiment trivializes that feeling. At 00:43, it has to be Gaahe Tava Jaya Gaatha and not Gaaye Tava Jaya Gaatha. If one's looking for a mistake, there you go. That's one for you. All the best Nokia, may you have more youth, feeling all the more patriotic, thanks to your initiative download more ringtones and buy more phones from you. All the best MTV. And Thank You for reminding our youth that we have a National Anthem. Be glad India, your youth have finally found you, thanks to MTV and Nokia.

Happy Independence Day

2008-08-12T18:19:00.006+05:30

So it will be a Happy Independence Day after all. The Box Office is keeping producers of this movie happy and that the lead character's name is Happy is only, well, a happy co-incidence.

Abhinav Bindra's win at Beijing has exhausted all possible phrases with the word gold in it. With so many (more) news channels and newspapers(and some more) around, no wonder everything looks and sounds the same. So this Independence Day, all of India, which, to the news channels consists of everyone in their air-conditioned, glass-walled news studios and those whose who overwhelm them with text messages and emails will celebrate the arrival of India on the world scene (Have you already forgotten the nuclear deal?) and the emergence of a confident, self-assured youth here in India. Thank you Abhinav, if not for you, we'd have had a very gloomy Independence Day celebration or so our newsmen and women would have liked us to believe. Left with nothing but the increasing inflation and rising costs, they would have perhaps shed a tear or two(damn, it's already raining, why add to people's misery?) about the floods down South or would've gone on about how freedom is not all that happy as a certain government is making others dance to its tunes, rather not to dance to any tunes.

Rabbi's second album is out and Bilqis(Jinhe Naaz Hai) perhaps captures my sentiments best. I still remember talking about the short public memory with Sap while the Satyendra Dubey episode was making the headlines and I now wonder if any of us still remembers him. What I did not know was about Navleen Kumar. A social worker fighting for the land rights of tribals in Nallasopara, Thane District, she died on receiving 19 stabs on June 19, 2000. She was fighting against the powerful Thakur family which has built nothing less than an empire in those parts of the Mumbai suburbs. Strange enough that I did not come across this earlier, as Nallasopara is very close to Boisar which I (used to) visit quite often. Rabbi remembers her in Bilqis(Jinhe Naaz Hai) along with Shanmugan Manjunath and Bilqis Bano. Here's the video -

We're still a young country and have a long way to go. And long way in the life time of a country usually means centuries. Neither are we going to rule the world tomorrow nor will we cease to exist as a country the day after. Someone please go tell that to our media persons. Or am I asking for too much from them? What the hell, I'm free to think and wish in this country and that remains my wish for this Independence Day. That we try and nip this obsessive celebrity following and excessive consumerism in the bud or we'll end up as something else. Now, that's for another post. Enjoy the extended weekend. Did someone say Independence Day? What's that? Isn't that on July 4?

IAF Open To Women In Jet Cockpit

2008-08-07T10:59:00.003+05:30

Ok, read the, between or beyond the following lines, I'm just reproducing (pun maybe intended) the piece from today's edition of Deccan Herald. I hope it helps in bringing about world peace and reducing poverty and global warming. Thank you.

Italics are my emphasis.

IAF Open To Women In Jet Cockpit

New Delhi, PTI: The long-cherished dream of women entering the male bastion of flying jet fighters may finally come true with IAF Chief F H Major saying the force is open to the idea of allowing the fairer sex donning the frontline combat role.

Women in the Indian Air Force were doing a "good job" and there was no reason why they would not be able to fly combat aircraft in future, Major said on Wednesday.

Replying to a question on whether IAF will have women fighter pilots in future, Major said, "Why not! The women in IAF are doing a good job."

Asked whether IAF was considering any proposal in this regard, he said, "No proposal is under consideration right now. We will have to give a lot of thought on it."

The Indian Air Force has over 700 women officers in non-combatant roles.

Crossposted on Linkosarcoma.

What Is Josh All About?

2008-08-01T16:19:00.002+05:30

PS. Have a new TV at home. The fillers on 9XM are good fun - The Betel Nuts, Bheegi Billi and Bakwaas Bandh Kar.

Life Is Driving A Car In Heavy Rain

2008-07-11T21:22:00.004+05:30

Wisdom decided to bless me with a rare visit while talking to Sap last evening, and this is what it left me with -

Life is like driving a car in heavy rain. You (mostly) know the destination and (mostly) know the road, but the journey is rough. Due to the rain, you never know what's going to hit you when you take next turn. You want to keep moving fast, but have to be cautious not to skid and be thrown off the road. You can't see what lies far head because of the heavy rain and though there are ~~vipers~~ wipers, they only help you to see to a certain distance. You still keep going - backing your instinct and gut feel, taking calculated risks and making decisions from experience. You stop for breaks in between, but still keep going. Your car breaks down, a stranger comes along and helps you, reminding to help others in need. You meet with an accident, break a few bones, repair your car and resume the journey. Help a stranger on the way since you know how important help is. So that's what it is - set out on a journey, pick up a few bruises, keep your ears and eyes open for the unexpected, hope that the rest of whatever is left of the journey will turn out fine.

PS. Now I know why wisdom decided to bless me. Sap was around!

Don't Blame That Miss Teen South Carolina Contestant

2008-07-09T20:27:00.003+05:30

Now this is something we're more than familiar with.

Maybe this video will help us put that into perspective.

On a slightly related note, I'm a little skeptical of Rupert Murdoch's continued domination of the media world over.

Chess Olympiad Teams Will Be Topless

2008-07-04T12:25:00.004+05:30

How scandalous? And it's the Indian Chess teams we're talking about.

Are they making the right moves? Will they get pwned? Will they find out what is it to be a knight rider? All puns intended. Read on.

Chess Olympiad Teams Will Be Topless

Thank You DNA and congratulations. You win today's battle for the most absurd news-story/news headline. But you still have a long way to go before you even think of getting close to CNN-IBN. All the best!

Bhagawan Aaye Cycle Se

2008-06-30T15:04:00.001+05:30

No wonder it won the Bronze at Cannes.

Crossposted on OrangeGlass.

More CNN-IBNonsense

2008-06-25T10:05:00.003+05:30

~~It's not everyday~~ On IBNlive, it's everyday that one comes across news stories of varying ridiculous proportions, but one of today's headlines is definitely out of the box, the sort that sees a hand with a boxing glove come out of the box(idiot, if TV or a flat box, if it's a laptop screen) and punches you straight in the face. Dear Copy Editor at IBNlive, if you objective was to capture my attention, congratulations, you have succeeded. But if your objective was to make me take seriously what you folks at CNN-IBN/IBNlive say/write , I'm sorry, I won't from now on. Here's the head line and the piece following it. Emphasis mine.

Should the N-deal be seen as anti-Muslim?

A day ahead of the crucial meeting between the Left and the UPA Government, CPM politburo member and trade union leader M K Pandhe claimed Muslims are against the Indo-US nuclear deal. CPM leader Prakash Karat attended Shia rally in Uttar Pradesh to protest against India's vote against Iran at the IAEA as well as George Bush's visit to India. Analysts say the Left must not bring religious sentiments into foreign policy issues.

Thank God for the analysts, we'd otherwise have some serious trouble in our foreign relations with Azerbaijan during Diwali or a sudden thaw in relations with Mongolia during Ganesh Chaturthi. Religious sentiments are high during those times, you see.

More CNN-IBN fun.

Via Darjeeling and The Darjeeling Limited

2008-06-23T14:27:00.005+05:30

Two movies I'm looking forward to watch in some time - Via Darjeeling and The Darjeeling Limited.

Via Darjeeling comes from Arindam Nandy and has a very impressive star cast with an interesting story-line. More from Arindam Nandy on Via Darjeeling. Heartening to see NFDC (back to?)backing projects like these.

The Darjeeling Limited sounds a lot like Asiawheeling. Promises to be an interesting ride. I'm not sure which character from the movie would Scott, Woody and I be parallel to during Asiawheeling, but I'm more than sure that we could make a movie, nothing less, out of our experiences from Asiawheeling.

A couple of movies, of course, are waiting to be made out of my own trip to Darjeeling. Not to forget Gangtok, Kurseong, Siliguri, Kolkata, and Bhutan, and Nepal!

Koncerned About Karnataka

2008-06-20T19:38:00.003+05:30

No, this is not about an Ekta Kapoor serial on Karnataka, but a really concerning phenomenon which could have a potentially adverse effect on the relatively clean politics environment in Karnataka.

Outlook carries an article by Sugata Srinivasaraju on the rise of the Reddy brothers in such a very short time from being nowhere on the scene till the late 90s to dictating terms in Karnataka politics. The article is rather strangely titled Deep Vein Thrombosis. It mentions that the RSS is said to be "very concerned with the Reddys' growing influence" on the state BJP. Though I don't subscribe to RSS's RSS feeds, meaning don't subscribe to most of their views, I have reasons to agree with them on the Reddy brothers' though. And not just about their growing influence on the state BJP, but of the entire granite lobby over Karnataka politics.

Let's see how this one plays out. In these parts of the world, the granite stone is more valuable than gold and diamond. Sincerely hoping that granite doesn't do what diamond and gold did to Africa.

Image courtesy the Churmuri post on an ad in newspapers by another MLA from another granite-rich area Hospet praising the Reddy brothers and their associate with allegedly criminal records B Sriramulu.

PS. Deep Vein Thrombosis. And I have no clue yet on why the article was given that title.

The 3 Mistakes Of My Life

2008-06-19T10:38:00.003+05:30

Reading the book, though, was not one of them. Liked the fact that it is set in Ahmedabad and to a fair extent captures the essence of life in the city. The book is not so much about bringing about the ethos and isolation of an entire generation to the fore as the blurb says. But we know these marketing types, don't we? Read the book if you have nothing better to do for a couple of hours.

Earlier posts about Ahmedabad on this blog.

Viva la Vida and Brian Eno

2008-06-16T18:19:00.004+05:30

Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends sees the coming together of two brilliant brains, Coldplay and Brian Eno. Having briefly worked with Coldplay on their last album X&Y, Brian Eno has gone on to produce Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends for them. And by the looks and the listens of it, and as Guy Berryman mentions in the interview to Rolling Stones, they've gone into exploring newer territories and they've come up trumps. It might take a while for the music to be digested, but once it is, it just gets into the system smoothly.

Coldplay performing Viva la Vida at the MTV Movie Awards 2008

Rolling Stones India

It needs another blog post to do justice to the genius that Brian Eno is, but I was introduced to him through this song from The Son's Room. I can not remember a more perfect use of a song in a movie.

Here's the song -

A for Asiawheeling, B for Banaras, V for Varanasi, K for Kashi

2008-06-09T10:26:00.003+05:30

Asiawheeling is currently on and I'm terribly excited to be on its Board of Advisors. Even more terribly excited I am about going to Banaras/Varanasi/Kashi with the wheelers. Though shorter, I'm sure it'll be as much fun and life-changing as Summer of '06.

Good Will Hunting Fucking Short Version

2008-05-29T15:35:00.003+05:30

Ok, I'm not able to decide which one is better of the two - the movie Good Will Hunting or the following Fucking Short Version. Can you please help me decide?

The movie is excellent no doubt, and I was pleasantly surprised to know that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck wrote the screenplay and went on to win the Academy and the Golden Globe Awards for the Best Original Screenplay. That's some really good talent, and I'm glad they've gone on to do much better with their movie careers following Good Will Hunting. Have been following movie soundtracks more closely these days and a very poignant Miss Misery by Elliot Smith comes on as the credits roll in the end. Sad to know that it lost to My Heart Will Go ~~Yawn~~ On from Titanic for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Even sadder that like many other gifted musicians, Elliot Smith ended his life at 34 under what else, mysterious circumstances. Hope you're doing well wherever you are Mr. Smith, there will be a lot of listens to songs in your whispery, spiderweb-thin delivery style in the coming days.

While we're on the movie, lucky are those of who have Chuckies, Seans and Prof. Lambeaus in believe in ourselves more that we believe ourselves. Sonofabitch, he stole our line, the producers of the movie would say. No wonder since the tag line of the movie goes - Some people can never believe in themselves, until someone believes in them. That's perhaps the best line of the movie - Sonofabitch, he stole my line. No, wait. There's something that tops it - I gotta go see about a girl!

Mr. Cock-a-lock

2008-05-16T17:18:00.006+05:30

Hail buffalax and Benny Lava, aka Prabhudeva in India! Here's more on the geniuses.

The original Benny Lava video by buffalax!

Oh, and I did not know Urvasi could also become this!

Polly's bum for fantasty, ah!

The Truth About India

2008-05-14T10:22:00.003+05:30

Now, after traveling some eight thousand miles around the country, I know approximately as little as I did on my first arrival. However I've seen a lot of people and places, and at least somewhat more detailed and precise idea of my ignorance than I did in the beginnning.

Paul Bowles in Their Heads Are Green and Their Hands Are Blue, an excerpt from which is carried in India In Mind, edited by Pankaj Mishra.

Not surprising at all, an opinion like this coming foreign traveler. But it holds equally true for an Indian traveler like me. The more one discovers India, more is the feeling of having known nothing at all about this magnificent place.

PS. The book is put together well. It is a collection of pieces from books by foreign authors and travelers about India. Also, LibraryThing doesn't seem to be working. Anyone fans of the website and missing it as much as I am now?

Polls In Karnataka - A Quick Note

2008-05-09T20:01:00.005+05:30

As someone who follows Indian politics very closely, it is a tad disappointing that I haven't been able to follow the build-up to the elections in Karnataka as closely as I'd have liked. But still an opinion or two, or perhaps a couple more. Contrary to what these people have to say, the Congress will not get a majority. In my opinion, no party will. The Congress used the revision of electoral rolls as as an intelligent tactic to delay the elections, and this will definitely not help the BJP ride the sympathy wave. Nevertheless, the sympathy is still there and the BJP will gain from it. According to me, the tally will more or less remain the same as in the previous election. The BJP and the Congress will get a few more seats at the expense of JD(S) and others like JD(U), SP and the BSP will just be making a guest appearance in the analysis of the experts sitting in their air-conditioned studios. Good luck to you guys, hope you get higher TRPs and have more people believe that what you say is actually true. Just a small note, Karnataka is not just Bangalore. There are other regions which are part of Karnataka and people living there are also part of Karnataka.

More as the elections progress.

The Best Band Name Ever

2008-05-05T12:17:00.003+05:30

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin.

Yes, that's the name of the band. Well guys, you love Boris Yeltsin and we love your naming abilities. Though SSLYBY comes very close to beating !Xobile as the most ingenious name, !Xobile still takes the cake, or the click rather.

From Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin's Wikipedia page -

Will Knauer and Philip Dickey were mutual high school friends, growing up in Springfield. Phil and Will were in different bands that both "tried to sound like Nirvana."[1] After Will and Phil's high school bands broke up (Wharf and Thinking Vision, respectively), the two started playing together on Weller Street and Phil came up with the new name.[2]

The new songs needed a new band name, so we chose something really dumb, because we were only practicing in Will's attic. There were 2 girls who would watch us practice and I wanted to make them laugh...and I wanted the guys in Wharf to laugh...so that's when I came up with Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin. Boris Yeltsin recently resigned and I was 17.

Check out SSLYBY on

MySpace
Last.fm

Won't it be fun to have band names on Indian politicians? Here are a few -

I have a crush on you Mayawati. [NO, not me]
We're are in awe of your pause Atalji. [Yawn, rather]
More as they come.

Earth Day Barkings

2008-04-22T15:08:00.004+05:30

And one was under the impression that today is Tuesday. With each day being gobbled up for such causes, one wonders if 365 days are enough. So while Google does very dull logo change, the message is gotten across by our good friend Hutch. Such a gentleman he is. Tough, and very hard for him to resist it must be in a place like Bangkok. Every possible pun intended, in a very earthly way. His status message on GTalk -

Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money.
~Cree Indian Proverb
Happy Earth Day!!!

Well done, my boy. But that's not enough. One needs a more powerful message from an even more powerful messenger, our Boss. No wonder he has the veto power, the power to say yes while everyone else is in opposition and the result is still in his favour. Such is his power and that of his veto. Power, by the way happens to be another creature who doesn't have anything to say on this. Here's Boss's message on World Earth Day through his GTalk addressing system-

today is earth day lets piss on the plants and shit in the fields...give back to mother earth

Short, actionable and powerful. Your words are our orders, Boss. Come, let's hit the fields right away.

Bliss - Dil Indeed Dance Maare Re

2008-04-18T12:22:00.004+05:30

It has always been my dream to make a song like this. Write it, get someone to put the song to music and shoot it. But I'm glad one among Piyush Mishra, Vishal Dadlani, Anvita Dutt Guptan or Kausar Munir(from what I gather, Vishal it is) wrote a masterpiece like this and Vishal-Shekhar gave such wonderful desi music. And Uditji, your rendition of even the word sasura is amazing indeed. Thank you Yashji and Adi for letting Vijay Krishna Acharya do this.

My favourite lines -

Rose Ke Jaisan Pink Pink Hamare Gaal Gulaabi
Sky Ke Jaisan Blue Blue Yeh Tohra Nain Saraabi
Bhola Chehra Jaise Moon, Kaali Julfe Jaise Cloud
Abb Na Aur Chhupaaya Jaaye, dhadkan Ho Gayi bhery loud

Now to the masterpiece -

PS. What if someone achieved my dream? I can always do better!

Learning For The Day - Rukmini Devi Arundale

2008-04-16T23:02:00.003+05:30

Till today, in fact a few hours before this post, I was unaware of the existence of Rukmini Devi Arundale.

Funny earlier and it's a life fact now that, as one discovers and comes across more things unknown, it appears one knows a lot lesser than what was thought earlier. That's the joy of discovery and learning.

Came across her profile in the India Today's special issue of 60 Greatest Indians. An interesting fact - she was offered the Presidency by Morarji Desai which she declined. Would've been good to have a danseuse as our President. Unlike the present one, who doesn't quite do justice to her more illustrious lineage . Hope there's no dent to the President's honourable chair during this term. So far so good, Smt. Patil-Shekhawat has been. No action is also good action. And as the elections draw close, I feel India is terribly missing Mr. Pramod Mahajan. That will be another post, but Mr. Mahajan, India needed you and one moment of insanity took us away from you. You were the best Prime Minister our nation never had. Rest In Peace, Pramodji.

Photos From The North East Trip

2008-04-11T19:01:00.005+05:30

As Partha correctly points out here, it was not exactly the North East that we know as. Nevertheless, it was originally planned as a North East trip and hence the name shall remain. A picture is worth a thousand words they say and all the photos from the put together would be close to a million words. You can find all the photos from the trip here, but the traveler suggests that you wait for the blog posts about the trip coming up over the weekend. That's the plan at least.

Meanwhile, have a look at the albums. Sets rather, as flickr calls it. It is a really neat service and totally worth the $25 I paid for a yearly paid account.

Bhutan	Nepal	Gangtok
Changu Lake	Kolkata	Siliguri
Tiger Hill	Darjeeling	Kurseong

Back

2008-04-08T14:52:00.001+05:30

The subject is back after the trip. Photos and the post will be up soon.

Going To North East

2008-03-26T10:16:00.003+05:30

One will be going to the North East for ten days from Friday. Should be fun.

View Larger Map

Update: Got myself a Flickr pro account and was going through some older photos. Came across this one from June 2006. Not too long back. Such fun it was.

Were We Wayanad

2008-03-24T14:33:00.004+05:30

Two boys. Two states. Two rivers. Two dams. Visits to places of death of two men who gave the British a hard time. Two national parks. Two nights in God's Own Country. Ruins of two ancient Jain temples. Lots of fun.

Photos and details coming soon. Notes from the scrapbook.

Day 1

Pole's call-> CMH Road ->IISc-> Kaveri Hostel confusion->Sap's quick camera tutorial->Petrol Pump, leaving the helmet behind->Ramanagaram->Maddur->Maddur Tiffany's->Satyagraha Memorial->Srirangapattana->Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple->Tipu's place of death->Dungeons->Commemorative Obelisk->Delhi Gate->Watergate->Jama Masjid->Sangam->Nimishamba Temple->Gumbaz(36 pillars for 36 years)->Mandya->Mysore->Lunch at Kamat Upachara->Nanjangud->Teppotsava(Full moon day)->Gundlupet(Return for fuel)->Bandipur WLS(Elephants)->Chill in the air->Ponkuzhi->Closed Jain Temple->Sulthan's Bathery->Vijaya Tourist Home->Hot Water->Hotel Kalapakam(Cool Hotel!)->End Of Day

Day 2

Sulthan's Bathery->Jain Temple->Phantom Rock->Meenmutty Falls->Karapuzha Dam->Museum at Ambavalam(Vijaya H S Polpully)->Edakkal Caves->Closed, pleading to no avail->Mastering Macro->Declare March 22 Macro Day->Kalpetta->Rain->Search for a hotel with hot water->Arun Tourist Home->Megha Tourist->Choosing Arun Tourist->Food at Udupi Restaurant->Mallu Rice->Women high is not high!->Chundale tea estateVythiri->Pookote Lake->Rowing->Kayaking->Physics and Chemistry of Kayaking->AnchoorTea Estate->Banasura Dam(Earth Dam!)->Kalpetta->Hotel Woodlands->Lady wanting to drink the pink thing->Hotel Pankaj->Kalpetta

Day 3

Start at 6:30 from Kalpetta->Jain Temple ruins #1-> Pole's bruise->Pole asking for a photograph and not their photograph->Jain Temple ruins #2->Mananthavady->Udupi Hotel(again! Best Kerala Parattas)->Pazhassi Raja memorial->Kuruva Island->Bavali->Kachda Road->More Kachda Road-> Spotting deer->Some more Kachda Road->H D Kote->Mysore->Lunch->Chamarajanagar Coffe Day->Bangalore Corporation.

Way To Wayanad

2008-03-20T16:36:00.003+05:30

Is this blog dead or what? In the middle of a few good and a few not so good things, Pole and I are heading out to Wayanad on his Shine. Should be fun. Here's to tripping, more of which is coming soon.

View Larger Map

23 And Me

2008-01-28T21:37:00.000+05:30

Damn you, Anne Wojcicki. And you think you can do it just because you are the wife of Google's co-founder?

I've been thinking of 23andme as the title of a blog post on my 23rd birthday for the last 28 years. And then Anne Wojcicki comes out of nowhere and names the genetic thing 23andme. Conspiracy, I tell you. But then, no conspiracy can stop me from winning the Ig Nobel Prize for the following postulate. And yes, I came up with this and am immensely proud of this discovery.

23 is the smallest two digit prime number which is smaller than the square greater than itself.

Life at 23, is either as simple or as complicated as this.

Update: Once, twice, thrice and for all, here's the final thing. Much thanks to Kunaal. I'll definitely mention you in the acceptance speech.

23 is the smallest two digit prime number which is closest to the square greater than itself.

Huh.

Thank You

2008-01-03T14:50:00.000+05:30

Thank Yous. Not in any specific order but all the specific reasons.

Thank You guys .

Thank You and You guys.

Thank You Sir and your Friends.

Thank You Panditji and You, Sir.

Thank You for this.

Thank You for this.

Thank You for this. Interesting that the main character is from Bijapur. But it's not close to Bangalore, is it?

Thank You for this.

Thank You.

Thank You guys.

Thank You Sahab.

Thank You and You guys.

Thank You for this. Thank You again.

Thank You for this.

And Thank You people - You, You, You, You, You and You. You know who you are!

The State Of Indian Politics - Post Gujarat Elections

2007-12-24T00:12:00.000+05:30

The state for now is definitely Gujarat. Much has been said, written, heard, spewed, vomited, acted, faked, dramtised before, during and after the elections in Gujarat. There was never any doubt about Narendra Modi's victory in Gujarat. Perhaps what was to be keenly watched during this election was Modi's victory margin, in Maninagar constituency where he was facing Union Minister Dinsha Patel and the overall assembly tally. Both the results have given enough fodder for the analysts and experts to stuff their mouths with and shut them. Funnily enough, they still go on. Perhaps it's the TV studio lights or the press printing machines that are to be blamed. I don't think the English language media that Ms. Ghose refers to, gets it. The average Gujarati, definition of which may vary and is open to discussion, doesn't watch any of the English language news channels, leave alone sit through the analyses and the debates. He doesn't even read the English newspapers, leave alone read the complex and sometimes fanciful Op-eds and guest articles. This of course, is in addition to the national media brand of reporting carried in the regular articles. The average Gujarati is a very real person, more concerned about what's happening with him and around him. Perhaps that little time spent through flipping Gujarat Samachar or Sandesh, the time spent through catching on a bit of ETV Gujarati or Alpha Gujarati or time the spent in the trains to and from work is his window to the external world and a source of knowing what is the world saying about Gujarat. The Prannoy Roys, Barkha Dutts, Rajdeep Sardesais, Arnab Goswamis, Karan Thapars, Yogendra Yadavs and soon to come, Vir Sanghvis (with or without Gangulys) are nowhere on his radar. These media men and women seem to have missed this point completely.

What makes Narendra Modi different from the other political leaders is that he's more real and if one were to use that phrase, in your face, than most of them. Compare him with the Gandhis, the Vajpayees or the Karats, and you find there's something enigmatic about them, as if they're only meant for those rare appearances, with the people that is. In contrast, Narendra Modi is everywhere, with his SMSes, ringtones, masks( Tehelka, of course, had an issue even with that, literally. The cover story was titled The Mukhauta Campaign) and even YouTube videos. While he's able to widely connect with his audience at the grass-roots level, he remains being very subdued and measured in his public appearances. Just being seen is not enough, being there is important.

Now that the General Elections are drawing close, we are in for some entertaining times on TV and in the papers. New phrases around actresses will be coined, like BISPASA it was the last time around. Social and political scientists from JNU, Made-Only-For-TV leaders from all parties will join the presenters and the reporters in entertaining us. But what makes me wonder is that if I, and perhaps Seth, are the only ones who seem to know the possible truth? That the country did neither vote the Congress to power because of its aam aadmi campaign nor did it vote the BJP out for its Indian Shining campaign. What helped the Congress, rather what is now known as UPA, were the huge victories in Andhra Pradesh(with TRS) and in Tamizh Nadu (with DMK), some deft coalition cobbling by M/s Ahmed Patel and co. and the Left's compulsion to align with secular forces and not communal forces like the BJP. That is all, nothing more nothing less. And Mr. Advani, you lost some respect when you recently said about the India Shining campaign being a mistake. In fact, it made a lot of us feel good about the state our country was in then. And the feeling wasn't just restricted to the urban middle-class people. Blaming the campaign for your defeat wouldn't be the right thing to do. Let's see what else is in store for us like he said in that movie - "Pichchar abhi baaki hai mere dost". But Mr. Khan, that's movies and this is politics. And politics is real.

To Ms. Suhasini Haider, Senior Anchor and Correspondent, CNN-IBN

2007-12-08T00:53:00.000+05:30

Dear Ms. Suhasini Haider,

Warm greetings. I'm writing to you regarding comments made by you during the night bulletin you were presenting on CNN-IBN on Dec 6, 2007.

At the outset, let me share something with you, which hopefully, you will be glad to know. A lot of young people in this country watch you on national television, and one day, hope to become what you are. They form their opinion based on what you say, based on what you show them and based on what you make guests on your shows say. That's a fine art, putting words into people's mouths, and you and your brethren in the media seem to have perfected that. These young people, being impressionable considering the age they in and the age they are of, appreciate that fine art as well. Stupid as it may seem, they take a lot of what you say very seriously. Hence my humble request to you is to be measured and balanced when you say something on national television.

On Dec 6, 2007 while referring to the exhumation of dead bodies at Nadigram you said - "It is still not known which party the dead belonged to" The dead, Ms. Haider, are dead. Please do not politicize their death. Those young boys and girls, you see, will talk about it in their college, talk about it during their bus and train commutes, talk about it during their numerous hang-outs and chill-outs and soon they will come to believe that the dead need to belong to political parties. Such is the power of your work and the ~~profession~~ industry you work in. Please use it responsibly.

Regards,
Nikhil Kulkarni

To Mr. Meghdoot Sharon, Correspondent, CNN-IBN

2007-12-03T15:03:00.000+05:30

Dear Mr. Meghdoot Sharon,

Warm Greetings. I'm writing to you regarding your article headlined BJP makes bachelor CM its ladies' man in Guj on IBNlive.com on Dec 3, 2007.

While I understand that Mr. Rajdeep Sardesai is your boss and you might feeling honoured to work with an intellectual like him, it doesn't necessarily mean that you share the same disgust that Mr. Sardesai has for Mr. Modi. It's a different thing if it is a company policy in CNN-IBN to always spew venom at Mr. Modi, however flimsy or trivial the reason for that great piece of journalism maybe. If you and your team are that sure about Mr. Modi's complicity in the riots, which are to be condemned in the strongest of terms, please come out with hard facts and take on Mr. Modi. Do not fight from the comfort of your air-conditioned glass-walled studios, that's not fair. Give the other person a chance to respond. And if the belief is that the evidence is all there and still there's no action, then there's something seriously wrong in the justice delivery system in our country and maybe that is what you should be looking at setting right, and not targetting an individual. In fact, Mr. Modi appears more dignified with his silence compared to your repeated diatribes, which are, more often than not, are needlessly vitriolic and below the belt. What about this article headlined Modi sells Guj Inc, 'appeases rich and ignores poor' which appeared on Nov 18. Articles like these, Mr. Sharon, are not, in good spirit and smack of vengence and a huge sense of political and maybe, even personal vendetta. It doesn't appear to be reporting or journalism, it's sleazy and sickening.

I don't think I need to clarify, but I'm no supporter of Mr Modi. If that man is found guilty by a court of law and even if he's to be hanged for the crime he's to have committed, so be it. But do not become the judge yourself. I'm reminded of that famous quote from Spiderman here. At least, credit him for the work he has done in his term as the Chief Minister. And if you stay in Gujarat and have seen things around you while you report, I'm sure you'd agree with me, that development in Gujarat has happened, and has happened at a good pace.

Good Night, And Good Luck

Regards,
Nikhil Kulkarni

Teetotaller Of A Different Kind

2007-11-23T17:26:00.000+05:30

It's a very proud moment for all of us at CircusMouse. And we wear that pride up our sleeves, literally. Hence the t-shirt.

What the bloody hell is this?

From the world's best blahg comes the world's best t-shirt. To cut the long story ~~shirt~~ short, here's the t-shirt for you. Do not get distracted by the wonderful ~~modull~~ model posing with the t-shirt, pay attention to the wonderful t-shirt instead.

Front:

Back:

Damn, it's such a stupid t-shirt

Really? You either get it or you don't. And if you have not, get out on the road, walk for 23 meters - not a meter more, not a meter less. Wait there and ask the first female walking by
carrying a purple handkerchief. She will know for sure. Huh.

Ok, I've got it. How do I get the t-shirt?

See, now you're talking sense. This t-shirt might be the best piece of visible fabric your body has ever had on it. Of course, there are better pieces of fabric your body would've had on it and much closer than this t-shirt. But we have learnt our Moral Science lessons well and we know exposing is not appropriate. Hence, this t-shirt comes with an OK certificate from the Exposure Control Authority Of India.

If you want to get this amazing creation, indicate in the comments to the post or write to 10plus3i@gmail.com. Here are the details -

Size - The model in the photo above is wearing an M size t-shirt. So an L would probably fit most men to the tee. An M for most women?

Cost - Higher the quantity of the order, lower will be the price. Estimated price is Rs. 200. And we'll try to keep it within that.

Quality - Fairly Decent.

Delivery - It's that good, eh? That you want it delivered right away? We're glad. Tell us if you want the t-shirt either by comments or by e-mail. We'll see how many t-shirt we're printing, arrive at the cost of one t-shirt and then get in touch with you for the address. Delivery charges extra. Definitely lesser than most maternity hospitals.

To hell with you. Absolute bullshit this is. Such huge fuss over such non-sense.

We're happy. At least someone is honest. Now if you'd only let us what about the t-shirt makes you feel that way. That it's a t-shirt and not a t-short? That it has Gabbar and not Mogambo? That the idea in itself is ridiculous? Tell us, please.

The Head And Tail Of It Or The Problem With Probability

2007-11-22T13:03:00.000+05:30

I was tossing what seemed like a totally biased five rupee coin to decide the outcome of something. Heads was Yes and tails was No. And in that five throws experiment, tails turned up each time. Was I then fighting against odds, literally?

Point Your Mouse To

2007-10-23T23:39:00.000+05:30

No pun intended, unless you thought of that thing as a mouse. Let's not get into the pun trap, or punt rap for now!

Point your mouse to CircusMouse. Lot of action happening there. And someone likes posts on CircusMouse doesn't mean he's gay for me. Gay for me? Now, as a young thing would say - How gay is that, Sahu? Perhaps he liked this ~~guy's~~ one's only post on that blog. Hence gay maybe.

Random Remembrances.

India- Australia Cricket Match at Chinnaswamy Stadium. [photos] No, we didn't heckle Symonds. But had awesome fun with Dada, Karthik and Powar fielding at the boundary right in front of us. Cricket will never die in India. And Cricket is a simple game of heart, mind, bat, ball and a couple of guards for safety. The excessively annoying TV coverage is doing no good to the gentleman's game ~~it is~~ it once was. Hope though, is still alive.

The mid-night trek to Skandagiri [photos] following the match. That I was tired and exhausted would be an understatement, and that I was a bicycle because I was too tired would be a wonderstatement. Puns aside or puns-a-side, I still have no clue about the source of energy that kept me alive during the trek. Thank heavens(we were definitely closer to it) for the life-saving omlettes and tea at the summit. The trek would be incomplete without the mention of birth of Joshi, a person who existed amidst us all along, but we had no idea about him. Thanks to a certain America-bound dude, we discovered his existence and he's been living with us since then. The day Joshi's true identity is revealed would be the day when this polite, gentlemanly, mature Nikhil Kulkarni's make-believe identity will be known. Till then, live and thrive, Joshi.

A Walk In The Clouds, Caffeine, Bhool Bhulaiyaa, Laaga Chunari Mein Aag, Morning Raaga (Oh fuck! How could I forget Apparao and Annapoorna? Wake Up!), Tout Va Bien (Everything Is Alright - that's the movie's name in English!), Un homme et une femme (A Man And A Woman)

A special mention. We were brave enough to watch this one - The Brave One. Clovie, get out of the car! Those who suffered this at my hands, or my mouth rather, after this movie, should feel honoured. Gods (Warner Brothers, that is) have heard us and we have this great news - Warner Bros says “No More Female Lead Characters”?!
only to be followed by Warner Bros Denies Comments.
Huh, no reward for our bravery.

The trips home, the series of forgotten birthdays, the chull that was finally put to rest a minute back (Aw fuck! Commander will go crazy over this!) , the falling ill and getting back to life again, Octoberfest, the Bangalore Book Festival, the visit to that insti, the scary predictions(I should stop doing that now!)......

Pustakaaha

Londonstani - rudeboy rules, rudeboys rule! Samira Ahmed, Product Marketing and innit! Absolute must-read.

Games Indians Play - interesting, especially the application of the behavioural economics tools to understand why we are the way we are. In addition to things mentioned here, I want to become a Behavioural Economist. Very fancy it sounds. Absolutely. And that's not the only reason I want to become one.
A book on the best upcoming writing in Indian English edited by Kushwant Singh.
Plans are to read Butter Chicken In Ludhiana during the upcoming trip to Kanpur. If the previous trip out of Bangalore was anything to go by, this one should be great fun! The same refrain again - but that was Mumbai! This one is no less either- Bangalore->Delhi->Lucknow->Kanpur->Lucknow->Delhi->Bangalore. Should be fun enough.

PS. Began this post with just the thought of directing readers to CircusMouse, but it ended up being an almost-complete update post. I'm glad it came. Good for the well-being of this world. Om Shanti Om. Huh, the movie's noise these days. Shanti Shanti. Huh, that's Mandira Bedi. Ab Bas. Huh, that's Diana Hayden.

No Hyphen No Fun

2007-09-25T10:23:00.000+05:30

Hyphens, ~~are~~ were fun. Sad, they've killed some 16,000 of them. That's ~~leap-frogging~~ leapfrogging into the past. Huh. Perhaps CNN-IBN themselves(now, this one is with the hyphen) could definitely pick up a thing and a quarter from here.

Death Of A Great Brand Or Birth Of A Greater Brand?

2007-09-21T15:23:00.000+05:30

Change is good. Definitely. Hutch is now Vodafone. Good? Not very sure. More than its SIM cards made it into our mobile phones, Hutch - the brand, had made its way into our hearts. Not entirely impossible, but it will be very difficult for Vodafone to replace Hutch. Let's see. We'll let the brand do the talking. Of course, we'll do the talking ourselves. Using their phones and services, that is.

It was an interesting experience last night, being a witness to perhaps one of the biggest brand transitions of our life time happen on the ground. Transition it was, of the Hutch signboards being replaced by those of Vodafone.

The Hutch signboard. Perhaps one of the very few still left in the city at that time of the night.

Loosening Tied Ends - I

Loosening Tied Ends - II

Call Disconnected

Dialing A New Number

Connection Established!

Call Continues

New Up, Old Down!

New Connection Firmly In Place.

While I was taking these pictures, the owner of the shop of which the board was being replaced was giving me a very menacing stare. Apparently, he was under the impression that I was from Hutch/Vodafone and was agitated with the fact that his shop's name was wrongly printed in the signboard! Talk of a deal running into billions of dollars and not enough attention to such important details! Hope they get it right soon.

Rebranding at this scale always comes with some very amusing stories. That of ~~UTI Bank~~ Axis Bank, for example. Do not know how much the re-branding exercise cost them, but it definitely cost them much more in Karnataka. Everyone saw the Axis Bank boards with a certain patch covered and over-written by hand, due to a mistake in printing of the boards.

PS. Here's the Hutch Is Now Vodafone TVC. Decent, but not as nice as the Hutch commercials. Wonder if there will be any at all, as nice as the Hutch commercials.

Oh! It's September 11 Today? The Mumbai Trip Update

2007-09-11T11:39:00.000+05:30

I do not know what hidden energy was it that made my dead-twice-over brain to remember that it is September 11 today. More so because our flight back to Bangalore was canceled at the last minute, at 6:59 am IST to be precise. A technical snag, apparently because of a bird-hit. Interesting coincidence, we get a lot of time to rest here in the Airport and it is peaceful here. Scary!

I'm not sure if I am alive. If I am not alive, how the hell am I writing this? I think(think? Can I? Then I must be alive!) I'm living on the Mumbai air, the highest quality oxygen one can ever breathe. There is something about this place that draws me closer to it and makes me fall more and more in love with it everytime I visit this place or stay here.

Carrying back from Mumbai - memories of those days in Mumbai with Scott, Cafe Leopold, Cafe Mondegar, Mahalaxmi, Haji Ali, Raghuram's Scraping Wealth At The Bottom Of The Pyramid and Missile In The Toilet Bowl theories, Trishna, Momos with Kaak, sweat, heat, rain, Desi Chicken at Harish, Mocha at Juhu, that and all that!

Update: Reached Bangalore safe and ~~mentally unsound~~ sound. The day was quite eventful - starting at 5 am, three security checks, sneaking out and back into the airport, the slow and patchy internet connection which we paid for and the really fast internet which was available for free! Have I figured it yet? Here's an attempt though. Mumbai is very humbling, the more one discovers Mumbai, humbler one feels. Mumbai makes one's survival instincts stronger, makes us aware of the fact that no hard work is hard work enough. There's always someone else working harder than one is. There's so much energy, hope and optimism in the Mumbai air. One might be the queen of any land, but while in Mumbai, everyone is the same. But for the Queen of Englad though, they built the Gateway Of India!

Filmosophy

2007-08-30T14:42:00.000+05:30

Apart from those well spent 2-3 hours, one of the best things about watching movies is that one discovers interesting connections between the characters in the movie philosophers.

In A Fish Called Wanda, Otto's favourite philosopher is Nietzsche.

In Little Miss Sunshine, Frank is America's Number 1 Proust scholar. [Marcel Proust] And Dwyane is shown reading Nietzsche in the movie .

In The Namesake, Gogol is named after Nikolai Gogol. Gogol's The Overcoat is an important character in the movie.

Then, do good films like these and philosophy go eye in brain? Just like romantic movies and Mills and Boon books go hand in hand? Or probably something else in something else? Wouldn't want to get into the innards of this now!

The Curious Incident Of The Quote In The Night Time

2007-08-27T23:39:00.000+05:30

The problem begins when you do not know what to do with it. The problem only gets worse when you don't know what to do without it.

Looks like immense profoundity flows when one is reading Mark Haddon. It's A Spot Of Bother right now.

PS. The quote indeed came in the night time. At 5 a.m. Quite the right night time.

PPS. Only he can come up with quotes like these - I am atheist in a very religious mould.

Movies - Towards Achieving My Aim In Life

2007-08-26T15:17:00.000+05:30

Not that I'm going to become another Madhur Bhandarkar, but watching as many movies as one can has never made anyone a bad film-maker, has it? So much ado for a movie update. But seriously, if I had only seventeen more days to live, I'd ~~make~~ start working on ~~a short film~~ Right Angle. I might as well start working on it right away, but why not? I need the space and the time for it, the luxury of which I do not have right now. Here's the list of movies I watched recently-

Not a 17% contented child as mentioned here , I can probably die a 23% contented child now. Have finished watching all movies made by Vishal Bharadwaj - Makdee, Maqbool, Omkara and now, The Blue Umbrella. Each of them is brilliant, with Vishal's earnestness and honest approach standing out. Watch The Blue Umbrella in a theater, otherwise one wouldn't be doing justice to the wonderful cinematography by Sachin K Krishn. I'll be following Abhishek Chaubey very closely now on. His work till now -

Screenplay, dialogue, Associate Director - Omkara
Associate Director-Maqbool, Makdee
Associate Director & Screenplay-The Blue Umbrella

Chakde! India - ~~decent~~ good movie. Couldn't have come a better time for it to do well. Independence Day, prosperity(?) all around, things looking more hopeful than ever for our country(yes) and for the youth(?). Pop-corn patriotism is very convenient for today's generation who do not have much time. Convenient for the producers too, pop-corn patriotism sells. On a related note, this is Celebrating Freedom from CircusMouse, our new blog. We don't have a description for it yet, please visit it and helps us find one. Warning : Very chaotic there.

Naagarahaavu - the first of Puttanna Kanagal's movies I've watched. Ramachari's character is perhaps a better representation of the angry young man of those days. Even better than Amitabh's roles then? Not sure, need to watch more movies of the 70's to be qualified to answer this. But I liked the character played by Loknath the best. Ade namma speciality!

Ananathana Avaanthara by Kashinath. Kannada industry needs more people like him. People like him, Upendra, Jaggesh whose work maverick, unconventional approaches add a new dimension to Kannada film-making. But what has happened to Sunil Kumar Desai to make a sub-standard movie like Kshana Kshana? Forget the review, Shri Desai has set certain standards with his earlier movies. At least live up to them, Sir?

Movies I caught up with now, as they released during the time of my shift to Bangalore -

Guru - huh, they shoot it in Karnataka and pass it off as Gujarat! The movie fails to capture the magnitude of Dhirubhai's empire. Perhaps his story is such that one can't put it together in a 3 hour movie. Maybe one can, if they do away with needless songs and not give extra time to characters just because they are played by Aishwarya Rais and Vidya Balans. Ratnam Sir, is Mahabharat still on? Forget Lajjo, make Mahabharat. Please!

Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd - Minissha Lamba, Minissha Lamba, Minissha Lamba, Minissha Lamba, Minissha Lamba, Minissha Lamba. Well made movie.
Ek Chalis Ki Last Local - This movie would be more tight and crisp if unnecessary songs and sequences could have been done away with. Nonetheless, it was about Mumbai Meri Jaan and that more than makes up for all the shortcomings in the movie. Laree Choote. At the last count, it was 2643 - number of times I've played it.

Movies I slept half-way through -

Choker Bali - will someone please explain why it is such an acclaimed movie? Maybe I do not know the meaning of the italicized word. Finding its meaning should be a rewording exercise.
Yatra - my yatra to bed only got faster while watching this. Again, will someone please explain everything about this movie. Art movies, more often than not, are definitely enjoyable. But this one wasn't.

PS. Why Madhur Bhadarkar? I used to study and run a video cassette shop at the same time. I developed a liking for movies. I would watch all the movies in the theatre, first day first show! More in this interview - here.

My Aim In My Life

2007-08-23T10:50:00.000+05:30

~~When I grow up~~...Yes. When I grow up, I want to be an academician like Dr. Ramachandra Guha or and a film-maker like Vishal Bharwadwaj and a social entrepreneur like Dr. Brij Kothari. Seriously, I do. If I'm able to achieve even a bit of what they have, and what they will in the coming years, I will die a happy man. When I look back now, I've already worked with one of them and worked with someone closely related to another one. So, I can at least die a 17% contented child now.

PS. Not entirely unjustified this aim in life of mine. My previous posts on the desire to make a film and to become a social scientist.

The North Karnataka Trip - II

2007-08-22T12:57:00.000+05:30

The earlier part of the series here.

Snapshots of a typical village and village life in North Karnataka

This is Korwar, a village in Bijapur district in North Karnataka, well-known for its Hanuman Temple.

The temple tower in the background. And the dish antenna in front! Scott would find this very interesting, I'm sure.

The priest's home.

Grains and flowers.

The family ~~tree~~ row.

The Tulasi shrine.

Priest helping the villagers find auspicious dates.

Kids, who wouldn't let me leave till I took their photo.

On the road -

The temple at Basavakalyana, named after Basaveshwara, the 12th century philospher.

Stall at the temple

Chicks for sale. Colourful chicks.

Some more shots -

PS. A sapping, but fun trip it was. A trip to Bheemeshwari followed right after this one. And another trip to happen some time soon. More power to you, God of Travel.

The North Karnataka Trip - I

2007-08-16T21:46:00.000+05:30

I'm brain-dead right now. A combination of a lot things, not so much because of traveling close to 1600 km in three days. Sin for a traveler this, counting the number of kilometers one has traveled. Pardon me, oh God of Travel. Photos from my recent trip to North Karnataka.

Nuggikeri , Dharwad.

Nuggikeri Hanuman Temple is situated on the banks of the lake Nuggikeri. Nearly all of Dharwad town visits the temple every Saturday. Strange, Nuggikeri doesn't have a Wikipedia entry. Time to get back to Wiki.

Dharwad to Bagalkot

Most of this is usually dry, arid land. Because of the good rains this season, the landscape is green, and driving through these roads, which have seen marked improvement, was really pleasant.

Cow Boys?

Buffaloes. I know.

This sheep line was nearly half a kilometer long. The sheep boy had a tough time running up and down trying to clear the road for us.

Old Man In Deep Thought

Bagalkot hasn't changed much since the last time I visited it, which of course was a long time back. Even if it has changed, it hasn't changed much for the good, notwithstanding the new city - Navnagar which is designed by Charles Correa. Backwaters from Almatti Dam have submerged most part of the old town and there are concerns about proper relief and rehabilitation for those affected. Glimpse, literally of the new town Navnagar -

Navnagar in the background, in the mountains!

This perhaps is the best photo I have shot till now. Just about everything is perfect - a perfect snapshot of the life in a North Karntaka town, the clouds, the light, everything. I can die a happy photographer now!

Time for a Pan break

The General Purpose Vehicle

Bijapur - those three eventful years! Bijapur is a city with a rich historical heritage. The Adil Shahis ruled from here for close to 200 years, conquering nearby areas, fighting battles which brought down a great empire, and building majestic structures like this one -

"

Gol Gumbaz has the second largest dome in the world, after St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Like every Taj Mahal has its Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal, Gol Gumbaz has its Mohammed Adil Shah and Rambha. Legend has it that while Gol Gumbaz was being built, Mohammed Adil Shah asked Rambha, ~~the courtesan~~ his Hindu wife, if she would jump from top of the structure if she really loved him. Jump she did. Today, both of them lie buried in Gol Gumbaz.

Gol Gumbaz History - ASI ki Zubaani

Some more shots from Gol Gumbaz

To be continued..

The Root Cause Of All Evil

2007-08-14T18:19:00.000+05:30

To read the Kannada text, please download the Kannada font from here and install it.

Had this moment of realization while traveling through the ~~dry~~ green (now, because of the rain) fields of North Karnataka, that the root cause of all evil is the tongue. Like all of Shri Purandaradasa's padas (¥ÀzÀUÀ¼ÀÄ), the greatness of this particular pada lies in its simplicity and the earthly appeal.

CZÁgÀ«®èzÀ £Á°UÉ - ¥ÀÅgÀ£ÀÝgÀ zÁ¸ÀgÀÄ

CZÁgÀ«®èzÀ £Á°UÉ
¤£Àß ¤ÃZÀ §Ä¢ÞAiÀÄ ©qÀÄ £Á°UÉ
«ZÁgÀ«®èzÉ ¥ÀgÀgÀ zÀÆ²¥ÀÅzÀPÉÌ
ZÁaPÉÆ¤ÝgÀÄªÀ£ÀÜ £Á°UÉ
¥ÁæxÀºÁÌ®zÉÆ¯ÉzÀÄÝ £Á°UÉ
¹j¥ÀwAiÉÄ£Àß¨ÁgÀzÉ £Á°UÉ
¥ÀwvÀ ¥ÁªÀ£À £ÀªÀÄä gÀw¥Àw d£ÀPÀ£À
¸ÀvÀvÀªÀÅ £ÀÄr PÀ£ÀÝ÷å £Á°UÉ

(CZÀgÀ«®èzÀ £Á°UÉ)

ZÁr ºÉÃ¼À°¨ÉÃqÀ £Á°UÉ
¤£Àß ¨ÉÃrPÉÆªÀÄÄâªÉ£ÀÄ £Á°UÉ
gÀÆ¢UÉÆzÉAiÀÄ ²æÃgÁªÀÄ£À £ÁªÀÄªÀ
¥ÁqÀÄvÀ°gÀÄ PÀ£ÀØ÷å £Á°UÉ

(CZÀgÀ«®èzÀ £Á°UÉ)

ºÀjAiÀÄ ¸ÀägÀ£É ªÀiÁqÀÄ £Á°UÉ
£ÀgÀºÀjAiÀÄ ¨sÀf¸ÀÄ PÀ£ÀÝ÷å £Á°UÉ
ªÀgÀzÀ ¥ÀÅC£ÀÝgÀ«mïBC®gÁAiÀÄ£À
ZÀgÀ£ÀPÀªÀÄ®ªÀ £É£É £Á°UÉ

(CZÁgÀ«®èzÀ £Á°UÉ)

Source: This amazing blog. Was truly overwhelmed by the interest in Kannada literature.

PS. Details of the trip coming soon. Bangalore->Dharwad->Bagalkot->Bijapur->Basavkalyan->Bagalkot->Dharwad.
That was close to 1600 km in three days!

Too Much Is Too Bad

2007-08-06T10:40:00.000+05:30

Sometimes it rings so true, what our grandmothers used to tell us and we never used to listen. Too much is too bad, isn't this what they used to tell us?

Once upon a time, there was social ~~network~~ utility named Facebook which was known for its simpicity, ease of use and uncluttered look. And then the big young man announced the FaceBook Developer Programme, which let developers create different applications for Facebook's users. They said Facebook would be a social OS, some said it could even be the next Microsoft. Wait, some even called it what? A data black hole. Then came applications which let users let their friends know of their moods to applications which let throw sheep at their friends. Great, they said. Initially, driven by the hype and interest, they lapped it up. And then, they started removing these application one by one.

What happened after this? We'll know soon.

PS. How many of you are on Facebook? More importantly, do you visit it regularly? If yes, what is it that makes you visit it regularly?

PPS. Too much isn't too bad when it comes to blogging. Here's announcing the launch of CircusMouse, a blog which I'm not able to come up with a description for. Promises to be lot of chaos, fun and entertainment. Check it out and let us know!

PPPS. Have you checked eye5 lately? Regular posting has resumed there as well. Planning to revive 10+3i. Hopefully, some good news on that front soon.

What's This Stupid Internet Thing? Shut It Down

2007-08-03T23:19:00.000+05:30

Sir Elton John wants the internet to be shut down. And pray, why is he singing this tune? In his own words -

"The internet has stopped people from going out and being with each other, creating stuff.

Instead they sit at home and make their own records, which is sometimes OK but it doesn’t bode well for long-term artistic vision."

The next gem is truly humbling. Because I was under the under the impression that my blogging was to change the world and according to Sir John, it isn't quite so. Thank You Sir for enlightening us.

“We’re talking about things that are going to change the world and change the way people listen to music and that’s not going to happen with people blogging on the internet."

"Let’s get out in the streets and march and protest instead of sitting at home and blogging."

I say dump your key-boards and get on the street, we're going to protest against the internet now. Imagine everyone using the internet out on the street shouting Internet Hai Hai. Or, Mera broadband connection waapis le lo. . Blogging, Wogging nahin chalegi, nahin chalegi.

More gems from Sir John in this Sun article. That's not music to our ears, Sir. The Sun reporter is better at puns. Joining the chorus with Sir John to give us more gems, she ends the article with - I guess that’s what Sir Elt would call a net loss . .

Net loss, indeed it is. A Rolling Stone article on the decline of the record industry has some real eye-openers. Some interesting points from the article -

Overall CD sales have plummeted sixteen percent for the year so far -- and that's after seven years of near-constant erosion.
In 2000, the ten top-selling albums in the U.S. sold a combined 60 million copies; in 2006, the top ten sold just 25 million.
More than 5,000 record-company employees have been laid off since 2000.
About 2,700 record stores have closed across the country since 2003

And wonder when will the industry executives start looking at technology as an ally and use it effectively, like EMI offering its entire music collection DRM-free on iTunes. While physical album sales have declined, digital sales are growing as the numbers from the article indicate.

Digital sales are growing -- fans bought 582 million digital singles last year, up sixty-five percent from 2005, and purchased $600 million worth of ringtones -- but the new revenue sources aren't making up for the shortfall.

More such DRM-free offerings, more labels entering into license agreements with YouTube, innovative models like Amiestreet is the way ahead. And people talk about shutting down the internet.

The record labels just seem to be in a hurry to squeeze as much as possible from all possible revenue sources. No wonder then that all internet radio stations in the US went silent on June 26 to observe the National Day of Silence protesting against new royalty rates.

While music on the internet in India is still in its early stages, the situation isn't very different with the odds highly stacked against those who use branded content and wanting to do it legally. Hefty license fees, very hazy regulatory body structure, use of every possible opportunity to extract that little more money, rampant piracy and the inability of the powers that be to effectively control it. is threatening to kill internet radio in its infancy in India. Remember that story in which the greedy owner kills the goose laying golden eggs? Looks like another case of the same. Hoping to come up with a more detailed piece on the scene here in India. In the meanwhile, Naa Bajega Baans, Naa Bajegi Baansuri! Isn't this what they say?

For Shrimati Sonia Gandhi and her co(terie)

2007-07-15T11:08:00.000+05:30

Related post - All The Presidents Were Men

Related not as in brother-in-law or someone's husband. Well, not really.

The Long Tail in radio

2007-07-08T11:37:00.000+05:30

I'm no rocket scientist(I've never wanted to be one), or an economist(which I've sometimes wanted to be) or a social scientist(which I want to be), but one doesn't need to be any of the above to figure this out.

For Jaane Do Na from Cheeni Kum, Illayaraja uses one of his earlier compositions, Jothe Jotheyali from the Kannada film, Geetha. An earlier version of the same is Vizhiyile Undan vizhiyile from Tamil film, Nooravadu Naal. Been listening to lot of FM radio and happened to make this observation. The observation being - while Jaane Do Na was played across different radio stations, the Kannada original was played more frequently. Much like this from Chris Anderson's The Long Tail. Here's an excerpt which talks about a similar phenomenon -

In 1988, a British mountain climber named Joe Simpson wrote a book called Touching the Void, a harrowing account of near death in the Peruvian Andes. It got good reviews but, only a modest success, it was soon forgotten. Then, a decade later, a strange thing happened. Jon Krakauer wrote Into Thin Air, another book about a mountain-climbing tragedy, which became a publishing sensation. Suddenly Touching the Void started to sell again.

Random House rushed out a new edition to keep up with demand. Booksellers began to promote it next to their Into Thin Air displays, and sales rose further. A revised paperback edition, which came out in January, spent 14 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. That same month, IFC Films released a docudrama of the story to critical acclaim. Now Touching the Void outsells Into Thin Air more than two to one.

What happened? In short, Amazon.com recommendations. The online bookseller's software noted patterns in buying behavior and suggested that readers who liked Into Thin Air would also like Touching the Void. People took the suggestion, agreed wholeheartedly, wrote rhapsodic reviews. More sales, more algorithm-fueled recommendations, and the positive feedback loop kicked in.

Particularly notable is that when Krakauer's book hit shelves, Simpson's was nearly out of print. A few years ago, readers of Krakauer would never even have learned about Simpson's book - and if they had, they wouldn't have been able to find it. Amazon changed that. It created the Touching the Void phenomenon by combining infinite shelf space with real-time information about buying trends and public opinion. The result: rising demand for an obscure book.

While Jothe Jotheyali is by no means an obscure song, Jaane Do Na definitely helped to bring it in the popular public realm. And how did The Long Tail work here? The radio stations can store all the content they want and with smart methods of organizing such content and information, it helps them serve their audience better. All this and more without having to spend extra resources and still being able to find that one song which a caller might ask for during a request show.

Here's the Kannada song from perhaps the best example of The Long Tail -

All The Presidents Were Men

2007-07-04T23:17:00.000+05:30

Ah yes, tried playing on this. As I cleared my Deep Throat, I felt the definite need for it.

With our Presidential election having come down to the streets, we, the villagers of Domlur couldn't be far away from it. Now that there looks to be a distinct possibility of Shrimati Pratibha Patil Shekhawat becoming our President, the grandmother in our neighbourhood remarked - 'Nodi, Ee kaaladalli hennu makkalu yaariginthanoo kadime illa. Namma Mahila Mandalada Presidentoo hennu magale, eega deshada Rasthrapatinpoo hennu magale'. Meaning - See, women are second to none. The President of our Women's Club is also a woman and now, the President of our country will also be a woman. Just that, the President of the Domlur Women's Club(if such a thing exists) has to be a women. Oh yeah, the grandmother part is definitely made up. Do not take anyone in our Domlur for granted. And do not take Domlur itself for granted. Nothing less, it has a Wikipedia entry.

What makes me feel sad is that a lot of people enjoy such nonsense, they're missing out on much better fun - our Presidential election. Reading about this in the newspapers, hearing about it and watching about it in these news channels, with these pretty dumb things on air, is immense fun. For example, let's start taking everything they say literally. Pratibha lashes at critics. Imagine our future President with a whip and lashing her critcs, and they squealing on every lash. Or even if you take the phrases that these guys and pretty dumb girls generally use, mud slinging, for example. Imagine Shri Advani and co. on one side and Mrs. Gandhi and co. with Comrade Karat and co. to her Left (and no one to their left, because they are the Left) throwing mud at each other and the winning party candidate becoming the President. Wake up and realise, it is for nothing that they call this dirty politics. Huh, the Dhobis in Delhi will have a nice time.

It was not long back that the Left propped up Capt. Laskhmi Sehgal against the joint Congress-BJP candidate Dr. Kalam. Things have changed and how. And again, it is not without reason that they say politics makes strange bed-fellows. Now, taking that literally would be taking it a little too far, no? No wait, this piece in Outlook will make that clear as well -

Shalini Sharma, close to Shekhawat when he was Rajasthan CM, was accused of supplying women to powerful BJP ministers. Shalini was made VP of the state social welfare board by the Shekhawat regime.

The Congress and the Left would think they've effectively checkmated Shri. Shekhawat's chances by fielding Shrimati Patil Shekhawat. Fielding of course, in the cricketing sense, can add lot of fun too. Imagine Ahmed Patel running to 10, Janpath, panting heavily and breaking the news to Soniaji - 'Madam, we've caught Shrimati Patil'. Mrs. Gandhi will say - 'Good fielding Mr. Patel'.

So while those supporting her will think they've checkmated the NDA and allies by choosing Shrimati Shekhawat Patil to be their candidate, imagine what will she say to Shri Shekhawat(not her husband Mr. Shekhawat, of course) if they were to come face to face. 'Shekhawatji, check my mate - he's a Shekhawat too!' Huh, killing two birds with one stone. Take it literally? Not quite, we're non-violent people.

So while there can be birds, can horses be far behind? No wonder we hear about horse-trading around such events.

To me, the first memories of President of our country will always be Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma in his penguin-like walking style taking rounds of the different ghats laying wreaths to pay respects to our departed leaders. Such fun, those days were. Geetanjali Iyer, Usha Albuquerque, Minu, Avinash Kaur Sareen, Neeti Ravindran and I can go on listing those wonderful DD news readers. And man, the Sukanya Balakrishnan. And now you have these pretty dumb things. And yes, not to forget those commentaries during the Republic Day and Independence Day parades. And now you have these pretty dumb things.

And as far as the Prez election goes(hate the use of the Prez term as much as the pretty dumb things), I'll be happy if Mughal Gardens gets a good care-taker. Hoping Mr. Shekhawat(either of the two) will take good care of the wonderful flora there. The President's post was for someone scholarly, someone erudite, someone who is a true ambassador of India and someone who brought a lot of dignity to the post. Was, is the word now. For all the talk of a woman President or a masses man becoming our President, as a nation and as a political system I was quite proud of, we've lost something along the way. Sad.

What sex is Bangalore?

2007-07-02T23:01:00.000+05:30

Indian definitely promises more than it can deliver. Also that it underwent something close to a sex change operation recently, new logo and all.

And after the wonderful flight, here's what the air hostess(if she still remains she) will announce -

And yes, in honour of Shri Balaji, who reminded me of the existence of my photoblog eye5, I'm resuming posting on eye5.

External ultrasound-assisted liposuction (XUAL or EUAL)

2007-06-22T20:42:00.001+05:30

One way or the other, you just have to get it out. While the rich can afford External ultrasound-assisted liposuction (XUAL or EUAL)or some such fancy sounding method, the poor blogger in me could only think as far as making up his mind to sit down and blog on this day, come what may. While May came and went, the only excuse I can think of was that I was waiting for it to rain again in Bangalore!

While I hope to post regularly from now on, with more organized and ordered posts, here's all that was added to that Word Document named May 8 Blog Post. Mein yeh hope karta hoon ki May there be no more such May 8 Blog Post drafts. Have I missed adding a May/mein/main somewhere?

Yes, I have been in hibernation for some time. Not that I’ve been living in a house named hibernation, a considerable time has passed since my last post. This of course, is without taking into account, the time I lost when I misplaced my watch for a few days. I was afraid I’d lose all the time in the world as I lost my watch. One of my confusions is now solved. I used to wonder what people meant when they said – ‘You can take your own sweet time’. Now I know. They meant - look at your watch and work accordingly. And probably keep licking it if they find it sweet. Ironic isn’t it? I did not have a watch and still took my sweet own time in writing this post. And by the way, I live in a house named Infant Cottage, which makes me feel more of a child under Jesus’s care. And why not? When there is Jesus Loves You written over the walls. Not all over, at three places to be precise. Thank You Jesus.

Bangalore has been fun. It’s been a little more than four months since I came here and I’m beginning to like Bangalore all the more as time passes by. Yes, you’ll have the young cool, hip, lip and such junta talking about pollution, the traffic and what was that – yes, the crumbling infrastructure! Where did you hear that? Some dumb newsreader would have said that or a screaming RJ maybe. For all the problems that it has, and which I completely accept there are, Bangalore is a nice place. One may not absolutely love the place, you can definitely not not like it. It doesn’t bring out extreme emotions like Mumbai does. For example – I absolutely love Mumbai, but I like Bangalore or I hate Mumbai, but Bangalore’s OK or some such thing. In my case, the former is true.

Why I like Bangalore is because there are places like Domlur, where Jesus protects me every night. It’s close to all the hustle and bustle of the city, yet far removed from the noise and related pains of a city. Vegetable sellers sell door to door in their carts, hearing their pitch is such a pleasure; the temples have their fairs, taking me back by many years; kids play cricket on the street during the day and badminton under the halogen lamps by the night. Not sure how many saw these knife-sharpeners in your natives, they come here in Domlur!

And of course, with Ankush around, there’s never a dull moment . Be it the sessions at Alibi, or the trip to Hyderabad that never happened, or the trip to Nandi Hills that happened, he’ll make sure it’s always happening, or make it indeed happening by not making things happen. And yes, it’s such fun when you have to ask him to keep looking at his feet while walking on Brigade Road and Picasso Street. There’s nothing like Picasso Street in Bangalore though, it’s the street on which Pecos is located. Pandit coined the name in one of his amazing moments of realization. Harsha, while all this was happening, was, well, quiet. Harsha did speak once, while we were at the air show during Aero India when he said Squadron Leader Mohit Shishodia deserves a hats-off.

Pandit and Harsha know why Squadron Leader Mohit Shishodia deserves a hats-off. The Aero Show was indeed a thrilling experience, especially the Akash Ganga formations and maneuvers and of course, Squadron Leader Mohit Shishodia brilliant dives and take-offs. One just had to be there along with Harsha, Pandit and me to know why Squadron Leader Mohit Shishodia indeed deserves a hats-off.

Hang-outs at M G Road and Brigade Road happened with Seth, Venki, Ram and Baka dropping into the city at different points of time. I’m really scared of Brigade Road though, having hallucinations that everyone on that might suddenly start beating me up. There are too many people on that road for my comfort. Church Street on the other hand is far safer. With Premier Bookstore, Blossoms Bookstore, Alibi, Ganesh Juice Center on it, and Koshy’s located at the end of it, which makes it more the kind of place I’d like to hang out. Movie watching with Pandit has definitely been fun, Apocalypto, with character names like Turtles Run, Smoke Frog, Jaguar Paw, Flint Sky and funniest of all – Ball Breath was a wonderful beginning. It continued weekly with 300, The Last King of Scotland, Shakalaka Boom Boom, Namastey London, The Namesake. Watched Anwar and Loose Change on DVD. And yes, Bharath is in Bangalore too, reminding me of this by turning up at Airport Road one fine evening. The dinner at Bombay Post was followed by a movie session at IISc - under the stars, under the watchful eyes of J N Tata, when we watched The Pursuit of Happyness.

The Iron Maiden concert was more funny than fun. With people having arrived from far and wide, from as far as Noida and Nepal, to as wide as Surat, the concert was really disappointing even for a true Maiden fan. With Chinsi and Vinzu around, we sure had our share of fun, ducking when Eddie came on stage with a gun in his hand, fearing that he may actually fire or cracking stupid jokes that the show wrapped up early because the Pandalwallah had an important marriage to set up his pandal the next day. We were also wondering if 666 was mre pronounced while The Number of the Beast was being performed because Sehwag perhaps was hitting them against Bangladesh that day. The truth as we all know now was something else. Less said the better about that. No, I will say something about it soon. But Cricket perhaps deserves more justice than just a passing mention in this post.

Between many near-life experiences,
Movies
300
Apocalypto
Namsatey London
The Namesake
Shakalaka Boom Boom
The Last King of Scotland
Anwar
Loose Change
Pursuit of Happyness – Bharath and Radhika in IISc.

A Movie A Day week

Dor – Imaan ki Chhalaang
Life in a Metro
Lage Raho Munnabhai
Parzania
Black Friday
Shootout At Lokhandwala

Books

Once Upon a Time Zone - Neelesh Mishra – husband of Nidhi Razdan.
Black Friday
My Friend Leonard
a million little pieces
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Transmission
The Red Carpet
Ludmila’s Broken English

Currently reading

Alchemy of Desire

Travel

Home, Mangalore, Bommanahalli, Home, Home, Home.

Other things – writing long letters!

Quizzing –Bangalore quizzing is funny. Thank God for Tom Swifities, buying The Undercover Economist with the prize money!

Bangalore – enough of Dr. Raj, M G Road and Brigade Road. Hate those RJs whose tribute is mocking actually. And yuppies who make fun of him – If you come today. No chai in Bangalore.

Church Street and Picasso Street are fun.

Meeting Venki, Hitesh, Baka and Ram.

Embarrassing Ankush during the swimming session! Mohit Shishodia – Air Trip
Iron Maiden - Vinzu!

Domlur is an amazing place!

BMS and PES Fest – trying to shake off the cynical feeling, of them being ‘kids’ etc.

Visits to IISc campus. Feeling of wanting to get back to studies.

Less is more - City and Blinding Lights and Snow. Stipebhai.

Nandi Hills trip. Riding downhill at 60 kmph with the engine off, overtaking three cars is not an achievement.

Mahaquizzer and World Quizzing Championship

Shootout at Lokhandwala, Life in a Metro and the auto ride back.

Kitchen, cooking. Return to Maggi.

Radio characters, sensible fun place on the internet.

Alive and kicking rain water.

2007-04-24T10:33:00.000+05:30

I'm totally alive, reminded of it by the innumerable near-life experiences! Lots to be written, but here's something to see!

In ancient times, people used to write letters and drop them in these boxes and they would be physically delivered. Silly people, no? Interesting that e-mail clients use the Post Office Protocol, generally known as (POP3)

Today, April 24th is Dr. Rajkumar's birthday. Dr. Raj, Annavru as he is affectionately called is the Father (err, Brother?) of Karnataka?! You will always remain in our hearts and (on FM radio and TV), Dr. Raj.

Fans wishing Dr. Raj comes back. You will find such hoardings all over Bangalore.

An auto-stand in memory of Dr. Raj. But it's Shankar Nag who's still the auto-wallah's favourite.

A PG accommodation ad on ISRO(Indian Space Research Organization) Housing Colony board. Does it mean they provide accommodation in space?

Accommodation in a bin?! This PG business is big, bin or space or otherwise.

Good Morning, child!

Happy Birthday, Nikhil

2007-02-13T20:00:00.000+05:30

Dear Nikhil,

Congratulations on completing 22 years of your life. Maybe this birthday wasn’t as happening as the last one, but it was only apt that this birthday celebration, if you can call it that, was very quiet. It gave you the time, however little you got, to reflect and think on what you’ve been through since your last birthday. You also thought of what you want do and where you want to be for your next birthday. Though this happened when things were a little hazy, but the sky was still very clear and you could manage to walk straight. And when the haze cleared the next morning, you were glad that you have come a long way since your last birthday, but also reminded yourself that there’s much more to be done. Make sure you never lose sight of that. Go hang yourself otherwise or pick up the phone and talk to those special people bearing the brunt of your irritation, to get back on track.

Though you haven’t had any time to digest all that you’ve been through in the last one year, you understand that you’ve surely learnt a lot and in more ways than one, they have helped you evolve as a person. They might not be visible in terms of the acquisitions that you’ve made or explained in stupid blog posts like these, but you have certainly realized that on certain occasions, decisions based on such experiences hold you in good stead rather than anything that has been taught to you or been told that those are the right things.

Judging by yourself, but considering different perspectives before that

You’ve also learnt to make judgments by yourself, but at the same time making sure that you understand all the possible ways the same thing could be looked at. While you are certainly right on most occasions, you’ve also realized the importance of making an effort to understand first and then appreciate others’ points of view. That not only broadens your outlook, but also helps you feel comfortable while dealing with different kinds of people.

Enjoy people laughing behind your back.

To this a lot of people would say – ignore people who laugh behind your back. I say – enjoy with them. There are two things to this. One, that their amusement over you could be totally baseless and thus while you’re laughing with them, you’re actually laughing at them. Two, there might be some genuine reason to their reaction. There’s no harm in laughing at yourself. Do that and make sure without being bothered too much, work on those things. It’s a little hard to digest humiliation, but you’ll come stronger out of it. I know you are smiling now, that’s how you’ve learnt a lot of things. Now that you are doing much better, you’re definitely enjoying it!

Patience and focus

Perhaps these two are the most important things you’ve learnt since your last birthday.

You cannot do everything by yourself, immaterial of how genuinely interested in each of those you are or how important it is to you. There are a few things, which beyond a certain level, are beyond your control. Then you have to bow to the structure and order and let things take their own course. I don’t mean to say that you should become a slave of the ‘system’, it is also that certain structures and systems are put in place to maintain order and it is important to respect them. Thus it becomes important to maneuver and find your way through this structure. That skill of making sure you get what you want and to keep people in good humor is something which needs to be developed. Some smart people around you know how to do it, learn it from them. Be patient, but don’t get sick!

There are a lot of things you wanted to do and a lot you still want to do. Just to make sure your energy is used judiciously in the right direction, it is better you concentrate on a few things you think you are good at and you are comfortable with. You are indeed fortunate that you have access to people and resources to help you pursue your interests, but make sure you know the difference between your interests and matters which deserve more attention.

Formalities and niceties are important.

Well yes, on certain occasions and with certain people for sure. But otherwise remain as politically incorrect and blunt as you are. Formalities and niceties are important because not only they make you (appear!) more presentable, they lend a certain degree of credibility to what you say and what you do. Though personally you might not like as it might seem superficial, it is important that you understand and appreciate this. Ways of the world, my man! Be like them, it’s ok. But don’t be them!

[Nikhil’s reaction to this: What the fuck man? Could you please cut the crap? ]

Well, let’s put an end to this crap. But remember
* You’ve definitely done your bit, but there’s so much more to do. The benchmarks are only getting higher by the day. Yes, a lot of times you have the feeling of having ‘been there, done that’. Kick that feeling, go out and take up new challenges.

* Remain as stupid as you’ve always been. You’ve learnt a lot of things the hard way and perhaps that’s the best way to learn things. Remain stupid, ask more stupid questions and make a lot of mistakes.

* Malcolm Gladwell is definitely right, Blink! is a great book. But yes, try being a little measured and less instinctive while reacting to things. Think on your feet, but sit down and talk!

* There are those special people in this world who make you the person you are today. Some help you remain sane while others make sure you are as insane as you’ve always been. And yes, the sugarcane crushing machine!
[ Nikhil : Thanks all you special people. You know who you are. Joey ishtyle! ☺]

It’ll be interesting to watch the contents of the letter I’ll write to you on your 23rd birthday.

Naansense and a month in Mumbai.

2006-11-01T20:06:00.000+05:30

[ I'm in Mumbai now. All my tech posts like the previous one on search engines will now be on WATblog.Here are my recent posts on WATblog.]

This is the tenth time I'm sitting down to write this. It should have been up about ten days back, but then ten things wouldn't have been added. Then, it would've been tentatively titled 'Tendulkar's tender tentacles'. Now that would've given you a lot of tension. Ah, enough of it.

10. I'm definitely talking about both here - nonsense and the bread - naan. Just that having stayed in Pondicherry for close to five months, it is difficult to shake off the South Indian accent. So that's naansense for you.

Naan, in this case the bread, also makes a lot of sense. With the kaamwali bai bidding us good bye, we're mostly having to eat a lot of naan. Apparently, this not(naat?) so good bai decided to do a lot of buying during Diwali with her bhais. Then while helping herself with baingan ka bharta,she decided to bid us good-bye or was she inspired while attending an RSS baithak and then boycotted us! Ah, that was too much of wordplay!

Now to the more serious mentions,

1. We still haven't found a regular bai. That is indeed unsettling.

2. Mumbai is wonderful. One word which probably describes Mumbai the best is - intense. There are way too many things happenings, there are way too many people on the roads, way too many people in the local trains, way too many scents and odours, way too many sounds and way too many things to be mentioned here. Inspite of all this, there's such sense behind the madness. I'm reminded of this post, where I had mentioned about reading books, watching movies about Mumbai. It feels good to have read those books which once one wishes to read. Gregory David Roberts's Shantaram was the first. It's probably the best investment I've made in my life till now. And it is only apt that I gifted it to Scott while he was here in India and of course, fell in love with Mumbai. Check out the t-shirts he's made. And yes, he's donating some of the proceeds of the sales to PlanetRead. Way to go, Mr. Social Entrepreneur in the making. No wait, he's already one! And yes, here's the documentary we made for PlanetRead. A long way ahead from the days of silly college videos like Over and Out and de Young Basanti. And yes, then I read Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra. Ok, the book might not have the depth of Shantaram, but is certainly wide, in terms of the time and geography he's managed to cover in the book. The book certainly justifies the time it took, seven years, and the advance Vikram Chandra got for the book.

And then Suketubhai Mehta in his Maximum City delves much deeper into the chaotic universe that is Mumbai and brings to life more of its intrigues and intricacies. Can't wait for Shantram to be brought alive on screen.

52. What? Shouldn't three follow two? Blame it on my sudden surge of interest interest in random numbers.

So here's another random list of things I've been upto in Mumbai.

23. Kaak, Chinsi, Kenny and another one 'He who shall not be named' (for the simple reason that I do not know his name) were here in Mumbai. We went around South Mumbai, I bought The Perfect Store: Inside eBay and have finished reading it as well. More on the book soon. All I remember is that we walked into Gokul Bar and the rest of it is still very hazy. How we spoke of life being a spiral and not a circle, our journey back to Andheri, how they must be the luckiest people on this earth to have caught a bus back to Surat, is all very hazy. I'm glad such hazy things happen.

24. Movies watched.

Seems like it'll take another three hundred twenty seven years for Hindi movies to be regularly screened in Pondicherry. So starved I was for Hindi movies, read Hindi movies in theatres, that I had to get my dose of Hindi movies when I came to Mumbai. Here's the list - Jaan-e-Mann, Don, Apna Sapna Money Money, Deadline - Sirf 24 ghante and Dhoom 2.

My two cents worth. No wait, I paid more for these. Anyway, here goes.

I'm no big consumer of Dabur products, but I have to say Yeh baat kuch hazam nahin hui to Gulzaar Sahab. There's no comparing Naam Ada likhna in Yahaan to huaan jo zamane ka dastoor hain, woh maane nahi dad naaraaz tha and sirf do hi mahine hai seh lo agar, mera future hai teri kasam, mera future hai jismein piya in Jaan-E-Mann. It really hurts, Gulzaarsahab. Thank God, there's Guru coming soon and it does have some good alfaaz.

Jaan-E-Mann deserves no mention here, while Don was very stylishly made. For all the flak Farhan has received, I congratulate him for taking this risk and coming out trumps. Isn't Don a hit? Guess that says it all.

Dhoom 2? It's got Hrithik written over it all the way. The liplock aside, Aishwarya looks more like, like Sneha Ullal. Bikinasha, Abhishek and Uday just manage to pass the muster, helping us pass pop-corn with ease.

37. Books read

- Maximum City

- The Bachelor of Arts

- The Perfect Store: Inside eBay

- In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India. Makes for an interesting read. Having read India Unbound earlier, this book helped me put the various aspects of India- social, political and economic, in the right perspective. Long way to go before I really understand the dynamics of this mystery that is India.

- The Big Red Fez: How To Make Any Web Site Better by Seth Godin. I regularly follow Seth's blog, and just like on his blog where he simplifies marketing,in the books he provides real life examples to simplify web design.

All books recommended for reading, depending on your tastes and sensibilites.

58. Books to be read

- The Alchemy of Desire by Tarun Tejpal. Wonder how tasty will that be? Yes, this is in refence to this. Scroll down and you'll come to know why. Anyway, I've developed this strange liking for writers from Tehelka. Bunker 13 by Aniruddha Bahal. The rpm from that book is still very fresh in my mind. Read this to know more!

- Three Men in a Boat: To Say Nothing of the Dog. Thought it's time I read some sensible stuff!

57. Some more movies I watched while I was not blogging
- Kannathil Muthamittal
- Pithamagan
- Fight Club(again)
- Full Metal Jacket.

Whenever I walk in the teeming Mumbai crowd, I imagine everyone marching on the road saying - "This is my rifle, this is my gun". If you've watched the movie, you'll know what I'm talking about.

63. Really glad that I'm back to quizzing. Because I'm not a B-school student, for purposes of convenience, I'm a student of NMIMS and Das remains my partner for any online B-school quiz. What's more, it was a heartening return to quizzing as Das and I teamed up to win the second prize in the entertainment quiz by IIFT. Another matter though that Dipubhai and I could not make it to the finals of quiz conducted by Avinash Mudaliar. But then, answers like the Marlboro man, iPod shuffle and more importantly FabIndia will help us take pleasant memories from that quiz. But just one point of bother - do fun and entertainment in a quiz have to include references to balls and let the tongue and cheek go haywire of tongue-in-cheek.

108. Watched Shazia Mirza perform.She was funny, hilarous, outrageous, serious, over the top, stinging all at once. But her honesty and straighforwardness are what make her more appealing and entertaining. If all her gigs are her real life stories, then this woman surely has the nerve!

457. Watched Kashinama at The Prithvi Theatre Festival. Was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Ok, this I have to write. I was standing beside Kay Kay Menon and then I asked him who the performer was. Swanand Kirkire,came the answer. No sooner did I exclaim - Oh Hazaaron, did Swanand began Baanwra Mann, followed by Raat Hamaari toh bowing to audience's request. His Main solah saal ka would be ideal for the short film on social networking I'm planning to make. Plans are to run into him again at Prithvi and ask him for the same. I know it's a tough ask, but I'll try.

3124. Shortfilm reminds me of the documentary/shortfilm Komal and I are planning to make on the recent 'corporatization' of Bollywood covering the latest attempts at
innovative marketing and promotion. We've got the basic framework worked out. All we need to do now is just go out there and do it! Promises to be exciting. What say? Ms. Big shot journalist! [ Ah, how much I'll have to hear for this]

5372. Conversations with Prayas have been educative and enlightening in a sense. We've discussed(a lot) over coffee, some Italian dish I can't remember and dinner. Hopefully, something concrete will emerge out of those discussions. Personally, Prayas has been a great person to spend time with. I shall start contributing for Mumbai Diaries soon and get invloved in the short film competition Prayas mentions on his blog.

6453. Ok, Pandora can read my mind. Talking of music, Mumbai's Rainbow FM is really good. I like it not because it is the only station which plays English music, but because unlike the RJs at Mirchi, Red, One, BIG or City, RJs at Rainbow are restrained and not shouting over the top of their voices.

3241.DesiLassi is up and running. We're still contemplating on how do we position it. Positioning might seem a fancy term, but doing business on the internet is definitely not easy if there's no focus. The DesiLassi blog is up. Promises to be a fun ride. Finished a pilot TV show episode for BookBox. Feels good to have done most of the things by my own - shooting, post, pre and free production and editing!

367532. And finally,

If you find love on the internet, will you say it was love at first site?!
If you work on the internet for a long time, will you be keybored?

Thinking beyond Google and the search for the next big thing in search.

2006-10-14T22:13:00.000+05:30

Search begins and ends with Google, or so you thought. Ofcourse, there are the other search engines which you never really bothered to visit - Yahoo!, MSN, AOL and Ask. But there are a slew of other search engines which are sure to make search more interesting. Whether they'll be able to give Google a run for its money? Only time will tell. But for now, Google
rules the roost with a market share of 49.2%, followed by Yahoo at 23.8% with MSN, AOL and Ask ranking up in this order with market shares in single digits.

Google recently launched its Personalised Search. This keeps a history of all of one's previous searches, be it in Google images, Froogle, Google video et al. A very useful,feature indeed and interestingly, one can get an idea of his/her preferences/search habits after using this over a period of time.

Most of our searches are sporadic and random and it's good to know about our search preferences. Most of our work on the internet begins with a search and the Google's personalised search would give an idea of how do we spend most of our time on the internet. One may also bookmark the pages. So you need not worry if you've searched for something previously and have forgotten to bookmark it. Google's personalised search makes your life easier. One perhaps needs to use it over a period of time to get this kind of data.

A small enhancement, but very substantial nonetheless. With Google putting on hold rollout of new products and instead deciding on concentrating its energy on making the existing products work better, it remains to be seen what enhancements it brings to search. Innovation or improvement? Improvement it is, now that Google has reached a stage where it had to stop and think about its future plans, all the hype and hoopla over the GooTube deal not withstanding.

The founders of YouTube talk here about the deal.

Can't miss the naughty smile on their faces initially and how they break into an almost boyish laughter towadrs the end of the video. Imagine watching a tourist video of Pondicherry and having ads for budget hotels in Pondicherry on the side. That could be GooTube for you!

Another interesting product from Google's stable is
SearchMash. Since Google cannot radically alter search on the main site, SearchMash seems to an ideal playground for experimenting with new ideas. This has a host of new and exciting features, which indeed may lead to making one's own search engine.

To begin with, there is no Search button, which is redundant anyway. You hit enter and the SERPs appear with the top three image search results by their side. You may then drag and drop the search results according how important or relevant you think they are. The subesequent search results open in the same page on hitting the spacebar. Very neat - the features, the layout and the idea. Go ahead. Try it!

Here's a search engine whose model seems interesting - ChaCha. It offers 'real time search results'. And as ChaCha claims on its website, ChaCha is

* A smart search engine powered by human intelligence.
* A place to find exactly what you're looking for without sifting through
millions of results.
* Intelligent search results from people who are knowledgeable about the
very thing you are looking for.

One may either search the web as you do normally or do a 'live' search. During a live search, you talk to a 'guide' who searches for the information and provides it you. The guides are paid by ChaCha and the remuneration is proportionate to their 'expertise'. You need to be invited to the network- ChaCha Underground and have you work your way up through the guide hierarchy. More details on SearchEngineWatch.

I tried searching for 'Hotels in Pondicherry' with a guide and after I confirmed that that Pondicherry was indeed in South India, I didn't hear anything more from the guide.

But still, here's why ChaCha might work.

1. Instead of spending a lot of time searching within hundres of search results, people would be willing to spend that extra time to get exact results for their queries.

2. The human touch, which makes it more interactive and easy to use.

Cluster search anyone?

Try Clusty. Cluster search arranges the SERPs into cluster thus making it easier for you.

A search for 'Hotels in Pondicherry' on Clusty arranges the SERPs into -

- Pondicherry
- Discount
- Hotels and Resorts
- Deluxe Hotels
- Pondicherry Travel
- Booking of hotels in Pondicherry
- Hotel Mass *
- Accomodation in Pondicherry
- Tour packages

[ * Hotel Mass is a well-known hotel in Pondicherry]

Each have these 'clusters' have links within them and thus the search results are arranged according to the category they belong to. Definitely makes searching easier. Clusty come from Vivismo .

Also using cluster search results are Mooter and Clush. Clusty, with features like Clusty Clouds, definitely scores here.

Now either Powerset let me use its much talked about Natural Language Search or take responsibility for my death. Seriously, with so much being discussed about Powerset in the blogosphere, it remains to be seen if Powerset lives up to the hype. No doubt its team comes with impeccable credentials, especially its founder and CEO Barney Pell. The COO Steve Newcomb and Product Architect Lorenzo Thione have been in the search industry for a long time to understand its dynamics. So one has enough reasons to believe that the buzz is totally unjustified. What makes Powerset immensely likeable is its founders frankness and honesty, not to mention the clear elucidation of their philosophy behind Powerset. Here's what Barney Pell has to say in response to the blogstorm generated around Powerset -

" Anyway, we truly were not expecting all this attention yet, as we are not releasing a product in the immediate future. It is a little daunting to have so much attention but not be able show our product yet. Nobody can tell if we are hype or substance (unless they know us). However, from my perspective, one great thing about this blogstorm coming early is that it has kicked off a vibrant discussion about the present and future of search, and what it would mean to be able to express intention to a search engine in a new way. That discussion goes beyond any one company and itself can lead to the kind of transformation every startup hopes to achieve."

Personally I believe search is yet to be solved and there's definitely more to search than what Google can offer.

So, can Snap provide us with a new search experience. Infact it calls itself - ' the other way to search'. We are all so used to the 'text in text out' way of search that Snap comes as a refreshing change. Refreshing because, though not as 'simple' as Google or the other well-known search engines, it definitely provides a very pleasant search experience.

Picture here

It provides search results on the left and one can navigate through these by using the up/down arrow keys. The previews of the search results appear on the right. Pretty neat for those who aren't conditioned to use keywordese. You may mark the each result as Perfect or Junk thus enabling better results for future searches. The interface is also very user-friendly. According to Snap, here's why they feel they are better.

Snap was also mentioned as one of the 50 coolest websites on TIME.

My two cents worth on the new movement in search.

Nothing can replace Google, because of its deep pockets and its immense popularity. Ther's no denying the huge impact it is having on our lives. But there can definitely be new way out for some kind of searches for which Google definitely doesn't help much. So are websites like Guruji, Raftaar, Onyomo, burrp! the answer?!

More on these websites in the posts to follow.

Here's the wikipedia list of search engines.

Tags:Search,Google,Powerset,ChaCha,Snap,SearchMash,Raftaar,Guruji

Which came first - the chick or the egg?

2006-10-04T15:05:00.002+05:30

Location:
Handicrafts exhibition
Beach Road
Pondicherry.

State :
A little tired and busy with work.
Will be back with regular posts soon.

BlogCamp 2006

2006-09-12T17:27:00.000+05:30

How do I feel now? Great!. If you were at the BlogCamp, you'd know what I'm talking about.

BlogCamp un-happened. The success of this meet was no mean feat considering the novel nature of this event. The fact that it was an unconference and attracted around 200 participants from all over India speaks volumes about the passion bloggers share towards blogging. Before I forget to mention and later commit sucide, only to be sent back to earth by Yamraj that I didn't blog enough in my lifetime, hats off to Kiruba. This man made just about everything possible and with such ease. You are the man. Peter, Dina, Neha, Jace, Syed handled just about everything with wiki-ease. Now, I do not know what wiki-ease is. Do not ask me. And I am not stoned, Nehaji!

[Nehaji talking to students from ASJ and I listening to it, while passing off as recording the conversation]

To me,quality conversations and discussions were the biggest gains out of the unconference. Opportunities to learn, contribute and experience were plenty be it the technical sessions by the Bothack junta or the open sessions on Blogs and freedom of expresson,Are comments important?. The best conversations of course happened over coffee or over lunch. Meeting and sharing ideas, experiences with people- geeks, journalists, consultants, journalists, analysts was a great experience.

Personally, I was there to understand and explore the reasons behind people's passion for blogging. And it was definitely heart-warming to meet in person people who take their blogging seriously. Amit Agarwal, for example. Commanding a readership running into millions and retaining it is not an easy job. But then blogging is his job. Amit writes about the interesting people he met at the BlogCamp here. Thanks for the mention and it was a fantastic experience spending time with you, Amit. BeachCamp by the night was great fun!

Talking of the BeachCamp, which was wonderful, for the fact that we had the entire beach for us, the bloggers. So many things happened with bloggers in high spirits that I'm now thinking of making a movie on bloggers to be titled 'Bloggers' Beach' on the lines of Joggers' park. Sad, Perizaad Zorabian doesn't blog. But Bipasha Basu does blog here.And did I mention the free food and the booze at the BeachCamp?!;)

On a more serious note, the high-spirited discussion with
Rahul about media, technology, business, retail and just about everything will definitely hold me in good stead for a long time to come. Thanks Rahul for all the encouragement. There was a nice little discussion brewing between Rahul, Amit and Om[ from Page Traffic] of which I enjoyed every bit. Awesome time with Karan, Vikram and Nidhi from
WebChutney. More on Nidhi(to be referred to a Chutney henceforth) in the following posts. She accompanied me to Pondicherry and spent two days here. Vikram, the chaos in your head right now is definitely leading to something big! Work on it.

Wonderful was the time spent at the BeachCamp with what I'd like to call the Tam geek gang. No offence meant, but somehow I find the name funny and interesting. These guys were the backbone of the BlogCamp and they deserve every bit of the credit and appreciation. Ganesh, Ganesh[ Rupya], Aswin, Arpit, Bhargav, Satish and the rest of the junta's energy and zeal was infectious. The long drawn discussion with Arpit, lasting till 3:00 a.m. gave some shape to a few ideas brewing in my mind. These hopefully should see the light of the day soon. We saw the light of day really early at 6:30 in the morning. Sleep, I did though yesterday. Straight for 17 hours. Thanks to the energy I invested at the BlogCamp and in the next two days following that, taking Chutney around Pondicherry.

[Sunil Gavaskar at the BlogCamp.]

On day 2, it was a wonderful experience meeting with Shailaja Neelakanthan of GigaOm, with GigaOm being one of my favourite sources for news on technology and start-ups. At the stalls set up at the venue, it was interesting exchanging ideas with people from merinews and Zoho. Great to see activities happening in India in the media scene. But there's still a long way to go in community formation and delivering to their needs, and in return getting the community to work for you. Rajesh from Zoho, writes about my organization PlanetRead on his blog here. It was good meeting interesting people doing some really cool work like you, Rajesh.

Osama Manzar of the Digital Empowerment Foundation and the Manthan Award was at the unconference with his son Abner. Our venture
BookBox won a special mention at last year's Manthan awards and Osama was happy to see me and know about BookBox's progress.

Also met Garima from Watblog, Preetam Rai from Global Voices Online and Jammy over coffee, lunch and IRC, not respectively. Prayas and Ashwan from pinstorm were there too.

But as Subhash Rai of India Online Journalism mentions in his post here, the best conversation happened in the smokers' corner with Dr. Subho Ray of IAMAI, Mr. Sukumar of eZeeBags.com, Samrat Choudhary from Hindustan Times and Rajesh from The Week. Though I listened for most of the time , it was truly an enlightening and enriching experience. The wote of thanks
by Babloojee was interesting.

Chutney and I teamed up for the quiz and missed qualifying for the finals by a couple of answers. A decent quiz that was, with a couple of T-shirts flying our way for the audience questions. Felt great coming back to quizzing after a long time.I then headed to my relatives' place and Chutney to her relatives'. Finding that place wasn't all that difficult for me, but identifying me was definitely difficult for them. Yes it was. They were seeing me after 12 years!

The next day, Chutney and I headed to Pondicherry carrying wonderful memories of the BlogCamp, with some questions answered and a lot more popping out in our heads. Coming posts to talk about the time we had in Pondicherry!

Photos conveniently flick(r)ed from Jace, Neha and dream.chaser. Thanks. Some more BlogCamp photos on Flickr here

Tag :BlogCamp

Tamizh Rock, doctors and etcetera.

2006-09-05T19:30:00.000+05:30

[ This is the last time I'm announcing my return to regular blogging. Here are the comeback posts, 1 and 2]

It's definitely fun here in Pondicherry. More often than not it's funny too. Funny was how Ganesh Visarjan was done here, or for that matter how Ganesh Chaturthi was celebrated here. Funny was smelling fresh flowers on long plaited hair during a rock show. Ok, maybe I did not get that close to any Tamizh woman to actually smell the flowers. But it is indeed strange, the sight of many women in the traditional Tamizh appearance in a rock show. One definitely expects smell and sight of something better in a rock show.

Here are the details. The venue was JIPMER and the occasion, their annual fest - Spandan. A very funny name to begin with. Not that the names of the fests conducted in the college I did my engineering from were any better. Sparsh and Kashish sounded dangerously close to names of characters in K-serials.

Having attended rock shows and performances in engineering, architecture and management institutes, it was funny watching doctors organise an event. We engineers are good at problem-solving, hence take care of a problem as and when it arises. Also, go to any extent possible in solving the problem. Even if it means ending up in jail, which happened in my college.

But doctors you see, are very clinical in their approach. At the entrance,they brand you with indelible ink on your wrists as a mark of identification of entry. Later it dawns on you that it is infact a wonderful medical idea. The mark is to identify the right vein in the wrist to give an injection in case there's any complication because of drug overdose, or if the subject dozes off due to lack of interest. They make sure they don't make you over-excited by being a little more enthusiastic while introducing a show. You might get a heart-attack for all you know. Doctors know better. Then I realised that most of crowd was seated for the entire show. They did not want to put their best foot forward and enjoy the show.

Personally, I did enjoy the show. There was good music - a very good band, a wannabe band and a band whom we didn't watch for their entire duration. Motherjane was the very good band, Moksha , we really didn't get hear much because we had to leave by then. Having spent close to three hours in a doctors' place, we believed that it was in our best interest to follow the 'Early to bed, early to rise' principle. There was another college band - Junkyard Brew apparently, which really did not make me enthused enough. They were trying to hard to be rock stars and the music wasn't really polished. Motherjane on the other hand played excellent music for one and a half hours. It was definitely not a mean feat considering the fact that their music was more compact, more polished and more organised. Wish they had a CD stall at the venue. The Dream Theater influence was unmistakable,and that perhaps was the right dose for me. Not having heard John Petrucci for a long time had left a void which Motherjane definitely made up to a certain extent.

This rock show brought back memories of the days when I was the manager of the college band! Mrinabh, Joji, Chinsi and Shubham. Short-lived though my stint was, it was indeed great fun. Also brought back wonderful memories of the Chaos experience at IIM-A. Those were indeed the best days of my life. More importantly, in some way or the other those few days have instilled some sense of madness and craze in me, which have better best days for me in the future!

Related/ Unrelated blabber.

1.
Bloody stye in my eye troubling me again. This time though, I have read Catcher in the Rye.
Here is the limerick when a similar stye had troubled me.

2.
Arjun Sharma
is not attending the BlogCamp
as he is busy MOCKing CATs. Irli bidi Sharma avare, innond saari sigona. MOCK maadi. Looking forward to meeting some interesting people there.

3.
Had a long PJ session with Ram after a long long time. Time so long that our watches would've grown really long, if they could grow.

Analyse these -

i. Which TV channel will Inzamam appear on?
A. Zee, because he is In-zy.

ii. Which biscuits will Inzamam give you?
A. Priya Gold. Because 'Haq se maango, Priya Gold'.

iii. What did the ICC tell Inzamam?
A. Stop scratching your balls. Otherwise you'll land in trouble.

Funny, aren't they? :D

4.
Bharath writes about our
meeting with Kiran Karnik in his latest post. I think that was the day we realised that our key to success is our madness.

5.
Bharath apparently has a friend who is crazy about stocks and shares. I
decided to learn some lessons so that I could test my knowledge when the meeting
happens. Here are my initial lessons -

i. Sensex has no relation whatsoever with having sex with any of the Sens-Sushmita,Riya or Reema. About sex with Rimi and Raima, I am not too sure. The whole Sen actress' group is so insane and so confusing.

ii. There is no problem in wearing stockings to a stock exchange. But be careful if you happen to do that. One cannot exchange stockings in a stock exchange.

Not bad for a novice, eh?

6.
Bunker 13 is an incredible fun ride. MM has to be the man. I'd definitely want to be born as Shantaram in my next birth, but do not mind if I'm born as MM.Just that I really do not want to be the person who he turns out to be in the end,but the experiences he goes through and the life he lives are outrageously amazing.

What are you writing about?

2006-09-01T21:03:00.000+05:30

[ OK, I have returned to regular blogging. Here is the comeback post ]

Now, there are few important decisions I have to make. Of course, some decisions I've made previously have proved costly. One of them for example was my decision to buy Maximum City . About sixty pages into the book and I realised that it was indeed a costly decision, about sixty rupees maybe. But even with books like this come with good memories. I bought that book when Bharath and I met Kiran Karnik in Hubli at the IT Investors' Meet.Like every book has a story to tell, which even Maximum City has, there's a wonderful story behind our meeting with Mr.Karnik. Bharath has agreed to write a post on that soon.
But somehow I feel I should have paid some attention to Kaak when he asked me not to buy it. Somehow Suketubhai is too harsh on Mumbai. Having called Mumbai my jaan in an earlier post on my blog here, I really couldnot digest Suketubhai's verbal abuse of Mumbai. I may someday complete reading the entire book and tone down my disregard for Maximum City. But until then, it can rest on the table. Or is it on the shelf already? Great. I am now really desperate to get my hands on Sacred Games. If you committed that costly(time-wise) decision of reading that post, you'd know that I did mention about Sacred Games there.

But then sometimes costly decisions turn out to be really worthwhile. Buying Bunker 13 turned out to be one such decision. So I while I headed out for lunch trying to look for Sacred Games on the way, Bunker 13 waiting right there to be picked by me. The first fifty pages, in no uncertain terms, make me believe that it's definitely worth the wait and the weight. Rupees Two Hundred Sixtynine only, is the weight. It was almost like MM telling me - "Fuck the weight, pick up the bait!". Who is MM? Read the book.

So talking of decisions to be made, I have decided that I should blog about something new. Apart from playing predictable word-games with puns on my blog, there are many other useful things that I can write about. It'd be great if I could run a colla-blog with a fellow blogger. I know my earlier attempts like this didn't really take off, but I'm still ready to give it another shot. Here are a few subjects that I'd like to start another blog on.

1. Technology start-ups in India [ Entrepreneurship in India ]
2. The retail industry in India.
3. Business opportunities in Tier -II cities and towns in India.

I know these would require a lot of investment of time and resources, but I'll
still give it a try.

I think I'll got to bed now.To sleep, definitely not Arjun Sharma ishtyle like this. Enantheera Sharma avare?

P.S. I am planning to attend the Bloggers' Unconference at Chennai. Details
here. Anybody coming?

P.P.S.

Lovely. Just like those days!

Wonderful. Pandit, Ankush and I will go to school again!

Literally speaking!

2006-08-28T22:47:00.000+05:30

Everything appears funny when words start taking their literal meanings. It has definitely been a long time since I last blogged. Twenty three days of course is a long time. During a period of twenty three days, I could have grown my hair longer by 7.8642 cm, Pandit could have changed his phone number five times, Sajani Mrinalini Dutta could have lost and found her gawarat in the hinterlands of Gujarat hundred sixty eight times, Bharath could have joined IISc and have interestingly started to get deeper insights into the working of the stock markets and Seth Mota could have started working his way up the political ladder at IIM-K, when not preparing a marketing plan for the ready-to-eat segment.

All of the above have happened except for my hair getting longer. I know 7.8642 is way too exaggerated, but sadly I had to cut my hair short by 4.8173 cm, out of regard for my parents and all the prying aunties in the neighbourhood. But it's just not about the hair. When I think of it now, losing my hair is a very small price to pay for all that I gained in the last twenty three days. Oh, with all the Hair raising tales doing the rounds, I better be careful with the (ab)use of Hair.

Now getting back to the subject of words taking their literal meanings in my life, I'm again not lying when I say I've come a long way since I blogged seriously the last time, or so I'd like to think. I guess I now know why words have started taking their literal meanings.It is because I work to promote literacy.

So while I am yet to digest all that I've had over the last three months, food and otherwise, I'll try to recapitulate and live those wonderful moments through this blog. Everything that happened seems to me to be straight out of a movie. Not surprisingly though, most of those experiences have to deal with movies and people connected with movies.[ Well, it's a little more than that, we had been to a film shoot and interviewed a couple of them. Also came across and met a couple more. More on that in the coming posts. But it was definitely fun asking Pampam Khair to produce more movies like Maine Gandhi ko nahin maara, and sympathizing with him with a grim smile on my face, when he told me that he had to do films like Half key cutterso that he could survive first and then think of producing good movies. [ There you go. Figure out the name of the movie. Rhymes with Half key cutter]. It was also fun complementing Lillette Dubey for her grace and the way "she carries herself so sensibly in her movies", to be returned with as shocked stare, probably wondering which alien from Pluto was addressing her by her first name. But then, more horrible things have happened on this earth than Lillette ji being addressed by her first name. Like, one Mr.Patel at the counter at the State Bank of India, SVRCET Surat branch, having this horrible idea that I molested his daughter. That, I realised in one of my wonderful dreams aboard SpiceJet, which was cut short by the eye-candy air-hostess offering me a toffee, was the reason for him to delay the closure of my account and let me have the money. Of course, I did have my money and I had not molested his daughter. I just hope Jaswanth Singh sees no mole in this whole molestation affair!

Of course, Lillette did take it in her stride and thanked me. They were definitely other well-known actors and actresses, surrrounded by equally great actors and actresses with superficial smiles and greetings. Make up, not to mention was equally superificial. Apart from My.Khair and Madame Dubey, they were plenty of other stars. There was one Mr.Axay Cunha and one Mr.Sue-kneel Chatty. Also present were
Ms.Humeesha Putt-tail and the really high-nosed Ms.Bianca Cobra. More on my brushes with glamour and my powdery thoughts on those later. I think it all began with the fashion show I hosted for G-3 in Surat. While I contiune to enjoy those, I long ago realised that the glamour and beauty is plain skin-deep. As long as there are people who clamour, there will be glamour. Take this incident involving Bipasha Basu for that matter. While that was in New York, I just came across her shooting an ad for a well-known retail chain together with Zayed Khan. She must thank her stars(now, which stars would the stars themselves thank?!) for her shooting being scheduled in Pondicherry. Except for a bunch of young students who were curiously watching and waiting for their autographs, no one was really bothered. The only khan that people here probably know is khaan-a, which the hoteliers have to learn to humour the tourists. And Bipasha would probably be Prakasha's sister or daughter. So, I have all the reasons for being excited at the prospect of watching KANK later this evening. Just hope it is not dubbed in Tamizh. Now would KANK be called TANK if it were dubbed to Tamizh?

P.S. I see signs of my old senseless writing skills returing. These are good signs. Especially the ones with ball pens.

P^2.S. There are a zillion stories/experiences/anecdotes/inside jokes to be told. Do not know why this post took off on such a tangential and ended up just talking about Bollywood and my experiences relating to that.

P^3.S. I definitely need to spruce up my blog. Introduce a bunch of bloggers, change the template, before it is too late start posting more regularly with posts that indeed make sense.

P.^4.S Heartening is that I now seemed to have regained my pathetic sense of humour.
Samples:
1. What will you get if you put spices in Paayasam?
Spaayasam
or this
2. Every girl waits eagerly for a young man, always having these four words on
her lips - Ming, ming, ming and ming. Who is she waiting for?
Prince Char-ming!
P^5.S. It's ok. I'm fine. You can hit me when we meet the next time.
P^6.S. Read in the last month -
India Unbound

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night- Time

It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life

Now reading
Eats, Shoots and Leaves"

P^7.S. Watched Corporate, Yun Hota Toh Kya Hota and Anthony Kaun Hai. The only three Hindi movies I've watched in the last three months. I should hang myself twice over for this blunder. Anyway, two of these had Minissha Lamba starring in them. So that starry-eyed feeling of watching lambda, err Lamba come alive on the big screen more than compensated for not having watched atleast 15.8 Hindi movies. Hitesh, I still absolutely adore her irrespective of what you said Yahaan!

P^8.S. Just a mental note of the places, people, events, experiences, inside jokes et al. Very random. Might not make sense, like everything on this blog.

1. Watching WC semi-finals and the finals with the actual citizens of respective countries at Coffee.com in Pondicherry.
2. Going around Dadar,Haji Ali , Worli and Mumbai Central with Harsha.
3. Dinner at Priya's place.
4. Lunch at Kaak's place.
5. "Sir, we have free seating. You can sit wherever you want!"
6. "Anyone order, Sir?"
7. The night with Das at NMIMS.
8. Dinner at Trishna.
9. Scott's departure from Mumbai. Turns out that it is him who is indeed forgetful. How else do you then explain him forgetting his bag containing the passport and the plane tickets? And the sin of forgetting GoodDay biscuits is unpardonable!
10. Scott,
Fellow, missing you big time. No my watch hasn't gottten any bigger. Daily Bread, Kaarthik, #3, St. Louis Street, Pondicherry aren't the same without you. Life is funny. We are even funnier. There's Skype anyway.
11. Stay at IIM-A. The brief meeting with Fidoe and the dinner(s) with Vandana.
12. Rajasthan was one experience which will take sometime to register its fullest impact on me. It will definitely come out on this blog. Life, in its different forms, in its brightest, darkest colours, was thrown wide open, right in my face.
13. The city visits - Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune and Ahmedabad.
14. "She's grinding millet"
15. Meeting Sidin and Fungus. Find Fungus's article on Hafta here.
16. Visiting home and celebrating Ganesh Charurthi, albeit briefly.
17. The adventure trip to Dandeli with Pandu, Sandy and Raghuram. Wonderful feeling cycling twelve kilometers through the jungle and then going for an actual Safari.
18. Later

Of no fixed address!

2006-08-05T01:18:00.000+05:30

Of no fixed address is just not the name of a book by Kaizad Gustad. It is also indicative of the way my life is shaping up. I have lived an entire lifetime in the last two months. Of no fixed address is an enjoyable read. One doesn't have to be drunk to enjoy reading this book, while one definitely had to be drunk to enjoy his masterpiece Boom though. Will kill myself if I don't post about my recent trip within the next 72 hours.

A few pointers to the posts to come.

The trip route
Pondi->Chennai->Mumbai->Ahmedabad->Rajasthan->Ahmedabad->Mumbai->Chennai and finally Pondi.

Places visited

Haji Ali, IIM-A, NITIE, Akshardham, Rajasthan, Ambaji, Adalaj ni Vav, Film City Goregaon.

More in the posts to follow.

2006-07-02T22:40:00.000+05:30

It's a great feeling to be back 2 blogging. Hence this list begins with 2 and not 1.

2. Damn. So many things happening in such less time. I wish a day had 28.45 hours so that I could get more time to blog.
3. I have a confession to make. As much as I hate to admit it, I miss The Times of India when I am in Pondicherry, where all I have to feed on is The Hindu. I would rather wake up to see Rakhi Sawant's bosom than M/s. Karat and Co every morning! Reading The Hindu end to end is no enjoyment as compared to The Times of Indiam which appeals to all your senses. I source my information from various sources, and The Hindu doesn't really help me with its so-very-righteous espousal of the Left.
4. It has been an amazing journey, a true Discovery of India with spending time in the villages in the lush green sugar-cane fields to meeting really influential and powerful people in posh hotels.
5. There is nothing like the spirit of Mumbai. People just go by their routine work, are truly heartless do nt bother to even mourn after the blasts. They are truly citizens of the rudest city in the world.

But, wait a minute. Isn't Mumbai the city which has something for everyone? Isn't Mumbai the city where millions have had their dreams come true? Of course an equal number or even more have had their lives come crashing down. Isn't this the city which rises from every disaster and is back to normal in a flash? Isn't Mumbai the city where most shop-keepers and pedestrians go that extra mile, literally and make sure you reach the address you wanted to? Isn't Mumbai the city where you make friends with people when you actually say b$#&n%%od and m@!#$$%od?!

Maximum City and Shantaram apart, Mumbai is an amazing city and no number of bomb blasts can stop Mumbaikars from being citizens of the best city in the world. Cheers Mumbaikars. Give it back to the terrorists. Resilience is what the bloody terrorists do not like.
I do not necessarily agree with Bal Thakrey, but he is true to a great extent when he says, and I am not quoting him because I don't remember the exact phrase! It was something on the lines of. Mumbai is a prostitute whom everybody uses to fulfil their needs, but the same people do not even turn back once to thank her!

For all that Mumbai was, is and will be, I love Mumbai!

6. The UPA government is heading nowhere. First it was the whole reservation ruckus and then the blog ban. It is indeed foolish on my part to place the blame on the whole establishment for some goof-up committed by an imbecile babu in the Sanchar Bhavan or an over-zealous official of the ISPs, but the fact remains that the government which claimed to work for the ,aam aadmi, has done nothing for the aam, leave alone the aadmi. Resign and get to the World Bank, Dr. Singh. You can actually do something good there!

7. The more I visit malls and places these modern Indian yuppie kids hang out or chill, the more I see India heading towards a disaster. For all the talk of India becoming a knowledge economy, it is my belief that the more these PYTs feast on costly junk food and the more they think it's cool to ape Eminem or closer home, Emraan Hashmi, my belief gets re-affirmed. I know I have to substantiate with more elucidation, but a longer separate post or that planned documentary with Komal would clearly explain my thoughts.

8. It was great to be back to my first love - quizzing. Scott and I represented PlanetRead at the Tata Crucible regional round at Chennai. The quiz was an immensely enjoyable experience and we thought we performed pretty well. My knowledge of the Indian corporate scene together with Scott's economics background helped us do well in the quiz. On a good quizzing day, we wouldn't have made those silly errors and for all we know we could have been on the stage for the finals! But we did know that even if we qualified for the finals, we knew we could not stay there for the entire duration of the quiz. Pappu's new found sense of urgency together with fears of longer security checks because of the blasts led us to leave the quiz very early. I'd have preferred to stay a little longer at the quiz.

Scott and I proved to be great partners even though it was our first time as quiz partners. So while I had no idea who David Ricardo was, and Scott did not know that the author of The Fortune at the bottom of the Pyramid was C K Prahlad, we trusted each other's instincts and got the answers right!

9. It's like a SpiceJet, Then I came to know it was a boy, Oh, you are also shuffling shuffling?!, Can you move, I want to smoke!, In Chennai, we used to roam around like anything, Arrey Baba, who is using Mac machine?, This tripod is quite light and good I think so ,You are taking pill before food?!, You go to Brown University and release Chikun Gunya, find a cure and send it back!. I shall never forget these hilarious and immensely memorable quotes. Scott, Pappu and I are laughing our arses off, and it is not without no reason that we are doing so! What's the story behind each one of these? Answers in the posts to follow.

10. It was great watching the World Cup in Pondicherry with actual French and German citizens. Felt really sorry Jonathan on Germany's heart-breaking loss. Head-Butt I think he was more than happy to see France losing to the Italians. And I think I was equally happy!

(Zi)Dane (Zi)Dane pe likha hota hai head-butt karne waale ka naam?! :D

11. People I met - I

KSA - Scope, Pong, Sap, Pole, Raghuram, Ram and Kaak. Bastards all.
College - Pragnya, Dhir, Amit Gupta, Jaideep, Abhinand and Ankur.
Bloggers - Arjun, Sidin and Komal
Rest - Pragnya's sister!

12.People I met - II

Hebballi, Karnataka - Dr. Deshpande, Mahesh, Mr. K.G Patil, The Guru, Santosh, who's joined the Guru leaving the software job in the US, the famous boy in the "Then I cane to know it was boy" episode, the manager at the Guru's cattle house.

Ashwi, Pune - my favourite man - Sarjerao, Gauri Warudi, Mr. Kokje, the kids at the school, the dude at the health club gym!, the advocate, the old farmer full of wisdom.

13. Trip 1

I am too tired right now to write the details of each of these trips. I have already committed semi-suicide 3.43224 times for not having written about these trips previously. And because I have not done that, some details might escape which I think is a shame on my part. And because we are traveling to different parts of the country and traveling is a part and parcel of our work, parting with regular blogging is something which I have to cope up with. But I shall make sure I participate in as many blog sessions as possible and enjoy them as most kiddo yupiies would enjoy in a party. Damn. I am indeed sleepy.

I am leaving with photographs of our journey. A journey spanning from the rural villages of India to the malls and multiplexes in the cities! A truly memorable, enjoyable and a enriching journey. After all, isn't it fun to try and make the whole world literate?!

Jet, set, Go or Jet, SpiceJet and Go?!

This blog on Googleblog, apologies to my blogs and ponderings from Pondicherry

2006-06-11T15:35:00.001+05:30

0.This blog on Googleblog!
1. Apologies to my blog[s]
2. Ponderings from Pondicherry
3. Related/unrelated blabber

Dear [main] blog,

Before the apologies, let me share a great piece of news with you. I think this piece of news should more than cheer you up. In fact, I have to issue a Coffee and cats warning[It is for the knowledge for such trivia that I find quizzing interesting to the extent to which I’m crazy about it now]

This blog had the privilege of appearing on Google’s official blog. The previous post appeared
HEREon the Google official blog. Make sure you clear all you cache and the refresh so that it appears in the page. If you don’t want to take the trouble but still want to verify the authenticity of my claim, here’s the screenshot. That was probably the best day of my blogging life. So much so that a correspondent from am leading national English magazine read it and contacted us. We should see an article soon.

1. Apologies to my blog[s]

Let me apologise for not paying enough attention to you. But I guess you do understand that you are one of the only two things that I take seriously, quizzing being your competitor for my attention. I agree I have not been visiting you often enough and not providing you enough with enough food for your growth, believe me I’ve been thinking of you all the while. One of the thoughts that crossed my mind was that I should give you a face-lift and make you more beautiful and visually appealing by changing the current template. Better still, I thought I’d show my love to you by moving you to a totally fresh place named Wordpress where we’ll be able to able to move much more freely and customize our home. Another gem of an idea happened to me when I was riding on the M-80 by the Pondicherry beach and it suddenly stopped because it had forgotten to turn on the petrol knob
[I was totally Left stranded on that boulevard. Thanks M/s Karat and co for protesting, but please let the media cover some other news as well. And please for a while experience the pleasure not seeing your own faces on TV and in the newspapers].

I must admit that I have a little difficulty in managing your family. For example, there’s your travel blog sister who I believe will get lot of attention now because I’ll be hitting the road soon traveling to four different Indian states in South and Western India. And I have enough goodies for your photo-blog brother, with Scott and Kate’s cameras. Also there is the big brother, the Movie Company blog – 10+3i. I have some real great news in store for him. Suffices to say that the documentary –de Young Basanti has reached some good hands and I’m waiting for a final word before I reveal anything. So to make this job of managing your family easier, I am planning on investing in a brand new residence for you all where all your other relatives, like my projects and presentations, my quizzes, videos, useful links on the internet can reside in peaceful co-existence. I will take some time for me to buy web space and a domain name and set it up into a complete web-residence for you. But I’m sure it will be worth the wait and the investment. [Could you please suggest a name for my web-site? I have thought of quirky.in, which sounds too informal and nikhilkulk.in, which sounds a little funny]

Ponderings from Pondicherry.

There are so many other things happening that I’m afraid of missing recording them here. That is why I call up Bharath and ask him to remember them for me. At a later date, I’ll sit with him and then fill in the details. Because I’m not studying anymore, which euphemistically means I don’t have much free time, which straight-forwardly put means I don’t have much time to waste[as it was termed by a certain section of ‘intelligent’ people in college] books, movies and music. That is why another idea struck me when I was looking at the Siemens hearing aid of my newestest friend, Balakumaran at the deaf school. The idea was to appoint Akshay Rao [aka Kaak, to whom I owe my ‘half-way between sanity and insanity attribute] as my literature consultant. His assignment involves, watching Just Books on NDTV Profit, reading Bibliophile in the Outlook and going through press reviews of books periodically and give me regular updates. He will gain by getting a share of my gyaan during our discussions and additional perks which involve gifting him a T-shirt or a book every six months subject to his satisfactory performance. I keep regular track of the latest happenings on the technology and business front, my obsession with Web 2.0 still continuing and my understanding of the Indian Politics is only getting better. I am in search of a sports consultant now. I believe it’s a good thing that I haven’t caught on the soccer World Cup fever. My belief is that I am now investing time in something much more concrete and having long term benefits. But my greed for information and knowledge prompts me to look for a sports consultant as I don’t want to lose out on the World Cup as well. I also need a ‘masala Bollywood’ consultant. Here in Pondicherry, we have people who think that there’s movie by the name Cheena Gaate, which on further enquiry turned out to be China Gate. So with no ETC and Zee Music and no Jita to discuss about Raj Kanwar, Sunil Darshan and co, I’m finding it a little difficult to keep track of the same. Positions open for this post as well. Any takers?

Balaji is afraid that I might have turned ‘good’ and Sajani Mrinalini Dutta wonders if I’ve turned decent. It’s a little funny because people tend to turn apprehensive when they see others become ‘bad’ or ‘corrupt’, but in my case it’s the other way round. It’s mostly the other way round in most of my cases. Maybe because, I’m sitting on a revolving chair and hence it’s the other way round. [Isn’t this testimonial enough to the fact that I’m still the same idiot who cracks horrible PJs and talks non-sense most of the time?!] Maybe the experiences that I’ve been through in this short period here and the people I’ve met have only made me more humble. They’ve also made me more conscious of the fact that heroes are not only the ones who make headlines, but there are innumerable unsung heroes who in their own ways have made people’s live better. This is definitely true of the teachers at the school for the hearing impaired. Trying to communicate with the hearing impaired is indeed a taxing job, and meeting people who have been teaching the gearing impaired for more than ten years and their passion, concern and dedication towards what they do is what reaffirms my faith in the human spirit. As someone who is decently informed of the latest technologies and has access to resources, I feel responsible in seeing to it that such gifted children and these angels striving to help them are provided with simple, yet efficient solutions.

Same was the case when we visited the Koonimedu, 10 kms into the ECR road between Chennai and Pondicherry. Read more about it on my travel blog, sometime soon hopefully.

The experiences there again left me with a feeling that there are enough resources available to help people lead better lives and definitely there is a huge need for better solutions for their problems. What is amiss is a proper ‘delivery system’, in biz-speak. I’m sure there are a large number of credible individuals and organizations working towards solving these problems. India’s problems are complex and are subject to various factors, but such experiences also spur me to do something from my side towards this cause. It might not necessarily involve reducing poverty or providing better health facilities or clean drinking water as a means to work towards this cause, I think my focus will be on knowledge and would certainly involve the small towns and villages. Balaji again wonders if there have been any ‘it’ moments during these trips that have led me into thinking like this. I don’t think that is the case. I have spent a better part of life in towns and villages of North Karnataka, and that experience has kept me in good stead all this while, helping to keep my feet on the ground. As I was growing along there was this urge to help people as I could identify with them and their problems. It is a culmination of such everyday experiences, rather than any ‘it’ moments that lead me into such thoughts and making such plans. And my biggest strength when I indeed embark on such a thing will be such experiences. There are some in the thought pipeline and some have come on paper, albeit in a very sketchy and a rough manner. Over a period of time, we will come out with something concrete and viable. What say, Bharath?!

Random related/unrelated blabber.

1. Good or bad, lucky or unlucky- I do not know. But I miss reading The Times of India here. When it Surat, it used to be daily source of humour, on account of some hilarious articles[read laughable reporting] and some sensible information on the Op-ed page on Sunday. Not to forget the free sleaze and non-sense glitterati news that accompanied it. I only get to read The Hindu. On careful perusal, it is proving to be too bland and blatantly Left for me. Getting up in the morning is one thing, but having M/s Karat and co staring at your face is not just another thing. Isn’t this what our grandparents used to say when something used to go wrong?! – “Whose face did you see first when you woke up today?” Now we know whom to blame when my day goes bad. But the funny thing is in spite of M/s Karat and co happening to me, my days have been great so far. So am I immune to the Left?! May be because I took the injection on my left arm!

I’m no big time BJP supporter though, but I’m annoyed with the usage with the word saffron with BJP. Saffron as a colour is sacred for Hindus and it not the BJP’s property as well. Somehow my impression of The Hindu as a ‘comprehensive’ paper isn’t quite the same now.

2. Scott and I went shopping the other day. Here’s our shopping list :

Businessworld – Rs. 10
Business Today - Rs. 10
Outlook Business - Rs. 15
Business Standard Rs. 4
The Economic Times - Rs. 1.50
The Indian Express - Rs. 1.50

and

The Economist - Rs. 150 (One Hundred and Fifty)
__________________________________________________
Total - Rs. 192

3. Thanks Sharma and Hitesh for the conversations, I hope I have returned the favour to Sharma and Hitesh, you better work on it well and learn your stuff at MDI well. I want you to be oozing biz-speak bull-$hit by the time you pass out from there.

4. Pandora rocks! If you still do not know what I’m talking about, check out www.pandora.com, I think I’ve almost perfected the Greenday station and with a little more effort, will perfect the Coldplay station. If anyone has some similar things, maybe we could share stations!

5. I think we will start on our full-blown trip from next week. Will keep people informed of our itinerary. If the two trips that we’ve had are any indication, I’m sure we will have lots of fun and adventure, more importantly learning and experiencing on the forth-coming trips. But there huge amount of work to be done before that to ensure that the trip goes on smoothly and we are able to spend more time on our documentation and research.

Update from Pondicherry! - The much awaited post!

2006-05-29T23:10:00.000+05:30

So, what do you want to know?!

Am I alive?!
Where am I?!
What does my job here entail?!
So, what exactly am I doing now?!
Who are Kate and Scott
The office and people in the office
My time till now here in Pondi.
Oliver
Photos from Pondicherry.
1.The beach
2.Sunday Market
3.Random Shots

Yes, I am alive.

I am in Pondicherry. People generally refer to it as 'Pondi'. Now don't start having ideas

What does my job here entail?!

I'm dealing with the Media and Publicity aspect of PlanetRead and
BookBox . PlanetRead and BookBox are now growing and the organizations need regular correspondence and dialogue with media. So, this Computer Engineer is more like the person who'd be taking care of that aspect. So, if you hear about PlanetRead and BookBox and know what they are working on, I'm doing my job well. That's in the long term. You obviously won't see PlanetRead and BookBox hogging headlines in the next few days or weeks. Well, they already have in the past though. Be it at the Google blog or
The Stanford Daily and at The NewYork Times(the link to which doesn't exist anymore) So, my job here basically deals with taking care of the fact that PlanetRead and BookBox are projected well in the media and that their brand value and recognition increase and get better by the day!

To make this happen I understand that there's lot of ground to be covered initially and lot of learning to do, both in terms of understanding of how things work in the organization and how best one can present it employing the most suitable media. There's also lot of learning on being adept in dealing with people cutting across different sections. You can't deal the same way with the kids on the street who you're scared will harm your camera, and the Regional Director of
NASSCOM.
This is where I believe devoting most of my time working with SPIC-MACAY in college, will keep me in good stead. Interestingly, the case is mostly the same at work here. But yes, a lot more serious finds it amazing as to how I manage to be comfortable dealing with different people! Who is Scott?! Read on. But then Scott already knows what SPIC MACAY is!

So, what exactly am I doing now?!

Right now, it's more of learning than working probably is the best learning I've had, both in terms of learning on how to go about things and the people that I'm spending my time with. I spend most of my day working, dining, arguing?!, discussing, wondering, contemplating, hypothezing, debating, shopping with Kate and Scott. Who are Scott and Kate?! Read here!

Scott and Kate bring with them a host of skills and ideas and my time involves picking it up from them and offer to them what I've to offer. Together, we intend to leave PlanetRead and BookBox with lots of assets, human or otherwise by the end of this summer when they leave for the US. Then, my job here involves leveraging on these assets to promote PlanetRead and BookBox all over the world! Yes!

PlanetRead is expanding into other countries, through its Global Outreach programme. Very exciting times ahead indeed!

Over the next two and a half months, we'll be traveling to all the South Indian states, Mumbai and Ahmedabad as well to meet and interview the people who matter in the IT,tech and the media industries. There are famous names. But I wouldn't want to reveal them now. Watch out for the final piece we come up with. Then you'll know. I'd be working with Scott on the field research, the camera and the editing work. With Kate my work would involve working on the communication aspect in terms of making and maintaining the blog and reaching out to a wider audience. My job also involves working with them keeping the long term requirements of PlanetRead and BookBox and how best we can utilize their work and stay for out purposes.

Who are Kate and Scott?!

I could simply say Kate and Scott are interns from the US who are working with me here at PlanetRead. To make things more interesting, I'd say they are students of Brown University which is part of the Ivy League. They took the class of social entrepreneurship under Dr.Brij Kothari and now, they are in India! That's how powerful Brij's interaction with them was! Brij's coming to India in the near future and I cannot wait to meet him! To spice up things a little more, Kate is very good-looking and I get to carry around her on the bike for our culinary needs or otherwise. Poor Scott has to bicycle around while I get to ride Kate around! [I'm eagerly awaiting for her reaction as and when she reads this!:)]

Kate works more on the design, visual appeal and communication aspects of presenting PlanetRead and BookBox's work to a much larger audience from a world perspective. She chronicles personal her experiences and those of people here, in this blog. Kate and I are also working on creating an official blog for PlanetRead and BookBox. Those will give you, the audience a better idea of what exactly happens here and present a human face to its activities. Now, do I write that episode, Kate?! Not now, will do sometime soon. Maybe when I'm articulate?! All this said, Kate has a power of keen observation which I believe is a great asset for a person dealing with the design aspect of an organization, or for that matter anything!

To define Scott, I'll use the same word he uses to describe everything in India- intense. This guy is awesome and amazing. Now, these are again two words which he uses the most to describe everyting here! The energy he brings into everything he does is mind-blowing. Be it when it comes to planning the schedules for the village trips, or in learning more about India and its people, or even it's simply talking about general things.

For sure you'll hear more about Kate and Scott in the coming months, as I'll be spending most of my time with them. All I can say now is that this is a huge learning opportunity for the three of us. Needless to mention, we'll also have lot of fun dong this!

The office/People in the office
The office is a bungalow with a small but beautiful garden and a terrace having a breath-taking view of the Bay of Bengal. Our workplace looks something like this

The best things about people in the office is that they tolerate me. Be it making The Bored Board, or putting up with my poor jokes! The bestest thing is that they understand my PJs and are able to appreciate my puns.! appreciate will be too much of self-appreciation, but yes, people here are definitely the ones I can relate to more than most people I've spent my time with. Ananya is my English teacher here. I get free English lessons everyday. Today's lesson was that using 'having to' is not right! Parthibhan is a 'hand'some cricket player with a safe pair of hands. We soon plan to start a PlanetRead cricket club with him as the President and the watchman and I being the Secretary cum peon. Mital finds me very cute and she's said that some 97 times in these ten days. Needless to say, she is equally sweet! Pappu is one person whom I'm glad to have met. He's one of the enthusiastic persons I've ever met in my life. He reminds me so much of Prabhakar from Shantaram. Everything about him is special, be it his contacts and his ability to get things done, his smile and even his body structure!Say this to him and he'll laugh. The laugh so funny that it'll cheer up your day! We have Maaran Sir, who is like a father figure to all of us here at PlanetRead and BookBox. Vinod's the co-ordinator and takes care that everything runs smoothly. Bobby is our in-house philosopher and poet! Francis and Amma make sure we do our work efficiently by giving us regular doses of coffee, buttermilk and snacks!

Nirav is now in Mumbai as we now have ten programmes with SLS from the earlier six programmes. Vikram, Vinay, Rajesh are in Mumbai. I had a great time with them in Mumbai. Looking forward to spending time with them when we visit Mumbai in some time from now.

My time in Pondicherry till now

It's been almost 10 days since I landed in Pondicherry.Landed?!Well not exactly. I arrived in Pondicherry in an ECR bus in which I was treated to almost a dozen Rajanikant songs and a proper, masala Tamizh movie with just the right amount of violence, songs, item song exposure and perhaps not enough comedy. It was interesting enough to have me look at the TV whenever I was woken up by the person next to me falling on me and trying to become my laptop.

So, I arrived in Pondicherry and not all at sea, though there was the huge expanse of the Bay of Bengal by my side. The office, where I stay as well, is just a road across the beach and I had no problems reaching here. Nirav's instructions were just perfect.No doubt, he's the Chief Operating Officer!:)

I've settled down comfortably here and I really do not find it surprising that it appears to me that I've known people for a long time now. There's a way I connect with people and I guess the connection's just right here! There's a nut who joins us for coffee in the evening, after dinner. Let's she how she reacts to being called a nut! Guess I'll have to buy a Nut and Almonds chocolate to make up for it!

Oliver

Oliver is Scott's very good friend. They've been friends for a very long time now. It was quite amazing that they were meeting in Pondicherry after not having met for the last four months or so. That evening I spent with Oliver and Scott walking through the streets of Pondicherry, visiting the church, going through the meat and the vegetable market will rank as one of the best evenings I've spent with anyone. The discussions ranged from music to markets, politics to culture, religion to education and it was one of the most intellectually stimulating discussions I've ever had.

Oliver has seen more of not just the world, but even more of India than I have, having spent lot of time at Varanasi at the Little Stars School as a part of Where Be The Dragons. He's also been to Bhutan and Sikkim. It was his sixth visit to India and one could get the feeling that he exactly new what it was like to be in India and experience it. The very fact that he was checking out of a very luxurious and swank hotel to move into an Indian hotel is a testimony to this. He outsources animation work to Chennai and that is how he comes to India often. We hope to catch him when he comes to Varanasi in July. But what's most striking is that he's of my age and has done so much more. I'm sure the world will hear lot about him in the coming days, and not just from me!

Photos from Pondicherry.

1.The beach

3.Random Shots

Losing My Religion

2006-05-12T05:17:00.000+05:30

[ This post is about I not taking up a software job and joining
PlanetRead. Read on for details!]

It was ironical (the best of the times?!). It was funny (worst of the times?!). Ironical because it was the last engineering exam of my life and the mail confirming that I was getting aboard PlanetRead effectively meant that I wouldn’t be getting into software. Ironical, more so because the last exam was Software Engineering.Funny was how I motivated myself to ‘study’ for that exam, which was only of academic interest, pun very much intended. I’ll leave aside the funny story for a while. Time for some serious discussion now.

Yes, I’m not taking up the software job I got through campus placements but joining PlanetRead instead. Why? Who? Where? When? How? What? Here are the answers!

What?

- What is PlanetRead?

Well, PlanetRead is an organization setup by Dr. Brij Kothari, a Reuters scholar and an Ashoka fellow. Closer home, he teaches at his alma-mater IIM-A. Dr. Kothari is credited with conceptualizing, researching and nationalizing SLS in India. More on Dr. Kothari and PlanetRead hereand here respectively. Looking forward to meeting him! PlanetRead is funded by Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google among a host of other organizations. Here’s how PlanetRead had its origins. In Dr. Kothari’s own words-
“So I used to watch a lot of Spanish films with English subtitles. One day, suddenly I thought: Why not Spanish films with Spanish subtitles? It'd be a better way of learning the language. Adding text to the audio, you could actually follow what the native speaker says. Then I exclaimed, 'Why not add subtitles to the popular film song programs in India? This way those who had rudimentary knowledge of the alphabets could learn to read! “

Dr. Kothari is also the CEO of Bookbox. Bookbox, again based on SLS is a web based jukebox of multimedia stories for children, and for those young at heart. Try the free preview. Almost everyone, whom I showed this to, was left agape. Chances are that you’ll be one of them to. Simple and so very elegant. Yet, equally powerful and effective.

- What will I be doing in PlanetRead and Bookbox?

I’m joining the PlanetRead team as Media and Publicity trainee. My work would involve lots of traveling, interacting with people, and the media. Publicity, brand building, mass media are the words. Hope you get the idea! Initially, I’d be traveling with Scott, an American film-maker. In the process, I’d be learning how to handle the camera, edit videos and make documentaries and short films. Glad, this’ll help me make better videos than the stupid hostel videos I had done and better documentaries than ‘de Young Basanti’. Over a period of time, I’m expected to perform varied roles relating to the publicity and the brand image of SLS and PlanetRead. Suffices to say that the profile is definitely exciting and interesting, and more importantly gives me lots of scope for me to learn and pick up new things.

Why?

This perhaps is the question on everyone’s mind. Not that I hate software or despise it. It’d be too frivolous on my part to ridicule it without actually being a part of it. I easily worked my way out though four years of engineering. And I could have done the same thing in software. Somehow, the working my way out business doesn’t quite appeal to me anymore. And PlanetRead gives me a chance to work to my skills, my strengths and more importantly my interests. Some more answers to why.

1. The whole concept of technology being used to make a difference to people’s lives appeals to me the most. I was ridiculed when I chose ‘IT in rural development’ as my final year seminar topic. I can probably identify more with that farmer in Haryana whose life has been transformed by e-choupal, than this classmate who just blabbers on some hi-funda tech term while others royally doze off. Ask me, someone who first touched a computer in Std IX and actually worked on it in Std XII about the joy of being ‘empowered by technology’. Do not know what corner of my heart that joy emerges from, when I see kids in my neighbourhood smile and thank me when I let them play games on my computer or when our Kaamwaali Bai’s daughter types her name on the computer!

2. I get a chance to leverage on my skills, my talent and my interests to make a real difference to the organization and the society at large. Yes, I did say the same thing (with a sly smile ;) ) in the campus interview though. But could I really have? I guess not, at least not when I’m crazy about quizzing, Web 2.0, making videos, writing, photography, traveling, movies, current affairs et al. I might not get to pursue all of these with the same vigour, but at least my work would have lots of scope for pursuing some of these. In software? I’m afraid not!

3. The team I’ll be joining. I haven’t met them as of now and will probably have met some of them in a few days’ time. A click on the Team link on www.planetread.com will give you an idea of what I’m talking about.

4. Finally, as silly as it may seem, I get to work in casuals. I remember asking Rohit Shankar (college senior from IIM-A, who's started his woen venture) as to why did he opt out of placements and venture out on his own. His straight-forward and terse reply was-“ Abey, tie-wie pehen ke kaun kaam karega? Main toh apne company mein chaddi pehen ke kaam kar sakta hoon!” . A tie or a chaddi isn’t all that important to me. But yes, I thrive and relish in an informal atmosphere.

5. The bestestest thing, I might get to write PlanetRead and Bookbox’s blog!!I definitely hope I will, once I reach Pondicherry!

How
- How did all this happen?

This again a story in itself. We had a four hour lab every Friday afternoon. During one such lab hour (of the four hours?!),my craze about Web 2.0 again took me on a tangential. I came across this piece on Dr. Larry Brilliant taking over as the CEO of Google.org. There I stumbled upon PlanetRead and the fact that it is one of the only four organistions in the whole world being funded by Google. Silly as it may seem, it was a Blink! moment for me. I immediately mailed Dr. Kothari and he forwarded my mail to the COO and a few days later, I was in for a very pleasant surprise. I happened to speak to the COO in Sanskrit in our very first conversation. Those of you who still follow this beautiful language would understand my joy at such an event. Then a few more phone calls and mails followed, and here I am, writing a post on why I’m not taking up a software job and joining my multilingual boss. Funnily enough, most of the mail correspondence happened during the lab hours. I perhaps made the best use of the a.c comfort and four hours of hi-speed internet. What’s funnier?! The subject was aptly named ‘Internet Technology and Applications’! Our teachers couldn’t have been more philosophical, could they?!

- How did my parents react?

An important question again. Their initial skepticism was not totally unfounded. This was indeed something new. And when their excited son calls them close to midnight, telling them that he has plans of dropping out of a software job and instead joining an organization working for promoting literacy, would definitely have any parent thinking a thousand times about it. I’m indeed very lucky such wonderful and supportive parents who’ve let me pursue what’s close to my heart. I know it definitely wasn’t easy for them. That makes the load on my shoulders all the more heavy, with that added responsibility. Feel a little sorry for my mother though. She cannot possibly say-‘”Mera beta laakhon mein ek hai”. How could she?! I wouldn’t be one of the many lakhs of software engineers Kidding. She’s a very proud mother and I’m an equally obedient son ;) And thank you Sir, for talking to my parents .That helped so much

How was others’ reaction?

To be very frank, not too many people are really bothered. Even the ones you’d generally expect to be interested in something new and exciting aren’t all that keen. It’s fine. Most quizzers, movie freaks, music maniacs, literary bugs would understand what it is like. I being no different have been through this many times. Perfectly fine by me!

Where?

Initially I’ll be traveling, mostly in South India. Might just be at a tea- stall near you! PlanetRead has offices in Pondicherry, Mumbai and Ahmedabad. But it’ll be mostly Pondicherry I guess. Keep visiting this blog to know of my where-abouts and my travel blog about my experiences and my photoblog for the photos!

When?

This is going to be fun. Soon after my college, I join PlanetRead on the 16th at Bombay as soon as I leave from Surat! Such a rush, definitely. But then again, that’s where I thrive. Something like, I did really well during this rush earlier. One mad rush that was!

I move to Pondicherry on the 23rd after a quick stop-over at home. Then embark on the travel with Scott. So much looking forward to it.

Anymore questions?! By the time this blog sees a new post, I’ll already be on PlanetRead’s team. More inside dope then! Till then, nothing more could convey my feelings better than the Red’s lines from The Shawshank Redemption-

“ ……… I find I’m so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I imagine it’s the excitement only a free man can feel. A free man at the start of a long journey, whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border… I hope to see my friend and shake his hand… I hope the pacific is a blue as it has been in my dreams… I hope ”

Related/ Unrelated Babble:

1. Getting swamped by four kid cousins as soon as you step into home, can relieve you of all the fatigue and pain of a continuous 20-hr train journey in a general compartment.
2. Re-discovered the joy of getting really involved in something and working for it. This time around, it happens to be my final year project. The last two days I’ve been totally immersed in Spam. Good mails by the way are called Ham. But bit Ham and Spam are safely edible items.
3. It is a little irritating though when you have Him-ass Reshammiya ‘poke his nose’ when you’ve to really concentrate. It is very irritating when he runs 24*7 not only in the mess, but also in autos, restaurants, tea-stalls. What is absolutely irritating is when he enters your project lab and half the junta absolutely ‘suroor’ him. So much for an unshaven face and a Fevicol glued cap. Will Somebody tell me what Suroor means?!
4. Might just get to meet the likes of Kiran Karnik, Narayan Murthy, Azim Premji at the IT investors’ meet in Hubli. The event manager has agreed to us(I and Bharath) being there to ‘interact with and learn from the dignitaries and the entrepreneurs present there’. Looking forward to that as well.
5. It’s a pain in the backside roaming through this huge campus to collect some 16 signatures for the No Dues Certificate. Can’t there be a centralized system to check the dues. Would rather stay back than get everything burnt in this shot sun. But what to do?! Professional hazards, you see.
6. I don’t have any time for all ‘one last time’ things . The one last trip to Shanivari, the one last trip to Chowk for chicken and Mava jalebi, one last trip to Varachchha: ;), one last visit to each of the rooms I stayed in previously, one last visit to Mansi and Sweety’s place, one last visit to GanGhor. The won’t be any end to these last lists! But yes, nothing lasts forever! Not even the last one?!
7. Last, but not the least least, least is next. This might be the last night-out of my engineering life. It’s 5:19 now and our submission starts from 10:00. How pleasant, my back hasn’t touched the ground since morning!
8. Last but not the least, another list! Of things I’ll miss
1. No miss to miss. So that’s a miss from the list of things I’ll
miss!
2. Garba: Vibrant Gujarat isn’t just a punchline. Come here
during Navaratri and you’ll know what it means. Haven’t
missed a single garba till now!
3. LAN and Internet in my room: Less said the better. I’ll start crying otherwise.
4. My room: esp. the graffiti and the huge rubbish board. It’s worth some $32445435 of information. Quizzers’ delight.
5. The HUGE campus. Walking in the campus gave some sense of pleasure.
6. Lots of people. They have all chosen to remain anonymous. But you know who you are [Joey ishtyle!]
7. [ To be filled later. When I find out what I’m missing]
8. [ To be filled later. When I find out what I’m missing]
9. [ To be filled later. When I find out what I’m missing]

What can exams do to you?! and The End

2006-04-30T10:22:00.001+05:30

1. What can exams do to you?!

Our faculty have some sense of humour.They conduct exams.The fun though, still continues during exams with added abandon and disdain because these will be the last engineering exams of our lives.Exams are also funny in a different sort of way. People become different. The funny ones become serious, the serious ones become even more serious, desperate ones becomes frustrated, the normally frustrated ones become funny and philosophical.

We're generally pretty much insane, but that extra bit of sanity creeps in during exams which makes life horrible for people around us and for you, because you have to read this nonsense!

Ok,this is what exams can do to you

1. You are so hungry and lost, that you gobble of fistful of white powder offered to you in a glucose pack, only to realise that it was Surf Excel. What the heck, it cle aned my digestive system!

2. You go to all neighbouring rooms, crash into the door and then ask the startled fellow -"Mooh me liya kya?!".
That by the way, is an euphimism for "Khaana khaaya kya?!

3. Try your hand at matchmaking on Orkut. Try pairing a long(he's short!) lost school friend( this hunk with his long(maybe she's long!) long lost school friend. They scrappily lived ever after!(But then, Orkut is a very small aspect of a whole new sweeping revolution called Web 2.0. I have to come out with that post on 'Web 2.0 for dummies' with so many people asking me about my obsession,optimism,excitement and bullishness on Web 2.0. Watch the short flash film on http://www.robinsloan.com/epic/. Then probably you'll concur with me!)

4. Go bonkers about the long long lost friend's long long lost friend . The LLF's LLF happens to be a singer and now that I'm officially a member of a music band named '!Xobile', my interest in her was only natural. Also, we had this subject where we had to study cyber-stalking,cyber-crime et al, I thought some practical preparation would do no harm!!

5. For three hours and twenty seven minutes everyday, your only aim in life is marrying either Roopa Purushotheman or Kaavya Vishwanathan. What is the former has now quit high profile Goldman Sachs and joined Pantaloons or what if the latter has been caught plagiarising. They are South Indians, well-educated and look pretty. What more can anyone ask for?!. But then the hunk mentioned above recommends N R Narayan Murthy's daughter Akshata doing MBA at Stanford. Just perfect, a Kannadiga as well. Too many choices, tough to decide.

6. Listen to Stacy's Mom, What I go to schol for, fashion show videos of our college incessantly to get refreshed and watch Family Guy all through the day with Harsha. The show just suits our humour fine. Senseless, outrageous, yet peculiarly funny. Because that is the only preparation for the exam, use the word 'Quagmire' in the exam, go out to drink water during the exam, laugh your heart out on your achievement, leave the exam hall fifteen minutes early so that you could come back and watch rest of the episodes!

Sample Quagmire(a character from Family Guy):

Brian: Ugh, I can't beileve you're serving a three year sentence, it seems so harsh.
Lois: Well, the only upside is that it's given me time to think about why I ended up in here. I guess I was stealin' because I was so sick of the same old routine. I felt like I had a void in my life, like, like, there was a secret hole in me...
Quagmire: Oh God!
Lois:...and I was tryin' to fill that hole with all kinds of expensive objects, and things...
Quagmire: Oh God!!!
Lois: ...and I felt wonderful with all those things fillin' that hole.
Quagmire: Oh God!!!!!!
Lois: I did this to myself, so I'm just gonna have to lay back and let the penal system teach me a lesson.
Quagmire: That one is also sexual.

7. You being appreciating and applauding(loudly,in a coffee shop) fundas like:
The custom of doing 'cheers' comes from this 16th century practice when warring parties after a cease-fire would make peace and get together for a drink. So clear any suspicions of the other party poisoning your drink, you strike each other's glass so that the liquid spills over and you make the other person drink as well.

8. Have conversations like the one that follows on GTalk with Akshay :
omikron441: the past tense for IPOD, if it isnt the word itself cud be..IPEED?
gud mornin
me:that would be music to a centipede's ears!!
omikron441: or a human with bladder disfunction
me:stop bladdering nonsense..
omikron441: sorry peelease
me: shit up...
omikron441: piss off
me: you're taking this too fart...
omikron441: oh yeah..so u wanna go back to crappin ppl on orkut?
k now i gotta goo
pee u l8r
me: pee you later as well..
omikron441: best of luck for 2morro's (toilet) paper

I still have two more exams to go and then it'll be The End
***********************************************************************************

2. The End

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end

Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end

- The End
The Doors

No song could be more apt than this one to describe my present state. In a few days, it'll be good bye to engineering and we'll all be jumping into the big bad 'real' world. Nostalgia's abound,silliest of the things find associations with something in the past. I won't go on a harangue on how these were the best days of our lives et al. Yes, we have done pretty well. Hitesh getting into MDI,Bharath into IISc (he will),my decision of not getting into software(more on this coming soon!) have proved that we are definitely a notch or half a notch above the rest. Personally, I would only say that, it's been one hell of a journey from someone who had not heard of Enid Blyton or Age of Empires to someone who today bemoans lack of people around him whom he could discuss about The Last Song of Dusk or talk about Web 2.0. Will definitely write about that someday.

Tomorrow, I won't be having this laptop. Will have to return it to my boyfriend,Jayanth. I don't have any miss to miss here. But apart from a few other things, what I'll miss the most is the LAN and this fanatstic internet connection!!

A message!

2006-04-21T12:40:00.001+05:30

Can't thank this guy enough. He doesn't quite know how important that act of his is!!

Treat is too common,besides it doesn't quite measure upto the help he's been!!

Help! How do I return the favour?!

And it's exam time now.