Musings ...

"What is life if not just a series of memorable moments..."

"Life is not measured by how many breaths you take but by the moments that take your breath away."

"What is the use of living to be eighty years old, if you can't enjoy the present the way you want to."

"Don't forget to enjoy the journey while you pursue a destination."

While I don't claim to have said any of these, I need to keep reminding myself every once in a while that these are the only wise sayings that really matter in life. Cheers to that!

The Road to nowhere

Venue - Sakleshpur, a deserted road
Time - 8:30 PM, Dec 26, 08
Background - A scarlett red Swift, 4 friends, a carton of beers and coke, 80 kmph, a starry night

A cardboard box magically appeared, filled itself up with 4 bottles KF premium, a 1,.5l Coke bottle and a DSP Black. Courtesy of a local wine shop. The Swift came to a total stop on a small tar road winding through the dark countryside. Paddy(?) farms on both sides of the road. Hardly any space for another car to pass. But it was a deserted road. What are the chances that another car would pass by at that time of the night in that part of the country on that particular night? Well mathematically speaking, tending to nil, nada, zero, sonne, null, cipher. The boot was thrown open. Flickering hazard lights playing proxy to strobe lights. Sony Xplod acting as DJ. The Verve - Catching the butterfly, Porcupine Tree - Arriving Somewhere but not here - playing back to back. Clear sky punctured by a thousand radiant stars to form a million patterns. Total pyschaedelic moment. Fifteen minutes of pure intense heaven.

Verily one of the best moments in the trip. Much obliged guys. Hope we have more such moments :)

Mood - Dave Matthews Band - If I had it all

Random Ramblings

Hmm... Having nothing to write about means only one of two things.
a. Nothing worth writing about is happening in my life. Thats a depressing thought.
b. I have lost the flair/enthusiasm to write. A tad better than the first but still bad.

Need to retrospect. Every once in a while you see days are slipping by and you have nothing to show for it, by that I mean fond memories. Having bad memories from a period is also good, because it means you learnt something along the way and have something to take back. Having nothing is like a black hole. You never want to be there. Even the poorest person who has nothing to eat has a story to tell. But what story does a middling average individual (can such a person be called an individual) have to tell. Worse, who would be interested even if he did. Never be in the middle, never be the usual, the common, the mundane. Its just not worth it. Maybe its comfortable.

My mom and I had a discussion the other day. Everyone wants to get into that groove. To settle into a rhythm. No disturbances. Like smooth flow. Predictable. You can sum it up in an equation with a few variables. No corner cases. No instabilities. Pah! What fun is that. You need ups and downs. Sine waves, like the heart beat, it is rhythmic, but it still has its crests and troughs. That makes life interesting. Unpredictable, change, highs, lows - what have you.

Turbulent flow does not have an equation. It only has an approximation at best.

When you have nothing to do, you think of something depressing. Instead of the opposite. That defines the type of person you are. Your natural tendency. You don't strive to be depressing. Its just who you are. I try to surround myself with people who swing towards the positive. That helps you keep a positive frame of mind.

Lethargy -
Not wanting to do anything. Just stay in bed and not even sleep. But just lie there. Its a horrible feeling. Unless you have had a very tiring week. Never be in that position. Jump out of bed and dance. Sing a song. Tell a joke. Scream out loud. Get rid of that sloth that will eat you up like a cancer.

Enough self gyaan. Don't you have nothing better to do than to be sitting in front of a computer in your cubicle on a Friday night and typing out this nonsense. Point! Publish Post. Exit... Pfft...

The under water ocean safari at Goa! Oct 2nd - 3rd, 2008

Scuba Diving!!! This is the second of the adventure sports that I am now taking off the list of have-to-dos after white water rafting. The other items on the list at present are:

1. Skiing
2. Paragliding
3. Cliff Diving
4. Bungee Jumping
5. Sky Diving
not necessarily in that order

A four day vacation at Goa kicked off on the evening of Sept 30th. A long weekend and late planning meant we couldn't find direct bus to Panjim and had to take the tortuous route of Bangalore-Karwar-Madgaon-Panjim. 17 hours of travel is not a pleasant experience! Only four guys made the cut this time. Krishna, Mithun, Adarsh and I. This time, I got everyone involved in the booking so that they would realize the effort involved in organizing everything. :P That meant Krishna did the research, Mithun did the scuba-diving booking and Adarsh did the bus tickets booking and I did all the co-ordinating between the group. What I love to do in any situation, managing!

We actually landed on the first day of the season opening at Goa. If we had arrived a week earlier, even the beaches would have been off limits due to the monsoon. Imagine the timing! To add to that, we were also the very first batch of scuba divers for this year's season. A trip of firsts!

Since it was a four day extravaganza, its almost impossible for me to go over the trip event by event. I will stick to the highlights of the trip.

Before I even start, let me first tell you that the trip was a culinary orgasm of sorts for me. Never before have I tasted so many different dishes and great food in a single three day stretch. Let me list down all the amazing dishes that I tasted. Every day and every meal was at a different restaurant and each was better than the other. The highlights are:

1. Oct 1st - Lunch @ the Ritz, Panjim
White snapper masala fry plus vegetable biryani - brilliantly soft and fresh fish and amazing masala in the biryani. Mithun had the fish thali from which I also got a taste of some crab meat and mussels curry which were okay, but a pain to break away all the shells.
2. Oct 1st - Dinner @ Jamies - European Fast Food, Bagha beach
('Over the flames' has shifted to Candolim and this restaurant come up in its place, but the food in this place was amazing as well. Sadly, I could not make it to Over the flames this time.)
Calamari fritters - (squid rings shallow fried)
Tiger Prawns - (forgot the dish name; these are huge prawns marinated in some amazing masala; simply exquisite)
Chicken chettinad + idiyappam - south indian combi

Tiger Prawns @ Jamies

3. Oct 2nd - Lunch @ Xbar, Bagha beach
Kingfish Cafreal + 3 tawa rotis - Goan preparation in coriander and spinach. Superb!
4. Oct 2nd - Dinner @ Platain Leaf, Calangute circle
Usual North Indian fare since Adarsh was tired of all the exotic food since he is a veggie
5. Oct 3rd - Lunch @ Capricorn, Calangute Beach
Jumbo Prawns biryani + Butter Garlic and Lemon Barracuda
The Barracuda meat was good, but too bland and the quantity way too much. Mithun's Grilled King Fish was better. The biryani was out of the world again.
6. Oct 3rd - Dinner @ The Infantaria
Jhinga masala (Prawns preparation - An ancient Hyderabadi recipe) - superlative
Bebinca and vanilla ice-cream - A traditional Goan dessert that I even got back home for my parents and colleagues since it was so good.
7. Oct 4th was usual south and north indian fare. If I had my way, I would have tasted three more new dishes at least, but the rest of them were already complaining that we were spending way too much on food.

NOTE: Dont miss The Infantaria, Jamie's European Fast Food, Over the Flames or Brittos at any cost if you ever visit Goa and are a non-vegetarian who likes to try out seafood and new stuff. Phew! I got exhausted listing all that out.

The other thing that I love about Goa is all those deserted well maintained roads. Since we had hired bikes (which is a must by the way if you want to loaf about in Goa unhindered), it was a welcome change to be able to rip on the roads with the wind on your face and no traffic to hinder you. In spite of the rented measly 100cc bikes, it was hardly difficult to do speeds of 80kmph even on non-highways.

Our stay at Bagha beach was very close to the beach. Being off-season, we managed to get a really good room for the four of us (two wide beds plus one extra bedding) for Rs. 500/- per day. It had a fridge, a/c and TV (although TV didnt work) too. The operator at the lodge told us that the same rooms sell for 4000/- during peak season! Thats an 87.5% discount for us! In fact the very next day, he started quoting 800/- for the other customers for the same room. In fact, Mithun's colleagues stayed at the same hotel in November and ended up shelling out 3K per night!

Infantaria had a live band - a Goan trio playing on Friday evening. And although they were only doing covers, the vocalists (alternating between the lead/bass guitarist) had very good voices and it was quite an enjoyable evening of music. Some Austrian tourist and his girlfriend also chipped in with some Austrian number in between and the crowd went mad.

The band @ Infantaria with the Austrian chick

PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) has setup a dive centre at Bagha- Arpora, Goa, where you can not only do dives for pleasure around Goa but also receive the 'Open Water Dive Certification' which allows you to dive anywhere in the world with a buddy. However it doesn't come cheap at 18k for the course. We opted for the 'discover scuba diving' course here, which involved introductory training as well as two open water dives. I think it was well worth the amount (3500 rupees).

The water at Goa was quite murky especially since the monsoons had just stopped and the water was yet to clear up completely. In spite of that, we were able to see a wide variety of coral fish in myriad colours, sting rays, moray eels, lobsters, sea cucumbers, sea urchins and a few varieties of hard and soft coral. Imagine diving at Bali or Maldives or Australia with a dive certification where the water is almost as clear as the water at your local swimming pool if not clearer!

All of us in our dive suits

Anyway all of us came out from the course thinking that we would definitely come back some day to do the open water dive certification.

You can vist Morjim, Mandem and Ashwem if you long stretches of pristine beaches that you can have all to yourself. We saw a huge flock of sea-gulls in Morjim and ended up watching the sun go down sitting in the middle of the sea.

Sunset @ Morjim Beach

Flock of seagulls @ Morjim

The only thing which badly wanted to do but didn't have the time was to go to Dudh sagar falls. I had heard and seen a lot of pictures of the beautiful falls and din't want to miss it. But sadly, we ran out of time...
Overall, the trip was a lot of fun and I dont regret the decision to go to Goa instead of some adventure outing.

Almost Famous!

Tonight, I received a mail from one of the editors of the Bangalore Mirror telling me that they were impressed with my report of our white-water rafting trip at Agumbe and they want to publish it next Monday in their papers. Well I'll be!

I accepted. Lets see if it sees the light of day. Like Anil states, hope its not just some random crawler in the web that came across my blog and played a little joke on me. :)

Bolt out of the B(eijing)lue and swimmimg to match

This Olympics has been significant for me. Not in the least because it is the first Olympics that I am trying to follow (of course I may never have realized if the older ones were significant since I never followed them). Like any proud Indian, I must rejoice that India finally put up a handful of medals on the scoreboard to show the world that this one billion+ nation has some sport left in them.

But thats not of much concern to me. I have been for (and still am in my heart a sprinter) specializing in the 100 metres in my haydays of junior athletics. 11.4 seconds personal best ever is a far cry from the present WR (9.69 sec). I don't by any stretch of imagination imply that I am in the league of Usain Bolt. However, I can connect more with his incredible feat than can most people. It took me four years of intense 7 days a week / 2+ hours a day training to bring down my time from the late 12 seconds down to 11.4 seconds. During the last one year, I hardly made any perceptible improvement to my timing. It was an uphill task to maintain and stay at my best. Usain Bolt made 9.69 seconds seem like a piece of cake. Thats the best and worst part of the 100m sprint. Its over before you know it. Often, I realized after the race that I had just run one. There is no time to think, to react to the situation. From the time the gun goes off, you just run and run hard. You don't even have the time to tell yourself to run faster. It's all over before you can tell yourself. You need to be mentally prepared long before that pistol goes off.

All said and done, its an exhilarating feeling to sprint. I did some quick calculations. 12.5 seconds ( I reckon thats my speed now) for 100 m or 8m/s. . That comes to 28.8 kmph. Thats pretty darn fast still even if only for a brief stint of time. If you consider time lost during initial acceleration or 80m in 8 seconds, I'm doing 36 kmph at full speed! Amazing! Pretty proud of myself. The head rush you get is better than the best chemical high I have known ;)

Michael Phelps shattering all those records in one Olympics. Swimming is the one sport that I pursue regularly nowadays since my torn ligament put paid to my hopes of sprinting again. This is not really a post worth putting here except to remind me of those good old days that I could turn a head with my sprinting. Cheers to sprinting and swimming.

The Chukki brothers, a plundered temple and an 'oceanic' reservoir on August 16th, 2008

The second trip of the 2008 monsoon season turned out to be a trip to a lot of places in one day. After a lot of deliberation and trying to gather a crowd for the trip, the plan swung from Dandeli to Hampi to Chikmagalur to Hogennakal and finally settled on Shivanasamudram at the very last moment. The people were also see-sawing all the way with people like Raghu pulling out because of Varalakshmi and Arun citing a lack of crowd.

Finally Girish, Anirban, Anuj and I set off in a hired Indica with a driver at 6 am from office. Now, my first trip to this famed waterfall was on December 29th, 2007. Although the place seemed not to impress visually at that point of time (we saw two trickles on each branch of the Gaganachukki waterfall at that time. Of course, the first trip holds a special place in my heart for another reason), this time around I was totally mesmerized by the sight in front of me.

Breakfast was bisi bele bath and masala dosa and super strong coffee at the Shivalli restaurant (MTR branch at Channapatna) for me.



The Gaganachukki waterfalls were at their visual best. The recent heavy rains in the whole of Karnataka made our timing to the waterfall perfect. We arrived pretty early and there was a thin crowd which was good. There was a thick mist rising from the base of the waterfall and the waterfall looked like milk gushing down the rocks. I think it would have been even more special if it had been in the middle of a forest and we had to trek a couple of kilometers into the jungle. Would keep all the other noisy tourists away and keep the place pristine clean too. I'll let the photos do the talking since I dont have the repertoire of words to do justice to its beauty.


Bharachukki is less taller, but makes up for it by the sheer breadth of the waterfall. On every side that you turn, you'll see a waterfall gushing down the rocks. If not for the some of the spaces in between where there are trees or vegetation growing, we would have our very own Niagara falls right here close to Bangalore. Simply magnificent! Girish had a Digital SLR from Canon (my own camera fades in comparison) and we spent some time to get a panoramic view of the waterfall using the stitch option. It took us 6 photos side by side to get the entire stretch! (Will be uploaded here once Girish completes the stitching) The places where we took bath in the water the last time was all under several feet of water this time.


We did find one branch of the waterfall where we got close and got a mist spray. Very nice place. I was really tempted to jump into the pool below the waterfall here but better sense prevailed. Currents were really strong and the rocks posed a danger even if I wasn't scared of the water depths. We enjoyed the quiet of the place for a while there.


Posting here a view of the waterfall where I sat right beneath the waterfall last time. No chance this time. There was no chance of even taking out a coracle to the base of the waterfall this time.

A picture of the janardhana idol in Somnathpur garbha griha

We then went to Somnathpur. 40kms from Bharachukki but the roads were so bad, it made it seem like a 100 kms. Have heard that the place resembles Hampi. It was plundered by Tipu Sultan and is now an abandoned temple, but most of the temple is intact. The carvings are exquisite. So are the idols of the Lords. Pretty well maintained heritage site, I was impressed by the beauty of the lawn outside as well the cleanliness of the place.


We then proceeded to the Blue Lagoon island (which is actually the backwaters of the KRS dam) in Mysore. Water, water everywhere. This reservoir is massive! Much much bigger than the Linganamakki reservoir that Honnemardu is famous for. When we asked Anuj if he could swim, he siad, "I feel that I can." We were all bent over with laughter that time. How can you feel such a thing. We remarked, "Lets see how you feel in the water today." I personally felt that we need not have travelled all that distance just to swim. We could have spent more time at the waterfall instead and maybe visited the Shivanasamudram temple where there was place to swim apparently in the river Cauvery.

The entrance to the reservoir is through a private plantation. Before we could enter, an old man with a stick insisted on an entrance fee. He got away with Rs. 100/-. In Anuj's opinion, we paid for an annual membership! Some twenty feet away, another guy stopped us. He also wanted money. We were really pissed off. Told him we already paid 100 rupees. But he said, "You paid my brother, now you have to pay me too!" After much cussing, the chap would not budge at all and Girish sent him off with another 20 rupees.

Of course if you want to swim, which I love to, this reservoir has an endless oppurtunity to swim all day long. Water is quite calm and I am pretty sure there is no danger except for the depth of course. I ventured about 100 - 150 m out, but then returned as the water started getting way too cold in the middle and I was the only one there. Didn't want to suffer a cramp because of the cold.

All in all, a good trip and although there was no strenous trekking or getting into the waterfall, the trip is worth it just to see the waterfalls at their best. To give you an idea, I leave you with a picture of Gaganachukki as we saw it last December!

White Water Rafting? at the Sita Nadi, Agumbe, July 19-20, 08

After a two month break following the Wayanad trip in May, we finally got together again for a WWR trip at the Sita river in Agumbe. While this is probably not the best sites to be doing this, it is the closest, one that we could go in a weekend and come back.

It is generally an uphill task to get everyone to be free at the same time and after a month of advanced planning the dates were set for the third week of July. By the way, this was also the first trip that I organised fully on my own right from finding out details of the trip, book the rafting and the bus tickets. Phew! Tiresome work, but I was determined to make the trip see light of day.

Agumbe is known as the Chirapunji of the south understandably because of the rainfall that it receives during the monsoons. This water is supposed to feed the Sita river as it gushes its way to the Arabian sea forging its way through rapids (or thats what we thought).



Since we had the Saturday to ourselves, we got off at Someshwar. This is a view of the Agumbe ghats from Someshwar at eight in the morning. By the way Adarsh tells us that the hills are not exactly Ghats but just the end of the Deccan plateau from where we descend to the coastal plains in the west. He could be right. Agumbe is just about 850m high which is actually the same height as Bangalore. We initially planned to stay over at Anil's uncle's place at Someshwar but then decided to stay over at the top.

Agumbe has four very scenic falls - Kuudlu Theerta, Onake Abbey, Sirimane falls and Jogi gundi. Of course all of them can only be accessed by a trek which is a very good thing because we don't want bumbling tourists to spoil their pristine beauty by littering the place. However since I was with a group of friends who prefer beer slugging to a three km trek anyday, we had to go the one which had the least trekking to do which was Jogi Gundi.


Nikhil, it is in fact Jogi Gundi and not Joga Gundi like you insisted. Check it up on the net. Don't simply argue unnecessarily. Apparently a rishi 'Jogi' meditated here after which it got its name. Hardly a big falls, but it was a very secluded place surrounded by really tall trees on one side and a fast flowing river on the other. And we had the place all to ourselves. The last time we came here, Nikhil and I jumped off the rock some fifteen feet high straight into the Gundi. This time around, it was too slippery to venture up the rocks. Although the guide/driver told us not to get anywhere near the falls, I usually cannot rest until I have had a dip right below the falls wherever it is. So we did make it there and pose for a few pictures too. Adarsh had the brilliant idea that we should all take off everything we had on. The adventurous lads that we were, we all dived in, removed our undies and even waved them in the air in exultation which was captured on camera for posterity. The difficult part is to try and put the undies back on while staying in deep water since you have nothing to balance on and you can't afford to come out of the water with nothing on!

All in all, a refreshing experience to swim in ice cold water with nothing but nature around you. A delight for the cubicle sitting techie.

Adarsh knew a bajjiwallah near the Sunset Point since his native place is close to Agumbe. Our next stop was there. We quickly became his VIPs and were treated to 58 (35 mangalore bajjis which tasted more like uddina vadas and 23 masala vadas) vadas. With six guys, thats an average of almost 10 per head! We were all confident that it would have touched three digit figures had we not ordered lunch at our hotel in advance which we had yet to eat! Just to give you a comparison, our bajji bills came up to Rs. 160 while our full plate meal lunch was Rs. 108!

This is one photo of the trees by the road to Shimoga on Agumbe which I feel resembles Switzerland, thought to be honest I have never visited yet. This is just to reiterate to people that you don't need to go all the way to Switzerland to experience beauty like this. Its right here in Karnataka.

Dinner and breakfast consisted of piping hot neer dosas, buns and steaming idlis with some lip smacking sagoo at the Hotel Ganesh Prasad. Amazing food! Glad we didn't stay over at the Sita Nadi camp. Would have missed all this amazing food. When we go back to Agumbe the next time, there is no doubt as to where to head for food.

Even the crappy 'Mallya Residency' that we stayed at had this beautiful view from the balcony early in the morning on Sunday. We were initially given to understand that this was a 'resort' which we naturally assumed was Vijay Mallya's. We only later discovered that it was a run down two story lodge. But it served our purpose well enough. We are not luxe travellers in any case. A warm bed and a roof will suffice.

Sita Nadi as seen from the camp. The rafting was a far cry from white water. Poor monsoons this year played spoilt sport and 80% of the time we had to row hard. The biggest rapids lasted a couple of minutes at most. However, the small blue raft that we used for the first half of the run did splash enough water to excite us once every while. We dived into the cool waters for a swim every half hour to break the monotony of the rowing. Our rafting guide Karan from Nepal introduced us to the back somersault of the raft which I was convinced to learn. Once I had got a hang of it, I couldn't stop doing it and this became the adrenalin thrill of the ride. Nikhil and me even managed to get videos of us doing the back flip. Learning how to pull yourself back onto the raft was also a big thrill. I was the only one in the group who could manage it. Others had to be pulled back on by someone inside the raft.


In the beginning all of us were fighting to get the front seats in the raft since that was where all the action would be. Nikhil and me even pushed each other of the boat even before we started off. But post lunch, people were fighting to stay at the back since they wanted to nap! The second boat after lunch was a bigger grey boat which felt like a Merc and we could hardly feel any of the rapids on it. They seemed like supressed speed breakers. Our guide Karan did get friendly with us after a while and told us a lot of interesting stories about the rafting in the north. In Nepal, there is apparently a rapid named 'Dead Man'. Any guy who falls of his raft in that raft is a dead man. Which is how it got his name. He also said that the Nepalese rafting guides are very much in demand for their services throughout the world.

The entire rafting actually lasted from ten in the morning to five thirty in the evening! Thoroughly exhausted at the end of it. But the trip was definitely a change from the usual trekking trips. Around four o' clock in the evening, we got off the rafts and lay down on a island rock in the middle of the river. All of us dozed off for almost half an hour under the warm sun. After that Macy was reluctant to get back into the raft and get wet again. But he had no choice. After the end of all the rafting, we had to carry the raft on our heads uphill for about 100 metres to load it back on the jeep.

As I edit this piece a couple of weeks later, Agumbe reported heavy rains in the last week of July and the first week of August. My only complaint is that if we had gone there a couple of weeks later, the rafting would have given us a better thrill. Oh well, there is always a next time!

Oh, but to create!

I think the biggest rush of all is to see something that you create succeed. To put a rare brainstorm or light bulb flash into practice and to give it shape and to finally see that it works and well at that; nothing gets better than that. It is hardly surprising to see that parents are overjoyed when they see their kids doing well for themselves. After all, we are our parents' creation.

I was watching this episode a couple of days ago on Discovery channel. Its called smash labs. And yes it has to do with smashing up things, and no, you don't get paid for going at things with a baseball bat or a iron rod. (Notice how I say baseball instead of our desi cricket bat, but I despise cricket in any case, so ...). But the point here was to try and prevent destruction from happening. The challenge in the particular episode was to come up with a solution to help the occupants of a 3 tonne car somehow survive a crash from a 300 tonne moving train doing around 40-50 kmph during collision.

You think air bags and you would be right. Put one in front of the train to cushion the impact of the train on the car parked right in the centre of the track. Sounds trickier than you think. Here are a few problems with that:

1. What material to choose. It should take a lot of strain from the pressure of the impact and not rip apart and yet it should be flexible enough to absorb a large part of the impact. It should also have the ability to be compactly packed when not inflated. After considering rubber tyres, basketballs, buoys and white water raft materials, they went with the raft material.

2. How to inflate the air bag quick enough like say 3-5 seconds before impact, since thats how long the train driver has to trigger the mechanism. A tube pump wont do it. And using a highly compressed cylinder of gas wont cut it since the gas rapidly cools on expansion and freezes the raft material making it brittle. So the went for a system which simultaneously sucks in air from outside along with highly compressed gas from a cylinder to keep the gas from cooling off too fast.

3. Air has to be let out on impact to absorb the shock or the Gs. Air valves to release air didn't work. They were too slow and the bag just ripped apart at the seam. So they went for pressure caps which would blow off above a certain pressure much like the safety valve of the cooker. But getting them to blow off at the right pressure is the tricky part. You don't want it to blow off when the bag is getting inflated. That would defeat the entire purpose.

4. How to strap the bag to the train so that they would not be any loose ends. Any weakness at the seams could cause the bags to blow up prematurely during inflation itself and much before the collision.

They also came up with the novel idea of actually pushing the car off to the side with a fulcrum mechanism to minimize the blow instead of taking it head on. Their were several other finer details but even I am beginning to realize that this piece is becoming a bit tiresome. So I'll omit the rest.

In spite of all the preparation, there were a lot of unknowns. But this design managed to cut down from 8Gs to almost 4Gs the force of impact. This was a huge achievement. Towards the end, as the car got pushed off the track, the wheels got stuck and the car overturned, which is not good news for the inmates of the car. But they did absoerb half the forces of impact.

It was greatly inspiring to see this one hour presentation and made me realize that it is all the more vital to create. If we have a job that lets us create on a daly or even a weekly basis, what more can we ask for. Perhaps, thats why I prefer being an Architect any day over a Verification Engineer. :) However, not many chances to create on my side. Looks like that still needs me to pile up years of experience. Hmm...

Wayanad - May 23-24, 2008

Who would have thought that May would be the time to go for a trek. The peak of summer and I was expecting everything to be looking brown and dead or at least half dead. Kudos to Satya for landing up in Bangalore from Pune and insisting that we go on a trek while he was here for the weekend. After several attempts to book B. R. hills resort by Adarsh was a failure, we had no choice but to go to Wayanad. Two cars it was- a brand new Red Swift that Nikhil had recently purchased and Rohit's 'new' second hand Esteem- these were our rides to Wayanad.

I will not go into all the minute by minute details of the trip due to the lack of patience on my part and also because I am writing most of this sitting in my cube in office on a Monday morning when I am supposed to be working diligently. Therefore, only the highlights of the trips will be exposed to the limited readership of my blog.

We started off on Friday night, and inspite of our plans to start off at 6 PM, we only left Bangalore at 8:30 PM. Night halt in Mysore with the notable event being our dinner. We had idli's at a gaadiwallah outside the bus stand! We asked for four plates of idlis and he gave us four plates with four idlis each. My joke for the day was that if we had asked for ten plates, he would have given us ten plates with ten idlis on each plate. Dumb, I know, but that is the level of my jokes usuallly. Four idlis per plate plus masala vada plus tea!Total dinner cost for 10 guys came out to 135 rupees!

We stayed in a very dilapidated cheap section of Mysore, but the lodge rooms were dirt cheap and we only needed them for the night, so we can't really complain. Besides, we also had a lot of fun that night, but that part is not public domain knowledge. Contact me personally for details. ;)


This pic below is a view of the Muthanga wildlife reserve once we enter Kerala. This is actually Kerala's part of the Bandipur wildlife reserve. As you can see, the roads are a pleasure to drive on and the bamboo canopy that formed overhead was a treat for the eyes. Everything was actually lush green because the pre-monsoon showers had hit about two weeks back.


We ignored the signages which asked us not to stop on the way through the forest (supposedly because animal crossings could happen across the road). All of us spent time posing for individual and group pics in the forest. Rohit tried to prove why he was assistant director for Kuselan by attempting to show us his prowess with the camera. This pic here is a great group pic, probably the only one in the trip with Satya being notably missing since he was the photographer for this pic. Notice that the guys without the cool shades are the ones who are naturally cool and don't need any extra apparel to look 'cool'. ;)


I kept insisting that the forest office at Mepaddi would give us trouble. I told Satya they wouldn't let us climb Chembra citing one excuse or the other. Told him to call up the office from Bangalore itself to arrange for permission in advance. He didn't and I chided him for it. We walked into the forest office late morning on Saturday without giving any prior notice. Surprisingly, the officer didn't even try to stop us. We told him - "Sir, we want to climb Chembra today." He said " Sign in that register with your address and you can be on your way. Also add the registration number for your cars." That was it! I almost went red in the face. It was so simple this time! Last time they said forest fire problems and what not. Just wouldn't let us go up. Finally, we did go up and camp near the lake for the night last time, but that's another story.

This is one of the pics on the first stage of the climb. I had read on someone's blog that the climb to the peak was done in seven stages. In Sundi's words, Chembra is an ideal example of a pseudo peak. A 'pseudo peak' is one in which the actual peak is always hidden from your view. You always see some peakish thing and think thats the end, but when you get there, you realise its only a temporary maxima, and the peak lies behind and higher. So as I was saying, we were expecting seven stages of this with the lake at the second stage. I diligently kept count of the stages and kept egging my friends on. But after I had counted almost 9-10 stages and the peak was still out of reach, I gave up counting since it no longer made any sense. Nobody was believing me anymore.

A sneak peak through the fog at the peak from the heart shaped lake or at least what you think is the peak at this point. The real peak is in fact several stages away and probably not even visible from the lake.

Half an hour on the way, we reached a lake that was actually more of a puddle. And the guys were really pissed that this was the lake I was talking about. The guys had even brought along their swimming trunks expecting to jump into the lake. I was pretty sure that wasn't the lake since I knew that the lake never dried up throughout the year and the position of the lake was also different from what I remembered from the last time. But I wasn't sure enough to insist that this was the wrong lake. Ten-fifteen minutes later, we finally hit the real lake and I was jubilant. I pointed out the lake to Macy and declared - 'See, the lake doesn't dry up. I knew it wouldn't violate that rule. Its the law of the lake!!!' And Macy gave a smirk but I had turned out to be right!

A beautiful view of the heart shaped lake from above, half-way to the peak. The weather by the way was absolutely amazing. Can you believe this picture was actually taken around 2 PM in the afternoon!!! It also drizzled a couple of times during the trek and made the path slippery. Thankfully, not enough to make the water start flowing down the path. That would have really made things dangerous.


Some amazing pics again as the clouds closed in around us...

Thirty minutes more to the peak and Satya gave up. He actually would have made it. But the soles on both his shoes were almost missing and he wanted to save what was left of it for the climb back down. So we shed our bags where he stayed on and continued up. It was a huge relief to shed the extra weight. I have to say Satya's experience there alone would also have been equally worth dying for. Imagine being alone on the mountain with only silence around you. Freaky! Satya told us afterward that though we were far away, he could hear us all clearly talking like we were just ten metres away!

We finally reached the peak at exactly 3:30 PM. Two and half hours to the top just like I had promised to Satya and Macy! Macy and Atul were the first to make it. They finally reached the top and declared that there was nothing ahead to scale. We were on the peak finally! Only five of us made it to the peak - Macy, Adarsh, Atul, Mithun and me. We all gave out whoops of joy and I removed my sleeveless tee ( actually its just a vest) and flung it on a nearby rock.

The last time I came to Chembra with NITK guys, I didn't make it all the way to the top. The wind speeds were really bad and I was scared to death. Besides, we were also carrying heavy loads that time.

After that, I did some 360 degree videos of the peak accompanied by my critically acclaimed commentary. It was really silent up there and we were on top of Wayanad. We were on a high, 2200m to be exact! :) (Think i flicked that line from someone.)

Ten minutes after we reached the peak, the clouds closed in all around us and we were actually engulfed in the clouds. It was raining below but we were above the rain!

This was were we had our most dangerous encounter on the trip. Lightning and thunder ensued. Suddenly, Adarsh exclaimed that he felt something. Like something brushed past him. We didn't really understand what he meant or was getting at. Then a couple of minutes later, another lightning strike in the distance. And suddenly all of us felt it (except Macy); it was like some electric charge passing against us. Static discharge happening around us due to the lightning strike! Then Adarsh clicked a photo of my hair, and sure enough, it was all standing up. This continued two-three more times and Adarsh and me were getting really freaked out. We originally planned to stay on the peak till 4:30 at least. But I talked him out of it. Then we all decided to just sit silent for five minutes, close our eyes and enjoy the silence and the clean air. We were in the middle of that when suddenly it hit us again; the discharge, and it was huge this time! Literally like a small slap on the back. Three seconds later, thunder rumbled in the distance. We remembered our physics- light travels much faster then sound. All of us cried out in unison. Macy also felt it this time. We made a beeline for the path and started scrambling down as fast as we could go. It was only after we came below the cloud line did we heave a sigh of relief. I remarked that we should all go to a temple after we reached home and thank the Lord for getting us back down safely that day!

The climb down was uneventful except for this fearsome lad below. Spotted by Satya, a big dark green shiny scorpion, larger than the size of my palm. This picture shows you his fearsome claws and tail pointing upwards in a 'warrior pose' ready to strike. I have to say that the scorpion had actually scuttled to the side harmlessly. But then Adarsh threw a stone at it just to scare it away just in case. Instead of scuttling away, it broke into a defensive pose ready to strike. Even if I took one step forward, it countered by moving towards us. Finally, the five of us (Satya had already passed ahead) had to abandon the path and move through the grass to avoid the big venomous guy. Credits to a dear friend of mine for using some editing skills to remove the blur in the picture. Needless to say, I should have taken the photo in Macro mode to get better detail, but I wasn't really thinking clearly at that point of time.

We finally reached the watch tower at 5 PM where we joined the remaining four people who had not even made it to the lake because they were too tired. Lack of physical fitness and some vices to blame for that. After recounting our experiences to these guys, we made to car and back on our way to Kalpetta to get a hot bath, some much needed dinner and a comfy bed to sleep on after. We did stop on the way where i caught this heavenly picture of sunset. I could only imagine how good it would have looked from the top!!!

Next day was Soochipara waterfalls after getting up really late and a lazy breakfast. Nice falls with scope for bathing and getting some massage for the sore limbs. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves here. Only complaint was that the falls was a little too accessible to the public, so there was a crowd at the water. We could have gone to Meenmutty which is a much better falls and secluded since its not that easily accessible, but of course no one was in the mood for a trek that day.

On our way back to Bangalore after that. We did stop once in Muthanga wildlife reserve since there was a rumour of a Bison spotting. And though we could see something in the distance in the forest, we couldn't say for sure if it was a Bison or just an ordinary ox.

At one point during the drive back, it did pour so heavily, that visibility was nearly down to zero with the rain actually moving sidewards.

Dinner at Shivalli Tiffin Rooms where I had the tried and tested Bisi Bele Bath and Masala Dosa to round off the memorable trip.

Thanks again to Satya for inspiring all the guys to make it to the trip. Here's to hoping we can do atleast one trip a month from now on! Keep up the enthusiasm guys!

Debugging and Verification!!!

Verif work is really not for me. I mean finding out what's wrong with someone elses code is not the most ideal job in the world. Thats the problem with big companies that have poor documentation. No wonder they are willing to pay. Going through other people's s#!t needs to be heftily compensated. The part that I hate the most is when I have to interact with people in US and lose a whole day because they are sleeping when Im working and vice versa to get my doubts clarified. It would be a lot easier forme if my manager did send me to Santa Clara so that I could get my work done faster...

I don't like to crib in the beginning of the week, but life ain't very pleasant at office when you get stuck at work two hours after logging in. And the clincher is that I feel guilty that I am not doing work and wasting away my time cribbing and blogging about my cribbing and hoping that someone will read this and sympathize with me...

True Success

There is only one success in life - that is to live your life the way you want to.

I don't know who said that or remember where I actually came across that statement. But there could not be a statement that has moved me more.

I wish that I had the courage to live by that. There is probably 1% percent of the entire population that lives by that law, at least in India. Still one wishes one could actually practice that and be part of that lucky few.

But it does take a lot of balls to do it. I am mostly bogged down by the money factor. What if I pursue photograpy or writing or ad making and I dont make enough money. What if I am not good enough at it? What then? And however much I may deny it, I cannot claim that I am totally free from society's influences. No one is. If we were, words like power, prestige and status would be truly non-existant. I think that gypsies and hippies are probably the only people who can really live that way ignorant or impervious of all the worldly influences.

Life is too small to waste away only working all the time. I do like my work on at least 40% of the days that I am working right now. Which is actually quite good a ratio. But even then, work is not the end of the world. There is so much to experience, so much to see, so much to travel, so much adventure that can be had...

I have always wondered that it is the people who have all the money that dont have any time to actually enjoy it and it is the people who have all the great plans for enjoyment that dont have the money to do so. In that way, I think some how God plays its hand in making everyone ultimately equal. I wish I could find that fine niche where I have just enough work to make just enough money, yet grow professionally, and yet have enough time to do all the travel and do all the adventure sports that are always on my todo list. Hmm... a tall order indeed.

Ten years from now, I dont want to look back and say, oh well I should have done that and that and that. Ten years from now, I want to say, oh wow!, I have done so much; now its time to take the next step....hmm

Only time will tell. And I hope that I am pro-active and sit up and take notice and change my path when I need to and not just dull my senses and become oblivious to everything and then realize one day that it is too late.

Forward...Attack!!!

Before you think this is some article about warfare and Generals of armies or the rules of warfare, let me assure you that it is not...

This is dedicated to all the forwards that go around in the mailboxes of cyberspaces. Well, not to all the forwards ever sent, I dont even know 99.999% percent of them.

Anyway, wanted to point out a few of the interesting forwards that I came accross.

1. There was one with a picture of a ballerina dancing or rather rotating on one leg in the anti-clockwise direction.

The lines below the ballerina read -

Look carefully at the ballerina. 70% of the people see this girl rotating in the clockwise direction. 28% of the people will see it rotating in the anti-clockwise direction.

You look at it and go - Hmm... so I am in the minority 28%. Interesting...

Then you continue to read and it says -

Only the remaining 2% of the people in the world can actually see the girl in both the directions. They can actually will the girl to rotate in any direction they want!

So you actually concentrate on the girl and will her to change direction. And Lo and Behold, it actually does change the direction of rotation within 30 seconds. I was astonished. My first reaction was Hurrah!, I am special. Then I tried to change it back. After, a couple of minutes, it actually did change back! But I slowly realised that some idiot had actually written the program such that the girl changed directions every couple of minutes and had us believe that we were doing it ourselves. This guy must be having the last laugh. Imagine how many people would have actually believed they were the blessed 2% of the population.

2. There is the ones which ask you to concentrate on something closely and find out something. Then you are looking closely and suddenly something jumps out on the screen and you jump up from your chair and go Crap!. I know that ithis trick has been done to death, but its still fun to jump out of your seat once in a while.

3. Three was one wehre all the letetrs in the sentcene wree actulaly jmulbed up, but you could actually read all the words without any trouble. Then it actually explained that when we skim the wordswhen we read, we actually only see the first and last couple of letters in every word, and try to guess the wordin our mind. Thats why we dont actually have too much of a problem reading the words even when all the letters in between are jumbled up. That was pretty interesting fact.

4. There was one where they had a bunch of symbols on the screen and we had to pick one symbol out and remember it without actually pointing to anything on the screen with the mouse. And I would pick one and the program would actually guess which one it was. And I would be incredulous. Then I would think that maybe some way that symbol was the most appealing and everyone picked that. So I picked a new one the second time, but the program would get it right again. And again on the third time. And so on. That was very unnerving. Never did figure out how the program did that till now.

Thats all the interesting ones I can remember or care to write about at the moment.

And this is a futile attempt at writing a post. Been busy with work last couple of months. Should start posting good stuff again soon...

Stock Market Mania

Recently I got a DeMat and trading account done. So for the last one week, I have been experimenting with trading. Not with very big amounts of course. At no point is my exposure in the market more than 10k. With the recent market crash, most stocks have corrected by nearly 20 - 30 percent and its a really good time to buy right now. However, I made my first profits today. With an investment of around 3.2k, i made about 130 bucks. After Brokerage charges and taxes and such, thats probably a profit of little under Rs. 100 Considering the market went up by 800 points yesterday, this is hardly a big acheivement to speak of. But it still does feel good to have made some profits on the stock market.

A little hand and a Hoola-Hoop

Scene - Mayo Hall Junction, MG Road

Time - around 9:00 a.m. every weekday

I'm sitting snug in the driver's seat of my swift waiting for the light to go green. Its a long traffic signal; so, doing my bit to reduce global warming, I switch off the engine.

A little girl comes and stands in the space between a couple of cars. She brings out a small hoola hoop (that ring through which they can wriggle through and do some tricks, if I am mistasken with the name). An even younger boy, of maybe six-seven years, holds in his hand a rough contraption that could double as a drum for lack of anything better. And he starts beating it. No rhythm to speak of, but just some background music to help provide an ambience to the girl's performance.

The girl begins her performance. A few cartwheels and somersaults. Then she wriggles through the hoop by twisting her body through it (the hoop is extremely small you see). A short forty second performance. The traffic light is red for about 120 seconds. She has to complete her routine in that time. After that, both the kids walk around to each car and tap the glasses of the cars asking the driver or the co passenger for some small alms.

The girl makes a very sorry face. Sometimes, I give in and hand over a few coins. ( Generally, we dont think twice to pay 200 bucks for a multiplex ticket nowadays. But, now suddenly the few coins seems like an amount to reckon with. ) Now, this kid is pretty intelligent. If I hand over a few coins one day, the next few days she wont even ask you. She actually remembers your face.

Now am I stingy, I reflect? A wave of guilt washes over me. At her age, I was a happy kid with no cares in the world and spent worry free days in a great school and cosy evenings at home. At the same age, these kids actually had to work to fend for themselves. To get a square meal. No parents to provide for them probably.

Their courage was admirable. They had no other choice. Or did they? Had they been offered a seat in some government school which they ran away from? Maybe she felt the skills (of education) were of no use to her in her life. At the end of the day, she still needed a meal to survive the night and see the light of day tomorrow. Or then again, maybe she did not even know the concept of a school. I would never know. I only knew that by giving in to her pleadings and giving her money, I was encouraging her to continue this. Maybe now it was ok. But what ten twenty years from now? Continue with this forever. But the next ten years is probably far from her mind. She would probably think as far ahead as dinner for the night. Period. Then again, if I didn't give her the money, someone else would. She wouldn't be convinced into dropping this just because I refused. This was pointless.

I continue the same routine to this day. Sometimes I oblige, on others I just ignore her. Simply because I cannot decide which is the best course of action. I remember the time when there used to be a kid hanging in front of the National College, Jayanagar Coffee Day. This kid would try to extract money from the clientele of the cafe by making up a melancholy face and an excuse of not having eaten for the last twenty four hours. At first, I felt sorry for him. But then, i noticed on the second or third time that the kid was actually acting. He could change between his real mood (which was quite happy and satisfied) to a tear-stricken face in the blink of an eye. He knew from experience that the sorry face would get more takers. This chap was also equally street smart. He would always zero in on the female clientele about to enter Coffee Day. He knew that girls had a softer heart and were more likely to reward him earlier. He would even shed a year or two while he beseeched that he hadn't had a decent meal all day and tug on the girl's shirt or jeans until she relented from sympathy or just to get rid of the clinging boy. Once my friend Satya tried to be I don't know which, a saint or a wise ass. He asked the kid why he was not going to school and offered to personally enroll him somewhere. The kid retorted -

' If you get me something to eat from that bakery, do it and I'll be thankful. But i don't need your advise' - in kannada.

Satya relented and bought him a bun to eat. So the point is, maybe the kid was too comfortable in his role now. It definitely beat sitting in a school and learning something which he would probably see as useless. But I guess, at that age, if I had been given a choice, I might have decided against studying too.

Finally, the point of this article - well I guess I dont know what is the point. I was just trying to fit into the shoes of those kids. They may not be sad and depressed. For them, seeing a meal at the end of the day might bring the same amount of joy as buying a spanking mobile phone for me. But that's beside the point. They deserve more than that. I thank my stars for having had a good life till now and it makes me believe in the concept of Karma to some extent. But for now, I promise myself that when I have more money, I will definitely do something to make the lives of such kids better, so that they can have a brighter future. Wishful thinking, but I have hope and faith in myself to do something good for others.

On a High!

Well, didn't know about this combination until recently. Came down with fever and my mom handed me some new tablet to fight the fever. I don't know if it did, but the combination of this fever and this new tablet definitely gave me a very pleasant high. And its pretty long lasting. So now I have discovered a new and free way of getting high. It has a better effect than beer too! And on top of that, if you have someone special to keep you company and some really good music; well what more can you ask for especially on a weekend when you are bored anyway.

Move over Mallya, it is the days of the infectious bacteria. Fly the good times while firmly rooted on the ground.

NITK Lingo demystified...

With or without the consent of my dear friend Fish, I include here a link of my friend's post where he takes the pains to explain some of the very popular NITK lingo. Strangers to the world of NITK may not appreciate this, but if you are one of the alumnus esp. of the 2007 batch, knock yourself out!

Click here.

I am Legend!

Long long ago, yet not so long ago a piece of history was written. Well, not so much a legend that lives on in the hearts of people for generations to come, but nevertheless a story worth telling on my blog. It was the winter of 1999. It was a big day. For all the sports lovers out there, indeed, it was a culmination of all the sweating out and competing of the last month. All the team games had completed and all the shields won. They were yet to be handed over to the winning teams of course. That was part of the valedictory function.

The three day athletic meet was coming to an end. Now S. K. C. H. (Sri Kumaran Childrens' Home) had three different streams, State board, I. C. S. E. and C. B. S. E. streams. So as you might expect, there was a healthy rivalry between the three streams. Although academically, ICSE was the clear winner, when it came to sports, it was another story altogether. The ultimate test of superiority was the 4x100m relay race that took place between the three streams just before the valedictory with the chief guest looking on. The entire school was watching.

Junaid Khan was soaking in the electric atmosphere. This was his final year in school. This was his day of glory. He was quite attractive; sharp nose and jaw, centre-parted slick hair, athletic build; all the girls were already swooning over him. Not that he was complaining at all. After all, he was a gifted athlete. He was part of the his house team in the team events which they had mostly won. And he had struck gold in all the sprint and field events. It was not too much to say that he was the star of the event. Later on, he would be receiving a sportsman of the year award from his stream from the chief guest too. He was flexing his biceps now and then just for effect. State board had retained the relay gold for the last three years and so it would be this year too. Could it be otherwise, when he was the anchor of the team.

The girls' relay was first. Of course, state board won that. He walked upto the girl's team and congratulated them nonchalantly.

"Junaid! Thanks so much! All the best to you", crooned the girls team.
"Yeah, yeah," he muttered. He didn't need it anyways. But he went there just so he could hear the words coming out of the cute anchor of the girls team. He would flirt with her later.
"Boys teams! Get ready for the relay!", screamed the physical instructor.

Nobody fooled around with the instuctor. He was one with a foul mood most of the time. Junaid got into position at the final leg after a small ritual of shaking his team's hands and a round of masculine back patting going all around. All the drama was actually for the benefit of the audience gathered around the track. Primary, middle, secondary school kids, his friends, parents, dignitaries- they were all eagerly watching.

He started checking out the other two teams. He was upbeat about the whole thing. Taking it pretty casually. The CBSE chap had taken his position and was looking ahead nervously. No sweat, he was no problem. Then the ICSE anchor walked in. A thin wiry bespectacled youth. He didn't even look like a tenth grade guy. Eight grade looked about right for him.
'Huh? This was their best runner, common don't insult me.' he thought to himself. Then the lad removed his track pants and tees. The lad was now dressed in sky blue sports sleeveless and matching shorts. Printed in Bold white capitals across the chest was the word 'YUVA'. A roar went down the crowd. Just in time, Junaid noticed the spikes on the lad's feet. Something wasn't right. Why was this chap dressed so meticulously when he himself was only in casual shorts and tees?

And then something dawned upon him. But he had no time to react. The whistle was blown and the first leg athletes were off the starter blocks so to say although there were no blocks here. Now the crowd was going berserk. Some of the guys were even running along the track inside the field and following the race along with the runners. Baton to second leg. CBSE was slightly ahead. Second straight was tight, but the state board lad did a good run and equalled the CBSE chap by the beginning of the third leg. ICSE was lagging behind badly what with a very poor first leg. Second leg could just about maintain the gap without lagging behind further.

Third leg was on now. His third sprinter was sprinting along nicely. CBSE was close behind. The ICSE third leg was a chap named Balajee, running quite hard and covered up some gap. Come to think of it, Balajee was ICSE's best. Now, why was he in third leg? No time to think now. Junaid started off on a jog in the relay zone and took the baton at 35% full speed. He looked back to see the CBSE guy just starting off. The ICSE dude was still 15 metres behind at least and yet to start.

Junaid turned ahead and concentrated on finishing the race. He would put atleast twenty metres ahead of the second team. It would be a deserving victory. Behind him, the ICSE lad started off on a slow sprint and picked up the baton in his right hand. Then the lad started accelerating at a shocking speed. Within twenty metres past, he was at full speed and approaching him at an alraming raet. By seventy metres, a blue streak just whooshed past Junaid. And Junaid could only sprint on and look ahead in despair as the blue streak crossed the finish line almost a full ten metres ahead of him! The ICSE lad had a tough time hitting the breaks and almost collided with a kid standing a few metres from the finish line. The crowd was pouring into the tracks now. It had gone wild. But not the state board crowd that he had expected. It was the ICSE crowd mobbing the ICSE anchor. Even the physical instructor had a smile on his face. The ICSE teachers were also walking up to congratulate him too. Junaid was embarrassed.

Oh hell, what the heck, it was not so bad. He had just been beat by one *****, the new legend of SKCH. He was a budding junior state level athlete in the making and had trained in 100 metres sprint for almost two years. Junaid walked up to the lad and shook his hand meekly. He got a shy smile back in return.

The lad went to on win the silver in the relay of The Junior National Championships two years later as well as breaking the 100 metres national record at the All India ICSE Sports meet. But no victory was sweeter than the one in 1999 at school with the entire school watching on!