Total Bakwas!

Train Conversations

2011-10-05T10:47:00.000+05:30

Day 6

The day started with the obviously first thing to do. The iPhone 4 was unlocked so that we could use it while in Copenhagen (the phone had come with a prepaid number with a bit of value). The net was down, then came up again and then wend down again, so activation of the phone was turning out to be a bit of a challenge. So we used the time it took for the net to stabilize to pack our stuff.

Once the net was a bit stable, the iphone was activated and we proceeded for checkout. Naturally, now the iPhone was acquired, it needed a cover and a screen protector, so back we were to the Apple store for some iPhone cover shopping. Now we had a train journey to look forward to, heading to Stockholm, so we made a beeline for Central Station, stopping only briefly at the McD to get a lunch to go. We catch the 11:39am train (as we had planned) with connection at 12:37pm from Lund and the plan was to eat lunch in the train. That's when the plan went off the tracks.

The train stopped at Hyllie and then just stayed there for a while. At first, it sounded like a great thing for smokers as they could enjoy a couple of smokes on the platform, but later it was announced that the train was having electric problems and that there was no way forward. We had to get out of the station to catch a bus to Lund, an additional unwarranted expenses of SEK 24 per head just so bus #170 would take us thro the city streets of Hyllie, the expressway connecting Hyllie and Lund & finally Lund station.

We got confirmed space for the train leaving at 1445. All thoughts of food had been lost due to the train mixup, so we stepped into the coffee shop across from the train station. After a wonderful coffee and a banana muffin, we made our way to the train which left at 1500...wow a delay of 15mins. On the platform, we met Catherine and struck up a tiny conversation, mainly about her being a local and we so unbelievably not local. When the train arrived, we ended up sitting in same space as Catherine, joined by another older lady. The lady was going on and on talking to Catherine, something about Beatrice Potter. I slept for a bit and then woke up to find Praveen in conversation with the two ladies. All of us had a nice conversation with the older lady giving me a few recommendations for books that are traditionally Swedish that I can carry back for my little princess. The scenery rushing by the window was gorgeous as we saw snowed out landscapes bathed in sunlight.

We reached Stockholm at 19:45pm, said our goodbyes, exchanged numbers with Catherine and then parted ways. Our first priority was to book seat reservations for the train to Narvik...since the whole trip had been planned around that part and it would be a shame if we came all this way to find out there were no seats for us on the train. We also bought the Stockholm metro tickets, called our hotel and figured out that we had to take Fruengen line and get out at Midsommerkransen (I called it the Mid-Summer-Nights-Dream) station. After we landed at our designated station, we still had to call the hotel as there were no signs. We were told to take a left out of station and then continue a long walk under two expressway flyovers to reach the hotel. This looked more like a B&B rather than a hotel and so obviously there was no one at the counter and we had to ring the bell. After we checked in, we figured out that the place had no food. Lucky we carrying some, but just to make sure, we bought chocolate bars and coke and then proceeded to the room. It's a small room with tiny beds, but when we're on a shoe string budget, you take what you get!

A couple of shots of the Absolut left over from the earlier train journey to sooth the snooze button and we were at the end of a relatively unproductive day, the first since we got on the trip. Hoping for tomorrow to make up for today.

Good night.

Thanx to the Mermaid

2011-10-04T08:52:00.000+05:30

Day 5

I woke up with my phone ringing. I can write about this now, but could not have had I posted this earlier. The call was to let me know that Cisco had just sent me my offer letter post all the interviews that had been conducted. Yippee! The day had started in the right fashion. All I was hoping was that the offer was a good one. Now I couldn't wait for this blasted train to get to Copenhagen.

We were really going through Germany now. The train was rushing past signs announcing Dusseldorf, Bremen, Hamburg, Rutborg. That's when the Danish Immigration folks got on the train...and boy did my passport throw them off.

Firstly, my passport (having been issued outside of India) does not have the markings that are usually found on the bottom of the main ID page. Secondly, it was an Indian passport which was issued in another country. And thirdly, the Dutch embassy in India had given me a 2 year multiple entry tourist visa. It was this final point that had the Immigration folks completely baffled! They kept checking the passport and wondering how I had gotten a VISA with that kind of validity. My passport went up and down the aisles of the train bogey (with me following it dutifully) until they finally decided I was legit and they let us be. It is only after that did I go for my morning dump in peace!

We landed at Copenhagen 2 minutes ahead of schedule rather than the 6 minutes we were supposed to be behind. Despite the rerouting, the train had made up time somewhere and got us where we wanted on time. First order of business was to call the hotel and check where it was. That was Praveen's task. My job was to get some currency converted. After a little local currency had found it's way into our pockets, we took a train to Vesterport and walked the small distance to the Best Western and checked in.

My first order of business was to get onto the WiFi and check my mail for my offer letter. So Praveen was deputed to the bathroom for a shower while I perused the document. All was well, so I had a smile on my face which I was certain would follow me the whole day :) The hot shower only made the day better!

Leaving the hotel, we were greeted with a gorgeous site! The weather was perfect for photography and immediately the cameras came out. Here are a few that we snapped right away.

This last one is an HDR shot of the Centraal Station with the Sun setting behind it

Praveen wanted to pick up gloves for the cold, so we went glove shopping. That was right next to an Apple store where we found out that another store would be able to sell Praveen the iPhone 4 without a contract. The price sounded right for him, so we called up that place from the Apple store itself, took directions and then realized we had to hurry. That meant it was going to be a quick lunch, so we headed into HRC - which was right across the street - to grab a bite and we left the shopping at HRC for later.

Then we headed to the Central Station to catch a train to Islev where the store was. It was quite a long walk, but the weather was a gorgeous blend of cold air and harsh Sun, so I didn't exactly mind it. Got some nice pix along the way. Here are a few:

As is prevalent everywhere in Europe, Graffiti at the Islev Railway Station

After taking possession of the iPhone 4 (Praveen grinning from ear to ear and seriously resisting the temptation to take the phone out of the box), we headed for Nyhavn so that we could take a canal tour ride. A few more pix on the way:

After we landed at Nyhavn, we discovered the tours were not operating and that the harbour was frozen. That felt convenient as it felt like the time was right for a drink. A lovely bar right by the harbour provided both the external and internal warmth we so longed!

Across the harbour from the Bar where we were warming ourselves up a bit

HDR Shot of the bar with the Bar Maid :)

Sunset on a frozen harbour

We decided that Ameliaborg was right behind us and so a visit to the Little Mermaid seemed like an obvious decision to make. It would be cold tho. We would have to brace ourselves! Ameliaborg provided some nice pix, one of which is right below.

But we still had a long way to go and we were losing light pretty quickly. So on we went...and stumbled into some of best pictures of the trip! The colours were so good that we didn't mind the fact that we were having trouble pressing the shutter...it was that cold! And boy, was the wind blowing cold air from the Arctic circle. But at the end of the day, I got some gorgeous pix and wasn't that the intent of the trip in the first place? So no complaints.

It looks like the Chimneys are colouring the sky

The water is frozen!

Finally as we ran out of light and body warmth, we decided that it was better for our survival if we took a cab. It was going to be the most expensive cab rides we had ever taken, but at least we would survive to tell the story. After clicking pictures in sub zero temperatures for close to an hour, I would need to put my hands in a microwave oven for a few minutes to thaw them. The 95 Danish Kroner spent on the cab were a small price to pay to avoid frost bite!

So back to the hotel, a warm water soak to bring my core body temperature back to normal and then we were off to the Hard Rock Cafe for a beer (Tuborg Gould) and some food (onion rings). The guy waiting on us at the the HRC store (Wally) kept on talking about his time in India and how much he enjoyed staying there and how he dreams of going back. He kept going right up to the point where we had finished our shopping and were about to sit down for food. Nonetheless, it was a great conversation.

Now we had to hunt for an Indian restaurant as Praveen was fed up of eating bread based food for the last few days. A walk that led us all the way around the Tivoli Gardens perimeter and brought us right back to the HRC then led us to a street close to Vesterport station where we did find an Indian restaurant with fairly intricate decor. We were so pooped, we decided to take away the food to the hotel and eat there. Praveen wanted the Dal to be made extra hot, a decision he would later regret after he started eating when we got back.

Today had been a tiring, but good day. A lot of walking, very very cold, but some good pix. Tomorrow would be another great day (hopefully).

Good night!

Who is John Gall?

2011-08-26T15:17:00.000+05:30

Preamble: I know it's been a while since I posted on this topic...call me lazy or pretty much anything else you want, but somewhere in the middle I just lost interest in writing anything at all. Now I think I should at least finish the series and who knows... I might start writing all over again. You're good luck might just be running out :D

Day 4

Aah, the day where we would walk around with our cameras and shoot all the things we scouted had finally arrived. It was also our last day in Amsterdam, so we had to get those shots. But first things first: we had to check out. Thankfully, the hotel had a fairly large luggage room where we could leave our packed stuff and head out. Packing our stuff was a whole different affair. After the impending acquisition of tulip bulbs and a bunch of Amsterdam souvenirs, our bags were only going to get bigger and bulkier.

And then there was the Anne Frank poster that I had picked up for my little girl. This was going to be really tricky. Anne was going to have to come all over Northern Europe with me and make it back to India in relatively decent shape. Wow, did I chose a mountain to climb on that one!

Ok, so after we left our luggage (and Anne) at the hotel, we were off to Centraal Station to book our berths for the evening train to Copenhagen. We were hoping that it would be relatively easy given that it was a Monday morning and that most people who had come to Amsterdam to enjoy their weekends would have left by now. Berths booked, we headed out to Daam and then on to the Apple store I had seen yesterday so that Praveen could pick up his iPhone 4. Pity they were out of stock and backed up for another 3 weeks after they got deliveries. So a lemon on that front.

But the walk was the same one I took yesterday to go to the Anne Frank Haus and so there were a few places for some nice pix. Unfortunately, the skies were overcast and so really bad lighting from a photography perspective, but lovely weather for a walk. The walk took us to Konigsplien where we headed straight for the flower market. Both of us picked up a few tulip bud packets and walked all the way back talking about how we were going to try and plant these back home in India and were going to be successful.

While we were shopping for refrigerator magnets and the like, we saw this:

I almost pee'd my pants watching it! So funny!

After a bunch of shopping done, it was time to take care of some other business. Food. So we were back to our favorite place in Amsterdam. Leidseplien! Looking around for places that serve veggie food for my partner in crime, we finally settled for Reyndors and Boy! were we glad. It was wonderful food for the both of us. Once our hunger had been sated, it was time to shoot Leidseplien in all it's overcast glory. We would have to use some serious techniques to be able to shoot it. Thankfully, we didn't have any techniques, so we would have to do with whatever we could. You be the best judge.

Now that our photographic urges had been sated, we had to rush back and leave so that we could catch our train to Copenhagen. Since the journey was overnight, we needed to arrange for food and some liquids that made the journey easier. So where can we find it? Thus started the hunt for Red October (Vodka). Walked around Hobben'straat and walked into a store called Dirk where we picked up some Chakna and stuff called De Reitjer which is stuff the Dutch use to sprinkle on their breakfast. I thought my little princess would like that very much. But no alcohol in that store. Asked a bunch of places and finally figured out that we would strike gold at a store called Gall and Gall which was at the Dam.

So we picked up the baggage from the hotel, got into a tram, landed up at Centraal Station where Praveen stayed with the bags and I headed towards the site of the Gall. Picked up an Absolut (€16.50) and then realized...we had not gotten anything to eat. Luckily, there are lots of food joints at the Dam. The McD there didn't have the Grount (veggie) burger for Praveen, so that option was out. So the only option left was Subway. Picked up a veggi footlong (with everything) for Praveen and a Meatball footlong for me. Then it was off to the races as I dashed towards Centraal Station. I reached just in time for us to put the luggage away and settle in as the train moved away.

I put up my Kodak zx3 on my Joby GorillaPod so that I could record our conversations during the journey. It would be hilarious to watch it sometime later in life. While I was putting it up, the Ticket Checker came in, verified our tickets and then updated us that there was an accident up ahead so the train was being rerouted and there would be a delay of a whole SIX MINUTES! Can you believe that? He told us about a delay of 6 minutes! How cool is that?

As soon as he was out of earshot, out came the Absolut with Coke Zero and Sprite. Unfortunately both of us didn't realize that we have accidentally picked up sweet popcorn, so that was a bit of a bummer. But since we had some Haldiram Bhujia left (thanx to Praveen), we were ok.

Sometime around 10pm, we polished off our footlong sandwiches and prepared for the first Immigration check. That was at Emrich where the nice folks of Germany welcomed us and bid adieu on our journey forward. The last town I remember seeing was Dartmond as I fell asleep awaiting new adventures for the next day.

Good Night!

Beda Gracht

2011-04-01T17:26:00.001+05:30

Day 3

By the time I woke up, disorientation had definitely set in. This was the third different place I was waking up in in the last 3 days. It was going to be more of the same for the next week and a half. Despite sleeping at close to 4am, we were both up at around 9am, desperate to not let daylight go to waste.

We realized that we had not booked the room at the HEM hotel where the package included breakfast. For €12.50 per person, the breakfast was working to be quite expensive for someone traveling on a shoe string budget. But after facing starvation in the midst of gluttony of so many varieties, there was an urgent need for food in the body, that is if we wanted to avoid fainting in the cold. Breakfast was what you would see in any hotel: scrambled eggs, sausages, fruits, yogurt and assorted meats to stack your plate with. Believe me when I tell you that I made sure I ate my €12.50s worth. We made sure we inquired about leaving our luggage at the hotel the next day so that we would not have to suffer the craziness of check out time.

Then it was back to the Westlandgracht tram station and we were back to Leidseplien. All traces of the madness from last night had been removed and the place didn't look like a combination of a football party, a Vegas casino and a Columbian drug lord's harem any more. Today we had decided not to carry any cameras with us. I had been to Amsterdam before and so just wanted to relive the experience again. Pictures could wait until tomorrow after I had scoped the spots. Today was about walking around. And that is what we started with.

We walked to Koningsplien and the flower market. It was so interesting to see such vibrant colours and finally see the tulips that we had missed in The Hague the previous day. There were also a lot of the souvenir stores that you see everywhere in Amsterdam. I saw a couple of things I liked, but had to keep in mind the space I had in my luggage, not to mention the space that was growing with my wallet emptying faster than anticipated. The walk moved towards Rembrandtplien after we heard the chime of the clock tower announcing it was 2pm. Aah, what a sweet, melodious sound! But we quickly tired of Rembrandtplien and we were both curious to see stuff that was highlighted on the tourist map we were carrying. Again and again, the red light area would pop up on the map as if it was drawing us, so we tried to figure out where we were on the map and see if we can find it. Looked like we had to take a tram, which we did. After about 15 minutes on the tram, we realized that we were heading the wrong way, so the best way was to get back to either Daam or Leidseplien. We let chance decide. From the number of the tram that came first, it had to be Dam. Worked out well for us, cause we had landed about 50 meters from where we wanted to go.

It was a strange experience for me, what with all these scantily clad women making lewd gestures towards you and beckoning you to "come hither" so that they can relieve you of the heavy burden of money you carry around with you. What was also amazing was to see them all in one line, them displaying their wares in tiny windows. It almost made me laugh out loud, but I was quite successful in keeping my chortle down.

All this walking had made me thirsty (read beer time), so we headed into a british pub and had these large glasses of beer while staring across a canal at another set of quite pretty women displaying their flat tummies and surgically enhanced assets to prospective customers. Every once in a while, one or the other would find success in ensnaring a helpless hormonal tourist and the curtain would close on that window. The weather meant that I did not have to wear too many layers and not zip up, so the beer and the entertainment across the street was just what the doctor told me not to do :D

But this entertainment kind of gets old on you rather quickly and the next destination was the Anne Frank Huis (that's how the Dutch spell the "ow" sound - with something that to me sounds like a "ooee"). This too was close to Daam, and so only a short walk towards Princengracht. While walking toward it, I noticed the Apple store (Praveen wanted to buy the iPhone 4 since his iPhone had conked off), but it was closed for Sunday (Lordag as they would say it).

I was greeted at entrance to the Anne Frank Huis with a big queue, at least 50 people trying to get in. And I later realized the number of people allowed in was based on the number of people leaving the Huis. I waited for my turn (not something I enjoy doing in the cold, but the weather was more my type, so I didn't mind), paid my €8.50 as entrance fee, picked up an information booklet and then proceeded to see what the fuss was about. A disclaimer here: I have read only a little bit of "The Diary of a Little Girl" and so was unfamiliar with a lot of her quotes. But I must say, I was blown away by the experience. How the secret annexe where they hid for so many months was so tiny, how the entrance to the hideaway was behind a bookcase which had been built specifically for that purpose so that it could open. But mostly, it was about the depth of this little girl's thoughts that blew me away. I was so glad my daughter asked me to come for this tour. It was definitely worth it! I bought a poster of Anne Frank for my daughter as a souvenir from the place and I'm quite sure I want to get her here one day so that she can experience what I experienced.

On the walk back to Daam, I was in a pensive mood, thinking about all the atrocities committed against the Jewish people during the Holocaust. How an entire country went mad. We can all blame Hitler for the crimes, and I know that monster deserves it, but an entire country was complicit in committing those crimes. Something terrible must have happened to make normal decent people turn to badly against a race of people and to treat them this way.

It was close to 4pm and my tummy had started to rumble a bit. Back to Leidseplien we went, and this time to the Hard Rock Cafe where we were quite certain we would get veggie food for Praveen. The Aussie stewardess made us comfortable at the table, chatted about how she loved being in Amsterdam and then brought us freshly brewed Heineken while we waited for our food.

There's a canal running right by the HRC (that's where the photo is taken from) and there were ducks and trash (surely from the night before) floating around toward some unknown destination. It was cold enough to not want to be out without our jackets and so back in we went, this time our food had already reached our table. After eating and feeling quite content, we headed to the HRC store to pick up souvenirs of our visit there. Praveen and I both have a penchant for collecting HRC shirts from all the places we have visited, but I already had an HRC shirt from there from my previous trip, so I passed.

By the time we were done, we struck up a conversation about the possibility to go to Rotterdam. It meant that we would probably get there by 8pm (not the best time to go to a European city on a Sunday) and we were ill-prepared for information on the destination. So we decided to give it a pass. More walking around and then we headed to the hotel unsure whether we wanted to have dinner or not.

At around 9ish, Praveen was feeling hungry, so we headed on the #2 tram line looking for an Indian restaurant (Praveen wanted to eat some dal chaval) and we ended up at this place called Moti Mahal. A crappy dinner later, we were both standing at the tram station cursing Indian restaurants for not living up to the standards of food we as Indians are so used to.

Back to the hotel it was, to recharge our phone / camera / laptop batteries, not to mention our own batteries as well. It had been a fairly laid back day with relatively few things actually done, but a lot of places seen which were prime candidates for photos. That would be tomorrow.

Right now, it was slumber time!

A useful detour

2011-03-31T18:22:00.000+05:30

Day 2

Man, did I sleep well! I went to sleep on one side and woke up exactly that way. No dreams, no tossing and turning. Just a clean uninterrupted sleep...after soooooo many days. I woke up completely refreshed and charged up. Praveen had been up a lot earlier (he had trouble sleeping) and so was the first to head for the shower while I talked to his aunt and cousin. Like every other place on earth, the early morning TV programs were dominated by the Home Shopping Network. We spent quite a bit of time bitching about the programming.

Shower and thermals later, I had a "Dutch" breakfast of round toast sprinkled with De Reitjer, a dutch speciality which comes in quite a few flavors and varieties. It was so nice, I thought my daughter would love it and so was keen on picking it up at some supermarket before I left Amsterdam.

In last night's dinner table conversation, a few very interesting places had come up, especially one called "Panorama Mesdag" where the elders in the house were of the opinion that it was a fantastic thing to see and the younger ladies in the house thought that it BLOWS! We wanted to see which side we would fall on and so this one was first on the list. As we drove towards it, Uncle realized that today might be the day of the big Marathon and that a few roads might get closed for it. Turned out that it was going to be on another day, so we would have a pretty easy ride.

We parked around the corner from Panorama Mesdag and the first thing one would notice was these lovely flowers growing in random places on the grass. They all looked so gorgeous and made for some great shots. I think I clicked at least 20 just standing there :) Here's a sample:

Panorama Mesdag turned out to be quite a revelation! After walking into what looked like a museum, we walked up a narrow staircase and were stunned. We were standing on a platform which overlooked the ocean on one side and a city landscape on the other. It took us a while to realize that it was a painting! As we walked up the stairs, the landscape walked toward us, just like it would in a real setting. The effect was mesmerizing. To further enhance the effect, the platform built in the center had real sand around it that sloped down towards the painting and the colour of the sand was matched to the colour of the sand in the painting. There were ambient sounds that made me feel like I was near the ocean, what with the sound of waves crashing on the beach and the calls of the sea gulls.

The painting is 10m high and 120m in width, mounted in a perfect circle to give the illusion of watching the actual scene. What was amazing was that Herr Mesdag and his team took a mere 4 months to paint the whole thing. What's also amazing is that this work of art took 10 years to restore and come to it's current state. I would definitely recommend anyone visiting The Hague to have a look at this place. It was a truly absorbing experience.

From here, we walked to the UN International Court of justice. It was of course closed and therefore we could not have a look inside at the places where international disputes are settled. The building itself looked like an old church, but for the weather wane on top instead of a cross.

Near the entrance is the World Peace Flame. Surrounding it are rocks that have come from more than 150 countries. It was nice to see that the Indian representative (something that looks like a Shiv Ling) was front and center in the arrangement.

From here, we headed to Madurodam, a place for all things miniature. I marveled at the attention to detail in each building and structure built there, but that sort of gets old and we quickly tired of that place. We could have lived without having seen this.

What was coming next was exciting. We wanted to see the tulip fields and, while we were told that we were a couple of weeks too early, we wanted to try our luck and see if we could spot the things that inspired Van Gogh. We drove beyond Lisse and a few other place to see if we could catch a glimpse. It turned out to be a wild tulip chase and we had to eventually give up. At this point, we decided we should get some peptone in our bodies and stopped at a McD on the way.

What this little tulip chase had done for us was that it ensured we would be reaching our next destination, Kinderdijk, just around sunset. This was working out perfectly for us. Apart from the little episode of Praveen leaving his phone at the McD but realizing it before we left, we were headed for Kinderdijk (pronounced Kin-durh-da-eek) and on reaching that place, it did not disappoint!

The Dutch have preserved this little patch to showcase the old way of moving water between canals. The area had more than 10 windmills which presented a perfect place to take pictures with the sun setting behind them. This is where Praveen and I went shutter crazy! I can't even remember how many images I have taken at this spot. If only the skies were a bit clearer, we would have had some postcard variety shots. But I'm not complaining. I still got some great shots!

What was interesting to know was that the position of the blades of the windmill signaled from afar important events like the birth or death concerning the owners of the mill. You could also see if a mill was operational or not from afar. That was quite farsighted and a novel idea, I thought.

We were lucky enough to be at Kinderdijk the day they had opened for the season, but were late by 5 minutes to see the insides of a wind mill. When we arrived, one mill was clearly operational, but by the time we got to it, it had stopped moving it's blades. Damn you, punctual Europeans! Only then did we realize that we were 5 minutes past the 5:30pm closing time. Oh well! At least we had photos!

After a full day of taking some great shots, Praveen and I were quite happy on the journey back. We also saw an overhead bridge built specifically for cycles so that they could cross the busy crisscross of highways. This was definitely a country obsessed with bicycles. And it showed in the shapes of the legs of most women there :)

Back home, a quick dinner and a family photo and we were off to our next destination. Uncle was kind enough to drop us to the train station despite being tired from chaperoning us all day. Thanx to him, we had a great day! Now we were on the train heading towards Amsterdam, one of my favorite places in the world. My last vacation there (with Shesh) was still vivid in my mind. We landed at Centraal Station (pronounced Stah-soon) and took Tram #2 to Westlandgracht and a short walk later, we were at HEM Hotel. It was quite late in the night, but we had crossed Leidseplien, my favorite place in Amsterdam, on our way to the hotel and we had seen the throngs having fun on a saturday night. We hadn't landed into Amsterdam to sit in a hotel room. Leidseplien was just a few tram stops away and the cold was not going to stop us getting there.

People having a ball, drinking lots of alcohol and then passing out, either thro over consumption of alcohol or drugs looked like the norm at Leidseplien. We had landed late in the night, so no food was being served, so we topped up calories by consuming copious amounts of beer. Watching people around was the fun part. What was great was to see the Amsterdam police putting people into cabs so that they reached home safely after a night of debauchery. That was a nice gesture and only cemented my view of Amsterdam being the best place in world to have a good time.

We dragged our butts back to the hotel around 3am and, thanx to the beer consumed, dropped into the lap of slumber.

Today had been a good day!

???

2011-03-30T14:48:00.002+05:30

Day 1

The day started with our arrival at the Mumbai International Airport around 11ish. As you would have read in my previous post, we had bumped into our buddy from the office at the old watering hole and were well fed before we reached the airport. For obvious reasons, our spirits were high as we walked towards the Jet Airways checkin aisle. Since both of us are Jet Platinum members, we went to the Premier checkin counter, tossed in our bags and then checked for the possibility of an upgrade. We had to give 3 upgrade vouchers each and, lo and behold, we were flying into Brussels in Business Class!

After checkin, it was Immigration and Customs. Collectively, the both of us were carrying the following:

Three SLRs (2 D90s and a D200)
Five lenses (12-24mm, two 18-105mm, 50mm f/1.8 and a 70-300mm)
Two Video Cameras (Kodak zx3 Sport and FujiFilm XP10)
Four Tripods (two Nikon, one Joby Gorillapod and one Sony)
Three phones (two iPhones and a Nokia)
One laptop (MacBook Pro)

Thanx to a suggestion by Abhin Patel at the office, we had taken a printout of a list of serial numbers for all our gadgets. The Customs officer was surprised to see so much equipment come out from our backpacks. It was interesting to note his expression as he asked us what we do and whether we were photographers by profession. Then it was the lounge and then time to board the flight and get our vacation underway.

Now you need to know this about Jet Business Class...it rocks! The seat flattens out like a bed, they give you a night suit for you to change in, there's a nice flat screen TV for you to watch movies (if you are so inclined), there's a plug point where you can charge your hungry iPhone. And they serve Glenfiddich. Perfect.

So I watched "The King's Speech" while sipping my scotch and then ate a bit, just enough to make me hit the snooze button hard. The flad bed seat helped to get me a decent sleep and I woke up completely charged and pumped to begin our journey within Europe. After waking, it was time to wear my thermals and get ready for cold weather.

Immigration within Brussels (or should I say, the EU) was a breeze. Just a stamp on the passport and we were off. We headed towards the place that has a train connection to Bruxelles Centraal Station. To our dismay, our Eurail passes worked for all the other trains but not the connection between the airport and Centraal, the thieves! So it was a small amount (rolling my eyes here) of €5.40 per person to get us to Centraal. The journey was a revelation in the amount of graffiti that exists in Brussels, especially around the train tracks. Not a single area on the trip was sans graffiti.

After arriving at Centraal, the hunt was first to get to a luggage locker. Obviously, we didn't want to lug our bags around town. To check on this, we went into the International trains reservations area where we got our Eurail Pass stamped and our passports checked and then were told that, thankfully, the luggage lockers were just a floor below where we were. So €4 for the locker and we had stowed most of our luggage and were free to roam about.

As soon as we stepped out of Centraal, we were greeted by a nice Citibank logo. Cash withdrawn, we were ready for what Europe had in store for us. We had seen a (I) sign that meant "Tourist Information" which pointed down the street and gave as directions "right next to the hotel opposite Centraal". So we walked up and down the street, yeah the weather was cold but not that much, and couldn't see the (I) sign. The nearby coffee shop looked very inviting plus that seemed to be the best thing to walk around with on a cold day. Into the coffee shop we went where we got directions on where we "might" find the (I). And so we walked down that road and came to this place:

Can you see the (I)? We couldn't...and there were no signs. but the place looked very pretty, despite the muggy grey skies. So we stayed there taking pictures and during one particular composition, we saw it! The (I), in case you are going there, is on the ground floor of that huge cathedral like building you see on the left. So we got information about how to get to the Hergé museum, found out that Brussels has no Hard Rock Cafe (the pathetic city) and a set of maps we could use.

Back to Centraal to catch a train to Louvain La Neuve (or LLN as they mercifully call it) which we realized is a University town, 45 minutes by train from Centraal. This is where the Tintin museum is located and that was our first stop.

The tour was nice. They had these little iPod Touch based audio guides that explained the tour and the significant things on the walk. That made the entire experience very silent within the museum. You could see Hergé doing his earlier drawings, expanding his team when he started doing the books in colour and a lot of paraphernalia associated with the Tintin books. It was a nice thing to see for someone who has always been a big Tintin fan.

By the time we finished with the museum, it was almost 4pm CET and we were quite hungry. Hitch is that Praveen is a vegetarian, so we had to look for a place that served veggie food. Finally we zoned in on a local burger joint (called Quick) where I hogged down two large burgers to sate my hunger. Back to the station we went. On the station, as we were waiting for the train to take us back to Centraal, I looked across the platform and I could see Praveen's reflection on the train window. Moving a bit, I could see me as well. And I thought "hey, that's a cool picture", so I asked him to stay where he was and then after a couple of experiments, I got this shot:

I thought it was quite cool!

In the train back, there was this lady sitting diagonally across from me who was sketching this wonderful superhero like character. She was doing a real good job, unfortunately I could not get close enough with my 12-24mm lens and could just about get there with Praveen's 18-105mm, but her hand would get in the way. I think Praveen still has a lot of those pix and I will put one of them up here later.

Back to Centraal and a bit of looking around. Clicked a few pix, but nothing great. Sat in a bar near Centraal having local beer and checking the next train to DenHaag, which was our next stop on the trip. The train was to leave Bruxelles Midi at 6:18pm and we had to make a call whether or not to take that one or to wait for the one an hour later. We decided on taking the 6:18 which meant it was going to be a mad dash. Rush to the luggage locker, flash the bar code receipt, take our stuff out, rush to the platform, board the train during what seemed to be rush hour, get off at Bruxelles Midi, rush to platform 8 (I think) just in time to see that the train is there and will leave in 7 minutes. Perfect! Only problem was, in all this rush we had forgotten to pee. So now the hunt for the loo was priority.

Every toilet we looked at was non-functional, which was soon going to pose a serious problem. On top of that, we were having beer that we bought on the train (Heineken and Palm) which was aggravating the problem. In some time, I was going to reach crisis levels and so was Praveen. Then an announcement came on the train's PA system telling us that only 2 toilets in the whole train were functioning and their locations were on the two extremes of the train. So we both crossed two whole bogeys (one at a time, of course) to relieve ourselves and return to the beer cans and the Bhujiya that Praveen had carried (lifesaver).

Now I know I have mentioned graffiti before, but you have no idea how much there was. The funniest moment was when Praveen spotted a train which had "???" painted right above the driver's cockpit! A train which doesn't know it's destination?!?! :D

In the same bogey, sitting on the other side of the bogey with two ladies was an elderly gentleman who started a conversation with us about photography. They too were taking the train to The Hague and were colleagues who had some business in Brussels. He was one boisterous guy, I should say. It was fun talking to him. Even while taking a picture of him, he insisted he wear his "signature" which was this black felt hat he wore. Time flew as we talked to him.

Two hours and a few minutes later, we were standing on DenHaag station, realizing that we were standing in the 3rd country that day! And right there on the platform was Praveen's cousin waiting to pick us up. Her dad had parked a bit further from the station and it was a short walk. I was pleasantly surprised to see him drive a Toyota Prius and was quite thrilled to sit in the car. The more I sat in that car over the space of 24 hours, the more I liked it. I think I will pick that one up as my next car.

We stayed that night with Praveen's relatives. They were very warm and made a lot of effort to make us feel comfortable. Both the daughters gave up their bedrooms for us, which must not have been a pleasant experience for either of them as they had to sleep elsewhere. To add to it, the mercury had dropped even further and the forecast of Amsterdam being at 8˚C looked completely wrong. I think it was closer to 0˚, but I really didn't want to check out the temperature scale. A light dinner, conversations about where we should go the next day (a lot of great suggestions), some freshening up and it was time for slumber.

It's so good to get into cozy warm covers when the outside temperature is so low. Was just hoping that I sleep well, mainly cause I had not slept well for a while. I didn't know the extent to which I would sleep.

It had been a fairly eventful Day 1.

Boulevard of A Broken Dream

2011-03-29T16:44:00.000+05:30

As you would have read from the previous post, my buddy Praveen and I were heading to Northern Europe towards the Arctic region to see the Northern Lights. This was a trip 11 months in the making and was supposed to be one of the tick marks on our "Things to see in life" list.

The map here is an illustration of the ground we would cover in order to get to Tromso, the theatre at which we had bought tickets to watch one of the greatest natural shows on earth.

After a week of meandering through some of the nicest cities in Northern Europe, we would land in Tromso only to be greeted by foul weather that only got worse. Cloud cover everywhere, snow, rain, muggy climate and cold as hell. We wondered how we were going to get a glimpse of Aurora and her majesty in this weather. The perpetual optimists we are, we kept our hopes high. We had hired the services of an "Aurora Hunter", someone who knew the best spots around Tromso and the northern part of Norway to see the magical lights. All we could do now was to put our faith in the skills and the experience of this Aurora Superhero. In the end, the weather was this Superman's Kryponite! He cancelled the tour at the last minute citing bad weather and a mystery virus that he had contracted just that day. So we were left with nothing to gaze at but the cloudy evening sky from the confines of our room. We had braved bitter cold only to be left out in the cold when it came to the reason we were there in the first place.

This blog post marks the first in a series of posts (one for each day) on the things that we did, the places that we visited and the route we followed.

The only reason I am putting this up is that some people may benefit from our misfortune and find this information useful while planning their own trips.

Serendipitous

2011-03-10T22:56:00.000+05:30

That's the only way to describe this situation.

Praveen and I are heading to the airport to catch the late night jet flight to Brussels (YEA!!!) and we decided to catch a drink & some dinner before the flight at our old Sun Mumbai watering hole, Maharaja. This is a place that, once upon a time, was full of Sun folks at the end of a largely exhausting day. This was a place where we all came to drown our sorrows, even tho ours sorrows were accomplished Olympic level swimmers. But I digress here.

We landed at Maharaja hoping to see someone from the old gang busy banging away their glasses on the worn wooden tables. Instead, we were greeted by a room full of strangers an not a single known person in sight.

As we stepped out for a breath of fresh air after leaving our bags at the table, we bumped into Sri Bobby, our very own Sun veteran and buddy. And he was there only because his Travelhouse driver was still having dinner, so our man decided to have a "paan" at the paan shop near Maharaja.

And he bumps into us!

And he's staying at the Maratha...which is right next to the international airport!

And he can help us get something from the Maratha that we have been trying to get before we leave!

And he can help us with our return journey as well!

Now you tell me if there is a better word to describe this situation than Serendipitious! :)

Sent from my iPhone

I can Bore(alis) you all now :)

2011-03-09T14:11:00.000+05:30

It's finally here. All the I's dotted and T's crossed!

Here is a trip the planning for which started eleven months ago, in the month of April last year. And the germ came quite accidentally, like all good things.

My buddy Praveen got a mail from his friend with a picture of the Aurora Borealis, a natural phenomenon which I'm told looks way better in person than it does in pictures...and it looks absolutely WICKED in pictures! So he turns around to show the picture to me (both of us being photography buffs) and says "I want to see this one day". And I reply "so do I". And right there began the plans to get here.

With research suggesting that the best time to see it is at the summer equinox, we had a date around which we could plan our schedule around. So the flight tickets were booked as far back as the 1st of June last year. And from that time on, a schedule & an itenary emerged.

After months of planning, anticipation, shopping and excitement, the day has finally arrived. Praveen and I are headed to the Northern parts of Europe for a trip that we have been waiting for for a long LONG time!

We are landing into Brussels (thank you Jet Privelege Miles), then it's all Eurail from there.

Brussels - Rotterdam - Amsterdam - Copenhagen - Stockholm - Tromso - Oslo - Bergen - Oslo - Brussels

Both of us are planning to take a whole lot of pictures and video and see if we can stitch a travelogue together, maybe even a trip video. What I will try to do is to post a blog every day or every other day to recount whats happened. So keep posted :)

That's all. Wish us luck. And hope the trip goes smooth with as much fun as possible.

Au Revoir!

Friday and Saturday were a Sinday

2011-02-26T19:36:00.000+05:30

Oh Alcohol, thou art a heartless bitch!

The day had already started well on Friday, what with me forgetting my wallet at home and in general being an ass. But the evening turned out quite differently. Dad had left for Mumbai in the morning to make sure he was in town to celebrate his grandson's 3rd birthday, so we took the opportunity to invite a few friends over for booze, food and fun.

It started off with me and my buddy finishing almost the entire bottle of scotch while playing a few spirited hands of Teen Patti. The drinking session took us well past 2:30am at which time we decided it was time to eat before we all feel asleep in the living room. That led to a hogging session of some delectable food and eventually dropping off into the lap of slumber.

Unfortunately, the bladder has a mind of its own and wanted me to know that it didn't care whether I had slept enough or not. Thanx to it, I was up at 9am, wishing the watch was telling me the wrong time. But up I was. Then a bit of breakfast and all of a sudden, it was time for some beer and meat balls. Perfect saturday. And to put icing on the cake, there were fresh crabs cooked in my favorite Goan style which capped off another super weekend day. All that was required was to take some time of for siesta, but that was spent setting up my friend's iPad (I'm jealous, but am still waiting for v2).

Evening was spent catching up with another buddy so that we could complete some things that we have planned and which are coming up at the speed of light now. A few more drinks.

It truly has been a Sinday thus far. And it's not even Sunday! :D

What will tomorrow bring?

MuaaHaaaHaaa

2011-02-25T16:32:00.000+05:30

Did a super stupid thing this morning. In my rush to get out of the house, I forgot my wallet at home! And that meant I had no money, no badge to get into the office, no driving licence, no identity card and no credit card. Not even my emergency money. YIKES!

So had to be careful not to get into any situation where my ID would be required or where I would have to pay. Made it safely to office and borrowed money from a buddy to keep me going for a day.

Here's the kicker. Had to go with another buddy to pick up a HDD and an SD card so that I can help him hack his Wii. Got a super deal on a 4GB CF card for the D200 at home :D Ended up saving more than Rs 1200 :D

It's been a good day, considering.

Mua Haa Haa! :D

Disconnected in a connected world

2011-02-24T14:04:00.001+05:30

I can't speak for everyone, but I sure have gotten used to being connected all the time. Right from my morning session on the throne, my phone is my conduit to the world. Getting thro emails and catching up on sports news is essential for a good morning download for me.

And the net follows me from that moment on. For that reason, I was one of the people to sign up for 3G services from Airtel the day they launched. I need my network and I need it now.

What I have got instead is a crappy network which keeps bouncing between 3G and Edge and in the process, is screwing up my phone battery life! And to make matters worse, my office network is misbehaving with me. Can't even open the google page, that's how bad it is.

After getting used to being on the network all the time, this disconnection is unnerving. It is really getting to me.

Sent from my iPhone

I love my Nikon

2011-02-23T02:30:00.000+05:30

I accidentally came across a feature Nikon put into my camera.

Now I have been celebrating the one big difference between Nikon and Canon cameras. Nikonians are used to having a separate dial to twiddle both aperture and shutter speed separately. On Canon bodies, there's a dial for shutter speed, but you have to set up aperture thro the LCD screen at the back.

When I last looked thro my viewfinder, I wanted to increase the shutter speed to take the picture. Instead, I noticed that the change was happening to the ISO!

Huh?!?

Was I missing something?

And then I realized...I was in Aperture Priority mode! And I usually shoot in Manual Mode, hence had completely missed this. So I tried doing the same thing in Shutter Priority mode...lo and behold, the aperture dial had become the ISO dial!

Oh Nikon, I love you so much. You are so thoughtful.

I love my D90!

Sent from my iPhone

Stop calling it 26/11

2011-02-22T12:56:00.004+05:30

Start calling it 26/11/08.

Yes, it's been that long. The tragedy to hit Mumbai in the November of '08 happened in '08. And we are in '11. That's right. It's more than 2 years and the case is still open. The wheels of justice are still creaking towards a judgement.

Just imagine. A criminal accused of the most heinous crimes, against whom there is enough evidence, who has been captured on surveillance cameras with an assault rifle in his hand, who shot The-Force-only-knows how many people, who was part of a group of terrorists who launched an unprovoked attack on innocent people, who was part of a group responsible for the killing of more than 160 people and many more injured. This criminal is still alive and justice has not yet been served.

Just imagine. When there is a mountain of evidence against someone and it still takes more than 2 years for justice to be served, what hope does the common man have? What about the millions of property disputes, the millions of oppression cases, the millions of rape and murder cases, the millions of tax fraud cases, the millions of simple cases that the ordinary citizen files in the hope that the law will protect him? What about the people?

Like in the movie "Damini", the character played by Sunny Deol was spot on. People who come for justice from the legal system only end up getting dates of postponement. A simple case drags on for years, even decades. People end up giving their legal cases to their children as an inheritance. How criminally negligent is that?

Is there nothing that can be done to correct this system? Is there nothing that can be done to correct one of the most fundamental tenets of democracy in the largest democracy in the world? Is there no one who will make a stand?

What hope is there for the rest of us if Ajmal still hides behind the law after killing so many people?

Are we only to watch movies like "Who killed Jessica" where all we can see is that the justice system can be perverted to favour one person? That the only time action will be taken is when the people get upset and stage protest?

The Indian Penal Code, I think, is suffering from Penile Dysfunction and needs a pill like Viagra to get it away from the impotent farce it has become.

Stop calling it 26/11. It loses context. The Americans called their tragedy 9/11 because quicker than anything, they had invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban. We need to start calling our tragedy with the full date. Only then will we realize that it is taking far too long for justice to be served.

Stop calling it 26/11. Start calling it for what it is. 26/11/08.

It's been more than 2 years...

What illness and boredom will do

2011-02-21T13:44:00.002+05:30

I thought I was getting back in the habit of posting once every day. Blogger was now part of my "always open" tabs. I thought I was back. Guess what? I was wrong.

Had a round of golf and then a drinkie session with my buddies and then came back and tanked. Was out cold! Two day of non stop coughing and another two days without a voice, not to mention a few lost kilos somewhere, not that I needed to lose them. Then a ray of hope and my body started to come back. I could feel the strength coming back, a sense of a vague memory of my appetite. And that gave me the overconfidence to agree to go for a movie with friends.

Aah, the misery of being unwell. Can't eat my favorite movie snack (Popcorn) because the salt aggravates my cough and can't have my diet coke to sip cause it hurts my throat. And to add salt to serious illness, I picked up an eye infection to boot. My immune system, already battered and bruised, could not take it any more. I could almost hear the Scotty in my USS Enterprise of a body screaming "I'm givin her all she's got, Captain. I cannae give any more". And so the Romulans were pummeling my poor body from inside.

Another week wasted. Sigh!

After I'm back, it takes a bit of time to get the clock reset and to restart the engines. This time the engines had been out cold for a while and so took longer to get to optimum operating temperature. Therefore the lag.

Here's hoping to more post on - fingers crossed - a daily basis. Stay tuned for more Bakwas to follow.

Running late

2011-01-10T17:05:00.002+05:30

I recently observed that my Omega Speedmaster was losing time on a consistent and measurable basis.

I originally attributed it to my habit of changes watches every now and then depending on my mood on that day and the attire I would wear. This would mean that I would not be wearing the Omega for a day or so and that must be the cause for the loss of time. So I did an experiment where I wore the watch every single day for three months...did not even take it off during the night as is my usual practice.

Guess what? It lost 15 minutes over those 3 months. That's 5 minutes every month. 20 seconds every day. That sounded completely unacceptable to me. So I went to Rodeo Drive where I bought the watch in the first place and asked their service center to have a look at it. It was indeed 20 seconds off and they very kindly reset it for me. But here was the surprise for me. I was told that even a very good quality Automatic Chronometer has a +6/-4 second tolerance!

I did not know that! To confirm, I went hunting on the Internet to check if that was the case. And it turns out, it is indeed the case. So I have to get used to the idea of correcting the time on my watch every few months.

Felt a little disappointed after the whole deal. Oh well...the choices we like to make!

Bald (again) or Pony tail (again)

2011-01-10T13:28:00.002+05:30

This is the question on my mind right now.

Have been considering shaving my pate and go back to a glistening top...but then I realize that my hair is currently at the point where in a few months, I will be in the position to start tying them in a pony tail. So it's a call between Bald and Pony Tail. Between B and P.

To B or not to B. To P or not to P. Those are the questions.

On the one hand, I long - no pun intended here - for my pony tail. I miss the head banging with the music and the feel of tresses on my shoulder. I just love the feeling of long hair. But on the down side, I end up losing a lot of hair and it only precipitated my predisposition towards balding, albeit gracefully.

On the other hand, the bald feel is very soothing. Very very low maintenance and just about nothing to do. Not to mention the velvet feel as the hair starts to grow back. And the really cool feeling on the golf course as the wind rushes over my head.

So am caught in a quandry. To B or to P. And I'm not sure which route I'm going to take.

Decisions...decisions...

My experiments with the truth (about 3G)

2011-01-07T11:32:00.003+05:30

As you will have read before (how presumptuous of me to think anyone reads this drivel), I recently got a Tata DoCoMo pre paid connection to test both their network and their 3G performance claims. This was driven mainly by my frustrations with the Airtel network and the number of call drops I was experiencing.

So for the last couple of days I was using predominantly my DoCoMo connection to make calls and browse the network. The first day, the performance looked pretty good. Not blazingly fast, mind you, but fast enough. I downloaded the speedtest app for the iPhone to see what speeds I was getting. The very first evening, I got a 2.1Mbps download speed and a 512k upload. That looked nice enough. But a day later, those numbers had dropped to 1.1Mbps and 127k. Still respectable, but a marked drop from the earlier state.

Here's the problem tho. Speed tests are fine as they are, but the real test is in loading times of pages that I frequent. One such page is the Google News Sports page (UK edition) so that I can catch up with the latest in the world of the Barkleys Premier League. For the last couple of days, the time it takes to load that page is almost the same as my Airtel connection on Edge. Not the best selling point for 3G.

Forget being able to make voice calls and watch streaming videos, I was having problems with basic browsing at an acceptable speed. Very disappointing, I must say. I tried only once to load a Youtube video over 3G and the amount of time it was taking to buffer the video turned me off and I gave up pretty quickly. Now this is not an indictment of the 3G technology, cause I have seen people in Seoul watch live TV being streamed to their cell phones. So I know the technology works. Just the the 3G service of DoCoMo sucks! So does their cell reception. I can't catch a signal in our office basement (and I can with Airtel). So overall it has been a disappointing trail. Oh well, I will just have to move to some other provider after my prepaid amount runs out.

Bits in the air

2011-01-05T16:05:00.002+05:30

I felt like the total geek I am when I was setting up the spanking new D-Link Dual Band Wireless N router, the Apple TV and the HDMI hub. The satisfaction after setting it up was immense. Made all the effort to consolidate and digitize my media these last few months worth it.

First up, the wireless router. Now being the super anal person I am, I had to set up the wireless network EXACTLY as I want it. No default settings would do. But to do that, I had to login to the router for administration. The Quick Start leaflet that came with the router mentioned that the username for the administrator is "Admin". Nope, the router refused to log me in. Then I tried "admin" and voila! it worked. Set up both the bands and now it was time to setup the Apple TV.

The setup is unsurprisingly simple...typical Apple. A couple of clicks using the included remote and I was at the network configuration screen. Here is where I thought Apple could have done better with the keyboard. It's a pain to type in my WiFi password using that keyboard, especially considering that the password I have is 26 characters long! I had the same problem when enabling "Home Sharing", a pre-requisite to start streaming from my iMac. Putting in the Apple ID and then the password was a painful affair. All said, the whole thing took me 15 mins to get thro and I was ready to start.

iMac at the ready, Apple TV waiting to receive...Start the Movie! And it works, Ladies and Gentlemen!

Next up, pairing the iPhone "Remote" application to the Apple TV. Piece of cake. Easy Peasy. Done. Now am browsing my library and controlling everything using my iPhone. Cool!

Now the HDMI port switcher. Connected the DVD player, the Apple TV and my Kodak zx3 HDMI cables to the 3 input ports and the output to the TV. And just like that, I have a tiny device - with a IR remote along with it - that I can not operate sitting back on my bed, being the lazy person I am.

It was a great experience to watch HD quality being streamed thro the air and into my TV. The kicker was the 5.1 channel surround sound after I hooked the Apple TV - via optical cable - to my Cambridge Audio amplifier.

And finally, just tried Airplay from my iPhone to view an episode of "The Big Bang Theory" on my HD TV. Also realized that a video ripped to support the iPhone screen format is of good enough quality to watch on a 42" screen. Not necessary to get the videos in large formats and so a good idea to save space. Will try it with a couple of DVDs and if that works, will start ripping all of them to the iPhone format so that I can cram more media on the same hard disk space.

All in all, a very satisfying evening! 30 minutes of work and 6 hours of pleasure!

Another addition to the media room

2011-01-04T14:40:00.003+05:30

Finally got my hands on the AppleTV!

POP! The Champagne cork is off. The wait is over. All my redigitizing effort to consolidate my media and make it Apple TV friendly is going to finally pay off tonight. And to make the experience better, I am also now in possession of a spanking new D-Link Dual Band Wireless N router. Ok, so I didn't buy the router because of AppleTV...my old router would have done just fine. But that was exactly the problem. My old router was...you know...OLD. The bugger would randomly hang and I would have to physically yank out the power cable and wait 10 seconds before pushing it back in to get it going. It would happen at some of the most inconvenient times of the day (think having to tiptoe around the house at 1:30am just cause your Daily Show episode has frozen midway). So the solution was to get a nice and powerful Wireless N capable router which my Macbook and iMac could freak out on. Now I can enjoy my 8mbps broadband connection a little more :)

And so save myself a little more trouble, I bought a HDMI switcher. Yep, my Plasma is 5 years old and came with only one HDMI port which is currently being used by my DVD player. So now my DVD player and my Apple TV will have to jostle for the same port. Not to worry. 3-port HDMI switcher (with IR remote) to the rescue. Woo Hoo!

Thanx Sanjeev for carrying the stuff back for me. Muchas Gracias!

Pain in the neck

2011-01-03T19:21:00.000+05:30

Ok, so several pains in the neck.

An actual one to begin with. For some reason, my neck has been hurting the last few days. And no, it's not from the way I slept, cause I tried sleeping in different positions to no relief. So have been walking around with a twinge in my neck that spikes up to severe pain every now and then...or should I say every Ow and then. Yep, that's my pathetic sense of humour...and I get to blame it on the pain in my neck.

Next up, Bose. Not the several good natured Bengali families who carry that last name. Bose, the makers of sound equipment, you know...speakers, headphones and the like. As you all might remember, I blogged a long time ago that I am the possessor of the Bose Quiet Comfort series QC3 headphones. These are amazing headphones that cancel noise and make the audio experience so much better. I have carried them around with me everywhere since the last year and half. So why is Bose the pain in the neck you ask?

A month ago, the battery charger for my Bose QC3 died mysteriously. One moment it was charging my battery, the next moment it was just sitting there doing nothing. Out of the blue, just phlat! So I went to the Bose service station to check on a replacement. Guess how much they told me a replacement charger cost? Rs 3000! Close to $70! What the ^%$@?!?!

So I politely declined, went back home, opened up my QC3 charger, only to find that they have sealed a bunch of stuff inside which makes it impossible to DIY repair it. So left with no choice, I went back to the service center and agreed to pay the ransom they demanded to get my headphones working again. Only this time, I asked them what the warranty is on the charger. Guess what? NONE! Not even for a day. All they would agree to do was to show me that it charges a battery and that's it. Nothing more. After that, I'm on my own!

Now my question is: are they penalizing me for buying their stuff? I can understand companies like HP selling cheap printers to make money off the printer cartridges, but Bose already charges a premium for their products. So why be so inconsiderate towards their customers? Once thing is for certain. I am not buying another Bose product in my life. They just lost a customer.

On the flip side, my headphones are back where they belong...over my ears :)

And finally there is Tata DoCoMo, whose latest 3G service is something I have wanted to try for a while now. Since I have an extra iPhone (thanx Vasu) which I am using to test the Android OS on the iPhone, I can use that as a backup phone while I use my 3GS to test the DoCoMo call quality as well as the power of the 3G network. So I walked into the DoCoMo store on Richmond Road and asked for a pre-paid card. They were very helpful and quickly took care of the formalities to get my card ready and topped with Rs 373 to get me off. What they forgot to tell me was that the account balance would not show that amount, it would show only the buffer amount (Rs 10) in case I overstep my charged amount. Also, they forgot to tell me that I have to enter an APN number (TATA.DOCOMO.INTERNET) to get my 3G connection going. Since I did not know this, I kept getting a connection error. That meant another trip to the store to resolve this. A completely unnecessary trip. Another pain in the neck.

As far as I can tell, the network is just a shade better than Airtel's and my phone has lost signal a couple of times, but has caught it back on quicker than Airtel's. Also, while the 3G browsing experience has not exactly knocked my socks off, it is visibly faster than the Edge network I get on Airtel. More testing and network reviews coming, so keep a lookout here.

Bandeau Aid

2010-12-30T16:01:00.003+05:30

My buddy and I are planning a trip to a certain nordic country somewhere in the first few months of the coming year. Knowing the frigid temperatures in that part of the world, not withstanding the current snowed out conditions in most of northern Europe, I know that I have a tough time there, especially for someone who is not very fond of cold weather.

For most of my adult life (and a part of my childhood as well), I have had the tendency of my hands and feet getting cold with the slightest hint of cold weather. I'm not even talking snow conditions...even if the temperatures go slightly below 20˚ C, my hands and feet go colder than the ambient. Given this tendency, I prefer to be in places which are predominantly warm.

You would realize now that Nordic weather will be quite a challenge for someone of my body characteristics.

One of the big "To Do" items on the list is to buy warm clothing. This includes mostly inner wear, jackets, shoes and the like. I recently added another item to the list...and just got possession of it.

The place where I got it lists it as a "Bandeau Multifonctions" or Multipurpose Headband. It is also sometimes referred to as a "Buff" or a "Snood" (Samir Nasri of Arsenal wears one for every cold weather game, so if you see him play, you know what I mean).

This Bandeau / Buff / Snood is a tubular garment which is supposed to be worn around the neck or head to protect against the cold. The key character of this garment is that it stretches only sideways and not towards the edges. This allows me to wear it as a tubular neck scarf, a skull cap or a bandana. The most important way of using this would be where the back of the neck scarf is pulled over my head and the front is pulled over my lips, thereby shielding me from the super cold temperatures I will encounter once we get there.

My trip just became a little more comfortable...in my head. Hope it goes that way too :)

Thump and Stump

2010-12-29T14:30:00.000+05:30

The last two nights have been a bit crazy. Thanx to the snow storms hitting parts of the UK the last 2 weeks, a lot of football matches were postponed which made the post-christmas period a mouthwatering prospect.

Unfortunately, all the games scheduled on weekdays would start really late in the night :(

Monday night saw Arsenal play Chelsea, a highly anticipated fixture especially after Arsenal were coming off a loss to my beloved United the week before. Cutting a long story short, Arsenal played some beautiful football and thumped Chelsea 3-1. A very nice game to watch indeed.

Now comes the sad part. Last night, thro a position that looked comprehensively offside, Birmingham equalized to draw the match against United 1-1 :(

Net result: two sleepless nights. Now I gotta catch up on in before new years. Can't have my quota backlog run into next year :)

Sent from my iPhone

11 call drops

2010-12-28T15:42:00.000+05:30

Let me begin by saying that Airtel sucks! How can one of India's largest mobile services provider have such a crappy network that causes at least 11 call drops on my way to / from office?

It starts just after Richmond Circle, near Kudla. That's 1. Then before the turn at the stadium. 2. Just before the entrance of Cubbon Park. 3. At the turn in Cubbon Park. 4. Near the Planetarium. 5. On the airport road next to BGC's 3rd fairway. 6. At Windsor Manor. 7. At Mekhri underpass. 8. On CV Raman Road. 9. After the CPRI gate. 10. At the Ramaiah Hospital gate. That's sure shot 11 call drops on my way home. 11!!! ELEVEN!

This is of course not counting the extra few that Airtel throws in every now and then at the Magic Box overpass after Windsor Manor, Kaveri Circle, before the Cubbon Park gates. It is sooooooo frustrating to be on a call and have it drop so many times. Even worse if you are in the middle of a conversation with some call center or the other where you have to go thro the entire rigamarole of getting them to the point where u dropped off in the conversation.

I even called Airtel customer care once to illustrate this point and asked the lady to give me a number where I could reach her all the time as I was driving to work to show how many call drops I got. Guess what? They can't do that.

I am sincerely waiting for Mobile Number Portability to become fully operational so that I can test a few other providers (my eyes on Tata Docomo) so that my mobile phone usage is a little less frustrating than it is now.

Cast away

2010-12-23T16:01:00.000+05:30

My little angel twisted her leg two weeks ago. The doctor suggested a cast as a precaution so that her growing bones are safe. And she's been hobbling around since then.

Tomorrow the cast comes off! And we're very excited to have her back to running around and being the bubbly exciting child she is.

Fingers crossed for tomorrow!

Sent from my iPhone

All those magnificent men / women in their flying machines

2010-12-22T14:39:00.002+05:30

Nope, not talking about the movie, but am using it to reference another set of machines.

I have been busy digitizing and reformatting my entire media collection the last few weeks in anticipation of the arrival of my AppleTV device (which needs the help of someone coming in from the US, so if anyone is heading in that direction and back, please give me a shout!). I finally managed to convert most of my video files to work in the AppleTV format and added them in the library. Only way to test how they would look is if I went into Front Row on my iMac and saw how the library would show...since I assumed that's how the AppleTV interface would look like too.

To my surprise, my Movies section was showing every piece of video I had added to my library. Now some of these videos are part of TV series' which I am in the process of ripping from my DVDs. Things like "Yes Minister / Yes Prime Minister", "The West Wing", "Coupling" and "Seinfeld". Problem is, all these shows with all their many episodes from many seasons were now showing up in the list of Movies in Front Row.

To my dismay, the solution on the Apple support website was anything but. It said I had to change the media type of the files to something other than TV show, then move the files out of the library, delete the media references from iTunes and then push them back and change the media type back to TV shows. This is no solution! There had to be an elegant way to do this.

Evidently, Doug thought so too!

He created these Applescript scripts which can be added to iTunes and which help fix this problem with ease. An adult solution to a problem that should not exist in the first place.

This is one magnificent man in his flying (computer) machine!

The reason my post title says "men / women" is because of another reason I had to go to the community to solve my problem.

I have been trying a new software which will help me backup some of my stuff from my iPhone a little easier than iTunes can. Was having a bit of trouble getting the connection to work and so thought I need to restart the phone. Ended up restarting in recovery mode (force of habit what with all the hacking to jailbreak my current and earlier iPhone). Here's where another set of magnificent men/women came to my rescue.

All I did was download iRecovery, type in "setenv auto-boot true;saveenv;/exit" and there it was! My phone booted like normal.

There have been so many instances when some selfless coder sitting in some remote part of the world has come to my assistance without even knowing it. These people put out these pieces of code just because they encountered some problem and thought that making the solution public would help someone. Or maybe just because they love this stuff. Either ways, people like me benefit from the brilliance and work of others.

This post is to thank these magnificent men and women. They have made my life a bit better and a little less stressed. Thanx a lot, folks!

And nothing else matters

2010-12-21T12:03:00.003+05:30

For an audiophile, last night was an extremely gratifying experience! To be surrounded by the cleanest sound I have ever heard and that too from songs that I have loved and adored my whole life was simply one of the most amazing few hours I have ever spent.

My ex boss, Anil, is into actually making audio gear. From stereo speakers to subwoofers to his very own class A amplifier, he's made them all. If you walk into his home theatre room, the first impression you would get is that there is WAY too much equipment in that room! There's a HUGE, and I really mean huge, dual cone subwoofer with 15" cones thumping out some serious bass frequencies. That is surrounded by at least 4 separate pairs of stereo speakers, all of them with their own sound signatures and characteristics. There's the open baffle configuration, there's the Altec theatre horn and LF box and then there's the one that blew my mind away!

Quite simply, this floor standing box with a labyrinth as part of its innards produced the cleanest and purest sound I have ever heard in my life. I have not heard stereo music reproduced this beautifully. Period.

What surprised me the most of this setup was the versatility of the sound and the purity of the reproduction of every single sound that was part of the compilation. We heard Hindustani Classical, Instrumental, Indian fusion, Bollywood music, Classic Rock and even Heavy Metal. Simply put, the speakers blew my mind every time I listened to every one of the songs.

To top it all, we played songs like "Stairway to Heaven", "Brothers in Arm", "Nothing Else Matters", "Beat It" and "The Pianoman" on LPs and the added warmth these speakers added was simply amazing. I never really appreciated Stairway to Heaven quite as much as it should have been up until last night! And to hear Jimmy Page's guitar play so clean and so crisp coming out of these wonder boxes just left me getting goose bumps all evening.

Thanx a lot, Anil. You made my evening. An amazing experience. The cleanest and the most wonderful sound I have heard till date. Thank you so much.

When your body refuses to listen to your mind

2010-12-19T15:27:00.000+05:30

I have to warn you upfront...this is a golf specific rant! Read on at your own peril!

Sunday promised to be a nice day for golf. The weather in Bangalore has been near perfect for a round of golf with temperatures in the low 20s and cloudy days to ensure that you don't burn your skin walking around the course. To make the most of the weather, my golfing buddies and I had planned to hit the Eagleton golf course very early in the morning to ensure that we finished quickly and had most of our Sunday to ourselves. Little did I know that this was going to be torture on a scale of comparison to Torquemada!

We started off from the back nine with me making three double bogeys in the first three holes. Now that's not so alarming as I could attribute some of it to bad luck. And I had always bounced back from a bad start. But that was not to be the case today. Today was only promising to go from bad to worse...only I did not know that then.

To avoid adding insult to serious injury, I will spare you the description of the front nine and will only say this. Seven double bogey, a bogey and a par made sure that I finished nine holes with a score higher than my handicap! My partner and I were already two down by then (thanx to some stellar play by my partner) and had already lost the front nine.

The back nine is when I tried really hard to focus and get my game right. And I was completely focussed. Only, this time around, my body refused to cooperate with what I was intending in my mind to do. Nothing worked. Absolutely nothing. Even a birdie on the 17th hole did not stop me from coming in with 8 over on the back nine to make it an infamous 23 over for the round. I don't remember playing this badly in a loooooooooooooooooong time! In fact, I don't remember posting such a bad score in a few years.

Usually when I play a bad round, there are a few good take aways from the round to make me want to go back. A good shot here, a good chip there, a nice putt to save the hole. This round was different. All the 95 strokes I played on the course were forgettable. Every single one of them.

I think I have lost my swing somewhere. If someone finds it, please let me know. In the absence of that, I am going to go back to my old coach Mr Vijay Divecha to see if he can track down my swing for me. Until then, it's a sabbatical from the golf game on the course and my attempts to not make a fool of myself swinging a golf club like a circus trained monkey.

Addicted to a series?

2010-12-17T13:16:00.003+05:30

How often does that happen to you? You watch one episode of a series that someone recommended...and then handed you the entire season of that series on DVD...and you end up watching all the episodes back to back?

The first time it ever happened to me was with The Office. Not the American version. The British version. The original. The one with Ricky Gervaise in it. I was recommended the series by one of my buddies from the Singapore office when I used to work there. He even got the DVD sets for the two seasons the series ran for. At that time, I waited for everyone to sleep before I started watching, mainly cause I had been told that the Office needed a different kind of humour appreciation to enjoy it. So I stuck the first DVD in, fired the first episode and watched in horror as the first episode hurtled past. Really didn't understand what the hell was going on. So almost gave up on it. But then I thought "might want to watch another episode and see what happens". By the time the second episode came to an end, I was starting to get what the series was all about. By the end of the third episode, I was laughing freely. And before the DVD came to an end, I had to bite down on my finger to not laugh out loud! So I had to go into the special features section to see the outtakes and see Ricky Gervaise just keep hammering at some really funny stuff that would have been great in the series. Needless to say, I was done with both seasons in 2 days (well, two nights) and would have loved to watch more.

The next time that happened was with The West Wing. I had heard of the series for a while, but never really managed to catch an episode, so didn't really know much about the series except for the part that it was about the White House and the President of the US. So when my buddy from the office volunteered to give me the DVDs for the first two seasons, naturally I jumped at it. And guess what? I'm addicted!

I watch episodes back to back. I love the characters and the twisted scenarios that come up every episode. And I have come to appreciate the role that Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and yes, even George W. played while in that office. I also realized how difficult it is to enact legislation in a country which is a bit more mature than my own country. So I can only imagine the horse trading that must be going on for getting a single piece of law passed.

Now you know that both the above series have a bit of continuity in them. As in, the events of the previous episodes have some bearing on the current and future ones. But there are the remarkable sit-coms which I am addicted to as well. First there was M*A*S*H which was, in my opinion, one of the finest shows I watched growing up. Then of course is Seinfeld, which is still the funniest series I have ever seen in my life. And then came Coupling, the british series which is currently my second ranked funniest series. All of these make me want to watch the next episode as soon as one ends...and then the next...and then the next...and then the next.

And then of course, there's the Big Bang Theory. My third ranked all time favorite comedy series. Once again hilarious, smart, intelligent and sometimes just plain crazy. The only thing that makes BBT stay alive with me more is that the series is still ongoing and is currently in it's 4th season. It is also the only series to which I do not have access to DVDs of, so I am stuck to watching these episodes on free streaming site which have a time limit on how much one can watch in one shot without having to pay for it.

Now the question I have for you folks is: Do you have a series that made you watch one episode after another?

PS: If your answer is "24", then please spare me!

708, but never a dull moment

2010-12-13T12:51:00.003+05:30

Did I say before that I love my car? Ummm, maybe a few times. Ok, a lot of times! Fact is, I really love my Skoda Laura. And now I love it even more.

My lovely Laura ran for 708 km in one tankfull. That's almost a mileage of 13km/l in peak city traffic conditions! Isn't that fantastic?!?!

This along with the additional pleasure of driving an absolutely gorgeous car. One of the most rewarding things at the end of the day is to drive my automatic car in peak traffic and not be bothered with shifting gears or getting irked with the honking that is going on all around me. Just me. my music and a lovely drive.

But now here comes the rant.

It's the part after I have gotten out of the car is when the problem starts. The amount of honking that the people in this country are capable of is not even funny. I did this experiment standing outside my office building - which I might add is in the middle of a mostly residential area - to figure out how long the traffic outside can go without honking. Guess how long it was between honks?

4 seconds was the longest pause!

4 seconds!

That's insane!

There should be a law enacted that puts a fine of Rs 500 for anyone who honks.

The country would be a lot better place if it got a little bit quieter.

Her first cast

2010-12-10T20:02:00.000+05:30

My little girl twisted her foot getting into the school bus after school. Luckily she has no fracture, but the doc has advised immobility for 2 weeks, so she's sitting still wearing her first cast.

She was so embarrassed that I shot the entire cast making process :)

Will post the video later :D

Sent from my iPhone

A craving for Rock On

2010-12-10T15:31:00.002+05:30

Let me begin by saying that I absolutely love the movie! I think it is one of the most flawlessly made movies - not just Hindi movies - of all time...a timeless classic that I would love to watch even 20 years from now. But that's not the point of the post.

I used to carry the Rock On DVD in my bag so that I could watch it often after it was released. Then a colleague of mine asked to borrow the DVD. No harm, right? WRONG!

I got the DVD back as if it had come back from the dry cleaners...or worse thro a car wash! It had so many scratches, it looked like Baloo the Bear from Jungle Book had stuck it to his back while he was scratching it against a tree. And as with any scratched DVDs, it gets stuck as soon as the plot gets interesting. I f'n hate that!

Now the big problem is that I had not ripped the DVD as soon as I got it...so I had lost a perfectly good movie and I couldn't watch it when I wanted...which is the objective of buying a DVD in the first place.

So I went on FlipKart.com and ordered it...and it landed in less than 3 days with free shipping and at a discount to boot! I was impressed!

Guess what the first thing was that I did? I ripped the disc :) Yep, in Apple TV resolution as well as iPhone resolution. And now that I have it, I can watch my DVD in peace whenever I want. And I'm never lending my movies to anyone. Ever!

RIP, Sir

2010-12-10T15:20:00.002+05:30

My friend's father passed away two nights ago. May the Force give him, his mom, his sister, his wife, his kids and his entire family the strength to deal with this.

I'm here if you need me.

The score does not tell the truth

2010-12-09T14:48:00.002+05:30

Another round of golf. Another tale of woe. Another parameter to misjudge.

A very early morning tee off from the back nine saw me hit 6 pars, a bogey and two double bogeys to shoot 5 over for 9 holes. This was including two putts that lipped out that had no business not dropping in. Aah, to hell with it, says I. That's how the game goes. Some days they drop, some days they don't.

The front nine started very nicely. A great drive, a delicious 30 yard chip and then a 3 foot putt to make birdie. I should have known that it was going to be all downhill from there. Two magnificent double bogeys, four bogeys and two pars later, I had scrambled down to a fabulous 13 over round for the day :(

Problem is, the score does not show how badly I played. I played some exquisite shots to compensate for absolutely horrible shots elsewhere. A few absolutely beautiful chips and a few putts which either dropped or didn't made me feel better about myself and my game, but overall I was soooooooooo disappointed with myself and my game.

I need to do better. I know my game has the potential, but I am not playing up to it yet. Need to work harder.

Flipkart rocks!

2010-12-09T05:49:00.000+05:30

I bought a couple of things on Flipkart.com, you know, DVDs, books, etc. And was really impressed! Not only are the books available cheaper than at most places, they are also delivered home FOR FREE! And the delivery is prompt and speedy.

Full marks to you, Flipkart. You have found a repeat customer.

Sent from my iPhone

The only one there

2010-12-08T19:44:00.000+05:30

I got this weird reminder on my phone two days ago. It said "Challenge to meet at Koshy's" for the 8th of Dec between 7pm and 8pm.

Now I remember sitting with a few folks where we were talking about how friends decide a time and place to meet a few years later...cause in today's world, we don't know where we are going to be. So the experiment was to pick a random day and see if we could keep a date with each other.

Naturally, I landed up curious to see who all were there...assuming anyone even turned up.

Guess what?

I was the only one there!

I sat by myself for an hour, hoping that someone would turn up. But alas, I left alone.

40,000 and 13

2010-12-06T17:04:00.002+05:30

What's the relationship between those two numbers, you ask?

My lovely Skoda Laura just crossed into the 40,000 km zone since I bought the car in September of 2007. That's a lot of comfy mileage that I have clocked in this super car. A few long drives to Pune and Goa, a few short trips in and around Bangalore and a LOT of drives to the golf courses around here. Which brings me to the second number.

Played 13 over at KGA on Saturday. An early tee off from the back nine saw me play bogey golf for 9 holes with 2 pars and 2 double bogeys with every other hole played to a bogey. In this time, my partner and I had already lost the nine hole matchplay by being a hole down. Then started the front nine where I made birdie to square the match and my partner and I quickly ran up a 3UP lead. Finally managed to play to 4 over on the back nine to make it 13 over (85) for the round.

Also, this was the first time I was playing with the adjustments made to my Scotty Cameron putter on thursday. Until then, I had to change my putting stance and grip to be able to square the putter. Now, the putter has 4˚ less lie and has 2˚ more loft on it which makes it easier for me to hold in a regular putting stance. Only problem now is that I am missing more putts to the right, something that I need to correct soon.

A clean bill of health?

2010-12-03T14:30:00.002+05:30

Now if you remember a post a few days back ("A weird dream"), I dreamt of my buddy from engineering college who passed away a year and half back. I just happened to mention this to my friend the next day and he said, in a solemn voice I might add, that nothing is a coincidence and that I should get a health check up done.

Now most of you who know me know this about me. I am not superstitious nor am I religious and I certainly don't believe in this stuff. But something about the way he said it got me spooked.

So I scheduled an appointment at the Columbia Asia Hospital for a general health checkup yesterday. Had to go there early in the morning without breakfast for a bunch of blood tests, x-rays and ECG tests. Then some breakfast and more blood tests after two hours. Then the long wait until the results land in my hands...which would be 5pm in the evening.

So when I land up at the hospital to collect my reports, they tell me that the reports will be available when I come for my doctor review appointment the next day. Bull Shit, I say. I was asked to come at 5pm and I'm not leaving without my reports.

So I did get them.

Blood pressure 120 / 70.

Almost all blood tests normal...except for LDL and Triglycerides which are on the higher side. These have always been on the higher side for me ever since I can remember, so am not sure if it has to do with something genetic about me or something of my lifestyle that is causing it. Will know when I go for my doctor's appointment in the evening.

X-ray normal.

ECG report not received yet, so will know by end of day today.

All in all, I'm hoping to be given a clean bill of health...and for the doctor to tell me that I'm doing fine and that I should continue with the debauchery in my life :-D

Fingers crossed!

How can anyone be late for a timesheet?

2010-12-01T07:24:00.000+05:30

We have an early morning slot at KGA for tee off at 7:05am. What that means is that unlike the usual state where we land up at the golf course and wait for a slot to open up, we actually HAVE a slot booked 5 days in advance where all we have to do is land up on time and tee off.

How hard can it be, right?

Wrong!

Some guys don't take that little thing called time for granted and will be landing 30 minutes past our scheduled tee off time.

There's an hour of sleep I'm never getting back.

Sent from my iPhone

Ganne ka russ after a looooong time

2010-12-01T07:20:00.000+05:30

Have you guys tried Cane Crush? It's apparently a chain of food joints serving sugarcane juice. It's clean, hygienic and economical (Rs 10 per glass).

Had a glass yesterday and couldn't stop at one. Took me all the way back to my engineering college days when we used to stop by the local stall after a day of studying hardly :)

But what it really reminded me of was a time when I was in the 8th standard and had gotten a bad case of jaundice. As part of my recovery, I was told to have a lot of sugarcane juice to build up calories in my body for it to fight back. So what my mom used to do was go to a particular sugarcane juice stall - which was quite a distance away from where we lived - just to get the juice for me. That wasn't enough, tho. She would make the stall guy thoroughly clean the crusher and then get the first bottle full for me. Amazingly sweet of her isn't it?

Thanx Mom!

Sent from my iPhone

A weird dream

2010-11-30T10:40:00.003+05:30

I am at a beach resort of some kind. I am with people I don't know. I am carrying my camera. And there's some activity happening on the first floor of an incomplete building structure.

And then, as I am walking towards the beach, I notice a few people playing beach volleyball. And all of a sudden, I notice one of the guys playing there. It's my buddy from Engineering College. I say "Uddhav, what the hell are you doing here, man?" and he says "Hey Mally" recognizing the fact that he was one of the first few people to start calling me Mally. And I say to him "you're supposed to be dead" and then he just smiled.

That's right. Uddhav Jagadale died April of last year while on a business trip to Malaysia.

Wonder what made him pop up in my dream.

Food poisoning, top of the table and terrible strokes

2010-11-29T14:17:00.002+05:30

So I dropped the ball the last couple of days. So sue me :)

Had an impromptu evening dinner with a friend. We were supposed to go to a photography exhibition by a friend and since it was close to another friend's house, his wife wanted to join us. So we went, looked at some fairly ordinary pictures (decided I could have an exhibition of my own after seeing this one) and then went back to my friend's place where the evening progressed along just fine.

As the time approached 8:45pm, I was getting queasy as the Manchester United game against Rovers was on and I was missing it. So the TV was switched on and I had the pleasure of watching United thump Rovers 7-1 with Berba hitting 5 goals! What a game! We were level with points against Chelsea, had recovered the entire goal difference we had with them and were temporarily sitting at the top of the table! Now the only thing needed was for Chelsea to draw or lose their match on Sunday to keep us on top and to make this a good weekend.

We had an early morning tee off at KGA on Sunday. I was having a disturbed tummy for a while, but that got aggravated more during the round and I had to go for a "download" after 9 holes. Was definitely off my stroke, was unhappy with the way I played but wasn't entirely unhappy with the score (13 over) for the round. It's a different story that my partner and I lost the match 5&4 and got quite convincingly thumped!

The saving grace was getting back home and watching Chelsea manage a weak draw against Newcastle and ensuring that we are sitting at the top of the table with a 2 point cushion!

All in all, a nice weekend. Could have been better, but then again, could have been a lot worse. So I will take it the way it was.

Lights and roller coasters

2010-11-23T11:22:00.003+05:30

Do you ever feel like you are on a roller coaster in life?

One moment, everything is fine and looking like it's on the way up. A steady rhythm clicking under your feet as you shuffle thro the day. And then all of a sudden…BAM! The floor leaves your feet and you find yourself plunging down towards some hell hole drawing you nearer like a magnet whose pull you cannot fight. It could be one call, one meeting or even a chance reading on someone's blog. And just when you thought gravity is going to crush you under the might of it's force, you pull out of that free fall are gliding on your path like the hell hole you just left behind never existed. Once again, the chance call from a friend or a piece of good new or just a funny video someone share on Facebook saves the moment, presenting the necessary distraction.

And then another plunge and another lift…and then another…and then another…and yet another. Until at the end of the day, you are exhausted and just want to sleep. But the ride does not end there.

Even in your dreams, you plunge and you soar and then plunge again, only to wake up covered in sweat to some unthinkable nightmare that you cannot even remember. And then a peaceful slumber in the arms of a beautiful dream…that you could not remember yet again in the morning…only remembering that you had a nice dream and that it made you smile as you woke up.

What has all of this got to do with Lights, you ask?

Absolutely nothing! He he he…

The only reason lights is in the title of the post is because I went out and bought a remote trigger for my speedlight yesterday. Yep, it's one of those cheapy Chinese made stuff that is good only for firing a strobe remotely and nothing else. But I tell myself that I am not even fit to be called a novice in this area and therefore don't deserve a PocketWizard or ElinKrome set of transceivers. So with my wallet a couple of thousand rupees lighter and the spring in my step a couple of inches higher, I tried out the combination last night. And came away with a big grin on my face :)

Just thought I will let you know. After all, I won't have a rant every day to put up here. And so this is my attempt at blogging at least once every day to get back into the habit.

It's what you say later that matters

2010-11-22T12:36:00.002+05:30

Yep, this is me trying to get back to regular blogging. I know it's been a couple of days, but I've had a bit of a back ache, so sue me.

So you might recollect that I mentioned my buddy is in town. He is usually the one who carries my stuff from the US and his family is the one I piss off most with all my shopping packages landing on their doorstep :) Anyway, I had bought the Vibram FiveFingers (the most comfortable pair of shoes I have ever worn) online and needed someone to help me carry them back. Enter DC. So I got these guys together so one could pass on my shoes to the other to carry back. Lo and behold, they hit it off and had a lot of fun. So naturally, when this guy from the US lands up, we get DC involved and meet up for a drink…and that was last week.

DC invited us for dinner on friday night and most of the evening was spent ragging each other mercilessly…mostly everyone ganging up against me to try and get the better of me…apparently I am hard to rag…

That got me thinking (yeah, what were the odds) about what we say out openly and what we don't. I mean, when we were all together, we spent most of the time screwing the other guys…all of whom are close friends. How often do we say out loud what these friends mean to us…especially when they are not around?

Which makes me think…ideally, your best friend is someone who stands by you and speaks in your favour when you are NOT around. Anyone can give lip service and support you when you are there to defend yourself, but of all those people, how many of them would give their full throated defense to your case when you were not around. How many such compliments would you get? How many would you give?

Do we really know who our friends are any more?

You can make out from my tone that I have gotten even more cynical than what was earlier believed possible. Meatloaf was right…"Life is a lemon and I want my money back"

The world is your spittoon, the country your trash can

2010-11-19T15:39:00.003+05:30

I'm finally back…after 6 month and a few days. Yeah I know…this is becoming my usual theme. I promise to be back and then there's a long silence and then a post.

So here's hoping to an improved attitude towards blogging and trying to be regular. I am immediately reminded of Master Yoda's statement: "Do…Or do not…There is no try". Now you know why I am not a Jedi Master yet. Wish I was tho. Would have loved to do the Jedi mind trick on so many people.

Now to the reason for the irate heading. And here starts the rant…

My buddy and I were walking from UB City to the office (had to do some shopping at the Apple Store) and we had to cross the hellish intersection that is Richmond Circle. In the space of a few minutes that it took us to cross the road, we heard so many car honks that we could not hear each other think, least of all hear each other's voice. And every one of those people who honked somehow had the impression that honking would make them move faster.

On top of that, in the same time span, I counted at least 7 people spitting or throwing trash out of their car. What the hell is wrong with these people? And to top it all, the traffic police constable at the intersection was the model of apathy. Can't really blame him for being apathetic, cause he probably sees what I saw a few hundred times every day. It's easy to get desensitized when you are overexposed to these things.

Now that got me thinking as I was driving back home from office. It was a rare occasion that I was leaving office before peak traffic hit and so made it smoothly home in 20 minutes. As you folks would have read in my earlier posts, I have a very intelligent car that is the Skoda Laura. On it's mainframe display, I get readouts on how many kilometers I have driven since the engine was turned on, what speed I was driving at and most importantly, how much fuel I consumed on my drive. And to my wonder, I had run a mileage of 14.7km/l for my 20 minute drive back from work. Which meant I had consumed less than a liter of diesel to get from office to my home. The worm in my head started chewing on something.

The next day, I hit peak traffic on my way to work and noticed that this trip, I had averaged 9.8km/l and taken 40 minutes of starts and stop traffic to get to office. Hmmmm! That evening, my buddy and I were meeting for a drink at The Beach in Indiranagar and thought it would be best to drive straight from work. Guess what…we covered just 3km from the office in 41 minutes! 41 minutes! That's insane. By the time we got there, we had spent almost an hour in the car (for a short 8km) drive and averaged 8.2km/l.

Now let's do a bit of math.

If I did not hit traffic every day, I would average between 3 km/l and 5 km/l better during every drive. My car has a huge 60l fuel tank. Even if I use the pessimistic number of 3 km/l, that means that my car would have run for a hundred and eighty kilometers more on the same amount of fuel! That's a saving of more than 15 liters of fuel…translating to more than Rs 600 for every tank of fuel I pump into my car! An improvement of 25%!

Here's another interesting figure. I have had my car for the last 3 years and am on the verge of hitting 40,000 kilometers in it. That means I am averaging about 12,500 kilometers every year. Now extending the same calculation as above, considering the same efficiency (that is not completely accurate as I tend to do long drives - I love to drive - and that drives up the fuel efficiency even higher…so we are still pessimistic in our calculations), we would be able to drive the same amount of kilometers every year with 33% less fuel. Let's see how much we save, shall we?

12,500 kilometers x current average of 11 km/l = ~ 1140 liters of fuel = ~Rs 48,000.

12,500 kilometers x efficient average of 14 km/l = ~ 890 liters of fuel = ~Rs 37,000.

A saving of Rs 11,000! Eleven Thousand Rupees saved by one car! Just by improving traffic conditions and therefore fuel efficiency!

Not to mention the implied benefits of lesser smog (from lesser stops and starts), lower noise pollution (hopefully) and time saved for everyone.

And here's the kicker! As per the Petroleum Conservation Research Association, 51% of India's domestic fuel consumption is done by transport vehicles…cars, busses, trucks, rickshaws and all the rusty old things you see on the road that make you want to get a Tetanus shot just from looking at them. From the same PCRA website, India has more than 75 Million registered vehicles. Think about the sucker punch I'm about to throw at you.

If every vehicle saved Rs 10,000 annually due to better fuel efficiency achieved due to better traffic conditions, we would have saved…wait for it…16 BILLION DOLLARS!

16 BILLION DOLLARS!

Say it again after me…

16 BILLION DOLLARS! Savings!

Savings worth 16 BILLION DOLLARS!

Imagine what part of that money can be invested to better the traffic conditions going forward. And as technology improves, we will have better, more fuel efficient cars which will only improve our savings number.

How's that for analysis?

But for sure, there are people already doing this analysis. From the PCRA page again, we learn the New Delhi alone burns more than 990 Crore Rupees due to stopping at traffic lights. Just imagine!

And here I come back to the heading of the post…part of the money that we save can go towards putting trash cans every few feet. I think the current problem is both lack of social decorum as well as lack of opportunity to demonstrate it. To give you my example, I carry litter in my pockets until I see a trash can (which can sometimes be once I reach home). More trash cans and a cleaner city will only shame some people into not spitting everywhere and making this country a better place.

Seoul Curry, lots of Kimchi and people touching my feet

2010-05-14T17:32:00.008+05:30

Ok, I'm sure you think I'm getting way ahead of myself when I say that people touched my feet. To be really sure if I'm kidding or not, you'll just have to wait for a bit and read along :-)

I was in Seoul (South Korea for those who don't know) for a few days helping out my counterparts in that part of the world with a customer who needed particular expertise (which we have in India). Naturally, I wanted to see the city and what it had to offer outside of Kimchi, Shoju and, as I had heard a lot about before, the prettiest women in all the Asian countries.

We landed at the Incheon Airport and a good hour later, mainly thanks to the ridiculous traffic in Seoul, we had reached the Intercontinental COEX (the tower you see on the right). After checking in, we decided to check if there was a decent place to eat, mainly because I was famished from not having eaten most of Tuesday and very little on the flight. The last thing I wanted was to be sleep deprived AND hungry during my meetings that were to start the next day.

So we walked around, finding Sushi and seafood places, but nothing that meant wholesome tummy filling food. And we definitely did not want to go and order something we did not know anything about. We did find this tho (apparently everything here is Samsung) :-)

The meetings in the office were very nice, cordial and very halting. A few of the people in office had trouble communicating fluently in English and they would frequently switch into Korean and then someone would translate the same to us. It made the meeting look remarkably long. The local team there was very nice to take us for a traditional Korean dinner where we all sat at low stools and ate what I thought was a hell of a lot of food. Not to mention way too many types of Kimchi to be seen on one table! The conversation was very nice, in a halting sort of a way.

The next day was the most bizarre of them all. We went to meet the customer where, for two and half hours, everyone in the room spoke rapid fire Korean to discuss the problem statement and the possible solution. Every now and then, I would lean over to one of my Korean colleagues to check if I was following the conversation correctly, mainly picking up on the technical terms that were in English. It was the most bizarre meeting I had ever been a part of. After a long time, they distilled the conversation to 5 questions that I was to answer. "Speak very slowly" advised my colleague. Wise woman, that one. So I slowly recited my answers to them, which were ultimately translated in Korean anyways for clarity. And after a bit, the meeting was over. Everyone bowed and said "Kamsahamida" which is Thank You in Korean and that was that.

We had what my Korean colleague termed as 'Military soup' for lunch. It's called Bulgogi and literally means sweet meat. It was cooked right on our table and was DELICIOUS! Absolutely outstanding. I would recommend it to anyone who's going to Korea. It's marinated beef cooked with herbs and vegetables and noodles made from sweet potato (these noodles look transparent

and are a little more difficult to eat as compared to regular noodles). The entire combination is really yummy and I ate till I could not eat any more.

That left a little bit more work and then a trip around the city to check out what it had to offer. So we worked around the schedule and used the subway system to get to the City Hall station. It's quite easy to use the subway system, mainly because signs have English on them as well. Even the ticketing machines have English as an option and they have single journey tickets to every place. City Hall station was closest to Seoul Plaza and the Deoksu Palace. So there we went.

The pins tell you where the pictures are taken.

You can see all my Seoul Pictures here (tho I guess you have to be my friend on Facebook to see them…which I am assuming you already are, since you're reading my blog in the first place).

All thro the subway ride, people kept staring at my Vibram FiveFingers, everyone very curious about these shoes that they had never seen before in their life and this strange dark skinned man who was wearing them. And then they would look up and see my Joby Gorillapod attached to my Nikon D90 and they would have an even more curious look on their face. 'Where did this man come from?' While walking around the Deoksu Palace compound, I had a couple of Chinese gentlemen walk over and ask me (in broken Engrish) where I got my tripod from. Another Korean gentleman asked me how he could get shoes like mine ('They rook so comfortaberr!'). I quickly realized that both these items on me were great conversation starters.

The Seoul Plaza was hosting the Friendship Festival and there were a lot of colorful performance going on. We stayed for a few (the Russian troupe was fantastic), but could not stay long as we had to get on with the itinerary. So we headed down the street from the Plaza to take the Seoul City Tour Bus (we took it mainly because it costs the equivalent of USD10 and that's a great price to roam the city while having the ability to hop on and off the bus at any stop).

From here, we headed out to Namsong market which is supposed to be the place to buy electronics stuff. It was quite a disappointment as it looked more like a Sim Lim Towers from Singapore. We left in a hurry. On the way back to the Seoul City Tour Bus (SCTB) stop, we were treated to a fashion show in the mall. Pretty cool, watching the pretty Korean women waltzing up and down the runway to Vanessa Mae's music.

Next stop: Itaewan (pronounced Eat-A-Won). This is the tourist beat where there's something for every tourist, from shopping to eateries to massages. And you get to see way more foreigners than Koreans here. It's a nice place to while away your time, but nothing spectacular.

A weird thing happened at Itaewan. While the local were used to seeing foreigners be a bit different, but they sure as hell did not expect a brown skinned man walking down the streets in shoes that looked so different and that they had never seen before. At least 20 people asked me to show them my shoes and then launched into several questions (where did you get them, how much are they for, do you get them in more colours, how comfortable are they, do pebbles hurt). One guy actually bent down to touch my foot to feel the texture of the shoe (see I told you someone touched my feet) and then walked away with animated gestures…my guess is that he was planning his next purchase already :-)

After a bit of shopping, and mainly getting tired of that area, we headed to the Namsan Seoul Tower.

This tower is not that fascinating, and not as tall as the Minara Kuala Lumpur (where you can look down at the tallest twin towers in the world…the Petronas Towers), but still this was something that my Korean colleagues had told me I had to see, so I went. The best part of the trip to the tower was the cotton candy on the way up to the tower and the hanging human wire figures which set out nicely against the blue sky of the Korean evening. Even the view from the top of the tower was average. You could however see the traffic jams of Seoul clearly from way up there.

The thing that I wanted to do most was to visit Dongdaemon Gate, Korea's national treasure #1. So it was off to the subway station and a ride to the Dongdaemon Arts and Crafts Museum station. Even in the subway, people kept staring at my footwear. One guy, with a bevy of cameras hanging off him, asked me more about the shoes and then asked me if he could take a picture. Sure, I said. And so he shot off some 5 or 6 shots of the shoes, then politely thanked me and got off the next station.

The walk to the Dongdaemon Gate passed several malls where there were occasional stage performances with locals gyrating wildly to very peppy local music. It would have been fun if we hadn't been running out of time. So to the gate we walked. And it really was a nice place. Old, traditional and traffic running all around it. I tried to capture a long exposure of the gate and here is the result.

And that was the end of the day…and we had one more day to go.

So the next day started off at Namsangol Village, a small area that has been restored to represent the housing of the aristocracy of the olden days.

Needless to day, the houses look like miniatures of the palaces that we had been to yesterday. I soon tired of the curved roofs. But here we got to see the making of tofu (bean curd) the traditional way, saw a traditional Korean wedding taking place (with a hapless White guy and a Korean (I'm presuming) woman) and played some of the sports that the olden day folk would play. It was a nice tour of the living conditions of those times…and these people sure lived well.

From there, a bit of shopping (I finally found my Tag Heuer Track spectacle frames) and then the last thing…the Bongeunsa Buddhist Temple which was conveniently right across from my hotel.

A temple built on the slopes of a mountain, it very nicely follows the curves of the mountain as you climb higher and higher towards the praying hall. And it has a HUGE statue of the great man himself, the Buddha.

Here, people had put up colourful lanterns (my guess is to remember the loved ones they had lost over the years). It was a really pretty site. But the prettiest site for me was this one below…

And all at once, the trip was over. We were heading back to the airport and back to our desh. That did not stop me from doing a bit of perfume and alcohol shopping on the way :-)

All in all, here's to Seoul with it's beautiful women, it million types of Kimchi, it's Shoju, it's polite people with their broken up Engrish and absolutely beautiful weather. I had fun there :-)

A bizarre day

2010-05-04T23:26:00.001+05:30

I had known for a while that I had to travel to Seoul, South Korea for
work this week, but I didn't know that the VISA process will take so
long. The consulate here wanted notarized documents in original (thank
the force they did not ask in triplicate) and the office guys in Seoul
forgot to send the documents via express delivery.

Naturally, chaos ensued.

It came down to the fact that if I did not get my VISA by Monday
evening, I would have to call off the trip. Thankfully that came thro
and so I was on for the journey. Here comes the hiccup.

I needed to travel to Chennai for a day today, something that had
business implications and ergo could not be pushed ahead. That meant
that I would have to fly to Mumbai from Chennai (as the passport was
there for the VISA stamping) and collect the passport at the airport.

And here began my day...

A flight to Chennai, a failed attempt (read missed flight...Damn You,
Indian Airlines for closing the counter 5mins early) to get to Mumbai
sooner and eventually taking a flight that took forever to land in
Mumbai.

To top this, I needed to pick up currency in Mumbai, but the ATM
machines in chennai refused to cooperate with me. So the inevitable
mad dash from the airport to the ATM happened and I got my $$$s in my
hand. Now the final hurdle...reaching the airport in time.

Which I did!

Checked in...ate something (been hungry the whole day) and now am
seated in the flight with an almost dead cell phone battery (being
charged by my handy Sanyo USB charger), blogging from the phone and
looking forward to a couple of quick drinks and a direct flight to ZZZ
land.

And thus comes to close my crazy day. Dare I ask how your day was? ;-)

Blogged from my iPhone

A long time ago...

2010-04-28T17:36:00.000+05:30

Thirty six years ago to be precise, an abomination on the face of this earth was created. This useless weight on this earth has trundled around and stumbled along in life, starting from becoming a boy, then a man, then a father and finally an annoyance to everyone who knows him.

And yet, today, so many of these people stood up and wished him a happy birthday and completely overwhelmed him. He was touched by a few thoughtful acts by people, kind and considerate statements from quite a few and mainly, warm wishes from so many people who accepted the abomination and learnt to live with it.

I thank you all for making my scourge-of-a-birthday a lot more tolerable.

Songs have such acute memory recall

2010-04-27T14:14:00.002+05:30

I was driving home last night and, as usual, the music was playing out loud in the car.

What was different this time was that every time a song would come on, my mind was going back to a time when I either heard the song for the first time or something special was happening with the song playing in the background.

I floated from the pages of a book, to a dance show, to a stage performance, to a bus ride, to a restaurant. And just like that, I was home…floating on a cloud of memories, all of them triggered by as simple a thing as a song coming on.

I've had the same experience with perfumes, but this was far wilder. And there were so many memories that crowded my car as I drove home.

And I realized that I enjoy these songs, the ones which have a memory hard coded in their MP3 tag, a lot more than most. Must be something that makes them sweeter.

More than a 1000 people have something to talk about

2010-04-20T14:03:00.000+05:30

So I might as well scream from the mountain tops.

I LOVE MY NEW SHOES!

This might make me sound gay (and as Seinfeld rightly pointed out…Not that there's anything wrong with it), but I just have to tell you guys about the shoes I have. They're called the Vibram (pronounced wii-br-um) Five Fingers and they are the closest I have felt to barefoot while still wearing shoes. You have to check these out.

I got these shoes two weeks ago and ever since I have put them on, I have not wanted to put any other shoe on…and if I have to, I do so grudgingly.

Now these shoes don't exactly look like the shoes you are used to. These are distinctly different and actually have a pocket for each toe, hence the name Five Fingers. They look a bit different and so get used to people staring at you. If I'm in the elevator, the whole elevator stares. If I'm in the bus at the airport taking me to the airplane, the entire bus stares. If I'm in the office, the entire office has asked.

Since the time I have gotten these shoes, there must be at least a thousand Tamilians with a new story to talk about. And at least 200 Bangaloreans. Which should tell you how much time I have been spending in Chennai for the last few weeks.

Long story short, the shoes attract attention…and usually the wrong sort of attention with people sniggering or smiling or just shaking their head at the contraption I am wearing on my foot. And most of your friends will try to make your life a living hell over the shoes. Only 2 out of those >1000 people have looked at them and said "They look really comfy. I wanna get them."

Luckily for me, I really don't care about what anyone has to say. And at the end of the day, my feet thank me. And that's what matters to me.

Thank you Vibram for creating this fantastic product and I am proud to be an exponent of this fantastic piece of footwear.

My feet are sooooo much happier these days!

Another reason to hate the IPL

2010-04-07T09:44:00.001+05:30

Now I'm a long time cricket basher, so this should not come as a
surprise. But this tops everything.

I thought it had begun well. I was checking into the Park Sheraton in
Chennai and was told that the arrival of the Mumbai Indians was
imminent.

And just like that, I saw God that day. Walking calmly and smiling at
everyone. What a man, that Sachin Tendulkar!

The next day, I realized that despite me telling the hotel I was
staying the entire week, there was a goof-up in my reservation which
had me checking out on Tuesday. That was compounded by the fact that
the IPL teams were staying there and the security teams had taken up
additional rooms on short notice. Suddenly, the hotel was chocker
block full and not a single room available. Guess who was on the
receiving end of this charade?

So I had to check out, go to a hotel called Savera (which by the way
used to be a hotel beyond my grade when I worked for Digital and which
has now sunk to a pathetic hotel with poor lighting in the room, bad
bathrooms and an AC that barely works...not to mention poor Internet
availability in the rooms), stay for one night and then check back in
to the Park.

Just because of these IPL fools, I could not send the couple of mails
that had to be sent last night and had to spend my night in a hole.

I hate the IPL and cricket in general.

Blogged from my iPhone

This nightmare should tell you a lot

2010-04-05T09:20:00.001+05:30

I had a great round of golf yesterday. Played with my buddies at KGA,
didn't start very well, but finished strongly to come home with an 8
over for the round which had three birdies and could have had 2 more.

But that is not the point of this post.

It's about this dream - actually it qualifies more as a nightmare -
last night.

I had a flight to catch in the morning and had a fairly disturbed
sleep, waking up every half an hour or so to check if it was time. And
somewhere during that patchy sleep, I remember this...

I was standing - in my dream - on the tee box with mu buddies and it
was my turn to tee off. And tee off I did, the ball soaring off on the
perfect trajectory ...only to see the ball flying back at me and
landing back at my feet.

I woke up with a start.

I read into the dream. What does it tell you?

Blogged from my iPhone

DC sucks!

2010-04-03T23:19:00.000+05:30

I'm out having a drink with my friend Aarti and her husband Debashish
Chakrabarti (DC for short). We're having the drink at the Jaymahal
Palace and they are showing the IPL matches here and guess
what...today the match is between Mumbai Indians and Deccan Chargers.

MI just thumped DC...and as the match drew to a close, another patron
walked by saying "DC sucks!"

You should have seen Dc's expressions as he heard this statement! "You
have no idea how much that cuts into my heart" his words verbatim!

And now he's arguing with me about the bill..which I am sitting
on...physically :-)

I agree with the other patron...DC sucks! Hahahaha....sorry DC! he he.

A candle lit dinner and a fabulous game

2010-03-29T11:18:00.002+05:30

Saturday was Earth Hour. It meant most people in the know shut off their lights between 8:30pm and 9:30pm to save energy and to show solidarity with the energy conservation movement that's gathering momentum all across the globe.

I was pleasantly surprised to see 90% of my apartment complex go dark and stay that way for the entire hour. And since it is slap bang in the middle of dinner time for most Indians, we had a nice dinner in candle light. Not the least bit romantic, but functional nonetheless.

What followed was the match between ManU and Bolton where Berba showed all his detractors why is is worth the money paid for him. His beautiful control over the ball, a couple of amazing flicks (one which was ridiculously hard to do and was saved by Jaaskelienen) and then a couple of goals. But the highlight was the completely stupid own goal by the Bolton defender who neatly slotted the ball into the far corner of his own net.

A nice game, a return to the top of the league table and a delicious match to look forward to when we host Chelsea next week. Hope we get over the exertions of Champions League football since we are on the way to Bayern Munich on wednesday.

All the best, United. Two more cups to go!

What a round, Sirji!

2010-03-23T22:22:00.002+05:30

Oooh babe…

So we teed off this morning for a nice round at BGC. The weather was hot, but the breezy morning promised a good round. And good it was! Oh yeah, it was!

It all started with a horrible drive and a lost ball which put a triple bogey as the very first entry on the score card. A bogey followed soon after. And I was thinking that the round was going to hell in a golf cart (and that was the only golf cart on the course, so that should tell you something about the score card and it's affordability). At this time, I had to remind myself that the two holes had passed and that there was nothing I could do but to play the next 16 holes the best I could. I promptly put in a 20 footer for birdie on the very next hole :-)

On the old Index 1 (the current Index 3), I hit a pipper of a driver to the center of the fairway and was 90 yards to the pin. And then I hit one of the best shots of the round…to 6 inches from the pin. A tap in birdie.

The very next hole brought the best of the round. A good tee shot yet again and a decent approach left me 25 feet to the pin with a double break. And the putt rolled from right to left at first and then straightened and went left to right, all this while with just the right speed to plonk into the back of the cup. Back to back birdies.

The amazing part of the round was that I had a total of FIVE birdies. On the 18th, I was left with a 15 footer downhill putt. And my partner mentioned that I should put in one more, just for the sake of the round…and I DID.

Thro the entire round, I read the line and the speed myself and that made the 5 birdies even more special. And at the end of the round, I had a score of 8 over. A decent score. I would have called it a great round, but I missed at least 6 putts by a whisker (or bad luck) for birdies, so I could have been at a lot lower score. But like every round of golf, you take what you get and you get what you take.

But I had fun…and we won…and that rhymes :-)

Epitome of inconsistency

2010-03-03T12:52:00.003+05:30

Ok, so I'm going to talk about golf again.

I'm sorry, but I can't help myself. It's the one sport I have played (and I have played a lot, believe me) that is at the same time gratifying and frustrating. It is unlike any other sport that I have ever played and challenges you to better yourself, even when things are not going well.

Let me illustrate.

So a few people from the office and I were playing golf at the Bangalore Golf Club (BGC from now on). I had come in on the back of a few good rounds in the last couple of weeks (a 7 over, 8 over and another 8 over at KGA, which is a tougher course), so I felt pretty confident about my game. The confidence showed as I hit my first tee shot which sailed gloriously away to the fairway 250 yards away. But as I walked up to the ball, I saw it sitting in a horrible lie in a bunker with the only option for me to blast it out and then try to make something with the 3rd shot (thank the force for the Par 5). I did manage to get it out, but the next shot and the one after that left a lot to be desired and just like that, I had double bogey.

OK, I say to myself. Shit happens. Move on to the next hole…which I parred. But after a lovely drive down the fairway, I screwed up again and had double bogey yet again. And that was the story for the rest of the front 9. I came into the club house with a horrible 11 over, more in just 9 holes than my entire 18 hole scores for the past 3 consecutive rounds. Needless to say, I was cursing myself.

What changed was all of that cursing to myself made me angrier about making stupid silly mistakes and to focus more on the game. And with that, I played one under for the next 7 holes. I had a couple of pieces of bad luck on the 17th and 18th making me drop a shot each, but I had played the back 9 to just 1 over, finishing the round with a respectable 12 over (something close to my handicap).

Now while recovering on the back 9 felt really good, I was left with the feeling that I have the game in me to shoot the 1 over on both nines, maybe even shoot under. What I lack thus far is the focus thro every shot in the round.

So for the next round, I am going to try something different. I am going to take 5 seconds and just try to shut my mind even before I get to the ball. Then, once I get to the ball, I will take 5 more seconds than I usually do to visualize the shot. I do this already, but I think I need to spend more time on this to will the shot rather than just swing the club.

Let's see how it works out. You will hear about it right here. Wish me luck!

How can they be happy at a time like this?

2010-02-22T16:24:00.003+05:30

I was flipping thro the channels on a lazy Sunday evening and "Jaane Tu…Ya Jaane Na" came on, right about the time when the friends have gone on a drive when the car breaks down.

So while they are cursing the guy who owns the car and are looking for someone to give them a lift, there's not a word about what happens to the car. And then they get into the back of the truck and start singing a song. No worries that their car is in the middle of nowhere.

How can you sing at a time like this?!?!

Or maybe it's the ability to sing especially at a time like that is what I need to learn. Shit happens. Shit happens on a daily basis. So why worry.

Only problem is: My folks would have kicked my ass all the way to Guantanamo Bay had I left my car in the middle of the road. I would have heard about it every time I took the car out for a long drive. Oh, now I remember why I can't sing at a time like this!

But hang on, I didn't get my dad's car to go on long drives anyways! The first long drive I ever did was when I bought my own car. And even if it did break down, there's very little hell my folks could put me thro. After all, it is my car! So I do need to learn to sing at a time like this!

But then, what about all the luggage? What about vandalism? What about people just taking my car apart piece by piece? After all, I am paying for that car with my blood, sweat and tears. Plus it's my first car! So you can say I am quite a bit attached to the car! So I would worry and I would worry some more till I got the car back home and to the garage. Hmmm, another reason not to sing at a time like this.

So much confusion!

I guess movies show a lot of young folks living care free lives and having a ball. And as A-Ha said more than 20 years ago, "The Sun Always Shines On TV". But most of us, who live in the real world, have to worry about these things, but subconsciously we are all fed the same fairy tale. We all want to be care free and really live every moment to its fullest rather than get bogged down by worries.

I guess responsibility is life's way of saying to us: "Hey now, Hey now, Don't dream it's over!"

Aromas of China, Taste buds in Heaven

2010-02-21T20:17:00.000+05:30

Felt like eating Chinese food for lunch today, for no rhyme or reason.

After a lot of deliberation, we decided on Aromas of China at Richmond Circle. When we entered, we noticed the festive decor celebrating Chinese New Year and we were informed that they had a special menu for just the occasion. So we decided to order things from that menu and boy, was I blown away!

We ordered the Sliced Chicken with Peanut Butter Sauce (Chicken Bann Bann if I recall correctly) and steamed spiced wantons. The chicken just blew me away. It was spicy and sweet and tangy and my taste buds had a field day. Perfect start.

For the main course, I had chosen the Mongolian Pepper sliced lamb. This dish rocked! The lamb was ever so thinly sliced and cooked so nicely that it seemed to melt in my mouth. And the flavour, oh the flavour! I could not resist ordering more just so I could take it home and eat it again (which I did…for dinner) :-)

I recommend you try it!

I'm looking up...

2010-02-17T17:44:00.004+05:30

By me, I mean my blog :-)

OK So I know I have just started writing after a long absence, but that does not mean that I gave up on all the vanity I have accumulated over the years. So obviously I was curious as to how much traffic the blog is getting. Here's what I saw:

I started out towards the end of 2004, so I ignored that year. Between 2005 and 2006, I started to write quite often and saw a nice rise in the number of people coming to my site. The peak seems to be 2007, but there were fewer people coming back to the site.

Here's the astonishing part: I didn't blog much during 2008 and not at all in the whole of 2009, yet there are over 5500 hits and over 3000 unique visitors to my blog. And since I have started, I'm averaging as much as I was during the peak of 2007, so I guess that's a good start.

But there is another thing: 75% of the people who land on my blog usually land there because of some search string they keyed in on Google (usually some variant of the word "bakwas") and they leave within 5 seconds after they realize that these are nothing but the ramblings of a deranged man. But then…

If they stick a little longer than 5 seconds, they invariably tend to stay on for between 2 and 5 minutes. And these are the people who usually come back and stay for between 5 and 20 minutes. And that is the 25% that make my regular returning readers.

And it is to you, my 25%, that I want to thank for putting up with the bu11$h1t that I am infamous for posting up here.

I will keep endeavoring to make my bu11$h1t more tolerable and easier to swallow (yuck!).

Scheduled Maintenance

2010-02-15T15:02:00.003+05:30

We usually get these mails from our System Administrators down in the office telling us something or the other in the backend is being upgraded or repaired or installed anew. But this topic has nothing to do with computers at all.

It's about me.

The last couple of weeks, I realized that I had had a little too much of the old nicotine stick, so much so that I had gotten to the point where I was fidgeting for one if I had nothing else to do. And I realized that the more inactivity I had, the more I was going towards it. And not because my body needed it, but because my mind had nothing else to do.

So I waited for the party yesterday afternoon to get over with, had one last stick (for a few days anyways) and have not picked it up since. I know it's been a very short period of time, just 24 hours, but I'm there and I have not felt like lighting up the entire time.

As an added bonus, I have decided to take a break from alcohol as well…for a while at least. Usually, alcohol is the reason people revert to smoking and I don't want to give myself that reason for temptation. Will go into dry dock for a few weeks till my body feels like it used to before I started binging.

So the system is under scheduled maintenance and will be unavailable for smokers and alcohol parties for a few weeks.

Early 30's

2010-02-11T11:50:00.000+05:30

I was wishing a friend of mine on her birthday and she mentioned how she was still in her "Early 30's" which got me thinking.

Of course, this thinking has been on for a while now, specifically as I was hurtling towards my 35th birthday last year. The thought all this while was that I was approaching Half Time in this game that is my life and it had been a pretty uneventful first half with no real goals and not enough creativity in the play. So the whole of last year was about changing all the things that are dragging my life - and my performance in the game that is my life - down and to embark on things that stimulate my thought and fire up my spirit.

While I have been successful with a few of those - I have started writing again (still sketching the framework for my novel), my photography is improving (but is still a long LONG way to go), golf has never been better - I have not yet seized my life and taken complete control of it. Which is where the catch is. I still haven't found what I'm looking for (Sorry U2).

And so the chat yesterday about the early 30's rang a bell in the same tiny part of me that is my brain, reminding me of the quest I embarked on more than a year ago.

In a couple of months, I will no longer be in my early 30's. I will have officially stepped across a boundary, all in the matter of a few days, which will carry me into the realm of the late 30's. Everything after that spells O.L.D. Even if you say you're in your early 40's, it's still old, isn't it?

So here I am, on the crossroads of my life, on the threshold of starting the second half of this game. Let's hope I will do better in this half and that this half will be a lot more exciting than the first half (which was boooooring).

Wish me luck!

1411

2010-02-09T13:54:00.000+05:30

That's how many Tigers are left in India.

Just to put things in perspective…

1. There is 1 tiger for every 830,000 people in our country.

2. There is 1 tiger for every 5 square kilometers of "Tiger preserve" marked reserve forest.

3. There is 1 tiger for every 100 kilometers within India's Wildlife Sanctuaries.

Let's face it. As a people and as a race, we are not helping the environment. And I know it is easy to say that this is all talk and that nothing happens in this country and that nobody does anything. But think about it. Even if two people read this blog, and those two people tell it to two more people, who tell it to two more people, eventually we will have together raised a lot of awareness and hopefully some action to solve this problem.

After all, this is the Year of the Tiger (according to the Chinese calendar) and we owe it to every single species that shares this planet with us.

If you have a better idea, please share it and we can all get behind it. If you don't, the least you can do is spread the word and increase awareness. Help me.

U.S.B. 2.0

2010-02-07T19:18:00.001+05:30

I have a daughter who's 9, but thinks (and behaves) like she's in her teens.

The other day, she kept going on how her hair is not right, how her skin colour is too dark and how she is - in general - quite ugly. No matter what we said or did could change her opinion of herself. And she really is quite a pretty girl (if I might say so myself), so I could not really understand where this was coming from.

So I went to youtube and showed her a couple of videos (specifically this one and this one) to show her how, as a society, we have a distorted and false image of beauty and that it matters more to be a beautiful person from the inside rather than worry about what people think of you from the outside.

I knew I had softened her opinion, but I had not won the battle.

So I went reverse psychology :-)

By some sheer coincidence, an advert for "Ugly Betty" was coming on TV at exactly that time. So I said to her, "yeah, you're right. You're just like her. But you're not really ugly, so you must be stupid! So from now on, I will call you Ugly Stupid Betty…USB for short!" And I would call her that every now and then. Every time she complained about it, I would remind her that I was merely agreeing with her original opinion, so she had no right to complain.

Finally, she looked at me and said "look, see my face, do I look ugly? I don't! So stop calling me USB"

So I changed it to USB 2.0 (Unbelievable Sundar Baby)…for those who don't understand Hindi or Marathi, Sundar means beautiful. So now she's USB 2.0 with the caveat that if she ever reverts to her original opinion, I will revert to the original name.

She hasn't once mentioned anything other than how happy she is with the way she looks the last few days...

Crisis averted! :-D

I hit an Eagle…literally

2010-02-06T17:11:00.000+05:30

I had a buddy of mine visiting me in Bangalore and by sheer coincidence, his friend - who happens to be an avid golfer - was also in Bangalore. Needless to say, we planned a round at KGA.

One word can describe the way I played. SHANK!

So obviously I was playing quite badly. But the thing that surprised me the most happened after I had teed off on the 7th hole. My drive landed in the fairway bunker and I had to play an aggressive 8 iron to the green from there from a tough lie. I thinned the ball a bit and it flew over the lip of the bunker and…went and hit an eagle who was beyond my line of sight. I didn't even know I had hit it till my caddies shouted out that I had hit an eagle. From where I was, there was no way I could have hit the green and sunk it.

It was only after I saw this poor bird lying on the ground did I realize what he meant!

I was feeling so shitty then, this poor defenseless bird getting hit with a really hard object traveling at quite some speed.

Luckily, I was there to see the eagle soar and fly off.

Aall is well! Thank the Force!

Answering your iPhone in the cold

2010-02-04T10:07:00.003+05:30

A couple of my buddies did a very interesting tour across Europe during the last couple of weeks. They went from Vienna to Budapest to Warsaw to Krakow to Auschwitz to Berlin to Copenhagen to Munich and back! PHEW!

And the killer point…it was snowing quite heavily!

So naturally I was curious as to what they did on the trip (as I want to do a similar trip, but not in the cold).

One of the funniest things I heard was how they answered calls on their iPhone. And the reason its so funny is that since they were in multiple layers of clothing and heavily gloved, and the iPhone needs the user to "slide to answer", they used the strongest muscle in the human body to do it.

They used their TONGUE!!!

Yep, thats right! They used their tongue to slide and answer the phone.

I thought that was really REALLY funny and yet and amazing solution to answering the iPhone in the cold.

Just make sure that the phone is clean and has not been to any disgusting places :-)

What nationality?

2010-02-03T12:50:00.002+05:30

Now before there is furore, let me clarify right away. I am a proud Indian thro and thro! Love this country (despite all its flaws and its problems) and very strongly believe that it's people (not the number of them, but their characters and culture) that make India different from any other place in the whole world.

But this post is obviously not about my patriotism…

This worm started with someone accusing me of switching sides when Schumi (Michael Schumacher for all you F1 neophytes) joined the Mercedes F1 team this year. Having been a long time supporter of Schumi and therefore Ferrari, I was very much a part of the Tifosi, the largely in red support group around the Prancing Horse.

And that got me thinking…and I realized:

I am Indian when I watch cricket.

I am Swiss when I watch tennis (except when it's doubles, where I am Indian again).

I am American when I watch golf.

I am British when I watch football.

I used to have dual citizenship (Germany and Italy) while watching F1, but have turned in my Italian citizenship to be an all and out German.

I am Indian again when I watch hockey.

I am Finnish when I watch the World Rally Championship.

I am American again when I watch basketball.

Wow! When it comes to sport, I am a global citizen :-)

Fire!

2010-02-02T23:09:00.000+05:30

I landed late last night from Delhi and the last thing I wanted was a
truck catching fire right in the middle of the airport road.

But since luck and I didn't share the best of relationships, there it was.

So we spent 25 minutes waiting for the smoke to clear and then finally got on our way. Hope no one was hurt in the fire.

Q(uite a few) B(eers) A(fter)

2010-02-02T17:59:00.001+05:30

Facebook surprised me yesterday. I put a status message that I had landed in Delhi and got a comment back telling me that my buddy from Singapore was also in Delhi. So of course I called him and we agreed to meet in the evening for drinks and dinner.

The place we decided to meet is a lounge called Q'BA (pronounced Queue Baa) at Connaught Place. It turned out to be a surprisingly nice place. Music not too loud, comfortable seating, nice food, great service and an option to either sit in or go to the open roof top seating area. Since it was Delhi in the winters, we chose to sit in.

I ended up meeting a couple of his colleagues (one of them turned out to be from my first company and somehow knew me…go figure!) and his engineering-college-time buddy, a boisterous and animated Mr Amardeep "Dippy" Singh. Together, we regaled ourselves with stories of a long gone era, reliving our days in college and of hostel life. And in the process, consumed quite a bit of alcohol. That led to the idea of going out being relegated to the trash can (I use a Mac, so no recycle bin here) and we decided to order food at Q'BA itself.

Which turned out to be a good idea. The food was nice and we saved ourselves an unnecessary tour of Delhi late in the night trying to hunt for a place serving decent food.

Only thing against Q'BA was the bill…or rather the amount that we had consumed. Thank the force that we had someone with us who earned in S$ :-D

A nice place, I would recommend it to anyone who wants to have a conversation without screaming at the people around while sitting comfortably having nice food…albeit for a price.

Print your blog?

2010-02-01T10:50:00.000+05:30

Was surprised to see this link on my blog composition page. What is does is takes your blog link and gives you a preview of what your blog would look like if you do choose to have it printed.

Curious as to what it will look like, I tried it. And it does not look half bad. And I realized my blogging would result in a mammoth 357 page tome!

But here is the catch:

Do I look like an idiot to spend $140 on printing the drivel that I dish out? Insane, isn't it?

But I admit, I am tempted to get the digital copy for $8. No harm in spending $8, no?

What do you say?

i-dont-Pad

2010-01-29T15:48:00.003+05:30

Yesterday, I watched Steve Jobs create the now familiar Reality Distortion Field when he took the stage to announce the "iPad". And as expected from Steve, words like Amazing, Fantastic, Revolutionary came thick and fast as the new sleek iPad was unveiled.

It's a really nice looking gadget. 9+ inches of screen real estate, up to 64GB of flash space, Wifi/3G, etc. And to start at $500.

And all thro the presentation, I was thinking to myself…all of this I can do on my 2G iphone! Everything except the iWorks part (which I really don't want to do on my phone). And it became a YAWN device for the moment. For the following reasons:

1. $500 for something that I absolutely don't need and that really does not add any real value.

2. I'm getting started with eBooks, having bought a couple of them from the Amazon store (Kindle edition), but I read them on my iPhone with the free Kindle app. So all I end up paying for is the book…which is 30% of the printed book cost. So that works for me.

3. One more device to carry around. I'm always going to carry my iPhone (I sometimes forget my wallet, but never my iPhone) and I'm going to need my laptop to do stuff the iPad will probably never. Case in point: Aperture! My photograph manipulation software that I need to sync my Nikon to when I'm going crazy with the shutter. So the iPad will be just another device that I will end up carrying with me and will only make my already heavy bag heavier by a kilo (it's only a kilo, so what?), not to mention the accessories that will eventually come with this device.

4. The number of books available for the Kindle is far greater than the ones for the iPad. Of course, you can say that's because there is no iPad today! But in 3 months time, when it is available, I believe the Kindle will still have a decent lead on the books available as compared to the iPad. And since I can buy the Kindle edition books and read them on my iPhone, I don't need to spend $500 for this.

5. I keep coming back to this $500 part, cause it's easy to misrepresent. For 500 bucks, you get the Wifi only 16GB version of the iPad. If you want the 64GB 3G enabled one, it's going to cost me $829! Now that's a lot of money to spend on something that I'm not sure I will use to the fullest today.

6. I wish Apple had put a tiny iSight camera on top of the iPad. Now that would have been a really cool thing to do. Then you could have used the iPad to do video conferencing on so many different platforms. Now you can chat with your friends on Google or Yahoo, but if you need to switch from chat to video, it's not a click away…it's a full device away.

I'm a huge Apple fan and usually love all the things they do. I like the iPad a lot as well, just don' t think it does much for me just yet. What I do believe is that it will probably bomb away the Kindle market and a large part of the Netbook market. It also might be a nice thing to give to kids, rather than a whole computer, but I did not hear too many things from Steve about Parental Controls on this device and so am not sure they thought about this market slice.

I'm hoping that as it happened with the iPhone (cost reduction by $100 within a few weeks of launch), Apple will lower the price for the 3G 64GB variant. Cause that's when I will seriously consider buying this thing. Until then, it's nice to look at, but that's all it is!

Who did you identify with?

2010-01-27T13:07:00.000+05:30

As soon as I walked out of the movie theatre, having just watched "3 Idiots", this was the question that sprang first to my mind. It would be superfluous to say that it is a very nice movie and that one should watch it at least once. But all thro the movie, I was seeing my classmates from yesteryears appear before my eyes.

There are so many people I remembered back from my college days while watching the movie. The guy who would pray before every exam and the day of the results; the guy who would cram for 18 hours during exams; the guy who was always scared; the guy who didn't want to be there, but his father wanted him to be there; the guy who would do whatever it took to get more marks.

But I want to know, who did you identify with in the movie? I haven't come across too many Ranchos to believe that many of you identified with him. So am curious as to who you guys identified with the most.

I know one person who in fact was like Rancho. Never studied to get marks, was more interested in learning, was the only person who was calmly sitting having a coffee while everyone around him was doing last minute cramming. But unlike the movie, the system is the one who judged this person's knowledge and eventually he graduated, not at the top of his class, but a lowly second class. Nevertheless, I'm glad to say that he's done quite well for himself since leaving college. So I guess his (and Rancho's) philosophy does work (a bit).

What do you say?

80

2010-01-26T18:55:00.000+05:30

The title should tell you what the post is going to be about :)

Of course its Golf!

On the day that is Republic Day, four of us drove down a few hundred kilometers to play a round of golf at the Eagleton Golf Club. OK, so it's only 33km from Bangalore, but trust me, it feels a lot longer. Especially after a full round of golf. And even longer if you've refreshed yourself afterwards with a beer or two.

Anyways, I digress. So we landed there and found out that there were not enough caddies for all of us. So the inevitable and unenviable wait…these are the most hated moments on the golf course. So near and yet so far. You're there, but you can't start. Finally after the caddies consented to accompany us on our round, we landed up at the first tee.

For the company that we usually play in, it is more often than not the feeling that we are good players and so we prefer to play Eagleton from the Championship Black tees. After all, we need more challenges than the ones our own game would be throwing at us.

We started with an all par first hole, a rare occurrence. If you had a look at our tee shots, you would have never believed that we all got on (or near) the green in 3 and made our pars. And just like that, the round was underway. I was playing so-so for the first 6 holes and then made two back to back birdies on the 8th and the 9th to finish the front 9 at 4 over. The back nine started very similar to the front and I started feeling a little more comfortable with my swing, but not quite.

Funniest moment of the day was when my ball was on the edge of the water hazard on the 13th hole. I had to stand with my spiked shoes on the cemented lip of the water tank to hit the shot. Only problem was every movement I made would make my shoes slip and as I tried to hit the ball, my feet moved from under me as my club barely touched the ball to start its roll into the water. Penalty!

Ended up shooting 80 (8 over) which, considering that we played from the most difficult tees, is a pretty good score to shoot.

The thing different about this round is that I was carrying my camera with me all the time and shooting everyone's swing. I am planning to make a video on it, should be ready by tomorrow evening :-)

All in all, am happy with the way I played, despite not playing close to my best. After all, grinding it out when you are not at your best is a good sign that there are better things to come when you do hit that occasional and rare peak. And that's what golf does to me, keeps me in the hunt for the next round!

Thank you, Babu!

2010-01-25T20:02:00.002+05:30

I know it's been a while since I last blogged (that is an understatement of such enormous magnitude that it's hard to compare it with anything else) and my last post was more than a year ago. But something happened very recently that has prompted me to rethink my blogging career(?!?!) and to become an active blogger again.

But before I do that, I want to tell you folks what happened.

Out of the blue, on Friday last week, I got a very pleasant surprise. A mail from my colleague and buddy from Mumbai was waiting in my inbox. Here's what it said:

From: Babu Ramaswamy

Subject: Hats off

Date: 22 January 2010 3:23:16 PM GMT+05:30

To: Malhar Anaokar

Hi Malhar,

I took some time out last evening and went through your dumping ground ( blogspot )

I started by reading one..then another..then another and in the end i could not leave your page before i finished reading them all... I am really really impressed by your writing...Why have you stopped???

While i was reading blogs under " PROUD FATHER ", i actually could visualize you with your daughter.....While " You are not the boss of the house " brought a smile, reading blogs like " How can i deny this request ", " It's been nine days ", " I am so so proud of her " made my eyes moist.

Admitting to have had " moist eyes " isn't the most macho thing, but i'd be lying if i said that i wasn't blinking back tears when i went through the blogs mentioned above.

You have great skills and i persuade you to continue writing. " The Tiger in town " also shows that your daughter too has the penchant for writing.

Looking forward to reading your short story.

And yes please convey my best wishes to your daughter..

Cheers
Babu"

WOW!

That one completely floored me! This was completely unexpected. I have never expected anyone to read the rubbish that I put up here, much less appreciate it. But more than that, I admired his patience to stay with the blog and to read all the posts. I must have done something right while I was writing them…which brings me to this post.

Dear Babu, this one is dedicated to you! Thank you once again for the very kind and encouraging words and for making me blog again. I will try to be a more sincere and regular blogger henceforth, mainly because you have set the bar so high with your praise that I fear I may not live up to it. But I will try nonetheless. So here goes…to you, my friend, for helping me get on the blogger's path again.

So what's been happening all this while that I have not posted? Quite a few things, actually. So let me see if I can get a few up here…

1. The company that I work for has been acquired. So we are all waiting for the legalities to get done and see what the future holds.

2. I entered in a short story writing competition last year, did not win, but was told that my story was one of the few in contention and that they would like to publish it as part of an anthology. And so, just like that, my second publishing opportunity! The first one you can read about here.

3. I have started going to a guitar class for the first time in my life. After scratching on the strings for all these years, I finally decided that I will learn it like every other sane person on the planet. And I realized I have the B and F chords! :-)

4. Golf has been one roller coaster ride. A few of us in the office started tracking our scores religiously and saw our handicaps drop significantly. Last I checked on our tracking system, I was down to 9.7! And then disaster struck…I could not understand what I was doing wrong. Until last week…when I shot 10 consecutive pars! A personal record!

5. Schumi is back to Formula 1 and my interest in the sport is back. What had become a really boring sport that I pretty much ignored will be my weekend attraction starting March. Go Schumi, Go!

6. Photography as a passion has grown manyfold over the last year, especially since the acquisition of the Nikon D90, a dream of a camera. Have clicked more than 8000 images so far with it, and many more with the iPhone camera and am seeing my passion growing as I start understanding the technicalities of photography. Let's see where this goes in the future.

That's what I can remember so far. And since I am planning to post regularly, as I remember, I will keep adding on.

Once again, thanx a lot for getting me started again, Babu.

Beer is on me the next time we meet! :-)

Why they have clearer skies

2008-11-07T10:33:00.003+05:30

Last month, I was in California for a couple of meetings. California just happens to be my favorite place to go to in the US. There's so much natural beauty and so many things to see, so many things to do that I invariably run out of time. I can spend entire evenings sitting at a cafe on University Avenue in Palo Alto, or take a drive on the I680 through the mountains, or walk around near Pier 39 in San Francisco, or better still...make the short drive to Napa Valley and enjoy the vino.

Throughout the trip last time, I regretted not having a good camera with me. I'm still waiting for the Nikon D90 prices to come down (I'm pretty sure that is the camera I want to buy). And I noticed that the skies were so much bluer and the scenery so much more crisper. I wondered if that was because California was higher up from the Equator and so the light fell differently.

Not so!

I was in Delhi almost the whole of the last week and part of this week and I saw that there was poor visibility even when the day was nearing noon. Mostly because of the smog. It looked a lot worse towards the evening when the Sun looked like a red orb hanging in the sky, filtered through a grey atmosphere. Taking off from Delhi exactly demonstrated that. The flight went through a grey layer before it broke through and clear blue skies revealed themselves.

Even when I stand in the balcony of my office on Kasturba Road in Bangalore, I can see that thin layer of grey (not as much as Delhi, but still there) colouring the otherwise clear blue skies. And I now know why the skies in the US and most "foreign" countries look so good.

They have NO POLLUTION!

Here we have trucks, busses and lorries spewing their horrible exhausts, auto rickshaws contributing their bluish grey fumes, motorbikes adding their partially burnt fuel remains and finally the dust from all the surrounding that makes our skies look murky. In most developed countries, there are lawns of really crappy grass instead of open spaces, not only because it makes the place look prettier, but also because the grass holds the earth together and does not let the wind kick up the dust. In India, we have piles of sand and dust lying around unused from held up construction sites or from pot holes that are yet to be repaired. There is just too much dust on the roads which gets kicked up from the relentless plying of vehicles on the roads. So what remains is a highly potent combination of dust, fumes, odour and smoke which makes breathing on our streets a practical challenge.

I know we have pollution laws in India, but we need stricter application of these laws. Just like we need stricter traffic laws. Everyone is in such a hurry to get somewhere that they usually end up taking longer to get there because they caused a traffic jam. And there they stand with their engines running, burning more fuel and contributing more to the already high pollution levels we have. I talked a little bit about this in one of my previous blogs, but this is different. Earlier, I was talking about how a little bit of traffic law enforcement, a little consideration from people driving on the streets and some common sense can make the driving experience in India a lot better. Now I am talking about the implications of these conditions on the pollution levels we experience.

In a country of our size, I know it is difficult to achieve consensus. But that is what makes it our individual responsibility to demonstrate good behaviour one person at a time. We cannot change the whole world unless we change ourselves.

Think about it, India. If we have to demonstrate ourselves as one of the leaders in the future world, we need the equivalent of the Clean Air Act. We need more courtesy on the roads and we need a little bit of patience on the roads. No amount of infrastructure the Government can provide will be enough and unless we change our mindset, we will still be honking our car horns and driving on the wrong side of the road to get to another place in a hurry despite having nice expressways.

It beings with one. It begins with us. It starts here with me.

I just had to blog about this

2008-11-06T13:02:00.003+05:30

Yesterday, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States of America.

Let me say that again!

Yesterday, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States of America!

Do you know what this means? Do you understand the implications?

A black man from Hawaii with a white mother from Kansas, a black father from Kenya and Indonesian cousins who was a community organizer after he left as Editor of the Harvard Law Review has won the most coveted contest of all. He will be the 44th President of the United States.

And you know what, the whole world was watching. Not just news channels and people in power, but ordinary citizens of Germany, Australia, Indonesia, Kenya, not to forget India and so many more countries watched with bated breath as this inspirational person that a lot of us have been following for the last 4 years won a landslide victory over a white POW long time senator. During the last 2 years since he announced his candidature for the Presidency, Barack Obama has endeared himself to the world. People have flocked to his rallies (you should have seen the more-than-200,000 people who turned up at the Teirgarten in Germany) to listen to him and to feel inspired.

Not one thing that the Republicans threw at him could stick. They called him a Muslim (nothing wrong with that), a Socialist (something that the US government is doing right now with the 700 Billion $ Wall Street bailout), a Terrorist Pal (huh?), an Elitist (and I would have thought that is exactly what a President should be...a lot better than the average person), Weak (because he said he will talk to regimes like Iran, North Korea and Venezuela...sounds like a good strategy to me) and finally...not being Black enough! But none of them stuck as Barack completely changed the electoral map of the US by winning key Republican states while retaining the traditionally strong Democratic states and a lot of the swing states. He won by a landslide margin of more than 200 Electoral College votes!

As he said in the keynote address during the Kerry campaign convention and in his speech yesterday, it is all about the United States of America. And the impact that his presidency will have on the rest of the world is enormous.

Last night, I made my daughter stay up past her bed time so that I could get back from the airport and tell her a story. I spoke about how the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth rock and settled America, how the United States was formed on an idea, how slavery began, how the Civil War in America affected it and how Abraham Lincoln ended slavery to keep to what the US constitution says at the very beginning. "We hold these truths to be self evident. All men are created equal!"

And I told her about how women did not get the right to vote for a long time. And how Black people had to wait even longer. And how Rosa Parks refused to get off a bus to start what became the Civil Rights Movement. And how Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. inspired everyone around him with his "I have a dream" speech.

And that is what I wanted her to do. Exactly that. Have a dream. Cherish it. Follow it. Work towards it. And fulfill it. As Barack Obama did by winning this election. And simultaneously fulfilling the dreams of millions of Black Americans by shattering that last barrier. You could see Rev. Al Sharpton and Oprah Winfrey with tears streaming down their eyes as they watched their man accept the outcome of the election and who will go on to become the 44th President of the United States.

As Jon Stewart once said, "I don't understand when politicians go around saying 'I'm one of you. I'm just like you'. Don't be like me. Be WAY better than me. Be so much better than me that you make me feel safe. And get me healthcare". And that to me is what Barack Obama stands for.

Someone with no backing. A self made man. Intelligent enough to be the first black Editor of the Harvard Law Review. Exceptionally inspiring. Phenomenal at his articulation. And more importantly, his ability to bring people together and present a hope of better things.

I'm sure he has HUGE problems when he gets sworn in. Two costly wars. An economy down the tube. A broken healthcare system. A burgeoning fiscal deficit. And all of this will take time to solve. But this is what I think...

George W. Bush once said "History will be the judge of whether I was right or wrong". And I think that history has spoken. For that same history, to leave a world far better than what it is now, for the sake of his two daughters who will only be 16 and 14 when he leaves office, he has NO OTHER CHOICE but to be the greatest President in the history of the United States.

Not because he's the first black President. Not because of the state in which he receives the Oval Office. Not for any other reason but to leave a legacy for his two young daughters to say that Daddy did a good job and made the world a better place for them.

I have followed this man ever since he made the keynote speech at John Kerry's nomination and have been fascinated by him and his ability to inspire people. There is not a speech of him that I have not see, not a single interview I have missed and I saw all the debates. And I think the best candidate won.

I even have a "Obama'08" bumper sticker which I got shipped across from the US.

In the hope of a better world, all the best to you Barack! You need it and I'm sure you will do a great job. Here's to peace, prosperity and a world with more smiles.

Life without four remote controls

2008-07-29T10:11:00.002+05:30

We had gone to watch Kung Fu Panda over the weekend at Fun Cinemas on Cunningham Road. After the movie (which was nice), we stepped to the Reliance Timeout just a little further down the road to pick up some stationary. What I had not noticed in my previous visits to that store was that Reliance Digital - Reliance's appliance megastore - was on the first floor of the building. Curious as to what they had to offer, I sauntered over to check it out.

My first impression of the store was that they had a lot of stuff. A large floor space with refrigerators at one end and flat panel TVs at the other and everything else in between. Then I realized that these were the brands that you could get pretty much everywhere, just the prices were a tad below MRP (which is to say that you are buying at a little bit of a discount). I walked around to see if anything catches my eye and there it was, waiting for me to see it.

A whole bunch of Universal Remote Controllers (URC) to choose from!

Why do I need it? Why does anyone in the typical household today need one? So you have the remote controller for the TV, then there's one for the DVD player, one for the cable set top box and then, if you have a Home Theatre System, a remote for the amplifier. That's four remotes that I have to juggle with whenever there's something to be watched on TV.

After a bunch of research on the Net about URCs, the general consensus was that the Logitech Harmony series (preferably the Harmony 1000 which has a cool touch screen display and looks like a PDA, but in the absence of that, the Harmony 890 which looks like a traditional remote, but is extremely versatile) was the best URC to buy. It was extendable, could be configured and taught using a PC and there were downloadable templates to configure it. All of this, without a lot of fuss. The downside? You guessed it. Cost! Both the models cost a BOMB! The 890, which was available at Reliance, was going at Rs. 16500, the equivalent of $400!

That's too much for a remote controller, I thought.

So there were the usual suspects. Some Chinese companies at a ridiculously low price (which makes me massively suspicious) and then there was Philips. There were three models available with increasing feature functionality and consequently, increasing cost. The range started from Rs 2999 (about $60) and went all the way up to Rs 10999 (about $250). Being the cost conscious Indian buyer, I narrowed down on the lower end of the spectrum. From what I saw, the more expensive ones were relatively easier to configure as compared to the lower end one and had more sources that they could control. The most I wanted was a replacement for the four remotes I have at home and this one could manage them all and a few more (seven to be precise). As for the ease of configuration, being the geek I am, I have no problem investing some time and a few brain cells to figure out how to do it. In fact, I would rather do it the hard way so that I know exactly what to do if shit hits the ceiling :-)

So I finally bought the Philips SRU 5170 URC, a product that comes with a bunch of preset codes for a bunch of sources and can replace up to 7 device remote controls. That was like music to my ears. What I did not expect is how quickly I would be able to get it up and running.

I started out with my LG plasma TV. On the remote, I initiated the process to add a source and it gave me an option of TV, AMP, DVD, CD, Cable, another TV and DVR. After I chose TV, it gave me a huge list of TVs to choose from. Within LG, it sent out test signals to figure out which would work the best and then just configured itself! One down three to go. The Sony DVD player and the Tata Sky cable set top box (Thomson rebranded...I checked at the back) went in similar lines. Then came the AMP setup and that is where the remote was lost. It did not have preset codes for my Cambridge Audio Azur 540. Granted that the Cambridge Audio brand is not the most popular in the world, but it is one of the best out there in terms of performance. But without wasting too much time on this, to cut a longish story shortish, there were no codes to auto set the remote.

No worries! The remote can learn. I just set the remote to some arbitrary amp and then "taught" it all the keys I use on the AMP remote. By taught, I mean that I had to manually set all the keys by making the remote accept the codes that the main AMP remote was sending out. And the way to set it is so easy, it only takes a short while to do it. So that was done.

Then there was the picky part of me. I wanted all the popular buttons on all the remotes to be mapped appropriately to some button on the URC. That took a bit of time, not because of the time it takes for the remote to learn, but because I took a little time analyzing which keys get used the most and where to most appropriately place them. In case I did not want to allocate a button for it, the URC gave me the option of adding what it called "Xtras", something that you could activate from a list of extra functions. Like the Eject button for the DVD player. Or the Picture-In-Picture related buttons for the TV. Once that was done, the remote was all set.

And that is when I realized the joy of using this thing. From a single place, I could do pretty much everything I wanted with my AV setup. Short of turning on my Wii and flying over the Wiimote to where I was sitting, the URC can do everything I ask it to. And in case I accidentally find a couple of buttons that I have forgotten to configure, it takes just a few seconds and it's done!

Purrrrrfectamente!

For anyone who has had enough of the multiple remote controllers at home, I would very VERY strongly recommend the Philips SRU 5170 URC. It will make your life a lot easier and make sure that you only have - and need - one remote controller by your side.

A different kind of cap

2008-07-22T10:27:00.002+05:30

I remember when I was little, growing up in the bustling city of Mumbai (Bombay as it was called then). And when I was old enough to start noticing things, one of the things that I distinctly remember noticing is that most cars had either a little hat on top of their headlights or they had a thick black band running on the top inch of their headlights.

Being the curious kind (yeah, I gave my parents hell because of that!), I asked my Dad why that was so. And he told me that there was a law in the city of Bombay at that time to have this mark. The reason? To ensure that people don't use the high beam all the time and even if they did, the beam would not hurt drivers coming in from the opposite sides of the road.

Now that sounded like a novel solution to me. Instead of changing people's behaviors and accepting the fact that some people will not change no matter what, the governing body of Bombay had decided on ensuring this idiot proof solution to make driving at night better. As infrastructure in Mumbai got better, most people would just put the panel lights on and use the very good lighting on the road to avoid switching on the headlights of their cars.

Cut to local time, Bangalore!

If you have driven on the roads of Bangalore, you will know what I am talking about. Not only is there no good lighting on the roads, there is no discipline whatsoever when it comes to drivers plying on them. Compounding the problem is this habit of a lot of people to use the high beam as the default option while driving their cars. This makes driving in Bangalore, more so at night, a nightmare (no pun intended).

I think the law of 30 years ago in Bombay would make a lot of sense in today's Bangalore. It will make life a lot easier for commuters like me who prefer to drive their cars to work and back.

What do you think?

Oil prices, fuel efficiency and saber rattling

2008-07-21T12:14:00.002+05:30

The last few months has been all about the record levels of fuel prices, what with the rising cost of crude oil and the $/barrel reaching new heights. Some analysts say that it will reach as high as $200 per barrel. This must sound like good news to all the OPEC nations and the BigOil corporations who are making record profits.

While this definitely impacts the common man, it impacts in more ways than one.

Last year, I made the decision to buy a fairly sophisticated car. Not only is this car a diesel car (making it a lot more cost effective in India, since diesel is still considered the farmer's fuel), it is also extremely fuel efficient. And it says so whenever I take it out for a drive. The display on the dashboard tells me all the information I need about the running of the car. The average speed, how far I have travelled since I last turned on the engine and - more importantly - how much fuel I'm consuming for that drive. I have a choice of keeping one of these indicators constantly on the display when I drive. Naturally, being Indian, I'm very concerned about how much fuel I burn getting from office to work and back.

What I have noticed is when I leave relatively early (courtesy having to drop my daughter to school every morning), I usually make it to office in around 25 minutes and the fuel efficiency readout shows 13.9 km/liter. The same journey at a slightly later time, or during traffic jam conditions, results in the readout showing 7.2 km/liter! And this is a good case!

When it rains in Bangalore, or because of the huge amounts of constructions(?) going on for the road leading to the new Bangalore International Airport, traffic piles up to such an extent that you can spend as much as an hour just clearing a small 1 km stretch on that road. I experienced it this morning when traffic refused to move for a long time and I watched as the counter moved steadily south to finally read 5.9 km/liter! With an average speed for the journey at 7 km/hour!

I just used up more than twice the amount of fuel for the same journey as I would have with relatively no traffic OR with infrastructure capable of handling the current traffic conditions. And this is for a very fuel efficient car. I shudder to think what it must be doing for mileage of older cars and ones that are not as tuned or as efficient. The problem is compounded even further when you consider that most of the cars running on the road are petrol, not diesel!

It's one thing to talk about energy efficiency and pollution control, but all of that fine tuning and threshold setting comes to naught when you consider that most cars are running at speeds which are not the most optimum. That only causes the cars to burn more and pollute the environment more.

It's one thing about setting a high standard for cars being sold in India in terms of fuel efficiency and emission. It's a completely different thing when it comes to providing these efficient cars the necessary infrastructure to demonstrate that efficiency! And that is where we are lacking big time!

And to think that I would never have been able to quantify this had it not been for my car.

A long weekend, a horrible drive, family reunion, holi colours and thank you Reliance!

2008-03-25T15:02:00.004+05:30

That pretty much summarizes the last few days.

Last week, around Tuesday, my cousin called me up to check what we were doing for the long weekend that was coming up. This was the "Holi" festival weekend. Since we hadn't planned anything specific, he suggested we head to Hyderabad for a long overdue reunion. That sounded like fun and so I agreed. Just like that. Our phone call must have been only a couple of minutes and this was the shortest time I have ever taken to plan a trip.

We had been told the road between Hyderabad and Bangalore (NH7...which incidentally happens to be the longest national highway in India) was in great shape with 4 laning completed and the drive being a breeze.

My foot!!!

It was a horrible drive with the road in bad conditions and needing to keep changing sides depending on which section of the highway had been completed. Adding to the misery was the complete lack of decent facilities to eat and to go to the loo. That made the journey even more uncomfortable. And, as if we did not have enough to deal with, my daughter had motion sickness because of the road conditions. Poor thing, she became so weak because of the constant throwing up.

Enter Reliance A1 Plaza! This is a God sent on the highway. Tucked away right next to most large Reliance petrol stations, this is a nice place for food and a clean toilet to boot. The food is decent, the service quick, the place clean and the toilets better than any other place I have seen on the road. This was the place we had used on our earlier trip to Poona for a bite and a quick relief. Funny enough, the Reliance fuel prices are higher than the rest of the bunks and so we did not top up at the Reliance stations, but at my preferred Indian Oil bunks. But coming back to the point, the A1 plazas were a sight for sore eyes and a welcome sight every time I felt the need to relieve myself. So for this simple, yet magnificent gesture, thank you Reliance!

The journey, if you forget the roads, was relatively nice. The weather was great...a bright day and a lot of cloud cover at the same time. You can see from the picture that the day looked nice. That made the journey a little more comfortable and the music feel a lot mellower. The music too was completely eclectic. Ranging from the "Jab We Met" and "Metro" Hindi movie soundtracks (when my daughter was awake) to Melissa Etheridge and Andrea Bocelli and even some old rock anthems, we heard it all. It made it easier to ignore the bad road and look ahead to reaching Hyderabad.

A warm welcome and a few drinks later, we prepared to put the kids to bed cause they had a relatively early morning, what with the Holi celebrations looming large. The hitch to that was the lovely weather that followed us all the way from Bangalore to Hyderabad and made this usually hot and dry city very pleasant. (We would like to think we brought the weather along!). It even rained in the evening making it very cool and breezy.

Then the next day we were all woken (a little later than we had planned, I should add) with the commotion with all the people in the complex on the central lawn in a riot of colours. There were so many colours and so many people together, all playing amongst each other when they did not even know each other before this day. Strangers putting colours and water on strangers, children playing as one, the entire lawn as colourful and as vibrant as the national flag of India. And on that day, I realized how so many people of so many different religions and so many different languages and so many different colours, cultures, traditions and origins coexist in harmony. We have found ways to celebrate what is common and now what makes us different. And here India is different!

As you can see from the pictures, the two kids had a ball. Drenched from head to toe and covered with every possible colour imaginable, they came home with a smile on their face and spring in their step. Even the scrub that I had to give my daughter (to take all the colour off her) did not deter her spirit. She was running around after a few minutes playing with my cousin's daughter (you can also see her in the picture).

And then the dreaded trip back. I tried to get the family to fly back to Bangalore so that they would not have to endure the road trip, but because this was the long weekend, all the flights were sold out and we had no other choice but to bite the bullet, make my daughter pop a pill for the motion sickness and start back. The way back was compounded with torrential - and I really mean torrential - rain slamming into the car. There was bad visibility because of the clouds as it is and it became worse with the rain coming down hard on us. That slowed us down considerably and made the trip feel longer than it was. But there were a couple of places where the sight was picture perfect. We even saw two rainbows side by side (I couldn't take a picture as there was no place to stop on the highway to do that) and then this beautiful sunset.

All in all, it was a mixed trip. But I want to thank my cousin Sachin, his lovely wife Sri and their adorable Ria for making our trip a memorable one. The conversations, the amount of ragging I went thro (I will get back, you guys!), the food and the general trip was amazing and we had a lot of fun. We are looking forward to another such vacation with the families.

Until then, take care!

This is like the Bangalore of old

2008-03-20T15:11:00.002+05:30

Some of us who have been here long enough remember the time when Bangalore was this wonderful place with perfect weather. Whenever it threatened to get hot, a sudden rain shower would blow in to cool things down. The smell of dry earth suddenly drenched with water would be a regular intoxicating feature of Bangalore.

Then, as people started pouring into the Silicon Valley of India and as the number of people, cars, auto rickshaws, busses, vendors, diversions, one ways and in general traffic went rocketing, the weather started to change, ever so subtly in the early days and then dramatically to a point that now Bangalore is like any other bustling crowded city.

Not today!

Today is like the Bangalore of old. As the temperature threatened to make things uncomfortable, all of a sudden there was a deluge for a short while which brought much needed respite from the heat. And suddenly Bangalore started to look a lot greener. The reason I can say that is because the view from the office overlooking Cubbon Park just got a few shades better!

Welcome back, Bangalore weather! It's great to see you again :-)

A tick mark I have waited for a long time

2008-03-19T15:03:00.000+05:30

The day has finally come!

I am now the proud owner of a Blue Dial Speedmaster chronograph. I finally made up my mind, thought I had waited long enough, drooled over it long enough and been to enough stores to check on the looks of it (and the price!). It just so happens that I thought that at this point in my life, I deserved to wear it!

So this afternoon, post lunch, I went down to Rodeo Drive, the local heroes for these kind of watches, told him about this deal I was getting on the Internet (not joking, check out the prices on Amazon) and asked him if he could do better. Which he did!

So I walked out of the place with a huge grin on my face, my wallet a lot lighter and my wrist gleaming with this beautiful heavy object that I gladly chose to wear and have been waiting to wear for a really long time.

It's a very special birthday gift for me and, admittedly, it came a little early, but then we should always have these things whenever we can and not bound to dates, right?

My daughter's first poem

2008-03-18T14:54:00.003+05:30

Can you believe it? My seven year old has written her first poem all by herself!

Isn't that amazing?

I'm so proud of my baby!

I know what my last post said

2008-03-18T14:48:00.002+05:30

I know its been 2 months and 8 days since my last post. And that one was apologizing for not posting for a while. Looks like a trend, huh?

So a bunch of reasons for not posting. Traveling a lot, pretending to work a lot, playing some golf, spending more time on Facebook, reading books, playing with my daughter and then some more...

More than anything, it was boredom that kept me away from blogging. For some reason, I could just not bring myself to put anything up here. Not for lack of fodder. There's a bunch of things that have happened and I could have blogged about all of them, just couldn't get myself to do it.

Call it laziness. Call it extreme laziness. Call it whatever you like.

But hopefully, now that I have started again, I will be more regular.

Thank you for bearing with me and hopefully you will keep coming back.

Mea Culpa

2008-01-10T16:50:00.000+05:30

Mea Maxima Culpa.

But before I start justifying my actions, let me wish all of you a Happy New Year!!!

Back to the sob story. I can't believe that I have not posted a single blog for more than a month now. For someone who used to compulsively blog every single day, it's a strange feeling to get a message from a friend reminding me that I have not blogged for a while now. All I can say in my defense is that I was busy as hell.

For the first couple of weeks of December, I was perpetually in Mumbai working on a couple of very critical bids. Both these extremely strategic deals came in at the same time and me and my colleague got complete sucked into them. That was only the half of it. Almost every day was an early morning and a late night. Felt so sleep deprived for those two weeks that I was sleeping for half of the weekend.

What happened in those weeks is that my daughter won two more elocution contests. This lovely lady shows so much poise and confidence on stage in front of a mixture of more than a hundred students, parents and teachers that I am amazed. Her diction, her delivery, her confidence, her articulation, her tone has been so perfect that I pity the people who compete with her. She is, as I have always said, growing up just the way I would have wanted her to.

And to top it all, she has been chomping through the Famous Five book set that I bought her when she came first for the first time. In less than two months, she has finished sixteen (that's right, SIXTEEN) books out of the twenty one book set. If she gets a chance to read for the whole day, she will most probably finish a whole book in a day. That's how fast she's reading these days.

Coming back to the reason I have not posted for a while is that for the last week of the year, I was in Goa celebrating the New Year with a few friends. One of my buddies has a lovely villa there and we just had a blast. To avoid the crowds and the irritating possibility of spending new years in a the car, we decided to have a pool party by ourselves. The three couples, we bought two trolleys full of alcohol - enough to last a couple of days if not that night - and a bunch of stuff. Then we all got into the pool and had a blast. Then a few drinks down and the Cuban cigars came out. This pal of mine is a cigar fan and he brought out the Cohibas that he was carrying just for the occasion. All in all, Goa was wonderful and it was a shame we had to leave.

Other than that, it's mostly been all work and pretty much no play. I do have a bet going on with a colleague of mine which involves me beating the best golfer in my company two rounds in a row within the month. I would have probably won the bet had an old man not died on the golf course and we had to abandon the round. I was two up with three to play and this poor old man was just sitting there must have had a massive coronary and just collapsed near the 13th tee of the BGC. I completely lost my appetite for the game after that. The next round, I beat him quite comfortably. That should have been enough to get my winner's cheque. But no. The round after that, I spectacularly screwed up and lost. And then made up by coming back stronger in the last game to win again. So I have beaten this guy in three out of the four rounds we have played so far, but for that incident, I have not been able to beat him in two consecutive rounds. My next round with him will be the one to decide whether I win the bet or not.

The problem is that the best golfer in my company also happens to be one of my closest buddies. And he has gone out and injured his wrist. So he has been out of action for more than a week. And I would not want him to play for another week or so for fear that he will injure his wrist coming back to play so early and be out of commission for another few weeks. I would rather lose the bet than have him injure his hand. After all, he's way more important. He's my most competitive golf buddy and the only one who inspires me to play better than I am playing now. It is the incentive to beat him - and he is currently better than I am by far - is one that is what makes us a great pairing. He never gives up and neither do I. So it's fun playing against him.

What else? Nothing much. Will try and post more regularly from now on. Time permitting, that is! Until then...Cheers

"He can put the ball on Crouch's eyebrows"

2007-11-20T17:41:00.000+05:30

England meets Croatia in a crucial Euro 2008 qualifier later this month and the crucial decision for England Manager Steve McLaren is to decide whether to play David Beckham or not. The decision is further complicated by the bunch of injuries plaguing the England side.

The doubts for Beckham's choice is more from the point of view of how the strategy for the game will be. As Croatia's chief scout Goran Vicevic says: "The one thing we must do is stop Beckham. He can put the ball on Crouch's eyebrows."

Such is the fear of the Beckham free kick delivery. He will be targeted so much when he is in possession of the ball that Croatia will try to make it difficult for England to deliver long balls to the lanky Peter Crouch. However, this will actually work in England's favor. If Croatia try too hard, they will concede fouls at strategic Beckham range points which the guy will use to exploit the Croat defense. And also take advantage of Crouch's 6'7" frame.

Hope they win. Or at least draw the match. Or else it's adieu to the Euro 2008 competition.

I am so, so, SO proud of her!

2007-10-31T14:49:00.000+05:30

My daughter had been preparing for a debate contest at school the whole of last week. The topic of the debate was "The excitement of Television is more than the adventures of a book". She came back from school (the day the debate contest was announced) saying that it was not really a choice. For her, it was obvious... Reading was way better than TV. And I know this for a fact as she spends more time reading on an average in a day than she spends watching TV.

Question was: what was she going to say and how was she going to say it convincingly. So we (the entire family) worked on helping her with what she wanted to say. She tweaked the content to suit herself and then made sure she could say it as she wanted it.

The day of the preliminaries, she came back glowing (so my wife tells me...I was travelling). She had been shortlisted as one of eight students who had made it to the final rounds. That night when I spoke to her on the phone, she was bubbling away with facts on how the rounds went and I could feel her amazement at the fact that most of the students had picked Television over books. To her, it did not make sense. She kept saying that using her imagination while reading a book was the most fun part of reading, something that she could not do while watching TV.

So the day of the final contest arrived. This morning, 18 students (8 from the third grade and 10 from the second grade) gathered to present their views in front of more than a hundred and fifty students, more than 50 parents and scores of teachers. The confidence these little ones showed while standing on stage, holding their microphones proudly and saying what they believed in (and had rehearsed) was outstanding. That day, they were all winners. The outcome was only a formality. Most of the students did not think so, though.

My daughter was one of them.

She was in the contest to win! I can still remember the expression on her face while the marks were being announced. The contest had been fought so closely that the difference in the 3rd place and 2nd place was just a couple of marks. So was the case between the 2nd place and 1st place.

And when they announced her name as the winner of the debate, her face was radiant as she stepped forward to accept the applause. She had made the effort, she had performed flawlessly and she deserved to win. And that desire showed.

I am so proud of my little baby. She has shown that she can achieve whatever she wants if she just puts her mind to it. She has the instincts of a winner and I hope she keeps it up. I was grinning from ear to ear the whole day!!!

Objects in the rear view mirror (appear closer than they are)

2007-10-26T11:53:00.000+05:30

I was driving home the other day and I saw a guy hitch a ride with a complete stranger on a bike. Now this is a fairly common occurrence in India and there are a lot of people who either hitch rides or who give rides to people they don't know. I myself have done it several times, both sat behind someone who took me in the direction I wanted to go (and did not have the money in my pocket to get there) or dropped someone on my way.

That simple occurrence triggered off a chain of memories in my mind.

In a flash, I had gone back 15 years to a cold night just before my Physics examination for the XIIth standard exams. Now most people in India know that this is probably the most important examination that one would have to take and this make or breaks your life (even though at that time, we did not take it as seriously). The outcome of the exams and the marks you get in those exams pretty much decide whether you get to do the vocation of your choice or you get your choice made for you. So it was not uncommon to get bunches of old question papers and solve them under simulated exam conditions to see how well you can do.

As I approached my Physics exam, I did what almost everybody of my age was doing. I had solved another year's question paper and wanted it to get corrected. The authority for us at the time was a professor by the name of Sumant. Unfortunately, Sumant Sir had recently shifted houses and all I had was his address. His telephone connection had not shifted yet and so there was no way to get in touch with him. Mind you, this is way before cell phones made their appearance in India.

That led to me riding around the area where he stayed on my bicycle for almost an hour around 9:30pm and still not being able to get to his house. At that time, I was running low on patience and high on anxiety. Luckily for me, a guy was getting out on his bike for an evening ride. I stopped him to ask for directions and I think he figured out my state from my quivering voice. So he asked me to park my bike near his house and offered to take me to the house himself. In that state of mine, that was a God sent. So I rode up to Sumant Sir's house with this very kind man, thanked him profusely, then got my paper corrected (100/100 just in case you want to know) and then walked all the way back to my bike at what was already 10:30 in the night. The next day, I thought I had cracked my paper and felt that I had done the right thing
by getting that boost of confidence the night before.

That memory triggered off another one from the same year. This one had to do with Mathematics (my favorite subject amongst all of the ones we had for the year). I remember sitting waiting for Professor NM Kulkarni (NM as he was referred t0) on the first day of class. Then a sudden commotion amongst students meant that NM had arrived. This guy had a very different way of teaching. On the very first day, he came on stage (there was an actual stage to facilitate us being seen by him, really short as he was) and wrote a differential equation on the board and asked us to solve it. Only three of us in a class of more than hundred got it. He asked us our names and then started the lesson. Only later did I realize that he had done this at other classes as well and noted the people who had solved the problem he had given.

When all classes got together (more than 400 people), he moved the bunch of us to one long bench in the middle of the classroom. That was a bench that we all had to sit on and it was an unwritten rule which forbid others to sit there. I remember this very peculiar way of his. Every time he had taught us something, he would come the next day and write about 50 equations for us to solve on the board. We would probably take around 20 minutes to crack the ones on the board while the rest of the class struggled with them. As we waited, he would come to our bench and scribble an equation on the bench top with his chalk and walk away. That single equation was enough for us to scratch our heads for the better part of the class. Only twice in all the times he had done that did I look at the equation and go "That's easy" and answered it immediately. I remember his expression when I called him to tell him that it was done. All the other times, it was a fight to get the equation solved. Gladly, most of us never let him down and always had an answer for it by the end of class.

I also remember riding my bicycle to his house (this one I knew quite well from having gone there too many times) after the exam and discussing the paper with him. I also remember him telling me exactly how much I would get (I got exactly those many marks). When I last spoke to him, he told me how he still had a solved paper of mine which was all correct even with the optional problems. He had called it the most perfect paper solved amongst the recent batches. Too bad that I had not done the same during the actual exams.

But no harm no foul. I went on to do exactly what I wanted to do and then on to other things. And finally to blogging here. It's funny how fresh these memories are in my mind. Meatloaf was right. Objects in the rear view mirror really do appear closer than they are.

I love you, ComedyCentral!

2007-10-24T14:04:00.000+05:30

Oh Boy! This is going to be good...

I have a habit of checking up on the ComedyCentral website every morning for last night's installment of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. This is usually how I start the day and those few moments of laughter are the best way I have found to start it. Whenever the Daily Show is on vacation or there is no broadcast, I usually have to resort to watching older clips just to keep me going.

Imagine my surprise - and a pleasant one at that - to see that ComedyCentral has completely revamped The Daily Show website and have added a timescale which allows me to browse all the available videos ever since Jon Stewart took over as host of the show in 1999. Oh, this is fantastic news.

For someone who follows every single episode of the Daily Show and who thinks that Jon Stewart is absolutely great, this is a God send...To be able to see shows from 1999 will keep me occupied for a while now. I highly recommend you to go and have a look yourself. It's all there.

How do you play with this?

2007-10-24T09:24:00.000+05:30

Recently, Facebook has invaded our office in a way you would not imagine. There are so many of us on Facebook everyday that it's not funny. What is amazing about the portal is the amount of stuff that you can do there. Ever since they opened up their API, zillions of applications have been made available on Facebook and it's just an interesting place to be.

One of the applications that a few of my colleagues and I use quite a lot is the Scrabbulous application. It's a scrabble game on Facebook where you can invite your friends to play with you. As you can see from the picture below, this the problem:

The rack that I have got has five Ts, an N and an E. While that makes TENT, there needs to be a place on the scrabble board to put that up. And this has been the problem for the last couple of games. The one before this, I was getting all vowels. I had three As, two Os, an E and a U. This game, I am only getting consonants. Before I took this picture, I had three Ts, two Ns and two Ds. What does one do with this?

In my stats, it will say that I lost miserably in these couple of games. And I don't feel bad about losing. What I do feel bad is losing because of such shitty tiles that I am getting. And this anguish will never be recorded on my profile.

Almost feel like resigning this game.

Now I can appreciate why it's called the Grand Canyon

2007-10-22T14:00:00.000+05:30

As you might have noticed from my previous post, I was in Las Vegas for a company conference. As my golf buddy, Saday, was also going to be at the conference, we had decided to make a little trip of our own after the conference. The plan was to go to the Grand Canyon, which is a ~250 mile drive from Vegas, so that we can see one of the grandest creations of nature.

Saday's friend Ashish was going to join us in Vegas for a couple of days and then we would embark on our little road trip towards Arizona. Other than this, we had not planned on anything. While we were at the conference, we came to know about this thing called the Skywalk which had been build at the West Rim of the Grand Canyon. What these highly ingenious (and capitalistic) people had done was build a semi-circular walkway jutting over the Canyon. The most striking feature of this walkway? It's made of glass! And the view from there was reputed to be truly awesome, despite the fact that the surroundings themselves were awesome in their own right.

The conference ended on the 1oth evening and we were scheduled to leave for the Grand Canyon the next day. Thanx to Ashish, we had hotel reservations and a car already booked for us before we left. Ashish had even left in the morning for the airport to pick up the rental car. Fortunately for us, we got a FWD Subaru Outback which is a wonderful car to take out on a drive in the outdoors, especially if it's a dirt road, something that was to be expected on the way to the Skywalk.

Our itenary was to go via the Hoover Dam into Arizona, then take the Pierce Ferry road onto the West Rim. The drive would be around a hundred and twenty miles and we were hoping it would not take us more than two and a half hours. The Outback proved itself to be a stroke of good luck as it seemed to make the journey feel a lot more effortless than it was. We stopped at the Hoover Dam for a short while to admire this effort of engineering made so long ago and to marvel at the sheer size and scope of the structure. Just the flood hole of the dam was an intimidating sight. But it was not the Hoover Dam that we wanted to see. We wanted to see the Skywalk and we wanted to get there before 3:30pm which is when the last tickets get sold off. Also we didn't want to miss the sunset at the Canyon.

The last 30 miles to the West Rim is a pure dirt track and it was quite treacherous driving on the road. That was compounded by the cars ahead of me which were throwing a bunch of dirt onto our car. That was the main distraction for us which kept us from looking at the lovely Joshua Tree surroundings which littered the sides of the road. Finally when we pulled into the parking lot of the West Rim, the car was as filthy as you could imagine. But that was nowhere close to enough to dampen our spirits as we looked forward to getting to the Skywalk.

What did dampen our spirits was the fact that the Skywalk tour would cost us $81. That is a lot of money and we were not sure if the experience for the Skywalk was worth it and whether we should do it at all. Finally one of us prevailed and we bought out tickets for the tour. Boy! am I glad we did that!

As we approached the Skywalk, we could appreciate the scope of the construction. From our vantage point, the view was breathtaking and intimidating at the same time. And the Skywalk was built at a point facing the opposite wall of the Canyon so that the sun would set lighting up the Canyon wall as you stood admiring it. Nothing is allowed on the Skywalk for fear of cracking the glass walkway. So we had to leave our cameras and our cellphones in the lockers provided (for a charge, of course) and then proceed towards the Skywalk. They also make you wear these covers for our shoes so that we don't scratch the glass surface or stain it. So with these sleeves on our shoes, we were made to wait behind a curtain in an effort to dramatize the effect of walking onto the Skywalk.

The dramatization worked!

As the curtain came away, the effect was phenomenal! An all glass walkway jutting over the canyon! Before we arrived at the Skywalk, we were talking about how it would not be a big deal walking on the glass walkway and why it should be fine. Let me tell you...we were scared witless when we walked onto the glass. As I stood on the edge of the opaque area and considering my first step onto the transparent glass, sparks ran through the soles of my feet and it was an exhilarating few moments as I took my first few steps on the clear transparent surface. Saday and Ashish immediately dove for the opaque sides of the walkway, but I wanted to overcome this knee buckling effect the Skywalk had on all of us. After more than 10 minutes on it, we were finally acclimatized to walking on something that made one think that they are walking on air. I even have a picture of the three of us on the Skywalk which I bought from the staff (we obviously could not take our own pictures).

After only a minute of being there, there was a unanimous agreement that the money spent on the Skywalk was completely worth it. So much so that we did not feel like leaving. Mainly because the sun was setting and it was throwing the most amazing light on the opposite wall of the Canyon. We did have to leave though, and thankfully so, otherwise I would have missed this picture that you see on the right side. As we were coming back from the Skywalk after collecting our belongings, the sun was right behind the tour bus stand and the lone staff member sitting there to help the visitors was illuminated perfectly from the back by the sun. This is one of my favourite picture from the trip, one that I want to blow up in size and hang in my house. Trust me, the photograph looks a lot LOT better when seen at the native resolution captured by my 8 megapixel Nikon 8700.

Immediately after taking the above shot, I took my next favorite picture. The same tour bus stand, but this time with the sun on the horizon. The couple of pictures that I took just after the Skywalk provided the icing on the cake. This was one of my more memorable tours and I highly recommend it for anyone who is interested. The only suggestion I will make to anyone who is going there is to not underestimate the Skywalk. One of the staff on the walkway pointed us toward what looked like bushes from the Skywalk. He said they were actually large trees which were looking like bushes from out height of 4000 feet from the Canyon floor. That was when we realized that our concepts of distance had gone out of the window and that we could not comprehend how far some of the points in the Canyon were. The scale of this natural structure is awesome in the true sense of the word.

This was the final shot of the day at the Grand Canyon, the sun just settling below the horizon. When I say horizon, I mean the horizon as you can see from the Grand Canyon. Being 4000 feet from the floor of the Canyon tends to expedite sunset. What it also does is enhances the colours when the sun is setting and this picture is testimony to that. It is also the same time when I realized the genius that is the human body. The appreciation that these two eyes gives us is far more than any camera can capture and amplify. The sights that we were surrounded with and the light we were bathed in was just fantastic. Too bad my limited vocabulary is too feeble to describe it. What I can say, however, is that anyone who has a chance should see these sights at least once in their life. They will be memories you will cherish for a really long time.

We left the West Rim after sunset and that was the time Ashish got in the mood to do a little bit of Rally style driving. In a place where there is no cell phone reception and where the visibility is made really poor with the last cars leaving the West Rim, the man was pushing his luck sliding in and out of corners. Saday and I breathed a huge sigh of relief as we got off the dirt road and onto a paved road, on the way to the South Rim.

We had booked ourselves at the Motel 6 which was about 50 miles from the Grand Canyon National Park South Rim entrance. By the time we reached and had dinner, it was already 11:30pm. There was a lot of debate about whether we should get up early to catch the sunrise (Ashish had asked around and found out that sunrise was to be at 6am). It would take us at least an hour to reach the National Park and we would have to leave around 4:30am if we had any hope of catching sunrise. After a lot of discussion, I prevailed and we slept with the idea of waking up at 4am to take some amazing pictures. After we saw the pictures that we had taken that day, there was no contest on whether we should carry on the next day.

Wake up at 4am we did and left for the National Park entrance. After paying our entry fee of $25, we figured out that Mather Point would be our best bet for the right sunrise pictures as the sun came up over the horizon. We were not disappointed. The only thing is, we were there almost 45 minutes ahead of the actual sunrise, mainly because we did not take into account that sunrise would be a little later at the Canyon.

I had become so shutter happy that I was clicking pictures every couple of minutes. The only thing that stopped me was the fact that it was extremely cold. And the little wind there was not helping either.

So after setting the camera up on the tripod (yes, I carried a tripod for the trip knowing I would need it for some great pictures), I spent most of my time alternating between keeping myself warm and clicking pictures.

It was all worth it when the sun peeked above the Canyon top and I caught the first light of the day at the Grand Canyon's South Rim. It was a great sight and the light that it threw on the Canyon walls and the shadows it created was an amazing site. A photographer's dream! Suddenly, standing in all that cold and waking up early to get to sunrise felt like a small price to pay after being treated with such a glorious display of light and colours.

In the first light of the morning, you could see all the reds and yellows that made the Canyon walls. You could see the rock formations and the abrasions made by wind and water from the Colorado river as it chiseled it's was through rock over millenia. And standing there appreciating the scale of this gigantic structure made me realize why it is called the Grand Canyon. The scale truly makes it grand.

I want to end this post with a picture of the Canyon wall at sunrise. This is just one of the more-than-hundred photos I have clicked during this most amazing trip (and there is no reason to pick this particular one). But it is one of the most breathtaking picture sets I have taken in a long time.

This post would be incomplete without mentioning my thanks to Saday and to Ashish. Saday is the person who engineered this trip and got Ashish involved. And Ashish made the whole trip worth it for all of us. From taking care of a lot of logistics to the banter in the car to the song singing sessions to the dinner arguments, it was one heck of a trip, memories of which will stay alive in my mind for a long long time. And in the process, I got to know a great person in a short time of two days.

Thanx a lot, guys! You guys made this trip worth it and I would not have had anywhere close to this much fun without you. Thanx for making the trip a memorable one.

"You finished WHAT?"

2007-10-22T12:41:00.000+05:30

The women in my life came back home last night! My daughter, my wife and my mom landed from their vacation last evening and it was so great to see them at the airport.

My daughter has gotten a new hair cut and she looks absolutely adorable! Not that she did not look adorable before, but she looks cuter still after the hair cut. And this is despite the fact that I would have preferred her to grow her hair for a while. So it was great to see her walk out of the airport looking that cute. And the hug that I got from her after more than two weeks said everything that she did not. She just clung on to me as I lifted her in my arms. Now she's grown to almost 4'6" tall, so she's not exactly a small kid. But lifting her up after all this while was something that I did not even have to make an effort for.

As I had thought, they were carrying enormous amount of luggage for three people. Luckily, the Laura has more than enough boot space to accommodate all that they had got and more. After they had put all the stuff in, I even had a fleeting thought that I needn't have taken my golf kit out as it would have still fit in!

My mom was seeing the new car for the first time and she completely loved it. For her, it is perfect as it is not very low to sit in and has a lot of space for her to relax her legs while still leaving enough room for people to sit on the back seats. All the way, she was commenting about how nice the drive was. And my daughter was pointing things out to her ("This is the sunroof, this is the music system, you can connect the iPod", etc.). All in all, it was an eventful drive home. The painful part was carrying the luggage from the basement parking to the house. Once we did get everything inside, then it was time for my daughter and wife to parade all the latest acquisitions that they have made during this vacation of theirs. Luckily for me, I had a few acquisitions to parade as well.

So all the stuff I bought for my kids in Vegas came out. So did the MacBook that I bought for myself. As did the iPhone. Since I have not blogged about this before, I need to tell you that I have successfully hacked the iPhone and am using it as my communications device as we speak. When I bought it in the US, the one that I got was one with the latest released firmware (version 1.1.1) which Apple had released recently to stop all the unlocking that was going on to avoid going on the AT&T network. After almost a week's worth of effort, I could not get it cracked. Until the day I landed back in India. That night, there was a new procedure available with which I could hack and get it to work. Since then, I have helped at least five of my pals to crack their respective iPhones. But more on how wonderful this device later.

My daughter was going on about a Famous Five book that she read. It just so happened that I remember which book she was talking about and knew the plot. So we have a very interesting discussion on the story and how it turned out. Then I realized that she had finished the 2nd Harry Potter book, started the 3rd, then moved to a Famous Five book, finished that and was already halfway through that. All this in a 10 day vacation!

I was so surprised at the rate at which she was reading that I could not believe it to be possible. But when I heard her describing the story and the characters in such detail that I knew she had not only read the book, but also visualized it vividly in her mind. That to me is a sign of really reading the book rather than understanding the words in the book. After finishing her first Famous Five book, she made sure that my Dad would pass all my old novels to her. And she has carried all of them back so that she can read them. And she is looking forward to the next book fair where she can buy more Enid Blyton books.

That makes me feel so proud of her. Once she starts reading, it's like an uncontrolled nuclear reaction. It will just push her to read more and more. And the more she reads, the million more perspectives and experiences that she will be exposed to. And that, I hope, will enrich her and make her an even better person than she already is. Being a big believer in reading and the benefits of imbibing information through books, this is exactly how I would have wanted my child to be. And she is everything that I would have ever wanted.

So my sweetheart is back. And I am waiting for my other daughter to arrive shortly after. No no, we are not expecting. I'm talking about my sister's daughter who is my second daughter. I love that little devil to bits. Everything that gets bought gets bought for both my daughters without exception. I cannot imagine buying something for one of them. It's impossible.

So the little one arrives on the 1st of this month and will be here for a couple of weeks. That should be a fun two weeks.

What happens in Vegas gets blogged

2007-10-18T08:51:00.000+05:30

I was in Las Vegas for a company conference until last week. And what a week it was.

To begin with, there's the long flight into the US from India. Not only is the flight a long and painful affair, there's a lot to be desired when it comes to comfort in traveling. I had heard that Jet Airways had started flying to the US in their brand new aircrafts and so wanted to know how the experience would be. That meant that I would have to fly, not from Bangalore, but from Mumbai to Brussels and then to Newark to catch a connecting flight to Las Vegas.

Luckily, Mumbai is a great city to be in for me. Not only is a large part of my family there, but most of my closest friends are there as well. So the flight to Mumbai was a nice affair. A couple of drinks at our old watering hole (On Toes at Juhu) seemed to seal the deal. After the drinks, I was primed for a nice long sleep on the flight into Brussels. Or so I thought.

My first impression of Jet Airways (International flights) was that these people were still grappling with the process of flying people abroad. Different people had different, and completely incoherent, views of what needed to be done. While one person pointed out a queue to stand in, another person said that my passport had to be scanned into their system (for whatever reason). After waiting for almost an hour in a queue just to reconfirm my seat, I was through to immigration. This part of Mumbai airport I was completely and pleasantly surprised. Immigration and customs took just a couple of minutes and then we were at the boarding gate. There again, Jet showed their amateur status by having chaos reign as they announced boarding. It took me a full 30 minutes to get boarded. Luckily for me, I had hounded Jet for more than 3 weeks to allocate the emergency exit aisle seat for me. As most of you who know me personally, I am 6' 4" in height and that can be a serious problem on longhaul flights. The emergency exit seat gives me the space to stretch and the possibility to sleep. I think I drifted off as soon as the plane took off. The only problem I felt was the seats were not the most comfortable. My bum was hurting like crazy and that woke me up from my deep slumber. After that, it was a fight between the aching buttocks and the sleep that was threatening to overwhelm me. The aching bum won.

Brussels airport was like any other European airport. Nothing to do, very few places to eat, extremely expensive and generally sterile for my taste. Luckily, the stopover was only for a couple of hours which I used to freshen up and have a coffee. Then it was back on the flight and a long flight into Newark. This time, I could not sleep a wink and so I watched three movies in a row before I got fed up and fired up the iPod to listen to some music. A couple of hours of good music and then the landing at Newark's Liberty airport.

Like any other airport, the security was as paranoid as ever. "Take you shoes off, take your laptop out from the bag, not a single metal thing in your pocket, take your belt off." It was crazy! And the queue was really long.

Finally, the Las Vegas strip was visible from the air and we landed at McCarren airport. Thankfully, the conference had bus shuttles running every few minutes to the hotel. So the ride was alright. We were booked at the Paris Hotel on Las Vegas Boulevard which is bang opposite The Bellagio. Like all American hotels, this one is also drab and with the bare minimum furnishings. For some of us who have been pampered by our stays in Indian hotels, the difference is stark and the prospect uninviting. But we have to stay there for a few days and so we had to suck it up. The reason I am saying we is because we had to share a room, one of the cost saving measures employed at the conference.

Here are some of the pictures from Vegas...

For all the stuff that they have made there (The New York New York has replicas of the Status of Libery, the Brooklyn Bridge and the entire Lower Manhattan skyline, the Paris has the Eiffel Tower, the Venetian has canals with gondolas, Caesar's Palace is built in the Roman design), the city is still fake. Everything there, from the place to the people, is all fake. All artificial. It's a place built for sin and it fits the bill completely for it.

They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. And I am sure a lot must be going on. The day before I was to check out, I got a call at 4:30 in the blessed AM (while I was fast asleep) and the lady on the other side said that the girls were heading to my room now. In my groggy state, I asked why they were coming to my room. That's when the lady (and I say lady for lack of a better word) realized that she had called the wrong room and promptly hung up. Someone was having to have some fun Vegas style at 4:30 in the morning. All the best to him and may his energy levels be up. I was dead and fast asleep in a few seconds after I hung up the phone.

When we checkout out of the hotel, we were heading towards the Grand Canyon. But more on that tomorrow. Cause it deserves a full post with pictures and details. But suffice to say it was a fantastic trip.

Mysore, No sore

2007-10-03T15:45:00.000+05:30

On the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti...ok, ok, that's just an excuse for going out on a drive, we headed out to Mysore. The reason we gave ourselves was that the last time we had gone down to see the famous Mysore palace, our daughter was only 9 months old. So she has not seen a real life palace. Since we needed only an excuse to go on a long drive on such a fine national holiday, go to Mysore we did.

Not to take anything away from the reason for the holiday. As one of the finest examples of India, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (we call him Mahatma Gandhi here in India) was the inspiration for people like Dr Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela to choose the path of non violence as a form of protest. It is, to a large extent, to Mahatma Gandhi's credit that I am a free Indian with the freedom to write the kind of crap that I do on this blog.

Coming back to the topic, the decision to go to Mysore was an easy one to make. For one, it's just 150km from Bangalore. Secondly, the roads are pretty good to get there. And it would be a nice idea for my daughter to see how the kings of yesteryears lived.

So we left around 8am, wanting to get there without too much sun on our heads. When I started the car (oh, my lovely car), I could see that the car had 3/4th of the tank full. Enough fuel for the trip and more, I thought.

The drive was a breeze. The way the car handles, the ease with which it negotiates traffic, the comfort for the whole family (my daughter was sleeping sprawled on the back seat...and being as tall as she is, she still managed to sleep fairly stretched!). I had to rub my eyes when I saw the dashboard tell me that I was getting 16.7 km/l as my mileage. And all this while clipping on at 120km/hr on cruise control.

Even when I decided to floor it, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the transmission was humming on in the 4th gear way past the 120kmph mark and then still in 5th gear at the 140kmph mark. Only when I backed off the pedal did the 6th gear engage. I could have kept it floored for some more time (mainly to discovery the top speed of the car), but was sure that this was not the road to try these stunts on. What with people (and cattle) crossing the road at random intervals and from all possible places, it was the riskiest thing to do.

And then I discovered something about Indian traffic. No matter how fast you go, you will get slowed down by slower moving traffic and will lose your momentum. Not to mention your fuel. So instead of zipping around, I was driving at a fast, but not too fast, speed and watched as my fuel efficiency rode to newer heights. All this while making good time and enjoying the ride, not to mention the scenary.

And when the trip ended, I still had a lot of fuel left in the car. It was something I had never experienced when I was driving my old car (not to take anything away from it).

All in all, we had a lovely trip. Clicked a few pix (some I will post here tomorrow). A lovely day.

Happy Gandhi Jayanti!

I love my car!

2007-10-01T17:04:00.000+05:30

The Laura is finally here!

And boy, is it great! All we have been doing the whole of the weekend is drive around in the car and discovery, or rather re-discover, the pleasure of driving. And the feeling is pure luxury wrapped in a lovely bun of exhileration.

I am yet to figure out a lot of the features of the car (there are so many of them) and that is a first for a technogeek like myself. The first thing I do with most new things is sit with the manual and understand how to operate it. This car has, for the first time, more features than I can manage to remember how to operate. And kudos to Skoda for that.

The performance of the car is fabulous, the handling amazing, the sound from the 12 speaker system sheer poetry. The comfort of the car is breathtaking. And I love the fact that after my wife took a test drive and then I unlocked the car to start driving, the car remembers my driving seat preferences and puts the seat exactly where I want it.

We are going to go on a long drive tomorrow, the place is just an excuse to take the car out. And I am hoping that it will be a lovely journey, not because I doubt the car and it's performance, but more because of the experience of getting to the place (traffic, etc.) and the stuff that we will do there.

Pictures and details coming soon to the blog.

Watch this space.

Laura Lovegood - Part II

2007-09-28T12:35:00.000+05:30

Just heard from the car dealer...the car will be available this evening!!!

Yippeeeeeee!

So I can pick up the car this evening and the number plate will be available by tomorrow afternoon. Until then, I have to drive the car without the plates. Which should not be a problem as the car has been registered and I will get all the papers in my hand today itself.

Can't wait to get my hands on the car keys and can't wait to drive my new car.

Man, I'm so excited!

Laura Lovegood

2007-09-27T15:32:00.000+05:30

Since we have moved back, we have been looking at buying a new car. Not that we have a problem with the old one, but that's been around for more than 8 years and is a bit cramped for us now (not that it was no cramped then...but that was all I could afford at that time). The specs this time were that the new car should have a lot more space, be more comfortable (three out of the five people in my family hover around the 6 ft mark), be powerful (my input to the list), be economical (my wife's input) and be cool (my daughter's input). Finding something which fit the bill was going to be a challenge.

Going by size, we thought we will get an SUV. Naturally, all the usual suspects were in contention. The Ford Endeavour, the Honda CRV, the Mitsubishi Pajero, the Chevy Forrester. Of these, I personally think that the CRV is a bit to cramped for my taste and definately not value-for-money. The Pajero, from all the reviews I have read, is an old version which they are hawking into the Indian market at a hefty premium. And Chevy is not exactly a great brand in India, mainly because of their support capabilities from what I have heard. So it came down to the Explorer.

When the car arrived for our test drive, I was impressed with the size of the thing. It could intimidate any vehicle on the road! The seating for the front passenger and driver are extremely comfortable. The beast has some power too. The diesel engine delivers a fair bit of punch and the car is quite manouverable in traffic. But what I didn't realize, and something that my wife pointed out to me, was that the seating for the back seats is not exactly comfortable. She was sitting in the back for most of the test drive to judge just that. As I got out of the car to check this (and by this time, I loved this car), I had trouble getting into the back seats with ease. This was going to be a BIG problem. Mainly because my mom has recently undergone a hip replacement surgery and so getting in and out of the car would be a problem for her. That nixed it.

When we got back, my daughter was all for the Endeavour as she loved the third row of seats which, she said, was just perfect for her "and her dog". We had to do a Strengths Weaknesses listing on paper as part of our evaluation. Obviously the car failed.

So one afternoon, my wife and I were just going around town doing some shopping for the house and we happened to pass the Honda showroom. I had sat in my friend's Civic and so had had that experience, but I wanted to know how the Accord feels. When we walked into the showroom, I distinctly remember feeling like the people there were pushing the Civic more than the Accord...almost like they did NOT want to sell the Accord. They did not even have a brochure for the car! So we had a looksie. We sat in the car, absorbed the marketing banter and then took the car out for a test. I was intent on the Automatic transmission (as most people in Bangalore will attest to the traffic conditions and the incessant gear changes that one has to make). The car felt quite agile and responsive...until I stepped hard on the throttle. It took almost a second for the car to upshift and rev up to go the way I wanted it to. Sure, it has a few nice things...like F1 like gear paddles to shift up and down in a semi manual mode. But overall, it felt OK. They did not have an Accord available for a test drive.

So we left the showroom and were circling back towards home when we noticed the Skoda showroom. In we went.

I was promptly shown the Skoda Superb, an Audi A6 class car which has all the trimmings that you would expect from a luxury car. It is immensely spacious, has a bunch of features and is very comfortable. Looks great too (to someone like me who likes European styling more than the Japanese look). The only problem was price...too darn expensive.

So the guy then smartly manouvered us to another car which he claimed has almost the same number of features as the Superb, but was a bunch of money less expensive. The moment I sat in the Laura, I was in love. The dashboard stole my heart! Clean, elegant and informative. They had achieved perfection. And then the guy started to talk.

The car has a bunch of features which are mindblowing. Nowadays, every car has ABS, but this one has Acceleration Skid Restrain which manages skids and slides, it has traction control (they call it the Electronic Stability Program) which makes for a smoother ride around twisty terrain, it has SIX airbag protecting the entire cabin, has an electronic tyre pressure monitor, it has a four point parking sensor which tells you exactly what is how close to the car. And this is only safety. It has another bunch of stuff that makes the spec sheet drool worthy.

And then there is the car.

We took the car for a spin (all three of us had to do it together, of course) and so the car needed to come home on a weekend for us to drive it. The moment I turned the ignition (actually, even as I just held the car key in my hand, I knew this was it), I loved the way the car behaved. Not a waggle, not a murmer, not a tremble. Commendable for a diesel.

Once on the road, the car purred along and behaved better than my small car traffic. The way it handled sharp turns and roundabouts, I was amazed at how a car of this size handled it with such grace. When stepping on the power, it roared away instantaneouly (no lag) and gave me the feeling that I was extremely under control even at extremely high speeds. The car just feels safe and solid all around.

The individual climate control was under continuous threat from my daughter (who insisted on sitting up front in "her new Girl car") as she twiddled the knobs and set the temperature until she felt comfortable. Then we opened the skyroof and just the look on her face made it all worthwhile. We had connected our iPod to the car's music system (12 speakers...more than the number in my home theater) and were happily enjoying the thump of the music system. I even tried enabling the parking system in traffic. It was so responsive that the display would light up mometarily when a bike went past us, so fast that the indicator would come on before I could see the bike come around!

As we entered the basement of our complex (to see if the car will fit in the parking space), the lights came on by themselves (I was told that the wipers would come on by themselves too if it were raining and that the sunroof would close by itself as well). The lit dashboard looked even better. We stepped out of the car to admire the lines and the Skoda guy continued badgering us with the features of the car.

Intelligent rear view mirror to cut glare, air drag coefficient of 0.30, huge boot space (my daughter actually climbed into it and sat there comfortably while we closed it!), nice little touches like lights under the side mirrors which enable stumble free access to the car, a nice sun screen to pull up to avoid the Sun scorching one's back. I can just go on and on.

So there we were. Stunned and pleased as punch with the car. So much so that we did not even feel like looking at anything else. In our mind, we had bought the car. It was only a matter of logistics before it came home.

That day, Laura Lovegood was born. Taking off from the Harry Potter character (Luna Lovegood), my daughter pounced on the fact that the car is called Laura ("so she's a girl, Pappi") and christned the car Laura Lovegood. She even got home and made the car a birth certificate. She was clever enough to leave the day of birth space blank!

So now we have been waiting for the formalities to be completed. There was a lot of running around to be done, following up with my office Finance team, the leasing company and the Skoda dealer in Bangalore. Finally I have been told that most of the formalities are done and that the car should go in for registration tomorrow. If all goes to plan, we will have our new car, the lovely Laura Lovegood, become a part of the family by tomorrow evening. Hopefully!

Until then, it's just waiting for the "World's Most Beautiful Car" (as they called it at the Italy Car Show).

Blitzkrieg

2007-09-20T16:15:00.000+05:30

I wasn't going to post today, but Yuvra Singh's assault on the English bowling lineup deserves this one.

As you will watch below, Yuvraj hit 6 sixes in one Chris Broad over to hit the fastest fifty in any form of cricket. Only the second batsman in the history of international cricket to achieve this feat, Yuvraj completely decimated this over, launching one ball after another over the boundary.

Kingsmeade was on fire!!!

Phew!

2007-09-17T11:00:00.000+05:30

This weekend was a killer!

If you had walked into the house on Friday, you would have seen a zillion boxes lying around. And this is despite my wife's steller attempts at unpacking a lot of stuff. Most of the unopened boxes were in my daughter's room as her room was the one that needed setting up the most. Mainly because of all the furniture we had bought for her.

Her whole room is to be a Princess room with the furniture in baby pink (what else?) and white. The modular stuff that we bought included a desk, a bed with a side table and a cupboard. The people who came to unpack for us tried to setup some of the stuff (mainly the cupboard), but they took so long in figuring out how to do it that I told them to drop it saying I will do it myself. That meant the weekend.

So on Saturday morning, I had to tear down some of the things that they had done (they had used components of some other part to build parts of the desk) and start afresh. Surprisingly, it took far less time while I was working alone as compared to the three people working to put up the cupboard. After an hour and a half, the desk was completed and installed. Another 45 minutes and all the drawers and movable parts were in. A few more minutes and the side table was done.

While I was in the middle of all this, the guys who were going to mount my plasma TV on the wall had come up. That put a STOP sign on my woodwork as I watched with trepidition as these two people first put the brace frame and then hoisted the tv (read...my heart) onto it. Now that this was done, we moved to the second room where we needed the smaller (older) tv to be mounted on it's frame as well. This chore completed, I returned to the woodwork, only to realize that it was time for lunch.

And this is no ordinary lunch. It was my favorite festival of all. Ganesh Chaturthi. This is the festival where we traditionally bring an idol of Lord Ganesh to our home and honour him for the time that he is with us (a day and a half as per our family's tradition). Because of our recent move from Singapore, we had no choice but to have the idol placed, not in our house here in Bangalore, but in my sister's house in Mumbai. This would also be the 2nd time that I have missed the festival in my entire life. I hope it never happens again. Some of my oldest childhood memories are associated with this festival and I absolutely love these two days every year.

So it was back to the carpentry and in a short while, the room looked like the one that my daughter would like and no longer like the store room that it was looking like just a few hours earlier. Most of the boxes (which were full of my daughter's stuff anyways) were promptly emptied by my wife and daughter and put in their rightful place as soon as the furniture was up. That significantly reduced the number of boxes left in the house. During all this time, I tackled the other boxes in the master bedroom which were unopened.

My Home Theatre system!

So it was another hour or so to set up all the cables, connect all the components, test the setup, configure the amplifier to suit the new environment. And then, as a bonus to myself, I also set up the Wii!

As you might recall, I bought the Wii sometime back (my daughter's birthday, to be precise) and have come to love this gaming platform. So this was connected and tested (Prince of Persia, of course) and because of the place where we have installed the TV screen, there are no shadows and unnecessary lights that fall on the screen. This makes the colours richer and a lot more fun. It is also a bonus because the screen is now almost at my eye level. This makes playing the game a lot more fun.

So all in all, it was a fairly exhausting, but fun, weekend!

PotterMania strikes again

2007-09-17T10:26:00.000+05:30

My daughter has always been a Harry Potter fan, ever since she watched the first Harry Potter movie. She likens herself to Hermione, because she's the clever one who manages to help Harry get to wherever they are going. She steadfastly refuse to be Harry, even though the story is all about him.

All this while, she has been intent on just watching the movies and has refused to read the books. Only recently, the books that she has been getting at school have been a little too puny for her taste. Reason: She has finished reading the book before she has gotten home from school. So obviously, she needs something to read which will at least last her a week. Now I have been asking her to read the Harry Potter books saying that the book is always a lot more fun than the movie and that it has more information that the movie can never have. All this time, she has patiently refused.

Until this last week.

I came back home from office to find my daughter burried in the Philosopher's Stone, the first of the Harry Potter series. Granted that she was only on the first chapter, but she was so completely engrossed in it that she did not even notice that I had entered the house. When she did finally look up, the first thing she said was "You were right...the book IS more fun than the movie! And it has a lot more information than the movie!"

YES!!!!!

Until last night, she has chomped through almost half the book and has to be dragged to bed as she has school the next day. That too with an assurance from my side that she can pick up where she left off when she comes back from school. Now there is an unwritten rule in the house to not disturb anyone when they are reading (something that my wife is not completely in agreement with, but gets over-ruled by my daughter and I). So she uses that to convince my wife to let her continue reading.

The rate at which she is reading, she will probably finish the book in the next couple of days. And then there is going to be that unavoidable disection of the book and the inevitable comparison with the movie and how it falls short and where it is wrong.

I look forward to that discussion :-)

85,79,92

2007-09-12T13:58:00.000+05:30

Before you think this is about some statistics, hold on. I am talking about something completely different.

The sabbatical is over!

I can play Golf again :-)

As some of you might remember, I had given up on the game a few months ago after a few fairly disasterous rounds. The biggest reason to do so was that I was not being able to give enough time to the game and as a direct result, the game was suffering. Well, that is no longer the case as I am in the middle of familiar company and back with my old golf buddies (all of whom have gotten a lot better since I left).

So to inaugurate the game again, my buddies and I went to the Bangalore Golf Club (BGC), my favorite course in Bangalore, for my first round in three and a half months. And the tee shot set it all up. All that practice on the driving range years ago paid off. The ball soared off the 5 iron and drew slightly (as it usually does for me) and landed squarely in the center of the fairway. A nice approach and I was on the green in regulation. And just like that, I had my par.

All in all, the round was about discovering which parts of my game worked and which I needed to work on. And so I was not entirely disappointed with the 85 I carded that day.

The very next round was a revelation. All parts of the game came together and I was hitting the ball as sweetly as I could imagine. Wherever I missed the green on my approach, I either made an up and down or put it in the hole. The whole round was almost blemish free save for two holes where, both times, I got really bad breaks. Once my ball came to rest right next to a tree and I missed two strokes trying to get it out. The other time, my tee shot found a fairway bunker and the ball was lying on the upp slope of the bunker, right next to the lip. A desperate 9 iron out of the bunker and then a excessively drawn 5 iron later, I found myself on the downslope of a greenside bunker. Needless to say, had these two holes not been that bad (the only double and triple bogeys of the round), I would have played lower than my current lowest score.

So there is still hope.

Or so I thought. Until I played on the last weekend. The highlight of the round was that I kept toeing the ball almost all through the round. Just could not figure it out. I rarely miss sweet spot on my clubs, one of the biggest reasons to buy the completely unforgiving Mizuno MP-32 set of irons that I am playing right now. This entire round was an education in how to play unforgiving irons when one is not hitting the sweet spot.

All in all, I have had a yo yo of a few rounds. But there are glimpses of the game that can be. So as a true golfer, and therefore an optimist, I look forward to the next round this weekend.

Until then...