KK concert on magarpatta city day

Every year on the 3rd of december, Magarpatta city celebrates 'Magarpatta City Day' and today marked the completion of a decade.[Magarpatta city is an IT park cum residential area, where my office too is located.] As part of the celebration, there was a live concert by playback singer KK.

The show was supposed to start at 7pm. I had initially decided not to go for the show, but Prashant, my group lead, had left an extra pass that he had with me. So at 10 to 7, I left for the concert with ratan. As we entered there were thousands of chairs in front. And our pass lead us to seats that were pretty far from the stage, so we had to depend on the huge screens next to the stage; but when you watch a concert for free, you don't have much of a say, do you? ;)

The show began in a few mins. He performed many hit songs like "Tu Aashiqui Hai" from Jhankaar Beats, "Pyaar ke Pal" from Pal, "Dus Bahaane", "Tu Hi Meri Shab Hai" from the movie Gangster, "Mera Pehla Pehla Pyaar", "Alvida" from Life in a Metro, "Kya Mujhe Pyaar Hai" from Woh Lamhe and "Yaaron" from Rockford and few more. He is a really good singer and a good performer too. I woudn't say it was better than the Shan or Shanker Mahadevan concerts we had at college; but it was definitely worth every penny i paid the time.

Here are a couple of videos I found on youtube...(the audio is not very clear here...but will never be if u shoot a live concert on an amateur cam :P)

"Alvida"-Life in a Metro.

"O Humdum Soniyo Re" - Saathiya

PS: During the break, Satish Magar, the brain behind the magarpatta city project, made a few announcements; mostly regarding few plans to be implemented here in the near future. The last one was what interested most people sitting there. The multiplex giants of Latin America, Cinepolis, had taken up a project to build a multiplex in magarpatta city... and it would sport 15 screens! And it is expected to be complete in around a year's time!

Pranav Mistry and the 'SixthSense' technology

Had some problem with the net connection yesterday. So embedding the video now. No intro... just watch it!



PS: Source

Kaala Akshar Bhains Baraabar

Got this as an email forward. An innovative literacy campaign indeed! :)

I love fridays...more

2012, the much awaited movie of Roland Emmerich, is releasing tomorrow. In the evening at office today, Rama asked Ratan and me if we wanted to go for tomorrow after work. But as our whole team was going out for dinner tomorrow night, we couldn't book tickets for friday and hence we decided that we'd go for the first show the day after tomorrow. The show was at 10am in Fame Cinemas. Rama was assigned the task of booking the tickets and Ratan and I went back to work.

After sometime, I hear Ratan shouting at Rama. The reason?
He'd just got an email that read "Mr. Ramakrishna Pathuri has invited you for the Movie 2012 (U/A). Show Date: Fri, 13 Nov, 2009" :)

Rama had by mistake booked the tickets for the show tomorrow morning. He tried canceling the ticket, but without success. Looks like Fri, the 13th isnt that unlucky for me. With the movie and the dinner, its the best friday at office so far! At office?!

Computer age? Ofcourse it is!

The stone, copper, bronze and iron ages are long gone. They say we're now in the 'computer age'. Would another name be more appropriate? Something like 'Space age' or 'Nuclear age' ?

Whatever you think, my vote would surely go for what it is popularly known as. Especially 'coz of something that happened recently.

I was at home in Mangalore, having dinner with my cousins. My lil cousins were testing their spellings. After few words (which included even PSP and GTA :) ), Chotu asked his younger brother, Riki the spelling of cartoon network. He thought for sometime and then said,
"C .. A .. R .. T .. O .. O .. N -space bar..."!!! SPACE BAR!!!

All the jaws in the room in the room dropped except one that continued with the spelling "N-E-T-W-..."

PS: Source of cartoon: home.planet.nl

Joy of Giving - Post II

I was walking along the Pune-Sholapur highway towards Magarpatta junction to catch my auto to Amdocs. Two small kids, a boy aged around 8 and the girl a couple of years younger to him, passed by; and they were asking people for some money. I never give money to those who beg. There are many people who beg when they can actually do some work. And about those who really cant work, I believe many of them only earn for their 'employers'.

Coming back to those kids, I wanted to give them something then. First because it was 'joy of giving' week, and I was looking for an opportunity. And secondly, I wanted to start my birthday in a nice way! ;) In a minute they were in front of me, the boy said that they were very hungry and wanted something to eat. And when I asked them if they wanted some ice cream, I saw the girl's eyes glow. Both of them nodded quickly. We walked to an ice cream parlour which was a minute's walk ahead.

The place had just opened for the day. There were only two waiters inside. I asked one of them to get two double scoops of icecream for them. While having their ice cream they introduced themselves. The girl's name was Lakshmi and the boy was Maruti. He then showed me his name tattooed on his arm.
It was already past 10 and I was running late for office now. So I told them that I had to leave and then went to the counter to pay the bill. But as I was paying, both of them put the icecream into the vessels they had and rushed out! Have no idea why they did that! They were perhaps scared to eat there w/o someone to see that they weren't asked to get out by the waiters.

When I came out and looked around, they'd already vanished. I then continued my walk towards the junction.

"Joy of Giving" week

This week, from 27th of september to the 3rd of oct, (the week coinciding Mahatma Gandhi's birthday) will be observed as the Joy Of Giving week in the country.

There are millions in the country who aren't as privileged as us. Trust me, you are really lucky; for reading this post sitting in front of a computer, when there are boys n girls, who haven't even held a pencil; for no fault of theirs. They were just born in a poor family. You can easily find people around you who could use a helping hand. And if you haven;t done anything yet why not start on the joy of giving week. Sachin Tendulkar, Saif Ali khan, Nandita Das, Rahul Dravid, Azim Premji, Geet Sethi are some of the celebrities supporting the cause.

At Amdocs, the community relations group is organizing few activities during the week. Most of them include collecting funds for conducting events at different NGOs in the city. The events organized are

• Special Kabala Shabath: At Amdocs, the teams have an informal get-together, called Kabala Shabat (means cake meeting) every friday, where we also buy some eatables, sweets, and colddrinks; and have some good time together. Next week we requested teams to voluntarily skip it once and contribute the collection for that Kabala Shabat towards the fund.
• We are facilitating sale of Diwali articles (prepared at Rachana, an NGO) and candles and diyas (made in Meghalaya hostel, another NGO). The amount collected would go towards the respective organizations.
• A special game of housie-housie conducted by instructors at dance institute of bollywood choreographer Shiamak Dawar. They would teach latest bollywood dance steps to the participants during the game.
• Delivering roses with messages to colleagues for a nominal price.

So this week, you too try to do something for another person. Draw a smile on someone's face; and find one on your's too. :)

Links:
Joy Of Giving home page and blog.
Follow JoG on twitter.
and me here. ;)

PS: In mumbai now, enjoying the 3 day weekend. :D

Duke's nose trek and valley crossing

On the 6th of this month, I went on a trek with valley crossing on the Duke's Nose which is situated in Lonavla. The trek was conducted by Trek'di, a trekking club I found on google when I was back in Mangalore. The valley was around 850m deep! And for 800 bucks I thought it was a good deal. And when I saw these two pics of the valley crossing on their site, I had no doubt about registering for it. :)


The biggest challenge for me was reaching the station at 6 in the morning, which meant I had to be up by 430! LOL! I could only manage to go to bed by 1am but somehow woke up on time and made it there.

We caught the 620 local train to Lonavla, and reached there at 0750. Some guys from Mumbai also joined us there. When we were walking towards the exit, I heard a couple of guys just behind me talking about Manchester United and Chelsea. I realised twas bcoz I was wearing a cap with 'Chelsea' logo behind it. Thats how I met Albes, Vamsi and Prashant who also work and stay in Magarpatta City. Their offices are next to the Amdocs tower.

We took a sumo from the station to the base of our trek. There we had our breakfast at a small restaurant stall. And after the breakfast, we had to sign an agreement which read "I am solely responsible for my safety and for any mishap during the trek and Trekdi isn't responsible for any of my actions." Everyone was so positive after that..hehe ;)

Then we started off. It was drizzling a bit. And was foggy all around. You could see only a 5 meter radius around you. We reached the top of Duke's nose pretty soon [took around 40 mins]. But the main part was yet to come.

From the top of Dukes nose, we had an awesome view. There were clouds below us. We could see rives, waterfalls far away. Well, we couldnt see them very well. They were just a few white lines among the green landscape below.

Can u see the cable across the valley?
click on the pic to see it

When we reached atop, the cables were being setup. There were two trees acting as the base anchors for the cable. And from there, the cable went to three different secondary anchors (just in case the tree got uprooted because of a really heavy guy ;) ). There was another cable too, connected in a similar way, for safety.

We were first shown a demo crossing by one of the organizers. After that, the participants started to cross one after the other. At midday, it started raining. For a couple of hours, it was ok to stand in the rain. After that, it wasn't very pleasant for sometime.:)

Ropeway to heaven

At four, I got ready to cross. The sky had cleared by then too. I got strapped and hooked to the cables; and was good to go. When I was crossing, I kept looking down. The ground was sooo far away; almost a kilometer down! And it was a great feeling to be hanging on a cable so high above. For the minute, I was crossing, I even forgot that I was scared of heights. :P

Looking at the ground far far below

It was over pretty soon. But I had one of the best 60 seconds or so of my life. The best so far was without any doubt the Bungee jump in the second year. :) Even though this was much higher than the bungee, I enjoyed the latter more; the feeling of free fall is totally different.

Below is the video of me crossing.

Next on the 'to-do list' : Rappelling on a waterfall. :)

'Cut' my tea??!

Ive spent two months here in Pune and it doesnt look like I'm gonna learn Marathi soon. Some rickshaw drivers and vendors speak to you in Marathi even if you speak to them in hindi. You then have to listen to them carefully, pick some words from the sentences that sound like some words in hindi, and then use the situation to try and decode what the person was tryin to tell you. And yea, you also have to know the local lingo. My recent experience would perhaps explain that.

Yesterday, I had gone to a restaurant close to my flat for breakfast. Being a Sunday, I obviously woke up quite late. So there wern't many things to eat, left there in the restaurant. I decided to have a vada-pav and a cup of tea. It is self service there. So after having paid, I went to the counter to collect it.

While preparing tea for me the guy there asked me "Bhaiyya, chai cutting hai kya?" (Brother, is the tea 'a cutting'?) I could only respond with a confused "KYA!!!" (WHAT!!)[What was he going to cut into a tea?? Or was he going to prepare a special tea for me? But I had paid just Rs.4 for it; and I don't think I would get something special for that. :P] It could be some specialty of the place. But I didn't want to take a risk and wanted to ask some reliable person about it before taking 'a cutting tea'! So I was about to ask him to give me a cup of ordinary tea; but the guy at the cash counter interrupted and told the waiter that it was indeed a cutting! Now I was curious, and grew more and more curious as time passed.

Later he kept my plate of vada-pav on the counter and then placed a glass of tea next to it. That was when I learnt what it was. It was the quantity! They served it in a very small glass [they perhaps called it the cutting glass ;)]. Its as if the've cut a piece from the large glass of tea. It looked like the younger brother of the other glasses that I then observed on a small shelf there.

Hmmm...long way to go...:)

PS: A really good week in the sports world for me. Fisichella gets Force India its first podium finish at the Belgian GP. India won the nehru cup. That's really big for Indian football. And Chelsea win four of their first four matches in the BPL.

PPS: Going on a trek on 6th Sep to Duke's nose(Lonavala) with valley crossing. Its gonna be the most exciting trek I've done. Looking forward to it. Check this space for a post on that soon. :)

Hemagglutinin 1 Neuraminidase 1

No, its not the score of a soccer match! :) Its the latest health crisis in the nation.

Babe - the pig is back in the city; but this time with vengeance!
Swine flu has hit many countries and in India, the situation is worst here in Pune.

Schools and colleges have been closed for some days now in Pune. The malls and multiplexes are shutdown. In the evenings you can find small kids playing with their masks on.

At Amdocs, they're taking it quite seriously too. The company provides us with masks every Monday. Mails about swine flu awareness are sent quite often. Hand sanitizers are kept at many locations in a floor, so that people use them often. And they are thinking about letting the employees work from home too. We also have a doctor sitting in the ground floor for us to consult in case of any symptoms of swine flu.

Most of the people are wearing masks to protect themselves from the virus. But most of the masks available aren't effective or last for maybe a day only. Chemists sell ordinary surgical masks saying that they are effective against swine flu virus. But they are'nt. N-95 masks are supposed to provide you best protection. But even after so many cases here in Pune, the N-95 masks are'nt available easily. I've got mine. If you don't get an N95 for yourself, you can use the normal ones, but you've got to use your folded handkerchief once or some other cloth piece beneath or over the mask, as you need atleast three layers in your to be effective.

The chemists in Pune are trying to make profit at this time of panic and crisis by selling items like masks for crazy prices. One druggist told me that he would give me an N95 for around 500 bucks! One mask, which is supposed to be thrown away after being used for a day or two for 500! Many duplicate N95s are also there in the market. In a TV interview on a news channel yesterday( i believe it was aaj tak), the anchor asked our health minister, Mr. Ghulam Nabi Azad, what he would do about these people who were taking wrong advantage of the situation. The minister replied that the masks were'nt meant for the general public, but was only for the doctors who were treating H1N1 positive patients and for the patients already affected by the virus, so that they dont spread the virus while coughing or sneezing. That is how it is supposed to be, according to the WHO or the CDC standards. But the panic always spreads faster.

The death toll is rising and 15 out of 23 deaths in the country have been from Pune; that would tell you how serious the situation is in Pune. The monsoon hit the city very late whn people here were praying for rains. And now when its raining, people want it to stop as it helps in spreading of swine flu.

And as precautionary measures against swine flu,

• wash your hands often with soap,
• do not take your hand to your face,
• do not rub your eyes,
• maintain at least 3 feet distance from a sick person,
• use a hanky while sneezing or coughing,
• avoid crowded places especially in cities like pune and mumbai
• if you are using a mask use a 3-layered one or dont bother taking the trouble :)

But these numbers are nothing when compared to the number of people dying all over the nation with diseases like malaria or pneumonia. Its only because H1N1 is new in the country that it has created so much panic here. And ofcourse there is the media hype too. Every day the front page reports about the number of cases reported in different cities in India. And to add to the panic our health minister had allegedly told in a Times of India interviewthat in the next two years, one-third of the Indian population would be affected by the virus. He however, in a TV news channel interview later, had denied the statement.

All this tension and hype will die out as few days pass by. We may just need to wait for the next Indian cricket series to start to turn the attention of the people.

Friendship day at Annapoorna

Happy friendship day to all my friends! :D

Here at Amdocs, we have a 'Community Relations' group that engages into some small social work. I've joined them and we had decided to celebrate this friendship day at Annapurna and Salvation army schools; with the kids there.

I met the other volunteers in front of tower 2, Amdocs at 945 in the morning. We collected all the logistics and left in two cabs. The rest came in bikes and a santro.

The kids assembling for the national anthem

When we reached there the kids were havin their breakfast. After sometime they reached the school. There were kids from class 1 to 10. We started with them singing the national anthem, after which they were divided into 10 groups. Each groups consisted around 20-22 kids and two volunteers were assigned to take care of each group. Asmita and I got group four. The kids then tied friendship bands on their friends' wrists. We had bands of different colours for each group.

We conducted musical chairs for children from class 1 to 5. The elder kids played Hulla-hoop[i hope i got the spelling right.] They had to stand in a circle holding hands, then each child in the circle had to pass through a circular loop made of plastic, and then pass it to the next person. During these games the music system was on and some small kids in my group who were watching the others play, were very eager to dance. I asked those boys to dance on the side. Soon the number started increasing and the place started getting too crowded; so we promised them that they'd get to dance in the end. Then we had a game where a child in a group would be blindfolded and using his teammates' directions, had to walk through a path drawn on the ground. The fastest team wins. By then most of the kids were hungry.

The kids were taken in groups to the three rooms where food was being served. The kids ate well, and most of them in my group wasted no food. After they finished having the lunch all the volunteers forgot all the dining manners and attacked the food. All of us were starving. The rice was over. There were few puris and sheera left. We shared whatever was left and joined the kids who were waiting for us.

For the post-lunch session we had earlier planned a skit competition; we volunteers had to teach the children what they had to do in about an hour, the scripts for which were handed to us a couple of days back. Asmita had translated ours into hindi and marathi for the kids. But it was quite late for having the skits, as the morning session had taken a lot of time. On popular demand we decided to have few matches of kabaddi. We conducted separate matches for the boys and girls of the higher classes, and then for the smaller kids too. Then there was a match between us volunteers and the staff of Annapoorna. Dont ask me who won that match, but it as pretty close. Its the participation that matters, right? :P

Prize distribution

The game was followed by the prize distribution. The points for each game was added; and the winners were declared. The winners and the first runners-up won got their prizes. My group came third. [should I have a happy or a sad smiley here?]. Prizes were also given to students who passed class 10 last year. Two boys in class 10, Arun and Anil were also felicitated, for securing first and second ranks resp. Arun had also got an internship at Tata Motors. He was also given a new bicycle.

The kids dancing

After that, as we had promised the kids, we kept the music system on full volume, and everyone started to dance. The kids were so full of energy even after playin for the whole day. They started pulling us into the crowd and made us throw our limbs too. We called the cab from Amdocs at around 530 and left the place after having a great time with the children.

Some of my friends here went on a trip to Lonavala today and another group had gone on a trek to Singad. They wanted me to come along, but I decided not to go with either of them and went to Annapoorna; and I am really glad I did that.

PS: The pics here were taken on Abhinav's cam and my cell phone.

The photos of the friendship day celebration at Salvation army could be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/parimalgbhatia/

Dining etiquette workshop

We shifted to our flat on the 4th this month. I've moved my stuff to one of the bedrooms, Pavan's are in the other. The hall is an empty room except for a stack of newspapers on the left side. Most of the things that we've bought after shifting were for our laboratory: the kitchen! Stove, cooker, non-stick pan, utensils, spoon and many more things. You can expect new additions into the hotel menus soon. :P

Two sundays back, there was an ad on The Pune Mirror regarding a workshop on continental dining etiquette. I, often confused when given the flatware, decided to go for it. So I registered for the workshop and paid them the advance. It was gonna be on sunday, the 12th of july.

When I reached the place, Mrs. Nirmala Lalvani was there to welcome me into her house. There were 3 more guys inside for the workshop; Tanpreet, who works for Bajaj Auto Ltd and two boys doing their second year at graduation, Jaiveer and Shashwath. Mrs. Lalvani is an etiquette trainer and has held classes for employees at different companies. She was now conduting these workshops to collect money for the two girls whose education she was sponsoring.

She first showed us how to hold the cocktail glass, a small plate and a napkin on the left hand, leaving your right hand free for shaking hands. Now that needs some practice, without which you will drop them for sure while walking. Then we learnt to set the table; and then to read the menu, looking at the table setting. She taught us to make the fork and knife look like appendages. We learnt small details to be taken care of while drinking soup, we learnt to eat on the back of the fork, to signal some things to the waiter without speaking to him and few other things. She had prepared a delicious 4-course meal for us and we did take sometime to finish having our lunch keeping everything she taught in mind.

Before leaving I learnt that her daughter-in-law conducted workshops on eating using the chopsticks!:D I have already spoken to her, but she will be out of station for sometime. So thats the plan for another weekend.

PS: Does anyone know how chopsticks got the name?You cant chop anything with it, can you?! I guess it is because it is from the land of martial arts!

Nandan Nilekani's first day at the pariament

I came across Nandan Nilekani's briefings on his first day at the parliament in an email forward.
I thought you might wanna go through it; so pasted it here.

The House was in pin drop silence. I was brimming with anticipation andexcitement!!!! Manmohan had informed me that my introduction was one ofthe important points of the agenda. I hoped that I will be able to makemy speech properly. After so many interviews and conferences, I was nervous today!!!! After the Speaker indicated that the proceedings of the House could begin, Manmohan formally introduced me to the entire House. He mentioned that as the head of the Unique Identification Authority of India, I was responsible to ensure that each and every Indian had a digital smart card as a proof of his existence.

Manmohan spoke about why I was selected and also some references to the various projects executed by me in Infosys were mentioned. The House listened with rapt attention. I was asked to say a few words and I did exactly the same!!! I thanked the Government of India for having givenme this opportunity and I assured the House that I would strive to successfully deliver this project. The Speaker then formally inducted meinto the House and before the proceedings could move any forward, there was a small commotion on the other side of the hall.

It was Minister of Textiles who had a comment to make before the next point on the agenda. He made a request that I should be attired in a more austere way instead of a flashy suit. It did not go well with the image of a minister who should live to serve the common man and should be less ostentatious in his habits. I stood up to reply. I offered my apologies to the Honourable Minister and assured that I shall be in amore acceptable dress next time. I felt that he was right. We also used to have corporate dress code in Infosys. So it's here as well!!!!

I sat down and felt somebody nudging me. I turned around and to mysurprise; it was the former Indian skipper and one of my favourite batsmen Mohd. Azharuddin. I remembered that he had recently won the elections. I smiled at him and mentioned to him that I used to like hisgame very much, shaking his hand. No Rolex, I noticed. Azhar told me that he would "fix" me an appointment with an Italian designer who had designed his dapper Kurta suit. An Italian designer in Milan doing Kurtas!!!!! I made a note of this and reminded myself to give this example to Friedman for his next book," The World Markets are flattened".

Since there was no doubt about the "Fixational" capacities of Azhar, Itold him to give me the details and I would consider. The proceedings ofthe House went on with numerous bills being debated and passed as I satas a passive audience waiting for my project's turn to come up. After the lunch break, it was the moment for me!!!!

MY PROJECT"S FIRST REVIEW CAME UP FOR PRESENTATION.

I was at sea. My laptop did not have any reserve power. I went to Manmohan and apprised him of the situation. I was sweating. He calmly replied that this would not be a cause of concern. I was flummoxed!!!!The Speaker asked me to explain to the House on what were my plans forthe Unique Identity Project. I replied that I have a plan prepared for30-60-90-120 days' milestones and I have presentation to make for whichI need a power socket, a projector and a screen. I had no idea what was going to happen after this.

The next couple of minutes were a complete jolt for me. I was completelyin a tizzy. Let me just summarize what happened. A Joint CabinetSecretary Committee was set up to judge the feasibility of my request.The Under Secretaries for the Ministries of Power, IT and Broadcasting will prepare a Viability Report after scrutinizing National Security threats to my request. This was because the power socket comes under Power, laptop comes under IT and projector comes under Broadcasting. I have also been told to reconsider my timelines of 30-60-90 days and start thinking in terms of years. Probably, they are right. I did not have the foresight in this matter.

The summary of the issue is that I need to come up with a more inclusive, democratic, comprehensive long term plan for this project tobe executed over the next five years. I have also been given a presentation slot 3 months from now (by which the issues related to the power cord etc will also be resolved). I am filled with mixed reactions.I was planning for a quick resolution; the management wants a strategic solution. I come out of the House and text Murthy.

"You won't believe it but these guys work just like us. I am on a NATIONAL BENCH for the next three months!!!!!!!!"

PS: Steve jobs' commencement address at Stanford

My new home ;)

In Pune now; reached here on the 7th. The company had provided us accommodation at Hotel Silver Crest, in Viman Nagar. The rooms are pretty good; they're air conditioned,have TVs and only after a couple of days did we discover that there was net connection too. But the luxury was intended for 15 days only. :( We had to find a place to stay by then.

Last few days, mammen and I were busy looking for flats to stay, somewhere close to Magarpatta City (thats where Amdocs has its office) or Hadapsar. We did contact many people and also check the flats personally and finally yesterday we decided on a 2-bhk flat in ECP Vastu campus, in hadapsar. Its a new construction with 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a hall, a kitchen and a balcony. All the rooms are quite spacious. The flat is in the 6th floor; so with the huge windows, there is good breeze coming in and is well lit too. And they have a gas connection in the flat already installed and a person would visit every month and take the reading to bill Oh, I forgot to mention the rent. Its Rs.7000 per month with Rs.25,000 deposit. I believe its a good find, as most of the flats were either too far from our office, too old, or were offered for a very high rent. So we're quite happy now and look forward to have a nice stay there. :D

Gonna continue reading 'The Godfather' now. Yea, I know I should have read the book long back; better late than never ;). Didnt watch the movie yet too, as i was advised to read it first.

I shall post a few pics taken in Pune soon. Until then, hf.

How to: sleep well in a bus when the next person is snoring?! ;)

Situation:
Bored sitting at home, i decided to go to blore to my cousin's place, last week. So i booked a ticket for the same day and boarded the bus at 1030.The bus, KSRTC volvo (airavath) was quite comfortable. They provide you with blankets and a bottle of water.
But regardless of how good it was, I always find it really hard to sleep in a bus. And there was no question of me falling asleep as early as 1030 in the night! So I enjoy the view outside
thru the large windows of the bus .After a couple of hours, I decide to try sleeping. But then...the person sitting next to me starts to snore like a truck with some engine problem!

Thoughts:
I could elbow him or wake him up and ask him to stop the truck and ride a bicycle.
But that would stop the snoring only for a few minutes. As he went back to deep sleep, he would start it again. So i had to stop him from sleeping well so that i could :D

Action:
As we passed the ghats, the mercury was dropping. So I adjusted 4 a/c vents above so that all of 'em blew air directly at the person
to my right. Trust me, not many people know that you have adjustable vents there. :)

Result:
Within 10 minutes, he woke up and started pulling his blanket.
and...it was my turn to sleep now!

Yea, I am wicked!

PS: Got a new phone yest...samsung star S5603. With the 3 inch screen, touchscreen, 8 gb memory and a pretty good cam, its really cool.

Got my joining date

I was slowly making plans for these holidays. I was expecting it to be a long one; atleast around 50 days long. But unfortunately, mammen called me up to say that we had to join Amdocs on 8th this month! Yep 8th...and today is 2nd! Wat the hell! Yea, i was hoping for an early joining date, with some of my friends having their offers canceled and some deferred. But isn't this a lil too early! My last vacation has just started.
Now all the plans have to be cancelled. I will prolly be leaving Mangalore on the 6th. That leaves me with just 3 days. I just got my unlimited net connection yesterday. But i can hardly use it now. :( Let me see what else could be done with these 72 hours. Hmmm...

PS: Ofcourse I am not very upset about the date with the current scenario; but perhaps it would have been better if I was informed abt an early date in advance. I'd have been mentally prepared for it.
PS: Nadal out, murray out! Will FedEx do it this time at the Rolland Garros?!

My new Dell Studio 15

Im back home now. And there waiting for me was my new lappie :)...its a dell studio 15

Here's the spec:

• Intel core 2 duo processor, 2GHz/80 FSB, 2MB cache
• 15.6" Hi-def 720p WLED display
• 4GB dual channel DDR2 SDRAM
• 500 GB hard drive
• 512 MB ATI mobility radeon HD4570
• 2.0 megapixel webcam
• 8X DVD RW

It took some time to switch it on as i couldn't find the power button!! Then after a minute's search, i discovered it on the right hand side on the hinge. :) I was doubtful about the jetblack colour when i placed an order for the laptop, but I'm quite happy about it now. The belkin backpack is sleek and nice too. I dont like the normal dell bags which look very bulky. Later, when the power went off, the lappie looked really cool in the dark with the backlit keyboard. Was glued onto my seat with my laptop since I got home. Will be taking it to the hostel tomorrow for stuffing the hard disk with movies, series and games! :D

PS: any suggestions for partitioning the hard disk w/o formatting? with the shrink option i could only reduce it to around 210 GB.

Its over! am an engineer now!!! ;)

Back in my room after the last end-sem exam. It was on my global elective - 'human resource management'. I shall remember the day - 12 may '09 - as the last day I sat in a classroom, and its gonna remain so for a long time - atleast a year or a couple.

This is perhaps the first time I'm not so excited after writing the last of an exam series. Now the only work remaining here is to get 'no dues' certificates from different departments, hostels, and labs. I hate standing in long queues!

So that's all you've got to do to become an engineer?! ;)

PS: did you know that the 'zoozoos' in the latest vodaphone ads shown during ipl, are not animated but real human beings dressed in suits?!! Dont trust me?? Google it! I too didn't believe it first when kavi sent me a mail about it.

A R Rahman ROCKKKKEDDD!!!

What a show!! FANTABULOUS! Simply superbb!!!

Just back from an awesome concert by the musical maestro, A.R. Rahman. This concert 'Jai Ho', which is also the one after winning the oscars, marked the beginning of his world tour. The show was organized by an NGO 'Global Kerala Initiative', and the profit from the concert would be used for rehabilitation of HIV positive orphaned children. The show began at around 8pm and then I had 3 hours which i wont forget for a very long time!

We had originally booked tickets worth 1000Rs. But luckily Bharath's dad had got 5 complimentary tickets worth Rs10,000 each. So 5 of us - bharath, ramu, murali, anoop, and i - gave our tickets to some of our friends, who didnt have tickets to the show; and took our seats in the 'platinum circle', from where we had a much better and closer view of the stage.

This show would easily displace the recent concert by Shankar Mahadevan at Ragam as the best concert that I've been to. No concert by an Indian can be bigger than that of 'Mozart of Madras', A R Rahman; atleast for a decade. And I doubt if I could watch better concerts overseas too, coz this was just awesome!! The singers who performed included greats like Chitra, Hariharan and Sadhana Sargam. We also had performances by Blaaze, Rashid Ali, Benny Dayal, Javed Ali, Mohammed Aslam and many more artistes. The most striking thing was that even after so many performances and the fame, Rahman was so humble thoughout.

You cant find many better ways to end your college life! And as ramu suggested, we've got to laminate the tickets!

Quite tired now and really sleepy. So cya later.
Hf!

Links: some pics of the concert

_ _ _ _ _ . _ . . . . . _ . _ . _ _ _ _ . . .

We had our major project evaluation yesterday and now there are no classes to attend too. Lot of time to kill :D. So keep thinking of new stuff to keep me busy. The other day I was writing my name in different languages. Then was wondering how it would be in morse code. So I just googled it. Below the images, there were a few links to some tutorial sites.

So I decide to learn Morse Code! Morse code is not a language, just an encoding technique to represent the alphabet. Every character is represented as a combination of dots (dit) and dashes (dah). It was developed by Samuel Morse for electric telegraph; and was later used for different purposes like radio communication. You must have noticed the google home page a couple of days back. It had 'google' written in morse code marking Samuel Morse's birthday.

The popular nokia sms tone is actually the morse code for "SMS": dit-dit-dit dah-dah dit-dit-dit.

There are a few good sites with good tutorials like this one. You can also try the softwares on the net. Most of them use the Koch method of training, where you would be practicing with 2 letters in the beginning, untill you reach the max speed you want with 90% proficiency, and as you improve your accuracy, you can increase the number of letters.

Softwares: G4fon Trainer, Ham university

Happy morse coding!

Time to say good bye...almost...

We just have around 40 days left at the college now. Different cubs will soon start having farewell parties for the final years in the club. The juniors from different states will have it for their seniors. We guys from Karnataka will have it this fortnight. Bharath is been having a countdown timer on his desktop to the final day at college for around 2 months now ;). And that would end 4 wonderful years in calicut, 4 memorable years in the hostel.

One is really missing something in his life if he hasn't stayed in a hostel. I bet anyone here would second me on that. Looking back, the stay here was filled with lots of fun, lot of mischief, a handful of times when i was caught [;)], few fights with friends, arguments, wonderful seniors, great juniors, the lecturers, labs, the fests, the common rooms, and many more things! The seniors who came for Convo said that they miss college and hostel a lot; and I'm sure its goin to be the same for us too.

But I can't help it! I cannot screw up one of my exams just to stay here for another year :). Will be leaving the college, but will have lots of memories and some friends for life too to take along with me.

I very well remember the last few days at all the schools and my prev colg...and i miss all of them...but every time i left a place there was another wonderful place waiting, with more friends, more fun, more exciting stuff. And I'm sure the same is gonna happen this time too.

So, cheers!

Ragam '09 - Snapshots

Ragam, this year, exceeded all expectations and was the best so far!

Here are a few pics taken during RAGAM, courtesy Bharath. He btw won the photography competition during ragam!

It all begins here.

Rajpath.

Yadu, Philip and I, judging dumb charades.

Vegetable carving.

Benny Dayal performing in the OAT.

The OAT was so crowded that people had to climb
adjacent buildings to watch the show!

NITC dance team at Choreo Nite.

Ragnarok Gaming Centre - Sponsored by Intel and Acer, and in

association with Zapak gaming.

Breathe members judging Western Orchestra.

Western Orchestra.

Shankar Mahadevan! It was one of the best

pro-shows at Ragam.

The crowd goes WILD!

English JAM finals.

Face painting.

Breathe - The Delicate Sound of Floyd.

Breathe - superb performance by them too!

Couture Boulevard (FS)

NITC team at Couture Boulevard.

Thats the final RAGAM for us final years :( Hope next year too the Convocation is scheduled for some day close to the ragam dates.