Blank space !

Just a thought..

2011-10-04T18:48:00.000-07:00

Unconditional Love*.

*Conditions apply. Please read your partner's mind carefully before investing your time and making any commitments. Risks are subject to time and your wrong assumptions.

ಮಳೆ ಹನಿ.

2011-07-18T17:45:00.000-07:00

ಏನನ್ನೋ ನೆನೆಯುತ್ತ ಹೊರಟವನಿಗೆ
ಮಳೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ನೆನೆದಿದ್ದೇ ಗೊತ್ತಾಗಲಿಲ್ಲ.

ಸ್ನೇಹ ಕಡಲ ತೀರದಲ್ಲಿದ್ದೆ ,
ಪ್ರೀತಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಮುಳುಗಿದ್ದೇ ಗೊತ್ತಾಗಲಿಲ್ಲ.

ಮನೆ ತಲುಪಿದಾಗ ಮೈ,ಮನ ತೊಪ್ಪೆ,
ಬಿರುಗಾಳಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಸಿಲುಕಿದ್ದೇ ಗೊತ್ತಾಗಲಿಲ್ಲ.

ಕಥೆಯಂತಿರುವ ಬಾಳಿನಲಿ
ಕವಿ ಮರೆಯಾಗಿದ್ದೇ ಗೊತ್ತಾಗಲಿಲ್ಲ.

ಎರೆಡೆರಡು ಸಾಲು - ಸುಳ್ಳು.

2011-07-18T16:05:00.000-07:00

ರಕ್ತದ ಅಭಿಷೇಕ - ಕಾಲಿಗೆ ಸಿಕ್ಕ ಮುಳ್ಳಿಗೆ,
ಮುತ್ತಿನ ಅಭಿಷೇಕ- ಪ್ರೀತಿಸುವೆ ಎಂಬ ಸುಳ್ಳಿಗೆ.

ಬದುಕು ನೀರಿನ ಮೇಲಿನ ಗುಳ್ಳೆ,
ಸುತ್ತಲೂ ಎಲ್ಲಾ ಸುಳ್ಳೇ, ಮಳ್ಳೆ.

ಅದೇಕೋ ಇವೆಲ್ಲಾ ಮನಸಿಗೆ
ನೆನಪಾಗುತ್ತಿವೆ ಇಂದು ಹೊಳ್ಳೆ ಮಳ್ಳೆ.

ಹೀಗೊಂದು ಸಮರ್ಪಣೆ.

2011-07-18T15:47:00.000-07:00

ವಿಧಿ ಹೆಣೆವ ಬಲೆಗೆ,
ಗಾಳಿಗೆ ಸಿಕ್ಕ ತರಗೆಲೆ,
ಎರಡರಲ್ಲೂ ಇದೆ ಸಮರ್ಪಣೆ.
-ಕೈಲಾಗದೆ ಇರುವವರ ಸಮರ್ಪಣೆ.

The Guyana interest.

2011-07-05T13:34:00.000-07:00

While returning from an evening walk, I met a person who, during our conversation, mentioned about the large Indian population in Guyana, South America. Indians comprise 43.5% of Guyana's population (in 2002).

History

Guyana was a former colony of the Dutch and (for over 200 years) of the British.

British employed people from North India (mainly Bengal region) as laborers for the sugar and tea plantations in Guyana after the slave trade ended on May 5th, 1838.

Later in 1860, the majority of Indian immigrants were drawn from North India with smaller batches coming from South India.

Indian Arrival Day is celebrated on May 5th commemorating the first arrival of indentured servants from India to the country, on May 5, 1838. On this day, the first ship with workers had arrived.

Indo-Guyanese

Hindi, Bhojpuri, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu are most widely spoken Indian languages in Guyana.

Guyanese Hindus continue to celebrate Holi and Diwali among others while Muslims celebrate Eid and Kurbani.

Guyana plays international cricket as a part of the West Indies Cricket team. Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan are notable Indo-Guyanese cricket players.

Other notable Indo-Guyanese being Cheddi Jagan (President of Guyana from 1992 to 1997), Bharrat Jagdeo (is the current President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana), Laxmi Kallicharan (writer and one of the finest pioneers of Indo-Guyanese cultural awareness).

Gulab Jamun and chicken curry are the national dishes. Hmm. Yes, you guessed it right. I have no work to do this afternoon.

1st day in the apartment.

2011-06-14T17:46:00.000-07:00

After a months' stay at the service apartment provided by the Company(not 'D'), I shifted to a rented one. Sudheer had invited me for breakfast and then drop to office in his car.

While walking towards his house, I realized that I have forgot to get my bag and I ran back to my house.

As I was unlocking the door, "who is it" asked a female voice. Ignoring it, I tried unlocking the door couple of times. The question persisted. Finally, to my horror, the door opened and the lady came out.

I apologized and left. I realized that had gone to the building next to ours. I shouldn't have run.

Don't worry.

2011-02-15T02:29:00.000-08:00

Everything will fall in place. Have faith and patience.

Towards the end of his life, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen".

Easy Passport

2011-01-11T01:43:00.000-08:00

Getting a passport has become an easy process now. Thanks to the vision of Shri S.M. Krishna, Honorable Minister of External Affairs.

Its online now

Filling the form , waiting in the long queue at passport office to submit is a passe.
Register yourself at Passport Seva Portal. Apply for new or re-issue of the passport by logging in with the registered id. An online form is displayed which has to be filled and submitted. Status of the passport can also be checked.

Take an appointment

Immediately after submission of the application, an appointment has to be booked. The appointment is then used to generate a token number which is used throughout the process.

Get the documents

Here is the checklist for the documents. Original and two photocopies of the documents are required along with the appointment print out.

Process

Process of getting a passport (be it new or re-issue) is divided into three parts, which is handled in three counters : A->B->C

At counter A ,

1. All the original documents are scanned and uploaded.
2. If the form is unfilled at some places, the executive at the counter can be asked to fill it. Generally, space for the address field is not sufficient to fill it completely.
3. A photograph is taken and uploaded.
4. Pay the fees.

Counter B is for verification of original documents.
At counter C, passport is granted.

Facilities

Generally, waiting for counter B and C would take some time. Tea, Coffee and biscuits can be bought during this time. There are people with responsibility of calling out the token numbers on the mic though token numbers are being flashed at the display. And, a photocopy machine is available.

Exit with smile

Finally, collect the acknowledgment near the exit section by showing the fees-receipt.

Update on Passport
Passports are now printed without an ECNR page.

Confusion.

2010-12-02T02:40:00.000-08:00

ತನ್ನ ತಾ ಶುಚಿಗೊಳಿಸುವಂತೆ ನೀರು,
ಬೆಳಕಾಗುತ್ತಲೇ ದೂರ ಸರಿವ ಇರುಳು.

ಹಕ್ಕಿ ತಾನೇ ಕಟ್ಟಿ ಹಾಡಿದಂತೆ ಹಾಡು,
ಯಾರ ನೆರವಿಲ್ಲದೆ ಬೆಳೆದಂತೆ ಕಾಡು.

ಕಾರ್ಮೋಡ ಸರಿದಂತೆ ತಿಳಿಯಾಗುವ ಬಾನು,
ತಾನೇ ಕಲಿತು ಈಜುವ ಮೀನು.

ಮುಳ್ಳು ದೂರವಾಗುವವೇ ದಾರಿಯಲಿ,
ತಾನಾಗೇ ಕರಗುವಂತೆ ಮಂಜು ಬಿಸಿಲಲಿ?

Movie on Music.

2010-09-06T06:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday (Sunday 5th Sept, 2010), while surfing through the tv channels , I came across a documentary movie on music in Turkey.

It was called as Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul. The movie spanned for 90 minutes and wandered in every streets of Istanbul city in search of "street musicians". There were recorded interviews with some musicians. Selim Sesler, Siyasiyabend, Aynur Doğan to name a few.

Whats in a name, after all !?

2010-07-12T01:49:00.000-07:00

Bharath Bandh.

2010-07-06T05:53:00.001-07:00

All alone at home, time table of food was in soup.

Breakfast :

A hotel near my house was opened for an hour in early morning, got idly to eat.

Lunch :

A friendly neighbor had promised to provide lunch. It was 1.30 PM and still no sign of lunch. At last it arrived fifteen minutes later. Finished it even before she returned back to ask if I want some more rice or sambhar.

Dinner :

Dinner should not be a problem at all as the Bandh was called off by 6 PM, I had thought. There were ten thousand mouths in every hotel and another thousand to feed at home (parcel). Got something to eat by 11 PM.

In between breakfast and lunch, I made tea once and after lunch , twice.

By the way, did the oil prices go down? Any idea?

Old villain, re entry !

2010-05-05T08:33:00.000-07:00

I am at office, its 9.00 PM now. There is a power outage at HQ and every server was down. All work stops.

I sit back and relax closing my eyes.

This happened when we were all set to check in the code for tomorrow's release. At scrum call today at 4.30 PM, I update that there is a problem with code and its not building; neither did the server start.

This was the state when I came to office at 12.30 PM.

On the way to office, there was a terrific traffic jam on every road I took. And it took an hour and a half to reach.

It was 11.15 AM when I left to office from the hospital after meeting Mrinal once again.

Early morning (at about 8.30 AM), I got a Mrinal's call. To my horror she asked me to admit her to hospital as she is not well. I ran to her house and had her admitted. Until her uncle and cousin came to hospital, I was with her. It was 10.30 AM then.

Woke up by a friendly "hey, go home" call by my team member.

It flashed to me that today BC rejoined. Of course, nothing to rejoice.

2010-03-19T01:20:00.000-07:00

Listening to Raag Megh (Kafi thaat). Might rain anytime, saw the clouds ! :)

Hushaar !

2010-02-11T01:51:00.000-08:00

Conversation between Narayan and me about the V-day :

Narayana says:
http://thatskannada.oneindia.in/news/2010/02/11/sri-rama-sena-to-disrupt-v-day-celebrations.html
Praveen K says: Do not move along with any gal, u guys mite end up getting married !
Narayana says: I am thinking other wise....
Narayana says: move with some beautiful girl
Praveen K says: this was my last year's idea..
Narayana says: yeah
Praveen K says: after that i got married.. :)))
Praveen K says: so i am saying this
Narayana says: ha ha hahaaaa
Praveen K says: ;)
Praveen K says: warning adu :))
Narayana says: got it

Parivartan humien pasand nahi !

2010-01-25T02:51:00.000-08:00

Today, at office, there was a shuffle in our places. A re-arrangement in the seating positions just to get people of the QC team of a team with that of dev together. As a result, two of us had to move to another bay.

I was not convinced with that very thought of changing the place I was holding for a year. Then , there comes a list of 10 reasons for not changing the place : we have internal chat , network, phones, etc then why do it?

Why does our mind oppose the change ?

Is it because it feels the change is not necessary? or is it because it just doesn't want to? or was it communicated wrongly - was it sent as an order to me not as a justified argument?

No answer yet.

Right now I have changed the place. :)

Re-quoting Sadhu Agaashe from Ab Tak Chappan

Apne ke paas sochne ko dimaag nahi hai, sirf ungli hai ghoda dabaane ko.

Interesting..

2010-01-11T07:00:00.000-08:00

Bade Ghulam Ali Khan(1902-1968), is a legend in Hindustani classical music.

He was reluctant to sing for films, but sang two songs based on ragas Sohni and Rageshree for the 1960 film Mughal-e-Azam, in which his voice was represented as Tansen's by the music director Naushad.

To dissuade Naushad, he demanded a high price, reportedly Rs. 25,000/- per song, when the rate for popular playback singers such as Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammed Rafi was below Rs. 500/- per song.

Finally, he sang the songs "Prem Jogan Ban Ke" and "Shubh Din Aaya Raj Dulara" for the movie.

Boredom.

2009-11-24T01:42:00.000-08:00

That is what I had Googled and stopped at wiki, of course.

Psychologically, boredom is defined as "an unpleasant, transient affective state in which the individual feels a pervasive lack of interest in and difficulty concentrating on the current activity".

Others describe boredom as "an affective experience associated with cognitive attentional processes."

Anxiety is described as a response to a moderate challenge for which the subject has more than enough skill.

These definitions make it clear that boredom arises not from a lack of things to do but from the inability to latch onto any specific activity. That is, lack of attention.

Here is an interesting graph mapping challenge level against skill level.

Formatting Brain !?

2009-11-20T06:31:00.000-08:00

Some times I feel that my memory should be formatted or defragmented or cleaned up exactly like that of HDD.

Format to erase all the unwanted memories and some beliefs or habits which I have obtained or developed that are stopping me to advance to the next level.

Am I asking my mind to move on and learn to unlearn ? If so, how do I unlearn ?

D.R. Bendre + Raghu Dixit

2009-11-19T05:09:00.000-08:00

Yeah. Raghu Dixit will make his sizzling tunes work for Jnaanapeeta awardee Bendre or Ambikatanayadatta's poems. How wonderful it will be.

RD seems to be attracted towards Hubli/Dharwar Kannada songs. First it was Shishunaala Sharifa and now its Bendre.

Bendre's poems have mystic meaning behind their seemingly simple lines as that of Sharifa. RD's awesome voice and music will bring a new wave in bhaavageethe.

RD has a great technique of composing a song in a vilambit taal.

His next target is, hopefully, not Purandaradasa. Sometime later, I wish to re-compose his keertane in a Hindustani Raag and taal along with guitar. ;-)

One Sunday..

2009-11-08T23:52:00.000-08:00

One day, I told my dad that I wish to learn Tabla. That day he had met his old friend and a music teacher , Mr. Devendra Pattar. He spoke with him but did not get his contact number or address except the info that he stays near a Vodafone office in RPC lyt.

We both went in search of him but in vain.

After a long long time, yesteday, I saw a music program in RPC Layout library premises. And, to my surprise it was him ! the teacher who I wished to meet.

Finally met him and told about my interest in Tabla. He gave his contact number asked me to join !

Ellavu nepa maatra !

2009-11-03T23:03:00.000-08:00

Everything here is just a reason !

I am talking about life. Though people have a various (and their own) definition for life, I feel its a game.

Its a game with a purpose. And, the 'purpose' is not to win or lose; the 'purpose' is the game itself, which teaches us detachment.

As Dundi Raj aptly put , "daari kaaNade dEvarannu kELidare, avanu thOridha raste Karmanye Vadhikaraste".

Auto rickshaws on strike !

2009-10-13T00:57:00.000-07:00

It was a bliss yesterday. No sound pollution, no traffic jams, no haphazard driving. A perfect Monday. Yeah, I am talking about auto rickshaw strike.

But everything changed today. Autos are back. Today, Bangalore is hearing same old irritating sound of autos. Arrrrgh !

Well, according to TOI,

"They are demanding a steep increase in fares. The hike in minimum fare could be between Rs 15 and Rs 20 and subsequent fare could be Rs 7.50 to Rs 10 per km."

Hike in the fare is due to rise in the prices of 'essential' goods like LPG and petrol/diesel.

And, there is also a proposal that has been devised so that the auto drivers can earn Rs 250 per day.

An idea struck(from their strike). If I buy an auto and get one of my distant relative to drive it, he can pick and drop me to office from home. And, for the rest of the day he can earn Rs-250.

This will save me money and driving in the Bangalore's terrific traffic.

Wattan idea sirji !

2009-10-08T02:48:00.000-07:00

(Background : BC took 12 hours to drive from Bangalore to Shimoga)
Me: BC planning to visit Ooty for his honeymoon and going by his CAR !!
VK: by the time he comes back n reaches here
VK: he might have to drive straight to delivery ward:P:P:P

2009-10-06T02:28:00.001-07:00

(3:01 PM) Praveen Kulkarni: Maga, BC b'day ivattu
(3:01 PM) VK: hehe
(3:01 PM) VK: wer's the black band
(3:01 PM) VK: to mourn the day :P

Education ruined our lives..

2009-09-17T07:57:00.000-07:00

What life are we living as software engineers? Analyze the never freezing requirements, meet the never estimated the dead lines, write code, integrate it, document it, test it and what not.

Nothing short of Hell.

Just imagine, if our parents had not wasted their hard earned money in our education and instead bought a land for us, we would have been a farmer right from childhood.

All we had to do was wait for rain, sitting with a beedi on a bench (ya? on-bench !) under a banyan tree. All funding comes from loans with low interest (but with our high interest).

Go plough the field when it rains.

Every night drink packet sarayi. If its not poisonous , you will sleep inside the house with everyone or not outside with everyone dancing around you. ;)

If , God forbid, latter happens, Govt weaves off your loans.

Even better would be our lives if our parents had had a well yielding 'thota'. All you need to do is take care little bit of it and more of yourself.

Well, all you can do now is just imagine it for a while and alt+tab Eclipse.

Barabaarade omme?

2009-07-01T02:48:00.000-07:00

Inspired by the ghazal 'Ranjish hi sahi..' penned by Ahmed Faraz. Video and the lyrics can be found here .

Life : Deadlock Hai Saala !

2009-06-18T07:55:00.000-07:00

1. Stuck between hunger, urgent work and rain !

A total helpless condition. Deadlock?
Cannot go out and eat something due to work and rain. But I am dying of hunger. Even if I go out in rain leaving the work, the next day I am not sure of earning the food.

2. Drink and talk !

Wish to talk. To set the mood, got to drink. But after drinking, won't remember that I drank to talk !

Moreover, after drinking can't go home. How to talk ?? A deadlock again.

I am breaking all the locks.

I am a free man, after all. Here, I go to have food amidst rain not thinking of tomorrow.

And, haven't thought about talking yet !

Nishabda

2009-06-03T03:13:00.000-07:00

Manasina Maathu

2009-06-03T03:12:00.001-07:00

Its Hoysala temples again !

2009-04-22T01:55:00.000-07:00

Though reaching Shimoga was tiresome, we (Soma, Linz, Sunil and me) managed to enjoy our rest of the trip in Hassan.

The trip started from Lakshmi Narasimha Temple in Bhadravati. Then we left to Arasikere and then to Hassan. It was already 11 pm when we reached there. Fortunately, we got a room in Sumukha regency besides Tourism dept of Hassan.

Early morning (10 am), we booked a cab and decided the temples to be visited.

Route taken :

Hassan -> Doddagaddavalli -> Belur -> Halebid -> Belavaadi -> Javagal -> Harnalli -> Hassan

Here is the map :

Doddagaddavalli :

Doddagaddavalli is located 16 km from Hassan and lies on the route to the famous temple town, Belur. The town's main attraction, the Lakshmi Devi temple, was built by the Hoysalas in the year 1114 CE during the rule of king Vishnuvardhana.

It is one of the earliest known temples built in Hoysala style and is built with Chloritic schist or Soapstone. The temple does not stand on a jagati (the star shaped platform) which became popular in later Hoysala temples.

The temple is said to have been built by a merchant called Kullahana Rahuta and his wife Sahaja Devi. The temple is a chatuskuta construction (four towers) built inside 7 ft tall stone enclosure with the entrance through a porch which is supported by circular lathe turned pillars.

Sukanasi (or nose which looks like low extension of the main tower over the shrine) holds the Hoysala emblem of Sala fighting the tiger.

Inside there are two sculptures of large demonic living corpses called betala. The main shrine facing east has a 3 ft tall image of goddess Lakshmi with an attendant on either side. In the shrines facing north, south and west are the idols of Kali, Vishnu, and Boothanatha Linga.

Overall the temple has the older Hoysala style where there is only one eaves running round the temple where the main towers meet the wall of the shrine.

The temple is situated amidst coconut plantations and has a lake at its rear which adds to the scenic beauty.

Belur and Halebid :

No words can explain the beauty of the temples in Belur and Halebid. We visited these temples for the second time. And every time we visit , we get to see in a different dimension. I tried to post some details of the temples in my previous blog post

Belavaadi :

Veera Narayana temple is located in Belavadi. It is situated 10 km north of Halebidu.
This ornate trikuta (three toweres) temple was built in 1200 CE by Hoysala Veera Ballala II.

Each of the shrines has a complete superstructure (tower on top of shrine) and is one of the largest examples of Hoysala architecture. While the famous temples at Belur and Halebidu are known for their intricate sculptures, this temple is known for its architecture.

Javgal :

Located 15 km from Halebeedu on the road to Banavara. There is a Lakshmi Narasimha Temple at Javgal 13th Centuary Hoysala temple.

There is an image of Sree Vishnu in the sculptural design of the Sreedhara Murthy in the middle. On the left flank of this middle sanctuary we see the deity of Sree Lakshmi Narasimha, and on the right is that of Venugopala.

Harnalli :

Harnalli is 33 kms from Hassan and 8 kms from Arasikere.

There are two temples here : Someshwara and Keshava built in 1270 AD. It was almost 6 pm when we reached here only to find the temples closed. We asked people around for the priest and asked him to open both the temples.

The temples are built by Someshwara , a chieftain in Vishnuvardhana's army. He has also built Somanatha temple near Mysore.

After Som and Linz visited Badami, Pattadkal and Aiholey, we thought of pausing Hoysala temple visits and start off with Hampi and then Chalukyan temples mostly in North Karnataka. It is best time to visit during rainy or winter season as summers are unbearably very hot.

Exam Phobia

2009-03-02T01:06:00.000-08:00

Even now, every time when CBSE's X and XII exams kick off (Mar 3rd), I start developing an exam phobia.

Every morning I get up with a fear of writing an exam and it takes me some time to recover and get back to reality.

Why has exams created such a fear !?

During the exam time, there will be no TV, none at play ground. Parents, teachers forcing us to study all the time. Almost every house in my locality had a bulb burning on its terrace where students studied at night.

All they worry about we forgetting or overlooking something or the other while appearing in an exam, not being able to recall important facts at the appropriate time and, most importantly, the result , ending up with a low score or even worse, failing.

Its the result that causes the fear. All 'what-if's result to fear and in turn hindering the student's confidence.

Syllabus

Understanding and memorizing have a cyclic dependency. A student not understanding the topic might fail memorizing it too and eventually losing interest in the subject.

Emphasis should be on understanding basic underlying facts of a subject rather than memorizing it. Most of the teachers just give 'notes' on the topics rather than making an attempt to teach basics and build an understanding.

Teachers should make the subject interesting and easy. And, students show interest and respond by asking 'Why', 'How' questions and try to learn its application.

And, not learning how to apply will result in students crying out 'its-out-of-syllabus' !

And, there is a vital role for parents. They should not pressurize children to be in study room and spend hours together studying. And, most importantly, not to compare their child with other 'bright' child.

High Hopes !

2008-12-18T01:27:00.001-08:00

Comfortably Numb !

2008-08-05T07:14:00.001-07:00

Dreams connected !

2008-07-08T07:26:00.000-07:00

#1 : College times

On a lazy Saturday, after a heavy lunch, I was taking a short nap and was soon asleep.

I was in a sci-fi lab (ya, of course, I was dreaming) with soldering gun and a PCB. There were astronauts, doctors, computer scientists around me.

To solder, I got the soldering gun towards the PCB, strangely enough it came towards my elbow and burnt me. After trying many times I woke up in horror only to see that a red ant is biting my hand !

#2 : Room

This is a bit long story.

Rajesh, my roomie, was working in night shift for a BPO and used to come at wierd time in mornings. Not disturbing our peaceful sleep, we decided to keep the key near a window and of course, door locked. ;-)

One day, I forgot to lock the door and was in a deep sleep.

In my dream, I was chasing some 10 people with a hockey stick in my hand. May be I had hit some and was about hit some more.. chasing went on till everyone entered a tunnel.

It was very dark inside and I could not find anybody there but suddenly a light from opposite direction was heading towards me. It suddenly flashed to me that the light could be of a train and I should come out of the tunnel. Light was steady and prominent now falling directly to my face..

I opened my eyes to see Rajesh holding his Nokia 1100's torch to my face !

Wattan answer !

2008-06-25T21:45:00.000-07:00

Me : Heard that a newly constructed fly-over, in your city, collapsed yesterday. How!!??

A Colleague : Ya ! You know, it rained heavily that day !!

*****

Me : Why are you working from home today?

A friend : hu...nidde banditttu...cab time ge echchara aglilla . so.. :)

*****

A Colleague : Hi .

Me : Hi buddy ! Wat's up !

The Colleague : Bun-Jam. Didn't you ask what's in snacks?
(Snacks is served in terrace)

*****

Lots of friends : Why is your marriage date is fixed on Thursday? Bere date siglilwa?

Me : nakkan, maduve en eNNe party na, weekend allidoke?

*****

Me: Here, take the key and get my bike from parking.

Brother-in-law: (seeing my bike) Mama, gear onde khaddi adala !! innardha murdirenu?

*****

I write a huge mail as analysis , implementation and clarification.
Answer: Out of Office auto reply !!

*****

Vishalakshiya nenapu...

2008-05-30T03:57:00.000-07:00

Vishalakshi, Vishu, or putti, as we all used call her fondly. She resigned the job and wished to enjoy her married life. Putti, we all miss you very much.

Break Free From Limiting Beliefs !

2008-04-28T23:57:00.000-07:00

Came across this thing. Good one.

Break Free From Limiting Beliefs

One way preethi !

2008-04-15T04:09:00.000-07:00

This is how I could define one way love. 50% success. ;-)

GrahaNa

2008-03-12T02:09:00.000-07:00

This is my version of Eclipse in Kannada .

Eclipsed !

2008-03-06T07:10:00.000-08:00

This is 'Eclipse' from 'Dark Side of the Moon' by Pink Floyd.

All that you touch
All that you see
All that you taste
All you feel.
All that you love
All that you hate
All you distrust
All you save.
All that you give
All that you deal
All that you buy,
Beg, borrow or steal.
All you create
All you destroy
All that you do
All that you say.
All that you eat
And everyone you meet
All that you slight
And everyone you fight.
All that is now
All that is gone
All thats to come

And everything under the sun is in tune
But the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact its all dark!!

Listen?

Here is the link to download :

Eclipse

Last days of winter

2008-02-13T05:33:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, had been to Davanagere to attend a marriage of Santosh HK, my college senior and my ex-colleague.

On Saturday, Kiran and me , after having delicious Benne dose, planned to visit Harihar, an ancient town situated on the right bank of the Tungabhadra river and see Harihareshwara temple.

Mythology :

The god Harihareshwara is a combination of god Shiva and Vishnu. There is an interesting story behind avatara of this god. In ancient days this place was known as Guharanya. A dense jungle and habitat of a demon Guhasura. He had a boon that no Human or Rakshasa or God can kill him. Harihareshwara had to appear to kill him.

Archeology :

The temple is built in the Hoysala style in 1223, the image of Harihara stands 4 feet tall with its left portion representing Lord Vishnu and the right, Shiva. The high standards of the Hoysala artists is evident in the microscopic Goddess Lakshmi represented on the lintel of the doorway. The lotus flowers in her hands, the elephants by her side - so delicate, so distinct.

And, one can see the prominent Hoysla feature of lathe turned pillars in the temple.

The temple is not maintained by Archeology Dept. instead by KSTDC. And there are lots of houses built around the temple and its almost in ruins.

On Sunday, I had to leave Davanagere at 5 pm and reached Bangalore at 1 am. Surprisingly enough, I met my old colleague and friend , Gouda, in the bus. We had not met since long time in Bangalore though we stay in the same area. I told him that it will rain today. It started raining when we were near Chitradurga and it continued till Bangalore. He had an idea of getting his bike from office (which he had left on Friday while traveling to home) and drop me to my room.

Hiring an auto till Cunningham road and got his bike from office. By that time it was almost 2 am. We had some chapathis and dal in Empire hotel and I requested him that I would ride the bike till my room. It was so much fun riding a bike on an cold and rainy early morning.

It was a nice trip attending marriage , visiting good old Davanagere , an old temple in Harihar and the joy ride on the last days of winter.

Photos at picasa

Hope it isn't real !!

2008-01-03T21:32:00.000-08:00

A Lonely Sunday and Satyajit Ray.

2007-12-16T19:35:00.000-08:00

As never before this Sunday was extremely boring and lonely. Zee Studio Channel is paying tribute to the legend, Satyajit Ray by screening his movies.

I watched 'Parash Pathar' or The Philosopher's Stone (1958). It his first film apart from the Apu trilogy centered on a middle-class clerk who accidentally discovers a stone that can turn other objects into gold.

Plot :

Paresh Chandra Dutt (Tulsi Chakraborty), a middle-class bank clerk in Kolkota, attends a charity match on a rainy day rather reluctantly. At Curzon Park (modern-day Surendranath Park), where the match is apparently to be held, he finds a small, round stone. Thinking it is a marble, he gives it to his nephew, Paltu. The child discovers that it turns metal into gold (i.e. it is the Philosopher's stone).

Dutt "buys" the stone from the child with sweets after witnessing the stone's power himself. He decides to take a few old cannonballs from the city dump, turn them into gold, and sell them. This scheme makes him rich; as a chauffeur drives him home from the dump, the car pulls into the driveway of a mansion (his new home). He now has a young secretary named Priyatosh Henry Biswas (Kali Banerjee) who, among other things, mentions that Dutt is invited to a cocktail party (his first).

At the party, Dutt acts slightly unnatural before engaging in drunken revelry. When another guest orders him to get out, he turns an iron figurine into gold (thus partially revealing how he became successful). It is not long before this incident is posted as a headline in the papers, causing a panic in Bengal. Paresh Dutt flees with his wife, Giribala (Ranibala Devi), leaving nearly everything (including the stone) with Priyatosh but cautioning him to hand it over if the police arrive.

Soon, Mr. and Mrs. Dutt are taken to a police station for interrogation, and the police discover that the desperate Priyatosh has swallowed the stone. Dr. Nandi (Moni Srimani), a medical specialist, informs the inspector (Haridhan Chatterjee) that Priyatosh is digesting the stone. Soon after Paresh and Giribala Dutt hear of this, they notice the golden objects turning back into iron. The Dutts happily rejoin their servant (Jahar Roy) and Priyatosh.

The credits for 'Parash Pathar' are presented not in Bengali (the language used for credits in almost all of Satyajit Ray's films), not even in English, but in French. (This is probably due to the fact that Ray's films began to be quite popular in France.) For this reason, the film includes the title "Parash Pathar (la pierre philosophale)".

One and half hours of a Satyajit Ray movie is a feast to watch.

Diwali dhamaaka

2007-11-21T09:23:00.000-08:00

On 10th of Nov, Saturday, dad and me planned an one day trip to Gadag and Lakkundi, places near by Sandur.

As read in a history book, Hoysalas (needless to say, it was King Vishnuvardhana) had conquered places of north Karnataka from Chalukyan King Vikramaditya. Some of which are Gadag, Lakkundi and Uchchangi. I had guessed that there must be some beautiful temples there, without any research on this and convinced my dad to visit the places.

Lakkundi, located at a distance of 13 km from Gadag district with as many as 50 temples, 101 stepped wells (called Kalyani or Pushkarni) spread over the period of the later Chalukyas, Kalachuris, Seuna and the Hoysalas. But we got to see only 5 of them. With me, dad had to walk in the streets of Lakkundi searching the temples in scorching sun.

A great center of Kalyani Chalukyan art, there are several temples of note here. Among them Kasi Vishwanatha is the most ornate and elaborately furnished. There is also a Jain Temple dedicated to Mahavira, the largest and oldest shrines which we could not visit due to lack of time.

The excavations here revealed that Lakkundi had a sequence of three cultural periods: late medieval or Vijayanagara and post-Vijayanagara period, Kalyana Chalukya-Hoysala and Rashtrakuta.

Much is known about the first two periods from inscriptions, temples, monuments, tanks and forts. Not much is known about the last, apart from two or three temples such as the Basavanna temple in the locality. But the new excavations clearly show the Rashtrakuta cultural period and there are indications of the existence of the remains of the Satavahana period. The discovery has pushed back the history and culture of this famous locality by many centuries.

There is also a jain history to the place. Lakkundi is also called as LokkiGundi in the inscriptions.The Brahma jinalaya was constructed by Attimabbe. She was the beloved wife of Nagadeva who was the chieftain and soldier of Chalukya King Ahavamalla. She sheltered the poet Ranna. She sanctified the place here by patronage for Kannada literature and Jain religion.

It was time for lunch (2:30 pm) and we left to Gadag.

Gadag immediately brings to mind the name of Naranappa, popularly known as Kumara Vyasa, the author of Karnata Bharata Kathamanjari. It is the classic Mahabharata in Kannada. Naranappa was born in the nearby village of Koliwada. He composed his work sitting before Lord Veera Narayana, his chosen deity. The temples of Veera Narayana and Trikuteshwara are places of religious and historic importance.

Gadugina Bharata is entirely composed in the Bhamini Shatpadi, a form of six lined stanza. Kumara Vyasa explores a wide range of human emotions, examines values, and displays extensive mastery over vocabulary. The work is particularly known for its use of sophisticated metaphors. It has earned him the honor of Rupaka Samrajya Chakravarti (Emperor of the World of Metaphors).

The Gadag art style marked by ornate columns originated during the period of the Kalyani Chalukya King Someswara I, and it flourished for a period of 150 years (1050 to 1200 AD).

We visited Veera Narayana temple where we also caught a glimpse of a pillar that exists till date, according to popular legend, Kumara Vyasa is said to have composed his work at the temple. This pillar is also known as Kumara Vyasa's pillar.

It 10 pm when we reached home. Next day, friend Shivraj and me planned to visit Kumarawamy and Parvati temple on Monday morning.

Every time I visit home, I visit the temples without fail. But this time the temples appeared very differently. May be this was due to history/archeology background from past trips.

According to a board installed recently by dept of tourism, Kumarawamy temple was built in late Chalukyan period (11th century) and the Parvati temple in 8th century.

This diwali gave me immense pleasure visiting home and two days under the hood of history/archeology.

Photos of the trip is here

Aalemane, the jaggery house

2007-10-25T05:30:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, 21st Oct 2007, we had been to Mandya. Thanks a ton to colleague and a friend Basavaraj who took us to Melukote, Hosaholalu and Govindanahalli.

Hoy-Sala:

The Hoysalas stepped into the area vacated by the Gangas and ruled over the Southern part of Karnataka from the 11th to the 14th centuries. They made remarkable contributions to Karnataka culture, particularly in the field of art and architecture.

Till Bitti Deva or Vishnuvardhana, as he is known as, assumed the power Hoysala Kings fought against Cholas, Pandyas, Chalukyas and tried to build their empire.

He was the real maker of Hoysala Kingdom.

Melukote :

Bittideva (1108 - 1145 A.D.) was a Jain. Under the influence of the Hindu philosopher Ramanujacharya, he was converted to Hinduism and practiced Vaishnavism.

Ramanuja, who was a Vaishnavite, might have faced threats from some Shaivite Chola rulers who are religiously intolerant. He and
a few of his followers moved to the Hoysala kingdom of Jain King Bittideva and queen Shantala Devi. Bittideva converted to Srivaishanavism, in some legends after Ramanuja cured his daughter of evil spirits, and took the name Vishnuvardhana meaning "one who grows the cult of vishnu".

Ramanuja re-established the liturgy in the Cheluvanarayana temple in Melukote in Mandya district; Vishnuvardhana re-built it and also built other Vishnu temples like Chennakesava temple in Belur.

Vishnuvardhana's chief queen, Shantala Devi remained a devout Jain, and set a precedent of religious tolerance in the kingdom.

Vishnuvardhana assumed the titles of "Veera Ganga" and "Talakadu Gonda", struck coins in memory of the victory and also built the Keerthi Narayana Temple at Talakad.

One Hoysala epigraph (E. C. ¾ Vol. V. Belur 58) states that Vishnuvardhana burnt the city of Talakad and polluted the waters of Kaveri by throwing the corpses of enemies into it.

Hosaholalu :

The Lakshminarayana Temple located in here, a small town in Mandya district was built by king Vira Someshwara of the Hoysala Empire in 1250 AD.

An usual Hoysala Vishnu temple.

Govindanahalli :

The Kedareshwara temple at Halebidu and Amritheswara temple in Chikmagalur were some important temples built by Veera Ballala II (1173 - 1220 AD). He was married to a daughter of Kulothunga Chola III (Shaivaite).

I guess, Veera Ballala II converted to Shaivaite from Shrivaisnava. He built Kedareshwara temple at Halebidu and Panchalingeshwara temple at Govindanahalli in Panchakoota architecture. It appears that in the reign of Veera Ballala II, Hoysala was declining in terms art and architecture. Did not get much to see the star shaped platform or any other specific Hoysala style of temple building.

Towards resolving confusion of Viadyeshwara temple, Talakkad :

Veera Ballala III (1291-1343 CE) was the last great king of the Hoysala Empire. His commanders, Harihara (popularly known as Hakka) and Bukkaraya (popularly known as Bukka) are perhaps better known in Kannada folklore as the founders of the Vijayanagar Empire.

This could be the reason why even Vijayanagar style temples have Hoysala emblems. This could solve our Talakkad's Vaidyeshwara temple confusion.

The Hoysala empire, along with the new territories conquered during battle in 1336 AD, came to be known as the Vijayanagara Empire. A century later, the Vijayanagara empire would gain prominence for its political, military, musical and literary progress under the reign of King Krishnadevaraya.

Veera Ballala was killed in one of the series of skirmishes that ensued against the Sultanate in 1343 AD. Thus ended the life of the last great Hoysala king.

While returning from Govindanahalli, we had been to Aalemane. It is the place where jaggery is prepared from sugarcane juice. Hoysala empire was like aalemane, giving us overwhelmingly great temples.

Here is my colleague and a friend, Avinash's blog which talks about connecting yourself with the places we visited.

Photos at picasa

Coincidences..

2007-10-18T09:41:00.000-07:00

Yes. They are all coincidences.

You say,it happens. Horrible.

Sushant, Bhanu and me were out of office for an evening walk. Bhanu said he has to buy some medicines from a store infront of our office. Just looking at the prescription, I jokingly said he'll not get those and its a waste of energy to walk up till there. We all laughed and he left.

After some time he came to us and said that he did not get the medicines. He blamed me for saying that. From here, the journey of coincidence has started.

And, most of the times I predict rain or anyone, for that matter, can.

Looking at sky, some times i would have uttered these common words, "Today, it will rain". And it does, of course.

It has happened so many times that, colleagues ask me for a weather forecast. :)

It was tea time, one of my colleague was still doing something. I just asked him if he wants to join us for tea. He said he was doing a build. One breath , I said, "it will fail, lets have tea". It did and it did many more times. He thinks i am the cause for it.

You think ,it happens. Even more horrible.

There are some poles grooved near BMTC stops to guide the buses through the stop. Once I was travelling in a bus and we were behind another bus; but seeing the congested place near the bus stop, a thought of "what if that bus caught up with a problem and did not move at all" crossed by. And lo ! that bus did not move at all. Our bus conductor went through a great pain and made our bus move out of the queue.

As i was narrating all incidents to my PM, he said its a boomerang. It has hit everyone and now me.

Recently, as usual, my prediction about rain came but it failed and i just said, " After completion of work and while leaving for home happily, it will rain. These rains have no time sense." Sushant was smiling. May be he had guessed what would happen.

And it rained cats and dogs when i was going home after completing my work. Upset with this coincidence, wrote this :

Next day, Sushant was about to hit me. He got stuck in a jam while it was raining. And, he believes that i am the cause for it.

There many of those to list down and i am believed to be cause for those.
These coincidences have ruined my life.

Talakkad

2007-10-05T09:28:00.000-07:00

It was 5:20 pm when we reached Talakkad, known for its sand dunes. Towards the river Kaveri, we saw huge crowd boating and playing in waters. Not going there, we decided to visit ancient temples.

There are five temples :
Arkeshwara, Paataleshwara, Maraleshwara , Mallikarjuna and Vaidyeshwara.

Apart from Panchalinga, there is also a Vishnu temple, Keerthinarayana. The temple was built to celebrate the victory of the Hoysalas over the Cholas. It is now in ruins and is being reconstructed, by Archaeology Department.

Who all ruled Talakkad :

The illustrious and powerful Western Gangas ruled from 350 to 1050AD until they were overthrown by the Cholas in the 11th century. Talakkad was captured by Vishnuvardhana, a king of Hoysala Empire in the 12th century , followed by the powerful Vijayanagara Kingdom rulers and the Maharajas of Mysore.

It has been found that the Western Gangas used Kannada and Sanskrit extensively as their language of administration. No wonder that two epigraphs obtained near the temple excavated at SavveMaaLa has Kannada written on it. The earliest known Kannada writer from this dynasty is King Durvinita of the 6th century and Kavirajamarga written by the famous Rashtrakuta King Nripatunga Amoghavarsha I of 850 AD, refers to him as an early writer of Kannada.

Curse of Talakkad :

A story about how Talakkad came to be awash with sand. Some 400 years ago, during the time of the Vijayanagar empire, here lived a chieftain named Srirangaraya. His wife Alamelamma used to offer her ornaments to the Srirangapatna temple during rituals and later take them back. After Srirangaraya died, she settled down in the village of Malangi.

The then king ordered that she give up all her ornaments. Alamelamma wrapped all her jewellery in a piece of cloth and jumped into the river cursing “Malangi Maduvagi, Thalakadu Maralagi, Mysooru Doregalige Makkalagadirali” (let Malangi be a whirlpool; let Talakadu be covered with sand and let the Mysore rulers not have offsprings).
The Kings repented and began worshipping Alamelamma in the temple at Mysore palace during Navarathri. The custom is followed even now.

Confusion prevails:

When we visited Vaidyeshwara temple, we first saw the temple on a star shaped platform. Not thinking much, we entered into the temple and asked a priest about the kings who built it. There came a confident answer from the priest that it was built by Gangas.

But after observing all around the temple, one could easily make out that this was built in Hoysala style. One could see Hoysala emblem on the walls of temple and the most prominent feature of sculpting SaLa killing a tiger.

It is said that the temple is built in the Dravidian style of granite. Much of the structure here is attributed to the Vijayanagar period (14th century), although several Hoysala features are seen in this temple.

But I am in total confusion with who really built the temple. Vijayanagar empire contributed to Dravidian architecture along with Hoysalas, by building temples on a raised platforms made of granite and having dieties sculpted along the walls of the temple. But then, there shouldn't have been Hoysala emblem sculpted all over the temple.

Was it built by Hoysalas? or was it built by Vijayanagar emperors?

We thought of overcoming the confusion by enquiring a guide. But it seems like kids have appointed themselves as guides. Did not ask anyone else as it was 6:45 pm, time to say bye to Talakkad and return to Bangalore.

Gandhi Jayanthi celebration.

2007-10-04T10:48:00.000-07:00

Savve MaaLa:

Reading TOI dated 30th September 2007, we came to know that a temple of Gangas dynasty is found by excavation in village named Savve or Savve MaaLa as it is known as in Mysore district.

So Soma, Linz and me left for the expedition to Savve on Oct 2nd. Linz had booked a cab and it started from his home at 5:30 am, reached Som's room at 5:50 am and reached my room at 6:15 am. Taking atlas of Karnataka, district-wise maps and a history book in hand, we left to HD Kote taluk in Mysore.

With atlas in hand and asking people for the route, we managed to reach taking a shortest path. Had breakfast on the way to Gaddage consisting of 4 small idlies and chutney which reminded us of our homes.

We reached at 10:30 am with high expectations about how an excavation site would be and had listed down a dozen of questions to ask an official from DSAM/ASI but ended up in disappointment.

Disappointment at excavation site:

At the site, we could only find the foundation of the temple (as we guessed) and nothing else. We found no one from Department of Archeology and not even a description board installed by the department. People were standing on the temple and walking around it.

So we got no useful detail about the temple. The detail that we got from the villagers is that the God appeared in a person's dream and asked him to excavate this place. Later, we met that guy and visualized him becoming a Swamiji in days to come.

After seeing the excavation site, we went to see the idol of Mahishasura Mardhini which is said to be found at the same location some 30 years back. It is a beautiful Idol which still remains worth watching even after being littered with kumkum, tumeric and oils in the name of poojas.

From there, we started towards Somanathapura at 11:30 am.

Revisiting Somanathapura :

An outlook about the architectural beauty and history of Somanathapura in my previous post.

On reaching here at 2:00 pm and finding a guide, we thought we could explore more with his help. And thats how not to misguide people.

A Guide, who misguided:

The first thing we learnt is the most of the guides do not know more than what they are trained about. Our guide was a classic example for it. As soon he started narrating, we started asking questions from our end.

Our first question was about how the dates/years (in terms of English
Calender) of a certain historical period is determined using the
inscriptions. The answer we got was the same dating system was followed even during the Hoysala period, 1000 years back.

Next and the last question was about how gold was obtained during that time, as the first gold mine of India dates back to just 150 years. We could not get the satisfactory answer again.

Meanwhile, he explained about the carvings on the temple walls. He explained about the Hoysala architecture as usual.

What to look for :

There were carvings of different Avatars of Lord Vishnu starting from matsya (fish), koorma (tortoise) and others followed, Mahabharatha war, Arjuna aiming at the bird duing Swayamwara, Krishna raising the Govardhana giri, Bakasasura vadhe, etc.
He even showed us some of incomplete parts of the temple.

There is no puja or worshipping done for dieties here due to damages done to the idols. It is believed that the construction of temple stopped after the plundering by Mallikkafur and other Muslim rulers.

There are 3 idols installed in the temple (Thrikootaachala architecture) which are very beautiful. One of the idols is said to be taken away by the British which is now replaced by another one.

This time we had Som's camera with us and got lot of photos. Lingo Linz has become an expert photographer of Hoysala temple.

At 4:10 pm, we left to Talakkad, 27 kms far (near?) from Somanathapura.

Viraha

2007-09-29T23:19:00.000-07:00

French Fever

2007-09-29T12:43:00.000-07:00

Friend Mahesh, who is in Paris, has a viral fever now due to sudden change of climate. On visiting a French doc, gave him a 1000 mg paracetomal !! 1000 mg !! This was first time we heard about a 1000 mg tablet.

He has now eaten over 2 kg of rice and 10 chapatis and still feeling hungry ! Here is a picture of the tablet ;-)

We laughed till we fell asleep. He sounded very weak but still could not control laughing. Sunil and I adviced him not take another dose of that and sleep after dinner.

Nuggehalli ge Lagge !

2007-09-23T05:47:00.000-07:00

This was one day trip to Nuggehalli, another Hoysala architecture temple.

As usual we started off from Majestic at 6:30 am. But this time, Linz, Som and me, had breakfast and left to get into Hassan bus. The bus broke down at Kunigal and it took us another half an hour to take up another bus. It was almost 12 noon when we reached CRP, usually we would have reached at 10:30 am.

While on the way to CRP, at Hirisaave, we heard a call for Nuggehalli but it was late to get down from the bus as it was moving. And Som pointed out a board towards Nuggehalli which showed up pictures of two temples and distance of 14 km. Gosh !!

We enquired for Nuggehalli bus and before we could reach there, the bus just left. Had to wait till 12:45 pm to get frustrated and decide to travel in a tempo. The tempo,as usual, contained cattle,fowl and people. It took us to Nuggehalli at 1:30 pm. Almost two hour lag. :(

Heights of bad luck

I asked a person in CRP bus stand about which route bus to take so as to reach Nuggehalli. The gentleman over there replied that I should take Nuggehalli bus. :(

Another elder gentleman replied (for the same question) that Nuggehalli bus will come at this place (where we were standing) and am traveling to the same place. He further asked us purpose of the visit. We told him that we are from Bangalore and had come to visit the temples. He gave us a weird look as if we are first to visit or may be we appeared aliens to him.

Are people from that place ignorant about the importance of ancient temples?

How to reach

Get down at CRP and travel towards Nuggehalli is 18kms far. But the nearest way would be getting down at Hirisaave and Nuggehalli would be 14 kms. Which will save lot of time. By the time you reach CRP, you could reach Nuggehalli.

Here is a Nuggihalli Google Map

Reached, but bad luck hi kharab tha

In Nuggehalli, people guided us to the temples. But we could not get to see the garbha gruha of the temples as they were closed. At Sadashiva temple, we found a Ganesha idol installed for Chaturti and main temple was closed. But we found a patli gali , a door was open that led us to backside of the temple.

What to look for

There are two temples : Lakshmi-Narasimha and Sadashiva.

Laxmi-Narasimha temple is a usual Vaishnava temple with idols of Vishnu, Laxmi, Garuda, Ganesha and all the incarnations of Vishnu. A board outside the temple says that this was built 20 years before Hoysalas built the temple of Somanathapura.

Observe the small black stones in the eyes of all the idols sculpted around the wall. One could see fine carvings of Hiranyakashyapa's ear rings too. Whatta perfection !

Sadashiva temple has been built with only with plain stones and there were no idols around the temple. This was very first time we saw plain temple walls in an Hoysala architecture. It also had a balcony where we all climbed and watched a Nandi inside and photographed.

The temples are ill-maintained and incomplete. None to explain us why so.

We left at 3:30 to CRP , had some food there and left to Bangalore at 4:45 pm.

This could've been a better trip if it was correctly planned and visited at right time. Never visit such temples at Ganesha chaturti. :))

Photos at picassa . Some more pictures will be uploaded as soon as i get them from Som.

The Palace and a Play.

2007-09-09T23:25:00.000-07:00

Envy of Heaven:

This Saturday, Som and me visited Tippu's palace near K.R. Market. It takes about 20 minutes to reach there from Vijayanagar.

Tippu's palace is well maintained by Archaeological Dept. Building this palace was started in 1781 by Hyder Ali and completed on 1791 and it is constructed mainly in wood and has fine intricately sculpted arches resembling the Daria Daulatbagh in Srirangapatna near Mysore. It is surrounded by a well maintained garden.

The palace is named as `Rashk-e-jannat' meaning Envy of Heaven by Tippu.

What to look for:

Inside the palace, there are rare photos/paintings of Tippu in ground floor and the 3D picture which we saw in Srirangapatna is also installed. There were display of rockets which were created by Tippu himself.

A painting displayed Tippu sitting on an octagonal throne which was made of gold studded with rare diamonds and precious stones. It has a flag above the umbrella having a picture of an imaginary bird called 'Huma'. It is also believed that if the bird's shadow falls on a person, he will become a ruler.

There were lots of display of details on Tippu's Administration, his visions and ideas for improvements and also about his dreams.

The British could not take the throne as it is and had to disassemble it and moved it. Those parts can be found in a museum in London.

Archeology Funda :

There was a person whom we asked our questions on Archeology. He explained us that there are many branches like Excavation dept, Chemical dept, Epigraphy dept etc to determine the date and historical details of the monuments obtained. We also enquired if there was any museum maintained by Archaeological Survey of India in Bangalore unfortunately there is none but some old coins are kept in Venkatappa Art Gallery it seems but we could not visit due to laziness :)

There is a fort nearby which we wanted to visit but was under renovation.

Break a leg:

Later at 5:45 pm, we left to Chowdaiah Memorial Hall to watch a English comedy play "Break a leg" directed by Mr. Prakash Belawadi. It went on till 9 pm. We are planning to watch more of them, though we understood it very little. ;)

Day 2 : Ranganatittu bird sanctuary.

2007-09-05T09:53:00.000-07:00

It was 10 am when we reached Srirangapatna and we were all set to visit Ranganatittu, a bird sanctuary. It is located at down stream of Krishnanarajasagar reservoir in Kaveri river basin. In addition to permanent residents, a large number of migratory birds visit the sanctuary in different seasons of the year. They court, mate, build nests, lay eggs, incubate and enlarge their families here.

Reaching Ranganatittu isn't easy:

Even reaching here was tedious from Mysore. One has to reach Srirangapatna and reach Ranganatittu cross which is 4km far. We got a bus only after waiting till 11:15 am and reached Ranganatittu cross. From the cross, we walked half a km to reach the sanctuary's entrance. We roamed to get a picture of the sanctuary.

This is what others think about Ranganatittu:

We observed that most of the people were young couples and least bothered about others or most importantly the birds. As in parks of Bangalore, even the sanctuary has provided place for them. Some couples were also seen listening to songs from their mobiles when there was a request board to not to use mobiles. Some families were also seen playing with their kids and making noise to scare away the birds. This place is for migratory birds and people interested in them not for honeymooning couples. Spare the sanctuary please. This was bit irritating and here is a sample snap taken to post here :

Rower who knew the foreign birds:

On the way towards the boats, there were details of migratory birds hung along with their snap. Birds reside in the tree grown along or middle of water body. One has to go in a boat to watch them. We took a boat and started towards the birds.

Rower who had come with us was patient enough with us to answer our seemingly silly questions. He took us near the trees where the birds had built nests and feeding their little ones. He named each one of them and also told some interesting facts about them. We also had a chance to see three crocodiles. Two were lying on the banks of river and other one was swimming across.

Horrified Athul asked if they come near the boat and eat us. The rower patiently answered that the crocodiles do not come near the boats. Meanwhile we tried to take snaps of the birds by zooming our cameras in the cell.

Birds we saw:

We mainly saw White Ibis from Nigeria. It was picking up a small twig for its nest, the rower told us that the bird picks up the strong straw/twig and washes it thrice in the river and only after that it uses it to build the nest. Snake bird from Russia that has a snake shaped neck, Night Heron from Italy, Little Cormorant from China and native Bahminy kite were also seen in 20 minutes of boating.

Got to visit Ranganatittu again to watch Painted Storks from Siberia, Spoonbills from Antarctica and Bill Storks from North America which arrive at winter.

We had our lunch in a well maintained tourist hotel in Ranganatittu and it was time to say bye to the sanctuary. We left to Bangalore via Srirangapatna at 2:45 pm and reached around 5:30 pm.

This was a great trip with blend of ancient temples and a bird sanctuary.

Day 1 : Somanathapura and Nanjanagud

2007-09-03T05:31:00.000-07:00

This time in Mysore district, we planned to visit Somanathapura, Nanjanagud and Ranganatittu.

Reaching Somanathapura :

As usual we started our journey to Somanathapura from Majestic at 7:00 am by catching BR Hills bus. Reached Malavalli at 9:55 am, we caught a local bus to reach Somanathapura via Bannur at 10.30 am.
Local bus was full of people and as it was a "DVD Coach", we had to watch "Dore" starring Shivrajkumar.

Reaching Somanathapura was very tedious. Somanathapura is considered to be a historical place and there is no proper route to reach. Conditions of the roads are pathetic. Though it was only 7km from Bannur, it took us half an hour to reach. And on reaching there we also found that there is none guide us through the ancient Hoysala's Keshava temple. There is no tourism promoted here, on asking a official person there, replies that this is maintained by Indian Archaeological Dept. and not KSTDC.

What to look for :

The Keshava Temple in Somanathpura is the best-preserved of most and complete monument of Hoysala architecture. The temple is believed to have been built (around 1268 AD) under the patronage of Somanatha, a general in the army of Narashimha II.

It is third of the three great Hoysala architecture temples, the other two being at Belur and Halebid.The Keshava temple have three shikaras, one for each garbha griha. The three deities are Keshava, Janardhana and Venugopala.

There are lot of dieties sculpted around the temple. They are full of ornaments and it appears as if they are carved in sandalwood or ivory. The temple is composed of a series of bands that wind around the star form of the building and they are also carved. One could see the horses are sculpted along the carves.

Along the compound of the temple, there are 64 chambers that used to house smaller deities. But we only saw bat faeces and smell urine in those chambers.

On the way along, one could see lots of greenery in fields. Their main crops, as we observed, were paddy and sugarcane which need lot of water. The need of water is fulfilled by KRS. Som and me being from almost desert places of Kolar and Bellary, thought if KRS was not built then these places would have become like ours. We saw no drainage flowing but only channels which carried waters of Kaveri.

Towards Nanjanagud :

At 1:30 pm we started off from Somanathapura and left to T. Narasipura.

In T. Narasipura, we saw a board directing to Sangama where rivers Kaveri and Kapila meet. Spending some time on the river banks, we left to have lunch at 3:30 pm and then started towards Nanjanagud in one of local buses.

Nanjanagud is 30km far from T.Narasipur and we thought it would take about an hour or half to reach but it took one and a half.

Getting a vehicle to visiting places is easy but does not give you an insight of how local people are, how do they talk and behave with strangers.

On the way, we had talks with local people, funny as usual. The local buses accommodated people along with their domestic fowl. People carried hen and one of them was sitting besides us. I asked him to move his luggages to other side as it was hurting my legs. He replied that his hen would die if he does so. Someone grinned and interrupted him by saying that you have to kill the bird to eat it. He also asked the bus conductor if this was bus to carry people.

PuraaNa puNya kathe of Nanjundeshwara:

A pujari of Nanjundeshwara temple revealed its history. It was at the time of Parashurama who was in woods and unknowingly had his axe on a shivalinga and blood flowed out of it. God Shiva appeared and asked him to build a temple. It is said that the temple was built and developed by Vijayanagar and Wodeyar dynasties. It is also believed that on blessings of Nanjundeshwara, Tippu's elephant regained its sight. Thanking the Lord, Tippu has installed a linga there called it as Hakeem Nanjunda. Hakeem, in Urdu, means a doctor. There is a Nandi in the entrance of the temple and we could not find out its history because there was a boy as pujari.

Parashurama showed existence of Lord Shiva by building the temple and got a blessing that anybody who visits Nanjundeshwara temple has to visit Parashurama temple to get the blessings of Lord Shiva.

We also walked upto Parashurama temple which was about a half kilometer far from the main temple. It was 6:30 pm and time to say bye to Nanjanagud and move on to Mysore to stay back and visit Ranganatittu next day.

Photos of the trip are uploaded here

Vindhyagiri : A pending climb

2007-08-20T05:06:00.000-07:00

During our visit to ShravanabeLogaLa(SBL) last time, we had to skip climbing Dodda betta or Vindhyagiri due to lack of time and energy. And decided that we will come back here for one day and climb.

August 15th was the day.

Plan:

14th Aug evening, as usual Som and me decided to climb next day. And instantly plan was made and a mail was sent to interested people. Only Lingaraj (Linz, as we call him) turned up. It was decided that we will start from Bangalore at 6:30 am, reach there by 10:30 am. And an climbing up and down time was estimated to be from 11 am to 3 pm.
And we would start back to Bangalore at 3:30 pm to either Hirisaave or Chennarayapattana(CRP) and reach by 8 pm.

On the way to SBL, we trio had a nice time talking and remembering the golden old days of college and comparing it with the current situation and also enjoyed watching the greenery all the way. We also exchanged some historical background of Bahubali. :)

The direct bus took exactly three and a half hours to reach SBL. According to the plan !

Climbing inspired by pretty girls :

We could see the approximately 85 degree steep hill and about 620 steps to climb. Not wasting much time, we straightaway started climbing the Vindhyagiri before it could get sunny.
As we started climbing, at 10th step we were huffing and puffing. Seeing me, Som and Linz would have thought that I would take them back to Bangalore without climbing.

But as we saw the old people climbing, we got inspired and started climbing again. There were pretty girls too. We photographed one.

What to look for:

Taking breaks at some points, we finally managed to reach a place where we had Siddhara basadi, Odegal basadi and Chennanna basadi to visit and photograph. And also the finely engraved pillar called Tyagada Brahma Pillar. The floral designs on it are excellent.

Before we enter the basadi, we read and photograph the historical description outside, this was our usual style.

There were some more steps to climb and reach Gommata monolith, 58' tall, installed by a Ganga general and scholar Chavundaraya.

Maththashtu maathu :

We had spent 30 mins to climb, 30 mins for watching basadi. We spent good amount of 45 mins to see surroundings of Bahubali and other 24 theerthankaras. Here we sat down for 15 mins talking about the historical book "Saartha" by Shri S.L. Bhairappa. Which included a discussion on Hindu gods being inscribed as a dwarapaalakas, but with a different name.Godess Padmavathi is their Kushmandini devi . We also spent a good deal of time trying to read inscriptions written on the stones.

We decided to climb down before it gets even more sunnier and steps burn our feet. We need to remove our footwears before we climb. We climbed down in 15 mins. Climbing down is always easy !

We were back down at 1 pm, one and a half hours well before the plan. Sat chatting at a park near bus stand for some time and left to have lunch at Hotel Raghu. Had a good amount of food, we left to CRP to catch a bus to Bangalore at 3 pm.

And we were back in Bangalore at 6.30 pm. None has leg pain or any body ache. Good exercise for me, atleast.:)

Nenapu..

2007-08-12T21:25:00.000-07:00

Me back from home. Right now away from zeroness and loneliness. Always remembering home. This is how i can express and define it.

Snaps of Sandur and Tungabhadra Dam

Alone + Zeroness

2007-08-02T09:34:00.000-07:00

One of my old friend used to say that friendship is like a journey where one has to get down when his destination is reached; got to forget the fellow passengers with whom we talked, spent some time good or bad. We have to forget or let go of people when time comes.

Whatta sense of detachment !!

I keep remembering those words. Thats why I usually do not miss anyone. Though all alone but never feel lonely.

But zeroness prevails.

Nothing to do at house,
And nothing anywhere else.
As I see everybody rushing,
I sit idle and keep wondering
What do I do?
Where do I go?

Did I sound like Pink Floyd? Heh heh, cannot help. Hope that this feeling goes after I return from a week long vacation. :-)

Bachelor Bevarsi !

2007-07-31T20:57:00.000-07:00

MoonStruck !

2007-07-29T02:05:00.000-07:00

Whenever there is a full moon, it is believed that people (some, atleast) become restless and present a weird behavior. This is a known fact that one cannot dismiss so easily (after some basic observations!).

What could be the reason for this?

Is it a special time, which brings out human emotion and spirits? Or could this be from an interaction of gravity waves between Earth and Moon?

If you notice the evolution of the word "lunatic", which means an insane person in english.luna in "lunatic", from Latin, means moon.

What do Researchers say :

Researchers say that the earth's surface is 80 percent water and we all know about the tides; the human body is 80 percent water, so why shouldn't there be a human tidal effect?
But this reasoning doesn't take the question of scale into account. The tides are only noticeable in the oceans. In smaller bodies of water, such as lakes and presumably the human body, tides are negligible.

There have been many researches on this and failed to support the moon's influence on human behavior. They call it as a myth.

Research ge question na?:

But then, here I have a question, how did researchers conduct experiments? Just by observing the behavior of people in a week before and after a full moon day?

This could have resulted in false data. Because many people believe that the full moon can affect behavior, experiments must be designed carefully to eliminate the possibility that people's beliefs will influence the data.

For example, if people know that they are in an experiment which studies how the moon affects behavior, they may act in ways that change the results.

There must be an experiment conducted keeping people under observation unaware about the experiment and the lunar cycle. Their mood disorders must be observed. There must also be some scientific experiments to notice variations in electromagnetism of brain and the magnetism of the moon and earth.

Final word:

Moon influencing human behavior might not be true just because it has been believed from long time and almost by everyone. But it is also possible that people have a "selective memory" for strange events that happen on the full moon; they remember strange incidents that occur during a full moon, but forget when these same things happen at other times.

Anyway, we keep observing people around us. And as I post this blog, I realize that tomorrow is a full moon day.

Kya hoiga iss country kaa !

2007-07-26T09:51:00.000-07:00

Me smiling at irony of life ;)

Bwahaa ahahah .. yeah right.

But truely this is not the case, i can only explain like this (yet, again, from Pink Floyd) :

...
When I was a child I had a fever
My hands felt just like two balloons
Now I've got that feeling once again
I can't explain, you would not understand
This is not how I am
I have become Comfortably Numb

..
The dream is gone
And I have become
Comfortably Numb.

Whatever be the case, hormones are under control ! :)

The Pathology of Love !

2007-07-22T09:15:00.000-07:00

I have been wondering about what Love is and the cause for it. And about all the illogical things happening around it, like talking hours to each other, not eating nor sleeping at the right time.

What is this all about? Then to quench my thirst of curiosity, after some research, i found this about Love.

Love, in all its phases and manifestations, is an addiction, probably to the various forms of internally secreted norepinephrine. Norepinephrine , a neurotransmitter that mediates chemical communication in the sympathetic nervous system, a branch of the autonomic nervous system.

It is telling that once attachment is formed and infatuation gives way to a more stable and less exuberant relationship, the levels of these substances return to normal. They are replaced by two hormones (endorphins) which usually play a part in social interactions - Oxytocin (the "cuddling chemical") and Vasopressin. Oxytocin facilitates bonding.

Obsessive thoughts regarding the Loved One and compulsive acts are also common. Perception is distorted as is cognition. "Love is blind" and the lover easily fails the reality test. Falling in love involves the enhanced secretion of b-Phenylethylamine (PEA, or the "love chemical") in the first 2 to 4 years of the relationship.

After the biochemical effects, i guess there should also be a psychological effect. A change in behavior, i can say. People, who are in love, will always be thinking about their lover and have less time thinking about others. This less consideration towards others will eventually result in selfishness.

Whatever be the reason for budding of love, people (of course, who are in love) forget that there should be a sense of detachment. So much of attachment towards a person/object might bring you sorrow. Life isn't always the same. You need to detach from worldly desires.

Viparyaasa

2007-07-20T04:31:00.000-07:00

Hassan trip photos uploaded

2007-07-15T10:27:00.000-07:00

Yes. Finally, i got the CD from Som and uploaded this weekend. There are about 200 photos and could not spend time on writing comments for the photos. I will put those as soon as i get some time. Because some info is needed while seeing the photo. Well, here is the link for the photos :

Hassan Trip Photos

Happy viewing !

Zeroness

2007-07-14T07:24:00.000-07:00

As major work in office completes, mainly after a major code checkin, there is zeroness in life. I remember these words of "Empty Spaces" from Pink Floyd :

What shall we use to fill the empty spaces,
Where we used to talk?
How shall I fill the final places?
How shall I complete the wall?

My view of zeroness is this:

Weekend trip : Hassan

2007-07-01T09:03:00.000-07:00

At first three of us had planned to visit Hassan district mainly Belur, HaLebeed and ShravanabeLogoLa. But finally only two of us (Soma and me) had to travel.

As Hassan was quite near by place to visit, we planned to travel in early morning to Hassan and then catch a bus to HaLebid. But on reaching majestic, we got a direct bus to Belur. On the way we had our breakfast.

We reached Belur by 12 noon. While having tea, we had obtained some info on way to reach Chennakeshava temple and means of travel to HaLebeed and then to Hassan.

Chennakeshava temple, situated on the banks of 'Yagachi' river, is about five minutes walk from Belur bus stop. It is a most fascinating temple built by Hoysala King Vishnuvardhana in 1178 A. D. to commemorate his conversion from Jainism to Vaishnavism. The main structure of the temple, which is star shaped, is a homogenous architectural unit on a raised platform. This is also a way to recognize the 'Hoysala Architecture'. Facing the temple, at the entrance, stands the winged figure of Garuda, Lord Vishnu's carrier.

Inside the temple, there are more than a dozen of pillars but each one of them was of different shape. And even the elephants, 'Madanikas', flowers, horses sculpted outside the temple are all different from each other. The sculpted stones are fixed to each other by sockets and pivots. Pluggable and de-pluggable technique, as you can call it. We had hired a guide to explain all this.

The temple is also famous for its 'Shila baalike' or the sculpted beauties. No words can explain their beauty. So see the photos.

After looking at them for 3 hours, it was time to visit HaLebid.

HaLebid, once called as Dwarasamudra which was a capital city of Hoysalas. Its main attraction is Hoysaleshwara temple, Keddareshwara temple and Jain bastis . The temples are similar to Belur temple in architecture but all ruined. There are no 'vigrahas' around the temple. Outside the temple, there is Nandi, Lord Shiva's vehicle. Soma was looking at the perfection acheived in chiseling of the Nandi.

One Kilometer from the Halebid temples is the Basti hills where there are Jain Bastis with gleaming black stone pillars. But none to take care of the Keddareshwara temple and Jain bastis.

Nandi :

An old man taking shelter from rain in one of the small ruined temples :

It was 6 pm and was time to say bye to HaLebid and reach Hassan and book a lodge. Colleague Vivek had suggested a lodge. We reached Hassan at about 8 pm, had dinner and a nice sleep.

And by the way, it was raining all the way through Belur and HaLebid. We visited to all the temples in rain but not in vain !

Morning we had to leave to ShravanabeLogoLa. We checked out from the lodge and had breakfast and left for Chennarayapatna from where we could get buses to ShravanabeLogoLa. We could only reach there by 10:30 am.

There are two hillocks in ShravanabeLogoLa: Indragiri and Chandragiri.

Statue of Lord Gomateshwara, a Jain saint standing atop Indragiri is 18 meter high and is said to be the tallest monolithic statue in the world. The symmetry in stone was created around 983 AD by Chavundaraya.

We could only climb Chandragiri and got tired, a smaller hill, where some Jain temples and paada of Chandra Gupta Maurya can be seen. We roamed a lot on this hill visited each and every Jain temple on it.

This is the view of ShravanabeLogoLa from the top of Chandragiri hill :

Lots more photos need to be uploaded. These were only interesting photos I took from my cell.

Bhagna premi

2007-06-11T11:46:00.000-07:00

Disappointed again !

2007-05-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

Yes. Am disappointed again. Disappointed with each and everything.

Be it the timings of BTS buses or the routes they take or food or the way the work at office is being done or work place environment and everything else.

Analyzing the problem it led me to understand that i have no freedom in doing whatever i want. Its like Ab Tak Chappan 's Sadhu saying 'Apne ke paas sochne ko dimaag nahi hai, ghoda dabaane ko ungli hai'.

But thats not my style! I need freedom in whatever i think or do. People try to impose their thoughts and make me think in their way. Thats not what i want. Thats not me, rather.

Kind of workplace needed :
I need a quiet place (call it as pin drop silence) to sit and think. No songs must be played at background. Basically, i like to spend most of the time thinking, without any interruption. Once its done, coding can be done within no time. I come to office with the intension to work and only to work. Everyone is here to earn their bread. So there should not be any other work (dumb kinda, atleast) such as sessions, non-tech mainly (soft skills, as managers call) and dumb status meetings which serve no purpose.

I like people who ask me to make use of the free time and go home ;). Not ones who ask me to prepare ppt slides for sessions.

Yes, I too need to improve. But not through sessions, rather by introspection(also by retrospection) and it works if you have a strong underlying urge (fire, you can call) to improve. People have different learning levels and interests. We need to respect that and leave them alone to learn and improve. It cannot be brought forcefuly into ones life.

What i have done to improve :
I have a personal blog now and started taking notes about my todos and steps taken to accomplish them (yes, finally). I will take some time to adjust myself to the new 'time table'. ;)

Final word:
I believe we all need to improve, but individually. It seldom happens in group. It might as well, iff the whole group has the same mindset, same urge and same set of improvements on their mind.

Improve and let improve.

I Love Bangalore.

2007-04-12T06:57:00.000-07:00

It was horribly hot these days and i was praying for rain. (People know that when i pray for rain, it definitely rains.)

Yesterday, first rain in Bangalore, was so overwhelming that i walked 1km in rain and reached home completely drenched but enjoyed the smell of the first rain.

Having seen only two seasons for years (before coming to Bangalore), one being bEsige from June to Feb and other being kadu bEsige Mar to May, its great to feel all the seasons.

Listening to Radio, travelling in ever crowded BMTC, delicious masala dosas, gardens, streets of gorgeous Gandhi bazar and beautiful Basavanagudi (previous post), good work in office(previous post), Kaveri horaata (previous post ) and what else one needs.

Recently BC took me to Karaga, a festival in Bangalore. Its procession of devi Draupadi. It starts in old Bangalore (Cottonpet,Sultanpet,etc which constitute to real and now old Benda kaaLooru) during late night.

We went to Cottonpet at about 12:30 am and according to BC Karaga should pass by 2 am. There were thousands of people waiting to watch Karaga. To kill the time, we walked to Majestic (hardly a km) and had some coffee.

Meanwhile, BC showed his old house, his school, college in Cottonpet and explained about his childhood experiences. Also boasted (this, he usually does) that he being educated in such unknown schools and colleges, still managed to be a software engineer and earn (he explained lot other stuff but i dont remember as i was sleepy).

Finally, Karaga arrived at 4.30 am. A night-out to watch the procession.
Look at the crowd in late night:

Next day's traffic jam (in K.R. Market/Mysore rd.):

This is the case of old Bangalore. New Bangalore starts with M.G. Road, Pizza Hut, pubs, Garuda, Forum and Central, but doesnt end...

Thats Bangalore !

Whew ! Bangalore rocks !

I Love Bangalore!

Harishana SahasagaLu

2007-02-28T02:55:00.000-08:00

Harish, a good friend of mine, is very much inspired by the latest Kannada movie 'Mungarina MaLe'. What good is the inspiration of a romantic movie without writing a poem (Kavithe)? So Harish wrote a poem in Kannada (but presented it with English alphabets).

Following is the mail thread that involves friends giving feedback to his brand new poem. I have not blogged all the feedbacks.

Enjoy the mail thread. (Read it in bottom-up fashion).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lingaraj Bellatti wrote:

Ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaa haaaaaaaaaa. Nice kulks

Thanks,
Lingaraj Bellatti
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Athul Shetty wrote:

Nimibralli yar super antha gothagthilla kanro
Rachane super.heege kalisthane eri..

Thanks and Regards
Athul Shetty
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Praveen Kulkarni wrote:

HR,

Ayyo bejaaraga beda geLaya,
ninna kavithegilla krama, laya,
kannada sahityada praLaya idanta,
adakke neene saakshi, vakradanta.

Sumne tamashege hangande maga, continue to write down your feelings in kannada. It has come up nicely and definetely encouraged.
But the only problem that i now face is that you are going to sing your own songs !! Alwe?

~PK~

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rajesh SV wrote:

illi inspiration ginta Kruti mukhya.
ee padya/gadya ello kelide anta anisdru kooda chennagi moodi bandide.
aadre swalpa kriyasheelateya korate kaanista ide.

Idu ninna mundina kriyasheelate olagonda geetege modala hejje ennale?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lingaraj Bellatti wrote:

Idakkenu kammi illa. Jatti sotaru meese mannagallilla!!! Andange aaytu.

Thanks,
Lingaraj Bellatti.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ramachandra, Harish wrote:

Naanu idanne Expect maadidde maga Ninninda
Nanna kriya sheelateyannu maatra Nodu
Ulididdara bagge Gamana Harisabeda

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Praveen Kulkarni wrote:

Halkat... matte MM (mungaru..) yade inspiration thara ideyallo..

BTW, bencha putta?

Tuesday ne bardya kavithe?
Qwestgenu manku kaviyithe?
idenu Gadya/Padya,
Divide by zero error, pedda !

~PK~
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vinay Krishna.G says

Aste boss

(waitin 4 Kulkarni’s comments!)

Regards
Vinay Krishna.G
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----Original Message-----
From: Ramachandra, Harish
Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2007 5:07 PM
To: Vinay Krishna G; sunil.kumar; athula.b; lbellatti; Pradeep; rajesha.sv; somashekar.n.reddy; manju.setty; mahesh hiremath; pbelamge; praveen.kulkarni; ragavendra.bc
Cc: Vinay.Naik; Vijayakrishna, Bhat
Subject: Nanna Putta Gadya/Padya

Makkala Nanna Ondu putta Rachane.. Hegide Helro

Priya Mitrare

Nanna Manasinallu yaako ondu reeti chadapadike, Kalarava
Avalanne matte matte Noduvaase
Avala maatanne matte matte Keluvaase
Avala Naguvina aleyalle Muluguvaase
Heli ide preeteena??

Avalu iruva Hothu
Tiliyuvudilla kaleyuva Hothu
Avaliruva Vele
Kotijanara Naduve iruva Reeti
Avalillada Vele
Neerasa Jeevanadondu bheeti
Heli ide Premaana??

Anisutide avalindale baaligondu Artha
Illavaadare baale ondu Vyartha
Avaliddare yenannadaru saadhisuva chala
Avalindale baalu belagabekemba Hambala
Avaloo Nannanne Nodabekemba Swartha
Dayavittu yaaru maadikobedi idanna Apartha
Heli Ide Pranayaana??

Rachane --- Nava Udayonmukha Kannada Kavi (Harisha)

Nimma Uttarakke Kaadiruva..
Nimma Geleya.

Thanks and Regards
Harish H.R.

Protest for judgement of Kaveri issue.

2007-02-18T21:08:00.000-08:00

IT professionals met in M.G. Road and held a protest rally. It started and ended near Mahatma Gandhi Park as we did not get permission for the rally. We had to sit near Mahatma Gandhi Park and shout the slogans against the verdict.

Slogans were innovative and funny ! here are some :

a) Kaveri ondu, adu full namdu.

b) Windows bittevu, KRS door tegevu.

c) Siebel - Cobol, judgement golmal.

d) C - C plus, judgement hopeless.

e) Kannadada neeru, Kaveri
Kannadada usiru, Kaveri
Kannadada jeeva, Kaveri

f) Kaveri elli oduve, nammalli jaagavillave !

and many more.

Population Control, a street play

2007-02-18T21:01:00.000-08:00

Recently in Vijaya nagar a team (non-profitable, i guess) of four people staged a street play. They had their own way of posing the problem of population explosion and its solution.

A person "A" blames a camera for he is not able to put the flip covering the reel. Another person "B" shows how it works and tells him that its wrong to blame camera when he does not know how to close the flip. Similar things like using a school bag, a cycle follow.

A scenario is created where a person blames the govt for the population explosion. Same logic is applied and the person is told that if everybody has 5 children, population increases and hence he landed in this problem and blame govt for this.

Then he is taught about the population control.

Sunday in Basavanagudi.

2007-02-04T20:54:00.000-08:00

Rajesh and i wanted to taste dosas from Vidhyarthi Bhavan this sunday. So left to Basavanagudi @ 12 noon not knowing that it'll be closed. But had some really tasty dosas from Balaji hotel nearby.

Gandhi bazar looks like its celebrating some festival :

Mungaru MaLe

2007-02-04T20:49:00.000-08:00

Everyone in room wanted to watch 'Mungaru MaLe' this Saturday morning. We all came to 'Veeresh' theatre. We could see lot of college going people (see the pic).

This is Ganesh's film. He steals the show by his acting which seemed natural, his expressions and neat dialogue delivery. Comedy Ganesh becomes Mungaru MaLe Ganesh.

A love story with good songs (in exotic location of jog falls and Madikeri with superb camera work) and Ganesh made this film a hit. Apart from the goody goody things, i feel the story line was a bit weak. It seems like RHTDM (Maddy and Diya) only difference is that here its a sad ending.

Though I do not watch/like love stories and agree that was asleep (yeah, bcoz of good songs) for a while, but i felt that there was no strong and acceptable reason for them to get separated.

This is a movie made for college going folks and overall a good movie to watch in a lazy week end.

Don't Drink and Fly !

2007-01-30T01:49:00.000-08:00

Every child knows the story of crow drinking water from a vessel by putting stones. During our 'KING' break time, Sushant and me changed the story a bit (a bit, really?).

One sunny day, a thirsty crow searching for water sits on the top of a house after finding a vessel of water and a tumbler. The vessel contained water which was dark yellowish color (heh heh, yeah right, whisky) and the tumbler was full of ice cubes.

But the vessel was half filled (optimist crow). And crow cannot use a straw. It thought and thought until an idea flashed. It began to pick the ice cubes from the tumbler and dropped them to the whisky vessel.

The crow started drinking whisky which had reached to the neck of the vessel. But soon, it realized that it needed more whisky, and started dropping more ice cubes.

Finally the vessel was empty. Satisified crow wanted to go home. It tried to fly but fell on the terrace.

So moral of the story and the title of the blog is Don't Drink and Fly !

Days in office.

2007-01-04T01:28:00.000-08:00

10 hours of the day are spent in office. 2 hours are spent travelling to office.
Enjoying java coding for the current OLAP project. Learning new frameworks needed for BI (Business Intelligence), like Mondrian, JPivot and WCF.

As long as there is good, enjoyable work (java coding) in hands, I do not complaint about anything be it Bangalore's traffic, or cold, or whatever.

When i first joined the company, 10 months back, i was directly put into a Banking project from Germany which needed an urgent release. We (the team here) had worked for 14x7 hrs (and had become very weak!). We were all happy to know that our code works ! What else can make a programmer happy? Though, we were also awarded a 'Star Team of the Year' certificate at an annual day celebration.

Apart from work, i also got a chance to select a place (in office, of course) which gives a glimpse of ladies entering into a beauty parlour (situated infront of the office). ;)

Here is a view of a tree thats flowering in winter (i dont know the tree's name), that could be seen from my seat.

Encoding URL in XSL.

2007-01-02T02:53:00.000-08:00

Came across with a scenario where request parameter has to take spl characters like %.
If u access this as, say, request.getParameter("measure"), it gives value as null.

As the link (with the parameter) came from the XSL, parameter had to be encoded. Here is how to do it:

<xsl:variable xmlns:encoder="xalan://java.net.URLEncoder"
name="measureEncoded"
select="encoder:encode( string( @lablelValue ) ) "
/>
<xsl:element name="a">
<xsl:attribute name="href">http://somewhere.edu/index.jsp?rss=
<xsl:value-of select="$measureEncoded" /></xsl:attribute>
<xsl:value-of select="title" />
</xsl:element>

And, of course, not without importing xalan:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
xmlns:xalan="http://xml.apache.org/xalan"
exclude-result-prefixes="xalan" />

'Theertha'yaatre

2006-12-27T01:33:00.000-08:00

On Christmas holidays, we(of course, friends) had been to these places:

BNG-> Jog falls -> Murudeshwar -> Kollur -> Udupi / Malpe beach -> Kudremukha -> Aagumbe -> Sringeri -> KaLasa -> Horanaadu -> Belur-> BNG.

Details on this will be posted soon. Keep watching this space !

Google Talk or VNC?

2006-12-20T05:39:00.000-08:00

Just can't resist blogging this. Gmail provides an option for chatting in the browser u r checking mails.

Today, i had dropped in to my ex-roomie Pundalik's gmail inbox. One of his friends started chatting and i told him that its not pundalik here. There came a message saying that " i too am online", to my horror, it was Pundalik himself.

It was exactly doing a VNC to some one's machine. i cud see chat windows opening by themselves and typing some messages !!

I have not checked with GTalk app, may be even this wud behave in the way my browser did!

NaaLe nanage gallu.

2006-12-03T21:46:00.000-08:00

ThammaNNa creates havoc - daaLige tattarisida yuvakaru

2006-11-30T04:48:00.000-08:00

We had been to Kodachadri for trekking. How, when and other details are missing here. Find it here Sachin Vilas's blog and VK's blog.

The intresting part of the story began when we started to trek from Udaya's house towards the mountain, sarvagna peetha ,where Shankaracharya did his penance (tapasya), again trek towards a cave,chitra koota, deep down the other side of the mountain and back to starting point (Udaya's house).

Started to trek towards the mountain at 3:30 pm, after having delicious lunch and a short nap.

I am never used to trekking. I like to walk, be it from IISC to RPC Layout or Majestic to RPC Layout or recently, from Indira Nagar to Majestic.

Skidding, falling and very tired, we reach Udaya's house at about 7:30 pm. Everybody jumped at the snacks and got their share.

There was a sweet kid sitting on Udaya's lap. He was Aditya, or thammaNNa , as he is fondly known as. I found him so sweet, i just took him into my laps kissed him and even softly bit his bubbly cheeks.

thammaNNa became too friendly with us within no time.

After we had our dinner and were watching a kannada movie starring Annavru and Ambarish. We tried to predict the dialogues, but in vain. Meanwhile, there was a fighting scene between Ambarish and 'bad guys'. We were enjoying the "bushkya..bushkya" style fighting of Ambarish. Everyone was laughing and saying "bushkya..bushkya".

ThammaNNa was silently watching us. This was silence before the storm.

It was about 10.30 pm, one by one, we left the TV hall to sleep. Raghu, Harish were already sleeping when i entered. When we wished good night and were about to sleep, thammaNNa entered the room.

He entered the room and jumped on one of us. Everyone of us had a good dinner. Had he jumped on our stomach, which everyone of us avoided, we would have to vomit the dinner.

Entering into the room and jumping on one of us had become his play. He did that every five minutes. None was ready to sleep.

We pleaded him to sleep. He started talking in childish-havyak language, which none of us knew. Some how we managed to convey him go-sleep message. Then he said he needed a blanket and will sleep in the same room. He got what all needed and neatly went to sleep, we felt. He selected a place besides Sachin.

I kept saying to all that not to sleep till we confirm that thammaNNA is fast asleep.

Suddenly, he got up saying "bushkya..bushkya" and sat on the stomach of Sachin.

When every one of us were in room, thammaNNa started his play of jumping on one of us. Though, everyone was alert, instead of sleeping i preferred sitting. Everyone was laughing uncontrollably.

Every one of us tried to please him. some with chocolates and some by playing with him. Naani, Narayana, played with him and asked him to wake up Harish. He left towards Harish. Horrified Harish woke up even before thammaNNa reached. Now, Naani was relaxed and was sleeping.

After some time, power supply stopped, may be @ 11.30.

Now, it was suspense-horror show for us. We cannot see him and cannot predict on whom he is going to jump. Everybody made him as their weapon, they wanted to wake up who all have slept.

ThammaNNa had held a toy mobile phone, which was tied to a string. Swinging the toy, he come towards Naani and hit him. Naani got his share.

This show went on till Udaya's mother took thammaNNa away and made him sleep.

We had never laughed so much till now. Raghu was in tears.

Update: uploading an image of sweet thammaNNa.

Room no. 25

2006-11-20T04:33:00.000-08:00

Movie-making is a brand new hobby of Sumanth, our hostel senior and a good friend of mine. His hobby led us to Brahma Chaitanya (a brahmin community hostel in Davangere, where we stayed during our engineering times), to relive and capture some incidents in his Sony DVD digicam. And he calls it "Room no. 25".

The story revolves round a boy, Vijay, who joins engineering and comes to stay in BC hostel.

Vijay is not Amitabh Bachchan. He is just as any other nervous, unkown-to-hostel kind of boy. Theme here is actually to portray the life of a student by picking some funny, emotional, suspense, embarassment, etc, etc feelings enjoyed in the hostel.

The script (with dialogues) was not 100% ready when we left to DVG to shoot the short film. But it was clear what all to shoot and how to shoot.

We, Sumanth (ennes), Pradeep U (ulti), Rambo (Ramprasad), Gunasheel(small) and me, all ex-BC-hostelites, left to DVG in the passenger train at 10:00 pm on Friday and reached at 5:30 in the saturday morning. Scenes to be shot were listed while travelling.

It started from showing an engineering student Vijay (Gunasheel) getting down from train in DVG and entering the hostel to graduating.

We shot some extremely funny incidents (like misguiding new hostelite saying that queue he was standing in was a ladies toilet, holi celebrations, painting a hostelites face with toothpaste (see the photo), etc), some serious incidents (room allotments, prefectship, groupism) and some suspense masala (bhoota incident) and lot more.

It was total fun shooting from Saturday morning 6:00 am to 2:00 am. And Sunday 8:00 am to 8:30 pm. Hectic schedule, though. Meanwhile, we also enjoyed benne masale dose, mirchi-mandakki-avalakki and lime juice in Rasavanthi.
Not to forget watching Ratnamma hostel girls.

Looking forward for the movie to-be edited (may be after a week or two) and screened on december 23rd on the occasion of Golden jubilee of our BC hostel.

Thanks to all BC hostelites for the superb support and best of luck to Sumanth.

Tagged.

2006-11-09T04:11:00.000-08:00

VK tags me.

Sorry for late response. Better late than never. ;)

1.Grab the book nearest to you, turn on page 18 and find line 4
Got a brand new notepad. cannot find a book near by. :( But why page 18?

2. Stretch your left arm as far as you can
Touches CPU of my PC.

3. What is the last thing you watched on TV?
Raakhi Saawant (and others) on BIG BOSS. ;)

4.Without looking, guess what time it is?
5:15 PM

5.Now look at the clock, what is the actual time?
4:50 PM

6.With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
AC's sound and can also hear pegion's goootar-goooo. Just now picked up head phones to hear Kailash Kher's Teri deewani.

7.When did you last step outside? What were you doing?
5 mins back to have juice with BC !! and you wont believe BC paid !! :)

8.Before you started this survey, what did you look at?
VK's blog.

9.What are you wearing?
Faded jeans - shirt.

10.Did you dream last night?
yes. I dream every day (night?).

11. When did you last laugh?
During lunch.

12. What is on the walls of the room you are in?
Dark Maroon paint.

13. Seen anything weird lately?
Nope, nowadays nothing appears to be weird.

14. What do you think of this quiz?
Was thinking if it was any form of psycho-analysis.

15.What is the last film you saw?
S.P. Sangliana Part two on Udaya TV. I just luv Shankar Nag films.

16. If you became a multimillionaire overnight, what would you buy?
Hmmmm...got to think, bcoz i dont have much material desires. Will go for minimum, a house in Indiranagar with a garden and space to play football, S-class mercedes benz, some shares of Hitech companies, a company of my own. And i can see other plans coming up.. ;)

17.Tell me something about you that I dunno.
I am very sentimental (i look like a rowdy, though). I can look into your eyes and tell you whats on your mind!

18.If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?
Bring the 'Garuda Purana' punishment rules to act. (Inspired by 'Aparichit')

19.Do you like to dance?
Yes. but with whom?

20.George Bush.?
Bade baap ka bigda hua aulad.

21. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?
Putti. (will call her Lakshmi)

22.Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?
Puttu. (will call `dude`)

23.Would you ever consider living abroad?
Yes to US, but only for a very short term of 30 years.

24. What do you want GOD to say to you when you reach the pearly gates?
Welcome ! Your Highness !

25. Name a friend who should be tagged
None shud be tagged ! ;)

Understanding programs based on Mathematics

2006-10-17T21:48:00.000-07:00

Its easy to understand programs based on Mathematics. I was reading first chapter, Recurrence, in "Concrete Mathematics" (here concrete=continuous+discrete). This includes the famous "The Tower of Hanoi" problem.

When in third semester, I used to mug up a recursive program to solve the problem not knowing how it worked or way to solve. But after working out the mathematics behind that, i felt this-was-so-simple. The number of moves were calculated by using (after deriving the formula, of course)

T(n) = 2^n - 1.

Still reading the book, may be my understanding of programs and math may improve.

Life must be like this...

2006-10-16T06:46:00.000-07:00

Yes.

Five days of coding, 2 days reserved for trip ( 2 days - one district scheme).

Two hours of a day (in the five days) reading "CONCRETE MATHEMATICS" (authored by RONALD L GRAHAM) and working out some problems. Next hour followed by reading "INTRODUCTION TO ALGORITHMS" (authored by THOMAS H CORMEN). Another hour before sleeping spent thinking/designing/coding for JerryMouse (remember, a year old webserver of mine?).

Enjoying the bliss of 6.30 am. Thinking about the days' task (Todo, is what i call) while on the way to office (in 87/138 bus).

Being an Aerian

2006-08-29T04:46:00.000-07:00

Whatever i say, i do Anil kumar (dude Anil kumar ;) ) says thats the way Aerians talk/do. I do not believe that behaviour is derived from Zodiac sign. Behaviour is how you been thinking and you act according to it.

If i feel ignored, i make noises or do something that attracts people to me. This is the case in a get-to-together or a party or wherever lot of people (who i know) gather. Thats because i do not like to be ignored and am not being an Aerian.

When i call up someone (rarely, i do) and if they do not pick up the phone, i feel its purposefully done. I feel they intensionally are not picking up my call. I call up once more to confirm and this time if they do not pick up the phone, they will never ever receive my calls. I feel that they do not like to talk to me and may be i dont want to make them uncomfortable.(or is this my lack of patience?) This is my behaviour and am not being an Aerian.

When a person whom i know (not a friend) does not talk to me, i do not talk to him until he talks first. This because of my self-respect (or pride?) and am not being an Aerian.

Day 2 in Tippu's Srirangapatna

2006-08-16T04:05:00.000-07:00

It was about six thirty in the morning when we woke up. We left for Srirangapatna at about 8:00 after having a full peth breakfast in SJCE hostel.

Srirangapatna is also about half an hour journey from Mysore. This time we accompanied by Manju and Venu, a final year MCA guy from SJCE.

Srirangapatna, an island town encircled by river Kaveri which splits and rejoins two more rivers Loka Paavani and Hemavathi. It was the historic capital of Tippu Sultan known for his struggle against British rule.
Soon after reaching Srirangapatna we left for Tippu’s summer palace. It is at walk able distance from KSRTC bus stand. Tippu’s summer palace is a small palace having superb monumental evidences. It also has fabulous a 3D painting of Tippu. It was drawn by an Englishman when Tippu was about thirty years. If you look at 3D painting at any angle, you can see the complete painting. There are swords, daggers, pistols and rifles (some invented by Tippu himself) kept for the exhibition apart from the dresses, armour Tippu wore and all types of coins used in his reign.
Apart from the 3D painting, there are many other paintings of Tippu’s as well as his seven sons and his relatives; all drawn by Englishmen.

After the summer palace, we left for Jamia Masjid and Ranganatheshwara temple.

There is one peculiar thing about Jamia Masjid that its pillars seen from out side resemble to that of any temples (one can easily make out, as shown in the adjoining picture of the masjid). I meant that a temple in Tippu’s rule was converted to a mosque (may be it has been done during forcible or rather barbaric conversions to Islam). We did not go inside the mosque. Have a look at the picture of Masjid, you can see the pillars which belong(ed) to a temple.

We visited Ranganatheshwara temple which is at walk able distance from Jamia Masjid.

The temple is a very big one and has a fantastic Shesha shayana idol of Lord Ranganatha with goddess Lakshmi sitting besides. There were fewer queues when compared to Chamundi betta. The complete temple consists of Vaishnava gods (related to Vishnu or Krishna) like Praana devaru (Hanuman), Brundavana (Raghavendra Raayaru with Hayavadana) including Ranganatha himself.

We left to visit dungeon, where Tippu had captured many Englishmen and tortured them.

It was time to move on and visit Gumbaz. On the way, we had to pass by a railway station. We all had a cup of tea remembering having tea at RC (railway canteen) in Davangere during our college times. This cream color Gumbaz was fascinating. It has goris (burial) of Tippu Sultan, his mother Fatima Begum and his father Hyder Ali. The Gumbaz internally painted dark yellow with strips (that tiger has) to symbolize that Tippu had once killed tiger in a fight and hence the name Tiger of Mysore. Around the Gumbaz, there are some more goris of Tippu’s army chiefs, their eminent fighters. We all remembered Ibrahim Roja in Bijapur, which is a black gumbaz having gori of ruler Ibrahim Roja. There is a stone carving of iron chain having a slight connection within them.

From the gumbaz, we left for Sangama, where three rivers Kaveri, Loka Paavani and Hemavathi meet. We sat for few minutes on the banks. I really enjoy sitting at the banks of the rivers. My mother is really scared and asks me not to go near the rivers may be because I don’t know swimming ;) .

Srirangapatna remains in a ruined state recalling the Battles fought & the past glory.

It was 3:30 pm, time to say bye to Srirangapatna (as we decided to have lunch in Mysore) and reached KSRTC bus stand. We reached Mysore at 4:00 pm and had lunch.

Manju, Sunil and me had already committed to Hari that we would attend his house warming function. It took us lot of time to get a bus to Bangalore as there were lot of people to travel to Bangalore.

It was already 6:30 when we reached Bangalore. Some how we managed to reach remote place called Puttenahalli near JP Nagar 6th phase where friends were desperate to ask
“huchchenro nimge?” (Meaning are you guys gone mad).

Jamia Masjid, Tippu's dungeon, gumbaz

Day 1 in Mysore City

2006-08-08T21:26:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning 6:30 am we left for Mysore reaching at 9:30 am. There are very frequent non-stop (or one stop) Banglore – Mysore buses stopping at Maddur. We had the place’s famous Maddur Vada and some tea. After having breakfast in Mysore, we left for Chamundi betta.

Mysore is a very slow moving place. I felt as if we are in 1960s only to find that churches and buildings left by British are preserved. Nobody here has any kind of urgency. Mysore wakes up at 7:00 am and sleeps at 8:00 pm, it seems.

We had to go to city bus stand to catch a bus to reach Chamundi betta. Bus which was ready to move had no vacant seats. We coming from Bangalore had a tendency to catch moving bus, but the Ticket Collector (TC) in-charge asked us to wait for the next bus which will arrive after ½ an hour, according to his time sheet. TC was speaking as if ½ an hour is just 2 minutes.

Having not listened to his kind suggestion, we moved on. It took about ½ an hour to reach Chamundi betta. Soon after we reached there an old woman sold us two baskets containing two coconuts and bananas with some flowers for Rs 50/- which was totally unnecessary. We talked to her said that one was enough but she some how managed to make us bakras.

From Chamundi betta one could have a bird’s view of Mysore.

After Devi Chamundi (Durga) darshnam, we left to visit Nandi temple by climbing down some 100 steps. Nandi was totally dull and discolored where as I expected it to be shining black (as shown in Kannada movies). But I guess there is less income or no income at all from Nandi. May be that is the reason why there are very less buses in this route.

It was time to leave Nandi alone and move on.

We observed that foreigners were in large numbers and offering more money in puja. Pujaris do not perform an Aarati if we come in small groups but they instantly do it if a foreigner comes. This might have happened in other cases like autorickshaws, juice centers or any shop centers for that matter.

We had spent about an hour or half waiting for the bus. We decided to walk and reach a nearest bus stop which was 2 km away.

We got down at Zoo. After a long time we were visiting a zoo. Only animals which excited us were tigers, lion and snakes.

It was already time for lunch. After lunch we left for Nanjanagud.

It was my long cherished dream to visit Nanjanagud. It was after reading S.L. Bhairappa’s ‘Vamshavruksha’ novel; I developed a strong desire to visit Nanjanagud. It is just half an hour journey from Mysore. Nanjanagud is a quiet place on the banks of Kapila River with almost half of its area occupied by Nanjundeshwara temple. The temple has numerous gods and pujaris, of course. It has carvings of many Ganesha idols that we could have hardly heard of or imagined of. Gopuram of the temple is painted with fabulous dark yellow. Sunil wanted to walk around the temple (pradakshina) and see all idols. We sat on the banks of Kapila and I was imagining the story of Nanjunda Shrothri(from ‘Vamshavruksha’) who drowned in the river. It was almost five and time to say bye to Shrothri and Kapile. On the way to the bus stop, Sunil pointed out an Udupi brahmins’ hotel where he wanted to eat something. We ordered for plain benne dosas and some coffee.

It was about six thirty when we reached Mysore. We called up friends Manju and Anil. That night was spent in SJCE hostel. After so many years, we slept at 9:45 pm. I told Sunil that we should get up early in the morning and visit Srirangapatna.

My mind was still wandering on the banks of Kapila and in the streets of Nanjanagud.

Laziness is not life

2006-08-08T21:19:00.000-07:00

Monday to Friday we wait for weekends; in week ends we wait for Saturday night and smoke, drink and sleep. After four weekends, we wait for salary.

Every Saturday morning begins with full peth breakfast at bhattaru’s small shop. Then spend whole day watching idiot box. Sunday is cleaning day. Cleaning room, washing clothes, etc (etc includes bath).

After many such week ends, fed up of this lazy life, we decided that every weekends should not be spent in Bangalore.

This week end was spent in Mysore. And it was decided on Friday night at 10:00 pm. Asked roommates Sunil, Mahesh and Rajesh to join me. Only Sunil turned up.

I am coming up with two-day and one district trip algorithm. I should design a good TSP (Travelling Sales Person) algorithm. Should not miss very important places in a district within two days span.

Negligence and procrastination

2006-07-21T01:57:00.000-07:00

These two character of mine have screwed up my life. Never ever have i taken care of my belongings, health or whatever.

When i was in my pre-university course, my dad used to sit day and night with me to make sure that i studied. I guess he knew about these two 'qualities' in me. Things did not change even when i was in BE, only thing was that my dad was not here with me
to make me study. As a result, i did not study.

I was like a free bird and these qualities grew in exponential terms.

This went on until i was admitted to hospital for a Neurological surgery in Narayana Hrudayalaya. Friends and parents told that i was unconscious for a week and it was a miracle the way that i was saved. All that is a passe.

I remember one office boy in LTI asking me that i had undergone an operation and he called it "bulde tumar". We laughed a lot for his new disease description.

After all this happened, i am slowly losing those two best (??) qualities of mine. Now, i believe (rather, i know) i have less time and must live the life to its fullest.

No negligence no procrastination. I should not lose any time.

I always keep saying to myself that "jab time kam ho toh, double jeene ka".

`dude` culture.

2006-06-02T07:57:00.000-07:00

This was not first time i heard this word, but first time in an office to call each other. Only US-returned software engineers used to address every one as `dude`.
Anyone on chat, if addresses as `dude` then i decided that he is in US of A.

In software company none calls (or should call anybody as) sir, instead call them by name. Here every body calls every body as `dude`.

As i said earlier i was not used to this `dude` thing attaching to my name. It is either attached as suffix or prefix. i was called `dude` praveen or praveen `dude`. Once i said to a colleague that it is not my surname.

My name being one of the longest names from college times (Praveen Ashok Kulkarni), i asked them to call me with any of these.

Once VK was joking that if i complain about this(addressing me as `dude`) to BOSS, he would say ,"complaint? ya tell me, dude."

Then some curiosity got in to me and i started searching for the meaning of dude and its origin here.

Dictionary.com describes `dude` as * one who dresses elaborately or flamboyantly * .
Thesaurus says * well-dressed, punk person mainly adoloscent or teenager.

None of these meanings match me(may be none of them ;) ). Then why call people as `dude`.

But there is a descrimination towards lady colleagues as there is no such word describing them. Any word for lady `dude`? ;) dudette ?, probably.

Any NaLinaakshi is NaLina but not dudette . ;)

I just convinced myself(bcoz i dint get the answer) that people might want to remain young, flamboyant, cool.

Thats good. Remaining young at heart.

Whatever. I too am a `dude` now. Cool, flamboyant. Hmmm.

2006-05-24T07:02:00.000-07:00

Apun khush

Job change

2006-05-01T23:37:00.000-07:00

It was time to change job; from NTPL to any other "big" company. By saying "big" company i only meant it has more number of people.

In the month of January i attended 2 walk-in interviews. Both were big companies and somehow managed to get offer letters from both of them.

So decided to quit NTPL and joined one of the biggest consultancy service company, expecting good work and money.

Unlike friend Mahesh, i dont have sports, trekking, big buildings, etc as a part of constraints while joining a company. I only have two constraints (work and money) whenever joining a company.

Before joining, i had 20 days time to relax. i also tried to attend some more interviews, but could not succeed. Within these 20 days, i had to attend my cousin's marriage.

When i joined, office was very far from my residence. had to take route from a friend and had to go by bmtc.

There was induction program for 3 days; where they we had submit all the documents, marks sheet, etc.During this time, i met a girl from our college (UBDTCE), Pallavi. She was my junior and was from E&C branch.

We were allocated projects and sent to respective branches. This branch was nearer to my place.

But we were made to sit in a big verandah where there were chairs to sit and there was a coffee vending machine near by. There was a resource allocator who will assign us the projects. He sent me to already assigned project.

Then i will start working on the project, after a initial training process was what i thought. Wrong assumption.

There was two rounds of interviews; in which i cleared internal but not client interview. Instead of me a fresher was selected. Dont ask me how.

Now i was out of the project. The resource allocator should allocate me to new project.

I did not understand one thing. When there is a requirement in a project/team, companies recruit. But this was a reverse case, first recruitment, then searching for a requirement.

So discovered myself on bench, finally.

I had to meet Mr. Resource Allocator whenever he asked me to. Initiating the process by me in morning. Then he would ask me to come at 12 noon, then at after lunch and then at 5 in evening. This went on for a week.

I was losing patience but Pallavi told me that big companies are like this and i should have more patience. I decided to talk to every one on bench with us; most of them were freshers. They were here since December. Survey went on. People from other big companies also had joined.

It was exact portrayal of any of our(ya Indian) govt offices. i remembered "Tabarana Kathe".
Tabara was a post man who fights for his pension money and dies without even seeing it. He was made to visit each and every table in the office.

I was Tabara here. One good thing was that i could taste all flavours of coffee and tea available.

Whenever i said i will quit, Pallavi told me to have more patience, as usual.
Meanwhile, i had to attend one more interview in Ecity, which unfortunately i cleared.

But it was a project on VB. Me having 2 yrs of exp in java/j2ee and struts , said cannot work on VB. But he argued that it was a j2ee project , but i had to work on VB. I dont want to.

Then people there said i may have to work 8-5, 10-8 or 2-10. i asked whether it was a shift basis job, answer was no, but we work in these timings. wow. Not in shifts but different timings. Why?

Argument heated up and he asked me to go to Ecity at that moment.

I said yes sir.

Then i came to majestic and came to room.

I decided not recieve any of the unknown calls on my mobile for another week. Some smses came from the company(lead of the project, i mean) asking me to join back on coming monday.

I just quit.

I still have the offer from other "big" company, but assuming that it will be a deja-vu case. So did not join.

On My Next Assignment...

2005-12-13T02:18:00.000-08:00

Finally, after a long 1 and an (almost) half years of
LightSurf (a VeriSign Company) assignment comes to an end next week (This is my last blog update sitting at LTI). This was not very exciting as that of Siemens-HealthCare (my previous assignment); but had lot of chance to learn new things and did even tried to learn those ;).

LightSurf Technologies India, LTI, as it is shortly known as..oops.. was; now it is VeriSign Services Pvt Ltd, is situated in ShivajiNagar very near to MediNova and exactly opposite to Intel. There are about 200 employees in a 6 flooried building.

One thing was really cool about LTI was that No dress code and flexi timings. I dont even remember when i wore my formals to office; as always i'm in my blue/black jeans and coloured T-shirt (even on Monday). And used to enter into office b/n 9:30 to 10:00 am and leave at about 8:00-9:00 pm.

NTPL had given a chance to attend an interview with LTI. They said this was their very new client and would like to keep this relationship longer. I had already attended SONY, Tavant and other companies but did not get thru their written tests, as usual.

I never expect a job from an interview, never expect any thing from anybody , for that matter. NTPL had prepared our resumes to suit the requirement in LTI and had given a print outs in a very low quality papers (i called them buff sheets).

When HR asked for CV, we (with Kiran, my 'Saathi', as everybody calls and i call him Kirik) told them that they were mailed to HR and we did not bring hard copies.

We knew that there are 2+1 rounds of interviews. 2 technical + 1 being director's round.

My first round of interview was with a short, dark and very intelligent looking person who introduced himself as Santosh. He first asked the same "tell me about yourself" question, as every interviewer asks the candidate(interviewee). knowing about the college i came from (UBDT), he gave an expression that he knew it very well. Then asked which batch i belonged to and then my industry experience. NTPL had added some months extra as my experience and i dont know why he kept asking me how come you joined NTPL so early and repeatedly asked wen did i came out from college, his face looked exactly like a question mark.

After some more of these questions, my techinical interview started, at last. He asked questions for which i knew the answers and it lasted for about an hour. He revealed that he was from our college and output of 2001 batch and asked me to wait for the result.

He then came upto me and gave his visiting card.

As he handed the card to me, obviously i thought that i had not cleared my interview and he gave away the card thinking we may (not) meet again.

i was wrong. i had cleared the first round and asked to take up the next round of interview. following that i had director's round and finished everything in about 2 and a half hours. By that time it was 8:30 pm.

Coming from a thirdparty consultants like NTPL, we usually have very less concern but more work. This i had experienced in Siemens-only work nothing else.But here case was different, we had good knowledge of Struts framework and other J2EE technologies like Servlets/JSP. So given more work was given to us.

Meeting many people and learning many things in LTI and here i go back to NTPL looking for my next assignment.

Mangal Mangal

2005-11-08T20:26:00.000-08:00

It was the first time when I heard to this song from The Rising-Mangal Pandey. I found it like a chanting in the voice of Kailash Kher, Sukhwinder Singh and A R Rahman.

There was some attraction in this song. I downloaded it in the evening and to listen to it head phones were needed.

Next day I brought head phones reaching office at 8:30 am and was all set to hear my favorite song.

Whenever I listen to the word ‘Mangal’ or ‘Shubha’, reverse of that would happen.

I was listening to ‘Mangal Mangal’ in full volume!!

While my mind was wandering in Davangere and it returned with a flashback.

I had experienced this many times. There was a girl by name ‘Shubha’ (name changed b4 requesting!!). Very first time when I saw her, I fell off my bicycle near college. Second time, on my way to write internal,,, obtained zero!

Once we were on our way for project demo. I saw her near canteen, then turning to my project-mates said that there is no demo happening today and it would be even better if return back to our room. Everybody laughed to my belief and considered it as a superstition.

That day our project guide was absent and we returned back!!

N number of bad things happened and now unable to remember them to quote here.

From that day onwards we tried our best to avoid seeing her.

It was 10:00 am (yes, I was in office!) now having only this song enqueued in XMMS don’t know how many times I listened to it!!

Then I told my mind not to worry as history is never going to repeat and it was all a bad thing happened (as usual) to me.

Exactly after this, my colleague Kiran entered our cubicle. I don’t know what got in to him, he just came up to my seat and copied some library file from /lib to our local folder entering a command to rename it.

That was the last command that we typed on the command prompt!!

I knew some thing wrong happened. By the time I could say anything, he rebooted the system.

That’s it!! It didn’t boot again!!

Then there was a long procedure to make it up and running. By the time I got my system ready it was time to leave!!

Once I decided to give it a test once again when it was raining.

I was wearing a rain coat holding an umbrella. After buying a loaf of bread for dinner, just sang a line of the song while walking towards room. Only then I realized that I forgot my umbrella at the shop. Getting it back, another thought just flashed. Now that I have both umbrella and the bread in my hands, I am not going to lose anything if I sing the song. I did so.

This time I landed my both legs in cow dung!! UUF!!

From then onwards, why singing, I stopped listening to the song.

I narrated this incident to my room mates and they said it was my superstition. A superstition? Still??

Once my roommate Pundalik and me had been to ‘Raagi Gudda’ on one Saturday. We were waiting for the bus and it was about 1 pm. In spite of my warning, he sang The Song (nice way to refer!!). I didn’t understand what got into him; he sang it so many times and sometimes clapping!!

We got the bus at 4 pm!! We waited in bus terminal for 3 long hours!!

From this bus terminal, we had buses to our place at every 5 minutes!!

Even he stopped singing The Song.

After listening to this, Sunil said that the movie flopped due to this Song and we should surely be writing about this to Aamir Khan!!

Beware!!

Blank Space !

2005-07-14T04:15:00.000-07:00

Most of the times i feel people telling me "You are not needed here".May be it is a office place or any other. Sometimes i also feel ignored.

Being an Aerian, i just HATE that.

Well, many thanks to Blogs and my habit of writing. My writing (frankly, truth ;)) was not liked by many(you can see the comments in my blogs!!).

Whenever i see those comments, i remember Aakash's words (from DCH), "woh tumhse pyar nahi karte, kisi aur Samir se pyar karte hai. Haan ! dikhne me tha woh teri tarah, magar koi aur hai. Tu yeh Samir hai... jise mein jaanata hoon, jise Sid jaanata hai."

Ejactly!!

Sometimes also feel that bridge of friendship between me n them was so weak that it cud have fallen after long time. But it did after they read my blog (college life).

Thanks, again to Blogspot!!

It filtered out friends and 'pseudo' friends !! Whew!

And they have stopped reading my blogs(hopefully!).

I can now publish my writing!!

One more thing (from Naseer in Iqbal):"I just want to say one thing to all my psuedo friends , psuedo wellwishers one thing: GO TO HELL !!"

This page has link to my other blogs.

1) Writing a web server .. may be a very boring one
2) Our College lives.. cud be interesting for some... whose names have not been taken ;)
3) IT industry... this is about IT impacts on soceity.

Nammastak naavagi, iddudral hayagi
Baaladu Ratnan Parpancha!