Across the pale parabola of joy

Noises of a different kind.

2012-01-04T03:00:00.008+05:30

Awwwww Oooo Ooooo Helloooooo, kuchi koooo, cutie pie, achi pui, oooo sweeetieeee sweetuuuu sweeetuuuuu sweetieee pie, shee's sooooooooooooooooooooooooo cute naaaa..... Ooooooo Oooooo Ooooo Oooooo

Allelllellelele lellelellelellleee... ala kukuku .. allalelelele. cluck cluck cluck ..

You might be wondering what these noises represent. Is this a form of greeting in alien-speak, a martian air-craft landing or the sound effects from a new Bollywood movie ?

It doesn't stop there - it goes on and on ...

kidhal dekh raha hai...... mela sonu bacchu.... hasla hai mela baccha ... Ooooo Ooooo Ooooo Allelllellelele lellelellelellleee... ala kukuku .. allalelelele. cluck cluck cluck ..

Ok so to put the reader out of their misery, this is the reaction that greets the sight of any new baby in the family, the friends circle, the friendly harmless baby on the street / in public transport usually travelling with it's parents in tow. These come at different pitches, decibels depending on the situation in which the baby is spotted. If the baby is spotted in a public area, they are usually whispers or very carefully out of anyone else's earshot. Whatever is lost in decibels or pitch is gained by the facial expressions of pleasure or happiness in seeing a cute baby. Nowhere else was Newton more right, there is amazing conservation of energy - the only time this is violated is in the case below.

If it is a picture (of the latest addition to the friends circle or in the family) being examined in the comfort of your living room, then all bets are off. Decibels increase, the shrillness increases and along with it comes the warning of threats from the neighbours and folks wondering if this is a new form of a train horn. At the same time the happiness index in the face also rises and the facial expressions reach a new zenith.

Well then who emits these noises ? These are emitted usually by the female members of the species universally, most recently by the wife on seeing photos of a new addition in the friends circle. A recent survey showed that husbands and boyfriends not exhibiting an enthusiastic (not necessarily acoustically) response to these noises would result in one of the following consequences : any allowance would be cut, a massive loss in the brownie points index and servitude by peeling onions for the next n years ( 20 < n < 50) .

Not that I have much against babies or the particular one under question (definitely ranks high in the cuteness quotient) - I usually find them pleasant company, fighting (usually a losing battle) to keep my glasses on or preventing my pockets being picked. There are the occasional moments when I have to find some apparatus for drying my wet shirt. Nevertheless I find them enjoyable company and having watched at close quarters a nephew and 2 nieces grow up was quite good fun.

But but but I can never be brought to make such noises at their sight either in the form of an attached photo, a video or indeed in person.

Why oh why ... oh why .. oh dear god why ?

P.S. Before anyone asks if there is any "good" news ... There is not :)
P.P.S.. When the wife reads this: there is a prediction for a sharp fall in the brownie points index ;)

Vinyl records and the joy of old Hindi songs.

2011-09-06T02:48:00.034+05:30

Listening to your favourite song in the time before the iPod, the boom boxes on music channels, in my generation was restricted to whatever came on Chitrahaar on a single monopoly (Remember DD?), in some cases the radio (Vividh Bharathi) and in other cases tape players if you had enough cassettes and they survived the tropical weather.

For today's instant generation of getting everything on youtube or the variety of stores that proliferate the smart phone market depending on which vendor you want to pay, this is a reminder that there existed something known as the LP record or the gramophone record where you had a needle run on top of a vinyl record (yeah something like that round thin circular disc that you saw Dr. Lode hand to King George VI in the King's speech) . Yes, one can listen to Mukesh, Rafi, Kishore, Manna Dey on a CD that's been digitally reproduced with whatever bit of computing power can be thrown at removing extraneous noises and enhancing certain chords. However there is a certain joy in listening to that needle scratch through an old record and when it manages to get it right as it does right now , the nostalgia evoked with the days of listening to the songs is quite a nice feeling. It getting stuck on a particular track as it does once in a while is another bit of nostalgia. It wasn't just the Hindi film songs that one enjoyed, it was also classical music - having one of the few LP's where the 3 violinist brothers (L Shankar, L Subrahmanyan and L Vaidyanathan) play together, or listening to the MS performance at Carnegie Hall or listening to music from the slightly forgotten figures today ( ChittiBabu on the veena, Lalgudi on the violin). It wasn't just that - waking up on a Saturday morning at 6 a.m. to listen to the Venkatesa Suprabhatam or even the Vishnu Sahasranamam and Bhaja Govindam was a nice thing to listen to even before one got a cup of the truly Tamilian beverage ( filter kaapi).

One of the ways in which one caught some decent music (before the age of the tape recorder) was essentially Vinyl. This was the mode in which yours truly listened to old songs till the time the gramophone at home conked off at which point there was a hiatus of nearly 8 years till a new one was procured in one of the trips abroad. Of-course by then Dad had moved on to listening to tapes and then on to CDs, having supplemented his collection into tapes and later CDs with the result that one inherited the LP collection.

There are a few folks one has to give thanks to here, one is an aunt who instilled the joy of listening to old songs rather than watch TV and of-course the other is Dad for having carefully and meticulously collected, catalogued and maintained a large number of old LPs and 45 rpm records which I've inherited now (some of which are older than yours truly). It would not be right not to thank the cousin S who held on to a large number of these records when there was that long hiatus .

So if anyone is looking to get rid of some old Vinyl Hindi LP records, STOP !! Think twice about it - we are happy to find a way of accepting such records and giving them a home . Give me a shout !!

Bollywood jai ho.

2011-06-15T02:41:00.000+05:30

So, after a long time I've been watching a Bollywood movie and the movie we got out of our monthly DVD service happened to be Dabang. I had seen parts of this during my last trip to India and it appeared to be a laugh riot, so it was worth watching this on DVD compared to what you get on the back of a airline seat. The story is typical Bollywood - take all the cliches, think about a large number, multiply the 2 - then take the result and raise it to itself. Angry step-father, righteously corrupt (Robinhoodesque) police officer, dumb step-brother, favouritism, a corrupt police force that still reaches late to a crime scene, the vivacious but stubborn leading lady with an equally stubborn drunk dad, stunts typically stolen from the Matrix ( replace bullets with flying glass panes in slow motion) , the Transporter ( the oil layered fight scenes) and what not . A villain who tries to shoot sallu with a powerful sniper rifle and misses 25 shots ...

Some of the dialogues were simply laugh riots - chedi singh ham aapke badan mein itney ched kar dengey ki kahaan se saans logey aur kahaan sey .... Typical Salman Khan dialogues, some nice music and a nice way of spending an evening with the wife.

The Autorickshaw effect !

2011-04-20T00:15:00.001+05:30

Alert readers would remember that a while back I had commented about how to get even with the infamous Madras Autorickshaws . Needing to get to a place where there was unfortunately no MRTS connection I decided that it was time to haggle. Now themadrasi of 3 years since that post is a little more mellow, portly stout chap who beats the heat typically in a cotton shirt and 3/4th of a pant left specifically in the old homestead for precisely the purpose of use in such hot weather. The auction for the contract was unspectacular . Going to Adyar signal - sir, 60 rupees - illai 50 rupees . ok let's go. Having conducted the business I needed to , I needed to find my mobile and then discovered that it was missing. Now losing a mobile phone is a bit of a pain especially as you don't know how many numbers you end up losing. There is ofcourse the spectacular crash in the brownie points index with the wife and the sheer pain of having to try and retrieve the phone number of every person you knew using other means of communication. No this ain't a smart phone that can sync contacts etc. !

Muttering curses to self for being so careless I decided to hunt this down in a systematic and organized manner. First established the fact that the missing mobile phone hadn't accidentally been left at home. Past performance has suggested such a behavior and it was time to nip this rumour in the bud. So, it wasn't at home and the mother based on descriptions of the autorickshaw driver named a name and it was time to go back and try and see if I could find Muthu at the auto stand near home. Thanks to Kutty the other auto-rickshaw driver at the stand, I managed to track down the elusive Muthu and I gratefully received the phone from him. This has been an eventful trip so far and not short of fun, but Muthu and Kutty today managed to restore some faith in the old creed of Autorickshaw drivers. We still agree to disagree on "meter"ing issues .

Themadrasi - 0 Autorickshaws - 10000

Travel o travel o travel - Covering the miles all 1835 of them !

2011-04-19T00:30:00.006+05:30

The next day started with a flight out at 730 a.m. from Bombay to Calcutta to be followed by a 3:30 hour train journey from Calcutta to Jamshedpur. Since I had to get to Jamshedpur from Bombay a distance of 1835 km according to google maps, the best way was to actually take the flight to Calcutta ( 2:45 hours) followed by a 3:30 hour journey by train. There were a couple of variables here, one the journey between Dum-Dum and Howrah and the infamous traffic jams on Howrah Bridge and the second was the company that one would get in a sleeper class compartment on the train journey to this place. The first variable was pretty well handled by a competent local cabbie and the journey ended up taking only 1:10 minutes of the alloted 3 hours.

Howrah is one of those huge stations that you love to travel from - well planned with 23 full sized platforms and 4 more planned with each set of 4 platforms has 2 service roads , so folks after the payment of a fee can *actually* alight next to their compartment (no there are no 'a' and 'b' type platforms as in the UK). It is the largest station that I have travelled from and I suspect one of the largest stations in India but no one seems to be able to confirm this suspicion.

Taking the train in a 2nd class sleeper compartment (for those who don't know what these are see the linked photograph though look at the compartment behind the kingfisher.) was an experience after nearly 8 long years . I had forgotten the experience of being seated in a heated tin-can with the sights and the smells of the country-side or urban area that you were going through. Ofcourse the fun bit was in the various cries of caffee cafee or chai jhai and looking out of the window seated in a forward facing seat ! The cheap thrills of looking out of the window on a curve in the tracks to spot the locomotive or the tail of the 24-25 compartment long train are unmatcheable. The company on this trip was a cute little kid who was hell-bent on teaching me ABCD and counting numbers from 1-100. This was interspersed by a few attempts to throw out the latest Frederick Forsyth novel that I was reading .

In the middle of this , the kid also managed to read the book by flicking through the pages, cheated on a spelling game and checked if I could spell G-A-P . Just when you thought that the temperature was reaching it's heights and you would continue to swelter it was time for a refreshing summer shower.

It's remarkable how many times nature manages to cool things down especially one when is going through a really hot summer afternoon, if it were the UK I would have cursed the rain given that we only seem to get a lot of it and it would surely interfere with my cricket game ! , but here it was fresh, pleasant and the smell of fresh rain on what had been a hot muggy and sweltering afternoon was extremely refreshing. The biggest advantage of travelling in a second class compartment is the ability to actually take in the weather, the sights and the smells of the places you go through. It can be tepid, boring and quite ghastly in some of the urban areas but that's all made up by the smell of the first rains hitting a parched ground but if you really want to travel through India there are no places better than a seat in a super-fast second class compartment with the odd forays to the door of the compartment to sit down and soak up the scenery. Soon enough it was time to alight the train at Jamshedpur to be welcomed by the gang of 5 who made sure that everyone at the station knew that I had arrived with garlands, placards, a homemade director of events and quite a few noisy statements .This sometimes begs the question - with friends like this .... I leave it as homework for the astute reader to finish ......

Travel o travel o travel - Part 1 - Bombay

2011-04-18T23:51:00.004+05:30

After a frenetic journey over the past weekend it's time to take stock in the hottest of all seasons in a place with just 3 seasons (which reads hot, hotter and hottest! ) . The temperature hasn't been spectacularly high in the places I've been to but the humidity has been the killer. 30+ deg C and nearly 90% humidity in some places has been fun.

So the journey started rather uneventfully till I got to India - decided to be self-reliant, adventurous and think like a local again ! This meant giving up on the hyper expensive but comfortable AC pre-paid cab from inside the terminal which was 3X the cost of getting an air-conditioned coolcab. Ofcourse the cool-cabs are a bit of a hit and a miss and despite my earnest appeals got a 40-50 year old Premier Padmini which had an air-conditioning system that seemed to work in fits and starts (when the engine ran) . The first initiation to the heat of the day was when the car engine decided to splutter and stop somewhere in the middle of Ghatkopar and hence you had to get down to push and jump-start the cab. Ofcourse despite the attempts of the powerful AC had just kept me on the borderline from sweating buckets ; however this effort repeated thrice more in various busy intersections made sure that I ended up sweating a good bucket or 2 inside the cab. I am sure watching a portly man pushing a cool-cab from behind and then running to the seat to jump in once the car had started after going through some fits and starts would have provided entertainment to a few and much deserved exercise to yours truly. If there is a city full of Premier Padminis it is this, it is this, it is this ! There was one point at which I did decide that if there was one more breakdown I would get out and take an auto-rickshaw ! In the middle of all this the conversation ranged around the cricket, how many taxis he owned, the world-cup win, Tendlya, Dhoni, the traffic, the pace of the new metro , Anna Hazare and his anti-corruption drive and what the taxi-wallah thought about it etc. etc. etc. Time to catch up on all the gossip . Reaching home after that meant that I could enjoy a nice lunch, a nice nap and then a good dinner with family before the next part of the travel kicked in.

The new AC100.

2011-03-16T08:46:00.000+05:30

I got a new AC100 today running a Tegra2 and Android 2.1 on it. The first thing I did was to try and make it into a dual boot machine with a usb hard drive connected to it and boy is it spiffy and fast while running something like Ubuntu 10.10 . Thanks to ogra for pointing me towards the necessary bits and the #ac100 channel on freenode.

It's reasonably spiffy and based on recommendations from someone else I decided to get going with chromium and that resulted promptly in a crash because of an illegal instruction which might or might not be a compiler bug ! Talk about eating your own dog food eh !

Firefox does seem a bit heavy on this but reasonable. Flash doesn't seem to work out of the box so you have to rely on gnash and other bits and pieces. The biggest showstopper for my wife adopting it is the lack of sound on this but it might be solved by upgrading the emmc to Android 2.2 . Overall not a bad experience so far.

The irritating questions hall of fame.

2010-09-29T23:54:00.001+05:30

The sister recently created a hall of fame with respect to questions she dreads and gets totally irritated by. The last few days in the trip have been fantastic but have equally been irritating in terms of questions one has had to answer . Just to do something different lets start from the very end.

- Train journey from Bangalore to Coimbatore - Which berth is yours ?

Man next to me with an RAC ticket ( RAC stands for Reservation Against Cancellation) - Saar, which berth is yours . I point straight at both our berths (1 and 3) and say this is mine. He then proceeded to ask, so where are you working saar. I gave him a non-commital answer and just said Bangalore because I was in no mood to discuss with a total stranger the joys of living in Cambridge or discuss any further details regarding my life history especially when one is recovering from an illness.

- What's your salary abroad ?

Err.... it's decent enough to feed me and my family and to make trips as I choose to .

- Are you planning to come back ? If so , when ?

Err. The question can take many tones. Some old family friends will wonder and make declarations about your future and decisions neither you nor your wife have any clue about at that point of time. All you are interested in is the next meal, making sure you aren't sick and hoping that the jet lag would wear off. The best way of fobbing off such questions sometimes is to speak the truth and honestly say "Don't know" . Some day yes, not tomorrow is usually a good answer.

- Sir do you want a discount card ?

Err. no , not interested, thank you. Sir you'll get 1 point per 100 rupees and each point is worth 20 paise for you to claim. Thus the only way one can get any rewards out of customer loyalty is by buying for life at that store. Imagining the mark up is extraordinary.

Go back a few years, pesky little things used to call up and offer you discounts, personal loans and credit cards with cold calls. Never have I considered going further with any of these calls because it usually leaves me in an irritated state of mind.

Go further back to when one was studying.

What does your father do ? A follow up question was usually how much does he make ? The answer varied from he works in the CBI ( to a pesky traffic cop who was looking for a bribe for no fault of mine), to the truth and to a brusque none of your business. The follow up question was usually ignored.

Vacation vacation vacation.

2010-09-29T23:32:00.001+05:30

Ah the vacation draws to a close. Everyone sighs - oh you've got 3 weeks off but it's amazing how the days and the hours fly. Some fun activities have included driving around in India by self with the family. The last post dealt with the joys involved in this activity. It wasn't great fun falling ill 5 days into the trip especially with a 20 hour train journey to be managed. The train journeys were fun, ofcourse one of the high points of the trip.

Oh, attending a wedding, meeting old friends and making new ones, singing ghazals and old Hindi songs in the evening in public causing jaws of members of the family to drop beyond measure , pleasantly surprising the wife with such an act of lunacy ! However members in the audience were too polite to point out the resemblance my singing would have had to a donkey braying .

A rest day later it was time to begin the remainder of the travelling down south to Coimbatore and Guruvayur where I saw one of the best sights there is to see at the Guruvayur temple. It was 9:15 p.m. and time for what they call the Srivali seva. Like most temples in India, there's a strict ban on photography inside the temples for fear of the art thieves and in addition the belief that there shouldn't be photos of idols stored elsewhere, however this was one time I really wished for my camera. All Indian temples have a sanctum sanctorum, in Guruvayur this sanctum sanctorum has space for 1000s of oil lamps on all 4 of its walls. Once the temple was to be closed for the night, the closing ceremony on certain days (either requested for/ paid for my devotees or on special occasions) all the lamps would be lit on all 4 walls. This means that once it's night you've got all walls lit up by small oil lamps which are in perfect symmetry and is one of the most amazing sights one can watch. This is then followed with a procession by 3 of the temple elephants all decked up in gold and with men alternately seated and standing atop the elephant and transitioning between these states without *any* support from the sides. These men were athletic, nimble and showed some of the finest traditions that exist still deep in the South of India. Sadly I couldn't find any photos to show the same for a reference.

After this it was time to move to the city with just 3 seasons, hot hotter and hottest . I'd say we are in the "hotter"season where it's usually tepid, miserable and usually a pain to stay. A day trip from Madras was to Kanchipuram and to the ancestral village which had to be visited for some personal reasons. One of the things I came across in these villages was the use of solar power to light street lamps in every nook and cranny. This by itself has reduced the dependence these villages have on electricity boards for electricity and providing the village with safe renewable energy. The village in question had a school that's now in the process of starting Classes 11 and 12, there is hope and there is education and there is a choice in such villages for growth.

In the last 19 days we've been to 8 places some of which have included day trip in sweltering 35 degrees C. The measure to which I've been spoilt now shows with the fact that if I am to survive in Chennai or Madras as it was known earlier , I need the AC on to bring down the temperature to a bearable 28 degrees C . But boy has this been worth it and have I needed the break ! Certain improvements are visible, the tendency to check email has dropped - I've checked email 5 times in 3 weeks which is a significant improvement compared to previous pyrrhic vacations.

And on that note - sigh, mutter, next Monday is just 4 days away and 2 plane journeys away :( ...

Honk, mutter to neighbour, curse, shout

2010-09-14T20:29:00.000+05:30

Politely ask others on the roads if their affairs are in order, ( the Tamil way of asking this is Enna Vootla sollitu vanthutiyaa ... ) and then decide that it's all not worth it .

If you are wondering why all these words are in the title of this blog post, it's not very hard to get to the bottom of why I'm doing this and my locus can very well be guessed. After all this the world is at peace again, the sun rises from the East again and there is a nice cool breeze blowing in the city of Pune in India.

Given that I've deliberately not started driving in the old blighty just to preserve these essential driving skills in India, where if you go into a roundabout, the first person in wins it's been fun. Driving around on the first day of the trip, there were still a few rules left in me . Anyone on a zebra crossing wins, I stop my car and let them pass . However the stares I received in return were as though I was a person from a different planet or a member of a species totally different than the one that inhabits the country we like to call India, Bharat, Hindustan, Jambudvipa ...

Driving down the expressway and then driving in heavy traffic in downtown during peak hours has a cathartic effect. You can put your window down, curse to your hearts content at idiots who decide to overtake you from the left and go to the right or cut right across your path from right to left. There is no place for gentleness, the odd driver of the scooter who decides to sit in the fast lane and plod along at 40kmph on a polite enquiry for overtaking asks you if you are flying a plane to go past him and you respond with either the finger or politely inform him of the risks of a gentle push that is enough to send him and his family flying under other forms of traffic which vary from smoke belching trucks to the odd auto-rickshaw.

Playing cricket. ...

2010-09-07T02:02:00.001+05:30

So, here we go after a long time - about time for a blog post and something regarding a passion for every Indian, cricket. Given that I'm due off on a trip soonish to the old homestead it's probably right to post this now.

Living in the driest part of the UK and having long days in the summer allows you the flexibility and freedom to play. Cricket here is played on a ground - (yes, yes I can hear folks saying where else would you play it ..) without 10 other matches happening simultanenously, on pitches and grounds that vary in large degrees with respect to their quality. Oh and yes, cricket here is played with 22 players wearing whites, a cricket ball ( not a tennis ball, cork ball or a rubber ball) though there are times when you start a game with just 8 players with 3 turning up later. There have been occasions when folks have arrived at the wrong ground because they misheard which team was playing at which ground ! Of-course the fickle English weather can play a devastating effect on the quality of the square not to mention the effect of rabbits and moles on the outfield (Ask my ankle!) There are some groundsmen who've maintained an absolutely high standard throughout this season (think Gonville and Caius) while others who've not bothered and instead have allowed enough grass on the pitch so that it looks more like a tennis court than a cricket pitch (Oh Jesus!) and further others who've just given up (some of the village squares that we played on).

Of-course 20-20 has had an effect, all weekday games are 20-20 while the weekend games can vary between 40 and 45 overs depending on which division of which league you are playing. The 20-20 games are played usually as 15 8 ball overs which makes overweight geezers like yours truly struggle to get past the popping crease after bowling the 4th ball in an over and then curse the innovators ! It is all very civilized - sledging is not something that you do normally nor condone, idle banter usually happens - most folks usually walk and the opposition usually congratulates the bats-person when they reach a major milestone. The best games are when you play an opposition that consists of team-mates from the mid-week games especially if it contains your mid-week captain in it! This is when the banter could reach some dizzy heights. The mid-week games are played at a very different pace to the weekend ones, the weekend ones demand tons of concentration and sustenance, there was one game we played where both the opposition and us scored less than 120 in 45 overs and the opposition won in the very last over, thus there ends up being a good tussle between bat and ball. Ah and that is a par score in 20 overs during the mid-week games.

However the significant achievement of the year for yours truly was hitting the winning runs in a match that meant we tied joint tops in the mid-week leagues. After years of growing horizontally it was interesting to be able to hit the winning runs in a game nearly 9 years since university !

Freeview ... yahoo !

2010-03-13T18:15:00.000+05:30

On a lazy Saturday morning, one woke up grumbling about toolchains and life in general and then came the thought about the IPL starting. Going through the normal routine about reading more about cricket than watching it thoughts slowly started filtering through the fog. A vague curse rose to the lips regarding planning regulations. Consoling one self about the new youtube channel on cricket and IPL, one went back to thinking and the the penny dropped. You see, this year the IPL would be available on terrestial television in the UK and as resignation turned towards expectation and increasing degrees of smugness, one tuned the t.v. to ITV4 to see Tendulkar walk out to bat. The reason for this gradual increase in smugness is that for 1 year one has felt like a prize goof everytime a good game of cricket has gone on in the world and the television has apparently mocked back at me.

Last year one wrestled up a 42 inch HD t.v. in a hurry hoping to get a particular brand of satellite television and get to watch all the sports in the world. The application for the satellite television had gone out before the television was procured and the engineer turned up 3 days later, took one look at the south wall and went on about planning regulations and having dishes poking out of walls. A red mist descended, though it has receded slowly over the year the feeling of being a prize goof hasn't gone away that quickly.

Gloating was never good for anyone but once in a while one can afford the luxury of saying .. Ha jolly ha !

Yeah yeah I was there when Mr. Tendulkar hit 200

2010-02-27T03:06:00.012+05:30

Yeah yeah, me my uncle , my mother and everyone else's chacha were there when Sir Tendlya, the boss of cricket scored a 200. We were all there when the following events also happened.

100 - Headingley 1990 England - Test drawn

114 - Perth - 1991 Australia - India lost.

155 - Chennai - 1998 Australia - India won.

136 - Chennai - 1999 Pakistan - India lost.

98 - Centurion - 2003 Pakistan - India won.

241 - Sydney - 2003 Australia - India won.

Last over - Calcutta - 1994 South Africa - India Won. (The Hero cup semi-final)

5-36 - Kochi - 1998 Australia - India won.

143 - Sharjah - 1998 Australia - India won.

117 - Sydney ? - 2008 Australia - India won. (Finals of the CB Series)

175 - Hyderabad - 2009 Australia - India lost.

163 - Chennai - 2008 - England - India won.

And like most Indians we cheered loud and clear. Reading about it on websites left one slightly disgruntled at planning regulations. The BCCI's speed at removing highlights videos from youtube for copyright claims left one wondering about efficiencies. Finally finding an opportunity to watch it now leaves one contented after a long week's work and getting the chance to visualize certain comments.

The beautiful flick of the wrists that got a boundary from outside off stump to the midwicket boundary. The non-chalant flick from outside off stump to the midwicket boundary to move from 162 to 168. The double to go past a certain Mr. Anwar who got 194 with a runner in Madras on a humid day in 1997.

But on this day - all ijj well, the cold disappears ever so slightly , the sun appears to stay out longer (only till 5:45 p.m.) - the best batsman in the world has 200 off 147 balls. However the wife, who's typically agnostic to cricket forwarded me an analysis possibly also seen by millions others.

Agree you have done GREAT......

BUT BUT BUT BUT

And hence scored 250 and India 450 - Given this performance the manager has no choice but to award you an appraisal rating of someone who's only achieved expectations and not exceeded it !

If only we were so demanding of the road contractors after the monsoons in Pune...

It certainly does look like this man is on a mission - a mission to win the 2011 world cup. All ye cricket fans plan your vacations in advance, there is only one place to be in 2011.

P.S. It sounds as though cricinfo has ordered some Tendulkar servers ...

Serendipity

2010-02-15T04:17:00.010+05:30

Sunday - Valentine's day - what does one do to earn brownie points ? The easiest thing to do was to take the fast train to London, cruise about the Temz and explore parts of London by foot with the wife. Rumours had reached our ears about the existence of an area in London called East Ham and the presence of Saravana Bhavan, Vasanta Bhavan in the general area. This was supposed to be where a Tamilian would find the worth of his salt in the existence of Tayir Saadham (a.k.a Curd Rice, with a seasoning of Curry Leaves, Mustard seeds, salt , green chillies ) ! and the presence of a large number of Cash and Carry stores. Entering one of the cash and carry stores for grocery shopping resulted in a substantial transformation of a swipe into weight for the hands !

Saravana Bhavan is one chain of hotels that prides itself on the taste of its' food being the same across *all* it's kitchens. It was time to verify if this was the case even with the East Ham branch and needless to say that after sampling the necessary items including a full South Indian meal (Full meals Saar!) , an Onion Uthappa , 2 Ghee Pongals the conclusion was reached in the affirmative even if the kitchens are the proverbial 7 seas apart ! There was a consideration to order a Bisibela Bhat or a Ghee Roast but then we've left this for the next time. Advice for others attempting this stunt - please go only after fasting for a day or two !

However as a part of this process, one was asked to sacrifice the Semiya Paayaasam ( a.k.a Kheer, a sweet made with milk and Vermicelli) and after due consideration (which was half a pico second) promptly refused ! Bad Move !

Still searching for the brownie points :(

Books list.

2010-02-15T03:49:00.005+05:30

The BBC in a survey in 2003 said that folks only read 6 out of this list of 100 . I've read 36 - the wife's read 36. Is it just the amount of reading that has reduced. What will be the result 5 years hence when the ipad and the Bookstore are all pervasive ? The mind boggles.

P.S. The old adage goes on something about marriages being made in heaven and all that...

An ode to the German Bakery.

2010-02-14T01:53:00.002+05:30

Reading about the cowardly attack on the German Bakery today was quite a scary proposition. The German Bakery holds special value for a lot of folks - foreigners and locals alike. The lethargic ambience, the cup of tea and the wonderful pastries was one of the reasons for it to be a popular hang out joint in Koregaon Park. Having spent many a moon near that area and passing it on the way to work on a daily basis it was quite sad to note the blasts in the area. Immediate thoughts went to friends and family who would usually hang out in that area for a quiet meal or whatever. If one had remained in Pune, it wouldn't have been uncommon to have been having a meal at one of the many great restaurants on North Main Road or transit that road en-route to other restaurants. Saturday evening = Dinner around North Main Road, movie at Ad-Labs.

I hope folks injured by this blast recover quickly and may the souls of those who died rest in peace.

3 idiots - All ijj well.

2010-01-26T06:43:00.003+05:30

A bird told me that Cambridge was hosting the 3 idiots. It meant that we would wander over the few 100 meters to the theatre on a lazy Sunday afternoon. There was no room for us in the theatre. What ? A hindi movie and house full in Cambridge, you must be kidding right ?

It was time to put the record straight - resolutions were made - improving the compiler could wait for a day, dinner out , movie at 645 p.m., leave nothing to chance - book tickets online , buy dinner at the Friendly neighbourhood Subway and let's try and catch it. At the end of 3 hours All ijj well , nothing like a cannily crafted movie with enough subtleties to leave an audience tittering and holding their stomachs as though gongura (or the Faal for the more of my British readers) had gone through it ! Painful ecstacy !

There were some traditional jokes which were very well conveyed including a metaphor passing as a Sanskrit verse ! It was situational comedy at it's very best , a genre being perfected by Rajkumar Hirani - as the NDTV review says (read in hindsight) , this truly is Munna Bhai Part 3. Despite all the controversy about 3 idiots and 5 point someone, one must say that the genesis might come from the book , but the screenplay and plot in this is totally different from the book and probably is far better in its conceptualization. Also the true hero for me isn't Aamir Khan or Madhavan or Boman Irani but Sharman Joshi as Raju Rastogi. True there are exaggerations with inventions out of no-where but who says it's not possible.

If you haven't seen it already , go watch it - enjoy it and probably relive some of your college days - for anyone who's seen any form of hostel life this will ring some wonderful bells and remind you of times long past and incidents that will bring a smile to your face. Everyone will remember a Chatur Ramalingam , a Rancho of the class, a Raju Rastogi , initial ragging for the class and a Viru Sahastrabuddhe !

At the end of the day - All ijj well .......

Economy Drives and Cattle Class.

2009-09-17T04:29:00.004+05:30

Reading about the Economy Drive in India reminds me of a certain Economy drive in one of the greatest political satires of all time - Yes Minister. All the classic ingredients are present in the mix , a recession, (the 2008) inflation, (this year's) deflation and a perilous state of public finances the world over. Think of the political classes to come up with an Economy Drive !. A request is made by the finance ministry that all ministers travel by Economy class amid a few protests that they are too tall, too fat or too thin !

The press have their controversy courtesy a tweet , a couple of ministers travel economy class in airplanes , the leader of the party in government travels by Economy class but spends more on security and an MP travels in first class on the same flight ! A train in which a youth leader travels is damaged, the cost of which should be surely higher than a first class ticket in a commercial plane. Nice - all similar to the Economy Drive. Now will 69 diplomats from a Western neighbour be expelled or will the courtesy be extended to some of the diplomats from across the Himalayas for the economy drive to pause.

The mind boggles .....

Goodness Gracious Great Balls of Fire.

2009-05-23T02:38:00.002+05:30

The first thought that came to mind on reading this story happens to be the title of today's blog post. Too long has the country been held to ransom by parties expecting to get great power without equitable representation. How else would one explain a party with just 18 seats expecting to get 9 plum ministerial berths and expecting the party with 206 seats to just give it all away ? It's nice to see the Congress party stand up to be counted and play hard ball with these small parties . It's not about arrogance but just sometimes people have to be put in their place. An 87 year old man just found his right level of incompetence.

Elections, Sensex and Mayhem.

2009-05-19T06:27:00.004+05:30

Waking up on a Saturday morning 4-1/2 hours behind the good old des one was immediately struck with the thought - Election results => streaming NDTV, shiny new ADSL2+ broadband. Thanks to the time difference there was no surprise left in the results by the time I got around to looking at the results and seeing Prannoy Roy for what must be the infinitieth time run us through the election results. It was indeed interesting to note that this is the first time a government that has completed 5 years has been almost reelected. Streaming NDTV 24X7 live on a webcast worked like a charm though one did get the feeling that the ad-breaks were a bit too long. Watching the spoilers like the 3rd, 4th and even the 999th front get a pasting from the voters was quite a nice feeling.

Our Prime Minister must be wondering about there being no sense with the traders. In 2004 the markets fell the maximum in a day because the Congress had been voted in, in 2009 the markets had to be closed again because the Congress was voted in. What will happen in 2014 ? The mind boggles.

The market's reaction today is the burden of expectations on this government. The cry has gone out, Perform or Perish. The Indian voter will no longer tolerate political slogans ! As for me - I'll go back to watching the Beeb muse about the expenses row here in the U.K. I wonder what will happen if MPs in India were asked to disclose their expenses.

Happy (Tamizh) New Year

2009-04-14T03:01:00.006+05:30

Iniya Putthandu Vaazthukkal – Happy Tamil New Years Day.

As the easter weekend meandered to a dull close and having returned from the humble abode of one's cousins, a dull boring evening appeared to be on the cards for the madrasi. Given that the bird was hosting dinner to other birds and having spent a good deal of time and effort in unpacking and arranging empty vessels in the kitchen of the new tenement, themadrasi felt it was time that the vessels were put to some use. The cry or rather the shrill cooker whistle went around, themadrasi is cooking. Excursion trains were to be run to witness this great event in the history of mankind but then Colonel Murphy in the form of Sunday timetables on Easter Monday as well as planned engineering works struck.

Given that the paparazzi wasn't around and the glorious sunshine at 5:30 p.m., themadrasi decided to put paid to the rumour that there was another South Asian store around by going out for a jog and exploring the neighbourhood in mufti . It turned out that this was also run by a fellow Tamilian from Sri Lanka and having said Omam to him themadrasi returned with all the ingredients required for successfully stocking the kitchen of a respectable TamBrahm inclusive of the famous LG Perungaayam.

At this point of time there was a flash of light and enlightenment dawned on themadrasi. Cook Ven Pongal, the supreme dish to celebrate all Tambrahm occasions. One must ofcourse point out that the w. had also reminded him that it was the new year the next day and there were no satisfactory answers to questions posed about how the occasion was to be celebrated. Beginning the task at hand themadrasi realized that if this was to be done there were a few matters of chronology to be sorted out. There was help was at hand in the form of the iphone call to the cousin to help out.There were approximations made including substituting Gingelly Oil (Nalla Ennai ) with Vegetable Oil, (the supreme act towards national integrity by substituting) Basmati Rice for Ponni or Nellai Super. The proportions mixed, the tadka made, the cooker put in, the chimney turned on (with the LG Perungaaya dabba on top) for good luck it was time to wait . Drat but where were the cashews. Whilst the cooker shrilled themadrasi pattered down to the good old Tesco found just a bag of cashews , came back up – opened the fridge for the pat of butter to fry the cashew in ( No half measures – note the jogging bit above)

A reasonable approximation to the Pongal was prepared and consumed – Dr. Onken supplied the necessary yoghurt, the entertainment was provided by SPB on the blower going on about Maarugo Maarugo Maarugazhi (Chittirai) and to hand were Bertie and Jeeves preparing for their next escapade at Market Snodsbury. All in all capital one would say and to paraphrase the bird – it was time to put on the silk hat , find the pipe and write this blog.

P.S. Rumour has it that the new year in Tamilnadu will not be celebrated on the 14^th of April because an old man wants Pongal to signify this event in January. It's time I fedex'd some of the basmati ven pongal to him.

The Laptop Crisis of 2009

2009-04-12T13:42:00.004+05:30

There is something about laptops and the family this year. First my cousin's laptop blew up , then I followed suit by stress testing my pride and joy by upsetting a glass of water in a eureka moment on discovering how a particular bit of the compiler worked. Now, its the turn of the sister in the family to go and blow her laptop up. Other than my act of putting the proverbial leg on the axe ( Kulhadi pey pair maarna !), the other 2 were acts of nature , wear and tear and resulting in an explosion of cataclysmic proportions.

Currently the sister's laptop is down and she's busy with writing odes from a netcafe. The first I heard about this was a frantic call at 2:30 in the afternoon - "drop everything find me HP's number in Bombay so that I may contact them". Such tasks were duly completed and then 3-4 hours later one gets a call about how ham-handed one feels with the laptop down etc. It appears as though storm clouds are on you, the world is torn apart and you are crippled without your main course of "facebooking", "tweeting", "blogging" and "orkutting". The entertainment channel of watching dvd's or getting on youtube is out . If you are a techie, the side business of following your community's IRC chat is out. What is it about this dependence on technology and such inane devices that make them a part of you. When things stop working the way you are used to , you feel totally hamstrung as though a part of you has been cut off. One now owns an iphone, a laptop and an ipod and not having any of these would leave one like Lord Emsworth from Blandings worrying about the Empress's eating habits .

These are the occasions for the proverbial cuppa coffee, a snug blanket (definitely a thin one for an Indian Summer) and a good book.

Clapham ho.

2009-04-05T05:50:00.010+05:30

'The first thing to do,' said Psmith, 'is to ascertain that such a place as Clapham Common really exists. One has heard of it, of course, but has its existence ever been proved? I think not. Having accomplished that, we must then try to find out how to get to it. I should say at a venture that it would necessitate a sea-voyage. On the other hand, Comrade Waller, who is a native of the spot, seems to find no difficulty in rolling to the office every morning. Therefore--you follow me, Jackson?--it must be in England. In that case, we will take a taximeter cab, and go out into the unknown, hand in hand, trusting to luck.' [1]

So it's been one of those things with moving to the UK and wanting to find places like Ickenham, Clapham, Market Snodsbury, (an equivalent of) The Drones Club etc. being a huge PG Wodehouse afficionado. Given that one was to travel across the country to the lovely city of Sutton for a day trip, one didn't expect to spot Wodehousian names or be reminded of Wodehousian prose with events that transpired on the way.

The only difference between this expedition and the one referred to above, was that one had a bird for company who after a long winded preamble (which included choice epithets on how yours truly's sincere and honest efforts at figuring out the right platform for the tube) pushed you into a train that pushed us back nearly 1/3rd of the way back to Cambridge. Blame it on the birds being out of place underground or the weather brilliant today. All the angst against the delays were excused once, ( after the minor process of getting on to the correct t was completed,) one passed through Clapham Junction and realized that this would probably lead to Clapham Common in the scene where Mike does the Jijutsu on Bill and proves to be the saviour of Comrade Waller.

[1] : Psmith from Psmith and the City by P.G. Wodehouse.

The great British Bathroom.

2009-03-15T17:18:00.004+05:30

So, its house hunting time again having moved to Cambridge to take up employment at a place that is famous for thumbs, arms and mobile phones.

The key thing to look for in any house or apartment here is the bathroom and especially the shower. Remember that in the UK it's possibly a law that no 2 showers should look or work alike. Some places have an instant electric shower which has a very intuitive and effective interface to the user. Some others make it obscure with 3 moving dials , one for controlling water flow, a 2nd dial that can make things warmer or colder and then a third to set the temperature. The result is that dials 2 and 3 can get out of sync and you can actually get cold water when you want hot water and so on and so forth. So the first thing you do as soon as you get into the house is to make sure you look at the bathroom. The other funny thing about bathrooms is that somehow in the 80s folks got the idea that a bathroom was really cool with having a carpet inside it. So now that you have a carpet inside you have to be really careful about how to take bath etc. and make sure none of the water from the shower actually falls on the carpet. Contrast this with the Indian genes of associating foot marks on the floor to leave evidence of your bathing every day to concerned parents you actually have a big problem .

In the end I chose an apartment with a magnificent bathroom with a shower that I know how to operate and laminate flooring ! Yay !

Delay that damned flight !

2009-02-23T12:55:00.009+05:30

Sitting at Kamaraj Domestic Terminal in Madras waiting to catch a flight back to Pune, I was sitting and twiddling my thumbs watching updates by folks on a Facebook channel and hoping that the flight be delayed because the buses designated to take the passengers to the aircraft ran out of diesel or some such. The t.v. at the airport was tuned to a popular English news channel and there were dozens mouthing platitudes but one wanted to see the actual action. I counted 4 and that included Resul Pookutty winning the Oscar for best sound mixing . That was good and if any indication meant that Rehman should now win. One was rooting for AR Rehman to win and didn't particularly care if the movie won any other awards.

But with the conservative TamBrahm gene throbbing and growing up with the Indian cricket team lose out on many occassions in the past, it was too early to be saying Jai Ho. At this point of time when there was a needless presentation about how films get made in the ceremony, one's flight got called. I had to board it murmuring vague curses on the efficiency of Paramount, the ATC, the state of the economy. Colonel Murphy does rule after all.

However one was saved by technology - the humble mobile phone hummed and one got the news that led (an imaginary clone of yours truly) to do 24 cartwheels, 5 somersaults and an exhibition of the shirshasan inside the plane. However in the general interest of humanity and not willing to stress test the Embraer Aircraft or take pangas with Sky Marshals, one took it with a smile and promptly downed a bottle of water.

P.S.

Ella pughalum iraivanuke (All glory and fame is to God) - Rehman in his acceptance speech.

Jai Ho

Tradeoffs...

2009-02-03T15:59:00.002+05:30

Well blogging this as I am on a train from Leicester to Cambridge using my 3 mobile broadband data card, I can't help but marvel at the amazing contradictions in infrastructure. Whilst the train from Leicester to Bristol passed through regions without network coverage, atleast it did have power points for the laptop to be plugged in . However, the train from Leicester to Cambridge appears to go through areas served well by 3's network the train doesn't have any power points to plug in the laptop. A trade off everywhere. ...

Stop Snowing ...

2009-02-03T02:55:00.009+05:30

Watching the snow come down over the past 2 days in the UK has left me with conflicting emotions. It's been the maximum amount of snow in the last 18 years in London and the parts of the UK that I am now in . I thought originally that walking in the snow would be more fun than walking in the rain but have quickly concluded that atleast in the UK walking in the snow isn't that much fun.

The temperatures aren't too much below zero, hence snow keeps melting and refreezing as ice . The other thing is the high humidity and the threat of rain that makes things even worse by converting roads into cesspools of slush , grime covered by thin layers of ice.

Other than the climatic consideration above, the pain also seems to be inhaling snow flakes, having them fall into your eyes while walking. One does read about concepts of reflection of light and so on, but you can actually see how the place really gets lit up with the streetlights and the snow - The whole city seems alight and the light effects are quite awesome.

Transitions....

2009-01-25T14:01:00.008+05:30

Moving to the UK lock stock and barrel with 3 suitcases, the trusty laptop, the ipod and the D50 has been quite good fun. Throw in tenancy agreements, tax regulations, very different shopping experiences, dependence on public transport , the rain and the cold make it an eclectic experience. Here's a 10 point irreverent rant on the same.

1. Living here relies a lot on how well you plan things. For e.g. when back home in India you don't plan your shopping because you know there are zillions of shops and you would be able to get things in time. However if you make the same assumption here, you are going to be sorely disappointed. Shops tend to start closing by 6 p.m. which is about the time you start heading back home ! Need a hair cut get an appointment is the mantra ! It takes a bit of getting used to - especially the getting an appointment for a hair cut and paying 34 quid for it but then you get there in the end. This is the bit one is still trying to get used to. Pakoda Kadar agree with the sentiment albeit grudgingly.

2. Improve your manners. Being used to thanking people aloud one gets by alright but do remember to thank the bus driver after you get off the bus, the taxi cab driver after you get off the taxi. Be polite and people will be polite to you in general. Stand in a queue, for heavens sake Ghanta Singh, don't jump that queue. Negotiate with anybody or for anything politely .

3. Movie theatres are generally empty and appear to be rather well maintained. It's a miracle really how they do any sort of business here. I watched Slumdog millionaire the day after its release with about 12 people in the theatre for a 10:30 p.m. show on a Saturday night. In Pune or Madras I wouldn't have got the tickets !

4. The cold - Whatever you do, this is the toughest part to adjust to. It is biting cold, you need 2-3 layers as I am wearing right now even to write this blog entry. Go out of the house and you need 4 layers which are quite the interesting bit. Also as I am repeatedly told cover your head with a cap or something or the cold does get to you ! BTW remember to carry an umbrella around after checking the weather reports you'll find that useful for sure :)

5. The water - It's really hard. What surprises me is the hardness of water for a nation which has so much rain and is always being filled up. Should Jayalalitha teach rainwater harvesting here to improve the quality of the water table ?

6. The buses - usually work on time but sometimes you miss them ! Travelling on a bus is infinitely more pleasurable because sometimes you can also login to the internet if you carry your own 3G dongle . However there are jerks on the bus which can cause problems with your hard drive ! Trains are also fun, you can get most tickets by booking off the internet, remember to plan your travel in advance the difference in fares can be up to 7x.

7. Learn how to walk. This is a country for people who can walk. If its close by you walk because you can't be bothered about finding parking or parking is expensive in the city centres or the malls and the airports are so huge that you need to walk. It might also be good to invest in a lighter laptop and to demand one at work to save your back !

8. Food - Well this is the most interesting bit and something I'm still figuring out. If you are vegetarian and love Indian food then you can find enough of the ready to cook stuff in one of the big supermarkets . If you feel enthusiastic about cooking , you can find most ingredients in the supermarket or in a local Indian store. If you are a tambrahm like me and absolutely dig the curds, go buy yoghurt and flavoured ones at it . They make quite some eating. Also you'd enjoy the Fru and the Gu as were introduced to me by my cousins. Now this is going to be a life long addiction.

9. Practice on Ironing your clothes and using the washing machine. Using the washing machine is usually fine but then each one in each of the places I have been in has different controls and programs and hence sometimes it becomes quite a pain !

10. Carpets in Bathrooms - The only place where you have carpets in bathrooms . Makes you wonder if people bathe with water or the latest perfume out of Gucci. More on this here.

Pin codes, movie names etc.

2009-01-25T13:43:00.005+05:30

What is with Indian film makers these days. They seem to be advertising more for the postal service with their film titles rather than anything else. If you had a tamil movie called Chennai 600028 which I absolutely doted upon because yours truly grew up there playing similar gully cricket but on roads and the famous ground at MRC Nagar - Chennai -28 which has now turned into a multi-storeyed apartment block flagrantly violating all tenets of the Coastal Regulatory Zone ! In any case we now have a new hindi movie called Delhi - 6 which is located in Chandni Chowk. Having stayed in Delhi for about 6 months in my life and visiting Chandni Chowk pretty regularly in that period it would be interesting to see how the movie pans out . Having an ensemble cast helps with the hype, in comparison to Chennai 600028 where even our Vaadiyar's son appeared in the 11 playing for the RA Puram Sharks which was kind of cool . The music with AR Rehman in Delhi 6 vs. Yuvan Shankar there also promises to be good .

For some time last night I was watching the movie Once upon a time in America and saw that the idea of smuggling things by attaching salt bags to them and dumping them over board and then dragging them along the boats as is shown in Nayakan probably was inspired from here. It's really really violent but then builds up rather well .

The other movies which I probably will see soonish are Australia, 7 pounds , 3.10 to Yuma and whatever else I can see. Reviews might follow depending on the movie !

Of Trains ,stations and Railways..

2009-01-24T16:13:00.004+05:30

In the last month or so , it's been awesome traveling by the railways across India and the UK in the course of trips .

1. The best station in India - in terms of scale and size Howrah ! It has close to 25 platforms and trains departing for particular regions of India will only leave from a cluster of platforms in this station. Cars can go right along the platform and literally drop you off in front of the coaches. There is enough space for parking on the sides and everything is on a gargantuan scale. I'd suspect that Chennai Central and NDLS will fit into Howrah , though CST might give a run to Howrah for its money because of the Victorian architecture.

2. The smallest station in India : Darjeeling. Everything is tiny about it. The platforms are like small steps on which you can climb. The rail track runs parallel to the roads and at many places traffic has to wait for the trains when they chug along. Probably also the most picturesque with the glorious Kanchenjunga as the backdrop . I would particularly recommend travelling on the toy train. For all ye growing up hearing about steam engines this is one of the few places where you can actually see it working . Look at the pic where you can see it filling up with water after a 6 km drive !

3. Cambridge Station - UK . It is probably true of stations in some of the smaller towns in the UK. When you enter the station you are told there are 4-5 platforms but there is no overbridge or a subway. There is one really long platform and this is further split into 4-5 platforms . There is a parallel track along side the track for the platform that has various entry points for the different regions in the platform. So it was very funny to be on the same physical platform but a different virtual platform ... If you get my drift.

Life in the freezer and the rain.

2008-12-06T14:58:00.004+05:30

So, its been about 2 weeks where I've started experiencing relocating and understanding the true value of the sun - For e.g. the weather report today suggested that the sun would be out and available between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. Imagining darkness at 4p.m. is slightly difficult especially for one who's grown up playing cricket between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. on a daily basis not so many moons ago. Winter is exactly what Wodehouse describes in far better words when he talks about Mike (of Mike and Psmith fame) in the book Psmith in the City . The office where I am could very well be the bank that's described in these lines below.

When all the world outside is dark and damp and cold, the light and warmth of the place
are comforting. There is a pleasant air of solidity about the interior
of a bank. The green shaded lamps look cosy. And, the outside world
offering so few attractions, the worker, perched on his stool, feels
that he is not so badly off after all. It is when the days are long and
the sun beats hot on the pavement, and everything shouts to him how splendid it is out in the country, that he begins to grow restless.

But then here comes the sun - After having typed this yet again in London Heathrow and yet again waiting for the flight to be announced , I'm looking forward to summer in Bombay with the temperatures roaring in the 30s and there being bright light for a long long time .This might well be my last post as a bachelor and as one more bites the dust here's to all good times with marriage and all that !

Coming back to life ?

2008-11-29T23:28:00.007+05:30

It's been a week since terrorists / maniacs or mad men (whatever you say is an understatement) took over and hit India in a way that we've never been hit before. It made one all the more angry especially when freezing in the distant UK with no phone to check how one's near and dear were in the city of Bombay, it was one of the coldest and longest nights ever spent. The media here were ofcourse focussing on the Taj , Nariman Point and Oberoi because of the search for American and British Nationals but everyone's forgotten 2 other stories . The attack on Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus where 56 folks died is forgotten. The brave staff of the Taj and the Oberoi who risked lives to save guests , the brave firemen battling fires and bullets and grenades at the same time should not be forgotten either. The media in its live coverage of the areas around the Taj has forgotten about the bomb that went off in a taxi near the airport. So, if you look at it , they got to the railway station, airport and the 2 biggest symbols of India's economy with absolute brazenness. Scary ain't it. The media will do its bit, the politicians will point fingers across the border

Read Sidins blog here , if you want a description of how the Taj looks and feels, any words further would sound hollow and cliched. I read today the talks and the candle-light vigils and the street meetings protesting but with a difference, how can people make a difference to the country. The writing's on the wall - something had better be done and soon . It doesn't mean war with another state - but it means convincing the elected government to allow action or to take action on those responsible.

Even if nothing else comes out of it, the one good thing that's happened is the emergence finally of a country - India and not a bunch of people united for cricket or the stock market ! Finally spending the last 10 days in distant England, watching my country men vent out their anger and spleen and blood , brave firefighters dying for no-one's business I truly understand what it means to be an Indian abroad. People I meet at work , the taxi driver from a mall to home, a taxi driver in Leicester, the man sitting next to me on the train everyone asked only one thing - do you have family in Mumbai and are they safe ?

Forget boundaries and partitions and walls, shouldn't we just remember that after all Baby Moshe who lost his parents in the Nariman House attack is also human.

After all this go watch the India-England test series - Infuse some oxygen into test cricket and show them that life must and will go on!

In honoriam

2008-09-14T06:45:00.005+05:30

Waking up after a late-afternoon siesta on Saturday , one saw 2 different news stories playing out in the media - one about 6 blasts in New Delhi and the other about hurricane Ike tearing its away across Houston , Texas and the mid-west of the United States. With near and dear around both places, specifically with an aunt in Delhi who in someways is a creature of habit and visits a temple on Saturday evenings in one of the areas around where the bombs went off. Phone calls made quickly thankfully ascertained the safety of all concerned.

Seeing the pictures of the attacks on Saturday on the junk box, anyone who'd been a resident of Delhi would have recalled happier times . Indeed, many moons ago with nothing much to achieve on a Saturday evening, yours truly would have been found loitering about Connaught Place, walking around , looking out for some bookshop to get hold of some books or having an aloo tikki from the variety of hand-cart sellers ending up with a hot chocolate fudge sundae at Nirulas in the Inner Circle. I am sure of such memories for others about the market in GK - I and Ghaffar Market in Karol Bagh. Trying to think of one's reaction to the whole thing this morning, other than the sadness caused by the deaths of 30 people and injuries to 70 people it's a feeling of angst against attacks on what are held dear by a lot of people . The Delhi-waala is particularly fond of shopping and the amount of honest bargain that can happen on the streets or in the stores. In tribute to this spirit of Delhi, the only response as is the cliched one is that of getting back up and running immediately the next day and show that we can't be bowed as a people by such acts of terror. It's time the powers be did something tough and visible against the perpetrators of this heinous crime rather than making sanctimonius statements about the lack of need for tough anti-terror laws and appealing for peace. Remember it took Bush one 9/11 to toughen his country up . How many more innocent lives and how much more attack will we take on our psyche before the so-called statesmen of this country wake up? It is said that a child found an unexploded bomb on Barakhamba Road. Now , do children in this country have to go through such times where unexploded bombs are found in what can be said is pretty much the core of India's capital. It's not the border with a hostile country, it's not a war zone or the DMZ in Korea where you have a number of land mines but the core of Delhi.

Education or the lack of it in the Indian Colleges

2008-09-12T19:07:00.003+05:30

So, I've been sitting and talking to a young 'un in the family who's studying in one of the better women's colleges in Nungambakkam ,Chennai that contains the word Vaishnava in its name. A recent assignment that had this young 'un worried was about inserting into and deleting from linked lists. After nearly an hour or so we'd nailed down the insert, delete routines into singly and doubly linked lists and I was rather proud of my student.

Now is when things got interesting, the assignment involved 4 applications of linked lists to different situations in life. So, the smart 'un came up with innovative ideas like managing employees data in a firm, students marks in a college, room checkins in a hotel and one more that I now forget. When I heard this I burst out laughing wondering if Philips or any of the Audio CD player manufacturers made different CD players for Audio CDs for Pop, Jazz, Indian Classical and Western Classical . However since it was an assignment and worth 20 marks, she had to sit for nearly 4 hours writing the same thing with different conditions based on the data being stored.

The best part was that she took it to college today and the program got rejected by the teacher who wanted 3 * 4 = 12 programs that took care of inserting into a linked list in the start , middle and end of a linked list. However since her program took care of all the cases with a single routine it was not correct and she had written too much to solve the problem. However can someone explain to me on what basis you reject such a routine - efficiency , readability , modularity or what and ask for 3 separate routines to do this. And all this for what, a linked list insertion. For those readers of my blog who are computer illiterate this is akin to being forced to buy 3 different machines for playing English Audio CDs, Tamil Audio CDs and Hindi CDs when there is no difference in the file formats of the CDs under consideration and all 3 machines would be able to play the same ! No, don't bring in region protection for DVDs.

I didn't believe that education was this bad in India until today but having heard this horror story today I can't believe that no one else faces such issues. If this is the state of education in one of the so-called "good" colleges in Chennai, then what would happen in a small village in a remote part of the country.

This particular student cannot appeal to the management regarding such arbitrary decisions because the college is autonomous and the same teacher will decide whether she passes this course or not and will affect her marks in every single test hence. When there is no method for recourse or appeal what do intelligent students do in such "autonomous colleges" ? The question is , is anybody listening ?

Noise makers.

2008-08-14T08:05:00.009+05:30

Alert readers (numbering in the double digits after discovery of a colony of readers in Australia) of my blog would remember an earlier post about our esteemed neighbour back in good ol' Madras. 6 a.m. is a time that one spots in Madras thanks to piping hot filter coffee made by the pater with freshly boiled milk and the so-called first decoction of the day. However it is also a time when the city slowly wakes up and there is peace in the world with absolute silence, the flowers blooming outside, birds chirping . At this point you remember Shri Nehru's statement about paradise et al and you wonder if something magical has happened to good old Madras. You feel benign reading the latest edition of the Hindu with that magical cuppa of steaming coffee and and your senses beginning to get into a state where they'd be raring to go .

However the trauma starts just about the time that you are finishing the last pages of the Hindu, the last drops of coffee are left in the tumbler and the trigger for this affliction of the senses is the sound of a car being unlocked using a remote. For those of the readers that are not savvy with respect to automobiles, these are devices that can perform central locking / unlocking and the automobile under question utters a squawk or two depending on the operation being performed . A survey conducted by yours truly (ratified by the mater's survey over the past 2 months) over the past 4 days has indicated a daily average of 20 squawks within 10 minutes which peters down to atleast 3 squawks an hour till 9 a.m at which point of time the misery alluded to in my previous post begins. The pater has a plausible theory about this device being used as a bell to summon the watchman at regular intervals from the gate to the house, a distance of a few feet ( order of 10 feet) . Ofcourse if this were a castle and the watchman sat at a distance of a few km you'd use this device to summon the watchman to do your bidding but 10 feet is probably the height of laziness.

Is the laziness quotient of TamBrahms increasing ?

Ode for a car.

2008-08-04T00:18:00.006+05:30

Selling off my car today after haggling a bit with the buyer made me a bit melancholic about the ways in which life is changing in its own accord. When it was time to move on from my old car to the spanking new WagonR. The readers of this blog can well be reminded about the time I took posession of it here . As I said in that post, despite Maruti the car was awesome and will remain in my memories for being the first new car I owned. There will probably be many other cars but this will remain etched in my life for .....

The countless drives to Bombay, the many drives to work, the thrill of driving your parents around Mahableshwar in the clouds and seeing the pride in their faces. The joys of getting the new job, the bliss of long drives with someone special and the midnight snacks where friends and family enjoyed robbing yours truly of his hard earned salary.

The disappointment of rejections, the pain of running around for paperwork associated with moving, the pain with friends making you drive 35 km to leave you there stranded and so on.

Anyways good car thanks for lighting up my life (from the entire family) and may you serve your new master as well as you did serve me. Here's to all the good times and wish you many more ..........

India's true weapons

2008-07-05T08:58:00.008+05:30

Spending the weekend at my uncle's place led to the usual questions on the breakfast table - what does one have as a side dish with the hot Dosas that my cousin was making. We'd run out of the staple accompaniment to the ubiquitous dosa - the omnipresent molaga podi (or gun powder for the more North Indian of my readers) , the stodgy mixer grinder taking a forced break thanks to the immense work load or the low voltage supply . Hence yours truly re-discovered the good old avakkai on the table . Having avakkai with your food wakes you , your alimentary canal and your intestines up as one re-discovered today. It has an effect on you which can be best described by Wooster describing Jeeves' concoctions. "The intestine discovers a life of its own, the eyeballs roll about in their sockets and everything seems dull and grey for a while that you think its time to ring for the solicitor to draw up your last w. and t. " and rather better words to that effect.

The average tambrahm enjoys his pickles as much as he enjoys the various forms of sambar , rasam , parotta (not the north Indian variety). It is to him the equivalent of sugar and milk in filter coffee, the "taalichu kottu" to the dish and the prasaadam from the various temples. Take it away and you'll see resentment slowly appearing and storm clouds gathering.

Many moons ago (when Chennai was still Madras and I was a kid in shorts roaming on bicycles), a friend of mine with the moniker Papa used to bring curd rice and avakkai for lunch, one can still remember seeing that the curd rice had a bit of avakkai in it with the result that it wasn't clear whether he'd have avakkai as a condiment to the curd-rice or curd as a condiment to avakkai-rice. He was significantly less chirpy the days he didn't have the avakkai rice and we concluded that there was a direct variation between the amount of avakkai in his curd rice (or curd in his avakkai rice) to his state of mind. Last heard he was happily married in the U.S. of A but I believe Saravana Bhavan would have a contract to feed him well.

P.S. The Prime Minister should invite the left leaders for a meal which serves curd rice, avakkai and gongura (this is a cousin that our telugu brethren up north have invented which is a spicier pickle than the avakkai) . Given that the left leaders are all in their 70s hopefully with their weakened digestive tracts, they'd spend the whole of the 7th else where and the nuke deal will be agreed upon !

Reverse horns and the conundrum of the Tambrahm

2008-07-04T09:09:00.006+05:30

(Paam Pa Pa Paam Paam Pa Pa Pa Paaam Paaam Paam)*2 Pa Pa Pa Pa Paaam Paaam

No no this isn't gibberish, I haven't retarded in my mental stature but an attempt at reproducing my agony at various sounds that come out in the neighbourhood in the mornings.

One of the most amazing utilizations of sound is in reverse horns. For the uninformed about cars among my readers I refer to devices in cars that make an infernal racket while reversing - these can range from the latest (B/K)ollywood top single to a weird beeping noise that damages your ear drums and jangles your nerves.

Our neighbour has a beautiful small car that makes the most awful noise whilst reversing. Its now a rule that no cars should make this infernal racket whilst reversing but its a custom more honoured in the breach than in the observance. The upshot is that your friendly neighbourhood tambrahm (of whom my neighbour and yours truly are esteemed representatives), will sit on the arm chair and comment on the fact that the country is going to dogs. The same uncle would thunder over a cup of steaming hot coffee made by the mami of the house "There is no civic sense in Madras and everything is so much better in Delhi, Amsterdam, New York, London or where the offspring or some distant onnu vitta chittappas grandson is present." . The location could also be a small village 24 miles out of Boston getting to which will be more familiar to them rather than getting to Vandalur (where's that ? ) from Mylapore . However the act of jangling the nerves of every sensible chap in the neighbourhood doesn't seem to count in the act of improper behaviour. Cribbing is fine but then be sporting about it and don't spout contradictions ..

Ofcourse there is the old mama who says - Daaai Adhigaprasangi - edu da komba .

Getting even with the chennai autos !

2008-07-03T11:58:00.006+05:30

This post is for those readers of my blog who've endured my rants about the Autorickshaws over time and was a result of a conversation with the to-be missus about getting even with the rascalaaa rickshaws..

So on a boring balmy evening after sitting at home for 3 days doing nothing much other than getting bugzilla working on the laptop and trying to fix some bugs in the compiler I maintain , I was positively in the need of some fresh air. I'd decided to go pick up a book on C++ ( now that GCC is to be written in C++, I need to start brushing up my C++ skills over time) .Watching the market yo-yo senselessly over the past few days I'd decided that it was time I got a lesson on Intelligent Investing my Benjamin Graham. Making a few phone calls to Landmark helped me ascertain that they had precisely one copy of the book and I was welcome to come and grab it at their City Centre outlet.

Now once you decide to travel somewhere in Madras (or Chennai! ) you need to understand whether

a. you are in the mood to haggle with the ricks .
b. you want to haggle with the ricks.
c. you want a ride that would leave your nerves gangling and your blood pressure levels reaching sky high.

Deciding that I was becoming a more responsible chap with the impending act of marriage and all that , I decided to take the easier option of giving it back to the ricks. I took the train from the MRTS station that is 500m from home and got off at Light House about 5 km away in about 5-6 minutes and having paid the full return fare of 10 Rs upto beach. (There's another reason why I donated about 4 rupees to the MRTS, it was because I only had a 50 rupee note and didn't want to hear , kasmaalam change kudu ya) . It was for sure an infinitely more relaxed experience of taking the train because I didn't have to wince at sharp turns to avoid big buses, lots more air (less sweat) , hardly any people in the train ( I could choose to stand, sit , lie down in the seats as was convenient to me!) .

Watching the autos as they were standing in front of the station I couldn't resist but think in my head .

Themadrasi 1 vs . Autos - 2000

P.S. An auto rickshaw trip to the above mentioned place and back home would have been a haggle for about 100 bucks both ways and with its associated mental tensions.

The mile high grid lock and painting parabolas ...

2008-06-22T04:28:00.006+05:30

So, we were chugging along merrily upto Surat on the London Mumbai flight of Jet Airways assisted by favourable tail winds that let us reach our milestone about 10 minutes in advance. I was impressed by the considerable skills shown by the pilot to paint conic sections up in the sky ably assisted in this activity by the air traffic controllers. Burning ATF over the Arabian Sea is a punishment meted out to aircrafts and passengers sitting in them by the enlightened few or na

It was impressive to note the ingenuity in the flight path which contained in the parabola from London Heathrow to Bombay a couple of ellipses, a triangle where a straight line would have done and curves along the z axis that resembled a spike equivalent to the most volatile day in the Bombay stock market. All the variations added to the parabolic curve were done in what would have been a distance of about 200 km from Bombay .

Well one would have heard and read about grid locks on roads, but if you want to see grid locks in the air you could start by flying into Mumbai or Chennai on an international flight. Now Pakoda Kadar suggests might be a bigger tourism business because people would fly helicopters to it. Now now , Pakoda don't forget the case of the golden egg laying goose being cooked !

Oh Woman Woman

2008-06-21T12:53:00.004+05:30

Overheard Conversation between Arun and his to be missus.

(Arun) - What do I get you from Canada ?
(The missus) - Well, let me take a look ..

Clickety click click click ...

(The missus) - Everythings too expensive.

Camera cuts to Arun on the way back from Canada.

(Arun) - BTW I didn't get you anything . Everything was too expensive.
(Missus) - You disappoint me .
(Arun ) - Did you expect something ?
(Missus) - Ofcourse what did you think ?
(Arun) - What do I get you ? ?You said you didn't want anything. Aren't you supposed to be deterministic ?
(Missus) - Hmmmmm
(Arun ) - Got you chocolates by the ton.
(Missus) - Huh ! What do you think ? India is some 4th world country or what ? We get Daim , Lindt and Toblerone here as well.

Arun groans inwards .

(Missus ) - See if you can find something. What was your budget )?
(Arun) - XXX $$$$$
(Missus ) - What ? You wastrel ..
(Arun) - Erm ...
(Missus )- If I had known this I would have asked you for something that was worth XXX/20 -
(Arun)- Then why didn't you tell me ?
(Missus) - Because you didn't tell me your budget.
(Arun_) - Uh oh .

and in the process of becoming the nth guy hunting for gifts in Heathrow 20 minutes before the flight left, missed the flight. Remember Bertie Wooster - Oh Woman Woman !

Vikram Pandit @ citibank claps his hands in delight . Subprime ! Shubprime be damned - One more chap brandishing his card in the service of the missus.

The juggernaut that is the IPL.

2008-05-27T23:31:00.007+05:30

So, the last few weeks have changed the face of cricket in the country that yours truly resides in . At the end of 50 odd matches - the semi-finalists have been identified , Punjab, Chennai, Rajasthan and Delhi . Its also a sight to see all playgrounds full and to watch some new kids come and play fearless cricket. It was a revelation to see that there is talent in a lot of the local kids - S A Asnodkar , A M Nayar, Manpreet Gony, Sidharth Trivedi, Badrinath, Suresh Raina and a few of the new overseas kids Albie Morkel, Shaun Marsh , Luke Pomersbach, Shane Watson to name a few. It was also good to see the old warhorses ( Glenn Mcgrath, Shaun Pollock , Jayasurya , Shane Warne) also give a fair run to the new kids. as well as show them the work ethic that has made them into the legends that they are.

At the time of writing this, Rajasthan are in the semifinals whilst Chennai and Punjab square up to decide the other contestant. Much has been said about Chennai not having enough good players once the likes of Hussey and Hayden left. However they've just about hung by the skin of their teeth to make it and in the big semifinal it would be a fair comment that Punjab would be feeling under the cosh at 63-7 . However as many people say , its a funny old game and funnier things have happened. As the sobriquet under which I write this blog suggests ,I must confess a soft corner for the Chennai Super Kings and can't resist writing a couple of lines indicating my support for them.

Come June 2 I wonder what I shall do at 8p.m. on a week night without changing the channel to the official broadcaster. The national teams shall start capturing public attention from the next week and the existing city based teams will disperse. I wonder what would happen with international cricket. However with tactics learnt about various players from different team mates , it would be interesting to see the impact on international cricket. If nothing else it will show up the wannabes from the true masters and would make life that much tougher for the international cricketer. It would also improve the game that much more and provide a way of taking the game to newer markets as well as rejuvenating it in older staler markets (read the UK).

However lets keep the gyan aside, for now its time to, sit back , relax and enjoy Albie Morkel ( A South African) captained by Mahendra Singh Dhoni ( A Bihari adopted as a Madrasi) bowl to Wilkin Mota ( a Mumbaikar plying his trade with the Punjab Kings XI owned by a Mumbaikar - Preity Zinta) at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.

A Prisoner of Birth

2008-05-23T23:33:00.004+05:30

Yesterday, Lord Jeffrey Archer decided to drop by at the local Landmark store here in Pune. So, one managed to get there by 6:30 sharp, bought copies of his latest novel Prisoner of Birth and his first book - Not a Penny More Not a Penny Less and sat down to listen to the master speak . Having grown up reading his books as a kid and Not a Penny more Not a Penny Less being among the first, I was quite joyous of the occasion and the opportunity to see him in the flesh .

He started off talking about his routine and what it meant to have Not a Penny More Not a Penny less rejected nearly 20 times as well as going through 17 drafts of his latest book. Its very interesting to note that every successful person has a routine that they fall back on , to ensure success. There were a large number of people gathered in the first floor hall of the Landmark store in Pune , much beyond the expected capacity. There were as many people standing in the aisles as there were sitting on the chairs. All in all a typical jam packed room . Jeffrey Archer paid tribute to RK Narayan and claimed to have started reading Malgudi Days and said that he was going back to read that every time he got a break. That's exactly how most folks seem to read books that they really like - A Prisoner of Birth was no different for me as I started it around midnight and finished it by about 3:30 a.m.

He also promised to sign every single book and said that he wouldn't leave before doing so . The queue started off 3 rows wide in the front of the room and by the time it reached me it was a single line - At some point I started getting irritated with the Indian adaptation of the queue, something that Lord Archer must have been horrified at . In Britain you form queues for everything and you leave 1/2 a foot between 2 individuals as well as stand in a single file, very unlike our Indian queues which are serpentine and jam packed with people.

A prisoner of birth raises interesting points, after all - you don't choose which country you are born in , you don't choose your parents, you don't choose the environment in which you get born in and you don't choose what skin colour you have. So what do you choose really in life ? Make do and do the best in the circumstances that the game of life pushes you through.

On a wing and a prayer.

2008-05-16T09:06:00.005+05:30

The headlines scream - Air travel in India is the next big thing after world peace. World war II pilots used to fly missions on a wing and a prayer describing a situation where they possibly ran out of fuel on the return legs to their bases or nursing their aircraft back to the base.

India's started building new airports and hopefully (when there is no ATF left or impossibly expensive to travel by air because of the increase in the costs ) these will be ready. Last week when one was on a Deccan flight from Chennai to Hyderabad the aircraft taxied on to the runway and prepared for the takeoff sequence. After going on 1/4th distance on the runway, the pilot braked hard, did a hard veer to the left and moved into the taxiway and went back around in the queue of planes to take off. No one knows what really happened beyond the ATC, the pilot and the staff. Sitting in the first row, yours truly was able to observe the stewardess give me a conspiratorial grin and then laugh away to glory and describe a story to her colleague about how it was possible that there was another aircraft attempting to land at the same time.

Reading an article in India Today about the chaos in airports one is really not surprised about seeing the current situation develop. Meanwhile 3 cheers for Laloo Yadav and the Railways.

The great tamilian rickshaw ripoff

2008-04-30T17:07:00.004+05:30

Conversation

Me (near home) : Need to go to Spencers (about 6km away)
Autorickshaw guy: 75 saar
Me: 40 .
Autorickshaw guy: 65 saar ... too far.. Too many oneways Saar ..
Me :45 - 65 is too much for 6 km. and one ways are in your favour dolt.
A.G. : 60
Me: 45
A.G.: 55
Me: 50 . lets go

The same rickshaw driver to go to Adyar which is about 2 km from home will demand 40 bucks and have no clue about why he is asking that. When asked about this dichotomy he would say Spencer i will get savaaari (passengers) but then in Adyar I won't. I say "what splendid rot" , the rickshaws in Madras or Chennai as it should now be called are a bunch of rotten thieves, with meters as a show piece. Very recently I happened to be a part of a quiz where there were questions regarding Standard, Diamond, Ashoka and asking what linked them. I was one of the few who knew the answer thanks to the non-working meters of these auto rickshaws.

So one more cross for Chennai to bear and its great politicos now mulling over whether to start a BRTS or a Metro Rail similar to DMRC . I have been reading the papers with great interest about public hearings on the metro rail and the BRTS. First I say, do something simpler , fix autorickshaws with meters that work.

The fascination for early morning walks.

2008-04-30T11:03:00.004+05:30

Conversation .

Mom : You were a worm when you were born. Everyone was worried if this kid would even grow. Now we wish the reverse were true.

Uncle : My Activa cries if it has to carry you.

With such callous remarks pointed towards the slight increase in adipose tissue around the waist, yours truly decided that it was time to go for what is the Madrasi's true passion, an early morning walk. After enthusiastic friends gifted me a Nike + ipod pedometer with some inspiring words from PB , one had decided to put it to good use. But of course it needed the prod from one's close Rs .

Boat Club Road in Madras is one of the few beautiful areas left in Madras - Tree lined avenues, clean roads, zero stray dogs, no overflowing garbage bins and a healthy smattering of walkers who don't gawk at an oversized creature attempting to get back into shape with an ipod for company. The walk to Boat Club Road is about 800 m from my house and then a full circle around the avenues with trees that form a canopy on top is about 1.2 miles. Its certainly interesting to note one's old HOD turn up for a walk in the same area and to be remembered by him despite one's vagabond Bachelor days during under-graduation. Then one gets to see old classmates parents and check on his / her existence and which part fo the planet we call earth they exist on. All the while you sweat by the buckets, the rag which is a towel is soaked with sweat so that you can wring out more buckets. Ofcourse you then look out and hope that you don't have to sing Here comes the Sun, lets sweat gallons of sweat instead ..

If only there was an easy way to collect the sweat of all the walkers in Madras there would never be any water shortage in Madras.

Now thats a disgusting thought and on that note shall head out ...

P.S. Why am I in Madras - To sweat out buckets and enjoy the sun in the middle of summer..

Of funny signposts.

2008-04-20T09:31:00.004+05:30

So when John Wright in Indian Summers mentioned funny roadsigns along rural India , I was loath to believe some of them (or believed they were on their way out) until I saw a couple of them on the long winding East Coast Road from Madras to Pondicherry. The 2 signs that I was referring to above read something like

"Atoms for Prosperity" and "Fast Reactors for prosperity - Bharani" .

If a government organization can dish out such heavy stuff , private enterprise will (what's that word ?) better it in orders of magnitude and efficiency.

After a point I realized we had crossed Kalpakkam on the East Coast Road from Madras to Pondicherry and that's one of the towns that hosts nuclear powered plants in India. Not soon after I happened to see a sign post proclaiming Wooster Nagar in Pudupattinam (new town), (a new settlement on the East Coast Road ) , a testament to the spreading reach of Wodehouse in the south of India .

Teaching again ..

2008-04-11T03:45:00.004+05:30

So, one managed to get to the university again this month to teach on a couple of days about what the Department calls Operating Systems / Low Level Programming. Many folks say that teaching is a pain , its an art and its definitely not a science. I enjoyed it as long as I didn't have too much load at work and not too mentally tired. The last thing you want to do after a strenuous time at work is to come back home and prepare for a course lecture. Today was one day where I enjoyed myself again. Choosing to go the blackboard chalk and extempore way that I went ahead with my talk instead of what could be German or Japanese efficiency in putting everything into a presentation - I found myself in a position where I had to pull the audience along , open up to them , have some of them open up to be able to ask reasonable questions and not just sit there as mute spectators. Seldom has one felt a thrill equivalent to the kick I got today out of teaching 35 -40 post graduate students about Debugging logic , theory , how does source line numbers map to addresses, where to look for information etc. etc. etc. I think I had a reasonable class given that they laughed at all my simple jokes which sometimes don't come out all that easily.

Thinking about teachingg as such, I realized that one needs to enjoy it or (s)he'll be a total misfit in that community. Its also a bit of a thankless job but the satisfaction one gets in addition to a total ego kick about teaching at the university is quite a carrot.

In the mythical quest of your lakshya.

2008-03-30T11:41:00.005+05:30

There's a line in the movie Lakshya where Preeti Zinta describes Hrithik Roshan "uska zindagi mein lakshya nahi hai" . All uncles, aunties, grandparents and parents alike since time immemorial have gone one to say that their kids (even if they are nice fat adults in the mid 30s) don't have the so-called Lakshya. Now what is this lakshya that people keep alluding to - Is it to be a mission statement like all these Six Sigma (or whatever is the latest fad in the world of quality) to be hung around your neck and proclaimed to the world ? Is it something that needs to be advertised to the world in general about what the so called Lakshya is and then one noisily goes about achieving it ? Is the Lakshya to be multiple XXXXX $$$$$ in your bank account, or vast tracts of land or the latest gadgetry or such materialistic goals ? Or is it to be something like the experience of running your own company or achieving a Ph.D or getting an MBA . At a particularly interesting cross-roads of life, one has made certain changes inclusive of quitting a steady job to work on relocating one self to a totally alien country (the only link to which is history books, the television and tons of Wodehouse novels) . But then the future is unknown and thats why its so exciting isn't it ? So does one really need a clear cut Lakshya and put out one's own mission statement.

Nostalgia and all that.

2008-03-26T00:38:00.003+05:30

So the last few days have been spent in recovering from jetlag , thermal shocks ( a jump from 35 deg. C to 3 deg C and then back to 38 deg C cannot be very pleasant) and an impromptu vacation to the city of Hyderabad where unseasonal rain brought the temperature down over the weekend.

Working from home 24x7 is very interesting. One has to have far more discipline to work from home rather than from an office is something that I am realizing by true experience now. Having worked from home in the past I've always found it nice but then there was always a feeling of being able to get into office at some point of time .

Drove back and from the university today sometime around lunch as one got tired running to and from the passport office and ended up visiting my old alma mater. Was worth going in and having a chat with my old prof - had lunch ( Masala dosa Sambar awful as is the case in most restaurants in Pune including the fabled Vaishali) for 10 bucks. However good old HFC is gone .

Airports and what not ...

2008-03-17T00:51:00.003+05:30

So travelling from Leicester to Heathrow by cab was an interesting task. One got hold of a cab and then slept all the way in . The motorways here (see I am now blogging like a Brit ! ) are quite unlike the kinds back home. Lots of information about whats wrong with the junctions, tom-toms away lane systems and speed limits. I certainly don't think I'll be driving here very soon . Its going to be darned painful to follow the rules and unlearn all the Indianisms from one's driving habits which will be rather painful .

Thankfully the security lines at Terminal 3 were very peaceful - not too much to wait and just walked through without even a frisk though one had to remove his belt, shoes put his laptop through X ray machines and what not. However given all the hype about long lines today was rather peaceful and one got in ok. It was then time to pull out the credit card and put it to merry swiping use.

Rightho my man .

2008-03-16T14:35:00.002+05:30

What ho What ho What ho . Right ho , Right ho ,Right ho. These were the words that rang through the idiot box the other day once I had added myself to the evergrowing list of owners of the Jeeves and Wooster series. I've watched about 6 episodes until this point of time, each about an hour and a laugh riot. Now I am at peace with the world, the sun is shining out even though in a windy watery sort of a manner and one can admire the gales blowing outside with a hot cuppa inside and a warm fire lighting up the fireplace. Now this is what is Lord Ickenham would refer to as cheer and joy .

Cricket where art thou ?

2008-03-13T07:45:00.002+05:30

In a cab from Queen Square to Welshback , I heard sound of bat on ball , a comment from David Gower and then realized that finally someone in this country was also following Englands progress in New Zealand. So, finally one gets to hear cricket in this country. Its amazing that everyone wants to know about how much cricket is followed back home in India and expects automatically that as an Indian I would be as fanatical about cricket. This certainly is the place for cricket and looks as though I shall come back sometime to play cricket in the English Summer.

Now thats something to look forward to ain't it.

A tour of Bristol

2008-03-09T06:58:00.003+05:30

Its just a 2 week trip to attend a formality of an interview, which I've cleared now and figure out about housing in the UK and moving over to the UK. Its been a great trip over and jumping right from 30 deg. in Bombay to 3 deg in Bristol was like jumping from the oven into the freezer . As is the standard warning from everyone - cover yourself in layers, keep warm, eat good food, don't take any pangas and have fun !

So Monday came bright and shining at 7 deg C which was said to be brilliant weather and I was thinking hmmmm .. If this is the best, what can be the worst. The cold is fine and can be tolerated pretty much everything is heated and kept warm but then the wind chill kills you. I've been walking around a lot the last few days meeting up with my good ol' mate RVK as well as figuring out things about England. Its been good long walks and I must have walked more in this whole week than I would have done in India being the lazy bum that I am. So I wondered if today would be the same, nice sunny and maybe I can walk around and sit with my laptop on College Green off Park Lane and use the free wifi. Pretty much all of Park Street free wifi and I wanted to sit a bit in the sun. Alas, that was not to happen since it started coming down and down and down and down . A bit boring one might say but that didn't deter me from walking to Broadsmead (a big mall) and buying myself a thick jacket 3 books and some dvds of Yes Minister and Yes Prime minister. After that it was time to open up viks tomato chutney, put it on some bread and eat it enjoying re-runs of the dvds I'd bought.

More I think will be later since I am tiured.

Brrr. old chap and all that !

2008-03-04T14:12:00.001+05:30

Hi there old chap - What ho and all that . Its freezing up here in Bristol and I am loving it . The British housing system is interesting and I shall be looking at finding some houses in the City Centre where all the action really is. Its freezing and a huge thermal shock to jump literally from the frying pan at 30 Deg in Bombay to 3 deg . and last night it went down to almost 2 deg. ! And with a wind blowing it felt like sitting in a freezer with an industrial fan blowing at you !

Other than that things are pretty neat and nice . Like the organization of things so far and would like to see the worst of the weather. More updates later. !

Work Week begins.

2008-02-25T09:12:00.007+05:30

On a Monday morning which I so hate. A thought that has certainly persisted from school is one of getting rid of Mondays . The last few weeks have been hectic, we've been struggling with a particularly onerous bug report that hasn't yet been fixed and is leaving me with some incredible questions. The other thing has been some of the feedback coming out of MWC for my employer (Azingo) and the phone we are building - its been quite impressive to see the feedback . I haven't been that greatly involved with the phone but some of the performance work my team did last year on this is finally paying off. Also some of the other stuff that I did which is still under wraps would be good to see later this year. I shall be leaving this place soon and its been a pretty poignant journey from a wide eyed fresher to a roly poly experienced engineer in the industry today. Lots of good friends made for life, lots of happy moments - quite a few disappointing moments . Teams set up and dispersed and then finally as one of the first members of the tools tribe, slightly nostalgic about leaving the place . Lots of people talk about Android, Azingo and all the linux phones coming out - It would be very interesting to see how this whole thing plays out. I shall be watching from the sidelines popcorn in hand. !

Work @ 7:30 a.m.

2008-02-15T08:20:00.002+05:30

There is an eerie silence as you walk past all the quiet monitors , some of them blinking away others maintained silently. The office assistance staff has only a skeletal crew of 1 chap filling up the water and you wonder if it is the same place that is usually a beehive of activity. There is the sound of utter silence possibly broken only by the noise as one types out this blog entry and the whine of my workstation as it continues chewing on a CPU intensive task that we compiler writers love to burden our machines with.

It is quiet and peaceful and one is so much more productive and not distracted by all the noise that starts creeping in with the influx of people. This really is an odd time for me to get into work though one hsa done this on a regular basis nearly 7 long years - getting in early and leaving by 6 p.m.

So what ho ?

2008-01-19T15:32:00.000+05:30

And pigs can fly and the sun rises in Western Australia. India just beat Australia in their own backyard at Perth. Perth - the so called grave of cricketers from the sub-continent, on what would be the bounciest wicket in Australia . Pakoda Kadar, ex student of RKM Vivekananda College and currently Bullet enthusiast called to ask me for status of the requirements from my last blog post.

1. A double century by one of the fab 4 whacking the famous 4 pronged attack to all corners. If it is a certain Mr. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar it would be a repeat of 1992 .

No double century from anyone . Not even a century. The highest score from Dravid for 93.

2. An opening dash by Viru .

There it was . Perth seemed to suit him

Also the interesting exchange.
-> Viru to Kumble - One more over to Ishant Sharma . Ponting strike pey hai.
-> Kumble - ek aur daalega.
-> Ishant Sharma - Haan ek aur.

This after Ishant worked on Ricky Ponting in the morning for 8 overs making him play , miss and get hit on the body was the reason for this exchange. 3 balls later Mr. Ponting was trudging back to the pavilion wondering if a certain H Singh had come out as I Sharma.

3. A 5 wicket haul for Harbhajan Singh (including the wickets of Ponting, Clarke, Hayden, Symonds )

Damn! he was dropped.

4. A century by Anil Kumble

He got a pair but then he got 6 centuries of wickets. Wicket 600 came up and yesterday he learnt how to get the leg break going . The leg-break turned. Way to go, Jumbo may you confuse more batsmen now with actual leg spin rather than flippers, top spinners and wrong 'uns .

Tranquility on the Expressway.

2008-01-14T01:26:00.000+05:30

Driving back from Bombay on the express way at night is quite a tranquil experience. For night birds like me its easiest to finish dinner in Bombay and then drive all the way back to Pune under 3 hours instead of waking up early in the morning and driving back. Accompanied by music , your own merry thoughts about life and the flashing lights on the expressway make for a mesmerizing drive.Throw into this heady mixture, races between 2 juggernauts in the first gear on the ghats at a top speed of 25 kmph, the weaving indicas and qualises trying to make their way past these juggernauts, the sneering corollas and the sedans trying to push their way past your humble WagonR , the hulks of Volvo's which refuse to let you overtake and threaten to push you out like a fly and you have a delectable drive. As an added bonus you can add Mark Knopfler, Pink Floyd, Coldplay and a variety of other artists crooning and make you feel at the top of the world. Once in a while you floor the accelerator, watch out for the response and then utterly enjoy in the thrill of what is essentially a union of man's thoughts and the machine's actions.

Thanks to the number of trips I have done to Bombay in the past few months especially to Powai and Mulund I've now been able to mark out the fastest route to the Eastern Expressway from Pune. Also one knows the turns and the curves pretty well that handling the WagonR is quite a pleasure these days. However as they say, all good things must end soon and I should enjoy the last few months of driving on this expressway.

Monkey business.

2008-01-12T19:56:00.000+05:30

Journalists should possibly stop covering the big Sydney imbroglio that led to Peter Roebuck calling for the sacking of Ponting as captain in what was the most hard hitting article I have read in the recent past and brutally honest. The funny bit was opinion polls suggesting that the Australian public was quite with the popular sentiment as in India. The other funny articles online include one by Pranav about one-tup cricket as is famous in the various terraces of various apartments in every Indian city.

The latest in what seems to be an unending discussion on what was possibly said drags Andrew Symonds poor mom into the whole discussion. I wonder what levels will journalism stoop to in this case. There even was talk in Australian papers about Indian arrogance with the ICC . The funniest part of the decision was the apparent contradiction in Mike Procters statement.

The whole thing however has put a different perspective for the Perth test. I wonder what would happen there . Will it be played in complete silence ? Or will Australia continue with their mental disintegration to have some of it dished back at them . I still remember the seminal 2001 series where the Australians first got the mental disintegration dished back at them and famously got Steven Waugh out. I can't find that particular issue of India Today but I remember how India started giving it back to Australia since then. Ofcourse the funny part according to a lot of legends has been that Australia have behaved like cry-babies and only the Indian captain and team have moved on with their heads held high. Certainly Australia are going to have to think a lot about what they want to do or show in the future. There has been a very strong statement by Anil Kumble about the spirit of the game and that has been made in such a statesmanesque fashion that everyone is thanking their stars for him being appointed captain instead of Dhoni.

Lots of people have talked about how India is using its arrogance thanks to it having the richest board . Its interesting to note that none of these folks question the US dominance in the world economy. Money does speak. This series is financially lucrative to Cricket Australia - make no mistake about that . Even if the team leaves early and India has to pay out the money , there would be no issues since the payout would happen , India would invite Pakistan over or have a tri-series with someone else in India and make up the moolah. Its high time the ICC started giving some respect to India for the amount of commerce it is bringing to this game. Otherwise how do you expect the market for this to grow ? The biggest migrants in the world today happen to be the Indians and the Chinese and this is the way that cricket will spread with the Indians playing it in different parts of the world. So the spirit of the game and all is fine but treat India with some respect. The BCCI doesn't demand it , many times the BCCI blunders in the ICC with short term commercial gains in mind but its high time the ICC, Australia and England got off their high horses because they started the game. England might be the birth of cricket, but today crickets home lies in the maidans of Bombay, the streets of Ranchi, the beaches of Madras and the bylanes of Jalpaiguri from where the next big cricketer would appear.

Finally what every Indian fan would like to see in Perth -
An Indian win comprising of :

1. A double century by one of the fab 4 whacking the famous 4 pronged attack to all corners. If it is a certain Mr. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar it would be a repeat of 1992 .!
2. An opening dash by Viru .
3. A 5 wicket haul for Harbhajan Singh (including the wickets of Ponting, Clarke, Hayden, Symonds )
4. A century by Anil Kumble

R51 RIP - Welcome T61

2008-01-11T01:13:00.000+05:30

So, its finally done - the good old R51 that I used at work decided to conk off making a weird noise something like a "platch" and I had to sadly put it away to rest yesterday. Within a couple of hours I had a shining new T61 that is much faster, lighter and more powerful than the R51.

However I have feisty running on it and getting sound working on a T61 using feisty is quite a painful task and I don't yet know how to make it work. In addition to backing up and reorganizing all the data on my old laptop its going to be a while before the T61 starts playing any music. Anyways RIP old one . I shall quite miss the brick .

Double Standards.

2008-01-05T01:41:00.000+05:30

Harbhajan Singh gets pulled up for a verbal altercation with Symonds started with what Tendulkar calls an amusing heckling and every Australian wants to brand any conversation that any cricketer has with Symonds as being of a racist tinge. I can't understand how Symonds feels that there's a racist tinge to everything said against him , is it his own insecurity that makes him and others around him view anything said against him as racist ?

Ricky Ponting is given out and walks out showing his bat to the umpire, shows dissent with the decision and gets away with nothing at all . 4 umpiring decisions go against India and we don't complain and the ICC does nothing at all. One never thought about these things earlier , but such behaviour by ICC match officials is getting routine and unacceptable. I think this is utter nonsense and if Harbhajan Singh gets pulled up , India should walk out of the tour.

At the end of the test match Ricky Ponting says "I hope this match is remembered for the cricket that was played. Yes, there were a few controversies by the side but the match itself was played in the right spirit and I hope it continues,"

I say my foot - Is he referrring to another form of "spirits" which are liquids of an alcoholic nature ? The match would be remembered for the cricket that was played by one team with 11 members who tried to play cricket and the other team which left behind what is basic etiquette in only what can be termed its greed to win . The next time Australia visits India - you can be sure that the crowds are going to boo them , there would be monkeys hired and brought into the grounds and loudspeakers making monkey chants.

However the question of the day was "The Australian Prime Minister visited the Sydney Cricket Ground wearing a monkey suit (Thats a Tuxedo, in a language known as Australian) . Now does that make him a monkey ?"

The end result is that the papers are reporting that Bhajji gets a ban whilst we look forward to playing more games with cheats , who think that if someone questions their integrity one has committed a sin. Words don't mean much ,tis actions that count and from todays actions I think Mr. Pontings credibility and the Australian cricket team's integrity is at an all time low.

2008 - here we go

2008-01-02T02:10:00.000+05:30

So it is the night of the 1st ( lets not say first night for obvious reasons :P. ) and I couldn't sleep . So, 2008 has arrived and with it all the cheer and joy. Let me first blog what I did on the night of the 31st. Sat at home, read the Da Vinci code, listened to music on my new ipod nano and slept on time . Did not turn on the tv to watch all the NDTV 24x7 programmes on what happened in 2007 et al. Now, folks might wonder why did one do this ... I was just about tired after that trip to Goa where we had a lot of fun and then promptly caught the flu which left me coughing and sneezing all day today . Sitting at home, drinking kashaayam and doing nothing much else for the whole day.

The other fun part about New Year's is making resolutions that you break the next day. Now that is as traditional as the Sun rising from the East I guess. So lets see... What are to be my New Year Resolutions ?...

2007 year in review.

2007-12-31T18:56:00.000+05:30

So 2007 goes away and 2008 comes in - the last post for the year . Its been a hectic year with this 58th blog post for the year (the maximum in the last 4 years of blogging !) , lots of trips to all parts of India- I've lost count but seem to have averaged atleast 1 trip to Bombay every month for sure - Finally managed to see Goa - drove my WagonR all over Western Maharashtra and to Hyderabad . The highlights ofcourse were the trips to Coorg and to Ottawa to attend the GCC summit.

Its been a very satisfying year at work . We internally worked on upgrading our private port of GCC to 4.3 trunk and contributing atleast bug reports to the open source community seems to have helped in improving the final performance of our compiler. Its now is very close to cycle counts from 3.4 and is infinitely better in terms of code size ! . Pretty neat achievement for our team at work .

Playing cricket for possibly the last time in India during the new year. There's an inter IT tournament coming up and we'll be participating and I hope to be playing for sometime. Come the new year and there are lots of changes pending in life . So lets see how it goes.

Go Goa !

2007-12-30T10:57:00.000+05:30

Go Goa , or viva la Goa as you might put it in French ! Having heard a lot about how Goa is different from any other place in India , I'd decided that I would jump on the next opportunity to visit Goa which is exactly what I did on what was a hectic 3 day trip to Goa . The beaches are quite phenomenal with truly white and clean sand , no dirt, friendly people and very good water. We stayed at a place called Majorda and had a private beach to ourselves which was cool though we did visit Bagha and Calingute later at night to see the public beaches. Goa parties like it is no one's business and 24 hours a day. When we were leaving Bagha to return to our hotel at 1 in the morning folks were still streaming in and all decked up to have a party . Just walking around and soaking the atmosphere was quite an experience in itself.

Driving to and from Goa was a novel experience given the fact that you had single lane'd roads for highway lined with trees, breathtaking ghats on either side of the road. But wait , what's the catch - buses and trucks and the odd Santro motoring along with what seemed to be single minded determination to run us off the road . Add to this motley crew a driver who thought himself to be the Indian version of Juan Pablo Montoya, a Toyota Qualis substituting the F1 car and the dirt track from Nippani to Sawantwadi in place of Imola and a whole car full of enthusiastic folks , you had the right ingredients for a heady time.

Merry Christmas and the new year arrives.

2007-12-24T15:04:00.000+05:30

So Ho ho ho and all that, 2007 has been an eventful year more so than 2006 and 2008 promises to be even more interesting. Looking forward to the new year by celebrating it with Bobs and gang at Not Just Jazz by the bay . In addition there is a quick 2 day trip to Goa on the cards - lets see - depending on how much work one finishes today I'll be able to steal some time to visit Goa finally. Having never visited Goa and hearing everyone go on about it and how beautiful it is to visit especially during new year's - I've gone ahead and agreed to join V and gang on a road trip to Goa. ! Now thats gonna be interesting given that there's going to be a huge gang of us going over to Goa and all of us being a really diverse lot . Fun times ahead till the new year.

India Darshan and tortoises.

2007-12-17T18:47:00.000+05:30

The conference in Kanpur was super cool for a variety of reasons including the talks that one got to hear from virtually the gurus of Computer and Compiler science :) . The other reason why Kanpur was cool was because of the weather. It is freezing cold in Kanpur , the sun rises at 6:45 in the morning and sets by 4:45 in the evening. By 5:30 its pitch dark and afterwards roaming outside in the cold weather is quite an act of bravery for a person not used to such cold dry climes. The wind is chill and hits you as though there are knives about in the air.

The train journeys to and from Kanpur were very interesting both of them were epitomes of why the Indian Railways will always remain very effective and punctual here and in the South of India but never in the North of India. The jury is still out on the East of India but looking at when trains from the North - East and the East arrive in Madras or even in Pune (atleast 8 hours late !) . Trivandrum - Guwahati 12 hours late. In any case while going forth self had a first a.c. ticket for a train known as Pushpak Express which was before time at all stations till the Rani of Jhansi started delaying it on its path to Kanpur with the result that it reached an hour late. Travelling in first class with a director of the railways (with whom I had rather interesting conversation regarding how good or bad the railways really were ) was an educational and comfortable experience with the attendants pretty much fawning on us. The return journey was by a train called the Awadh Express that comes all the way from Gorakhpur and comes to Bombay after almost going almost as far north as Delhi (it crawls through Agra so you might as well say thats close to Delhi) . So to come essentially south west as the crow flies , I was on a train that was going all the way around India by first going North , then west, then North West and finally south , south west and south east . This was also quite educational because this is when I learnt the virtue of patience and accepting a situation where one can never have enough.

So the travel continues...

2007-12-11T19:41:00.000+05:30

Just about finishing work to leave for Kanpur to attend a compiler's conference at IIT Kanpur - its going to be cold and also a lonesome train journey after a long long time. Also getting a first class ticket thanks to there being no other direct way of getting there by air is going to prove to be some fun. Work's been hectic trying to figure out a way to sort out a GCC bug with the loop optimizers in making it generate better code for machines with zero overhead loop instructions.

So with all this it sure is going to prove to be a welcome break to smell the roses as they say !

Sawai Gandharva at long last.

2007-12-11T00:31:00.000+05:30

After nearly 8 long years in the city of Pune finally found the time, energy to push myself to go listen to a concert in the Sawai Gandharva music festival. It was Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia playing the flute to a packed audience of nearly 15000 in a ground. People were somehow packed into the ground , sitting and standing and in odd positions . I heard the entire concert standing in an area where we were packed like the proverbial sardines in a tin can.

The master started with a raga in the hindustani mould (I forget its name other than the fact that it started with a J) , reached a crescendo with Vachaspati which is a raaga from Carnatic music featuring a jugalbandhi with the tabla which was awesome to hear. The final raga that he started playing as I left to pick my niece ( who decided to run for the Pune district at Ahmednagar) from the bus stop. was Pahadi. Having heard this in the past and knowing what magic it leaves with the listener I was quite loathe to leave the place but then duty called...

This really is one of the few things that I haven't enjoyed in Pune and finally even that has been completed.

Murphy's laws of Computer Science

2007-12-10T14:50:00.000+05:30

Recently my uncle (newly introduced to the world of programming) sent me a link with murphy's laws of computer science.

Any given program, when running, is obsolete.
Any given program costs more and takes longer each time it is run.
If a program is useful, it will have to be changed.
If a program is useless, it will have to be documented.
Any given program will expand to fill all the available memory.
The value of a program is inversely proportional to the weight of its output.
Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of the programmer who must maintain it.
Every non- trivial program has at least one bug
Corollary 1 - A sufficient condition for program triviality is that it have no bugs.
Corollary 2 - At least one bug will be observed after the author leaves the organization.
Bugs will appear in one part of a working program when another 'unrelated' part is modified.
The subtlest bugs cause the greatest damage and problems.
Corollary - A subtle bug will modify storage thereby masquerading as some other problem.
Lulled into Security Law
A 'debugged' program that crashes will wipe out source files on storage devices when there is the least available backup.
A hardware failure will cause system software to crash, and the customer engineer will blame the programmer.
A system software crash will cause hardware to act strangely and the programmers will blame the customer engineer.
Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition are limited.
Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
Make it possible for programmers to write programs in English, and you will find that programmers can not write in English.
The documented interfaces between standard software modules will have undocumented quirks.
The probability of a hardware failure disappearing is inversely proportional to the distance between the computer and the customer engineer.
A working program is one that has only unobserved bugs.
No matter how many resources you have, it is never enough.
Any cool program always requires more memory than you have.
When you finally buy enough memory, you will not have enough disk space.
Disks are always full. It is futile to try to get more disk space. Data expands to fill any void.
If a program actually fits in memory and has enough disk space, it is guaranteed to crash.
If such a program has not crashed yet, it is waiting for a critical moment before it crashes.
No matter how good of a deal you get on computer components, the price will always drop immediately after the purchase.
All components become obsolete.
The speed with which components become obsolete is directly proportional to the price of the component.
Software bugs are impossible to detect by anybody except the end user.
The maintenance engineer will never have seen a model quite like yours before.
It is axiomatic that any spares required will have just been discontinued and will be no longer in stock.
Any VDU, from the cheapest to the most expensive, will protect a twenty cent fuse by blowing first.
Any manufacturer making his warranties dependent upon the device being earthed will only supply power cabling with two wires.
If a circuit requires n components, then there will be only n - 1 components in locally-held stocks.
A failure in a device will never appear until it has passed final inspection.
Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
A program generator creates programs that are more buggy than the program generator.
All Constants are Variables.
Sent by Risto Matikainen
Constants aren't
Variables won't
The last two laws were sent by Hnathoo
A part dropped from the workbench will roll to a degree of un-reachability proportional to its importance.
Sent by Neal Buddenberg
In a transistor circuit protected by a fuse, the transistor will always blow to protect the fuse.
Sent by Neal Buddenberg
The best way to see your boss is to access the internet.
Or...
No matter how hard you work, the boss will only appear when you access the internet.
The hard drive on your computer will only crash when it contains vital information that has not been backed up.
The last two laws were sent by Charles L. Mays
Computers don't make errors-What they do they do on purpose.
Sent by Terry Jaster
If Murphy's laws are so true then how come I can log onto this site and submi............
[connection reset - error message 928 ]
Sent by Paul Breen
Gumption's Law (?)
Any problem, no matter how complex, can be found by simple inspection.
Corollary: A nagging intruder with unsought advice will spot it immediately.
Sent by Ray Geist who found it handy when he was debugging computer code.
Each computer code has five bugs, and tis number does not depend on how many bugs have been already found (it is conservative).
Sent by Andrew
Profanity is one language all computer users know.
Sent by Jeff Webb
The number of bugs always exceeds the number of lines found in a program.
Sent by Yaron Budowski
The most ominous words for those using computers: "Daddy, what does 'Now formatting Drive C mean'?"
Sent by Yael Dragwyla
When putting something into memory, always remember where you put it.
Sent by Paul Pigott
Every non-trivial program contains at least one bug.
Every non-trivial program can be simplified by at least one line of code.
The conclusion of the last two laws: Every non trivial program can be simplified to one line of code, and it will contain a bug.
Sent by Brandon Aiken
An expert is someone brought in at the last minute to share the blame.
Sent by Bassey Essien.
Debugging is at least twice as hard as writing the program in the first place.
So if your code is as clever as you can possibly make it, then by definition you're not smart enough to debug it.
Sent by Brian Kernighan
Bahaman's Law:
for any given software, the moment you manage to master it, a new version appears.
Sent by Bahaman.
Yakko's addition:
The new version always manages to change the one feature you need most.
Sent by Yakko
Patches - don't.
Sent by Doru Tasca
Most computer errors can be attributed to a similar problem - a screw loose behind the keyboard.
Whenever you need a crucial file from the server, the network will be down.
Whenever you need a crucial file from your hard drive, your computer will crash.
E-mailed tasking will always come just before you log off.
A quarantined virus - will be opened.
A chain letter - will be sent. To global. A dozen times.
The chance of a virus infecting your network is directly proportional to the amount of damage it does.
The chances of getting off work on time is inversely proportional to how much e-mail the boss leaves for until end of the day.
The faster you need a hardcopy, the more people will be using the only office printer.
General Fault Errors are the "Check Engine" light of computers. If it can be fixed, chances are it's not by you.
A patch is a piece of software which replaces old bugs with new bugs.
The chances of a program doing what it's supposed to do is inversely proportional to the number of lines of code used to write it.
The last twelve laws were sent by Ryan Sylvester
The probability of forgetting your password is directly proportional to the frequency of changing it.
No matter how fantastic your latest and greatest PC is, you will be able to buy it for half the price in 12 months.
The last two laws were sent by Zain
The longer it takes to download a program the more likely it won't run.
Sent by Skwirl
Failure is not an option, it's included with the software.
Sent by Paul
A program is good when it's bug free - which is impossible.
Sent by Hans van Rijsse
If you forget to save you're work every 5 minutes, it will break down after you've been at it for an hour.
Sent by Eric Guilbault
It's not a bug, it's an undocumented feature.
The amount of time taken to successfully complete a software project is in direct proportion to the amount of Marketing input.
Corollary: Marketing should not be located in the same city - much less on the same campus - as Engineering and/or Programming.
The only thing worse than an end-user without a clue is an end-user who has a clue - usually the wrong one.
According to most Tech Support people, the most common user error message (regardless of Operating System) is ID 10T.
End-users' Corollary 1: most application failures occur between the hours of 2 and 4 am on a Sunday night - with a 6 am Monday deadline for the project.
End-users' Corollary 2: On the graveyard shift, there's no Tech Support to hear you scream!
The last four laws and corollaries were sent by Jim Kirk
Bugs mysteriously appear when you say, "Watch this!"
corollary: If you call another programmer over to see if he knows what's wrong the bug disappears.
The corollary was sent by S. Bussell.
The probability of bugs appearing is directly proportional to the number and importance of people watching.
The last two laws were sent by Bill Smith.
An employee rank is in inverse proportion to his use of a computer, and in proportion to its performance.
Sent by Dan Wasson
The only program that runs perfectly every time, is a virus
Sent by DaRk_jAcKaL
If a project is completed on schedule, it wasn't debugged properly.
Non Crash Operating System aren't.
The worst bugs in your program will show up only during the final review.
The last three laws were sent by Kiran
The people who say that computers are simple to use are the same people who tell you how to build a watch when you ask what time it is.
Sent by Jack Betz
Philington's First Law
If it works, it's production. If it doesn't, it's a test.
Philington's Second Law
Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.
The last two laws were sent by Philip Partington
Format C: fixes all
Sent by Ron Westby
Law of Computer Generated Aerodynamics
Computers suck.
Law of Recycling
A computer that has been on the market for 6 weeks is still usable as a boat anchor.
Law of Anti-security
The best way past a pesky security feature is a 13-year-old.
Law of Acceleration
A computer that has surpassed its user's frustration capacity (FC) will accelerate downwards at 9.8 meters per second squared.
The last four laws were sent by Timothy Boilard
Computers let you waste time efficiently
Sent by Jim F.
Make a system even a moron can use and a moron will use it.
Make one that requires training or intelligence and only a moron will use it, but there will be more help desk calls.
Sent by S. Bussell
The likelihood of problems occurring is inversely proportional to the amount of time remaining before the deadline.
You will always discover errors in your work after you have printed/submitted it.
The last two laws were sent by Niels Hageman
90% of a programmer errors come from data from other programmers.
Sent by Emanuel
'Illegal Error' messages only happen when you forget to save your work
Sent by Abdul Mohsin
If you make the letters in your Word document bigger and then you print it out, you'll have everything on the first page and only one line on the second.
Sent by Nadine
the OEM did not actually manufacture the part you need to replace
Sent by Bryan Lord
By the time you learn your new computer you'll need a new one.
Sent by romanaround
After a software is released, the first bug found will be by a person who normally does not use that portion of the program but was wondering why he can't do something he normally would not do.
Sent by Rick G.
When the Downloading Window says "99%complete", there will be a fluctuation in the voltage and you'll have to start all over again.
Sent by Sagar Kalantre
Millions of people believe they are animals, but I have yet to meet one that believe in Windows' stability. Even human stupidity has limits ;-)
Sent by Sylvain Galibert
The troubleshooting guide contains the answer to every problem except yours.
Sent by Jesse Janowiak
Plugins Law
Whenever you install a group of plugins one by one just to find out which one can make your software work, you either haven't gotten the right one, or have accidentally skipped the right one or it has become the last one installed.
Sent by Laudney Ren
No matter what problem you have with your computer - Its Always Microsoft's fault
Corollary: If its not their fault - Blame them anyway :-)
Sent by Andrei Keren
You will get disconnected from the Internet or experience a computer crash when you are downloading. If you don't experience one within 80% completion, then it will happen at 99%. If you do manage to get the file, then it will turn out to be completely useless and/or invalid.
Sent by Hyung Jin Lee
You'll always receive an e-mail from a web site that you never visit before.
75% of the bugs laws in this page can be applied to MS Windows (Any version).
The last two laws were sent by Christian C
Auto Correct - isn't
Microsoft excel- doesn't
the last two laws were sent by Alegna
If you need to shutdown your PC ASAP, It will restart.
The quickest way to shutdown a PC is to unplug it.
Corollary: ACPI shutdown (sometimes faster to get to than the plug) does not always work.
Corollary: ACPI shutdown will fail most frequently when you run the risk of being caught doing something.
Corollaries were sent by Stravag
No matter how big a hard drive you buy, you'll need to double it in a year.
the last three laws were sent by Pliaskos
Complete computer breakdown will happen shortly after the maintenance person has left.
Sent by Jan Wenall
A virus will be erased when the hard drive crashes, making it useless for antivirus program to fix it.
Sent by mitch
The problem always exists between one keyboard and it's respective chair.
(On submission problem was insomnia... zzzzzz)
Sent by Cpt_Anderson
A program that compile on the first run has an error in the algorithm
Sent by Iavor Dimitrov
Edward V. Berard Law
Walking on water and developing software to specification are easy as long as both are frozen.
Sent by Andre Van Dun
The smaller the size of your email account, the more junk mail you will get
The boss will always come to your workspace when you accidentally open an adult link
The more pop-up screens you have, the more likely the boss will come by
The last three laws were sent by Mark
A computer is only as smart as the person using it
If it ain't broke, Overclock it!
The last two laws were sent by Michael Horvath
If you're in a hurry, your computer will crash, a hard drive will become corrupted, or your files will be erased. Any way, you're screwed if you have a deadline.
Sent by Logan
Software Reliability:
Investment in software reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost of errors.
Sent by Bill Pramik
Computer sadism: When the computer causes physical or mental damage to a person and can't receive such a return favor (due to management rules).
Computer masochism: When a computer takes all the abuse you think you can give it and continues working as it should.
The sound of grinding metal or the sight of smoke coming from a case is a warning that you are trying to do too much with too little.
The survivability of a system is directly proportional to the price of the cooling system applied to it and inversely proportional to the amount of use it sees.
Antivirus systems only effectively work on a virus after given virus has passed its prime.
The most frightening of viruses is the virus you do not know is already there.
The last six laws were sent by Stravag
The amount of damage that a string of code can do is inversely proportional to the length of the string
Sent by Kit Balmer
You only receive instant messaging, when working on a project that's due instantly
Sent by Keith
When designing a program to handle all possible dumb errors, nature creates a dumber user
Sent by Rich Spejcher

GCC Traffic Week of 7th December 2007

2007-12-07T13:46:00.000+05:30

This week had a continuation on the discussion regarding improving debug info at various optimization levels and the general consensus was that behaviour that caused code generation differences with and without using -g should be removed. This is a basic promise by GCC to its users and would result in a lot of things breaking in such a situation. It would be interesting to wait and watch on this space since it promises to improve things with debug info as well as try and define compromises with debug info and optimizations (as long as optimizers do not generate code dependent on debug info being turned on are not .) .

Dan Berlin started a huge thread about using git for the version control system and the space / time overheads with checking out a repository , keeping patches and generally using git instead of svn and / or mercurial. There is a huge thread that starts here and goes on to include the friendly neighbourhood folks from the git community in attempting to get git working on the gcc community. I've tried in the past using git with an internal CVS repository and given that I work only with relatively small history I haven't had the kinds of issues that folks are having on the lists.

However the scales are different and it would be interesting to see what is the kind of times I get using Mercurial to play with. Makes sense for a weekend project.

BTW the command line for Mercurial is hg, in some sense the chemical formula for Mercury .:) .

GCC Traffic Week of 30th November

2007-11-30T11:07:00.001+05:30

Michael Meissner continued where he left off at the summit regarding Function Specific optimizations. The basic idea is to be able to control the target options initially on the function being compiled and be able to generate different code for the same functions. The idea seems to allow for dynamic dispatch of function versions of very hot functions that could result in better performance on architectures that supported it. The wiki proposal is available here and the mailing list discussion can be found here.

Mark sent out the 4.3 status report and noted that we are still 34 bugs away from a release branch . The full details of the thread can be found here.

The 2 other major topics of discussion this week were regarding improving debug information from GCC and the contentious plugins project with the overall consensus being that plugins are good for quick prototyping and so on but might not be maintainable in the long run given that API stability is not a given with GCC. So, it appears as though productizing a plugin with GCC might not work in the long term given the pace at which things change but might be good enough for a researcher to do a quick prototype. Ofcourse the legal angle is different and it would be interesting to see what the FSF thinks of this project vis-a-vis the GPL. There's more to come surely on this. I didn't quite follow the debug information thread - so no reports on that.

You can find the discussion on debug information here and the discussion on plugins starting here.

GCC proposals.

2007-11-29T15:57:00.000+05:30

The last few days I've been figuring out that there's a lot of stuff new that's being proposed in GCC . However reading mailing lists for keeping track of all this is rather painful . So I shall endeavour to publish on my blog regularly the new kinds of topics that are being discussed in the GCC community pretty regularly. Ofcourse there have been many attempts like this including the one on the GCC wiki , though I am sceptical of my own discipline on doing this.

But then ... lets see how we go at this.

The IT guys jargon

2007-11-28T23:14:00.000+05:30

Don't know where to stay in Timbucktoo - what's the problem - google it. Don't know this client visiting us - what's the big deal lets google him. There's an ICE in GCC - no problem lets google it in gcc.gnu.org . Its become such a tool in one's life that I now hear my mom using google for all her copy editing work . Oh I don't know what Schrodinger's cat in the box means, let me google for it and figure out if the book has it used in the right context.

The other useful app that Patan pointed out to me was Google Reader and a one stop solution for collecting feeds from all the blogs that I manage to read once in a blue moon. I did try and use the standard gnome applications for it but then opening and closing it everytime proves to be too much of a strain on my ancient workhorse with a couple of builds running in parallel. However one does have google open most of the time in a browser window and a tab having the blogs isn't too much overhead.

But then google has this tendency to figure out that the user in his web experience definitely wants more tools on the web and they've gone around filling that gap rather beautifully. Hmmm the mind boggles.

0x2b || !0x2b

2007-11-20T00:21:00.000+05:30

Thank you Manas Alekar for that mathematical formula. A geek would automatically understand this as a consistent source of boredom and the time when too many questions about things which one has no control of puts your mind in an inevitable state of flux.

Dinner with parents and my cousins led to the inevitable Indian questions of settling down, getting married, starting a family etc. etc. The specific requirement for my sis-in-law was the fact that she'd get good food, my niece in the middle of her current nightmare in life (10th grade board exams) could buy herself a ghagra choli and it would allow both her husband (my esteemed bro) to point a finger at me and laugh evilly before welcoming me to the married club ( yaam petra inbam perugavae vaiyyagam) - When informed that such a matrimonial union with some female of the species was definitely not on the cards - everyone started sulking at the very loss of being able to do this again this year.

Does one go looking for relationships ? Now the arranged marriage concept among us tambrahms is rather amazing. Any lallu punju [1] thanks to our booming IT economy prefers to sit in the U.S. and evokes dreams of a fancy life in the U.S. chasing a dollar dream and forgetting that one can get one's clothes pressed for a mere 3 bucks (now what is that in cents ? ) and hand delivered. This evokes dollar dreams among the female of the species and a passport is procured even before they find a guy of their dreams. This works to the extent that families say that they are only looking for guys in the U.S. In some sense this is a whole load of education wasted - The majority of the females who travel to the U.S. only are glorified housewives atleast in the TamBrahm community (ofcourse there are others staying in the U.S. who are married and have wives who are in pretty high posts - So apologies to their sentiments ) . To get there they are among the toppers in their schools , colleges and professional courses and have fought their way up the rat race the way life in India usually is.

If nothing else this is one of the causes for what is hitting India today in terms of its growth story - serious lack of talent. Ofcourse it is important that a family be raised and that the mother is the centre of the family , but just going abroad to show off is just not done without having done anything to justify your education at maybe the state's expense is plain ridiculous.

Coming back to the relationships bit - it comes back to the basic fact that the two should first be friends and share some common interests atleast . Something which is very difficult to judge by just meeting someone online or through an arranged marriage. But then you need green colored money and green colored cards for that ..

References .

[1] (No offences to the Punjabi readers of this blog - especially a certain Sardar with the tendency to fly like a bird)

My top 4 places to visit and reasons.

2007-11-19T23:44:00.000+05:30

Well if I had the time these would a few of the places that I'd love to visit and spend time on the list.

1. The top one would be the Iguazu falls on the Iguazu river in Argentina and Brazil. Its amazing and apparently has 275 waterfalls in 2.7 km. Would be a photographer's delight.

2. Ladakh in the North of India . After seeing some shots in the movie Lakshya especially where they do a mountain climbing stunt this is one place that I shall visit sooner rather than later.

3. Darjeeling, Nathula, Gangtok, Kalimpong and the entire North East. For sheer virgin forests, breathtaking beauty (in the literal sense at Nathula) the wonderful Himalayas.
This is another place that has to be visited during my existence on planet earth.

4. Wrykyn (for Mike), Blandings Castle (for the Empress, Ms. Haliday and ) , Ickenham (for the Lord) , Brinkley Court (for Aunt Dahlia) , The Drones Club (Dover Street London), Market Snodsbury Grammar School (for Bertie and Fink-Nottle) , New York and the offices of Cosy Moments (for Psmith) .

The new fangled software application space.

2007-11-17T09:27:00.000+05:30

Over the last few days , my interest has been piqued by the variety of new applications that are showing up all over the web. I created my profile at Facebook and the variety of options that it has with the fact that folks can write their own plugins on top of it. I do login to orkut but Facebook really appears slicker, gives more privacy, apparently has an SDK for folks to write their own plugins and so on and so forth.

One of the other interesting releases in the last couple of weeks for me was Android , the Google mobile phone SDK - like most Google products, its slick , neatly packaged and eminently usable. The interesting bit about Android is that its all in Java and hearing all that one does about Java run time implementations is the performance downside to all the other gains of writing apps in a sandboxed environment. I'd however like to try it out on a 200MHz ARM and see the effects it has on performance of basic scrolling etc . I am not sure about what happens with the open handset alliance given that it has so many cooks, but it would be worth watching Google's next move in that space.

The last application that I laid my hands on this morning was Enso , the demo of which can be viewed here. (Thanks to Muthu for pointing it out) . Looks very very slick and neat and worth giving a go with . A demo version is available for trial and it looks rather rather neat. It improves productivity while working on Windows for a Linux user like me since I can type out commands instead of using the mouse to navigate menus and submenus and what not.

The joys of Diwali Weekend.

2007-11-12T12:52:00.000+05:30

Diwali the festival of lights here was spent amidst the usual noise of crackers, pestilent kids bursting crackers and also using my car to draw art that would put an MF Hussain to shame. The noise levels and the pollution levels were pretty high in my area thanks to the amazingly high number of kids present there. Diwali is great to celebrate thanks to a long weekend, amazing food - mom being present at home ensured good home cooked food instead of having to resort to food from restaurants and outside.

The only pain however was an amazing argument one today had to endure for nearly 45 minutes with parents of an impudent kid who had decided to use the side of my car as a canvas to his artistic ambitions substituting a nail for a paint brush. The usual arguments of who said my kid this did this were applied succintly by the opposing party to which yours truly brandished eye witnesses who were Maharashtrian by nature. The accused was a pesky 6 year old kid with a naughty glint in his eye who was sleeping initially through all these deliberations. I had to spend time explaining to his parents and his grandmother who seemed to have a deliberate prejudice against non-Maharashtrian tenants - their claim being that being a Maharashtrian and owning a house in the society gave their kid rights to do whatever he wanted . The petulant bit was them going on in chaste Marathi in which case I fought back telling them that they were in India and reminding them that basic decency meant that they would be talking to me in Hindi or English. Ofcourse to this one heard stunning remarks like you are in Maharashtra, better learn Marathi . Also heard was that the society would be asked to change rules so that no tenants could own any vehicles. Pretty stunning start to a Monday morning if you ask me .

The end result - finally the neighbours in the society realized that someone lived in flat 21 and was not going to take crap in any form lying down.

The joys of insomniac hacking.

2007-10-16T23:36:00.000+05:30

You know you should be sleeping ,
You know you are not that young anymore ,
When you start nodding off looking at code,
And writing verse that is such a bore.

On such a note my friends
I introduce to my friend insomnia
the poor cousin of amnesia which
all the big ones said lead to being comfortably numb.

Ok enough of this bs ,
Let me actually quit this insomnia business so soon.

Saar bondaa.

2007-10-16T09:28:00.000+05:30

It was late at night and a friend M caught me on yahoo messenger. She's sitting in the US having fun making such yummy looking bondas. Now that I had asked for some of them and this is what I got at 2:52 a.m. this morning . Ain't technology wonderful.
Person makes bondas
Broadcasts on yahoo
Requests given for bonda
Yay ! half an hour later its ready to be served. Too bad its in a continent some few thousand miles away .

Programming Languages

2007-10-14T10:57:00.001+05:30

Spending the weekend over at my sister's place I got a very interesting question - Hey can you teach me C++ since I need to do some programming for some of my financial derivative work - Now I particularly don't like C++ for the sheer number of concepts and sheer number of options to do the same thing in a C like dialect. Personally as a programmer I prefer the simplicity of C and on occasion have had to use shell , sed, awk to get most of my work done. Thanks to my own love of languages and never shirking from writing custom parsers and custom languages for some of my own projects either they be during my time at the university or during the course of my professional career I figured there had to be a better way than getting her senses damaged by the whole thing with segmentation faults, runtime errors, dynamic casting errors . Much easier with an interpreted language.

So I did some googleing to figure out what kind of libraries she needed and for what . I discovered that open source did have some kind of financial libraries and something available for the kind of stuff that she needed and that it had interfaces in languages simpler than C++.

The pain with programming in C / C++ for non-programmers is the steep learning curve with the whole jargon of CS, memory management - the absolute pain of looking up APIs and trying to make sense of doco that makes sense to other computer science programmers but not to programmers who want to do a bit to get their basic tasks done. Exposing APIs in simpler languages like python, ruby etc tries to improve the footprint of users and allows the users to solve the problems they want to rather than worry about other problems not specific to the problem domain. Also playing with an interpreted language rather than a translation system allows for interactivity and quick testing of functions along with development and reduces the pain of setup and attempting to do things differently.

So I am trying to now set up python so that she can get going with simple programming and free her mind off issues related to low level details. The library I am trying to use is quantlib
and see if we can get the relevant exposure in the corresponding languages. I wonder though if there could be a way of generating stuff or link this up with Excel or openoffice so that she can remain with her favourite tool. Interesting stuff for a weekend eh ...

Kashid Trip Slideshow.

2007-10-13T07:53:00.000+05:30

This is a slideshow of photographs taken at Kashid post the trip to do the river rafting.

Left Forward Right back.

2007-10-02T22:53:00.001+05:30

Regular readers of this blog would realize that this is quite an odd title . But that's my new mantra today for existence ! Read on.

It was Gandhi Jayanthi and instead of spending time sleeping at home all day doing nothing 11 of us from office decided to do something adventurous beyond fixing compiler bugs, optimization issues, graphics issues, widget and manager worries.

Something adventurous for us was a 380 km drive across Western Maharashtra starting from

Pune -> Mulshi -> Vile -> Sajad -> Sutarvadi -

The drive is exquisite , waters in the dam are full with the copious monsoons this year and the drive through roads nestled by hills of the Sahyadris left one speechless with the beauty and the impunity with which waterfalls sprung from every place. We had a raft to catch and hence I couldn't stop and take photographs there . One should go back over the weekend just to get some cool snaps around sunset especially with those amazing waterfalls just on the road.

The Kundalika River is where we decided to do some such things in life.

So at Sajad it was decided by the powers that be , that we'd end up doing something known as white water rafting on the Kundalika river. This is one of those small rivers fed by dams in the Western Ghats and irrigating the Konkan area. However from where the water is released till the time it reaches downstream there are a number of rapids intermittently created by the flow of the water over such beautiful terran. So it is possible to raft through some of the rapids , there was 1 class 4 rapid that we had to worry about. I was however separated from the rest of the gang as we could fit only 10 people in a boat and went on another boat not so surprisingly filled with more Software Engineers. One of them seemed to be a keen ornithologist and one got to see a Golden Orion and other such exotic birds on the trip downstream .

Rafting seems to be an interesting activity as long as there is enough current to pull you through the rapids. The job of the guide / steer is the most important as he gives orders to the rest of the team - we actually had a crash course in rafting for 20 minutes prior to the actual work and amazingly self preservation has a way with people obeying orders from the guide without any questions asked and practicising with utmost seriousness because of the risks associtated with the sport. I would have usually expected some smart ass to make some wisecracks there but surprisingly the crowd in my boat was rather silent.

The rapids were in increasing order of complexity-it was too bad that I couldn't photograph any of it - there was only space in my hands for a T grip on the paddle and nothing much else. The rowing commands while in a raft seem to actually be pretty simple - Forward , Back, Get Down (Means get into the raft! and not into the water ) and Stop. Pretty efficient state machine if you ask me - however it has interesting combinations like Right Forward and Left Back which means paddlers on the right side of the raft row forward and those on the left row Back. There's a technique to rowing - but its so tiring in still water that one gets really hit with the lack of exercise that epitomizes every software engineer's life.

There was one class 4 rapid John Cary as our guide called it - In all we had the following rapids

Laughing Buddha - The easiest of the lot, we got our real life training sessions here for implicit obedience to the guide.
Pumphouse - Little more complex - was a series of class 2 rapids , pretty simple in comparison to some of the others but after the serenity of Buddha was an interesting and long drawn affair.
Morning Headache - It should be renamed to Monday Morning Headache - This was a class 3 rapid that was also managed pretty well. All the while the guide was taking us into the rapids in the best possible way and giving everyone a fair and thorough drenching.
John Cary - A class 4 rapid. The only place where we had to "Get Down" . Get Down in rafting is to get into a defensive position holding a line that runs around the raft and brace for life and hope that you don't get thrown off. This was v. interesting . There were a number of times when one thought that you'd get hit .
Rajdhani Express - Am not sure of the class of this rapid though one thought it would be a class 4 rapid. This was long and drawn , the last one but pretty fast and long like the Rajdhani Express.

The rapids got covered in about 30 minutes of the whole trip down though the remaining time was spent in just floating through with the current till we reached a point downstream where people could swim pretty safely. Yours truly was reminded of a certain incident regarding swimming in the Mulshi Dam where there was a rebirth - so i kept my counsel and decided against getting into the water for a long time. The will was finally broken by the sight of friends of mine who'd never swam before in life swimming merrily in the water and I jumped in promptly to disappear under water for a couple of seconds. I surfaced but it felt as though it was time to call for the lawyer, bequeath my car to my parents, wonder about my tax refunds . Just when one wondered if this was it - the end one realized that he could breathe and got in a few scoops of Oxygen instead of water . This was when the fireworks display inside my head started reducing - and I was able to vaguely make out shapes on what we call Planet Earth. Things got even better, the sun was shining merrily, folks were enjoying their lazy swim in the river , the birds were flying , the vultures disappearing when a pair of hands actually pulled me up using the 2 straps of my life jacket. I didn't know that these things were so strong and pretty well maintained and got back up. I also realized that K my cubicle neighbour wanted to get back at me for all her troubles I had previously caused her in life, by pushing me into the water. Give me land and I am good , push me into water and I am worse than a baby.

In any case after this got done one got to participate in a mini regatta for a couple of kms involving 4 boats. After a spirited race where the left side paddlers in my boat decided not to row in sync with the folks on the right side, we caught up with the leaders who incidentally were my office mates in the other boat. We did give them a tough fight, though ingenious last minute matchfixing by yours truly let us reach second to the final destination.

P.S. This doesn't end here, what's not mentioned is a 1 km climb up a hill with sore legs and hands , resolves of more visits to a gym and the badminton court.

Nasik Triambak Shirdi Bombay Shani Shinganapur Panchvati

2007-10-02T00:29:00.000+05:30

3 cheers for the roads and the beauty of Western Maharashtra. If anyone would have told me that I could do this in 1 weekend with hardly any effort I wouldn't have believed them . The fact of the matter though is that I've managed to in one fell swoop cover stretches of Western Maharashtra that have been on my wish list for ages now. Its my 9th year in Pune and only now have I managed the trip to Nasik .

Nasik is about 200 km from Pune and boasts of the origin of one of India's mightiest rivers, the Godavari. It derives its name from the Sanskrit word Nasika which means nose. Legend has it that this is close to Panchvati where the nose of Surpanakha the sister of Ravana in the Ramayana had her nose cut by Lakshman . The Godavari or the Ganga Godavari as it is known here flows in a merry stream maintained rather well by the Nasik civic authorities. However I wonder what would happen in Jan or feb when the monsoon rains would have stopped and the dams would no longer remain so full.

The places to visit in Nasik are Panchvati, kala Ram Mandir, Seeta Gupha, Triambak, Godavari Khund. if you are a pilgrimage fanatic then this be the place.

The Seeta Gupha is among the most interesting places to visit. Psychologically this is the place where you realize how much thinner you need to become and the dangers of that last piece of dessert and that one last ice-cream and that one small spoon of sugar in your coffee. Now for the literal story - its a small little cave with idols of Ram, Lakshman and Sita but the approach to it is so small that only one person can enter and that too on their knees or on their haunches. You literally crawl down have your darshan and get back up in a similar undignified position. Thankfully I had a friend to push me down in case one got stuck but then he just had 2 small school going kids who'd have had struggled to pay him the same compliment.

Anyways the story ends with me not having to be pushed out of the cave and making it back safe and sound to write this one.

The Ganesh Festival- Pune's time in the sun.

2007-09-22T00:41:00.000+05:30

Its the middle of the Ganesh festival here in Pune and as usual the streets are rocking to Himesh , AR Rehman, Anu Malik and who ever the latest as we say in Hindi "dhinchak dhinchak" music star is . The great Lokmanya Balgangadhar Tilak started this in the late 19th century as a way of national integration , introspection and a way to unite our disparate masses. But now in the name of tradition and culture we are carrying this a bit too far with all the extravagant spending, the extortion in the name of the pandals, loud music from walls of speakers and drunken dancers in the middle of the street even at midnight.

Its fun for some but its definitely not my cup of tea. Ofcourse the pandals by themselves make for fantastic photographs at night but when there are suicides by farmers in the countryside and powercuts and black-outs for nearly 12 hours in the rural areas of Maharashtra it seems quite hypocritical to indulge in such forms of fun.

Having said all that however the amazing energy, the crowds , the sheer joy of watching different plays, acts and themes for the idols of Ganesha is an experience worth having. As usual I suspect I'll be going along with a group of Swedes and explaining the stuff having not done this in ages. Its time to bring on the D50 .

Tosegarh and Thos waterfalls.

2007-09-17T15:28:00.001+05:30

[Enter home at 2:00 a.m. on Saturday morning after a long week's work . ]

Roomie : What's up for tomorrow ?
Me: Nothing much - gotta get back to office and work on some cool optimization. What are you upto ?
Roomie: Me am off to Tosegarh, Sajjangarh and the valley of flowers at 5:30 a.m. Wanna come
Me : What the heck - lets go .

And so began an amazing journey worth 250 photographs all shot on my magnifique Nikon D50 . Tosegarh and Sajjangarh are located off Satara in Western Maharashtra on the beautiful 4 laned NH4. Getting there was easy, we'd hired a Scorpio to drive us all the way around . It was interesting though with the driver providing us anecdotes about gruesome accidents on highways and driving at maniacal speeds on narrow mountain roads that I thanked my stars for reaching back to Pune in piece.

Tosegarh is nestled in the hills behind Satara reachable on an amazingly picturesque drive. The monsoons have left the hills with copious amounts of water which comes down in the form of a huge number of waterfalls which end up forming the river Krishna which flows through Andhra and 2tmcft of which reaches Madras through the Krishna water scheme. He he all you madrasis watch out for water that we bathed in yesterday ;) . Getting around in the waterfall is an amazing experience. The water was icecold and was gushing along at a merry pace . Getting inside the water was like getting a full body massage albeit by cold water with 15000 masseurs. The scenery as most parts of Maharashtra in this time of the year was awesome and made for some amazing photos. It sure as hell beat working on a Saturday and made for a nice break .

Come September

2007-09-12T03:09:00.000+05:30

What do we remember September for - Ganesh Chaturthi , Gokulashtami, 9/11 , friend's birthdays , OSIM ?

I would remember September for the Pune Festival associated with the Ganesh Chaturthi. In as much as I hate the noise and the ruckus they create - (after all Ganesha didn't ask for the walls of speakers with Himesh Reshammiya blasting away at the top of his nose (err voice) ) , the grandeur and beauty of some of the pandals make for an amazing walk through the most crowded areas of Pune and excellent photographs.

Its been an interesting week or so. Rediscovered that the College of Engineering has a boat club from where you can get some amazing pictures. I need to cart my camera along the next time I go just to photograph the birds (of the winged variety). Just watching the egrets and the Eagles swoop over the river in an amazingly tranquil environment is rather neat. I have done some work on addressing mode generation for GCC that seems to improve performance a bit . It would be interesting to see the benchmark results that should be out tomorrow.

So September bring it on ....

Mazes, Traffic Jams and Obstacle courses

2007-08-28T18:48:00.000+05:30

Travelling or driving in Bangalore is an amazingly arduous task. Wild horses cannot even drag me to stay in Bangalore. The fact that almost every road in central Bangalore is one way and there is absolutely no way you can make any geographic sense about where you want to go . I had to drive a couple of times across Bangalore and needless to say this was a very different experience. You can't make a mistake in terms of direction and not spend another 20 minutes rectifying it because everything is one way and there are no u-turns available . The circle is possibly a favourite of the road planners in Bangalore - since you keep going around in circles thanks to the one-way's as well as in various junctions . Also the typical rule of thumb according to my friends is 7 minutes per km, so if you need to travel 13-14 km its atleast an hour and a half . The most funny sight though on my trip was this flyover from "Double Road" to Richmond Road which has a signal on top - So you climb up the flyover and drive "American style" (of driving on the right side of the road) for around 500 m and then stop on the top of the flyover to get back into Indian style of driving. For the unimaginative imagine this to be a large X with traffic moving diagonally. Woe betide any learner stuck on the incline in first gear and my sympathies for the car stuck behind.

Driving in each of India's cities is a different art - Bombay is fast , has wide roads , better planned , well co-ordinated and generally very disciplined. Delhi is chaotic but the wide roads are a life saver inspite of indisciplined drivers. Hyderabad is the epitome of lawlessness on the road. People go on the wrong side as though its a right of way. Pune is chaotic too but Hyderabad is possibly the worst traffic I have seen since there is absolutely no logic to driving there as well as wide roads and folks having the most powerful vehicles :) . Bangalore is slow , crawly , confusing and is basically a collection of vehicles that like to imitate the snail. Madras is ok , better disciplined than either of Bangalore or Hyderabad with decent enough roads. However at the end of the day if you can drive here you can drive any obstacle course or navigate through any city in the world with far better co-ordination thanks to manual transmissions in most Indian cars.

Bengaloooruu ... Hello World.

2007-08-25T10:34:00.000+05:30

In Bangalore this weekend on a whirlwind vacation of sorts. Its good to be in the garden city of Bangalore and as I blog this after a redeye flight to Bangalore, 2 cups of authentic tamilian filter coffee, 1 plate of ven pongal and a trip on the streets one does start feeling the effect of lack of sleep for a week . It has spectacular effects on my eyes, they start turnign totally red, irritated, and then it moves into what I call the migraine zone where every part of your head starts aching with pulsating and shooting pains . Wow ! sounds interesting doesn't it ? Anyways migraine shygraine aside- it looks as though there are a whole bunch of family and friends waiting to be met in Bangalore - a 14 year old nephew and a 4 year old cousin being the more interesting of the lot .

Looking forward for a tyrst with the infamous Bangalore traffic. Morning wasn't too bad but then no one wakes up in this city till 11 , do they ?

Ottawa Sunrise finally

2007-08-19T18:15:00.000+05:30

Finally sunrise in Ottawa. A collage of shots from the hotel window showing sunrise on a day that I woke up at 4:30 a.m. and had nothing much to do.. 3 cheers for my D50 and amazing skyline shots ...

Of television serials and a lazy weekend.

2007-08-18T22:57:00.000+05:30

Its been an interesting week . One of my friends P became a father on Thursday and it was an unexpected sight to see him holding the baby when we entered the hospital room to greet the new dad . So now 3 cheers to the big daddy. Ofcourse this leads to a new domain of jokes about the new dad (oops should we say kid) on the block which I'll save for another time.

Spent Friday sick in bed with a sinus attack but later in the evening felt better to run through all the episodes of Heroes to How I met your Mother. One's a sitcom while the other is a supernatural thriller.

Ofcourse being a pretty big fan of sitcoms I managed to finish both seasons of How I met your mother in a couple of marathon sessions neither of which can be said is very good to my health . But as cliches go .. .what the hell, you only live once. I somehow relate to Ted in How I met your mother - too much planning and not doing can never do you any good in any relationship . If there's something to be said or done one's possibly better off saying it or doing it as soon as one gets the thought. Sometimes its good to be impulsive or you just miss the bus or the moment as the case might be. The gang in How I met your mother consists of Robin Sparkles Shebarski, Marshall Eriksen, Lily Aldrin, Ted Mosby and ofcourse the irrepressible Barney "suit up" Stinson. Interesting combinaton of characters and they do make quite a good combination. I can't wait for the 3rd season to get under way. I believe we should be able to see it on Star World in India. Atleast that's what Wikipedia suggests...

Ok thats that .. Nice internet break and now its time for 2 and a half men.,

chak de india.

2007-08-16T01:41:00.000+05:30

Its been 1 hour and 42 minutes into the 61st year of our Independence and I just got back from watching the new SRK movie Chak De India. While watching it at ESquare in the 1030 p.m. show last night there was an event that quite astounded me. In the movie a small clip of our national anthem was played and everyone in that particular hall stood for the duration of the clip. Bowled me over totally. Maybe it was to do with the Independence Day spirit and all the media hype but whatever it was due to that one moment made me think about the probability of a hall full of people actually standing up for a clip of the national anthem out of a population of a billion.

Of an English Summer...

2007-08-14T11:27:00.000+05:30

What an interesting English summer it has been so far. The Indian cricket team pulled off a series win after 21 long years with a bunch of players some of whom would never travel again to play in England. It was very interesting that the man of the match, a certain Mr. Kumble known more for (the absence of huge) leg spin in his bowling, ( but the presence of the top spin and a veritable googly) to receive the award for his batting (the only century by an Indian in the series in the presence of the demi-gods of Indian cricket) .

Its been raining here continuously for the past few weeks and we are quite fortunate to see the sun on a couple of days. Tomorrow is our veritable independence day and yours truly is celebrating in office today listening to patriotic songs and mulling over wearing a dhoti in office. Ofcourse the problem is that wearing a dhoti in office means the risk of indecent exposure (albeit inadvertently) and the fact that the air conditioning would make me feel very cold in my legs. Being from a tropical place which has only 3 seasons (hot hotter and hottest)such impulsive acts are not so good for an old man like me.

Of Time management and what not.

2007-08-03T01:51:00.000+05:30

After the trip last week to Canada, the body clock is still misbehaving and pushed me into a wake-up at 9:30 a.m. and sleep at 3:00 a.m. routine which ends up with me reaching office either having over slept or under slept or at an hour later than what I usually try and maintain (well ,at times :)) .

Time management and splitting time between office work and personal projects is an interesting piece but something one has managed to do well over time . Personal projects on some new topic provides one with an escape mechanism from the drudgery of work or a way of getting out of a problem that one can get stuck on for a long long time . Fixing bugs is also a good way of spending free time and ends up giving the author an extra fillip towards spending some more time in sorting out other bugs of his creation :) .

This is a random posting and do ignore it ....

Of a Canadian sojourn

2007-07-25T01:37:00.000+05:30

Its been an interesting couple of weeks thanks to a sudden trip to Ottawa for the GCC summit and work related activities. It was a good trip to Ottawa, meeting for the first time, names that are so active on a mailing list and figuring out that everyone looks so different from what you expect them to be . Travelling to North America for an Indian Vegetarian is quite a daunting task since vegetarianism has been stretched to include fish and chicken in certain cuisines. However this time was rather interesting as one met an alumnus from my school and also working on compilers. Now take that for a coincidence. Incidentally he had the same teensy weensy problem that I had which was that of being a vegetarian :) So there was company to try and explore cuisine other than that provided by Subway or Starbucks or Tim Hortons ..

There's this Moroccan place in Ottawa that claims to serve the best vegetarian food and they certainly lived up to their expectations. So we survived on whatever they served us as vegetarian - the bread was a cross between an aaapam, a dosa made of Ragi something that tamilians would understand and the side dishes were made of lentils (dal) , sundal (black peas ?) and a chutney that would make the gonghura tear up because of the heat generated :) .

The dinner next day was spent in visiting a place run by Chinmaya Mission in Ottawa a 100% vegetarian joint ! (WOW!) Take that all you carnivores who sneer at vegetarians travelling to any place outside India ! In the middle of all this one managed to attend the lectures that were on at the summit , quite a few interesting ones at that .

Roaming about the malls looking for stuff strangely left me less lighter on the wallet than I expected thanks to the appreciating rupee. I bought a MP3 turn table for my parents, a Wii for the kalculator , a number of small little things here and there which were special requests from folks back in India. Last but not the least one did manage to pick up Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and finish it on the flight from Ottawa to Toronto. Enjoyed this book , she's tied up all the loose ends in this one and almost *everyone* involved in the series so far has a reference . No more school boy stuff but lots of stuff where it gets like the lord of the rings / return of the king . There are many people dead but one death makes all the headlines and that sparks some interesting reactions among people ...

Pure Magic.

2007-07-09T01:51:00.000+05:30

Its been one of those really really good days. The day dawned with me waking up late for my trip to Mahableshwar a hill station about 100 km from Pune. After that what followed was pure entertainment and enjoyment. The drive to Mahableshwar, lunch at Mapro , drive through the clouds, good music , visibility = 0, Humidity = 100% , temperature = very low made the day extremely beautiful. Got a number of photos which I shall upload at some point of time pretty soon.

Once we returned from this long long drive I managed to catch the Federer Nadal match from the 3rd set. For the first time in his life, Nadal seemed to believe that he could beat Federer on grass and actually gave the champ a good marathon for his prize money . The other thing was Federer suddenly gave up in the 4th set where Nadal simply ran him to the ground. The 4th set actually had Federrer rattled and shaken like he had never been before. A couple of hawk eye calls left him non-plussed and irritated. The number of unforced errors went up dramatically in that set too. Finally it all came together in Federer's 3rd service game of the 5th set. It was scrappy, it was dramatic and it was entertaining. Watching Fedex play was like watching a beautiful act of synchronization between limbs, the racket and the ball. It was sheer poetry and it left me incredulous about how he managed to return those serves with so much power and panache !

Shakespeare and Wodehouse.

2007-07-05T01:23:00.000+05:30

As is evident from the title of this blog I am a great fan of Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse. I didn't realize that the bard from Stratford on Avon (Shakespeare for the uninitiated ) also had certain qualities similar . Statements like "That is a custom more observed in the breach than in the obeisance" show his humourous side too .

The particular quote that I was quite impressed with was not one that would tickle your funny bone . I am not sure about how true this is but anyways here goes "God in his infinite wisdom chooses to ignore some of our prayers while we in our ignorance choose to blame him for it. "

This particular piece of prose was conveyed to me by my mom after a particularly interesting day in life when something that I wanted didn't occur. However both of us were pretty curious of the origin of the particular quote , she couldn't remember if it was Hamlet or Macbeth. If there are interested readers who see this , it would be good to know if you have come across this some place on your other literary quests. Quite refreshing and interesting one must say.

Monsoons, rains , near floods and crumbling roads.

2007-07-03T23:35:00.000+05:30

Its monsoon time again ! Rains Rains Rains, its grey dark, cold and raining all the time here at Pune. We seem to be breaking all records this year. The last weekend of June was enough to make up the seasons average for the month . The Mutha, Mula, Indrayani , the Pavna and the river on Paud Road are all flowing and are in spate . The net result, roads laid a week before the monsoons started have started disappearing or in the process of developing great big craters .

On a more serious note, its been a long time since I updated my blog . Was busy with helping out in a GCC workshop at IIT Bombay, lots of work at office travelling to Madras and Bombay through out the last month on weekends and one week . Phew its been quite a while .

Spidey , Anti Spidey ... Spiderman 3

2007-05-10T18:21:00.000+05:30

Sometime during this week decided enough was enough and managed to catch up with Spiderman 3 . I was warned by Miss. S that this was going to be a bollywood tear jerker and emotional drama, but went with a notion that it couldn't be as bad as some of the soaps that Bollywood churns out with unfailing regularilty. This is the year when all the so-called heroes cry on screen, James Bond did , and now Spidey also followed suit. (Now thats what is called Bonding with the best. ) It was spectacularly long, 3 bad / misunderstood guys (Anti Spidey, Sandman and the other Monster) , patching up with old friend turned enemy and then watching a friend die. Similarly add in a broken relationship with a girlfriend, fights, a lot of meanness , some gyan and then the good old patch-up at the end. All in all I thought Sam Raimi had gotten to watching Karan Johar while he was in Manhattan shooting the latest Bollywood tear jerker and got influenced suitably.

Bombay trips and driving around.

2007-05-08T18:15:00.000+05:30

Driving down the expressway between Pune and Bombay is among my favourite pastimes . On yet another trip this time to talk to a few folks about compilers and to meet my sister I decided to try the road via Turbhe to the Airoli bridge. However it looks as though the contagion of digging up tar roads and replacing them with concrete roads before the monsoons seems to have also hit our neighbours in the valley. Pune has a long tradition of doing that . This resulted in a driving time of nearly 2:45 min when I could have completed the drive to Mulund in 2:30 min or even lesser. The expressway from Dehu Road to Kalamboli was done in 50 minutes flat with a top speed of 130ks an hour.( However I have received other threats during my trip which pale in comparison to the actual threat in driving down at such speeds).

Driving in Bombay is a pleasure in comparison to Pune iff you restrict yourself to driving on the express highways and the eastern side, large 8-10 lane highways where you can zip at 80-90 kph, smooth roads, quite a number of flyovers etc etc etc.