Ramblings - What else?

And I intend to be back....

2009-04-27T02:53:00.000-07:00

.....blogging after a brief hiatus. There were quite a few mentionable trips during this period but I shall start with the most recent in memory...Last In First Out :)

What kind of Intelligence?

2006-12-11T05:47:00.000-08:00

I took a test that determines the dominant intelligence in you and this is what I get...:)

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well.

An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly.

You are also good at remembering information and convicing someone of your point of view.

A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary.

You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

Seems to be that I have chosen the wrong career..:)

Navaratri Kolu Celebrations

2006-10-05T02:20:00.000-07:00

It's navaratri time and we started upon having our own kolu or golu or koluvu (Tamil, kannada & telugu respectively).

Traditionally, in South Indian families, Dussehra/Dasara is celebrated by having Kolu. A Kolu is an elaborate display of all the dolls, toys and anything & everything considered aesthtic at your home. The concept originally was to display mythological dolls. As people got more & more creative, the defintion of what constitutes kolu gradually changed. Of late, the toy sets range from representing a full fledged cricket set to Dr.Abdul kalam with his missiles. You read it right. It is Abdul Kalam the President of India himself am talking about. The most popular set for Kolu this time in Tamilnadu, happens to be the missile man amidst missiles :) The kolu starts with the begining of Navaratri and ends on the Vijayadasami the last day of Navaratri. Poojas are offered daily and offering to God made in the evening which is given to all visitors who come to see the Kolu.

Now coming to what we did...a snapshot of the arrangement is shown here.

We followed the traditions and arranged the standard Dasa avatarmas(10 incarnations of Lord Vishnu), Ashtalakshmi Idols(8 forms of goddess lakshmi), Deities as they appear in Aaru Padai Veedu( 6 famous temples of Lord karthikeyan or Murugan) and the various forms of Lord Krishna, Lord Ganesha, Shiva, Parvati.......and the list goes on & on. Zoom into the image if all this interests you...and try figure :). These dolls are indeed legacy. Most of these are what my mom-in-law has collected over years.
Now coming to the newer additions for this kolu, we converted one of the couches in our hall into a plain platform and displayed a train with a long track. Snapshot onto the right.

FYI, this train has got a steam engine and it does emit steam. There is a tree house therein. And there is a school set depicting a teacher teaching his students.

Next on display is the depiction of a traditional South Indian marriage. The famous "ammi" or the grinding stone is seen here too. The creativity of the doll makers is so visible here....

Well, there are obvious errors...the kids look like 10+years old and the teacher is teaching them alphabets. Maybe the one who made this dolls..just knew that much...so with due symapthies to them, we ignore the errors. Next to this on display is a traffic police managing traffic. The idea here is to depict the traffic using this car :D

More pics here. You can checkout a bunch of more obvious errors in those pics. There are few closeup shots out there. There is a picture of a simulated paddy field too. We simulated paddy field using ragi :) It would have been realistic if we added some more realism to the paddy field as otherwise it is looking pretty bland with no people inside and no domestic animals and such. Perhaps next time.

In all, kolu seems to be a way of expressing your creativity and ideas and have fun along. Maybe this is what religion truely is all about. Give a vent for your creativity and at the same time re-affirm your faith in God. Wow....that was a truely powerful statement coming from me, yet another brick in the wall :)

Signing off for now....

Pope & his unwarranted comments?

2006-09-27T09:37:00.000-07:00

It was a simple reference of a discussion from history but it stirred the hornet's nest!!! Yep - Am talking of the recent controversy surrounding the pope's comments.

The version coming from the Vatican says that it was a plain reference to the Byzantine Emperor's discussion and that was not Pope's opinion in particular. Quite likely! Quite likely that he indeed referred and didnot mean any of it. In which case, a person as honourable as the pope - who represents a religion should be doubly careful regarding what he quotes. Obviously the world is watching him. He should be role modelling christianity in true terms - and hence preaching tolerance to other's beliefs & sentiments. However, the ones who look at the full text say that this piece of reference if looked out of context might seem misfit but in context it is indeed not out of place.

And regarding those who got hurt by these comments, I don't think they should be bothered about what one person says or feels about Islam. One follows Islam because he believes in the religion. If somebody else sees something wrong with it or says something wrong...that is not making the religion and the beliefs less powerful. It remains as powerful as it was before and will continue to be so. After all the Pope is another person and this is just his opinion..Err reference to be politically correct. Why can't it be ignored??It certainly doesnot warrant killing of an innocent, humanitarian nun. She was doing true service in Somalia and is that what she deserved? And why is she paying for someone else's mistake? I am not an authority to comment about Islam but I do respect the religion enough to believe that it certainly wouldnot warrant killing of an innocent lady who did nothing but service to the mankind!! Religion is a way of life and should not be a reason to end one's life. PERIOD.

Now that Pope is doing a massive damage control operation, maybe he will be forgiven for what he referred and things will be back to normal. Maybe not. In any case, a precious life is lost and for absolutely no reason.

Bangalore Metro rail - Well..?

2006-09-18T00:12:00.000-07:00

For all those who have been waiting for this Metro rail...there seems to be no end for the wait & also the ways this money is being spent...

Latest, officials in the name of studying the Metro & Monorail in China, Malysia & Thailand are getting to go on exotic trips rather vacations at the taxpayers behest!!!! 10 days is the duration......More @ bangalorebuzz!

LonelyGirl15 & her claim to Fame

2006-09-13T23:07:00.000-07:00

I have been reading so much about this LonelyGirl15's videos on youtube and her popularity that I decided to go have a peek at it. This to determine, what is making the world go gaga-googoo over this video series followed by much ado regarding the fakeness of it. There got to be something...or else why would so many people wait desperately for a next video in that...ain't it?

The intros before we get into the details. Well, on May 2006, there started a vid blog on youtube.com. Doesnot sound exciting enough...Nothing ground breaking..Isn't it? The vid was uploaded by a girl called Bree with userid lonelygirl15. Supposedly she is a 15 year old girl who is having tough time, dealing with her parents and her boyfriend Daniel with userid danielbeast. The girl shot the video with a webcam setup by her geeky boyfriend is what she claims. Now one video followed another...and soon people were waiting for the next vid post of lonelygirl15. Also, there were so many mysterious things portrayed in those vids that all kind of analysis started about what the real life of the girl would be like....what are the ceremonies the girl talks of....and so a whole bunch of people got tuned in to this.

Not to ignore the way the videos were taken. There obviously is a professionalism to those videos. It certainly does not seem like an amateur teenager's video. And there were people who believed it was fake and was setup and others who believed that all this was true!!!! Check out one of the videos yourself.....:) The vidblog got so popular that people started going into the roots of it.....A bunch of the fans set up a sting operation to find out who this girl really was....And Lo!!!It turned out to be indeed an organized show with some media persons involved in the show and not her geeky boyfriend!!!!This entire lonelygirl15 episode is fiction!!!!!! And this Bree aka lonelygirl15 is an actress from NewZealand who was aspiring to make it big. And she did make it big.....for now offers are going to flood her anyways..thanks to her popularity as lonelygirl15!!!!

But if we want to analyse what is it that made it so famous...is it the medium....as in this is the first time(I guess so?) that a real life kinda drama/episode uses blogging as the medium? Would it have been the same if it were in TV?In newspaper? In magazine?What I am trying to say is that perhaps, it is not the story that is important here....but the use of the medium itself!!!

With vid blogging picking up, this can be termed as an experiment. An experiment that ended up perhaps proving the point that the "Internet" is not yet fully tapped. There are still many more ways of using internet to have people hooked onto it. Perhaps the ones that are smart enough, realize this and make money and the rest just witness it happening!!!! More from the creators itself about this vidblog(or can we call it a show now?) here.

However, the thing that still baffles me is how could people believe that all of this could be true from the begining!!!! Or maybe the fact that I watched the videos after it's fakeness got proved is making me say that. There seems to be a big controversy of whether it is fake or not from the intial stages till its proved with evidence now. A more organized article about this here.

And now coming to the topic of how people receive this story of this whole episode being fiction. Obviosly nobody likes to be lied to...though they all would lie themselves...:p The commotion seems to be that how can they have a show run as a blog and fool people and later say it was all fiction......need to wait & watch for more updates......

Of Design patterns & Software Engineering

2006-09-07T04:03:00.000-07:00

Well...perhaps am the wrong person to write about this. Or perhaps I am the right person to write about this....:D....so much for being a software engineer. How can I not write about Software (atleast once in a while)...?

Anytime, u read/refresh GoF(it's not Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire but the Gang of Four I am referring to) design patterns(that sort of shows I have been reading of late...no prizes for guessing this :D) you wonder if this is only a piece of common sense or something more great?

Common sense because most of it looks simple enough but great because of the comprehensiveness & completeness associated. Imagine yourself assigned the task of identifying the mosty commonly used software tasks so that those tasks can be built for reuse. Given that the design patterns has become pretty much popular, it sounds simpler...doesn't it? I am sure, I would have come up with a bunch of things......more than what GoF suggests or club many of them together, say get away with the Abstract Factory, so on & so forth. Not sure if mine would have been exhaustive. Well that's what distinguishes me from them..........:)

Perhaps what is great about design patterns is not just knowing them but using them as a matter of practice. Using them in the sense of building code/modules in real life based on those.
Most of the people I met used a couple , may be few but none till now who built all those. No brickbats blaming my circle for this......and once again Hail GoF!!

Beginning to be a blogger

2006-08-30T05:09:00.000-07:00

Hah :) Now that I have a reasonable blog to my credit I have people advising me on what to write so my blog gets little popular :D

In any case, it is the lazy me who should decide what I will write & how. And as usual got absorbed in the routine things of life(read laziness :p). Adding to it is the recent issue of Intel layoff, that keeps you pondering and the pen errrr keyboard got idle once again.

It does take a while to make blogging a habit ...Huh?

So me back again...:)

Munnar Travelogue

2006-08-23T05:25:00.000-07:00

Munnar is a small pristine beautiful place in Idukki district of Kerala. And for the unawares Kerala, also known as Gods' own country, is one of the states in India. Of late, kerala has become a tourist's paradise with all the promotional camapaigns undertaken by the kerala tourism department. To add to this is the fact that it was listed as one of the top 10 destinations in the Paradise found category in National Geographic Traveler.

Munnar is an ideal destination for nature/wildlife admirers, avid trekkers, history lovers or even if you would like to just chill out. Primarily, it is perceived as a hill station and not much seems to be publicized regarding the historical connections. And so, if you want explore the historical aspects of this place, you might have to do some extensive research and be prepared to explain the guides/local people what you want to see. I am trying to aggregate the information I gathered during my visit in this travelogue.

Accessibility & Munnar

Munnar is well connected by road. You can fly till Cochin and take taxi from there to Munnar.

However we drove from Bangalore to Munnar and the drive was pretty good. The route we took was Bangalore - Krishnagiri - Dharmapuri - Salem - Perundari - Dharapuram -Udumalapet - Chinnar - Marayoor - Munnar. Bangalore to Krishnagiri is the well maintained NH7 and from there the roads are little bad till Dharmapuri. From Dharmapuri to Udumalapet the roads are good. In all it turns out to be that Bangalore to Munnar is 480kms by road. And you will have to drive through the forest from then on. That's an absolutely stunning stretch. We went to Munnar during the August and that happens to be the monsoon season in kerala.

The monsoon does lots of magic to the already existing lush greenery. It was green all over with multicolored flowers all along the path. Adding to this, is the fact that there were waterfalls and streams everywhere you turn around. As we were climbing up the hill, we felt as though we were touching the clouds. A slight drizzle and we had to be absolutely cautious about the winding roads, as the visibility would go drastically down. The mountains with their misty magic, the dense forest and the tree plantations all around and a drive through them. Nothing could have been termed as better begining of our trip to Munnar. This was just the begining and we were already praising the aptness of promoting Kerala as "Gods Own Country".

Wildlife @ Munnar

Munnar will be a feast to a nature lover's eyes with the Chinnar Wild Life Sanctuary and also the Eravikulam National Park within a convenient reach.

Eravikulam National Park is a sanctuary that preserves the Nilgiri Tahr - an endangered species. In addition black langur, wild-buffalo, elephant, sambhar, tigers & leopard are part of the sanctuary. If you are lucky, you might get to see all of them and in any case you will atleast sight the Niligiri Tahr. This park in fact has the larget population of the Nilgiri Tahr. If you spare some resonable time you will certainly spot this

Another exclusive thing about this National Park is the "NeelaKurinji" flower. This flower blooms once in 12 years around september time frame and when it blooms fully, it covers the entire mountain blue. It is said that the local tribals used to count their age with every bloom of the flower. If you see the flower bloom, it means you are older by another 12 years. Such simplicity of life!!!And we have so many things in our civilized world which remind of our age every other month...starting from insurance dues to taxes....:) We happend to go to this national park around august 2006 and this flower just started blooming. We could only see patches of the flowers. The entire mountain is yet to be covered with blue flowers but there are patches of it. So visit in september if you want to see the mountain decked with blue flowers!!!!Or else it is another 12 years wait............!!! Also, one can get a breathtaking view of Anamudi (2690m, the highest peak in the southern India) from this park.

Snapshot of the Neelakurinji on August 2006.

Also, Eravikulam National Park has the distinction of being the most well maintained National Parks in India and it clearly shows. So much so that we noticed the officials watching the people going little too near the neelkurinji shrub to make sure there is no plucking business or damage to the shrub. And why not - afterall our earth needs to be preserved!!!!!!

Chinaar Wildlife sanctuary is actually located around 55 kms from Munnar and shelters elephants, tigers, wild-buffalos, nilgiri-tahr, spotted deer, lemur and the grizzled squirrel. If you are driving across make sure you are little watchful otherwise you might bump into animals. And if at all you bump into a solitary elephant, don't disturb it by honking......let it go...or you push off unnoticably. The elephant might react if it gets the feeling of being threatened!! Don't dismiss the chance of you meeting a single elephant as remote....We did bump into one such and have heard many more such stories :)

And if you want to observe the animals, then wait near the water bodies....there are streams & waterfalls almost in every corner. You will surely come across few species atleast. Also, the sanctuary itself has provision for watch towers. Take a ticket for those watch towers and happy onlooking for the animals.

The kerala tourism department also offers organized trekking across the chinnar sanctuary. If you are more adventurous enough, you can stay in the forest overnight on a machan. And all this is official, you will be provided a guide who will help you through this. Just plan properly and you will have an experience of a life time - in moon lit night, on top of a machan and oppurtunity to co-exist with the animals of the kind which you would have only seen pictures of!

Regarding the chinnar forest itself, it is pretty dense and is dry deciduous with a wide variety of trees. Rocky patches here and there add to the beauty of the forest.

History @ Munnar

Around 40kms from Munnar is a place called Marayoor. A first look at this place or talk to the people in Munnar, they won't be able to tell you the right things about Marayoor. In fact, they will recommend you the place called Matupetty where you can go boat/sail. You will have to really struggle to explain to them that you are interested in Marayoor and that too for a valid reason.

To make your task easier, let me tell you what we figured out regarding Marayoor. Marayoor has much of association with history than any of us can even think of. It has rock painting with murals that date to the new stone age!!!! If you are really excited about this, you can take the organized tour of the KTDC(Kerala Tourism Development Corporation) which will show you the caves in deep jungle which house around 90 motifs of the stone age. Please note that this comes with the risk of you having to trek through dense jungle encountering elephants & such. So, the earlier the day, the lesser the risk. And no treks are encouraged post 6:00 in the evening given the risks.

If you want to really see the painting which some one did around 10000BC and not risk your life in that process, you can take a shorter trek, which lets you see 2-3 murals. Again a KTDC organzied one! Watch out for the Kerala eco-tourism promotion booths on the way from Munnar to Chinnar. This is where you would book the organized tours.

It also boasts of dolmens. The only dolmens perhaps in Asia other than Korea and one of the few in the entire world.

We went for one such conducted trekking. The KTDC in fact seems to be doing a very good job of maintaining the place as well as providing employment for the people around. The eco-tourism booths are manned by the local tribals who have been trained to organize treks. We were accompanied by one such person who showed us the Rock paintings as well as dolmens. They made us sign a form which said that we undertake this trek by fully understanding the risks involved i.e spotting of any wild animals or any loss of property. The guide for the trek, was absolutely careful and watchful. He was telling us that the area of the rock paintings which we were trekking to see is one of the favorite places of the elephants and asked us not to be surprised if we see elephant herds around :) Driving through a road, where u can spot an elephant is good but the thought walking amidst elephants(read wild elephants) certainly sent shivers. But we were pretty eager to see the rock paintings so went ahead with the trek and on seeing the rock paintings, we were sure, this was worth the risk. Imagine looking at a painting which was done in Stone Age!!!!And it was as crystal clear as it was painted yesterday!!!!!!Am not sure what was the material used for that paint and the guide seemed to not have the answer too. However the painting was intelligently painted such that it was protected by rain most of the times. Here is a picture of one such rock painting.

Enroute we also saw a bunch of dolmens. But I believe these were just few of them and you could spot better dolmens as you go deeper into the jungle.

At the end of this trek, we felt as though we travelled backward through time :) That was perhaps me exaggerating things but somehow the thought of looking at something made during 10000 BC which is still existing was literally mindblowing for us!!! And we started thinking as to how thoughtful & concerned man was all these years towards wildlife and nature and in the name of civilization how much of our wildlife are we preserving and how are we destroying of late????

Mythology @ Munnar

According to the Hindu epic Mahabharata, the pandavas lived in exile for some duration. The locals here seem to believe that pandavas were staying in Munnar during part of the exile. There are caves which are referred to as Pandava Caves near Munnar, which are supposed to open up at Marayoor through a tunnel. Well, I have a fascination the moment I hear of anything related to epics, so I had to see this. But the cave seemed to be full of bats & all kind of dark life. So couldnot explore the interior of the caves much but if there is an adventurous one out there reading this...do let me know if this really opens up at Marayoor!!

Plantations @ Munnar

Given that Munnar is a hilly region with good rains, much of cultivation is around spices - starting from cardamom, pepper, coffee, vanilla, etc., Tea is one of the major plantations here.
Hilly regions with tea plantations create a kind of pleasant weather in itself. So if you just want to lazily chill out, have a cup of coffee/tea and look out at the misty mountains - plan a trip to Munnar. You will cherish it for long.

Accomodation @ Munnar

Munnar can boast of some really nice resorts. Check out Sterling Resort & Club Mahindra holidays. They have resorts which are well maitanined and provided for. If you are adventurous enough you can check out some tree houses too. Look at makemytrip.com for the hotels at Munnar and their pictures so you can decide accordingly.

That's it for now. Ping me if you need any specific information.

More pics here!

A humble start!!!

2006-08-23T03:55:00.000-07:00

To blog in such a way that you do attract attention seems to be an art in itself. Your friends reading your blog is nothing great anyways.......However you write, they are going to read and maybe praise or tease you whichever the case maybe.

But to have some person who is generally surfing the net read your blog...not just read but connect with you so he comes back to read your blog is something little difficult if not impossible :)

This is my attempt at trying to see if I can achieve that connectivity..:D So here I start with an id so that am more or less anonymous and have people generally find me out rather than I send the link to my people across. A gleeful me imagining lots of readers reading this blog of mine....Hurray....Sounds so good :D

But now to think of what might be the subject which will yield a higher connectivity?The world seems to be so exhaust of topics, the moment you start to think of one nice topic. Please note the idea here is to get a readable & popular topic. Lets' say the topics vary from current affairs to Brad Pitt & Angelina's baby and Travel to my daily commute to office from home.

Wish me success in my attempt in becoming a successful blogger.....:)

2006-08-23T03:48:00.000-07:00

Just a test to check if things are well...???