Reflections

Circle of Life

2011-11-27T00:17:00.000+05:30

From the day we arrive on this planet
And blinking, step into the sun
There's more to see than can ever be seen
More to do than can ever be done

There is far too much to take in here
More to find than can ever be found
But the sun rolling high
Through the sapphire sky
Keeps great and small on the endless round

It's the circle of life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the circle
The circle of life

It's the circle of life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the circle
The circle of life

IF.....

2010-09-27T21:14:00.000+05:30

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

--Kipling

Good bye

2010-04-06T23:26:00.001+05:30

http://www.hindu.com/2010/03/30/stories/2010033061680400.htm

Y.V. Ramadas dead

Staff Reporter

BANGALORE: Educationist and theatre person Y.V. Ramadas (88) died here on Monday, after a brief illness.

Ramdas, who was the principal of BMS Engineering College for 45 years, served as a trustee of the college after retirement.

He was active in the theatre field for about 30 years ago, and was a popular stage artiste.

In 1962, he was honoured with the best actor award by the then Prime Minister late Jawaharlal Nehru at New Delhi.

Reflections again!!

2010-01-16T02:48:00.010+05:30

I had planned to write a year end blog entry on 31st Dec 09. I then remembered a similar blog post I made at the end of 2008.

Re-reading what I had written then made me realize that I always seem to be stuck. The more the things change, more they remain the same!!!! Infact I looked at the draft I had made for 2009 and saw that many things were the same as already posted in 2008. I just hit the discard button and never posted anything.

Here I was, thinking that I made some really crucial decisions in 2009, significant events of life blah blah . . turns out that I am running around in circles, year after year:-)

But definitely, 2009 was a year of HIGHS (10,000 ft above ground)

and LOWS(below the ocean seeing corals)

LOST!!

2010-01-16T01:32:00.015+05:30

Prologue:
N woke up to the sight of a rain ravaged beach (same story during the last 4 days); infact the beach was completely washed away! His sunny, lazy, lonely- beach island vacation to Thailand at the peak of the swine flu season had been a damp squib and showed no signs of getting any better.

The good shepherd woke up with a sore back (thanks to the marathon kayaking session the previous afternoon) and pulled out of the trek in order to be ready for the evening’s scuba diving lesson. That left bugger, N and their German friend Chris to join 4 other German tourists and a Thai guide.After a short ride in an open jeep shivering in the rain, they stopped right at the entrance of a jungle and geared up with insect repellent, energy drinks, water, food etc stuffed into backpacks. The group followed a narrow trail which soon disappeared into a dense dark jungle. The rain got heavier and everyone was soaked to the bone; but none seemed to mind coz the beauty of the forest had taken away their collective breaths.

Progress was slow, partly due to the absence of a trail and also to give Chris an opportunity to sharpen his already excellent photography skills. The landscape changed fast; dense green forests gave way to bamboos which gave way to vines, interspersed by small & large streams. Intermittently clearings in the woods allowed mist covered peaks to be sighted. N was getting hungry, when guide announced lunch. But bugger and N hardly ate anything, coz they could not stand the smell of even the so called veg. food guide had brought for them.

Guide then announced a compulsory relaxing foot massage for all. Everyone was supposed to strip down to swim trunks, discard all bags and climb up a waterfall!! Bugger and N being the only non swimmers in the group were totally taken aback, coz they had to swim against a strong current to even get to the foot of the waterfall. While the two of them were contemplating their plight, the rest of the group had gone across and started climbing already. So this duo had to either follow them or wait with the footwear till the others returned. N decided to take the plunge, bugger followed suit. That was the start of a terrific (or terrible- depending on whom you ask) adventure. They crisscrossed across strong streams by hanging on ropes, diving under rocks, clutching at straws to stay afloat and what not!! In all this excitement, no one noticed the raining coming down harder than ever. It was only after about nine-tenths of the way up did they realize the magnitude of the rain, when even the crazy guide would not risk going the rest of the way due to the heavy currents. The group decided to turn back. Very quickly it became apparent that they were in deep trouble. The path they had taken earlier had got submerged under the torrential rain. Wading through the water was ruled out due to the strong current & the hard rock combination. The ropes they had tied across the streams on the forward journey had disappeared. They were marooned!!! There was no way out . . LOST in a forest in a foreign land, without a clue !!!!!
.
.

How long were they lost in the dense jungle???

Did they get back to civilization?

What were the risks they took??
.
.
.

Epilogue:
6 PM Koh Chang Thailand, 5 Km off lonely beach resort . . . . .
A ragged looking bunch of seven bruised, soaked and half naked men, woman and a kid emerge out of the jungles, some wearing shoes on only one leg, others with only their bathing suits, yet others with torn shirts. One of them breaks off from the group and hurries into the forest on the opposite side; the rest of the group fight off dogs and mosquitoes and begin to count their losses against the backdrop of a setting sun as they wait for the guide to return (with the car’s spare keys)

Martyred: A cute little Nokia 5310

Missing in action: guide’s car keys, shoes, clothes, more shoes (only one of the legs!!)
Maimed: passport (!!!)

Travelogue

2009-02-21T17:00:00.001+05:30

asterix's account of our North India vacation :-)

http://asterix-the-gaul.blogspot.com/2008/12/north-india-trip.html

Monday blues . .

2009-01-05T19:15:00.005+05:30

Two years since beginning my "working life", I am beginning to feel the monday morning blues.
If ever there was a day I had to drag myself off to work against all my wishes, it was today;
One week on-site in Mumbai.
Two days pilgrimage to my favourite temples.
One week laid up in bed with a fever that refuses to go away.
. . . The monday after all this is really a drag.
But one one reason made me travel all the 26 kms from home to office. It was to check my mail and find some good news about a much anticipated travel. But darn!! The mail completely turned my day ulta pulta. From there on, my enthu for the day's work slid even more. . . .
I somehow managed to escape at normal office closing time without having to do the usual last minute fire fighting work that crops up on most days. . . but that raised a few eyebrows though.

Surprising how, if one makes it a habit to stay longer than mandatory minimum, the superiors in the office give you "that" look on the rare days that you leave along with all the other guys out there who have a life outside office.

Reflections

2008-12-31T18:14:00.008+05:30

"What are you doing tomorrow night?", asked a friend.
"What is tomorrow night?", I asked. Then a fraction of second later it hit me . .
"ahh, new year's eve".It set me thinking (a lot of things do that to me these days :-)).
What the new year means to me. How the new year's eve has evolved over time for me.
The earliest recollection of Dec31st for me is during middle school. Jan 1st always meant the start of school after winter holidays. There would invariably be lot of unfinished winter projects and assignments that had to be completed. So Dec31st was always a hectic affair. Sitting in front of the TV, watching the bollywood stars and starlets dance to the beats of the "hit" songs of the year gone by and writing out that assignment.
Then as I got to high school, I got to partying on Dec31st. The whole family would go off to a club/ resort, stay till the "countdown" followed by fireworks, come home satisfied that we had done our bit to usher in the new year and hit the sack.Somewhere down the line this partying mode faded out of practice. Dec31st had become just another day; Nothing special to be done, no special resolutions to be made and broken.

But as is my wont these days, I could not resist reflecting on the year gone by and penning down my thoughts:
This year has probably been my worst year. I say "probably" because till now I have never though of evaluating an year as good/ bad.It has been a personal roller coaster ride. A lot of highs, some very deep lows and a general feeling of melancholy.
Some very painful memories, painful because the memories are so sweet and now no longer a reality but just a memory. Add to that, the happenings in the world, with faltering economies, terrorism etc and you have the recipe for a perfectly bad year. But as always, there is a glimmer of hope, that with a new day, a new year, a new beginning can be made to control the damage if not repair it completely.

Happy new year.

Quite unrelated to this post but somehow relevant in a twisted way to my feelings right now, I am pasting two poems below;
One,A beautiful poem I received as an email forward and the second, an sms that brings back splendid memories of a slice of life I will always look back at with a great deal of fondness.

Someone Somewhere

A thick haze settles over the ocean,
The horizon turns pink as far as the eye can see.
All creatures hurry back home,
As the sun plunges into the sea.
Someone somewhere made a fortune today,
Someone somewhere lost all that he ever had.
Someone will sleep with a smile on his face,
Someone with a heavy heart will be sad.
Someone somewhere was born to rule,
Someone somewhere was born to die.
Someone today found someone he loves,
Someone has left someone to cry.
Someone's life has changed today,
For some, it was just another day.
Someone somewhere is dumbfounded by his good fate,
Someone has nothing more left to say.
The beauty of this setting sun, Is too divine for me to summarize.
As I sit here and watch the setting sun,
Someone somewhere sees it rise......

-Anonymous

Reflections

A rose is nature's fairest flower,
Each bud in its perfection,
holds promise that a lovely bloom
Will catch the sun's reflection.

2008-06-24T01:47:00.005+05:30

One of my fav songs --from Colonial Cousins

It ain't over till the fat lady sings.....

2008-03-10T19:25:00.004+05:30

Or in this case, till the last ball is tonked over the pond....

It was SPANDAN cricket...IIITB's annual cricket carnival. Our team (Alumini from 2007 batch) made it to the final quite easily.
Considering our high scoring ways, inspite of having only 2 batsment in the lineup, we expected to get a decent total again. But as always, PHR failed again....in a pressure match. .. no surprise that!! Nandish shud have been around..if not for anything atleast to piss off PHR to make him score like in the previous game, with his irrepressible taunts
We ended up 69 in 12 overs.
"It is a defendable total, as long as we dont bowl full toss"...all our bowlers agreed just b4 entering the field to defend that total.

The first 4 overs went like a charm. The opposition batsmen finding out newer and weirder ways to get out ....... and our fielders managing to catch everything that came their way.
Then at end of 5 over with a score of 20/5 ( only two more wickets to get), yours truly made it to the bowling crease. Now, I rate myself as a bowler. . . I was thinking, one wicket for me this over...then Roshan will finish it off in the next....then we can go off for that delayed lunch at Chandana, where PTP and PHR can enjoy their "well deserved" cold beer . Advice flowed from all the other accomplished bowlers in the team..."bowl across him, he will edge it" ...."keep a little more pace man else you will get hit"...."bowl a lil slower, he will miss hit it" ...... whew!!
With all this, I just jogged up as usual and managed 3 uneventful deliveries. Then thinking..."ok lemme get that wicket....bowl a yorker and get done with it" , I just ran in a tad faster and then ended up banging it at half pitch....thud...six.
Next ..again attempted yorker..full toss....6!!! Gawd....managed the next one with only a single.....and ran away to hide myself at the boundary line with tails firmly between my legs.
"We have enough good bowlers who will finish the job"......
Bang....full toss for another 6.....this time Roshan being the sinner.
What followed was an amazing 25 mins...when every one of our bowlers seemed inspired to bowl a full toss, no matter what...we ended up losing with 10 more balls to spare..and the poor chap who won them the game ended up in the pool !!! Though, I cant still imagine how that guy did not edge even one ball ...Every over, it was 3 or 4 times beaten ...then a six and then a single to retain strike..amazing. . . The worst part....he just wrote somewhere that I am his favourite bowler....err... Dunno how to react to that!!

I have been in teams that have lost quite spectacularly before...but this one takes the cake.
Dunno if I will play SPANDAN next year, but the three years that I have played this tournament has provided enough memories to last a long long time......

Aussie Angel

2008-02-28T22:38:00.004+05:30

"I called him a bad boy."
"He took offence to that. I thought that was quite funny. I said mate, you should be flattered, it's a clothing range."
Just like one Mr. Symonds should have been flattered that he was being likened to a Hindu symbol of worship. We know what happened there.

"I like the idea of actually getting into the ring (with him). I like that, bring it on"

So the ugly hulk has admitted he is a bully-- wanting to take on kids nearly half his age (in a boxing ring at that!!).Will someone kindly remind Hayden that the sport that Ishant is playing is called cricket...and that Ishant has reduced the arrogant Aussie captain to using his bat like a fishing rod, outside his off stump ?

"The thing is, his record speaks for itself in cricket. It's a certain line that you can go to and you know when you push it - and he just pushes it all the time. That is why he's been charged more than anyone that has ever played in the history of cricket."
One statistic I came across :Since 1992 (when ICC code ofconduct came into effect)
Bhajji has been charged 5 times.
Guess who else has the same number of "convictions": It is the Aussie skipper himself. This is just one more than the now retired Glen McGrath...... hahaha...Wonder if Hayden thinks Ponting is a "Bad boy" too. One thing is sure, even if he does think so, he will never dare utter it on public Radio.

Boy!! This is the worst phase of the ugly Aussie syndrome. or is it..ther are three more matches (or maybe just two if one of the teams get a drubbing) to go this Aussie summer, wonder what else we will hear from tha angels in baggy green (sic)

July 8 2007

2007-09-02T00:12:00.001+05:30

I am waiting in line, to receive my graduation certificate......My thoughts begin to wander......
The last last few months have been hectic. Things and situations have changed, but then they haven'nt.
Life seems to be going on - as normal as ever, as busy as ever. There always seems to be a never-ending flow of things to do. Life seems like a race; a race that one seems to be running in, without really knowing where it leads to. All that one notices is that he is running on a highway with a lot of other people runing in front, behind and alongside. Suddenly there is a realisation that he must stop otherwise life will drift away in known, seemingly safe directions, only to be someday buried in unremembered and worthless destinations. It is at these moments at the cross roads of life there comes along some divine spark that strikes us - and we make that decision, that significant and crucial decision, that will someday shape our destiny.

I realised that the highway run is not what I want, I want to run a race where there is no routine path, where there is no easy decision. A crossroad from which various paths emerge - right, wrong, unknown, strange and uncharted.The first time I felt like this, was over 3 years back. Since then, at every junction of life, I get the feeling that I am taking a crucial decision, one that will forever change my life. Later I realise that things have not really changed all that much or not at all. This makes it all very confusing. What is seemingly most important now, becomes insignificant once a decision is taken and acted upon. So what is important and what is not?

If one cares to pause this rushed life of ours, playback the events in slow motion, we begin to understand; Our thoughts become clear. It becomes clear, how the little things in our life have fallen in place on the jigsaw puzzle. How the bigger pieces on which we spent our energies are really the easier ones to put in place; How the smaller, seemingly trivial pieces are vital, to complete the puzzle and to understand the bigger picture.. At this juncture one might also contemplate on the decisons about how the paths that we took - the supposedly right paths - never lead us anywhere. How we missed the forest for the trees, just because we failed to look deeper, or perhaps because we were not prepared to take the road less travelled.

We then wish that we could go back and take another path. Ofcourse, we cannot. However we can learn to be more careful further on and learn to recognize the key moments in life, learn to spot those subtle clues that life throws us. Ofcourse, that key moment will just pass by like any other, if we are not strong enough to resist the divergent pulls of the oft treaded paths. It needs a strong passion and courage to swim against the tide. The first step to do this lies in being able to realise that we are being carried away by the waves in random directions; to realise that we still have not attained the strength and passion that we can achieve, if only we dig deeper.

I feel that I have not still attained my full strength or found my calling in life. Someday in the future when I am ready for it, I want to be able to realise when I am actually living my key moment- A chance meeting, a big decision, or just a simple little talk, which will turn life upside down and make all the difference- and not have to rewind and play it back in my mind in flashback mode.I have taken many turns on the path that I chose a long time back, I do not know where it will lead me to- only time will tell;
The most recent juction that I crossed in my life was graduation from IIITB, and transiting from a student life to a professional work life. The journey so far has been memorable. Newer experiences and equally interesting times are ahead.

India vroooms into the fast lane

2007-06-14T18:37:00.002+05:30

At last, Formula One comes to India................

http://www.rediff.com/sports/2007/jun/14ind.htm

SWEET & SOUR

2007-04-18T21:31:00.002+05:30

Ant, grasshopper
Old version

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant’s a fool and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well-fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

Modern version

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant’s a fool and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well-fed while others are cold and starving.

NDTV, BBC, CNN show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home.

Arundhati Roy stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house. Medha Patkar goes on a fast demanding that the grasshoppers be relocated to warmer climates during winter. Amnesty International and Kofi Annan criticise the Indian Government for not upholding the fundamental rights of the grasshopper. Left parties call for “Bharat bundh” in West Bengal and Kerala. CPM in Kerala passes a law preventing ants from working hard so as to bring about equality of poverty among ants and grasshoppers. The judicial committee drafts the Prevention of Terrorism Against Grasshoppers Act (POTAGA), with effect from the beginning of the winter. Arjun Singh makes special reservation for grasshopper in educational and government service.

The ant is fined for failing to comply with POTAGA and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated and handed over to the grasshopper in a ceremony. Arundhati Roy calls it “a triumph of justice”. CPM calls it the “revolutionary resurgence of the downtrodden”. Many years later... The ant has since migrated to the US and set up a multi-billion dollar company in Silicon Valley. 100s of grasshoppers still die of starvation... Losing a lot of hard working ants and feeding grasshoppers, India is still a “developing” country.

(Courtesy: Vipin Bucksey, New Delhi)
Appeared in Deccan Herald March 2, 2007

.......the five lights go off.......the 2007 F1 season is GO!!!

2007-03-16T19:37:00.002+05:30

I'm Hoping for rain in Melbourne this sunday.

Weird

2007-02-17T23:21:00.001+05:30

The hostel where I am staying since the past 18 months seems to have rather weird people in charge.
A couple of situations I encounter quite often makes me sure of this.
7 AM:
I wake up bleary eyed..early in the morning .......find my way to the bathroom complex hoping to grab a quick shower before dashing off to class/office....and yes, my stay in the shower is very brief...reason: The water is biting cold.

This is nothing new.. repeated requests to the concerned authorities to fix up the water heating system..has not at all helped. Infact it looks like they are pissed off with the innumerable complaints they receive regarding this matter and have decided to take revenge.
Why do I feel this? . . . .
7 PM:
Location: The loo.
The taps are running with steaming hot water........ ouch!!

The hostel authorities seem to be saying: Shower in cold water[even in the middle of winter] and wash your ass in hot water.

I asked for hot water, and got it......it is only about 12 hours late that's all. . . .I have heard of Indian Stretchable Time.....but this is too much!

TA

2007-02-02T00:04:00.003+05:30

Now that I am done being a TA, I thought of penning down some of my activities as TA.
It was quite easy and fun being one.

Task 1. Invigilate the class test. . . . . thats pretty easy . . . . . Put up some seating arrangement. Just distribute the sheets and walk around the class, looking important and all knowing. If any one has a doubt regarding an ambiguous question which you also fail to understand. . . just say, "assume whatever is ambiguous and clearly state your assumption" :-D. That is a neat little trick I learnt from my TA's.

Task 2. Take demo for programming assignment and ask some viva.
Steps:
Meet prof.

Receive some gyan, about how to evaluate.

Allot slots for the students to meet you for the demo
[even if you already know that no one will come in their allotted time slot].

If somebody wants to show you the demo a couple of days before it is due . . . .
beware .. . that guys is seriously jobless. Afterall whoever heard of even starting
an assignment till 24 hours before it is due, let alone submitting it.

Run their programs, ask them to explain the code(!!!!)
( as per the gyan imparted by prof).

Guys will keep calling you "sir", even if you insist on being called on first name basis
--get used to it.

Nod your head as if understanding, even if you dont know JAVA and what they
are explaining makes no sense whatsoever to you, maybe you will learn something by the end of it all. Or atleast all that nodding will give your neck some much needed exercise.

If you have a beard and are asking stuff to which they dont know the answers,
be prepared to hear the word "terror" uttered when they think you are out
of ear shot.
Some female students will be heard saying, "I dont want to go to that bearded
guy!! I prefer the other friendly guy who talks sweetly".

:-)

Converse in the local language with your co-TA, expressing disgust at the poor
quality of work being demonstrated, and then get shocked when it turns out that the student sitting in front of you speaks the language!!

Task3. The toughest job : Evaluating the answer scripts

This can be a big chore, but sometimes can be the best source of entertainment.

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

PS: Dunno, how much of what I have written above is coherent . . . . I am tired and unable to thing clearly . . . but unable to sleep too [ aftereffect of sitting at a desk all day, with no physical activity at all]. . . . Had nothing else to do . . so I just typed this up ......will review it later sometime and delete it or make changes as appropriate.

PPS: I should also write something about being a student intern in a software company. . . . but that will come after some more weeks/months pass by. . . .

My teaching debut

2006-10-13T03:32:00.001+05:30

It was my first class. the topic to be covered was just some Matlab basics and a revision of some digital communications class from the previous week.
Though, I am very comfortable with these topics, I spent a good part of the day, preparing for the class.When it was finally time to begin the class, I felt that I could easily pull it off. A class of under 30 people, me just covering the basics, . . . no problemo, I thought.I could not have been more wrong.
"Hi, folks. Shall we begin?", is met with a silence.
"Did you read the material I posted on the website?". Silence again . . . atleast I got a few nods now, answering in the negative( some response is better than no response!!)
"Did you atleast read the homework questions posted earlier in the week?" resulted in a deafening silence.
Now, I was ready to run out of class. What am I supposed to teach, if they dont respond at all?But I go on . . . blabbering away, my speaking speed accelerating . . (as usually happens with me) . . . I see many blank faces,with the odd one or two nodding in agreement. ( so I slow down my speed, or so I think), I fix my gaze on those poor chaps and begin speaking in earnest . . . soon they realised, the more they nod in agreement, the more I punish them by looking only at them while teaching...so they stop looking at me.... now I am stumped.
So, I started off with trying to discuss the homework that was due in under a week's time, and some time later, they opened up a bit and started asking a few questions, thankfully!!
From then on, time flew( atleast for me, am sure the guys listening to the leture felt otherwise) . . .before I knew it, the hour was up, and I still had not covered everything that I had planned for the session, people were asking doubts left and right,it was chaotic, but I had to wind up quickly. So I just directed them to room 420 and wound up for the day.

I always wanted to do one thing when teaching, I did it today!!
When asked a particularly probing question,to which I dont have an immediate answer, I always wanted to say, "Let's take it offline" and not waste others' time. I DID ask one person to meet me offline . . . but he did not bother to turn up at all. Guess, he had enough of me already, in the class :-D

I got some feedback from "friends" among the junior batch students . . . It was a complete washout. I even had to send a mail, correcting some of the things I had wrongly stated in class.
I will have to take one more class some time in the next few weeks, hope that turns out better.

Ciao.

2006-10-05T00:52:00.002+05:30

In light of recent articles about Alonso blaming Michelin first,Renault next and his teammate later for allegedly not helping him in his WDC challenge, the following cartoon was drawn by someone and posted somewhere.

I'm in love. . . . . .again

2006-10-03T23:09:00.001+05:30

The first time I fell in love was some 15-17 years ago. It was love at first sight.
However it did not last long. My dad got transferred and soon I lost touch. It is said,out of sight is out of mind. For 12 long years I did not spend time with my love again. I only had brief fleeting glimpses. However, I did have one encounter around 2 years back, bringing in a flood of nostalgic thoughts. But nearly 600 kms of travel for just a sighter proved impractical.....long distance affairs never work out ;-)

Over the last couple of days, I fell in love for the second time in my life. This was no "first sight" issue. Though having been aquainted for long, and my new love being one of my mom's favourite, I had never felt any particular liking in the past. But having spent some quality time together during dasara, I am now caught between two loves. One calm and serene bringing a tranquillity I have cherished over the years while the other is accomapnied by a regal elegance unparalleled.

Do I have to make a choice and choose one over the other? nah! I will love both.

My first love: Two small towns in the malnad regions: Coorg( madikeri) and chikmagalur where I lived as a kid, enchanted by the flowing beauty of the hills and valleys, the green gardens, dense forests and the super weather.
My new found love: The city of Mysore, for its royal grandeur and elegance . . . it reminds me of Bangalore of the early/mid nineties. People with a laid back attitude to life, a place becoming modern, yet clinging on to its rich past. I hope Mysore stays the way it is now and does not become a Bangalore.

2006-09-17T05:20:00.000+05:30

I was just re-reading what i have posted on this blog thus far......and was surprised at how boring my writing is. Will try and change my writing style henceforth, so that i can spew out my nonsense in a much more artistic/ humorous way.

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

2006-08-14T23:47:00.001+05:30

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening.
- Robert Frost.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it's queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

--

This is one of my favourite poems, after John Milton's "On His Blindness"

The Gayatri Mantra

2006-08-11T16:24:00.001+05:30

It has been just a couple of days since UPAKARMA. So, many Brahmins must have spent a good part of their morning chanting the Gayatri Mantra thousands or lakhs of time.

I did a search to find the meaning/ translation of this mantra. Here is what I came up with:

Gayatri mantra has been bestowed the greatest importance in Vedic dharma.This mantra has also been termed as Savitri and Ved-Mata, the mother of the Vedas. The literal meaning of the mantra is:

O God! You are Omnipresent, Omnipotent and Almighty.You are all Light. You are all Knowledge and Bliss.You are Destroyer of fear, You are Creator of this Universe, You are the Greatest of all. We bow and meditate upon Your light. You guide our intellect in the right direction.

And now the meaning of the mantra step by step:

Om bhur bhuvah swah:
Bhur the earth, bhuvah the planets (solar family), swah the Galaxy.[ We observe that when an ordinary fan with a speed of 900 RPM (rotations Per minute) moves, it makes noise. Then, one can imagine, what great noise would be created when the galaxies move with a speed of 20,000 miles per second. This is what this portion of the mantra explains that the sound produced due to the fast-moving earth, planets and galaxies is Om. The sound was heard during meditation by Rishi Vishvamitra, who mentioned it to other colleagues. All of them, then unanimously decided to call this sound Om the name of God, because this sound is available in all the three periods of time hence it is set(permanent). Therefore, it was the first ever revolutionary idea to identify formless God with a specific title (form) called upadhi. Until that time, everybody recognized God as formless and nobody was prepared to accept this new idea.
In the Gita also, it is said, "Omiti ekaksharam brahma", meaning that the name of the Supreme is Om, which contains only onesyllable. This sound Om heard during samadhi was called by all the seers nada-brahma a very great noise), but not a noise that is normally beyond a specific amplitude and limits of decibels suited to human hearing. Hence the rishis called this sound Udgith musical, sound of the above, i.e., heaven.

Tat savitur varenyam:

[Tat that (God), savitur the sun (star), varenyam worthy of bowing or respect. Once the form of a person along with the name is known to us, we may locate the specific person. Hence the two titles (upadhi) provide the solid ground to identify the formless God, Vishvamitra suggested. He told us that we could know(realize) the unknowable formless God through the known factors, viz., sound Om and light of suns (stars). A mathematician can solve an equation x^2+y^2=4; if x=2; then y can be known and so on. An engineer can measure the width of a river even by standing at the river bank just by drawing a triangle.So was the scientific method suggested by Vishvamitra in the mantra in the next portion as under:-

Bhargo devasya dheemahi:
Bhargo the light, devasya of the deity, dheemahi we should meditate. The rishi instructs us to meditate upon the available form (light of suns) to discover the formless Creator (God). Also he wants us to do japa of the word Om (this is understood in the Mantra). This is how the sage wants us to proceed, but there is a great problem to realise it, as the human mind is so shaky and restless that without the grace of the Supreme (Brahma) it cannot be controlled. Hence Vishvamitra suggests the way to pray Him as under:

Dhiyo yo nah prachodayat:
Dhiyo (intellect), yo (who), nah (we all), prachodayat (guide to right Direction). O God! Deploy our intellect on the right path.

Full scientific interpretation of the Mantra: The earth (bhur), the planets (bhuvah), and the galaxies(swah) are moving at a very great velocity,the sound produced is Om, (the name of formless God.) That God (tat), who manifests Himself in the form of light of suns (savitur) is worthy of bowing/respect(varenyam). We all, therefore, should meditate (dheemahi) upon the light (bhargo) of that deity (devasya) and also do chanting of Om.
May He(yo) guide in right direction (prachodayat) our (nah) intellect (dhiyo).

Friendship

2006-08-10T01:32:00.000+05:30

[edited]
Contents erased!!

One way trip

2006-08-08T18:29:00.002+05:30

A pitched battle has been ongoing for 8 months now.The millions, led by N are a beaten lot. The once sizeable lot is now hugely diminished. They are fighting for a lost cause. But their pride does not allow them to sit back and be beaten. If at all they are going down, it wont be without a fight to the bitter end.
It all began innocuously enough. A few dead and uprooted in the dead of night when N was off duty (sleeping). He dismissed these stray incidents as routine happenings. Exposed to the harsh climes of the battlefields, some footsoldiers are bound to fall prey to the enemy, he said. The large number of young and upright members of the clan showed signs of weakening more than a couple of years ago. Some of the members got old too early(blame it on the stressful conditions they encountered), others fell away from the mainstream rather suspiciously. N suspected that his clan had been infiltrated. He dug out the offenders. It was easy enough at first,as they stood out from the teeming crowd of N's clan. Unfortunately, physical removal of the traitors did not improve the situation for N. The traitors grew in number. Hidden among the natives, the traitors worked their evil, weakening the faithfuls who began to wilt. It was in Jan '06 that the battle truly reached a flash point. N's troops have declined alarmingly quickly. There is no signs of a let up. The battle field which was earlier filled to the very edge [resembled the hair on grizzly bears :D ], now sports a bare look.The losses on either side have been extensive.But the natives have lost more. Large patches of terrain are left unoccupied. It has been ravaged by the battle, and rendered uninhabitable for the natives. This is a sign of things to come. The rest of the terrain will meet the same fate. Finally what will be left is large tracts of empty terrain, with a story to tell, for those who will care to listen.

:-)

2006-08-02T14:19:00.000+05:30

TEST

Wonder Years

2006-07-11T18:36:00.001+05:30

Growing up happens in a heartbeat.
One day you're in diapers, the next day you're gone.
But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul.
I remember a place ... a town ... a house like a lot of houses ...
A yard like a lot of other yards ...On a street like a lot of other streets.
And the thing is ... After all these years,I still look back ... with wonder.

Happenings around me in the past few days brought back memories ....memories archived in remote parts of my brain. These made me smile, laugh quietly and brought tears to my eye in the knowledge that I would never again see the person who helped create all those memories.

I see an older generation passing by, bidding goodbye to this world,( I pray ) headed for a peaceful afterlife. Some are gone, few are left...and will cause the inevitable feeling of loss to those they leave behind. We are like the green leaf, watching the old leaves wither away, reminding us of our own mortality and reminding us to enjoy life to the fullest.

Wonder years

2006-07-11T18:02:00.003+05:30

Growing up happens in a heartbeat.
One day you're in diapers, the next day you're gone.
But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul.
I remember a place ... a school ... a school like a lot of schools ...
A building like a lot of other buildings ...On a street like a lot of other streets.
And the thing is ... After all these years,I still look back ... with wonder.

Saturday.... Am at home on a saturday morning after a longggg time. Coz our Marketing guru had some work and could not make it to the lecture.I remember getting up at around 9AM and being subjected to some light banter from dad for oversleeping(and I went... oh c'mon...9AM is too early esp. on a weekend ). I decided, I want to spend as little time as possible today, on my feet. I wanted to put my feet up and take it eazeee.
Now!! I am adept at 'appearing' busy doing nothing. But to to be seen as not doing anything and still not be asked by someone to do some work around the house...that is something I am yet to master.
Then I thought...........I can laze away an entire morning and afternoon too, if I somehow manage to push all the chores ( if any) onto my bro.(uhhh...maybe promise him a game of Age of conquerors so that he can beat me black n blue and take out all his frustrations on me). I hoped for a lazy saturday evening too, but was booked for a family outing. So had to make most of the morning(whatever was left of it) and the afternoon.

But what do you know, surprisingly I had no chores all day. So I did not have to offer myself for an AOC massacre. But that did not stop him from pulling me in for a quick game later that night and trashing me not once but twice, leaving me completely annoyed and irritated with him and my ego completely bruised.I expected to last atleast for an hour...and not lose in 20 mins flat!! :-D

I managed to lay my hand on a couple of books 'How opal mehta got kissed......'
and an yet to be released novel by Abbot ( one advantage of having a sis who is Sr.Manager in the marketing div. of a large chain of bookstores).It was my dream day!

Then in the late afternoon, by 3 or 3.30PM, I got a call on my cell phone....

Caller(female with shrill voice vaguely familiar):"hi Nagesh, I am your friend here.Can you come to xyz?"
Me: "who is this?"
Caller:I am your friend here.Can you come to xyz?
Me:(thinks 'this HAS to be a prank' what girl in her right mind will call me!):"sry, I'm busy now.Cant come anywhere."
Caller: I am XXX.
Me: whoa! You!? When did u change your phone number!!
Caller(seemingly in a hurry to hang up): Will you come to xyz?
Me: alrite... will get there in another 10
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
No I did not go to xyz and become the bakra.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
A couple of incoming calls; one from the same female, one from a school friend(why did HE call!!. If not for him, I might yet have fallen for
this ;-) ) roused my suspicion further.Then an outgoing sms confirmed the identity of the callers..aahh thankfully!! Else, the embarassment would have been ultmate.

I saved myself the blushes.When they realised, I was not taking the bait, they owned up. I met them later and then pushed off for my family outing.
It was my friends from school, on an unannounced get-together. The kids from KK, now all grown up and working or going abroad for higher studies.

Unexpected, it spoiled my plans for a lazy afternoon, but a pleasant surprise nevertheless. Seeing some of them after 6-7 years brought back some amazing memories.

Mirror mirror on the .......

2006-06-28T15:03:00.001+05:30

Give the world the best you have, and the best will come back to you. This world of ours is like a mirror. It merely mirrors and gives back to every man the reflection of his own thoughts and actions. Frown at it and it will scowl back at you, laugh at/with it, and you will find it a jolly good fellow.
No doubt, our success or failure is of our own making, but others can contribute significantly to our success/happiness or otherwise.i.e it is closely linked to the attitudes and actions of others around us. Usually such actions and attitudes turn out to be a reflection of our own attitudes and actions towards them.

CSR

A poem

2006-05-13T23:30:00.001+05:30

When I born, I Black,
When I grow up, I Black,
When I go in Sun, I Black,
When I scared, I Black,
When I sick, I Black,
And when I die, I still black..
And you White fella,
When you born, you Pink,
When you grow up, you White,
When you go in Sun, you Red,
When you cold, you Blue,
When you scared, you Yellow,
When you sick, you Green,
And when you die, you Gray..
And you calling me Colored ??

-written by an African kid.........

I came across this poem in my mail and felt like posting it.

2006-05-10T18:59:00.001+05:30

I have had a lot of spare time, this past week or so.On one such lazy night, i decided to watch the tamil movie- Anniyan, having heard that it was a very well made movie.

I won't comment about the movie itself.....

I became particularly interested with the references to the Garuda Purana. All that i knew was that the Garuda purana is read at the time of death, before the cremation etc. I decided to dig a little for some more information.Here is some of the info i found about the various hells and the punishments meted out to sinners.

[Believe all that is written below, if u wish!!]

When a person dies, Yama’s messengers (yamaduta) come to take him to Yama. Yama’s messengers are terrible of appearance and they hold sticks and clubs in their hands. The atman leaves the dead physical body and adopts a very small form, as long as a finger. In this form, the dead person is taken to Yama’s abode. The actions performed in one’s life (karma) determine what is going to happen to a dead person thereafter. He is first sent to hell to serve out his sentence for the sins he has committed. Thereafter, he is born again. And what he is born as depends on the karma of the earlier life.
To take care of different types of sinners, there are different narakas.

The most important naraka is rourava, reserved for those who lie or bear false witness. The hell has a long expanse and is full of huge pits. These pits are full of burning coal. The sinner is let loose at one end of the hell and is made to walk to the other end. Naturally, he keeps falling into the pits and gets severly burnt. When he reaches the other end of the hell, he is released from rourava. He then goes to other hells if there are other sins to be accounted for.

Another hell is named maharourava. It is covered with burning sands. The fires that burn there are so bright that they hurt the sinner’s eyes. The sinner’s hands and feet are tied and he is thrown into the hell. There he burns. To compound his miseries, the hell is populated by fierce crows, vultures, wolves, mosquitoes and scorpions. These bite him and sting him and eat his flesh as he burns. After several years spent in maharourava, sinners are released.

Unlike rourava and maharourava, the hell named atishita is extemely cold. There is no light there and everything is in total darkness. The only heat that sinners can generate is by clinging on to each other’s bodies. There are hailstorms which make the skin smart. And there is no food to eat. To satisfy their hunger, the sinners end up eating each other’s flesh and blood and bones.
The hell named nikrintana is quite different. There sinners are tied to stakes and their bodies are sliced with sharp chakras. The slicing begins with the feet and then moved up the body to the head and then again starts with the feet. The tragic part of this is that the sinners do not die in the process. For as soon as a part of their body is join up again. Thus a sinner does not die, but continues to endure the misery. And so it continues for a thousand years before there is release.
A hell named apratishtha is a place where sinners are whirled round and round until they begin to vomit blood and their intestines come out of their mouths.

Asipatravana naraka is a huge expanse. The edges of the hell are extemely hot and there is a grove of trees in the centre. The centre is also cooler. The sinners are let loose at the edges and they suffer so much from the heat that they dash towards the centre. Asi means sword and patra is the blade of a sword. Vana is a forest. The hell is so named because the trees in the grove have leaves that are as sharp as the blades of swords. When sinners dash into the grove, their flesh is sliced with the leaves of the trees. And the grove is also full of fierce dogs which immediately eat up the torn flesh.
Next is the hell named taptakumbha. This has hot (tapa) pots (kumbha). The pots are full of boiling oil. The sinners are hung upside down inside these pots and roasted. And while they are being boiled in oil, vultures tear apart whatever portions of their bodies continue to be exposed.

There are many hells. But the seven major ones are the ones that have just been describedrourava, maharourava, atishita, nikrintana, apratishtha, asipatravana and taptakumbha.
All the hells are located under the earth. The hells are so terrible that a single day there seems like a hundred years on earth. Imprisonment in any naraka is for a fixed term. When all these tenures in different hells are over, it is time for the sinner to be born again. And what he is born as is determines by the karma of his earlier life. The greater the sins he committed in his earlier life, the more inferior the form he is born as . And so the cycle of birth, atonement and rebirth continues.
Rewards for punya are received in heaven. But these rewards are not forever. Once the term is over, the person has to be reborn.

The Garuda purana deals with not just on how the dead are punished for their sins. It deals with a whole lot more.
The Garuda Purana has nineteen thousand shlokas. It is a medium-sized Purana. The thousand shlokas of the Garuda Purana are divided into two parts, a purva khanda (first part) and an uttara khanda (subsequent part). Each khanda has several chapters (adhyaya). The purva khanda is much longer, it has two hundred and thirty-four chapters. The Uttara khanda has only forty-five.Garuda Purana is in the form of instructions by Lord Maha Vishnu to Sri Garuda (The King of Birds). This Purana deals with astronomy, medicine, grammar, and gemstone structure and qualities. In addition, the Garuda Purana is considered the authoritative Vedic reference volume describing the [Nine Pearls], which includes not only the well known Oyster Pearl, but also the Conch Pearl, Cobra Pearl, Boar Pearl, Elephant Pearl, Bamboo Pearl, Whale Pearl, Fish Pearl, and Cloud Pearl.The latter half of this Purana deals with life after death. .This link gives a lot more information about the Garuda purana. I have not yet read it completely[nor am i sure of its authenticity], but it does make for an interesting read.

Mediocrity!!

2006-05-04T23:24:00.001+05:30

It was supposed to be a day spent in relief,after completing the end term exams with only one project demonstration remaining.I hardly slept the previous night despite being sleep deprived for over a week.By around 5 in the morning, I had managed to complete the remaining work in my project and went to bed, with the intention of speaking to my prof later in the morning to get some feedback about the work.A careless mistake while demonstrating resulted in unexpectedly bad result from my program. So the prof decided to take a look at the code to identify the cause of the anomaly. Having taken one look at it, came a most surprising comment," There is no good in just getting a code from somewhere, you gotta understand how it works atleast, before demonstrating it."

This comment shocked me !!Being a mediocre programmer, i usually start my coding work, from a template and build on it, seldom starting any programming from scratch.However, this was one occasion where i wrote every line of code, with meticulous commenting and following almost every trivial Software Engineering ritual, maintaining the date of creation of code, date of modification, versioning scheme, a few lines of introductory comments about how to run the code, etc.[This was something that this very prof espoused in class saying,"maintaining good documentation is very important, even if your code is not working, these rituals must be followed-will help in debugging and maintaining the code later on!"]
This sort of organised method of working is probably best confined to speeches and not practice and was probably not expected of us..
If any work which is done with diligence can be met with such reproach, no wonder we are content to do amateurish work and be satisfied with it, coz that is what is expected of us. Going the extra mile to do things in an organised manner only lands us into trouble, resuting in comments from well meaning peers," Why did you need to do it that well, they will obviously suspect that you flicked it from somewhere".
I guess, there is some truth in these comments afterall.
My first time doing a decent programming job and i get this!!I can only say "Idu yentha lokavayyah" where mediocrity is the norm and hardwork and effort count for nothing and leads to suspicion.

Lesson from this incident: NEVER FOLLOW SE practices. If you do, then you will land in trouble. I always knew that the profs were only Bull Shitting us in the weekly 4 hours of SE lectures every week .But now, speaking from experience, i can be certain!!

Motivation

2006-04-22T22:45:00.001+05:30

Things are tough- You enjoy the challenge, Work hard and reap the rewards.

Things become easy- So no longer challenging! Slack off, start going downhill.

That describes my present situation.

Dr.Rajkumar

2006-04-13T05:28:00.001+05:30

Dr. Rajkumar: Incredible Actor, magnificent singer, simple person, honoured for his genourisity
RIP 1929-2006

Date of Birth - 24/4/1929 at Gajanur.
First Movie - Bedara Kanappa in 1954
200th movie-Devatha Manushya
Raj sung his first song in Mahishasura Mardini(Tumbitu manava...).
However, his singing career started when he sung'yaare kugadali..' in sampathige savaal.

His films which created history in Kannada Cinema Industry: Bangaradha Manushya, Kastoori Nivasa , Babruvana, Bhakta Prahalada, Shankar Guru, Gandhadha Gudi, Jeevana chaitra, Aakasmika etc.,

Awards of significance:
He received the Padma Bhushan award from the Government of India and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1995, in recognition of his contributions to the Kannada film industry.
His fans have conferred him the title "Nata Saarvabhowma" (The Emperor of Acting).

some interesting links- related to vedas

2006-03-23T18:26:00.001+05:30

http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/scientific-verif-vedas.html

http://www.crystalinks.com/indiavimanas.html

http://www.atributetohinduism.com/Vimanas.htm

The F1 Gazette

2006-03-05T02:08:00.000+05:30

Hi, I will put my ramblings on the new F1 season which gets underway in a week's time, in another blog.

http://thef1gazette.blogspot.com/

[edited]

nerd, anyone?

2006-02-22T17:54:00.000+05:30

Ah! just as i expected. There is still some hope left for me.

what is patriotism?

2006-01-28T23:37:00.000+05:30

Jan 26, Aug 15 . . .. what do these dates mean to us.
We all know the significance of these Anniversaries, but has it lost all meaning to us?
We just enjoy a holiday, away from work, studies etc. Do we ever stop and wonder!

Now what to wonder about? I really don’t know. But I can’t help feeling that we are all not doing something right. On festival days most of us do some sort of puja to god, eat a good meal and probably buy clothes, jewellery etc even if we don’t know/understand the significance of those festivals.
But what do we do on I Day and R Day? Hoist a flag, sing the Anthem and then enjoy the rest of the day?!!..... Shouldn’t we be doing something special on these days? Because we all know AND understand the significance of these two anniversaries. IS THERE ANYTHING WE CAN DO TO MARK THIS DAY, apart from the monotonous activities of flag hoisting and Anthem singing?

There is a special day for many things: there is a fathers day, mothers day, teachers day, Valentine’s Day friendship day, etc. Though these are often dismissed as a western conception and as marketing gimmicks, it atleast has given us an occasion to express our feelings. It is true that one loves his father/mother/teacher/girlfriend/ boyfriend every living moment. But it is not every day that you have the time and inclination to express your love to them. Such occasions as fathers day, mothers day,teachers day etc provide this opportunity.
In a similar way I Day and R Day are supposed to be anniversaries when we express our feelings or do some introspection. I Day and R Day are days on which we show or feel love for our country. It is true that we love out country every living moment (atleast most of us do), but how do we go about showing patriotism for the country?

2005-12-25T22:34:00.001+05:30

"Friendship has no expiry date".
This was part of a text message i received on my mobile phone, from a close friend.It set me thinking. Is it really true? Is a good friendship something that lasts forever and grows better with age? Many of us would have tales of how we have nurtured a friendship over a long period of time. But for each such special friendship that is spread over a decade or more, how many broken friendships are strewn along the path? Even people perceived as being very close to eachother have drifted apart/cant stand each other's presence.
My opinion on this is thus: Human beings always seek some gain in whatever they do. The gain need not always be something materialistic. The friends we make at any point in our life depend on our circumstances. Though one does not befriend someone having only ulterior motives( that is not friendship anyhow!), quite unconsciously almost all of us tend to be friends with people who will at some point of time be useful to us. We befriend those who share some common activity.So friends are mostly circumstantial. Once the common thread that held the friendship together, no longer exists or is no longer strong enough, the friends tend to drift apart i.e the friendship reaches its expiry date.

Are Rule changes the cause for Ferrari decline?

2005-07-26T23:56:00.000+05:30

Fernando Alonso’s win in Germany has all but ensured his championship victory. The performance of Ferrari and McLaren [the lack of it] also signals a likely constructor win too for Renault. When this happens, it will signal the end of an era in F1: An end of the long rein of domination by Ferrari and Schumacher.
However, many are claiming that this result is unfair, as the rules were changed to handicap Ferrari and advantage other teams.
On the contrary, the rules should have strengthened Ferrari and not weakened them. Here is why.

Ferrari had developed their car to a pinnacle - but the room for improvement for other teams was higher and they were just beginning to gain ground - when the rules were changed.

If you say that the rule changes were aimed solely at Ferrari - then it should be clear how the changes affect Ferrari more than other teams or help other teams more than Ferrari - having done this exercise on the rules after 2002 - a number of times now - the reality is that the overall result was either neutral or actually in Ferrari's favour.

Let's take a look at when the decision was made for the rule changes: end of the 2004 season. The three major changes that took place were:
1) 2 race engines;
2) One set of tires for qualifying and the same set for the race;
3) Aero changes (a general summation, but I trust you get the point).

Now let's look at what Max was seeing while he was coming up with these rules:
1) Ferrari had the best / reliable engine on the grid;
2) Bridgestone was more durable, and infact seemed to improve with wear;
3) A team was needed to test the effects of the aero changes he had in mind (whom did they pick to do the testing . . . that's right, Ferrari).

And which team was it that wanted V8 engines? And what engines will we have next year? Yes, you guessed right. It is Ferrari.

Ferrari already had the most reliable engine in the history of F1 when a rule was brought in to reward reliability - so who does that favour? Ferrari more than anyone else!

Single lap qualifying - well, let's see - drivers with proven records of being consistent and able to do near their best immediately (MS) - versus others who often needed a few shots to do their best (JPM, less experienced drivers).

When tyres became an issue - guess what - the scrutineering rules were changed - and it certainly was teams other than Ferrari who were affected.

On paper, the rule changes SEEMED to favour Ferrari. Unfortunately, someone dropped the ball and the other teams (mainly Renault and McLaren) upped their game.

It's long been said that rule instability is better for teams with more technical resources, as they have the ability to respond to the changes. Rule stability is better for the smaller and less technically equipped teams as they have a chance to catch up. Ferrari is not exactly one of the teams with poor technical resources- - the teams most able to deal with rule changes are those with the most resources. And if one team is already on top of key rule changes (such as for engine reliability) then it lets it focus on other changes.

I'm not saying that all the rule changes have advantaged Ferrari against the other teams, but certainly they've done relatively well out of them. It has just happened that this year, they dropped the ball. If Ferrari has had bad results this season, it has nothing to do with the rules. It just means that other teams did a better job than them. Period.

2005-07-24T00:56:00.000+05:30

The last month has been pretty slow. After the rush of completing final semester project, then going through the chore of giving the exams.... life has been pretty slow. Though i have been out of staion already a couple of times i find myself with nothing to do and am looking forward to the day i can begin a new chapter in my life at iiit and my first experience of hostel life.

It has not been too long since i stopped going to MSRIT, but i already misss the place. Not because i loved the "education" imparted there, but for other reasons which i will elaborate soon.

Education must have two aspects embedded in it
1. Imparting knowledge
2. Building character to mould students into good citizens and human beings.

The "knowledge" aspect is what is empasised in most educational institutes.However, in my opinion the process of building character is much more important. We can aquire knowledge even without teachers(anyhow, that has been the case for the last 4+2 years--more self study than any class room teaching). What is regrettable is that these days the "teachers" are unable to impart knowlwdge let alone build the character of their wards.

Now that i have got that small rant on education out of the way, let me elaborate why i will/am missing MSRIT already. I never did hang out in the college canteen or other favoutite hangouts. However, one of the places in college that i will miss is the college library. Not because of the books ( i never read any of them completely anyway---the photo-copied stuff from Krishna Xerox was more than enough), but because the library gave me an opportunity to observe lots of people and learn a lot about human behaviour.

I will miss the hours of cricket we played on weekend's..
The endless battles for supremacy in Age of Empries(Conquerors)..the week long startegies..discussions.. only to get the better of the guys in the other section of the class [for the record..My class beat the other more often ]
The long winded discussions and arguments with some of my classmates on a wide ranging number of topics.

I will miss the ever present smile of MSS(J), the nonsensical talk of HOD, the inspirational speeches from KM.
I will also miss SL..(but for exactly opposite reasons as the others already mentioned ).
Most of all i will miss the three other members of The Fantastic Four.....Hari,Badari and Girish.Each of us is going our own way....IISc,Job,IIT......

If i never forget MSRIT, it will be because of all my friends there. I learnt more from them than possibly any sort of formal teaching could ever teach me.
I learnt from them the natural way. i.e watch - imitate -learn. I have watched a lot of really amazing people.......... I have picked up a few things from each of them (mostly unknown to them). I learnt to work hard, to Chill out, to work out a balance between my various activities.... i have benifitted immensely from all these people.

Now all these experiences of over 4 years will be memories which i will surely cherish. I am thankful that i have not made any enemies or hurt anyone's feelings during my time in MSRIT.I am sure i will be happy to meet up with all my classmates or teachers anytime in the future and i guess the feeling will be mutual.

Now it is time to move on............ new place, new challenges, new friends,new experiences...i hope it is as rewarding as the last few years have been.

F1 aerodynamics- adverse effects on overtaking?!

2005-07-12T22:32:00.001+05:30

Formula One racing has recently come under scrutiny due to a lack of overtaking, and rules are constantly being changed in an effort to reduce speeds and increase overtaking. The lack of overtaking was conspicuous by its absence at Silverstone this week as this track is known to be one of the best tracks for overtaking as it provides wide roads and the fast sweeping corners.
Aerodynamics plays a big part in the problems of overtaking, and since the introduction of aerodynamic principles into Formula One, they have become of ever increasing importance to the car's performance. The aerodynamic requirements of the F1 car are high downforce at minimum drag - but the more downforce you have, the more drag you incur. This drag is due to air being disturbed as it flows over the vehicle, and as the air does not have the energy to sort itself out, it ends up following the car as its wake.
In an F1 car all the aerodynamic devices are so close together that there are large interactions, and the rear wing, rear wheels and floor-level diffuser contribute significantly to the shape of the wake. As the air travels over the car, it will lose energy, and cannot return to its initial values of speed and pressure, and this is what the wake is.
Any vehicle which produces lift (be it positive in most road cars, or negative in racing cars) will produce vortices - the phenomenon you see when water swirls down a plug hole. The F1 rear wing, for instance, will produce a significantly large pair of strong vortices called trailing vortices which last a large distance behind the wing which created them. There are often seen as swirls of white on the edges of the rear wing when the air is moist. In an F1 car, they rotate in such a way as to produce an upwash (air travelling rearwards and up relative to the ground. In addition to this, the flow underneath the car plays a large part in the shape of the wake. The F.I.A. Regulations state the major percentage of the car floor must be flat, but diffusers are allowed. The air channels out of the diffuser and is immediately sucked upwards due to the influence of the rear wing, adding to the already large upwash in the centre of the wake, which creates a low pressure in that area. As the wake moves with the car, this causes a drag upon it, and will also cause problems for the vehicle behind.
The effect on the following car is beneficial in a straight line as it will get a 'tow' from the car in front, and its drag will be reduced by following in this turbulent air. Drivers say the 'tow' from the low pressure wakes (often referred to as a slipstream) can be felt up to six car lengths behind, but it is only significantly large when trailing by approximately one to two car lengths. However, it has been suggested that tows from older F1 cars were larger (which makes sense, as they had more downforce), and this is one problem suggested for the lack of overtaking in present day Formula One. Down a straight, a bigger tow makes it easier to close on the car ahead, and if you have less tow, it is harder to get close to the car at the end of the straight when you are coming into the corner, so harder to get into a good position to overtake.

In cornering, however, the effect of the wake is very detrimental, and drivers complain of understeer (brought about by a loss of downforce due to wake effects) up to three or four car lengths behind. The car's downforce decreases because the air the car (especially the front wing) is working in has less energy than normal, and the air separated from the wing surfaces earlier than normal. The car cannot sustain wheel side forces similar to the car ahead, so cannot travel as fast through the corner. It will therefore drop back and not be in a position to overtake once on the straight - another aerodynamic problem once again giving the upper hand to the car in front (not the best plan if overtaking is required!).
In simple terms, if one car follows another closely at high speed, the front car punches a hole in the air, allowing the second car to travel at the same speed while using less engine power and it is thus able to pull out of the slipstream, apply more power and overtake. However, the complex aerodynamics on an F1 car means that the following car’s balance is upset by this and either cannot get close enough to pass, or loses downforce which can lead to loss of grip and a crash.Air on the car creates dynamic pressure and if there is a car in front of you, it has two effects. The air on the car is reduced and so the car generates less downforce and the air coming towards you is not "clean" it is turbulent (sometimes referred to as ‘dirty air’). Cars do not like that. As a car closes to the one in front, the following car loses more downforce because of the turbulence of the air and there is an upwash from the car in front so air hits the car from an angle it is not designed to deal with

My Vacation PART II

2005-06-24T22:13:00.000+05:30

We started for Mangalore from Mercara early morning...6.15 AM (17th June '05).The distance to cover was around 130 kms..but the road was not too great .... we reached Mangalore by around 11.. and were welcomed by a steady drizzle. Anil took us to a gr8 icecream parlour...."pabba's"..........The rain wrecked our plans a little....St. Mary's Island was closed due to the rains..so we canceled going to Malpe. We instead headed to a nearby beach "Panambur beach". It was a nice little place...surprisingly empty and also pretty clean. We practically had the whole beach to our selves. We decided to be brave and venture out into the sea..we walked a stone path which was roughly 2 kms into the water..then Pradeep experienced a HUGE scare..due to sudden rain and winds the waves got BIG on him all of a sudden and nearly knocked him off the rocks and almost into the water. ..hehe and he got bruised big time!...but the brave-heart pradeep refused medical attention! We went to Anil's house ..had a nice bath ..lunch and then shot off towards Kudremukh.....another 130 kms of journeying.
This time the journey was very pleasurable..amazing scenery. We stopped a few times to let the shutter bug- Rithesh- take a few shots of mother nature in all her splendour.It felt like we were in paradise.....greenery all around..cool winds....nice roads(hehe).........The best part of the journey was the stop-over at Hanumangundi falls. It was a damn steep climb down and an equally difficult climb back up. But the effort was worth it..the waterfall was breathtaking to say the least! After a 45 minute break at the Hanumangundi falls we moved on to reach Kudremukh by 7 PM.
..................The rest of my journey is another story........for another day another time.

My Vacation PART I

2005-06-22T22:44:00.000+05:30

4 guys..Pradeep,Rithesh,Anil and myself..started out on a trip to some of the places in the western ghats.
We left Bangalore at 11.30 P.M on wednesday night(15th June '05). we used a TATA Indica for travelling,booked from Pooja travels.
Our first destination was Madikeri(roughly 260 kms from Bangalore). We moved at a stately pace in the dead of night to reach Virajpet by about 5.30 AM on thursday.We made a brief stop-over at Anil's relatives' place,had a cup of hot coffee and set off on our way to cover the remaining 30 odd Kms to the town of Madikeri...the Scotland of India. The weather was surprisingly not as cold or as wet as we expected. The locals told us that rain was expected any time soon and we would be lucky if we managed to escape it. We arrived at madikeri by 7.30 AM and checked into the hotel "Rajdarshan", located right opposite RAJA SEAT, a spot meant for viewing the scenic beauty of Coorg. We walked around the town and visited the Madikeri fort, which has been converted into the Govt. offices' administrative block. Later, after breakfast we went to Abbe Falls, also called Jesse falls. Due to lack of adequate rainfall, the water was but a faint trickle. Having seen the water falls at its glorious best earlier,I was disappointed with what I saw.The water falls from a height of 21.3 metres and really makes a wonderful sight to behold when in full flow. We then went back to our hotel rooms, had lunch and caught up with some much needed sleep....considering that we had travelled through the night with hardly a wink of sleep. We then set off to Talacauvery, the point of origin of the river Cauvery. The drive is a pretty tough one..uphill on the notorious Ghat sections. We felt the full fury of the Monsoon in this part of the malnad region as we climbed higher. The rainfall was torrential and we could hardly see a thing. However, we braved the rain and got out of our car to have a look at the origin of river Cauvery and got drenched in the process.The mist was so dense that we could not even see a few feet ahead of us. Due to the rain we did not stop at Bhagmandala. We went to our rooms drenched to the bone. It was well past evening by then. Already tired, we decided to skip the Omkareshwar temple. After having rested for a while we decided on a late night walk after dinner at hotel "east end point".This was what we came to Madikeri to experience....a slight drizzle....then heavy rains....cold winds .

Next stop Mangalore....more about that later...................