Y! BriefCase closing on March 30, 2009

I am pretty sure most of you would have used Yahoo Briefcase, a little utility offering 30 MB of space, which has now got shadowed by giants who offer hundreds/thousands of mega-bytes of space online. But, it always had some loyal customers once upon a time. I remember using it regularly during my college days, when I uploaded all those stuff I considered precious and worthwhile taking backup, into y! briefcase. Those were the times much before the web-giant Google shot into limelight (with its products - gmail, gcalender, gdocuments into the market space).

Today Yahoo, amidst all its business plans and survival measures, decides to close this down forever. Two years ago, it also shutdown Yahoo Photos giving its existing users the liberty to move their pictures into Flickr or any of the other services like Photobucket, Snapfish, Kodak Gallery or Shutterfly. Clearly, there's no such migration possible for y! briefcase and the users are expected to download their content before the close-down date.

I hope, I believe, fortunately or unfortunately, knowingly or unknowingly ;) , Yahoo manages to retain its most reputed possession that identifies the company largely - its mail service!

P.S> My first email account was in Y!, therefore sentiments attached :(

Romantic 1st lines, Deadly 2nd lines..

A local newspaper ran a competition asking for a rhyme with the most romantic first line... but the least romantic second line. Here are some of the entries they received.

I thought that I could love no other
Until, that is, I met your brother.

---

Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you.
But the roses are wilting, the violets are dead, the sugar bowl's empty and so is your head.

---

Of loving beauty you float with grace
If only you could hide your face

---

Kind, intelligent, loving and hot;
This describes everything you are not

---

I want to feel your sweet embrace
But don't take that paper bag off of your face

---

I love your smile, your face, and your eyes -
Damn, I'm good at telling lies!

---

My darling, my lover, my beautiful wife:
Marrying you screwed up my life

---

I see your face when I am dreaming.
That's why I always wake up screaming

---

My love, you take my breath away.
What have you stepped in to smell this way

---

My feelings for you no words can tell,
Except for maybe "go to hell"

---

What inspired this amorous rhyme?
Two parts vodka, one part lime

Don't swallow you gum!!

Get your bums on the saddle!!

I know I shouldn't be preaching this as I am not good at following it, thanks to my mind (it has this little inertia which opposes and combats any move/change that tends to disrupt my rhythm of daily conventional activities). But, I just came across this cool idea of commuting in Bangalore, shared in the Ignite Bangalore event and couldn't help passing it on to the readers.

Yeah! I am talking about "Bicyling in Bangalore" or rather "Biking in Bangalore" (if that would convince you ;)) With the growing pollution, crowd, commotion and fuel costs at its worst-best in Bangalore, this seems to be a perfectly feasible and last probable resort left for the people. I understand that , the elite-few who are already into this movement (an accidental pun??) or those newbies who are getting inspired, are susceptible to some cranky talks around. Facing the traffic one fine morning in a tiny bicycle with a constipated face madeup to look cool while you are actually getting stresssed out pedalling hard is disgusting indeed. It takes nerves and ***** to do something that invites a dozen souls to giggle at you. Perhaps, there would be a saturation limit when the roads can no longer hold automobiles anymore, when the traffic real-estate will become immensely precious and ways to optimize it will be talked of, a web of flyovers spanning the entire 3-D space would have been built and that's when the city might think of conversion to this mode of transport. This is certainly a great idea atleast for those who are willing to take it up. I have myself known a friend of mine, who bicycles through the city.

Why Bangalore makes it easy?
- Great weather all around the year
- Good wide pavements along most roads and there's a talk of cycling lanes too
- Prospects of social networking on the way is high in the city ;)

Positives
- Healthier - exercise built into your commute - the treadmills were inspired by bicycles, now it's time you revert back :)
- Fuel efficient (unaffected by lorry strikes and market)
- Often quicker (average speed) than cars/autos (this you 'll best realize when you drive short distances monitored by multiple junctions and during peak hours)
- Physically and mentally reduces the feel of congestion
- Reduced (rather nil) carbon footprint
- Talk to people on the route and build friends ;)

So, guys! get your bums on the saddle..


Links:
Bangalore Biker's Club
Blog@BumsOnTheSaddleDotCom

Zero Rupee Note - Can it stamp out corruption??

Imagine that you are going to a government office to get some paper cleared & the lazy guy out there refuses to clear your documents & asks you to come back in another few days, weeks or months. You know that he expects you to pay bribe and you really don’t know what to do. So how would you handle such a situation? You want to yell at him, but you don’t know how to express your anger. Here is a solution proposed by a Chennai based NGO.

Fifth Pillar India, an NGO set up to fight corruption, has printed over 200,000 zero-denomination notes that resemble Indian currency and has begun distributing them around the country. The zero rupee note, which resembles an original rupee note, is a sign of unwillingness to bribe. It has the picture of Mahatma Gandhi on it with a pledge "I promise to neither accept nor give bribe" printed both in English and Tamil. It also resolves to 'eliminate corruption at all levels.' The idea is whenever an official asks you for a bribe, just give him the zero rupee note and hope that he'll get the message. It’s to help the corrupt officer understand the message that there's even an oath that's printed on the note. The note is being translated into other languages as well.







Rupees - Front











Rupees - Back






While this is undoubtedly a strange, innovative and daring measure taken by 5th Pillar, it is going to be a herculian task and practically difficult to uproot corruption parallely from all levels. They need a firm support from the public. I have myself been a witness of acute bribery while applying for my passport, getting travels tickets and so on.. An immediate target should be the traffic policemen who demand a whooping sum of money, most of the times unrelated to the offense.

I just hope this helps in bringing out a change!

Links:
Fifth Pillar India
Timesonline Newsletter

Kanjivaram :: A Tamil historical..

The latest hubbub of movies like Slumdog Millionaire and Ghajini has eclipsed a movie which deserves far more attention that what it has received. The movie Kanjivaram (Tamil) showcases a stellar performance by Prakash Raj who plays the lead role that sweeps the viewer completely off his feet by the dedication and theme he portrays.

The movie captioned as "a communist confession", is staged during the British era in the ancient (famous) city of Kanjivaram and is based on the life of silk-weavers in Tamil Nadu during that period and the revolution following it. The following prelude appears before the movie -

"Pushpeshu Jati Purusheshu Vishnu Narishu Ramba Nagereshu Kanchi" - Kalidasa
The above verse "Nagareshu Kanchi" written by the famous Sanskrit poet Kalidasa, states that at one time Kanjivaram was amongst the best cities in ancient India.
In Hinduism, the Pattu (Silk) epitomizes purity of the highest degree. Being an auspicious symbolism and a holy blessing, silk plays a very important role in every Hindu's life in India, and it is a strong belief to be adorned in silk twice in life.
Once at the time of marriage, to ensure the purity of the relationship and once at the time of death, to purify the soul and carry it to heaven.
The silk weavers however, never succeeded in practising this due to their meagre salary. Thus it always remained a distant dream to them. And so, came a revolution..

The movie revolves around a silk-weaver Venkatam (Prakash Raj) cherishing the above dreams and showing the course of his life as he chases them, misfortune and ill-luck striking him on the way.

He dreams of getting his wife adorned in a silk saree and bringing her home, but the huge pile of coins he had saved for years together out of his weaving seems insufficient for it. Soon he is gifted with a girl child and during the traditional ceremony following it, he promises the child as a father that he would get her married in a silk-saree. This evokes immediate ridicule and brouhaha from the people around, but Venkatam is determined to fulfill this for his daughter.

A series of events span the story henceforth - Venkatam, being the best among the weavers is asked to weave a special saree for the marriage of a landlord and he is rewarded by an Englishman who is impressed by the work. While he puts his best efforts daily, he describes his artistic patterns for the saree to be woven, more poetically to his wife and she gets curious to see it once. Venkatam carries her miles along to the wedding of his landlord's daughter so she can get a glimpse of the beautiful saree he had woven and claimed accolades for.

His wife - Annam (Shreya Reddy) dies of illness soon and he is left alone with his daughter, who keeps asking him to show her the silk-saree he had promised her for her marriage. Venkatam buys a weaving machine and hides it behind his home where he secretly works on the saree for his daughter every night. But, the love for his daughter and the desire to fulfill his promise blinds him completely and he steals silk-thread from his workplace to complete the saree for his daughter. He is caught, accused of being a thief and traitor, is mercilessly beaten up and sent to jail, while his daughter is left all alone is her hut. Soon, Venkatam learns that Annam is struck by a paralaytic attack and comes home to see her. <<Senti scene>> Realizing that there's effectively no-one to take care of her until he returns from jail, he lays her to eternal sleep, begging her to forgive him! The last bit of the movie is touching, when he gets reminded of the piece of half-woven silk cloth still lying in his house and gets it to cover her body atleast now, but he finds that it is not long enough!

With a couple of other trivial events, Director - Priyadarshan has made good attempt to take the audience into the English-era , with the B&W screenplay, rickety old-fashioned vehicles, attire of the Zamindars and the weavers, and petty things like the zeal among people to see a motor-vehicle and the excitement about getting their son educated/sending him to army.

I would term this movie as a big success for the director and Prakash Raj!
Definitely worth watching..

Wayanad Trip..

Readers,
Its been ages since my last post. I understand that the world has completely changed by now, several significant events have taken place since my last post :)

* Chandrayaan I launched
* Bush winning the Shoe-Dodging-ing World Title!
* Terrorists & NSG playing hide&seek at Taj
* Obama trying desperately to ban at least the Jokes/Ads on Recession (if not recession itself)

I agree and wholeheartedly accept that my lethargy and only my lethargy attributed to this hibernation. Many a posts still lie as drafts and I don't wanna publish them as they would be now chronologically insane and invite abuses from readers more than anything else :P

So yeah, I have been a regular blogger (at least of my travel-logs) and this column is just to do justice to this ancient practice of mine. It was exactly an year after the Trip to Chikmaglur (NOT to be interpreted as Chick-maglur!), Dec 20 2008, that this one happened.

Wayanad, 255 kms from Bangalore is supposedly called The Plantation District of Kerala and true to its name, it was as we later discovered. A weekend was ahead and we (6 of us) decided to make the best of it. I managed to get hold of a Tavera (I am becoming more inclined to this vehicle and will vouch for it as my favourite trip vehicle, following one of my trip to Tirupathi with Driver_Basavaraj), with high-quality DVD/CD players and a more calm and composed driver than I had seen before. The new guy was rather more posh with a bluetooth headset, had fitted his vehicle with a LCD television screen and the vechicle looked clean. Accomodation was taken care of, we booked a resort at Kenichira called Hilia Resort , where mallu twin sisters Cicy and Elsy (I 'm not cooking things up here!!) were awaiting our arrival cleaning their koart-yaard (mallu for court yard) for our campfire :)

00:30 am, Dec 20 - we started off. The trip till Mysore was cool, none of us slept, there were music and jokes to keep us bright & awake. Highlights were the spike-strips that we so eagerly watched for in the Bangalore-Mysore highway and claimed points :) And ofcourse, Bino told us how our car looked like an aircraft and the highway a runway..
I bet anyone who travels to mysore on a private car will/must stop at one of the CCDs on the way. The ambience these have during the night can never be explained. We had some basic snacks & chai there, but Abheek had some visual entertainment as well :)








The route we followed was: Bangalore >> Mysore >> Nanganund >> Gundlupet >> Sulthan Bathery >> Kalpetta (Wayanad)



As we neared Sulthan Bathery, the stretch of bamboo forests began and we drove past the Bandipur Wild Life Santuary. It was exactly the time when Bino grabbed the front seat and a sudden enthu siezed him and he began paining people (esp his bong prey) to sleep. Our idea was to visit one of the falls in Wayanad and then head to our resort. It wasn't until 9 am that we reached Meenmutty Falls, supposedly one of the biggest falls in Wayanad. I hadn't the slightest idea that this was gonna be a cleaverly disguised intensive trekking as well.

A guide accompanied us into the forests leading to the waterfall and the path got more and more wilder and unnavigable as we moved on. Fatigue took charge and frequent sutta breaks became a necessity! We kept paining the guide at regular intervals to tell us how far we had come close to the fall & about the return route. After a stretch, we could see ropes tied to trees along the mud way to help people move ahead. After an hour of intense trekking, we reached a point from where we could see the Meenmutty falls flowing down from the hills. There was bright sunshine now and it made the water dazzle in a rainbow attire. The rocks where the falls hit the floor, threw off little white flakes of water. It was a visual treat to watch, the roar of water being a stress-reliever. We dropped our initial decision to return after a glimpse of the falls, deciding to instead head till the foot of the waterfalls and probably drench ourselves in the water :)





But, getting to that point wasn't easy either, the rocks were horrendously slippery and gaining a firm foothold was as difficult as trying to touch your nose with the tongue ;) (Well, don't try it now..). Failing our grip, we were once even dragged into the water. I was reminded of the Anjuna Beach in Goa, where wandering in the beach was equivalently painful, the situation there being worse because of dozens of crabs lying clinged onto the rocks. So, reach we did finally and my little Sony Ericsson k530 2MP camera captured all images there (I am glad it's still working despite being profusely drenched). We perched on top of a rock which was continuously hit by the falls and turned around. Boy! Looking at the huge column of water 200 meters high, cascading down towards us and getting us wet was simply smashing. Meenmutty was undoubtedly a prospective candidate for the next Liril Ad ;)



It was now noon and the trek back to our car made us starving souls. Our guide brought us to a hut where they had buttermilk and water as energy-replenishers. Finding a way to Hilia Resort, Kenichira now became a pain. We drove on & on, Cicy and Elsy directing us to all wierd places and routes. But, Hilia Resort wasn't that bad after all. We checked in quick, had a quick shower and darted off to the kitchen where Manu (our patient, strong mallu-englished attendent) served us food. Personally, I loved the food at that moment of hunger and dived into all possible dishes. There were deserts as well - "Sir, please taik these Benena", Manu remarked :)

After this heavy lunch, we decided to take a nap. And Bino, who had brought with him his sentimental tent (his life-time ambition to sleep in a tent was going to materialize!), unpacked his stuff. We found a lawn nearby where we began setting the tent. I was excited to spend the entire night in it. After a heavy nap (an oxymoron??), we woke up in the evening and called for the campfire which was lit just beside the lawn in the koart-yard (as Cicy & Elcy had sincerely mentioned). It was then that we spotted few hammocks in the garden and in the scurry to capture one for myself, I tripped not noticing a broad ditch and sprained my toe!



We ordered some starters sitting beside the campfire. While we were wondering what to talk about, Bino began unravelling his secret questions ;) The ones over which he had pondered for long and for whom the answers he never knew. We argued on ones like - "Euthenesia being legal or not!", "AI taking over the world entirely in near future?" and a holistic talk about topics like marriage, sex etc.. We finally realized that everybody has a opinion of his own and establishing any conclusion/consensus wasn't always the right thing to do. But, ofcourse the brainstorming was good :) I remembered my college days, it was during the exam nights that we used to do the popular group study. We would discuss about all social/political/xyz/.. topics. Couple of hours before the semester exams, there would be arguments on why Sachin is better than Ganguly, why Bush was an a******, which famous business idea would revolutionize the world, hot vs homely girls :P, etc.. We decided that we shall have the dinner and come back to the campfire and spend some time late night before we went to bed. Bino & me planned to take the tent. We stayed awake till 2 am singing/screaming in the night (ironically we were the only people in that house, so it didn't matter), till sleep and the pain in my toe almost took over and I had to crash in the tent. It was cozy and warm, we zipped the tent from inside and kept little windows open. It was a cool feeling to lie down listening to sounds in the forest and the moist fragrance of the trees around. I had a sound sleep and woke up at only 10 am next morning. We had planned to wake up early and visit most places before we left Wayanad, but it seemed like we were late already. Calling up Manu, we decided we would pack up, have lunch and leave to Bangalore, visiting two places on the way, Pookot Lake & Lakkidi Hill View. The lunch was taking a while and we thought of exploring the Hilia Resort garden where we found that they had impressive recreational facilities as well - a badminton court, TableTennis, Carrom and a Cricket Kit!

We had our last food @ Hilia and left the place at 3:30 pm. It was getting dark and we had to cover ~35-40 kms to reach the Pookot Lake. When we did finally, we realized that we were late by 5 mins and the boating was closed for the day :( There was now no choice but to walk around the lake and we moved on not knowing what else to do. But, this walk was significant in several aspects - we had the most hilarious of all conversations and came up with some business plans as well. Sanjay and Bino devised their Healthy Cigarrettes product, cigarrettes which could basically serve a purpose to heal people of ailments and be used universally with the statuatory warning - Cigarrette smoking is now RECOMMENDED for good health :) A little further, we found a whole new concept of social networking <<content suppressed>>..



Taking couple of snaps, we headed to the Lakkidi View Point, which was just a roadside on a hill, where from one could see the district of Wayanad below. The highway to Calicut meandered amongst the forests with little lights of vehicles flashing (it was getting dark now and cold as well). We spent couple of minutes there and started off back to Bangalore, it was 6:30 pm now.



By the time we reached Mysore, we were shit hungry and were lucky enough to get into a good hotel for dinner. And after the food, we decided to relax and played a movie in our Tavera. When we got back home (Bangalore) it was 2 pm.

Overall, an extremely memorable trip - full of Bino ;) We missed out few other places in Wayanad, which are noteably good as well. If you are planning to visit Wayanad, please note the following:
1) Wayanad, is not a town by itself. It's an entire district.
2) Other Popular places (apart from ones mentioned above) of visit are - Muthanga Wildlife Santuary, Chembra Peak, Edakkal Caves, Soochipara Falls, Kuruva Dweep
3) A weekend may not be sufficient to explore all of them, especially if you are planning to relax at a resort :)