'Tempe Town Lake' weekend

The long weekend of July 3/4/5 was one of my most eventful weekends in US, thanks to the ASU people - Viju, Ashwini and Teja.

Friday night - Saturday early morning:

Dinner at Delhi Palace, followed by the timepass movie - I hate love stories where I met lot of folks from ASU - Viju, Teja and Harish. Good fun, lots of movie kalaai after ages. Went to the Tempe Town Lake, which is an artificially constructed lake at downtown Tempe very close to the university campus. Apparently the lake side offered an excellent view of the sunrise and I wanted to check it out. I had passed by it during the day but never knew it looked so gorgeous in the night, with lights on all the bridges over it. So, we were there, by 2 am, sitting at the bank, chilling our feet with the water. It felt unf****ng believable (Simbu 's dialogue from VTV :P). Viju's iPod Touch and my Sony Ericsson proved to be a source of several valuable songs as we listened to dozens of Ilayaraja, ARR scores for hours together. Planes that dipped over us at periodic intervals before they landed at the Sky-Harbor airport, added to the ambience. The culmination of Tamil/Hindi/Telugu songs and movie talks went on till 4:30, after which we could observe the horizon far beyond, getting bluish and the clouds getting darker spreading their shadows on the water, which was already well lit up by the reflection. Soon the sky completely brightened up with a smile. We hurried and made a move in order to beat the heat. Arizona heat has a reputation of kicking in so quickly. After hunting around for places to have tea/coffee, I managed to grab my favorite Chai Latte :)

Saturday evening:

Went shopping at the nearby Tempe Marketplace, which seemed a pretty decent place to kill time with many shops and malls.

Saturday night - Sunday early morning:

I woke up from a nap and was called for VTV movie in one of Viju's labs in the university. That seemed pretty exciting. VTV somehow has been a movie for me, that has this wierd characteristic. I hated the movie the first time I watched it (except for its ARR music). I literally cursed Menon for the terrible job. Second watch, made my think that it was not that big a shit as I thought initially. Couple of things like Trisha, Nalini Sriram's brilliant sarees :) appealed to me. Though, Simbu 's acting was still unacceptable and looked outrightly foolish. Third watch, and I seemed to actually like the movie. Alright, so this being the motivation, I was in lab at 2 when we began watching the movie, turning the lab into a movie theater. Ended at 5 with a whole bunch of comments and PJs throughout the movie.

Sunday night - Monday morning:

July 4, being the Independence Day here offered me a chance to join the crowd at Tempe Town Lake for the famous fireworks show.

And so we were there at 9 and witnessed a huge crowd. I got a feel of the night life at the popular and most happening Mill Avenue as I saw the streets flowing with people - old, young, on cycles, with instruments, kids on shoulders, music, flags, etc around. We couldn't get into the lakeside area - Tempe Beach Park, where I could see a stage being set up with a band that was to host the music for the night. We instead got close to the bank beside the park fence, which offered a pretty good view of the lake, bridges and the beach park before us. At 9, there was music and fireworks began.

(Tempe Town Lake side)

It was a 40 minute long incredible fireworks display with the band beside the lake playing. I could identify - Come on baby light my fire at one point during the show. Thanks to the fireworks mode on my Nikon Cookpix L20, I was able to capture several beautiful moments of the show.

View the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVv5rh0UyKk

The sky finally went black at 10 and being hungry, we headed to a Chinese restaurant at Mill Avenue, for dinner. I had not had a good opinion about Chinese food to be honest, but Viju claimed two dishes to be really good there and the food that we ordered did seem pretty good actually, especially the Eggplant dish. My face lit up when I was told that Eggplant was another name for Brinjal, and so the dish finally boiled down to (pun possible :P) a form of baingan bhartha dipped in spicy sauce. Dinner ended with fortune cookies (I never knew they existed anywhere other than on facebook :P), which are typically served with Chinese food as deserts. The cookie has a message inside which is to be read as, suffixed with - ".. in bed" :) And, these were the ones we got :P

We wandered along the Mill Avenue and thought of spending the night again beside the Tempe Town Lake. The place seemed addictive especially during late nights. But before moving in, we spent sometime at the Beach Park entrance, discussing/singing songs from various movies and our childhood days. It brought back many old memories especially recalling the prayer and bhajans which I learnt in my school days. I also realized that all four of us had studied Sanskrit in our school days and so we had lot of common stuff to recall and remember.

At 2, we took a walk beside the lake, did couple of pictures experimenting with the Self-Timer, B&W and Sepia :) After some random discussions on random topics, we made a move at 4 back home, finishing off with a coffee at Ashwini 's place.

Overall, a great long weekend.

Fall Colors..

And, this is my favorite (not GT Campus though :P)

Video

And they lived happily forever!

Oct 25 2009 - The average amount of time a youngster spends on a computer is almost half of the total time he is awake. Thanks to the internet.

2015 AD - Work from home - Commuting to and from work became a big overhead. People started working from home full-time.

2025 AD - Play from home/Shop from home/"Do what you want" from home - There was no need to take the pain of going out to do anything. Everything was just a click away.

2040 AD - Most of the menial work human beings do are replaced by machines/computers - ATM's, Gas stations, Automated cars, and fully computerized shops, hotels, post offices, - you name it.

2100 AD - Slowly more intelligent machines replace human beings in other intellectual professions - teaching, research, art ...

2200 AD - The only work human beings have been doing - inventing new machines, is also done by machines now. There is absolutely no job that human beings can do but machines can't.

2300 AD - Machines will do anything and everything. Only activites human beings do are eat, sleep, reproduce. (remember caveman?)

2500 AD - Eating food was such a waste of time. A new vaccine was invented that would be administered as soon as a baby is born, so that it will never get the "hunger disease" in its life. Without human beings eating, he is not able to tolerate other disturbances like plants and animals on earth. Slowly all other plants and animals are "made to go extinct". Digestive system and the related organs slowly become vestigial.

After a few hundred years - Reproduction is the only physical activity that human beings do. Someone comes up with a bright idea - What if I can simulate the "effect" in human brain without having to go through so much physical stress. People started liking the idea and eventually just like everyone fell a prey for facebook and twitter, they adopt this one universally too.

A few hundred years passed - Wait a min... if you are still thinking of human beings as a species with a pair of limbs, a pair of hands and a head over a trunk, you are wrong. They don't have hands or legs any more. They have not been using them for so many hundred years. They dont have mouth or ears. They interact with other human beings through neuro-transponders. They just have a brain (to sense) , a lung (to breathe). The size of a human being is 1 cubic feet almost like a soccer ball.

After a few hundred years the human beings started thinking - "why should I strain myself breathing and sensing all stupid stuff around me?". Slowly they became even more lazy that their only two organs - brain and lungs also became vestigial. After sometime, the rest of the (so called?) human beings get sedimented into a new form of rock called the homo-sapien rocks. And the machines lived happily for ever throwing homo-sapien rocks at each other.

Vadivelu Interview

For all those hardcore Vadivelu fans:

Interview Part1

Interview Part2

Droste Effect!

All those who love recursively designed structures would love this - its a recursive type of picture that infinitely diminishes into a smaller version of its own, unending as it seems to the viewer!

Well, I had seen dozens of email-forwards and mails carrying such with such images that demand a high visual processing by your brain to understand them, but never knew there was a term for it. Thanks to my reader for letting me know.

Read more on this: 50 Stunning Examples of the Droste Effect

Doordarshan

Doordarshan has had a special appeal to me, especially because of the fact that I grew up watching this national channel, which was the only one available during those days (late 1980s and early 1990s). In particular, my bonding towards these DD channels was more stronger that others, I grew up at a place where cable TV was clearly out of reach and I had no choice but to savour the DD1 and DD2 (metro). But, looking back at it, in a way that was fun. I seldom have the same excitement on watching television channels now, infact its not even a fraction of what I used to hold as a kid. The world has metamorphosized and we now only flip-channels. Its a race that all channels have gotten in, to show stuff that would catch you eye as you hurriedly button away to the end of the list. If a channel gave you even five minutes of boredom, they ran the risk of being completely ignored for rest of the day or worse-even being blacklisted so that nobody in the entire family watched it again :) Back then, the case was different, all you had were the twin DD channels with their regional equivalents of course, these entertained the people (whether they liked it or not). But, the entertainment and knowledge-sharing it provided was complete - we had news, movies, documentaries, mythological soaps, advertisements, thrillers, detective serials, educational programmes, sports telecast, so on..

This post is to reminiscence of all those moments, all those good old commercials/serials/theme music tracks that drag me back to those days. My personal favorites were Amul Surabhi (I love the intro music track), Rangoli (the programme was on Sunday and I woke up listening to its songs), Chandrakanta (the thrilling fantasy series), Sri Krishna (I never missed a single episode, this was the best of Ramanand Sagar's creations!) and so on..

These are some randomly picked up stuff I found on youtube that took me back to that age and I felt like archiving them. Hope you do enjoy them as well!

Doordarshan Signature

Doordarshan AD

DD News Intro

Mile Sur Mera Tumhara

Baje Sargam

Vijayi Vishwa Tiranga Pyara

Jungle book title song

Duck Tales

Alif Laila

Surabhi

Bharat Ek Khoj

Oshin

Chandrakanta (music track alone, could n't locate original video)

Sri Krishna serial Title Song

Shaktimaan Title Song

Om Namah Shivay Serial Title Song

Jai Hanuman Serial Title Song

Cadburys AD

Dairy Milk AD

Bajaj AD

Dhara AD

Asian Paints

Nescafe AD

Tipu Sultan Intro

Vico Vajratanti

Vico Turmeric Cream

Complan AD

Parle-G Commercial

Splendor Commercial

Fevicol Oldest AD

Feviquick AD

Titan Commercial

Lifebuoy AD

Doodh AD

Doordarshan Nostalgic Moments

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E78RcIFQCRc&feature=related

Everybody wants a Guitar :)

Ek baar ek aadmi ne badi tapasya ki.

Shivji khush.

Prakat hue.

Bole.

Puttar maang ...

maang kya chahiye tujhey !

Bhakth utha ...

Bola - "Shivji! Mujhey to aap sirf ek guitar de do !"

Shivji bole - "kaisa gadha hai ?"

Unhone kaha - "puttar! tuney badi achchi tapsya ki hai, kuch bada maang!"

Woh fir bola - "nahi ji, mujhey to aap guitar hi do!"

Shivji ne phir samajhaya - "abey .. kuch dhang ka maang ...!"

Par wo to ada hi hua tha ... bola "nahi ... aap to mujhey guitar hi do !"

Shivji usey bade pyaar se khopch me lekar samjhane lage, bole "yaar tu kuch aur maang.. guitar

na maang..."

Woh bola - "nahi nahi nahi !! mujhey sirf guitar hi chahiye!!"

abb shivji gussey main aa gaye ... boley ,(scroll down)

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"Saale!! agar guitar mere paas hota to main ye damaru kyun bajata.."

Wingsuit base jumping

"Wing Suit Flying is the sport of flying the human body through the air using a special jumpsuit, called a wingsuit, that shapes the human body into an airfoil which can create lift. The wingsuit creates the airfoil shape with fabric sewn between the legs and under the arms. It is also knownby the public as a birdman suit or squirrel suit" - Courtesy: Wikipedia

From bungee jumping to sky-diving, this video revealed to me something that could be the craziest ever attempt by a person. This is the heights of risk a person can take, but its just amazing!!

Watch it guys -

wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

Yellow Jackets

American Football! I watched one this Saturday, at the Bobby Dodd Stadium, Georgia Tech.

Yellow Jackets Vs Jackson Ville

Yellow Jackets is the football name for Georgia-Tech team, which was supposedly the national conference champion some years ago (1917, 1928, 1952, 1990). Personally, I never had a good opinion about this sport, which was to me nothing but a bunch of guys rolling over each other throughout the match, but this time I did enjoy it.

One thing about this game (at least in GaTech, I'm sure other states as well) is that it manages to gather a huge crowd, something to the magnitude of a India-Pakistan cricket match in India. And, the extent of publicity it receives here is staggering. Every other day, I find people setting up stalls, selling tickets, handing out brochures, websites yelling hard. It kept me wondering if the game was worth the hype.

Well! no comments about it. I watched it for two reasons - firstly, it was a student ticket (costing $0) :P and secondly, I wanted to know what was so special about it.

I would say it is never close to Soccer (or the football that we usually perceive it as). Primarily, because the game is majorly confusing (esp for a newbie), when you step into the match, all you see is a group of guys running around in a haphazard fashion, more or less similar to bees flocking around a flower. And, size of the ball is too small to be even noticed, thereby making your judgement of the game rely on movement of the players, who play deceiving tactics and create false gestures most of the times. Its only when a someone hurls the ball in the air to his receiver, on the other end, that you get to see it. And, the rules are complex as well. You hear all new terms - touchdown, quarterback, etc. It took a while to realize what was actually happening in the field. The game is divided into four quarters (15 mins each), and believe me, each quarter takes atleast 45 mins of audience time (coz of fouls and stuff). So you spend like two and hours totally. And unless, you are a die-hard fan OR the match is exceptionally engaging, you are likely to get bored atleast by the last quarter.

Overall, a good break for me. I am now looking forward to a baseball match, sometime during the season.

Out of hibernation

Apologies for the lack of posts coming from myself over the past few months. This has been the greatest hibernation I have succumbed to. I can as well use the traditional excuses of having been horrendously busy and stuff, but I choose not to. I have heard my friend (Varalu) say this thathuvam several times - you can always make time for things you want to. Hence, I refrain :)

But yeah, here's how it went - the past few months, a mix of good and sad times.

The Invention of C++ - Nice bit of net lore

On the 1st of January, 1998, Bjarne Stroustrup gave an interview to the IEEE's 'Computer' magazine. Naturally, the editors thought he would be giving a retrospective view of seven years of object-oriented design, using the language he created. By the end of the interview, the interviewer got more than he had bargained for and, subsequently, the editor decided to suppress its contents, for the good of the industry but, as with many of these things, there was a leak. Here is a complete transcript of what was said, unedited, and unrehearsed, so it isn't as neat as planned interviews. You will find it interesting...

http://artlung.com/smorgasborg/Invention_of_Cplusplus.shtml

A roundabout way of committing suicide ;)

I just stumbled upon this rather bizarre analysis of a death by a forensic expert..

At the 1994 annual awards dinner given for Forensic Science, AAFS President Dr Don Harper Mills astounded his audience with the legal complications of a bizarre death.
Here is the Case:

On March 23, 1994 the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head. Mr. Opus had jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending to commit suicide. He left a note to the effect indicating his despondency .As he fell past the ninth floor his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast passing through a window, which killed him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the deceased was aware that a safety net had been installed just below the eighth floor level to protect some building workers and that Ronald Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide the way he had planned.

"Ordinarily," Dr Mills continued, "A person, who sets out to commit suicide andultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended, is still defined as committing suicide." That Mr. Opus was shot on the way to certain death, but probably would not have been successful because of the safety net, caused the medical examiner to feel that he had a homicide on his hands.

In the room on the ninth floor, where the shotgun blast emanated, was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing vigorously and he was threatening her with a shotgun.

The man was so upset that when he pulled the trigger he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the window striking Mr. Opus. When one intends to kill subject "A" but kills subject "B" in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject "B".

When confronted with the murder charge the old man and his wife were both adamant and both said that they thought the shotgun was unloaded. The old man said it was a long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her.

Therefore the killing of Mr. Opus appeared to be an accident; that is, if the gun had been accidentally loaded. The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's son loading the shotgun about six weeks prior to the fatal accident.

It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother. Since the loader of the gun was aware of this, he was guilty of the murder even though he didn't actually pull the trigger. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.

Now comes the exquisite twist. Further investigation revealed hat the son was, in fact, Ronald Opus. He had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother's murder. This led him to jump off the ten-story building on March 23rd, only to be killed by a shotgun blast passing through the ninth story window. The son had actually Murdered himself, so the medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.

Every class has these, what were you???

Sri Ram S(c)ene

The whole of Bangalore is brimming with news about Sri Ram Sene planning to protest and disrupt the Valentine's day celebrations in the city. But, this is not going to be any other rally or hunger strike or violence. Mr Pramod Muthalik has devised a new way to help couples in the pipeline, waiting for their official confirmation (Wedding). He knows exactly what he is doing. Do you??

NDTV, got in touch with the Sene chief to drill out some useful facts and gain a deeper understanding of the Sene. Here are some mind-boggling and thought-provoking excerpts from the interview.

Correpondent: Welcome Muthalik Ji!
MM : Jaaaai Sri Raam!!

Correspondent: There has been news about you planning to perform a Ram Vivaaha throughout the city. Is this true?
MM: [nods his head]

Correspondent: So, what are your plans? And what's your agenda?
MM: Well, I plan to roam around the city on the fine day of Feb 14 with my benevolent soldiers (codenamed vaanar sene) in gangs, armed with close-circuit cameras, priests and other raw materials necessary for a typical hindu wedding. We subsequently spot couples in each locality of the city (Ram Sene members are by default exempted from the same, under the Act_of_Ayodhya-12A. We are doing this to prevent any accidental reverse-kalai) and if found dating, we take them to the nearest temples where a Ram Sene Priest performs their wedding and then they are taken to the HR's Desk (Registrar Office) for further confirmation where the couple are named as Ram[dot]Guys_Actual_Name and Sita[dot]Girls_Actual_Name.

Correspondent: But then, Bangalore is a city teeming with couples. How do you plan to deal with such high numbers?
MM: To handle the entire bulk of Bangalore couples, Ram Sene is running special vehicles called Ayodhya Vaahans, which offer home pickup as well. All you need to do is call 1100-2000-3100 (TOLL FREE) OR sms Hamari Shaadi Karvao [SPACE] Muthalik Mama to 323.

Correspondent: Making use of technology! Impressive, Mr Muthaaa... [looks at his notes]
MM: Mama!! You can call me Muthalik Mama :)

Correspondent: So, what are your long term goals?
MM: I believe that Ram Vivaaha is going to set a trend for the younger generation. I am able to see that kids in the future will have debates on Ram Vivaha Vs Arranged Marriage in their schools/colleges.

Correspondent: Would it be a logically sound inference that Ram Vivaaha would happen only on Feb 14?
MM: Ofcourse, Ram Vivaha is built upon a bunch of insanely set premises.

Correspondent: Interesting! Could you please elaborate on that?
MM: Well..
-All weddings are performed ONLY ONCE in a calendar year during the auspicious day (shubh muhurth) of Feb 14.
-Eligiblity Criteria : Indian Citizen and not a current or ex-member of Ram Sene :)
-Due to heavy rush, it is advisable that you inform us of your location well in advance so that we can pick you up accordingly
-Female members, who could potentially seduce The Mutalik Mama himself are strictly prohibited from applying
-Male members, wearing revealing clothes like torn-jeans and boxer shots are also strictly prohibited from applying (as MM is not very confident about his orientation)

Correspondent: We also heard that you make the girl tie rakhi to the guy. Why is that so?
MM: [chuckles to himself] Its simple! Whenever WE find the girl to be an eye-candy, we make her tie a rakhi to the guy. For all our services, this is a minimal sur-charge :)

Correspondent: It looks like you have an inherent dislike towards love-marriage. Why is it so?
MM: [gives a terse one-line reply] Lord Rama had an arranged marriage unlike Lord Krishna.

Correspondent: Hmm.. So, what does your Sene have in mind for the future?

MM: We have a stiff target to meet and several miles to leap. Our next plans are -
- Ban Salsa classes. Victims will be forced to pair up for a salsa with a Ram Sene member (**Conditions Apply)
- Guys sporting long hair OR dying/hair-coloring their hair. Victims will be immediately taken
to Tirupathi to have their entire hair shaven and dropped back home with ONE laddoo :)
- Couples spotted on two-wheelers shall be immediately asked to stop and thereafter continue the journey on a special donkey provided by Sri Ram Sene.
- Co-Ed schools/colleges shall have separate partitions for girls and guys styudying in the same class with a tamper-proof wall in between.
- Mixed Doubles form of sport shall be condemned strictly. Recent match involving Sania Mirza and Mahesh Bhupathi shall be the last one in the entire history! Victims shall be made to play kabadi in our clay court.
- LalBagh and CubbonPark shall be turned into LalMandir and KambanKoil respectively
- We understand that banning the perennial chain of CCDs and Barista's throughout the city might not be effective. So, a time slice of 5 minutes per couple shall be imposed in these coffee shops, beyond which they shall be siezed by the Sri Ram Sene and become MM's property.
- All duet songs in Bollywood shall be remade as Devotional songs retaining the cast (but with a modified costume :P)

Correspondent: It has been said that you have criticized the trend amongst the current youth or rather inclination towards Rock and Western music. Any comments or justification?
MM: [sounding furious] The youth these days are taking us away from our sweet history of music. Its a rapid degradation of music. Our mythology too had music bands but then the instruments were different. We had Goddess Saraswathi on the lead Veena, Lord Krishna on the Flute and Naarad on the Rhythm Pads. I strongly urge people to get back to our tradition or else we would have to take stringent measures.

Correspondent: I am afraid we are running out of the time Mr Mutalik Mama and I shall have to cut-short this session. But, I must admit it was a pleasure talking to you.
MM: [totally surprised by the abrupt end and forgetting his mantra] Jaaai ...
Corresponent: Jaaai Sri Raam!

The Function of Ram Sene - RamSene()







--
A News Article on the above issue.

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.

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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..