Road to nowhere

Road to nowhere

Thats how my state is. I don't know where I am going. Am I progressing in life or am I going backwards. What is progress ? Is it money. Money at the cost of happiness or satisfaction. Well some say I am too content with what I am doing and am in my comfort zone and hence don't want to move out and progress. Say I try to move out and unfortunately get a job which makes me unhappy, is that progress ? I am out of my comfort zone, I am getting paid more, but I am unhappy, so am I progressing ??? Now say I go back and do what I was happy with, is that progress ? Or should I not at all try thinking that I may be unhappy with my next job.

Over here I have taken job as an example. It has to do with everything in life. Like the house I stay in. Its good, comfortable. Does that mean I stay in the house forever. Potentially, I could look for a new house but it could come with its own set of problems. But does that mean that I do not look at all .... ok may be the house example was not so good but hopefully if you are still reading you have got the point.

Ok Ok. I am confused. But aren't you also confused. Are you happy with what you are doing or you have just forgotten the happiness and joined the rat race like me. Well, a fatter rat is given more respect than the ones who fall behind. So is it better to be a fat rat or slow down and be a tiny one. I don't have the answer, I am still trying to find out.

Punctuality and Calcutta

This post was long overdue. But as usual I felt lazy to write it. Wish there was some sort of machine which could store whatever I though in some electronic form from where I can copy paste it. Ok enough of my wild thoughts. This post is about my trip to Calcutta (I still like the old English name, in Bengali it was always called Kolkata).

I had gone to Calcutta for the weekend (and Monday) to attend a marriage. In this trip I was expected to go to my Aunt's house as I had not gone to her house for more than 2 years now. So I decided that I will definately go to her house. Her house is about 25 Kms from my house. Me and my sister decided that we will leave early (10AM) so that we reach latest by 12.00 noon. That day Mamata Banaerjee decided to call for a Rasta Roko type of a thingy. Guess what, a strike or procession has been called is not unusual to me, what was unusual was that this road blocking exercise had a precise time - 11.00 AM to 12.00 Noon. So the major roads would be blocked by her supporters only during this time.

Well I didn't really care about the timings. But my sister was calculating how we could avoid all this and reach. Anyways next morning we left the house, I really didn't understand the calculations my sister did but still followed her. We got up in a Jadavpur Airport mini bus and would be getting down at LakeTown.

I was getting up in a bus in Kolkata after a long time. The last few years when ever I had come I used to go out in my Dad's office car. After retirement, it was back to the bus. So we boarded the bus and in the beginning everything was normal. Luckily the bus was not too crowded. Then after some time the bus driver was driving the bus like a motor cycle. Well It was fun in the beginning and then he went real crazy. Now I didn't understand that he was also doing his mental calculation to bypass the road blocks. Anyways the funny part is the bus was driven by not one person, but three people. One, the real driver, the man behind the wheels. Second one was the conductor, who was making sure that the passengers bought bought the ticket and got down at the right place. (Note: only passenger's getting down). The third guy was a helper, who made sure that the passengers boarded the bus and guess what .... he would shout and make the small cars, taxis, auto's move out of the bus' way so that the driver could drive the bus like a two wheeler. In his enthusiasm he sometimes actually forgot to drop the passenger. When the conductor realized this, he said that seems like all that passengers would have to get down at the airport only, the last stop. The helper realized his folly and cooled down a bit.

Then the inevitable happened. We got stuck in the road block at one intersection. The time was 11.45 AM. There was another side road, which would enable us to bypass the crossing, so I told the driver why not take it. The driver replied that this would get over soon. I got irritated, all it would take us would be 5 minutes and this guy was actually saying that these protesters actually followed time. In a state which is notorious for its work culture and punctuality, people were actually expecting that the protesters would follow time. Now my sister pitched in and told me why not wait and watch. Well she actually believed that the protesters would honour the timings. Wait and watch it was for me. Then the even more surprising thing happened. The roadblocks got cleared at 11.55AM (on time) and everything started to move.

For the last 10 years I have been living outside Calcutta. When I left, it was called Calcutta and I still had that image of Calcutta. But I realized it has changed. Processions, strikes and other forms of peaceful protests religiously follow the timings. Every one is now more proactive to avoid these and go to their work. I guess Buddhadev babu's reforms have definitely changed the mindset of some of the people. I hope he or his successor ( don't know if he (Buddhadeb babu) is going to get re elected looking at all the violence happening in Nandigram and elsewhere) can carry on the reforms.

I am India

A short film by BharatBala Productions on the new Shining India

Pune in 1860's - 1870's

First encounter with Windows Vista

A few days back I got to see Windows Vista in action. A friend of mine had bought a DELL Laptop with Windows Vista. It was the basic edition, did not have the 3D desktop but looked clean. But alas, I was disappointed, withing 5 minutes I had managed to make the desktop hang. There was a clock utility running on the top right hand side. I pulled it and released it under the start button. The desktop hanged. It was a soft hang. After waiting for 5 minutes I rebooted the machine. Everything was back to normal. In spite of this, I liked the looks, neat and clean. Didn't use it enough to comment more on the pros and cons. Watch this space for more on Windows Vista

Sheal - Hiriye

Love happens only once ...

The rest is just life ...

Five Philosophies of life

1."DON'T LET SOMEONE BECOME A PRIORITY IN YOUR LIFE...
WHEN YOU ARE JUST AN OPTION FOR THEM....."

2."NEVER CRY FOR ANY RELATION IN LIFE
BECAUSE FOR THE ONE WHOM YOU CRY
DOES NOT DESERVE YOUR TEARS
AND THE ONE WHO DESERVES
WILL NEVER LET YOU CRY......... ........ "

3."TREAT EVERYONE WITH POLITENESS
EVEN THOSE WHO ARE RUDE TO YOU,
NOT BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT NICE
BUT BECAUSE YOU ARE NICE........ ........."

4."NEVER SEARCH YOUR HAPPINESS
IN OTHERS
WHICH WILL MAKE YOU
FEEL ALONE,
RATHER SEARCH IT IN YOURSELF
YOU WILL FEEL HAPPY
EVEN IF YOU ARE LEFT ALONE....... ......... ......"

5."HAPPINESS ALWAYS LOOKS SMALL
WHEN WE HOLD IT IN OUR HANDS.
BUT WHEN WE LEARN TO
SHARE IT,
WE REALIZE HOW BIG AND PRECIOUS IT IS!"

Love is ...

Love is like a bird,
If u hold it tightly it dies,
If u hold it slightly it flies,
If u hold it correctly it shits in ur hand,
So stay away and enjoy life

Solaris Cluster 3.2 - Ease of Use

My first attempt at make a movie :)




More Solaris Cluster videos at
http://blogs.sun.com/SC/entry/sharing_the_joy

Solaris Cluster Blog at
http://blogs.sun.com/SC

Open Solaris in FOSS.IN 2006

This poster was made by Moinak Ghosh

Counterstrike Game

Desert Battle

Batman Game

Cow Fighter Game

Helicopter Game

Bangalore Traffic

A view from our office on Langford Road

Trip to Ranganathittu and Somnathapur

On the day of the World Cup Football Finals (9th July), me and some of my friends set out for Ranganathittu bird sanctuary. I agreed on the precondition that we had to be back in Bangalore before the match starts.

In front of Kamat Lokruchi

Playing in the children's park

About 7.30 in the morning we set out in a Qualis. On the way we stopped for breakfast at Kamat Lokruchi.

Finally we reached the Ranganathittu bird sanctuary. The weather was lovely, a bit cloudy but not dull. We roamed around a little and finally decided to take the boat ride. We were told that there were crocodiles in the river. Hence we were not supposed to dip out feet or hands in the water.

In the boat

Birds

We saw different types of birds and finally we saw some crocodiles on the little islands . One was sleeping with its mouth open. Out boat went very close to the crocodile and we could hear it breathe.

Crocodile

On our way back, we went to Somnathapura Temple. It is a 13th century Keshava Temple built by the Hoysala dynasty.

Somnathpura Temple

Somnathpura Temple Shikhara

Finally we set out for Bangalore. We stopped at Cafe Coffee Day on the highway for coffee and finally reached Bangalore around 8.00 PM well in time for the football finals.

Pondicherry - Mahabalipuram trip

One fine Sunday (about 2 weeks back) over a cup of coffee me and some of my friends suddenly decided to visit Pondicherry. We wanted to go the coming weekend, so on Monday we hunted all the travels to get tickets and finally managed to get tickets in a sleeper bus. Before this trip, I had never gone anywhere in a sleeper bus, so was kind of curious what sort of a bus it will be. Finally on Friday evening we all went to the Bomanhalli bus stand for the 10.00 PM bus which came at 11.30PM :-)

Waiting at Bomanhalli bus stand

Finally the bus came and we settled in our sleeper berths. It was cold inside the bus. Soon most of us were asleep. Finally at about 5.30 in the morning I was informed that we had reached Pondicherry. One of my friends was from Pondicherry and we would be staying at her place.


We reached her home and were greeted by her parents and we got or schedule. We would be visiting Mahabalipuram and a theme park on the East Coast Road. So we all got ready for our visit to Mahabalipuram. We had yummy breakfast, poori sabzi, idli, vada and the most tasty coconut chutney I had ever had. Finally after breakfast we left and reached Mahabalipuram shore temple at about 11.30 AM.

Shore Temple - Mahabalipuram

Five chariots - Mahabalipuram

Self balanced rock - Mahabalipuram

It was very hot and humid and being so accustomed to the cool and pleasant Banaglore weather we were already feeling the effects of the SUN. We roamed around in Mahabalipuram and saw some more ruins and then headed for a restaurant to have lunch with idea being we could spend some time in a cool air conditioned restaurant.

VGP Golden Beach Resorts

After lunch, we went to VGP Golden Beach resort. Its a theme park with lots of rides. Since it was so hot, no one was interested in the rides. But we took our favorite ride - Dashing Cars and watched Indiana Jones play.

Dashing Cars

Indiana Jones Play

Finally we headed for the golden beach, which was not too bad. Actually the water was a welcome relief. We had great fun splashing in the sea.

Sea Gang

Splashing in Bay of Bengal

Finally it was time to go home. Once at home we cleaned ourselves and had yummy dinner and watched a movie on HBO. Next day was our actual Pondicherry trip. We would be visiting various places in Pondicherry.

We woke up next day and went to a big temple in Pondicherry where my friend did some Puja and then we had breakfast with the temple elephant .... ok what I meant was we were having the prasad when the temple elephant came and blessed all of us and had his breakfast - prasadam :)

Then we visited Aurobindo Ashram. Photography was not allowed and hence no pics. Its was a quiet place. The stillness of the place kind of unnerved me ... I am too used to noise ... I actually can get disturbed if there is no noise :)

Then we took a walk along Pondicherry's marine drive to reach the Pondicherry tourism office. We were taking a Pondicherry city tour. Again we had to wait for some time for the bus to come. Finally we were off and our first visit was a huge temple which was still being constructed.

Banyan Tree - The geographical center of Auroville

Matri Mandir

Then next stop was Auroville. It was a nice and beautiful place. First we had to listen to a small film on the history of Auroville and then we took the 1 1/2 km walk to the Matri Mandir only to be disappointed to know that we will not be allowed to enter it. It seemed like the walk was useless. Anyways we had fun watching the crowd :D and finally came back.

Chunnambar backwaters

Botanical Garden, Pondicherry

Sacred Heart Church, Pondicherry

We had lunch at a restaurant. Two of my friends left for home as one was not feeling well. The rest 4 of us continued. We saw a botanical garden, church, the Chunnabar back water. Did boating and finally came to the Pondicherry museum.

Lighthouse - Pondicherry

Promenade Hotel

Customs House

French Embassy, Pondicherry

Then our host came and we roamed around on Marine Drive thinking that we would get to see some French babes. We weren't so lucky :) but we saw some French buildings and generally roamed around.

Reaching home we had dinner and set out for the bus stand. This time bus was on time. 6 hours later we were in Bangalore .

Puzzle: How will you survibe this situation ?

Open Solaris