Coffee country - Coorg photos

Coffee Country Part 1

Have been planning for a week end gateway for quite some time. The Christmas week end presented the perfect opportunity to have a quick getaway and Coorg seemed to be the best choice.

Being a long week end the difficult part was getting accomodation and after some enquiring I reaslised that either there was acco in most of the hotels or it was too expensive. The good ones had doubled their rates. Having made my mind to go, started to look for alternatives and after some trepidation I booked a home stay ( good old Infy BB came to my rescue ) at Murnad ( did not find the place in any of the maps ). Only comforting note was the guy on the other side of the phone sounded very pro active. Charges were kind of resonable.

We were all set to go ...

take me higher

want to be among the stars
twinkle and bright
where have I come
how do I know where to go
let the path come alive

floating nowhere
thoughts getting me some where
caught in the whirlpool of time
dont like the daily sweat and grime

who am I
what do I achieve
money fame or prosperity
its me to decide

deep into a cesspool
much deeper in a mire
hold me get me out
take me higher

Two of the memorable crickets videos

Police upholders of law ?

The other day I in a small group were travelling by train for a friends's marriag. Since we were sitting in a group two of our seats were vacant in the neighbouring compartment.At around 10 pm we suddenly see a policeman ( had a pistol ) barging in our vacant seats. Inspite of my repeatedly telling him that the seats belonged to us - he appeared deaf and sat on the vacant berth. Hearing my pleas one my colleagues a girl came and also pleaded but the guy sat like a stone. We then decided to ignore him for a while later he got up and went away leaving his luggage.

A man aged around 60 in the same compartment who was witnessing this whole scene immediately pullled me and said that the policeman is looking out for a berth and he may forcibly occupy the seat and adviced me to immediately sleep off . We took his advice put the policeman's luggage down and dozed off.

I kept wondering what is the stage of constabulary in this country. There have been numerous incidents in the recent past when the upholders of justice have themselves become villans. An average man seems to have little recourse in this country. Anyone who has been to a police station for whatever reason normally has only horror stories to tell.

Our rendezvous with the guy did not end. To our surprise the very next day when taking back the return train I find this guy again in the train trying to negotiate with the ticket collector for a vacant seat. In the morning he kept staring at me like a caged lion wanting to pounce on his next victim.

One of songs I like - here I go again

I have never been a great fan of hard rock but some songs stay back and you still come back to listen them time again. Lot of people may not have heard about this group called Whitesnake but I have liked some of their songs . Posting of one of my favorites. What I really liked were the lyrics and the right accompanying music.

Free again ...

I still remmember that the term Inertia being taught in the physics class during the secondry school. The physics definition is actually very interesting "the property of matter by which it retains its state of rest or its velocity along a straight line so long as it is not acted upon by an external force" . The point to be noted is to act without the external force. I kept thinking how this has affected me - how many times dont react or take action even when it could be absolutely necessary and by the time it becomes imperative the essence may be lost or even the opportunity. The so called power of "positive procastination". The funny part how do
I keep postponing doing things and how this is a larger part of the inbuilt human tendency.I have seen this affecting both the personal and professional lives. I am yet to figure out how and when we decide to act only on specific cases until coerced in acting/taking a stand. The best part is most of us even realise that by postponing or not acting now - the ultimate looser could your self ( this definitely sounds cliched) .The consequence - guilt takes over and start repenting ( If I had blah, blah, blah ) .. I have gone through this innumerable times. Will not waste time now - its been to much..

How do I get over this. Act now ! First things first do all things have been wanting to do .. dont look back.. do now ..I am offf .. I am not getting pulled ... free again

Existential angst

Coming to my experiences of writing again - I used to think I knew a lot of things on diverse subjects but to my dismay found out that when I started writing either on my trials and tribulations or of those wordly wisdoms had so much shallow understandings - which made me again go into a tailspin. Reason -- probably:- from my experience I have seen the attention spans are getting so small . peep into any home and see the new meaning of "surfing" - flipping through channels when even without going through couple of frames. From instant noodles to instant lotteries ( though never dabled in lottery). I have seen the stock market from close quarters - people can hardly wait for making that profit but wait endlessly for recovering the loss. So impatient so restless ; the need for instant gratification has never been so intense. Get bored so fast have this feeling always life is moving ahead and what ever and where ever is the race to win loosing ....have to move on. Hardly have a fix on anything in the bargain. Good or bad dont know. In the whole bargain what has happned is tend to become impulsive , speed seems to be more important than accuracy ... this results into constantly moving from one thing to another without getting into depth a lot of times. Is this the same behaviour others experience or my “Existential angst” as someone put it recently.

Virtues of being a VIP in India or rather being treated like one

Its surely a virtue to be treated like an VIP particularly in a public place. I have been to Tirupati lot of times and as lady luck has it and due to some influence circumvent having to stand in the long queue each time. In a country like India swarming with people all around - it feels great to have that privilege in a place like Tirupati known for serpentine queues and the never ending wait for that one glimpse of the lord. Like wise on my recent visit on 25th november we found out that my landlord's brother in law is part of the elite security force in Tirupati after we generally contacted him in the temple .Though we had the normal tickets ( even in god's abode there is differential pricing - pay more to reach faster ) after standing in the line for an hour our man took us out and ushered us directly into the main temple by getting couple of gates opened (what a favor though not explicitly asked) and even allowed us to stand in front of the lord for about 90 seconds - people who have visited Tirupati would realise how precious are those seconds.
Incidentally the biggest VVIP of India today Mrs Sonia Gandhi had also paid a visit and was amused to find out in the papers that she like a humble citizen of the country went though the normal line ( though she was alone - what a farce ) and we had the great fortune of marching into the temple through the front door much to the dismay and chagrin of the on looking junta who could not digest our sudden transformation from ordinary blokes to a VIP being courted by the men in uniform.
In the our democratic setup the crown has been replaced by the red siren and the numbers of cars in the escort directly proportional to how many Vs can be added before the VIP. Though our moment of glory was very short lived it was nevertheless as with those special moments an exhilarating experience to have the special darshan.

Please make my blog popular

There I am again at my wits. After cajoling/coercing some folks into reading my blog – I realized that this will not work in the long run - so went seeking for some tips as to what will make others interested in my blog . I very well understand that generating content daily is an uphill task nevertheless took it as a challenge not sure till what time this journey will last. Still on the subject of the feedback – the blog should be a bit more personal than what I have said so far. This made me thinking.

I personally feel that we all lead at least two lives. One is the our innermost self with all the deep dark secrets, those weakness smartly tucked away - you know what I mean. The other self is what is projected to the outside world – the personality what consciously or unconsciously we keep modelling both of the very core to our existence balancing out each other in the normal course with each part giving and deriving strength from each other.


Coming back ( you might have guessed by now – like to give sermons at the drop of the hat ) - what do I write on my personal front – as mentioned earlier the personality to the outside world is fairly known and folks have their own opinion so what could be more interesting now - the best I can do now ? there are enough internal turmoil to write about ; those seemingly ludicrous monents of high - Already getting this knotty feeling in my gut. Or do I write about things which make me weak in my knees , those days about feeling down and out ( for no reason ). What will the folks think - pour souls who have been kind of forced into reading through this. Am I exposing my self ? for example Can I write that my current job is getting boring and need a change -- did I spill the beans ? Will people take advantage ? What do I do ? where do I go ? Unwitttingly seem to have opened a pandora's box.

Inviting some feedback ....

MapmyIndia.com - worth visiting once

I happen to stumble on this website called mapmyindia.com some time back - it offers very good directions from one place to another. Considering that there are hardly any good websites in India which offers proper directions - this comes as a boon. Some of the features are really liked are

1. The ability to zoom in and zoom out
2. Good search facility - you can put in a free text and the website does the rest for you
3. Fairly fast - does not take much time to load particularly when zooming in and out
4. Simple UI
5. and the best part that it is still free at least for the direction search - for detailed maps the charges here I think are unreasonable similar to mapsofindia
6. elocation has the potential to become a hit - this is similar to wikimaps where users can put tags to identify their own location
7. For the person on the move - it has a solution which can be accessed on the mobile for a fee

We still don't have very good map related websites which are rich both in content and feel . Nevertheless I feel mapmyindia is a good start.

Mid life crisis - Article in Times of India

Times of India has sometimes very interesting articles - this one caught my eye recently. It has some very interesting observations though like other articles in TOI doesn't probe the depths of the subject. In spite of that it made me think - where are we heading and how many of really give a thought of what actually we want to do of our lives ( including me ) - its just about living a day as it comes probably too much into the present. This is in my opinion affecting the Indian youth more than their counterparts in other countries. Just re-live what you around bustling malls , cramped roads with cars , un limited job opportunities multiplexes going house full with shocker of movies ( unmindful of the ticket price ) there is no end to what can be achieved. Pick up any pink paper and see the stats. We never had it so good and in spite of all this there is an uneasy sense of disbelief. What our fathers achieved in a life time - can be achieved by the time you reach your forties . There is growing number of people who retire before 40 - then the big question " NOW WHAT".

Though I had a different thought when started to write - totally got veered off the subject and had to end it abruptly. More on this to come...




http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JQkcvMjAwNi8xMS8xMyNBcjAwNzAw&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom

How to be a good writer ? - Part 1

I have always wondered how good some people write. The clarity of thought which is mapped into very appropriate sentences with the correct semantics conveying everything what needs to be conveyed in the most appropriate manner you think. Though not a voracious reader myself but except reading 3 newspapers daily and couple of magazines - I have noticed that good authors have great mastery not only on their subject but also on the flow of words.

What it takes to be good writer ? I am have been not able to find suitable answers . Is it an inherent talent or a skill that can be acquired. What does an average bloke like me do to able to write well. Another problem is what do I mean by "write well ". I dont intend to ac hive the greatness of Salman Rushdie ( read his books to believe ) or even Sri Aurobindo ( his thoughts are tooo profound for a moron like me ) , not counting the several people who have mastered this art in their respective fields. The qualities I like a good write up are

• Lucid - not much of a jargon ( I mean you are not writing a book for a medical student )
• Properly structured - This problem is rampant - you suddenly find articles ending without even a summary
• Binds the reader - I admire the novelists here - how they are able to get the reader hooked on 100s of pages through the plot mostly in case of fiction.(lots of them ) The challenge increases manifold in case of non-fiction thesis ( lots of these new age writers - paul coelho et all - they have been hugely successful - I have my doubts how many people have actually realised the potential)
• Grammer - Anyone if has come till this point reading this post will agree me with what I mean - Bad grammer or which is absent. You would hardly find wrong grammer in good write ups. ( Anyways please exclude Times of India - the quality here is something not worth spending time on - I have see some really bad instances for a national newspaper - Kudos to The Hindu)
• More to come ..

Even after having some insights on what could be a great write up - I still fail to measure up . I had once asked a someone how do cultivate this trait . He gave me just one advice - Keep writing what ever you can and atleast 500 hundred words a day.

The inspiration is this blog - and guinea pig - You " welcome to my blog"

The story doesnt stop here ... more to come . This is the age of sequels and I have planned one for this post already.

If you have any tips to offer - send them to me

Search engines - Conundrum

I have been amazed by the results of any query on a web search engine. Typically the number of search results displayed by the search engines run into several million except if the search criteria is very narrow. I have always wondered what is the relevance of giving out that huge number of results when hardly any user goes beyond the third page to check - as anything beyond will be anyways irrelevant for the search criteria. The usual habit - go and refine the search criteria.

Then why so much computing power is spent in giving out these many results which will hardly ever be used ? The rise of google has been amazing considering what I have enumerated - just imagine the market cap of 150 Billion USD in a business model where the users still dont pay for use of its services. In my opinion if the search engines devote all their algorithms to display the correct match in the first 3 pages - half the work is done.

Google has become part of our every day lives its hard to imagine a day without it. Terms like "googling" , " did you google " are part of our normal conversations. Everyone has a gmail account - most of the ideas people share these days are of Gmail rather than yahoo and hotmail. No wonder to counter the onslaught hotmail has increased the mailbox size to I GB.

A small tid bit - If you try and search the word "search" in google and yahoo the results are surprising - try it out.

Communities Web 2.0

There is a rush to create properties on the web targeting communities. The successful buy outs of Myspace and Youtube reflects the bullishness and optimism of the larger players. Even Microsoft has gone and record to say that their new MP3 player ZUNE will have the certain features of sharing files across communities which currently Ipod doesnt posses. In my opinion the power of connecting to another user or the early seeds of the benefits of online communities was displayed by now defunct P2P sharing website Napster. Universities and Internet service providers actually blocked the Napster as it was clogging their network. I am not sure of the statistics but it was awesome - I have had a first hand experience had nearly downloaded 1 GB. As part of the evolution of communities in the days of Napster - the user did not care who he or she was connecting to till the song/file was available as a download. In the current scenario its more of bonding , finding the long lost friend , creating a virtual world around yourself. Its very difficult to predict the emerging trend. Increasing users are wanting to log out of different community networks as it is invading the privacy, abuse of photographs, malicious scraps ...oops anyway its a scrap etc. Where are we headed .... It will be an interesting space to watch with so much money being bet on how the online communities will behave ..... Google as usual is stealing a march over its rivals. Though yahoo was an early starter but some how seems to loose that edge.

First day at the blog

I have been thinking .hhmmmmm about creating my blog for quite some time .. its like one of those decisions you keep thinking without acting - some body called it procastination. Now with a lot of effort - started to do something about my blog .. let see how it goes and if does the power of procastination takes me over..