Tiesto=trance; trance=Tiesto

Fall has been a great a music season in Toronto. U2 was here few weeks ago on their world tour and last Saturday Tiesto was here to please his trance fans.
Although Armin Van Buuren and Gabriel & Dresden duo are my all time favs, I'm quite fond of Tiesto also. His Adagio For Strings and Elements of Life are simply out of the world.


So here I was with Pavan & Sky, waiting in a mile long queue on a freezing Saturday evening, all too excited to watch Tiesto perform. The rain Gods had decided to rest for that hour and spared us from getting drenched.
After the security checks and other formalities we rushed into the performance hall and were thrilled to see the setup. The Heineken beer bar decorated in florescent green eluded us..the rest, as they say, was history.. =)

Opening acts started at 9 PM with some local DJs dishing out their work. The 1st guy was pretty good and performed for an hour. The crowd was consistently shouting out the God-of-the-night's name "TII-EE-S-TO". By the mid of the 2nd DJ, who was doing a terrible job, most of the people had lost their patience.

Then slowly the lights started dimming down and a soothing music started in the background. The background graphic screen was showing the back of a man's head. The crowd knew what was gonna happen next. We started shouting at the peak of our voices..and then finally Tiesto appeared on to the stage.

He starated off with a fast beat from his new album Kaleidoscope which got the fans into a frenzy and started their trance moves in a religious fervor. He continued with other songs such as Back In Your Head (feat Vancouver based Tegan and Sara)and Escape Me and other songs from the same album. All these numbers were thumpingly awesome, but my favorite was Century. The music is fast and its lyrics is very catchy. It goes like:
Hello, can you hear me??
Now put you hands in the air..for the century

I'm sure its gonna be a super hit.

The atmosphere was electrifying. It was not just the out-of-the-world trance music, it was also the amazing graphics that was making it more fun. Just when we thought the last molecule of ATP (the energy molecule)had been burnt, our bodies would automatically start dancing again, as if it received an energy boost from the music.
The hot dogs we had before entering was long gone. We had taken regular breaks to drain down a Sprite or Coke (we were dancing back & forth, of course).

The 2nd half was even more fun when he started belting out his older classics such as the Adaigo and Elements of Life. The fans went berserk on these two. He also played his some of his songs we had heard in ASOT (A State of Trance, Armin's weekly trance radio program).
We had lost track of time. But bodies were totally exhausted and were begging for some rest. The party went on till 3 AM. Then the music started slowly mellowing down and Tiesto said few good words, thanked us and bowed out. All of us were shouting in our hoarse voice for him to play for some more time. But it went in vain.

We half-heatedly walked out of the venue, caught a taxi & came back home at 5 AM. But the night was an experience to remember.

Here's a link to an Internet version of Kaleidoscope: http://www.myspace.com/tiesto. Hope you'll enjoy it!

happy Indepence Day !!

Dear friend,
advanced Indian Independence Day wishes to you !!
The reason for wishing you a week in advance is because I just came back from volunteering in the day-long Independence Day celebrations organized by the Consulate General of India (CGI) at the Yonge-Dundas square. The program included a procession along prominent streets in downtown area by various states (provinces in India) such as Karnataka, Goa, Rajasthan, describing their states. The most intriguing one was a procession by Indian Oversees Congress Party. I never knew one such association even existed!! Didn't know how appropriate it was for the CGI to patronize a political party, but being a Congress follower, I didn't mind watching Rahul Gandhi's blow-up taken around Toronto!!

Here are some pics from the event:

my state, Karnataka's procession

me with Karnataka Maathe (mother Karnataka)

Rajasthan's procession was quite colorful (but incomparable to Karnataka's)

This summer I've witnessed so many national/cultural events, almost one every week. Yesterday I had been to a Greek festival and the week before to a Caribbean event. I've been to 4 Indian programs this summer. I'm amazed by the amount of diversity in this country and the welcoming nature of its people.

another anniversary !!

On 5th this month its gonna be a year since I stepped foot on Toronto. Can't believe how fast this one year has rolled by. But after having stayed away from home and been put through a grueling MBA program, this year's been replete with lessons for the rest of my life.
In retrospect, it's been a wonderful year, worth every second that I lived.

I haven't able to update blog for quite some time partly because my time management is gone for a toss (a euphemism for "I'm a freakin, lazy guy") & partly because I have my fingers in too many pies.

I'm interning at Sun Life Financial (SLF) where I'm working as a Project Manager for a $500 million outsourcing contract that SLF recently signed with IBM. Its a high visibility project both inside SLF & IBM & I get to interact with senior managers from both sides.

Besides the internship, which has been quite hectic till now, I'm working on an Independent Study Project (a graded course that's counted as part of our 2nd year elective) for a consulting firm called LPR Global. Our assignment is to conduct market research & come out with recommendations for market entry for a South Korea based consumer electronics manufacturer. My team's performance has been quite good till now. We've succeeded in selling few of our products to a leading telecom carrier in the US.

I'm the VP of the Rotman Dance Club for this year. We initially had to put in considerable effort to transform our club from Salsa Club to Dance Club, that would support other dance forms such as Bollywood, Ball Room, etc. We had to conduct surveys among the members, convince the Rotman Club Administration to rename our club. Substantial effort was also dedicated to revamp the club website. But all our work till now has been just to create the new club, lot more effort is needed in the course of the year to ensure successful co-ordination of the various activities we've planned for this year.

A good amount of my time is also being spent on meeting Rotman alumni from various industries to understand their jobs & if I'd want to be in that profession a year from now. I've stuck with technology & marketing professions till now, since these are my preferences till now. Rotman has a great program called the Mentorship program where senior alums are assigned to interested students & the mentor helps the student understand various top manager issues and shares his perspectives on several topics. I've been extremely lucky to have the CFO of Rogers, one of the largest telecom/media firms in Canada, Bill Linton, as my mentor. I've discussed several interesting topics such the role he plays in increasing shareholder value, M&A strategies of multi-billion Dollar firms, etc. Bill has also introduced me several senior executives in his network with whom I can further interact and learn from.

Despite all this work, my social life has also been quite active. This weekend was a long one & I made quite good use of the time to visit few places around Toronto. The weekend also had a wonderful ending with an evening of "rusty pelican" ice-cream at De Metre's and bhel puri with Kashmiri chai at Little India on Gerrard Street.

Looking for another fun filled weekend and an interesting week in between !!

Bye for now..

10 things I didn't know about Poland

Dear friend,

Today’s article is going to be the 1st edition of a topic that’s very close to my heart: “10 things I didn’t know about country X” that I had spoken about a few months ago here.

I’ve chosen Poland for today’s article. I caught up with Dariusz, a Polish classmate at Rotman & dear friend of mine, asking him to tell us about Poland. Let me give you a brief introduction to Dariusz. He has his Masters in Banking & Finance from Krakow University of Economics and has 7 years of experience in invoice finance and asset based lending in London & Warsaw. He’s extremely fond of the Latin American dances and can put to shame many Latinos with his sleek Salsa moves!!

So here I was, at a reading room in University of Toronto’s Graduate House, close to midnight on Sunday, urging a 30ish Polish guy to come up with interesting facts about his country for the rest of us to know about. Here’s the list he churned out:

1) In the UK, the Polish form the 2nd largest immigrant population. The 1st place is held by none other than us Indians!!

2) Currently Poland is the only growing economy in the EU, notwithstanding the economic crisis that has hit hard the whole of the EU. The main reason being large FDI from the richer EU neighbors who want to capture a slice of this developing economy. Technology outsourcing is also supposed to quite be hot. So any techies reading this point, keep a keen eye on Poland.

3) Pablo Picasso, one of the greatest painters of the modern era is supposed to have said “The three most astonishing things in the past half-century were the blues (Afro-American music), cubism (20th century art movement), and Polish vodka. “ As for the Polish food, sausages seem to be one of the most popular dishes they have. The last time I was in a Polish restaurant with my classmates, I saw a separate menu for savories based on sausages!!

Here's one such delicacy:

4)
Poland lost 6 million of its citizens in the 2nd world war and became an USSR satellite state, post WW Lech Walesa, who became later a President, spearheaded the Polish revolt against the USSR domination thereby making Poland the 1^st country to liberate from the Communist bloc. The movement he started was called Solidarity and he was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 1983.

5) Religion is a critical component of the Polish people. 89% Poles follow the Roman Catholic Church. The previous Pope of The Church, John Paul II, was from Poland. His funeral was the largest funeral gathering of world leaders and public. An estimated 4 million mourners gathered in Rome and cost The Vatican 6 million euro for the entire event. John Paul II was the first non-Italian Pope since the 1520s and was widely acclaimed as one of the most influential leaders of the twentieth century

6) In 2006-2007 Polish Prime Minister and President were identical twin brothers elected in democratic elections. One of the brothers is still the President as of 2009. They both starred in the 1962 Polish film “The Two Who Stole the Moon”

7) Polish history goes back to 966, however, there was a period of over 120 years when Poland did not formally exist after political and military partitions among Russia, Austria, and Prussia (1795 - 1918). Warsaw is the third capital in the Polish history after Gniezno and Krakow

8) Main Market Square in Krakow is the largest medieval town square in Europe (200 by 200 meter square)

9) Frédéric Chopin, a world-renown pianist and composer, was born in Poland where he lived until he was 20. He was one of the great masters of Romantic music.

10) Finally, for all the football (soccer??) fans out there, here's something trivia for you: Poland and the Ukraine will be hosting the European Soccer Championship in 2012

The discussion gave me a brief insight from a Polish into this emerging economy and its culture. Hope you'd find this article interesting & useful as I did !!

in fond memory of Chetan....

Today I got a real bad news that Chetan, an old friend of mine, passed away in a road accident. My heart goes out to his surviving parents to whom he was the only nandadeepa.

He was 3 yrs senior to me. We used to go to school in the same bus & sometimes played football/cricket together in the evenings. I was not much in touch with him after he passed out of school. After few years, he did his MBA in Christ & I would approach him occasionally for MBA prep guidance. He had given me few prep books that I had returned after clearing GMAT. The last time I saw him was when I had gone to invite him for our Rajyotsava celebrations, more than a year ago. But now he's no more.. :(

It's such depressing that makes me question what is life?????? If its so precious & so damn invaluable, how the hell can it be taken away in a fraction of a second????? Is there no way to just rewind time a few seconds?????

happy anniversary !!

Wow!! this blog completed 1 year last Saturday. Isn't that an occasion to celebrate? There have been 42 postings till now. I've almost lived upto my commitment of having atleast 1 post per week.

So much has happened in this 1 year & I am really happy that I've been able to chronicle a good amount of it through this blog. I can always look back at these blogs & see where I came from. Hope to share more experiences with you in the years to follow..

Thanks for reading my blogs & belated new year wishes !!

some sweet Christmas holidays' memories

Our Q2 exams got over a week ago & I am enjoying Christmas holidays now. Thinking of Christmas holidays, I was reminded of one my most visited places during Christmas holidays during primary school days: Kapalli. That was the place where my dad's brother was residing during his tenure as a high school headmaster in that area. Click on this Google Map image to know where its located. This is a tiny village in the midst of Karnataka-Andhra Pradesh border, about 23 km from Chintamani, the taluq headquarter.




There were few private buses that went to this village, such as Balaji (with a distinctive yellow color), ATS (Akbar Transport Service, or something like that) and another simply called '8-single' (signifying that this bus plyed 8 times a day). These buses plyed between Chintamani & Gavunipalli or between Chintamani & Irgampalli. The buses were usually packed to the brink & it would be your lucky day if you secured a seat in the bus. The journey itself used to be a rocky one. The driver would play loud Telugu music (we were near Andhra border after all & yeah, Telugu movies was more popular than Kannada movies during those times) for passenger entertainment. An occasional drunkard used to provide more on-board entertainment. All said & done, if you were a well dressed kid from Bengaluru, you'd be in all probability the center of attraction. Someone would invariably ask me about my whereabouts and where I was heading to. "to Kapalli headmaster's house, I'm his nephew" used to be my standard reply. The bus would stop at Kapalli cross & it was a 2 km walk through the farms to the village. During my earlier childhood, there used to be fireflies in these farms that used emit fluorescent light through its tail. Trapping those insects used be my favorite time-passes. But as I grew up, these insects mysteriously disappeared.

My uncle's house was near the village entrance. A 150-200 yrs old stone arch stood at the entrance & it was now being used to tie-up cattle. The village also had some 8-10 gobar gas units that was supposed to generate cooking gas from cattle dung. But the project seemed to have flopped and most of these units had either become dumping grounds or were rusting.

The Hanuman temple at the center of the village was undoubtedly the cultural heart of the village. There was a large platform under the shade of a pepal tree that would be the place for lazy or old people to have a sieste or discuss about regional politics. A touring drama troupe would hold its night-long drama on the road opposite to the temple. An inter-village kabaddi contest would also be held under the blessings of Lord Hanuman.

Although most of main groceries were done from Chintamani or Guvanipalli, there were two small tuck shops. One was run by a single lady in her hut near the temple. Most of her wares were sweet meats, catering to small village kids. Finding a Coffee-Bite chocolate would be a rarity here, leave alone a Cadbury Five Star. Nobody knew how much she made, but I don't think she made much even though she had a near monopoly situation. Maybe she was happy with making her ends meet & wasn't caught up with expanding her business or increasing her gross margins, etc.

Needless to say, the village was surrounded by farms from all directions. One that reminds me the most was the betel leaves plantation of Subba Reddy that had a H-U-G-E well. This well was undoubtedly the largest I've ever seen & would be as large as a quarter football field. I remember going for a swim here once, only to find myself surrounded by snakes in all directions !! I've had nightmares about this well ever since.

Dairying also seemed to be a source of income for the villagers. Dairy co-operatives have been a huge success in Karnataka and have uplifted the lot of the farmer communities. The manager of the milk collection center, Venkatasubba Reddy was a very friendly person & would allow me to conduct milk purity tests & count the amount of milk brought in by each villager. Let me tell you this was quite a pristigious position & not many people would have got it.. :)

The best thing about this village was definitely its people. Everyone knew everyone else here, all of them had the innocence of the village & all of them were extremely friendly. I could write down few pages about each family & this would make this write-up so boring for you to read.

My uncle returned to my native village after he retired 10 yrs ago & my life had kept me so busy that I was barely in touch with this place or the people there. The last time I went to this village was to attend a marriage, I think 7 yrs ago. I've been to Chintamani quite a number of times in these 7 yrs, but never thought I'd miss this place so much. I've realized that there are somethings in life that you wouldn't realize how much you miss them until you are too much out-of-reach from them.

I've decided that during my next trip to Bengaluru, I'll be returing to this place that has been so much a part of me & its people who've partly shaped me to be what I am today. I'll surely make it a point to re-live some of those old memories & capture a few as a sweet remembrance of those childhood memories that I can no longer get back..& may be I'd do some not-for-profit consulting for the tuck shop lady to increase her profits.. :)

It's sometimes hard to imagine for people in big cities such as Toronto or Bengaluru or NYC that a place that doesn't even figure on the GoogleMaps can be such a lively entity. This I believe is the irony of today's world. Hope this little blog would put this tiny village: "Kapalli" on to the map of the Internet age.

ಎಲ್ಲಾದರೂ ಇರು, ಎಂತಾದರು ಇರು..(wherever u r, however u r..)

Dear friend,
Its been more than a month since Kannada Rajyotsava (formation day of my state: Karnataka that's celebrated on Nov 1st), but in keeping with true traditions of K R Puram (which had been my home since birth), I am wishing a warm belated Rajyotsava wishes now. Just remembered that last year we had Rajyotsava celebrations in early December. Even our Sasken Rajyotsava celebrations were in late November.

Now that I am in Toronto & so involved in studies, I barely get time to do these things. But here's a beautiful pearl of a song I unearthed from Youtube. I've missed the count of number of times I've seen it since & I'm sure even you'd love it..



This song has probably the two best Kannadigas ever. Hats off to our Rashtrakavi Kuvempu & one & only Annavru Dr. Raj..

ಕನ್ನಡವೇ ಸತ್ಯ, ಕನ್ನಡವೇ ನಿತ್ಯ..

Where The Mind is Without Fear..

170 odd people dead..entire city & the nation traumatized..
who's responsible for it: ISI? Deccan Mujahideen? or our "nothing can be done" government??
Will our representatives stop expressing shock & giving condolences remarks & take some decisive action atleast now?
I don't understand why this is a continuing issue. Successive governments be it Congress or BJP, forget that they have head on their shoulders when this issue comes up. Is it the complacency of the leaders or that of the RAW/police babus?

I hope its the defining moment for India. We have only 2 choices: continue to kneel down in front of those irritants or stand up brave & do something about this.

Hope our leaders haven't forgotten the aspirations of our forefathers, beautifully elaborated in this following poem by Rabindranath Tagore:

WHERE the mind is without fear and the head is held high

Where knowledge is free

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

By narrow domestic walls

Where words come out from the depth of truth

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit

Where the mind is led forward by thee

Into ever-widening thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Rabindranath Tagore

As winter sets in..

Things are changing so fast & so much out of your control, not just the weather...even your own life.


Yesterday when I came out of school I was delighted to see a white blanket of snow all over. I was witness to withering of leaves from the past one month, but today's sudden transformation of green to white was unexpected. Seeing snow for the first time was an experience in itself. I had to consciously restrain myself from not touching the snow so that I my health doesn't get screwed at this crucial time.


This weather change is in sense a mirror to the way my life is getting transformed here. These three months have done so much polishing to me that I never expected before I came here.
At school, each day we are bombarded with so many bewildering choices and challenges. You can schedule each minute of your time to atleast two tasks. You could either work on you project or the weekend's case competition or you can study for tomorrow's Statistics quiz or do Business Finance assignment. What do you choose? All are are of equal priority.

Here are some of the cool things I've learnt in past few weeks. This is just to show you how much intersting learning in a B-School is. Mind you these are just few of the plethora of things that are currently on top of my head:
1) New technology doesn't always mean big money. Ex1. InVitro Maturation Artificial Reproductive Technology (IVM-ART) - Medi-cult, a pharma company had a real bad time selling it. Ex2: Very Light Jet (VLJ)- Linear Air, an air-taxi service started by an HBS grad is facing a tough challenge making profits out of this cutting edge technology due to the already overcrowded airline industry.
2) Lets say there are two stocks with risks r1 and r2 such that share2 is riskier than share1. If you create a portfolio having these two stocks, the effective risk r(1,2) of the portfolio can adjusted to be lesser than r1. In other words, your portfolio risk is lesser than the lowest risk of individual shares in the portfolio.
3) There are quite a number of ways for a company to borrow money from a bank but not show it on its balance sheet !! This one is really intersting isn't it? :)


I had almost forgotten what a festival celebration is till I got a lucky chance to watch a Santa Claus parade on Bloor street this Sunday. There were tiny tots with their parents waving their hands and singing "jingle bells". I could actually feel the joy in those small kids by remembering the jovial mood I used to be in during "pallakki" festival in my home town.



This picture is from the parade passing near the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) near my school.

We've got two more weeks for Q2 exams to commence and before that submissions of various assignments and projects are due. I've joined as a PM for an UofT student project, I'll discuss more about it in a later blog. It's been a very good experience with lot of learning till now.

So these are some of my updates from past few weeks..

a week that was..

phew..
what a week this was..
It was in this week that I've embarked on a new life of sorts. New place, new role, new friends...
With so many new changes, there are bound to have quite a few commotions.

Since I reached Toronto a week later than most of the Indian guys, accommodation turned out to be quite an hurdle.
On a particular day, Ramit & I walked almost 20 kms & 5 hrs around the Downtown area but in vain.
I was temporarily staying in my dad's friend, Nagaraj uncle's house. I finally managed to move in with Pavan, Vinay & Sid.

Getting adjusted to Canada takes some time. Back in India, we are so used to chaos that a sudden wave of discipline & orderliness takes you by surprise.
Say you were crossing a Toronto road, you see a car speeding towards you, you wait for it to pass, but as the car nears you, the car waits for you to pass. Both you & the driver are at confusion for few moments, waiting for each other to pass.

Traffic rules here are pedestrian friendly. Well, its supposed to be the same in India too, but here the difference here is that the rules are strictly adhered.

Toronto is a superb city, innumerable number of skyscrapers, interspersed with older Victoria styled structures dating back to late 1800's, wide roads, beautiful boulevards all will leave awestruck.

In the past week, I've seen almost all the cars I used to dream about since childhood. Here's an easy way to see you fav car in Toronto: 1) think of ur favorite car: a Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini or a Mustang 2) go to Downtown 3) close your eyes for 30 secs & 4) slowly open your eyes. You'll see that car speeding past you.

TTC is another great feature in Toronto. Trians come, people get down, people get in, a music indicates the train is leaving & the train leaves. Everything happening in perfect precision. So much precision that sometimes life may feel too mechanical for us Indians..

I must say, the way we associate Germany to engineering or Italy to design or Japan to technology, we must associate desciple & order to Canada.. :)

One more thing we Indians need to get adjusted to is deal with an array of coins. Its coins & coins wherever you go.. $2, $1, 50c & so on till 1c. It'll fill ur purse so much that in the end you'll be forced to donate some of them.

Overall, its a beautiful city, so much to explore & learn. Hope to buy a camera soon & capture some of the snapshots here.



P.S. This article was started on Saturday evening but due to all sorts of pressures, was able to complete only on Tuesday.

a glutton's dream come true..

Just have look at my this week's (last week in India) schedule. It's sure gonna make the glutton in u get mouth-watering dreams.. :)
Tuesday dinner -- @ Vinay's house. As usual Raj had come late, but was trying to pass the blame on me & Machi. But we are well-versed with his ways. The food was typical South-Indian Vysya fare. His mom had taken pains to prepare some wonderful coconut obbattus. Plus there were lots of other sweets, tasty fried items, sweetened sambar, etc & ending with the typical serving of puffed rice!!

Wednesday lunch -- treat given by me to my Alcatel-Lucent team. Dominos Pizzas with various delicious toppings. Had to make a hard negotiation with the cashier to get a decent discount.

Wednesday dinner -- @ my cousin's house. His wife had prepared some amazing kababs, chicken chops & mutton curry; all giving a terrific combination to the ragi mudde.

Thursday dinner -- @ Raj's house. As usual, he was late, making all of us furious. But our furiousity was dampened soon by his mother's cooking. Although non-veg was the main course, his mother had taken pains to prepare vegetarian food for the vegitarian parties of our gang: Vinay & Manja. For the non-vegitarians, we had chilly chicken & mutton fry & a very thin mutton curry that my mom occassionally prepares. In no time, each of us had downloaded 2 generous servings of rice..

Friday lunch -- gave a treat to my Sasken team. Yet again, it was a pizza treat, since nothing seemed to fit my "tight budget". We got a good number of pizzas & everyone were quite filled in the end..

Friday dinner -- @ Manja's house. His mom comes closest to my mom in terms of taste. I reason out this could be because both of them hail from the same geographical area of South Eastern Karnataka (his mom is from Kolar & mine is from Devanahalli, just 40 kms apart) & hence a similar use of ingredients & preparation methods.
Ok, analysis apart, his mom had prepared wonderful dal obbattu & jamoon (esp. for Raj & Vinay). As such, even I am not a very big connoisuer of obbattu, but its preparation is such a tedious & pain-staking process that you need to eat few as gratitude for the cook. The dal rasam was so delicious that I helped myself with some more servings of rice.

Tomorrow's breakfast is in my home. Mom has said she'll prepare Vegetable Palav & jamoon.

So this was my eating itinery for this week. Now, dont u think this wld make anybody's mouth water?

Before I end this write-up, my heartfelt thanks to all my friends & cousins & their families for showing so much love & affection towards me.

a movie that leaves u thinking

Yesterday I got a send-off party from my long-time PESIT buddies: Prashant, Veda, Harsha & Khalid.
Despite the largely looming terror threat in Bengaluru, we decided to go for the much awaited movie, Taj Mahal.

Few of the songs on the promos were good & the posters indicated that it was pretty quality stuff. But half of our josh was down when Veda indicated that the feedback was lukewarm. We've seen this pattern reccuring: good promos--all of our spirits are high, can't wait to get a First Day First Show ticket---later, u come out right after the interval, as though you are escaping from a prison.. :) I was thinking we are heading for such a disaster once again..

Overall, the movie seemed to be like a ODI between the good-parts of the movie & the bad-parts. The initial opening was a movie-crazy young boy running away from home fearing his father & finding a diary of the protagonist. This seemed like story telling with-in a story that was well presented. Then the bad-part took over: which place on earth had a number plate with S-143?? Switzerland??
Then following that, the hero puncturing his bike to wish good morning to our heroine (sakkat hot Pooja Gandhi) & ending off with an insequential romantic song. This was enough to put us off.
Then the movie continues with many absurdities, such as: the heroine, who has never talked to the hero & admittedly doesn't even know his name, agrees to go for coffee with him!! Unfortunately, it seems, the director didn't know that real girls in this real world aren't that liberal :(
Its only the occassional dialogs by Rangayana Raghu that really keeps the spirits up at some places.

But the highlight of the movie, that makes it worth wathching is the metal pressure that the hero goes through in choosing between his extreme love for the heroine & his duties & responsibilites towards his parents who have have sold their everything & living in extreme poor conditions so that their son studies well & becomes an engineer.
Its isn't that difficult for any of the guys (esp. me at this juncture of my life) to draw an analogy to the hero's state that really makes the impact on all of the guys.
The parents fetch more brownie points by forgiving the son who comes back & surrenders himself in front of this telling his bad state & parents accept him for what he is & forgives him. This again, seems to be a gentle reminder that parents, from the times of the Prable of the Prodigal Son, are a trove of forgiveness.

At the end of the movie, you really start thinking what did the hero achieve, after all?
Couldn't have he lived happier if he hadn't gone out of his small village or hadn't fallen in a wierd love with that girl?
This's what makes the movie a memorable one, even thought there are quite a few absurd, vague & far-fatched scenes.
Here's a link to one of my fav songs in the movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYs-InGHMtQ&feature=related

some respite atlast..

So, after eventually getting the education loan sanction letter, I for the Canadian Visa on 06/06/08 ( 6th of June in either American or English style :) ). So now the waiting starts. Hope everything goes fine & I get my Visa before July 28th, 6 PM, the time for my flight.

After running from pillar to post during the past few weeks, I certainly deserved a break. So I headed off with Vinay & Raj to one our friend's brother's marriage in Tiptur. I had armed myself with the Canon S5 IS & wanted to try something myself after seeing so many mesmerizing pics in BWS.
Here's a link to some of the better 1's:
http://picasaweb.google.com/raghu.ramu/TipturTrip
The quantity is low coz of the high battery consumption of this cam. But thanks to the cam, I made an effort to explore this small town, somewhere in the middle of southern Karnataka & got to learn a few things about this place:
There were umpteen number of British style old buildings, many dating back to early 1900's. This showed that this town was well developed even during pre-Independence era & was of importance to the British Raj. The is in quite a contrast to other similar towns I had been to, such as Kolar, Chintamani, Chikkaballapur, etc. These towns must have gained importance and prosperity more recently due to proximity to the capital, Bangalore & even more recently due to the real estate boom.
So, this begs the question, what does Tiptur have that the other latter towns lack?
I guess I should be the coconut trade that happens here. Apparently, this place is supposed to be having one of the largest coconut godowns in India. That's the answer in a nutshell.. :)
Speaking of godowns, I have suddenly realized even I need to shelve myself off into my godown now till morning.
Good bye..

my recent updates

Dear friend,
I am sorry I was not able to write much in the past few weeks. Colloquially speaking, I have been "busy like anything" or "sakkat busy maga" in the last couple of weeks. :)

The IEFC loan rejection has had few serious repercussions. Now I had to apply to Indian banks which besides the exorbitant interest rates require an endless number of docs to be submitted. I finally got all the relevant docs ready & submitted my loan application last week. I would be hearing from the bank about my loan in a week's time.

With the Indian loan I can get only half of my estimated expenses. In order to show to the Visa authorities that I have sufficient funds to fulfill all my expenses I needed to prepare another extensive set of docs. The entire last week was spent on collecting that. This week I need to get all my finance docs certified by a CA. After this is done & I get a sanction letter for my loan, I can apply for my Visa. I hope to do this ASAP.

I am also working on tickets booking & on the look for a good laptop.


Things have got a bit hectic at work place also. I submitted my resignation last week & have got a mail mentioning the formalities of the exit process. I need to follow up on this.
I'm currently working on quite an interesting & a challenging feature. I need to finalize the Deisgn Document before quitting.


The biggest causality of my hectic schedule is my reading. I've stopped reading Telecom Flash newsletters altogether. In my mailbox I see I have 30 unread CS newsletters. I hope I finish going through them before the content becomes too stale.

Despite of all this I've able to take some time off to meet my would-be class mates gang from Bangalore yesterday night. Chatting with this guys definitely helps to take off some pressure since these guys are also sailing in the same boat as I am.

Bonda's marriage, the 1st marriage in my gang, is coming up this weekend. Vinay, Viji & I had been to Commercial Street in the evening to get a nice little gift for him.
Its Sunday 11 PM now & another weekend draws to a close. Time to sleep & prepare myself for another high activity filled week. Good night.

its voting time guys..

Just a week to go for the 1st phase of Karnataka state assembly elections & the campaigns are reaching a feverish pitch. Thanks to the Election Commission, buntings have been banned, effectively eliminating pollution due to plastics & the use of loud speakers has also been banned that has reduced the regular din that we were so much used to all this while. Doesn't this seem a lot more mature now? The way to go for the largest democracy & unarguably the country that sees the maximum elections in a year.. :)
The candidates don't seem have an option but goto each voter & literally beg each one for his/her vote. This might help them in shedding a kg or two from their bodies.. :)

It was shocking to see a common problem among all the leading parties: so many contenders for a single party ticket. This has lead to quite a few skirmishes, the defeated has promised vendetta. I felt a bit pity for these guys; the booming economy has created so many nouveau riche & each of are in a mood to "serve the people". How can you accommodate all of them without increasing the seats? Why couldn't have the delimitation committee created some more constituencies?

If you are a rich guy, planning to stand for elections, here's an argument you could make: each year the IITs & IIMs increase the number of seats to accommodate the ever increasing number of applicants, in the same vein, why shouldn't EC increase the number of constituencies?

For the rest of us, from the voting fraternity, who still don't know how to choose the "best among the worst" (as one thinker asked us to vote), here's an argument that you could make: Why shouldn't the ballot paper contain a "none of the above" option? There have been on & off discussions on this & I think its something worth a try, instead of lamenting on low voter turnout.

As for me, I am still thinking how to make the "best among the worst" choice. If you know how to make this choice please let me know.. :)
Happy voting !!

the legend lives on..in our hearts

Today is Annavru Dr. Raj's 80th birthday. There are celebrations all over the state; so many cultural programs, blood donation camps -- all in the honor of the Kannada matinée idol. Two years have passed since he has passed away, but he remains fresh in our memories.

I don't intend to write an essay about him because I'm afraid it many run into tens of pages. :)
But I want to enlist few of his qualities that has made him the icon that he is.

1. He was a perfectionist - he would retake his shots several times until he was completely satisfied with his performance.
2. He knew his core skills & didn't allow distractions to lose focus on his core abilities - after he gained immense publicity after the Gokak Chaluvali, many political parties pleaded with him to join their party. But Dr. Raj plainly refused responding that he was not made to be a politician. He would continue to serve Kannada & mankind along with his acting career.
3. He gave back to society from where he had gained so much. He donated generously to orphanages, widow upliftment programs, etc. But while giving such donations he always made sure that his left hand wouldn't know what his right hand gave. Isn't he so different from those whoDuring the Kargil War crisis, he roamed across Karnataka to collect donations for the Kargil fund. Gokak Chaluvali that was initially started by the Kannada thinkers assumed the proportions of a movement only Dr. Raj joined in his hands.
   

Above all this, he was a talented & diversified actor, unparallel to none other. This combined with singing talent made him such an unique personality. Who else have got a Dada Saheb Phalke award and a National award for the best playback singer?

3 days-3 marriages

Mom returned today evening from her '3 days-3 marriages' trip to Kolar. Its the season of marriages here now. So its not uncommon to have 5-6 marriage invites for a single day!! My dad is on a business trip to Mumbai, so its was imperative for my mom to attend all the marriages.
When she returned, she gave quite an interesting account of her experiences, something worth blogging about. So here it goes..
She left on Thursday morning to attend a family friend's marriage in Chintamani (my native). It was a "no hassles" marriage & everything went fine, as in 99.99% of marriages.
That evening she traveled from Chintamani to Kolar (about 40 kms) to attend a far relative's marriage-reception. As she was entering the marriage hall, she saw the bride & party (our relatives) standing outside the hall. For some unknown reason (with so many people around, its easy for the main reason to be lost in translation :) ) the bridegroom was objecting the bride's party entering the hall. The bride's party were all waiting there, at the enternce. Then Bang!! entered my mom, went & spoke to the groom & his parents & managed to get the bride & party in. After that the groom (again for some unknown reason) refused to wear jewelery during the function & objected even the girl wearing it. This was turning to be really absurd, a nightmarish situation to the bride's parents. Again Bang!! entered my mom, convinced the groom & he agreed to allow the bride to wear jewel but he wouldn't wear any. A groom's jewel would be hidden by his suit anyway, there wouldn't be many objections to this condition.
All the experiences my mom had from arranging umpteen number of marriages for my cousins had proved useful here ..
Later that night, she along with my sister, 2 cousin-sisters & their bunch of kids has to spend the night at another cousin's house & return to Chintamani and travel further 40 kms to attend another relative's marriage, the next day.
My cousin had been out of town (for a marriage ofcourse :) ) & had given the keys to a neighbour. Mom & gang were welcomed to the house by a swarm of mosquitoes. Unluckily for them, mosquito mats were empty & the mosquito net would be sufficient for just two people. After all the confusions in the marriage, everyone seemed to have lost their apetite during the dinner & now with the mosquito menace, they were feeling the hunger pangs. But nothing could be done now, it was 10:30 PM & all the stores in that small-time town would be closed. The elders in the gang packed up the kids on the cot having the mosquito net & they got into bantering that comes so naturally to women folk. But the mosquitoes & empty stomachs wouldn't allow them to have a meaningful conversation.
Only those who've been through such experiences can understand how dreadfully long such nights can be. You'll be just waiting for even a small streak of light outside your window to conclude that its morning atlast & run out of your bed.
The next day the elders got ready at 4:30 AM itself & got their kids also ready in jiffy & headed to the bus stop to catch the 5:30 AM bus to Chintamani. Still starving but nothing to eat, they luckily found some snacks at Chintamani bus stop. With their stomach Gods happy, they boarded the bus that would take them to another of those 99.99% successful marriages.

an embarrassing start

Certainly Dravid, Vijay Mallya and gang haven't done a good job in team selection. They had to pick up a few good hitters. Without these run making machines its not possible to do well on such batsmen centric wickets.
We need good fast bowlers than spinners, coz usually the later can be easily taken for boundaries than fast bowlers.
Hope Dravid & Mallya keep these in mind when selecting for the next season.

Today's fielding has left a lot to be desired. C'mon Royal Challengers, u need to better than this to make us proud.. :)
All the best for the next matches!!

Some brainless talks..

The evening coffee breaks these days with my coffee-gang: Manoj & Ashok, have invariably have lead to some interesting discussions.
The other day, while we were sipping coffee, as usual an a plane flew past our GVC (Golf View Campus) office. "ಥ್ಹು, ಈ ಪ್ಲನೆಗಳದ್ದು ಏನ್ ಕಾಟನಪ್ಪ..." (these planes are a pain in the ***) I said to myself. I think, only those who have been victimized by the constant sound of flight takeoffs can understand my then state of mind. :)
Anyway, the discussion had been shifted to air travels and Manoj was mentioning how some people throw-up (a condition where the food you've eaten moves in the opposite direction in your digestion tract, resulting in the emission of the food through you mouth) during flights. Just as I was wondering what could be the reason behind this, Ashok mentioned the research he had done on this topic.
As we become air-bourne, our inner ear that is sensitive to even slight pressure differences sends a signal to the brain that it senses motion, while on the other hand, our eyes sense that our surroundings are static since there's no relative motion visible and hence signals that everthing is still. Now the brain, the master controller, detects that there is inconsistency in the data received from the sensory organs & concludes that the body is under hallucination caused due to poison ingestion and induces the stomach to "throw out" whatever was eaten. In biology terms this is called "Motion Sickness"

Now, being a techie that I am, I couldn't resist the temptation of writing down the brain (modelling it as a programmable machine) implementation in this condition:

/*this is the brain code */

main ( int argc, char* argv[ ] )
{
while (1) { //run this forever (till we are alive :) )

//many things happen here..
//a few hundred billion lines here..

receiveMsgFromEars( &msg );
setMotionStateFromEars ( msg.MotionState ); //values = inMotion or static
receiveMsgFromEyes( &msg );
setMotionStateFromEyes ( msg.MotionState ); //values = inMotion or static
if ( g_motionStateEars != g_motionStateEyes )
{

//poisoned !!!
while (!TheDigestiveSystem.stomachContentsEmpty ( ) )
TheInvolutaryMuscleManager.move ( INVMUSC_STOMACH, DIRECTION_REVERSE );
}

//a few more hundred billion lines here..
//many things happen here..

} //end while :(

} //end main :(


Seems to be some crappy code, right? But by writing these few lines of pseudo-code, I've realized how immensly complex our brain/body is. Call it God or call it evolution, it has given shape to one hell of a machine: ourselves..

I't it fascinating how evolution & natural selection has shaped organisms to handle even minutest situations in order to ensure their survivability?

It may however take a few hundred generations for our brains to learn not to trigger "false alarms" of poisoning just because we are flying.. Seems providing the patch-fix takes time. It certainly wont be delivered in our lifetime.. :)

So the next time you feel like puking during the flight, you know whom should be blamed.. :)