Exploration devanahalli - NH7 ride

This Sunday I was pretty bored as I was alone at home. Everyone at home had left to marriage of a distant relative before i got up :P I was as usual stuck to my bed till 11am in the morning. Had a slow paced day till noon and then I realized that there no nothing cooked at home to eat. I had to prepare something or go to a nearby restaurant for lunch. As I had very late breakfast, I planned to go for a drive and eat somewhere I had not tried before. It was almost 2pm when I left towards the New Airport at Devanahalli. A beautiful Sunday afternoon - cloudy, cold and cozy  - I was driving on NH7 towards Air force station near Yelahanka.

There is a hillock to the left at the junction of Devanahalli-Shidlaghatta soon after the Airport. I saw a Jain temple under construction over the hillock and just visited that silent place.

It was windy in the afternoon and not many people around, I was enjoying the silence. There were some couple of architects sculpting the marbles intricately marking designs with pencil. It was beautiful to see those white soft stones to get shapes of bells, pillars and idols.

I then left the place to follow the "anjaane raasta" :) I saw the signboard saying Nandi Hills 28Kms at a junction and so I took that deviation and drove for a couple of kms; no sooner the fuel came to reserve. :(

My bad, I should have had a look earlier before starting. I asked nearby rurals and oncoming cars about fuel station ahead/nearby or above Nandi hills. Answer was a NO! Everyone asked to go back to Devanahalli for refueling. Consoling myself that I wouldn't land up in any problems since I have 2+ litres in reserve and would definitely make it another 55+ kms. I started to drive till the base of Nandi Hills. Roads are very good - lengthy, straight and non bumpy. I found a silkworm rearing farm on the way and wanted to take some snaps of cocoons. I got into one of the farms with my camera and the owner came running to me as to see what I am doing standing next to chandrike (A bamboo tray used for sericulture). As I was photographing cocoons he was more interested to show me the whole of his farm. I was more eager to ask him about everything that I saw around. A 5th grade boy from neighborhood also started explaining me about procedures they follow. I visited the Mulberry plantation next to the farm which is used to feed the growing silkworms. Within the few minutes of our meeting the owner had explained the whole of silkworms life-cycle! When I went inside the room I saw lots of cocoons ready for harvest. He said that he would make a total of Rs.40000/- in one harvest and a single harvest would take a period of 28 days. He asked me of my profession and told that his son too is an engineer working at Bangalore. People in rural places are very happy to see someone coming from city to see what the agriculturists are really working on. I have experienced this a lot many times during my visits like this on biking and trekking. We as engineers, doctors and lawyers often neglect the backbone of our country. If you ask a urban lad of this generation as to where the grains, fruits and vegetables actually come from, they would answer either Namdhari's or Reliance fresh or some other supermarket!!

After bidding bye to the silkfarm owner Prakash and the neighborhood boy Manu, I left with a cocoon in my pocket for the memory of visiting this silkfarm. My bullet had already started showing symptoms of getting cold as she had drenched in rain and electricals of bike had gone to a toss! There was a electrical short in headlight switch which forced me to come back before sunset. On the way back I visited the Devanahalli fort and Tippu sultan's birth place which is on the way. It is a monument still standing. There was nothing much to see here. You can see an old venugopal swamy temple as soon as you enter the gates of fort. Driving back home I had Idli-Vada at some hotel around 6pm, a very late lunch indeed! :P

Above are some wonderful snaps taken from my camera.

Cheers!
Karthi

Jai Hind!

Today, Saturday August 14th 2010, Eve of 64th Indian independence day, I saw and experienced this nice feeling of celebration of Indian independence which i would like to share it here.

This happened to me on the road today. I was going to meet a bunch of my colleagues who had called for a weekend fun meet at Amoeba bowling alley, Churchstreet Bangalore. I started from my place at 10:30am in the morning for we were suppose to meet at 11am IST (If you don't know the "real" meaning of it then it could be called Indian "Slip" Time) near Brigade Rd.

Roads were not so crowded up until late afternoon. I was heading to the Brigade Jn via MG Road where I had to stop for the Red signal. I saw few guys at the junction selling a lot of Indian tricolor on the streets of Bangalore.One small kid, around 10 years old, approached me with different variety and flavors of how Indian tricolor could be used - Wristband, Badges, Khadhi, Caps and finally flags. He had a plastic flag which had glue at the bottom to stick it firmly on dashboard of the car. A SUV with a dark tinted glass stopped next to my Bullet. As I said no to everything the boy showed me he had to finally move on. The window of the SUV rolled down and the boy was busy again in selling those to his new customer. To my surprise they were an old foreigner couple (around 45-50 years of age) and they did buy a Indian flag to put it on the dashboard of the car. They gave him some money and asked him to keep the rest of change. The boy was more happy than ever and gave the lady one more Indian flag for her to keep. For that fleeting moment, I saw the feeling of celebration in boy. I smiled at the couple who smiled back at me. The signal had turned green and I left with several thoughts on my mind - Who are really celebrating our Indian independence? - those foreigners! What it means to be real freedom struggle for that boy? - Is it just his daily bread! Why do we now see it just as a national holiday? - to rejoice without office work!

Even I am the victim of globalization of economies, societies and culture, working for software industry in a MNC, I don't have authority to say much about this but feels a kind of guilt that we have lost the real feeling of Indian independence and freedom struggle.

Jai hind!

TGIF!

My life had been uneventful for a long time since the last bullet ride to Kudremukh. As always, I had got myself busy with work and literally breaking my head, spending late-evenings over the non-working issues! A kinda stress, frustration had set in. I needed a break and it came as the part of fun filled event, TGIF(Thank God! It's Friday).

It all started with several colleague's idea to put up songs, skit  and a dance event. I was called upon Thursday morning to take part in the play as they needed to fit me in some role. I was more than happy :)

It was nice script done by the fellas to pull our senior(can also be called "old" :P) team members' legs. Characters like Himesh, Vilas, Ghanav, CP sir, Candy, Mona, Mori were really hilarious! I enjoyed it thoroughly. Kudos to guys and gals who wrote all those dialogues filled with pun. It was awesome fun to enact the role of Candy; Long time since school/college since I took part in some kind of play. I laughed out wholeheartedly during practice sessions in imitating the gestures and actions. Recording sessions went cool even though we were disturbing the neighboring conference rooms with our laughter. The final cut version of recording was done and I added some "special effects" :P and brought it for rehearsal. The new joinees were highly sportive and so were the mocked team members :D

Lots of people with gifted arts like singing, dancing, acting, mimicry, playing music, together with our well known shayar :), I would say that Alcatel-Lucent SRPG-IPD 7210 team rocks!!! in core technical as well as extra-curricular fields.

Strange relationships and life

We meet a lot of people in our day-to-day life at home, at workplace, on traveling, in neighborhood etc., and we communicate with each other forming some relation. The human interpersonal relationships are the most complex aspect of human behavioral science. We have a family - interpersonal relations with kins who are associated to you by genetics(Parents and siblings) and relatives - established by marriages, who help you morally and emotionally(In-laws,Aunts,Uncles) and friends - who trust, have similar likings, and most importantly accept you the way you are.

We can't choose the family we want to be born with but we choose our friends all the way through our lifetime. This human bonding with others seem very simple as we enjoy each others company when we are together. We take things for granted as we don't have any rules and regulations to be friends with and have assumptions of how others value it and what they seek from us. There is no contract or any penal law written about the relationship called friendship. In the journey of life as we move on, we make new friends and forget some old ones but there remains only a handful of close, closer,closest - a diminishing concentric circular scale of numbers and a "sole soul" standing in the center of that circle.

When it comes to being with family, again there is a form of mutual dependency created even if we don't choose to be with. There are some responsibilities and duties associated with each of the family member that he/she is expected to show to the other members of family. Siblings are together with parents for longer than childhood and as soon as they start earning and make their own family they are gone away. There are nuclear families present now because we desire to live and make our own living with the expenditures and our family earnings only. Sad but true that, We do not even want to share our living with siblings who are at a different socio-economic status than what we are now. How beautiful was the childhood when we even did not think of such things. I think, We are together only as long as we are parasitic to this institution called family - A group of people purposefully motivated to stay together for a major part of their lifetime who neither can't think of being benefited to live separate nor think of anything better solution otherwise.

We call this a "real life" - birth, childhood, education, work, marriage, children, bitterness, feeling of having lost so many things, wishing to go back past 30 years in life, frustration, illness, disability, old age, dependency on others, loneliness, death.

I read in one of the writings a few days back about the very contradictions in our human life. We urge to grow up so fast and long for our lost childhood on our way. Make ourselves ill earning money and spend all our money getting well again. We worry so much about future and never try to live in the present. We live as if we are never going to die, but we die as if we never lived.

Engine-eer!

As a kid I very much enjoyed disassembling all of my toys into pieces and trying to fix it back unknowingly that I will be an engineer someday later in my life :P

Old habits die hard! Even till today I do fix most of the household broken things like changing bathroom fittings and taps, regulators of ceiling fan, Fixing of water pump in air cooler, alarm clocks etc., You may get it done by professional but the happiness you get in repairing it is more worth it. Trust me! :)

Recently my cruel eyes have turned towards my "toy", Royal Enfield Bullet :D I bought the pete's manual for my bike last weekend from Nandan, so called Bangalore's bullet scientist :) and have started doing a study/research on my bike to find out how-things-work in it during weekends. Call it passion or insanity or whateva!

No matter how people ridicule me and poke fun at my craze, someday I wish to open up the whole of engine and put it back as it is with even better tuning done with perfect valve train arrangements. I am quite good at tools but I don't have a set of all tools required. Shopping list of spanners, box pliers is quite lengthy! A single change of engine oil requires about 2.2L(INR 440 bucks), leave alone primary clutch-case and gearbox oil. But it is quite a cheap machine from spares point of view to screw-it-up :P

I refreshed all my high school basics about Bernoulli's theorem to know action of carburetor and see it practically working in adjustment of the idling thump. Basics of alternator/regulator to know the use of AMPs meter and how charging is done using DC output of rectifier. Lenz law to know how induction coil works. First of all the physics behind the 4 strokes design of single cylinder petrol engine - about how linear motion is converted into rotary motion by crankshaft and connecting rods. Knowing how overhead camshaft(OHC), pushrods, rocker arms are used in inlet and outler valve timing. Electrical timing of spark soon after compression. It is a lot of fun than you can imagine if you have a feel for it.

You may ask why I am becoming(or rather mere talking) more like a mechanic now than an software engineer :P
Well, In industry, If you write a piece of code you need to stick to the norms of code readability, re-usability and do everything the C++ way in overriding,overloading but you can't hack your own code to make life simple! :( Lost are those college days when you had all the freedom to obfuscate complex sudoku solvers in 3 liners, Solve Tower of Hanoi using bitwise operators and the simple yet famous "hello world" programs into single line and enjoy them all. There is some internet humor @ http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/helloworld.html
Behaving as though you are "seasoned professional" even though you are not one is so much painful like an itching somewhere you can't reach! So I am trying to get back to my instinct of gaining knowledge and learn new things while breaking and fixing it up again :)

Even now I have the habit of adding "Thanks and Regards, Karthik" at the end of this blog as in outlook conversation which clearly indicates the other side effects of becoming addicted to office e-mails :P
Anyway,
Thanks and Regards,
Karthik :D

BhaavageethegaLu

ನನ್ನ ಮೆಚ್ಚಿನ ಭಾವಗೀತೆಗಳು, ಕೆಲವನ್ನು ಜಾಲದಲ್ಲಿ ಹುಡುಕಿ ಸಂಗ್ರಹಿಸಿರುವೆ. ನಿಮಗೂ ಇಷ್ಟವಾದೀತು ಎಂದು ಭಾವಿಸುವೆ.

೧. ಮುಚ್ಚು ಮರೆ ಇಲ್ಲದೆಯೇ, ಕುವೆಂಪು
೨. ಯಾವ ಮೋಹನ ಮುರಳಿ ಕರೆಯಿತು, ಗೋಪಾಲಕೃಷ್ಣ ಅಡಿಗ
೩. ಎದೆ ತುಂಬಿ ಹಾಡಿದೆನು ಅಂದು ನಾನು, ಜೀ.ಎಸ್.ಎಸ್
೪. ಇಷ್ಟು ಕಾಲ ಒಟ್ಟಿಗಿದೂ, ಡಾ. ಏನ್.ಎಸ್.ಲಕ್ಷ್ಮಿನಾರಾಯಣ ಭಟ್
೫. ತನುವು ನಿನ್ನದು ಮನವು ನಿನ್ನದು, ಕುವೆಂಪು
೬. ತೌರ ಸುಖದೊಳೆನ್ನ ಮರೆತಿಹಳು ಎನ್ನದಿರಿ, ಕೆ.ಎಸ್.ನರಸಿಂಹಸ್ವಾಮಿ
೭. ಎಲ್ಲೋ ಹುಡುಕಿದೆ ಇಲ್ಲದ ದೇವರ, ಜೀ.ಎಸ್.ಎಸ್
೮. ಎದೆಯು ಮರಳಿ ತೊಳಲುತಿದೆ, ಗೋಪಾಲಕೃಷ್ಣ ಅಡಿಗ
೯. ಎಲ್ಲಿ ಜಾರಿತೋ ಮನವೂ ಎಲ್ಲೇ ಮೀರಿತೋ, ಡಾ. ಏನ್.ಎಸ್.ಲಕ್ಷ್ಮಿನಾರಾಯಣ ಭಟ್
೧೦. ಒಂದು ಮುಂಜಾವಿನಲಿ ತುಂತುರಿನಾ ಸೋನೆ ಮಳೆ, ಚೆನ್ನವೀರ ಕಣವಿ
೧೧. ಲೋಕದ ಕಣ್ಣಿಗೆ ರಾಧೆಯು ಕೂಡ, ಎಚ್.ಎಸ್.ವೆಂಕಟೇಶಮೂರ್ತಿ
೧೨. ಅಂತರತಮ ನೀ ಗುರು, ಕುವೆಂಪು
೧೩. ಮೊದಲ ದಿನ ಮೌನ, ಕೆ.ಎಸ್.ನರಸಿಂಹಸ್ವಾಮಿ
೧೪. ಹಾಡು ಹಳೆಯದಾದರೀನು ಭಾವ ನವನವೀನ, ಜೀ.ಎಸ್.ಎಸ್
೧೫. ಎಲ್ಲ ಮರೆತಿರುವಾಗ ಇಲ್ಲ ಸಲ್ಲದ ನೆವವ, ಪ್ರೊಫ್. ಕೆ.ಎಸ್.ನಿಸಾರ್.ಅಹ್ಮೆದ್
೧೬. ಎಲ್ಲಿರುವೆ ಕಾಣಿಸದೆ ಕರೆವ ಕೊರಳೆ, ಡಾ. ಏನ್.ಎಸ್.ಲಕ್ಷ್ಮಿನಾರಾಯಣ ಭಟ್
೧೭. ಅಳುವ ಕಡಲೊಳು ತೇಲಿ ಬರುತಲಿದೆ, ಗೋಪಾಲಕೃಷ್ಣ ಅಡಿಗ
೧೮. ದೀಪವು ನಿನ್ನದೇ ಗಾಳಿಯು ನಿನ್ನದೇ, ಕೆ.ಎಸ್.ನರಸಿಂಹಸ್ವಾಮಿ
೧೯. ಅಮ್ಮ ನಿನ್ನ ಎದೆಯಾಳದಲ್ಲಿ, ಬಿ.ಆರ್.ಲಕ್ಷ್ಮಣ್ ರಾವ್
೨೦. ಅತ್ತಿತ್ತ ನೋಡದಿರು ಅತ್ತು ಹೊರಳಾಡದಿರು, ಕೆ.ಎಸ್.ನರಸಿಂಹಸ್ವಾಮಿ

ಯಾವುದನ್ನು ಮೊದಲು ಕೊನೆಯದು ಎಂದು ಅಳೆಯಲು ಆಗದು. ನಾನು "Rank"ಕೊಡಲು ಹೋಗಿಲ್ಲ :)

[P.S. ಕವಿಗಳ ಹೆಸರು ಸರಿಯಿದೆ ಎಂದು ಭಾವಿಸಿದ್ದೇನೆ. ತಪ್ಪಿದಲ್ಲಿ ಹೇಳಿ. ತಿದ್ದುಪಡಿಗೆ ಸಹಾಯ ಮಾಡಿ]

My Grandpa, A true story

Today evening, my mom was watching the opening of the movie named "Me and my dream"(Naanu.. nanna kanasu), a remake of tamil movie "Abhiyum naanum". Several actors were made to read out letters to their young kids about love and care for their little daughter which is the basic theme of the movie, A dad giving all that he can to his lovely daughter. Mom (as always!) being highly emotional and sensitive was taken back to her childhood memories and those old day memories just flashed by her eyes. Mom and I, being close friends, She shared her childhood story with me.

This story is two generations older and hence may seem very unrealistic to some but happening in all our lives.
Story line starts somewhere in 1960's when mom was in her school days. She was the latest addition to grandpa's family, I mean really late coz she was completing her tenth grade when grandpa retired at the age of 58 years! Hmmm... seems like no family planning soon after independence :P Well, If it was there I wouldn't have been here to say this ;)

It was a family of 8 people; Grandpa, his mother, Grandma, two aunts and two uncles elder to mom and my mom. They all lived happily in a posh villa in the area known as Malleshwaram. Even today it is being called the same after decades of development in Bangalore. To me atleast some places like Gandhi bazaar, DVG road of Basavanagudi, MG road in central Bangalore, 8th cross of Malleshwaram, Jayanagar 4th block hangouts should remain the same even after centuries.

Is there something like lived-happily-ever-after as in fairy tales!? Nope certainly not, coz this is real life. Betrayal, deception and cunning nature of some people inside the family rips it apart into pieces and that is the exact reason why I haven't seen one of my maternal aunts till now!(Anyway, That's another long story!) Grandpa lost his own beautiful house in this gambling of others! At this time, Mom was doing her second year BSc in MES college. (Even I did my pre-university at the same college :D)

Every father's thought of crossing all her daughters to safe house (its called Marriage! here) crossed my grandpa's mind and no sooner he was into action. Dad's family had come to visit the Mom's family in Malleshwaram and like every other bollywood movie the police came with a court notice on the that same auspicious day! Grandpa somehow managed to drive off the policeman but not the situation impending in about a month. There is a saying in kannada - "Nooru sullu heLiyaadharu madhuve maadu" meaning "Do marry even if it necessitates 100 lies". God knows why they people earlier used to take so much risks! Hmmm.. Not so different in our situation where we see lots of fake love, fake assurances and fake promises. Everybody lies and many of them flirt!

Before the house was bid for sale, Marriage was successfully carried out and the last burden(!) on Grandpa's shoulder had come down. Mom said that grandpa had asked - "What is my purpose of life next? I am done with all my responsibilities", after undergoing a lot of financial and emotional turmoil in the recent years.

Then comes the most dangerous part of life called old-age where children are supposed to take care of their elders. But as the favorite inglorious quote says, "where there is a WILL only then there are family members" comes into play. Inheritance of property causes a kinda civil war between sons and no sooner did grandpa decide to move into an aashram(Old-age home) at his own willingness together with his mother. It was quite a daring task to leave the small family to join a bigger family! But with all the energy, the young spirit and his back-end support called pension, he was able to move-on. Not only did he change but he was also able bring a reform in the aashram activities. He had been to Himalayas several times with his good old friends amongst all this. He started a new wing in aashram and audited the whole of it for more than 14 years. I have been there several times when I was a small kid. I had cried and somehow managed to bring home his hand lens which was used to read newspaper by him. I now apologize for giving you a lot of trouble grandpa. Every time mom sees my elder brother in his half sleeve shirts, she is perplexed to see you standing there. No doubt everybody sees their own parents in their kids. This post is a salute to my late grandpa who has been a brave heart and yet soo kind hearted too which makes my mom often say that "He was the best papa in the world" in a childish tone :)