Shyam's Blog

Merchiston Tower, Edinburgh Do you remember taking Log of a number and doing calculations; and finally taking antilog of the result? Here is Merchiston Tower in Edinburgh where John Napier was born. Napier (1550 - 1617) was a Scottish mathematician and physicist who invented Logarithms. This building was built in 1450s. Merchiston is a prosperous residential area in Edinburgh.

Scott's Monument, Edinburgh (click on the image to enlarge) OOK not thou on beauty's charming; Sit thou still when kings are arming; Taste not when the wine -- cup glistens; Speak not when the people listens; Stop thine ear against the singer; From the red gold keep thy finger; Vacant heart and hand and eye, Easy live and quiet die. -Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)

'kalasmelogra' is the term I should give to some of the things I realised during my UK visit. Right from food to the English accent, the world is a mixture of all types. In one sense, I myself had this question, "Am I not mixture of many types?" See the picture above. It is Edinburgh Iyengar Yoga Centre on one of the main streets of Edinburgh. I was very curious to knock the door and have a quick interaction, but couldn't find time to do that. Edinburgh does have Indians, may be around a thousand odd. Most of them belong to couple of Universities there, or on work permit for small projects. Coming to food - I was totally confused what to eat. There are so many Indian restuarants that I could even choose between them. Most of them have this typical, "Indian and Bengali Restaurant". It was interesting to see that "Bengali" or in few cases, "Bangladeshi" cuisine. End result was, I didn't go to any of Indian hotels, rather settled for...

After a great conference and vacation, I am back in Boston. It was a wonderful tour of the UK with lots of memories. With a few hundles like running out of cash at crucial juncture and no yogurt rice for dinner, most of the things went fine. On the last night of the tour, I hunted down for a dosa restaurant in London. After waiting for 30 minutes, I got to eat wonderful idli, vada and dosa - no doubt my best meal of the tour. I learnt many tricks too. Never keep your camera inside your bag. Keep roaming around the place with a camera on you and if possible a map in hand. At one instance, I was not following this "traveller's dress code", and people on the streets thought otherwise. I mean, it is not advicable to talk to strangers without a dress code ;). Next trick - never believe in one person's directions. Always reconfirm. I boldly asked one guy in teens - "Where is the cricket ground?" He promptly showed me the stop to get down from the train. This was 2...

Lords Cricket Ground London For a cricket fan like me, visiting Lords was always on the list. One thing I missed was a visit to Silverstone - home of F1 British Grand Prix. Here are pictures from Lords. The museum inside has a very good collection of photographs and cricket gears. It also features original World Cups - The old one and the new one. The guide tour inside the stadium is very interesting. Photography is not allowed in the pavilion end. This is where players come out from. They also take us to the dressing room. I was standing in the balcony where Kapil Dev and Indian team were seen rejoicing the 1983 World Cup. View of Pavilion End There is also a big section of the museum showcasing the Ashes Trophy. Fact File: England have not won a Ashes test match in Lords since 1934. That was the last time England defeated Australia at Lords Cricket Ground! Most recent Indian to score a century at Lords in a test match - Ajit Agarkar (109 not out) in 2002. There is one "Members...

Pictures from Wimbledon Wimbledon mesh Court #1 (not the Center Court) The Center Court was under renovation. They plan to build a dome on the Center Court which will be completed by 2009.

First thing about London - Most expensive place I have ever been to! Second thing - A must see place on earth. Main Attractions: 1) Buckingham Palace (cameras not allowed inside) 2) Big Ben and Parliament 3) London Eye (day view and night view) 4) Tower Bridge of London (day view and night view) 5) Downtown in general 6) Wimbledon (for Tennis fans) 7) Lord's Cricket ground (for Cricket fans) 8) Chennai Dosa (Wembley Central Station on Bakerloo line) London is always busy. Trains and buses start early in the day and close late at night. There are many things to do in London. Here are some of the pictures. Buckingham Palace Big Ben: This name 'Big Ben' is for the bell inside this clock. This is attached to the Parliament house. This is Not London Bridge. This is called the Tower Bridge of London which was photographed just during sunset. Tower Bridge few minutes after sunset. Big Ben and Parliament as seen from London Eye. London Eye: Great place to view the city from the top...

First day at Edinburgh This tour was my first one to the UK. English accent is different! When I applied for visa, I used to pronounce, Edinburgh as Edin-burgh. Later, before flying to that place, I came to know that it is pronounced as 'Edin-borough' or 'Edin-borrow'. When I landed there, people pronounce it as 'Edin-barrah'. This picture is the royal museum of Scotland which is in the heart of the city. Inside are painting and history of Scotland. One of the paintings inside the museum. It has very natural expression of the kids - depicting a season of no-food and time of distress. Pillars on Cavern Hill Ediburgh Castle - #1 attraction of Edinburgh. Built during 13-14th century, this castle has a long history - It was destroyed many times by the British and was reconstructed by them. Scotts and the British fought against each other. At one point, Queen of England, in a controversial decision, gave power of Britian to Prince of Scotland - James IV, who was son...

Fall 2005 Snapshots Whitinsville, MA New England - Fall 2005 Mirror Lake! New England - Fall 2005

I switched to Beta version of new blog which is now handled by google. It has few drawbacks. I am not able to comment on other bloggers who aren't beta users. I am not able to switch back to the previous version of blog :(. With things getting set for a UK vacation, I am busy working on my presentation and also plan my meetings with the delegates at this year's CPA 2006 conference. Having heard so much about Scotland, I plan to have a real kewl time there before I land in London to see if that London bridge is falling down! Fall has finally come here in Boston. School has started and I see people all around. It will be a nice time to visit New England now to enjoy the most attractive Fall Colors. Any visitors???? Welcome! But, before Oct 15 ;) I will be off the blog for a few days. Will be back after a two-week break!

With a milky day, it was fun to watch street dancing in downtown, Boston. Milky day because - something has struck some reaction/allergy in my mouth making me impossible to eat. Only think going in was milk till a few minutes ago when I took a step to eat Mediterranean Pita. Oral anesthestic is keeping my mouth numb during work. Coming to street dancing - Macy's store had organized a street show to promote their store in one of the streets in Boston. That street has a Macy's store too right there. There was a huge crowd when I was walking to grab Pita for lunch. As I approached the stage errected on the street, something interesting was happening. A host and hostess calling people from the crowd to go on stage and dance freestyle to win 100, 200 or 300 dollar worth prize. Rule was this. They have to keep dancing to some music which is stopped by the DJ at random. Then, people dancing HAVE to stop dancing and stand still like a statue at that position when the music is stopped. ...

When it comes to mind, it’s always an illusion to me. There are few things I am thriving for more information. Things like telepathy, mind reading and ancient Indian science always feels like magic. Be it incarnation, rebirth, etc, I don’t want to stop thinking about them till I get answers to my questions. There are certain questions in me which are still not answered by science. May be one day, I will be able to get it myself. Even simple superstitions make be blindfolded. I don’t know why people believe in them. But, it just passes on from generation to generation without any force. There is a superstition that if our left eye blinks involuntarily, someone is remembering us. Or, if we start belching, someone is cursing us somewhere. Are all these superstitions true? Is it just empherical that people just started to notice that in their lives and believed them in the long run? There are number of these superstitions which people around the world strictly follow. Coming to telepa...

This is my tribute to all my teachers on the ocassion of "Teacher's Day". Let me start naming them in Chronological Order: They are named in that typical 'miss'/'teacher'/etc as suffix. Without that, their names look imcomplete. Lily miss (Chickmagalur) Manjula miss, Saroja miss (Vidhyaniketan, Tumkur) Shakunthala teacher, Vijayalakshmi teacher, Shirolkar teacher, Ramakrishna sir, Sinthea D'Zouza teacher, Radhika teacher (Rotary Primary School, Hubli) Padma teacher, Savithri teacher, Salgar master, Kanekal master (Rotary High School, Hubli) Padmaja sister, Prema sister, Narayan master (Kumaran's High School, Bangalore) GSS, CSS, KVG, KSRP, DMR (National College Jayanagar, Bangalore) Deepa Shenoy, VKM, Kashinath, VJ, BP Harish (UVCE, Bangalore) Dr.Shaw, Dr.Stiles, Dr.Wheeler (Utah State University, Logan, UT) Prof. Y V Venkatesh - IISc, Bangalore Music teachers - Vid. Chandrashekar Gupta (Shimoga) Vid. Hemalatha Sampath (Hubli) Vid. MA Narasimhachar...

Traveling in train, I am seeing trees zooming past me. With nothing to read, I just am thinking of writing something real quick. It is a challenge to myself to jump from one idea to another to create a flow. The topic I choose is “leaf”. Yes. Leaf. The idea is this – "what all do I recollect the instant “leaf” comes into my mind?". It is just a game I am playing for myself –Time limit = 20 minutes, I need to scribble something. Leaf – First thing coming to my mind about a leaf is its distinct color. Leaf is one of the first things taught to us as green in color. Jumping from there, banana leaf L . I miss the banana leaf food – food eaten on banana leaf. Why don’t people in the West get a taste of it? It is such an old method of ‘disposable’ plates ;). My drawing exam – Junior Drawing exam had banyan leaf to be drawn with typical grains and marks as seen on all the five leaves. I just know that we were all given that 5-leaf stem and asked to draw that in 3 hour...