Shyam's Blog

Cradle Ceremony was done on Dec 27th for our son. Below are some pictures. A stone is first put in the cradle and then the baby! All the ladies gathered sang a few songs for the baby. For the whole evening, our son was sleeping without being disturbed by the people gathered. He woke up once everybody was gone by 9:00pm. Stone in the cradle Lights setup for the cradle Decoration of cradle Baby's official first time sleeping in the cradle

"Name, Place, Animal, Thing" - this was a popular game we played as kids. This game was on air yesterday on Radio City. It is a game of writing items belonging to each of these categories AND all starting with the same alphabet. Eg:"Rahul, Ranchi, Rat, Roses". One more rule, there is a count of 10 within which each player has to fill in the details. Getting an alphabet is done by player on round-robin basis. Player starts from A.... and other player says, "Stop". The counting player announces the alphabet to start filling the items. This is more a general knowledge game and helps kids know various places, animals, things. Also, makes kids to think fast.

It is automatic collage with 5 persons in this picture. Only baby's face is visible clearly.This is taken through the car window when baby and mom were brought home for the first time.

Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) has a history of 220 years! It is said to be the oldest institute in India. It has its history linked to East India Company which set up a center for Astronomy in Madras by 1787. Back then, Astronomy was more connected to navigation to travel from Europe to Asia. Kodaikanal is on the World map for its Solar Observatory. It is again, one of the oldest Solar Observatories in the world. How did I get to know all these? My FIL is a Scientist there :).

Baby's first grip on mom's finger.

Today is our 1st Wedding Anniversary according to Hindu Calendar. We were gifted with a baby boy this morning :). Isn't that the best gift one can get for a wedding anniversary? Indeed!

In here, if you organize a challenge to win Rs.100, 101 people turn up to take it up. That being the case, a pair of brand new Nike shoes is sure to vanish in minutes :( My wife and I went for shopping couple of weeks ago to Forum Mall. I got a pair of Nike shoes as I had discarded all my shoes while returning from the US. I had used it couple of times since I bought it. This week, I had to leave my car for a couple of days at the service center for a small dent. Unfortunately, the shoes was left in the car. This morning, when I wanted to wear that new shoes, its gone! I lost my new shoes :(. Till now, the car repair was thought to be expensive. But now, a pair of shoes was more expensive than the repair. Final bill: car repair+lost shoes = Rs. 15,000.

Song of the day! Click here to listen. Comedy one! Please don't adjust your audio.

Today's special - Chomai It was Chomai special at home today. This is made out of rice flour. With a laborious process lasting for 3 hours, it was worth eating it. I don't know the exact process. In general, it involves steaming rice flour and creating rice dumplings. When the dumplings are ready, they are pressed in a hand rotated presser to get these home-made Indian rice noodles. A chutney is prepared to it with white plain noodles to get the spicy taste. Video has been recorded and will be put online shortly!

To be frank, there is not much time sense here in Bangalore. For the first few days after we returned, I was always mentioning to people about time - "what time shall we meet?", "when is the meeting scheduled?", "what time is the party starting?". I have realised that time doesn't matter much. All it matters is the presence. Atleast, "better late than never" is the principle. Seeing this trend everywhere (even in Office), I was really curious to ask people about their view. The 'people' here I meant, the one who worked outside India. Finally, I got my answers - they too felt the same! One more thing to add - people at work take it too personal when it comes to projects. If there is a comment made by someone from some other team, the manager thinks that the comment is targeted towards him and tries to retaliate ASAP. Better thing would be, to take comments in a sportive way and try to improve the team/project plan. With all these, ther

View of "The Collection" Mall View from 4th floor Rajadhani restaurant in UB City - portable hand cleaning!

These days, I am getting involved in hiring process and interviewing candidates for our company. On those lines, we had "Interviewer skills" training session. This was a session about how we should interview a candidate. The session reminded me of all my job interviews I have attended till now. Some of them were very easy going and few net cracking. We talked on wide range of topics ranging from dress code to what to answer the candidate if asked about recession. At the end of the session, we were split into groups and were asked to do mock interviews. This was to test 'interviewer' and not interviewee. Here are some basic rules for interviewer: 1) Start off with a welcome note and thank him/her for sparing his/her time to come for the interview. Also mention about job roles and responsibilities. 2) Please be a good host. Offer a beverage. 3) Do pre-screening of resume before entering the interview session. 4) Talk only 25% during the interview. 5) Do not interrogate.

I was having my morning coffee and just thought that it is the most enjoyable thing for me everyday. Nothing to beat to have a cup of morning coffee which dad makes and rings the bell - "tin tin tin... tin tin.... tin". Yes. He really gives the ring once coffee is ready. Wah dad... wah coffee bOliye`!

Recently, I wrote about "Office Space". While thinking about the cause for that type of attitude, I realised that we ourselves are responsible for that. It wouldn't go away with time. As kids, we do homeworks and mini-projects. The main emphasis by teachers and parents is - "Don't share your work with anybody. Do it yourself". Parents also teach the same to their kids. There is no mention of team-work. Nobody has the ability of working with the team, as a team. That being the case, when they move to college, same thing continues. Once they start their job with the same mentality, there is no way for such people to turn their attitude to a new type. They do the same 'hiding' and 'holding their secrets' to themselves. In US, I have seen many times, if a team-mate says, "I don't know. Please show me how to go about doing it..", the other person will be more than willing to help. At no point of time this is thought to be giving away

This is a very story which I got to know recently. I wasn't aware about the details. But, I knew something like this had happened. In my office, I see this guy slightly limping because of an injury. I had talked to him over phone many times in the past couple of months. I started seeing him in meetings recently. Couple of days ago, I got to hear this horrifying story. His injury was because of an accident on Aug 3 2008. I do remember this - it was August 4th morning when I heard the news in our morning Synch up call that, one of our colleagues met with an accident and died on the spot. We had minute's silence to condole the demise of Sudeep (name changed). The one I keep meeting now was the rider and the one who passed away was the pillion on the motor bike. My friend, Gopal (name changed) narrates the story... We were friends for the past 3 years. He was from the north and had not visited Chennai. Since I was visiting Chennai for the weekend, I asked him if he liked to accompa

The 'Office Space' I am talking has nothing to do with the movie, Office Space. The one I am referring to is about office environment in India inside a IT company. One element is true - Working in US is different from working in India. Why? You will come to know once you read below... In India, there are people grabbing tasks to prove their superiority. Whatever task is crossing across their cubicle, they want to grab it. Let that be not concerned to their scope of work, they just want to take it and say "Yes, yes... I will do it" by shaking their head in all directions possible. This is the most unprofessional way of work. At the end of the day, one who just grabs all the work proves to be 'the most wanted' guy. This is cunning attitude #1. Hiding 'code secrets' is one more thing of IT people here. They do something to solve one problem and send an email to boss with cc-ing the team saying, "issue is resolved now". What the ... did he/she do

uffff! It was great to listen to Vishaka Hari last evening here in Bangalore. It was a discourse on "Prahladha Bhaktha Vijayam" of Saint Thyagaraja. Vishaka has performed a full concert at the same venue a day before this one which I missed. The auditorium was packed 30 minutes before the start. Vishaka has such a talent that nobody can match it in future and nobody had it in the past! I don't have words to explain. Most of the discourse was in Tamil with English in between. This seemed tough when we started to drive from home. Sitting there, every word was sinking in like water flowing smoothly in a calm stream. That was Vishaka Hari's expression of words.

Days are running so fast that I don't even have time to look at the clock/calendar! Weekdays run off like a rocket. Weekends, run faster than weekdays ;)

Shopped for the first time at Metro Bangalore. This reminded me of Costco shopping. Metro is the only store to have such a huge place for car parking! The ceiling, arrangement of stocks, checkout - everything resembles Costco. The store has frozen section where one can get green peas, corn, etc. The meat/fish section has to be avoided if one is not a meat eater! It smells a lot in that area.

Above were the gifts given to us for this year's Diwali. Our office has a holiday on Tuesday. With people taking off on today (Monday), it was a deserted look. Went to office in the morning and not to be surprised, I got a big gift pack. Every employee gets it! Early morning 1AM, we had a new baby in our family. My brother and bhabi got a new baby boy. I listened to his cry over phone and his pitch is good to become a singer :). Happy Diwali to everyone!

It is the same guy who stands at that place every day, that lady waits for the bus right at that corner, this driver drives in full speed right at 7:32 am, and this coconut vendor starts opening his stall by 7:35am - So many faces I do see every day when I am heading to office in the morning. To start with, I start my house at 7:25am and walk for couple of minutes to reach the stop where our office shuttle arrives at 7:35am. On the way, this is what I see - couple of moms with their kids walking them to school nearby, few senior citizens finishing their morning walk and few getting to stores nearby to buy something urgent. At one specific corner, I daily cut across cow dung on the street. That's because, there are 4-5 cows in the house adjacent to that corner! Once I reach the stop, my waiting time starts. In that busy street, same set of shuttle buses pass through everyday - few college buses, couple of school buses and many office shuttles. Two college goers always stand there wi

1) From yesterday, I started back my music lessons. It was great to get back to my guru after many years. Song taught - 'karimukha varadha' in 'naata' composed by GNB. 2) One market which is opening up in India is DTH (Direct To Home) television. All we need is a dish antenna. Current players - Tata, Airtel and Reliance. 3) Watching television is so monotonous - all channels are filled with so many competitions that it is easy for anyone to just open a channel and have some competitions in it. Television before was run by actors/television stars/news reports, but now, it is run by common man. Even news channels have Ads saying that common man can send in videos/news clippings and they will put them on their channel. In a way, television channels are making money (if at all they are) by having such shows for which they don't have to pay much to 'common man' to be part of the show. 4) Today, my wife and I visited Big Bazaar shopping mall. I am hunting for Febr

Jan 10 1999 , Jayangar , Bangalore April 18 2000 , Fort High School, Bangalore April 18 2000 , Fort High School, Bangalore

Jan 26 1990, Hubli 1991 , Karnataka Medical College, Hubli Our debut concert - Nov 1997 , Bangalore June 18 1999 , Bangalore Singing at Jayanagar National College Auditorium (College in which I studied 95-97)

Found this old audio archive. With the tape getting older, I converted this to mp3. I have sung this playfully without seriousness. If I see a kid now sing like this, I think I will be impressed. When was this sung? In my primary school! I had recorded 30 minutes of audio with 10-12 songs in it for my grandma. Here is the mp3 now.

It was a day-out for both of us as we spent time in the Forum Mall here in Bangalore. After a short shopping in Jayanagar Shopping Complex, we planned to watch the movie, A Wednesday, which was running in PVR Cinemas. We reach the Mall by 3pm and bought the ticket at PVR Europa Cinemas. We had couple of hours to do some shopping/window shopping. With a quick snack at "Transit" (this is the food lounge), we did some window shopping. After a while, my wife wanted to sit and there was no seating area. We went inside a home-theater demo area and tried to sit there for 10 mins and see the features of that 60K-odd rupees home theater! By then, it was time for the movie, A Wednesday. The movie is a suspense thriller and a good one to watch. Moral of that movie - Every common man has the right and responsibility to couter terrorism. Don't take this moral as "authority", it is just "responsibility". Forum Mall is indeed a nice place to spend a day. So many peop

Got up this morning to notice a laddu kind of swelling in my throat. Reason - viral throat infection called Mumps. It is painful to swallow anything and remedy is to take painkillers and leave it to heal by itself.

We got a Hyundai Getz today. One of our colleagues sold this car which he had hardly used. It is a 2006 Hyundai Getz GVS. We chose this car as it was in a very good condition and a brand new would have costed us 40% more than what we paid. On the occasion of "Ayudha Pooja", it was good to get the keys for the car! A few of Getz from the web... Technical Spec: Dimensions and Weights Overall Length (mm) 3810 Overall Width (mm) 1665 Overall Height (mm) 1515 Wheel Base (mm) 2455 Ground Clearance (mm) 160 Front Track (mm) 1450 Rear Track (mm) 1440 Front Headroom (mm) 980 Front Legroom (mm) 1180 Rear Legroom (mm) 880 Boot Space (liter) 290 Gross Vehicle Weight (kg) 1500 Kerb Weight (kg) 1095 Fuel Economy Mileage Highway (km/liter) 15.3 Mileage City (km/liter) 10.7

Wishing everyone "Happy Dasara"

Bangalore is ready to host the first test match of the four-match series between India and Australia. It rained heavily last night and for 9th, hopefully, we will have clear skies to have a complete 5-day contest. Why am I blogging this? I am few inches (put it as miles) closer to watching this match live sitting in the Stadium!

It has already been a month since my wife and I returned to India from US. So fast! I have to answer people one question - "How do you feel returning?" Answer - It is good! I knew what was at stake and I was ready for it. We had discussed pros and cons and we are happy that things are going as planned. There are many pros 1) Home sweet home - being here is always sweet, no matter what. 2) Family is near - our parents are near, always around to help us in everything (we miss our brother and SIL who are in US). 3) India has changed on many aspects compared to 6-7 years ago. This helped us a lot in getting adjusted. 4) Music and masti is always round the corner. Cons?? 1) Miss the liberty of online search for shopping goods. I am not able to search for the right stores for the right goods. If I go to store across the street, I am afraid that I might get a duplicate product. 2) hmm. For now, missing the car I drove there in the US. Same car is available here too. But, it is too t

On my way to office this morning, I was listening to Amruthavahini radio channel. A talk show with veteran musician, Vid. Seethalakshmi Venkatesan was being aired. She has been singing for more than 6 decades now and is a disciple of Semmangudi. Few points she mentioned to be noted: 1) Music needs practise and dedication - Now-a-days, kids and their parents aim to learn for a short span and start giving performances. This doesn't bring the best of music. 2) Audio recording class sessions these days have made things worse - kids tend to make this a usual routine and end up not getting the micro-intricacies of any song. Also, seeing the text/book and singing is not the best way of expressing music. My brother and I have seen this and we always made it a point NOT to see the book and sing. This distracts the singer and also makes the listener concious about the fear of missing some lyrics. 3) Audience has changed over generations - Few decades ago, one had to sing 'ghana' (raa

Mixture of items to blog - 1) Finished setting up Sony home-theater system during the weekend. The system was kept idle at home without being put to use. So, thought of arranging the set up in the so called "Entertainment room". The quality and sound is good. Hope we (family) get to sit, relax and enjoy some movies in future! 2) House wiring - finding plug points in the house has been a hunt. Each room has just one point - that is how houses were wired couple of decades ago. Now-a-days, each room is fitted with atleast 3-4 plug points. To solve my problem, I have been trying to get extension cords and make sure they don't come in the way of we walking around. 3) Big Bazaar drive - My wife and I wanted to check out Big Bazaar on Sunday evening. We drove to two of its outlets and returned home without getting to enter it! No parking space in the Bazaar and surrounding radius of 1 Km. 4) Radio Channels - Radio City is one channel where RJs are supposed to talk always smiling

Spotty spotted in the dark few minutes ago! It is 4:00am now and I am back from chasing away Spotty, the frustrating street dog which I mentioned earlier in my blogs. After a few frustrating nights, I asked my dad about that dog and he told that its pet name was Spotty. Why the name Spotty? Answer - It has spots on its body ;) Tonight too, it started off barking an hour ago. With few shouts and warning from me and my wife, it did shut its mouth for a while before starting again. I took a mug, went out to balcony and splashed on it and the place it usually sits/sleeps/barks from. Moments later, there was silence in the street. I am so familiar with this dog's barking sound, I could recognize its barking 2 streets away - nightmare for those neighbours there :( One curious question - what makes this dog bark so relentlessly each night? It doesn't synchronize with other dogs' barking in the locality. So, it is not a question of response-ack. Something different though.

This is an inspiring story of a person whom I recently met. Moral of the story - Good education will make one achieve higher heights. Vijay (name changed), 27, is a successful man now. Dad and mom are based in a small village near Ooty, TN. With three kids, it was a hard time to bring them up for a couple who had small earnings. Dad, with matriculation, was a bus conductor and mom had hardly finished 8th grade. Everyday, dad witnessed 100s of bank employees (and others in similar cadre) travel in the bus and earn a decent living. His only dream was to make his kids study well and earn well. At high school, Vijay was a boy with more activities outside the classroom. He was more interested in playing cricket with local village kids than going to school. Not bearing this, dad decided to put him in to local hostel (2 Kms from home) of his high school. This is a situation where a son is made to stay at walking distance away from home and stay under direct vigilance of Principal. Strictly un

Choices to buy a car in India are many now. Compared to 2002, 2008 has many more cars in a whole range of prices and classes. I have been trying to test drive as many cars as possible to get a feel of the current auto market here. One conclusion is, we have some great brands with full comfort facilities - but with a price to pay. Hyundai cars are smoother compared to Maruti Suzuki when it comes to changing gears. Local brands like Tata and Mahindra have good steady cars with lower price tags. One needs to consider them if they are not too much in to resale value. 1) Hyundai i10 Kappa Sportz 1.2 AT - A very smooth and comfortable small car to drive. Did a test drive on this last week and found that it is suits me the most. Legspace is very good, headroom is good too (being Hyundai). Autotransmission makes it very much suitable for city drive. We have to keep the fuel efficiency aside when driving in city ( 10 Kms/lt). 1197 cc engine with 80 hp is sufficient to give fast pickup. One poin

Driving map from Home to Office (Courtesy - http://in.maps.yahoo.com ) Started home at 7:15 am and reached office by 8:15 am. It was not a bad drive with jams at only couple of junctions. I took the green path which looks pretty straight forward. The red path is the one which Yahoo Maps suggested me once I reached office! Yes...! now, one can get driving directions online. Directions are available for 'known' landmarks (or area) only. This is more than sufficient for someone who needs to drive from place A to place B. One cute thing about yahoo maps - it will give you Auto-Rickshaw fare! For the above map, it showed - Rs. 70. Driving back home in the evening is a bigger challenge.

Kannada movie industry's music has singers from all over the place. I can hardly find a local boy singing - all are 'hired' singers from Hindi. Below is one song which is a good one. The video is not the original one. I liked the way this guy edited this video - a nice job indeed!

Isn't it frustrating to hear a dog barking late in the night? This is what has been happening frequently next to our bedroom window. The previous tenants next door who were dog lovers took care of this street dog by feeding it often. Now that they have moved out, there is no one to feed it. It comes there and starts barking with a standard frequency which is hard to skip. If it skips, it becomes a waiting suspense for me. Last night, we tried to locate that dog. My wife first made window noises to make it stop barking, which it did for a while. But, at regular intervals, it slowly started again playing a virtual hide and seek game. After a while, I got to the act of chasing it away, but couldn't find the dog in the dark. I don't know how other neighbours sustain the frequent noise of this specific dog!

This is one song I learned way back in 1996. One of the best songs of Sonu Nigam from the movie, Papa Kehtein Hein - " Mujhse naaraz ho to ". After 12 years of hunting for this karaoke, I got it today to sing along! With a simple laptop microphone (need to buy a new microphone), I tried recording. Here is today's recorded track.

Competition is so high in every aspect of life in India that courtesy takes the back seat. Get on the street - you compete for space, try to get a cell phone - sales representatives fight for their share of profit, be at work - people always have wide open eyes! Very few cases one can find a genuine courtesy. I am not expecting big favour from people around to be courteous - This is just my observation compared to the life in US. Also, I understand - this is how it is in India. One drastic thing I noticed is the accent of English with my co-workers. It is so different! The phrases (plus body language) they commonly use are different from what I have been using in the past few years. I am finding this unique because I haven't had a chance to work in India in the past. All my work experience has been outside India. How is the English here then? If we put a Oscilloscope, the wave will have very less variations. It will be more or less a straight line. It is always acceptable to 'a

Car for Bangaloreans - It has become a necessity. This is my thought if I want to buy a car here. 1) Forget about saving fuel - you will spend half the fuel in traffic jams. 2) Small cars are believed to be good in maneuvering. At the same time, it has less space inside. To get better comfort, I will compromise on this to a steady vehicle with good road grip. In all cases, roads are 'roads' in Bangalore, can't avoid it. 3) Drive slowly (don't expect to be driving over 20 miles per hour) and always expect to get your car one or two scratches each time you take your car out on the road. 4) Owning a car is to drive the whole family from Point A to Point B all in one bunch - avoiding multiple trips.

I am back to using the most widely used pen in India - Reynolds, the pen the world prefers. Going back to my school days, we used to scratch the text on that pen to make the text look "INDIA". There were two versions of this pen - Regular... and Fine. The latest one mentions, "New Laser Tip"! Which is the other pen? Rotomac??? Likhteh likhteh love hojaaye??? ;) That is out of market now.

Petrol is priced high. So are electricity and water. Not to mention the recent prices of food commodities in Bangalore. Yet, people live happily within their limits and enjoy the place to the maximum extent. I asked one techie, originally from Andhra and living in Bangalore for the past 2 years, and this is what he says, "Bangalore is a boon city to be in". If people talk about electric shortage, there are solutions to it. One of the easiest options is to get a back-up power using USP batteries. This will last for few hours based on how many batteries we install. Overall installation cost = approx 15,000 rupees.

Got up at 5am. Mom prepared breakfast and lunch box for my office. Everybody in the house was awake by 5:30am because I was getting ready to head to office for the first time here in Bangalore. With good breakfast, I was ready to catch the 7:35 am office shuttle from a stop which is 5 minutes away by walk. I casually asked my dad if he wished to accompany me to the bus stop and he was glad to do that. Not to fall behind was my wife who got ready in a minute. Mom was the only person left behind! With a school bag kind of backpack and lunch box we headed to the bus stop. The shuttle arrived and I could witness a warm farewell "tataaa" from my wife and dad waiting to see me get inside the shuttle. An hour's drive (15 Kms) took me to office. With paperwork still in progress for my transfer, I finished few things and had lunch in the cafeteria. Later, decided to take an auto rickshaw to reach home early by 3pm. It was a short day at office.

One told, "if it is required to curse a person, just say, 'become a driver in Bangalore city' ." It is really a hard job. If I drive to work, it will take me an hour each way. Easiest way to reach office here in Bangalore is to take the office shuttle. Most companies provide that and it is not required to drive ourselves to office. Getting adjusted back to Bangalore life is easy. Just dial few people and get to know the latest trends/deals about cell phone services, internet, cable TV, etc. With a phone call away, representatives will be at the door step the next day with completed application forms. Customer service and support has improved a lot over the past decade. For instance, any trouble with basic services will be attended real quick. Banking also has taken a good stride forward. Major roads are good (neglect the pot holes due to rain). One thing to avoid - 'driving in Bangalore'.

It was a tricky job to set up the LAN with my Linksys router. Smartax MT882 modem provided by BSNL internet option has some unique behaviors not allowing simple plug-and-play Linksys router to work instantly. Finally, it got sorted out today. This makes me work from home and try (if required) to avoid the 1+ hour commute each way on weekdays.

Olympics 2008 ended. News - Kho Kho and Kabaddi to be introduced in 2012 so that India can win couple more golds! ;) Just kidding

Getting up late on weekends makes the weekend short! By the time we are up for something, it is already afternoon. Half of the day is over. After finishing the event/plan, the day is over. May be, I will plan to get up early (not too too early) and see how it feels. What do you recommend? Have you faced the same feeling that weekends run so fast?

Why do athletes from 100s of nations have to participate in an event they don't even make a mark? Seeing the medals tally, Olympics purely is a fight between two powers - USA and China. As of today, China has 35 Gold, USA has 19 (as per this website ) . The third place in the list is Russia with 7 Gold. So much of planning is done for each of the 4-yearly event that it really is a global project to support it. Talking about the stories of this year's Beijing 2008 Olympics, it has created front page news - be it human rights issue or the grand opening ceremony. China won in hosting this Olympics and also becoming the #1 in the medals list. I think that China had a word or two to prove to the world - 'They are no behind any country'. Also, deep inside, I do ask myself - "Is it worth spending all the money and having this event every 4 years just to see two countries fight for supremacy?" On the contrary, I wish to see many more countries raise and win more to g

Home laptop which was in coma for the past 4 days was given a new brain today! I had to change the hard drive - it is like putting a new empty brain to the already existing body. What will happen to the old brain now? The old brain has lots of useful information which has to be recovered. I have bought a hard disk enclosure which can be use to plug that crashed disk to any computer via USB. The first try today didn't work though. Have to try differently next time. This hard disk crash has a moral story - do not keep your hard disk un-partitioned. I had not done any partition and when a crash like this happens, there is no way one could install other OS to other working partition.

Our home laptop is in coma for the past 2 days. It doesn't boot at all :( . Just when it stopped responding, I called customer support. After couple of attempts to reboot the system, the support guy suggested me to order a "recovery CD". This CD is $19.99 and to get it in 2 days, shipping is $21.00. Hope I get the CD today and the problem gets resolved without any hassle.

"Ragalaunch" was sung today as an experiment. It was named so because I had the counts to start the piece while recording. I usually do this because I am the one and only one handling the recording equipment and at the same time meddling microphone and keyboard. There are three Ragas in this piece - first is Valachi, next comes Todi followed by Hamsanadha. I ended by coming back to Valachi. The music for this is a simple Yamaha Salsa accompaniment. You can listen to this piece here. Or download it from here .

Saina won her first round in Badminton 21-9, 21-8. Virender Kumar won the first round in Men's 75 Kg (Middle weight) boxing. Bajranglal Takshar qualified for Quarter Final in Rowing.

Linking my older post on Web based OS, here is what I found today. eyeOS - is a Web based OS. Good thing about this - it is an Open Source! Below is the screenshot of my eyeOS desktop! I was able to upload a mp3 file (which you can see on my desktop) and by clicking on that file, a player opened up to start the song.

It was indeed a good Sunday to make and eat Chakli, KOdbaLe. My wife and I did this joint venture for the first time. It was 7:00pm and my taste buds were eager to eat Chakli. I started the mixing and my wife joined me in frying them. After eating Chukli, it was an instant decision to try KOdbaLe. We checked for recipe online and found one which was simple. After few minutes into mixing the dough, we went for customer support (mom). With web-cam and voice chat, we completed the process successfully. Our on-call support told us to add one ingredient (hurigadle) which we didn't have in our mix. Also, she suggested to use dry red chilies instead of ready-made chili powder. We had already added chili powder. Adding this extra red chilies made the dough really hot. Our customer support stayed with us on the line for the rest of the procedure to walk us through without any hurdles. In the end, they were tasty, crispy and satisfying!

My mind is running over an endless thought - to come up with something which will be something "new". I am not worried about the product or the end result. I am thinking is an Engineer. Typically, an Engineer is the one who gathers pieces of the existing technology and designs a product which will make a difference. Also, I believe it is not an Engineer's priority to 'invent' or 'discover' something from equation/formula or science. Is there anything you have in mind for me so that I can satisfy my above quest?

Future computer will look like a TV. 1) It will not have any OS per say. 2) Switch it on - it starts off like a TV. 3) It will be connected to the net (just like a TV is connected to cable). What will be the first screen? Just a login screen which will open up your space on the web. Why all these ideas? Today's computer doesn't mean a lot without internet. We use email, communicate using IMs, pay bills online, follow news, shop online; we even watch movies/tv online. To extend to these things, we are able to write a document/presentation and store it online for easy access from anywhere. Don't forget the recent development of online storage - your music, movies, files, etc. With everything linked to internet, we don't need gigabytes of space and a dedicated OS. All we need is something which can replace 'browser'. The hardware might look similar to a cute Mac with USB ports (to attach your external disk). Just a thought.

On "Fresh Air", a radio talk show, there was a discussion about punishing kids - the question was, "Do you punish your kids? If so, how?" One said, "The easiest way to make a kid obey is to tell 'no cartoons for you' ." I can imagine kids without cartoons on tv. Another person mentioned that kids always love to eat desert than the main course of any meal. So, tell the kid, "No desert for you."

Facts have to be written out now. Many know them and there is no denial. Healthcare, especially Emergency care/Urgent care in the United States is worse compared to other countries around the globe. With lots of paperwork and procedures, Emergency Rooms (ER) are the places of waiting lounges similar to a bus or a train station. Last week was my turn again to be the victim of such a system which doesn't seem to improve in the near future. An ER patient is treated like an outpatient with no urge for urgency. My wife and I drove to the ER by 10:00am Sunday morning because of my abdominal pain. By the time I finished the paperwork, it was 11:30am. Up to 1pm, we two were sitting waiting to be called in for the first look by the nurse. One of the worst rules of ER - "Do not eat or drink anything till the doctor sees you." This is all it takes to make a patient become impatient ;). From 10am to 2pm, the period when I felt like lying down, I never had a chance to do that. When I

It was so full of sleep for me last Sunday-Monday that rest of this week has been mostly with no sleep. Those two days, doctor kept me on pain killers and narcotic drugs to relieve me from pain/infection/inflammation. Later, he sent me home and put me on steroids. Now I know what it does to an athlete if he/she takes them - full of energy all day and night which is very hard to drain out. I wouldn't recommend anyone to start any treatment on steroids. Just avoid it because of the effect it has on the body. If one starts taking it, its dosage has to be reduced gradually to avoid sudden fatigue and distress. Energy levels of the body will be high and if stopped at once will make the body wanting for it. Now, I am feeling better. But, no sleep is not good.

Picture (courtesy New York Times) - This is the venue for 2008 Olympics Canoe/Kayak events. People are working hard to remove the algae from the coastline and get it ready for the big Games. Read the article here

From today, California law does not allow use of cell phones while driving. Drivers must have a hands-free device to talk over phone. This is one of the multi-tasking the law looked into now. Not to forget, any task like "eating a burger", "doing make-up", "shaving", etc., which may obstruct the driver from driving normally may be considered an offense and is punishable with a citation/ticket.

Last night, I watched a documentary about North Korea and its relationships with the US and other countries. North Korea is a country where one has to sing in praise of the ruler. Else, he or she is punished. One such musician was jailed for 3 years after which she migrated to Seoul, South Korea. With such a strict rule, things had to be sorted out using a new approach. Music it was. One should read the article in Los Angeles Times here . Zarin Mehta (brother of Zubin Mehta), Director of New York Philharmonic Orchestra, along with 250-odd more performers was invited to perform to create a gesture of friendship. Seeing the magnanimity of the concert, critics from around the globe have lots of questions unanswered - 1) Was it a success? 2) Was it a gimmick by the North Korean Ruler, Kim Jong-il ? The concert started off with the National Anthem of North Korea, followed by, the National Anthem of the United States of America. Performers also played a famous Korean folk song. 1500 in the a

DMVs in CA are a mess, I believe. It took me 3 hours to get registration transferred. It is just the people flocking in which creates full confusion in the whole 1/2 mile radius of the building. First, there is parking for 30 cars and 250 cars are to be parked at any given point. I drove to the nearest DMV, which is in Oceanside. I parked the car 1/2 a mile away and walked in to join the crowd. There is a "Start Here" board but, that has a big cryptic line to stand in. This is to get the ticket/token. OK, I stood in the Q after completing the "Vehicle Registration" form which I had downloaded from the website. Talking about website, there was a link "take online appointment" - I clicked there and it took 5 minutes for the page to appear. I tried to book an appointment and it gave me 15 days away from today. In the website, they mention, if we take online appointments, waiting time is 4 minutes, "non-appointments", waiting time is 1 hour 5 minutes

Couple of days ago, I was watching the news which reported -"relief items arrive at last". This was for the 2005 Katrina hurricane which washed out New Orleans. Three trucks arrived arrived last week in New Orleans with coffee makers, pillows, blankets and other essentials! After seeing this, I was puzzled - 1) It took almost 3 years for relief items to arrive! 2) How is "coffee maker" termed as "essential" or "most essential" which needs to be distributed to relief victims? Just compare this with a cyclone in a developing country.

Last Thursday, we had a team meeting in our Burbank office. My boss and I drove from here at 6:00 am in the morning to reach Burbank at 8:30am. The day's meetings were good. In the evening, we finished dinner and started to drive back. Few miles we drove and all the lights on the dashboard started to blink. Suddenly, engine lost pulling power and we had to exit and drive to a gas station. First idea - Someone should help us 'jump-start' our car. One guy on pickup truck helped us do that. A minute later, the engine died. It was ticking 9:00pm. Just then, we made few calls and got some idea - replace the battery. Where do we get a battery at this hour? Only place which was open was Walmart. The nearest was 8 miles away and they close at 10pm. We took a cab and reached the store by 9:55pm. We had 2 minutes to checkout. We ran in and picked a low-end battery, checked out and got a cab to return back. It was 11pm now. We replaced the battery ourselves and started to drive back.

Why do people move from one place to another? Going back to history, we may conclude that wealth and power were the major causes for migration. Over the past centuries, these drifts of people/communities on this planet have made this place less and less diverse. Few decades ago, just imagine the Asian population in America/Europe. My idea drills down to the current day stories - a career like IT is such a geographic location centric that people can't make a living by being in such a career sitting in remote villages/towns. Not even every city is the hub for IT. But, careers like, Law, Business, Medicine, Management, etc have so much scope even in smaller levels of society - taluk, district level. These are the fields which really create roots for the people to settle and establish better. More on this later.

It has already been a week since we moved to SD area. The previous week was so quick - the orientation, first day at new office, home shipment arriving, arranging the home during weekend, etc. When it comes to moving to new places, this is not new to us (my brother and I as kids). Our parents moved from one place to another every other year. Packing and unpacking was a regular task. Making new friends and starting a new life had become common during our school days. But, one thing always came to our minds - Wherever we moved, in the first month, our impression of the place was, "Oh yeah. We are going to settle here. No more moving".

It has been a wonderful day at the new office. I was introduced to many Yahoo! Every employee in Yahoo! is called a Yahoo! For example, the CEO is the Chief Yahoo! and to coming to me, I am "Technical Yahoo!" which is the other name for "Software Engineer" here. Yesterday, it was a good day at the New Hire Induction Program in Burbank, CA. With lots of goodies to all the new hires (around 30 of them joining with me), we were all invited with a great Yodel. One thing to note is the word "Yahoo!", which stands for - Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle. - The above post was written in Yahoo! 360. I could not resist coming back to my blogger.com and posting it here.

It has been a quick shift of places from Salt Lake to San Diego. The moment we decided to say 'Good Bye' to everyone, it became hectic on our side in packing and arranging travel. None the less, it is sure that there will be visits to this part of the woods in future. Movers and packers did a great job yesterday packing and emptying home in 4 hours! Once it was over, my wife and I sat in a corner really tired seeing the house totally empty. It was a mixed feeling - 1) ufff, packing and moving is so tiring 2) Yahoo! We are moving to a new place and that too, California - Song of the day - " Welcome to the Hotel California... such a lovely place ...... ".

View of Inspiration Point at Bryce Canyon National Park

Here are some of the pictures of BIA (Bangaluru International Airport). Apart from the Airport, it is worth visiting the website of Bangalore Metro (BMRC) here .

It was in the days of my High School and College when there were scheduled power cuts for a couple of hours every day. Yesterday, my wife and I were recollecting those moments of 'free-time' inspite of homework/test/exam. From 7pm to 9pm, it was total blackout in the area. That was the time my brother and I started the music session without any hindrance forgetting the "time" parameter of life. For next two hours, our neighbours would be out near their gates cooling themselves with some silent breeze. Not to mention, they also got to listen to the Company music - Company because, it was Kumar and Sons (Father and two sons) singing at max volume. After an hour or so, mom would come from inside bringing nice masala Tea. After a short Tea break, we started back again for some more time to continue our singing. All these power cuts also meant lesser visitors/patients at home for our doc-mom. It was so much fun to do such things. I really miss power cuts now-a-days.

Purandara Dasa Day and Thyagaraja Music Festival were organized here in SLC this weekend. Here are some of the picture of these programs. You can watch one of the videos below. This is a fusion piece which is being performed for the first time in SLC Thyagaraja Music festival. The team was Charles (Drums), Sumana (Veena), Shyam (Vocal), Swaminathan (Mridangam), Shreyas (Keyboard), Daniel (Guitar).

I got into playing a 20-over cricket match on my computer last night. It was Cricket-97 Ashes Tour (1) version which I used to play a lot during my BE. Playing this game after a long time made me nostalgic of the days when I was a real computer games. This blog lists a variety of games of those yester years. My brother used to borrow games from his friends and I, in turn, used to play more than him. My first game was Wolfenstein (Wolf 3D) (2) which was installed by the one who assembled a 486-computer for us for 44,000 rupees! The sounds of dogs barking and the doors of the cells opening and closing are still ringing in my ears. Few days later, my brother got me Prince of Persia (3) and then, Prince of Persia II (4). This game was out of fever in few days. This was the time when we got to play one more silly game - Test Drive (TD) (5) and Test Drive III (TD III) (6). Don't know why we played that game. TD was designed to give some virtual driving experience to the people in US. The

Sundays are in general the most remembered days in our lives. Most people have their happiest moments on a Sunday. For me, Sundays have been wonderful since the good old Ramayan days! Yes, 1986-87, when Ramanand Sagar's Ramayan was on TV every Sunday morning. Adding to Ramayan was Mickey and Donald show which we didn't miss. Years passed and by 90s, new programs had turned up. Mom started Sunday's TV session with Rangoli. With that, my brother and I used to get up. Next was Tom and Jerry show. By 11, Mahabharath! Other than permission to watch TV on Sunday, it was more pleasing to get up a bit late and not start studying in the morning wiping our eyes every 5 minutes like the weekdays :). Afternoons, DD regional movie time was a routine. At 5:30pm, Kannada movie time was again a big time hit at our place. Coming to 2000-01, our Sundays went musical. We had class in the morning for about 2 hours and by lunchtime, our vocal chords would have been down after singing for a long

"25p for 1 hour" - This was back in the 80s when owning a cycle (bicycle) was a luxury We kids used to run to a nearby cycle rental and rent the best available cycle for an hour. Riding a cycle for an hour was like a "boon of the day". Cycle riding and no air in the tires was a common scenario. So, add more air by paying 10p!

It has been a hunting time in the recent past. If one is hunting for a 'girl', other, for a new job. Both are tricky and both require good prior preparation. One difference being, finding a partner is for life and job is a lesser commitment. Talking about my friend hunting a girl, it has to be said that it is tough to find the right match. Seeing all the hunts around my friends are doing, each one is doing in his/her own way with no two similar cases. Mostly, there are two cases - younger lot don't like the choices of their parents; and parents are too much into horoscope and whatever they pick is not liked by the prospects. With that being the case, other options open up - my friends trying to hunt on their own by putting their profiles on matrimonial websites. All these stories are there just because these people are in the US. I haven't seen such type of stories with my friends in India. They somehow find their match easily I believe! Coming to job hunt: I myself was