Shyam's Blog

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!