Shyam's Blog

Marina Bay, Singapore New Year Celebrations. Near Esplanade, Singapore

Roof top at Chinatown Point, Singapore. Visited Chinatown, Singapore today.

This is a video of Chrome Event held on 07-Dec 2010. I checked my earlier blog writter in 2008. To my surprise, most of the words/phrases/ideas in the video is the same as my blog. My earlier blog is here - http://hkshyam.blogspot.com/2008/07/future-of-computerweb.html

Last night, it rained heavily in Singapore. I was stuck in office for an hour waiting to return home. After a long wait for a taxi, I got one to reach home by 8pm. By 9pm, I got a call. Caller: Hi, is it Mr. Kumar? Did you leave something in my taxi? Me: No, I don't think so. I didn't have any bag or anything in my hands. Caller: Are you sure? I think you have left your RSA token. Me: Oh!? Is it? Let me check... Oh yes..., it is mine. How do I get it back? Caller: I will give it to you when I am in your area next time. By 11:30pm, I got my RSA back. I must thank the cab driver who called me and finally returned my RSA token. I even called the cab company and gave my thank-you feedback.

Using the iPad as slate for our son: He did the above 'modern art'. I wrote the kannada alphabets for him which he enjoys reading.

The new toy (iPad) has caught everybody's attention at home. Our son loves apps by Duck Duck Moose . Interactive games and learning make kids stick to iPad. Apart from that, there are many nice apps for ipad that make it worth using. For me, I am happy using most of the social networking tools. Also, some of the apps are linked to wiki. These apps get updated on a daily basis that will make me read some new topic everyday. Online chat with voice also is easy. With iPad being more portable compared to a laptop, it is easy to move around the house with iPad in hand. For my wife, iPad is a boon! iPad makes our son eat his meal faster than ever before without running away from his seat. My wife used to have a hard time making him eat before we got our new family toy, the iPad.

Got an iPad today for my wife. The screen and video clarity is awesome! There are many apps for kids which we will be using to entertain our son.

My wife and I planned to watch Einthiran at PVR today. Apart from the movie being superclass, the Goldclass experience was an experience of its own. For less than USD 15 for a couple, we were provided royal treatment with welcome drinks at the waiting lounge before the movie started. The screen is designed for a small audience of 30 who sit/sleep in leaning couches which have adjustable buttons to shift from sitting to sleeping position. We are also provided with a pillow and blanket! Lastly, food can be ordered by pressing the 'attendant button' attached to our seat (just like in flight). The movie is one of its kind in Indian cinema. I have never seen an Indian movie with so much graphics and sci-fi action. Rajani rocks the show! Bottonline - Eithiran is worth watching.

Street Vendor's Colorful Ties

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Building Rails, Broadway, NY Near Trinity Church, Broadway, NY Trinity Church as seen from Wall Street, NY Street Stalls, Broadway, NY

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Mingyang Wind Power (China) listed in NYSE Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9 Everyday, I walk in front NYSE and see this section of the building to check if any new company is listed. Today, I found this company getting listed in NYSE. I checked the company online to know that it is a data center company. Check about the company here - www.coresite.com

A sunny Saturday was a good day to visit Liberty State Park. Only part that was boring was the walk in the hot sun. I mis-calculated the distance to walk for this visit and got stuck in the middle with fuel meter running low. With lack of restaurants and snack joints, it was a little stretching of energy meter. View of Manhattan The view of Manhattan from Exchange Place, Jersey City is very nice. I had placed to walk from here to Liberty Park. One local suggested me to take the light rail which dropped me just outside the park. From the entrance to the main point of the park, it is a long walk which very few take. I was one of them to be walking lonely and was an easy prey for muggers! Most visitors drove past me to the parking lot which is next to the Historic Rail Station. Old Railway Station Apart from the long walk, the visit to the park was nice. It will be better once Fall foliage appears.

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Landed here last week on official visit. With office on Wall Street, New York, I get to see companies getting listed in NYSE. Jersey City has few roads which are totally occupied by 'desis'. Newark Avenue is one place where one could find Indian shops, restaurants, etc. There is also a pan shop. Every morning, one will see 100s of 'desis' with a laptop bag walking briskly towards the train station nearby. Getting a place to stay for individuals like these is very easy and is a phone call away. These are managed by Indian agents and home owners.

With a recommendation from one of my friends, I visited Chinatown today. I was roaming around looking at colorful surroundings and doing window shopping. It is a must place to visit to see vibrant colors and to feel the buzz around any day of the week. I first got inside the Chinatown market - this place had lots of shops selling electronics and gift articles. Also, half of this place was occupied with travel agencies. As I wanted to see the street shops, I headed out of this market. "Paint your name for $10" was the board which reminded me of San Francisco. This corridor of shops was very nice with lots of small gift articles and clothes. End of the corridor was a huge Hindu Temple - Mariamman Temple! Next to this was a very huge Chinese Temple. After walking for a couple of hours, I wanted to hydrate myself and found the right choice - fresh coconut milk. After taking a break to finish this drink, I headed back home. Chinatown - A must visit window shopping place. Photos of...

I visited the Singapore Science Center today. The place is very interesting for kids in the age group of 5-15. For others, it is a matter of recap of the science lessons. Inside the science center is the Atrium, which has the Telsa coil demo twice daily. The coil generates 3.5 million volts. The demonstration was done in a very friendly manner by the host. The audience (about 150) stood forming a circle around the Tesla coil stage. When the coil was powered, electric sparks bursted out of the coil in to the air. Balloon filled with Hydrogen was kept at a distance from the coil. When the coil was ignited, the spark put the balloon into flames and exploded. Moral of the story - Helium and Hydrogen are the only other gases lighter than air. If you want to fill the birthday balloon, fill it with Helium, and not Hydrogen. Last part of the demo involved 5 volunteers from the audience. Each one was given a small fluorescent tube and were told to hold it in the air. When the coil was switched ...

I was reading today's paper and got to know that Indian telecom industry has reached 50% tele-density. After reading this, I checked for the history of Indian Telecom which dates back to 1880s. With around 5 million users in 1991, growth was expected in the next decade or two. Now, there are around 622 million telephone users (both landline and cell included), that is nearly 125 times compared to 1991! This industry is worth more than $30 billion, making it one of the top industries in India in terms of growth and revenue. No surprise, we see Airtel and other private companies sponsoring cricket tourneys like IPL and Champions League!

Got my first smart phone recently. I have been using a few apps which are really helpful. The best available available is the SG Bus Timing app which tells me bus arrivals at a given bus stand in real-time. To test my app, I searched for my bus the moment I stood at the stop. The app said, "2 mins". When the bus was few yards away from the stop, I shook my phone (which is a method to actually refresh the page). The app said, "arriving"! Am really fascinated by the accuracy. Screenshot of SG Bus Timing app on Android

How long does it take to fill a form/application for a phone connection? Around 20 minutes. Add the same process to Broadband connection, tv connection and cell phone connection. With few minutes of buffer and waste-time, it should take around 2 hours to get this done. This is exactly what happened when I went to get the above connections from one vendor here in Singapore. Though the activation of TV and cell phone connection was done instantly, internet took like an 'overnight' time. Land phone will be activated in 5 working days. Best part of the above connections - no need of any service guy to come in and do the installation. No need to give an appointment to the technician for visiting us to set up the connection. Everything is 'do-it-yourself'. Bad part of getting a connection - it took nearly 25 sheets of paper to submit the application. For each type of connection, customer details have to be put in the form. They could have made this a computer based tool and h...

There is a Kannada movie, "Tenali Rama Going to Dubai". I accidentally started watching this movie of Ramesh and Jaggesh. Though the comedy part is somewhat OK, height of imagination in the movie was at its peak when I saw the song in the second half. There are 2 songs which are shot in Singapore! Where did Dubai come in to picture then???? Director should be able to answer. As per the story of the movie, the two characters, Tenali and Rama were duped of being sent to Dubai and they land up in the coast of Goa ;). Singapore is in Goa????

Hunting for a home for rent in Singapore is a big task. Because all homes are taken care by agents/brokers, it is hard to bypass them to get a nice house. After checking out nearly 20 units, I finally got one 15 minutes away from office. Why 20 units??? I didn't choose a few because they were far or not suitable. If I liked the place, the owner found a better deal with some other tenant. Some units are taken away like hot cakes. Within minutes, somebody will bid and closed. My daily routine in the past 2 weeks had been like this: 1) While in office, I would get phone calls from agents about a unit available. 2) Some agents would confirm for a viewing the same evening (by 8pm). 3) I would leave office and head towards the available unit. 4) Return home by 10pm. Now that my hunt is over, I can understand the time consumed in hunting. Not just time; money too! The agent asks for 1/2 of one month's rent. If we are lucky to pick the first house, it is bonus money for the agent since...

Youth Olympics, Singapore 2010. Notice the Hindi words in these stamps! The first Youth Olympics is being held in Singapore from August 14th. Above stamps were released in August 2009 when the official announcement was made about the Games in Singapore. The four Hindi words are visible here - श्रेष्टता, नमस्कार, मित्रता, सम्मान। A non-Indian country having a stamp with an Indian language on it seemed interesting to me.

It has been Super Saturdays for me for 3 weekends. Yesterday was the turn to visit the Chinese Gardens near Jurong East. The whole park is so vast that it takes 7-10 kilometer walk to cover it. Attached with this garden is the Japanese Garden. On Friday night, I had made up my mind to visit this place. The only thing I had kept undecided was the time. As Saturday progressed, I thought that 4-7pm will be a good time to visit. I was in the park by 4pm after getting down at Chinese Gardens MRT. With a few meters walk, I reached the entrance of the side gate. With sun still up, my mouth started to water once I saw the ice cream cart. "One dollar..", said the vendor. I told him to give me a cone and got to know that he has neither cone, nor the stick. Rather, he prepares it from scratch. I just wanted 'some' icre-cream. So, I said, "ok, give however you want to". He had a family pack kind of a thing inside his cart. He cut a slice of it along with the cardboard ...

Saina Nehwal won the Indonesian Open few minutes ago to add her tally to 3 titles in 3 weeks. 2 weekends ago, she won the Indian Open in Chennai. Last weekend, she won the Singapore Open. What a performance by her these days! She is now ranked 3 in the world and is expected to go higher. After watching her play, I felt that she really is a true fighter and never gives up easily. This is the first time an Indian woman's Badminton player has reached such heights. Only other Indian to have reached such recognition is Prakash Padukone. Couple more have come to Badminton circuit with some odd titles in the past decade - Gopichand and Aparna Popat, but none achieved any of the top 3 spots as far as world ranking goes. Well Done Saina!!!

Saw this Ad here and found it funny the way it is phrased (or the way it can be interpreted) CHOA CHU KANG BLK-472,NICE OWNER, MASTER ROOM PLS CALL - ******** MASTER ROOM IN CHOA CHU KANG AVE 3,BLK-4** JUST 2 PERSONS ONLY IN THE HOUSE,VERY CALM. HI FLOOR,RENT NEG. INDIAN OWNER FULLY FURNISH LOOKING SINGLE OR 2,ANYRACE GIRLS,LIGHT COOKING ALLOWED IMMED CALL

Watched a Kannada movie (#73 Shanthi Nivasa) which was on-air today here in a local channel. The movie is a remake of Hindi version. Sudeep aka Kiccha has directed this movie and also has played the lead role. It is must watch family movie. Komal has done well to add some laughter. The song 'Preeti Yendare Heegene' (listen here ) is a good one which is based on raaga, Kalavati.

There are a few things tourist visiting Singapore (pronounced as Sin-ga-pore and not Sin-gaa-pore as many Indians do) must not miss. I will prioritize the list after my 3 weeks now. Though I haven't seen a few places (still in my 'must-visit' list), there have been a bunch of places that really attracted me. A must see in Singapore: 1) Singapore Flyer - A beautiful view of the City and the ocean. Best time to visit - 6:30pm - 7:30pm. For that, one needs to be in the ticket counter by 5:30pm. During this period of the day, you will get too look at the city with a bit of sun light and also with lights lit just after sunset. 2) Singapore Botanical Garden and National Orchid Garden - If you love to relax, the Botanical Garden is the best place to be in. With so much natural beauty and calmness, you will enjoy peace with a nice breeze. For photography fans, Orchid Garden is the place to spend to fill 1-2GB of your camera memory. Best day to visit - Weekdays OR, Saturday mornin...

Visited Henderson Waves (a bridge) this evening. Many had come with camera to shoot the night lights of this bridge. I was the only one without a tripod :(. May be, it is a lesson for me to get a tripod for such shots. View of Henderson Waves The bridge is designed in a unique way to look like a wave. In real, the path to walk is along a horizontal access of this wave. The first image shows the walkway. The day-light image of this bridge is not that impressive compared to the night-light effect.

Singapore rain was in the news this morning. Yesterday, it rained heavily from 8 am to 11 am and recorded 60% of average rainfall for the month of June. People were very harsh in commenting on the drainage system on specific roads. They need an inquiry in to drainage system in the affected areas. Another notable thing about this place is policy to maintain the city clean. It is 'bad' as pr Govt. rules to pick your nose in public. Apart from this, if a person dirties a place, maximum punishment is to recruit the culprit as 'Litterbugs' (read here ) and order him/her to maintain cleanliness in a given public area. Finally, about cars - one cab driver was explaining that after a car turns 10 years, it has to be re-checked and registration has to be renewed. Cost of re-registering an old car is around S$30,000. Adding few more to that, we will get a new car. This is the reason, we rarely see cars/vehicles older that 10 years on Singapore roads.

There are few Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) people have asked me about my impression about Singapore. It has been 10 days since my landing here and I am getting a pretty good look at the place. The first couple of days was more of getting to know the transport system and the places/names of places. After getting an accommodation, it has been more of exploring the city and its attractions. I have covered a few tourist spots. Below is the list I have covered till now: 1) Merlion/Marina Bay 2) Singapore Flyer 3) Singapore Botanical Garden 4) Singapore Philately Museum 5) Singapore Zoo I am yet to explore Sentosa Island and Singapore Birds Park. Coming back to FAQs, here are some FAQs and my answers to them: 1) How is Singapore? The city/country is nice and is bubbling with people everywhere. The place is neat and green too. The weather is hot (around 90F) and humid. People are very busy working for 10-plus hours daily. 2) How is Little India? I liked this place as it resembles Brigade ...

Visited Singapore Botanical Garden today. It is a nice place for a day out with lots of things to see. A family picnic is always a good idea. Click on the image for pictures. I liked the Orchid Garden which has 'n' varieties of orchids.

http://www.singaporeflyer.com/ Visited Singapore Flyer, the largest Ferris Wheel in the world. This makes my Ferris Wheel ride count to two. My first ride was on London Eye in 2006. The view of the city is awesome. For couples, a romantic ride is arranged with dining facility. The ride takes around 30 minutes.

Listen to this audio and decode what the person is selling. I get down at Jurong East MRT station and I see one old lady selling something daily. This lady sits on a wheel chair and has a lot of stuff to sell. It is hard to decode what she is selling seeing her. She will be announcing her product every 15 seconds. I recently got to understand what she really sells by telling the above announcement. She is the only one I have seen in the whole of Singapore selling by announcing in a public place (resembling Indian Style). I will give the answer to this tomorrow. Till then, keep guessing and comment it here.

I was very excited on Day-1 when I was traveling from the Airport to my guest house. My excitement of seeing Suzuki Swift and Hyundai Getz here in Singapore was short lived. A brand new Suzuki Swift costs Rs. 22 lakhs (~ S$ 67,000)!

View from living room Singapore has different types of rental houses. Most of the apartments are of two types - private and HDB (Housing Development Board). While the former is developed by private developers, the latter is built by the local government and could be owned by anyone. The latter one is like the BDA site allotment system where local people apply and get a plot/home. House rent in Singapore is very high because of competition and encouragement the government is giving to private companies. On the other side, companies are not paying higher salaries to their employers. They are of the mindset, "if this candidate doesn't accept the offer, we have others in the list".

Today, I had a chance to figure out the inside of Mustafa Centre. I got all the groceries I wanted. I think, it is a place where you can get 'everything', that too 24 hours! Good time to visit this store is during the week. During weekend, I was told that it is hard to check out from the cash counter.

Day 3 and Day 4 had been filled with roaming for two reasons - 1) See Singapore, 2) Find an accommodation. I could complete the first one little bit and there is lot left to see in the coming weeks/months. On Sunday, I saw a few houses for a shared accommodation and settled for the one I liked. Waiting for the week ahead.

This is the view of Singapore from our Office window on the 33rd floor.

Landed in Singapore at 6:10am. Immigration was done within 10 minutes. I was at my designated guest house by 6:45am. The moment I showed the address to the taxi driver, he said, "Oh, this is a house, I know". My first experience of Singapore was heavy condensation! Once I opened the taxi to step out into Singapore soil, my glasses needed wipers for nearly a minute. It was 27 degrees at 6:45am. I got used to the transport system here. Bus, MRT, taxi, walking - all are useful modes of transport. I felt the weather to be very hot and humid. One funny thing to remember - This is the first time I got into a 50 storeyed building (our office here in Singapore is located on the 33rd floor with a beautiful view to the ocean and downtown). On the ground floor, I pressed the "Go UP" button and waited. There were 8 elevators and one of them arrived. I got in to that and for my surprise, it took me to 41 st floor. There was no button inside to click 33 :(. Then, I figured out th...

Left home at 10 am - closed work at 5:30pm. I am not at work, but, am roaming from one office to another to get my tasks done. 1) 10 am - Started from home to get transaction entries on bank passbook. Canara Bank, Hanumanthanagar is one of the worst bank branches I have ever seen. Nothing seems to work for me till now. I have been there 3 times this week to get the entries done. Each time, they give the same old reason, "computer not working". 2) Headed to another Canara Bank Branch- this time, it was N.R. Colony. For my surprise, I got it done in one shot! "Nice start" - I thought. 3) Next, headed towards BSNL office to change my internet plan as I will be away from home due to work. I had got the letter printed and that made things easy. I got an acknowledgment for my request. Only problem which I see is refund of the money that I have already paid for the next 12 months. This needs to be tracked in future. 4) My next stop was at Bangalore One center, BDA complex...

Search for "Indian Passport" in Google Search. You will be shown "passport.gov.in" website as the first link. This week, the passport office has changed its official website. It is now "passportindia.gov.in". I don't know when Google search will start showing this link! Should we sue search engines for showing old/obsolete websites? Best solution is to tell the IT guys of Passport office who maintain the website to put a redirect rule on "passport.gov.in" servers so that when customers/users hit that website, they should be automatically taken to "passportindia.gov.in".

I hate this place. Recent past has made me believe that this is not the best place on earth to live. Having run from Govt. Office A to Office B, I find it easy to come a conclusion that India will not progress in the coming years if the system is like the way it is. I have made several trips to offices to get things done which still remains 'undone'. Passport office is a big pain in the a&&. After my pain, it is turn for my son's passport application. It is more painful now as the procedure has changed overnight. Nobody knows what to do and I am roaming places to get this sorted. BBMP is another dirty place. Having paid the tax last month for the coming year, I am yet to get the receipt of payment. First, they told that they are busy receiving payments and cannot write the receipt. Next, they are telling that the cheque is missing or misplaced. They want proof from our side to show that money has been credited into their account. This requires few trips up and down ...

Company 'A' had called me to write a test as part of their recruitment process. The test reminded me of GRE and also the tests which most Bachelor of Engineering (BE) freshers would take. The whole 3 hours went so fast that I couldn't realize that I was hitting evening traffic while heading home. First impression of this Company 'A' was good. I had no doubts that it is one of the premier companies when it comes to branded software products. There were 4 sections in the test. The first two were Analytical and Quantitative, followed by, Engineering section. The last section was a section on Java and J2EE. The first two sections consisted of questions similar to the ones I saw during my GRE prep. In Analytical, questions like, "A sits next to B... B doesn't like C and D, E wants to sit with G.. What is the right order of sitting?" took me to my old days (nearly 10 years ago) of Engineering when we wrote such tests every Monsoon season. The Engineering sec...

It has been a nice break from work since Monday as I am in the process of switching jobs. Today, we had been to a Kannada movie 'Aapta rakshaka', which is a sequel of 'Aaptamitra'. The movie was very nice with lots of thrill and suspense. For me, I enjoyed Komal's acting as a comedian in the role of Vishu's assistant. Last night, we had dinner at MTR. The menu was a huge list which they should distribute before serving. That will give us some idea what is installed and what we should prefer eating. They started serving with 'raagi rotti' which was a heavy starter. Next came 'Bisi bele bhaat'. For some reason, I have started disliking BBB. It makes me feel full within the first two spoons. With rest of the meal being the customary items, I settled for fruits and ice-cream in the end. My take on MTR after this dinner - I can skip MTR dinner in future. Other days of the week were more of spending time at home. I am reading few things about Indian ho...

For the first time, I tried making rasam powder as I wanted to taste a fresh rasam :). Finally, it turned out to be real good and fresh rasam. Recipe was taken from online and I made some changes to suit my taste.

With reference to my earlier blog ( here ) written almost 2 years ago, I got to write this one as a closing ceremony practice. Friday was my last day at Y. By 4pm, my paperwork formalities were completed and I was ready to say good-bye to everyone there. I did sent a few emails personally to some of my close quarters and got a reply back by the time I shut down my laptop one last time. The team had arranged a farewell party just before leaving. It was a nice experience working in a company like Y. Everybody had two questions in mind - 1) Why are you leaving? 2) Where are you joining next? Frankly speaking, there are only few options left to answer both the above questions. It is so simple and straight forward. For 1), options are: a) Got a new job with better salary - We call it, "better career opportunity". b) Didn't like what I was doing. c) Want to experiment something different. d) Didn't like the management and the way things were progressing. For 2) options are...

Submitted for passport renewal today. This task which was in my mind for the past 3 days has been completed without much fuss. Today, I was in Passport office at 8:30am. By then, around 500 others had already gathered. I didn't know in which line to stand. After few queries, I stood in the right line. By 9:30am, line started moving in to the building. It was hot-hot-hot outside with no shelter. By 10:30am, I had my luck when I was inside the building with a token number in hand. By 11:30am, I was called to the counter. For my surprise, the counter representative told that my passport is damaged. There was little bit of damage due to spilling of water couple of years ago. Without much doubt, I asked him the steps to resolve this ASAP. An extra Rs. 2,500 (for damaged passport) was the solution given. By 12:30pm, I was done with payment of fees for my renewal. I should be getting my passport in the next 7 days. Moral of the story - 1) Keep all documents ready and handy along with phot...

My current task on hand is to get my passport renewed. I am opting for the Tatkaal scheme which should take 3 days from the day I apply. Today, my agenda was to get the paperwork done for the application. For Tatkaal, two things are important - (1) Verification certificate from an officer of certain cadre and above, (2) Affidavit, with seal and sign by notary. I went to Income Tax Office to get verification certificate signed by an authorized officer. The office is a treat to visit (if you are not evading to pay tax). It is so neat and welcoming to visitors! I was waiting for the signature in the corridor. One assistant requested me to be seated in the visitor's lounge. Once I went there, it was not an office for me, rather a five-star experience. The visitor sitting area had A/C, a TV, newspaper/magazines, and couches to relax! I got my sign done in a few minutes. End of the day, my paperwork is half complete with notary sign pending for tomorrow. Bad part about the affidavit proc...

In the sea shell

In the office bus, we have new topics coming up daily. Today's topic was - "how to bring up kids in a good way?" There are 4 young daddies in our bus and there were lots of ideas! One basic idea was - We need to keep the creativity ON which is missing in today's kids. Kids tend to be passive all the time with TV/computer/video games/etc. One dad told, "Four things have to be made as low priority for a kid to grow well. TV, computer, mobile phone and friends." We were talking in the age range of 5-18 till they reach college. If a person can stay away from the above 4 things for 2 days, then, he/she is really 'being himself/herself'. If TV and computer are blocked, younger gen will take a mobile and start SMSing with friends. It has become a trend to use more of SMS than talk face-to-face! Our conversation ended with a note - "Even though we do our best, kids are always influenced by other kids at school."

As I was watching the IPL finals last night, I saw an Ad on TV saying, "Watch TV on your mobile". No matter how the quality is and how small the screen is, I started to think about advancements in technology in the past 20 years. This is 2010 and 20 years ago means 1990. Things which were not even imagined have come in to place 20 years later. Below is how 1990 was. We were in Hubli and I was in middle school. 1) 'Internet' was a word unheard of. We never imagined that such a thing can exist. Add to this word, another adjoining word, 'computer'. 2) Mobile phone - A landline was a luxury. We had to wait for 6 months to a year to get a phone connection. Maximum we had seen was a cordless phone! That being the case, mobile phone was something we thought only police use. 3) TV with 180 channels - We had a BPL color TV with 12 channels. Only television channel we had was Doordarshan. How could we imagine to have so many channels that TV itself didn't support?! ...

Last night, I got an email confirmation from company 'T' calling for interview. I had applied and had confirmed my availability over email. After seeing that email, I prepared all the documents required. I don't know why these companies ask for a '1 passport size photo'! Saturday morning - I got ready and headed towards the interview location which was near Majestic. I arrived at the venue 10 minutes past 9 am which was the scheduled start. My assumption was that not many would turn up as early as 9am; that too on a Saturday. This assumption was true for the interviewers, not for interviewees. Near the security at the gate, I was told that interview is held at the cafeteria on the top floor. The guard told, "take the stairs to the fifth floor." I was surprised and thought, "no elevator??" After walking up 5 floors, I saw 50 people already waiting there. Nobody was there from company 'T'. I was lucky to find a chair to sit which soon got f...

As I was eating the first mango of this season, I was recollecting the childhood days when Summer meant 'mango season'. Summer season in childhood had these typical connection: 1) Mangos - Hubli days reminds me of 'aapus' mango. One vendor is still in my eyes who used to come just after a heavy rain. He had converted a foldable iron chair into a cart by adding small wheels to it. 2) Playing for hours - My brother and I used to play for hours - both indoor and outdoor. Creativity was touching its limit during this season. New games every day, new rules to a game every day, etc made playing interesting. 3) Kissan juice was the most preferred drink in Summer. We used to get a new bottle of juice concentrate at the start of every season. Thinking the current juices, I think that it was cheaper to buy the concentrate and prepare the juice ourselves. Benefit of today's juices is that it is instant and comes in 100 different flavors. Other popular drink was 'rasna'...

Color+Color Black-n-White+Color Saw the original image in our quarterly magazine and got to know that it was taken by one of our cab-mates. Requested her to send that photo so that I could play around to make it look like the 2nd one. Did you notice one thing? To have the color in your palm, you need to use your fingers. But, most of the fingers are clean! Answer is - there should have been one person (not in photo) who must have put colors on these palms.

Our son plays with black ants. I am always checking to see if he missed out to identify the type of ant and if that ant turned out to be red ant! I wanted to know why an ant bite hurts. After hunting on the net, I found out that it is due to formic acid produced by ant. In Latin, Formica means ant. Easy solution to reduce ant bite pain is to wash the area with soap.

Visited Cubbon Park today to show our son a glimpse of train. Kids' train in the park is nice and enjoyable for kids. Our son enjoyed it a lot. The park is nice with a huge area. Only thing lacking is good maintenance. There could have been more stuff for kids to experience. Right now, there are basic things like slides and seesaws. A few rides and shows will surely make children enjoy. Temperature was high and it was little hard to bear the weather. Respite was - it is exam season for kids which kept them away from this park. Come next week and the park will be full all 7 days in a week. For someone who wants to visit: Park is open from 10 am to 6pm. Entry fee is 5 per adult. Kids - free; Train ride - 10 per adult, kids - Rs. 5. Train rides stop at 5:30pm. Mondays - Holiday. 2nd Tuesday of the month - Holiday. Food/snacks is available inside. You are welcome to carry your own food/water. Parking (cars and bikes) is available in plenty - Rs. 15.

Recognizing alphabets for our son is always a game. He now recognizes 20 of them :). When I saw it for the first time, I was surprised to see him easily pick the alphabet from the heap. While the above one is for him, below chart is for IT savvy people :). Got this chart online.

Whats in a name? 'Everything' - infact, confusion and fun! In the past few days, we are getting calls for "Dr. Shakunthala Devi". Mom is in US, so, had to turn down the callers :( Story 1: Caller 1 (female): Can I talk to Dr. Shakunthala Devi? My wife: Sorry, she is not around. She will be available after few months. Caller 1: Oh.. is it?? I had talked to her few days ago and she had told that she would give an appointment for me. My wife: You can contact Dr. ... . She can answer all your concerns. Dr. Shakunthala Devi has handed over all her cases to Dr ..... Caller 1: No.. no.. I don't want anybody else. I need Dr. Shakunthala Devi only. My wife: If you want, you can contact Hospital A.. or Hospital B. They will help you in suggesting other doctor. Caller 1: I am confused here. Am I calling Dr. Shakunthala Devi number who is an Astrologer? My wife: Sorry... nope.. wrong number! Story 2: Caller 2 (male): May I talk to Dr. Shakunthala Devi? My wife: Nope.. she is ...

What do I see through the window? I see Microsoft. :) I was actually looking at the Old Airport (Bangalore) which reminded me of the times when I used to land there on beautiful mornings. Dad used to drive home from the airport in empty roads early in the morning. A feeling of satisfaction was there moments after landing and also while driving through the city.

ನಮ್ಮ ಮಗು ನಡೆಯುತಿರಲು, ನಾವಿಬ್ಬರು ನೋಡುತಿರಲು, ಓಡುತಿದೆ ಹಗಲು-ಇರುಳು.

March 4 was declared as Bus Day in Bangalore to encourage people to take the city bus and decongest the roads. I think people thought the other way - "Bus day means, give buses a break to rest in depot/garage". Below picture explains.

Before flying to the US, dad had given our 15-year old music system for repair. He had told me that repair will be complete in 3-4 days and I had to make the payment and bring the system home. Today, I got a call from the local repair guy that the system is ready. I went in the evening to his shop and this is what transpired: Test run 1: ShopGuy (SG): Our audio tape is old and faulty. You might not get nice sound here. Once you take the system home and play it with your tapes, it should work fine. Me: OK. Play the tape, let me see. Vidyabhushana's songs were sounding like a female singer! Surely, the tape player is not repaired. SG: No sir. I had already told you that our tapes are in bad shape. You go home and try or get me your tape and I will prove it. Test run 2: I had to come home to get my own audio tape. Instead, I headed to a nearly audio store and requested for a test audio tape. The shopkeeper there was familiar to me and he obliged. Me: Take this tape. Got this from the ...

Welcoming Summer in Bangalore is very simple. KPTCL (Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Ltd.) reminds us well in advance to welcome Summer season by cutting power once or twice a day. Slowly, water shortage will creep in :(. With temperature already moving up, we are sure to hit a very hot Summer 2010. As I was taking my morning walk, I noticed the houses around. Every compound had more than 1 house. Some had 5-6 houses! How did I know the number of people residing? Count the number of two wheelers inside the gate and also number of cars. Each two wheeler meant 1 extra person, and a car meant, minimum of 3! Right now, there are very few plots which has 4-5 living. Is there no rule by the BDA or any governing body to restrict the number of people per plot? I would suggest that they should bring in this rule in order to reduce congestion. Our locality, 15 years ago, had a very low density as there were mostly 1 house/plot. With no space to park cars, car owners park their cars on t...

Crazy Kutumba is a nice family movie to watch. It has simple comedy and emotions. Kannada accent is North Karnataka based. Ramesh and Ananth Nag try well to match the accent, but, I would give them 50 out of 100 for their try. Side roles have more authentic North Karnataka style. Overall, a timepass movie.

After a lecture session at office by a medical expert, I got to know that water is the most important part of our diet. My skin used to feel dry sitting in air-conditioned office and wanted some idea to retain moisture. Skin is the least cared organ as far as water distribution is concerned. Digestive organs, respiratory system, and other systems in the body need water as they are more critical compared to skin. Once that is met, skin gets its share. If we don't consume enough water, first place we notice 'lack of water' is skin. I started drinking nearly 3 liters of water now. Initially, it was hard to gulp in so much at one instant as I used to drink about 1 liter of water per day. Now, after practising it for 2 weeks, skin has improved. Entire body metabolism has been better compared to before. I was told that skin darkening below the eyes, dry skin/scalp, fatigue and related problems are caused due to lack of water content in the body. Consuming sufficient water (not so...

My wife and I landed in a Pizza restaurant after shopping during the weekend. It was nice to have delicious pizza after a long time! The drink we ordered was the most attractive as far the taste goes. It was apple-dip lemon juice with a pinch of cinnamon and tulsi (leaves) dip too. The drink was so nice that we plan to make similar one at home in future. As we were savoring pizza, I was recollecting the first time I ate pizza. I think it was during my first year of college. My brother treated me as he had got his first job! We had been to Pizza H in Jayanagar. My brother's advice was that pizza goes with a cola (and not any other drink). As it was my first taste of Pizza, I surely loved the experience. Pizza eating has always been a 'finger count' outing for us as our parents somehow hate that word!!! To suit them, I wish somebody names the same dish without 'z' in that word and call it something different.