Diwali

Yeah Diwali has come and gone, so has the week long holiday I managed to get.
I stayed home for a change, decided that for once I need to stay in Blore, read, sleep and eat mom made diwali goodies :)

Also decided to get some crackers...loads of crackers, but on my way to buy them I noticed kids right on the main roads running about setting off noisy crackers oblivious to the traffic or the surroundings.
This was such an irritant that we backtracked and decided that this Diwali would just be a festival of lights without any loud annoying sounds.

It was a very peaceful and relaxing Diwali in all.

This one is a dad made 'Akash kandil' (a maharashtrian tradition).


Dad just rocks when it comes to creativity and when it comes to charcoal or pencil scketches dad is GOD as is obvious from this year's Diwali greeting made by dad (thats made using just colour pencils)



and ofcourse mom is not behind with her lamps and rangolis (though i dont have a photo of a rangoli :))

Popular request :P

There have been requests for the posters to be uploaded...here are a couple of samples.
(resizing them has screwed up the fonts and proportions, but there is the general idea.)

Photoshopping away to glory !!

Its been long...too long since I have photoshopped !

Well, ThoughtWorks is off to participate in 'Bangalore It.in' and this means designing posters and stuff to make the kiosk look attractive and where there are posters there is Adobe photoshop :))

Worked the night out to get the posters done...am very happy with the results.

Couple of years ago when in branding class, Harish Bijoor asked me what my 'super brand' was, I proudly showed my Dell Laptop, Today I realise that Adobe is my Super Brand...As far as I am concerned Photoshop is the best software ever made :D

Commute Easy

Vipul has gone and done something really cool... something that Blore as a city needs, a website that encourages car pooling and allows people from different parts of the city to get together and car pool !

Great initiative buddy!

What is Commute Easy?

Commute Easy is a pooling initiative that aims to make daily commute easier by connecting commuters across Bangalore.

Pooling can radically change the chaotic traffic scene in Bangalore.

* Help decongest traffic in Bangalore.
* Lower your own travel costs and stress levels.
* Bring about a reduction in pollution levels.
* Broaden your social network.

Go pool today people :)

More....

To the hills!!

Nandi Hills, a hill station about 70 kms from Bangalore, We decided to go up there on Sunday, the drive was fun and the view from the top was brilliant, however it was too crowded so we hurried back after spending a couple of hours clicking away :)
here are some of the results...

Writing on the Wall

I just remembered what I saw written on the Story wall sometime back...

"Phantom smell freezes tiger blood"

...Old Tiger saying


Lol...I suspect Krishnan was behind it. But not sure.

Book: The Great Gatsby

Decent book. Rather than a story line, this book is like an incident report...the story is made up of a selective series of incidents the narrator is involved in. The book is rather small, It finishes before it can pick up pace...and that is one reason I like this book, the author seems to be working on a 'need to know' principle, we are not given an entire character analysis, we get to know only that facet of the character that is of interest to us, nothing more nothing less
(unlike some other pieces of crap that pass as books, which have highly detailed narratives like describing the rim of the dustbin etc etc one such highly disgusting book is "Franny and Zooey" yuck!)

Also there are no black and white characters, all characters have shades of grey.

I guess all se7en sins are present in the characters.

A good read!

BIG words!

At times, I love using big words when describing something (even when simple words may suffice).
As a Business Analyst I do a little manual testing of the application, to check whether the functionality adheres to the acceptance criteria I asked for in the first place :)
And when I do find bugs (mostly in nooks and corners), reporting them is a boring task. Thus a little bit of fun while logging the bug description...

An example: "This causes the User Interface to look aesthetically unappealing" :P
" Perform ABC thereby enabling the user to execute XYZ" :P

It gets better (or worse, depending on your point of view)

I am having a blast thinking up biiiiiiiiig words, when the developers see this they will have a thing or two to say before they run for the dictionary.

Buwuhahahaha *my version of an evil laugh*

Another trip...

Well....this time it was Calicut! Nice place, spent most of the time in a beautiful resort, however did manage to hire a ferry to take us from the back waters out into the sea.

Glimpses...
















This brilliant last picture was clicked by KC

Black Adder

Rowan Atkinson gets to his sarcastic best as the 'evil' Black Adder...in my current favorite series.
I have watched 3 seasons and my all time fav is season 2, with Miranda Richardson at her hilarious best playin the Queen of England.

Amazing set pieces and awesome dialogue makes this one of the best series I have watched!

Scrabble Crazy

I have always loved word games, my morning starts with crossword and coffee. The day goes with setting and solving anagrams with friends over sms or sometimes in office with colleagues.

Now its scrabble that makes an entry into my day. A game of Scrabble over lunch and one at 7:30 pm makes the day at office seem complete.
Scrabble on Saturdays in Barista on Brigade road, sipping cold coffee is just icing on the cake :D

GO PLAY!

A ClockWork Orange

This movie is awesome, the music, the direction and the acting make it a cult classic. Just when I was beginning to like Stanley Kubrick's style of direction, I happened to watch Lolita (1962) .....a pathetic overrated movie. Only Peter Sellers worked for me in there, and hence I give Kubrick one more try with 'Dr Strangelove'

Current Mood...

Yeh Mahalo, Yeh Takhto, Yeh Tajo ki duniya
Yeh Insaan ke dushman samajo ki duniya
Yeh daulat ke bhooke riwajo ki duniya
Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye toh kya hai....

(I thought of translating this...but I would not do justice to it.)

Dumb Charades :D

Back to College, to conduct/judge the 'Dumb Charades' event.... it was decent. The new auditorium is huuuuuuge (supposedly the biggest in Bangalore), the quality of the teams...umm average I would say, the best team was able to get just 10 words in a minute. I remember us cracking around 34 in a minute at our peak and most of our rival teams acheving similar numbers :)

Overall the intensity that I used to see from all teams back then seems to be mising now :(
( I see similar things happening on the 'mad-ads' scene unfortunately)

But i enjoyed revisiting the same forum where I started miming...it always gives me a nostalgic feeling to go back and Judge an event i used to participate in !

Overall excellent 2 hrs spent.

Quote of shame!

"I think it quite possible that I could have dispersed the crowd without firing but they would have come back again and laughed, and I would have made, what I consider, a fool of myself."

— Dyer's response to the Hunter Commission Enquiry.

After the firing was over, Official sources place the casualties at 379. According to private sources, the number was over 1000, with more than 1200 wounded, and Civil Surgeon Dr Smith indicated that they were over 1800. The figures were never fully ascertained for political reasons.

Movies over the weekend!

Thanks to a friend who lent me a DVD with around 7 classic but depressing movies, I got to watch some really great movies

Leon
A ClockWork Orange
Se7en

Still to go

Reservoir Dogs (can watch it again)
Wild Strawberries
To kill a mocking bird

The Pondicherry Trip

Yes, I had been to Coorg the previous weekend. but when a friend in office suggested we drive down to Pondicherry (300 kilometres away) I could not resist the temptation :)
So off we went the 5 of us ! To Pondi and boy did we have fun.....

Glimpses...





The View from the resort we stayed at :)






Matra Mandir under repairs :(



The Cathedral in Pondicherry...lots of awesome french architecture in there







The East Coast of India.

Colas Out Lime Juice In

Well the office pantry used to be stocked with Fizzy drinks of all sorts :) They are all out! and replaced with jal Jeera and lemons.

Lemons so that we can make ourselves some lime juice :) Suits me, I hate aerated drinks anyway.

Trip to Coorg

Coorg is known as the 'Scotland of India', and I now know why :)
some would argue that August is not the best month to visit Coorg... Reached Virajpet (A small town in Coorg) at 4:30 am on Saturday only to be greeted by heavy rains...well we had been forewarned.

however around 9am once we had hired a vehicle, the rains seemed to have stopped. But the weather was absolutely fabulous, just the way I like it. Gloomy,Cold and Foggy. We were lucky for the next couple of days as it rained only when we were driving around.

After visiting lots of places including the awesome 'Harangi Dam' and experiencing the elemental power of water, We decided to pay a visit to the 'Golden Temple', this is the awe-inspiring 'Namdroling Nyangmapa Monastery', The huge 3 statues within the main temple were just amazing. So were the wonderful paintings all over.

The next day was great too, we had a Jeep and we decided to go upto the Highest peak in Coorg.
We had to drive up roads that had streams flowing over them :) and had to trek up the last 4 kms, as the motorable road had ended.

Unprepared for this impromptu trek (most of us were in sandals!), we were nonetheless excited, climbing up in heavy rains is fun in itself. But what we were really unprepared for were 'Leeches'.
Despite having shoes on, I found as many as 5 of those suckers on my legs :). The state of those with sandals on was worse. We still decided to trudge on. But then were forced to turn back as the rain got heavier and the leeches unbearable. about 2 kms short of the peak!
Nevertheless an experience to cherish :)

We also paid a visit to 'TalaCauvery' the source of river 'Cauvery'. More than 4000 ft above sea. The visibility was like 5feet due to heavy fog, it was cold but beautiful. the mist was just beautiful to look at :)

In all another wonderful trip!

Coorg!