Whats cooking in my mind

Lunar eclipse

2011-12-13T17:31:00.001+05:30

When the people of Vedic civilization have identified the 7 planets, their positions and the movement details so accurately then I do not understand why they cooked up the story of Rahu-Kethu about the lunar eclipse. Somewhere something is missing in this for me. Any guesses??I googled it and found this link: http://www.sanskrit.org/www/Astronomy/Rahu.htmlThis explains well.This doubt creeped into my mind when I was advising my friend to explain things in a simpler way. I gave him an example about how our ancestors explained us the solar system in a simple way and then it struck me if making things simple also involves manipulating the facts for easy understanding. Hmm.. this whole idea sounds complex to me.

Future of news channels

2011-10-10T23:43:00.000+05:30

Corruption vs Anti corruption
Separate state vs United state
Terrorism vs Patriotism
Babas vs secret cams
This party's media vs That party's media

Feed any of those.. Media would take it, shows and make a mess of it.

I see not less than 8 regional news channels in Telugu language itself. Now a days more news channels means more bad things.

I have few stupid predictions about news channels:
- Soon, the problems in a state will be measured by the number of news channels. Of course, AP certainly would be the top contender.
- Page 3 people will show off with the number of channels each one owns.
- People would fight for separate news channels based on their region/religion.
- Channels would line up in front of houses for our privacy copyrights. If u r caught on tape, they would stand the owner of broadcasting those.
- Wife gets pregnant, girl or a boy, ur salary is deposited into ur account, UR maid decide to quit, ur manager scolded you or u r about to get a pink slip, no matter what.. they would be the first ones to know.
- Colleges will start offering courses on how to talk to news channels, how to debate in the discussions and creating sensational news on news channels
- Employment in media would surpass employment in IT.
- You would be paid for watching a channel
- Finally, there would be multi level network schemes like .. "First when u pay n join, you will get 3 channels. If u sell these three channels ur money would be covered, For all channels that are sold below u.. u will get royalty on that"

gps - google maps

2010-04-14T14:45:00.003+05:30

Thanks to Google for maps in my mobile.

My bangalore trip could have been horrible without gps in my mobile.
99% of markings in Google maps were accurate. As, our traffic dept keeps changing the one ways and turnings, we need to see how long it will be accurate.

Only difficulty was with flyovers. As flyovers were not marked in the maps, many times we fell in dilemma whether to go over flyovers or not.

As Google maps is free of cost, I couldn't ask for more.

Thanks to Google for keeping it free of cost.
I hope street view is available in India soon.

Superb policing at Kachiguda railway station

2010-04-14T14:15:00.003+05:30

Have anyone seen auto drivers coming in queue to pickup passengers and not denying to go to any destination?????????

Please go to Kachiguda railway station in the early morning. Reason behind this sudden change in auto drivers is "Traffic police of Hyd".

Traffic police had to be very rude to control the autos but this is very much required. Hope someone setup this system in main areas of the city to help people.

I salute everyone who is behind this.

Hope this approach extends to other problems in Hyderabad.

Issues with Configobj / configparser

2010-01-18T12:01:00.006+05:30

When I decided to use configuration files to use instead of hardcoding stuff, I opted for configparser. (I am using Python).
It is good enough for me as my config files are plane and simple.
I have my configuration file like this:

#This is my configuration file
[database]
dbtype = oracle
hostname = localhost
port = 1521
SID = Oracle #Oracle SID

#All application data goes here
[application]
var1 = ex1
var2 = ex2

All my python scripts use this config file to get database connection details and do their job.

I decided to give GUI for this. GUI displays fields to edit config file and also shows the list of all python scripts that I have.

if I enter some values in GUI those have to rewritten to the config file and have to loaded into GUI by default when I launch the GUI.
and we should be able to choose which scripts to run from the list in GUI.

My problem with configparser was about preserving comments.
Everytime I edit values through GUI and write it back, all comments were getting deleted. I looked for solution on web. Few guys have written some patches for it which are not official from Python community hence I decided not to try those.

Finally I had to use Configobj for achieving this.

Even with Configobj, I had two issues.
1. Comments were getting deleted everytime I write into a config file.
2. Empty values are getting saved as "" in the config file.

To achieve the both, I have configured it like below:

from configobj import ConfigObj
configFile='config.ini'
#If there is an existing config file, then only update it. If config file doesn't exist, then create a new config file.

config = ConfigObj(infile=configFile)
config.filename = 'config.ini'
config.create_empty=True
config.write_empty_values=True

?

2009-07-09T02:35:00.006+05:30

Since the day I have landed on foreign soil, I have been criticizing the system in country. Rather I would say, I am feeling terrible that we couldn't create a good system for ourselves.

No wonder if I curse govt and my people for that. I know that every one who visits other countries, think the same. Suddenly India starts looking like uganda/zimbabwe kind of country. Sometimes I fall short of words to explain what am I proud of about my country.

Have we really messed up? How many days would we tell that we are a "Developing nation" beside the growing number of slums in India.
We have better mobile connectivity than road, rail, electricity and doctors in the country. This is what the govt elected by me is working for.

On one side we have cops employed to do slavery to senior officers families and providing security to their families and guarding politicians, on another side we have insecured public places where terrorists can come armed, blast away the civilians.

What is the main problem in our country? Every time a list of billionaires is announced, we have respectable number of people in it. Still we have place for million robinhoods.

I am not matured enough to point out the reason for this but I see the severity of difference between economic levels of Rich and Poor is increasing rapidly in our country.

In European countries, on an avg an IT Employee gets 2-3 times of what a person working in the cleaning dept.
If it is in India, This difference would be not less than 10 to 20 times.
Then, think of what it bring us to?

In most of the countries, if u violate any traffic rule, u will have to pay huge fines of 100 to 200 Dollars/euros. which is around 10% to 20% of their salaries. What about us in India?
I can always drink and drive because I only have to pay 100Rs fine. A person who can spend 200 Rs for drinking, can't he pay 100Rs fine.

Lets take me as an example. I took 4 times 2 wheeler learning license and never took the final license. During 10 years of my driving experience, till now I paid 500Rs as fine. Is taking license a big deal now??

I don't know if govt is encouraging people to violate the law or they want to put "Affordable fines" so that they can collect at least some money from ppl.

Lets look at a scenario at the lowest level of the govt. Panchayats around Hyderabad(lowest level of govt at village level) gets 4 crores per year and I would be surprised if they spend 1crore per year genuinely. Who robs the money? The local panchayat secretary, his subordinates, Sarpanch and the officers who sit on top of these guys. If 75% money is stolen at Panchayath level, think about govt officers at state govt and central govt. By the way, a group 3 exam qualified candidate appointed as secretary in hyderabad surrounding areas earns not less than 10crores in 10 years. How much does an Engineer from IIT earns in his life time??

Our law is too weak to punish who breaks the law. Our system is too flexible to break. corruption is making it to the national flag and still not greater than 50% votes are polled in the country.

Who wants to see this country on par with best of the countries? Who wants this to be the safest place on earth to live?

Out of 1 million examples that we can make out of this govt, this example surprises me quite often. I don't know why they increase funds easily to IITs and NITs to thousands of crores when they don't spend a single rupee to encourage them to settle down in India.

Amidst all this, This country survives because of people who search for zebra lines to cross the roads and the people who keep their cola cans in their pockets in search of dust bins. Who are voting based on candidate's profile and the people who dream of correcting these things here.

Who can save us from this when Gandhis are dead and buried in the the grave and godseys continued to be cloned??

Pisa->Florence->Rome brain seeding..

2009-06-28T16:18:00.001+05:30

Yet another trip without my companion.

I have very less time to cover Italy, so I had to drop Venice from my travel plan. Though, many said that a week is not enough to see Rome, I have only two days for it. So, I will see how many corners of Rome that I can cover in two days.

I am preparing for the trip. What excites me most is that, this is my first trip that I have planned on my own.

I do not know if I ever really wanted to see all these places. What I wanted to do was to explore some places without knowing anything about it, to eat what I get there, to sleep wherever it is possible and walk to the farthest corner I can.

Though few things are not possible without preparation at this point, unwillingly, I have started searching for the information on what to see and dos and don'ts during the trip.

This trip is more of testing what can I do, how do I handle such things. I hope a positive outcome of it.

Music @ Planon & Netherlands

2009-06-28T06:08:00.003+05:30

Past two days have been very exciting.
I am thrilled to be part of such a fantastic talent pool.
Looking forward to come back with more details :)
Keep rocking!!!!

Fav Ringtone

2009-06-09T03:36:00.001+05:30

Click on this link to listen to my fav ringtone

That is how a husband is treated after marriage ;)

:D

Hollywood dreams

2009-06-01T15:47:00.008+05:30

Guess what this post is about.. ???

This is not about my aspirations to get into Hollywood. This is about Hollywood size dreams that I get every now and then.

Sleeping is the only activity which we can do for a long stretch of time without a break. I am not just sleeping but also dreaming. Dreaming B I G.

I don't remember when exactly I have realized that my dreams are a bit weird and strange like Hollywood movies. I could recollect that I used to get dreams about Giant Robot when I was around 6-10 yrs of age.

My all time fav dream in childhood: I was trying to fly with a pair of rockets tied on my back like in Giant Robot serial and current cables always came as obstacle in my way while landing. I used to get worried, why am I not able to fly even in dreams.

When I was doing my +2, I had noted down quite a few dreams of mine. I thought those are some news that I read about upcoming movies or influenced by the movies that I have already seen. May be I was preparing for a real good dream before I sleep. Every time I told my friends about my dreams, they asked me "Which movie is it?". I decided not to tell anyone about that.

After all, my case is not like "Mungerilal ki ajeeb sapney" serial telecasted on DD some 16 to 20 years ago.

One day I saw "Fight club". After a couple of weeks, I saw a mysterious man trying to kill me in my whole dream. I was scared and asking everyone in my dream about the guy who just came in Black hat and finally in the end when he takes off the cap, that was me with a terrible facial expression. I donno if I had tried to relate my dream to that movie or it just happened to match. I couldn't watch thrillers and horror movies before I go to bed for couple of months.

Generally I do not forget 95% of my dreams. Every time I asked my wife or my friends about their dreams, they said that they actually do not remember every dream completely but they do remember partially. In my case, I remember my dream completely most of the times and I sometimes feel that I am conscious about my dream.

Sometimes, when I abruptly end my dream and wakeup and go to bed again, I continue the same dream again. May be when I am subconsciously aware of my dream, I start to control my dream. For ex: when some animal is running behind me and I am getting tired and If I wakeup at that time and go to bed again then that dream continues and I fight with that animal and I win .
I don’t know if these kind of persuasive dreams are common among us. I am never heard of people discussing over this topic. May be nobody gives a shit about their dreams? 

I tried to find why I am getting dreams like that. Only information that I could find on Internet is that "People with high IQ get that kind of dreams". I took up some IQ tests on Internet and results were never the same.

I am just curious to know why people do not discuss much about their dreams... dreams that occupy our much required sleeps.

Your comments are well appreciated. That could just be the clarifications that people like me are looking for.

Efteling - The Fairy Tale Park

2009-05-31T00:59:00.017+05:30

Efteling is one of the oldest and best amusement parks in Europe. It is a fairy tale theme park with all the fairy tale stories and fun rides based on the fairy tales.

One of my Dutch colleagues planned for this trip. He collected many discount coupons for us to go Efteling. He (Adrie) came along with his girl friend (Kasandra) in the morning to pick us at Green hills reception (Green hills is the resort where I am staying). We gave them a small plant which we bought a day before. Adrie and Kasandra gave us the plan before we started. Plan is to start at 8:30 and return at 6pm (Efteling closing time. So, we started in their car exactly at 8:30 (We are a bit used to dutch discipline).

It took an hour to reach Efteling. I was flattered by the construction of entrance. It looks straight out of a hollywood witch movie (Mind you, I am a Hollywood movie freak). There are five towers in that construction as a symbol of 5 senses of human beings.

We expected a heavy crowd as it was a long weekend. Fortunately that wasn't the case.
From the moment we reached Efteling, Kasandra started explaining what the park is about. She told us that she has been there couple of dozen times :) and it is a common place to visit for them with their families on vacations.

It was warm and the atmosphere was perfect for a day out.

First we went to a haunted house. This fairytale was about a person who was cursed and his curse would only be cleaned if anyone enters his house with a pure heart as of a just born baby. In the first room that we entered, they explained that people with heart diseases or who are pregnant shouldn't enter. In the second room we entered, A puppet which looks like a cursed man explained about his curse (In Dutch. Kasandra translated that to English for us). In the third room, we went and took a seat. Tied up the safety gear. We had no clue what was coming up. We were swinging and the exterior walls were also swinging in the opposite direction and suddenly after swinging for 5 minutes, the seating and the exteriors just looked like we were sitting upside down.

Just to come out of that, we tried a simple tralley ride which went over few buildings. Then we went to Bird Rok.

Bird Rok: The sindbad ride: This ride is based on how Sindbad escaped tieing up himself to the Vulture from it's nest. It was a high speed train ride into the dark sky like how Sindbad flew into sky. First 4 seconds, I thought I am really in sky between stars. Suddenly train picked up speed and gone through the curls at super high speed. Ride was for exactly 14 seconds. First 6 seconds, I shouted out of excitement, I am not sure why I shouted for next 6 seconds and I forgot what happened during last 4 seconds :D

Next was sky view tower Pagoda . I know what I am going to do after we reach top of the tower. Like everytime, I took my chance. We all got into it. It slowly took us to some 100+ meters high. View was excellent and my legs were feeling a bit slippery too. I tried to stand at the edge but I couldn't. How ever, I took a seat and I could still see the Efteling and it's beautiful surrounds :)

Then it was lunch time. We went for a electric guided boat trip of 20 mins duration. We had lunch in the boat. Pond was very good. It went through different sections of the pond. It was like a pond going through different places. It was a very peaceful journey. Any couple would have loved having their lunch in the boat and an obvious kiss or a hug too :)

Dream flight: After lunch we were all fresh and ready for the best half of our trip. We went to Dream Flight. It was a toy train journey in dark into a mesmerizing world of angels.
It is a place which every girl wants to see. Angels in the sky, Angels sitting on trees, singing, dancing angels, beautiful castles hanging between the stars.. Oh that was a replica of every child's dream world.

From there, we went around for a while. Looked at how europeans go mad after sun.

The flying dutchman: Kasandra wanted to check the latest ride in the park: The flying dutchman This ride is based on a story of a dutchman who went for sailing on Easter (in 1678 AD). His boat got turned into a ghost ship and was cursed to keep sailing. For this ride, we had to go to the harbour through the building which was constructed exactly like in 16th century. We reached the boat and that place looks fantastic. It would be right to say that went past 16th century harbour to get the boat.

Boat started very slowly. Doors opened and it was completely dark inside. It was all stormy weather on the way. The laser show was perfect to make us feel the stormy weather. Boat suddenly picked up speed and went through a scary curl and stopped at a door. Boat was completely standing on it's feet. I was curious to know what is going to happen. In a flash of a second doors opened, the boat raced at 70km per hour and went into sunlight and in a second into a cave. I just lost contact with all my senses. I closed my eyes and was couting each fraction of a second to get out of that boat. It went through one.. two..t h r e e curls I guess. A sudden flash of water woke me up. Its a great miracle.. I am still alive.
We wandered around it for some time to findout what exactly happened. We talked about it the whole day, so you can understand what we have been through.

Then we went through some puppet worlds, they helped us to recover from the horrible flying boat experience.

Next, it was a river crossing boat ride. We enjoyed it the most. It was in a small artificial pond with water flowing fast like in a river. We five members group got into the round boat. Boat was electrically driven boat (Automatic). It moved like a real boat in a river. It went to the corners and hit the rocks, went near the water falls, everytime water flown heavily water flashed hard onto us. We all got wet. It was an awsome ride. We enjoyed it to the fullest. I wanted to try that all my life. Finally, it happened here like this at least. I took video of the complete ride. I will upload it to the videos section soon.

It was evening and was time for some 4D action. We went to pandadrome a 4D theatre. Movie was of 10 mins. It was superb. Though I saw few 4D movies in IMax and Ramoji film city-Hyd, they were all small theatres. Pandadrome is a proper 70mm theatre with 4D. I enjoyed special effects like when a sea sneezes and water gets splashed onto my face, shark coming straigh onto me, Snake slowly coming from a tree branch to close to my face, Monkeys hitting fruits to both my eyes. Wind and water splashes were on spot and was superb experience.

We were a bit tired and went into the fairytale forest. It has few castles and houses with the fairy tale stories written near it. It would be a fanstastic experience to children to see cindrella sleeping in the castle waiting for his prince. Dancing shoes, Indian lillies etc etc.

Without Adrie and Kasandra, we couldn't have understood any of those stories and would have missed the soul of Efteling.
I enjoyed to the fullest. I shouted, ran over, flashed water hard, did everything that I wanted to do. It was fun all the day and was a bit learning too.
If you are planning for a Europe trip, add this to your list. Its a complete fun park for a whole family.

Best ever romantic movie

2009-05-27T01:17:00.004+05:30

Wall E .. Wall E .. Wall E.
I just lost my heart over it. Undoubtedly, "Wall E" will be among the top 5 most romantic movie made till date.
Rather than explaining what the movie is about, I would like you to experience it while watching the movie.
Its a MUST WATCH MOVIE!!!!!!!

I Amsterdam

2009-05-27T00:14:00.008+05:30

Netherlands is a symbol of self expression and freedom AND Amsterdam is the heart of Netherlands.

Amsterdam: The place where I always wanted to be. I like Amsterdam for different reasons. I like it because it has everything that any tourist expects from a big city and yet very peaceful. People are free to do any thing and anyone can celebrate their freedom. I call it freedom city. Hmm.. Interesting point.. "Can do anything". I will tell you what I have seen most of the people doing in Amsterdam.

Journey:
I have double checked my camera a day before. We 3 friends started from Groene Heuvels (Green hills in English) to Wichen and joined my Dutch colleague and friend Pim. We took a train from Wichen to Dambosh->Utrecht->Amsterdam Central. From Amsterdam central, we took a tram to Museum cirlce.

City tour:
Amsterdam is a city museums. It has world's one and only sex museum, the famous Rijsk museum, most reknowned "Van Gogh" museum and "Madame Tussauds: wax museum". At Museum centre, we went to Van Gogh museum. It will be a treat for art lovers to see Vincent Van Gogh's paintings.

There is a special purpose for every tourist to go to museum circle. Yeah!! To preserve a memory of your visit to amsterdam (See the above picture).

From Van gogh museum, I started my favourite activity: "Walking". Amsterdam is heavily crowded, you can hardly see any cars in the city. Easy way to commute is by boats, trams, buses, cycles or by walk.

My colleague took us to Vondel park which is a symbol of freedom in Netherlands. This is the major park in Amsterdam and is always crowded. You are free to do any thing in this park. This park is always crowded with amsterdammers and tourists. We couldn't see the open air theatre and dutch national film museum in Vondel park.

We stopped at a popular food joint "Wok to walk" for lunch. Finally, my friends were treated with nice and spicy noodles.

On the way to Dam square , my dutch friend shown us the famous "The bull dog" coffee shop, super rich shopping streets and the biggest open bar in Amsterdam. Few africans were performing dance and some stunts in the open bar. The speciality of these bars is that they are spread from main road to the shopping areas. People enjoy drinking soaking a bit of sun. Every street of city looks the same and I got confused everytime if I had come to the same street again. A typical steet means a canal having buildings on both sides. My colleague told us that these canals were constructed to stop the enemies entering the city. The plan is to guard only the bridges over canals. If any enemy tries to attack, they can guard or blast the bridges to stop them entering into the city. In this process, they constructed too many canals and by the time they realized, they had canals all over Amsterdam.

Dam square is damn good. Few guys were dressed in famous hollywood movie characters in front of Madam Tussauds (In Dam square) and few people were doing hip hop dance and few people were just sitting at the national monument (constructed to memorialize world war 2 victims) and enjoying the surroundings. It is a historical place. Queen addresses the public in Dam square on every special occasion like Queensday or memorial day. I regret that I couldn't go to Dam square on Queensday. I have missed to visit Dam square on both the occacions and I seriously regret for that.

At Dam square, I met my former colleague and his room mate. We all headed towards the F.A.M.O.U.S Red Light District and Coffee bars (Drugs shops). Couple of streets are allocated for Red light district area for legal prostitution shops in Netherlands. Prostituion is legal only in this Red light district. You would see cops around the every corner in these streets. Girls stand in the big glass windows. If the red curtain is closed, that means she is busy. Photography is stricly not allowed in this area (Unofficially). There were shops which offers sXX live shows and sXX toys. sXX workers have to pay tax every week. They have to undergo medical examination every week by Govt. According to dutch govt stats, prostitution has come down by 60% in Holland because of Redlight district. Pips are banned in RLD. My friend told me that govt banned pips because they may force women into prostitution. So, any sex worker in this street can be understood as they are working as per their will. Uff.. nice to know these things. Thanks to my former colleague for explaining the whole history of Red light district. Can this be taught to Mumbai govt??

We just walked across some coffe shops on the way to railway station. (Mind you that Coffee shops also serves drugs in Amsterdam). Govt legalized drugs. Still you see very less percentage of drug addicts in Holland. It is just the freedom that you get in Holland and it is upto your commonsense what you want to do with it.

Because of my dutch colleague, we completed amsterdam city tour within in short time and got lot of details about the city.

I Enjoyed every breathe of freedom and every little detail that I observed in Amsterdam.

Expenses:
Train and Tram: 22 Euros
Van Gogh museum: 15 Euros
City tour: Priceless

Wrong opinions..

2009-05-20T02:57:00.008+05:30

I saw a good story long time back in a hindi channel. I donno why it keeps coming to me again and again.

Here it goes:

One guy enters a restaurent with his friends and starts staring at every girl in there. One girl catches his attention as she is waiting alone (I pity. Its "Flirt at first sight!!"). He starts looking at her. Throws away free smiles, Almost licks his eyebrows, plays around and tells his friends that she is actually looking for a man.

When he sees her cheering at him, it raises flames to his acts, he tells his friends that she looks like a whore and starts talking bad about her. He plays his stupid jokes on her and starts telling his friends what he would do after he leaves the restaurent with that girl.

And.. her friend comes inside, gives her stick and leaves.

He is shocked by this and realizes that she is blind and was not looking at him. He realizes in a moment how big mistake was it to come to a wrong conclusion and thinking badly about her.

When she is about to fall, he runs and holds her from falling down apologizing her in his deep senses.

---
Its a good lesson to learn. It is really sick and disgusting to form negative thoughts / opinions on what you see or hear about others and express them in public.

Burger's zoo and Arnhem

2009-05-11T17:02:00.008+05:30

I searched on Internet if it is really worth visiting burger's zoo. No article was of great help. Though Emmen zoo is the biggest in Europe, it was very far from my place and the aquariums in burger zoo really attracted us to shortlist burger's zoo.

Burger's zoo is in Arnhem city. Arnhem is very close to Nijmegen (around 30 km). We started around 8 by cab as usual. We took a train to Arnhem. In arnhem, we went to Tram station to get into a Tram (No:3 Tram goest to Burger's zoo). As Burgers zoo is the last stop, we were at peace while sitting in the bus. Few shops outside the Tram/ bus station sell ticket which are a bit cheaper than buying it in Tram/ bus.

You can find more about Trams here: I didn't like Trams. Tram roads were messy because of power cables that they use, for a moment it reminded me of power cables in our India... full messed up. Buses are very good in Netherlands but Trams are a bit economical.

It was around 20 to 25 mins journey from Arnhem Tram station to Burger's zoo. Arnhem seems to be a place with more inhabitants from Arab countries. More of city culture. On roads one could easily find at least two couples getting romantic. Well, we do not see that in Nijmegen may be due to culutural difference between two rival cities.

After reaching the burgers zoo in tram, we bought tickets, took the route map and got in. Penguins welcomed at the entrance. Wheh.. "Penguins", I saw them in movies and they looked better in the movies. Saw other animals like rhinos,elephants,wild bores, Cheetahs etc ..etc and I felt the same thing as of watching penguins. Though the animals are protected and given very good conditions to live, I couldn't enjoy watching them tied up in those enclosers. I prefer them to be in their place where they have to be. Suddenly I started disliking the idea of "Zoo". I decide that I should never ever go to zoo again not even for my kids :(

We were a bit tired by the afternoon, we ate lemon rice that we took with us. I still remember how kids reacted when they saw three of us eating lemon rice from one lunch box.
We went to aquarium part of the zoo. We went inside the dome and were surprised to see the dense forest inside full of waterfalls, tall and thick trees. It was very humid like in Vizag or Chennai. My spects were filled with moisture hence I couldn't see everything clearly for few minutes and then it was back. I couldn't even take pictures and my camera lens was filled with moisture. It was just like the trek I dreamed of.. A trek to a waterfall which has a small bridge taking us close to the waterfall inside a thick forest and which is not visible from outside. For a moment I thought I am watching Jurassic park part 3 ;).

Then we carried on.. went through the little forest and went inside a cave. It was the place which we were searching for.. It was a superb replica of under sea life. Many different under water replicas were laid out each one for different type of fishes. Fishes in different colors.. different types of fishes.. star fishes.. jelly fishes.. we carried on walking.. and.. to our surprise, it was a like a 70mm screen under the cave with sharks all over running on the screen. Just a sec.. it was a glass laid as 70mm screen for the aquarium :). My jaws were dropped to see the sharks. Though they just looked like big ..good looking fishes, how can we forget what we have seen in Jaws or what we read about sharks. So we spent lot of time watching all the sharks. Next to it was was another beautiful underwater 270 degrees aquarium with loads of Stingrays. (Well it is the one which killed the legendary crocodile hunter). We spent lot of time to take photographs though the lighting was not sufficient. What a place to be. At least we should visit this kind of coral reefs once in life. Well this is where I realized the importance of a zoo, to eductate us about our companions living along with us. I saw someother parts of the zoo like deserts. When I was leaving the zoo, I saw peguins playing around and jumping in the water like in the movies. I saw elephants getting their share of food, looking at people shouting with the trunk and having fun..

How nice it would be if all animals join us at zoo on our vacation for some time to have fun, get some nice food, play around and go back to the forests as we are back to work. I felt the need to take my kids to zoo.
We left zoo happily. afterall, it was really worth watching.

Expenses:
Nijmegen to Arnhem by train (Discounted fare): 4.5 Euro per head (To and Fro)
Tram from Arnhem to Burger's zoo: 2.2 Euro (To and Fro)
Zoo entrance fee: 18 Euros.

Treasure hunt

2009-05-07T12:58:00.000+05:30

in mind at the moment..

Its a "Dutch thing"

2009-05-05T01:45:00.008+05:30

First thing that attracted me in Netherlands is the reception that I got at airport.

I don't know how to express it in words... around 50 people came to airport with balloons and banners and they were shouting "yeyyy!!!" everytime someone comesout from the airport exit door. Specially one kid came with a banner and he jumps keeping his legs apart and opening the banner while jumping and cheering loudly. That was so funny. They cheered when I came out from the exit door. I was surprised and thought for a moment that they all came for me ;)

People welcome you whole heartedly. Call it a tradition or culture, they mesmerize you with their reception.

Look at a stranger, they will wave their hand at you. Smile at them, they will say "Hoi". Stand with a camera at a tourist place, someone will come and ask you if you need a picture. Cheer at a someone, they will ask you how you are doing.

In my company, everyone received us indians very well. From nowhere someone comes and asks us if I had a good meal or about how we are finding Netherlands. When we stand outside for cab, anyone going in that way says "Bye!!" or waves a hand at us. I call this custom/ tradition/ culture the "Dutch thing" and I couldn't stop myself falling in love with it. When I go back to India, I would tell all my friends that there is a tiny country which is "hard to find on globe" has less people but filled up with lots of love and courtesy.

am I am not fortunate to be hear???

keukenhof

2009-05-03T01:41:00.002+05:30

I sourly missed my wife and an SLR in keukenhof. Generally, men and flowers don't go well together. well, in keukenhof it is not true. anybody in this world would love that place. This is the most photographed place in the world wheh!!!! and I have been to that place.

I am in Netherlands for 2 months training. Currently, I stay in Greenhills, Nijmegen. We took a taxi from Green hills to Nijmegen central and from Nijmegen we took a train to schiphol (Amsterdam airport). We got down at Schiphol and took another train to Leiden. Schiphol is an underground railway station and is a superb construction. I went up by elevator and found myself in the airport :-O . It is complete a/c railway station and the elevators, lifts etc were too good to see. We took another train from schiphol to Leiden. At Leiden we took combi tickets for Keukenhof for 20 Euros. Bus stop was just at the entrance of railway station. we took 54 bus number to reach keukenhof. It took 2 hours to reach Keukenhof from Nijmegen.

At the entrance itself I understood it is not a simple garden of flowers. There were hundreds of tourists from different countries were standing (with tripods, SLRs, digi cams)in queue at the entrance. We entered the garden and roamed around for some time. Tulips were grown in different colors and different combinations. Overall, the park was gorgeous. Few guys were showing those flowers to their partners and kissing them / hugging them. I missed my wife really. Hmm.. it is tough to stop our emotions after seeing the beutiful tulips ;) . Tulips were in different colors and different shapes. I couldn't count the number of types of tulips that they have grown in the garden, but they are grown in hundreds of types of tulips. All other flowers and plantation was a brilliant scenary to watch.
Half heartedly enjoyed watching the garden as I missed my wife very much. So it is not a place to go to without your Girl friend or wife (or with an SLR if you are a serious photographer).

"Yes" "No" "May be"

2009-04-12T22:37:00.007+05:30

I never realized that cutting down a choice "May be" from our lives would be of great difficulty.
Though I used it rarely, I have used it make few things complicated. I have realized that it is easy to balance life between two choices to make "Yes" and "No" rather than complicating it to "Yes" "No" "May be".

Hence I decided to cut down "May be".

It is difficult to answer just "Yes" or "No" but proving to be good for me reducing strain on my brain.

Using words like "May be" "I will try" just makes u lose credibility.

Those who use these politically correct answers think that it is necessary to use these answers to not to hurt others. In fact these answers hurt in the long run.

These are going to be three toughest situations for this test. Lets see how I do it next time.

When someone asks me if I am attending their invitation call
When someone asks me to lend something.
When someone expects a favor.

Last day at BoA

2009-03-20T15:07:00.004+05:30

Today is my last day in office.. hmm.. well I am confused this time.
When I was leaving Effigent.. I ended up in tears. last week at Effigent was not that easy for me.

I was almost ended up in tears again at Google.

Hmm last day is not that easy.. We work our heart out, the company and work becomes part of our life, we make good friends, we dream of a great career and suddenly one day u would decide to leave.

To leave, reasons could be many but why do we not find one single reason to stay back?

Let me tell you that the managers here are very good because they have made some really tempting offers ;)

If I had interest in any of those I would have stayed back definitely.

So.. what am I confused about???
"Oh!! Man.. I am confused". :-/

Ramakrishna Matt

2009-03-17T00:16:00.001+05:30

Thanks to Ramakrishna Matt for what it has given me 10 years back.

I would not have grown as a right individual without going Ramakrishna Math.

Though it was short duration at Matt, I got a chance to go through Vivekananda's speeches and literature about Swami Vivekananda and Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Yoga and English which changed my perspective of life.

It is bliss all the way on the path they have shown us.

Here are few wonderful quotes of Swami Vivekananda:
http://www.vivekananda.org/quotes.aspx

Experience

2009-03-16T23:50:00.001+05:30

"Sometimes few lines just go directly into the deep senses of our memory and stay for life time".

I was talking to one of my former colleagues, he said that "If u can succeed then that is good but if you fail that is better because u get experience. After all, failures are what called as experience".

I heard it 100 times, it never had the impact like this time.

I think, it is because of the experience that I have now. This reminds me of Swami Vivekananda's quote "Knowledge can only be got in one way, the way of experience; there is no other way to know."

Life was never easy for me but every trouble pushed me for better things in life.

Only question left unanswered is "Am I learning over my experiences???".

Phishing??

2009-03-04T12:45:00.000+05:30

Those who do not know what is phishing..
Please google it.

Those who already know.. be careful.

Few tips:
1. Never open any link from email, copy paste the URL in a new browser window.
2. Never ever try to reset or login from directly from the links in email or chat.
Always do that by going to the website in a new window.
--------
3. Open the source of that email and verify if the URL is from the correct domain.
For ex: if you want to login to axis bank account, verify if the domain is http://axisbank.com/xx
4. Check if the website is providing secured access through https.. otherwise prefer to stay away.

How to report phishing:
Many websites track the phishing websites.
Report to one of those.
Refer to http://www.us-cert.gov/nav/report_phishing.html

Slumdog millionaire

2009-01-26T14:25:00.000+05:30

As a loyal user of imdb, i was aware of Slumdog movie before it was released.
I checked the movie info as Rehman donned the cap of music director.

I was thrilled with the first review about the film on imdb.
One American wrote the review after watching it in some film festival.
He strongly said that it is going to win oscar.

I saw it on DVD and I loved the movie. It was a typical indian movie.
kids stole the show. They were awsome, direction and other technical depts stand out as the best.

Specially the scene where kids fall from the train and roll over .. and surprise .. they are grown up now. :)

Many of our movies have shown it till now. Still Danny's style stands on top.

Two brothers from the slum take different routes in life. One - Love and another one Violence and Climax is obvious.

No wonder, it was criticized heavily by many of Indian Film makers.
They say that foreigners exposed the dark side of India.

So what? It is dark. Director sees it from his eyes and it looks like he has a good vision :)

When TV Channels or news papers expose the dark side.. its chasing a mystery.

If a foreigner does that it is a sin!! Wow.

I hope it does some good to Dharavi.

What I am sure is that.. if foreigners visit Mumbai, Dharavi would be the place they prefer to see.

Hope Govt do not see that as a selling point and I hope they do something good to the biggest slum in the world.

What happened after 15 days

2008-12-10T08:15:00.000+05:30

Nothing.. I couldn't stop myself doing stupid things again and again till she came back. :)

Indians (Foreigner perspective)

2008-10-05T21:27:00.001+05:30

I had a good chat with a lithuanion yesterday.
He wanted to discuss about god and spirituality with me.
Initially I was not interested but as he was religiously requesting for that, I said Yes.
He thinks that Indians are very religious and follow Hinduism religiously :)
Do I need to tell u my comment on that here ?? ;)

He had many misconceptions about us Indians. He thinks that here 90% are hindus , everyone does follow Yoga and we think that there is only one god. :)
Do we really think the same? Don't expect all to be godly men here.

Through out the discussion, I was really surprised about the great respect they have in their hearts for India.
What if he reads news about Orissa where christians are massacred by Hindus.
He dreams of a dream journey to India.
Friends, don't do that. This is a country where we have treated every one with respect and love who came here either to fight with us or to rule us.

What is happening here now?
How many religions are under pressure of being minorities? How many foreigners got killed or exploited?
Do we ever care about correcting the situation?

Overall, it was a good discussion. He reminded me what Indians are actually known for.

I love beatles

2008-09-30T23:01:00.001+05:30

I love many of the compositions of Beatles.
Probably, highest number of compositions that I like of any one particular band.
Beatles have occupied the biggest portion of my iPhone.
It is bliss listening to those songs.
I dream of performing those songs in front of a small crowd at least :)
Hope I will.. someday.

I donno who wrote these lines. I just love them.
From the song: close your eyes and i'll kiss you,

I'll pretend that i'm kissing
The lips i am missing

----
Though their lyrics are very simple, yet they spell magic on you with the words filled with lots of feel in it.
They expressed the best possible way of different emotions of a person who is in and out of love.

Beatles rule.

Quotes that I loved most

2008-09-20T22:50:00.002+05:30

"If you love someone you say it, You say it right then, out loud, Or the moment just passes you by."

" Whenever I cried she would always make me feel like she would change the world if she could so it couldn't hurt me anymore. But now I’m crying and she's not here."

"It hurts to breathe because every breath I take proves I can't live without you ."

" You don't die from a broken heart.. you only wish you did.

" Love has its ups and downs, its twists and turns. Love leaves you pain, teaches you until you learn and even if love takes so long, it always takes you to where you belong. "

" The ones that you love the most are usually the ones that hurt you the most "

" I guess when your heart gets broken, you begin to see the cracks in everything."

" Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go "

" When you said forever, you meant a few months. When I said forever, I meant every day until I died. When you said always, you meant until you couldn't handle it anymore. When I said always, I meant until time ended. When you said you loved me, you meant I was no different from any other girl. When I said I loved you, I meant I had never felt what I felt for you. ”

" I don't miss him, I miss who I thought he was "

Day 15

2008-09-16T22:00:00.000+05:30

Day 15:
Still going through lot of stress. I am not sure if it is called stress. I am finding it very difficult to be normal in her absence. I miss her badly. I wasn't ready for this. "Still I am finding it really difficult :( "
Why is this happening to me?

I am trying to make new friends, spend time with old pals and trying to get in touch with people whom I couldn't contact for long time.
am I just "TRYING" ???

Just want to try something new in life like music,dance or some sport.
My new company timings do not allow me to do any of those :(

Any suggestions what should I be doing in this time??

The situation would have been better if I had sticked to my previous company.
At least few people that I know very well would have given me the company I needed at this moment. How can I be so stupid to leave such a company. S*it this is really a terrible feeling now.

I hate myself to be in this kind of situation.
Being responsible for my situation, I can only curse myself.

Stupid chrome

2008-09-11T08:57:00.000+05:30

Hey, have u used chrome??
Only thing I liked about chrome is its screen space for browsing.
Now with chrome, my 19 inch monitor looks like a 21 inch monitor. :)
I liked the task manager using which I can kill the unresponsive window rather than killing the whole browser instance.

How can such a stupid installer be thrown on users? I am surprised.
Is it really from Google??
I have 3 users in my machine. If I run Chrome installer from one user, it downloads Chrome and installs it only for that user in it's documents and settings.
It doesn't show the size of download. What if it is greater than my download limit??
When a user is installing an application, he expects it to be available for all users.
How can Google forget this?

Now as I have 3 users, I have to run Installer from each of the users. What the heck?

Other thing that I didn't like about it is "Saving tabs on exit". ( Options ->Restore the pages that were open last )
If we select that option, when we quit Chrome, it will not prompt to save or not.

Check this out. Select the "Restore the pages that were open last" option.
Login to gmail. Quit Chrome. Who ever comes and open browser .. flash.. it will directly take them to our gmail page. How sick??

Does it have it's own proxy settings? NO. It uses the same proxy settings as of IE.
So, for QA people who use one or two proxies while testing can't use Chrome and IE simultaneously.

Apart from the first two positive factors in Chrome, I didn't see anything better than FireFox. I question Google, why should we use Chrome instead of Firefox??????

popup

2008-09-10T23:56:00.000+05:30

Suddenly there will be a popup window with the text "How is she?" in my mind.
As you know, without closing pop up alert we can't continue to work.
To close that popup, Either I call,IM or Email her.

Some times my managers try to put popup blockers by not allowing mobiles, emails or IMs during work hours. Infact, how would they know about the effect of popup which pops up in my mind?

Only way out at that time is to "Force Quit".

During my childhood, there used to be lot of popup windows in my mind.
Situation in the class room was some thing like "If I get some thought in my mind, that has to be cleared by the teacher so that he can proceed".

This is one bad thing in me which I couldn't identify as a problem.

If i get a popup in my mind about new iPod touch price, I can't do any other thing until I find out about that.

What if I get a popup about her and if I couldn't reach her on phone,IM or Email???
What if she says that she will call me at some time and she doesn't ???
SCARY... isn't it???

Dark side of me

2008-09-10T03:07:00.001+05:30

These days, I get to face the dark side of me.
The man on the dark side is ferocious, harsh and has no control over his temper

I had same problem few years back. It is back with more strength.
May be I need to do the same thing that I have done in the past to combat with it.
This is a daunting task for me.
Hope I get rid of this soon.

A happy family

2008-09-07T13:34:00.000+05:30

She used to tell a lot about a family who were her neighbors some time back.

One of them was a cute couple who instantly stole my heart with a very warm and heartfelt reception.
Most lovable couple. Truly made for each other.
They are a bundle of positive energy and that reflects in their kids too.
I bet, anyone will fall in love with that family.

I call them akka(Sister) and Anna(Brother) :)
I can't write about them in detail here as I like everything about them.
Guys, I am not exaggerating!! Young couples should be advised to meet them to know "The recipe to a happy family".

I hope what I ever have seen is true and is the same on the darker side.

Whenever I go there I try to maximize my stay there so that I can feel the happiness around them.

A precious gift

2008-09-07T00:40:00.000+05:30

I didn't get too many gifts so I remember each one of those very well.

She was going to her native that day. We went to lunch outside. She was wearing a nice blue dress. Around 5'O clock in the evening, she came to my desk and gave me a mini friendship bible and said that she is going to her home probably for some alliances.

It was of half inch size. Every line she wrote in that book touched my heart. I couldn't speak for few minutes. The real gift was not that book, that was "she". Most precious gift that I ever got in my life.

I remember what I said to her after that gift.
"No matter whom do I get married to, you will always stand as a first priority in my life.".

That is how she became my first priority and second too. :)

What is the fun without her

2008-09-06T23:43:00.000+05:30

Day 5.

My mobile is showing her number again and again.
Same orkut page is opening up in my browser.
I hear some one calling me again and again.
What is happening to me???

One day unintentionally, I had hurt her. She didn't answer any of my calls that night. A thought that she will be crying couldn't let me go to sleep. I slept around 4pm in the night. Got up early in the morning thinking of seeing her at least.

Started to the company very early. To my despair, She wasn't there at her desk. My heart was beating faster. I was anxious to know how is she. Weird feeling. Did I hurt her so badly that she couldn't sleep?? Called her from the company phone. She answered that call. She said that she wasn't feeling well and will be little late to the company. A nice breeze flew over my face.

How the time has changed people.

There was not a day which we didn't speak to each other.
There is no frame in my life which she is missing.

Coffe, movie, chat, cards, temples, parks, happiness, sorrows, celebrations, arguments .. For all If I am at one end, at the other end she was always there for me. If there is no she .. no ME.
I wanted to go trekking or to visit places like Goa to overcome this unbearable feeling. But I have reserved myself to see those places with along her. In fact what is fun in life without her.

I wish I had been a cockroach

2008-09-06T01:23:00.000+05:30

I have changed variety of jobs in variety of fields.
I never get satisfied with one company. When I was completely satisfied with my life, then I had to join a different company. Now I compare every company that join with the best company that I have worked for.

Now I have too many complaints over my company.
Cockroaches never complains about its environment. It is happy to stay wherever it is.

I just need that attitude in my life now.
I am tired of finding a perfect company which meets all my social demands.
Time to become a cockroach I guess.
What do you say?

Am I losing something?

2008-09-06T01:09:00.000+05:30

My brain ran out of fuel. I know one thing which charges it but it is far from my reach now. What shall I do?

I pity those people who think that I am listening to them when they are talking to me.
Sorry guys, The line you are trying to reach is busy.

am I on Pluto searching for water.

Am I losing something?

May be this is hell

2008-09-05T21:53:00.000+05:30

I logged into my gmail and checked the label I have created for her mails. It was just to my disappointment.
Something is trying to come out of my eyes. Do you call it tears?

No mails from her. She is not sharing anything with me now. fu** same itchy feeling inside my eyes.

I haven't answered any of her phone calls yesterday. Why? I don't know.
May be because she is not finding time to share her experiences.
May be because, I want to see what she is looking at. May be because I wanted to feel her every emotion.. excitement,happiness,missing me.. Every emotion. I want to be there with her at this moment.
Do you understand what I am talking about.

Am I talking the truth? I don't know. I really don't know :(

I looked at my cell a million times. When it rings, my heart beat goes up but I do not want to answer her call. Wait a sec, She didn't call me at all today and it is making me go mad.

One day I said to her "I will die hundred times to spend one intimate moment with you".
Now I die every moment to be with her.
May be this is hell. Please come back :(

Think well before doing something

2008-09-04T23:59:00.000+05:30

Sometimes, it is good to be alone.
It gives me a chance to think for long hours to realize what I am doing now.
Many a times I get busy and when I look back after sometime, I became something else.
A dedicated evening for myself always does the magic by recollecting all the unanswered questions in my mind. That means time for a brainstorming session with myself .
95% of the times i got positive results.

So, Like all, I suggest u to think for long time before taking an important decision.
What if I have to decide immediately, If there is any doubt in any corner of your mind, don't do that, do the other thing.

Bottom line is : If you can dedicate time for yourself, there is a less chance of failure.