Walk of Life...

Bye Bye Blogspot

2007-03-27T13:02:00.000-07:00

I'm moving 2 of my blogs (my personal one and my tech one) to wordpress... Bye Bye Blogspot

But my musical blog and my crazy one will still remain here...
The new ones are at...

My personal blog - http://walkoflife.wordpress.com/
My Tech blog - http://raghuonflex.wordpress.com/

Another great news... I've registered my own domain... You can get to all my sites now at

http://www.raghunathrao.com/

Its an Ant eat Worm world...

2007-03-27T01:47:00.000-07:00

Saw this outside my door today... An struggling to chomp into the larva of some insect. Probably knowing well that if it doesn't strike now, in a couple of weeks, the hunter can become the hunted. The struggle for survival in this jungle called life !

Thankfully man has circumvented most of these problems using technology, but who will save him(or her) from the clutches of the rotten apples from his own kind. What i learned from the above situation is that,

Conquer your fear before it conquers you...

Its either an ant eat worm world or the bug (born from the worm) eat ant world...

LIfe...

2007-03-22T02:04:00.000-07:00

We got Oranges for lunch today...
Some chose to eat them, some like me chose to ignore them

And some ended up as below.

The fruit(s) of Life...

I saw this while walking past a cube near mine...

17th March, 2007

2007-03-20T04:42:00.000-07:00

A really awesome day for me it was, right from the word go...

At 2 in the morn, my buddies from Delhi arrived for the greatest rockshow in the history of India. The "Edd Fest". Joy and Arjun were looking forward to it as much as i was. We couldnt sleep with the excitement brimming in us and finally got ourselves to bed by 4 am.

Woke up at 9, time to feshen up and GET MY NEW BIKE !!!. Yep, i bought a new Honda Unicorn and this was the day when i would lay my hands on it :) Joy and Arjun tagged along and after a "self-pooja" (the pundit was missing in the temple, so 3 of us brahmins ourselves, decided to do it). Thanks Joy for the pics.

Honda Unicorn

The Man, The (NEW) Machine

Then off we went to "Purple Haze" where the guys had some Beer and got into the mood for the concert. With Ragul, off we went to palace grounds by 4.

The Concert - Oh... it was an experience for a lifetime. I couldnt believe that it was Iron Maiden who were playing in front of me. People headbanged to their life's worth in a 5 hour extraveganza that featured Parikrama & 2 non descript bands along with the Rock Idols.

The Venue

Parikrama on Stage

Sadly when Maiden came on stage, my camera battery ran out :(
So here's a flickr photostream i found...

Oh boy.. What a Day.

SEE YA ALL AT THE EDD FEST!!!

2007-03-07T01:17:00.000-08:00

I have been meaning to post this for a while... I finally got my tickets for the Iron Maiden Concert in Bangalore on March 17th. I was never a Hard Rocker or a Metal Head, but Manipal exposed me to a bizzare array of music that i love it all now (except Girl POP, i hate that).

Iron Maiden are the Gods of Hard Rock, the greatest heavy metal /hard rock band that there is. And they are gonna be in town and I'M GONNA BE PART OF IT !!!!

My Ticket - I'm Defenitely Going

A lot of people has asked me where to get the tickets. Tickets are available at all PlanetM stores in Bangalore (I dont know how many are there). I bought mine from Marathahalli (near Brand Factory), I know tickets are running out fast at PlanetM Brigade Road. Dont beilieve if people say tickets are sold out, but rush, coz its gonna happen soon. Tickets are in 2 types, Rs.900 and Rs.1500.

SEE YA ALL AT THE EDD FEST!!!

oxyMORON

2007-03-05T02:16:00.000-08:00

We just went for a team lunch to Umerkot in Komangala for a farewell party for Manish. Coming out, Swaroop spotted this poster stuck on the wall. One of the best oxymorons i have seen in recent times.

This should go on http://www.thisisbroken.com/

Afterthought: Now is it an OxyMoron?? Or is this a mass conspiracy by the police to guide the citizens into ruin... hmmm!!!

For all those who are obsessed with Vaastu & Feng Shui

2007-03-04T22:54:00.000-08:00

A wonderful cartoon on a calender. It made me laugh and think too. Hope you enjoy it. For all those who do not know what Vaastu or feng Shui is... click the following links...

Business101 - for Software Geeks

2007-03-02T01:27:00.000-08:00

I was at the Web2.0 conference in Bangalore and overheard a "uber-Geek" declaring... "This technology is awesomely cool... I dont care if it can do any good to business". I have been thinking about it for a while now. A thought hit me while i was driving today...

I have seen Geeks who consider technology as the "Be All and End All of Life". Technology is great, but only if it serves a purpose, which most often is business driven. But these geeks have a hard time digesting the whole concept of "Business". So here's my Business101 for Software Geeks, in their own language...

Business is the Framework
Technology the API... and
Management the Rendering Engine

Just a personal view... I know a lot of people will disagree and might think i'm too young to put forth these. But here's how I see it...

Business is the Framework within which all Technology and Management has to function. Any change in the framework will need considerable changes (possibly) in the API and also in the way it is rendered. Its the king which rules all and binds it all together.

Technology is the API... Without him the framework is redundant.

Management is the Rendering, putting into perspective what the APIs hav defined and the way it is used. It is the one that helps in finding the flaw in the flow. A kind of a high level QA infrastructure.

But just as in the Software Realm, They are all inter-dependent. Advancement in one forces the others to change. Innovation is possible at all the 3 levels, essentially taking the Business to greater heights of achievement.

I really want to hear what you think about this :)

NAS - I know I can

2007-02-19T22:16:00.000-08:00

I HATE RAP & RAPPERS !!!
I always thought them as guys showing off that being a crackpot is cool! Till date, i have rarely come across any abberations to the above statement (there's Youth of the Nation by POD and Happy Birthday by Flipsyde, but you cant call them rappers in the true sense)

But i think i finally found a sensible rapper in NAS (Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones)... I found this very inspirational song called "I know I can"... Listen to it and check out the lyrics here.

Ignore the lady in the beginning
(if you want)

I came about this, when a friend of mine sent me a video of Ronaldinho's Sis (allegedly :D). This was the background score. Great Talent.

Valentine's Day Pains

2007-02-13T19:41:00.000-08:00

I'm single, so I couldnt help laughing :)

Johnny's Dosa Corner

2007-02-12T01:39:00.000-08:00

Today, though we have a holiday, owing to the Kaveri Tribunal Verdict. So today, all over Bangalore, all shops are closed. So the Onus was on us to cook.

That's when our Little Johnny took over and "Johnny's Dosa Corner" was born. Our very own Jonny was making tasty Dosa's for all of us.

"Johnny's Dosa Corner"

We invented a new stuff. Like "Domino's Cheese Burst Pizza", we had "Chutney Burst Dosa", courtesy Johnny & Kailas.

The Man (Mr. K, Johnny's Right Hand)

The Dosa

The Treat

Hey You(th), Create - We at Adobe are behind you!

2007-02-08T21:11:00.000-08:00

I got a surprise packet at my desk today... A bag tagged "Adobe Youth Voices". With some wonderful gifts inside...

Adobe Youth Voices is a global philanthropic initiative that empowers youth in underserved communities worldwide to comment on their world using Adobe's multimedia and digital tools to communicate and share their ideas, demonstrate their potential, and take action in their communities.

Adobe Youth Voices shows the power technology brings to learning and enabling youth to think creatively, communicate effectively, and work collaboratively — critical 21st century skills.

Read more here...

I'm really looking forward to doing my bit in this :)

The J Factor

2007-02-08T21:07:00.000-08:00

It seems that J's my favourite letter when it comes to music...

John Denver
John Mayer
James Blunt
Joe Satriani
Jones Norah (yeah i cheated on that)
James Hetfield,Jason Newsted (of Metallica)

The list can go on....

Can God open source relationships??

2007-02-06T01:23:00.000-08:00

An interesting conversation i picked up in the corridors...
Someone trying to find a parallel between Marriage & Software...
Here are some terms that came up.

Proprietary Licensing
Trial Period
Version Control
Freeware
Shareware

I couldnt help but laugh with them. But just a thought...

Can God open source relationships??
Or atleast provide Tech Support !!

P.S. No disrespect ment to anyone... sorry if you were offended

हम िहन्दूस्तानी

2007-02-01T22:04:00.000-08:00

One of my favourite Tee's...

We Indians..

I always think... What do you mean by loving your country? Is it ?

Sporting Tees like the one above (hmmm???)
Saying a million times that "We are the Best !!!" (like a horse with its eyes blinded)
Cheering your country along (see the way we treat our cricket team)
Hating everything that's not Indian (hypocrites !!!)
Saying "I wont go outside India" (no comments... personal preference)
or... Just a Longing !

The Cruel Dilemma

2007-01-30T05:07:00.000-08:00

The "India Poised" Campaign i wrote about some days back reflected the rising India. The India of the Future. I was at home last week and a news paper phot0 like this strongly reminded me that we still got to tackle a lot of evils before we get to the Golden Age.

A mother struggling between her want to provide Maternal Love and her need to fill and her's and her child's stomach. The poor Indian. A stark contrast to the Mittals, Tata's, Ambani's, The Infys, Wipro's & Satyam's of the Neo India.

The title says "മണ്ണിന്േട താരാട്" meaning - "The Earthen Lullaby"

iJigg :D

2007-01-21T21:31:00.000-08:00

I always have had problems with posting the songs that i have tried to sing. I always longed for a solution as simple as youTube for video. Finally i found one on an RIAPedia blog post. Its called iJigg.com. Thanks to iJigg, i can continue my musical escapades. I just uploaded some of the songs that i gauge are the best. I would like to jigg on iJigg :)

Tears in Heaven by Eric Claption

Imagine by John Lennon

When You Say Nothing At All by Ronan Keating

If you like what you hear... Jigg Me!, by clicking the Jigged button the player :D

Who colors there house like this?

2007-01-20T22:44:00.000-08:00

I was walking down Madiwala road yester and I saw a new house painted like this. I wonder what was going thru his mind while choosing the colors... or was it the only ones left in the shop... Anyway, here it is.

What the Heck !!

Matrix Ping Pong

2007-01-17T21:02:00.000-08:00

I had seen this a long time back... Glad to see this on youtube...
Amazing. All done by hands, no effects. I'm sure you'll love it

I Wonder.. !

2007-01-16T22:05:00.000-08:00

I Wonder...! If this cartoon in today's TOI is like a prophecy...
[or prophesy - I'm never really sure when to use what :) ]

Baba Dubya

FLEX Card Layout

2007-01-15T10:13:00.000-08:00

I did an implementation of the Card Layout, somewhat like i always wanted it to look, right from the Java AWT days. It looks like a stack of cards and can animate between views. This is just the first draft. I want to finally write it as a reusable FLEX Container.

Check it out here...

Loneliness

2007-01-13T09:30:00.000-08:00

Loneliness is actually a way of loaning time for yourself.
A chance to go in retrospect and introspect about the person that is you. Your priorities, your passions, your possesions & your life itself...

Just a thought that came to me as i was wandering alone today :)

तन्हा सफ़र, the Walk of Life continues

2007-01-10T23:26:00.000-08:00

तन्हा दिल, तन्हा सफ़र,
ढूँडे तुझे, फ़ीर क्यू नज़र...

(Lonely Heart, Lonely Road,
But why does my heart still search for you)

The above words from a hit Indian pop song by Shaan kinda defines my state now. With the whole crowd around me, i still feel lonely, alone (but not sad mind you). People have become busy and distracted and so has me. So slim chance I'll find one.

For now new horizons beckon and I've to explore them alone. Here I come road! (Hope to find someone enroute). Walk of Life continues...

self.life = rand()

2007-01-10T00:20:00.000-08:00

I just finished my lunch at the office cafeteria. I was on the way back to my cube when i glanced (just to confirm.. not a voyeuric gesture) at a colleage's cube only to see his Laptop locked but a text hovering as a screensaver.

Randomness

The "Walk of Life" is always uncertain. You may chalk your path, but detours are always a FOL (Fact Of Life). How much ever you might plan to make your life toe a line, it always has a certain degree of uncertanity. And I personally believe this is what makes life exciting. This incident was one "geeky" reminder of that fact.

Addendum: My camera phone does not have an image stabilizer (a mere K750i), so the picture quality may not be great :)

India Poised

2007-01-04T21:30:00.000-08:00

Yes.. It is our time now. India had long risen like a phoenix from the ashes of the "British Empire", only to be bound by the shackles of poverty, religious rage and corruption. But our time of recokning is at hand. We are rising in the minds of the international community, from a under-developed nation of babas, elephants & snake charmers to a developing nation, trying to break free, to one of the world leaders in economic development.

The west is looking at us in awe about the leaps and bounds that we have taken in the last 2 decades. First with the financial & industrial sectors, to Information Technology & Enabled Services domain, to telecom. India is defenitely poised to fly high...

INDIA POISED is a campaign launched by TOI (Times Of India) to celebrate India's christening of 2007 as the 'Year of India'. Sweeping aside the euphoria and headiness surrounding Brand India, it takes a look at what we have done right & wrong and how we should move forward. Do log onto http://www.indiapoised.com and sign in to receive your very own India Poised Badge. Here's mine (sadly their picture upload didnt work properly and i had to settle for this)

Here's TOI's inspirational video with Mr.Big B as the face of the New India.

I'm NOT Loving It !

2006-12-11T01:05:00.000-08:00

I was happily strolling down Brigade road on Sunday afternoon and what do i see !@#$%

MacD telling me that I was happy to be on Brigade road. How dare they!! Its absolutely under my control if I want to be happy, moody, sad or plain damn whiny on Brigade.. How dare they... !@#$%^&*

But then the reality struck me... MacD was happy to be on Brigade and was not dictating terms to me. MacD was happy to be on Brigade and wanted to share the happiness with all of us. For a moment, it felt like they were spreading the Christmas cheer ( I wouldnt have been surprised to see Mr. Ronald McDonald, the mascot dressed up as Santa).

Then i realized this was "Subtle Marketing"... Not really asking you to come to McD, but inturn putting the idea strongly in your mind that If you need to partake of their pie of happiness, DO DROP IN...

Sometimes it hurts me to see the mob manipulated this way, but on second thoughts, they deserve it, running behind designer brands and being slaves of consumerism.... I'm defenitely NOT loving it !!!

Afterthought - KUDOS to the guy who came up with the idea... Deserves an applause !!!

The Bengaluru Helmet Rule

2006-12-09T23:14:00.000-08:00

I was driving home the other night from office and saw the Bengaluru way of beating the "Helmet Rule"...

Pillion need not wear a helmet

The helmet rule in Bangalore states that the pillion does not need to wear a helmet, while the driver does. Thus guy seems to think that "pillion" refers to those who sit behind the first chap on a bike. So here, the driver becomes a pillion and doesnt need to wear a helmet... Hola !!!

FLEXing my Muscles with FLEX -i-FRAME

2006-12-07T05:56:00.000-08:00

Hi All... I decided to start a tech-blog of my own. Inspired by Manish, Abdul , Anjali among others. Its will reflect my tryst with this bleeding edge technology called Rich Internet Applications

You can get the blog at http://raghunathraoflexing.blogspot.com/

After porting my earlier posts about FLEX and Flash onto my new blog, my first post is about FLEX-i-Frame. Its a way to con people into believing that you have embeded HTML/PDF content into a FLEX App. Check out FLEX-i-Frame here...

A Day to Remember

2006-12-06T04:26:00.000-08:00

Its been 5 days since I turned 23, but I have been so busy partying I didnt get time to write about it :D

Its been 23 years since i graced (or grazed or burdened.. however you wanna see it) this earth. This birthday was really special to me (apart from the fact that i turn 23 which happens to be my favourite number, along with 45... which is a long way off. BTW Brownie points to those who guess the connection). I had the best birthday bash EVER in the last 22 years.

It all started Nov 30th night, when my roomies couldnt wait to kick the S**t out of me. I was never given too many bumps in college or school (thanks to my weight, which made it impobable for people to hold me up for long). But now we had our very dear 'gentle giant' of a neighbour Mr. Vinay, to elevate me to the atrocities waiting for me. The clock struck 12....

And it started... I have no words to describe it. See it for your self.

OUCH!!!

Sunny kicked me so hard that i got a cut down my back (dude it still hurts). Then it was time to cut the cake. A really awesome one i should say. They must have selected it, owing to the fact that it had lots of cream that could be smeared on me. Once again, I find myself at a loss of words. See it for your self.

The Cake

The Ritual

So nice of Nisha and Nitya to join us in the cake cutting/smearing cermony. Nisha 'gracefully' agreed to streak my hair with cake. I was transformed from ME -> Snowman -> Punk -> Ghost. Scary Stuff !!!

ME -> Snowman -> Punk -> Ghost

Then came office... It was so quiet after the blast at night and the fact that I had training from 9-5 started to droop my mood. The fact that not many people wished me, didnt help my cause. I came out of the meeting and Lauren comes to me saying that there was an A+ priority bug in the feature i was responsible for and that the senior management wants to see me about it.

As i entered our Senior Engg. Manager Anant's cabin, i saw they were quite cross, with Anant literally shouting at me. I got a shock but stood there non-chalantly, trying to guess what the problem was. Then Anant says "We need to rethink on what we should do about you" and I was like. "Am I gonna get fired on my BDay... ~!@#$".

Then Anant said, "We know what to do with you. We have decided that............

"You will Cut a Cake"

WOW.... That was a Scary... but, boy was I surprised. The whole team walked in wishing me a happy birthday and i was made to cut not one, but 2 cakes. Wow I really have a SWEET team and literally.

The Office Cakes

Me with cake smeared on me (again)
with Jyoti looking on

I would go to the extend of saying that this has been the best Birthday celebration of my Life...

try.flex.org

2006-11-26T23:31:00.000-08:00

This looks awesome... A Flex Online Compiler where you can type your code and compile it online and see the results along with it.. Ideal for beginners to start off with Flex. Check it out

http://try.flex.org/

The Flex Online Compiler is powered by Flex, ColdFusion, and Spry

Adobe Developer Olympiad (Win Rs. 50,000)

2006-11-26T22:10:00.001-08:00

Adobe India on Friday, announced the Adobe Developer Olympiad. Adobe made its grand entry onto the programming world, with the acqusition of Macromedia... Adding Flash & ColdFusion to its kitty. Now with FLEX2.0 out in the open, Adobe has enough push to reach out to developers and its doing exactly that.

First came the Adobe Developer Derby, which saw some awesome applications being churned out. Check the results and the winning applications here. Then there was an Aussy equivalent of the Derby, which went well too.

So now we have decided to focus on one of the (probably THE) largest developer bases in the world. INDIA !! Our philosophy to start from the grass root level has spun this idea of Adobe Developer Olympiad for Students. The key highlights for the same

Any student pursuing a degree in any stream as a full time student of a recognized university in India is eligible to participate in the contest.
Submissions can be in 3 categories: Engineering (components), Applications, and ColdFusion integration.
Each category has a prize of Rs. 50,000
You can participate individually or as a team of upto 5 members

Check out these following links to start off....

Adobe Developer Olympiad Page
Adobe India Students Group
Flex.org: Your one-stop Flex portal
Flex Quick Starts: Lessons to get you up and running quickly
Flex Developer Center: Whitepapers, lessons, examples, and more
Flex Component Explorer: Lots of Flex examples for you to try

More updates will follow... Any queries, mail to the Developer Olympiad Mailing list (ado@adobe .com)

Phase 2 - Tune It :)

2006-11-22T19:33:00.000-08:00

I hope you remember the song that i had written when i was sick at home... Coming back to Bangalore... i gave it a tune.

Here's Phantoms of My Past

Comments greatly appreciated. I'm into testing new waters now :)

Phase 3 - Chords and Accompaniment ;)

Full Screen Flash !!!

2006-11-21T22:21:00.000-08:00

I knew about this from some time... that we had introduced a full screen support with the new Flash Player (get it). But i never realized until i saw this on Abdul's blog that it was being used so tastefully to improve the user experience on the web.

BrightCove.com has come out with a new video player with full screen support. Check it out.. its awesome.

What it has also done is that peole have started rolling out video channels online... like the TasteTV.com (which uses brightcove's player) and Sony's MusicBox. See this John Mayer Channel by musicbox. The online video revolution is just starting.

Here's another blogpost by Manish on the same.

And do checkout this awesome Panorama Viewer

Lachu the "Singer", Me the "Guitarist"

2006-11-15T22:28:00.000-08:00

I had taken my guitar home... both to show it to my parents and also to practice. My sis Lekshmi (I call her Lachu), ever curious about musical instruments wanted to try it. But she soon found that it was much difficult compared to the piano which she plays. So after a "Twinkle Twinkle" and "Happy Birthday", she decided that she would stick to the piano.

But she was quite intrigued by the tune and spice that a guitar brings to a song. So we jammed ! Here's one of her favourites. "Papa Kehte Hain" from the movie Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak. I never knew she sang so well...

Lachu & Me, jamming on Papa Kehte Hain

A Whole new Ground

2006-11-14T10:40:00.000-08:00

The whole time I have been here, I have been trying to hone my guitar skills. But since I have been bedridden, even that’s become painful. So I decided to resort to something I have never much tried before, “Songwriting”.

Here’s something I wrote. I will try to tune it into a song later. It’s called the “Phantoms of my Past”. It kinda came from a realization that dawned on me that the romantic, that passionate fervor in me is dying as my priorities change towards making more money and fame.

PHANTOMS OF MY PAST

As I walk down the lonely road,
Thinking of my whole life
I came upon the phantoms,
The phantoms of my past

They took me back to the days I dreamed
Of mountains, rivers and sunshine,
Of knights in shiny armor,
Of honor, bold and brave.
Of castles, moats and dragons,
And kings on royal thrones.

Gazing the sky on a starry night
Thinking of the whole wide world
I came upon the phantoms,
The phantoms of my past

Of the lonely girl with long black hair,
Who waited for me by the brook.
Those dark blue eyes that made me sigh
Those long black curls undone
Those angel arms where I found out
My heart, my soul, my love.

As I awoke from that mystery trance
I began to wonder why
Why I never dream these days
Why I never dream.

My life, now revolves around
Money, fame and clout
Those long forgotten dreams are now
Phantoms of my past
That passion deep in me is too
A phantom of my past.

I'M BACK !!

2006-11-14T10:30:00.000-08:00

It’s been a long long time… I can vicariously argue that my work kept me from it or like the “Leaning Tower of Pisa” my inclination was visibly reduced. Anyway, as our (not really mine but still) very own (RE-elected) Arnie “Mayor” says… “I’M BACK”

I’m back home… in Trivandrum. I came for a week vacation to relax and bask in the glory of parental love, which I got. But I kinda got more than what I had bargained for. Some vile, vilified, wanton virus found its way into my physiological self. I got what the doctors “loosely” describe as viral fever.

Viral Fever, until a couple of years meant, you rest, take a lot of fluids and sleep and you'll be fine. Not anymore. With deadly variants like Dengue and Chikungunya making its rounds, I was more than worried. The doc still haven’t told me what it is, but complete bed rest for a week.

As I write this (it’s a pain with the ‘w’ key not working on my keyboard, thanks to Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V, the voodoo language for copy and paste) I’m slowly moving out of the ordeal that I have lived through the past couple of days. Hope to be my best in the days to come :D

Me & Dicoo, Knocking on Heaven's Door

2006-10-18T08:20:00.000-07:00

Me Singing with Renjith aka Dicoo on the guitar...

Crocodile Tears

2006-09-15T00:03:00.000-07:00

A forlorn goodbye to our very dear Steve...

Stephen Robert Irwin (22 February 1962 – 4 September 2006), nicknamed "The Crocodile Hunter", was an Australian conservationist and television personality. He achieved world-wide fame, from the television program The Crocodile Hunter, an internationally-broadcast wildlife documentary series co-hosted with his wife Terri Irwin. Together with his wife, he also co-owned and operated Australia Zoo in Beerwah, Queensland originally founded by his parents.

Irwin was snorkeling at Batt Reef when he was killed by a stingray barb that pierced his chest. Irwin was in the area to film pieces for a show called "The Ocean's Deadliest". But weather had prevented the crew from doing work for that program, so Irwin decided to do some softer features for a new children's TV show he was doing with his daughter, Bindi.

As the world mourns for him, I came across some cartoons that depicted what his death meant for animals, especially crocodiles.

Repenting Ray

Crocodile Tears

Crocodiles in Heaven
(The best of the Lot, very Steve)

May his soul Rest in Peace (R.I.P)...

Hogennekal... The Experience

2006-08-17T23:08:00.000-07:00

So we finally reached Hogennekal… and at express speeds at that. But the sight there was very different from what we expected. It seemed that the whole of Bangalore had descended there for the holiday… just like us.

A guy on a cycle came and started enquiring if we were interested in a rowboat ride and oil massage… His name was Krishnamurthy and we took him in as our guide/paddler. After much search (and a scare… we saw the police puncturing the tyres of those who parked vehicles in a no parking zone), we finally found a place to park the car and started making our way to the river bed…

Mr. KrishnaMurthy

What struck us first was the fact that there was too much water in there… I was a bit scared to go in… but our guide Mr.Krishnamurthy assured us that the part we will be going to, the river is much calmer… Pity, they could have a started kayaking experience here…

First View of Hogennekal (Too Much Water)

We all got on the round boat (made famous by a lot of south-indian movies) and he started paddling... It was too hot and too slow.. and we started getting bored.. The water near the waterfall was too turbulent for us to even get near it. We were kind of disappointed.

The Paddling Begins

Main Falls
(Pity, it was too turbulent, otherwise you usually go right next to it)

Seeing that we were bored, murthy asked if we wanted to take a spin, not realizing what he ment (he ment it literally as we found out later), we said yes... And this is what happened...

A Literal Merry Go Round

Then Krishnamurthy stopped at an island… the others proceeded to have a tasty lunch of fish & idly, when I (being a weird guy who doesn’t eat sea/river food), had to adjust with the guavas that I bought before we got onto sailing. Then we did a small walk to a place where we could see the falls and took some photos there. We were BORED !!!

Fried Fish... It was everywhere

Me & PRV (enroute the walk to the falls)

The Smaller Falls

Me, Joseph & Ragul a-top a rock overlooking the falls

Water, Water, Everywhere

We asked murthy to take us to a place where we can swim and have fun… So off we went, this time, to another island… But damn it was too crowded. Murthy scooted, only to come back later, to show us a sexy spot where we had a whole deserted wood to ourselves. There was a natural pool there, quite like a Jacuzzi and we had awesome fun there for almost an hour. The rocks were slippery & sharp. The water was very turbulent and all of us hurt ourselves in one way or another, brushing against stones and all. I had the worst cut, slipping onto a sharp rock that cut right under my leg.

We Found our Jacuzzi

Jump In... Its Awesome

Jospeha-Shayanam

Deep Cut :(

Once all this was done, we headed back to the shore, paid murthy and had a quite drive back to Bangalore (now racing, not against time, but against fuel… as the tank was running out fast). The trip, all in all was quite good, the most awesome parts being the drive and the Jacuzzi. We reached home back at 18:30.

Come on Guys, Lets Go!
(PRV, Raring to Go)

Off to Hogennekal... A Drive to Remember

2006-08-15T09:19:00.000-07:00

The Independence Day! The 59th for my dear nation… We decided to celebrate this with a trip to celebrate our personal independence. So we decided to start at 06:00 to reach a water paradise called “Hogennekal”, about 180 km from Bangalore.

Alarm rings, I wake up… only to see that the time is almost 07:00 and all my roommates are busy sleeping. We finally get going. As we pass Silk Board, we reset the trip meter and the time’s 09:00. So Me, Praveen aka PRV, Ragul & Joseph were out for a day of fun.

Da Gang

We hit Hosur road, usually cluttered with traffic moving at snail pace, but on this holiday, it’s as clear as a…?? Well it’s very clear :) And so the adventure starts.

The Clear Road

With our very own PRV (who we later christened “Shumy” for obvious reasons) on the wheel, we cruise at speeds in excess of 100 km/hr. Then the talk came up that he had touched a max speed of 140 on his lat trip, so we decided to better that…

Throwing caution to the winds, we sped forward, with all our eyes (except PRV’s of course) on the Speedometer. We touch 120..30..40..50 (Joseph’s camera goes “click” “click” incessantly). We hit 160 and that speed holds for quite a while, but even the slim traffic was enough to hinder us from moving forward. Then we hit a stretch, going downhill and also a clear road before us…

PRV hits the accelerator hard and 160..170 (click again)...171(click)… 175... click & bump. At that top speed, we hit a small hump on the road… and the whole pic goes for a spin… the photo at top speed is ruined… So here they both are. We later found out that our average speed for the last 50 mins was about 110km/hr.

Clicked at 171 km/hr

Click... Bump (175 km/hr)

We hit Krishnagiri, then head off toward Dharmapuri. We stop at a toll booth… and we were approached by a guard named “Rayappan”. He came in front of the car and started shouting looking at the car “Kappa Leema 0 1 Alpha Hotel 5 2 4 9”… and we were like “WHAT??”… It took sometime to register the fact that he was actually reading the license plate of our car (KL01AH5249). So much for the learned Rayappan :)

Mr. Rayappan

As we go forward, I get down at a place to ask directions… and my dear roomies just sped along… I was not amused… Thankfully for me (and for them), they stopped and we proceeded to Hogennakal. Then cruising along to Dharmapuri… we see green fields and lush background. We couldn’t help but stop and take some pics… it was fun. Then I lay on the road and took a pic (I always wanted to do that).

They Ditched Me :(

Lush Green Fields... enroute

The Multihanded Persona

On the road again...

On the way we saw a guy in a Black Santro, with 3 girls in it… The dude was trying to impress them by trying all kinds of antics on the car… He sped past us, accidentally awakening the Schumacher in PRV. Then it was a true F1 race (complete with a pit-stop at the toll booth), we zoomed past them… with PRV driving like a seasoned pro (though we thought he went mad). See a part of the zippy ride (PLEASE DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!!!)

The Zippy Ride...

We then stopped for a breather... only to find that we were going so fast, that a fly got stuck & killed on to the front grill of the car...

A Buggy Situation

THE MEAN MACHINE

We finally reached Hogennekal at around 12:00… The adventure continues

The Kola Konflict - The Other Side :)

2006-08-13T22:42:00.000-07:00

The Cola Conflict has now created space that can be duly filled with our own "Desi" versions... How about a refreshing drink of Coconut Water, Aaam Pana, Lassi... all bottled to your needs :)

But beware.. stuff like Coconut water, bottled and aged ,may give into fermentation and become "potent" alcoholic drinks (yeah... as good or better than beer) :))

What about colas?? Are they doomed... I say, they continue with their operations and alter their target audience... here's a piece i found on The Guardian... :)

Coca-Cola pesticide issue is bad news for us common folks, but good news for chilli and cotton farms who WANT to keep bugs off their crops? Farmers, instead of paying hefty fees to international chemical companies for patented pesticides, are reportedly spraying their chilli and cotton fields with Coca-Cola. Only last month, hundreds of farmers were turning to Coke in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Chattisgarh.

Gotu Laxmaiah, a farmer from Ramakrishnapuram in Andra Pradesh, said he was delighted with his new cola spray, which he applied this year to several hectares of cotton. "I observed that the pests began to die after the soft drink was sprayed on my cotton"... he also adds that the cola sprays are invaluable because they are safe to handle, do not need to be diluted and, mainly, are cheap.

One litre of highly concentrated Avant, Tracer and Nuvocron, three popular pesticides, costs around 10,000 rupees, but one-and-a-half litres of locally made Coca-Cola is 30 rupees. To spray an acre would be a mere 270 rupees. Thats called being economical :)

A leading Indian agriculture analyst, Devinder Sharma, said: "I think Coke has found its right use. Farmers have traditionally used sugary solutions to attract red ants to feed on insect larvae. I think the colas are also performing the same role."

The properties of Coke have been discussed for years. Other "prospective" uses include...

Lavatory Cleaner
Windscreen Wipe
Rust Spot Remover

Uncorroborated reports from China claimed that the ill-fated New Coke was widely used in China as a spermicide. And it is clearly not Coke's legendary "secret" ingredient that is upsetting the bugs. The farmers also swear by Pepsi, Thums Up, and other local soft drinks.

So there you go guys... this seems like an awsome proposal, citing the fact that prevalent form of employment in India relate to agricultural means...

The Kola Konflict - Lets Think

2006-08-13T22:11:00.000-07:00

Lets think a minute on this...

1. "Water Levels Are falling due to Cola Factories"
Very true... the cheapest option that is available for the colas is to draw the ground water from where the plant is located. Any other option??? Ask colas to find alternative sources?? (nah... they wont do it, it increases costs). I suggest that the factories should be loacted near placs where the water table is easily replenished ! E.g. Near the shore... They would have to add a de-Salination equipment in the plant... but on the brighter side we can have "Pepsi Salt" & "Coke Salt" in our disposal.

1. "Pesticides in Colas"
In this regard, i totally support the colas... whatever be the talk about equipments that can remove these pesticides, its just a bamboozling fact that "Our ground water is so polluted that we cannot drink it".

Ok today we ban colas, then what about people drinking the same water from borewells & hand pumps?? What about those "safe" fruits and vegetables that grow on the soil and water that are infested with these pesticides??

The Truth is, its we who are polluting our water, the Cola Conflict is just a repercussion of the giant tremor that is awaiting us.

The Kola Konflict - Round 2

2006-08-13T22:03:00.000-07:00

While all this was going on.... in August 2003, the Centre for Science and Environment said in New Delhi that "12 major cold drink brands sold in Delhi and around contain a deadly cocktail of pesticide residues,"

According to the tests conducted by the Pollution Monitoring Laboratory (PML) at CSE, all samples contained residues of four extremely toxic pesticides and insecticides: lindane, DDT, malathion and chlorpyrifos.

Debates got renewed, the mob flared, the politicians were quick to their feet against the colas...

The Left parties in Kerala, nurturing their wounds from the "Plachimada" revised verdict, now in power, struck back in retribution. They banned all colas in the state, upholding the interest of the people as their primary concern...

Round 2... Winner Mr. Achu mama, loser the KOLAS !!!

The Kola Konflict - Round 1

2006-08-13T21:22:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday... a "big" news caught my eye on the front page of the Times of India...
"KERALA CANS COKE, PEPSI...." (click and read the article)

The article was kind of glorifying the Kerala Chief Minister Mr. V.S.Achuthanandan for taking the bold step and banning the "harmful" drinks that include the prominent brands sold by the two companies, i.e. — Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Mirinda, Mountain Dew, Diet Pepsi, Pepsi Blue, Fanta, Limca, Sprite, Thums Up, and 7-up, citing the fact that they contain excess pesticides in them.

I personally found this very amusing and funny though the implications are too bulging to be ignored. As every other coin, this also has two sides to it...

1. It all started with the people of "Plachimada" (a small village in Kerala) raising a hue and cry over the fact that, since the Coca Cola factory was established there in 2000, the ground water levels have dropped dramatically causing a crisis for the aboriginal people who live in the surroundings. The agitation forced the locally elected government, the Permatty Panchayat, to not renew the license. In a resolution passed on 7Apr 2003, the Panchayat stated:

“As the excessive exploitation of ground water by the Coca Cola Company in Plachimada is causing acute drinking water scarcity in Perumatty Panchayat and nearby places, it is resolved in public interest not to renew the licence of the said company.”

The issue went to the Kerala High Court. Two issues were at stake.

1. The issue of democracy and the rights of the Panchayat.
2. The issue of excessive exploitation of water by Coca Cola.

According to the Panchayat, it is the ultimate authority to decide on the matters related to water resources. In a judgment given on December 16, 2003, a Division bench of the Kerala High Court, Hon. Justice Balakrishna Nair ruled that Coca Cola did not have unfettered rights to withdraw water. The judge ruled that “the extraction of ground water, even at the admitted amounts of the 2nd respondent is illegal. It has no legal right to extract this much of natural wealth.”

The plant was thus shut down under the combination of people’s action, the panchayat decisions, and the court decision.

However, on 7th April 2005, Hon’ble Justice K Ramachandran and Hon’ble Justice Balachandran of Kerala High Court, overruled the order of 16.12.03. They ruled:

“We have to assume that a person has the right to extract water from his property. Maintenance of traditional drinking water resources, could not have been envisaged as preventing an owner of a well from extracting water therefrom, as he wishes. The Panchayat had no ownership about such private water source in effect denying the proprietary rights of the occupier and the proposition of law laid down by the learned judge is too wide, for unqualified acceptance.”

End of Round 1....

Floating Display ?? WOW !

2006-08-07T01:25:00.000-07:00

I saw this on Manish's Blog... and it looked right out of a Sci-Fi Movie...
A projector that display's images/video, right in "thin air". This has been a fantasy of most techno-geeks from the time George Lucas lit the flame with a similar idea in "Star Wars". And now, its a reality... Brought to you by IO2Technology, from downtown SanFranciso, California. Its called a "Helios Display"..

In IO2's words...
"Heliodisplay images are not holographic although they are free-space, employing a rear projection system in which images are captured onto a nearly invisible plane of transformed air. What the viewer sees is floating mid-air image or video. These projected images and video are two-dimensional, (i.e. planar) but appear 3D since there is no physical depth reference. While conventional displays have the benefit of being attached to a physical substrate, Heliodisplay projections are suspended in air, so you will notice some waviness to the quality of the projections."

See it for yourself (afterall, seeing is believing)

Adobe Audition & My Return to Karaoke

2006-08-03T23:40:00.000-07:00

After a long break... i decided to get back to my karaoke experiments... Recorded 2 songs

1. Cocaine by Eric Clapton
Cocaine is a song written by Oklahoma singer-songwriter J.J. Cale, and most notably covered by Eric Clapton on his 1977 album Slowhand. Contrary to popular belief, “Cocaine” is an anti-drug song. Clapton commented, “…that’s an anti-drug-song. The fans only listen to the refrain: ‘She don’t lie, she don’t lie, cocaine.’ But it says, ‘If you wanna get down, down on the ground, cocaine.’ It explains how young people destroy themselves with drugs”

Song: Cocaine
Originally sung by: Eric Clapton
Album: Slowhand
Sung by: Raghu

2. Back To You by Bryan Adams
Bryan Adams has been a favourite of mine for along time, though i prefer "harder" songs now :)
Here's my first B.A. song...

Song: Back To You
Originally sung by: Bryan Adams
Album: The Best of Me
Sung by: Raghu

This karaoke excercise also allowed me to experiment with a new software "Adobe Audition" . I was using Cool Edit Pro until now, to do my recordings. But i came to know that Adobe had bought over that software and re-christiended it as Audition (adding a bunch of very cool features).

I'm an Electronics Engineer by degree... It was kinda cool to see those DSP concepts that i grudgingly studied (oh.. how i hated DSP) put to awsome use. "Back Tou You" was the first song where i tried audio processing. I did a "Click-Hiss Elimination" which i should say sounded promising.

One major problem for me, as a singer is that i cannot sing at the pitch that the original song has been sung by the artist (as i do not have the range to do that). This makes the song sound not as inviting as the original. But Audition has a solution for me... "Pitch Correction". You can manually alter the pitch of your voice (and pretty close to what would have been, me singing in that pitch) and add it to the master record...

Pitch Correction in Audition

"Back To You" was one song i sung half a key down, so i decided to try the pitch correction, and here is the result. I thought it was pretty cool.

"Back To You" - altered version
(powered by Adobe Audition)

Let me know how it sounds...

My Musical Musings

2006-07-31T22:17:00.000-07:00

Hi... I decided to start an audio blog for myself. I call it "My Musical Musings". I will post all my musical escapades there. Check it out....

My Videos on youTube are here on the Blog!

2006-07-09T23:52:00.000-07:00

My love with youTube continues.. I have just added the code to my template to show all my youTube Videos, here on my Blog. It shows up as a list in my side bar... do check it out!

youTube Search, powered by Flex

2006-07-08T04:55:00.000-07:00

So here it is, I have finally done it... a day of hard work, coupled with a couple of days of research :). I have the youTube search Tool, ready to go! You might have to de-activate the popUp blocker on your browser to see this application. I have made an alternate version for those who do not know how to do that. This application requires you to have FlashPlayer9. Download FlashPlayer 9 here and then Click on the links below.

Click here for youTube Search
(Click here for the alternate version)

This is the first public application that I am posting, so I'm really excited about it. It was an awsome experience building this application. The initial time was spent in the layout, look & feel of the app (which i think is still "too plain"). Then came the REST calls and parsing the incoming XML to suit my needs.

Then came a heart-breaker for me, which made me almost ditch my application. Due to some chaps ripping flvs (Flash Videos) off youTube (read it here), youTube had reworked their site inorder not to expose the flvs. So now i couldn't play them in my app... Directly.

But a programmer always finds workarounds to problems. Those who frequent youtube know that youtube provides a html code snippet, allowing you to embed it into your blog. In the code, there is a text like "tLuLE3jm1VU" is the only thing that varies across videos (and its called the video id). I had the video id of the videos i wanted, thanks to the youTube API. So i wrote a small PHP script to take the id as input and then generate the html page for my video.

I would then popUp this window as an html page (of a specified size) through JavaScript which was called inturn from my application using the Flash External Interface API. And hola... it worked... But my woes wouldnt end there. This workaround came at the cost of perfomance in my app and some of the thumbnails were not loading properly after the external interface call.

Then our very own Manish came to the rescue... Manish had written a youTube Featured video player back in March and had now reworked it to extract the flv out of the id again... Then things were all on a platter for me... I could now use Manish's code snippets, extract the flv file and play it in my own Video Display inside FLEX.

A bit of exceptional handling and try-catching :) and the application was ready to rock. So presenting to you....

If you find any bugs or issues, mail it to me at raghunath.rao at gmail dot com
Anyone wants to look at the code, you can find it here...

I'm Addicted to You Tube & its API

2006-07-08T03:32:00.000-07:00

You Tube is a fantastic site... It has captivated my imagination for sometime now, that I was glued to it. A novel idea of uploading videos and then making it freely "searchable" or blog-appendable for anyone. You can see a whole lot of You Tube videos in my Media Blog... But one thing about youtube I did not like was its searchability and the ease of use to find a video that you are looking for (by user, by tag...etc).

So, I have been wanting to write a search tool for youTube for a long time now. And then i chanced on the youTube API. Its a set of very simple REST (click here to know about REST) calls that would return me useful search info like search by tags, username... etc in a simple, ready to use XML Format!!

I could now use this data in my Flex Application & write a search tool... So I was well on my way to write a youTube Search tool... That in the next post..

Before i sign off, here's a video I found on youTube that defines my state of affairs with youTube in the past few days.

I'm addicted To youTube

Thanks to Dad, the FlashMP3 Player is up again !

2006-07-07T03:31:00.000-07:00

Some say its not a good thing that your dad works in the same domain as you.. and some say it is... Whatever it might be, my dad has been in the computer industry before i was born..

Started off with Electronics (like me), the moved into processors and then into software. He now heads the computer division of a major public sector bank.

Anyway, my Flash Mp3 player stopped working a while back due to some security restrictions imposed on geocities.com , not allowing swfs to be loaded from it. So I turned to Dad and he gracefully provided me some webspace on his server and now it is up again.

Thanks Appa (that's what i call him). Now i can do a lot of stuff... My first application coming soon, courtesy Dad ! :)

Me & Appa

Wonderful Wonderla

2006-07-04T01:31:00.000-07:00

It was a happening weekend… Harish’s grand entry back into the Airtel Super Singer, meeting up with people I have not met in a while and ofcourse… Wonderla.

Since the time, my team went for an outing in Wonderla (check it out here), I have been planning to go there with friends. I had promised Lanka a while back that we would go there, but it never materialized… So when Asha also echoed similar desire… we were on tune.

Da Gang
(Harish, Asha, Nath, Lanka & Me)

So Me, Lanka, Nath, Harish and Asha, left for Wonderla on Sunday around 10 am. Though the ride was not very comfortable, we had fun with our in-house maestro Harish singing some awesome songs that helped to pass the time…

The in-house Maestro

We got there and started out with the land rides. Lanka, Asha & Nath were all ready to go... but me and Harish being scared of heights had to pass.

Ready to Rock
(Nath, Lanka & Asha)

Scary
(this happened after the pic above)

I got on one too - Pirate Ship
(We are sitting on the top most part!)

Me, Lanka, Nath
(Behind is my fav ride in the offing - Splash!)

Asha & Harish
(After the splash!)

They then went on a ride called "Y Scream" which I think was an insane ride... by the time they came out of it, they were throughly shaken :)

Why Scream?? This is why !!

We then climbed to the top of the tower, over which the "Giant Wheel" was situated. Some 13 floors and 50 feet (i guess) above, we had a nice time, with wind blowing on us from all directions.

Windy 007

Let's all Fly

Then it was time, for the water rides, which is the most fun part of wonderla. But unfortunately, since we all were in water, we could not take any pics here. Once out of water and changed, we had a trippy photo session with the Giant wheel in the background.

Its an Asha eat Wheel World :)

Halo World (Harish)

Chakradhari
(Thanks a lot Nath... I usually take such pics,
but always thirst for a good one of mine)

The whole Wheel is in my hands (Lanka)

Atlas in the making (Nath)

Then before we left, we had to see the water fountain and the laser show. I couldnt take a video of the laser show, but found one on youTube. So here they are

Musical Fountain

Laser Show

Then we were off to Bangalore and after a nice quite dinner at Mast Kalandar, we returned with tired bodies and a refreshed minds.... Wonderful Wonderla !

All about FLEX... to get you started !

2006-06-28T02:34:00.000-07:00

Thanks all for the immense response to my last blog entry... A lot of people have asked me what is FLEX and how they can tap into it... so here are some resources to get you started.

Adobe® Flex™ 2 is the most complete, powerful application development solution for creating and delivering cross-platform rich Internet applications (RIAs) within the enterprise and across the web. It lets enterprises create personalized, multimedia-rich, Ajax-style applications that can reach virtually anyone on any platform. Enterprises can use Flex to quickly build and deploy applications that improve the user experience, boost the bottom line, and analyze data to enable better business decisions.

Flex.org is a starting point for developers working with Adobe Flex Builder 2, Flex Data Services 2, and the Flex 2 SDK. Here you will find links to technical and support resources from both Adobe and the developer community. Click here to visit Flex.org

You can find all the resources to start off with FLEX2 on this site...

Once you are started, you can register to FlexCoders. It is an International Registry of FlexCoders and will get you in touch with fellow Flex Developers and Community. Click here to visit FlexCoders

You can also checkout the Adobe FLEX Page and Adobe Labs Page

For people who want more out of FLEX, checkout AJAX-FLEX Bridge, FLEX-ColdF usion Connector.

Check out these Flex Examples to get a taste of what you can do...

Flex Store application & details
Restaurant Finder application & details
Photo Viewer application & details

Enjoy the Joy of FLEX, as Sam says... EXPERIENCE MATTERS!

HELL YEAH! WE SHIPPED THIS THING :)

2006-06-28T00:44:00.000-07:00

I have been impatiently waiting for this day… And it has finally arrived... "We, the FLEX TEAM, hereby declare that the FLEX2 Product line is finally out and ready for anyone who wants to provide an awesome experience on the web"... HURRAY!!! It feels so awesome just to say that.

I remember when I was small (I mean, I was in 8th or 9th grade), I used to stare at the splash screen of Adobe Photoshop and look in awe at the credits of those who participated in the product design (I was specially thrilled to find some Indian names there). Then it became a practice that I used to look at the credits of most products I used (especially Flash 5 and Winamp) and dream of the day when I would be on the credits of some product... But I never believed I would.

Now just 1 year into my foray to the software world, my wildest dream has come true. I'm on the credits page of the FLEX Product Line, and man it feels awesome. I was itching to put it up since it came in the internal build, but had to forcefully stop myself till the product shipped...

Incredible... Isn't it!

It has been a very rewarding and exciting journey for me in the last 10 months with FLEX2. A very alien technology for me when I joined has become a part of my life now. I’m so thrilled that I do not have words to express my excitement… So here’s to FLEX and to all the hard work and toil we went through to make it possible… CHEERS!!!

Flash Player 9 - Your window to richer experiences

2006-06-27T22:54:00.000-07:00

Adobe has rolled out Flash Player 9 for the public. Get it today, so that you do not fall behind in the search for richer experiences on the net.

For technical guys, Flash Player 9 has a whole new architecture with ActionScript3.0 (AS3 for short) forming the core of it. AS3 is more tightly bound OOP language than AS2, adhering to the ECMAScript standards (which is followed by JavaScript too).

For now, only FLEX2 will come out with AS3 content, though all legacy files would run fine on Player 9. Designers will have to wait a while (until next Creative Suite release i guess) to get an Authoring equivalent in AS3 (in conjunction with the Flash Authoring 9 release)

So get it today and dont fall behind... Here's the link

P.S. I will be uploading some cool stuff i did with AS3 & FLEX, so i suggest you get it :)

Jose's Fantasy Come True

2006-06-26T00:04:00.000-07:00

When I was small, i used to go to the terrace of my home and play cricket with all my heroes, as a part of my TEAM INDIA.

I have scored many a century teaming up with Sachin, made awsome catches and done some wild stuff with the ball that bamboozled even Shane Warne. Played under several captains and captained India myself against World XI (and my team always wins, a record that no captain can boast of)... what an achievemet when you are 12.

Each kid has his set of heroes and his fantasy of playing with them... ADIDAS has cashed in on this childhood fantasy and came up with an awsome commercial called JOSE + 10. It talks about 2 spanish kids Jose and Pedro, who are playing their fantasy football with their heroes. It reminded me of my days with my heroes.

The fantasy unlike reality can span a generation of heroes (I remember I had Mohammed Ali protecting me from a hydra once). Here Zidane, Kaka, Beckham play alongside franz beckenbauer and Michel Platini form yester years (I bowled to Don Bradman once, he was out for a duck from a googlie of mine).

An amazing commercial, shot with panache and elegeance. I specially like the last part when Jose's mom calls and he snatches the ball form a befuddled Oliver Kahn and all of them disappear, waiting to be conjured up in his free time, much like out of a Harry Potter movie

Check out the commercial & its making here

Enriched with Flash MP3 Player

2006-06-20T02:56:00.000-07:00

I was visiting Hemanth's Blog when I saw that he had a site of his own now, dedicated to his musical musings (you can check it out here). I was mighty impressed by the custom Flash Player which was used to play the playlist of his songs... I longed to make a similar one, but knew my flash skills was not as good (I can make one in Flex easily, but Flash player 9 that Flex2 uses is not yet fully public)

But then, something in the right click menu caught my eye.. it said "FLASH MP3 PLAYER 2.0 by JEROENWIJERING". I went to Jeroen's site and downloaded the latest version of his player there...

The best part about it is that it is under the "Creative Commons Deed" so I can edit it and use it for my non-commercial purposes, by giving due credit to the creator. So here's to Jeroen, for creating a simple but wonderfully useful application. Cheers!!

Now you can listen to all my songs in the sidebar to the right of the blog, rather than having to navigate to each post for the songs. Flash Rocks, so does Macromedia (now Adobe), who created it.... Yeee ha

Me, Myself and my Guitar

2006-06-19T22:40:00.000-07:00

After being inspired by Dickoo and his guitar, and starting to learn on his electric guitar, I decided that it was time to pick one for myself….

So on Saturday afternoon, we both were off to Richmond road to get hold of a good one and a good deal… We reached there, I felt like a fish out of water. Though I’m deeply interested in music, technicalities of instruments are not my specialty. I saw 2 guys with a “6 String Ibanez” and a distortion pad, playing out Sweet Child of Mine, Metallica, and Iron Maiden with abandon.

Dicoo, always in awe of good guitarists (being one himself), started chatting up with the guy, trying to get a glimpse of his secret. He was a BSc student in one of the colleges here, name was Arijith and was from the NE state of Arunachal… He quizzed us of our intentions and I confessed that I was a “Guitar Virgin” (an adaptation of Dr.Teabing’s remark in Da Vinci Code where he called Sophie the “Grail Virgin”).

Being a magnanimous mind himself, he took time out to tune each guitar in the shop, telling us the intricacies in choosing a good, and more importantly, the right guitar. He brought down our choices from over 20 of them down to 3 and suggested one, warning us that it was a bit expensive.

Then the brilliance of Dicoo took over. Having bought his electric one from the same shop, Dicoo convinced the shopkeeper that we were a budding band (which hopefully we are) and that we would come back to him for all our instruments… and lo… An instant hefty discount was blessed upon us, and the cover and the picks thrown in for free… Hail Dicoo

My Beauty

Beauty an the Beast

So that’s the story of how I found my love (my 6 string Larry & Carlton acoustic)… I hope my tryst with her would be filled with melody, consonance and harmony...

Animator Vs Animation

2006-06-15T03:37:00.000-07:00

I'm not a Flash Designer myself, though I work in this domain... But I know a good and innovative animation when I see one. Check this out, an awsome animation set on the sets of Flash 8 Authoring environment... amazingly innovative (click on the pic to see the animation)

Hats off to Alan for creating this... awsome man... Cheers

The Sunny Side of Life

2006-06-12T22:47:00.000-07:00

It’s been more than 9 months since I landed in Bangalore, to pursue my career & ambition and the most major problem was to get a house. Lived the first few months with my friend George and his roommates and had a blast there. But I knew eventually, I had to go house hunting. But I never expected the prize to be so good…

Me and my best buddy Ragul were the first guys from our “Gang” to reach Bangalore and shouldered the responsibility of finding a boarding for our selves. We saw houses of all shapes & sizes. From independent villa in Bomanahalli (with no water) to a house right on the main road (where my head hits the ceiling). Then the Sun-Shined on our lives. We then chanced upon a spacious 2BHK (Bangalore lingo… 2Bedroom, Hall, Kitchen) for a decent price, it was called Sunshine Apartments.

The Sunny Side of Life

Then came the sunny side of life for us… Me, Ragul & Kailas shifted in, later joined by Vimal & Joseph. Sadly Vimal had to leave to another city seeking fortunes (but keeps coming back every month to soak up the sunshine), so Praveen replaced him… But the house is always vibrant with people and their clamor.

(L-R) Kailas, Kannan, Anu, Ragul, Me, Praveen, Joseph

It sure has been the sunshine in our lives since we moved in here…

Guitar Glee

2006-06-12T03:41:00.000-07:00

Since my first rock concert, I wanted to learn guitar…
But I kept procrastinating it, saying “Dad wont give me money” (when I was in college) and “I have no time” (When I started working). But no more…

I decided I had to go for it and thus I humbly became a disciple to our very own Dicoo (Renjith), my Guru. We started with the universal C, D, E or Do Re Me (or Sa Re Ga, if you are an Indian). It felt quite good to hold guitar in my hand and couldn’t hide the glee.

Then it was onto chords, C, A minor, G & F. But I realized then that it was not that easy after all. My fingers couldn’t reach enough to reach for the F chord, and I struggled as my knuckles pained, so did my fingers.

People advised me to chuck the electric guitar and get an acoustic one for myself (they say electric is easy, so one should learn on acoustic...phew). So I'm gonna take the word of the masters and get an acoustic for me soon enough.

Baby Face with C Chord

Thus I took my baby steps into the guitar world yesterday, and you can say that very well by my face in the pic too :)

A Lesson for Life

2006-06-12T02:58:00.000-07:00

This week, I learned a new lesson in life…

“When you talk about someone to someone else, always think of how important or trivial they are to each other”

You may ramble on and on about a dear friend's problem to another, but he/she might care a “rat’s ass” for what you are talking about or worse, try to pass on his/her view on someone, who he/she my not even know fully well.

What’s more, the one who is being talked on, might feel quite discomfited about the fact that his/her private thoughts, that he/she deemed fit to be talked to you (the good friend) was being operated on by some ‘X-Y-Z’ (and rightly so). That’s a good enough to file an ‘infringement of privacy’ case on you.

I came close to losing a friend in the same manner this week when that person was quite upset that i discuss the problems close to him/her to another (who was again a friend of mine, but just a passe acquaintance for the other).

I swore that day, to think of both individuals and there relationship before openly discussing someone’s problems with others. A Lesson learned in Life.....

Nostalgia of an MITian

2006-06-03T04:08:00.000-07:00

This is a video that was made by the Manipal Institute of Technology, E&E batch of 2005. I was visiting Abdul's blog and saw a video by IIT Kanpur guys. Suddenly felt very nostalgic about Manipal, where I really had the "Time of My Life".

Cheers to Shenoy, Tashi, Ramesh and others who compiled this video.

Safari Duo - Strike 1

2006-06-03T03:00:00.000-07:00

Safari Duo strikes... Renjith (Dicoo) cruised his way through the IBM competition (which had close to 15 participants) and earned recognition for himself and for "The Safari Duo".

I was deeply touched when he came to me and asked me to open his bounty as a token of appreciation for what we did together. Thanks Dicoo, that was really nice of you.

So here's the arrival of the Safari Duo....

The Safari Duo
(Me and Dicoo, with the bounty)

Renjith with his "Prized" Bonsai

In other news... inspired by Dicoo and our jam session, I returned to my karaoke experiments. This time it is "Country Roads" by John Denver. So here it is

Song: Country Roads
Originally sung by: John Denver
Sung by: Raghu

Safari Duo - Take 1

2006-06-02T01:13:00.000-07:00

I got a new jamming buddy. Our very dear Renjith J [also (un)known as Dicoo, Himu...etc]

Upto Something.... the talented Dicoo

A very talented musician, Dicoo can handle keyboards and guitars very well... I knew it since school days, when he was my classmate and used to be an accompaniment to almost all the music shows then. Currently working at The IBM, here in namma Bengaluru, Dicoo just bought a stranger guitar, amp and speaker set and has been in full flow for sometime now. We had been planning to jam for a while, but it never materialized.

So day before yesterday, he came to me saying he wanted a song set for a competition at his office and we decided on "When You Say Nothing At All" by Ronan Keating. Trying to do it, we decided to record it and it turned out pretty well. So here it is

Song: When You Say Nothing At All
Originally sung by: Ronan Keating
Sung by: Raghu
Guitar by: Renjith J (Dicoo)

As you might notice, I mess up the lyrics at a point and again loose pace at another. Just a crude on-the-fly recording on my IBM Thinkpad microphone.

But it turned out to be an anti-climax, with the guitar string breaking off, while Dicoo tried to tune it. When I came to office, he had gone to Richmond Road to get it fixed. All the best to Dicoo for his competition today...

This is announcing the arrival of "The Safari Duo". Expect more jigs in the future. Please leave your comments.....

The Cosmic Crossroads

2006-06-01T06:40:00.000-07:00

I went home this time as a happy-carefree soul. But during those few days, talks of "What Next for you?" kept popping up. Some people were talking rubbish like my wedding (which is not gonna happen anywhere in the near future) while my dad and uncles were trying to chalk out a plan for my future. I was literally dragged into the whole thing (which by the way is for me and not for them). But now I am a confused soul.

Once it was "to B.E or not to B.E. and where to B.E." Now the scope has grown much beyond. I was once at a crossroads, with may be 2 or 3 roads before me. I took a less trodden road (like Robert Frost and never regretted it. That road led to Manipal and to the best days of my life)

But now the scenario is very different. I’m at a crossroads again. But there are a zillion roads to and from that point. As if I’m stuck in a maze, deep within the Galaxy. There are signboards everywhere, pointing in every direction. Some of them read

MS, MBA, GATE, CAT, GMAT, TOEFL, IELTS….,

while others read

IIM, ISB, NTU, Caltech, MIT, Stanford, Kellogg……

The choice seems gruelling. More like words right out of Hamlet

"To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? "

I feel what I need right now is the “Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy”, with the words “Don’t Panic” painted in Bold, Italic, Underline and in a very big font size. I need to find a grapevine in the desert.

It might be like Jack and the Beanstalk and I may find my version of Blunderbore there. May I conquer him and return to a life of prosperity, serenity, fun and frolic. Amen (or Tathastu in Sanskrit)

Monsoon (and) Wedding

2006-06-01T06:04:00.000-07:00

Away from all the din and pollution of Bangalore, I had a nice relaxing vacation at home in Trivandrum. With Monsoon's raging with all its fury, it felt awsome to be back where I grew up.

Cant describe the feeling
(Taken from our apartment)

See it for your self

This time, the trip was great as a lot of my relatives had come down. My uncle from US, has relocated back and my cousin got married and is relocating to US. Uncle's made the most of the "Land of Opportunities" and is now back, while my cousin is trying to get a foot-hold in the crowd called America.

Children are so fun to be with, jumping on you, playing with anything that they can get their hands on. There was a whole bunch at my place and i really enjoyed watching and playing with them.

Cousin Army

Cutie Pie Nadya and my mom

My house was filled with my uncles, aunts, cousins and a lot of other people. Its always fun when there are a lot of people around you, eager to share the family spirit...

The Uncle Duo

My Mom with my aunts and my cousin

Then there was the visit by the newly weds, their party, where we met a regional language cine actor, that created quite a stir among the group.

Da Party

The group with cine actor Mukesh

My cousin's wife is from a different background and speaks a different language. A very beautiful and affable lady, but it was a bit of a comedy, seeing the others trying to converse to her, by trying to find a common ground or worse, a common language. The upside of this was that she cooked nice north indian "phulkas" for us and I had quite a feast...

The Happy Couple
(my cousin Vasanth and his wife Sudha)

Yummy !

Anti Reservation Blog

2006-05-23T00:09:00.000-07:00

Hi... here is a blog on anti-reservation. It hosts Anti Reservation Movement related Notices, Orkut Anti-Reservation Action Forum rulebook, Protest Calendar and Contact Directory

Do check it out... http://protestcentral.blogspot.com/

Check out Antireservation.org and YouthForEquality sites too, if you are interested

One Day for the Nation…

2006-05-22T00:21:00.000-07:00

It was just another day. Me, Priyanka and Nath were out for a walk at the MG Road, Bangalore on Sunday. We were on our way from Barista, had a refreshing coffee and more importantly, shielded ourselves from the heat.

Then something caught our eyes. Right opposite to where we were standing, we saw a large mass of people all lined up beside the road with a piece of paper pasted onto their chest saying “I am against Reservation”. Just then, a gentleman came and asked us if we were against the government’s tyrannical move to implement reservation on the basis of caste, so that up to almost 50 percent of all educational seats for higher education , would be reserved for people from so called “Backward Castes”

Frankly speaking, I was hesitant. I knew that whatever we did, none of the political parties are going to vote against the bill and risk the huge vote bank that is the people who are going to benefit from this. I was more like, if the government is so hell bent upon cutting of the wings of the rising nation (lionized as the next world economic power), then so be it. If they want to f**k up the future of this country, lets reap the “benefits” together.

But Priyanka was all for the protest. She reasoned with me, that if the people do not give the signal to the lawmakers that they are against such dictatorial moves, then it wouldn’t be fit to call ourselves a sovereign democracy anymore. So I was more like, “I’m against reservation, so let it be”. We joined the human chain that was forming on the side of the road.

What followed was an eye opener. Hundreds and Thousands of people saw our protest that day. May like us joined from the streets, from various modes of life. From Doctors to Engineers, from young to old joined us in the venture.

We Protest...

(Me, Priyanka & Nath)

There were a whole lot of policemen on the streets; I feared some retribution from the government. But talking to one of the officers there, I was pleasantly surprised to see that he was also all for what we stood for and told us that he couldn’t join us coz he was on duty. Most of the officers echoed this sentiment and even gave us tips on how to make our resentment heard to those who deem to be deaf.

By night, we lighted candles and stood on the road, chanting slogans and singing those patriotic songs of yester years. We then marched to a park close by and declared our solidarity to the cause for which thousands were protesting across the nation.

Light the way....
(Priyanka with the candles)

I hope we can make a difference, though I still doubt if those up in the highest echelons of power deem themselves so high that they tend to ignore the voices of those on the ground. Then again, if the basement is broken, the building is sure to fall…

Band of Bandars (Noida Memoirs 4)

2006-05-17T03:00:00.000-07:00

Next day's sole purpose was to meet our very own bandar... Mr. Ivy Leage Raheja our very own Samir.... We drove the whole way across delhi from Noida to the next town Gudgaon to meet him.

Samir is doing his MS at Univ of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Its been a while since we saw the monkey, so we decided to pay him a visit.

Me and Samir

Me, Samir & Joy

Boss into the Gang

It was nice to have such a good chat with friends after so long (about an year). He was telling us of his US experiences. Samir is gonna have an operation today for his Hernia and I hope he is fine...

After the usual bakchodi, they dropped me off at the Delhi Airport and i pondered... "I was thinking this trip would be a bore and a pain and boy was I wrong"

Café Morrison (Noida Memoirs 3)

2006-05-17T02:42:00.000-07:00

Then came the part that I was most looking forward to in the trip. The visit to Café Morrison. It’s a small pub in South Ex, a nice, our very own Manipal DT like feeling.

Café Morrison

Cheers to Manipal

Me and Joy had made a pact when we met in Manipal last… It was that when I came to Delhi, he would take me to “Café Morrison” and when he gets his a** to Bangalore, I would take him to “Legends of Rock”. So this was the first part of the deal.

Some great music (though the DJ intermittently played some very shitty stuff) and a few pitchers and a tequila later, we were all happy and nostalgic, talking of our days in Manipal. It felt so awesome to head bang with Joy once again, singing to “FreeBird by Lynard Skynard”

FreeBird

Like Joy says

“You can take an MITian out of Manipal but not the Manipal out of him"

Cheers

Nostalgia in Noida (Noida Memoirs 2)

2006-05-17T01:56:00.000-07:00

As Bakhshi (known to us as “da Boss”) picked me up from Adobe, as I said earlier I was not in a great mood. But as we chatted, I felt the camaraderie as it was yesterday in Manipal. Suddenly we were like the 2 roommates back in Manipal, chatting away on every damn thing under the sun.

We reached Joy’s place. I had not met him in sometime. We were comrades in arms, having written a technical paper together, apart from being team mates in Quizzing and all those awesome fun events that go on in college.

Meeting him, Aseem and Arjun brought back memories of Manipal and suddenly it was Nostalgia for me in Noida. After a nice dinner, we drove all through town in Arjun’s car and came back home by 01:00 am. It was bloody hot then too (about the same heat as there would be at noon in Bangalore). Then we settled down with the in-famous “Pai’s Tail”, a cocktail invented by my dear friend Mr. Sudhir Pai, being a concoction of “Mango Juice and Dry Gin”…. This went on till 4 am and a lot of trippy photos came out as a result of this.

Da Gang
(Top : Bakhshi & Aseem, Bottom: Joy & Arjun)

Da Party

Here are those very trippy photos that came out that night at Joy's balcony

"Da Boss"

"The Rod of Fire"

"The Question of Life"
"Da Zombies"

"Pi** of Fire"

Next day, having woken up at 11, we proceeded to a breakfast at a local South Indian restaurant, Sasta and Tikau (Cheap & Good) and great to wear out that hangover. Then, off to Delhi and this time on Boss’s car. First stop, “Flavors” at the Defense Colony… It was a small and crowded Italian place. Awesome food. Tasted what a real pizza is and the Lasagnas and Pastas were great too. Washed it down with some tasty mousse & ginger lime. Yummy !

At Flavors
(L-R : Arjun, Me, Joy and Gurjot Singh Bakhshi aka Boss)

Then we hit the IHC (India Habitat Centre), taking photos were Rang De Basanti was shot. We went in for an exhibition on the first war of Indian Independence, the “Revolt of 1857” and it was quite stirring to the mind. Then off to a film festival where we searched for a ticket but in vain….

At IHC (Me, Joy & Arjun)

The RDB Spot

I wanted to see the new and famed Delhi Metro Rail, so off to C.P (Conaught Place, now called Rajiv Chowk) to ride the metro. You are not allowed to take pics in there, but as a true Indian, I managed one pic and a video. The Metro experience was really great, reminded me of Lanka’s comment that “It is better than the New York Metro”, and Joy vouchsafed it to be better than the London counterpart too… So we came out of it with our heads held high…

The Metro Station at CP

The Delhi Metro

The temperatures were also on a high and we needed to cool off, so we headed to the Statesman Building, where there was a bookshop cum coffee shop called “Oxford”, only to find that the A/C works only till 6 pm and we walked in at 6:15… So off again after a cooler at Oxford. We were half way to the next destination , when Arjun found out that he had left his favorite goggles there. So back again to Oxford through the winding delhi roads and after a nice jog through the streets, we finally got it back.

At Oxford

Arjun with his fav Goggles
( which he almost lost... )

That Bloody Weather (Noida Memoirs 1)

2006-05-16T23:17:00.000-07:00

I reached Noida on May 11th, and the first thing that stuck me was the heat…. Oh the heat. It didn’t help a bit that it was raining blissfully in Bangalore back where I call home. Delhi seemed like a frying pan to me.

The next thing that struck me was the roads. For a person who comes from the woe be gone infrastructure of Bangalore, Delhi seemed like an out-of-India experience. Well laid, well planned roads reminded me of my visit to the US. As we sped through the DND Highway, onto Noida I was sure I liked the city very much, but would rather not live here (the bloody weather).

Roads... Right On!
(Taken from my room in Noida Radisson)

The only high point of the first day was the stay at Radisson, which was good and then the QE Summit, which was why we went there in the first place. Adobe office looks like a children’s pen from the outside, but the inside, it is pretty awesome. (Specially those comfortable chairs).

Adobe Noida

Naresh (CEO, Adobe India) @QE Summit

Me & Lauren
(Ah! Those chairs are right for work and sleep )

The consummate point of the day was the visit to Lanka’s house to meet her family and had a great time with aunty and Bhaskar. Garima also came with us. Thanks Lanka for the wonderful time.

Me, Aunty, Lanka & Garima
(At Lanka's place)

Me with Bhaskar (Lanka's Bro)

I reached the office back for the rest of the summit. And as evening dawned, the prospect of finding fun in Delhi loomed very low, as me, Lauren, Harish, Jyoti and Anand hit the spice mall, only to find it devoid of the 3 letter word. FUN

The rest of the gang, headed back to Bangalore that night and I still had to endure this place for the next two days to come… F**** what the hell… I hate the place and the bloody weather. These were the thoughts that went through my mind as I waited for Gurjot to pick me up.

And Boy! Was I wrong? I had the best time since Manipal in Delhi the next two days…..

Tandoori Raghu.... served HOT !

2006-05-12T06:43:00.000-07:00

I'm getting fried, and that too deep fried... Tandoori ishtyle.

I'm in Noida thanks to my company Adobe's India QA Summit here in Noida near Delhi. The outside temperatures go as high as 47 degree centigrade at noon, enough to boil an egg if i stand long enough in the sun...

And my favourite Bangalore is basking in the glory of the first of the monsoon showers... How I long to be there.

But I'm awaiting a rocking weekend in Noida. All my college friends are here, and the excitement of meeting them after about an year, is just something that the heat cant take away from me...

But as the weekend progresses, the "Tandoori Raghu" will be done and ready for serving. Guys in Bangalore can have helpings on Monday, so till then... Hola

The Impromptu Jam - Nath & Nath

2006-05-07T00:27:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was fun...!

I was at Lanka's (known to the world as Priyanka Azad) place. She had a small accident a week back and the wound had still not faded... So 3 of her best friends assembled at her place to cheer her up (Me, Nath and Lakshay).

Nath is amazing on the guitar and suddenly she wanted to hear him play and sing. So we got the guitar from his place. But then, she wanted to show us, her talent with the guitar... :) So sweet !

Then we had an idea and we decided to do a impromptu jam, me and Nath. So here are the results

1. Turn the Page by Metallica

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Song: Turn the Page
Originally sung by: Metallica
Album: Garage Inc.
Sung by: Raghu & Nath
Guitar by: Nath

The rest are some hindi songs we did... hope you enjoy them too...

2. Dooba Dooba by Silk Route

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Song: Dooba Dooba
Originally sung by: Silk Route
Sung by: Raghu & Nath
Guitar by: Nath

3. O Sanam by Lucky Ali

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Song: O Sanam
Originally sung by: Lucky Ali
Sung by: Raghu & Nath
Guitar by: Nath

4. Sayonee by Junoon

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Song: Sayonee
Originally sung by: Junoon
Sung by: Raghu & Nath
Guitar by: Nath

5. Song from the movie Raju Chacha

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Song: Tu ne muche pehechana nahi
Movie: Raju Chacha
Sung by: Raghu & Nath
Guitar by: Nath

I could get the originals of all except Dooba Dooba, you can check them out here...

All the recording was done in one shot, no editing or alterations and no rectification of mistakes.... So wont they be that great, but still, we had a ball of a time. Announcing the advent of "Nath & Nath"...

Take It Easy...

2006-05-07T00:11:00.000-07:00

Eagles is one of my favourite bands. I wanted to do "Hotel California", but couldnt get the .kar file. So here is "Take it Easy".

If you have not heard the original, check it out here....

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Song: Take It Easy
Originally sung by: Eagles
Album: The Eagles
Sung by: Raghu

Bowling for Columbine...

2006-05-05T02:46:00.000-07:00

I wanted to write about this for sometime. I might strike the wrong note with some people but neverthless. I had watched this movie called "Bowling for Columbine" by Michael Moore (of Farenheit 9/11 fame) along time back...

I was quite intrigued by the same. Its abut the "Columbine High School massacre" occurred on Tuesday, April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Jefferson County, Colorado, USA. Two kids, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold who were frustrated about the society, the colleages, teachers and all decided to kill tham all...

Early warning signs regarding the attacks first surfaced in 1996 when Eric Harris created a private website on America Online. It included small journal entries concerning his thoughts on parents, school, and friends. It also contained instructions on how to make explosives. On that fateful day, they entered the college and fired mercilessly in the cafeteria, library and other areas and finally committed suicide in the library.

This sparked off debates regarding gun control laws and the availability of firearms in the United States. On the view of youth and how this was all a result of their exposure to violent movies and video games, death metal and loose family ties.

But Micheal Moore criticized the most basic aspect of the same. Fear. Not in the minds of those kids, but in the minds of American people that make them pass laws like the second ammendment, making it legal for a white man to carry guns...

"Bowling for Columbine" is how the boys went bowling before the massacre. It focuses not much on why the kids did it, but with America's infactuation with guns... About what is it that Americans fear so much as to buy guns. It refutes the idea that it is violent cinema or death metal groups that drive the kids to do these, but the prevalent sense of vulnerability that a common American feels... Here are some cuts from the movie.

This is Hilarious...

This is unbelievably true...

This incident also triggered off a lot of rock songs based on the same, a couple are given below.

1. "Jeremy" by PerlJam

2. "Youth of the Nation" by P.O.D

Listen to the lyrics carefully... they are awsome or find the lyrics in the below links.

for Jeremy lyrics, click here...
for Youth of the Nation,click here...

Numero Due - The Oasis of Revival

2006-05-03T23:06:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all who have encouraged my intent to blog and sing... I really appreciate it. Especially to Harish, who showed me how to do a multi-track recording and to Garima and Lanka, who pointed out that my voice when I sing, sounds nothing like me… :)

So here is the second dosage of the karaoke intento…

1. Wonderwall by Oasis

The band that is hailed as the second Beatles. Oasis from Manchester, England creates rock music with a soothing effect. This song “Wonderwall”, as explained by the band’s lead singer Noel, “is about an imaginary friend who's going to come and save you from yourself”

I dedicate this song to that very real amazing person in my life, who has been my wonderwall, shielding me in times of need and always being there for me… The most amazing friend…. This is to her.

If you haven’t heard the original, check it out here...

Song: Wonderwall
Originally sung by: Oasis
Album: (What's the Story) Morning Glory?
Sung by: Raghu

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2. Champagne Supernova by Oasis

This was the first song of Oasis I heard. Just thought I can do it. It is said that Noel got the title when he misheard the name of the Pixies album Bossanova whilst watching a documentary about champagne. Another version is that a "champagne supernova" is the experience of smoking marijuana whilst drinking champagne. Anyway, here’s to Champagne Supernova, Cheers

If you haven’t heard the original, check it out here...

Song: Champagne Supernova
Originally sung by: Oasis
Album: (What's the Story) Morning Glory?
Sung by: Raghu

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3. Bad Moon Rising by CCR

Starting out as The Blue Velvets, CCR (Credence Clearwater Revival), is a 60’s rock band with a tinge of folk/country touch to their songs. "Bad Moon Rising" is a 1969 song consisting of a prediction about apocalyptic weather conditions. It doesn’t suit my voice much, but I couldn’t resist. So here it is

If you haven’t heard the original, check it out here...

Song: Bad Moon Rising
Originally sung by: Credence Clearwater Revival
Album: Green River
Sung by: Raghu

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Eagerly awaiting comments :)

Paritranaya Sadhunam

2006-04-24T23:10:00.000-07:00

Paritranaya sadhunam vinashaya cha dushkritam.
Dharma sansthapanarthaya sambhavami yuge yuge.

(Gita 4:8)

For the up-liftment of the good and virtuous,
For the destruction of evil,
For the re-establishment of the natural law,
I will come, in every age

These golden words were spoken by lord Krishna to Partha, at the dawn of the first day of the Great Mahabharata War at Kuruksetra, when he is all disillusioned and has to make a choice between doing the right and fighting his brothers.

Fast-forward to present day and you can easily draw a metaphor to the above mentioned Partha and to the millions that make up this great country. India is Rising, no doubt and is on-road to become one of the greatest economic and technological superpowers of the world. But I often feel that India is like a chained Phoenix.

Though has risen from the ashes of the British Raj, it is unable to take flight, bound by the shackles of nothing but corruption, bigoted conservativeness, and the fight over trivial matters (Check out this post from Bhatta to see what i mean), when a diamond mine lies straight ahead.

Politics can be defined as “The methods or tactics involved in managing a state or government”. But here, politics is the “art” of clinging on to the seats of power (often shamelessly), and making so called necessary reforms, so that it ensures your return to highest echelons of power.We are like Arjuna-Partha, stunned and silent, watching all this unfold in front of us, time and again, not having the courage to do what is right and take the easy way out and go along with it all, or worse still, not be bothered about it at all.

A glimpse of hope now has dawned on the horizon. “Lok Paritran” (or Emancipator of the Masses) is a new party that has been floated by ex-IITians, trying to make a difference. A set of educated (That would be an understatement) Indians, who could all have had a luxurious life at mansions in Hawaii or Silicon valley, have plunged into politics, with a vow for the betterment of society. Check out these guys

Santhanagopalan Vasudev (Chief Advisor)
B.S. (Physics) University of Missouri,Kansas, USA
MA(Economics) New York Univ, New York, USA

Tanmay Rajpurohit (National President)
B. Tech.(Aerospace Engg) IIT Bombay
MS(Aerospace Engg) Georgia Tech, Atlanta, USA
MA(Economics) New York Univ, New York, USA

Chandrashekhar (National General Secretary)
B. Tech. (Computer Science & Engg)IIT Kanpur

They are contesting elections in 7 constituencies in TamilNadu, against political heavyweights. I truly hope this guys can make the difference and it spreads like wild fire, all over the nation, much like how our freedom struggle started.

Check out the party homepage – http://www.lokparitran.org/
Their manifesto – Lok Paritran Manifesto

An interview of the Party leaders that came in Headlines today (thanks to Sudhish Kamath for the video)

Lok Paritran was interviewed by Headlines Today around mid of April. But for the fact that the host couldn't even pronounce the name right and wrongly assumed it was inspired by Rang De Basanti, it turned out to be an interesting capsule, when the party actually predates the movie.

Mi primer intento en karaoke

2006-04-23T20:18:00.000-07:00

Thanks Google Translation for the wonderful title.

Music has always been a passion for me, though i dont think i sing very well. A kick-ass bathroom-singer, i can sing decently as long as the melody doesnt span many octaves.

I was always facinated by the concept of Karaoke. Karaoke is a Japanese abbreviated compound word: "kara" comes from "karappo" meaning empty, and "oke" is the abbreviation of "okesutura," or orchestra. Usually, a recorded popular song consists of vocals and accompaniment. Music tapes in which only the accompaniment is recorded were named "karaoke." It is now widely recognized that the use of karaoke started at a snack bar in Kobe City. It is said that when a strolling guitarist could not come to perform at the bar due to illness or other reasons, the owner of the bar prepared tapes of accompaniment recordings, and vocalists enjoyed singing to the tapes. Even though it is only legend, this might have been the beginning of karaoke, and since then, karaoke has been commercialized and has become popular all over Japan.

Last week, I came across this software called KaraFun, a Free MIDI and MP3 karaoke player. Downloaded some .kar files and was trying to sync myself to it... when an idea struck me. I decided to try a hand at singing and then blogging it, so that the whole world can share the misery that my roommates have been enduringfor the past 2 days...

I decided to play the .kar file in KaraFun, add my voice and record using CoolEditPro and convert from .wav to .mp3 in Adobe Audition (had to use our software somewhere). So here it is

1. Imagine by John Lennon
Chose this song for 2 reasons. Numero Uno, it suits my voice, no much pitch variations and aural tantrums. Secondly, Imagine is as lush and melodic as anything John Lennon (R.I.P) has created since the break-up of the Beatles. The benign, low-key aura that suffuses Imagine fills us with hope and promise of "a tensionless, defence-free life"

If you havent heard the original, check it out here...

Song: Imagine
Originally sung by: John Lennon
Album: Imagine
Sung by: Raghu

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2. Tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton
I heard this for the first time, in a Manipal Video where a guy named Shanky was playing the chords for the song. I loved it. Here's the video from my repository...

I found it so amazing that i started searching for the original and found that it was sung by Eric Clapton, who has given us songs like "Cocaine" and "Layla". On investigation on why he decided to sing such a song, i found that the song is as touching as it is amazing.

"Tears in Heaven" was written by Clapton as a tribute to his son Conor, who tragically died by falling from the 53rd stage of a building in New York, he was only four and half, on March 20, 1991.

Quoting Clapton on the song
"In writing Tears in heaven, my mind was : Will I see him again one day ? It wasn't : I can't anymore, I feel ravaged; there are no these words in my song, there is not a word which involves the sadness. I ask the question : Will I see you again one day ? I think it is the question that everybody has when they lost loved people. It translates the anguish I had to never see my son again. But there is no sadness because I am sure one day I will see it again."

If you havent heard the original, check it out here...

Song: Tears in Heaven
Originally sung by: Eric Clapton
Album: Eric Clapton Unplugged
Sung by: Raghu

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3. Winds of Change by The Scorpions
This song did not come out well, but neverthless, I'm uploading it. Might put up a better version later. One of my Scorpion favourites...

"Wind of Change" is a 1990 Power ballad song by the German band Scorpions. Its lyrics celebrate the political changes in Eastern Europe at that time - such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the increasing freedom in the communist bloc (which would soon lead to the fall of the USSR), and the clearly imminent end of the Cold War.

Many listeners of the song who are not acquainted with Moscow are often confused by the meaning of the opening line of the song, which is:

I follow the Moskva
Down to Gorky Park
Listening to the wind of change...

The Moskva is the name of the river that runs through Moscow, and Gorky Park is the name of an amusement park in Moscow. Although the Scorpions are German, they were inspired to write this song on a visit to Moscow in 1989, and therefore included references to the aforementioned landmarks.

If you havent heard the original, check it out here...

Song: Wind of Change
Originally sung by: Scorpions
Album: Crazy World
Sung by: Raghu
FYI... I didnt whistle in the song, it was too hard. What you hear was a part of the Karaoke :)

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If any of you are not acquainted with the originals, I have put them up on my media blog. You can see them here... Hope you like them... Please leave your comments. Appreciation and "creative" critcism greatfully accepted...

Branching Me...

2006-04-19T20:55:00.000-07:00

Working in the IT industry, you often hear about branches... The whole code is duplicated to be worked upon so that if any error perchance occurs in one, it does not creep into the mainline. So here I'm branching into 3. You can find my ravings at the following places...

1. The Actual Me - Walk of Life

2. The Alternate Me - Ravings of an Illogical Mind

3. My Media Monologues - My Media Monologues

What ever is good in the other two will creep into the mainline... But hope you enjoy all the three

My very own iRiver U10

2006-04-18T04:19:00.000-07:00

Adobe Rocks... I got my iRiver U10 1GB from the company as a gift (who doesnt like gifts)... Its a pretty cool Gadget.

The U10 arrived with its paraphernalia, neatly packed in 2 boxes, complete with starter kits, ear phones, pouch, USB connectors and the a cool egg cradle (it looks like a 2.7 inch TV on my desk).Playing with it for about half hour, i vouchsafe that its the coolest gadget i have owned.

I love music. MP3 players have been a blessing, doing away with heavy and bulky stuff like CD Players (I cant even think of the Dark Ages of the Walkman or worse still the stone age of Tape Recorders. Gramaphones seems like a pre-genesis concept). I have owned and used many MP3 players now... (click on the pic below)

It all started with the Samsung YP-T6X (512 MB) player. I got it from USA when my uncle came down. It was a really good one (still used by my sis...). It has a circular joystick and a good blue backlit display. The ear phones were of very good quality (so good, that i used these with my Zen Neeon later). It was compact and required a AA battery to run, which suited me, as i didnt have a Laptop for USB Charging.

Then I got inducted into the Macromedia family and was given my next favourite gadget... my IBM Thinkpad T41. So now i had an option of USB charging, i wanted more... Then the anniversary of Macromedia India came and we were all given a Zen Neeon, the 5GB variety. It was not that cute or intutive, but was very handy, as it had 5GB disk space (so could hold my music collection ... almost). Also, the Zen has an amazing battery life (think around 20 hrs). So I ditched Samsung and started using Zen for its sheer capacity and USB charging convinience, though i liked the former for its user-friendliness.

Then came my brief acquaintance with the rage called "The iPods". Started with the Shuffle (512MB) that I bought on my visit to Stanford, in their college store (for a dear friend). I used it all the way back to India. Nothing can beat the sound quality of the Apple earphones (just those costs about $30 in India). The shuffle looks pretty impressive, but the sad part is that it does not have a display.

Then came the giant in the MP3, Video Player industry, the mighty emperor, The Video iPod (now i guess the prince Nano has taken over the proceedings in the Player kingdom). My roommate has one, so i often playaround with it. We got a video out to the TV, so we can watch movies. The giant has a cool touch-rotate dial, amazing dispaly and an uber-cool look. But i dislike it for 4 reasons

1. Its too big to fit in the pocket
2. Battery gets drained too fast while playing movies
3. Requires iTunes & Apple standard for every damn thing
4. Finally, I dont own one (grrrr.....)

Now Along comes U10. Its like a confluence of the Neeon and the iPod. Has a cool look but is small and cute and fits right into my jeans. Has a good display, plays mP3s, videos, has an FM Radio, Flash games (our very own Flash).

But on the downside it has only 1GB (there is an old Indian saying, "Do not count the teeth of a cow that was given to you as charity"). I'm loving my acquaintance with the U10, lets see how it turns out.

DMB

2006-04-17T05:48:00.000-07:00

I heard Dave Matthews for the first time, when i heard his single at the WTC Telethon "A Tribute to the Heroes". I thought, "Damn, this guy is good..."

I found later that he has a band, called Dave Matthew's Band (a.k.a DMB). Their music is kinda fusion of Country, Rock, Blues and had a very nice feeling to it.. They have a violin accompanyist and something very stange for a band, the violinist and drummer were blacks and others white...

They have some amazing numbers like Satellite, Crash into Me and Digging my Ditch and the wonderful perfomance of All Along the Watchtower in Woodstock..

I wanted the telethon video so badly, and found it finally (you guessed it, on youtube... I'm beginning to love this site). So here it is. DMB with Everyday.

Won’t you help Save the Rock !

2006-04-17T05:23:00.000-07:00

I was one who used to believe that “Rock and Roll is all Noise pollution”. It sounded like pure cacophony that used to bewilder my senses. Then came the most incredible change of my life. Manipal….

The place I learned that Pink Floyd was closer to Nirvana than the Pope, that original music is what really matters. I started hating those boy bands, Britney, Christina (I’m on a first name basis with all)…etc. You could put any church coir on with the same chords and get the same or perhaps (no, definitely) better aural effect (I stress the word ‘aural’, the visual effect that Britney and likes give is titillating).

This actually takes me back to Shakespearian times. I remember reading a part in Hamlet those talk of young boys with squeaky voices who put respectable actors out of business. Now I know why they say history repeats itself.

Anyway, the trend in the last decade has been towards kinky pop, blasting hip hop and gangster rap. Where is the good old rock gone? You ask people for the best rock they have heard, names range from Bryan Adams (my friend Joy refuses to consider him rock) to U2, from Floyd to Eagles… I can’t think of many classic or for that matter hard rock bands in the 21st century. God save rock…

I thought about this when I saw this video on youtube….

V for Vendetta

2006-04-14T04:30:00.000-07:00

A vivid display of vibrant acting, complete with vicarious dialogs and vicious fight scenes was but a vestige of this movie. The movie filled with vastitudes of vigor, vitality and vivacity, V was a visual treat with voluminous thrills, vivid characterization and vehement out-bust of emotions.

V for Vendetta is a comic book series written by Alan Moore and illustrated mostly by David Lloyd, set in a dystopian future United Kingdom. A mysterious anarchist named V works to destroy the fascist government and profoundly affects the people he encounters.

The movie “V for Vendetta” is a beautiful illustration of the same. Though I have not read the book or the comics, the movie sticks to the original and does not take what is hailed as “Artistic-Liberty” to plagiarize the script to the viewer’s tastes.

The first few minutes of the movie reminded me vaguely of the Shakespearian plays that I learned in high-school. The dialog format, delivery and content, filled me with nostalgia of those days with Hamlet and Merchant of Venice. It’s like an amalgam of Shakespearian tragedies and George Orwell’s “1984”. Quite amazingly entertaining…

V has a reference to Guy Fawkes (April 13, 1570–31st January, 1606), an English soldier and a member of a group of Roman Catholic conspirators who attempted to carry out the so-called Gunpowder Plot in 1605. The plot was an attempt to assassinate King James I of England (James VI of Scotland) and the members of both houses of the Parliament of England. To do this, Westminster Palace was to be blown up during the formal opening session of the 1605 Parliament, in which the king would address a joint assembly of both the House of Lords and the House of Commons. But he was caught. Guy Fawkes is remembered with Guy Fawkes Night on November 5 (the Roman letter equivalent of which is V). It was said that Fawkes was "the only man to ever enter parliament with honorable intentions."

Similarly V seeks vengeance to bring the tyrannical government to its knees. He says that he is, “vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous”

It took me a long search to find the actor beneath the mask. I was quite surprised that it was Hugo Weaving, too well known for his amazing protrayal of "Agent Smith" in the Matrix Trilogy and the wisest of all Eldars, "Elrond" in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, chosen to be the man behind the mask... The V

A Multifaceted Personality - Hugo Weaving

The Vox populi has given their verdict… “An amazing watch, if you do not vest to the vanity variety”

The V dialog...
(I had to search a lot for this... thanks again to youtube for the video)

Awsome C&H - New Year Resolution

2006-04-09T22:13:00.000-07:00

This C&H Strip, reminded me of Joy and Pai and our times together as the "Ray of Dope"... It also brought to mind, the exchanges between them, Dey and Pani.

The Fork of Life

2006-04-06T21:55:00.000-07:00

This has always been in the back of my mind, always picking at my brains. But I decided to blog about it when I saw this entry in my friend DDey blog.

Robert Frost is a great poet, who has given us such wonderful poems (I loved his works right from high school, my personal favorites being Birches, Mending Wall and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening).

But reading Dey's blog entry, the poem that came to my mind was Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken". Its the story of a traveler who reached a fork in his journey and decided to take the less traveled road then reflects on it later with a pleased demeanor.

As DDey says,
"I believe every moment is a forked road. You choose one path, and that determines what happens next, and at the next fork, you choose yet another path, and so on. The point is, you decide what path you take, and hence, you decide what happens to you next. Therefore whatever happens in your life is a consequence of a decision that you made at some previous instant in time."

I have faced the "Fork of Life" a lot of times. To reflect back on it makes me neither happy nor sad, just contented that I have chosen what I have (the less traveled road or not).

May be I'm too nerdish, but the fork is a place to analyze life as a tree (binary or otherwise). Trace the graph of the consequences of your selection and predict the approaching "forks" in life. It can help you make a decision in the most optimized way.

But then again, its all crap... I had a fork in life where I had to decide, where I had to do my graduation. One was a college, well known for there academic excellence (BITS Pilani) and known to groom the best engineers in the country, one was a safe option of staying on the home-turf in a college near by and then there was Manipal (the unknown, the unexplored, the lesser trodden road) about which people told me all kinds of stories.

I was "Forked" and the logical solution cried out to me saying "go to Pilani for God sake, even if it was to study something that I didn't enjoy", my mother wanted me to be at home and was keen not to spend unnecessary money on my education... But I dared to take the less traveled road and packed my bags to Manipal.

The 4 years I spent there was perhaps the happiest of my life. It taught me a lot of lessons, evolved me into a true MITan and landed me into a job that even the best dream of. But looking back, I often think how it would have turned out, if I had taken any of the other two roads. Where I would have been and how different it would be. But now,

"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

-Robert Frost

There is always an amalgam inside your soul, of destiny and determination, that makes the decisions for you, for the better or for the worse...

ScrapBlog... Yet another FLEX Sucess Story

2006-04-05T04:05:00.000-07:00

Yet another Flex sucess story (after Yahoo Maps among others). Eariler today, I got a mail from Matt Chotin about this site called ScrapBlog.com where one can have a photoblog with loads of interactivity, all for free.. Whats more, it was made in Flex1.5. If someone can do such a great job with Flex1.5, wonder what people will do with FLex2.0.

It has a nice UI (though a bit too flashy for my taste), some cool custom components and good amalgam of technologies like Java, Flex and Applets... Loved it. I created mine, just to get a feel of it. Feels good to see your product being used so productively

Here's my scrap blog http://raghunathrao.scrapblog.com/

Try it out today... I'm sure you will love it.

The Amazing C&H

2006-04-03T06:01:00.000-07:00

Calvin and Hobbes was first conceived when Bill Watterson, having worked in an advertising job he detested, began devoting his spare time to cartooning, his true love. He explored various strip ideas but all were rejected by the syndicates to which he sent them. However, he did receive a positive response on one strip, which featured a side character (the main character's little brother) who had a stuffed tiger. Told that these characters were the strongest, Watterson began a new strip centered around them. The syndicate (United Features Syndicate) which gave him this advice actually rejected the new strip, and Watterson endured a few more rejections before Universal Press Syndicate decided to take it...

The first strip was published on November 18, 1985 and it went on, captivating the minds of all till Bill decided to call it quits. In the first strip, Calvin meets Hobbes when he catches him with a rope noose baited with a tuna fish sandwich. Watterson later wrote that this initial explanation of Hobbes's origins becomes unnecessary and moot as the series progresses. At one point, Calvin describes him as, "On the quiet side. A bit peculiar. A good companion, in a weird sort of way"

The very first C&H, Nov 18, 1985
(I had a hard time finding it on the net)

Named after 16th-century theologian John Calvin (founder of Calvinism and a strong believer in predestination), Calvin is an impulsive, imaginative, energetic, curious, intelligent, and often selfish six-year-old. The strips do not disclose Calvin's last name. Watterson has described Calvin thus:

"Calvin is pretty easy to do because he is outgoing and rambunctious and there's not much of a filter between his brain and his mouth. I guess he's a little too intelligent for his age. The thing that I really enjoy about him is that he has no sense of restraint, he doesn't have the experience yet to know the things that you shouldn't do. The socialization that we all go through to become adults teaches you not to say certain things because you later suffer the consequences. Calvin doesn't know that rule of thumb yet."

Mr. Hobbes

Hobbes is Calvin's tiger who, from Calvin's perspective, is as alive and real as anyone else in the strip. He is named after 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who had what Watterson described as "a dim view of human nature." He is famous for his claim that humans' natural state is a state of war, where "the life of man is, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short." Hobbes shares this mentality, and states many times throughout the strip his superiority to Calvin. While appearing real to Calvin, everyone else perceives him as a small, inanimate stuffed tiger. Hobbes is much more rational and aware of consequences than Calvin, but seldom interferes with Calvin's troublemaking beyond a few oblique warnings—after all, Calvin will be the one to get in trouble for it, not Hobbes.

The lovable Duo

Calvin and Hobbes strips are characterized by sparse but careful draftsmanship, intelligent humor, poignant observations, witty social and political commentary, and well-developed characters that are full of personality.

So finally, the 3150th and final strip ran on Sunday, December 31, 1995. The strip was accompained by an explanation with Bill about why he was quitting. It depicted Calvin and Hobbes outside in freshly-fallen snow, reveling in the wonder and excitement of the winter scene. "It's a magical world, Hobbes ol' buddy!" Calvin exclaims in the last panel. "Let's go exploring!"

The C&H Epitah

Its a Magical World... Lets go exploring
(Last C&H Stip December 31, 1995)

Thanks Wikipedia & Reference.com for the info... Stefan Rundberg rare C&H stips... BTW, checkout this article that views C&H as a polictical commentry on America's governments.

Manusmriti and Marriages

2006-03-28T09:27:00.000-08:00

I was at my friends Brothers marriage this weekend. He is from a caste which is known for their very ritualistic approach to life, be it worship, marriage or any other event that requires the solicitation by Gods.

The priest kept saying that this was a "Brahma Vivah" or "Brahmana Wedding", which stuck me curious. I wanted to know, in what all ways, a man could be united with a woman in holy matrimony. I was kind of taken aback by my findings...

Not only does the Vedic Religion provide 8 ways of getting marriage, it varied from marriages for learned men, kings, workers and rouges (WTF...). Also i was amazed that Vedic Religion is not at all averse to love marriages as people are led to believe. It supports it as the third most approved way of getting married...

There are eight types of marriage described in Manusmriti (Laws of Manu):

Rite of the Brahmana (Brahma Marriage) where the father of the bride invites a man learned in the Vedas and a good conduct, and gives his daughter in marriage to him after decking her with jewels and costly garments.
Rite of the Gods (Daiva Marriage) - where the daughter is groomed with ornaments and given to a priest who duly officiates at a sacrifice during the course of its performance of this rite.
Rite of the Prajapati (Prajapatya Marriage) - where the father gives away his daugher after blessing the couple with the text "May both of you perform together your duties"
Rite of the Gandharva (Gandharva Marriage) - the voluntary union of a maiden and her lover, which arises from desire and sexual intercourse for its purpose.
Rite of the Rishis (Arsha Marriage) - when the father gives away his daughter after receiving a cow and a bull from the brightgroom.
Rite of the Asuras (Demons Marriage) - when the bridegroom receives a maiden after bestowing wealth to the kinsmen and to the bride according to his own will.
Rite of the Rakshasa (Rakshasa Marriage)- forcible abduction of a maiden from her home after her kinsmen have been slain or wounded and their houses broken open.
Rite of the Pisaka (Pisaka Marriage) - when a man by stealth seduces a girl who is sleeping or intoxicated or is mentally disbalanced or handicapped

The first 3 are the most sacred, the last two are strictly forbidden and are termed as barbaric. and the others are acceptable.

Wow... I never knew my culture was so open (though it is usually termed otherwise ). Makes me wonder if we should abandon Hinduism and go into the core of Vedic Religion which is about how to live life to the fullest, rather than trying to please the so called Gods by various rituals that we ourselves do not understand, which makes us hate our own culture.

Amazing Sachin... for All Sachin Fans

2006-03-28T01:33:00.000-08:00

Here is the video of mindblowing shots from Sachin Tendulkar.
This video has wonderful shots which will never fade.....

Enjoy ! (thanks uprightvideos for the above video)

My Footage Woes...

2006-03-27T20:49:00.000-08:00

I attended Kailas's (one of my best friends and my roommate) brother's wedding last weekend at Palakkad, Kerala. When we reached there for the fanfare, we were struck with the desire to wear a dhoti (our very beloved traditional dress). Me and Praveen went to the town and bought ourselves a dhoti... Only to realise that i only had a Reebok Running shoes to go with it, which reminded me of the scene in George of the Jungle, where George in his Jungle wear complements it with a Nike Air :)

What Will I wear??

But baring my foot to the sweltering heat was the only option (since i was not as cool as George) and I "dared to bare".

But when the time came to go, i found a battered old sandal, somewhere in the corner of the house, which i decided, was abandoned by some guy who decided to move onto a better option.

So there i had a footwear now, that didnt make me look like an alien who was trying to blend in. I looked just fine...

Lady Luck Shines

But little did i realize that I had broken one of the 10 commandments (no... not thou shall not kill)

"Thou shall not Steal !"

The footwear i was wearing turned out to be of the cermonial priest and i have never have been put to so much shame in so little time. Apologies poured out and he (magnanimously) forgave me my sins and accepted my confession. So now I was clean, but without footwear and i had to walk barefooted, only to amass boils on my legs.

Back to Square One... It hurts
(The Circle of Life)

The Divine Scientists & their Research Paper...

2006-03-26T22:18:00.000-08:00

It’s a while since I felt religious. May be the hectic work life has drained me of my inquisitiveness about my culture, one that is so vast and amazing that it spans a spectrum that no other culture, mythology or religion can boast of. No I’m not talking of Hinduism… its but a mere reflection of the great phenomenon called Vedic Religion.

VEDAs… The treasure house of knowledge, the treasure house that the scientists (rishis or sages in this case) of yore amassed from observation, analysis and a sacred bridge to the divine. The knowledge that is packed in those 4 Vedas is the pillars of this civilization (which is one of the oldest, still standing religions. It has withstood all the test of time, not withstanding its own innate and inherent flaws).

Here is an excerpt from an article that I found on Vedas (see the whole article here)

“The term Veda comes from the root 'Vid', to know. The Veda is the source of the other five sets of scriptures, why, even of the secular and the materialistic. The Vedas are the eternal truths revealed by God to the great ancient Rishis of India. The word Rishi means a Seer, from 'dris', to see.

He is the Mantra-Drashta, seer of Mantra or thought. The thought was not his own. The Rishis saw the truths or heard them. Therefore, the Vedas are what are heard ('Sruti'). The Rishi did not write. He did not create it out of his mind. He was only the spiritual discoverer of the thought. He is not the inventor of the Veda. The Rishi is only a medium or an agent to transmit to people the intuitional experiences which he received.

The truths of the Vedas are revelations. All the other religions of the world claim their authority as being delivered by special messengers of God to certain persons, but the Vedas do not owe their authority to any one. They are themselves the authority as they are eternal… and that is their beauty.”

Do I believe in it…? My conclusion is the same but my interpretation of the whole is a different perspective.

I believe that you have to view the rishis as scientists, people who were so inquisitive about finding the ultimate truth about why we are here and who are we and the other entire high sounding questions that theologists usually ask, that they dedicated their lives for it. For some, their research led them to a point of contact with that ultimate storehouse of knowledge.

Each took back something that he wanted to share with the world, a collection of which finally resulted in the Veda Samahita... their ultimate research paper and a collabarative one at that...

A Dream I never dared to dream..(The US Diaires-6)

2006-03-24T00:25:00.000-08:00

I have been a fan of Macromedia products since college. My love for MM started with Flash5 and then spread like wild fire through later releases, Dreamweaver and Fireworks.

Its been a dream big enough to get into MM (which is now reality, though MM in itself is history now that Adobe has bought it), visiting the MM HQ was like a dream i never dared to dream. So, I was feeling all honored and elated at the prospect of visiting the MM office at 601, Townsend, SanFrancisco.

It all started with my uncle driving me to the San Mateo Caltrain Station and then the half hour ride to the 4th & Kings station, in the heart of San Francisco. The ride was a nice change from the Indian trains (though i have heard the Delhi Metro is better)...

I found that they had a seperate cab for people with bicycles and i was surprised to see how many people actually cycle to work from the train station. There were bikes stacked outside the train station, i found BMWs, Yamahas, Vespas and our very own Bajaj Chetak (4 Stroke)...

As I walked out of the 4th & Kings station, i almost lost my way and ended up going up the kings to the 5th street and saw the famous SBC park (the SF Baseball stadium).

The SBC Park

Finally after quite a morning walk, I finally get a glimpse of the red brick Baker & Hamilton Building where the MM HQ was housed. I reached 601 Townsend, which turned out to be a converted warehouse with a cool retro look to it.

THE MM HQ

Inside 601, the Cafeteria

Minds@Work
(MM cubes)

If the place was good, the people were better. Warm, friendly, i can go on adding adjectives to qualify them. Jason was cool and Joan was amazing. It was good to finally meet the whole FLEX Team.

MM CREW
Jason, Rob, Rish, Harish, Me & Joan (L-R)

Proud to be an Indian

2006-03-19T22:19:00.000-08:00

I found this wonderful news series by ABC News about India, on Nyneishia's Blog... It fills me with pride to call myself an Indian..

Click on the Pic to view the video...

One flew into the Chick’s Nest (A Tale of Lust)

2006-03-19T20:56:00.000-08:00

As I walked into “JukeBox”, in Kormangala on Sunday, it was just another weekend… And a good one at that. There was an awesome concert by Parikrama on Friday (which was free thanks to Radio City and free passes thanks to DDey and Oracle), and another awesome evening at the Legends of Rock on Saturday.

But I was about to bite a forbidden fruit (not exactly a fruit) that evening, and I had no clue. As we all settled down and started to decide on our orders, lust took over me. I was overcome by the smell, reminded me of the amazing times we had together and how much I missed it. I never realized that it made a difference to me, but now reality dawned…

Oh! The aroma, the legs and the breast was so vividly etched in my mind… I had to give into my carnal needs... I ordered a Chicken Steak (phew… I said it out loud, Finally)

I have been avoiding it for so long with “The Flu” around, but I just couldn’t resist it when everyone around me was enjoying it.

But reality dawned, a guilt that surges from the gravity of the sin that you have committed. I have wowed again, not to give into it…

Until Lust takes me again… Please say a Hail Mary for my health

Romeo & Juliet...

Accomplice 1 (The D Day)

Accomplices 2 & 3
(Deepti and Priyanka)

Flickr Badge

2006-03-15T21:12:00.000-08:00

Do you have a Flickr Account... If not, it is time that you got one.

Flickr is a photoservice provided by Yahoo, to share your photos in a simple but amazingly elegant way. You can create Albums, organize your photos and lots more. You can like to others and view their private photos and create friends lists too. Whats more you can do all this using your yahoo account.

Flickr has started a new thing for Bloggers, Flickr Badges

As you can see at the bottom right side of my blog, in the sidebar, a Badge can be embedded in your blog, so that people can easily view your photos. Its very easy, a 4 step creation of a html or flash badge, generates a HTML code, that needs to be just added onto your Blog Template...

It looks like this

FLEX quote of the week...

2006-03-14T01:56:00.000-08:00

Richard Monson-Haefel is a key influencer in the Java and IT markets. He is the award winning author of books on Java Web Services, EJBs, and JMS. He is also the founder of several Apache projects and a former member of the JCP Executive Committee (a small, elected and elite group). Now, he is an analyst with the Burton Group. In early January he wrote a 30 page report on AJAX that mentioned us, but in a niche and undervalued way. He really didn't get what we were doing and was (with some caveats) very supportive of AJAX.

Richard has been trying out FLEX and his blog posting today is a thing of beauty and recognition of our efforts. Check it out. Here is a excerpt from his Blog...

"In America you can't say peanut-butter,
without thinking about Jelly.
In the IT industry you shouldn't think of Ajax,
without thinking of Flash."

Cheers...

Bruce Almighty (A Day with the CEO)

2006-03-08T21:51:00.000-08:00

It was a busy day at office yesterday, as our CEO, Mr. Bruce Chizen visited the Bangalore Adobe office. The office was being cleaned over and over and everyone was excited.

Welcome Bruce !
(Flower arrangement in the office lobby)

I was just one of those "everyone" until the day before when i got a email from Aparna (our H.R. head), that I have been chosen to meet Bruce in a panel of 10 people to talk about our needs, aspirations, problems and to get his vision on the Bangalore office. Boy was I thrilled...

The meeting was very exciting and heartening, to hear his views on India, Bangalore, and FLEX. He gave the impression that we were just at the start of an expressway which lay ahead, for many miles. We asked many questions and he was more than ready to answer them and wanted to know our concerns... straight from the grass root and not a filtered version from the management.

Me with the CEO, Bruce Chizen

He loved Bangalore and visited Parikrama Foundation here and Adobe has decided to fund it, including a $40,000 donation towards their computer facility. Bruce talked to us about giving back to the society and that we have a duty to help those around us.

Bruce at Parikrama School, Koramangala

In the evening, we had all had a meeting and dinner with Bruce at the Taj and he shared his vision on Adobe and the things to come...

Bruce Almighty

The only down side of the whole meeting was the announcement that our very own David Halpin, who with Victor had build the India office is leaving us to go back to the US... Everyone had a snap with him and it was an emotional goodbye to him from many.

Ram, David Halpin and Me

Lauren and Me with
Naresh Gupta (CEO, Adobe India)

I love FLEX

2006-03-05T20:01:00.000-08:00

I'm so proud of working in Adobe (formerly Macromedia) and especially in this great technology called FLEX. Still in beta (you can get it here), FLEX is generating a lot of buzz in the developer community, people are picking it and playing with it and applauding it (though there are a few things that will be sorted out before the release)

I was pleasently surprised to see a lot of people at the Adobe Conference fiddling around with Flex Builder (which is a IDE that we have released which is build on the almost ubiquitous Eclipse IDE). To see so much enthusiasm inside the company itself was awsome. FLEX swept the show in the conference with the maximum people wanting to port their applications to FLEX, and wanting to know what they could do with it.. It was awsome.

But what really made me proud was something i saw today... It was a podcast interview of Bruce Eckel, (author of the books "Thinking in C++" and "Thinking in Java" ), he talks about his positive experience with experimenting with Flex 2.

Bruce is a Java Guru, who likes to sample and play around with new technologies. He has tried Perl, PHP, Python, all kinds of Java related stuff, Ruby... etc. The very fact that he chose FLEX to beat others like Applets and AJAX for user-experiences for Rich Internet Clients is a big recognition for us. I really loved it and I'm proud to be a part of it..

Here is the part about flex that is from his interview.

You can hear the whole interview here on the Java Posse podcast, episode #37 , "Interview with Bruce Eckel, Part 2"