Shades 'n' Hues

A year later

2010-01-17T11:27:00.004+05:30

It is almost a year since I moved away from a regular job and the city I'd come to like. 2009 was like 2002 for me in many respects - the year I moved out of my comfortable home to Roorkee, high on optimism, to face the "real world" as they call it, and undergoing a significant transformation of perspective (and perhaps personality). It was a difficult year (those of you who know my roommate would understand)! Besides, you've got a good idea from watching 3-idiots. :)

2009 was a year where I was clear on just one thing - that I'd bring a lot of freedom, adventure and creativity into my lifestyle. Everything else was hazy - the business ideas, people, markets, technologies and all that jazz. But now, after a year, a lot of pieces are in place. Optimism is extremely high. I've interacted with a whole lot of people who've encouraged me rather than be skeptic.

I'm not making money, I'm living with my parents, I haven't had a drink in a long long time (clubbing days are long gone), I'm still trying to build back the social circle I kinda lost (and continue to lose to marriages), and I've had more than my share of bad bad days. But guess what folks, I'm having a lot of fun!

This is not an attempt to preach anything. Hell, I was the boy in school whom other kids' mothers told "why don't you sit with Aditya in the class", and now they're likely to tell "doesn't matter that he started off on his own, you do your MBA and ...". What I'm trying to say is, there's no right or wrong way, but there's surely a fun way and a boring way, and I'm happy I've made the switch. :)

Education is good, but not necessary to be successful

2009-11-28T18:48:00.002+05:30

Well this post has nothing to do with travel or photography. It has to do with entrepreneurship.

True story. In 1980s, there was a young school-going boy in Kanpur. His father, an ordinary government officer, aspired that his son become a doctor. The boy, being very good in studies, thought it was for the best. When he completed his schooling with great marks, a friend of his father came visiting. When he learnt about the boy's performance he dug into his pocket, took out 5 large notes from a whole bundle and rewarded the boy. Excited and happy, the boy went to his mother to show her the money, which was quite a lot in those days (maybe even more than what his father made in a month). The mother tells him his "uncle" is rich because he is a businessman and is the "maalik" (owner) of a company. The boy, impressed, decides he'd rather be a "maalik" than a doctor!

Few years later, the boy has grown into a young sales agent for polythene bags in Kanpur. One day he observed that a pan wala sold pan masala by taking a little from the original cylindrical container, wrapping it in a newspaper and selling it "loose". Everyone ate pan masala, but wanted to buy a small amount only rather than a complete box in which it was sold. That was the "eureka" moment, and the young man sold the concept of small flexible pouches for pan masala to Deepak Kothari, the boss of Pan Parag.

The small pouches were a super hit. Everyone could buy a small pouch for "one use". Today these pouches have revolutionized retail, specially among lower and middle classes, because they can buy lots of products - from detergent to shampoos, which were beyond their reach in larger packaging. The young man is now old, and goes by the name of Ashok Chaturvedi. The company he started is called UFlex, and is among the largest flexible packaging companies in the world, worth over Rs 6000 crores today.

Another entrepreneurial success story, courtesy my mom who works for this company. There may be minor factual errors here, but the essence of the story is that a man from a very ordinary background, who still doesn't speak very fluent English, today owns many private jets! Cheers to the passion of entrepreneurship. :)

Rediscovering Delhi – Part 5: Qutb Minar Complex

2009-11-22T20:28:00.001+05:30

Its been a long time since the last post (the rant about tobacco ad was just a lame filler). I’m home alone for a few days, so I thought I’d check out some heritage site in Delhi, and settled for Qutb Minar.

This monument and its complex was built by the first Islamic rulers in India. Qutb Minar was Qutb-ud-din Aibak’s solution to allow his princess a clear view of the Yamuna. He succeeded in completing only the first floor. The next three were added by his son-in-law and successor Iltutmish, and the monument was completed by Firoz Shah Tuglaq. The British also played around with the tower, adding and then removing a Europian dome structure at top now called “Smith’s Folly” and installed in the lawns.

Apart from the awe inspiring structures, what I liked most was that the entire experience of visiting a heritage site has become painless. The washrooms were excellent, the audio guide totally worth it and the entire complex sports ramps for accessibility! I’ve never seen this in any other heritage site so far. (I’m even including a photograph showing the ramp). Also included is an interesting feature missing in any mosque – columns with intricate carvings. This mosque (the first ever in India) was built over the remains of a temple and due to shortage of time and local skilled workers of Islamic style, the columns were retained in the final structure.

I’ve decided to go to the place again when the lights go up after sunset. Unfortunately I shot the photos when sun was at its brightest, hence no amazing shots. Comments are most welcome. :)

Tobacco is injurious to health

2009-11-16T17:37:00.002+05:30

I was watching an interesting movie on HBO at night, and I saw a long advertisement about throat and oral cancer. There's a doctor talking about the cancer and visuals show sickening images of victims. The ad runs for quite a while (more than 30 seconds I think) and the last visual says "Stop Chewing Tobacco: Tobacco causes cancer" (or something to that effect).

Interesting things to note: The advertisement message in the end is in English, and is being shown to viewers of HBO at 10 pm in the night. Now I don't want to sound class-conscious here, but ad-slots cost money (comes from us tax payers), and I have great doubts about this advertisement's target audience the way it ran.

Shouldn't it have been on other channels and in local languages where most people watching it are likely tobacco consumers? HBO or Travel & Living has a different kind of viewership! But who cares - the Govt. has enough money to waste!

P.S. This is out of tune of the general theme of content that comes to this blog, but its been a long time since I blogged here, so anything goes!

Diwali: Festival of sweets..err..lights

2009-10-18T22:01:00.001+05:30

Hope you had a fun-filled Diwali! I sure did, and tomorrow (or maybe day-after-tomorrow) I can go back to a normal diet after three days of hogging everything that came my way!

Delhi celebrates Diwali with a fervour that few other cities can match. Colourful lights (all made in China, of course) light up homes everywhere, and the Government is kind enough to spare the routine power cuts!

One important tip for shooting from terrace during Diwali – be very careful of “rockets”! I had a couple of them burst quite close by, and I decided to take only a handful of shots and go back.

Well I don’t burst crackers myself, being a member of the “Crackers=Noise+Pollution” school of thought. However, one can’t avoid admiring fireworks that spread out and light up the sky in glorious colours before blowing out.

Well these photographs don’t do justice to the spectacular display I witnessed from the terrace last night, but then I’m happy I made the attempt! Next time, with some more planning, perhaps I’ll shoot better photos. Once again, happy Diwali!

Pachmarhi – The good, the bad and the ugly

2009-10-11T23:16:00.001+05:30

After my Khujaraho trip failed to materialize, thanks to Nikhil and his friends we managed to pull off Pachmarhi (M.P.) in a long weekend.

Pachmarhi (or Panchmarhi) gets its name from the Pandava caves, where it is believed that the Pandavas spent some part of their 13 year old exile. Later, in 1858 it was discovered by the British who made it the regional summer retreat for their army, and now the Indian army inhabits most of Pachmarhi.

The result of the army presence is that the place is wonderfully maintained, complete with a nice golf course and forest rest houses. Parasailing was literally the “high” point of the trip! On the downside, because of the peak season the place was very touristy (and expensive).

The last photograph above was actually shot when the train from Bhopal passes Narmada river en-route to Pipariya. The train ride is beautiful, much like the train rides in the Western Ghats post monsoons.

Final verdict: Pachmarhi is quite a regular hill station, which is not really something bad, but for someone who travels a lot there are probably other places to be seen before. However, for a long weekend with a good gang, it was an awesome trip!

Please post your comments about the photographs (I know they’re not up to the mark this time, but comments are still welcome).

My travel map

2009-10-09T18:29:00.003+05:30

I came back from a weekend trip to Pachmarhi (photos in the next post), and I was thinking about the next trip already!

I haven't seen a lot of Central and Western India, so I decided to put every city I've visited on a Google Map, to get a big picture. However the exercise is quite time consuming, so right now the map is incomplete. Even then, it is interesting to watch lots of clustered pins and wide, unseen areas.

View Adi's travel map in a larger map

Goes to show how much there is to see within India! Looking at the map, I realize there's a whole lot of trips waiting to happen in Western and Central India, Karnataka, Kashmir and Ladakh and many unseen places in the East (including Kolkata).

Plan of action? Get the venture to generate enough cash to fund these travel dreams!

Rediscovering Delhi – Part 4: Connaught Place at night

2009-09-13T12:01:00.001+05:30

Yesterday I attended a startup event in the afternoon at Connaught Place, and went armed with my camera and Gorillapod to take a few night shots. However, between the event and the photography, I ended up guzzling a couple of beer on a near-empty stomach and was more than a wee bit high for taking serious shots!

The good thing about being high was that I could ignore curious passer-bys whose stares, questions and comments unnerve me normally. The bad thing, of course, is that I lost the focus and patience that is a must for taking good shots.

The thing with night shots is that you need a tripod (I had a Gorillapod which works fine if you can find a pole, fence or wall to fix it on). Also, a view from top of a building works the best (like the photograph featured on Connaught Place Wikipedia entry), but unfortunately I didn’t make the effort (for reasons already mentioned).

The photograph above is tilted because I had placed my Gorillapod on a stone, but fixing the tilt meant losing some objects from the edges, so I’ve left it as it is.

The photographs here are unedited (no post-processing, not even cropping). I find it too much of an effort to play around with image processing software, though one of these days I’d like to try HDR.

Please post your comments on the shots!

Rediscovering Delhi - Part 3: Humayun's Tomb

2009-09-08T20:22:00.002+05:30

With the weather now less oppressive than before, I've gone back to photography. I recently finished reading City of Djinns by my favorite historian William Dalrymple, and it ignited my interest in Delhi's Mughal history.

You can read a lot about Humayun's Tomb on Wikipedia. I'll share some interesting things I read in City of Djinns. The most striking fact is all kingdoms with capital in Delhi perished - right from Pandavas in Mahabharata (capital: Indraprastha) to British (capital: New Delhi).

The book says it was rumored that Shah Jahan had an huge sexual appetite, which made him lust for other nobels' wives, and even his own daughter Jahanara Begum, who was quite beautiful. Jahanara was so powerful, she was the only Mughal queen/princess to have had an independent palace all to herself.

There are a lot of other interesting stories about Mughals and Delhi. I'd strongly recommend both City of Djinns and The Last Mughal. Its unfortunate we didn't learn history in school by actually visiting all the sites, that way it would have been so much more interesting and I'd have probably known my history better.

Enjoy these photographs. I don't know if I'm any good at architectural shots, your comments are most welcome.

Zen and the Art of City Biking

2009-07-30T11:18:00.001+05:30

Zen Seeker: "What has Zen got to do with the Art of City Biking, O learned one?"

Learned One: "More than you can possibly comprehend at the moment, O zen seeker. City biking is not just about commuting from one point to another, of knowing when to change gears and when to go full throttle. It is, in the very least, the Art of Squeeze".

ZS: "Squeeze? Did I hear right?"

LO: "Yes. Squeeze. It is the art of squeezing within obstacles to find a way, just like water finds its way through boulders in upper Himalayas. A city biker must find his path, no matter how many obstacles mar his way. He will end up with scratches, the obstacles will scream at him, but no matter what, he cannot stop, he must go on. And there lies Zen - to find a way around obstacles and to keep going on."

ZS: "Interesting."

LO: "There's more to Zen and the Art of City Biking. It tells us that some people may be in the biggest, most comfortable cars, but they move at a crawling pace compared to the city biker, who has to bear the harshness of sun, pools of puddle, black fumes of smoke and constant blaring of horns, but keeps on moving at a good pace."

ZS: "So some people would rather choose discomfort over stagnancy. Very interesting, but this is getting too heavy."

LO: "You haven't read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, have you? Don't even try! There's more. The Art of City Biking is also the Art of Skidding every now and then, but letting Time the Great Healer (and the neighbourhood clinic) heal your wounds, and continuing biking without fearing the next crash."

ZS: "Wow, that's a lot of Zen for a single post."

LO: "Let me close with one last piece of Zen. City Biking is about freedom, constant motion, obstacles, and exchanging comfort for speed. Last but not the least, the Art of City Biking is the art of synchronizing your office hours to drop that cute co-worker home without worrying about the traffic!"

ZS: "Well said! :) "

Epilogue:
The author travels roughly 70 km a day commuting from home to work and back. He rides an ordinary city bike, and really wants to purchase a Honda.

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Facebook invites I turned down this week...

2009-07-26T11:07:00.001+05:30

A prospective client I met for business. I mean, that's what LinkedIn is for! You can't award business to someone when you see some of the lame quizzes they like to take (I plead guilty to that!)
That college batchmate whom I rarely spoke to. I mean - you didn't feel the need to socialize with me then, what's changed now?
Someone from my ex-company. I'd like to keep my "updates" away from your judgemental eyes!
An intern who works for me. Why? He's a great guy and all that - but I'll add him later when he's no longer an intern. I don't want him to see "Screwed up week..." kind of status updates from me when he logs in!
Someone from school who never spoke to me when I was in school. Moreover, a male of the species. Not interested! ;)
A cousin. I suspect she just wants to spy on my feeds for female activity to alert her folks (and mine too maybe). True - there are other cousins and my young devil of a brother on my friend list who can do the same, but given that they publish not-so-family-friendly stuff ("Which sexy tennis star should you date" kind of quizzes) too, we have an unspoken mutual agreement of not taking stuff to elders.

Am I making a big fuss of nothing? After all, its just Facebook - a platform for attention-starved bored youngsters. Nothing serious. But then - what is not serious to me can be very serious to someone else, specially someone whom I know only in professional capacity. Better safe than worry!

Have similar experiences? Share in comments. :)

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Freak injury diary

2009-07-23T21:50:00.003+05:30

Saturday 5 am : Woke up to turn off the alarm, but didn't make it back to bed. I don't remember what happened, but I do remember my nose bleeding so much it was like Kill Bill! (Un)fortunately there were no witnesses so I'll never know what really happened.

Some time early this week, dinner time : Was cooking my special pasta for entire family, when burnt myself with a splash of really hot molten butter. Fortunately it turned out to be a fantastic pasta. :)

Wednesday, 6:30 am : Was working out my triceps (or whatever will become my triceps in a couple of months) and hurt my back. Ouch!

Same day, late night : Can't sleep. Back hurts. No gym tomorrow.

Enough injuries for the week, hoping for a great weekend ahead!

From the past: Malaysia Tour

2009-06-21T22:47:00.002+05:30

I was going through some old photographs on Flickr, and came across some shots which are worth sharing. My vacation to Malaysia was one of the most interesting trips for various reasons good and bad, and also the most memorable experience of sun and sand.

The photographs are from Perhentian Islands, a beautiful set of islands in Kota Bharu, Malaysia. The islands are on the east coast of peninsular Malaysia, much less publicised compared to Langkawi, and much more beautiful. These were shot by my friend’s camera in film, and I cannot be sure which photograph was taken by whom, and so I don’t claim to have shot these. Here goes!

Revisiting Little Lhasa

2009-05-26T22:19:00.001+05:30

The gaps between my posts are increasing, mainly because I’m not doing much photography lately. Last weekend I visited McLeodganj for a second time in two years. Although a bit too touristy at this time of the year, the place has a certain charm that will made me visit again.

Temple Road

I won’t bother sharing history or culture of the place or why it’s called Little Lhasa. McLeodganj has a lot to teach tourists about cooking, music, Hindi, and of course, meditation and yoga. You can find posters everywhere advertising the same.

Busy street – Shoppers, vendors, monks…

“In McLeodganj, the weather and the women are totally unpredictable”. That’s what someone told my friend, when within a few minutes we witnessed both bright sunshine and heavy downpour. In fact, on day two we were pounded by hail while trekking back to town from Triund. Speaking of which, here’s my best shot from the trip:

Hand-held panorama of the view at Triund (2832m above sea level)

The trip ended with a miracle – our train escaped the wrath of rioters in Jalandhar (the train which left about half an hour before ours on the same route wasn’t so lucky, it ended up with 3 burnt coaches). We reached Delhi an hour before schedule as the train skipped Jalandhar, and learnt about the incident on news later in the day.

All the photographs are available in my Picasa album. Feel free to share comments.

Civil Services results out: That time of the year again!

2009-05-07T22:42:00.002+05:30

Yup, it is that time of the year again. Twice a year when newspapers report on CAT and UPSC exam results, I have to "defend" my decision of not wanting to break my back slogging for these "lucrative" courses. It is a well established bi-annual ritual at my home. Moreover, its not just my parents I need to explain. On such mornings when everyone is reading the same reports in the newspapers, some of my concerned relatives call up my mom, discuss the reports (and the effect it ought to have on me).

This year things became more interesting. Consider the similarities between this year's topper of UPSC (Shubhra Saxena) and me:

Both residents of Indirapuram, Ghaziabad
Both graduates of IIT, Roorkee
Both ex-employees of Oracle (Hyderabad)!

See the pattern? Just when I thought the ritual is fading away, Fate was quietly slipping the Lead into the glove (quoting Wodehouse).

Anyway, with no CAT or IAS results due for several months, I can hope my new business will take off and I won't have to defend my career choice any more. :) (Though I will always have some other stuff to defend, from hair style to marriage plans!).

Worst Case Scenario – A lesson in Optimism

2009-04-28T12:00:00.001+05:30

Silly post after a long time. But right now, in the heat of the moment, I really must write. I’m generally an optimistic fellow. At times when I need to plan for something, I tell myself - “Hey, in the worst case, this may go wrong and…” and if it sounds quite bad, I add “but the probability of the worst case scenario actually occurring is very low”. So a quick thought about the worst case and the belief that worst case will almost never occur, helps me keep an optimistic outlook.

But today is different. The worst case actually happened! It was a small thing: had a meeting at Greater Noida 9:30 am in the morning, and I reach the bus stand at 7:30 am to catch the direct bus (air conditioned too). The estimated travel time by bus would be around 1 hour 20 minutes. So far so good. The transport officials at the stop tell me the bus should be here “soon”, as it is supposed to start at Ghaziabad 7:00 am. So I wait. At 8:00 am there’s still no bus. Now I get a bit impatient, but tell myself that it will be along by 8:15 at most, and I’ll make it.

8:30 am and no bus. Now I know the only way to make it is by own transport. I call my brother (who needed to go to his college in the same area, only an hour later than me) and ask him to get the bike to the stop, and we’ll go on the bike from there. Revised estimate says if I start 8:45 I may make it by 9:35. Surprise – there’s a massive traffic jam between my home (around 2 km away) and where I wait. Apparently the traffic lights were not working, and Homo moronus drivers had violated every traffic rule in the book to bring vehicle movement to a complete standstill. At times like these I wish I had one of those battle tanks from my old video games that could shoot vehicles into dust and make way, but this is digressing from my narrative. So, what should have taken at most ten minutes takes my brother much more, and he gets the car (Dad thought bike is not good in the heat) to me around 9:30. I cancel the meeting, re-schedule it for some other time and head back home via a long detour to avoid the jam. Back home at 9:50.

Why do I call it the worst case? Well I was up early and at the bus stand at 7:30 am, but the bus never arrived, and the roads got jammed real bad (that too between a small stretch from my home to the stop), resulting in my returning back to my place 2 and 1/2 hours after I started. No meeting accomplished. The great heat doesn’t help either. Pretty much what I’d call the worst case. Of course things could have been worse, like a road accident, but those scenarios I never consider.

So what’s with the whole rant about waiting in the heat and not making it to the meeting? Well the first statement of the post already claims this is a silly one! Bottom line – once in a while the worst case scenario is bound to occur. However, two worst case scenarios one after another has an even lower probability, so I am going to be very optimistic for the next few days. :)

oOo - A photographer's eye

2009-03-23T21:13:00.004+05:30

oOo, originally uploaded by Davide Cherubini.

If you read my last post, you'll remember about my photo-walk in Old Delhi with some photography enthusiasts. Well something happened.

I was loaded with the minimum in terms of equipment - Nikon D40x with kit lens (18-55 mm). Others had better lenses, or cameras, and one guy was even carrying a tripod (though he never used it). As expected talk turned to equipment once, with someone saying how Canon lenses are the best etc. I didn't contribute to the discussion, because even though discussing equipment and gadgets excites me a lot, photography is an expensive hobby, and I've even met someone once who had an annual budget of Rs 2,00,000 for photography stuff.

While all this talk was going around, I was still thinking about how bad I had fared in terms of good shots that day, and none of it was because I lacked good equipment (OK, a high aperture zoom lens would have been awesome, but mostly it was my inability to compose nicely). I was mentally arguing this person that when I see a photograph, I can never say "Oh this would have been better if it was shot with a Canon instead of Sigma lens".

And then I came across this photograph of parked bikes. Look at the entire photostream of Davide Cherubini, and watch how he can take so many creative shots of "just bikes". We exchanged comments, and in his words:

"...fully agree with you, eye and composition first equipment after."

This reinforced what I had been thinking. I am not limited in my capabilities because I carry around a kit lens. Nobody is. I can take really awesome shots like this one with the lens I carry - that's what I intend to do.

By the way, this photograph made it to Flickr's homepage. Way to go, Davide!

Rediscovering Delhi – Part 2: Chandni Chowk

2009-03-22T16:09:00.001+05:30

Today I got my first shot at street photography during a photo-walk in Chandni Chowk (yup, Delhi-6). Someone at our online photography club suggested it, and early Sunday morning I headed to the nearest Metro Station on my bike.

I have to admit – street photography is not really my thing. Carrying a bag and a DSLR camera and shooting some beggar, I commanded so much attention I felt as if I’m some strange creature from outer space. I know I should have ignored them, but I couldn’t, and the result was a set of uninspiring photographs.

Uninviting view of the famous Gali Parathe Wali

On the other hand, I befriended a bunch of photography enthusiasts, and happened to finally walk around in Old Delhi after a long long gap.

Made in China: I can’t explain what that expression is.

Being early Sunday morning meant the markets were closed, but it certainly didn’t mean fewer people on the roads. Most of the activity stemmed from the religious buildings – the Gurudwara (Sheeshganj), temple and mosque (Jama Masjid). A huge queue of destitute men waited for the food distributed outside the Gurudwara, amusing themselves at our expense.

With bag and baggage – did he miss the train?

The lanes so narrow that I collided with a hawker (on foot!), old houses in a variety of colours, the hit song “masakkali” playing in the air, it was overall a great experience. No wonder Puraani Dilli is the favourite muse of a lot of bloggers and travel writers.

Wired: Its scary how close the transmission wires are to the houses.

One thing is clear, I’ll be making at least one more such trip before it gets too hot to walk. Destination? Not decided. And next time maybe I’ll carry a point and shoot :)

“Are you from TV?” That’s what they all thought!

I understand the shots aren’t great, but comments on this post are most welcome.

Rediscovering Delhi – Part 1: Connaught Place

2009-02-27T12:56:00.001+05:30

I had been away from Delhi a long long time, and a lot has changed in the past five years. With all the roads, flyovers and Delhi Metro construction activity, routes no longer look familiar.

I had a chance to visit Connaught Place yesterday, and it was awesome. I have never browsed so many books in a single day before! And I happened to carry a camera along as well, and there are a couple of photographs worth showing.

A hand-held panorama – PVR Plaza road

Hundreds of pigeons feeding on the sidewalk

I took another panoramic shot but I messed it up (overexposed with bad focus). CP is a heaven for shopping on a limited budget, specially for books. I got myself an Orhan Pamuk (he’s become popular even with footpath sellers) for the time being, since I was short on cash, but I’ll surely be making another visit soon enough (with lots of cash!). :)

Well, while the weather remains as good as it is, I’ll be doing a bit more Dilli Darshan (hence the “Part 1” in the title). So long!

Two Weeks Later: Status check

2009-02-16T22:09:00.002+05:30

Lots of people are asking me what's up. Life has changed completely since I relocated two weeks ago, here's a quick summary of what has happened:

Orientation week at home (I'd been away a long long time)
Met some entrepreneurs
Almost discarded the idea
Then got working at it feverishly
Company name, website and logo done: CampusConsole
Survived chilly winter days
Celebrated first birthday at home in seven years
Less than 6k in bank
And lastly, gained a lot of weight (and probably still gaining)

Agenda for coming weeks? Get customers and deliver. Simple!

It is written

2009-02-02T15:49:00.001+05:30

2 august, 2006

The flight landed on time, and lots of thoughts were going through my mind as I waited for my baggage - I was now out of the comfort zone of my college campus and entering into the big bad world to build a career. As I waited for my last suitcase to arrive, I suddenly realised that I was the only one waiting for baggage now, and there was a suitcase going around on the conveyor belt that looked a bit like mine, but was more "green" than my "brown" suitcase. It then struck me that someone has probably taken my suitcase and left his/her behind. I spoke to the Sahara staff, they agreed. They tried to contact the passenger of the other suitcase, but it was booked through a travel agent who didn't have the passenger's contact number!

I wasn't agitated. It wasn't the staff's fault. The other passenger was an old lady who probably found it too hard to read up the tag on the luggage, and took off with what she thought was hers. While the airline staff tried to contact her, I sat down and entertained myself by strumming the guitar I was carrying along. It was many rounds of Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd and whatever little Hotel California I could play before the other passenger came back with my baggage and we un-swapped. I told everyone later I am starting a new life with a not-so-great stroke of luck!

1 February, 2009

I arrive the Delhi airport, still trying to get over the fact that I've left a good life behind in Hyderabad to start afresh. As I wait for my last piece of luggage, I realise I'm all alone waiting for the very same suitcase, and a similar looking suitcase is going around on the conveyor belt, unclaimed. Déjà vu! The coincidence doesn't end there. The passengers who took off with my suitcase had booked via a travel agent, and again the airline staff (this time Spicejet) had a very tough time contacting them. I waited a whole two hours with my family at the airport before I gave up, filled out the baggage claim form and returned home, hoping they'll get it back and return to me soon. (They did get it back, and hopefully will deliver it to me by today).

My younger bro tells me it is a signal that I'm not welcome (he has his reasons). Maybe its some force telling me that I'm going to have a good life, but I'm not going to stick around for too long. I don't know if I believe in all that, but I have told myself I'm not carrying that suitcase on a flight ever. :)

P.S. The title is inspired by the movie Slumdog Millionaire - you'll know if you have seen it. Watch it if you haven't.

My last working day email

2009-02-02T15:06:00.001+05:30

People told me its quite creative, so I think it belongs to my blog. ;) Pasting it below:

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. So where will you be based?
A. New Delhi/Noida/Ghaziabad. Will stay at home.

Q. What your start-up plan?
A. That's confidential. :-X
I can surely tell you it is in the software industry.

Q. Hey I know someone who has a software start-up too and could be of help...
A. Really?? Please drop me a mail and let me know. Networking helps a lot.

Q. Cool. Let's stay in touch.
A. Yup. You can stay connected with me through these channels:

Email - aditya.sahay@gmail.com
Social Networking (Orkut) - http://www.orkut.co.in/Main#Profile.aspx?uid=17598332007698893573
Professional Networking (LinkedIn) - http://www.linkedin.com/in/adityasahay
Personal Blog - http://shades-n-hues.blogspot.com/

Q. (drum roll) And the unasked question...
A. This question is best unanswered in this FAQ. Stay in touch if you want to get involved. :D

I'm grateful to you all for hundreds of things. All the best for everything.

--
Over and out,
Aditya

Aditya Sahay | Ex-Senior Applications Engineer | Phone: +91.40.6605.3284
Oracle Fusion Sourcing, Procurement Development
ORACLE India | Oracle Campus, Phase I | 500081 Hyderabad

Meeting a Miracle Man

2009-01-27T21:04:00.001+05:30

Of late I've been getting into discussions about recession, politics and all that's wrong with this world. In fact, looking at the news channels it seems everything is moving towards doom! Then, last Friday, I met a Miracle Man.

Faizal (fictitious name) is a good looking, well educated young man, working in a call center. About nine months ago he was hit by a speeding cab and thrown about 70-80 feet away on the road. His injuries were not just external; he went into a coma that lasted a whole 45 days. He needed a couple of rods inserted in his left leg to support badly fractured bones. He suffered partial amnesia. Bed-ridden for eight months, he developed a severe case of bedsore.

Finally, at the end of eight months of suffering, this young man walked unsupported into the hospital one day for a checkup, and his doctor couldn't believe it. It was a miracle that this man is almost normal - when doctors had feared the worst for him. While he was in coma, the doctors couldn't say when he would come back, and didn't know whether the damage to his brain would let him lead a normal life (he could have been paralysed or blind or anything like that). And here he was, sitting in the same bus as me heading to Bangalore, and telling some of us his story.

I'm sure we've all heard such stories of miracle come-backs from some tragic accident or medical condition (I'm a huge fan of "Its not about the bike" by Lance Armstrong). But very few of us actually meet someone who's gone through such a time. Meeting this man made me realise (once again?) how lame and petty it is to talk about things that have gone bad in politics, economics, sports, at work or at home. Its good to be ambitious and want the best for oneself, but then how often do we take a moment to tell ourselves that we have a great life?

As I write this I'm telling myself I won't watch news channels for any more bad news, and before I go to bed every night I'll remind myself that I have an AWESOME life. :)

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My Photography Wishlist

2009-01-22T22:07:00.002+05:30

Photography is a very expensive hobby for people like me on a tight budget (and in a country where stuff is up to two times as expensive as US).

Here's the list of top 3 items I'd like to have:

Gorillapod SLR Zoom - The light and cool mini-tripod that fits a lot of surfaces (and pockets too!)

Nikkor 50 mm AF f1.8D lens - The simplest, fastest, sharpest lens from Nikon with awesome bokeh!

Circular polarizer - For that zing in landscape shots, particularly skies and foliage. Check out this awesome photograph I came across when searching for "circular polarizer" in Flickr.

None of these three items are very expensive (combined $200-$220 at Amazon). And yes, posting these within a month of my upcoming birthday is just a coincidence ;)

P.S. The photographs are from Flickr searches. Also, this post is my first using the Flock browser (it has inbuilt blog, media bar and web clipboard features).

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Matheran: nature-lovers' delight

2009-01-05T23:18:00.001+05:30

OK, first things first, this is about a weekend trip I did long long ago (September 2006). I guess I have some time to kill today so I'll blog about that trip. My close friend Anirudh was about to head to Australia to work, and so we decided the two of us should meet up once before he left. Since he was in Jaipur and I was in Hyderabad, I thought I'll pick something in the middle, and Matheran (none of us had heard about it then) happened.

A view of the hills - photograph (most probably) by Anirudh

Matheran is a popular tourist resort not too far from Mumbai. The most attractive part is that it is a "pedestrian hill station", which means except emergency vehicles, no vehicles are allowed there. So both of us reached Mumbai from our respective cities, got together and started towards Matheran.

Dew drops - photographed by me using Anirudh's awesome telephoto lens (don't remember which, I don't know much about Canon gear)

If you have visited some of the popular places in Western Ghats you would know how beautiful they look post monsoons. It was the same for Matheran. Anirudh and I both love to walk a lot, so we walked a lot. A lot. No horses or rickshaws for us, we just walked. (The hundred year old chuk-chuk train ride the ideal way to reach the top, but it doesn't run during monsoons so we walked).

We sat on one side of the hill and saw the sun set behind clouds and then into the Arabian sea visible far far away. Again photograph most likely by Anirudh (I kept borrowing his camera because it was a digital SLR with an awesome telephoto lens :) hence the scope for confusion).

Good thing we got to spend Friday there, because on Saturday and Sunday there's a mad rush. There are human beings everywhere, and the charm of being secluded in beautiful hills without being overrun by tourists is lost completely.

Cute native girl

Why the blog more than two years later? Well it was triggered by the sight of some permanent red stains of that soil on my jeans :) . If you go to Matheran your shoes and jeans/trousers will get permanent red coloration from the soil there. So be prepared. What else to be prepared for? Monkeys. I got to witness a brave primate trying to get away with Anirudh's precious bag (with the camera and lens) while Anirudh held on to the other end! Eventually a foreigner (I think she was a doctor) scared the monkey away with her cane. It was hilarious and scary at the same time. I mean, if the monkey had gotten away with the bag, it would have been really tragic.

Red soil, bags and a photographer inches away from the edge.

To conclude, Matheran is highly recommended for people who like to call themselves "nature lovers". As I mentioned before, go for weekdays rather than weekend. And carry a stick for scaring monkeys if you can :) .

P.S. I think I've not used so many smileys in a blog before!

The Biggest Move in my life (so far)

2009-01-03T17:26:00.001+05:30

I've decided to quit a very "nice" job in order to pursue start-up ambitions. Also, I'm relocating from Hyderabad to my hometown, Ghaziabad (near Delhi).

The intended audience of this post includes me (or myself? my English bad!) in a few months' time - when I won't get an sms every last working day of the month telling me my salary has been deposited in my account. It is one thing to think "this is not easy" and another thing to actually live it "not easy".

I know I'm in the former state right now, but this is not an overnight decision. This "move" was waiting to happen all these months. The apparent "suddenness" is the result of giving people the impression that I'm happy in the current state. I am not unhappy with my job, I just believe that this is how jobs are, and switching jobs will change little.

What happens next? In the worst case two years from now I'll be working the same way as I'm working now. I won't be "unemployable". I won't starve. I might go broke, but that's not so bad if I don't have loans to pay and no family to feed.

I'm an optimist - so I should also tell myself the best and average case. Best case, I have my 35th birthday on board my own yacht, Pink Floyd playing in the background, champagne flowing everywhere (and all that jazz) :) . Average case, I go through a rough couple of years, then watch things get better, earn reasonably well, and most of all, have a lot of fun in the entire journey being my own boss (I've always hated having a boss).

Its a brave move (so my friends tell me). But its the right time to be brave. With age energy level goes down while responsibility level goes up. If I take the same decision 6 months or a year from now, I will have lost that time to nothing great - just routine job with little or no growth (its a bad economy after all).

As I re-read this draft I realise its a partial answer to "why I made this move". Of course my relatives will probably think I got laid off! If any of you have similar ambitions you should take the plunge. Or you can wait to see how I end up before deciding. Either way, have an interesting year. Over and out.

Enter 2009

2009-01-01T13:57:00.000+05:30

I have a terrible record of fulfilling new year resolutions, so this time I'm going to use technology to see if it helps. The resolutions will be here and I'll keep updating the list whenever any "target" appears to be "achieved".

So here's the list (in no particular order):

Start a company (and make it successful!)
Improve guitar skills - be able to play Hotel California and Free bird solo
Eat healthy and work-out regularly
Write a book
Hold a photography exhibition
Travel frequently (plenty of places remain to be seen!)
Reduce carbon footprint (save energy)
Stop wasting time on the net!

Quite ambitious, but as a write this I'm in a highly motivated state, and I'll use this post to remind me of my highly motivated self when things are looking bad.

A happy 2009 to everyone!

Udaipur - "Grand" is the word

2008-12-28T16:10:00.001+05:30

I visited Udaipur for a couple of days. Well whatever travel blogs say about Rajasthan in general and Udaipur in specific is very true. Udaipur (formerly kingdom of Mewar) is rightly Venice of the East with its lakes, and like other destinations in Rajasthan it is very colourful.

Of course, if you actually want to experience the royal lifestyle of Mewar kings, like stay in Lake Palace or dine in the great Durbar hall with the "grandest" chandeliers you can ever hope to see, you should have a lot of money.

A hand-held panorama of Udaipur from City Palace.

Without sounding too critical, it is worth noting that you won't love the lakes if they're dry. So if the rains have been good, the lakes are nice and the fountains have water. If the rains have been scanty, the lakes dry up and don't look so good.

View of the ghats behind Jagdish temple from Lake Pichola

Udaipur is a small city, it won't take too long to go from one end to another. Due to time constraints I couldn't visit too many places. Plus I was careless enough to run out of battery on day two! Check out the Picasa slideshow below for the entire album:

Technical breakthrough in automobile engineering

2008-12-12T15:01:00.001+05:30

Engineers have made a major breakthrough by developing the cleanest possible fuel that can run even the most ordinary cars (with no extra modifications). Pay great attention, all you young minds infatuated with the idea of reducing the carbon footprint; the fuel is none other than sound!

Of course it is not any ordinary sound. As per reliable sources (yeah the same engineers) it has to have a particular range in decibels (the scientific unit of measure of sound); the range is identifiable to the common people as the sound of honking.

So when a red light turns green, vehicles right in front of the intersection get a "push" on account of the honking of the next two rows of vehicles, and so on. Of course engineers claim it works even if the traffic light is still red, because in Hyderabad, as soon as the light turns red, the next seventeen vehicles are allowed to cross without stopping (the basis of the choice of seventeen is not clear at the time of publishing, but readers are free to speculate in the comments).

Apparently a lot of seasoned drivers are already aware of this technology, as a result of which within a fraction of a second of a signal turning green, these ~~drivers~~ morons start honking with a fierce intensity and a solid determination to make the supposedly blind drivers in front of them move ahead.

The usage of the term "morons" in the preceding lines is to drive home a startling revelation that may change the lives of almost all drivers in Hyderabad - there is no such technology (or any research in that direction). On a related note, the technology that makes vehicles disappear (more like vaporize) on a jammed lane by honking aloud is going to elude us for a long time to come as well (confirmed by the same sources).

To be fair, the phenomenon of honking to clear the traffic is not confined to Hyderabad. It is present in Noida as well (not much in Delhi perhaps, on account of the ban on blowing the horn within 100 meters of an intersection and the constant fear of enraging a fellow driver whose profession compels him to carry a weapon to work). To sum it up not-so-subtly,

Horns do not make vehicles move; and
Horns do not make vehicles disappear on a congested road.

Happy unnecessary-honking-free driving!

Wine and dine: A weekend in Pondicherry

2008-11-30T15:56:00.000+05:30

A day before Cyclone Nisha hit Chennai, I returned from a great trip to Pondicherry (now called Puducherry). It is 3 hours away by road from Chennai, and there are two picturesque routes: East Coast Road (along the Bay of Bengal) and the slightly longer National Highway 45. The drives are both beautiful, and the weather in November (southern monsoons) made it even better.

Pondicherry is a very small town; one could walk from one end to the other in less than an hour. We stayed in Ville Blanche (White Town), the French part of the town. It is very pretty; the architecture has a Colonial feel to it. Apparently even new structures in that area are forced to match those architectural looks.

Its a nice little town, with good food and cheap liquor. Those are the photographs from my Picasa album (limited somewhat because I'm not keen to shoot in rains). Feel free to leave comments.

A Wild Encounter

2008-10-15T22:34:00.000+05:30

Rays filtering through foliage - Muthanga Sanctuary

We didn't expect much out of a one and a half hour jeep safari into the Muthanga wild-life sanctuary (Wayanad, Kerala), but we had an encounter that made the trip totally paisa vasool.

Towards the later half of our safari, we crossed another jeep whose driver exchanged some worried words with ours in his native tongue. Apparently some elephant was blocking the way back to the exit of the park. Our driver, a courageous man, decided to check it out himself rather than make the about turn.

Tracks leading into the forest

When we went up ahead we saw a few jeeps waiting and watching a huge tusker, notorious for attacking vehicles in the past, having his breakfast just on the edge of the track that we needed to take. All the vehicles were ready to go back. One jeep, in order to give the occupants a closer look at the tusker, reversed and drove quite near to the tusker. A second later, the jeep was driving away, chased by the giant beast itself! Lucky for them (and all of us) the tusker gave up after a short chase, and went back to his breakfast.

The angry tusker

That was one scary scene. We stood no chance against the animal if he decided to chase and hurt us. Our driver turned to us and asked whether he should try to sneak past the animal. We told him we completely trusted his judgment. Slowly, while other vehicles made their way back away from the animal, we sneaked up close to the beast, and when we were close enough, we suddenly charged with whatever power the old rusty vehicle could muster. This time the tusker got alarmed and jumped out of our way, and while we drove past out of the park, we got a last glimpse of this "hostile" animal.

Kerala Reloaded

2008-10-14T21:32:00.000+05:30

Early morning light in Muthanga sanctuary

Unmindful of a vehicle coming speeding down the road, an old man steps onto the road to cross it. What happens next is very unlikely to happen anywhere else in this country - the vehicle, along with a bike, comes to a stop at the "STOP" line, while the old man continues to cross the road over a zebra crossing. Pedestrians here have the first right on the road, just like in most Western countries. We're in Sulthan Bathery (Battery), district Wayanad, just a few kilometers from the Kerala-Karnataka border on NH 212.

Hanging loose: River Kabani, Kuruva Island

Tea, coffee and rubber plantations flank the roads.

This is my second trip to the beautiful state this year. Accompanying me are (in alphabetical order) Arun Das, Kushal Chokhani and Varun Jasuja, all Oracle-khor to various extents. Firm in our belief that Wayanad is much "better" than Mysore (even on the Dussera day) we decide to skip the latter on our way from Bangalore to Wayanad.

Pookode lake - nice but very touristy

That's me crossing a river on a bamboo raft!

Where's Wayanad? What's there to see? Well all I knew before planning the trip was that it is beautiful, and not too touristy since few people know about it. We had plenty of incidents that could explain "just-in-time" to management students! To begin with, we didn't get a cab (all cabs were booked in Bangalore) until the last moment. Further, our return tickets from Bangalore to Hyderabad were confirmed in the last moment again.

Jain Temple, Sultan Bathery.

3000 year old inscriptions in Edakkal caves

That we hit a cow head-on during our drive to Mysore was another sign that things may not go very "smooth". The cow survived. So did we. Hundreds of school kids and tourists cramming into the hazardous Edakkal caves, a treacherous 4 km trek to Meenmutty waterfalls, a furious tusker who attacked our convoy of safari jeeps in Muthunga sanctuary; we survived them all.

Deer at Muthanga sanctuary

The elephant encounter was the most thrilling part of the trip (read about it here). Banasura Sagar was a surprise hit too, considering that we picked the spot without any expectations.

Banasura Sagar reservoir

I guess that about covers it as briefly as possible (for my readers with extremely short attention spans). My next target in Kerala is to do Periyar sanctuary. Lets see if it happens!

P.S. The complete set of pictures is available on Picasa.

Nature Islands in Hyderabad - Part 2

2008-09-19T22:45:00.000+05:30

Well the next one is right next door - an urban ecological zone adjacent to the 5-star hotel Novotel. Flanked by roads leading to the hotel, this is a pond with a fair amount of flora and fauna (a mongoose crossed my path here once!).

To my surprise, though I have taken quite a few strolls around this place, only the last time (when I was actually equipped with my camera) was I asked by the security to clear the area as it was restricted to "Novotel guests only". Check out some photos below.

Nature Islands in Hyderabad - Part 1

2008-09-18T21:34:00.000+05:30

Part 1 of ? I don't know, but such a title makes it easy to add similar posts in future. :)

In spite of all the traffic and pollution in this city, there are still unexpected "islands" of considerable natural beauty. There's one called Lotus Pond in Jubilee Hills. I've been there only once and managed to get a couple of decent shots. (Check out the link, this place has its page on Wikipedia!).

It has a beautiful pond teeming with fishes and ducks (and some other birds that are probably not ducks, but I don't know much about ducks!), and of course, lotuses. There is a nice walkway among thick green flora. And if you're not so much into nature, the pond is surrounded by awe inspiring bungalows sitting pretty on top of hillocks. :)

Credits

Ashok - wildlife photography and travel enthusiast, who shared some photographs of this place and introduced me to it. You can see some of his jewels here.

Ajay - My friend who stayed up all night on a Saturday, accompanied me to Lotus Pond early Sunday morning and watched me trying to get some shots, wondering how someone could be photographing plants and leaves instead of him!

Back!

2008-09-18T18:33:00.000+05:30

I've taken a decision to start blogging actively. I may not have any readers, but who cares, some years down the line it might make an interesting read!

A trip to God's own country: a photo essay

2008-01-21T22:08:00.000+05:30

Kerala is marketed to tourists as "God's own country", and rightly so. I happened to spend a week on the backwaters of Kochi and Alleppey, and am sharing a selected few photographs that I took. My weapon - Nikon D40x (with the kit lens).

Kochi had a historical importance in ancient India's ties with the west. Here are a series of photographs from around Kochi - mainly Fort Kochi which has the original burial place of the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama. Jew Town was the other historically important place - it is one of the oldest Jewish establishment in this part of the world, though only 13 Jews live in this town today.

The fine yet strong Chinese fishing nets have been serving the local fishermen for years at Fort Kochi.

A fishing boat lies abandoned at Fort Kochi.

An antique shop in Jew town.

The colourful street market of Jew Town.

Here are a few photographs from Alleppey. It is no wonder that the backwaters here are amongst the top tourist destinations of the world. This place gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "lose yourself".

The sun rising over the placid waters of Alleppey.

Visitors do not seem to bother these birds inhabiting a secluded island.

The sun peeking from behind coconut trees at dawn.

A boat "parked" on the canal, exaggerating the calmness of the scene.

Coconut trees stand tall on a thin strip of land separating two channels.

Just another day in the life of the fishing folks in Alleppey.

A fisherman at his job.

The beach at Alleppey was a surprise hit - we never knew it was so good! Here are some shots to prove it.

A traveller leaves his footprints in the spotless sand at the beach in Alleppey.

Sea, sky and sand in perfect harmony.

Men and birds alike soak themselves in the breath-taking scene.