F.R.I.E.N.D.S...

I recently read a blog(Params Blog-Link in the "just stop by" section) describing a scene in PSG College of Technology Hostel life. That really brought back some fond memories for me. Thise three years spent in PSG Tech were 3 of the best years of my life so far. I made some of my closest friends during this period. So what am i going to write in this post? Well... as the name implies its about friends.The first meetings with some of the folks who turned out to be my best friends. The list is in kind of chronological order when the chord of frienship was formed. (Need not be time of first meeting)

First Day in PSG TECH. Just finished admissions. Realized I was the only mallu guy. I thought 'Oh man this may be difficult... i knew only broken Tamil....' Reached Additional Hostel. Alloted Room H66. Supervisor told-Your room mate is Satheesh Kumarr. Went to the room. Found it very tiny. Anyway dumped my suitcase and stood outside not knowing what to do... A huge guy came along(Head completely shaved). I thought 'Wow hes a big guy' and suddenly he came upto me and said 'I am Satheesh Kumarr. You are Rajeev??'. That was a start of a great friendship that continues to this day.. we were roommates for all 3 years in hostel. And because of his Motta Thalai when he joined, he came to be known as 'Thalai'... The Thalai of 01MX. And his tagline was.. 'Known is an Ocean, Unknown is a drop... '

Couple of weeks into the first semester. Seniors hounding for Login Collections. Threatening us with all sorts of dire consequences if we dont make money. One day I was asked to get myself hitched to a day scholar who knew Coimbatore and make sure we went and collected money. Then this really tall guy came up to me (I knew his name was Sriram) and told I can join with him. I had noticed Sriram on the first day because he came to college wearing a round neck tshirt that said "Crazy L'll Devil" (Or something like that :) ). There seemed to be some sort of bond between us. We had a great day. I went to his house, had some food, watched TV and came back to hostel. Of course we did not make any attempt to collect money. That was the start of another wonderful friendship.Sri and I were different in a lot of ways... I suppose the phrase 'Opposites Attract' makes sense. It certainly did for us. We still try to chat daily and seak regularly.

Couple of months had passed. I was never a guy who talked too much to girls. (I know half my classmates will say dei rajeev!!! Poi Sollathe... :) ). But that was the truth (atleast in that first sem). I had spoken little to few girls casually thats all. One day Sriram came and said: 'Dei these girls are having some problem with the PASCAL Spreadsheet. They came and asked me to help.. ha ha ha... '. (Typical Sriram). 'Anyway I said you are the best person to help.'. It turned out the girl who wanted the help was Padmalaya alias Padma alias Padhu. Got talking with her and slowly another great friendship started developing. That bond of friendship got created a few months after that when I chatted with her over IM... This was another awsome friendship and unlike all others we were lucky to go through college and then internship and then get job also in the same company... So this was one friendship that did not need the help of the virtual world to continue... Padma has always been a very important person to me. Of course, the friendship still stands...

So Sriram Padma and i became close friends... Satheesh and I were close and so slowly a group was formed...

Padma had formed a group of her own with Keerthy and Vidya. Popularly known as Keets and Vid. We three guys got to know them well. Keerthy was an awsome eater and would pride herself on managing to have half an idli for breakfast. Vid was a natually friendly person and I always used to say: ' You just need to say Hi Vidya... and thats it. rest non stop talking would be taken care by Vidya... '. I ended up becoming her "brother". A tradition that continues to this day.. Vidya never forgets to send a Rakhi Gift...

First sem exams were aproaching. I got talking with Arun more often. We decided to do combined study. Now, this combined study consisted of sitting in his room, listening to 'Citizen' songs on Hems (Hems coming up later) and talking about everything other than the subject we set out to study. Later we expanded our activities to plying NFS instead of studying. :). Anyways the bond of friendship with Arun was established. And through Arun we all got to know Amar, the ever helpful padam potifying guy... :)

College life got over... and life moved in different directions... Vidya and Keerthy are married and in US now. Padma is engaged and so is Arun. Satheesh, Sri, Amar and me as still single as of today!! :) (You never know what tomorrow brings... :) ). But the bond of friendship we all share is still strong. We still meet up as much as possible. And around 5-6 years have passed since we all first met. Most of us have not changed at all. We are all the same as we were 5 years ago. Hope we can continue to be like that...

F.R.I.E.N.D.S cannot be complete without mentioning Hems(We used to call each other Dobaakoor) and Pisth Yuvraj. We were the food lovers in hostel and none of us had a great opinion of the Hostel mess. So we were the partners in the regular trips to Shahi Grill, Tarot, Chandni etc... Food brought us together and still remains a major topic of discussion among us. Pisth Yuvraj is in Chennai. Hems is married and is now in Bangalore and the friendship continues...

Someone once said... Friendship is not a big thing... its a million little things.... That is something that is really true...

More on the Golden Quadrilateral...

You may think that the above is a picture of some highway in the US or maybe an Autobahn in Germany. Well you are mistaken. it is a picture of the Express Highway between Bangalore and Chennai(Picture Courtsey: Another blog, since i could not take my own pictures) . Last time I had stopped with a promise of providing more details on the Golden Quadrilateral. Now this is the biggest highway project in India. Aimed to connect the 4 Metro's. The good news is that this is almost complete. Recently I drove down to Chennai from Bangalore in my faithful Maruti 800 along with a couple of friends. I had heard that it is a great 4 lane highway, that was why I decided to drive down. Well to be frank the road was beyond my wildest expectations. it was an absolutely awesome road all the way to Chennai. Great quality and not even a tiny pothole. The best thing is that there are flyovers and byepasses across most of the major towns on the route, so you do not need to slow down as you cross towns. The road has good signage and even has proper exits which will take you into the towns on the way.

Well, how do you go? Take the Hosur Road from Bangalore and keep going till you reach Krishnagiri, from there take a left and keep going on and on and you reach Chennai. Very Simple :).

So is there any disadvantage? Sure, its not a perfect world :). The major problem is that it is not a barricaded highway. And as we all know is a highly populated country. So there is no dearth of people anywhere. So as you are speeding down this highway you may suddenly seen someone casually crossing the road, or even trying to be daring by jumping across just as you reach close. Most people dont seem to understand the velocity the modern vehicles are capable of. So be ready to stamp on the brakes at a moments notice. And remember, you are always to blame whose ever fault it is. Second major problem: people have the impression that they live in America, lots of trucks bikes tractors, prefer to come down the wrong lane to avoid going and taking a U turn further down. So dont be surprised if you are suddenly confronted with a truck or tractor looming large in front of you. Be prepared. And ofcourse this is India, so you always need to be wary of the cows, dogs and other asssorted animals who have no idea on what an express highway is.

All said and done, it is still by far the best roads in India and if you enjoy driving and have a decent car (I enjoyed it with a Maruti 800, the worst car on the road according to experts-But i beg to differ) but if you have a Ford or a Honda, then it is pure bliss. And if you are really adventurous you can try it on a Pulsar or a karizma...

The Twenty20, The Porsche The Golden Quadrilateral and more...

I suppose the euphoria of the T20 World Cup win has kind of died down now. But it was such a wonderful thing to watch. Being a die hard cricket fan all my life finally paid off. There have been some great victories over the past many years, but such a wonderful win on a world stage was heart warming. Of course so called cricket pandits will say that it is just slam bang cricket and not real cricket. Others will say that its a game played in only 10 countries and so winning is no big deal. But let people think want they want. It was a wonderful win and a time to rejoice for all criket fans. The T20 format is also great. Just 3 hours, non stop action, and unlike what the pandits say, you need considerable skill with both bat and ball to succeed. Hope this format becomes more popular...

So whats the significance of the porshe. Well that was one of the innumerable goodies offered to the Men in Blue. Now this is a little embarassing. Its ok if the BCCI gave lots of money. But some of the other goodies offered seemed terribly ridiculous!!! A porsche to Yuvraj Singh!! Where do they even get that machine from?? Promotions for 4-5 players contracted with Air India and free flights?? What about the poor fellows in Air India who actually work hard!! I am a Keralite but i cannot stop myself from mentioning this. The Kerala state government gave 5 lakhs to Sreesanth. Ok fair enough. But then they announced 3 Lakhs to Robin Uthappa because his mother was born in Calicut!!! Awesome is it not?? Trust the Kerala media to bring a mallu connection to any celebrity. I am sure even Robin would have been embarassed by that... :)

The Golden Quadrilateral!! Whats that? Sounds a bit like the Bermuda Triangle is it not? Well.. its nothing like that. That is the name given to the express highway which connects the 4 metros and also passes through various other big cities including Bangalore. It is an awesome 4 lane expressway of international quality. I got a chance to drive on the Chennai Bangalore Stretch of the Golden Quadrilateral... So what did i think of the road? Is it really an expressway? Is it really of international Quality?? Well more on all that in the next blog. I think this post has become pretty long already...

Across the 7 Seas...

I just got back from a short 2 week trip to the United States. It is amazing how developed that country is compared to us. Of course they have the advantage of having got independence 150 years before us and also it is a larger country than India with probably half the population. But still it is good to see everything spick and span. I transited through Frankfurt which is another huge airport. After the chaos at the Bangalore Airport, wandering around Frankfurt was so good. These countries have developed their airports so much. We dont even come close. Like the Bangalore Airport has just 2 gates and 2 aerobridges. Frankfurt has atleast 150 gates with 150 aerobridges. And to my surprise i realised that the new Bangalore International Airport will also have just 9 or 10 gates. I am sure that within a year that airport will become insufficient. Anyway going by the nature of Bangalore Traffic and the distance to the new airport i presume less peaople would use it. I think it would be cheaper to take a train to Chennai and take a flight from there. It will cost only a few extra hours. :)

Coming back to the US trip, this time i got a chance to visit New York and also stop at Washington for a few hours. NY is an amazing city. And the public transport system is top notch. I came away really impressed. And of course the roads the cars the expressways are all breathtaking. But in spite of all this i was glad to get on a flight back to Bangalore. After all 'there is no place like home'. While waiting for my baggage at the Bangalore Airport a German lady requested me to move my trolley little back from the conveyor belt so that other people could stand. I realised she was right and moved back. But i did tell her that if i dont do it, there will be 10 others to do it. And her response was "yes, right of course. After all we are now back in India :)". Just after she made the statement her expresssion seemed to indicate 'oh i am talking to an indian and maybe should not have told like that'. I just smiled at her and told her she was correct. :). After all India is India... still it was a good insight on what others thought of our country. But inspite of that she said she has been in Bangalore for 5 years and loves the place. India seems to have that magical capability to attract people....

Advice...

I was going through my initial posts just now. Noticed a few where i had attempted to put in some technical points related to programming languages. I found that although I do a lot of programming related stuff, I was not able to come up with good posts on a regular basis. Thats when I realised that doling out technical advice was not my cup of tea and that I would be better off writing general posts on any topic that comes into my head (Like this one :)). I think most of us live our lives listening to tons of advice from anyone and everyone. People just love to give advice. Moral of the story? Well, its easy to give advice to anyone on anything. But giving useful advice..., well thats a little more tricky.

My advice to you!! Well, keep reading my posts and put in yyour valuable comments. :)

As usual no posts for a long time... the promise of regular posts keeps getting broken.. As a result of some nice feedback from a few people about this blog, the promise is made again today... :)

I recently read a very interesting blog about a visit to the passport office. That got me thinking. I recently had an interesting visit to a bank to collect a card... it all started when i logged in to my online account. A large message box popped up saying that a new card had been sent to me but had been returned because i was unavailable. Of course, if they send it to my home address in the middle of a weekday obviously I will be unavailable. The message indicated that i had to collect it from the office directly. Now I did not get any indication that the card was returned. I happened to see the message because i logged in. Anyways the next day i left office early and made my way to the bank. It was a long drive and after a few close shaves, courtsey a BMTC bus and a Bangalore cow i managed to reach the bank. At first look things seemed very ordered and efficient. I went to the token machine try to get myself a token to collect returned cards (which token i should take was clearly put up. That seemed to be a good sign). Then the problems started. The token machine was out of paper(according to the guy standing there) The machine was open and somehow this guy was magically pulling token slips from inside it. Anyway I got my token. Next step was to of course keep staring at the monitors waiting for my number to be called. There were 8 counters and each had an executive doing something. I thought, "Cool, this will finish quickly". Then i noticed that the numbers on the screen were not moving at all. This seemed weird since every counter seemed have executives. Staring at the screen for half an hour seemed to have no impact. I discoved that only one counter was actually catering to the needs of the customers and all the others were busy doing something else. What they were doing i failed to understand since it was anyway bank working hours and my belief was that during works ours servicing customers was their job. Looks like i was wrong there :). Anyway after a long wait one executive came and started taking account number of people who had to collect cards. He became the king and we all crowded around him to get his attention. The poor fellow was quite flustered by the crowd. Still he did manage to get my card and I was atlast able to leave. The last sight as i left was a bunch of customers sitting and patiently looking at the monitor willing it to show their token number.
They say consumer is the king... But i am really not too sure...

Train Travel-Its not just about the destination, Its also about the journey itself

Trains… The word itself ignites some nostalgic memories in me. Trains are something that has always fascinated me right from my child hood. The sight of the great long beast thundering past always filled me with a sense of awe. I even harbored dreams of becoming an Engine Driver which seemed like the coolest job ever according to me. Of course I assume lots of things seem ‘cool’ when seen through the eyes of an 8 year old. The Indian Railways have always been synonymous with the Great Indian Middle Class. A lot of Indian authors have used the train journey to project a lot of characteristics of India and its people.
So why exactly am I talking about trains? Recently I was involved in a conversation with some people who were describing the benefits over the Low Cost Airlines over trains. This got me thinking. Is the advent of such airlines a threat to the railways? Will we slowly see the degradation of the railways over a period of time? Of course if we decide based on the Indian Railway profit, this is something that will not happen in the near future. Rs20000 crore profit is a mind boggling number. But are the airlines a threat? I don’t think so.
Trains have a lot of inherent advantages. I don’t think I need to dwell upon those too much. They have some common disadvantages also. Namely late running, dirty coaches and stations, perpetually crowded etc...
So then what is the biggest disadvantage of a train? Well, it’s the travel time. Something that the airlines and anti train folks always keep reminding us off. Of course that is something that we cannot argue with. Obviously a train cannot fly. It has to go on its set track. It cannot even take a shortcut which you can do if you are in a bus or car. A plane can reach any part of this country in a couple of hours-Something that can take days even by the fastest train. And in today’s world everyone is in tremendous hurry. No one has time for anything. We are always in a mad rush to get somewhere or achieve something. Perfect reason for taking the next available flight you would think. No, this is where a train journey is best suited. We are stretching ourselves to the maximum limit our body can endure day in and day out. We never seem to have time to enjoy the simple things in life. We never seem to have time for ourselves.
This is where a train journey helps. I have always felt that train travel is not only about reaching the destination. It is about the journey itself. India is a country blessed with a tremendous amount of diversity. Be it people, culture, mountains, rivers, deserts etc… A train journey is a wonderful way to soak in all the wonderful sights India has to offer. Of course at very cheap rates, courtesy the Indian Railways. It’s a wonderful opportunity to spend few hours with family or with ourselves. Listen to some music, read that good book you always wanted to read or just sit idle and listen to the rhythmic beat of the train running over the tracks and watch the countryside fly by. If you cannot stand the thought of traveling in a second class coach, travel in a higher class.
So next time you have a vacation planned before deciding to book on the next available low cost flight, think if you can take a train. So what if it takes a full day or two to complete a journey. As I said earlier, it’s not only about reaching the destination. It is about the journey itself

Yes. It is going to be an early flight

Last few days were highly disappointing. Although in the last blog I had talked about India coming back home earlier than expected, deep down I hoped that a miracle would happen. Well, it did not happen and now India find themselves out of the World Cup along with Pakistan. I dint really expect India to win the World Cup, but going out in the firsrt round!!! Oh, it is so depressing.
Having said that, it was also disappointing to see the extreme reactions of the fans. After all it is just a game and we were not exactly the number one team in the world. We have a bunch of extremely talented individuals in the team, but we are never seen as a talented team. The only thing our cricket team is consistant in is being inconsistant. That is because all the talent in the team is not channelled regularly into each match. When that happens regularly, you have a talented team. We must also realise the enormous pressure the team is under. Agreed we played pathetically against Bangladesh and that was a game we should have won. But i dont think the loss to Sri Lanka was a surprise. It was probably too much of a pressure on each person. There are talks of widespread changes in the team. That is probably not the right solution. I personally feel that this was the best team that we had at this point and due to the overconfidence and lack of preperation for that one match against Bangladesh, we are out of the tournament.
Lot has been written about how the World Cup will be affected economically because of India's exit. But ultimately it is all about the game and not the economics. Lot of the teams are playing excellent cricket and I think there are a lot of excellent cricket matches to look forward to. Of course a lot of so called fans watch cricket only when India plays.For those folks I think this is the end of the World Cup. A couple of weeks before the world cup there was this big article in a paper that looked forward to a particular game in the Super 8's. There was talk about a record crowd, the most anticipated game in the world cup, huge sponsorship deals etc... for this match. Guessed which one it was? Well, it was the India-Pakistan match in the Super 8's. :). Now who will be playing on that day? Bangladesh and Ireland. Good Luck to everyone who spent money for anything related to this match...

For a genuine cricket fan there is lot more to look forward to in this World Cup. So lets overcome our disappointment over India's exit and enjoy the good cricket that is in store for us.

Will India have to take an early flight home from the West Indies???

Millions of die hard Indian cricket fans were shocked into silence when Bangladesh unexpectedly pulled of a so called “upset” win in the world cup. A lot has been written about the poor performance of the Indian team and the shock defeat and the hand of the “minnow’s” . But was it as shocking and unexpected as everyone believes? Frankly I always had the feeling that this was going to be a big test for India. Bangladesh is a test playing nation and probably the strongest among the 8 lesser sides in the tournament. Everyone seems to have forgotten the fact that Bangladesh won both their warm up matches convincingly. One of the wins was against New Zealand which was a team which beat Australia three times in a row. This should have set the warning bells ringing in the Indian camp. They should have prepared better for this game and realized that Bangladesh was probably playing as well as any other team at this point of time and that they had a good chance to surprise them. And in the end that was exactly what happened. Bangladesh played some brilliant cricket and they deserved to win. It is never easy to restrict the likes of Sachin and Saurav and the Bangladeshis did it wonderfully well.
What was strange was the fact that all the pretournament coverage, articles and analysis were all working on the assumption that the 8 regular teams will make it to the Super 8 stage. This kind of complete disregard for the 8 other teams was quite surprising to me. I always felt that something will go wrong, and that’s what has happened. Pakistan are already out of the World Cup and India have lost the first match which they were expected to win easily. So where does this leave India? Does the great Indian Dream of winning the world cup have to be put on the back burner for another 4 years? Well, that seems to be the case. But in the past also we have ended up being in such situations but have managed to sneak in through the back door. There is still a slender thread of hope for India. A lot of it depends on what the other teams do. But there are a couple of things India has to do perfectly to enhance their chances.
1. Beat the daylights out of Bermuda. We have to win and win big. It has to be bigger than the Sri Lankan victory. Why? Because it will ensure we get ahead of Sri Lanka on the Net Run Rate.
2. Beat Sri Lanka by a decent margin. Of course we can hope that Bangladesh beat Sri Lanka( which I think they can). In that case a simple victory over Sri Lanka will suffice for India.


If this does not happen? Well, then India can say good bye to the West Indies and take the next flight back home. The team will be torn to shreds by the millions of fans, critics and the press. The interest in the world cup will go down and it will probably result in large losses for the Indian Industry which I believe has put in tons of advertising money into this world cup expecting a good showing from the Indians. But having said all this, when the next series starts the Indian fan will again be there supporting the team. That die hard dedication never seems to go away. Lets hope that the teams rises to the occasion and pulls itself up with the help of the slender thread of hope that is remaining. Lets wait and see….

Bangalore Traffic....

Ok this blog is for something fun. Given below are some rules/tips about driving in Bangalore which i have written based on my experiences of driving here. The inspiration for this came from another article i saw regarding driving in a US city. Do let me know your comments/additions to this :)

1. All cities have the concept of rush hour/peak hour. In Bangalore there is no morning rush hour/evening rush hour. Rush hour starts from Monday morning 7 and goes on till next Sunday Morning 5am. (Really true. Sometimes certain roads like Airport Road can be jammed at 2am in the morning)
2. You will lucky if you can go at 20kmph. If you hit open stretch there is no upper limit. Your top speed depends on the vehicle u have.
3. Everyone has right of way(Even cows and dogs and Bullock Carts)
4. Never Stop at yellow light and in addition don’t stop for a couple of seconds after it turns red. And start moving a few seconds before it turns green (You need to be experienced enough to know when it will turn green-Little tricky as this can vary on a daily basis)
5. Here you honk the loudest you can. Also flash your headlights all the time. Some people believe that doing that will part the sea of traffic in front and create an open path. Something like what Moses did.
6. Road tarring works are permanent in Bangalore. Tarred roads are tarred again and again till it rises higher then divider on the road. This construction happens during the peak hours mentioned above.
7. Watch out of all kind of living beings on the road. Dogs, cows, rats etc… If you see one lying in the middle of the road don’t assume they are dead. They maybe just sleeping. So don’t disturb them and drive around them.
8. People like putting a left turn indicator and turning right. Also people like to put on the indicator once they are half way through the turn.
9. it is perfectly acceptable to assume you are in America and start driving on the wrong side of the road if you think the correct side of your road is too crowded or jammed for your liking. If you are on a bike, you can also drive on the divider or pavement. Perfectly fine.
10.There will be only one lane in most roads and no dividers. So its ok to complete the turn by going to the wrong side of the road and then correcting it when u feel like.
11.There will be no signs. So feel free to do anything you want anywhere. You can also take a U TURN right over the divider anywhere,if you think your vehicle can handle it.
12.It is unacceptable to slow down for a potential hazard on the road, however, feel free to slow down or stop long enough to visually inspect anything happening on the side of the road. Whether it's an overturned school bus on fire or a car with a flat tire, everything deserves a good long look.
13.If you want to cross an intersection without lights don’t expect anyone to stop for you. Push you vehicle into the middle. Pray that the huge lorry coming will stop in time and then figure out the next step.
14.Don’t expect your vehicle to be spotless and dentless for too long. Sooner or later you are going to be bumped. The sooner the better because then you don’t get worried to death waiting for it.
15.If people are waiting to cross the road. Don’t be nice and stop. You will definitely get hit from behind. And people don’t expect you to stop. So you are the loser anyway.

Will add more if i can think of some.

World cup coming...

Well, the Cricket world cup is just around the corner... Too long a competition if you ask me. But still more matches means more cricket to see :). All the best to Team India. I think we do have a chance.

Some technical stuff: Ever wondered how to use C#.NET to insert/update data in a Table in Database. Use the OracleData Adapter to bind the table in DB you want to work with to a Dataset. Do whatever you want with the data in the dataset. Then just call the DataAdapters update command. The Oracle Data Adapter will do the rest for you. Minimal coding is needed and it is very fast too. Do let me know code snippets are needed.

Bangalore traffic is continuing to explode. ORR is fast becoming a clone of Airport Road. I give it another year at the max.

Long Time

Again a post after a long time. Keep promising myself to post more frequently but never got around to doing it. Maybe will do it here on.

What happened in the 2 months since i last posted? Well nothing much. Things flowing along as usual. Did do some interesting C# development using VS2005. Dealt with loading XML files to tables in the DB which had the same name as the parent tags in the XML file. It worked quite well.

Eagery awaiting the World Cup. Maybe India has a chance to win. Lets wait and see