Devote to vote!

I had never been as busy in my life so far, as I am now. Work has occupied me so much that I can't even follow my favourite blogs regularly. Coming to the tidings,

1. marriages are happening,
2. recession is at its peek, and
   
3. Karmayuddh has started.

This year has been a period of marriages. A few of my classmates had got married in 2007. Interestingly, 2008 didn't witness any of my classmates tying the knot. Now, 2009 has already seen many marriages, with more to come. I wish the very best to all of them in their married lives.

I need not tell anything about recession. We are hearing about cost cutting and firing all around. Many of my friends have lost jobs due to economic slowdown for none of their faults. But life isn't cool always. We've to learn lessons from every part of our lives and move on.

Karmayuddh that I mentioned refers to two events. One being the Indian Premier League Twenty-20 cricket series and the other, and more important, being the Lok-Sabha General Elections.

We shall not abstain and shall make sure that only elite candidates lead our constituencies. After all, it is not a bad idea to spend one day in five years to decide the future of the nation, and hence ourselves.

Happy Voting!

Wonder at the Wanderers!!!

First things first. Congratulations India for winning the first ever Twenty-20 Cricket World Cup. Congratulation Pakistan, for posing a spectacular final at the Wanderers stadium, Johannesburg.

It had all the ingredients to be a tooth-and-nail fight, a treat to watch out for anyone, even remotely connected with cricket, in and around the Subcontinent - a dream contest between the traditional rivals.

Let's set aside the result for a while and look how it fired up every one in the contending countries, especially in India. Even the fussiest roads were cool and calm as country-yards, even the money minded IT companies, which want its workers to work on Saturdays too, had allowed its officials to call it a day a bit early. And, everyone, no matter interested in cricket or not, watched at least a part of the match. After all, that's how it works in a country where cricket is a religion!

Now to the result of the match. Who in this world has imagined that the team India would win? A team which had no veterans playing, which had no regular coach, which had just got a new captain to lead the team and which had a bunch of novel players half of which hadn't played even a single international T20 game. What a wonder! But that's cricket for you! Anything can happen until the last ball is bowled. India somehow clinched the cup, but the real winner was the game, as Sunil Gavaskar told after the match.

The aftermath? Celebrations in India at least for a week, a warm and grand welcome and pouring cash prizes from each corner of the country for the players forgetting the past performances, and what not? The players can sigh a breathe of relief after what happened in the World Cup earlier this year.

Foot ball to start with, then hockey and now Cricket!! Can this be a CHAK DE INDIA magic?!

A final punch: Forget cricket, former President APJ Abdul Kalam's dream has come true. India has become a strong power in 2020!

The Friendship Day - A Contemplation

The first Sunday of August. Yes, today is the Friendship Day. A happy friendship day to all of you, regardless of whether you are my friend or not.

According to FriendshipDay.org,

Friendship Day celebrations take place on the first Sunday of August every year. The tradition of dedicating a day in honor of friends began in US in 1935. Gradually the festival gained popularity and today Friendship Day is celebrated in large number of countries including India. On this day people spend time with their friends and express love for them. Exchange of Friendship Day Gifts like flowers, cards and wrist bands is a popular tradition of this occasion.

Fine, but who's a friend? According to a dictionary, it means a person you know well and regard with affection and trust. Do we behave affectionately with all persons we know well? Do we trust all our so-called-friends? All of us know, we do not.

A friend in need is a friend indeed, they say. Think of all those incidents in which you have been helped by somebody. Consider the position of that person with your own, at that time. If your positions were different, then you can't consider that person to be a true friend.

As an example, assume that you help a begger. Does that mean he is your friend? Certainly not. Because your situations are not the same. You have enough fortune for yourself, that by giving a part of it to the one in need won't cause any damage for you at all.

Now consider another scenario. You and an unknown person are both very hungry, and you only have one piece of bread. What do you do at that time? You can either share it with him, or eat it yourself. If you share, you might suffer from hunger for some time. But if you don't, you surely will suffer from the guilty conscience for the rest of your life, whenever you remember that moment. So if you helped that person, does it mean that you are friends?
Not necessarily. It is your humanity that made you help that person.

Then how can we define a friend? I think we can take the help of this Sanskrit Subhashita:

पापान् निवारयति योजयते हिताय
गुह्यं निगुहति गुणान् प्रकटीकरोति ।
आपद्गतं च न जहाति ददाति काले
सन्मित्रलक्षणमिदं निगदन्ति सन्तः ॥

paapaannivaarayati yojayate hitaaya
guhyaM niguhati guNaan prakaTIkaroti |
aapadgataM cha na jahaati dadaati kaale
sanmitralakShaNamidaM nigadanti santaH ||

Meaning (taken from MadhuraMurali.org):

The Sants (noble men) say that a good friend is one who discourages (you) from sinful acts, recommends good deeds, conceals the secrets, publicises the merits, does not depart in distress and helps at the time of need

It is now time to retrospect ourselves and find out whether we make good friends. If we don't, no problem. It is better late than never. Let us try to develop those qualities and get ready to celebrate the Friendship Day in a meaningful way.

Fair Fun with Fun Fair and Murphy

Fun, once again. Yes. We are enjoying our last days at the college, regardless of our pressing internals and the final exams coming in just about a week. Yesterday (12^th May) we had project exhibition in our college, and everyone was to exhibit the project they have done. After that we decided to have some fun in the fun fair in the ground opposite to Aruna theatre.

We had internal test in the morning. After finishing it, (how was it, is not the question to be asked, since it was by no means a test and having not read even for ten minutes, I returned an almost-blank paper) we went to the hostel and checked our project. It worked fine. So we packed it in a box and brought to the college and set it up. But there is Murphy's law which can be put as if anything can go wrong, it will. Yes, our project was not working at all! The same hardware we had built from scratch and which was working properly just 10 minutes ago, was showing no sign of giving some useful output. We struggled for about half an hour in the lab. But being unarmed (not with guns and bullets, but with multimeter, soldering guns and all), we couldn't debug it there. So we decided to go back to the hostel and test it again there. Instantly we were able to figure out that the microcontroller was getting reset repeatedly because the reset pin was having a voltage of 3.5 volts. But why, was still a mystery. We suspected about every component and even replaced a capacitor. It took us about two hours to find that the wire connected to the output of an unused timer was given by mistake, to the reset pin of the microcontroller. If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it, says the Original Murphy's law. Our CNG had done it during our pack-up earlier. In the mean time, the power supply connector got disconnected. We had to do everything which we shouldn't have been doing at that time. We had to device a power supply. By that time, the exhibition was half over. Ensuring that the project is working again, we went to the college and it gave no further problems. Being one of a very few projects done in the college, it wasn't below par, even though some finishing work needs to be completed. After demonstrating it to the judges and others, we packed it up and many of us gathered at the juice centre. Another Murphy's law applies whenever we go there. No matter what is the direction of the wind, when people smoke, the smoke always goes to the non smoker

After having a glass of juice, we decided to go to the Fun Fair. I, V1, V2, SS, MAP, CNG, VBK, PKS, MB, SBS, BVP, LDA, TRM, NRS, BA, MG, ARH, ABN, RA, LDA's brother... our gang was big. No sooner than we entered the fair, ARH was invited by a small boy who called her aunty. It was sufficient for us to tease her for some time. Then someone purchased popcorns, and all of us shared it. We went ahead. It was time for the play.

Myself enjoying Tora-Tora

All of us played the Tora-Tora, which was given the name Break dance. Some of us opined that it wasn't any better than Harihar-Davanagere city buses. Then we went to play Columbus. It was much better. But we had to wait for it more than the time we played. We then headed towards the Slant wheel and then to the Giant wheel. This was the first time I was on a giant wheel, but I didn't feel any fear. Probably I was phobophobic than altophobic, which is a good sign. Those who didn't land on the giant wheel were having juice and other chats on the land. We had our time. I called my home while on the giant wheel and informed that I would be late. After the play was over, we had everything which others were having when we were on the wheel and a little more. It was already about 9:30 and we backed towards home.

All in all, it was a good outing just before the exams. We follow, once again, Murphy's philosophy: Smile... tomorrow will be worse. But tomorrow (14^th May) happens to be my birthday, and I hope it won't be worse.

Mallika - College function of GMIT

This is the final semester, and nothing should block us from enjoying - some of us have decided. In spite of being busy with the project, I happened to visit GMIT college on 30th April to attend Mallika - their college function. You can take it either way: To just watch and enjoy or to compare it with our college function, Davana (You can read about our college function Davana here). Well, I got the information from my friend that the function would commence at 5:00 PM. But we are Indians! I knew when the program was going to start. So after doing a little project related work in our college hostel, I went to GMIT at about 6:45 PM. The program had just begun and the chief guest Pranesh, was about to start his speech.

Pranesh is popularly known as Junior ಬೀchi

He started his speech in his inimitable style. But one thing that I noticed was that he had the students as the primary audience throughout his speech, unlike his other public talks. He took off by telling that young age, when we study in a college, is the right time to decide what you want to become. He also insisted on going through the books, which are being neglected because of the popularity of the television. He gave himself as an example. He is a B.Com graduate, yet he is so popular that he has traveled around 220 cities and the program in GMIT was his 993rd. Exposure to the literature, especially that of Beechi, is the cause for his current status, he explained. Truly inspirational.

After his addressing with the light comedy, there was prize distribution, which we were not much interested in. We went to the canteen and had an ice cream, as a birthday treat of my friend whom I met there unexpectedly. We then explored the surroundings of the college going to the top floor. As the cultural programs began, we came down to watch the proceedings.

Well, the sound system here was certainly better than that in our college function Davana. But the programs were only handful, may be due to the fact that there were cultural programs on the previous day too. The major difference between Davana and Mallika was that Mallika stressed more on Kannada, when there was no sign of Kannada at all, in Davana. Good going, GMIT. A folk dance with drums was exceptional. You can't expect engineering students to know how to beat the drums, and in my opinion, it wasn't less to any professionals. Apart from that, the function was quite standard, with some songs, dances, poetry and a fashion show.

One more thing which I came to know was that there was bus arrangement from GMIT to Harihar and Davanagere to assist the people who attended the function, since it was already 10:15 PM and you can hardly catch a bus at that time. Again a good thing, GMIT. I wish our college granted us some similar facility. I have seen about four times our college bus moving in this duration of eight semesters, that too once in Harihar.

Well, coming to the comparison, as I said, Mallika emphasized on Kannada, and the sound system was good. But going by the numbers, Davana was far big, being an inter-college fest...

Davana and e-utsav

Life had once again been a lot busy. Our branch forum function e-utsav and our college function Davana just made me so busy that I even had to switch my computer completely off on two occasions!!

The gem of a function: e-utsav: Our branch, Electronics and Communication has been conducting this function e-utsav for many years. All this years, as I have seen, it was just an intra-branch activity. But this time, it went a step further by extending it to surrounding colleges like BPS, UBDTCE and GMIT. There were many events like Paper presentation, IT Quiz, Bluffmaster, JAMs, Coding Contest, Antakshari etc. But the most important thing which was included this time was the NFS Most wanted Gaming contest. A lot of contestants played and enjoyed the contest. All in all, e-utsav was a great success.

The sign of our culture, the soul our college: Davana: There were many events like mock press, skit, creative writing, dance, singing, mimicry etc., which were all good. It was great to see the competition between various colleges. But the much awaited cultural function was lame. The sound system was just terrible. The whole function got affected because of that. But keeping that one thing apart, looking as a whole, Davana was great, as always.

I hoped the life would be as usual after these two. But I was wrong. I got flu and had to rest four more days. Now I am OK, enjoying the life once again. Hey, wait! internals are not leaving us to enjoy!! But then, who cares?

Men in blue, beaten red and blue!!

Do you remember when Virender Sehwag, so called Najafghad Sachin, scored a century, or made a useful contributution to the Indian cricket team? Don't worry if your answer is no; neither did I, until I investigated his stats before writing this article!! He has been unable to hit a triple-figure score in the last 60 matches. But still he made it to the World Cup squad of India, thanks(?) to the lobby made by the Wall of India, captain Rahul Dravid. Yes, it is miserable, but true. Although I like Sehwag's batting, after watching his play today, I couldn't keep quiet anymore, and hence writing this article.

Story that never changes

Sehwag's pathetic form continued in the warm up matches also. Voila!! Still he was included in the playing eleven for the first match against Bangladesh. He gave a perfect start for the world cup tour of India, by getting out for a low score and putting India under trouble. I doubt whether Sehwag understands the responsibilities of an opening batsman. He played today, as always, without any footwork, just as one would play against school boys. I was thinking why Dravid was making such decisions as playing a completely-out-of-form batsman in the World Cup, when my friend, SN, came up with another indigenous thought: Dravid may be trying to end the career of Virender Sehwag, once for all. No one in the right mind would recall Sehwag. Ganguly at least performed, he has the technique, Sehwag doesn't have that. Good thought, I would say.

Will he ever be able to stand again?

Forget Sehwag. Why am I calling it a perfect start? You might want go through this article to understand how well it may help the people in the country, especially students, if India gets out of the tournament in the first round itself. Hmm, sounds interesting, eh? Well, let us also see on the other side of it. What if India still manages to go to the Super Eight level? For that, India will have to beat Sri Lanka and Bermuda, by a large difference, and I think it is a fat chance. I like to quote a comment made by someone after the match against Bangladesh:

Indian Team, thanks a TON, No doubt you are out of WC and hence I can sleep well, my electricity bill will be less, at least for few months won't be seeing your face in advertisement.... Rediff/AajTak will stop putting blogs/news about Cricket, and all those who were saying yesterday GIBBS hit 6/6 against minnows, by now you must have realised playing against minnow is not as simple now a days. See Bangladesh, Netherlands, Ireland... Once again Thanks a Ton Team in Blue...for saving billions of rupees.

So, what is your opinion?

Photos from CricInfo

A trip with Hera Pheri

As the project fever began, we were seriously thinking of starting the project. So, we decided to go to Bangalore to get the required components. It was a mess right from beginning, as each of us (project-mates) were in different places and some of us were out of contact. Finally, after a lot of this and that, we settled onto the plan of going to Bangalore on 17th Jan 2007 morning, by intercity train.

We thought that it wasn't necessary for all of us to go, and hence V, who was in a far more distant place, didn't come. J planned to take off from Davanagere. C, who was in his village, came to my home the previous day and halted. Both of us planned to go from Harihar. We should be thankful to V2, who agreed to come with us to Bangalore to help us find the right areas to look at, as all of us were strangers in Bangalore. All went fine upto this, and only upto this...

The next day, we (I and C) had our breakfast in a hotel. In the mean time, V2 sent a message asking us whether to take train tickets or not. As we had much time, we said no. Then I realized that time was nearing, and I sent a message to V2 asking him to take three tickets. We finished our tiffin and headed towards the railway station.

V2 was waiting there. I asked him whether he took tickets. He said no (The message I had sent was not delivered yet). So I stood in the queue to take three tickets. S, who was also going to Bangalore for his project work, came to the station at the same time. So I had now four tickets to get, and I took them. All of us started chatting, waiting for the train to come.

I had the train tickets, and I asked them whether I shall keep them or someone else will take the responsibility. Only then, V2 told that he had his ticket. We had already started our day with a mess! We were four passengers from Harihar, and we had five tickets with us!! What to do now?! V2 and S came with an idea, and we asked J, who was yet to take the ticket in Davanagere, not to take the ticket. Thanks to the distance metrics, difference in charge to Bangalore from the two places was only 2 Rs...

During the same time, we met some other friends, who were going to Tumkur and Bangalore. Train arrived at about 8:25 AM to Harihar. After reaching Davanagere, J and some more friends also joined us. So we had nothing less to enjoy and we had a full compartment for ourself (Totally we were 10 friends). We spent most of our time chatting with each others, enjoying the best part of the day...

We had tiffin again in the train, after Arasikere. As we neared Bangalore, it was time for some FM stuff. Those who had FM radio enabled mobile phones were in two minds, whether to hear to it or save the battery!! With a little bit of music and a lot of chatting we reached Bangalore at about 1:50 PM. It was time to depart, and some of the friends headed to their destinations, and we headed towards the places where our destiny led us to...

We decided to have our food, and the roam around. While we were trying to find the place to go, a friend of C, R, came and joined us. We went to hotel Kamath and had our lunch. Then we came back to the city bus stand and took the daily pass, thinking that we have a lot to stray. But we were wrong, as we shall discover later...

We went to Sadar Patrappa (SP) Road. It is a street full of electronics shops. You can't even get water in there. We searched for the major component of our project, the Bluetooth module. We searched many shops, but in vain. The main purpose why we had gone to Banaglore, was not served. No shop in such a big city had a component we needed. I contacted BCS consultancy to query whether they had any Bluetooth kits which may be of use for us. But they told that it wasn't available in whole India itself, and the project we have undertaken is next to impossible one (I know it is an utter lie, but can't argue with them, eh?). V2 purchased some components he needed for their project and other purposes. Apart from that, it was entirely unworthy. For having come, we thought of purchasing any peripheral we needed. We searched for DVD writer in nearly 5 shops. All we could get was either a white LiteOn writer, or a black Sony or LG writer. I wanted a white LG or Sony writer. After a much exploration, we found a shop where they had a writer with replaceable front panel, and I purchased it. Then V2 I purchased a Bluetooth dongle each. (I needed it for project, and V2 for experiment). He also bought a 2 GB pen drive. Our next aim was to get the books of eight semester and hence we headed towards Avenue road...

Many of us, who were seeing it for the first time, were astonished by the number of second hand books available there. V2 was seriously indulged in getting the books. Rest of us spent much of our time seeing here and there, and sometimes towards the books. And finally after two hours, we went to Sapna Book House. We needed some reference books for our project. Closing time was 7:45 PM, after which no one is allowed to enter the shop and we went inside at about 7:35 PM. Fortunately we were able to find two books we needed and purchased them. Then it was time to decide where to go. All of us were in dilemma whether to stay there and search further in other places where we had left, or to come back. I thought it won't help to stay there and decided to come back. V2 was also of same opinion. J and C decided to stay there to meet their relatives. Both of them didn't know where to go, and it was already 8:30 PM!! J called his sister, and after a lot of thought, decided to come with us thinking that it would not be good to search the home in the night. So we were three now who settled to come back. C went with his friend to his room.

After having dinner, we three went to the bus stand. Since it was too early (we thought we get ended up in Davanagere at 4:30 AM if we leave Bangalore at 9:30 PM). I desired to have an ice cream (yeah, it is funny... but I myself am funny). Each of us had a pineapple flavoured softy. OMG! What a tasty one it was!! I wanted another one!! Both V2 and J refused to take another. So I alone ate the other one. But it was so tasty that I couldn't stop with two. (After all, you won't get it whenever you need, right?). So I decided to have one more. V2 seemed furious and headed towards the bus. I hurried to get the ice cream. When I came back, both of them had vanished!! I searched all around, and couldn't get a hint about where they had gone. Thank you mobile, I called J. I didn't call V2 because V1, twin brother of V2, was fed up having called V2 five times, without the calls being received. I don't think V2 is deaf either, not to hear the phone ringing. So V1 had called me twice instead. (Sometimes we can't tell why people use their gadgets, just for show off or for real use). J didn't receive the call, but came towards me seeing me. Couldn't the mobile operators wait? The call was being forwarded!! So I cut the call. And we met again.

We got on board of the bus. Aw! There was a smell of desi liquor!! Rules are meant to be broken. Liquors are meant to be drunk, no matter where and how. Unfortunately the bus was almost full and we got seat in the last but one row. V2 didn't seem to have noticed the fragrance!! (Did he have cold on that day? I don't think so... He hadn't refused first ice cream). I kept insisting to get down, but even some intelligent people act like silly at times. So, we didn't change the bus and continued the journey. The bus left Bangalore at 10:15 PM.

Both fortunes and hazards seem to strike in bursts. That person who was spreading the aroma was sitting just in front of us! So I and J started to contend for the window seat (V2, who is a third generation incarnation of Gandhiji, didn't bother about it at all). Then I and J had a agreement between us. I should sit there till Tumkur, and then we should interchange our position.

All of us took tickets to Davanagere, since I and V2 had student pass from Davanagere to Harihar. The journey wasn't bad, as we had all topics in the world to discuss about. J had a cat sleep in between, and was struggling to sleep properly. He didn't seem to have noticed Tumkur passing (Actually, none of us did, since the bus didn't go inside the city at all). At 12:20 AM it was time for the bus to stop for dinner!! (Some are weird, and some are more). There was some time, and we did what we needed to do. I got a biscuit pack, and V2 brought a chilling water bottle. (Where in the hell did he get the idea of getting cold water in that late night?!). But it was useful in a way, and the bottle was emptied in five minutes by three of us. By this time J had come to know that Tumkur had passed, and sat next to the window. (Thank God, that aromatic person was sleeping with his mouth shut, and there was no smell as such now). I and J started recalling the moments of our engineering life. V2 was sleeping. After Chitradurga passed, I and J got sleep. But V2 was awake by that time. Making all our calculations wrong, the bus arrived at Davanagere at 3:30 AM!! We distributed the books among ourselves, and waited for the bus to come. Both of us, I V2, were thinking whether student pass will be allowed at that time. We caught the bus at 4:00 AM. Unfortunately, we had to no place to sit other than the last seat. The bus was literally hopping, and we got free horse-like-ride!! Yes, free, because the pass was allowed...

Finally we reached Harihar at about 4:20 AM, and V2 took an auto and took all the books with him. I came to home, but and opened the gates in silence. I realized I was offline for too much time!! So I switched on my computer. But then I remembered the DVD writer and shut the computer down to put it. I had too many surprises to come along my way. The tray of the DVD writer was not opening at all. Cursing it, I went to bed, at 5:30 AM.

PS: The Hera Pheri hadn't ended yet, but the journey had. I will be jotting all of those shortly...

Makara Jyothi

As usual, it happened again. The famous Makara Jyothi was observed on the day of Makara Sankranti. There are many legends as to why this light appears and there are many arguments telling that it is a hoax. Whatever it may be, but the light was seen on the eastern hills of Sabarimala (Kerala). It is truly amazing to see the light at the exact moment on that place.

The Makara Jyothi

Also it is interesting to know that a vulture flies over the sky, when the procession takes place

The vulture that flies over the procession

HAPPY MAKARA SANKRANTI

India Shining ?

There is going to be Viraat Hindu Samaajotsava in Harihar on 8th Jan 2007. Literally it means a huge Hindu community fest. I don't know about the purpose of this event, but I guess it can cause enough commotion. Hope this doesn't turn out to be a havoc...

It is said that it is going to be a fest for all Indians, with the tag-line "When you are born in India, why do you hesitate to say you are an Indian?". Well, of course, it is a good theme in hand. But is it really necessary? As we are seeing it now, there is nothing going to change by such events. If it all if anything needs to be changed it should be done by politics. Instead of conducting such events, if the same amount is invested for the development, India would really shine... What do you say?

A day to call it a day...

Three of the glittering stars of world cricket have announced their retirement. Justin Langer, a great opening batsman, Glen McGrath, a greater paceman, and Shane Warne, the greatest leg spinner the cricket world has ever seen, have decided to call it a day.

Whitewashing the Ashes series with 5-0 after 86 years, the Australian team formed the perfect moment to bid farewell to the trio. Langer remained unbeaten in his last innings, McGrath claimed 6 wickets in the match, and interestingly, Warne hit a half century in his last innings.

With over 700 test wickets, Warne has already been a legend in the cricket world. McGrath and Langer have also given their best for the team.

Legends Leading the way

Happy New Year 2007

Wish You & Your Family a Happy & Prosperous New Year



May all your dreams come true…