How a dull airport wait became interesting!

I was trying to use Hong Kong airport's internet to the maximum when an elderly Indian gentleman approached me. He was searching for his wife in the huge HK airport! All his belongings, including his walking stick, were with his wife. He had left her for a short visit to money changers and he just could not find her again! He asked me whether I could walk with him and help him look for his wife. I had too much time to kill anyway, so I agreed.

We walked all around our section of the airport and at every spot, he would say "I am sure this is where she is", go near and realize that she wasn't there. We talked to various airport support staff and help desks, but none of them were able to help. They could not even make an announcement on their system. Walking slowly around one section of the airport in circles was surely not the most efficient way of looking for his wife. I suggested a number of times to him that he should sit somewhere and I would go around and look for his wife. However, he just did not want to let go of me. "Now I have at least got you to help me. If I lose you too, I don't know what I will do next" was his reasoning. I wasn't of much help so far, but I suppose he liked to have someone to talk to.

There was only one way this deadlock would end: He had to get tired and forced to take some rest. That's exactly what happened after a while and he now agreed to sit down. I decided to take a bigger walk around the airport and look for his wife. He was able to describe his wife's looks and their luggage quite well. I left for my lookout, wondering "What the heck am I doing?" However, in less than 10 minutes, I found an elderly lady who matched his description, looking restless and looking out for someone. I walked up to her and asked her "Are you Mrs <>?" Of course she was! I then reunited the couple, accepted their gratitude and went on my way!

For once, the long wait at HK airport turned out to be an interesting one!

An year out of the Big Blue!

Time flies! It has been an year since I left IBM. Frankly, there was a time I thought I might stick to IBM till my retirement. After all, I spent 13.5 years there! I spent the last 10 years in IBM's famous Linux Technology Center (LTC) which had almost become like home. I guess the main reason I stuck to IBM for so long was because I was in LTC. I loved the work and the people there, so there was never a reason to look out. I am proud of my (admittedly very small) contributions to projects like Linux kernel and QEMU, thanks to working in LTC. Also, I learnt the first lessons of management there.

It was indeed a very big and difficult decision to move out from LTC/IBM. However, I am now happy that I took that decision. The last 1 year I have spent outside IBM has taught me a whole bunch of new things and made me a better, stronger person. Sure, my life is more uncertain and less secure today, but that is the price you pay for getting out of your comfort zone. Getting out of comfort zone is essential to grow.

Luckily what I learnt in IBM has come in very handy in dealing with the challenges in a new job. I have fond memories of friendships I developed while I was there, many of which will last a lifetime. I am ever thankful my managers there for coaching me and helping me develop my leadership skills.

How to de-stress in Hyderabad

Life in a big city can be very hectic and I am sure it is the same in Hyderabad too. Cities offer various means for us to unwind. On my recent visit to Hyderabad, I discovered a completely new and unconventional therapy to de-stress. I am graciously sharing my knowledge with the world!

Materials needed: A car and time on your hand. Start driving from NH7/Salar Jung Road junction, head South on Pathergatti Road, go around Char Minar, take a right turn into Laad Bazaar Road and drive till the junction of Khilwath Road. This drive is barely 1.5km. Refer to this map:

For added effectiveness:

• Choose a busy time of the day, especially around long weekends/holidays/festivals.
• Drive a brand-new car with no dents on it.
• My car wasn't of ideal size for this. For great effect, choose a big car with a big turning radius (like Tata Safari, Honda Accord)
• People from outside Hyderabad/Andhra will benefit more from this therapy. Especially if you don't know any Telugu and your Hindi/Urdu isn't great.

As you drive down this road, try not to bump (at least not too hard) into pedestrians. At the same time, ignore the pedestrians bumping into your car. Notice that some of the hawkers on the road have actually put their body parts (like hands, head) inside your car itself! Avoid running over the vendor who is sitting on the road (not by it's side). Notice that the pedestrians have forcibly folded your rear-view-mirrors to make room for their movement! Let the mirrors be so for now. Enjoy the excellent traffic jam that has built up at the entrance of Laad Bazaar road. When the traffic police says "Go", you just go, even if it involves "pushing" hordes of pedestrians crossing the road with your car. If you don't push through, you will never make progress, then the policeman will be very unhappy and give you choicest of scoldings. Once you enter Laad Bazaar road, observe that the only way to make across this road involves breaking a few laws of physics. At least that's what I thought, considering the amount of traffic and people moving in both directions on that narrow road. Somehow (I don't really know how), it all still works out and you get across this stretch after some time.

When you arrive at your destination, you will feel a great sense of achievement, satisfaction and relaxation. You will feel less attached to worldly things and recognize that you don't control all aspects of your life. You would have learnt to accept things as they come and move on. What better way to relax your nerves and de-stress?

PS1: I am sure there are such areas in Bangalore too. But in our defense, we don't have the city's most recognized tourist attraction in such an area.

PS2: I must add that the rest of the city seemed to be a bit more organized than Bangalore.

Tirupati temple visit

Once, a Himalayan trekker, a marathon runner, a serious Yoga trainee and a lazy guy went for a trek of 3500 steps. Oh wait, that is not where the story begins...

It was a friend's wedding that finally took me to Tirupati for the first time in my life. After a very comfortable car journey (4 people in a big SUV and I wasn't even driving!), we landed up in Tirupati at a late evening. The air conditioned hotel room was the best place to be in town because even late in the evening the place was sweltering hot. The plan was to visit Tirumala temple (now I can tell Tirumala from Tirupati!) early next morning. 2 of my friends had plotted a plan to climb the stairs to Tirumala. For those of you who haven't been to Tirupati, there is a perfectly nice road that goes all the way to the top of the hill... and you can take your car all the way... and if you don't want to do that, there are plenty of buses too, so there is no logical reason to climb the stairs ;-) One of the members of our team pointed out that the climb is not very easy (3500 steps, elevation of around 800 meters, distance of around 11 km) and suggested that we just drive up the hill. I guess the heat must have fried my brain, so I agreed to experience the thrill of the hike.

How difficult can this climb be? After all, thousands of people climb these stairs every day, many of them much older/weaker than me. There were two things that I had not considered: Most people who take the stairs reserve a lot of time for the climb, but we had allocated just about 3 hours. Secondly and more importantly, most of the people who take the stairs come there with an unwavering devotion to Lord Venkateshwara, which makes them forget about physical discomforts and focus just on reaching the summit to see the Lord. People who think too rationally like me can't reach that level of devotion.

So how was the actual climb? We started at around 5:45AM from Alipiri on the first Sopanamarga (http://www.tirumala.org/travel_tptm_foot.htm) to the hill. It was a Saturday and I was told that the crowd was unusually high that day. Initially we had to make our way through dense group of people. I saw a large number of people who had probably arrived in the town that morning and had directly come to climb the hill with their luggage. Some people were placing a camphor on each step (yes, each step!) and lighting it before moving on. Some were applying kumkum and arashina (turmeric) on each stair! Some people were carrying their kids while climbing. There were a number of senior citizens too. The stairs are well-maintained and there is a shade too. We needed to walk along the road for some distance in between, but that stretch too had a good footpath. There were plenty of shops all along selling all types of eatables, like full breakfast, water, juices, freshly cut fruits, chaats (yes, chaats), milk kova and so on.

The first 1 hour was the most excruciating as it was extremely steep, where we climbed around 2000 steps. After that, the next 1000 steps are spread across a lot of distance, so they were easy to climb. The last 500 steps were again very steep. After plenty of short breaks, we reached the top at about 8:30AM, taking around 2 hours 45 minutes for the climb. Tirumala is roughly at the same elevation as Bangalore and weather was pleasant, so we were able to relax very quickly and the exhaustion of climb was quickly forgotten. Needless to say, I was the slowest in our group and I made a resolve to improve my fitness levels immediately, a resolve I maintained for almost a day.

The climb is probably not much difficult compared to treks in real mountains. However, what makes this climb difficult is that as soon as we climb up, we need to stand in hours and hours of queues for the darshan of the God. On this day, there was a long queue for anything and everything in Tirumala... just depositing our mobile phones and bags took 45 minutes of standing in a queue. After a while we were conditioned to stand in a queue wherever we saw one. We were fortunate to have booked the right ticket for darshan that day, thanks completely to one of the members of the group who is a seasoned pro of visiting Tirumala. We spent less than 3 hours getting in and out of the temple, which included approximately 10 seconds of seeing the God. My friend had warned us to keep our eyes peeled while in front of the God because there is a tendency to close our eyes while in front of the God and doing so here can mean you will completely miss out seeing the God :-) After the darshan, there was a queue to put our offerings in Srivari Hundi too! The queue for buying "extra" laddus was so long, we decided to skip it completely.

Having never visited Tirumala before, I must say I was happy to see how well the place was organized, considering the large number of devotees who pour into the temple every day. While roaming around on the streets I didn't feel the population as much as I had expected. There aren't too many eating options in Tirumala, partly due to the free food provided by the temple. I found this interesting way of making badam milk though:

Tea stalls with a copper "boiler" like this were common, but I learnt that many stalls had these boilers just for ornamental purpose:

Picture from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/Tea_stall_tamil_nadu.jpg/800px-Tea_stall_tamil_nadu.jpg

There is a free city bus ride within Tirumala and they use these interesting buses:

Thankfully, we took a bus while returning from Tirumala to Tirupati. I totally hate climbing down the stairs, much more than I hate climbing up. We were back in the comforts of our AC room in Tirupati by 5PM.

Poor food!

Seen in the food court of a mall.

To get respect, one has to give respect (well, most of the time)

Update 8-Jun: Translation posted.

ಅದೊಂದು ಶನಿವಾರ. ಬಹಳ ದಿನಗಳಿಂದ ಬಾಕಿ ಇದ್ದ ಕೆಲಸಗಳನ್ನು ಮುಗಿಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ನಾನು ಹಾಗೆಯೇ ಒಂದು ಶೂ ಖರೀದಿಸಬೇಕಿರುವುದು ನೆನಪಾಗಿ ಎದುರಿಗೇ ಇದ್ದ ಶೂ ಅಂಗಡಿಯನ್ನು ಹೊಕ್ಕೆ.

ಎರಡು ಮಹಡಿಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಹರಡಿಕೊಂಡಿದ್ದ ಈ ಶೂ ಅಂಗಡಿಯ ನೆಲ ಮಹಡಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಅಂಗಡಿಯ ಮಾಲೀಕನನ್ನು ಬಿಟ್ಟು ಬೇರೆ ಯಾರೂ ಇರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಸಾಮಾನ್ಯವಾಗಿರುವಂತೆ ಗಂಡಸರ ಶೂ ವಿಭಾಗ ಮೇಲಿನ ಮಹಡಿಯಲ್ಲಿತ್ತು (ಕಾರಣ ಗೊತ್ತಲ್ಲವೇ? ;-)). ಮೇಲೆ ಬರುತ್ತಿದ್ದಂತೆ ಒಂದಿಬ್ಬರು ಗ್ರಾಹಕರು ಮತ್ತು ಒಬ್ಬ ಮಾರಾಟಗಾರ (ಸೇಲ್ಸ್ ಬಾಯ್ ) ಕಾಣಿಸಿದರು. ನಾನು ನನ್ನ ಪಾಡಿಗೆ ಶೂಗಳನ್ನು ನೋಡುವುದರಲ್ಲಿ ಮಗ್ನನಾದೆ. 5-10 ನಿಮಿಷಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಮಾರಾಟಗಾರ ಉಳಿದ ಗ್ರಾಹಕರಿಗೆ ಬೇಕಾದ ವಸ್ತುಗಳನ್ನು ಕೊಟ್ಟು, ಆ ವಸ್ತುಗಳನ್ನು ನೆಲಮಹಡಿಯಲ್ಲಿದ್ದ ಮಾಲೀಕನ ಬಳಿ ತಲುಪಿಸಿ ಲಗುಬಗೆಯಿಂದ ನನ್ನ ಕಡೆ ಬಂದ. ಸಾಧಾರಣವಾಗಿ ನಾನು ದೊಡ್ಡ ಅಂಗಡಿಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಮಾರಾಟಗಾರರನ್ನು ಸಾಧ್ಯವಾದಷ್ಟೂ ದೂರವಿಡುತ್ತೇನೆ. ಮುಖದ ಮೇಲೊಂದಿಷ್ಟು  ಮಂದಹಾಸ, ಕೆಲಸದಲ್ಲಿ ಉತ್ಸಾಹ, ಒಳ್ಳೆಯ ನಡವಳಿಕೆ, ಅಂಗಡಿಯಲ್ಲಿರುವ ವಸ್ತುಗಳ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ತಿಳುವಳಿಕೆ ಇವಿಷ್ಟೂ ಇರುವ ಮಾರಾಟಗಾರರು ಸಿಗುವುದು ಅಪರೂಪ. ಆದರೆ ಈ ಹುಡುಗ ಅಂಥವನೊಬ್ಬನೆಂದು ನನಗೆ ಅನ್ನಿಸಿತು. ಮುಂದಿನ  5-10 ನಿಮಿಷಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ನಾನು ಒಂದು ಶೂ ಅನ್ನು ಆಯ್ಕೆ ಮಾಡುವುದಕ್ಕೆ ಹತ್ತಿರ ಬಂದಿದ್ದೆ. ಆಗ ಅಲ್ಲಿಗೆ ಇನ್ನೊಬ್ಬ  ಗ್ರಾಹಕನ ಆಗಮನವಾಯಿತು.

ಗ್ರಾಹಕ ನೋಡುವುದಕ್ಕೆ ಸಭ್ಯನಂತಿದ್ದ. ಮಾರಾಟಗಾರ ತಕ್ಷಣ ತನ್ನ ಸೇವೆ ಮಾಡಬೇಕೆಂಬುದು ಅವನ ನಿರೀಕ್ಷೆಯಾಗಿತ್ತು. ಇದನ್ನರಿತ ಮಾರಾಟಗಾರ ತಕ್ಷಣ ಹೊಸ ಗ್ರಾಹಕನನ್ನು ನನ್ನ ಪಕ್ಕದಲ್ಲಿಯೇ ಕೂರಿಸಿ "ಏನು ಬೇಕು ಸಾರ್?" ಎಂದು ಮಾತು ಆರಂಭಿಸಿದ. ಅವನಿಗೆ ಅವನು ಧರಿಸಿ ಬಂದಿದ್ದ ತರಹದ್ದೇ ಚಪ್ಪಲಿ ಬೇರೆ ಅಳತೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಬೇಕಿತ್ತು. ಆ ವಸ್ತು ಅಂಗಡಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಲಭ್ಯವಿರುವುದು ನಿಜವಾಗಿತ್ತು. ಆದರೆ ಸಮಸ್ಯೆ ಆ ಗ್ರಾಹಕನ ವರ್ತನೆಯದ್ದಾಗಿತ್ತು. ಆತ  ಮಾರಾಟಗಾರನನ್ನು ಏಕವಚನದಲ್ಲಿ ಸಂಬೋಧಿಸುವುದಕ್ಕೆ ಆರಂಭಿಸಿದ. ಕೆಲವರಿಗೆ ಅಂಗಡಿಯಲ್ಲಿನ ಮಾರಾಟಗಾರರನ್ನು ತಮ್ಮ ಸೇವಕರಂತೆ ಕಾಣುವ ಅಭ್ಯಾಸವಿರುತ್ತದೆ. ಆ ವರ್ಗಕ್ಕೆ ಸೇರಿದಂತೆ ಕಂಡ ಈ ವ್ಯಕ್ತಿ ಮಾತಾಡುವ ರೀತಿ ಕಂಡು ನನಗೆ ಆಶ್ಚರ್ಯವೂ ಬೇಸರವೂ ಆಯಿತು. ಆದರೆ ಮುಂದೆ ಈ ಕಥೆಗೊಂದು ತಿರುವು ಸಿಕ್ಕಿತು. "ಸಾರ್" ಎಂದು ಮಾತು ಆರಂಭಿಸಿದ್ದ ಮಾರಾಟಗಾರ ಒಂದೇ ನಿಮಿಷದಲ್ಲಿ "ಏನಣ್ಣಾ  ನಿನಗೆ ಏನು ಬೇಕು?" ಗೆ ಬದಲಾಯಿಸಿದ್ದ. ಇದು ಆ ಗ್ರಾಹಕನಿಗೆ ಇಷ್ಟವಾಗುತ್ತಿಲ್ಲವೆಂಬುದು ಸ್ಪಷ್ಟವಾಗಿ ತೋರುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ನಾನು ನನ್ನ ಶೂ ಆಯ್ಕೆ ಮುಗಿಸಿ ಕೆಳ ಮಹಡಿಗೆ ಬರುತ್ತಿದ್ದಂತೆ ಆ ಗ್ರಾಹಕನ ಖರೀದಿ ಸಫಲವಾಗುವುದಿಲ್ಲವೆಂದು ನನಗೆ ಅನಿಸುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ನಾನು ಬಿಲ್ಲಿಂಗ್ ಮುಗಿಸಿ ಹೊರಡುವಷ್ಟರಲ್ಲಿಯೇ ಆ ಇನ್ನೊಬ್ಬ ಗ್ರಾಹಕ ದಡದಡನೆ ಕೆಳಗಿಳಿದು ಬಂದು ಬರಿಕೈಯಲ್ಲಿ ಹೊರಟೇ ಹೋದ. ಅವನ ಮುಖದಲ್ಲಿ ಸಿಟ್ಟು ಕಾಣುತ್ತಿತ್ತು.

ಅಂಗಡಿಯ ಮಾಲೀಕ ಎದುರಿಗೇ ಇದ್ದಿದ್ದರೆ ಆ ಮಾರಾಟಗಾರನ ವರ್ತನೆ ಬೇರೆ ರೀತಿ ಇರುತ್ತಿತ್ತೇನೊ? ಮೇಲಿನ ಮಹಡಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ನಡೆಯುವ ಮಾತುಕತೆ ಕೆಳಗಿನ ಮಹಡಿಗೆ ಕೇಳದಿರುವುದು ಆ ಮಾರಾಟಗಾರನಿಗೆ ತನ್ನ ಆತ್ಮಗೌರವವನ್ನು ಉಳಿಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವುದಕ್ಕೆ ಅವಕಾಶವನ್ನು ಕೊಟ್ಟಿತ್ತು ಮತ್ತು ಅವನು ಆ ಅವಕಾಶವನ್ನು  ಸಂಪೂರ್ಣವಾಗಿ ಬಳಸಿಕೊಂಡಿದ್ದ. ಇದ್ಯಾವುದರ ಅರಿವಿರದ ಮಾಲೀಕ ಹೊಸ ಗ್ರಾಹಕರ ನಿರೀಕ್ಷೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಕುಳಿತಿದ್ದ. ಒಬ್ಬ ಗ್ರಾಹಕನಿಗೆ ಬೇಕಿರುವ ವಸ್ತುವು ಅಂಗಡಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಇದ್ದೂ ಮಾರಾಟ ಸಫಲವಾಗುವುದು ನಿಶ್ಚಿತವಲ್ಲ ಎಂಬುದನ್ನು ಈ ಘಟನೆಯು ನನಗೆ ತೋರಿಸಿಕೊಟ್ಟಿತ್ತು.


Translation:
It was a Saturday. I was finishing tasks from my long-pending to-do list and as I saw a shoe shop, remembered that I had to buy a pair and entered the store.

The store was spread in 2 floors and the ground floor had nobody but the owner. As usual, the men's section was upstairs (you know why, right? ;-)). As I came upstairs, I saw a couple of customers and a lone sales boy (should I call them sales executives now?) I started looking at shoes by myself. Within 5-10 minutes the sales boy helped other customers finalize their purchases, took their stuff to the owner in ground floor and came running to me. I usually keep away the sales boys/girls in large stores as I find them to be nuisance rather than helpful. It is very rare to find a sales person who is knowledgeable about the products, behaves well, enthusiastic and has a smile on his/her face. However, this sales boy seemed to be one such. In the next 5-10 minutes I was about to finalize on my selection. That is when another customer entered the scene.

The new customer had dressed like a gentleman. He wanted the sales boy to serve him immediately. The sales boy understood this, sat him right next to me and asked him "What do you want, sir?" The customer's need was simple. He was looking for a pair of sandals exactly like what he was wearing, but in a different size. The store indeed had what he wanted, so it should have been a simple deal. However, the problem was of the customer's behavior. He addressed the sales boy in singular and abusive language. Some people have the habit of treating sales guys in stores, parking lot attendants, etc as their slaves. The customer seemed to belong to this category. I was surprised and sad to see the way he spoke to the sales boy. However, the story took a turn from then on. The sales boy immediately switched from "sir" to addressing the customer a language comparable to what the customer was using. It was obvious that this hurt the customer's ego and he surely did not like this. As I finalized my shoes and came down to ground floor for billing, I felt that the purchase of the other customer was not going to be successful. Indeed, as I finished billing, I saw the other customer come down the stairs huffing and walk out empty-handed. He was visibly angry.

Perhaps the sales boy would have behaved differently if the store owner was nearby when this happened. The conversation in 1st floor was not audible from the ground floor and this had given the sales boy an opportunity to maintain his self-respect, which he had used completely. The owner was oblivious to all this and continued to wait for customers. What I realized is: Even though the store has exactly what the customer needs, there is no guarantee that the sale will succeed.

Kumta eerulli (Onion)

If you see this strange bunch of onions hanging in a house you visit, it is likely that you are in the house of people from the coastal or Malnad districts of Karnataka and it is a summer month. These onions come in two colours, pink and white. They come from Kumta and only during the April and May months. Quick google search shows that there is some more information about these onions here and here.

An interesting story

This is a long post, please bear with me.

I was driving alone in a jungle route, probably at around 9 in the night. I had already driven close to 350 kms and was eager to reach my destination and take some rest, but there still was around 40Kms of driving in front me of. There were a lot of insects in the air that evening and that had created quite a mess on my windshield, beyond what my car's wiper could fix. So I decided to take a short break to manually clean the windshield. I was in an isolated area when I pulled over and hopped out of my car. As I got out of the car, the car's door closed and I immediately realized: I HAD LOCKED MYSELF OUT! With the Autocop mechanism in my car, there is a way to lock ourselves out of the car and I had never fallen prey to it... until now! I quickly assessed the situation: Car's engine wasn't running, but headlight, music system and the light inside were all on, draining out the battery fast. My mobile phone and wallet were inside the car. I was in the middle of a jungle, a few KMs from any village on either side. It was very very dark outside except for the lights from my car. This was an open stretch of road with very less traffic, so the few vehicles that were passing by were going very fast. I waved at every vehicle passing by and for the next 30 minutes none stopped. There was also a real danger of rain now... and when it rains here, it really pours.

Finally a guy on a 2-wheeler stopped. A guy in his mid-30s, probably a local guy. I explained the situation to him and he immediately assured me that he would help me. He did not know how to open a locker car. He took out his mobile phone and made a few phone calls. He then told me that the only "garage" in nearby village was closed, but he knew the house of the mechanic, so he could go and get him. He asked me again: "Do you want me to go and get the mechanic?" I thought the question was moot considering the situation I was in. He quickly rode back in the direction he came in.

Another half an hour passed and no other vehicle stopped. Then, 3 bikes approached me and stopped. There were 5 people in total, including the guy from before. A thought quickly ran in my mind: "Why so many people to open a locked car? Are they planning to rob me? Are they armed?" But I didn't have much choice than go with the flow. One of the new guys, who was the mechanic, had brought a metal scale with him. He quickly got to work and in less than 2 minutes, had taken off the rubber beeding of the front glass and unlocked the car, taking out any confidence I still had in my car's security system. Now that the main task was over, it was time to talk about money.

I asked the mechanic how much money should I pay he wasn't willing to quote a price readily. After a quick discussion with his friends, he asked for Rs. 100. I could not believe my ears! This was 1/5th of what I was expecting him to demand. I happily paid him Rs. 150 and the 4 of them sped away happily on their bikes.

Now the first guy and I were left. I thanked this guy and wondered "What next?". My observation of the people I have interacted with suggests that nobody helps anyone these days unless they have something to gain. This guy had spent his time as well as money (on petrol) to help me. I was sure that this guy would now put up a hefty demand for money now and tried to guess the amount in my mind. 200? 500? even more? He instead told me "Follow me in your car. My village is close by". I followed his bike for a few kilometers and reached his village. The guy turned out to be the owner of a small grocery store in the village. This was probably the biggest grocery store in the vicinity. He forced me to sit for a while, gave me fruits to eat and told me that he would get tea made. I politely refused this and told him that I should be leaving, considering I still have some distance to go and it is quite late in the night now. I then asked him  "How can I repay for the help you gave me? Can I pay you some money?" This made him angry to some extent. "Sir, I did not help you for money. Luckily God has given me enough to lead a happy life. You looked like a good person stuck in an unfortunate situation on the road, so I helped you. Please don't even think about repaying it". I was flabbergasted. Not knowing what to do next, I thanked him again and drove away shaking my head.

Such a tame end to such a story filled with suspense? Yes. Later, I wondered about my inability to judge people correctly on that day. Was I too worried about my situation which prevented me from thinking clearly? Have I seen seen too many examples of the selfish face of people that I could not recognize people who are simple and lead a contented life? Probably a bit of both. I guess I have lived far too long in Bangalore!

Update: This is NOT just a story. This incidence really happened exactly as I have described here.

Seen at an outdoor amusement park

Any guesses what happens when it rains?

Siesta!

Is there no end to human creativity?

What next? Green chillies?

Limited time offer: minus 9Rs

Offer valid till we keep finding gullible people

The favorite of the IT crowd!

So what should "Computer Sambrani" smell like? Freshly unboxed laptop?

Police are on sale!!!

If you have enough money, Police is yours!

Innovative headrest

I found this in a private bus near Shimoga. Prevents passenger's head from banging against the window and helps them sleep safely. I need 2 of these for my office chair ;-)

The incredible car monster

I don't know whether the abominable snowman really exists, but I am completely convinced that an incredible monster lives in my car. He has never been seen by anyone, but he is surely there, looking for an opportunity to swallow something or the other all the time. There can be no other explanation for the countless things I have lost in my car. Considering the fact that it is just a small car, the monster is really skillful.

The monster uses a simple technique to select the next item to swallow: Minimal quantity that causes me maximum trouble. For example, he has swallowed 4 pairs of my daughter's footwear, but selected only one of the 2 pieces of the pair every time. He has swallowed the hands-free of my mobile exactly when I was heading out for a long drive all alone. He has swallowed the only CD that I did not have backup for. He never bothered about my old USB drives (512MB, 1GB) but the day I put a shiny new 16GB USB drive in the car, he was there to gobble it up.

I live in fear... I don't know when he will strike next and what he will swallow. Is there such a monster in your car too?

We hate wireless technology!

What a difference time makes!

The specimen on the left: Kodak DX3600. My first digicam, purchased in mid-2001 in UK. The specimen on the right: Fujifilm C20. My most recent digicam, purchased in mid-2012. How do they compare?

DX3600 has a 2.2MP sensor, 1.8inch LCD, 3x optical zoom, compactflash storage and weight at over 200gms. C20 has a 12MP sensor, 2.4inch LCD, 3x optical zoom, SD card storage, weighs 125gms and supports more picture modes than DX3600. DX3600 was a respectable entry-level digicam back then, bought at a time when the sales of film had not started dropping in India. I had paid Rs. 28K (rough conversion from GBP at the 2001 rates) for DX3600 + another 4K for 64MB compactflash card. C20 is one of the cheapest (branded) digicams available in India now. I paid Rs. 2.5K for C20 and re-used existing SD cards. C20 is around 68 times cheaper per megapixel compared to DX3600! What a difference time makes!

BTW, my DX3600 is still functional today and still takes acceptable pictures!

VirtFS demo

This video and the code behind was all developed by my team. Some of the code I wrote is running here :-)

Play this at 720p.

In search of the perfect desktop

I am usually in favor of change. It takes a lot for me to say "This is too much of a new thing". However, recently there was one such moment. I got a new laptop at work recently and I had to decide which Linux distro to go with. I usually go with either Fedora or Ubuntu on my desktops. However, recent versions of both Fedora and Ubuntu have had major modifications to the desktop environment. While Fedora ships with Gnome 3, Ubuntu has put Unity interface on top of Gnome 3. Although both are major changes from Gnome 2 based distros, I was confident that I would be able to start liking them easily and quickly. How wrong was I!

My first choice of distro was Ubuntu 11.10. Unity desktop was okay, but there were many minor irritants that I found tough to adjust to, even after a week of using it. Pidgin notifications wouldn't work the way I want, some window switches required more keystrokes than before and so on. I started looking for options to tweak Unity to suit my taste. Slowly I realized that this may not be easy. Hence I decided to try Gnome 3, so installed Gnome 3 shell on top of Ubuntu 11.10. I was able to adjust to Gnome 3 much better than to Unity, but there were still some irritants that I just could not fix. So I decided to try out other options. The first stop was KDE. I was an old friend of KDE, so it did not take any ramp-up time, even though I had never used KDE 4.x before. In the mean time I got Linux Mint 12 installed on another disk partition. Mint has done a great deal of work with Gnome 3 to make it behave like Gnome 2. It fixed pretty much all my grouses. I could have just lived with that. However, by now I was determined to try as many options as possible before finalizing my desktop. Sometimes I get into this sort of mode.

The only other reasonable option seemed to be XFCE. XFCE on top of Ubuntu 11.10 worked like a charm. It seemed to do everything I wanted and nothing more. It is simplistic by today's standards, but not short in functionality. After using each desktop environment for a couple of days, I was convinced that I should stick with XFCE. At least till Gnome folks make Gnome 3 useful again.

So I cleanly re-installed my laptop with Xubuntu 11.10. I like some of the tweaks Xubuntu folks have done to XFCE. I have stuck to Xubuntu as my primary desktop for the last few weeks and I think I will stick to XFCE for an year, if not more. End of search. For now.

Mekedatu

I had been to Meke Daatu / Mekedatu / ಮೇಕೆ ದಾಟು recently. There are enough travelogues that cover this place, so I will restrict myself to a few specific bits that could be helpful to visitors.

Time needed: Half day visit from Bangalore. Usually combined with other places to convert this to a full day visit.

Distance: Around 90 Kms. Easily drive-able. I saw a handful of buses too plying to this place from Kanakapura.

Directions: Google driving directions.

How to drive: Go to Kanakapura. Enquire about "Sangama Road" and take that. Sangama is at the dead end of that road, around 35Kms from Kanakapura. No confusion at all.

What to do: You can play in the waters at Sangama, but be careful about whirlpools. From Sangama, you need to cross Kaveri river on a theppa (a local boat, round in shape). These boats can topple, so respect the instructions given by the boat driver.

A tip: Irrespective of what the boat driver tells you, a little bit of water does get into the boat, so your trousers can get wet! Take stock of what you put in your hip pockets before getting into the boat.


There is a bus service from the other side of river to Mekedatu (5KMs). At Mekedatu one can enjoy the views of river Kaveri rushing through a narrow rocky place. It is not possible to touch the water here. It is dangerous to venture too far out on the rocks because there are no guard rails or any safety measures. People die regularly by falling into the river here. Government has put this friendly notice board and washed their hands off.





Road condition: Very good as of now. Even for motorcyclists. Bangalore to Kanakapura is an NH. From there on, it is an SH in very good condition.

Fuel: Fill up at Kanakapura. There is no fuel station beyond that. Hence you need enough fuel in your vehicle to cover around 70Kms round trip from Kanakapura.

Food: There is a brand new restaurant in Sangama, overlooking the river. Servers both veg and non-veg. Clean, but not necessarily tasty. Limited menu options. Very few options other than this restaurant. A lot of people carry their own food.

When to go: Preferably on weekends/holidays. Many of the facilities may not be working on other days. Choose a cloudy day as it can get really hot and uncomfortable on the rocks and sands of Mekedatu. If you are going there on a sunny day, plan to be there early in the morning (9AM) or late evening (5PM). Everything closes down when it gets dark, so don't be too late. The crowds here can be quite rough on the new year day. So avoid this day if you are planning to take your wife or girlfriend.

Cost: Car parking: RS. 50. Theppa across the river: Rs. 50 per head (to-and-fro). Theppa driver demands Rs. 10 tip either way. Bus ride from Sangama to Mekedatu: Rs. 40 for bus ride (to-and-fro). Veg lunch: Rs. 100 per head.


Finally, a video:

How to make your auto/taxi ride interesting

Whenever I take an auto or a taxi ride (which is quite rare... I usually take my own vehicle everywhere or I take the bus), I chat up with the driver during the ride. These chats kill my boredom, as well as give me a glimpse of how these people think. The topics discussed and the viewpoints expressed are radically different from those at my office lunch table.

Rarely have I seen an auto or taxi driver who is not interested in chatting. Most of them have very strong opinions about things around them and will not shy away from expressing them. Be it Rajanikanth's health, Yeddyurappa's wealth, Veerappan's death, Katrina Kaif's dancing skills, Upendra's dialogue delivery, quality of traffic in Bangalore, rains, ration cards... anything. Also, their perspective of things is very different from your friends/colleagues. An auto driver once said the worst drivers in Bangalore, starting from the worst, were 2-wheelers, BMTC, BPO taxis, private cars and then autos! A taxi driver said it is insulting for the man to let a woman drive... he would never let his future wife do that! Another talked about how teenage boy/girl pair behave in the passenger seat of his auto and what he does to prevent that. Yet another told me that he knew everything about Mumbai because he visited the city some 15 years ago for 2 days. On one occasion an auto driver refused to turn the meter on, but told me a figure that was pretty much what the actual metered amount was going to be. During the ride, I asked him why he did that. He said "Sir, if I knew you were a localite I would have started the meter... I try to avoid traffic junctions by taking interior roads... outsiders who are not familiar with the roads think I am taking a circutous route and complain "ghuma diya"! Hence to avoid all the trouble I fix the cost beforehand!

Most of them, when narrating some incidence that happened in their life, the road, blow up their role with lots of masala. This is especially true when they are talking about their verbal or physical fights with others. It appears that they add up some of the characteristics of their favorite screen hero while talking about themselves.

Another topic they are usually eager to talk about is their financial condition... most autos and taxis are not driven by the owners, so they will have many things to say about the owner of the vehicle.

Finally, one last interesting incidence. This taxi driver had seemed to be especially well behaved and cultured. He was driving for 1.5 hours in busy traffic and was at a signal wanting to turn left. A couple of cars which were in wrong lanes had blocked our left turn. My driver turned restless and started honking. Immediately, the driver of the Innova in front of us got down and started charging towards us. He was a tall, decent looking man dressed in jeans, a kurta and a rudraksha chain around his neck with kumkum on his forehead. He looked like the owner of the Innova and he must have been from a well to do family. To my horror he started shouting unimaginable obscenities at my driver, tried to pull him out of the car and landed a couple of blows on his face. My driver was startled, but realizing the situation was not in his favour, went on defense mode, pleading guilty and begging the other guy to stop. Then the signals turned green and the guy went back to his car and drove away. I was slightly shocked from what happened, but I would have never anticipated what happened next. The driver called someone on his mobile and complained. No, not the police. He called someone who he called "Anna" (brother), gave him description of the car, it's registration number and the guy's description. I asked him "Who did you call and what will they do to him?" "We have our own support system sir. They will take care of him". He refused to say anything more than this. A chill ran down my spine, imagining all sorts of things "taking care" could mean!

Are we friendly to each other?

I am sure each one of us has heard about incidences where foreigners, especially westerners, asked us some questions about India that are genuine from their side, but amusing to us. With a large number of jokes on this theme, it is hard to say which incidences are genuine and which are not. Long back I myself have been asked "Is there telephone in India?" from a person who was working with people in Indian every day. When they visit India, they ask different types of amusing questions. One such person had asked me "Why are footpaths 1 foot higher than the road here?" and just then a 2-wheeler zoomed past us on the footpath. On the positive side I did not have to answer his question :-)

While most of the questions asked by westerners are just funny, sometimes you get a questions that makes you think long and deep. I faced one such question recently. We were a small group at the lunch table with our European guest. The topics of discussion were the usual. The guest was asking us a few questions about how things work in India. He then asked a question that startled us. "Wherever I have been in Bangalore, people have been very friendly to me. Are Indians naturally this friendly to each other or are they being extra friendly to me?" I tried to explain "I suppose the people here realize that you are from outside and might need some assistance with various things, so may be they are being more helpful to you". But the man persisted "No, I am talking about friendliness, not being just helpful. For example, are you as friendly to each other as you appear to be to me?" Now there was a silence at the table for a few seconds, while we were thinking how to answer this. Luckily, it turned out that the group at the table was indeed quite friendly to each other, so we just told him "Yes we are". However, this left me thinking about whether we are we really more friendly to our visitors than we are to our own folks.

I suppose foreigners indeed think we are more friendly to them, possibly because of the way we interact with them when compared to how they interact with us when we are in their country. May be we do go an extra step or two to make them feel comfortable. As far as friendliness is concerned, I think we are much more friendly to each other within our personal network than they are among themselves. To an extent we do that with any outsider to our cities or home, although we do not say "Hi" to total strangers as Americans do. However, are we as friendly to someone from another state/city who we personally don't know as we are to a foreigner? I guess we are not. But then, when we see someone from another state/city who is totally lost and needs help, we are likely to go an extra mile to help them out.

On the other hand, we also regularly hear about people from out of town, including foreigners, being duped, mugged or even murdered for gains. This too happens all over India. All of us would have experienced that when we are not in our home town we are much more likely to be cheated one way or the other.

So I can only conclude what we already know: No rule can be generalized to all of India. This makes it difficult to say "This is how we are". That's what makes our country so interesting.

For the record, the "foreigners" that I know are mostly from western countries, mainly US and England. I am not very familiar with how people from other countries behave.

Do you live in Bannerghatta?

I was in a training session. During a break, the people in my table group started chatting. As it is usual in casual conversations in Bangalore, the topic moved to traffic and the amount of time it takes to travel. I was fairly sure I had the bragging right for the longest journey back home. However, what one of the ladies, who had been in Bangalore for years, said startled me. "I live at Kankpura, so it takes a really long time to reach home". I was surprised, but I quickly realized that she probably lives somewhere on Kanakapura road, not in Kanakapura town. I asked her "Do you really mean you live at Kanakapura?" "Yes" "Kanakapura is around 55 KMs from the center of the city, so from here it must be around 70 KMs. Why do you live there?". It was her turn to be surprised now. "No, it is around 25 KMs from here". I was now certain what she meant, but I was in a mood to play a bit. "But you said you live in Kanakapura". She gave me a confused look. I persisted "Do you know why that road is called Kanakapura Road?" "No" "Let's say you lived on Jaipur Road in Delhi... would you say you lived in Jaipur?" She was from Delhi, so she got it immediately. "Oh! is there a place called Kanakapura on that road? Now I got it!". "Do you mean you really didn't know that Kanakapura is a town 55 KMs down that road?" "No".

I am sure she is not the only person who has migrated to Bangalore who hasn't made an attempt to know much about the surroundings. In fact there are huge corporations, including banks, who make this mistake regularly. I live close to Bannerghatta road, so I see plenty of examples of people referring to the entire road as "Bannerghatta", although Bannerghatta is roughly 30 KMs away from Bangalore. For example, the "Bannerghatta branch" of a famous bank is NOT in Bannerghatta. It is in Bangalore, on Bannerghatta Road, at least 10 KMs away from Bannerghatta. There is a 5-star hotel and a huge mall coming up on Bannerghatta Road, 15 KMs from Bannerghatta, which says it is in Bannerghatta.


A lot of people seem to think that the entire road is called "Bannerghatta". The same applies to other towns around Bangalore, the most prominent being Sarjapura. One can see lots of other examples of people who know close to nothing about the state, city and area they live in. Our cities are not melting pots, but salad bowls.

Wish there was a horn at the back of my car

It was one of the days when I had spent unusually long amount of time on the road. The ordeal seemed to be finally getting over as I approached my office campus. It is just this last stretch of service road, then I will be at the security check. There is a line of cars backed up at security check... I am very likely to be late for my morning meeting. I stop my car in the line and casually look at the rear view mirror. The car approaching from behind at 20-30 kmph has a lady at the wheel. As the car approaches mine, I suddenly notice that she is not looking at the road! She is instead looking DOWN at her laps, possibly reading a message on her mobile phone. Her car isn't slowing down at all. She is oblivious of the line of cars stopped in front of her. I feel like screaming at her, but there is nothing I can do. I wish my car had a loud horn pointing backwards. I am now convinced that she is going to slam my car. The cars in front of me have moved ahead, so it gives me an idea in the last second. I take my leg off the brakes. Her car crashes against mine with a loud thud, but my car absorbs some of the impact by rolling ahead. The lady is startled. I get out of my our car to investigate the damage. A few thoughts run through my mind as I walk back: How much damage could it be? Will there be an altercation? Oh man, that's a lady... if a crowd gathers she will get all the sympathy. I am surely going to be late for the meeting. Would the bumper have broken? How much does it cost?

By the time I walk back the lady has gotten out of her car. "You were not even looking at the road" I scream. She seems to be genuinely shocked and is pleading "Sorry... sorry". There is a mobile phone in her hand, which very likely is the cause of this accident. Looks like there won't be an argument about who the culprit is. Surprisingly, the back bumper of my car is intact except for a couple of scratches. WOW! Her car, on the other hand, is in a worse shape. The front bumper is broken and the number plate has fallen off. There is no crowd. Many drivers in cars lined up behind us start honking impatiently, but nobody gets out of their cars. I realize that there is no need to wait there any longer. She was the culprit and luckily she is the one who got punished as well. The whole incidence was over in less than 5 minutes and I drive ahead into my office. Not the best start for the work day, but it could have been much worse!

School day for kids

It all started a few weeks ago when my 3 year old daughter started singing and dancing to a particular Kannada movie song (Gaalipata). We initially ignored it, but when she kept on doing this every day, we got curious. My daughter is notoriously bad at telling us what happens at school, in spite of her excellent verbal skills. Hence it took us quite a few days to figure out that the teachers were preparing the kids for a dance program, which we later learnt to be the school day event.

Eventually the day came last week. It was the school day and "graduation ceremony" at Podar Jumbo Kids, Vijaya Bank Layout branch. If you have not attended such an pre-schooler event, please do so when you get your next chance. It is more fun than you think it can be.

The meat of the event was a number of dance performances by kids of various classes. We handed over our kids to the teachers as soon as we entered the venue and waited for their little one to get dressed, come on stage and perform. A noticeable thing with kids of this age is that most of them have no idea what stage fear is. So they are not bothered whether they are dancing in the living room of their home or in front of hundreds of people in an auditorium. However, there are a few who start crying the moment they are on stage. Some of them recover and join the dance, while a few them continue to cry at the top of their voice all through the dance. Some kids saw their parents in the audience and started screaming "mommieeee" and running towards them unaware of the 6 foot fall at the end of the stage! A couple of kids did not seem to want to show their faces to the audience, so they turned away from the audience and danced throughout. Some of them were distracted half way through the dance and started doing various things like chatting with their co-dancers, giggling uncontrallably and so on. Some ran backstage while the dance was still going on and the teachers had a tough time catching them and bringing them back onto the stage! All this while the teachers stood at both sides of the stage and danced with the kids, trying to bring a semblance of co-ordination to the dance. The kids mostly chose to ignore their teachers and did not let much order creep into their dances. They can get away with this.. even receive wild applause only because they are kids... being watched by starry eyed parents. Photos from the event are here.


I must appreciate the efforts put in by the school for the event. The teachers had prepared for weeks. The venue, JSS Auditorium, was quite good. They had arranged for dresses themselves and done a great job at that too! They showed a lot of enthusiasm and commitment to make the event a success. The teachers had their own dance performance as a surprise package at the end of the event. One of the good things they did was announce right in the beginning that they were going to give a DVD of the event to every kid. This avoided the chaos in front of the stage with eager parents trying to capture their kid through their cameras. They even sent us off with food packets.

My daughter will stop going to this school in 2 weeks and I am going to miss this place. Their infrastrcture, while not great, is not bad either. However, they seem to have put together a nice bunch of teachers and support staff who all love kids. I would certainly recommend this place (Podar Jumbo Kids, Vijaya Bank Layout branch).

Everyone and their aunt want to wish you

I have often heard from my colleagues that the "politics" in Tamilnadu is far "advanced" compared to other states. They say the kind of things being seen in Karnataka political circles now-a-days were tried and perfected in Tamilnadu decades ago. I don't know whether that is true, but they sure seem to be ahead in erecting gigantic flex banners. In the above banner, more than 130 people seem to be wishing rest of the village (if anyone is left out) whatever they want to wish. "Happy Pongal", I suppose... sorry, I cannot read the language.

Pondicherry

Recently I did a trip to Pondicherry that I had been thinking for quite some time. As a typical techie, I did a lot of research on the internet before heading there to make my trip smoother. However, I found many new things that I think might be useful to people planning a trip. This is not a travelogue, just things I did not find by googling, but learnt first hand. I was planning to have a leisurely vacation, so I did not make an attempt to maximize my sight seeing there.

While there are good bus services from Bangalore to Pondicherry, I chose to drive my Santro because of a few reasons. Having a car makes it easy to get around Pondicherry. I didn't want to mess with the autorickshaws there. You can rent 2-wheelers in Pondicherry, but that is not suitable for families. Lastly, the distance to Pondicherry is around 310Kms, which is well within what I can drive in a day.

I took this route, which is by far the shortest at just 310 Kms. The alternative is this, but it takes the distance up by another 110 Kms. The road was smooth till Krishnagiri as expected, because it is the Chennai highway. However, from Krishnagiri to Tiruvannamalai I hit one of the worst National Highways I have ever driven on. It was 110 Kms of pure misery, with not even a single Km of stretch in a decent shape. I took more than 3 hours to cover this distance. I had high hopes on the roads of Tamilnadu, which this road totally destroyed. The road from Tiruvannamalai to Tindivanam (67 Km) was in a decent, though not great shape. From Tindivanam to Pondicherry (40Km) it is the Chennai-Pondicherry road, which is an excellent 4 lane road. Total drive time: 7 hours. While returning, I wanted to avoid the Tiruvannamalai-Krishnagiri stretch like I would avoid Plague. I took the advice of taxi drivers: I knew these guys would know best. They advised me to take the state highways from Tiruvannamalai-Dharmapuri through Tanipadi, Naripalli, Harur, Morappur and then drive on the NH from Dharmapuri towards Krishnagiri. Google maps doesn't know about this road! This added 50-60 Kms to my journey, but the roads are very very nice. Just 2 lanes, but very little traffic and a scenic road. Recommended.


I stayed at Kailash Beach Hotel. There are many "beach resorts" in Pondicherry and some of them are just lodges, calling themselves resorts. Kailash turned out to be a good place. You get whatever they claim on their website. Their swimming pool is pretty good. Rooms don't face the beach, but it is just a 2 min walk away. This place is 10 Kms south of Pondicherry.

Pondicherry beaches have apparently become very hostile since the Tsunami. The slope of beach is very drastic, so you can hardly go 10-20 feet into the water. The water brings tonnes of sand with it. Hence it is not a great place to play in the beach. I listed 3 famous public beaches in Pondicherry, but it was possible to play in the water in only 1 of them: Auroville beach.

Do not under-estimate the traffic of Pondicherry. The traffic generally remains low throughout the day, but during morning and evening busy hours it can get very crowded. Traffic moves at snail's pace along the main arteries of the city (Cuddalore road, roads leading to ECR in the north, etc). it took me 30+ minutes to drive 10Kms at 6:30PM. Drivers are better behaved than in Bangalore (probably any other big city). Most signals have free left turn and the drivers are decent enough to leave the left turning lane clear. Bicycle riders seemed to be on a suicide mission though. The roads in the core of the city (shopping areas and french quarters) become very busy during evening shopping hours. The police cut off 4-wheeler entry on many of the roads to avoid traffic jams. Parking can still be found in the smaller lanes. Watch out for 1-way roads.

The people were very helpful. Whenever I asked for directions, the people were willing to stop what they were doing, walk up to me, give clear directions and make sure I understood the directions. They would realize that I do not speak Tamil and try to explain in English. I had seen such people in Paris long back... may be it is the French culture thing!

Language wasn't a big hurdle because I realized that I could understand more Tamil than I thought I did. However, I realized that I could barely talk even a couple of words in Tamil. I started asking them to talk in Tamil, but I would reply in English. At least one road-side seller in Promenade beach, (who was probably a Muslim), was more comfortable with Hindi than with English.

Promenade beach is the show piece of the city. However, there is no sandy beach here... the water directly hits the embankment rocks. It is a beautiful place to sit in a roof-top restaurant on a full-moon night (which was the case when I went) and enjoy the beauty of the ocean while having your food. There are many hotels and 'guest houses' on this piece of road.


I visited the Chunnambar water resort. This is a highly advertised and recommended place. However, there are some drawbacks. The main (only?) attraction of the place is boat ride in the backwaters, leading up to Paradise Beach. This was one of the most beautiful and clean beaches I had seen. However, they were not even letting us touch the waters in Paradise beach. This killed most of the fun for us. We took a speed boat ride in the river, which was worthwhile.


Everyone talks about Auroville, which is 15Kms from the city. The place is peaceful and nice and is filled with westerners. You will see pictures of a spherical building in golden color in many websites: It took a 1.5 Km hike to reach that place from Auroville parking lot. They were not allowing us into that structure, so we only got to see it from quite a distance. I put the zoom on my new Canon to full use to take some pics. I couldn't associate myself much with Auroville or even Aurobindo Ashram, which is in the heart of the city.


Visited the Arulmigu Manakula Vinayagar temple. Air conditioned, which I guess will be very useful in summers. Tamil was essential to understand anything the guy at the counter says.

Sacred Heart Church is a good place to visit. 110 year old. Right in the city next to Railway Station. Good architecture. Belgian glass that looks so good. Also visited the church at Villianur, which is 10Kms from Pondicherry. Though older, the building was not all that great.


I ate at Hotel Surguru, Adyar Ananda Bhavan, Hotel Ajantha Sea View (nice terrace restaurant facing sea), Sri Krishna Sweets (restaurant attached), Auroville cafeteria. All good, nothing to write home about. Being a vegetarian, wasn't too interested in trying out French cuisines.

There is a memorial for French soldiers who died in the First World War on the Promenade Beach.


I went there in the 3rd week of January. The weather was nice: 30 degrees and a bit sticky at noon, but comfortable in morning and evening. I suppose December and January are best months to visit.

How many Indians are vegetarians?

While I was studying college, most of my class-mates were vegetarians. Later, while working in Bangalore, it just turned out that the majority of my colleagues in my group were vegetarians too. Whenever we went out for a team lunch, it was common to renegate the non-veggies to one side of the table by the majority vegetarian gang. A colleague who eats non-veg often comments that vegetarians should just graze on the lawn!

I have heard many of my colleagues and friends comment that the majority of Indians are vegetarians. That opinion was understandable, considering the surrounding we were in. Most of the restaurants (self-service fast food types, a.k.a Darshinis back then) were purely vegetarian. Whenever I attended any function, the food wood be vegetarian too.

I slowly learnt that my surrounding was not a true sample of this country. Though India indeed has the highest number of vegetarians in the world, the percentage of vegetarians in India is not more than 40% and is just 20% per some sources. Further, contrary to my expectations, the southern states have smaller percentage of vegetarians than the northern states (not the north-east).

Recently, at a team lunch in office, I turned out to be the only vegetarian in a group of 10. I knew that this was closer to true percentages of vegetarians in this country. However, I felt quite strange about this change. It made me wonder whether this was just a co-incidence that I was the only vegetarian in that group or whether the demography changed significantly in the last decade.

Grand offer: Save 0.0625%

Save 2 paise per Kg of atta. Worth 4 minutes of talk time!

What are these?

These are a type of cucumbers popular in the coastal belt of Karnataka. What is unique about them is that they can be preserved for months when stored in this way. Looking at these at one of my relatives place recently brought back my memories of my grandfather's house on the western coast of Karnataka between Udupi and Kundapur. More about this some time later.