Talking To Myself...

MSC.Software (www.mscsoftware.com) fired me

2010-06-03T01:19:00.003+05:30

Because I dared to speak the truth!!

Please do come back. I am working seriously on this post...

New Ubuntu is here!

2009-07-15T00:59:00.002+05:30

&amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.ubuntu.com/"&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;img src="http://www.ubuntu.com/files/countdown/904/countdown-9.04-1/00.png" alt="Ubuntu 9.04 - on desktops, netbooks, servers and in the cloud" width="180" height="150" border="0" /&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt;

Not very different from older version. But if you are trying Ubuntu for the first time, then go for this latest version.

Be wise, use open source...

Kool UML Tool

2009-06-06T20:50:00.001+05:30

Did my vote count??

2009-05-17T02:07:00.009+05:30

It did, at least in this election. Look at the results, the days of pressure politics (of Left & others)are over. Its a mandate by the youth of the country.

The youth like us (at all kinds of forums) always cribs that things don't improve in our country. And when the day of voting comes, we conveniently skip our most fundamental responsibility (of voting, while claiming a day off from our employers for the same) & then give the easiest excuse of all: "my name is not there in the voting list!".

The question to ask is: whose responsibility is it to get our name on the voting list? Don't we shout there is even a Rupee less in the salary deposited in our account at the end of a month? If yes then why don't we shout if our most basic right of voting is snatched from us?

I think the responsibility of voting must be put on the voter himself. At least the tax payers of the country must be penalized for not voting. If a tax payer does not vote in an election, all his tax benefits should be revoked for that particular financial year... The gains made by the national exchequer may be meager from such a move, but it will definitely push the voting percentage much ahead.

The employers of the country could at least do this much: if any employee does not vote then the leave that was granted to him on the day of voting should be revoked...

Be penalized for helping the country!

2009-03-25T16:00:00.006+05:30

Today I had visited State Bank of India to open a new account (I too want to move my hard earned savings to a public sector bank, thanks to the private-bank scams that are common these days).

The staff were much better than I expected! The internet account was given to me right across the counter! And the manager was explaining me how to use the internet account, what is NEFT, what is RTGS etc.!

In fact he offered me to sit down!!!

He asked me why had I not opted for a cheque book for the account I just opened. I said I don't need that in the age of NEFT/RTGS! He replied that NEFT/RTGS is charged by SBI, at least INR 5/- for a outward transfer (charged only for trasfers happening with banks other than SBI group banks). To my surprise he also said that RBI is going to mandate a minimum fee for NEFT/RTGS for every bank!! It seems that RBI wants some money to maintain the infrastructure it has put up for NEFT/RTGS.

True, on the RBI site I saw that the NEFT is free for the banks only till 31st March 2009!! So after that date, perhaps all your online fund transfers will be charged a fee!

I told the bank manager that by using online fund transfer I am saving a lot of resources for RBI and the bank! He agreed, saying that thanks to online fund transfers my bank looks empty these days and think about the money my bank is saving from printing less number of cheques and by having to process much less number of cheques!! He also said that the customer should be given incentives to use online fund transfers, in stead of charging a fee...

When I asked him why his bank is charging the (and RBI is going to)customers for this, he just took a deep sigh...

I will start ordering cheque books from my banks again!!

Et tu Ratan?

2008-06-08T00:38:00.003+05:30

I had switched from Dish TV to Tata Sky thinking that it belongs to the best business house of the countries, the Tatas!

When the Tata Sky salesmen contacted me to sell their service they claimed that the Super Saver pack will have all the channels that TataSky will ever provide, or at least non of the channels would ever be removed from that package.

I did not know that it was just a ploy to grab consumers. Now that they have about 2 million customers they have started showing their true colours. They started doing is slowly, first they removed some of the channels without telling the customers and asking the customers to subscribe the so called gold packages...

The recent fiasco of changing the price structure is the father of all kinds of cheating. They removed all sports channels, the BBC channels and few other channels and then reduced the price of the Super saver package to 260/- a month. The customers were happy for a moment, but soon the realization sank in that one will have to shell out 345/- a month to be able to view the same channels that were earlier available in the Super Saver pack...

In fact ESPN and Star Sports have started a big campaign against this move from Tatasky.

Can someone from Tatasky tell me why the package is called super saver pack if the customer has to buy ten other packages to be able to view the premium channels??

The readers can now guess how the Tatas are planning to finance the Jaguar Landrover deal... Here is one rough estimate: TataSky currently has about 2 million subscribers. The base packages have effectively increased by 65/- rupees a month. Even if half of the subscribers choose the premium packages now (which was part of base package earlier) then TataSky would get about 65 million rupees (about 1.5 million $). Thats a lot of money, can finance a deal like JLR...

I for one always respected them as a business house. Its hard to believe for me that even the Tatas can be of monopolistic nature....

DRY

2008-04-07T02:48:00.007+05:30

That's the first rule of programming: Don't Repeat Yourself.

One should know the virtue of laziness. He should not be just lazy: he must be aggressively and proactively lazy! Save yourself work whenever possible. If making a few changes now means one will be able to save himself more work later, do it! Make your program a place where you can do the absolute minimum amount of work to get the job done. Not only is programming this way much more interesting (it’s very boring to do the same thing over and over and over...), but it produces less buggy code, and it produces it faster. It’s a win-win-win situation.

Either way you look at it (DRY or laziness), its the same idea: make your programs flexible. When change comes (and it always does), you’ll have a much easier time changing with it.

Copy and paste is the opposite of “Don’t Repeat Yourself". "Copy and Paste" duplicates the code the first time, perhaps without much effort. There after every time you need a change you need to change at every place where you pasted the code.

Consider the things you forgot to change (e.g. changing a variable name) after pasting your code, there by leaving big and difficult to track bugs. "Copy and Paste" is actually a step backwards...

If you think a bit deeper: Is not "DRY" a basic rule of life? :)

Source: "Learn to Program" by Chris Pine

United We Stand: For Cricket

2008-01-07T20:23:00.000+05:30

One more example of we Cricket Crazy Indians (an Colleague/Friend wrote this, he has perhaps not slept since India lost the last test match! Though I am not putting his name here, copyrights, if any all belong to him!!)...

New ICC rules:

After watching the test match, I feel some rules have to be incorporated by ICC to give the other teams a perfect clarification

(1) Ricky Ponting – (THE TRULY GENUINE CRICKETER OF THE CRICKET ERA AND WHOSE INTEGRITY SHOULD NOT BE DOUBTED) should be considered as the FOURTH UMPIRE. As per the new rules, FOURTH UMPIRE decision is final and will over ride any decisions taken by any other umpires. ON-FIELD umpires can seek the assistance of RICKY PONTING even if he is not on the field. This rule is to be made, so that every team should understand the importance of the FOURTH UMPIRE.

(2) While AUSTRALIAN TEAM is bowling, If the ball flies anywhere close to the AUSTRALIAN FIELDER(WITHIN 5 metre distance), the batsman is to be considered OUT irrelevant of whether the catch was taken cleanly or grassed. Any decision for further clarification should be seeked from the FOURTH UMPIRE. This is made to ensure that the cricket is played with SPORTIVE SPIRIT by all the teams.

(3) While BATTING, AUSTRALIAN players will wait for the ON-FIELD UMPIRE decisions only (even if the catch goes to the FIFTH SLIP as the ball might not have touched the bat). Each AUSTRALIAN batsman has to be out FOUR TIMES (minimum) before he can return to the pavilion. In case of THE CRICKETER WITH INTEGRITY, this can be higher.

(4) UMPIRES should consider a huge bonus if an AUSTRALIAN player scores a century. Any wrong decisions can be ignored as they will be paid huge bonus and will receive the backing of the AUSTRALIAN team and board.

(5) All AUSTRALIAN players are eligible to keep commenting about all players on the field and the OPPONENT TEAM should never comment as they will be spoiling the spirit of the AUSTRALIAN team. Any comments made in any other language are to be considered as RACIALISM only.

(6) MATCH REFREE decisions will be taken purely on the AUSTRALIAN TEAM advices only. Player views from the other teams decisions will not be considered for hearing. MATCH REFREES are to be given huge bonus if this rule is implemented.

(7) NO VISITING TEAM should plan to win in AUSTRALIA. This is to ensure that the sportive spirit of CRICKET is maintained.

(8) THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE: If any bowler gets RICKY PONTING - “THE UNDISPUTED CRICKETER WITH INTEGTIRY IN THE GAME OF CRICKET” more than twice in a series, he will be banned for the REST OF THE SERIES. This is to ensure that the best batsman/Captain will be played to break records and create history in the game of CRICKET.

These rules will clarify better to the all teams VISITING AUSTRALIA.

Ubuntu-fied in the new year

2008-01-07T14:15:00.000+05:30

Long ago after being recommended by an interviewer I had requested for a CD from the Ubutnu site. After that I got busy with new home, marriage etc and due to unavailability of a broadband connection I had not opened the computer at my home for a long time. Recently after getting the new broadband connection, I dusted my 8 year old computer and thought of Installing Ubuntu on it. The Ubuntu CD was saying that I should have at least 256MB memory to be able to Install it on my PC. My PC has 128MB memory but I still thought of giving it a try!

And after 45 minutes my PC was on Ubuntu, while the windows installations are safe on different partitions! Since then I have been playing with Ubuntu, and finally my desire of finally being able to shun Windows one day seems possible. I can almost to everything with Ubutnu that I was able to do on the Windows machine:

Browsing: Firefox rocks irrespective of the operating system. Only difference from Windows is that its much more safer and secure.
Text Processing: Open Office is FREE and gives much better results and prints compared to Microsoft Office!! The choice of fonts with Open Office is limitless.
Chatting: Almost all chatting protocols work with Pidgin.
Financial/Stock transactions: All my stock and financial transactions are possible (and safer) on Ubuntu!

So there is practically nothing that is possible on Windows but not possible on Linux!! The other way round may not be true though! :)

What's desired: There are few things not available yet on Linux as of now, but not before late they will be available:

Voice/Video Chat: Yahoo messenger with Voice/Video is not available for Linux. So telephone out calls are not possible for yahoo messenger. But Skype with such facility is already there for Linux. Hope Yahoo does not remain blind for long!
Proprietary applications like the stock trading application of my broker depend on Microsoft's (outdated) technologies like MS Java. They need to port those applications too to Linux. That will take time!!

A dumb fool I was, to have paid for a Windows license when I had the option of a better operating system available for free!!

So if you are reading this, please don't pay for Windows!! Be wise, use free and better software, be safe...

My advise to all: "Move to Ubuntu Linux if you want your computer to be safe and secure. Period!"

Coming back!

2007-12-27T18:12:00.000+05:30

Dear Visitors,

Sorry for not posting any new blogs since so many months now. Reasons being:

1. I got married!! Yes!! I got married!!! (and that means a lot of busy-ness!)
2. Moved the new (own!) house...
3. Did not have an internet connection at the new home.

Now that my new house is not so new anymore and I do have the internet connection again, I will be back soon with new blogs.

So dear fans, please be tuned-in!!

~Prasanta

MRP

2007-06-12T15:27:00.001+05:30

Something very unprecedented to my experience, happened last week. I visited the VIP luggage showroom on the Paud Road to buy a "Vanity Case", along with my sister. Promptly she liked one and I wanted to quickly pay for it and get out the shop fast, to avoid getting wet in the rain that was about to start. The guy at the counter showed me the price chart and it was showing Rs. 1149/- for the item we had chosen. Just before I gave him my credit card, I noticed that there was a price tag on the box of the item which was showing a price of Rs. 1049/-. Naturally, since the product I was holding in my hand was showing a lower maximum retail price than the dude at the shop was quoting, I demanded that he should sell me the item at the price written on it!!

But the dude refused to do so and gathered a few goon-type looking dudes, who blabbered something in Marathi, that I could not decipher. They were unmoved, when I said them that I would report this to the consumer court and to VIP's company officials too.

The next day I visited 2 more authorised showrooms of VIP on Laxmi Road. Even there, the story was same!! Finally I went to a not-so good looking shop, where the shopkeeper was selling all kinds of luggage, hand-made and branded as well. And this dude happily sold me the same piece of luggage I wanted, at Rs. 1020/- and accepted credit card for the same!

Mera desh mahan...

D'day

2007-05-11T12:10:00.000+05:30

The D-day of my life is fast approaching. And whats more! I am looking forward to it!! :)

It started on December 2006, when I talked on phone to Smita. I picked up the phone and called her, with the usual believe that this too would be a routine interview of just another girl, shortlisted by my parents for being their bahu. I was almost sure that there was nothing fruitful to happen from that call. Earlier too I had talked to many girls for the same purpose. Some I thought were sick, others thought I was sick! :)

I even traveled to different parts of India, including Delhi in search of a bahu for my parents, we saw a lot of girls. I rejected some, they rejected some and the rest rejected me!! The story was same always, none of the girls were fitting even 50% into our requirements (or better still I was not fitting into their requirements!).

My family had told me about Smita. That she is a doctor, they had met her, she was nice to them, so on and so forth. But I had my suspicions. My earlier experience told me that doctors and engineers don't fit well and doctors don't usually like us Engineers!

So with some hesitation I called Smita. She was kind of quiet in the beginning, listening silently as I spoke English (I avoid talking in Oriya with strangers even if they understand Oriya). But slowly and surely she opened up and started talking about her ideas of life. A conversation that I thought would not last for more than 5 minutes, actually lasted more than 3 hours...

That was the beginning, after 3 or 4 days of hours-long telephone conversations I was sure that I would marry this girl. I had (again) started believing that I could get a Soul mate! Very soon we conveyed to our parents that we want marry each other.

On December 27, 2006 I visited her home with my family to meet her parents and then we were officially engaged! The ring ceremony will happen on June 24, 2007 and the wedding is taking place on July 08, 2007. Here is a picture of her (more on my flickr pages) :

Sharp Contrast

2007-05-10T20:46:00.000+05:30

Sometime back I had booked a parcel to be sent to my earlier employer's office in California, US, via. the humble Speed Post service of India Post. After trying to scare me that it costs a lot to send a parcel to "phoren", the lady at the counter collected it along with 478 rupees from me. She said it will reach the destination in 3 or 4 days.

That promise was somewhat unbelievable. After 3 days, out of curiosity I tried to use the tracking link of India Post to see where my parcel is. It was saying that the packet was collected but no more information was available. There I stumbled upon a link to India Post's delivery partner in US, United States Postal Service (USPS), and it said that I can track my packet on their website. That seemed not true, but I still tried the USPS link and was amazed to see that it did work and whats more, my packet already reached the US!

After that I kept tracking it every now and then, for a few days it kept telling me that it was with the US customs department. I left a request to email me the delivery information/report at the USPS site but did not expect to actually receive it! On May 4, 2007 I received an email from them saying that my parcel was delivered (yes, finally it came out of the hands of the US customs department!)!

Today I received a PDF file of the deliver proof, with the signature of the recipient! Thats a lot to expect from USPS, when I had not paid them any money directly. Instead the people who took money from me for this (India Post) are still showing a bizzare status for the parcel.

Here is what USPS shows as status:
Here is what India post is showing! It has delivered the parcel at some place "Shivpuri" on April 30 itself!
And here is the delivery proof that USPS has emailed to me!
This is the most wonderful experience in this whole episode. USPS actually took pains to scan the delivery proof and email it me!!

Wonder when Indian services will be even a fraction as reliable as this...!!! USPS is probably using softwares written by Indians to implement such a high level of service quality!

Hurray!!

2007-04-23T23:27:00.000+05:30

Hurry!!! One of my closest friends, Dr. Debashis Sahoo (PhD from MIT) has launcched his own company now! He and his friends have launched a company to sell their patented work in the form of a Oil Filter. The company's website is now live: SOMS Technologies! And this could be just millions of dollars in the making! :)

Do give it a visit, and three cheers for my friend, now cross your fingers and wish him all the very best!! Hip hip, hurray!!

Maja aa gaya!

2007-03-18T02:58:00.000+05:30

Today will go down the history as a very auspicious day. Once again the tortoise has beaten the hare, very convincingly!! My gut feelings somehow generally become true, when it comes to Indian Cricket team!! Wish it was so in the stock market!! :) Wish I had put a huge bet on my gut feeling today...

My hearty congratulations to the guys in the Bangladesh team, I can feel your excitement. We have gone through similar ecstasy multiple times in previous world cups, by beating Pakistan. I am really happy for you guys!! I thoroughly enjoyed it even though I followed the match only via news head lines. Wish I renewed my DTH TV subscription earlier, so I could have seen you guys thrash the team of hares.

Sahi mein yaar, sach mein maja aagaya!! :)

Postscript: I have yet not lost my world cup hopes for India. Last time too India had started with a bad note, still we went on to play the finals. This time too India will go further, may play even the final. But I don't expect to have the world cup to be in India, it does not belong here!

Educate 'em!

2007-02-28T13:42:00.000+05:30

Just heard that my finance minister has hiked the education cess to 3% from the current 2%.

I wonder, where is education in my country? Take the representatives of the country itself, our MPs as a case; most them are literally illiterate!!

Mr. finance minister: how about spending this year's entire collection of education cess to make (all) our MPs able to speak, read, write (& understand) at least one of the 2 official languages, English or Hindi?

At least they won't doze off during your budget speech next year... Well its arguable whether you want them to listen to you while you speak! :)

Soon to be address

2007-02-07T17:44:00.001+05:30

MyHome
Originally uploaded by Prasant.

This brick and concrete structure is going to house me in few months from now! :) I will be then free from the shackles of house owners, and become a home owner myself...

But the bankers will jive on my money for more than 15 years...

The second terrace from the top on the first building from left is going to be my bed room! :)

SandArt

2007-01-25T21:21:00.000+05:30

We saw these people working on a sand sculpture on our trip to the Konkan in recent past. It takes a lot of courage to let one's own hard work wash away or blown away in a very short time span...

Thoughtworker

2007-01-24T18:26:00.000+05:30

Recently I was interviewed by 2 engineers (Mujir & Harsha) of Thoughtworks (oh yes, thats where Martin Fowler works!). Among other questions which were not in my core expertise (I screwed up in those), they asked me a question:

"How to create an object on the stack in C++".

Mujir started laughing aloud (yes in an interview) when I told him the answer:

void foo(){
...
A a; //assuming A is a C++ class
...
}

The poor guy was perhaps thinking that it is not possible to have a C++ object without invoking new! He did not stop laughing aloud even after hissed by his colleague...

Well working for popular corporates does not always make one intelligent or well mannered...

Kya Service Hai!

2007-01-22T23:54:00.000+05:30

I have a prepaid mobile connection from Mr. Aditya Birla's company Idea! The service was to expire on 22 Jan 2007 i.e. today, meaning that it would be barred from incoming and outgoing call services after the midnight, when 22 Jan ends.

Since evening, much before the midnight they have barred my phone from incoming and outgoing calls!!

This is what Idea Cellular's (perhaps Mr. Aditya Birla's too) business ethics and service standards are!! In their language:

"Stopping the customer's service even before his subscription ends is a good Idea!"... :(

Now I am determined more than ever to junk this connection...

Look Back Mr. More!!

2007-01-22T17:04:00.000+05:30

Mr. Kiran More has left public life since sometime now. His plans of "not looking back anymore" have back-fired and are staring at him into his eyes. The stare is so sharp and bright that he might even have lost his eye-sight because of that!!

Does anyone know where Mr. More is these days? Did he commit suicide? Did mother earth eat him? Did he pull out his own eye balls?

I think he would have done one of that, because he claimed to be a "man of words"...

Someone please write an obituary for Mr. More. He contributed more to World Cricket with lots of Masala news than he ever did behind the wickets...

How about you Dada!? :)

Very Vista

2007-01-22T15:27:00.000+05:30

I hear a lot of shouting around the world for "Win*ows Vista". I've receive hundreds of spam mails too about it, including those from MS in my Ho*mail account...

In Sanskrit Vista means "Shit". I hope "Win*ows Vista" is better than that!! ;-)

A friend who evaluated "Win*ows Vista" was saying that its trying very hard to conform to its Sanskrit meaning though... :)

QOTD

2006-11-12T20:24:00.000+05:30

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. - Mark Twain

Gandhigiri

2006-10-02T01:41:00.000+05:30

Thanks to my friends' insistence, I got a chance to watch Munna Bhai adorning "Gandhism" in his come back avatar. This movie is in sharp contrast to 'Rang De Basanti' [RDB], a movie that preaches (somewhat appropriate) violence to fix our corrupt country. Munna Bhai, a prime suspect in the 1993 Mumbai blasts has done a good job in taking the audience into a fantasy land. It was good to see that Gandhi has been merchandised (perhaps for the first time) for a good cause. The icing on the cake is the money that has been made while preaching Gandhigiri!

Nice movie to laugh, have fun and then sit back and ponder just a little bit: is Gandhigiri relevant today? That's a good question to think about. This, in fact has been the subject matter of discussion on many TV channels, since last few weeks! Everyone wants to make money out of our man in loincloth, is not it? Perhaps even myself wants some money (out of the blue) from this blog... :)

But then, that's just one greatness of these famous dudes. They keep making others richer, even centuries after they are dead...

How can Gandhi's ways be relevant today? Well truth is relevant! But then truth was relevant even before Gandhi...

How can his methods of non-violence be relevant in the times when there are Bin-Ladens, Dawoods at the run, with very cruel plans to destroy the whole humanity? Does today's world have enough time to adopt non-violence before these people make their plans a reality?

But yes Gandhism can be relevant in making (some of) our habits better, for example it may awaken my spirit and say that "hey don't cross that red light", and "hey don't try to take a short cut"!! And I think that's what this film is doing to some (or many?) of my fellow country men...

That's why Munna Bhai's Gandhigiri is kool! I guess even Gandhiji himself would have been happy to see that he has been merchandised to make money and to bring a change, it does not matter how little that change is...

Bande mein tha dum, Bande Mataram...
[The dude had guts, Long Live Motherland...]

I have been humming this line ever since I watched the film.

I'm told that both RDB (officially) and Munna Bhai's Lage Raho are in the race for India's first Oscar (for films), along with Canada's entry of Indian made Water. Wish them luck, dear readers, though my wishes are for better films, including Water... :)

Win again!

2006-09-22T19:11:00.000+05:30

Well my team (Australia) has left India panting! Nothing is more refreshing at the end of a very busy day than knowing that your favourite team has thrashed the opponent! It does not matter even if the loosing team is my own country! Sometime during the day I overheard people saying that Australia was all-out in today's match, very cheaply & people were almost celebrating that India is going to win! But in my mind I knew that it's Cricket & then its Australia which is playing the match!! :)

Too Good, but...

2006-09-15T23:05:00.000+05:30

I remember arguing with my friends that Sachin will one day hit his 50th ODI century. Some would agree and some would doubt, saying that he does not have many years of Cricket anymore. Also his bat was not doing the talking since sometime now, let alone his absence due to injury. In yesterday's match he again silenced his critics again, with his 40th Century! Its a different matter that team India's luck does not shine at the same time as Sachin's...

So the question is will he be able to make 50 ODI centuries? Will he be given that much time in Indian team by the selectors? Some would argue that he is blocking one spot! But in my view he should be allowed to play as long as he wants, let him make as many centuries as possible. I have reasons for that...

Sachin no doubt is the best cricketer India has produced so far, he is India's best Cricket record. So let the best be even better, even it means loosing matches! After he is gone India's best times of Cricket will be over. India is any ways nowhere in the race of cricket supremacy as compared to today's Australias, Pakistans, South Africas, (err... Srilankas too?) . And I heard ICC is hell bent in taking Cricket to other nations like China which means the competition is going to be even more fierce in future, which makes India's Cricket future bleaker and bleaker!! That will also mean that India's control in international cricket is going reduce in future. That seems to be very very plausible if you consider what happened to India in Hockey, when more countries started playing Hockey!!

So lets let 10'dulkar play as much as possible, so that in history books at least India's Cricket would look great!! :)

DTH

2006-09-02T12:52:00.000+05:30

DTH has a new meaning in India: "Direct to Hell". Well that's most likely true for you if you are a subscriber of "Dish TV" in India. And you may not even knowing about it. The sales teams of Dish TV are good; they do their best to sell the connection to by saying all kinds of sweet things. Your connection is provisioned in no time and you start receiving the service through your dish and set top box almost immediately. There is no other irritation except the frequent loss of signal and the almost permanent existence of your VC (Viewership Card) number on your TV screen. Well for a person like me who rarely watches TV its not a big problem.

You realise that its "Direct to Hell" only when you require a support from Dish TV. My Set Top Box (STB) conked off in the third week of July. Immediately I gave it to the dealer (M/S. Yogirj Electronics, Pashan, Pune) who had sold me the connection. The guy at that dealership (he has a famous name, Shivaji) kept on saying me that he will repair and return it to me in one day every time I called him. After waiting for 2 weeks, and after some 50 telephone calls I went to his shop to see what the issue is. He had not even opened the equipment! Frustrated, I took the STB from him & submitted the same at the authorised service centre in Pune, Meltek Systmes. The guy at that shop was nice. Very nicely he told me that he will have it repaired in few days and give it to me, else he will replace the same. That happened on August 5, 2006. Since then me and my family members have visited there at least 20 times, made hundreds of telephone calls. Everytime his version of the story is same, that he would make sure that the device is repaired in 1 or 2 days!

In the mean time I have been trying to contact Dish TV's central customer service, in Noida. They don't have a toll free number; so you have to make long distance calls to reach them. After 20 or 30 tries their phone rings. Their IVR system takes your membership number and then disconnects. You try again and again. After few tries the IVR asks you to wait to talk to a customer representative. After waiting forever you get to talk to a support person there. They too are sweet. They too promise that the matter will be resolved soon, very soon!! They also say that the STB would be replaced, if it can not be repaired; as mentioned in the service contract...

That has been the story of my Dish TV membership since 6 weeks now! My subscription is lying idle, I have paid them in advance at the rate of almost Rs. 500/- per month. I am hopelessly trying to contact anyone in Dish TV who can help me...

So dear readers, if you are reading this & planning to go for DTH please please think again. Please bear with your local cable operator than going for this organised cheating company like "Dish TV". Or think about the alternative; "Sky TV". Promoters of Zee TV (the promoters of Dish TV) are known to be doing malpractice in business. I should have used logic with that fact, before buying this crap...

Borrowed

2006-08-30T16:47:00.000+05:30

Maange hue cheejon ke saath log hamesha acchhe lagte hain!

(People always look great with borrowed stuff!)

Here is a proof!! :)

This is BJ's bike, during a weekend trip to Narayangaon, our favourite hangout these days!

Big B'sWorst!

2006-08-23T11:01:00.000+05:30

Lots of and lots of money (and I contributed Rs. 735/- towards it).
A herd of famous characters from Bollywood.
Some mindless and very poor sense of humour.
A geriatric big B who at the age of 60+ does a very poor act of being a playboy!
Meters and meters of film reel (which has become very cheap thanks to Digital photography!)

That's, ladies and gentleman "KANK" for you.

Many people wonder which is Big B's worst movie, earlier there were not many contenders. Now the answer is very clear...

The Mosquito

2006-07-30T21:15:00.000+05:30

In India we have got two kinds of mosquitos. One that sucks blood and spreads diseases like Dengue, Malaria etc. And the other one is our Tax system. You could use an insecticide or a repellant to get rid of the first kind. And you could immune yourself from the second one, just call yourself a farmer!!

The expenses of the government in India are ever increasing. So are the various kinds of deficits; e.g. budget deficit, oil pool deficit, subsidy deficit etc. etc. But the taxing network of India does not get any widened. No one even tries to do so. So my Finance Minister has the easiest possible option, namely the Salaried Class!! And he sucks their blood as much as he can!!

I was kind of happy when I saw the new Income Tax rules declared in the last budget, least knowing that this mosquito would be sucking me much more than ever before!

Between the last and the current assessment year my income has not increased, in fact it has decreased. And the cost of living has increased, thanks to inflation of close to 10%. But still, my tax liabilities have increased by more than 25k since last year!!

No wonder that the so called farmers of Punjab, who earn billions by using free electricity and free water and yet don't pay a single penny as tax; laugh at this hapless tax payer...

From next year the ordeal becomes much more worse than this, with a new harrassment called Form 2F. My country is slowly but surely becoming Communist... Else why would these mosquitos want to know how do I spend my tax-paid money, unless the spending is against the interest of the nation??

The Final Triangle

2006-07-30T20:56:00.000+05:30

This is a reproduction from my Diary, written in June 2002, during the time when FIFA World Cup 2002 was still going on.
----
Yesterday I talked to Sastry, a very dear friend. He is currently in USA. He is much like me, though much more talented and ambitious than me. We were discussing the tragic loss of Spain to South Korea in the Quarter Final of the Football World Cup. Spain was eliminated in the Penalty Shoot Out round. One bad shot; one bad second and they were out of the competition, though they were much a superior team compared to South Korea.

That's when Sastry talked about life in the Final Triangle. A triangle becomes narrower from bottom to top. Likewise as you go up and up in life the scope of making mistakes decreases. The chances of making a mistake and yet getting away with them decreases as you go up in the ladder of life. Forget about doing a blunder, you can't even do a silly mistake. You have to be as best you can be. One bad moment can spoil everything, one silly mistake can shatter all your success and even your life.

That's what happened to Spain. One bad moment in the game and all their hard work went in vein. But that's the rule of the game, the rule of nature, law of life and the rule of survival... Is not it?

Then I asked Sastry, how come Indian politicians do bigger and bigger mistakes as they go up and up? Well, its a matter of argument if one goes up in politics in India or just rots in there.

Sastry's answer was different. He said "In Indian politics its an Inverted Triangle"...

How true!!
----

Hit & Run

2006-07-28T16:25:00.002+05:30

Today while I was waiting at a traffic signal on the junction of law college road and Prabhat Road, while coming back from the bank to my office after paying my income taxes, there was a sudden thud. Next moment I saw that I was lying on the road and my motor cycle was thrown away. I was stationary at the traffic signal but the drive of a Ford car (MH 12 DE 4529) was in too much off hurry. By the time I steadied myself, the signal became green and this guy fled away, not even bothering to apologize...

Free Speech?

2006-07-19T12:43:00.000+05:30

Indian watch dogs have banned Blogspot and few other sites. At least in one thing they followed the footsteps of our neighbor!! After reading this news I searched Wiki to see if the "Right of free speech" is still there in the list of fundamental rights in India. I was bit relieved when I saw Wiki listing it.

But who knows, my Govt. may have removed this right from the constitution, Wiki may just not be up to date!!

However, there are better thinkers in Software community than these watch dogs. That's why there were tools to bypass the bans even before they were in!!

History has in its records, many great people were crucified just because they told the truth. But still the truth could not be stopped. The efforts to make this world a better place did not stop and in spite of all the efforts of these watch dogs the world today is a much better place than they wanted to make it!

And the efforts to make it a even better place continues... And the world laughs at these dogs!

The Census

2006-07-12T22:40:00.000+05:30

Another blast. Yet another series of blasts. Hundreds dead; thousands injured. But these are just some numbers that only statisticians might want to bother about...

The politicians and political parties bother too. They have risen to the occasion, almost immediately; to blame each other, to pass the buck to each other!! Many of them have condemned the incidents with the strongest language they know; assured us that the culprits will be dealt with very seriously. They have promised the victims compensation which they think is generous.

Others too are not behind. Our neighbouring country has sent us a message with a bouquet of flower; condemning the horrendous incidents again. The big brothers from west too sent us messages saying they are shocked to know about what has happened. They say that they are with us for any kind of help to fight this act of terrorism. Almost everyone has used this opportunity to condemn the terrorists.

The stage is all set. The action has begun; enquiry committees have been set up to know who did this. May be some parliamentary or judiciary enquiry committees will be set up too. Teams have been sent to help the injured; to bury the dead and distribute alms to the victims or their kin. Many would be detained for questioning...

Soon it will be over, everything will be normal, in fact Mumbai has already limped back to normalcy. There will be statements from the government; saying that we know who has done it. They will again say that a neighbouring country harbours these militants and trains them in their own backyard. There will be high level meetings, delegations will be sent. To seek sympathy from the very neighbour who we know for sure is stabbing our back! And then there will be more sympathy coming in from our western sympathisers...

Our think tanks don't want a war with this neighbour. Not because they are afraid to loose our soldiers, nor because we might loose the war. It's because they are afraid that a few richer big-brothers from the west would impose sanctions on us if we go to war; the ones who can hardly afford to do anything without the labour of Asia. It would hurt them more than us if there were any sanction imposed on us.

Even if there were sanctions imposed we could manage; we could do fine with the little we have for one more decade. We have lived in poverty, illiteracy and diseases for centuries. But we had peace; every time someone wanted to dominate us we gave fitting replies. We fought with all our might. But 1947 was the last such fight... After that too we fought on few occasions, like the wars of 1965, 1971 and Kargil when our neighbour was pushed back, but not enough. These wars would have silenced the neighbour of ours for ever, had we gone all out while fighting them. But we did not! In fact when Kargil war was going on, some of our ministries were busy with one coffin scam; they wanted to pocket the money set aside to buy coffins for the dead in the battle field!!

Sanctions are not the real concern; we need a leader who had the guts...

Our educated elite too don't want a war with our neighbour. Peace is always advocated, be it at the cost of our citizens. They know that sanctions are not good, in case of sanctions being imposed on us; our educated elite will be the first ones to get affected...

Soon it will be history; there will be one more scam while distributing the compensation to the victims. Some will get their compensation; most will spend the rest of their lives trying to get that. There will be politics over the dead, for years to come. The political parties will blame each other with the highest pitch of their voices for few weeks and then become silent... And then every thing becomes normal. Business as usual...

Only until they strike again...

For the politicians and bureaucrats of my beloved motherland the math is very simple. 1.3 billion Minus a five hundred once in a while is still 1.3 billion. Because this census is not of human beings, this is a census of insects. They multiply, live and die like worms. So why bother about them...

Makes sense, makes huge sense...

Rath Yatra

2006-06-27T12:34:00.000+05:30

Today is a very Auspicious day for we people in Orissa. Its the day when Lord Jagannath comes out of his temple along with his brother Lord Balabhadra & goddess Subhadra out of his temple for a 11 day long festival called Rath Yatra, to meet his devotees outside the temple & bless them. Just like a king coming out of his palace to meet his people!

May the Lord bless everyone with peace and happiness.

I am planning more stories regarding Rath Yatra and Lord Jagannath here, watch this blog. Here is a picture of Nandigosh, the chariot of Lord Jagannath that I took when I visited Puri last year on this occasion.

How Cruel & Unjust!

2006-06-26T22:36:00.000+05:30

I just finished watching the Australia-Italy match in the second round of the ongoing world cup. What a match it was! It was full of contest, yellow cards, red cards for full 90 minutes! Each team was better than the other, the score was nil-nil till the 95th minute! Then something most bizarre happened in my Football experience. In the last minute of play, the referee gave a free kick to Italy, for a mistake that Australia did not do!! The Italian (Francesco Totti) fell down, actually jumped over the Aussie player (Lucas Neill) completely knowing (& smiling about it!!) that he is gonna be awarded with a free kick!!

And the referee Medina Cantalejo Luis turned out to be a big assh*le!! Doing the grossest act of his life, he awarded Italy a free kick in the 95th minute!! Can anything else be more cruel or harsh than this? That too when there was no foul at all! Anyone who watched the match would agree that this was anybody's game & the mistake for which the referee gave the yellow card and a free kick to Italy was not a foul at all! But the referee just gave the match away to Italy!!

Now I am 100% sure that there are kick backs in Football World Cup too. Cricket is not just the only game which has corruption!!

The world cup is mostly knock out & this is the worst way of getting knocked out for Australia.

And for Italy, it was not at all sportsmen spirit with which they won this match!! I wish that they loose their quarter final very badly. May their match be just given away to their opponent!!

Pledge

2006-05-29T16:10:00.000+05:30

Mr. Prime Minister,

Day before yesterday, doctors in Jaipur begged on the streets in protest of your Quota politics. The begging was for gathering enough money for the political parties, so that they can just buy their votes from people than formulating policies like Quota to get the votes.

A noble cause indeed. As a responsible citizen I too feel that I should contribute towards this cause. So here is my pledge: I will contribute 10% (or may be more) of my post-tax income towards the fund for buying votes. Please create a fund (you may call it "PM's fund for Buying Votes" much like "PM's Relief Fund", you could have a meeting across party lines to decide how to distribute the fund among all political parties) & ask the people of India to donate generously to it.

I am sure, the percentage of people donating for this fund would be more than the percentage of people that vote!!

In exchange you would have to get rid of your "Buy votes by Quota" politics.

Think about it! :)

Prodigal

2006-05-22T17:56:00.000+05:30

Long time back, in 1998 I had seen the play: "Mahatma Vs. Gandhi". The first stage production per-se, I saw in my life. I was so moved by it, that I wanted to write a review about it. But there was no Blogger that day. Soon I forgot about the play, though it etched a permanent mark in my memory.

Today while wandering through the internet, I came across Pritish Nandy's review of that play. Do read it, I could not have written a better review. And if you get a chance to watch this play, don't miss it!

More at its Director, Feroz Khan's home page.

Welcome

2006-05-22T12:03:00.000+05:30

Welcome Mr. Prime Minister. It has been really lonely here. Its been a long time I have been waiting out here alone, seeking a companion.

I am V. P. Singh, perhaps the most failed prime minister of India. I wanted to become famous, but I did not want to do hard work, as such I never worked hard to get where I was! I was seeking a shortcut, and there it was - Mandal Commission! I picked it up & implemented it overnight!! My actions led to the birth of a new way of protesting in India: Self-Immolation! I showed India the worst student agitation in its post independence history. Needless to say I was thrown out of power & that was the end of my politics.

16 years afterwards, you're now scratching the wounds once again by trying to implement reservations in higher education. You also want to play the vote bank card. Much like me you too got where you are out of no where. Perhaps that's the reason why you are following my footsteps! India has hopes from you. You showed India the path of liberalisation, which led its economy to record highs! That's why Indian have good & big hopes from you, and perhaps that's why you're taking the advantage and playing the game of vote bank politics!

And you too are a Singh! What a coincidence! And what's more, a certain Singh is helping you attain this!

Welcome to the League of Extraordinarily Failed Prime Ministers! You would sure enjoy my company!!

When

2006-05-16T18:12:00.000+05:30

Law Enforcers Become Violators...

Recently I had come across a Bangalorean's blog which talked about how the DCP-Traffic (some muchhad dude) in Bangalore was violating traffic signals in Broad day light! I was little happy, thinking that "chalo Pune mein aisa kuchh nahi ho raha hai".

I was proven wrong, very soon by the Traffic dudes of Pune! Today's newspaper had a front page report on how our Traffic Police heroes have been breaking the very rules they punish (to make illicit money) fellow citizens for. That too on F.C Road, that houses Times of India's Pune office & perhaps receives the most amount of media coverage in Pune! Incidentally, yesterday Pune Traffic Police was observing the first day of the 8-day traffic-awareness drive! What's more, they have violated traffic rules while lifting vehicles from no-parking!

Well done, dudes in white!

There is a famous song of Kishore Kumar which is very apt here:

Majdhaar mein naiyya dole, to maanjhi paar lagaye...
Maanjhi jo naav duboye, to use kaun bachaye?...

Thankfully India is neither in Majdhaar, nor these guys are the Maanjhis! :)

Fellow bloggers, don't be adventurous like the dudes in white! Here is what you will have to shell out to please them! :)

Protecting Interests

2006-05-10T20:43:00.000+05:30

The Supreme court has restrained DD from airing the upcoming India-West Indies series.

That means I & all the DTH users of India will not be able to have their quota of cricket during the series. That's in a way good for me, cause:

Will be able to get a bigger quota of sleep, the matches are going to be played in the early hours of the day! :)
I am not a fan of either of the teams involved!
India's chances of having face-saving results are bleak!

However I don't consider the Apex Court's decision to be in the right spirit, cause:

It promotes cable television in this age of DTH, which gives the user much more freedom than suffering at the hands of cabel-wallahs and broadcasters.
Promotes monopoly, by protecting the interests of some broadcasters.
Most important, deprives millions of Indians from preaching their relegion, Cricket. Only a fraction of India's population has access to Cable TV, while Prasar Bharati (DD) covers most of India, for free!

Well, I wish the Indian boys "Good Luck"! :)

Standards

2006-03-21T09:41:00.000+05:30

Or double standards?

Well that’s a law of life; at least it seems to be true for Indian cricket today. One of the greatest heroes of Indian cricket was sacrificed recently just for petty politics reasons. Those same reasons have started hunting them, asking them to sacrifice the biggest success of Cricket, Sachin Tendulkar.

Saurav Ganguly was sacked, quoting reasons that he is not in form & not fit. The chief selector Mr. Kiran More went on to say to the media that he is looking forward into the future, the team is bigger than an individual, India must get ready for WC-2007 & there is not a place for Saurav in that plan & so on... Even VVS Laxman has been converted into a silent spectator from the stands, quoting similar reasons!

I was watching a program on TV yesterday which was arguing that why Tendulkar should not be asked to go for the same reasons. Let’s do a head to head comparison between him and Saurav, for the last 10 Test & ODI innings (*Source: Cricinfo):

Last 5 tests that they have played, excluding the on going India-England test, in which Sachin has made 1 in first innings:

	Mat	Runs	HS	Bat. Avg.	100s	50s	Wkts	BB	Bowl Avg.	5W	Ct
Sachin	5	111	28*	22.20	0	0	0	-	-	0	4
Saurav	5	171	40	28.50	0	0	1	1/68	125.00	0	3

Last 10 tests that they have played, excluding the on going India-England test, in which Sachin has made 1 in first innings:

	Mat	Runs	HS	Bat. Avg.	100s	50s	Wkts	BB	Bowl Avg.	5W	Ct
Sachin	10	461	109	32.92	1	2	1	1/62	162.00	0	6
Saurav	10	408	101	31.38	1	2	1	1/68	125.00	0	6

Last 5 ODIs they have played:

	Mat	Runs	HS	Bat. Avg.	100s	50s	Wkts	BB	Bowl Avg.	5W	Ct
Sachin	5	267	100	53.40	1	1	2	1/27	62.00	0	0
Saurav	5	77	31	15.40	0	0	0	-	-	0	2

Last 10 ODIs they have played:

	Mat	Runs	HS	Bat. Avg.	100s	50s	Wkts	BB	Bowl Avg.	5W	Ct
Sachin	10	331	100	33.10	1	1	3	1/27	55.66	0	1
Saurav	10	178	51	19.77	0	1	0	1/68	125.00	0	2

As a Captain:

Sachin: Most failed captain of India.
Saurav: The most successful captain of India, at home & abroad.

Another interesting stat:

Sachin has made a world record 39 ODI 100s, out of which India lost on 10 (25.64%) occasions & on 1 occasion there was no result.
On the contrary Saurav has made 22 ODI 100s, out of which India lost on 4 (18.18%) occasions.

As it can be seen here Sachin’s stats is not great compared to Saurav in recent ODIs and in recent Tests he has faired worse than Ganguly.

So why Tendulkar is in the playing 11 while Ganguly has been sent to exile & Laxman is just an onlooker? Is it because Saurav’s God Fathers are not in power anymore? Or is it just the double standards that the Indian Selectors have got the mastery of? Or is it because Saurav comes from eastern part of the country & most of the cricket in India is controlled in the western part?

P.S: I have nothing against Sachin; he is my most favourite Indian Cricketer. But as Mr. More says, the team has to be bigger than the individual! I wish Sachin to do well in the second inning of the current test match & silent his critics.

In Memory Of...

2006-03-20T09:34:00.000+05:30

Dil ke jharoke mein tujhko bitha kar
Yaadon ko teri main dulhan bana kar
Rakhunga Main dil ke paas
Mat ho meri jaan udaas...

Kal tere jalwe paraaye bhi honge
Lekin jhalak mere khwabon mein hogi
Phoolon ki doli mein hogi tu rukhsat
Lekin mahek meri saanson mein hogi...
Dil Ke Jharoke mein...

Ab bhi tere surkh honton ke pyaale
Mere tasavur mein saakhi bane hain
Ab bhi tere zulf ke mast saaye
Birha ki dhoop mein saathi bane hain...
Dil ke Jharoke Mein...

Meri mohabbat ko thukrade chahe
Main koyi tujhse na sikva karunga
Aankhon mein rehti hai tasveer teri
Saari umar teri pooja karunga...
Dil ke Jharoke mein...

- Mohd. Rafi singing for Sammi Kapoor in Bramhachari (1966).

In memory of those whom I left behind, those who left me behind and those who gave company for sometime but our paths diverged...

For the price that had to be paid, just for carrying on...

The Baby Step...

2006-03-09T09:27:00.000+05:30

It has been a big battle for me, with myself. At least I made it look so. Gradually I was demoted from the "punctual man" to the "late-latif person". People at work never seemed to care, though they kept telling about it in my absence.

It was never a difficult task, to come to office in time. In time meaning by 9 am. I just never tried enough & kept saying that I never get to see the sun-rise. Perhaps my thinking was that the extra time I spend at work in the evenings compensates for it, which is more than true. That's the reason not a finger was raised ever at me at a work place for coming late in the morning.

But this time a finger was raised. It was mentioned in my confirmation appraisal! Time to stand up and take notice, I said to myself. Yesterday I had put an alarm to wake up at 7 am. The alarm did work but my sleep did not break. I kept on snoozing the alarm every 10 minutes & ended up at work at 10:30 am! That was even better than my usual 11:00 am!

Today I needed to go a step further. I wanted to get up at any cost at 7:00 am. All night I was thinking about this, even in the sleep. The result: I hardly slept all night & I got up at 7:20 am!!

An invisible hand patted my back when I entered office at 9:09 am, was the first person to sign the register & the guard wished me a wide-grinned "good morning"! I even had my a regular breakfast today!! :)

I said to myself, it not so big or so tough that it could figure in my appraisal... In fact its good that it figured in there, as a result I corrected (some of) the public perception about myself! :)

Today's is my first baby step. I will continue this, does not matter if I don't sleep enough for a few days!

Tonight I will have my lion's share of peaceful sleep...

Power Failure In US?

2006-02-10T23:02:00.000+05:30

Hey Sam's place also experiences power failures!! Today while we were trying to set up a meeting suddenly everything plunged into darkness. The phones went dead, so did all the computers as these guys do not have any UPS! :) Worse still the emergency power back-up (for the emergency lights & automated doors which require passwords to enter from outside) did not work!! So for some 5 minutes we were locked inside the office!!

Thankfully the power was restored very quickly!! :) But since they did not have UPS, some of the servers running critical applications are not behaving well since then!! :(

Catching Up...

2006-02-06T08:12:00.000+05:30

I had forgotten about the ongoing cricket series between India and Pakistan after coming to US. As such I follow very little of Indian Cricket. Today suddenly I remembered that India was playing a test series with Pakistan when I left India. Quickly I hooked onto CricInfo (would not have bothered if it was not against Pakistan) & was little disappointed to know that India has lost the third test.

I am not an expert to comment on Cricket issues. But like every Indian, I too am vocal about my cricket opinions. So I thought of jotting down my observations about the third test match. More because, being away from home I can not argue about my opinions with anyone.

Even with my limited cricket expertise, I fail to understand what Dravid was doing in the opening slots for the third test, while Sehwag & Laxman were in the team? In the first inning he replaced Sehwag for an opening slot!!

I thought Laxman and Sehwag had more opening experience than anyone else in that team, did not they??

It seems after doing well in the first two tests Sehwag was in a high & as usual he was bad mouthed about Pakistani bowlers (habitual of him)!! Looks like modesty is not any more a virtue in Indian cricket team!! I was happy to learn that Sehwag failed (miserably) in the third test!

About Dada, every one comments & I would too. Good to know that he was given a chance in the third test. Its even better to learn that he has done better than most of our batsmen, in both the innings!! :) He should better mind his restaurant business now. If Indian cricket does not want to give a fitting farewell to its most successful captain then its an issue with Indian Cricket, not with Dada!

I was reading some of the match reviews on Rediff. Someone had said that Indian team is a bunch of celebrities, not players!! True enough!!!

Hope our team returns to India with some face saving performance in the One-dayers... Good luck to them...

Futbol Anyone?

2006-02-06T06:08:00.000+05:30

Its a national craze.
Its the most watched televised game in USA.
Its bigger than any other game.
It costs more than 2 million dollars for a 30 second commercial during this game.

We have been hearing this about Super Bowl since we arrived here. Everyone on the TV, at the restaurants, at office seemed to be very excited about it. So on the lazy Sunday when the final moment arrived, we were hooked onto the TV, watching the finals of American Football Super Bowl XL.

Unlike the name suggests, there is hardly any use of the feet in this game. Most of the time you're engaged in snatching the oval ball from your opponents' hands, by brute force!!

I had heard a few things about this game, thinking that its a crazy modification of the original game, football. But after watching today's game live, I somewhat appreciate it. At least I now know some of the rules of this game, by looking at the wiki page for the game!

Few observations about this event:

The commercials were premiered, they were shown for the first time on TV.
At half time they showed a message that said that the game made the US united though every individual has his/her own way of enjoying the game. The message was very well made.
At half time there was a live performance by Rolling Stone.
The broadcasting rights for this game have already been sold till year 2012!

This game is big, like every other American thing!! Speaking of size? Even the most enraged bull would run away when confronted by any of those daemons who play this game!

The game looked subdued to me, Seattle Seahawks could not give enough competition to Pittsburgh Steelers, who won the game 21-10, rather tamely. Nevertheless I enjoyed the game, at least I know a little bit about the most popular game of the US. :)

More about my experience with this game later...

Yaad Nahi...

2006-02-04T05:42:00.000+05:30

Yaad nahi kya kya dekha tha...
Sare manjar bhool gaye...
Uski galiyon se jab gujre...
Apna hi ghar bhool gaye...

Khub gaye pardesh ke apne...
Deewaron dar bhool gaye...
Sheesh mahal mein aisa bhi kya...
Mitti ke ghar bhool gaye...

Mujh ko jinhone qatl kiya hai...
Koi unhe batlaye najiz...
Meri laash ki pehlu...
Woh apna khanjar bhool gaye...

Uski galiyon se jab gujre...
Apna hi ghar bhool gaye...

(Jagjit Singh, Parwaaz)

In Uncle Sam's place again...

2006-01-25T00:56:00.001+05:30

After almost 2 years, I am back again in the country which is most sought after today, at least among my IT brethern in India.

We started from Pune on 22nd, I was picked by KK Travels who appeared at my doors much before the time that was agreed upon! They give a bad service, I did not expect to sit in a 14 seater bus which was jumping 5 ft up into the air at each pothole after paying them 550 bucks to drop me off at the airport in Mumbai! The bad experience did not end there, more was in store for us at Alitalia!

We entered the airport at around 9pm & went straight into the queue for Alitalia airlines. Like our Sarkari empolyees those guys kept on looking at us from the booths but did not bother to check us in till it was 10pm.

The in board experience was even worse. The food was bad, so was the service. The guy in front of me almost picked up a fight with the service staff, just to get a galss of drinking water! His lamp requesting an attendant at his sit was lit up all the night, but no one turned up. There was hardly any leg space, I never thought that any airline would choose not to have personal entertainment system for each seat in their aircrafts! They did use english for all the announcements, but that again sounded like greek or latin to me! The attendants also were not good in English, they almost replied in Latin whenever I asked them something (in English).

The flights would have cost us few more thousand rupees more if it was booked on a better airline like BA or Singapore Airlines. But I guess that difference is worth it!

Perhaps that explains why Alitalia is one of the loss making carriers today!

IAF...

2006-01-19T19:25:00.001+05:30

That stands for "Industry Academia Forum". At BJ's behest I went to Sinhagad College of Science today to talk about an advance Java topic, "Challenges In Enterprises", my first public talk since I left IIT. I do talk a lot in smaller groups and friends, blabbering about my ideas, but since I left IIT there was never a chance to give a talk to a crowd of some 150 students. The thought of it scared at the beginning, but BJ was somewhat adamant. So in spite of the fact I don't consider myself an expert in J2EE technologies, I prepared some slides about JDBC, EJB, JMS and so on & gathered some courage to face a crowd that would filled with nascent curiosity!

We did a dry run in our office, to make sure that we finish the talk in allocated time & to see if the audience appreciates it. It was a success & that gave me more courage to face the youngsters!! (was it yesterday, when I was called an youngster by some?? :) ) We went there and presented the talk to the students (of 1st, 2nd & 3rd year Computer Science) as well as some of their faculty. BJ talked about the first topic & I covered the next. While BJ was talking I was watching the audience, many blank faces and few curious ones. When I took the dais & started talking about the advanced topics suddenly I saw that all faces went blank! :(

But they were listening, trying to understand at least something! :) But it was good to discover that my fear that I would not be able to face a crowd as this one was not valid! I was talking as I would talk in a team meeting at work!

After the talk was over, I was apprehensive that I could not conduct it well. But the faculty's & most important BJ's feedback was that I did do well! :) I hope they were honest in that comment!

Overall a nice experience. I would be more comfortable facing a big audience next time, not to mention the nice gift & the bouquet that were given to me by some beautiful girls! :)

BJ deserves a thanks for pushing me for this. :)

Weird... :(

2006-01-19T19:00:00.000+05:30

I don't think that anything more weird than this has happened to me in my life. Today I received a parcel at my office address, from one "MMC Infotech Services", Chennai though courier.

The address of the sender written on it:

MMC Infotech Services(P) Ltd;,
Khivraj Mansion, IV Floor,
204, (738) Anna Salai,
Chenna-600002

The Tracking Number is: 114309721083

No idea which courier company has delivered it.

When I opened the packet (with the usual curiosity I get whenever I receive a mail) what I found inside was startling. There was an old & scratched CD cover of a Sony Writeable CD, (1x-48x, 700 MB) and the paper flap of the CD!! This CD cover is empty, there was no CD in the packet!

I wonder what could be the motive of sending such a useless thing to be, by spending money on courier charges! Or is it an Anthrax like prank?? :(

Donkey or Mule?

2006-01-13T17:04:00.000+05:30

Today at least one problem of life seemed to have ended! I finally won the "choose one from the donkey and the mule" battle by choosing to go ahead with HDFC home loan. I took the disbursement from HDFC, in spite of the fact that the donkey (ICICI Bank) was offering me the same loan at 50 basis points lower interest rate!

A burden that was almost making me regret my decision to buy a home has been off my head & I felt so light today! So in the free time I thought of searching for an insurance plan to cover my home loan outstanding in case God wishes to recall me in the next 15 years! My requirement is a plain vanilla Term Insurance policy, where the sum assured is paid only in case of death. No benefits are paid in case of survival.

First I visited the LIC site, naturally since I am already their customer. Then "these guys are Sarkari" syndrome kicked in & I thought of visiting the other guys in Indian Insurance market to do a comparison of what they offer.

Here is the plan I was considering:
Product: By nature it has to be only a vanilla Term Insurance.
Sum Assured: Rs. 50,00,000.
Term: 25 Years.
Current Age: 29 Years.

LIC: The product is called Anmol Jeevan - I. Their online premium calculator worked (a pleasant surprise) & it quoted an annual premium of Rs. 12,869.

Aviva: Their product is called LifeShield. The online premium calculator quoted an annual premium of: Rs. 16,750.

ICICI Prudential: Their product is called LifeGuard, the plan without any return of premium is a vanilla Term Insurance plan. Their premium calculator InstaQuote showed me "An Error Occured While Processing Your Request!!" I guessed that this thing may not be working fine in FireFox & tried InstaQuote on IE & I was right!. It then quoted me a premium of Rs. 14,740.

ING Vysya: I could not find a vanilla term insurance product at their site, it instead showed me Conquering Life which is a term insurance product plus a rider for few critical illnesses. When tried to use their premium calculator, it almost slapped me on my face, saying that I cannot use it outside IE! :( I tried IE and it gave me a quote of Rs. 26,064. Also, I found the following unique fine print only on ING Vysya's Quote:

Initial Policy Fee Rs. 700.
Premiums are guaranteed for 5 years from the date of commencement of the policy. The company has the right to review the premiums after this period.

Bajaj Alianz: Their product is called Risk Care. It took a few mins to locate the premium calculator, which did not give me a quote saying that the eligibility criteria is not being satisfied. The criterion was that the maximum cover could be only Rs. 10,00,000. I got the same error even when I tried getting a quote for a cover of Rs. 10,00,000!

HDFC Standard: Their product is called Term Assurance Plan. Their premium calculator first showed a message: "Invalid Login" & after several tries it quoted a premium of Rs. 14,050.

Birla Sun: Their product is called Birla Sun Life Term Plan. This is what I got when I tried their premium calculator, both on IE & Firefox! :(
There has been some Technical ErrorTechnical Support has already been notified.Thank you for your patience!

Kotak Mahindra: Their product is called Kotak Term Plan. Its premium calculator quoted premium of Rs. 19,440.41.

Max New York: The product is called Level Term. Their online premium calculator is best. This is what it gave:
Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server error '80004005'
[DBNETLIB][ConnectionOpen (Connect()).]Specified SQL server not found.
/tips_help/instaquote.asp, line 9

Needless to say that I did not look for any other company! Looks like the aging Mule (LIC) is still the best choice, no matter how much I dislike them for being sarkari! Me & my family have been customers of them for many policies. The general experience so far has been good. We have been getting our money back payments well in time, in fact in advance in some occasions.

Also LIC gives good amount of grace periods after the premium dates, before applying late fees. It's an open secret that the LIC agents give you a major portion of the first year premium as cash back. :) Last but not the least I found LIC website as good looking as the others & it is much better navigable than the others!

Time to give the good news to my LIC agent! Buying such an insurace cover is prudent, the cost is in fact not even 50% of the annual insurance fee for my car! :)

Thank you Mr. Lalu!

2006-01-05T11:37:00.000+05:30

Quoting Statesman:
*************
Train to Delhi

Statesman News Service
BERHAMPUR, Dec. 23. — The long-standing demand of the citizens of Berhampur to have a direct train from the city to New Delhi is going to materialise tomorrow.
For the past few decades, the citizens of Ganjam and Gajapati district were demanding for a direct railway connectivity between this major city of south Orissa and the capital of the country. This also happened to be a major promise and point of discussion during the Lok Sabha election campaigns.
During the last railway budget, the railway ministry decided to extend the Bhubaneswar-Nizamuddin Hirakud Express to Vizag, which enabled Berhampur to use this train as a direct train to New Delhi. But the extension of the train took time to materialise. The journey of the extended Hirakud Express would take place tomorrow.
The Hirakud Express, with the extended route would start from Vizag instead of Bhubaneswar today night and it would reach Berhampur at 4.40 am on 24 December. As it is a great occasion for the city, large scale arrangements have been made to greet the train. The train would be flagged off at the Berhampur station by the Congress MP of Berhampur, Mr Chadrasekhar Sahu.
This train is being publicised as an achievement of the Berhampur MP. Posters, banners and pamphlets are all round the city claiming it to be a great achievement made by Mr Sahu.
Announcements had been made by loud speakers urging the people of Berhampur to attend the function at the Berhampur railway station, where Mr Sahu would flag off the train. The local chamber of commerce and several other organisations of the city have thanked Mr Sahu for his efforts to get the railways provide a direct train for the citizens to New Delhi.
************

Since my childhood I have been aware that the local MPs have been promising to connect my town (Berhampur, a major town in Orissa though very small compared to our metros) with the Capital of the country. In every Loksabha election campaign all the local candidates would shout that the long standing demand for a train to Delhi would be fulfilled this time, if he/she got elected. None of the railway ministers granted us that wish!We had to go to either Bhubaneshwar or Khurda-road to connect to a train that went to Delhi.

Finally it took us a Lalu to have that wish granted, the Hirakud Express' route has been extended from "Bhubaneshwar - Delhi" to "Vishakhapatnam - Delhi" so that it passes through my town!

Now I can (proudly) say that my hometown is connected to all the metros in the country by a direct train! Thank you very much Lalu-ji!

Now can I put forward a wish for an airport at Berhampur? Too much to wish for or too immature a wish that is?? :)

Licensed Goons

2006-01-03T12:52:00.000+05:30

In the last few months the media has been filled with news about how Indian Police has been using brute muscle power to curb protests, or violate fundamental rights of our citizens. In this blog I would keep a records of the activities of the new Indian Mafia, which is licensed by us!

Gurgaon, UP, 25 Jul 2005: 700 workers beaten up by Gurgaon police. Their crime: they were protesting against the unfair employment practices of their employer, Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India (HMSI).
Meerut, UP, 22 Dec 2005: As part of an planned operation called "Operation Majnoo", many men & women beaten up by the Meerut Police. This was telecasted live on many TV channels! The victims' crime: Sitting a park with their loved ones!
Bihar, 24 Dec 2005: Many temporary teachers were beaten up by Bihar police, for demonstrating in support of their charter of demands.
Jajpur, Orissa, 2nd Jan 2006: 12 Aadivasi people killed by police firing. Their crime: protesting against capitalism, the setting up of a steel plant by Tata Steel.
There are many more, but I have a weak memory. Look at:

In the largest democracy of the world, is this the way to silent people when they protest or when one holds his/her lover's hand in public? Everyone has a right to protest against anything, even if his/her protest is baseless. If one is not allowed to do that, his/her right of free speech is violated.

After the Bihar incident some teachers threatened that they would join the Naxals. Well, when the law is in the hands of some licensed hooligans even I would think of becoming a antisocial, when my fundamental rights are not respected...

Citibank: My worst banking experience.

2006-01-02T11:11:00.000+05:30

Recently Citibank India did a lot of publicity, thumping their chests for completing 100 years in India. Citi group is world's largest financial company, with a rank #8 in the latest Fortune 500, perhaps the reason for the superiority complex that they suffer from in India.

My relations with Citibank started with a Credit Card. At a time when plastic money was relatively new & used to cost an annual fee, I had taken a credit card from them. The initial experience was very good, with timely billings, no penalties or late fees etc. Slowly the credit card market started getting bigger, with other banks offering cards for free which Citibank had to follow. But then they had a new strategy to earn money. They would charge a late fee, penalty and interest charges even if you paid your bill well in time. Then you would have to call their customer service many times or write them multiple mails to get those fees reversed. This strategy works well. Bill many of your customers such charges and at least some rich or lazy ones would pay these charges, reason being some do not bother & some fail to notice that they are being cheated by their bank. Another way Citibank India adopts to make money is by putting every customer into some kind of insurance plans (the credibility of which is very doubtful, with a lot of fine-prints & also the amount of cover they offer is very much meager) by default & charge every body a small monthly fee. Some customers, like me do notice such charges in their card's bill and opt out of the insurance scheme by calling/writing to Citibank, but many customers either miss these charges or the rich ones just ignore them! A very easy way indeed, to earn capital!

Another way adopted by them is to charge annual fee to all their card accounts, even today when almost all banks are offers free credit cards for life! Many customers pay the fee, just because that they are too lazy to have a fight with Citibank staff or they just ignore the charges.

During my 4 years of credit card membership there was hardly a month that went without me having to raise concern about my account. The Citi staff was good in responding to my queries in the beginning, they would respond in time to my email complaints & they were very courteous during my phone calls to them. But as time went by the response time increased a lot & sometimes they did not just reply to my emails. And on the phone they became more and more rude! Many a times they would just hang the call!

Pissed off by more and more such incidents, I closed my credit card one day, thinking that it would be the end of my relation with them. In the mean time I had opened a Suvidha Saving account to with them, which I closed in 4 days flat, thanks to the same kind of experiences. I had suggested them to rename their Suvidha product as "maha-Asuvidha"!

When I joined GE, they opened a Citibank Suvidha Salary account for me. Even before I could do a single transaction with my bank account they had already debited few hundred rupees from my account, showing a negative balance! Needless to say that I did not let GE deposit a single salary to that account & closed it!

Citibank Suvidha used to be good, to some people's experience very good. When the Indian banking sector was newly liberalised during the late 1990s, the Suvidha product was a great convenient banking account. Perhaps this the is first bank account which offered ATM, phone & online banking to Indian middle class consumers, with a meager bank balance of 5000 rupees or so! At that time there was a great demand for Suvidha accounts (at that time it was available only inBangalore & Chennai) & corporate used to vie to have tie-ups with Citibank for their salary accounts. They were perhaps the first bank in India to adopt Internet/phone banking in a big way. To promote Internet banking they even started penalising the people who visited the branches! Initially the infrastructure was great & their web site/phone lines were available almost always.

But as time went by their customer base increased, but the infrastructure did not. Perhaps they never upgraded their infrastructure at all. So as a result today, if you try to access your Suvidha account online, chances are that you will be able to get to see your account only once out of 10 tries. This becomes even worse during month end when you receive your salary. Most of the salaried people try to access their account through net & that makes Citibank's servers jammed or too busy! The same applies to their phone lines too. Most of the time the IVR will put you permanently on hold, saying that the customer service people are too busy!

About their banking interfaces, they have been the same since as long as I remember. Its the same cumbersome user interface both on the ATMs and on the web site as well! In the mean time other banks (e.g. ICICI & even SBI!!) started offering online/phone/ATM banking much later than Citibank, but their user interfaces have become much better & far better than Citibank!

Privacy is an alien term for Citibank India. In spite of you giving them written/oral requests too them for not giving unsolicited calls or for not sending unwanted messages, they keep on spamming your mailboxes & cell phone message boxes. They never get tired of giving you phone calls about their so called nice products!!

I had closed all my relations with Citibank, thinking that I will not venture there again in my life. But my current employer opened my salary account with Citibank. So once again I have to go through the same problems. Here again before my first salary was credited, they had debited my account by 200 rupees already. It took me 4 emails and few phone calls to have the same reversed. I hardly get to see my account online, all i get is an error message like "We are unable to serve your request now, do try later". For a trivial task like transferring funds to a different account I have to use the age-old method, deposit a cheque! Hence I've planned to have this account just for the salary, I would wipe the account clean as soon as my salary arrives!

If you have any kind of banking relation with Citibank, my advise to you is to check your account statements regularly to make sure that the Citibank mosquito is not sucking your blood!

Citibank India keeps on coming with mouth watering offers like the latest Home loan campaign, which promises a 5% cash back on a home loan! Readers be warned, think many times before you buy a Citibank product, you might just be doing the most blatant error as a consumer!

Hope the reader has had better experience than me with Citibank, do share them by writing a comment. Thanks & wish you a very happy 2006.

Wish List

2005-12-23T16:48:00.000+05:30

Kabhi kisi ko mukammal jahan nahi milta...
Kahin jameen toh kahin aasman nahi milta...
Jise bhi dekhiye... Apne aap mein ghum hai...
Jubaan mili hai magar humjubaan nahi milta...

A friend keeps saying, "ek din aisa bhi hoga, jab mera bathroom mera bedroom se bada hoga"...

Another year is closing to an end. Time to do some rethinking, reorganising of thoughts, to remember the ones who I left behind, the ones who left me behind. To think of the wishes, the ones that could not be fulfilled ever, the ones that I might be able to fulfil one day! Posting some of them here, in the hope that the reader could do something about it! Who knows!! God might sneak into my Blog and think of fulfilling some or all them!

This list is not in the order of preference! Dear God, this is a somewhat dynamic list, please do come again to see if it has changed! :)

Wishes that could (Possibly) never come true!:

Be among the best 10 rankers in Orissa, in 10th and 12th examinations. These were my parents wishes, which I also shared & tried for too, but did not try not enough perhaps. Missed the lists closely! :)
Parents wanted me to be a civil servant, which I never wanted & so did not try at all!
Be a vivid collector or stamps & coins.
Sing a Kishore Kumar number to a jam-packed audience, something I have dreamed and day-dreamed a lot!!!
A date with Julia Roberts!!!:)
Write a book!!!

Wishes that might be granted one day but is it not already late? Perhaps I don't try enough!!:

Earn some ill-easy-money from the stock market! $$$$ :)
Own a Royal Enfield Bullet.
Own a Nikon F5! They have released a F6 too! :(
Own a iMac!
Own entire printed sets of Asterix, Tintin, and "Calvin & Hobbes".
A trip to Ladakh on a bike.
A trip down the length and breadth of India, preferably on a bike! Did I mention a "Bullet"? Well a trip even on a car would do. :)
Do some great photography, the judge being myself. And I have been a very unsatisfied judge so far.
Own a business myself one day. Its code-named "GMDHBH Corp.". :)
Write a diary/blog at least once in a while.
Finish my backlog of books one day!
Read original Sanskrit texts of Ramayan, Mahabharat!
Produce/direct a movie!
Visit Hawaii.
Be able to do a little something for the people around me, for the ones who I left behind, for the ones who made me what I am.
Get a humjubaan (soul mate) someday! :)
Retire in a no-man's land, entirely cut-off from this world. :) May be the Andamans!

May my friend's bathroom be bigger than his bedroom someday! :)

Back in Pune! And loving it!!

2005-12-23T15:14:00.001+05:30

In January 2004 I had set out of Pune in a Jet Airways flight, to the so called Mecca of software industry, Bangalore (Please pronounce this as "Benga-loo-ru" if you're reading this blog after November 2006). My mind was was racing all over, with an excitement that I am now going to be in the midst of a sea of opportunities called Bangalore. The excitement died soon after I landed in Bangalore. What else would have happened if the cab driver charges you 200/- rupees for a trip from the Airport to Diamond Enclave [a distance of hardly 2 km]? That was the first shock I received in Bangalore. More were in stock for me.

Soon I was to discover how un-welcome I was in Banglaore. The moment you ask a auto-rickshaw driver in Hindi/English if he can give me ride, I would get a reply that it would cost me 1.5 or 2 times the metered amount, does not matter even if its 12 noon. A prospective landlord would refuse to give me his place on rent just because I am single or just because I am a non-vegetarian. A bus-conductor would refuse [& say something indiscriminately, which sounds as if he is abusing] to give me change of even a 20 or 50 Rupee note, just because I don't know his language!

There was more to my life in Bangalore than this. I was soon to discover that roads in Bangalore were not safe to drive and the public transport is not pleasant. So I decided to rent a house near my office in Whitefield. Renting a house alone in Bangalore is too expensive. Luckily I found a roommate Sanchit, among my colleagues who is in fact a junior from the same IIT I studied at.

So Sanchit and me went out to search a house near Whitefield, asking each person visible if he knows about any house available for rent. We entered one house that looked freshly completed. Luckily the owner was right there. He hesitated for long time, saying that he has a family and he can't risk

That's when I suddenly started missing Pune. My good old Pune, who had taken me into her embrace from the moment I had landed here. I missed the late night movies, the late night arguments with friends in a lonely road to Alandi... I was saying sorry to Pune in my mind... I desperately wanted to be back in my second home, Pune!

And thank God, I am back here in Pune & feeling at home already!

These are solely my own experiences in Bangalore [there is no generalization], which may not match with the reader's experiences. Lets please not argue on that. Thank you.

Evil Marketing?

2005-12-19T21:02:00.000+05:30

In my childhood I had seen an Oriya film in which the story evolved around water, something without which life is impossible. An island in a sea surrounded by only salty water had only one small fresh water lake. But the evil in the movie had control of this lake & hence he used take advantage of the islanders in any manner he wanted to.

Petrol is also a commodity like water in present age. On a day to day life one has to buy petrol for his/her vehicle in any case, does not matter how expensive it is. Petrol is available in many flavours in India these days. Apart from the plain vanilla version, premium versions like Speed, Extra-Mile, Power etc. are available in the market which make tall & perhaps doubtful claims like increased mileage, better engine life etc. etc. and cost usually a couple of rupees more than plain version.

BPCL (Bharat Petroleum Corporation) has a very big petrol pump near the Pune RTO, which has a massive traffic throughput at any time of a day. This is a COCO (Company Owned & Company Operated) outlet & BPCL takes a lot of pride in showcasing this outlet. Today I went there to buy some petrol for my motorcycle. A poor man like me cant afford the premium version of petrol (Speed in case of BPCL). So I asked the attendant if I can get some plain petrol. To my surprise I was told that there is no plain petrol available in that outlet, meaning I had only one option, Speed! True enough, I checked all the vending machines in the outlet, all of them were vending either Diesel or Speed Petrol! I left the outlet in search of another pump where I could get plain petrol but others who were asking for plain petrol chose to fill Speed instead!

This petrol pump receives at least 5,000 vehicles a day for filling petrol (my most pessimistic estimate). At an average of 3 litres of petrol per vehicle would mean a sale of 15,000 litres of petrol per day. Forcing all these vehicles to fill speed, by not giving them the option of the plain version means pocketing Rs.30,000 more per day for BPCL! Had these vehicles given the option of filling plain petrol then BPCL would sure loose some, if not most of this Rs. 30,000!

Here is a new marketing mantra adopted by BPCL. If you have steady volume of customers, don't give them many choices & they would be forced to buy whatever you want to sell them & you virtually have a monopoly! Hardly anyone would return from a petrol pump without filling petrol, unless the pump is closed!

Many companies, including the service providers resort to such evil marketing methods to make more money! Service companies do this a lot in the name of value added services. Hutch, my cell phone operator in Bangalore suddenly started deducting a rupee a day from my pre-paid balance. I called them up asking the reason & they started explaining me all kinds of value added services like SMS plan, local call plan etc. (which I did not need at all) for which they were deducting that one rupee. I asked if I can switch to a plan vanilla call plan. I was told that there was no plain vanilla prepaid plan & I had no option but give them a rupee a day! :(

Is the Indian consumer aware? Or does he care??

For Cocktail Lovers

2005-12-16T11:19:00.000+05:30

This was forwarded to me by BJ. I liked this & putting this in my blog as it would be easily accessible. I would like to make them myself someday, especially Margarita!Thanks to the person who compiled this & his/her copyrights reserved!

Pina Colada
Ice
3 tbsp rum
cream of coconut
pineapple juice
whipped cream-to garnish
pineapple wedge to garnish
cherry to garnish

Put 1 scoop of ice in blender or shaker. Pour in 1 1/2 oz./3 tbsp quality Rum. Add a splash of Cream of Coconut. Add a splash of Pineapple Juice. Shake or blend thoroughly. Pour into a fancy stemmed glass. Serve garanshed with dollop of whipped cream, a fresh pineapple wedge, maraschino cherry, and a straw.

Bloody Mary
2 cups tomato juice
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
Tobasco sauce to taste
1 tsp powdered black pepper
salt to taste
1 tsp celery salt or chopped celery
120 ml Vodka
crushed ice
salt to decorate the glass
stemmed glasses

Wet the glass rims and dip into the salt, so that the rim is covered with salt. Place the juice, Worcestershire sauce, Tobasco, black pepper, salt, celery, vodka and ice in a shaker (or jug). Shake to mix well. Pour into the prepared glasses and serve.

Gimlet
50 ml gin
25 ml lime cordial
1 lemon wedge

Pour the gin and the lime cordial into a shaker with ice. Add a little lemon juice and mix well. Garnish with a lemon wedge to serve.

Rum Punch
50 ml rum
25 ml lemon juice
200 ml pineapple juice
100 ml peach juice
12.5 ml sugar syrup
2 dashes of Angostura Bitters
soda water

Shake with ice and pour entire contents (including ice) into a tall glass and top with soda. Garnish with a slice of pineapple and a cherry.

Daiquiri
50 ml white rum
12.5 ml fresh lime juice
12.5 ml sugar syrup

Shake with ice and strain into a frosted Martini glass

Margarita
50 ml Tequila
25 ml Cointreau
25 ml fresh lime juice

Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a salt rimmed Margarita glass.
Garnish with a slice of lime.

Screwdriver
60 ml vodka
crushed ice
orange juice

Fill glass with crushed ice and pour the vodka over it. Now fill the glass with orange juice, garnish with mint leaves or any garnish of choice and serve.

And finally the best of the lot

Long Island Iced Tea
12.5 ml vodka
12.5 ml gin
12.5 ml white rum
12.5 ml tequila
25 ml lemon juice
dash of coke/pepsi

In a tall glass, add ice-cubes as per your likes. Add the ingredients to the glass and top it up with pepsi. Garnish with a lemon wedge.

Enjoy!

First Blog

2005-12-14T18:47:00.000+05:30

When this blogging thing was new, like many others I too started grabbing space in the blogging sites. The idea sounded weird yet exciting, so I wanted my space in the blog world! At that time most of the blog sites [forgot the names by now] were paid or free-only-on-invitation services. I was frustrated that I could not have a blog of my own for free! The ones I managed to get were not so good & that was an excuse enough for me not to use them ever!

Soon blogs became a fad & at the same time they become more widely and freely available. With Google's Blogger all those paid blog services became things of the past. I immediately grabbed a place in Blogger, thinking that I would document my life here. As usual with me, that was never to happen. Its been close to or more than 2 years since I opened this Blogger account. But this is my first post, that too I had to motivate myself to write something! All this while I have been advising my friends to write blogs & some did it too & produced really good results (Bipul's blog for example).

So here is my first blog posting. I don't want the world to read it, but I hope this will keep reminding me to document my life once in a while.