Flaring horizon - witnessing today's dusk ceremony

It was 6.25pm, the sun was almost set. Today the sky was preparing its final ceremony with a hue of greenish yellow at the horizon. Relishing the ceremony, I felt for not having my camera with me. Suddenly remembered that my room mate also had the same model camera, I ran and grabbed it, pushed the batteries in and set the lens for the shot and at 6.28 this is what I could capture…

The trees which were a part of the pink explosion mentioned in my previous blog were bare and along with the dusk sky, it seemed like the horizon was flaring...with a passion that it would again host the dusk ceremony tomorrow.

Fell in love for bottle green color

This is in sequel to my previous blog-post on my favourite frames of ‘Vaaranam Aayiiram’

Those frames captured my senses to the extent of forcing me to take a screenshot of the same by doing a print screen while watching the song. 

Though exact frames could not be captured... yet sharing the joy of my minimal success below

My favourite frames in the movie 'Vaaranam Aayiram'

I saw the recent Tamil movie ‘Vaaranam Aayiram’ when I visited Trichy a fortnight ago. In fact I felt lucky relishing the camera / photography of the movie frames. I fell in love with this particular frame sequence in which the actress enters the frame from left; the back ground is brownish orange of an old monument. The actor then enters the frame from right dressed in a white coloured t-shirt and jacket. The actress’s bottle green saree contrasts her skin tone and the back ground. Writing this piece of text, I felt a sudden urge to search shots of those frame in the net but in vain. The search returned my next favourite shot in which the duo is in front of Taj Mahal with mist clad Yamuna River in front; she dressed in red and he in grey suits.

(Photo courtesy: Sify)

 Apart from photography and music, I did not find the movie satisfying enough…

Kudos to the cameraman Ratnavelu alias Randy, Music director Harris jeyaraj for the songs and lyricist Thaamarai for expressing the frames in Tamil...

A pink explosion!

This happened last weekend.
The Saturday was a dull day. The trees lining the streets were all experiencing autumn…Not much of interesting sights though. Sunday morning it was like magic! It was as if a pink explosion had occurred the previous night. Certain breed of trees was a part of this explosion and whole Bangalore was dotted with these pink flowers. Bees rejoiced this explosion by bubbling around these flower bunches as a welcome gesture. That sight out of my window made my day more enriching and enigmatic…

Isn't nature ever inspiring and ever understanding? But do we??

Money, ATM and rumors as well...ArE mAn MaDe

Y’day night 11.00pm

The ICICI bank ATM network was loaded by near infinite requests. Account holders of the bank were panic following a rumor that the bank was bust. All ICICI ATMs were almost dry by midnight. If the ATM had life, it would have cried and would have resolved not to be an ATM machine again! Some scolded the ATM as clumsily designed creature, some noted the bank’s poor policies, some cursed India for their own restlessness, some started by saying “In the US, it is …” and most of them were shouting either to their friends standing nearby or over the phone adding to more chaos.

I was one among the swarm of people carried away by the rumor. But seeing the chaos, I felt it was worth losing my money rather than serving me as a prey to the chaos and the cacophony of IT professionals mixing technical jargons to their blabber.

The ATMs woke up to a good day to find that many of their network brothers were dead for they were broke open by agitated crowds at various places. Does breaking open an ATM gave them their money? Certainly not, but the ATMs would have been more happy dead rather than hearing the cacophony of its illiterate brothers and sisters.

Is piracy no more surreptitious!..?

A small handout slipped out of today’s newspaper as I was flipping the pages. I was really amused by the handout as it was about availability of pirated CDs ranging from latest engineering tools to kid’s games. The handout also mentioned their web-site, e-mail id, address and contact numbers. Usually the pirated CD business is against law and surreptitious and this handout left me wondering about the boldness of the person behind this and the sad state of law and order in the state, Googling the issue, I landed on a relevant article published in ‘The Hindu’ newspaper (Click Here).
People are also encouraging piracy as they get the required software for peanuts. Now who is to be blamed…the people or the police or the clandestine business people?

Where is the money draining?

Amused to see two incongruous news on the same page of Economic Times today

One was the move towards increase in taxes, the others was that of Mumbai under the crunch of poor infrastructure...

The professional tax levied in India is likely to be tripled from Rs.2500 per year to Rs.7500 this year. The professional tax is the 3rd largest contributor to the state tax kitty following the sales tax & VAT and the stamp duty (1). Where is all this tax money going…?

Is it funding urban development?
I think no…
Indian infrastructure is bleeding; a rain can overthrow the entire city into chaos, be it metros like Mumbai or Chennai or Tier-1 cities like Bangalore or Hyderabad or any other tier-2 cities like Coimbatore or Mysore.
One may argue about posh airports, flyovers or malls, but we need to concentrate on basic infrastructure such as sewage disposal and its treatment. Any flyover on a busy road in Bangalore takes 2-4 years to complete.

It funds rural development during political elections. The results are no good either.

I am putting across road infrastructure for example. We are under funding our every other system such as education, transport, agriculture and the like. And we are overtaxing our bonafide tax payers

Where is our money draining?

It is time to hone our financial management policies rather than hiking the taxes

Thoughts based on the news(1) from Economic times ‘Professional Tax may Pinch you more’ published in India

More thoughts and comments are welcome

The wrestler...

I come across this sight at least once in a week and more than once during exam season. This is common among engineering students in Bangalore. Two college kids on a bike, one busy wrestling the traffic and the other wrestling with a set of equations and diagrams scribbled on a sheet of paper. Occasionally the guy at the handle meddles into the equations and then goes back to the road… Always the equation wrestler seems to run at full MIPS (As we indicate a micro-processor performance in Millions of Instructions Per Second), storing the unprocessed RAW data. In most cases the traffic wrestler is a boy and the equation wrestler is a girl. The current trend in India is that you need to and will get into IT industry irrespective of your engineering major. The real wrestling starts if they go in for a job breaking this trend and this is rare.

Debate...for what?

I got an opportunity to watch a debate program in a leading Tamil TV channel. The debate happens between two groups of people moderated by one person. I really got an opportunity to see how ignorant and arrogant the people are. A girl in her early teen was talking about the pitfalls of the Indian marriages and the marriage custom, I wondered how many marriages she had before to arrive at that viewpoint! I simply walked away from the TV room and switched off my brain to a good piece of music. You encounter such people in our day-to-day life and you can’t avoid them. You have got to isolate and have fun. And the program might be a commercial success but it is a flop when it comes to the intellectual or entertainment content.

Right ecosystem nurtures…

My mom gave a plant to me 18 months ago saying ‘Let this plant divert you from the ever bright computer screen and work pressure to the reality of life’. The plant came all the way from Coimbatore to Bangalore adorned with only five leaves. Now the plant has around two dozen leaves! One more lemon seed found its way from my grandma’s backyard three months ago… Just after a cuppa lemon tea, I put the seeds in the pot and it got buried under the thick layer of humus on the top layer. We were closed for the weekend following May-1 for a span of four days. I sprinkled some water and bid good bye to my plant family comprising this indoor plant and a money-plant plus a croton. Post long weekend, yesterday, I noticed a centimeter long shoot from the edge of the pot. The lemon seeds have germinated. I like the way they have grown; straight pointing to the sky…
My plant family has one more member to its group… :)

We flew @ the Z-point

The cab driver applied full force on the brake-pedal…a slow, sustained jerk sprung my dreams and I woke up. Out of the cozy blanket in the cab, I felt the ruthless chill wind bruising my cheeks. I, Nagaraj and Manjunath braved the winds and stood outside for a couple of minute. My cell-phone clock exclaimed 4.45 a.m. We woke up other team members and after much difficulty, we were ready to trek to the z-point @ Kemmangundi. Stark black of early morning, tall and slender trees in the forest wind agitated like a mad man, cloudless starry sky, the trek path through the wild…our adrenaline was already gushing into our bloods. Two of our team dropped few minutes after we had started. We ventured further. The trek was not so tedious, until we came across a stream of water falling from sideways. I always love kissing the water stream and drinking water from it. The water was pristine and sparkling. From this point, we could see nature preparing for Sun’s arrival…A streak of orange hue decorated the sky, the distant cacophony of the birds combined with its echo… Two more dropped at this point. The rest of us, five people went forward. The route became rugged and tedious.It resembles a 'Z' and hence this name 'z-point' Looking down from the trail, it was so thrilling. I could feel my adrenaline gush even when I write this. Finally we were at the peak. The wind was rustling through the patch of grass on the peak…and we were flying…

My new baby

I am in race for my new baby....I mean a new board that I have started designing. It is a real thrilling experience. It is a digital video board, lot of challenges :)
20 weeks from now she will be ready to be born...
After all Boards and babies are the same...you design them and you care for them.

Junk...is good

This title sounds similar to the Surf-excel detergent ad 'Dhaag Achhe hain' meaning 'stains are good' right?? The odd creature grown in the wall out of junk conveyed that i am free of any challenging work and today that has helped me land in a new activity that will keep my neurons twitching for the next 4-6 months

Grown out of junk stationery

Too bored in the company…Suddenly an idea
Why shouldn't I clear all the crap in my draw? Nice thought.
Piles of papers, data sheets, magazines, application notes and white papers…Ooof… I am tired segregating them. Finally it is done and I ended up with paper clips.
I played with them and now they adore my cubicle walls
Looking at them, I feel them as odd creatures which have suddenly grown from junk.