Digitally Exploring the world

"We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same." -Anne Frank

Questions that remain unanswered ... Recently my 4 year old niece Anya lost her paternal grandmother who lived in the same house. Ever since the loss she has been asking questions that still remain a mystery to even all of human kind.. Questions like why do humans sleep (eyes closed) when they die ? What is Heaven? What happens to a person when they go to heaven ? Who looks after them there ? Will they come back to the world again (Reincarnation) ? I am amazed that even a 4year old has the same questions that human beings have been struggling to find answers to for centuries..

It's one of the those times of the year when I miss being home.. I remember some of my most memorable X'MAS spent at Jamalpur and Calcutta while growing up. We would eagerly practice for the annual school concert where me and my sister sang for the School Choir and then wait for the month long winter break after that.. Winter vacation meant basking in the sun, reading books, fooling around and visits to friends and families and all the plum cakes and wine. Jamalpur, a small quaint little railway settlement created by British had a good bit of Anglo Indian population and so did Calcutta. I still remember the trips to the beautifully decorated New Market in Calcutta and to the bakeries- M.X D'gama and Nahoums and also the wait for the night drive to St Paul's Cathedral for the midnight mass in Calcutta or the celebration at Aunty Robert's house at Jamalpur. Years have flown by but the memories still linger ( wonder why as my previous post says !!) .. I baked myse...

Time passes , There is no way We can hold it back __ Why,then, do thoughts linger on , Long after everything else is gone ... -Ryokan in Dew Drops on a lotus leaf

I bumped into these old videos (thanks to youtube) of Cliff Richard singing in one of the rain breaks at Wimbledon in 1996 ..One of my fav. singer's and the game i so much enjoy playing.. Took me back to my early days when these LPs would be played at home again and again and could possibly count amongst the first couple of english songs I must have heard and has remained ... I can still hum most of these songs unlike the newer ones that one can't seem to remember .... Those were the days where one waited months to get a new LP .. and later when the TV came waited eagerly for DD to show live Wimbledon coverage without any glitches at the crucial points.. Enjoy!! Part 2:

Getting old I believe but nevertheless :) These ads were used as part of our discussion on branding and marketing in class yesterday... Enjoy!!

Yuho have a month and half break after the first semster of college .. Yes and I got back to college after a long break (more than a decade) . It's been 6months and I kind of survived it so far!! One feels a lot younger :) heading back to college with a backpack full of books .It takes you back to old times! I have been lucky to have had the opportunity to go to one of the best college's in the country and this stint with books has been a lot different where the quest is more for knowledge, which is a lot different when one is younger and also trying to master the examination grading system alongside the quest for knowledge. The initial few classes was a little tough sitting through an entire day of lectures and note taking after such a long break but I started enjoying it from the first few lectures. The medium of teaching and the professors do such an excellent job at making a subject seem so very interesting and practical, that I guess any inquisitve student would love t...

As we watch the scenes of terror unravel on our small screens at home the last few days, does anybody really care .. Yes, the media might be calling them Heroes just for today , does anybody really care !! Just the morning after the attack, I was having coffee at work and expressing my grief over the the death of the ATS chief being killed and the discussion turned into a heated discussion where I was the odd one out with the so called educated folks expressing their pleasure on knowing that a person after hindu terrorists was nailed down. Will India every change ??? Would they have asked the commando who came to save them if they were trapped in TAJ today, whether he came from Kashmir or Kolkatta ?? Growing up being part of a family where both brilliant parents (could have probably done so much more outside) worked for the people , one in the army and the other a surgical specialist in the railways, never turning back to the call of the duty, never being lured to the more lucrative w...

Work and studies has been keeping me busy last few months and It was kind of taking a toll on me and so I took a day off from work and headed out of the city for some Rafting at Galibore ,about 100kms from the city. Most of the drive is nice and green, the last 9kms or so is on dusty gravel non existent road but then one is driving in the midst of the forest . The jungle lodges camp is setup in the banks of the cauvery river and you get lost in the calm and serene surroundings . We took to the rafts and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and with occasional jumps into the river for a swim( i was floating with the life jacket on :) ) . Waiting for another short break soon!

I had a short trip to HQ (Redwood shores) earlier this month . Weekdays was the usual work and meetings but I ventured out during the weekends to the places nearby. I finally picked up a new DSLR from Sony , hope to understand the mechanics of it as I go around using it ! Some pics here: Sanfrancisco and Stanford&Berkeley Only some of the ones from Stanford set has been taken using my new camera.

May you rest in peace Randy. Someone who lived his life !!! Someone whom I look upto for his work,lectures,book and his recent positive attitude towards knowingly living on limited time. Report by CMU

Here's another passionate talk by Paush at CMU ,May 2008 and his interview with time here .. His Last lecture is here

For the past 5 + years everyday come rain,sun,flood my first human interaction of the day is a happy smiling face. I am taking about Gangaamma , the lady who comes to clean my house. She is one such woman, who seems to be ever smiling whatever she might be going through. She is one of such woman that runs quite a few houses. Belonging to a village in karnataka, she was married off at the age of 12 and had to move to the city 15years back in search of work. In the last so many years she worked as a labourer lifting stones for new constructions and has been working in the same houses as a maid last few years. She has 3 daughters and a husband who hardly works the usual story of the poor. She slogs it out in a bunch of houses to be able to pay for the basic needs and educate her daughters something she never had the opportunity to do. She also takes pride in not having asked her daughters to work so far. Sometimes when I feel low about so many things in life , I remind myself of the ev...

I got my first pair of waterproof hiking shoes last week and boy wasn't i thrilled. I had been wanting one for a while but since i was heading out during the weekend, i just took an impulsive decision that I had to get it this time . I walked around last Friday and found tons of washable ones but couldn't find a waterproof one in all the big shops but a small adventure shop not to far away had this pair of La Fuma shoes.. I have hiked in wet washables shoes during monsoon before and it isn't the most comfortable walk if one knows what I mean ... Somehow right from my schooldays shoes have always fascinated me . I still remember the day and the joy when I received my first pair of imported tennis shoes. I actually wore it and slept that night :) . You must be laughing reading this !! Oh what a difference it made compared to the power shoes I had worn till then .. Listening to Knopfler's Quality Shoes

As I sit down to pen a few lines, I am suddenly transported to my childhood days subconsciously and start to hum this song .. ... "Climb every mountain, search high and low Follow every by way, every path you know Climb every mountain, ford every stream Follow every rainbow, till you find your dream... ... " Work and other happenings around me had put a break to my short trips for the past few months and it was only last weekend that I headed for a short day's hike to the Brahmagiri hills (near Coorg) organized by the youth hostel folks . Almost a dozen of us from various cross sections (not all were the IT type) got into the tempo traveler already booked on a cloudy saturday afternoon and were greeted with heavy showers as we headed out to the Sreemangala govt guest house . After a quick dinner on the way and a good night's sleep we were all ready early sunday morning for a 20kms trek . The trek started once we crossed the Irupa falls, the initial stretch of 1.5km...

Bumped into this wonderful documentary shot with a borrowed camcorder by Sushmit Ghosh Bullets and Butterflies traces the journey of a handicapped street child and a biking enthusiast from the bustling cityscape of Delhi to the serene hills of Himachal Pradesh. The journey starts from a promise made during a fleeting conversation and reaches its fulfillment in an unforeseen, bizarrely deep understanding between the odd pair. Watch the entire film online (39mins) More films here

Heard this song recently when I went home. Brought back all the memories of the good old school days and the vinyl record .. Enjoy!!

A day in the life of Sodnomdorj, a Mongolian herder.

A couple of month's back I was reading Jung's 'Man and his symbol ' and a cousin visited me from Seattle and he had picked up the same book from the US and was reading it at that very moment.. Jung Synchronicity I suppose!! We later started discussing and found another author 'Lubicz' who had spent a considerable time researching on the symbols and Ancient Egyptian Anthropocosmos Man and his temple. Some incidents in the past week took me back to the books and I found these interesting videos on the same subject today.. Watch on .. 2nd part here

THE PLEASURE OF FINDING THINGS OUT was filmed in 1981 and any Feynman follower :) if I may so ,would simply love to hear him speak about the joy of discovery . Rest of the videos here: part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 Talks on light

Thanks to a friend's recommendation , watched a wonderful film by Wong Kar-Wai's ' In the mood for love' . Loved every bit of the film , a movie that shouldn't be given a miss !! Was a bit surprised to see the use of Spanish songs in a Cantonese film but loved every bit of it. Here's one of my favourite, Nat King Cole's ' 'Quizás, Quizás, Quizás' ( Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps ) And the lyrics here

Written a bit late( thanks to tons of work) , but nevertheless!! Last month I headed for a break to the north eastern parts of our country and yeah this time it wasn't my usual solo backpacking trip, but one with my mum. The last trip I had done with her was to Sri Lanka in 2005. It was my first trip to Assam and Meghalaya , though for my mum it was her 3rd visit since my dad was posted in the NE more than a decade back.I was busy with studies/work and never made it to the NE. The first place I wanted to visit when the thought of NE struck me was Arunachal Pradesh but with my mum having high altitude sickness I decided to do Assam and Meghalaya only and leave the Arunachal bit for my solo travels. North East is still quite green but from the people who have been living there and from what I read , it's already lost 50% of the green cover in the last 20 years. Quite a few reasons behind it the main of course being human encroachment. I found random constructions happening aroun...

Guwahati: Armed with the map of assam and no fixed plans in mind, we spent the first few days at Guwahati. It was my mum's first unplanned backpacking kind of trip with me, where we had no fixed travel plans and travel meant using the local buses, which wasn't always the most comfortable!! We were invited over for special bihu meals (had some really yummy food and sweets) by my parent's friends. The stay at Guwahati took me back to the growing up years-small towns,well planned british colonies with red cottages and huge gardens,and surrounding hills.We were staying in the Railway guest house there!! The primary reason for spending a few days at Guwahati was to visit ' Parijat Acadamey " . Parijat Academy, is a school for children of families with low income, living in Pamohi and three adjoining tribal hamlets on the outskirts of Assam's capital Guwahati. My mum had come across an article in the Outlook Mag in 2006 and we had been only,helping out financially ...

Meghalaya in Sanskrit means ' Abode of the clouds' . We reached Shillong on a really cold and wintery evening . We went there in search of clouds (though it wasn't monsoon time!!) and was lucky enough to catch it cloudy and misty . The trip to Meghalaya was more of a relaxing one . We checked into the Army Guest House , lined with a couple of nice cottages and relaxed after a bit of tough backpacking trip across Assam. I don't know how it works out but this happened to me for the 2nd time (the last time it was watching the French Open Final between Nadal and Federer at Krabi on my backpacking trip across SEA, the first TV access in 3 weeks) that I got to watch some wonderful tennis matches while traveling , not having read the newspaper or had TV access for couple of weeks and suddenly switching on the TV and Volla the floodlights were on !! Watched the semis and finals where the underdogs Novak,Tsonga overcame Federer and Nadal and my favourite Novak eventually tak...

One of my old favourite's:

On the last Friday of 2007,the new year weekend, I wanted to head out of the city to a quiet place away from the madding crowd, away from the media hype, away from the usual Bollywood music blasting all around that led me to ask around and found two of my team mates wanting to head out. We thought of going for a trek but the couple of options we thought of didn't seem feasible with the last minute decision and with no tents/bookings in hand. We took to the road in my good old car and headed to Hampi since I knew we could find some place to stay for sure with all the options available having spent my last year end there. On the way, we took a break for lunch at a Dhaba at Chitradurga. The drive on the NH from Chitadurga had stretches of windmills on top of the hills around and sunflower fields to give us company.We reached the river side just before Hospet in time for a beautiful sunset. Hampi : It was dark by the time we reached Hampi , after maneuvering through the dark and na...