Another life snuffed out. Another mistake. No accountability. No regards for safety. No comments from organizers. Minimal action from police. India surely is a free country isn’t it? Free to live, free to die even. When I saw the article regarding the Bungee Jumping event yesterday, I was thinking : “What if …. ?”. And then this article today.

If the organizers had decades of expertise in running the bungee jump event, then why was not the safety net in place? Is it too much of ask for safety? This clearly shows the level of maturity in organizing such events in India. Why do I  say India? Because I don’t hear such things happening too often in other countries. Why again? Simple – for them safety comes first. For us, the thrill and money comes first. Its time we sit back and think for ourselves, be it organizers of events, or people who take part in them. Whether this kind of unsafe cheap thrills are to be offered or taken. I think the future of our lives are in our own hands. To take mature decisions and stick by them. We have only one life and we have many more useful things to do in that life of ours. Not to forget to mention the people who depend on you – your family. They want to see you at home every evening. Not your dead body.

And remember something about today’s event: The death occurred because the guy fell on his head, but from JUST 50 feet above him. Its not even from the actual height at which the jump started. And remember another thing : In this unholy nexus of all people around us colluding to create these kind of unwanted consequences, its only in our hand that we have control over what we wish to do.

WHAT’S YOU SAY? LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS SECTION.

Was it real, or was it just me!? Well, I was still rubbing my eyes, but this cant be a joke. It was indeed real. My hotmail inbox just disappeared. Content, folders, settings everything for good. See for yourself.

This audacious provider even went to the extent of telling me I never had an inbox! So much for free email. Well it did happen with google once. But just once and they apologized heavily for the downtime encountered  by millions of users. But they just told their users, that accounts were locked and they had to unlock them due to the downtime. Not like MSN’s audacity. Now just imagine if your business relied on email providers like these. I do agree Email services have their downtimes. But what matters is the professionalism of the provider. And their data storage capabilities that will ensure that even if one server goes down the replica content from another would do its duty.

In my past ten years of email usage experience, I have only one provider to recommend wholeheartedly. FASTMAIL. This is a company started by two to three individuals and is now a reckoning force in email services. With far more facilities, (except ajax interface) than its counterparts, even at a price this service looks juicy enough for use.

So the next time your email inbox collapses, just hang on there for a few hours and it will all be back again to the same glory as any usual day!

The other day I managed to see this autorickshaw in front of me with the message written in Kannada

It reads thus:

and in english it means:

Going behind a girl will only get you agony,
(Hudugi hindey hodrey golu)
Going behind an auto will only get you lots of dust!
(Auto hindey hodrey dhoolu)

So now, which one will you go behind? 🙂
Tomorrow is fool’s day, make your choice!

Technorati : Bengaluru, autorickshaw, bangalore, blog, comedy, grafitti, kannada, karnataka

Central Bengaluru always is a misquoted terminology. No one knows what part of Bengaluru is central and what part is not. Some say its Majestic, some say its MG Road, some even say its Koramangala! So much for the skewed understanding. Nevertheless, I had to purchase an ultraviolet lamp, for medical reasons, and the only place it was available in Bengaluru was on BVK Iyengar road. So I set off on a rather unusual trip to a place I was walking around a lot about a decade and a half ago during my studies, and early career, when there were no MALLS around for fun and frolicking!

It was a rather hot afternoon, and I decided to go by bus. A decade of car driving had not only brought me loads of knee pain, but also made me totally dependent on the automobile and its services at all times, even to the nearby road. So this time bus it was to be. Boarded a rather rusty rickety BMTC blue bus and set off on my journey from Koramangala to Majestic only to halt two stops away for a good amount of time. It was noon and the driver jumped off the bus and went away with two empty bottles to fetch drinking water from a nearby temple. For the next ten minutes the same bus (171) cloned itself thrice and I missed all those simply because I had already paid for a ticket on this bus. The reason the bus would not move is because the driver feared that he would not meet the collection target for that journey. Don’t you think the transportation tracking has bettered itself over these years, that even drivers are now talking of collection targets? One can only sympathize with them on this fact. If commuters were to get five buses of the same route, one after the other, where must these drivers go to meet these targets? I can’t board all five buses at one time can I ? But this also spells progressive urbanization doesn’t it?

After a few arguments, and explaining to the driver not to waste our time, the rickety box started moving at snail’s speed. The hot sun was really killing everyone and without breeze it was like sitting inside a furnace. A decade of car driving seemed to have removed the notion of a bus from my mind. The best part though was the ticket cost – Rs.10 for about 10 kms. In these days of recession, this is awesome! Not to forget to mention you get entertainment on the way too. A guy sat next to me, and was all to himself. I just enquired about a couple of buses since I was doubtful where they were heading. That’s when I noticed the stench. Our man had boozed in broad daylight. But his answers were perfect, and he was still steady. People were toiling hard outside the IT industry as well.

I kept to myself and away from the stink when I noticed this young eunuch (more girlish) get into the bus from the rear, with a water pot. When she (for simplicity sake, i ll take the she route, now lets not debate whether ‘its’ not a ‘he’) saw that the bus was more or less empty, she was running from one seat to another, looking back and forth and giving that odd ‘Do you want something’ notorious smile. People were not pissed off either and let her do what she was good at – giving stares. Quite obviously her’s was a ticketless travel and the conductor dare not question that! Somewhere half way though she got down and the bus slowly reached my destination – a traffic signal after the actual bus stop – Mysore Bank.

For my ill luck the signal had gone green, and I had to do some stunts to jump off the moving bus. The last time I had tried anything like this was when I was in my first year engineering degree, where buses also overtook people walking. Now the situation was quite opposite. Both of them were lethargic, so it was a relatively easy job to get out. Enter BVK Iyengar Road – the familiar Abhinay theatre, the familiar KG Road, the traffic – the streaming people, the beggars and vendors on the footpath – everything was pretty much the same. The atmosphere of old Bengaluru was unfolding in front of my eyes. And I turned nostalgic almost instantaneously. Its never about a bus journey, its about the memories that follow such a journey.

I walked the entire stretch of this road, and turned left at some point into a smaller lane to reach a shop that I had to go to. My decade old car driving manners had also instilled in me a sense of expecting hi-fi things and the disappointment showed on my face. I must have tuned my mind to central Bengaluru before entering the place. The street I was on could barely accommodate three individuals standing next to each other. In other words, this was the width of the lane. And were there three individuals? Heck No! There were three hundred – a hundred individuals walking furiously, a hundred vehicles mazing their way in and out, and another hundred parked wherever there was a perception of space. There were shops everywhere selling everything electrical (for those who dont know, BVK Iyengar road, is for electrical stuff, just as much as SP Road is for electronics) and the shop dimensions were anywhere between 5ft x 5ft to 10ft x 15ft if nothing bigger – only smaller though.

This post will be continued …

Technorati Tags: central,bengaluru,bangalore,blog,karnataka,india,bvk iyengar road,abhinay theatre,electrical,shops,lighting,bmtc,bus,blue,parisara,vahini,koramangala,majestic,171,malls,forum,ultraviolet lamp,mysore bank,eunuch,recession,jobs,layoffs,sp road,avenue road

I had written an earlier post describing a short journey into Bengaluru Central. I continue that here. As I walked all along the really small lane, I could not help noticing that even in the din, there was silence, even in the dust there was life, even in the dinginess, there was space. For a moment, I looked up skywards, and found storey over storey of buildings. There were scores of pigeons living in harmony with the people doing business here.

The shop I went to was a small place. But business was brisk. There was a large portrait of the shop owners father who was no more and all business was transacted under him literally 🙂 I waited for 15 minutes after which my product was ready. Meanwhile a worker in that locality (or perhaps I must call him ragpicker) came over to the shop and begged for something to eat. I expected the shopkeeper to pay him a few coins and ask him to go away, but what touched me was instead that he gave the ragpicker a bun to eat. This was a daily routine. In a way is this not equivalent to sharing profits like our huge IT organizations do? Well maybe not exactly but its somewhere there.

As I started walking back to other shops, I could not help noticing scores of schoolchildren alight from a school van after their half a day of school was over. Sincerely I am dead against having school on Saturdays. I’ve enjoyed nearly ten years of weekend holidays in my life and I wish every school kid was also given this option. I searched high and dry for some juice or flavoured milk, but the summer heat did not permit me to find one so easily. So at the signal light I jumped on to a bus taking me to the main bus stand. Unfortunately since the conductor had closed the ticketing for that journey, he was unable to give me a ticket. And I was the rule violator of ticketless travel for the day. I jumped off the bus, before an inspector could catch hold of me.

Even before I could think, there was an air conditioned volvo welcoming me into its plush seats. Unable to bear the harsh heat, I just succumbed to the luxury. The return journey took me almost one hour with the bus twisting and turning at every possible junction. Finally the bus stopped about a kilometre away from my house and I found what I wanted – sugarcane juice. Frankly this tastes much more better and refreshing than even tender coconut and these days they also serve it in plastic cups for neatness. Six bucks a glass sounded like pre 1995 era, and I blissfully gulped down a glass of sugarcane. I still had to reach my house for which I decided to take another bus.

For a walk time of ten minutes, the bus seemed to take eternity to reach the same place. A couple who were college students were busy sharing their love for each other on the vestibule bus in full public glare, oblivious of the imminent audience. For the first time without argument, the conductor gave me a ticket in actuals. As I got down from the bus, the long hours spent in central Bengaluru were etched in my mind for sometime to come. Little did I realize I would have to traverse the same trajectory a week later only to bring back more old Bengaluru feelings within my mind!

I was trying to use Gmail video chat and knowing google, i expected it to be really easy to configure and use. But i was in for a rude shock as my browser did not support the active-X control that I need for using video over gmail. For those of you who are curious, my browser is K-Meleon – the worlds fastest literally beating opera to it.

So I decided to give it a shot until it worked and so went back to Illegal Explorer (oops! IE). I hated IE all my life, and it was a browser only designed for MS and its own sites to load properly from day one. However within minutes I got the gtalk video activeX installed on my system for IE. Great I thought now video would work, since it showed a nice little video icon against my name. But when I contacted prakash, my friend, video would not work for him! I got him to install the same activeX control on his system, and even after that it would not work! Both of us were using Illegal Explorer, both of us had the activeX installed, and yet gtalk video would not work.

But on one fine day, I clicked against his name, when both our icons showed video mode, and viola, I could see him instantly. Since that day, my webcam stopped functioning, and if its due to google, then I hate you folks for screwing up my webcam. While i am still struggling to get my webcam going, what the other friend of mine and me saw were just my photo to one side of the screen at the bottom for me and on the video screen for him.

So there you go, as of now its a thumbs down for Gtalk video for the setup ease, but for quality, nothing beats it!
DO YOU HAVE ANY SIMILAR EXPERIENCE TO SHARE? GIVE ME YOUR COMMENTS!

Today, I was thinking aloud whether to give this government less marks on its progress, when I was pleasantly surprised by this advertisement. It was regarding the railways and the karnataka government aligning to start off a road under bridge widening at Benniganahalli, on Old Madras Road. For those of you who dont know about this nightmarish hell, it is the place in Bangalore where most office goers (actually I must say millions of them) invariably waste about half an hour or more each morning just stalled in an impossible traffic jam which takes its own evil path to solve each day.

The crux of the matter was in the fact that this was a railway bridge going above the road, belonging to the railways, and was an important rail link between karnataka and tamil nadu. For the past two successive governments, this road was never widened, just due to very less political will on the matter. Of course where are politicians bothered about normal people like us? Or are they really. Well the current government harping on the development agenda has just proven that they are. And how serious they are at this.

How long did it take for an alignment to come through between the railways and the BBMP? Very few days actually. And boy, what music is it to my ears really! For one whole year, I had endured the Benniganahalli daymare (I changed my earlier word to suit the time it occurs!) praying that someone notice it. Take a look at the video showing the daymare here. There were also protests done for upgradation of this situation.

And finally BJP has taken initiative on this. In fact their splurge on Bangalore development is bound to strike the right chords with the scores of citizens who are benefitted by these measures. Now I dont really know or care how long this project takes. The ball has been set to roll. Thats all matters. I a while, I would be saving almost an hour each day taking this route and this is a really good thing in life.

So here’s wishing our CM good luck in this and his future endeavours.

Update: Here is an artist sketch showing how wide the road will now be and the view of the bridge as well!

Source: TOI, 24/2/09

Technorati : Benniganahalli, bangalore, bengaluru, beninganahalli, blog, bridge, city, cm, foundation stone, google, highway, infrastructure, k r puram, karnataka, kr puram, krishnarajapuram, maps, nh4, project, r velu, railway bridge, railway line, railways, road, road under bridge, salem, south western railway, widening, yediyurappa

So Mr. Mutalik – yea otherwise known familiarly by the name Sri Rama Sene head, thought he could do impressive stunts by bashing up a few pub going girls who went ‘against’ “their” culture, in Mangalore and according to him were dancing nude. So I am now wondering who was drunk on that day, to say the girls would have been dancing nude. Since when did India start having nude dancers and pub goers may I ask?

So to correct this ‘avmaan’ to mother india and mother karnataka, our man decides he will fondle them instead along with his goons. So he starts showing the ‘right’ karnataka culture? I remember that somewhere in Hampi is a kind of a semi-hideout reserved only for foreigners who indulge in drugs and whatever else they want to. Why should not Mr. Ram Sene try his luck in this place? Where Indians are not allowed!? Leave alone him getting scores of pink chaddis, he would probably come back in a chaddi himself.

That comment notwithstanding, many girls in Bengaluru and other places in Karnataka sent him pink chaddis, with love messages written one among which read “This stinks – perhaps its Mutlaik’s!”. And the Ram Sene were proudly photographing holding these chaddis in front of the camera. For what? To show how they fit in the ‘Indian’ culture? I also faintly heard and read that he planned to retaliate by sending the same people sarees to show them what Indian culture is, and after a while went back on that proposal and also did not do any protests in Bengaluru. Why? Is it because he ran out of money to buy sarees, or were the pink chaddis too many in number considering the current population of Bengaluru.

People of this state have learnt to vent their loser attitude in all such things as women going to pub and men working in IT and shit like this. Who said that only men should go to pub? Or for that matter even arrack shops? How many women have been rendered homeless because of such nataks? And how many women have converted their husbands to the right path? And not the other way round? So why generalize that every woman, and further every pub goer further who wants to celebrate Valentines day is considered against our culture.

Now the real point in all this crap of a discussion is the fact that Valentine’s day is a celebration which is out of Indian Culture – and I whole heartedly agree with this. It was never an Indian celebration – of love – or for that matter of hate or any other shit. But did we just realize that there are thousands of companies, who are commercializing on Valentines day gifts, flowers and other such artifacts for thousands of rupees each year? So why one rule for some and another rule for others? The point – love, drinks, gifts and valentines day – none of these are really related. I can always love, or drink, or gift (though I really dont celebrate 14th Feb), while others do all these more freely on 14th Feb. Why? Because there is a collective passion from the youth on this day. Whether to accept love or to reject it. Its just a fun time leading nowhere for no reasons.

Mr. Mutalik can actually work on other things that are bothering the state more now. Agreed he might have got some money from some party to malfunction this way – who knows might be from the BJP itself for all one knows. And he did get his 10 seconds of fame no doubt. But why did he pull Sri Rama into this controversy? Was it all required? Today the moral police and the media (in a way they both are the same is it not?) are ruling over us. Every decision we take, make or break is based on news and news only. Where has our inner conscious gone? To think what is not correct and what is for ourselves. If you are in a bad mood with your girlfriend and you want to make it up, and there is 14th Feb, why not? On the other hand, if you are a regular Bengalurean, and these things dont matter to you, any other day is vals day ! 🙂

Moral police of the story : Sri Rama would have hated it if he had seen Mutalik’s doings for today!

Technorati : 14th, 2009, bangalore, bengaluru, blog, chaddi, chowdry, dance, dancer, day, february, hampi, karnataka, mangalore, mangaluru, moral, mutalik, muthalik, pink, police, pramod, protest, pub, rama, renuka, saree, sene, shri, sri, valentines

Recently ICICI introduced their mini trading website more suited for browsing on the mobiles and handhelds. This is a smart addition by them to their already good trading website. Its more aimed towards low bandwidth users and according to me it suits this kind of sceanrio quite well. Here is the flyer talking about this feature:

And obviously you have to be well convinced about the ease of use of such an feature. So here is a demo of some screens for you to decide!

Obviously you can also trade with this simple menu system. Here are few screens which show that possibility

With this ICICI has unleashed yet another round of technology initiative by making trading more accessible over low cost devices like mobile phones and for low bandwidth users who dont have hi-tech broadband connections! But I fail to understand why or how a low bandwidth user will be so rich enough to trade in shares if he cant afford a decent net connection! well, jokes aside, in India, we are like that only! Anything is possible.

Technorati : and, anywhere, bandwidth, bangalore, bengaluru, blog, bombay stock exchange, broking, bse, data card, delhi, easy, equity, f & o, f&o, futures, gprs, hot, icici, icicidirect, india, kannada, karnataka, low, low bandwidth, mumbai, national stock exchange, nse, on the move, on-the-move, options, portfolio, quick, shares, site, stocks, trading

Today I had the chance to install the new Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 beta, which claims to be better than (of course!) version 7. While I was installing it, I could not help noticing this dialog box

Under the express settings, I noticed that they are suggesting you to set the search provider to Google. Now MS being the company they are, wont do this inadvertently. So have they now officially agreed to the growing reality that there is no one to beat Google with their searching techniques? Your guess is as good as mine! 🙂

Technorati : 8, Bengaluru, Blog, Explorer, IE, Internet, MS, Microsoft, bangalore, beta, browser, express, google, live, search, search provider, settings, technology