I wanted to put in this blog post long back, but something kept me from doing it. In the meanwhile my son has grown older and older and its really been a sweet time with him so long! The hammock has made many of the international travelers bask under the sun and sand and put them to sleep whilst they listened to the waves and the winds. In India, the Dhooli (Tamil) or Jooli (Kannada) has put thousands of babies to sleep regularly. The Dhooli is a simple saree cloth with both ends of the hammock tied to the same hook. Small babies are put to sleep within the enclosure thus created and this hammock can then be rocked to the far side and to the near side. This rocking motion instantly puts babies to sleep. The Dhooli also provides a cozy atmosphere for the baby to continue sleeping for long hours while at the same time perfectly balancing the baby with its center of gravity.

A few points to note if you use Dhoolis

• Always secure both ends of cloth well at the top
• Dont keep the bottom too high from ground, its not good for the baby
• Ensure your baby is fully inside (head, legs) so as to maintain a slightly raised position at head level and sloping towards the leg
• Ensure you wrap a mosquito net around the Dhooli to stop mosquitoes from going on
• Ensure you are alert to find out when the baby wakes up
• Dont use Dhoolis at night lest it becomes a habit, instead use them during the hot afternoons when kids arent so comfortable sleeping on the beds
• Stop using the Dhooli when the kid is as old as a year or more.

Technorati Tags: Life in Bengaluru, Technology, Dhooli, Jooli, Jholi, Jhooli, Kannada, Tamil, English, Bengaluru, Blog, Bangalore, Hammock, Saree, Baby, Sleep, Toddler, Infant, Gravity, Swing

I wanted to put in this blog post long back, but something kept me from doing it. In the meanwhile my son has grown older and older and its really been a sweet time with him so long! The hammock has made many of the international travelers bask under the sun and sand and put them to sleep whilst they listened to the waves and the winds. In India, the Dhooli (Tamil) or Jooli (Kannada) has put thousands of babies to sleep regularly. The Dhooli is a simple saree cloth with both ends of the hammock tied to the same hook. Small babies are put to sleep within the enclosure thus created and this hammock can then be rocked to the far side and to the near side. This rocking motion instantly puts babies to sleep. The Dhooli also provides a cozy atmosphere for the baby to continue sleeping for long hours while at the same time perfectly balancing the baby with its center of gravity.

A few points to note if you use Dhoolis

• Always secure both ends of cloth well at the top
• Dont keep the bottom too high from ground, its not good for the baby
• Ensure your baby is fully inside (head, legs) so as to maintain a slightly raised position at head level and sloping towards the leg
• Ensure you wrap a mosquito net around the Dhooli to stop mosquitoes from going on
• Ensure you are alert to find out when the baby wakes up
• Dont use Dhoolis at night lest it becomes a habit, instead use them during the hot afternoons when kids arent so comfortable sleeping on the beds
• Stop using the Dhooli when the kid is as old as a year or more.

Technorati Tags: Life in Bengaluru, Technology, Dhooli, Jooli, Jholi, Jhooli, Kannada, Tamil, English, Bengaluru, Blog, Bangalore, Hammock, Saree, Baby, Sleep, Toddler, Infant, Gravity, Swing

I was on my way to a function in Jayanagar this weekend, and my wife pointed out this hilarious hoarding at a shop in Jayanagar Shopping Complex. I could not help laughing at this

Its only a matter of time by when the moral police book this guy for his prostitutional racket of selling ladies and gents for just Rs.50 onwards, and for other brothels go up in arms for this guy to have ruined their business selling the same in thousands of rupees.This is called the “I too know English” effect !!

Technorati Tags: Life in Bengaluru, Technology, Jayanagar, Shopping, Complex, Bengaluru, Blog, Bangalore, Sale, Ladies, Gents, Rackets, Laugh, Joke, Drive, Karnataka

Well yes we have all heard this proverb over and over again and perhaps even used it on our friends and relatives while talking casually many a times. A fortnight back, I was the dog, and it was my dayI had been to the National Media Museum in Bradford to watch an IMAX movie called Lions3D : Roar of the Kalahari. After the movie, me and my friend were really hungry and after taking a couple of snaps (avaialble in my earlier post) at the museum, headed off to a nearby Pizza joint to have a huge big Marghareta pizza. We were so engrossed in eating the pizza and having a chat together that I understood my friend’s wife worked at the college where I studied. Continuing the discussion, the talk went on to cover all the lecturers we knew, and many things about the college itself. When our stomachs were full, we decided enough is enough for the day and left the pizza joint. On the way back to our hotel, about 5 miles away, I just sat in shock and sheer horror in the taxi as thoughts flashed in my mind.

I had forgotten to take my camera from the pizza joint, it was a sunday and there was no phone number of the joint with me, or any guarantee that the joint would be open even 30 minutes later or that he would have my camera stored for me. All I knew was that I was in deep soup having spent 500$ on that camera way back in 2003, and about 50$ more for a charger just 2 days back. The taxi took a U-turn and stopped at the museum. I just ran out of the taxi and up the road leading to the pizza joint. After some running, I noticed the shops ended there and there were no more ahead. Its when i really looked lost. I had actually lost my way and my mind. Somehow I gathered my wits and calculated and remembered the exact directions to the shop and found it finally. The door opened and I flew into the shop like a bird and perched on the counter crawing for my goods. The shop owner was considerate enough to have stored my camera for me, and you must have seen the relief on my face seeing my camera back in my hand.

Moral of the story : EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY!.

Technorati Tags: Life in Bengaluru, Bradford, Bengaluru, Blog, Bangalore, Saltaire, Uk, National media museum, Lions3d, Roar of the kalahari, Imax cinema, Pizza, Camera, Olympus c770UZ

Agreed. There has been no posts for sometime on this blog. Well all I can say is I have been COMPLETELY (read that 100% utilization) stressed out. I barely have time even to breathe, or sleep, or even talk to anyone, leave alone blog. There are many complex things happening in my life at the moment and I expect the storm to blow over by another fortnight. The only silver lining to the cloud is that I was away from all the chaos of Namma Bengaluru to a place called Shipley (Saltaire). This is a world heritage site which houses the company I work for, in an industrial mill (Salts mill). It was summer in england and it was really cool. (how about 3 degrees to 10 degrees?)

Saltaire is a village west of Yorkshire and is a self contained locality with peaceful environs. I returned within a week to Bengaluru through an Air france flight. The flight by itself was graceful, but the airport had lots of surprises for me. No security checks on luggage, all staff resigned and joined BIAL. Two conveyor belts of which one was not working and people were sitting on it, a billion mosquitoes all around and to add to that a night temperature of 28 degrees. Imagine a 1 hour exit time, a 1 hour luggage delay and a 30 minute traffic jam at midnight. Welcome to Namma Bengaluru.

I leave you with this short post and some photos of Bradford, Saltaire and Bankfields hotel where we stayed in!

Its time for ushering in the new year for the Hindus – Ugadi

Its time to forge new relationships, renew older ones and enjoy the new year ahead with new challenges ahead.

So here’s the bevu (neem leaves)

and here is the bella (jaggery)

(image courtesy : www.nandyala.org)

and here is the significance of UGADI as told by B K Padma to virtualbangalore.com)
Wish you all a very happy UGADI readers!

Technorati Tags: Life in Bengaluru, Ugadi, Bangalore, Bengaluru, Blog, Bevu, Bella, Neem leaves, Jaggery, Brahma, Ganesha, Subrahmanya, Shiva, Spiritual, Hindu, Kannada, Kannadiga, Festival, New year, Lunar, Almanac, Calendar

Yesterday I was a bit annoyed and frustrated with my office work and I was driving back home without any interest in reaching home as such. When I was at the Marathahalli junction, I remembered my discussion earlier in the day about a Canon Pixma All-in-one Printer that I was about to buy. Since Staples was just around the corner, and I had not investigated () the shop yet, I thought let me stop over and check out how I could burn down 10000 bucks as soon as possible.

I did manage to get car parking there and I entered the shop. I must say I was really feeling pleasant to find finally that our city did have a comprehensive stationary shop such as Staples. The items themselves were neatly arranged, with a lot of variety and there were atleast 3-4 salesmen to assist you with what you want, although I found that as being pushy with me.

I can go on and on with the way the items are arranged, the sheer number of items etc, but I prefer to just say here that you will surely not be feeling bad that you went there. In fact you would be pleasantly surprised.

In the given 20 minutes that I stayed there, I wanted to make a decision on the printer and a laptop. This in essence is what I wanted to buy.

Image courtesy : Canon Hong Kong

The street price of this all in one is Rs.7,500/- + taxes, but at Staples, I am getting the same offering at Rs.6,500, which is a cool deal. We did have a discussion at our office on the pros and cons of HP versus Canon for printers, and concluded that HP is putting in its development costs into the printer, while Canon sounded more reasonable for the same set of features. But I however ran into one problem buying this yet : My wifey! She was waiting with a gun at my home to shoot me if I ended up with this printer, mainly because of very less space at home to keep such things. So I gave up on buying it at the moment and will look into buying this next month.

I however could not stop myself from buying this – a fully rubberized, water proof, dust proof, noise proof, bend proof, usb keyboard from Enter Multimedia. I was not exactly convinced about this yet, when I saw it, but I am a person who encourages technologies such as this.

One look at this keyboard made me lap it up for just Rs.450/- ($11). Move over the great Samsungs, Logitechs, here is a new innovative, young company called Enter Multimedia which has done the most needed thing to keyboards. It does take a little time getting used to this keyboard, but once done, you are gonna love this cute thing! Open it to work, close it to go to sleep, pretty neat isn’t it ?

Child proof, spill proof, dust proof, bend proof, water proof, noise proof, need I say more? My child now sleeps in peace, while I work in peace. Both of us are not disturbed by each other.

My sincere request to technology product creators : Think, and Ease out our life with your products dudes!

Technorati Tags: Life in Bengaluru, Technology, Staples, Marathahalli, Enter multimedia, Samsung, Logitech, Keyboard, Rubber, Foldable, Waterproof, Dust proof, Noise proof, Canon pixma mx308, All in one, Printer, Scanner, Copier, Fax, Hong kong, India, Bengaluru, Bangalore, Blog, HP, Officejet, Wonderbox, Products, Technology

Finally I found some time to write about the new E-Stamping technique that has been introduced on a pilot basis in Bengaluru for preparing legal agreements for sale and rental of properties and many other instruments. The entire article detailing this is available here.

So one would like to know what exactly is the difference between the old method and the new method of stampings. And why in the first place is the stamp paper required itself. For starters, the stamp paper is a document that is franked with the government seal on the top of the page, which in essence signifies the legality of a certain instrumental transaction like for eg., that involving a sale or agreement etc. This used to be supplied by the government to the registrar’s offices and some stipulated banks like State Bank of Mysore used to sell it to customers. This was until a few days back. Now no more do these banks stock these bond papers as they are called. And you may not even get it in the registrar’s offices anymore.

Firstly one has to understand that the government of Karnataka has now shifted over to the e-stamping mechanism which in essence means that these franked papers are no more used from now on. Earlier there were many touts who used to procure these bond papers and make a killing by selling them at a premium to customers. This led to mega scams like the Telgi stamp paper scam, more about which you can read here and understand. This scam alone led to a 30000 crore rupee loss to the government of Karnataka which is much more than any politician even could amass in terms of ill gotten wealth.

The government of Karnataka finally woke up and has ushered in an e-stamping mechanism now whereby a company by name Stock Holding Corporation of India Limited are the official vendors of E-stamps from now on. This essentially means that you go to them now, put in all details of why you need an e-franked bond paper, give your address details, contact details, PAN numbers, property details, rental / sale details, and sale/rental value details etc. There are a multitude of things for which this mechanism can be used from now on. To know more about this company and the things you can use their services for, click here and to get the list of things you can use the estamps, click here.

Old and new Stamp paper formats – an illustration

The best thing about this approach is that SHCIL as a company will take care of taking money from you for the bond papers and stamps related instruments, and directly remit it to the government and they will create a unique franking with a unique ID generated for each transaction which is accountable at any time and can be traced to the participating parties always with the PAN numbers. And hopefully the Telgis of the new era might have to come up with something more sophisticated than this to cheat the government. So before I end this post, I am proud to say I used this method and feel more happy, satisfied and confident that my money is legitimately going to the government instead of to a tout.

The directions to the office of SHCIL I went to is in Koramangala is given in a map here for reference sake. They work between 10am and 5pm only between Monday and Friday and are closed for the two weekend days.

Technorati Tags: Automobiles, Property matters, Karnataka, Government, Bengaluru, Blog, Bangalore, E-stamp, Estamp, Bond paper, Franking, Franked sheet, Agreement, Sale, Legal, Stock holding corporation of india, Shcil, State bank of mysore, Mysuru, Telgi scam, PAN, Koramangala, Map

The past week has been wet, chilly, cold and typical Old Bangalore like. With a cyclone in Tamil Nadu, whether they got cauvery water or not, we got a lot of their rain water. So much so that there has been about 200-300 crores of loss in Tamil Nadu and Kerala because of rains during the wrong time (agriculture affected). Fantastic plans for a weekend just went bust for most of the Bangaloreans. I happened to do YOGA on top of my terrace early morning in the chillness and quite obviously starting sneezing a thousand times immediately thereafter. But my three months of exercise miraculously made my cold vanish within 2 hours even without medicine. Now this is called immunity isnt it ?

Rain Rain Went Away …..

Never Came Again Another Day !

Its back to summer as usual. So the hot days are set to continue again until May or June when monsoon begins and whole city cries for its water logging. In another related incident or news, the road above the Magic Box near BDA collapsed just for this rain. Now the BBMP is in for more flak during monsoons. One wonders if the ride to the new airport will really be so smooth!

Your guess is as good as mine.

Technorati Tags: Life in Bengaluru, Bengaluru, Blog, Bangalore, Magix box, Rains, Chennai, Tamil nadu, Weather, Cyclone, Yoga, Fever, Flu, Bad cold, Water, Kerala, Crop loss, 100 crores, Community, Immunity, Agriculture, Outer ring road, Bmtc, Bbmp, Underpass, Monsoon, Karnataka