Piyush's space

KritiKal shining..

2009-03-17T16:28:00.003+05:30

The year has been great for our sister firm, KritiKal SecureScan, which is making news everywhere.

In February we won the NASSCOM Innovation award for the year 2008 (related news here). It was a moment of pride for the entire team of VehiScan as well as for the KritiKal family. I have spent more than two years on this product so it was a special feeling for me to be awarded for my efforts.

Then CNBC TV 18 covered our company in their series "Young Turks Innovators" which was our first media coverage on television. (Youtube video). The video shooting team of CNBC was at our site in IIT and also came to our office in Noida. It was in fact funny the way they were shooting the entire video but when I saw the video I was highly impressed by those people.

And today there is an article on rediff.com. (click here)

KritiKal rocks !!

Income Tax benefits of EMI on houses under construction

2009-02-05T16:15:00.005+05:30

Let me first explain the scenario before actually getting into the details of the procedure. You have bought a house. You took home loan for that and every month you pay an EMI towards repayment of that loan. The house is still under construction so you do not have the possession letter for that house. In your EMI, there are two components - Interest and Principal. In the early stages of repayment, the interest part is huge and the principal part is very less. You can avail tax benefits on both the components separately. There is an upper cap of 1 lacs for the principal component and another slab of 1.5 lacs for the interest component. The catch is that for the interest component, you need to have the possession of the house before you could avail any benefit on the interest paid.

Now the problem statement: How do we get the benefit on this huge amount of interest that we are paying every year when we do not have the possession of the house.

Solution 1: WAIT till you get the possession of the house. Suppose you started your EMIs in August, 2008 and you get the possession of the house in January, 2012. That means for the year 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 you could not avail any tax benefit on the interest component while in 2012 you would get a benefit on a maximum of 1.5 lac towards interest of your EMI.

Do this:

Add the interest paid by you all these years, i.e. Interest in 2008 + Interest in 2009 + Interest in 2010 + Interest in 2011.
Say the total Interest comes to I
Now divide this into 5 equal parts -> I/5 = I_part

According to the rule books, you can avail income tax benefit on this whole amount of I_part for 5 consecutive years since the year of possession, over and above the 1.5 lac slab for your interest component for the current financial year.

Hence in year 2012, you get full benefit on I_part + benefit on a maximum of 1.5 lacs for the interest paid in 2012.

And the same continues for the year 2013,2014,2015,2016

Solution 2: Consult a lawyer. Usually the CAs do not allow anyone to avail any benefit on the interest part without having the possession of the house. They do so because they are not supposed to break or even bend the rules that have been set by our government. In such a case, the lawyers have a different opinion. They say that when you are paying so heavily without even having the possession of the house, then why should you not get the benefit. (it actually makes sense too) The rule needs to be modified. And they have their own legal ways in which they get the refunds for you while filing your IT returns for that financial calendar. You just have to provide them your Form 16 and the total interest you have paid (and other related documents and stats as asked by the lawyers).

The first solution is obviously better since you get the benefit on the entire amount instead of a cap of 1.5 lacs. But it takes time. So if you are under a financial crunch, get a lawyer to file your IT returns rather than your accountant doing so for you. The lawyer will obviously charge you for that, but then he is also on a job, no social work :P

I opted to wait :)

The Smiling Moon

2008-12-04T19:42:00.006+05:30

I was in IIT Delhi on 1st December evening preparing for a very important demo scheduled for the next day. And as I looked up in the sky to see how dark it had already become before 6, I noticed this awesome event, a gesture by the mother nature. The moon had a very thin crescent and just above it were two planets (Jupiter and Venus) at two corners of the crescent. The three heavenly bodies made a figure which we call a "smiley" :). I loved the view and wanted to reach home as soon as possible so that I could capture this moment forever. Unfortunately, till the time I reached home, the sky was already filled with fog and the trio was nowhere to be seen. I was very disappointed.

Today when I came home, the crescent of the moon had grown in these two days and the planets were still visible. Only the planets were lying somewhere else and the moon was stationed somewhere else. Suddenly an idea struck me. I thought of taking the pictures of both the planets and the moon and then aligning them in GIMP to get a picture similar to the smiling moon which happened just a couple of days ago. And I did exactly that :) Captured the moon and the planets with the same camera settings and then placed everything (had to scale down the planets photo) to get what I was desperate to capture since the time I witnessed it. Wallaah !! I did it :) Though, it would be termed fake and I would have to live with it :(, yet I have the satisfaction that by hook or by crook, I did make the moon smile once again.

Yellow dew

2008-09-25T17:04:00.001+05:30

For more photographs: http://www.flickr.com/photos/abeerarts/

Tree plantation drive

2008-09-22T11:45:00.002+05:30

A few KritiKal-ites had volunteered for the tree plantation drive which was organized by a social organization named “Kalpavriksha” in Mayur Vihar phase 1 at Sahyog Apartment park on 20th September. All of us had to assemble at the Sahyog Apartments at 8am. Prachi had come all the way from Lajpat Nagar, Delhi. The remaining of us (Meetu, Rana, Madan and I) were in Noida from different sectors. Madan had come to my house in sector 15 at 7am from where we decided to walk till the venue. We had entered Mayur Vihar by 7:30 but it took us half an hour to locate where exactly was Sahyog Apartments. Even the rikshaw pullers had not heard the name. I called up Prof. Prabhakar Rao and he asked me to locate Supreme Apartments and the venue was just in front of it. To my relief, people did know Supreme Apartments and one man who was on his morning walk guided us well. Madan and I finally reached there by 8:10 am. Prachi and Pradipta had already reached there. Rana was on his way and Meetu had already notified us that she would be late since she had another meeting to attend in the morning. There were a couple of more people till then. Later many more kept joining us from time to time.

There were around 50 shrubs and trees which we planted together. It was a great experience. So many strange faces around and all of us working together for a good cause. Pradipta had hurt himself while digging and was bleeding but his enthusiasm had overpowered everything else. He applied the soil on the wound and just carried on with the job. A very old lady (70+) who was there for her morning walk kept asking us if she could help us in anyway. In-fact everyone around there seemed to be motivated by the sight of people planting trees all over, covered in mud and soil. It was funny how Prachi attended a phone call. She took out her handkerchief, wrapped it on her hands and then tried pulling out her cellphone from the pocket :) Everyone gathered after planting all the trees. I was really surprised to know it was 10:30. I never realized I had spent more than 2 hours there. Finally Professor Rao thanked everyone for turning up and we thanked him for giving us such an opportunity and also asked him to let us know of any such future events as well. Then we had a brief introduction session and then finally all of us dispersed.

Pradipta took leave and the remaining of us (Meetu, Prachi, Rana and I) headed for Guruvayurappan Temple. Its a beautiful temple maintained by the local Tamilians there. The actual motivation behind visiting the temple was the food stall outside the temple. All of us were hungry and we thought that its some kind of a “langar” where they were distributing “wada and dosa”. But Meetu, Prachi and Rana suggested that we first visit the temple and then eat something. So all of us went to the temple, prayed for a while and came out. The food stall was no “langar” but that did not deter us from attacking at the stall. All of us ate like we had not eaten in ages :) And the food was too good. Madan himself being a south indian testified that it was one of the best south indian food he had eaten in a long time.

It was a very tiring but a satisfying exercise for all of us. I finally reached home at 11:45 am, took a bath and slept till late afternoon. The experience was great, though I am not that good at words to express what it was like. I had a great time and I look forward to getting more such opportunities in future.

Change your point of view

2008-07-18T15:18:00.002+05:30

Wrote this long back ...

Yet another day gone
As the same thoughts passed by,
Does HE even care for me ?
I had a thousand reasons to cry.

Walked past a noisy traffic,
Tired I was like hell !!
How long will I have to wait for the bus ?
I wish if some one could tell.

The bus did come and I pushed myself in.
Packed till the eyes could see
Just then I locked eyes with a man,
Smiling so broadly at me.

Was there really something so amusing ?
I was finding that gesture too rude ..
Was he laughing at my misery or had we ever met before ?
That's all a negative mind could conclude

"Ohh GOD !! was I going to curse this man ?"
As if the sky fell on my head !!
He had taught me an important lesson,
With not a single word said.

On one end there was me, STANDING
Frowning for having no seat.
And on the other end was this man, SEATED
Though to stand, he had no feet !!

There were a hundred new thoughts,
Now running through my mind.
How wrong I was to call HIM rude,
When actually to me, HE had been so kind.

With so much pain all around,
Yet people manage to smile.
Is there really a scope for complaints,
Even if I had to walk a mile ?

So next time on a rough day,
When life comes hard on you.
You'll still have plenty to smile about,
Just change your point of view.

~Piyush.

RupeeMail

2008-06-27T09:30:00.001+05:30

An email that pays you for signing up with them :) Try it out.

batch watermarking using convert command in Linux

2008-06-25T22:18:00.006+05:30

Imagemagick is a very handy tool in linux to do a whole lot of things with images like cropping, resizing, frames, borders, watermark, compositing multiple images, etc. And with an easy to understand command line interface, it becomes easier to write a small shell script which could process images in a batch mode. I keep taking a lot of snaps and I want all the images to be watermarked with "Abeer Arts" and a nice frame around the picture to add to its beauty. I had a software called "Batch Watermarker" in Windows but the executable got corrupted with some virus (Windows sucks !!!) and I had already accumulated a huge backlog of images to be watermarked. Then I switched to linux mode and did a little bit of searching on google for watermarking with imagemagick library and finally wrote a small shell script which makes a frame around the image and also puts a text watermark. Here is the script:

if test -d $1
then
  for f in $(ls $1 | grep .jpg)
  do
    echo $f
    convert $f -font Gentium-Regular -pointsize $2 -draw "gravity southeast fill black text -5,12 'Watermark text' fill white text 0,5 'Watermark text'" $f
    convert -mattecolor black -frame 15x15+5+5 $f $f
    convert +raise 30x30 $f $f
  done
fi

$1 -> first command line argument giving the directory location containing the images
$2 -> pointsize which defines the size of the watermark text over the image

I kept the name of the script "abeerify" ;) To run the script, copy the scipt to /usr/bin and change the permissions to 755. Then on command prompt type:

/> abeerify folderpath 65
where 65 is the font size for the watermark text.

The Qutub Minar

2008-06-25T17:02:00.004+05:30

Went to Qutub Minar with relatives last weekend and badly missed my digital camera. The plan was made randomly and nothing was planned otherwise I would have definitely brought my camera along with me. Anyway, cellphone comes handy at such situations and I managed to click a few snaps. The reflection of minar in the glass could have been much better with the digital camera.

Software Analyst to Senior Design Engineer ..

2008-06-06T06:41:00.004+05:30

Monday, 6th June, 2005 was the day I started my professional career at KritiKal Solutions, IIT Delhi (now based in Noida). I had done an internship in GE Bangalore so I was kind of used to the corporate environment but life in a startup is different and difficult. I still very distinctly remember my first day in office which was more like a computer lab than any office. I had been alloted a system but there was no chair at my desk for me. Kapil, our then BD Manager (now the CEO of KritiKal SecureScan) smiled at me and said, "You might have to search for a chair for yourself here, Welcome to KritiKal Solutions !". I was ready for the journey ahead. Our office in IIT Delhi incubation unit was a very small room where 8-10 people used to sit and then there was an embedded systems "laboratory" upstairs of almost the equal size. The strength of the company was around 15-20 people then. Now we are around 65-70 from both our offices (KSPL and KSS). The head count is still less for a company which is 6 years old now. 3 years in my first company... is it an achievement ? a milestone ? I don't know. But definitely, its a gr8 feeling to be associated with KritiKal for so long. Many people joined and left the company, we shifted to new offices, started a product company (KritiKal SecureScan), I have seen it all. And I continue to deliver and put all my efforts to take KritiKal to new heights. KritiKal has been my passion since the time I joined. I do have complaints too, but then, matters of the family are not mentioned in public ;)

Its been a great experience working in KritiKal. There are always risks associated with a startup. But the growth as a professional is immense and very fast. There are various other responsibilities apart from your coding. Interviews, counsellings, client meetings, demonstrations, project management, team management, organizing and managing events, I have learnt so much in these 3 years at KritiKal.

When I left Hyderabad, it was a tough emotional decision for me to shift to north. My best friends were all in Hyderabad. In fact, even my school friends who were close to me had got jobs in Mumbai, Bangalore and Pune. Initially it was difficult for me to stay so far away from my friends. We formed a cultural club - KalaKriti at KritiKal where some of the more culturally active members of the company took responsibility of organizing various events in the company from time to time. While preparing for the annual day celebrations of 2007 together as a team, I got an opportunity to know my colleagues better personally. That was a great thing to have happened. That was the time when I became friends with a lot of people in KritiKal. Our annual day for 2008 is just round the corner and its time we all geared up once again for a lot more masti and fun :)

I could go on writing and the words would never stop coming. I just want to thank each and every person at KritiKal (past and present , KSS and KSPL) for making my stay such a wonderful experience at the company so far. 3 years .. oops .. 3 cheers to KritiKal !! :)

Copying files in C++

2008-05-29T13:14:00.004+05:30

Long time no blogging ! :)

I wanted to copy the contents of one file to another file in C++ in my project and was looking for the most easiest and convenient way of doing it on the net. Finally zeroed in on the following way (found it on some other blog):

#include <fstream>

using namespace std;

int main()
{
    ifstream inFile("input.txt");
    ofstream outFile("output.txt");

    outFile << inFile.rdbuf();

    return 1;
}

Trip to my village

2008-04-15T10:47:00.002+05:30

Went to my village Vijaygarh (not the Chandrakanta fame) last weekend (12th and 13th April). Its near Aligarh and it took me 5 hrs from Noida to reach the village. Sunday early morning I went for a walk with my camera to capture the pure beauty of the village, its people, fields, etc. Below are some of the snaps (click here to go to picasa album).

Hrishikesh trip snaps

2008-04-10T10:31:00.000+05:30

Hrishikesh Trip - Day 2

2008-04-08T09:53:00.010+05:30

Day 1 - 5th April

Day 2: 6th April
Day 1 had been a great experience already and with white water rafting, body surfing and cliff jumping still in store for the 2nd day, I was sure it was going to be even better that yesterday.

My first open air toilet experience
Though I had put an alarm of 5am, I woke up on my own at 4:45am. And as was expected, as soon as I woke, I had an intense urge to empty myself as quickly as possible. Took some tissue papers, a lantern, and a water bottle and started walking in search of a "suitable" location :) On my way I also met Phani and Chachaji who were also awake early for the same purpose. They did not have a water bottle with them, thanks to Nehul that he had kept one filled bottle in our tent before sleeping. Anyway, I was over with everything by the time Phani and Chachaji found a bottle for themselves and I was very glad that everyone was still asleep and I was already free and relaxed and ready to take on rafting with full energy :)

Breakfast
By 6 am, 4-5 people had woken up. I had taken out my camera to click some snaps of the surroundings. We did not see the sunrise due to high mountains all around but we were glad to see that it was going to be a nice clear day free of any water logged clouds. I took a lot of snaps before breakfast. And since Chachaji was also with me, he made sure that his photographer (me) had enough work to do on his model (chachaji). Breakfast was served around 7am. There was "aloo poori", "bread butter" and "omlette" for breakfast. I had my breakfast sitting near a cliff seeing the silver water of ganga flowing with full vigor. The sunlight that was falling on the river water and also on the wet rocks had made it look like silver jewelery and pearls all around it.

Two buses had been arranged to take us to Shivpuri from where we were to start our rafting. Nehul and I started the task of emptying the camp and sending everyone to get on the bus as soon as possible. The Innova driver was another character. When all the ladies (some with their kids too) had to go till the main road which went through some tiring and rough path, the driver had his own weird reasons not to take them in his vehicle. We had asked him to at least take the ladies in his car while the boys would come on their own. That time he said that his vehicle will get damaged going up and down this rocky road. But later he got into Innova, collected some guys whoever were still in the camp and left for the main road above.

Anyway, we reached Shivpuri where we were briefed about the adventure and risk involved in rafting. We were given some instructions that we had to follow while rafting and we also got the rafting gear (life jacket, helmet and a paddle).

Rafting
The rapids in the river were graded from 1 to 6+. A 6+ grade rapid meant a waterfall and only professionals were allowed to get into such a rapid. The max grade rapid we were to face was grade 4 (Golf Course rapid and Roller Coaster rapid). Our raft captain had warned us for the worst and also told us what to do in case of the raft turning upside down. We first had a warmup rowing in still water before we started for the BIG THING. In my raft we were 8 of us plus our captain. Deepak, Smitha, Ramakant ji, Panthri, Phani, Nehul, NS and me. Smitha was made to sit in the middle while the rest of ur were on the periphery of the raft with paddles in our hands. The first rapid was a grade 2 rapid and still I was a little scared but more excited about it. When I saw the raft just in front of us go through the rapid, I was like W.O.W. its gonna be fun. And then finally our raft went into the rapid too. And our trainer used to shout "Bolo ganga maiyya ki ...." and we all shouted in unison .. "Jai" .. this happened everytime we plunged into a rapid. And the experience was great. The huge waves try to push you and your boat to the other side so its very important to have a balanced seating on both sides of the boat. That is why on the right side of the raft were Nehul, NS and me (Nehul and Me are on the heavier side) while the left hand side was occupied by Deepak, Panthri, Phani and Ramakant ji. When we passed the first rapid, we all were excited and charged up to face the second one which was a grade 4 rapid. The grade 4 rapid had created a wall in front of our raft at one point. At that time our raft was surrounded by waves on 3 sides - right, left and front. But we emerged winners as did all other rafts too :) Once all the major rapids were crossed, our trainer asked us to jump in the river if we wanted to. And as if all were waiting for his instructions. Except for Smitha, we all jumped into Ganga and floated with the boat for quite a long time. That was a great experience too. Floating in the river and admiring the nature all around. It was splendid. NS is very particular about cleanliness and so Smitha and I had a great time pestering him while he was in water. Specially Smitha, she used to shout that she can see something dirty floating and coming towards NS and he used to feel disgusted and jump inside water and shout that someone please get me back on the boat. That was real fun. We also played another prank with NS while on raft. NS had switched places with Smitha so now he was in the middle facing the river. AT one point our captain just jumped into the water since he was feeling the heat. We all shouted to NS, "look our captain has suddenly fallen into the river and is nowhere to be seen.". And we all gave an award winning performance there on the raft. The expression on NS' face was worth capturing. he was all scared and confused about the future of the raft and his own future. I sm still laughing while I write this incident. No doubt why we call NS "pups". He IS too cute. When we all were assembled at the starting point I wanted to get on a raft with people of my choice. People I enjoy most with. But I am glad to mention here that I enjoyed a lot with my team while rafting. All 8 of us had great fun. And that is why we call it a team exercise. Its all about putting up a combined effort with your team no matter how close or stranger you are to each other. Nothing matters once you are on the raft. It was a great experience for me.

Cliff Jumping
Just two rapids away from our camp (by now I am used to measuring the rafting journey distance in terms of rapids), there was a halt where people were jumping from a 20-22 ft high cliff into the river below. It was a kindof short trek to reach till the cliff. And there was a huge line of people till the foot of the cliff waiting for their turn. All this while I kept thinking should I do this or not. I asked NS whether he knew how to swim, and he said he didn't and yet he was heading towards the cliff top eagerly. That somehow encouraged me too and I simply followed him till the top. Just before me was Rashid who went till the edge of the cliff and then couldn't jump at that time due to fear. As he turned back I got a little scared as to what lied ahead. The trainer also shouted angrily, "Jinko darr lagta hai woh na aaye yahaan" (Those who are scared should not come till the cliff). He used to count till 3 after which we had to jump. I could hear people shouting from everywhere, "Don't look down, just look in the front and jump". Right after Rashid was my turn. Even after everyone asking not to look down I just couldn't help but look down right into the depth and the water below. The trainer started counting 1...2...and without waiting for a "3" to come, I just jumped. Before I hit the water, I had closed my eyes. And within 3-4 seconds I was floating in the water. I opened my eyes, looked around, and whoa !! I was alive :) I looked at the cliff from where I had jumped and I could see Rashid giving a second try. And I screamed from there, "Rashid sir, kood jao, kuchh nahin hoga" (Rashid sir, just jump, nothing would happen).

But the adventure was not over for me. People after jumping from the cliff were getting back on the ground and heading towards their rafts. I thought why get back on the ground. Since I am floating and there is a line of rafts till my raft at a distant corner, I will just float till my raft taking support from the rafts in between. Nice idea and I was enjoying floating from one raft to another in water till I saw a huge gap between the current raft and mine. Before I could think of anything, the flowing water had already thrown me right at the center of the river. By now I was in the middle of the flowing river, far away from both the sides. I shouted "Hello, Help!" in dispair. My friends saw me and they told me (later) that since I was smiling they thought that I know swimming and that I am enjoying there in the middle of the sea. But soon they realised that I am actually in trouble. There was a grade 2 rapid some 60-70 meters away. Rohit threw a rope towards me but it could not reach me since I had reached too far from the raft. I just told myself there is no way I can drown since I am wearing a life jacket. All I have to do is swim till my raft. I started flapping my hands like a bird and easily swam till my raft. Thankfully the current of water was not forceful enough and I did not have to apply too much force to my flapping to cut through the river. I was infact very happy that I could handle this situation with a cool head.

We again got back on the raft, went through our last rapid named "Thank you, good bye" and reached our camp. There we played in the water for some more time. We also played a game of holding our breath inside water. And Anoop was just too good at that. I always came second. Others used to come out of water very soon and the competition was always left between Anoop and me. But Anoop had to be pulled out of water everytime otherwise he seemed quite cozy inside :)

After playing there in water, I got back to my tent, dried up and changed. Lunch had been served. All were looking fresh even after a grueling session of rafting. I had a heavy lunch and then by 3pm we all left the camp and headed towards the bus stand where the bus was waiting for us.

Back Home
Everyone fell asleep in the bus since all were tired. Had our dinner at Cheetal and then we again regained some energy. Chatted a lot and reached office by 11:30. It was a great trip and the hangover is still not gone even after 3 days. The photographs have come out too good and will soon upload all the photographs and also put some pics in this article as well.

Hrishikesh Trip - Day 1

2008-04-08T07:32:00.007+05:30

The entire KritiKal family went for a trip to Hrishikesh for rafting/camping/trekking last weekend (5th and 6th April). We had a great time and therez so much to write. I will try to summarize it as briefly as possible yet covering the entire trip :)

Boarding the bus
The bus was to start at 4:00 am "SHARP" as mentioned in the mail to us. The assembly point was KSPL office. And what was surprising to see was that none of the KSPL junta was there at 4:00 am while all the people from KSS were dot on time. By 4:30 am, everyone from KSS was there while I could see only 3-4 people from KSPL. Anyway, the bus finally started at around 5:30am from the office. We were in total 49 people and we had a bus and an innova with us. 7 people got into Innova and from there on they stayed in Innova for the entire trip. In the bus we were 42 people and a lot of mastee was in store for us :)

The journey till Hrishikesh
Everyone was bubbling with energy in the bus. As always, I preferred being a back bencher. There was Nehul, Panthri, Prayas(g), Vaibhav, Joy, Charu, Neha, Pam, Jignes, Rana, Phani and me. We kept cracking jokes and narrating funny incidents to each other. Nt and Apoorva were seated somewhere in the middle of the bus but the energy that was being transmitted from our gang at the back forced them to join us too :D And then suddenly we started remembering the most "Thakele" (idiotic/crappy) songs of bollywood and it was real fun to sing those songs. The winning song (crappiest of them all) was "Tu mera superman, Main teri Lady...Ho gaya hai apna pyaar already" .. lol. Still we were missing one person greatly there in our sabha. It was our beloved CHACHAJI who was busy listening to songs on his mp3 player. But soon enough he joined us too. And as is famous for chachaji (petrol khatam hi nahin honda hai), we did a lot more bakar, a lot more tp and a lot more singing of crappy songs. Infact chachaji came up with a "war of the DJ's" performance with his "Gutar Gutar" feat songs. lol. Every song we sang was remixed by chachaji on the fly in real time. After producing enough noise (sort of music), we switched to some solo performances. Joy's sister had a lovely voice so we started with her. Then it was my turn. Pam volunteered on her own after my song and boy she sings really well. That was a surprise element for me. She sang "Lambi Judai" and it was very close to the original. Then we requested for another song from her. I requested Wasim bhai also to sing a song and he sang a very melodious old number and he sang it too well. But the star performer for that hour was our own "funny" .. errrr .. Phani. We first asked him to sing a song. When he agreed, we made him sit in the center so that he was surrounded by all of us. And just when he had finished deciding upon a song, all of us started chanting the Hanuman Chalisa (Now you have to meet two basic requirements to understand the connection between Phani and Hanuman Chalisa and only then can you actually enjoy this incident. One, you have to be a KSPLite and two, you have to be one among our gossip gang which I cannot reveal since its an undercover group which is active all the time). Anyway, so Rana, Apoorva and Nehul sang the entire 7-8 minutes hanuman chalisa that too looking straight into Phani's face. And the look on Phani's face was worth watching :D And in between he tried joining everyone in singing the chalisa but whenever he tried that, he saw everyone was staring at him and he used to stop. The whole episode was too much fun and i was literally on the floor laughing.

We stopped at a restaurant named "Cheetal" in between which was a beautiful place but very crowded since it had self service. Except for the eating area, the entire place was beautiful filled with flowers all around. Had our breakfast there, clicked some snaps and then moved on. All this while it kept raining very slowly and it was certain that our trekking is almost canceled in this rain. I was a little disappointed to see the clouds and so much raining all along. I just prayed that soon the skies are cleared. We had lunch at Madhuban (Iskon temple's restaurant in Hrishikesh). Our bus stopped at the bus station and from there we headed towards the camp in Tata Sumos.

Reaching the Camp
We reached the camp around 3:30pm. It was still drizzling. But the scene was amazing. There were mountains all around, and ganga was flowing in the valley. And on the banks of ganga was our camp. The sound of flowing river was very exciting. There were 26 tents, each having two beds. We were in total 51 (including Ashwani and his wife who had come by their own car). There was a shaded sitting area with some 10-15 chairs, a dining area, a kitchen and 3 toilets. Toilets were dry toilets with pits. I had already heard so much about these toilets that I did not even go near them. I wonder if anyone used those toilets. For ladies there was an arrangement at a Hotel in the city for getting fresh. We were briefed about the general rules of the camp and about the plan for the remaining day and the next day. After the introduction, Nehul and I had to do a little searching for a tent for ourselves since we were the last to arrive at the camp. Nehul had volunteered to be the event manager and I had volunteered to help him :) We took the last cab for the camp after ensuring that no one was left behind. Lokesh, Sandeep, Ashwani and his wife were the last ones whom we picked and then left for the camp. We got a tent in no time and I quickly put on my floaters. We then played volleyball for a long time. Playing volleyball in sand was fun and a first time experience for me. I over heard someone saying that he was going to the beach. I was very excited to hear that there was a beach too near by. Also, I realized that chachaji had been missing for quite some time now. I also headed towards the beach and there he was, inside the river screaming. I also jumped into the water. The river was chilled. For the first few moments, I felt like a thousand needles pricking my body. But once I got accustomed to the cold water, I stopped feeling anything. We played for a very long time in water. Had a long photo session and then returned to the camp.

Bon fire and Dinner
I dried myself and changed clothes and headed towards the bon fire area. It had become very cold but the positive part as that the sky was staring to clear, there were more and more stars appearing in the sky as the night progressed. We played dumb charades but I don't remember anything interesting happening in the game worth mentioning. I felt we could have planned a little more games for the bon fire. Anyway, dinner was served around 9pm. And a very common discussion at the dinner was what's it gonna be tomorrow morning when every one would have to attend to the nature's call. No one was going to use the dry toilets provided to us which meant we would have to do it in the open air somewhere. lol. And there were plannings and suggestions for the same. I had a heavy dinner not thinking much about the morning. But yes i did think about it. And I kept an alarm of 5am in the morning when I thought I would get over with everything while everyone would be asleep. After dinner Nehul, Phani, Karthik, Rana and I retired to my tent and we shared our childhood experiences which we thought were embarrassing or disgusting. But our conversation did not last long as everyone of us was too tired and we really wanted a good sleep. So we all wished each other a good night and slept by 11pm. I was very happy with how the day had gone. My first time in a camp, playing in the beach, bathing in the river ganga. And I was also excited about rafting which was the highlight of the entire trip.

How to play rmvb in Ubuntu

2008-04-03T23:24:00.003+05:30

Did some searching on google and landed up reading the following article which helped me play rmvb files with mplayer without any issues: Hope it proves to be help to others too ..

How to play rmvb files in Ubuntu

our great media

2008-04-02T22:31:00.002+05:30

Iske aage hum
Aur kya kahein
Jaanam samjha karo :)

ACM (2004) Roorkee center results

2008-04-01T07:57:00.004+05:30

I had represented my college (IIIT Hyderabad) in 2004 in ACM programming contest along with Jagan and Vandana. Just found this link and was somewhat happy to see my name there :) Our team had stood 8th all over India. This contest has some good memories attached with it. We had an internal programming contest in our college to select the team which would represent our college at the ACM ICPC, Roorkee. Programming is something that I have enjoyed since school days. And I might not be a genius at algorithms but yes I do manage to come up with a semi efficient solution pretty quickly. And when I was among the top rankers in that internal programming contest, many were surprised. But since then, people know me as a good coder. I was thrilled to qualify and the idea of representing my college was very exciting and a thing of pride.

The ACM Programming Contest we participated in was for the Kanpur Site and was conducted at two centers - Kolkata and Roorkee. The results were to be a combined list from both the centers though (as given in the link above). At the roorkee center, There was a small prize distribution ceremony to congratulate all the participants and award the winning team. But there was a small surprise element in store for us too. Since we stood 3rd at the roorkee center alone, we were also given a prize and our team was also called at the stage. Not that coming 3rd was any good as far as the final result was concerned but amongst all the disappointment that we could not solve more questions, this gesture was a kind of a relief and consolation for us :)

And now the biggest surprise which I think if Jagan or Vandana are reading here, they are gonna kill me or may be curse me :P I still have all the certificates of that contest with me ;) I don't remember how I ended up having them and why I did not distribute. But I have them safely in a file. Infact even Prof. PJ Narayanan's certificate is with me. He was the coach of our team. Thankfully Jagan is reachable since we both are settled in Noida for now. I'll have to post the other two certificates. All this off course after finding where exactly is that file which contains these certificates ;)

Bikaner, Rajasthan snaps

2008-03-31T22:16:00.001+05:30

Patni Top & Jammu snaps

2008-03-31T22:07:00.003+05:30

Kota snaps

2008-03-31T22:05:00.002+05:30

Ubuntu rocks !

2008-03-31T21:31:00.002+05:30

Installed Ubuntu - 7.1 today on my laptop and I am very happy using it right now. Downloaded the live CD from here. And then installed using the liveCD. It took almost 20 minutes to complete the installation and I had nothing to worry about my wireless and ethernet card drivers, sound card, screen resolution, touchpad, etc. All the drivers were automatically loaded at the time of setup. What more, the package manager is so easy to use that you can select any package that you want to install additionally. I am not sure how friendly this distribution is from a developer point of view but yes I do find it as a good alternative to the buggy windows. Installed picasa and azureus (my two basic requirements) and they are working just fine.

I hope I don't have to switch back to windows for a long long time (forever ?) ..

Koshish Karne walon ki haar nahi hoti

2008-03-28T20:32:00.002+05:30

lehron se dar kar nauka paar nahi hoti
himmat karne walon ki haar nahi hoti....

nannhi cheenti jab dana lekar chalti hai
chadhti deewaron par sau baar fisalti hai
mann ka vishwas ragon mein sahas bharta hai
chad kar girna, gir kar chadna, na akharta hai
aakhir uski mehnat bekar nahi hoti
koshish karne waalon ki haar nahi hoti....

dubkiyan sindhu mein gota khor lagata hai
ja ja kar khali haath laut aata hai
milte na sehej hi moti pani mein
badhta dugna utsah issi heiraani mein
mutthi uski khali har baar nahi hoti
himmat karne walon ki haar nahi hoti....

asafalta ek chunauti hai sweekar karo
kya kami reh gayi dekho aur sudhaar karo
jab tak na safal ho, neend chain ki tyago tum
sangharshon ka maidaan chhod mat bhago tum
kuch kiye bina hi jai jai kaar nahi hoti
himmat karne walon ki haar nahi hoti
himmat karne walon ki haar nahi hoti....

~ Shri Harivansha Rai Bachchan

Roohafza tea

2008-03-26T09:32:00.002+05:30

Had come back from jogging in the morning and a little later Saurabh (my house matie) also woke up and started making tea. As always, he asked me if I would have tea too. And suddenly I saw roohafza bottle on the fridge and an idea struck me. Why not mix some roohafza in my tea instead of sugar ;) Obviously Saurabh wasn't game for anything like this. But anyway, since I take tea without sugar, Saurabh poured some tea in my cup before mixing sugar for himself. And I poured a teaspoon of roohafza in my tea. And I must say the risk was worth taking. :) lol. It tasted good. Or rather let me rephrase my sentence. It wasn't bad enough to have not drunk the roohafza tea at all. Though I must confess I can't have my tea that way always.

Another of my weird experiments with food accomplished :) And the only person I know who can appreciate these things is my very dear friend and a true saggi, AC. He has already done a phd in these kinds of experiments. And obviously, some experiments work, while others don't. But that has never stopped us from trying different things from time to time.

I remember one of my experiments which was really pathetic. I had mixed hajmola tablet in my tea once expecting it to become something like ayurvedic/masala tea. But it was horrible ;) Though at the time I did this act, I pretended that it tasted awesome. ;) Obviously I did not want my colleagues to know at that point of time since they were already frowning at what I was doing with my tea. So I just wanted to prove them wrong :P

Movie Review : RACE

2008-03-26T07:29:00.004+05:30

Value for money ! It had been a long time since I saw any movie in a cinema hall. But finally it was worth going. RACE has a lot of style, too many twists and turns (in fact so many twists that after a point you don't feel surprised at all). Saif, Akshay, Anil Kapoor and Bipasa Basu have given good performances. Katrina was cute as usual. Sameera Reddy was there for god knows what reason ? May be just a show piece in the movie. I still remember that innocent Sameera Reddy making a rangoli outside her house in the music video of "Aur Ahista Keejiye Baatein" by Pankaj Udhaas. But bollywood has eaten up her innocence (and her clothes too) i guess. Music is good too but most of the songs do not fit into the movie anywhere. Its more like the songs have been randomly embedded into the movie at different places so that the viewers get some time to relax amidst all the suspense and drama and some food for the eye from time to time(you know what i mean). Definitely NOT a movie to watch with your parents. Go with your friends and you'll really enjoy the movie. If you are one of those viewers who prefer meaningful cinema, then probably this one is not your types.

Rating: 4/5

Sleeper bus...

2008-03-24T20:51:00.006+05:30

I had never traveled in a sleeper bus before though had heard about it a many times. Since the time I got my return ticket to New Delhi booked in a sleeper bus I was in a constant tension as to what are these sleeper buses like ? Did a little searching on google and found an article in some blog where the guy had a terrible experience in these kind of buses and he actually ended up in a bleeding nose. Whoa !! Now that was a little scary. Moreover, how would I fit in the sleeper berth ? Are they the same as in trains or something different ?

Anyway, all my apprehensions and fears were gone when I actually boarded the bus. I loved the arrangement altogether. The interior was divided into two columns, each column further divided into an upper half and a lower half. The upper half had sleeper berths while the lower half had seats. One column had single sleeper berths while the other column had double berths. And beneath each berth were two seats. Each berth had a fan attached at one corner and since my bus was non-ac, the windows could be opened at your will. And for my height of 5ft 8in, I think it was comfortable enough to have a sound sleep. Though sometimes you were tossed like a salad whenever there were rough roads.

On the whole, I would give sleeper buses a THUMBS UP. The ticket for a non-ac sleeper bus from Lucknow to New Delhi cost me Rs. 370. And the journey time was also perfect. If took off from lucknow at 7:30 pm and dropped me at Noida at 8:00 am.

Holi Surprise ..

2008-03-20T19:59:00.004+05:30

Took an Auto Rickshaw from alambagh bus stand and proceeded for home. All the way I kept planning how to surprise everyone at home. I just love giving surprises to my friends and family. Its an amazing feeling to see that delight on their face, that expression of unexpected joy.

I got down from the auto much before my house. Then called up mummy and started talking generally about what's it gonna be for lunch and that how much I was missing being at home ;) Mummy said that I should come by Bus in that case. Then she said but it would be very tiring to come by Bus :( Her tone had that genuine feeling of concern. I told her that everyone in my office had already gone home and I was feeling very bad and that I so much wanted to come to Lucknow. Mummy said, "To bhaag ke aa jao yahaan" (Then just run and come home quickly). And I asked her should I do that ? And she said yes !! And by now I had reached the gate of my house. I simply told her, "In that case just come to the gate and you'll find me" ;) And for a moment mummy couldn't get what I was talking. And the next moment she could see me standing at the door still holding the receiver of the telephone in her hand. And she shouted on the phone itself, "Tujhe to main maar lagaungi, badmaash" (I am gonna beat you naughty fellow). And then she came running towards the gate and ahhhhh, that expression on her face was out of the world. I could have travelled any distance to see her jump in such joy. Simply amazing. Mummy couldn't stop smiling for the next 10 minutes. We hugged each other and mummy whispered to me, "Papa ko nahin bataayenge" (We will not tell papa). Dadaji was equally surprised to see me. He was watching television in his room when he heard our noise. And then when I entered his room, he too almost jumped out of his bed in excitement. I was really glad and too happy.

Had lunch and then I slept for good 3 hours. Papa came from office around 6:30 pm. I was surfing the net then. Quickly switched off the lights in the room and waited for papa to come inside. When papa entered the lane to the living room, I came out of the living room and Papa just had a quick glance at me and then walked past me another 2-3 steps. And it was then that he realized that what he had seen a couple of seconds ago was his son standing before him. And he simply shouted and turned back and then we kept hugging each other for the next one minute. And papa kept shouting, "hello", "what a nice surprise". Wow. It was great. Just awesome !! Its always great to be home. And if the visits are something special like this one, then its all the more memorable and exciting.

Thanks to GP too for bringing me to Lucknow and then giving me the idea to surprise everyone at home rather than informing them before hand. My day was made :) Gonna have great fun for the coming couple of days !

Wishing everyone a very Happy Holi and a Happy Easter too !

Enjoy the weekend.

My first bus journey to Lucknow

2008-03-20T19:06:00.007+05:30

Yesterday I had left KSS and was on my way to KSPL in the evening when GP told me that he was leaving for Lucknow that very night itself and if I also wanted to come or not. Since the morning I was seeing everyone at office leave for their homes and was already feeling bad that I did not book my tickets in advance and now everything was waitlist. But when I talked to GP, I instantly decided to leave for Lucknow with him in the Bus. At that time I had no thought whatsoever about how will I return from Lucknow to Delhi, about the tiring 14hour journey in the Bus, etc etc. Spoke to my boss and the PL and was really glad that they allowed me a leave for thursday at such a short notice.

Reaching Bus stand was also a kind of a struggle. Left home at 8pm but caught in a heavy traffic jam somewhere near the EDM mall, Ghaziabad. Finally we decided to walk till the AnandVihar Bus stand since the traffic did not seem to get any better soon. Walked for more than a kilometer to the bus stand only to find that the last deluxe bus for lucknow was full. I was a little disappointed to hear that but now that I had made my mind to go home, I was ready to travel in an ordinary bus even if it meant a 14hour exercise. But out of nowhere, another guy who was to go to lucknow just like us, came to our rescue (sort of ;)). He told us that he had seen another deluxe bus standing at a distant corner of the stand but he wasn't sure if that bus would go at all or not. So we (6 guys in total) proceeded in search of that bus and within 5 minutes we did find that bus to my great relief :)

The only problem with that bus was that it was an AC coach with AC NOT working ;) And since the windows were fixed, it had soon become very hot inside the bus. The conductor opened one roof top window for some fresh air. Also, there were small fans located at every alternate row. Conductor promised us that as soon as the bus starts, hw would switch on the fans. He also told us that out of all the fans 2-3 fans did not work. I was just keeping my fingers crossed that the fan just over me should not be among the non working lot. The ticket cost was Rs. 280. The bus finally started at 10:30pm. And as was expected (i dunno why though), the fan over me was among the faulty ones ;) Hehe. Anyway, it wasn't much of a problem. Since it was night time, the atmosphere was cool. And then GP and I chatted all along the journey, even watched a movie in between to pass time when we were tired of chatting :)

Finally, reached Alambagh bus stand, Lucknow at 11:30am today. And it felt great to be home without any planning and so suddenly when just a day ago I was thinking of sleeping whole day on Holi in Noida. And now the next thing on my mind was to surprise everyone at home ....

google search ...

2008-03-19T09:14:00.002+05:30

Wow. Just realized that if one searched for "GIMP transparent object" right now on google, my tutorial on Creating transparent images in GIMP would be shown as the top result. :)

GIMP Power again ..

2008-03-19T08:37:00.008+05:30

Did some designing work last week. Designed our company's T-Shirt and a wedding e-invitation card for one of my school batch-mates. Both of them wore done in GIMP. And since the time I have learnt about layers in GIMP, life has been easier while creating designs.

The picture looks more like a UN or an NGO logo but most people in the company were in its favour so it was chosen anyway. The basic idea behind this picture is that the road symbolizes growth, progress, and a journey into tomorrow. And the white dove is a symbol for peace and security. Therefore I have tried to depict the motto of the company, "Creating a secure tomorrow" in this picture. The white feather has 3 colored segments in the center which represent KritiKal SecureScan company logo in an artistic form. Any person who has seen the logo before will be able to connect with it.

I had no idea how to make a wedding invite since I had never done anything like that before too. Tosh made my life pretty simple by letting me decide completely what has to be done. I was infact surprised a little that he had so much faith in my creativity :) He just asked Ganpati ji to be there in the card. I did some searching on the google images for a nice background to start with. Found one at www.poojasdesigns.com and got started from there. The original design was too bright for a background, so faded it a little, applied a canvas texture and then added some more design to it on my own. Also put a watermark label of the site from where I had picked the background since I felt it should have been done. Rest of the card just happened. lol. Wrote the message and then referred to one of my best friends who is very good at English. I mean she is better than me so you can just imagine how good she would be :P .. haha, just kiddin. She suggested some changes here and there, some words re arranged and the final thing is what is shown here.

I actually enjoy doing these kind of things. After a long time I felt my Sunday did not go waste. Something came out of it.

Btw, today I could not win over my dilemma, went back to sleep again ;) (refer to this) But right after this post, I am going to exercise and sweat it out to compensate for my laziness in the morning.

Have a nice day all !

An interesting observation ...

2008-03-18T11:41:00.002+05:30

I can boast to call this observation as my original since I haven't come across this anywhere till now and nor have I heard anyone pointing it out to me. I made this observation long back when I was in college and suddenly this thought struck me as some enlightenment that most of the feminine names in our country end up in a vowel :) I dunno if it sounds very obvious to you when you read it now but of course its something too general and yet no one ever mentioned it or found interesting enough to put it somewhere. And there were always some names which appealed to me more than the others and when I observed this I could actually find a pattern in the names that I like a lot. Payal, Palak, Mehek, Sonal, Snehal are some names which I like a lot. And all these end in a consonant. They are some of those names which are unique in their own way. But not all names that end in a consonant appeal to me and also there are many names which end in a vowel yet they appeal to me.

Can a thought / observation be patented ? lol. Would be glad to know if someone else too noticed it for once...

Jogging event

2008-03-18T08:30:00.006+05:30

Ha ! Yeah its an event for me. Right from pushing myself out of the bed till I get back home from jogging is a series of events. There is so much to observe around and also a lot of things that are going on in your mind while you are running or walking. After 4 days of bunking I was up again today at 6:45am. I must accept that its only those 15-20 minutes I need to survive and battle out that I take to get ready for jogging. Because that is the time I am in a big time dilemma of going back to sleep, or go out for jogging. And even though the choice should not be hard enough to make, yet I do get back to sleep sometimes promising that I would do some exercise at home itself or else would jog in the evening - NONE of which ever happens ;)

So today the battle of the dilemma was won and I was out of my house by 7:05 am. The sun was already out which means I will have to leave earlier from tomorrow, which means I will have to get up earlier from tomorrow, which means I will have to sleep early from today :) Anyway, the park where I go for jogging is about 1km from my house. I walk to the park, which in a way warms me up too before jogging. On my way to the park I see school kids with their parents (mostly mothers) waiting for their buses, some private bus owners taking a bath under a hand pump and cleaning their bus. Today there was a policeman stationed near a drain which was kind of deep and there was a fence laid around that region. And the whole area was stinking. And the look on that policeman's face was speaking his mind. No one could stand at that place for more that a minute but he was there all the time.

Traffic was already high since people had started for their offices and anyway not everyone goes through the dilemma that I go through each morning ;) I like the park where I jog for more than one reasons. The jogging track is a 3km track with milestones every 100 meters. So you always know how much you have jogged and how much remains. Its lush green from the inside with a big fountain at a corner too which is hot spot for the kids that come in the morning with their parents on sundays and holidays. On each of the lamp poles you'll find a speaker attached which plays the radio. Anyway, I have my earphones plugged in so I have my own playlist to listen to.

Then there are so many different people who exercise in the morning there and the whole sight motivates me. People of different age, different sizes and shapes ;), some really cute girls, and a few body builders too. When I started jogging in this park some 4 months back, I wasn't sure how long was the jogging track. And I kept jogging until after 1400 meters I gave up. And I walked the rest of the path to find that the track was 3000 meters. I wondered if anyone ever took even a round of that track. And there are many you know. And I am glad that I am one of them too now.

Each day I get on the track, 2 kms are somewhat fine but the last 1 km is a struggle again. Somewhere in the corner of my mind a thought keeps reappearing that "Piyush you could stop, anyway 2km is also too much". But then someone would just pass me jogging, or from the other direction walking and I would tell myself if he can, then why can't I. And somehow I push myself that last 1 km. It may sound funny but sometimes I start following a runner trying to get past him. Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I dont. But while trying that, I complete my 3km quota for the day. :)

A few things which I HAVE to do are:

-> Get up early no matter when I sleep.
-> Be regular
-> Increase the limit from 3km to a little more every week.

My school memories

2008-03-14T11:48:00.004+05:30

Click here for snaps

St. Francis College, Lucknow where I spent the most memorable 12 years of my life. Found these photographs in Aniruddh's orkut album yesterday, thanks to both Aayush for telling us about Ani's album and to Ani for posting these "rare" and "precious" snaps. I was literally jumping in my room when i saw these snaps and have been in a trance ever since. Can't stop smiling even now. And with so many people from my school batch still in touch, its a very nostalgic feeling to remember those old times with them. Also, its very funny to observe how we were at that time and what we look like now. If I try to remember some names then here is a list.

Farhan, Gaurav, Tosh, Vaibhav, Saif, Shiv, Pappu, Vipul, Ajit, Kar, Mathur, Jitesh, Mallu, Appu Darling, Farhat, Pranay Chopra, Pranav Prabhat, Deepanjan, Manas, Aniruddh, Ravi Raj, Sameer, Mohit Vij, Ankit Rathore, Navendu Mishra, Ankit Chhabbra, Rishi Anand, RituRaj, Rahul Rastogi, Praveen Saxena, Bhuvanshu Srivastava, Tosh, Naman, Francis Wu, Neel Jyoti Sanyal, Ashish Jaggi, Vivek Pratap Sahi, Raminder, Sudipt Mangal, Shivam, Pawas Shukla.

ahhhh ... wish i could go back to school !! :)

Long time ...

2008-03-10T15:33:00.002+05:30

Its been a long time. Haven't been to blogging ways off late. Anyway, a quick update :) This year has been a traveling year for me. In the last couple of months I have been to Jammu, Patni Top, Meerut, Kota, Bikaner and Chandigarh. Attended three marriages. First one in Jammu of one of my colleagues getting married to my senior. Then cousin brother's wedding in Kota. And finally one of my best friends - Manjeet - tying the knot in Bikaner.

On the personal front, it has been a mixed bag this year with equal share of good and bad days till now. But as of now, having a great time :) Work-wise, days are hectic as usual.

Will soon share the photographs of my various trips till now.

And trying to be regular once again .... :)

My first recorded instrumental

2008-02-04T18:46:00.000+05:30

Nothing great about it if you know how to play a keyboard. I was amazed to see some great instrumental videos on youtube and that is what motivated me to give a try too. I am nowhere near to being called a good keyboard player but I will be among the better ones soon if i can continue my practice. Wish me luck. and enjoy the music :)

Happy Birthday Netaji !!!

2008-01-23T10:22:00.000+05:30

It is a very sad sight that a hero, a great freedom fighter and a great leader - Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose went unnoticed today in one of the leading newspapers - The Times of India. Every year on 23rd January, we celebrate Netaji's birthday and in this nation of the Hrithik Roshans and the Shahrukh Khans, we manage to remember the real heroes at least on their birthdays and sometimes even on our independence day. But today as I ran through the main page of The Times of India, i did not find even a line worth mention about Netaji. Have the "times" of "India" become so awry that a leading bulletin could forget a great freedom fighter. I did not even care to look into the following pages since Netaji definitely deserves a place on the main page. What was more saddening were the kind of stories that did find a place on the first page. Bruni, French president Nicolas Sarkozy's girlfriend, has opted not to accompany him on his India tour. And for a detailed story, turn to page "xyz". What crap !!

The media has a great role in shaping the mindset of the citizens of a nation. What people wake up reading in the morning, see in the news while eating is what they think and discuss and make an opinion about. It is high time our media went through a transformation. I would be glad to read the achievements of our people than read a detailed pictorial coverage of molestation of some NRI girls by a mob. And I definitely feel that by covering such a news in so much details, the molestation of those girls has continued. Only this time, its the responsible media molesting them than some drunk men.

Wishing Netaji a very happy birthday once again. May his soul find peace.

~Piyush.

A day to remember

2007-12-15T09:18:00.000+05:30

Ever heard anyone saying, "I was so happy that I could't sleep" ?. Haha, that holds true for me right now. Yesterday was my birthday and least had I expected what a memorable day it would turn out to be. So much that finally when I retired to bed at 12am, I just started recalling how the day had progressed, who all called, what all happened and I just kept smiling to myself thinking about all the incidents.

12th night i suddenly fell ill and by 13th morning I was in such a bad state that I could hardly get up from my bed. Severe cold, nothing else. I was almost sure that I am gonna spend my birthday this year resting. But the medicines that I took in the afternoon on 13th did wonders and I was up on my feet by next morning.

I don't know about others, but there is a very special feeling in the air on birthdays for me :) Three calls at the strike of 12am. From a very close friend, an office friend and a school friend. And many more wishes as the day progressed. But I had no idea what surprise was waiting for me. Gaurav (GP) and Nehul had come over to KSS during lunch time from KSPL and I was just glad to see them there. They wished me and both asked me to be in KSPL for the cake cutting ceremony by 5pm without fail. I was in a meeting at 5 and as soon as I got over with the meeting I rushed out of KSS to find Nehul and GP parking their bikes outside KSS. They had come to pick Saurabh and me. While GP had gone inside to call Saurabh, I just told Nehul what a wonderful day it has been and that I am so glad. And Nehul said, "Its just going to be better". That sentence was enough to make me curious what's it gonna be at KSPL. I even asked that is there something that you people have done there and his reply was a simple "no". Anyway, Saurabh had some urgent work so we 3 left for KSPL.

I have been a frequent hopper between KSS and KSPL which has given me a chance to interact with people from both places. That way I feel very fortunate to be friends with people from both our offices. I got an equally warm response at KSPL as I had got from KSS that morning.

We all assembled at the conference room and I saw Nehul sitting with his laptop connected to the projector ready with "something" :) I had yet no clue. GP joined Nehul and all the lights were switched off. They started a slide show, "Happy birthday to PB". And boy !!! what i saw for the next 5 minutes was something beyond my expectations, something I liked so much that I had tears in my eyes. They had made a very cute, nice, naughty, and above all, a touchy movie clip on me to wish me Happy Birthday in a different way. And let me accept, it coudn't have been better :)

The joy one gets from the realization that you are special in your own way, that you are loved by your people and that your people could actually think of giving you such a wonderful gift on your birthday was something I had not experienced in years. Specially since the time I left college. I was simply speachless. Anything I could say seemed too little to express what I was feeling that time.

Thanx GP, Nehul and everyone at KritiKal (KSPL and KSS) who made my birthday a day I would remember for a long long time. And that video, well its gonna be something I would cherish for a lifetime.

We had a cake cutting/rubbing (courtesy Chachaji :P) ceremony, followed by bumps where I almost got stripped of my cargos ;) No ones fault actually, I am so heavy that though people start holding me by my legs but within seconds the hold slips from my legs and the grip clings on to my clothes that I am wearing :D

Phew !! The hangover will take sometime to drain off. But I am loving every bit of it :) And the song that played in the background of that slideshow has never got out of my head since then :)

Pictures (Thanks to Saurabh and Deepak)
The Wonderful Gift (click to see the video)

Earthquake tremors ...

2007-11-26T13:54:00.000+05:30

Dunno why but suddenly I was wide awake at 3:30 am today for no reason at all. I did not have any bad dream nor were the mosquitoes not letting me sleep and neither did I have to attend to "nature's call" ;) Still I kept lying on my bed and tried sleeping again but failed miserably in that attempt. Thought of surfing the net and sat on my bed with the laptop when suddenly my bed started shaking vigorously. I could hear a very haunting rumbling sound like a very heavy huge drum was being rolled on the ground. It wasn't late for me to realize that it was earthquake tremors. I jumped out of my bed and ran out to my balcony. The lane was deserted though the dogs were barking very loudly. But then slowly everyone started coming out of their homes and I was sure that I wasn't the only one who felt the tremors.

It was scary. Those 4-5 seconds I remembered everyone who is close to me. For some strange reason, I always felt I would be strong in such situations but today I was helpless for that moment. I felt very weak. It sounds funny now but that moment was scary then :)

Gimp power ....

2007-10-25T08:12:00.000+05:30

Made this poster yesterday - entirely in GIMP and I am already loving the final thing. GIMP somehow never fails to amaze me with all the features it has got, so much that till date I haven't felt like using any other image editing program except for Picasa.

Well, something about the event too :) Life has been very hectic since past 2-3 weeks and in this festive season many of us at the office thought of having some fun. So we, the KalaKriti team came up with this decoration competition - Alankaran at KritiKal which is being organized collectively by the HR and KalaKriti team. There are 4 teams and the entire office has been divided into nearly 4 parts. Each part has to be decorated by one team and the best decoration will win a huge prize.

I really wish that everyone at KritiKal participates in this event with full enthusiasm. Can't wait to see the entire office dazzling with lights, candles and diyas :D

Senior Design Engineer now ..

2007-10-01T19:28:00.000+05:30

Got the letter about my promotion just today so now I am officially a Senior Design Engineer at KritiKal Solutions Pvt. Ltd. :)

In Case of Emergency (ICE)

2007-09-30T10:59:00.000+05:30

We all carry our mobile phones with hundreds of names/numbers stored in its memory but yet nobody, other than ourselves, knows which of these numbers belong to our near and dear ones?

GOD forbid but there could be a case where we are involved in an accident or had a heart attack and the people attending us get hold of our mobile phones but don't know which number to call to inform our family members. There are many numbers stored but which one is the contact person in case of an emergency?

For this reason, we must have one or more telephone numbers stored under the name ICE (In case of Emergency) in our mobile phones.
Recently, the concept of "ICE" is catching up quickly. It is a simple and important method of contact during emergency situations. As cell phones are carried by majority of the population, just store the number of the person who should be contacted during emergency as "ICE" (meaning In Case of Emergency).

The idea was thought up by a paramedic who found that when they went to the scenes of accidents, there were always mobile phones with patients, but they didn't know which number to call. He therefore thought that it would be a good idea if there was a nationally recognized name for this purpose.

Please forward this to as many as you can. It won't take too many "forwards" before every body will know about this. For more than one contact, simply enter ICE1, ICE2 and ICE3 etc. A great idea that will make a difference!

Let's spread the concept of ICE by storing an ICE number in our mobile phones today. Please spread the word !!

Mute ..

2007-09-29T15:43:00.000+05:30

Wasn't well since past couple of days and just thought of going to a doctor today. And he told me that I have got a throat infection, pharyngitis, and he has advised me to speak very little. Ha ! Now thats so unlike me. And the most interesting part is that not many days ago, Deeksha in my office too suffered from a same kind of infection, laryngitis, and she could barely speak. And I used to pull her leg and tease her knowing that she won't reply :) And today when doctor told me, the first thing I remembered was her and I smiled to myself. And minutes later she called me up because it was her turn to pay me back ;)

Will be in "mute" state for at least another 3-4 days until I am perfectly fine. I am too weak right now and have recurring fever too apart from a sore throat and a choked nose. From becoming 60-70% myself just yesterday, I have again reduced to 20% of myself :D Cest-la-vie !

Just watched The Cinderella Man and I loved the movie.

Itni shakti humein dena data

2007-09-28T15:31:00.000+05:30

Movie Name: अंकुश (1986)
Singer: पुष्पा पग्धारे, सुषमा श्रेष्ठ
Music Director: कुलदीप सिंह
Lyrics: अभिलाष

इतनी शक्ति हमें देना दाता
मन् का वीश्वास कमजोर हो ना
हम चलें नेक रस्ते पे हमसे
भूलकर भी कोई भूल हो ना...

हर तरफ ज़ुल्म है बेबसी है
सहमा सहमा सा हर आदमी है
पाप का बोझ बढ़ता ही जाये
जाने कैसे ये धरती थमी है
बोझ ममता का तू ये उठा ले
तेरी रचना का ये अंत हो ना...
हम चले...

दूर अग्यान के हो अँधेरे
तू हमें ग्यान की रौशनी दे
हर बुराई से बचके रहे हम
जितनी भी दे, भली ज़िन्दगी दे
बैर हो ना किसीका किसीसे
भावना मन् में बदले की हो ना...
हम चले...

हम ना सोचें हमें क्या मिला है
हम ये सोचें किया क्या है अर्पण
फूल खुशियों के बाटें सभी को
सबका जीवन ही बन जाये मधुबन
अपनी करुना को जब तू बहा दे
करदे पावन हर इक मन का कोना...
हम चले...

हम अँधेरे में हैं रौशनी दे,
खो ना दे खुद को ही दुश्मनी से,
हम सज़ा पाए अपने किये की,
मौत भी हो तो सह ले खुशी से,
कल जो गुजारा है फिरसे ना गुजारे,
आनेवाला वो कल ऐसा हो ना...
हम चले नेक रास्ते पे हमसे,
भूलकर भी कोई भूल हो ना...

इतनी शक्ति हमें दे ना दाता,
मन् का वीश्वास कमजोर हो ना...

Segmentation Fault..

2007-09-27T22:19:00.001+05:30

Back to blogging after a long time, it seems so at least. Haven't been myself lately. Things happening in life and suddenly time doesnt seem to pass away. I remember when I was in college I used to lock myself in my room whenever I was down so that no one ever came to know about it and I was fine within a day or two. But things are not the same now. You have to turn up to office everyday, its not like your lectures which you could afford to bunk. And then people start noticing that change in you which you never wanted others to see and would have preferred for it to fade away. They ask you questions and eventually you just spit out those inner thoughts which you so much wanted to let out but at the same time never wanted others to know about it. :) Tricky ehh ?

Anyway, heres some snaps of our office trip to Mukteswar 2 weeks back. Enjoy !

Mukteswar Trip: MHR and Trek to the hill top

2007-09-18T21:56:00.001+05:30

We reached Kathgodam in the morning where cabs were waiting for us. The route to Mukteswar is very beautiful and scenic. There were many places where I felt like getting down and take snaps. And when I saw snow covered peaks I couldnt stop myself and asked the driver to stop. But he assured me that I would get to see such peaks in Mukteswar too. I had almost given up but thanks to Poonam that we had to stop since she was feeling uneasy. And I am lucky that I could take the snaps of those snow covered peaks which I never got to see in the entire trip so clearly. Thanks Poonam once again ;) !!

We reached the resort ("Mukteswar Himalayan Resort") by around 10 am. Half of the junta was to stay in another resort which was 10 kms uphill from MHR. I stayed at MHR. The resort was nice in terms of rooms, cleanliness, facilities and surroundings. All of us quickly checked in rooms and got fresh and had breakfast (aloo ke paraathe .. yumzzzz). Though I was feeling very sleepy after a heavy breakfast but I had no plans to sleep. Some decided to take rest till lunch while some of us decided to have a stroll. Phani, Kartik, Shishir, Apoorva, NT, Joy and myself formed a group and left the guest house. Just a few meters away we saw a passage to climb the hills and so we all unanimously decided to give it a try. We kept climbing and taking pictures all along the way. Finally we reached the top of the hill where there were two houses and a temple. One of the house owner (a farmer) offered us cucumber with a special mix of spices and it was refreshing after a tiring trek. We took some more photographs with the farmer and his family and then proceeded towards the temple. The weather up the hill was just too good. Slow cool breeze brushing our faces and dense shade of trees gave a calm feeling. Soon we had more company joining us at the top. Rohit, Jatin, Dilip, Poonam, NS also took the same trek path :) We played dumbC for about an hour there and I really enjoyed it. Rohit did a great job at recording videos and it was great fun watching them later at the resort on TV. I had a light lunch (just salad) and then we all headed towards the other resort where the rest of our junta was staying.

Mukteswar trip: Boarding the train

2007-09-18T21:28:00.000+05:30

Finally the office trip which was on the cards since a long time did happen and what a trip it was !! One of the best trips I have been to in my life. I had a great time with my office junta and the place is simply awesome. Far from commercialization, pure beauty and nature.

We all gathered at the old delhi station to board the Ranikhet Express. Our ticket was upgraded from sleeper to AC 3 tier (Laloo jindabad !!) but the coach "BE" was nowhere to be found. We went till one extreme of the train and then marched towards the other end hurriedly since the train was about to leave. After walking for 1.5 times the length of the train we found a coach which had no label on it. Having no other option left we got on that coach and luckily it WAS our coach :) Our seats were all scattered within the coach and it took some time to finally exchange our seats with people and get most of the seats together. We had 18 seats reserved in the coach and we were 19 people. Ashish and Joy had to unluckily share the same berth and they had a "not so sound" sleep.

My latest sketch ..

2007-09-04T18:18:00.000+05:30

After a long time, finally I did find time to do sketching. It took me two hours to complete this sketch. And I am really glad and satisfied with my earnings today i.e. my sketch :) Yet to name it. Thinking of a nice title.

Vizag Trip ..

2007-08-30T08:48:00.000+05:30

It was a much needed break from work and a memorable trip in all sense. I left Delhi on Friday morning for Hyderabad where all the friends were leaving for Vizag in the evening by train. The most interesting part was that I had told everyone that I would not be coming and yet I had booked all my tickets and wanted to surprise Lini. I reached IIIT and went straight to her lab with my cellphone recording a video to capture the shock on her face on seeing me. I really enjoyed surprising everyone :)

I had plans to meet other friends in Hyderabad but it started raining pretty heavily. We had to leave for station in the rain and as expected, we all got wet by the time we reached the station. My new spectacles broke, my bag got wet and even the clothes inside it got wet. The joy of surprising everyone and the excitement of the trip seemed to fade a little bit but not for long.

Reached Vizag on Saturday morning and checked in a hotel - Hotel Prince. Satya B had a marriage to attend in Vizag and it was his friend who was getting married who had booked a couple of rooms for us in the hotel. That was a nice gesture and we were spared of room hunting. We all got fresh and started for Araku Valley in a sumo. The route to Araku valley is a treat to the eye and a heaven for the photographers. I never stopped clicking snaps from the front seat.

Midway there was a waterfall and all of us unanimously decided to stop for a while and climb up to wherever we could parallel to the water fall. It was fun though I hurt my thumb there. Even Neema di slipped while coming down but nothing serious as she is a "seasoned stumbler" :D

Next stop was Borra caves which was a very interesting and calm place. Its very deep down and lighted with golden lights everywhere. I had never been to such a place. There was a river flowing in the valley near the caves and P! and Lini suggested that we trek down to the valley and come back. It would have been real fun but I had a severe headache so I decided to stay back. Later the idea was dropped.

Araku Valley is more a natural beauty than a commercial place. We went to a small museum which was a very ordinary place. Then we went to a garden where there were tree houses, a toy train, some rides and flowers and trees. My photographer within me had woken up once again and I took some cool snaps there.

It was a tiring first day and we reached back to the Hotel by 8pm. Next day we planned to go to the Rushikonda beach early morning (5am). We woke up at 4 and left the hotel by 4:30. I had been to a beach only once before in Chennai and that too for a small time. I jogged for a while on the beach and then went for a long walk with my camera. When I came back everyone was in the sea already :) So I also kept my camera and got into the water. And we gossiped and played for more than 2 hours in water. Some waves were small and some quite big and each time we prepared ourselves to be on the top. Sometimes we won while other times the waves succeeded in passing over our heads. It was a great experience. Moreover, P! being there with us, we never felt any fear in the sea. Had he not been there I would have been washing my legs on the edge and would have never even thought of going any further into the sea. It was the best part of the entire trip. My mind still keeps drifting towards the beach from time to time and as Neema Di puts it, it will take another week for the "HANGOVER" to go :D

Later that day in the afternoon we headed towards Simhachalam temple. There are two ways to reach the temple. Either by road or you can take the stairs. We took the "path less travelled" i.e. the stairs. The stairs were at quite an elevation and they were 1000+ Neema di and I had a testing time reaching the top but nevertheless it was fun. On the contrary, Tarun soon vanished from our sight as if he was walking on a plain meadow and not on the stairs. On the way we came across two guys who were going to climb these stairs on their knees :O That is some dedication !! Coming down was a much easier task :)

We boarded the train to Hyderabad in the evening and bid adieu to Vizag. Last 2 days were fun packed and we all were already planning for the next trip in the train. We played dumb charades for a long time and that was the second best part of the trip after the beach experience. We laughed and pulled each others legs. We had to get down at Vijaywada and take another train to Hyderabad from there. Neema di took a train to Chennai from there and the rest of us proceeded towards Hyderabad.

Highlights of the trip:

Reaching Sec'bad station all drenched :(
Neema di's graceful stumbling from time to time :)
Rushikonda beach experience.
Lini's attempt to enact Asoka while playing dumb charades :D
P!'s perfect accounts management, and his biscuits, laddoos and chikkis from roadside shops which were a nice "crunchy munchy"

Vizag through my lens:
Click here

Colorization of Mughal-E-Azam

2007-08-21T12:28:00.000+05:30

Call it my latest muse, I really wanted to know how are these black and white movies colored and what all effort and time goes in that process. It seems to be a really cumbersome task which not only requires time but also resources and dedication to achieve perfection in colorization. Here are the basic steps involved in colorization of Mughal-E-Azam. (Information source: Mouthshut.com).

Restoration:

"Restoration is an essential process of colorization. Intense restoration was undertaken as the frames were in bad condition. The negative that was being scanned was actually a Dupe negative that was made in early 80s after the original negative had been used for more than twenty years. Restoration included digitizing the 300,000 frames of the film at 2K resolution, gamma correction, contrast correction, scratch removal, pinholes removal, digital stitching of torn frames, stabilisation, fungus correction and various other digital restoration techniques. Each step involved processing 3000 GB of data. The work was done shot-by-shot or frame-by-frame depending on the condition of the negatives. All the above work was performed by a team of restoration and specialists working on high-end computers at Iris Interactive, Chennai. These frames were then made ready for colorization.

Colorization:

"In the west, colourisation has been looked at as an artificial work or as an unethical attempt to touch an artist’s creation. In this case, the purpose was to complete an unfulfilled dream of the creator. The task was undertaken by the original production company, Sterling Investment Corp. Pvt. Ltd. The original music composer re-recorded the music in a digital environment and the original artists always supported the idea. Hence, there is no unethical attempt." The software that was used has a very important feature that accepts only those colors that match the gray shades of the original input. This ensures that the final colors are as close as possible to the original. Since, the kind of colorization required for MUGHAL-E-AZAM was never done before (Mughal-e-Azam has a rich use of exquisite jewelry, fine clothing, grand sets), a special software had to be written to incorporate such features and that too for a 35 mm release. Since the film is an historical film, the color scheme was regularly discussed with historians. History books of medieval times were referred in order to get the essence of the Mughal Era. An in-depth research of 18 months was undertaken before the actual colourisation started in Oct, 2004 at Indian Academy of Arts and Animation, Mumbai. The whole technology development and execution was undertaken in India.

Post Production:

"The whole film (frame-by-frame) was then given a finished product look through colour balancing and was digitally converted to Wide-Screen format and then recorded to make a new negative at Rajtaru Videosonic, Mumbai."

original article

Reliance Fresh ?

2007-08-20T14:34:00.000+05:30

Someone here needs to be told the meaning of "fresh". And its the Reliance people who have opened so many outlets which they proudly call Reliance Fresh. Its my third experience of buying vegetables from there and "not-so-coincidentally" every time i was disappointed with the condition of vegetables that they have. Dirty, stinky, stale and everything that qualifies as an antonym of fresh. I am talking about the outlets in Ghaziabad. They might be selling at a lower cost but I feel those days are a thing of a past when people compromised on quality over cost. And that too, the difference in cost is very marginal in this case. I have no idea whether all the outlets sell the same quality of vegetables but at least the Ghaziabad outlets SUCK !!

Creating transparent images in GIMP

2007-08-18T07:42:00.002+05:30

Transparent images are useful when you are not certain about the page/image background where you want to put your image which could be an object, a logo, a signature or even a watermark to copyright your photographs. By making the background of such images transparent, you essentially create a mask which could then be overlay-ed on any other image and only the non transparent object/text/logo will float on the output image. This post gives a step-by-step tutorial on creating such transparent images on GIMP(GNU Image Manipulation Program). I find GIMP easier to use than Photoshop or any other image editing software and best of all, its open source ! :) There is a lot you can do with GIMP, but for now, lets see how can you make transparent images.

Open the image in GIMP from which you want to remove the background. The more uniform the background is, more easier it is to remove it.
Add an alpha channel (transparent layer) to this image.

Right Click on the image->Layer->Transparency->Add Alpha Channel

With the fuzzy selector (Keyboard shortcut is Z), click on the background which you want to remove and based on the uniformity of the background, all or part of it is selected on clicking on it.

Now the last step is to remove this selected background. Click on the menu (Edit->Clear) or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+K. If there are still some patches left in the background then repeat steps 3 and 4 on each of those patches separately till you succeed in removing the background completely.
Your transparent image is ready. Save it as a PNG or a GIF which support image transparency.

Happy Independence Day !

2007-08-14T13:57:00.000+05:30

"Where the mind is without fear 
and the head is held high; 
Where knowledge is free; 
Where the world has not been 
broken up into fragments by 
narrow domestic walls; 
Where words come out from 
the depth of truth; 
Where tireless striving stretches 
its arms towards perfection; 
Where the clear stream of reason 
has not lost its way into the dreary 
desert sand of dead habit; 
Where the mind is lead forward by thee 
into ever-widening thought and action- 
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, 
let my country awake." 

  "GEETANJALI -  RABINDERANATH TAGORE"

K-Bakra - Part II

2007-08-10T17:10:00.000+05:30

I once installed Airtel Messenger on my cellphone which is just like a yahoo messenger where email - ids get replaced by cellphone numbers and Instant Messages are replaced by smses. When you send a message to any number, the message is received as an sms but the sender is not you. Rather sender's number appears in the message at the starting which we somehow ignore noticing. Today I had taken a break from work and was lying on the bean bag and trying to explore this Airtel Messenger. Suddenly I thought of doing some mischief. I sent a message to Atul which said:

"Dear Mr. Atul. We would like to confirm the receipt of Rs.3257 spent by you on 3rd August,2007. Thanks for using HDFC Credit card"

Within a minute Atul's cellphone beeped and I really enjoyed seeing his expression turn from a smile->serious->tensed->frenzy till he had finished reading the entire sms. I was somehow confident that he will not pay much attention on the sender or even my number that would have appeared at the starting of the message. And I was right :) Atul started reading out the sms to everyone who did not know till now that this sms was sent by me. They started advising him. Someone suggested that he called HDFC customer care center while another person said he should check his transactions online. And Atul kept wondering (loudly :D) that when did he spend so much money and infact he had never used his credit card till now. By now I had let everyone know that it was me who had sent the message and everyone was enjoying . Only after 2-3 minutes of pure panic Atul read out the number from which the message had been sent. But obviously he did not remember my number so he had still no clue what was happening. But I finally told him that its my number and then we all laughed. Now I think (not only me, even others think) that we should have continued the drama a little longer. Atul was all set to call HDFC people. Also, it would have been great had we recorded the whole episode. But anyway, everyone (including Atul) had fun once the mystery was solved.

Atul bhai, apne is chele ko maaf kar dena ;)

CVM ...

2007-08-10T16:44:00.000+05:30

Just yesterday I had taken a paddle rickshaw till Sector 18 from my office. I reached there in 15 minutes and another 15 minutes were wasted fetching change for my Rs. 50 note. I needed Rs. 15 and I asked at all the shops near the Center Stage Mall (CSM) but all the shopkeepers denied (read LIED) about having change. As a last attempt I went to a momos & rolls stall and asked if he had change. As was expected, he said he did not have. I had lost my temper till now. I asked him if I buy a roll from him will he have change then and he smiled shamelessly. Felt like slapping that guy but it would have been injustice if I slapped only him :) I would have to slap each and every shopkeeper then who lied to me about not having change even though they had been running their shops since morning. Anyway, I had to buy an egg roll so that I could pay that poor rickshaw puller who had been waiting all along.

Yesterday's incident just made me feel more strongly that just like we have ATM's everywhere, we should also have something called CVM's (Change Vending Machine) distributed across the entire city. CVM's (i like to call it the "Chhutta" Vending Machine) is something that I have given a lot of thought and being an Image Processing guy, I even thought of an Image Processing solution to build such a system. The machine should also not be a problem to build and infact I have a complete design of such a system in my mind. Probably I should think of patenting it :D Just kiddin. But I have no idea about the feasibility of CVMs and if need for such a machine is only felt by me or there are other people too who think on similar lines.

KritiKalSecureScan completes 2 years today

2007-08-08T19:49:00.000+05:30

KritiKal SecureScan, a subsidiary of KritiKal Solutions Pvt. Ltd. completed two years today on the 8th of August and to celebrate the day we had a cake cutting ceremony in the evening followed by a group photograph. It was decided that the youngest member of the "family" should cut the cake and so Ravi, our office boy, cut the cake and it felt so great that I am working at a place where all are treated as equal irrespective of their pockets. I am not saying that other companies wouldn't involve everyone in their social events. But this is something I like about KritiKal and probably we are still a small group which keeps us a close knit unit. Way to go !! ..

The KSS Family

PB bole to Piyush Bakra ....

2007-08-07T19:53:00.000+05:30

I was in the office basement discussing a Vision problem with Anoop and Phani on the white board when Shome came in. I just strolled upto him and he pulled a buckle of my jeans from behind. As is his playful nature, I just ignored him and got on with the discussion again. NS was busy on the phone while Nehul and Apurva were busy staring at their screens when I last turned my back towards them. A minute later Nehul came up to Phani and took away his cellphone. And seconds later I could hear giggles behind my back. I just looked down and a network cord had got entangled to one of my legs. When I tried to get rid of it I realized that it was hanging from the buckle of my jeans just like a tail :D And there was a burst of laughter suddenly and it wasn't long before I realized that I had been made a "Bakra". Apurva had taken a couple of snaps with one from "closeup" of my tail-ed back view :D Here is that unfortunate snap :( :)Good one guyz ! I owe you one ;)

Videos of KalaKriti's events on Youtube

2007-08-07T00:00:00.001+05:30

1. Gajodhar ki mumbai yaatra - Akhilesh, Saurabh, Gaurav, Tarun
2. Guncha Koi Mere Naam Kar Diya - Piyush
3. Teri Deewani - Piyush

KalaKriti rocks the stage ...

2007-08-06T21:51:00.001+05:30

It was almost an year ago when a bunch of culturally active members at KritiKal formed a cultural club named KalaKriti to promote and organize cultural events at KritiKal from time to time. Yesterday (5th August) was KritiKal's anniversary and we had a function at Hans Plaza, Delhi where there were a host of cultural events organized by KalaKriti.The KalaKriti members (Atul, Phanindra, Karthik, Saurabh, Gaurav, Deeksha, Akhilesh, Nehul, Tarun and myself) reached the venue by 5pm since we had to set up the stage. The function was scheduled to start at 7pm. We started with our pre-function preparations. Nehul started setting up the buzzer right away while Atul positioned himself with his synthesizer. While the music system was being set up, we had a last round of practice of all the events. The buzzer ditched us at the last moment, though when we tested it at the office it worked perfectly. The guests started coming by 7pm but we had to wait till all the professors had arrived. Finally the function started at 8pm with ganesh vandana by Atul and me. Then Nehul (Master of Ceremony) requested Prof. Bala to say a few words before we started with the cultural events. Tarun's high voltage (rocking) song performance of "Aadat" set the perfect mood for the rest of the evening. Next in line was Phani's rendition of In Dino from Life in a METRO which had a charming effect on the audience. Then came the star event of the evening, "Gajodhar ki Mumbai Yaatra", a skit performed by Saurabh(Baijnath), Gaurav(Manohar), Tarun(Chachcha) and our local raju srivastava - Akhilesh(Gajodhar). And boy !! From the moment these people took the stage, people were rolling with laughter at every dialogue of Gajodhar bhaiyya and every action of Chachcha ji. Then I had a couple of solo performances one of which was special in the sense that I had never before played an instrument on my own song on stage. Last event of the evening was Antakshari hosted by Gaurav and Deeksha. Though Deeksha seemed nervous at the starting but she soon got used to the stage and it went kewl (read cool). There were four teams whose names were based on our products and the captain of the teams were members of that product. The teams were Trazer ke Deewane(Phani), LPRS ke Parwaane(Me), Zenscan ke Mastaane(Akhilesh) and Amsaki ke Afsaane(Tarun). There were four rounds, normal word round, dumb charades, hint round and Audio/Visual round. Not only the teams but also the audience enjoyed themselves thoroughly. Finally we had a sumptuous dinner but the party was not over yet. We had a cool sound system, we had laptop with cool numbers, and we had the perfect tempo for a DJ nite :) So we danced and danced and for a moment everyone was back to his college days. People who were scattered around the hall were dragged to the dance floor and we ensured no one had been spared from doing a jig or two. A fun packed night, smiling faces all around and most importantly, a satisfied mind that our efforts paid off. All the events were thought and practiced in not more than 5 days. And with busy schedules and everyone being in different projects it was only commendable how each one of us practiced after office sometimes in the office basemet and sometimes at my house. In all this I missed out an important event. The background music for all the events be it the skit or the songs. Atul was on the synthesizer all along standing at one corner of the stage. And he is the best keyboard player I have ever met in my life. He is just too good. But at the pace I am learning from him, the day is not far when I'll be the best, hehe. Just kiddin.

Three cheers for KalaKriti, hipp hipp hurray,hipp hipp hurray,hipp hipp hurray
Three cheers for KritiKal, hipp hipp hurray,hipp hipp hurray,hipp hipp hurray

Photographs taken by Deepak, Phani and Me. Do visit the album KritiKal Anniversary 07 for more photographs.

Dr. APJ Kalam to teach in IIIT Hyderabad

2007-07-31T16:56:00.000+05:30

'Missile' man to teach at IIIT-H

Hyderabad, July 28: After relinquishing the high office, Former President A P J Abdul Kalam will now devote part of his time teaching students of the premier International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) here.

''Dr Kalam has agreed to be part of the distinguished faculty of the IIIT-H,'' its Chairman Raj Reddy announced at the sixth convocation amid huge applause by students.

Beginning August, Dr Kalam would visit the IIIT-H and fulfil his passion for being in the midst of young people and lecturing them, IIIT-H Director Rajeev Sangal said.

Promising an unstinted support to the IIIT-H, Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, who was the chief guest, expressed happiness over Dr Kalam agreeing to be part of the distinguished faculty.

The E-sagu initiated in collaboration with the IIIT-H in 6,000 farms would be expanded to cover the entire state soon, the Chief Minister said adding three more IIITs would be started in the state from next academic year.

Delivering the convocation address, Satyam Computer Services Limited Founder and Chairman B Ramalinga Raju, stressing on team work, wanted young graduates to adopt best practices available.

As many as 250 B Tech and M Tech students were awarded degrees during the ceremony.

--- UNI

Instrumentals galore !

2007-07-31T11:35:00.000+05:30

Though I knew about this site "http://www.apunkabollywood.com" but I had no idea that they have this huge collection of good instrumentals and karaoke music about which I learnt just yesterday. We have our Annual Day celebrations in KritiKal on 5th of August for which I was searching for some original instrumentals and was glad to see the collection here.

I want to download all the instrumentals from here but I was just wondering if there was a better way than clicking on each and every link on every page to download them. Coz that would take me days together I guess :)

ne suggestions ?

New albums added ..

2007-07-25T07:42:00.000+05:30

Do visit the new albums

Most of these pictures have been taken from Nokia 3250 cellphone with a 2MP camera. And the effects were added using Picasa and Gimp. The panoramas have been made by ArcSoft Panorama maker which has given me the best quality panoramas till now. I am still to understand the features of my digital camera so haven't used it to its full potential.

Fried Ice Cream ??

2007-07-24T23:36:00.000+05:30

I was amazed to see this shop at Pinjor Gardens (near Panchkula) where you get Ice cream pakodas and equally disappointed when the shopkeeper told me that the material had got over so there wont be any ice cream pakodas available for the day. Though I did ask him how does he make them. He takes a small cube of ice cream, marinates it in corn flour and deep fries it. I am yet not convinced that the ice cream wont melt but then he has his shop doing great business there, so must be true :)

5 states in 24 hours

2007-07-23T15:33:00.000+05:30

Nothing great but just to make a statement, I did travel to 5 states in the past 24 hours. Started from my office in Noida (U.P.) on Saturday evening and reached New Delhi (Delhi) railway station. I was going to Panchkula (Haryana) to my sister's place so I boarded the train to Chandigarh(Punjab). On Sunday we went to Timber trail, Kalka (Himachal Pradesh) which was an awesome trip. A perfect Sunday spent with the family (parents, jiji and jiju). Anyway, details about the weekend trip later. For now, the five states are Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh :D

Talk about travelling ehh ?

Broadband at room

2007-07-18T16:47:00.001+05:30

Finally, took airtel broadband connection at my room in Noida. The details are as follows:

Rs. 725 Plan
Unlimited surfing
Unlimited download
Zero rental for modem and landline
No installation charges
One time modem charge of Rs. 500
Flat rate of Re. 1 per call
Pulse is 1 call/3 min for any local landline, 1 call/minute elsewhere.

My first client meeting

2007-07-18T16:23:00.000+05:30

It feels good to be back to blogging ways :) Its been a month since I posted something. A lot to be written which includes

-> Lonavla trip
-> Lonavla pics
-> Ubuntu review
-> Broadband at room

But first, something about my first demo to the client without my senior. Today I had a demo/meeting with one of our clients and believe me I was tensed like anything. Had met these people earlier once along with my senior but today I was the one to handle everything. And a decent demo was important. Setting up the camera and software hardly took half an hour and instantly we could run our application live. I cant give the details of the demo and our application due to privacy reasons but the demo went well and I am very happy with the way things went today. Saurabh was also with me so it was not completely being alone which was somewhat soothing. But this is just the starting. The clients have suggested many changes and not to forget the improvement in accuracy which is of prime importance. Anyway, the demo went well and it has made me more confident to handle such meetings/POC (proof of concept) demonstrations.

On the contrary, yesterday was one day I would like to erase from my life. Nothing went right except that one of my friends cleared the CA exams and is officially a CA now. Save this fact, rest of the proceedings were something like this:

1. Had one day to prepare for the demo.
2. Had to pay 500 bucks as late payment fine on my credit card.
3. My cellphone fell from a decent height :) I know it might be a very trivial thing for many but to me its very painful to see my cellphone fall on the floor, that too tiled floor which tends to incur more damage.
4. The demo application ran well on the development pc but as soon as I tried to run the application on the laptop, it crashed. Wasted 2 hours trying to figure out the problem but in vain. Finally compiled the code in "debug" mode and then ran the application on the laptop and it worked. But those two hours were real torture. And I am still a little irritated at not being able to figure out the problem till now.
5. Finally was able to catch a bus for Ghaziabad at 9 pm only to land up in more trouble. The bus engine stopped working after only going a kilometer. The driver did fix the problem partially so that now the bus ran at 20-30 km/hr. And then it dropped me at Vijaynagar which is midway between Noida and Ghaziabad. Changed two tempos to finally reach Ghaziabad at 10:20 pm. Phew !!
6. And when I reached home, there was no electricity :) A perfect rotten ending to a perfect rotten day :D

But I find it all funny today though yesterday I was so mad that I could have easily hit anyone trying to mess with me.

Raam Naam Satya Hai

2007-06-18T16:30:00.000+05:30

Got an opportunity to see this play titled "Raam naam satya hai" in the National School of Drama, New Delhi on Friday. It was the first time I was seeing a play though I have had a very keen interest in theater since a long time. It was a comic play with a message about AIDS awareness. But I had a lot of things to observe during the play. How do the artists use the entire stage space, usage of lights to change scenes, background music and how does everyone manage without a mike in a decent auditorium with a capacity of around 200. The artists seemed professional though none of them was a prominent figure. I specifically observed the artists when they just had to stand in a corner of the stage while the focus was another person at another part of the stage. And I was amazed to see the devotion. Even when the focus was not on them, they ensured they were giving their best. They all had to stare at the person in focus who was narrating his story and they all did just that. Not a single movement by anyone, even the expressions on all the faces never went off for even a second. Everything was just perfect. I must say I was mesmerized by the play completely. So much that I actually waited near the stage to meet some of the artists after the play was over. Met the main character, "Gopinath Mirashe", a young and smart guy who I believe was the best actor among all. Others were good too. He had done 3 yrs diploma in acting and was performing in plays under a 6 year contract with an agency. I also learnt that there are regular workshops for people like me who would want to participate in such plays be it part time. It would be a dream come true for me if I ever get a chance to perform in a play ever. It reminds me of an incident when I was preparing for engineering entrance test and met one of my favorite school teachers after months. She asked me what was I doing these days and was shocked to learn that I was not into arts, music and theater anymore. I still remember the expression on her face and the way she told me how I was made for arts and that I might be an engineer one day but I wont be satisfied ever. And how true she was, I can realize it only now. Though I do find time for music, painting, photography and traveling sometimes but that "sometimes" is not that frequent. But I know my job is not going to keep me away from any of this for long ever :)

IIIT Hyderabad finds a much deserved recognition ..

2007-06-15T11:06:00.000+05:30

Dataquest Ranks IIIT-H Top #5 in Placement, and Top #9 Overall (2007)

IIIT-H has been rated top #5, in campus placement, among all technology schools in the country, by DataQuest-IDC's annual survey - 2007. The University, which has never been placement focused, has been ranked ahead of IIT-K, IIT-D, IIT-M, BITS-Pilani, BHU-IT, and all other NITs and IIITs, in placement. Read Dataquest's latest edition (June 15).

Overall, IIIT-H has been ranked top #9, among all engineering colleges in India. For a University in its ninth year, being rated top 9 is truly an outstanding achievement, and a tribute to the IIIT-H's visionary founders, passionate management, and committed research faculty. Though top #9 is an achievement, the rank fails to reflect the University's actual standing. By any measure, IIIT-H stands second to none in the country, in computing, IT, and its applications, the only areas where we exist.

News channel sans news

2007-06-11T15:29:00.000+05:30

I had missed the match between Nadal and Federer yesterday and simply wanted to know the result of the French Open final. My first choice was to switch to Start Sports but they were showing another live event so I started watching Times Now. Kept waiting for half an hour but there was no news about the match. Not just this, there was no news at all for that matter. All they were interested about was the much hyped Orkut ban controversy and they had been showing it since afternoon (that is when I had seen, might have been since much before too). Going on streets, getting views of the common public in different metros. Switched to Zee news and they were covering the IIFA film awards and the special match BigB played with the metally and physically challenged. Then they started showing clips of Black movie and how the role played by BigB in that movie was a memorable one and how did he relate his match to this movie.

A child falls in a ditch and remains there for N days and all the news channels have this and only this to cover ? I have often seen many news channels showing a haunted house or a sage doing some rituals at night. What is the purpose ? Who wants to know it ?

There is an ad aired frequently on RED Fm where there is a line which goes like this .. "Khabaron se bekhabar yeh khabari channels" (News channels that are unaware of the news). Rightly said !!

News channels these days are more of an entertainment channel which have all the ingredients to make a recipe taste good and spicy but lack the nutritive nature which would keep the consumer healthy.

New additions to the album

2007-06-07T09:33:00.001+05:30

Have added new photographs to Abeer arts. Do check them out !! Specially the Jama Masjid and the moon.

A date with the moon ..

2007-06-02T10:20:00.001+05:30

Yesterday I had just finished watching Hollow Man on Zee Studio at 1am and was still not feeling sleepy at all. Played synthesizer for a while and as I looked outside the window of the living room I could see my only audience for that moment - the moon. Instantaneously a thought flashed my mind that why not try capturing the moon with my new 10x optical zoom camera. And there I was, standing in my balcony with my camera and aiming at the moon. I set the camera at the maximum possible zoom i.e. 10x optical + 5x digital. At such high zoom and the moon being so far its very hard to even catch the moon on your screen, forget about taking a snap. Also, its important to keep the camera steady and holding it in hands is not a good idea at all. You ideally need a tripod for distant object photography. But anyway, I had no tripod with me so I just tried hard to keep my hands as steady and still as possible. First snap - blurred. Second snap - blurred. Third snap - the moon wasn't even there in the frame :). Fourth snap - W.O.W. I was lucky enough to get a decent snap of the moon without too much effort. I am not sure how easy or difficult it actually is to shoot the moon but for a novice like me, it was a big achievement and I was overjoyed. Tried another 10 shots or so and was able to capture three more good snaps. Quickly downloaded the snaps on the comp and the moon never looked so beautiful to me before :)

Links to the original pictures: (The snaps are also added to Abeer Arts Gallery)
Click here for Snap1
Click here for Snap2
Click here for Snap3

locked the keys to the lock

2007-05-29T13:54:00.000+05:30

Yesterday was one of the rare days when I forgot my keys inside my room and locked it. The door has the facility of an auto lock which I generally don't use. But yesterday I didn't feel like taking my laptop to office so thought of leaving it in my room and locking the room. Just forgot the keys inside. When I came back home after office I realized what I had done :( But the best part was that I was supra cool all the time. Tried experimenting with the door knob but Saurabh had a better idea which at first seemed to me more destructive than what I was doing - trying to detach the knob of the door. Saurabh suggested that I break the back door which would require less effort and anyway its better to get the latch fixed rather than the lock on the front door. So we went to the back door and it just took 4 kicks to get the door open. Fortunately, there was no damage in the process. The latch had come out along with the screws from the wooden frame of the door so it can be fixed again with the help of a screw driver very easily. All's well that ends well :)

A quick update ..

2007-05-28T19:34:00.000+05:30

Well the latest update is that I suddenly realised that next month would mark the end of first half of 2007 :O Isn't life running too fast ? I still dun believe that 5 months have gone by in this year.

Saw "Cheeni Kum" yesterday and I loved the movie. Its definitely one of the cutest movies of recent times. The chemistry between different characters has been shown very nicely and the dialogues are witty as well as humurous. A light hearted comedy movie, a MUST watch !!

Also saw Shootout at Lokhandwala and I cant believe I actually watched it even though I had no intentions to do so. I cant understand why this movie is getting good reviews. And this person named Tusshar (with a double S(ass)) Kapoor, why is he getting roles in the movies still ?. I am sure he pays the producers to bag roles in movies. He has no idea what torture he is making the public go through with his appearences. God save us !!!

Saturday night we had our HR party at RPM, Noida. Had a great time there with unlimited food, drinks and a dance floor. Danced a loooooooooootttttttt till midnight and the food was also good. Not to mention about the various cocktails and mocktails that we had and even invented some on our own :)

Got an inspiration to do glass painting last friday when I met one of my aunts who has done graduation in Fine Arts. She was doing a huge glass painting since past one week and got a chance to see a live demo when I visted her. Got all the necessary tips and motivation required for me to get going. It would be a nice experience for me too since I have never done a glass painting before. I also showed her my sketches and photographs and was glad when she said that I have that knack of an artist and its visible in my photographs. She liked the pencil sketches too. I was on seventh heaven :D To be appreciated by an artist is a different feeling.

Have been regularly practicing on the piano (synthesiser) since past few weeks and trying to record the instrumentals on my laptop now. The recorded midi files dont sound as great and stereoponic as they sound on the piano. Will have to do some more research/experiments on this recording thing :)

Thats it. Life is so busy and stressed up at times these days that have started taking life on an hourly basis :) Not joking, it feels great when you've just had a fruitful hour at work or a great time chatting with a friend and at the same time the "not-so-happening" hours are easily forgotten :D

Meeting an old friend ...

2007-05-21T20:37:00.000+05:30

How about completing the title as follows- Meeting an old friend for the first time !! :) Ha ! Sounds strange isn't it, but its true. Met an old friend for the first time this Sunday. We are friends since past 3-4 years but we had never met in person till now. We became friends on the net (not through chatting). Earlier it was 1-2 mails every week but soon we became quite frank. Its nice to have a friend who knows no one amongst your other friends :) Don't get me wrong but there are a lot of things that you can share with this friend which you are afraid/hesitant to tell even the closest of your friends. hehe. Whatever, it was a nice experience.

My bad..

2007-05-18T09:24:00.000+05:30

This part of my life is called "humiliation"

Past couple of weeks haven't gone well both personally and professionally. And yesterday was no exception. Slogged at the office and generally felt like shouting and freaking out at home to get the stress out of me. And did just that. But I failed to realize that I could be disturbing others by such an act. A person called me from the terrace of his house diagonally opposite to our house. When I reached outside to the balcony with Atul, he scolded me black and blue for behaving in such a rowdy manner in the colony and that I was disturbing everyone else. Now I wasn't sure about everybody but one thing was clear that the person was definitely so disturbed with the ho-halla at my house that he had to finally scold me so bad to bring me back to senses. And poor Atul had to go through all this bashing for no fault of his. I felt very bad. Felt bad for that person whom I had disturbed. Felt bad for Atul who did not deserve any of this treatment. And felt irritated and angry with myself for behaving in such an immature way. I apologized to the man and promised that such a thing wont happen in future and I also apologized to Atul.

Went to my room and thought a lot about the past events that have taken place. Things are not smooth in my project and there is a lot of pressure, had a small tension in the office a few days ago, my best friend is not talking to me and now yesterday had to be such a day. But you know whats the best part of going through a tough time, there is very little to feel more bad but there is a certain hope that things will only get better with time.

The lesson was learnt and I am a better person today than I was yesterday.

Rain drops falling on my head ....

2007-05-14T17:57:00.000+05:30

Friday evening while returning home from office, it had started drizzling while I was still some distance from home. And with the wind so still, I was sure its going to rain pretty heavily. I started walking fast but not for the obvious reason that I did not want to get wet :) Rather I wanted to reach home as soon as possible so that I could part with my laptop and then enjoy in the rain. Did exactly that. By the time I entered home it was raining cats and dogs. Ran to my room, threw the laptop on my bed, took off my spectacles and came to the balcony to enjoy the rain, in the rain :) There was no electricity and it was already dark so I began shouting on top of my voice only to realize that I had company. Every time I shouted, shrill voices of kids would echo from all corners of the block as if answering me. It was fun and I was literally dancing with joy. The day had been a tiring one in the office and each drop of rain seemed to be draining a part of stress off my mind. For once I was not thinking of meeting my deadlines in office or being out of touch with so many of my friends or not attending CAT classes faithfully. With all this jumping, dancing and shouting I was feeling hungry now. Suddenly a thought flashed my mind which many might consider weird but I loved it. There was some watermelon left in the fridge and I suddenly felt like finishing it off while getting drenched in the rain. And that is what I did and watermelon had never tasted better before :D I could see the stars now and there was a slight disappointment about the stopping rain. But nothing to complain, it was one of the best times I had in recent past.

A party that wasnt to be :(

2007-05-09T20:20:00.000+05:30

I find it funny as well as feel disappointed at the same time. All the enthusiasm that was there in the morning to make this unique party happen seems to have lost now. Its funny how could one day affect you in two contrasting ways. No point going into the details of why it happened or how it happened but now I really dont feel motivated anymore. And so the mail below with reference to the previous post:

Hi,
Due to some personal reasons the party stands canceled for now. Sorry for this sudden change in plan but it was as unexpected as was the invitation so i hope you wont mind :) As for the suspense, this invitation was sent to everyone from KritiKal (KSS and KSPL) whose first names contain an "sh"( Call it the SH Club). Just wanted to have a day which could be remembered as something unique for a long time to come and at the same time have something different from the usual office, movie, home routine that most of us have in recent times. Anyway ....

Keep Rocking !!
Cheers,
P!yush.

What has to be, will be !!

Something Different - 2

2007-05-09T13:15:00.000+05:30

Just wanted to know how many days can I survive without a cellphone. And therefore I have abandoned my cellphone for sometime till the day I can stretch without it. The only exception being that I would have to call home once every night else I wouldnt have got the permission to switch off my cellphone at the first place :)

Something Different - 1

2007-05-09T11:52:00.000+05:30

Off late have been thinking a lot about spicing up life by doing something different, something weird. Here is an attempt. I have sent a mail to some people today which looks like this:

Hi Junta,
"Howz life ?" A very common question with a different answer each day. Haven't our lives become too monotonous these days ? What was the weirdest thing that happened to you off late ? Or let me put it in a different way. When was the last time you felt you were special ? Today might be one such day :) Well....allow me to hold the suspense a little longer. Please take this mail as an invitation for a small yet unusual gathering/party on ***** evening at *********. The details are given below:

Venue: *****************
Date : *******************
Time : ********************

Hoping to c u all !!
P!yush.

PS: Keep it a secret ;)

The details have been purposefully hidden for now. Suspense unveils on Saturday :)

Spiderman - A love story

2007-05-05T10:08:00.000+05:30

Yeah, thats what it is. A love story. The movie was not as promising as its promos. Infact I was disappointed with the movie altogether. Looked more like a typical bollywood flick with all the necessary ingredients. Romance, Suspense, Drama, Sacrifice, Action, Twists and Turns. The only consolation was a few action scenes which looked complicated but great. And also a few comic scenes involving the Chief of the bulletin - The Bugle.

If you cant stop yourself from watching it, at least go without any expectations or hopes and you might just like the movie !!

Suraj Ki Garmi Se .....

2007-05-04T09:45:00.001+05:30

Prayer title: Suraj ki garmi se
Movie/Album: Parinay
Singer: Sharma Bandhu

Jaise
Suraj ki garmi se jalte huye tan ko
Mil jaaye taruvar ki chhaya
Aisa hi sukh mere mann ko mila hai
main jabse sharan teri aaya, mere raam

Suraj ki garmi se ......

Bhatka hua mera mann tha koi
Mil na raha tha sahara

Leharon se ladti huyi naav ko jaise
Mil na raha ho kinara

Us ladkhadati huyi naav ko jo
kisi ne kinara dikhaya
Aisa hi sukh mere mann ko mila hai
main jabse sharan teri aaya, mere raam

Suraj ki garmi se .......

Sheetal bane aag chandan ke jaisee
Raghav kripa ho jo teri
Ujiyaali poonam ki ho jaayein raatein
jo thi amawas andheri

Yug yug se pyasi madhu bhoomi ne jaise
sawan ka sandesh paaya
Aisa hi sukh mere mann ko mila hai
main jabse sharan teri aaya, mere raam

Suraj ki garmi se .......

Jis raah ki manzil tera milan ho
Us par kadam main badhaoon
Foolon mein kharon mein
patjhad baharon mein
main na kabhi dagmagaoon

Paani ke pyaase ko takdeer ne jaise
jee bhar ke amrit pilaaya
Aisa hji sukh mere mann ko mila hai
main jabse sharan teri aaya, mere raam

Suraj ki garmi se jalte huye tan ko
Mil jaaye taruvar ki chhaya
Aisa hji sukh mere mann ko mila hai
main jabse sharan teri aaya, mere raam

Suraj ki garmi se jalte huye tan ko
Mil jaaye taruvar ki chhaya

Rajjo's Birthday

2007-05-03T10:58:00.000+05:30

Birthday Boy: Sourabh (Rajjo)
Place: Terrace, Garima Vihar, Noida
Time: 00:00 hrs, 2nd May

Feeling lazy :)

2007-05-02T18:47:00.000+05:30

Feeling lazy though I want to write many things here. I will rather enumerate the latest for today.

Celebrated Rajjo's (Sourabh's) birthday at his residence at midnight yesterday with Bedi, Chandu and Jagan. Enjoyed a lot decorating the terrace with balloons tied on a broken ladder and a charpoy along with Jagan and Chandu. I loved the whole setup which looked like a funky cafeteria to me.
Started practicing on the synthesizer after a long time and its only now that I realise what I was missing since so many days. Feel more relaxed throughout the day and that sense of calmness is back again which had lost since past few weeks.
Planning to make another sketch this weekend.
This month there wont be any CAT classes (yippppppppeeeeeeeeee). Only revision classes which I am planning to attend to make up for the previous bunks :D

Thats it for now !!

The Murali act

2007-05-01T10:12:00.000+05:30

We often play cricket in our house corridor in the morning and also after office. Yesterday I was trying to bowl like muralitharan and trying to emulate that same awkward action that he has. Practiced for everything, the leg spin, the off spin and the "doosra¨ too :) Most of them were wide but the ones which i got correct, Saurabh had a hard time facing them. Saurabh (my roomie) is a very good player so I assume I was bowling well :D. But in that excitement to become a Murali for the day, I got a sprain in my right arm :) and now it pains whenever I straighten my hand.

Started writing this post in the morning but was caught up in so many things that just couldn't complete it until now (6:50 pm). Still some work left but the good thing is that tonight many of us are meeting at a friends place for his birthday. Its strange that we all are batchmates from college working in the same city (different offices) and yet none of us is able to meet that often. Anyway, today is not that day :)

Times Global Village

2007-04-28T12:39:00.000+05:30

Past week for me could be termed "work hard ,party harder" because thats how it has been. Two office parties, a movie, Global village trip (snaps) and today its gonna be a pizza party at office :D Had been hearing about this Global Village since long and really wanted to go there. Its located between Delhi and Noida. Infact it is on one side of DND flyway which connects Delhi to Noida. And that is what makes going there from Noida a little pain taking and awkward too. Ever imagined going to Punjab from Delhi via Madhya Pradesh having to take a U-turn and then traveling almost the same distance back ? Off course its an exaggeration but this is how you get to the Times Global Village from Noida. You start from Noida, cross the DND toll bridge (5 kms), drive all the way till aashram in Delhi(another 2-3 kms) until you find the first cut on the divider, then take a U-turn and drive back to reach the destination.

But it was worth the effort. The place has been built over a huge area. Its basically an exhibition of crafts and consumer goods from various countries like South Africa, Kenya, Senegal, Pakistan, UK, China, Arab, Thailand and many more. There are models of Taj Mahal, Twin towers, Egyptian Pyramid and the Sphynx, Roman Colosseum, Eiffel Tower which are an attraction of the place. And there are too many food stalls with cuisines from various parts of India. Things are a little expensive there but not everyday do we get a chance to experience so much.

We made sure we had seen each and every section of the world and it was fun to roam around. We had Neembu paani, Aam panna and Matar kulche for the starters. Then roamed around and I bought a nice gift for my brother from one of the shops. We also had kesar kulfi and I tried Tom Yon Gong soup which is a special Thai preparation. It was awesome !! We had dinner at the "Murthal ke paraanthe" and then "Bihari tikka with paraantha" at the pakistani food stall. Finally we had "baraf ka gola" (chuski) which was a delight in itself.

A kewl evening !!

Monkey Trouble

2007-04-28T09:59:00.000+05:30

I got ready for the office pretty early today. As soon as I opened the house door to the stairway, two monkeys (well built) were lying just 4 steps down. Seeing me one of them pretended to attack me. I closed the door immediately. Then started what I'll call "Bandar bhagao abhiyaan" which lasted for about 20-25 minutes. Many of you would have heard the "saam-daam-dand-bhed" technique. I first tried the "saam" method where I tried to talk to them. lolsss. Yes I actually talked to them and told them to go to the terrace. Pointed to the terrace with my hand and strangely one of them even went up. But the other one was not willing to move and was charging towards me time and again so had to resort to the "dand" technique. Finally brought the tennis bat and seeing that in my hand the monkey immediately ran upwards. I was'nt sure how many steps away they were from the door still so asked Saurabh to give me cover while I move downstairs. Saurabh stood at the door with the tennis bat till I left the house :) It was more of fun than any trouble actually.

A new day ..

2007-04-27T09:46:00.000+05:30

Not everyday feels like a new day. Its only when the previous day had a lot many things and you just wanted the day to pass, the next morning is a welcome relief. Yesterday was one such day. Slogged at the office till 9:30 pm, had a task to be finished which is almost done but then, "almost" is never "complete". On my walk back called three of my friends. None of them was near their cell. Its dinner time but even after knowing everything it irritated me more. Anyway, reached home, had dinner and went for a long walk. Must have walked 3-4 kms and when I came back I was feeling good. Then fixed the mosquito net over my bed finally and for the first time I had an uninterrupted sound sleep. Woke up early and feeling all charged up to get on with today.

New albums added

2007-04-26T20:01:00.000+05:30

Check out the new albums !!

Broadband to go free in 2 yrs

2007-04-26T11:10:00.000+05:30

Broadband to go free in 2 yrs
JOJI THOMAS PHILIP
TIMES NEWS NETWORK [THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 2007 02:00:26 AM]

NEW DELHI: The government proposes to offer all citizens of India free, high-speed broadband connectivity by 2009, through the state-owned telecom service providers BSNL and MTNL. While consumers would cheer, the move holds the potential to kill the telecom business as we know it.

You have heard of free municipal broadband — many cities in the US have drenched themselves in wireless broadband connectivity which is freely accessible to residents. The idea is to boost economic activity in general. The government of India plans to achieve free broadband connectivity at a speed of 2 MB per second across the country, with a similar goal. Senior government officials expect to be able to achieve this goal spending only a portion of the corpus of the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF).

All telecom operators contribute 5% of their revenues every year to USOF. It is estimated that the unutilized sum from the USOF has touched Rs 9,194.12 crore by March, 2007-end.

The current technological trend is for voice calls also to shift to the internet, using voice over internet protocol (VOIP). The quality of VOIP calls, patchy to start off with, has been improving steadily over the years and by 2009, is likely to be as good as current analogue calls that establish a circuit between the calling and called parties. When that happens, revenue streams from calls would dry up and telecom companies would need to develop value-added applications to make money from the connectivity they provide for free or virtually free.

The department of telecom (DoT) will be taking a series of steps to make its plans for free broadband a reality. These include, using the USOF to set an extensive optic cable network across the country, opening up the long-distance sectors to further competition, allowing free and fair access to cable landing stations, permitting the resale of bandwidth, setting up web hosting facilities within the country and asking all internet service providers to connect to the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI).

With international bandwidth rates in India being between two-to-five times higher than the global standards, the DoT will also go all out to break the monopoly of existing national and international distance players in a bid to induce cut throat competition in this sector. “India has only a handful of NLD/ILD operators while small countries such as Singapore and Taiwan have over 30 and 60 long distance operators respectively.

Accupressure points on the foot

2007-04-26T11:06:00.000+05:30

Dunno how effective it is but from what I have heard from others, IT DOES HELP. The picture below shows which point to press on your foot to get relief from pain in different parts of the body.

My albums

2007-04-25T09:59:00.000+05:30

Created a Picasaweb account to post those innumerable snaps I keep clicking from my cellphone and camera. You could find links to some albums here at the right hand side of the blog :)

happy surfing !!

A night out(side)

2007-04-24T14:09:00.000+05:30

Yesterday night was an experience of its kind. I had hardly caught sleep past midnight when there was a power cut at about 1 am. The temperatures soaring to new heights everyday and the never decreasing mosquitoes in Noida make sure that you cant sleep unless the fan runs just over your head. Infact I feel these mosquitoes have become immune to these repellants now because nothing seems to make any difference to their numbers. Anyway, so we (Atul, Saurabh and myself) came out to the balcony and started chatting and roaming (you cannot stand at one place coz the mosquitoes will eat you up in a frenzy). The power was back by 1:30 am only to be cut again at around 2:15 am. Only that this time it was different. When I came out to the balcony I realised that other houses had their coolers/ACs running in full swing and it seemed that only our house was the "blessed" one this time. I informed Atul and Saurabh about it. They went down to check if the fuse had not blown up. It was fine !!

It was really hard to make out what could be the exact problem so we soon gave up on the hope of seeing the fan move again at least for the whole night. We were far from being sleepy now, rather in a very jovial mood spoilt only by the fits of irritation due to the mosquitoes and the heat. The whole of sector 15 echoed either with our laughter or "Kallu's" voice. Kallu is the street dog in our colony whom we have named on his appearance. Soon Atul and I started weaving a story on Kallu and his life. It was fun to act stupid for a change :) Suddenly Atul had this nice idea of setting up the mosquito nets at the balcony and make some arrangement to sleep there itself. It was indeed a good idea. Soon we had our personal "tents" lined at the balcony. Due to space constraints, Saurabh had to fix his "mahal" inside the living room while Atul and I made ourselves comfortable inside our respective nets outside.

Once finding ourselves relieved from the mosquitoe trouble and sleep having vanished completely, we started joking more freely, mimicking actors, remembering episodes from laughter challenge and playing music on the cellphone. There were still one or two mosquitoes who did not have to try hard to gain entrance into the net since they were already inside. We did try unsuccessfully to get rid of them in whatever feeble light our cellphones could help us with.

I don't know the exact time when we slept again but I could hear the birds and there were traces of violet in the sky so I guess it was past 4 am. There was a light breeze which was enough for us to beat the heat. Woke up on the bell rung by the maid at 8 am. It also meant that the electricity was restored. Opened the door and went to my room to sleep again. Abandoned my "mahal" where it was and instructed the maid to clean it up. Woke up pretty late (10 am) but still the "hangover" of the last night was enough for me to not feel panicky. Rather got ready for office lazily and was on my desk at about 11.

All said, an inverter is the need of the hour at my house :)

GSM gizmo helps cops find stolen car

2007-04-23T10:56:00.000+05:30

NEW DELHI: A chartered accountant's Mahindra Scorpio SUV stolen from outside his Munirka home in southwest Delhi late on Friday night, was recovered by a police team from Haryana just a day later — thanks to a state-of-the-art gizmo.
original article

The state-of-the-art gizmo mentioned above has been built by one of the KritiKal teams. Its Amsaki 9110, a unique wireless home/car security messaging device that gives instant alerts on your mobile phone the moment a security breach is detected. Designed to alert you wirelessly through SMS as soon as your burglar alarm system intercepts an intrusion.

It feels great to see something which was developed in our labs, now hitting the market. Though I am a little bit disappointed that our name, KritiKal, is nowhere mentioned in the entire newspaper article or even on the product website. Its only encouraging to be appreciated and known for the great work done by a company which is just 5 years old and soon growing and working hard to make a name for itself.

Why do Post Graduation ?

2007-04-22T19:02:00.000+05:30

Just two months back the weekends were mine to spend the way I wanted to until I joined CAT coaching since I "thought" I wanted to appear for CAT. I don't deny that I want to be a manager someday but what is not clear to me is if MBA is really a requirement for it ? I have studied enough I guess. I am always ready to learn something, but studying something irrelevant is difficult now. Because I have no idea why a would-be-manager should solve Speed and Distance problems, Fluid mechanic problems, mugging up English words just to improve his vocabulary temporarily till he is done with the exams. And since the time Saturdays have been made working days in my company, I somehow avoid coming across Sundays since it is the one day I used to get for myself and that too I loose now in a 4hr session on something I consider useless. Having already paid the coaching fee, I feel bound to attend the lectures and that is simply killing me.

I did schooling because I couldn't have graduated without it lest I was a prodigy like Tathagat Avtar. Graduation was necessary to get a decent job. The question is why should I do a post graduation ? Is it because just being a graduate doesn't sound good ? Or will just being a graduate be a problem for me in terms of career growth ? I hope someone can help me out.

The following statistics might sound kiddish but I hope I have at least some people who think on the same lines. Spent almost 14 years in school. Dropped one year for engineering preparation. Then another 4 years to get a degree. That makes it 19 years. For that past 19 years I have been studying continuously and just when I got time to paint, sketch, travel, socialise and do so many other things, a stupid thought flashed that probably I should do a post graduation too. Another 3 years ? I just dont feel like wasting my time preparing for it... at least not today or tomorrow or even for the next couple of months :) People argue that you could still do everything you want even while preparing for CAT, you just have to plan you schedule accordingly. But thats not my point. Why CAT when I am happy (read satisfied) without it.

Need a break, seriously. Phew !!

Bheja Fry

2007-04-21T16:46:00.000+05:30

A total entertainer. There is nothing special about the story but the acting and the dialogues make the movie a full dose of laughter. A must watch if you are stressed out. Vinay Pathak and Ranvir Shourie (V tv VJ's who are a well known comic pair of the recent times) are the two people to watch out for in this movie. Not many directors are able to impress with a remake (of a French comedy Le Diner De Cons) at their debut. I have'nt watched the original movie but would like to. But for now, I am happy to see this flick for the second time tonight :D Offcourse, for free :P (Office party)

Rendezvous with nature

2007-04-21T13:11:00.000+05:30

There is something about the sunset/sunrise that has always made me felt great. And if the sun happens to set behind a river or a sea, a more perfect scene would be hard for me to imagine. Such was the experience during the boat journey to Belurmath from Dakshineswar temple a few days back when I was in Kolkata on a short trip. Away from the usual city, away from the numerous thoughts that constantly rock my brain, away from everything else and close to just nature for a change. It was evening time and the Hoogly river was all silver with the retiring sun throwing shades of gold at the water just in front of it. The buildings at the horizon looked nothing more than different sized black boxes marking the boundary between the land and the river. It was a steamer boat though I would have preferred a normal boat which could let me witness the scenery from the river for longer time :) and also because I find the sound of the oars soothing.

Belurmath is a very peaceful place while the famous Kaali temple at the Dakshineswar is crowded by the "bhakt jana". There was a huge line just to get a glimpse of the statue. At another hall in the temple some followers were singing prayers in a unified voice while others were just sitting there with closed eyes. Strangely, even after being in the middle of a crowd, i felt at peace there. Had it not been for time, I would have loved to join them in the "keertan". I am definitely going there the next time I visit Kolkata. And this time I hope I get to see the sunrise :)

Mission lauki ke kofte

2007-04-20T13:29:00.000+05:30

My new room mate, Atul, had been saying since morning yesterday that tonight we will make kofte for dinner. I thought he wasn't serious till he actually invited another friend from office for dinner. I enjoy cooking but thats something like once in a month types when I actually feel like working in the kitchen. Atul's enthiusiasm made sure that one day was today :) We (Atul, Gaurav and me) left office at 7:30pm and bought "ghia", curd, etc whatever was necessary for the dish of the night - Lauki ke Kofte. Grated the "ghia", prepared besan mix, and in no time we were frying pakodis (read kofte). Later the maid had also arrived and she gave the finishing touches to the curry and cooked rotis and rice for all of us. Preparing the dough for rotis is the hardest task for me in the kitchen. While Atul and I were working in the kitchen on our "koftas", Saurabh and Gaurav had brought Ice Cream for the dessert. Had a sumptuous dinner while watching the celebrity episode of KBC. Then went for a stroll together to smell some fresh air before we finally retire to bed. Later we played dumbcharades and finally some touching piano instrumentals played by Atul on his synth. Let me mention here that Atul is the best keyboard player I have ever met in my life. He could make any song sound beautiful just by the various chords he plays along with the tune. I hope I can learn something from him and who knows we might have our own music band someday. :) All in all, a great evening and I became more qualified in cooking :D

test post

2007-04-08T20:21:00.000+05:30

This is a test post that i am writing to see how things are working on my newly created blog. I actually want to post photographs and drawings and along with them, a description for the same. Dont expect me to be regular on this because I am very bad at being regular in anything :)