Exploring Bangalore City

Bangalore has been like my second home since the past one year.While I used to visit the city for interviews and walkins,I had no time to explore the city which is now famously known as the Garden city,The silicon valley and the City of lakes(262 in number to be exact).With my cousins wedding around the weekend,I decided to explore the city a bit-given the fact that its famous for its gardens all over the metropolis.

The first thing while entering the city,I captured some moments of the journey on my phone.A snap here and a snap there some instances which captivated me





Just put my hand outside the moving train to take this snap from my mobile.Looks cool isnt it?Also see how the sun rises in the distance.It was 6.00 AM in the morning when i reached bangalore.

Being an outsider meant to take a tourism package from karantaka state tourism for a ride around the city in half days time(There s a full day city package as well).My mother and twin brother joined me in the city's exploration ride.What we did not expect was the soaring temperatures which is mostly uncommon here.I then realised that Bangalore was choking.

The development and demand in the IT sector had shadowed the infrastructural facilities --The reason was obvious,People who work in the big tech parks all around bangalore earn more money,buy more automobiles and donnot care to use the good public transport system.

The half day bangalore city tour

Went to badami house,the toursim center run by the karnataka govt around 2 pm in the afternoon.Had to take tickets for the afternoon tour as the morning one was sold out mostly to foreign tourists.Tour starts around 2.20 in a Non-AC coach.Had to bear the tempratures...what the heck!!! Less number of persons in the tour  meant change of plans in the last moment(We had booked for the AC coach).After we were refunded with some of the money we were told to board the bus.

I cursed myself.Never in my life had I faced such heat in this garden city.

Just thought for a while- Had texas instruments not come to bangalore 25 years ago and recommend others to set up  shop here,things could have been quite different! LOL.

The bus started and went through the town hall.Magnificent Building it was!A center for cultural activities it had indeed lived up to the cities expectations and image.



We faced the traffic woes all along the way.More cars,less number of lanes and more heat getting added to this beautiful garden city.The next stops included the  Vidhan soudha(House of commons)and the Vidhan parishad(The secretariat).Though vidan soudha was quite and old building its still one of the best places for the post cards!.The secretariat was no less when compared to the house of commons.More bigger and majestic both of them were stealing the eyes of people going through them-Even though the roads also houses The High court complex.

With hundreds of constituencies from which the elected leaders represent their people,this temple of democracy has indeed stolen my heart.Democracies are and will be the torch bearers in the 21st century be it the United states or India(The oldest and the Largest in the world).

I am fond of certain things Trains,Rockets,Fighter jets.Never missed a rocket launch from my childhood when India sends a satellite or a soyuz launch from russia,A shuttle launch from the United states.Could only take some snaps with models of Various Indian rockets and a special section for NASA.



There was a huge fighter jet outside the museum  building.Perhaps a de-commisioned one.I went near it with glee started examing it with anxiety and took some snaps there as well



Yes i am fond of fighter jets!Seen loads of them on the TV while in my school particularly in the program called boys toys and Modern marvels,Both of them still  broacasting on the History channel.With an airforce base near by and a buying spree by the Indian airforce.I could make out the F16s the F18 hornets and the Mirage jets thundering over the city with their big sonic booms for atleast two weeks.

There were some big boys too making the rounds in the sky,The Russian Ilyushin Aircraft followed by two Mirage fighter jets.Could not take a snap of them since they were too fast for me ;) .You wont get to see so many jets all the time ;)

The last of our half day tour ended with a visit to lalbagh.Asia's largest rose gardens and one of the worlds largest botanical gardens.Thousands of sherbs and a varied variety of rose plants to look at!.Certainly bangalore is THE garden city of India.

Another un-expected tour

I was scheduled to leave bangalore in two days time.Was feeling bad for not been able to stay here for long.An un-expected call from my friends made us to make a quick decision.Tour all the Tech parks and the IT economic zones of the city.We took a Day pass and started to stare outside as the bus passed through the many gleaming buildings around the city.Though we could still not make into of them we had hope that some day we would be working in that world of glass and concrete!






One thing is for sure....Bangalore is Choking.....

Brilliant Ads....A picture is worth a thousand words!

Was just going through my gmail account when I came across this mail sent by my sister.Some  of the pictures try to address various social and economical issues and myths in Modern India,while some are  initiatives taken by the Govt of India to eradicate uncanny myths about the girl child and the rampant female foeticide

With de- forestion  on the rise days may come when there will be no holy places to go and worship!



Never had horlicks with milk when I was a kid.Its more tasty when taken as it is ;).Even now sometimes I have it :D.As the famous quotation goes with the AD "nenu horlicks taganu tintanu" = I never drink horlicks, love it the way it is!

The CEO of pepsi earns more than the most famous bollywood stars! --> Girl power! - Govt of India Initiative

Isnt this Nice!



My favourites from the incredible India campaign done at Ogilvy and Mather



Need to refresh/reboot your mind? There is something for everyone in Yoga!

The symbol of Love -TajMahal  gleaming white

Golden Oldies back in Colors

Its been a colorful start for the Telugu film Industry.After running for 175 days sucessfully all over and creating new records, the old mythological film Mayabazar is back after 54 years.This time the film has even made youngsters- who generally avoid watching these evergreen films to go to the Theaters.  

What is so special that a 54 year old film is making headlines these days?And how is it able to attract cinema lovers from the Gen-next age?This probably has got to do with the story itself.And the fact that it has been derived from the longest epics of history makes it an interesting watch.I used to watch some of these old movies with my mom in the weekends sometime.They were very different from the current generation Bollywood films.Every storyline had a social message and were patriotic due to the Independence movement at that time.

Mayabazar pours life into a 3000 year old epic saga the same time as that of the Trojan war.It has been a wonderful experience to watch such a beautiful black and white movie in colour again.Its a good chance for today's generation to see how the films were made in the olden days.



The digitally re-mastered print made by gold stone technologies by painstakingly colouring the 24reels  using 16 million pixel technology has made other oldies to follow suite.Hope all the great oldies make inroads into the hearts of today's youngsters.

ZOO ZOO's taking India by storm

A new marketing strategy from vodaphone India during the earlier IPL was making headlines.This year they are back again!More frolic and funny as they look,the cute characters which represent the Vodaphone brand are back with a bang!.What makes them so special when compared to other Ads and endorsements is that most most of the telecom providers are being showcased by leading Bollywood stars including the Federal Govt's BSNL.

Vodaphone was a new entry in India after taking up Hutchison essar.Although being the world's largest telecom company - entering un-known waters was a huge risk.

With the first version of IPL around the corner vodaphone used it as a platform to launch the Zoo Zoo campaign.They were an instant hit and still have a huge fan following in orkut and Facebook.The captivating performances of the zoo zoo creatures brought fun and humour.
When its other competitors were busy roping in Bolywood superstars,Vodaphone approached ogilvy and mather and asked them to design a campign which would be a strong image of the company in the future.Thus were born the zoo zoo charecters.Designed at O&M bangalore and filmed by Nirvana films in southafrica,the zoo zoo's this time bring in new snippets of a regular Indian's life with a humorous touch.

The recent launch of the vodaphone widget for desktops is an icing on the cake for zoo zoo fans!As shown below one of the creature creeps through the system clock and stands on the superbar.





Looking for more fun filled Ads from the cute zoo zoo's !

India..beneath the mystery..beyond the history...

The trip to mysore with my college friends was an experience of a lifeime.It gave me an opportunity to study and find out about India's past filled with rich heritage and culture.

When i first visited the palace of the maharaja's of mysore as a kid i was not in a position to understand what such imposing structures as the palace made in the history of india.

The trip to mysore with my college friends was an experience of a lifeime.It gave me an opportunity to study and find out about India's past filled with rich heritage and culture.

When i first visited the palace of the maharaja's of mysore as a kid i was not in a position to understand what such imposing structures as the palace made in the history of india.



But after visiting it now,i feel that my trip has some purpose to understand what my country was like even hundreds of years ago

.The huge imposing palaces with vast areas of green gardens,the dancing fountains dating back to hundreds of years which still work perfectly,the magnifiecient temples which give peace and tranqulity.



The grandeur  of the brindavan gardens which gives a feeling of heaven on earth,The lush green coffee plantations all along the roads leading to mysore... all of this makes me go hullabol...

India turns 62...

At the stroke of midnight 62 years ago,India obtained independence from the british raj after being ruled and looted of its entire wealth.Before the british invaded and took control over india in the 1800's it was the richest country in the world with a GDP higher than that of the present United states.It took more than 55 years for india to become a formidable economic superpower in the present world league competing with China and its contemporaries.

As a citizen of the indian repulblic,I salute the initiative taken by mahatma gandhi in a non violent way to obtain independence and spread the word of peace.Jay hind!

Back to fedora once again

After tinkering for a long time with windows vista to check out its much touted security features,I switched back to Fedora-11  today which happens to be the latest avatar of the distro.Installation was fast and snappy.There are many things which i found common with both linux and vista like the UAC prompt and ASLR implementation at lower levels.Not that i hate it,but i was done with the memory hogging OS for quite some time.I never experienced a BSOD before,but when i got one due to a faulty ACPI driver which followed the death of my HDD i thought that it was enough.



It took some time to figure out on how to use proprietary software codecs and get all kinds of formats to work but finally i had done it.I have also been tinkering with the Bash command prompt which  i am very found out in linux based systems .

Some exciting artwork discussions is going on the fedora ambassador's mailing  list including more effective ways of marketing the product.Due to the various DOS attacks taking place over the internet i assumed it was best for me to switch back to the very secure linux system

With the independence day coming up i feel the launch of fedora 11 has truly lived up to its tag line Freedom +Infinty=fedora

JAy ho!Mera Bharat mahan!

My foundness for train journeys....

Train journies always start with a fight with my twin brother for the window seat when we were kids,even now when both of us travel together,its mostly like fisrt come first serve for us to catch a glimpse of the lovely country side which rushes through while passing from one city to another.Whenever i used to go to bangalore,it was a very memorable experience for me.Not only could i see beautiful valleys and grape plantations all along,but also the large curves at which i can see the whole length of the train!.

Sipping coffee in the morning while experiencing something beautiful as this always makes me feel great.So i could not miss a chance when BBC world wanted to cover india's election using a  fully sefl sufficient train.It was a novel idea for the BBC to get a feel of the real india,by travelling in the common man's transport.Although i have still not travelled  in the high speed trains like shatabdi or rajdhani,i would still cherish to travel in them some time

Train journeys always start with a fight with my twin brother for the window seat when we were kids,even now when both of us travel together,its mostly like fisrt come first serve for us to catch a glimpse of the lovely country side which rushes through while passing from one city to another.Whenever i used to go to bangalore,it was a very memorable experience for me.Not only could i see beautiful valleys and grape plantations all along,but also the large curves at which i can see the whole length of the train!.

Sipping coffee in the morning while experiencing something beautiful as this always makes me feel great.So i could not miss a chance when BBC world wanted to cover india's election using a  fully sefl sufficient train.It was a novel idea for the BBC to get a feel of the real india,by travelling in the common man's transport.Although i have still not travelled  in the high speed trains like shatabdi or rajdhani,i would still cherish to travel in them some time

Books,Books and more Books!

After a long time i got a second chance to go to the famous blossoms book house in church street today.
Whenever i visit any book house,i usually try not to bring loads of books at a time,but the sheer number of sections the book house has makes me to spend lots of money on buying them.
Since it is the only place i can get them for a good bargain and at a second hand price,i usually end up buying the wholle works of a particular author.
Last time when i visited,i spent my time there through the whole afternoon through the rows on figuring out which ones i could buy for a reasonalble price.
To my luck i got the whole series of "Alias" in 7 parts which also happens to be my favourite telivison shows of all time apart from the oprah show.
Kenfollet's fictional  work caught my eyes this time and i ended up buying his entire works for a rockbottom price.For book lovers in bangalore church street is the mecca to get all the buks that you want!

Wah re wah Harrypotter!

Marvelous!Is all i can say!Harry potter and the half blood prince rocks!.The way in which the epic saga is being filmed is wonderful.

The story gets more dark and creepy,as always Daniel has played his part very well.

Kudos to JK rowling!

Expecto patronum!

Marvelous!Is all i can say!Harry potter and the half blood prince rocks!.The way in which the epic saga is being filmed is wonderful.

The story gets more dark and creepy,as always Daniel has played his part very well.

Kudos to JK rowling!

Expecto patronum!

Things which have influenced me

Il be sharing a few things which have made a huge influence on me in one way or the other

READING BOOKS -The harrpotter mania

In the beginning when the potter phenomenon was being discussed online and on televison,i had no clue that why would people love to read a story  about an orphaned boy which also includes wizards and spells.

I still did not have the habit of reading books, Later during my 10th grade  I was introduced the word of harrpotter by my grandmother.She brought those books hoping that i would inculcate good habits  like reading, and shun other activities like playing computer games which were not so constructive according to her.

It took a week or two before I could understand the plot of the first book,two or three times a week I used to read the complete book not knowing the flow of the story.But after I had gone through the 3rd book The prisoner of azkaban,My interest of reading the series increased exponentially,i mention this coz from that day till I completed reading the final installment  it was some sort of a chore  for me to go through the book perhaps countless number of times.

Even today 7  years after I started reading the series,I still read them with the same enthusiasm and excitement as I had on the first day.The magic cannot be explained by pen, but it is something that a pottermaniac like me and others all over the world  enjoy and cherish

Not only it has been an impetus in my book reading habit,but also gave me a few morals regrading life and decisions we take in it.

J.K rownling's life before the publishing of the potter series moved me,when I got to know about the way in which she crossed several major obstacles regarding her personal life and the life that she adored from her childhood(writing books).

Thanks to J.K rowling and my granny,I have become a bookworm eversince,and some of my best friends happen to be books!