The Elegant Universe

The title of the post as it suggests is all about trying to answer the fundamental question concerning the creation of universe and certain other things for which even the most advanced of sciences have no answers. But after seeing the program "The Elegant Universe" on Discovery Channel I feel we are very close to perhaps understanding the most intriguing question: How come the Universe came into existence.

From the child hood one thing which has been haunting me till date is this universe. How come this universe came into existence and why does life exist only on earth and no other planet was so fortunate to have life on its surface. Of course I have not been able to do any justice to my inquisitiveness over a period of time because of prior engagements but one program on Discovery has actually given a new thought and a new insight to my thought process.

I usually do not watch discovery. Very rarely once in a while when I get bored out of watching each and every channel of the umpteen numbers which our cable operator provides, I do surf Discovery. But this time while I was watching KBC in the break the promotional campaign for this series appeared and I decided come what may I am going to watch this series. I do not know how many of us have watched it but perhaps it was one of the fascinating programs with absolutely superb effects and picturisation which made all the difference. It was aired on Discovery from 2200 hours to 2300 hours on 26th, 27th and 28th of August. The title of the series was "The Elegant Universe".

Now I will go back about 10 years down the line way back in my 10th standard in school. That was the time when I was first introduced to the topic of Atomic Structure. Atomic Structure deals as the title suggests with the structure of atom, composition of matter, electrons, protons, discoveries like mass of electron etc. It starts with the famous Sir Ernest Rutherford Alpha Scattering Experiment and ends with the conflict between Quantum Theory and General Theory of Relativity.

General Theory of Relativity as all of us was proposed by the genius Albert Einstein who is said to have used his brain to the maximum possible extent among all the human beings on earth. The extent to which he used his brain was about 11 %! The General Theory of Relativity gives an explanation as to how come the strong force which is Gravitational force between earth and the sun comes into existence. It postulates that the sun creates around it a very calm and quiet surface something like a mesh and and the gravitational pull which exists within this mesh actually makes earth revolve around the sun. But this theory does not say anything about the other three fundamental forces which exist in nature. The Weak force, the electromagnetic force and the Nuclear force. Enter Quantum theory.

Quantum Theory considers the electron having a dual character. It says that the electron possesses both wave as well as particle nature. This was very well supported by the Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, The Debroglie Law, The Pauli's Exclusion Principle and the most famous of all the Max Planck's Quantum Equation. So according to the quantum theory it’s impossible to distinguish between wave and particle. Quantum theory was able to explain very well the weak force, the electro magnetic force and the nuclear force but it could not explain the very fundamental force of nature – The Gravitational Force. There lies the major problem.

The General theory of relativity can explain the fundamental force of gravity but cannot explain the forces which exist at the atomic level whereas the quantum theory can explain the forces at the atomic and sub atomic level but cannot explain the gravitational pull. It is said that Einstein spent last 30 years of his life in trying to figure out how can general theory of relativity explain the sub atomic forces.

So in short we can say that, Relativistic quantum field theory has worked very well to describe the observed behaviors and properties of elementary particles. But the theory itself only works well when gravity is so weak that it can be neglected. Particle theory only works when we pretend gravity doesn't exist.
General theory of relativity has yielded a wealth of insight into the Universe, the orbits of planets, the evolution of stars and galaxies, the Big Bang and recently observed black holes and gravitational lenses. However, the theory itself only works when we pretend that the Universe is purely classical and that quantum mechanics is not needed in our description of Nature.

String theory is believed to close this gap. Now what string theory is all about is one of the major questions which the program answered in a very nice manner. We talk about atoms. Inside atoms we have electrons revolving around the nucleus which consists of protons and neutrons. Beyond this we have not really gone. But we know numerous tiny particles like gravitons, bosons etc which exist in the atom. Now if we look inside electrons, the string theory proposes that there are strings like structures which are the most fundamental elementary particles which constitute the matter.

This is an example which was shown in the Discovery channel and which clearly explains the principle of string theory. Think of a guitar string that has been tuned by stretching the string under tension across the guitar. Depending on how the string is plucked and how much tension is in the string, different musical notes will be created by the string. These musical notes could be said to be excitation modes of that guitar string under tension.
In a similar manner, in string theory, the elementary particles we observe in particle accelerators could be thought of as the "musical notes" or excitation modes of elementary strings. In string theory, as in guitar playing, the string must be stretched under tension in order to become excited. However, the strings in string theory are floating in space-time; they aren't tied down to a guitar. Nonetheless, they have tension. The string tension in string theory is denoted by the quantity 1/ (2 p a'), where a' is pronounced "alpha prime” and is equal to the square of the string length scale.

If we imagine the size of atom as the size of this Solar System, then perhaps the size of the string would be a Tree on our planet!!!!!!!!!!!!! This makes impossible for the physicists to see it in reality. Post to be continued.
The title of the post as it suggests is all about trying to answer the fundamental question concerning the creation of universe and certain other things for which even the most advanced of sciences have no answers. But after seeing the program "The Elegant Universe" on Discovery Channel I feel we are very close to perhaps understanding the most intriguing question: How come the Universe came into existence.

From the child hood one thing which has been haunting me till date is this universe. How come this universe came into existence and why does life exist only on earth and no other planet was so fortunate to have life on its surface. Of course I have not been able to do any justice to my inquisitiveness over a period of time because of prior engagements but one program on Discovery has actually given a new thought and a new insight to my thought process.

I usually do not watch discovery. Very rarely once in a while when I get bored out of watching each and every channel of the umpteen numbers which our cable operator provides, I do surf Discovery. But this time while I was watching KBC in the break the promotional campaign for this series appeared and I decided come what may I am going to watch this series. I do not know how many of us have watched it but perhaps it was one of the fascinating programs with absolutely superb effects and picturisation which made all the difference. It was aired on Discovery from 2200 hours to 2300 hours on 26th, 27th and 28th of August. The title of the series was "The Elegant Universe".

Now I will go back about 10 years down the line way back in my 10th standard in school. That was the time when I was first introduced to the topic of Atomic Structure. Atomic Structure deals as the title suggests with the structure of atom, composition of matter, electrons, protons, discoveries like mass of electron etc. It starts with the famous Sir Ernest Rutherford Alpha Scattering Experiment and ends with the conflict between Quantum Theory and General Theory of Relativity.

General Theory of Relativity as all of us was proposed by the genius Albert Einstein who is said to have used his brain to the maximum possible extent among all the human beings on earth. The extent to which he used his brain was about 11 %! The General Theory of Relativity gives an explanation as to how come the strong force which is Gravitational force between earth and the sun comes into existence. It postulates that the sun creates around it a very calm and quiet surface something like a mesh and and the gravitational pull which exists within this mesh actually makes earth revolve around the sun. But this theory does not say anything about the other three fundamental forces which exist in nature. The Weak force, the electromagnetic force and the Nuclear force. Enter Quantum theory.

Quantum Theory considers the electron having a dual character. It says that the electron possesses both wave as well as particle nature. This was very well supported by the Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, The Debroglie Law, The Pauli's Exclusion Principle and the most famous of all the Max Planck's Quantum Equation. So according to the quantum theory it’s impossible to distinguish between wave and particle. Quantum theory was able to explain very well the weak force, the electro magnetic force and the nuclear force but it could not explain the very fundamental force of nature – The Gravitational Force. There lies the major problem.

The General theory of relativity can explain the fundamental force of gravity but cannot explain the forces which exist at the atomic level whereas the quantum theory can explain the forces at the atomic and sub atomic level but cannot explain the gravitational pull. It is said that Einstein spent last 30 years of his life in trying to figure out how can general theory of relativity explain the sub atomic forces.

So in short we can say that, Relativistic quantum field theory has worked very well to describe the observed behaviors and properties of elementary particles. But the theory itself only works well when gravity is so weak that it can be neglected. Particle theory only works when we pretend gravity doesn't exist.
General theory of relativity has yielded a wealth of insight into the Universe, the orbits of planets, the evolution of stars and galaxies, the Big Bang and recently observed black holes and gravitational lenses. However, the theory itself only works when we pretend that the Universe is purely classical and that quantum mechanics is not needed in our description of Nature.

String theory is believed to close this gap. Now what string theory is all about is one of the major questions which the program answered in a very nice manner. We talk about atoms. Inside atoms we have electrons revolving around the nucleus which consists of protons and neutrons. Beyond this we have not really gone. But we know numerous tiny particles like gravitons, bosons etc which exist in the atom. Now if we look inside electrons, the string theory proposes that there are strings like structures which are the most fundamental elementary particles which constitute the matter.

This is an example which was shown in the Discovery channel and which clearly explains the principle of string theory. Think of a guitar string that has been tuned by stretching the string under tension across the guitar. Depending on how the string is plucked and how much tension is in the string, different musical notes will be created by the string. These musical notes could be said to be excitation modes of that guitar string under tension.
In a similar manner, in string theory, the elementary particles we observe in particle accelerators could be thought of as the "musical notes" or excitation modes of elementary strings. In string theory, as in guitar playing, the string must be stretched under tension in order to become excited. However, the strings in string theory are floating in space-time; they aren't tied down to a guitar. Nonetheless, they have tension. The string tension in string theory is denoted by the quantity 1/ (2 p a'), where a' is pronounced "alpha prime” and is equal to the square of the string length scale.

If we imagine the size of atom as the size of this Solar System, then perhaps the size of the string would be a Tree on our planet!!!!!!!!!!!!! This makes impossible for the physicists to see it in reality. Post to be continued.

Life - A Roller Coaster Ride II

If the post looks like a sequel to the post which appeared before yes you are right it is a sequel but believe me its not going to be totally in relation to that.

I ended that post on a pretty much pessimistic note which actually speaks of the state of affairs I was in some time back. Well I believe that uncertainty in life can come because of two sources. It can be either because of a situation you are in or it can be caused because of a human intervention. For me most of the time uncertainty came into picture because of the situations I was in but there is a lot of connection between the two also. Well usually uncertainty can be created by a person itself in a particular situation but even situation can change so much that they can create uncertainty in the behavior of a person.

I never trust people easily. It takes a lot of time before I get friendly with people and trust them. This you may know very well If you know me. But people may try to be too friendly with you and possibly you may fall in trap sometimes. But nevertheless I have been quite lucky not to fall in such traps since I think I can judge people very well. But I never thought I can also go wrong. I did finally.

The posts raises many a questions than giving answers. Perhaps its what the destiny wanted. Addiction is definitely a bad thing but not liking. But when liking turns into something more serious then it definitely becomes a close cousin of addiction. Simplicity, prettyness, wholesomeness, innocence all can really take one for a ride if one does not tickle his brain at the right time. Trust is something which is fundamental to any relationship and once that goes everything goes for a toss.

Somethings are predetermined in life. Certain other things we determine for ourselves by our deeds. There is another set of things which perhaps are decided by others for us and which actually create lot of difference in our lives which may be good or bad. We never know. But if it is good we feel happy, if it is bad we really cannot say anything to anyone and accept them as something like destiny.

I sometimes think what the hell I have done bad on this earth that I should suffer whereas others should enjoy. It is said that if people face challenges everyday it is going to follow up with a quiet peaceful and pleasant incarnation where nothing outstanding happens at all. Now whether that happens or not we really do not know.

It is said that challenges are designed at a soul level to give rise to a change in individual. Change then opens the door to the opportunity for transformation and transformation is our main purpose of life whether it is from a child to a parent or from ignorance to understanding.

So perhaps this is an experience for me to transform my life. But to what ? The question remains unanswered.

EDS in Talks to buy CITIGROUP Stake in Polaris

One of the very recent news. EDS is in talk with CITIGROUP to buy there 43.2 % stake in POLARIS for a value of about 787 crore. This is second exit of CITIGROUP in continuation of the exit from I Flex which they did in the early last week.

More news on this will be known only in a few days time. If this materialies EDS will grow in India by an inorganic route and will stand neck to neck with IBM and Accenture which have very big presence in the Indian Market.

More on this later when news gets confirmed.

Life - A Roller Coaster Ride

If one has to experience life one has to undergo its turns and twists. A life which is monotonous in nature with absolutely no changes happening whether in personal or in professional front is not really living life. In my office on the first day in Hyderabad we had an opportunity to interact with one person by name CGK. Actually people call him by this name but his real name is quite long. He was supposed to talk about sales process and related things in the organization but he ended up talking about life, emotions, expressions and how should one live life and so many other things also. Well to an extent he was like a refreshing one in the crowd of people who always had interaction with us only for knowing our profiles and interest. This person actually gave lot of other insights to me.

We always believe that there should not be any problems in our life, no worries, no tensions and no hiccups. We do our best to avoid problems when met with. But sometimes the things move in altogether different fashion. I believe in one statement which I quote from one of the short stories which I read in 10th standard : " The Unexpected Always Happen and Expect only the Unexpected if you believe that you should be in any shock". This sentence has become more or less part of my life. With the kind of events happening around me I strongly feel that I may end more in problems than having their solutions. The problems are so entangled with each other that by the time I feel happy that something is in place the other thing goes out of place.

To be continued.

One Exciting Week

As the post says the week gone by was perhaps one of the most exciting week's in the recent past. Seeing the kind of events which happened in the week gone by one can definitely remember this week for the days to come.

The week began with what can be termed as the acquisition of the year, Oracle acquiring I Flex solutions by purchasing close to 42 % of the stake of CITIGROUP in I flex. More on it is provided in the post below. The next in the list was again a very big buy out which did not create many a ripples in the Indian market but definitely in the west when Adidas acquired rival firm Reebok for 3.8 billion USD giving NIKE tough competition in the USA market. It was also the week when one of the mega merger in the Indian Pharmaceutical industry was called off. The merger between Matrix Laboratories and Strides Acrolabs was called off due to valuation problems. Ideally the merger between the two companies would have created an entity which would have been sixth biggest in the country in the area of Pharmaceutics. Reliance life Insureance acquired AMP Sanmar Insurance company. The torrential rains in Mumbai took the entire life out of the city putting the people into the worst of problems possible. Ofcourse the various data centers in Mumbai of various banks also got effected and this impacted the ATMs all over the country. Thanks to the DRS everything started working properly within a short while.

In the Bombay floods ONGC suffered huge losses when the bombay high oil well of the company went into fire and caused serious losses amounting to close to $ 500 m. The demerger of Reliance group of companies also took place which created 4 new companies on the name of Reliance.

So this week according to me was one of the most exciting weeks wherin lot of things in the Corporate India happened. Let's hope the action continues.

Adidas Buys out Reebok

Well before I could relax for a while digesting as to what happened yesterday there is yet another path breaking news involving perhaps the most established names in the sporting gear industry. Yes you guessed them right. In the arena are now the two major sporting brands whose accessories we wear day in and day out.Adidas and Reebok.

At about 9:15 CDT Adidas announced that its going to buy Reebok for about $ 3.8 billion giving the company about 20 % of the US market and the potential to become a very strong competitor to Nike, which is the current market leader with a little over 30 % market share in this market.

Under the terms of the deal, Adidas-Salomon AG will pay $59 per share for all of Reebok International Ltd.'s outstanding stock, a premium of 34 percent to Tuesday's closing price, as disclosed by the Adidas Chairman and CEO Herbert Hainer. Shares of Reebok rose $12.79, or 29 percent, to $56.74 in early New York Stock Exchange trading after the news. Adidas shares rose 6 percent to 156.93 euros ($193.11) in Frankfurt trading.

As the CEO puts it "Its a once in a while opportunity of combinining two mega companies and make them still stronger." I do not remember such mergers in the past and last mega merger which I remember was one of AOL and Time Warner which was over valued at over $ 360 billion. Even in IT industry we have not seen such big time mergers except for the take over of PwC global consulting by IBM.

Reebok's board has approved the offer price and shareholders are also expected to follow the same.

The deal brings together two impressive stables of athletes and entertainment endorsers. English soccer star David Beckham and rap artist Missy Elliott are under contract to Adidas. Reebok sells a line of shoes branded with rapper 50 Cent's G Unit logo and is endorsed by such NBA stars as Allen Iverson and Yao Ming. It also gives Adidas, which has outfitted soccer stars for years, access to Reebok's licenses to clothe players in the National Football League and National Basketball Association and sell the gear to fans.

One of the analyst said this "Adidas, in conjunction with Reebok, has the potential to say, 'We want better terms or conditions or we'll take our business elsewhere',"

The best part is the Reebok will continue to operate in its own name. We know this is extremely crucial for such companies since its their brand which sells the most.

Let's hope this brings in more better products and services for the customers and ofcourse stiffer competition for Nike too.

ORACLE Acquires I-Flex Solutions

This post is coming immedietely after I got the above news from souveer who generally does not calls up but he did it that too on a very odd time of 7:30 pm.

At about 8:00 AM EST (6:30 PM IST), Oracle made the announcement saying that they have acquired the 42 % stake of CITIGROUP in Iflex for about $ 565 m. The deal will be worth $ 909 m if additionally Oracle is able to acquire 20 % from the market. The 20 % acquisition s going to be an open offer to the share holders of I Flex at about Rs. 882.62. This is mostly as the President of Oracle says is going to be a regulatory requirement rather than company's interest. It has more to do with the accounting norms and will help in combining the balance sheets of two companies faster. Oracle has said that I-Flex will continue with the existing partners like IBM and other technology vendors. Citigroup one of the major customers of I Flex will continue to be its customer for the next 5 years and there will not be any change in this. From I flex point of view this is a real good opportunity to tap the US markets since Oracle runs on close to 5000 banks worldwide and 9 out of 10 top tier banks run Oracle in US. Also since 90 % of the implementations for I Flex involve Oracle as the back end there are no integration issues either which is one of the most common problem after a company takes over another. Oracle has said that the acquisition will get completed by the end of 2005 and I-flex will continue to trade on NSE and BSE. Charles Phillips President, Oracle Worldwide will join the I Flex board. Some of the reasons sighted by Oracle on acquisition of I Flex are:

• Global footprint for I Flex presence in 114 countries
• Wide Customer base
• Consistently ranked number 1 by International Banking Systems
• A very strong Product base
• Help Oracle make a stronger footprint in the Banking Industry

Well all these reasons look very good and a deal which can give the customer a more improvised banking solution in terms of robustness, enabling the banks to serve their customers better and faster. But on the hindsight this is a signal of an era of M&A activity in the arena of IT industry which has not been happening at a much larger scale now. Well Oracle acquisiton of I Flex is definitely to make a foot print into India but it has more to do with the way large IT giants like Accenture, IBM, CSC or others are looking for small product companies to acquire.

Another way to look at it would be if we looked at the strategy of Oracle recently. Oracle if we see has been acquiring number of companies in each of the emerging areas like Retail, RTE Data Management, Identity Management, ERP. In the arena of Retail they acquired two firms Retek and Profit Logic which is helping them in transforming and developing the retail solutions for the burgeoning retail industry. In the RTE Data Management, which is going to be the next stage of ERP following SOA, they acquired TimesTen which is a market leader in this service. If people who are reading this blog are from my TAPMI class remember way back in the 3rd term of MIS class I had given a presentation on Real Time Enterprise. Well that's going to become a reality soon. I am happy about it since I said that its a forward looking business strategy and will take some time till Service Oriented Architecture picks up. Next in the list of acquisition which Oracle did recently is Oblix. Oblix is one of the leading service providers ofIdentity Management Solutions. If you are not aware of what a IMS is please forgive me and since its tough to explain that here. So what does all this suggest to us. It clearly suggests that Oracle is moving out of its Database company image to an all rounder image of a end to end computing provider. By acquiring such companies Oracle clearly wants to position itself as the leader in each of the vertical they are operating into. Moreover the database business of Oracle has been facing lot of pressure of competitors like DB2 from IBM and MySQL from open source. The major threat in this case is the second one which is a open source product and is catching up at an amazing speed among various customers in the small and mid size segments. So for Oracle to stick up with Database industry may not be wise and hence they ventured into ERP. Thereafter it was no looking back for Oracle. They did the messy acquisition of PeopleSoft which we had seen in the December 2004. With PeopleSoft they also got JD Edwards. So its all the three ERP rolled into one. Also adding to the technology front this acquisition will help build next generation banking solution based on Oracle's latest Fusion Architecture which will be based on open systems as per the analyst report. Continuing the similar trend if we look at the offering of the Oracle for the financial industry it includes largely either enterprise wide applications like Customer Analytics and Management solution or compliance based solution or Enterprise Infrastructure and Management Solutions which include applications like BPM, Portal, Database etc. But what it needed was a solution which is industry exclusive like a Core Banking Solution for Retail Banking Industry, Treasury, Corporate Banking and Investment Banking. So here comes the biggest gap which is filled by I Flex in totality since Flexcube together with Reveleus and others cover end to end solutions for the banking industry. Hence this completed Oracle's offering for the banking and financial services industry.

What all this means to the IT Industry on a whole. It means that we are now moving onto a era wherein we do not expect the small players to sustain for long time competing with big players. Its only the beginning but we have to see to what extent companies like Oracle, IBM etc will succeed in this mission. Also product based companies in India are too few in number to name a few are Polaris, I Flex, Infosys etc. But again the revenues from product for these companies do not even constitute 20-30 % of total revenues exception is ofcourse Flexcube which contributes close to 56 % of the revenues for I Flex. Hence to what extent will acquiring such small companies will be helpful for these bigwigs is really a question not yet answered.

Well what is the opinion of Polaris on this acquisition will be known later only because CITIGROUP also wanted to exit from Polaris where it holds close to 42 %. But the catch in this case is that CITGROUP cannot exit from the company without the formal consent of Arun Jain. So we have to wait and watch what would CITIGROUP do next. Well the news has already hit the stock market and even inspite of bad first quarter results I flex share price zoomed by about 45 rupees to close at 897 which is more than the price offered by Oracle. Now how does one solve this mystery. Remember CRISIL price shooting up when S&P made an open offer to buy CRISIL.

Its been 2.5 hours of blogging. But I still feel writing more and more about it because this is one merger which is going to change the shape of the industry in which I am working. Let's see what is in store of me.

GODSPEED.

KBC - 3 Days to Go

It will be a delight to watch Amitabh Bachchan once again on the television. Yes KBC is going to come back on STAR PLUS. In my previous post I had mentioned the way Star Plus kicked the campaign of KBC 2 in a very emotional manner. There is actually lot of difference between the two versions of the show in terms of its marketing and promotion. This time the show is being promoted as the one where one gets “UMEED SE DUGNA”. In the promotions star plus has picked up some very different kind of people from various jobs who just had hope in them to succeed one day and this makes them to get to the hot seat. The campaigns are also targeted on the other shows like the “Fame Gurukul” on SONY and other shows like the hit one “The Indian Idol”. But more importantly it’s the power, of Amitabh Bachchan which keeps the show kicking and I definitely believe that he will do much better this time. If any one of you are watching the Star Plus channel by any chance, it’s the same strategy which the channel adopted on 3rd of july 2000, when KBC came first on the television. On 3rd July 2000 also Star plus came out with 3-4 new programs that changed star plus, the television industry and the characters in those program itself. This time also the same strategy is being worked out by launching some good programs on the weekends from Friday to Sunday because on these days as per my observation none of the channels carry good programs. So grabbing this opportunity looks very ideal. I am eagerly waiting for the KBC to start for and want to try my luck once again. Because “Umeed Par hi to Duniya Kayam hai”

Chennai Visit

Well I am back but after exactly 8 days. Today I was almost dying to write something from morning because several things happened during this week which needed to be put into words and expressed. Ofcourse the main one and close to my heart was the chennai trip which had a both official purpose and personal purpose to be served. Although very little to do with the official part of it, nevertheless we took a photograph with the CEO which made it look official.

The official part of the trip was the Chennai Polaris Day which was held in Chennai Trade Center one of those places akin to Pragati Maidan in Delhi. It was a fun filled event in which the first part of the event was dedicated to presentation made by each of the corporate functions and the second part of the day was dedicated to the cultural programmes which included Group Songs, Dances Skits etc. No end to it crowd going bonkers over the show in many cases which included the Rajnikanth related performance. Of course regionalism dominated the entire Polaris Day Culturals which included 5 out of the 7 shows in which Tamil was the language of conversation. Moreover our MTs played a very crucial role in the entire roll out of the show. One aspect of all the program to be kept in mind is that all the programs had to do something or the other with the organization and the SDLC in IT projects. Well I enjoyed most of the programs being an audience and ofcourse our people Anjani, Ramakrishna and Kranthi were part of a western group song which in itself is oxymoron. Will not be revealing more details here. After the closure of the show we all left for Navalur. It was raining cats and dogs in chennai on that day and somehow we managed to reach the guest house well before closure of dinner and without getting drenched. What happened in night only three of us know.

The day after was a mixed bag. Having a talk with one of the members of my fan club and obviously the other member is extremely angry with me anyways. But I can't help it. The decision is a conscious one. In the afternoon we all went to VGP. All refers to Arun P, Anjani (we managed to pull him out somehow out of the guest house), Rama, Bhadra, The one and only Kranthi, and above all Vasudha. Even Mr. Anirudh joined us. It was the birthday of Bhadra so we did a little bit of cake cutting too. Nice time we had. Although I was there for a very short time only there I did enjoy that part of it. Then I started back with just one hope in mind. As Amitabh Bachchan puts it

"Umeed Pe Yeh Duniya Kayam, Umeed hai to aap aasmaan chusakte hai, Umeed hai to aap HOT SEAT par bait sakte hain."

Well as I said before in my blog entry that I am not very lucky in number of incidences which happen in my life and this is one of them. Fine I reached Egmore 1.5 hours before the Bus departure itself. Boarded the bus and came back to Hyderabad with a skeptism in mind.

Well when I started this post my state of affairs was very different and my mind was in a kind of different state altogether. But the kind of storms it is undergoing right noww are highly disturbing and effectively can make me absolutely tired. The best way to understand two states. first one is good and second one is bad.

I will close this post here as Mumbai undergoes severe flood wherein even my friends are caught and had to stay in office throughout night.

Let's Hope things get back to normal soon.

Uncertainty Prevails

Well my life can never be standstill. It likes to be challenging and changing all the time. Whether it was the posting in chennai or something else which is happening right now. I have good capacity to adapt to changes but I am not quite sure where any change will take me. What is happening right now is the same. Project Management Office I thought was perhaps the ideal job for me. But after getting to know insights about the office I felt that I should get out of it. So this is one situation wherein the market demand and growth work over personal interest. Let's see where do I go from here.

Although sitting idle in office can be very frustrating but sometimes we can make it a little better by doing certain things. Today in the office I read the latest book in the Harry Potter series. I could read only about 10 pages and then we got some work to do. It was based on securitization. Not much can be told here because of the disclaimer. Tommorrow is the D Day for me. Let's see what's gonna happen.

I do not know whether this post makes any sense or not. But I felt like posting something and vomited out whatever I wanted to.

Back to Hyderabad

Well my last post attracted a lot of attention in terms of comments on the statements I made but nevertheless my intentions were not that. Saw a new visitor for my blog Mr Rex Tom C Vadakel.
Something about the Polaris Induction which we finished only a week back. Exactly a week back we had our final presentations on the various topics given to us and thereafter the most awaited MT reception. The MT reception was held at MGM Resort which is one of the most sought after resorts in chennai. The party lasted till 11:30 in the night and was not a very formal party as we had expected. The senior management of the company too participated in the proceedings of the show and it was all in all a good break from the training which we were undergoing. I too had some of the best moments of my life therein. But only few people know about that. This was the day before we got our postings. The drinks were on the house but then limited. So you know what happens then.

21 days in the induction went away just like that. I enjoyed the induction thoroughly for many reasons than one. Met different kinds of people and worked in groups also akin to TAPMI. Definitely the adaptation was much better this time.

In the first week of induction we also went to Pondicherry. Its a nice place akin to Goa in terms of the road and the infrastructure at place. Pretty much the french touch still exists in the place. The rock side beach was wonderful although we went in the hot afternoon. Ofcourse the major attraction was the Matri Mandir in the Auroville Ashram. I could not see it from inside since we went in the morning.

Also roamed a lot in chennai. Went to pondy bazaar for some shopping, spencer's plaza the most happening place in chennai. Met rahul also. Then met many other people in the E Serve meet like Arun Panicker, Vexy, Sumit, Deepti, Surya, etc. Nice experience. It looks like chennai is having the maximum number of TAPMIans. Also met our senior Teenie Walia in Polaris. She told many things about the company etc.

I came back from chennai on tuesday morning. Thursday is my joining in the Hyderabad office. Let's hope something good is in store for me. Ofcourse I will not like to have another training session here. As Ram puts it Training is for people who are either jobless or are not capable of carrying out the current job.

Adieu.

Back to Hyderabad

Its really a long time since I have blogged. People who might have visited my blog must have noticed absolutely no activity after close to 12th June 2005. The reason being on 14 June I joined Polaris Software Labs, Chennai. My first job. Quite possibly a big challenge in store for me. Today I also got my posting. Its in Hyderabad. Yet again I am back to home town.
But am I really Happy ?
Only I know.
GODSPEED.

Gurcharan Das

The title of the post is the name of my favorite author. I started liking Gurcharan Das only in my MBA when I read his one of the best selling books - India Unbound. India Unbound is my first full fledged book which I have read from start to finish and spent adequate amount of time in understanding what the author wanted to convey. I think it is one of those books which can tell us how did India evolve over a period of time right from independence till today. It gives an excellent account of the license raj, perhaps the worst period in the India's economy. He is one of those authors who does not criticize Late Dhirubhai Ambani of making lot of money by being loyal to the politicians. He says that Dhirubhai was the first person in the history of India who gave people an opportunity to earn money via the stock market. Of the various accounts he gives in the book one of them which really impressed my mind was the way he thought about the marketing policy of Procter and Gamble. Actually P&G wanted to bring out a detergent in the market and it was the idea of a woman whom Gurucharan Das interviewed which was used in the making of the advertisement. He was the person in the country who established the presence of P&G in India. Started the Vicks brand in the country and also made it a super brand after sometime. He retired as the CMD of P&G India and thereafter he has spent lot of time in writing books and being on the board of numerous companies. I have been reading his columns in Times of India which appear on every alternate Sunday. In the May issue of Business Today one more small article appeared featuring GD.

The next feather in his cap is that he is the first and only Indian to be on the panel of judges for selecting the HBR Mckinsey awards. He is going to share the podium with the likes of Sam Palmisano (IBM), Michael Eskew (UPS), and Robert Hormats (Goldman Sachs). We very well know the previous winners in this awards are the likes of Michael Porter, Henry Mintzberg who have well defied the way the companies used to think and strategise.

I am looking forward to the second book by Gurcharan Das on Governance. The magazine says that he is in the middle of the book. Lets hope the author brings out some real good lessons on governance for all of us and even for the politicians.

End of Holidays

After the gruelling two years in TAPMI, perhaps this was the longest break, I might have had at home. My holidays started on 1 April and went till 12 th of June. Now with only a few days for the holidays to get over, I feel pretty much relaxed and have winded myself completely also and ready for the action. I had planned many things for the holidays actually but as always was able to complete only a few of them only. The habit of blogging has got into me and I expect it to remain with me even on my job. My website is partially ready and I have to upload a few more pages into it so that its functional. I had written an article on Environmental engineering also titled organic farming which I submitted to one journal. I will be starting from Hyderabad on 13th evening by charminar express and will be reaching Chennai on 14th Morning. There after my training at Polaris will began from 15th onwards and will go upto 7th of July. Quite possibly this is going to be one of the last posts which I will be making from Home PC. BSNL's broadband experience was a real delight for me and I took full advantage of it in numerous ways. With this I close this post.

Detailed Sandhya Vandanam with Full Instructions

This post is actually on Sandhya Vandan which brahmins usually do after they have got done their upanayanam. When my upanayanam was done I also had to do sandhyavandam daily but there was hardly any text on the internet which had the complete sandhyavandam in it with instructions. In this post I have tried to capture the most detailed Sandhyavandam which is the Yajurveda Sandhyavandam. The text which I had was in telugu and I sat together with two others to translate that entirely into english and ensured that we get the right pronounciation by listening to the audio as well.

In this endeavour I would like to thank the following people who made the Knowledge Transformation and Document Management (KTDM) possible.

First in the list is Mr. Tirumala Rao. He was my teacher for Sandhyavandam and taught extremely well all the aspects of Sandhyavandan and very clearly also.

The next in the list is Mr. K Gautham Kumar. He is my cousin and is currently pursuing his graduation in Electronics and Communications Engineering. He did close to 12 pages of translation of the text in telugu and did entire typing work in Microsoft Word.

Finally it was Miss. Rashmika, another cousin of mine, currently employed with WIPRO Technologies in their WASE Program. She started the intial translation work but was later carried over by Gautam.

Here is the entire text:

YAJURVEDA SANDHYAVANDHANAM

Sri Gurubhaya Namah
Hari Om
Apavitra pavitro va sarravastham Gathopivaha yesmareth pundarikakasham sabha hyaa bhyanthara shuchihi
Pundarikakasham
Pundarikakasham
Pundarikakasham

Aachamanam

(Instruction: Take water in the palm and drink it thrice chanting the first three mantras)

1. Om keshavaya svaha
2. Om naraayanasvaha
3. Om maadavayasvaha
4. Om govindayanamaha
5. Om vishvanenamaha
6. Om madhusudhanayanamaha
7. Om trivikramayanamaha
8. Om vaamanayanamaha
9. Om sridharayanamaha
10. Om rishikeshayanamaha
11. Om padmanabhayanamaha
12. Om damodarayanamaha
13. Om sangarshanayamaha
14. Om vaasudevayanamaha
15. Om pradhyumnayanamaha
16. Om anirudhayanamaha
17. Om purushothamayanamaha
18. Om adhokshayanamaha
19. Om narasimhayanamaha
20. Om achuttayanamaha
21. Om janardanayanamaha
22. Om upendrayanamaha
23. Om hareyanamaha
24. Om srikrishnayanamaha
25. Srikrishnabrahmanenamonamaha

Bhoothachatanam

Uthishanthu bhootha pishacha yethe bhoomi bhaarakaha
Yethe sha mavirodheena brahma karma samarabhe

Praanayayam

Om Bhuh Om Bhuvah Ogm Suvah Om Mahaha Om Janah Om Tapah Ogm Satyam
Om tatsavithurvareniyam Bhargo devasya dhimahi dhiyo yo nah prachodayat
Om Apah Jyothi Rasah amrtam Brahma Bhurbhuvassuvarom

Sankalpaha

Mamo paatha samasta duritha kshaya dwara Sri Parameshwara mudhishya Sri Parameshwara prithartham shubhyam shubhe shobhane muhurthe srimaha Vishnu rajanyaha pravartha manasya adhya bhrahmana dwitiya parardhe
Swetha varaha kalpe, viavaswatha manavanthare kaliyuge prathama paadhe, jamboo dweepe, bharatha varshe, bharatha khande, merur dakshina digbhage, srisailasya vayuvaraha pradeshe, Krishna godavarayor madhya pradeshe, swagruhe, samasya devathah brahmana hari harah sannidhow asmin varthamana vyavaharika chaandra maanena samvathsare ayena ruthu Maase pakshe thithuvu shubhanakshatre shubhayoge shubha karane evam gunavisheshanam vishishtayam shubhathitou sriman(Your Name) (your Gotra) Sharma aham praatha sandhyaam upaasishye


Maarjanam

Om aapohishhThaa mayobhuvaH
Om taane urje dadhaatana

Om mahe raNaaya chakshase
Om yovaH shivatamo rasaH
Om tasya bhaajayatehanaH

Om ushateeriva maataraH

Om tasmaa araN^gamaama vaH

Om yasya kshayaay ajinvatha

Om aapo janayathaa chanaH

Om bhuurbhuvassuvaH

Praatha sandhyavandane

oM suuryashcha maa manyushcha manyupatayashcha manyukR^itebhyaH paapebhyo rakshantaam.h yadraatryaa paapamakaarshham.h manasaa vaachaa hastaabhyaam.h padbhyaamudareNa shishnaa raatristadavalumpatu yatkiMcha duritaM mayi idamahaM maamamR^itayonau suurye jyotishhi juhomi svaahaa

(After the above do achamaanam once)

Punarmaarjanam

Om dadhikraavNNo akaarishhaM

Om jishhNorashvasya vaajinaH

Om surabhi no mukhaakarat.h

Om pra Na aayuumshhi taarishhat.h
Om aapohishhThaa mayobhuvaH

Om taa na uurje dadhaatana

Om mahe raNaaya chakshase

Om yovaH shivatamo rasaH
Om tasya bhaajayatehanaH
Om ushatiiriva maataraH
Om tasmaa araN^gamaama vaH

Om yasya kshayaaya jinvatha

Om aapo janayathaa chanaH
Om bhuurbhuvassuvaH

Hiranyavarna suchaya pavakah yaasujathaha kashyapyoya swindriyaha agninyagarbham dhadhire viroopa sthaana aapasha shaaga syonaa bhavanthu
Yasagam rajavaruno yathi madhye sathyanruthe avapaashayam jaananam madhyaschyu thasshuchayo ya paavakah sthaana aapasha shaaga syonaa bhavanthu
Yasaam devadri krunavanthi bhaksham ya antharikshe bhavutha bhavanthi yakshyam ya pruthvim paayasom dhanthi shukraha sthaana aapasha shaaga syonaa bhavanthu
Shivena maa chakshu sha paashyatha aapa shvayah tanvoh paasprishathaha pracham may sarvagyam agnigum raapi sushaadhou huveo mai varchobala mogo nidathaha

Mukhyakaala Thrikamana Prayashchitham

(Instructions: Do aachamanam once praanayam once)

Yevam guna vishesha vishishtayam shubha thithou Sri Parameshwara mugdhishya Sri Parameshwara thirthadhyam mukhya kala thrikamana dosha prayashchitardha poorvakah praatha ranghyaha pradhaanam karishye
Om Bhuh Om Bhuvah Ogm Suvah Om Mahaha Om Janah Om Tapah Ogm Satyam Om tatsavithurvareniyam Bhargo devasya dhimahi dhiyo yo nah prachodayat Om Apah Jyothi Rasah amrtam Brahma Bhurbhuvassuvarom

(Do praanayam and aachamanam once again praanayam once)


Arghya Pradanam

(Instructions: Do this three times)

Purvothitham guna visheshanam guna vishesha vishishtayam shubha thithou
Praatha sandhya argyapradanam karishye
Om bhuurbhuvassuvaH tatsaviturvareNyaM

bhargodevasya dhiimahi dhiyo yonaH prachodayaat.h

Pradakshinaam

(Instructions: Take water in the uddarani chant the mantra)

Udhyantham astham yantham adithya maaabhidhyaha yan kuran brahmano vidramsa kalam bhadramasthu the saraadithyo brahmaithi bhrahmyavya son brahmayapathi yaaeram Veda asavadithyou brahma

Sandhyaagnatharpanam

(Instructions: Do aachamanam and pranayam once)

Mamopaatha duridikshye dwara sriparameshwara prithartham praatha sandhyaagna tharpanam karishye
Om keshavaM tarpayaamiOm naaraayaNaM tarpayaamiOm maadhavaM tapayaamiOm govindaM tarpayaamiOm vishhNuM tarpayaamiOm madhusuudanaM tarpayaamiOm trivikramaM tarpayaamiOm vaamanaM tarpayaamiOm shriidharaM tarpayaamiOm hR^ishhiikeshaM tarpayaamiOm padmanaabhaM tarpayaamiOm daamodaraM tarpayaami

Gayathri Aahavaanam
(Instructions: do aachamanam once)

Omithye kaksharaam brahma agnirdevatha brahma ithyarusham
Gayathram chandanam paramaarthmam saroopam saayujyam viniyogam
aayathu varadha devi aksharam brahma sammitham gayathrim chandasam maathedham brahma jhushaswame yadhahnaath kuruthe paapam thad ahnaath prathimuchyathe yadh rathriyaath kuruthe paapam thad raathriyath prathimuchyathe sarvavand e mahaadevi sandhya vidhye saraswathi
ojosi sahosi balamasi bhraajosi devaanaaM dhaama naamaasivishvamasi vishvaayuH sarvamasi sarvaayuH abhibhuuroM
gaayatriiM aavaahayaami savitreem aavayami saraswathim aavayami
chandarshin aavahayaami shriyam aavahayaami gayathriya gayathri chando vishwamithra rushis savitha devatha nirmugham
brahma shiro
Vishnur hrudayam
rudhrashmika
pruthvi yonihi
praana+pana+vyano+dhana samana saprana shwetha varna saankhyanamaha sagothra gayathri chathurvigam shathya shara tripada shadkukshi panchishirchopayane viniyogaha

(Repeat the praanayam manthram)
(Do aachamanam and praanayam once)

Gayathri Japasankalpaha

Mama opaatha samasta duridikshye dwara sriparameshwara prithartham praatha gayathri mahamanthre japam karishye

Karanyaasaha

om thathsavithu
Brahmaathmane

Angushtabhyam namaha

varenyam

Vishnvathmane

Tharjanibhyam namaha

bhargodevasya

Rudhraathamane

Madhyamaabhyam namaha

dhimahi

sathyathmane

Anamikaabhyam namaha

Dhiyo yo naha

gnanathmane

Kanishtikabhyam namaha

Prachodhayaath
sarvaathmane

Karathala karaprushtaabhyam namaha


Ajgunyaasaha

Om thath savithuhu
brahmaathmane

Hrudayaya namaha

varenyam

vishnvathmane

Shirase svaaha

bhargodevasya

rudhraathamane

Shikhayai vashat

dhimahi

sathyathmane

Kavachaya hum

Dhiyo yo naha

gnanathmane

Nethrathrayaya voushat

Prachodhayaath

sarvaathmane

Asthraaya phat

Ithi digbandhaha
Bhoorbhavassuvarom

Dhyaanam

Muktaa vidruma hema neela dhavaLachchhaayaiH mukhaistriikshaNaiHyuktaamindukalaa nibaddhamakuTaaM tatvaartha varNaatmikaaM gaayatriiM varadaabhayaaM kushakashaM shubhraM kapaalaM gudaMshaN^khaM chakramatha aravinda yugaLaM hastair vahantiiM bhaje

Mudhrapradarshanam

Sumukham samputam chaiva
Vithatham visthrutham thatha
Dvimukham thrimukham chaiva
Chatuhu panchamukham
Punmukho dhomukham vyapakagnalikam
Shakatam yamapaasham cha grathitham cha summukonmukham
Pralamrum mushtikam mathsyaha kurmo varaahakam
Simhakraantham mahakraantham mudhgaram pallavam tatha
Chaturvim shati mudra vai gayatriam supratishtiya
Bhoo devasya sasmakam dhiyo dharmadi gocharaha preren tasya yad bhargasya tad varenyanam upasmaye
Gurur brahma gurur vishnuhu gururdevo maheshwaraha gurur saakshaad parambramha thasmysri gurave namaha


Gayathri japaha (12 times or multiples thereof)

Om bhuurbhuvassuvaH tatsaviturvareNyaM

bhargodevasya dhiimahi dhiyo yonaH prachodayaat.h


Japapaasanam

(Do aachamanam and praanayam once)

Purvokthainguna visheshana vishishtayaam shubha thidhou mamopaaththa samasta duri thakshayadvara Sri Parameshwara prithyartham praathaha (madhyahnika saayam sandhyagna) gayathri mahaa mantra japavasanam karishye suvar bhuvar bhoorithi dhigvimokhaha

Praathasooryoprasthaanam

OM mitrasya charshhaNiidhR^itaH shravodevasya saanasim.h satyaM chitra shravastamam.h
Mitrojanaan.h yaatayati prajaanan mitrodaadhaara pR^ithiviimuta dyaam.h mitraH kR^ishhTiiranimishhaabhichashhTe satyaaya havyaM ghR^itavadvidhema
Prasamitra marto astu prayasvaanyasta aaditya shikshati vratena na hanyate na jiiyate tvoto nainama{gm}ho ashnotyantito na duuraat.h

Dhijnamaskarah

Om namaha praachyai dhishe yaascha devatha yethasyaam prathivasanthi yethabhyascha namo namaha
Dhakshinayai dishe yaascha devatha yethasyaam prathivasanthi yethabhyascha namo namaha
Pratheechyai dishe yaascha devatha yethasyaam prathivasanthi yethabhyascha namo namaha
Udheechyai dishe yaascha devatha yethasyaam prathivasanthi yethabhyascha namo namaha
Urdhvayai dishe yaascha devatha yethasyaam prathivasanthi yethabhyascha namo namaha
Adharayai dishe yaascha devatha yethasyaam prathivasanthi yethabhyascha namo namaha
Avaantharayai dishe yaascha devatha yethasyaam prathivasanthi yethabhyascha namo namaha

Muni Namaskaraha

Namoh Ganga yamunayormadhyai ye vasanthi
The me prasannaathmanas chiranjivitham vardhayanthi
Namoh gangayamunayor munibhyashcha namoh nama
Gangayamunayor munibhyascha namah

Devatha namskaaraha

Sandhyaai namaha
Savithryai namaha
Gayathryai namaha
Saraswathai namaha
Sarvaabhyo devathabhyo namaha
Devebhyo namaha
Rushibhyo namaha
Munibhyo namaha
Gurubhyo namaha
Pithrubhyo namaha
Kaamokaarshinnamo namaha
Manyur aakarshirnamo namaha
Pruthvi vyapa sthejo vaayur aakashath
Om namo bhagavathe vaasudevaya
Yugam sada sarva bhoothani charaani sthaavaraani cha
Saayam praathar namasyanthi saa ma sandhya abhirakshathu


Shivakeshavaabhedhasmaranam

Shivaya vishnuroopaya shiva roopaya vishanave
Shivasya hrudayam vishnur vishnuscha hrudayagam shivaha

Yatha shivamayao vishnur yevam vishnumayashivaha
Yathaantharam na paschyaami thatha me swasthi ra yushi

Namoh brahmanyadevaaya gobrahmanahithaya cha
Jagadithaya krishnaya govindhaya namoh namaha

Gayathri prasthaana praarthana

Uththame shikhare jaathe bhoomyam parvathamoordhini
Bhramhanyebhyo bhyunugnathagachcha devi yatha sukham
Shtutho maaya varadha0 vedhamaatha prachodayanthi pavane dvijaatha
Aayuhu pruthvivyaam dhravinam bhramhaparchasam
Mahyam dhathva prjaathum bhramha lokam


Naarayana namaskruthihi

Namosthvananthyaya sahasramurthaye
Sahasra paadakshishiroru bahave
Sahasra naamane purushaaya shaashvathe
Sahasrakoti yugadhaarine namaha


Rodhasyabhivandhanam

Yidham dhaava pruthvi masthu pitharmaathur yadhi hopabruve vaaya
Bhootham devaanam avame avobhi vidhyamesham vrujanam jhiradhanum

Vaasudevapraarthana

Aakaashath pathitham thoyam yadha gachchathi saagaram
Sarvadevanamaskara keshavam prathi gachchathi

Sarva vedheshu yathpunyam sarva thirdheshu yathpalam
Thathpalam purusha apnothi sthuthva devam janardanam

Vaasanadh vaasudevasya vaasitham the jagathruyam
Sarvabhoothanivaaso si vaasudeva namoh namasthothuhe

Pravaraanvitha namaskaarha

(Put both your hands on opposite ears)
Chathus saagara paryan tham gobhramhanyebya shubham bhavathu
Vasishta mythraavaruna koundinya thryarshyeya pravaraanvitha
Koundinya sagothraha aapasthambasoothraha yadhushakhadhyaayi
Subhramanya sharma hambho abhivaadaye
(Do aachamanam once)

(Take water in the palms and pour it down chanting the following mantra)

Kaayena vaacha manasendriyairva
Bhudhyaathmana va prakruthese swabhaavath
Karomi yadhyathsakalam varasmai
Sriman Narayanayethi samarpayaami

Sarvam Sri Parameshwaraarpana masthu

Abhrahmalokaadh asheshaadh alokaalokaparva thaath
Ye santhi brahmana devaas thebhyo nithyam namo namaha

(This Marks the end of Sandhyavandam)
***********************

OFFICE 12

Well must be wondering what does the title of the post means. If all of you are using the Microsoft Office 2003 version, you would have noticed a folder by name OFFICE 11 in the program files folder in your computer. Well that was the code name of Office 2003, which is the current version of office available in the market. The next version of Office which is due to release in 2006 is code named Office 12. Nothing has been decided on the name of the version as of yet. Office 2003 came in the year 2003. Some important facts about the development of the OFFICE 12 is that it is going to have XML as the standard for the development in totality. In the earlier versions of Office like XP and 2003 also XML was used as a tool for development but in the OFFICE 12 it will be totally based on XML. XML will become the default file format for this version of OFFICE. The new technology will give Office users higher levels of data interoperability at the client and server levels. It is expected that the new shift to the XML file system will cause some kind of compatibility issues but Microsoft has said it will have no major problems. XML is almost everywhere on the web now. We also use XML feeds for our websites and they are the best to use for content syndication. Well perhaps use of XML in Office will definitely make the word, excel and powerpoint documents more amenable for interoperability between various levels. Microsoft used the binary file format in its earlier versions of office. I think with XML coming into the arena now, Microsoft will take it to the next level and tremendously improve office products.

P2P Clients

Recently, only about 50 days back I got a broadband connection. Before broadband connection it was very tough to browse through many of the graphic intensive sites and it was difficult or close to impossible to use a p2p tool on the computer. For the benefit of the people who do not know what a p2p tool is here is a quick review. A p2p tool or a client as it is popularly called as a utility which helps in sharing and delivery of user specified files among groups of people who are logged on to a file sharing network. Napster was the first mainstream P2P software that enabled large scale file sharing. The major file sharing networks existing on the web are Gnutella and others. Actually p2p is one of those things on the internet which supports the open source but off late has become a problem since on the name of sharing people are sharing just anything like movies, softwares, mp3 songs. An instance of this is that when Star Wars 3 was released it was immedietely available on the Gnutella network and any one having a p2p client was able to access it.

I never had the luxury of using a P2P client on my dead speed dial up connection. Even when I used to download a Kazaa set up it never used to get to completion.

But when broadband arrived at my home every thing became very fast and simple to access. In this article I have reviewed three p2p tools available widely on the internet.

The first KAZAA is perhaps the oldest and the most widely used tool. Now what comes with Kazaa into your computer upon installation is a host of adwares like GAIN, 180 degree solutions etc. Very soon one can discover that Norton Antivirus has terrible problems with it. It also takes lot of time to load and has a bundled antivirus solution with it called as Bull Dog which checks for updates whenever we start Kazaa. The search results are the same in all the three perhaps but the speed as I have seen is better in LIMEWIRE which I will be explaining later.

The second one which is SHAREAZA is a true brother of KAZAA only in terms of name since both of them share the same suffixes. Shareaza is a open source p2p utility and unlike Kazaa is totally ad free banner free and any of the other addons which one may come across with the kazaa GNU. Unlike Kazaa and Limewire Shareaza is a freeware in the real sense and does not trouble the user everytime for a upgrade. Kazaa and Limewire have an upgrade version from the free version which has some enhanced features and no ads. But all in all Shareaza is above all of them and stands out as the best utility for p2p sharing.

The third software which is the focus here is the LIMEWIRE. Now limewire is also one of very popular p2p tool available on the web and the last issue of CHIP actually reviewed the software. The problem with LIMEWIRE is that is a Java based software and written in Java so as all java software it is very slow in loading the first GNU. It takes a lot of time for the GNU of Limewire to load and then it works very well. It is also troublesome to alt-tab through various windows when LIMEWIRE is running. But the way LIMEWIRE organizes the files is really good. It organizes the files by the connection and then by the type like rar or zip or exe etc. Moreover the speed across the LIMEWIRE is also much better than shareaza or Kazaa.

If you are looking for simple things and not much bothered about speed I would recommend Shareaza. If you are looking for something really good and need more customization then go for Limewire. If you are really a Kazaa fan then only go for it otherwise just forget it.

HCL Tech and NEC Joint Venture

A few days back Economic Times carried this headline on the front page of the newspaper. Perhaps none of us took it very seriously or gave it a second thought but this is a very important news for the Indian IT Industry. HCL Tech is the fourth largest software development company of India. Nippon Electronic Corporation is a Japan based software company which specializes in Enterprise Solutions delivery. The JV is a 51:49 one with higher stake on the side of HCL. It is expected that the JV will completed in the month of June. Also the CEO of the combined company will be from the HCL side only. The thrust area of the combined entity would be to provide end to end Integrated IT solutions to the customer. It is said that this deal will mark the return of HCL to inorganic growth path. For those who do not know what is organic or inorganic growth here is a quick reference. Organic growth is the one which comes from company's existing businesses as opposed to acquisitions. Inorganic growth is characterised by acquisitions and take overs done by the company to increase its turn over and top line growth. Till recently HCL had bought out its JV partners in the six of the companies it had floated earlier and made them wholly owned subsidiaries.

Interestingly NEC is one of the few HCL Tech's Japanese customers. NEC is a giant in the area of IT makes products ranging from Mobile phones and Super computers. Notably the NEC Earth Simulator Series which was the fastest supercomputer available on this earth one time. NEC has already outsourced close to $ 50 m - 60 m business to India and has ties up with Infosys and Wipro also.

The enriched pool of application development from the HCL and the NEC's expertise across several domains should definitely strengthen the merged entity. Let us see whether the JV really takes off or not.

New Search Engines for searching Blogs

A few days back when I was searching for my blog on the web I came across two search engines which are specifically used to search the blogs. These are : http://www.icerocket.com and http://www.technorati.com . Actually Ice rocket is much more advanced than many of the other search engines but its search results are quite a much similar to the Google's only. The search engine offers a button on the top which helps you to search a particular blog or a particular person. It automatically takes the snap shot of the blog and then puts in adjacent to the search result. The icerocket search icon is similar to another site (GIGABLAST) which I had come across when I was in TAPMI (courtesy krish). Ice Rocket is so fast in searching and indexing your blog that a post can take only a few hours before it appears on the Icerocket database.

Technorati has a different mode of search and a little different from the rest of the search engines around on the web. It promotes itself as a RTE (Real Time Enterprise) saying that "What's Happening on the Web Right Now". Actually it specifically tracks Weblogs of users worldwide the photos and related posts. It has a facility of opening an account on the site and then it can track your weblog better. Also it catches from other websites links also. All in all its a great tool for the blog search.

European Grand Prix - Nurburgring

The Formula 1 Grand Prix this sunday was the European Grand Prix at a place in Germany called as Nurburgring. The Nurburgring circuit is close to 60 races old and is famous for its track. On this circuit only thrice the pole position driver has won the race and the race ends as always in a spectacular and dramatic fashion. Even this year it happened the same way. I started following F 1 in the year 2001 and the first Grand Prix which I watched on television was the European Grand Prix only. From the European Grand Prix the FIA changed the rules for the qualifying from two sessions to a single session on saturday which will decide the position for the race on sunday. So the saturday's qualifying was a pretty exciting one with Nick Heidfeld capturing his first ever pole position in the career with BMW Williams. Second place went to Kimi Raikkonen in his Mclaren Mercedes and third place went to Mark Webber again in the BMW Williams. The Race as usual started with no hiccups in the warm up lap but then soon as the 5 red lights had to illuminate and go a few cars started before the lights can go off resulting in yellow flags being waved. But as the race started the next time immedietely the Webber's car got into trouble and Safety car had to come in action. When the Safety car went out and the race started again It was Kimi Raikkonen who took the lead ahead of Nick Heidfeld and emerged as the front runner. There was so much of chaos at the race start that few cars went into the sand gravel and had a tough time coming out of it. Some cars like Redbull of David Coulthard took advantage of it and moved from 11th to the 4th spot. In the middle of the race as cars were closing on the first pit stop David Coulthard became the race leader but his bad luck continues in the Formula 1. Due to speeding in the pit lane he was awarded a 10 second penalty during which he had to stay in the pit and which brought him down to the 6 th place in the tally. On the overall basis the race was absolutely fine with Raikkonen extending his advantage over the next rival by close to 31 seconds to so. But then when it was just about 15 laps to go for completion of the race tyres of Mclaren had given up. The front wheel of Kimi's Mclaren had become flat during the race but then the tyre came upto the last lap of the race but the car's suspension could not last long which was getting terrible vibrations resulting in extensive hammering. Soon when Kimi was about to start its last lap the signs of the car crashing were evident since it was vibrating like anything and the people sitting in the race and the TV viewers were able to find out that. Well when Alonso got to know this through the team radio he immedietely responded to it and started to catch up Kimi. When Kimi was about to reach the end of Lap 59 the car's suspension broke off and front tyre on the rear side came off on the front part of the car and immediete braking by Kimi made the car hit the tyre stands ending his race in an unfortunate fashion. Alonso emerged as the winner of the race and now leads the points tally by 32 points over Raikkonen. Nick Heidfeld came second for BMW Williams and Rubens Barrichello was third for Ferrari. The Race positions are as follows. What a delight to watch the European Grand Prix. I think this will be my last Grand Prix in Hyderabad.

European Grand Prix - Nurburgring Standings

InstaColl - A Cool Way to Share

This is my first review of a product which was launched very recently in a great function. Also this article is my first one in the IT area. In this article I have explained about an Instant Collaboration tool called as InstaColl. InstaColl come from the house of Sabeer Bhatia who is very well known for his very successful venture Hotmail and also a very unsuccessful venture Aarzoo.com which he started when the ventures based on the internet where on a high in the 2000s. It is his third venture and the good thing about it is that it is a product and not a service. In the Indian IT industry, the revenues come from two sources - One is the product and the other is the service. Usually we have very few product based companies in India. The pioneers in this area are I-flex and Polaris. Iflex with its FLEXCUBE (The world's best core banking solution) and Polaris (with Intellect) are one of the foremost companies in this product based business. Even Finacle from Infosys and a few more products from TCS are also in the fray but then Infosys is more of a service based company then a product based company.

The InstaColl is a solution which is totally developed in India in the Bangalore center of the company. As the company says its going to offer a new paradigm in the real time collaboration. Well I had downloaded a copy of InstaColl and installed it on my computer. The installation size is 2.75 MB which is good for the Dial Up users also. The installation finishes within a couple of seconds and takes up a space of 10.9 MB. It launches in the similar fashion as MSN or Yahoo Messenger will launch. Once you are connected to the internet it starts to set up a session and uses Microsoft Outlook as a communication client for sending invitations to the people who are using Instacoll. It provides a session URL and also a session passkey to ensure that unknown entrants are kept away. One who initiates the session will become the session moderator and rest will be invitees only. The main menu of the program consists of the four topics : share presentations, Share Spreadsheets, Share Documents and Share Screens. In the initial edition I believe its restricted only to the Microsoft Office Suite but soon will be extended to other office tools also.

The document exists locally on the moderator's desktop but the changes can be made by any user who has joined the conference. I must say the tool is really great and it will help really the users who want to edit a document simultaneously from various locations. It uses a hybrid p2p architecture and allows very large numbers of users also to join the conference.

I have used the tool only once and I liked it immensely. It can actually solve the problems of numerous users who are not able to meet each other face to face.

Kuddos Sabeer Bhatia !!!!!!!

Monaco Grand Prix

Other than Internet and computing my interest also lies in the motorsport or Formula 1. This week formula 1 race was held in the Monaco circuit. The Monaco circuit is famous for its settings since it is one of those circuits which is extremely narrow and situated close to the sea and has city roads like atmosphere. The race has 78 laps. Kimi Raikonnen of Mclaren Mercedes emerged as the winner of the race with Nick Heidfeld and Mark Webber both of Williams completing the top three positions on the podium. This is perhaps the best race for Williams in the recent times since BMW Williams was one team which was struggling for form in this season. Ferrari was able to consolidate its position to some extent with both its cars finishing with the points. Monaco Master David Coulthard suffered a collision with Michael Schumacher and was out of the race after that. Our Indian Man Narain Karthikeyen also suffered in the initial stages of the race with the Jordan and came to the pits thrice for the tyre changes leading ultimately to retirement. But in all terms it was the day of Kimi Raikkonen who dominated the race from start to the finish and had a 1 pit stop strategy and running on high fuel. Even the other Mclaren driver the colombian Juan Pablo Montoya also finished the race with 5th postion after the current formula 1 champion Fernando alonso. Alonso was in the 2nd position till 6 laps to go but had to slow down because Renault engine had got heated severely and Alonso was not able to push the car. Kimi Raikkonen's victory came at the time when Mclaren was running in its 200th Grand prix. Nothing can be a better gift for them . It was a second victory in a row for Kimi after the Circuit D Catalunya (Spanish GP). Well looking forward to Nurburgring GP in a week's time. Let's see if Kimi can pull off a third in a row or not.

Kaun Banega Crorepati - 2

Its back with a bang. Amongst us who have the habit of watching those Star Plus kind of saas bahu shows must have observed the promotional campaign of KBC 2. Yes guys its back. Kaun Banega Crorepati 2 will be its new name and it will be hostel by the one and only Amitabh Bachchan. One can visit the site http://kbc2.indya.com for more details on it. I was one of those fortunate ones to win some money in the KBC 1. It was the time when we had to send the answers to the questions by SMS. I won a lakh of rupees in that and I was delighted to see my name in the winners list which was flashed on the screen.

This show has numerous changes attached to it. One of the most important change they have made is quite possible the campaign which they are using to propagate the show. The campaign stars Amitabh Bachchan talking all about people's aspirations and beliefs and their hopes and wishes. I must say the ad campaign is really great and the dialogues are also superb. The dialogue writer is Mr. Renu Dev Tailang who I know quite well. I also met him once in Mumbai. Let's see what is the new thing he brings in the show.

The other change is the prize money in the game which has been increased from 1 crore to 2 crore.

Let's see whether Star Plus can pull off another victory and give people a relief after a very boring schedule of saas bahu serials.

World Telecom Day - 17 May

Its a great feeling when one's birthday arrives. Added to that if some other important day also falls on your birthday its absolutely icing on the cake. I was just looking forward to this day. Today is my birthday for the people who do not know and its also the World Telecom Day. This information I could get only when I received a SMS from CellOne service.

Today is the 140th anniversary of International Telecommunication Union [ITU] and also has special importance for India as the country is commemorating 150 Years of Telecom Services. The nation has crossed magic figure of 100 Million Telecom Users.

Today we are celebrating 37th World Telecom Day. The theme for this year is "Creating Equitable Information Society". Hopefully with years to come our country will scale greater heights in the area of telecommunications.

Last Day @ GOA

Today was my last day in Goa. I had to start a day early since my parent's were coming to Manipal and I had to receive them. Then Morning I started from the hotel, A few hiccups here and there in terms of money but finally resolved. In the afternoon then I reached Madgaon and caught the passenger train to Udipi. The train reached udipi at 7:25 pm and with this our great tour comes to an end. Its very difficult to put across how much fun we had in the tour, But I have tried my level best and hope that this remains itched in our memories forever. Alvida Goa.

GOA - Day 4, Dharmik Sthalo ki Yaatra

Well as the title says, day 4 was the day when we took the official south goa which covers all the temples and other tourists spots on the south goa side. The central character of this post is Mr. Mendis our Guide in the bus. He was one of those M S Narayana type of character in telugu movies. Must say he had tremendous knowledge on Goa. But was very "pakao" keeping in mind his jokes. The tour began as usual half an hour late. The tour began with the two famous churches in south goa. The SE CATHEDRAL OF BASILICA and one more I do not remember the name clearly. The churches were absolutely excellent and we really loved it. It has a great history behind it. The next stop are a few temples around panaji city. The main reason why the temples are situated far from the city is that the christian missionaries were destroying all the temples in the panaji city and hence the kings at those times moved these temples out of the town. Well the way we had lunch was really great all the SWADES touch once again to it. In the evening we reached COLVA beach. This is the second longest coastline in India after Marina beach. By the time we came back a few people had drained out of energy amongst us. Then we parted ways I believe. myself Amit and co went for some real great shopping with some goa stuff. CP just went and sat on the panaji main road side. Rahul just sat on the MIRAMAR watching the sunset or something else. Tejas was lying on the bed only. By the time we finished our shopping it was late 9. Then we had a session and we enjoyed it. Soon it was a walk on the pavement and the night just closed slowly taking all of us in.

GOA - Day 3, The IDLE Day

As the topic of the post suggests. It was out and out an idle day for us as we literally did not do anything and did not go out also anywhere. In the morning it was the time for shifting as we had to move into the new hotel. The new hotel was very nice. The room was airconditioned and very decent and nice when compared to our earlier accomodation.

As the accomodation was excellent so was the bed and the AC. Soon after that what followed was a sleeping session wherein all the people had slept except for me. Somehow people managed to take bath and I must say taking bath was a delightful experience for me atleast. One bad thing happened our saif ali khan Mr. Tejas G Sheth had fall ill because of some stomach upset and other related problems in the stomach. Poor chap. His absence from the action was missed by all of us. His diet got restricted to only curd rice and water from the unusual ones. We had lunch then when all the people were about to sleep I took the initiative to wake all of them up and ask them to move to the Fort AGUADA . This fort has some history and I do not remember it well. The path to the fort I must say was quite tortuous and had some real outbound kind of experience. Somehow we managed to reach just in time because the fort was about to close. The fort was extremely nice place and we enjoyed it thoroughly.

We returned back at around 8 pm and then I went out to look out for my tickets back to manipal. But unfortunately Goa being a coastal town, the shops close as early as 8:00 PM. When we had come back we had our first ever sitting. I must say it did not provide us with that kind of enjoyment as we used to have in Manipal but then goa is goa. Tejas was on bed only whole of the time and night we went out to have a stroll on the footpath which was adjacent to the Panaji main road. I must say that was one of most enjoyable walks we ever had. We close the third with this.

The "PIT" Stop

The title of this post actually looks akin to a formula 1 terminology but has actually nothing to do with that. The PIT as we called it is a game played with cards. I will not like to reveal the minute details of the game as it is a very old game and its quite possible that the game may not be in existence. To sum up it is just like making a complete set let us say from ace to one. We had a great time playing the game and as we all know Mr. Vora is absolutely superb in explaining each and every fundamental. There was also counting in the game and negative counts ensured that one always remains in the bottom who were myself and tejas. CP finished at the top how he managed it is still a mystery because it was looking like Vora will once again crack it the A+ way. Rahul as usual had more interest of taking the photographs then playing the game. The major enjoyment factor in the game was (BOOGLE AND BEAR) which almost for half part of the game ended up with me only. On the overall basis game was really very nice and we hope to have it again sometime when we all meet together. Something else also happened on that night but needless to say it cannot be mentioned here.

GOA - Day 2 - Dil Chahta Hai

Well I have been writing post on the goa trip for quite a long while and now since it is not looking like it will go to completion soon, I have decided to cut short it and finish it in this or the next post.

The next day was the real enjoyment for all of us. It was day of the trip to the Fort Chappal. The fort chappal is situated on the coast of the vagatore beach. Vagatore beach is one of the coolest, cleanest and private beach in goa since people cannot reach here easily unlike miramar or calungate. The journey to the beach was a true SWADES kind of experience keeping in mind the buses we travelled in.

We reached the Vagatore beach at about 1:00 pm. It was a hot sunday afternoon with mercury rising upto 35-37 degree centigrade. Also the humid weather of Goa makes one feel more sultry and uncomfortable. We had prepared a bit for taking bath in the sea but then encouragement from other corners like CP and Rahul was not there. As usual Mr. Vora was a little disappointed man as he had enormous plans for taking bath in the sea. Soon after our always ready saif ali khan Mr. Tejas joined for sea bathing and then I followed them. It was a nice experience taking bath in a clean water unlike the ones we took in Summer Sands in Mangalore or the Turtle Bay in Kundapura.

Soon after taking bath cleaning oneself and getting into new clothes is a big issue. Somehow I managed to get into the same clothes but without something absolutely essential. Soon the adventure of taking bath in the water ended and we decided to climb up the hill fort.

Now this fort has a history attached to it and was absolutely fundamental for our arrival here. At this fort the shooting of Dil Chahta Hai took place. The photo of mine in this blog has been taken at the top of the fort only. While CP and Poornima had left by the time we started climbing mountain. Amit and Co retired in between because of extreme heat and "outbound" kind of path. On the fort only three of us were there - Rahul (Akshaya Khanna), Tejas (Saif Ali Khan) and ofcourse myself (needless to say who I was). It was altogether a great feeling to be there on the top. It was just like the feeling of the movie. we took so many photos and we really pity all the remaining people who could not make it to the top.

Just have a look at the photo with three of us on the top.

I must say Vagatore beach and the Fort Chappal (may be an ancestral property of Rahul) was one of the most memorable trip for me. By the time we had come down it was 3:30. We walked till the main road and then myself and tejas had the fruit salad at one shop. It was just like heaven and both of us enjoyed it as if we did not have for food for days. Slowly and steadly we walked down the bus stop and took the bus to reach back to hotel.

Meanwhile poornima left on that day and as CP puts in he was free from the duty. That day also we had Pizza at Domino's Pizza for the dinner. It was a birthday treat from Vora and all of us know how tough it is to get a treat from Mr. Vora . Then we came back to the hotel and started relaxing. Soon after that what followed was perhaps the highlight of this trip of us. This marks the end of day 2.

The Dil Chahta Hai Experience 

My Upanayanam

Today was my upanayanam and it started as early as 5:00 in the morning. More about it I will be putting in later here. There are a few incidents attached with the new digital camera but on the overall basis I was able to cover the entire Upanayanam in the photographs. A Few glimpses of the Upanayanam are put on the blog in the form of photographs.

The entire ceremony and the rituals for the upanayanam began a day before on tuesday. It started at 5:30 pm on 10th of May 2005, tuesday. Tuesday as we all know is also the day of hanuman. Since the place which is the Sri Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt, in Skandagiri is very famous for its Hanuman Temple, they give lot of emphasis on tuesdays. The pooja started with the Kul devtaa sthapan which is always the first in any pooja. Thereafter ganesh pooja was carried out since that is done before beginning any good work. Afterwards the shanthi pooja is carried out to ensure shanthi in the household. This marks the end of the first day on tuesday. We had to do fast on that day and hence we had only pongal that night.

The next day begin as early as 5:00 in the morning for us. After taking bath I wore the dhoti or panchaa as we call it in telugu and then angavastram on the top. We reached the venue by 6:15 am and by that time all the arrangements were being made. By 6:55 am all the people were there and the proceedings began at that time.

Thereafter the pooja went uptil 10:20 am wherein once I had the haircut and then took bath also after that. I had the tiffin in the process. We had invited only our close relatives since it was a closed function. The lunch began at 11:00 am and we winded up the entire proceedings by 1:00 pm.

It was a great feeling for my mother and me since she was waiting to do my upanayanama for a long time but my busy schedule whether in TAPMI or in engineering was not allowing her to do that.

Next step after the upanayanam is the sandhya vandanam which is absolutely essential for a brahmachari to do. I did sandhya vandanamwith the help of my dad in the evening and since it is the first time and no one knows in our house how to do it it did not come properly.

Night we went to the house of one of our relatives. Mr Tirumal Rao. He is an expert in sandhya vandanam and perhaps he was the person I was looking for. More on how the sandhya vandanam is done in the next entry.

Myself and Dad before the Start of the Pooja 

Myself Performing the Pooja and Gayathri Japam 

Myself Dad and Mom at the Pooja 

Bhavathi Bhiksham Dehi - From Ammamma

Ashirwad Ceremony in Upanayanam 

GOA - Game of Adventure Part 3 - It's Party Time Folks

Well we come back to our Goa trip. The two girls who have joined us in this tour are vaishali who is amit's friend and Poornima who is CP's friend. Well poornima is quite open and mingled very easily with all of us vaishali seems to just a true copy of vora. The first day in Goa is a lazy day since none of us willing to get up from the bed after a bad sleep in the bus. So somehow we all gathered and went to the nearest restaurant for lunch. The lunch was more like a brunch and after finishing that we went to the nearest tourist spot from our place the MIRAMAR BEACH. One of the most popular beaches in Goa since it is centrally located in the city and the only beach which is inside the panjim city. We spent some time there and then one of the worst experience's of the journey begins - "My encounter with SAND".
I really hate sand and that is one reason I do not like to venture into sea bathing and other related activities near a beach.
Imagine getting rolled into sand for some umpteen number of times and then the sand getting into your pants socks shoes shirt and everywhere else.

The second spot where we went on that day is the DONAPAULA. This place has a little of history attached to it which I am not presenting here since it is not very great and it will make the stuff boring. But only this is that here a girl by name paula did suicide. Here also shooting of movies like Ek Dujhe je liye took place and that is one reason why it shot into prominence. Then we has a great time there in quite a number of photographs were taken by our photographer friend Mr. Chappar. We started back from their and by that time some amount of sand had started coming out of my pants. It was some what pleasant. The next spot was the Cruise which I was looking after very much. There also from where we should be buying the tickets. Finally we got the tickets of a nice cruise only. It had some name and I do not remember that now. It was a good trip perhaps value for the 100 rupees spent. There are numerous programs also on the cruise like the foreign dances and once foreign couple among the tourists did show off their dance also. The reason being they were drunk. After we were done with the cruise we walked back and only restaurant which was at our sight looked decent was the QUARTERDECK . The name itself is enough. The food was good and we enjoyed it to the fullest extent after a very long walk. The walk to hotel was perhaps the best. We reached hotel and then first of all I took the bath and then the couple got despatched into their respective rooms. Three of us Tejas Rahul and myself were left behind in the room. What happened thereafter is known only to three of us.

My Upanayanam

My upanayanam is now only two days away. It is scheduled on May 11, 2005 which is one of the most auspicious day of this year. On this day numerous marriages and other functions are going to happen throughout India. 11 May 2005 is the day of Akshaya Tritiya. Akshaya means something that will not diminish. It is an auspicious day to make a beginning. Hence on this day people buy gold because there is a belief that if one buys gold on this day then it will double in future years. Well this happens or not is still a mystery by itself, but the day has been utilised by news papers and jewellers throughout the country to mint money.

Well something about the upanayanam. It actually means taking near. The Samskara or ceremonial rite in which a young Brahmin boy is endowed with the sacred thread and initiated to the Gayathri mantra is referred to as Upanayanam. I was not knowing all this before neither it has been invented by me. I thought for a moment as to why I am undergoing this upanayanam and why I should wear the sacred thread. This provoked me to look information on the net info about the upanayanam. I am quite happy that my upanayanam or thread ceremony or Janaiv or Vodugu (as we call in telugu) is taking place on Akshaya Tritiya.

The Upanayanam makes the boy eligible for the study of the Vedas. The Vatu or the young Brahmachari becomes a Dvija or "Twice Born" after the Upanayanam. So I will be twice born after the upanayanam.

Will meet you all in my second janma soon.

05-05-05

As always days just pass on and we hardly notice them carefully. Usually even I never notice the dates so carefully but I have been looking at them for quite some time now. What is so special about today. Today is 5th May 2005. Ever wondered what's so special about this date. A closer look will tell us some things about this. The date format in the MM DD YY tells us that all the three are the same that is 05-05-05. It is such a rare phenomenon because this happens only once in 1000 years and the event happens on a thursday only once in 7000 years. This info also I got from the umpteen number of yahoo IM which people keep on sending across to their friends.
Last year also a similar kind of event had occurred. When I was doing my summers in Ranbaxy Fine Chemicals Limited, a celestial event took place. It was called as the Transit of Venus. It too happened on a very similar kind of date 08-06-04. Just observe that the three figures in the date are only 2 apart. The photo of this event is also shown below.

On this day venus drift across the face of the sun as Venus passed between the sun and earth. This was one of the rare celestial spectacle and a transit of Venus is so rare that, up to June 8, 2004, no human then alive had witnessed this celestial event. Simple as transits may seem, they are instrumental in defining our place in the cosmos. Historically global expeditions timed transits of Venus to quantify the size of the solar system. Then next transit of Venus is scheduled on June 5-6,2012.

For Further information please visit the site : http://transitofvenus.org .

The Google Moment

Well Well Well a little break from the Goa trip synopsis. Today is one day I will remember for the days to come. For the first time, right from the day I starting blogging, my blog as a website got listed in the google. The keywords are "yashasvi" and "yashasvi arun". One can also type my website name "yashinc" to get to my blog. Its a great achievement because usually google crawls the website in not less than 6 weeks. Well I am posting this essentially to express that Its not tough to get listed in google. What one needs to do is to post regularly for a week and that's it done. My next attempt would be list my website which is coming up within a few days as the first entry in Google on the keyword of "yashasvi". Actually if one types "yashasvi arun" my entry comes first. But if one types the name "yashasvi", my entry turns out to be 6th in the list of search results. So my effort would be now to first increase the "yashasvi" search to the first place. Well that is enough for this achievement. When more new things will happen I will keep posting.

GOA - Game of Adventure

This post is on one of my best and most enjoyable tours ever undertaken. The trip to Goa.

I like travelling and I have travelled to many parts of India and even stayed in many metro cities of our country thanks to the relatives and people on my dad and mom side. Dad's relatives are spread across the country right from punjab to UP, Gujarat, MP, Delhi, Haryana, Maharashtra etc. So usually in our summer vacations we used to go to these places. Well travelling as I said is my hobby like thing and I love travelling to the extent it does not make me feel tired.

Among the various tours which I enjoyed the most are the ones of Kedarnath, Our college trip to Vishakhapatnam and a recently concluded one the trip to Goa with my four close friends. They are Amit Vora, Rahul Chapparwal, T V S Chalapathy Rao, Tejas G Sheth. The trips in TAPMI are usually never organized beforehand and there is no clear cut plan ahead as to where we will be going and all. Since we prefer to work the JIT way hence no plans before hand work for us.

Same here. The plan for Goa trip was made by the foursome wholesome the CART (Chalapathy Amit Rahul Tejas). Now they also stand for the acronym CATR which is Cut Above the Rest because I feel they are different. More on it in the next post - GOA 2

GOA - Game of Adventure Part 2 - Its the Beginning

Our tour started on 18th of March 2005 soon after we finished all our end term exams of VI term and also our academic activity in TAPMI.

We had booked our tickets in a decent bus which also we caught in an adventurous manner. It so happened that the bus which we were supposed to take actually went without taking us thanks to the communication gap created by the ticket issuer. Somehow just in time we could reach the boarding place. As usual the bus came 1 hour late and we got the most unfortunate seats in the bus the last ones. The seats were good there was not much of a problem. Thereafter I slept and I think rest of the people also slept unless somebody got something more interesting like Tejas. Tejas and CP sat in the front and enjoyed the whole night the baby cries and screams. God bless them.

Early morning at about 6:00 AM we reached PANJIM. Panjim or Panji or Panaji as it is called is the capital of Goa. After getting down when we were just about to forget TAPMI, a person saw my TAPMI T-shirt and called on me and asked me some details.

Then we moved in a taxi which turned out to be the most economical among all modes of transport available in Goa for the time being only. We loaded all the luggages and ourselves also into it and then reached the first temporary accomodation for us in Goa - The Indra Niwas Guest House for the Bank of India employees.

We had to negotiate a little bit with the incharge therein for a big room and we were quite successful in that. I was not involved in that and this was all taken care by Rahul only. Thereafter we got inside and pushed our luggages somewhere and slept on the bed for sometime thereafter Music that too Filmi. I do not like filmi music in the early mornings because I think that is only time one can hear the devotional music.

Well when we got up it was the breakfast time and we all went for the first breakfast in Goa. The restaurant looked great from outside (NAVTARA) but then who knows the inside story we are not NDTV na. We went in and ordered the normal breakfast stuff we used to have in Manipal. The dishes were absolutely average with lot of oil in each of sambhar, curry and chutni. Ok What Looks great from outside need not be good from inside.

Well at this moment we close this entry and move on to the third entry since two more new characters are going to enter into the story from now on and they are of opposite sex. So watch out.