12:15 am :: Situation - Normal.
location: Secunderabad, India
Current Mood:
cheerful
There have only been three years thus far when I've been away from Hyderabad on Diwali. The first one was 2003, in the sixth semester of engineering, when I couldn't get bus tickets from Shimoga to Hyderabad. That was a sad day for Karnataka. Learnt three-item-juggling that day.
Next up, two consecutive festivals of light missed in 2006 and 2007. Tried going for a road-trip in 2006 with![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
yathin, hitesh and t3rmin4t0r, but it turned out to be rather unfortunate - The car suffered some damage and we returned back to Bangalore.
Thinking nothing could be worse than 2006, 2007 proved me wrong. If you want to realise how awesome this festival is, stay away from India on this day! For work-related reasons, I was in California last Diwali, and trust me, it was the suck. All I remember was calling everybody up to wish them, at late night Pacific-time.
All this lead me to believe - There's nothing in this world that can lead to a happier Diwali, than being at home, in Hyderabad, with family. It's only then when one can feel that festivity in the air. Promised myself that come Diwali 2008, and I would land up here. I don't burst crackers, I don't play cards, I am not even uber-religious, but there's something magical about this festival which draws me towards home.
Have a great Diwali, wherever you are. I'm trying out an interesting way of greeting friends later in the day...
location: Secunderabad, India
Current Mood:
blank
My grandmother passed away on the Wednesday of last week. She was bed-ridden for ten years, as far as I can remember, and she'd been ill for the last two weeks of her life. But she breathed her last in her sleep, rather peacefully, being all of 87 years of age.
Got a call from my mom early that morning, and upon speaking to my uncle after that, he told me to take the morning flight to Hyderabad from Bangalore, as the funeral was about to begin at 1615 that evening.
I couldn't get a cab immediately to the new Bengaluru International Airport, as all cab operators asked me to wait for at least thirty minutes. Managed to catch the non air-conditioned bus off MG Road, and got to the airport by 1015 - I missed the 1030 flight by 45 minutes. They wouldn't allow me to buy a ticket for the flight that departed in 15 minutes, understandably so.
God bless Jet Airways, for they are the only carrier to run an afternoon flight from Bangalore to Hyderabad, albeit an ATR at that. The 1320 flight landed at the new Hyderabad airport at 1500, and I got into a cab within ten minutes, and prayed that I'd be able to reach in time for the funeral.
I miss the HAL and Begumpet airports in Bangalore and Hyderabad respectively. It'd have been much easier to get home that day. An emergency situation becomes worse when you have to commute to and from airports which are 40 km away from the cities.
Reached my house at 1605, and the first thing I saw was my grandmom's body being carried into the hall. That was the first time I saw and touched the dead body of a near one. It was as though she would open her eyes then, in spite of her nostrils and mouth being filled with cotton wool. Later, I learnt that her eyes were donated.
The barber was waiting to shave my head, since I was the fourth "shoulder-bearer", in addition to dad and my two uncles. This is customary in Hindus. As my head was being shaved, grandma's body was carried out of the house for the last rites, before taking her to the funeral pyre.
Amidst chants, my uncles, dad and I carried the body, with neighbours lending a shoulder too, to the hearse, and sat inside to proceed to grandma's final worldly destination.
We placed her on the funeral pyre. Saw her for the last time, as the last rites were performed. They covered her body with logs, and the same four sons who carried her, set fire to the body. I broke down for a bit.
We waited there for half an hour, and left at 1815. During that time, we heard two loud "booms", which happened due to the skull of the body cracking.
Two days later, at seven in the morning, we arrived at the pyre again, to find and gather the bones amongst the ashes, which were still hot.
On Thursday, my uncle and I will be flying to Delhi and travelling to Haridwar from there, to submit her remains to the holy Ganges.
Rest in peace, grandma. I'm glad she lived to a ripe, old age, and bid adieu to the world with little suffering.
location: Secunderabad, India
Current Mood:
bitchy
The fact that I can go clubbing almost every weekend, with zero planning. Bangalore messes me up no end in this regard.
location: Sunnyvale, CA
I have always believed that finding a friend's house in our country involves stopping and asking people for directions on the way, and then calling up him/her four-five times when you are less than 500 metres away. In short, locating places in Indian cities is a bitch of an experience.
To alleviate our misery quite a bit, Yahoo! Maps (India) (yeah, there is a product like that) now provides driving directions! Cambridge Layout to 4th block, Koramangala in Bangalore, for example. Or PG Road to Banjara Hills in Hyderabad for that matter.
What I like the most about it? The "Send this to my mobile" (via SMS) feature!
Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Evermore - It's Too Late (Dirty South Remix)
Saturday, September 15th, 2007. Bangalore to Hyderabad, 555 km in 10 hours, which included about 1.5 hours in two breaks. Didn't push it too much. The 205 km stretch from Kurnool to Hyderabad was done with the speedo reading 100-110 kmph most of the time.
Happy with my levels of aggression, patience and stamina for highway driving in India.
Was at Touch last night, where I discovered this awesome track, the one in my current music. 03:28 am :: Paisa wasool...
location: Hyderabad, India
Current Mood: happy
Bought the eStarling WiFi digital frame last month. Installed it today in Hyderabad. Mom and dad love it. :)
Current Music: Daft Punk - Technologic
Will be in Hyderabad this weekend, till 27th. Then in Bombay from 29th to 1st. Bombay, after almost seven years!
Much attention online these days is on Facebook. Best social-networking site, ever. Must start hacking an app for it. Can't find a LiveJournal app for it yet.
In spite of love life being zero, I've found a lot of peace within myself. So not meant for things like love, relationships, marriage, kids and the continuing vicious cycle, bleh.
location: Hyderabad, AP, India
Peeps, I am out here in Hyderabad till the 26th of December. Call/text on +91 98862 97373 if you want to meet up over coffee.
Driving is best learnt with basic machinery, so that better machinery is enjoyed multifold. No power steering and no power brakes moulds you into a very different being. Your conditional reflexes adjust to a variety of cars much faster.
location: Hyderabad, India
BarCamp Hyderabad has begun! The theme of this camp is "Web 2.0". My talk is at 19:00. There's decent WiFi at IIIT-Hyderabad.
Watch this space.
[16:15] Two sessions related to "Web 2.0 based businesses" almost done with. Pretty decent discussion in the audience. The more techie ones coming up.
[17:00] A session on "Tangible User Interfaces". Hi-fi stuff. Some time before such stuff comes down to our local cyber-cafe.
[18:00] Tea-break done with. There's an open discussion on the idea of building/finding a portal for publishing research papers, and reviewing them, that would lead to monetary benefits for the authors. Whatever.
[18:05] The "meraSystem.com" talk going on. A professor from IIT-H is talking about the idea of creating a grid-based backend (mahaSystem) that is accessed from a browser (meraSystem), providing any OS for use. By the way, participants have got a t-shirt and a cap.
I'm getting all ready to dive into some JavaScript code and get all technical during my talk. Let's show people some cool Y! stuff!
[18:20] There are other folks here blogging live-and-direct. Check this out!
[18:25] Guys from Pramati talking on XForms.
[19:00] There was a 10-minute talk on AJAX from some Oracle dude. Wasn't so much fun.
[19:35] My brain hurts from the talk given by a guy from Cordys. It was supposed to be an "AJAX demo", and he ended up bashing all Internet companies. The audience wasn't too happy with his talk either.
[20:25] My talk started at 20:05 and finished about two minutes back. Since I had no slides and only one HTML page displaying the title of the talk, it was very spontaneous. People asked questions, a lot of them. Stuff about why Y! is sharing UI libraries, why Yahoo! does this, why Y! does that, etc. Adding humour to your answers rocks. :) The Yahoo! mail beta demo was the cool touch to the talk. Had a few Yahoo! wallets and pens to give away to the people who asked questions. :D Couldn't demo the Slider and TreeView controls due to lack of time.
The current talk is funny, and good - "Inside the mind of a shit scared entrepreneur".
The camp wrapped up at around 20:50. There was pizza for dinner for those who stayed till the end. The "Ruby on Rails" talk didn't happen. Ramesh, the camp was awesomely organized, and I hope that you can make it to BarCamp Bangalore.
All related photographs on Flickr, those tagged with barcamphyderabad and my BarCamp Hyderabad photoset.
location: Secunderabad, India
Current Mood:
cheerfulThere have only been three years thus far when I've been away from Hyderabad on Diwali. The first one was 2003, in the sixth semester of engineering, when I couldn't get bus tickets from Shimoga to Hyderabad. That was a sad day for Karnataka. Learnt three-item-juggling that day.
Next up, two consecutive festivals of light missed in 2006 and 2007. Tried going for a road-trip in 2006 with
yathin, hitesh and t3rmin4t0r, but it turned out to be rather unfortunate - The car suffered some damage and we returned back to Bangalore.Thinking nothing could be worse than 2006, 2007 proved me wrong. If you want to realise how awesome this festival is, stay away from India on this day! For work-related reasons, I was in California last Diwali, and trust me, it was the suck. All I remember was calling everybody up to wish them, at late night Pacific-time.
All this lead me to believe - There's nothing in this world that can lead to a happier Diwali, than being at home, in Hyderabad, with family. It's only then when one can feel that festivity in the air. Promised myself that come Diwali 2008, and I would land up here. I don't burst crackers, I don't play cards, I am not even uber-religious, but there's something magical about this festival which draws me towards home.
Have a great Diwali, wherever you are. I'm trying out an interesting way of greeting friends later in the day...
(7 comments | Leave a comment)
08:08 pm :: 87...location: Secunderabad, India
Current Mood:
blankMy grandmother passed away on the Wednesday of last week. She was bed-ridden for ten years, as far as I can remember, and she'd been ill for the last two weeks of her life. But she breathed her last in her sleep, rather peacefully, being all of 87 years of age.
Got a call from my mom early that morning, and upon speaking to my uncle after that, he told me to take the morning flight to Hyderabad from Bangalore, as the funeral was about to begin at 1615 that evening.
I couldn't get a cab immediately to the new Bengaluru International Airport, as all cab operators asked me to wait for at least thirty minutes. Managed to catch the non air-conditioned bus off MG Road, and got to the airport by 1015 - I missed the 1030 flight by 45 minutes. They wouldn't allow me to buy a ticket for the flight that departed in 15 minutes, understandably so.
God bless Jet Airways, for they are the only carrier to run an afternoon flight from Bangalore to Hyderabad, albeit an ATR at that. The 1320 flight landed at the new Hyderabad airport at 1500, and I got into a cab within ten minutes, and prayed that I'd be able to reach in time for the funeral.
I miss the HAL and Begumpet airports in Bangalore and Hyderabad respectively. It'd have been much easier to get home that day. An emergency situation becomes worse when you have to commute to and from airports which are 40 km away from the cities.
Reached my house at 1605, and the first thing I saw was my grandmom's body being carried into the hall. That was the first time I saw and touched the dead body of a near one. It was as though she would open her eyes then, in spite of her nostrils and mouth being filled with cotton wool. Later, I learnt that her eyes were donated.
The barber was waiting to shave my head, since I was the fourth "shoulder-bearer", in addition to dad and my two uncles. This is customary in Hindus. As my head was being shaved, grandma's body was carried out of the house for the last rites, before taking her to the funeral pyre.
Amidst chants, my uncles, dad and I carried the body, with neighbours lending a shoulder too, to the hearse, and sat inside to proceed to grandma's final worldly destination.
We placed her on the funeral pyre. Saw her for the last time, as the last rites were performed. They covered her body with logs, and the same four sons who carried her, set fire to the body. I broke down for a bit.
We waited there for half an hour, and left at 1815. During that time, we heard two loud "booms", which happened due to the skull of the body cracking.
Two days later, at seven in the morning, we arrived at the pyre again, to find and gather the bones amongst the ashes, which were still hot.
On Thursday, my uncle and I will be flying to Delhi and travelling to Haridwar from there, to submit her remains to the holy Ganges.
Rest in peace, grandma. I'm glad she lived to a ripe, old age, and bid adieu to the world with little suffering.
(15 comments | Leave a comment)
06:18 pm :: What I miss most about Hyderabad...location: Secunderabad, India
Current Mood:
bitchyThe fact that I can go clubbing almost every weekend, with zero planning. Bangalore messes me up no end in this regard.
(11 comments | Leave a comment)
01:04 pm :: Y! India Maps - Now with driving directions...location: Sunnyvale, CA
I have always believed that finding a friend's house in our country involves stopping and asking people for directions on the way, and then calling up him/her four-five times when you are less than 500 metres away. In short, locating places in Indian cities is a bitch of an experience.
To alleviate our misery quite a bit, Yahoo! Maps (India) (yeah, there is a product like that) now provides driving directions! Cambridge Layout to 4th block, Koramangala in Bangalore, for example. Or PG Road to Banjara Hills in Hyderabad for that matter.
What I like the most about it? The "Send this to my mobile" (via SMS) feature!
(2 comments | Leave a comment)
08:57 pm :: First 500km+ drive...Current Mood:
cheerfulCurrent Music: Evermore - It's Too Late (Dirty South Remix)
Saturday, September 15th, 2007. Bangalore to Hyderabad, 555 km in 10 hours, which included about 1.5 hours in two breaks. Didn't push it too much. The 205 km stretch from Kurnool to Hyderabad was done with the speedo reading 100-110 kmph most of the time.
Happy with my levels of aggression, patience and stamina for highway driving in India.
Was at Touch last night, where I discovered this awesome track, the one in my current music. 03:28 am :: Paisa wasool...
location: Hyderabad, India
Current Mood:
happyBought the eStarling WiFi digital frame last month. Installed it today in Hyderabad. Mom and dad love it. :)
(7 comments | Leave a comment)
03:13 am :: BLR HYD BOMCurrent Music: Daft Punk - Technologic
Will be in Hyderabad this weekend, till 27th. Then in Bombay from 29th to 1st. Bombay, after almost seven years!
Much attention online these days is on Facebook. Best social-networking site, ever. Must start hacking an app for it. Can't find a LiveJournal app for it yet.
In spite of love life being zero, I've found a lot of peace within myself. So not meant for things like love, relationships, marriage, kids and the continuing vicious cycle, bleh.
(16 comments | Leave a comment)
02:41 am :: In the Land of the Biryani...location: Hyderabad, AP, India
Peeps, I am out here in Hyderabad till the 26th of December. Call/text on +91 98862 97373 if you want to meet up over coffee.
Driving is best learnt with basic machinery, so that better machinery is enjoyed multifold. No power steering and no power brakes moulds you into a very different being. Your conditional reflexes adjust to a variety of cars much faster.
(6 comments | Leave a comment)
03:23 pm :: At BarCamp Hyderabad...location: Hyderabad, India
BarCamp Hyderabad has begun! The theme of this camp is "Web 2.0". My talk is at 19:00. There's decent WiFi at IIIT-Hyderabad.
Watch this space.
[16:15] Two sessions related to "Web 2.0 based businesses" almost done with. Pretty decent discussion in the audience. The more techie ones coming up.
[17:00] A session on "Tangible User Interfaces". Hi-fi stuff. Some time before such stuff comes down to our local cyber-cafe.
[18:00] Tea-break done with. There's an open discussion on the idea of building/finding a portal for publishing research papers, and reviewing them, that would lead to monetary benefits for the authors. Whatever.
[18:05] The "meraSystem.com" talk going on. A professor from IIT-H is talking about the idea of creating a grid-based backend (mahaSystem) that is accessed from a browser (meraSystem), providing any OS for use. By the way, participants have got a t-shirt and a cap.
I'm getting all ready to dive into some JavaScript code and get all technical during my talk. Let's show people some cool Y! stuff!
[18:20] There are other folks here blogging live-and-direct. Check this out!
[18:25] Guys from Pramati talking on XForms.
[19:00] There was a 10-minute talk on AJAX from some Oracle dude. Wasn't so much fun.
[19:35] My brain hurts from the talk given by a guy from Cordys. It was supposed to be an "AJAX demo", and he ended up bashing all Internet companies. The audience wasn't too happy with his talk either.
[20:25] My talk started at 20:05 and finished about two minutes back. Since I had no slides and only one HTML page displaying the title of the talk, it was very spontaneous. People asked questions, a lot of them. Stuff about why Y! is sharing UI libraries, why Yahoo! does this, why Y! does that, etc. Adding humour to your answers rocks. :) The Yahoo! mail beta demo was the cool touch to the talk. Had a few Yahoo! wallets and pens to give away to the people who asked questions. :D Couldn't demo the Slider and TreeView controls due to lack of time.
The current talk is funny, and good - "Inside the mind of a shit scared entrepreneur".
The camp wrapped up at around 20:50. There was pizza for dinner for those who stayed till the end. The "Ruby on Rails" talk didn't happen. Ramesh, the camp was awesomely organized, and I hope that you can make it to BarCamp Bangalore.
All related photographs on Flickr, those tagged with barcamphyderabad and my BarCamp Hyderabad photoset.