On the eve of Republic Day

– ‘T’ told me today that I am becoming more and more reticent day by day. And he wanted to know the reason for it. As if I knew! I know that I am not speaking now as much as I used to do until ‘a time very recently’. I keep thinking a lot about Howard Roark and Ayn rand these days though its been a long time since I read that book. I guess its having a bearing on me now. For every little job I have to do, I ask myself if Roark would do the same if he were here. Does Objectivism indicate that its followers turn reticent? I don’t think so. But Roark definitely has had an effect on me. (‘Holden Caulfield’ is another character thats influenced me as much as Roark)

– I saw ‘Gaalipata’ today. And I loved the movie. As Vijaya Karnataka liked to put it, the director is yet to come out of the hallucination cast by ‘Mungaru Male’. Ganesh had to put up with too many dialogues and sometimes it could make the audience go ‘please stop that shit‘. Nevertheless the romance (‘romances’ rather) was sweet. And if you haven’t watched the movie yet, and you have assumed that the climax is ‘mungaru male-ish’, go and watch the movie. Its fun, refreshing and beautiful.

– We began studying for our project in TNw this week. And I am already in love with corporate life. Those guys seem to have so much time for everything. And how can I make a post and not write about the lunch at TNw? Its awesome and free! We got to devour everything from pineapple to grapes to paneer kofta to Biriyani. Its become something like- we go there and keep checking the watch to see if its 1 pm. Anyway, the project might be fun considering all the interesting things we are studying for it.

– I did the editing work for the inaugural newsletter of my primary school. They are releasing the newsletter tomorrow. And I have been invited. I hope it turns out to be fun. I hope that the teachers don’t start lessons in moral sciences there. Thats what has happened in the school reunions I have attended so far. And believe me, inviting teachers for a school reunion will never be my idea ever.

– Its Republic day tomorrow. And as always, I wont miss the parade. Nicolas Sarcozy will be sitting there watching the parade and wishing Carla was next to him. I think its good that she didn’t come. The old man can at least now concentrate on the job he will be here for. And well, its Australia day tomorrow too. Thats some connection between the two countries isn’t it? It will be the third day of the test and the most important one for both teams. Looking forward for that too.

– And finally, I am planning to disable comments on this blog. You might want to call it Objectivism! And yes, you could be right. But I don’t think I will be doing it in the near future at least.

Anyway, have a very happy Republic day. And lets hope we do magic in Adelaide.

Road to BIAL airport

Today I drove all the way to the BIAL airport in Devanahalli. It took me exactly 50 minutes to reach there from Banaswadi. I took the Outer Ring Road from Banaswadi until the Hebbal flyover and then a right turn there to get onto the highway. From Hebbal, it took me exactly 22 minutes to reach the Trumpet Interchange on the highway, from where the airport is 5 mins away.

Some notes:

1. The highway is wonderful after Kodigehalli cross. You can easily drive at an average speed of 70 kmph until the Trumpet Interchange.

2. But there are numerous villages on the way and there are no barricades to prevent people from walking on the road. If you have a fast car, you have to ensure that you have very good brakes. You never know when that old man will get in your way all of a sudden. These villages check your speed too. And thats the reason I say that the average speed could be 70 kmph. It can easily go up if the authorities take note of it.

3. Another thing that checks your speed is the ubiquitous road hump. I found plenty of them and most of them were unmarked. There were neither warning signposts nor the white painting on them. Just imagine that you are cruising at a speed over 100 kmph (which is possible on lots of stretches) and suddenly you find a very steep road hump in front of you. Nothing should shock you more. So, it means you have to concentrate on the road or else you can find yourself jumping up and down so badly in your vehicle that you will do some damage to your spine.

4. The Traffic signal point on the highway at the Yelahanka-Kogilu junction consumes a lot of time. Probably a underpass here will solve the problem.

5. The road between the Hebbal flyover and Jakkur, near Sahakaranagar, is where you lose a lot of time. BMTC buses stop in the middle of the road here. Bus bays here should solve the problem.

I think the road between Hebbal and the airport is not a problem at the moment. The problem is getting to Hebbal from say Banashankari. A person who has to get to the airport from Banashankari or Jayanagar has to negotiate traffic in South End Circle, JC road, Hudson Circle, Queen’s statue, GPO junction, Chalukya junction and CBI juction to reach Hebbal.(Assuming that the underpasses at cauvery junction and BDA junction solve the problems there) This journey will surely take more than 120 minutes in peak hour traffic. And add to this another 30 minutes for the journey from Hebbal to Airport. What do you get? 150 minutes to get to the airport!! And if the destination is Chennai which is a 40 minute flight, nothing can get more frustrating than getting to the BIAL airport.

The airport begins functioning in less than 4 months. And we still seem to have great problems at hand.

I clicked a couple of pictures at the site. Here they are. Click on the images to see them enlarged.

–They are the airport gasolene tanks.

–The ATC tower from the airport fence.

The Perth ‘vent’ post

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Obituary: Edmund Hillary

Never taken paths. Uninhabited territories. Unimaginable terrain. How many of us even want to think of conquering such inhibitions? But then, there are men- men who are not only repositories of courage but also oceans of inspiration, men who have a zeal to achieve something which nobody in the world has achieved, men who want to take those never-taken paths, men who want to conquer those uninhabited territories treading along such unimaginable terrain, men who want to set a precedent.

And such men shall continue to inspire and motivate mankind for countless years even after their time.

Long live Edmund Hillary. RIP.

After exams..

– Four days back, the penultimate semester came to an end. How quickly time flows! It seems like it was just yesterday that I walked into college as a fresher. I remember how I avoided the parking lot and canteen in those initial days because legend had it that thats where all the notorious seniors stood waiting for a freshman victim. Yes, I was terribly scared of getting ragged. But ragging never happened in my college, at least on the main campus. And when we got the license to rag, we didn’t do it either! Anyway, coming back to exams, most of the papers went well except for that too-tough VLSI paper. Its a VTU fetish you see- one brutally tough paper every semester is a norm!

– Talking about ragging and last sem blues, I went to watch this telugu movie ‘Happy Days’ the day after exams. Its a movie primarily based on engineering students’ life. But it turned out to be crap. It was just another ill-told love story set in an engineering college. And there was not one story but 4 idiotic love stories. There are so many things that are special to our lives (I mean an engineering student’s life), but all that the director wanted to show was ‘love’. The difference between this movie and other college love stories was that these guys fall in love with drafters and drawing sheets in hand. The only saving grace for the movie was Tamanna Bhatia, the lead actress. I just couldn’t take my eyes off her. The perfect girlfriend material, what say?

– Obama lost New Hampshire! I was saddened like hell. I keep having Obama-Clinton debates with R. And after the New Hampshire result, she told me that I didn’t want Clinton to win because I was biased against women. WTF! Now if she doesnt like Obama, doesnt it mean she’s being racist? Oh anyway, let me not tread along the path of ‘racism’. We have been hearing that word a lot these days, haven’t we? I have got fed up with it. Well, with Clinton’s win at New Hampshire, the race is now wide open. And makes it more interesting. Its just great news for the news providers like ABC, CNN and fox- a chance for them to cash in on some TRP. Step aside ‘American Idol’.

– The way the first few days of these holidays have gone, I am sure the rest of the days will be equally good. This time I have a project to start, lots of cricket to play and also lots of books to read (including ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ which I always wanted to read). I am still recuperating from the tiring day out in the field yesterday- call it the effect of playing serious cricket after a break of 6 months. I even racially abused a player. I called him ‘Andrew Symonds’!

So me off to play some cricket now. Have a happy weekend!

Hey Mr.Bucknor, how much did they pay you?

-I sat down in front of the TV for 5 days in spite of ongoing exams and what did I see? It was not cricket that was going on out there. It was a blatant example of cheating by a ‘bunch of rascals’ who call themselves ‘world champions’ abetted this time by two men (three, if you count that man upstairs too) who, it seemed, had concluded the result of this match even before it had begun.

-Its a shame on the game that a ‘world champion’ team should resort to such third class tactics- appealing for something thats not even close and then looking at the umpire as if to say, “Dont you remember the agreement?” The Captain of the ‘bunch of rascals’, Ponting clearly puts the ball down on the ground after taking the catch, uses the ball as a support to get up and then appeals for a catch!! Can cheating get more obvious than this? Perhaps its fitting that he is the captain of the ‘bunch of rascals’!!

-Dear Mr. Adam Gilchrist, please stop posing yourself as the most honest man on the cricket field. How did you even appeal for that Rahul Dravid catch? And don’t tell me that you didn’t see the ball bounce when you appealed for Dhoni’s catch. The next time you ask a batsman on the field to walk after he’s nicked at the ball, take a wicket and hit yourself to death.

-Look who’s talking about racism. When someone from a country, where every citizen assumes that ‘passing a racist slur’ is a fundamental right guaranteed by their constitution, accuses an Indian of racism, its simply too ludicrous. The ‘bunch of rascals’ have an history of being the most ‘racist team’ on the planet and it looks like they just want to pass on the sobriquet to another team.

-And the umpires. They just saw the opportunity to get the spotlight off them. Racism is a big issue in any sport and the umpires converted a simple sledging issue into a ‘racism row’ and assumed that it will divert prying eyes from all the crimes they committed.

-The ‘bunch of rascals’ should be ashamed of whatever has happened in this test match. Being the ‘world champions’ they cant be allowed to set the precedent that one can do ‘anything’ to win a match. Gamesmanship is something the ‘bunch of rascals’ clearly lack and until they gain atleast some of it, there’s no use playing any more matches against them. You know you wont be playing Cricket out there.