Bangalore – Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow !

Bangalore, the garden city or I can say, so-called Garden City!

Yes, its been 7 months and running now since have been here and every single day has been a new experience altogether. I must say, even though I am here since 7 months and even though I am so much in love with this city, it has never been a home to me. Yes, nothing like Manipal

I would love to put forth a few things which I love about Bangalore and a very few I hate.

1. Weather : Absolutely splendid compared to the hot humid climate of the coastal region. A ride at night makes yu feel just fantastic.

2. Food : Yeah, i know I am putting on weight but how can one forget to mention this. Any kind of food, you name it and you have it. Have visited quite some restaurants and the one I loved till date was “Chulha Chauki Da Dabha” in JP Nagar. Absolutely mind-blowing food and so is the ambience.

3. Travel : If you are a travel freak like me and you love bike rides then there hell lot of places in and around Bangalore which you can visit. Ramanagar is the one we recently visited. Mind blowing place.

4. Traffic : One of the disaster at Bangalore. I have read somewhere that nearly 2-3 thousand new vehicles come on road every day in this city. Same road, same width but each day more and more ppl flooding in.

Would just love to highlight a few things I have observed in terms of traffic -
a) The permissible decibel level is 65db whereas in Bangalore its above 88db. Just imagine this, and most of the contributors are vehicles.

Traffic signals, the light is red and even then educated fools who draw 5 digit salary,travelling by BMW’s, Mercs keep honking. If they honk does the light turn green or will the traffic disappear? Empty roads and even then people honk. Come on people, if we educated behave this way then how can we expect the uneducated to learn? There has been an initiative of NO HORN MONDAYS by the government. How many of you follow? If you don’t start now.

b) No traffic sense whatsoever for people of Bangalore. Every bloody fellow is in a hurry to reach home and an inch of space he finds he digs through. Bikes and auto rickshaws, these are the most dangerous ones. You are not even allowed to walk on the footpath. They come and fall under your feet.

c) Lot of initiatives are taken for sound pollution, but why are the auto rickshaws making such hell of a noise. I always feel like going over and inserting something in the silencers. Sickos. If government doesn’t come up with a solution for them, then its gonna be one hell of a thing.

d) My humble request to those who travel by this huge expensive vehicles. Keep it at home if you are so shit scared about getting a scratch or so, that you sit inside and keep cursing every other vehicle passing by. Your vehicle, your money. It will be safe in your parking lot at home than on road.

5. Parking : The house that are constructed in most of the areas are such that, what you do in your  bedroom can be heard next door and the most common thing everywhere is parking. Roads are the spacious parking lots for not just two wheelers but even for high-end four wheelers too

6. Shopping : One of the best thing possible in Bangalore. From the costliest of shops in d malls and down to road side shops, you will get all that you ask for and also for some few hundred bucks provided you are good at bargaining. You make the shop keeper believe you are a localite of Bangalore via your kannada accent, it’s better for you. Else you feel the heat in your pockets

7. Stay : Real estate is a booming thing in Bangalore and the rent is sky-high. Majority of the owners are ladies and dealing with them I need not explain. 10 month rent as deposit, no this, no that!! Even during my hostel days I had much more freedom

8. Boundary : Today’s length is tomorrows breadth. Such is the state of Bangalore’s rising area. From north to south, east to west, just before Mysore there might be a place and people staying there too might call themselves Bangaloreans

9. Bangaloreans a minority community : Ever wondered, the amount of people flocking in to the city because of the IT sector, education etc etc., has left the original Bangaloreans a minority. Poor them, their very neighbour who once was a pakka bangalorean is now replaced by a tenant who is a wannabe bangalorean.

10. PEACE : Back in Manipal, we used to go to the parks, temples for the secluded environment and the amount of peace one gets from that particular place. SILENCE is one thing which is not at all found in BANGALORE. Parks are buzzing with walkers, joggers, a bunch of retired folks who keep chattering and mostly romantic couples who find it hard to rent a room for the good things they do sitting there. Most of all, temples, the place where one goes to find some peace is in such a mess that, forget peace, you hardly get to see the GODS face.

11. Bus Travel : Travelling by bus is one hell of thing. Peak hours and you get to hear some excellent SLOKAS from the commuters . Conductors are the most wanted criminals here. Why so? Your ticket fair is 14 bucks and you give him a 100 rupee note. He writes 86 on back of the ticket and gives it to you so that you collect the change when you get down. When your stop is nearing, the conductor will be at the entrance and you will be at the back ready to get down. Either skip your stop or skip the money! Choice is yours

Day pass is such an amazing thing which BMTC has provided for commuters. You have some leisure time with you and want to roam around Bangalore for the whole day, Day Pass is the best. Morning 6 to late night 12, for around 40 bucks, you can travel anywhere and everywhere any number of times. The most funny thing is that, after 6 if you tend to visit Majestic ( the main bus station of Bangalore ) there will be people who will be even selling the bus passes which they have used for the whole day for lesser amount

Day pass is cheap, Night pass is cheaper

12. Movies : Want to watch a movie then spend Rs.1500/- for two. 500 each for the tickets and roughly 500 bucks for the popcorn and cool drinks

13. Gullies : People are so fed up of traffic and the signals that every single person is on the look out for a GULLY route to reach his destination to avoid traffic and signals thereby making the GULLY roads the MAIN roads

I feel this post is nothing to what I have personally experienced over these 7 months Thanks to my brother Manoj for making my life at Bangalore a little easier by already going through the above and warning me regarding the same well before hand

Nonetheless, I LOVE BANGALORE and I am looking forward to many more years to come in this city.

Cheers
Muki

Doggy – Love!

Dogs – A 4 legged creature meant to protect us, sometimes turn naughty! Yeah, NAUGHTY!

Tata ELXSI campus at Hoodi, Bengalooru – Friday, 31st September, 2012 :

Weekend was just mins far to start and there I was in full excitement for the weekend to come over! A team lunch at the VILLAGE, along with semi-final match – Tata Elxsi vs Intuit was on my agenda. There’s always this twist in the tale, ain’t it? whenever there is something you plan out for.

Always loved dogs, even now I do, after the incident – EVEN MORE . My mom always said  – you can’t take care of yourself, let alone the dog – so there was my wish to get a dog disappearing in thin air. Almost set to leave work and board my cab, with the weather almost perfect, slight drizzle, cool breeze with the lovely dark-colored sky above me, there was something great in the making!

Mr. Predator was, I guess, waiting for my arrival! Yeah, I say this because, there was this dog with a broken leg which keeps roaming around in the campus which everyone taught was a seedha – saadha kutta, but turned out to be really SEEDHA-SAADHA!

It all happened like this:

1) I was passing by, and I did see the dog standing.
2) It gave me a stare and turned it face away.
3) I moved ahead and then it just gave me a huge kiss – too much love, tearing my jeans apart and leaving me with blood stains all over.

Luckily for me, it bit and just went away, as though it had done a great achievement and somebody had rewarded it with a Gold medal. Na, really! The way it went off was like – I don’t have words to describe it. Got some medical attention after the incident and there I was left with some grands less in my pocket due to this DOGGY-LOVE!

On a serious note, there’s nothing to get really scared of when a dog bites you. First thing is that, just wash the wound with dettol. Do not cover it up with a bandage or any other material. Secondly, consult a doctor at the earliest. By the time I reached the doctor it was nearly 2 n half hours since the bite, thanks to Bengalooru traffic. Actually, there isn’t much to fear about the time. 5 injections of INJ Rabipur will be prescribed by the doctor which needs to be taken over a period of 1 month – 0th day, 3rd, 7th, 14th and 28th day.

It was the first time a dog showed so much love on me . The rains plus people running hither thither to board their respective cabs must have got the dog in a panic state and it just attacked! I was the target.

Even after this attack, I still love dogs and I will definitely buy one soon in the near future

Cheers
Muki

A year as a STUDENT at MANIPAL – Part I :)

Well, here I am writing this post after a long long break and with some amazing memories I had during a fantastic year which I spent in MANIPAL as a student and not as a localite

Manipal University

I would just want to recall those amazing moments which I had being a student of a great University which I always craved to join.

Finally, there it was, August 1st,2011 where it all began. I still remember getting decked up in formal along with my super cool friends Vaman Gaitonde aka “Anna” and Mr. Preetham Hegde aka the “GT MAN” – ( i know yu’ll kill me for this ). Me and Hegde had taken up the Dual Degree course in Masters – Embedded System and Instrumentation and Anna had enrolled into Embedded Systems. Hegde never gets ready on time and we arrive late for the Orientation Program arranged for us at the 4th floor of the huge Central Library building. Must say, the infrastructure which Manipal University has is one among the top in India. The Director of Manipal Centre for Information Science along with a few other professors gave us a small talk on the DO’s and DONT’s during our 1 year stay at Manipal. I still remember those innocent looking faces in crowd paying apt attention to each LETTER from the Director, and we three surely knew the next 12 months will be a hell of time at MANIPAL We were all game for it

The schedule for the week was put up and guess what, our favorite subject of all time C – Programming would be taught for the whole week Amazing. With great difficulty I had managed to crack the C Programming lab during engineering and to my horror, on that particular day I realized, MS will be completely filled with C – Programming – yeah, JHATKA number one! The usual classes followed for the week with few lectures on the Basic of C Programming and then came the next news as to we would be having 3 tests on C Programming and the marks would be counted as well – yeah, this was JHATKA number two! ( But the tests never happened )

Manipal Centre for Information Science

I must say, we engineers NEVER STUDY UNTIL THERE IS FIRE IN OUR ARSE! That it what happened, me and hegde made it a point we’ll study atleast the lil of C-Programming. First 10 days were the most serious and the last serious days of my student life at MCIS Yeah, we did hit the libraries every evening after college hours just to sit and study C Programming Amazing ain’t it?

Our course was divided into 2 semesters and each semester consisted of 5 subjects and 3 labs. I had no other choice but to opt for the Dual Degree course, since I had not written the Entrance test for the University, hence no seats were available for the normal Embedded Systems branch and also since Anna and Hegde were joining I made up my mind to join it this year as I would have some company, else my plan was to join for the August 2012-2014 batch. I had from the very first day decided I wouldn’t be going to France as part of my Dual Degree program and would enroll as a regular student of Embedded Systems after the first semester.

Classes were on only for the first one week of August Yes, our subject lecturers, one had met with accident, one had some family problem, hence 3 subjects classes were not at all being taken for the first 15-20 days It was just an hour or two of classes everyday and after that, the only thing I did was to search a house for rent for Anna and Hegde. There were some exclusive houses seen for these 2 maharati’s but none ended on a positive note. Nonetheless, they did find one themselves just 5 mins away from my place which was really a blessing in disguise for me, as I knew through out the semester I would be just coming to my place for food and sleep, rest all will be at their place

After 3 weeks of some awesome free time at college, entered the 3rd Maharathi – Mr. Kiran Vasanth aka Smokieee!! He joined college quite late and ended up being Hegde’s and Anna’s roommate I was the unofficial roommate Smokiee was also into the Dual Degree course, hence except for Anna, we all were in the same class.

System Software, Database Management Systems, Device Drivers, Data Structures and Algorithms, Embedded Systems, a mini project and a seminar were the things we had to cover during this 1st semester.

ELLA OK, DATA STRUCTURES YAAKE?? -  meaning Everything was ok, why data structures? I was really bad at C Programming and Data Structures was something which had nothing else but C Programming. I must say, I did struggle a lot during the first 2-3 weeks in the Data Structures class. Everything was bouncing over my head Our lecturer did a fantastic job on the other hand and he made it a point that no matter how many times I went to him with the silliest of the doubts, he cleared it with utmost patience. This is the best part of MCIS – Absolutely FANTASTIC faculties who are ready to help you anytime if at all you need them.

Few noteworthy events of the first semester:

i) PES Football 2011 – Day or night, exam or no exam, Smokie’s laptop was the thing which was loaded with the PES Football game and we 4 were on it almost all the time I still remember the day before our System Software exam, we played for the whole morning with next day the exam approaching . Anna finally did beat me , Hegde’s and Anna’s match was the one which was always worth watching Guys, I really miss those days

ii) Bike Trip to Sigandhur - Situated 140kms from Manipal, a temple on an island was the destination and there were 6 bikes with 12 super thrilled riders wanting to hit the roads Will never forget the 280kms up and down ride which was just splendid. Into the hills, the thick dense forests of Kollur and also those roadless, streetlightless, NAXAL affected area which we rode through One Hell of a Day it was

The Bikers

iii) Manipal University Cricket Tournament – Getting into the MCIS team for the leather ball tournament was one of the thing which I would cherish always. Hegde leading the pace attack for MCIS, we did win 2 games eventually losing. Nonetheless some amazing moments

Staff vs Students Cricket Match

iv) Late night visit to Malpe Beach – The fantastic 4 were at it again, this time, Malpe beach was the destination and at 12 in the night, it was really a splendid time

Smokie, Hegde and Anna – Malpe Beach

v) Rainbow Day – All branches were supposed to wear a Tee which depicted their branch. We too “attempted” something. The outcome was not the one which we expected Nonetheless, a great try

Rainbow Day

vi) Faculty vs Students Cricket match – You get to be in the team which faces the FACULTY, and you do get a chance to take a revenge LOL, just kidding Getting to open the innings for the student team and then stand behind the wickets, its just an amazing moment when your lecturers are in the team opposite to yours

vii) Labs – I must say, I can’t forget the day during which I had my first Data Structures Lab. As mentioned earlier, I was no good at C, over that some deadly question was sure to bounce on us . What turned out to be some unexpected turn of events. Linked List program with some twists and turns. I wrote just the structure, nothing else. I was so disappointed with my effort, that I made it a point, no matter what, I need to get myself up the next time round. Second internals, topeed the class – 47/50 . Won’t forget this forever. It might not be a big achievement for the rest, but for me personally it definitely was

viii) Books and Studies – After 3 years of break from studies, I was getting back to college days. Excitement and also at the same time, a sense of responsibility was there from within to achieve something which I had not during engineering days. Sitting at a place with a book in hand and studying was really going to be a tough task since all the patience which was there during engineering days had vanished into thin air. Nonetheless, with gods and parents blessings it did go in a smooth way

ix) TOPPER – There was always this dream, right since engineering to top the class, to be a friend to all, to excel in whatever I do. First internals, I still remember being the top scorer in 3 subjects out of 5 . It was a major boost for me, as my efforts towards studies did pay off and it drove me more to achieve which I always dreamt off. There was tremendous competition of course which I did manage to clear at last. 3 internals, 1 project, 1 seminar and finally a round of semester papers and there I was standing tall above the rest in my class – 8.8/10 which is due to the blessing of my “MALSHI” and the support of my parents, bro and loved ones. Its because of them that I was able to achieve this. Made my parents really feel proud

I guess, the first semester had only this much to offer Rather, I can put it this way – somethings cant be disclosed here in public

To all those 18 ppl who were with me during the first semester did say ALVIDA and left to France for their Dual Degree Course.

Team ESIGELEC

I had a new challenge and a new class to get into.. (to be continued)

Jai Mahalasa!

Cheers
Muki

Stand and Dance – MCIS | Felicity – 2012

The Ganchalis – Performing for the first and might be the last time

This was definitely a dream come true for me Always wanted to perform a dance on stage and finally it did happen.

I am not a great dancer, nor a great choreographer! With a simple idea taken from an IIT video, we managed to pool in something of our own as well.

Stand and Dance – MCIS | Felicity – 2012

Hope you all liked it

Cheers
Muki

Age Becoming an Issue for Chelsea FC?

Chelsea under Roman Abramovich has had as many as seven managers, with Andre Villas-Boas being the youngest of all and believed to bring in a revolution at the club. It is after the Portuguese manager’s successful stint with Porto FC last season that caught the eye of Abramovich. To bring in a revolution at Chelsea just as it was done during the Jose Mourinho era, Andre Villas-Boas needs some time at the club and the owners’ backing – which has been apparently granted.

There are a few old legs in the team, who definitely have proved their mettle before and have been a key part of the club’s success till date. Time waits for none and so there needs to be a change at some point or the other. At Chelsea, the time has come – to bring in fresh new faces on which the club and fans can rely upon to take the club to new heights. The likes of John Terry, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba – all in their thirties – create a doubt as to how long will they be a part of the starting XI as they always used to be. Read more

Cheers
Muki

Weekend Getaway – Bengalooru

Vacation time, you always are with the want to getaway to a place, have some time off before the gruelling classes, assignments, exams are at it peak again. So here it was, final 3 days of my vacation at the so-called Green City of Karnataka BENGALOORU!!!

With some quality time spent with bro during my stay at Hanumanth Nagar, Bengalooru, would like to pool in a few things of what exactly life at Bengalooru is. Of course in my way.

• Single or married you need know to cook and do BARTAN which I did learn staying at my brother’s place. No wonder, he has to do all of it once back from a tiring day back at office. You begin to love it, then its Baaye haath ka khel.
• Washing clothes. Wow it was when mom used to do it back at home. When it comes to you, you will tend to wear the same stinking jeans a few more times.
• Traffic – Lovely! Yes, you got me right there.
• Compared to Manipal, its super cold and the girls out there on MG Road and Brigade Road too drive you cold.
• Malls – Just see and enjoy is the order of the day. Yes, I meant both girls and also the items on display.
• Metro at Yashwanthpur – Place to visit if you are a resident of bengalooru for most of the things you get there are of prices lower than the MRP. But then, going there just to buy a couple of soaps and shampoos ain’t worth. 1k billing is a must.
• Commercial Street – Just way too commercial. Hike the price and sell it with 50% off tag . A normal shorts cost 2.5k. Ain’t it amazing? No really.
• Kannada spoken- Yen amma, Yen macha, yakrappa hingmadtira, ticket torsappa Good to hear but hard to speak until you get acquainted.
• Movie and a lunch on a weekend will burn not only your wallet but also your jeans! 450-600 bucks for a bollywood movie during a weekend compared to the 60 bucks at Manipal and 600-1000 bucks lunch for two at a decent restaurant compared to the 300 bucks at Manipal
• Software professionals everywhere is the major cause for such a hefty price tag on each and every item.
• A fantastic bus service from the government which takes you around to each nook and corner of the city for just a price of 45 bucks for the whole day
• Darshini – Road side eatery, which is clean and hygienic saves some burns
•  Metro – Amazing, fantastic, tremendous except for the initial trouble it causes to the traffic.

That’s more or less about Namma Bengalooru which from one angle you see is in a very bad state, but definitely if you try to enjoy each moment of it, you will surely love the place. Awaiting my orders to get to Bengalooru next.

Cheers
Muki

Second Semester Beckons!

It feels just like I joined my Masters program yesterday! 5 months have passed in a jiffy. 3 internals, 1 final a total of nearly 30 exams done in 5 months with no time to look around and indeed it has been a splendid start to college life after 3 long years.

It all began in August, with cricket, class tours, outings, dinners, night outs etc began to be the regular routine in my life. It had all ended in June 2008, when I finished my graduation. Never had thought I would get into a masters program, but god had other ideas . Now after 5 months into this newly set – back to the old – college life, after a much-needed break after the grueling semesters and loosing some pounds during semesters and gaining some during the holidays, it’s now time to get back to classes, assignments, labs, exams etc.

It will be a more exciting and the final 5 and half months of college life after which it will definitely be the night out at office and then in a few years night out at home with kids . Long way to go for the latter one, so now its time to enjoy the college life. A new class and a new set of friends beckons, with my ESIGELEC classmates leaving to France this month end which I had to drop out due to some personal reasons. Will definitely miss the class which I spent my first semester in and a few will definitely be missed.

A new year with new hopes and new aspirations aiming high and wanting to fulfill those dreams. Life has to move on and new challenges already in way. Awaiting Embedded Systems Section ‘A’ on January 9th, 2012.

Watch out folks, here I come.

Cheers
Muki