Famous in an hour...

Yeah, that's what happened to Vishal and me when we presented our thoughts on Python threads and GIL at PyCon India 2011 on Saturday 17 Sept.

After a very interactive, informative and well-received session on 'Python thread: Dive into GIL!', we went to BigBazaar mall at Kothrud Pune, miles away from where we had delivered our talk. We were doing some research on various types of Bakarwadi (Indian spring roll) available when a few college grads flocked us..Why?

Well, they were really inspired by our talk. They came, they congratulated us and just left.

Wow!! That was really cool! We had become famous in an hour :)

By the way here's the link to our slides..

I am against corruption…are you?

10 things to know about Anna Hazare and Jan Lok Pal Bill:

1. Who is Anna Hazare?

An ex-army man. Fought 1965 Indo-Pak War

2. What's so special about him?

He built a village Ralegaon Siddhi in Ahamad Nagar district, Maharashtra

3. So what?

This village is a self-sustained model village. Energy is produced in the village itself from solar power, biofuel and wind mills.

In 1975, it used to be a poverty clad village. Now it is one of the richest village in India. It has become a model for self-sustained, eco-friendly & harmonic village.

4. Ok,...?

This guy, Anna Hazare was awarded Padma Bhushan and is a known figure for his social activities.

5. Really, what is he fighting for?

He is supporting a cause, the amendment of a law to curb corruption in India.

6. How that can be possible?

He is advocating for a Bil, The Jan Lokpal Bill (The Citizen Ombudsman Bill), that will form an autonomous authority who will make politicians (ministers), beurocrats (IAS/IPS) accountable for their deeds.

7. It's an entirely new thing right..?

In 1972, the bill was proposed by then Law minister Mr. Shanti Bhushan. Since then it has been neglected by the politicians and some are trying to change the bill to suit thier theft (corruption).

8. Oh.. He is going on a hunger strike for that whole thing of passing a Bill ! How can that be possible in such a short span of time?

The first thing he is asking for is: the government should come forward and announce that the bill is going to be passed.

Next, they make a joint committee to DRAFT the JAN LOKPAL BILL. 50% government participation and 50% public participation. Because you can’t trust the government entirely for making such a bill which does not suit them.

9. Fine, What will happen when this bill is passed?

A LokPal will be appointed at the centre. He will have an autonomous charge, say like the Election Commission of India. In each and every state, Lokayukta will be appointed. The job is to bring all alleged party to trial in case of corruptions within 1 year. Within 2 years, the guilty will be punished. Not like, Bofors scam or Bhopal Gas Tragedy case, that has been going for last 25 years without any result.

10. Is he alone? Who else is there in the fight with Anna Hazare?

Baba Ramdev, Ex. IPS Kiran Bedi, Social Activist Swami Agnivesh, RTI activist Arvind Kejriwal and many more.

Prominent personalities like Aamir Khan is supporting his cause.

-------------------------------------------------------

Ok, got it. What can I do?

At least we can spread the message. How?

Write in your blog, talk in orkut, face book, chat.

Putting status message, links, video, changing profile pics.

we can support Anna Hazare and the cause for uprooting corruption from India.

we can hope that his Hunger Strike does not go in vain.

we can pray for his good health.

Courtesy: received from a fwded email.

Google makes you smile

Hmm... A personal blog after quite a while, but for a reason. Couldn't stop myself!

This time its for Google..
Google has made life easy for the whole world in a variety different ways. Be it gmail, google code, google docs, google blogs and what not. Few moments ago, I came across a feature in gmail that really makes life EASIER. It was so simple, yet so cool that it brought an "ear to ear" smile on my face. I felt, this is what we may call the "customer delight".

The feature:
Often it happens that we write the content and send the email only to realize later than we have sent the email without attaching the document or file that was meant to be attached. Gmail comes to your rescue with its cool feature. If your content says "find attached", while sending the email, Gmail checks if there really exists any attachment to your email.


The alert!

Mammoth MM

Courtesy: http://www.guardian.co.uk

It was an emphatic moment for all cricket lovers! Muttiah Muralitharan or just Murali, took 800th wicket and the whole world errupted in joy! The most soft spoken crickter from SriLanka humbled the Indian Team as Srilankan team won the first tie of three match series in Galle.

True champion of his era, as Murali is, has gone through a lot of tough times. Be it being the Tamil player in Srilankan team or the incident when he accussed of chucking the cricket ball, Murali has encountered the tragedies with self belief and has come out of them smiling.

What a career and what a way to end it! Last ball, 800th wicket and retired!

We'll are happy for you Murali. The whole world salutes you! Indeed, a life less ordinary!

One cycle completes, another begins!

It's been a long, rather a very long time, when I had last written something...No excuses, it's just that many other important things kept me occupied. But a very special reason has pulled me back!

Mumbai, Sunday, 23 May 2010, 0900: It was my nephew (Nachiket's) janeu (thread) ceremony. I along with my parents were at the venue quite early as we had to participate in preparations, after all it was a home function. I was about to reach the hall on the second floor, when a speeding Priyanka (my cousin) bumped into me. Before I could see anything, she ordered "Go and see if the caterers have arrived"..."oh man!", I said. I was already in the scheme of things. Nothing to worry though, my marriage had given me enough confidence that I could handle, and even take out, any sort of job, from anyone. Confidence paid and I could accomplish a few preparations only to see my sister happy about it.

Everything was ready and the pooja began. A big havan had converted an otherwise AC hall into a 45 deg. C boiling furnace. With everybody busy in either taking part in the ceremony or the preparations or gossiping, it looked as if the heat didn't matter to many. Or maybe, I am not used to such temparatures anymore!

Quite interestingly in whatever ceremony you talk, mama has to play a crucial role. Isn't it? It was my turn now, as Nachiket's mama. Didn't take much time to play my part in all the rituals but this made me realize one thing. And that was "One Cyle Completes, another begins!". Incidently, Nachiket's grandfather was my mama. I was with Nachiket performing all the rituals and could remember each and every single thing that my mama and mami had done for me. Things like going to Gurudev hotel to enjoy delectable idli-dosa, or taking me to films or giving me all the magzines for small kids and what not. It was really an emotional moment for me. It was, as if, I could almost see him in front of my eyes...

The function got over and I started for the airport. Sitting in the local train I wondered, life had now given me the chance to pass on all the love I had received from my mama-mami. I thought, would Nachiket remember us (his Chandani Mami and Chand Mama as he calls Deepti and me) when he is in my shoes? Will he remember me 20 years from now? Something struck me and I made a promise to myself; I will be there with him whenever he requires and give him all the love possible. That's a promise, I sincerely hope, I live upto.

10 suspense pact minutes…

I was waiting…

He was sitting in the chair, perfectly hassle-free….
Just then, a dark, red-eyed and robust looking man arrived and splashed water on his face.
He then captured a blade and put under his chin…
Small droplets of blood came out…
For next few moments nothing happened…

Again a splash of water on the face and the barber moved away…
Man stood up as he was done with the shaving...

An action pact event: Reaching Suji’s reception!

A day when everything went wrong….is what happened to Prithvi and me last evening. It was Suji’s wedding and reception day. It was a weekday and obviously it would have been difficult for both of us to have attended the wedding. So we decided on making it to the reception that was scheduled from 7-9 pm at Guru Narasimha hall, Bull Temple Road, Bangalore.

3:00 pm: Prithvi pings me on the gtalk to decide the itinerary. It was decided that Prithvi would start from his house at 6:30PM, pick me up from the office entrance, we would then go to the forum mall, buy a good gift for Suji and from then on would leave for the gathering. Sounded like a plan! I contemplated if 6:30 would have been late, but then felt even if the function time was 7 pm, such gatherings were always delayed for some good reason. :)

6:30 pm: Prithvi calls me to inform that he has started. It meant I leave as soon as possible because he would have taken lesser time and fuss to make it to the rendezvous.

Real excitement starts from here on! Fasten your seat belts!

6:32 pm: I start shutting down my system with no luck. This was nothing bizarre as I had installed an operating system on my machine that was produced by Microsoft Corporation and we all are aware of how Microsoft could help us while devastating us at the same time. :) First, I tried to fix the issue by going through all the tedious and weird error messages patiently, but it was already 6:40pm and I was getting late. The word endurance was thrown out of my dictionary and I decided to hit the help button by opting for a hard shutdown. Crude way of doing things, but they work! :) To hell with the laptop, I said, hoping that the machine could boot up the following day.

6:42 pm: I was at my office reception. Pressed the button of the lift for the ground floor. If you’re working in EGL Campus and Pine Valley building, you would very well know that the elevators here don’t follow any algorithms that they are supposedly designed for. :) I could hear 4-5 noises of elevator coming to 2nd floor but none actually did. Finally, one lift opened in front of me and it felt as if it was sent by some heavenly power because it came without making any announcement of it actually reaching the 2nd floor.

6:45 pm: I was out on the campus walking towards the road where I was supposed to meet Prithvi. What worse could have happened? Yes, it started raining. So typical of Bangalore! :) Instead of now walking briskly and enjoying the cool weather of namma(our) Bengaluru, I had actually started running. If that wasn’t enough, a call from the home made things clumsier and by the time I could finish talking to my parents, my mobile alerted me that Prithvi is calling me; it seemed he had already reach the meeting point.

Prithvi made me cognizant of our first real hurdle. There was a huge traffic jam on the intermediate ring road. Oh man!

7:15 pm: We were still stuck on the intermediate ring road. The worry of not reaching in time had started to just creep in to our thoughts; but we were content not to have thought about it as yet. Somewhere, on the back of our minds, we knew that once we reached Sony World junction of Kormangala, things wouldn’t be as gloomy. We had diverted our minds to other talks that related to work, life in Bangalore and as always on switching jobs and how to get a fatter pay. Typical software engineers! :)

7:35 pm: No more hiccups from the sony world junction ensured that we had reached forum mall. I took out my wallet to check my financial status only to find that I had one shining 5 rupee coin in my pocket. Shining, as if to tell me that your worth is not more than 5 rupees! I didn’t bother to think about it as saving time and taking out money from the ATM was the trade. I asked Prithvi to come to Nik-Nish shop where we were supposed to buy the gift for Suji, meanwhile, I thought of encashing my debit card. If everything would have gone well, I wouldn’t have thought of writing this blog! You must have guessed it by now, there was a long queue in front of HSBC ATM and Nik-Nish shop was closed. Damn! It took me around 20 minutes to withdraw the money. We then went to Landmark stores and started scouring for a nice gift. Gift? Thats really dificult to get, you know! Joke book? Nah! Cooking book? Nah! Child care? Forget it! :) Finally, god gave us some sense and we bought a lord Ganesha’s idol. Looked perfectly apt.

8:15 pm: It was getting really late now! We were on our way to the Bull Temple Road. Huge traffic near the Lalbaug made us wonder whether we would actually make it to the hall in time! Would any of our friends be there when we reach? we contemplated. Shwetha was our only hope. We called her to tell that we would be there at the gathering in the following 20 minutes or so and to tell her to wait near the gate and guide us through. On the contrary, she said she was on her way back and would have reached home pretty soon. :( Ggrrrrr! Traffic was really sickening us now.

8:45 pm: We finally reached the place, found Varsha, another friend of ours. She was a rel life saver. She guided us through out. We met Suji and Girish (Suji’s husband) at the stage, congratulated them, took the photograph as an evidence of our presence, gave the gift that we had purchased and had a nice delectable dinner. Who doesn't agree that we attend receptions for good food?! :)

Suji was really very happy; the smile on her face couldn’t stop a bit. Wishing her a happy married life!

If you are thinking this is the end, you are wrong, you are in store for some more.

9:45 pm: It was almost quarter to ten when we started our journey back. You must be thinking, what else could have happened now? It was the gas problem. Not that we had gas problem, but it was the auto that didn’t have gas to run on. We had to look out for some options of transportation and the journey thereafter was a smooth sail. :)

Phew! Quite an action packed journey it was. But we were really glad that we could attend the function, see the smile on Suji's face. It was worth it!