26th Jan - Republic Day

Happy Republic day to my fellow Indians. Every year , no matter what the circumstances are, our country celebrates Republic day with opulence. Watching the Republic Day parade held in New Delhi is a part of everyones childhood memories. What is the significance of this grand celebration is a question we rarely ask ourselves. Once asked, everyone is ready with the answer that the Indian Constitution was formed that day on 26th January 1950.

While Independence Day celebrates the freedom from British Rule, the Republic Day celebrates the coming into force of its constitution

Republic Day Parade New Delhi 2012

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It is on these two days of the year everyone in India suddenly become patriotic. Be it a polictician, a chief guest at any of the flag hoistings around the country, or anyone who is given the mike to speak on these two days. A principal of a college talks about unity in diversity, says that we all are of different castes but we all are one big family. The very next day he shows his favortisim to the teachers and students of his caste and his dislike towards the others. Someone says "Corruption!!" this is the reason we haven't developed as much as China! Yes sir, it is true what you say. The very next day of work, the same person thinks what profit can he make by cheating a bit, by doing something illegal because someone will bribe him. He thinks nobody would know of all his corrupt life style. Everyone knows sir ji, everyone does. 

Let this be a message to everyone, the patriotic speech which is spoken by you, should be followed for atleast a day. Follow what you preach! Words have done no good to the benefit of the country. Be an example of honesty and not of someone who takes a little bribe. The typical mentality of pointing fingers at others, look he is more corrupt than me, isn't going to get us anywhere.

Master Cleanse Lemonade Diet

Day 1 and Day 2 

I enjoyed the Master cleanse journey till here. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed the lemonade diet too. The lemonade is very tasty and I really don't mind drinking it all day. I had more than enough energy to sustain the whole day! The routine is to take a nightly herbal laxative everyday from the time we start the lemonade diet. I chose a good one available at my regular store. The day ended after playing some PS3 games, Sports Champions Archery game to be specific, which me and Harish totally enjoy. Maybe I should write about all the games too sometime.

Anyways, I slept around midnight only to be awakened before sunrise with some movement in my tummy. These were followed by 3 more visits to the bathroom and I was totally exhausted. I woke up my hubby as I no more had any stamina left, weakness was empowering me. I requested him to get me some sugar and coffee as I could barely open my eyes. He got me sugar quickly and fed some to me and rushed to brew me some hot coffee. This moment reminded me of my parents who took so much care of me whenever any such thing happened. It's a bit different with your hubby, sure he cares but not as much as my parents did. I drank a few sips of the hot coffee and added loads of sugar to it. I was dehydrated and the sugar level in my body had hit a complete low. Drank a few sips of water (as much as I could) through out this toxic phase.

I did loose weight I'm sure! My jeans which were not fitting me are back to my waist. I'm happy about that. But, Is it safe to do this Detox diet and make myself so weak that I become unconscious, it doesn't seem like a good idea to me!

After all this my hubby insisted I have a healthy breakfast before he goes to work, cause he was worried I'd faint again. I did some more research n this if it's safe enough to do it and it was no surprise that some doctors have suggested that people who are anemic ,who have low BP or any other medical conditions should not try this diet. Doctors also say that the body does not get enough of nutrients and energy through this diet, as 6 cups of lemonade gives us only 650 calories. which is way below the daily requirements. I'd a totally dairy cutout as well for the past 5 days. Phew! what about the calcium then?

Well, I'm sorry to say that this detox diet is not for me. I love being on salads, fruits and soups, loved the lemonade too, but the dehydration! I can't bear that! I had fruits and veggies the rest of the day to keep me going will start with soups tomorrow and end this anorexic diet!

Day 3- Ease-in of Master Cleanse

Day three is going good so far. Had 3 cups of orange juice and its 3.45pm. The problem is not with the diet. But the problem is my hubby says I will have to look for a job as a QA and not a BA. I do have some idea about QA but I'm no expert. I'm studying QTP today and also looking for someone who could teach me the same well. I want to do some projects and become an expert in this. Hmm..

We are going to India on 11th feb, I'm so excited about that!!! Will I get to learn some QTP there?? I doubt! It's a holiday and lets treat it like that. My aunt has a very good trainer in Boston, she also knows someone in Connecticut, so I'm exploring my options. I sooo want to get a job soon and get busy with life how I used to be.

So its Day 3 and I'm going strong. Have found this amazing website to sharpen your QA skills. Its good if you are a totally new-bee specially. http://www.guru99.com Have fun studying and loosing weight!! Yay!

Day 2 of Master Cleanse Diet!

Today was my day 2 of my master cleanse. Suprisingly I'm not even a bit tired! I also had some delicious soup today apart from the yummy juices.I already feel lighter today and so fresh. This is a sure way to lose weight!

It is my day 2 of Ease-in stage. So my diet was of soups and juices. I drank a cup of carrot juice in the morning followed by green tea, this was our breakfast. Then a childhood friend of mine,Shweta suggested me to add an apple with the carrots into the blender. Now this was a super yummy carrot-apple juice. My hubby was on lemonade diet today itself. By afternoon he seemed to be too hungry. He is a guy with a huge appetite. Poor guy I just couldn't help but tell him to drink the carrot-apple juice with me, and so he did.

For lunch I looked up the internet for a spinach soup and I found one amazing one at allrecipies.com. It had all the right ingredients, which were healthy and I had them, it was also easy to make. Trust me it was delicious. Here is the link for the recipe http://allrecipes.com/recipe/jamaican-spinach-soup/detail.aspx

I do like a chunky soup so I kept a few of the vegetables aside and didn't let them go through the blender. Also I didn't add any zaccuni but I added some sweet corn. My and my hubby had two bowls full of them, as we knew we'd a long day ahead of us.

We left to Manhattan to see Harish's newly born nephew and family. Two of his cousin sisters have had babies in the last couple of months, so they both were there. along with their mom who was visiting them .Had fun with all the babies and their young parents. We had to pick up his aunt and take her to yet another cousins house who lives in Newport, Jersey City. Well, long day I must say, cause we had to go back to Manhattan drop her and come back to our place! Phew... 

Me,Uma Aunty,Harshu Akka(Harish's cousin), Dev(her son) and Puneet(her hubby)

But here we are, all done for the day, we ended the day with sharing a pomogranate and I was too tempted to eat a stick of celery. Yes tempted!!! tooo much!! :)

Tommorow is my day of Orange Juice!! yay!! Can't wait for it!! But there is a slight problem, Harish's cousin who lives in Manhattan has invited us over for lunch on sunday! She'd invited us today also, we somehow escaped, but how do we cook up another reason for next week to keep up our diet. I seriously do not want to break the diet cause I doubt I'll get another chance at this soon. Hmmm.. Have to try some tricks, I'm a bit shy about telling them about this diet, or should- I ?

Master Cleanse has begun!!!

I've begun the Master cleanse today. Since I've come to U.S I think I've put on about 6 or 7 kgs (or maybe even 8) in a couple of months!! Scary right?? For the past few weeks I did some intensive research about Master Cleanse and I decided to take the plunge. My hubby plans to stay on a fruit,vegetables and the lemonade diet. Pretty sweet of him to support me in the master cleanse diet.

For those of you'll who are wondering what exactly is this master cleanse, let me put it out in words to you. Master cleanse is one of the famous Detox diets, which helps in removing all the toxins and unwanted waste from the body. Thousands of people claim that it works and is the most natural way to loose weight. If you think you put on a lot of weight this year, feel a bit bloated and you think you've eaten a lot of junk!! Then this is definetely for you. Go ahead do your research. Let me share my experience with you.

There are three stages in Master Cleanse.

•  Ease-in - 3 Days.
• The Lemonade Diet - 10 Days
• Ease out - 3 Days

I've skipped dinner last night. Ate a few grapes ans strawberries.We watched My name is Khan as Harish hadn't seen it yet.

It was snowing in the morning and my excited hubby kept waking me up as he wanted to go and play in the snow. Woke up in the morning, prepared breakfast for hubby ,toasted brown breads and egg whites fried. I'd half a melon for breakfast. Off we went to play in the snow!! Had awesome fun.. seeing the white winter wonderland. We threw a few snowballs at each other and walked for a few minutes. I just felt like I was freezing, so I came rushing back.

Our saturday ritual is to talk to our parents through skype video chat. So, spoke to Harish's family, Mom, Supriya, Anna and Bhabhi. I must say his Bhabhi has lost 15-20 kgs this year. She was plumpy when I first met her and now she looks like a thin teenager!! Awesomeness!! She is like an inspiration for me to loose weight. Anyways, spoke to my parents after that. Watched them eat dinner though we both are starving. I just peeled a few cucumbers which we both shared. Having fun on this diet now. Harish ate the other half of the melon for lunch. Love my hubby for giving me freedom from cooking for 2 weeks.

We were supposed to have Harish's cousin Harshu akka  and her family to come over for lunch tomorrow. But because it snowed today thats also cancelled. Sad!! :(

For more info about Master Cleanse:
http://themastercleanse.org/

Nuggikeri Temple - Dharwad

I still remember all my engineering days when all of us used to go to Nuggikeri Temple,that was a routine every saturday. For almost two years me and my group of ten girls would walk down from our college SDM CET to Nuggikerre. Some of us went barefoot and some of us fasted the whole day and ate only after coming back from the temple.I often did both.Sometimes i went there on an activa with my brother.Nobody misses on going to Nuggikeri.Nobody! Going there was only the second best part.It's a very calm and serene walk,but not more than the location of the temple itself.Very very gorgeous and serene. A temple on the banks of a lake,surrounded my miles of green landscape.You know to be there and be able to visit Nuggikerre every saturday itself is kind of a blessing.You just know you belong there!! I'm sure the other hundreds of people who came there every saturday felt the same.

When the exams were nearing I'd pray that the exams go well,after the exam I'd pray that we pass in this particular paper which was so tough!! When there were tough times I even cried praying there. I prayed for courage and strength to bare it all. The rest of the times I just went there and said hello to Hanuman and thank him for the life he has given me. There's a custom of tying saffron and yellow holy threads to the railing on the wall behind Hanuman.I used to  make a wish and tie a knot,like a bow so i knew it was mine.Since I'm from Bombay and not Dharwad, it was my dream to take my husband once to Nuggikerre after I got married. I wanted him to know this place which was a very important part of my life and also i wanted to show him to my favourite Nuggikeri Hanuman.I doubted my wish could come true as i later found out my husband to be works in Singapore and we probably won't have much time to visit Dharwad,let alone Nuggikeri.

Hanuman called me and my husband there to come meet him.A week after my marriage we'd to go to mangalore for all the pujas we'd to attend.My husband had booked Air India tickets about two months back.As fate had it Air India was on strike and was cancelling all the flights. I remember we went to every Bus Travel office, noone had two tickets to mangalore,of course there was no question of getting train tickets!! Peak season!! We'd no other way but to drive to mangalore from bombay,my parents were a bit worried about just us making such a long trip and they accompanied us. Dharwad happened to be on the way to mangalore!!! I was just praying for it!!! Destiny!! As i stood there in front of Nuggikeri Hanuman, it was surreal. I couldn't thank god for all that he has given me, a lovely husband too. I prayed for our married life to be happy and happiness to my family. I'll always love Nuggikeri Hanuman from the bottom of my heart.

IPL Mania

The IPL mania has begun and it won't get over for another month.Half the Indian population or should i say more than half the Indian population,considering the sex ratio of male to female in India,are glued to IPL and very few other things seem to be making a difference nowadays.Guys greet each other with "did u see d match yesterday?", or "What an awesome match it was!!" instead of the normal and more caring hi how are you :)A student of mine greeted me the other day with "Mam I watched the match in the stadium yesterday!!" Whatever happened to the Good morning mam.I'm sure you all can think of your own experiences regarding this. Which team are you going to be supporting this year??!! Have a great season!

What can we expect in 2011!!

Happy New Year!! 2011 is predicted to be an eventful year for many reasons. We have many reasons to celebrate and rejoice this year. We begin the year on a Saturday and cherish the first weekend. It is the 11th year of the 3rd millennium and of the 21st century; and the 2nd decade of 2000. With anything new comes apprehension and uncertainty. None of us are god’s to predict the future neither am I an astrologist. But practically, I would like to talk about what things can be expected in 2011,what might change and what might bring us great joy!

The United Nations has designated 2011 the International Year of Forests and International Year of Chemistry.

Men are going to have a gala time this year. The year begins with Barclays Premier league matches. Jan 1st sees a couple of matches; Liverpool will be playing on the first day of the year. Chelsea has it’s first match of the year on 2nd of Jan, Manchester United on the 3rd of Jan and Arsenal on the 5th of Jan. Come March 1st and we will witness a match between Chelsea and Manchester United, the eagerly-awaited top-of-the-table battle should be a thriller and is predicted to be nine per cent back a 2-2 draw. While we are talking about sports how can India’s favourite sport Cricket be left behind.

There is excitement all around that the ICC World Cup 2011 is scheduled to begin on 12th Feb. This cup is jointly hosted by India, Shri Lanka and Bangladesh. Our very own Prof.Ratnakar Shetty is the Tournament Director for the ICC World Cup 2011.The 13th of Feb. sees a match between India and Australia and I’m sure it will draw a lot of crowd as it is held in Bangalore. 1000s of Indians will flock to see the thrilling match. As the World Cup draws to an end on 2nd of April the fans will be maddening. India does seem to have a good chance of winning the cup, let’s pray and hope for it. According to Manu Sawhney, ESPN STAR Sports Managing Director, “The ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 will draw massive interest from around the globe as cricket’s flagship event.” I do hope this event is a success and India proves to be a good host this time.

Best Careers for 2011 are in the HealthCare industry, IT, Business and Finance, Education, and Media/Communication.

IT sector is said to be in complete boom in the year 2011.A Tsunami of jobs coming our way, says a popular website. The jobs are back. And back in a real big way. Like a tsunami. According to estimates five lakh jobs will be created till March next year in just four sectors IT, telecom, banking and healthcare. The year 2010 brought in cheer for Indian IT after almost turbulent 2009. From single-digit to even negative growth in some cases, the Indian IT industry bounced back to double-digit growth. As the year ends we look into the crystal ball to gauge what the fiscal year 2011-12 holds for the IT industry. According to several analysts, the New Year looks promising for Indian IT services companies with clients increasing their IT spending and willing to pay more for services. It is time to rejoice for all the IT freaks as there are multiple job opportunities like Web Developer, Games Developer, Ethical Hacker, Admin, Network Security Expert and many more. Here is my heartiest congrats to all the IT freaks, hope you all have a successful year and many more glorious years to come.

3G is expected to be used in a big way in India in 2011.Though a few networks have introduced 3G for now like MTNL 3G Jadoo,Reliance,Tata Docomo,and the others Airtel,Vodaphone,Aircel and Idea plan to launch their 3G plans in 2011.The year 2011 can be called as the year of the 3G for India as 3G will finally gain it’s popularity and be used by the common man. In 2011 we can expect Super-Duper Smart Phones, phones are going to be smarter than ever. Androids, iphones will be the trends for the year. With higher-resolution displays, more potent dual-core processors, fancier cameras, faster wireless connections and better software — most commonly the next version or two of Android — they'll resemble truly pocket PCs more than ever.

Internet security could be a major issue in the 2011 as there is a very close call between the web developers and the hackers. Both are showing their talent at a neck to neck competition. The good guys need to buck up and be smarter than the bad guys as Cyber crime, viruses are to get deadlier in 2011. Viruses in 2011 will increasingly be like those shown in sci-fi movies. The US has still not found a solution to VikiLeaks and is still suffering the consequences. 2011 might have more such situations targeting Governments or public figures.

Google is planning to come up with a social networking site. Though Google rules the web, but it could not do anything to match up to Facebook and twitter till now. So we cannot predict what will be the state of it’s new social networking site, but I personally think it’s pretty tough for Google to match up to the success of Facebook.

Better Browsers
Mozilla's promising Firefox 4 was originally supposed to show up in 2010 but slipped into next year.Later in 2011, we should also see the final version of Microsoft Internet Explorer 9, the first truly impressive version in years. Google updates its Chrome browser so relentlessly that it'll probably release several significant updates before 2012 rolls around.

IPv4 Net Addresses Will Be Gone By January
You might have heard something about the exhaustion of the pool of free IP addresses. It's been topic of discussion among network engineers for almost 20 years. Experts at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) had warned that the reserve of available Internet addresses will be used up around the globe in January 2011. The situation is anyhow “not serious” because a new Internet protocol will allow for the production of billions of new Internet addresses. Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) will allow for the registry and service of billions of new addresses.

Bollywood for you in 2011
For all you Movie Bluffs, 2010 might have been a disappointing year but 2011 sure seems promising.

The most awaited film of 2011 is easily Ra.One,which is Shahrukh Khan’s dream project and sees him step into the role of a super hero. Salman,will return to the big screen with Ready after his success with Dabangg this year..Aamir Khan will have a release after more than a year with wife Kiran Rao’s Dhobi Ghat in January. Khans apart, it’s going to be a crucial year for Hrithik Roshan with Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara which is co-starring the lovable Katrina Kaif. Katz is also looking forward to another film release in 2011,a movie with a pretty funny title Mere Brother Ki Dulhan,hope the movie is hilarious as well. Akshay Kumar has two releases set this year,Thank you co-starring the sweet and confused Sonam Kapoor and Patiala House. Rockstar will have Ranbir Kapoor playing a guitarist and is bound to win more hearts of the young and young at heart women. Priyanka Chopra is excited about Saath Khoon Maaf which will be released in Jan 2011 and Don 3 set to be released in Dec 2011. Kareena Kapoor is looking forward to her much talked about film Agent Vinod with her beau Saif Ali Khan and her other flick Bodygaurd with Salman. Abhishek Bachchan also has two releases this year with Game and Dum Maaro Dum.I hope he makes his fan happy with good movies the coming year and wishing him a successful year. Here is hoping that Bollywood makes us proud this year with some good movies and not just commercial hits.

Bunts Sangha Higher Education Institutes
The TYBMS batch is going to graduate next year. Hoping they all pass out with flying rainbow colours and set the standards high for the rest of the batches to be graduating from next year onwards. Good luck to them and I’m sure everyone will miss them.
We are also going to start with MBA College in 2011, hotelier Shri. Krishna Y. Shetty of Krishna Palace being the main donor. All the best for the new Management Institute, I’m sure it will be a great success.
2011 is also going to be my last year working in this prestigious institute. It makes me proud to say that I have worked here for the past two years, from July 2009 to probably April 2011.I have had immense love and support from everyone in the college, Our Principal Dr.K.S Cheema,Our Manager Shri.Jaya Shetty, our Coordinator Prof.Harbir Singh,Prof.Susan Alex,Prof.Swapna Shetty and other teachers, who never seemed like colleagues. I spent a really good time of two years and made some good friends for life here in this college. Will surely miss you all, hope you guys will miss me too..
A lot of work has gone behind the making of this magazine Youth Times and Jallosh 2011.The entire credit goes to Prof.Harbir Singh and the cultural committee comprising of the following students:
Dhaval Shetty, Aafiya Ahmed, Ganesh Garbidi, Robinson Ingle,Karan Malvi,Savio, Yatin,Jyothi,Dhananjay Shetty,and the others.
I have seen them working the whole day and sometimes they’ve worked till midnight only so that the Youth times is an excellent read and Jallosh 2011 is an immense success. They have treated this like a personal event and worked for it.
The Managing committee of our college coordinated by Mr.C A Shankar Shetty, was always on its toes to make this college as organised as possible and our college wouldn’t have achieved this kind of success without their hard work.
Shri. Aikala Harish Shetty                    Dr. P. V. Shetty
President, Bunts Sangha                               Vice Chairman
Shri. Manmohan R. Shetty                  Shri. B. Vivek Shetty
Chairman, Higher Education Committee        Vice Chairman
Shri. B. R. Shetty                                   Shri. Praveen B. Shetty
Secretary                                                       Treasurer

My students have been more than my students to me in the past two years. Sometimes my friends, sometimes my kids, we always stood by each other in good and bad times. The love they have showered on me is unexplainable. SYBSc IT would be referred to as my kids, yes they are my kids and I’m proud of them. IT Freaks Rock!! I had the pleasure of teaching FYBAF also which was a good experience too. Love you all.. will miss you all..I will pray for your success.

Here’s wishing everyone a Very Happy and Eventful New Year!! May the New Year bring all the joy and love we all need. God bless.

Expressing Love

Love.. an eternal feeling.No words can define Love.The feeling you just want to spend time with that person,you want to see that person happy.We all do fall in love.Some are expressive and some are not.I was just thinking how important is the expression of love to us love birds.Are you happy of the fact that you are loved,or would you be sad if your partner is not expressive.Two people decide to spend their life together.That is a huge decision.It would help if there were communication.Romance is the soul of marriage.Expression is the breath of romance.
I'm a very expressive person.Full-on romantic.Maybe I've lived in my dreamland for years.I agree there is no perfect love and every flower blooms at it's own time.But.. nobody knows the recipe to a perfect love story.Probably it is.. you know you love each other,accept the things the way they are and be happy!!!
Love... the mysterious ghost.. :)

Forbidden fruit!!!

...when a Pitaya meets a Pineapple...

She was soft, mature, exotic and incredibly sweet...

He was more common, tougher, a bit sour and younger...

Yet, when their googly eyes met it was love at first sight!

Now they live like this... so close and yet so far.

(at least until a breeding program that involves pitayas and pineapples is created...)

Rahul Gandhi to visit Dharwad on Friday - Hubli - City - The Times of India

Rahul Gandhi to visit Dharwad on Friday

Rahul Gandhi to visit Dharwad on Friday - Hubli - City - The Times of India

Rahul Gandhi to visit Dharwad on Friday

Happy Friendship Day!!!

Friendship isn't always easily described. The Eskimos, they say, have a hundred different words for snow. Unfortunately, the English language isn't quite as innovative, though it has vast opportunities to differentiate meaning. Certainly, Love is one of those opportunities. And so, too, is Friendship.

Lets raise a toast to friendship!!! Friends have no relation of blood,they can be different and yet so similar.If friendship was the base of every relation,we would be blessed. I sure am blessed cause my parents are like my best friends and I'm also lucky to have a couple of true friends.Through each phase of life I've made best friends.They are like angles,who come in our lives to share our joy and troubles with us.Cheers to all my angles,without whom I wouldn't have been what I am now.

The origin of friendships day dates back to 1935 when the US Congress decided to have a day to celebrate this special bond.Though nobody knows why exactly was this thought of,but a little research tells us that maybe the First World War had a huge impact. The First World War ended in late 1918,but the fear,the hatred and the mistrust was still lingering in the minds of the people.So the US Congress declared that the first Sunday should be celebrated as friendships day.The trouble wasn't only between people,there was so much mistrust and tension among the nations which was a perfect recipe for another World War.Isn't it so true,such a day was thought upon after the Great War!! Even in todays times,we may not face any wars but all the problems one can have,friends are the perfect solution to all of them.Then in 1997 Winnie the Pooh was declared as the World's Ambassador for friendship by the UN.

Friends are important in all our lives.We cannot choose our family or our colleagues,but we can always choose our friends.They say we can judge someone by his friends,so true.My best buddies are my treasure,whom i can show off at all times.Not that they are good looking,or rich,or successful,or famous,or they are geniuses,sure they have some of these qualities,but they are great people.Everyone can always point at them and say she/he is a good guy.They have their faults,but so do I.Thats what the bond is about.I feel my best friends are like my soul mates who can understand my silence and see through my smile all the pain I'm hiding.Life wouldn't be the same without you all,I wouldn't be the same without you. Thank you to all my friends for being who you are!! You Rock!!

Let me leave you with an awesome poem by Heather Stoop,which perfectly depicts the friendships we share,separated by miles but connected my hearts.

Between The Miles

by Heather Stoop

Because existence can become severe in one day, just sense me and I'll be there. In the minds eye, I'm not so far away. If you hold out your hand, in the whispers, I'll become the zephyr. and besiege you. If your eye's upon the stars, in the crystalline darkness, I'll become the moon. And the light shall guide you. If you rest upon the ground, in the warmth, I'll become the grass. And embrace you. If you turn outside, in the wetness, I'll become the rain. An upon your forehead, kiss you. If you free the air, in the light of day, I'll become the sun. And smile for you. Between the miles- if you need me. If you need a friend. Let me be the friend, I want to be.

Kindle.. Do u love it or u don't??

Kindle is an e-book reader from Amazon. It provides us with the facility of reading from a choice of almost 1500 books whenever we want. It was launched not so recently and I wonder is it making waves in India?? I haven't seen anyone using a Kindle yet,but maybe someday soon.As the much lighter and upgraded version of the Kindle has been lodged,there are talks around the corner about is it really lovable? Book lovers of the world.. would you be loving every moment of using Kindle? A book on the move, you can switch anytime,you can save as many,saves you the effort of carrying an actual book in your bag.

You can read a very interesting review of the product at the blog http://anandsathya.blogspot.com/2010/07/amazon-kindle-in-india-review.html

But what I want to ask is who will actually love Kindle? Is it the right choice for a vivid book lover? We all have read at least a couple of e-books in the PC, but somehow for me it doesn't give the pleasure of actually reading a book. Strange it may seem to someone who doesn't love books,because be it an e-book or an actual old fashioned book the content of the book would be nevertheless the same. Then why should reading it in digital or print make any difference? Can't a book evoke the same emotions,the same excitement? Kindle actually means evoke. So I would say it is sad that Kindle won't evoke the same emotions as a book to me.I'm sure many of you can relate to me when i say I prefer a book,thank you! :)

I'm a book lover and I can boast of having a mini library at home. I read different genres depending on my mood and maybe it's also a phase. When we are younger and in our teens we believe in love stories and such things excites us more,that was when i used to read classics. Shakespeare,Jane Austin, Louisa May Alcott and such reads.We all have been through the phase of Enid-Blyton,then Nancy Drew,Secret Seven,Famous Five and Hardy boys.Thats how the love for books begun for me. Sure I read a lot of Shakespeare and classics in my early teens.Non-Fiction was something i appreciated only at the end of my teens.Now I carry the love for mystery books for quiet a while now,thanks to Sidney Sheldon. :)

Having said this, can you imagine reading a Sidney Sheldon late nights when everyone at home is sleeping.Sometimes I'm so into the book that i don't feel like putting the book down and I've read till it's just before sunrise. The love of a book!! Just takes you to a different world altogether.No matter how you day was or whats your stand in life now,a book gives you the luxury of forgetting yourself and just immersing in the magical world (like Faraway Tree if u remember).

No,I cannot let anything replace a book.It's just too precious and no e-book can take its place,at least not now.All my books are my treasures and i don't cherish them virtually.

But there are times when I would prefer reading something online rather than buying a book.To give you an example I would recollect what my college librarian told me once. My students were all excited about the robotics project I'd assigned them.That evening I got a call from our librarian requesting me to suggest some books related to robotics.She took me by surprise,then she told me how my entire class has been asking her for robotics books for their project.It took me a while to convince her that buying books are not necessary as they all have access to the biggest source,the internet.Reluctantly she agreed but added "Ma'am the demand for books will diminish because of internet,I'm worried about my library."

So I think that maybe Kindle would do well if it had to deal with more of magazines, some technical books used for reference,newspapers maybe or blogs.Such variety of products which don't require a lot of your time,concentration and most importantly your emotions are a good sell for the Kindle.Because reading a book you cherish is also like a relationship,it is no fun virtually!! It needs physical presence for it to be worth the experience.. :)

Life is beautiful...

Life and its mysteries are not a stranger to man, no matter what his age,caste,gender and place with no boundaries. Someone loves the idea of being in love, and loneliness is the love of someones life. Beyond all the riches and material benefits, we all dream and long for a happy life. For an eternal romantic the ultimate destiny would be finding true love. But no I'm not looking for it, I'm just hoping someday (if not sooner) I will find it around the corner of the street like serendipity. In all it's confusions and all the troubles, life is beautiful. :)What is life but a series of fortunate accidents. Cheers to the thought!!

A Mixed Day

It's been a mixed day today, with the festivities of Dussherra in full swing in my home and with the rising number of victims of "Ondoy" in Philippines.













I deeply feel for the forlorn Philippians. How can we celebrate and be merry when in another country people are struggling for their life. I feel hapless in such a situation. Is God being partial, who are we to decide?? We in India have experienced numerous natural hazards be it the Tsunami in 2004, Latur Earthquake in 1993, Orissa floods in 2008, Orissa droughts. Then the survival through the terror attacks in Mumbai, Kashmir, and the rest of India. When we are having a tough time back home we stand united. It’s touching to see how we pray for everyone to be safe; we extend our hands for help. But why do we lack the same spirit when another country is in a catastrophic state. It has taken years for us to be untied in tough times beyond caste, religion, state, language, rich and poor divide. I wish to see a world where everyone stands for each other. Beyond even the country, continent divides. No ocean should be able to distance the love for each other. Such a loving world I dream of.Such a world I hope world. Come lets try and make this come true. One world, One People, One Love.

Friend

Casually walking through life we meet some people who walk with us. Out of those we start liking someone. Walking together we share our troubles, our happiness, our dreams and our experiences. While sharing our thoughts we begin to think like each other. We get to know each other so well with time that we can understand what that person is feeling before they even talk about it. We comfort each other and support each other. In good times and in bad times we begin to walk hand in hand. We grow up together without realizing how time has passed. How many times has my sweet friend made me laugh when I was crying, but made me cry…….never!

Laughing, crying, talking and sometimes even sitting silently we’ve shared a beautiful bond of friendship. We weren’t silent because we had nothing to say, but because we were lost in our own beautiful world. The most beautiful thing was how we were a part of each other, how we believed in each other’s dreams and we were a part of it. We could do anything to make each other’s dreams come true.

Suddenly while walking one day my friend began to walk in another direction. I asked where are you going? My friend said my road has turned now; I’ve to go in this way. We hugged and my friend said long goodbyes. But the word bye never came out of my mouth. Guess I can never say it. It was tough to let go of my friend’s hand; it was the same situation on the other side. While I saw my friend walk away I’d tears filled in my eyes, my friend kept turning back and waving at me. Even I was waving till I could get the last glimpse of my sweetheart friend.

The only thought that lingered in my mind was hope that someday in the walk of life I meet my friend again. Hope someday our roads cross again. The time we spent together will always be carved in my memories, decorated with gold and diamonds actually. Just a hope that we get to live such moments again.

Missing big B

Dont know why.. I'm missing my Big B so much today.. :)
God bless him with all the happiness...
It ain't about looks,not about time but just about love and care.
Whenever i needed and whenever i didn't,he was always there.
Best Big B in The whole world.... :)

IPL the Game that was...

Our entire nation and the world has been watching IPL since a year,like my friends at college say this has become the only form of entertainment at such boring times.We youngsters are at a certain time of our life bored of tv,internet,cell phones,movies and studies never interested us much (but we all took it as our duty),IPL did come to our rescue in such times.

Personally i was hoping Chennai Super kings or the Mumbai Indians team wins,because of my idol worshipping of Dhoni and the love for amchi Mumbai.But both the teams didn't see the light of the ay and didn't enter the finals.

RCB did enter the finals by fluke and had a pretty much roller coaster ride in the finals.Bangalore’s road to the finals could well be attributed to Anil Kumble’s leadership and performance with the ball.The first half was really well played,I almost hoped for a win but the last half an hour or 45 mins of the match seemed exhausting.The points table turned and so did the fortunes.


In a cracker of a match, Deccan Chargers outclassed and outplayed Royal Challengers Bangalore in the finals of the second edition of the DLF IPL in Johannesburg.Seeing wicket after wicket fall was no fun for a room full of hostel girls cheering the RCB team to win.Every 6 and four was accompanied by whistles and ear hurting screeches (hooting to be clear ).The First year girls have an exam tomorrow morning and the second years have an exam the day after,but they were happily sitting right in front of the tv enjoying the match as if they were a part of the RCB team itself.Uttapa was literally acting like a ball has never been tossed at him or he was confused whether he had to bat or go ahead and catch the ball.A few balls were wasted at this mighty Uttapa Dosa.As the match was progressing the hopes of winning the match were diminishing at a speed greater than light.But still we stood on till the last ball to salute our team for reaching the finals and giving it a good try.8 runs for 1 ball read the scoreboard and i had girls around me still expecting a miracle,they said "1 no ball,1 wide, and a six and another run would make us win!!! oh god please!!!". This is called as heights of optimism.The match over and lost I came back to my room to continue with my preparation for my final project demo tomorrow.

This was the time I remembered, I haven't seen the blog of the Fake IPL Player in a while,wonder what he must've posted after the IPL has seen its end.I came across this http://fakeiplplayer.blogspot.com/2009/05/awards-night-and-farewell.html


He is as entertaining as ever,considering the popularity of the blog,he cannot be left out whenever anything has been written about IPL.He has a sense of humour,a writing style, and a passion for various things cricket,writing and being in the limelight.His fan following is crazy people who compete on being the first one to comment,"yippeee... i'm the 6th to comment", "I am 7th......WOw!" "hEY I AM IN TOP 10 COMMENTS".Oh the craze and the people.


One thing I would like to point out.
Lalit Modi has donated millions to South African Schools and Charity organizations from the IPL money and they were showing this good work on screen also.
I want to ask how much has he donated to Indian Schools and Indian Charity organizations from the IPL money. I haven't seen any donations in last year of IPL tournament.
Isn't this a double standard of BCCI.

SRK was embarrassed,Pretty Preity was in for a rude shock and so were we witnessing her breakup in between the IPL proceedings and her team didn't make it anywhere great this year around.AmbaniThe last half an hour of today's match saw Vijay Mallya:King of Good times being depressed and speechless during the final downfall of his cherished team.Good Luck to everyone next year.Who stood last in the first edition of the IPL have emerged victorious in the latest edition. Congratulations to Deccan Chargers for this spectacular victory.



Three cheers to Cricket,to IPL,to all the teams and its owners,to our dear Rahul Dravid,Anil Kumble,Pandey and Mallya Uncle and three cheers to the winners Gilli,R.P Singh,owners Deccan Chronicle and the entire Hyderabad Deccan Chargers team.Keep Raging.

Wolfram|Alpha a brand new life to web search

I have always been a huge fan of Google.I belong to the group 'A day will come when i search my keys in Gooogle. With all the defects google had it was loved deeply from many.Our life literally depended on it. My newly married sister in-law is awarded as a good cook. Recently while speaking to her i found out about her much appreciated talent,well u can guess it,the complete credit goes to our good old Google.She being a software engineer working in samsung,googles out the recipes,gets d print out home n cooks like a pro.Google did have a few drawback,irritating at times when we wouldn't find what we were looking for in the first 10 or 20 webpages.But being a final year computer science engineering student we are aware that creating a better search engine is a tough job,close to impossible.We had taken up web search as our final year project with our professor Dastikoppa sir being very encouraging and supportive,who is immensely interested and knowledgeable in the topic related to web,web search, and everything in between.His knowledge has no bound,can dedicate another blog to our favorite sir. :) But this project wasn't well received by other lecturers,as they said it is almost impossible to do.

Now come Wolfram|Alpha,a completely new concept which is set to launch in about a week — likely on May 18.. It cannot be called a search engine as it merely doesn't search the query through index in the pages,but it actually calculates and processes the data you require.Though the looks of it resemble Google or Ask me but the similarity ends here.Wolfram|Alpha has a unique technique,it takes your query,processes it in such a way that the data you require is calculated from various sources,this data may not be available on a single web page at all.What Wolfram|Alpha does has never been done before.It can produce the exact data you require....

The service is built on four pillars: a massive amount of data, that the company has collected from various sources; a computational engine built on top of Mathematica, one of Mr. Wolfram’s prior inventions; a system for understanding queries; and technology to display results in interesting ways.
Mathematica is a webpage of theirs which is already widely used in institutes and research. The link to it is here

http://www.wolfram.com/products/mathematica/index.html

In a talk at Harvard Law School, Stephen Wolfram, a well-known mathematician, scientist and entrepreneur, gave a demonstration of his soon-to-be released Web service which promises to answer all sorts of questions.
It can actually solve any mathematical equations and even display the steps it followed to solve it.This can be very useful for school and college students studying maths and also to research mathematicians.
If you want to check out the tides in your near by sea before you go for a swim or surf,you can query as "tides in______".You can easily avail the tides.
If you are a investor in the stock market,you want to compare the two companies Wipro and Infosys. Wolfram|Alpha can come to your help now.It can collect data of the two companies from different websites,merge them and display the result including stats,graphs to give you the perfect info you wanted.The sources for this data will be displayed below.With Google this is impossible.
Wolfram|Alpha isn't a search engine.
Many bloggers are crazy talking about this and many are excited aboutWolfram|Alpha beacause the plan seems so lofty.In a press-release video,Wolfram says the site aims to “compute whatever can be computed about the world.”

The homepage can be found here..

http://www.wolframalpha.com/index.html

Will it change our lives.I hope it will.....