Sri Sri Yoga with the best

Every course I have attended with the Art of Living foundation so far, started with a disclaimer “all sessions are mandatory, miss one and you are out”. But here was one course that was a complete exception to the policy. This course had the policy, ”if you feel motivated and would like to come, please do. Else, not a problem (we already got your money :))”. At the same time here was the course that I was so motivated to attend and I wouldn’t mind waking up at 5:00AM on a Saturday just to be on time and not miss a single moment. Wondering what I am blabbering about, it was the Sri Sri Yoga with Dr. Sriram Sarvotham.

If you can, imagine a perfect blend of a yoga practitioner, an Engineer and a gifted teacher with an amazing sense of humor then you will probably get somewhere close to Sriram. A yoga practitioner who can bend and twist his body as though bones only exist for mere mortals, a genius who recites the yoga sutras of Patanjali and offers commentary on the same, a teacher who leads by example and can make you do asanas for nearly 2 hours and in the end you would wonder was it really that long?. I can keep talking about him but can’t do justice. I think Sriram should be called (Dr.)^2 Sriram Sarvotham, one for his PhD in electrical engineering and other for yoga studies. 

Now to the course itself, I was apprehensive when I found it was a “yoga” course and split over 2 weekends. The impulsive reaction and the follow up action so far had been to avoid the same. This time around I acted differently and I am happy I did the same. The course was a complete package and had everything for all the layers of existence (want to know more, do a YESPLUS or an Art of Living course). The postures were not new but what was new was the sequence and what kept it fresh was the teacher. The discourses were very original and I was blown away by the way (Dr.)^2 was putting the knowledge across to us.

By the end of the course, I now have a clear understanding of the Gunas(Rajas, Tamas and Satva) and the Doshas(Vata, Pitta and Kapha). I now know a few more pranayamas I have also become very aware of the importance of rest period after an intense yoga session. I loved the way Sriram led the yoga sessions and how he would indicate that some poses as pre-requisite poses for the next level tough poses. The answers to the questions would come out spontaneously and the knowledge flowed effortlessly. On the last day, most of us had sore muscles but all of us had soaring spirits.

Here is a piece of free advice, next time when Sriram is in town and teaching the Sri Sri yoga course, don’t think twice, free up your weekends and just jump in.

On a lighter note, wonder when will the name of the course will change to “Art of Yoga”, hmm . . . we will wait and watch.   

ps: if you thought yoga does not build body/muscle strength, next time when you are around babies/kids observe them carefully.

The secret ingredient is salt

Sandhya does not believe in getting ghee from the Indian store but prefers to get butter from the local grocery store and make ghee out of it. She has been doing for a while now and is an expert in the same.

Couple of days back I decided to giver her a break and embarked on a project to make ghee out of butter. I thought, I have seen her do it and it is just a matter of patience and no magic involved.

Thus after nearly 2 or so hours of waiting to generate ghee from butter, I figured I have accomplished the task and asked sandhya to help me filter the ghee to a different container. For those novices (like me), butter after being heated on a low flame for so long should leave out a solid substance which needs to filtered out to get ghee. In my case all I had was a colloid and no solid. So, when filtered I had the ghee and the colloidal substance together.

I kept scratching my head wondering what must have gone wrong, in my mind I blamed every possible thing. Meanwhile, I noticed that Sandhya’s face was beaming end to end and I figured I must have missed something very elementary. She said add a few grains of salt and a bit of turmeric and re heat the ghee + colloid for a few minutes.

Once I did that, bingo! the colloidal substance became solid like and was easy to be filtered out. I had finally made ghee from butter.

In this case, one can argue that salt being the catalyst is not completely proven, but my gut feeling is that it is the salt and not turmeric.

Culture or plain economics?

The other day when I went to my barber for a haircut, I was surprised to see a little girl sitting with her mom and enjoying a donut. Knowing that my barber gives haircut only for men and does not do women’s hair let alone kids, I figured the kid must have accompanied her had. In a few minutes my suspicion was proven right.

I thought this could only happen in this country and this would be a cultural blasphemy if happened in India. I began to wonder if the culture is the byproduct of plain economics. Here is how I justify my argument.

The barber shop I go to is a 800sqft facility, she has done a wonderful job of decorating the place and keeping it simple yet elegant and the some of the furniture though old is pretty comfortable and nice. In short apart from the barber chairs and the tools, there is hardly anything around to make it a barber shop. Compare this to a 100 to 150sqft single room with a few barber chairs on one side and a sitting bench on the other side. The shop walls are usually decorated by huge cut outs of the barber’s favorite movie stars. Some places in India where the real estate is expensive, the barbers don’t believe in renting a place but do their job on the side walks.

Thinking rationally, I wouldn’t taking my daughter with me to the barber shop and let her play around while I get my haircut. But I wouldn’t do it in the near future, for one my daughter is too young.

This small thing makes me wonder how many such “cultural/traditional” reasons exist which can use a re evaluation under changed circumstances/conditions?

iOS 5 and lateral thinking

In general with Apple and its iOS everything is always perfect and over time I have come to expect the simplicity and perfection from them. Any small deviation from this is completely unheard of and my lateral thinking mind does not come into play when working with Apple devices. Last week I had to do a tiny bit of it with my Iphone4.

When Apple rolled out the iOS 5, I was eager to get the new OS and adopted it pretty quickly. The updating even though it was a 2 step process (update ITunes, reboot and update the OS) was pretty clean. After the OS was updated, I saw a notification in the App Store that the the Flickr app I have installed needs updating. I clicked on the update and nothing seemed to happen. I kept pressing it to update and it refused to do anything. For a moment I started to wonder if the screen has lost its touch sensitivity (thankfully no).  

I went a bit lateral in my thinking and deleted the Flickr app and asked it to be freshly installed, this time around, it refused to install. It said the terms and conditions have changed and I need to accept them before I continue the installation, I clicked on OK but instead of taking me to terms and conditions it kept taking me back to App Store. I repeated the process multiple times but to no resolution.

Since I can’t let go of the Flickr app, I took the additional step of connecting the phone to the computer and getting the Flickr app through ITunes. This time around it popped the updated terms and conditions and once I agreed it installed the app.

Now for some good and bad about the iOS5, I like the new OS but I have noticed some issues with the same.

• The news stand app seems like a joke for the only news paper that qualifies for this is NY Times (rest are all some form of magazines).
• I have turned off Face Time and used to work beautifully in OS 4 but in OS 5 it appears as though turning on or off of Face Time doesn’t make any difference.
• The Reminders feature is a nice one to have but it is unlike the APPLE I was used to, just takes too many steps to setup a reminder.
• The are a few cool things in iOS5, one them is the iMessage ( a blessing for people like me who refuse to sign up for the text message plan).
• Another big improvement I noticed is in the camera utility (more post processing capabilities).
• Because of the added features, the settings app has become bit more elongated and complicated. I liked the iOS4 in this aspect. 
• Haven’t used the icloud service, hence no comments.

A year with Iphone

About a year ago when I decided to upgrade to a smart phone, I wanted to get a cool Android phone. But thanks to AT&T the only good smart phone they had in their line up at that time was the Iphone4.

After a year of usage, I am pretty impressed with the Iphone4 and now I am almost a fan of Apple and iOS.

My usage model of the phone is pretty limited, I use it mostly like a phone to make and receive phone calls. There are only couple of smart features on the phone that I use very regularly, One is the calendar and the other is the Notes. I do check my Gmail once in a while on the phone but rarely reply to emails from the phone. Once in a while I use the GPS. To give an example of how less I use the phone for the web related things, I have never exceeded the 100MB data plan that AT&T offers. 

Initially when I got it, it felt a bit big in my hand but over time I got used to it. The phone is snappy and the touch screen is really touch sensitive. The glass front and back of the phone are magnets for finger prints, I suggest getting a protective coating done (most malls have one or two shops to do this). The GPS is fast loading (even without the cell signal). The notes are easy to type into and the calendar feature is easy to work with. Of the limited apps I have installed (Flickr, Google, Google places and so on) most everything load real fast.

The 720p resolution video camera is really good and I have managed to capture some of the once in a life time moments of my daughter with this. That said, I am not really impressed by the still picture performance of the camera. The images look great on the phone but once loaded on to big screen it appears a grainy. I wonder if it has to do with the HDR function of the iOS.

The other feature I really cherish in this phone is the Ipod feature. I use it so much that I have rarely turned on the radio in the car. The sound quality from the phone is not the best but good enough for my purposes.  

One thing I do not like is the fact that Apple does not provide an easy way to turn on the flash led to be used as a flash light. I had to download an app for that, even though the app itself is free, it keep loading ads.  

The battery life is pretty good, without loading a single YouTube video I manage to get 4 to 5 days of battery life but watching videos from the web really drain out the battery. I do keep the wi-fi on all the time, but the GPS function I have enabled only on for a few applications.

I noticed a few things that Apple has done to optimize battery life. The first and very obvious one for me was that the mail checking frequency set to default once a day (I have changed it to manual). The other thing is, the phone doesn’t keep searching for wi-fi round the clock but only looks for it only once when it wakes up from sleep and doesn’t bother after that. I am sure the GPS is kept off unless an application demands it.  I am not sure if the phone goes into different states of sleep to save power, for sometimes I need to press the top button and not the bottom home button to wake up the phone.

I paid $199 to get this phone and surprisingly Apple has reduced the price to $99. At that price I think it is definitely worth considering. Now looking forward to iOS 5.

Steroid based treatments

Most every time I have visited a doctor in the USA, may be for a poison ivy rash or cedar pollen allergy or any form of cold/cough/etc, apart from the antibiotics (which I have been very rarely prescribed), the doctor has prescribed some form of steroid based treatment. It could be in the form of inhalers or tablets or cream, most every time it is steroid based. With almost 100% accuracy the treatments have worked and I have felt better each time. 

In the Initial days I used to be worried of these steroid based treatments, for my experience has always been with traditional medicine. But over the years I have come to understand that the medicine rarely cures (unless we are talking about cancer) but we are cured by the body’s innate ability to heal itself. Which we in the spiritual domain call the life force or Prana.

So, instead of taking the traditional medicines which mask the symptoms and hope that the body will feel better soon, isn’t it better to take the steroid based treatments and help the body accelerate the process of healing?   

Dean TV, don’t bother to call them

For the last couple of weeks our Samsung LCD TV was exhibiting strobe light flickering pattern. I tried some googling for the solution but was unsuccessful.  Since the TV is over a year old and Samsung website does not believe in taking complaints online, I thought of trying some local repair shop.

I called this company Dean TV and they were pretty responsive and scheduled an appointment for the same day (Sunday), I was pretty impressed then. When they came in, I was expecting 1 but 3 showed up. The lead guy saw the problem and immediately concluded they cannot fix it but have to haul it to the shop for they need to run some diagnostics on the same and it could take a couple of hours. Thanks to Sandhya’s instincts, we decided against and told them we will call back. To earn his wage, the lead guy decided to open the TV at home and checked a couple of voltages on the power board and concluded that the problem is either in the panel (costs $900+) or in the main board ($375+) and they need to take it to the shop to figure this. We paid them their consulting fee and bid them good bye.

I still had to get the TV fixed and hence called Samsung. To my surprise the call went through in no time and the person on the other side took down the complaint and said somebody will call me in a day or so. They called the very next day and gave an appointment for the same day and the technician came over right at the beginning of the scheduled time (1.5hr slot and not 3 or 4hr). Unlike the other guys, this guy was only 1. He said the problem is the bad power supply board (which the other guys had certified as good) and he replaced the same. The problem is gone for now and TV is back in shape.

On the whole it would have cost me $250 for the repair but I spent an additional $50 in the process.But I learnt a few things, it is good to call the official guys first before making an attempt to call the local repair shops and It is good to call in the repair instead of trying to submit ticket online. If the number of people showing up to repair a TV is more than 1 then know that they do not know what they are doing :). Reviews on Yelp alone are not enough to call a repair shop good.     

I wonder

Since the blog name is Manjunath’s thoughts, I think it is high time I publish a few things of thought. So, here is an effort to add some more randomness (chaos) to the blog. 

• I wonder how long does it take for a set of good guidelines either laid out in some obscure book or taught by a great personality will take the form of a meaningful practice?
• I wonder how long does it take for a set of meaningful practices to take the form of a belief?
• I wonder how long does it take for a set of beliefs to take the form of a religion?
• I wonder at what point does the religion becomes an inheritance rather than a choice?
• I wonder how long does it take for this religion to gather enough mass and strength that people start influencing/coercing others to convert?
• I wonder how long does it take for the religion to divide on itself?
• I wonder how long does it take for a meaningful practice to become a blind ritual/faith?
• I wonder how long does it take for this religion to take a violent form, either in the name of defending itself or attacking others?
• I wonder if there is an order to all these, like first teaching, then comes practice, then comes belief, then comes blind faith and then takes the form of religion or do these things move around?
• I wonder at what point does the religion starts to instill fear in its members (either to grow or just to sustain)?
• I wonder if the conversion to a religion starts first or division of a religion starts first?
• I wonder if the answer to all the above is “it depends”, it depends on the time and space and the mind state of the people starting the movement and the mental and politico-fiscal state of people following.

Anna Hazare and anti graft

Make no mistake, I am all in favor of a stringent anti-graft (Local) bill and I agree with Anna Hazare that we need an independent investigating agency to investigate the charges of corruption. But I am also not really in favor of including the Prime Minister and the Supreme Court justice under the bill for I believe we need some one to look over this so called independent body, we can’t keep increasing the size of the government creating agency upon agency to monitor each other.

That said, I am proud that India has maintained a democracy for the last 64 years and whether we use it or not, once every 5 years or sometimes earlier we have the right to change our representatives. By the principles of democracy these elected representatives should be formulating laws and constitution and that’s the ideal case. But in the case of Anti graft bill, it is to an extent stupid to expect that our elected representatives will come to an agreement and pass a tough law to prosecute themselves. It is like the hindi saying “AA bail mujhe maar” (loosely translated, come on bull I am here please hit me). So, to work for this bill within the democratic frame work is difficult possible if not impossible.

The other option is to move towards referendum, gather enough grass root support and compel the government/elected body to act the right way. But the question is who is supposed to lead this effort and who is supposed to formulate this bill. Isn’t taking this approach undermining the democracy in itself?

I have the highest respect to faith in Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal and Sri Sri Ravishankar. I don’t know anything about Shanti Bhushan or Prashant Bhushan, I don’t like Ramdev (luckily he is not around this time). For a country of billion people, can/will the above mentioned three do justice? or is the agitation showing the negative side of democracy?

Bollywood movie piracy?

There is an Indian store in my neighborhood which is fairly famous and sells good quality stuff. They also sell DVDs of newly released Hindi movies. Mind you they have the DVDs within a few days of the movie release (not DVD but movie). The DVDs are not really actual official DVD of the movie but the quality is highly sufficient enough to watch the movie.

These DVDs are what we in India used to call camera prints, till day my understanding of camera print is that some person smuggles a video camera to a movie theater and records the movie. In the olden days these prints were so bad in quality that the audio would be out of sync with the video and if you are lucky you could see a few audience moving in and out of the theater along with the movie and if you are unlucky you would just see the audience itself and not the movie at all. Those days in India was the era of VHS and depending on which video store you visit you would get different quality of the movie. Fast forward to present, The DVDs are almost passable for a near official DVD release(barring the colors being off), you only see the movie and nothing else. The audio is well in sync with the video.

I am now wondering if there is a centralized underground company that uses some high tech equipments to record these DVDs. Here is my reasoning, the Indian store charges $3/dvd and he does not rent DVD but sells it to you. If the movie happens to be a decent hit like Ghajini or 3 Idiots, he would sell close to a thousand or more of each before the official movie DVD releases. To generate such an income, I am sure he has to pay dearly to get these quality DVDs.

On one side, if you are ok with watching a decent quality cinema print on your Hi-Def TV then you get the instant gratification of watching the movie that you missed watching in theater. On the other hand, I feel sorry for the Bollywood movie makers for their loss of income due to this.

I think the reason for existence of these things arise from the fact that we would compromise with the quality for almost instant gratification (almost because one has to go to the store to pick up the DVD).

No offence to the people selling the DVDs or to people buying them for I myself have gotten them some times but just thought it is a good idea to bring to attention the scale of this.          

Can a credit card be used in a store without the card being present?

A few months ago, my credit card company called and told me that there has been an unauthorized transaction on my card and cancelled the present card and sent me a new one with a new number. What they caught was a transaction of $0.75 and what was lurking beneath was a transaction for $93 which had happened at a Kroger grocery store in Michigan. Once I noticed it, I reported the same and the company took care of this problem and refunded me the money.

I wouldn’t have been writing this post if it were just that. Below is a pic of the transaction record as shown on my card statement. 

If you observe closely, the transaction hasn’t happened online but at a specific grocery store and the person has also taken cash from the card. My cards are never lost and on the day of this transaction, I was in Austin getting a car wash. I have never visited Michigan.

Question is, how did this person manage to use the card in a store without the card being present?, I myself do not know the pin number to draw money on the card, how did this guy figure it out. I have been looking to see if one can just use a card number for a transaction without the card being present and haven’t come across anybody saying yes it is possible.

One possibility is, the card company made a mistake in processing transactions and the charge appeared on my account instead of the other. But I have had this card for last 11 years and they have changed the number multiple times and such a thing has never happened.  I can’t think of any other way, wonder if the blog readers can shed some light on this. 

Another PC problem/solution

When we moved to a new apartment the physical location of the router and desktop at home essentially prevented any form of wired communication between them. So, I went and bought a Linksys PCI wireless adapter and plugged it to the desktop. At that time I had a Linksys router and both the adapter and the router played well with each other.

Eventually the Linksys router went kaput and I replaced it with a Trendnet router (for it was the cheaper option). The PC had some trouble adjusting to the different router but the problem was not too too bad. Over time the problem became bad and sometimes so bad that it was a chance if the net was working more than an hour without dropping the connection. I tried all the tricks in the book, like using Windows zero configuration instead of Linksys network manager, adjusting the antenna, dropping the wireless mode to b/g instead of b/g/n and so on, but all yielded limited results.

After struggling with the problem for a while and searching between forums I found the solution. The trend net router allows multiple (11 to be precise) channels to communicate and default setting was to use ‘Auto Channel” select, the solution was to pick channel 1 or 11 and I went with 1. For the last 3 to 4 days I haven’t had a dropped connection and all is finally back to well. But since I have restricted to 1 channel for transmitting from the router I can see my signal strength varying over time (instead of 5 bars, I now get 4 or 3 bars some times). The variation hasn’t caused any disruption to my experience of surfing the net.

The theory behind is that the dropping of the connection is happening due to interference from neighboring routers and solutions were to reduce the frequency of transmission (which is apparently possible with other routers) or use the channel that gives maximum isolation (1 or 6 or 11 in Trendnet). Come to think of it, the problem became worse when my neighbors changed and couple of Indian techies moved next door.

Of course the router has its own problem, once every 3 weeks or once a month I need to disable and enable wireless mode. I don’t know why that is the case but the problem is livable and  I haven’t tried debugging.    

It’s not always Microsoft’s fault

Just when I thought that my ordeal of dealing with HD videos is over, I came across the crashing of software problem when working with larger video files (~800MB). I noticed that working with HD videos, both the cores of my system gets pegged to 100% and running at this rate for a few minutes either crashed my system completely or killed the software running. The typical Microsoft response was to check the last installed driver and blah and blah all led to dead ends with no solution in sight.

Out of curiosity. I ran a CPU stress test and started monitoring the temperature of the cores. Sure enough with both cores running at 100%, the core temperatures rose up to 93C and couple of minutes running at that temperature the stress test started giving errors. I used the compressed air cleaner and that cleaned out some of the dust but the temperature did not come down much (came down to 87C). Running at reduced temperature got me a couple of minutes with the videos but not enough to complete the job in hand.

As a last resort, I opened the system up and used an air blower (electric, not the manual one) to blow air over the CPU heat sink and fan. Sure enough a ton of dust came up and longer I blew air more dust came out. After a few minutes of this process and when I was convinced that I have cleaned up as much as I can, I plugged the system back in ran the same stress tests and monitor the temperature. The max temperature had come down to 60C with both cores pegged at 100% for more than 30minutes and I could edit and work the large video files without any problems.

At the beginning of the July 4th weekend I was convinced that the system I have is not good enough to work with HD videos and by the end of the weekend, thanks to my air blower, I am fairly happy with my system. I could have taken my system to one of those places to do a power cleaning but I think the electric air blower is a much cheaper and better option.

It’s not always Microsoft’s fault, some times it is the dust. Although I hold them responsible for not providing better debug tools with their OS.

In this process I found out couple of new things. Since the Klite codecs had been uninstalled, PICASA3 can play AVHCD videos and it can export videos to .wmv files (played by windows media player) without any loss in quality of the video.     

Its all about allowing the possibility . . . . .

Last December, couple of months after our daughter was born, we decided to get a HD camcorder and after some consultation with Dr. Google we narrowed down on a specific model of Canon. All the reviews said, the hardware is really good but the software is a piece of crap and most everything I looked at said “Canon should do a better job”. By the time the device came home I was convinced beyond reason that the software is junk.

To follow the procedure, I went ahead and installed the Imagemixer software provided with the camcorder on to my PC and it worked beautifully to transfer videos from the camcorder to the PC. The next step was to play on the TV, Canon went cheap here and doesn’t provide a HDMI cable but will provide a component cable (that for me is plain dumb). Like many of the Hi-def camcorders out there, Canon records the videos in AVCHD format which my Samsung TV doesn’t understand.

I went back to the installed software to see if there is a way to convert the video to a format that the TV understands. Once I clicked on “Edit”, the software went limbo and it completely disappeared from the screen. I was convinced, this is the reason everybody calls the software junk and went around looking for other video converters and editors. I have been trying for the last 6 months to see if I can find a good converter/editor and none of the so called good ones did any good, either they would hang or they would produce an inferior quality video and so on or they were too expensive and complicated to use.

I was so negative about the software that,  I had stopped using Canon provided software to play HD videos on the PC and was trying to use Windows media player and Picasa to play HD videos (which was a dumb thing to do) and had concluded that my PC is slow and need upgrading.  

It was not till last week when I changed my mind to consult Dr. Google with the symptoms I have been having with the Imagemixer software. It took less than couple of hours (thanks to this obscure forum) and I found out what was going wrong with the Imagemixer software. Apparently I had installed K-Lite codec (pretty good to play AVI files which Real Player and  others refuse to play) and it is not compatible with Canon provided software.

Once I uninstalled the K-Lite, the Imagemixer worked like a champ. I could see all my videos in one place, edit them (have only tried trim and nothing fancy), add music, text and upload all such good stuff. The integrated video player plays the 1080p video flawlessly (enough horse power in the PC). It still doesn’t do the conversion to different formats but the Blu-ray player we now own understands the AVCHD and that problem is solved.             

Looking back, I could have achieved this result long time ago, but I was so convinced that the software is bad that I did not allow for the possibility of getting it to work. Once I allowed for the possibility then it took minutes to get the problem fixed.     

PS: Keep in mind, HD videos mean ton of storage and both cores on my PC gets pegged when playing HD videos, but the quality makes it all worth it

Then there was one . . . . . .

About 3 and half years ago (December of 2007), Sandhya and I decided that we should restart our aquarium which was sitting idle after the sudden demise of the previous fish. This time around we decided to get gold fish instead of the ever multiplying mollies. We got 2 first and then couple of weeks later added 2 more.

All  was well for nearly a year when one of the gold fish died due to an infection, then came the turn of the big white which passed away in 2009. Now in last couple of days, one other fish passed away. This one was in the very first batch we got and we used to call it a submarine for its round tubular shape. It was the biggest fish in the tank until our big white one day suddenly bulged up and became the biggest. He was a pretty friendly fish and some days we used to feed it with our hands. I am sure it lived a happy life for by the end of life it had grown 3 to 4 times its initial size (when we bought it). It survived our absence for weeks some times (India trips). I am glad it didn’t pass away while we were away, that would have been a more bitter tragedy. All good things have to come to an end and can never last for ever.  

That now leaves the whole tank with just one fish. I don’t know if the fish is feeling lonely or I am feeling that, we are debating about adding a couple more fish to the tank.

Everything is amazing but . . . .

The other day I was a watching a movie at home through Netflix streaming. I rarely watch a movie in 1 sitting unless I am sitting in a theater. So, I had  paused the movie at certain point the previous day. The next day when I started the movie I was hoping it will start at exactly the same location that I left off. To my disappointment, the movie started at some other previously paused location and not at the location I wanted. I cursed the Netflix interface on the TV and started forwarding to the point of interest, the internet couldn’t keep up with the forwarding and the only way to continue streaming was to reduce the picture quality.

Damn, 2 unacceptable things the same day and I was almost furious. Then suddenly I remembered the video shown to me by my good friends Anoop and Shraddha, titled “Everything is Amazing, but nobody is happy”. 

In the end I appreciated the fact that I am watching a movie in HD sitting at my home and went wow :).

Wonder if Baba killed the Lokpal Bill

Remember back in April when Anna Hazare went on a fast until death at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi and some of us did a token 1 day fast in support to end corruption. That was a time of excitement when even a pair of poodles supported the cause and the government agreed to work with Anna’s team to draft a Lokpal Bill. All was well and a joint committee was formed with members of civil society and parliament and the draft process began.

Out of the blue in comes our dear Baba Ramdev, who wanted to push his own agenda in the midst of this. I don’t find anything wrong in the noble intentions of our Baba but here is where I think he went wrong.

• He wanted to bring all the black money hidden in different parts of the world immediately, what was he thinking or smoking? its not like we can invade Switzerland and Cayman Islands and other tax heavens and loot the money that is stored and only take that is rightfully ours. If nothing this will be a long drawn negotiation between different governments and if they agree on something then we can hope to get some of it back.
• When Baba said bring the black money back, why didn’t he declare his 1100 crore assets which mostly owned by couple of his devotees (one of them being his relative) in the first place before asking further questions. I had no idea that Aastha channel was owned by Baba.
• When you go on  a crusade like this, you need to choose your deputies carefully. Baba’s deputy Balakrishna is the focus of controversy, he acquired an Indian passport while being born in Nepal and why would a deputy of a Yoga guru need a rifle and a pistol.
• His other demand of devalue 500 and 1000 Rupee currency is the height of stupidity.
• The other thing I don’t get is when he agreed with the government that he will not go on a fast and signed on a piece of paper, why did he go on a fast that same day evening?
• When the fast was disrupted why did he run away, one theory is he was scared of being encountered. So, being a revered yoga guru doesn’t he know that the soul is eternal and the body perishes some day and so what if that some day is today and if the mode is a bullet in the head (I am not supporting the governments action here). 
• His last demand of hang the people who are corrupt, I thought yoga leads to non violence and peace achieved through non violence and action from within is the only lasting peace every thing else is momentary.
• In the end I agree with Tehelka’s assessment that whatever Baba did was to show off his people power and increase his image and nothing more.

Thanks to the above, now Anna and team have to distance from Baba and the government can point play their cards and continue a war of words and stall the bill for ever to come.

Right tool (specialist mechanic) for the job is a must

When I graduated from grad school and took up the job in Austin, I transitioned to Austin with my used Toyota Camry. It was a fairly old but reliable car and I had expectations of it lasting a couple more years with me. I guess it didn’t like the weather in Texas and started having a unique problem, whenever I stopped the car the probability of it taking off again was very low. This problem I had noticed while in grad school but was occurring very rarely and the local mechanic in Rolla, MO couldn’t figure out what was wrong. With the driving pattern in Austin, the problem became real bad and it reached a point that I was scared to drive the car. I took it to run of the mill mechanic shops like Firestone, Break Specialists plus and even a Transmission repair shop. None could figure out what was wrong and eventually I donated the car to an Animal Shelter.

Fast forward to present, my present car VW Passat started experiencing similar problem as my old Camry. It was not really noticeable to me (I think it occurred once or twice that I had trouble taking off after I stopped) but the diagnostics built into the car cried foul and turned the CEL (check engine light) on. This time around I did my homework and took it to Austin Veedub a specialist in VW. The diagnosis came to that the RPM sensor on the car was broken, consulting Dr. Google with the symptoms I agreed with the diagnosis. The repairman replaced the part and the car is running like a champ. I wonder if the Camry also needed this part replaced and would have been fine.

The lesson I learnt from this experience is, when the car is in trouble either take it to a reliable and good dealer (which is usually a myth) or find a mechanic who specializes in my brand of car rather than taking it to the Midas or Break Specialist and so on. I could have taken the Camry to the dealer in town but considering I had only spent a couple thousand to buy the car I didn’t intend to spend another thousand to fix the car (at least that's what I thought at that time). 

They want the Toyota not VW

Between me and my wife we have 2 cars, one is a 2001 Toyota Camry and the other is a 2002 Volkswagen Passat. Camry is Beige in color and Passat is Blue in color. Considering their age, both cars are near or slightly beyond their 100000 mile markers. 

 

The other day when I walked to the Camry, I saw this note on the dashboard and I looked over the Passat and I was slightly happy to see no such note. The mind started wondering, does the Camry look so old in comparison or may be the blue vs. the beige colors making the difference.

My momentary happiness died away for I realized the person who put this note thinks Camry is more valuable than the Passat. I haven’t contacted these people for I have no intentions to part with either the Camry or the Passat.     

Another week, another YESPLUS

It was close to a year since I did the YESPLUS and so when the time and opportunity came up, I jumped in. What a beautiful time I had, one of the best times and one of the most well spent times.

It wasn’t easy to make up my mind again, I had my own reasons, more notable amongst them are, the 5 day commitment, the whole weekend will be spent in the class, I have done it once and so on. Unlike last time when I was playing mind games and I had to get an external trigger, this time around the trigger came from within and I showed up. I am convinced at all levels that I did the right decision.

I interacted with some of the most amazing people, I witnessed the growth in my good buddies, I got to see my goofy side and witness the goofy side of others. Some of the sessions were riot (fun way). I witnessed the rigidness/uneasiness that was there at the beginning of the course giving way to smiles and happiness in the end. The workshop was a no participant left out workshop. It was one complete package of fun and learn.   

Last time I went in, I went in to learn and this time I went in to play the game called YESPLUS. Believe me there is a huge difference and both are fun in their own rights.

There are a lot of people to thank for making this event/workshop to happen, more notably are Nitin, Keya and Geetha.

Weekend Update

Lot of things happened over the weekend. On Friday (May 13) was the birthday of Sri Sri Ravishankar (fondly known as Guruji), so we had a satsang at the Art of Living Center. The satsang had a few firsts, this was one of the few birthday satsang that started off with a Guru Pooja, we did a different meditation than we usually do during satsangs. As usual for any Art of Living activity we ended the session with a lots of food. After the birthday celebration I reached home and saw Guruji’s birthday message in 3 different languages Kannada, Hindi and English.

On Saturday we had organized a volunteering activity at Capital Area Food bank. 11 of us showed up and helped the food bank sort out the donated food (mostly cans and boxes, no fresh produce). There was a lot of learning from the food bank activity.

• To volunteer at the food bank, you need to be wearing closed toe shoes (no sandals allowed)
• Canned foods were kept even after 2 years of expiry date
• Peanut butter, Mayo and Tomato Sauce unless sealed inside the bottle with the aluminum foil, were not kept.
• Mayonnaise was kept if it was within 10 months or so of expiry
• If the can had a dent and it was expired, and the first 3 ingredients are tomato, those were thrown away
• Baby food were only kept if they had at a minimum of 3 months of shelf life
• All food came through donations and I was amazed to see people had donated things that were 5 or 6 years beyond expiry
• The 11 people who showed up had good fun, we plan to go back again in the near future to do it again

And on Sunday I went for my session of Meru Chikitsa, I have already written about it.

Curiosity got the best for me (Meru Chikitsa)

Last week, when we were discussing about Dr. Rachael Murad’s visit to Austin, I didn’t consider myself to be one of her patients. For I don’t feel anything wrong with my spine or my back.

When I picked her up from the bus station and spent some time with her driving to her place of stay, curiosity got the better out of me. I scheduled myself an appointment for today (Sunday, May 15 2011). As though it was a co-incidence, thanks to some wrong sleep posture or some such thing, I was having a slight pain the lower back for last couple of days.

During the appointment, the good doctor did a few tricks on my back and near my head and taught me a couple of breathing techniques. The mind was thinking all the time, how am I going to feel better? for she hasn’t done much and whatever she did is too gentle. But in the end, I was in for a surprise.

After the appointment was over, she asked me to stand up and walk around. The feeling I had was amazing, I felt light, there was no back pain, the energy in my body was much higher than with which I had walked in. The awareness was much more elevated. It was almost the same feeling that I get when I do a good round of Sadhana.         

Dr. Rachael Murad will be in Austin till May 22nd and is currently taking appointments. Make an appointment and show up, for you do not know what's in store for you.  

Mahabharata TV series update

I finally completed watching all the 94 episodes of Mahabharata and it was a wonderful journey. I wish I had taken time to my complete the journey but the temptation to finish was too irresistible. In conclusion, hats off to the actors for having done such a wonderful job. I think the weakest link is the guy who played Yudhistira’s role, rest all have done amazingly well and hats off to the directors and producers. Its worth every penny.

Now, coming to the actual story itself. There are a few questions and observations that arose in me after completing the series,

• Why does Krishna reveal to Karna that he is born to Kunti right before the war, was it his last effort to drag Karna to the side of Dharma?
• At the beginning of the war, Duryodhana calls Yuyutsu as his step brother, is he right in calling him like that?
• Dronacharya and Kripacharya were the only 2 acharyas (teachers) participating in the war, what was their justification?, Kripacharya was the spiritual advisor to the king, no other king in the war asked his spiritual advisor to participate in the war. If we talk about being indebted, Dronacharya had paid his debts to the kingdom by teaching the princes and their sons. The reason Dronacharya gives is that his guru Parushurama also wielded weapon, but we all know why Parushurama did what he did?
• Watch the episodes carefully, Dronacharya gives a better and more plausible explanation on why he asked for Ekalavya’s thumb?
• The way Dronacharya was killed is it according to the law of Dharma?
• I had similar question for Bhishma’s death but this website seemed to satisfy me to an extent
• Bhishma through out the series chastises Karna and in fact tells the king to separate Karna, Dushyasana and Shakuni from Duryodhana’s life for they are the ones who are feeding ill to Duryodhana,  But on the 10th day of the battle, out of the blue he claims he knew Karna was the son of Kunti.
• If this was revealed on the 10th day of the battle how come Sanjaya did not even mention a bit of it to the King and Duryodhana did not know till the end?
• Bhishma is laid to rest on bed of arrows pierced through his body on the 10th day, didn’t gravity have any effect those days, he seems to be at the same height above the ground on the last day as he was on the 10th day.
• With the number of arrows piercing his body, wouldn’t Bhishma had died of excessive blood loss in a couple of hours? and how can so many arrows miss all the vital organs to keep the guy alive?
• I don’t get why Karna insists on King of Madra to be his charioteer for his day and half war, while people like Bhishma and Dronacharya had fought longer and better with run of the mill charioteers
• When Karna’s chariot gets stuck in the mud, why does he get down to lift the chariot up?, he was only fighting with Arjuna and the chariots can just remain where they are and they could continue the fight.
• Another point about Karna’s chariot, why didn’t he get another chariot when his got stuck in the ground. If you see the episodes, you will see that Dronacharya changes quite a few chariots in one of the episodes.
• The incident when Ashvathama kills the sons of Draupadi thinking they are the Pandavas, was he so blind that he couldn’t differentiate between 13-14 year old boys and mature adults.
• Duryodhana is probably the only one I know of who died of a thigh bone fracture, may be he died of excessive blood loss.
• In the very first episode king Bharata announces that all his sons are worthless to be his successors and nominates an external person to be the king, but through out the rest of the episodes, every body keep talking as though seniority at birth is the only criterion to ascend the throne.
• Being naive and goody goody, was Yudhistira really following dharma?
• The answer to the question of was Yudhistira right in putting his kingdom, his brothers and his wife to bet is answered by Krishna in one of the episodes (answer he was wrong and that’s the reason they all are forced on a 12 year life in the forest).
• The episode on the death of Abhimanyu is very well done, the story is very nicely narrated
• After watching the episodes I am now convinced that Bhagavadgita is an extremely powerful weapon and has the vast potential of becoming a weapon of mass destruction if used in the wrong way.
• I am also amazed at one last thing, Gandhari curses Krishna that whole of his clan (Yadavas) will be destroyed through in fighting and still retains enough power in her to change the body composition of Duryodhana the very next instant.      

The deaths of Bhishma and Dronacharya can only makes sense, if I assume Krishna is the guiding force behind Pandavas and he is using Pandavas as weapons to establish dharma in the land and pandavas were the only people capable of building a society based on Dharma for the future.

The final episodes where Krishna confronts his brother Balaram and the episode of Bhishma giving practical wisdom to Yudhistira are worth watching.

Mahabharata – TV series

Off late I have been watching Mahabharata, yes the TV version that was telecasted back in the 1980’s. The episodes are all on Youtube. At the time they telecasted, my knowledge of Hindi was pretty limited, I couldn’t completely understand, let alone appreciate the work. Now that I am seeing for the second time, I quite like the way it is done. They had put in a lot of efforts to make it this good. The dialogues are well written and the concept is well developed.

For those who are more interested in looking at the story from a different point of view, it is fun to watch the ego play of Duryodhana and his friends including mama Shakuni and Karna and how the ego of the family (father and son) destroyed the whole kingdom. It is interesting to watch how Bhishma in the guise of his oath runs away from Dharma and the price he pays in the end by lying on a bed of arrows pierced through the body. The other one that cracks me up is the way Dharmaraya believes that being goody goody all the time towards everybody is Dharma (you will find a ton of examples for this in the serial). In the end I realized the only person who followed dharma till the end was Vidhura and nobody else. The Bhagavadgita part is also very well done.       

I think it is worth a watch, considering its free and legally available. It has a few strong messages that are apt even today. On  a lighter note, most songs in the episodes have the same tune.

ps: since there is no 1 version of Mahabharata, there are some interpretations that does not match the “actual Vyasa Bharata”, here is a link if you are patient enough to read through. 

Genghis Grill – Restaurant review

Taking a hint from my buddies Anoop and Shraddha, I am writing up this restaurant review

For the busy people, Genghis Grill is a new Mongolian grill on Westgate blvd next to Central market. Place has a good ambience and waiter was very friendly, they accommodate vegetarians and cook our food on a separate grill. I recommend the place to be tried once.

Here is the long version; Other day I took up the intention to do my groceries and thanks to the television by the time the intention manifested it was close to 9:00PM. After completing my shopping, I was driving out thinking about dinner and my eyes fell on this place “Genghis Grill”, a Mongolian grill, after a couple of moments of hesitation decided to at least look at the menu before making a decision. Thankfully they were open and the hostess was friendly and handed me the menu. Looking at the menu I could hardly find anything vegetarian and the food menu was 1 page and the rest were drinks and desserts. I guess the hostess understood my dilemma and explained that don’t have to order from the menu but I can create my own and handed me a bowl.

After I got seated, the waiter took me around and explained to me that I need fill the veggies to the bowl and take it to the grill and let them know that I am a vegetarian. Now, here is the interesting thing, in my previous times (before Rajima and Bhagavatam) I would have been concentrating more on veggies “I think I like and I think I know” and be pretty discriminating, but this time around I concentrated on what was available right in front of me and ended up adding a few pieces of pretty much everything. For the sauce part, I picked the easy one and went with island teriyaki. On the lighter side, I wasn’t surprised when the grill guy gave me green token number 1 (they have different ones for meat and veggies). I went and sat at my chair and couple of minutes later the waiter arrived with my cooked food.

Unlike the other Mongolian grills in town, in this place they stir-fry the noodles/rice with the veggies and the sauce (no rice on the side). The food with all the veggies tasted real good, the veggies had good flavor and were fresh. I think addition of the veggies that I previously used to ignore added extra flavor. I loved the food and the service.

The cost was a tad on the higher end but I have no regrets. Later on, I came to know the restaurant is fairly new and probably less than a week young. So, near future is a good time to check out this place.      

ps: there is a small trick to make the food taste real good, do the Bhagavatam with Rajima and you will know.

Rajima tour update

As I have described in my other blog entries, she is tough, she is hard, she blasts the ego in all forms, she is a fire brand, she is one of the few who resides in the moment, she is one of the few who is well versed in scriptures and one of the few who fully understands the hidden meaning of the ancient scriptures and one of the very very few who can translate them in a way that they make it to the heart directly (it happened to me). Just her presence is electrifying.

It is true that her fire brand way could appear harder to accept but keep in mind it is the same fire that can transform. Some of us are fans of her knowledge while some others are fans of her presentation skills,  while others are fans of her singing  and as for me, I am a fan for she is Rajima. Experiencing her presence in Bhagavatam (2011) and the Art of Living course (2009), my conclusion is: go with an open heart and an open mind and you do not have a choice but to love her and experience the divine love and the presence.

For reasons inevitable, Rajima will not be teaching any more Art of Living programs in her current tour, that means you cannot be lazy like me and miss one event and hope to catch up with her on the next event. In a way it makes life simple, no confusion and no schedule conflicts and so on, just show up for her Bhagavatam and Bhagavad Gita.

Knowledge snippets from Texas Ashram

Yesterday was Rama-Navami and guruji gave a beautiful perspective for Ramayana.

Rama stands for light/shine inside us (or as Rajima puts it that which is shining in us is Rama)

Dasharatha is Rama’s father, the name means lord of ten chariots. We with our 5 external senses of 5 senses of perception form the Dasharatha

Kausalya is Rama’s mother, the name means skill (which can be attained by purifying, I will get to this later)

Hanuman is the breath

Sita is the mind

Ravana means the one who does not listen to anybody, he comes up with 10 different types of logic to prove he is right (stands for his ten head). He stands for Ego

So, if we look at the story of Ramayana in a nut shell, we (Dasharatha) with the skill (Kausalya) can give rise to the light (Rama) in us and this light with the help of breath (Hanuman) will rescue the mind (Sita) from the ego (Ravana)

Now the skill, the skill can be attained by act of purification, here are things we can do to become pure.

Seva – Purifies the action, self less action

Satsang – Purifies the mind

Sadhana – Purifies the thought/memory, he mentioned pranayamas, Kriya and meditation

Knowledge – Purifies the intellect, Ashtavakra Gita, Bhakti Sutras, Bhagavatam, Yoga Vasishta and so on

Charity – Purifies the money, guruji said at a minimum 1% of our money should be donated to charity

Fasting – Purifies the body, guruji said to listen to the body and fast 1 or 2 days every six months.

He also spoke about calm with in and action outside and not the other way.

ps: I may have Satsang, Sadhana and Knowledge jumbled, it doesn’t matter just do it all.      

Bhagavatam with Rajima

The other day I was sitting in my office at ~5:30PM and I got a call from my buddy Sanjeev asking me to show up for Rajima’s Bhagavatam sessions. I had almost made up my mind not to go and looking for other excuses to completely make up. Then suddenly there was a shift in my mental state and I decided to show up to the session. After 14hrs (spread over 5 days) of intense sessions, I cannot thank Sanjeev enough for making that phone call.

Bhagavatam as Rajima said on the first day of the class is not just stories but about life, it is about me and you and it is about the lessons to be learnt to lead a righteous life.

Being born and brought up in India, most stories that Rajima talked about during the sessions were not new to me but the fact that it is also my story in the present life was completely new to me. The perspective Rajima presented to the stories were new, fresh and hit home. I had heard and read quite a few commentaries on the stories in Bhagavatam, but none came closer to what Rajima had to offer last week. In an essence she gave the right vision to the story.

If you are like me and had the questions like,

• Why was Sudhama being a friend of lord Krishna (the king and god) was so poor?
• What is the significance of Elephant Crocodile story?
• What is the significance of Amruta Manthana (churning of the milk ocean)?
• Was god fair in sending Bali to the underground?, even though he was such a good king and so on and so forth

My sincere suggestion is for to you attend a Bhagavatam session with Rajima. I will do a complete injustice if I even try and answer these questions, the answers coming from the right source makes all the difference. One thing I would like to share though, there is a big significance for all the avatars of the lord (it is not just the story of evolution) and the stories associated with it. Here are a couple of learning I would like to share, don’t get stuck in the physical level of the story or get attached to the form, do not treat the scriptures as cock and bull stories.  

The best part I still admire about her is her punctuality, she started on time, she ended on time. Her sense of humor, her impromptu songs (in multiple languages) and the motherly love I felt during the time is something all of us to experience. Not a single moment in the sessions I felt bored or the question “when will this end” arose in me, in fact when she used to say, “we will stop with this story for tonight/today”, I used to feel, “No Rajima, please keep going”. Of course I should be considerate to the vocal chords of the 60+ year old woman.

During the question and answer sessions she insisted that we should, ask things that matter to you, that is bothering you, that can help you make your life better and not hearsay and/or imaginary things and the answers were right on the money. 

This is the second time that Rajima has given commentaries on the Bhagavatam in Austin, first time was in 2009 and I didn’t attend. This time around in 2011, I almost missed it too. I definitely consider myself lucky for having completed this session.

There are DVDs of her earlier sessions available for sale but my friend it is secondary or even tertiary, her presence is what matters. If she is in your town and conducting these sessions, do not miss it, just show up. 

With my wife and baby daughter being gone to India for a trip, I sure was to get bored (I experienced that for the first couple of days in the week) but thanks to Rajima, the week went past like a breeze. I am sad the series have ended. 

Rajima – just show up for whatever she conducts

Dear Friends

If ever in your life, you find that Rajima is in your town or neighboring town and you are free other than the usual mental excuses, then just show up to whatever event she is conducting. Let it be Art of Living Course or Know Your Child (KYC) workshop or Bhagavatam or Bhagavadgita or whatever else, I assure you from my heart that you will not regret your time you spend with her.

People rave about Rishi’s and Swami’s but I say if you haven’t experienced the nectar called Rajima, you have missed out on the finer things in life. Her interest in developing me as an individual can only be matched by a handful of people in this world. Her extensive knowledge from time zero to present, her eloquence of speech, her analysis of the ancient scriptures and showing me how it applies to each and every one of us in our day to day life, can probably only be surpassed by herself.

She is the total package of knowledge, experience and eloquence (each in right quantity and proportion). She is Fun, Firm and Fair. While sitting through the Bhagavatam sessions, I got to experience her unique ability to draw parallels between ancient and present times and between different religions. Her ability to instill pride in ones own culture by giving the actual meaning behind the rituals and the way she describes why certain gods in Hindu philosophy are represented certain way is a thing of beauty.  

There are DVDs and talks recorded or books and blogs that you can find in the internet or market, take my word they are all secondary. What matters is her presence, what matters is the motherly figure sitting in front of you and nurturing you like only a mother can do, what matters is you being there to soak in the divine knowledge. 

Last time when she came to Austin, I did the Art of Living course with her and wrote a blog article titled “10 things I loved about Rajima”. This time around I completed the Bhagavatam session and the KYC workshop and words can’t do justice to what I experienced (but words are one of the good means of communication we have and I will write up about my experiences with both of them). I do not need those 10 reasons to love her any more, I love her for she is Rajima, I love her for she cares.

So, in conclusion I repeat again, just show up whenever you can for Rajima’s events.

ps: I almost missed out on this once in life time opportunity, the credit of getting me there goes to my buddy Sanjeev

Fast in support of Anna Hazare

Today during the Bhagavatam session our teacher Rajima brought up the topic of Anna Hazare who has started a fast until death to get the bill against corruption done right. She said we believe in praying, having a strong intention and doing peaceful protests to get things done rather than retorting to violence and extremism.

So, she asked us to have the intention to eradicate corruption from the whole world and fast a day in support of Anna Hazare. I have signed up to fast till dusk tomorrow. Will you do it with me and support the cause?

AOL Austin fundraiser event with Omkara

March 26th 2011 was a big day in the history of Art of living foundation’s Austin chapter, for one we hosted the biggest fund raiser event in the chapters history and second we did the event with our long time friends Omkara. A gathering of over 600 people who were totally entertained and enthralled by Omkara.

It started with a simple intention of Sridhar Adapalli (volunteer with Art of living Austin foundation) to host a fund raiser event for Art of Living Austin center with Omkara. Over the last couple of months, volunteers from the foundation made time in their busy schedule to show up at all the possible cultural and social gatherings to spread the word about the event. Some of the volunteers worked towards getting sponsorships for the events while others were busy with e-marketing for the event.  The fruits of all the efforts was evident on the event day when the auditorium was filled to the brim (~600 people) and we were scrambling for chairs to accommodate the last few people who showed up a tad late (what a wonderful problem to have).

Thanks to good leadership shown by the team leads and great efforts by the volunteers, the big day went very smooth barring a couple of minor glitches. To issue concert tickets for over 600 people and provide food and drinks to over 350 people isn’t a small thing after all. The setup team had the hall ready by the scheduled time, the ticketing team was very professionally managed, the food team packed and distributed the food as though they had been trained in the art and the ushering team which managed the seating of all the people. All in all it was a job well done and executed beyond excellence. 

The band itself did a wonderful job in keeping the attention of the people for the whole 3 hours of the event duration. The addition of Bollywood Shake provided the much needed color to the melody. The band had picked the right set of numbers to sing, the songs varied from the oldies to present day hits and the compilation had both Hindi and Tamil languages. It was evident that we had a great show when the entire dance area in front of the stage was occupied with audience dancing away and the band had to stretch their time in honoring the “once more” requests.

I do not know the financial aspect of the event, how much money the foundation raised or the final head count of the audience or the number of food boxes sold. I am sure I will have these numbers pretty soon and will share it once I have the same.

PIO, Indian visitor visa – some learning

I recently went through the process of applying for a PIO card for my daughter and for reasons beyond my control, I ended up just satisfied with a visa, but in the process I did learn a thing or two

• If both parents are citizens of India then the kid can only get a PIO and not an OCI
• Consulate General of India doesn’t handle the PIO cards or anything of that sort anymore, they have outsourced it Travisa (I found it the hard way when the consulate returned my application without even opening it)
• Unlike the old times, The new regulations require to send the passport along with the application for PIO card
• The Travisa website is well documented a complete opposite of CGI Houston which left things to imagination on requirements for either a PIO or a visa
• The Travisa office is also very professionally maintained, when I went to apply for a visa I was in and out of the office in less than half hour. They send you an email every step of the way (I got 3 emails in total, one saying they received the application, second saying they received from consulate and last one saying they have shipped along with tracking number)
• The only forms of residency proof they accept are drivers license or a utility bill, cable bill or DSL bill won't work
• Visitor visa is the simplest and fastest thing to get (I personally dropped the application I got it the very next day)
• One thing I didn’t like was the fact that they were willing to hand over the passport back to anyone who had the receipt. 
• Tuesday is a bad day to go to Houston as most Indian outfits in Houston are closed on Tuesday
• In spite of clear instructions I witnessed quite a few people sent back due to lack of things they were supposed to get

.

2 cents donation fund

Other day I was at the dentist for a routine checkup, they were running late due to some emergency that had come up in the clinic. So, by the time they called me in it was ~40mins after my scheduled time. The receptionist wanted to make up for the delay and gave me a Starbucks card.

The card did not specify the value it held or I did not notice it, I went to Starbucks and ordered the usual, after swiping the gift card the cafe owner told me that I am left with 2 cents on the card. The card supposedly can be recharged and can be used as a cash card at Starbucks, but there is no additional discounts for doing so. Since I am not a regular to expensive coffee, I shredded the card.    

After couple of weeks after this event, it occurred to me that the card is an open account which the company has to keep active and it won’t be long before the maintenance cost of the card will go beyond the balance left on the card. The fact that I have already shredded the card there is no possibility of future additions to the card.

Here is a solution I would like to propose to these companies that prefer to sell the gift cards, why not ask the customer if he/she would like to donate the left over couple of cents to a charity. Initially the cents might be small but over time I am sure it can grow to a decent fund. The potential savings on maintenance of these almost delinquent cards alone should be an incentive to take this approach.

VW repair Austin

Most VW owners in Austin agree with me on the fact that owning a VW in Austin is a pain, not because the cars are less reliable in Austin but because of the lack of quality specialized repair shops, or so I thought.

There is one dealer in town, who from all points of view is below standard. The only option I had getting my VW fixed was to drive 35miles to the dealer in George town. For the last 8 years of the ownership of my VW, I have used the dealer in George town for all the major and minor repair services. I like the dealership, so far I have had ok experience with them. But this year when my car was at 96000 miles and had a coolant leak problem, I decided to find a local independent repair shop. After spending long enough time on Google and yelp and other such places I found this place called Austin Veedub.

Even though the reviews were very positive for this repair shop I was hesitant, but figured I had nothing much to lose and decided to give them a shot. I was pleasantly surprised when they said they can only see my car a week later for they were busy. On the scheduled day of service, my car had more problems than just coolant leak. The service manager Adam was pretty professional and he even arranged a ride for me back to work. They called me the same day with the repair estimate. The thing that really impressed me was that they worked on things that I had quoted as problems and not sneaking around to fix things preemptively. After they did the repairs they realized that one of the repairs they had quoted and performed hadn’t fixed the problem and the actual problem was somewhere else. They were professional enough not to charge me for that repair (there is no way I would have known where the real problem was).

Also, they were professional enough to honor their warranty and replace the part they had put in for free. The repair costs were also reasonable and frankly much cheaper than my dear dealer. 

It is not all bed of roses, some times they do not have parts and might have to get it from other places (dealers amongst others) and that could delay the service time. They are located near the airport and getting there is a tad tricky.

In spite of these drawbacks, I like these guys and I am willing to say bye-bye my dear dealer and hello to Austin Veedub. I wish I had tried this place couple of years earlier. 

Flickr, photo streaming

Ever since the arrival of my daughter to this world, capturing her beautiful moments has become my favorite past time. I have the Canon-xsi equipped with kit lens and a decent flash to help me accomplish this.

The next step was to start sharing the good ones with friends and family. I have friends who are either on Facebook or Buzz or those who do not have any known social networking foot prints.The choices were, create an album on Facebook and start sharing for people on FB and upload to Picasa web album and share with rest of the friends. I hate the idea of managing inventories at 2 different places. Another draw back with this approach is it leaves Buzz out completely (trust me, you do not want to link your Picasa account with your Buzz account). I needed the one place to put the pics and share it on Facebook, Buzz and with the rest.

Taking a leaf from my pro buddies Anoop and Madhu, I decided to explore Flickr. The good thing about Flickr is, it can send updates to both Facebook and Buzz. When I realized there is an Iphone app for Flickr (supported by Yahoo) and not for Picasa, I said “Sold”, Flickr is the way to go. Sadly, Google doesn’t believe in investing on a Picasa app for Iphone.  Thus started my share of photo streaming on Flickr.

Flickr isn’t without its quirkiness, they limit the storage to 300MB (its working to my advantage though, unlike previous times I upload only the ones I believe are the best), unlike picasa they upload the full resolution pic (eats up storage limit real fast). If the pics are not in the public domain, then sharing it is a tad painful compared to Picasa. But the ability to put at 1 place and share across different social networks beats all these inconveniences.

If interested, you can checkout my photo stream here.

Movie Guzaarish

Guzaarish, a high profile movie with heavy weights Aishwarya Rai and Hirtik Roshan, movie is directed by another heavy weight Sanjay Leela Bhansali (SLB). I watched this movie on Netflix streaming last week. Before the movie I thought I will have something to write about and after the movie I thought otherwise. But after a few days of cooling off, I figured there are a few things I can write about.

The movie is unique for it tries to address the issue of euthanasia, and does a bad job in doing it. I think SLB didn’t want to make an art movie out of Hirtik and Aishwarya so the movie became a “commercially blended art movie”. The movie had the potential to raise to the heights of movies like Philadelphia (I know we are dealing with completely different things here)  but it doesn’t even go anywhere near.

The story line is simple, one time great magician and now a quadriplegic radio host Ethan wants to end his life. Its been 14 years since he has been bed ridden and been an inspiration to lots of people like him. One fine day he decides to end his life, so he files a petition with the court for euthanasia, rest of he story you can find on Wikipedia.

In spite of being a commercial blend, the movie does show the struggles of Ethan’s life, his never say die spirit and his total dependency on some one to take care of him. My biggest complaint is of the government lawyer who does not do his job right. From my point of view, court room was a joke. The witnesses called were even bigger joke. 

The movie did raise the question in me, who owned Ethan’s life?, The guy can’t do anything in life and he has no visible responsibilities either towards the society or towards family. He cannot sustain his life style as he is deep in debt. The only part of the body he can move is his head. His kidneys are already shot and his lungs are also failing, the chances of him getting better are 1 in 10s of millions. With all these reasons I felt the court was wrong in saying he cannot opt for euthanasia. I would have at least referred the case to the higher court to decide.

SLB had a chance to create history by making court room drama more dramatic, more involved and giving a land mark judgment allowing the person for euthanasia or at the least referred to the higher courts but I feel he failed.

The oil mafia

On January 25 2011 Yashwant Sonawane, Additional District Collector of Malegaon was burnt alive by the oil mafia, specifically the kerosene stealing arm of the mafia. He was killed because he was doing his duty.

Right after this there has been some knee jerk reactions from both the state and the central government. The state government is cracking down on the oil mafia and has arrested over 180 people, more like saying “we knew you existed, we knew where to find you, we let you thrive and succeed but you killed a government official and that is why please become governments guests (go to jail for a few days) and we will let you go for we do not find any evidence against you”.

The other reaction I found ridiculous was from our honored central government petroleum minister who said that all trucks will be installed with GPS to track their movements. Mr. Minister, here is a guy who got killed for capturing evidence against the oil mafia and from the way state government has “cracked down”, everybody knows where to find these people and where these things happen. What we need a stronger police protection and a good judicial system, not your fancy GPS for every truck. The other suggestion from our esteemed minister is the reintroduction of blue dye for kerosene. Dear Mr. Minister your blue dye could not prevent Swami Nityananda from using the kerosene (supposedly meant for public distribution) during his recent “purification act/gimmick”, how do you expect the underground mafia to come under control with this measure?     

To top this all, CNN-IBN managed to air the video shot by Mr. Sonawane that captured the business of petrol adulteration and the state minister has said that it can be used as evidence in court. First thing, if Mr. Sonawane shot the video right before he was burnt alive, won’t everything that is found in and around where he died become part of the crime scene (too much CSI). If the police had secured the phone and locked it as evidence, how did a private channel got hold of the footage?. The reaction from the minister is really cracking me up.     

Besides this is not the first time, one of my juniors from my undergrad days was killed by the oil mafia for doing his job. There was a big hue and cry over the matter when it happened and then business was back as usual.           

Flonase or Nasonex

Both are steroid based nasal sprays, both are administered only through prescription and both are prescribed for cedar pollen related allergies, but for me Nasonex seems to work but Flonase does not.  

Austin is sometimes called the allergy capital, one of the main reason for this title is the obscene amount of cedar pollen in the air during months of December and January. It is fairly common here for people to live here for a few years and then start developing allergies towards the pollen. Cedar pollen bug caught me some time in January 2009. When it started I thought I was catching cold but there was no congestion that accompanies common cold, all I had was sneezing and in a few hours the nose got blocked so bad that I could hardly breath. I went to the doctor in 2009, he formally declared that I am a victim of cedar allergy. My condition was so bad that I had to take a corticosteroid shot. The good doctor also prescribed me Nasonex and even gave me a free sample that he had. The free sample and the prescription helped me survive the 2009 and 2010 cedar season.

Come 2011, I was out of nasal sprays and the ones I had were expired. I had to make a trip to the hospital. This time around the good doctor asked if I will be interested in generic Flonase nasal spray, I just wanted something to get relief and I said yes. After a week of spraying twice into each nostril once a day I didn’t get the relief I was looking for. I ran back to the good doctor again and this time he asked me “Are you ready for a steroid shot” and I replied “Not yet, but I want to change to Nasonex”. He gave me a prescription for Nasonex and told me to come back if the allergy symptoms gets worse.

After I switched to Nasonex, the allergy symptoms are gone and I have rarely sneezed. I do not want to be a spokesperson for Nasonex but figured there may be others like me who are struggling with cedar related allergies and can benefit from the switch. One can argue that the cedar pollen levels were the highest in the beginning of January and the levels have subsided since then.  

One thing to note is that my allergy symptoms were mostly itchy eyes, sneezing, blocked nose and tiredness (there is no way you cannot be tired when you are sneezing 10-15 times a minute). Others have more complicated symptoms and a steroid/allergy shot may be a better working option. Also, insurance covered both the drugs but out of pocket expense for Nasonex was higher than Flonase.

If it is random, it is fair

Disclaimer: I am happy for my friends and relatives who got recognized for their achievements during the 10th grade examination. I am not writing this to belittle their achievements nor because I missed out (I was never close to be in contention).   

Every year in the state of Karnataka on an average 600000 students write the 10th grade examination, and the government announces  top 20 scores and the students who scored them. They get their 20mins of fame when their names get published in leading news papers and they get honored at a few ceremonies here and there. All is well, the students who achieved studied hard and got what they truly deserve. The argument I have against this is, it is more of a game of statistics and the 100s of students who missed the top 20 scores by a few 10s of marks deserve the same honor and respect as the top 20 rank holders. Here is why I believe I am right.

Ranks are declared based on sum total of marks scored for six subjects,  3 of which are languages and the other 3 are Science, Mathematics and Social Sciences. The exams are offered in 2 languages of instruction, English and Kannada. Students in rural areas mostly write the exams in Kannada and most of the semi urban and urban areas use English as the medium.

Students have to pick a first language (worth 25%-50% more points than other subjects), a second language (worth same as other subjects) and a third language (usually worth same as others or sometimes 50% less than others). Typical first language pick in most urban areas is either Sanskrit or English and in rural and semi urban areas it is usually Kannada. For second language it is either English or Hindi and for third language it is either Kannada or Sanskrit or Hindi. The other 3 subjects carry equal weight and the question paper is same across both mediums of instructions.   

As typical for any language examination, the grading is relative and the valuators want to keep 15-20% of marks in hand to give it to the next best answer paper they will encounter (which they may never reach during their course of valuations for the year). Combine the 15-20% of marks across the 3 languages and you are looking at some serious numbers. To top this off, for reasons unknown to me, on an average students with Sanskrit as first language typically outscore those of other languages by a minimum of 15-20%.    

Now to the rest of the subjects, other than Mathematics in which there cannot be relative grading there is an element of relative grading in the rest ( I agree, it is not to the same extent as languages). But when you are aiming for the top, every bit counts.  Also, all of the 600000 students answer papers is not valuated by the same teacher. The evaluators vary from the best doing the 100% type to the worst who just would like to be done as soon as possible.   

In the end I feel it is a random process, those who become successful are honored.

I am not a genius and neither I am in the education field but a few days of thought on this subject has made me realize the system is flawed to a large extent. I wonder how come the government hasn’t done anything to fix this. I guess they rely on the random processes so much that they believe being random is being fair.        

The price of free shipping

Most of the times when I buy things online, I consider shipping cost and the reliability of the store to make my decision. So far, most of the times I have used the free shipping and have gotten it shipped to a place where there is somebody to receive (office or home) and sometimes they have left it at the door step of my apartment. I haven’t lost anything so far but the incident I witnessed yesterday has made me think twice on leaving at the door step.

Yesterday when I was heading to office, I noticed a trashed box right outside my door. The box had Amazon.com logo on it, first thought was that my wife must have left it there for me to throw it into the dumpster on the way to office. Another glance at the same I saw words “Nikon VR 70-300” on a box sitting inside this  big box. I do not own anything remotely Nikon and nor have I ordered the same. So, second thought was that one of the neighbors must have left it outside their apartment and wind flew it to mine, but there wasn’t any gusty wind the previous night.  Upon further observation, it wasn’t trash after all, the box at some point contained a Nikon 70-300mm lens, it was addressed to my neighbor who lives downstairs and it had been vandalized. I took the package to my neighbor and handed him what was left of the Nikon lens.

The funny part is, those who vandalized left all the packing back and took only the lens and had left the hood and the pouch that came in the box. They probably could have made more money if they had taken the rest of the things along with the the lens. The other question, why leave it in front of my apartment when the trash is a block away?, I do not know the answer.

It taught me the lesson that it is not worth the free shipping if the shipping only entails leaving at the door step, if nobody will be home to receive the package. Come to think further, who is responsible for these lost shipments?, I am sure both the carrier and the shipment owner will deny responsibility. There used to be a time when the carriers used to either leave a note at the apartment door or leave the item at at the apartment office, they no longer seem to do it. I like USPS better in that sense for they would either leave it at the package box near mail box or will keep it with them for us to go and pick up. “long live USPS”.