Waves

10 gruelling hours, 4 brave souls, 1 lost fort … 1 mission! To find the lost British Fort among the beautiful Tada Hills

Tada Hills

The Climb Uphill

The day started early with the blessing of the rain Gods. The downpour was so heavy that I was having my own doubts about whether we will proceed as planned. But a quick call to Ananth and Sujai a.k.a Mokka Boy removed all doubt. All plans were intact. A quick shower and 30 minutes later, the four of us met.

After a high-five and hip-hip-hooray, we wrroooommed on Mohan’s A-star to Tada to find the long lost British Fort and a road that led to it. Armed with a GPS receiver and lots of food, we stood at Tada’s parking lot as if we were going to climb Mount Everest . A few passers by even gave us a strange look. But none of that would stop us.

As were walking on the road towards the regular Tada waterfall, Sujai suddenly looked at the GPS and shouted, “Guys, stop!”. Wondering what got him excited, we peered in to the GPS device & found we were standing near the edge of the road that led to the old Fort that was marked on the GPS. Quickly, we decided to chuck the normal route and proceeded to take the hilly route. There wasn’t even a beaten trail that we could follow. We made trails as we progressed. The hill on which we were hiking turned out to be a small 50m mound. Nevertheless, we trudged along following the GPS. We were exactly overlaying the ancient road marked on the GPS with the path we were taking.

We had quite some way to go … but we were on track. At the top of the 50m mound, we were about 250m away from the Fort as per the GPS device. But vegetation was slightly dense and hence, we couldn’t even see anything that remotely resembled a fort. We moved to the adjacent hill from the mound. This was a big one, poking a hole in the sky through the clouds. Crushing twigs and thorns we were on a steady ascent & never stopped anywhere. The climb was getting steeper by the minute.

At the first check point near the peak

When we were around 50m of the radius of the Fort as per the GPS device, the four of us split in 4 directions in search of the Fort. After 30 minutes of searching, we found not even a stone that could be considered part of an old fort. We zoomed in to the GPS device at 5m and moved along the direction it was pointing in the map. At the exact point where it was pointing, IT WAS THERE!! A huge dense bush of overgrown creepers and dead trees. We went round and round about it in circles to make sure we missed nothing. But that was all there was. Just a dense growth of vegetation. We all laughed heartily at the madness, had a pear each to celebrate the “success” and decided to conquer the peak of the hill we were on.

Reaching the Peak

After trekking for about 30 minutes, we reached near the peak. The peak was a huge rock that was bent at an awkward angle. Climbing it with our backpacks wasn’t possible. Hence, we left our bags and proceeded to climb up the rock. There were nice crevices and strong roots that helped us climb the rock. After a tiny struggle, we managed to reach the top, only to find that the peak was even higher. This rock was huge and hid the peak from the angle we were looking. On top the rock we were standing, there was a magnificient view.

Straight opposite to us, there was a “very green” hill that was sandwiched between two hills. This center hill had a cap of the most beautiful fluffy white clouds. The breeze was too cold and nice to ignore. All the hills were ending on the horizon to our right and we were given a lush view of the plains far below until the horizon. Our joy knew no bounds and spirits soared! With a high spirit, Mohan started ascending the rocks above, quickly followed by the rest of us. At a certain point, I couldn’t climb at all. The rock was just too high for me. Others somehow managed. But I was not to be left behind. After 3-4 minutes of pondering what to do, I climbed down to the next level, grabbed a tree root and with its help got on top of the offending rock in a swing . It was kind of cake walk after that.

Hill edge and clouds

We Found the Fort!

Suddenly, Mohan squealed at the top of his lungs that he saw a wall of rocks! The three of us ran in the direction he was pointing. At the place where we were standing, 400m above mean sea level, there was a 3.5 foot high wall that ran for about 100m until the next hill. We were shocked and surprised at the same time. Surprised because we found the old Fort walls on our own. Shocked because the US Army Map from where we copied the co-ordinates of the Fort were wrong! We could not have copied incorrectly because we were master copy cats.

Fort's Perimeter Wall

Totally ecstatic at the discovery of the Fort, we were looking for more clues. We found a few empty bunkers below the walls and even found a round rock design with a hole in the center. Then we passed another structure that looked like an entrance. Going through the entrance and spending time at the top of the hill and the world, we were overjoyed. No words could do justice to the mission we accomplished.

The Round Pattern Rock - (From left to right) Mohan, Sujai & Ananth

By this time, the rain Gods were threatening us again. The weather became cloudy and it looked like it could pour anytime. We started descending. At a particular point during the descend, we had jump through a thorny bush. While trying to avoid it, I made the mistake of moving backwards. Ten thorns pierced through my trousers and underwear and punctured my bum. Around the same time, the wind was shaking the leaves to make them tickle at unwanted locations. With a punctured bum, I made a small leap and reached the slope. All of us soon assembled, rested for sometime, picked our bags and made our way down the slope.

The Bunker

The slope was pretty steep. It would have been at around 50 degrees because we were constantly pulled down by gravity and couldn’t stand at all. All of us at some point, slipped. But instead of falling, we skidded to a small distance by taking advantage of the slip. Tucking away the GPS, we were moving towards the voices we were hearing at the bottom of the hill. After an hour’s descent, we reached the Tada stream and happily jumped in to cool off our butts and bodies.

Mission Accomplished!

Mission Accomplished

Sitting neck deep in water, we unpacked our food and were polishing them off one by one. First were the buns, then the chips, some cookies, poli, mixture, apple, pear etc. Soon, it was time to start home. Ambling our way out, we reached our car, dried ourselves and got on it to drive to home-sweet-home. It was a short trek and a very enjoyable one. I loved every moment of it.

Hey Guys,

I attended Proto.in yesterday. One of the biggest changes that happened at this event was that, it became a one day event rather than the usual two day event. Of all the sessions that happened, keynote talk by Mr. Ganesh Natarajan, CEO of Zensar and the “Angels can help you fly!” discussion from Mumbai Angels were very good.

The Event

This time, there were 15 products from a variety of areas including but not limited to Education, Internet and Mobile, Software etc. I liked the presentations from the companies namely English Seeko (a dial-in solution by phone to learn spoken English). Even though their demo was good, they would have lot of challenges with speech recognition. Then I liked the Credit Card Reconciliation System from Aerosoft. It was a very well put together presentation and I immediately understood their product’s validity from their presentation.

There was two presentations that did blow the audience away. One was from TouchMagix about their Microsoft-Surface-like product. Other was this launch of custom made bikes by Vardenchi Motorcycles in the range of Rs. 2.8 lakhs to Rs. 10 lakhs. They are already profitable and they brought 2 of their custom made bikes to the Proto.in stage to showcase them to the audience. They looked beautiful. When funds allow, I will surely design & get my own bike from them.

There was another company with the name GoVasool. Their presentation reminded me of the product named SpotEazy that presented during the first Proto.in in 2007. I couldn’t get their concept of why vendors would compete with each other to give a lower price for a select group of people. And then there was Vrixx (pronounced as vri-ksh), a end-to-end college management product, based on the all prevalent SaaS model.

Mumbai Angels

Near the end of the event, Mumbai Angels announced that they would pick two startups from the lot and give them the opportunity to present to the angels at their offices for funding. They picked Vrixx and TouchMagix. Congrats guys! It seems ConWizta (content management and testing application) missed that by a narrow margin.

Links

1. Proto.in Live.
2. Company Profiles.
3. Send feedback to startups.

It was a good way to spend the weekend and this event is making me feel guilty every time because I haven’t started up yet.

Okay, its kind of shameful to disclose this. But here goes.

Only after a day of MJ’s death did I come to know that the famous “Beat It” song was created by him. I have heard that song numerous times on various occasions. But all I felt was, “Damn this song man! Who can ever sing with such a stupid voice … I hate it!”. MJ’s death did little to clear that opinion cos’ I felt, “Common … MJ cannot have done this crap.”

But, I soon realized that I couldn’t really enjoy the song because I didn’t lend my ears to the lyrics and this link came to help. The second time I was pouring over the lyrics, I fell in love with it. Especially the line where he says, “Showin’ how funky and strong is your fight; It doesn’t matter who’s wrong or right“. That was an awesome line. Then with the lyrics in front of me, I ran through the song again & this time, I could begin to like it. The bunch of gangsters in the youtube video were pretty helpful too.

So… all in all, I’m just kind of getting started on MJ. If you have recommendations, let me know of them in the comments and I shall be grateful

P.S. While you are here, you might want to drool over his dance on the Dangerous live performance video. My favourites are the dance sequences at 0:22 – 0:38 (at this place, the guy on right side of the video does an awesome stunt) and 0:51 – 1:01. Then the most awesome sequence is at 1:30 – 1:40. In this sequence MJ throws the guy with the gun on the ground. Just see how perfectly he falls and remains flat for a second. Also see the way he creatively moves behind the dance crew at 1:40. Perfect. Just perfect. Then notice how the dance crew crawls into the scene at 1:51 Man! So much perfection. And then the dance sequence from 3:21 – 3:37. Watch MJ in the center. MJ is a magician in many respects.

Update: The invites have been used.

As mentioned in this Webbynode blog post, I happen to be one of the current VIP users having five invites. That’s right… five awesome invites. If you are looking for a VPS with a 15% discount for the rest of your life, this could be your chance to get it.

Post a comment with your email id and I shall send you an invite. First come, first served

Enjoy!

Hey guys, I will be switching hosts today and in the time that the DNS propogates, you may experience a slight downtime. Kindly bear the same. Thanks.

I’m a big fan of Dev Opera Articles. They have some excellent articles on HTML, javascript and all things web.

The biggest problem is that, their RSS feed doesn’t give the full content. Everytime new articles show up, I have to visit the website by clicking the link on the RSS feed. It soon got very frustrating.

So, here’s the result – http://feeds2.feedburner.com/DevOperaFullFeed. That link contains the RSS feed for Dev Opera Articles in full. That is, there are no one liners any more. This feed will give you the full content of the articles present on the Dev Opera’s original feed. Subscribe to this feed and live happily ever after

Skyfire 1.0 is the new kid on the block in the mobile browser war. Its not a kid per se but there are some big boys like Opera Mini and Opera Mobile who don’t give up all too easily. I have been a beta user of it from India since 0.6 and it was fun all this while to keep track of this superb browser. Their main aim is to bring desktop like browsing experience to the mobile browser and they are almost there. So near, yet so far.

Like all other reviews about this browser until now, its safe to tell that it is able to play flash videos pretty well inside the small screen. Here are some notable differences between the earlier betas and this 1.0 version:

1. While watching any videos on youtube, my Nokia E51‘s rear would just heat up quickly & few minutes down, it would be difficult to hold the phone. This problem has been nearly solved in 1.0. That’s possibly due to power optimization techniques.
2. When you scroll very quickly on long web pages, Skyfire usually shows a checkered screen with gray squares (screenshot below), which disappear as and when content appears. Pre 1.0, this checkered screen would take a long time to disappear. With 1.0, this problem has been solved. Same problem used to occur during zoom in/out. Now zoom happens at blazing speed. Neat!
3. 
4. Its able to handle basic javascript very well. For e.g. its able to display the hover menus that are present on top of my blog. Its also able to show alert boxes.
5. Video quality is maintained even during zoom in and zoom out. This was a major drawback in pre 1.0 versions.
6. The initial loading and shutdown of the browser would take a long time in pre 1.0 releases. Not so in this current release. This has been drastically improved.
7. File downloads happens excellently. Kudos for this. This is a major drawback with the E51′s native browser.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been about 8 months now & I’m still going to Kalari class regularly … Do you know how good it feels when you are doing something consistently and that your body is in pristine condition? No amount of blogging/reading will get the point across. You can only experience it by doing. So, just bend your head downwards & if you feel guilty at the huge lorry tyre around your tummy, you know what to do. Start exercising for 5 minutes a day and you will see magical results. You may also want to try out Steve’s 30 day trial method. It helps!

So, coming back to topic … during the usual practice sessions we usually do plenty of stuff that involves heavy punching, kicking, diving (am less than an amateur in this) etc. On one such occassion two weeks ago, we were practicing a fighting routine with the help of a lathi. As part of the routine, the taller fighter throws the other one over the head. Since we are just learning, we make sure the diver lands safely. When we do dives, we take the help of our master.

But, on that day, something else took over and I wanted to dive without the help of the master. So, when the tall guy picked me over his head and brought me down, I was slightly happy when I was in mid air, thinking that the landing would be nothing short of awesome! Landing I did .. but it was just the opposite of awesome. Instead of landing flat, both my feet hit the ground vertically. Since the foot is taking the whole body weight, it buckled under pressure and gave a CRACK! sound. Thankfully that was a twig. But both ankles got sprained badly enough that I couldn’t get up.

Immediately one of the guys who has been learning Kalari for 3 years, came for help and did some techniques on my left feet. That released the pain but the strain was there. Same thing to the right leg too. Happily we continued the class. After getting home, it started. Searing pain through both my feet (left foot was slightly tolerable). There was no swelling but the pain was intense. I couldn’t even touch my leg. Then one of my physiotherapist friends came home and treated it back to perfection. I could walk again that day!

That’s how my ankle looked like.

Phew! But I must say it was a worthy experience Absolutely loved it.

This one could save you lot of time In short, the answer is to “return false;”. That’s it. If you want to know more details, read ahead.

Say, you have an awesome page where you want to disable right click and also disable Ctrl+C (copy), Ctrl+S (save page). The process is simple. Just register an event for right click and when the event fires, just return false. Since false is being returned, the browser will cancel the event.

Same goes with keyboard. ‘onkeypress’ event is fired whenever a key is pressed. To reject any key, just capture that event and return false. If you want to do anything special, just do it before returning false. Ctrl+S is interesting. In most web browsers (notably google chrome), it brings up the default Save Dialog. Most web apps have keyboard shortcuts these days & oh! 99% of them don’t return false, only to find the user experience irritating when the save dialog pops up; when something else should occur. Hence, if you wish to customize the functionality of the default browser specific keyboard shortcuts, do the following:

1. Create an event handler and capture the event.
2. Do something.
3. “return false;”

That’s all. Have fun!

Few days ago, myself and few of my friends met in Besant Nagar beach. After talking for sometime, we headed to a bajji shop on the beach. There’s nothing to beat the combination of hot bajji with a fiery chutney and cool sea breeze. It was around 9.30 PM. Not many people were around. The lady of the bajji stall served us and went about stacking the chairs so that they could be packed for the day.

As were eating, someone stumbled about 6 feet away from us, near the bajji stall. He appeared to be a middle aged man, with a long thick beard, dusty shirt and a torn lungi … carrying a ragged bag. Some dogs started barking from the distance. He was a rag picker. As he stumbled, he almost fainted. No one noticed it until now, except us. As we got up to see what he was up to, he slowly ambled to a bowl which had water. He held the bowl with this hands, bent down and licked water from it. I had a lump in my throat when I saw that.

By now, the dogs had come near. Hearing the commotion, the bajji stall lady came near and shooed him away, giving him some water packets. All along this episode, he had been mumbling “pasi … thanni … pasi … thanni”; roughly meaning, “I’m hungry. Please give some water.”

Then it dawned upon me. He almost died that day or at least fainted. What prevented him? Is it the will to survive or is it the fear of death? But whatever it is, it remainded me that everybody is born on this planet to fulfill a purpose and we need to find what that purpose is!