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 :D. 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.

Trekking is addictive. Not because its fun to climb hills and mountains, but because every time you are done with a challenge, Nature gets back at you with a tougher one 🙂 .

Last trek to Nagalapuram was super fun & challenging. But the only downside was that it all happened too fast and in compressed time. Adrenalin was rushing throughout & before long we were back home. Time flew by. Adventure never ceased until the time we were there. This time though, I wanted to take it more slowly. I wanted to enjoy Nature in all its natural beauty, get soaked in the forest, tune my senses to the smells, sights and sounds of the forest and soothe my aching body in the natural waters.

Arvindh, my Kalari buddy, who accompanied me was gung-ho when I told him what I had in mind for this trek. The actual trek itself wouldn’t be that challenging or tough but surely at the end of it, the mind will be completely relaxed and refreshed; the way that cannot ever happen in the busy city life. And so we started. By 7.30 AM we were at the base of the pristine Nagala jungles, ready for our mind to get relaxed and get recharged. Two mongrels started following us as soon we started into the forest.

The Walk

As we were walking through the foliage, the dogs stopped and started barking wildly to something to our right side. We froze on our tracks. We weren’t even quarter way in to the jungles. We turned to our sides and didn’t see anything fishy. We continued to walk with the dogs barking. After sometime they stopped. Then we heard it. The sound was like a growl. A light one. Then it became heavier; then lighter and similarly oscillating. Suddenly we realized it could be the sound of the wind that were passing through the trees. This growling sound accompanied us for another 30 minutes or so. We picked up 2 reasonably big sticks & proceeded on our way.

We crossed a stream first and hopped on to the first small hill. On that hill, there were some orange markings and we followed them … which led to a dead end. We didn’t know what to do or which route to take. There was a bigger stream to our right side and dense jungle on our left. Either way, there was no clear trail that was visible. Since both of us were on our own, we didn’t bother much and started exploring the area. First we went to our right. The stream’s width would be around 10 feet. But since the water was shallow, we were able to cross it easily. After crossing to the other side, there was partially dense foliage through which we had to cut through. For sure, this wasn’t the way we had taken during the previous trek. So we walked back to the same dead end. This time, we decided to move to the left side from the dead end.

The dogs had left us by now. It was just myself and Arvindh in the jungles with absolutely no one around. There was only a light wind blowing and Sun was shining. The foliage to our left was thicker. Water was flowing down the hill in a very tiny stream. We decided to walk along the stream and did so for about 15 minutes. Along the way, we noticed some toads and huge spider webs. No route there, we headed back to the same place 🙂 & had some fruits. Aaahh! The fruit was never ever this tasty before.

The Fishes

We decided to retrace our steps and go back to the top of the hill from where we descended to this place. En route to the hill, the trail split in to two, in the form of the ‘Y’. We decided to take the other path. It was going downhill and not sure as to where it would lead us. Surprisingly, it lead us to an amazing pool. Quickly, putting 2 and 2 together, we realized that the stream described above was the same one coming here & that all along, we were following the stream, albeit along the jungle path. We quickly undressed in to our trunks and jumped in.

The water was cold and the initial contact sent a chill up my back, forming goose bumps on my neck, arms and thighs. As we waded in the water, the bodies got used to the chill and we were able to enjoy the cold water. At about chest deep in to the water, we noticed an awesome rock formation. It was about 7 foot long and about 3 foot wide, slightly inclined…. inclined such that, if you lie down on the rock, all of your body will be under water except your head 🙂 . It was fun! I lied down there for sometime, closed my eyes and forgot the world. Tiny fishes started pecking my feet and hands, removing whatever dirt that may have got there. They slowly moved upwards and started cleaning the shoulders and my back. I was getting a tickling sensation. I was enjoying it thoroughly. Few minutes later, we got out of the pool, dried ourselves and headed back to the same dead end.

Food

By this time we were ravenous. Arvindh had brought some delicious bakery bread and dates fruit syrup. Together, it was a heavenly combination. We also had some juicy pears which found its rightful place in our stomach in no time. Done with lunch, we explored some more along to our right, crossing the stream again.

This time, we were determined to go more in to the path. We had two big sticks and a knife to cut through the foliage. At points where there were lot of creepers blocking our way, we would simply swish-swash and they would be gone. We continued like this non-stop for about 30 minutes, without talking or making any sound. We were extremely busy in finding our path. At a certain point I stopped because the foliage was too thick to cut through. There was not enough place to move also. So we decided to rest in that place for sometime and then head back. Sunlight was scanty here. There was a beautiful green pool to our left. A huge one and visibly of great depth. If you are wondering, we didn’t enter this one.

We started back on our path and came to the same dead end. Suddenly, it was like we broke out of a trance and realized this walk in to the thick foliage was the best ever walk we ever had in our life so far. We were quiet, our breathing sounds took over. Our mind was totally tuned to Nature. Senses got sharpened. We could capture every tiny move in the foliage; so carefully that we moved aside to allow a chameleon or two to cross us without being suspicious of us. This walk refreshed us like anything & it was simply beyond words.

The Meditation Pool

We reached the same pool again. This time, after playing in the water for sometime, we thought of meditating. I sat on the same rock where I had lied down earlier, moved my legs into the posture of Padmasana and closed my eyes, my palm facing the skies & resting on my thighs. Within minutes, a bright white light engulfed me and it felt as if I was in dream land. Just imagine this. Sitting on the rocks, with part of my body in the water and torso above the water; fishes pecking at your feet, a small smooth waterfall flowing on the right side, filling the pool with a gurgling sound … a few birds chirping and a bell clinking, of a cow grazing in the distance. Aaaaahhh!! Heavenly! … The white light was engulfing me in waves and I was totally lost into wonderland. After some time, I opened my eyes. Everything seemed brighter and different. This few minutes in my life was awesome. Nature’s energy was flowing through me in its purest form and I enjoyed every moment of it, giving back what I had received.

Sitting neck deep in water, we had some more fruits. Fruits were juicier than ever and we devoured them.

And then it was 3 PM. We got out of the pool, clicked some snaps of us and then got on our way to home sweet home.

What a day it was! Not at all tiring .. it was just the opposite. Totally Energizing!

Hey all,

Its been about 4 months since the conversation lister tool for twitter was implemented. I’m not sure how many of you are using it but then I have surely had many funny moments reading whole conversations with it. Those who have been following me on twitter would have surely gone through some of those funny conversations. Here are some of those conversations for you to relish.

Today is Moyeen‘s birthday. So this blog post is dedicated to him.

@Jaggy is a good friend of mine. He’s on twitter pretty much all the time & sometimes he gets ragged 🙂 causing many of us to laugh. Here is one such conversation featuring our dear Jaggy getting torn apart by @procoder. Screenshot below:

Here’s the next conversation featuring @lone_observer, @82kg and @adapaavi. In this one, @82kg is teased by @adapaavi after a seemingly *innocent* tweet from @82kg. The first tweet from this thread is missing because @Shillika’s account no longer exists. But anyway, check out the conversation below. Click on the image to view the full conversation.

And then, this awesome discussion on “cum” and “come” between @82kg and @yuvipanda. This conversation was awesome as well. Lol.

Last but not the least, here’s our @procoder getting ragged by myself and @azaxacavabanama based on his college antics few years ago 🙂 … Nostalgia kicked in!

Hope you enjoyed the conversations above 🙂 . If you wish you generate a conversation like this, its pretty simple. Wait for the conversation to get over. Then obtain the tweet’s number from the permalink of the last tweet in the conversation. This is better shown in the tool’s page itself. Once the conversation is generated, post the conversation’s link to your twitter account.

All in all, this is a pretty basic tool. If you want any feature to be added, let me know in the comments.