IT journey from Ameerpet, Hyderabad

IT journey from Ameerpet, Hyderabad

Astrology & India

Astrology and India have strong connection since thousands of years. Kings were known to have a team of astrologers advising him in strategic decisions. Common people took help of astrologers to plan important events of life like match making ( horoscope matching), marriage dates finalization, house warming, child naming, baby showers, etc. While there is a significant portion of the people who don't believe, I think there is a strong following too.The present day astrologers have specializations matching the present generation needs; a) Education & Married life; b) Internet consultations;c)Politics; d)Corporate astrology/numerology; e)Vaastu Shastra; f) Naadi Shastra; e)Bollywood/Sandalwood movie naming; many more. While the low profile astrologers continue to operate from the word of mouth or referrals, the big time players use different advertising channels like print, television, internet to reach the masses. The advertising for internet/telephonic consultations have gained momentum in the last 5 years, especially in the US.The indian politicians are known to take astrological predictions/recommendations very seriously. Deve Gowda is known to offer puja/homa quite often, while Jayalalitha changed her name to get lucky. Some chief ministers are known to seek some structural changes to their residential quarters based on the vaastu recommendations.The genuine sounding revelations I have heard are related to the Naadi Shastra recitations. I believe there is a particular group of Naadi Shastra readers ( will add location details later) from Tamil Nadu, who are capable of revealing your past, present and the future - all looking at your thumb impression or finger print. I heard they can get your dad/mom/wife/sis/brother(s) names so accurately that it is hard to believe - Please note there are a lot of fake Naadi Shastra readers, so check around before you consult one!

Trip to Florence, OR

Our recent trip to Florence, OR was quickly planned within 2-3 days. The trip involved about 15 adults and 4 kids. While the guys worked out the logistics and sight seeing schedule, the ladies put together a quick plan laying out the menu for breakfast/lunch and dinner. The trip was eventful from the word "go". Some GPS systems could not navigate to the final destination. We had some production support issues to take care. The first evening pot luck followed by drinks was awesome and relaxing. Saturday morning was a Rava Idly mela - more than 100 idlies were made and consumed. The guys enjoyed the ATV rides in the sand dunes. The families with kids took the bus ride in to sand dunes...this is was breath taking as the bus ride up and down the sand dunes provided a good sight seeing and a thrilling ride.

The spot light of the trip of the kayaking!!. 2 Kayaks and a canoe were part of the vacation rental. The funniest part was we tied a small rope to one of the kayaks to pull it back if the rider lost control or was scared. Saturday dinner was again amazing with over 5-6 items to choose from!!. I got locked in the bath room for over 30 mins and all my attention seeking efforts went in vain. My friends came after some time and flipped open the lock within a minute. The other spotlight was the horse ride along the 1.5 mile trail along the ocean. It was the first time horse riding experience for all of us and we had good time navigating, controling and talking to the horse!!. The return journey was along the Oregon coast (101N) which presented some breath taking views of the ocean. We took some beautiful pictures and reached Portland in the evening.

Good Bye America

While we are wrapping our current visit to USA, I wish to take few minutes to recollect some memorable events that happened during this time. One lovely gift was the arrival of my daughter. Except few unsettling events on the personal front, it was a wonderful, memorable years, time well spent.


Some of my key observations on the common man's life in the USA;


1. Reliable power & water supply - Except during major snow / thunder storms, there was never any serious disruption of power. The same goes with water supply


2. Influence of internet: Internet has become a way of life for working class people and above.

3. Car: Except few select cities, you need a car in the rest of the country to commute to work or for pleasure.

4. Medical Facilities: Amazing. In the beginning the process appears to be time consuming and unfriendly, but once you get used it, nothing like it.

5.Schooling: Not a major fuss, if you are moving from India. Primary education is free and state run schools do a great job here.

6.Libraries: One can borrow as many books as possible. The free library services far exceed the ones offered by the hifi libraries in India like british council library, etc.

There are still more ....but stopping here. What about things that I did not like? The list again is long ...but what is the point in cribbing? Instead appreciate the good things around? what say?

A pleasant dinner!

The warm weather was a welcome break and I could literally tell people at the office and outside were enjoying the sun break. This evening we decided to try out a new place for dinner. Since we had to return on time for a work related telecon, we picked a near by restaurant called Mary Callendar's. It's a cozy, medium sized restaurant. Their welcome lobby displays their specialty - freshly baked pies and pastries which are appealing. The other thing I noticed is their uniqueness in the menu. They were extremely friendly in offering the vegetarian options. While I tried the unlimited soup and salad, my wife had pasta with alfredo sauce. The kid's meal came free with one entree and a beaverage. The food was excellent and we did not have room for the pies!. Once back home, I did some researching; their online address is http://www.mcpies.com/ and they are present in the west coast. They are a big chain listing more than 130 plus restaurants and the PERKINS chain in Mid West, Pennsylvania belong to the same group of companies. PERKINS - We frequented this lovely pancake restaurant, during our stay at Mid West and North East.

Stir/Protests/Demonstrations

Isn't it surprising that we find so many protests/stir/demonstrations in India than the other democratic countries? While the answer is not simple, many things have changed in the recent past and still requires a lot of changes. I mean some time back, the administration in Bangalore came up with a list of places where the affected parties can hold their demonstrations. But is that implemented? I am not sure. The political parties lack the nerve to ban any large scale demonstrations or marches because these very steps are perceived to be the tools to demonstrate the authority or the popularity.

It is during these protests or demonstrations that the common people are inconvenienced. The roads are blocked, children cannot get to school, essential services are disrupted and there is a possibility of mob attacks. While disagreements, open forums and public meetings are required in a democratic setup, they need to moderated in a frequency acceptable to the local communities. It is the responsibility of each individual to raise his/her voice against these type of inconveniences to daily life.

traffic stoplight......

I took a long break from blogging, I am now back!...

Everyday when I get to work, I pass through about 7-8 stoplights and 3 rail road intersections. Every stop provides an opportunity to look around and catch up on things that I've missed - like an advertisement bill board, an apartment community or a restaurant or a store. In contrast, the stoplights at Bangalore offer a variety of time pass options...most of the busy lights have timers which count down the wait time. A lot of hawkers get on to the roads to sell flowers ( seen this in New York, no where else in US), news papers, auto cleaning products, sun glasses, etc. The "organized begging" goes on too...I have heard off late eunuchs are showing up on the Bangalore stoplights, trying to "beg" or extort money from the motorists. While the car passengers have an option to shut themselves in, the 2 wheeler riders at the mercy of these guys...I had seen eunuchs in Mumbai, where they ask for some money, when not obliged, will snatch from the shirt pocket...

About the technology associated with traffic stoplights, US is far ahead in terms of configuring the lights to support movement of emergency vehicles, red light camera, sensors for low traffic areas where lights change upon arrival of a car at the stoplight. Policemen rarely do traffic management, unless there is an accident, road construction or some special event. In contrast, the Bangalore stoplights are also being upgraded. I heard, some of them have still cameras, video surveillance. In addition, most of the stoplights have 1-2 policemen manning them. The mix of electronic controls and manual intervention work in tandem to support the massive vehicular flow. Hats off to the Indian traffic police, they do a tremendous job in keeping the traffic under "control" inspite of so many dynamic variations every day. When the lights turn green and the vehicles surge forward to criss-cross in the opposite lanes, that sight reminds me of the epic kurkshetra war where the warring enemies rushed to each other in full strength.

Good Bye 2008

Wish you a very happy new year 2009...Thanks for taking time to view my blog.

The year 2008 came and went in a flash. On the personal front, there were significant milestones or changes. We moved to a different city, I started working for a different customer and we visited India on vacation. I got an opportunity to visit my customer's vendor, which is quite a rarity in my area of work.

Welcoming new year is always refreshing. Over a period of time, there has been some difference in how I am celebrating the new year eve:

College days: New year eve used to be mostly at the Sardarji Dhaba on the hosur road near Madivala. It used to be popular choice for the engineering college guys, mainly due to the attractively priced menu and excellent taste. Also, drinks would be served from the near by liquor stores with absolutely no service charges!. All such parties would be complete only with a dessert at Arun Ice creams at Koramangala...The shop would remain late in the night!

After college : We would target few restaurants and pubs in the brigade road area...Then gradually we moved towards the resorts and far off restaurants. We also ad few celebrations at our friends' houses

While in the USA: Mostly with friends at their or our house. Focus is on having good time with family and friends. The parties generally start off around 7pm and go all the way up to 2-3 Am in the morning. A cake is cut to mark the transition to the new year!. Some new year celebrations that I remember in the US mainly due to some travel involved with each of the events;

2005: We drove from Pittsburgh to Waukesha, WI to meet with friend's family. Together we traveled to Las Vegas and Los Angeles. We then came back from LA to his place to celebrate the new year eve.

2006: We were in Space Needle, Seattle to witness the wonderful fireworks display

2009: We drove up from Portland to our friend's place at Seattle and had a good time

A for apple

My daughter has been practicing or rather we are getting her acquainted with alphabets from the last one year. However, yesterday she picked up a crayon and wrote "A" on her own. I was immensely overjoyed at that moment and made her write multiple times....These appear like ordinary moments for any one but for parents, this is a significant milestone!

She has been identifying the alphabets for sometime now and it is funny sometimes when she reads the alphabets off some one's T shirt!.

Instruction manuals

Instruction manuals are part of the package when we buy any electronics, toys or other items that require some assembly or set of instructions to be followed in order to make the product working.

Let me confess that I've never read any product instruction manual completely or referred to them on a continuous basis to improve the product usage ( like exploring all the camera features, etc). This is mostly because either the products are too user friendly or intuitive that you don't 100% instructions or the lack of patience in reading the complete documentation. I have seen the instruction manuals getting thinner by the day - may be they heard people like me complaining or giving feedback. IKEA goes a way further by providing a one page doc with some funny cartoons... one exception being the "MALMA" mirrors that look easy to assemble but requires significant thinking!

I really try hard to maintain these product manuals/instructions because they are the first source for exploring additional features, warranty and other information. But over a period of years and lots of traveling - I don't find them when I need them most. So what I do then? Google or look up the product writeup in the respective company website...Given the push to reduce operational cost, even the camcorder/camera manufacturers might come up with a one page simple instruction manual and provide links to the Internet documentation!

Bottomline: I implemented a new rule that I will start using the product only after reading the documentation....There was a feeling of triumph and some satisfaction....I am not sure how long will this practice continue :)