Posts Tagged Uncategorized
Ranakpur Temple
Ranakpur Temple is an incredible complex in milk-white marble, a complicated series of 29 halls, supported by a forest of 1444 pillars (no two alike), the interior completely cover in intricate knotted carving. It was built in 1439.
Inside Temple
Art
Roof Carvings
Pillars
Carvings
Halls
Mistake
Text Source
Outing
Coauthored by Mandeep
Outing, this is what we had been planning for the last 6 months. Sometimes I gave the idea of going for one, sometimes it was Cijal’s birthday that made us plan for a picnic. But as usual nothing materialized, people were always busy… some doing coding, some in testing and some attending onsite calls. Finally, Mandy did her research, decided on a place and emails were sent out. Cijal and Mandy became the organizers while Priya took charge of food and beverages.
So on Saturday, July 15 we started for this outing, and still there was no one who could get the name of the place right. There were variations from “Devraja Durg/Durga” to “Devarayana Durga”. We had no idea what the place was like. Mandy’s research said, that it had a few temples, a fresh water lake, and a hot water spring and is really scenic. Cijal was saying it’s a place for pilgrimage. We decided to check it out and started.
Owais, Jappo, Megha and Rini joined us. Our first stop was at an ashram.The ashram had a beautiful temple/meditation hall with the preachings of Lord Krishna to Arjuna from Shrimad Bhagwadgita. The entrance to this temple was through a majestic chariot which looked awesome. Outside there were seven statues representing rivers of India, and the rivers originated from the pots in the statues’ hands. We tried to identify which one was The Ganges, but now that was difficult!! Explanations varied, like the position of the statues was according to their stature or geography, nothing convincing, but it was a lot of fun.
Our next stop was at Devarayana Durga. This place has two temples on different hills. We went to one of the temples, had to climb around 200 steps and the scene from the top was awesome, there was greenery all around with small water bodies at the bottom of the hill. It was drizzling and the weather was best suited for a picnic. We moved around the temple. Checked out the small pond and clicked a lot of snaps. There was a cave near the temple and we decided to go and explore it. The entrance to the cave was very narrow and dark and a few people who were already inside were not moving ahead. It was also a little slippery (my friends might disagree with the slippery part) but we went in using the light from our mobiles. At the end of the cave there was nothing but just a small water source, but it turned out to be fun (we managed to take some pictures here as well).
Next we moved on to see another temple but ended up at this beautiful place at the top of the hill. The view from there was awesome and with the wind blowing so fast we were having a good time balancing ourselves near the edge. Sat there and enjoyed the beauty of the mountains.
As it was almost lunch time, we thought of stopping at a Dhaba and then moving on towards “Namada Chilume – the hot water spring”. But with no Dhabas in sight we had to make do with Bananas!! The way for this place is breathtaking. But to our disappointment the spring turned out to be just a hole in the ground. However, it has some mythological significance attached. This is the place where Lord Rama had shot an arrow into the ground and water had started gushing out.
Since there wasn’t much to the spring we decided on going for a trek through the jungle.That was fun!
After getting back from the trek, we had some refreshments at a Cold-drink shop outside.
By this time all of us were tired and hungry, so we decided to head back towards Bangalore and stop at any of the roadside Dhabas to have a late lunch (at around 4:30 – 5:00). Lucky us, we found this place called Friends Dhaba and the Dhabewala was sweet enough to oblige us at that time. The food was good, though very different from the roadside dhabas up North.
And with this we wrapped up our trip and headed home after a lovely weekend trip to Devrayana Durga.
Crash
You think you know who you are. You have no idea.
After hearing a lot of appraise for the movie and three Oscars, I finally decided to watch the movie.
Movies start with a crash site and following lines “It’s the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We’re always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.” I am completely lost, trying to figure out what kind of movie it is. Is it a movie dealing with crash and tragedy, love story, a mystery or something else? Usually before every movie someone tell you plot, storyline or there are gossips around. But luckily I was never part of any and was able to enjoy the movie. If I would have known before the fun would have reduced.
The movie revolves around multiple characters in the complexity of Los Angels for a period of 24 hours. It starts with a rich white guy and his wife and robbed by two blacks. Moves to a murder site where a black cop is investigating, to a place where a black wife is harassed by a white cop, to a white father who wants to a favor from black nurse, to a lock changer, to a family from different county. Now I understood the movie deals with racism. There are people who have there interests, there comfort zones, there planning and how manipulations take place. I see all this happening all around. By this time I am completely lost in movie and trying hard to find out what are we leading at, with so many different stories running in parallel I don’t see any conclusion.
Then comes the crash, and story completely changes. This is the moment when I am lost in the movie and appreciating how beautifully movie is directed and has a strong story line. In the end all pieces fall at proper place and we realize what we are today and how we act in this world. I reach to conclusion “There is good and bad in all of us.”
Site Meter
I started blogging more than a year back. Cijal introduced me to blog (it is other fact that he reintroduced to blog again when I joined Infy, thank you), and I was fascinated by the concept. It is so nice and relaxing, when after a long and tiring day we sit down and pen (keys) down our feelings. It’s an excellent platform for expressing your feelings. People used to write diaries but now in this modern age writing diaries in obsolete. It’s a kind of diary, except for the fact that it is public. But private online diaries like sea-magic are also present.
I had an account on blogger but was not using it for some time. Then MSN came up with spaces, same as blog with name changed. It was highly graphical but was not as much fun. Blogging days were over for me and one fine day I get a link for yahoo 360. I just wanted to try it, as I always wanted to write something but never got a lot of interest to write. Yahoo 360 was very good, I liked it. But as usual I lost interest and never wrote anything. But there were things like RSS feed, nice themes and integration will yahoo messenger and it felt good. The interface was pretty comforting. After a month I found Infy blogs and started writing there and continued (my blog: purpose).
I always wanted to know how many people are visiting my blog. Initially I searched for some counters and got it from some site. I had put it on my blog but never gave me complete satisfaction. Few days back I was browsing some place and saw site meter. I just thought I had enough with present counter, let’s try this one. Site was pretty ok, but when it came to putting counter on website, it was good. It gives you can options to specify what kind of site the counter will e used for, if it is some common site like blogger, xanga etc it will ask got username and password and automatically put the counter there. So for a novice also it would be a very simple process.
After two days I check my counter again, by just clicking at the counter I was taken to web page where a lot of details were given. I started with first link; it was “by place”. I was amazed to find that, it shows on the world map where all people have been visiting my blog from. This was pretty good for me and I check the next link. It was “by location” it gives you the name of exact city from where my blog was accessed. But next link was awesome. I checked it and it tells me the operating system running on person who accessed my blog along with all details such as ISP, monitor used resolution, kernel version, browser and a lot of other things. It even gives the info of who owns the IP addresses, time of access, for how long it was viewed, entry page, exit page, referral page and a lot more.
I liked it a lot, but then a thought came to my mind. Why do I need to find all such information? But I like having a lot of information with me, I can see from where people are visiting my blog, which nation they are from and all. I don’t have the way to sort data otherwise I want to make a chart of people accessing my blog from different OS and browser. These are the two things that fascinates the most. For business people all other information is necessary, by having all the info, people can customize the ads they want to put on blog and all.
Overall, site meter is a good experience and I am trying to find out how will I use the features provided by it.
Blogging
It’s some time now that I wrote my last blog. So many things have happened or changed. I started blogging with the purpose to improve my writing skills and I feel that some changes are there. Even if changes are not that prominent I am happy that now I am not scared of writing. I think this is good because one day it will help me improve.
“Linux – My side of story” was most happening blog. I got appreciation from few friends and team members. It had the maximum number of hits. Because of this blog I had a BIG fight with a friend. And for rest of people it is same crazy free software idea.
But I am happy that in this hectic life I am finding some time to write down my ideas. One friend told me once that if you are down just write about it, it will help and I think it helps. I used to write previously but those were all sad blogs and never posted them and whatever I posted I deleted. Now I think there is difference in my life, I feel much better, I write happy things. I don’t know the reason, but am sure few close friends will try to find out the reason but it would be all wrong.
I don’t know the reason for writing the blog, either few people has asked me why am I not writing blog or once again I am thinking, and when I do that I write down everything.
Few things have changed, I have started going to gym. I was part of a team which conducted workshop and for first time in my life I saw things from the other end. Till 2 days back I was always at the students end. But I think this side is much harder to be in. I have to learn a lot to be there.
Being Cyrus
Yesterday went for Being Cyrus, nice movie. Some days back went for Taxi 9211 and was also a good movie. I feel good about the change in Bollywood movies. After a long wait Bollywood is moving ahead and changing its theme from same old love stories or copying.
“In the end King and the Pawn goes into the same box.” This sums up the movie. If a person understands the meaning he won’t be having any troubles in life. We are running behind everything we see but for what, in the end nothing will matter. Peace is what we need in today’s life.
Serial Blast
Yesterday heard the news about Serial blasts in Varanasi. When I saw the images on TV, it felt so bad. I was thinking same sort of images we see every two days. What is going on in world? Few years back all terrorist attacks used to be bombing someplace but now trend has changed from single bomb to serial bombs.
What to people get from killing people? What are they trying to prove? What do they want? And finally the question is who is more dangerous, Terrorism or Bush?