Love, Life - wandering thoughts

"Love" as a noun means "A strong positive emotion of regard and affection". I am referring to this meaning of "Love" in this post.

It is such a wonderful state of mind to be in Love with someone or something, it can not be explained in words. One has to go through this state to feel it. When one is in love, one starts to live for it (Listen to 'Find Yourself' from Cars!). As one lives through it, one will make a love story. The story invariably ends or looses its intensity at some point in time(Could be happy ending or otherwise).

Now, what next? I think this is very unstable state. One becomes very unproductive in this state. Lot of questions start haunting the mind. A slight negative thought is disastrous in this state. This is also the beginning of a change.

What I propose is that one should start finding the next thing to fall in love with. I think falling in love is the most important and beautiful thing.

e.g. Fall in love with music, learn a musical instrument. Live for it, live in it. Life seems so beautiful.

For geeks, fall in love with a technology and live learning it and live in it.

For elevated souls, fall in love to bring a change in society. Fall in love with nature, follow every rainbow, climb every mountain.
But there are some things that are impossible to fall in love with. Don't loose heart, that is where movies like 'Lucia' comes to help. Fall in love with such things in your dream. Live the impossible in your dream.

Wow... there are so many things to fall in love with. One life is not enough to love everything that is out there!

Lucia - One of a kind movie

"ನೀ ಮಾಯೆಯೊಳಗೊ, ನಿನ್ನೊಳು ಮಾಯೆಯೊ" (Are you inside an illusion or illusion inside you)

This was the whole essence of this movie "Lucia". This is one of the best movies I have watched in Kannada. This has everything - Simplicity, Energy, Life, Love, Dream, Melody, Deception, Fear, Comedy, Greed, Reality, Colors, Devoid of Colors and so on... in appropriate quantities.

This was the second of all the movies I have watched in theaters that I wanted to watch again... no, I wanted to live the movie again.

Songs are very different, people will have their reservation to like or dislike. But I liked.

I don't want to write more. This movie should be watched in theater and one should live the movie. Watching this movie a second time will make it a very different movie.

Director Pawan Kumar has amazingly played with colors(and devoid of colors). Hats off to you Mr Pawan. I am sure you will go places.

As I write this post, I am listening to the very song sung by Sri Vidyabhushana Swamy. Aha, I wish I get lost in my dream, and I think my dreams are devoid of colors.

Restarting digital life...

I knew Google was going to stop their Reader service. I had several bookmarks stored in Google reader I was following regularly. All these days I was so occupied in life, I had not realized that Google indeed had already stopped the service. Now that I have some time for myself, I tried exploring what is happening in digital life. I realized that I have lost all my RSS feeds.
I had lots of blogger friends, I don't know how to get back with all of them.

May be that is an indication for me to clean up my mess and a fresh start. That sounds good. It appears to be in alignment with what is happening in life at a macro scale. I am figuring out how to create and sync feedly on all my digital life interfaces.

Rooting my phone

Finally I rooted my Sony Xperia Neo V to Cyanogenmod Jellybean 4.1.2. I was very reluctant to do this from quite some time.

Thanks to my pal Sridhar who thinks rooting the phone is a matter of fact. Having not rooted the phone this long, I felt like I am an outlier(in negative way) in Android world. I still remember the days when Sridhar told one day that he formatted his hard disk. That was about 14 years ago. I was beginning to learn about hard disk, yet formatting it was already a matter of fact to him. Those are the days....

Coming back to reality, my stock ROM had become a pain to use. As with all mid range Xperia phones, 358MB of RAM, 420MB of internal flash will leave the user with no choice but uninstall an app to install a new one. The phone was so slow that it would show called ID couple of seconds after starting to ring. I had to revive it or brick it.

Whole process was straight forward. I could not get fastboot detect the device on Windows, so did the whole thing on Ubuntu. Now I feel like it is a new phone. So responsive, ability to install apps on SD card, I am feeling like I have a new phone without spending a penny(but of course few hours of time). UI is also refreshing.

Migration to Jellybean is what excites me. I am more interested in Google Now, the feature where the phone starts learning about me. When other humans, including myself, could not understand me, I wonder what will phone learns...

So far, Jellybean has been sweet, everything is working as expected, hope it continues to be that way....

Happy Navaratri!

Happy Navaratri wishes to one and all. May the goodness prevail over all the evil in the world.

I was in US last year during this time. This year I am very much here, had good time washing my car after a long time. The exercise made me feel all rusted rusted parts of my body. I felt good when finally my car looked spic and span, barring a handful of scratches here and there. The bike did not get as much attention as all overexercised parts of the body had started singing.

It was a good scene on roads as all vehicles were wearing a new makeover. Washed, decorated with flowers, colors, banana plants(not sure if it is called something else?). I wonder how many lemons were crushed today!! I did a handful of them...

100th post!!

Whoa, it is my 100th post. Is that an achievement, I don't know. 100 posts in 8 years. When I look back and analyze the number of posts per year, the more I wrote, more I was being myself.
The year 2012 was a very challenging year. The year which saw a new comer, losing someone very close. The year I started questioning my own deeply rooted beliefs about what I believed as the most important ingredient of life.
I bid farewell to 2012 standing on top of Vaishno Devi shrine, hoping genuinely 2013 will bring new perspective in life. While the year did bring some clarity, it has not been very easy one.
For an aquarian born, having INTP personality, I guess I can handle the challenges very well. I am well aware that I will be facing many cross roads in the year to come. It is a tough job to choose right path as life does not offer an 'Undo' function.
Hoping to be more of myself....

Raspberry Pi it is!!

I managed to boot Raspberry Pi today. These are my first impressions.

I powered it using my Samsung micro USB mobile charger. Connected to LG 32" TV using HDMI cable. The awesome part is Keyboard and Mouse! Logitech RF wireless Keyboard and Mouse worked like a charm when I connected the dongle to USB. RJ45 cable connected to Router and Ethernet port on Raspberry Pi. SD card loaded with Raspbian "Wheezy" OS image.

It booted to command prompt. "startx" started the Xwindow system. It was nice to see my entire TV as desktop. Midori browser connected to internet effortlessly! Was happy to see my blog. Logged into facebook.
I wanted to publish this post from the pi itself, but google disappointed me. For some reason midori could not go past google accounts login page. Youtube was also disappointing as there was no flash player installed. I could not install any other browser too. Hoping to explore more over weekend!

Ede tumbi haaDuvenu!

Today's telecast of ede tumbi haaDuvenu took me to my old world. It was about my favorite poet K S Narasimha Swamy. It was very interesting to learn how this great person became poet. It took me back to my dream world and I am still floating in it. I hope the feelings last long!

"Back to School" after a decade!

I was really skeptical if I was ever going to enjoy class room again, I was totally taken by surprise. It was an awesome experience sitting in class and listening to the extremely tallented professors. There was no dull moment!
Of course I am talking about my MBL contact classes. Those professors are extremely talented in their fields and they kept entire class of 150+, completely inhomogeneous audience glued to their seats. I didn't realize the time at all. Class was full of young to old people with most of the crowd from non-law background. It was quite interesting and well spend 1.5 days.

A Quick Decision

Last Friday I enrolled for Master in Business Law course at National Law School of India University, Distance Education Department. I hardly had time to decide. I came to know about it from my colleague Avinash on Thursday. Friday was the last date for enrollment with fine! Just filled the form, paid the fee and thats it.

My another colleague Satya has been inspiring me on 'Business' and I too had been planning to do something related to Business. I could not afford a big hole in my pocket. When I went through the syllabus of MBL, I felt at least it will improve my general awareness. I don't expect it to change my career, but you never know. Either way, it is no harm.

I have spent a decade of professional life, not really trying to do anything big. Let this decade be the crazy one. The least thing I expect is the satisfaction that at least I tried.

Operation Fitness

This is my second innings towards fitness. I should say I was fairly fit during 2008. Post 2009 I started skipping work outs and put on weight. Stress, no work out and tension impacted adversely on my fitness. 

After my mother went to London to visit my sister, my culinary skills took care of my food intake and I started loosing my waste line by a thread. I felt good about it. Recently, I started to go on long walks in mornings, but my laziness ensured this routine is not regular.

Today, after noon I just decided to go on one such walks. I walked and walked and walked for about 2 hours. It started raining, still I kept walking. A sardar gentleman stopped his car and asked me if I wanted lift... Wow, I felt happy that world still has some goodness in it and I thanked him for the offer and told I preferred to walk.

After sometime, I got bored of walking. I took a bus to return. I checked in google maps and realize that I had walked for about 8km. Not a bad way to kill a Saturday!!

My plans!

I always wanted to travel around. I used to go on trekking and travel with friends. Something inside me was still not satisfied.
So after a lot of thought, I became a member of Youth Hostel Association of India. And, I have signed up for National Himalayan Winter Trekking Expedition to Dalhousie. My cousin Madhu prompted me to take this action and I think I did a good thing.
The plan is to make this as economical as possible, so we are going by train and as much as possible will travel in second sleeper class. I have signed up for Dec 25th batch. While returning, we are planning to visit either Jammu or Amritsar. We are still debating.
A new desire is making rounds in my mind. How about biking trip in Goa arranged by YHA!! I will have to buy a bicycle and train myself. Let me see how I execute it.
Of course there are family trips lined up for Tirupati and Kukke Subramanya etc.

Welcome back to Digital self

I feel good to be back to my digital self. I don't want to crib... ok, thats it.

First of all, I became father! And My son and I share the birthday, that means my son was born on the same day I was born!! I should tell we did not go against nature for this to happen. That is kind of unique and cool.
I lost my grand mother 4 days after my son was born. That upset me for quite sometime. I relocated to Rajarajeshwari Nagar for various reasons. So life is not the same.
Mom has travelled to London to visit my sister, wife at her mother's place, so I am home alone most of the times. I enjoyed cooking, watching movies, playing with my son and retrospecting.
Now that my mother is returning next week, I will not have to cook, retrospect etc. So I get lot of time to play with my son and do something that I had always been wanting to do.

A decade of Financial Independence

On 1st of October, a decade ago I started my career as a fresh engineer at Honeywell. Today I sit back and think of those days... It was freedom, financial independence.


It has been a decade. My company has given a lot of things to me. I should be thankful to my colleagues who helped me, who trusted me. My friend and colleague Satya tells me now I belong to HRC. (RC stands for relic community!!).


I have been through lot of things these past 10 years, some I regret I should have not done, and some I am proud of.
I fulfilled my responsibility as a brother, I myself got more responsible. Now only thing pending is to build a home.


Hope the coming years will be even better than the years that have gone by. I think during this month, most of my engineering friends would be completing their decade of feat as well, all the best guys!!

After a very long time

I logged into Facebook, g+ after a long time. Updated myself with whats all my friends are up to. Then I remembered that I have not blogged for a very long time. Neither have I read blogs of my friends. I deeply regret for this.
I have been quite busy and many things have happened in life. I have changed a lot, beyond even I had thought of. I just hope everything will come around and I become what I used to be. I just hope for it.

The 'SEA" that I saw...

This happened several months ago, but for some reason I could not write it.

 

I had been to Manipal for recruiting interns. When we were finished, we decided to visit the beach. At the beach, I stood there, staring at the sea, wondering its vastness and calm. And suddenly, I was filled with some kind of sadness. Oh where is that river?

 

There is this song written by GS Shivarudrappa in Kannada, "kaaNada kaDalige hambaliside mana"(mind is longing for the unseen sea). In the song a river has been personified and through the adroit mincing of words the poet has ingeniously expressed river's feelings. The gushing river imagines the 'sea', its final destination. It puts together all information it has heard about 'the sea', in this captivating composition.

 

The river says, "my mind is longing for the unseen sea, will I ever be able to see it, will I ever be able to merge into its color", the river hears the whispering roar of waves, river wonders how could the sea be so calm when thousands of rivers merge into it. 

The last two lines of the song leave me awestruck. The line goes like "jaTila kaananada, kuTila paThagaLali hariva toreyu naanu...". It means, 'I am the stream that flows through crooked paths in the arduous forests, will I be able to dissolve into the blueness of the sea someday?' The rhyming words chosen by the poet and the cadent voice of Ashwath, resonates with my emotions and imagination. I imagine the world in which 'I' am the river and I am chasing my dreams.

 

Looking at sea, I wondered what happened to that river? Where did it go? Oh.. it has lost its identity in the vastness of sea. Does the river exist anymore? Where am I? Have I lost myself and my identity in chasing one of my dreams? What am I going to become? How do I redeem myself from this world and go back to my dream world? Lots of thoughts whooshed through my mind.

 

I was awakened from my dream by the rain which forced me to run for cover. Torrential rain lasted for almost an hour and obscured the visibility completely. The sea was no more visible. Oh.. this is the redemption of the river. Yes, the rain gods are showering in the mountains on which the river is reborn. I felt happy about it. The river is not lost anymore. In the almighty's scheme of things, some things are elusive.

 

I felt light. I did not feel like I was lost. I learnt a lesson here. I just need to have sound goals and dreams and chase them with conscious effort. Life is never boring again...

ನಾ ಕಂಡ ಪಂಚರಂಗಿ

ಕಳೆದ ವಾರ ಕೊನೆಗೂ ಪಂಚರಂಗಿಯ ರಂಗನ್ನು ಕಾಣುವ ಕನಸು ನನಸಾಯಿತು. ನನಗನ್ನಿಸಿದ ಪ್ರಕಾರ ಚಿತ್ರದಲ್ಲಿ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ರಂಗಿನ ಕೊರತೆ ಎದ್ದು ಕಾಣುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ನಿರ್ದೇಶಕರು ಬಹಳ ಕಡೆ ಬೂದಿ(gray color) ಬಣ್ಣವನ್ನು ಹಾಗೆ ಉಳಿಸಿ ಬಿಟ್ಟಂತೆ ಅನ್ನಿಸಿತು. ಹಾಡುಗಳು ಸಹ ಮತ್ತೆ ಗುನುಗುವಂತೇನೂ ಇರಲಿಲ್ಲ, ಒಂದನ್ನು ಹೊರತು ಪಡಿಸಿ. ಆದರು FM Radio ದಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರಸಾರವಾಗುವ ಹಾಡಿಗೂ, ಮೂಲತಹ ಚಿತ್ರದಲ್ಲಿರುವ ಹಾಡಿಗೂ ಬಹಳ ವ್ಯತ್ಯಾಸ ಇದೆ. I like the one broadcasted on FM Radio.

ಅದು ಹೇಗೇ ಇರಲಿ ಚಿತ್ರದ ಸಂದೇಶ ನನಗೆ ಇಷ್ಟವಾಯಿತು. ನಿರ್ದೇಶಕರು ಇದಕ್ಕೆ ಎರಡು ಆಯಾಮಗಳನ್ನು ಕೊಟ್ಟಿದ್ದಾರೆ. ಒಂದು ಕಡೆ ಪೋಷಕರ "herd following" ದೃಷ್ಟಿಕೋನ, ಮಗ ವಿದೇಶಕ್ಕೆ ಹೋದರೇನೇ ಉದ್ದಾರ ಆದಂತೆ, ಹರಕು-ಮುರುಕು ಅಂಗ್ಲ ಭಾಷೆ ಮಾತಾಡಿದರೇನೆ ಸಮಾಜದಲ್ಲಿ ಗೌರವ ಎಂದು ಭಾವಿಸುವ ಪೋಷಕರು. ಇನ್ನೊಂದು ಕಡೆ ನಾಯಕನ ಅಸಡ್ಡೆತನ, ಜೀವನ ಬರಿ ನಶ್ವರ ಎಂದು, ಕಂಡದ್ದೆಲ್ಲವನ್ನು ತೆಗಳುವ ನಿರ್ಲಿಪ್ತ ಮನೋಭಾವ. ಇದೆಲ್ಲದರ ನಡುವೆಯೇ ಸುಂದರವಾದ ಜೀವನ ಒಂದು ಇದೆ ಎಂದು ತೋರಿಸಲು ಹೊರಟಿದ್ದಾರೆ.

ಅದೇನೇ ಆಗಲಿ ಚಿತ್ರದಲ್ಲಿ ಪರಿಚಯಿಸಿರುವ ಒಂದು ರೀತಿಯ ಪ್ರಾಸಬದ್ದ ಸಂಭಾಷಣೆಯನ್ನು ಮನೆಯಲ್ಲೆಲ್ಲ ಹೇಳಿ ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿ ಬೈಸಿಕೊಂಡು ಖುಷಿ ಪಟ್ಟುಕೊಂಡೆ. ಈಗ ನಿಮಗೂ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ತಲೆ ತಿನ್ನುತ್ತೇನೆ, ತಾಳ್ಮೆ ಇದ್ದಾರೆ ಓದಿಕೊಳ್ಳಿ...

ನಾವುಗಳು - ನಮ್ಮನ್ನು ಕಾಡಿಸುವ bugಗು ಗಳು

ದಿನಕ್ಕೊಂದು ಹುಟ್ಟಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವ platformಗಳು,

ಅವುಗಳೆಲ್ಲದರ ಮೇಲೆ application ಬರೆಯುವ ನಾವುಗಳು,

Windows, Mac, Linux Operating systemಗಳು,

ಇತ್ತೀಚೆಗೆ ಬಂದ android, iOS ಗಳು,

mobile phoneಗಳು, tablet PCಗಳು,

iPad, Galaxyಗಳು,

officeನ ಹೊರಗೆ ರಸ್ತೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಬರೀ ಹಳ್ಳಗಳು,

ಅವುಗಳ ಮೇಲೆ ಓಡುವ ನಮ್ಮ ಮೋಟಾರು ವಾಹನಗಳು,

ಕೈಗೆಟುಕದ ಬೆಲೆಗಳು,

ಮಿತಿ ಇಲ್ಲದ ನಮ್ಮ ಹವ್ಯಾಸಗಳು,

ಲೆಕ್ಕವಿರದ TV channelಗಳು,

ಅದರಲ್ಲಿ ಬರುವ ಧಾರಾವಾಹಿಗಳು,

ಇವನ್ನು ನೋಡದೆ ಇರಲಾಗದ ಅಜ್ಜಿ-ತಾತ ಗಳು,

ಇವೆಲ್ಲದರ ಮದ್ಯೆ ಇರುವ ನಾವುಗಳು ನಮ್ಮ ಕನಸುಗಳು!!!

Life is colorful, see it through a kaleidoscope to make it more eventful. 

de ja vu - reliving those days!!

Those days are back!! Days, where the life was so busy coding, debugging and adding new features to the software, I almost forget coffee, lunch and even the sense of time. Even in my dreams I see code, I think of solution and sometimes I get idea to fix some bug while sleeping.

A couple of years back I had worked in similar project. My recent project is giving me the opportunity to re-live those days. I forget all the daily chores of life. Not feeling happy on Friday, as I have to wait for 2 more days to jump into coding.

When I get exhausted, I just take a cup of coffee and stand on the terrace watching the bustling Bannerghatta road traffic, I think I am much better than those restless people who drive insanely to reach their targets a few seconds earlier. I listen to soothing music on radio and I feel like flying. I feel unbounded, free and I remember the movie Forrest Gump that I watched last week.  I am enjoying every moment of it.

A refreshing day!!

Today, I have an uncanny urge to write. I am ashamed to see that my last post was 5 months ago. Lots of things have remained half-composed in scattered text files. I hope they will all find a way to my blog sometime sooner..

It has been a good day today. Lot of exciting stuff happening at office. Well, I have got an opportunity to develop application on iPhone/iPad platform. It came as a surprise offer after abruptly closing down my previous project.

Its been about 3 weeks since we(Paraddi my colleague and I) have been learning apple platform, and today our first application came up on simulator, which I feel is quite a feat. I am very happy about it. I am kind of liking Apple and Mac!!

It is a pretty challenging project. My manager bought 2 Mac Mini's and 5 books and gave them to us. He told its all yours, give me first demo on Aug 16th. Wow, man what a freedom. It is one of a kind of an opportunity to nerds like us. Even in my dreams sometimes I will be designing some framework for my application. It has been many years since I worked in this way. Wow, I am liking it.

And I am liking the fact that I am writing my blog too!!

Commotions

Hmm... Once again a long hiatus. I am missing my blog so much. Finally managed to steal some time from busy life to give due justice my longtime companion...

While there are plenty of things about my life to write here, right now lot of things are going on inside my mind, and sometimes I haven't been able to comprehend certain things. I have been wondering what is happening to me, why are these things happening to me.
After a long time I thought of checking my horoscope on tarot.com, which had been my favorite time pass, and most of the times, funny thing is the horoscope matches!!! This is what was there for me,
"It may seem as if you haven't been like your old self in years with dreamy Neptune in your sign for the last decade. Now it's time to look back and think about all the changes you've been through, especially the ones that elude logical understanding. You are in a gradual transition phase, and your realizations today could be instrumental in making the choices that will redefine your life in years to come. Be patient; this kind of transformation takes time."

OK. I have patience in abundance, I am waiting for the transformation!!