100 posts for the year

Done and dusted with 100 posts this year. I thought of writing about my Himalayan trek and put some pictures, but could not do due to few reasons. Last couple of months have been bit dull and boring.

Ending 2016 with a note of thanks to God for keeping me alive, my parents, my teachers and well wishers who have enriched my year with their presence,

Few trips did not happen,
Few purchases did not happen,
Here's hoping 2017 has a better stuffs in store,

Cheers,

Shuttle driver #16 - A driver who used to drive an ambulance

I have not written about cab driver series for quite some time, the reason being, we are having a steady driver for over 6 months. Well the reason for having steady driver is, nobody is ready to ply towards Kengeri from marathahalli. Current driver stays at Bidadi so its easy for him to drop us and head home.

The biggest irony is, we have had a steady cab for 6+ months, but there is unsteadiness at workplace. Few people have been deboarded and many people have left or leaving. Its sad to see so much of turmoil at workplace, and believe me its going to continue into the new year.

The current driver drives a Toyota Etios sedan. Previously he tells us he has driven an Ambulance (Maruti Omni). His driving style is the most disastrous of all (till date) and its more or less a pain to sit in the cab.

But we save 20 odd minutes each side owing to this reckless driving. But listening to so much of honking experiencing this much of braking leads to nothing but absolute frustration.

Why haven't I told him to drive carefully? Well, I had a fight with the cab driver, supervisor and few other people, and ever since then, I just shut my mouth in the cab and sit!

Reason for fight, I generally come late out of office usually 8 15pm and one day it just led to a heated argument and I just gave it back to my director,

that's it. So nothing special to write about this driver,

Cheers,

Is this Indian IT industry an illusion or a stereotype

I am still trying to understand the IT industry in India, trying to find out if its a illusion or a stereotype.

Let me write down the reasons why I can call it illusion is -

1. There seems to be very few fresh development projects which I see happening in India. (I have tried my hands at few companies and most work appears to be maintenance and highly non intellectual).

2. There are many startups and stuffs like that ,which are developing software, but, their main business is service aggregation, like online selling, online services etc and over here too the software is stabilized and not much new activity tends to happen!

3. There are many such development projects startups which never see the limelight. All those code written, software developed never gets to be deployed, never gets to churn out money, instead its just shelled.

I may be wrong, but generally assuming, why would Europe/US companies give out the development projects to Indian counterparts where in the  market lies over there. How do we understand market needs of other continent sitting over here. So actually speaking, we get to do the mundane work at lesser price.

Let me write down as to why I can call it a stereotype -

1. There is a huge requirement for people with lesser experience. Because they are paid less and charged more to the client. So if they are charged 15 Lakhs per annum they are paid only 3 Lakhs per annum. This is how the company makes money, not by selling software but by selling manpower and headcount!

2. If I spend some years in IT like more than 8 years, I am automatically stereotyped to be a manager (or an architect if lucky). Manager meaning managing people, whose numbers are generally less. Now are they non billable resources to the company? do they get paid from the timesheets filled by their sub-ordinates? because the client necessarily does not have to pay for the project or people management, he usually wants the work to get done.

So either ways you want to enter the Indian IT industry, you get stuck in this current of illusion or stereotype which you realize after you hit a deadlock.

Deadlock is when you hit a salary of some amount, experience of some amount and then you have no where to go, because companies want people with lesser experience and lesser salary expectations. There you go, only option left with you is to play politics at office to spend time or speak continuously yielding no results but showcasing one's marketing skills!

By the way when the number of such people (above categories) exist in the company, what do you think they do? They disrupt the work going on, they will not let others work. And the remaining people who wish not to disrupt other peoples' work, well, they end up clueless, may be in deep depression trying to find out larger meaning of life!

Cheers,

When we crossed two high altitude mountain passes on the same day (by road) - TTTT 36.

This too happened during our Himachal trek this year. We were returning from Kaza, Spiti valley and coming towards Manali. One the way we had to cross two high altitude mountain passes within a span of 5 hours.

Kunzum la  - 4590m or 15060 feet - stopped here to visit the Kunzum Mata temple. (5 30 pm)

Rohtang la  - 3978m or 13050 feet - Was all foggy wet, raining, poor visibility, less than 3 feet forward, was infact fearing for life, if the van slipped or skidded, we would have ended up in trouble. (11 30 pm)

Cheers,

When I completed lunch by 10:30 am - TTTT 35.

Many a times we  might have finished lunch by 11 am. But a how many times a full fledged course meal having roti, rice, rajma, aloo curry? This happened during our Himachal trek during this year 2016. We completed our trek and we ended up at Mudh Village in Spiti valley. From there on we arrived at Kaza in Spiti.

We had started from Mudh at 6 20 am and did not have breakfast. We had a long journey in front of us to Manali crossing Rohtang la and Kunzum la. So we thought of having as much food as we can. But would it be better if we completed lunch itself?  Oh yes.

But who in this place would feed us lunch that too at 10 30 am in the morning.

Yes, we found a hotel, one of our support staff knew a family who ran a hotel in the market place of Kaza and we went there for food. It was the first time I called home after 9 days flat, because I was able to get a connectivity with a BSNL sim.

Once we were at the hotel we found out we could have roti/aloo and rajma. But rice, yeah, we requested the chef to prepare rice too and he quickly got it done too. Though we waited for a good 15 minutes, it was worth it.

What followed was a bumpy ride in a rented Mahindra Scorpio along the non existant roads of Spiti valley. Though I was sitting in the middle seat, I almost ended up vomiting/puking. But the scorpio had a tyre flat on two occasions and we were stranded with no option in the middle of the road.

Finally we could gather a Tempo traveller as a replacement and yeah thus ended up my vomiting senstaion woes. I did not puke, luckily!

Cheers,

Tulu - When a language left me wanting for more - TTTT 34.

I am not sure if its a tale to tell, but its for me to learn. In the last couple of years, I have been to coastal Karnataka almost 12-14 times. Each time, I have met people speaking in Tulu. Many such times, I have people in our team who are either from Mangalore/Udupi/Puttur speaking Tulu with the locals.

I admit, I find listening to Tulu language very very nice. I cannot speak Tulu, but its on my wish list to speak. It sounds musical. I have plans to learn Tamil/Telgu/Marathi, but Tulu seems to be on a higher priority because of the fact that, it simply sounds so cool, the wordings the pronounciation. In case you find couple of Tulu speaking people, just listen to them, I bet, its fun, its addictive!

I really miss talking to the locals in Tulu, wish I could do it someday, wish I could do more trips to coastal Karnataka.

Until then watch out or search for the video featuring a movie scene Eragavuye kirikiri, its from a Tulu movie Ekka Saka

Cheers,
PS - I am not mocking or sarcastic while I write this, I genuinely admire the language.

This year we lost a music icon

Glenn Frey is a great musician, a legend infact. He along with Don Henley and few others played as Eagles in the late 60's early 70's and disbanded probably during 1980. They came back in the year 1994 and introduced themselves as a band which took a 14 year vacation.

Prior to the split they had announced they would unite only if Hell Freezes over and boy I guess that was the name of the reunion tour.

The year was 1994, I was still a kid, but I still remember distinctly playing Eagles tape again and again. Then, I never knew the history behind Eagles. My father is a fan of Eagles, so am I. Since 1994 I have listened to the Eagles a countless number of times, yet I am not bored by their songs.

Its sad, Glenn Frey is no more. I am listening to the song Take It easy as I am posting this from office. Remember the Scooty advertisement in the 90's featuring Raageshwari? Yeah that background song is Take it easy and by Glenn Frey!

Do check out the concert video of the song Take it easy especially the Hell Freezes over tour one, you will learn how a man in his 40's can rock with a guitar and blue and gray Tee shirt!

Hats off Glenn Frey! you will be missed.

Cheers,

PS - End of the year, George Micheal passed away, I listened to him only after 2001, not before that., because I was simply not aware. My favorite song by George Micheal is Father Figure. 

One temple, One year, two visits, two different times - TTTT 34.

I have to be shameless to admit that I have not visited any local temples this year. I remember visiting none closeby home this year. Not even on my birthday. I feel extremely gutted as I write this. But I have been praying at home, I should thank God for keeping me alive and kicking.

There is one such temple which I visited two times this year, two different seasons, and this temple happens to be almost 500 kilometers from home.

This place is Gundabala village in Honnavara and the temple is MUKYAPRANA LAXMI VENKATESH DEVA. Believe me, first time when we visited this place, there was a marriage celebration going on and someone from the bride side offered us to have evening snacks (all in return for speaking in Tulu, though we denied).

This time, we went again in the month of October. Boy o Boy, though not in Bangalore, I can claim to have visited a temple. The amount of peace which I got in return is priceless.

Cheers,

One more tale from the Himalayan trek - TTTT 33.

One such funny incident happened during my this year's Himalayan trek. This happened after we had crossed the Pin pass on day 8 of our 10 day trek. [we completed our 9+ 1 rest day trek in 8 days by the way].

During the first few days of the trek, I had refused to eat wild apricots and berries from the forest. I had done this to avoid any upsets to my stomach. I had put in lots of money for the trek, and preparation too. I did not want an upset stomach to bring down my chances of completion.

After the pass crossing, I found myself roaming around the campsite, bare footed. I was not wearing any slippers or footwear, just to feel extra comfortable. I did feel comfortable too.

But my colleagues warned me of frost bite once. Mother earth was not that cold. So I ignored their words. But second and third time, they told me, how did you muster so much of courage to walk bare footed ignoring frost bites, where in you acted like a chicken to taste wild berries and apricots!

I was in a dilemma, I just escaped the argument, but honestly, speaking, I still feel, the chances of frost bite was a bit less, where as chances of upset tummy was huge, plus eating wild fruits was during the first 2-3 days of the trek!

Never mind, one more tale from the trek!

Cheers,

When we were at the recieving end of a food giveaway TTTT 32.

Many a times, I have had the opportunity to distribute food which we had cooked in excess. I do not count it as huge number of instances but atleast few times. But till date was never at the recieving end of this.

Imagine a situation where you travel and you take your cooking utensils, you cook and cook a bit extra, instead of disposing off the food, you try to find people whom you can distribute the extra food to. Yes, exactly, this was the exact situation, I am trying to write about.

We had completed playing for sometime along the beach and also in the beach waters of ApsaraKonda. So it was time to get a fresh water bath at the ApsaraKonda waterfall.

We did have a shower at the Apsarakonda fresh water fall. While going to the waterfall, we noticed, few guys had parked their van and were having a late lunch. It was around 5 pm. We were wondering, these guys were lucky to have found a nice place and shade to park, cook and eat.

After we finished our bath and were returning, we were waiting for our van too, to come to the same place instead of we going there, also, few of our guys were slow in finishing their bath and hence we decided to wait, and we sat opposite but at a bit far distance from these people who by then had finished eating.

Within few minutes, few of their guys came and asked us if we would like to have biryani. We 3 people being vegetarians said no. But we asked few of our team members who followed shortly, and it turned out around 4 people readily acknowledged.

The people who had parked their van were from Harihara, the satisfaction on my friends faces after consuming biryani was priceless, plus in a way they helped a cause too. instead of wasting food, its always better to volunteer up!

Cheers,

When I ran out of the beach waters - TTTT 31.

One such crazy incident happened this time. Out of the number of times, I have entered the sea waters, I never felt insecure by the creatures crawling in the water. I have only been scared of the water dragging me into the sea.

This time, while we were enjoying the waves were in the beach waters, one of our team members got bitten by a jelly fish or not sure what creature it was.

He pretty much quickly got out of the water, I was bit reluctant to head out of the water. But I came close to the shore and stood up, where in I just saw the cup shaped creature pass near my leg. I assumed it to be the same thing which had bit him on his forearm.

At this moment, my scare knew no bounds and there you go, I just ran out of the beach waters, just to avoid one more round of conflict with that creature.

Cheers,

Beach trek 2016

Starting from the year 2013, I have been taking part in a beach trek, each year. It involves walking along the beaches, the coastline. The fun part is walking barefoot, with the waves hitting your legs, the sun, the tan, plus loads of dehydration.

This year was no different. And I traversed the same old route, Gokarna to Honnavara, only difference is that, we started from Kudle beach instead of OM Beach.

Covered few beaches, waited for ferry crossing at Tadadi port/ Aghanashani river, then camped at Holanagadde Sri Ramanajaneya Temple.

It was fun, just a bit lesser crowd this time around! Can't imagine one year has just flown by!

Cheers,

PS - Distance covered 37.1 kilometers,
Start Point - Kudle beach, Gokarna
End Point - Dhareshwar beach, Haldipur.

Other places of visit -
Apsarakonda beach + Apsarakonda Waterfall!

Winding up 2016.

2016 year comes to an end, I am close enough to my quest of phabricating a 100 posts! This year has been an altogether different experience. I have troubled my parents on two different occasions to the core. Each time I go on a Himalayan trek, my parents are of the opinion that Himalayas will melt and I will end up not returning home, but it has not been the case, since I feel God is with me or I have been plain lucky.

I wish going to a Himalayan trek was a butt load simpler than bearing so much of emotional stress. I agree its tough on my parents part, but even more than that, listening to the negative aspect of Himalayas melting, the whole idea of training and focusing for it, is just ripped apart. Never mind,

I completed Pin Parvaty Pass trek this year after having made a come back from a stomach infection / urinary tract infection and bouts of fever. It was at a height of 17280 feet and we ended up in Spiti Valley/Kaza/Kuzum and travelled along India's deadliest roads!

I have been training regularly in the gym and my battle with gaining or losing weight still is on. I feel satisified with this aspect of life.

I could not read much during the second half of 2016, just lost interest blindly and with no reason.

I could not write much, again owing to losing interest (however I am trying to catch up).

I lost interest in work, work has become monotonous and so mundane that, I can see where its heading,

Parted ways with couple of good friends at office.

Stranded on the road 2 times this year, both the times due to rear left tyre flat (coincidence), once in Spiti valley and recently in Karnataka itself, one for almost 4 hours and the other for almost 6 hours.

Visited Himachal/Punjab/Golden temple/Wagah Border

Did two trips to TamilNadu/Kodaikanal/Kolkumalai and then 4-5 trips to coastal Karnataka (Honnavara/Gokarna/Kumta/Sharavathy/Gersoppa/Gundabagal/Shimoga/Sagar/jog).

Did not drive my car much no long trips, very busy training / work, parents uninterested,

Thus totally lost interest in buying a Toyota Innova even when it was offered at a discount price. Just have no more interest, in taking additional ownership and responsiblity.

Enjoyed solitude to the core, grown old spending time alone, doing nothing, just thinking, listening to music, less mingling with friends and almost nill superficial over hyped talks.

Cheers,

there goes one more year, workwise absolute blunder, but yeah, I am paid, so no worries, plus I got time to workout!

One such day at the gym

If today was yet another day at the gym, why am I even posting this. Well there is a special reason. Every single day, I listen to boring music in the gym. Sometimes its radio and most of the times some playlist which seems uninspiring and pretty mundane.

But today was different. I do not know who had provided the songs for the hour I went. There was
- Vengaboys (Brazil)
- Blue (one Love),
- Led Zepplin (stairway to heaven).
- Cranberries (Zombie).
- Ricky Martin (LIvin Lavida Loca).
- Jethro Tull (Whistler).
- Linkin Park (Somewhere I belong)

It was surprising yet refreshing, the curse on the trainer's face became evident when Jethrotull track started playing. Did I mind, absolutely not.

My favorite Def Leppard however did not appear though!

Cheers,

PS - Whats so special - These are 70's 80's 90's songs, and I have been listening to them for a decade and yet feels so new so neat!

Why do people give up on life. - TTTT 30

I have heard from many people (at-least few in number) that they had enough of life. I have no objections against what runs in people's mind after all its their mind, their thoughts. So I wonder why do people lose interest in life. I know there are bitter incidents which one has to swallow, some people are plain lucky while some people have to struggle to meet or make ends meet.

I do agree that in a way, each person's life is not the same. But listening to thoughts of people giving up on life is kind of unpleasant, especially, if a person is hale and healthy with absolutely zero physical ailments.

Recently, I was stranded on a highway and I had no option to wait until a person came to bail out with his tractor and a jumper cable. This person is very famous in the locality for helping out people in need and especially those stranded on the highway.

We were pretty much excited that our ordeal had come to an end. But upon seeing this person who had come to help us, I felt shame for myself. We were 12 people and couldn't do much after being stranded! (except raising hands upwards in despair)

This person had lost one of his leg in an accident. Yet he was famous for helping out bailing out people, He was enthusiastic. He was pleasing. He radiated positivity.

Was it necessary for him to wake up so early and come with his tractor go searching for a jumper cable and come to our rescue?

Here we are cribbing about putting end to life because of some reason, and over here we see a true fighter. He showed me how to put to use one's life, via sincere self service, dedication and expecting nothing in return!

Lots to learn seeing people help you while in dire straits.

Would never have met this gentleman if we would not have been stranded in this place.

Cheers,

PS - I know preaching the above words is very easy, I can understand the pain which goes through the thought process.

Giving up on my sugar coated dream.

Ever since I had Toyota Innova as a cab, I had dreamt of owning one, below are few of the reasons,
- Reliability
- Passenger comfort.
- Driver comfort.
- Good option for long multiday highway runs.
- Bullet proof engine.

There was no other vehicle which came close to Innova. I was driven in Mahindra vehicles in Sikkim, Uttarakhand and Himachal, but it did not come close Innova, I could never dream of driving a Mahindra over an Innova.

I was checking seriously for an Innova for almost an year. Finally I got a chance to own one used at a hefty price tag though. Innova never comes cheap. This one is from a family relative!

I had made up my mind on buying and about to transfer the advance amount but then a strange turn around happened. I spoke with my friend who asked me few questions on my decision to buy an expensive used car.

- I had not driven along highways for almost an year.
- I did not do  major driving recently.
- I was finding it difficult to maintain my current car without much driving.
- I was not ready for additional responsibility.
- I was not ready to part with my Tata car.

 Regularly work, gymming and trekking had kept me so so busy that, this spending was not at all justified.

So, I had to give up on my sugar coated dream of owning and driving a Toyota Innova. It simply did not make sense, to put money on something which would depreciate, which I had no use regularly.

Owning and parking it would indirectly turn me into a laughing stock. Yeah, its still my life, but this one was truly not necessary.

I wonder what I would have done, if I had ended up being jobless in the new year, is there a slowdown in near future?

I'm glad I have saved some lakhs and I am now having a happy and peaceful mind & head.

Thanks for my friend!

Cheers,

PS - Losing hard earned money, years of salary is definitely a big effort.

When actions speak louder than words - TTTT 29

Its amazing how one real life incident throws up so many ideas to write, shows how many life skills which we are missing, how many countless hours we are spending ridiculing others, speaking about others instead of honing our own skills.

My previous posts have highlighted about our situation when we were stranded on the highway yesterday with no help. Our vehicle refused to start owing to a drained battery. Now that we managed to source a battery and jumper cable, somebody had to do this piece of work. This might be a simple task for someone who knows basics well, but for a bystander it definitely is rocket science.

Luckily we in our group, we had one mechanical engineer, a proper mechanical engineer, a guy with hands-on training/experience with mechanical/automotive systems. A guy who had fitted AC units to buses, a guy who had crash tested buses. And believe me it showed.

While most people in current world, speak loads and do nothing, he directly jumped and connected the battery terminals of the tractor battery to our vehicle battery and after 5 minutes of idling we could start up our vehicle. (Spare the driver who not sure was aware or not)

It only shows actions speak louder than words. We were so privileged to have this person on board.

In my current organization as well as, I get poor pathetic feedback from people for the code I write. These are the people who do not write a single line of production code and still point fingers at me for writing bad production code! Such is irony!

(I do not react, but I only blog, yes my appraisal goes for a toss, but at-least I get to save my energy and wisdom for some other day! )

Cheers,

PS - Great talkers are never great doers, only people with hands-on experience come to the rescue. This has motivated me to speak less these days, because, there is no point trumpeting without basics (knowledge). I need to speak when I am pretty sure about the subject.

PPS - And yes, I am still bad at basics!

When many of the vehicles on the highway were ready to help. TTTT 28

I could have written about this post earlier too, but my goal to reach 100 posts for the year 2016 is making me to write newer shorter posts.

Today morning after being stranded on the highway, we planned to stop on going vehicles asking for help. I tried to stop few vehicles on the road around 6 30 am. Believe me, most yellow board/commercial vehicles stopped and were ready to help, but owing to non availability of jumper cable they could do nothing.

The reason why I am writing about this is, its only once in a while, I have encountered so many vehicles ready to stop. In general, I myself do not stop owing to the fear of getting robbed,but over here, even vehicles with single owner/driver stopped and asked what has gone wrong.

One such good day it was!

Cheers,

When being stranded on highway taught us a lesson - TTTT 27

Traveling teaches us lots of life lessons. Being stranded or unexpected situations while on travel teaches us even more. But the helping hand who bails us out also teaches us a bit more too.

It was my second time this year, I was stranded on the highway with no help or option. When help came it was a local gentleman who came with a tractor and jumper cable. He himself brought the cable which was a great deal in itself.

We were 12 fully grown up guys we could not manage to start the vehicle by pushing, could not get help from the highway anywhere. The guy who came with the tractor had lost one of his leg in an accident. He was so brave that he drove a tractor despite his condition and on top of that, came to help us.

Sometimes, I feel pity myself for the way, I behave with people, over here, this person early morning, despite his condition came to help us, to bail us out.

What more a better life lesson, I could learn other than being humble to others. I agree, we need to be better equipped while being on highway, but believe me, being humble tops the list.

We do belittle people for being fat, for being overweight, looking ugly, but yes, when the time comes, being fat, being ugly and other characteristics take a back seat. what matters most is humility and the ability to get things done and I am sure none of the characteristics we consider or make fun of are even close to getting things done.

I hope this incident lingers in my mind again and again, so that I can help do whatever I can to others, I will always regret not being a doctor or a soldier, but I will try to help!

Cheers,

When fellow travelers were Ravichandran fans - TTTT 26

Its been a year since I had written about a radio program on big 92.7 FM. It was Straight hits with V Ravichandran. The show no longer is aired. It used to have repeated songs from movies of Ravichandran but we were so adjusted to the songs, to the voice of the host V Ravichandran that Silkboard traffic was never an issue because we felt it was over shadowed by this radio program.

Ever since this program is off air lots of things have changed, our company no longer sponsors an AC transport / Innova, so our cab got split plus few members of our organization left, couple of others were laid off. So with no options left, we just manage to crib while passing through silkboard.

The reason why I am writing this is because, yesterday, we had a bunch of folks on board our vehicle who were fans of Ravichandran including the driver.  They were asking for Ravichandran songs to be played repeatedly. Almost many songs from his movies were being played yesterday, which reminded me of the golden period of 80's and of course golden period of our company where in we had AC transport, good funding.

But yes things change, people grow older, people move apart, organizations split up, fall apart, all that remains is memories,

Cheers,

PS - I think some of the best movies/music used to come out prior to this decade or two! I agree there were only love stories, no complicated plots, but with advancement of technology, things no longer are simpler, so are movies and their plots, so are lyrics and music!

When I was stranded on a highway, in a leopard / bear territory - TTTT 25

I could have written this as a part of the previous post, but surely its an interesting encounter to write about it in a new post.

Be it a myth or be it truth, this one surely counts as one spooky episode.

I was stranded on a highway at 2.30 in the morning and by the time we got to move from that place it was 8 30 am. Meanwhile, at around 7 30 am the only small shop on the highway opened. The village was  a kilometer from the main road and this was the only shop which was around.

We had spent the entire night roaming around the main road, sleeping inside the van and then sitting in front of campfire waiting for help to arrive.

So when the shop opened, they asked us how did we manage to spend time in the night, we told them about campfire etc etc, they gave us a big surprise.

They told the area was a bear territory, also recently a leopard had given birth and was roaming around in this place, surely, this gave goosebumps, but considering we had campfire we thought we were lucky enough.

But rest of the time, when I was roaming around the highway along the night before we setup the campfire, we were just plain lucky not to encounter any animals!

Cheers,

When I was stranded on a highway - TTTT 24

There are many such tales, about which I can write, but I tend to skip them owing to laziness, lesser time. But this one happened today morning at 2 am and I am still fresh enough to write this.

I had traveled to Gokarna over the weekend to take part in the beach trek. Before we reached Gokarna our vehicle (Tempo traveller) tyre just burst out, leaving us with one tyre to spare only.

When the we saw the spare tyre which we had, I was doubtful, if something went wrong, we would be stranded on the highway and believe me it happened. The driver was careless and overconfident enough not go have got the tyre fixed over the weekend!

Today morning at 2:30 am, we were 3 hours from Bangalore and somewhere near Nittur our vehicle tyre just got flat again.

In the middle of the road at 2:30 am in the morning, we had no option but to park the vehicle to the side. The driver took out the wheel looking out for a puncture shop at 2 am in the morning.

All the while, we were waiting for him to come back, we had managed to setup a campfire somewhere next to our vehicle and few of us managed to sleep of just to pass time.

The driver eventually came back around 6 30 am with a used 15 inch wheel instead of the usual 16 inch wheel. The old wheel was just unusable.

Meanwhile, due to usage of parking lights plus few other bulbs (to warn on coming traffic of our parked vehicle) the vehicle battery completely went dry. We tried to push the vehicle and get it running but it just refused to start.

We tried to stop few oncoming vehicles and ask them for jumper cable, but no one on the highway had a big jumper cable, finally, we got hold of a number of a gentleman, who would bring on his tractor and bring a jumper cable to start our TT.

We got our vehicle up and running by around 8 30 am, all in all we were stranded on the highway for a good 6 hours from 2 30 am to 8 30 am in the morning.

Had to skip office but never mind, one more experience!

Is that so

Its common for me to read few articles mentioning people who have accumulated wealth by unethical means. In-fact, there were many such articles in the past few weeks.

I was wondering, if the accumulation of wealth by unethical/illegal means, then how do we define people who make money by social engineering or social networking.

Assume, I wish to buy a travel bag, and I end up searching an online seller for some of the models available. Once I am done with my searching, I decide not to buy (or may be buy).

But one thing I have noticed is, the advertisements of this bag and bag seller appearing on every other website which I browse in future. This can be related to other items you shop online too.

So all in all, the owner of the website who is giving advertisement space is making money. There are millions of websites and each website which portrays this advertisement gets paid.

But for me the end user, its helpful or not, I will not be judgemental, but making money by force feeding advertisements, where in you follow up every user's every online footprint to market and make sure he buys into your crap, hmmm, is this any less compared to the people who make money illegally?

Selling your online email and mobile number to a marketing campaigner for money, (without knowledge of the individual) is this not making money unethically? I agree there exists some terms and conditions where this shall be covered.

Each user click counts and every where online advertisement campaigns have cropped up and there is  new division of engineering called Data Mining, deep neural network, Internet of things, Artificial Intelligence, Machine learning etc etc.

To conclude, I just want to analyze if doing a business is a form of cheating? Can one individual never grow rich without fooling others or looting others?

Cheers,

PS - If a person follows us everywhere with or without some intention, we end up making a complaint, same way, can't we complain to someone about these force fed marketing campaigns, I agree, we can block advertisements, but aren't there more stringent options to take people to task, so that this whole ecosystem spawning social engineering/machine learning/artificial intelligence, junk selling is put to a side track!

Happy birthday champion

December 7 happens to be the birthday of a very special person. I forgot to write a post on that day, I have no excuses.

Some people are meant to stand out from others, in terms of what they have achieved, hence the word champion, I guess one life is way too small to be thankful for the good work what they have done.

The more I type the more, I end up with teary eyes, happy birthday

Cheers,

PS - I sometimes cannot come to terms with the larger than life contribution made by my parents. 

Year ending, catching up on missing posts.

As the year 2016 comes to an end, I try to catch up with missing posts on my blog. This year has been a mixed bag of things. I have read, read something, I have traveled to few places, but over all things have not been at their best.

- I seriously wish I was a bit younger so that I could have taken more time off to travel.
- I wish my parents were a bit more younger that they would not complain of me not getting married.
- I wish my workplace had offered more stability instead of cost cutting measures and decision round the year. (Sad to see so many people left during the year).
- I wish I had traveled a lot more during the year.
- I haven;t been able to read much during the last few months, owing to my office stress, bad work!
- I have been consistent in the gym not skipped more than 2-3 days/month in the last 4 months!
- December 21 will mark my 3 years in this gym, have seen ups and downs did 4 Himalayan treks plus loads of Western ghat treks all owing to my gym teacher, parents support and God's grace.

Nevertheless, I am happy god has kept me in good health, I did a bit of travel during the year. Took some time out to travel to the Himalayas, went to Punjab too!. I did some treks locally in the western ghats. Now year end planning to travel some more, hopefully.

I wish to hit the coastal areas by road, and probably Goa too if God wishes!

I wish to complete 100 posts for the year too, so instead of whining, complaining, let me write.

Cheers,