SITM Lavale Campus

Khadakwasla Dam

Kundan's 3rd birthday

View from Chaturshringi Mandir

Chokhe Dhani (Pune)

This was a long weekend we had leave on Saturday, Sunday and on Monday(for Independence Day). Well the question to do something in this was in the air at home. While talking to one of my colleague i got to know about Chokhe Dhani (Rajasthani theme based resort). Did some enquiry about it and decided that this is the place for this weekend.

Now it has been a year in India and i have not been able to gather enough courage to take my car out it in crazy traffic. Chokhe Dhani is about 23 Km from the place we currently live. Lately i have done some practice in the car to drive it around the neighborhood and so on. This gave me some level of confidence that i will be able to manage manual transmission driving for this distance. (Though i have about 5 years of driving experience in US and have driven almost 50k miles, but you need guts to drive in India)

We left home at around 3:30 as the Chokhe Dhani timing is from 5 PM -11 PM. I had the printout from google for the directions, but those directions are not of much use. You have to do the traditional approach (ask people). Well one good thing was that we had been to Aga Khan Palace on bike and Chokhe Dhani is on the same route although a bit far ahead.

Near Bopodi bridge, i encountered my first driving problem. There were 6-8 buffaloes standing on the mid of the road and they were not ready to buzz. To make matters worse there were autos and bikes coming who will somehow push the buffaloes more close to my car. Anyhow with honking and slowly moving i overcame this problem. I am sure i will remember this moment for the rest of my life as this was the first instance of this kind of problem.

So we finally reached the place. It is almost 2 km away from the main road. There are no visible sign (or atl east we missed to see one). We found it by asking people and taking a u turn. Thankfully there was no shortage of parking which was a blessing as i am not yet good at parking in a crowded place.

The entry fee is Rs 450 per adult and Rs 300 for children between (3 and 12). Upon entering we were welcomed with tilak. Then there was a drink stand where we got jaljeera and sharbat. Very near to that was a big bell which was supposed to be hit with a very heavy hammer. We tried our hand on it. Then there came the snack stand, where they were serving kandi bhaji, kadi bati etc. Hungry as we were we had several doses of them. Then we had a cup of tea.

After this we started exploring the entertainments provided by the place. There were camel ride (but it had a big queue), horse cart ride, bullock cart ride, train ride etc. Further there were performers doing puppet show (kathputli naach), acrobat doing tricks on a thin rope and Rajasthani folk dance and song shows. But the thing which left a mark on me was the magic show.

Magic Show

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The show was being performed by a young person. He did several tricks. In one trick he took the ring from my wife and then hid it in a cloth and asked everyone to touch it and make sure that they can feel it. One lady was asked to hold the ring with the cloth and then with the 3 taps of his magic stick he made the ring disappear. Finally ring was found hidden in a tomato.

But the best piece was the last trick. He asked people to make fist and put one on top of other persons hand, so that the top of two hands meet and asked everyone to choose among several flowers (rose, jasmine etc). And with few magic spells, he asked us to smell the hand. And truly there were fragrance coming out of our hand. I am sure that he didn't touch our hand any how. To make sure that it was not a collective hypnotism, i smelled my hand again after leaving him and fragrance was there.

Dinner

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They serve food in traditional Rajasthani style, with a wooden small table to keep your plate etc, while you sit on the floor. Dinner starts at 8 PM. But if you want to eat in traditional way then you may have to wait for 10-30 minutes depending on the rush. For people who can't wait that long there is a buffet system also arranged there. We decided to go for the traditional way. After about 15 minutes our turn came in. It was worth the wait. The walls of the eating hall were nicely decorated with the traditional drawings. People who served food were wearing traditional dresses. Whenever we asked what it is this item? The answer always ended in "Sa". For example "Bati Sa", "Choorma Sa". This is a vegeterian menu. We liked the "Palak Panner" very much. Almost 15 different kind of dishes if you include pickle and papad too.

Post dinner while my wife and mother were busy in getting heena on thier hand, me and my son roamed around to see what else was there. There is an aritificial cave. We decided to go through it. Some portion of the cave was dark enough to terrify you. For a moment i felt that something moved and was scared. But anyways it was fun.

Finally we had our final dose of jaljeera and decided to leave, but not before i tried my hand on the heavy hammer bell.

An year in India

Last august we were busy in packing our bags. Busy on craigslist to find buyers for the furniture etc. I remember even on the last evening we had sold few smaller items. It can happen only in US.

So now it is almost a year and it is apt to write something about the experience so far.

Good things first.

It was a joyous occasion to be present with the family in my brother's marriage. The young couple seems to be enjoying the new chapter in their life. May god bless them.

Further we went to our native village for my son's Mundan (first hair cutting ceremony). It was after 8 years for me and first time for the wife and kid. Things have changed very much there. Now we have solar lamps in our village. The roads have improved a lot. The road from Mujaffarpur to Darbhanga can be compared to expressways. (Maybe i am exaggerating here a little bit)

Workwise i like the challenge. Getting lots of opportunity to learn new things ex. we have worked on 2 agile projects. Now there is focus to learn new UI technologies which i didn't have to so far. Further learnt a couple of things about estimating software projects. Had to learn it in a hard way though. More on this in upcoming post.

Pune (the city where we are currently living) has very nice weather. It was not too hot nor too cold. Although it does rain a lot here. I don't mind that. It is pleasant to drive my motorcycle(maybe a bit dangerous too) when rain is hitting on my helmet.

Not so good things

Driving a car is pain. We have got a manual transmission car. First there is a learning involved in how to switch gears. And then you have to be careful about who is coming from which direction. So far i haven't dared to take my car to a movie theater and find a parking place. Someday i will gain that courage.

Housing expenses are huge. Rents and cost of houses have sky rocketed. I don't have a big salary but kind of earn enough as per the market. Even then i am facing this pinch. I wonder how can common government salaried person afford this.

Late evening meetings. Since being an offshore development organization we need to hold meetings with our US counterparts. And most often they start at 7:30 in the evening. But i guess that is just part of the job.

Pt Bipin Mishra from Darbhanga playing shankh

Bhimashankar Trip (07-MAY-2011)

Book Reading : The Mythical Man Month

This is a book on Software Engineering by Fred Brooks. It was first published in 1975. I have just started to read it. I am finding very witty remarks by the author. Some of them are copied here.

An omlette, promised in two minutes, may appear to be progressing nicely. But when it has not set in two minutes, the customer has two choices - wait or eat it raw. Software customers have had the same choices.

Adding manpower to a late software project, makes it later.

Kundan's first stage performance

Congratulations to All Indians

Sorry State of Indian Judiciary

These days we are seeing a season of scams in our country. CAG, 2G, Adarsh, Onion etc are just to name a few. First few days are filled with blame games and then some inquiry starts and if we are lucky someone like Raja is arrested. And it is just the beginning of a process which is so long that we will die without seeing any resolution of it.

I am talking about the judicial system of India. It is so time consuming and complex that common man rightfully wants to stay away from it. "Jane do court kachahari ke chakkar main kaun fasta hai". This is one of the reason someone will pay bribe, instead of taking it to police and court.

We continuously hear stories like these

• A case of petty theft is yet to be heard. Person is in jail for more than 2 decades
• Some film-star killed sleeping poor laborers on footpath when he was drunk driving and court is yet to deliver judgement on it.
• A divorce case took more than 4 decades
• A rich guy shoots a model and it takes so many years to punish him
• Bofors case is still pending
• And so on..

These are only some of the media sensationalized stories. There are many many more in which victims are not so influential to bring out media outcry on it. Thus their cases keep on pending from one hearing to another (which maybe an year after the last one).

So what is the root cause of it? It is simply lack of courts and judges and lack of proper information system. We need to do following

1. Increase the number of courts. Make lower courts more powerful to take on smaller issues at a good speed and with more efficiency.
2. Hire more judges and competent lawyers.
3. Get away from paper based system. Have a proper digital information system, so that all the required information for a case is present to lawyers and judges whenever they want them.

All of this require a strong political motivation. As we can see that many of our politicians are already involved in one or more scams, so they have less incentive to bring any changes in judiciary. A Supreme court judge recently lamented that "Less than 1% is budgeted for Judicial System". So we as citizens need to demand from lawmakers to take corrective action in this slow functioning judiciary system.

Well all is not that gloomy. I am very happy at some of the recent developments. Right to Information Act is kind of a revolution. This is putting pressure on government officials to get their act together and making them understand that they are at their post to serve the common man not the other way around. Recently read the news that Delhi Police is putting all the FIRs online. These all are step in right direction. But a lot more need to be done and they should be done soon. Because we all know that "Justice delayed is Justice Denied".

Terrace house and a nest

"Look what is here" - shouted the husband, to his wife who was cooking in the kitchen. He was pointing at a nest in the ventillation area in the terrace of their apartment.

Mr. Bimal Jha and his wife Kavya Jha has been living in this house for past 35 years. This was their dream house, bought after their return from overseas. It was not been an easy decision to come back. But once they were back, they had taken the new life with an embrace and started with the living activities. One of the top priorities was to find a place of their own. A home where they were going to live for the rest of their lives. And this was the house they have chosen.

In this house they have seen the ups and downs of life. They had 2 children. Son Kaushal is now in States. He is married and working in a well respected firm. Daughter Baruni is in Australia with her husband. Both the children are urging them to stay with them, especially since Bimal retired last year. They will argue "What are they doing there alone? They should come here and play with the grand kids. Who will take care of them, if something happens?" As much merit is in their arguments, but Bimal and Kavya don't want to settle in a foreign land again. Bimal likes to hang around with the friends who are also retired. Kavya is content with the stores and shops which she has known for all these years. Further they plan to revisit all the places in India.

So one fine day after feeling little bored after the morning tea and newspaper Bimal decided to do a little cleaning of the house. He got the broom, ladder and the stool. Kavya had already asked him to be careful and not climb the ladder too high unless he wants to break his bones in this age. When he was in the terrace, he saw some leaves in the ventillation area. And then he found this. A nest. To this nest he had shouted to his wife. She didn't hear him first time. So he shouted again in a little louder voice. Kavya came out with a spatula in her hand. She said - "Why are you so excited? And what are you doing so up there? God he doesn't listen to me." He said - "Come see here. It is a nest." "Nest!! What kind of nest?" She said. "Of course it's a bird's nest. What else did you think will be up here." - he retorted back. "And look there are three little eggs too".

It was a pigeon's nest. High rise buildings have suited both humans and pigeons equally. Finding of new members in the apartment brought excitement in their life. Very now and then Kavya will go there and check if everything is alright. Mother bird usually was found there, protecting her loved eggs. Father bird will go out and get food. They observed all this with very happy and content eyes. Bimal and Kavya in all silliness also named the eggs. Bholu, Molu, Polu. They used to put some roti, rice etc on the floor, so that father bird will not have to fly very far away and can spend some quality time with the mother bird and the eggs.

One morning when they woke up, they heard some more noises coming from the nest. Bimal got his high stool and looked at it. To his amazement he saw that instead of the eggs, now there were small birds. He at once ran away to Kavya and told her the good news. Both were very happy. "We have to celebrate this" - Bimal said. "Go get some sweets. We will offer it to deities for the well being of the kids" - Kavya said. So did Bimal. It was very joyous. For next few days if they had to visit some friends for dinner or lunch, all their attention was back at home. As soon as they return from home they will check on the birds.

All was going well, when suddenly Bimal fell seriously ill. He has developed some kind of infection in lungs and doctors has advised him to do complete bed rest. His son came back and said - " I don't want to hear another argument. You must have to come to US. Here the atmosphere is so polluted. You will be treated by best doctors over there." This incident terrified Kavya too. She also felt that at least for a while they should go there. When Bimal will get well they will come back again. In couple of days their tickets were arranged. Bimal will come sneakily and check on the birds. He was happy that the little birds were growing up. They had small wings now and were chirping very happily.

Their flight was on next Friday and it would reach US on Sunday. They felt both sad and excited. Sad to leave the place and their little birdies, but excited at the prospect of seeing grand kid. Next few days just flew by in preparing and making sure that everything is taken care of while they are away. On Friday when they were putting the bags in rental car, they looked at the terrace and found that little birds were also flying near the nest. This sight gave them the relief that now Bholu, Molu, Polu are ready to face the world and don't need their help. With this contentment they went away.

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