Mithun Chakraborty ka hotel

On the top of the hill, a brisk two minute walk from the Willow Hill, stands what Outlook Traveller has termed as the biggest hotel in Ooty - the Howard Johnson Monarch hotel. The view from it's grounds are great. As we walked into the hotel, the central heating provided welcome respite from the biting December cold. At the reception counter a prospective customer was receiving the news that no rooms were available. Not one to give up easily, the clearly purebreed bhodrolok wanted to know about the availability of Mithun babu. Monarch had a New Year's eve program for Rs 2000/- per couple. However a quick look at the preparations underway provided a picture of things to come - unappetising at best. Overall, it looked a good place to stay in and definitely worth an enquiry next time we go to Ooty. 

God give us strength

10:30PM: Most of my colleagues in the US were out for Christmas and New Year and consequently my teleconference wound up at 10:30PM, a good 1.5 hours ahead of schedule. I was reflecting on this sudden piece of good luck and preparing for a quick drive home as the first calls started coming in.
...Where are you...how are things there...take care of yourself...is tata institute nearby?...
Quick trip to Google News revealed that there has been a shootout in the IISc at 7:30PM in the evening on the attendees of an international conference. A Professor Puri has been killed and Profs Vijay Chandru and Venkatesh, amongst others, were being operated upon.
A quick call to a colleague, who's an IISc alumnus, revealed that Prof Chandru is a highly respected faculty in the Computer Science and Automation department. This
Later at home Star News showed that Prof Puri had gone to attend an international conference on Operations research. Googling again revealed the conference website <http://www.mgmt.iisc.ernet.in/~orsibc/> and schedule <http://www.mgmt.iisc.ernet.in/~orsibc/icoraid-schedule.pdf>. After a look at the schedule for today - 28th Dec, it seems the Prof's were going for their dinner after the invited talks by Dr's Sarin, Sohoni and Rao would have ended.
Star News also mentioned that Prof Puri was a retired faculty of the Mathematics department at IIT Delhi.
As questions float on why would a group of academics attending an OR conference be targeted, the fact remains that we need to strengthen ourselves against terror and never, never compromise by swapping prisoners or negotiate with terror groups.
Star News says that the relatives of Prof Puri are coming to Bangalore early in the morning. I pray that they find the strength to cope with this crisis. As also the others fighting for their lives in the hospital.

Andu

Landed in Bangalore last night. We were at Hastings' wedding reception when he appeared --- the same self, capped by the same Adidas. It was a real pleasure seeing him after so many months, years. Today, Rupam and I met up with him at Maharaja. Rupam had Habul in tow. It was Layout revisited! The same prodigal Andu with touches of the huge city he left - -- left on him. One could see the raw pleasure he was experiencing of being back in the city where he started off and back with old friends. And in characteristic Andu fashion we were regaled with tales of the rich and famous and of things rare and unimaginable.

Yes it could happen to you too - malware comes visiting

Saturday morning started on a lazy note with promise of a deliciously indolent day ahead. Late morning found me at the home computer browsing for coffee recipes. I was thirsting for a mocha and was feeling too lazy to venture outdoors. So the thought of being able to brew delectable coffees in house occured to me. Which brings me to the subject at hand --- the hazards of browsing.
I had little expectation of being struck by virus or other malware as my browsing habits are very, very kosher. However, I was left rubbing my eyes in disbelief as my screed went BSOD blue with a message about Trojan smitfraud.c. A bunch of icons appeared on screen that would be indiscreet to describe. It took awhile to realize that malware has struck.Thankfully, I had another machine that I used to Google on this and found that I had realy been done in. I was planning on buying a commercial anti virus package when I decided to check up on free stuff. Actually, there's a lot.
I also came to know that there was a site called GeeksToGo that offers gratis help to people on their PC travails. Well I finally found my way to Eston Bond's site that gave me all the necessary steps to rid myself of the dubious smitfraud. In the process I found about a set of tools that are now the proud protectors of my PC --- AVG Antivirus, ZoneAlarm personal firewall, Ad Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy form a formidable guard.
All's well that ends well and now the home PC is back at the service of my family. Only, my search for mocha recipes got delayed by a day.



http://www.hyalineskies.com/archives/00000346.html

Connected. Even here!

A lazy vacation with the solitary challenge of avoiding tons of food was getting difficult to get through. Diversions were difficult with no access to the internet. That was when I decided to try getting online using the cellphone.
First I set up the phone as an infrared modem. Then the machine had to be configured to use this modem. This turned out to be tricky and needed a visit to the BIOS. Finally all of it fell into place and I couId go online. The supporting connectivity stack was very interesting - machine to phone as a modem on infrared; phone to internet on GPRS. Some quirks do remain as it doesn't always connect after hibernates. However it surely beats strategizing how to avoid the next plate of hot pakodas.

And, did l mention the speed - 115.2 Kbps !

Puja in Bangalore

Bangalore turned out to have good pujas after all. After having spent saptami and ashtami at office, I was looking forward to Navami. And it wasn't a disappointment at all!

Mom, Dad and I started out at 2:30 after a delicious lunch and quick nap. First stop, Jayamahal. It was nicely done up, and at that hour not too crowded. Crowds were queueing up for khichuri lunch. We didn't spend too long there.

Next stop, Bengalee Association which had put up the Puja in the field opposite Ajanta Cinema. This was absolutely huuuuuuge. We got a bite of yummy khichuri.

Moving on to Command Hospital, we saw a very elegant puja and preparations for a grand evening function.

Cambridge Layout had a regular grand puja. The stalls weren't much though.

At this point, I called Subhash and found that they were at Rajbari. They were headed to the same puja as we were - Brookfields on Whitefield Road.

This was at the new Kalyana Mantapa opposite HLL. This was really swank though totally empty. Kaushik and parents. Subhash, Subhra & tiny Sourabh. JCda, Boudi & Tikla. And of course Patli joined our entourage from here.

We then moved to a puja in Whitefield Village - a place called Inner Circle. This was unusual as they were playing Kannada songs on a Bengali festival!

We then sped away to J P Nagar's South Bangalore Puja. Here we met Boulder Debashis and entourage and also watched arati. Anirban & Sangha also joined us here.

From here we went to Airforce puja near Mekhri Circle. This was pretty loud as a musical evening of questionable quality was in full flow.

From here I parted company from the rest of the group. My parents and Kaushik's parents came with me. We went to the Koramangala puja, which was done in the Kalyana Mantapa this year. It was really imposing and we met Arindam there.

Then we dropped Kaushik's parents at Rajbari and started back for home. On the way we stopped at the Airforce Puja on Wind Tunnel road. We met Habul (Uttam Sarkar) who was there participating in the cultural nite. This was a small puja but nice.

In all, over a period of 9 hours we saw 10 pujas and were back hoem by 11:30 at night. Not bad at all!

Blogging over Airtel...

Isn't as bad as I had feared. The proxy server does clam up once in a while. However nothing beats blogging from your cell after dinner on the wrong side of midnight - from Airport Road!
What I abhor is, how people have sold their soul to the cell. Rarely do l get an uninterrupted talk, focused meeting or spicy gossip. From shrill polyphony to subtle cacophony, the cell has lent new meaning to omnipresence here. Lately I have started an attempt to unshackle myself. I ignore any vibes I get when I am in the midst of some work. This has caused a reputatation in my minuscule world that I have gone incommunicado. As a result, I witness a sharp drop in the number of incoming call density. Not bad at all! Next, I thought whether I need a cell at all... Maybe not...
I have noticed that whenever I am with friends, invariably someone calls up one of the no-shows, as if the attendees dont count. And then yak yak... This repeats - only the actors change.