Me and efi

EFI - Electronics for Imaging.

Its been almost 23 month since I joined EFI... I stand now on the verge of entering into IIMB for my PGDM. I think its the time for me to look back at the stay at efi and concentrate on my experiences here.

Right after my grad exams in 2005 I took a break, and it was almost a month. I was feeling frustrated sitting at home. My on-campus recruit -Huawie had given me a joining date in September. I could not just wait that long. I got a call from efi for an interview on June 25 ^th... It was a Saturday and the venue was the old office of efi (above globus, Kormangala).
My interview was taken by Dyllon and then a round with Krishna... It was rather a simple interview... and was confident of getting in.. so was it to be.... I landed inEFI, to accept the offer letter and join the troupe of new recruit freshers. I joined on the 27 ^th of June 2005 in EFI as Associate Software Enggr (I am still that.... he he [:D]).
It was Poonam Bajaj who handed over a bag... with efi stitched on it and some other stationery material... We were guided into the conference hall that was then turned into a training hall for us. This was group of 13 freshers... We went through two sessions of training... the first week was on domain related stuff... a lot ofTLs coming in and giving us fundas... clearing our fundas...[I truly don't know how much of it has remained in my head... but used to note down all those points... [;)]] I only recallRajneesh and Venkat giving us fundas.. cant recall anything greater than that now. It was in these training sessions that I got my 2 best pals.... Vikas Shayana (Progressively sleeping!!!) and Vinay Setty. After this session of Domain knowledge, we went through a session of training in C++. Thanks to N S Kumar, I got to learn C++ with its "philosophy".
After the technical coaching we had a week's time to wander about, we made a trip to Nandi Hills, and got back, a freshers party at Three-Quarter Chinese. We then were called for a "one-one" session with Poonam to take note of our interests and try allotting us into the domain that we liked the most. It was also a feedback session on the training program. After about a couple of days during which we watched a movie inPVR, we got assigned to our teams.
I was inducted to Rajneesh's team that was working on CWS wx then... due to some reason this project got scrapped. It was my first interaction with a team at efi. Arthi K, was set as my mentor by Rajneesh. The initial task that Rajneesh assigned to me was learning wxWidgets. I used to browse through the help pages, look at the sample and then start coding the samples in my own way. this continued on for about 10 days after which I was given my fist assignment byRajneesh , It was to design a message box that would take in strings of any length and then wrap the string to some set number of alphabets and then display it. It was my first assignment and thanks to the initial "Josh" I finished this very quickly.Rajneesh then was on testing this application and suggesting modifications...It was all exciting one to learn this new library... very often I would stumble across something think.. "It must be hard to do" and then look at the code... debug get the thought process right and attempt it...this helped me learn a lot quicker... just to add to it.. I would try it out... and when it works, there was nothing more exciting than it.
After a couple of weeks of this assignment, Rajneesh took me to a meeting, it was here that I learnt my first major lesson, We had discussion on some stuff that was being planned and I was to do something (cant recall what) in it. After the meeting I went toRajneesh personally and suggested something, he immediately gave me an important lesson - "Man, if u want to tell out something, do it when you are asked for and people are listening. Don't expect people to speak for you, you will have to speak for yourself." These words had a great impact on me.
It was around this time that Arthi left the company and I was the only person working directly under Rajneesh for the CWS wx version. The work load was not all that great and it was just some samples that I was working on. Then Rajneesh got involved into HotFolders. I was still on bench nothing serious that I was doing. Around a week into the project, Rajneesh gave my first assignment, to develop a testing application for Filter that would be used in the Hot Folders Application. I was supposed to develop only theUI part and not worry about the implementation. This was the first application that I has to make decisions on how and what controls I would be using.... This was a very nice and thought provoking experience.
While professionally this phase was a learning one for me... there was not much of productivity that was put up for efi. I began understanding and appreciating what Rajeesh was doing... I began to appreciate the way he handled things.. not much of tension, very frank in his speech, helping if he can else just saying it our frankly... accepting he doesn't know when he doesn't now, and most importantly not letting himself down under any situation - in short I got to see a lot of idealizing things in him.. In short he is the coolest TL I have ever had. We got to know each other better and slowly transformed from a TL and a ASE to good friends. The common thing that got us very close was our interest towards book. We both were bibliophiles... and even to this day we keep discussing on various books..
After around a month of such kidding and being paid for all the party that I had, Atul called me in, and put me into a different team. Being without work, I was eagerly waiting for work.... No better time to come ah!!! Ya I got to join theColorWise team, headed by Venkat Reddy.
It was under quite a bad state at that time.... with Venkat trying to get it past the 'ALPHA' milestone and it flopping all the time. Is was around September end that I joined this group. Shiva andRajiv were already in this group from the gang of freshers-05. It is here that I got to meet another peculiar person - Kanhayia. Slowly down the line there was one more person to be added to this list.... Pankaj Bhalla. This trio - Kanhayia, Pankaj and myself, you would find them invariably doing night outs soon... [;)]
I was asked to solve a few defects in one of the common library - Select Profile by Venkat... These were mostly some UI changes. It was fun doing these things... not major work at all... later on this helped me become what Raghu to day calls me - 'A Sizer Expert' [;)] (I am not sure about that though.). Occasionally I used to get some logic related defect, but then it was not a major one, and could be easily handled. I can still recall vividly the first review of code thatVenkat did, the first check-in. Venkat wanted to teach me in a very affectionate way, but may be I was not mature enough to know all that. I was looking stars when he made changes, to the code, then build something, compile something somewhere, and finally get theexe. Venkat was waiting to get me into the release management of Color Profiler. After about 3 weeks into Profiler I began making builds.... and this was followed by an upload to the prerel. Our release was scheduled on Friday and Tuesday. Friday was then the day most of the releases were done, we did not have a RMS like we have today so every one had to use the same available bandwidth to upload the binaries to prerel. Invariable it would take 2 to 3 hours or sometimes even more than that.
Our product is an integrated product, that consists of a few applications that come from US. We used to get these binaries, then integrate it with our local applications that we develop and then copy these binaries after our testing (noQA then, it was just the developer verifying). We would fix the defect so locally that we would just test the fix for its working, not actually going through the complete flow to analyse the side effect... invariably we would find a defect at the last minute... andKanhayia would run back to his desk to fix it.. finally he would make some alterations and fix it (am not sure what exactly would be his fix in such a short time....[;)]) He was used to working under such pressure that he used to say - "it is only under such pressure that my Brain works properly man!!!"
It was a real pressure cooker sort of situation.. Venkat Reddy was under immense pressure... he had the art of getting extra time under any circumstance. I have not seen the similar art in Raghu... well you can't expect everyone to have everything, right? Kanhayia, myself and later on Pankaj all got into the similar situation... all a pressure cooker.. no one was better... occasionally we used to get some half an hour break in our work.. and then the work would get on. My friends used to say - "earlier u would return home at 6:00pm sharp... now even if the world break u stay atefi!!!" Well that was the state our work was in...
Around Feb the project that I was working moved from Venkat to Raghu.... and around a fortnight later i got my first feature development... Thanks to the expert guidance from Kanhayia and Raghu, I could finish this implementation quickly and it was a big confidence boost for me.
May be it was only Raghu who could get the process straight, not many identified there was a flaw in the sytem... slowly the process had to improve... what was more necessary was develping confidence between the two teams... the spec and related documents had to be worked out in a right way... we needed a local QA who could be quick enough in identifying the defects if any first hand... A lot of processes needed to be changed...
What the most striking realization was... there was not a proper structure for the module... This became our starting point. Raghu sat back and got the design diagrams for the project. At this juncture, Pankaj decided to leave our group and move on to another company... that was followed by Janaki Madam, and Sudheer's arrival into the team.... Once the design was ready it was a matter of setting the design right... but the problem was you cant correct it over night... it has to be done in a smooth manner...
In the mean time, Kanhayia decided to quit... we shifted to the new office. The process improved but the father of PrinterProfiler - KK was not there to watch it past all the marks to go to the market. I was the only fortunate one to have seen all the three phases. All through the initial phase of theQA we had Bhaskar, giving us company in all the late night shows.... he he [:D]
After the QA process got added we had to finish off the release of the project a bit early, and then both the QA and engineering got a bit more time to test the binaries.... Slowly the things started falling in place... That is what happens - when a right decision is taken, you make more better decisions and slowly bail yourself out of problem.
From Raghu, I learnt the art of withstanding the storm and taking the boat to the shore... it takes a lot of time and effort to rescue a sinking ship... I learnt a lot of things from him.

Now the Fun part:

There are a couple fun memories associated with my stay at efi....
1. The EFI cricket tournament -
I remember this was the first match of the tournament for our team... I was on a Saturday that we chose to play this match... And we had to make the Friday release.... [:)]...KK had left home early, Bhaskar and I were the only two members in the group who where present.... Bhaskar began his testing at 10:00pm... I decided to have a nap while he tested the product on 3 platforms.... he would inevitably take 4 hours to complete the whole process.. I began my nap on the floor at 11 and he was busy measuring.. at 1 he woke me up asking me to upload the binaries... the process got completed at 2 am and we reached home in the company cab.
Next day we had a match at 7:30am.... I landed in at the right time.. and we were to bat first... I don't know what was in my head but I made a quickfire 36 that helped us win the match.... [:)]

2. The Diwali celebrations at the new office.
I vividly remember this, we were all engrossed in our own work, Raghu got back from his native after a vacation. He called up a meeting of all his team members... and told we have this event here.... we want to get the first price in this. We began doing the planning that day and decided to give an attempt for the first price... The whole team went about doing things with missionary zeal, all of us contributing our bit to the preparations. We made a nigh out till 4 am in the morning, then got home... had a small nap changed our attire and got back.
This event gave me a lot of realization and self reflection thought... thank to the pot painting that I did. i began to question myself!!! The refection of this helped me realise a lot of thing about myself. It was then that I began preparing for CAT....

Now I stand here on the verge of quitting efi, its been one huge learning experience for me.. one who joined as a fresher.. I have been able to manage my day the way I want, that has been the best part of the life here.
I have only made a mention of those people whom I interacted a lot... this is not a detailed story so don't blame me, I have not added many experiences..

Prime numbers the pillars of Mathematics!!!

Well just a profound realization that I had recently, its about how important prime numbers are for Mathematics....

For a moment, it occurred to me that all the natural numbers except one and primes can be represented as prime numbers.... Am sure every one knows this.... its called prime factorization....

Just imagine if there were no prime numbers... there will be no numbers other than unity (1)!!!
Surprising isn't it? Yes but that is true…. It’s really hard to have anything if not for prime numbers and the operation of scaling them. Yes, call it scaling… multiplying one with another to get a composite number.

The analogy that I can draw from this understanding is… We can consider prime numbers to be “Bricks” that occur naturally in nature, we just pile up these naturally occurring bricks to form what we want… These Primes are for sure the pillars on which the whole natural numbers stand and hence our understanding.

These primes have not definite pattern of repetitions, they are scattered across the whole space… occasionally you stumble by them and start using them from then on… They are the pillars that hold the numbers… All the composite numbers are constituents built by just scaling them!!!

Beauty isn’t it…

Azim Premji Chairman and CEO WIPRO Technologies

Azim Premji stands today with numerous laurels and achievements. Premji has been honoured as being the - "Business Man of the year" - 2000, by Business India Magazine. From a beginning that was given to him by his ancestors to being a millionaire, it has been one huge journey for Premji. Born on July 24^th, 1945, Premji has today become an icon for most Indian budding entrepreneurs. Premji was doing his undergraduate program at Stanford University, in 1966 when he was called back to India following the sudden demise of his father. At the age of 21, he was entrusted with the responsibility of handling the family vegetable oil business.
Premji eventually sought—and received—permission to study arts courses by correspondence to complete the requirements for his bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering. The Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee and the Manipal Academy of Higher Education (2000) have both conferred honorary doctorates on him. At the first general body meeting of the company a shareholder had doubted Premji's ability in handling the company and had advised him to hand it over to mature management!! This spurred Premji and made him all the more dertermined to make WIPRO a success story! Success story indeed it has been, under his leadership WIPRO has grown a lot. Starting with the family business of vegetable oil, WIPRO later on diversified to get into various fields. From Vegetable oil it diversified into to bakery fats, ethnic ingredient based toiletries, hair care soaps, baby toiletries, lighting products and hydraulic cylinders. Thereafter Premji made a focused shift from soaps to software. Today WIPRO is a household name as a huge software company.

Under Premji's leadership, WIPRO has grown from a Rs 70 million company in hydrogenated cooking oil to a pioneer in providing integrated business, technology and process solutions on a global delivery platform. Today, WIPRO Technologies is the largest independent R&D service provider in the world. It also ranked among the top 100 companies globally with a turnover exceeding 2.3 billion US Dollars.

Premji started off in WIPRO with the simple vision to build an organization on a foundation of values.

Premji believes that ordinary people can do extraordinary things, the key to achieve the extraordinary is creating highly charged teams. He takes personal interest in building teams and leaders. He devotes significant amount of time as a faculty in WIPRO's leadership development programs. Premji has a fanatical belief in delivering Value to the Customer through world-class quality processes. This belief has driven Wipro’s pioneering efforts on Quality. Wipro was the first Indian Company to embrace Six Sigma, the first Software Services Company in the world to achieve SEI CMM Level 5 and it also became the world’s first organization to achieve PCMM Level 5 (People Capability Maturity Model). Premji equates Quality with Integrity – both being non-negotiable. In 2001, he was voted among the 20 most powerful men in the world by Asiaweek. He was also among the 50 richest people in the world from 2001 to 2003 according to Forbes. In April 2004, he was rated among the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine. His assets include 84% holding in Wipro Technologies (the remaining belonging to the co-founder of Wipro). In January 2006, he was the 10th richest man in the world. He has been awarded the prestigious Padmabhushana award in 2005 from the Govt of India. He is also a member of the Prime Minister’s Committee for Trade and Industry in India. Premji in put up in Bangalore, and has a family comprising of Wife: Yasmeen Premji Sons: Rishad Premji married to Aditi Premji; Tariq Premji Azim Premji Foundation

Azim Premji Foundation says it "Aims at making a tangible impact on identified social issues by working in active partnership with the Government and other related sections of the society". The Foundation was set up with financial resources contributed by Azim Premji. It believes that "Education is the vital element in the development and progress of our nation".

Programmes of the Azim Premji Foundation focus on "creating effective and scalable models that significantly improve the quality of learning in the school and ensure satisfactory ownership by the community in the management of the school". Azim Premji Foundation says it "dedicates itself to the cause of Universalization of Elementary Education in India."

Azim Premji's Eight steps to excellence Here is what Premji has to say about the secret of success

These are changing times. Yet in the middle of all the changes there is one thing that constantly determines success. Some call it leadership. But to my mind, it is the single-minded pursuit of excellence.

Excellence endures and sustains. It goes beyond motivation into the realms of inspiration. Excellence can be as strong a uniting force as solid vision.

Excellence does not happen in a vacuum. It needs a collective obsession as I have experienced the benefits of excellence in my own life. Excellence is a great starting point for any new organisation but also an unending journey. What is excellence? It is about going a little beyond what we expect from ourselves. Part of the need for excellence is imposed on us externally by our customers. Our competition keeps us on our toes, especially when it is global in nature.

But the other driver of excellence is internal. I have found that excellence is not so much a battle you fight with others, but a battle you fight with yourself, by constantly raising the bar and stretching yourself and your team. This is the best and the most satisfying and challenging part about excellence.

How does one create excellence in an organisation?

First, we create an obsession with excellence. We must dream of it not only because it delivers better results but because we truly believe in it and find it intrinsically satisfying to us.

We must think of excellence not only with our mind but also with our heart and soul. Let us look outside, at the global standards of excellence in quality, cost and delivery and let us not rest till we surpass them.

Second, we need to build a collective self-confidence. Organisations and people who pursue excellence are self-confident. This is because excellence requires tremendous faith in one's ability to do more and in a better way. Unless, we believe we can do better, we cannot.

Third, we must understand the difference between perfection for its own sake and excellence. Time is of essence. Globalisation has made the customer only more impatient. This may seem like a paradox: should we aim for excellence or should we aim for speed?

Excellence is about doing the best we can and speed lies in doing it quickly. These two concepts are not opposed to each other; in fact, speed and timeliness are important elements of quality and excellence.

Fourth, we must realise that we cannot be the best in everything we do. We must define what we are or would like to be best at and what someone else can do better.

Excellence is no longer about being the best in India. It is about being the best in the world. We have to define what our own core competencies are and what we can outsource to other leaders. Headaches shared are headaches divided.

Fifth, we must create processes that enable excellence. Today, there are a number of global methods and processes available whether it is Six Sigma, CMM or ISO. Use them because they are based on distilled wisdom collected from the best companies in the world.

Also, we must build a strong foundation of information technology, because in this complex, dynamic world, it is imperative that we use the most modern tools to keep processes updated.

Sixth, we must create a culture of teaming. I have found that while great individuals are important, one cannot have pockets of excellence. Quality gives ample opportunities to build a culture of teaming. Cross-functional teams that are customer facing can cut through an amazing amount of bureaucracy, personal empire building and silos and deliver savings that one would not have imagined possible.

The other advantage of building teams focused on quality is that the teaming culture eventually spreads to the rest of the organisation and teaming becomes a way of life.

Seventh, invest in excellence for the future. Future always seems to be at a distance. But it comes upon you so suddenly that it catches you by surprise, if not shock. What constitutes excellence in the future will be significantly different from what it is today.

In these days of severe market pressures, there is big temptation to sacrifice the future to look good in the present. We must certainly trim our discretionary expenses, but we must ensure that our investments in strategic areas that lead to excellence in the future are protected.

Finally, excellence requires humility. This is especially needed when we feel we have reached the peak of excellence and there is nothing further we can do. We need an open mind to look at things in a different way and allow new inputs to come in.

Otherwise, there is a real danger of becoming complacent or even downright arrogant. I would like to end my talk with a story that illustrates this very well.

A brilliant young professor went to meet a famous Zen master to have a discussion with him on Zen. He found himself in front of a modest house. He rang the doorbell and waited. A while later, he heard shuffling footsteps and the door was opened by the Zen master.

He invited the professor to sit with him on the dining table. The professor was a little disappointed with the shabby appearance of the Zen master. He started quizzing him immediately on comparative philosophies and the Zen master gave some brief answers.

When the professor began to debate with him on those answers, the Zen master stopped speaking and kept smiling at him. Finally, the professor got angry. He said, "I have come from a long distance just to understand the relevance of Zenism. But apparently you have nothing to say. I have not learnt anything from you at all."

At this point, the Zen master asked the professor to have some tea. When the professor held the cup, the Zen master started pouring tea into it. After some time, the tea started spilling and the professor shouted, "Stop! The cup can contain no more."

The Zen Master stopped and then, once again smiling, he said, "A mind, full of itself can receive nothing. How can I speak to you of Zenism until you empty your mind to learn." The professor understood and apologized to the Zen master. He parted from him, the Zen master -- a wiser man.

The author is Chairman & Managing Director, Wipro Limited.

src:http://www.rediff.com/money/2005/jan/17spec.htm

src: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azim_Premji http://www.answers.com/topic/azim-premji http://www.rediff.com/money/2005/jan/17spec.htm http://www.wipro.com/webpages/aboutus/azim.htm http://www.iloveindia.com/indian-heroes/azim-premji.html

Dif-equations and prediction

Well these are my personal view on what role differential equations have got to play.... read on if u think its worth...

As humans we are mostly interested in knowing what will happen to some thing in the future... What will happen to him? what will be the weather in 2 days, or some more thing else... the whole point is simple...
"I want to know what is going to happen..."

So what is it that a person gets to start off on prediction?
He has seen what has happened in the past, he can think what are the dependant and the independent parameters based on this experience.... he continues from here and makes an assumption as to the directly varying or indirectly varying and then comes up with an equation....
Well this was a crude that worked wonderfully with the initial understanding....
but, what the person currently sees is only a small portion of the whole, the smallest part of the system almost negligibly small instance that he considers... so at this particular instant if he has to form an equation it is better he forms a differential eqn, that is a better way to write it down.... so then if he has a differential eqn, and wants to know what happens in the long run, he just has to integrate and find out...

An example:
well now this is how I start my prediction... if the change is always a constant... lets say...
we want to measure some distance.... I see that I have been travelling some 3mt in 2 seconds... for a consistent amount of time.... so now I say this is a constant for every small interval of time say a second... I travel 1.5 mt So now I continue to write the differential eqn...
dx/dt = 1.5

now I integrate to form my equation.... X = 1.5t... I continue this way to form the eqn...


well there is a catch - in writing these dif-eqn... most of these are unsolvable... that's coz we cant predict to the minutest detail.... true rt!!!

Spider Man 3

I just got to see the Spideman-3 this Friday, I come back and have got to say - "Its just not what I expected from the film with the highest budget". I think it was not worth the amount I spent buying tickets at Innovative Multiplex.... Well on the other had I had something to pic from this film... I would rather concentrate on those than on the film and the story line...
The animators have done a good job... The Sandman and the wind related animations are really good... he keeps turning from a sand man into a human and back thatz a nice part...
The part I loved in the film was the fundas... Highly filled with fundas... though not like Matrix.. you can take a lot in case u look at it from different angle.
Here are some of the fundas I could pick up.

1. Every one gets through tough faces in life... and every one needs some help at some instance.. even if he is a super human...
2. The worm of revenge... makes u feel happy when u show ur rival that you are better than him.... but then it kills the naturalness in humans...
3. A man must lean to put his wife before him when it comes to making some decision in life...
4. It gives immense joy when you forgive some one who has hurt u a lot...

Well when it comes to the mistakes in the movie... chk out the link here...
http://geeks.onlygizmos.com/public_html//article.php?story=20070512131915386

The art of learning!!!

Learn from any one...and from everything.
This is a realization I got... may be many have a similar realization when they reflect back upon themselves.... Read on.... may be something might interest you.

Learning to me has been the most stimulating and exciting face in my life and will continue to be that way. There is a lot of knowledge out there, and we have to enlighten ourselves with it to live a more fulfilling and happening life.
I have realised that a lot of my fears have gone away by my habit (that's what it has become) of removing my ignorance... Learning and the knowledge it gives, puts me in a peace with myself. I have learnt to relax because I know now what my fears are exactly, I have learnt to counter them by my learning ability.
It has given me the strength to face defeat, I am in the process of learning so there is nothing that ensures victory all the while. I would like to take note here - "when I loose I don't loose the lesson." Its when I ruminate over my failure that I realise my ignorance in some of the portions. In such a phase, the process of learning makes the victory or defeat devoid of personal intentions and more open. In such a competition, we surrender our-self to the process of learning and not to the person who handles it. We don't take defeat or failure personal, we walk away with the satisfaction that we have realised we have to phase more... expose our-self more. The consequences become inconsequential!!!

In the process of this learning, I have learnt that we are never complete and in a lot of places I have had to learn it with a lot of ego clash (sorry cant help it... I have to improve that's it.). I only know now that we have a lot to learn from a lot of people.... its just our inhibition that prevents us from being more open. There is nothing that I can do without getting over my inhibitions... and all these are internal to me... I have to improve over time, with experience... I am no hurry.

I learn now from nature, from the people who help me, those who guide me, to whom I speak. Its been an appreciation all over when I look back to every single encounter with every single person, and every incident.

I am learning the art of learning is it!!!

Read it makes you humble

I was not in the habit of reading books other than academic ones till I was in college and completed my graduation from NITK. I began my job once I passed out off college, I used to travel by the BMTC bus and as I boarded it in the first stop, so invariably I would have a seat for myself. I wanted to kill time and that's how I began reading books.
Now after almost 2 years of such a commutation to the office, I have just become deeply in love with books. I read a lot of books and in the past 24 months I have read over 20 books, on various topics.
The process of reading books has opened up a new phase in my life. I have began judging more accurately. I have begun creating my own opinions and tastes based on what I read. I have get a regular dose of active material to get me growing in the intellectual dimension as well.
Alex Stevenov in his speech to the fresh employees of Adobe, made a mention of how important it is to read regularly. What we read need not always be related to what we work, it can be more diverse. The more diverse the better, coz we get to know that much more. This study/learning that we do on our own is a great way to sharpen our skill. The diverse knowledge will stand by us in a huge way.. an will give a much bigger gamut for thought.

The biggest realization I have got its this, (may sound philosophical still its the truth) - the more I read, the more I know, the more I realise how little I know.

Hanadka Falls - Simple, elegant, beautiful

Hanadka falls, some of my college juniors had explored this falls and informed me about it. At once I felt eager to see it, I called up a few friends to ask if they would like to join me on the trek. I was informed that this was a very simple trek, and even the falls was not all that dangerous. It was around March and so that would reduce the water in the falls, still it would be a good one -that's what my juniors had told.
Finally only two of us Mahesh and myself decided to go on the trek. Both of stay near Indiranagar and by chance we got into the same us... till the KSRTC bus-stand we were discussing about the job/work and related thoughts.
We reached the bus-stand and then searched for a decent bus to board. We boarded a bus to Dharmasthala, which took got us there at 5:30am. We had our morning breakfast and then caught a bus to Ujire.... From Ujire we had a cab that would take us via Mundage to Kaddor. We reached kadoor before sunrise and, started our trek, we reached the junction where we have board that states... "Welcome to Kudremukh National park". We asked a persona at this junction as to which was the direction of the falls, we followed instructions and reached the fork where a bridge had broken down. We asked the people who were hanging around the bridge the direction for the falls and they directed us to the left turn there. We followed the path and reached the last house on the route. We asked them for directions, and they told continue ahead and you will find a stream... walk through the stream and reach the falls.
When we were contemplating on the suggestion, we were encountered by an old lady whom we asked the same suggestion and she was kind enough to take us along the route to the falls. We reached the falls following the direction after she had left and relaxed. We reclined in the shadow of the falls for around 2 hours, nibbled away thesnacks which we had got along and then decided to try out some photography.
The falls was a simple elegant jump that the water collected upstream would do. Through years of erosion, some of the stones had chipped off and fallen on the ground. This was still an untouched paradise, we could see birds chirping around, carrying our their daily chores. People staying way from the falls and that is why wedon't find much plastic accumulated around there. We could see the kudremukh range if we turned our back to the falls, some clouds that would try scaling them. All this combined making it a paradise. I just hope that peopledon't spoil the natural balance here. Its just too good.
After the break we got back... nothing much to say about the journey back.. except that the jeep was too crowded...

"Chaos"-James Gleick

I want to experiment a bit with this book review and see how it goes so want to write the review of the book chapter wise and then a general description of the book. So here I go...

Chapter 1 - The Butterfly Effect
The butterfly effect name comes from to the map that depicts the infinite complexity, which doesn't run off the page and limits itself within certain boundaries.... the only specialty being that it never repeats itself. Roughly some what like a double spiral in 3D... this graph plot resembles a butterfly with two wings. The chapter begins with Edward Lorenz experimenting and trying to simulate the weather, and though serendipity realizing the non deterministic nature of a lot of phenomenon. Nicely written by the author... generated a lot of interest in me.

Chapter 2 - The revolution
James speaks about the change in perspective that too place - calling it a paradigm shift of paradigm shift. He gives an explanation for this shift using examples from pendulum, the big red eye in Jupiter, playground swings... and the kind. He introduces the great scientist Smale and his contribution to the field of Chaos...

Chapter 3 - Life's up and Down
This chapter shows how Chaos got to take a good place into the areas of science.. how scientist realized the inevitability of having and respecting the chaos in life sciences. The field of chaos begins to gain a stronger following and that is what is explained in this chapter.

Chapter 4 - A Geometry of Nature
This chapter is mostly regarding the development of subject of chaos. The contributions of Mandelbrot, are mainly highlighted in this chapter. This chapter shows the extent to which the fractals are prevalent in this worlds... the way the universe turns out to be nothing but a huge fractal... all fields.. Economics, biology all these stand a testimony to the great realization of fractals.

Chapter 5 - The strange Attractors
This chapter deals with the experiments that were conducted to improve understanding of a few concepts and how they finally landed up being more directive to the field of chaos. This chapter gives a sort of visual understanding of the activities described by chaos.

Chapter 6 - Universality
This chapter like others has a bit of repetition in it... the idea is repeated, I think to grant more emphasis on the fact the this is very prevalent... This chapter is a brief summary for me... about all the various observations that were made and the implications that could be derived from it.

Chapter 7 - The Experimenter
This chapter is a tribute to Albert Libchaber, who was very instrumental in taking the chaos theory closer to realization and aided better understanding of the theory. This chapter mainly concentrates on the fluid related representation of the chaos theory. The understanding about bifurcations improved by analyzing the spectrum the was sent out by this experiment.

Chapter 8 - Images of Chaos
This chapter gives a bit of introduction to chaos theory via mathematical terms... The representation of complex number for understanding and visualizing them as images, the Julian Set and much more is dealt with in this chapter.

Chapter 9 – The Dynamic System Collective

Deals with the way an organization was formed by self motivated and interested people to investigate in the domain of chaos… started off with very minimal support from any direction just for the interest of the subject, the contribution of this collective cannot be undermined. Very interesting as to how it developed.

Chapter 10 – Inner Rhythm

The human and biological field is investigated in the understanding of chaos through this chapter. The human heartbeat is looked into with much more detail, and interpreted for understanding using the chaos theory… the un-understood problems in biology seem to have some head way using Chaos… much more in this chapter…

Chapter 11 – Chaos and Beyond

This chapter is in itself a small summary of the whole book, giving us in brief all the major events and the personalities who contributed to this domain. This gives a brief insight as to how all these major icons went on with their contribution to the field of chaos…

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Now here is my take...

In totality, this is a nice book to read… we have got have the patience to read through the repletion of ideas – Gleick just wants to emphasize what he says. I am sure after reading this book a long with turning point we shall not look at nature in the same way… we begin to appreciate the way nature has organized itself….

Am sure will help change the perspective of a of people… an interesting read over all… just have to be a bit patient some times…

http://www.around.com/chaos.html

Amedikal

It had been a long time almost 3 months since my last trek with friends to Kodachadri. I just got a bit off track with some preparations for the interviews and group discussion. Now that it was all over I was eager to get on a trek.
My last trek with RHM was a very memorable one... Thanks to the co-ordination and their goal. This time RHM was arranging a trek to Amedikal, near Shisila. some 20 odd Kms from Dharmasthala.
The trek was on the 28^th and 29^th of April. Arun and Dean had tried reaching to the Amedikal peak some time the year before but the weather was a bit bad for them to continue and reach the peak, so this time they had come up with a group to reach to the peak.
As usual the assembly point of the RHM group was the KSRTC bus stand enquiry counter. Eight of us assembled for the journey to Dharmathala. From where we would reach Shishila and then on to the trek.
The eight members of the trek were was follows; Arun, Dean, Vasudhendra, Lohit, Praveen, Smitha, Harish and myself. Arun and Dean were the organisers, Harish was my classmate in school; others were all new to me. Vasudhendra, is a well known author in Kannada, and it was an experience meeting a person like him. Another person Mr. Hegde was to join us in Dharmasthala. The speciality of this group, it had three journalist - Arun, Harish and Hegde; in it.
We set out from Bangalore at 10:30pm on the 27^th of April, to Dharmasthala. After a long journey form Bangalore - thanks to some technical problem the bus had and a road jam in the ghat section we reached Dharmasthala quite late at around 6:00 am. We finished our morning ablutions and were joined by Mr Hegde to get on with the breakfast.
Once we completed the breakfast we were on with our journey to Shishila. We booked a jeep from Dharmasthala that would take us to the small village of Shishila. Shishila is known for its temple of "Shishileshwara". In the journey from Dharmasthala to Shishila, it was a random discussion on variety of topics so as to break our inhibitions and get to know about the other personality that all of us possess.
On reaching Shishila we had a brief intro given about the trek by Arun, and the plan we had for the 2 days. We followed this with an informal introduction about ourselves. Its then that we got to know each other a bit more well. Arun distributed the "emergency food" that was to be used only when we needed it the most. We then booked a jeep to home which would then be our base camp. We asked for a guide and got a very helpful guide - "BalaKrishna", to guide us on the trek. All of us dumped our bags atop the jeep and sat along to the house where we planned to rest. It was another 20 minutes journey that would take us to the "home" - yes, that's exactly the feeling all of us got interacting with the house members and the care they took about us. We reached the home, and rested for about 25 minute when "Balu" joined, to guide us to the peak.
All the 9 of us started on the trek; Balu was on the lead... and followed by us.... He took us on a small foot trial into the forest. Smitha started having some problems and could not keep pace with us, so Arun stood back trying to get her along, but she was finding it very difficult finally, Arun decided that it is better to take her back and so asked the group to move along and took her back home.
The rest of us - 7 in number and Balu totally 8 continued on the journey. The train slowly got more demanding on us. There was a constantly increasing elevation that would make the trek a bit tougher. We were carrying along our food and water, the luggage felt like an ever increasing one. It took all of us some time to warm up and continue. The humidity was high and all of us were drenched from head to toe in no time. Balu was as fit as ever, we were just amazed at his strength and stamina... From his expression I could read ... oh man they find even this so difficult!!! Well he was just too good for us.
The journey was through a forest cover, the forest had high humidity and was draining out a lot of the fluid through perspiration. Dean and Vasu had an encounter with a pit-viper, and thanks to Arun who was there at the right moment to help them out. Arun spotted it up first and then stopped Vasu from stepping over it. We were waiting for Dean and Vasu a bit further (most of us might have missed it by oversight.) A bit further I found spider that was posing for a snap, took a snap of this big spider and continued further. After about an hours journey we took a small break, and were refueling our-self with liquid. There were a huge scourge of mosquitoes, and were behind each one of us. We competed the break and resumed the journey with renewed spirit. On the right side of the path now we did not have much vegetation covering us and we could see the famous "Ettina Bhuja" (meaning the shoulder of ox) at a distance. From here onwards till the peak we could spot this huge mountain all along the trek course.
A small distance further we spotted the peak of Amedikal. This was the first time we spotted this on the trek route since we started off from the base. The trek had been in the canopy of the forest, so we had not been exposed to the sun till now, this was the fist opening that we found. The Amedikal was just too beautiful to look at. We for an instant thought we could now reach the peak from there in around an hour and a half. Looking at the rate we walked, Balu with his expertise in the region told us at this rate you will only get back home at 7:30pm. Yes, it was around 745 that we reached the home that day, what an estimation man!! too good ah!
After this open space we went into a small forest cover, where we had a small water store and we refilled our cans to carry on further. Just a walk of around 10 min from this point I spotted a "green garden snake". Four of us, watched the snake with apt attention, it was an amazing sight to watch this snake make its move. It just climbed and climbed, we just could not believe it could climb so high on the plants given its lean body. I was just too good.
We continued further after having the snake show, now we were getting closer to the peak. The sun was a bit too harsh on us during this part of the day. Now we were into the open zone, not much vegetation and no shade excepting some trees here and there. All of us began to feel the heat and strain. Now we were almost at the foot of the Amedikal peak and it was just getting even tougher. We had trekked nearly 3 hours to reach the base of the Peak. The climb was slow for all of us, but Balu did not even show a hint of fatigue, he was just too good (No doubt I became his fan!!!).
The hot scorching sun had drained a lot out of me, the winds were blowing along the surface of the mountain, some times a cloud or two would give a small shade to these mountains. I could see the natural processes of creation of sod from stone there.
A small time after the accent began I chose to sit for some time. The blowing winds was enough to push me to slumber, I did get driven off by the winds into the sleepy would a couple of times when I was resting to rejuvenate myself.All of us rested for a while at different places on the way up to get boosted often to continue the upward trek. It was the hardest terk I had done till date, the sun was virtually eating my energy. The previous hardest trek I had done was to climb the KumaraParvatha from the Somavarpet side.
This stone mountain was, more open and taller to scale. The height and the distance to be covered were making the trek even more demanding. This combined with our lack of regular preparation for something like this was making the trek look more massive than it might just be. Balu lead us to a shady shelter were we rested to take up our lunch. I had been nearly a 4 hour trek till now and all of us were just too hungry to wait. Once we reached there we immediately opened the pack of pooris, and Chitranna that we had carried along. We rested here for around 45 minutes, kept our bags to carry them along when we returned. We carried along only a few water-bottles that would help us quench our thirst on the way to the peak. Balu spotted a wild jackfruit tree and within a flash was down with the fruit for us. We decided to take take time to have a taste of it on the way back.
We asked Balu what might be the history behind the name of the peak being Amedikal, the told us that in the local language - tulu, Dikel means stove. So that's how the name AmeDikal comes to be. We see 3 stones atop the peak; it looks like a stove in the village kitchens.
We advanced towards the peak, and came found a panoramic view once we found our-self out of the forest cover into the open. Another 10 minutes trek from here we reached the peak from were we found our-self atop the world. The view was just too splendid. We rested at the peak for 30 min before we set back. We tried various poses for our camera, and jumped from one stone to another with Balu's guidance for the whole process. On the way to the peak we climbed a few stones which made the view look very scary. All of us crossed a few tough points, thanks to the expert assistance of Balu, we were able to experience the thrill of such a climb.
After the photo shoot at the peak we began the return. It was almost a journey of 5 hours for us to the peak, and we set out to the base at 4:30pm.
We all started off back to the base with Balu again leading from the front. We got down form the peak and reached the shady region, were we had rested for lunch prior to continuing our journey to the peak. Balu got the Jack-fruit and opened it up for us, all of us were up eating the fruit. We enjoyed the fruit and resumed our journey to the base. On the way back the small grass that grew all over the place was very misleading and if it was not for Balu. The grass had grown so symmetrically that we could not find a well defined path back. We continued on under the guidance of Balu to reach the base.
The light was getting dark and we were gearing up for a night trek. We got out our torches. We took about an hour to reach to the base of the Amedikal peak. We then started on our route back. Slowly but steadily we continued on the trek, and reached the base camp after a trek of 2 and half hours from the peak.
One of the memorable incidents on the way back was Dean asking us all of a sudden to switch off all the torches, and maintain absolute silence... we were expecting something very curious... and asked him what was the matter. Dean replied...."Enjoy the silence"... and lo all others were on him for this attempt... All of us being tiered just wanted to reach home now... not enjoy the silence.
Once we reached the home all of us wanted to get to the river nearby and wash off the fatigue. Sunil, the home boy with a lot of enthusiasm took all of us to the river. We spent about an hour before we decided to wind off to sleep. Harish and I slept on the platform that was there near the home, Lohit on a bench, Smitha inside the home and the remaining people in the space that was available in front of the home.
The hard trek of the day was enough for us to send us dozing off in not time. We woke up early in the morning only to appreciate how well the villagers are used to the saying "Early bird gets the worm". All day long I was to learn a lot of things about this rustic life... the originality of the life and learn to appreciate it.
Balu returned to check with us the day's plans. We initially had thought of reaching "Ettina Bhuja" and Moodigere from there, then to Dharmasthala, but the previous day's trek had taken its toll on us and we knew all of us could not complete the trek in the sate we were. Balu too suggested the same... so we decided to just keep the second day simple and searched for a place to recline and spend a good amount of time in the river there.
So that decided we began our trek to the place around a kilometer and half from the home. On the way we spotted a few children peeping out, Sunil was all enthu calling them out to join us to the place. The walk through the mud road was a pleasant one. We had stream criss-crossing the mud road occasionally other times it just flowed silently along the route. We found a wild fruit all along the way till we reached the river, I just threw them to the side of the road... just that the child in me felt like doing it.
We reached the river and walked upstream to reach a dam that had been built by the locals to harvest the water of the "Kapila" also called "Sudhe" by the locals. Balu just warned about a deep "Gundi" some distance away and let us get into the water. 5 of us got down into the water and had a play there, while the remaining were busy thowing stones into the silent river water and counting the bounce, some times just picking snaps and other times attempting some gimmicks.
We could spot the Ettina bhuja occasionally but the clouds would hamper our sight of the peak. There is dense bamboo vegetation, Sunil was making a mention that there are elephants down the valley and this location just seemed to be too ideal a place for the huge animal. The serene water of the river, dammed to make it look more beautiful, bamboo vegetation, The mountains and the forest covered slopes that make the scene very picturesque.
After about an hour and half that we spent in the river we decided to get back to the home. We visited some Deity that had been placed on an altar beside the river, may be it holds a high esteem and has a local folk-lore associated with it. I am not sure about it. After picking up snaps of this we set out on our way back to the home. I was busy clicking pics on the way back and Sunil was even more enthusiastic to try his hand at photography. All of us reached the home and waited for the lunch to be served.
We cought up into individual discussions on various topics and, it was quite an enlightening experience for me. I got to know a lot of different dimensions to a lot of things. The topics of the discussion from songs, singers, movie review to author/poet styles and the kind. Having a research journalist like Harish along with an established author like Vasudhendra in the group was a great experience. Arun & dean with their wast experience in the trekking domain kept me latched to their discussion most of the time.
After our lunch we decided to visit the temple of Shishileshwara on the way back to Dharmasthala. Balu called up a Jeep from Shishila to the place and we got it. After bidding the family that had taken such a good care about us, we dumped our luggage on the roof of the jeep and set out on the way to the temple. In about 25 minutes we reached the temple.

Shishila got it name from the temple here. The deity here is Shishileshwara. This temple is beside the river kapila. A lot of folklore may be associated with this temple and the river. There are a lot of fishes in the water here. They are a feast for the eyes to watch. The devotees get along with them rice and puri to feed them (you can get them at the rice and poori in the temple premises itself in case you have not got it.)
Some time back there was a very bad accident that caused the death of a numerable number of these fishes; some one had poisoned the fishes to increase their fish catch or something like it. In memory of this incident a memorial with the sculpture of fish has been erected near the temple. The fisheries department has also banned any fishing or the sort in the 2 km radius of the temple.
The last bus from Shishila towards Dharmasthala was at 4:30pm, we thought it might be at 4:00pm and reached the stand half an hour early. We climbed the bus that was right on time and we climbed it with all our big bags and stuff. We reached Dharmasthala at 6:00pm, went to the temple after having our evening tiffin. We returned to the bus-stop waiting for our bus, it was destined to leave at 10:30 pm. We reached Bangalore in the wee hours to get back to work, after a couple of days of hard trek all of us got back to work, and our routine.

The Green Route - Sakleshpura Railway Line trek

It has been a long time since I have trekked on this route... almost 2 yrs. I shall try recollecting as much as I can and write down... I don’t recall the exact date of this trek, but just remember the month - Dec, 2005.
It was just after our last exam of the 7th sem, that we chose to go on this trek. I had a function the day after the trek so wanted to do just 1 day trek, while others wanted to complete a two day one. PJ had just been to this trek around 3 weeks before and had shared the snaps and the route info with us.
We got a printout of the route, some shopping followed to purchase the food items and stuff. We had enough for store for two days. We set out from our college to the Mangalore KSRTC bus-stand and wanted to reach Donigal.
We climbed a semi-luxury bus. The seats were rather empty, so it was more than a semi-luxury for us.... some of us stretched ourselves to occupy the full seats and enjoy the luxury of Sleeper coach!!!
Well after about some 4 hours journey we reached the famous "Picnic" hotel. It was a cold winter night, and in the ghat section it made the cold even chiller. We immediately reached out for a cup of coffee at the road side tea-stall, besides the Picnic. In the cold night we I could see a busy vendor showing off his prowess in swinging the tea/coffee from a tumbler into a bigger container and then back... The passing buses would stop beside the tea stall; the drivers would resume their driving after a cup of tea.
We were about 9 people in number on this trek. Some first timers some experienced... a nice mix. We had PJ's blog of the trek with us... and took that as our reference. We asked the tea vendor for directions to the rail station (Donigal Railway station). This was to be our starting point. The blog told us, we had to walk back by the road about 2kms to find a temple.

We set out form the hotel, with torches in our hand and flashing it up all along the road, we moved towards the destination… a bridge to be more specific from where we could get to the station. We waked around a couple of kms from the hotel and spotted another small hotel beside the road… we continued on the road side to reach a small falls… we got down to feel how the water was in there – shivering cold… eee….

We then resumed our walk by the road side… we just took note of the distance we had covered, it was around 4 kms so we thought we might have lost the critical turn, it would be better we ask for some guidance… so we walked back to the small hotel that we had noticed. There was no power in there, just some candle light and we got in to have our second cup of tea/coffee.

He told us that we were on the right track, just that you had to go a bit further from the point were we decided to return, we took a break of around half an hour here and then decided to continue our search, we got to a small temple first after retracing along the highway. We just went a bit further as directed by the hotel owner and we got a mud road, we continued on but that road seemed to go to an estate, so we got back to the temple and two of us decided that we would go a bit further, check if we had some way to reach the rail track a bit further down the road.. We got a bit further spotted an asphalted road that would take us to the railway track, we got back to inform the others,… All of us got back to the road and decided to have a small nap before we would continue the trek early morning the next day.

At around 5:30 am, just waited for the light to improve, so that we could start off on the trek. We started off at around 6:15 when the light was sufficiently good so that we could spot the rails clearly. A small distance ahead we came across the first bridge, it was my first experience crossing a bridge, I think I had a small problem with heights so chose to cross them slowly and cautiously. Once we crossed the bridge, I gained in confidence and then rest of the journey was not much of the problem. We got down in to the stream that flowed below the bridge, did freshen up a bit; then we got back to the track. We continued on the rail road, some time later, we found the sun making its presence for the day. We were quick to click a couple of pictures and then continued on the track. It was a very nice experience with the morning due just subsiding, the sunlight cutting through the mountains and then getting to the rail track, occasionally spotting other trekkers, who were in a hurry to finish the trek.

We continued at our own pace and reached the first common rest place of trekkers, it was beside an old junction room if I am right, A stream flows wide at this point and it looks too neat…think there was some construction work as well at that point of time. We decided to continue a bit further, we notices a net covering the slope of the mountain… typically done to prevent the mud slide down to the track during rains, on the opposite side it was a boulder that was cut through to make the rail line. We tried our hand on some Spiderman like stunts, and then picked up a few snaps of the place. We continued on the track further, we got to meet the first tunnel… this was one of the smallest tunnels that we would get along the trek. Just after the 1^st tunnel we get an opening, we have a small opening in the thick bush cover on the right side, we had been informed by PJ that in between the 2^nd and third tunnel we could spot a falls, and may be we could get down to the falls immediately after the first tunnel. Through the small opening we got down and reached the stream, a small walk upstream from the point we reached the falls, it was a nice one to visit, not many people come down to watch this falls, so its neat…. Some of us got down to have some fun in the water, while I decided to take a nap on the rock side… after an hour of rest we decided to continue on the trek… we completed our breakfast at the same point and then got back to the rail road…

Then there was nothing much along the route, it was more of a repetition of the scenic beauty. I for one felt bored by the same repetitive… it was more of the stoned track the killed my interest, I had not got along shoes and was trekking with my leather sandals so it was making it all the more painful. Well all that aside…

We continued on the journey after the first tunnel….a couple of tunnels and then we were again on some nice clear railroad… Think that spot might have been used for filming some time. Just a bit further and then we decided to take a break again, this time to do some good photography, a neat job by some of our team members... and then we continued on the trek… A nice trek along the railroad with the stream flowing along side… the birds singing their morning raga’s to entertain the trekkers, I felt like paradise in those morning hours… We continued on the trek, initially it was nice to take note of a lot of scenery, along side the track, some nice cool breeze, the walk through the dark tunnels and then back on to the rail road occasionally encounter a bridge over some stream, It began to bore me after some time… The sun increasing the heat was just adding to the already bore trek (personally).

We continued on the same lines and the only enjoying part for me was the small falls all along the route… it was around 11am when we decided to take a small rest along the road, that’s when we heard the rail blow a horn; We were surprised to hear it, as it was unexpected. As the horn got closer, we were on the on look with high curiosity, it turned out to be a goods train to transport the rail roads for the gauge widening that was being done… The train passed bye and we crossed another bridge, we decided to take a break for our lunch here. An hours break and then we decided to continue the trek. Our team slowly started to feel the heat and we broke down into groups, I was in the lead and in a bit of hurry coz I had to reach Udupi by 8:30pm.

We all gathered just before a huge repair site along the route, I transferred the food packets to the group which I had carried till then on my back and just collected some chocolates and a water can to continue ahead….

From now on it was a lone trek for me at my own pace, I was quick when I felt like and moderate when I felt tired, the only point that was in my mind was reaching Edakumeri at the earliest. My deadline for it was 4pm.

Along the route, I encountered the first longest bridge, It was more that 400 mts in length and much taller than the others that I had seen earlier, I could spot a lot of trekkers along the route, who had broken up to have their lunch and enjoy some time in the stream, I just stood there to pick up a few snaps and then continued on with my journey, it was quite nice doin this part of the trek all alone, I could devout as much time as I wanted where I wanted. A bit further I got to be in the longest tunnel of the journey to Edakumeri, all along the tunnel it was pitch dark, could not see the other end of it, water dripped through the roof of the tunnel. Bats would occasionally fly across, the tunnel was almost empty and I could hear my footsteps and the echo that it generated… All I had was a torch that was to take me through the dark tunnel. Just as I crossed a couple more tunnels, I met the train driver who was busy getting the rails down beside the track to get them replaced. I asked the distance to Edakumeri station... he told it would take at least an hour to reach there, its around 4 kms from there, It was already around 3:20 and I wanted to reach Edakumeri at the earliest. I decided I would not waste time picking snaps and just concentrate on walking quicker to the station. Another 30 min of walk and I found a small stream, may be a falls, just met a an old guy here and enquired about Edakumeri, he told its jut five minutes away, this got more enthusiasm into me to get to the station…

Edakumeri station is an old station… I could spot an old radio station may be used to get information from else where about the trains reaching on time, some problems and things like that… I just sat down for about 5 minutes, before asking directions to reach the NH.

Some one showed me a small mud path down the forest and told me, you will find a stream, cross over the stream and you will reach a road, just go by the road and then u will reach another river… cross it and you will get to the NH. I followed the direction and reached the small stream in no time, reached the mud road, it was nice fun, I got meet this road at a bifurcation, one going uphill and the other down hill, I chose the down hill one… just that I could spot some shoe trails on the sod, It was nice guess but a right one… around 10min down an I could spot the river and the NH beside it. I found a couple of trekkers who were crossing over the river – KempuHole.

I too joined them in crossing over... they were to reach Bangalore, and me to get back to Udupi. I waited for a bus but got to know that there was no bus-stand there and had to go to Gundia to catch one… I was heart broken at the thought that I had to go walking another 10 kms to reach the Gundia stop. I kept waving to passers by just in case some kind soul would give me a drop, my persistence paid off, A mo-bike driver stopped for me and asked my were about and enquired where I had to go… having ascertained that I was no naxal or some thing like it he told me he would drop me to Dharmasthala. I heaved a sigh or relief. He took me to Dharmasthala in an hour from the spot where I had stopped him, God bless the kind soulJ.

From Dharmasthala I caught a bus to Beltangadi, then another one from Beltangadi to Karkal, it was around 7pm and had a nice nap in these buses, my bus to Udupi was at 7:25 having missed the earlier one by 5 min, It took around an hour to reach Udupi, and I had a nice nap in it as wellJ. Finally I had reached Udupi,

It was real experience truing to keep up the time… will remember it for a long time to come no doubt about it.

"The world is Flat"-Thomas Friedman

This book is as it claims itself to be - "The Brief History of The Globalized World in the 21st Century".

Personally I took a lot of cue from this book. I has helped me increase my understanding of the globalized world and look at it in a much broader sense.

Thomas Friedman - is an American journalist, Author and a three times winner of the "Pulitzer Prize". He is an op-ed contributor of the "New York Times". He also works for Discovery, in making their documentaries.

Friedman first discussed his views on globalization in the 1999 book, "The Lexus and the Oliver Tree". In 2004 he came out with his best seller, "The World is Flat". Friedman's journey to, Bangalore and Beijing gave him a new in sight into the fast changing world of globalization. He has documented his understanding from there experiences into this book.

Friedman in his efforts to get people to understand globalization in the most productive way has been successful a great deal. He has concentrated on the journey of this huge levelling process.

He takes note of the factor that lead to the opening and the flattening of globalization. He then moves on to a discussion on how the different factors went on to create convergence, and there by make the playground more open. He then discusses the implication that flattening of the field has on the American society, and how well it can accommodate/ adjust to get the maximum form the phenomenon.

I loved the chapter on dreams the most... I picked a lot of points form that chapter to improve my thought process. I loved the way he emphasises on creating dreams from a situation rather than just creating memories. I love the concept...

Its a must read to understand the phenomenon of globalization even better.... go ahead and read it... may not please those who have been following the phenomenon very closely. Over all a very informative book. This book has made me a fan of Thomas Friedman....

some more info can be got from...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Is_Flat