Long weekend trip to Coonoor (near Ooty) (Post moved from Yahoo 360 as it is closing down)

This travelogue post was written long ago on my Yahoo 360 blog. Yahoo is now closing http://360.yahoo.com and asked all users to back their blogs up and move them where they preferred. As you probably have already figured, I am moving them here.

Here is the post:

12-15 Aug 2006 was a long weekend for me and some of my friends.

So 4 of us (me, Siddharth, his wife Suparna and my friend Sonali Mahajan) got together and went on a 3 day trip to this lovely hill station called Coonnoor near Ooty.

It was heavenly!

Here's a sampler of stuff we did:

• We went on a jungle safari through the clouds and the mists
• We stayed in 2 bungalows that had a tea estate and overlooked a valley with a fantabulous view of the sunrise
• We went trekking thru lush green tea estates and dense tree lanes
• We also took a ride on the toy train from Coonoor to Ooty - the driver even allowed us inside the engine!

Maaan - it was magic, the clouds, the fresh air, the view, the treks .... sheeeeeeeer blisssss, a once in a lifetime experience - ooh lala ... just cannot get over it!

We stayed at this place called Ushu's (meaning: Chariot of the Sun God).

Nestled atop a nice hill overlooking a tea estate and a valley, the view of the sunrise and the clouds was simply breathtaking!

It belongs to Mr Chacko (Chacko uncle to us). He was extremely hospitable and gave fantastic suggestions on treks and things to do in Coonoor/Oooty and nearabouts (the train journey was also courtesy Chacko uncle ). We spent some lovely evenings (and sunrises) together over drinks/tea and dinner. He arranged a tea factory visit for us where we got to see the entire manufacturing process of making tea ... right from the tea leaves to the final product - the powder. The girls discussed gardening and flowers with him and he very enthusiastically shared his knowledge of the same (I tried to keep an intelligent look, perhaps in vain, as I really do not know much about flowers - hehe)

Some fantastic cooking by Raju, his helper, had us eating like we were from Somalia ... it was awesome!!!


Harish invited us to his place for lunch - his mom cooked up a fantastic spread for us. We relished it like there was no tomorrow

(Looks like the whole of Coonoor is full of gastronomic delights with fantastic cooks - hehe, so next time I strongly suggest you visit Coonoor)

Please check out the snaps here and feel free to write in your comments

by agatekartik


The untagged and cropped version (but more snaps) has been put up by my friend Sonali here:

Sonali's Coonoor album 1

Sonali's Coonoor album 2

The view from my cubicle window today (24/10/2008)

So here I am in office ... its friday ... after a long week ... I sit next to a glass wall/window that opens into my office's 6th floor terrace. And today, its raining! Has been raining heavily all afternoon ... so much that visibility is down to a few meters and once cannot see beyond a couple of neighboring buildings.

The rains are beautiful ... cold, with a slight breeze that ups the chill that bit more, with daaaark clouds ... perfect on a vacation!

The rains come down - both, cheering me and mocking me while I sit at my desk, working. (?? - well, at this moment, blogging, as I could not resist capturing it! :-D)

Here is the view as seen from my desk:

Sigh! :-)

A smokescreen and I ramble

(Fancy this - it is a hacker who has written this)

Sparked off a huge chain/clutter of thoughts within me ... am afraid I never seem to go past a "what is the matrix?" state and keep spinning round and round ... (help!!! :-) - hehe)
Note the usual "systems of control" that the blogger talks about - "smokescreens", "illusion of choice/freedom", "control", "power", "obedience", "education" and the like ... mostly instruments of programming the individual and collective mind scape (call it brainwashing, if you will).
I have hinted at these elements slightly, perhaps even obliquely, in my older posts here and here and I often speak about it with friends who bother to connect (thanks all ye :-) ).
There, of course, are many many more who talk about this/act on this in their own way, but invariably one notices such power equations and their manifests (these systems of control) never going...

Random rambler questions:
- Is this a (direct/indirect) manifest of the duality illusion?
- Will such a state ever go away?
- Perhaps it exists only within me? and the moment I transcend that I am free?

Mindmaps and me

Being a relative newbie in dance, I often find myself wanting when memorizing and recalling techniques, details, choreography etc of the various styles that I learn. Towards that end I used to keep notes and draw stick figures ... but the notes were linear and were not as effective as I had hoped them to be, and articulation was challenging to say the least.

During the learning (of any new thing for that matter, not just dance), quite often I noticed that one is bombarded with jargon and instructions. As time progresses more detail and refinement is added to the thing being taught. It became more and more intuitive to have a "cloud" of things to remember and my list based note-taking started to look inadequate and inflexible.

I then came across this concept called mind-maps and was hooked. It is a very interesting and effective tool indeed. And it promises to be what I was looking for to bridge my gaps and help with notation, memorizing, recall and ease of communicating ideas.

At present this is how I intend to use this tool (I have attempted to explain my idea as a mind-map :-) ). Click on the mind-map below and scroll around to see the various nodes and action items (hopefully my rendering is intuitive enough).
The direct link to the map is at - Mindmaps and me


But I also see that I need to develop good, intuitive, reusable models that will help with learning, memorizing (and possibly teaching). This post goes out to all the teachers and fellow students/dancers/artistes for their inputs on the same. What I look for is best practices, working models, intuitive notations, guidances etc that will help with crystallizing styles that are useful to all those who aspire to enhance their learning and teaching experience.

If this sounds like an interesting initiative - please do feel free to contact me and join in on the learning. If you already have a working model, please do share it and enlighten all of us who are part of this.

Do please write in with your experiences, insights, comments, suggestions, tips, alternatives, ideas and what-have-you and you will find me very grateful indeed. :-)

R.I.P. - Doda, the tiger

Came across this news post recently

Tiger ‘Doda’ dies at Katraj zoo

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Pune: After prolonged ailment, a tiger named Doda died at the Rajiv Gandhi zoo in Katraj recently.
The tiger was named so because it was found in the Doda jungle. The tiger was rescued by the forest officials when it was one year old and was kept at the zoo.
Since last one year, the tiger was suffering from stomach ailment and was undergoing treatment.
The zoo officials said that towards the end, Doda was not responding to the medication and was losing weight constantly.
A team of veterinary doctors from Kerala was called to treat Doda last week, but the feline did not respond to the treatment.

Had me feeling sad, as I have fond memories of a lovely morning spent playing with Doda when he was still a bottle-feeding cub.

Here are some pictures of me with him:



Doda

Doda's background:
Doda was abandoned by his mother in the jungles of South Maharashtra and was rescued by villagers near the "Dodagram" village on the border of Maharashtra and Goa. He was then brought to the Katraj Zoo in Pune to be nurtured and taken care of. He was named after the village near which he was rescued.

How I got to meet him:
His vet at the time was my good friend's (Suvarna) cousin. Doda stayed at the vet's house for some time till he was off the bottle and eating meat and out of danger - what with his being away from his mother and not in his natural habitat. So the vet invited her to meet Doda and your's truly tagged along for a once in a lifetime encounter :-)

What he was like, as a cub:
Oh - he was very friendly and naughty - and we had a blast playing around with him. He knew very well he was getting attention and was basking in it and enjoying every bit of it. He used to climb on us and scratch and bite, my hands were red all over with scratch marks. Bottlefeeding him was fun and he used to get very drowsy once he drank a bit of milk. He would then go to his bed for a quick nap and then come out all fresh and playful with a "Come ... let's play!" look on his face :-)
When we took him to the terrace, he was running all around and even tried to stalk and hunt a crow! ... lol

He grew up to be the star attraction at the zoo and the local papers in Pune often carried pictures of his - getting injections, playing in water etc.

... and now, he is gone ... :-(

Rest in peace, dear Doda.

Goa 2007 travelogue

Must admit am too darn lazy to write a travelogue of my Goa trip, so will point you to my friend's blog on the trip and here's the snaps

Goa 2007

Best wedding dance ever

Haha - I like it!


Best Wedding Dance Ever - Funny bloopers R us

I loved this post

Pretty good consolidation, illustration and naming ... :-)

Monsters of the programming world

The sky has a smile

A snap that I received today over email :-)

(wonder who captured this - pretty nice)

The adventures of ACTION ITEM! :-)

This sure is hilarious!!! LOL - I really loved it, Neil McAllister sure made my day :-)

Are we living in a matrix world? - and an interesting ensuing conversation with friend

Recently a friend of mine emailed me an interesting article, with the heading "Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy’s Couch".

After I sent it across to a select few friends of mine, a friend among those found it interesting and he and me got into an interesting discussion later about the movie "The Matrix" and touched upon religion and religiosity and later our (India's) rich heritage as opposed to the westerners ... Am pasting a (slightly edited) transcript of the same here (I have specified my friend as "Friend" to protect his privacy)

Friend: pretty interesting..
Friend: its one of those things u can never find out
Kartik: yeah
Friend: liek that zen puzzle-'am i a man dreaming i am a butterfly or vice versa'
Kartik: well actually when i first saw matrix i was struck by the awesome parallels with the movie and the "maya" concept in indian philosophy
Kartik: in fact that was the basic reason why i became a huge fan of matrix
Friend: :)
Kartik: n then matrix 2 n 3 happened
Kartik: that was a letdown
Kartik: full on "zion"
Kartik: its full of biblical references
Friend: infact the first movie was complete in itself
Kartik: yeah
Friend: there was no need for sequels
Kartik: y did they marry star wars here
Kartik: yup
Friend: starwars? how?
Kartik: plus those stupid fight scenes
Friend: which one
Kartik: by star wars i meant that whole costumes thing
Kartik: n that "council" n shit
Friend: oh
Friend: wasn't much..they weren't like jedi
Kartik: n that word that i have started to dislike - "belief"
Friend: cos of religious connotations?
Kartik: well - yes n no
Kartik: i don't mind religious connotations
Friend: then
Kartik: provided they really are religious
Kartik: this is more of "religion"
Kartik: religion does not mean religious - religion is politics, is all about power ... "Take the name of Jesus/Allah/Ram but bow down to me" ... Religiosity is a state of being - of consciousness
Friend: i used to goto alt.movies.the-matrix
Friend: during the gap between the 2 sequels-
Friend: there was super discussion on the movies, philosophy etc
Friend: and ppl had their own versions of how it wud end
Kartik: hm
Friend: but all felt let down by part 3
Kartik: yeah
Kartik: it became about the "2nd coming"
Friend: ys'
Kartik: "the one" meant the "2nd coming"
Kartik: bah
Kartik: notice - all are the same story
Friend: totally christian theology etc
Kartik: superman, spider man, batman - watever
Kartik: n the matrix too
Friend: yeah someone finds they got special powers
Kartik: they all are "one" person
Kartik: they really have a paucity for stories
Friend: yeah
Kartik: we are fortunate we have such a rich heritage
Kartik: they (the west) keep telling the bible over and over again
Kartik: rehashing it this way or other
Friend: yes

Beware of the priest I always say ... :-)

© 2007 - Kartikeya Agate

My new "hairstyle"

On a whim the other day I just got myself a new look - yes, I sometimes do that sort of thing :-)
Here are the "before" and "after" snaps ... vote for them in the comments (BIG majority of the people I know like the new look, while a small minority liked the "before" look)

Sambhar of 69

Here is an interesting song forward I received ... lol (Sing to the tune of "Summer of 69")

Sambhar of 69

I had my first real six rupees,
stole it from my father's pants.
went to a madrasi hotel,
to eat the sambhar of 69.

Me and some kadke dost,
had it all and we caught bukhaar,
jimy puked, joey got ulcers,
and Bagga ne maari dakar.

Oh when I went back there now,
the food was as stale as ever,
and though it was 1999,
still the sambhar was being served over there,

that was the worst food of my life.

Therez no use in complaining,
when you got no other place to eat,
rushed in the evening to the doctors clinic,
but he too was at the toilet seat, yeah

standing there waiting outside,
nurse told me I will wait forever,
oh and when I held my breath,
I knew that I had to use that loo there

That was the worst food of my life.

Of our illusions and delusions

A thought that recently crossed my mind

Claiming that you are the sole conduit to God (or whatever you choose) is like claiming you are the sole person who can give your partner/spouse an orgasm!

LOL :-)

We really are obsessed with our delusions, aren't we?

(C) Copyright 2007 - Kartikeya Agate

3 Dance performances of ours

Finally got round to uploading some of my dance performances on youtube.

Have uploaded 3 of them. See if you can spot me... :-)
[The videos are a bit dark and grainy and youtube has compressed them quite a bit. I have the originals with me on VCD, but the best way to watch is live! :-) ]

A little note about each of them. (These were performed by the company dancers of the Bangalore branch of "The Swingers Dance Studio". Am one of them.)

• Untitled - 16 Dec 2005 - Modern/Contemporary piece

This is a piece choreographed by Prasanna, our dance school's artistic director. The music is a composition by Vanessa Mae.

We thoroughly enjoyed rehearsing for and executing this piece. A big time learning experience for all of us with a huge spurt in improvement in everyone because of this one.
Its quite confusing with lots of people coming in and going out continuously doing all sorts of abstract moves ... there is no pattern to it. It is meant that way that the viewer cannot really look at one place, there is something or the other happening on all parts of the stage which is completely different from the other parts. Watch it and you will know what I mean :-)

How to spot me:
In this piece all are wearing white, but my vest has only one shoulder strap. There are couple of occasions when I am alone on stage, but I start at the bottom right corner of the screen. Another distinct place to spot me is when I do cartwheels and jump rolls.

• At The Edge - 13 May 2007 - Lyrical Jazz sub-piece

This is actually a solo piece by Prasanna and we have a small sub-piece towards the end (around 2 mins into the dance). I have not managed to locate the song but the style for our piece is jazz and the moves are lyrical with a shift to rhythm sometimes, but mostly lyrical. (Rex has just informed me that this piece is Gorecki by Lamb - thanks Rex!)

How to spot me:
All of us are wearing completely black but I can be easily spotted in this one as I am in the center of the stage and clearly visible for almost the entire sub-piece.

• At The Edge - 13 May 2007 - Modern/Contemporary piece

This was again a modern/contemporary piece. The music is fusion, composed by Karsh Kale. This is the first performance of the new company dancers in the Bangalore branch of our dance school :-)

How to spot me:
I am wearing a yellow, full sleeved tee with blue denims. I start off in the center of the stage and am pretty much clearly visible throughout the dance.

Watch in full screen mode - Hope you like them :-)

Business continuity/prosperity and the Marathi (Puneri) mindset

Even as much as I dislike stereotypical prejudices, there have been quite a few occasions when I have had to make observations and correlate them to the "background" of the subject under observation. This is one such occasion.

Just the other day in Pune, I went to this ayurvedic shop (proprietor was khaas puneri maharashtrian) to buy gulkand (I like the taste of the gulkand they make so I go there). They close at 8 p.m. sharp and are closed on weekends (which is when most of the people have time to shop!).
He didnt have the quantity I requested and said his raw material supplier was playing truant ... and said "the day he stops giving me rose petals/sugar (or whatever the raw material his supplier was providing), I will stop making gulkand".

Notice he has the "closure" of his business well defined and does NOT have a business continuity contingency plan. He did not say something like - "Oh, one of my suppliers is giving me trouble, but no problem, I will approach another supplier and ensure my customers continue getting the best". And it is my bet that he never ever thought of his business like this - "Hmm - I see we have only one supplier of rose petals for our gulkand business ... that makes it a bottleneck and therefore a risk. What am I doing to mitigate this risk? Nothing? I figure I should be checking options out to find more suppliers." If you were to ask him why he sticks to this particular supplier I would hazard that he will invariably say that this supplier's rose petals are the best. Ha! It is my bet that going to this supplier is merely convenient to that man. And if indeed his petals were the best, this man would not have taken efforts to find out why he is the only one with the best and tried to mitigate his own bottleneck by locating other suppliers who could potentially give same (if not better) rose petals.
To put it in other words (figurative speech, if you will) - he has defined the events or circumstances which will lead to his death, but does not know/want to know how to stay alive and healthy.

He does not give a whack to customer convenience/satisfaction either ... and that is a BIG TIME boo-boo. (you don't need to be a big shot MBA to predict doom if the customer is disappointed)

I am afraid these are some nuances which do not a thriving business make.

So what stereotype/background was I alluding to?
In case you have not guessed it yet - Punekars and/or Marathi business houses in general :-)

Yes, I do fully agree one cannot generalize (a BIG reason why I dislike stereotypical prejudices in the first place), but go ahead and observe any "pucca" Punekar/Marathi business and you will invariably find the exact same outlook with a few variations here and there.

Sorry to say, but if this attitude continues, our businesses and goods will never be able to "go global" and sustain it.

This is my 2 bits worth of perspective. I am pretty sure there are many more layers and aspects to things. I just have chosen this one aspect as a case in point and admit to giving brevity more weight than coverage of all possible angles and layers. Should I manage to "Karticulate" on some other aspect, I will put that in as a comment to this post. Needless to say - your thoughts are most welcome!

I do hope our mindsets change for the better :-)

(c) Copyright 2007 - Kartikeya Agate

Passing thought - "Surfus-operandi"

A thought in passing that occurred to me on the web (or Web 2.0 if you will)

Most of us usually have a "surfing style" of digging out and/or organizing information: links, interesting articles, notes and what-have-you. I sometimes call it my "surfus-operandi" :-)

With so many tools and utilities and mash-ups available nowadays, I imagine ones browsing and information digging "surfus-operandi" will have to keep evolving almost daily. If one observes its not just information that changes - even the tools that access, organize and search information change. And the dynamism is mind-boggling.

This is actually deja-vu from the days when the net and the web were new. A common refrain back then would go something like:

Time and again I see myself getting flabbergasted and numbed by the amount of stuff out there. There have been days when I have been fed up because there was too much to go through! And this, coming in less than a decade from when there were days when one used to get fed up as one would have no clue on how to get stuff to read on some particular thing.

And now a similar feeling:

Time and again I see myself getting flabbergasted and numbed by the amount of tools, add-ons and extensions out there. There have been days when I get fed up when I see there are way too many tools to do the exact same thing that I want to do. Just try tools for bookmarking or RSS/Atom feed readers for example.

Looks like some extremely interesting times and situations ahead :-)

(c) Copyright 2007 - Kartikeya Agate

Search For The Centre Of Consciousness

An extremely interesting article here:
(URL - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1881184.cms)

I have pasted some snippets that grabbed my attention from the Times Of India site above. Of course all these are not necessarily things I completely agree/disagree with - I refrain from getting into that kind of judgments here - but yes, I do acknowledge these perceptions as being VERY valid. (In fact, on a side note, quite a few of the things said sound like something Osho Rajneesh would have said)

---

• Duality is a warp in perception. In reality these partitions do not exist. They are just notional values assigned by the perceptive apparatus. They are actually variations in the intensity of only one modality.

• The experiment where light is made to pass through two slits to determine if light is a wave or particle form, pronounced that light simultaneously exists as wave and particle. This presented the scientific community with a paradoxical conclusion hard to fathom, a daunting task for the perceptive apparatus which is limited to comprehending only one of two possibilities.
  

• Science is based on reductionism. Science teaches one to classify, make subgroups, and analyze all events as cause and effect.

• Dark and light, pleasure and pain, cannot have an either/or existence. It is our perception that triggers this dichotomy.

• Consciousness is just awareness. It is non-judgmental, with no reaction. There is no classification. It is just a witness. When perception eliminates all fragmentation, one become conscious, aware. Then we no longer get exhausted.

Someone's views on ageing - many interesting observations and guidelines

A mail forward that I received and liked very much ...
(I do not know who has written this - but I really liked it, so am posting it here too. If you know who wrote this, please let me know and I will acknowledge it here)

---

Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we're kids?
If you're less than 10 years old, you're so excited about aging that you think in fractions.

"How old are you?"
"I'm four and a half!"
You're never thirty-six and a half. You're four and a half, going on five!

That's the key

You get into your teens, now they can't hold you back.
You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead.

"How old are you?"
"I'm gonna be 16!"
You could be 13, but hey, you're gonna be 16!
And then the greatest day of your life . . . you become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony.
YOU BECOME 21. YESSSS!!!

But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there?
Makes you sound like bad milk! He TURNED ; we had to throw him out.
There's no fun now, you're Just a sour-dumpling. What's wrong? What's changed?

You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you're PUSHING 40.
Whoa! Put on the brakes, it's all slipping away.
Before you know it, you REACH 50 and your dreams are gone

But wait!!!
You MAKE it to 60. You didn't think you would!

So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50 and MAKE it to 60.

You've built up so much speed that you HIT 70! After that it's a day-by-day thing; you HIT!

You get into your 80s and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch; you TURN 4:30; you REACH bedtime And it doesn't end there.
Into the 90s, you start going backwards; "I Was JUST 92."

Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again.
"I'm 100 and a half!"
May you all make it to a healthy 100 and a half!!

---

HOW TO STAY YOUNG

1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay "them".
2. Keep only cheerful friends ..The grouches pull you down.
3. Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain idle. "An idle mind is the devil's workshop." And the devil's name is Alzheimer's.
4. Enjoy the simple things.
5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.
6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person, who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive.
7. Surround yourself with what you love, whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music , plants, hobbies , whatever. Your home is your refuge.
8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable,improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.
9. Don't take guilt trips .. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county; to a foreign country but NOT to where the guilt is.
10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away ...

Monsoon and trekking memories

Well monsoon is finally here, and it does revive some fond memories of breathtaking sights seen, the smell of the soil, the drops falling on you, the cool breeze, hair standing on end when wet and a whiff of wind comes along to bring a smile on your face and a chill on your back :-)
Couple of years ago, me and friends had gone to this trek to Rajgad and it was the first day of monsoon, june 11. While climbing up it was still summer and it was sheer torture - as you can see in the relieved and gleeful smile on my face on reaching the top.

On reaching the top after some time the first monsoon clouds arrived! ... Man it was awesome watching all those cumulonimbus clouds marching our way bringing the monsoons with them :-) and I had this fantastic photo-op ... this window of time where there was summer in full blast on the right half of the frame and the first rains of the monsoons in the left half of the frame ... sigh ... it was beautiful! (if only I were a pro photographer to do better justice in capturing the lovely sight). Have put the one I took here nonetheless, see the clouds and the rains streaking down on the left and the eagerly waiting earth on the right :-)

Let me know how you like it!

(c) Copyright 2007 - Kartikeya Agate