Jayadeep Purushothaman

Eating with Chopsticks

2011-09-01T12:41:00.000+05:30

This is a trick I picked up from my travels to Korea, Singapore and China. With the help of my Korean and Japanese colleagues I learned the basics in Korea and kept at it whenever I got an opportunity. And a 2 week trip to China perfected it!

So here are my tips for learning how to use the chopsticks!

Spoons and forks are not in your book till you learn.
No - they are not looking at the way you use your chopsticks!
Feel free to use the hand to push things in, or to catch the dropping stuff from the chopsticks
Practice! Get one pair and use it at all opportunities, even to pick up non-food stuff!
Go to a chopstick country - Korea, China, Japan!

But needless to say, the best way to eat is off course with your fingers - nothing should come in between!

Composting ...

2011-08-26T12:44:00.009+05:30

Composting has been a project that has worked very well without much

effort for the past 2 years. After the initial hiccups, things went smoothly with an occasional bump in the ride. And it is a very satisfying one as well because you don't throw any organic waste outside except for the coconut shells and husks. And all the compost is used up by the flower plants in our terrace garden.

Our compost setup is in a corner of our terrace, with one Khamba and two leave-it-pots. The initial processing happens in the khamba and from the bottom vessel it goes into one of the leave-it-pots. Once a leave-it-pot gets full, we leave it to compost till the other one also gets full. By that time, the first one would be ready for compost - so you can either use it or leave it in a jute bag for later use. While we tried sieving the compost to get a fine powder, it is not really worth the effort if you are using it for your own plants. Since the leave-it-pots are large enough, you can pick the things that are not yet composted by hand and put it back. Also the compost without sieving gives you compost and mulch for the plants. And it reduces unnecessary processing for a very natural cycle.

But there were some niggles - the maggots were percieved to be a problem, but we got over it quickly. Though they still get out of the bin at times, that doesn't bother us anymore. And the not-so-done not-so-fresh waste does smell when you stir it. Wet piles make you work a bit, initially we bought sawdust to make it dry, but now with plenty of compost and dry leaves, it is easily managed. You could cover it with a plastic sheet, but not really worth the trouble, it is part and parcel of natural composting.

Our latest issue has been red ants - while we left it as it is, it was time to get the compost out and they weren't going away. We tried placing cut lemons, turmeric powder etc., but nothing really worked. But one fine morning they shifted base to the other leave-it-pot for us to harvest the compost! So for most of the problems, the head-in-the-sand approach works very well.

The ease of getting it done is that you can easily leave it to nature if you have enough vessels - I would highly recommend a kambha and 2 leave-it-pots. Many of the problems that you face in a small composting setup is due the smallnes and the restricted environment - in a large setup many of the problems just vanish. Wet piles gets balanced off, maggots just go underneath. You(and nature) have space to work with which overcomes many of the problems. If you have a garden around, the dry leaves and compost complement each other very well. So keep at it, don't worry too much about it, it'll get done finally!

Pigeons

2011-04-17T10:28:00.004+05:30

It was a while before we noticed that one of our neighbors were attracting a lot of pigeons. They swoop in everymorning and eat something and hang around the place. And we wanted the birds in our place as well. They make an occasional visit to pick on our garden when seeds are sown and the gardener complained that they are picking up all the seeds.

We started with a bird bath thinking that would attract them, but I guess there are plenty of watering holes for them around. And the birdbath was too small for the herd of pigeons. So it must have been the food. It got our 3 year old daughter interested as well - she would ensure that the bird bath has water for the birds to drink and spread the feed around. But then they weren't that keen on picking stuff from our terrace. But then they kept looking it at from top of the house.

We weren't sure of the kind of feed they need - figured out corn was a favorite for pigeons. So the feed was spread all around - on the window shades, terrace and on the wall around the terrace. Pigeons were reluctant to try our food - but then one of the days, the corn on the walls were all gone. They were eating our stuff finally! We saw couple of them on the wall, but getting them on camera was tough. They would fly away as soon as they know someone is coming around.

But then one fine morning, they swooped down in full strength - they were all over the place, on the wall, terrace, on top of the sun shade. And they were bolder than earlier which gave us ample time to click some pictures and take a video. So the birds and the bees are finding our small patch of garden more attractive now!

Compost finally!

2011-02-16T10:29:00.005+05:30

After more than a year of NOT throwing any wet waste out, we made use of the compost we made out of it for our plants(flowers). But there is no easy way to measure the quality, but the gardener said it looked really good and recommended not to buy anymore compost from outside. Let's see how it goes. But the most satisfying thing was about NOT throwing the wet waste out and if you can make use of it, it completes the full cycle!

For more on our journey towards creating this, read this

Linger, Chettimani Coorg

2011-01-05T20:40:00.015+05:30

We took a detour on our way back from Kannur to Bangalore to spend a day at Linger, the Do Nothing homestay near Bhagamandala in Coorg district of Karnataka. While the plan was to spend the evening and take off the next day, Sameer who runs this place, suggested we should stay one more day and we said yes.

Coorg is a familiar territory for me having driven around in my first car, a Maruti 800, around this place a lot and Bhagamandala and Thalacauvery has been a usual stop over when you are in Madikeri. But I was in for a surprise when I couldn't locate the place - I-know-this-place-around-and-don't-need-any-direction attitude resulted in not taking directions properly and shuttling up and down Chettimani village looking for that elusive bus stop where we have to turn inside. The problem was I thought you need to pass the bus stop and there was a board which I saw in some of the pictures of the place. So I went after the bus stop, but no sign board and the lady at the next bus stop said we had to go back. Then we went up to the next bus stop and no sign of Linger anywhere! I forgot to tell you - the Airtel phones don't work around this area and wifey's Vodafone had already barred her for not providing identification documents. But we finally located a pay phone - but I had the wrong number, tried calling Sameer, but he was busy. Luckily the lady in that store knew Harish, the caretaker of the place and had his number. We told him to watch out for the Orange Ford Fiesta, and he was at the bus stop! So feel free to ask around for Harish if you are lost, it is a small place!

From the top, the place looked like a very familiar place - and the closer we got, more familiar it got. I wasn't sure if it was my grandma's place or father's house or my aunts place in Wynad. It was a typical Kerala house hold with veranda all over the house. My father's place had one more level, so it was more

of the place where my grandmother lived till she died. I took off my sandals instinctively and was looking around for the "kindi" (vessel with a long sprout) that is kept at the entrance to clean your legs. And it was time to take off the jeans and get into a comfortable khadi lungi and ease into the chair with legs up on the wall.

The fields weren't this close in my grandma's place though. But the small stream felt so familiar and the instinct was to see if there is any small fish around - and there it was. So the plan was hatched to fish after lunch, but we will let it into the well instead of frying it. Our soon-to-be 3 year old daughter got the plan perfectly well. And soon after lunch she kept reminding us about fishing. We got her down and I was cautious because you know what to expect when you have fish and toads around. We tried fishing with a wide open bottle, but no fish got in. So we called in more support and got her mamma also inside and with a makeshift fishing net - a

thin towel, so easily found in a mallu house hold. The first sweep itself had many of them in it, but we let it go and took couple of more sweeps before getting 3 of them into our bucket. And the plan was executed to perfection by dropping it into the well. And Nishka mused - "once I caught a(3) fish alive and let it go again".

The paddy field turned into a football ground or a vegetable patch after the rains in our place - this place was still slushy. But our team was just 3 people to kick it around and there were no footballs either. So we took a stroll around the field along the stream upto a piggy's house. He looked very clean - it better be in Coorg where pork is a delicacy. We had to cross the stream and Nishka wanted to dip her leg in the water once in a while and she insisted that we carry her and that was a safe thing to do as well. She wanted to chase the kokkerakko-cock-a-doodle roosters, but she had no company and wouldn't walk!

Though the plan was to have pork for dinner, they ran out of pork and we settled for chicken for lunch and dinner. We tossed up the shuttle cock and wanted to see if there is a Saina Nehwal in Nishka, and she picked up a bit of knocking it up when the shuttle was thrown at her. The field in front would have made a great one for a Frisbee session when it becomes dry - off course football comes first. I was schooled in a scientific football coaching camp at a stadium in town, so missed out on the fun of football on the dry paddy fields in my younger days.

Fireflies which were regular visitors at my grandma's place came calling too - but only a couple of them. They still exist in some corner of this world! And the crickets were crackling all over by night - that is not so uncommon even now. As an early riser who responds to the cock-a-doodles, I was up early reading Sanjeev Kumar's book on India. While it was a bit cold, the nature around was awesome and the air breathed so fresh. The well around tempted me to take an open bath drawing water straight from the well, but settled for a self massage(oil picked up from an ayurvedic shop in Virajpet) and a sun bath before taking bath in the cold water.

We took a trip down to Bagamandala temple and met a "shanthi"(careteaker of the temple) who happened to be from the same place as ours in Kerala. He offered coffee at his quarters and we talked for a while and we knew many people in common. We also made a trip up to Talakavery, the origin of Cauvery river that feeds water to Bangalore. But the place was a bit plastic for such a naturally beautiful place.

We were very well taken care by Harish and Girija our hosts at Linger. Food was very good and unlimited - chicken, fish, veggies and fries. The neer dosa was awesome though a pandi curry(pork) would have rounded it well, but with no physical work, it was better to avoid red meat as well. We had a bornfire with the budding singer Nishka's "we are a happy family song" ! And the sky opened up with "twinkle twinke little stars" all around and fireflies dotted around to make it an awesome night !

Coorg remains an untouched land even now though there are big estates bordering the forest areas that gets into conflict with wild animals. There are restrictions in place for selling the land - if the land was granted land by the Govt.(Brits), they you can't sell the land. And wet land farms can only be bought by farmers. And that keeps the things very natural even now. But it is green and natural with natural water sources unlike the dams and canals you see elsewhere. My place was like this 30 years back - but they "developed" the fields and rivulets into concrete houses! Though there is still greenery around, the damage to the environment has been pretty deep.

Drive home to Bangalore was a long and boring one with stops at many places for Nishka's motion sickness - and the concept of do-nothing(lingering) vacation breaks down here, you need to drive! There is something odd about the idea of driving down to linger around! Hey, then the concept of vacation itself is an urban one to get away from the regular slogging that you do so that you can go on a vacation!

Overall a great location and if you want to do your own thing instead of the canned events of a resort, there can't be any better places than Linger ! Except for the books there is not even an hint as to what you should do there, you can make your own thing and the possibilities are endless in a natural setting! Needless to say it sure is not the conventional resort types.

Cabbage !

2010-11-06T16:30:00.003+05:30

Cabbage(and Cauliflower) is among the most pest prone plants among vegetables and hence the most polluted(with pesticides) vegetable available in the market. We had in fact dropped cabbage from our vegetable shopping list along with cauliflower.

We didn't have much hope when cabbage was planted, but it turned out to be a good one - we had good 1.5kg one in the end. There was a mild pest attack in the end, but it didn't affect the cabbage health in any way. They ate away some of the outer leaves. I guess the copious rains during the period helped. It is a 60 day crop and it seemed pretty slow initially, but after 45 days, it grew rapidly pushing other plants around out of its way. We have had couple of cauliflowers, but small sized ones - so we were a bit surprised at the size.

We have one more plant growing pretty healthily, but a bit smaller size one. It is just beginning to fold its leaves and hopefully we should harvest it couple of weeks time.

Passport Renewal

2010-10-29T16:33:00.000+05:30

I dread going to Government offices - if I can pay someone to get it done, I usually take that route. But in case of passport renewal, I have to be there even if I take help. And they said it is far better these days with Passport Seva Kendras(PSK) in town.

I searched around and found some blogs that talked about their experience(which was not very smooth), and figured out things about renewal from their website, which was pretty descent. You can upload your passport application and documents and take an appointment. All the information in the website are current and useful.

Being in the heart of town(Lalbagh Road), I took a bus and walked up to the PSK(it is on a one-way road). There was a queue which I thought was for walk-in candidates, but turned out that it was for the 2:15PM appointments! After 15 minutes wait in the queue, we were let inside where they verify your documents - I had to get one more copy of my Gas connection document and the copier inside wasn't working (till I got the copies from outside). It was a bit haphazard that you need to do a bit of jostling around to get to the counter. Then they issued a token and I was inside by 3:00PM.

There was some major ruckus going on because the automated queue management system was broken down. BTW, IT major TCS runs the show in the PSK except for the verification, which was done passport officials. Initial submission and taking the photo/thumb impression went pretty smooth and I was done by 3:30. Then I had to wait till 5:45 for the verification process. Again there is a wait inside for the first verification officer and after that the next dispatch officer. Since it was all screwed up even the Passport Officer(PO) was doing the verification to ease the load. It took another hour and 15 minutes to get it done.

It was very obvious that they are calling too many people without looking at their capability. The front desk and queue are managed by TCS completely and it seems they have developed the applications for the PSK. The PO was complaining about their lousy software and the number of appointments given. But his concern was more for his people who had to stay beyond 6PM and not for the applicants. The guy was very poor at using the computer - he would look down at the keyboard to enter 5 letters and press return without looking at the screen and find that there is an error - then he would call the TCS support girl and she would get it done for him!

Somebody from TCS or the Passport Office needs to have some expertise on queuing theory - if they care about people's time at the PSK, apparently they don't care a bit. I don't think they need technology(big screens, automated call-up etc.) to manage the queue at the PSK. What they need is some common sense and a bit of awareness about queuing theory. The first part of verifying the application and photo happens very quickly, the wait time is 30 minutes. There are a lot of counters to do that. The next two phases(verification, dispatch) have only very few counters. So there is no point in having so many counters for the first part - or they need to increase the capacity of the next two phases and also consider the fact that they are not so comfortable computer users. I am sure nobody is looking at these wait times(because they don't care about people's time) - they are worried only about how early they can go home. The PO blames TCS for the broken processes and appears to have no control over things.

Also the public gets worked up knowing very well that things are broken - can't blame them because they have very poor trust in these offices. Some of them were also restless folks who wouldn't sit down but crowd the entrance area looking for their number, which made things worse. Once you are inside the seva kendra, you cannot get out and all you get is water and tea. They do let in people with small kids quickly, but others need to be prepared for it. I kept myself hydrated and kept my cool.

Passport Enquiry at Regional Passport Office, Bangalore

2010-10-28T10:21:00.002+05:30

I have been making trips to the RPO, Bangalore to see if I can get my passport quickly. First day, I landed up a bit late around 10am, so the token number was 278, which seemed like a wait till the end of the day. Then I happened to see the board that said that token numbers from the previous day is still valid. I thought I will make use of that facility so that I don't have to stand in the token queue again. But it turned out that you can only use it only if your task is unfinished(when they close shop), not for next day service at the initial counter. The guy at the desk was pretty rude and that seems to be the case with every guy in there - oh well this is a Govt. office where people have no other choice. I also think people make it a big deal(may be it is for many)) by queuing up from 6am in the morning.

Finally I went early(I thought) at 8:15, by then there were around 100 people in the queue - waited till 9:30 for the token, another 2 hours to get to the counter. The guy said my passport was coming in quickly in 15 days or earlier. Also they wanted the original copy of my letter from my office - no copies, so he can't do anything about it as well. But before I could arrange for a formal letter with signed in fresh ink, I got the SMS that my passport has been despatched finally, which was a pleasant surprise.

Composting at Home Mindblocks

2010-10-16T06:35:00.007+05:30

Aarthi commented on one of my composting posts, I thought it may be worth another post on this.

Here some basic mind blocks I have that prevent me from recycling the kitchen waster. Can you help me get over them? I know that daily dump might answer these Qs, but I want to hear from someone who has done it. Help maadi, please..

1. Composting in khamba or what so ever will attract rats, cockroaches, flies, etc.

Unless there is a lot of food waste, it will not attract rats and cockroaches. Some fruits(mango esp) do attract fruit flies and sometimes house flies. If your khamba outside, it is not a problem, but if it is inside in your work area then it is an irritant. We have it setup on our terrace in a corner, so it is not an issue for us. We also had a red ant problem which was due to botched attempt to add some worms in the compost. You also will see maggots which could be tough for some people. But they are harmless - they do creep into the house once in a while. Remember these are the elements that work on your waste to convert into compost.

2. It smells

It does smell - again, if there is enough ventilation and if you stir it pretty well, it doesn't get that bad. I like the smell these days, it is a good feedback on how the process is going :) And you really need to think why you are doing this when the smell gets really really pungent! The lemon grass oil helps - but I have stopped using it now. Ultimately you need to run this at zero cost IMO - doesn't make sense to depend on these crutches too much.

3. Composting takes a lot of time and effort every day.

Not really - you need to collect your kitchen waste in a separate bin and put it in the khamba once. You need to stir it once in 2 or 3 days. If you have a watery pile(watermelon etc.), you need to do it daily. IMO, it depends on how interested and very committed to this effort. I am not a very patient guy by nature, but I am finding it more like a workout(for my nostrils as well) than an effort because I am determined not to dump the wet waste out.

4. It is expensive to start and maintain.

Not at all - 1000 INR for the khamba and another 1000 for a leave it pot. Intial investment of around 2500 INR. Once you have some compost, you can do away with accelerators and other supplies. Right now it is a zero cost effort for us. The last time we spent some money was for saw dust - in fact we could've used some soil instead for a watery pile from lots of watermelon.

You need to remember that urban dwellings are not naturally suited to composting at home - so you need to live with the constraints. In fact it is setup to fight nature, not live in alignment with nature. I have to add that DailyDump has been a great help - they respond to every query in quick time always! It also depends on your interest and commitment to not to let your wet waste go outside - I am determined to not to let it out. Hope this helps and let me know if you have further questions.

Flooded Khamba(Compost Vessel)

2010-10-10T09:34:00.004+05:30

The rains that lashed us couple of days ago left our khamba flooded with rainwater. The bottom vessel was flooded and stinking. First reaction was to drain the water out, but then we dumped some sawdust into the it and some semi-done compost. Also kept that vessel open for a while. Sawdust did a good job in sucking the water out, but it was difficult stirring the waste. So some of the dried up waste on top was dumped to the leave-it-pot, then it became a bit manageable. But the major challenge was to the nasal sensors.

Advice from DailyDump is to cover the vessel with plastic during rains - but plastic is a strict no-no for us, at least in composting and gardening. So we'll leave it under the sunshade as it is and work it out when it gets flooded with rainwater.

Processing Wet Waste at Source !

2010-10-09T05:48:00.000+05:30

It's year since we started composting the wet waste at home using the DailyDump's khamba and leave it pots. So the wet waste does not go out anymore, it turns into compost. We have a bag(and a bit more may be) of compost ready to use from a years' wet waste - significantly reduced in size as well.

It appears that 80% of the waste from any household is wet waste and Bangalore city creates around 250 tonne of wet waste daily! BBMP spends over 400 crore to dump this(Source: Hindu Property Plus, 2nd October). Imagine the significant reduction in waste if everyone were to do it at home(source). While there are arguments in favor and against of doing it by your apartment or city, the best way for a sustainable world is to do the composting at home, at the source. It avoids transportation - from your house to a small vehicle, then to the large trucks and to the dumping ground. And separating the wet from other types of waste is a laborious job. So it is best processed at home instead of sending it out. This is completely in your control as well - there are no other dependencies except the vessels needed.

But then that was the way things worked earlier till the big cities came into being. Then you needed to move everything to the cities including people(rich and the poor) from all over. And we started moving the waste out and get water and other resources from elsewhere. The holy grail of centralized urban development designed to use the natural resources rapidly and dirty the environment by dumping waste and sewage everywhere.

While there are challenges and constant attention needed to compost at home, the DailyDump products that are designed with the urban dwellers in mind, makes it far more easier than you think. And the problem of waste management in cities are getting far more complex than you can imagine!

You can read our composting experience here - a drop in the ocean may be, nevertheless our contribution!

Kaizen Swimming with Easy Freestlye DVD by Terry Laughlin - Part 2

2010-09-25T12:22:00.007+05:30

Kaizen Swimming is something Terry Laughlin refers to the perpetual learning that a swimmer needs to aim for instead of the lap swimming that people indulge in. It is a philosophy that you can apply in all walks of your life. Swimming being a very unnatural activity for human being, it is important to keep learning and tuning. And that is at the core of Total Immersion philosophy of swimming. And here is how it looks like when you are a TI swimmer. Really awesome!

So I finished 7 sessions of swimming with Easy Freestyle DVD though I had a 3 week break due to a severe flu. Progress has been really good - from someone who struggled to reach the other end, I can swim very comfortably breathing bilaterally to the other end now. In fact, I was able to swim two laps without a break though a bit uncomfortably in the end.

The key focus of the Lesson 1 drills is to get you relaxed in water and to cooperate with gravity rather than fighting it, which makes all other things far more easier. Especially to get your breathing right, which is very important for swimming long distances. Once you are pretty relaxed in water and if you are exhaling well into water, things fall in place very nicely. Read this story of 1 length to 1 mile in 15 days!

The difficult one among the lesson 1 drills was the breathing one. Though I could comfortably turn to the sweet spot and breath, it was difficult to get back to the original position. Need more work on that. I also tried the first couple of drills of lesson 2 where the theme is finding "The path of least resistance" ! It seems a normal swimmer wastes around 97% of his effort in swimming, only 3% results in forward progress! It is no wonder that more than power, the techniques to avoid the resistance would give the biggest gain in your swimming.

So the lesson on relaxed swimming cooperating with gravity is pretty much drilled in I guess and the results are there to be seen. Now I need to get the more important things about the stroke in place.

Chronic Cardio

2010-08-31T18:55:00.004+05:30

Out of fear for death from heart problems, I started running which I had considered a boring (good for PT Usha and other girls) sport. It was going on well for a year when I managed running upto 25KM without any injuries. But then the running bug hit me hard and I wanted to improve my pace - trained for it, couldn't make it to a 10K because of a flu(exercise induced for sure) and then ran a half marathon that was half an hour faster than my previous timing at the same race. But ended up at the physio's table with a ITBS problem - my physio(who is a friend of mine) laughed at the problem when I described it to him that I cannot run more than 10KM. He suggested I run less than 10K, I laughed back telling him that he doesn't understand ! But in hindsight he was absolutely right - my legs(muscles around it) were not strong enough to run distances more than 10K.

After undergoing therapy for couple of months, I was back on the trail and slowly started hitting 10Ks regularly. Then I tried a 15K which brought back memories of old, so I slowed down a bit, but couldn't resist the longer ones. Despite some niggle at the ankle, I ran a 16K in a tough terrain around town. It turned out that it was an "Achilles"! Another month of physiotherapy and all looked well and the 10K race in town was round the corner. I wasn't planning to run, but then during the last week, I couldn't let it pass and did a spot registration and ran it which was followed with another flu(exercise induced for sure!). I got back again slowly building upto the comfortable 10Ks. I also added swimming as a cross training just to make sure that I don't die because of lack of cardio with all the problems that I was having with my puny legs(I thought I had strong ones being a football player). So the pains of hard running would be washed away next morning with a swim! Then I felt something funny at the sides of the heel while massaging the achilles. The achilles felt perfectly fine, but the problem seems to have moved further south on the heel. A quick search confirmed the symptoms to be that of "Plantar Fascitis" another chronic cardio problem. But I avoided my physio for fear of being laughed at (yet again), did some massages myself and just limited myself to 10Ks and took the bold decision of opting out the next half marathon where I would have wanted to take another half an hour out of my Personal Best(PB). It appears that there are two more problems that may be waiting in the wings for me - shin splints and runners knee.

It is not the running that gets you into this (though running involves a repetitive motion of some parts which is pretty unnatural) - it is the stupidity of the goal based running that doesn't consider one's capabilities. Usually you run a race on the date set by some race organizers, not on a date where you are ready to run the distance at your pace! And then you need to hit your timing goals as well! Considering the fact that I never run continuously, but do the run-walk, I shouldn't be in so much trouble. Though my goal was to enjoy the runs and to be fit, I stupidly deviated to increase my pace. The reality is that everyone is wired for some distance at some pace, more than that is fraught with all these injuries. There are lots of indicators - neck sprains, flu, ITBS, that told me that I was going above the thresholds, but I was married to my goal of improving my timings! BTW, any goal based activity in life is fraught with these risks.

And as you know, it is never one-sided, there are always both sides of the story. All my trousers are now low waist ones because the waist line has shrunk badly since I started running and my sparely used trousers that were bought 16+ years ago fit very well these days. And it looks like I will have to buy a new belt because this one(another 1o+ year old one). If I were able to sustain my running at higher mileages, I could have hit my 28" waistline in my 20's before I went to America. I also stopped going to the Cardiologist and doing the Executive Health Checkup every year - a spot check of cholesterol was good enough and even that got boring after very normal results every time. I am back eating all kinds of fish fried in coconut oil(BTW, that was a hoax about coconut - it is the king). But I wasn't saving any money though - it was going to the therapist and on new expensive shoes to fix my pronation on the legs !

All good things and bad things I attribute it to the chronic cardio that I have got into. At the moment I am trying to shift some balance into other things - though walking is pretty much useless for your heart except for some feel-good factor, I walk at every opportunity these days. Cycling aimlessly hasn't gone on well with me for some reason, tried a bit of commuting which was too short to be a workout. But swimming seems like an exciting sport - it is not the power, but the technique that comes first in this sport, and the variety of things to learn seems endless. But it is never going to be as simple as a run, you need the infrastructure and gadgets which I have close by. Another exciting one is Yoga - it has the variety for a beginner to an expert to keep them challenged. But if I don't run, I feel a pain in my heart, so I have got to check it out - run and see that the pain was just an imagined one. Hopefully, I will be able to break this habit sometime!

Kaizen Swimming with Easy Freestlye DVD by Terry Laughlin - Part 1

2010-08-28T17:06:00.001+05:30

So I finally got back to the pool after a short break due to the rainy weather around here. Temperatures(20-23C in the mornings) are not that low to really keep away from the pool, but the swimming season in our apartment is May-June when the schools are closed and it is summer time here. Then everybody disappears till the next season. But I am trying to make it a year long season for me with Terry Laughlin's Easy Freestyle 21st Century Techniques for Beginners to Advanced Swimmers DVD. The pools(two 20m ones) are in great shape and I am the only one who uses it regularly.

The drills in the DVD has changed a lot from Terry's original Total Immersion book, but the philosophy hasn't changed much. The book really helped me understand the basics and made me a TI and Terry fan. So I didn't have to think too much about buying the DVD. And the first day of using these latest techniques is always a challenging one because how you feel on the first day would really make or break your progress. So as usual I spent good amount of time watching the DVD at home(this is really a challenge with a toddler at home) and observing the nuances.

The first lesson is about "Cooperating with Gravity" which gives you techniques to float on water with the least amount of effort. The key takeaway for me was just relax and let the buyoancy do the rest for you. Though the drills are not so unfamiliar except for the last couple are brand new and a bit challenging.

The first thing I noticed was I was getting tensed up at many parts of the body - shoulder and knee specifically. So the first drill, "Superman Glide", was just to relax in water as much as possible. I went up and down the pool with one drill and gradually moved to the more interesting and challenging ones. The basic idea of the drills is to imprint the right techniques by repeatedly doing it. I have to iron out a few rough edges on the last couple of drills, especially the last one where you need to turn your body to breath.

It was unreasonable to expect any immediate impact to my swimming on day one. So I was a bit surprised when I could do a 20m lap of freestyle easily without much struggle breathing bilaterally on every third stroke. Considering the fact that I was swimming after more than couple of months made it even more miraculous. So I did couple more laps and it seemed getting better and better and the last lap was so easy that I didn't realize that I reached the other end breathing bilaterally on every 3rd stroke ! I had never done that before! The only thing I was consciously doing was to relax and not letting the body go tight anywhere. I had to pinch myself to be sure that it wasn't a dream(I was having many after watching the DVDs). It may be a bit too early to declare victory, but having known Terry's philosophy of swimming and teaching, I want to think it to be the "Easy Freestyle" at work!

Organic Terrace Garden Roundup

2010-08-22T15:10:00.000+05:30

It's been over 7 months since our outsourced terrace garden came into existence. Though the produce is no where near what we need, there is constant flow of produce from the garden. As you may know this is based on the concept of a square foot garden where each vegetable has exactly 1 square foot to grow - pretty much cramped I would say. This is the typical urban philosophy where you cramp up stuff which is not so natural as you can imagine. The natural fallout is that those who can grab land from the neighbor's by their muscle outgrow the others and produce pretty well. But there are some plants that doesn't need too much space - for example, ladies finger and most of the leafy ones. But in general, I think it is more or less like mechanized animal farming, not so natural at all.

We have had one bumper crop of tomatoes which we had to distribute to neighbors to finish the stock, but all of those plants died at the same time which resulted in no produce for a long time. But when we had a lot of tomatoes, it was also very cheap in the market as well. So it may be same breeze that got us a lot of tomatoes like the farmers. Ladies finger was always producing, but not in abundance though. Brinjal was not something we wanted, but it appears to be producing copiously. It is enough and more for us and the monkeys. We have two varieties of beans, one of the meter beans produced good amount of beans, but the normal beans which is supposed to be an easy plant, didn't thrive very well. A ridge gourd plan thrived very well going all across the trellis, but no produce at all. Most of the leafy veggies do very well as well. We had one good crop of beet root, but nothing after that.

We have had our share of bugs, birds and monkey trouble - this is indeed very natural ! They are out looking for food, they don't real

ly care whether it is your organic terrace garden or not. And the basic tenet of Organic thinking is that don't fight it, get used to it. They do spray organic pesticides, but that is again fighting the symptom. The idea of an organic garden should be

to create an ecosystem that will provide for everyone - but this is again not a practical thing in an urban guerrilla garden. We are in fact trying to grow some flowers and herbs that are supposed to create this balance or take the hit instead of the vegetables, not sure if that is working well, but it gives a good variety to the garden. And monkeys need special treatment - it appears they don't like the smell of dry fish, so we put some around the vegetable garden, but still they come in and pluck the veggies. But the lesson here is - don't fight the pests, get used to it.

Also the idea of outsourcing itself is not a good one for an organic garden where you are supposed to toil it out and get up close and watch it grow, watch it being eaten by bugs and birds, watch it produce, take care of it completely. This is more or less like a young mother leaving her new born baby in the crèche or a babysitter. In fact it is even worse because you are not even involved in the seeding process itself. So we are planning to drop the idea of outsourcing once the current contract expires. Like any outsourcing effort, you tend to blame it on the vendor who we pay for the service. But it did give us some good ideas and we now have a one-point source to get the supplies for the garden. But overall the experience has been pretty good - lots of learning about plants and the interplay of bees and bugs etc.

Swimming Effectively - learning from the book/DVD

2010-08-17T13:59:00.000+05:30

As things stand, I can swim 20 meters(I was under the impression it was a 25m pool till recently) freestyle with a bit of effort and 60m backstroke effortlessly. I have been at work trying to improve my freestyle this season and it sure has improved - I am reaching the other end with less panic and I can breath bilaterally(though not so smooth) and I think I am reaching there faster with less strokes as well(haven't measured this because there are other urgent things to take care now). The biggest bottleneck has been breathing - while I could hang on for more time with breathing on my stronger side every other stroke that was screwing up the form badly forcing me to stroke more.

So I went to work to improve the breathing bit first - till I started doing an exhalation drill I found at Swimsmooth.com, the progress was indeed slow. You also need to be relaxed in the water, but unless you are breathing out smoothly, you can't relax well. So this was a good workout that focused on the problem specifically. At the same time I was doing the Total Immersion catchup drills breathing on alternate sides and started introducing into my swimming. The breath on the right side is still not very smooth, which needs some work definitely. But overall good progress since the last couple of months.

So I decided to invest in a DVD, Terry Laughlin, who to me is the master teacher, which I hope can take me to the next step. I was also considering joining Nisha Millet's advanced swimming class. But that would mean a bit of commute and I am not too sure of Nisha's swimming philosophy except that she was one of the best swimmers India has ever produced. At the moment, I am brainwashed by Terry Laughlin and his Total Immersion techniques. It is not blind faith though - I learned backstroke from the Total Immersion book without anyone's help. So there is no question about whether it will work or not. I hope a video will show me more finer points than a book.

So here I go - the next target is to get to 40meter freestyle effortlessly using the DVD as a self help and let me see how it goes!

Tender Coconut Water

2010-08-08T14:23:00.000+05:30

One of the hangovers from a year living in the US was the habit of drinking cola especially in situations where you weren't sure of the water quality. While tender coconut is available in most of the places in Karnataka, it was no match for the one's we are used to in coconut country - Kerala. Typically they are no fresh because they are not sourced locally. There was also this propaganda of coconut is not good for one's health, which is an absolute nonsense as I figured out later. So it was usually avoided unless the aerated stuff was not available and it turns out that the colas are available in remote corners of the country as well. And in a coconut country, tender coconuts are considered to be of less value than the real coconut which finds its use everywhere.

But the Cola problems in India forced me to think a bit about the use of aerated drinks, one was the blatant sucking of underground water by Coca-Cola at Plachimada, another was the claim of pesticides in the aerated drinks. But the enlightening article about this controversy was a column in Swaminomics, Milk is more Dangerous than Cola, where Swaminathan Ankleshwara Iyer questioned the legitimacy of even drinking milk which was another animal's milk specifically produced for its offspring. Though the argument was that milk would be equally or more contaminated than the colas, my takeaway was that both drinking Cola and Milk was very unnatural when we have really good alternatives. I have since then quit drinking milk and Cola.

Since then I have been drinking tender coconut water and an occasional sugar cane juice outside of home and lemon juice with honey at home. The #1 drink remains tender coconut, which is packaged very well and no processing happens before you get to drink it - very natural indeed. There is also no need to store it in any special way, it stays fresh for at least a week or more. While the fresh ones have some fizz, the taste doesn't really change with the natural packaging. It is indeed expensive than the cola, but the availability in Bangalore is as good or better. These are specialized corner shops on the street manned by people with special expertise in opening the tender coconut. Though they offer plastic straws for you to drink, I don't use the straws to make it a clean drink.

We have couple of shops nearby to pick up the tender coconuts, one of them is run by someone who goes around and gets fresh ones from the trees around and he knows his job pretty well and very passionate about his job as well. He can tell you which one's have more water or better taste by a tap on the coconut. You could easily be fooled if you just go with external appearance. The husk can hide the real size of the shell. If he is not around(when he is sick or he doesn't get the produce), I usually have couple of tender coconuts a day. Otherwise I go the other shop, which sources its produce from outside town and their expertise about the produce is limited.

Another cheaper option is sugar cane juice(they say milk). It is just 6-7 INR on street side shops and 10-12INR in regular shops where they have to pay rent for the shop. I was skeptical of the hygiene of the shops because it need some processing before you can drink it. But tried couple of times and found that they do keep everything clean and hygieneic as well. But unlike tender coconut water, you can't drink too much of this because of the high sugar content. The neighborhood juice shops are also a pretty good alternative for the Bangaloreans, but we don't have any descent ones around except for the musambi juice shops on the street. I would rather eat the fruits as it is than sucking its juice which needs additional processing and creates more waste.

While Americans may not have other natural alternatives and Colas may have become part of their lifestyle, I believe there are many natural alternatives in the Indian scenario and tender coconut remains #1 choice at least in south India. You can easily wean away from the synthetic aerated drinks and bottled juices. I used to drink Gatorade as a sport drink for my runs, but I have since completely shifted to plain water and tender coconut which is by itself a great sport drink. I stock up several of them for a run to keep myself hydrated before and after the runs.

Compost is ready!

2010-07-24T07:00:00.003+05:30

After more than 8 months of collecting wet waste and preparing it for compost using daily dumps khamba and leave it pot, we have compost ready for use! We just need to sieve it and get it out. But since we have some vermicompost stock, we are holding off its use for later. One thing that we are unsure is about the quality of the compost and it appears there is no easy way to check it. Use of dry leaves were pretty low initially because we didn't have any plants then. But now we have abundant supply of leaves from our vegetable garden !

We have a khamba and two leave-it-pots, one of the leave-it-pots we leave it untouched for the waste to become compost and just use the other one to put fresh waste from the khamba. This seems to work very well. Otherwise you need to put the semi-compost in a bag and keep it for a while.

I guess this has become part of our daily chores and not something we have to do extra. While smell from the wastes after couple of days is still a challenge, thinking of the cause makes it something worthwhile to go through! Processing waste at the source is the best possible way to handle it for sure!

"Chase" the Cockroaches

2010-07-24T06:17:00.008+05:30

I thought chasing the cockroaches was always a loosing battle, they always came back in larger numbers. May be they were better left alone considering them a necessary part of the ecosystem. But then they were getting stuck in our washing machine, microwave oven and bread toaster etc. etc. which was more than a nuisance. We are still not at that level of thinking to ignore these gadgets and let the cockroaches live a free life!

So we occasionally spray some pesticides to chase them away. But it was just a short term solution, they get back to the gadgets in no time. And it appeared that the pesticides were designed for re-fill after couple of months! The usual time for our pesticide spraying is when we go out of town which always delayed our early morning departures. After our daughter was born, we almost stopped using the pesticides.

Then a friend of us suggested an organic repellent(not a pesticide), Chase, which they claimed was very effective. It took some time for us to get hold of it because it was available only in the FoodWorld stores in town. It needs some preparation(like any natural concoction) before you apply it. You need to make a thick paste out of it using water and make small balls out of it and keep the balls at places where the cockroaches would hide(also near drains where they usually come and go out).

It didn't have an immediate effect unlike the toxic pesticides, cockroaches where roaming around still. But after a week, they started disappearing and the smaller ones came out running for their lives. After couple of weeks, they were hard to spot. In a month they just disappeared completely! According to the instructions on the cover, it was supposed to last for a month. So we stocked up for a 6 months, waiting for the first sight of cockroaches to apply it again. But even after 3 months there were no sign of any cockroaches except for one or two which lands up from somewhere and disappears later. But since we had some inventory, we used it again after around 6 months and gave it off to others. Most of them would say initially that it wasn't working because they are so used to the instant annihilation by the toxic pesticides instead of the slow effect of Chase.

This was indeed amazing ! It appears that you can make this yourself at home because all the ingredients are natural ones. I wasn't sure if any kind of repellents would be effective because we live in a flat where the cockroaches can easily enter inside from other flats. But this was way beyond our expectations and we are also really glad to get rid of the toxic pesticides that we have been using for a long time. Try this out and let us know of your experience.

Wet Compost pile

2010-05-30T13:29:00.001+05:30

With the watermelon season on and with Murugan's local Watermelon mandi across the street, we had lots of watermelon skin to dispose of. It turned out to be the most watery pile we have seen in our compost bins! The prescribed means of handling it is by using sawdust (or red soil) - but we didn't have easy access to it. Added lots of dry leaves initially, but it wasn't much of help, then tried some existing semi-compost to the pile, but there was no sign of the pile drying up. Then it looked like we have to suspend putting new things into the khamba. Finally dumped the whole thing into the semi compost pile in the leave-it-pot. It took couple of days of stirring to dry up, but finally it did.

A wet pile of waste is one of the most challenging tasks for composting at home. That's when you need to think very deeply why you are doing this at all. And you also realize that your smelling instincts are very much in tact, which isn't a good thing in this case though! But you get used to it over a period of time as well. This is indeed one of the reasons why many community composting efforts fail - they are bound to trouble someone in the community and everyone hates bad smell even for a short duration of time.

When the sawdust arrived, Murugan's mandi was closed for the year! Our watermelon wines didn't last for long either in the hot climate. We also bought a new leave-it-pot as a buffer - new waste would go into just one of them and the old one would remain undisturbed on its way to compost.

Sunfeast World 10K Bangalore 2010

2010-05-24T19:40:00.003+05:30

I made it to the Sunfeast 10k last minute spot registering at the expo. I wasn't sure to run or not considering my Achilles tendinitis injury which seems to have healed. So I left it for the last responsible moment to register. After couple of 10K+ runs and short 5K runs, I thought I could give it a shot. A 70 minute finish looked possible though I struggled to get there.

Reached the stadium by local BMTC Volvo bus, didn't have to wait too long before the event started, way too much crowd and with no pace categories, it was difficult to run or even walk. I stuck to my 3:1 run/walk plan and went with the crowd initially and picked up some speed after 5K, but by 8K things were getting difficult, so I took a longer break for the next walk break and tried to push a bit at 9K mark but had to take another break before I scamper to the finish line. It was 1h10:52s by my watch, not sure of the chip timing.

Frankly, I really don't like these mega running events anymore - typical large scale events where volume matters a lot more than quality. It does help one get started, but consistency in running is what pays you dividents, not the one-off mass event like this. That's where Runners for Life(RFL) is your best bet keep running and to be a runner for life(what an apt name!). With an organized run every other week throughout the year and two fantastic trail runs, you can't blame the lack of events for not able to run. You don't have to register and pick up your bibs for bi-weekly run, but register on the spot(I wish they had the same facilty for KTM and Ultra too - but they are becoming big too) And if you are more determined, there are always back roads that you never knew where you could run. And if you need company to run, join Daily Mile the facebook for runners, cyclists, swimmers and triathletes - you will never run alone.

These events do collect a significant money for charity during these events which is a good thing, but there is also business behind that which is not that bad. I didn't collect any money this time though, but my contribution goes to my charity partner - Association for People with Disability.

Swimming

2010-04-18T10:05:00.004+05:30

I could only do the dog crawl till I learned it the right way in our apartment pool which was just 4ft deep. Along with Terry Laughlin's classic book on Total Immersion(TI) Swimming, I made good progress on my swimming technique especially backstroke which I learned from the book literally! I went easy on swimming mostly when I started running seriously, which I guess was a mistake because swimming gives a great massage for your legs that takes a lot of pounding during running.

With the summer heat on, I had been thinking of getting into the pool for a while, but I had some starting trouble. But spending some time reading the TI book was enough to get going. More than learning the swimming techniques in the book, Terry Laughlin inspires you to learn swimming the right way. It is not one of those technique books - in fact it can be quite boring if you are just looking for quick fixes. The overall philosophy is to learn swimming the right way than fighting the water. He looks at swimming holistically and focuses on the important aspects.

This time I am trying to improve my freestyle strokes which can get me barely to the other end on a 25 yards pool. Getting to breath well is still a problem for me. So I am going to do some TI drills that can help me improve the freestyle skills. Hopefully that should get me swim better which is primary motive of Total Immersion techniques and take me longer than 25 yards comfortably. Rest of the styles(breast and butterfly) can wait till I get this right.

Composting Update

2010-02-21T17:10:00.003+05:30

It is almost 6 months since we started composting at home and it seems to have stuck and become part of a regular routine Though we haven't yet used the compost yet, the recycling is going on. The leave-it-pot is almost full, but the level keeps going down when more thing gets further composted. Except for nasty smell in between that you have to get used to, it has been pretty smooth sailing after the initial bumps. We did think of stopping it for a while when the spirit was pretty low, but finally kept doing it. May be we need one more leave-it-pot(or some container) to make the composting easier. Now old and new waste gets mixed up in the leave-it-pot which makes it difficult to get some compost out. If you have two of them, you could let one compost completely before dumping new stuff.

Overall, well worth doing it, not very difficult to make it a habit, surely worth a try!

Harvest from the Garden

2010-02-21T17:04:00.003+05:30

It's harvest time in our 80sqft vegetable garden on the terrace. Regular supply of okra(ladies finger), beets, cucumber(sambar variety) and green and red leaves(keera/cheera/dhantu) are coming in. It has a become a bit hot for the plants, but they are holding on well. But capsicum and carrots seems to have a tough time though. Carrot was a complete failure, capsicum plants seems pretty difficult to get off the ground. Tomatoes and bitter gourds should be on their way in a couple of weeks.

The biggest threat to our garden produce is not pests but monkeys - they raid the place regularly, then drink water from the tap and leave it open! They plucked a cucumber and on the way they plucked the plant out. A friend of us suggested keeping some dry fish around, it seems they don't like it at all. So we are trying it and seeing if that helps. Fortunately, they don't pluck plants without any fruits on them - so the roots and leafy ones are pretty safe from them. This is an interesting challenge. But they don't come inside the house now that they have stuff to steal outside.

GM food

2010-02-14T16:08:00.004+05:30

While I don't claim to be an expert to make a comment on the Genetically Modified(GM) foods, I find something really odd about this whole GM thing, in fact something very unnatural. While most of our so called "development" has been using very unnatural and unsustainable techniques, it sounds very odd that the agricultural scientists or biotechnologists has to take this route to save the world from a very natural process of growing vegetables and fruits. Instead of looking holistically and trying to figure out the problems, they are modifying the seeds which would make the seed companies the key part of an otherwise natural process. You are breaking the natural cycle by doing that - may be they had done it before(hybrids) and got better results, but this more intrusive and more unnatural.

What's wrong with their approach is the typical western(followed or pushed out to the world) technique of "local sub-optimization" that fixes just one part of the complete chain in the short term creating significant problems in the future. Pesticide based food revolution was a great example of this. While I can't say for sure the GM foods would create such problems myself, I am not willing to believe the seed companies who are behind this research. To me, their approach is fundamentally wrong and I have every reason to suspect they are in it just to make money and dominate the farmers world over. I am very disappointed at this direction of agri-research which doesn't find anything wrong with introducing an external agent(seed companies) in a very natural cycle of cultivation. In fact the technique that they should apply is the "trimming" technique that would remove the unnatural agents in the cycle to make farming far more sustainable.

While you see this technique applied in other fields of science and engineering, at least that is in the domain where there were no natural process existed before - but typically it is a short term fix against a long term solution. In fact, I can't believe that you need such a complex research to go down really into the genes and fix the productivity issue - I am sure there are cheaper and simpler ways of doing this in an organic fashion. This is an excellent example of technology wasted and gone in the wrong direction.

But it looks like the powers that be behind this GM nonsense are too powerful to be ignored and they will ultimately push it down our throats. Bt cotton has already cultivated in large scale though we don't eat them. But when everything turns out to be a business, this is inevitable. Seed companies want to control the farmers, researchers get money from these guys to push their agenda and most of the farmers are also worried about short term money making, this vicious circle would finally take us in a very wrong way. Even if I want to cultivate in an organic fashion, I am not guaranteed it will be organic especially in a country like India where enforcement of any policy is pretty pathetic.

Organic Terrace Garden Update

2010-01-31T11:52:00.005+05:30

Our outsourced organic terrace garden has been setup and the plants are making good progress. It consists of 8 wooden boxes lined with water proof material and filled with a substitute for soil which consists of coco-pith and manure. It is lighter than normal soil and treated to be more fertile. Purna Organics sell these materials which I guess costs around INR 300 for a 30kg bag. There is also an aluminum trelly for the twines to go around. They also setup a drip watering system (which doesn't seem like a real organic thing to do in my view).

We have an 80 square foot garden with each square foot having one type of vegetable. They mix it up by planting the right combination of plants to reduce pests and good growth. Each vegetable is planted in 6 squares(6 sqft) across the layout. We have tomato, okra, dantu(cheera), beet, carrot, onion, potatoe, bitter gourd, peas, beans, capsicum,kari leaves and mangalore southeka. Most of them are off the ground except for potatoes, carrot and capsicum which is taking a bit more time. In fact capsicum seeds failed and it has been replanted. We also added beans in the couple of vacant squares.

Watering the plants is a bit too easy - just turn the tap for around 8-10 minutes and you are done. I would take out the drip lines if I were to set this up again - working out in the garden is an integral part of the organic gardening experience in my book. Anyways, we have some plants in pots and a composter to make up for the lost exercise!

Purna Organics guys visit the garden every two weeks and add manuring and see if everything is going on ok. There is also an inspection visit every month by an agriculture specialist for a review. Looks like everything is going on ok till now.

Hundred Pushups

2010-01-18T11:33:00.004+05:30

Having struggled all my life trying to do 5 continuous pushups(for someone aspired to become a footballer, hands didn't matter I thought), doing hundred pushups is something unthinkable. The hundredpushups plan is a program that takes you to 100 continuous pushups in 6 weeks even if you can do less than 5 continuous pushups. The plan has 3 different columns for people with different capacities. While I don't have any hopes of getting to a 100 this lifetime, a 25 looked like a practical target for me. My initial attempt didn't last beyond the first two weeks where I improved my number to around 10.

By the time I started again when I was recovering from my knee problem, my number had dropped again in the 0-5 range. But this time I persisted and finished the first 2 weeks program, but could only muster only 12 continuous pushups after that and hence couldn't qualify for the third week. You need to hit at least 16 continuous pushups.

So I started from beginning and moved to the next column(5-10) now that I could do 10 pushups continously. The first week went well with one or two repetition of some days, but the second week looked like a steep climb. First workout of the second week itself took a week and the second one took more than a month. And this seems like a real wall that I can't climb without some steroids to beef up my puny arms(I have to remind you that I do have a pair of powerful legs btw, especially the left leg:).

But this was great progress anyway from what I could do before. So I am keeping at it and I guess things are improving, but at a very slow pace that may not be observable in a day or two or even weeks or months! But my continuous pushups went up to within striking distance of my target of 25, to 20, which is a descent number I guess. So I could get onto the third week's program, but I am planning to complete the second week's second column(for 5-10) before that.

But it is a very simple exercise using your body instead of any weights that can be done anywhere anytime without any extra gadgets. So I am going to keep doing the program and would let you know how it goes. I am wondering if anyone got to 100 from just 5 ever - that could have been a long drawn out program, not surely within 6 weeks! But the program looks well crafted to make some good progress and keep it interesting!

Update on 21Feb10: I did the 25! I am planning to continue the program, but the drive isn't that great though!

Organic Terrace Garden by Purna Organics

2010-01-12T15:56:00.009+05:30

After realizing that it is not really hunky dory trying to do a terrace garden ourselves, we have got some help, at some cost off course, from Purna Organics to setup one, and with support services as well.

We have had a descent harvest of okra, carrot(most of them looked like potatoes but) and tomatoes(were good for salads, not the size we wanted) though monkeys raided and harvested it couple of times. But the plants were not really healthy and was regularly attacked by pests. Though the organic pesticides worked, pests did hurt the plants and the produce.

What we didn't do well ? Poor nutrition - it was written all around the plants. While we did add composts and some organic manure, it was needed more frequently. And the size of the garden was a bit big for beginners like us to chew - there were too many tomato and carrot plants. The mix was overly skewed. We should have thrown out some of the plants initially. Also the initial enthusiasm died down and we couldn't sustain the effort.

So we found Purna Organics and they seemed to be doing a good job at it, but with a bit of money(Rs.250/sqft). I met Mallesh, CEO of the firm and saw their demo OTG at their office. He sounded very reasonable and he seemed to have done his homework and experiments well. I was impressed, but leaving your garden to someone else was not something that we wanted to. Mallesh said we could try on our own may be after 6 months once we have a better idea of things and he will supply the materials in any case. And we needed some help anyway.

Money was a bit too much if you look at just investment and returns - for a potential return of 5K, we would be spending more than 25K. So the only question that remained was the money - may be I am not buying that flat panel TV this year, or a holiday(anyway we have to water the plants) that we haven't done for while, or that book shelf that we wanted:) In the end, we felt it was worth the money. In order to keep our appetite for doing some thing our own, we thought we would do some on our own as well.

So finally stuck a deal around the new year! It was installed in another week at our terrace.

2009 and Happy New Year!

2009-12-25T18:49:00.011+05:30

2009 started with a flu after being flu-less for almost a year. Flu came back couple of more times - could have been the running (longer distances and higher pace) or just the flu! All in all a good year, but ended with a low having injured my knee running and the low impacted life(and blogging) in general. But it was an eventful year overall, the "green" bug really bit me during the year.

Commute by cycle for 8+ months(suspended after knee trouble since October)
A truly car free commute except for one day(to carry old clothes for N.Karnataka flood relief), and just 2 long drives.
Terrace Gardening(that was a bit of surprise to myself - monkeys had a good share of our harvest though)
Composting at Home
Trained to run(ended up with an injury and a runners' low though)
New job closer home(nothing exciting but a job!)
Nishka growing at an amazing pace(it is fun)
Free from colas, packaged juices, milk and junk food, mainly relied on tender coconuts and fruits and nuts
Frugal(12K cycle was the major investment) and debt free at the moment.

No major goals for 2010 - need to keep myself healthy physically and mentally, keep running and biking and hope to get more returns out of the terrace garden.

Wish you all a happy new year!

New Running Shoe - Adidas Response Control

2009-12-03T11:59:00.007+05:30

After going through a knee trouble that kept me off from running the Bangalore Ultra 2009, I was under therapy at Recoup. After couple of weeks of therapy, I was declared fit to run and started running. But the knee could last only about 30 minutes, the muscles got tighter and the same pain starts. So my therapist suggested a shoe insert for my pronated feet. I then figured out that I had used my current shoe ,which was a control shoe to handle the pronation, for more than 1400KMs which was way over the recommended distance of around 500-800KM, especially for people with overpronator like me. I also remembered that I didn't have any problem for the Ultra 2008 25K whereas I had problems at Kavery Trail Marathon 2008(and 09) - the difference was the shoe!

So I went around Adidas shoe shops in town, but my shoe, Adidas Response Control was out of stock and the newer shoes, Adidas SuperNova Sequence were comparatively expensive(INR 7K) as well. I cursed myself for not having picked up one when there was a 30% discount on Adidas shoes. So I was going to check Reebok and Nike shoes of the control variety. But I happened to be around the Brand Factory in Wilson Garden and just stepped in to check the shoes. They had my shoe and immediately picked it up at a 30% discount, INR 3700.

Now the problem is, this shoe is gone out of production and I may need it in another 8 months. Either I need to pick up another pair or shop around for another descent one with more money. With an average 80KM of running per month, it will be 600KMs in around 8 months. Not a good thing but. And remember this is crutch that will help you run, the real problems will be hidden for a while, before it resurfaces again when the shoe wears out. So the real problems need to be attended too - strengthening the muscles around the knee should be an important thing to do to keep me running till I am 100!

Vmware's Virtualzation Seminar Series - Bangalore 2009

2009-11-25T12:21:00.004+05:30

Though I am not an IT guy, I attended Vmware's seminar series at Bangalore. Overall there were nothing new at the conference, and in fact reading the virtualization blogs would have been more productive use of the time at the conference.

It was at Leela Palace, one of the top hotels in town, but the conference room settings were a bit disorganized. Though there were many doors to the main hall, you need to enter through a door near the speakers. The rest of the place was packed with chairs. The breakout session was in a pretty small room which was cramped for space as well. It appears that VMware has been able to get good sponsorship from their partners in crime to offer this as a free one.

The morning sessions from Vmware India leaders were particularly dull. There was no passion in the top two people who talked about the market and features. In fact one of them almost said View from Oracle instead of Vmware, and it turns out that they hired her from Oracle recently. Not very impressive on stage at all - for such a hot product and company, they found it difficult to articulate the state of the product and vision, especially the director from Oracle who wasn't at ease with the products at all. Looks like Vmware have hired some typical boring mid-tier executives. Then the usual partner talk from the platinum sponsors followed, nothing really new - yes, we are lock step with VMware! But the HP guy did talk about non-x86 products and platforms to show their other offerings. But surely, VMware is the new king of infrasturcture software!

The talk from F5 on long distance V-motion and Vmware on View were interesting. Otherwise there were nothing new to call for a conference in my opinon.

Getting out of a Runners' Low

2009-11-10T11:46:00.008+05:30

After nearly 2 years of consistent running, I have been laid low by an injury, pretty common among runners - ITB. I was in a training group, Runners High, to improve my running and ensure that I run properly without getting injured. It turned out that the training was a bit too much for me and I had to back off from the Bangalore Ultra-09 25K. Also there are other suspicious activity like cycling that I was doing during the training which could have worsened the situation. I thought I was taking it easy by not pushing for longer distances than last year by sticking to distances under 25K. Instead I was training for better timings, which was more injury prone I realize. The training programs were a bit more work than the Galloway programs that I was following. There were indicators that the training was a bit tough, I had a series of neck sprains and the knee started collapsing once the distances got more than 15K. But after the poorly paced half marathon at KTM, it was difficult to run even 10K when I decided to stop and take some action finally!

But it was a real low which was tough to endure. I couldn't do cycling or even skipping(jump) rope because everything hits the knee. Found it really difficult to get up and go swimming as well. Life in general was hit, hit badly with strong shades of blue for a while.

I turned to my trusted Orthopedician, Dr. Deepak Sharan who runs the Recoup clinics all over the city. The only sports med specialist I know of, Dr. Rajat(a runner himself), moved to Delhi with his clinic. The Anjanapura clinic, which was recently built, is pretty close to where I live. Dr. Deepak is a well known Repeitive Stress Injury(RSI) specialist and though he is not a sports specialist, most of the running injuries being RSI ones, he sure is a good doc to go to. He didn't need much time to diagnose the problem and the inflammation under the knee which was caused by the weak ITB was the problem, it was not just the ITB. It was very painful when he stuck his finger a bit below the knee. Treatment was manual therapy mostly, just massage out the tightness or inflammation. What I like about Dr. Deepak's treatment is the non-invasive nature of it - rarely does he prescribe any medicines except for some vitamins or other advanced therapy using some machines. While it takes a while to see some improvement, it works well! I have had some RSI problems earlier which was treated the same way. Needless to say, Dr. Deepak's diagnosis has always been spot on all the time. He is not that friendly with the patients, but what matters is the right diagnosis ultimately. And the approach to treating the problems have a holistic touch, not a short term quick fixes. He recommends yoga as a long term solution for many of the RSI problems.

After a little more than 2 weeks of trigger point manual therapy for a little more than 2 weeks, things look good. The main problem was the inflammation under the knee, which took some time to heal. ITB eased off within couple of days of therapy. Walking a bit was difficult during the first week of therapy, but things improved quickly and I am finally read to run again!

Lessons learned

I don't need no training to run(that should have been straightforward!), I need to get back to the Galloway method of running which helped me run the distances. I just need to stick to that program and don't get distracted by time goals.
Training to improve timing is wrought with danger, and the kind of fitness I am in, it is not worth it.
My goals for running are to keep myself fit and enjoy the runs - the added pressure of time goals make the runs not so enjoyable, but more stressful. And to be fit, I need to be running for a long time
Stop running if there is a problem - and fix it before you get back. It is really stupid to carry on with pain. Recoup is just round the corner!
You don't really need the running "events" to enjoy your runs - that can be anywhere, choose the simplest thing that works! It also reduces the stress to prepare for an event.
It is important to have another couple of other fitness activities to keep yourself occupied in case of an injury.

So I will carry on running, and see how much I can go and stop immediately when in trouble. Armed with the most natural running technique from Jeff Galloway, I sure want to keep running till I am 100 and enjoy it too !

Produce from the Garden

2009-11-04T05:19:00.003+05:30

After more than 2 months of our foray into Gardening, we are harvesting vegetables - ladies' fingers are in regular supply, though the plants were lucky to survive the pest onslaught, picked up some carrots, which resembled like potatoes than carrots! The soil was a bit hard for it to go down easily and it got stuck there. Also the multiple plants in a single pot seems to have hurt the growth. From the top, it looked pretty healthy ones, but it was able to go down easily I guess. We are hoping that the next set of carrots would turn out good because the soil was prepared for carrots and the plant has enough space in a single pot.

The podland pink tomatoes are ripening, but with an orange shade though. There are couple of trusses with 3-4 tomatoes on most of the plants, but after that the next set of flowers didn't really produce anything.

Hopefully things will improve in the next round of cultivation and may be we need to seek help from some experts!

Runners Low

2009-10-27T06:11:00.006+05:30

After a couple of years of consistent running and getting a bit obsessive about it and falling into the trap of speed worship, I have hit a wall injuring my Iliotibial Band(ITB). After running a 25K at the last Bangalore Ultra 2008 and running 20Ks around 2:30, I felt I need to improve the timings and joined a training, a new initiative in Bangalore, Runners High. While the training looked good, I had many indicators that told me to slow down, but I didn't. The first signs were the chronic neck sprains and one of them was during one of the speed work. Speedwork is prone to push your body and the loose ends show up. But that didn't stop me from my drive towards an under 2:30 half marathon. Since I was doing the run-walk on my long runs, I was pretty confident that injuries can't catch up with me that easily. So everything was looking good till 15K runs, where I could finish pretty strongly with a 3:1 splits. In fact I was unhappy that they weren't doing long runs. One of those 16K runs, I missed the end turnaround point and ended up doing an 18K instead, but it turned out to be a troublesome one with the knee. I wasn't too worried because I hadn't run that distance for a long time. But the next week things turned a bit worrisome when I couldn't finish a 18K run. Started doing the stretches regularly and added some strength training. Things improved a bit before the KTM, but a poorly paced run at KTM seems to have aggravated the ITB. Since then I have been struggling to run a 10K, a slow 12K left me down with significant knee joint pain that persisted for couple of days. So it was time to listen to the body finally and take some rest and rejuvenate the body.

I also was cycling to work most of the days which added to the workload and the labor at the garden also added up.

Tyring to improve the timings was a bad idea instead of trying to run more distance gradually. The running time predictors told me that I could do a 2:20 half marathon and the fact that I could do a 2h30 20K in Jan 09 made me work towards a better time. The 10K training was going on well except for the neck sprains, I couldn't run the 10K being stuck with a flu. And the flus didn't trouble me for the half marathon training. But not slowing down for the hot climate and attempting a PB at KTM was a very stupid thing in retrospect. And being addicted to running, it was difficult to back off easily. And the problem with ITB is that it comes on only during running, which makes it tough to make a call not to run.

So I am going through a runners' low and going through a physiotherapy session to get things back to shape soon! The ITB looks better after couple of sessions, but it appears that the weak ITB has caused some swelling under the patella, which is kind of painful during therapy.

Composting with Dailydump Kambha

2009-10-17T06:04:00.015+05:30

Seeing waste and reducing it or avoiding it at the source is an important step in leading a lean and sustainable lifestyle. And composting enables you to get the natural cycle back in motion. It would have been impossible to think of composting at home(at source) in an urban setting till we found DailyDump.

We started using the dailydump composting bin, the kambha, roughly a month ago and it has been some work and work in progress! Urban settings are designed for a non-sustainable living, a plastic living of you will. Things originate at one place sourcing materials from all over, leaving a trail of waste and pollution on the way and gets dumped elsewhere like this video from Story of Stuff illustrates. So any solution to compost in an urban setting is not going to be easy, it is designed to create waste. The kitchen waste attracts flies and urbanites scorn at flies and it is an indication of something not clean and it will bring diseases. Nobody thinks of it as a natural cycle of bio-degrading the natural waste!

So the flies are around the place at work in converting the waste into compost, but we are trying to get at an optimal number of flies by using a bit of neem cake, chilly powder and spraying the lemon grass oil as well as stirring the pile! You may not be used to the natural smell that emanates from the pile before it becomes compost, so it takes a bit of getting used to it as well. And the maggots are not a pretty scene either. It turns out that cokroaches are not interested in waste - hmm.. they need brand new stuff! But in couple of weeks you do get the smell of compost in the bottom vessel, though not yet ready for the plants!

While the natural open compost pits would let air and light onto the pile, the urban guerrilla compost pile needs to be covered to ward off the flies and maggots. This kind of slows down the natural cycle, but this is a descent compromise solution. So stirring the pile becomes really important to provide good ventilation to get the compost cycle going. Dry leaves may not be so common thing in the urban setting where trees tend to waste precious square feet, so you could substitute it with newspaper despite the ink to give the pile some variety and to suck the wetness out. But we got some help from the sweepers who would supply some dry leaves once in a while. Imagine if the apartment was doing it for the inhabitants - they could have made some money out of it. But the square feets of land are expensive and they find lawns more attractive wherever you find some space!

We also bought a leave-it-pot where you can leave the semi ready compost to degenerate into compost fully. Dailydump delivered it at home, a painted one, which looks odd among our terracotta pots and khamba. In fact they send a person(INR 200 for a visit) to help us sort out issues. Now we moved everything to a corner of our terrace which would give it more ventillation but needs some cover when it rains. It makes the kitchen and work area pretty clean and the flies are pretty much contained as well. And the first dump of compost is getting ready in the leave-it-pot and should be ready in couple of weeks I guess!

But it is worth a shot if you are worried about urban waste(watch that video again), especially if you realize that it will be dumped elsewhere, not recycled or composted elsewhere.You immediately see a drastic reduction in the waste that was dumped outside earlier. You don't really need the plastic bag everyday to prevent the leechate from the degradable waste anymore and it doesn't need to go out every morning! It is no more messy as earlier which makes it easier to find reusable stuff in it. And think about the compost for the plants in a couple of months from now - it sounds definitely worth the trouble.

Organic Guerilla Garden

2009-10-10T14:50:00.008+05:30

As someone who scorned at people learning botany - what the hell, plants will grow anyway, what's there to learn about it - it was a bit of an unusual thing to get into gardening. But it turns out that you don't really need to know botany to be a gardener, especially the guerrilla type. It is the sustainable living philosophy that got me into it. Growing ornamental plants was another thing I laughed at - coconut trees or cashew lined all over the place was more attractive to me. So it has to be vegetable plants that would give something back, not the ones with beautiful(to the beholders' eyes) flowers or leaves!

But the organic way of gardening is a bit different beast I figured out on the way. It is a holistic thing - it is about creating an ecosystem that thrives on each other, not a targeted breeding of some particular plants. That made perfect sense, but that meant flowers and herbs are also needed. Our first vegetable plant, Ladies' Fingers, were attacked by some pests(leaf miners) and we tried a bit asking around to save them, but nothing worked. So I did a bit of reading about organic pesticides - specifically, this particular article at GoOrganicGardeing.com was a superb one that explains the fundamentals of the organic way!

And the conclusion was that if you are serious about natural organic way of doing things, you need to build an ecosystem, an ecosystem of vegetable plants, herbs, flowers, ornamental plants, bees, butterflies, birds, bugs and pests! You really don't have to intervene, you just enable the ecosystem with the right balance that will take care of itself - that was an wonderful revelation! You don't worry about isolated events in the garden, but they are symptoms of something wrong in the ecosystem. And most of the time, the problems get cured by itself. Everything has a place of its own in the organic ecosystem - isn't that a life lesson that we sorely miss most of the times ? And surely, a garden with just vegetable plants cannot thrive organically!

It makes Gardening a whole lot more meaningful and worthwhile to do! So we are building the ecosystem now, it is no more a organic vegetable garden - it better be an organic garden. Flowers look beautiful now - so we have a thulsi, shoe flower, marigold and a dahlia plants in the mix. I would have loved to setup a honey beehive as well, but this being an urban guerrilla garden, that might expose us a bit! We need a bit of watery area as well for the plants and the butterflies - so the water urn which is a typical ornamental thing, looks pretty attractive as well! And composting is indeed part of the game to complete the cycle - and thanks to DailyDump, the guerrilla composting is not that troublesome indeed.

And it is guerrilla style because it is fairly impossible to sustain a natural garden in an urban environment which is not designed for sustainable living, but for industry scale living that encourages suboptimal innovations that doesn't consider the complete picture. BTW, I still think that people should not learn too much about plants and their DNA - that creates the genetically modified seeds, people do micro-optimizations and loose the overall big picture in the bargain. It is such a shame that they have to invent Bt seeds!

So we are on the lookout for the birds, bees and the butterflies - attracting them into the garden would be the ultimate test of being organic! And the rest should follow!

First produce from the Garden

2009-10-09T06:27:00.002+05:30

That's the first set of Ladies Finger from the garden which went into the sambar the other day. We should've harvested it a bit earlier, it was a bit over ripe. We are planning to remove the plants once we have harvested all of the remaining ones because of the bad condition of the plants.

Tomatoes and Chilly

2009-10-04T16:06:00.003+05:30

Tomatoes have finally arrived in our garden on couple of plants. Rest of them have flowers on them and more should arrive soon. It is the Podland Pink variety from the Department of Horticulture. We had no idea what the stuff was till we saw some pictures at another blog.

The Ladies' Finger plants are fighting back and the new ones look very healthy and reminding us on what should have been if the pests hadn't attacked the plants. The new leaves also look very good. We kind of hurried in planting multiple plants in a single pot which seems pretty cramped and a very bad idea as well.

The chillies are out as well and in good condition as well. Not sure what's going on inside the carrot and onion plants. Onion plant seems pretty healthy and the carrots are catching up as well.

We also bought some flowering plants with flowers in it from Lalbagh to provide some variety and I guess it also helps keep the pests away from the vegetable plants. There is also the traditional thulsi plant in the lot, with its medicinal value. But you miss the excitement of seed starting and the discovery of the buds in the plants. But flowers are flowers nevertheless!

All of a sudden there are lots of things happening and hopefully we should be able to keep them pest free and have a good harvest soon!

Composting at Home

2009-09-28T12:09:00.004+05:30

Finally bought a composting equipment, Khamba, designed and manufactured by DailyDump for the needs of a home with 2-4 people. While we were planning to visit the nearest DailyDump dealer, Bimba the Art Hut, we found out that the online Garden supplier, GardenGiga, was selling it in their online shop. GardenGiga is a new venture who is aspiring to be a one-stop place for all your Garden accesories. They are not there yet, but they have plans to connect all kinds of suppliers to the consumers through their portal.

It was delivered home last weekend and we figured out the stuff by going through their manual and DailyDump website. The Khamba has 3 separate terracotta vessels stacked on top. The top two vessels can be interchanged once the top one fills up. The bottom one keeps the semi-compost after it has been cycled through the top and middle vessels.

We have placed the Khamba in our utility area so that we can dump things pretty easily to it and there is good ventilation in the area as well. But the lid seems to be a bit heavy for frequent use and being a terracotta one, it needs some careful handling. I guess some of the other varieties have a small lid in the center of the big one which makes it easy to open and put stuff inside. This is indeed one of the problems of shopping online for things that you are not very familiar with. The online vendors typically are middlement connecting the real vendors and the consumers and they may not have a shop where you can check things out. But it will be very useful for garden supplies that you need regularly to place an order online and get delivered home.

So we have started dumping kitchen waste into it, but we may need some supplies(dried leaves etc.) to get going fully. We are also wondering how the cockroaches around will find the new place where they can get stuff. The vessels don't fit very tightly(may be by design for ventilation) and the cockroaches could get in easily. But then the idea is to compost it naturally - so a bit of cockroaches and flies could help the composting go well!

It does look pretty doable at home with little bit of work and if you have a garden, it should be worth the trouble to get some compost recycling your kitc.

News from the Garden!

2009-09-26T04:40:00.003+05:30

Good news and bad news from the Garden - we have ladies' finger(okra) on our plants, but the plants have become pretty weak due to severe leaf miner attack. We were bit late to intervene, but after spraying the neem-oil and detergent solution, things became a bit better, but still not very good state. You can't hurry or slow down the growth of the plants - everything has a natural rythm that you need to get used to. But it hasn't spread across the plants, so we have not removed the plants and they continue to flower and produce more.

Tomatoes have flowered as well though there is a bit of leaf miner attack which we are trying to fend off. Carrots are doing well, but the soil we used appears to be a bit heavy for it to grow well. The green pepper plants are going steady and the lone onion plant seems to be the most healthy of the lot.

But it sure is a great hobby that the whole family(including our 1.5 year old toddler) can enjoy and work as a team unlike other individual hobbies like running and cycling.

Commute by Cycle Update

2009-09-25T11:32:00.001+05:30

After starting my short 2+2KM commute by cycle more than 7 months back, I am holding on to it and it has become a regular event unlike my earlier attempts where things just stopped in couple of months. Though it was a 3 day/week affair when it started, it became a regular daily ride before I took a break to give my legs a bit of rest for an injury(ITB) from running for a month and got back again. In fact 2K ride shouldn't have been a problem for the ITB, but nevertheless gave it a break for a month. I am guessing that the problem was due to a bit of over-load of running during the training for the Kavery Trail (half) marathon. So I am going easy on running and wouldn't want to take running so seriously that it impacts other things.

Looks like I have also conquered my Cyclist Inferiority Syndrome(CIS) on the road. The safety perception has improved tremendously by experiencing the ride and my conclusion is that you can claim your space on the road with a bicycle. I am not too worried about the traffic - I am pretty comfortable and dumped my helmet to just feel one among the cycling crowd, which is not bad on my route. I also had some longer(10K) rides during the weekends in traffic, which was not really that difficult and one of them was with a bit of load from shopping. Sometimes my commute tends to get over before it starts - I have couple of other longish routes that I have to try which may give it a better feel.

While cycling may be more riskier than driving a car, it is definitely safer than walking on the road. Most of the people on the road are well behaved on the road though there are always some of them who get too close for comfort - especially the autos and BMTC buses, but then they are also specialists at their jobs, which I can live with. Riding too close to the curb could make the 4-wheelers squeeze in between and so I try to block them off as much as possible by keeping a safe distance from the curb.

The bike has been pretty trouble free, but is not definitely the one for my kind of use. Carrying stuff around is still a problem with this MTB, which seems to be the default variety around. The road bikes may be too much for my kind of riding and a good commute bike is still not available in the market. It is either an MTB or a road bike, nothing in between. The carrier I bought is pretty useless to carry grocery and stuff and may be I need a normal Indian one instead of the expensive one I have. And without proper fenders, even hanging the bags in front of the cycle is a problem because the tires rub against the bags and cause some damage to the bags. The makeshift laptop carrier also didn't work very well because the leg rubs against the bag and you need to have a delicate positioning of the bag to get it right. So I am still on the lookout for some descent setup to carry stuff. The folks who sell great cycles and service are not much of help in this department. Hopefully things will improve on that aspect.

But overall, worth the effort and if you are interested in riding, get on the road and get a feel - it isn't that bad as people percieve it to be. And the best way to make it a regular event is to commute using the cycle.

Kavery Trail Marathon - a tough trail indeed

2009-09-14T09:20:00.007+05:30

My second KTM half marathon was a tough and energy sapping one despite a 32 minutes improvement over last year - but I would have preferred a slower easy run that I could enjoy than a better time on the clock any day!

Despite running at KTM last year, I did the mistake of training for a time goal - around 2h30m instead of taking it easy. An easy 2:45 or beyond would have been the right goal for this event. A late start, humid location and a trail at that calls for a slow and steady run. Instead I went on 7min/KM paced run till 15K to realize that I had no energy left and the knees started to collapse. And in the meantime forgot to enjoy the surroundings which was the greenest of the green with water flowing around the canals from the KRS dam in full flow. I also rushed through the water stops without spending quality time refueling the body except for the last two when I was already in trouble.

Walked the last 3KMs and barely managed to finish at around 2:45 and was not able to stand on the feet for a while with the ITBs moaning loudly. Half an hour improvement from last year on the timings, thanks to a hard training routine with Runners High, but a poor one from an "enjoying the runs" perspective - which is a far better goal to go after. May be you need to train for a 30K to run a 21K at KTM to really enjoy the run.

The race was well organized as usual by Runners For Life(RFL) despite the increase in number of people. It could well be one of the greenest races in the country and if they can replace the electrolyte drink with a tender coconut drink from the surroundings, that could make it a 100% green race! The T-shirt was a good one as well, but may not qualify for a "green" one with a synthetic dri-fit fabric. May be they need to look for the bamboo t-shirts next time:)

We drove down to Mysore for the event and spend the night at Ginger - it wasn't as self serviceable as advertised though - but pretty descent place otherwise. And thanks to my friend Sachin who could drive us up and down without any problems and finished his first half marathon around 2h50m! Another friend and college mate, Sundaresh, finished well ahead of us in his first half marathon without too much of training and preparation. His nephew, Pradeep finished in 2:15 in his first half marathon. Another friend, Ramesh, finished 3rd in the full marathon despite running way below his best time(3:07) at 3:50.

Next stop is at Bangalore Ultra in November and may be I need to take it easy instead of any time target!

Kavery Trail Marathon 2009

2009-09-03T16:33:00.000+05:30

The next running event around Bangalore is the Kavery Trail Marathon(KTM) 2009, to be held in Srirangapatna along one of the canals' of Krishna Raja Sagar(KRS) in Mysore. It is near the river Kavery and might have been part of Kavery before KRS was built(BTW, Dams are yet another unnatural thing).

I am training for the event with Runners High, the only pro-training organization in Bangalore for all kinds of runners. Though they don't subscribe to the Galloway philosophy of running, they are not against it either. So I am sticking to the run-walk-run method as usual. The training plan that is being followed doesn't make you run the distance unfortunately - you have to wait for the race day on how your body would respond the race distance, which is a bit uncomfortable for me especially with a weak knee that seems to collapse at 16-17KM. So I am strengthening my knees and stretching the ITB and hoping to do a 2h30 half marathon though a 2h45m might be a realistic target. I am planning to shift to a pure Galloway training for the next run, Ultra-25K, with 3 days of running a week and slow long runs longer than the race distance during the weekend.

After last years' Ultra where I did 25K, I haven't run such distances since last January, which was a mistake and the knees became a bit rusty after that. So I will try to keep the 25K long runs going and potentially target a full marathon something in 2010. The sweet spot seems to be the knee at the moment, which would hold up hopefully for longer distances. I am a bit reluctant to get on to a strengthening program for the knees specifically, may be I need to get the knees used to the distance slowly. I would rather add more distance rather than train for better timings like I did this year. Also running should not come in the way of the daily routines(cycling to work, gardening, baby sitting) - so I need to slow down a bit and take it easy and get back to enjoying the runs instead of training for a target.

Onam

2009-09-02T09:38:00.002+05:30

Onam is celebrated in Kerala when the rivers are full and grass is green and the rains have receded - when things are looking green in all aspects! But being a Non-Resident-Mallu for a while, I don't really celebrate Onam outside of Kerala because it doesn't make sense - because the environment where you celebrate is a big part of the celebrations! Surely, I am an odd man out in that thinking!

But then the original intent behind many of the things we do was long forgotten and in fact becomes a ritual or superstition! So Onam is just another occasion to chill out and celebrate for those who claim to have their roots in Kerala!

So Happy Onam to all !

Spurs on a Roll!

2009-08-30T14:31:00.005+05:30

The big game of the week was ManU vs Arsenal on saturday, but it fizzled out to be a not-so-exciting one from footballing perspective, but eventful otherwise. Arsenal seems to be breaking up under little pressure despite all their heroics till this match. Despite all their talented players, they still miss a playmaker to dominate in the midfield. They lacked spirit and drive after they conceded an own goal. I thought they could have easily got a result from a struggling ManU with some strange team without Berbatov orOwen.

But Tottenham definitely had some spirit to salvage a win with a last gasp effort - they seem to have something on their sleeve this year! They would have lost or drawn such matches usually, but somehow they keep winning, which is a quality of a big team. They should have lost or at least drawn against both Hammers and Birmingham, but they won both! Crouch was really impressive in the air - he was really unlucky not to have scored at least a couple more. Defoe was off-color and may be too selfish to increase his tally. But Cudacinny at the goal looks suspect, he should have collected the ball instead of waiting for the defender to clear the ball. With all those initial hiccups that Gomes had last season, he seems to have some kind of solidity that was missing from Cudacinny. But Tottenham seems to be the hot team at the moment and let us see how long they can hold on!

Hammers survived a Blackburn onslaught, but Carton Cole had enough chances to get ahead earlier in the match. But it was a lucky escape for Hammers!

Mancity is not making waves with their expensive new signings, but winning them all - the 3 matches they played. Adabayor was on target in all the games and if he can stay motivated, he can create havoc with any defense with Tevez and Robinho to support. I am not a great fan of Mark Hughes - so I remain suspect about their ability to break in to the big four.

Liverpool finally showed some fighting qualities after their two defeats, but 10-man Bolton may have made it easy. But again it was a SteveG and Torres show - if you can rain them in like Spurs did, Liverpool becomes aimless! So I would wait for a matchup with a biggies before I place my verdict on Liverpool. Chelsea was indeed impressive in their demolition of Burnley and Everton finally won a match after their trashing from Arsenal and defeat from Burnley. I am a big fan of David Moyes and I was a bit disappointed with the way he handled Lescott - he should have got rid of him earlier than he did.

Chandrayan is finally over!

2009-08-30T13:40:00.002+05:30

So it has been officially put under suspension, and it is a matter of time before ISRO abandon their famous chandrayan wasting significant amount of public money in this poor country.

What would have happened if ISRO had not attempted this ? Nothing! This was nothing innovative or not something no country has ever done or would have made the lives of the millions of poor in this country. This was just a me-too attempt from a Government space research organization to make the Indians proud at a significant cost.

One cannot really blame the people behind these efforts - they are trying to do their job and make some impact at least in the papers! The root cause of the problem is indeed the existence of an organization called ISRO - as long as it exists, they will keep wasting tax payers money with such projects. They have not become a world class space research organization by any standards, they remain a me-too organization funded by the Government. So the solution really is to close ISRO - but that is not any "patriotic" politician would dare to to do in this country.

One can understand the impact of closing some defence research organization - our perpetual enemy would attack us and we will not be able to defend our country(which is again questionable), there is indeed a perception of risk if we ignore the defense organizations of the country, but nobody will miss ISRO for sure!

Garden update!

2009-08-25T15:15:00.000+05:30

You can't slow this down or make it faster - the plants in our containers are growing up. The Ladies' Fingers seems to be in a hurry compared to tomatoes and carrots! Everyone has their own pace right ? So you can't really compare a ladies finger and tomato!

The ladies fingers are becoming visible from far and growing at a good pace. The tomatoes took time to settle down and I guess we were a bit too eager to let them out in the sunny weather in the containers. They wilted a bit before the new real leaves started to sprout, but still a bit wobbly.

Carrots looks very healthy, but they are going flat out on the ground. We weren't sure it was carrot or bell pepper(capsicum), it didn't look like a pepper variety. It looks like our bell peppers just didn't germinate at all. There are also some green peppers, which are also just about surviving it appears, but looks far better than the tomatoes.

So it is interesting times and everyone at home is involved including our 1.5yr old daughter, Nishka. She is interested in watering plants, but doesn't know when to stop. So we have given her our sprayer, which doesn't hurt even if she uses it a bit more. She did pluck one leaf of a ladies' finger plant, but now she fools around faking it.

We also found a garden store nearby, in fact the branch of Varsha Garden stores, on the Kothanur Dinne main road, which runs along Bannerghatta Road. So no worries about lack of supplies though we are waiting for the Lalbagh Flower show to get over before we pick up more pots and soil.

[ I haven't found a an aim and shoot camera yet to get some pics, we are indeed missing the growing time of the plants!]

English Premier League(EPL) is back again!

2009-08-17T16:51:00.004+05:30

It looked like ages since the last one finished though it has just been under 3 months! It is back again with the first round of matches last weekend. ESPN as usual is beaming it Asia-wide this time and with their quality analysis of the game, I am eagerly looking forward to the season.

While Arsenal seems to have started with a bang, thumping Everton 6-1, their challenge would be to do that consistently. Both ManU and Chelsea won their first round of matches as well, but Chelsea got away with a freakish goal from Drogba in the injury time though his first one was a real quality one. Hull City gave a descent fight, but the difference in quality was obvious. Birmingham did pretty well too, holding off ManU attacks and challenging them at times. I for one don't think the loss of Chrisiano Ronaldo would be a problem for them - there is enough quality in the side for others to step up. I am really interested in seeing if Michael Owen can seize the opportunity he has got at ManU - he didn't take the open chance he had coming on as a substitute which would have made it a great EPL debut with ManU. But his movements were pretty sharp and I for one thinks that Sir Alex Fergusson's move to get him was a pretty smart one. Hopefully one would see Owen as a regular along with Rooney in ManU first eleven.

It was a superb performance from Tottenham beating Liverpool 2-1 at home. Had Robbie Keane taken the couple of open chances he had, the game would have been over by the half time. But it was great display from Tottenham and hopefully Harry Redknapp can inspire them to keep it going. But it looks like they can challenge the big 4 with that kind of display. Redknapp is one of the best English managers on show inspiring his players to give the best day in day out. I don't rate Rafa that high as a manager - he seems to lack the finesse of a Rednapp or a Fergussion making best use of the resources at hand. Alonso may be a difficult gap to fill it appears at the first look of it and Rafa didn't have any clear strategy to counter it either.

Mancity had 3 points from an away game and a clean sheet, which is a good start, but I am doubtful of Mark Hughes' ability to make them a great team with all the stars upfront and a bit suspect in the back.

I was also very pleased with my team, Hammers, with a 2-0 win against newly promoted side Wolves. To be fair, Wolves had a good game as well, but Robert Green held on for a clean sheet and I don't see any other English goalkeeper challenging him for the England's #1 spot. He has been pretty consistent for couple of seasons and if he can keep up his form till the world cup, England will be difficult to beat as well. Hammers play a different type of pleasing but effective football since Zola took over and it was on display with some neat passing. The first goal was a superb effort from Mark Noble from outside the box, which should be one of the best of the weekend. In fact there were many good strikes from outside the box in the first weekend. While the club isn't really in great shape financially, Zola seems to have managed the resources well to make it a descent outfit. I am hoping that they can claim a Europa league spot this time at the least.

Needless to say, this is a long drawn out affair, early results are usually not the great indicators of the things to come in the next 9 months, but there is entertainment in store for sure!

More wine and fish please!

2009-08-05T13:47:00.005+05:30

The latest cholesterol readings looks good overall though the numbers have worsened a bit since the last review, but nothing to worry. But considering the fact that I have been eating a lot of fattier stuff than earlier, this is indeed fantastic. I have limited the diet only to natural stuff - no colas, no diary products(it is for the cow), no packaged juices or packaged meat. Coconut and fish are central to my diet and off late I have added cashew nuts which is considered a bad nut, but difficult to resist for someone who grew up with cashew trees around. I have been physically active running regularly and commuting by cycle, though it is a pretty short one to have any serious impact.

But the HDL(good) cholesterol is the only number that is out of bounds(44 - dropped from 46). On looking at things to improve HDL numbers, the key thing that seems missing in my diet is alcohol. Alcohol consumption has dropped drastically mainly because it does dehydrate you and can impact the runs the next morning. The only natural one that is available is wine though I would have preferred coconut toddy any day. So I picked up a wine bottle on my way home - Grover Shiraz, a local variety. Though fish is a major component of my diet, I need to up a bit on fish (of the omega-3 fatty acids variety) as well to improve HDL - may be make it part of the menu every day. There aren't too many other things in the list that could probably help out. May be the runs were shorter(less than an hour) during the last six months - I should probably stick to a longer routine and skip those 5K and 10K runs and stick to a 15-20K long runs in the weekend. Hopefully work at the garden should also add to my physical fitness.

But it is becoming very clear of the stupidity of controlling diet and tracking cholesterol readings(expensive - 600 INR at Wockhardt) instead of trying to be physically active and eating all natural stuff. So I will probably stop checking my Lipid Profile for a while unless I see any other issues. Getting back to a natural lifestyle is the real solution for all of these problems wrought by the unhealthy lifestyles that we are stuck in.

Ladies Fingers are off the soil first!

2009-07-31T08:33:00.006+05:30

Almost all of our ladies' fingers have sprouted after 4 days - though they should have planted straight on the pot, we goofed up a bit and hopefully it doesn't really impact the plants. Unfortunately, my still camera isn't working, so here is a small clip of video of it.

Now we need to transplant them to pots or DIY containers. Looks like we need more containers than we had planned for. It also rained a bit yesterday and the one pot we filled seems to have a bit of drainage problem, it takes a while for the water to drain out.

So the next set of questions were pretty well answered by Mr. Raghu Rao, who was our instructor for the Terrace Garden Workshop.

So how many plants in a pot ? what size of pots ?

Ladies finger plants grow quite large - upto 3-4 feet high and the leaves spread out too. Normally the spacing between plants should be about a foot (12 inches or 30 cms). It will be good if you can put 1 or maximum 2 plants into a pot. If it is a pot of 6 inches diameter, just put one plant into it. Planting two will not work out.

If you have pots which are 10 - 12 inches diameter, you can put two plants in each pot. Make sure that you leave a gap of at least 6 - 8 inches between the plants, though.i.e the plants will have to be planted about two or three inches from the side of the pot, so that there is at least 6 inches between the plants if you are using a 12 inch dia. pot. In a 10 inch dia pot the spacing between the plants will decrease but they will grow away from each other, so it won't be a problem.

But since ladies finger has deep roots, the pots should be at least 10 inches deep so that the plant grows unhindered.
Watering, fertilizers ?

You'll have to water them well and put manure in while the plants are growing and again at the flowering stage. If you harvest the fruits tender, then the period of yielding can be increased.

So we have transplanted them to two 12" pots and a 8" one. But we have planted 3 of them in the larger ones and selected 2 healthy and a not-so-healthy ones in each of them. It was bit of an effort filling soil, but we should get better with more experience. The late breaking news is that tomatoes and capsicum or carrots(not sure which one, the labels were erased while watering - need to use ball point pens next time) have sprouted as well. Hopefully we should be able to move it to pots in a week or two.

Sowing the Seeds of ...

2009-07-29T09:26:00.000+05:30

Finally we got going after all the preparations over the weekend. We sowed the seeds of tomatoes, ladies finger, carrot, chillies and capsicum in a propagation tray only to realize later that carrot and ladies finger needs to be planted directly. That was in the last chapter of the book :( We had tough time not letting Nishka(our daughter of 1y4m) not meddling with the ready-mix of coco peat and vermiculite that looked so exciting for her. The tray looked a bit big and we may have to cut into two so that we can place it in a container with water so that we don't have to water it regularly. I am also looking around for ways to avoid plastic - one possibility is using the coconut shells that we usually throw away.

Still some questions remain,

How often do we need to water the nursery ? Do we need to keep it in the sun ? Cover it ?
Which other plants need to be directly planted instead of transplanting from a nursery ?
How many types of plants at a time ?

The terrace looks very inviting with the terracotta color with the latest water-proofing done. We enjoyed the skies(we have a clear view of the skies even after the mega multi-storeyed flats around) and laid out plans for the garden. We will anyway go slow on covering the whole terrace till Nishka can cycle around the pots, but we have plenty of room to get going for now!

Run-Walk-Run(TM) your runs!

2009-07-28T22:17:00.001+05:30

I took a while to get on to the running habit and I always hit a wall at 5K. Running was also a boring thing for someone who was crazy about football. And footballers never run continuously - rather your timing of your run to meet your team mates' pass was far more important. But being forced to do some physical activity after my cholesterol readings went out of bounds, I used to go sit in a park and watch the runners or walkers not being able to pull myself up for a run. Then a jump rope kept things interesting for a while and I used running as a warm up for the rope jumping.

Then a friend referred me to Jeff Galloway's books on running. So I got two books - one to get me up and running, Running Getting Started, and the classic, Galloway's book on running, for the running basics which had 5K, 10K and half marathon training plans. It was amazing that before these books reached me, my sister who was in UK where the books were shipped, started running after reading the Running Getting Started book - that said something about the book!

So I started reading Galloway's theory on running and it was perfectly logical - but the only hitch was walk breaks sounded a bit sissy, so I never really tried it and hence never went beyond a 5K. The heart of Galloway's training program is the walk breaks or the Run-Walk-Run(TM) method. But when the Bangalore Sunfeast 10K 2008 was announced, there was no way I was going to make it unless I used walk breaks. So I started training for the event with a 2:1 run:walk ratio, but a fall on Bannerghatta Road while training forced me to go to a 1:1 split for the event. I finished the 10K in 1h20minute and felt really good after the race. So I continued running and worked up to 15K before attempting the Kavery Trail half Marathon, which wasn't so good even after using a run:walk strategy. What I didn't do was attempt the distance or more during the training. So my knees kind of gave up after 16KMs, but I managed to finish with more walking and little bit of running at 3:17. But things weren't that bad after the race. So for the Ultra 25K, I managed to do a 25K before the race and it wasn't really easy either. So I used a 2:2 walk:run for the race and walked all the uphills. But 2 minutes of walk break kind of cools down the body in the earlier phases, but worked well overall though in the end it was more of 1:1 or 1:1-30 of run:walk. So it was almost 4 hours for the 25K, but felt strong at the finish and the knees held up well.

But slowly, I started liking the philosophy of taking breaks early enough to keep yourself strong throughout. In fact I was in a break from work(not planned though) when I ran the half and 25K. And I wished I had taken a break from work long back to re-energize myself. Galloway contends that human body is not designed for continuous running and walk breaks restore some balance to the body to go along. It also reduces injuries according to him. I felt no need to attempt running continuously especially when you realize that stronger runners who finish under 3h30m also use the same technique, but with a longer run ratio. And since I don't have any real time goals, this was perfect recipe for me to finish the runs strongly. I also dislike pushing myself to achieve any goal in life, it is far more important me to have a breathing space to relax and enjoy things rather than go all out. And being a footballer(not-so-successful one at that though) who are told not to waste energy running unnecessarily, run-walk sounded like a good strategy. So this style of running aligned perfectly well with that style where it allows one to discover your pace slowly.

In fact Galloway's magic mile would tell you how fast you can go on different races. So based on a mile run(around 9minutes), predicted timings for me were a 1:04 for a 10K, 2:21 for a half and a 5:06 for a full marathon and I was doing well below my potential. So I decided to join a training with Runners High for the Sunfeast 10K 2009. Though their running plans(based on Rouge running) doesn't explicitly advocate run:walk strategy, I was following it anyway and they didn't have a problem with that. In fact they are planning to suggest this to beginners so that they can easily get over the wall. Training was a well planned training with speed work and foot drills to improve your overall running efficiency. Though I couldn't do the Sunfeast 10K due to a flu, 1:04 minutes 10K was very much in my reach with a 4:1 splits, 15 minute faster than last year! I am also doing a longer run splits, 5:1 for shorter runs and 4:1 for longer ones as well. Right now I am in another training with Runners High for a half marathon and a below 2:30 finish would be a great improvement from my first half marathon. A 3:1 run:walk ratio should suffice to reach the goal, though I want to experiment with a 4:1 split.

A pure Galloway training plan has just 3 days of running with one of them being a long slow run in the weekend and the other ones 30 minutes during the week. The day before the long run is a complete off from any kind of exercises. Advice is to take walk breaks liberally for any distance(from 5K to the marathon). You could experiment with your run:walk ratios and the key is to ensure that you are finishing comfortably with the intervals you pick. It is up to you tune your run:walk ratios based on how you feel - the goal is to ensure that you are strong till the end and don't need to slow down drastically at the end. And take walk breaks whenever you need it.

So instead of struggling to run continuously, run-walk your runs and finish strong!

Note: The Run-Walk-Run is a trademark of Jeff Galloway

Gardern Shopping Weekend

2009-07-26T14:01:00.006+05:30

Image via Wikipedia

Except for the morning runs and a bit of grocery shopping, most of the weekend was spent shopping for our terrace Garden in the making.

In fact I started on friday itself with a trip to the Hulimavu Dept. of Horticulture office. I thought they were closed on saturday, but that wasn't the case. I took a break from work and cycled to the place, which is a huge place among the concrete jungles that have come up around Bannerghatta Road. May be it was strategically located for all the farmers around earlier before Bangalore became a concrete jungle, but now looks out of place with no serious farming around. But being a Government organization, the place will not disappear fortunately.

I picked up some seeds, since I didn't have a specific list of items to procure, I picked up an already packed one with tomatoes, capsicums, ladies finger and zucchini(what was that?). Also bought 5KG vermicompost for which I had to get my car to pick it up. The boy at the compost counter was also a familiar one, who used to do car-washing at our place. I dropped the compost guy to the next stop and he said they also have bio-fertilizers, which I didn't have much idea about. The seeds were around INR 120/= and the vermi compost was just INR 5/= per kg. It is amazing that they don't have a proper board that tells people what is available for the public from them - yes, it is yet another Government shop, but people were nice once you go inside.

Next stop was at Lalbagh, where they open shop at 930am, I had dropped by at around 8am on my way back from running to check their timings. Bought a bag of pot-ready-soil which was INR 120/= which sounded a bit expensive. They didn't have coco-peat in stock though. I also bought some seeds of green chilies and carrot.

Then I went to Varsha Garden store on KR Road, where I picked up some ready mix for sowing seeds, coco peat, a propagation tray(which looks a bit crowded and narrow and not organic), a water spray(which was really expensive at around 250 INR - I should have just gone for a cheaper desi one). They seem to have some good variety of stuff and the guy was very helpful too. All in all it was around INR 470 business for the Varsha guy.

I also picked up some terracotta pots, which have become a rarity in town and is being replaced by plastic and concrete ones. I picked up 3 large(INR 70/=) and medium(INR 40/=) sizes each. The lady wanted to sell more and I was tempted to buy as well, but didn't want to stock up too many before we start some gardening. But I did pick up 5 more medium ones near my place (near JD Mara bus stop on Bannerghataa Road)for INR 30/= each. The guy dropped the price pretty quickly from 35 to 30 when I said I wanted 5. He was a bit sober early in the morning and would've dropped a bit more I guess:) But he was nice and pretty interested in selling stuff unlike many others who seemed a bit unfriendly and not interested. They were a bit burnt pots, which I thought was ok. One reason the terracotta pots are disappearing may be because the pots break pretty easily and there were many damaged ones at both the places. But for our organic garden in the making, these pots were the only choice despite the risks involved. I also bought a sack of red soil from him for INR 50/=, which was a bit too much for just soil, but anyway I didn't want to bargain too much with these guys.

Overall it the money spent was well within INR 1500/= and my wife keep reminding me that it was way below the money I spend for running and cycling. But in the end everything remains a good investment for a bright and green future!

And the field is getting ready as well, with some water proofing done on the terrace before we start sowing and growing stuff. In any case the next step is to do the seeding which we could do indoors. So the excitement is building up, and hopefully we'll take off in couple of days!

I have plotted the places where I picked up various things on the following map, which is in fact is created using a running log website(I haven't figured out how to do this on a google map yet), so please ignore the green and red marks which are usually the staring and finishing points of the run. Click on the blue notes on the map for the locations of the shops mentioned above. You may have to zoom-in a bit to see the notes properly. I couldn't post pictures because my camera stopped working for sometime and I am on the lookout for an economical but useful one.

Terrace Gardening Workshop

2009-07-19T14:28:00.008+05:30

Image via Wikipedia

Though I was the least interested among us in Gardening when we were kids, I developed some interest off late especially after reading about Dr. Vishwanath in Hindu about Terrace Gardening. It also fits well with my organic or green interests and gives an opportunity for the family also to participate in this project.

We have a 500sft terrace totally unused except for one kariyappila (kari patha?) pot which was gifted by our neighbor for taking care of her two other pots when she was not in town! We left it in our balcony for a while, but we moved it up to our terrace once we became the owners of the plant. Right now it is being fertilized by curds that seems to have created a good amount of worms in the soil.

I also happened to visit the blog GeekGardener who was just down the road and it was amazing what he was doing on his balconies. Another blogger in town, Raj Panda, also seemed to have done some neat stuff which he is sharing with all details at his blog. So I signed up for the terrace gardening workshop conducted by AME who helps out farmers to do organic farming. This is usually done by Dr. Vishwanath who has many things on his terrace at his own house in the city. But our class was done by Mr. Raghu Rao who has vast experience in farming, not just the terrace variety.

This was a one day course organized by AME Foundation, an NGO helping farmers do organic farming, where they have a classroom session and also show us what they are doing on their terrace where they have all kinds of vegetables from tomato, beans, carrot etc. They also showed us how to fill the pot with soil, sand and compost. An important learning from the session was that there was no need to buy pots or containers, you could use lot of stuff that you usually throw away. Thy showed some DIY containers with plastic bags and tetra packs for growing plants which I thought was pretty cool. For us it was a great session with loads of information to get started. In fact, Dept. of Horticulture office from where many of the folks buy seeds and compost is just across the road from where we live. The GeekGardner also was one participants and he shared a lot of information from his experience.

So we have all information ready to get going and I hope to post some details as soon as we have something to share. So onto the field till you hear from us about this new project that looks very exciting at the moment!

Manchester United goes frugal - signs Michael Owen

2009-07-04T06:04:00.004+05:30

Image via Wikipedia

Though it appears an illogical move at first from Sir Alex Ferguson, come to think of it, it sounds like a shrewd and frugal move from him. While Owen has his own troubles about his fitness, if he can regain his touch a bit and score crucial goals even coming on as a substitute, ManU will have its money's worth. And he sure is a proven goal scorer and with Fergusson as a mentor, he may well be able to rediscover his touch. If he fails, it is an opportunity lost for Owen himself, but not a major issue for ManU since they haven't paid any transfer fee on him. It may also improve his England chances as well if he clicks at ManU. So this is a very interesting move from Ferguson and worth following in this years English Premier League.

I also like Ferguson's frugal approach in signing players and not throwing money at them like like Real Madrid (and Man City) which sounds very stupid to me and I predict that they will not win anything this year as well. 11 great players don't make a great team.

Nokia 1661 - My Latest and Greatest Cellphone

2009-06-22T20:00:00.000+05:30

Image via CrunchBase

My 5 year old cell phone was giving me problems - it will suddenly die while talking even though the phone is charged. After replacing the original battery, battery life suddenly dropped to just couple of days. So I decided to look for a new one.

So the features I wanted were - good battery life, make and take calls, SMS and time(because I don't wear a watch). I don't listen to music that much, nor did I take any pictures with my phone camera, leave alone surfing web on it. I did rethink on the camera because the one I had stopped working for still pictures - so a device that doubled up as camera would have been a good idea. But then cell phones being cell phones first, good quality cameras were a bit expensive. So I decided against a camera phone though it appears that the price for a basic camera phone has dropped a lot. I listened to FM occasionally because we don't have an FM receiver at home and it didn't hurt to have FM on the phone from a cost perspective though it is one of those you are not going to need it(YAGNI) features.

The thought of being connected (especially on twitter) always with a 3G phone was very tempting. That didn't really go well with my current philosophy of life of relaxed and going easy. You are not going to miss a thing because you are out of the internet. And being at a 10-minute ride or a 20-minute bus ride from home, I can always get online at work or office pretty quickly. And with a history of RSI injuries, I don't want to make it any worse. I need to keep off the keyboards as much as possible to keep myself healthy. So internet on the phone also was not a need. YAGNI thinking really helped in identifying the features.

So I looked around and settled for Nokia mainly because the other phones might a little bit learning and the short cuts. It appeared that I could get all my features(and the best battery life) within Rs.2000/= and in color too! So the value for money felt a lot more than the expensive ones with poor quality features. So I zeroed it on a few phones around that price and found the Nokia 1661 the most attractive - 25 days of battery life. That was hard to resist and other factors didn't really influence my decision. It also had FM and a torch light which were added attractions that I wouldn't have cared either.

I shopped around locally and found the price varied from 1800 to 1950. But they guy who told me 1800 increased it to 1900 the next day. I tried looking around at uptown locations, but couldn't check the prices. But it was also not really worth spending so much time for a 100 rupee margin - so I went and bought it from the most convenient shop on my way at 1900. The guy was nice and was a local guy, not part of a chain or a big mall(it was 1865 at one mall). Being one who looks for relationships than just a place to buy, I felt more comfortable with this guy than others around. The first ever cell phone was more than 10 times costlier with less features(black and white, no FM, no torch light).

The phone looked pretty descent, not so cheap in the looks, but may be a closer look might reveal the price. You need to hit a bit harder on the keys and was not smooth as my earlier one, and the user interface was a bit different as well. The jockey is used only for cursor movements, not accept or return like the other phones. That is something I have to learn new. It also looks like the menu short cuts are not supported either, which was disappointing - I didn't realize it was an expensive feature! Also they only show a dummy piece of the phone without any real functionality before you buy, which makes it difficult to observe these differences.

The clock works well and the banner doesn't vanish as soon as you touch a key. So it works well as a watch. Not sure if I will use FM radio and the flash light and hopefully I can get rid of those ones also next time for may be below 1000 INR. I also wish Nokia(and others) have some models that is just a pure phone - nothing more nothing less. I think the feature creep has made cell phones too bulky with features that are hardly used.

Overall, Nokia 1661 sounds like a bargain at this point of time. I will let you guys know how it goes.

Team Asha 8K run

2009-06-21T05:47:00.004+05:30

This was organized by the Bangalore chapter of Asha, an organization that works with the underprivileged in the society. Santhosh Padmanabhan, one of the top endurance runners in the country, leads the activities using running as a way to do good to the society! Very noble cause indeed. The run was organized to spread awareness about Asha and their activities.

The run was at Valley School, Kanakapura Road at Talegathapura in the outskirts of the city. It is a very natural campus with lots of ups and downs. The run was not an easy one, I took 55+ minutes for the 8K. Kept a 5:1 run:walk ratio throughout, but the last lap was a bit tiring. Valley school kids made it very interesting with their enthusiasm all throughout.

The school has a bit different way of teaching from other schools around inspired by Jiddu Krishnamoorthy. But they slap a hefty fee for that nearing a lakh per month. For someone who paid literally nothing for my secondary education, that is difficult to swallow.

BSA Duathlon Bangalore 2009

2009-06-14T18:11:00.005+05:30

I participated in the first ever run-cycle-run BSA Duathlon Bangalore 2009 in the 5K-10K run-ride category.

After removing almost all accessories except for the side stand, I loaded the bike in my car with the front wheel(a quick release one) removed the previous day. Removing the wheel was pretty easy, but fixing the wheel was not that easy. There were many folks who were cycling to the venue before the race as well as carrying the bike in an autorikshaw. We were at the venue before 6AM and picked up the bib and got the cycle bib-ed by 6:20am. Then it was a long wait and the race started around 15 minutes late. The announcements before the start were hardly audible for most of the participants.

The 2.5K run was an easy one, didn't want to push before the ride, which was a new thing for me. Finished the run in 16:15. The ride was pretty enjoyable and I kept a good cadence throughout and using the gears very effectively and through the range(except for the lower most one). It looked like bike fit was very poor in many folks - either they had the wrong bikes or didn't have a clue about fitting the bike to your needs. The change over took some time and total ride time for 10K was at 34:24, not bad for my kind of riding. The seat post adjustment by raising a bit more helped. The video at http://bicycletutor.com/adjust-seat/ and help from Rohan Kini of BOTS helped. I thought the last lap was a strong 2.5K, but again the transition from bike to running overheads seems to push my time to 20:06 for the split. Overall a 1:10:45 finish, which was around my expectations as well.

Overall the organization was good, but duathlon being new to the organizers there were some rough edges. Response to the event was pretty good and the location also was a convenient one, just outskirts of the city.

Instructions to the runners/riders were not effectively communicated and the sound system at the finish was pathetic. Many folks didn't have a clue around the transition area and had to ask around on how to proceed. Though traffic was controlled, it would have been better to stop traffic at least one way. The brunch arranged was good too, but would have loved some fish or chicken bites after the run-ride.

Not sure why there was a separate distribution of the T-shirts and why it was not done along with the goody bag. Also if you asked for a medium T-shirt, they give you a small and explained it out that Nike has a different sizing - that was bull crap! We are used to buying and wearing Nike T-shirts, that is nothing new. That sizing information should have been collected at registration with whatever Nike rating. It was a bit disappointing that RFL, who are not new to organizing events couldn't handle this well.

Overall, a new event for the ever increasing runners and riders in Bangalore and hope things would improve next time a lot.

Manchester United sells Ronaldo for 80M pounds!

2009-06-12T08:36:00.004+05:30

It was indeed expected with Ronaldo never letting go off his love for the Spanish club and his tantrums at United which was getting a bit out of control for the czar, Sir Alex Firguson(SAF). SAF has been a master of many such moves and has always put the team ahead of the individuals that made the team that makes him such a great club manager of all times.

Ronaldo for all his talent comes short as a team man unlike many other greats and that would ultimately limit what he can achieve in football IMO. This is no tennis or golf, this is football the ultimate team game of all.

But Ronaldo did play his part in ManU's many title triumphs and champions league win, but his tantrums always made news. To the credit of SAF, he was able to mould him into a great player even with his inherent selfishness. I always felt Wayne Rooney is more valuable to ManU than a Ronaldo. I am hoping Rooney will prove me right the next season and in the world cup. Ronaldo was a lot more hype than stuff - good defending teams always had their way with him and it is very easy to frustrate him because of his selfish nature.

I am also baffled at Real's spending in getting the galeticos which sound pretty stupid. 11 great players don't make a great team - you need something more than that. I'd be surprised if they do well by just throwing money at players. I would this is indeed a good thing for ManU and if they can retain Tevez, they will be hard to beat the next season as well.

English Premier League 2008/09

2009-06-12T08:25:00.000+05:30

Manchester United retained the title for this years' EPL though they weren't the invincible this season though - in fact they were mauled at home by Liverpool whom I thought was the best if they had everyone healthy. But then that is a key part of the long season as well - a good squad that can hang on without too much dependency on few individual players. The fact that ManU made it to the finals of the Champions League also talks highly about their consistency and depth of the squad. Their second string could easily get the better of a Hull City side who were fighting for relegation.

Overall pretty good season with some fight at the top and a scramble at the bottom as usual. Spots for the Europa league were also fought closely.

Team of the Year - in my view it was Fulham who barely escaped relegation last year which finished 7th to claim a Europa league ticket. Everton was another team who did very well, but that was kind of expected out of David Moyes' team. West Ham United and Aston Villa did well too, but fell short in the end.

Manager of the Year - has to be Zola in my book, with no real experience, he turned it around for West Ham. It is not just the results, but the way the team plays and things behind the field, everything was influenced by the ex-Chelsea Italian. I am looking forward to the next season where he will be in charge from the very beginning. Guus Hiddink did really well too to get Chelsea out of the rut and almost upstaged the eventual champions Barcelona in the semis. Another manager who turned around things at Tottenham was Harry Rednapp. But these are experienced folks who are expected to perform at this stage.

Flop team of the Year has to be Newcastle United without doubt - they deserved to go down despite bringing Shearer as the manager. It was Mike Ashley, the owners' screw up totally. There were no leaders among the players either - Michael Owen was a true disappointment and was sidelined for the last few matches. Gareth Southgate was another manager who disappointed - though the quality of the players weren't that bad, the team never clicked and surely this is something the manager has to take the blame.

Scolari should rank as the biggest flop as a manager - may be he would have realized that club and country football are two different things. Didier Drogba was handled very poorly by him and the team played without any spirit under him.

But as usual the big 4 held on with Aston Villa challenging them a bit but falling short badly in the end. Arsenal struggled a bit to hold off their challenge, but overall it was a descent performance from the young team. Wenger needs to have some experience at the back and in the midfield if he has any aspirations to challenge the first three. Manchester City was a big disappointment and Robinho seems to be another selfish player who is more interested in his performance than that of the team. If I were Mark Hughes, I would build a team without him. Their away record was pathetic to say the least. Stoke city impressed at the bottom with spirited display and Hull City hung on after the initial flourish.

It is the usual break, things will roll again in couple of months and I am planning to blog a bit more often on Premier League with my analysis.

The BSA Hercules Duathlon 2009

2009-06-10T09:58:00.005+05:30

First ever Duathlon in the country is being organized by Runners For Life and Ride A Cycle foundation in Bangalore on 14th June. While I had heard about Triathlon, this was something new. I am speculating that the lack of clean water bodies in Bangalore or the poor swimming skills of Bangaloreans (including myself) would have made Triathlon a not so interesting thing for the Bangalorean. Hopefully someday Bangalore would have a triathlon and by that time I could get my swimming skills to do outdoor long distance swims!

In any case, this is new for Bangalorean and others in a country that is just taking baby steps in fitness events like this. Being a regular commuter since February, I am used to cycling unlike many other folks who would have left it since school days. But my commute being a short one, I wasn't sure of the distances I could cover in a cycle. I haven't yet tried my limits on the cycle yet. Then I read about a rule of thumb somewhere that if you can run 10K, you should be able to cycle 50K or walk 30K or swim 2.5K, which made me comfortable for the 5-10K run-cycle event. A trial run last week ensured that I really don't have to stretch - I could do a 2.5K run, 10K cycle and a 2.5K run in around 75 minutes. So depending on the gradient of the route, I should be on either side of 75 minutes. I used all the higher gears on the cycle and it literally flew, but the uphills were still an uphill task.

One of the major factor is the cycling machine that needs some tuneup before a race, though I don't think it matters for me. I need to shed some weight on the cycle and also it appears that the seat post is a bit low causing a knee pain while pushing a bit. I need to get rid of the rack which is darn heavy and also the fenders which are an absolute must for commute, for the race. May be I need to give people an impression that I am serious about this! You also need to carry the bike along though there is an option for droping it off for a pickup to the event site.

So I have signed up for the event and looking forward to it.

Mosquito Net

2009-06-06T11:18:00.000+05:30

I ridiculed my cousin and his French wife when they were searching for a coat where they can fix a mosquito net, but I find myself in a mosquito net now as a lasting and a zero maintenance solution finally. While I was thinking about it for a while, a bad night where our daughter kept us awake throughout the night due to mosquito bites forced me into action quickly. A cotton 6x6 net was just Rs.300/= which is equivalent to a repellent instrument and the daily mats or a bottle of repellent.

We were depending on commercial products which seemed to loose steam after sometime. Most of the time we needed the fans to go all the time as well in order to beat the mosquitoes away. So this seems to be a simple solution that people have forgotten.

Sunfeast World 10K Bangalore - Did Not Run(DNR)

2009-06-02T21:28:00.004+05:30

wI gave the run a pass though I was up and walking by Sunday. Since I was in no state to do a full throttle run to be under 60 minutes, there was no motivation as well. And it doesn't hurt my goals for running - to enjoy the runs and be fit! May be I will do the duathlon(run-cycle-run, 2.5-10-2.5K) if I can train a bit though I need to drop couple of things from my MTB to reduce a bit of weight.

Charity collection this time was pretty low compared to last time, including my contributions of around 10K, it will be around 25K.

Beautiful Game at its best!

2009-05-28T13:47:00.006+05:30

While there are many teams that play the game beautifully, Barcelona played it beautifully and won it all. It is indeed a not so common to see teams do both. Their faith in playing attractive football was rewarded so well! And that's why it is such a beautiful game! Needless to say that they had some of the most talented players in the world at their disposal to do that. Their belief in the way they play has to be applauded by any true football lover.

While I couldn't watch the game live, what I heard was a superb performance that left United no chance. While Messi may not have been the star performer of the night, he remains at the very top of the talented individuals that make up this most beautiful spectacle called football! While Ronaldo has loads of talent, Messi comes out more as a team man than Ronaldo who comes out a self centered player who is more interested in himself than the team. His antiques in EPL when he was substituted when United was leading comfortably doesn't go very well of a team man. Also Ronaldo doesn't seem to raise his game on big games like these - while Messi seems to relish the big games.

While ManU has been the most consistent team in England, they were suspect against quality teams like Barcelona and Liverpool. With all their money, I thought the team lacked quality in some departments especially in the midfield. There is no real replacement for someone like Roy Keane and Scholes is not getting any younger. So Sir Alex Ferguson needs to beef up their midfield and defence a bit.

Sunfeast World 10K Bangalore

2009-05-26T11:46:00.007+05:30

It is upon us this Sunday, but I am keeping my fingers crossed due to an onslaught of a flu. While the training went well to make it a possible under 65 minute finish, right now I am staring at a "Did Not Run(DNR)" against my name. Anyway I am keeping myself hydrated and upping my vitamin C intake and take a call on race day morning. Otherwise I am all set. Though I didn't want to spend on more gadgets, I ended up buying a Nike running short with an inbuilt underwear which would help reduce the rashes from the cotton underwears. Hopefully that should be my last investment in a running gadget for the year!

If I run or not, my charity collection will continue but I am way below my last years' collection of 50K INR - hopefully I will see more contributions during the week.

About 22000 people are expected to participate in the race, but the race route has not been announced yet, but it is expected to be the same as last years'(see below).

Book Review: Marathon You can Do It !

2009-05-26T09:13:00.001+05:30

I bought this book recently from an Indian online vendor, infibeam.com, who delivered the stuff in 10 days which was a big surprise. Though the book is available at $12.21 at amazon, they charged me around $15, which wasn't that bad.

Since I already have Galloway's book on Running, many of the things are familiar to me and in fact the chapters are identical as well. But the core of the book is in the marathon training plans. From that of a beginner to those who want to finish in 4:40, 4:20, 4:00 and up. Also the race time predictor table includes slower times(above 5:00h ) as well. I am finding it a bit difficult to read it in one sitting because the same text appears in many places. And the "aha" factor was already experienced with the earlier book.

The message has been consistent and I guess you just need one of these books, either Galloway's book on Running or Marathon you can do it. If you are a beginner, GBOR suits you well. You have running plans that suits a beginner and advanced folks for 5K,10K and Half Marathons. But if you have already run half marathons or are planning to do a marathon, Marathon You Can Do It may be the right choice.

IPL - A cheap imitation of European Football Leagues

2009-05-22T05:59:00.001+05:30

Image via Wikipedia

Being familiar with the way how things are run in European Football Leagues and specifically the English Premier League(EPL), I find the Indian Premier League(IPL) of cricket a cheap imitation that gives a quick entertainment and quick money for the organizers.

Premier League

What is "Premier" about it ? May be the first of its kind in the cricket fraternity ? In the football world, every country will have multiple levels of league championships with the top one being played with the best in the country. Every year few teams that are at the bottom get relegated to the next tier one and the champions in the second rung gets promoted to the first(Premier) league. And there are usually at least 3 tiers of leagues going on at the same time. This also makes it interesting at the top and bottom of the league - top ones fight for the cup whereas the bottom ones fight to avoid the drop. In fact there are other spots to fight for as well in the European leagues like the Champions cup and the Europa cup as well. So in my view, there is nothing "Premier" about IPL - it is the first cricket league may be!

Business Model

The business model of most of the professional clubs are based on the fact that if they can build a world class football team within the budgets they have, they can attract fans and sponsors and media thereby making money out of it. Building the team means running academies that nurture talent not just from local towns, but anywhere else in the world. It is not a short term arrangement where some owners throw money and create a franchise for a month or so to play a shorter version of the game to make some quick money, which seems to be the current business model of IPL. I am not sure if the movie actors are out there because of their love for cricket or to develop the game.

Club as an Organization

A club is in fact an institution that is built over time and is run as any business organization with a P&L. The club is not a short term arrangement of players who are bid for from various places like what the IPL is, it is in fact their home while they play for the club. There is a well structured organization and a board that oversees the running of the club. It is not the franchises, but well organized clubs that keeps the leagues going.

Tailoring the Game

The game of football is played exactly like it is played elsewhere and for ages. You don't really need any tailoring to get the fans attracted to the game. May be this is a fundamental flaw with the way cricket is, which doesn't really fit into an entertainment game that can be made part of normal people's life. You either need 5 days or one day to really enjoy the game. But I am not sure if they do justice to the game by tailoring it.

Decision Making

The owners of the Premiership doesn't make decisions about the team, instead they choose a manager to run the club and give them a budget to work with. The manager makes all decisions - he is accountable for the results he promises within the constraints of the club. That means they are the ones who are fired if team doesn't click. The buck stops with the Manager. Owners making decisions about the captain and players are typically rare. Again, this could be a problem with the game itself. Cricket has an accountability issue - where does the buck stop ? With the Captain ? Coach ? Owner or the Selection Committee ?

Home Games are played at Home

If you have terrorists out to shoot the fans, then there is no game - it is that simple. You don't run elsewhere to a second home. It was really funny that IPL is being played in South Africa! But when you are after quick money, these things don't matter.

Fans and Followers

You don't have to hire cheer leaders from elsewhere, they are fans first and cheer leaders next. Again, the short term drive of IPL doesn't help here too.

Conclusion

Cricket needs to discover their own league - not just blindly copy some aspects of the successful leagues in other games just to make money. But they can definitely adopt the basics of building a club and league from them. It cannot be done in one or two seasons, it has to be a long drawn effort. The game is a bit complex to expect it to become as popular as the football leagues of Europe. I am not too sure if T20 has trimmed the game well to make it an entertainment sport, sometimes it appears that it is not really cricket. So don't make cricket look like other games, let cricket be cricket.

Big 10 and Kendra Saarige

2009-05-19T21:05:00.003+05:30

I had an opportunity to experience the Big-10 and HoHo aka kendra sarige buses that are supposed to make it easy getting around the down town areas of Bangalore.

Boarded a Big-10 on Bannerghatta Road near Meenakshi Temple. Being early, the bus was not really full, managed to sit after couple of stops. But it was nearly empty when we reached Brigade Road. I took a daily pass since I was planning to hop around a bit. I for one don't like the "Big10" name or brand - it doesn't really convey anything to the commuter except that it will reach Brigade Road or Corporation circle depending upon where you board. A route number would have been more appropriate for the common public who are pretty used to the number system.

Waited at a HoHo stop for a while but then decided to board a normal bus to reach my destination near Trinity Circle. Walked around a bit on the way back and couldn't figure out if there was a HoHo around - Hop on Hop out makes more sense than Big10 - then the rain gods opened up when I hopped on to a mall till the rains subsided. Did some shopping around Brigade road before I came back by Big10. Not sure if the frequency was good or my timing was good, I didn't have to wait long before I got onto one of them. Again, you have to read or ask to know where the bus was headed for.

So Big10 seems a good mode of transport to visit places around Brigade Road and MG road from Bannerghatta side and if you are ok with a bit of walk, you can get around a bit with a day pass. But no idea about HoHo - may be I need to get more information about it next time. But I am coming to believe that the move to introduce air-conditioned volvo buses to BMTC fleet was not a good move from a business perspective. They should have spent that money on Suvarna or Big10 where people can travel with their day passes. It appears that the Volvo is making a big dent to their income though they remain one of the few state run bus corporations that make money.

VMware Vshpere Launch at Bangalore

2009-05-19T17:47:00.003+05:30

Image via Wikipedia

Vmware did a launch of their greatest and latest Vsphere product in Bangalore. It was a low key affair with a 2 page print out of the product and no usual goodie stuff. They did provide lunch even though this was a half day affair.

But the event otherwise was very good though the keynote speaker(Regional Director, India) didn't really bring out the story well. But the other Vmware speakers did a great job and you could see the passion and fire in their belly. It appears they have a solid portfolio to take over the Datacenter from the traditional players. The hardware platform that runs their software being the commoditized x86 servers, it is pretty much a play to dominate the Datacenters of the world. They claim that no workload is out of their scope now and with pretty efficient performance as well.

While they were clearly overshadowed by Amazon with their EC2 cloud services in the cloud space, they seem to have got some story around their products for the cloud. Key differentiator that they claim is in its ablity to move existing legacy applications to the cloud. With the Vsphere product, they can get your apps running in a private cloud within your datacenter which you can move to an external one that runs the same way from a control or management perspective. So you can also move it back and forth as needed, which seems to be a significant value in handling one of the problems of a cloud adoption. Wonder why they let Amazon lead the way in this space with all their infrastructure products.

They also claim Vsphere to be their Operating System for the cloud, though the analogy falls short of a Application Programming Interface(API) feature. Instead of limiting your apps to the resources to a single server resources in a traditional OS, now you have access to all the server resources virtualized and pooled by the Vsphere OS. And they seem to have build a suite of tools around it to get the feel of an OS running an application with all the gains that come out of a virtualized environment. You get a highly available, resource efficient infrastructure to run your apps which can be grouped as a vApp with a profile that can stick with it. But an API is a key part of the OS facility that seems to be missing and that can drive apps on this virtualized infrastructure. But surely, you get a feel that you can run an enterprise datacenter with vSphere.

There are products that can significantly change the rules of the game with their Vsphere portfolio. For example, the Fault Tolerant one where you run another VM lock step with the VM that runs your application, you virtually get the High Availability that is only possible with a highly redundant setup with significant application changes to make it truly available. It can potentially put many of the traditional HA products out of the Datacenter.

And they are driving every other technology in the space to innovate - Cisco has a virtual switch that would help network administrators see the VMs instead of just the servers. The vswitch is no more limited to the server, but the complete pool. Storage side also seems to have progressed further though I did not understand what EMC guy was talking about. In fact the EMC presentation was a poor one - they seem to talk more about virtualization than the storage innovations in the space. Storage vMotion looks cool as well.

Assuming that a complete domination is imminent, the management components of vSphere would potentially become a key piece in future. While Vmware is partnering with others in other spaces like storage and networking, it is interesting to note that they are going it alone with their management products. While every one of the big 4 management vendors have some virtualization support, I am not sure if they realize the opportunity here. They just seem to be riding on their existing customer base who would finally move away some day. So my take here is that infrastructure management space also would fall to Vmware ultimately if other management vendors don't pay attention. In a way, it is a good thing from a customer perspective because management vendors were just making money because infrastructure providers didn't pay much attention to the management aspect. So you could do away with the middlemen in between.

They pooh poohed the competition and at this point of time, they have every right to do it right now. This is a bit of a concern of another vendor dominating the datacenter which seems quite likely as things stand. It is high time others stepped up to get some balance in this space - it is extremely skewed in favor of Vmware right now. Makes one wonder why the hard core research groups of other infrastructure vendors who had most of the technology already missed this huge opportunity.

So it is very obvious that they are attacking the Datacenter, not just the server piece, the whole gamut around it - network, storage and more importantly, the management piece. The holistic approach seems like a sure shot at dominating the Datacenters in the years to come! It is a matter of time before the Datacenters fall to Vmware's advances!

Vote 09 Results

2009-05-17T12:41:00.002+05:30

Image by London Summit via Flickr

People in India seems to have made a sane choice in voting back Congress led UPA without the left parties back to power. Surely, they were the better choice. I hope Manmohan Singh would induct some young blood this time in his ministry - Rahul Gandhi, Sindhia, Naveen Pilot and others are ready to take the mantle from the old(60+ years) folks. It is amazing that people(including Manmohan Singh) that are too old for any other profession find ruling the country an easy job. Congress has a great opportunity in turning around the story and giving opportunity to the young and well educated among the leaders a chance to make things better in this counrty.

I am so glad that the "left" has been left alone even by their own people in their dens. While the left parties were influential in bringing significant changes in the social scene in places like Kerala, they seem to have lost their way. Corrupt leaders like Pinarayi Vijayan in Kerala and their violent ways to quell people who are against their ideology are a disgrace to a party in democracy. While violence isn't new, corruption is new to them - they never had any serious corruption charges against their leaders. They are out to make money somehow in their veiled marxist faces - they need dismantle their leadership who are corrupt or colludes with the corrupt.

I am also glad that K Sudhakaran won handsomely at Kannur, my hometown, which was supposed to be the den of Marxist party in Kerala. Marxist party has officially been supporting the killings that they and the RSS/BJP keep indulging in the region. Sudhakaran was one of those few leaders who could take them on in this area. I aplaud his courage and hope he can make significant contribution to the constituency though the party supported violence may not go away that soon. I wish him all the best!

I also see a leader in Rahul Gandhi if he can keep his feet on the ground and work towards improving the fate of the poor in the country. The basic indicators of the quality of life, literacy rate, infant mortality etc. are way too low in Amethi, Rahul's constituency, compared to other places like Kerala. Take a cue from Kerala where things are far better with respect to standards of living.

While democracy has its limitations in a country where there are signifcant section of the people who are illiterate and below poverty, overall the people have made a good choice this time and hope things will get better in this country!

Home made Laptop Carrier

2009-05-14T18:41:00.007+05:30

I have been commuting with a back pack on my cycle since I started 3 months back. Since my shoulders aren't in such a great shape, I have not been carrying my laptop along with me. It was a good excuse to keep it at work. Also, I have an HP laptop at work and a Dell one at home and the docking station at home suits only the Dell one.

The downside of buying a better cycle was that it doesn't come with a rack(carrier) or a bell which is needed for normal commuting. These come default on a normal cycle in India. These are designed for the pure thrill of cycling - nothing should come in between. It is not for the Copenhagen or Amsterdam or the normal Indian style or of cycling instead it is for lycra and helmet clad roadies and off-roadies. So carrying stuff on the cycle was indeed a problem while commuting and doing errands. And I am not cut out for long rides and off-roading and stuff, it is pure commute and a bit of loafing around. Hopefully things would become better with more of my ilk commuting along with the normal cycle guy on the road.

So I bought a rack from BOTS, Decathlon Modular System(DMS) carrier, at Rs.1599 was 10% of the bike cost - pretty expensive indeed. But the carrier remained useless because they don't provide a bungee chord with it - in fact they expect you to buy more modules to fit into the rack. I didn't want to spend any more money on this and was in fact looking for a rope to tie stuff around.

Then I stumbled on this great website where they listed some DIY panniers - neat stuff actually. The one that was really practical for me was the one that used a laptop bag as a pannier. Not being a DIY kind of guy myself(though I have a descent toolkit), this was the easiest one as well. While it is not so elegant, the laptop is smoothly shifted out from your shoulder to the rack with the original bag and the strap, nothing comes in between. You also get two hooks when you take the bag off that can be used for other purposes . But I still don't want to carry my laptop back home and hence I am just carrying around other stuff in it for a while, may be test it a bit before I lug the laptop along with it. I still needed some fine tuning to ensure that the bag doesn't come in between the pedal and doesn't touch the tires on the other side.

But I think I hurried in buying a rack without considering all aspects. This is too heavy and expensive one for my kind of usage. And I don't think I will buy another add on for this. It is expensive, not usable as it is, and also comes a bit short and narrow to use it as a general carrier. So I will not recommend it for anyone until the seller gives you some add-ons free with it, at least the bungee chord. I would recommend a cheaper Indian one and add your own stuff.

Things that Human Beings could have lived without

2009-05-01T08:20:00.006+05:30

The things I wish human beings never invented that would have made the planet a better place.

Plastic - While the short term utility of it seems significant and we don't seem to think we can live without it, I wish it was never invented. It is creating a mess of this planet
Oil - another thing we can't imagine life without, it is polluting the whole planet like nothing else and you need to dig down the crust of the earth to get it.
Gold - I don't understand the value of it to be mining it out of the earth. Just for for ornamental value and it is expensive too! For that matter mining in general would have been something that would have made the environment far better.
Concrete - it is being used instead of environment friendly materials for building, may be we couldn't have built the multistorey buildings that quickly, but another bad thing on planet earth
Diary - how the hell can one drink another animal's milk and create a multi-billion industry ? We are stuck to it forever it appears.

What's on your list ?

Vote 09

2009-04-23T18:22:00.002+05:30

We voted for the Parliamentary elections this year in the Bangalore Rural constituency, formerly Kanakpura one. Candidates wise, there was nothing to choose from really. So using an elimination based on their credentials and their misdeeds, I picked one. I had trouble finding my name in the voters list. Finally I got a list which was completely in Kannada, which I cannot read. But I traced my name by my apartment number which was the only legible thing on it. The whole process is pathetically immature for a country that has been going over this process for more than 60 years.

It was also really strange that there were absolutely zero campaigning here - at least some workers approached us for votes, but this time no one seems to care. Comparing with my earlier constituency Kannur in Kerala, where a hot battle was on between CPM and Congress, this was a damp squib. It was easy to know who was contesting in which constituency by just driving across Kerala, but here you would have to look up the candidate list at the polling booth. While the domination of non-locals in a city like Bangalore could be one of the reasons, I also think some of the basic metrics about the population also might be at play.

The percentage of literate folks are 77.8% here, it is at 93.3 in Kannur and most of the literates in Bangalore may not have voted either. Another telling metric is the Infant mortality rate which is at 39.1 in Bangalore rural whereas just 7.2 in Kannur. Definitely it talks a lot about the electorate. [All the metrics are from Google India Election site http://tinyurl.com/dexyf6]

I also looked up metrics of Amethi from where the Gandhi scions have been winning for ages - infant mortality is at a whopping 82.7 - it is amazing that Congress with the Gandhi family at the helm most of the time couldn't do much about this basic measure about the lives of the people in the constituency. It also talks about the ineffectiveness of the whole democratic process in my opinion. Literacy at 63.9% and with just 13.9% household with electricity !! Telling numbers about the efficacy of the whole democratic rule in this country. I believe the infant mortality rate of the country compares to that of some of the poorest African countries.

Where did we go wrong after 60 years of indepedence ? Does anyone bother about the basic amenities of the common people in this country ? Independence and democracy hasn't helped surely in my opinion.

For those who can't run

2009-04-17T18:29:00.005+05:30

As usual I am planning to raise some funds during the Sunfeast 10K Bangalore 2009for those who can't run via my charity partners, Association of People with Disability(APD) Bangalore. This time I don't really have any real targets, but having been able to collect around Rs. 50K last time, I am hopeful of collecting something around that figure.

There are many ways to contribute for those interested.

Click on the Donate button on the right of this blog and directly contribute - you don't really need a middleman.
Or if you are in Bangalore, you can pay a visit to APD campus at 6th Cross, Hutchins Road
(Off Hennur Main Rd), Lingarajapuram, St. Thomas Town Post, Bangalore 560 084 (Karnataka) INDIA - you don't need to mention my name:)
Send me a check payable to "Association with People with Disability" to 12/303, Mantri Residency, Near Meenakshi Temple, Bannerghatta Road, Bangalore, India 560076
You can transfer directly to my HSBC or ICICI or Canara Bank accounts - I will let you know the details if you want to go this route. Send me email at p_jayadeep at yahoo dot com
You can give me cash if we can schedule a meeting before or after the run. Just let me know your intent to contribute.

To give you an idea of what this money could do, it could educate 10 poor, disabled children for a year for Rs. 50,000/= or train 10 disabled youths to get a job and earn their livelihood for Rs.80,000/- OR provide wheelchairs to 10 disabled person so that they can acquire mobility and pursue their dreams for Rs.70,000/-.

I would also encourage you to participate in the run if you are in Bangalore and continue running for life and raise funds or volunteer for charity.

Bangalore-Kannur(via Sultan Bathery, Mananthavady)

2009-04-16T17:49:00.003+05:30

Image via Wikipedia

It was a vacation to our hometown Kannur in the sweltering hot summer time. This time we drove without any long breaks and descended the western ghats via Mananthavadi ghat roads which were in pretty good condition being inside Kerala border. Karnataka Government has no incentives to keep the Ghat roads to Kerala(Perumadi ghats) in good shape.

We hit the road at 7am from Bangalore via the latest and really nice NICE road that is just 3KM off from where we live. Except for the toll booth stops, we were at Mysore road in no time and it felt like we were driving in a western highway. Whatever criticisms that you may have against NICE, they have done a fantastic job in building the peripheral road. Creating free-way routes like this around the city may be the best way to ease traffic within the city. But there are still rough edges around the infamous Gottigere changeover at Bannerghatta Road and at Kanakapura road overpass. The toll collection also is a bit haphazard, which I guess would improve once the intersections are completed. While I am no big fan of big city based development, if you are going that way, you need interventions like NICE expressways. Unfortunately it would encourage travel by personal vehicles which I believe has shot up already. So now it is easy to get out of the city except towards Hyderabad on NH-7.

Mysore road was clogged with holiday travellers which we covered in about 2.5 hours. There were many road humps that seems to have sprouted on the highway near most of the villages which may make sense because there is access to the highway for the public. Hopefully, the NICE expressway would materialize some day. Same was the case with Mysore-Ooty road.

Gundelpet-Sultan Bathery was a quiet and easy ride, we were at Sultan Bathery at around 12 noon and reached Mananthavady at 1pm. Drive towards Manathavady from S.Bathery was not that easy comparatively, but was still good. We had to stop at many places to ask for directions, but being in a green country, it was enjoyable as well. We had lunch at Centry Hotel, Manathavadi - food was ok, except for sighting some fish in the vegetarian sambar which gave us some ideas for a new recipe!

Image via Wikipedia

Descent down towards Kuthuparamba was a bit shaky with our 1-year old girl having ghat-sickness and throwing up a couple of times. She was asleep last time when we went up and down the ghats, but this time it was her play time and she was up most of the time. But having a Paediatrician in the car was a lot of help. May be we should have let more fresh air instead of depending on the aircondition in the car. We reached home by 5PM, which made it a 10 hour, 400KM drive from Bangalore. An earlier start from Bangalore.

It was also a drive without any colas and bottled juices for me. I stocked up tender coconut water and stopped over before Gundelpet to refill the bottle with more of it. But tender coconut is not easy to find in the coconut country unless you can climb a coconut tree. Coconuts are meant for serious business maybe. The other thing I carried was a peanut cake in jagri, which kept the fatigue away.

We took the same route back, but I wasn't well hydrated the day before which seemed to have caused some trouble for my bended knees after 300KMs on the road. But the baby slept during our climb up and she didn't have any problems except that it was tough to keep her in the car seat later. Mysore road was traffic free and NICE road was awesome at the end of a tiring drive except for the last mile problem at the Bannerghatta Road junction couple of kilometers from home where we were stuck for 30 minutes.

While the drive up and down was pretty good, it kind of blew away the carbon I saved by my car free commute for the past 3 months

A sprained neck and two Doctors

2009-04-08T09:10:00.002+05:30

I had a sprained neck which I suspected on the new stretching and core building exercises last week. So I went to the nearby "Asia's Best" hospital with certificates from John Howard Medical Institute - unfortunately the Doctor I wanted to meet was busy with some operation and I met the one that was available. He checks my neck and doesn't ask how it happened or what I was doing etc. and prescribes an x-ray(Rs. 460/=) and declares it a neck sprain by looking at it. And prescribes a pain killer that is not compatible with another medicine I am on - he didn't ask that question nor did he check my file which had that information. So I didn't buy the medicine except the gel. Wasted Rs.810/=. In fact this was the same guy who couldn't diagnose my Computer Related Injury(CRI) earlier.

Being very unsatisfied with this diagnosis I went to a Sports Medicine Specialist, Dr. Rajat Chauhan of Back 2 Fitness which is also organizing the 10K running training that I am part of - he is 13KM away from where I live and hence I didn't go to him first. He spent more than 20 minutes checking my neck and trying to give some massage that could ease the trouble. I was wondering why was he not stopping the analysis and doesn't he have other patient to look at ? Diagnosis before you prescribe stupid! He didn't want to see the X-ray also. But at the end of it, I was feeling better already. He recommended a wheat bag to do some hot or cold massaging - but the bags were a bit expensive, so I thought I could do without it. Rs.500/= for the consultation and a very good experience at it! Worth every paisa!

Car free commute

2009-04-06T13:49:00.001+05:30

I realized the other day when I had trouble starting my car that it has been more than 3 months since I stopped using my car for commuting to work and other errands. Fortunately, my office is just 2KM from my home which makes it pretty easy. I started commuting by BMTC buses and later on started cycling 3 days in the week on my latest and greatest acquisition. I make an additional trip for lunch using BMTC buses which has pretty good frequency of services on this route.

Cycling on the main road is a new experience and not so bad and this stretch is not so congested at this point of time though it is becoming worse by the day. I usually beat the rush hour by leaving before 8am and returning before 6pm. But it is a bit short for a good ride because it ends before you start especially if there are no buses blocking my way in the 3 bus stops on the way. But cycling is not that dangerous as I thought it to be - but it is a very subjective thing.

Even if you don't want to risk cycling, bus services seems to have improved a lot recently. There are plenty of new services including Air conditioned Volvo Vajra, Suvarna and the latest BIG-10 series of buses in addition to the normal services. You can easily catch one of these buses during any time of the day in 10-15 mintues.

If the auto rickshaw services were a bit descent, I could have easily got rid of my car. I also think it is worth moving near your work to avoid the long commutes which can be used in other productive ways. Especially, avoiding the frustration of driving across the city choking points every day.

Sunfeast World 10K Bangalore

2009-03-29T16:55:00.003+05:30

The Sunfeast World 10K, the only road racing event in Bangalore is scheduled for 31 May, 2009 this year. I have registered for the run and also training formally this year with Runners High of Dr. Rajat and Santhosh. But I lost two weeks of training due to a flu, but luckily it was at the beginning of the training not near the race day. I need to do a 2-mile run that they use to predict my 10K time, but I am guessing I will be around 60 minutes for the 10K. I would like to do a sub 60 minute run this time, but a 65 minute looks a realistic target though.

I started running regularly since last Sunfeast 10K where I finished just seconds short of 80 minutes. Since then I did a half marathon and a 25K and been running all along except during couple of flu attacks. So the distance is not a challenge this time and hence would try to improve the timings a bit and hopefully the training would help me out.

Surely, I would like to collect some amount for those who can't run via my charity partners, Association of People with Disability(APD). I collected around 50K last time and I would like to collect more than that this time which is a tough task in these bad economic conditions.

I will keep you posted on my progress towards the run timing and charity collection targets! You can track my trainings also at dailymile.com.

Runners High

2009-03-14T14:29:00.003+05:30

Runners High is a training program for runners by two of the best runners in town, Dr. Rajat Chauhan and Santhosh Padmanabhan. Dr. Rajat also runs a sports clinic, Back To Fitness(B2F) for the sports persons in town. Santhosh is also associated with a charity, Asha , for which he raises money while he runs. While it sounds funny to many people that you pay to get training on running, to be skillful at anything training from an expert helps. So for me Rs.2000/= for such a training was worth every paisa knowing their credentials in running. While there are running groups in Bangalore, there weren't may organized running trainings available and this looks pretty good.

Image via Wikipedia

It was kicked off with a short run this morning at Lalbagh Botanical Gardens, which is one of the biggest parks in Bangalore. We have good bus service from where I live to Lalbagh, which made it a car-free run. The rest of the sessions would be at Jayanagar 3rd Block at 6AM on a week day and Sunday. Santhosh explained the training details and what they have to offer and it looks pretty comprehensive. Our short term target is the Sunfeast 10K run on 10 May, 2009 in Bangalore. But I would definitely want to continue the training for a half marathon and potentially a full this year or the next year.

I am looking forward to the training though I have a sore throat to start with. I have been training mainly based out of reading "Galloway's book on running" and since Galloway doesn't run programs in this part of the world, this is as best it can get in Bangalore! The book really helped me go beyond 5K by using the Run-Walk-Run method of Galloway and to stay injury free throughout the year with a 10K, 21K and 25K runs. So this was a good time to really get some hands-on training from the experts instead of just reading books.

Feet on The Street 5K

2009-03-08T11:26:00.004+05:30

Image via Wikipedia

Feet on the Street is a new running event from Runners for Life(RFL), Bangalore's vibrant running group - 5K for people to get started and may be join the longer runs that RFL organizes every fortnight(may be monthly now with a FOTS every month). May be the "Feet" should move around town and have this event at various locations to encourage running.

This run was at Cubbon Park, centrally located and the park is blocked for traffic till 8 in the morning. It was not a serious run, no timings and timing certificates which is the norm for RFL runs. I hopped on to a BMTC bus and got back in a Volvo(which was shared with just another passenger!) and made it a car-free run and I hope to make my runs greener by cycling to the venues sometime later.

This was also a charity event for Dream A Dream, a charity organization based out of Bangalore - I have been trying to contribute to their Dream Football program for sometime, but except for couple of visits to the play grounds, I haven't been able to make any serious contribution.

I finished the run in 32 minutes - I was hoping for a 30minute finish, but the general tempo was very easy. Next race in town is the Sunfeast 10K due in May - again there are some general elections that might come in the way like last year.

Hulimavu Kere(Lake), Bangalore

2009-02-28T11:12:00.005+05:30

I didn't know about this lake long time after I moved in to this neighborhood. I chanced upon this lake when I was cycling around what used to be a dirt track which was a off-road route downhill. But when I stopped cycling, I stopped going near the lake as well. This is a reasonably big lake in the Hulimavu Village(now part of BBMP) off Bannerghatta Road.

Later on, when I started running, I was looking for quiet trails after I fell on the main road once, this turned out to be an obvious choice and the roads around the lake were asphalted as well.
Usually I finish before the sunrise except may be during my long runs where I catch a good view of the sun rising above the lake. I have been thinking of taking pictures of the beautiful sunrise for a while, but my cellphone camera is just an ordinary one. Finally, I walked up this morning to the lakeside on top and snapped it up.

Unlike most of the other lakes in Bangalore, there is plenty of water in the lake. It looks there is plenty of fish also in it and the hyacinths are being removed by someone as well. You can spot big birds as well and ducks are plenty in the lake.

But like the other lakes, this is being used by people around as an open toilet. If you can ignore that part of it, you can enjoy the runs around the lake. The roads are good with very little traffic and people. There is a good gradient from the lakeside towards Bannerghatta Road near Meenakshi Temple which is a good place to do some hillwork as well.

There many new apartment complexes coming around the place and some of them will have this great view of the lakeside and sunrise. However, people dump waste and mud in the lake on many sides which can eat up the lake in due course like many of the lakes in town. There doesn't seem to be any clearly marked boundary for the lake which makes people to encroach it easily. Hopefully the lake remains as it is with all the developments around.

Below is the map of the location, which is my usual running route of around 4K.

Got Beer, Better than Milk!

2009-02-26T11:24:00.004+05:30

I think this should have some takers - beer is far better than milk! Read more about it here. It should also help increase the good cholesterol as well!

I am off diary products for more than a month because I felt it is unnatural to drink another animal's milk and it seems to have significant issues as well.

Is Cycling Safe on Indian Roads ?

2009-02-21T07:44:00.002+05:30

Image via Wikipedia Before

Before buying my latest cycle, I spent a lot of time brooding about the safety aspect of riding in traffic. And since I had never regularly cycled in any sort of traffic and my previous two attempts were futile, I was very nervous. While there is a good cycling community in Bangalore, what really helped me was the common man on the cycle who doesn't seem to worry too much about traffic and pollution. Compared to them, I am far more well covered if something happens to me - they may not have an insurance cover or may not even be able to work if they get injured in an accident. So what the heck was I brooding about ?

It was really the Subjective Safety aspect, which is the perception of safety, that was at play. For the common man on the cycle, that may not be a factor at all, but for us the educated white collar guys that is a lot of concern in many aspects. While I have a child seat for my daughter in my car, most of the folks carry their babies around in their motor bikes without any protection! Many European countries have separate cycle tracks to improve the safety aspect of riding - and it has produced results. People cycle a lot in these countries throughout the year and most of them don't even bother to wear helmets. Helmets are also considered a baggage that will hinder some folks from cycling as well. Some folks argue that wearing a helmet may make them more adventurous on the cycle.

However, separating cycle traffic from the regular one is not a practical idea in Indian road conditions - once you are on the road, Indians do not have respect for anyone else, except for his own right to drive and the traffic enforcement is pretty weak in this country. Separate cycle paths would be consumed by the motorbikes and auto-rickshaws for sure. So the subjective safety problem is not going to go away. But helmets and good quality bikes can in fact provide a bit of confidence for the rider and improve the perception of safety.

Image via Wikipedia

So the only option is to ride along the traffic and be part of it. This is in fact advocated by some folks(attributed to John Forrester) to handle the Cycling Insecurity Syndrome(CIS) which they say are at the root of the problem. You are in fact not solving the real problem by separating the cycling traffic from the main traffic. You need to be part of the traffic and claim your space on the road. But this hasn't got many takers in the western world as you can see from the statistics which shows that countries who have provided cycling infrastructure by way of separate tracks have significant cycling population whereas in other countries are not anywhere near.

So it turns out that it is the only option for a cyclist in India(and for any third world country I would imagine) is to ride along - you need to get over your CIS to be riding comfortably. And the only way to get over it is to get on the road riding with the traffic. While there are trainings and books available on Effective Bicycle Riding elsewhere in the world, we do not have access to such things and the common man on the cycle doesn't really care as well - and like any other thing, cycling comes naturally to us:)

Image via Wikipedia

But there are things that make the dangers of riding along the traffic not that bad on Indian roads.

Motor speeds are not that high compared to the western highways or roads invariably because the roads are crowded or in poor condition. In fact in cities, traffic moves at only around the pace of a cycle. So the cyclist is at an advantage here because he can squeeze in or ride(or walk) on the sidewalks.
While we don't respect each other on the road, nobody really would slam you intentionally on the road. They would definitely honk(even within my apartment!) and potentially say something to you. So unless your ego is hurt at what you hear, you shouldn't have a problem here. Turn a deaf ear to them!
Since we collaborate with each other so well on the road, motorists are weary of the movements of each other which is usually unpredictable. That is one of the reasons why we don't really need lanes or lanes just remain white spots on the road. The feedback loop is indeed very dynamic and our reflexes are well worked during driving which makes us very adaptive! So the cyclist doesn't really need to have a rear view, he can just show his hand and switch lanes easily, others will adapt themselves with a bit of honking and may be some words:). In my opinion, this "collaboration" is in fact the corner stone of driving(and living) in India.
While the bigger vehicles can flex its muscles on the road, they know for sure that the big vehicle is always at fault in case of an accident. So the honks and abuses are basically a reaction to that feeling. Again, if the cyclists can ignore it, things are easier.

But there are things peculiar to the Indian traffic that makes things a bit difficult.

Image via Wikipedia

Animal crossing - cows and dogs are as unruly as the human beings on the steering. Dogs can trip cyclists and cause significant damage.
Autorikshas - though they seem to be broader than a cycle, they can squeeze in anywhere a cyclists can go. They are driven by the smart fellas who can even do a 360 degree spin on the spot with these 3 wheelers. They are either in a hurry or waiting for their next passenger wherever they are!
There is also this odd breed of vehicles people call BPO/IT/Call center ones in major cities, which are always in a hurry. You can recognize them by their honking and the way they zigzag on the road. You need to give them way because they have a service level agreement to ferry people to various uptown locations on time to serve customers all over the world. Considering the state of affairs on the road, it is a challenging job for those drivers - their job is at stake if they can't get in time and also our country's reputation with global customers!
Pedestrians - according to some data, pedestrians are the #1 casualty on Indian roads. While being hit by cycle may not be a fatal one for the pedestrian, it can hurt the cyclist equally or worse. And according to the unwritten rule of the motor-chain, pedestrians are at the bottom of the chain and hence the cyclist will be at fault in case of an accident.
Road humps - to prevent the unruly motorists from running amok, the most effective way seems to be the road humps that usually doesn't have any notices or visibility. It slows down the cyclist unnecessarily though it helps in reducing the speed of other vehicles.
Pollution - this is as uncontrollable as the traffic on the road. It is not easy doing a cardio workout inhaling a lot of polluted air.

While it could be argued that it is not that bad on Indian roads as you may think it to be, subjective safety problems still prevent people from cycling on the streets. While helmets and safety vests may improve the perception of safety, the common man on the cycle cannot afford to buy good cycles leave alone gear for safety. Kids just spin around their homes or within their apartments, but once they grow up they either get on a motor bike or a car. Motor bikes and cars are affordable to more and more people which will drive them away from cycling which is considered "dangerous".

Image by Meanest Indian via Flickr

Ultimately, it is up to the individual to decide if cycling is important to them after considering all the risks involved in it. It is not for the risk averse laid back types for sure. For the common man, it is a good way to get away from the crowds in the bus and not having to wait for the bus or carry stuff around on them. They can buy a cycle for the money they spent on bus tickets for some months. For the white collar IT software types, it may be his deteriorating health (due to the sedentary lifestyle and the pressures inflicted on them by their companies) . While there are other ways to combat this, cycling can be made an integral part of the lifestyle if they can commute to work saving time by not going to a gym or getting up early to run or walk. You could spend the same amount of money that you might spend on a good Gym on a good cycle and flaunt it as well! You will have more time and health to handle the pressures at work. That is off course if you can get over the subjective safety and CIS.

So I am claiming my space on the road to commute to work 3 days in a week to get over my CIS and it is getting better for sure. May be I can drop the early morning runs on the other 2 days when I get over my CIS completely!

Now you can listen to my posts!

2009-02-18T08:07:00.004+05:30

Brought to you by Odiogo, which converts the blog posts into a voice stream. It works pretty well! Just click on the "Listen" button on top of the post you want to listen! You can also subscribe to the podcasts by clicking on the Odiogo button on the right side pane.

Cholesterol Readings

2009-02-09T13:23:00.012+05:30

My cholesterol woes seems to be disappearing -the latest cholesterol readings show an all-time low for my total cholesterol, LDL, triglycerides, VLDL cholesterol. But the HDL(good cholesterol) one is still below healthy levels, but definite improvement(more wine please!). All other minerals and stuff(potassium, urea, chloride) are also well within limits. Almost a year of consistent running except for a week when I was down with a flu seems to be working well. But exercise should have bumped up the HDL one as well, but that doesn't seem to have an impact. May be I need to be consistent in drinking wine too!

Did stopping diary products help ? May be not. Research that I read says it can help improve cholesterol woes - but it is just around a month

Image via Wikipedia

and I wasn't a diary product junky either. Let's wait for some more time to pass any judgment.

Coconut - is NOT a problem as many people think it to be. Coconut was very much part of my diet and I have upped it a bit by using coconut oil exclusively these days and more of tender coconut. If it was causing the HDL to be low, it should have caused the other cholesterol components to go bad, which didn't happen - so coconut remains the king in my books.

Here is my diet with the occasional wine or beer which I need to make a regular one to enhance my good cholesterol.

Breakfeast: Juice(100% Tropicana Orange/Grape or Watermelon), Rice cakes(puttu)/Chappathi
Lunch: Red boiled rice, vegetables, fish(2d/week) in coconut gravy, fish fry occasionally, fruits.
Evening snack: fruits, biscuits, juice(if available)
Dinner: Chappathi and vegetables/Red rice if fish is available, fruits, juice
Oil used for all cooking: Coconut Oil

My exercise program consists of 3 days running and some stretching and yoga with cycling to work on other 3 days with a rest day in between - see here.

BMTC slashes bus fares

2009-02-09T06:13:00.002+05:30

Looks like BMTC listened to my suggestions:), they have reduced the fares on the Vajra(Volvo buses) and Suvarna bus services and you can use the daily pass in Suvarna buses as well. So the rush hour Volvo and Suvarna buses looks like rush hour buses now!

Volvo minimum fare is Rs.5/= and Suvarna is Rs.4/= now. My fare has reduced Rs.8/= on Volvos and Rs.6/= on Suvarnas. I think the move make sense because it is difficult to attract the car-driving bangalorean to the Volovo buses, he is too busy to wait for a public bus instead of waiting in the trafic snarls making calls on his mobile phones! It is the normal bus users who would utilize these services.

But the Vayu Vajra services to Airport are still making trips to the airport without commuters - BMTC should be saner to stop it immediately and cut down the losses.

Lean Lifestyle - removing clutter : Update

2009-02-07T10:16:00.004+05:30

I have been trying to remove clutter in all walks of life for a while and it is time to provide an update on how things are going.

Image by Erik Mallinson via Flickr

I removed the major clutter in my life by quitting my previous job in a large corporation and joined a smaller one closer home, which has helped me balance life and work well. Lunch at home helps eat healthy and cheap even though the fish content in the meal is a bit expensive! Commute time reduced from 3 hours a day to 30minutes and if I bike, it is just 20minute.
Threw out lot of junk - gave the old computer to a housekeeping guy for free, threw couple of boxes of junk that was lying around without looking inside of it. If you haven't opened it for more than 5 years, you just don't need it. But still there are couple more that needs to go.

White board I installed in our living room does help in reminding things and getting things done. But I guess I tend to forget that I have a board at times.
E-mail and Postal mails are processed immediately and junk dumped immediately.
Cleaning up used dishes immediately after use is becoming a habit, but it regresses a bit. A reminder on the whiteboard helps!
Scanned all important documents and uploaded online - though many documents need their hard copy, all others are only digital now.
Moved my workspace in a more spacious room instead of the living room. Though this appears to be a hindrance because the room is upstairs, it has helped focus on one thing. Climbing stairs is good for health and the baby doesn't pull the cables either though she knows where I am hiding these days:)
Keeping the flow by doing one thing at a time is still not really smooth - I keep wandering from one thing to another. This needs more focus.
Stopped drinking milk - surely milk would have created a lot clutter inside:) and I don't need to worry about the milkman anymore!
And I am leaner too - an inch smaller at the waist. Running and Cycling helps in reducing the clutter in the body too!

Overall good progress - I can do a lot more I guess!

First ride to work on a bicycle

2009-02-02T08:31:00.007+05:30

After saying "tomorrow I will bike to work" every morning since I got my latest and greatest cycle, finally I rode to work. It is just a 2KM ride, but on the busy Bannerghatta Road, in fact not very bad stretch compared to the ones towards the city. The terrain is not flat, in fact there are very few flat stretches(as you can see from the map) - there are some nice gradients up and down. I need to climb from my apartment, which is on the Bannerghatta Road, with the last stretch being a bit steep. Having a geared cycle sure helps - I don't need to stand and ride anymore.

Once you get on to the main road, it goes down to Hulimavu Gate and Arakere Lake(no water, only weeds) and then climbs again a bit. Before the next dip, I take a diversion which is narrow and dug up, but traffic free and avoids a nasty traffic light. There are 3 bus stops on the way, with one of them being a busy stop. But no buses blocked my way today and it was around 8am! I was at work within 10 minutes and I tied my bike to one of the poles of the emergency staircase in one corner of the office parking lot. No it doesn't block the emergency stairway, cycle will be under the landing - may be I can take the cycle along with me even in an emergency! :)

I went home for lunch in the bike, which was more demanding - the only traffic light I have on the way back is a messy one and with no cops around everyone wants to jump the lights during off peak hours. On the way down the first incline, I had to break fully to stop behind a car that was taking a left when it looked like they were headed straight. I was wearing a helmet which drew a bit of curiosity especially among school kids on cycles. Then there were many cars and vehicles parked in no-parking zones and some dusty school bus traffic near home - I had to stop in between the steepest climb to give the school buses way. They kicked up a lot of dust around the upcoming shopping mall. There is a median all the way through my route, but the last 50 meters is a narrow stretch with just space enough for two vehicles. You get honked out by vehicles zooming past. Kids within our apartment who just arrived by the school buses were all over the place and lack of a bell forced me to stop in another steep incline down. With the sun out in full, it was a sweaty ride as well. I took a bus back to work - may be I should do the evening ride back instead of the lunch ones.

Overall I felt good and commute by cycle didn't appear that difficult as I thought it to be - while you get terrified when you see other folks riding in the traffic, but when you are out there riding, it is not that bad. I need to get off my Cyclist-Inferiority-Superstition(aka road fear) and that will happen only by riding in traffic. I plan to bike 3 days in a week - rest of the 2 days I run and my legs need some rest. Not having the rear view was a bit uncomfortable though. I guess I need a bell, a pollution mask, a riding glass and may be a mirror(not many seem to have them though). May be I need a cyclocomputer as well - or may be I will gift that to myself if I become a regular.

Hopefully I can make commute to work a habit.

Beehive

2009-01-31T14:12:00.003+05:30

We had some guests in our balcony for a week before the pest control smothered it with pesticides killing them and wasting all the honey in the hive. It just appeared one evening between the time we went out and came back. We thought the wooden wind chime on the balcony kept these bees away all these days, but that was not to be. Our neighbors had multiple beehives in their balcony before and we were wondering what kept them off ours.

By next morning it had become bigger with bees jostling around for space. It looked really majestic. I tried in vain to see if any beekeepers would be available to suck the honey. Beekeeping is considered to be a village or forest profession, not for the urban folks. But it looks like everyone uses pesticides to clean it up. But the bees and monkeys keep coming at regular intervals. It talks a lot about the encroachment that humans have been indulging in - this place is just 10KM away from the Bannerghatta Forests and that would explain the bees and the monkeys.

So after a week the pest control landed up and finished them off and it did have some solid honey and all the lovely honey bees were smothered to ground. The beehive looks pretty neat with very symmetrical hexagonal boxes. I think we are loosing a lot of honey and unnecessarily killing the bees instead of doing a bit of beekeeping. I need some help to see if this is something doable in the urban localities.

Public bus commute - Update

2009-01-31T07:25:00.005+05:30

It has been more than a month since I started commuting by public bus. It is just a 2KM commute where I can jump into any bus that goes up towards the city and most of the buses going down towards Bannerghatta. Early morning 8AM is rush hour for the normal buses, but the Suvarna and Volvo buses which are in plenty these days have poor occupancy making it a very comfortable commute.

Lunch time commute is by the ordinary buses some of which are in horrendous condition. One of the buses was vibrating so badly that you could feel it upto your head:) Sometimes I get nervous thinking about the condition of the brakes on these buses. Being a 2KM commute, some of the bus conductors try to give a concession by taking less money and not giving a ticket. You need to demand for one. Looks like they make some good pocket money by doing this. But they seem to sniff of any checking that they never get caught it looks like. There is one lady conductor who indulges this even in the Volvo and Suvarna buses.

The number of Volvo and Suvarna buses seems to have increased a lot with buses to Whitefield, Shivajinagar and Jigani. I am not sure if this is a wise idea because most of the people travel by the ordinary buses and using the day pass which is not usable in Suvarna or Volvo buses. I am not even sure if Volvo buses itself is a great idea unless BMTC is able to attract the elite car driving populace into it. I travelled towards the city center in a Volvo during the rush hour where traffic was moving below 10kmph speed, still the bus was not even full even with the bus crew's sincere attempt to catch some flies.

May be BMTC should increase the Suvarna buses and reduce the charges or allow daily passes in it. That way both the elite and the normal passengers can make use of it. Right now, they are going empty even at peak rush hours. Also they should immediately abandon the Vayu Vajra trips to airport - there is obviously no customer demand for it, same is the case with Volvo Vajra series in routes other than the IT corridor.

Drinking Cow's milk - Very Unnatural Indeed !

2009-01-26T10:42:00.000+05:30

The diary industry is indeed one of the biggest food industries the world over and everyone seems to swear by the milk, but I am wondering whether using another animal's milk is a right thing to do. This thought was aired by noted Economist Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar in his Times of India column (Milk is more dangerous than Cola) when he was discussing about Coca-Cola being targeted by Indian environmentalists. He argued that milk had more contaminants than Coca-Cola and drinking another animal's milk was not environment friendly either. I stopped diary products for a short while after reading the article, but couldn't hold on to it for long. But I am at it again this time more determined to stick with it.

I have been thinking about it more since we are nearing weaning our daughter from breast milk and cow's milk is the recommended thing after that. And we have been drinking and using diary products and eating beef once in a while as well. I have not heard any convincing answer why it is ok to drink cow's milk and I am more and more convinced that it is not the natural thing to do. It appears that any breast milk is that it is produced on a demand basis - if the child or calf doesn't drink it, it stops producing it. So human being have created an artificial demand and milking the cow for their use (BTW, don't buy the argument from mothers who say their milk supply is poor or the kid doesn't drink - most of the time it is because they just don't know to feed their babies or aren't interested in patiently feeding them - they have a lot of alternatives these days). So we may not be really depriving the calves their share by drinking cow's milk, but we are misusing the demand-supply nature of the milk supply to create a food industry itself. Cows themselves have become very synthetic - they are being created for the diary industry.

But I can understand people(including myself) eating cow's meat because human beings are at the top of the food chain, it is a natural instinct to indulge in and we let the animal live its life before killing it(though there will be exceptions). Many people don't eat it because of the religious belief and the sacredness associated with the cow(especially in India), but they have no qualms in drinking cow's milk and eating diary products however, which seems to be the most unnatural thing.

I figured PETA has been fighting this cause, but they are a bit extreme that they are against other natural instincts(like eating animal meat) though not based on any religious principle. But if they take their arguments a bit further to trees and vegetables, human beings will find it tough to survive. However, I can support them in their efforts to stop drinking milk though.

So I am off from diary products though it is really tough to figure out if there is cow's milk in many of the things that we eat, it is so damn widely used in all kinds of food. But I am giving it a shot.

Work Place near Home

2009-01-21T21:08:00.005+05:30

I have been fortunate to land up a job just 2KM from home and I think it is definitely worth living near your work place especially in a congested city like Bangalore where it is difficult to commute long distances. From that perspective, renting a home is far better than owning one. But home is closer to heart for many of us and we tend to put all our money on it. Or you could rent your home and move closer to work.

So I start from home at around 8am - 3 days of cycle and 2 days on BMTC buses. This stretch is not too bad even now at 8am except for an school-drop car parking at a no-parking zone. I make it home for lunch, and a grocery shop near office and in the apartment makes it easy to pick up stuff on the way. Spend some time with my daughter who is always excited to see you when you are off for a while. Though it is the lean hours, BMTC seems to operate enough buses during the time and all the buses leads to my home!

There is evening with family now in addition to the lunch! And you can't get away from some baby sitting, which isn't that bad considering that you aren't that tired out. I try to get out by 5PM to beat the rush hour again.

So here is what you gain out of this,

No fuel needed - since I have a diesel car, it saves around Rs.1500/=, but will be more if you have those fuel guzzling big ones.
2 hours of commute time saved - priceless!
Food at home - another Rs.1500/= and guaranteed quality
Time with family - priceless!
Reduced stress - priceless!

I would recommend moving your home closer to work or the other way round - it is worth far more than you think it is!

Twitter and The Village Theory!

2009-01-18T13:00:00.003+05:30

When I started using twitter, I had trouble understanding it. But when I realized the usefulness of it, I got hooked on to it and was spreading the news. I invited lot of my colleagues first, then I invited my fellow Computer Scientists from college, some of them created an account for themselves(or already had done it) out of curiosity, but no mainstream twitter user yet in my circle of friends or colleagues. While most of the folks couldn't see the value of twitter, there were some who didn't want to have a public profile at twitter. Then there are folks who thinks it is a distraction in their busy lives!

On thinking more about the difficulty people are having to understand twitter, at first I couldn't easily come up with an analogy that would explain twitter. IMs are like talking to each other, forums are like you are airing your view in a discussion etc. But I figured out that the village theory(with my own twist to it) would explain twitter well. The village theory as Richard Kotch puts it in his 80/20 book, is that villagers(in Africa I guess) typically have all their key relationships in life living pretty closely around 100 meters. In the book, 80/20, Richard Kotch argues that if you can build those few key relationships in life, you would be far more effective.

In my own experience, in villages and small towns, people kept in touch by talking to each other briefly when they met others. The place where I grew up, anyone walking on the road would say hello and would at least say where they were going to to anyone whom they meet - "to buy fish" or "what fish is available today" or "to watch a football match" and may be the results of the match etc. They would also share useful information as well during these short chats. Sometimes they may have to repeat these things to others as well. You wouldn't really discuss any secrets in these conversations, but rumor mill does it rounds however. These were usually short conversations, not a formal visit or long one-on-one chat. And if there is someone new in the neighborhood, they may not directly talk to each other first, the others who know them would talk about them and you would come to know. But typically folks knew what was going on with others in the neighborhood unless there are something fishy going on(even that would be difficult to hide). But there were always the odd ones who don't want to mingle around as well. The same method is utilized by people who sell things on foot - they shout out what they have got and interested folks would come around and check it out. In fact the fish vendors had a trademark howl that helps people get ready. At the root of its effectiveness was the relaxed pace of life those days! Modern ways of living and methods in small towns are changing this a bit though.

It appears that twitter is modeled around this way of communication - in effect, twitter has enabled smaller villages with one of the most effective ways of communication in the cyberspace. In the internet neighborhood, twitter is as effective as the village or small town neighborhood's methods to keep in touch and share information. Instead of saying the same thing to various people you meet, you just tweet once because your status is recorded. Then others re-tweet it or respond to you and you have a conversation. Off course there are additional facilities like search and hashtags that makes it easier to find things. And no wonder why the marketing folks love it, they can shout out what they have got! But as Richard Kotch points out in his 80/20 book, the key is picking the 20% of your key allies(friends) in the twitterville to make your time more effective.

Technology wise, it is indeed a marvel in that the number of tools or utilities that are being developed is incredible. The simplicity of the twitter APIs is something that is driving this for sure. While computing standard bodies and technologies have been talking about standard APIs and framworks, I would think that twitter APIs really shows the significance of a simpler and relevant APIs. Many technologies and technologists have not been able to do anywhere near what twitter APIs have practically demonstrated by way of the applications it has enabled.

Hopefully now you are convinced about its effectiveness and simplicity and go build your village on twitter!

Back on the Saddle

2009-01-11T09:37:00.006+05:30

Cycle

I am back on a cycle after sometime with a Firefox Target, which is an expensive one by Indian standards, but may be a normal bike by global standards. My previous two cycles were mainly meant for exercising, but with this I want to commute to work as well. But the main reason I looked around for a bike was for cross-training to improve my running. Then I figured out that there were plenty of guys(including guys older than me) biking to work. But if I can regularly use the bike irrespective of whether I commute, that should make the bike worthwhile. Biking to work is all the more possible because I have got just a 2KM commute, but on the busy Bannerghatta Road.

The bike was worth Rs.11,995/= and with accessories(helmet, back light, bottle holder, fender) it was around Rs. 15000/=. Almost 10 times that of my last cycle. So for people who are curious about the price, my line has been "if you have to ask the price, you cannot afford it"! Many of the m don't understand why anyone would spent that much money on a cycle. More details and technical specifications(!) are here

There are pretty nice things about the cycle which I figured out after placing the order. The wheels can be removed without any tools though the back one has gears and derailleurs(I didn't know about this either:) which makes it a bit difficult. The seat post, which is the only thing that I had fiddled around earlier can also be removed and fixed without any tools. They are called quick release parts! But this makes it a bit dangerous to park in open spaces like I do because it is really easy to steal things as well! So I need to get the bike insured as well - I learned that there is indeed a cycle insurance policy as well. It comes with a manual and an Allen-key and a spanner(tools look pretty ordinary though).

While I didn't pay much attention to cycling skills or its setup earlier except for setting up my seat posts, this time I am far more technically knowledgeable about the bike thanks to internet and BOTS who has a great website with blogs and cycling forums as well. Since I haven't used a geared cycle(or motorcyle), I read up about cycle gears and derailleurs a bit. The best information I got was from BicycleTutor.com where its video on gears made things pretty understandable. This is a great resource and the videos are of the best quality where you can see the cycle parts very clearly, the following videos from them were also pretty useful.

How To Shift Your Gears
How To Remove and Install Your Wheels
How To Adjust V-Brakes
How To Fix a Flat Tire

And being weary about the occupational hazards of cycling, I read a bit about good posture and cycling skills(which people tend to take it as a given). The following websites were very useful as well. Sheldon Brown seems to be the king of cycling.

Bicycling and Pain
Starting and Stopping
A Comfortable Saddle
Standing to Pedal
Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Glossary(pretty useful one to understand technical lingo)

The video below also helped me understand the cycling terms which you keep hearing in the forums,

There are a lot of websites on commuting to work, but they mainly focus on US or European conditions, I think the best for Indian conditions are from the BikeZone forum in their commute section. But the general perception remains that cycling in Indian city roads are dangerous and unhealthy because of the pollution. The Bikezone and Bangalore Biker Club forums are pretty useful in hearing other commuters experiences. But there is definitely a cycling community in Bangalore which is a great help in keeping yourself on the saddle for a long time.

My Latest and Greatest Cycle!

2009-01-10T15:25:00.004+05:30

Finally I picked up my cycle which was ready last week, I couldn't pick it up because I was sick. After getting in touch with Rohan and Nikhil(of Bums on the Saddle - BOTS) may be last June, I was brooding over it for a long time before I made up my mind recently. In between I tried to buy a Hero Thunder and the experience dealing with the regular cycle vendors were so bad that I turned to BOTS again. And I can tell you it is worth the money - the customer experience thing that you hear in corporate trainings(but not in practice) and read about, you can experience it here.

Since BOTS shop was a bit far from where I live, we put the cycle in my car. We had to fold the backseat to make room and remove the front wheel. It is pretty easy to remove and fix the front wheel. I took it for a spin around my apartment and fiddled with the gears a bit, but since I haven't completely recovered from my flu, I didn't spend too much time on it. Fixed my old cycle lock(worth 16euros) on it and locked it in my parking lot.

So the plan is to do cycling as a cross training for my running and possibly commute to work as well. Let us see how things go!

Satyam and Corporate Scams

2009-01-07T13:00:00.007+05:30

While some of the revelations of fraud by the chairman of Satyam, Mr. Raju might be shocking, I am least surprised by these events. Indian enterprenuers typically are not used to high levels of openness and integrity and IT folks are no different in my view.

While Raju got caught because of his stupid moves, most of the other folks who indulge in it are smart to cover it up or they are scared by their western business bosses and their systems in place . Still there are horrendous stories that I have experienced in MNCs in India where it looked worse than an Indian company. The top honchos of these organizations actively look out for yes-men who would nod to anything and everything they say and do. That is the way people grow in these companies, by being yes-men to their bosses. The whistle blowers are systematically chased out irrespective of the real issues they raise. To some extent this is a cultural thing in a country where the kings ruled without any accountability or responsibility - they were interested only in their own luxuries, not of the people whom they ruled. The glorious palaces in a poor country speaks volumes about it. Also the major community and religious divide encourages this culture. Questioning the king or the community leaders or blind belief in religious rituals can be really a bad thing. Superstitions still rule many parts of the country.

I had an experience early in my career with Hewlett Packard which in partnership with its Indian collaborator HCL America got contract workers to US on J1 visas, which was typically used for cultural exchange programs and training. HCL trained us to fake at the visa office and had documentation to support the training story. But once we reached the US, we were just another set of contractors who were paid the same salary(allowance in our paper) as other legal ones. But HCL saved tax because we were NOT workers in paper. This would have gone unnoticed, but for a CBS 60 minute program where HP was put to shame on national TV. Not sure if Lew Platt had any idea of this thing going, but he had only "no comment" answer to all the questions when the CBS crew barged into him. Heads did roll in HP and the backroom boys got into rearguard action giving us training on some irrelevant stuff to show that we were indeed on training. We were immediately sent back though the initial contract was for 18 months. This whole thing was completely orchestrated from this part of the globe though some stupid HP senior managers fell into that trap and lost their jobs.

I had no idea about Hewlett Packard's history then, but after I read the HP Way, I was very disappointed that HP could be fooled by a silly Indian partner who cared nothing about integrity, but wanted some quick bucks.

I returned to India and became an HP India employee later. The going was good initially with some real HP managers running the show. But things became murky when the outsourcing boom happened and they mass recruited from government organizations(along with their buerocracy) and other Indian companies. I got into a bit of trouble when my feedback to a business manager was considered as scuttling the local India management's plan. A bunch of wolves were let off to finish me off, but they couldn't really do what they wanted - to push me out as a poor performer. I was asked to move to a new group where they marked me as a poor performer, but the work I did during the "poor" performing year was accepted as a poster in the company's internal technical world wide conference which was a great recognition and not an easy one at that. My immediate manager at the time told me that I violated the code of conduct of the company by writing to a manager who was not in my line of management chain! He was duly challenged and the Indian goons at the top saved him though they finally had to fire him for abusing another employee which was caught on the employees' cell phone. But they made it looked like a normal exit however. I was also very open in criticizing them which didn't help my cause - during my 10 year service award function, I openly said that the place didn't really reflect the values of Hewlett Packard. But I moved out of HP when the going was good because the wolves were still out there very much despite Mark Hurd's clean up drive.

The next company I joined was supposed to be a lean(which is a bunch of cow poop) company , but I found the similar set of India management team out there. Here again, they were very uncomfortable in people sharing feedback directly with senior managers who were running the business though the CEO of the company do respond to emails. This time I quit way too early to correct my mistake than hang around and fight the system like I did earlier.

The point is, many of the Indian managers or VPs don't understand or care about integrity or openness, they are into this game to make money and hence their own growth in the corporate ladder. And for that they need yes-men and whistle blowers need to be eradicated completely. I am sure many of the corporate scams would have been identified by some of those whistle blowers who would have been eased out of the company or scenario. So having seen such poor behavior at the highest levels of management in a world renowned company for their integrity, I am not at all surprised by what Mr. Raju and company has achieved - that has lot to do with our culture - we are not used to openness and integrity, they are only for the western corporates! In fact Mr. Raju confessed his follies, but many of his bretheren in many other Indian and MNC organizations would never do that until they are caught and fired.

Public Bus Commute

2009-01-03T10:06:00.000+05:30

After commuting in a reserved bus where occupancy was always below 100% and nearing 0% where I board and get down, now I am jostling for space in the public BMTC buses, but just a 2KM ride . There are a variety of buses however to choose from - top of the chart is airconditioned Vajra services with Volvo buses(Rs.10), then there is normal Suvarna buses(Rs.8/=) which are new vehicles, there is this occasional Pushpak(Rs.6/=) and the normal ones(Rs.5). I commute mostly by Volvo and Suvarna buses, but if the bus is empty, anything goes. Frequency of the buses are pretty good though I am finding it tough to find any regularity in their schedule. This is not major problem for me because I can jump into most of the buses that ply in this route.

I checked on the monthly passes for these buses - it is a bit expensive for a 2KM ride even though I ride 4 times a day. Even the daily pass is not worth the trouble, since the lunch time trips and evenings are usually the Rs.5 buses and the daily pass doesn't work in the Vajra service.

Some of the normal buses are in pretty pathetic condition. But the drivers seem to enjoy the ride zooming on it whenever possible - there is one stretch on our way where they test the machine where the heart skips a beat or two. It appears that there is no load balancing of the schedules at all for these buses(which is a good thing for me) - there are plenty of buses plying during the non-peak hours with little occupancy and the normal buses are loaded to the brim during peak hours.

The Vajra a/c buses are rarely occupied fully, in fact they have introduced more services 365J(upto the industrial area Jigani) and another 411 series. I am not sure if that makes good business sense - the Suvarna buses, which are far more cheaper would have been a better choice than the very expensive Volvo buses. But then these are far better than the Airport Services which seems to have very poor occupancy rates.

2008 and Happy New Year!

2008-12-31T13:30:00.007+05:30

2008 was an eventful year for me, overall pretty good!

Nishka born on 17 March 2008
10K run on 18 May 2008
Quit my job, 3 months break(accidental)
21K Kavery Trail marathon
25K Bangalore Ultra
Commute by bus(most of the year)
Football Academy at Kannur
30" waist(down from 31-32)

It was a very healthy year with very few visits to the Doc, one for a fall while running, another for a knee pain during running and another to check my heart fitness for long distance running. Not even the Bangalore flu could catch me this time. Health metrics were under control, but still bumpy. Stopped all aerated drinks and limited myself to some good quality red wine(to improve my good cholesterol) and Tropicana 100% orange juice, which I want to get rid off. Made a good attempt at removing clutter, but not there yet. Running progressed very well with Galloway's run-walk method.

My retire-at-45 plans have gone bust with the market meltdown, so I have decided not to retire, but keep myself healthy so that I can work forever. Also my job switches didn't work either, though monetarily things were better, but job content wise it was a poor one. My attempt to join a startup also didn't work - they didn't really start either.

So I am gifting myself a Firefox Target cycle for all my achievements in 2008! I tried to get someone gift that to me, but all of them felt that it was way too much money(Rs.12K+ with accesories) to pay for a cycle, especially considering the history of my last 2 cycles! Hopefully this will keep me interested on the exercise train and may be improve my running.

Wish you all a happy new year, I will try to keep myself fit and enjoy my runs, rides and life!

Update: The Bangalore flu caught up with me soon after I was done with this post:(

Cloud Computing in Plain English

2008-12-31T11:42:00.001+05:30

Good one!

Not running the Mumbai Marathon(half)

2008-12-26T13:04:00.000+05:30

Despite the terror attacks making me wanting to go and being ready for the run, I decided to skip the Mumbai marathon. When I registered for the Stan chart sponsored event, I hadn't run more than 10K, but now with two 21K+ runs, it doesn't look challenging enough to go out of town and run. My plan was to run the first half marathon at Mumbai, but I have done more than that by now. While I was planning to target an improved timing(run within 3 hours), timings are not such a big thing for me. The goal is to keep on running and enjoying it. I am also not sure if I want to go out of town just to run - that seems like a waste of energy and money. But I am spending that money on a good cycle to start cycling as a XT.

Unfortunately, Bangalore doesn't have a city marathon though we have some of the best off-road trail marathons in the country. There is also this midnight marathon which seems a bit unnatural to me - you need to sleep at night, not run or work! Though Bangalore Marathon was held couple of years back, it looks like the event organizers don't really care much about running.