Dinner last saturday, a feast for the ears by Pt. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, son Salil Bhat and Ramprasad Mishra on the tabla.

Saurkundi Pass - Part 2

Part 1 was an account of the experience on the Saurkundi trek. Part 2 just has a list of shared photos taken by me and fellow trekkers on the same trek. See them and enjoy the beauty of the Himalayas.

• My Photo stream.
  
• Jayanth's Photo stream.

Saurkundi Pass - Mazaak nahin hai!

Originally uploaded by Anthroponym.

The last 2 weeks I was in the Kullu valley, trekking across the Saurkundi Pass in the Pirpanjal range. Atop the Saur mountain, 13000 feet above sea level is the Saurkund lake. And the pass that goes beside it is the Saurkundi pass.

The trek was organised by the Youth Hostels Association of India (YHAI). The base camp is located at Babeli village along the banks of the Beas river, which is the lifeline of the Kullu valley.

The first day of the 7 day trek took us to Segli camp at 7100 feet. A climb of 3000 feet. Phew!! The camp was in an apple orchard, and not too far from the Segli village. Next day, next camp at Hora Thatch, 9200 feet, in the middle of a forest. Unfortunately no animals or wild forest people. Day 3 took us to Maylee Thatch at 10000+ feet. We hit small patches of snow and had to walk across them. The more experienced trekkers giving advice to us first timers how to place the leg on the snow so as to get a firm grip and not slide down the mountain face into the ravine below. Day 4 ended with the group reaching Dhavra @ 11000+ feet. This was the highest camp where we spent the night. On the way one smart alec tried something stupid and ended up sliding down the snow a good 100-150 feet before the guides (luckily) caught him and prevented him from going further. That was scary. Dhavra was lashed by heavy rain, hail and winds so strong, one of the tents broke in the middle of the night and the occupants had to be accommodated in the remaining tents.

It was adventurous all right. The greatest 'adventure' was to get up early every morning and go to find a place for egestion. Strict instructions, nothing to be done near water or near the path that the locals took to go up & down the mountains. The worst was at camp Dhavra, where we had to walk across a glacier for 10 mins to get to the place. I pity the groups that reported for the trek on later days.

The water was numbingly cold. One contact and hands would go numb. We had abandoned all hopes of washing our hands, feet, even our lunch boxes and plates. Even thinking of taking a bath was an act of bravery. This was the time I understood the importance of the paper "A greedy approach towards optimizing usage of externally intangible resources". The motto in the tent was to "Share (the antifungal powder, the deo, the talcum powder, the cold cream) and share alike".

We woke up on day 5 to find a fresh layer of snow glowing in the morning light. We left camp to cross Saurkundi pass. Steep climb on the snow took us to the top of the Saur mountain. The view from atop is a sight for Saur eyes. Snow capped peaks all round and the hill town of Manali down below.

The fun part was after crossing the pass. We had to slide down on the snow, 300 feet or so. From the point where the slide started, we could see 4 feet of snow ahead, and the people who had slid down already standing down below. In between was a steep drop. End of day 5, we reach Longa Thatch.

The last 2 days of the trek were the toughest. Descending the mountains on a narrow path takes a heavy toll on your legs and back. Especially the ankles and knees. Day 6, we camped at Lekhni village, in a pomogranete orchard. Day 7, back to base camp, followed by a well deserved bath. Still in cold water.

A bunch of us visited Manikaran, piligrimage spot for both Sikhs and Hindus, located on the banks of the Parvati river. Our main motivation was that we could take bath in the hot water springs. They say it is the journey to the destination and not the destination itself that is more important. Defenitely!! Sitting atop the bus, going on a narrow road, one side you can drop down a precipice, on the other side you can get hit by a large stone protruding from the mountain face. End result...

The field director at the base camp had said 'You are going to Saurkundi pass. Koi mazaak nahin hai. You must always be in discipline'. And I must say, crossing Saurkundi, koi mazaak nahin tha!!!

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I really can't describe the beauty of the article Is God A Taoist by Raymond Smullyan. It talks about free will...but can also be a debate on religious beliefs. So all I would say is...read it yourself.

if (font face == arial) then person=dependable

Graphology is the practice (no not science) of study of handwriting and its connection to behavior/personality of the writer. This is different from forensic handwriting analysis which deals with matching handwriting samples. The use of graphology is mired in controversy. It is the same brain that caused a financial fraud that later created the best & most famous short stories of our time.

People especially in IT industry have stopped writing and started type-writing. Thanks to email, the primary form of communication. So...the obvious question. each person has their own choice of font face, colour, size and email format ( plain text/ rich text/HTML). Do all these also provide an 'insight' into the personality of the sender of the mail? Is a person who uses Verdana or Arial font very formal, and one who uses Comic Sans a lot more light hearted? Or is a person who uses Garamond a PHB ? ;-)

I liked the idea behind the 'Times Now' promo. The one in which various people say what they are currently doing, like 'I am walking on the moon', or 'I am climbing Mount Everest'. But the ad is incomplete. The ad must have ended with Sourav Ganguly telling 'I just scored a century'. That would have been the icing on the cake. ;-)

Just a cut below my lower jaw

Dubare 062
Originally uploaded by Anthroponym.

Over the previous weekend, a bunch of us from office decided to take off to Coorg. A long walk in the Dubare forest on the first day, and some water sports on the second. Nice little stay. Fun outing. The scary part was getting into the water, in the middle of a large lake formed as part of the Kabini reservior. First time I was getting into the water without able to feel the ground beneath my feet. Then I saw people scared to death with just the thought of getting into the water. Irony is when person A tells person P 'You look so relaxed and comfortable in the water' and then goes nuts when asked to get into the water.
Hydrophobics they called themselves. All this inspite of wearing a lifejacket.

While in the water, the instructor gave me a push with his paddle to move me closer to place where the rest of the people in the water were floating. The paddle slipped and hit me right below my lower lip. I fear to imagine how the self-proclaimed 'hydrophobics' would have reacted if it had been them who took the blow and not me.
Well, all that is done and we are back to suffer the monotony of office.
This is my Flickr photo set.
By the way, the image you see is of the only manager in the group throwing his weight around. Literally ;-)

I have had to attend conference calls. And I dont have a telephone headset. That is a pain. It requires me to hold the handset in my hand or use my shoulder to keep it pressed against my ear.

However I do have a pair of computer headphones. So is there a device that plugs into the telephone where the handset connects and provides a line-out on the other side, allowing me to use my headphones? This would be useful gizmo. Telephone headsets are expensive, headphones I can get for Rs.100 also. It can also have a line in and a built in mike that can come into play when line-in is not connected.

Also, I can connect a wireless headphone transceiver to the 'device' and walk around during the call...maybe take the call from the 'comfort' of the loo. :-D

BTW this is the right way to attend conference calls. ;-)

The second worst thing that can happen when you are in slow but constantly moving traffic, driving a two wheeler ( a geared vehicle makes matters worse), with a helmet on..is to get an itch on your head.

No cell phone? You no exist!

It seems to be the case that if one doesn't possess a mobile phone, one doesn't exist. More or less. Or atleast you are not worthy enough to be a customer of a financial service provider. I learnt this the hard way. I happened to provide my contact info with Kotak Securities, to open a demat account. Contact number - office desk phone. No response.
My colleague provided the mobile phone number as contact. Few days later demat account open. The fact that my colleague is now having a torrid time with the customer rep coming to office every other day to get signature upon signature on some arbit documents is besides the point.

ICICI Direct was marginally better. I got a call and was informed that the customer service rep would get in touch with me in a couple of days. After that....nothing.

After this experience I can say one thing with supreme confidence: Customer service of both ICICI and Kotak SUCK!!!

Cult of the DeadCow's simple parody of Google's censorship policies in China. One more link (Cafepress.com) on the same.

What next for Google?

Ok...So yesterday search monster Google decided to open up Gmail for domains. Supposedly one can use Google mail server clusters for their corporate email. (This service is not unlike (in spirit obviously) the Google Box that they started to provide to index intranet content). Well, details of how it works, pay or free is not my concern.

Just earlier, G had also announced that they are integrating G Talk with the Gmail application and one can chat from inside the browser window. Cool.

G has a calendaring application in the pipeline.

What does all this mean? To me it only seems that G is attempting to enter the groupware market. trying to take a bite out of Lotus Notes and MS Outlook's market share.

Prior to that G and Sun had announced a web based Office application suite. At least there was speculation. It hasn't materialised yet. It will defenitely not be as powerful as Office application installed on the box, but will be a 'poor man's' suite. More than enough to create documents and presentations.

So is G also looking into causing headaches to MS by developing a replacement to MS Sharepoint services? One that is independent of the OS underneath? All the technologies that i have listed so far being browser based, that is what it seems. All you need would be a browser with AJAX support. No ActiveX so no security hazard etc.....( lemme digress a little..what happened to GBrowser?)

Maybe this is also a replacement to Microsoft Office Live designed for real time collaboration across the globe.

All of my ESOPs are underwater. ALL OF THEM.
I can't believe that my ESOPs which could have given me $8 per stock as little as 3 months ago has fallen so steeply. The actual earning per share was less than the projected earning by 1 cent..and share prices dropped 5$ in a single day. I can't understand the stock market...

Click image for full size version.

From Joy of Tech

Product launch celebration in office; With celebrity singers, senior management, Mandira Bedi, FREE FOOD, psychedelic Matrix green laser lighting...and of course me.

Google YUCK!!!

Google talk...sucks!!
So I had a problem with my BIOS and accidentally set my date to 2007. And Google talk doesn't allow me to login. What SHIT is this?!!
Yahoo Messenger doesn't have any problem.

Intel's new logo has a Samsung touch to it with the swoop above and below.

Hmmmm....Intel's VP Sales and Marketing, Eric Kim was in Samsung before he moved.

Mobile phones have become ubiqitous. Rare to find a person without a mobile phone. And like email is the killer application on the Internet, SMS is the killer app on mobile phones, at times preferred to making a call. So much, that Yahoo Messenger IM client supports it.

SMS is pretty reliable, and delivery is not delayed..unless of course the receiving phone is off.
But has SMS usage been restricted to sending mostly silly forwards between friends? I feel SMS can be used for more. A simple example is a self monitoring and reporting mechanism. A device monitors itself...and if it detects a fault then a SMS message can be sent to the appropriate persons to take appropriate action.

One example : The traffic lights fail at some place and the policemen who are currently around the place can be informed. They can then go to the spot and manually direct traffic till such time the lights are restored.

Well now one can say 'what if the person who received the message repudiates'. That is a lack of professionalism to say the least and that is not the point of discussion here.

Second: Consider the case of call centers, where employees are picked up from home. If there is a change in the driver, who is to do the pick up, then all people who are supposed to come in that vehicle can be immediately informed by SMS. Use a simple app on the PC to send the message to a distribution list and then the s/w can handle the rest. Infrastructure? May be needed..i dont know. Maybe this can prevent another Pratibha incident.

Third:Building on the previous one slightly. RFID the vehicles. And when it gets near a certain point the person to be picked up can be informed tht the vehicle is near, so he/she can go the the designated pick up spot.

Issues of privacy, security etc....i have no idea. Maybe there isnt something so critical for someone to be alarmed about.

Rambling over!!...now coffee time.

Bangalore's "town planners" have either learnt their town planning skills from nomadic people or are nomads themselves and hence inherited the knowledge.
How else can one explain the arbitrary nature of solutions they come up with to 'solve' the city's infrastructure problems.

Happened to see the trailer of a new hindi movie called Fight Club. No idea what it shares in common with Brad Pitt starrer Fight Club (1999). Will it be half as good as the original?