Overlooking common sense

I have been staying in Sector 51, Noida for the past four and a half years. There is a square adjacent to our society where roads from sector 50, 51, and the bypass meet. It was an unregulated square. With no police presence, no traffic lights, and no road dividers. Still I never saw any congestion whatsoever, given the low intensity of traffic.

However recently Noida Development Authority decided to revamp this square, into a round about, and things have been going haywire ever since. Road dividers have come up (that too without any warning signs, or flashy paint), a large cemented round about has been constructed. All this at the expense of not only tax payers money, but also precious road area. The sheer size of this construction is so big, that it has eaten into the width of the road.

Now traffic snarls are a common sight at this round about, as converging lanes try to form a single queue.

My only question is, who decides how should round abouts be optimally managed. It is good that development work is being done, but it should not be done overlooking common sense and logic.

The Chicken and the Pig

I came across this interesting concept while attending one a training on Agile/Scrum.

*** Article lifted from Wikipedia ***
*** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chicken_and_the_Pig ***
*** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(development) ***

A number of roles are defined in Scrum. All roles fall into two distinct groups—pigs and chickens—based on the nature of their involvement in the development process. These groups get their names from a joke about a pig and a chicken opening a restaurant:

A pig and a chicken are walking down a road. The chicken looks at the pig and says, “Hey, why don’t we open a restaurant?” The pig looks back at the chicken and says, “Good idea, what do you want to call it?” The chicken thinks about it and says, “Why don’t we call it ‘Ham and Eggs’?” “I don’t think so,” says the pig, “I’d be committed, but you’d only be involved.”

So the “pigs” are committed to building software regularly and frequently, while everyone else is a “chicken”—interested in the project but really indifferent because if it fails they’re not the pigs—that is, they weren’t the ones that committed to doing it. The needs, desires, ideas and influences of the chicken roles are taken into account, but are not in any way allowed to affect, distort or get in the way of the actual Scrum project.

The Pigs are the ones committed to the project in the Scrum process—they are the ones with “their bacon on the line.”

Interesting to relate this with relationships. A date is a chicken, while your spouse is a pig. If you screw up, the date is only involved and can shrug shoulders and move on. While the spouse is committed and takes the fall too. I am wondering where would a live in partner fit in this schema of things.

Copyright, err or Left is it?

Not that my blog posts are out of the box, bright ideas with the potential to have drastic effects on the course of human history, but out of sheer self respect for what ever miniscule amount of creativity I might have, I have decided to mark my territory. That is , I have now decided to copyright (or copyleft) my work [barring the images and/or work I reproduce from elsewhere, if allowed by the contributor that is] under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.

Following notice has been updated on the “Copyright” page for this blog. And shall sometimes appear under an occassional blog post/page just as a reminder/assertion of the same.

The Dark Book by Siddharth Fadnis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.

Any views? Should I rename my “Copyright” page “Copyleft” instead?

Cheers!!

Siddharth

Happy Dushera to all !! Let us pledge to overcome all evils within us, and lead a life of simplicity and purity.

Kudos to small shop owners. Boo on Mall culture.

In this jet age when people are supposed to gain benefits of Internet shopping, and reap ample rewards from discounts available on-line, one shop still beats them all and the shops in glittering malls.  Let me explain how.

I was in dire need of a printer cartridge for my inkjet printer. It was way too costly in malls in Noida and I had no time or money to make a trip to Delhi’s Nehru place to find one at the cheapest price. I searched ebay and still price quoted there was MRP plus the courier charges, making it cost even more than the prices in Noida.

I was perplexed why would people buy something online, if they are not getting it at the right price, and if they could get it cheaper locally.

Then I decided to give it a try. My brother was supposed to come to Noida the next day from Ujjain. I asked him to find the price of the cartridge in Ujjain, which is a small town and comparatively in a remote location, giving you the impression that things like computer supplies might be costlier there. But to my utter surprise, the price quoted was lesser than I enquired anywhere else.

And the icing on the cake was: The cartridge was not available in Ujjain. However my brother informed the store keeper, that he needed to travel in the evening, and hence needed the cartridge before that. The storekeeper, setting an ultimate example of customer service, promised to get the cartridge ordered from next town, and to deliver at the railway station right at my brother’s seat, before the train’s departure.  And he kept his promise, indeed! All this at a price less than internet’s best price.

In future I am always going to get a quote from Ujjain shops first, for all things that I can get from there.

Farewell to Orkutting

I had been thinking about this since a long time now. I joined Facebook almost a year ago, and since then my friends on Facebook has grown from a handful to over a hundred now. And almost all my friends had joined Facebook sooner or later.

Being on two social networking sites, meant double the effort of checking people’s status updates, photos, and comments. So I finally decided on quitting Orkut and being just on Facebook for the while.

The reason which triggered quitting Orkut, was not superior functionality from Facebook, but rather was the the most stupidest action of my life, that is, to integrate my Orkut and Gtalk friends list. It was just a click, and tens of people who I barely knew (but some how were still added as friends on Orkut) could ping me and chat with me on Gtalk while I was on line.

I have been forced to stay invisible on Gtalk for so many months now. So I decided, it was time to give myself some privacy.

Facebook is a bit sluggish than Orkut, and has less users than Orkut has (at least among the circle I live), but still scores for me.

And here I am. Just facebooking. Orkutting no more.

 

Making some changes

I had always heard that change is the way of life. But I never realized it could happen to me and that too this fast. As I had to come to UK for work, applying for VISA, and doing all the packing hardly gave me any time for blogging. I had so much to tell, so much to write, yet so less time.

Alas, but after coming to UK, I had to face even more situations, 12 months contract for internet connection, application for visa extension, opening a bank account, getting the debit card to work, struggling to rent a decent place. So I ended up, without being wired for almost a month.

But in this month, I sorted everything out. Applied for the visa extension (hope it is approved), rented a decent place, got my debit card working, and got a mobile broadband connection that was available without a contract. God! I hate contracts. The irony of life is, that I have come to UK on a years contract to be served back in India.

I also got the house setup. Lugged in all the groceries, necessities, scanned the Indian store and dumped loads of rice, wheat, pulses, and Indian spices at home, so that I don’t have to worry about the coming 6 months.

Speaking of where we started from. CHANGE. The biggest change is, I am managing the house all by myself. This includes, cooking, washing, doing the dishes, and vacuuming. I wonder, why, with all that work, I am still not putting off any weight. H’m, I think, blame the fruit juices, and eggs I am having in bulk !!

Another big change I have had is a smart close crop to my hair. Reason, for one, it is smart, and for two, it saves money!

On saturday, I was feeling very hungry, and so decided to treat myself with something nice. So I browsed through some websites. Downloaded a few chicken recipes, changed them to suit whatever ingredients I had, and came up with this. Lemon Saffron Chicken. Believe me it was awsome. In next post I shall detail the process. So keep reading.

 

The Beaked Visitor

It had rained a lot the whole night, and was coupled with a strong wind that just fell a bit short of being called a storm. As such, Saturday morning was very cool, opposed to the hot September mornings we had become used to. I prepared a nice hot cup of Masala Tea, and was was tattering away at my laptop’s keyboard, while sipping it. Just then, it happened. Power failure. So much for the lovely morning.

Hot that it was not, I finished my tea, read the newspaper, and strolled towards my balcony, only to find that there was a lot of ruckus going on in the neighborhood. And to just let you know, my neighborhood is a lots of pigeons. Hundreds and thousands of them.

And the reason behind this was a nasty visit from a flock of beaked eagles. Aditya you can perhaps help me pin these birds to their exact name (One of my readers tells me that they are black kites, but googling on the subject has broadened my choices to four species: black kite, indian spotted eagle, greater spotted eagle and lesser spotted eagle). In the meanwhile, I shall continue the story. While all the eagles were busy in action, two of them were lazily perched on the building roof opposite to my balcony. Seemed as if they had their full. Poor neighbors.

I immediately grabbed my pristine Olympus FE-15 auto focus digicam and started taking a few shots. The results were not quite good, as the distance was very large, and my digicam has just a tiny 3X zoom. So I brought my Bushnell binocular, manually adjusted its focus and placed the digicam behind the binocular to get some zoomed in shots. And I must admit that the shots weer pretty neat and had a modest detail. Have a look!!

The two of them captured without the binocular:

All shots focused on the right birdie zoomed in with help of my binocular:

You can catch all the photos here. Not all are of excellent quality, but seem pretty modest, given they were taken by manually coupling a binocular and a party purpose digital camera. Enjoy.

 

Sailana – Perfect weekend getaway

ince long, our family had longed for a weekend trip to some nearby place. However because of my mom’s health, and scarcity of leaves from my work, we were prevented from doing so for quite some time. Recently I planned to visit my parents on “Rakhi”. By this time mom also had regained her full strength and confidence (after her surgery). And we had all the reasons, time and opportunity to take our much wanted trip. Mom herself had planned it all out much before we (me and my wife) reached Ujjain. Dad had booked the taxi, a comfortable 8 seater Toyota Qualis, meaning we 5 had all the luxurious space to stretch our legs and take a nap if we wanted, while on the run.

How to Reach Sailana and where to stay:

Sailana is a small village in the district of Ratlam. It is 25 km from Ratlam city, and just 50 km from Rajasthan border. Closest (within Rajasthan) to Sailana is the district Banswada. Ratlam is a big railway station and connected to Mumbai by “Avantika Express” which runs daily. Also Ratlam is only 115 km by road from Ujjain district which is a very important holy city of Central India, one of the four places where “Kumbh” takes place every 12 years, and my home town . Ujjain is a “junction” speaking in terms of railways and is well connected to Delhi by “Nizamuddin Express” on daily basis. Two important trains here which could connect you to Indore-Ratlam-Ujjain belt (called “Malwa” region) on daily basis are:

1. Avantika Express: Indore – Ujjain – Ratlam – Mumbai Central.
2. Nizamuddin Express: Indore – Ujjain – Hazrat Nizamuddin (New Delhi)

If you plan to start your journey from Indore or Ujjain, then hiring a taxi would be the best option. If you are taking a train, I would recommend you to halt in Indore (if you want to shop) or Ujjain (if you want to worship and cleanse your soul) and take a taxi from there till Ratlam. The lesser spirited souls can halt in Ratlam itself, and save time on traveling to Sailana. Indore also has a domestic airport (if you want to shell out more bucks) and is well connected with Delhi / Mumbai / Pune / Bengaluru / Chennai / Nagpur.

Best time to visit Sailana:

Monsoons, morning hours only. Sailana is a small village and as such the places we visited had little or no lighting.

How we reached Sailana:

As I said, we hired a Toyota Qualis from Ujjain till Sailana and back. The road is fairly decent compared to standards of MP (roads in MP are the worst in India). The entire trip cost us 273 km. The best time to reach Sailana is around 11:00 AM, as around that time all shops / village is / are buzzing with activity. This also gives one ample time to explore all places, and still make it in time for a hearty lunch.

Starting from Ujjain we stopped at village Ingoria (10 km from Ujjain) for breakfast, the trademark breakfast “Poha and Jalebi” of MP.

On our way we crossed the city of Barnagar. The road from Ujjain till Barnagar is awesome, and the traffic is also minimal.

However from Barnagar till Ratlam, and within Ratlam city the roads are pretty bad. But once you cross Ratlam city, the road is again neat till Sailana. We also crossed two rivers “Gambhir” and “Chambal” on our way.

Coming back to Sailana, what to do, where to go:

Sailana was formerly a princely state, and I guess, it was a part of Rajasthan. Post independence it was merged in MP. A Fort belonging to the then royal family still stands tall in heart of Sailana, and the area is known as “Palace Chauraha“, or “Rajwada“.  A descendant of the royal family still occupies part of the fort, so we were told, by the officials present at the fort. The main tourist attraction of Sailana, is the Cactus Garden, housed inside this fort. It boasts a myriad collection of various types of cacti, some of them small, bush like. But most of them, large, huge and gigantic. It gives us a feeling, as if we have entered the neolithic era. The place is very serene and quiet, and the silence is only disturbed occasionally by squeals of peacocks, who thrive at the place. The place is also yet unaffected by commercialization, as the entry ticket is only Rs 5 per person. The cost to carry a single camera inside is just Rs 10 per instrument. The fort houses some empty cages, hinting that some animals were also kept here for display. But this was later discontinued for lack of animals / funds / rights to cage animals. I strongly recommend this place for flora enthusiasts.

Next we went to “Kedareshwar” temple of Lord Shiva. This is again famous in Sailana, and actually there are two of them, both 4 km both from the fort (but in opposite directions). We visited the one, which had a better connecting road! The temple is situated in a man made cave (carved out from a cliff of igneous rocks). The cliff along with many others surrounds a small valley. From the top of the cliff, a small stream of monsoon rain water forms a waterfall and joins a small pond of water in the valley. From here a river originates and flows down into the plains of Rajasthan. The whole setting is very beautiful, and quiet. Especially during the monsoons, all this is blessed with lush greenery, and is literally a treat for the eyes. After offering our prayers to Lord Shiva, all of us, including my parents climbed down the cliff into the valley (do not panic, there are stairs). We simply sat by the pond, frolicked in water and had lots of fun. Had we brought along a spare set of clothes, we could have had a nice swim / bath. This place also, I must comment, is free from commercialization and priests haggling devotees for money and donation.

Where to dine:

On our way back to Ujjain, we stopped at Ratlam, at a restaurant called “Palash”. The place is pretty clean and has clean wash rooms. The food was also nice, and I was pleasantly surprised to find continental food on the menu. Though the place is pure vegetarian, they do have a bar, which is housed in a different section of the premises. On way back, we again took a halt at village Ingoria for “Chai”.

The conclusion:

I never imagined, there could be such an interesting place so near to Ujjain, ideal for a day’s outing. I strongly recommend this place to all people visiting the “Malwa” region of MP. I would say, visit this place, when you have just a day to spare and want to spend it peacefully, and experience what India was like some 100 years ago. Cheers.

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Hey, this text is added to this post, after the post was published. I came to know later that Sailana also has a bird sanctuary. Funny, this was missed from the wikipedia article on Sailana.

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Just a small note to readers. Please visit the “Copyright” page on this blog to find out how I expect my work to be (or not to be) used. Thanks! Happy reading.

The Dark Book by Siddharth Fadnis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.

Wonder where I graduated from?

Many people who read my profile here, or on some other social networking sites, or people who work with me, often ask me, “Where did you graduate from?”. And when I tell them that I graduated from IET, DAVV, Indore, they have little clue about it. Since it is quite a prestigious college in MP, I have decided to post some links to it, to serve as an eye opener, and to throw some light on its history.

Devi Ahilya University, Indore (Formerly Indore University).

Devi Ahilya University, Indore. Wiki Link. (Formerly Indore University).

Institute of Engineering and Technology, Indore.

Institute of Engineering and Technology, Indore. Wiki Link.