Kabadi Kabdi Kabdi Kabdi Kabdi.....

Boldly the raider strides towards the opponents' pitch, where hungry eyes, are waiting & watching every move of his.


He reaches the threshold, stoops and touches the line in respect, crosses it and begins his chant, Kabdi Kabdi Kabdi ....

Deeper and deeper he moves into enemy territory, always trying to keep a clear path back to safety. They dodge his feints, as he prances around in quick bursts of speed, keeping the chant going all the time ... his aim to tag, by touch, as many as possible and retreat back into his territory. Bit by bit he probes their defenses, as their chains group and regroup around his attacks.

Then suddenly, in a weak position, he is attacked, surrounded and brought to the ground, and it seems all is lost. But just before he loses his breath his hand manages to touch the line he crossed. The team scores a "lona".

The crowd cheers and the game continues ... on and on ... Kabadi Kabadi Kabadi ...

 

                              

Inspirational

I had the priviledge of meeting this man in person today. C Umashankar is an IAS officer and a crusader against corruption. He narrated the remarkable story of his career in the TamilNadu government and how he got suspended and eventually re-instated.


I also met Vijay, a member of the 5th pillar, which in coordination with Loksatta ( a peoples' party, not the newspaper) is trying to revolutionize governance.

Their story is truly inspirational and this was a lazy Sunday afternoon well employed.

Louder for the Chowder ...

I discovered Chowder last year when a growling stomach brought me to our office canteen. They were serving clam chowder. Being a FOB and the victim of a culinary intrepidity that has caused severe anguish the next day more often than not, I tried it. It was awesome. I have been hooked eversince.

I never knew though, that its so easy to prepare. So yesterday while reading about its origins etc, I came across a recipe and then decided to make it myself. Ofcourse, I "bachelorised" it, getting rid of non-essentials and other avoidable stuff like pork and pork-fat

Its the perfect bachelor's recipe. Needs potatoes, onions, cream/whole milk and your pick of seafood or corn etc if you are a veggie.

Its a no-brainer recipe. Saute the onions, add potatoes and mash them in so that they'll thicken your chowder. Then add water, cream and get it all to a boil. Add salt, pepper and then add the seafood / veggie and let it simmer for 15-20 minutes. Thats it ... :) .. try it :)

Its so darn simple, very very quick to make and if you are using seafood its very healthy too :).

Yeah, the potato adds a lot of calories and so does the cream. But you can do w/o the cream and to compensate the potato: MOVE your bloody fat ass will you. Yeah go workout now so that you will have earned it when you cook it later!!!

Salmon Kalwan

Yet another recipe blog. Homegrown but certainly inspired 1, hardly original.

Kalwan is a traditional name for fish curry made in the coastal areas of Maharastra.

Serves 2. [ 4 if you don't have my roomie's appetite 2]

Time: 30 mins. [ Ofcourse you need to do stuff in parallel ].

Ingredients :

1-2 lbs of Salmon
Turmeric
Yoghurt
Garlic Cloves
Fresh Coriander
Malvani masala [ Or any other non veg masaala ].
One Onion finely chopped.
Grated Dry Coconut.
Green Chilli.
Cooking oil
Salt to taste.

So here we go.

Grind the coriander and the garlic cloves into a fine paste. Add a bit of water to be able to grind it well.

Add the salmon slices 3 to a bowl and marinate them in a mixture made from the yoghurt, garlic-coriander paste, some turmeric powder, red chilli powder and salt.

Once the marinade is mixed well and applied to the fish leave the bowl in the refrigerator while you do the rest of the stuff.

Heat the oil and add thinly sliced garlic cloves to it. Once they begin to brown a bit add the onions and the chopped green chilli. Leave for sometime until the onions start becoming brown.

Add the grated coconut. It will brown a bit.

Add the Malvani masala, some turmeric powder and if you want some red chilli powder.

Let it cook till the onions are done.

Once done add the marinade and the fish and water per the desired consistency of the gravy.

Cook covered for 10 mins on medium heat.

Thats it done :) ... Oh by the way if you have amsul / kokam / tamarind paste you can add that too but even w/o that this Kalwan 4 is awesome.


1. I draw inspiration from my granny and my mom for all my cooking. I have learned the few things I cook simply through osmosis i.e. by simply helping around the kitchen.

2. To give you an idea about the scale , this dude polished off 1 lb of salmon and almost an equal amount of chicken biryani in the same meal. He weighed in @ 69.4 kgs before eating and 70.4 after. No, I did not weigh him. He told me the nos. himself.

3. Slick Salmon Slices : Say that thrice, fast ... ofcourse you can't after drooling over the recipe :P ...

4. You may subsititue this with Tilapia, Pomfret, Bangda, Halwa, Surmai etc if you dont have Salmon !

The Game

I just lost the game and so did you :) ....

Inspiration

The thud upon touchdown shook him awake. The jet was back on terra-firma, already slowing down, thrust reversers in full blow. He was back home now.

The ride from the airport back home took almost 4 hours. But for him time was a blur, so much to see, so many memories springing forth @ every moment and ofcourse the anticipation. It pervaded his being. He unconsciously kept clicking his fingers as if to hasten any laggards amomgst the moments as they sped past.

The air was so comfortingly humid; it clung to his body, enveloped him in a loving welcoming warmth. Gosh, how he'd missed its familiar feel.

It was late in the night when he reached home. Mom was awake, waiting. He looked strange she said. He could just shrug not comprehending what she really meant.

As he lay down to rest, the walls closed in on him, the house suddenly felt small.

To be continued ...

Tech Tip : Setting up ssh passwordless logins ..

I know this might be the zillionth time this is posted out on the net. But here's my script to do it.
Nothing fancy, but works well :) ....

Check it out ...

update: Changed the script to use ssh-copy-id to copy the authorized_keys file. Works better and more reliably.

Once upon a time ...

... there lived a young computer programmer in a dusty old town. One day he walked into the local public teleporter and dialed a random wwpn ( world-wide[tele]port-number ). In a puff he went and was never seen again.

Many half-lives of U232 later an old man was seen walking out of the teleporter. The townsfolk went up to him and asked him who he was. "Am a programmer of old" he said. "I used to hack Linux". A ripple of excitement went through the crowd; some cheered. "mostly Debian" he continued, apparently proud.

They stoned him to death.

Lights Out For Some Time ...

If you are a regular on this blog, you might have noticed the frequency of the posts going down. It has no bearing on my cycles being stolen by other mudane activities like work; its largely coz I've not been feeling the itch to write for some time now.

So, the lights will be out on the blog for some time. But since you are here we might as well make it worth your while :) with some not-so-recent updates ....

* I'd been camping to the Smokies over the memorial day weekend. It was absolute fun, though I thought spending some more time would have made it fantastic. Wanted to see some wildlife but had to be content running into a special sweet little friend :). Talk of coincidences ! I'd been white-water rafting too while there. Almost got bitten by a snake coming out of the water right below our raft. All in all a very fun trip. I'm in love with Tennessee. Wanted to write about it but it just took me too long to get to it and it eventually grew distant.

Some pics here =>

* Had my b'day last to last month and was pleasantly surprised when a group of friends arranged a surprise party. We went out to a movie later .... it was impromptu and we watched "What happens in Vegas" ... felt nice to be among friends while away from home, esp on my birthday.

Some pics here =>

* Went to Point Pleasant Beach twice. The first time it was too cold to swim. The next time was fantastic. It was absolute bliss to be able to swim in the ocean. I simply love the ocean if you don't already know. I spent hours just floating on the water. Very relaxing !

* Had been to the Statue of Liberty. Loved it ! Was awed by the stories of its construction in the museum there.

* And in other news ... I'll be going to Pune this month for 15 days ... Absolute bliss :) ... !

So there ! Now, if I may take your leave, you can try your hand @ Lights Out while am away.

Ghost Stories Continued ....

Well I said there'll be more .... here's one more and a more recent one @ that. This one is a bit funny and not spooky at all. Anyways, read on ...

So, there's this men's restroom @ office which is a regular men's room. You know, there is an area where there are basins and partitioned beyond, are the urinals. At each end of the basin area there are automatic tissue dispensers and on the wall opposite to the mirror there is an automated hand dryer.

Now, there are several such restrooms @ office and this one does not see too much people traffic.

So, one fine day I walk in and you know, am doing my thing when suddenly the hand-dryer starts blowing air on its own. It times-out and then both automatic tissue dispensers dispense tissues on their own. Ok, that doesn't spook me. I think it could be some bug in the electronics etc and I don't give it a second thought.

This keeps happening on and off, particularly with the hand-dryer. Often when I walk in it roars to life on its own but it doesn't happen always. Sometimes it just goes off without me doing anything at all.

So, somehow I got it into my head that there is this "entity" thats trying to assert its presence there !

So, yesterday when I went in and the hand-dryer went off, I decided to do a small test ! ...

I simply thought to myself "Ok I know you are there" - the roar stopped abruptly.

I went to the urinal and you know ... -it roared again.

I thought "Ok, so fine, I know you are there, we already established that" -- the roar stopped.

I came to the basin to wash - it roared again.

I thought "You are not scaring me .... Am not afraid" - The roar continued and now a tissue dispenser also went off on its own !

I thought "So you want me to go ?" - The roar stopped !

Then I started to leave and opened the door - and yes there was a brief acknowledging roar :D ....

I know this is crazy :D ... but this is how it happened :D ...

There definitely might be an explanation not involving the supernatural but am yet to find it and till then we'll commune through the hand-dryer :) !

April Showers Bring May Flowers :) !

To just state that this has been a beautiful spring would be an understatement. It has been much more stunning and colourful than I could ever have imagined.

I've been cribbing since winter, about how drab this place really is. The landscape has been just various shades of grey (skies), brown (dried up, wilted trees) and white(snow) ! It sure seemed beautiful initially but then it got boring and the cold did not help much too.

But the spring changed all that. In a span of around 2 weeks there is so much colour and such beauty all around me that it has filled me with immense optimism and a lot of joy.

I've been blessed with the company of two very good friends Vipul and Sundar, who are as as intrepid and outdoorsy as me if not more. With them around I've been able to visit several places esp for watching these blossoms.

Each of those visits deserve pages dedicated to them, but for now I'll just let the pictures do the talking. Links to the complete online gallery for some visits are also present. Skip Past These Pics

The Washington DC cherry blossom festival :

Picasa Link =>







Holmdel Park (Holmdel NJ):
Picasa Link =>







Belleville Park (Belleville/BranchBrook NJ ) :
Picasa Link =>








Franklin Lake Park ( Oceanport NJ ) & Monmouth, Ocean neighborhoods :






Ofcourse, the beauty when experienced first hand is even more than what these pics have been able to capture. Some of the blooms are fragrant too and it feels absolutely heavenly walking amongst these.

So, in all spring has been great and I expect summer to be absolutely fantastic too. The ocean is nearby and the beach is really beautiful. So expect some more pics soon ....

नामंजूर

नामंजूर "By A Kernel Programmer"
( एक विडंबन ) संदीप खरे क्षमस्व

नामंजूर नामंजूर नामंजूर !
नामंजूर नामंजूर नामंजूर !

जपत design ला कोड लिहीणे नामंजूर,
अन् लिहिलेला कोड doc करणे नामंजूर,
मी ठरवावी दिशा in/out param-ची
interface-शी प्रामाणिक राहणे नामंजूर !!!

नवे features मिळावे मला support नको,
जुन्या कोड चा clean-up किव्वा port नको,
EOD (End of Day) माझा तोच ज्या क्षणी हो इच्छा,
manager जाण्याची वाट पहाणे नामंजूर !!!

Assembly-त कोड करून मारतो shine मी,
Kernel debug करतो line-by-line मी,
Bug सोडवता होतो भेजा चक्काचूर,
भल्या पहाटे घरी परतणे नामंजूर !!!

linked lists, btrees, pagetables चाच ध्यास मला,
pointers to pointers चा खेळच आहे हा सगळा,
रोख memory इथेच malloc अन free व्हावी,
valgrind मारुन mem-leak शोधणे नामंजूर !!!

" मी kernel-panic ला शाप मानले नाही,
अन extra printk ला पाप मानले नाही,
बग मोठा ज्यातुन एकही निघाला नाही,
कोड असला मी अद्याप लिहिला नाही "

kdb gdb असली टूल्स भारीच जरी,
printk नी debug करण्याची मौज़ खरी,
favourite editor emacs असणे मज समजे,
पण emacs चा गर्व वहाणे नामंजूर !!!

-Amit :)

Feels Great :) !

A friend and me frequently have discussions about how miserable each of our lives are [:D] .... Surely they ( our lives ) aren't that bad and so here's something that should make it "quantifiably' apparent :D.

Well, our "bright idea" was/is to plot a day to day "Feels Great" factor and years later look back at it and well ... feel great about all we'd done ... what else !

She ( the friend ) took it as a joke but I decided to do it on my office whiteboard for a month.

Being the lazy guy, I graphed it like a circular log with the graph wrapping around on the end of the month, overwriting older entries in a simple LRU scheme. Here's a pic :) ...





But that can't be the end of it ... It has to go online ain't it :D ??... so look at the sidebar on the right and there it will be always :) ... or atleast till I grow up :P ... ( She called me kiddo for doing this ! )

अंतर

त्याच जागी त्या येउन जाशी
त्याच जागी त्या येउन जाशी

माझ्या साठी माझ्या नंतर

कितीक हळवे कितीक सुंदर
किती शहाणे आपले अंतर .... ( संदीप खरे )

पुण्यात तर "आपल्या" अनेक जागा आहेत पण परदेशात सुद्धा ही एक जागा आहे; जुन्या आठवणी ताज्या करणारी !

Its All About Choices

Is it really ? .....

This past year has been all about choices. In a short span of time I've been given an overwhelming and bewildering array of choices for every damn thing in life. Sometimes I chose well, sometimes I didn't.

Yet, I think its not all about choices.

Its just about accepting the fact that *I* made the choice and its only *me* thats responsible for making it. Nothing else, nobody else made them for me. No luck, no fate just *me*.

The joys I've are all because I chose properly and any problems I face are of my choosing as well.

I hope you choose well too, please :) !

Lots Of Luv
-Amit :)

Gruha Pravesh

I'd bought myself an apartment back in Feb this year. Its near my old home in Chinchwad. Today my folks performed a "Gruha Pravesh" @ the place.

Literally translated "Gruha Pravesh" means "entering the home." Another quaint custom from India :). Simple rituals are performed to cleanse the residence, rejuvenate it and make it ready to be an abode. Its all done in the presence of family and close friends. Among other things, the stove is lit for the first time and some milk is boiled. This is considered auspicious.

As luck would have it today I had some close friends over at my place, even here (in the US).
Girish, Saurabh and Sunu :) drove over to drop me off. I prepared coffee, while Sunu played some classical notes on his flute. Later we had coffee and swapped stories over my smallish dining table and in general made merry.

Methinks this has been sort of a "Gruha Pravesh" for this home too :).

Here are some pics of the place :) :

Discrimination ?

[Background : New Jersey has this rule of either no lefts or delayed greens. What this means is that @ most cross-roads you can't take a left and have to take a "jug-handle" before or after the light. There are some cross-roads though where you can ( take a left), but then they may be delayed greens which is to say that even though you have a green you can take a left only when there is no on-coming traffic. It goes without saying that this is the source of much confusion for new-comers.

Also, Edison is a part of NJ where there are a lot of desis and hence a lot of Indian restaurants and Indian grocery shops. It is said that due to this profusion there is some anti-desi sentiment here and nothing much done about it either.]

Its a cold night @ Edison. We are on our way back after a delicious Indian buffet lunch and a long evening of shopping for groceries. A friend (X) from office is driving and we've his wife (Y) and another couple (A & K ) in the back.

We are in the car on the right-side kerb of the road, waiting to merge to the right into the traffic.
X sees a gap, merges and stops for a red. A silver mercedes, pulls up behind us and honks. For no reason. No provocation, nothing. Just honks.

X is mildly amused. A green comes up. We need to take a left, but there is a lot of oncoming traffic and while we wait a red comes up. Merc honks again ! This time we all turn back to see whats going on. Its a girl making insane gestures and working up a frenzy. A green comes up. We take the left into a small street; Merc follows us. We need to take a left again and X puts up the indicator. Merc pulls up on our left, driver screaming. X is angry now. He cuts her off and makes the left into another small street. This one is narrow and has cars parked on the left kerb. Merc follows us again and this time speeds up to overtake us on our left, almost crashes into a parked car, slows down and honks again. The next left comes up, we need to take this one too. X slows down for the stop sign. Merc comes up from behind. This time, somebody from the merc throws something @ us. It hits the rear windshield. X takes the left, stops the car to see what happened.

Merc pulls over too, alongside us. An overweight twenty something girl, gets out and starts screaming obscenities @ us. Calls us "fscking Indians"!

Y tries to say something and the girl says "I'll backslap you, you .... ".
By this time everybody is out of the car and X is calls 911.

On hearing us call 911 the girls pile up into the car and try to make a run for it. X stands in front of the car, I stand behind it. This notwithstanding, they drive forward. X is knocked down and hurts his knee. They then reverse @ top speed. I'm pushed off the road. They make the turn and leave !

Cops arrive moments later. A friendly one saunters over and we narrate the incident, give him the car number, its description and a description of the girls. He gives us some talk about never ever risking our lives by being in the path of the car. So far so good.

He then walks over into his car looks up the number we gave and gets back. Nothing can be done he tells us as the car is identified as belonging to a man and he cant just send random tickets to people because though we reported this happen, he was not there to see it. We are incredulous. We felt he was there to help ! He asks X if he needs an ambulance. X says yes.

An ambulance is called. X is not hurt bad but Y ( being a doctor ) wants his knee X-ray'd. So X goes off in the ambulance to the hospital, while we decide to follow him in the car.

'A' gets in and tries the ignition. Turns out that it doesn't start ! We'd left the heater on, all the while and the battery is shot in the bargain ! It takes two hours to call a recovery truck and get it replaced.

In those two hours X is made to wait @ the hospital and is not attended to by a single doctor. In the end he walks out saying he can't wait any longer. He's asked to sign a form stating he denied treatment. He refuses and signs a hand-written note saying he was not given treatment in time.

We drive home, amidst heated discussions and how it all was unfair etc. Thats the end of it.

Now :

At the risk of being called a scaredy cat, I feel we took an unwarranted risk on two counts :

* Obstructing the car. She could've easily mowed down either of us and just gone scott free as she did. And her escaping is of no account to us. It'd have been a pretty bad for us even if she was caught !

* Secondly, anybody in this crazy place can have a gun. What if she just shot somebody !

Its sure been an eye-opener to the sort of culture that exists and the way things can go wrong here.

This thought scares me. It makes me feel unsafe here. Random killings !

My First Oceangram !

I've been an ardent fan of xkcd. Its insanely funny and most geeks would end up identifying with most of the stuff put up there.

So, I got a bit inspired too :P ... and have decided to roll my own on my office whiteboard. Here goes nothing ;)

Ghost Stories - My Encounters

Do you believe in ghosts ? Decide for yourself after reading these two incidents which happened to me, one 4 years back and one recently.

Also, next time I'll post some other stories I've heard / read so do come back later on.

Incident 1 :

This was 4 years back when I was finishing my internship @ Veritas. One night I was returning home and got a bit late. In those days there were no direct buses to Chinchwad ( where I live ) so late in the night. Also there used to be almost nobody on the roads you could hitch lifts from. So the usual practice used to be to get off on the highway and walk the rest of the way.

This highway is separated from Chinchwad by a railway track that runs parallel to it. There is a bridge over this track that connects the highway and Chinchwad. The bridge has steep walls on either side upto the point where it joins the highway.

Now, on this particular night, it so happened that the some of the street lights on the bridge were defunct. Thus, there was a stretch of darkness on the bridge starting some way from the highway and extending upto the point where the bridge crossed the tracks.

I noticed this, but thought nothing of it and started walking along the bridge. As I entered the dark stretch I heard footsteps close behind me. I looked back to see that a young man my age was also walking down the bridge. He was about 10-15 paces behind me. Seeing all was ok, I turned around and resumed my walk. I kept hearing his footsteps for some time. Then as I was about to reach the end of the dark stretch, all of a sudden everything went eerily quite. The crunch of his footsteps had stopped abruptly. Naturally, I turned back to look and got the fright of my life.

The bridge was completely empty right upto the highway ! There was nobody there ! I was stunned; there was no way that man could have gone anywhere in the split second that I took to turn around after his footsteps stopped and yet the bridge was empty and its sides too steep for someone to jump over. He had just vanished ! I was totally scared and took off @ top speed and stopped only when I'd crossed the bridge. I hurried home and could not sleep that night !

Incident 2 :

This happened around 6 months ago. I'd been to California for a short onsite stint. I was staying @ the apartment my company had arranged for us. It was a nice big 3 bhk house and a colleague and I were the sole occupants for the first week or so.

The first night there was uneventful and I slept like a log. I was glad that I'd not felt any effects of jet lag and seemed to be able to sleep soundly every night. A few nights later though, I'd a frightening experience.

As was my usual practice there, I slept early. It was about 2 in the morning when I was startled and felt that 'someone'/'something' was sitting near my shoulder ! I tried to look and realised I couldn't move. My arms, legs all were just paralysed. I just couldn't move. As I started to panic, I tried shouting. But no sound issued from my mouth. It seemed I was totally subdued by that presence whatever it was. And suddenly, it just went away and with it the paralysis was gone too. I got up completely shaken and could not sleep for the rest of the night.

I felt that it must have been my imagination and decided not to talk about this with my roommate lest he get unduly frightened. So the next night I slept without any worries.
Again around the same time as before, I was awakened from my slumber, this time to feel a presence sitting on my chest ! And now it was worse as I could not even open my eyes try as I might ! Like before, I tried hollering, kicking, jabbing but none of my appendages seemed to obey me as before. Again, like the previous night it just went away. By now I was hysterical and called up my folks. They managed to calm me by telling me this would have been just a dream and not to worry about such silly things.

Nevertheless, I started sleeping with the lights on in my room just in case. Luckily, for me, it stopped @ that.

These are the 2 incidents I've experienced. Haven't turned me into a believer yet.

The second one I researched and found that its a common occurrence, particularly if there are sudden changes to your environment. Its aptly called Sleep Paralysis.

The first one I can't explain at all but I doubt it was a ghost I experienced that day.

Drenched

Its a dull gray Saturday afternoon. Rain pitter patters or alternately pours down in torrents. The world outside is soaked to its proverbial bones. As I watch the scene, dry and cozy in my balcony, I feel a discord, a disharmony growing within me.

The world is so wet and am dry.

Thats all it takes to shake me up :).

The bike roars as I gun the throttle. Out in the rain, zooming down a highway, a rooster-tail of spray in my wake, I find one-ness.

This is harmony, this is resonance. Am one with the world. The world is wet so am I :) ...

So Drenched !!!