Olympics 2008 - Bhindra wins the first gold medal for India

Kudos to Abhinav Bhindra...he has done the country proud by winning the individual gold medal in the 10m air rifle event.

Also, he has set upon us new wave of enthusiasm and encouragement that we too can win Olympic gold medals.

I am sure that in the coming Olympics our sportpersons with support from the governments and corporates will win many more medals.

Hyderabad-MCH during Rainy Season

The Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad (http://www.ourmch.com), the much coveted organization which otherwise seems to be doing a good job of maintaining & beautifying the city during the year, seems to be in shackles at the time of monsoon.

A few downpours and you can see the whole city getting flooded. There is an obvious lack of planning:

1. The city roads are not planned properly and this has led to water logging in most of the places. Water
logging leads to erosion of the top surface and most of the road have now become pot holes.

2. The drainage system is not geared to face the extra volume of water the flows during the season...leading to
most of the sewers overflowing and making un-hygenic conditions.

3. Different agencies have dug up the roads at many places and left them unfilled properly i.e. used only earth to fill the same instead of concrete or Tar roads. This has led to big & deep cuts across most of the places add to the woo of the motorists and the pedestrians

The remedy lies in proper planning of the above is as follows:

1. Design the roads in such a manner that they slope inward out to facilitate the water to move off the road and on both sides of the road make concrete drainage system and connect to the main drainage system. This will help in the water moving off the roads and also.

2. Build a network of Drainage system across each lane, locality etc. The drainage should be big enough to solve two purpose. First, the bottom part of it would serve as the drainage pipe and the top part could be used by different vendors like BSNL, Reliance, Tata Telecom, HWSSB etc. to lay their lines, pipes etc. This will facilitate the moving of water efficiently across the city and also will avoid the unnecessary digging up of the roads. This plan was proposed by the then MCH commissioner Mr. Mohanty which did not see the light of the day.

Both of these need investment and the govt need to plan for these to avoid recurring costs in the future and also losses to the citizens due to poor road conditions leading to higher fuel consumption.

MCH has been doing a good job and if it address the above it could be termed as better.

ERAGON - book review

The name ERAGON sounds as though an era has gone by...

I got his book as a b'day present from my sister this year and for quite sometime didnot find enough time to go through the same. However, the front cover of the book almost kept inducing me to go through it once...and one day I decided to take the plunge.

The plot of the story revolves around a lot of fantasy where a boy Eragon, discovers a blue stone which eventually turns out to be a dragon's egg. Eragon and Saphira(the dragon) get together alongwith a witch Angela, Arya the elf and Murtag. Along with the Varden and Dwarves they fight the evils forces of the Urgals and the Shade.

The book is written quite well and the author does a nice job of maintaining continuity. It did capture me over the last two weeks and was engrossing. The end could have been better as I felt it was a bit abrupt.

I read some of the reviews in Amazon today and felt that people have compared the author Christopher Paolini with some of the great writers like RR Tolkein and feel that he has borrowed from them and did a shity job. Tolkein is obviously a great author and I donot have any doubts on that. However, I disagree to the statement that he did a shity job...and feel that if I were to look at Eragon in absolute sense, it is pretty neat(I am not considering the age of Christopher, when he wrote the book) The overall rating at Amazon is a 4 on 5 which is good.

Anyways, if you are in Hyderabad and want to borrow the book from me please do so...You can also visit the website http://www.alagaesia.com.

Google is Amazing

I feel that Google is certainly one of the most creative companies existing as on date. The current product
http://earth.google.com nothing short of a stunner.

I had heard about it some weeks back, however didnot take out time to explore the same. Yesterday decided to venture into the same and believe me its amazing...I could zip through the streets of San Deigo and Minneapolis(two places in the US that I have visited). Made me quite nostalgic and I could even find the "Sub-way" joints that Madhu & I had visited. Take a look at the Niagara Falls from the sky.

The maps of US are too detailed, comparatively these folks havenot been able to get a hang of our country.
I could see Bhubaneshwar and Cuttack(my birth place) both cities of Orissa and Cuttack looks beautiful with the Mahanadi river to the right of the screen swelling up and Baitarini beginning to.

Bhubaneshwar looks quite green and you can see the airport towards the left of your screen.

Take some time off and enjoy this new feature enabled by google.

Shreya ki Amma’s – Party

2nd July 2005, a couple of days before the American Independence day, Shreya ki Amma hosted a party(did she intend to celebrate some kind of independence?, Not sure!!!) for Indians working for mostly American multi-Nationals(No offence meant for those working for Indian or European companies).

It all started with an idea from Madhu, who felt that some of us meet regularly (not too often) to break out of the boring & insipid office life to chill out and have some fun.

The party began the moment both Govind and Smitha walked in around 7:00 p.m. Poor Smitha, little did she know what we had in store for her… make her cry…guys do not worry it’s just that she had to cut onions…Slowly but steadily the strength grew from 2 “partiers” to 19 however with some waiting period.

We all started off with “Cook a story” a game designed and conceptualized by Aaarrrchaaannnnnnnnaaaa(Not sure if she stole it from some where!!!).Stories ranging
from Mallika to Phantom were the order of the day. Everybody at-least knew how to cook one item and in this case the story…Rishi, Ravi and me were the chosen ones.

Now that everybody cooked, we decided to name ourselves rather introduce to the group. Some felt it was the HR way of torturing people…A lot of HR guys were present (including me)


The next event… you can guess from the look of
these guys, presenting the “dumb charades” The 1s and the 2s teamed up and you know the result…the whackiest of movies(Gattaca, Dr.Kotnis ki amar kahani, Howarh bridge ke neeche ladki ki lass, Sant Tukaram etc.) and some funny actions(Govind and Vinod leading the actors). Smitha cracked her riddle of “Basic Instinct” with a stunning clue. All the while the “partiers” were being served with drinks(mind it…only Soft and natural), some cookies, tie-biscuits and “P-nuts”(the boiled ones).

Enough is enough everybody said…lets hit the floor…looking at the enthu, I was worried my beautiful marble flooring might give way to the “Thumping feet” and the “Heavy weights”

“The Dance Floor”

With shy guys around there was a starting trouble…
and then came the star performer of the day “Shreya Mishra” Dressed in orange she found the perfect match in Vinod Uncle to lead the way and dance to her tunes. This inspired many and the show began with some nice numbers and tense technical moments(thanks to the lack of knowledge of the host).

Rishi was rocking and Shakal was shocking.
Naveen was innovative and the moves that he
made were too creative. He pumped and pumped
till we all jumped.

Guys do not get it wrong he (Naveen) pumped up
the volume only.

Moushmi was magnificent and the way she
danced was simply brilliant. Madhuri was waiting
to be back in action, and with Moushmi’s backing
did some leg shaking.

Vinod looked gifted the way he drifted.
Madhu made it a point, as a host not to dissapoint.

Ram lived up to his reputation to bring about a complete fusion.
Praxy, next time you don’t stand and watch, tap your feet with your pretty match. Harini, the beautiful looked so wonderful and she danced to the full. Sandy the sober danced to a few numbers.

Govind, the DJ was a bit bemused, Don worry, he made us all dance to his tunes.
Dpak par camera hua zoom, jab who nacha “dhoom machale dhoom”. Prashanth aaya kuch PJs lekar, sab log has pade dil kholkar. Jab chal rahe the uske number, bas usine hilaaya apna kamar.

Chaitali ko karna tha chat apne bondhu ke saath,
Tho le aayi party main apni ek bondhu
Shayanti ne akar kaha “thanks for extending the invite, Modhu”.
Thanks Shanty, we were really happy to have you.

Shayanti was the name when we began party, the dance, the music, the food and the folks changed her name to Shanty.


Ravi Varma ko sab bulane lage Ravi Sharma
Clarify karte rahega bechara “main nahin Sharma main hoon Varma”

Lakshmi aur Smita mil baithe dicuss kiye HR, Vinod aur Govind ke dance request ko kiye inkaar. Lagta hai unhe pasand nahin karna dhoom, hey, it’s time you both dance to the tune “boom, boom(song by Nazia Hassan)”.


Archana, tujhe na bhool sakthe hain yaar
Aakir tu is party ke thi other event manager
Games lekar aayi Archana
As Thode logon ka der hogaya aana
Isse thoda miss hogaya few games khelna
Par don’t loose your heart, there is another party yaar
Harini and Praxy ke ghar, Durgam Cheruvu ke paar.

Ranjit and Aman, having you around would have doubled the fun
Venu and Shailesh, don feel left out, it’s ok if you have missed this one out
Hanumanth and Sumith, I know you guys were just too lazy to drive yourself crazy
Rambabu, hope you get well soon and join us pretty soon
Soooooo guys, come join us for the next party with full masti-dhoom
Sing along, dance along to the song “boom, boom, boom(song by Vengaboys)”

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Credits:

1. Music system - Sony

2. Biscuits - Country Oven

3. Fruits - Pure & Natural

4. Food - Hyderabad House

5. CDs - Music World, Prashanth & Prakash

6. DJ - Govind

7. Games Coordinator - Archanna

8. Ice-cream - Amul

9. Participants - You all.