NASA Students Camp | Duration – 7Days – 6Nights |

NASA Students Camp | Duration – 7Days – 6Nights |.

 

06 Nights / 7 Days exclusive students package to Orlando. Visit Magic Kingdom, University of Central Florida, Epcot Center, KSCNASA.

Please note that this is an exclusive package specially designed for students.

Fixed departure packages. Departures on 21st and 23rd May 2012.

Package available on first-come-first-serve basis.

Special offer for Club Mahindra Holidays/Zest breaks members.

The weekend trip to Pondy!

The Prelude:

It had been a very long time since we had hit the road for a weekend break or long journey. In fact after relocating to Chennai, the only trips we had done (by road) were the religious ones – Sri Kalahasti, Pamur(in Nellore), Kancheepuram, Vellore, Thiruvannamalai. Now the hands, legs and butts were itching for another long drive preferably on a holiday.

At the same time an official work in the state of Puducherry was brewing. So we put 1 and 1 together and “LO” we had a holiday in our hand. Wifey was convinced, Son (3 years old) every enthu for a long road drive, Vehicle was more than willing to drive us around – having just come back from a very good servicing, had an official reason to be travelling and to choose “THAT” destination only.

The trip was confirmed. The room bookings and formalities were completed.

Being a part of the Travel Industry has its own advantages. Nice discounts and options.

The Trip:

Gist of the trip:

• Total KMs covered : 390 Kms
• AVG. Speed while going : 45kmph
• AVG. Speeed while returning : 65 kmph

Toll fees spent: Rs. 140

Have mentioned few of the sightseeing locations enroute and in and around Puducheryy at the end of the blog.

The route that we had taken was  http://g.co/maps/gpa9

Couple of days leading to the journey, it had started raining in and around Chennai. So it had become even more apt to have the journey. Before leaving to office our bags were packed. Finished my half day’s work at the office and headed back to the house. After a quick lunch we started around 2:30pm on a Friday afternoon.

Baap - Beta and the Gaddi

Puducherry… be prepared… here comes Mr. Mrs. And Mstr Panga :) …

Having heard about the notoriety of the ECR (East Cost Road) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Coast_Road  we decided to clear the Chennai stretch before the weekend crowd hits the road. So moving out of Anna Nagar, we halted at the Bharat Petroleum Pump near JJ Nagar East, filled the tank (wrong decision – as petrol in Puducherry is cheaper than Chennai )air pressures including the spare tyre, some snacks at In & Out and in less than 10 mins we were on the Chennai Bye pass towards Tambaram.

Chennai Bye pass Road (towards Tambaram)

Two Wheeler Riders in the Extreme left lane

The drive was excellent with minimal traffic and the most important aspect – THE TWO  WHEELER RIDERS  behaving themselves and not crossing their limits, I mean their lanes. Crossing Perungalathur we turned to the left at Vandalur Zoo and headed towards Kelambakkam and further to the ECR. So 1 hour from the start of the journey we were at ECR Toll Booth, Muthukadu.

Took the toll ticket to Puducherry.

Wife wanted to try the water sports at TTDC Water Sports Complex. Me the dutiful and merciful husband was forced to oblige, took a detour to the Sports Complex. As soon as we stepped out of the car – Wham!!!!!The stench of fish, stagnant water hit us so bad that we were back in the comfort of Air Conditioned cabin of the car in less than 5 seconds of alighting. Back on ECR towards Puducherry, the journey was nothing to write about till Mahabalipuram, other than anoccasional BMW, AUDI, Innova, Scorpios and their ilks who were trying to show off their speed and might on a puny little Alto.

As we neared Mahabalipuram, we decided to take a small detour and visit the shore temple before proceeding further. Went to the Shore temple took some snaps quickly. Short break at Hotel Mamalla Heritage finished the ”calls” and then back to Puducherry.

Shore Temple, Mahabalipuram

This stretch of the journey was marvellous. Greenery all around serpentine curves accentuating the ride. Smooth roads. This definitely was a romantic and good drive.

Somewhere between Mahabalipuram and Puducherry

Note:Just like a Rose has Thorns, ECR also has its share of risks, like school kids criss-crossing the road, villagers walking across the road as if it was their backyard. All vehicles driving at mad speed and also overtaking completely ignoring the incoming traffic.

Somewhere closer to Pondy

While passing Odiyur Lake suddenly there was a lot of excitement. Reason – some film shooting was going on with huge set in the water and the actor, actress dressed in flourescent orange costumes. As soon as I slowed down, had few safari suit clad guys running towards the car and directing us not to take snaps and move on. That is when I noticed that the otherwise “Trigger Averse” wife was quick with the camera and ready to shoot.

Stopping intermittently and enjoying the greenery around we reached the State of Puducherry. As soon as entered there was a HP petrol pump, that is when the difference of fuel price struck me and I was cursing as I had not even used 15% of the fuel.

Now, there were no sign boards so we lost our way and had gone in a circle twice albeit different routes ending at the same junction, before a good samaritan guided us to the right way. Once on Cuddalore Route, reaching the Zest Big Beach Resort was very easy.

Finishing the check-in formalities, made my protocal trip to the team whom we were going to train on using MSCRM the next day. The 3 hours training program was my official reason to be in Puducherry.

The next two days were absoulte fun with me and my son going all over the resort and wife having a tough time coping up with us.

Few snaps from our stay at Pondy…

At the resort

At the resort

The return journey:

Like all good things, even our weekend was ending. So on Sunday we started our journey back to Chennai around 4pm.

We took the Puducherry –> Thindivanam –> Chennai route since the ECR would have got jam packed with the returning crowd.

Again the route to Thindivanam was a dream run. So smooth that you could have coffee while driving. I know I am exaggerating, but hope you got the message.

A jhalak of the Pondicherry – Thindivanam route

Pondy-Thindivanam Highway

After moving onto the Chennai wing of our journey, we had the Chennai Enfield Bikers Club returning from their trip.

Enfield Bikers Club members

Lord Shiva's Statue on the highway

Madurantakam Lake

And thus our weekend jolly trip ended. We reached home by 7pm. In the return we drove without stopping hence not much narration.

Sightseeing options: I missed most of the destinations while at Pondy. On my return our Travel Advisor gave me the inputs. Hope these would be helpful for someone.

Enroute Mahabalipuram and around:

• Dakshinachitra – Heritage village situated at Muttukadu on the new Mamallapuram Coastal Road, 20 Km from Chennai
• Crocodile Bank
• Tiger’s Caves
• Arjuna’s Penance
• Shore Temple

At Pondicherry:

• Pondicherry Beach
• Sri Aurobindo Ashram
• Boat House on the River Chunnambar
• Pondicherry Museum
• Auroville
• Botanical Garden
• Mandajapetti – cave temple dedicated to the Trinity-Brahama, Vishnu and Shiva
• Keezhor – 400 year old Banyan tree sprawling over few acres
• Tiruvakkarai – National Fossil Wood Park

So if you are planning to travel to Pondy, you just pick the locations that you wish to visit – spend some time on the internet gathering tips and road directions.

Allow me to sign off now,

Until next time,

The  Panga

Conversation when two Andhra-ites meet!!!

Had a very interesting incident this evening. Was just back from office and saw my son and wife in the lawn. What more than your son and wife at the entrance to welcome you. I spent sometime in the lawn with them when an elderly gentleman and his wife came over “enquiring” if we were from “Andhra“… err.. they enquired in Telugu after hearing me and my wife speaking in Telugu.

After initial “hi-hellos”, the ladies were busy.. with my son taking them around..

Now the uncle starts his questions.

Q1 - It lo pani chestunnava? (are you working in IT – literally)

Ans – Avunandi (yes)

Q2 – Software aa? (In software)

Ans – Avunandi (yes)

Actually, I was guessing where the discussion was heading to…

Q3 – States Veltuntava? (Do you go to states? – thats Andhra style of referring to “The United States”)

Ans – Ledandi, naaku abroad trips undavu (No, I do not travel abroad)

Q4 – OUNA! enta experience undi? (Is it? How many years of experience do you have?)

Ans – 12

And now the lecture – “My eldest son went to “States” within 1 year of joining, he has been there for 7 years now. He also has a green card. My younger son is with HP, has already travelled Japan, Shanghai, London within 3 years”. He is in India for 3 months only.

I accidentally ask, which part of Andhra are you from? For which he replies, actually we are from Vijayawada. But my grandson is born in “States”.

During this irritating conversation missed that he had moved to English somewhere in between from Telugu. We taught our son “Nanna” and “Amma”.

His dialogue… enti inka “Nanna” “Amma” e naa? (What? Still “Nanna” “Amma”)

I could only say, I am happy being an Andhra-ite. Then a duplicate(pseudo)-foreginer.

Wonder when will people learn to respect their homeland, language and their people.

May be shortly we will have new castes – States Caste, Uk caste, Australia caste etc.,

GOD BLESS ALL SUCH NOBLE MEN!

 

My take on Rajneeti!

Reached Devi Paradise 40 mins prior to the showtime. Finished with the usual collection of ticket (I had booked my ticket on the internet), deposit of Laptop at the cloakroom – with a lot apprehensions but no alternate plans.

 Got into the air conditioned theatre. I was seated in my chair comfortably with some music playing (Jodha Akbar and other combos, no songs only music). 20 mins before the movie would start, I started thinking about the earlier three Prakash Jha’s films, that I had watched in theatres, Dil kya kare at Devi Paradise itself, Gangajal at Mangala, Pune and Apaharan at INOX, Pune. Dil Kya Kare was a terrible waste of time, money and energy. Then Gangajal and Apaharan, was mighty impressed with the way movie begins and continues, but both the movies after a time becomes repetitive, predictable and slow.

In Gangajal after conceding to the enquiry on pouring of Gangajal, movie goes very slow. Though watching in home video now it looks fine, but when seeing it on big screen, may be due to the pace of the movie till after the Acid pouring episode, I felt as if the movie had come to a standstill and story not moving forward. I didnt like the movie entirely and rated it average. The same review was given to my friends who felt the movie as a whole was good.

Apaharan, somehow the combo of Ajay-Nana-Mohan Agashe, I had the feeling that the film was going to be very different and very limited role for Bipasha. I was not disappointed the way the movie was crafted. Watched the movie 1st day evening show. The way it takes off all the way till the Sting operations episode, I wouldn’t be lying that I was on the edge of the seat, forgot to blink, massively irritated at anything else happening in the theatre(idiots talking on mobiles, reading and replying to sms’s, the food court guy serving the orders etc.,). Not to mention all the scenes between Nana and Ajay. I was massively impressed till the sting operation and the climax, repetitive and very predictable. All said, I enjoyed the movie. I bought the pirated VCD first then the Original DVD and now I think I have the 3rd DVD since the earlier ones got spoilt.

Now coming to Rajneeti, my expectations were on AJAY-NANA confrontations, MANOJ-AJAY teaming up, and ARJUN RAMPAL’s performance. I feel Ajay, Arjun Rampal, Anil Kapoor, Bobby Deol, Manoj Bajpai and few other actors in Bollywood have been highly underrated, though they are way ahead in terms of acting as compared to numerous other supposedly “numero-uno’s”, you can guess whom I am referring to. Definitely MANOJ-AJAY-ARJUN did prove me right with this film.

I didn’t have much expectations on Katrina-Ranbir combo especially after watching the utterly forgettable Ajab Prem ki Ghazab Kahani.

Rajneeti, the movie starts of with a huge promise. Naseeruddin’s confrontation with Darshan Jariwala and Nana’s smart and quick closure of the episode. After that the movie dips down and then upto interval point is so fast and interesting with few twists and turns, I was loving it. But the confrontations between AJAY and NANA was missing the punch of Apaharan. Post interval the movie is like a train ride on the Indian railways network – start, stop, slow down suddenly speeding, totally unpredictable, at time boring and at times dragging, interesting most of the times. Mind you, most of the obviuos scenes were quickly completed. ex: all the child bearing related scenes, hospital scenes. So at the end of three hours. What I felt? I felt the movie is plain(below?) average.

My observations:

1. It looked like a RGV film made on a large canvas, budget and who’s who of the tinsel town in the starcast (his host of underworld films including Sarkar, D – the Deshu’s thappad and scared inspector episode, Sarkar Raj) . 
2. Heavily inspired by Mahabharata and God Father
3. The movie seems more close to underworld and gangwars type. Dont know why a political backdrop.
4. People who had seen Virasat(Hindi)/Kshatriya Putrudu (Telugu), Sarkar, God Father, Dalapati, Gulaal would get a Deja-vu feeling. Just that in Sarkar, Katrina leaves Abhishek here she is sucked into the system.
5. Naseeruddin Shah(?) A special apperance? I feel he could have had a little more Pankaj Kapur(in Halla Bol) type of role. I don’t know. Injustice, sir.
6. Sarah Jean Collins, wonder why was that track placed (just to give a Pooja Batra/Gowtami kind of support to the film?) could have easily been knocked out.
7. Insensitive nature of Ajay’s (biological) mother, she comes to request him to join(wont reveal what, watch it find it for yourself), but later absolutely ignored. 
8. Since in both the families there is no good, both the families are conniving and power hungry, then why show one family as villainous and on the losing side always and other family on the winning side. Looked more like a Balaji Telefilms’ twists.
9. The overly hyped “Katrina-does-a-Sonia-Priyanka” seems more of a publicity stunt. There is very small and less footage for anything relating to that. Nonsense.
10. Expected a lot from AJAY-NANA’s confrontations. Other than the scene where Nana visits Ajay’s home to inform about the candidate, nothing else works. 
11. Strangely for a political film, bumping off the opponents with ease and no repurcussions at regular intervals seems to be far from convincing. Prakash bhai, what happened?

What works in the film:

1. MANOJ BAJPAI’s acting – mind blowing. I loved him more than his Bhiku Mhatre’s role in “Satya”.
2. AJAY and NANA – in their individual roles – yes.
3. ARJUN RAMPAL - played the role of caring, loving and impulsive brother very well
4. The first half of the film – very fast paced and few unexpected twists. There are expected twists but delivered with such finesse that you cant help but appreciate it.

So here I am, a day-after, allowing my emotions on the movie to subside and write my opinion/take on the movie. I wouldn’t want to call it a review since these are just my feelings, based on the expectations that I had from the film.

Few may have liked it a lot and few may not have liked it. I definitely didn’t like it. I would place this is between below average and average range. Though I would still buy the DVD for few the scenes involving AJAY-MANOJ-NANA‘s and nothing else.

Watchout for Prakash Jha delivering the highly publicised and controversial “Bitiya” dialogue towards the end of the film.

Feedback and brickbats are welcome.

Signing off now.

H.

Country Roads take me home

I have decided – I will be going to the countryside over a extended weekend. Eat food, cooked in Earthen pots over firewood or coal, sleep under open sky with a bonfire to keep me warm, looking at the stars and the moon. Trip could be to hills Near Delhi/desert. Need peaceful holiday-no mobs, laptops, even if no electricity and toilets is ok, I dont mind doing the famous lota-march.

Trekking to the hills understanding the flora and fauna – interact with locals their way of living.

With my hectic, monotonous, out-of-control daily life.  I seriously plan to go into Nature’s lap.

In case I get a like minded partner to join me on my journey – nothing like it. Males – nice to have you as a neighbour ; Females – dont mind sharing the room and more .

Need to plan the logistics and budgets. But this trip is confirmed.

Will update you all as sooon as I have finalised the destination and travel plans.

Yours,
H

Torture has an address!!!

I had been planning to post this blog for around 3 months now, but was caught u in several other things and hence couldn’t do it. This morning we had relatives arriving by the same train – 2861 – Link -Dakshin Express and they were very furious with the train, since they are used to travel from Hyderabad by AP or Rajdhani express and this is the first time they had taken 2861 – Link-Dakshin Express from Visakhapatnam.

The coach, AC system, Jerky movement  in the train due to [high?] speed. The dining trays (in the coach) seems to be falling off even on placing the dinner plate. The curtains [in 2nd AC coach) cannot be pulled and hence were tied to the mini ladder/stair, handles and whatever.

[FYI, the 2861 Dakshin Express contains two parts, one part arriving/departing from/to Secunderabad and another arriving/departing from/to Visakhapatnam as 2721/2722 Link Express both of them being coupled and detached at Kazipet station]

I am uploading few snaps that I had taken during my journey :

To switch on Fan or a Tube Light

Special Effects

Puzzles

"Split Wide Open"

The AC Vents

The House of Horror

Now for the regionalism, its only the 2721/2722 originating/terminating at Visakhapatnam [maintained by ECR - East Coast Railway, headquartered at Bhubaneswar] has such dilapidated coaches. The part of the train 2861/2862 originating/terminating at Hyderabad [maintained by SCR - South Central Railway, headquartered at Secunderabad] are very well maintained. Is this train the case of a step child of an absolutely unwilling parent?

H,

On a dull morning!!!

Today! there was thin attendance early in the morning, so our creative minds got into action and the result is as follows… actually the thread is in reverse order

On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 12:32 PM, Atul Shinh  wrote:

kya baat kar rahe ho … iski  court marriage ho gayi hai..  and its with  F not M ( seems like )
I got pics

Mr & Mr Ranjeet Kumar Mahato In a wedlock

cheers

On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 12:30 PM, Ranjeet kumar  wrote:

Ye sab affwayen hain. Kisi ne mere email id ka misuse kya hai .

On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 12:25 PM, Hariprasad Panga  wrote:

Hope he is not under aged! Ranjeet for safety reasons please carry your X class certificate.

By the way who is the lucky guy (we all know your “special” preference)?

H

From: “Vivek Puri”

Congrats !!!
Looks like wedding season in Srijan.

On 10/14/09 12:21 PM, Ranjeet kumar wrote:

Hello All,
Today very special day for my life.I am getting engaged !!!.So i want to celebrate with you all.

Regards
Ranjeet

What’s wrong with Government websites!

I have been regularly browsing lot of government websites primarily as part of my Business Development activity. The websites are in utter chaos and incomplete would be an under statement.

Most of the websites are compatible with IEx versions only, no concern for X browser compatibility. No concern for accessibility norms. AFAIK, in US and Europe non-compliance with visually impaired standards can lead to legal action.

I had the opportunity to participate in couple of bids for (state)government agencies and research institutes funded by government, the criteria they were looking at is so myopic that I was shocked and furious at the reasoning and questioning. Primarily on,

• Information Architecture : Any website to be robust and scalable would need a high level of architecture that would be possible only on interacting with stake holders, addressing the current needs and challenges and projecting future needs. However, what I noticed was in complete contrast, where the IA meant a sitemap of main pages and inner pages. They were clearly not interested in answering your queries.
• Accessibility : We have always maintained a rule that any website being developed at  our development centre should pass the XHTML 1.0 transition and CSS 2.0 compliance validations at a minimum along with CSS and features to visually Impaired standards. Surprisingly, neither the existing websites or upcoming websites have this as a requirement and nor are the members interested in analysing on this front.
• Biased towards MS products : Most of the RFP of the government agencies demand organisations working in ASP, .NET and sometimes JAVA with opensource technologies mentioned as mere formality. Even when we try and explain the board that we would be developing/implementing the website in PHP, TYPO3 CMS or Drupal CMS they are lost. The maximum reach I encountered was when they enquired “Is Joomla an open source CMS?”. Phew… so much for dedicated IT departments and oganisations.
• Experience : This is a kind of monopoly practice that seems to be happening with every govt agency. Even if a company has developed and implemented websites much larger and complex than the current requirements, they insist on experience on similar projects. Thereby limiting the entry to only some agencies.
• Affinity to tried and tested methods : During a bid we had proposed implementing Apache Solr search, the members where absolutely not interested in finding out the benefits and advantages of this search application as compared to traditional applications.

Now comes the important aspect, “COST” all the above features come at a cost. Though most of the RFPs mention that cost is not the only criteria and technical information and deliverables is important. This is far from the truth. To understand the “technical” proposal you need to understand and evaluate the advantages or new technologies that and agency is  proposing, in the absence of such openness the Technical evaluation is more of an exercise to understand, if the agency works on MS techologies or Opensource. What are the projects executed? Since PHP is an opensource technology it has to be cheaper.

Since our organisation or similar ones look at providing a solution rather than give a website the activities invoved definitely come at a cost, which on a reasonable analysis would justify the cost and scope/deliverables. Whereas the selection criteria is more or less narrow such cost-benefit analysis is a distance dream.

I feel a more reasonable way to shortlist vendors in Technical Evaluation rouns would be to actually ask the bidding agencies to participate in a debate on the deliverables and advantages rather than a presentation in front of the board members woud give a better results and save embarassment on “GOVT” websites.

One of the badly made websites, in terms design, accessibility, usability and compliance is : http://www.nrdcindia.com/ – check the website on different browsers ; searching for information is like searching a needle in a haystack

H

Bachelor Again

Yesterday, my wife and kid left for Visakhapatnam. So I am a forced Bachelor again.

Sarita and Sumedh at the Airport:

Sumedh is interested in “other” things

Sumedh wishes his Dad goodbye

I am seriously missing my 10 month old son, anyway since I will anyway be joining them in 10 days, not a major worry.

Of course, after seeing them off, I have been able to gt my broadband connection up, which had problem in connecting and had spent a lot of time in designing (just like that) mailers, flyers, logos etc., since designing has always been my first love. Didn’t notice I was up till 2:45am so just shut my computer down and then went off to sleep.

Now I am going to have a very long day and night, need to prepare atleast 3 large proposals within 2 days, phew…

Chalo, will connect in the evening.

H

None of the above!!!

We have been hearing a lot about “GO OUT AND VOTE”, YOUR VOTE IS VALUABLE PLEASE DO NOT WASTE IT etc., However nobody has addressed the issue, if I do not consider any of the candidates worth my vote, how do I express it? Do I stop from going out and voting.. what should I do?

In fact this is one thing which has been bothering me everytime there are elections. I had exercised my vote right only twice in the past 13 years and there had been 4 election seasons. This is the 5th time I am in a dilemma whether to vote or not vote.

If you look at the trends of the candidates in fray, either the candidate is a relative of an existing MLA or MP, or the candidate “is” a loot and scoot type, and so on…. but someone who is definitely not interested in Governance and simply concerned about his investment and returns on investment. I can give you couple of examples from my home town… Visakhapatnam… There are MLA’s like Tippala Gurumurthy Reddy, their family stating from their dad Tippala Dayal Reddy are notorious for their Arrack business and rowdism, I can say it with confidence that the normal public will never say anything good/positive about them. However he has been in power for the past 2 assembly terms. Then there is this Botsa & Co., I call them Botsa & Co. because believe it or not, this time 3 members of his family are in elections, himself, his wife and brother, and the case is same none will speak good about the family. The examples do not stop with these 2 families, their opponents and many other contestants are within the same league.

So, can please someone let me know “WHY SHOULD I GO OUT AND VOTE”?

Yes, in case there is going to be an option like “none of the above”, then may be I will go out and vote on that atleast to see that the contestants are forced to do some good for the electorate and themselves obviously. Also the legislation should be modified in such a way that in case a X% of votes are given to the “NONE OF THE ABOVE” option, there should be a reelection and none of the initial contestants should be allowed to participate.

There should also be a compulsory debate between the contestants on what have they done and what would they do if voted to power. This would allow the electorate to know if the contestant actually is “AWARE” his ROLE and RESPONSIBILITY.

I am not sure if any of this would be possible, since I assume that if these are brought into practice then majority of the so called public representatives would actually be considered “not-eligible”.

I am actually taking out my frustration through this blog, since all the TV Channels are bombarding the air with “Go-OUT-AND-VOTE” message. Hence with these reservations that I have please do not accuse me of showing the middle-finger, without the ink of course.

I would be posting my views on Civic Sense, News and Media, Sports, the first two actually effecting me big time.