Addicted to FireFox Addons

I have got addicted to FireFox addons as well as GreaseMonkey scripts. Its a whole operating system, not a browser we are talking about now!

Some of the top ones I can't get enough of:

FireBug
WebDeveloper
Feedly
Picnik
GreaseMonkey
ScribeFire
CSS Validator

Coorg

This was supposed to go in a travel magazine but ...

A near death experience, acute bacterial stomach flu, delirium, parents rushing to meet their son, imagining the worse. But the recovery is fast, in a weeks time I am driving my folks from Bangalore to Coorg to drive out the sick cells and breath in Coorg, not heeding the monsoon thunderstorm warnings.

Last year I had found myself in Scotland, and was smitten. I heard mention that Coorg was sometimes referred to as Scotland of India. The bar was set high for Coorg.

A hurried call on the penultimate day assured us rooms in his home-stay, a coffee cum spice cum honey estate near kakabe in Coorg aptly named Honey Valley Estate. Coorg offers the whole gamut of lodging options from ultra-luxury to spartan, we had opted for the later. It is an excellent destination for immersing oneself in dense forests sprinkled with coffee and tea estates with a good amount of spices and honey thrown into the mix.

The whole geography is part of the Western Ghat ranges with mist covered green mountains, and plenty of water bodies in the form of lakes and rivers. Needless to say we did plenty of nature gawking and hiking. If you are the kinds to rather be inside the water than look at it, white water rafting is available on certain sections of the Kaveri river, fishing and boating are popular as well. The Kaveri emanates from a mountain peak called Bhagmandala, the top of which has an excellent temple around the holy kund. Though when we went there it was shrouded densely in mist.

Besides nature, the other charm of Coorg is the culture. It boasts of an excellent indigenous cuisine, very friendly laid-back attitude to life. Plenty of religious structures – temples, mosques and churches – done with intricate detail to complement the natures bounty. The most surprising part is a Buddhist monastery with a large Tibetian exile settlement, accompanied as usual with many shops for Tibetan artifacts.

I was reluctant to hit Madikeri – the largest town in Coorg – assuming it will be a regular commercial hill station with overcrowded alleys, but it proved to be a really neat town with some impressive panoramic view points from the Raja's seat.

And if you like rains, then Coorg would surpass all expectations in the monsoons, not just the heavy downpours, but the nature is at its lushest – a true rainforest.

The excursion really got me back into the grove from the weakness that had been lingering from the stomach infection. On a mental and philosophical note, three days in spartan quarters amidst dense forests was great for unwinding and realizing how little is required to be truly happy. And though my folks cursed me (playfully) for all the hiking I made them do in leech infested jungles, it left us with great memories of togetherness in a beautiful place we will cherish for a long time to come. Some tangible stuff I got back was 5 litres of honey, a litre of amla oil, other homeopathic oils all 100% natural and straight from the source.

For all you guys out there still undecided, there is one last attraction in Coorg that will seal the decision – the coorgi women – they are known far and wide for their beauty. Though they are known to be pretty tough, so better not presume anything from their coyness. And yes, carry some salt for them leeches.

My four day trip did not do proper justice to what Coorg has to offer. It is a a gem of a place and the best thing about it is the relative lack of marketing and commercialization.

The more things change the more they remain the same

Watching the story of India, it referred to the fact during Jahangir's time more that 20% of the tax revenue was spent on the court and courtiers.

Today CNN IBN said India spends 180 Cr on the security of the VIPs and 160 Cr on the security of the 1 billion citizens.

Heh.

Common Japanese

Japanese words that I have learned. These are mostly because of reading Shogun which is making me kind of a jappophile (is there a word?) ...

These are swimming around in my head, so let me dump them here for future reference.

Gomen nasai - sorry
wakarimasu ka - do you understand
ah so desu - I see
Shikata ga nai - nothing can be done about it (my favourite, its like "its like this only")
Hai - Yes
Damiyo - Great warrior
Kami - (Shinto concept) the spirit resident in all things, living and non-living
domo - cant figure out, seems to be some kind of adjective
Ohayo - morning (not sure)
Dozo suwaru - ?
Miru - see (?)
Nan ja - What is this?
Nan desu ka - something similar to above.
karma - karma :) ( funny, this is the most oft repeated word in Shogun!)
Cha-no-yu - an extremely formal tea ceremony
Sumimasen - Excuse me
arigatou gozaimasu - thank you
Konnichiwa - hello
Konbanwa - good evening
Oyasumi nasai - Oyasumi nasai


Did I say I am fascinated with Japanese culture?

Insight into Travel Bookings and Pricing

On the way back from Indore to Bangalore, I tried to book my ticket online the evening before my flight. This for the KingFisher Red (erstwhile Deccan) flight at 1340 from Indore.

The cost of the ticket normally is 5500 INR, but the web rates showed 8500 INR. An hour later they showed 8500 INR. I went to sleep after that cursing myself for always booking at the last minute.

Next morning the price showed 9500 INR. Crap.

Something told me to take a risk and not purchase the ticket online but go to the counter on the airport just before the flight and try my chances. I did that and got the ticket at the counter for 5500 INR. Nice.

I guess the algorithm airlines use is that if the flight is pretty near full then increase the prices to milk the customer. The increased price might act as a deterrent for some, but for the last minute desperate fliers, its better than not flying at all. So if the increase in price is 40% and the amount of deterred fliers is 20% the airlines still make a bigger profit.

But if you get to the counter right before the flight, then they might as well fill up an empty seat since no one else will be booking online after that time.

Will need to test this theory a few more times.

BMTC BIAL Service

Back to blogging. After one year and 16 days to be precise.

Took the flight from Bangalore to Indore last Thursday. As always I took the BIAL.

Since I forget this BIAL Vayu Vajra schedule page everytime I am about to ride one (and desperately scramble and curse at the last moment looking for it), let me post it here for myself and others who stumble upon here looking for the same:

BANGALORE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT DEDICATED BUS SERVICE VAYU VAJRA & SUVARNA


I have to take the Bus # 8 from the Agara Junction. The bus starting at 0630 from Electronic city reaches at the Agara Junction between 0705 and 0715. Just so that I remember the next time. Should depart from home by 6.40ish to be in time.

A Hindi book, yay!

Started reading a hindi book after a long time.

Some background. I have this background thread in mind reflecting continuously on my western persona - the books I read, the music/movies I watch, my education, thought process, views, my job, language, dressing etc etc. So I get into these phases where I try to get out of that mode and search for the "Indianness" in me.

The first of these bouts started when I was in the first year of my engineering. I started reading a lot of hindi literature - Premchand, Gandhi par punarvichar (Osho) to name a few. Heck, I even found an old copy of Kalidas' (or was it Tulsidas) Shakuntala lying around and the read the whole thing in verse!

So now I am elated to find this book after a long gap, recommended by my dear friend P - Volga Se Ganga by Rahul Sankrityayan. Its a historical novel about the journey of nomadic Aryans from upper Volga through to the Gangetic plains of India. Some of the words are hard to understand but it's pretty interesting so far.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Just finished reading this interesting book. Even if I hadn't read its reviews earlier, it's intriguing name was enough for me to give it a go.

There are four main characters in the book. All are leading confused lives, kind of and their destinies are a result of coincidental macro and micro happenstances. The central character in the book, Thomas, is a confused, likable and incorrigible womanizer.

At times Kundera starts talking about himself or speculating about the characters as if they had life outside of his own imagination. For example, at some point in the novel he goes: "Even I find it difficult to explain what she felt ..". Or another time "I think Tereza's problems were due to .. had it been otherwise..". Funny.

Some of the passages in the book were so compelling that I had to keep a pencil ready so that I could mark them and go back to them when I felt like. Many other times I couldn't figure out if Kundera was being just flippant or dead serious.

All in all there is not a thick plot to speak of. Its somewhat of a character study on the backdrop of philosophical mind benders.

Sometimes Kundera just leaves off the character's stories and gets into his opinions on their conditions and fate, and starts relating to his personal philosophy. Other times he starts advocating some concepts using the characters conditions for example the whole section on "A short dictionary of misunderstood words".

One thing that he has done very well is to bring out the suffocative era of Russian and Czech communism. I had read "The Master and Margarita" a while back and it was supposed to be excellent in that regard but I didn't think much of it. This was way better.

Though notwithstanding this passage mocking rich capitalistic nations:

When a society is rich, its people don't need to work with their hands; they can devote themselves to activities of the spirit. We have more and more universities and more and more students. If students are going to earn degrees, they've got to come up with dissertation topics. And since dissertations can be written about everything under the sun, the number of topics is infinite. Sheets of paper covered with words pile up in archives sadder that cemeteries, because no one ever visits them, not even on All Souls' Day. Culture is perishing in overproduction, in an avalanche of words, in the madness of quantity. That's why one banned book in your former country means infinitely more than the billions of words spewed out by our universities.

Another witty philosophical observations I couldnt help underlining:

Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite. Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman).

There is also a strong "franco nature" to the novel, where arbitrary quirks in characters play an important part (think Amelie).

All in all an interesting read if one wants reflect as much as read every once in a while. The kind I like to read.