May 8th, 2008, 9:55 am
Kurinji raga is derived from the 29th melakarta Sankarabharanam. It is a sampoorna raga with vakra sancharas (needs a separate post) in the arohana and avarohana.
A: s r g m g m p d n s
Av: s n p n d d p m g r s
The notes taken by the raga besides Shadjam and Pancham are :: R2-Chatusruti rishabham, G2-Antara gandharam, M1-shudha madyamam, D2-Chatusruti daivatam and N2-kaishiki Nishadham. Jiva and nyasa swaras are G, P, N. The phrase “snNS” has N as tevra swara and the upanga raga has all the notes rendered with gamaka.
Since the svara sanchara is limited, it is sung in madhyama (slow tempo) shruti in vilambit laya to enhance feelings of compassion. Kurinji is actually a Tamil folk tune adopted into Karnatic music.
[1] Kshirabdi Kanyakaku | KhandaChapu (29MelaJanyam) | Annamacharya | Telugu |
[2] Muddugare Yashoda | Adi | Annamacharya | Telugu |
NotreBene : Time permitting, I shall add data, so consider the raga-series a perpetual work-in-progress. Thanks for using a track-back to this original blog entry instead of copying!
May 6th, 2008, 10:14 am
Rice started it and Bush chimed in by blaming India and China for the rising food prices ...but what intriuges me is whyrepresentatives from Monsanto and Wal-Mart sit in a board appointed by the Congress government to implement the provisions of an agricultural-trade-agreement, when it is plainly obvious that it benefits the American economy at the cost of the Indian one.
May 5th, 2008, 3:27 pm
Chakravagam – 16th Melakarta, sampurna ragam.
A:- S R1 G3 M1 P D2 N2 S
Av:-S N2 D2 P M1 G3 R1 S
This raga is a melancholy raga and its corresponding Hindustani raga is Aahir Bhairav.
Songs are :
[1] Gajanana Yutam | Adi | MuthuSwami Dikshitar | Samskrit.
[2] Saroja Nabhada | Adi | SwatiThirunal.
[3] Vinayaka Vignanashaka | Rupakam | MuthuSwami Dikshitar | Samskrit.
[4] Apakara NindaiPat | Chatusra Jati Jhumpa Tala (4+3) | ArunaGiri Nathar | Tamil Thirupugzal.
Notes: Thirupugzal, composed in Tamil are hymns in praise of Lord Muruga.
NotreBene : Time permitting, I shall add data, so consider the raga series a perpetual work-in-progress. Thanks for using a track-back to this original blog entry instead of copying!
May 5th, 2008, 6:39 am
Summer in bangalore is weird and the constantly changing weather, sudden hail and rain is grating on my nerves and left me sick and no voice to boot ! After 4 days of power outage last week, not to forget the daily load-shedding that one is subjected to, since last night there is no water….not a drop! Trudging along for a morning tank inspection confirms the worst, water kissing the bottom of the tank. Apparently Cauvery water is supplied only 3 times a week and during summer it reduces to once a week. WTF?
Most times people buy water and i have seen tanks standing in front of houses to supply water to the residents. Karnataka has a lake Cauvery lake which is renowned for its sweet water and perreinial supply, and yet the local populace has to live with limited supply. The government also fought with its neighbouring states over sharing the Cauvery water and yet does not supply enough water or produce enough power for the citizens. That sucks bigtime!
May 3rd, 2008, 11:40 am
Trying to get some traditional Maharashtrian food [thalipeeth, dhik (dhing/ding?) laddu’s, sabudana vada, missal,...] lead me nowhere, except this one in South Bangalore but nobody answers the phone so it may have closed down :-/
I finally found a lady who cooks and delivers dhabbas and had to ask her about dhik/dhing ladoo’s. Yay… she makes them but for personal consumption only. The cost factor and lack of customers means its not viable to commercially sell dhik laddu’s…..shucks.
There is a sizable Maharashtrian population in the city and both states share a lengthy border but the cusine (atleast as tasted in Hotels) is poles apart. The Udipi hotels are called darshini’s here but they are not even a patch on the ones back home—their paratha’s (the waiter calls it “porotha”) is nothing like the punjabi paratha—have they never heard of wheat, aalu, garammasala and baking on a tava as opposed to the very very oily layers (think croissants) they call porotha. As for the kurma—i’ve never had a kurma with coconut…scowl. Now I know better than to order north indian dishes down south. Forget N.Indian food even the S.I variety revolves around the tried and tested Idli-Vada-Dosa-Sambhar with minor variations (Rava or ragi dosa). Its impossible to get a “vethal kozambu” or “parupu kozambu” (this is tough, imo)
AP’s kulfi recipe came to my rescue 
It seems very similar to the italian gelato but for me the yumminess factor wins hands down. Kulfi is best eaten while taking late-night after-dinner strolls in summer, in my memory. Ah….nevermind that the kulfiwallah usually sells just 2 flavours : pista and kesar !!
To eat a chocolate flavour kulfi one has to make it at home and I wish i could take credit but well …usually my contribution is limited to discussions about :
A] the stirring :- he does not think it should be disturbed while setting and methinks it should be stirred to prevent crystal formation.
B] chocolate melting :- (given a choice this would feature in every sweet dish of mine) He melts the chocolate, cools it and then adds it to the mixture whilst I think its nicer to add uncut chunks of chocolate to the warm mixture and stir.
C] Proportions : imo, only perfectionists measure food ingredients for dessert. Having made that irrational statement lets just say i prefer to cook stuff in varying proportions (== none).
My experiment resulted in a creamy and smoothly textured chocolate-coffee flavored kulfi… it was so delicious that i decided to enjoy it, instead of melting it by taking pictures.
This kulfi recipe (sorry, no measurements – i dont use any, see #C) is simple.
Ingredients : milk, milk cream (milk fat?), sugar, chocolate.
Flavors : Usually cardamom, kesar/saffron and pista (nuts) are added. I use coffee decoction or add pureed seasonal fruits.
Method :
1] blend the creme (milk fat) with sugar in the blender and transfer it to a wok on simmer.
2] When the fat melts add some milk. Check for consistency and sugar (as per taste). Stir and simmer for few minutes.
3] Add a pinch of kesar, 1-2 gm elaichi powder, 1-2 gm dalchini powder, 1-2 gm nutmeg powder (but avoid these if you are adding chocolate). Take off flame and when the mixture turns warm add chunks of chocolate.
3.1] I added some filtered coffee decoction since coffee-chocolate kulfi is heaven. I wish this combination were commercially available. If you dont have (or dont like) chocolate just add the coffee. Its akin to eating frozen coffee
4] Freeze it but keep stirring to prevent icicles formations and to get that rich, creamy texture.
ENJOY :-)
May 3rd, 2008, 9:20 am
Why not kick off the ragam-series with todi as the first raga ! In the Karnatic system, ‘Todi’ ragam is commonly referred to as “HanumantaTodi” and is placed as the 8th in the melakarta system and being an ancient raga it was called Janatodi.
Todi is a sampoorna raga, i.e. a raga with all 7 notes and perfectly symmetrical tetra-chords as swaras. It has S-shudha, R1-Rishabham, G2-sadharana gandharam, M1-shudha madhyamam, P-Panchamam, D1-shudha dhaivatam, N2-kaishiki nishadham and S.
The poorvanga (S to P) and uttaranga (P to S) are very balanced. The jeeva swaras of Todi are GMDN. Their usage in prayogas during raga aalapana of Todi brings out the beauty of this raga. Nyasa swaras are GMPDN. One can weave different patterns of notes centred around these notes, but some prayogas without panchama (P) sound very beautiful.
Todi lends itself beautifully for slow medium-paced kritis, varnams, tillanas, viruttham etc. For example, tAyE yashOdA undan | Adi | UttukkADu venkatasubbaiyer, from the movie Morning Raga. The swara kalpana’s and the ragam-taanam-pallavi coupled as fusion music was simply fantastic and Era napai | Adi | Patnam Subramanya Iyer, is another varnam aptly suitable for ragam-taanam-pallavi, where all swaras should be handled softly and each note is suitable for Gamaka prayoga or oscillation.
This page has a composite list of all the Karnatic todi ragam songs. Looking at the “peculiar compositions” by Ramaswami Dikshitar (svarastAna pada varNam) and “Ma manini” Dr.MB.Krishna (which i remember partly, egad :-S), you will find them constructed without words. The whole song consisting of pallavi, anupallavi and charanam is composed with only the 7 swaras… WOW!!
Practically speaking, each of these songs in Todi, sounds different at first. The difference is not because of the lyrics, which albeit different, but look at the swara sthanas (hint: arohanam and avarohanam) which differ. Shruti-bhedam i.e. while singing alap, using tharasthayi R as S, makes Todi sound like Kalyani, but since it interferes with bhava (emotional flow of the raga) which should not be done extensively.
The composers have the liberty of starting off anywhere but are still bound within the raga metrics and that is their playground for creativity. Ofcourse each composition can have a different talas (beats) and no two songs of the same raga will sound alike, else your credibility as a composer is zilch. Duh, imagine the precarious position of the hindi film music composers(?), who are renowned for copying err.. being inspired .. cough.... by other peoples tunes frequently.
Now you must be wondering how a listener will know who is the composer of a particular song in say raga: Todi.
Simple…. Every composer had a signature embedded in the song he/she wrote, akin to the “comments” that programmers include in their programs. Some composers used a pseudonym/pen name and some their real names but they always inserted their names in the charanam (last stanza) of the song, never earlier. Humility matters .
Legend has it that some not-so-famous students of famous composers in order to give credibility to their compositions used to pen them in their “famous composer teachers” names and bask in their shadowed glory. I am not sure how true this is and dont particularly care. Its more fun to enjoy the music!!
In Hindustani music there are quite a few ragas with the suffix Todi but sounds very different from the Karnatic HanumantaTodi. Example : The Hindustani Gurjari Todi, Mian ki Todi, Multani Todi etc., do not resemble the Carnatic Todi. This is true for many ragas which only share a common raga name.
There are many compositions in HanumantaTodi. Every southern Vaggeyakara has composed in Todi. SriThyagaraja has composed around 30 kritis and the speciality is that each one highlights a different nuance of the ragam.
1] The kriti ‘Dasarathe’ starts in mantra sthayee “D” and emphasizes the prayoga of gamaka-laden “D”.
2] The kriti ‘Dasukovalena’ centres round Madhya sthayee “D”.
3] The kriti ‘Koluvamaregada’ starts at Taara sthayee “S” and comes down the avarohana slowly. Shyama Sastri has done a slow vilambit kala kriti with Swarajati Raave, thereby bringing out the slow beauty of this raga.
TO-DO in Todi, including the derivative janya ragas are :
1] Venugana ramana | Mishra Chapu.
2] Dasuko | Misra Jhampa | Thyagaraja.
3] Koluvamaregada | Adi | Thyagaraja.
4] Rajuvedala (Srirangam Pancharatna) | Rupakam | Thyagaraja |
5] Sri Krishnam Bhaja (on Guruvayurapan) | Adi | Dikshitar |
6] Ninne Nammi | Misra Chapu | Shyama Sastri |
7] Raave (Swarajati) | Adi | Shyama Sastri |
8] Sarasija nabhada | Misra Chapu | Swati Tirunal |
9] Thamatham en | Adi | Papanasam Sivan |
10] Tanigai Valar-Khanda Chapu- Papanasam Sivan |
11] Kartikeya- Aadi- Papanasam Sivan |
12] Anjananandam | Adi |
13] Annaiyargal vanam nadi vandar | Adi |
14] Dasharathe dayanidhe | Adi
15] En inge vandu | Adi
16] Jatadhara shankara devedeva | Adi
17] Rasa loka vaibhoga | Adi
18] Tale sharanam amma | Adi
19] Tannam taniyaha senrale | Mishra Chapu
20] Urugada manam enna manamo | Adi
21] Vandavarai varum enrazhaittu mani polum | Adi
Janya (derivative) raga :
1] Bhuvana moha saundara sukumara | Dhanyasi | Adi
2] Nada nada nada krishna | Dhanyasi | Adi
3] Padmini vallabha dehi pradehi | Dhanyasi | Adi
4] Natajana kalpavalli | Punnagavarali | Adi
5] Nila vanam tanil oli vishum niraimadiyo | Punnagavarali | Adi
6] Na dhru dhim tadana tomtana (tillana) | Sindhubhairavi | Adi
7] Shen shiva jatadhara shambho | Sindhubhairavi | Adi
NotreBene : Time permitting, I shall add data, so consider the raga-series a perpetual work-in-progress. Thanks for using a track-back to this original blog entry instead of copying!
May 2nd, 2008, 2:31 pm
I had always wanted to record the kritis we had performed earlier on the basis of the ragam, rather than bifurcate it on the basis of the name of the song, composer or even language. That didnt seem very educative since the examinations are structured along those lines and its important to get the theory part correct. sigh now the word “theory” != “by rote”.
Unless I understand the difference between a N2 and N3 and am able to distinguish that swara in the construction of the swara kalpana, i cant get the raga right, and therein lies the challenge. Classifying songs according to the raga is much more simpler and easier to understand since many songs can share the same raga and yet sound so different. Some brilliant composers literally play around with this aspect, including the language and speed. Teachers dont have the time to teach every song ever composed on a particular raaga, or they may not even know that many songs. So its upto the student to learn various styles, get a good grasp and try to extend their repetoire.
|| What is a RAGAM? ||
A ragam consists of 7 swarams and the sapta-swarams are :- SA - Shadjam
RI - Rishabham
GA - Gandharam
MA - Madhyamam
PA - Panchamam
DA - Daivatam
NI - Nishadham
Of these swarams, S and P are constant but R, G, D, and N have three variations.
R could be Shudha (R1), Chatusruthi (R2), or Shatsruthi (R3) Rishabham.
G could be Shudha (G1), Sadharna (G2) or Anthara (G3) Gandharam.
D could be Shudha (D1), Chatusruthi (D2)or Shatsruthi (D3) Daivatam.
N could be Shudha (N1), Kaishiki (N2), or Kakali (N3) Nishadham.
|| MELAKARTA RAGAM ||
Any ragam that contains all seven swarams is called a Melakartha Ragam. The 72 Melakarta ragams are all sampoorna ragas which means they have all the 7 swaras in the arohanam and avarohanam. Ragams with less than seven swarams are derived ragas from one of the parent melakarta ragams. Here is a nice chart for calculating the Melakarta ragam.
Janya meaning “derived from” is a set of Janya Ragams derived from the 72 melakarta (sampoorna basic) ragams.
NotreBene : Time permitting, I shall add data, so consider the ragam-series a perpetual work-in-progress. Thanks for using a track-back to this original blog entry instead of copying!
April 29th, 2008, 9:42 am
The Earth-weekend continued till Monday evening, despite M giving umpteen complaints to the Assistant Engineer (AE) BESCOM/KEB, who would keep telling her his line-man would be there in 20 min and after 2 hours still no sign of him. When she got persistent, the AE brushed her off with “you gave wrong address, my lineman cant find it”. The fact is the lineman never even tried in the morning but at around 4 pm there was a regular load-shedding and he suddenly materialized, climbed the pole and cut some wires on the pole, mumbled things would be fine and disappeared. Two hours later, NO power.
Fed-up of listening to the line-man’s excuses, after 6:30 pm, got the licensed electrician to change the phase on the electric pole. After 3 days in no power mode, rotting food in the fridge, the whole experience of waiting et al was annoyingly frustrating. In retrospect, that haste (after 3 days!!) was a good idea it seems.
Because at 7pm the KEB / BESCOM lineman who came by earlier to cut some wires appeared again….maybe he had heard from the private licensed electrician that we were fine without his help. Well, I was about to go out but decided to wait and see why the Bescom employee was interested in working after his duty hours (which gets over by 4 pm). Most government employees grumble to do paid work during regular office hours so this (un)helpful pretense was indeed strange.
He fumbled around and said the meter was fine (although he knew the main phase was kaput). Annoyed with his charade, I told him to not waste my time and go check the main pole and leave the house meter alone. Down south, men dont like women speaking sternly to them and he gave me an incredulous look but sensing my growing irritation he complied and (on my insistence) checked the main wires. After much hemming and hawing he accepted that there was indeed a problem with the main line and one phase was dead, so yeah it was a KEB problem. Phew, getting him to accept that the problem was from their side was a challenge ! Then he proceeded to give me his AE’s cell number and wanted me to lodge a formal complaint (pray tell me, what was the earlier calls all about?) the next morning (i.e today).
This morning, when I called the AE he admonished me for not telling him of the problem yesterday or he would have solved it pronto. He asked me to co-operate (by now i am beginning to love the double-faced attitudes here) with him and give a written complaint blaming the lineman for the work not done. I replied that it was a great idea… i would write a formal complaint about the other mysterious AE (i meant him actually) dwaddling and wasting time for 3 days, giving innumerable excuses about “address not found”, harassing women, etc.., to his office and for good measure send it to his senior’s too. Three hours later, the electrician appears and tells M the problem was never with the Bescom main phase and that the lineman had accidentally cut our house supply only. So could he change back the interchanged phase (if she paid him, yet again?).
This whole thing seems so fishy that I asked M to just let things be. I presume they must have finally repaired the faulty main and are just trying to cover their b^$$ before we lodge that written complaint.
UPDATE : I got a call about an hour ago saying 3 line men have descended and were working on the main electric pole and restored the connections. Ah…something seems to have done the trick. In this whole episode the thing that bothers me is people’s apathy towards everything. Strangely folks in the whole area dont mind living partly in darkness but dont want to be bothered to deal with any government officials (but want jobs there, ofcourse) because getting work done from them involves bribing which they are loathe to do so are unwilling to do anything about it. In case you are wondering i did not have to bribe the officer/lineman. During the whole episode i have heard numerous stories on how not to antagonise the govt’ officials or complain against them as they can take revenge by purposely cross-circuting or shorting the connections and it can make life difficult for us women. Gee… i look forward to that challenge too !!
April 27th, 2008, 3:25 pm
my weekend could not have begun on a more exciting note. Someone in KEB decided to celebrate “earth weekend” and switched off power for a particular phase early saturday morning. so just a few of the houses have no power in the sweltering summer. As if the excitement of doing my bit for the environment by crashing into objects in the darkness was not fun enough, i managed to lock myself out of the house… Oh, Joy !!
/end sarcasm.
April 24th, 2008, 5:46 pm
Finally the real name policy (on LP beta testing team) has been done away with. In the past, there have been many discussions against the policy with zero outcome and not so nice things like people being kicked out for not following the “real name” policy. Last year, I was rejected for not agreeing to the RNpolicy and in Jan when the fridge was in transition mode, we editors were going to trial out the list via LP. Since I’ve felt the RN-policy was restrictive, I offered to leave the team rather than being forced to accept something that encroached on my individual/personal freedom of choice. That LP is not GPL’d is subject matter for another post.
I have always been a supporter of using nick’s online and not necessarily because of gender and the accompanied harassment. If fame and recognition is what people want, they know how to get it, but in my case its a question of personal choice/freedom. That said, in the libre software community you are what you do/behave/act and one is not defined by name, age, nationality, colour, country, beliefs, etc…
.... Which brings me to policy making. Most times, on closer observation it is evident that policies are adhoc despite the good intentions behind it. If they lack the multi-dimensional view-point we wont be anywhere closer to a possible solution than when we started. Which will only leave us with procedures and processes which people will blindly follow (hint : the CoC signing, which needs a separate post too) because it exists and needs to be done with inorder to get to the next level of power. Wrapping a coat over the real issues does not get the desired positive results, if that is what the community wants to see happen….especially not if you are trying to solve a social problem with technical solutions. Does not work. Period.
So I am really glad that someone’s been listening and finally got rid of the real name policy. Thanks, dil se
April 23rd, 2008, 4:10 am
Megaglobe , a NewYork based (but the site will redirect to your country including language) search engine and although its not the same as google, i like the variety in search results. Some other not-so-famous engines worth a dekho are :
x] a9.com
x] gigablast.com
x] clusty.com
x] ask.com
x] guruji.com (yeah its bangalore based)
Know more engines, leave a comment and i will add it here.
UPDATE : wikipedia’s list of SE’s
April 22nd, 2008, 2:43 pm
April 22nd, 2008, 1:25 pm
Puneeth has compiled a list of incubators in India and since he does not blog, i am spreading the good word
Update : Am re-ordering it according to NEWS zones.
NORTH :
x] IIM Lucknow
x] BITS Pilani
x] Erasmic
x] IIT Kanpur
x] IIT Delhi
x] IIT Kharagpur
x] FMS Delhi
x] JSS Institutions
EAST
x] IIM Calcutta
x] IIT Guwahati
x] Ekta TBI – West Bengal (from Indranil)
WEST :
x] IIT Bombay
x] SP Jain Institute
x] IIM Ahmedabad
x] Nirma Labs
x] Entreprenership Dev.Inst.of India-Ahmedabad
x] Center for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE), IIM-A
x] K.J. Somaiya Institute, Mumbai
x] Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad (MICA)
SOUTH :
x] IIM Bangalore
x] IIM Kozhikode
x] TENET – IIT Madras
x] IIT Madras
x] NIT Trichy
x] ICFAI Center for Entrepreneurship@Hyderabad
x] Wadhwani Center @ Hyderabad
Hari has a list of incubation centres in India.
Leave a comment if you find any broken links and if you know any INcubators and angel investors in INdia.
April 20th, 2008, 2:11 am
Barcamp Bangalore (BCB6), the 2008 Summer Edition was kickstarted yesterday at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. I reached the venue at 0945 hrs after getting caught in traffic and managing to lose my way in some one way… grr, why do they have so many one-ways in Bangalore? The IIM campus is a green oasis and it was heaven after the traffic outside and I could have spent hours soaking in the peaceful greenery but i shall wax eloquent on that later.
Since things were just starting and i hate missing the good stuff i went in and found more folks walking in slowly. The organisers had a sense of humor and that was really cool. Listening to stuffy, self-publicists gets me bored and looking for the closest exit. They left most of the space (talk time) for people to introduce themselves and sessions they would be conducting.
As is evident on sessions page there were many interesting topics but i could not attend all of them 
At some talks, i met some old friends, made new ones and the best part is connecting the faces to the nicks and email id’s. It was a fun day in all. There was even a dating session but i had to leave early for my music class. Btw, there is a blogathon starting today and today’s topic is “Infrastructure”- its specific to Bangalore but i guess traffic in every major city sucks. Shall keep the rest for the actual blog post though.
Today (20th April) is the second and conclusive day of BCB so be there and have fun. The whole event is well organised, FREE (even the lunch is gratis), great crowds and i am looking forward to the next BCB :)
April 20th, 2008, 12:59 am
The HP saga of woes continues ....... After insisting that an international warranty means it is one, the service centre amid chants of “best effort basis”, “dont support out-of-country purchase you know” , etc… replaced the faulty motherboard with another faulty one and when this was pointed out to be a display (bios?) problem, they insisted in giving the typical brush-off :—- “no, it is a linux problem” ... hmpf !! that effectively means : i know zilch about Linux but am smart enough to blame it since i cant (dont want to) solve the real hardware problem.
The modus operandi is simple :
1] Warranty gets over this month
2] replace the MotherBoard with another faulty one (i discovered that no quality checks were done before replacing it.)
3] down the line it will go kaput
4] voila… there is a business opportunity to take half the cost of the laptop. Nice way to be in business.
IMHO, mumbai’s dabbawallah’s know what Quality is all about and deliver it with almost zero margin errors.
Well, by now i was inside the secret cave** and wasnt leaving unless they took a good look at the motherboard problem. Finally the technical head came down and his face brightened up on seeing Linux and i showed him the display problem. He accepted that it may be an incompatible chipset and sent it for observation (geez, they dont even have a testing mount for this model, it being an out-of-country purchase). Why cant HP provide them with basic infrastructure like testing mounts of each model. Before replacing parts no quality testing is done. The bubble-wrap is removed and hardware is screwed onto the machine. No testing/checks to see if the replaced hardware could be faulty or not…. that sucks ! Meanwhile another engineer told me the centre manager fired him for accepting that there is a hardware problem with the Motherboard.
The typical reply one keeps hearing is “will only support Windows”. Heck i didnt ask you to support Linux but dont blame a hardware issue on Linux. Just because the HP customer service centre is outsourced (...for almost all hardware sellers actually) and you need to generate revenue (understandable) dont be only concerned about making money at the expense of the customer. Quality matters !
** an area where no outsiders are allowed….not even HP employees.
April 11th, 2008, 3:59 pm
Never having followed tamil literature, recently i read the english translation of “ponniyin selvan” by kalki. Translations are well just that but why allow that to hinder my imagination. Kingdoms, stories of kings (like ajatashatru, shivaji, maurya, pandya, chalukya, etc…) are so fascinating that one gets to re-live the woven tapestry and (his)story of the cholas coupled with superb characterization, detailed descriptions, an absorbing narrative, via words and a vivid imagination.
Our hero is Vandiyathevan, a reckless brave warrior and friend of Adhitha Karikalan (a Chola king) but after meeting Arulmozhi, he becomes his fan too like the rest of the Chola subjects. The story weaves back and forth between characters, situations, dangers, excitement, joy, sorrow and royal intrigue and nary a dull moment as it moves between locations, cities, and even countries.
kalki also wrote “shivagamiyin sabatham” and “parthivan kanavu” , again around the 1940’s- 50’s, which are again set in the semi-historic era. I am told that they are masterpieces too …plan to pick up the english versions when i visit madras the next time.
April 11th, 2008, 3:37 pm
For a long time i have been wondering how to stop blog spammers (terminology?) like these ::
http://itfinances.net/2008/04/11/moolah-mantra/
(I removed the link).
Basically they trawl the blogosphere and link/pull any blog page using certain matching key words. Does it have anything to do with increasing page hits ? Dunno…. but having stopped allowing pings (does it matter?) i-am-this-close-to shutting of comments permanently. Yup, i use akismet but why bother !
April 11th, 2008, 9:19 am
ML walked in with a temper one morning and i was curious… her first grouse was the noise (construction work) in the adjacent building and as she did the dishes, I made breakfast for us all and we continued our general chatter, a daily routine now ! The few weeks that i’ve known her i’ve hardly seen her grumble, rather she always has a pleasant and smiling disposition, despite her difficult life[*0].
She spoke about issues pertaining to her children, family, money etc.. which is how I learnt that she has not opened a bank account, which in-turn got her a sermon from me. I never can understand why women dont take finance seriously. AFAIK, the story echo’s with many maids working at every indian home and as a kid i remember my g’ma urging our maid to open an account and learning to use the government banks facilities, and so save money (atleast some rupees) every month. Evenso she did not initially but when she wanted to borrow a huge sum of money for personal reasons[1], her 4 employers decided that it would be better to put that money in the bank or the men of the house would fritter away the money in drinking, gambling or what not.
So although ML does take money seriously, her husband is not an alcoholic and does repay debts, manages to educate the children, she still does not have a bank account which means she does not save money imho. Cant blame her since according to her every penny earned is spent either on husbands health, daily expenses or childrens books/fees[1],....
Fine ! Great ! BUT what about learning to manage finances? Most women leave the finances to their husbands. Well… one person i know does it all herself, rather her husband and in-laws trust her more than themselves but then such cases are a rarity. The vast majority still leave the decision making to the men (in whose absence they may take a leading decisive role) as far as finance is concerned. She says most women from her community get married at a young age, have kids before they are 18. Her daughter has taken up a summer job for two months as she was worried that keeping the girl at home alone when she went out to work is fraught with risks with too many frisky young boys her age doing nothing in summer. Didnt want her daughter to spoil her life as she has plans to put her through school/university.
Reverting, ML is terrified that they (bank) will ask for minimum INR.1500 as balance but after I explained the options to her she agreed. I promised to help her open a bank account with her daughter’s first salary in the hope that she and her daughter learn to use financial services to their advantage.
For women (and some men) like her the fear factor revolves around illiteracy (usually inadequate English knowledge which imho is not illiteracy[*2] but then who can argue with the system), lack of knowledge (of their rights), fear the legal system, and i can go on and on. Is there a parallel financial economy running …yeah, they are called money lenders and they can charge 40-60 % interest rates for small amounts and usually fool folks into signing away their village property/home or (in the case of women) pawn jewellery, etc.. Most times the interest rates repayment takes a lifetime ensuring that they will never repay the principal amount and forgo everything. Gah… its a pretty slimy industry and the circle of debt for these people just goes on endlessly.
Talking of finance, banking and credit, I am utterly annoyed with a particular bank which does not understand security in financial applications and insists of shoving a credit card down your throat. Since the call centre employees are just doing their job I hear them out each time and decline politely. End of conversation ! ... or so I thought… apparently, they dont take NO for an answer and a manager called (as if his team members calling daily wasnt enough) to say my application was pre-approved… doh, when i did not even apply !? So now I am supposed to take a pre-approved credit card when i have clearly told the QA manager that their employee was keeping tabs on me, leaking personal financial information and inshort harassing me. What is the guarantee that he cant access my credit card number by virtue of being an employee (hence priviledged) and misuse it – None whatsoever. I just dont trust private banks anymore !
= = = = = = = = = =
= = = = = = = = = =
[0] – Folks who dont fall in the BPL (below poverty line) strata, form a bulk between the lower middle class and the poor, also have a tough life with rising aspirations, desires and needs and wants, albeit a different struggle from the rest around them.
[1]- The Indian government does not have a social health scheme like many developed nations and the taxpayers money poured into government run schools (including the public education system) is a joke but that is an issue for another blog post.
[*2] – Once an old man in the bank asked my help to write his name on the withdrawal slip (a cash withdrawal instrument used by folks who give a thumb impression as they are unable to sign/write their name—usually in english—, or maybe because they dont maintain a minimum balance of INR1500, hence are not given cheque book facility) and i spelt it wrong since Hindi is a phonetic language and English isnt. When his name did not match the entry in the system the bank manager flew into a rage and yelled at him, refusing to accept the withdrawal slip but accepted it when the old man pointed to me (a tale best left for another post). Incidents of public humiliation like that are enough to keep even the most thick-skinned person away.
April 3rd, 2008, 3:52 am
April 1st, 2008, 10:34 am
Hmm… I’ve been lazy about bragging about this : The OS free laptop that I had helped load Ubuntu was sold within that week. How cool is that !!
Although I cant take any credit for the sale (it was done by the sales person there), I do feel nice knowing that i contributed indirectly. Breaking down pre-conceived mindsets is not easy and he did a good job of selling it. The manager informed me that they were pleased enough to load all the machines with it. Now I need to mail him the Ubuntu-AMD cd’s
I wish more machines would be sold with linux-inside (tm?) in India. Go experiment, Be different !!
April 1st, 2008, 6:48 am
Nope, this is not an 01April joke. I decided to blog about this based on first-hand negative experience with HP-Compaq laptops this past week. Their service centre in Bangalore is horrible as far as customer service is concerned. Although my laptop is under warranty and they have diagnosed the problem : mother-board is kaput and needs to be replaced.
Apparently no chip/component level repair done in India so if the motherboard has to be replaced they will follow procedure, which is :
In conclusion, instead of fast-tracking the same before the warranty gets over they are pussy-footing and giving excuses so that they can ask me to pay a fat sum for the motherboard replacement when the warranty gets over 3 weeks hence. Else (according to the local HP-compaq manager) I am supposed to take it back to the country of purchase and get it repaired there despite possessing an international warranty. Nice customer service there HP (read, bleed your customer for all they are worth). Lesson learnt… Dont buy HP-Compaq laptops -their customer service sucks !
March 25th, 2008, 8:17 pm
bullish.......!!
March 22nd, 2008, 8:06 pm
Gone are the simple water-balloon days and what used to be a fun fest gets worse with each passing year. Ugh, who wants to walk around with purple-green hair… Holi is so much safer with just good friends N family, given that its de’riguer for strangers to pelt one with balloons filled with chemicals, or eggs, stones, paint (nope, not the fabric kind) and other assorted rubbish-filled balloons all through the week before Holi. On Holi day absolutely anything goes. Besides Holi, many friends will be celebrating Good Friday, Purim (Jews), Navroz (Parsis), Eid, and Magha Puja (Buddhist)... a lunar co-incidence of 6 different religions or what ? Happy festivities y’All
Recently, I saw some laptops on sale/display sans any OS (had Free Dos) at a retail establishment. I asked for a demo and (as expected) he could not provide one. I asked if he would load any OS of my choice and he hesitated. He probably thought I might hand out a pirated Windows CD to him or something illegal so that was my cue to give him an primer on what Gnu/Linux, Ubuntu, GPL, etc… was all about and he smiled that all-knowing smile while listening and I knew it was a home run. Its a relief that awareness is getting higher, people actually know what piracy is all about and dont stare blankly when you say “Linux”. I happily provided him the Ubuntu (but ofcourse ) CD and the manager nodded approvingly as we had some good eye-candy for all to see. Since they had a number of models on sale sans the OS, I handed out some Ubuntu CD’s to go with the other machines. To see a machine running an OS that is not Windows sitting pretty amongst others is quite nice. Even more fun to see the curiosity it evokes among casual passers-by. The practical touch-N-feel to see-it-work helps a lot more
Btw, Bruce Perens is standing for board elections and needs your help. Viva Free Software !!
February 13th, 2008, 9:41 am
On Monday I had attended the star speaker Klaus Knopper’s talk at OSI week and came away impressed. Besides the Knoppix project he touched upon the synergy between Free software, OpenSource and propreitary software. I found his approach very balanced and it was interesting to see the way he tackled the Q&A sessions. He had a good grasp of the licensing issues and spoke at length on that during the Q&A, which leapt into overtime by almost 35 minutes so I had to wait until he finished attending another talk to get a chance to meet him.
I was quite surprised when Klaus was gracious enough to allow me to paste an Indichix sticker on his laptop… am touched by his lack of airs…. and to think I wandered into the wrong hall and almost missed it Later I also met Krishnakant Mane and if nothing else we practiced our Deutsche and mine is definitely rusty as hell. In the last few months I have even forgotten my Marathi and Hindi….sigh. Amidst the six degree friends and chattering, we almost missed another entrepreneurs workshop but walked in towards the end for the Q&A so although I dont know who were the panelists, i did take aways some nuggets of wisdom from there.
On the second day Adriane (Klaus’s wife) was to conduct a workshop on accessibility software which she works on with Klaus but that morning she was not feeling well and Klaus conducted it. When he spoke about the technological drawbacks and other social problem areas related to barrier-free websites, I realised the extent to which sighted people like us take such things for granted. The lack of standards is another grouse. Although technology is gaining momentum we are leaving behind a section of the population when we dont build humane and inclusive technology. That gets stronger for hardware, especially the portable kind which manufacturers dont care much about. So whether its a camera, phone, laptop or any other other portable device we, as a paying customer have a right to ask for free software based technology. It was interesting and also sad to note that the Indian government has not made it a mandatory for sites to be accessibility-friendly unlike the EU where its a law. Hmpf… we hardly even have government websites that are Firefox-friendly so accessibility is such a loooong way off. As far as our government is considered such things are miniscule, hence not worthy of attention.
February 7th, 2008, 1:24 pm
A few hours ago i heard some good news…. it was certainly long overdue
January 28th, 2008, 8:05 pm
chocolate boy… yes, but i like the real thing 
January 23rd, 2008, 7:06 pm
When it rains, it pours. How true …
Starting week3 of the new year sick has echoes of the past which morphed into a crashed desktop disk and spiced things up with the Ubuntu kernel trouble on the lapy. Subtracted power last weekend for good measure and salted with patchy internet (/me being pro-active, changed it ) when bestowed with power….boiled over to me wondering if i should have gone for it after all. Since i didnt, it was time for the IndiChix meetup last saturday with Ankita, Vikram and Balu (the Bangalore Mirror reporter) in attendance. Maybe its the location(*)... do we need to find a convenient, central venue in the city ? What the heck, i tend to go around in circles anyway. /eye roll.
Anyway the article that was supposed to be about women in Technology somehow landed up in the entertainment section of Bangalore Mirror. [/me cringes] So if anyone did read about us on Jan19 in the Bangalore Mirror, kindly fill in the blanks, since they dont have a website and Balu was not able to get a copy (sold out he said) that day.
Not that there was a deluge of applicants for this call ; which I announced today, making it easier to focus on stuff i really care about. I also posted the meet-up minutes to the list for further discussion. We had feedback that our website is very confusing for newcomers to navigate. Sheesh…... I have to agree that information is difficult to find but a wiki is always like that, in a constant state of flux. A static site is not inclusive and a wiki allows even a newbie to voice themselves. That is not an excuse, but the fact remains that none of the i’chix have ssh access to the private servers where the site is hosted (by Vaibhav) so we depend on him a lot at the moment, and cant keep demanding changes daily without proper planning. That is not practical in the long run. We still need to get the planet up and running, kwim ?
It makes more sense to get a team working right at the start (I understand when Sulamita talks about burn-out, time issues, etc..), something I’d rather not see happen with IndiChix. For this we have to increase the circle of trust and the faster we do it the better it is for the group. Also currently the women dont own the site domain which is ironical, being a grrls group and all that. Not sure about others but I find it absurd to call it a woman’s group when women are playing second fiddle (read, scared of speaking their mind). Maybe women fear making mistakes (i know i do too) and being judged harshly on that prevents them from trying in the first place. In the technical world its almost rare to see women stepping up. Strangely, I rarely see men who commit mistakes blunders worrying about their image. i digress.
responsibility – authority == no show
One of the aim is to get women involved in every level in the community @ IndiChix, in which case we need to initiate open and transparent communication (which is very difficult as is, and almost impossible if one is constantly going to worry about inadvertently offending people) just like open source code.
Kick-starting that I mailed the IndiChix list (only subscribers can read archives) about the domain being transfered to atleast 2 grrls locally. Names suggested : Archana, Runa, Aneesha, Barkha, and Ankita. I guess responsibility without authority does not scale well in the free software community…. and since its a community it should be a community decision. So subscribe to the list and vote for any 2 grrls you prefer or if you are a ‘chix, suggest your name and take over the responsibility. The third name I suggested was one of the TresChix, incase we local ‘chix go MIA :)
Folks reading this, if you know grrls interested in web-development please ask them to join us and holler about themselves on the list and suggest ideas there.
(*) For most Bangalorean’s distance is everything but here a commute of 15 km is a huge no-no, which is surprising for me. Well Mumbai has a reliable and efficient (albeit crowded) rail system, so people dont balk at travelling 68 km (incl. return trip/up-down) almost daily for work from Borivali to Churchgate (and back). But then folks there are the spirit of the city. There is no melting pot like it elsewhere.
January 19th, 2008, 5:01 pm
Christian, the answer to your question is: India (but ofcourse ) has the highest number of languages, 428 (415 +13 extinct), listed in ISO 639-3.
January 18th, 2008, 7:14 pm
The meet-up is at 3 pm tomorrow (atlast ) Since suggesting it last month, it was getting postponed, /me was sick and i almost thought it wont happen …but it is gonna happen tomorrow at Christ College (and i still need to map out my way there…sheesh…if i am late means i am lost.). For tomorrow, I had almost convinced an upstream dev to agree to talk tech at the meetup and almost announced it on the list. Almost because as of now he has some other work so maybe next-time. Heck, I intend to keep bugging him till he agrees (and i know you are reading this ) to talk about his project.
While i was wasting (a lot of) time googling for a solution to this issue earlier today, i saw a bounce in the mailbox from a journalist. Apparently, he had seen a blog about the meetup in bangalore and wanted to give us publicity. Nice that mainstream media is taking an interest in technology Our little journalistic adventure is archived on the list since i had asked that a draft of the article/writeup be posted there. My assumption being : folks can quickly correct mistakes if any, as we have members from different timezones across the world, so responses will be quick (can i say 24/7 ) and we can avoid wrong messages going in print. Recanting is always a waste of time and never really useful since the damage is already done. Well, there were not many corrections except crediting the appropriate projects.
Terminology is important and since most people will not know what GNU, GPL, FSF and FLOSS meant (egad….!) I sent him a bunch of links for the GNU and FSF projects and a wiki link on what FLOSS is all about. I hope he includes that in the article since that is the only way we can reach out and educate people. Even if one person takes the trouble to type www.fsf.org in their browser and read, we succeed and add to our ilk Let’s see what happens tomorrow.
For those not in the know, Bangalore Mirror was formerly known as Vijay Times, a very popular daily providing local gup-shup until it was taken over by BCCL (aka TOI) sometime last year. Strangely they still dont have a website. Heck, even Mid-Day has an e-paper for Bangalore. Since i cant link BMirror here, i asked balu (the journalist) to bring 2-3 copies tomorrow when they attend our meet.
Talking of BCCL/TOI, Mint (an HT group publication) had an interesting article about them the other day. Some years ago i remember reading somewhere that most articles were paid for (as in, a company paid the print-media company to write about them, instead of buying plain visual 60×60 cm adverts, which few people glance at anyway). Check out the list of companies BCCL has invested in.
January 18th, 2008, 1:09 pm
i face a similar problem that neil williams has blogged about, here and here. Two days ago i updated the ubuntu system and the grub file was overwritten. That means when my system installs the updates and restarts, it wont be able to because of the annoying bcm43x driver issue crap. Arghhh….. So far i did try all the noapic nolapic permutations and combinations on this page, which ofcourse didnt solve my problem.
MJG explains some here and another here but frankly now i understand when people say Linux is not ready for the mainstream, add hardware that does not support free/libre software and you go down under. With no OS how the hell will they google for help. Thankfully i kept the dualboot on the lappy, so could use windows to google, which has not helped much but need to get this sorted asap. Using Windows the last 2 days has been well a test, but wth…
[update0-jan18] ram says the issue is with the filesystem (fuse), /home is in another partition and booting hangs whilst loading device drivers, does not even boot from the cd….. found a fuse problem, else may have to do a fresh install if nothing else works
January 14th, 2008, 11:49 am
Had a very beautiful, yet dangerous visitor who took an hour getting chased out. Last week(end) was tough and tiring, partly because i exerted myself when i felt a l’il better resulting in a relapse. Random bytes like “it can be typhoid, 4 of my friends got it last week” makes me contemplate another round of tests tomorrow, which i dont look forward to at the moment
Currently we have 2 DD’s and 2 more in the queue and bubulle and sam had attended foss.in as part of Project days so i had suggested that next time Debian can send female DD’s if any are interested. That would give the DW project the visibility it deserves. The “why women…..” advocacy talks has been overdone over the years so why not showcase DW’s remarkable success rate : 10 female DD’s at various stages in the developer queue, over the years. I managed to chew helix’s and marga’s ears about technical talks … interested if the issue of travel sponsorship could be worked out.
ATM i dont feel like crawling through the full mailbox or reading anything at all and its Sankranti but i dont feel the energy at all. My pet peeve is the tendency of DR’s (medics) handing out high doses/strong medication without bothering to check for past history/allergies and such-like. Lucre of endless tests and time may be a factor but i am not amused at their careless attitude.
Happy Makar Shankranti/Pongal !!
January 10th, 2008, 4:23 pm
Being ill and drowsy (with medication) this week i stuck to surfing, and saw this math problem, to be precise its graph theory Among the various ideas, i suggested Warshall’s algorithm for shortest path. If its planer there is Kuratowski’s theorem. Which will work better?
January 8th, 2008, 1:53 pm
..do as the romans !
The thread on grrl-talk list about Japanese social/business etiquettes reminds me how we as humans (social beings) do go out of the way and learn some things from other cultures/customs whether while doing business or just social interaction with tourists. Mirroring their social behaviour makes us stand out less as a sore thumb and opens doors (and hearts) easily.
With the FarEast erring on the conservative side was a better option than a faux pas which may be the end of doing business … and they have customs/ rituals for almost every aspect of daily life so learning was largely by observation, tips from friends and mirroring compared to today when an array of “what not to do” material is available online, unlike the help books and corporate training given to staff today on whether to use a fork or finger ? I’d prefer the latter anyday with a strong dash of bluntness. Business is fine but at the end of the day i’d pick ‘being honest to self’ over tact and diplomacy. The latter, sweetness of tongue, does have financial advantages and is as close one can get to developing diabetes of the non-physical kind.
My patchy internet connection has been jinxed ever since i blogged about it and seems destined to remain so for this year. As i type this , a beautiful abang on the radio in Kannada is playing and its lovely. Since i caught the song halfway i dont know the name of the person singing it but he has the perfect voice, perfect base, pitch, control, ... wish i knew a teacher who could teach me abhangs or hindustani classical in bangalore.
January 7th, 2008, 4:36 pm
Since I realised i am spreading myself thin, i sent out a call for list admins for indichix. The purpose being to encourage grrls who have not started volunteering to make a start somewhere and as i see it, out here its best achieved by putting power/control in their hands. Nothing huge, just a few minutes per week and as is the custom in “linuxchix.org” the more the merrier. Plan to keep it open till the weekend, which should be sufficient time for ‘chix to respond. BTW, whilst responding to the message (on the list), please do write a little intro about yourself, as much as you are comfortable revealing (ex. name, city, why and how you see yourself as a part of LCIN, how you plan to take this group forward, anything else you think is relevant to FLOSS…), to help folks there get to know you better…. not mandatory, just courtesy.
January 7th, 2008, 10:20 am
How does one control the monkey mind? I dont remember if P (or did I?) coined this term during one of our innumerable discussions but unlike him, there are moments of struggle for me. Which is why i find it ironically funny when I am able to see the darkness under the lamp for others but need someone else to shine light on mine. Ofcourse friends help but the cacophony, signal-noise ration is really high and its then that i always fall back on ‘A’ and ‘P’ who can be absolute anchors and who get annoyed with my non-technical forays. I particularly admire the “kurtz”-ness in talk which conveys volumes and always push me in the right direction. One such moment was yesterday. Having pussy-footed for ages, I am taking you up on this offer.
January 4th, 2008, 1:56 pm
So Intel has quit the OLPC project due to philosophical differences. Like many, I was wondering how long this (AMD,XO,Intel) marriage would last. I wonder why Intel ventured there in the first place, because AMD was there first (?) and Intel didnt want to lose $$$ (brand recall in marketing terms indirectly means $$$, which AMD would get via project associativity).
/quote:
“I think that as an organization, Intel is about competition; they are not about learning,” said Mr. Bender, the group’s president for software and content.
/unquote
Duh, unless you dont share an iota of the same philosophy, ideals or whatever of the OLPC project, it did not make much sense to try and ride two boats at the same time (read, Classmate PC). What a shame !!