Curry-N-Rice Girl

Now this is a really funny video Nick sent out :-))) It's called Curry-N-Rice Girl and is a parody of Gwen Stefani's 'Hollaback Girl' by Mc Vikram and Luda Krishna. Dont miss this one!!!

	Nick Graveley	to me, esther_bedoya, Gagandeep.Singh ...

Had to share this...it's tooooooo good!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4532245984549289375

Nick

'Special' baby grew outside womb

In a freak case, a baby girl in the UK has survived and been delivered by emergency Caesarean after growing in her mother's abdomen. Doctors at Lister Hospital in Stevenage only realised Millie-An Pittman was in the wrong place when her mother Lisa was admitted for a caesarian operation. To read the full article, click here.

Interestingly, this has raised a lot of debate about the possiblity of male pregnancy since it is possible to conceive outside the womb with an artifically induced fertilized egg. And as you may expect, same-sex marriage supporters are all over it.

The new born baby was aptly named "Millie-An", a play on the words "one in a million".

China Shining

I just got back from a 2 day business trip to China to finalize an agreement with a new customer. I was quite blown away by how China has built Shanghai into a world class city that showcases their economic growth and manufacturing muscle. Even within China, Shanghai beckons and inspires – the home to all things new, in technology, fashion, commerce, and the arts. Ten years back, the Pudong district of Shanghai was just another fishing village by the delta of the Yangtze River. Today, the new age skyline rivals the greatest cities of the world. Hell, I thought it was out of Jetsons or Blade Runner.

If you were to ask me, I liked Shanghai more than Tokyo, Singapore and Hong Kong. While real estate is prohibitive, most other things are fairly reasonable – transport, food, utilities, clothing for instance. I stayed in $100/night hotel room that was better than what you can get in Bangalore for $200/night.




Picture: Dinner with Weiwei, our new sales director for China, and Peter, who is leading our global partners strategy.

My first ‘rationalization’ was that Shanghai was the only Chinese city that was this well developed, but as I learnt more, I found that China now has over 41,000 kilometers of 6-lane expressways, second only to the United States. The government has invested significantly in infrastructure as a key enabled to success in manufacturing, which requires sophisticated transport logistics and communication setup.

How long will it take before Bangalore, India’s IT capital and technology center becomes a Shanghai? Probably a really, really long time. But, does it matter? One well known argument is that our existing lowest common denominator democracy which thrives on ‘theoretical principles’ and seeks to satisfy every end of the voter bank spectrum is just not right for India. The flip side is that we are still evolving as a democracy, and are headed towards a more sustainable model. And that we need to focus development in urban union territories like Delhi and Pondicherry where the cabinet wouldn’t need to be worried about getting voted out by the farmer contingent. The growth in the NCR region of Delhi, Noida and Gurgaon is an example.

Since I was in meetings or conf calls pretty much since the moment I woke up till I hit the sack, I didnt get a whole lot of time to get around the city outside of the view during commutes and during dinner outings. While waiting for my flight back, I did some quick shopping and picked up some Oolong tea, Chinese wine, Chinese candy (chewy stuff), and chocolates. Give me a shout if you want to sample some ;-)

Jose+10

I just love the new Adidas ‘Impossible is Nothing’ commercials featuring two kids in dusty Latin American slum selecting their dream players to make up their team. Why do I like it? Perhaps because it captures their make believe world beautifully. I love it when Pedro laughs at Jose’s choice of Beckenbauer and is shocked when the youthful German midfielder comes jogging onto the soccer pitch.

In many ways, this could have been just any other ad where stars perform their magic. But instead, it shows the connection most viewers have to the game - an outlet for imagination where boys and girls are transported to the fantasy of the world cup. Nike recently came out with its 'Joga Bonito' campaign, which is very impressive. But Nike is less established a 'soccer brand', and Adidas does a good job with this spot of cementing its position.
The music playing in the background goes, 'If you dont get my football back, I'm gonna get my dad on you'. If anyone knows who the singer is, please let me know.

Operation Heliconia

Back when I was in highschool, our teacher gave us a biology class assignment - each one of us was to put together a herbarium with 10 phylums on display. She may not have realized how competive her young pupils were, for it became a personal quest for each one of us to pull together the very best of the best - and this meant scouring all of Chennai to find the most exotic flowers we could, looking up the phlyum, keeping the flowers carefully pressed in between the pages of several hardback books until they were dry, and placing them neatly in a folder for presentation.

There was definitely the easy way out - picking off a few common streetside flowers and knocking off as many of the phylum as possible. But while some were content with samples from the flower girl down the street and from their homes, some of us picked up some fairly unique specimens from parks, trees and gardens.

But once the usual places had been raided, the bar just got higher. And soon, swarms of kids descended on neighborhood gardens to request that they pluck flowers. Back in the day, Chennaites were quite content with having simple gardens with gulmohars, peepal and neem - flowering plants were less common. Limited supply and high demand. And it didnt take long before a few kids were jumping over balconies, climbing over walls and stealing flowers!

Soon enough, we had everything from A-Z: Asteracea, Marigolds, Ixoras, Magnolias, Chrysanthemums, Gloriosas, Zinnia, just to name a few.

Suddenly one day, one of the kids came in with what was easily the most beautiful flower any of us had ever laid our eyes upon. It was a beautiful bright red and orange, and about two feet long. To the delight of the student and envy of the rest, the teacher applauded the find and told us it was the 'Heliconia', also known as the 'Birds of Paradise'. When viewed from a distance, it looks like a child's drawing of a flock of birds flying into the sunset.

This changed everything. Next to the Heliconia, even the loveliest Magnolia seemed a tad dull. Promptly, the legions descended upon the house from where the prize had been plucked. But alas - the only remaining flower was dried and wilted.

Hardly dissuaded, one of the kids travelled through most of the city, combing it for any remaining specimen. Amazingly enough, a sighting was reported at a residence just a few kilometers from the school. The catch? High fencing, a big doberman, and a guard on shifts.

And so began what was later called Operation Heliconia. In what appeared to have been a well orchestrated mission that followed a reconnaissance trip, the student nabbed a fine specimen and made his getaway. The next day at class, all eyes were on the bright red beauty. Needless to say, the teacher was delighted.

But her delight was shortlived. The school principal had a visitor the next day. The lady of the 'Heliconia House' had spotted the boy making his getaway and had recognized his school uniform. She complained to the principal about the theft, and explained the events that had occured. What transpired later between the principal and our teacher, we know not. But she was fairly subdued at our next class in telling us to go easy in our search.

Time flew by, and soon, it was end of the summer and we had turned in our lovely herbariums.

But something happened today that jogged my memory. Today, over 15 years later, I got a mail from my dad today with the pictures in this post. Pictures of the Heliconia from my parents garden. They now have several, all of them in full bloom near their gate, perhaps almost inviting attention.

As for me, I never did get a Heliconia for my herbarium. I settled for flowers of its distant cousin, another plant that's a part of the same phylum (Musaceae). Incidentally, the plant can also be found in my parents garden, although it lies far away from the limelight on the side of the kitchen area.

The botanial name of the prized Heliconia's distant cousin is Musa sapientum. More commonly known as - your everyday banana.

Shanghai Nights

I'm off to Shanghai, China this coming weekend on a short business trip to meet with a prospect. Any tips on things to see if all I have is an evening to spare?

1.KRISHNASWAMY/ARVIND MR

2 TG 326 H 18JUN 7 BLRBKK HK1 0030 0550

3 TG 664 H 18JUN 7 BKKPVG HL1 1100 1615

4 TG 663 H 21JUN 3 PVGBKK HK1 0820 1155

5 TG 325 H 21JUN 3 BKKBLR HK1 2115 2315

Kabbaladurga

Inspired by Vidya, one of the 'kids' in our office with a passion for trekking, a few of us set off on a day trip last Sunday to Kabbaladurga, a picturesque monolith near Sathanur, about 80km from Bangalore. We left the city around 7AM in a rented Qualis, headed down the bumpy Kanakapura road and reached the hill around 9:30AM after a brief stop for breakfast on the way.
It was a bright and pleasant morning with a few passing clouds offering timely relief from the heat.

So, who were "we"? Jatin, Vidya, Mahima, Vatsa, Meera and her daugher Trisha.
There are several approaches to the top, ranging from a vertical cliff to a gradual slope you can amble up. We picked a slope that had a few difficult stretches early on, but was comfortable there on.

As you can see in the picture below, one particularly difficult stretch (especially for those of us wearing sandals or shoes with poor traction) left us sliding downwards like a cat with trimmed claws. Vatsa is being helped up a near vertical rock by Jatin, who must have gone up and down the hill a few times just assisting others. At one point, Vidya's friend dropped her hat, and Jatin scampered down several hundred feet to retrieve it.

Once we were about 2000 feet up, the view of the surrounding hills and lakes in the distance was splendid. There werent too many trees to offer shade, but we clicked a few snaps by an enterprising one on the way up which had dug its roots sideways into the rock.

The last stretch of the climb had irrgegular steps carved out of the rock, which was plain good timing as it was about noon and the sun was beating down on us. We reached the top of the rock, which is about 3500 ft high and were welcomed by a refreshing breeze.

We found a small Shiva temple on the far side of the upper plateau which still had some fresh flowers from the morning puja. Also nearby was a bottle of whisky, perhaps left behind by visitors the previous night! :-)

We picnicked on some rustic bread loaves and sandwich spread from Namdhari and bananas that were partly squashed during the climb, whil e the hobbits lazed on the ledge.

The descent didnt take us too long, and we were soon on our way back into the city.

One of Vidya's friends maintains a neat blog with his travelogues which includes a post on Kabbaladurga.

I would definitely recommend the trek - it's a worthwhile day trip from Bangalore. Just make sure you pack plenty of water, light lunch eats, sunblock, and wear a good pair of shoes with flexible soles.

And oh, I felt that the views halfway up the hill were much prettier than from the top. It may seem strange, but from the top, most things lose their perspective since you are so high up and there arent too many other large hills in the vicinity. So take your time up, and enjoy the climb!

Huckabay McAllister

Christine sent me a link to the Huckabay McAllister dance company she now works with in San Francisco - they've got a pretty neat site. I loved this picture of them on the home page.

Indian Autorickshaw Challenge 2006

A few months back, we hosted a mock intra-team Olympics at work around the time of the Winter Olympics at Torino. One of the events that I organized was an autorickshaw race down MG Road, with a teams of three in ricks and nav teams of four cracking puzzles to figure out where the pit stops were. I'll need to get around to blogging about that at some point, but then the reason for this post is - I just read about a large auto rickshaw rally being held in Tamil Nadu over a 937km stretch from Chennai to Kanyakumari. While the concept sounds fascinating, you wonder if a rick can actually make it that far without breaking down. According to the FAQs on the site, "It is common for these 3-wheeled vehicles to break down, especially older models. However, they are easy to repair and as locals drive autorickshaws throughout India, there is no short supply of repair shops or autorickshaw mechanics. For the most part, if your autorickshaw breaks down during the course of the event, you’ll be able to fix the problem yourself, and you will be orientated with your autorickshaw prior to the event. Think of it as a covered bicycle with a fuel-efficient lawn mower engine or a golf cart on Nitro." Lawn mover engine! :-)

The rally includes a dirt track race at the beginning (perhaps to sieve out the faint hearted early), and then proceeds on to the lovely coastal cities of Mahabalipuram and Pondicherry. From there, riders head to the heartland of Thanjavur and Madurai, cities with some of the oldest temples in the south. From Madurai, its a brief stop at the coastal town of Tuticorin and the waterfalls of Courtallam before finishing off at the southern most tip of the country - Kanyakumari.

To read more about the rally, visit their website. And oh, this is the first time they are organizing the event ever, and they are looking out for sponsors. In my opinion, this is safe bet for corporate sponsors and I can see this gaining visibility over time.

DAV Gopalapuram - India's best school

My highschool (DAV Gopalapuram, Chennai) featured recently in a Rediff article titled "Welcome to India's best school".

Excerpt - "At the Central Board of Secondary Examination's class XII board exams, DAV Boys Senior Secondary School in Gopalapuram, Chennai, has created history.All of its students passed first class with distinction; 73.3 per cent of the students secured more than 90 per cent marks; 90 students scored more than 95 per cent; 20 students scored a full 100 per cent in various subjects.

In the last 20 years, 250 students from this school have joined various Indian Institutes of Technology, on an average of 12 to 15 students joining the IITs every year.

The school also has the unique record of its students securing the all India 1st, 2nd, and 4th ranks in the same year.

In the recently announced All India Engineering Entrance Examination, DAV Gopalapuram bagged the state 2nd, 4th, 6th, 10th, 14th, 18th, 22nd and 24th ranks to get admission in the National Institute of Technology, Trichy (formerly known as the Regional Engineering College). Twenty DAV Gopalapuram students figured in the top 100.

Weekly magazine Outlook rates DAV Gopalapuram the best school in Tamil Nadu.

In the recently published CBSE class XII results, the Chennai region has topped among the five regions in India with 91.46 pass percentage and DAV Gopalapuram stands first in India."

The complete article can be read here