Friday, December 28, 2007

Google Maps....

Today I was just checking the google maps.... and so I searched my village in it.
And to my surprise, I am able to see my house in the google map.... This is really amazing....
Out of two houses, left one is my house ...
My House

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Transport in Copenhagen, Denmark

I really liked the transport in Bangalore. And if you come to know about it, you will also like it. Here we don't find autos... We can travel by Trains, Metros, Buses and Taxis. Taxi is the costliest means of transport.

They have divided Copenhagen city into 99 zones. And here you don't have to take pass between two places. Instead you have to take pass for few zones. Like I normally travel in three zones 1,2 and 31, so I took pass for 3 zones. The passes are divided into 2 zoner, 3 zoner, 4 zoner, 5 zoner, 6 zoner and all zoner. Minimun you have to take 2 zoner pass. Now most important thing is if you have pass for particular zone, you can travel in that zone using either train, metro or bus. So it depends on your wish.

Check out the zones ... http://www.movia.dk/Priser/hovedstadsomraadet/zoneoversigt/Documents/Zoneoversigt.pdf

One more interesting thing is if you have to find way to go between any two places we can see that in one of the websites - http://www.rejseplanen.dk/

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

One more incident.....

6th Nov 2007...

Today morning I was coming to office. On the way I have to catch the bus. There I saw some dannish lady giving smile to me. She was around 15 feet away from me. I was thinking about why did she give me smile. I didn't give any smile to her because I didn't know her. Then I was just thinking .. and then suddenly I realized that she is also Indian and we met in Bangalore...She is from ITC. Then I went and talked to her... Two days back she came to Denmark, but because of her attire she was looking like some Danish lady.

Incident.....

Two days back, I was coming to office... and I was not sure about where I have to get down from bus. I was with few ITCians....so I was not worried also.

Then at one point, bus stopped and one of the person with me thought that it is the stop, so he asked me to get down. I got down and he was going to get down, immediately somebody said that this is not the correct stop. And the stop where we want to go is one stop ahead. But the doors of bus were closed, so couldn't help. And then I had to walk to the office, which was around 0.5kms.. But anywas morning exercise is good for health. (We should always find out something good in every mistake. There is saying .. 'Bhagwan jo bhi karta hain achhe ke liye karata hain'). And from that time I will never forget the right bus stop as well....

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Path Finiding Mission to Office... first day in Denmark!!!

It was my first day in Denmark. I was with my team mate in company guest house. We got up early, got ready...and stared our work... It was really cold outside and it was my first morning in Denmark.... As we were having the office address, we thought it will be easier to go to office.... but it wasn't. We asked one person about address, obviously in English as we don't know Danish. He didn't respond, I guess because he was not knowing English. We asked few more people, but most of the answers were.. "I don't know, sorry..." or " I am new at this place. " or "The place where you want to go is in different town, I don't know how to go there".. and bla bla bla..... we might have asked around 10-15 people till then.. but we also didn't have any other way except taking taxi and for which it would be around 2000 rupees.. so we continued our operation "Path Finding Mission". Then we asked address to one lady. She told us to take one metro train and then another train ..... She wrote down everything on paper.... I thought it will take around 3-4 hours to go there.
So we took first metro... I went inside and my friend was outside, the door was closing....and he thought now he can't come inside...and he couldn't.... Oh my god... now it was a problem...both of us don't know where and how to go...till we didn't have mobile numbers... we couldn't contact each other... We will realize the importance of mobile in such situation. So I instructed him from train that I will be getting down at next station. And to my surprize, the next station was our planned stop where we had planned to get down..... so I just got down on next station and waited there for my friend. He came in next metro....
Then we took another train, we got down at destination. Now our mission was to find out our new office. It was a Bank Development Centre. So we started asking people where is this Bank. There was somebody from Iran or Pakistan who was knowing little bit Hindi, he showed us the bank... Bank was there, we though its open and as it is software company, nobody would be outside.. We entered through some door. We went inside, nobody was there on ground floor and there was a stairs to go up. But by seeing at the whole office, till then we realized that it is just a bank and not the Bank Development Centre.
Then we again started searching for the address that we had. After asking few people one of them told us to take one bus. As per his instructions, we took the bus. We got down at the correct point. Then we were on the road on which our office resides. Now we were going on the road. We wanted to ask somebody about where is the office, but nobody was there on road in the early morning around 10am. After going much inside, we saw our Bank...It was around 10:20. So totally it took around 2 hours. Oh it took less time than we expected, its because all the trains, buses were in time.. And so far they are always in time in Denmark. Thats good about Denmark.
And this way we finished our "Path Finding Mission".

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Bangalore to Denmark!!!

Due to company onsite I travelled to Denmark. It was my first international journey. And I must say I really enjoyed it.

My journey plan was -

7:30 - 8:00 Bangalore to Chennai 30 mins

1:30 - 11:30 Chennai to Paris 10 hrs

6:30 - 7:30 Paris to Copenhagen, Denmark 1 hrs

We started around 7:30 pm from Bangalore to Chennai. There I saw recorded Laughter Challenge program in plane. I think it was KingFisher airlines. Its really good. We arrived in Chennai around 8:30 pm, there one of my friends bag got some scratch in handling by airlines people. So we went to the airlines people and asked for some replacement or some kind of arrangement. But they couldn't help as they said that its not possible to replace it in 2 hrs. So we just launched the complain and we proceeded towards International Departures.

Then after going there we checked in our luggage, and then went for Emigration check. There they asked us few questions about when will you return, where are you going and bla bla bla....

After sitting idle for 2-3 hours on international airport, when it was 1 am in midnight, we got into our flight which was at 1:30 am. It was Air France flight whih is really good.. its nice, you have tv screen in front of you where you have some recorded programs, also there are radio channels. So you will be always busy in fliat either eating or seeing some program or doing something else. There must be some fundamental reason behind these Airlines people for keeping us always busy when we are in flight. I have seen this in almost all the airlines. They don't want to miss a single chance to serve us.

During booking the ticket we had given food preference as Special Veg Meal. So while they were serving us dinner, initially one air-host came and he pasted one sticker on our seat saying special veg meal so as to identify us. We were happy that we are being treated specially. Here I am mentioning we all the time because we were actually three friends travelling together. Then we got some dishes with some veg food.... it was ok. We should not say bad to food. The taste was good but quantity was less. Also my other friends were happy as they serve rum, whisky in plane and that is free. After some time my other flight mates got there normal food.... which was same as special veg meal with some additional curd and sweet. Then I realised what does it mean by Special Veg meal. Then in the night I saw few comedy programs and then slept around 4 am or something.

When I got up in the morning, 2-3 hours were remaining to reach to Paris. So there was a bit excitement that I am going to see Paris. Then after finising important morning work, I had my breakfast. Here important morning work has also got a story with it. In Air France they don't provide water in toilet, they just have toilet paper. So we have to do some idea to get water or have to use paper. I saw some bottle inside toilet and then I didn't miss chance to use it :)

We landed in Paris around 8:30 am EST in the morning. When we came out of air-plane, outside temperature was around 4 degree celcius. So when we came out and we breathed and through air out of our mouth, it was hot air. We could see it as if we were smoking.. And it was freezing cold outside. So we can say that it was really a cool experience.....

Then we finished our Emigration Check. If you are coming to Europe, you have to do this check in India International Airport and your first point of entry in Europe. My first point of entry in Europe was Paris, so I did my Emigration check there. There the lady office who was doing emigration check was sitting with another person. Both of them were quite young, chitchatting with each other, doing some jokes and enjoying.... so they didn't bother to ask us any questions.

And one more thing is, Paris is the first place for me to start observing European beauty. So you can imagine, I don't think I need to tell you everything. I can just say that everybody was looking good :)

Our next flight from Paris was at 3:30 pm EST. So we had around 7 hours gap. So we were thinking about going in city and seeing Eiffel tower. So we enquired to some french people about that, and they said, 'Yes, its possible. But are you sure that you will come back before your next flight?'. hmm.....there was big risk of missing the next flight. Also we had luggage with us, and if you want to keep luggage on airport in some place, they would be charging you in Euros.... so we cancelled the plan.

Then we made calls to our relatives to India to tell about our safe journey to Paris and then we just roamed inside air port. We saw some type of train there which was very good. The Paris Airport is the biggest airport I have ever seen. Its very very big. So after some airport seeing we started searching for some hotel for lunch and after much search we got our lunch at some place. It was around 12€ for 3 people. And there was no taste to the food otherwise it was good.

At 3:30 we started our journey to Denmark. Now in this flight it was different experience. Most of the things were in Danish. No..no .. wait wait... i am not sure whether they were in Danish or in Finnish... But it was different than English.... Like for me Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malyalam all are same languages, because I don't know any of them. Same case here. We reached at around 7:30 pm(11 pm Indian time) to Copenhagen, Denmark. So it was a safe, 24 hour exciting journey.

We arrived on Copenhagen Airport, then called on of my friend and asked him the guest house address. As the guest house was not fixed until I came to Denmark. Then we took taxi and went to the guest house, my friend was waiting there.

He just told us that today is Sunday and most of the shops will be closed. It was 7 in the evening. I thought we will get some mobile card, but that day it was impossible. Then I just took my friend's mobile and called company HR to ask about office address and how to come ot office.. But he just told about the office address...He was not knowing the way to go to office. Then my friend left. Then my flat mate and me we went in PIZZA Hut. We took one pizza for some 50 Kroners.. i.e. 350 rupees. that was quite big and sufficient for both of us. Then we just went to our guest house. We watched TV for sometime....and then slept....

Monday, August 06, 2007

Trip To Bandipur!!!

This trip was organized by company, so no need to spend anything by ourselves. So in such cases it really doesn't matter whether trip is good or bad as it's free.
Bandipur is actually in jungle. So the mail purpose of going there is to see some wild animals, do some trekking, get wild and just enjoy.
Our journey started from Bangalore on Saturday early morning, with breakfast organized in the bus. We were around 50 people with two KSRTC buses. We had breakfast in the bus, tea in Mandya, which comes before Mysore. Then we started playing Antakshari in the bus, which was good time pass. On the way our other bus had accident and it hit two village ladies. Though not very severe, they have to keep that bus there and our bus carried all the people to Bandipur. We had a cd player in the bus, but no cd.. Somebody by luck brought the Partner movie cd from that bus. So our effort for seeing that movie started. Initially that player was not detecting the cd, then somebody else tried and it started. But by our bad luck there was no sound. So we were just seeing the movie not watching it. Before reaching to our resort, one km to go, there was a big turn. To take that turn is more difficult than to give Driving Exam. So after much exercise our bus driver took it and we completed our journey. That time my mobile was showing 3 pm.
Then we had our lunch, checked in the room. Suddenly after that we had to start to Safari ride. In Safari ride they will take around 6 people in jeep to jungle. So we were around 12 people in two jeeps. After going inside the jungle border, the driver stopped and told us some things, "We will take you from some other root, which is not allowed, but we will take you on our own risk." We were happy thinking that this guy will take us in Jungle and its time to see some wild animals in jungle. So all of us were eager to see something. And we saw one wild animal called something like "bison". I don't know what it is. Then after some time we saw peacock in front of our jeep. They we find one feather on the road; I guess it was his feather. We were very happy to take it. One rabbit saw us after few distance or we saw it, whatever. I don't know whether our luck was bad or the animal's luck was good, that we couldn't see any wild animals. And this way our Safari was with ought any excitement, cool journey to see the tree, jungle etc...
Next day it was time to go for trekking, and five of us were there who couldn't go with other people. That's partly because we couldn't get up early and partly because of our luck again. So we just saw the first slot of people and guide gone in one direction, so we just proceeded in that direction. Then just thinking about which way they might have gone, we just followed one jungle way. Then after going inside we saw some elephant's footprints. Then little fear started growing inside us, as we were not sure about the root and couldn't see any human footprints. Still because of our enthusiasm we went till the dead end, after that we can see only trees, bushes and grass but no root. So we decided to come back, and try some other way like backtracking algorithm. We came back until we get some other way, and we took left and went inside by other root. There we saw around 20 dears, after seeing us they started running. Then we saw one pea-cock and one rabbit. Same things that we saw the day before. Then again we continued till the place from where there was no way, but only jungle. So we came back to our resort. After coming back we came to know that the way we went to jungle was wrong. Thanks god, we didn't see any Tiger.
And then after having breakfast around 11 am our journey back to Bangalore started. Overall I saw five animals; those are dears, rabbit, peacock, men and women. So we completed our free trip to Bandipur happily.

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

वाहनचालकांचे किस्से

"पुण्यात जो गाडी नीट चालवू शकतो, तो जगात कुठेही चालवू शकतो,' असं बऱ्याचदा म्हटलं जातं. वाहनांची वाढती संख्या, लहान रस्ते या सर्वांना तोंड देत पुणेकरांना कितीही गर्दी असली तरी गाडी चालवण्याची कसरत करावीच लागते. कारण सार्वजनिक वाहतूक व्यवस्थाही यथातथाच आहे. वाहन चालवताना अनेकदा लहानमोठे वादावादीचे प्रसंगही येतात. त्यातलेच काही संकलित केलेले किस्से. ........
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मी आणि माझा मित्र एकदा बाईकवरून चाललो होतो. रस्त्यावर आमच्या पुढेच एक प्रीमियर पद्मिनी होती. अचानक पद्मिनी चालवणाऱ्या माणसाने उजवीकडे गाडी वळवली. तेही कोणताही सिग्नल न दाखवता! आम्ही त्या गाडीवर जाऊन धडकलो. कुणाला काही लागलं नाही, पण आमच्यात झालेला संवाद असा..
आम्ही ः काय रे, वळताना इंडिकेटर देता येत नाही का?
गाडीवाला ः काय राव तुम्ही पण! अख्खी गाडी वळताना तुम्हाला दिसली नाही, मग इंडिकेटर कसा दिसला असता?
यावर अर्थातच आम्ही निरुत्तर झालो.
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एक वयस्कर गृहस्थ एम-८० वरून चालले असताना बाईकवरून चाललेल्या एका कॉलेजकुमाराने त्यांना जोरात हॉर्न वाजवून ओव्हरटेक केला. वर "कशी जिरवली' अशा आविर्भावात तो जोरात पुढे निघून गेला. मात्र थोडं पुढे गेल्यावर तो कशावरून तरी घसरला आणि बाईकसकट रस्त्यावर खाली पडला. हे आजोबा मागून येतच होते. तो पडल्याचे पाहताच ते त्या मुलाच्या जवळ जाऊन हळूच म्हणाले, ""बाळा, कितीही घाई केली, तरी गाडीचं मागचं चाक पुढच्या चाकाच्या पुढे कधीच जात नाही. पुढच्या वेळी हे लक्षात ठेव.''
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Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Who are you - Donkey A or Donkey B?

This is the story of two donkeys. There was a person having two donkeys. We can call them as Donkey A and Donkey B....

Donkey A was very enthusiastic. He always used to show that he is hardworking. He always carried more wait, walked faster so as to make his owner happy with his work.

Compared to A, Donkey B was quite lazy. He never make his owner happy. He never thought that it is needed.Whether his owner is with him or not, he just walked in his normal speed. He was not showy.

Slowly, the owner started realizing the difference between these two donkeys. A is walking faster, taking more load while B is lagging behind. So he started appreciating A. He started hitting B. He stared comparing B with A. B was not able to understand this competition, One day he said to A, " Friend, only two of us are there, then why should we compete with each other? Instead of that we will share the load. Instead of running faster we will walk quietly. There is no success in keeping others behind!!!"

But it affected A in other way. A started thinking that B has no guts, he frightened to him. He thought that, as he was going ahead and B was not liking it. So A started walking even more faster. He started taking more load.

The owner was very happy on A.But at the same time he was very angry with B. He was hitting B, but B was not able to walk faster and take more load. So at one fine day B died.

Now as A takes more load, owner started giving B's load on A. A was thinking that he is better than B. B died and he is still working. Same time owner started expecting more from A.

But this didn't last for more time. A was taking load four times his capacity. Now even trying so hard, he was not able to meet his owner's expectations. Now owner saw the difference in speed and load A used to take early and now. So owner stared hitting A. But even by trying his level best, A was not able to work like previously he used to.

Owner was bored of hitting A. He thought that A is no more hardworking. Finally he gave A to butcher and bought two new donkeys.

Moral of the Story - Software industry-

1. While working in corporate world, don't think that your fellow team members are not hardworking or intelligent. They take their part of work and hence you are getting good work.

2. What and how you are working is important for your manager. Don't use your manager to humiliate your team members.

3. Whatever donkey you are, for your manager you are just a donkey.

4. Don't do too much work. Instead of that, just do some quality work.
"Never work hard, work cleverly".

Friday, March 09, 2007

One event in Hostel.....yes, this happened with us!!!!

This has happened, when I was in my final year of B.E. Myself and Mayuresh were staying in Room no 103 of E block in COEP hostel.

One night the rector came for checking, and they came in our room......and this is the conversation between us -
Rector - So who all are living here?
Me - we two.
Rector - ok...room is maintained quite ok...But where is dust-bin.. Don't you know that the
dust-bin should be there in every room
Mayuresh - Sir, I was not aware of this, we will bring it tomorrow......
Rector - ok...give me your Identity cards, tomorrow show me the new dust-bin and take back the identity cards.....
Me - fine sir...

The next day we took the dust-bin from my friends room, the only problem was, their names were written on the dust-bin. We thought we will just show other side of dust-bin and take the I-cards and come back. So as per the planning we went to rector's house.

We were just standing at his door, with that dust-bin in hand....
Me - Sir, we bought new dust-bin, now can you please give the I-cards back.
Rector(to his wife) - aga, sketch-pen de jara, mi yachavar naav takato ( Hey, give the
sketch-pen please, I will write down names on this dust-bin).

And he went inside.
Suddenly we were in big surprise.....now what to do?
And at that point, one brilliant idea came into Mayuresh's mind.. Thanks god, the idea was really good.....
He gave me that dust-bin and asked me to go......So I left the place and returned to room.

Rector came with sketch-pen and saw Mayuresh standing alone......
Rector - Where is your friend?
Mayuresh - Sir, he got a call from some friend and he went to meet him ...
Rector - And dust-bin?
Mayuresh - oh...he went in hurry, so he forgot to give it to me.
Rector - What is this? Now come after sometime with dust-bin, and then I will give the I-cards.
Mayuresh - ok.. sir...

Then Mayuresh came to room, where I was waiting for him... Then he told me whole conversation with Rector.....Then we went to market, brught new dust-bin.. showed it to rector and got the I-cards back....

Really, Its very funny moment in my life....I never thought that such can happen with me....:-)

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Holi 2007 in Bangalore!!!

This is how we celebrated the festival of colors - Holi in Bangalore....

Thanks God that Holi was on Sunday thia year, So we got time to play holi..... One email from my friend played key role in this . He sent mail on Friday that we are going to have Hungama in NGV(the place where we stay). So everybody was eager to play Holi next day.. But on saturday nobody really played Holi outside.....so we didn't

But on Sunday, Nikhil and me went near the garden in NGV for breakfast, and here saw lot of people playing Holi... Oh we were very happy to see it. And we decided that .. Its a time to play Holi:-) We went to flat, wake up everybody..... And took two buckets of water and colour and went down( down here, because we are staying on 5th floor).

And then we mixed colors in two buckets and started playing with colors...........