Surprise Surprising us !!!

"Dehradun Surprise" - Surprised US !! It was almost afternoon when we took a bus from Delhi Bus Terminus, to Reach Dehradun !! I was told that we would be in Dehradun by around 7hrs (I dont remember the exact duration). It was Me and Arindom rottening in the bus, almost the last seat. He told me that we could have boarded a better bus that could have been more comfortable - which made me presume that the journey will not be as good as I expected it to be. We had a plan - a prank(the Mission) We had not informed any thing about our arrival to Arindom's family(to give them a Surprise!!!).

On the way - there were fields, fields and more fields... I guess they were all Wheat or sugarcane or.. who knows - I am not that good in farming.. - well then, the main thing is that it was cold.. terribly cold.. I had never ever in my life of 20 years experienced such a harsh climate..(no wonder why North Indians are fair)..even the hottest summer is bearable - not such nerve breaking cold !!!

The site of most villages enrouting Dehradun appeared difficult, they differ a lot from a typical village in the south. There were quite a number of small towns that we had to cross, a thought of how my life would have been if I were to be a citizen of such a town/village, made me realise that I am blessed and gifted to what I really am.

We managed hearing a few hindi tracks on the radio channels of Delhi for around 1 or 2 hours. I was getting bored - couldn't sleep, I think I over slept before the journey. I passed my time exploring the unfamiliar engine that runs on Natural gas(ofcourse not literally - was experiencing vibration less journey of the clean fuel) - believe me people all the Autos(rikshaws) and buses run on natural gas in the capital (which came as a surprise to me), gazing at all people who got in and out of the bus regularly.

At one point of the journey, (a drama) - The Ticket checking inspector boarded the Bus and started checking the tickets from all the passengers - he caught around 5-6 people without tickets(ofcourse we had purchased our tickets) , who claimed that they had paid the money to the conductor and it was the conductor who didn't give them the tickets. The Bus was stranded for around 30 mins, all the passengers demanded the bus be not stoped any more. The Inspector had no choise but to let the bus go, He took the Details of conductor and reprimanded him.

It was mostly plains and a little of ghat road in the end(which I didn't like - I love mountains but not travelling in a bus on the curves). We had to cross few(around 1 or 2) tunnels as well. I had felt that the destination would be atleast 1 hour away, to my surprise the bus ceased and I got releaved of tiring bus journey, Arindom reacted late and recognised the bus stand. I was at shock, I had a feeling that I was in some Hilly tourist place. I was smoking frosty air (fumes in my breath - ha).

[For those who want to get to fact directly- READ HERE]

It was quite late, around may be 10:00 PM (not sure of time, but late at night). We were thinking of what to do for dinner, Arindom invited me to dine at home, but I insisted that his parents didn't know of our arrival and it would become difficult for his mother to cook at night and at such a harsh climate. We then searched for a toilet, for which one had to walk a few hundred meters in to the bus stand shed, the freezing temperature was so harsh that I felt It(censored) will turn to ice, the bus journey kept us warm all the way(the engine heat) - while travelling I even had the feeling of sitting on the engine to warm myself up - ha ha.

After refreshing ourselves, we heeded to a Tandoor shop, near the bus stand, we had hot roti's and some dal (Arindom should know the name) - already I was hungry, and the good hot food was the cure. We were now prepared to make the march. I asked Arindom to call his parents and tell them that we would reach their home the next day afternoon, he spoke to his brother (who seemed to laugh). Arindom predicted that his brother has come to know about the plan. We then called Sunil to know more, he told us that he has revealed every thing to Arindoms parents - err.... er... all the plan that we had made was in vein. We hired a Share Auto (they call it - "some crazy name i dont remember-- yeah yeah.. VIKRAM - (not tamil actor anyway)"), to reach a bus stop, and from there we took a bus to reach the mighty FRI (Forest Research Institute) campus. There Arindom's brother was waiting with his machine, we were two in number, he took all the luggage with him (I have faint rememberence of what happened then) and we ran behind- to reach the home (I think I was in the scooter.. what ever...), Arindom's parents received us.. it was such a happy moment for Arindom and me too, to get into home and save myself from frosting my fingers due to scooter ride (most daring thing is to ride a scooter in winter at dehradun). There was fire place were there were coal (charcoal). It warmed us, I had a sigh of relief and enjoyed the hot glass of milk that Arindom's mother made. And retired that day under lots of rugs and sheets over me on the bed(forgot to mention the water bag).

Not exactly caught by the Cops - that night !!

Riding the Police Bike !! Movie at night - ride unwanted - destination beach - cops chase (ofcourse not literally) they stopped - and then............ (soon)

We had been to a Night Show Cinema at Ega Theatre, Kilpauk, Chennai. After enjoying the movie named Jannat (which is romantic - Blackmail), We were out discussing our plans for rest of the night, well actually morning (after 23:59 - it becomes 00:00hrs next day). We rode in bikes over the bridge opposite Ega and on the way decided to hit the beach, we hoped we could enjoy cool breeze in the shore. It was me, Bharani and Sunil as the pilots in three bikes that were roaring fast, no no Flying Slow (sorry - copied from a car). We had just passed the Ayykar Bhavan, where I was warning Sunil of riding bike without license, which he ofcourse never bothered and sped up under the Anna Flyover (Also known as Gemini Flyover). Shock was waiting right after the flyover, something made us slow, dead slow, we sited a police check point, Sunil was enquiring if we were to turn and fled the place, Which We decided to drop and surrender. The police made us get down and demanded License, RC and Insurance etc., Of the three jets two had all the papers including the . The third vehicle had none of them - The person Who had neglected my worry sometime before, Sunil was the victim. The police had found their pray for the night. They were asking us to surrender the vehicle to the police station and asked us to bring all the documents (which were resting in the room) and claim the same with an apology letter latter. We were running behind them and were getting used to their usual shift. The two cops who had caught us, kept us waiting, while they were doing their routine checks on alcohol/suspision to all the vehicles that were passing by the deserted Mount Road.

They had also managed catching an IT professional, riding a Car who was under moderate alcohol. He too was begging the police the way we were trying to, and somehow he managed to convince one of the police to be with him on the car ride, to show that he was alert enough to ride back home without an accident.

Taking advantage of our situation the police made us to move the barracks(the separators) away from the main road, to ease the traffic flow for the busy day to follow and wanted us to ride a Bike of theirs(of the person who had gone with the IT guy) back to the police station.

He asked Sunil to get into the Police Jeep, but latter made Arindom to get into the Police jeep(which he must have surely disliked - though he latter bragged to be the Real DON), this was because he had told the police that he does not know to ride the bike which he actually does (and even has a license) to avoid further trap by the police of letting Sunil to drive though we had one with proper license with us. He made me to ride the COPS BIKE - YELLOW in color (Model CENSORED - he he), What a Feeling it was - We all were enjoying every moment of that time - FUN ULTIMANTUM, I must say - A POLICE FOR A SHORT RIDE. Sure Arindom should have felt too bad to be in the Police Jeep like an Arrested Culprit, he too made himself confortable, and was posing as SRK from inside the jeep, which we were following, this time four bikes following the jeep. Three were ours and one was the inspector's, who had gone with that IT professional, which I was riding and on the other bikes were Lokesh, Sunil and Bharani.

We reached the police station and parked our vehicles outside. It was probably the second time I was to enter a Police station (the first time it was for Passport verification). There was an ATE (not the past tense of eat - dont know the exact spelling - but in films it sounds "ate" -just now Dad said it is Head constable (head ayya becomes "ate"ayya in tamil.. ha haa)), in the station. We were made to wait inside the change room near the Culprit's Cell (the Jail), on a long dining bench. Nobody could believe that we are inside a police station. The constable asked us to feel comfortable and switched on the television kept there for entertainment ["we VIPs"], well latter the constable regreted that the cable feed was not available (we did forgive him for the betraying TV !! he hee - did we guys ?)!! Then the "ASK" rocked again with photo session and laughter challenge (well refer my project blog titled "the ASK phobia") in front of the police station (we dare the most daring things - we were never sad at such a pathetic condition and still enjoyed).

Later the Inspector visited the station, He sure was surprised to find his station crowded, and after knowning us he begged us for an interview. Questions were never bounded, right from interesting questions about our residence which gave the ambience - the atmosphere that made, these brilliant talented engineers - to - EVERY THING..There was never an adultly interview of revealing the colour of our briefs anyway (the known will understand better!! ha ha isnt Guys ??).

Should say the Police station was quite active. There was a vigilance personnel visiting the station, who was some superior officer. I felt the Tamil nadu Police department was good enough (a few claim they near scotland yard - ha ha)!!

We soon became friend of a constable, who narrated his story of why he couldn't become an engineer like us (which we were not in a mood to listen- and were bored). He cracked a few jokes which was soothing. He adviced us not to travel at night because it becomes risky with all the trucks and other heavy vehicles owning the road at such times. He tried to explain the way back to our home - which I hardly understood, I just nodded my head, and bid him good bye.

It was ultimately a pleasurable experience and I guess a never forgettable one. If one would ask me 'whether I would go to a police station for filing a complaint ?' my answer would be Yes - atleast the police station were I had gone was friendly and co-operative.

The way back home was memorable - with blank roads all over, the bikes thronged fast. It was sunil with me and others in other bikes, we split in anna nagar, they took other route. We spent some time searching them and then decided to get back home as soon as possible to avoid any further confrontation with police.

We Zooooooooooooomed ........

Making my presence in the WEB

The Web Hunt I miss my hostel days - my after college internet hours !!!

When I lived in Lord Balaji Hostel (Vel Institutions), Chennai, I was urged to find a space for myself - no no not in my room, in the wide web of Internet.

Nothing has facinated me as Internet - It lets you communicate with the world. A space in Internet - your personalised - your design - your thoughts- your style and your content !! Was I looking for a Space to Blog ?? not really if it lets me to just write (okie type) about things that I feel.. not really if It let me post photos also... not really if it gives me lots of designs also to choose from. I wanted a space for myself, that had orginality in design, that made the visitors praise "THIS IS A WEB SITE !!!" - I wanted to dazzle everybody who visits my space(the website).

I learnt about Geocities (a Yahoo! group), Where one can build websites. Before learning to build website/s, something that made me attempt the same was an e-marketting site of some gadget, in which the registered user was invited with his/her name on the page defined by a short URL (unbelievable then). I was talking about this to a few friends in hostel who were excited to hear about a web having my name in it, so was I, Then began my actual Web HUNT !!

Yahoo's Geocities was my first website building tool with the URL, which was not small that I could easily tell - like say "krishna.com" instead I had to tell 'geocities.com[slash]krishna_takk[shalsh]main.html' and so on so forth, which is difficult for anybody to remember or type. I hence wanted a URL that was simple, I searched the web whenever I used to find time regarding short URL, something like "takrishna.com" (krishna.com was already taken). Latter I found that such small URL's are known as domains and domains were sold by companies. I then started searching domains and many websites had quoted the price of the domain which when I calculated in Indian Rupees, was around 1000/- which I felt is not worth investing. Then my attention diverted towards Free Domains, which again, I could not find it easily, I had to struggle searching all the search engines like google, yahoo, and what not. to get the link of Dot.Tk, which is a free domain provider with [.]tk as the extension instead of typical [.]com, [.]org etc,. I registered my domain as http://www.takrishna.tk and this happens to be my web address. Right now this blog would be seen in that web address. I intend to make soon, hope my interest revives for the dazzle/s.

Latter on I discovered Google's initiative on web development and was lucky to try "googlepages" that lets us host website at an ease, without needing to wait for the page to get refreshed while uploading the pictures/files etc as in Yahoo's geocities. Now Google happens to be my hosting partner. Hosting is the act of publishing the pages, ie making file/pictures(that u upload) available to the world throught short URLs which you may use in your HTML files to get the required page.

When I was into this web learning and Building process, I came accross lots of sites that provided free codes, and lot of online picture making and editing sites, which had occupaid most of my after college Internet hour/s, that was regular thing to me in first year.

My obssession for search of web space kept me going.....

I am not a Hacker Yet !!!

Every one wants to become

a Hacker - so did I !! My little discovery I have always wondered about Hackers and wanted to become one... !! It was those days when I was facinated with things that are secret, Days when I had joined the Community of "HACKERS" (he he in orkut) and came across a case of Hacker from India, who had reportedly found a loop hole in a leading Banking company's Web - (it was hot news in TVs).

Inspired from such a case/s I started to read on a few posts on few hacks that people had already made in Windows XP eg, to enhance the speed or change the parameters or put your name in the start button etc. Which were quite not that much a hack for myself, and I had almost decided that only big and great programing geeks (like my friend DeepakJO) can become hackers and not ametuers like meeeee.....

The luck :

I was lucky to find a genuine loop hole in my college web. While I was investigating, the mechanism of session tracking on users of my college website, by making simple experients, I suddenly discovered that the page can open even without the password (mere LUCK), and that the exact page of interest which hosts the marks of the students (semester marks, class test marks, attendence details), which most of the students find useless, could be accessed with out their consent, I mean with out their password (hurrah !! - Eureka !!). And thus I started to brag, on what I could do with such a system, I played tricks of knowing the guys password though I actually didn't and tried confusing them and getting myself confused.

Well for a few who would like to try it out..

Step1: log to velmultimedia.com

Step2: Give your VM Number Eg, vm1384

Step3: Press the Login Button without entering the password

Step4: You should now be in a page that alerts of wrong password, right in the address bar change the last "s3.asp" to "newmen.asp"

Step5: Congratualate Me !!! he hee

Right now the site is of less use latter this could be important - I have seen the Library reservations and ORR and what else mushrooming on that site (though it might take generations to be fully functional). I had infact alerted the Planning Cell about such a loop hole, they seem to take no action.

Have u insulted somebody like this - Humour

The ASK* Phobia -" We didnt want to Laugh " !!! * - ASK team - [Arindom - Krishna - Sunil]

It was in Delhi that me and my friends Arindom and Sunil had been to do our final year project. We had to travel every day in world class metro to reach our destination - Staff Training Institute ( AIR & DD - Ministry of I & B) to start off with our work.

The first day (I doubt if it was the very first day) we were waiting in our Guide's(he is DGM Technical) cabin - discussing and trying to understand as to what for we were in Delhi ? and were trying hard to find out the project title (which we didn't know till then, nor did our Guide knew and anyone else in this world knew). Amidst our discussion we heard the door creek open, there stood a Gentle - (surely some big shot in the office) fair - tall man of around 50 years(and may be little more) gazing at us in surprise, so were we looking at him.

He Came in to learn about us - We introduced ourselves as Students from Chennai and that we were there to make our project.

He asked us some thing and the very next moment I broke out Laughing - so did my beloved friends!! read on..The man had enquired "if we were form IIT Madras" - May be he got impressed with the talks and hype that we made - But thinking of our actual state we broke out laughing !!! (Well guys, I forgot - I/We are students of a typical Engineering college in Chennai).

I could not see him getting insulted right away in his office that too for the compliment that he made to us (no one has ever had a praise for Me like that ever before), I tried.. I mean I just TRIED hard to divert the topic by pretending to scold my friends not to make me laugh -but was in vain - they broke out laughing more on my comments and unsuccessful pretending drama.

The Man would have felt very sorry for praising us, and with the behaviour that we gave him, he would have got it convinced that we can by no way be IITian's !!! Surely after that incident he will think for more than 10 times whether to question or praise somebody!! ha haa

If by anyway the Man I refered has read this post - a Big Sorry to you Sir !!

Similar sessions occured when actually, we should have felt sorry for not knowing even the basics of image processing, broke out with laughter, Pity on our Guide who seemed like wondering how is he to make us do a Project!!

Well guys we know about basics of Image processing atleast now !!

ASK - if we really know it ??

What is it about being with a friend who is looking a gift for his girl

In streets to find the right shop quite interesting isnt ??

It was a good evening, very cold (atleast to me) and very energetic when we all had started off. Our mission was to look for a good gift, that a friend of mine wanted to purchase.

Till that day I used to think that buying a gift is very simple and easy - I thought getting into some gift shop and buying the best that u get from there is sufficient enough - I was wrong and when it is buying some thing for someone whom u think is special - I was proved even more wrong. Even after roaming around the market till the shopkeepers started doubting if we were terrorists making plans to blast up their shops, my great friend felt if it would be good to try some other shop. I just felt like kicking him right over, well it takes some time for the souls who are with the desparate and needy (this case need of a good gift) to understand them, I too took some time and decided to help him find the right kind of shop and right kind of gift for him... alaast we found the shop - we found the gift rather the shop, of the kind he badly wanted. I felt releaved and relaxed seeing it, we went in and enquired, after seeing the gift, he changed his mind and was looking for some thing better than what he had thought till now as the best - It was only then I realised Man wants More - Man always wants More than what he dreams of - and it is this desire that powers the growth and encourages to work - well I too had to work this time - with my beloved friend on day 2 when we left out to spend a complete day in search of a single GIFT !!!!

mission to continue....

The very first thing that some soul (dont remember who it was..) asked me to blog about..

My views on GOD

Does Someone/Something called GOD really exist in this wide World ??

[What ever I am to write here is not against any religion/custom/community etc.. etc.. these are only my personal views not meant to hurt any one or convert any one to atheism - well still would give a statutary warning !! ]

Most of us get convinced by the fact that god exist in this world right from childhood. Has any one thought of what it would be if no one had ever told us about God, about so many moral stories that I and you are so keen to listen. I feel none of us would have ever known about it, and may be freed from all stupid customs - practices - beliefs that dont really make any sense. Did i say "dont make anysense", well they do make some sense (latter).

Humans, when born have very few things in their mind, the basic things of survival are embeded in their Genes/DNA's such as breathing, moving muscles etc. It is the other fellow humans (in most cases their parents and grand parents ) who are responsible for most of their thoughts.

As a child, apart from needs of food and comfort, fear is some thing that one has to overcome to strive. Fear of getting hunted by creatures, getting hurt, Fear of New things that they perceive, etc. are prime concerns for a child. Humans have created a Imaginary power to end such fears - which they call GOD. They use god as a tool to make the child get accustomed, by encouraging him/her to believe that there is some power to gaurd them against all such fears.

Human mind is very inquisitive, just as other creatures in this world, they want to know about every thing that is around them. Some times it becomes very difficult to explain about certains things to amateurs and poeple with lesser knowlege or basics. for example, if a child questions on " why the Sun is yellow?? " it is very difficult to explain him/her the concept of entire spectrum, then difractions and refractive indices etc. and make him/her understand, but instead if we say him that a POWER CALLED GOD, has control over it and it is because of him that it is yellow in color the child understands it, as they are made to believe God has control over every thing in this world. Ofcourse in due course when the child grow up, he gets to know the fact and reason behind why it is yellow - about the Hydrogen spectrum and all other phenomenons that govern our SUN. This is the SECOND NEED for humans to forcibly induce the concept of GOD to humans.

When ever Humans have not understood something that happens around them, they have brought in the concept of GOD to end the debate on it. This culls the innovation of smart Human brains, infact in olden days, people who opposed religion were killed mercylessly, only latter to understand that it is Science that controls the world and the physical laws are upon which the world is based on and not the laws of religion.

to be continued.....

ask team @ Capital

kRiShNa KumAr

TaKk Place : Chennai Native : Madurai Nationality : India Studies : Engineering !!