« Goto Swiss Tours Part I We reached Interlaken quite late – especially by Switzerland standards – I should confess that it was quite scary to reach the youth hostel there, as it was in one secluded part of the town, and we had to walk through a road almost in the woods to reach it from the nearest bus stop. We both are vegetarians and were well aware about the paucity of (vegetarian) edible food, so we had packed enough vegetables, wafers, bread and butter from Geneva for our survival. The hostel was well equipped, and we had a comfortable dinner and slept to rise early the next day! The train to take us to Jungfraujoch was to leave Interlaken by 8 AM, so we woke up early – in fact we were up early enough to have time to look around the location of the youth hostel. However, we got a little carried away, and got a bit late to catch our train. Fortunately, the platforms were quite low and we were able to jump our way to platform 2 to catch our train! The train had a guide, who told us

I have never actually written in detail about my trip to Switzerland. Today, as I was idly browsing through my Photos collected during the UK trip, I discovered that more than half of the collection came from my 5 day trip to Switzerland. Indeed, those 5 days were the most enjoyable part of my 6 month sojourn! Adventurous as it was, I guess it is important that this blog has some record of the trip! Hemant was already stationed in Geneva when I reached London, and so the idea of planning a Swiss trip together sprouted right away – just the dates were an issue. Soon, we had finalized dates around end of July and the planning for the trip started around mid July. Both of us did online researches about places to visit, Hemant also interacted with some colleagues in Geneva for the details. Our “tech savvy-ness” reached new heights when we used MS Powerpoint to document and discuss route maps, train timetables and tourist attractions. The result – by the time I was boarding the plane to Ge

My 6 month sojourn of London is finally coming to an end – about this time next week I will be at the Sahar Airport, Mumbai. Time to recap thoughts that have crossed and perceptions that have been crystallized in my mind about London as a city, UK as a country both compared to my motherland and some of the other places I saw (Swiss). The moment you step out of the Heathrow what strikes you most is the views that loom around you - manicured lawns, roads marked with lanes, numerous flyovers and tunnels and organized boundaries. However slowly as you settle down in the city – you start noticing the cons and more subtle pros. As an 'Indian' the easiest thing to expect is that 'foreign' is a completely superlative experience to India – in that respect the biggest learning from this visit is that not everything in the west is superlative and that India has certain qualities that stand out! Anyway – this post (probably a multi part one) is about London/UK; let me come back Lon

Some flicks of my first few days in London on a Flick r Slideshow. Click here for it.

My Uttaranchal snaps are here! Enjoy them on this Flick r Slideshow or here .

"The human body generates more bio-electricity than a 120-volt battery and over 25,000 BTU's of body heat ..... What is the Matrix? Control. The Matrix is a computer generated dream world built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this." - Morpheus, The Matrix Prologue Chris Andersen has written a classic post about how the new systems of mankind - Google, Wikipedia and Blogs - follow the probabilistic principles wherein information may not accurate always at the micro level, but as the volume grows "it is likely to become more and more accurate" . Do visit the link . Nick Carr makes the humanist case against Chris by trying to build a hypothetical case that fascism is closely linked with the "collective wisdom" which these systems rely on. He even quoted science fiction writer Simon Ings: "When our machines overtook us, too complex and efficient for us to control, they did it so fast and so smoothly and so usefully, on

Well ... its been quite some time - we visited Lohagadh fort on 24th July ... considerable water has run under the bridge since then (pun intended).... and it is due to waters on Mumbai roads that I got the photos of the trip quite late. Lohagarh fort was built by the Marathas to guard the important routes on which trade takes place. It is situated near Bhaje village in Malvili, near Lonavala. It stands on a 3400 ft high hill, and the tough terrain makes it truly Lauh-Garh, implying invincibility of the fort. The fort could not be conquered by any attacking ruler, no matter how big an army he commandeered. The strategic marvel that this fort is, it is surpassed only by the monumental strategic blunder that lead to its fall. A twin fort, christened Visapur, was constructed on a hill adjacent to Lohagadh. Due to internal feuds between the then Maratha Rulers, the Visapur fort was acquired by the British with little resistance. The Lohgadh fort on the adjacent hill was then captured witho

Though we were all stranded - not by our choice - still our IRM team made it a day worth remembering... We had Dinner .. followed by ice-cream ... and then a Movie (all courtesy HR). But the arty dudes of Information Risk Management (IRM) set out with the guitar, singing all night ... There were Hindi numbers to start with - Neele Neele Ambar par, Chhookar mere man ko, Dum maro Dum, Gum hai kisi ke pyaar mein, Pyar hamien kis mod pe, Bekarar Karke hamein yu na jaiye, O sanam (Lucky Ali), .... and many more Anish De and Rahul Pinto Soon we had some great english numbers playing like - Country Roads, Piano man, You look wonderful tonight, Hotel California, Unchained Melody, Sweet Child o' mine ... and many more Lionel, Anish, Subodh Mutha, Sachin Patankar .. and me sitting And here's the scene of the movie screening which IRM was out of ... Guess I can coin a new term .. IRM - I nteresting R adiant M aelstorms .... we rocked the night for sure ...

WhatADay!!!!! It was dry enough for me to ride my bike (without a raincoat) at 8.30AM in the morning to KanjurMarg Station; it is still dry when I reach office at 9:00 AM .... the rains start at around 11:00 AM and they worsen .... by 2 PM this ↓↓ is what all roads from VT to Ambernath look like . . . . And at around 3 PM came an official mail ...... "In view of heavy rains & subsequent disruption, staff wanting to leave early may do so today. You may charge this time to ‘special leave’." People living very far and very near filtered out; but those who lived 'in the middle' suburbs could not - locals had stopped plying, roads were blocked either by water or by traffic. So here am I, at 7.36 PM with little work but still in Office. Chances are that I may not be able to get out of this place till 9 PM or even more. This reminds me of school days when we used to get a 'Rainy Day' leave. Mostly, the school bus did not come indicating a 'Rainy Day' lea

I haven't written much about my younger brother Abhishek. Well .... a fantastic person who has achieved his dream of getting into the National Defense Academy (NDA). Today he returned home (Bhopal) after his first semester at the academy. Dainik Bhaskar covered their homecoming. Below is the photograph of the occasion- I have drawn a faint green circle around Abhishek. A few words from my father also form a part of the article in Bhaskar [ http://www.bhaskar.com/defaults/bhopal_newshindi5.html ] . Dad said he doesn't remember when the reporter asked him all that stuff !! Even I had a similar experience the other day. I got a call from a college friend late night congratulating me for getting my name in the Advancedge magazine by IMS learning. I was dazed for a moment thinking when I had given an interview to IMS. It later dawned that our Press relations committee IMpress had once asked me for a quote on our placements - they had passed on this to IMS. If anyone is interested in

After I came to NITIE and saw how the alumni network is managed, I understood one of the major things lacking in BIT (my engg. school) was this. Serendipitously Sallu (Manish Saluja) one day called Shubham and told him about invisionfree forum that he had discovered and gave the idea to make it a discussion forum for their batchmates; when Shubham discussed the idea with me - we thought of extending it as a an Alumni Portal for all alumni of BIT and thus started BIT Alumni www.bitalumni.4t.com the (un)official portal for BITans. Today we have become a 500 member strong site and the largest online conglomeration of BITans. The next logical step to this venture was organizing Alumni meets in different cities. As a small beginning we organized a reunion of all BITans of our batch in Mumbai-Pune (15 turned up) but our meet has fired BITans in other cities as well for such ventures . . . its really been 'main chalta gay kaarwan bantaa gaya' for 4 of us founding members - myself, Sh

After finishing my last exam, as I was walking down from my classroom to the hostel, I had a realisation of the green cover that I have been living under for the past 1 year. (btw should elaborate for benefit non-NITIE junta that 'down' is not figurative but literal – NITIE is situated on a hill and we literally walk down from our classrooms to the hostel) NITIE is a totally different world as compared to the surrounding Mumbai. When at times I get to the terrace of the academic building or the MDP hostel the scene is nothing less than heaven!! Green lush environs and surrounded by 2 lakes on two sides. The calm and serene Vihar Lake and the spawning vegetation all around! Among the hills we know lies the film city, but forest cover hides it. Far away you see some buildings. But this is just one side; move to the other side of the terrace and you see hills covered by thick vegetation, and the Vihar Lake beyond the hills. And a third side has the Pow