Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Malnad Cycling Tour
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Mountain Biking - My first time experience
Saturday, June 8, 2013
The Green Bazaar
Attended green bazaar at park square mall , Bangalore organised by The alternative. as part of environment awareness week.
I must say it is a unique effort to create awareness among citizens about the environment.
There were many stalls displayed during the bazaar ranging from organic groceries to eco friendly toys.
To support the cause and to contribute from my side to this environment, I bought a notebook made of elephant poo.
The highlight of the event was the stage play to create awareness among audience. I simply loved it.
Worth mentioning is that, I got a 250 rupees voucher just for cheering up the performers :)
I converted that 250 into healthy organic groceries bought from green bazaar.
Lot of plans are there to change as eco friendly citizen. Let's see how it progresses.
Cheers
Karthik
Monday, August 27, 2012
Technology through Music
All it started with a official mail which said "Barcamp Bangalore 12" hosted at SAP Labs India. Barcamp Bangalore is an "Unconference", where people around bangalore meetup at one place to share their ideas and knowledge in form of presentations or as a demo.
Being an enthusiastic technologist and that too, the event being hosted in SAP where i work,my heart said to go for it. Yes, i immediately drafted a mail to the co-ordinators of the event at SAP sending my nomination as a speaker. I decided to talk on InMemory Database as i already created a slide deck for my team as part of the IIC session(Insane Innovators Club) founded by me.
Next thing i did immediately is registering myself and posted an overview of my session in the Barcamp Bangalore portal with a fear in mind on how many participants will be attending my session.
To my surprise, in couple of hours my session got the first hit, where a Database expert registered for my session. And next day i could see more than 25 participants registered and on the day before the event, a total of 89 participants registered for my session in the portal, which is very decent number compared to other sessions.This is not a comparison, i am trying to explain the fact that its purely based on the participants, they can attend the sessions of their interests.
So, the event is on next day.Since I am pretty confident of what i am going to talk and already the slide deck was there with me, i didnt put much effort on preparing for the presentation until the day before the event.
I don't know why, but always i try to be different from others let it be a presentation or the views on any other topic. And that too these days, i became stubborn enough to just follow my heart no matter what others say.The same thing happened here for this presentation too.
I sat and started thinking from 10 pm, a day before the event on how am i going to present. Only 45 minutes if the time given to me, so i should not bore the participants by talking rubbish theory stuff. Yes, there came an idea of why not running through the slide deck(70 slides) for 10 minutes with an interval of 8 seconds per slide with a background music in my BOSE SoundDock Portable system using my APPLE IPod Touch. Yeah, i imagined myself how good it will be and my mind accepted the same. Then came, what to play. First thing came to my mind was 'Nothing Else Matters' but the track will run only for 6 minutes but the slide deck is for 10 minutes.
Then came the beautiful idea of playing some instrumental in the background and the one and only choice without much thinking is Music Director Ilayaraaja's instrumental.I chosen two instrumental songs of him namely 'Ilaya Nila Pozhigirathu' and 'Ilamai yenum Poongatru'.
So all my preparation came to an end and by that time it was 3 AM on the event day. I went to bed waiting badly for the sun to shine.
That was the event day and i was all set with my Laptop bag, Apple IPod and Bose SoudDock heading towards to SAP Labs. I registered myself again at the event and also my session and then got introduced to few friends there at the event.
The event started at 9 AM with an introduction to Barcamp by the organizing commitee and finally the electronic schedule of sessions was displayed. My session was scheduled from 02:30 PM to 03:15 PM.
So, i made myself free to attend other sessions with LINUX 101 session being my first one. Wow, i cannot stop myself from appreciating this idea of Barcamp. I went in and a person is talking about Linux to which am a amateur.
I installed the VirtualBox and over that Linux Ubundo OS and tried my hands with the same all in a matter of 30 to 40 minutes.That was an Awesome experience!
Then attended a non-techie session 'Ancient methodologies to the corporate world'. Though i am not convinced with many of the points made by the speaker, it was a good awareness session which is very much required in this confusing corporate world.
Had a usual lunch in SAP and witnessed a new event called 'Techlash' where people having different ideas came and showcase the same in 5 minutes.
Then i was all set for my session and i must say it was houseful with the room occupying around 50 to 60 participants with few sitting in the floor to listen to the craps i am going to say :)
I just went in and in couple of minutes made sure my laptop and speaker is ready to project and play what i planned for and the next 10 minutes, i left the audience with the mellifluous Ilayaraja instrumental music and the Picture Slide deck giving overview about INMEMORY Database.
I know how they would have enjoyed it as i do experienced it well before the event.
And then i started explaining the stuff with the little knowledge i had and as the goal set to myself, i created the awareness about INMEMORY Database among those who are new to this topic and also got a good feedback from the participants.
Again, attended one more session on open source web development tool called 'JOOMLA' and left the venue with a goodie(Laptop backpack).
To summarize, i enjoyed and had fun as a speaker at Barcamp Bangalore 12. Got an confidence that the world is ready to listen to you if you do something different.
Never mind others opinion on how good/bad you are doing at something. Just listen to your heart what it says and follow it!
And the below human being is one of the two inspiration's for my session.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
'Nanban' da...
There is some kind of connectivity between this film and me, reason being that was the first english novel i ever read in my life.I can smell the smoke....It's not my mistake.The environment around me in schools, colleges and in my town never taught/told me to read novels.
One of the many good things i learnt after moving to bangalore from chennai is reading habit,Till then, only the academic books were known to me.
Back to the topic, to those who never read the novel 'Five Point Someone', let me give you a brief idea on the plot of the novel. The plot of the novel is on few students'friends of IIT(Indian Institute of Technology) who were the engineering graduates dying hard to score that cgpa border of 5 point something (someone).
The moral of the story was that the education system in India is still expecting the
students to score some good marks but it is not concentrating on the real purpose of the education which is encouraging the students to pursue the career of their interest.
With this plot, novel went on defining the day-2-day life of 3 students specially who were also thick friends.I really loved the novel reason being i was eager to know whats the next scene in the novel everyday once am back from novel. Good work by Chetan Bhagat.
Later in 2009, bollywood film '3 Idiots' was released directed by Rajkumar Hirani starring Aamir Khan. The film was based on the novel 'Five point someone' and the credits were also given to the author.
Aamir Khan performed his best in the ace role portraying the hero of the novel.
All the time, there was a dialogue 'All is Well' injecting the postive thought among other characters and also the audience. I have also watched this film. One of the very few hindi films i have ever watched.
After saying that, today is the day i watched the remake of '3 Idiots' in tamil with the name 'Nanban' meaning 'Friend' directed by ace director Shankar starring Vijay, Jiva and Srikanth.Believe me, Shankar is the director who wont complete the film until he shoots atleast a small scene in foreign countries.But to the surprise this film is shooted only in 'Tamilnadu' nowhere else.
The story line was the same and the screenplay also mostly fits the original '3 Idiots' except for the duration of the film which is little lengthy.
Such kind of films is also very much of required in tamil nadu to boost the motivation of the young generation.
Whether it is a '3 Idiots' or 'Nanban', the root is 'Five Point Someone' by C.Bhagat.
Hats off to him for writing such a novel which have made many students to pursue the career of their interest, LISTENING TO THEIR HEART and not to their mind.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Lets have a crazy year 2012
So, how was 2011 and how 2012 is going to be?
We everybody know about 2011 but not 2012 and that's better not to know about the same as somebody somewhere were telling that the world is going to end in 2012 which again means earth is not going to orbit around the sun for 2013th time.
Ok, lets not get into the end as we are just in the start.
All i would like to say is that instead of thinking that the world is going to end in future, let us take it for granted that the world is going to end each day when we woke up and just think of what we want to accomplish and just follow our heart and go ahead in living the way we want instead of sticking to other person's dogma.
Yes, lets live everyday as if it is going to end and just act on what your heart and mind says, no matter others liked it or not. Its our life and it should be lived by us not by others.
Its a crazy world and a crazy life, so we should be crazy enough to live in it.
Lets all have a crazy new year!
Monday, November 21, 2011
Nandi Hills Cycling trip
This trip was organized by me for my German Colleague Dr.Heiko Gerwens.
So, eventhough i have cycled sometime 6 months back, i had the hope and was very much interested to ride with this cycling enthusiast.
Once i said that we could go for a cycling trip, he is ready to drop all his schedules for the cycling. I could see the enthusiasm in cycling in his eyes :)
So, once he has confirmed the trip, the next job that came to my mind is to service my cycle and get ready with a cycle for Heiko.
After checking with SAP Roadies, finally i got a bike from Damu(my manager) a day before the trip.I went to koramangala with him in his car and rode his bike from Koramangala to Whitefield(20KM). Believe me, i cycled after 6 months and good that i reached in 1 hour and i directly went to the Hotel where Heiko stayed just for the curiosity of showing the bike to him and to check whether it fits him. Clock ticked 10' at night :). So he came and checked the bike for few minutes and he was so happy that i have made the arrangement such that the trip could be organized in a better way.
I understood that he knows about each and every part of Bike with the way he checked the bike :) Yes, a professional cyclist. Then i left home on that day.(Friday)
Next day, i gave my bike for service in Karnataka Cycle Shoppe and i got it ready by evening.Then mapped a route to avoid the highways and to stay in the outskirts so that i can take him along a route with less pollution and traffic and then went to bed at 11 PM(Saturday) hoping for sunday to come very soon after setting alarm in my mobile.
Yes.It is sunday and morning 4'15 i woke up and got ready for the trip. Reached Fortune hotel(opposite to my office SAP Labs) to join Heiko at 5'O clock.I was bit late by 10 minutes(because of locking the bike and other stuff...).
Yes,the trip started at 05:30 PM heading towards Nandi Hills.
So we started at 05:30 am from SAP Labs and took the outskirts to avoid pollution and traffic.The scenary was beautiful and the temperature was 12 degree celcius in the morning.
Since i ride the cycle almost after 6 months, my legs pleased me for the breaks for every 20 KM.I am sure if Heiko ride alone, he would have rided at the speed of 30 KM.
I slowed down his speed or to say he slowed down his speed just for me.
Almost after some 50 KM, we drunk some tender coconut water. Then we cycled further and we reached Nandi base camp at 09:15 am.
Then i asked Heiko to climb alone with his own speed not to wait for me since it is a peak and of elevation 4000 feet.After Heiko left to climb, i made sure whether the hotel down there will be available at 11'0 clock.
Then i started climbing for 1 KM and then after seeing the peak, i decided not to do the climb mainly because of Nil-Training for 6 months and considering the delay in returning back if i climb.So i got down and locked my bike in the hotel.
So pooled with a car guy to reach peak and yes Dr.Heiko finished climbing Nandi in less than 30 minutes :) I bowed my head and congratulated him for that climb :)
Then we roamed around the peak of Nandi for sometime and he climbed down(may be in record time), before i reach base camp in auto.
We had yummy breakfast at base camp. I hope Heiko liked Onion Dosa very much. He had 2 onion dosas and 1 masala dosa and i ended up having 2 onion dosas.
And then we started at 12:15 pm and i cycled following few inputs from Heiko. This time i took break only twice eventhough there were few ascents and descents were there. Yes we reached back home at 03:45 PM.
Fully satisfied in this cycling trip along with a great cycling enthusiast and a great human Dr.Heiko Gerwens.(He has got five cycles for different purposes in Germany :))
He is one of my inspirations in cycling and performance :)
Eventhough i have done bangalore-chennai trip along with our SAP Roadies-Amol, Venkat and Sathish in 22 hours and also Mysore.....i must accept that i didnt have self discipline to maintain the trainings.
Same is applicable in running also. Without trainings for last 3 months, directly ran 25KM during Ultra in 03:45 hrs.....
Resuming my cycling and running trainings from today onwards! Come what may!
Bike Details :
Me - Fomas Road King Deluxe
Heiko - Schwin Searcher
Route Map:
Google Map Route - ITPL to Nandi Hills
Distance : 130 KM
Time taken for cycling with breaks : 07:40 hrs.
My thanks to Akshay(Bangalore Bikers Club) for this wonderful route.
And a great thanks to Damu(SAP) for lending his bike for a day.
And also to Vinod(SAP) for the Helmet and to MJV(SAP) for his support!
Happy Cycling and Running!!!!