Mountain Biking - My first time experience

"There came a steep downhill.I saw Heiko in bike doing the tricks/stunts in the front and flying with it. Now comes the difficult part, the fear. I exactly remember, i was little afraid to ride in that steep downhill. One side of my mind signaled me that it is going to be tough but other said just go for it!

Listening to the other one, i went ahead and was riding fasssssssssttttttttttttttt!

And the exact next thing i remember was that i showing a big smile at my friend's face (Dr.Heiko Gerwens)."

Hello Friends.....

Welcome to my blog post titled "Mountain Biking - My first time experience".

I was eagerly looking for the day 4th of July.I didn't tell the reason right? I was going to ride with Dr.Heiko Gerwens in a Mountain Bike in a Mountain in Heidelberg, Germany. How cool is it!!!

My friend/colleague Dr.Heiko Gerwens came to India from Germany in 2011 as part of business trip and out of curiosity i organized  a bike trip for him to Nandi Hills. I must say, i enjoyed and learnt a lot out of the trip from him.

He was kind enough to invite me and organize a trip for me once he got to know about my trip to Germany. I would have been more than happy if i have accepted his proposal of trip over the weekend but i moved it to the week day evening because of other travel plans with friends. 

Finally the day i was eagerly waiting came. At around 5 PM, I boarded the train at Rot Malsch station and reached Heidelberg Rohrbach station. Heiko picked me up from there and it was hardly a distance of 1 KM to his home. After wearing biking gears, i was all set to experience the joy of mountain biking.

We went to his cycle garage(full of bikes everywhere) and he offered me the best Mountain Bike to me and took the second best.There we started!

Cycling is also a habit for Dr.Heiko along with Software Performance Tuning :)

Whether it is sunny, whether it is snowy, whether it rains, whether it is cold, he always commutes by bike to office!Wow!!!So, climbing the mountain was not a new thing to  him but it is a huge thing to me reason being i never did that. I always rode in the Indian roads never in the trails.

mountains.I was excited!

After a distance of oddly 5 KM in the roads, the real mountain biking experience started!

he taught me on the tricks of Gear usage and Saddle Position during UPHILL. With all my force i started pushing the pedals with the minimum gear in the front and i was pressing pressing pressing without showing the pain in the face :). I made a good start and was pressing hard and realized that it was not tough to climb the hill if we know the tricks of proper usage of gears, saddle/body position. Though i was not physically fit during that time due to no activities because of a injury in the right calf-bone, my mental fitness,the hopes, the positive attitude, the never give-up attitude within me made me to climb that UPHILL. I truly believe in that!

Then after some climbs in the road, there came the TRAIL. That was an another experience next to the UPHILL,like life teaching us many different experiences one after another. Trails are ok but how should i react after i see the trail path which is small enough only for one bike to ride, with one of its side covered with trees/bushes and on the other side being wide open. If you slide down there, you will directly reach the Base.It's a free ticket :)

Again i considered it has a learning/challenge. The difficulty i initially i faced here was that to ride with the suspensions. Riding with suspensions in trail(with ups and downs) needs learning for sure! Heiko after crossing major trails stopped and came back just to protect me from sliding down the hills during the ride.Thank you Heiko for taking care of me!

After some struggles with the suspensions and some more climbs, Heiko told that we have finally reached the peak of one of Hill! Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have climbed a mountain. What a feeling it was. The feel of achievement! I had some munches offered by Heiko and we took some snaps of the beautiful landscape of Heidelberg with River Neckar flowing all over!

Now, the tiredness started making me lazy. Another lesson here in life. When we achieve something great. We should not just stop there feeling proud of ourselves. We have to go further making lot of achievements! That being said, i started again and suddenly Heiko was vanished :) In the sense, it was a DOWNHILL.

I told to myself  'You have crossed UPHILL, gone through the TRAIL, DOWNHILL can be easily done. come on............). Until i started riding in the downhill, i promise i don't know what a bike ride would look like in a DOWNHILL TRAIL. The best/worst part of DOWNHILL is that, you don't have any control/minimum control unlike the UPHILL.

In life also, when we go through the struggles, we would feel like when this will get over and when we can have a good time. And sometimes, when so many good things happen in life from nowhere, it will be a surprise for us.

See, how cool cycling teaches us a lesson in life!!!!

Being said that, i started going through the downhill and to be frank initially i enjoyed flying with the bike without applying brakes as the downhill was not scary as both sides of it was covered.

Finally i heard from Heiko that we have crossed one hill. He asked me whether do i want to climb another one. We humans always wanted more right!!! So I am. I said, why not, i am ready for the second hill.

Before climbing the second one, we took some photographs and had a great view of Heidelberg from the top.Then we started the second.

It was the same experiences with the UpHills, Trails and bit of downhills here and there.

There came a steep downhill. I saw Heiko in bike doing the tricks/stunts in the front and flying with it. Now comes the difficult part, the fear. I exactly remember, i was little afraid to ride in that steep downhill. One side of my mind signalled me that it is going to be tough but other said just go for it!

Listening to the other one, i went ahead and was riding fasssssssssttttttttttttttt!

Vooooooooooooooo...............!Voooooooooooooooo..............!Voooooooooooooooo........!

And the next thing i remember what i did was that showing a big smile towards my friend Dr.Heiko Gerwens.

I smiled at him and i realized immediately that i fell down from the bike and was unconscious for some time.

I am experienced in this case, reason being, already i experienced this state during my school days while practicing a Human Pyramid Structure. Being the one to stand at the top, the bottom guys slipped off and i fell down and out of shock went to the unconscious state for the first time.

Then I asked Heiko, for how-long i was unconscious and he replied that for 5 to 6 minutes! I am sure he was worried and already tried calling a ambulance. Good that i came to the concious state!

I felt bad because of the reason that i made Dr.Heiko to worry for those 5 minutes and gave him a trouble. Sorry Heiko for that :)

Being a believer of Philosophy and Spirituality, i always believe whatever happens, happens for a reason!

I had a look at my body parts, nothing broken except with few bruises in right knee and elbow.My GoGreen jersey protected me.

And i was surprised to see a dent in my helmet in the right side. Immediately thanked God and Helmet for saving my head ! People teased me for taking my helmet from India to Germany.

Another lesson here: Never listen to small minds. Just focus on your goal and do whatever it requires to achieve and protect you.

Heiko wanted to make sure whether i was ok. So, he asked me few questions about the ride and places where we came through. I just smiled and answered all the questions :)

Then i remember we rode some 5 KM and reached home at around 10 PM and had a delicious(lecker in German) dinner along with Heiko and his family and i left the place keeping those fun and joy of the ride within me.

                              

One of the activities i was interested in,  eagerly waited for and passionate about that Germany trip was this Mountain Biking with Heiko. I will never forget this experience and it is a long way to go for me to become a mountain biker!

                                  As Forrest Gump said for 'running', i say here to all of you now.

                                      From that day on, wherever i go, i was cycling......

                                                                    Thank You

                                                                       Karthik

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

Technology through Music

I don't know where to start as i write this post after long time.

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.

'Nanban' da...

I went to watch the tamil film 'Nanban' a remake of the hindi film '3 Idiots' based on the Chetan Bhagat's novel 'Five Point Someone'.

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.

Lets have a crazy year 2012

With an another kind of experience we gone through during 2011, we have now landed up in year 2012. Yeah, all those scientists will talk in terms of earth orbiting around the run for the 2012th time.

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!

Nandi Hills Cycling trip

Simply awesome 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!!!!

It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything

It was a breezy evening in the worlds famous marina beach with a huge crowd watching the nature's beauty with their near and dear ones.
Two friends named Ram and Sam met each other at the sea shores as they usually do.Yes,which better place will you get except the beach.It is their regular meeting point once in a week.

Both Ram and Sam worked in a software company as system analyst for around 5 years, drawing a decent salary every month.Their nature of job is to write some computer programs to solve the business problems faced by the customer and they always reserve their weekends for parties as most of the software engineers do.
When they meet each other,they used to share a lot of experiences they gone throughout the week.

One such conversation happened which was worth discussing.
Hi Sam,how do you da? - ram questioned with a energetic voice putting his hands over sam's shoulders.
Ya,am doing ok da.how about you? - sam replied with a lazy tone, removing ram's hand from his shoulder.
This action of Sam,looked strange to Ram.
But he continued,'So Sam, any good news from your side?".
"Nothing Ram,i am terribly upset with what is happening in my life"-Sam opened up.
"Whats the problem dude,why you are so upset.Please share with me if you facing any problem"-ram pacified with a soothing voice,understanding the sam's mindset.
"Nothing specific da.But I am really bored with this life.Waking up in the morning,going to office,coding programs for 8 hours,come back home and sleep.The same routine happening throughout, for the last 5 years.I am sick of such kind of life.What kind of mechanism is it?"-Sam outbursted all his emotions to Ram,his only close friend.

Ram was little happy now,reason being what Sam told was already there in Ram's mind as well.But he didnt show it off outside.After all he is also software engineer right?
By then,both reached the seashore where there was little less crowd enjoying themself watching the beautiful water waves.


Ram and Sam sat down on the sands with legs folded facing the full moon in front of them and started biting the groundnuts that they bought for time pass.
“What a good atmosphere dude.Moon in front,stars around us and the water waves touching our feet.awesome right.."-replied the Ram ,deviating from the topic as much as he can to avoid himself getting along with sam's discussion.He was afraid that he will outcry himself in front of Sam.Ram is smart at times.

Actually, Sam didnt listen to what Ram has said.He was into his own boring world thinking that except him, others are happy about their life.Pity Sam,he thought that Ram was also very happy in his life without any problems but Ram knows the truth.
"Sam,dont think too much about such things.We need to face the life as it comes.It was already written in our forehead,what we are going to become and we need to just follow without deviating from the path"-That was ram's philosophical reply to sam.Yes,Ram is an ordinary common man who takes life as it comes.

Though he is also bored with work he do,he somehow got used it as the saying goes 'Initially you will hate it,then you will get used to it and at the end you will get institutionalized".

"No Ram.i am not thinking too much.I am just sharing my thoughts about life.Tell me honestly did you acheive whatever you want to achieve in life?"-Sam asked ram in a polite tone.

"Yes..yes..i am earning a very decent salary and i have a car.I am also going to purchase a home and i will get married soon.whatelse is required?.That is all i want to achieve and i am going to achive it for sure"-That was Ram's reply.
As i already mentioned,Ram is a very common man whom we can see anywhere around us.He didn't have any hard desires towards anything.He want to get settled in his life and stay in that company for life long with salary hikes and promotions.
But Sam is not like that.He had his own desires and passions for the things he love to do.Somehow he took the software profession due to the financial dependencies in his family.But his whole interests was in something else.But he hate that profession to the core.

Ram continued,"See Sam.Everybody have their own desires/goals to achieve.But sometimes we have to relax our desires and we need to get along with the crowd.If we try to deviate from others with the hope of succeeding in it,life will go for a toss."

"Sorry Ram .I don’t want to be one among the crowd in giving up the desires and passions just for money.I would like to follow a path to fullfill my desires and passions.I am going to do what i want to do.Enough is enough,i have wasted five years in doing a work which i don’t have heart for.Atleast by now i am happy that i have realized my mistake.”-Sam shared his thoughts to Ram in a very optimistic tone.

“I can understand you.But what are you planning to do”-Ram questioned Sam.
After a long pause,Sam replied ‘ I am going to resign my job’.
“What??? Are you become mad .What are you going to do after that?Did you get any other job?”-Ram fired as many questions to Sam in a shocking mood.
“No friend.I don’t want to do the same mistake again in my life. Due to unavoidable circumstances,i took this software profession. My goal is to become a entrepreneur and i am going to become one”-Sam told to Ram.

“Are you aware that you will be losing your job and moreover you will lose the salary what you are getting now.You will lose all the privileges that you got now?”-Ram questioned again.
Sam didn’t speak anything ,instead he showed the backside of the paper in which the groundnuts was packed.The paper read ‘It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.’