Pune -> Ahmednagar -> Pune

Bike : Thunderbird Twinspark (Solo trip)

Distance : Round trip ~300km

Date : 23 and 24 Oct. 2010

Average driving speed : 55kmph to 70 kmph (Pune to Shirur)
75kmph to 95 kmph (Shirur to Ahmednagar).

Road condition : SH60 is Mostly good - 4 lane road, excellent condition after Shirur

Lessons learned (Got some tips from my riding Guru - Harshad Sharma):
1. Using TBTS's front disc break efficiently
2. Engine breaking - breaking using gear shift
Also learned few very good photography techniques from Harshad :)

I started from Pune (Kothrud) @ 2pm, it took quite time for me to cross city traffic and touch Nagar road (SH60). Nagar road is 4 lane road (and luckily also has road divider)

Till Shirur there is lot of industrial development, one does not get feel of highway. People driving from wrong side, villagers coming suddenly from fields is common on this highway. Once you cross Shirur/ Supe road condition is great. I touched 95kmph first time on this beautiful road.

I went for quick visit to Harshad's house in evening and next day went to his home again @ 9am. I got to see very beautiful photos of his Leh-Ladakh trip on his 32 inch Mac screen.

We went to a place called Candbibi's makbara. I learned good many photography related tricks from Harshad there. Aftewards I took delicious lunch at his home and then started my return journey to Pune.

Sharing few photographs here -

Inside of Chandbibi Mahal 1

Harshad Sharma

Chandbibi Mahal

Chhat of Chandbibi Mahal

Captured By Harshad using my S5IS

Pune - Kalamboli - Pune quick trip

Day : 15 Aug. 2010

Shrenik / Me / Shrenik's friend

Bikes : Thunderbird Twinspark (Me and Prajesh)
           Thunderbird Twinspark (Shrenik and his friend - forgot his name)
Distance : Round trip 264km
Average driving speed : 65kmph to 80 kmph (Pune to Kalamboli)
                                     55kmph to 70 kmph (Kalamboli to Pune) = in day time traffic increased.
Road condition : Mostly very good (I would say excellent)
Lessons learned :
1. Take break if you are tired... there is very less difference between driving of tired person and drunk person :)
2. Use indicator while overtaking

Note : quality of photos is poor - taken using my Nokia E63

I started from home very early - 4.45 am :), met Shrenik at Wakad chowk and started for Kalamboli @ 5.10 am (we both reached the spot earlier than decided 5.15 am).

This was my first experience of night (early morning) riding. As compared to my earlier ride experiences, NH4 is completely different experience. Thanks to Shrenik for teaching me few riding lessons.
From the start itself we were riding quite fast, mostly the vehicles around were heavy vehicles (and some very very heavy vehicles). In the early morning there was very less traffic and we could maintain speed of 70kmph + almost throughout ride.
We reached Lonawala @ 6.15 am - the view of Lonawala was very beautiful

Beautiful view from Lonawala 

Glimpse of NH4

On the way...

Road condition is mostly good - while going to Mumbai, ghat section is not much difficult to drive. We reached Kalamboli @ 8 am. There we met our friend Harshad Sharma (who went as a journalist with RE trip on NH17).

Harshad Sharma - aka Hiway

Another good thing was we got to see so many Royal Enfields in a row!! (and almost all varieties of them) -

Royal Enfields !!

Royal Enfields !!

Our return journey was equally good (except the traffic we experienced in Mumbai). In return journey the ghat section is little difficult to drive, the turns are sharp and you have to climb a lot. We took some photos near Lonawala.

Huge container

Monkeys

We reached home @ 2pm, that was a real quick trip :).

Memorable ride to Bhimashankar

Day : 01 Aug. 10

Left to Right => Girish, Ashish, Suhas, Jyotish

Bike : Thunderbird twinspark (me and Jyotish), CBZ xtreme (Suhas and Girish)
Distance :
Kothrud Stand to Sadhu Vaswani Chowk to Bhimashankar(Pune => Chakan => Khed => Chaskaman => Wadi => Bhimashankar) : 124 Km
Note : There is turn immediately after Khed/ Rajgurunagar ST stand if you want to go by Wadi/ Chaskaman road - ask the local people for directions.
Bhimashankar to Kothrud Stand (Bhimashankar => Ghodegaon => Manchar => Chakan => Kothrud stand) : @ 124 Km

Rain : Almost throughout journey, medium thunder showers.

Road condition is mostly good - advantage of Chakasman road is less traffic and
 great scenery

Road condition : Mostly good -
Chaskamam - wadi road condition is good and
road via Ghodegaon is also in good condition. (This road is broader but has much more traffic as compare to Wadi road)

Lessons learned :
1. Do not stretch schedule too much.
2. Do not keep distance more than visible range from fellow bikers.

Extra caution : Do not rely on mobile or phone network. You may not get any opportunity for telephone communication in 20-30km radius from Bhimashankar.

Thanks to many blogger users who have written good information about Bhimashankar and the roads. Thanks to almighty god Mahadev for making our ride safe.

I started from home @ 7.10 am - reached to Jyotish's home (near Sadhu Vaswani Chowk) and then we two reached Bhosari to join our friends. Instead of planned 5-6 riders we were only 4 - others did culti.com :P. We started our journey @ 8.30 am from there.

We thought it is only 80km road from Bhosari - so we were not worried about schedule. We took first break at Chakasman-dam. The dam site is beautiful and probably it was just trailer of the beauty of mother nature ahead.

Second major stop was near Bibi-gaon. There is Swayambhu temple of Mahadev. Girish told us that the mandir (temple) is good and lets visit the temple on top of hill. The temple is really beautiful and one can get superb view of the region from this location. Good thing is the sadhu-baba in the temple allowed us to take photographs :).

Swayambhu Mahadev Mandir

Chaskaman dam - taken from Swayambhu Mahade temple

Another photo of Chakasman - taken from Swayambhu Mahadev Mandir

Photo of road - taken from Swayambhu Mahadev Temple

Afterwards we went to Girish's cousin sister's home. His sister gave us tea and prepared delicious lunch. I think this is first time I have taken lunch in proper village home (home with farms around). By the time we started for our planned destination - it was 2.30pm and Bhimashankar was still 32Km ahead. We thought it as 30-40 min journey.

We travelled 10Km or something and we were unable to find our fellow bikers Girish and Suhas. Mobile networks were not working!. We then started for the ghat (which is little difficult from the wadi side - I think the one from Ghodegaon side is different ghat and is easy). The scenery around the ghat is very beautiful - most of the ghat goes through forest area.
We waited again in ghat section for Girish and Suhas but could not get them :(. Finally we decided to reach temple. When we were @ 10 km away from the temple it was @ 3.20pm time but it feeling like it is 7pm. Because of clouds there was very less day light. There  were boards around informing the animals found in the jungle area - includes bibatya (leopard / panther). I was using my TBTS high-beam light but could hardly see anything beyond 5-10 meters (no wonder my judgement went wrong on 1-2 turns). I was really afraid - thanks to Jyotish who convinced me that nothing is wrong lets go!

Om Namah Shivay - Bhimashankar temple photo from one of my earlier trips

We reached temple @ 3.45pm. I wanted to call home and asked there for coin-box phones but even those were out of order :(. There was unexpectedly very long queue for darshan. We waited in queue till 4.30pm and hardly reached upto chappal stand (I was convinced that we wont get darshan unless 6pm). I convinced Jyotish to start for return journey - we were still unable to find Girish and Suhas.

While coming back - it started raining heavily - somehow the road was very clearly visible (mist was almost completely gone!) and we really felt like Bhole has blessed us. The scenery around was heavenly beautiful, there were high green mountains around. I could see at least 3-4 waterfalls in those mountains. Some mountains were covered by clouds and it was wonderful experience to see this scenery. One could also see one dam in valley. In my opinion this road from Ghodegaon side is easy one it afterwards connects to NH50. I would still say that it is worth riding from Wadi road at-least once.

What happened to Girish and Suhas => Somewhere they took wrong road and went to Bhorgiri instead of Bhimashankar :).

Ride to Shivneri

Date : 18 July 10
Bike : Thunderbird twinspark (with me), Discover 125 (with Chinmay)
Distance :
Home (kothrud stand) to Shivneri : 104 km
Shivneri to home : 102 km (different / better route)
Road condition :
Pune to Chakan (NH50) (@ 40km) - Good
Chakan to Narayangaon (NH50) (@50km) - Good (but does not have divider)
Narayangaon to Shivneri (@15km) : Not so good (but there is alternate good road - which we missed while going)

Shivneri - One of 7 gates - I think this is first one

Difficulty level for Shivneri : Easy - has got stairs, even old people can go easily
Lesson learned : You need good helmet on Nasik highway

I am enjoying holidays from 16 July to 9 Aug. Rather than joining new company immediately, I thought utilizing these holidays for fun will be great idea.

First of all thanks to Harshad Sharma who helps me in planning rides.
This time my ride was not exactly solo - I had company of Chinmay Kanitkar.

We started for Shivneri @ 6.30am from Bremen chowk. Road till Chakan is quite good (but not so good as NH4). Khed ghat is beauty! - we got to see a small lake/ dam and a lot of jungle around. We took break after crossing Khed ghat and took some photos - the view is amazing.

Again before reaching Peth you will get one small ghat. I did not understood when it started - just when it ended reading the sign for "ghat end" I understood I was in ghat section :).

Taken near some ghat ...

Caution : There is no divider after Rajgurunagar, traffic rules are not respected in this region. Please make sure than you are driving safe, bus drivers / regular transportation vans almost do not care about lane rules.

After Narayangaon we followed signs for Shivneri - the road is in bad condition. Most of the road has not got layer of tar. It is mostly kachcha road. While coming back somehow we found alternative road which is quite good.

Shivneri fort is another picnic spot like Sinhagad, you can easily get safe parking there. Government has probably invested good much amount on this fort. Stairs are in good condition.  I could see a lot of cement work done recently to preserve the old construction. I do think that government could have done better job by using old construction materials but... OK at least they have dome something.
We did not see any hotel for getting lunch @ Shivneri, but there are many locals selling tea / lime juice and chhaj. Water is easily available on the fort. There are lot many things to see, few notable ones are
 - Shivai devi temple
 - Shiv janmasthan
 - Kadelot tok
 - Badami talav
 - There are 7 gates which are worth watching - each one has got separate name

Shivai Devi temple

Birthplace of Shivaji Maharaj

Amberkhana

Shivaba and Jijau

Birthplace of maharaj from long distance (see left)

Kadelot!

Badami talav - not sure

Road - taken from Shivneri

Fields as seen from Shivneri

View around the fort is beautiful :)

Near Narayangaon if you are interested you can see few huge telescopes.

We returned home @ 5pm.
One special caution : Use helmet on Nasik highway, my helmet glass is in bad condition - there were lot of insects / Kidas and what not coming thought helmet on my face.

Happy Riding!!
Ashish

Goodbye Delcam

With dreams of exciting future and with sad mind for missing friends/ colleagues, bye bye to Delcam (Pune).

When I look back - these ~2.5 years spent at Delcam are the most exiting days in my professional life. Though there are many reasons for which I liked Delcam, one of the prime reason was the lovely company of my colleagues. Almost everyone at Delcam is unique and great in his/ her own way.
In these 2.5 years there were numerous debates on our lunch table and numerous parties which have made permanent and beautiful footprints in my memory.

I was pleased to work with these highly talented developers in Delcam.

I would try to scribble some short memories about everyone who was part of our lunch table group

Girish 
Giru, Girya, **** and more **** are the few names I used to call him. He troubled me a lot in the beginning. He used to give me miss-calls. My poor brain took almost 2-3 weeks to understand Girish is the one troubling me :). Thanks a lot Girish for all coding related help you did in the initial tough months. You made me smile many a times and I will miss our chat conversations full of *** - I hope you will also miss it :)

Chetan
Dude, Geek Verma, Be**da Chetan are the few other names for him. My tapri partner, exceptionally intelligent and equally helpful dude. He developed DST - orkut like internal  forum for us, we enjoyed using DST and it was really innovative thing. He added fun to work by developing betting site for IPL and similar activities. Most of the times your philosophy used to go few kilo-meter above my head, but I enjoyed listening to your ideas.

Suhas
Su, Curvy (Walase) Patil are few other names. HaPpY go lucky dude in Delcam. I never saw him much worried about anything. I will miss your PJs and jokes. Do upload your videos playing guitar on youtube.

Amol 
aka Amul :) You provided me up to date knowledge about the headlines of all leading Marathi and English news papers :). Amol is exceptionally sincere guy, I think he took hardly 3-4 leaves in past 2 years. He writes tons of code everyday. Dude please please please - start enjoying life. I will miss our debates on almost every topic. I appreciate your memory - how do you manage to remember minute details you have read in articles!

Nikhil
Ever happy and enjoying dude. We two were almost always the first ones to run for lunch :). I am sure you can try modelling besides coding :) Even SRK will be amazed looking at the number of possible styles you can give for photos :)

Kapil
Unfortunately I did not get to work much with you. You are great singer. Thank you for starting good activities like session on design patterns.

Heta and Kartika
I can not write about you two separately :) You two do most of the things together (Including birtday parties!). Even on lunch table you two have jokes which others don't understand :)
Kartika, Till date I never got to see that Bollywood dance video. Sadly with me one vote for CPK (City Pride Kothrud) is gone :( 
Heta, Ms cool, enjoy your work and let others enjoy theirs is probably your mantra of work. Till date I have  not got your home-made  pav-bhaji :(

Neha
You type really very very fast. First thing I remember is our initial debates! It was fun having debates with talented girl like you. Neha is also very good singer. It feels wonderful to remember that I had state topper and limca book record winner colleague :).  Thank you for motivating us for eye-donation.

Gayathri
aka Gaya3, I did not know for long time you are also great artist, your paintings are amazing! Hope you keep updating your art blog. Probably only God knows how many dishes you are able to cook - all of them so great in taste.

PunyaToya
aka Punya, Meaning Holy (Punya) Water (Toya), your parents gave you perfect name. I always felt very comfortable to share good and bad memories with you. It was fun learning few Oriya words from you :), I think everybody enjoyed trying those Aau (Ou) based pronunciations. You and Neha gave great treats at home, thanks a ton to both of you for all those treats.

I can not complete this post without mention of DevRaj
Devraj
Artist!! Unfortunately you were not part of our lunch group. Working with you was great experience. I think everyone should learn "how to work" from you. I always admired your passion and dedication for perfection. Thanks for designing this blog's header - I am going to ask you more! Best thing is I get the quality work absolutely free!!


Friends I will miss you all. I hope I will get good colleagues in future also :). I hope you also liked working with me. I know you people have already forgiven me if I had hurt anyone.

Wish you all "All the best" for whatever you do in future.

My first long ride experience :)

I took thunderbird on 22 nd April 10, since the day I took this bike - I wanted to go on long ride :). I drove 200 km in first 3 days and there came shock 'I had to wait for first servicing for ~15 days', there was no other choice but to cancel the long ride plan :(
I got the first servicing done on 11 th this month. None of my friends were ready to travel on week days :(. I had to go to Nrusinhawadi for first long ride (it is temple of Shri Nrusinha Saraswati), finally after some thought  I decided to go alone.

I left home on 12 th May 6.30am, for safety I took one extra clutch cable with me.

I must mention here that NH4 is pleasure to ride. The road is mostly in very good condition. I think this was the first time for me to ride through tunnel - Katraj tunnel is 1.38 km long and I could not believe that 35W light which comes (by default) with thunderbird is hardly of any use there :(. I was worried about crossing Khambatki ghat, but actually when I reached there I did not notice when I entered Khambatki ghat section and when it was over (I mostly used 3rd and 4rth gear - rarely 2nd was required). View from Khambatki is really good :).

About 12.15pm I reached Sangli - finding hotel was not that difficult, Ratna International looked quite OK to me. Food was really superb and very cheap. Room rents are OK but rooms are not great. I took some rest and in evening I went to Nrusinhawadi, the road to Nrusinhawadi is again quite good - mostly it goes through farms. The parking boy gave me permission to park thunderbird in car parking :).

Next day I left for Nrusinhawadi (2nd visit) @ 4.25 am, reached there around 4.50am the kakad arti (early morning prayer) has just started. One suggestion : now there are good hotels in Nrusinhawadi (I did not know this earlier) - try to avoid Sangli hotels (if you want good service then try hotel Ambassador in Sangli).

I started back for Pune around 8am. Because of sunburns on hands, it was quite difficult for me to drive after Satara (11.30 am). There is hotel by name Mahendra executive in Satara - I tried all orders "Veg Biryani / Dosa / Curd rice" for every option waiter told me please try Idli sambar in our hotel. Finally without asking me he bought Idli sambar???. I left that place and started journey back to Pune. I forgot to remove goggles before entering Khambatki tunnel :D (@ 838 mtr) it was real adventure for me till I finished that tunnel :).

Thunderbird gave me unbelievable mileage of @55-60 kmpl on hiway :). I did not face any oil-leak problem in this 600 km ride. Now waiting for next ride.

I had done one Konkan ride with friends few years back (that was on Bajaj boxer) and one to Shirawal (on Bajaj Caliber), but riding on thunderbird is totally different joy altogether. I missed friends in this journey :(, next time it would be great experience if I get company of friends :).

Happy thumping :)

Before you cry for help!

Let it be office, let it be home or let it be some other place. Many times we ask for help without understanding actual problem. I am trying to write here some generic steps, which can be used before asking someone else for help. I do understand that sometimes it is unavoidable and better to get help from other person than trying out things yourself.

Asking following questions to yourself might help -
1. Have really understood your problem?
Many a times we do not understand the problem itself. Understanding the problem ourselves sometimes makes the problem simple to solve without anybody's help. For other person, it is much easier to help if you know what exactly you want.
If you ask others problems without understanding it - then be sure that you are going to waste your as well as your helper's time.
E.g. Few days back I was discussing one problem related to OpenGL on one of forums. It was regarding the unit of time measurement. The person who had asked this question did not understand that her problem was not related to OpenGL but was related to API provided by operating system. I had to ask her for source code to give proper suggestion.

2. Have you tried some simple experiments?
Many times it happens that your question is really difficult but, sometimes rather than getting solution to existing problem you can try out some simple experiments -
 a. Try using alternate solution for the problem.
      - e.g. If  your bike is not starting. You have tried kicking it hard 10-15 times. Now wait!! do check if all ignition switches are on. Do check for fuel supply. Check for spark plug. Dont waste your efforts by kicking harder and harder :)
      - This method is particularly useful for software developers as well. Many times they get stuck on some algorithm and they put all energy and many hours in fixing problem with this algorithm, where as sometimes simple solution is rethink over the algorithm - might be there is easy alternative :)
 b. Try to see if someone has already solved similar problem
      - Many a times we waste time on developing algorithm for the solution which already exists. In such cases it is useful to use 'grep/ find' command before getting into developing complex algorithms. it also helps you to find right person to ask for, and some idea about right questions to be asked :)
      - For problems like "how to make tea", you can use Google or some search engine before asking for help.

3. Are you prepared enough to ask question?
Now suppose all the above methods failed. You have no alternative but to get help from someone. You should do following checks before going to that person
  a. Exact description of problem (be specific)
     - You should be specific about "exactly what is your problem". Do not confuse the person by talking about wage problems.
      e.g. You might want to know how to install operating system on your machine. When asking this question you should be specific about - hardware of your machine, name of operating system, 32 bit or 64 bit ...
  b. Exactly what is your requirement 
     - I am not repeating 3a here :). 3a is about conveying what is exactly your problem. 3b is about clearly setting your expectations about the solution.
       e.g. If we take same example as 3a - you should be specific about whether you just want to know how to do this operating system installation or you want that person to install this system on your machine ...

Hope this is helpful (at least it will be helpful to me in future :) ). If you have any suggestion please comment. I will keep updating this post with suggestions.

Shame

Scene One:

I am waiting for traffic signal to go green (already late for appointment). 10 seconds to go for signal, two blind people are trying to cross the road with each others help. Signal goes green - people try to find their way around those tow - I follow.

I cross 10 meters and feel very shameful, still my mind is not ready to miss the appointment. One old man stops his scooter and helps those blind men.

Scene Two:

I am quite late for office. Signal goes green, an old man raises his hand and starts crossing road. I find his action very stupid and drive my way cursing him (in mind). After 10-15 seconds I feel shameful, in 5-10 years my father will be of same age.

I hope next time I will realize this 10-15 seconds before thinking about getting late.

I was lucky that in these both cases nobody met accident, but next time my 5 mins help might give me peace of mind.

Ayn Rand's philosophy

Hello friends,

I think many of you might have read at least one novel of Ayn Rand. If you have not read any of her works - do read it! Mostly people know her for "The Fountainhead" or "Atlas Shrugged". Like many others I am fan of Ayn Rand and I am proud to write that I have read almost all of her fiction books (I have hard copy of all 4 novels). -
1. The Anthem.
2. We the Living
3. The Fountainhead
4. Atlas Shrugged
5. Night of 16th January (this one is not novel)

In most of these books the central theme is there is "A hero". Her hero is generally some kind of inventor or highly intellectual person and he is fighting with the incompetent world around him. Mostly the hero has to fight with the incompetent people because the world thinks that "Strong men are bound to help weak men" and not only that, they think "it is their duty to do so for their brothers".

Rarely I have seen importance to heroines in her novels. Surely "Dagny Taggart" has strong role in Atlas Shrugged but otherwise mostly the heroines do not fight in her novels (at least to the best of my memory she does not describe their direct fight with the society).

The pledge taken by the hero of Atlas Shrugged explains her philosophy quite well - "I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

I started reading her work with Atlas Shrugged. This book had enormous impact on my way of thinking. For some period of time I almost adapted John Galt's personality :) (God help teen age :D).

On today's date I do not totally agree with her heroes. I do think that it is wrong for any weak in this world to think that the strong has got responsibility to help them, but I do think it is fair for the strong to think that let's take care of the weak elements in the society.

Rarely there are people who are strong in all aspects. Most of the others (including me) are good in some things and are weak in others. Rather unlike her heroes when I say I am strong in some field then it just means that I am competent enough. Not something like I am the God of that field. Though I have dream that I should be able to become master of some field in life.


One of the things which I do not appreciate in her books is some kind of magic happens which gives her heroes victory over the incompetents. Like the concept of Valley in Atlas Shrugged and the world coming to its knees because of it. I do see this in society that many a times competent people get less than what they deserve and incompetent ones sometimes get things without reason. But it does not mean that incompetent people rule this world. Nor do I think that all the incompetent people should be slaves of the competent people. I think like me 99.99% people in this world have competency in limited area and probably only 0.0001% people in this world might be totally incompetent to do a single thing. I think society mostly works based on give and take, but I equally think that without love and brotherhood the world can not go far neither it would have survived without these elements till date.

I would have really appreciated her novels in even in a single novel her hero had got child and she would have written some good amount of details on how children are raised in that ideal society. Also I do not get answer to question that what kind of society will this egoistic people will create? How will they face natural calamities without brotherhood? How will they survive from animals (if no society exists!). Also I do not understand how much happy the woman in this competent society will be, if the hero rapes heroine to express his love/ possession to her.

Please do not take this post as criticism against Ayn Rand. I am not trying to take role of Ellsworth Toohey, I am trying to post my confusion in accepting her theory in total. If you have not read any of her books then I will recommend you to read at least one (The Fountainhead). Her novels surely make one think about oneself, her writing style is surely one of THE good styles and pages of her novels do give you some insight into yourself and they way you look towards society. I know there are people for whom Ayn Rand is the only God (though they are atheists!!) in this world. For me her writing tells me that do not accepts things unless your intellect accepts it. Do not take anything without intellect, even if it is theory coming from Ayn Rand's novels.

Aal is Well!!

Hello friends,

Just for today Aal is well!!


At this moment Aal is well!!


When you think situation is bad - remind your self - Aal is well!!


If you think "All is well" then it is!

Think Aal is well so that you have situation in your control - rather than your getting controlled by the situation.

So remind yourself every time - "Aal is well"

If this is not sufficient - listen to song Aal is well from 3 Idiots :D

Let's be HaPpY

Let's start with a broad smile - this is must before reading next line.

One again smile please!!

Hope your facial muscles had good exercise.

Whatever the situation our attitude should be HaPpY. Being happy gives us strength to face negative situations and it gives us drive to move further with the success (or any other positive moments - happy attitude adds momentum to those positive moments :) ).

I am trying to write here some points which will help us all remember why being HaPpY is important. Actually we all know these facts, thing is sometimes external situations or internal state of mind makes us forget these simple to understand but important facts.

Why should we always be HaPpY?
1. We gain more energy in the things we do. When we are happy many a times we think of crazy - creative ideas.
2. When we are happy, we spread happiness like virus! i.e. we being happy makes the environment around us grow happy
3. Happiness is also reciprocative. If you make 10 people happy probably 4 of them will make you happy in return.
4. Probably God likes happy people. When you are happy you love the world around you i.e. you appreciate the beauty in the world God has created. (atheist friends can replace word God with Nature ;) )

Having reminded why we should always be happy. Let's look at the reasons why we should not be unhappy?
1. You don't gain anything being unhappy
2. Unhappy attitude brings complaining nature, with unhappy attitude even if you pray 100 times a day to God, you might sing the songs to tell God how great he is, in reality every now and then your mind thinks about bad things in the world. You do not respect the good things God/ Nature has given you.
3. Unhappy attitude make the environment around you dull.
4. With unhappy attitude you repel friends and loved ones (at least in long term). People do not like company of people who make them unhappy.

Let's find infinite reasons every-moment to be happy about. Let's make the environment around us grow happy. Let's every-moment think about making our near and dear ones happy. Let's live the journey called life acting as a happiness spreading virus!!

Let's end with a big smile again :).

Yogi Baba's Assembly class

After last leave in December I resumed work from January. Now work is so much that I could not even think of taking single leave till Feb. end.
I have joined Yogeshwar (Yogi) Sir's class to learn assembly language. This class is really a different experience. Most of the students are older than the teacher :).
Earlier I thought he will start the class with typical "Hello World" program, but to my surprise he started with how computer works :). Many things were new to me. When he taught us difference between C and Pascal calling convention I really felt ashamed for not knowing this difference after working for ~4 yrs (I knew it theoretically but that was almost 'mugging up').
It is a fun to attend Yogi's class. Most interesting thing is anybody can ask question at any moment of time. The question may not be assembly related (but if Yogi knows it, you will get answer!). The discussions sometimes completely leave the course work and end up in discussing things like how fork() call works :D. To add somehow the lighting arrangement in teaching room is such that we have to use one tube-light and one bulb - which gives the environment feel of some 'geeky-magic' is being taught here.
Initially timing was decided as Sat 8am to 10am and Sun 8am to 11am. till date class never finished before 1pm and most the the times it went up to 1.30pm :). Other interesting things I learned the were binary operations, segmentation and paging, hardware components in computer and their functions...
Next time if you want to register for any class do ask teacher, what is s/he going to teach - syntax or concepts :D. Assembly language's syntax is also interesting. Writing code is assembly is like giving instructions to 2 yr old. You need to specify most of the things - otherwise results can be unexpected :) (mostly error :)).
The class is not finished yet, few more things that will be covered are static and dynamic linking and then implementation of data structures using assembly language.
I am really tired now. Have not got single day for rest from 2nd Jan 10 and will not get it till end of Feb. Now I am stuck in between workload, assembly homework :D and study I started on my own "Windows operating system".
Saddest thing is I have not done any trek for past 3 months :(.
I hope Yogeshwar will start class for some new subject after few months and I will again experience such busy schedule. I like learning when it is fun!

Break for 1 month :)

I wanted to take long break from daily routine life for quite a long time. In April 2009 I told this to my colleague and tapri partner Chetan at least 10 times. What a boring life - daily routine for everything is fixed. Get up at fixed time, get ready for office at fixed time, daily follow same route, come to office on fixed time. Do the same work everyday, almost same things happening everyday.
I was desperate for a break. I did not dared to ask for 1 month leave for long time, at that time I was the only person working on my project. This project is quite like a baby for me and every-time I thought about applying for long leave, guilt and feeling of giving up responsibility did not allow me to do so.
Then in August 2 developers from UK joined my project. I finally dared to ask for 1 month long leave. Leave for complete December was approved!! (Thanks a ton Jesus Christ for having your birthday in December).

I was very happy in the August when leave was approved. The enthusiasm was so great that the OpenGL book I planned to study in December got almost finished over weekends before November, Also the work tasks which were pending got finished at quite dramatic speed.

What did I do in December?
I wanted to visit Shripad Shrivallabha temple at Kuravpur for quite a long time. My first and foremost priority in December was to visit this temple. It is beautiful place near Raichur (Karnataka). Thought it is one of very important temples of Shri Guru Datta, being located at remote place there are very few people visiting this temple. I really felt good after visiting this place. There was no hurry for finishing the trip quickly. When we go to spiritual places with calm mind, we could really enjoy the company of God.

I spent most of my time in December studying book "Advanced Windows - by Jeffrey Richter". This is really amazing book and a must read for any Windows application developer. After reading this book I was really puzzled why was I taking salary of software developer for past @4 years without even knowing ABC of this windows world (I have worked most of the time on windows based development environment).

Whenever I used to get bored from studies I went for short drives with my good old Bajaj Boxer. I went to Hinjewadi almost after 2 years. I tried to take bit different route this time - to my surprise at about only 2km distance from TTIL office there is huge agricultural area (yes near IT park phase-1!!) and it was really surprise for me to drive 10KM along that road.
On working days if at all I go for morning walk - I generally go @ 6.30am and come back before 7.30am, in this leave period I used to go for walk @ 8am. I the kind of people who are on road dramatically changes in this short 1-2 hour time. It was fun to watch people around at these irregular timings at every place (otherwise most of the times - the places of your existence at given time are dictated by clock and work).

I read one of 'the' good Marathi book in this period - it is "Jagachya Pathiwar - by Sudhir Phadke". This book source of inspiration for fighting against odds, for learning lessons on patriotism, it also has some good lessons to learn about the attitude of forgiving people knowingly with open eyes. After reading this book, now I like Sudhir Phadke as a person, as much as I like his Geet Ramayan.

It was also fun watching detective series of Agatha Christie on youtube. She is genious, it is difficult to predict the exact criminal in almost all her stories.

In all, December 2009 will be very memorial month in my life. It was full of fun, new experiences travel and following my own heart. Finally I joined back my company on 4rth Jan 2010. From this experience I surely think that it is worth giving time to yourself when you really need it.

Cheers!!
Ashish