The HitchHiker's Guide to Udupi

One thing , being a LOCO@NITK, that I'm proud of, can boast of, can flaunt, etc etc, is that I can visit my house anytime I want.
After a Long period of hostelling, a bit of Home-Sickness started to seep in. This adding to the other obvious factors like shortage of paisa and seeing the dirty clothes stack becoming taller day by day, made it absolutely necessary for me to pay a small visit.
So I started off on what was to be a long journey; with Vinayak Kamath [ VK in briefs:)] . There was this strike. Protests against SEZ-Nagarjuna power project.The mob was headed by Ms.Manorama Madhvaraj .Noble thought, but we know that the elections are coming near, don't we? Noble , none the less.
The lifeline of DK, NH-17 was blocked. National Highway , and not a soul in sight.
A long stretch of beautiful bitumen.

The Hitch-Hiking Begins....
We boarded this tempo in full tempo. Much to our delight, the driver was tight.And he was driving Shhhteady. I sorta hoped that we didn't crash onto something before reaching Udupi.
Hardly had we warmed the seats, when the Police stopped us at Mukka, yes, Mukka; just 3 km from NITK.
So , we got down at Mukka , and seeing a long chain of trucks and some 20-30 constables , thought that it's gonna be a long day's wait.I managed to gulp down BABA's competitor- JOY Cola, and then we sat at the bus-stop waiting for some movement.
Just then , this friend of mine , messages me,"hi are u free". Here, I 'm marooned in Mukka, with no-where to go, arbit Tamil Officers [ from Rapid Action Force] telling,"they are burning vehicles in Hejamady", and so on,and I get this msg.. No wonder, I'm pissed off.So, I sent a sarcastic reply. Then I remember," Oh, she can't figure out sarcasm", so send a correction msg.
Meanwhile, things clear up.We climb aboard the same vehicle., and start off.As the pace picks up, I begin to get the whiff of burning rubber..For those of you, who're thinking , that he was going formula-1 fast, or something to that effect.... well, NO. It was from the burnt tyres on the road.
So, we landed in Katapady,and having paid monetary respects to the driver, stood there waiting/hoping for a bus.
I wonder whey they call Konkanis a minority.They're friggin' everywhere. VK started kutching, and got kutched in return by arbit three konketeers.
So, got a bus finally.It was Jam-packed.The conductor was literally overjoyed, and was a bit worried too, that he'd not be so busy the next day.He moved through the mass, making arbit jokes along the way.
As I stood on the foot-board, it reminded me of good ol' MGM times.On the way, I saw a beam of orange sun-light bounce of the river, and glide against the surface as we moved .
Man, That was stunningly Beautiful.

So, finally made it to Udupi, Safe, and without a sound.

To flick from Robert Frost...

The roads are empty,the cracks are deep.
But I have promises to Keep,
Miles to go, In the bus I'll sleep
Miles to go, In the bus I'll sleep.

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Try This....

I just came back from the class...at around 11.00 ... and, jobless as usual, put Tony [ my comp] to life...Thought to myself, 'will try something unusual today'
Created a playlist of the finest of ragas played by the maestro
Pt.Hariprasad Chaurasia.....
Raga Samanta saranga, Malkhaus, Hansdhwani etc...
Was feeling a bit dopey[ sleepy] ..Put on the playlist.... and went off to sleep...

With the notes from beautiful Bansuri, in the room...
a piece of holed Bamboo creating ethereal music....
and me sleeping..... Man, that was a awesome combo..

It wasn't sleep to be precise.... I was half-awake.....
I wasn't awake to be exact......I was sleeping....

Some People might call it a trance kinda state..... I'd like to agree...
My dreams were so descriptive.. surreal ...yet making sense.
I was writing poetry... and I could feel that this is a dream, all the while, constantly reminding myself to jot down the verses as soon as I wake up...
I don't remember the lines now, but on that day, I do remember that they looked good. Some arbit faces, some familiar ones, randomly appearing ,random scenes somehow connected like how a stage2 question finally reveals itself.

Try this sometime...The artist and genre are ur picks...Just don't pick something really loud..that's pointless.

Disclaimer: This is a random experiment conducted by an arbit professional. Please try this at Home.
And ya, it doesn't work the other way round...as in if sleep is what ur looking for, don't switch to classical....It's too captivating to let you sleep..
If a cure for Insomnia is what ur looking for, there's always Himesh Reshammiya,Anu Malik,and others.. [might have side effects though]

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To Every Man, His Own

This post is about individual opinions versus mass hysteria. Maintaining your own beliefs [be they right or wrong], Vs accepting some facts given at face-value.

This post is about Linux, and the linux movement in general.

Linux starts off in about 1991-92 by this guy name Torvalds, a modest beginning , just a small USENET boast to claim its existence. Warmly received by the developer community, the open-source elite, and the price-conscious [usually separate people].
Then , people start to realize that their good'ol UNIX skills , can be used to make tremendous improvements to the OS, the looks, the environment, and writing truck-loads of applications.Great Insight.C'mon , you've got the kernel files with you to edit. It can't get better than that.So Prophet Linus Torvalds got this step right.Absolutely Right!.
During all these times [84-2000 somewhere], there was only one famous OS in the junta's minds, comps, and in the universe[metaphorically speaking].No you Mac Losers,I'm speaking about Windows of-course.Hundreds of Faults, Thousands of Jokes, A Million Bill Gates Hate-Mails, and Billions of Dollars later, it still continues to grow strong[ economically speaking :-) ]
The main factors driving people away from the UNIX OS [ the best OS in the universe, no doubts], was the lack of a decent interface, and tougher to use than DOS [ despite what Ken Thompson said]. Sure there were some variants, BSD unix, Solaris etc, but seriously no comments about these, they are almost , if not tougher than UNIX itself, with their mindless self-modifications and needless jargons yada yada.

Fine , thousand points to linux [ the points don't matter,Please continue].

The main worry , the chief concern , this post's title is on a different plane altogether.

The main target[ worst word to use, but here goes] , of the open source community is the youth, with its new ideas , visions, zeal etc.Nothing bad about that. Fresh minds , Fresh thoughts. Cool!
The problem is that as soon as people become part of an initiative like this, they tend to impose their views upon people who are yet to see the entire perspective. Unix- Linux developers,and hackers in general, have always been associated with an air of academic/intellectual smugness.The feeling that they are the best is ok, tolerable, but to bluntly tell that others are hopeless.To tell that if you are on the other side , you must be reaaallllly dumb and so on is really not necessary. C'mon dude, give the man a chance to choose.
Then the whole issue comes up, WE ARE NOT LAYMEN! We can work with Linux in a more efficient way. It gives us more powers than Windows ever, ever did. Ok, Good For YOU.But please don't act like god-damn Linux evangelists. We've a lot of dumb prophets already.
And , if linux is good , say why its good. NO regrets.But don't cut a hundred wise-cracks about windows while doing so. It hurts. Even with the above-mentioned faults, it was still the first OS that we worked on [ lesser mortals like us, not Dennis Ritchie et al]. The emotional attachment, the nostalgia associated is really too much to shed over a small moment of ass-pride.
It's like a particular race telling we are superior compared to others.

By an independent analysis, I've come to the conclusion that , it's in the inherent nature of minorities to brag about their superiority, about the fact that they are the only ones worthy to occupy the top spot, about the fact they use propaganda to drive more minds, and make them sway to their thoughts. numerous examples in religion [ no more comments] , AMD [ vs intel], Motorola[ vs intel and nokia] and so on can be easily cited. I think you folks get what I'm trying to say.
A significant part of the open-source generation is treading on these lines.The wise have got to stop them. Stallman started off decently, GNU and other fundae were excellent ideas, a beautiful, well co-ordinated project. But now this prophet, speaks about Microsoft on terms of stupidity, about Bill Gates making references to SATAN. Is this all necessary? Can't these people spend their days just for the betterment of their brain-child projects, instead of wasting their time on such childish moments of small talk.The main intention of Open-Source , the freedom to think, the freedom to choose, the freedom to contribute, is being diluted by such meaning-less acts.
Even without all the monopoly issues, Microsoft still has carved a niche market for itself, thousands of developers who swear by it, millions of people who have got accustomed to it, and love to use it[refer MSDN ]. This is no small feat, and to deny it's capabilities outrightly is a LAYMAN's comment. Not something that you expect out of people whom you other-wise respect for many reasons :-).
So to sign off , I'd like to say that give people a chance. Boast about linux , no probs. Just don't ridicule others[ Users and OS included] .

To every Man, His own. :)

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