The promise that realized a million dreams

Before I start off with this blog post about the Tata Nano, I would like to assure you that my next blog would be a non-automobile related one to avoid boring you (I will try hard to stay off the topic for the next few posts). If you're not an automobile fan and/or you are not interested in the world's latest heart-throb, I suggest you stop right here. Don't read ahead. However, if you are a potential Nano customer or someone who has not been able to follow the news and latest buzz about this car called the Nano (and assuming you want to know more about it) then read on and leave me a few comments so I can improve the quality of my posts :) . I also take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy Ugadi. May the year ahead turn out to be the most prosperous and joyful for you! Here's wishing you all the very best!

Back to my blog now, well.. where do we start off with regard to the Tata Nano? Seems to be quite a difficult and long story to trace, doesn't it? After all the delays and controversies plaguing its launch (remember the Singur episode which put Tata behind schedule by almost 6 months), it finally happened on March 22nd, 2009. I still remember watching the unveiling of the Tata Nano way back in January last year on the TV, at the 9th Auto Expo, 2008 held at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi. Speaking at the unveiling ceremony, the chairman of the Tata group, Mr. Ratan Tata said, “I observed families riding on two-wheelers – the father driving the scooter, his young kid standing in front of him, his wife seated behind him holding a little baby. It led me to wonder whether one could conceive of a safe, affordable, all-weather form of transport for such a family. Tata Motors’ engineers and designers gave their all for about four years to realise this goal. Today, we indeed have a People’s Car, which is affordable and yet built to meet safety requirements and emission norms, to be fuel efficient and low on emissions. We are happy to present the People’s Car to India and we hope it brings the joy, pride and utility of owning a car to many families who need personal mobility.” And so began the journey- to build the world's cheapest and most affordable car- The Tata Nano.

Ratan Tata at the unveiling of the Tata Nano, 9th Auto Expo, New Delhi, January 2008

Those words meant a lot. They said it all. For everyone out there who was criticising and cursing the fate of luxury car brands Jaguar and Land Rover for falling into the hands of a 'Sub-standard Indian company which had little or no brand value' (the international opinion of Tata Motors till last year), this was a befitting reply. Ratan Tata has gone where no car-maker has gone before. Just to achieve the feat of building that tiny engineering marvel at the cost of a 2-wheeler and to present it before the world required guts- not only to put tons of money into such a project and believe in his own engineers' efforts, but also to realize that the company could actually make a profit by selling that car at that low rate. This speaks volumes about the 'Mega' amount of planning and engineering effort that has gone into the 'Nano'. I will speak about the cost saving methods involved in the production of the Nano and how Tata has managed to price it so cheap and still earn some bucks out of it; but let's put that off till later in this post.

As Ratan Tata said, "A Promise is a Promise" (referring to keeping the price below 1 lac rupees). As of March 2009 the Nano (cheapest variant) was priced at Rs. 1,23,000 (ex-showroom Mumbai), cheaper than the Maruti 800, its main competitor and next cheapest Indian car priced at 1,84,641 Rupees. It has an 8 percent smaller exterior size but a 23 percent larger interior space compared to the 800. If you have any doubts about its interior space and the comfort it offers to its passengers, rest assured you won't be disappointed. However, the major turn-off would probably be the lack of boot-space so that virtually eliminates the possibility of a family of 4 driving away on a weekend holiday with their baggage. But the Nano wasn't built to be a weekend getaway car. Where it does exceedingly well is in the city. The City is where its home is. And most of its buyers are bound to be either urban dwellers looking to buy their first car (and hone their driving skills), those wanting to shift from their 2-wheelers to 4-wheelers for safety reasons (as Ratan Tata himself quoted) or rural folk who want to be able to afford a good car to use in and around their homes.

A picture below shows the interiors of the Tata Nano. Sure, it doesn't look as swanky as the cockpit of an Audi A8 or Mercedes S350, but hey it does its job pretty well! The centrally mounted console houses an analog speedometer and a digital fuel gauge and tripmeter. Seems like a pretty basic layout.. but at this price, who's complaining?

Tata Nano Interiors

Before we move onto further aspects of the Nano, let us take a look at the technical specifications it puts forward to us:-

Tata Nano Technical Specifications

Make: Tata
Model: Tata NANO
Body Type: Hatchback
Number of Doors: 4
Seating Capacity: 4

Fuel Efficiency

City Mileage: 20-25 kmpl
Highway Mileage: 26 kmpl
Fuel Capacity: 15 litres
Fuel Type : Petrol (Diesel Version will be introduced later)
Fuel Injection: Multi Point Fuel Injection (MPFI)

Engine and Physical Specifications:

Length: 3100 mm
Width: 1500 mm
Height: 1600 mm
Engine: All-aluminium, Rear Mounted, Rear Wheel Drive
Capacity: 623cc twin cyliner
Power: 33PS @ 3000 RPM
Torque: 40Nm @ 4000RPM
Emission Norms: Euro-IV, Bharat Stage-III compliant
Safety Norms: Frontal Crash Tested
Versions: Std, CX, LX
Gearbox: 4-speed manual (+ Reverse)
Wheelbase: 2230mm
Ground Clearance: 180mm
Kerb Weight: ~ 600kg

Extra Specs

Acceleration - (0-60 kmph) - 8.42 secs

Top speed - 105 Kmph

Colours: Red, White, Blue, Gold, Yellow and Silver

If you're wondering whether the Nano comes with anything other than 4 wheels, a cheap chassis, cheap seats, a steering wheel and accelerator, clutch & brake pedals, you are mistaken. The equipment list on offer is way beyond what one could have anticipated when the car was announced last year this time. Take a look at some of the goodies the 3 models carry with them and I promise, you will be shocked.

Tata Nano Standard:

• three colour options
• single-tone seats
• fold-down rear seat

Tata Nano CX:

• five colour options
• heating and air-conditioning (HVAC)
• two-tone seats
• parcel shelf
• booster-assisted brakes
• fold-down rear seat with nap rest

Tata Nano LX:

• five colour options
• heating and air-conditioning (HVAC)
• two-tone seats
• parcel shelf
• booster-assisted brakes
• fold-down rear seat with nap rest
• complete fabric seats
• central locking
• front power windows
• body coloured exteriors
• fog lamps
• electronic trip meter
• cup holder in front console
• mobile charger point
• rear spoiler

Compare the feature list on the Nano LX and the Maruti 800 base variant, which is around Rs. 30,000 costlier and you will find that this package is more attractive at Rs. 2,00,000.

Getting down to the technical specs, at first sight, you might wonder how on earth you would end up getting 25 km to a litre of petrol- sounds marvellous doesn't it? After all, it is the world's 'Most Fuel Efficient Car'- another feather in the cap of Tata. The trick to this is having a rear-mounted engine. The engine itself is 623 cc in displacement and the car weighs just around 600 kilos. The power to weight ratio is hence almost that of a normal road car. It is definitely not an arrow in character but it serves the purpose of getting from point A to point B in city traffic. And that is all you will ever need. No questions asked. The rear mounted engine meant that the boot would be shifted to the front. Not that you could call it a boot, though. It is just a storage space for the spare wheel (stepney in common language) and also accommodates the fuel pipe. Very thoughtful, but inconvenient if you're considering a luggage transfer without affecting interior passenger comfort. But hey! you can't have your cake and eat it too.. And especially so at the price of 1 Lac Rupees!

The front bonnet houses the 5th (spare) wheel

Though currently, all the 3 models of the Nano will run with the 623cc MPFI petrol engine, speculations are on the rise that Tata will soon introduce a Diesel version, most probably a smaller capacity Multijet Diesel engine which it will garner access to, from its Indian JV partner Fiat Motors. Tata has plans of exporting the Nano's diesel variant to other markets even before it hits the Indian roads. Remember the phenomenal success of the Fiat Multijet engine in India (in the form of astounding sales figures of the Maruti Swift DDiS). Even the new Indica Vista is powered by this Multijet engine but its sales figures have shrunk, thanks to cheap build quality and other performance, refinement and quality issues that have always bugged the Indica since time immemorial.

The 623cc mill of the Nano produces 33PS of power, mated to a 4-speed synchromesh gearbox, which should be quite sufficient for manouvering in and out of our city roads and the horrendous traffic. You can't expect to beat a Ferrari in this car, but this is more than what you can get at that price-point. As mentioned earlier, the power-to-weight ratio offers quite a competitive bhp/tonne figure, which should brush aside all fears of being stranded on a slope or some such imaginary situation you could think of, where the lack of power could pose a problem. But the power problem would be non-existent as long as you stick to the city. Or maybe I missed out a point. With 4 people in the car and the A/C switched on, the car would definitely grunt, snort and protest when the throttle is floored. But I doubt you can expect much more from a 600cc engine. It offers a decent top speed of a 105 kmph, although how soon that speed figure will come up on your speedometer is another question ;-)

A very small turning radius of 4 meters makes it probably the most manouverable car in the country (or perhaps in the world). I was a bit taken aback during the press launch when I found that the feature list of even the top end variant (the Nano LX), did not include a Power Steering. However, the reason for this is- the front of the car is not heavy (unlike other cars which have a front-mounted engine assembly) and the lack of a power steering wouldn't really matter. The steering is supposed to be extremely nimble and responsive. Where the lack of the power steering will show, is only during tight U-turns, requiring more effort from the driver.

Space-wise the Nano doesn't disappoint. It easily seats 4 people, and the 5th person could be squeezed in too, albeit with a little difficulty. Safety and emission norms are adhered to, according to the company statements. It seems to have passed most Crash tests with good ratings. (Otherwise how would you expect them to be able to export it to European countries? ;) )

The Interiors are quite spacious

The car is currently being manufactured at Tata Motors’s Pantnagar plant in Uttarakhand. The dedicated plant for Tata Nano is coming up at Sanand in Gujrat which is going to be ready by 2010 and will have an annual capacity of 3,50,000 cars.

Earlier in the post, I had promised to show you how the Nano achieves its cost saving methods and still be a profit-maker for Tata Motors. "A promise is a promise" (a.k.a Ratan Tata). So here they are :-

• The Nano's boot does not open, instead the rear seats can be folded down to access the boot space.
• It has a single windscreen wiper instead of 2
• Some exterior parts of it are glued together, rather than welded
• It has no power steering
• It's door opening lever is much simpler

Made-in-Germany components - Some components of the Nano are made in Germany by Bosch, such as Fuel Injection, the Brake system, Value Motronic ECU, ABS (not present on Indian variants) and other technologies. As I speak now, Tata is carrying out rigorous testing on the Nano, to find out more areas for enhancements to produce a better product.

All right now. I have been harping and harping about the Nano for the past 1 hour. So I take it for granted that you are obviously overwhelmed at this instant and you are interested in booking for one right away. So how do you go about purchasing the Nano? You see, it is not that simple (yet!).

Firstly, you will need to buy an application form for Rs 300/- from any of the following locations between April 9th and 25th, 2009. There will be exclusive counters where you can purchase the applications. Most of these seem to be showrooms of the Tata chain of products (barring SBI).

1. Select SBI branches
2. Tata Motor Dealerships
3. Croma Outlets
4. Westside stores
5. Tata Indicom Exclusive Stores
6. World of Titan Showrooms

After filling up the form and attaching the relevant documents with the application form, you will need to submit the form + documents at those places (almost same set of places as those where you first bought your form) between the 9th and 25th of April, 2009. You will then be required to make a payment for the booking amount as follows:-

The booking amount for all the 3 variants will be the same throughout India:

Tata Nano Std : Rs. 95,000
Tata Nano CX : Rs. 1,20,000
Tata Nano LX : Rs. 1,40,000

The Ex-showroom prices at Bangalore look like this for the 3 Nano variants (add around 25,000 to 30,000 to these prices to get an approximate on-the-road (OTR) cost of these models)

Tata Nano Std : Rs. 1,31,028
Tata Nano CX : Rs. 1,59,027
Tata Nano LX : Rs. 1,79,278

Tata has tie-ups with a few financial institutions and banks to provide the facility of a loan with EMI payback, for those who want to avail a loan to pay the booking amount (and for the car cost itself).

Now assuming that is also done, there would be millions of chaps out there like you, who would have done the same thing. So how does Ratan Tata satisfy everyone and keep up his famous 'Promise'? Simple... read on... A computerised lottery or lucky draw is carried out within 60 days of closing of the booking window (60 days from April 25th, for the first batch) and the first 1,00,000 successful applicants are handed over their respective allotment letters. These lucky buggers would be the first 1,00,000 owners of the Tata Nano in India. If you're not lucky enough to get through the first lucky draw, Tata promises to get the allotment done in the second batch of shipments for these 'retainees' to prevent unlucky guys from waiting infinitely. It also gives 8.5% of interest (per annum) on the booking amount, to those unlucky ones. Should you get impatient by the time the first lot arrives (and assuming you are not in the first 1,00,000) you always have the option of getting a refund of your booking amount and cancelling the application (I wonder though, why someone would want to do that when they are promised an allotment in the following cycle and an interest on the booking amount for the waiting tenure)

In a nutshell, the Nano is one hell of an engineering miracle- to be able to put together this entire package and sell it at such a cost (When did we last see a more practical solution to all our commuting woes?)- which is why everyone wants a piece of cake from this segment of the market now. Bajaj is planning a cheap car in collaboration with Nissan-Renault sometime in 2010 and Maruti plans to slash prices of its existing base models such as the M800 and the Alto, to compete with the Nano. I am sure there will be many more competitors to follow Tata. This is one instance where Tata has proved its engineering superiority to the world. Agreed, neither can the Nano be as refined, well-built and trouble-free as a Toyota, nor can you expect it to compete with a Honda Accord in luxury, comfort or reliability. But at that price point, it is way too tempting for anyone to resist giving it a second thought. One last word- God save our (already flooded) roads once the deliveries begin!

So when will YOU be booking for a Nano? ;)

Note: I have written this blog post based on some information sources. However, if you have any suggestions and/or corrections in the information or statistics that I have put up (if it is wrong in some areas), feel free to leave me a few comments and I would gladly correct those parts.

Hope you enjoyed reading this post! :)
KK

Fedora 10, one of the finest Red Hat distros ever

Being a passionate fan of the Fedora family of distros, I couldn't resist bragging about Fedora 10, the latest release from Red Hat. With the success of Fedora in Linux distributions, Fedora 10 is perhaps the most anticipated operating system from their library. A faster and advanced distribution is what is proposed by them. Fedora 10, codenamed Cambridge, released on November 25, 2008. So before you go on and download this new Fedora version, let me give you a detailed idea about what benefits and changes are there in Fedora 10.

Features

Fedora has many a project finished or in the queue for Fedora 10. It is a mammoth project and obviously unimportant to take all of them out here.

1. AMQP (Advanced Message Queueing Protocol) Infrastructure

This is perhaps one of the biggest package that has been implemented in Fedora 10. You must be wondering about AMQP, right? AMQP is a technology that makes it easy to build scalable,high-performance enterprise applications. Its primary aim is to create create open and interoperable messaging. Though the application is not visible to you and as a user you can always question why it is so important, I have some use cases for you, who will benefit from AMQP enormously!

• Reliably deliver value bearing messages (fire and forget; you can absolutely trust AMQP to get the message to its destination once receipt is acknowledged by the transport)
• Rapidly deliver status events to a large community (publish sub-event notification)
• File transfer (secure, can be resumed, firewall friendly, and dependable)

I hope now you know about the efficiency of AMQP.

2. Better Printing

Printing and configuring the print set up has always been a problem with open desktops. And Fedora 10 has improved upon just that.

• The configuration tool window is simpler. Double-clicking on a printer opens a properties dialog.
• The list of printers are updated dynamically while the configuration tool is working.
• You can see an individual printer's job by right clicking and then selecting View Print Queue. Again, you can see all the queued up jobs from all the printers by right clicking on any free space in the folder where you have printers' icons.
• A diagnose button is there as a troubleshooter if at all your printer gets into trouble.
• Job monitoring tool is also there to display an authentication dialog so that the job can proceed.

So you see there are a lot of subtle facilities that Fedora 10 offers to make your printing experience better.

3. Better and Faster Startup

Fedora 10 developers have intended to make this operating system look shiny and glittery right from when it starts so to do this they are getting rid of RHGB and writing a new program, Plymouth, that starts earlier (even before / is mounted!) and gets pretty graphics. But Systems without driver supports also have a text mode fallback as an alternative.

That might make you a little suspicious about the speed of shutting down and starting up. But don't worry, Fedora 10 has improved and fast start up now. And they say 30 seconds is all it will take. Sounds awesome?

4. Better Remote Support

Fedora becomes easier to use in media-center scenarios where a remote control may come handy. With better LIRC support that helps it easy to connect to remote controls, infra red remote controls will be just fine to work with media applications.

5. Improved PulseAudio

The PulseAudio sound server has been rewritten to use timer-based audio scheduling. With this one Fedora 10 comes on par with Apple and Windows Vista. The main benefits that you get from this are,

• Lesser wakeups, reduced power consumption
• Dynamic latency adaption with flexible options.
• Less dependent on audio hardware
• Minimized chance of drop outs

6. First Aid Kit

Well, the name may seem funny but it is an automated recovery tool that brings together common recovery processes and applies them to a system. It is more of a plug-in that focuses on maintaining user data integrity and lets you revert the faulty changes. So that makes it easier for users to rescue their systems in case of problems. You can either choose Fix whatever is wrong with my system which works as a comprehensive chkdsk or you can select a specific process.

7. Kernel Modes Sharing for Graphics

The title itself may disinterest you. But believe me it is not that. In the words of Fedora's own developers,

Currently, most graphics modes are initialized during the X server startup. Kernel Mode setting moves this process from the X server's DDX drivers to the kernel, and it enables several new features including:

• Improved Graphical Boot
• Faster fast user switching
• Seamless X server switching
• Graphical panic messages

So basically user switching will be faster and smoother, making Fedora more pleasant for non-technical and casual users. Memory management will be better overall.

8. Remote Virtual Settings

It is another very important feature of Fedora 10. Its more than what meets the eye. This feature enables creating virtual machines on properly configured remote hosts. In other words, users will no longer need to login to individual machines to provision VMs. The system of adding remote connections to virtual manager will be fully automated through polling for connections on the local network.

9. Security Audit

A new security audit system and intrusion detection system will be there. sectool is a security tool that can be used both as a security audit as well as a part of an intrusion detection system. Advanced users can also see the documentation and logs of those test and can use as scripts to repair holes. This is something we will need from Fedora 10 and we hope that it is efficient.

10. Virtual Storage

If you remember, libvirt was introduced by Fedora 8 and became a hit. Here you will no longer need to directly login to a server providing virtualization capabilities. All common management tasks can be completed remotely using virt-manager. The test plan includes creating a new guest OS and associate it with some storage. Isn't it fabulous?

Goodies for Developers

Here are three most important features of Fedora 10 which are bound to attract you .

1. Appliance Tools

Tools for building virtual appliances have also been a focus for Fedora 10. This consists of an ACT (Appliance Creation Tool) and and the AOS (The Appliance Operating System). Let me quote Fedora here once again

ACT (Appliance Creation Tool)

• Enables you to build a fedora based appliance.
• Enables you to build a pre-installed multi partitioned disk! that is great!

AOS (The Appliance Operating System)

• Provides a template for developers who want to build a fedora based appliance.
• Provides a customized OS. I mean, you can start from the least resources (the minimum of what an OS needs, remember Just Enough from ubuntu?) and add whatever you want. This is really flexible from Fedora.
• It also allows developers to kick the tires of the AOS without having to build it from scratch.

2. NetBeans IDE

Are you a developer? Then I don't really need to give a formal introduction to the topic here. Fedora 10 uses Netbeans for two ways basically.

• Easy and rapid way to organize environment for development of systems that can be based on modern technologies and popular programming languages.
• a way for development of applications based on the NetBeans Platform. All the tools required for development of the Rich Client Swing Applications are included in the IDE.

3. Eclipse 3.4

Eclipse is one of the most influential work-areas in Linux distributions. So this time developers have kept that in mind and tried to make Eclipse is as fast as possible for compiling Java code in the future. As well, a new feature called Plug-in Spy has been added which is a useful tool for plug-in developers to determine what plug-in supplies a selection class. I hope Eclipse 3.4 is as advanced as it is proposed.

Conclusion

Inspite of all these, the Feodra 10 excels in EFI, Evdev Input driver, Python Bindings, Better webcam facilities and etc. The idea of Fedora 10 is to be as flexible and rich as possible serving both the worlds of developers and common users. With no notable glitches at sight, Fedora 10 promises to be one of the finest operating systems of the Linux family.

I am proud to be a Fedora 10 user. Are you Fedora'd yet? ;-)

KK

An un-Innovative trip to Innovative film city

I am writing again after almost a month now. Yes, that is how much time my friends and I took to find one common holiday when everyone would be free. These guys have been screaming hoarse about their "Film City", through TV ads, newspaper ads and FM radio commercials too. It was time we college friends went out together- our last trip was to Bheemeshwari fishing camp way back in Oct 2008. It has taken 4 months to find 1 single weekend when all of us would be free!

And so we set out this Sunday, to spend an entire day at Innovative film city. It is located near Bidadi, just past Wonderla. One of my friends, Ajay had bought a Swift and he wanted to get every possible chance at driving it on the highway (even though Film city is just around 30km from Bangalore). This was also my first highway drive in the Accent so my hands were itching to get at the wheel too. Another friend of mine, Ashwin (a 100% Royal Enfield enthusiast) who had bought a Thunderbird cruiser was eager to get us all going on 4 bikes, but Ajay and I outnumbered him later ;)


We started off on Sunday at 8am. There were 7 of us in 2 cars. Ajay took the NICE road to join us at Kengeri whilst I took the Uttarahalli road. From then on we continued till we stopped for breakfast at Kadu Mane restaurant just past the Wonderla entrance on Mysore road. After cursing the waiter for delaying the service and bringing saltless Vada, we resumed our journey to Film city. Ajay had already been here once and he knew the way quite well. A left at the Bidadi cross just past Kirloskar factory saw us entering a narrow road. After a kilometre or 2, we came across the Toyota Kirloskar factory set in a gigantic, mind-blowing campus. However, my desire to visit the Toyota campus was soon rubbished by my friends :(


We reached Film city a bit earlier than expected- in fact it had just opened up at 10am. A couple of coconuts for everyone saw us quenching our thirst with Elneer (coconut water) before entering film city. The saga at the ticket counter is worth mentioning here. The "helpful" staff guy told us there were 3 packages- one was that we could pay 50 Rs. per head as entrance fee and then we would have to shell out 50-100 Rs. for every attraction thereafter. The second one was- at Rs. 699/- per head, we would be getting 12 coupons each which we could use for any attractions we wanted to visit. The third one was- at Rs. 1199/- we could use any of the attractions any number of times we wanted. He said since we were 7, if we went for the 699/- package we would be eligible for 2 memberships (which actually costs Rs. 5000/-) and we would be getting 50 extra coupons if we paid the extra 100 Rs (700 X 7 = 4900 + 100Rs.) . Only after everything was finalized and the bill was paid out did we realize that we were duped! 50 coupons / 5 people = 10 coupons per head, and the 2 members could use their cards for most (read "most", not "all") of the attractions. We were all along thinking that we each would get 12 coupons per head (for each of us paying 699/-) plus 50 extra coupons for the group. If you ever visit this place, beware of such marketing tricks.

And so we entered film city, walking down the main alley to spot a few familiar brands who have put up stores there- we even saw a Bata shoe store! The first attraction we visited was called "Innovative Talkies". Set in an olden days kind-of theatre style, there was Sholay and an old Rajkumar movie (Kannada) playing. The theatre was an old, rundown tent and you had 3 choices to sit- on the floor (on sand), on the benches or on hard chairs just like in the olden days. After spending 10 minutes watching the Rajkumar movie, we moved on to the next attraction.

It was a "Haunted Mansion" supposedly. With coffins, wooden skeletons and headless horsemen in the courtyard, small kids would probably get the fright of their lives. Repeated efforts by the "ghosts" to spook us out were in vain, and we ended up taking photographs with the ghosts inside the mansion :) We then promised to never waste the remaining coupons on such childish things. Our next stop was the Go-karting track. We had some great fun racing each other but the track guys cheated us in the number of laps we were supposed to be allowed to race. The coupon claims 4 laps, but the track guys stopped us at the third lap- very annoying indeed. The 4-D Cinema wasn't all that good either- Wonderla's 3D Cinema was better with more force feedback and virtual reality experience.

We moved on to our next attraction- "Mirror Maze". We were given plastic gloves, presumably to avoid fingerprint smudges inside. This was a good one- Mirrors were set along a winding path from entrance to exit and believe me, it was really difficult finding the exit. Groping around trying to see which was a mirror and which was the actual path saw us stuck in there for almost half an hour going around in circles! After this we decided to break for lunch- not many good restaurants are in the food court- what they call the 'Grub Hub'. There was plenty of choice for Non-vegetarians but very little for veggies- hardly a few restaurants had anything on offer for us. We finally chose a familiar name- Pizza Corner and got to eat some really cold pizzas (with a shortage of tomato ketchup sachets) after waiting for nearly an hour.

After lunch we got to face a cricket bowling machine which hurled balls at different speeds and places- giving us some batting practice.This was a good time pass and all of us had a go at this activity. It was great fun. We then visited "Fossil Museum"- dinosaur museum containing facts and fossils of dinosaurs. They even had some dinosaur working models emitting grunts and snorts and swishing their tail or head from side to side- another kiddish place.

We then went to the Arcade gaming facility and tried our hands at different games- Car racing, Bike racing, cannon shooting, Boat riding, flying a war helicopter and controlling a robot! After spending nearly an hour we visited the "Ripley's believe it or not" museum- This was awesome- in fact the only thing worth visiting- amazing collection of unbelievable events in history- collections of prehistoric articles, world war era articles, amazing inventions and discoveries, etc.

The "Louis Tussaud's Wax museum" wasn't all that great, with many wax statues hardly resembling the people they claimed to be! James bond star Pierce Brosnan's wax model looked more like George Bush and the Nelson Mandela wax figure looked like Morgan Freeman!

A couple of hours more saw us relaxing at the artificial beach which is quite well built- with natural sand and artificial waves in the water. There were a lot of people that day (being a Sunday) and the beach was overcrowded. It reminded us more of Kumbh Mela than of a beach. The water maintenance needs to improve a lot.

To end it all, we went to the shooting range called "Wild West". Use a rifle or a pistol and shoot down bottles situated around 40-50 metres from you. We got 10 shots. After each of us had a turn at the shooting, it was 6.30pm; all of us were tired and decided it was time to leave for home.



The return journey was quite pleasant. We took the NICE road deviation from Mysore road, to hit Bannerghatta road in less than an hour. I would attribute that travel duration to the decent speeds we could maintain on NICE. We stopped for dinner at SLV Ragigudda in JP Nagar, after which we dispersed, carrying home an empty wallet but memories of a good day spent together with friends. The next day saw most of us going late to office, courtesy the fatigue of Sunday's trip!




My opinion about this place is - It isn't worth the money if you are all adults wanting to have some fun. This is more of a children's theme park. It is ideal for a young family with school-going kids or couples wanting some 'romantic' outings. Most rides are childish- I would prefer Wonderla than this any day. Also, everything is overpriced- a glass of coke would set you back by 50 Rs, a single Samosa costs you 40 Rs. I had assumed the entire expense to be around Rs. 1000/- Rs. but ended up spending more than Rs. 2000/-. Last but not the least, be careful while you choose the packages or else you would end-up paying more and getting lesser coupons and still feel proud about it for a while (before you realize a while later that the staff guy outwitted you!)

On the personal front, my car was overdue for service. This Thursday I was forced to give the accent for service (even though I didn't want to part with the bill amount) and the regular servicing bill at Advaith Hyundai came up to a whopping 7k! My father kept grumbling that he hasn't spent that much on servicing for the Swift totally for the entire 3 years that we've had it! In Maruti we can just walk into the service centre in the mornings and give the car for service. In Hyundai you have to book a slot 2-3 days in advance and they come and pick up your car at your doorstep at the designated time. As much as I hate to, I have to admit that Hyundai is definitely priced around 4X times higher than that of Maruti's rates for almost everything- be it labour charges or spare parts. On the brighter side, I see that the Hyundai guys are much more professional and prompt. Also, the overall quality of the servicing has been great so I have to console myself with that :( Fortunately for me and my wallet, the Accent is a super-reliable, zero-maintenance car and the servicing interval is only once a year :-)

Apart from that, I have been pretty busy this entire month and have been staying back almost everyday to complete my work. I am now a Nokia employee looking forward to a great career with lots of challenges and fun. What's more? I get to experience the latest Nokia phones too! (Waiting to get an E71i or N79 from the company).

Until next time, ciao
KK

My whereabouts

Wish you a Happy and prosperous New Year 2009!!

It's been a month now since my last post- thanks to my computer conking out. And during whatever free time I got during the weekends, I kept putting off the OS reinstallation due to my laziness. Now that it is fully restored I am back to my old computer-addicted self. In the process of cleaning up my room, I happened to come across some old game CDs which were hot property in my high school days. 'Recoil'- a game where you guide an army battle tank across 6 huge missions, 'Need For Speed 5 - Porsche Unleashed' - my favourite among the NFS series, where you get to know about the Porsche company and get to race all of Porsche's cars released, starting from 1950 till today; 'Sim City 4' - where we get to build a city, provide for all basic infrastructure and watch it grow (yeah we could do it better than Bangalore Mahanagara Palike), you could even wage a nuclear war against the neighbouring nations or setup trade and transport links. So these past few weeks, I sat and played those games and many more just to revive old memories. I also caught up on a lot of good movies that I had missed during the past few months- Quantum of Solace, The Dark Knight, etc.

Last month I had been to the Vaahan Yatra auto expo in whitefield. This had become a sort of ritual that I used to follow since the past 5 years. I however regretted going there this time. There was absolutely nothing there, NOTHING! Usually there are a few import cars and superbikes on display which we poor, financially-starved auto enthusiasts get to ogle at- nothing of the sort this year. There would even be stalls of Auto accessories- K&N performance Air/Oil filters, after-market performance exhausts and Turbochargers, Tyres and Alloy wheels (I was looking forward to buying a good set of footwear for my car), Neons, Ear-splitting Sound systems (ICE! baby), Synthetic engine oils, imported car polishes, tyre polishes, dashboard polish sprays, etc. No german car manufacturers this time either, in 2007 I remember spending more than half an hour admiring the Volkswagen, Audi, BMW and the Mercedes Benz beauties. Hey, I even got to sit in the cockpits of the Audi A4 and the VW Passat, dreaming about the day when I could drive one of those. Every year, we would even have some cool, tuned and custom-modified cars on display with awesome looking females beside them ;-). Where the hell were the models and tuned cars this year I wonder! I guess global recession has affected them too! The only thing good in the show this time was a red-colored display model of the Fiat 500 sporty hatchback that looked cute and spunky.

The red Fiat 500 hatchback


I had a rather quiet New year's eve this year. A few of my cousins had organized a get-together at their place and we just watched TV, lit some leftover fireworks at midnight, had dinner at their place and got back during the wee hours of the morning amused at the sight of drunk new-year revellers on the roads, stopping every vehicle and shaking hands, wishing the driver and passengers a "Happy new Year, Sir" or "Happy new year, Madam"!.

A few of us friends from my old college "gang" met up in college the next day, spending an entire day on the pretext of collecting our final semester marks cards. A hearty Bhakri meal at Kamat Buglerock ensured we did nothing else but sit glued to the college katte (unable to move) and gossip like how we used to during our 4 years of engineering. We planned to go to Innovative Film City but the plan never materialised, with some person or other backing out every weekend. Hopefully we will be able to visit that place this month-end. It's supposed to be very good for a day's outing.

In December my team at work had been on a team outing to a place called Camp Srishti, located around 50km from Bangalore on Tumkur Road. It was a 80-acre forest area with some adventure activities such as rock climbing, rappelling (climbing down the rock from top to bottom), crossing over a lake walking on some rope and some other such "adventurous" stuff. It reminded me of a military bootcamp, only worse. It was the first time I slept in a tent that night- an awesome experience. Apart from the "bootcamp" activities, there were some stupid team building activities. After each activity, there was a discussion where everyone would have to talk about what they learnt from that activity and how they could have improved it- co-ordination, trust, strategy, planning, etc. This was what irked me the most about this activity. We do this kind of discussion everyday in office. Once in a while when we get to go out, instead of just enjoying the place and relaxing from the daily monotony of work, we had to again talk only of those "professional" things in the outing. I began to wonder why I even went there to suffer at their hands for each activity. Why couldn't we just be like friends in the outing, and just forget about all of that crap for a while and think like normal human beings for 2 days??!! However, the foodie in me enjoyed all that the camp guys dished out for us. I ate extremely sumptuous meals throughout those 2 days- no regrets at all. In fact, over-eating during lunch had me groaning with stomach cramps halfway through a trek on a nearby hillock!

During January we are supposed to have our performance appraisal meets with our respective managers. It will be my first one-on-one with my manager and hopefully the meet will go on well. I have been looking forward to this from a long time (for obvious reasons ;-) ). Nokia's takeover bid is now complete. In another 2 weeks, I will officially be a Nokia employee (from Feb 1st to be precise). They have already handed over the offer letters and from Feb 1st we would all be given new Nokia phones (hopefully a tube, N96 or N97 ;-) ), laptops (which gives the much needed work-from-home policy). Rumours are rife that our office would be shifted to a much closer location (at least for me) by June '09- it would be on the outer ring road next to the Intel campus. I long for the day when that happens- no more stupid jams under the marathahalli bridge, no more waiting for half an hour at the railway crossing for the 7.50am train to pass (shortcut to office used by my cab driver), no more cab- in fact I will take my own vehicle to office- I can leave at whatever time I want and at my convenience which means no more waking up at 5.30am, getting ready in a hurry rushing through the morning chores, no more eating breakfast at 6.30am, or missing the daily newspaper.

A few public holidays till Jan 26th and then we will be cursed with holiday-less months till this year's festival season begins in August:-(

KK

A weekend with Bangalore's canines

This week has been a disastrous week for India. 200 precious lives lost and many more injured in yet another terrorist strike on India's metros- this time it was Mumbai. Innocent people who were busy with their own lives and duties, butchered for no fault of theirs, how gruesome can these guys get. Right from wednesday, I have been watching nothing else on TV but the news channels and the same old reporters covering this entire terrorist-flushing event in the Taj Hotel. Kudos to our NSG commandos for braving it out for 62 hours and taking out the extremist elements but I seriously think our authorities need to step up their security measures if we are to avoid another such mishap. We should concentrate on building a superbly equipped and extremely skilled counter-terrorism force like the British SAS, the French GIGN or the American SEALs.

This weekend my parents and I decided to check out the latest Dog show organized by the Bangalore Canine Club at Palace Grounds, Mekhri Circle. As a member of the Kennel Club of India, I was initially supposed to participate in this event with my dog Ginger. Sadly, the awful careless idiot that I am, I forgot to fill the application form in time. So for this time I was only an observer and a photographer :(

Around 400 dogs belonging to 40 different breeds participated in this massive event. Around 2000 spectators for this event ensured that we had to search for a vacant car parking space for around half an hour in Palace grounds. Finally after finding a vacant parking space and parking the vehicle, we got down from the car only to realize that we were standing in some kind of quicksand-like muddy-slush (due to the week-long depression-inflicted, incessant rains in Bangalore). After trudging our way through 100 metres of this slushy terrain we managed to reach the entrance of the dog show. Once inside, time flew by and I never seemed to realize. At the entrance were various stalls by some popular kennels in Bangalore, presumably trying to sell their pups on the spot and make quick bucks. Some visitors were happy to just stand alongside these or cuddle them and pose for a photo.

Also near the show entrance were various pet-store stalls, selling dog food at buy-1, get-1-free offers, collars and leashes and dog shampoos and perfumes at 50% off. Making our way through all this, we managed to reach the main show ring where they were actually exhibiting and judging the dogs. Different categories of shows were being held- Mixed breed, Best-of-breed, breed speciality, etc. I somehow managed to get hold of a front row seat so I could catch all the action without any interference and could photograph things.

During the evaluation, batches of dogs are judged alongside one another on a number of criteria. When your batch starts, you enter the show ring with your dog beside you all the while. There are 6-7 other dogs/owners as well. You are expected to have the dog trained before-hand to avoid reacting to distractions and avoid interfering with the other dogs/owners in your batch. Misbehaviour on the part of your dog (or even you!!) could lead to disqualification. One by one, the judge calls each of the dog/owner pairs; He/She will inspect the dog for a few minutes. The judge will then ask you to run around the ring for a full circle and come back. You then have to "stack" your dog- this is a kind of position when you exhibit the dog by stretching him/her and kneel down next to your dog. The judges evaluate the dogs based on health, character, behaviour, maintenance and the bloodline (the parentage of the dog). Of course, when you run with the dog they are actually testing whether it is a healthy specimen and whether there are any defects. Also they check the level of co-ordination and the mutual love and understanding between you and your dog.

I got to view 6-7 batches of such evaluations. One was a batch of Afghan hounds. The long-haired canines seemed to have the audience spell-bound. This round invoked the maximum whistles and applause from the crowds. I also got to view a speciality round of Golden Retrievers, the breed which I myself own. I noticed that not all dog handlers were adults; many were children as young as 5 or 6 years old. In fact there was an instance when a 4 year old boy won a round with a German Shepherd that was twice as big as him. He would have looked more like a miniature horse race jockey had he mounted on the dog!


I managed to capture on camera a magnificent Irish Setter, a bunch of cute pugs and a handsome German shepherd in action in the show ring.




Here's a picture of the pug speciality round.

A gorgeous grey colored Afghan Hound

A magnificent Irish Setter

A Black Pug

A German Shepherd in action

A golden English Cocker Spaniel awaits its turn outside the ring

After spending a few hours watching the spectacular canines in the show ring, we decided to leave. And how could I just leave without shopping for my beloved Ginger in the stalls. I ended up picking up a doggie T-shirt for Ginger! (I didn't even know earlier that such a thing existed!) I also saw another stall that advertised the list of vacation places that you could take your pet to, mainly resorts who allow customers to take their pets with them. The next time I go on a vacation (if ever I could afford one) this is the list I will choose from :)

Please do visit the Mysore Kennel Club dog show on December 28th, '08. I will be participating with Ginger in 3 categories- the 'Best Adolescent 9-15 months age' category, the 'All-breeds championship' category and the 'Golden Retriever Best-of-Breed championship' category. Your sheer presence in the audience will lift my spirits and confidence ;)


A big woof-woof to all dog lovers :)
KK

My experience with working life

It has been 4 months since I started working in Symbian, a market leader in Mobile Phone Operating Systems, and almost every handset manufacturer in the world uses our OS for their smartphones- be it Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, LG, Samsung, Panasonic, etc. I must say I have enjoyed the journey so far- mostly since I haven't had terrifying work schedules (yet). We work on Symbian C++, yes the dreaded language which people talked about- so efficient in managing resources on embedded systems such as mobiles but one hell of a time for programmers working on it. I used to wonder about why i would find it difficult- after all I had programmed earlier in C++ and was quite comfortable with it, I thought. But the horror unfolded when I actually tried writing a simple 'hello world' program back in August, in Symbian C++ - I couldn't. The concepts were entirely different and in fact, I struggle even now! Having worked on Java for the past 1 year (where programming was pure bliss) and not having to worry about those wretched pointers and managing memory allocation/deallocation, going back to C++ and its accompanying pointers was a little irritating in the beginning but I doubt if i can help it.

I have been working on User Interface frameworks in Symbian and I must say the entire subject is nothing short of fascinating. Having developed UI in Java Swing and developing dynamic web content with CGI and PHP, Mobile UI was a welcome change. In fact, I have started liking mobile application development so much that I am embarking on the development of 2 to 3 applications for S60 and UIQ platforms which I plan to complete in the next few weeks in the hope that it would sharpen my programming skills in Symbian C++ and give me a deeper sense of achievement as an independent third party developer of Symbian OS applications.

On the personal front, the dramatic change between college life and work life was beginning to show, I have never remembered any kind of fixed timings in college, since we were never attending many classes and were more interested in watching the latest films, visting malls and eateries, or just sitting with friends in the college parking lot and gossiping for hours together. Here, sitting in front of the computer for 8 hours was seriously tiring, even with frequent breaks. There were times when I used to almost doze off to sleep by around 2.30pm sitting straight up in my chair! And what about the time I came home? well it was around 6.30pm and by the time I could say "Jack Robinson" it was time to go to bed. Now I know what it feels like on a friday afternoon when you know you have 2 whole holidays ahead of you- hey that's a lot of time- after all who gets 48 hours of free time!

The entire travelling experience to Whitefield has been awful at times and enjoyable at times. Awful in the cab- cramped seats with little leg-room to stretch out, especially because of my height. And then there was this 'FM' factor- you get to listen to what the cab driver wants- not what you want! Sitting in the cab and watching the driver shifting lanes every 2 mins and having just-misses with almost every vehicle in every turning made me sometimes feel as though I was playing the game 'Midtown Madness' on my computer.

Travelling to office was great whenever I took my bike/car to office since that meant I could ride/drive the way I wanted to- quickly yet safely- enjoying every moment of the 24km stretch. But one thing is for sure- the traffic on this road is terrible. I still remember being stuck in a traffic jam near Marathalli bridge at 7.40am and reaching ofice at 9am one day! And not to mention, when it rains, the travelling time gets multiplied by 2. Irritatingly, the traffic also gets multiplied by 2.

The worst part of going by cab is that I am forced to get ready by 7am. Although I am usually an early bird and waking up early has never been a problem, I found this routine to be quite disgusting- eating breakfast at 6.30am wasn't exactly my idea of a nice morning. Earlier I used to wake up by 5.45am, go for a nice, long 1 hour walk with my dog and read the newspaper for another half an hour. After beginning to work, I have had to cut short my walk to 20 mins, and about the newspaper, all I can do is see the newspaper guy pass me on his bicycle when I wait at my pickup point at 7am.

I was proud about earning my first few months of salary- quite fat amounts by my college-days' standards, but by the first 5 days, the bank balance had come down to 3 digits- ending my pride and joy instantly! I spent many sleepless nights planning how I should manage my salary with a fixed amount of savings, investments and LIC policy premiums but temptation got the better of me during the first 2 months and I ended up with 3 digits in the bank balance yet again. And not to mention- the infamous 'First Salary Treat' ruined my financial status completely. Finally after coming down to the earth after 2 months, expenses have come under control and everything seems to be going according to plan.

After 4 months of working, I fulfilled my ambition- a lifetime achievement for me- my very own car! I decided to trade my trusty, good looking pulsar 200 bike for a 3-year old Hyundai Accent GLS and pay the balance amount in EMIs. The EMI meant that I would have to sacrifice on some fun and miscellaneous expenses but I made up my mind. This was a used, second-hand car but my happiness knew no bounds. Although this was not our first car at home (my dad had bought a maruti 800 way back in 2002 and we then exchanged it for a Maruti Swift in 2006), I somehow felt more excited at the prospect of owning and driving 'My Car' rather than 'My Father's car', even if it meant having to park it on the road everyday.

So much for my experience over the last 4 months

KK