Kiran Jonnalagadda’s Blog

They just had to have two redundant zeros, didn’t they?

When I was twenty, the dotcom boom was in full blast. Newspapers regularly carried reports of newly minted millionaires. Everyone wanted to be in the queue.

“So, when are you going to be a millionaire?”

And I strained to see as far ahead as I could. “Twenty six?” Twenty six seemed like a good age to be a millionaire.

Now I’m there and worth a few million paise.

This furry fellow turned 12 while I was away. He’s still way too active for his age.

eddd points out that as of December 9, 2004, the Government of India permits photography at civil airports and from within aircraft. This is excellent news!

You get fined 500 for breaking the silence? Or for bringing your vehicle in? Why don’t they just close the gate then?

Three cities in the span of 24 hours. Doesn’t feel anywhere as impressive as it sounds.

The Pune gym routine has been doing me good: I have a discernible chin again. Since I don’t have an active gym membership in Bangalore, I went on the old midnight walk route, when I spotted this. Took about half an hour to walk home and ride back with a camera and tripod, but the smoke was still there.

A month ago at Asia Source, Greg Bernstein remarked that tropical cultures have rituals involving a lot of smoke because it keeps the bugs out. Sitting there in the trees outside Bangalore, where the only way to keep a large clearing mosquito free was by smoking them out, it made perfect sense. Think of all the smoky pujas we have. Think of the homa in a Hindu housewarming ceremony, which generates enough smoke to kill a small human, supposedly preparing the house to be lived in, and certainly clearing it of all the bugs that considered it their home. It brings reason to what long seemed to me a meaningless ritual.

I suppose the smoke among the trees here is of a mosquito-clearing purpose.

From Pune. In other words, diamonds may be forever, but their resale value certainly isn’t. Wired had an interesting cover story a few months back on how artificial diamonds are so close to the real thing now that the De Beers cartel is in danger of collapsing. That issue had one of the best cover photographs in recent times. Anyone care to dig up a link?

Clouds over Bangalore. I so wanted to pull the camera out; damn those meaningless security regulations.

Flying is like a bus ride in a hurry. The seats are as bad, the view is drab for most of the ride, and air pockets provide the same experience as an uneven road. The only cool things are, it gets you there faster, and it implies you are financially well off, which is a form of showing off I do not appreciate at all.

At the airport. There’s a man out there sweeping the ground with a coconut broom, the kind normally used to clean bathrooms. Wonder if they also clean the runway like this.

I wish I could use the camera. It’s a beautiful morning. That man and his broom had such an excellent backdrop of aeroplanes.

The airport security check was for real this time. Not a perfunctory check like they had in December and January. Those were so badly done, I could have slipped anything through.

So I’m feeling like an idiot right now. I booked myself a ticket on the Udyan Express, which leaves Bangalore for Bombay sometime after 8 PM, but returns in the morning. When booking, I saw a departure time of 11:40, thought that must be right since it must leave Bombay sometime after 8 PM, and confirmed. Now I’m holding a ticket for a train that left over 11 hours ago.

Oh well, looks like Air Deccan has dropped their prices even further. Rs. 3500 to Rs. 3000 to Rs. 2800. Third bus ride in three days, and I’ll have to wake at 5. *sigh!*

That little yellow board up there declares this a non-hawking zone, but surrounding activity can hardly be described as anything else. Another case of grand decision by committee amounting to little in practice, I suppose.

Here’s a no smoking sign fashioned as a chinese fortune cookie message. I wish they’d dispense with the cleverness and get to the point.

Volvo’s buses are on the way to becoming ubiquitous. They’re at that sweet spot right now where a “Volvo bus” implies a luxury bus. This bus here is from the “Neeta Volvo” company. APSRTC classifies their buses into “regular”, “hi-tech” and “volvo”. I suppose once other manufacturers get into the show, they’ll find their buses also branded as “Volvo”, the same way we have shops advertising “Canon Xerox”.

One of the nice things about a Volvo bus is, unlike the other buses, it doesn’t feel like a toothpaste tube with holes cut out for windows. Take the curtains off, and you feel like you’re actually out there, but with much nicer weather.

I forgot to carry my Reliance cable and am now on a Hutch/Orange GPRS connection. At 50p for every 10kB, it’s ridiculously expensive and slow. I’ve spent close to an hour trying to make this post.

Orange GPRS is the suck.

In Bombay this evening and tomorrow, in the Anushakti Nagar to New Bombay neighbourhood. Back here morrow evening, and then on a train to Bangalore. Taking a train because the last time I flew, it took 14 hours. Only six hours more for no transport-hopping tension and a tenth of the price is a deal too good to miss.

Except, I didn’t anticipate coming to Bombay this weekend (the interviews were scheduled for last weekend), so now I’m going to have to run back to Pune, gather my luggage, and hop on a train also coming from Bombay, all in the name of saving on an extra trip to Bombay. *sigh!*

“Veg & Chicken Only” is like “Vegetarian only, including fish”.

Rare is the homeowner who advocates violence against his property. What
if banging the gate scares the dogs?

I had a long rant to accompany this picture, but committing words to memory at 3 AM is like saving to /tmp before the nightly maintenance schedule.

This gym is serious about its commitment to public health.