Penta Cites # 3

For last few days media news and blogs have been overloaded with Lehman Brother stories and the Big Bang experiment. I can't resist myself for featuring them in my this week's penta-cites.

Economy/Wall Street Meltdown

Here was the world's richest country with 5 per cent of world's population, accounting for 25 per cent of world's output and here they were borrowing huge amounts from the rest of the world. The rest of the world was saving for Americans to splurge. This bubble has burst!

Economic analyst Paranjoy Guha Thakurta expressing his views in CNN-IBN:Face the Nation and even comparing the crisis with 1929 Great Depression

Economy/Lehman Brothers

Scientists in Switzerland tested their $3.8 billion supercollider this week and there was relief that the theoretical fear that smashing protons would create a black hole didn’t materialize. If the science guys want to find actual black holes, they should visit the atom smasher that is Wall Street and see how the collision of buyers and sellers has created a variety of black holes at Lehman.

Wall Street Journal: while doing valuation of Lehman Brothers

Technology/Google

You believe you can solve any problem and take on any challenge. That is a wonderful thing. But if you end up trying to do everything, you can end up forgetting who you are.

John Battelle speculating that 10 year old Google may soon face an identity crisis.

Technology/Google Earth

It seems that cattle and deer tend to graze while standing in a north-south direction. No one had ever noticed this until some researchers used Google Earth to study the question.

Steven D. Levitt in Freakonomics blog - The Last Thing in the World I Would Ever Think Google Earth Would Be Used For

India/Wildlife

The issue here was not the leopard but as usual the crowd management. If the crowd had not gathered around the leopard, it would have been any other day in the city.

Kalyan Varma is his blog after recent Leopard attack in Mysore.

Penta Cites # 2

After a little brainstorming, I have decided to rename the Worth remembering series to Penta-Cites. So from now on, I will be reproducing the five best citations/quotes I come across since the last posting. Also in the current post I have mentioned category for each citation.

Business/Public Transport

Socialism can only be preached, but not practised, particularly in India.

Muralidhara while explaining BMTC's business oriented initiatives at Praja.in

Technology/Internet/Browsers

Google doesn't just want to grab market share with its new Web browser, Chrome. It wants to change the way we use computers. This is a story that will play out over weeks, months, and years, not hours and days.

Source: Business week - Google's Chrome Ups the Ante

Technology/Pricing

As long as we keep sending jobs over there they'll be able to afford it....... Eventually.

A comment in Engadget.com for the post iPhone 3G starting at $700 in India

Disaster Management

It's only human mismanagement that makes a flood. Don't blame it on Kosi.

A comment by an expert after recent Bihar floods. [Source: Outlook, Sep 15]

India/Entertainment/Television

It had the best of the dedicated people who continuously worked for one particular project for two years to create the serial.

Mukesh Khanna (Bhishma) while expressing his doubts about the success of Ekta Kapoor's Mahabharat relative to B.R. Chopra's Mahabharat.[source]

Belur, Halebeedu: Hoysala's Perfectionism

Note: This is a trackback post.

A visit to Belur and Halebeedu was on cards for a long time. It materialized when we(Ctrl-Esc group) visited the places representing Hoyasala dynasty's architectural perfectionism, on our back way back to Bangalore after Rotikallu homestay trip.

Belur - Chennakeshava Temple.
In order to see the temple in detail, we availed a guide for Rs.150. Due to time constraints we requested the guide to keep the explanation precise. His explanation started from the purpose of construction. Hoysala King Vishnuvardhana decided to construct the temple as memorial after his victory over Cholas at Talakad. The succesors of Vishuvardhana, Vijaynarasimha and Veera Ballala carried forward the construction. The duration of construction was more than 100 years.

After the introduction the explanation switched to details. The guide explained various pillars inside the temple, by stressing on unique carvings on a few pillars. Each pillar has been sculpted in a different way, the most famous one is Narasimha pillar. Then he showed us a sculptor representing a perfect female, in compliance to Vatsayanas explanation in Kamasutra. Its length of forehead = nose = (lips+chin) and the waist was 18 inches!

Then we moved on important part of the temple i.e. bracket figures, popularly known as Shilabalikas. There are totally 42 bracket figures, 4 inside the temple and the rest outside. Each one represents a rupa of a female. The prominent ones are Darpana Sundari, Visha Kanya, Kite Dancer, Shantala Devi, Kesha Shrungraha, Mohini Nrutya.

The explanation was so fast that, I didn't get sufficient time to click the perfect picture. However I managed get a few of them properly.

Darpana Sundari	Visha Kanya
Beauty Dancer	Kite Dancer

The other notable carvings in the main temple were vishu's ten avatars, hoysalas emblem, Ravana carrying atma linga, 16 year old boy marrying a donkey faced girl - indicates that a boy at such a young age would be desperate to marry any kind of girl, women wearing high heels footware, 3 story complex with grilled balcony.

Vishnu Avatars	High Heels
16 year old boy with a donkey faced girl	Ravana with Atma Linga

Other prominent things around the temple are Gopura at atop main entrance constructed by Vijaynagara empire, Gravity pillar in south-east, prototype of the temple in South, marriage hall in south-west and Kalyani in north-east.

Gopuram

Gravity Pillar

There were many more things see in detail and photograph. But it was already late evening we decided to move on to Halebeedu(16 km away).

Halebeedu - Hoysaleshwara Temple.
At Halebeedu, due to lack of time we explored the place on our own. There are two shiva temples each having big Nandi statues opposite to the entrances. Majority of the carvings were repetition of ones we had already seen Belur, like Ravana carrying atma linga etc. Unlike Belur , Halebeedu had a ASI monument feeling with green lawns and sign boards.

Inside Hoysaleshwara Temple

Some carvings

Outside the temple you are bound be surrounded by people selling small idols made out of metal. The idols were nicely finished and may be made by a person having the DNA of the artists who had constructed the temples. If you are planning to buy the idols be ready to bargain, I bought three idols for Rs. 120.

To conclude, it was nice to visit the places with such a high architectural /historical significance, and looking forward to visit the place again by dedicating an entire day.

Worth remembering #1

Today on occasion of Ganesh Chathurthi, I am starting a new series in my blog. It will be a post on collection of best one-liners, citations I come across in last one week, not necessarily the latest one. The source can be any reading stuff under the earth - blogs, books, newspapers etc. The content can be from any category technology, sports, entertainment. And I will be crediting the original author by hyperlinking to the source if it exists on web.

Here are this week's collections.

The Olympics are every four years , but for the athlete it's everyday!!

Abhinav Bindra in his blog Road to Beijing.

Take Retail - The competitive advantage is in owning real estate, Take Transportation - The competitive advantage is in owning the Oil “Real Estate”, Take Web 1.0 - The competitive advantage was in Operating System “Real Estate”, Take SaaS and Web 2.0 - The competitive advantage is in Browser “Real Estate”.

Rajesh Shetty in his blog Life Beyond Code, explaining the real motive behind Google's new Chrome browser.

However, the fact remains that whether a band, a start-up company, a romantic relationship or just a gang of friends, these bust-ups happen. And although we think ki we don't care and have 'moved on', the truth is we actually have not.

Rashmi Bansal in Youth Curry, while reviewing the movie Rock On

Fencing @ Madurai!! The only fencing that the city new about in the olden time used to be the ones between homes !

Kavi in her blog Kavi's Musing, while describing about evolution of sports culture in her hometown Madurai.

If you would not like to be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write things worth reading or do things worth writing.

Author: Bejamin Franklin, I read this quote in last page of a long note book.

You have come across, any good one-liners in last 7 days. Do share them as comments

Bangalore Photowalk 5.0

For the fifth edition of Bangalore photowalk Karthik was planning to include a place brimming with people, flowers and puja items during festival season. But just before the plan was about to materialize Karthik moved out of Bangalore transferring the responsibility to me. Last thursday, I was just having a hi-bye chat with Karthik(in Gurgoan), the discussion switched to photowalks and I realized that coming Sunday was last Sunday of August. On the fly, I made a route in Google maps with starting point as Bull Temple and ending point as Gandhibazaar circle. After getting nod from Karthik, I posted about the walk in bangalore metblogs and also sent a mail to members of Bangalore photowalk e-group. The main agenda of the walk was to capture festive spirit at Gandhibazaar market. The other significance of the route was that we included a place(Bull Temple) with a historical story(Read the story at The Bull and the Bugle). I added more value to the agenda by proposing to end the walk by having masala dosas at Vidyarthi Bhavan.

Inspite of very short notice, I got mails from around 15 people confirming their participation and on Sunday morning eight people turned up. First we visited bull temple, and after offering prayers we moved on to adjacent Bugle Rock park. The park turned to be a treat for photo enthusiasts. The large number of bats suspending from branches of tree canopy was a distinct subject to shoot. Sandeep(Gokhale) decided to stay in park itself getting knowledge transfer from Mallikarjun and rest of us continued the walk. Before coming out of the park, we took photos of memorials of Dr. DVG and Jnanapeeta awardees.

The walk continued in roads of Basavanagudi, first on police station road and then on DVG road. Within no time we reached Gandhibazaar market. There we took snaps of Ganesha idols on sale, shops dedicated for puja items and of course flowers. After a few minutes we decided to enter Vidyarthi bhavan concluding the photowalk officially. In Vidyarthi Bhavan, it more than 15 minutes for getting a place to sit, but it is worth the wait because nowhere else one can taste thick and crispy masala dosas(Read more at Masala Dosa-Vidyarthi Bhavan).

Thanks to Tom and his aunt, Vasuki Rao, Sandeep Gokhale, Mallikarjun, Sam, Chippu, Siddharth for participating in the photowalk. Looking forward to conduct next photowalk with more participants on board. There have been a few suggestion to conduct a very early morning photowalk in Kalasipalya and a late evening walk in commercial street. Have to work on that by discussing with previous participants in the e-group.

Raveesh one of my blogger buddy asked my what's the point in having so many photowalks. Well, it's a monthly event I feel there is no overdose and doesn't matter with the inherent benefits.

• To meet new like minded people and learn new things related to photography. I am sure that in fifth photowalk Sandeep(Gokhale) would have benefitted a lot by spending time with Mallikarjun. Personally, in last few walks I have got sufficient info about various models, brands of camera and lenses. It's a valuable info for a person looking forward to buy a SLR in few months.
• No time constraint: When we are on a visit to a place in Bangalore with our friends/family there will be conflict of interest with respect to amount of time spent on a particular place. One can't really concentrate on taking correct photographs. In photowalks there are no compulsions. If you wanna stay at a place for longer time, no one will force you to move on from a place.
• License to shoot: The beauty of urban photography is the inclusion of people in the frame. If a photographer is alone, usually he/she will be concious to take out his camera in public place. But the self-consciousness can be easily annulled when a person is in a big group. And above all there will a implicit license to shoot whatever is happening on the road.
• Low brow eat-out: There are many famous low brow eat-outs in Bangalore. The idea of ending the walk at a low brow eat-out has been well received by participants. Generally these places will be crowded and based on personal experience I feel going with family or friends to the place is not desirable. But in photowalks you will have company of like minded people and can discuss interesting stuffs while waiting for the turn.

Breaking the jinx:
This is not exactly related to Photowalk. But the fifth photowalk has enabled to break my one of the longest jinx i.e. getting inside the Bull Temple. Staying just five minutes walk from the temple, I have never been inside! So many times I have walked in front of the temple but due time constraint the visit never materialized. There are many similar jinx w.r.t places in Bangalore. Looking forward to break them and also to share the same here.

New look and feel

For last few days I have been regularly tweaking my templates. I guess the regular visitors to my blog would have noticed it. The change was very much needed, since the blog was looking very mundane, as it had same colour scheme of basic blogger template. Every time after changing the colour combination, I used to ask for instant feedback from Raveesh. The immediate response used to be 'Chennagilla'.

After trying out all RGB colour combination, I decided to use some natural colours instead i.e. colours from my photographs. The present dark background is crop of a image of sunset snap. The natural gradient colour makes the look and feel different. Also in blog title section I have added a background panoramic image. The snap was taken during Kudremukh-Samse trip. After the change of image background, the major relief for me was when I got a thumbs up from Raveesh for the change.

Other than look and feel I have added a few features/changes in last few weeks.

• Expandable summaries: A good feature especially one can see condensed posts when browsing the archive section. But it's tedious because one has manually add span tag to all posts. As of now I added it to my important travel posts.
• Label cloud: makes the navigation easy since the number of categories have increased.
  
• Related posts by categories after end of each post.
• Blog logo: comes in header tab of the browser.
• Images and borders for blockquotes.

Feedback and suggestions for changes are welcome.

An Aside: August 2008 has been the best month w.r.t to statistics. I posted 15 post, highest so far in a month and got more than 4000 pageviews. The major hits were for Rottikallu Homestay post and review of Kalyan Varma's workshop.