Bangalore 360° - A Photo Carnival

This is definitely a big thing ! Bangalore Photowalk, the community which I have been part of for last 5 years is hosting maiden photography exhibition at newly opened Vismaya Art Gallery in MG Road Boulevard.

• Venue: Vismaya Gallery, Rangoli Metro Art Center (RMAC), MG Road Boulevard. 
• Dates: 5th July to 14th July 2013

Please come, see and appreciate photos of members from our community.

Also, have a look promotional video in run up to this event.

Retrospect: Aero India 2013

On 9th,10th Feb 2013, the epicenter in Bangalore shifted from various malls and pubs to northern part of city in Yelahanka Air Force Station for bi-annual show of metal birds. I was very keen on attending the 2013 edition as I had missed last two editions for being out of Bangalore. Infact, in 2007 due to some confusion I didn't event take my prosumer camera to the show.

Connecting the Dots to Solve Traffic Problem

The Alternative, a neo generation media platform for sustainable living had organized a panel discussion on effective transport solution for Bangalore City and how the dots can be connected to solve perenial and alarmingly increasing traffic problem of the city. The panelist comprised of reknowned people Ashwin Mahesh (Mapunity), Rohan Kini(Bums-on-Saddle), Sanjeev(Namma Railu), Das (CyBaNa).

Bangalore Karaga 2012: An overnight photowalk

From childhood days, I have been hearing about Bengaluru Karaga festival as one of the famous local festival of the city. My mother used to describe that in the festival a few enthusiastic people carry a heavy pots on their head and run around the Pete area of Bangalore. For years my knowledge about the festival remained constant and occasionally I used come across a few photos in newspapers about the festival which is celebrated in usually in summer time. Frankly speaking, I didn't even bother to have a glance at wikipedia page of the festival.

Recently, when I came across a coffee table book Bengaluru/Bangalore: In First Person Singular by a renowned photographer Mahesh Bhat, I came to know about more interesting aspects of the festival. Next, I got all handy information from Mahesh and decided to venture out on the day of the festival with fellow enthusiasts from Bangalore Photowalk.

Bangalore Loves Wikipedia: Photwalk - 560004

Valentines day is around the corner ! Many people across the globe would already be bothering what to present as a gift to their valentine and people who don't have a valentine would be dejected by a having a continuous daemon running in their mind "Yet another V-day without a V". However, the members of Bangalore Photowalk group were involved in a better business last weekend. They selected their valentine to be world's largest collaborative encyclopedia i.e. by involving in second edition of Bangalore Loves Wikipedia event, an initiative which was kick-started only last month.

Lalbagh Flower Show: Jan 2011

22nd January 2011 when most of citizens of Bangalore were forced to stay indoors on account of political bundh, authorities of Lalbagh had other thoughts. Hats off to the organizers for defying the odds and keeping their bi-annual flower show on !

Rebooting Bangalore Photowalk !

It was a calm winter morning on 9th January 2011. The major buzz in the city was about auction of cricketers for fourth edition of India’s most valuable league. In contrast, somewhere close to venue of the auction, a group 15 people had other priorities. They had gathered to kick start “Bangalore Loves Wikipedia” initiative, a series of photowalks in collaboration between Wikimedia foundation and Bangalore Photowalk(BPW) FB group.

Brand Equity Quiz 2010: Mumbai round

The Mumbai edition of Brand Equity Quiz was conducted at St Andrew Auditorium(Bandra), the same venue  where Landmark quiz was held two weeks back. The winner of quiz was Pradeep Ramanathan’s team from HUL,  co-incidentally he was part of winning team Haseena-ka-Paseena in Landmark quiz also. The major highlight of the quiz was the thrilling last round between HUL and Pramerica(lead by enthusiastic Megashyam). The quizmaster Derek O’Brein made it more exciting with his usual masalas.

Landmark Quiz 2010, Mumbai

The second edition of Landmark Quiz(mumbai) was conducted at St Andrew’s Audi, Bandra. As always it was a good experience, came across many interesting question and got to know about new facts. Since all of my Mumbai friends were busy with other high priority commitments, my plan was just to witness the quiz as a spectator. But at the venue, organizers didn’t allow me inside as the first priority was for participants and mentioned that spectators will be allowed if there are any free seats left before start of the quiz. Therefore, I decided to form a team on-the-spot to avoid taking any chances and end up missing the quiz. At the registration desk I met a group of two, Puneet Jain(alum of IIMC) and Akash Tiwari(alum of NITIE) who were hunting for a third partner. Without any second thoughts I joined them to form a team.

Brand Equity Quiz 2009 finals

[image source]

Rohan Khanna and Sandeepan Chaudhuri of Accenture(Delhi) lived up all the hype and emerged as clear winners of Brand Equity Quiz. The margin of victory was so high that the last buzzer round was played just to decide who is 2nd, 3rd and 4th. The venue of the quiz was Leela Kempinski's Grand Ballroom and the host of the evening was Asia's No.1 quizmaster Derek O'Brien. The evening started with two semi-finals(buzzer round) in which ten regional winners were filtered into four finalists Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore & Chennai.

Overall a decent quiz, but the suspense and intensity as it was in Mumbai regional round was missing due to over domination of Accenture(Delhi) team. IBM(Bangalore) came second in contrast to speculations done by media i.e. it's going to be contest between Mumbai v/s Delhi.

Some Questions: [in a random order, interesting ones]

• Why is the roulette wheel on a casino table is commonly known as "Devil's ring" ? --- sum of all the numbers on it (from 1 to 36) is 666, which is the 'Number of the Beast'.


• Cicardium rhythm stress is commonly known as ? --- Jetlag


• If RoI = return on investment, then what is RoTI ? --- Return on Training Investment


• Which company operates most playgrounds in United States ? --- McDonald's


• What is "Client Golf" ? --- Deliberately losing a golf game against a client for winning a business deal.


• Which five letter proper noun(as a part of username) was banned by yahoo mail for a brief period ? --- Allah


• What's so special about the company which has Australian Stock Exhchange ticker DPL ? -- Daily Planet is one of the first brothels(establishment dedicated to prostitution) to be listed on a stock exchange [read more].


• What are “chicken cutlets.” ? --- It's the common term used for a silicone bra insert that is used to create the illusion of larger breasts.[read more]


• What special thing was done when Pope John Paul II visited Hollywood in 1987 ? ---They removed the one 'L' from the sign to make it HOLYwood.


• What is Fong Kong ? -- Products with fake designer lables.


• This Russian has a European patent for a "Method of playing a lottery game" ? --- Gary Kasparov.


• Why for a brief period in 2003, banks in China quarantined currency notes ? -- SARS outbreak.


• Why in Oct 2008 a clock at Manhattan ran out of digits ? --- The 'National Debt Clock' ran out of digits because US National Debt debt exceeded $10 trillion for the first time.


• In the world of business, what is ABCD ? --- ABCD (Aaya, Bai, Cook, Driver) is a customer segment.


• One can find free ads of which organization in NCERT Class XI textbooks ? --- Indian Army.


• In early dot-com era five rivals of Microsoft were represented by an acronym NOISE N-Netspace, O-Oracle, I-IBM, S-Sun Microsystems, What is E ? --- Everybody Else.


• Which type of Mangoes are used to make Frooti drink ? --- Totapuri.

Landmark Quiz 2009, Mumbai

The first edition of Landmark Quiz Mumbai was held on May 1st 2009 at St. Andrew's Auditorium - Bandra. The quizmaster of the show was Navin Jayakumar. The quiz started off with preliminary round of 40 questions. For the final round out of 164 teams, eight teams were shortlisted . The winners of the quiz were the team by name -"Swami and friends". Overall the quiz was good but unfortunately there were minor goof ups and also there were some boring moments also.



Some highlights:

• It was first landrmark quiz at Mumbai. The annual city open quiz has been conducted since 1988 in Chennai. From there it was moved to Bangalore, Pune and now to Mumbai.
• Many questions in the quiz were related to Mumbai. There a few questions on common mumbai slangs and one-liners. Some of those questions turned out to be bouncers to us.
• The cut-off score for final round was 32. We were very far from it !
• Navin Jayakumar did the job well. But somehow he could not match the flair of Derek O'Brien. The spontaneous humor, suspense build in the last round, as done by Derek were missing in this quiz.
• The end goof up bit silly. The quizmaster had forgot that he has give trophy to the winners.
• 'Swine flu' was the buzz of the evening. Many teams had name their team based on it. In fact best team name was "Pigs Fly .. Swine Flew".

Winners

Questions:
[ I have noted that most of the questions .. will update here after composing it properly].

Brand Equity Quiz 2009: Mumbai leg

The Mumbai leg of Brand Equity quiz was held at Chavan Center(Nariman Point). The quiz was open only to working professionals in India Inc. So being part of student community(this year) the only option to experience the live quizing as an audience. The quiz master was Derek O'Brein. He kept the audience entertained with his usual spontaneous humour.


The format of quiz was similar to Landmark open quiz which had attended previously. The difference was that questions had something do with business. Overall it was a good quiz and Derek brought the house down many times keeping janta entertained.

Some highlights of the show

• Generosity in giving away audience prizes. Sometimes the entire row used to get hampers.
• Advice to Unilever team as they failed to qualifying for finals by 1 point : For next two years take a transfer to Indore as qualifying would be a cakewalk there.
• When AXIS Bank gave away some clues for a question without answering it, and SUN capitalized on the mistake to extend their lead. Derek said " AXIS bank is making sure that ICICI Bank(who were second) should not win this quiz!".
• The build up of tension and suspense by Derek when there were only two teams in the race. Without even acknowledging whether the answer of ICICI Bank was right or wrong, Derek called upon chief quest and his prize distribution volunteers to give away prizes to ICICI bank. Then he announced the show is still on as the answer of ICICI bank was right.

Some nice questions

• Corrections Corporation of America is the largest operator of _____ in the U.S.A
• You can win an ipod from the website nailthethief.com by throwing rotten eggs on whose face?
• Which district of Uttar Pradesh is nicknamed as Suhag Nagri because it fulfills everything a Suhagin wants?
• In 1983 Korean Airways flight was shot down by USSR for intruding into their airspace. After this incident what did then US president Ronald Reagan ordered the US military to be available for civilian use ?
• What is Poorism?
• What is wife acceptance factor ?

Find all prelims questions at
- The Curious Quizzer - BRAND EQUITY QUIZ -09 MUMBAI EDITION

Lalbagh Flower Show: Aug 2008

Entry Fee:
Adults: Rs.30 on weekdays/ Rs.40 on weekends.
Camera Fees: Rs. 10 (introduced from this time).

Timings: 8 am to 7 pm.

Duration: From 9th August to 17th August.

I have been a regular visitor to the bi-annual flower show at Lalbagh for last 2 years. In short span the show has changed tremendously. The changes are not mainly with respect floral decoration/arrangement. After the recent low intensity serial blasts in Bangalore, one of the most evident change is security check, one has go through metal detectors before entering into Glass house. This time there is periodic monitoring of the place by bomb squad with sniffer dogs. The number of men in khaki uniform guarding the place have also increased substantially.


Let's get to the flowers, this time the center of attraction of the flower show - Hampi Chariot is not in Glass House. It's at a different place, next to organic farming stalls. I feel it would have been better if they had managed to have it in the Glass House itself. The present place is very congested and unlike glass house there is no natural lightning.

In the Glass House the floral arrangement was as usual dominated by HAL team's works. Majority of the flowers were repeat of last time. So we(myself and Jatin) looked out for flowers of distinct pattern and colours. One of the arrangement done for filling the space was nice to photograph. All the flowers in it were fresh and in full bloom. The arrangement had series of different types of marigold (may not be intentionally done).

It was worthwhile to photograph each and every pattern of marigold and in the process we spent more than half an hour at a arrangement which was done just for filling the space!

The other flowers which caught our eyes were a Poppy Flower flower of white+violet colour, Spider Lilies.

Poppy flower

Spider Lilly

BIAL visit

Being member of metblogs community I had been to the new Bengaluru International Airport(BIA) officially. The visit was conducted by communications team of BIAL for blogging communities of Bangalore to showcase the airport before the actual opening on May 11th.

In the visit our host showed the progress of construction work, which is almost complete and some unique features of airport. Even though the airport not a visually appealing one, but it looks like a international one - a kind of airport Bangalore deserves. I stumbled upon the natural lighting and pleasant interiors.

Read the more detailed report at Bangalore Metblogs - Visit to BIA.

Also have a look at my Flickr Photoset-BIA.

Azadi Express: Our struggle on Republic Day.

It was usual morning of 26th January. While surfing for TV channels I just had a glance at live telecast of Republic Day parade for a few minutes. I got bored like anything seeing struggling Pratibha Patil saluting the parade besides guest of honour Sarkozy(without Carla Bruni). Then I thought of going to one of ‘upto 50 % sale’ offer at Jayanagar. At 12 noon, came a call from Raveesh ... What about going to Azadi Express(mobile freedom struggle museum) stationed at Cantonment Railway Station. I immediately agreed and we decided to meet at the venue at 3.30 pm.

I reached the venue on dot at 3.30 pm. Raveesh along with his cousins Deepika and Babbi (its her nickname) had already reached the venue at 3.20 pm itself. Since it was a holiday I had expected a large crowd at the venue. But it was many folds more than that. There was a queue of 4-5 times length of the train to get on board. The free entry was an additional reason for such a large crowd.

It was obvious that it's going to take more than two hours to get inside the train, many people were discussing about going to a different such as Lalbagh for the flower show. Since I had heard about a lot about this train, we persisted and stood in the queue. The two hours was frustrating courtesy constant unethical intrusion of some people into the queue and honking engines of the passing by trains. We overcame this by discussing about various topics such as photography, movies and blogging.

While waiting, there was a frequent announcement that the Azadi Express will be open upto 6 pm. It was 5.30 and still 200 people were in front of us. Near to the entry door the volunteers were bit stricter as they prevented some intrusions. Finally, at 5.59 pm we were inside the train. All the twelve bogies had a different theme. It starts from 1857 war of independence and moves on with subsequent freedom struggle, Gandhijis satyagraha and ends with progress of India since independence and various fields such as science & technology, sports etc.

Since we were seeing the stuffs in extra time(after official closing time), the volunteers forced us surf through the depictions. The last coach was dedicated various achievers of India(icons) of India. There were pictures of Sachin, Sania Mirza, Yuraj, Dhoni, Kalpana Chawala and Sunita Williams. What about other people no Amitabh, SRK, Kumble, Dravid. This added to my opinion that the exhibition was biased. According to Raveesh overall the exhibition only good in patches and standing 2 and half hours in a queue was not at all worth (the time).

After the exhibition we went to nearby(1-2km) Sigma mall, there Deepu and Babbi shopped for a while and we concluded the day by doing पेट पूजा at Mc Donalds.

Read the my generic post on this at Bangalore Metblogs and also Raveesh’s post at Ee Prapancha.

Lalbagh Flower Show: Jan 2008

Update: Find August 2008 flower show report at Lalbagh Flower Show - Aug 2008.

Entry Fee:
Adults: Rs.20 on weekdays/ Rs.30 on weekends.
Children: Rs.10

Timings: 9 am to 7 pm.

Duration: From 19th January to 27th January.

Last Sunday I had been to biennial flower show at Lalbagh to continue my experimentation with photography. This time I was bit disappointed as there were no centers of attraction as last year. So, those who had been to the show previously can give it a skip.

The only improvement I found this year was that the security has been stepped up. One has go through metal detectors twice once at the entry gate and other at the glass house.

Lalbagh Flower Show: Aug 2007

I had been to Lalbagh Flower show on Thursday(9th August) morning with my friends Rohith and Jatin.

The major attractions of the show are Taj Mahal and Space Shuttle made out of Roses.



Since it was a weekday the venue was not crowded.



However there different kind of visitors like group of school kids in uniform and group of botany students discussing about floral symmetry.



For me the show turned out as an opportunity to test my macro photography skills.

I have posted about the same in Bangalore Metblogs.

More photographs are shared at
- picasa album.
- flickr.

Important Info
Show Timings: 8 am to 7 pm.
Entry Fee: Adults Rs. 20, Children Rs. 10

5PS at Chowdaiah

Today afternoon I saw ‘Five Point Someone’, a play based on Chetan Bhagat’s bestseller. It was staged by Chennai based theatre group Evam at Chowdaiah Memorial Hall. The play was adapted and directed by Nikhila Kesavan.

When I was a going thru www.newindpress.com yesterday, ‘Five point someone at Chowdaiah’ article caught my attention. Immediately I blocked the tickets for 4 people at www.evam.in. I blocked Rs. 250 ticket, as Rs. 100 tickets were not available. Next step was to call my friends. Many of them were busy, some were busy reading the latest Harry Potter book and others gave lame excuses. Tassa disagreed to come saying Rs. 250 for a play is too much, instead he proposed to go for a movie. In one way he was right why to pay Rs.250 for a play based on a book which costs Rs.95. But, in my opinion reading book and seeing a play based on a book are completely different things. Finally after all kinds of brainstorming, I decided go alone for 3.30 pm show, as I didn't wanted to do the dirty job of convincing.

Rs. 250 ticket

At the venue there was a big crowd dominated by minus 25 people, which is unusual for a theater play. Since the theme was very contemporary, such a crowd was not a surprise.

The play started after a 20 minutes delay. There was an introductory announcement mentioning that this played is staged for first time and duration will be 120 minutes, with no interval. Then they announced that Chetan Bhagat is also with us to see the play. The author stood up and waved the audience. The environment was like premier of a movie.

Coming to the play, I was seeing a play after a long time. Last one was Snow-white and Cinderella at Ravindra kalakshetra. Therefore I cannot comment much about technical aspects. The play was very much loyal to the book. Majority of the sequences in the book were enacted. They even enacted prologue too, it was bit modified. In my opinion this was unnecessary. Some sequences which were outside IIT campus i.e. ‘Alok’s house’, ‘Movie hall’ were skipped using monologues and also by ‘Author Narration’ done by S Vidyuth. Most of the times, he was carrying an ‘Apple Macbook’, don’t know what’s the real reason behind this?

I was very curious, how Operation Pendulum sequence will be enacted especially when Hari[Abhijeet Mohanty] goes to Neha’s[Uttara Krishnadas] house to steal the keys .(pg. 170 in the book). Actually, it was enacted very sensible manner. 10 out of 10 to the playrighter.

Of all the characters I liked Alok[Sarvesh Sridhar]. I expected this character to be most boring of all, but Sarvesh brought the house down showing his talent by enacting various emotions(mostly frustration) of Alok. Many of his dialogues received applause from the audience.

After the end of the play, director gave credits to actor, technicians. Then she invited on stage Chetan Bhagat, the man who created these characters. She thanked him for granting permission for the adaptation.

Chetan Bhagat - answering queries

Chetan Bhagat complemented the team by saying the play was staged with absolute dexterity. He also appreciated the way in which 4 years story was enacted in 2 hours using a single stage. He concluded by saying that these kind of plays based on contemporary themes will definitely revive theater in India. Also, this play should be staged in other parts of India as well(other than Bangalore and Chennai).

After the show I got a call from an unknown number. It was Abhishek S. N, he had got my number from my friend Yashas. We two had already discussed about the play in the morning and he was going for 7.30 pm show. It was nice to meet a person face to face after a long time especially with whom one regularly chat online. We discussed about our work, blogging, forthcoming kannada movies and the projects for which Abhishek is designing the posters.

Also see:
- DesiCritics: Theater Review: Five Point Someone by Madras Players
- Deccan Herald: Leaping off the pages
- Newindpress: Five Point Someone at Chowdaiah.

V-day was not just another day for me.

For some people of today’s generation Valentine Day is one of the most awaited day. The rest have the opinion that it’s just another day. This was my opinion till last year. In fact my friend Manish has gtalk status ‘Yet another V day goes without a V’. For me this year was quiet different. Relax .. Relax .. the difference is not in the area of 'V' but something else.

Handwriting Institute India in association with Barista conducted free Handwriting Analysis for the occasion of Valentine’s Day. I was part of outstation(Hyderabad) assistantship team.



We (Imran, Rashmi, Meeta and me) departed from Bangalore at 9pm on Feb 13th, reached Hyderabad next day around 8 pm and checked in at Royal Banjara Inn. In Hyderabad we conducted event at two outlets Banjara Hills and Jubilee Hills. I was given responsibility of managing Jubilee Hills outlet along with Meeta.

Barista Outlet, Jubilee Hills

We were at the outlet around 12 noon. After putting the posters we started with our analysis job. This assisting program was different from normal exhibition and seminar one as we had to approach people and introduce about us and handwriting analysis. Initially 3 groups didn’t give positive response. After respecting their decision, I approached another group of Inter students. Only one was curious in their group and immediately gave his sample. While delivering analysis to him, his friends found the analysis interesting and gave their sample as well (the same happened with other group of friends later in the day). One of among them was a DJ by profession. It was nice to analyze handwriting of a person with different background.

Then I analyzed handwriting of 2-3 couples and also of a real estate developer. After that I got a chance to analyze handwriting of two gentlemen. After the analysis they asked for right profession for them. Later got to know that they are superintendent of police. I concluded the day with handwriting analysis of a couple whose handwriting indicated that they are perfectly compatible, in other words ‘made for each other’.

After winding up at Jubilee Hills outlet at 6 pm we went back to Royal Banjara Inn. My friend Naresh came to meet me there at 7pm and we two roamed around Banjara Hills area including Hyderabad Central Mall.

Finally, we departed at 9 pm by Raj National Express Volvo and were back in Bangalore on 15th Feb at 7.10 am. It was end of my first outstation assisting program. To conclude, 2007’s Valentine Day was not just another day for me. I helped many people to understand themselves and their partner using science of Handwriting Analysis.

Aerobatic Fiesta !!!!

I had been to Aero India 2007 on Saturday with Raveesh. This was second time I was going to the show(last time in 2005) hoping that I will get pass to the exhibition. Unfortunately I didn’t, therefore we had buy Rs.300 tickets (entry only to Aerial Display Area).

The major reason for going this time was to capture the moments with my S2 IS. Few minuets before leaving home, all my enthusiasm went down when I read on backside of the ticket that cameras and electronic items are prohibited. (cameras were allowed in 2005 show). To avoid all headaches I decided not to carry my cam.

Our plan was to meet at KBS. I reached there around 9.15 am and Raveesh was still on the way. When I went to platform 23, I was delighted to see Volvo Bus#284 (direct to Air show) parked there. By the time Raveesh came, the Volvo had departed. So we had to take ordinary special bus. Raveesh found out positive in this, that we are saving Rs. 30 per head because his lateness. On the way to Air Force Station I did handwriting analysis of Raveesh, it was pending for many months.

We reached to air show venue at 11 am. The 11am-1pm show had already started. Then came the major shock ... I saw authorities allowing people inside with cameras. I was disappointed like anything. What is all this? Are the rules on the backside of ticket written for formality?

I left all these things behind and decided to carry on and enjoy the show. First there was aerobatic display by Sarang helicopters. This team had reduced to 3 copters because of an unfortunate crash during the rehersal(2-3 days before the event). Hats off to the team as they performed by saying 'the show must go on'. After Sarang the show was taken over one after another by many fighter and passenger planes such as Tejas, Sukhoi, F-16, F-18, MIG-35, Gripen, Falcon-9000, Sarus and some chota mota planes of HAL. The morning session concluded with Boeing’s monster cargo plane C 17.

Of all the planes, the aerobatics of F-16 were too good. Especially fly past in front of audience with speed of 800 miles/hr and also vertical ascent from 500ft to 15000ft in a few seconds.

In the break we had lunch at food court in the venue. The prices were almost double. The vendors were taking advantage of another rule of organizer’s “outside eatables not allowed”.

The evening show started at 3 pm. In the beginning the session was bit boring as there was repeat of aerobatics by Sukhoi and Gripen. Later in the show Mig 29 brought the crowd on their feet by perfoming the cobra head maneuver, it was has one of the highlight of the show. Then came the moment for which everyone was awaiting for … the aerobatics by IAF’s Suryakiran team (led by Wg Cdr Sandeep Bansal), without them the Aero India show is incomplete. Their aerobatics make our money worth.

After Suryakiran we decided to leave the place and get into the bus 10 mintues before 5pm as there was some junk stuff in the ending. The bus left the place at 5:15 pm. Unlike last time there wasn’t much traffic jam around Hebbal. We were in KBS by 6:10 pm. It was end of an eventful day, it would have more eventful if I had carried my digicam ignoring the stuffs mentioned on the backside of ticket.