DTH war - brand ambassador missing?

Even with the long list of celebrities in its ad i couldn't help but feel something (or someone) missing in the DTH debut ad of Airtel. I can see A R Rahman, Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Vidya Balan, Madhavan, Zaheer Khan, Gautam Gambhir.. its so long list why do i feel so? may be i'l get some clues at their website so i go to their site airtel.com but only to get even more confused than i already was. i guess you will understand it when u visit this website. anyways so after i finally reach the 'correct domain name' i log into my airtel account and there he is. now i know who was missing. Say hello to Mr. SRK! ofcourse, how could he be part of two competitor's Dish TV as well as airtel's DTH together? How was he to know even airtel will come up with their own DTH service. Lets jus give those two some time to decide it themselves.

With their ad campaign stolen by Big TV, a .com domain of their name redirecting to Vodafone, and their biggest brand ambassador selling DTH service of their competitor Dish TV, i can only imagine their marketing dept screaming out loud "why's this happening to us!" :(

khardung la trip, Aug 2008 - summary

i'm back after 15 day long bike trip with Chennai Trekking Club from Delhi to Khardung la (arguably world's highest motorable road). 7 CTC guys including two from Bangalore and one from Gurgaon successfully completed the much awaited khardung la bike trip of chennai trekking club, covering total distance of over 2100kms. for now here are some pictures of the trip http://picasaweb.google.com/iamvivekyadav/KhardungLaAug08/
detailed blogpost i'll write and publish soon.

Tada, 12th April

after that coimbatore trip with a friend, i started searching for new places to go and ways to go to those places. after googling a little, this is what i came accross SA chennai trekking group. after reading about their past treks and the experiences they had, i couldnt resist into being part of their treks. next trek was on 12th april and i got an invitation to join the trek because i had registered on the website. i was really excited as it would be my first trek ever. peter the chief organizer for most of the treks called me up to confirm the evening before about the pickup points and to check if i had any transport.
next day woke up 0400 in the morning got ready and i was at my pickup point at 0505. i was picked up by peter's scorpio at exactly 0515 as he had told me. after that we picked up few more people on the way and then stopped at koyembedu bus terminus for a few minutes meeting few other members who had come to join us for the trek on bikes and a car. not wasting much time we started heading towards tada which is about 60 kms from koyembedu bus terminus. after reaching we had breakfast consisting of idli dosa vada etc. and also we packed our lunch from the same place, about 40 idlis i think. the place where we were going to trek was still about 20 kms from tada town. the waterfall is actually known as uballamudugam falls. theres a checkpost before the parking area. apart from parking cost we also had to pay for camera. which was Rs.50 for each camera . the checkpost is just a tiny hut in the middle of no where. and we couldnt really figure out why they were charging us for cameras, probably with so little crowd coming in they ran out of ways to make money.the road from the checkpost to the parking is filled with rocks and in some places with deep sands and makes it very difficult for bikes and small cars to go through. amongst the two cars one was a santro and so we parked it near the checkpost. after reaching the parking place we parked the vehicles we distributed water bottles, and lunch which we had bought in tada when we stopped for breakfast. after that we started walking towards a path up hill. on the way we had to cross beautiful streams of crystal clear water. and at another place there was a beautiful pool deep enough to swim (but not deep enough to drown) and we spent almost an hour playing in water in the pool. after that we started climbing upstream throught the stream jumping over large rocks and finally reached a bigger deeper pool and a waterfall on top. very few people climb till the top as it takes almost an hour and half to climb till the top and requires quite a lot of energy to keep jumping over rocks and looking for way to keep going up, as there is no proper path to go up. on the waterfall at the top we had lunch and spent lots of time taking snaps. at the top there were also lots of monkeys who managed to steal few of our snacks packets and coolly opened and ate it all by themselves.

after having lunch and water we started climbing down. took us another 2 hours to come down and by 1700 we had reached the bottom at the parking place. on the way back we stopped in tada to quench our thirsts with some juice and cold drinks, and kept driving back to chennai. reached chennai at around 0800 after getting stuck in traffic while entering chennai. and so here it was my first trekking experience with a trekking group. i jus wish i had googled it earlier so not to have missed earlier treks to beautiful places where they have been before. but i'm pretty sure i'm not gonna miss future treks if i'm in chennai.

do visit www.ChennaiTrekkers.org for more info and registering yourself on the site and becoming part of the coolest trekking group in chennai.


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Coimbatore Trip

Day 1





after our (saurav and me) train arrived in coimbatore station first thing we did was start looking for a hotel room to stay in. took a bus to gandhipuram bus station. mine being in first time in coimbatore, i just went where saurav took me. he had been here a few times before so he knew the main places here. i was just here for fun, just because i couldnt find another place in the state :p. after asking a few places in gandhipuram, we came back to station again and then found a cheap hotel nearby,costing just rs.252 per day, with a double bed. after we took bath, saurav (the one who did have some work here) went out, and after sleeping for an hour even i went to a place called maradhamailai which is a small temple on top of a hill. whole thing took about two or three hours and after that i was back in hotel with saurav and his friend, and we three slept and talked till evening, and then when we started feeling hungry we went out roaming in the market place chat (bhel puri, pani puri etc..) and ice-creams.

Day 2





Watched a hindi movie (Race) with saurav and his friend. after that saurav, puneet and me went to a beautiful dam near a place called pollachi. the name of the dam is Aliyar dam and is located beside tall hills with a beautiful view of the hills behind the huge water reservoir created by the dam.

Day 3





Went to another dam called malampuzha dam, near palakkadu in kerela about two and half hours from coimbatore, with saurav and puneet's friends. We went there by train to palakkadu and the train journey itself was very entertaining with tracks right through dense forests and in between hills. the dam was also quite tall with beautiful garden for people to enjoy on the dry side of the dam. theres also a small ropeway which takes you over the garden, which we didnt go in 'cause it was too short and none of us were interested to go. after that we visited a small snake park near the dam, which was also quite interesting with atleast twenty to thirty species of snakes. scariest thing was watching more than 6 huge pythons on every branch of a single tree, which thankfully for us, was caged from all sides. in the evening we three took a train back to chennai.
coimbatore really is very beautiful and surrounded by beautiful hills and greenery all around. you will only keep looking for your camera no matter which road you take to any direction. there are many waterfalls as well as many dams nearby, just few hours from the city and there are buses to take you anywhere. even the most popular hill station in the south india, Ooty, is only about 3 hours by road from coimbatore. hopefully i'll come back again to explorer this part of tamil nadu very soon again.

Chennai to Coimbatore in general compartment

Past few days i've been thinking of going to some place outside chennai, to escape, and discover whats tamil nadu actually like, outside chennai. Finally when my project review for final year project in college got over today, i just decided to get out and discover new places around chennai. Soon enough my friend said he was going to coimbatore, and so here i am lying on one feet wide side luggage rack of a general bogie in cheran exp, on the way to coimbatore with him :-D the night should be interesting.

Earthsync music festival

Went to odyssey to buy some painting things (yeah all of a sudden some wires short circuited in my grey and i wanted to paint again after almost 7 years, anyways about that may be in some post later :p ) and saw a beautiful poster about a musical somewhere in chennai so bought the tickets. asked many friends and none seemed to be interested the ones who were had other plans on that day. anyways finally, only one other friend aggreed to come so i wasnt alone :p .

the show was really good. the auditorium also beautiful and sounded amazing. oddly enough the percentage of foreigners in the audience was very high, no idea why. the music consisted of a pleasant mixture of contemporary and traditional with many instruments of both genres. loved the music. here are some pics.

turtle walks chennai - saving olive ridley turtle eggs

I went on my first turtle walks this
Saturday and Sunday mornings (Friday and Saturday late nights). in case you don't know, what people do during turtle walks is collect turtle eggs which are laid by turtles during high tides in the night and then relocate them to a safer location away from public beaches and people in an enclosed hatchery. a turtle can lay up to 200 eggs at once in a single nest. if left untouched usually not even a single one may hatch and reach the shore safeThis weekend i went for my first turtle walks only. its because the beaches around the cities usually have too bright lights and when the turtles hatch and dig themselves out of the nest, the little ones get confused with the bright lights and start walking in opposite direction from the shore and end up away from the beach even on roads. most of them would be easily discovered by dogs because of their smell and become food and so decreasing the chances of survival even more. infact on day 2 we found a nest which was discovered by dogs before we reached and we found only 38 eggs and several broken ones. the footmarks left by the dogs proved it all.

The species of turtles that lay eggs near the beach of my city are endangered, Olive Ridley turtles, who get their name from the olive coloured back which these beautiful sea creatures have. the person who co-ordinates these turtle walks (Mr. Arun) has been doing this from 30 years. although these turtles are at the top of the food chain, we are finding so many of them dead washed ashore, almost all caused by some kind off unnatural end. most of them die because of sea trawlers' nets in which they get entangled in, and then get dragged for a long time with their boats, unable to come up and breathe for too long, they ultimately end up drowning. we found 7 dead turtles in two days i went for the turtle walks which was too sad sight to watch. one was even bleeding from its tail when we found it dead and another had its head chopped off! its just too sad to watch.

On day 2 we found two olive ridley turtles nesting and laying eggs and saw the whole process happening in front of us. Arun said some people walk for years and don't get to see a turtle nesting and here i was seeing two on my second day, talk about being lucky. the turtles lay the eggs about 10 to 15 meters from the high tide line in a foot or two deep nest beneath the sand which they dig with their fins. then she starts laying the eggs for about 45 minutes. after she finishes she beautifully covers the nests and dances over it compacting it and then camouflages it completely by throwing sand on it. its just amazing to watch her beautifully cover the whole nest as if nothing happened. after she leaves the place and goes back to the sea we dig up the nest and keep the eggs in a soft bag, make measurements of the nest and distance from the high tide line and then continue walking and searching for more nests. by the time we reach the end of the walk it became 0330hrs and we had reached the hatchery. where we dug up sand and replicate the nests dug by the turtles and slowly place all the eggs from the bags into the nests we made.

more information about turtles and joining for turtle walks in Chennai visit Students Sea Turtle Conservation Network's website.or contact Arun - 2490 1019 or Akila - 9940 300200, email sstcnchennai{AT}gmail{DOT}com.

new year resolutions

Wish you a fantastic new year ahead. heres my list of new year resolutions. ok i dont think these are resolutions that way but more like things i wanna do in this year :p

• learn a new language (probably chinese)
• learn to swim, (been in chennai for 8 years, :( yeah i know)
• learn to play atleast one musical instrument ( probably guitar )
• learn some new sport and play it more often (actually, i rarely play anything for that matter)
• start reading lots of books (i just rarely read anything completely, so i want to devote more time in reading, which i've never done before)
  
• plant trees and learn a thing or two about growing plants at home.

well this isnt exhaustive and if i think of something new it can get added.

Delhi Half Marathon 28th Oct

"a half marathon is 21kms do you know that? you cant jus complete it just like that understand.. it requires training for atleast a month. so better start running" well thats what i had told my brother when he said that he'd registered both of our names in delhi half marathon. after a week of getting up early morning in chennai and running i could barely even do 4kms after which i couldnt even walk. 21 jus seemed impossible. after i came to delhi 15 days before the event we went for running only once in morning in which we did about 10kms of which i ran only about 5 and the rest only walked. and then soon they sent an envelope of the route and other race details. my brother just kept staring at the map and said "oh my god are they gonna make us run whole delhi? on top of that a U-turn after that? what the hell? nehru park, india gate, rashtrapati bhawan, and then u-turn again?" but he said he could still do it. and me? amm i wasnt quite sure about completing it. apparently we have to complte it in less than 3 hours or we dont get any certificate. two days before the race we went and collected a goddie bag and timing chip and bib number.
so how did it start? night before the race we go to a mall nearby to buy jogging pants for me :D and then there is a movie going on in theatre which we want to see too. so we get tickets for the 2315 show! we reach home at 0130 on race day and sleep at 0200. amazing arent we? and the race manual thingy said take enough rest before race day. :-p. alarm rings at 0400 i go and take bath and then we both take the car and drive from our home in gurgaon to delhi nehru stadium where we'd reserved parking.. which turned out to be complete waste of money coz the parking had space for atleast a 100 cars but was occupied by only 10. no one cared or asked for our reserved parking ticket. anyways so we reach the race start place at about 0710 after a shuttle service from nehru stadium drops us to the holding area at the start line. the race starts exactly as scheduled at 0740.
the arrangement was just really good. and it started exactly as scheduled. lots and lots of cameras every where and thousands of people running together. even an air force chopper which i guess must have been hired by some tv channel. the event was coming live on national tv and a private sports channel.
first 4 kms were quite easy.. but after that i slowly began to think if i can complete whole 21 kms. there were water stations every 2 kms which turned out to be extremely useful. people handed tiny water bottles with enough water to last another 2 kms. somehow i jus kept going. every few minutes i used to take out my cell phone and see the time. after one hour it was only 8. that way i should be able to complete it in 3hours. but then considering that soon i may get too tired to continue it looked like i was way behind. one and half hours and then it was 12kms. which means if i continued at the same speed i can still make it. it was becoming really hard now. and i had to stop after every 200m to walk for a minute before. i'd calculated that i would need to finish a km every 10 mins to finish it. which seemed not that hard now. but i was reaching my threshold level already. every km was being completed at almost exactly the same time i.e. 10 mins, and sometimes a little earlier than that. soon only 4 km were remaining and the crowd suddenly increased by hundreds as another small race (great delhi run) had started and its finish was planned about the same time as that of the main event (half marathon). after 19km mark i was searchin for 20km mark but never saw it. the place looked very familiar to the starting line and i knew the end wasnt that far. and soon there it was. board saying 500m to the finish. and then there was no looking back there were over 20 mins left and i knew i'll complete it in 3hrs no matter what now. my legs had started to pain a lot now and if i stop now it may become to excrutiating to continue so kept running slowly but steadily and reached the finish line in 2:46 phewww. i completed it wow. never thought i could do that. took the phone and called bhaiya and he said he was waiting in queue in certificate counter.
and that was the worst thing about the whole event. vodafone's arrangement after the race was just pathetic. people had run 21 kms and after that what happens? they're made to wait for 2 hrs in the sun in the queue to get their refunds which they had paid for acailing the timing for the race and collect their certificates. i could barely even stand and only after half an hour did someone even bring water to drink. we were told that we'll be given refreshments after the race.. we have no idea when and where were they given nor were we told by anyone. there aws lot of confusion and people were just too irritated after the race seeing this situation. anyways the medal given by them was quite beautiful and we were told that we can download the timing certificate online and so after collecting the medal and getting 1000rs refund for the timing chip we took an auto to nehru stadium (coz the shuttle service had stopped after 12, and we collected the certificates only at 1230) . its like for the race there was so much arrangement and so much media etc. and as soon as its over no one cares. no proper arrangement for distributing certificates and refunding deposit amount no service to drop people to the parking lot which was 4 or 5 kms from the starting point..jus nothing. we reached home after an hour long drive and we were too tired to do anything but sleep and woke up at night. leaving aside the poor treatment after the race. it really was an amazing seeing people have so much spirit, joy and determination and that too people in so large numbers participating for event like this. pictures i'll upload very soon.

chhenai to ennore

Its been a long time since i'd gone for a cycle trip somewhere away from the city so decided to get out. actually two friends were supposed to come but one (yash) kept his phone in silent mode so didnt get up :-p. and even more unfortunate for madan whose cycle tyre refused to pressurize in the morning damn. so after two people couldnt make it to our meeting place it was just me standing in madhya kailas at 0555 thinking where to go. decided to go to marina beach and come back home. i started riding towards marina and reached too soon at 0610
so decided i'll keep driving some more distance. soon i decided to keep driving to north of chennai as far as i could for two hours and then turn back.

Had never explored the north part of chennai. immediately after marina beach comes chennai port, and after that its parrys and few more kms from there its royapuram. after parrys the road in royapuram is alongside the coast and theres a sea wall and there are groynes every km all the way till ennore which is where i ended the northward journey. the coast was just so beautiful. because of the sea wall the waves hit so close to the road that you can hear the sound of the waves hitting the rocks all along the road. one side of the road was occupied completely with atleast a hundred container trucks standing in queue and moving at snails pace. by the time i reached ennore it was 0745 and time to turn back. spent half hour sitting on the rocks and took many photos with my phone and then started driving back. reached home at about 1015 not to late for breakfast at home. was becoming too hot and difficult to drive after 10 anyway. so reached home at right time. had great time cycling as always.


more pics on flickr. flickr link on the right sidebar.

india wins!!!!

1went for men's hockey Asia cup finals in radhakrishnan stadium in egmore, chennai. india defeated korea 7-2. hockey is just so much fun to watch. its so fast and you cant take your eyes off even for a second. watching the game in stadium just dropped the graph for my love for even lower which has already been falling from long time, last major crash was during the fifa world cup and now after watching hockey in real stadium theres very little hope left. i just dont understand how people can watch it for whole day. i mean how can people have so much time? and test matches? omg dont even talk about them. India still lives on cricket. actually even for the finals of asia cup there were hardly any ads on tv! my bro who was watching from gurgaon actually told me tht during half time there weren't any ads and the camera was just constantly pointed at the crowd in the stadium. that never happens in cricket. actually now a days there are so many ads in cricket that they start the ads even before the ball stops moving after the last delivery of every over and the ads end just before the batsman hits the ball. just pathetic. and the ads go on whole day without even 2 second gap. i really dont understand how can people have so much time to come and watch the game for whole day. anyway back to hockey the game was just awesome. chief minister of the state had come to give the trophy and so the security was tight from the very beginning of the match with ample number of policemen to control the huge crowd that had turned up. after the match the indian team kept signing autographs as we were leaving. they were the defending champions and they did very good job defending the cup and winning it again. hope there are more matches in chennai, i'll try to keep an eye on the proceedings of my new addtion to list of my favourite sports.

hockey time baby

Asia cup, India enter finals after defeating Japan with 4-1. finals tomorrow against Korea at 1830 IST.

take me away

AVRIL LAVIGNE LYRICS
"Take Me Away"

I cannot find a way to describe it
It's there inside; all I do is hide
I wish that it would just go away
What would you do, you do, if you knew
What would you do

[Chorus:]
All the pain I thought I knew
All the thoughts lead back to you
Back to what was never said
Back and forth inside my head
I can't handle this confusion
I'm unable; come and take me away

I feel like I am all alone
All by myself I need to get around this
My words are cold, I don't want them to hurt you
If I show you, I don't think you'd understand
Cause no one understands

[Chorus]

I'm going nowhere (on and on and)
I'm getting nowhere (on and on and on)
Take me away
I'm going nowhere (on and off and off and on)
(and off and on)

[Chorus]

Take me away
Break me away
Take me away

love the song so thought i'll post it.
thanks to www.azlyrics.com for the lyrics
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/avrillavigne/takemeaway.html

Delhi to Chennai

Delhi to chennai
air deccan

blogged with k790

how do i look???

how do i look? how do i look? hmm? hmm?? :D

trying on kurta in dressing room of sellers, adyar, chennai. i just thought it'll look cool for my brothers engagement. by the way, some engagement pics on flickr, link to my flickr on right pane.

blogged with k790
edited later on computer.

Die hard 4

Die hard 4
Sathyam 14:54

blogged with k790

how to hide camera album in my sony ericsson phone

ever wanted to hide the camera album of your phone from someone using your phone for sometime, your friend maybe. heres an easy method to do that. just change the camera folder attributes (e:\DCIM\100MSDF\) to hidden. the best thing about this method is that its too simple and moreover you can take as many pictures from your mobile phone camera as you want and they will all get saved but they don't get displayed when you go to directory and try to view them.

now the question how do you change the folder attributes of that camera album foder? one way is to keep that directory always hidden by using a memory card reader once and let it be hidden. to change the attributes you have to right click on the folder (in windows) and go properties and "check" the hidden check box.

what? oh now u want to do it in the phone directly? oh for that you'll need some application which lets you to change the folder attributes. something like mobyExplorer from bermin software lets you browse and do those things. its a beautiful file explorer with many other feathers too. try it out ( http://www.bermin.net/mobyexplorer.html )

actually i really needed to do this because sometimes my friends take my phone and just start taking the photos from my phone without asking me which i dont like. never really told them anything but was really pissed with their attitude of not respecting someone else's privacy so started trying to figure out a way to stop it. anyway soon i think i'll be posting why love my SE phone soooooooo much. SE rocks!

marina beach - a sunday evening ride on my cycle

beautiful fruit shop i couldn't resist in marina beach, where atleast a hundred small shops on both sides take you to the shore. i was too thirsty after cycling over 8kms from my house and thought i'll have some drink to quench my thirst. searching for a clean place where i can drink juice or something i came across this beautiful shop, very distinct from others around it. it looked like he had lot better sense of cleanliness than other shops, from the way he had arranged and placed the glasses with sliced fruits in them. and kept the whole place so organized. so i just had to have something there. a glass of those assorted mixtures of fruits and a glass of lime juice after that cost only Rs.17/- (about $0.422 according to xe.com). went to shore too dark too many people, so dint stay a even a minute there, started walking back, took my cycle and came back home.

beautiful design of a 7 segment display which i'd never seen before

just the other day. i was feeling really bored in the evening so i took my cycle for a ride to the airport. after reching there i had 3 glasses of hpmc apple juice and then started driving back home. on my way back home, just before exiting the airport, i just saw a green fluorescent digital clock which btw also shows temperature, and just thought i'll check it out. so i stopped the cycle to have a closer look at it. roughly its size was 2'x 6'. when i first looked at it i thought it must be using bulbs or some leds or something. but i had never seen any display like this before.
surprisingly it used fluorescent reflecting pieces of plastic for each segment of the 7 segment display, which showed their reflective faces on and off by facing outwards and then facing inwards, so tht their reflective face was not visible, and non reflecting black face appeared as black. i wonder if i've confused you. the thing is each reflective face rotated with a small motor and alternatively depending on whether that segment was on or off, it showed the reflecting face outwards and inwards. beautiful and simple idea in the age of LEDs, LCDs and OLEDs and what not.. this one is visible even in bright sunlight! and its just amazing to see those two dots in the middle turn on and off every second. anyways i did take a video with my phone, its not very clear but its good enough to appreciate the design of tht display.

Shrek 3

Shrek the third- 7/6/07

blogged with k790