Dubare Elephant Training Camp (Road trip to Coorg - Part 3)

"When an elephant shakes its butt, don't always assume it is shitting!" Click this link to go directly to the interesting part of the story!
6:30 a.m. Sunday morning. We started the day early by driving through Nisargadhama enroute Dubare Elephant Training Camp.Dubare was the highlight of our trip and we were very excited about being close to the elephants. Dubare is about 10 Kms from Kushalnagar. If you are leaving early, then the drive can be heavenly - cool fresh air along the banks of Cauvery and the route is lined with coffee estates. Every estate has a small house in the center and is covered by garden all around. Typically caretakers of the estates live in these houses. We were imagining what it would be like to stay in such surroundings 1 month every year. Reached Dubare around 7:00 a.m. The last 2 Kms to Dubare can take only 1 vehicle in 1 direction. The lack of a proper road makes driving dangerous. Misinformed about the timings we were quite early. The training camp begins only at 8:45 .am.


We walked across the river to reach the other bank and waited for the elephants to get dressed and come :). We did this 4 times ..i know you are wondering "what were we thinking?". Well Pravin and Vivek were cursing me as we didn't have breakfast in the morning, so we went again to the other side to have breakfast and be back in time. This training camp began 2 years back. It is a group of 13 elephants that visitors can interact with in such close quarters for about 2 hours. In the meantime, we saw the place were food is prepared for them every evening. I believe they like their food only if it is packaged into balls. One of the pictures shows a person lining those ragi and jaggery balls (their food). We strolled around the forest and spotted a lone elephant - a single tusker that had grazed away from its group. We took a few pictures standing behind it while it peed. Finally THEIR HIGHNESS made their appearance at 8:45 a.m. and went straight into the water. We bathed the elephants and later fed them. My god..How much they ate. But they have a very slimy saliva. One of the pictures shows a mother elephant and standing beside it is its baby. The baby is 9 months old and the mother is very protective of its baby.


The gentleman in this picture is a vet with 17 years in the company of animals. He has been associated with this elephant training camp since it began in 2003. The elephants follow his instructions to the dot and he absolutely loves them too. He wore a cargo and his pockets were filled with elephant feed. As he educated us about the pachyderm, he fed the elephant standing by his side. For some strange reason (probably because of the animal feed in his pockets), this vet reminds me the description of the vet in Haruki Murakami's "The Wind-up bird chronicle".
The vet's daughter recollects years later how her father smelled like the animals when he returned home from the zoo every evening. Though he was using it as a specimen, he made sure "she" didn't feel so and pampered her all through the session..Occasionally patting on her body and running his hands on her trunk. If you have a voracious appetite for statistics, then read along. He made a special request to each one of us in the group to spread the message by publishing wherever we could that elephants are an endangered species and they should not be poached but protected. Here are some facts I can recollect that the vet told us about this huge mammal ....

1. They have been in existence for millions of years now. References to them have been found in Vedas, Arthashastra, Ramayana and in the most recent times as

war elephants in battles.
2. Primarily 2 kinds are alive today - Asian and African. Physically there are stark differences between the 2. the African species has larger ears. The

Asian species has a more pronounced trunk and back.
3. About 50,000 muscles on its trunk
4. Vegetarian mammals and they eat more than 170 Kgs of food everyday. Can't digest protein and most of it goes as waste. This serves as fodder!
5. The average age of an elephant is anywhere between 75-90 years. The oldest one in the Dubare group is 82 years.
6. The gestation period of an elephant is 20 months.
7. Among the Asian elephants, only males have tusks. But among the Africa elephants, both males and females have tusks.
8. There are about 4000 elephants in India now. They were declared an endangered species in 1989.
9. When male elephants mature, they have an urge to have s* and can go insane. If 2 such male elephants meet head on in a fight, one of them is sure to die. This is primarily the reason why we hear some elephants in temples going mad and running haywire killing people in the months of Nov - Jan.
10. Bad news for males - The female is the head of the elephant family. The female guides the entire group when a natural calamity strikes. It is believed that when the Tsunami struck not a single elephant was around. They had migrated to higher altitude land.
11. They can sense smells and hear sounds as far as 6 Kms away. Amongst themselves they communicate in decibels beyond our hearing range.
12. The tusk of an elephant grows until the last day of its life. However, the growth rate reduces after 45 years.
13. They consume about 100 liters of water everyday.
14. Has an eyesight of only 80 deg so never ever go behind an elephant. It might just throw you 40 feet away with its trunk like a football. And you wouldn't have any bones left to count.
15. Watch when an elephant walks - the steps made by the first leg always match those by the back legs.



Elephant Ride

After that informative session from the vet, we were called in the order we checked in for the ride. For a while we believed that we would get to ride atop our friend - the lone one with a single tusk. But as luck would have it, we rode on top of the huge one - the double tusker that ate a lot of food just 15 mins back. 6 of us sat on top of it. And it started. There was just one more elephant in front of us. The first 10 steps were very exciting. We were thrilled until I felt a sudden tremor. Memories of the Kraken ride (roller coaster) at Sea World came flashing back to me. And I thought that was not so bad as this one. I was relieved when the mahout said the elephant is shaking its butt because it wants to pee and poop! What a time I thought! Relieved of the burden, it took a few steps ahead and then we were within arms reach of the other elephant. This is when hell broke loose. Seriously I didn't think I was going to get back alive from there. I thought our guy (obviously the elephant) doesn't like us much and is going to shake me down and stamp his feet. To make matters worse, the girl sitting beside me started screaming in a shrill voice that drove the elephant mad. It shook itself violently and instead of walking straight started walking sideways. The mahout ( a young boy of 17) couldn't control it. The elephant group ahead of us stopped. Amidst this drama, there was a 3rd elephant group behind us. Thankfully, the mahout of the group was a veteran. He sensed what was happening. It turned out that our elephant was a male and the one leading us was a female. And our guy wanted to lead and not follow the female. Very funny! So the female elephant stepped aside and our guy marched right ahead and he was all happy after that! I was so happy to alight from the ride and swore never again to go on one (and definitely not a male one).
Ummm..on second thoughts I probably exaggerated just a lil bit. It is a wonderful experience that you must do once in a lifetime. so try it out. But don't you blame me if it shakes its butt.

3gtoday

Yo! 3gtoday website is live today. 3gtoday, a free website, by Qualcomm, highlights all the commercial third generation wireless devices and services offered around the world. The site has a comprehensive list of all the 3G operators and the applications and services provided by them. If you are someone who does a lot of gorundwork on the features a phone provides before buying one, then this is the site to go to.
The project in itself was a great initiative and came with its set of challenges - intimidating technologies on an unknown platform and a highly demanding customer who knew what they were talking about (no bullshit). If you are in the job of developing software, then you know what I mean by that last comment! I'm proud to have been associated with this project and the fact that I can openly talk about it now.
This project was close to me for various reasons - it tested my perseverance, the patience to tackle technology and people at distributed locations, learning to say "NO" when required and most important of all - it changed my career forever.

Check out the site and lemme know what you think..oh especially the devices and search. Believe me its cool!

Bylakuppe (Weekend Getaway - road trip to Coorg - Part 2)

The journey after our lunch was very refreshing. Ofcourse, as you guessed for the most part because of my delicious food :) Just kidding. The route from Mysore outskirts until Kushalnagar was literally deserted and we had fun driving at 100 Kmph. The road is comparatively good and either sides of the road are lined with bright red Gulmohar trees which is feast to the eyes. I know its nothing compared to the fall colors but this is the best we have here and I fully appreciated and enjoyed the beauty. After a while we saw acres and acres of plush green paddy fields. Beautiful ..we just stopped, enjoyed the view, took a few pictures and then carried on. We reached Kushalnagar (which is about 30 Kms from Coorg) at 4;00 p.m. Refreshed and we were just in time for the qualifying sessions of Monaco Grand Prix. Saw Ralf Schumacher crash miserably ..we wondered what was he thinking but I guess it is difficult to maneuver especially in Monaco. after that disappointing qualifying time by the Ferrari kids, we decided enough of Formula 1 now. We desperately needed fresh air. So we drove to Bylakuppe.

Bylakuppe is about 7 Kms from Kushalnagar. The entire region is habited by Tibetans. Bylakuppe is also home to the the Namdroling Monastery. A few pictures are here :



The monastery as you can see is adorned with flashy colors such as brilliant red, blue and yellow that blend perfectly. It is set in serene surroundings far away from the traffic and surrounded by coffee estate. about hundreds of monks reside there. To be honest, I was impressed but not as much as Buddhist monastery in Kandy, Sri Lanka. That was beautiful and one had to wear a sarong (no skin show at all) to enter inside. No such restrictions here and you could take pictures too. The centre statue that you see in the picture below is that of Buddha and 60 ft tall. On the right hand side it is that of Buddha Amitayus and on the left of Padmasambhava. All the three statues are made of copper and plated with gold. Inside the statues are relics of great beings, gold scriptures and clay mould stupas. It is also called the Golden Temple and is open from 7:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. So if you are visiting the Coorg neighbourhood do go to this place. After offering prayers, we spoke to a few monks. They were kind enough to lead us to the backyard of the temple where the younger monks (about 8-9 years old) practice blowing the huge wind pipes (it is a muscial instrument). The backyard is nothing but fields for miles and miles away. We strolled through the coffee estate for a while examining the coffee seeds. Finally after a satisfying evening, we returned to the hotel after a good dinner!

Weekend Getaway - road trip to Coorg - Part 1

We had a terrific weekend. The road trip to Coorg had been eluding us for 3 years now. So we decided to "just do it" this weekend. Vivek, Pravin and I drove in our BB (Black Baleno) to Coorg. This trip required meticulous planning. It is difficult to decide when you have too many choices and the freedom to choose. Coorg and the surrounding areas on the banks of Cauvery offer myriads of picnic spots/weekend getaways such as Kabini, Nagarhole, Nisargadhama, Bylakuppe, Bandipur, Madikeri. But they were all booked 2 months in advance. After numerous calls to resorts in these places, all we could manage was 2 rooms in a shady hotel (well not literally) in Kushalnagar. Outlook Traveller came to my rescue. This book priced at Rs.250 is a steal and provides all the information one needs to plan the trip like where to say, when to go, how to go and what to do!

We started at 9:00 a.m. Saturday morning to beat the traffic as we were warned that Bangalore-Mysore road is a disaster. And it proved to be. To get directions, we stopped frequently on the Mysore Road stretch enquiring to make sure we were on the highway to hell (sorry Mysore). It is very risky for the first 60 Kms from Bangalore. A 6 lane highway is under construction so only 2 lanes are functional for ongoing and returning traffic. Watch out for the drunk truck drivers, overtaking tempos. It was funny how cars sneak out of their lanes like a mouse (as pravin said) to see if there was space to overtake. Amazed by the number of speedbreakers on the Bangalore-Mysore-Coorg highway, we counted them on our way back. There were actually 93 of them in the 240 Km stretch.

Now time to crack some puzzle. What is it that links these pictures..the train, the rail tracks, a station and rocks!

Well well that was a no brainer. I took these series of pictures at Ramangaram (or Ramgarh), a small town located 40 Kms from Bangalore. The Hindi Classic Film Sholay (1975), famous for its dialogues such as "Kitne aadmi the re", and that made Gabbar Singh a household terror was shot in this hilly neighbourhood in 1975.
Our first stop was at a Coffee Day 60 Kms from Bangalore. It was such a relief to gulp down cold coffee and stretch our legs after 2 hours. A funny thing happened here. V wanted to have cold coffee and Pravin misinterpreted my "cappachillo" order for V as "Cappuccino" and presented V with a steaming hot coffee. The heat of the coffee combined with the temperature outside was evident on bull headed V's face that we dared not to talk to him for the next few minutes!

The driver from Maddur through Mandya and Srirangapatna was scenic. The road is flanked by pkush green fields on either sides. Our destination was Kushalnagar. To goto Coorg you nee dto take a diversion on the right after Srirangpatna. There is a "Orange County Resorts" board indicating the direction. Just follow that. Our next stop was at 2:00 p.m. for lunch. I had prepared a light lunch with the idea of having a mini picnic - food under a banyan tree by the side of a stream. There was no stream so we settled for a handpump under a banyan tree (This is what living in concrete jungles does to one). The feeling was heavenly and for whatever reasons Pravin and Vivek enjoyed my food. With 80 more Kms to go and an empty road ahead, we continued on our journey.

Part 2 and Part 3 of this journey to follow....

Sun Tech Days, Bangalore (May 19th & 20th, 2005)

I had the opportunity to attend Sun Tech Days Technology Conference at Bangalore again. The last time I attended was 4 years back. I made a few notes during the keynote sessions that I would like to share. It would have been better if I had published it on a Wiki. In the absence of which I have posted them on my Technical Blog. The non technical part is here (ok I haven't written it but it will be up soon!)

Sun Tech Days is a premier technology conference conducted by Sun Microsystems and sponsored by a bunch of companies such as SAP, Oracle, Compuware and ObjectFrontier. It is held every year in a few selected cities around the world. In India, this was one the 7th in a row. The event primarily focuses on Java and related technologies. Typically this is a marketing platform for Sun to promote its new products on a larger scale among a wider audience and a community that influences and contributes to software development the most - yes the DEVELOPER community. What can be a better platform to publicise/announce initiatives such as Sun's support for Open Source or showcase technologies that are still in the nascent stages such as EJB 3.0 specification, or Mustang (J2SE 6.0) for that matter.

Here are some interesting statistics and mind boggling numbers --

1. As we all know, this is the 10th birthday of Java.


2. 320,000 Java developers of an estimated 600,000 Software developers in India.


3. Over 3000 developers present at the conference this year as against 176 in 1999.


4. 26 sessions this year spanning over 2 days.


5. Over $300 million spent on Solaris at an estimated effort of 3000 people years and today it is free! 20 million lines of code of Solaris - the largest donation ever made by any company to the Open Source Community.

The event as such was fun and very informative. A chance to meet Jeff Jackson. Wondering who he is? Yea I know he is not as famous as James Gosling,. But Jeff happens to be Gosling's boss! A lot of people got a lot of goodies as gifts such as hundreds of dukes, a few t-shirts signed by James Gosling, a Java leather Jacket to the most talented person and the best of all - a red Electric Guitar autographed by Joe Satriani. Aint that cool? There was a contest for people with weird/extraordinary talent and whoever won got the Leather Java Jacket. Unlike the developers in Brazil who played soccer on the stage or those in Canada who juggled, Indian developers either sang or danced!
There were times when the crowd got out of hand and at one point the facilitator even commented "you guys are scaring me!" and "do you want me to call the security guard?". I thought that was cheap on part of the crowd to fight for a duke...well unfortunately education does not mean civilization!

Read more for info on the tech sessions ...

Sun Tech Days, Bangalore

I'm so happy. Finally I get to goto Sun Tech Days happening at Bangalore tomorrow and dayafter. I am particularly interested in Day 1/Track 1 because of my passion for Java Server Faces. Sun Microsystems used to be my dream company once. Now it is Google.

Summers in India and Mangoes

Despite the scorching heat of Indian Summers, I love it for one reason. If you are from a tropical region, you would know what I'm talking about. Yes, Mangoes! Mango, considered the King of Fruits, is a yellow/orange colored fruit that comes in various sizes, shapes and tastes. The same variety is often known by different names in different parts of India. Every meal in a Indian home ends with Mango during the months of April - August. The availability of a particular variety such as rumani, panganampalli and neelam also changes as the mango season progresses from April. Alphonso, one of the most expensive variety, is priced at more than Rs. 120/Kg. I missed eating Mangoes the past 2 summers. So I'm treating my tastebuds now!

Writing without thinking

Hiromi has started blogging. Chk it out. I think she is honest and it takes a lot to write such private stuff. When I started blogging, I wouldn't reveal anything private. Even if it referred to some specific incident it would all be shoruded in secrecy and so generic so that no one can make sense of! More like being private in public. I think ad-hoc posts are fun where you don't think much about what you write.

Yayyyyy...the weekend is back. I'm going to cook something good (cooking is my latest passion), watch a few movies, sleep a lot and thank god there is no Formula 1 this weekend. I hate to see Schumacher losing. Bangalore Marathon, the first of its kind is happening this Sunday. Weather permitting (it defeinitely is not going to be a 1000 degrees out there :) ), it would be a good event!

Working women – the transition from hard working to ambitious to “just a job”

This post is the result of a water cooler conversation between 3 ladies that were analyzing why people were being judged by how long they stay at office! Strangely I had nothing to contribute …

I have been working for 6 years now. Not a long time by any standards. We were a bunch of 23 graduates who joined the company in my batch. In the early days of my career, I used to work 12-hour days. So did everyone else in my batch. By everyone else I mean both the guys and girls. I was very hard working, ambitious to scale the career ladder quickly, willing to learn and take up additional responsibilities. Let’s be clear on one thing. By hard working I mean, “staying additional hours” at work not just to complete the work assigned but also to take up anything additional to keep the onsite-offshore arrangement going. Weekends meant being at work. As this article titled For Some Techies, an Interminable Workday states, these schedules are built into Indian’s DNA. It is the Indian bachelors (like us then) that have started the trend of staying late hours at work for lack of anything better to do at home and to impress the boss projecting oneself as going to any lengths to get the job done. Now that’s bullshit to the same person 6 years later! Let’s face it. I got married a couple of years later. So did some more from my batch. Now my days start at 9:00 a.m. and end at 6:00 p.m. This is where the differentiation starts in the working pattern of men and women. Both men and women tend to go home early for a few months after the wedding. If I’m not wrong, this transition is natural and every person goes through it. Some survive smartly and some succumb. Work patterns change overnight and yesterday’s “hard working” person is suddenly being branded as “not committed” and leaving “on time” from work is labeled as “leaving early”. No one but us is to be blamed, as we were the ones who started this culture.
However, men return to their old habits of staying late while women return home early. In the case of women, over the next few years their responsibilities towards family increase. I know it gives one a high to have a high-powered career and a family. The truth is it is difficult to “have-it-all” and it comes at a price. Either you have children and reject promotions or you chose career over family. Apparently, many women are choosing not to be “supermoms” these days… It can come as a jolt to sit at home after working for long. There is an obsessive need to feel wanted and keep yourself occupied. I guess when women are in the age of 30-40 years when they are juggling their personal and professional lives, in many cases their professional lives takes a setback. And when they are ready to back in the rat race, their male counterparts are far ahead. This probably explains why there are fewer women executives in the top rung of any organization.

I’m not sure how you can ever address this problem. Well you may ask why do we need these women at all in the workforce. Think going to work tomorrow morning and you don’t find any women at all..does that sound good? You need women for “diversity” I guess. “Work-life” is the buzzword harped at many organizations to woo talented women to join their work force these days.
An
interesting compilation of articles from Harvard Business Review on the topic and how organizations should strive to attract talented women with obligations at home, to join their workforce.

Here’s what I think Indian organizations should do to retain women ….
1. Promote “work from home” concept for REAL. The current infrastructure does such as poor telephone connections and broadband network prevent that. Hopefully that should change soon for the better.
2. Encourage consultants to take calls from home just like their onsite counterparts do.
3. Most importantly, any culture is top driven. So it is important for the top brass to start going home early. Many people I have noticed stay back late because their manager is still around!
4. Have flexible hours. Leave it to the discretion of the employee to determine when, where and how they get their work done. This would solve a lot of woes. As the HBR article stated –

Some women don't require reduced work hours; they merely need flexibility in when, where, and how they do their work. Even parents who employ nannies or have children in day care, for example, must make time for teacher conferences, medical appointments, volunteering, child-related errands—not to mention the days the nanny calls in sick or the day care center is closed. Someone caring for an invalid or a fragile elderly person may likewise have many hours of potentially productive time in a day yet not be able to stray far from home. For these and other reasons, almost two-thirds (64 percent) of the women we surveyed cite flexible work arrangements as being either extremely or very important to them. In fact, by a considerable margin, highly qualified women find flexibility more important than compensation; only 42 percent say that "earning a lot of money" is an important motivator. In our focus groups, we heard women use terms like "nirvana" and "the golden ring" to describe employment arrangements that allow them to flex their workdays, their workweeks, and their careers.

5. finally, on a lighter note, we Indian Software engineers need to get a life. There is a world beyond the walls of your organization. Walk out, develop some hobbies..do anything. don't sit at work after 6:00p.m. This would solve half of our problems. Don't worry..if you don't get a pat on your back from your American customers that you are great..its ok for a while. Atleast you are living your life!

I’m sure by doing all this, the ambition that had died in many women will rejuvenate and then it would be the transition from hard working to ambitious to just a job to ambitious again!

What I have been reading?

1. Does the future belong to China? -- a good article which is intimidating as I was trying to imagine where we (the rest of the world) fit in the future that belongs to China.


2. tom Peters


3. Businessweek's blog


4. Corante - Get Real

Are you a member of the Digirati Club?

I discovered a great blog called HR's Brand New Experience and this is going on my blogroll now. Read this post -- "are you being left behind?" from the blog. Reading it is liking taking a peek inside an idealistic HR's head. Excerpts from a related article --

A new Digital Divide is emerging between the Digirati (those that write blogs, use Firefox, read Boing Boing, use rss aggregators, etc.) vs. the "left behind" (who use IE, get their news from traditional media, don't know what rss means, etc.)

I loved this sentence. I think corporate blogging is very important and an awareness of blogs and WiKis is very essential in selling a brand - be it with your employees, suppliers or customers. If there is a productive alternative to doing a job, then you are better off embracing it rather than playing by the rules -- that I call "the policy game"! Gone are the IE days. It is the FF era. In every organisation there has to be a digital drive that focuses on the latest trends, the implications of not adopting them and how to capitalise them for brand promotion among other things. More than anything else, it is about the bridging the gap with the digi kids.

Highs and Lows of the weekend

Lately, the weekends have been good and I really look forward to them. Typically, we see a bunch of flop movies like Kaal (ofcourse, not on purpose) and then hang out with friends for lunch/dinner. Last Saturday, V and I met U..S at his place. He is an amazing man with a very dynamic personality. I'm fascinated by people who are good orators and he definitely figures in that list. He started talking about how he got involved with the "Art of Living" foundation. We attended a introductory course but it didn't appeal me much to enroll for the session but V did. My hunch is that V enrolled in this class to catch up on his sleep every evening :)
Come Sunday evening and my mood goes on a downhill trip. Not too excited about going to work. Transitions are tough and if you just a have a bunch of PPTs to pour over throughout the day ,then it is all the more difficult. Well no more cribbing. I decided to use this time and catch up on reading. If only some one would pay me to read and write blogs, it would be awesome. So to get over the low moods, I resorted to retail therapy in the evening. That didn't last for long either and now I've contracted a sickness called "Friends Addiction". Oh yea the sitcom Friends I meant. I've been watching back to back episodes on DVD followed by the ones that appear on regular TV. I was surprised that even now there are some episodes in Season 4 that I have not seen. One of them was that of Joey audtioning for a show in Chicago. Just wondering if a "trip to Chicago" therapy would do me good:) Just kidding.

Beware of auction fraud at eBay

I was almost devastated exactly a year back on learning that we lost $1100 in our first ever purchase on eBay. I never wanted to blog about it. It is history now! The stupid incident came back to me when I read this article on BBC today. For all you know, we might have been one of his victims. We bid for a HP laptop and lost the bid. But the seller from UK was willing to sell it to us as the winner of the bid declined to buy. Excited about the price, we agreed. The stupid mistake we did was not to go thr PayPal and submit to his demand of transferring the amount thr Western Union. To this day whenever I see a Western Union counter anywhere, I turn red! He took the money promptly and the laptop never came. Subsequent complaints to Internet Police, FBI turned futile as it was beyond the jurisdiction of US Police too. We exchanged a few e-mails with the Internet Police who in turn directed us to UK police but as you would guess it turned out his address was wrong! Well, I’m glad that the guy is caught. Just so you know, most online frauds originate in Europe so think twice before you want to buy something from that region. And always pay through PayPal.

Talking about Blogging

The most often asked question when you join a new college/organization or goto a team building exercise is "Introduce yourself and tell us what your hobbies are." I would have gone through this ritual more than 5 times in the past 2 weeks. This is one question which sounds quite simple on the surface. It is only when you start talking that you wonder "gosh..what are my hobbies?" I was literally fishing for answers after answering the easy part -- muttering my name which btw is strange to hear from your own self. The day I joined, I was asked to fill a form for the HR in which the last section was about hobbies. Laziness and the inability to think clearly took the better of me and I just scribbled what first came to my mind which was blogging". 2 days later, the HR approached me scratching her head spelling out the word - b l o g g i n g. She said, "L..i, What is your hobby and what does this word mean?" I explained that it was an online journal and she still seemed confused.
Apparently she had asked the same to a couple of people and no one seemed to know what it was! I went through the same situation a couple of times at various meetings and was lucky enough to find a few who did know what "blogging" was about. My answers on blogging became more passionate by the day and that was when I realised that I really love to read and write (which I obviously don't regularly do) blogs.

As an Aquarean my interests have changed with time. I don't know why I couldn't think of my other interests such as watching Formula 1 and the crazy habit of seeing "Friends" every night. It is only the TV channel and the time that I still see "Friends" every evening has changed between Chicago and Bangalore.

Does anyone out there see Joey? I observed that the rating for Joey has dropped by 4%.