"Drive" to mysore

Yesterday, we friends (CoolBlueGang) drove to Mysore. I'm referring to this as a "drive" & not a "trip". There is a reason for that & you'll just find that out.

First of all, people have become so busy that we friends (CBG) hardly meet on weekends. So, we (Srini & me) decided that we have to plan for a one-day trip. Srini's suggestion was that the backup plan would be to go to Mysore. That is, if we couldn't decide on any other place, then we would go to Mysore.. We started off the planning almost 2 weeks ago. But the actual planning didn't happen till last week. I shot off an email asking suggestions for places. No one replied. I suggested Hogenikal falls. Somebody shot it down saying it's a dirty place. Srini suggested that we can go to Mysore itself & we could visit Melkote on the way. I suggested Chunchanakatte falls (which is at a little distance from Mysore).

Narendra was not free on Friday & Saturday. So, we postponed the trip for Sunday. Srinivas came to my place on Friday to finalise the plans. We planned leave early at 6AM in the morning, go to Mysore for breakfast. We planned to visit Chamundi hills, zoo, palace & then visit Chunchanakatte falls (instead of KRS as KRS would be crowded on a weekend). We had even communicated this plan to everyone by Saturday. We planned to take 2 cars - Srini's Getz & my Santro. The planning was all done well. So, I thought the trip would be good too..

On Sunday morning, I woke up at 5AM & I was ready by 6AM. We were in Chandru's house by 6:30 or 6:45. Naren was supposed to come there. We didn't have to wait long. He came in his car & suggested that he'll get his car & I can leave behind my car at Chandru's place. I agreed to do so. And we started from Chandru's place at 7 AM. The start time was quite good, even though it was a little be late than planned. We could have reached Mysore by 9 or 9:30. That would have meant a little late breakfast. So, instead, we stopped on the way at Kamat Hotel at around 8:15 or so. We had a heavy breakfast there. On the way to Mysore, I heard comments like "What are we going to do at zoo? Why are we going there?", etc. I decided to ignore them.

By the time we reached Mysore it was about 9:45. We decided to go to Chamundi hills first. We were on the top at 10. We enjoyed the view there for a few minutes & spent some time there. Although we went to the top of the hill, we didn't go to the temple as none of us were interested. Some people said that they didn't want to go to zoo. We had seen a glimpse of a lake on the way to Chamundi hills. We decided to go to that place next.

The lake was called "Karanji Kere" (kere means lake in kannada). There was also a park next to the lake called "Karanji Kere Park". We strolled around in the park for a few minutes. Then we went boating in the lake. The boating was for a short duration only. We peddled our boats for half an hour & returned back to the park. The park had a good spacious aviary. There were lots of different kinds of birds there - peacocks, swans, and many others whose names I do not know. Visiting the aviary was the only good thing (or the only thing) that we did in Mysore. It was 11:30 by the time we came out of the aviary. There was a butterfly park further down. But nobody seemed interested to visit that. I would have liked to go to the butterfly park. But many people said they were hungry & wanted to find a good restaurant for lunch.

When it comes to lunch, my friends think that I'm THE reserved guy. Actually one thing I haven't understood so far is that why so many of my friends, who are all pure vegetarians, prefer to go to non-vegetarian hotels for lunch. It's not that there are not many decent vegetarian restaurants around. It's just they prefer to go to expensive non-vegetarian hotels only. My policy is that as far as possible I'm not going to eat anything at a non-vegetarian hotel. One thing my friends always ask me is how I'm going to survive when I go out of country. I would like to tell them straight on their face that it may be tough when I go out of country, but it's quite bad here, when I go out with my friends itself. I mean, right here in my own country, when I'm with my friends, when we have so many choices of vegetarian restaurants, I have had to skip lunches with my friends because they fancy non-veg restaurants (& detest vegetarian places). Sigh.. I don't want them to feel bad, so I haven't told this on their face yet.

Anyway, coming back to our "trip", these guys wanted to go to a "good" hotel for lunch. I called up my cousin & found out the names of a couple of hotels that were good. I didn't get the directions to those hotels. We could have asked our way around. But my friends, as I told you earlier, somehow detest eating at a vegetarian only hotel. After a drive through the city, Narendra saw an advertisement of some star hotel. Everybody else agreed to go there. I didn't protest. I'm very sure they all knew it was going to be a non-veg hotel. And everybody knows quite well, that I wouldn't eat anything in such places. Still, everybody wanted to go to that place. So, there was no point in protesting.

These guys asked directions for that hotel & managed to find the hotel. (Although if we had asked for directions to the vegetarian hotel suggested by my cousin, we could have gone there. But how could these guys go to a veg restaurant? It would be below their dignity!). I plainly told them I'm not going to eat anything at that hotel. But these guys carried on & had lunch at that hotel while I was just sitting next to them, idle. It took more than an hour to finish their lunch there. (Now that I think of it, I feel that I should never even have gone inside that hotel). After their lunch, I walked around & found a vegetarian hotel quite closeby & had my lunch there. (It was not an expensive hotel. It wasn't even a hotel with an AC room. But it was an ordinary vegetarian hotel & the food was good).

So, by the time we finished our 2 batches of lunch, it was 3PM. We then went to Mysore Palace. Since it was a holiday (Sunday), there were a lot of people. My friends didn't want to go where there is crowd. So, we just got to the palace gates & turned back. They didn't want to go to zoo too. KRS would have been crowded either. So, we decided to check out Chunchanakatte falls. The only directions we had was that it was on the Mysore-Hassan route. Somebody also informed that it is on the way to KRS. We decided to go on the way to KRS & ask for directions to Chunchanakatte. We hadn't gone very far, when we asked for directions. We were told to take the ring road as that would lead to the falls. The ring road turned out to be the Bangalore-Mysore road. And although we did ask directions at a few places, no one had heard of Chunchanakatte. Then I realised that at some distance from Mysore, (when coming towards B'lore), a road to the left goes towards Shravanabelagola & Hassan. I suggested we take that route & ask people there if they knew about Chunchanakatte. We finally decided to take that route & go to a max of 20 kms & if we didn't find the route, we head back.

When we took the deviation, we asked around & found out that we were on the right track. Chunchanakatte was on the way to K.R Pete. K.R Pete was about 35 kms from there & Chunchanakatte was about 7-8 kms from K.R Pete. It was already 4:15PM by then. If we had decided to go to Chunchanakatte, it would have been very late in the night to come back. So, Srini suggested we skip the place & return to Bangalore instead. On the way back, we stopped only at Coffee day & we were back at Chandru's place by 8PM. I was back home by 8:30 PM.

In short, we went to Mysore. There we visited Chamundi hills, but we did not bother to go to the temple there. We skipped the zoo completely. We did not go to the Palace either, we just saw it from outside. We did not go to KRS either. We went half the way towards Chunchanakatte falls & returned back. The only place we went was boating & the aviary at the Karanji Kere Park. We didn't even have a look at the whole park. We missed places like butterfly park.

So, we just had a "drive" to mysore & not a trip as we didn't visit anything at all. It was as though we had gone there just for lunch. And for me it was as though I went just to sit at that non-veg restaurant when my friends were having lunch.

Anyway, here are the few photos that I clicked. I just wanted to post these photos, but ended up writing so much.

Mysore drive

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ಬೆಂಗಳೂರಿನ traffic

ಇಂದು ಮುಂಜಾನೆ office ಗೆ ಬೇಗನೆ ಹೋರಟಿದ್ದೆ. ಪ್ರತಿ ದಿನ 8:30, 8:45 ಹೊತ್ತಿಗೆ ಹೊರಡಿತ್ತಿದ್ದ ನಾನು, ಇಂದು ಏಳು ಕಾಲಿಗೇ (7:15) ಮನೆಯಿಂದ ಹೊರಟೆ. ಅಷ್ಟು ಹೊತ್ತಿಗೆ, ರಸ್ತೆಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ವಾಹನ ಸಂಖ್ಯೆ ಕಡಿಮೆ ಇರುವುದೆಂದು ಭಾವಿಸಿದ್ದೆ. ಆದರೆ, traffic ತುಂಬಾ ಕಡಿಮೆ ಏನೂ ಇರಲಿಲ್ಲ.

ನಾನು ಪ್ರತಿ ದಿನ ಗಾಡಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಓಡಾಡುವಾಗ, ಬನಶಂಕರಿಯ ಬಸ್ ನಿಲ್ದಾಣದೆಡೆಗೆ ಹೋಗದಿರಲು ಪ್ರಯತ್ನಿಸುತ್ತೇನೆ. ಆದರೆ ಈ ದಿನ, ನನ್ನ ತಮ್ಮನನ್ನು ಶಾಲೆಗೆ ಬಿಡಬೇಕಿತ್ತು. ಹಾಗಾಗಿ, ಬನಶಂಕರಿ ಬಸ್ ನಿಲ್ದಾಣದ ದಾರಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಹೋದೆ. ಅಲ್ಲಿನ ದುಃಸ್ಥಿತಿ ಏನೆಂದರೆ, ಹತ್ತು ಹೆಜ್ಜೆಗಳ ಅಂತರದಲ್ಲಿ ಎರಡು signalಗಳು ಇವೆ. ಬೆಳಗ್ಗಿನ ಈ ಹೊತ್ತಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಪೋಲಿಸಿನವರು ಇರುವುದಿಲ್ಲವೆಂದು ಜನರು, traffic ನಿಯಮಗಳನ್ನು ಗಾಳಿಗೆ ತೂರಿ, ತಮಗೆ ಮನ ಬಂದಂತೆ ಗಾಡಿಗಳನ್ನು ಓಡಿಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು. ಮೊದಲನೆಯ signalನಲ್ಲಿ ಬಲ ತಿರುಗುವಂತಿಲ್ಲ. ಆದರೂ ಒಂದು ಕಾರು ಬಲ ತಿರುಗುವ indicator ಹಾಕಿ, ಆರಾಮಾಗಿ ಬಲಕ್ಕೆ ತಿರುಗಿತು. ನನಗೆ ಕಾನೂನು ಉಲ್ಲಂಘಿಸುವವರನ್ನು ಕಂಡರೆ ಕೆಂಡದಂಥ ಕೋಪ ಬರುತ್ತದೆ. ಆದರೆ ಅಲ್ಲಿ ನಾನು ಏನೂ ಮಾಡುವಂತಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಆ signal ಹಸಿರು ಇದ್ದುದ್ದರಿಂದ, ಮುಂದೆ ಹೋದೆ. ಬಸ್ ನಿಲ್ದಾಣದ ಎದುರು ಎರಡನೆಯ signal ಸಿಕ್ಕಿತು. ಅಲ್ಲಿ ಕೆಂಪು ದೀಪ ಉರಿಯುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ಕಾರಣ, ನಾನು ನನ್ನ ಗಾಡಿಯನ್ನು ನಿಲ್ಲಿಸಿದೆ. ನನ್ನ ಪಕ್ಕದಲ್ಲಿ 2-3 ಆಟೊಗಳು, 2-3 ಬಸ್ ಗಳು signalಅನ್ನು ಕಡೆಗಾಣಿಸಿ ವೇಗವಾಗಿ ಮುಂದೆ ಹೋಗುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು. ಆಗ, ನನ್ನ ಹಿಂದೆ ಒಂದು ಬಸ್ ಬಂದು ಜೋರಾಗಿ horn ಮಾಡಲು ಶುರುಮಾಡಿತು. ನಾನು ತಿರುಗಿ ನೋಡಿದಾಗ, ಅದರ ಚಾಲಕನು, ನಾನೂ ಸಹ traffic ನಿಯಮ ಉಲ್ಲಂಘಿಸಿ ಮುಂದೆ ಹೋಗಿ, ಅವನಿಗೂ ಮುಂದೆ ಹೋಗಲು ದಾರಿ ಮಾಡಿಕೊಡಬೇಕೆಂದು ಸನ್ನೆ ಮಾಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದ. ನಾನು ಅವನಿಗೆ signalನಲ್ಲಿ ಕೆಂಪು ದೀಪ ಇರುವುದನ್ನು ಕೈ ಸನ್ನೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ತೋರಿಸಿದೆ. ಆದರೆ, ಅವನಿಗೆ ತಾಳ್ಮ ಇರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಅವನು ಜೋರಾಗಿ horn ಮಾಡುತ್ತಲೇ ಇದ್ದನು. ಆದರೆ ನಾನು ಅದಕ್ಕೆ ಕಿವಿ ಕೊಡಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಹಸಿರು ದೀಪ ಬಂದೊಡನೆಯೆ, ನಾನು ಬಲ ತಿರುಗಲು ಹೊರಟೆ. ಆದರೆ ಎದುರುಗಡೆಯಿಂದ ಒಂದು ಆಟೋ ಮತ್ತು ಒಂದು ಬಸ್, ಅವರಿಗಿದ್ದ ಕೆಂಪು ದೀಪವನ್ನು ಕಡೆಗಾಣಿಸಿ ಮುಂದೆ ಬರುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು. ಆ ಆಟೋದವನೆಂತೂ ನನಗೆ ಇನ್ನೇನು ಹೊಡೆಯಬೇಕು ಅನ್ನೊಷ್ಟು ಹತ್ತಿರ ಬಂದು ನಿಲ್ಲಿಸಿದ. ನನಗೂ ರೇಗಿ ಹೋಯಿತು. "red light ಇರೋದು ಕಾಣ್ಸೋಲ್ವಾ sir?" ಎಂದೆ. ಅದಕ್ಕೆ ಅವನು ನಾನೆ ಎನೋ ತಪ್ಪು ಮಾಡಿದ ಹಾಗೆ ನನಗೇ ಜೋರು ಮಾಡಿದ. ಅಲ್ಲೆ ರಸ್ತೆ ಮಧ್ಯದಲ್ಲಿ ನಿಂತು ಅವನೊಡನೆ ಜಗಳ ಮಾಡುವಷ್ಟು ಸಮಯವಾಗಲಿ, ತಾಳ್ಮೆಯಾಗಲಿ ನನಗಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಅವನನ್ನು ಮನದಲ್ಲಿಯೆ ಬೈದುಕೊಂಡು ಮುಂದೆ ಸಾಗಿದೆ.

ಬನಶಂಕರಿಯ ನಂತರ, ರಸ್ತೆಗಳೆಲ್ಲ ಖಾಲಿಯಾಗೇ ಇತ್ತು. ಮನೆಯಿಂದ officeಗೆ ಬರಲು ಇಂದು 35-40 ನಿಮಿಷ ಹಿಡಿಯಿತು. ಎಂಟು ಗಂಟೆಯ ನಂತರ ಹೋರಟಿದ್ದರೆ, ಒಂದು ಕಾಲು ಗಂಟೆಯಾದರೂ ಹಿಡಿಯುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ಬೆಳಗ್ಗೆ ಎಷ್ಟು ಬೇಗ ಹೊರಡುತ್ತೀನೊ, ಅಷ್ಟು ಪ್ರಯಾಣದ ಸಮಯ ಕಡಿಮೆ ಮಾಡಬಹುದು.

ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು, ಅದರಲ್ಲೂ ಇಲ್ಲಿನ traffic ಸ್ಥಿತಿ, ಎಷ್ಟು ಹದಗೆಟ್ಟಿದೆ. 4-5 ವರ್ಷಗಳ ಕೆಳಗೆ ಬೆಂಗಳೂರಿನ ಸ್ಥಿತಿ ಹೀಗಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಇನ್ನು 2-3 ವರ್ಷಗಳ ನಂತರದ ಸ್ಥಿತಿಯ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಯೋಚಿಸಿದರೆ ವ್ಯಥೆಯಾಗುತ್ತದೆ.

"Free" software?

I've been an avid linux fan from my first year in Engineering. I've installed & worked with over 50 different linux distributions. In short, I love linux. I bought my PC in 2000. It came pre-loaded with windows.

I didn't have much knowledge about PCs or operating systems then. I remember, one of my friends (Srini) had told me that I should get a bootable windows CD along with the PC. When I asked the guy who assembled my PC, he said "what CD? We don't give any CD". He gave me a bootable floppy instead! I realized that I got a pirated version of windows atleast a few months later.

When I started using Linux later, I realized it's much better than Windows in almost every possible way. Slowly, I was so much awed by Linux, that I've been working mostly on Linux only (at home) ever since.. But I still had windows for a few reasons.
One, I had a win-modem which came with the assembled system, which meant I wasn't able to get it working in Linux for a long time.
Two, I had some data in windows partition. Three, I used to play a lot of games. And if you wanted any good 3d games, there were very few available for Linux.
Also, my dad sometimes used to use the PC, mostly to browse the internet. And he wanted only windows.

My hard disk crashed a few months ago. After some of my futile attempts at getting it fixed, I bought a new one. I installed linux on my system & things were going well.. A new 80 GB hard disk meant that I could have one or two permanent linux partition (with any of my favourite distros installed in them) & also I would still have disk space to install & try out new (or new versions of existing) distros.

After about a couple of weeks of getting the new hard disk, my dad asked me if I had "repaired" the PC. I had then installed Vector Linux & PCBSD. I told him that I had created an account for him in PCBSD & he could start browsing internet in that. The following conversation (or you can say a heated argument) ensued:

Dad: "What? Have you not installed windows? You always keep installing this linux & other stuff.."
Me: "No.. As I have told you many times, you can do everything that you do on windows in Linux (or FreeBSD). Just try it.. If you find **any** problem at all in using Linux/FreeBSD, let me know. I assure you you won't have any problems"
Dad (angrily): "I don't want to learn something new.. Windows is what I know & what I work with in office too.. Why should I learn linux? I can't learn new things at my age.. I don't want to learn.."
Me: "But dad, you don't have to learn anything at all.. Just boot up the PC, log on to Linux (FreeBSD actually) using your name only (no password required too, I had disabled password for his account). Then you can just start using it right away.. You'll have a start menu similar to windows. Select web browser & start browsing.. It's just like the way you do it on windows. You don't have to learn any new thing"
(I had configured his user account with password-less login on PCBSD. The default desktop was KDE"
Dad (angrily & not wanting to listen to anything I say): "I just don't want to do it.. You always keep installing Linux.. What is your problem in installing windows?"
Me: "Well, you'll have to pay about Rs.3000 or so for Windows XP. You know, windows is not free"
Dad (even more angrily): "Does everybody else pay? Don't they get it installed when they get the PC? Can you not get the CD from one of your friends & install windows? (If not just call the computer shop guy & he'll install it for you if you don't want to do it yourself)"
Me: "But dad, that's pirated versions of windows. You know, piracy is illegal. You are not supposed to install software from pirated copies. It's wrong"
Dad (much more angrier now): "Everybody does it.. What's your problem. If everybody else can use pirated versions why can't you?"
Me: "Because it's illegal. I can get arrested for installing pirated copy of softwares, even windows"
Dad: "How many people have been arrested so far? Doesn't **everybody else** do it? What is your problem in installing windows.. I know, it's just that you do not want me to use the computer. That's why you install linux & other things. That's why you don't want to install windows. I won't touch your computer from today. You do whatever you want"

Anything I said after that, was useless. My dad didn't want to listen to me. I even challenged him to use it once & show me **any** problems in using Linux to browse the internet. But he didn't want to listen.

As you can see in the above situation, the problem is not windows or linux or even the reluctance to learn/adapt new things. The problem is piracy. Call it ignorance towards piracy or call it the lack of knowledge/information about piracy. The truth is that piracy has infiltrated our lives much deeper than anyone can think of. (And mind you, software piracy is just one small part of it). If there were no piracy, maybe my dad would have known that it costs a bomb for windows, office, etc. Maybe then he would try out other low cost alternatives. The problem is, as he says, since everybody is embracing piracy, why not us? This reflects the general thinking of the majority of the population. In a way, piracy is like corruption. We all know corruption is bad & must be eliminated. But when it comes to getting your work done, you are ready to pay a small (or some) amount of bribe to get it done faster & smoother. Piracy works similarly.. If you can get something that costs a lot for dirt cheap, would you not buy it? Even if it's illegal? Especially if everyone's doing it & nobody is being penalised legally or facing any problems? Would you not do it?
Atleast, I wouldn't do it. Simply because it's illegal.

Let's have a look at software piracy. Most new PCs are shipped with windows. Branded ones ensure they provide only licensed copy. But more than 90% of home PC users buy assembled PCs (because of the mere price difference b/w assembled & branded ones). And I'm sure 99% of the computer shops that assemble PCs have pirated copies of most popular software (& not just windows.. To name a few - ms office, visual studio, macromedia flash, adobe photoshop, acrobat, antivirus softwares, etc). Many people assume that all these softwares come for free along with the PC.. Just ask the computer shop guy to install what ever software you want & he'll do it for free. The irony is that a few computer shop vendors themselves are not educated about piracy. Others who are well aware of piracy, convenietly don't mention about that to customers. Many customers may also not be aware of piracy. But even a majority of people who are aware, do nothing to stop it. I mean I'm not saying you need to take pro-active actions. You can atleast not buy/use pirated things.

Piracy is not limited to softwares.. It's much more rampant in the music industry, movie industry & even the computer games industry. Recently, I saw a person in Domlur who was selling lots of pirated CD on the roadside. He had CDs - both audio & video of most recent movies in most languages! Go to National Market on any day & every shop there has pirated stuff. The innumerable no. of raids there seems to be futile.

So, who benefits from piracy? People who create software/music/movies, are the ones that have lot to lose.. They put their hard work & money to create something. But piracy robs them of the money they are supposed to get for their hard work. At first it might seem that the end users stand to gain from it. You get costly commodities for cheap prices, right? But you'll soon realise that this is not the case. If all popular products (non-tangible products like software/music/movies that can be pirated) do get pirated, then most people would buy pirated ones instead of costly original ones. This means the people who create these products lose money & they may not create products in the future. The quality of products in that industry goes on decreasing and the end-users stand to lose. For eg. if piracy becomes very rampant in the music industry, prople producing music will soon realise that they are losing money because of piracy. So, they stop producing music (atleast the quality of music produced will go down as there will be no proper ROI). So, in the long run, people will not get good music.

Let us all atleast try to stop piracy. Let's not buy/use any pirated stuff, be it software, music, movies or anything else. Unless we, the end users don't do something about it, we can't bring down this evil.

ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ blogging??

ಈಗ ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲೂ blog ಮಾಡಬಹುದು! ಕನ್ನಡ ಗಣಕ ಪರಿಷತ್ತು ನಿರ್ಮಿಸಿರುವ "ನುಡಿ" ತಂತ್ರಾಂಶ (software) ಬಳಸಿ, ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ ಬರೆಯುವುದು ಬಹಳ ಸುಲಭವಾಗಿದೆ.
ಅಕ್ಷರಗಳು "unicode" ನಲ್ಲಿ ತೋರುವುದರಿಂದ, ಯಾವುದೇ ಗಣಕ ಯಂತ್ರದಲ್ಲಿ (computer), ಬರೆದಿರುವ ಕನ್ನಡ ಅಕ್ಷರಗಳು ಸರಿಯಾಗಿ ತೋರುತ್ತವೆ.

ಜೈ ಕರ್ನಾಟಕ.. ಜೈ ಕನ್ನಡ..