Wow…Diwali this year at Pune….this is after 4 yrs. I njoyed 2006 diwali at Pune, then on all 3yr’s diwali were at Hyderabad except in 2008 at Boston, US…2006 Diwali was something special…u must be thinking something GF, naaa…..gifts, naaa…..tour, naaa….well I did nothing on that Diwali, I was at room with my roommate Amar. And were just watching Diwali by peeping from the Window, and believe me it was good to watch rather enjoying the crackers. Our room was at 3rd floor in a flat at karve Nagar….well after watching for some time, we planned to have some party…and where, in room….so that was it, we got 4 beers(650ml each) and then bought some starters and food for the dinners. We njoyed that night with 2 beers each, for the 1st time I had 2 bottles beer and had some nice chicken starters(unable to remember what was that recipe) and then we had the parceled dinner(I think the Roti and some gravy chicken item)…again this year I am at Pune…hopefully I will enjoy with my dear friend Happy and his wife Shilky…else i will hv a cracking day with few crackers and some light decorations….i just love the lights being people started to decorating their rooms, its awesome to see the colorful lights in the night…well I am not doing anything at my room, not in mood to decorate for own, but i can get some crackers and some sweets for celebrations. Most friends have some vacation plans this week, most already at their home…I wish all of you a very Happy Diwali and May God fulfill all your wishes in wealth, health & happiness in your life.
Team Lunch at the Marriott… September 29, 2010
A day when it was planned for the team lunch, when everyone was relaxed, when a glimpse of smile was there on everyone’s face…bcoz it was the team lunch at Marriott on 30th July, I along with my 15 member team boarded the bus to Marriott. As usual we crossed the security check…I got the camera which was in my bag so they took it and checked…and after the check security handed over the bag…we entered the buffet area. Well it was my 2nd time in July I was having the lunch at Marriott…the 1st time was being from the company on the day of Joining. Well that time it was like 60 members team lunch which was a bit huge so everyone was like rush for the quick lunch. But this time around, it was just 15. Started with the welcome drink, and then the starters. Food was ultimately good with different cuisine…I took some salad with bit of soup. It was a long dining table where we all seated firmly. Gossips, laughs, serious discussions were on among different groups…now the time for the main course…varieties of foods were there as I choose some non-veg recopies with my fav Biryani…although the biryani was not like the Hyd Biryani but taste OK…others too..afterwards everyone eyed on the Dessert section and clubbed there to grab their choices…in fact I also grabbed some 3-4(can’t recall the names)…all were too good..ahem…
All done, everyone was njoyed the food at Marriott….it was the time to go back to office, I felt like to opt for my room to sleep with all pleasure…but no one cant help me with my thoughts, so all boarded the cab….this was a nice team lunch…thanks to all my teammates, Sunil and Vasant…hope to come back again…
yummmy deserts
Team on eating spree
Team BG-Samsung
Chutney’s experience at Hyd… June 30, 2010
I heard so many times on the Chutney’s as one of the good place to have the nice south Indian food as well north, Chinese etc. But being in Hyd for 4+ yrs i never been to Chutney’s or witnessed its quality food. It was the last day at Hyderabad for Mr. Ankit Sheth, my colleague who was planned to shift to Mumbai on June 26th. So we 3 Mr. KC aka Chaitanya, Mr Ankit aka Gujju/aida/Anki etc etc and off course me planned to have the morning breakfast at Chutney’s. It was unfortunate as we missed the breakfast since all of us got up around 10-11am due to the last night dinner party. So we planned for the lunch and everyone reached there. At least 10 members were waiting for the table, since we were 3…we got a table quickly within 5 minutes. It was the time to explore the Chutney’s menu…so many long list of items were there…varieties of Idly, Dosa, Uthapam et al. We ordered Mango Uthapam, Babai Idly and another some uthapam…it took 10 mins to serve the food…time for chutney’s…4 type of chutney were there ground nut chutney, coconut chutney, Ginger chutney and dal chutney….then we started testing all 3 items…taste was good, in fact with fresh chutney and samber it was awesome…Babai Idli, my god that was heavy as they poured ghee on to of it with butter too……i took 1 idly out of 2…and some uthapam. Everyone completed the 1rd…and look what, all of us were full and heavy..even thought of go home and take rest…but wanted to explore more, so i ordered south indian thali and Ankit KC shared 1 Mint Dosa. During the break we were having water in copper glasses, that was good. The wooden interiors are well done and the ambiance is quite homely. Here we go, all dish served…it was high time for me to complete the thali…the plate was full of small bowls with dal, samber, rasam, chutney, curry, fries, curd, dahi wada, and the sweet dish. I started with Puri, after taking 2 puris i felt like i need a bed to take rest…but here comes the rice, i started taking rice by hand…one thing is must, taking rice in spoon is just a waste thing to do….i had the food slowly as i was trying to finish…the same time Ankit and KC had their mint dosa…we completed and paid the bill. While getting up from the chairs, i felt like i need a bed to sleep as it was too heavy lunch due to ghee….overall the taste was good, most of were oily what we ordered..chutney and samber were good too….That was a good lunch as we started heading back to home…hope you guys njoy the food there….
the real south indian thali 
whole suppliment of thali..puri tray, chutneys, ghee and big thali
the Mint Dosa....
an experience at Javed Habib salon June 15, 2010
hmmm..something special, u looks good….nice hairstyle…kahan se kia(where did u cut ur hair)…which salon…kitna lia…all these all of my colleagues and me started saying to Mr. Syed who had a hair cut at Javed Habib salon…and quite good style with some spikes with short hair style…(xactly i dont know what is that hair style, if something look good thts the good style)…and the charge was around Rs 300/-. So i thought next time i will have a try at Habib salon…my hair is very smooth and straight…which i know long hair style is the only option for getting a good style. Short hair doesnt look good on me…i remember, i had a hair cut in matching to Dil Chahta hai’s Amir khan hair style..but failed…i was looking like a Srilankan army…with army hair cut. Wait, that was a flop in short hair style..so i always have long hair style. In btw the day come when i planned to hv the hair cut…and this time its at the Habib.
That was weekend, i went for my most expensive haircut. The hairdresser came in and took me inside. He washed my hair with shampoo on and then did some hair cut in different different style. He used the dryer and after some experiment on my hair he was done. Then he did some style with my hair, i felt that was my regular style..then after some attempt he agreed that its bit difficult to try some different hair style with my hair. Then i also ended my dream with having a sexiest style…that was over. I paid Rs.385 at the counter…it was like instead of Rs.30 i paid over 10 times…bad…that was a bad and worst experience…the regular saloon is good for me..never in these stupid things…i must say this haircut was a BAKRA CUT!!!
Team Dinner at N’ a modern grill… May 18, 2010
It was the Monday 05/17, our VP Mr. Mike Tirozzi touring India. He earlier spent a week at Chennai, njoyed the real India summer and now at Hyderabad. He and CIO Mr. Tom Gary had so many meetings with the team here in Hyd. It was the evening time and decided to have a team dinner. And N’A modern grill was finalized by one of our manager. We started at around 9 to the restaurant, it was of a total 25 members party. I think I attended a team lunch/dinner never before with the whole project team. Good to have all development team, test team and BPSA/BA team all together made a xcellent night.
DEV team ready for order
Well once everyone reached the venue, started looking out for the reserved place. In b t w I could able to recognize a tollywood actor(I saw him on TV twice or thrice), then confirmed with my colleagues and he was Sumanth. Well the gossip went around and everyone got a chance to have the glimpse of an actor. All, then rushed to the other side(open sky) where they arranged seats for all. So here we go, now the time for grouping….vegetarian…non-vegetarian…drink…no drink…et al. I was with my group of drunkards. Then the party starts…music was nice…ambience was really good. Order Sir…well listening to this word everyone started staring to the menu and started ordering. I see all drink price were on a higher end.
Team SQA, sitting pretty
I ordered Jack Daniels, with some asked for JW Black Level, gold level…some opt for cocktails and some for mocktail…Mike ordered for beer. Soothing music was really good with drinks in hand…appetizer were on Spring roll, jalapeno poppers, mushroom risotto, French fries, onion rings, Grill chicken in Harissa sauce, Cajun Murrel Fish, Rock Shrimp Tempura, Crespelle, …discussion started within groups…few official discussion…more special talk. Order goes on as the clock ticks 10:30PM…11:00PM…2nd round drink…3rd rd drink…Those who didn’t drink any, goes for the main course after the appetizer. Fabulous food, taste and ambience made a great team dinner. In the main course I ordered mushroom brown rice risotto, spinach brown rice risotto and alu mash…in nonveg…guys ordered for Lamb Stew in a Pot, New Zealand Chops, Tiramisu, Cajun Spiced Murrel Fish, Teriyaki Chicken, et al…even some names I unable to pronounce and remember. Then came the dessert section… Yummy! Most ordered for a Brownie, Panna Cotta, Raisin ice cream and Roasted Almond & Chocolate Caramel ice cream.
team of Admins
When I look for the menu, I opted for another drink…well it was almost 12 when dinner was over and great…it was too much pricey..even I cant think of spending the amount spent that night in just 2 hours…anyways it was great dinner with the whole team…thanks to each and specially Mike…hope to comeback again to the same restaurant!!!All..njoy at N if u dont care about the money..xcept that this is a place of full of ambiance, soothe n nice food with numerous variety!!!
discussions ONNNN
Time to leave
all together...
UnWinding at Songs of Earth… December 22, 2009
Another day of outing with my colleagues. The venue was the “Songs of earth” resort and the day is Nov 14th. The actual plan was to have a day outing at “Lahari Resort”, but unfortunately we were late to book there as couple of schools reserved with their huge groups. Well, this is not a bizarre thing as NOV 14th is the children’s day and the school wanted to have it celebrated at the popular resort. I think, these days corporate doesn’t have any value as it got the same choice as of the school .
Well after losing the booking at Lahari resort a well-known for the outing especial for the corporators. In fact we get to learn that not only the corporators but the schools can njoy the resorts. After missing the reservation at Lahari, we checked the celebrity, Pragathi, Mount Opera, Alankrita at al but all were booked by schooled, surprisingly. Then we get to know about the “Songs of Earth”, after checking we(25 members) decided to go for this. So finally we gathered on the fresh morning of the children’s day at our office building, then started the journey to the resort after the breakfast. Four 4-wheelers and 3 bikes used for all day outer to shift to the resort. After reaching at the resort, we felt like a definite peace. It was away from the city and situated on a huge area. A welcome drink served to all of us and then all planned for the game(cricket, golf, volley ball at al.).
good times at rain dance
@ d Golf course
during Volleyball game
We played a short game in Volley Ball and looser, then rushed to cricket. Me and Shyam decided as captain for 2 teams and started playing. Shyam’s team batted 1st and scored around 60 which my team achieved in 9 overs and won the match. It was noon, time for the bath…many went for the pool and the rest njoyed the rain bath(I included). Dancing around the raining dance floor, we all finished our, while other side the rest tapered their bath in the small pool. LUNCH…we had a moderate lunch…the food was OK…own sponsored drink also taken along with resort food. Quite had a good time…now the event time…many
commando net trail
KC on the Burma Bridge...
Sirish trekking up...
events was organized as Treasure hunt, Commando Net, Artificial Rock Climbing, BMX bicycles, Artificial Rock Climbing, Archery et al. After spending time around all these events, we followed the guide for the snacks as everyone was hungry. Having the Mirchi Pakoda with Tamarind Chatini and Team…guide called everyone for the TUG OF WAR. We grouped up 2 teams and played. It was best of 3….but our team won 1st 2 matches and declared as the winner. Few minutes after Kiran from our team infirmed to have another match with captain and their choices for the 2nd innings of tug of war. 1st match we loose to our opponent, but we came back strongly in the 2nd which was so exhausted. Following to which we decided to drop the 3rd as everyone were so tired. And the final moment where everyone gathered to have the group photo and the memento. In between we called up Supreet, Shyam, Aravind and Rakesh who had been playing the snooker since the lunch. They had a good times. Nice to have such outing, it’s not for paying 700 rs…but for the nice get together and out of the office works with same colleagues. I praised all for the great time we had…and hope to have next time…………………………………………………
cricketing skills on ground
aiming for the good target @X
Final Tug of War..and the Winner
a nice trip to Kuntala falls September 29, 2009
Kuntala waterfalls…a rare sight situated in a village area near Nirmal, AP’s biggest waterfalls. The place is around 270KM away from Hyderabad. It was Thursday 09/17, when Ranjit Bhai invited for a 1000KM+ car drive. Unfortunately we didn’t get any good place with this long drive with single driver. So finally we decided to go for Kuntala waterfalls.
On the fresh Sunday morning me, Ranjit Bhai, Pritam who are my colleagues along with Ranjit’s friend Mr. Pintu and Mr Gopa woke up very early in the morning at 5 O’Clock. By 630 AM everyone was ready with all required stuff camera,
Baleno...our travelmate
video camera and iPod. Here we go…we started Ranjit Bhai’s room at 630am..our route was via miyapur->Medchal->Nirmal. It was Maruti Baleno…well maintained by Mr Ranjit the owner…moved on to Miyapur and then landed on NH7 at 8am. NH7, a wonderful highway to njoy the ride…earlier i drove my bike in my trip to Basara. Ranjit bhai was driving the car with his experience of US driving…what is called a proper driving. Well on the way we halted at a tea shop and had some tea. Then moved on to hunt for a place to have the breakfast. 
Music on the car was at its best. At Dichpalli we halted for the breakfast. Moving on we entered on to the small street after Nirmal town with a lot of guidance. The small street was the way to the falls after 11kms. On the way we didnt get any hotel to have some food. With empty stomach…we entered the falls with 450 steps. It was sunny..upon our arrival we started getting ready to jump into water. Walking with bare foot on the burning rock was a real pain. Withing 5 mins all of us were in the water. The base was slippery with awesome cold water..perfect timepass. Thought the fall should have some more water and spread throughout the rock. Anyways the spot was good with less crowd. Even some people climbed on top of the fall. We spent around 1:30 hrs..playing here and there. It was completely tired while coming back…on the steps i lost my sense..completely blackout, senseless…it took 10 mins to get my sense back after drinking the water. This happened as i was completely in empty tummy. After reaching the top, i took some snacks. We then headed towards the Shriram Sagar Reservoir on our way back. It was a huge reservoir on Godavari, also this place having historical importance as Lord Rama visited this place. After taking some snaps and njoying the dam, we started heading back to Hyd. We had a dhaba style lunch in a punjabi dhaba at 4 PM. Through out the NH7..i was feeling a bit tired, no idea why..also we took a couple of drinks. Moving on we reached Medchal at 9 and withdrawn some money from the ATM nearby. Took a wonderful dinner at Sony dhaba..with tasty Prawn and butter chicken. It was completely relaxed after taking the nice dinner. Finally we reached at hyd at 1130..and soon after reaching i moved on to my room. This was a good outing as i njoyed the water fall after a long time since my trip to Jog falls. Special thanks to Ranjit and others for such a nice day out.
my companions
beauty of Kuntala
Shriram Sagar Reservoir
Sony Ericsson P1i….Pros and Cons August 25, 2009
I have a Sony Ericsson P1i phone which i bought last year april. After losing my fav Nokia N73 which was my most expensive mobile(spent 22K…really crazy ), i interested in touch screen mobile. My N73 was lost in pickpocketing. So i researched and bought the P1i mobile. It was more of a interest of carying a touch screen mobile phone which led me to go for this mobile. I liked its features of having qwerty key pad, 3.2 MP camera, 3G, WLAN, Videocall camera, etc.
Sony Ericsson P1i
However less features are useful boz of availibility to service provided in India. Well being this is a PDA phone, the radio quality and music player are relly good. This phone size is very handy, not so bulk to use. The LCD screen is 2.6 inch with a resolution of 240×320 displaying 262k colours.Its beautiful to say the very least and is quite readable in bright sunlight as well. Its processor 128MB of RAM alongwith 256MB of ROM are pretty good. This is being a big probwelm in N-series phone, loading of application are really slow. The Li-ion battery is good enough for your use, also consumes less…also takes less time(1hr) to get fully charged. Quickoffice has very good capability of viewing .doc, excel, PDF and PPT. And the best part of it is blackberry connectivity(which offcourse i never used). After 1-2 months i found my J key was not workign, which i ignored as i used the on-screen keyboard. After using it for 1 yr and 2 months, i got issues with the screen. My touch screen is now dead, its some time tapping the right side even you tapped on left side. Its very difficult to use the scroll all the time. Its started with affecting part of the screen, but now its the whole screen not working. There is no shortcuts to the access the favorites, all the time uses the scroll to navigate to the required application, which is completely bizarre. Need to consult the sony sricsson service centre for repairing. Lets c how it goes. This is being a lesson learned for using a touch screen mobile for me, not sure if this is big issue or not…but irritating to use the scroll all the time…also not all options cant select, only default option are getting selected when ever selected. Also the stylus is so bony, even a simple force would break it(i had once). Just wondering, if a complete touch screen phone faced the similar issue then the use of mobile would be a complete full stop!!!
Kaminey Review!!! August 18, 2009
August 15, 2009…i went to watch the special show at 8:00AM in Cine Planet, Kompally and the movie selected was Kaminey…the newly released movie. Friday night, my colleagues mentioned its a nice movie and also from TV/ad, it was clearly known to be bollywood’s favorite formula – twin brothers and a story on their life.
Vishal Bhardwaj directed Kaminey(Rascal) is completely bold, funny and unpredictable. While i watched the movie, i was wondering, how the rating could be 4/5. But yes at the last i realized the theme. Well its a story of two identical twin brothers Charlie and Guddu (Shahid Kapoor). Charlie lisps, while Guddu stumbles. They follow their life in own way, never met each other for 3 years. Charlie gets into earning money in short-cut scheme, while Guddu enters into NGO. Charlie worked with 3 Bengali brother for fixing horse racing. Guddu a simple NGPworker has got his girlfriend Sweety(Priyanka Chopra) pregnant and got into a situation to get her marry. In Charlie’s business, one day he bi-mistakenly got in to a Cop jeep to escape from a encounter where he found a guitar full of cocaine worth of 10 crore. This made his life easy with his short-cut way of living. Guddu, on the other hand caught by Bhope Bhau(Gangster/politician) turns out to be Sweety’s brother. And here comes the halfway, where both lives cross. The story takes a dramatic turn at this stage, but minutes before that, ‘Dhan Te Nan’ makes the proceedings interesting. All most everyone targets to catch hold of the guitar as per their contract. Some funny scenes where cops asked Guddu(caught mistakenly) to give the police statement in song, as he was good in song to avoid the stumble. While Bhope caught Charlie. Everyone comes to their contracts. Both brother met, bcoz of the guitar..takes them to a situation of argument on their past. In this cat and mouse game, the baddies get mixed up between the twins. Who’s Guddu and who’s Charlie? Amid the shootouts and mayhem that follows, the two brothers rediscover love for each other. Finally story ends with Guddu and Sweety escaped from the encounter, the rest end their live due to their Kaminapan(Rascals) even Charlie who shot while decides t leave his Kaminapan(get-rich-quick scheme).
Overall the Picture was a good one, with Shahid kapoor’s excellency twin acting. Priyanka as usual acted superbly, and looks dashing(specially in bride costumes) . Story and the powerful writing from Vishal will certainly make the movie successful at the box-office. Other characters are also good too like ChandanRoy(Mikhail, Charlie’s close friend), Amol Gupte(Bhope) and Tenzing Nima(Taasi) and some others. 2nd half of the movie was good and interesting, while 1st half was tried to drag you into the story. Kaminey music was not that good, except ‘Dhan Te Nan’ . As well another area for kaminey for being a good movie is its cinematography. On the whole, i can rate the movie 3.5/5.
Bhuvan…India’s 1st Satellite Mapping Tool from ISRO August 14, 2009
Bhuvan Vs Google Earth
Here comes BHUVAN a web based tool, unveiled by Indian Space Research Organisation(ISRO)….a definite competitor to the Google Earth and Wikimapia. Bhuvan means Earth in Sanskrit is developed by ISRO..is all set to compete with Google Earth in all aspect, maynot be a global hit(Bhuvan will focus only on the Indian sub-continent ) but its special design advantage will give a certain edge over the rest. Bhuvan a free online tool like Google Earth, uses a network of Indian satellites(also follows country’s first moon probe, Chandrayaan-1) to create a high-resolution, birds-eye view of India. It has the well designed to run smoothly on the low bandwidth internet connections that most Indian web users have to make do with. Bhuvan will be able to give you an image from only 10 meters away, which is a big advantage than Google Earth(zoomin efatures upto 200 meters). Bhuvan’s imaging capabilities are in Multi-sensor, Multi-platform and Multi-temporal domain. This is also step taken for India’s civil service to help with urban planning, traffic management and water and crop monitoring. Bhuvan biggest challenge would be: how to engage users amid the mass of digital detritus that has accumulated on the internet. The focus of Bhuvan will be essentially on information, but has a controversy regarding its possible use by terrorists. Bhuvan will use data recorded by the Indian satellites and will be updated annually – unlike other mapping sites, which take four years. Even though Bhuvan is touted as the Google Earth killer, its use may be at a different level and the two may not compete in the near future. Considering the security concerns, it is unlikely that Bhuvan will be made available on the web to all, like Google Earth, immediately.
Bhuvan's high resolution
I uses the Google Map, installed on my mobile Sony Ericsson P1i. I must say it is very much helpful, but found the map a bit old(what i got it these days that it is 4 yrs old). On my trip to Goa, i was amazed to see the map located me in US while i was in Karnataka. Similarly 3-4 times it happend, like sometime in Singapore, once in Italy, europe and south america, my goodness 
. I think once Bhuvan is get started, its will be very nice to use that as it has good resolution upto 10 meters, also helpful for indians. So all the best for Bhuvan and its team for a great job well done and its future. Watch and see the comments happening now…Indis’s answer to Google Earth, a competitor for Google Earth, Google Earth Killer, Bhuvan to beat Google Earth and bluf bluf bluf…..The application can be downloaded from http://bhuvan.nrsc.gov.in/
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