2011 was dismal with regards to my blog and my travel itinerary. New places that I have been to in 2011 is NONE and just TWO blogs last year. Oh god where was I busy, what crap was I doing, that I could not do what I was born to do.

So here is the itinerary for this year. I have 10 places on my wishlist every year but now I am married, so just 3, but BIG ones !!!

NOTE : All these trips are to be done by road that’s why the name of the post goes ” Road Map – 2012 !!! “

1. Rann of Kutch : I have dreamt of this place so many times, heard from so many people so many stories about this hostile yet mystical place. I will make it here this year !!! Its gonna be a long drive and a even longer discussion with wifey to persuade her for this trip.

2. Pench Tiger Reserve : Some of you who follow my blog (not many, I know) would have seen this in last years wish list. Let me make it clear it was there on the wishlist of the year before as well. This trip has been cancelled 3 times now. If I don’t make this trip this year I am gonna shoot myself.

3. White water rafting @ Dandeli : Ok this is not my type of a place but need to try white water rafting atleast once.

“To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.” – Freya Stark

Thats the question she asked me, I looked out of the window and then look at my wrist watch,

“Its 5PM and weather looks good, I guess I need some fresh air.”

I drag my lazy bum off my chair and stretch out my arms. It being a Sunday most of the floor was empty, but we System Admins don’t have a life, the curse of 24×7 support. She was in the office to finish up some paper work for the audit tomorrow. I have been seeing her for the last 2 years and we are still just friends, well a bit more than friends. It has been a more of an on-off relationship for us, and now it was ON.

We walk out of the building on to the main road, and we casually walk towards the cafe coffee day outlet which was in Shastri Nagar about half a kilometer from office.

“Amma kitne ka diya?”
“Dus ke do.”
“Nahi ek hi chahiye, paanch main doge?”

She takes the gajra of Jasmine and puts it on the back of  her head.

“How is it looking?”
“Nice”

“You know something when I was young, my dad used to bring gajras like this everyday for my mom …..”

“Oh whats that smell”, the smell of Jasmine was driving me crazy, My thoughts began to wander on how I would love to make love to her with the smell of jasmine lingering in the background.

“Are you listening to me” she yelled, suddenly putting a stop to my ecstasy. “Yeah, am sorry, what were you saying, sorry my mind was elsewhere..”

She paused, “Forget it” she said.

—- THE END —-

Moral of the story: Men always think about women, but women seldom realise it.

Everybody laugh. No ??? People never appreciate a good joke.

******************************

He is standing at the bus stop, God why does it rain when I am on my way to work? Its cold, my clothes would be soiled even before I reach office, bus would be jam-packed and thanks to the water-logging on roads, it would be a horrendously long ride to work. He says  “I hate it when it rains.”

Soon the bus arrives, he boards the bus, all seats are taken and he finds a spot in  the middle of bus and leans onto one of the pillars.

Suddenly he spots this beautiful girl sitting right next to the window, his heart races and mind says, wait a minute, she is beautiful. Who is she, I board the same bus everyday and have never seen her. May be she is new in town. Just then WOWWWWWW she actually looked at me, thats awesome!!!

She looks the other way, but his eyes are still glued to her, and then she looks back at him. They look at each other a couple of times. Then, the bus stops, its his stop, with a heavy heart he alights the bus. Once out of the bus he looks back at her, she looks back at him and smiles.

He walks away towards his office, occasionally jumping in a puddle, singing a song to himself and with a smile on his face. As the rain drops roll down his face he says “I love it when it rains.”

As usual we were there at sharp 6.10 pm, there were around 6/7 cars ahead of us. A red swift is just infront of the railway crossing. Just as the gates go down, the driver of the red swift in a moment of moronic-genius thinks he can go through it before the gates come down fully and makes a move and heads into the crossing ignoring the loud sirens thats sound when the gate goes down. But he is stuck, the gates are down on both sides and he is on the railway tracks!!! People from both sides shout at the reckless driver to get off the track. The driver has no where to go, the swift reverses back fully towards one of the barriers and almost hits it, but he is still on one of the tracks. Now its an anxious moment for everyone around, the railway gateman jumps the barrier and starts cursing the driver, the driver is puzzled and wants to get out of this very dangerous situation. The mumbai-pune intercity express comes on the other track, where the driver is marooned, but he is dangerously close to it. I dont know why, but the driver and the passenger of the car never get out of the car.

Right then, we see the train barging on from one side, the driver has spotted a car on the track and is honking furiously. The train shows no sign of slowing down, it was a very intense moment. It was almost like 4 runs required of the last ball and Ashish Nehra is on strike We are out of the cab and anticipating a big crash, my colleagues shout at the driver “Get out of the car!!!”, but he is still in it and arguing with the railway gate-man. The train is now just about 100 mts from the car and suddenly applies brakes. the metal wheels grind against the railway tracks and there is a loud screeching sound, no sparks though The train stops just about a couple of feet from the swift. Ufff thank God everyone is safe, but alas I missed a live train to car crash event.

Now something unusual happens, the driver of the train and his assistant get off the train and come to the driver of the swift. The swift driver gets out and they literally start a fight there, even now the swift driver is convinced that it was not his fault! He was arguing that the gate-man should have waited until his car crossed and then brought down the gates. I never thought its so easy to find rich educated stupids. People on both sides of the gate now want this fiasco to be over and shout at the train-driver to get the train off the crossing, wah re bharat ki public. The train driver realizes there is no point in educating morons like these and gets on the train. He carefully inches forward the train and leaves, the gates open and our super-swift is the first car that zooms away, just to die another day. Soon everyone else start their engines and move out.

I was shell shocked to see the attitude of the swift driver and the general Indian public around. They should have been thankful to the train driver that he stopped right on time and avoided a disaster. On my way to office I was thinking, even after having manned railway gates, if things like this can happen then what should we do. All I can say to everyone reading this is do not try to save a minute and jump a “manned” railway crossing like this, and please please please be extra careful while crossing unmanned ones. the train has the right of way on a railway crossing, be it manned or unmanned. It is always wise to yield at such places, look both sides and then cross.

P.S : By the time I realised to take some pics of this incident it was too late.

10:30 AM: I wake up lazily to see wifey doing her weekly cleanup of the kitchen. Soon had a cup of chai (and around 7 gulab-jamuns, that dear wifey made the previous evening) spent some time with wifey and some more reading newspaper and fooling around the house.

12:30 PM:  I go for a bath while wifey makes hot parathas and a spicy soya-bean curry.

1:30 PM: I gulp down 6 of those super tasty parathas, and a few more gulab-jamuns, slurp slurp

2.00 PM: Khana bhi ho gaya, padhna bhi ho gaya, TV pe kuch acha nahi aa raha hai, so what should I do next? Ah how about going for a movie later in the afternoon. Last weekend we had plans for Inception, but could not make it, so checked for tickets on bookmyshow. Hmmm so many tickets are available at big cinemas, why waste 33 Rs booking tickets online, let’s head out to the theatre and book the tickets early, wifey would also get some time doing what she does best, SHOPPING!!! I hate shopping but thats the least I can do to thank her for those tasty parathas and gulab-jamuns

5.00 PM: Tickets for Inception booked and movie is at 8 PM, 3 hours to “kill”, chalo bhai shopping kar le.

7:45 PM: After running through almost all the stores there, we finally get to our seats with some pop-corn, cold-drinks and a few samosas. Niceeeee….

8:00 PM – 10:30 PM: Man O man what an awesome movie inception is? Christopher Nolan is now my favourite movie-maker It’s one of those movies which keep you glued to the seats to the 150 odd minutes. You lose sense of time and everything else around you, it’s almost like you are in a dream A must go and an evening well spent.

11:00 PM: At our favourite restaurant near home, discussing Inception. The light dinner of fried-rice and chilly paneer was yummy and peaceful as it was quite late in the night and we had the entire restaurant to ourselves.

00:00 AM: Heading back to home, some soothing ghazals playing on the radio in da figo, here starts the crazy part.

Me: Chalo Bombay chalte hain, long drive pe

Wifey: Ab?

Me: Haan, chowpatty beach, ice-cream khilaunga

Wifey: It will take 3 hrs to get there

Me: 2.5 figo hai na

Wifey: When will we come back then?

Me: Sometime early in the morning.

Wifey: That means you have to drive the entire night, I could see the ‘confusing-anxiety’ on her face. She being the un-adventurous type, it was hard for her to digest the thrill of such an impromptu long drive.

Me: No problemo, night shifts kar karke raat ko jagne ki aadat pad gayi hai

Wifey: Nahi nahi police pakdegi, itni raat ko its not safe.

Me: Police kyun pakdegi, meri gaddi, meri wifey, mera desh, uske baap ka kya jata hai? Don’t worry about safety “main hoon na”. Thanks to this Shahrukh style dialogue and some more coaxing, the trip was set.

12:30 AM: Came home, packed in some essentials (pillows, marriage certificate, wifey’s mangalsutra and a bottle of water) and the trip begins. Filled up a tank full of diesel and hit the Bombay-Pune Expressway. Slow ghazals and some good bollywood oldies made the drive on the E-way fantastic. The E-way is always a pleasure to drive, though it was pretty empty, I kept the speeds around 80-90 so that we could enjoy the drive. It was a great feeling, driving fast on an empty road, with some soothing music and my chatter-box going gaga all the way.

01:30 AM: Stopped at a cafe-coffee-day en-route for some refreshing cafe-mocha and a loo-break.

02:00: Reached Vashi (Navi Mumbai, outskirts of Bombay). Have been to Bombay couple of times and driving through Bombay has never been my forte, the chaotic traffic and roads which have diversions within diversions is a pain to drive. But in the night Bombay is completely different. No traffic, cool but humid climate and almost empty roads made it a breeze to reach chowpatty by 2.30 AM. Finally Figo made it in 2.5 hrs flat !!!

02:30 AM – 04:00 AM: Chowpatty in the night is a different place altogether. The ultra modern Bombay youth was partying hard on the beach, big cars (ala Mercs, Bimmers and some imported ones) zipping past at speeds of 100 kph and excess. Girls with tiny skirts roaming around with ‘gayish’ looking boys and some lone couples looking out to the sea. One thing that needs a special mention is the people here. Yes everyone was enjoying their Saturday evening, but no one was interfering with others privacy. It seemed like a big-party in which everyone else had their own sub-set of a ‘big-party’.

04:00 AM: After spending a good 1.5 hrs on the beach, we decided it’s time to head back home. The drive from there till home was uneventful and a non-stop one. Wifey was tired after a long day and slept through most of the drive back and I ripped it on the way back.

06:00 AM: Back at home sweet home. We hit the bed as soon as we reached and spent the entire Sunday lazing and sleeping around.

Overall it was a memorable weekend, especially for wifey who had not done anything so adventurous in her life. Guys try out Bombay late in the night, at-least once in your life, it’s worth it!!!

I always thought if I earn 20k a month I will be able to live happily forever, but its quite the opposite, the more I earn the more I tend to spend. I was happy when I had a bike, but no I wanted a car and spend more!!! last week I bought myself a car and exhausted my savings by almost 50%, next month, I am getting married in a month or so, and I will be exhausting 40% of my remaining savings. Whatever I saved in my 5 yrs of professional career goes poof ! So the circle starts again, save and then spend whatever you have earned. Am I an exception who spends lavishly, I don’t think so most of us do the same thing. The moment we earn more we intend to spend more.

Why do we spend beyond our limits and tend to live in a everlasting circle of earn and spend instead of earn enough and live your life?

So after some thinking I have some up with few rules that would help most of us, atleast me in securing the future:

Rule 1 : Set aside some part of your saving for yourself so that you could die some place warm : Put aside 10% of your monthly take-home salary in some safe investment plan that would be your mad money once you retire. These funds should not be utilized for anything other than your retirement.

Rule 2: Follow it no matter what, there is no alernative to rule 2 and it says

Income – Liabilities – Insurance/Healthcare – Education/Child care expenses – Target Saving  = Expenditure !!!

Rule 3 :Get rid of the Debt Snowball.

The snowball starts with credit cards and rolls on to car loan EMI to house loan EMI to personal loan EMI. IMHO except house-loan all other loans should be avoided and planned effectively. Credit is a great convenience, just don’t treat it like an instant loan.

Rule 4: Saving money is not everything. We should be able to create wealth out of the money we have saved and that too effectively. Diversify and multiply your savings.

Rule 5 : Don’t over save and remember to live your life

Bande Utkala Janani
Charu Hasmayi Charu Bhasmayi
Janani, Janani, Janani

I adore Thee, O’Mother Utkal
How loving are Thy smile and voice !
O’Mother, Mother, Mother !

Puta Payodhi Bidhyota Sharira
Talatamala Susobhita Tira
Shubhra Tatinikula Shikhara Shamira
Janani, Janani, Janani

Bath’d art Thou by the sacred Sea,
Thy shores adorned with trees tall and green,
Balmy breeze blowing by beauteous streams,
O’Mother, Mother, Mother !

Ghana Bana Bhumi Rajitaange
Nila Bhudh Aramala Saje Tarange
Kalakala Mukhrita Charu Bihange
Janani, Janani, Janani

Thy body bedeck’d with dense woodlands,
Arrayed with verdant hills plaited like waves,
Thy sky ringing with choirs of singing birds,
O’Mother, Mother, Mother !

Sundarashali Susobhita Kshetra
Gnyana Bignyana Pradarshita Netra
Jogi Rushigana Utaja Pabitra
Janani, Janani, Janani

How charming are Thy rich fields of corn !
Thou art Eye to Erudition enow,
Sacred Abode to saints and seers,
O’Mother, Mother, Mother !

Sundara Mandira Mandita Desha
Charu Kalabali Shobhita Besha
Punya Tirthachaya Purna Pradesha
Janani, Janani, Janani

Thy land bejewelled with splendid shrines,
Richly dress’d art Thou in varied arts,
Thy limbs studded with sacred sites,
O’Mother, Mother, Mother !

Utkala Surabara Darpita Geha
Arikula Shonita Charchita Deha
Biswa Bhumandala Krutabar sneha
Janani, Janani, Janani

Thou Home to the valiant heroes of Utkal,
Thy frame crimsoned with enemies’ blood,
Prime Darling of the whole universe,
O’Mother, Mother, Mother !

Kabikulamouli Sunanadana Bandya
Bhubana Bighoshita Kirti Anindya
Dhanye, Punye, Chira Sharanye
Janani, Janani, Janani

These 5 years in Hyderabad had been a dream run for me. Landed here in hyd on 20th nov 2005, like everyone else in search of a job. Within a month the city gave me one in next 6 months found my first love here (my trusty sidekick Pulsar 150). I was having a gala time at satyam, learnt a lot here, got to travel abroad for the first time from the old begumpet airport Was having a gala time at 202 shobha nilayam with big b, pabu and KD bhai, time flew by. Oh yes the city also introduced me to my second love (Masakali). Made some really good friends here Sasi garu, shubhi, nitu kaka, peda anna harsha and many more, and ofcourse and some like chittu whom i could never met despite being in the same city, but always in touch through twitter and wordpress dont get mad buddy, peace V

Loved everything in hyderabad, food (biryani, haleem, paya), traffic, biking on necklace road, late night daru parties, hyderabadis, the lingo, rapchik city hai ye

Now in the train, going through all those memories and all I can say is “baas yaadein yaadein reh jati hai, choti choti baatein reh jati hai…”

Thank you all, keep in touch.

Sent from my handheld device Nokia E63

Step 1:   Build a low cost PC

Hardware has already been arranged, need to buy some old disk controllers and hard drives for the file-server. Hard drives are going to be inexpensive ones with lesser storage space (40 GB max), so as to minimize extent of damage and cost in case of a disk crash. If someone has some old unused disks in working condition, please let me know.

Step 2:  Make it a file-server and store all data on it

This is perhaps the easy part, configuring the file-server. I am planning to use some generic storage filesystems on it, like Veritas volume manager or something else, preferably open source and spread the data on it using RAID 5, that solves the problem of backing up data on a periodic basis and also restoration is a lot easier. The file-server can then be hooked on to the network.

Step 3 :  Create USB bootable copies of the OS and run it from the USB itself

And this is the most interesting part of the project Create bootable OS versions on 4GB flash drives. OS’s now a days are quite light and 4GB is more than enough for them. You may need to add an external swap if the system is too overloaded. The USB version of OS also allows you to make persistent changes. I have already built two USB drives with Ubuntu and  OpenSolaris on it. You just need to plug them in and restart the system, your new OS would be UP and running in minutes. To change the OS, Shutdown -> insert new OS flash drive -> reboot, simple.

Step 4: Access all user data from Fileserver irrespective of the OS

Right this is the trickiest part. Almost all Linux based OS’s use the same file-systems (ext2/ext3) while windows uses NTFS/FAT32. I need a method/driver to access (read and write) on both the filesystems. In simpler terms I can store a file on a windows machine and access it from a machine which is running Linux !!! As of now I dont know how to achieve it , but have certain theories. One of them is to share the data by using  Samba for Windows machines and NFS for Unix based machines. The other is to use some 3rd party tool to allow me reading/writing data across multiple filesystems, I am not sure if such tool is available, if anyone is working on or aware of such tools, please let me know. I am eager to try out the second option.