Photoblog: Indian countryside? - 1

Did u think that this is a photo from the Indian countryside? Huh. You'll be surprised. Until last month it was raining everyday in Bangalore. A huge vacant piece of land behind my apartment had turned into a swamp. And that's where I found this buffalo wallowing in the mud, enjoying a bit of the afternoon sun.

Photoblog: Indian countryside? - 2

Caught my buffalo with mynas taking a ride on it.

M connected to the net

I got myself a brand new CDMA WLL telephone yesterday. By Tata Indicom. Didnt have to pay one paisa for the connection. The connection, instrument, data cable, STD/ISD whatever the hell else all came free since I was a "corporate customer". I tried Reliance before that, but they wanted a lot of money for setting up a connection, so told them to take a hike.

I wanted this only for the net connection. The speed right now sucks big time. Its averaging 30 kbps, but last night I got 80 kbps. Sigh. Its so goddam slow, and I've been spoilt rotten by all the super fast surfing I've been doing from the office. But at least I'm connected to the net. Its feels great to be able to get connected instantly, anytime. Never got the time to check out the stuff I wanted to at the office.

Cheers to the new improved online version 2 of me.

Rangashankara and other stories

I've been busy. Yeah, well, I know. I say that every time, but this time I've been really busy. Ok ok. Don't hit me.

The theatre festival at the new theatre in town Rangashankara has started. It was built after a lot of struggle by Arundhati Nag. My gf works there, so I've been associated with it closely. I attended the inaugural of the festival on 28th October. Then been watching some plays there, notable among them Ismat apa ke naam, by the Motley group (mainly Naseeruddin Shah and family), which was absolutely fantastic. Its a set of three narrations, with no "acting", and its amazing how the narrators kept the audience riveted for nearly 2 hours.

Another fantastic play I watched was "Ek thi nani" by Lahore's Ajoka Theatre. This has Zohra Sehgal and Ujra Butt. Zohra is 92 and Uzra is 87. They performed in Prithvi Theatre in Mumbai, then came down here for a single performance. This was a historic event because this is Zohra Sehgal's last performance, and this was the first time a Pakistani group was performing down south after Partition. Zohra was very ill the night before, and on the day of the play as well. My gf had gone to pick her up from the hotel, and it seems she could barely speak. And if I didnt have this inside information, I never would have suspected it from her performance. People gave her a long standing ovation.

My IIMB semester is about to come to an end next week. I cant believe I have to submit so many reports and stuff next week. Lets see. On 20th I have 3 end term exams. I gotta submit three (!) project reports on 20th. This week I have to complete a project I am doing with an NGO Hippocampus. We are a group of 3 doing a Requirement Analysis as part of one of our subjects. And gotta study for these bloody exams this week too.

Next week a prospective client from Israel will be meeting us for three days. Sigh. So its gonna be talk talk all day, and at night take the guys out for wining and dining. When will I get to study this week??

My Diwali was so sad, it sucked. I had 5 days holiday from office. I've spent most of my holiday either attending classes, or working on some report/project for submission, or in office. Today is the last day of this long weekend, and I spent it in office. Sigh.