skandagiri

Hi.. this post is about my second trip to skandagiri. Blog on my first trip is here


18th Oct, 2008 mid night (aka early morning) 02.30 hrs I got up as per the plan. This plan has been postponing for almost two years in our team. Kiran would be happy to see this happening atlast:) Nine people decided to start off early in the morning. Saji and SMS brought their cars and picked everyone.



We all met near Hebal flyover at 4am. Few ppl had some energy drink then and we rushed through the hydrabad highway. Suddenly SMS car got some coolant problem and we had to go slow for the rest of the journey. We took a left turn at chikballapur to reach the base of skandagiri aka kalavarahalli betta. There was enough parking space and we could see lot of vehicles already there. Most of them do night trekking and be at the top of the hill to see the sunrise and the floating clouds below them. Yes we could see lot of clouds below the top of the hill. We wish we were at the top at that time. Its 6.00am.

We started the walk and all our cameras started clicking. Gokul captured some interesting videos throughout the trip. The climate was excellent quiet different from my first trip:) This made us relax while walking and also induced lot of rest on the way. Narayanan asusual was the talk of the group, but this time he could take some revenge on Gokul. Veena and Senthil could not walk slow and they were ahead of us all the way, sometimes narayanan joining them.

Deepa (sorry sakshi) brought bf (breakfast) for all. Eating the aalu parota and snacks we walked slowly throughout the trek. SMS was searching for his water bottle throughout the trip though we provided him enough water. It was fun all the way with music playing in any one of our cell phones. Sakshi would start dancing whenever she sees the deep valley by the side. Sapna was the one who could pull sakshi and saji whenever they stopped for a music.



We all reached the hilltop by around 11am. Relaxing over there with noone else around was amazing. As the cellphones started some wonderful songs, we started dancing. It was fun & we ate good amount of snacks, feeding some to the doggy over there. Coming down was bit faster but still we maintained the relaxations all the way.

As we started back from chikballapur, we stopped by a highway dhaba to have our lunch. It was almost 3pm now. Though we were very hungry we could not eat much, thanks to the excellent food. After reaching hebbal flyover, it was again the bangalore traffic and heavy noise around. We dispersed in respective cars to reach back home.

photos are at http://picasaweb.google.com/vijayakumar.balasubramanian/Skandagiri1

sharing share

Stock market has become a major buzz especially in the IT industry in the recent past. Every other person in every other day has their own view of the Indian stock market and the TV channel hosts lot of talks by so called experts in stock market. Sometimes (almost all times) on seeing these would make me feel that nothing is worth. More about stock advices is at this blog. After following Indian stock market for almost 12 years, I am trying to put my thoughts here.


First, lets have an brief introduction on stock price -

There is nothing called "price" for a stock in the secondary share market. Its only the "last traded price" of a stock that would reflect the value of the stock. Hence the value of the stock is decided by buyers/ sellers of the stock. Whenever there is a demand for a stock, the buyers would be ready to pay more than its current value and the sellers would resist selling at the current value, thus the trading would happen at a higher rate and thereby increaseing the stock value. Reverse of this statement is also true.

Next let us see about the stock market -

The stock market doesnot restrict to the buyer, seller, exchange and the stock. Its a very big system with lot of elements in it. Anything that could impact either lightly OR heavily the value of the stock either immediately OR in the near future OR in the far future can be considered as an element of the system. The impact could be either positive OR negative. Also, Elements could affect the value directly OR combination of certain elements could do so. The permutations and combination of all but not restricted to the above mentioned OR factors would increase the complexity of the system. Thus the system in which the stock trading happens is very big and highly dynamic. We can consider each and every activity happening in the world as an element of this system, even a butterfly flapping its wing could be one. (Then, Imagine how big the system could be!).

Now lets move to the main topic -

The tricky question to win stock market is "What is the demand for a particular stock and what could be its demand in future". If every element remains constant in the system, the demand doesnot change. But as the system is highly dynamic, the demand keeps changing. The demand changes only due to the effect of elements in the market and not anything else. So, to determine the future demand of the stock we need to carve out the most important elements of the system and follow its dynamics. Remember that rumor could also be an element of the stock market, and so is the news channel's junk talks :)

From the above, I hope you can believe that the value of a stock is deterministic, meaning that their future dynamics are fully defined by their initial conditions with no random elements involved. Eventhough it is deterministic it is hardly predictable because of the size of the system and its dynamism. One more element of the system is the effect of our effort to evaluate the system which would become recursive and thus becomes unpredictable.

Thus my only suggestion is to dynamically take few important elements of the system related to few stocks and believe in them to invest on them.

Note: The concepts that we have discussed above can be applied for our life aswell. Everything that happens in our life is deterministic (fate), but can hardly be predicted. Some people like true astrologers try to predict it by considering many elements that can greatly affect the system.

[story] Its long time

Its long time since I wrote a story here. As the time increases, I feel pressurised to write a good story to meet the expectations of the encouragers. So keeping apart my grand stories behind in the queue, here I present a simple short story -


Its long time since I did swiming, I used to swim daily when I was in US. I remember reading that you will never forget swimming after learning even though you donot practice it. So, I am resonably confident that I can swim for my life if needed. I am thinking all these as I was riding a raft all alone in the wide spread Indian Ocean. I couldn't see even a square feet of land in all the directions. Getting tired of driving, I stopped in the middle of the ocean and started dreaming.

I thought about many old sindbad stories as the boat moved along with the wind. A big ship appeared and I was happy to see that as I already decided that I have lost my way. As I waved my hand, the ship came near me. I climbed on to the ship and suddenly my boat vanished. oops! I couldnt believe it. Is it because of the black hole? Though I couldnot assure, I was not into the black hole atleast.

As I moved into the ship, one more big surprise awaited - there was no one in the ship other than me. This reminded me one episode of 'alif laila' (will tell you this episode in a seperate blog). Ok. Now I decided to take the driver seat. Just used my experience of Titanic ride and turned the ship 90 degrees and increased the speed. It was getting dark and also I could observe light flashing from behind. On turning behind I was surprised to see a tall light house flashing the light, I could also witness a big land with lot of tall buildings. Hey, that was the place where I lost my boat and got this ship. now its a big land! Not knowing what to do, I tossed a bhat coin within my heads. I should have got heads, thats why I turned the ship by 180 degrees quickly.

I slowed down the ship as I approached the land. The ship hit the shore and luckily not much of damage. The place looked like a beautiful city. I was walking over the shore and I turned back to see the status of the ship. As I expected the ship was not there :) This land was definitely better than the boat or the ship. Though all the buildings were lighted, I could hardly find anyone like me (humans). Actually there were no moving objects. I went inside a building and had a nice dinner which was ready on the dining table. Then slept over the soft water bed.

Next morning, I got up and opened the bedroom window. It was a nice warm day and I could see the clear beach. Excited with the view, I ran out for a bath into the sea. Suddenly the intensity of the waves increased for a few moment and I am not able to touch the ground. Cool, I am doing a good swimming!

Now my mind told me that there will not be any city behind me. I turned around to find that I was partially correct. I could not witness the beautiful city but a very beautiful city with lot of people around. As I waved my hands, a fisherman came to my rescue. After landing I found that it was the chennai marina beach. After relaxing the day in chennai, I took the train to bangalore.
When I explained this to my friend, he told, "Its definetly the blackhole. You are (un)lucky to comeback!"

my sassy girl

http://amusmoviereviews.blogspot.com/2008/08/my-sassy-girl-lovely-girl.html

[story] Foolish Fools

p.s: I wrote this story (including this note) while traveling from office to home in bus today. Now I am just copy pasting from my mind to the blog.


By God's grace, now I am in a so called good position in the society. I have a flat and I own a car too. Mala and RamMohan are my close friends in the office and we stay closeby. We decided to do car pooling for traveling to and from the office. We did this just by considering the traffic in Bengaluru. Although being close friends its difficult to share anything without getting into any small issues.

That day it was Mala's turn. She picked up me and Ram in her car early in the morning. I should say that she is pretty good at driving. As Mala was riding smooth in the outer ring road, suddenly she had to reduce the speed from 40kmph to zero, as the auto infront stopped. She quickly turned to the right (This is how drastic accident happens). Luckily noone was there and she could manage to stop the vehicle. Ram got hurt on his knees. He shouted at Mala for riding so bad. When Mala told the reason for not noticing the auto, it was an acceptable one. I always consider that nobody could escape from this reason.

After reaching office, me and Mala were discussing something. Ram interrupted and asked for the car from Mala. He told that he need to goto the complex nearby to finish some work. It is just 200m away from our office. Mala asked him to walk. Ram said that there would be lot of pollution outside and he wanted to go in car. Mala scolded him badly and told that he should be fool to ride car for 200m distance. Ram went away, but we were still friends. I too felt that Ram should walk instead of taking the car and thought that Ram is a fool to ask for a car to goto that small distance, but I didnot tell anything.

A week later when we went in my car, Mala approached me and asked for the car. She told that she wanted to goto the same complex and its very polluted outside to walk. I just told her that "you should not call someone fool just because you donot understand them", and gave my car key to her. She understood that I was referring to the previous week incident. I then felt that Mala should be a fool to take the car for this small distance.

One more week later when we went in Ram's car, I had to goto the same complex. Hesitant to ask for the car, I decided to walk. It was very horrible to walk and I felt very bad for not asking for the car from Ram. Also after thinking about the three week incidents, now I feel that Ram was wiser to have asked for car in the first time itself. I said to myself that "you should not consider others as fool just because you donot understand them".

Inglish

Recently I feel that my English is getting poor day by day - Both while talking and writing. I am not sure if I am using the right tense many times. I am sure I was not good at English or any language for that matter at any point of time. But I was reasonably confident of my English few months back. I would not attribute Koreans for this change. Another problem is 'Apostrophe' - I always make mistake in putting the Apostrophe mark at the right place. what could be the problem? Should I start meditating again?

From Seoul to Bangalore

Disclaimer: All the points mentioned in this article are based on my perception. There may be as many points as I have written here that are wrong according to other people.


It was a great return trip for me from Seoul as I had a three day break in Thailand. I could witness the culture of three Asian countries in less than a week. I was very happy to start back from Seoul after a eight week long wonder full and experience full life at Seoul. Packing everything that I need including lot of memories, I started from Seoul at 06:30 on July 15, 2008 and reached Bangalore at 23:40 on July 18, 2008. Sharing some of my observation here...

In Seoul, I could feel that the people have high trust on other people. They are very kind and helpful to everybody and they are very friendly with everyone. As I move towards Thai and then to India, the people trust decreases. I could hardly see a foreigner in Korea. But in Thai one could meet people from almost every country.

In Seoul even if I have bundles of currency notes in my pocket and walk in the crowded or lonely road at any time of the day or night, I need not worry about the money. Apart from me misplacing them, there is no threat of someone stealing them. But as i move to thai and then to blore, the situation changes and I need to pay more attention to my belongings to safeguard them.

I feel that communication is one of the important things in life. The Korean people use their local Korean language for their all means of communication. That allows them to express better, but only to fellow Korean people. Though most of them can read and write English, they hardly speak or understand the English speech. One has to talk slowly and include body languages to communicate with them. Thailand being a tourism place, everyone is able to talk and understand at least the minimum basics in English. Indians speak many languages :)

Work culture – I feel Koreans are one of the most hard working people around the globe. The software engineers whom I have interacted with works for almost 14 hrs a day, 5 days a week. But they really don’t have any passion towards the work. They hate to work, still manage to work (or act like working) long hours. Hence they might not be productive. Most of the Thailand people’s job depends on the tourism. They do an excellent job in that. Indians are diversified in work culture too.

The electricity supply in all these 3 countries is 220v, but there is a little difference in the typical plug point pin used. In Korea, it is 2 point round pin with no pin for Earth. In thai, it is 2 or 3 point flat pin. And in India, it is 2 or 3 point round pin. Luckily I got the pin converters for my laptop charger in the hotel itself.

Food - Excellant need for people, without which life would be very boring. Korean's eat spicy food contradictory to what I had thought before going there. Also they take well cooked food, except for few dishes at few occasions. As both men and women go to work, there needs to be many restaurants and there are lot. Thai food is good, usually with lot of coconut. I didnot eat a Thai dish in Thailand, but I have tasted home made Thai dish while I was in America. The Indian dishes especially the veggie stuffs are famous all over the world. One of the Korean told me that he has become vegetarian after tasting delicious Indian veggie dishes.

From this article you can understand (or just take my words) that I miss lot of stuffs from Korea, but I really love to be in India.

wake up, son!!

One Early morning a mother went to her sleeping son and woke him up.

MOM : "Wake up, son. It's time to go to school."
SON : "But why, Mama? I don't want to go to school."
MOM : "Give me two reasons why you don't want to go to school."
SON : "One, all the chilldren hate me. Two, all the teachers hate me."
MOM : "Oh! that's not a reason. Come on, you have to go to school."
SON : "Give me two good reasons WHY I *should* go to school?"
MOM : One, you are FIFTY-TWO years old and should understand your responsibilities.
Two, you are the PRINCIPAL of the school.

airports

Following are the Airports that I have used for boarding/ landing in the last 14 months:

Madras International Airport, Chennai, TamilNadu, India (MAA)
Hindustan International Airport, Bangalore, Karnataka, India (BLR)
Frankfurt International Airport, Frankfurt, Germany (FRA)
George Bush Intercontinental Airport, Houston, TX, USA (IAH)
William P. Hobby Airport, Houston, TX, USA (HOU)
N Kentucky International Airport, Cincinnati, OH, USA (CVG)
Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, cleveland, OH, USA (CLE)
Canton Regional Airport, Akron, OH, USA (CAK)
Hartsfield International Airport, Atlanta, GA, USA (ATL)
Suvarnabhumi International Airport, Bangkok, Thailand (BKK)
Incheon International Airport, Seoul, SouthKorea (ICN)
Hong kong International Airport, Hong kong, China (HKG)
Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Taipei, Taiwan (TPE)
Bengaluru International Airport, Bengaluru, Karnataka (BLR)
Phuket International Airport, Phuket, Thailand (HKT)

15 airports in 7 countries in 14 months. Hope I am an eligible international traveller.

yes or no

What do you answer for a 'yes or no' question? you can either answer 'yes' or 'no' or 'don't know'. But how do you decide on the answer? You may say that it depends on the question and your knowledge on it. No matter how much you know about the question or how much you investigate to answer the question, there is 50-50 chance of getting it correct or wrong when you reply 'yes' or 'no'. Hence just answer 'yes' or 'no' whichever you like and sometimes 'don't know'. Definite questions like "Are you in Seoul?" are some exceptions.

Moreover, even if you get into the 50 % chance of getting the correct answer, then there is only 50-50 chance of getting marks (or getting recognized) for your answer. Because, many times wrong answers are appreciated. Hence why at all do you have to think? Just answer 'yes' or 'no' whichever you like and sometimes 'don't know' :)

Furthermore, if you are going to get another chance for your wrong answer, you can try 'yes' first and then 'no' or vice versa. Example, whenever my laptop windows gives a big message with yes and no buttons, I will just click either of them without reading. If at all I had chosen wrong option, I may choose the other one when windows asks me again.

One other thing about yes or no - Usually people shake their head 'up down' for yes and 'right left' for no. But most of the Indians shake their head 'right left' for both yes and no :) There will be some difference in the way so that other Indian could identify if it is yes or no. But other people could not differentiate this causing lot of confusion. Moreover most of the Indians shake their head as they talk.