More than a year ago, I remember submitting this post of mine to the ‘Top 5′ ProBlogger Group Writing Contest. It was the first time that I was entering such a contest and I really did hope to win the prize money of $1001. I did not win that time but I did get a hell a lot of traffic and met a lot of nice bloggers and those were enough to keep me happy.

This year, I was eagerly waiting for Darren to announce the next Group Writing Project and he did so about 4 days, this time with theme ‘Killer Titles‘. Since I had come back from Warangal the same day, I sat down and churned out a post about my time with the slightly risqué title “Sacrificing Goats and Eating Brains“. This time I submitted the post not to win the prize, infact I didnt even see what the prize was, but rather to interact and meet with other fellow bloggers through this and also get some extra traffic.

I cam back home today to see an email in my Inbox from Darren. Immediately, a part of me started to get excited hoping that I’d won the prize, whatever it may be, but there was another half saying that it was probably only Darren thanking everyone for participating in the project. About 5 seconds later, once I’d opened the email, a big grin spread across my face as I read that I had indeed won the contest and the prize was a logo designed by David Airey worth $2,000. I pinched myself and read the entire thing again to check I wasnt dreaming and sure enough, it wasnt. It was true. I had just two thousand united states dollars in the form of a logo.

This is probably the first time that I’ve won a proper contest in my life and I am very very excited about it. My sincere thanks to Darren Rowse for hosting the Group Writing Project and I look forward to participating in future ones. And thanks to David Airey as well, who will be designing the logo for me. Lots of thanks to the Bhascker family as well, without whom I would’ve never been able to have this remarkable experience. And last but not the least, thanks to all the participants of the project for making this a unforgettable experience in my life.

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Update - This post won the Killer Titles Project at ProBlogger. Many thanks to Darren for hosting the contest and also to all the readers. This is possibly the first time I’ve ever won something meaningful.

Waddepalli.

No, I didnt make that word up. Waddepalli is a place in Warangal and I had pleasure of visiting the place on Sunday along with a few friends. We went there to witness the yearly local festival along with several other age old traditions. At 6:30 AM, we left from Hyderabad in a taxi and sped towards Warangal where we reached at around 10 AM after having stopped at a restaurant for (a sad) breakfast.

The festival had already kicked off by the time we reached there and people were thronging the small temple. Chicken sacrifices were abound with an average of one chicken losing its life every couple of minutes. You can see a photo of the chicken sacrifice here, but be warned, it is of a very graphic nature and I advise you to avoid it if you are easily offended by such things. After a quick refresh, we met the members of the Bhascker family who were kind enough to put up with us. Soon, we walked through the crowds for a what one could call a “VIP Darshan” and stood by the side taking photos of the beheading of the chickens.

They had a goat sacrifice occasionally of which I got some photos which you can see here, it is also of a very graphic nature, even more than the chicken one. After this, we got slightly bored of watching people walk in a line and decided to go visit the 1000 Pillar Temple.

Quite evidently, there werent actually 1000 visible pillars in the temple and it probably was a slight disappointment considering its impressive name. We then went to the Bhadrakali temple which was, in my opinion, much better than ol’ 1000 pillar. We prayed to a few gods there, had some Prasadam and walked across the landscape there. I wanted to stay for some more time but some members of our group for hungry and had to leave to get some lunch.

We went back to the Bhascker’s for lunch where were served freshly cooked spicy mutton curry with rice. I say ‘freshly cooked’ because the goat which was used for the curry was most probably alive a few hours before our meal. In that weather, you always feeling like having a nap after a meal like that but we stayed awake with the help of some playing cards and sheer stupidity in playing some card games. This did a good job of keeping us awake since we either laughing or cursing each other during most of the game.

The game soon got monotonous and the heat seemed to cool down as well so went for a walk guided by a local man. The local man was very enthusiastic to show us around the place and took us to the lake. The walk to the lake was filled with lots of interesting characters which kept us from getting bored. We found a nice tree and spent a lot of time sitting by the lake in the shade of the tree. And even though we wished to see sunset by the lake, we had to go back to the house for some more night time festivities.

I changed my lens, from the 18-250mm to the classic 50mm 1.8, since the light was continuously decreasing. A couple of shots later, I recalled how much I’d loved the lens and had forgotten about its amazing capabilities.

As the sun slowly disappeared, a high powered halogen lamp and lots of multi colored chain lights were put up. All this provided excellent lighting and bokeh for the night shots which turned out much better than I expected. The colors of the saris, the gentle flame on the pots, and the kids running around, made for a nice atmosphere.

The flow of people finally died down after having gone on for more than 12 hours. We took this break as a chance and had some pretty good Ice Cream at a place called ‘Softy Don’. Soon after wolfing down the Ice Cream, we headed back home for dinner. Dinner consisted of some more mutton curry but the Pièce de résistance was the goat brain curry which not only tasted good but is also supposed to be very nutritious.

We decided to end the day with a second show movie but due to lack of choice, we went for ‘God Tussi Great Ho’ which turned to be a bad decision because it has to be the single worst Hindi movie I’ve ever seen. Salman Khan’s overaction, his brother’s even more overaction were too powerful to be overcome by Priyanka Chopra and her moves. The only partially good part of the movie were the songs, kudos to Sajid-Wajid. I slept through a good amount of the movie and by the time we got home after the movie was done, it was 2 AM.

Next day morning, we are up again at 5:30 AM getting ready to come back to Hyderabad. The journey back took 3 hours and we were back here by 10 after a wonderful and unique experience at Warangal. To see things which you dont really see everyday, and be in a place completely different from this world was bliss.

Photos are being slowly uploaded onto this set on Flickr, make sure you check back often for updates or subscribe to this RSS Feed to be notified when a new photo is uploaded into the set.

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After my 2nd driving class today, I have come to the conclusion that driving a car is probably easier than it seems. Note that I only mentioned the phrase ‘driving a car’, because driving a car on Indian roads is a whole new concept in itself.

Since the day I turned 18, I’ve been eagerly waiting to get my hands on my own drivers license. After a couple of weeks of experience of being an 18 year old, I finally decided to go down to the neighbourhood driving school and signed up for a month of classes. They also informed me that they would arrange for my learner’s license on the very same day.

Now, I had heard from my friends that you were required to take a theory test to acquire a learners license and since I didnt know a thing about what they would ask, I was slightly nervous. But as I would learn soon, there was no need for me to be nervous as upon arriving at the RTA office, I was informed that they would take my photo and then give me my learners license. Although this sounded a bit too simple as they didnt mention the test, I decided to go along with it.

Few minutes later, I heard a man shouting my name and I walked into this area filled with some computers. I was instructed to sit infront of this camera and before I realized it, the guy had taken my photo which expectedly came out quite horribly. I was trying to explain to him that I wanted my photo taken again but before I could get my message across, this other guy tapped on my shoulder and pointed towards one of the computers. I moved to the PC and sat in front of it, wondering how the hell I was going to do this god-forsaken test but before I could ponder over the idea, a man who was supposed to be assisting me in taking the test did an excellent job and took the entire test for me. I understood that this was part of the entire agreement and finally got my learners license with minimal time and effort from my side.

Yes, that's me pretending to drive for the photo.

I’m allowed to drive 8 kilometers for each driving class. So far, I havent really been driving but only using the steering wheel while the instructor controlled the brakes, accelerator and clutch. And before your mind boggles to figure out how he was able to manage such a thing while I was driving, there is another set of pedals at the passenger side of the car to ensure that I cannot run amok with the car. Anyways, I’ve been happily turning the steering wheel left and right while the instructor watches me, occasionally telling me that I neednt turn it so hard. Its been fairly easy so far and I havent faced any insurmountable situation yet.

Another added advantage of the driving class is that I’ve had the opportunity to meet some of the most incompetent idiots I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. My fellow students in the class are surprisingly bad at driving even though they are easily a few weeks ahead of me.

I should also add that ‘driving class’ is the wrong word to use since rather than teaching me how to drive, the instructor teaches me how to get from location A to location B in the quickest time possible using the shortest route available. In my first class, he did not even bother pointing out the various parts of car, and just asked me to hop in and take control of the steering wheel. At various point during the class, even if I try to stay within lanes, he asks me to go left and right to avoid the potholes in the road. Only twice have I ever heard him actually mention the rules. Hell, he doesnt even ask me to wear a seat belt. This, my friends, is an authentic Indian driving school which teaches you how to maneuver through the tricky Indian roads and not drive according to a set of rules which would only make you spend twice the time to get to the same place. I’m quite happy with it since I’m more bothered about getting to the party rather than spend time trying to decipher worn out speed limit boards.

Anyways, lets not get too much into the topic, I still have 24 classes left till I get my license and I dont want the man who’s going to be testing me for license to read this.

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Its been just over an hour of being 18 years old, and similar to last year, it doesnt feel much different. However, I do realise that I am legally responsible for my actions now, and I can vote, get a license, sign contracts, drink alcohol, get a proper bank account and lots more things, or atleast I hope so. They disadvantages of being 18 are not too much I suppose, I can be sent to prison and will no longer be able to get away with things as easily since I’m not a ‘kid’ anymore. I’m still one of the youngest people in my friends circle so I can somewhat continue to  have the benefits of being the youngest.

I’ve got about 3 texts, 2 calls, 3 online and 3 real life wishes for my birthday so far, my thanks to all of them for remembering my birthday and dutifully wishing me on time.

The last week has been good fun, I’ve been showing Hyderabad around to one of my good friends from England which has also given me the opportunity to see various places in the city which I otherwise would not have seen. The city has certainly changed for the better over the course of the year but not too drastically, which is good since I like it the way it is. Some places that I quite enjoyed going include the Chowmahalla Palace and Ramoji FIlm City. I also met up with the Photography Club a couple of times and got some pretty good shots, all of which I have/shall be uploading on Flickr. The more eventful of the meetings being the time when we went to the newly opened Panjagutta flyover the night before it was inaugrated to get some shots of the flyover which we probably wont be ever able to get again since it’ll never be completely empty ever again.

My sincere apologies for not having posted on the site for over a week and in order to compensate for this absence, I have a surprise in store for everyone tomorrow so make sure you visit the site sometime late on the 15th of July!

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After having settled in the hot and humid weather of Hyderabad, I met up with some old friends from the Hyderabad Photography Club and we decided to go to Charminar for some street photography. We walked around the streets, as one does for street photography, after which we proceeded to have some classic Irani Chai and Osmania Biscuit at a local cafe. The Irani tasted better than ever and it also came in cups which looked like they hadnt been washed since the time of Nizams. Its small things like that which make Hyderabad the place it is. We also went up to the top level of Charminar which provided some great views of the surrounding areas. The one that intrigued me was the lack of fences around the level which is a serious safety threat and if anyone trips, it is highly possible that they’ll down a good 75ft before they hit the ground. Regardless of the safety issue, it feels nice to be up there at that height and admire the view.

Today, we went to the Villart Photography Expo at People’s Plaza in Necklace road. It was an okay show with about 4 stalls being really good out of about 25. It was definitely worth going, not only for those 4 good stalls but also to get a general feel of what is going on in the Indian photography market. One of the 4 stalls which I liked was the Canon stall, simply because I got to handle a Canon 5D w/ 70-200 f/2.8 L IS USM with a 580EX II. It was very heavy initially but the lens was quite awesome and I toyed around with it for a while before having to hand it back to the people there. There was also a stall which had some movie cranes for demo and one my friends got to play around with the cranes for sometime. They seemed pretty cool and innovative. The Elinchrom stand was amazing too, the man was kind enough to give us a demo of the remote system of their line of Studio flashes and also allow us to have a go at it. The whole expo was a pretty good experience and we finished it off with a casual talk with some more friends at a coffee shop.

I have been uploading all my new photographs solely on Flickr and you can see the latest photos at my photostream here.

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Its been exactly two years since I posted my first ‘Hello World‘ on this blog. Two years. Its been so long but it feels like it was just yesterday. I can honestly that my blog has progressed a lot in the past couple of years and has indirectly affected my life to quite an extent.

My first anniversary was less exciting when compared to this one, maybe because my life was more or less the same that time.

And in the past year, my internet addiction has decreased by a lot, which is a good thing. Earlier, I used to have the urge to sit in front of the PC and do nothing useful. I used to waste a lot of precious time, simply refreshing and going to random websites. But in the course of the past year, I’ve learnt that that the internet is nothing spectacular. I’d rather sit and ponder in real life, instead of spending time of the internet. I’ve also learnt that internet is just an useful means of fulfilling your needs, but not an end in itself.

If someone had tried explain the above, to me before, I would’ve looked at them with disgust saying that they don’t understand the importance of the internet. But infact, I would’ve been the ignorant one, not understanding the importance of life. Even today, I have several friends who are in the situation I was a year ago. I sincerely hope that the truth dawns upon them too. You cannot explain someone about it, but the person has to go through the experience personally to realize it.

You should note that I’m not abusing the internet in any way. Its been highly useful for me in several aspects of life, made me meet new people and taught me many important things and it will continue to do so, until it dies.  It is an important resource of information, yes. I’m not opposing that, but simply that one should minimize the time spent on the internet unless it is essential. I’m sure a lot of people who read this post are going to deem it as utter bullshit, but in the course of time, they will (hopefully) come face to face with reality.

Life has certainly changed over the past 2 years, and this blog has been a witness to all that gradual change. It will continue to be a virtual record of my life and the experiences that I will have. I would like to thank my family and all my friends for having influenced my life in someway or the other and made this blog more interesting to read. Thanks.

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Today is the International Talk Like A Pirate Day. I know its pretty pointless but whatever.

Top Ten Pickup lines for use on International Talk Like a Pirate Day

10 . Avast, me proud beauty! Wanna know why my Roger is so Jolly?

9. Have ya ever met a man with a real yardarm?

8. Come on up and see me urchins.

7. Yes, that is a hornpipe in my pocket and I am happy to see you.

6. I’d love to drop anchor in your lagoon.

5. Pardon me, but would ya mind if fired me cannon through your porthole?

4. How’d you like to scrape the barnacles off of me rudder?

3. Ya know, darlin’, I’m 97 percent chum free.

2. Well blow me down?

And the number one pickup line for use on International Talk Like a Pirate Day is …

1. Prepare to be boarded.

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“Some time ago I received a call from a colleague. He was about to give a student a zero for his answer to a physics question, while the student claimed a perfect score. The instructor and the student agreed to an impartial arbiter, and I was selected. I read the examination question:

Question: show how is it possible to determine the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer.

The student had answered, “Take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to the street, and then bring the rope up, measuring the length of the rope. The length of the rope is the height of the building.“

The student really had a strong case for full credit since he had really answered the question completely and correctly! On the other hand, if full credit were given, it could well contribute to a high grade in his physics course and to certify competence in physics, but the answer did not confirm this.

I suggested that the student have another try. I gave the student six minutes to answer the question with the warning that the answer should show some knowledge of physics. At the end of five minutes, he had not written anything. I asked if he wished to give up, but he said he had many answers to this problem; he was just thinking of the best one. I excused myself for interrupting him and asked him to please go on.

In the next minute, he dashed off his answer which read: “Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean over the edge of the roof. Drop the barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch. Then, using the formula x=0.5*a*t^^2, calculate the height of the building.“

At this point, I asked my colleague if he would give up. He conceded, and gave the student almost full credit. While leaving my colleague’s office, I recalled that the student had said that he had other answers to the problem, so I asked him what they were.

“Well,” said the student, “there are many ways of getting the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer. For example, you could take the barometer out on a sunny day and measure the height of the barometer, the length of its shadow, and the length of the shadow of the building, and by the use of simple proportion, determine the height of the building.“

“Fine,” I said, “and others?”

“Yes,” said the student, “there is a very basic measurement method you will like. In this method, you take the barometer and begin to walk up the stairs. As you climb the stairs, you mark off the length of the barometer along the wall. You then count the number of marks, and this will give you the height of the building in barometer units.“

“A very direct method.”

“Of course. If you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie the barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum, and determine the value of g at the street level and at the top of the building. From the difference between the two values of g, the height of the building, in principle, can be calculated.“

“On this same tact, you could take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to just above the street, and then swing it as a pendulum. You could then calculate the height of the building by the period of the precession“.

“Finally,” he concluded, “there are many other ways of solving the problem.

Probably the best,” he said, “is to take the barometer to the basement and knock on the superintendent’s door. When the superintendent answers, you speak to him as follows: ‘Mr. Superintendent, here is a fine barometer. If you will tell me the height of the building, I will give you this barometer.”

At this point, I asked the student if he really did not know the conventional answer to this question. He admitted that he did, but said that he was fed up with high school and college instructors trying to teach him how to think.

The student was Neils Bohr and the arbiter was Ernest Rutherford.”

Article Courtesy

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First of all, yesterday was World Photography Day and I am ashamed to say that I didnt do anything very ‘photographic’ yesterday. And my internet connection also wasnt working yesterday which really pissed me off.

Lots of random things have been happening in life so yea, I’m kinda confused.

But the best thing that has ever happened is the introduction of the CANON 40D!!!!!!!!  God, I am so excited, it has so many additional features over the 30D that I’m quite obviously going to try and buy it.

You can read a detailed preview of it here and you can visit the official Canon page here.

I’m really really excited about the 40D, my hands are literally shaking with excitement as I’m typing right now. I’m cant type more right now, later…

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Today is the 15th of August, 2007. For the rest of the world, its just another Wednesday. But for one nation, the support system of one billion people, today marks the 60th anniversary of a better life, a better nation, of Freedom.

Wishing every single Indian, rich and poor, old and young, know and unknown, a very Happy Independence day, from the bottom of my 17 year old heart.

Thanks to the society for having supported a safe and happy life for one billion citizens for the past 60 years and I hope that India will continue to be one of the happiest nations in World for many years to come.

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