Amit Shah's blog

Yet another blog. I've just started blogging to my new blog over at blogger. Please check there for updates.

BTW: amitshah.net redirects to amitshah.bizhat.com which asks you to check www.livejournal.com/users/amitshah which now is asking you to see shahamit.blogspot.com. Waah!

There were about 80,000 tickets to be sold for the concert, there were just a few thousands out there though. The tickets were all funky, with bar codes and stuff. You could also call a particular number, where a barcode will be given to you on the phone via SMS. This could be scanned at the entrance. High-tech, huh? At the entrance, our barcodes weren't even scanned to invalidate them.

The rains are really heavy now, the concert has ended, Rahman has waved his final good bye and we're on our way out. The ground that was is now a mud pool. We're wading through the slush. Scores of people making their way out.

Once out, we hunt for Auto Rickshaws to ply us back. Not surprisingly, none wants to come to our side of the town. I'm used to this. This happens in Pune as well. I'm all ready to walk back the 7 KMs home. Never mind the rains, I'm on a high after the performance. Others have to go to work tomorrow, some "shramdan" (donate work) stuff. We don't have it. Lucky us.

Anyway, while we're wading ourselves out, a van seems to be stuck in the mud. We offer to help. Get it out in a couple of minutes. Further ahead, a big car is in even deep mud. Hmm. This one takes five minutes. Further ahead, there's a police van -- really big one and a fiat side-by-side and in deeper mud. We can't help this scene, not even with Bahubali to tow. It'll take cranes and really sunny day tomorrow. We walk out of the grounds.

Walking back in the rains... feeling nice about the rains now than at the start of the concert. I enjoy walking / riding in the rains. This is surely one such moment. But friends say we'll have to take a rick back. "We've got to go to work early tomorrow morning!" It's 12:15. We wait at a junction hoping we get a rick. Three of the friends who have to go farther than us, do get an auto rider willing to take them there. Great, they're off.

After 10-15 minutes of lazing off at the same place, we get one auto guy who's willing to come, but he'll charge us Rs. 150. This is 5 of what we'd normally pay. Rule is to pay 1.5 times after 10, but we're willing to pay twice. Five times is really too much. We refuse. I'm still suggesting we walk. If there's an auto going that way, we'll anyway encounter it and we can still hitch a ride. It's better to walk in the rains than to just stand there. It gets real cold and shivery.

A truck comes by, a few people waiting with us get in. There's not enough place for us. Ah.. More waiting.

A good soul-ed rick guy comes along. Offers to ply us for Rs. 50. That's not even twice the normal fare. We can't believe, we hop on. I'll be dropped off first, I suggest my friends to pay him 60. Definitely he should be thanked for his sincerity.

I get off, thank the driver, walk a few paces towards home. It's still raining heavily. I immediately take a hot water bath, for the fear of being out of action due to cold / cough. I usually don't easily contract diseases, but cold is something that's a biennial ritual. I don't want it to happen now.

Post a hot bath and nice dinner at 2 in the morning, I'm all set to sleep. What a nice way to round off a very enjoyable evening!

The show starts at 8:45. Alla Rakha Rahman, live in concert. Starts off with his "Fanaa" from "Yuva". The crowd is hysterical. We're all singing, dancing, swaying, letting out our excitement.

Part of the proceeds are to go to "Namma Mane" ("Our home" in Kannada) a home and school for the disabled.

The much-hyped 3D show isn't happening due to the rains. The screen projectors aren't working, so we can't really see what's really happening up there on the stage. Rahman is dressed in full whites. He's at the center of the stage. To his left is Sivamani with his mega setup of drums. Just ahead of him are the guitarists and the bass guitarist. To his right is the flautist and the orchestra with violins, violas and drum pads. The chorus is further to their right. They also dance a bit to the tunes, making it look real good.

The line-up of singers: Chitra, Hariharan, Alka Yagnik, Kailash Kher, Sadhana Sargam, Sukhwinder Singh, Madhushree, Shankar Mahadevan, Blaaze and Alma (from Bosnia, she's done the vocals for the Lord of the Rings to be screened later this year).

One after the other, melodies and music are flowing off the loud-speakers. The rains are holding off nicely, not disrupting the performance.

Kailash Kher, moving between baritones and tenors, rendering "Mangal Mangal" sounds great. He leaves after the song, we'll be missing out on other songs of his which would've been on the list. Especially, we'll miss "Yun Hi Chala Chal".

Half an hour into the show, there's a big rush ahead of us. There are a lot of empty seats that we can see from here. The crowds ahead of us in the next row are rushing forward into the seating area. Some of the people from our row are jumping the barricades and going there. The police suddenly realize what's happening and they use their 'lathis'. But a lot of people still cross over. The police are out-numbered. We, like good citizens, stay our ground. However, even our gates are opened up and we walk across to the next rows. There's mud and slush everywhere, we wade through it. People stamp over others' toes, just to be the first ones to get across. Police use lathis again. We are spared. We cross over, go ahead, and there still is a lot of room to go ahead. We keep going forward, jump over bars and barricades, finally reach where all the people are. I think we're at the rows where people have paid at least 10 times what we've paid. We could actually also be at the rows where people have paid 20 times what we've paid.

All the people who've come from behind are now taking up every space available, and they stand and watch. The people who were comfortably sitting and enjoying till now get frustrated. They plead "we've been sitting and watching. Please, you also sit and enjoy." Falls on deaf ears. People are also standing on top of chairs to catch glimpses of the performers. Sad, indeed. The 'poor' people who've really paid to enjoy the show from the front are now having to stand to see something beyond the throngs of people who've suddenly appeared from nowhere. Ah, they're all Rahman fans, folks, they'll do whatever it takes to be "in it".

We all go off to the sides, where surprisingly, not many people want to be. However, there are people in front of us standing on chairs. We can't see much. My friends grab chairs. They say get on it, we'll at least enjoy it this way. Bahubali protests. Let's not do that, if we do it, others will do it as well and we won't be able to enjoy. Others will complain. No one heeds it. I too, usually the rule-abiding good fellow, don't. I grab a chair and get on it. Bahubali joins.

Now on, the view's a lot better. we're much closer to the stars. "Kehna hi kya..." Chitra. Heavenly.

The projectors come to life an hour after the show started. Better late than never. Madhushree's on the screens, belting out "Kabhi Neem Neem Kabhi Shehad Shehad" from "Yuva". Wow, so mesmerising. She also has a great screen presence. Her moves are captivating. We're thoroughly enjoying ourselves. Our voices are louder than the singers themselves now, the public around us are wondering what they're getting to hear is actually what they want to hear. One wouldn't mind the public getting ecstatic during the Ganesh festivals and singing in the public then. But listening to the crowds during a Rahman show is not really what's on the things to look forward to. Hariharan's singing in Tamil. We sing the Hindi lyrics. "Chanda Re.. Chanda Re.." Hell, shedding inhibitions, they too join us.

We're swaying away, dancing, all on the chairs, balancing ourselves and enjoying the show. "Mustafa, Mustafa, don't worry Mustafa", "Taal se Taal Mila", "Chhaiya Chhaiya", the score from Bombay Dreams, "Closer than Ever", meshed with "Ishq bina", "O Humdum Suniyo Re", "Baar Baar Haan..."(Lagaan), "Chupke Se", "Humma Humma", "Titli Daboch Li Maine" and a few Tamil hits.

Every singer, at the end of their first song, commends the Bangalore audience. No one has seen such a crowd that waits through incessant and heavy rains for a concert. We all cheer for ourselves.

He gives us a taste of a new song he's composed, it hasn't been released yet. He says we deserve it. He also plays a song he's recorded for the UN for the movement to eradicate poverty. We're all waving, supporting the cause.

Sivamani presents his solo. This is really a treat during the Rahman shows. He starts from one end of his setup, slowly makes his way towards the other end and then finally takes it to a majestic completion. It lasts 10 minutes. We're totally immersed and entranced.

Blaaze keeps doing his rap bits every now and then. He, in his style, sings fast and puts in a lot of "Bangalore" in it. People ask for translations. Crowd is amused.

Shankar Mahadevan and Rahman engage in a jugalbandi. Mahadevan with his vocals, Rahman on the keyboard. Mahadevan exploits his complete vocal range. Rahman matches with his fingers. It's an absolute treat. He then starts off with "Ghanana Ghanana..." from Lagaan. He's imploring the heavens to open up. The crowd yells a big "NO". But we're enjoying this totally. Dry or wet, we're going to enjoy this. At the end of the song, Mahadevan says it's not over yet. In the movie, it never actually rains. The clouds come and go, leaving the farmers without rain and dejected. Mahadevan eggs on Rahman: had it rained in the movie, like it rained today, how would Rahman have composed the music? He starts off with Raaga Malhar. Oh, such a beautiful rendition. The music just flows. This is excellent stuff. Masterful. Enchanting.

We are all enjoying this thoroughly. More music. There are hints of rain returning. It gathers speed a while later. It seems Rahman quickly shortens the show even further. He doles out a beautiful "Azaadi..." from "Bose" and moves on to "Ma Tujhe Salaam". The entire crowd is on its feet. The drizzle's picking speed. Everyone has his arms spread out. Rahman reaches his highest point of voice. The rain is now as heavy as it was before the show started. No one is moving. All are looking up, arms stretched, singing along with Rahman. We're paying tribute to our motherland. To the genius. "God is so kind. We finish and it starts again. God bless you all." I don't want to leave. I want more. We all plead for more.

What a genius. Great musician. What a kind soul. May the music keep flowing, enthralling us for many years to come.

A brilliant race by Raikkonen at Suzuka, Japan. To win from the last place is not something that everyone can do. Especially when 6 laps have been effectively cut from the race owing to no overtakings due to the safety car on the track. Hmm, Montoya -- please help McLaren in the final race to get the Constructor's championship again. Please!

A. R. Rahman, the genius, performing live in Bangalore... I had to be there. Vikram went to Ahmedabad, so it was me with some friends -- six of us in all. We ended up purchasing the lowest-priced ones, we'd have to stand for the whole show. My repeated arguments for at least a lowest-priced seated place all went in vain. Yeah, not all can afford the costly tickets -- after all, it's only the software guys that get paid decently.

The show is to start at 7PM on Saturday, 8th October 2005, but we go in at 5:30. We learnt the gates were going to be opened at 4:30, and to get at least a good place with a decent view, we figured we'll have to do this.

We had two bright sunny days just before Saturday, but Saturday afternoon onwards we realized it won't be a dry day today. Chances of rains being very high, that didn't dampen our spirits in the least.

We reach the Palace Grounds at 5:30, the rains have held off well, we'll at least get a good show, we think.

Surprisingly, not many eateries near the venue. Bangalore hawkers don't seem very enterprising. Had this been Pune, there wouldn't have been space for the audience, hawkers would've been everywhere. However, there were some people selling packaged food, popcorn and nuts around inside the arena. The ones with the least-priced ticket weren't lucky enough. These food stalls were farther ahead, only accessible to the people next row onwards.

6:30, and the drizzle starts. We're hoping it doesn't last much. At least, not enough or not strong enough to wash off the show. The compere, who sounded like Darais from Radio City, says "the show will start on time, no matter what." Encouranging.

7, and we've had 3 drizzles by now. The compere comes back, mentions there'll be a slight delay but we'll start "in a while". Five minutes later, we're lashed by heavy rains. We hold our ground. Not everyday do we get to watch the maestro live in action.

It's raining like crazy by 15 minutes past 7. The people who've paid more for the seats are now holding up the chairs to protect themselves by the rain. We're amused. Pay more to hold up the chairs. Nice.

7:30, rains are abating. But we're all soaked, and there are strong winds blowing. Everyone is shivering. "I love you Bangalore! You are the best crowd! These are God's blessings. In this holy month of Ramadan, he's washing away our sins. Hang on, give us one hour to get the setup working." We all cheer. We're not moving. No amount of rains can wash our enthusiasm away.

KDE 3.5 alpha 1 has been released. It's simply superb. A screenshot of my current desktop. Notice the translucent taskbar at the bottom. (The gkrellm looks ugly, but I'll find a suitable theme soon). Sad that KDE doesn't have a good enough alternative for gkrellm now.

Kudos to the KDE team!

I cooked dinner for the first time in my life! (If you leave out sandwiches, omlettes and the like).

Pav-Bhaji was cooked with step-by-step instructions from mom and sis (over the phone). The result was great pav bhaji, enjoyed by me and Vikram.

The recipe wasn't quite like the one mentioned on the link above; if I get into cooking food more often, I'll start a recipe page soon ;-)

It seems there've been a lot of calls that people are getting that are claiming Andrew Morton and Theodore Ts'o are coming to India to deliver talks on the kernel. Sponsors seem to be Novell, NetApp and some other companies.

Well, I confirmed with Andrew that this is a hoax. He's not touring India, definitely not on the 24th of July, when these presentations are supposed to happen.

Things that made me skeptical of these: no talk anywhere on any of the forums, news sites. The caller couldn't pronounce Theodore, Robert Love and Nat, Miguel aren't on the talkers list even though Novell is sponsoring, she kept pestering for any friends that might be interested / in the same industry as I am in, and she kept asking me repeatedly how much industry experience I have.

Turns out, I was talking to Atul in Pune, and he received similar calls. Same agenda, same speakers, same date, just the location was Pune instead of Bangalore. Nice trick these people have come with to lure people into giving out phone numbers.

Rahul's suggested one nice solution to dealing with these people: sound very interested in whatever they're offering, ask them to hold for 5 mins citing "someone's at the door", get back, sound very interested again, repeat.

Cool idea, give me a call, someone! I'm looking for low loan interest rates!

Atul refers to a blog entry where Magesh describes how taxi drivers swindle people of their monies. Be careful, it's a bad, bad world out there!

That reminds me of the enterprising Bangalore rickshaw men: there's a rule here that mandates passengers to pay 1.5 times the normal charge for auto rickshaws after 10 (or is it 10:30) PM and before 6:30 AM. However, these guys start asking for 1.5 times the charge (or Rs. 10-20 extra on the fare) from 9PM. Hmm, when you start arguing, they'll just quip, "Sir, you work in software companies and earn lots. What would such small change hurt you?" Grrreat! And when I lose my temper, I don't speak much. Just give the person a cold, chilling stare and walk my way. No use arguing with the drivers, and least of all, when the argument's such a lowly one.

I was just browsing around aimlessly when I stumbled upon the openMosix HOWTO. Hmm, I've not been involved with openMosix for quite some time now, but I thought of giving it a look. And I'm surprised to see that intro to hacking openMosix still quotes my mail!

There's also another FAQ there, which ports does openMosix use for communication so that firewalls are configured properly.

The promised code documentation was written, but I have it tucked somewhere in my backups. May be I'll rake it up when I get my home machine running.

amitshah.net is now mine. Though the page is horribly out of date, it'll be updated Real Soon Now :-)

Hunting for accommodation in Bangalore?

(Thanks to Chirag and Amol. I'm not hunting for a place right now, but that'll help.)

(Also, if you want to get in touch with brokers, ask Chirag for their contact info. He's got a big list of brokers and their house-showing abilities.)

Futurama's coming back on DVDs.

Kimi dominated Monaco.

And rains in Bangalore. Could the weekend have been better?

Sons of Fortune by Jeffrey Archer. Boring. Nothing to look forward to. Don't read.

I got my bike (a Suzuki Fiero) to Bangalore some 2 months back. My dad sent it via train and sent the receipts here by courier. I expected the bike to arrive in Bangalore some 5 days after it was sent; so me and Lokesh, my colleague, went to the railway station to get it. It helped immensely that Lokesh knew exactly where cargo is unloaded and where we will find the bike. However, it wasn't to be found in the rooms at the rail station, so we set out on all the platforms (around 8 of them) to check if it was just unloaded off a train. No luck there either. Around 30 mins of roaming across the entire Bangalore station in the hot sun isn't what we were expecting when we started, but at least we didn't have to deal with unhelpful officers anywhere. We asked a porter to inform us when the bike was unloaded and we then set off.

The next day I received a call from the porter saying the bike had arrived. Being a Saturday, I was in no mood to go and collect it before the offices closed (which was half to one hour later), inspite of being in office. (This was the first and last time I was at office on a Saturday).

The following Monday, Lokesh and I again went to the office and found the bike there. I had to pay some money to get it off, which was strange. However, I at least got a bill for that. Paid some money to the porter, got it cleaned, found out they had damaged the fuel pipe, some petrol was wasted before I switched off the cork again. A long trudge again to find some garage, and dragging the bike in the hot sun isn't fun.

Garage found, new pipe installed, we set out happily back to the office. Great, no further incidences.

However, the road tax has to be paid for the state of Karnataka if you're going to be riding the bike for > 1 month. So I went to the Indiranagar RTO, where I collected a couple of forms (printed in Kannada), which were to be filled. The officers weren't particularly unhelpful, so that helped not lower my spirits.

The officer to whom I was supposed to submit this form directed me to a copy stuck on a cupboard facing him where the English translation of the form. After quickly filling it and shelling out Rs. 1500 (approx), I got my tax receipt. I don't know what happens to the similar amount of money I spent for the Road tax in Maharashtra; I don't know if I'll get that back.

The registration number has to be changed, it seems, if you're going to be riding in Karnataka beyond a year. That, however, needs an NOC from the Maharashtra RTO, which takes a lot of time and money. I've not got that done yet.

If you're planning to get your bike to a different state from where it's registered, get the road tax filed at least. Especially in Bangalore, since there are traffic policemen at every corner, and they spring up when you least expect them. They also check for your breath late nights (especially on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays) to make sure there aren't drunk people driving out there.

And with around 5 robberies reported every week on the streets of Bangalore, the policemen have set up barricades all across the town and checking for all sorts of papers related to the bikes and cars. Non-Karnataka registered vehicles of course are a prime target. Good to spend some money in paying the taxes rather than wasting time and money later on.

Kimi Raikkonen finally won it for team McLaren Mercedes at Barcelona yesterday. He beat Alonso in number 2 by a whopping 25s. Says a lot about the package Kimi got. Was very good to see such a convincing victory for McLaren after a long time. Was at the Forum mall with Vikram to catch the action live. (Surprising the forum guys don't have a website.) Renault's doing well, but the Toyotas and the Williams also came good yesterday. Ferrari were out of points, with Schumacher rolling out on a flat tyre... Bridgestones not up to the mark this season, adding to their start-of-season woes.

There was a hint of McLaren coming back with a bang at Imola, but for the driveshaft problem, Kimi had to retire. He led the Spanish track yesterday right from the start and didn't look in trouble for a minute. Reminded me of some of Mika Hakkinen's drives. Classic stuff!

It's been almost a month that I've read Deception Point by Dan Brown. This one is his 2nd novel. A very fast-paced gripping adventure + thriller. Nicely woven story around NASA and the White House. However, I could guess every twist and turn in the book (against a couple in the DVC), but in the usual Dan Brown style, it has a lot of information about other stuff, like the way NASA works, sealife, asteroids, etc, that you don't just get to read a thriller; you also get to know about things related to the plot. This is what I've started liking about DB's novels.

Most of my book-reading happens on weekends, and I usually end up finishing one novel / book the same weekend. However, I couldn't get enough time to read this book on a weekend, so it actually took a lot of sessions across a week to finish this book. I actually looked forward to finishing it, a very good read.

Digital Fortress is DB's first novel. It mostly deals with cryptography and breaking codes. Since most of the material was already known to me, this one wasn't as entertaining as the other novels. Also, I could guess all of the twists / turns the book has to offer, so it was like just reading through a very predictive novel that didn't also add to my knowledge. Skip it if you already know about ciphers and cryptography. The fun part about this novel was probably the code given at the end of the book to be cracked. Which I did after spending some time on it. Clues below.

!Spoiler Warning: The series of numbers initally looked like page numbers, so I was trying out arranging the first words on those page numbers mentioned, but no luck with that. Then I tried by using the first letter on the page; again it was meaningless. I then thought that those pages could have some "theme", which could be used and break the code. However, on relooking at the numbers, they seemed to be confined between a certain min and max... which looked a lot like chapter numbers. Rest was easy to put in place.

Read "The Da Vinci Code" last Saturday while lazing over a long weekend. Friday was non-working day because of Good Friday and Holi, the festival of colors. On a typical Holi day, I would be playing with some color and water in my building with neighbors. This time, away from home, I had nothing much to do, except read.

Dan Brown's latest novel, The Da Vinci Code is absolutely unputdownable as one of the reviewers says. The most often repeated praise for this book is "how magically he mixes fact and fiction and creates a world where the basic grounds of Christianity are to be blown up". Of course, all that is true. But what appeals to me the most is, I haven't read such a mystery since Sherlock Holmes. And I've not read such a piece of fiction, such imagination, since The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

This one novel has exceptional research gone behind it, long hours of thinking and finding patterns and interpretations to simple things that others wouldn't bide their time doing. Dan Brown finds relations between Da Vinci arts, the way they are painted, the secret societies he indulged in, the genius that he was, his other inventions, and so on. Of course, this book has enough of fact to it, that I got to learn a lot about Christianity and Da Vinci. Catch is, there's such a thin line between fact and fiction, that once immersed into the plot, you hardly can make out what's fact and what's not.

Atul's already written lots about Angels and Demons, the prequel to The Da Vinci Code, and how great that book is, I've nevertheless picked up Deception Point, also by Dan Brown, after TDVC. I had bought all these books in Pune, but hadn't had the time to read them till now. Now that I had choice, knowing Angels and Demons was good, I picked up DP, so that even if it wasn't that good, I'd have something good to read sometime soon.

So then how about cracking the Kashmir code by applying the same principles as in TDVC? The Times of India, the leading daily here, has an article today that talks about Kashmir actually belonging to the US, and not India. A very nicely written article.

People are using the Linux kernel everywhere now; so there have to be lots of Linux (kernel) developers around. So finding one should be easy, right? My team (at Juniper Networks, India) has openings for Linux kernel guys and networking guys. If someone stumbles through this post and is interested, or has friends who may be interested, please get in touch with me.

Oh, BTW, I have joined Juniper Networks India Pvt. Ltd. in Bangalore from the 1st of Feb. Basically going to be working on the Netscreen line of security products, mainly on Intrusion Detection and Prevention. Sounds good and work seems to be good. We have an excellent team here, am pally with each of the four people here right now right from day one like we have been buddies for the past five years... half of the team is in the US office, they're coming back this weekend. And we all from here are going to the Sunnyvale, California office sometime in April.

Lots of work and fun lined up ahead, hope to keep the blog updated.

Having worked in a startup for ~ 3+ years, and still enjoying the work I'm doing, there seems to be no reason for me to switch jobs. However, there still is some need for that. I've never stayed away from my family. So this is probably the best time for an experience of staying alone. There's no real dependency on me from the family, so I can move around freely. Also, I have no experience of how big companies work. Plus, no idea how a products-based company works.

So, I've decided to move on and experiment. I'm shifting base to Bangalore. The company? Well, I'll disclose the name in a few days; but it should suffice to say that it's a big player in the routers business.

Bangalore's a great city; much, much bigger than Pune is, much cleaner and much greener. However, the traffic is bad. On some occasions, you could be at the same place, without even moving an inch, for 30 minutes. Mornings 9-10 and evenings 5-7 is the time-frame you don't want to commit anyone any time. You're bound to be late, unless you're on foot or a two-wheeler, by which you could just arrive on time.

And the city's dull. Shops close at 8 in the evening, it keeps pouring once it starts raining, the movie theatre owners are having some problems with airing Hindi and English movies because of a state law, so all these limit the entertainment choices. So my time will either be passed by reading or on the computer. Not too bad, but it's good to roam about sometimes.

Feel free to comment / mail with advice on absolutely anything: the staying alone experience, working in a big company experience, living in a dull city experience, anything.

Bangalore, here I come...