My mother's posts

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Few thoughts

I was in the hospital's administrative office today. This is a hall where there are about 5 to 6 counters. A few chairs in the waiting room. As I walked in, I noticed that there is a token dispenser. I took one and sat down and waited for my number to be called. I had a few minutes completely for myself. I decided to just shut down my own thoughts of my little world and focus on people around me. At "counter 1" was a young lady. She was discussing with clerk animatedly. The clerk was trying to placate her that the particular rule is not applicable to her. The young lady was throwing up her hands in the air, in exasperation. It felt like she is still young and had some arrogance that goes with that age. A middle-aged very mellow lady was at the next counter. She was worried about her insurance benefits. Counter clerks seemed genuinely helpful. I saw another old Chinese man waiting patiently for his turn. He had a band-aid across his cheek bone. I wondered what had happened to him. There must be a story behind that. He looked serious, lost in his thoughts. I glanced around.. there was another old African American gentleman- in a call with his insurance company. I unintentionally eavesdropped on the call. He was saying, " I read in your documentation that you wont insure people over 80. I am a bit concerned about that. I am expecting to live beyond that. Are you going to cut-off health insurance for me when I get older?". Hmm. Just then, another old lady who was being wheeled in by a relative was approaching the token machine. An elderly man was ahead of her. However, when he picked the token, he gave his to the old lady and took the next one for himself. It is such a nice gesture. I feel it is not so common to see such kindness in daily life. This is what everyday looked like here. Real people with real unique worries. Each person at a different stage of life. It was like a scene out of a Hollywood movie- just before something unexpected happens. After I finished the paperwork, as I walked out, some local musicians had setup a band to play some soft soothing music in the hospital lobby. Must be volunteer work. It was a beautiful "everyday". In the age of continuous fear-causing 24x7 news reporting, it feels nice to report about a single beautiful day in human life.

Channel Capacity - Heuristic proof

Quick recap of the channel capacity heuristic proof. Reference here: https://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~dtse/Chapters_PDF/Fundamentals_Wireless_Communication_chapter5.pdf Assume we are transmitting a codeword in N dimensions. The dimension could represent time or any other signal characteristic. Assume it is corrupted with a noise vector (also N dimensions). Now each of the codewords can be represented as a point in N dimensional space. Assume also that we have a power constraint P (total power transmitted must not exceed P)- so all the received codewords must lie in an N-dimensional sphere of radius sqrt(N(P+sigma^2)). For error free decoding, all the received vectors (transmitted point + noise vector) should lie inside non-overlapping spheres inside this large sphere of radius sqrt(N(P+sigma^2)). The radius of this non-overlapping noise spheres has to be sigma^2 (noise variance) for a large N. Thus, max number of codewords that can be transmitted in this scenario can be geometrically deduced as sqrt(N(P+sigma^2))^N/sqrt(sigma^2)^N or equivalently the max number of bits that can be conveyed is log2(max_num_codewords). This yields the famous shannon expression for channel capacity. I.e no more information can be transmitted with the given power constraint on an AWGN channel with arbitrarily small error rate.

Today, while going through all the documents that have collected dust over the years, I started organizing them in to separate folders-by category. Bank related, income tax related, Visas, passport, stock certificates, real-estate investments, rental agreements, insurance etc.. the usual stuff. In the process, I came across my marks sheet from my under-grad. I stared it for a while. Most people hold themselves to some simple expectations. The expectation is that, one has to do what one is good at... regardless of the area of the job. "Well" here means whether one can do or has done new and innovative work in that area. For me, it is a bit late in life. However, to repeat a cliche, one should keep exploring. I am trying to recollect what I really-really enjoyed doing. What was I really-really good at? Should we all ask ourselves this question? May be the answer could even change from time to time. If you ask yourself that question often enough and you get an answer- I feel you are probably living a more fulfilling life. Let me know what u think.

What a wonderful day!

We choreographed a dance for dad's birthday. It was almost childish. In our conservative family environs, dancing itself was a big deal - so getting it right was not that important. The bigger part of "self growth" was for the first time in my life, I coordinated with people on the organization of an event. It felt so wonderful. We worked without taking ourselves too seriously but just wanted to make it fun for a bunch of people around us. The outcome was beautiful- none of us were perfect- but it was fun, nevertheless. I think the "key" learning that day was to not worry about getting things right- but just doing something different. My daughter was one of the best dancers.

Remembering a weekend at Pines

I shouted, pass the ball, here, here. In came the pass, I was right below the basket and all I had to do was jump. And swoosh.
Chamath complained laughingly.. He was fast but not tall enough to guard me and I had done well enough to create a toe-crushing fear (literally), if they get too close. I was this tall clumsy guy always hanging out near the basket. I could irritate even the usually quiet guy in the group with some rough play.
We won yet another game and headed back to the apartment. We showered and it was time for some dinner. Chaat house? California Pizza? the usual list was tossed around and one of them got selected. Randomly.
After dinner, we used to bid farewell to those friends who would head out to SFO for nocturnal activities and the rest of us would go back to the apartment, watched TV and joked and laughed at Suresh’s subtle humor, played cards or in-room cricket. One pitch catch was out. Supi troubled us with his flippers. Suresh was the aggressive one. He didn’t care if my TV broke as long as he was not out. Rama would always get out to a surprise full-toss. Dumb Charades or Pictionary used to be clean fun till late into the night. Rama used to be the most fun with his pictures and his incessant pointing to the same unidentifiable picture that he drew in first 10 seconds of the minute. Was it bird or was it a bottle? We would find out that it was an elephant. We would fall asleep eventually, to wake up late on Sunday morning.
After 11 am, all of us headed out for coffee. A short Mocha for me, a short latte for Rama and regular black coffee for the dude wearing sun-glasses. Suresh was always the dude among us. The black coffee eventually gave the dude, acute acidity. We hung out at Starbucks for an hour or so, reading the news paper left behind by others (occasionally buying one), looking at white girls and salivating at brand new cars parked around there.
We would get groceries and cook, eat, and sleep without even realizing another delightful weekend had come to an end.
Eventually Supi got tired of the routine and got married and would not join us for coffee. Luckily for us, though, the spouse turned out to be as much fun as Supi was, after the initial dislike for some of us! )
Long weekends had to be travel weekends, even if it was the same place that we had visited several times.
I came back to my current world when my little one, shouted with glee. Pointing at the sky, she said “Appa, Birdie”. I said “Yes, Birdie”.

My new BB mate

List of Day Cares for infants in Marthahalli/outer ring road area, Bangalore

Tom and Jerry - Varthur road - 4500 per month
This place is located in a quiet neighbourhood in BEML layout. Takes infants over 6 months. Has a decent ratio of kids/Teacher and Kids/helpers. It is set up in an independent house. There is a grill in the front portion of the house which keeps the kids safe. When we went to see the place, it was cleanly kept. There were stairs inside the house which were leading upto the top floor which is not occupied by the day-care. There is one room for sleeping. There are lot of beds sprawled on the floor. There were a few cribs for the young ones.

Kidzee - outer ring road (between Marthahalli and KR puram)
This is a chain. However, they do not accept kids below 1.5 years
http://kidzee.com/
AppleKids
This is a new franchise opened up in Marthahalli area. We didnt visit the place but from the website it does seem like a nice place.
http://applekids.in/

Kara International - Sarjapur Road - 7000 per month (overall)
This is truly world-class day-care. They even have pick up and drop off at additioal costs.
http://www.kara.in
Nand Gokul - Rajashree Layout - Marthahalli - 5000 per month
This is brand new and is set up in a quiet neighbourhood in the ground floor of an independent house. It is safe but I found it too small a place for the kids. It is still very very new. They had only 2 children at the time we visited. They were ready to accept children above 6 months.
http://nandgokul.com/
Podar Happy Kids - Sarjapur road (right next to Total Mall) - 5000-6000 per month http://podarhappykids.com
They accept children over one year. They have a very large place. Separate outdoor play area. Segragation of toddlers from infants, CCTVs and other things. Found it to be a bit on the expensive side. However, we liked it the most in the neighbourhood.

Vidyarambh - Sarjapur Road - 4500 per month
Infants are cared-for in a small apartment. The place is clean and the only teacher present at the time we visited looked well-trained. There were other 20-somethings ladies assisting her and we felt they were pretty OK. There is an attached play-home for older children (over 2 years) near by. The place has a tie-up with Wipro. It did seem pretty OK. This would have been next in the list for us. http://www.vidyarambh.com/

Soul of a new machine

What really runs this world is the passion of a few men. As in most professions, it is the creative urge which drives every good engineer. Wallach architects many machines which do not end up going to the market. He is on the verge of becoming a cynic when he gets prodded on to create a 32-bit version of an existing machine. Tracy Kidder describes the story of the hard work and the passion that goes into building this new machine.

Interesting Read.

check out this URL

We shd have Rama sing for this one!

www.midomi.com

lemon projects?

Suraash does this sound familiar? Lemon projects? Are you involved, here?

This is the road right behind ITPL, Bangalore. I have written to KIADB, which maintains everything in this area today. I will write about it if I get a response. This will be my first social responsibility thing since I came back.

MarathaHalli

I have been in Bangalore for only 8 months. Yet to figure out which one is the most beautiful part, but I definitely know the worst part. MarathaHalli. I will post some pictures soon but this blogger summarizes what I feel.

Current Status of road-over-railway bridge: One side was completed 5 months back. The other side is yet to get done, because the central part which runs over the railway line needs to be built by the dept of railways. It is understandable that it would take 2x time when there are 2 govt. depts involved.

Market Area: Marathahalli's market area is unique. It caters to the poor people (these stalls are right on the road), the rich (there are dazzling brand showrooms, interior decoration and furniture shops,), and the middle class. There are several shops which sell "Nike" shoes for 100 Rs, "Van Heusen" shirts for Rs. 199.

Traffic: In theory, the roads are wide enough for 2 lanes on each side. One of these is used by hawkers, people walking on the roads . There is a bus-stop here (no shelter, there is only one small sign). In the evenings, the number of people waiting for a bus runs into hundreds. Buses are usually overcrowded. I saw some old people in the bus, some of them with faces pressed against the rear glass.

Footpath: Exists, but is unusable for several reasons. 1. Very uneven pavement 2. Open drains 3. Other intermittent blocks, like electric poles, support for electric poles.

Powercuts: Street lights are not on because of powercuts.

Rain: When it rains, (even if it does not pour), drains overflow on to the roads.

Wineshops: Throw cheap liquor and poor construction workers into the equation and imagine now, you are walking on the footpath, and there is rain and powercut. Your evening walk can become pretty unpleasant.

This is Maratha'Hell'y.

baby Medha!

Palmaneru

Within 2 hour drive from Bangalore on NH-4, there is small town called Palmaneru. As long as you stay on NH it is a nice drive. We saw some mango groves (ofcourse, we tasted mangoes, fresh sugarcane juice) and lush green fields.

It just feels nice to be in a village. People are warm and seem content with their lives.

Costs of Stuff

Just FYI

Refrigerator 250 l whirlpool - 16000
Gas Stove 4 burner Prestige - 4000
Sony TV 29 inch - 19500
Microwave - 4000
washing machine - 11000
Queen size cot + mattress - 22000

Shopping is not a big hassle. Do it on saturday or sunday afternoon. Thats the best time; less traffic. not a lot of people in shops so the sales guy spends more time with you. As always, do some research before going to the shop. They can rip you off if you dont know the rough costs.

Car is the biggest cost. Given the intrest rates, I decided to down pay.

AAAAARGHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Frustration is getting the better of me. I have had fights with several people already. Things just dont get done. period.

Some tips... just to lessen your frustration. Not that I didnt know these things, the reality of these things hits you hard.

NEVER expect anything to be ON TIME.
examples:
1. I got my car after 3 days delay (w/o license plates; w/o RC book; these I am yet to get)
2. Appointments are typically delayed by a day or two. Traffic is one of the reasons.
3. The parking space in the is not sufficient for my car. (I shd have guessed it) and Alternate parking spots are not assigned without at least 2 weeks delay.

Get your car ASAP. Haggling with auto guys can get on your nerves. (Besides, they dont come where you want to go, you have to go where they want to)

Before you come, try to get a house. Dont take the guest house option some companies provide. Most guest houses (service apartments) are crap. Ask to be put in a hotel instead. Remember, everything you order, you will be promised next day delivery.. understand it is usually 2-3 days.
LAST but not the least, TRAFFIC, TRAFFIC TRAFFIC!!!!! Beware.

good food! and overhyped apartments

After trying some junk north indian restaurants around here, I finally got to taste very good south indian food. We tried Malgudi, (check this review: http://www.mouthshut.com/review/Malgudi_Restaurant-52864-1.html)
I agreed with the reviewer. Food was really good and very different from the usual fare (Dosa, vada, idly) . Get Neeru Dosa, akki rotti and with kaju curry.. very good.

I went with a broker to check out a few apartments. I had heard good things about all of these. Broker was a few minutes late and he could not arrage keys to one of the apartments. He showed us Raheja Residency. The buildings are looking good from outside, the apartments themselves were crappy.

The search continues. Need to buy a car soon.

karnam's day out in Bangalore

Went to check out the distance between my office and EGL. It is about 45 min drive. The volume of traffic is not as much a problem here as how narrow the roads are. I feel Hyderabad has wider, better and cleaner roads.

There is a tonne of construction activity. There is a metro rail track under construction; The start of this project has got delayed 3 times already and is expected to be complete by 2009. Wonder how much it will help ease the traffic congestion though.

First day

After 20 hr long horrible flight, finally reached Bangalore. We got adequate help to load the baggage into a small indica. This one had a carrier on the top, so 3 big bags were tied on top. Did part with exactly 1 US dollar for help from 3-4 people. They asked for more, didnt have change.

Anyways, this apartment is quite close to airport. Didnt look as well as I expected it to look (from outside). It is an individual apartment building. However, the facilities are adequate. There is telephone, internet, hot water, TV etc. 2 bedrooms and nice furniture.

There is kitchen downstairs and we just need to pick up the phone and order food or anything else. They get it for us.

Felt very nice about the variety of channels I can watch. Was pleasantly surprised to know that all sitcoms I used to watch in US, like seinfeld, Friends, Frasier, Simpsons... everything is available on Star World. Only issue would be wresting the remote from her. In addition, there are lots of old hindi movie/song channels. Should keep me busy for sometime.

I got up very late this morning and had breakfast brought to the apartment and am still lazing around. Until, I get out of this place, I wont think about missing US.

So far so good.. may be better.