let me not go to work this Monday morning.

Let me embrace my pillow
Let me be in my bed, slipping in and out of sleep and wake

Let me be free from the worry of the eternal cycle of tiny needles meeting the roman numerals.
Let me step out when I am damn bored of it.

Let me dress shoddy.
Let me just cover up for the warmth.

Let me sleep walk the paved streets of the old city.
Let me not worry about my missing shoe.

Let me feel the cool air in my face.
Let me not worry of the impending storms.

Let me watch the giggles of tourists celebrating their escape from bored lives.
Let me helplessly watch them trying to find directions to their happiness.

Let me smile at a cute baby in the pram.
Let me stare at a stranger.

Let me capture the moments of perceived beauty in my mind
Let me not worry about the hunger of a beautiful girl.

Let me have an unheard drink.
Let me order my food by just pointing at it.

Let me just sit and watch my life pass-by.
Let me be not a part of it.

Let me see the boring synchronised dance of civilization
Let me see the hopes bloom.
Let me hope the despair vanishes.

Let me decide not to understand life.
Let me board a tram which takes me to nowhere.

Let me be crazy.
Let me be anything.

Let me be just me.
Let me be just me.

After coming to Amsterdam, I was perfecting my art of not keeping in touch. I too lazy to write detailed emails, or blogs.

So after almost 50 days, i wrote an email to a friend, then this intelligent idea of making a blog post out of it, arised. Its edited a bit, in best interest of the family audience.

So Alstublieft, Here you go:

Statutory warning: reading long mails may cause neck pain or compel you to reply.

I will be there on jan 26th. post poned the previous 7th jan by few weeks. Hope to make it this time. I am already missing the pollution, noises of the street, homefood, friends, crowds, traffic jams and the smells of bangalore. Here it almost like living inside a fridge, a little closer to the cooling pipes though.

I will need to come back soon, probably in a month or two, on long term work permit. Don’t know where I will end up in life !

New year was at Dam Square- the main fun center- a heavy crowd of girls and guys, either stoned or drunk, most of them carrying a bottle or pot, some with extra supplies in the cold winter air.

Live music of some rock band, and the whole crowd was dancing. Ending with a
countdown to the new year.

this week moving to new apartment with my team mates. looking for a place now. mostly near the present place. its forty minutes trip to office from here, using first a bus to the next metro station, Amstelveensweg, and from there metro to Vlugtlan. From Vlugtlan to
Haarlemmerweg by bus again. But the buses and metro frequencies are amazing. every 5 mins you have them. and most of them will have a few seats vacant. even at the peek hours. awesome infrastructure for travel. cant compare with our poor bangalore.

Update: moved to a new apartment, its a small cosy place. has two bedrooms, private balconies, living room and a small kitchen, fully furnished. so far, so good.

Heard bangalore was much colder this time ? After a few days of snow and white christmas, here now the temperature is better, around 5-6 degrees in day time with occassional cold breezes. But comfortable.

Last weekend had been to Paris. Wonderful place. Interesting historical places, add the trill of seeing Monalisa and Eiffel tower.

Louvre was simply grand. Prime example of how a meusium should be run. Its user friendly, professinal and very well managed.

After wandering around in the Richelieu wing watching some Eastern, Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities some Islamic Art, sculptures and Decorative Arts in the morning, I took the guided tour. An elderly lady, the guide, took us around the famous exhibits of Louvre, including the winged victory and the monalisa . interestingly, they call it Monna lisa, with an extra ‘n’ or Monna for short.
There was a heavy rush to see the painting, didnt matter to me much, maybe because I am not a major fan of hers.

Came back home by eurolines comfortable buses. And yes they play movies here too.

Previous night, we were at the Eiffel tower, the symbol of france- shooting skywards, which finds mention in DaVinci code, rather satireically, as “Symbologists often remarked that France-a country renowned for machismo, womanizing, and diminutive insecure leaders like Napoleon and Pepin the Short-could not have chosen a more apt national emblem than a thousand-foot phallus.”

Though we couldnt climb till the top floor and had to be contended with the 2nd floor instead, it was great experience. I would say none of the pictures represent the feel you get from up above there.

Church of Notre Dame, famous from that old school story,
The Hunchback of Notre Dame was an experience too. The ambience of the place demands slience and obeisance. As if you can touch the shadows of history in the dark air of the intensely decorated and high walled altar. A loud noise would disturb the sleeping souls and the wolfs of Paris killed in the steps of the church which was built as early as 1345.

Left France without even trying one thing that France is famous for. The French Kiss.

A couple of weeks before we were at Barcelona, Spain. I didnt have any idea what to expect at Barcelona, thanks to the busy and taking-up-all-my-time work at office. But its was a pleasant surprise. a warm and friendly place, language would be a slight problem though.

What interested me most was the historical monuments and the architecture of the old buildings like
La pederera. Gaudis masterpeices. of late all the new so called buildings are just ugly compared to the ones here.

Barcelona is a happening place with a lot of clubs, bars and bustling night life, even when the temparature of 2 degrees. Summer time is supposed to more fun with the beaches becoming active.

The Seven of us went to a night club here, after a heavy dinner at salamanca which ran to a bill which almost bankrupted us all. (I still can feel the shrill that went up my spine when I saw that !)

Roamed around in La Ramblas, the brigade road of Barcelona. Its a very vibrant and happening place. Statues which suddenly come to life(Street performers), flower shops, souvenir shops and the like.

Amsteelveen, where we stay, is a very calm and sleepy town. The shops open at 10, and close by 6. Wonder when these people do their shopping.
I love this place, this is what i see when i lookout from my bedroom window, yea but without color correction, ofcourse.

Amsterdam, the city center, is a happening place. On the christmas eve, I was walking past the windows when a cute young girl from behind the window wished me “Merry christmas”. Sad state to be in on a christmas eve, when everyone cuddle up in the warmth of their family.

I am taking a lot of photographs. I have bought a tripod too, for some night time long exposure photographs. Some of them are coming up good. Will send them soon.

Update: Heh ! i started writing this note a few days ago. Didnt get time to complete and send it. Work had been rather demanding in the past week. Some sadists call me on phone from India as early as 5.30 am !

Now thats almost what i have been upto after leaving bangalore. In the public interest, I guess i can post this as a blog.

The pictures are from the Paris trips - need to edit and upload the other pics, eventually.

It was much more simple. All I needed was a razor, some shaving form and 2 mins of a bored Saturday evening. I took off my french beard.

Somehow, even though I didn’t want it to be, my french beard had become a trademark symbol of mine. ” Hari who? that frenchie guy ?” was a normal dialogue.

So on last Saturday, when I was terribly bored, didn’t know what to do, at the spur of the moment, I decided give myself a new look. 2 minutes-Off went the beard. The stranger in the mirror looked at me with curious eyes.

Next day at office, colleagues “what happened ?” I had already forgotten about all this beard thing and took a moment to understand their reaction.

“oh, I was just bored.” I said.

“Bored ? does it sound like a sensible reason for you to shave ?”
“You know actually, that french beard suited you.”
“You look young !”

These were some of the reactions I got. Personally I hated the look of a good mannered, innocent person, which I am not. Also I was afraid if I looked like one of those effeminate heros of bollywood.

At lunch time, the friendly canteenvalla said bluntly “lunch time is over, sir !” Hmmmm.. he was a nice guy, used to save a few chapathies and some curry even if i went for lunch at odd hours.

This saturday,i had been to filmcamp, while waiting for the show to begin, many of the known faces passed by, with out even seeing me. It was as good as being invisible, you see them walking around, talking but they don’t see you.
Gosh ! I am invisible !

But couldn’t play this act for long, some one caught me soon. I tried to hide the guilty feeling of a small kid caught trying to hide beneath a bed, with a sheepish smile.

Though it lasted only for a little time, I felt like a magician. But, the beard will grow back in a while, or people will get used to my new face.

What do I do to become invisible again ?

This is one of the questions from the 10th standard practical exams from a school in Kerala.
Here is how you get your score.

Scoring Key

• For providing back ground color - 1 Score
• For inserting title using logo - 1 Score
• For using layers - 1 Score
• For entering name of school, place and date in different size and color - 2 Score
• For total attraction - 1 Score

Yes, You read it right, they are using Gimp. On a customized version of Ubuntu called Called IT@School GNU Linux Version 3.0 !!

See the question papers for Gimp,Spredsheet and word processor.

The syllabus and the question papers are either biased towards free software or at the minimum platform/ application neutral. No mention of M$ anywhere. Thats cool !!

From Hindu

In the largest such simultaneous deployment of ‘free-and-open’ software in India, over 15 lakh Kerala schoolchildren on Friday start taking their quarterly practical tests in Information Technology on personal computers using a special Linux version.

The IT@School project of the State Education Department has developed an operating system based on the Linux version Ubuntu. Called IT@School GNU Linux Version 3.0, it was distributed to 2,832 high schools — over a thousand of them government schools, the rest aided and unaided ones.

Between September 7 and 22, children of Classes 8, 9 and 10 will use some 30,000 PCs to do their quarterly practical examinations in IT.

read the original article IT practical tests on ‘open’ platform on The Hindu.

From NewIndPress

The Director of Public Instruction (DPI) has issued orders making free software compulsory. It says Linux Operating System should be used for IT education in eighth, ninth and tenth standards.

Till last year, schools had the freedom to conduct the examinations either in free software or in Microsoft platform.

As part of it, various programmes were arranged to observe International Software Freedom Day on Saturday.

A small introductory lecture will be delivered in the school assemblies across the state on Monday, followed by a pledge. An outline of the introductory lecture and the pledge have been circulated to the schools.

A digital painting competition for students of eighth standard will be conducted on the day using TUX paint, XPaint and GIMP software.

The topic of the painting competition will be ‘my school and surrounding.’

A presentation competition using Open Office Impress will be conducted for students of ninth and tenth standard in the topic ‘IT and its benefits to the common man.’

read the original article Free software made mandatory: IT practicals of SSLC Exam on NewIndPress.

Here is a detailed write up on The Story of Free Software in Kerala by V. Sasi Kumar

Definitely a step forward.
This is one thing that i can add to the list of things that i like about Kerala. Some of the recent additions to that list were the plastic ban and night shopping

picture from TOI

Other than February, I like August. August has Nehru Trophy Boat Race It is the biggest water festival of Alappuzha. where black snake boats compete for the prized trophy signed by Jawaharlal Nehru. August has a fresh charm of a new year- the skies are clear after the rains, the trees and plants more green, some of them with flowers.

Until a few years back, December, was a little gloomy, dark and sad month for me. Except for the cake and wine at Christmas, and the non stop parties on December 31st.

Not any more. In the last few years, It has become the most *happening* month.
For Its the month that hosts FOSS.IN.
This year, if you would pardon the cliché, its bigger and better.
Lots of new stuff, new ideas, and more fun and excitement !

From December 4 to 8. at IISC

Apart from lurking around, i made some banners and buttons for your websites and blogs. Go, Get them, and put them up !

They used to light a candle every time they pray. The kid was so amused by the light and colors of the flame of the candle he always wanted to play with it. His mother told him that it will burn his hands. The kid never listened. The mother had to hold his hands when she closed her eyes to pray.

Once when his mother was away, the kid came to the payer table with his dad. As always he tried to catch the flame. His dad silently took the candle from the stand and opened the kids palm and dropped a drop of molten wax into his hands.

Next day, the mother wondered why the kid suddenly lost his interest in the candle flame. Dad just smiled.

Its not just saying, but getting things done in the way you want is effective communication.

Wait, dont sue me for being cruel to a kid. I believe the heat of molten wax is much better than, the heat of the flame. Its like a kid falling down while trying to walk.

Obviously the school authorities, knowing the honk-thrice-a-minute Bangalorean, have put them up with good intensions, so that the students can learn in a less noisy environment.

From the angle of the school authorities they have done what best they can. But every time I pass through the road, I watch, at least one vehicle honks. Even I had to honk once.

Why do they do that? First of all why would someone honk?
Does someone honk just like that? No.
So what are the possible reasons of honking?
Are those taken care?
Let’s examine the particular road again.

Every time you drive by the road, there are people running across the road to enter the school gate. You, as a reflex action, honk.
There are auto rickshaws and cars stopped on the left side suddenly coming to life and taking to the main road. You have to honk.
The road is narrow; thanks to the parking of school buses, and cars almost stop in the middle of the road to let students disembark. You have to honk.

Also remember, you have seen this umpteen number of “no horn” boards, and the horns, most effective weapon the mankind invented after AK47, are live in your memory.

Its a classic example of using the conventional wisdom, instead of applying a little thought according to the scenario.

Below would be the conversation in the board meeting.

“There is excessive honking in the lane next to our school”
“Erect a no honking board”.

Simple. But this repeats every week.

“There is excessive honking in the lane next to our school, even now.”
“Erect another no honking board”.

Now, they have 25 boards on either side of the road.
And even now, no use. Doesn’t serve the purpose.

What could have been done better? Address the base problem, first.

1) Put a board long before the area, saying school zone.

2) Clear the road, no parking on either side.

3) Put a board saying, go slow main road ahead.
(Or even have a few humps before entering the school zone/main road)

4) Another board saying follow your lane, and do not over take.

5) Maybe for the sake of it have a board, saying please wait your turn, avoid honking.

When all of this falls into place, you control the driver of the car. First you warn him this is a school zone. You avoid all the possible reasons for him to honk. Give him a nice road to drive smoothly. You tell him that there is a main road ahead, so for your own safety, go slow. To enter the main road, do not overtake, but wait for your turn.

You need not even tell him not to honk. He will not. He doesn’t need to.

When you present it this way, you sound more concerned of the driver, which somehow makes him happy, and obeys with out much resistance. It’s far better than showing him 25 no honking signs.

Its not just saying, but getting things done in the way you want is effective communication.