In the common market, if someone asks you “Which i-pod do you have?”.

If you say you have a nano, shuffle, touch… he would be confused! But if you say that you have an Apple, Sony or a Philips i-pod he understands!

I wonder how this happened. How did the word ‘I-pod’ takeover the name for an Mp3 Player? Is it because Apple did not spread the awareness very well in India and the buzz spread through word of mouth? I wonder if the following could have happened:

Person A: What is an i-pod?

Person B: It is something that can play music!

Now when Person A sees an MP3 player he thinks it is an i-pod!

Not sure if this is a boon or a bane for Apple! Yes, the word “i-pod” is now widely used, but not sure if that is translating to sales for them.

Anyways we are keeping a short name for our product. The hardware device will be called “TECI”, short form for Track Every CoIn. So that it is easy to refer it – “Do you have a TECI?”

Blog also posted at our company web site.

For the first time I heard all the big industrialist of India speak on stage. This was a three day event and every day was better than the previous.

First day the main highlight was the talk of Ratan Tata and Narayan Murthy. I was hoping this talk would be more about their experience and how they had built such an empire, but for some reason it was not moderated that well.

The talk was more of a political twist than an Entrepreneurial journey. Nevertheless they both answered the questions asked very well.

After this I heard Capt. Gopinath speak.

He really seems like the guy who has started from scratch. It was amazing to hear his talk about how he built such a big industry and sold it. He had a vision, a vision that everyone can travel and afford to travel by flight. How he raised money when no one was giving him any money. How he started off with just one aircraft by taking a loan. A very inspiring talk.

Now Entrepreneurship has become his lifestyle. He seems to have started a new logistics company.

On the second day my favorite talk was from Geeth Sethi and Leander Paes. When I saw these guys, I was wondering what are these sports celebrities doing in an Entrepreneurial Seminar. I was so moved when I heard what they had started.

It was a proud movement for me to hear about their venture – “Olympic Gold Quest“. They are really trying hard to get as many gold as they can in The Olympics for India. At the end of their talk I felt like doing a lot of sports. The whole audience was moved by their talks. Everyone stood up and many of them made some contributions to their organization.

That evening I got to hear R.D. Burman’s original band members playing on the stage.

This was one of the best Indian band performance I have seen. They played all old hindi songs. People went crazy for all the songs.

Finally on the last day I heard the king of Retail industry speak. It was none other than Kishore Biyani himself.

He is such a down to earth person and such a passionate Indian. He makes business sound so simple.

Overall the event is a HUGE moral boost. Seeing so many entrepreneurs doing so many different things makes me want to do more projects. Lot of people saw the look and feel of our product TrackEveryCoin and they loved the concept. I would be blogging about the new product in the next few days in our company blog.

 Here are a few things that I tried my hands. Might be worth giving it a shot!

1. Traffic and noise

When I came back from the US the first striking thing that hits you is the honking. When you sit down and think for min about honking it is very interesting. Honking has different meanings in different countries. In US it means – “Dude you are making a mistake watch out”, and in India it means – “Dude watch out I’m coming, give way”. How can we make a difference in the noise levels of traffic. The first thing that I did is – “I NEVER HONK IN BANGALORE”. When I first said this, most of them say it is not possible. I’d say it is. If you think about yourself while driving then you have to honk. If you think about others while driving and yield, you will never need to honk. I’d say take this up as a challenge and make a difference!

2. Garbage on the street

There are a few wonderful things that I learned in the west. One of them is not to litter. Most of us don’t know that we shouldn’t litter. If a small boy is given a chocolate, the first thing he does is he opens it and throws the wrapper down there. Why does this happen? We have never been taught not to litter on the streets. We don’t realize that we play a big role in the society and not just the Govt. My solution to this is: 1. I never litter any place. 2. If I see someone doing it and if he doesn’t look like a big guy, I give a BIG smile and say, sir please don’t litter the place!

3. People urinating in the city

It is very sad to see that urinating in public is legal but kissing in public is questionable! This is a hard one. There is no use in blaming people or the Govt. I’m really glad for Nirmala for installing so many public toilets in the city. But here we need a social movement to make a difference. If everyone of us object people who do it in a very polite way it just might work! The other day when I was running in lalbagh this guy was urinating right next to the public toilet!!! After he was done, I waked up to him and said – “Sir please use the toilet next time”. Don’t know if it helped, but I did my job.

 Again these are very small problems, might not even be considered as real life problems in India, but, the point is to act on every problem to make a difference.

 Germany rebuilt itself from ashes after the world war. If someone says it was the Govt alone, I’d disagree. I believe a country can do better only if people work towards the betterment. We as Indians should believe in our own people only then we can make a HUGE difference.

Yakshagana is a dance drama popular in the state of Karnataka, India. It is believed to have evolved from pre classical music form and theatrical arts. Yakshagana is popular in the districts of Uttara Kannada, Shivamogga, Udupi, Dakshina Kannada and Kasaragod district of Kerala. Actors wear costumes and enact the various roles. Traditionally, Yakshaganas would go on all night. It is sometimes simply called as Aataā in both Kannada and Tulu (meaning play). Yaksha-gana literally means the song (gana) of a Yaksha. Yakshas were an exotic tribe mentioned in the Sanskrit literature of ancient India. Info from Wikipedia.

I recently had been to my native place for a couple of days for the inauguration of Ramadevi Chadaga Memorial Hall, built by my Uncle Mr. Chandrashekar Chadaga and My dad Mr. Vadiraja Chadaga. It has been their dream to make this happen in a place where they grew up.

I had the opportunity to see Yakshagana performance at the end of the inaugural event. At first I couldn’t understand what the narrator was saying. But later when I understood it I started enjoying the whole show.

What is very interesting about this is that it is only men who participate in this event. All the women roles are also played by men.

The dance is all about a narrator in the background who sings, then the actors perform the dance and also speak. Here is where Lord Krishna and Radha speak.

Here is a scene where lord Krishna turns and dances while the others watch.

They have the best facial expressions

Overall I enjoyed the whole stay at Pandeshwara (Sasthan Dt). I’m very proud of my Uncle and my Dad to have built a “Rangamandira” to encourage art in small towns. 

Bannerghatta National Park is situated 22 km south of Bangalore, Karnataka, India. The journey to the park takes nearly half an hour from Bangalore. This hilly place is the home for one of the richest natural, zoological reserves. The 25,000 acre (101 km²) zoological park makes this a major tourist attraction of Bangalore.

Having stayed in Bangalore for so many years I had never visited Bannerghatta National Park. In my previous attempt to this place, I ended up climbing a hill near that place.

The place reminded me of the movie Jurassic park. It was my first wild life safari!

We started off with the herbivour safari.

The Deers are so beautiful:

We saw a lot of bear’s. Some of them hiding and peeping at us.

One of the bear was climbing on our vehicle. I could capture it from the rear view mirror!

When I saw the lions and the tigers I didn’t feel so good any more. The concept of a safari is good, but these lions and tigers were fed ready food. So they seem like they didn’t have anything else to do in life other than just sit around. I wonder if it would be OK if they were allowed to hunt to keep their hunting skills alive.

Nevertheless they are such beautiful creatures.

You can view all the pictures here.

The legend has it that the surrounding area of the temple, known as Sunkenahalli was cultivated for groundnut. A bull started grazing in the well-grown groundnut crop, at this, a farmer got furious and hit the bull with a club. Immediately the bull sat down becoming motionless and was transformed into a stone. Poor farmers were left stun and felt guilty. For their repentance they decided to build a temple for the bull, to their surprise the bull was growing in height. The worried farmer then prayed to Lord Shiva who advised them to redeem a trident buried a few feet away from the bull and place the trident on the forehead of the stone statue to stop it from growing. Farmers followed the Lord’s advice and the bull stopped growing. Still one can see the trident place on bull’s forehead.
Since then farmers offer their first crop of groundnut to the bull. The farmer’s hold a Groundnut fair known as Kadalekayi Parishe, near the temple premises every year, to show their thankfulness. It is one of the worth visiting places in Bangalore.

I studied in B.M.S. College of Engineering which is right across the Bull temple, and I had never been to this festival.

When I reached the place, I could see lots of stalls around. Huge piles of groundnuts and people selling them.

Some places they were selling a lot of different things that looked so beautiful and colorful.  I asked one of the lady what it was and she told me it was some kind of sweet.

The whole place was lit up and everyone were enjoying and having a good time.

When I looked around more I could see why they call India so colourful!

There was a guy drawing Lord Hanuman on the road. He had done a great job.

I had fun talking to a few people around and clicking all different things around. Overall the experience was wonderful.

Click here to see all the photos.

Date: July 20th 2008

Team: Varun, Swaroop and Vikram

I was in Chandigarh visiting my friend Varun’s Hometown. I asked him what are the nice things to see around and he said there was a rock garden. The first thing that comes to my mind with rock garden is a small park with some huge rocks in it. If that’s what you have thought about you will be surprised.

Rock Garden at Chandigarh is a wonderful creation of Mr. Nek Chand. He was a road inspector in the early fifties supervising the construction of roads in Chandigarh, the capital of Punjab.

He created beauty out of industrial waste. Things like plugs, sockets, broken tiles etc.

As we walk by we see a nice waterfall.

It is very surprising to see a mix of nature and manmade park with such tree trunks.

The art work in tiles is good to see. It doesn’t look like industrial waste anymore. Indeed this must be called modern art!

The small human/alien form dolls almost trying to say something:

The place is well organized with a nice pathway:

Monkeys, elephants, Cheetahs, Man, Women – name it, it is there.

Overall, I had a wonderful experience. It is a must see place in Chandigarh.

Click here to see all the pictures.

Group: Manohar, Aravind, Sandeep, Manjunath, Rahul and his wife Rhujuta

We had been to Karwar for Milind’s wedding (Click here for the wedding photos).

Few snaps from the bus…

Snap from the moving bus…

We reached the beach in the late afternoon…

Saw a few kingfisher birds, clicked them. I saw this one sitting on a boat. I loved the colour combination.

Beautiful evening at Karwar beach

Click here to view all photos

We (Ajay, One of our friends, Swaroop and I) travel from Bangalore to Tiruchchirappalli pick up Razik and head towards Kanyakumari.

Distance Traveled: 1500Kms (Approx)

Number of days: 3

Road trip Map (Click here)

Click here for Photos

Ajay, Swaroop, Vandy, Sam & I crashed out at Sidhu’s house. Had been to chamundi hills & Planet X. Lots of fun and lots of PJs.

Click here for Photos