kvrlogs

Monday, 29th June  Rest Day. I took my bike and reconnoitred the Aarey colony area where runners go to train. I measured 5kms one way and was quite pleased. I make 4 trips and I can touch 20kms. The landmark there is New Zealand hostel - and there were quite  a few ups and downs. It is going to be hard. Tuesday,30th June 8KM goal. I continued with the Tibetan book. They have got asylum, and the book has become boring. It is an observation of life in Tibet. When I had just crossed 5,  it started raining and I got back home. My mood also was off beat - lot of things going on and couldn't focus on running. Wednesday,1st July 8kms. It was sunny and a nice beautiful day. Had a good run and I did not take any walk break. Towards the middle of the run felt like stopping for a walk break, but kept going. The less I stop the timing is better. I have made a run playlist now of my favourite songs and it helped. Thursday, Friday  Rest days - I am following my ...

Monday June 22 6.46KM. It was a laboured run. Rain was pouring heavily and had to stick to the parking lots. Our hero and his friend decide to take a treacherous route populated by nomads and campa ( thieves )  - as there are no district officials in that route. The district officials would have stopped their progress as they do not have permit to go to Lhasa. The 2 fugitives move from one nomad camp to another and are well taken care of. Here they find polyandry common - a woman living with 2 or 3 husbands. As they get deeper and deeper, they find the nomads becoming more and more hostile. They were entering the campa territory. Campa are the thieves who plunder from nomads and caravans. They unknowingly go near a tent, assuming it is that of a nomad. Soon they find out it is that of a Campa - as they do not have any sheep or do not look anything like that simple nomads. They have a fitful sleep if they will be murdered that night. The next day morning they quickly start...

Monday - June 15 I decided I will not doubt anymore if I can complete the marathon or drop midway. I have survived 2 weeks and I have run 86kms in 2 weeks - something I take 2 months or more to do. I have to be distracted when I run - either by a podcast or music or a good audio book. Sunday evening I was hunting for a good audio book. I discovered 7 years in Tibet - set against World War II. Had seen this movie long back - Brad Pitt was in it. Downloaded it and was looking forward for the morning run. Also, a friend of mine advised me to not run on concrete too much - I run around the parking lots - the hard concrete surface damages the knees in the long run ( hehe - unintentional pun ). So I moved to a nearby park - it was completely deserted because of the rain and the track was a mud track and was wet slippery and soggy at lot of places. Not sure if this will still be runnable after the Mumbai Rain comes in full force. This autobiography starts with the narration of German ...

Monday - June 8th When I woke up felt my legs ached a bit. Was debating whether to give it a pass - as I have 2 long runs coming up the next 2 days. Anyway, dragged myself out of the home and started at my gentle pace. Once I started running did not think of the mild pain.. it went away I guess. It was just my mind fooling me. Then when I had 2 kms to go raised my pace a bit. I think I can identify 2 paces - a slow pace where I breathe through my nose effortlessly, and a slightly faster pace - where I really run - and breathe through the mouth. I feel I have one more gear left. Listening to Once a runner audio book. It is about a bunch of cross country athletes in a South Eastern University of Florida, and our protagonist - Cassidy - is in trouble. He had represented other athletes against a rather stupid circular from their Athletic director - to cut hairs and wear collared shirts. And the athletic department has suspended him to bring fear and discipline in others. He is to fa...

September 20 is my D-Day - The Kaveri Trail Marathon [  http://kaveritrailmarathon.com ]. Got to know via a tweet and it set me on another of my adventure / irrational act - to run a full marathon ( 42kms ). I had run (half walked in pain) a half marathon ( 21kms ) in the Bangalore Midnight Marathon held in Dec 2011 and it was a disaster. [ My first half Marathon ]. I finished last. And vowed never again. Next time I will train better and will run the full race, not walk half the race. It has been 3 long years since then and I could never bring myself to run even a half marathon again. Always the fear of failure was there and the last disastrous experience kept haunting me. What if I cannot cross the wall - the point wherein body has exhausted its glucose content and starts burning fat. Body thinks it is starving and self preservation kicks in and freezes itself - and a runner cannot take one step forward as body does not allow fat to be burnt. Every marathoner has to overc...

I had booked the last flight home - at 10:45pm - to avoid the crazy Gurgaon Peak Hour Traffic, and also it was the cheapest I could get. And the flight was delayed. Finally the boarding started at 11:30pm. I had woken up at 3:00 AM today, for this one day trip. I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open and quickly dozed off as the flight was taking off. I felt a scary shudder and woke up and found the flight dark. I closed my eyes but I could not go back to sleep. I pulled up my phone and saw the time - it was precisely 12:00 midnight. But I knew something was wrong. The phone was blurred and it was kind of overlapping as if 2 phones were there. I thought it was my tired eyes playing tricks on me and closed them once again and tried to go back to sleep. I could not shake off the odd feeling. I tried to open my eyes, and by habit when I am bored I unlocked the phone. This time I tried to focus my eyes better and I could not believe what I was seeing. There were 2 phones....

This is a chest thumping post. I am warning you. I have unlocked a new level in my life. I have run 1,000 KMs.   This was done over the last 2.5 years starting Nov 2012, averaging 6 Kms per run at a nice middle aged man's pace of 6.5 ( pace is the number of minutes it takes to cover 1km ).  I can hear you saying - nothing big to crow about - but hey - this is me I am competing against - not Usain Bolt - and as a competitor I am tougher! I am not a consistent runner. During monsoon I stop running and eat lot of onion pakodas. Also just a few months back my shoe was stolen, or for any lame excuse the devil in my brain will throw at - I will agree immediately, and I will declare an off-day. It has been a constant battle between the Angel and Devil in my brain. And no clear winner has emerged of far. But I want to show this devil - inspite of you I have accomplished something really big. I have so much to tell - but will tell one thing I found in this journey of 1000...

Appraisals, Tax, Meetings, Interviews, More Tax, Property Tax, License Renewal, Passport Renewal constable interview, EMI, Aadhar card... You think your life is tough? Just look at a couple of Celebrity's kids. It is tougher for them. Way too tougher. One whose names starts with R and has a famous freedom fighter's name as last name. Another starts with A and his entire family - except him of course - wife, dad, mom - are all Padmashri winners. Now meditate this. They are not concerned about Taxes, or License Renewal or any of the mundane things you and I have to deal with on a daily basis. They have a bigger fish to fry. It is the dreaded word called 'Expectation'. Or filling up the big shoe their father wears or once wore. It is the genes - we all say - and rightfully so - being ruled well by the Kings and their princes and their descendants all these years till the mighty British came and made a mess of our country. The genes should bring out the next bet...

I finished reading Jupiter Travels by Ted Simons. This crazy British journalist went around the world in 1975 - in a Triumph motorcycle, took 4 years and lived to tell the tale through his book. Each of us are sent to this world to experience life. It is all programmed before we are planted on earth. Some of us let the soul's true purpose come out - some of us let the ego, self-imposed chains to prevent the soul from going in its journey. Ted Simons let his soul a free run and did this brave journey - all alone in 1975. He entered and left Egypt before the war, reached Cape of Good hope at the bottom tip, took a ship to Brazil, got arrested and let off and explored Argentina and via Mexico got into USA, found his love. Again took a ship to Australia, then rode across the continent, took a ship to Singapore - rode a bit there, came to Madras ( as it was called then ), rode to Bangalore to see Sai Baba in the now Whitefield ( and was disappointed not to see any magic ), wen...

India is in a growth phase like how the US economy was in the 80s. The US parents during the boom were called baby boomers.  The Indian parents who are in their 35s to 45s of today are the equivalent of the baby boomer generation. Thankfully the school admission process is so competitive - it has scared them into not making a boom of the baby kind.  Let me coin these parents the "Facebook parents" as they are all chained to their smartphones and Facebook. Of late whatsapp has become quite popular but whatsapp is owned by Facebook - so this term can still stand a scrutiny by future historians.  They are economically successful and better off than their parent's generation. Most would have started their career drawing a salary their parents would have retired at.  Would have visited a few countries for work or for pleasure. Would have a car or two or an unnecessarily powerful bike which they use for grocery errands. Would have a heavy EMI too.  ...

Ahemm..first my apologies for tying a camel's tail to a pony's tail - this post is akin to that. Totally 2 unrelated disciplines being compared :) Agile  - as you know is what we use to create kickass products. Spiritualism is to me the exploration of the Why? - Why are we happy, or sad. Why did we come on earth, why we die? I practise Agile at work, and explore Spiritualism constantly in all things. During one of my meditations it hit me - A developer practising Agile, and what Spirituality teaches us are so common. The Now Our mind is like a pendulum. It either swings to the past - oh I did this, said this, he spoke rudely to me that day, I missed giving a good repartee .. or swings to the future - oh what will happen if I don't file my tax returns, what if I confront my colleague tomorrow.. it goes on and on - swinging back and forth. And when the pendulum hits the Now - it is where happiness is - pure unblemished joy. It stays for a fleeting second.. and then goes on t...

This post is a 101 Introduction to Raspberry Pi.  I will show you how to use a Raspberry Pi to create an Apple TV, Chromecast equivalent, and also read and push your home temperature to a server. It is the best time to be a geek! There is 3G everywhere and 8MB Bandwidth at home and office. Geeks everywhere carry a super computer in their pocket now! TBs of storage are now available for a dime. Everything is backed up realtime to the cloud. Even if you lose your device or hard drive crashes, it can all be downloaded back. Maps and GPS Accuracy is spot on. The stuff geeks have now makes James Bond look like a kid showing off in a School Science project. And we need not deal with Windows or IE anymore. It is either Android or iOS or Ubuntu or OS X. And then comes this Raspberry Pi to the party - from the open source hardware movement - a cute little computer - the size of a palm - which costs just Rs. 2,500 and can do a hell lot of things. How to procure a Raspberry Pi I got mine from...

Way back in 2000, I first heard about man purse in a Seinfeld episode and had a good laugh. Little more than a decade later,  I find myself using one. Here is me defending in the court on why I use a man purse. Your Honour, Men needed just a few essentials those days. A purse/wallet + keys, a mobile phone + a hand kerchief and a comb on the back pocket. Real men don't need to carry a pocket note book. They write stuff and lose it behind credit card acknowledgements. If you were a metrosexual male then you will need a deo, a face wash, a mouth freshner, a hair gel, a hair spray, a hand sanitizer, a hand moisturiser, a sunscreen etc. - you would have dragged all these in a suitcase - and guys like you would have been husbanded soon and you will still be dragging that suitcase but with the kids diaper or the missus's stuff. I am digressing. Back to the defence. Some men carry a book to impress women but then it is best carried in hand - otherwise what is the point. ...

Too many books to read...too short a life. Here are my books roundup of 2010 , 2011 , 2012 and 2013 . After my 2013 post an ex-colleague of mine in TW, Apoorv, suggested some of his favourites. Surely You're Joking, Mr.Feynman! by Richard P.Feynman Feynman is this famous Theoretical Physicist who was involved in the top secret Atomic bomb project that brought World War II to an end. He also won the Nobel Prize for his work in Quantum Physics. Theoretical Physicists should be boring guys right? Wrong! He is one hell of a guy. The book is full of  pranks he played on others, observations of how ants march around and the experiments he did with them, how he mastered the drums in Brazil, how he learnt Portuguese, experienced astral projection on salt tanks.. it is an endless list. I am writing this post almost after a year and still Feynman's jaunts are fresh in my memory. Thanks to you Apoorv, 2014 got to a brilliant start. Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies...

Got back from an exhilarating trip to Chennai. I was filled with nostalgia - partly because of the campus, partly my old friends - and laughed my heart out like good old days. However there were times when was discussing the not so happy moments. Will eat the frog first and get it out of the way. Old Age and Cancer We are all peeking into middle age, and our parents are peeking into old age. With it brings its own challenges. We are still building our careers and with both husband and wife working nowadays  it is difficult to provide round the clock care to our parents who need total care. A few of us are going through this phase now. For San and I - after having relocated to Mumbai - we have no family / friend support system like we had in Bangalore - it is quite a challenge. Luckily there is a Startup in this area - Portea Medicals  and they supply trained nursing attendants to come home and look after the patient. This might sound as a plug for Portea, but truth i...

2014 is coming to a close. It has been a very interesting time for Startups. A Government change, with it expectations, a rising economy - which in turn will benefit startups. Billions of VC money flowing into the ecosystem. Traditional investors become Angels. Here is my wishlist for Startups - new and old for 2015 - to Fight the Good Fight. Gain Customers, not Facebook Likes No Short Cuts please. Gaining traction, gaining customers is not easy. This is the most important metric for any Startup. Not the Facebook likes, Alexa ranking, Twitter Followers - these will come automatically once customers start signing up. To gain customers - you need to have a kickass product. Not a 80% almost there product, but a 200% going beyond the wildest customer expectation product. To reach there, it takes lot of hard work, lot of iterations - there is no short cut.  Do not start a clone  There are so many problems waiting to be solved. If you have 2 ideas - one which is never tried before ...