ಅಂತರ್ಜಾಲದ ಹೊಸ ಕನ್ನಡ ನಿಘಂಟು

ಅಂತರ್ಜಾಲದಲ್ಲಿ ಲಭ್ಯವಿದ್ದ ಕನ್ನಡ ನಿಘಂಟುಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಹಲವಾರು ಕೊರತೆಗಳಿದ್ದವು. ಅವುಗಳನ್ನು ಬಹುಮಟ್ಟಿಗೆ ಪರಿಹರಿಸಿ ನವೀನ ಮಾದರಿಯ ಒಂದು ನಿಘಂಟನ್ನು ಬಿಡುಗಡೆ ಮಾಡಿರುವ ಬರಹ.ಕಾಂಗೆ ವಂದನೆಗಳು.

ಈ ನಿಘಂಟಿನ ವಿಷೇಶವೇನೆಂದರೆ ಇದರಲ್ಲಿ ಪದಗಳನ್ನು ಆಂಗ್ಲ ಅಥವಾ ಕನ್ನಡ ಎದಡರಲ್ಲಿಯೂ ಹುಡುಕಬಹುದು. ಎರಡೂ ಭಾಷೆಗಳ ಸಮಾನಾರ್ಥ ಪದಗಳನ್ನು ಉತ್ತರವಾಗಿ ಕೊಡುತ್ತದೆ!

ನೀವೂ ಒಮ್ಮೆ ಉಪಯೋಗಿಸಿ ನೋಡಿ!

Recent Acquisitions

Some of my recent acquisitions were made at the Auburn Public Library. The library had a used book sale with the proceeds going to charity and the prices of the books were just $0.5 to $1. I could hardly resist keeping myself away from it!

This makes me want to stop blogging!

Bloggers Need Not Apply

Yes, Prime Minister!

It all began with the reading of Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn's superb books Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister. I hadn't laughed so hard in years. And reading pure unadulterated(pun intended) humour devoid of all the vulgarities was such a pleasure. These days, most jokes that you find are not classified as jokes if there isn't a some profanity/vulgarity involved.

And when I discovered the complete DVD collection of all the episodes in the Public Library, I couldn't resist myself from getting those. In the past few days, I have had such a wonderful time watching the satirical series.

I distinctly remember Yes, Prime Minister being aired during the late 80s on Doordarshan. (In fact,it also appeared in Hindi as Ji, Mantriji. This must have spoilt the beauty of the English dialogues. As they say, I guess a lot was lost in translation.) And I also remember that I could hardly understand it. But after watching it now, I know what made people call BBC as the guardian of English!

The terrific portrayal of the Prime Minister Jim Hacker by Paul Eddington, the Cabinet Secy Sir.Humphrey Appleby by Nigel Hawthorne and the inimitable Principal Secy to the Prime Minister Bernard Woolley by Derek Fowlds does justice to the script.

It given hours of pure joy to see how the Civil Servants manipulate and twist the arms of the cabinet ministers including the Prime Minister. It can be said that no other script or sitcom can better Yes, Minister in political satire. If you don't believe that, watch it and see for yourself.

ಮುಕ್ತ - ಶೀರ್ಷಿಕೆ ಗೀತೆಯ ವಿವರಣೆ

ಸುಧಾ ವಾರಪತ್ರಿಕೆ ಈಗ ಅಂತರ್ಜಾಲದಲ್ಲಿ ಲಭ್ಯ

ಈ ದೀಪಾವಳಿಯ ವಿಶೇಷ ಕೊಡುಗೆಯಾಗಿ ಪ್ರಕಾಶಕರಾದ 'ದಿ ಪ್ರಿಂಟರ್ಸ್ ಮೈಸೂರ್'ರವರು ಪ್ರಖ್ಯಾತ ಸುಧಾ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಾರಪತ್ರಿಕೆಯನ್ನು ಅಂತರ್ಜಾಲದಲ್ಲಿ ಮುಕ್ತವಾಗಿ ಒದಗಿಸಿ ಕೊಟ್ಟಿದ್ದಾರೆ. ದೀಪಾವಳಿ ವಿಶೇಷ ಸಂಚಿಕೆಯನ್ನು ಓದಿ ಆನಂದಿಸಲು ಮರೆಯದಿರಿ.

ದೀಪಾವಳಿ ಶುಭಾಷಯಗಳು

ನಿಮಗೂ ಹಾಗು ನಿಮ್ಮ ಕುಟುಂಬದವರಿಗೂ ದೀಪಾವಳಿ ಹಬ್ಬದ ಹಾರ್ದಿಕ ಶುಭಾಷಯಗಳು.


ದೀಪಾವಳಿಯಂದು ನಂದಾ ದೀಪ ಚಲನ ಚಿತ್ರದ ಈ ಸುಂದರ ಹಾಡನ್ನು ಕೇಳಲು ಮರೆಯದಿರಿ!

ಸಂಗೀತ: ಎಂ. ವೆಂಕಟರಾಜು
ಹಿನ್ನೆಲೆ ಗಾಯನ: ಎಸ್. ಜಾನಕಿ ಮತ್ತು ಪಿ. ಲೀಲ

Muhahaha... I am a Grammar God!

How grammatically correct are you? (Revised with answer key)

You are a GRAMMAR GOD!

Congratulations! If your mission in life is not already to preserve the English tongue, it should be. You can smell a grammatical inaccuracy from fifty yards. Your speech is revered by the underlings, though some may blaspheme and call you a snob. They're just jealous. Go out there and change the world.
Take this quiz!








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Join

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Meetings... a la Google style!

When I used to work at a software company, meetings were held for obnoxious lengths of time (I've heard that this is true for a lot of compnaies). They used to take up the better part of atleast a couple of hours. By the end of the meeting, the participants would be in confusion as to what the agenda was and what was finally discussed. One easily attributable reason to this was the 'free time'! Managers thought that their underlings' time was free whenever they asked for it. And the underlings could hardly question their managers if the meeting was justified when they had a truck load of work to complete by end of day. (Another small digression here: end of day was interpreted by the managers as end of the sidereal day, i.e., at midnight whereas the programmers rightly thought it was at 5PM! Result ? Programmers often eneded up staying back after-hours to complete their work and the managers would leave for home after their marathon meetings.)

Now, let us make a small study about the necessities for holding a meeting. Meetings are usually required for KT (Knowledge Transfer, that was the parlance in my office!), taking the employee to task, plan out some work, etc. However, no one knew how long the meeting shoud go on. It was all left to the whims and fancies of the managers or team leads. Our meetings probably were like the way the manager in Dilbert starts off:

"There is no specific agenda for this meeting. As usual, we'll just make unrelated emotional statements about things which bother us…"

Recently, I saw an article about meetings in the GoogleWorld. Wow... It is not just the results of the company that is fascinating people but even the way they work! I have gotten email forwards showing images of Google offices, mails about their free food program, entertainment divisions, movies, etc. And now the meetings. A ticking stopwatch shows that the meeting should end before the stopwatch ticks down to zero. This helps keep the meeting organized and avoids unnecessary personal interactions and digressions. And the exclusivity of the manager and the difficulty of obtaining a meeting slot definitely helps!

Take the case of EasyJet when they just started. They had only stand-up meetings - no chairs in the meeting room, only a desk. They found that meetings which took 2-3 hours took only 11 minutes in this setup! No one wants to sit and pontificate in this environment.

Update: Now, I have started liking meetings in the academia. Professors are usually extremely busy and very averse to wasting time listening to stories in meetings. Meetings are usually crisp, just discussing research and technical problems, trying to brainstorm solutions, presenting results, etc.

Hiatus...and Back.

After a really long hiatus, I plan to be back again to active blogging. I was too busy with some work for a while to blog and have now accumulated a lot of blogable topics on my notepad.

Stay tuned...

Join the bandwagon - screw the nation!

Will our people never realise ? Oh my God... The rest of the taxpayers have to pay for satisfying this moron's ego! Who is accountable to the national exchequer ?

Fulfilling a major election promise, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi Friday launched the distribution of free colour TV sets to the poor at Padappai near Chennai on the 98th birth anniversary of DMK founder C N Annadurai.

Speaking at the function, in which 25,245 colour TV sets worth about Rs 9 crore were given to the residents of Samathuvapuram (a colony of all communities and creeds) at Thundalkazhani village in Padappai in Kanchipuram district, Karunanidhi said Rs 750 crore had already been allocated in the state budget for distributing 25 lakh colour TV sets.

(Image and text courtesy: Rediff.com)


Spending Rs.750 crore and then applying for central aid citing famine! Hypocrites. Lets see what Jayalalitha offers people if they elect her the next time!

Bookmarks

No. I am not referring to the social bookmarks like del.icio.us, digg.com or my favourite bookmarks in my firefox browser. Instead, this is a blogpost on the traditional paper bookmarks, used in books.

I don't know why I love bookmarks. In India too, I had a penchant for collecting bookmarks. It probably stemmed from an aversion to keeping books open and turned down. If there is one reason I fear giving my books to someone, it is because most people will not return it in the same condition as it was before. It is all the more scarier if they say 'I will take care of it as if it is my own book' , especially when you know how they care for their books!

Most often, I use a small piece of folded paper as a placemark in a book if nothing else is available. But recently, whenever I go to the Auburn Public library, I love to pick up their latest bookmarks. The idea behind their bookmarks is so ingenious that it definitely needs to me mentioned.

One objective in keeping free bookmarks for take-away at all places around the library is to ensure that patrons use them and hence take good care of the books. But what differentiates these bookmarks is the design.

Look at some of the bookmarks in the figures. You will notice that they suggest alternate books of the same genre! How often have we wanted to read another book of the same genre! The suggestions are so relevant and have helped me make a good suggestion many a time. The bookmarks contain details about other books, their catalog numbers, genre and other information. And this is a service offered in a public library!

It is sometimes painful to think about our City Central Libraries(CCL) in Bangalore. The Government does invest a huge amount of money into them but the staff and public hardly care in caring for the precious books. Moreover, the rampant vandalism mentality in India hardly helps the cause of public libraries.

So next time you take out a book for reading, use a bookmark.

ಇಂದಿನ ಗೊಂದಲ

ಭಾರತದಾತ್ಮಂ ಕಂಗೆಡುತಿದೆ ಪರ
ಸಾರಸ್ವತ ಸಂಪದ ಭರದಿಂ
ತಾರಿ ಹೋಗುತಿದೆ ತಾಯ್ನಾಡಿನ ಮನ
ಏರುವಿದೆ ಸ್ವಪ್ರಯತ್ನದಿಂ

-ಪು.ತಿ.ನರಸಿಂಹಾಚಾರ್

I don't remember where I had seen this, but I found it jotted in my diary. How true it is today!

Sakkat links...

Been browsing a lot and discovering a lot neat websites. Here are some good ones worth visiting.

1. Popularity Dialer : Have you ever been in a situation where you wished your cell phone would ring? Well... this one does just that for you! Fake a phone call easily and credibly! And you can even decide what kind of conversation you want to have! Now if that isn't neat...
2. Gmail Skins : I always wanted my Gmail to have smileys and other neat features. This firefox extension provides that and a lot more mindblowing value additions. This skin also helps you integrate Gmail easily with GCal, Google News, Picasa, Weather, etc.
3. Boing Boing : Arguable the most popular blog on the Internet right now, this blog is simple 'A directory of Useful Things' as it says there.
4. Lifehacker : In its own words, 'Lifehacker recommends the software downloads and web sites that actually save time. Don't live to geek; geek to live'. Now who wouldn't want that?
5. Wikimapia : Anything from the Wikipedia people is awesome! This one integrates with Google Earth and enables you to tag prominent locations on the earth. They specifically tell you to tag only important places that would be helpful to others but whose ego can resist locating one's house and tagging it 'This is my home' ??!?!
6. Microsoft Folder Protect 1.0 : I would have thought this was one of the really useful softwares to lock and protect folders in PCs. However, Microsoft withdrew it after a backlash from many bloggers! Huh... You can still get it here.

ಸಕ್ಕತ್ ಹಾಡು ...

ಸಕ್ಕತ್ ಹಾಡು ...

'ಲಂಗ ದಾವಣಿ ಎತ್ತ ಹೋಯ್ತ್ರೆ ಕಾಲೇಜ್ ಹುಡುಗೀರ'

ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಕೇಳಿ...ಆನಂದಿಸಿ !

ಇದೇ ಶೈಲಿಯ ಇನ್ನಿತರ ಹಾಡುಗಳು ಇಲ್ಲಿವೆ.

States I've visited so far!

create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

Is this anti-feminist?!?!?

Just curious; in today's women's lib and feminist world, what would the "forward looking" culture think about this shloka? Is this denigrating ? Male Chuvisinistic? Patronizing? Suppressing ? Or does it still describe all the qualities that a man can look for in a wife in the 21st century?

ಕಾರ್ಯೇಷು ದಾಸೀ ಕರಣೇಷು ಮಂತ್ರೀ
ರೂಪೇಚ ಲಕ್ಶ್ಮೀ ಕ್ಷಮಯಾ ಧರಿತ್ರೀ |
ಭೊಜ್ಯೇಷು ಮಾತಾ ಶಯನೇಷು ರಂಭಾ
ಷಟ್ಕರ್ಮ ಯುಕ್ತಾ ಕುಲಧರ್ಮಪತ್ನೀ ||

If you can't see the kannada script, click on any one of the images below to read either in Kannada or Samskrita:

Dell Laptop bursts and catches fire at a Conference!

Can we ever trust these little things which are billed as the products of the technological revolution?

And I bought a Dell Laptop :-((

More information here.

Courtest: Slashdot

Interpreter of Maladies

I had wanted to read the Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri since long but got an opportunity only recently. Having read rave reviews about this book which has sold about a quarter of a million copies, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction(2000), the O. Henry award and a couple others, I wanted to discover what was so great about this collection of short stories.

Moreover, it was written by an Indian-American Bengali and naturally all stories were biased towards Indian-American immigrants.

To begin with, the style of narration is amazingly good. So elegantly written, they are a pleasure to read! The backgrounds for the stories begin somewhere far away from the place of their climax and the author weaves through the continents and cultures giving the reader a glimpse of the authentic Indian values and traditions. One natural difficulty was that being from South India, I never knew much about the customs of Bengalis which stand out in amost every story. Too much of fish eating and non-vegetarian culinary information in almost every story makes it a hard book to read when I am eating something!

But quite a few stories were a disappointment in their climax. The lofty expectations fall short in some stories giving way to endings that lack in vigour and that 'spark' that you expect from a short story.

Still, I enjoyed reading this book and my current reading is the Namesake by the same author.

Rating: 7/10 - definitely worth your time.

The Reserved Messengers!

Courtesy: PK

Dial Hitchcock for Thriller!

This movie was in my list of to-watch movies for a long time. I only got a chance to see it last week.

Arguably one the greatest thrillers by Hitchcock(since I havent yet seen The Rear Window), this movie is shot almost completely inside an apartment house in London. There is probably a maximum of 1 minute of footage shot outside the apartment. Yet, you never feel claustrophobic or suffocated or get bored of seeing the same surroundings again and again. The hallmark of the 'Master of Suspense'. Thriller perfectionism that Sherlock Holmes would have appreciated.

Grace Kelly got her biggest break in this movie before going on to do The Rear Window in the same year. Her acting is so professional that it hardly seems this was her biggest movie at that time. Ray Milland has a class that is exceedingly impossible to describe. He's got the class and charishma to carry himself so gracefully. John Williams as the Scotland Yard inspector looks so right for the part.

Let me not go into details about the actual plot. However, the deduction on the part of the inspector is so Sherlockian that I couldnt possibly stop myself from saying "Wow...". In fact, if you can get the DVD, dont miss out watching the extras. Some really cool footages of Hitchcock, some trivia about the movie, etc.

Finally, Hitchcock as usual makes a cameo appearance in a most unexpected scene, the way he does in almost all his movies. What a pleasure to watch this movie!

Calvin inspires like no other!

CHANGE THE TARGET IF YOU CANT CHANGE YOURSELF!

ನಾನು ಹೋದರೆ ಹೋದೇನು

ಮೊನ್ನೆ ನಾನು ಡಾ||ರಾಜ್ ರವರ "ಭಕ್ತ ಕನಕದಾಸ" ಚಿತ್ರ ನೋಡಿದೆ. ಸುಮಾರು ೮ ಅಥವಾ ೧೦ನೇ ಬಾರಿಯಿರಬಹುದು. ಅದರ ಒಂದೊಂದು ಹಾಡೂ ಅಪರಂಜಿ. ಮತ್ತೆ ಮತ್ತೆ ಕೇಳಬೇಕೆನ್ನಿಸುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ಕನಕದಾಸರ ಪದಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಅಡಗಿರುವ ಸಂದೇಶಗಳು ಎಂದೆಂದಿಗೂ ನಮಗೆ ನಮ್ಮ ಸಾಮಾಜಿಕ ಜವಾಬ್ದಾರಿಗಳನ್ನು ಜ್ನಾಪಿಸುತ್ತಿರುತ್ತವೆ.


ಆದರೆ ಇವುಗಳ ನಡುವೆ ನನಗೆ ಬಹಳ ಇಷ್ಟವಾದ ಒಂದು ಸನ್ನಿವೇಶವೆಂದರೆ ವ್ಯಾಸರಾಜರು ತಮ್ಮ ಶಿಷ್ಯಂದಿರನ್ನು ಕರೆದು ಕನಕನಿಗೆ ಹೀಗೆ ಕೇಳುತ್ತರೆ "ಕನಕ, ನನ್ನ ಶಿಷ್ಯಂದಿರಲ್ಲಿ ಯಾರಿಗೆ ಮೋಕ್ಷ ಪ್ರಾಪ್ತಿಯಾಗುತ್ತದೆ?". ಕನಕದಾಸರು ಒಬ್ಬೊಬ್ಬರನ್ನೂ ನೋಡಿ "ಇವರಿಗಾಗುವುದಿಲ್ಲ", "ಇವರಿಗಾಗುವುದಿಲ್ಲ" ಎಂದು ಹೇಳುತ್ತರೆ. ನಂತರ ಅಲ್ಲೆ ಕುಳಿತಿದ್ದ ಪುರಂದರದಾಸರನ್ನು ತೋರಿಸಿ ಕೇಳುತ್ತಾರೆ. ಅವರಿಗೂ ಆಗುವುದಿಲ್ಲವೆಂದು ಕನಕದಾಸರು ಹೇಳುತ್ತರೆ. ಕೊನೆಗೆ ತಾವು ಸ್ವರ್ಗ ಸೇರುತ್ತೇವೆಯೆ ಎಂದು ಕೇಳುತ್ತರೆ. ಅವರೂ ಇಲ್ಲವೆಂದು ಕನಕದಾಸರು ಹೇಳುತ್ತರೆ.

"ಇನ್ನು ನೀನು ಸ್ವರ್ಗಕ್ಕೆ ಹೋಗುವೆಯ?" ಎಂದು ಕೇಳುತ್ತಾರೆ. ಅದಕ್ಕೆ ಕನಕದಾಸರು "ನಾನು ಹೋದರೆ ಹೋದೇನು" ಎಂದು ಉತ್ತರಿಸುತ್ತಾರೆ. ಇದನ್ನು ಕೇಳಿ ಇತರ ಶಿಷ್ಯಂದಿರು ಕೋಪಗ್ರಸ್ತರಾಗುತ್ತಾರೆ. ಅದಕ್ಕೆ ಕನಕದಾಸರು ತಾವು ತಮ್ಮ ಬಗೆಗೆ ಹೇಳಿದುದರ ಅರ್ಥ ವಿವರಿಸುತ್ತಾರೆ. " 'ನಾನು ಹೋದರೆ ಹೋದೇನು' ಎಂದರೆ ನನ್ನಲ್ಲಿರುವ 'ನಾನು' ಎನ್ನುವ ಅಹಂಕಾರ ಹೋದರೆ ಆಗ ನಾನು ಸ್ವರ್ಗಕ್ಕೆ ಹೋಗುತ್ತೇನೆ" ಎಂದು.

ಈ ಮೂರು ಪದಗಳ ಎಂತಹ ಅರ್ಥ ಅಡಗಿದೆ! ಚಿನ್ನದಲ್ಲಿ ಕೆತ್ತಿಸಬಹುದಾದಂತಹ ನುಡಿಮುತ್ತುಗಳು! ನಾವು ಪ್ರತಿಯೊಬ್ಬರಲ್ಲೂ ಎಲ್ಲ ದುರಾಲೋಚನೆಗಳಿಗೆ ಕಾರಣವಾಗಿರುವುದೇ 'ನಾನು' ಎನ್ನುವ ಅಹಂಭಾವ. ಇದನ್ನು ನಾವೆಲ್ಲರೂ ಅರಿತುಕೊಂಡಲ್ಲಿ ನಮ್ಮ ಜೀವನ ಎಷ್ಟು ಅಭಿವ್ರುದ್ಧಿಗೊಳ್ಳುವುದು!


NOTE: If you cannot read Kannada fonts, please see here. Click on image below to read text in kannada.

Online Banking? No Way...

It looks like one of those advances in our quality of life that come with developments in technology. On a closer look, it is anything but the truth! How often have we not been uncomfortable in trusting some unknown customer representative with our innermost financial secrets? Especially more so in the USA with the Social Security Number and Driver's License number opening the doors to virtually any kind of information about a person. But it is a case where there is no going back!

It was so pleasant in India when you went to the bank with your passbook and got an entry for every transaction you performed with your account. No 'Please wait, the next available customer representative will be with you shortly' hour-long telephone calls and no cyber security issues to be worried about.

Are there not so many instances when we wish that we were not victims of technology advancement? Dont we, many times, wish we to left behind to ourselves to what we are comfortable with?

PS: What prompted me to write this was this.

Heights of racketeering!

Image Courtesy: Deccan Herald(E-Paper)

Miracle #1 : People still vote for these people!
Miracle #2 : What the hell is the Election Commission doing when candidates are BRIBING the voters like this publicly?
Miracle #3 : How can they promise that the Govt will give these items ?!??! They will not give anything.. thats a different issue but whose money is being used!?!? Huh...Land to the landless.. Bicycles to high school students... There are 3 million of both those categories not to mention the number of homes without TVs and defaulting farmers' loans!

Finally, it had to come this way for me to realise that Karnataka politics is much better than its neighbour's !

This is what they call ಯಾರದ್ದೋ ದುಡ್ಡು, ಎಲ್ಲಮ್ಮನ ಜಾತ್ರೆ !

Warlord...Er...No...Lord of War.

Make no mistake. Neither does this movie have romance and witty dialogues nor does it have a happy ending. This is a 'different' kind of action movie. More a documentary than a movie. But whoa... a damn good one at that! An awesome movie on drug running and illegal arms trading.

Watch it for yourself. Definitely not to be missed!

P.S: To get the joke in the title, you need to see the movie.

Kannada Expletives Etymology !

I have always been interested in etymology. It is usually very logical in most cases. In Sanskrit, you can invariable trace it to the 'धातु'... In English, you can trace quite a lot of words to Latin and Greek roots. But what interests me is the words that people use most often without thinking ... ತಲೆ ಕಾಯಿ ಬುರುಡೆ, ಕತ್ತೆ ಬಡವ, ಮಣ್ಣು ತಿನ್ನು, ಬಡ್ಡಿ ಮಗ, ಇತ್ಯಾದಿ. ಈ ಪದಗಳು ಹೇಗೆ ಹುಟ್ಟಿದವು ? ಇದರ ಅರ್ಥ ಏನು ? ಅಥವ ಇದಕ್ಕೆ ನಿಜವಾಗಲೂ ಅರ್ಥವಿದೆಯೆ ?

ಅಲ್ಲ, ಯಾವೋನಿಗಾದ್ರು ಬಯ್ಯಬೇಕಾದರೆ ಬಡ ಕತ್ತೆಗೇಕೆ ಹೋಲಿಸುವಿಕೆ ? ಅದರಲ್ಲೂ ಕತ್ತೆ ಬಡವಾಗಿರುತ್ತೆಯೆ? ಹಾಗೆಯೇ, ಬಡ್ಡಿ ಮಗ ಎಂದರೇನರ್ಥ ? ಮಗ ಬಡ್ಡಿ ಕಟ್ಟಬೇಕೆ ಅಥವ ಕಟ್ಟಿಲ್ಲವೆ...

ನನಗೆ ಸಧ್ಯಕ್ಕೆ ಬೇರೆ ಪದಗಳು ಹೊಳೆಯುತ್ತಿಲ್ಲ. ಈ ರೀತಿಯ ಇನ್ನಿತರ ಪದಗಳು ನಿಮ್ಮ ನೆನಪಿನಲ್ಲಿದ್ದರೆ ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಸೂಚಿಸಿ...(NO PROFANITY ALLOWED)
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NOTE: If you cannot read the Kannada Fonts here, please see this link for help.

Maybe I too need a change ! Or...

I know ... I know... When you stuck with a problem that you can't solve, you start blaming things around you ... Exactly what I am doing right now...

What is it with me and books ?

I don't know what it is with me and books. I have had an affair with them all my life! But I find them irrestible once I even see them(I assure you it is not bibliomania but only bibliophilia! There is a lot of difference between them! And moreover, I am not the kind who would go to any extent to buy a first edition/out-of-print book just for the heck of it. A booklover according to me is one who really respects his books and takes great care of them.

Gone are the days when I ued to just go and browse the books for hours in Nagasri, Book Paradise, Prism and other bookstores in Jayanagar 4th Block. I even love collecting them. Sometimes I hardly feel like returning them back to the library or to the person I borrowed it from(beware if you are the person I borrow books from!). Hell hath no fury to my cursings if you borrowed a book from me and returned it damaged! Also, I have a friends who invert an open book toremember the page! Ughh... Why the hell cant they find a small piece of paper to use as a bookmark ?

In fact, there are different qualities of first hand and second hand books(thats new and used for the Americans) that I love. The smell of the pages of the new books is something that pulls me into the bookstores every once in a while. Paperbacks, hardbound novels, textbooks, dictionaries, encyclopaedias all have different kinds of smells and feel. Sherlock Holmes would probably have identified the publishers of his day by smelling the paper!

On the other hand, second hand(or used) books have that used 'feel' which is indescribable. A good reader would have made small but intelligent comments/annotations(only pencil allowed! I hate people who write using pens in their printed books) in the margin(though I never write in margins) or provided a reference to some other similar/contrasting work which immediately makes me reach for Google.

I still have the Oxford English dictionary that my grandfather had got on his 11th birthday in 1925! He used the book till his very last days. If he found a new word in the newspaper, he would reach for his dictionary. What is it that enhances the charm of a book as its usage increases ? I know many people who love to just buy brand new books to adorn their bookshelves. What is the use if you never get to 'use' them at all ?

There are some splendid articles by Pradeep Sebastian in the Hindu. His column titled the 'Endpaper' describes the true characteristics of a bibliophile. You can sample his writings on Writing in Margins and Bookshelves.

ಡಾ|ರಾಜ್ - ಗೌರವ ನಮನ

ನಾನೇ ರಾಜಕುಮಾರ,
ಕನ್ನಡ ತಾಯಿಯ ಪ್ರೇಮದ ಕುವರ
ಅನೀತಿ ಅಳಿಸಿ, ನ್ಯಾಯವ ಉಳಿಸಿ
ಶಾಂತಿಯನಿಳಿಸಲು ಬಂದ ಪ್ರೇಮ ಕಿಶೋರ...
ರಾಜ್ ಕುಮಾರ್...

Dr.Raj and Kannada Film industry were two names for the same thing. I just can't find any words to say in my blog today and moreover, there is nothing about Dr.Raj I can write that the Kannadigas do not know about. His filmography alone is almost 35% of the list of watchable Kannada movies!

There never was and never will be another personality like him in Kannada Film World. We will all probably thank him silently while watching any of his movies for leaving behind such a rich legacy of Kannada movies of every conceivable genre.

May his soul rest in peace.

UPDATED: I cant put it better than what this article says.



-----------

Miss those books...but aah... I found good ones again !

It all probably began when my parents used to buy me all sorts of books during my primary school days. Those days, Navakarnataka publications used to set up exhibitions in Bhadravati (and many small towns in Karnataka) where they would sell Russian fairy tales, novels, comics, etc at rock-bottom prices. I also used to get Chandamama, Baalamangala(Kannada mag;Dinga was my favourite in this), Gokulam, Wisdom(this one was really good!), Champak at home! Those were the days indeed...

After that, in High School, I started and completely finished the series of Enid Blytons, Hardy Boys, etc stuff. Also, read the complete Sherlock Holmes, Ruskin Bond and R.K.Narayan back-to-back many times. Then it was the era of pulp novels :-) ... The Sidney Sheldons, Irwing Wallaces held me in fascination for a short while(Beware: I will hitlist anyone calling Frederick Forsyth or Jeffrey Archer as pulp writers).

It was only after all this(or maybe during PUC) that I started to discover the REAL books. The ones that can really influence you... The autobiographies of Lee Iacocca, Akio Morita, etc, the Feynman books, those awesome gems of Kannada literature like the Mankuthimmana Kagga, Jeevanadharma Yoga, Baaligondu Nambike, etc. I also read a lot of very pleasant good books in Kannada like Namma Oorina Rasikaru, Mysooru Mallige, Kanooru Subbamma HeggaDathi, Triveni kaadambarigalu, Durgaastamaana, Sandhya Raaga, Mathadaana, etc. With 7 Jnanapith awardees in Kannada(more than any other Indian language, including Hindi), there is enough of past literature itself to last for a lifetime of reading.

I can still remember H.S.S(my High School Kannada Master) saying that we were missing out on some of the most important things in our life by not reading those books. I can understand him now and can only be thank my lucky stars that though I was a little late, I woke up in time to enjoy them.

Internet Speed

WHOA ! My University desktop Internet speed is 22Mbps !!! But then, it should be since it is close to the backbone(just 1-2 hops is my guess) through the Bellsouth lines! University networks ROCK!!!

dslreports.com speed test result on 2006-04-07 08:53:17 EST:
22484 / 10697
Your download speed : 22484 kbps or 2810.5 KB/sec.

Your upload speed : 10697 kbps or 1337.1 KB/sec.



This is the speed distribution graph of other users in the past fortnight.

Test your Internet speed here.

Thinking of a change...

Seeing other blogs, I have come to understand that there are a whole lot of thigs that you cannot do with Blogger. For instance, classifying posts according to categories, search bar, etc. In these cases, Wordpress seems to be a lot better than Blogger.

Some other interesting features are listing recent comments, calendar, recently updated freinds' blogs,etc... Most importantly, it would help if I want to host the blog on my webpage later.

I'd be grateful for any opinions/experiences ?!?

I have reserved a wordpress address for myself and am experimenting here: http://pratapa.wordpress.com/

Hectic Trip

Had a ball of a time during my whirlwind trip to Florida during Spring Break ! A hell-of-a road-trip of about 2000 miles in 4 days visiting Key West, Miami and Orlando! And the real part was that we spent most of the time on the road or sightseeing some cool places. 3 out of the five nights were spent in the car :-) (Not that it came free... Suffered awful backpain for the next 2 days).


Will upload pics later.

Ugadi Greetings

If you cannot read the Kannada fonts here, please see here for help.

ತಮಗೂ, ತಮ್ಮ ಕುಟುಂಬದವರಿಗೂ ಉಗಾದಿ ಹಬ್ಬದ ಹಾರ್ದಿಕ ಶುಭಾಶಯಗಳು.

ದ ರಾ ಬೇಂದ್ರೆಯವರ ಈ ಹಾಡನ್ನು ಕೇಳದೆ ಉಗಾದಿ ಸಂಪೂರ್ಣವೇ ಅಲ್ಲ.

Windows Kannada Theme

I have the Windows Kannada theme on my laptop and it ROCKS!!! You can download it here. (Courtesy: U.B.Pavanaja)

eraDu rekhegaLu

Watched the movie 'Eradu Rekhegalu' last weekend. Loved it ! There were some amazingly good dialogues interspersed with family drama. And superb acting by Srinath, Geeta and Sarita! But I don't know why they have used someone to give voice for Geeta !

And the one song song from the movie that I loved and have been listening/humming every now and then : neelamEgha shyaama...nityaananda dhaama . Watch the movie if you get a chance!

ದೀನಗಿಂತ ದೇವ ಬಡವ

I really love this Kannada poem by Dinakara Desai. I had read this long ago when I was young. I recently came across this and typed it in Baraha.

ದೀನಗಿಂತ ದೇವ ಬಡವ - ದಿನಕರ ದೇಸಾಯಿ

ಹರಿಗೆ ಎಂದು ಗುಡಿಯನೊಂದ ಕಟ್ಟುತಿರುವೆಯಾ ?
ಹರಿಯ ಒಲುಮೆ ಪಡೆದು ಪುಣ್ಯ ಗಳಿಸುತಿರುವೆಯಾ ?

ಹುಚ್ಚ ! ನೀನು ಹಳ್ಳಿಗೋಡು
ದೀನ ಜನರ ಪಾಡ ನೊಡು
ಇರಲು ಗುಡಿಯು ಇಲ್ಲವಲ್ಲ
ಹೊಟ್ಟೆ ತುಂಬ ಅನ್ನವಿಲ್ಲ !

ಹರಿಗೆ ಎಂದು ಗುಡಿಯನೊಂದ ಕಟ್ಟುತಿರುವೆಯಾ ?

ದೀನಗೊಂದು ಗೂಡು ಸಾಕು
ದೇವಗೊಂದು ವಿಶ್ವ ಬೇಕು
ಮಣ್ಣ ಹುಲ್ಲ ಸಣ್ಣ ಗೂಡು
ಬಡವಗದುವೆ ಸಿರಿಯ ಬೀಡು

ಹರಿಗೆ ಎಂದು ಗುಡಿಯನೊಂದ ಕಟ್ಟುತಿರುವೆಯಾ ?

ಜಗಕೆ ಗೋಡೆ ಹಾಕಿ ಗುಡಿಯ ಕಟ್ಟಬಲ್ಲೆಯಾ ?
ಹರಿಗೆ ಎಂದು ಗುಡಿಯನೊಂದ ಕಟ್ಟುತಿರುವೆಯಾ ?
ಹರಿಯ ವಿಶ್ವರೂಪವನ್ನು ಮರೆತುಬಿಟ್ಟೆಯಾ ?
ದೀನಗಿಂತ ದೇವ ಬಡವನೆಂದು ಬಗೆದೆಯಾ ?

If you can't see the Kannada font above, you can see an image of the poem below.

Blog find of the week !

There is no humour like sarcasm... And this blog really makes you laugh your guts out. Thanks Bangalore Torpedo for all the free fun :-)

Rang De Basanti - Huh... nothing great about it!

Finally I did catch up with Rang De Basanti(RDB) ! First of all, why the name RDB ? Where is the Rang ? ... and no Basanti in the movie either !

After all the hype regarding the movie and plans to see it in Atlanta, we finally got hold of a good copy(courtesy: Akash Rao). Thank God I did not go to Atlanta - it would have been a waste of a day and $30!

Let me present some critical analyses:

When National Geographic(with Mission Udaan) and other foreign channels in India try and portray our IAF in a patriotic light, the last thing that we need is to see the MiG crashes and they being blamed for engine defects and politicians. Comon... give me a break. The defence recruitment numbers are at an all time low and we DO NOT need this kind of propaganda! I am surprised how the IAF gave a green signal to RDB ! If at all they wanted to show it, they need not have taken the name of the aircraft! Maybe it is a concidence that I watched this movie 2 days after Srinivas sent me a mail about the myth of MiGs and how the media is spreading false rumours about it.

Another thing is that you can no longer accept Aamir Khan as a student. The guy is over forty and will no more fit the role of a student. But well, to be fair, I like his portrayal of Chandrashekhar Azad. In fact, all of them suit their historic roles very well. I would have loved to see a completely historical movie accurately depicting the life of Chandrashekhar Azad and the others instead of juxtaposing with the present everynow and then(though it looked good at times).

Atul Kulkarni rocks! My respect for his talents has gone several notches up after watching his phenomenal role as 'Encounter Shankar' in that dumb movie Dum. I think he got shortchanged in this movie. Agreed that all 5 of them had to get equal roles and all that but I guess the director did not extract the full potential of Atul in RDB.

And Atul is portrayed(I think so) to be a party worker for the saffron party by showing other workers around him sporting orange towels on their shoulders. I think this is unfair(Well, I am entitled to my quota of irrationality!). Too much of Punjabi dialect for a South Indian ... Couldn't understand quite a bit of the slangs.

On the brighter side, there are some really good scenes in the movie and some dialogues(though they sound cliched at times). The music by A.R.Rahman is really good and the background tunes are splendid. I guess on the whole my rating is 6.5/10.

Prof.Honnell

You seldom see or meet people who are in their nineties and still enjoying their life. I have seen some in Bangalore but today, I met Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering at Auburn University, Prof. Martial A. Honnell.



Prof.Honnell did his BS,MS and PhD from Georgia Tech and has been at Auburn University since 1958. He has weathered the two World Wars, the Great Depression and the Cold War. He is 96 years 'young' and used to handle a graduate course (Electromagnetic Compatibility) until 4 years ago. He is at his desk by 8AM and works on most weekdays. He walks erect, has perfect vision, speech and hearing capabilities. But what stands out is his devotion to work and keeping himself updated about the trends in Satellite Communication and Televison. Prof.Honnell helped pioneer the initial developments in Television(Instrumentation) for Space Communications during the heydays of NASA from the 50s to the 70s. He is an IEEE Fellow and a Distinguished Faculty at Auburn.

When I asked him what was the secret of his health, he said he gave up eating meat about 75 years ago, doesn't smoke or drink. According to him, people either eat/drink/smoke themselves to death! Limited food, some amount of exercise and keeping oneself busy daily has kept him healthy and fit even at this age ! I salute you Prof.Honnell. I hope you complete a century and still keep batting !

Vrishabhaavati

I found this photo amongst others which I had taken during my Winter trip to India. This is supposed to be the ancient river Vrishabhaavati, that used to flow in Bangalore. Sad to see it in this state.

Stupid !

Kannada Serial Title Songs

UPDATED : Guddada Bhootha title song on 2/10/2007

UPDATED : Malebillu title song on 28/01/2007


Some serials attract you to watch them through their storylines. There are some which have a really good cast which makes you watch them even if their storyline is not earth-shattering. And there are those whose title songs themselves are mesmerizing !

Mayamruga, Manvantara, Mukta and Garva definitely had all the above qualities and hence drew viewers in hordes, not just to their idiot boxes but also to the many 'samvada' programs that T.N.Seetharam hosted. (Garva was directed by Prakash Belawadi; I had missed out most of the initial episodes of Garva and never got around to seeing the entire serial. But I know it was hugely popular).

I had been searching for their title songs since a long time and managed to get them recently, courtesy Yamuna. Thanks Yamuna...

You can download the title-songs here:

http://www.eng.auburn.edu/users/prasaps/serial_songs/

Anyone remembers the serials tirugu baaNa and crazy colonel ?!?


P.S: There are also some serials that manage to turn you off (the storyline, cast and the songs all suck!!! Any Ekta Kapoor fans here ??;-) ... There is an Ekta Kapoor Hate CLub in Orkut if you are interested ! )

30GB free -email

http://www.30gigs.com/ is offering free e-mail service with the mailbox size at a whopping 30GB! Why not get a free ID ...just in case ...

Hurry... the offer lasts only till 28th Feb

Get your dream Yahoo! IDs ...

At last ... Yahoo is giving new alternative IDs to go with your original IDs. With the new 'dot' format, you can get a yahoo ID with your firstname.lastname@yahoo.com if it is still not taken!!!

Grab it while it lasts !

http://updates.mail.yahoo.com/blog/?p=8

Capitalists...huh... much more than that !

When I bought my first car in November 2005, we got it registered(got a license plate and all that) and shelled out about $70 . And suddenly, we get a mail saying that our license plate expires in January 2006 and we need to get it 'renewed' ! Damn... we need to get a new registration plate again from this January ! Whoa... Comon ... when we paid the same amount, the license plate is supposed to be valid for one year from the date of registration ! This is in stark contrast to the Indian system where you register a number plate after you buy the vehicle and it lasts till you scrap it !

Hmmm... Maybe this is how 'Uncle Sam' is a multi-trillion-dollar economy.

Light , funny and oh yeah, really entertaining ... Bluffmaster

When I casually started watching Bluffmaster, I never thought it would end in such a way. Seriously, Rohan Sippy has come up with an awesome family movie - I really mean that a family can sit and watch this !

There is some light comedy(haasya rasa...hmm how many clean comedies are there nowadays?) and there is some ingenuity in the bluffs...What you are totally unprepared for is the climax. And a movie without the usual mishmash of triangle-love story or stupid fights where the hero bashes 10^n goondas...

Let me not spoil things for you - go ahead and enjoy the movie yourselves !

Back ... and still not kicking

I came back to the US on 15th night after a month long vacation in India. I was not in the least prepared for the severe bout of homesickness that was going to hit me and the jet lag which lasted for almost 4-5 days ! Whew...

Just settling down now... One work of advice to Desi grads here - DO NOT go to India for vacation in the middle of your courses... You will feel like running away when you come back!

More later.