Sunrise from my apartment in Bangalore

Sunrise from my apartment in Bangalore
Originally uploaded by visgupta

There are very few days when I wake up early. And this Dewali, it just happened.

There couldn't have been a better day to capture the rising sun. One of my first few pics with my first DSLR.

There's so much about photography... I am just a beginner...

Issue with PNR enquiry while using it through Google sms regular update

So, here is the issue I mentioned in my previous post while using the regular update feature of Google sms search.

I was very much happy, after subscribing for regular update on my PNR number, as I was getting a sms daily in the morning with the latest status of the reservation. I also received an update during the day as well in case the ticket status moved up.

But one fine day the updates stopped. When I checked the same PNR number on the Indian railways site, I got an error that "the PNR number is flushed or not available" which made me worry whether the ticket was cancelled. A couple of days later, the PNR was back on the Indian railways site and everything was fine.

I am not sure what was the reason behind this. Whether this flushing issue keeps happening on Indian railways site with time and again, which I would not have known if I was not receiving regular updates or is it possible that the multiple queries from Google servers increased the traffic significantly on my particular PNR and noticing this Indian railways had knowingly flushed it?

Whatever might be the reason, but now I am a bit afraid to use this regular update again.

If someone gets to know the reason for this, do let me know.

Google sms search - 97733 00000

In India, I have been using this sms search of Google and am quite happy to see this service.

You need to type your search text and send it to the above mentioned number. You will soon receive a reply with the search result and charge for the sms is same as local sms (unlike the 5xxxx number sms services which are charged up to Rs. 5 per sms.)

You can use this feature to search a whole lot of stuffs like train schedule, pnr status enquiry, stock quotes, news, etc. More details on what can be searched can be found on this link.

The most effective use of this sms service I could find was for tracking the PNR number of Indian Railways reservation. Just send the PNR number to the above number and soon you will receive a reply from Google with the ticket reservation status along with the chart preparation status. It also offers to receive regular updates on that PNR number. You just need to reply ON to the same number again.

But beware of using this regular update. My experience on using this service was not great. I would be sharing that long story in a separate post but even there, it was no issue from the Google sms side.

So, overall I would recommend people to use this Google sms search feature.

Categories

Finally I got the way to categorize my posts here.

It can be done as follows:
- Add labels for your each post.
- Add a gadget in your layout tab and select the "Labels" gadget.

For more help you can click on the blogger help link at the top right corner. (It would be visible once you sign in.)

Happy blogging... :)

Speed thrills, but kills

Many of us know this statement well. But the word "thrill" itself, thrills enough to tempt many of us to take the risk and still accidents keep happening due to over speeding.

If I logically analyze it in terms of risk and return, here is what my analysis says.

As far as I understand the theory of risk and return, it is worth taking a risk when the return I am getting out of it is actually way beyond what I had risked. In addition, the return that I would get, would have a significant positive impact in my future life.

Coming to over speeding, what we actually risk is our own life, the life of people in our vehicle and the life of people with whom we can possibly have an accident because of over speeding. And what are we gaining from this risk? A mere few minutes and few seconds of thrill!!!

After risking so many entire lives, we just gain "few" minutes. Is this risk worth enough to take?

Hence, let us be a responsible human being and do not over speed. Its dangerous!!!

From "Food for thought" to "Mera Parichay"...

Though, I had joined this blogger community long time back (in May 2005, just to subside my curiosity to find how one posts a blog), I actually felt that I should try my hands at writing and created a blog for me much later. It was in Nov 2006, when I published my first post "The Parent's view". I was so overwhelmed by the number of comments posted on it and the way people were debating over it, that I decided to post all the topics here as debatable and happily described it "Food for thought".

As the time passed, I kept getting new ideas to write down. But when I was about to write those down in the blog, I realized that they were just some small story not worth debatable and wasn't fitting the very idea of my blog: "Food for thought".

I started missing one important feature here in the blogger community... I wish there could have been an option to create a category for my each post and let the readers of my blogs decide what category they want to read in my blog. This would have made my life a lot easier.

I thought that why not just have two different blogs for me... one for the stuff which would be a bit more personal to me, sharing my day to day experiences, and one as this where I could have a platform to post new topics for some debate/discussion. So, I created one more blog, but before I could post anything in it, I felt a need for one more blog as what I was about to write, was not actually fitting there too. And I started missing the "category" feature even more.

Finally, I decided that instead of going on and on, and creating a lot number of blog urls, lets pour in all my thoughts into a single one and describe it as "Mera Parichay" meaning "My introduction" in english. I hope this new description inspires me to write more into it.

And this post goes in the hope that the blogger administrators would soon read this and start working on adding the "category" feature to it.

"Its never too late to learn, but sometimes its too early"

As I was reading this quote in a book, an incident of my childhood flashed through my mind and I realized, how true it was.

I was eleven years old and enjoying my summer vacation along with my friends. We found out that a sparrow had laid a nest in one of the ventilators of our house and new born little birds had hatched from the eggs.

Curious by their chirping sound, we decided to check these out. So, one of my friend climbed up to the ventilator, picked one little bird and dropped it below where I was holding a small net to catch it. He came down and we played a lot with it. We named it "choo choo".

It was very tiny and the wings had not yet properly developed. Initially it was a bit scared, but when we fed it with some grains and insects it became comfortable with us. It was running all over the house and then come back to us. It sat on our hands and used to look at us as if it was trying to find something from our faces. Finally, when we felt that we had played enough and its mother would be looking for it, we left it back in its nest and forgot about it.

The next day I saw "choo choo" just below the nest on the floor; dead. I always kept wondering how come it died.

It was much years later when I realized, "choo choo" had learnt to run and jump from the nest before its wings had developed.

"Its never too late to learn, but sometimes its too early"

The Hunger Strike

A discussion between me and two friends. I am narrating a true incident of my life to them... Didn't realize that I was that naughty in my childhood... :-D

Vishal : Hey guys, you know what, we did hunger strike once in our school. :) I was in class 5 then. The principal came back at the end of that day and asked us to go home and not to come to school again. And all the girls started crying.
Friend1 : Crying is the best way out!!!
Vishal : And then we apologized in front of whole school in the assembly next day...
Friend2: Vishal, what was the reason for the strike?
Vishal : Some stupid had written "Rakesh Dubey" on "Rakesh Tripathi's" shirt and he complained to the Principal. She announced that until the culprit in our class accepts it, no teacher will teach us. So, we said if no one teaches us, we will go on hunger strike.
Finally we made "Rakesh Dubey" in our class take the responsibility of it, though he actually was not the one who did it.
Friend1 : In class 5???
Vishal : Yes :)
Friend1 : Weird!!!
Friend2: That's not weird! coooooooool!!! Ultra cool!
Friend1 : This is like a complicated story!!! but must have been fun though!!!
Vishal : Yup. One girl had fainted in the strike.
Friend1 : So, you went for her rescue???
Friend2: Ok. More excitement to the whole story. :-D
Vishal : No. We made her have her food.
Friend1 : Ok gud boys!!!
Vishal : The thing was... Second lecture was of the Principal. We had interval only after 4 lectures. So, no teacher had come for two lectures. And we were like, we need to have a teacher anyway as no one was taking the responsibility of writing "Rakesh Dubey". So, in interval, we kept the lunch boxes outside the class saying that we won't have food if no teacher comes. And nobody stepped out of the class.
Friend1 : Finally what happened to "Rakesh Dubey" ???
Vishal : Rakesh Dubey too apologized in the assembly. And his father next day was scolding us for making his poor child do that.
Friend2: Something was seriously wrong with your class!!! WHY THE HELL WOULD U FORCE THE SCHOOL TO SEND A TEACHER TO YOUR CLASS!!!
Vishal : That's what I always wonder now. :( This could have been the most dumb and weirdest reason for someone going on hunger strike. But the experience was really cool. :-D What more can you expect from ten year old kids?

A friend

Life's a journey full of myriad hue,

Few lingered by, who stayed with me were few.
I find this day,
And the poem the best way,
To tell you...
You have been a friend,
Who touched my heart,
You are a sweet honey,
Though you behave so funny,
And whom I can never let go off,
For whatever amount of money.

(Written on: 18 March, 2005)

I am no poet! It's just a b'day gift from a friend, whom even I would never let go off for whatever amount of money... :)

Believe in Fate?

Ever since I was born, I (like many of those from the religious families) have been taught these two religious postulates:

1. God has given us brain to think and in turn the "freedom of choice". And we should use this freedom wisely so that we do not do anything that is bad and against the God's will.
2. Nothing in this world is possible against the God's will.

The above two postulates if taken separately sounds good, but becomes contradictory when taken together. If both 1 & 2 is true, and by the freedom of choice one chooses & succeeds to do anything that is bad, then by taking postulate 2, it was not against the God's will. If it was God's will, then why should he be punished?

This reminds me of two little girls playing with a bunch of dolls. They give a name to each doll and decide one of them is bad and finally at the end of the game, good doll punishes the bad one. Everything is pre-decided.

So, the question is: Why do people have aspirations. when the outcome is pre-decided. Is this what we call fate?

Cut the crap... That's the reason why, I don't believe in fate.

What do you believe in?
Make your own destiny OR have faith in such a pre-decided world where someone else controls you...

"If you want something, try and try until you succeed. No fate can stop you or give it to you."