New look !!

From wierd look to new cool look in 13 days. I know its a bit long in the blog world, but couldn't help it. Became a bit busy with work, and getting rid of the extra image and text due to the template-import-accident took me a painful 2-3 hours. Then re-doing rest of the page and the new template took another one, though this was easier. Better late than never!

So please let me know how you like the new look. Its one of the available templates so nothing great about it. But after the last disaster, I'll need some time to summon the courage to experiment again. But next time I'll have a backup of my current template!!

Hey .. there are some new things too - the newsreel being one of them. Feel free to comment on the changes as well.

Blog in trouble!!

I know you are wondering why there is this weird look of my blog, and I apologize for that!! In an effort to give a new look to the blog, I tried some customizations and new templates. I was not happy with how it looked and tried to change things - and viola - my blog is in a bad shape.

Now it is in a stage where I will take some time and hard work to set it right! And I reckon 1:30AM on a Wednesday night (Thursday morning to be precise) is not the best time to do it. So now you know what I am going to do this weekend .. obviously fix the problems with this page!! Time for a thorough review of the html code, possibly using Visual Studio, followed by repair.

Apologies again! Please come back next week for a better look!!

Where am I?

For all those who were wondering where I have been since more than a month, here's a quick update. I was a bit busy in office to start with, then went off home (Ahmedabad) on two weeks leave. After a wonderful Diwali at home, I was back around 10 days back, but before I could settle down, CAT was staring me in the face. And then came the big surprise - I had to move to Hyderabad DC for one month. So I was off to Bangalore for CAT, and straight to Hyd from there. Now slowly settling into the new place.

I have been to 5 cities in two weeks !! Was in Ahmedabad on 10th .. Mumbai on 11th .. Mangalore on 12th .. Bangalore on 17th .. and now Hyderabad on 20th - howzzat !!

Will be busy with some training for couple more days, but will be back with my blogs very soon. Thanks for reading .. please continue !!

Kudroli Gokarnanatheshwara

Yesterday I visited the Kudroli Gokarnanatheshwara (or Gokarnatheshwara) temple. And now I am angry with myself for not going there earlier in my more than two years in Mangalore! It is a wonderful temple. And during Navratri it is decked up with light & flowers to create a stunning view.

It covers a significant area & significant number of gods :), but is primarily a temple of Gokarnanatha i.e. Shiva. As you enter, the first part you enter is the Shiva temple. It's a grand temple with lot of gold plated surface, lot of lights, lot of flowers, and obviously lot of crowd. I don't know whether it is because of navratri or it is always so.

There is a 'Kalyana Mantapa' to its right where they have put up wonderful statues of different forms of the goddess (Durga, Kali, Gowri, and so on .. ). This obviously is a Navratri special. In addition the place is decorated with paper flowers in a very aesthetic manner. Then there are small temples of various other gods - Ganesha, Krishna, to name a few. Each is decorated very well with gold or silver ornaments or flowers or a combination of these.

To the left of the main temple we have a fountain. Apparently they have a musical fountain show from 6 to 8 pm but I reached a bit late and missed that :(.At other times also the fountain is on, and its very nice to watch with colored lights. I am partially color blind, so if I think it looks good, you might find it even better. On one side of the fountain we have very nice artwork in form of animals depicting some event in mythology. We have a hanuman temple near the entrance and another sculpture opposite to it which I could not really comprehend who it depicts.

Final word: If you happen to be in Mangalore during Navratri, do visit Kudroli. :) Happy Navratri !!

Special Olympics

Did you know that there is something called the Special Olymics? Maybe you do. Even if you did, did you know that it was held this year, in Shanghai? Even fewer people might know. Now, did you know that the Indian contingent won a whopping 150 medals - 36 gold, 44 sliver and 70 bronze!! I seriously doubt you knew.

This is amazing. As per the definition of the Special Olympics, these are people with 'intellectual disabilities'. And they go out to Shanghai to compete in Olympics and win more medals in one year than our best athletes (normal people) win in ages. I digged a bit more and found that India's all time haul of Olympic medals is a grand 17. Yes - 17 medals in 107 years. Isn't that a stunning difference?

Still I dont see any mention of this in the major news channels. Major newspapers reported this in a small column in a corner of the sports page. (I obviously didn't see all papers, so don't blame me if it did appear in one!!). Why? Because WE are not bothered. And they will show us what WE want. They are here to make their money, isn't it? The Times of India had a page-full of coverage on the India-Australia cricket series. I am a cricket fan, & a pretty crazy one at that. Still this somehow hit me. This story deserved to be on the front page.

This is part of a bigger problem. Media today is more and more concentrating on stuff which everyone WANTS to see, instead of what everyone SHOULD be seeing. The same happens to other sports when compared to cricket. The same happens to important political and social happenings compared to dumb stories about personal lives of politicos and movie stars. The same happens to soldiers dying in conflict as compared to some wacko going on a hunger strike for an illogical demand. Imagine, even 'Indian Idol' results are in the news!! This is outright stupid!

Everytime I see this I feel something is wrong. But the Special Olympics was a big one. I dont know why it went un-noticed. Kudos to the athletes who achieved magnificent success in Shanghai. Hope they and their kind continue to excel in whatever they do. Because they deserve it ...