Tuesday, July 26, 2005
He..............lp Meeeeeeeeee...............????
I love my bike. Talking about love, my first love was Maths, next love was DSP and currently it is Veena and the bike. It is very less likely to change now. Sid says I fall in love with wrong things. Well, that's another issue altogether. Hope I'm not offending half(slightly more) the world population, if I say I never found any specimen worthy of falling in love; not that I didn't have crushes once or twice a year. (If I did offend, my apologies; I was saying in a jocular vein). I should admit, I had better things to do than taking them seriously, knowing that it is not worth it.
Let's not digress from the main topic. Topic is not love, but the fact that I love my bike (no, no, no topic is not even that, I'll come to it). The reason is that I get euphoric when I'm sitting on her. She has never let me down morally, though I used to physically fall down quite often during the first 6 months. My average speed on city roads is 50 kmph, on ring roads-70kmph. Max speed I've ever touched is 85kmph, which is not bad for a bike like Victor, considering that I would've 'gone with the wind' at any higher speed (You know, I'm not very big to look at). Now, when one is in love, one tends to over-estimate the abilities of the object of love, for love is 'blind'. Sometime or the other one has to face the consequences of this over-estimation. Fortunately, in these 2.5 years I never had any such experiences but for one which happened very recently, as late as last friday night 10p.m. The Almighty would've created the situation to open my 'eyes' to the reality. As a side benefit, it is serving as a subject to write on.
I think by now I have generated 'great expectations' from your side on what I have to write. In that case I must warn you: It is not going to be as interesting as you are expecting. You might want to stop reading it here if you don't prefer to be disappointed at the end. Only if you don't have anything better to do, then you may kindly proceed to the next paragraph.
Let's not digress from the main topic. Topic is not love, but the fact that I love my bike (no, no, no topic is not even that, I'll come to it). The reason is that I get euphoric when I'm sitting on her. She has never let me down morally, though I used to physically fall down quite often during the first 6 months. My average speed on city roads is 50 kmph, on ring roads-70kmph. Max speed I've ever touched is 85kmph, which is not bad for a bike like Victor, considering that I would've 'gone with the wind' at any higher speed (You know, I'm not very big to look at). Now, when one is in love, one tends to over-estimate the abilities of the object of love, for love is 'blind'. Sometime or the other one has to face the consequences of this over-estimation. Fortunately, in these 2.5 years I never had any such experiences but for one which happened very recently, as late as last friday night 10p.m. The Almighty would've created the situation to open my 'eyes' to the reality. As a side benefit, it is serving as a subject to write on.
I think by now I have generated 'great expectations' from your side on what I have to write. In that case I must warn you: It is not going to be as interesting as you are expecting. You might want to stop reading it here if you don't prefer to be disappointed at the end. Only if you don't have anything better to do, then you may kindly proceed to the next paragraph.
On 21st July'05, one of our team's creations started working the way we wanted it to work. You should excuse me for not being able to give more details on that as it is confidential. We all were very much on the 9th cloud and decided to celebrate on a pleasant friday night, i.e. 22nd July. The venue for Dinner was "Samarkand, Infantry road". It started at 8pm; had a nice time with our VP (Vice President) and the team-mates. At about 9:45, I suddenly remembered that I have a home at Subramanyanagar (near Rajajinagar) and I had to leave if I wanted to reach safe. The party continued and sadly I had to say "Bye" to the folks.
I had parked my bike in the basement. There was a ramp connecting basement to the Infantry road. It was at an angle > pi/4 (must be about 55 degrees) to the horizontal plane. I went to my bike, gave her a pat, kickstarted with one kick, put the 2nd gear and headed towards the ramp. Brrrrrrrrrrrrr......,soon the meter showed 40, while I switched the gear to 4th. My bike had no problems with a normal slope in 4th gear. Reached the base of the ramp and happily started ascending, only to realize my mistake in next fraction of a second. Too late to even panick. Quickly switched to 3rd, accelerated with full energy hoping to reach the top. We were just about 1/2 a feet away when she couldn't pull me through and gave up!!! If I was a novice at driving, I would've back-traced the path and rotated 360 degrees twice. Thank my Mom, I was having full sense too, since I didn't taste the 'champagne' that was indispensible part of the celebration, as my Mom had forbidden me from tasting alchohol.
Just 1/2 feet away from the road and about 10 feet away from the basement I and my dear bike hung, in a manner worse than MS Windows. There was no one at the scene. My bike gets throat infection in rainy seasons and hence her vocal cords were not functional. I was completely ignorant of the best course of action in such situations, as I hadn't even seen someone in such a 'Thrishanku' position. Worse still, someone took out his car from the basement and wanted to leave. He started sounding horn to let him go. The stupid, dumb guy(obviously!) didn't even bother himself to find out why of all the places I'm hanging there. Simply made noise for about a minute. That's when it stuck me to scream for help. I was so concerned about my bike's horn not working that I had forgotten momentarily that I could speak. "He.....lp Meeee....He.....lp Mee....". That was the first time in my life I uttered this with so much desperation. I remembered all my friends before remembering God, not sure of how long I had to be at such a metastable position. Just then, to my relief, a jovial looking man, aged between 55 to 60 happened to appear there like an angel and pushed my bike from behind. I had switched to 2nd gear by then and accelerelated finally making it to the road. Thanked the man from bottom of my heart with deepest feelings and left for home with a resolution, never to assume that my bike can pull me through a ramp in 4th gear!!
Note: I've actually written this at 10:30 pm, 23rd July'05. I write better with a pen and paper than a key board.
Friday, July 22, 2005
Preamble
Before putting thoughts on anything else, I'll just say what I know & think of myself. I'm Aparna, originally from a small village near Mangalore, now working as a communication engineer in Ittiam Systems-a DSP sw/IP company in Bangalore. In all packet based communication systems, there is a portion called 'preamble' which gives kind of intro to the packet. Hence the title of this post. Also coincidentally, the blog name is same as what Ittiam stands for-"I think therefore I am".
My nickname is Appu, used only by a privileged few people, who just happen to be my close friends. I'm the kind of person who might be a little complicated to understand in the beginning, but I get easier with time. I'm putting conscious efforts to reduce that time. I think every human being should be simple and approachable for fellow humans. Then life will be much simpler and enjoyable.
I did my schooling in government schools near my village(Kannada Medium). Studied PU Course (11th and 12th as some people call it) in Canara PU College, Mangalore. From a timid, shy village girl, I slowly transformed into a confident, extrovert engineer from KREC (Now NITK), Surathkal in 2002. Had got placed in Ittiam through campus placement process. I have completed 3 years in the industry and I think it is not at all so bad as it is being projected by media and some ignorant population. I have enjoyed every moment of working; have I? No, I won't say that. I believe that joys and sorrows should go hand in hand, otherwise we won't realize the importance of either of them.
Music is my utmost priority in life. I had learnt Carnatic classical vocal for sometime (Just enough to pass Junior exam), without having any purpose (I was too young for that I guess then : during my early teenage). After I came to Bangalore in 2002 for 1.5 years I just did timepass (TP), freaking out to hotels and measuring the breadth and length of ring roads. I started driving my TVS Victor in Dec 2002 and so was completely busy exploring all roads in and around Bangalore with some like-minded friends for about an year. Soon the enthu reduced and around Jan, 2004 I started thinking about what exactly is my passion. I took about a couple of months to decide and on March 22, 2004-just a day before I turned 23-started with my Veena lessons. I was still not sure whether I have the perseverence required. So what I did? went on telling everyone that I've started learning Veena. You see, I'm a kind of proud person. Under any circumstances, I would not let myself down. Once I say something so loud, I'm forced to sustain it. It really helped. It's already 1 year 4 months and I've progressed a lot. Now I'm sure that I'll do my best to learn as much as I can get from my teacher. In the beginning I had many dreams which were fame oriented. I was always thinking of learning for about 4-5 years and giving concerts. But two things changed my perspective completely. One is my Sir himself, who is quiet and alone, always playing music for his own satisfaction. He was very famous and successful once upon a time; now he is too old for any public performances. But before becoming successful, he was not very keen on getting success, just worshipped music for his internal pleasure. He tells me his stories once in a while and I am inspired by them. Another thing is a book "Success Vs Joy" by Geeth Sethi and Sunil Agarwal. The book basically tells that Joy is more important and not the Success. The latter does not ensure the former. Should you choose between the two, you better choose the former. So, now I'm worshipping music with the right funda in mind. Ok, I've to get to work now.
Bye...
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