At the Restaurant - Hyderabad House - Banjara Hills

Hyderabad House is the Hyderabadi chain of Restaurants specializing Hyderabadi Cusine. This was the first place where I ate when I first came to Hyderabad in 2001, and still love to eat there.

Chicken Biriyani and Thums up are the best combination.

The Banjara Hills restaurant was decorated sometime back which is evident from the looks of it - it looks a bit wornout. Over the years the prices for the food there has increased substantially. Earlier it was affordable for me to have lunch everyday, but now a days it pinches a bit.

Food as I said is totally Hyderabadi and they know what they are cooking, and food tastes very good.

Monica's Pups 2007 Summer Edition

Alone is Dull





Two's a company

Three's a crowd.

Now! that's Some Crowd. Count how many are there...!

The experiment with everything. But they got only one machine... Their mouth. so they test with their mouth only.

Gotta go to sleep

Sleeping

What are you looking at me like that?

Mom loves them a lot.

Interesting observation.

Poking their noses on to something.

A Train Journey

I recently went to see my parents. I took these pictures at the Vizag Station. The hills in the back ground had nice fog on them and they looked inviting.

Earlier when I used to travel in the train there used to be just 2-3 stations in between where there was mobile phone connection. However now a days the telephone connection has improved a lot and one can find the mobile being up almost the entire journey.

I discovered that each of the station name board also mention the Height from the Mean Sea Level. For example this Ichapur station is about 16.7 mt above Mean Sea Level. This I believe is a British time trend which has been continued as the height details are missing on the newly painted name boards.

While returning I came to know about some more interesting facts; like the L/C board means that there is a Level Crossing down the way and W/L means the train driver is required to blow whistle since there would be a crossing down the line.

I also came across the Indian Railways Fan Club (IRFCA) website. If you are interested in railways in India this is the place to go.

World Cup 2007 - India Exit

Super 8 system was incidentally was brought into the World Cup because ICC wanted to give the Minnows a chance to play in the big tournament and also give the biggies a chance to have some warm-up practice during the tournament. Minnows were supposed to loose all their group matches and go home before the Biggies start playing in the Super8. But as it turns out, these Minnows are pain in... - you know where! In the last World Cup, Kenya went on to play in the Semifinals. This year too, Ireland and Bangala Desh will play nearly 6 more matches in the Super8 and give ample practice and help the biggies some chance to break all the previous records, that India made in their match against Bermuda, in an attempt to keep our chances alive.

Since we have done it (rather did nothing); i.e. get out of the World Cup competition even before it constructively started; some heads must roll and here is my list:

1. Get rid of Dravid as Captain, he is a good player but he is not a leader. Ganguly should be brought back into the team. Dravid simply does not have the aggression that Ganguly's got.
2. Get rid of the coach. Greg Chappel was hired to see us though the Word Cup. Well! he seemed to be in a hurry. He did all the experiments he wanted, like giving commando training from the Army. At that time I wondered why the commando training, but now I know. It was to help the players when they are back after disappointing the nation.
3. The Selection committee should be scrapped and a new one brought in. It was their duty to select the team that would bring the world cup home. Not to have a dramatic exit from it.

Let's accept it, we are not a sporting county anyway. The '83 cricket world cup was a fluke. It happened because the Indian team was a bunch of cricket crazy people who were passionate about the game and played for sake of the game. They had nothing to loose but they played to win. But unfortunately our current team do not play to win the games, they play so that others will loose. Our current team is buried under their great records, that they are scared to do anything wrong and take risks.

I am disappointed with the result, but having said that, I kind of anticipated India loosing with Sri Lanka anyway. Bygones are bygones lets hope for 2011.

Rocket Science and Horse's Ass!

Source: Engineering Subject Centre

The US standard railway gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US railroads.

Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Why did 'they' use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads? The first long distance roads in Europe (and England) were built by Imperial Rome for their legions. The roads have been used ever since. And the ruts? Roman war chariots first made the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels and wagons. Since the chariots were made for, or by Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

Thus, we have the answer to the original question. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Specifications and bureaucracies live forever.

So, the next time you are handed a specification and wonder which horse's rear came up with it, you may be exactly right. Because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war-horses.

And now, the twist to the story… There's an interesting extension to the story about railroad gauges and horses' behinds.

When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. Thiokol makes the SRBs at their factory at Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory had to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses behinds. So, the major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined by the width of a Horse's ass!

Should stray dogs be killed?

Question: What are these dogs doing around us?
Answer: We humans domesticated them because we wanted them to help us in hunting, later on when the civilizations developed and Humans started to cultivate and no more required the dogs then simply dumped them. But dogs were after all man's best friend. They did not dump us and started living around the human settlements, living on what ever we throw out as garbage.

They effectively clean more than half of the garbage that we Humans produce. If dogs weren't there you can't even imagine what would the cities would be like.

The case in point in B'lore is about the contents of garbage. The dogs were eating meat thrown on the road side. Since it is meat which even makes men become devils (that is why many religions ban eating meat); you can't really blame the poor old dog.

Question: The Population of Human beings is not growing...it is exploding..shouldn't they be killed.
Answer: Well killing is not the answer, is it?

Nandigram Fiasco...Some thoughts

What ever happening in Nandigram is an Irony of shorts. Left has been traditionally first to strike down any sort of Industrialization any where in India, calling it anti-poor. Now when trying to do their bit and they are facing the ire of their people.

Why can't they come to a place where they get the land willingly by the people? - Because the Industrialists want the land dirt cheap and the govt is always there to do their bit to oust the poor people from their farm lands and act as a mediator or dalal.

Industrialization has to happen and it has to happen with the consent of the people living where the Industry is coming up. The people who get displace due to and Industrial project are also an important stake holders it. These are the only ones who got only to loose anything from the project, hence they should be properly compensated.

Nandigram has been a flash point where it seemed that both the public and the administration has been rogue. The public of Nandigram have never bothered to come to the discussion tables and from the beginning tried to resists the project; probably never bothering to know what they are going to gain out of it. The administration also been slipshod in their approach, when thy first issued notification to acquire the land without consulting the public affected by the project.

At the Restaurant - Surf

While returning from Mahabalipuram we stopped at Surf, a multi cuisine restaurant. Place was a nice and clean. They have a shop selling art items but we did not visit that.

We were greeted by the owner of the place. He suggested that they also provide many tour packages like bonfire, walk to spot the Olive Ridley turtle, fishing in the Bay of Bengal - which was quite interesting to know.

We had beer there...but it was served in these funny looking glasses. My friend opined that, these people do not have a license, because it is compulsory to show the seal and the label before opening, instead the waiter there just got us the beer in the glasses.

My friend wanted to have fish. I usually don't eat fish and resist any one ordering fish, but did not want to play a spoiled sport. In fact I enjoyed the fish. It was fish fry - cooked the way locals people would.

Some people taking a snap with

Then we had Phulkas and Chicken Chettinad. The food was excellent, the service was also very good. However not many people seems to visit this place as they seems to have just opened the shop. The price seemed to be a bit on the higher side but not very much. I would surely recommended everyone going to Mahabalipuram should sure visit the place to have a nice time.

After hours at Mahabalipuram

After the movie (we went to Ghost Rider *ing Nicholas Cage) was over we decided to go to Mahabalipuram. We began at PM and 3.30 reached the place at 5 pm - on time for most people to return home. On the way we found out that we do not have any cash with both of us and it was a bit embarrassing at a couple of tollgates to tell accept that.

To begin with Mahabalipuram also known as Mamallapuram is a town in Kancheepuram district. It is a 7^th century port city of the South Indian dynasty of the Pallavas around 60 km south from Chennai. It is believed to have been named after the Pallava king Mamalla (Narasimhavarman I). It has various historic monuments built largely between the 7^th and the 9^th century.

From the top of Varaha Cave Temple. Seen here are the Light House and the Bay of Bengal in the backdrop.

Another view from the top of the hill.


The temple on the top of the hill.

Naughty Naughty... ... ... ...

Can you spot the goats...

A lot of monkeys all around...

More of them, enjoying the tidying up.

Light house, it is a bit into the land, because it is built on the hillock.

The Varaha Avtar of Lord Vishnu...

And the Lord Vishnu, resting on the snake bed...

A sculpture of Hippo. Carving sculptures out of rocks is main occupation here.

Lord Ganesha...

These are the Five Rathas of Pandavas.





We were not allowed to enter the place as we were late to reach there.

Taking a snap of the Sun.


The Shore Temple it is a temple for Lord Vishnu.


At the shore, on the rocks...


Shore Temple in the background...


On the Shore...