Online BookStore

Check out a cool new online bookstore https://www.popabook.com/. I really liked the browsing experience. It also has very intuitive search options.

Panic to Relief: Swine Flu In India

The reason for the panic about swine flu in India is mainly due to the mishandling of the government in the initial phases when swine flu entered India. Gov insisted that only patients who are tested positive for H1N1 virus can be administered TamiFlu and only gov hospitals were authorized to provide treatement to H1N1 positive patients. Even worse, the testing samples were only being collected by gov hospitals and they soon become over burdended, leading to delays in finding the results (24-48 hours) and indirectly delaying the treatment, which eventually resulted in dire consequences including death.

Now, the gov has woken up and to the great relief of people, came out with new guidelines which are far better and would hopefully help handle this pandemic and reduce panic in India. Firstly, it has allowed treatment and administration of TamiFlu to patients with Class-C level of symptoms (severe symptoms/vulnerable segment of people) without the mandatory H1N1 test. Secondly, it has roped in private hospitals of good reputation to collect the test samples and also provided them TamiFlu tablets so that they can treat the patients. Thirdly, it has started a process of authorizing capable private labs to do H1N1 testing. As more than 70-80% of people in urban india rely on private hospitals, this has come as a huge relief to everyone and we welcome the gov new guidelines!

Rafa..What a player !

Though Nadal had beaten Fedex very convincingly in the French Open, Fedex is always the favaorite when it comes to Wimbledon. I somehow missed the initial one hour of play and when I saw the score, I was shocked to see Nadal leading by 2 sets. The third set was even bad for Fedex when he lost one of his service game. I just couldn't see Fedex losing, and stopped watching for a while. After half an hour, I was guessing the match would to be over by now. But surprisingly, a tie break was going on. So, Fedex managed to break Nadal's service game too in this set. Third and fourth sets were so close, that it was just pure genius of play by both of them. I felt Nadal felt a little bit nervous when he was close to the match point in the fourth set and that gave Fedex a good chance to consolidate and win this set. But, there was more to come in the final set, and the last few games in this set were really impossible shots played especially by Nadal. Whenever Fedex thought that he won the point, Nadal would shoot back from an impossible position with such a great precision.

I think Nadal deserved to win all the way, though we can't take anything away from Fedex, who was brilliant as ever. Indeed, it needed another genius like Nadal to beat him at Wimbledon.

I hope we get to see more of such matches in the future !

what a boss !

Well, thats what I found at www.bossbitching.com. Its a great place to vent out all your frustration about your boss! Just make sure that your boss doesn't see it. That is, only if you want to continue working with the same boss.

There is a saying that "Most employees leave their job not because of the company, but because of the manager they work for". I guess, thats very true in IT industry, if not anywhere else. You will find that a lot here .

Faith

When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised that the Lord doesn’t work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me - Emo Phillips

Tirumala trip (Part II)

After reaching Tirmuala, we went to the luggage collection office, but found that the luggage has not yet reached. Instead of waiting for the luggage, we went to the central office, where a cottage is alloted. As we had reserved for a cottage at the TTD office in Bangalore, there was not much problem in getting the cottage alloted. Otherwise, for the current booking of the cottage, there was a long queue of about 200 people! We got the cottage alloted in VSGH II(Varaha swamy guest house). One of them in the queue suggested to take the room in VSGH II, as its supposed to be newly constructed and is also not far from the temple. The closest to the temple is Rambaghicha guest house, but it looked like a very old building. As the VSGH was 2 km away from the main office, we were waiting to get an auto. To my surprise, there were only a few autos, but there were a huge number of jeeps/cabs who were taking people from one place to another on sharing basis. We boarded a cab and arrived at VSGH II. Here, we are supposed to sign in at the main VSGH and then only get the keys from VSGH II official. After that, we finally got into our room. The room was not good, but the other rooms, which we could peek into, were similar to the rooms in Srinivasam at Tirupathi. I guess, it was our bad luck that we got an old room and not the newly built one. As it was already 1:30pm, we were concerned about the luggage and wanted to pick it up asap. We took rest for 10-20 min in the room and again headed back to the main office for the luggage. The luggage had just arrived and there wes a huge crowd trying to get into a small room, where the luggage was kept. It was like people fighting for some movie ticket. We thought its better to have lunch and come back, as it was already 2pm.

We started searching for restaurants and the only decent restaurant was Mayuri around the cental office. When we went inside, we were shocked at the crowd. There was so much crowd that we couldn't even stand inside. Luckily there was buffet on the first floor and we had lunch there, even though the meals were not good. After that, we came back to the luggage collection office. It was 3pm and still, people were fighting for the luggage there. I was so tired that, I wanted to try to get in for the last time. Luckily I could get inside the luggage room and found both of our bags. That was quite a relief, as some people were waiting there for their 2nd or 3rd bag, which they couldn't find. The TTD official there was telling them that it is still on the way and will arrive soon. We then got back to our room and rested untill evening. We went out for dinner at 7pm itself, as we wanted to get over with it before the restaurant becomes crowded.

On the next day (Sunday) morning, we again went for an early breakfast and went to the temple at around 8am. Our sudharshan token timing was 10 am, so we were wondering whether we will be allowed into the darshan queue at 8am. Luckily, we were allowed and we had the darshan in one and a half hour. That was supposed to be quite fast, when compared with the normal season time, when it takes atleast 3-4 hours. While we were in the queue, the kalyanotsavam preparations were going on and some priests had to cross accross our queue, into the kalyanostavam hall. Among them, one of the priests had got some turmeric rice and a very small quantity of sandal wood paste from that hall in form of packets, and started giving it to people there. I thought he was just giving away what was already used there, as its auspicious and shoudn't be thrown away. I soon realised that the actual reason was to get make money, as he was demanding some tip for this. I was really shocked when he asked me money. How can the prists itself be like that ! I gave 20 bugs to him, as he was asking for more when I gave him 10 bugs.

After the darshan, we were supposed to collect the laddus. For each sudharshan token, we are supposed to get two free laddus. I collected the laddus for the sudharshan token, and wanted to get some more for friends/relatives. There is a seperate queue for getting laddus without sudharshan token and I tried to get into it. At that counter, there was such a huge crowd, with every one on top of the other, that I just came back. I was just wondering why its not regulated like the darshan queue, which was so well maintained.

After that, we did some shopping with whatever cash I had. Luckily, we then found an ICICI bank ATM and it accepted my citibank debit card. That lead to more shopping, as we had some more cash now. We again had an early lunch and got back to the room. We then vacated the room around 1pm, as 24 hrs was over by then. For vacating the room, we are supposed to get a stamping from the main VSGH office, then handover the keys to the VSGH 2 official and then go to the refund counter to get the deposit back. At each of these offices, I was asked for a tip. It was so disgusting, that I wanted to come back to Tirupathi quickly. We talked to a cab driver and he took us around Tirumala to papavinasanam, akasha ganga and another temple. After that, he dropped us at Srinivasam in Tirupathi. He charged 500 bugs totally, and I am sure we paid a lot more than normal price. But, we couldn't help it, as we were very tired and were in no mood to bargain.

At Srinivasam, there are free lockers, where we can keep our luggage after paying a refundable deposit. We got one of them and dumped our luggage there. We then started searching for a good hotel to have our dinner. Finally, we found a 3 star hotel and had pretty ok food. If not the food, atleast the ambience was pleasant and we were really looking for such an ambience after our experience at Tirumala. When I was giving back the locker keys to the TTD official, again the tiping business started. That guy was asking me for tip, after giving back the refund amount. I wanted to blash him there, but again, didn't want to get into a fight at the last moment.

We had our return train at 9:30pm. It was Mysore fast passenger, and its the only overnight train from Tirupathi to Bangalore. Thats quite sad, as there are so many people who travel to Tirupathi from Bangalore. When we arrived at the railway station, we found that the first class cabin which was alloted to us has only two berths, but the list has four names, all of whom have been alloted the same coach. This was really irritating, as we just wanted to get into the train and sleep. Now, we have to wait and follow up with the TT, who generally is not co-operative. Finally, after waiting for an hour, we got our berths alloted in another cabin. That was really relieving for us after a tiring day. We reached Bangalore Cant at around 7pm, which is not bad for a passenger train, which was scheduled to reach Bangalore city station at 6:30 pm.


Overall, the experince at Tirupathi was good, but the time spent in Tirumala was really hard, with very less amenities for people who need some amount of luxury. There are a lot of amenities for pilgrims, but they are very basic and people would want some more better restaurants and better rooms provided there. And about the corruption at the grass root level, it very infortunate at a place like Tirumala.

Tirumala trip (Part I)

My wife had taken a vow to visit Tirumala after the wedding and that was the initial seed for planning this trip. I am not a devout person, and I don't really enjoy travelling to temples. So, it needed quite some convincing and some amount of coercion to make me ready for the trip. We decided to start for Tirupathi last Friday. Our plan was to go to Tirupathi by Friday evening and start to Tirumala on Saturday early morning. The reason for a break journey was, due to impending task of walking up to Tirumala ! As I was attempting to do this uphill task for the first time, we thought its better to take a break before.

We started our journey in an APSRTC Volvo bus, which was scheduled to start from Bangalore City Bus station at 12pm. We were boarding the bus at Binamangla station on Old Madras Road, as its very near to thippasandra, where we are put up. One more reason being, we try to avoid going to Majestic as much as possible, as its quite a local place and very shabby. After quite some waiting, we boarded the bus at almost 1 pm and we were really hungry. We thought the bus would stop somewhere for lunch soon, as it was already 1 pm. Everytime, we saw a dhabha on the way, we were hoping that the driver would stop there. Finally, the bus stopped at 2:30 pm. Even before we starting to get up from our seats, we realised that it was only a pissing stop. Really put off by this, I finally asked the driver if he is ever going to stop for lunch. He said, they are authorised to stop only at Nandhini restaurant and that will take another hour or so. We were really pissed off and tried to munch on some lays chips and chocolates to keep us away from getting a headache due to dipping sugar levels. At 4pm, we stopped for lunch at Nandhini restaurant and we didn't waste much time to finish our lunch. We arrived at Tirupathi around 5:30 pm, and went straight to Srivivasam, which is a TTD Office, having cottages just opposite to the Bus station. There were rooms of Rs.200 (non-ac), Rs.400(ac) and Rs.600(ac delux) range. I first thought of taking a 400 bugs room. But, to my surprise, they didn't accept credit card and I needed to pay by cash. A TTD office alloting rooms for thousands of tourists daily doesn't accept credit card was quite a revelation to me. I was not carrying much cash, so I decided to go with 200 bugs room instead. The room was pretty good for 200 bugs. It was tiled and was maintained quite well. I was quite happy with it and was all praises for such good maintainance. Srinivasam also has a Punnami restaurant (AP Tourism) inside this buiding itself. We had a light snack there for dinner, and it was quite good. Srinivasam also has huge open space in front of the building and with the cool breeze, we spent some good time there after dinner.

On Saturday morning, we woke up quite early and vacated the roomat around 6am. We then took an auto to Alipiri, the place where the steps to Tirumala begin. At Alipiri, there is a free luggage transportation office, where we can hand over the luggage to a TTD official and they will get it transported to Tirumala, typically in 5 hours time. They give a receipt with the time when the luggage is expected to reach Tirumala and is supposed to be quite reliable. We handed over our luggage to them here. And, I had the first glimpse of the other side of TTD officials here. The TTD official, who was taking the luggage was asking for a tip. I just ignored him and went away.

Our walk started off with the ritual of breaking a coconut at the first step. There were quite a lot of people walking up at that time, and some of them were really old. I was amazed by the way they were walking up. It looked like, just faith was driving them, even though their bodies were resisting. I was walking up pretty well and didn't find it much difficult untill an hour. We didn't have breakfast in the morning, and we were waiting to reach a point, where there is supposed to be a chain of dhabhas which serve very good snacks. After walking for an hour, slowly tiredness started creeping in, along with hunger. We picked up some chips and biscuits from the outlets on the walkway. There is an outlet for every 200-300 mt on the walkway. Thats pretty good, as we can atleast rely on buying food and water as we need, instead of carrying loads of them with us when walking up . We realised the importance of the outlets, after we walked for almost 2 hours, when, even a carry bag having an extra water bottle was making us feel like a huge load. So, we decided not to carry anything except a small water bottle. One bad thing about all these outlets is, they sell the items at 3-4 bugs extra cost than the MRP. So, if some people are very particular of not buying things for price above MRP, they better carry all the stuff need from tirupathi itself. After almost 3 hours of our walk, we reached the chain of dhabhas. We stopped at the first dhabha itself and had some delicious dosas there. Tirumala was supposed to be 2 hours more from here, and we continued our walk. The walk from here was a bit better, in the sense, each step was some 10 mts apart. People told us that it was not that much of a steep hill and so, its kind of less painful part of the journey. After an hour, we had to walk for some 2 km on the road. The walkway, even on the road is covered above. Infact, the complete walkway from the first step is covered quite well. After that walk on the road way, we arrived at mokalla parvatham (knees hill), which is the last hill to reach Tirumala. The name signifies the steepness of the hill. There is a saying that, anyone climbing up this hill will have to hold on to his knees as its so painful, due to extreme steepness. I tried to climb it fast, but was soon tired after climbing just 50 steps. It was really difficult to get through this part of the walkway, as I was already tired and was waiting to reach Tirumala. Finally, after some half an hour walk, we reached Tirumala ! Wow, that was quite a walk. We reached Tirumala at around 12:30 pm. It took us almost 5 hours to climb up.