Heal your VPN client (Mac)

Today the Cisco VPN client on the Mac cra##%d out on me right in the middle of a VPN connection. When I tried to reconnect it kept on failing with the error:

“A configuration error occurred. Verify your settings”

Several retries later, I was positive it wasn't the VPN server itself that was the problem.

Although I had to leave the error at that for the time-being, come evening when I got back home, I stumbled upon this link. Bottom line, if you ever see this error on OSX, you may want to try to restart the racoon service using something to the effect of:

sudo service com.apple.racoon stop

sudo service com.apple.racoon start

Note that the OSX recommends you to use launchctl instead of service, so that would mean you do this:

sudo launchctl stop com.apple.racoon

sudo launchctl start com.apple.racoon

That did the trick for me. Hope it does for you.

-- Sifar

Area 51

For all of you who use/are aware of Stack Overflow, presenting serendipitously found, flaunting huge potentiality, please welcome with a huge round of applause - Area 51.

Its basically a conception website that spawns off other stack exchange sites if the site topic generates enough traction via a plebiscite.

Another cool website suggested by a friend over the weekend - Cooking For Engineers.

I am going to start posting these websites so they don't get veiled up behind my browser bookmarks.

Enjoy!

-- Sifar.

आशुफ्तः

ऎसे पिला दी साकी ने ना हमको ऎतबार अपना,

कभी साकी से इश्क अपना, कभी मय से इश्क अपना

कश-म-कश-ए-ज़िंदगी की तहरीर ऎसी रही,

कभी जल गया मकां अपना, कभी बुझ गया चराघ अपना

तकदीर ने दो-राह पर खडा कर दीया यक-ब-यक,

कभी मंझीले थी अपनी, कभी रास्ता था अपना

"सिफर" ज़िंदगी ने ऊलझा दीया है ज़ालिम,

अरबों सवाल ऊसके, अौर ना इक जवाब अपना

--सिफर

End of Hiatus

It's a beautiful Sunday evening on Father's Day and Sifar is back from a 2 month hiatus; back to his blogics (that is a neologistical portmanteau for blog antics). Sitting by the pool side at this Summer (yeah its summer already!!!) twilight hour sipping my favorite white chocolate mocha frap from SitarBaksh, this happy soul cannot ask for more.

The last couple of months have been really busy at work and I haven't really had the chance or the mind-set to write anything. Even though there have been a few times in these two months that I have had something to write about, my protocol-fried brains didn't want to engage in blogging. Understandably so now that work has eased off a little, Sifar is back and reminiscent of his blogging habits, promises to put posts out there more regularly.

A few things to report, whether it be bachelor parties for a co-worker, or him and his girl friend leaving the States for good to graze greener pastures, or a couple of other close friends getting hitched; while life has been drub on the work front, it has been decently happening on the personal front. Amid all the mounting work, I also made a weekend trip to Boston early May and spent an awesome weekend among some old and new friends and family.

I am hoping that the summer ahead would be more action-packed and without too much work-load. In terms of pursuing hobbies, I want to kick-start learning music; that has been a new year's resolution and I haven't done anything about it yet. Also want to get back to running and training, all of which had pretty much taken a back-seat with work dominating most of my weekdays and weekend schedules in the recent past.

Anyhow, after that lackadaisical rant about my two months full of crap-load of work, I have two completely disconnected things to talk about in today's post.

Let me start off by adding some color to this post by providing a beautiful video about some Tibetan monks creating the Buddha Mandala (sand mandala really), meticulously putting together grains of colored sand to a precise design of sorts, conforming to Buddhist spiritual symbols and shapes. What struck me after watching the video was the fact that these monks took six whole days to put together the sand mandala, but only an hour after the last grain of sand was put in place, the sand mandala was swept off in a ritualistic ceremony. The news post mentions that according to Buddhist philosophy this symbolizes the impermanence of life. I paraphrase that half of this sand was given away to the audience as blessings and half of it was poured into a nearby river.

It's such a simple symbolism, but a powerful idea. The sand mandala was representative of all the events in the Universe? Nothing is permanent but change. As our life unfolds before us, it also folds inwards making us aware of the involution and evolution that happens cyclically. The impermanence of life is one notion, re-incarnation other. Most oriental philosophies have both the notions prevalently expressed in their scriptures and to tie them together requires some mental weight-lifting. In the so-called spiritual quest, Sifar hopes to put in an effort to bring these two ideas to harmony.

After I was sucked in to the vortex of harmonizing these two ideas, I had an epiphany of sorts. During the past few years, seemingly my analytical skills have given way to a completely new philosophical tool-kit. While I struggle these days to put two and two together, I seem to do OK on weaving intricate tapestries of spiritual nay philosophical notions. What has happened? Does math and science as we traditionally know cease to exist when a human mind becomes open to religious and spiritual frontiers?

Alright alright, let's lighten up. The other thing that the world is under the grips of these days is Copa Mundial De La Fifa 2010. And for a change this time around, the Americans seem to have gotten lucky drawing against the English in their first world-cup tie of 2010. Go States! c'mon guys they deserve a cheer. While the first week of the world-cup has seen some completely un-expected results be it England drawing with US or Spain losing to Switzerland, what has left me completely petrified is the sub-par refereeing during the world cup games. Be it hand-balls that are let go unseen during Fabiano's second goal today or high profile players like Kaka and Klose being sent off for seemingly innocuous on-field fouls, I think its high-time FIFA makes video replays available to fourth officials for adjudicating on-field calls.

On the positive side, Argentina and my idol for this year's world-cup, Lionel Messi seem to be doing well after the first week. Argentina is sitting comfortable with 6 points from 2 games and look in good touch to take on the heavy-weights during the knock-outs. While my heart roots for Messi and Argentina, I also want to see Germany and Italy do well. Both these teams are facing possible eliminations after the group stage and have one game left to reconcile their positions as serious potential contenders for the title. Italy is going into the cup as defending champions, I hope they don't succumb to expectations. Germany has a few good players and never a side to be taken lightly. Let's all hope the rest of the cup is full of fair officiating and wonderful football and that alone.

Signing off in-sync with the setting Sun....Viva Football.

--Sifar.

Paradox Pourri

Life is full of paradoxes such as the Socratic paradox of I know that I know nothing at all. Some of these are obliterated by the times we live in; some are eternal and hold their own. By the way, Wikipedia (do I hear the purists yell/scream in horror) has a good article on some of the famous paradoxes of our times grouped thematically. They make for a good read in free time.

After the past couple of posts about the gala time on Sifar's birthday and the rare geek-a-log about boost::function with boost::bind, a couple of buddies asked if I had written anything on the "Sher-A-Day" series at all. Clearly, they don't give a jack about what fun I had on my birthday or how to bind functions with random # of arguments to do container visitation in a library. And I don't blame them :). So I figured, since people want me to write a blog post which they really care to read, I should give in to public demand and do just that.

Today's post is about a Saleem Kausar ghazal titled "मै ख़याल हूं किसी और का मुझे सोचता कोई और है". Composed by Ustad Rais Khan, the ghazal "originally" appeared in a Pakistani movie. The inimitable Anu Malik (note the paradox) has dhapofied this in Dil Hai Ki Maanta Nahin where with a garbled version of the lyrics, its picturized on Aamir Khan in a party song.

This ghazal is sung by several ghazal singers including Ustad Rais Khan himself but my favorite is a rendition by Ustad Mehdi Hassan. The Mehdi Hassan saab version is set in Raga Bhairavi (I may be wrong and erudite folks out there are welcome to correct me) with a few shades of Lalat in the maqta. Each couplet in the ghazal is full of paradoxes and appeals to the human mind. The version I like the most has Tabla sangat by Ustad Tari Khan and is available on YouTube in two distinct parts making it about 16 minutes of sheer listening fest.

http://bit.ly/bvfc1N
http://bit.ly/axuN38

I am including the entire ghazal here for completeness (shamelessly copied from here) but would pay my respects to the lyrics using a couple of couplets.

मै ख़याल हूं किसी और का मुझे सोचता कोई और है
सर-ए-आईना मेरा अक्स है पस-ए-आईना कोई और है

(सर-ए-आईना = in front of the mirror; पस-ए-आईना = behind the mirror)

मै किसी के दस्त-ए-तलब में हूं तो किसी के हर्फ़-ए-दुआ में हूं
मै नसीब हूं किसी और का मुझे मांगता कोई और है

(दस्त = hand; तलब = desire; हर्फ़-ए-दुआ = words of prayer)

कभी लौट आयें तो पूछना नहीं, देखना उन्हे ग़ौर से
जिन्हें रास्ते में ख़बर हुई कि ये रास्ता कोई और है

अजब ऐतबार-ओ-बेऐतबारी के दर्मियां है ज़िंदगी
मै क़रीब हूं किसी और के मुझे जानता कोई और है

(ऐतबार = confidence, belief ; बेऐतबारी = disbelief)

वही मुन्सिफ़ों की रिवायतें वही फ़ैसलों की इबारतें
मेरा जुर्म तो कोई और था पर मेरी सज़ा कोई और है

(मुन्सिफ़ = judge; रिवायत = traditions; इबारत = diction)

तुझे दुश्मनों की ख़बर न थी, मुझे दोस्तों का पता नहीं
तेरी दास्तां कोई और थी, मेरा वाक़या कोई और है

तेरी रोशनी मेरी ख़द्दोख़ाल से मुख़्तलिफ़ तो नहीं मगर
तू क़रीब आ तुझे देख लूं तू वही है या कोई और है

(ख़द्दोख़ाल = appearance; मुख़्तलिफ़ = different)

जो मेरी रियाज़त-ए-नीमशब को “सलीम” सुबह न मिल सकी
तो फिर इस के मानी तो ये हुए के यहां ख़ुदा कोई और है

(रियाज़त-ए-नीमशब = religions exercises at midnight)

सलीम कौसर

Here is my 0.02$ on the meaning. The matla of the ghazal is simple yet very appealing. The poet is caught in this quandary, this catch-22 of being a conception of the ONE but being an object of affection/love of someone else. In a vain attempt to find the real meaning of Self, he is caught in between the base reflection (sar-e-aaina) of himself and the real HIM behind the mirror (pas-e-aaina). The paradoxes of life keep growing on him. In the second couplet he seems torn between how at times he is powerless and in the hands of the Almighty, and at times powered by the prayers of his well-wishers. How does fate and destiny compare to our desires? Are our desires and will strong enough to drive our fate? These fundamental, yet un-answered (NP-Hard ;)) questions of life bother him. The rest of the poem themes around how life is walking the tight rope of trust-mis-trust, rewards-punishments, desires-achievements, love-hate, friends-foes. While the contradictions are evident, the poet seems to be at peace with them.

Worth mentioning for its musical value is the last couplet or the maqta of the ghazal. Here Mehdi Hassan sahab transitions from Bhairavi to Lalat justifying the word "subeh." Lalat (Lalit) is an early morning raga and the arrangement of notes creates a magical morning atmosphere in the listener's mind. Ustadji moves seamlessly between Bhairavi, Lalit and back to Bhairavi giving the maqta a tacit beauty of its own. All in all a wonderful ghazal totally worth listening.

Sifar signs off with a promise of more to come.

-- Sifar.

18 Till I Die

The last couple of weekends have been happening in terms of socio-cultural interactions and chores to take care of. It all started with the Shreya Ghoshal concert on Friday the 19th. It was an evening concert at 7 pm and after a first hour or so of sidey dancers and the "band" introductions, Shreya was singing some of her famous numbers alongside the SaReGaMa fame Shivprasad. The acoustics in the Dorton arena left much to desire, but once we moved down from our seats closer to the stage, it wasn't bad at all. We could see her sing and dance and hear her hit difficult notes almost at will. A few close friends and I had a good shake-a-leg to some hit numbers like Zoobi Doobi and Dola Re...After the break, she sang some regional songs on public demand including a famous Marathi lavani "Reshamaachya reghaani". All in all while Shreya continued to dazzle, IMHO the performance was strictly alright owing to the sorry acoustics and sad dancers. Not to mention the urdu-esque wannabe shayarana compere Niharika.

Following two days were spent amid loud music and repetitive dance performances at the India Fest. The only highlight for us were a bunch of close friends singing and dancing on stage. While HK sang the Jaane Kya Chahe Mann from Pyaar Ke Side Effects, HR stuck to the more safer Mitwa from Lagaan. "Useless" also was part of a dance number called India Kaleidoscope which included a montage of dances from hit movie songs like Prem Ki Nayya and Aahun Aahun. Apart from the dance and singing performances of these dear ones, the iFest was a loud melee for the most part. I was left with a big headache at the end of those two weekend days.

Sunday was spent at the R's place playing "lagori" and flying "kite" (just cheel chill just chill) amid nice evening tea and then unwinding playing Mafia and eating a pizza dinner. To top it off, we played Table Tennis at 11.00 pm at night to make it a fun-filled amazing weekend.

During the week I made a generous contribution of a grand to the Honda Motor Corp. trying to do manicure, pedicure and the likes on my sweet sexy coupe. Those guys know how to unstitch the pockets out of your jeans...sigh.

This weekend was Sifar's birthday weekend. The big 3-0. But he's managed to keep himself upbeat like they say 30s is the new 20s or something like that. The b'day started with a customary visit to the temples followed by a buffet lunch with a couple of co-workers at CoolBreeze. My head was clogged in the morning due to some seasonal cold, and I was craving for the spicy hot rassam at the desi place. After a sumptuous lunch, I managed to retire to a nice long afternoon Siesta. Although, I missed a few calls from people wishing me b'day, the afternoon nap was awesomeness throughout. The evening was spent with cake-cutting and a khichadi dinner at AG and HR's place. Thanks guys for making it special.

Thanks also to everyone of you who called remembering my big day and making it special. The social networking boom gives people easy access to each other's birthdays and makes it possible for us to post wishes on our friends'/family's online profiles. Many thanks are therefore due to those who posted on my wall and scrapped in my scrapbook as well. Needless to say you all are the reason I exist, you all are the ones who make this journey worthwhile.

Hoping to put the literal and figurative icing on the cake with a birthday dinner @ The Cheese Cake Factory....the revelry continues....the exuberance of youth (of the past?) beckons...the 30 something mind croons 18 Till I Die...

Cheers,
Sifar.

boost::bind and boost::function awesomeness throughout

On Thursday I was helped by a co-worker to look more closely into boost::bind and boost::function. Its just awesome what you can do with these two together. Say you are writing a library which intends to provide a thread-safe way of accessing a certain structure (ElementType) for the users of your library. In a typical case you would have a container that contains some n objects of ElementType and you want the user to be able to iterate over these. A cool way to do this is to let the user pass a function delegate for your API to call within the thread-safety semantics of your library code. For instance if you had a container ElementContainer every access to which was made thread-safe using an ACE_Guard with a local mutex variable, then you can provide the users of your library an element visitor something to the effect of:

typedef boost::function1 <> ElementVisitor;

and then provide a public API function:

bool VisitElements(const Key& key, const ElementVisitor& visitor);

What the above psuedo-code does is it provides the user a way to iterate thru' the ElementContainer (which contains objects of ElementType) in a thread-safe way that's transparent to the user using a key to find which elements to iterate over. All the user needs to do is instantiate an ElementVisitor delegate which takes the ElementType as a const ref argument and do his mumbo jumbo inside the delegate which would be called inside the context of the library.

But the magic only begins here. boost::bind can be used to tie any random caller function to the ElementVisitor. And club this with boost::ref and boost::cref, you can also have multiple return types in the caller functions. For instance let's say the user of the library has a function as below:

void UsersClass::ElementVisitorFunc(uint32_t arg1, uint32_t arg2, const ElementType& elem);

this can be bound to the ElementVisitor as below:

ElementVisitor del = boost::bind(&UsersClass::ElementVisitorFunc, this, arg1, arg2, _1);

Whats magical about this is although to the caller this is a function call with three arguments, to the library that provides a thread-safe API to visit and access the contained ElementType objects, its a function call with a single argument of type const ElementType&.

Just awesomeness throughout. Thanks DJ and KR for introducing me to this wonderful visitation technique.

Sifar.

The Bridge Over The Enoxa

These were two prosperous kingdoms on the either side of the mighty Enoxa. The Enoxa would freeze in the cold ghastly winter of the north and that's about the only time people from either kingdoms could visit each other. Enoxa's basin was wide and its current strong to forbid any human movement otherwise. In winter however, it would snow a lot and the entire river would freeze. Paradoxically, the dark harsh winters was a time of merriment for people of the two kingdoms who had kins on either sides. The peoples of the two kingdoms would visit each other share gifts, spend valuable time together before it was time again for the Enoxa to melt away their joys.

Both the kings summoned their generals and commanded them..."Generals, our brethren can't meet their blood relations otherwise but in winter, we need to build a bridge during this approaching winter and make it survive the strong currents of the Enoxa when it melts. Summon the best of our architects/engineers and build a plan to get it done".

And so the two fiercest of generals that the entire north knew took the task (at their respective master's orders) to a war-footing. The generals had only 5 months. The winter had already started to set. The Enoxa was slowly freezing. The black shadow of death was slowly being cast. The generals had to summon their best men, come up with a plan and build the bridge of hope across the Enoxa. So the best architects that both the kingdoms had were sought; they came up with a design and work started after a couple of months over the frozen Enoxa.

The gritty workers from both the kingdoms started to work together, the work of digging huge bores thru' the frozen waters of the Enoxa, laying a deep foundation some 50 feet beyond where the frozen waters met the ground. They toiled day and night, they moved huge stones and constructed columns from either end of the Enoxa's large basin. They built upon the foundation that they had made; created aqueducts for the water to flow thru' so it would stand the test of the Enoxa's currents in summer. Everything looked good and the bridge looked well on the way to completion.

Until one fine new moon night the two supervising generals, over some drunken revelry, had a fight. Each burning in the fury of their egos, withdrew their workers from their side of the bridge and called it quits. The bridge of hope suddenly looked dull and perishing under the moonless night sky. The stars shone brightly, but down below, the bridge was dilapidated. Weeks passed by and the unfinished bridge with its arched stone columns started sagging as the water started to melt. The kings, oblivious to the happenings of the fateful night, were eager to see how their famed generals had done on the so called bridge of hope. The generals hurriedly re-visited the site and were saddened by what they saw. They soon realized that in their brief moment of stupidity they had blew the bridge and it would never get done now. It was too late then...atleast for that winter.

The Enoxa is a symbol of time and bridges are the relationships that we build during our life over time...don't burn them before they are even made.


--Sifar.

रंज कि जब गुफ्तगू होने लगी...

The revelry continues. Daag continues to arrest me with his captivating words. The matla of today's ghazal also has been a FB status in the recent past. This ghazal is special because unlike the normal subject of the ghazal which centers around describing the beauty or pain of love, it talks about these sweet-sour moments of enmity between two people (in love). The couplets below caught my attention because of some quibble I recently had with a friend of mine. It goes unsaid that the lyrics are more appealing if you just have had a fight with someone or you hold animosity in your heart for someone. I sincerely hope that you don't find them as appealing as I did back then;). We will talk about a few shers from this ghazal today. The matla is as follows:

रंज कि जब गुफ्तगू होने लगी,
अाप से तुम, तुम से तू होने लगी।

I find worth mentioning two more shers...

चाहिए पैगामबर दोनो तरफ,
लुत्फ क्या जब दुबदु होने लगी।

Verbatim:

पैगामबर - messenger(s)
दुबदु - face to face.

The above couplet talks about how when you need to communicate with someone whom you have fought with, you involve others to exchange messages without directly speaking with each other face-to-face. It talks about how two people who are mad @ each other send messages to one another via some intermediary. It insists that one-on-ones are no fun.

मेरी रुस्वाई की नौबत आ गई,
उनकी शोहरत कुबकु होने लगी।

Verbatim:

रुस्वाई - bad mouthing/notoriety.
कुबकु - every place in the neighborhood/town.

The entire ghazal talks about this duel between two people. The expression of hostility is evident in all the couplets. Although, I have gotten past my temporary emotion of antipathy, its only human if some people tick you off the wrong way, you get mad at them. The ghazal beautifully captures this very human emotion and although it pertains to bickering between two people who like each other, it can be generalized to people who have just had a fight.

As for the musical framing of this ghazal, I have heard it sung by Ghulam Ali - the undisputed Badshah of Ghazal singing. The ghazal's set to an evening Raga Bhoopali. Although the normal mood of this raga is meditative, the lyrics of the ghazal, and the tuning of the instruments on this recording sets the tone for bitter emotions. Ghulam Ali is always a master-act and is particularly adept at singing specific words from the Ghazal so as to bring out the emotions adherent to the meaning. If you hear him carefully, you would notice that with his singing he adds such nuances (to the words) that one can literally feel the emotion behind the couplet. He has done that beautifully here as well. Worth mentioning is the various ways in which he sings Ranj, to indicate aversion. Do take a listen to this one; I am sure you would find other versions online, if not, buzz me up and I will share with you the version I have.

--Sifar.

p.s. Please listen to this without having a need to fight with someone ;).

Confessions of a mochaholic

I am a self-confessed mochaholic. Every weekend that I am in town, I visit the local mocha-bar and revel in the ecstasy of the drinks served at the local brewery. Sifar starts off this post confessing to his Starbucks addiction, but won't dwell on it for long. He wants to take his readers from the wasted monotonicity of travelogues (the last three posts) to the aroma of a freshly pressed Sher-a-latte. As I write in third-person I must mention I do owe this style to a lot of characters from Scrubs...remember the TOD and Cole from the new episodes?

Btw IMHO the new Scrubs is quite a cheap let down compared to the classic and although Bill Lawrence clearly states that the ninth season should be considered a totally new series (Scrubs Med. School), the producers ABC is having a hard time to let go off the original series title amid the omens of losing viewership (owing to the exodus of Zach Braff and Judy Reyes, two of shows main casts).

Today's Sher-a-latte is centered around a long due critique of Daag. I have been suffering from Daagmania over the past few weeks and unlike the vanilla suffering, this has been a blessing. I was blessed with an opportunity to listen some very good couplets, revisit some which I didn't know were Daag's. Daag Dehlvi was an Urdu poet who lived in the 19th Century. Urdu poets usually have a nom de plume (takhallus in Urdu) and Daag had his. Nawab Mirza Khan hailed from Delhi and was probably referring to the pain, the strife, the taint, the grief he had in his life and thus wrote under the pseudonym Daag Dehlvi. A lot of his ghazals have been sung by notable singers like Mehdi Hassan, Ghulam Ali.

Today, we will talk about two of his couplets. I have no idea which parent ghazals these shers belong to. The first one I want to tie back to the title of the post and we"ll analyze in the Sher-A-Day form. I first heard it in a rare audio recording of Dr. Vasantrao Deshpande expressing his views on Urdu Poetry:

ज़ािहद शराब िपने दे मसज़िद में बैठ कर
या फ़िर वो जगह बता दे जहाँ पर खुदा नही ।

Verbatim:

ज़ािहद - follower, priest.

Literatim:

O' priest, let me drink in the mosque,
or else tell me a place where there is no god.

Discussion:

Clearly this sher is centered around the omni-presence of God. It challenges the very institution of a "temple". It asks questions of these ardent followers of god, who go to the temple and pray thinking that God would forgive them of all their worldly sins and help them overcome the hurdles in life. The very fact that god is ubiquitous, begs the question, how can a pious person commit all these sins during his day-to-day life and yet when within the confines of these so called temple-places, pretend to be all devout and ethical and can get away with asking for forgiveness. He cannot. The sher while making a mockery of the classical idea of worship asks of individuals to stay pious, committed on taking the high road, and hold themselves to higher moral standards in all walks of their lives. A gem of a couplet; I wonder if my interpretative liberties do any real justice to it; but then so is true with any poem. The "artha" of the poem is totally up to the reader's discernment. While the verbatim meaning is straightforward and poses an impasse for the priestly clan, in my opinion this sher has sarcasm written all over it.

The second sher, I am sure has been heard by everyone in one form or the other. I heard it for the first time in my 10th grade Hindi class during Summer vacations. Our tutor, Mr. Dubey was an un-assuming character who wore Premchand, Harivanshrai Bacchan and the likes on his sleeves. For the teenagers within us, his couplets and knowledge of literature were awesome things to hang on to, so we could listen to them and show-off using them on the first chance we got to. One fine summer afternoon, while teaching Godaan or something similar from our Hindi text books, he blurted it out of nowhere. It had a tremendous impact on my then teenaged mind and taught me how easy/difficult it is to overcome a tragedy that is love. I am pretty sure I didn't understand what love was back then, but the notion did seem appealing. So here is the couplet:

तू है हरजाई तो अपना भी ये तेॊर सही,
तुम नही अेॊर सही, अेॊर नही, अेॊर सही।

This one is a classical break-up couplet. It talks about the lover who is shattered by his paramour leaving him(her). The harsh reality of a relationship failure strikes hard, but is soon transformed into care-free thoughts. The heart-broken dude or dame (well it hardly happens with girls; their gestation period of moving on is typically a little longer than guys) is ready to move on and knows for sure that there will be others who would come along the way. The lover convinces himself that there are others out there and his love isn't worthy of being trampled over by the unfaithful and rash acts of his "ex". I am sure a whole chunk of us can relate to these lines and have heard them or used them at sometime or the other.

So here goes to all the people in love out there on v-day..hang on to what you got, and treat them with utmost TLC and make them feel special, else rest assured that sooner or later they will move on.

--Sifar.

From Tea To Spirituali-Tea

Ok, So I lied in one of my earlier posts when I said, I would cover my South India trip in two segments. I am going to do it in three. The five day trip was so happening that a couple of posts won't and don't do justice. Also, since I decided to make it a phlog (photo-blog), the previous two posts, got really long and IMHO got a tad outta hand to keep the reader hooked. I will try to wrap things up here and spare the readers. I am going to take you all on a journey from the land of tea to the land of spirituality.

A worker at the tea plantations

With the hope of making it to our evening flight out of Cochin covering as much as possible, we started our Friday early. The original plan was to start early at 6.30 am, visit Eravikulam National Park for couple of hours, have brunch in Munnar, see Attukal waterfall and Spice Gardens, then head towards Cochin and stop at Kalady on the way.

Due to some logistical fiasco on the previous day, we couldn't start that early and had to skip Eravikulam. We hit the road at 8.30 am and drove into town of Munnar to hit Sarvana Bhavan for the morning breakfast. After the pet-pooja (that's a desi slang for eating), we headed towards Attukal water-falls. 2 kms away from the water-fall, we stopped; there it was - right in front of us in all its magnificence. A clear large stream of water jumping down with full-force into the tea-valley below. A couple of pictures later in the interest of time, we decided to abort the visit and turned back towards Adimaly in the hope of spending more time at the Spice Gardens.

We made it to the Spice Gardens (these are right after one leaves the town of Adimaly) around 10.30-11.00 to be welcomed by our tour guide with a lot of enthusiasm and warmth. He was very informative and knowledgeable and also eager to learn names of various spices in Marathi and other languages.

Cardamom

We saw a variety of spices, from the common-place ones like ginger, cloves, cardamom, and pepper to the exotic ones like nut-meg, ajwain; the place had it all. There were also the beverage garnishes like cocoa, vanilla, cinnamon, almond etc. We were treated to some ponsettia, some bonsai pineapples, bananas, oranges and the likes.

After taking a walk thru' the garden for almost some 3 quarters of an hour, we were introduced to the literal mistress of spices. The Bachhan Bahu can feel jealous; this one was genuine. She was the gardener, the care-taker, and the de-facto marketer of the produce of these gardens. This lady was sweet, homely, and communicated with us in Malayalam with a broken English touch. She was so convinced that we could understand her, and spoke with extreme zeal that none of us had the heart of pointing it to her that she was lost in translation. She explained all the products she had; the herbs, the spices in excruciating detail from their use to their seasonal availabilities. I think we ended up getting some Vetiver body scrubs from her in addition to an assorted spice basket.

Bonsai Pineapple

The spice gardens were our final stop-over in the Nilgiri hills; we wanted to get back to Cochin in time for our flight and more importantly early enough to have time to visit Kalady. Kalady is the birthplace of Adi Shankara. Shankara [788 CE - 820 CE] was one of the key medieval saints of Hinduism; a leading proponent of the Advaita philosophy of Vedanta. I am not going to dwell too much on his life and his works; but the foundation of four mathas (peethams) based on the four canonical Sanhitas; the four Vedas definitely deserves a mention. For the curious reader, wikipedia has a comprehensive bio on him.

What I would instead encourage readers of the blog to do; is to make a trip to Kalady and these four peethams. Kalady, the janmabhoomi of Adi Shankara is a very holy place for the Hindus; the birthplace of the foremost Gurus of monistic system of Hindu philosophy. His proposed central tenets of Vedantic philosophy; more specifically Advaita, were later propagated and followed by great philosophers and spiritual leaders of modern India like Ramakrishna Parmahamsa, Swami Vivekananda, Aurobindo Ghosh, Vinayak Savarkar. While at the Janmabhoomi sthan, we worshipped at the Sapta Devi temple (I don't remember the names of the Devis :( ), a Ganesh temple, Shankara's janma sthanam, and the Samadhi sthan of Aryamba (Shankara's mother). There is a lamp post right next to Aryamba's samadhi which dates back to Shankara's time. This lamp post served as a key archaelogical evidence to identify that Shankara's birth place was indeed Kalady.

Outside of the confines of the Janma sthanam, less than a mile away right across from the bus-station is the Adi Shankara Keerti Stambha. This is an exquisite structure which portrays Shanakara's life pictorially. We knew very little about Shankara's life and his work and these beautiful murals went a long way to enlighten the ignoramuses within us.

Spiritually soothed and culturally enriched, we left Cochin for Aamchi Mumbai...

Lovers For Tea And Tea For Lovers

Munnar, etymologically the place of confluence of three (munu) rivers (aaru) is a hilly town in the Idukki district of Kerala. With its sprawling tea estates, beautiful rivers videre licet Muthirappuzha, Nallathanni and Kundaly, beautiful spice gardens, dams, water-falls, and national reserves, Munnar boasts of an entire spectrum of nature.

View Enroute Thekkady Road From Munnar

Taking the train from KK, we reached Ernakulam by noon. After waiting on our pick-up for almost an hour, and after atleast half a dozen vociferous phone conversations, we managed to find Shaji - who would be our driver-und-guide for the next three days. Shaji was a Kerali Christian, who couldn't speak anything much beyond Malayalam. His English was passable and his Hindi better than his English...Imagine that. We would often communicate in Hinglish and cause each other exasperation. Over the three days there were quite some funny moments, trying to overcome the linguistic hurdles.

After a good lunch at seemingly upscale restaurant called Dwarka (or something similar), we headed towards Munnar. En route, we stopped at Kothamangalam for some coffee, and began our drive into the Nilgiri night. After a good 6 hours of driving from Cochin, we finally reached Munnar's Hotel Silver Cloud. The hotel was more of a set of honeymoon suites (or at-least that's the general feeling I got) located right across from Fort Munnar some 15 odd miles beyond the town of Munnar en route towards Thekkady. The drive at night was scary with the ghat roads being very narrow at times allowing only for a single vehicle to pass. With the windows rolled down however, one could smell the exotic spices, and tea aromas while driving thru' the beautiful country.

The hotel was ill-staffed and although the host there was very humble and cordial, things were slow as far as service was concerned. After waiting on our dinner for almost 2 hours, we finally slept off at midnight. The next morning after a breakfast of Idlis and Appam, we started our sight-seeing expedition. On our way to the town of Munnar, we made arrangements for the famed Kerala Ayurvedic massage to get rid of our travel-fatigue.

The beautiful sunny morning came out with a clear message - Munnar is a place for "Lovers". Honeymooners, newly married folks, married folks trying to re-ignite the sparks, families who love each other, nature lovers, lovers of tea, everyone can come here and have a great time.

Periakanal Water Falls

A touristy stop by the Periakanal Water Falls (aka Power House Water Falls??) on the way to the town; we were treated to honeymooners posing in a myriad different romantic ways each wanting their share of shutter-time under these falls. A few clicks down, we hurried our way into the heart of the town leaving behind the Sita Devi lake and Attukal waterfalls as To-Do items for the next day.

A quick swing by the KTDC office and we had all the maps and materials needed to prioritize our visit. We started off by a trip to the Tea Museum. Here, visitors are treated to a good 45 minute long presentation video about the history of tea plantations in Munnar. The video talks about how the tea plantations and the development around them has helped Munnar flourish as a tourist and a commercial town, yet maintaining the sanctity of the nature in this area.

Tea slopes near the Lockhart Gap

The Kannan Devan Hills Plantation is the single largest tea company in the area previously owned by the British traders and then handed over as a privately owned company largely owned by the workers in the plantations.

Water Lily at the Tea Museum

The legacy was then handed over to the Tatas who rejuvenated the industry until finally handing the reigns over to the workers who make this all happen. So today as it stands, the KDHP is a flourishing privately owned tea business (majorly owned by its workers).


Spending almost a couple of hours at the tea museum, understanding the tea-making process , and a live demonstration later, we headed for some much needed lunch. The meal of the day was a Gujarati thali (yes yes yes Gujarati thali in Munnar) with a variety of offerings including theplas, khichadi, kadhi and other traditional gujju fanfare. It was a welcome change for our now southie stomachs. The afternoon was spent visiting Kundala and Mattupetty dams.

Kundala Dam

These are very picturesque locations a true shutter-bugs' delights; each offering a plenty of romance.

Wide-Angle View Of Kundala Dam

Although we didn't do the boat-rides (thought that was the honeymooners-only activity), we had plenty of glimpses of the water nearby...

Cloud covered silver mountains, clear blue waters, beautiful green trees and perfect temperatures to go with; the afternoon excursion was totally worth it.

Mattupetty Dam

The evening was spent lazing around in the beautiful flower gardens of Munnar. For the life of me, I can't recollect the name of this garden. I kept correlating the flora in this garden to the famous Duke Gardens in Durham all the time I was there. The flowers were beautiful, vivid and fresh. God has indeed blessed this place with weather and nature that very few other places exhibit.

Flora at Flower Garden

After enjoying the flora for about an hour, we started our way back towards our hotel. Snacks were enjoyed at Saravana Bhavan (in Munnar) in the classic south-indian style. Sated by the delicacies, yet tired from the day's sight-seeing, we were looking forward to our evening massage appointment. We reached the place at dusk amid some i-dunno-where-it-came-from rain. It was a decent down-pour which had forced the power to be shut-off. The ambient light emanating from oil-lamps and healthy scents of the various massage oils set the scene for a relaxing massage. The full-body ayurvedic massage was a heavenly experience; needless to say its amongst the few must-dos in Kerala.

We retired for the night after a homely dinner of tomato-rice, curd-rice, and rassam. The spicy details await us the next day...

The Postcard(s) That Reached Late

Sifar is back to his figurative third place. The aroma of cappucino and the soothing lounge music never fails to release the right chemicals to actuate blogging. In my vain attempt to maintain a blog continuity, and to keep my promise to write about the rest of my India trip, I am going to take you to god's own country with me (in a short series of two posts). Wow, that did NOT come out right. I almost sounded like the archangel, St. Michael, from above, ready to carry a soul separated from its body to St. Peter's gates. For those curious about the mythology of the orient, I sounded like "Yamadoot".

Any how, by god's own country I mean Kerala. The entire state is very beautiful, clean, and well maintained by the government and more importantly, the locals. During this year's annual pilgrimage to India, I insisted on experiencing the vibrant cultural fabric of India than just spending time home lazing around. With that brain-wave, began the planning to visit Kanyakumari and Munnar. We landed at Trivandrum by an early morning flight from Mumbai and after spending a very short time flirting with the beautiful clear waters of the Kovalam beach, headed to KK. One thing to clarify here (which never occured to me before visiting KK) is that KK is actually in Tamil Nadu and not Kerala. After checking into our hotel in KK, we had a late lunch and headed towards Gandhi Mandapam to watch the sun set.

KK is the southern most tip of India, the land of triveni sangam (the place where three seas/oceans meet), the bhoomi of Kanya Devi, the place of Vivekananda's meditation and memorial, and lastly a touristy place with lots of people. After taking the pulse of the streets of KK and a few good pictures of the sun set from the viewing point, we headed to get some delicious filter coffee that South India is so famous for among other things. Alas, KK is so commercialized now, that the local guys sell Bru and Sunrise for 7/10 bucks a tiny cup and no filter at all.

We also made a walk down towards the temple area, to get a glimpse of the Vivekananda memorial and the Thiruvallavur statues. The calm, serene breeze and the pleasing temperatures provided for a magnificient evening mood that was meditative and introspective. Some places have an aura about them, they just engulf your soul providing for a divine experience - KK is definitely one of them.

After an unsuccessful raid on the filter coffee front, and a good quiet half hour watching the blissful sight of Vivekananda memorial at night and gaping into the open seas ahead of us, we went back to our hotel for dinner and dozed off early to get up at 4.30 am the subsequent morning.

We had our eyes set on getting to watch the rising sun, but the primordial light deprived us of the ecstasy by conspiring with the dark clouds nearby. After a disappointing walk back to the hotel, we got ready and headed towards the KK temple. A couple of hours of hustle bustle among the "Swamis" of Sabrimala, we finally managed to take "darshan" and headed towards the Vivekananda memorial. A word of caution for people trying to visit KK, Dec/Jan are NOT good months to visit, cos the place is full of people doing the Sabrimala pilgrimage. I was hoping that KK would be a relaxing, enlightening experience, but the hordes of crowds made it more of a ruckus for the most part.

Spending two hours or more each in long queues for the ferries at Vivekananda rock and Thiruvallavur statue, we finally made it back by 3.00 pm. The USPs of these two sites were the memorial itself, a large statue of Vivekananda, a quiet meditation room, a sun-dial, and watching the Triveni Sangam (the place where the Bay of Bengal, The Arabian Sea, and the Indian Ocean meet).

One thing that Kerala has to offer in plenty like any other coastal place, is the sweet coconut water, and we had it aplenty to keep us hydrated thru' the southern heat. After a late lunch and an equally late siesta, we headed to the Suchindram temple which is about 12 kms from KK.

The Suchindram temple is exquisite in its architecture and boasts a 22 feet Hanuman statue made out of a single stone. The temple was humungous and carried loads of beautiful sculptures and idols, each with scrupulous attention towards carvings and art. An abhishek at the hanuman mandir and a few more delightful pictures down, we headed back to KK and stopped at the Vivekananda Ashram on the way. As ill-luck would have it, the ashram wasn't hosting the usual exhibition on Vivekananda's life - we were treated to a sign-board that said "Exhibition closed on Tuesday evenings". Like all other things that we blame on misfortune, we took that in our stride and instead focused on buying some books on spirituality. Tuesday ended with a quiet night at the hotel and early submission to bed to catch the early morning train to Cochin...Munnar here we come.

--Sifar