Moments

Election fever in the world's largest democracy. There is euphoria and hysteria in the air. Heated emotions and filthy language. And innumerable BREAKING NEWS. Who said what and who countered it is the tagline on most TV news channels. Most of it is the norm these days. After all, 24 hrs news means every bit (or is it called sound bite) of political activity is tracked by cameras (may be mobile ones too, as shown in "What an Idea Sirji"). What is new this election season is the use of social media. Hordes of staunch supporters, or you can say warring rivals, of BJP and AAP flooding the Facebook News Feed with arguments For and Against. And news material posted left right and center. Mostly unverified. Or simply created by the party loyalists to feed the hunger of the supporters who are in dire need of material proof to win a brownie point. That too with a guy who you have added as "Friend" in FB. It shows the amount of political interest in the middle class...

March 29, 2014 The last weekend of March was a long one with Ugadi holiday on Monday. And its the perfect time for a trip in South India, just before the summer heat gets in. Madikeri, popularly known as Coorg or Kodagu, is the closest long weekend outing destination. And most probably the one to top the list of must-see places around Bangalore. So we decided that let Coorg be the first of our outings with our kid, who just finished 9 months in this world. Many people discouraged us from travelling with the kid as it is never easy to stick to the timings in your itinerary. Also there is fear of kid falling sick due to travel and change of weather. But I should say, we had good confidence in our sweet daughter, who has surely gotten our travel genes. She was the first one wake up and get ready for the trip! We - me, SL, VG, and my in-laws - started from Horamavu, Bangalore at 6AM. Early start is helpful in beating the city traffic at Bangalore and all other small towns that com...

October 25, 2013 3 days before I got an email from my manager in US asking me to travel to California for a week for a meeting. Initially it was good news as I had not visited US for more than 2yrs. So it would be good to see folks in the office and meet my cousin at Los Angeles - that is always on my itinerary to USA. But this time I was little sad too. My daughter is going to come to Bangalore for the first time on Sunday. And I wouldnt be here to receive her. :-( After many rounds of checking possible routes with low airfares, I finally decided on BLR-HKG-SFO and SFO-LAX-HKG-BLR on return. The good part in this itinerary was I have a stop over of 13hrs at Hong Kong on the onward journey. Googled all the must-see places in Hong Kong. Got some info from a friend who had travelled via Hong Kong  many times. Jotted down a possible itinerary (probably the first time I have ever done that). I reached HKG at by Cathay Pacific flight at 11AM. Half an hour delay mea...