Sunset at Juhu Beach

It’s been a while
a while feels like ages

Eyes have been looking
been looking for you

I knew I’d notice
I’d not miss

For I have been waiting
been waiting for this

I want to tell you
tell you how it feels

And I have no doubts
Yes Baby, it’s You

- Akky

Solo flights - Paragliding at Kamshet Oct'08 (Photo Courtesy: Rajsekhar Aich)

Light on my feet,
I am ready to fly
Not born with wings,
But I have the zest to try

I am not afraid to fail,
I am not shy
I belive in me and
I m the one who wants to fly

- Akky

P.S: Re-phrasing the moments while I was preparing for my first solo flight :)

Update: Kunal sent me this video of my first flight. Yaaay!

Baby V & Akky

For a moment,
I was lost in another moment.

In that moment,
I lived a thousand moments.

The next moment,
I was back in the moment.

Now for a moment,
I again wanted to get lost in that moment.

Alas, I had found that moment,
Now how could I again get lost in that moment?

- Akky

P.S: Liked this one? Just for fun you should also check “The Moment” which has a totally different flavor. Would love to hear back from you. Click here to browse through few others. You may also like the Quote-Unquote series.

Windscreen on a rainy day in Philadelphia

For a moment,
I was lost in another moment.

In that moment,
I lived a thousand moments.

- Akky

P.S: Liked this one? Just for fun you should also check the “Parody of a Moment“. Click here to browse through few other rhymes. You may also like the Quote-Unquote series.

You cant describe great cosmic significance to a simple earthly event. Coincidence, thats all anything ever is, nothing more than coincidence. There are no miracles. There is no such thing as fate. Nothing is meant to be.

500 days of summer

Having spent the last 3 years working with startups either contributing as a part of a team or  founding one, I can categorically state that there are many dull and not so interesting tasks that need to get done. This is against the accepted notion that working with startups is all about doing interesting kick-ass work.

Over the last two years I have grown from thinking of doing only interesting work to making work more interesting. Although, there is a subtle difference in the wording the latter is more powerful and puts you in control. You reserve the opportunity to choose your own attitude towards your work and thats what works the best.

Recently, reading “Fish! A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results” reinforced this thought process for me. The book is a parable which draws from the success story of the Pike Place Fish Market in making their work more interesting.

Take a look at how the workers have fun at the fish market throwing fish around and bystanders cheering them all the way:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1502441/

What makes me write this?

One reason was I just finished reading the book a couple of weeks back but its not the only reason. Three days back I was discussing about work with a friend of mine, lets call him PS. PS has completed his MS this summer and now has joined the technology wing of an investment company. With an year of prior experience in a IT company and completion of his MS I thought the company that recruits him would have a specific role for him and he could start contributing directly. This wasn’t to be true and took me by surprise. He would be undergoing a 3 month training program on C, Unix, Java and other technologies and would be inducted by one of the projects in the company. I was stupid enough to ask him, “You still don’t know the work or project that you will be assigned to, how do you feel about it?” He said, “I am sure I would love the work that I will be assigned to!“

Lake Raleigh - (click to see the bigger version)

Trails could reach places
But the road couldn’t

Woods were dark and motionless
But the birds weren’t

Ripples travelled far and wide
But the water didn’t

Time passed and skipped beats
But the moments didn’t

Life will take a turn and shall try to move on
But thankfully the memories won’t

- Akky

P.S: Liked this one? Would love to hear back from you. Click here to browse through few others. You may also like the Quote-Unquote series.

Parktowne Place Apts - Linx Cafe, Philadelphia

I sat
Time flew
It took me
9^1/2 hours behind.
- Akky

Today, I shall be conducting a session on ‘Web Applications’ for faculty from various colleges attending the Short Term Traning Program on Web Engineering at Don Bosco. I have been told that there would be close to 45 faculty members and I am really excited. Primarily because I have always found faculty members to be more curious and eager to learn than students. I had also received some very good response and feedback the last time.

Embedded is the presentation I have made for the session. Feel free to comment and leave your feedback (…although it would make little sense without commentary from *yours truly* ;)

Background:
This is a real™ video of me shot by Sankool while we were traveling back home in a local train. I had pulled an all-nighter the previous night and was probably a reason for inducing this jig. This video is old but still never fails to amuse me :)

April has arrived. OMG! Yes, its already April. But it just feels like last week I had a blast celebrating the arrival of 2009. I am making this post as a reminder to myself and to relive some of the interesting moments in the first quarter of 2009.

January

KFC Ice Cream Sundae

Homemade tasty Aloo Parathas

Celebrated the New Year in Powai by the lake side. After relishing on some crunchy chicken at KFC we headed to the Powai lake alongwith the Ice-cream Sundaes their combo with the homemade Aloo parathas was just perfect.

SocialSync Whiteboard - makes sense?

January, also began on a very interesting note for SocialSync. We had the opportunity to discuss some investment opportunities and set our milestones for the next few months.

Standard Chartered Full Marathon 2009

Running and completing the Standard Chartered Mumbai Full Marathon was another big high. I must say here that unlike the last time when I ran the half marathon I was a tad bit smarter. Although, I did practice for the Marathon and was pretty regular back in September/October 08; I lost momentum and form as December arrived and by mid-December I was in a very bad shape. It was around early January that I made up my mind to run the Marathon smartly by re-accessing the situation based on my limited practice. A few more practice runs and I started feeling better. On the day of the Marathon I feel I did a fabulous job of recognizing my limitations but stretching them enough to complete the Marathon.

February

February was in its true sense an eventful month.

I finally made a trip to Bangalore. Overall I kinda liked the city; wide roads, footpaths on both the sides of the road :),
parks, pleasant weather and row houses. Public transport is bad and very costly at times.

Felicitation at Bangalore Airport

The first day was really long and now I sincerely hope it had never ended – all thanks to the fantabulous escort. Walking the streets of Bangalore and discussing Haute Couture to some unheard and for some unimaginable interpretations of God idols would remain etched in my memory for ages. God save God. Need I say, there was a tomorrow and then yesterday was just memories to treasure.

Yahoo Open Hack Day 2009

I won the ‘Best socially mobile hack’ at the Yahoo Open Hack Day 2009 !!! OYeah!

Me at Yahoo Open Hack Day 2009

Yo! Anil Wadghule

Yahoo Hack Day 2009 - Xen and The Thinking Mind

David Filo, the co-founder of Yahoo had come down specially for the event and was also one of the judges. You would probably not even notice his presence in a crowd of 10 people; he speaks less and comes through as a honest and humble person. The event was very well organized and the atmosphere was ecstatic. I won a 8GB 2nd gen iPod touch for my hack and believe it or not I gifted it to my brother; I am sure he would make much better use of it. The event wouldn’t be complete if I don’t happen to mention Anil who had come down from Pune; and we code jammed all night. I just slept for less than an hour sometime in the morning the next day after I had done justice to the idea I had chosen to work on. Staying up late and writing code comes oh so naturally to me – so I feel I had an unfair advantage among the 300+ hackers who participated.

RangDe - Akshay & Pavan

Pavan having a comfy ride

While in Bangalore I stayed at Prayas‘ place. Being with him is always enriching and thoughtful. Add to it having a blast with his son Pavan (in pic above) and some spiritual discussions with the grasshopper.

The highpoint of Bangalore was meeting some very interesting people and teams working on refreshing ideas

March 

March started off with a lot of excitement. Sushma maasi (aunt) and BabyV (Varsha) were going to come down to Mumbai. I am sure you must have heard of Varsha from me before or read about her on this blog before.

Varsha - Miss Photogenic

I ended my last blog post on her, wishing she remains as crazy as last time and may be shes taken it seriously :) Good for me, I still can play pranks on her!

On our way to Pawna Dam - Lonavala

On one of the weekends Mom, Maasi, Varsha and me drove to Lonavala. The drive was just fantastic. This was also my first time on the Mumbai – Pune Expressway which was a treat in itself. What worked for us was we didn’t have a long itinerary to follow for the trip; we were just looking for a weekend break. On the first day we visited the Karla Caves in the afternoon and later in the evening witnessed the beautiful sunset at Rajmachi point

Sunset at Pawna Dam - Lonavala

The next day we got up late, had a late lunch and headed straight to Pawna dam. The drive to Pawna dam was exciting with steep slopes and blind curves. The lake, boating, the ducks, peacocks and the sunset was just the perfect setting for spending ones Sunday evening. No doubt it inspired me to write this few weeks back.

The last two weeks of the quarter were great fun too. We made some terrific progress on the SocialSync community platform all thanks to Pavan.

The Inspirational - Y Combinator

YC is an inspiration. It took me close to two years to finally take the leap and submit a application – you know I wouldn’t do it if it weren’t for the right purpose, right team, right idea and right time. And this time the summer cycle is taking place in the Bay area; now isn’t that reason enough ;)

Engaged or Married? - Sorry, April Fool :)

Now how could I sign-off without letting you guys know of a very interesting tale. Last week I ended up playing a prank; or rather my friends just drew into it. I ended up uploading the above pic of me and my sister Mamta on Orkut *without* any captions. Within the next 36 hours I was flooded with 15 comments, 5 scraps, 3 calls, 2 SMSs and 1 email – all congratulating me and asking me whether I got ‘married or engaged?’. The timing inadvertently was so right that I didn’t have to scout for a April Fool’s prank ;)

Wrapup

Finally, I am myself amazed of how eventful this quarter has been. Sometimes it makes sense just to take a breather and look back at one’s journey; and this is what I did. Feels good now! I really would like to thank each and everyone mentioned/missed above to make this special for me. I am really looking forward for the next quarter and you can sure expect me to get back and cover it up for you :)

Close to two weeks into the new year and not a single post! Unfortunate but not sad. Things have been chaotic but not totally out of control. Sometimes its fun just to observe chaos as is.

If you are reading this or you have been continuously checking back for updates which you haven’t found then I really apologize for it. I would really appreciate if you leave a quick comment so that I know you were around. Many thanks and have a splendid 2009! Happy New Year :)

Before I go to sleep I am trying to remind myself of what I was missing all this while. The adrenaline of adventure, the energy from the rising sun, the stillness of the lake, the calm of the setting sun, the chill in the late night breeze and the quiet of night. Oh, hell yeah! I dearly missed all of this. Revisiting all this in a single day has been a treat.

Goodnight to me, sweet dreamzzzZZZ!

Finally, I have been able to take a ‘Power Break’ from work! Power Break is essentially similar to what a ‘Power Nap’ is for sleeping. More important you don’t loose grip over your work and come back more focussed. I will be spending this weekend at The Native Place. More updates coming your way soon.. ;)

I feel I am free, albeit for a moment. If only I could tell you all how occupied I have been especially for the last two weeks. Its been really crazy. Now that I have checked off the 3 longest standing items on my todo list, I really feel relieved. By coincidence it also happens to be our Independence Day :)

Are you really interested in knowing those 3 items? Aha.. nope, I surely don’t want to pin them up here to be reminded of them again.

By the way I was just wondering why does August tend to be a crazy month year after year. You remember last year? I don’t know.

Few hours back I was watching this documentary on Nat Geo of 3 guys deciding to walk the whole Great Wall of China from its South Western tip till the Pacific. Thats close to 4500 km and a temperature shift of -40*c to +40*C (Gobi Dessert). Real crazy isn’t it? At the end it was just one guy who made it till the end and it took him 15 months. Other notably fascinating documentaries that come to my mind were finding the source of the Amazon river and locating the mystical place Shangri-La. Those guys finally stood by a puddle and pointed to it as the source of the Amazon, the world’s largest river by volume. I would sure like to do something like that… anyone have ideas? Not sure why? but I am longing for a true vacation already. Come December and I have some exciting plans, though can’t wait that long;)

(Click on the above image to browse the complete album)

What to change?
Simply put I would like to start getting up early (be in the early riser group) and see if it affects me positively. Do you feel the same?

Is something wrong without it?
No, in fact I can go without it. Currently, I consider I have a schedule which allows me to put in the requisite amount of hours in my work and other activities that I want to indulge in. Overall I am happy with the pace of things and I have learnt to avoid the areas which produces the guilt feeling.

I will give you a small example here: Now the ideal time to go for a run/jog is early morning. I have tried my hand at it numerous times and finally settled at time around 9 pm. Now, I wouldn’t say I failed in all the previous attempts because all the times I consoled myself rationally that it was not the right time *for me*. Sometimes saying to myself that ‘I need more sleep as I have slept late’, ‘I am not the early riser kind of person’, etc. Bottom-line: I decided that it shouldn’t make a big difference if I jog/run at evening/night plus I get to avoid that guilt feel of not being able to meet my goals. This has worked wonders for me. I have been able to do all the things I want to in the time I have and surprisingly without the guilt feeling of not waking up early. For all these years I have enjoyed working late nights. I Feel it comes naturally to me. I love the calmness of the night, I love its silence. I feel hitting all-nighters (here, here and so many times) is a trait which I am proud of and has benefitted me over the years.

So, why now?
Right from childhood this has always been in the back of my mind. I have tried but I have not stuck with it for various reasons (they may seem rational while hitting the snooze button but not any more). I want to give it one more shot and for the simple reason that I know I can. But, from my past learnings I also know I can come up with some rationale to avoid it and so this post and a call for everyone who wants to cultivate this habit. So, let not make it an individual struggle but a collaborative experience.

What’s the game all about?
Lets play this game as a team. Remember, together we can.

Format:

• We shall draft the rules of the game together. :) All of them should be personally acceptable to each of us participating.
• We play this game for a fixed time period (say 30 days)
• We won’t make it a closed struggle. We shall publish online our small victories (waking up on time on a particular day) and write about our big failures (not waking up on time on some day)
• Seek active advice from people and allow anyone to comment of scold us if we don’t act by the rules.
• We shall not give up unless we are out of the game (you break the rules more than x times and you are ousted). Winners get accolades, looser feels the shame (but they can give it one more shot if they feel like and emerge as winners)

Hope you get the gist?

Vision
Is this only about getting up early? No, not at all. This is about change. This is a part of an un-named project that I am initiating (its yet to have a name and I am open to your suggestions, any?) Oh yeah, I can hear in the background cheers of… “yes we can, yes we can… ;)”

So are you game?
If you want to become an early riser than this is for you. Please leave a comment below or contact me on my email.

Updates

Barka and Anil have joined in :) Please give them a standing ovation (or better send them some words of appreciation in comments below. Pokes and vampire bites a strict no, lol)

For updates head straight to 42times project wiki project page:

• 30each

If you would like to join in, you can leave me a message below or contact us through the contact page on 42times project.

Take a closer look here on Wikimapia.

Akshay Surve said on Wednesday that he will not be part of the Olympic torch relay in New Delhi this week as … (I am sure you can imagine the rest of the story with references to Baichung, Aamir, Soha and now even Sachin.)

Media (specially, 24 hours news channels in India), please stop being elitist and flash the title of this post in your “Breaking News” section ;) You can also use my head shot with the news :)

Please, I hold the sentiments of everyone who have accepted or even declined the offer to run in the Olympic torch relay in high respect. This rant of mine is only targeted towards the media.

Bachao! Bachao!
I’ve heard whispers
- they are planning
to ravish me 2nite.
Bas tum mujhe
bacha sakte ho!
Tumhari aur sirf
tumhari, Kesari

What would you if you receive an SMS like this?

I have submitted an entry to the N2Y3 Mashup Challenge.

From the N2Y3 website:

The N2Y3 NetSquared Conference brings together a unique mix of people from the public and private sectors to develop and release Mashups designed to provide deeper insight into the social issues affecting communities around the globe.

I have proposed ‘SocialHub – Dashboard for Social Change‘.

Thought behind SocialHub:

If you think you do, when you do you should share because when you share you spread awareness and make people think.

SocialHub is all about aggregating the latest and most popular content from various social change initiatives (platforms, websites, blogs) together and create a dashboard for social change.

SocialHub will act as a starting point for you and me who want to keep themselves updated about the latest and most popular content related to effecting positive social change. In addition this will also be of great value to social change initiatives to be showcased and build traction among its constituencies.

Proposed Status:
This is at a concept level. I would also like to add that like a true mashup its best to hack a version 1.0 and follow it up with an iterative approach to build upon recommendations from the community.

Proposed Roadmap:

To achieve our goals plus build upon learnings from verticals like web2.0 and technology. I would like to propose an approach which is heavily borrowed from ‘popurls‘ and learnings from ‘techmeme‘ and ‘digg‘.

To start with we will feature the latest and most popular content from top websites in their categories. As we move on we will take into consideration click-through, social filtering, recommendations and personalization to leverage the long tail.

Project page at N2Y3 Mashup Challenge:

http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/socialhub

I would really appreciate if you could vote for my mashup entry provided you like it. Also do explore the Project Gallery which boasts around 120+ mashups.

Voting ends in the next 24 hours so you need to Hurry!!! (reads like a super-bumper offer).

Voting Rules:

1. Please register and log in to the NetSquared site.
2. Go to the project page. http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/socialhub
3. To vote for a project, click on the voting badge or “Add Project to Ballot” link at the top of the page.
4. You may only vote once for a project.
   You must choose at least 5 (and up to 10) of your favorite projects. So please visit Projects link to review project proposals from others. Your ballot will only count if you have atleast 5 projects.
5. Submit your ballot to cast your final votes. Once you SUBMIT, that’s it!

General Observation:

I was going through the mashup proposals in the Project Gallery and most of them (I am generalizing, but thats what I feel) were in BETA. Contrasting it with SocialHub I would say is at the Concept stage. So here are some encouraging words from the Netsquared team:

We want to help separate apples from oranges this year. That is, we believe projects at the ‘concept’ level would benefit from being evaluated separately from projects that are much further along. To this end, please identify which phase you believe your project is in

I would like to add that although SocialHub is in its ‘Concept’ state its very much hackable ;)

Thanks:

I did mail people who I thought would be interested in the mashup challenge for some feedback and support. It was good of some to revert back quickly in support. Thanks. I am still scouting for your views and feedback.

I agree I do a lot of egosurfing and its not just today that I have confessed to it. I have done so in the past.

Today, was just another day and I did what I love to do most on Google. Searched for “Akshay Surve” on Google and see for yourself.

Take a look at the screenshot attached below:

Those links below the first search result are called sitelinks. Here is what Google has to say about them:

The links shown below some sites in our search results, called sitelinks, are meant to help users navigate your site. Our systems analyze the link structure of your site to find shortcuts that will save users time and allow them to quickly find the information they’re looking for.

We only show sitelinks for results when we think they’ll be useful to the user. If the structure of your site doesn’t allow our algorithms to find good sitelinks, or we don’t think that the sitelinks for your site are relevant for the user’s query, we won’t show them.

At the moment, sitelinks are completely automated. We’re always working to improve our sitelinks algorithms, and we may incorporate webmaster input in the future.

The surprising bit here is that Google itself doesn’t have sitelinks under its search result (when I made this post). Google after all is the least SEO’d website ;)

“Seo By the Sea” has a very interesting article related to sitelinks and the patent related to Google’s listing of Internal Site Links.

I always thought that I was sound at White Hat SEO and understood it well. Looks like this would be a good addition to any SEO expert’s resume.

Now let me quickly share the reason I was pleasantly surprised. I was working on a master plan from the start of this year.

• Get to the top of search results for the query ‘akshay‘.
• Get my pics on Google when you search for ‘akshay‘.

The current one at the top is the Wikipedia page of Akshay Kumar. Defeating it would call for a celebration. Getting my pictures in search results at the top is going to be very difficult. Till then you could treat your eyes to Akshay Kumar’s pictures when you search for ‘akshay‘ on Google.

I started at number #10/11 around December/January. Now I am at #5 (here when I search for ‘akshay’, it may vary at your end depending on geographical location). Now I have got the sitelinks featured for akshaysurve.com which surely means Google is taking notice.

I never wanted to realize, what is sky,
I was happy knowing I could touch it someday.

I never wanted to realize, how far is the moon.
I was happy knowing he would come to greet me everyday.

I never wanted to realize, how big is this world.
I was happy knowing things around me is my world.

I never wanted to realize, what is rain.
I was happy knowing even God shed tears like me.

I never wanted to realize, what it is like to win.
I was happy knowing I will get to play one more time.

I never wanted to realize, what people expect from me.
I was happy knowing what I want for myself.

I never wanted to realize, what is right.
I was happy knowing things I wanted to do.

I never wanted to realize, all these things.
I was happy knowing nothing about them.

- Akky

Yes, I am as fit as I ever was (well almost)! Remember of my 4 week training for the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon 2006 – 21 km and the follow-up stunts which ensured that I couldn’t continue running for months. Later, I did try getting back to running but couldn’t continue on a regular basis.

So here I am back after a good run with an improved timing from a similar previous run before.

So, what next? Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon 2009 – 42 km. Looks like the Bandra – Worli Sea link may be part of the track. Anyone game?

“I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career.
I have lost almost 300 games.
On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed.
And I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is precisely why I succeed.”
- Michael Jordon

P.S.: I will be adding another stream to my website ‘Quote-Unquote’ where I will try to post some of _my pithy quotes_ ;) There will be some you must have already come across on I Am and some which I haven’t penned down before. Post frequency will be 1 in 2 weeks. Would you find it to be interesting? Post ‘+1′ in the comments if so.

Update: Thanks, guys. Here it is » Quote-Unquote

I still feel the same.

Was browsing through some of my older posts and came across this rhyme I posted nearly two years back which still holds true for me.

Would be interesting to know how many of you relate to this particular rhyme?

I had been on a hike to Dhak – Bahiri Caves in the Sahyadris. Though we planned it out as a short night trek it ended up being one hell of a long adventurous hike.

Amit, Mohit, Vikram, Varun and Me started off from Lonavala around 2:00 am at night. We lost our way initially in the city but the choukidars (watchmen) got us back on track. We had to reach Tungarli Dam and follow the trail half-way (approx 6kms) towards Rajmachi. Then take a right and hike towards Mansarjuma range. It took us 3.5 hours to walk in the moonlight with a couple of breaks in between to reach a place which looked like a village. It was breezy and so we though of sleeping for a couple of hours and hike the rest in daylight. We accidentally discovered a Hanuman temple while it was still dark and slept in it.

We got up by around 7:30am by noises around and so tried to figure out our location. We were at a village and it was good to know that we were still on the right trail. We also met another group which were asleep in a school nearby. They pointed us in the direction of Dhak vaguely and we took off so we could reach early. We were still 2.5 hours away from our base, Kondeshwar Temple.

What followed next was following a trail in the wrong direction for another 1.5 hours through the jungle. At a point we were totally confused and couldn’t find a distinct trail. It was then that I indulged in photographing wild flowers.

Finally, we decided to get back to the village and ask the villagers. We had already lost 2 hours, had 2 bread packs and just half a bottle of water. Back in the village, we understood where we missed the trail from the villagers and refilled our bottles. We thought of having breakfast and then continuing the hike. We had our bread with a generous serving of butter and moved ahead.

This time we were on the right trail. We could see the village, the dam, Rajmachi twin forts (Shrivardhan and Manoranjan) and a distinct trail most of the time. It was 11 by now and we were hiking in scorching heat. We followed the trail through the forest and finally got a glimpse of Dhak. There it was standing tall and a delight to our eyes after so long. Finally, we could see our destination and thus pull ourselves through rest of the hike.

–

–

Our next stop was the Kondeshwar Temple. We took rest in the temple for some time and started off for the final stretch. We had grossly miscalculated the time needed to get here. Initially, we were thinking of reaching Kondeshwar by 6am and now it was 12:45pm. The last ST bus service from Jambivali (nearest village) to Kamshet was at 6:00pm. So, we had to make sure that we reached the village by that time.

Most of the last stretch was through the jungle. Feels good to have vegetation to protect you from the sun.

Finally, we reached the point from where there is a steep descent to approach the Bahiri caves. After a 30 feet descent on the right you see a big cave which can accommodate atleast 30 people. From there crossing the rocks and climbing up leads you towards the Bahiri caves.

The path ahead looked dangerous. There was a clean fall of 80 feet of the left and the inclination was around 70 – 80 degrees throughout. The footing of the rocks was a few inches at most places. Me and Amit ventured ahead, others rested in the cave. Actually, they kept a close eye on our movement and guided us along the path when needed. It was 2:30 pm and the basalt rock was hot. No way could we support ourselves on the rock face. Our fingers had a burning sensation each time we took support on the rock. The climb was getting riskier. With no solid footing along the path stopping was not an option. We somehow got ourselves to safer location where we could stand on our feet without taking support from the rock. Next up was a vertical climb and then a rope climb to top it all. Because of the lack of water intake we were more susceptible to cramps. It was then that we decided that we better stop. Lets make another attempt, next time in the morning. Finally, it was a sane decision and we carefully got ourselves back to the cave where others were waiting.

Thats it! We headed back to the village and had some refreshments before hopping onto the ST bus to Kamshet. Journey back home was long (Kamshet – Lonavala – Kalyan – Slow train – Dadar – Borivali) and I reached home at 1:30am. All along the journey I had an incomplete feeling but the satisfaction of not doing something outrightly foolish.

All I want to say is, “I will be back ;)”

Click on the image below to look at the complete album:

E-Week India PLEDGE

If even one of the below resonates with you, please pledge:

Today, I renew my Pledge to an Entrepreneurial India.

I Will:

• Break barriers between industry and academia
• Foster information flow between the sectors
• Regularly include entrepreneurs, industrialists, investors and professionals in campus programs
• Find new and innovative ways for students to experience industry before graduation
• Facilitate faculty interaction with industry
• Work to bring the discoveries of the lab into society
• Innovate in my work
• Consider working for start up companies
• Stop complaining – and start fixing the problems and barriers to entrepreneurial growth
• Change my thinking from, “Why?” to “Why not?”
• Continue, always, to dream big and work to bring those dreams to reality
• Encourage and support others, so that we all might live in a richer, better India.

Take your Pledge here!

Saw “Valu – The Wild Bull”, a Marathi language film. I don’t remember the last Marathi film I saw in the theatre. Did I ever see one?

Valu is about a small village in Maharashtra, which finds itself in fear of a destructive wild bull. Two city officials arrive to catch the bull, which they find far more tricky than they anticipate. They travel with a documentary filmmaker from the city who films their mission. The camera interests and involves the village folk far more than cornering the bull. After many adventures of their own and with the village elders and inhabitants, they finally succeed. The film looks at village life on many levels, ranging from political rivalry, family tensions, forbidden love, all of which is observed with wit and subtlety. What emerges are aspects of the human mind: on one side a sense of curiosity, mystery, competitiveness and friendship, and on the other, abrasive egos, the blinkered one-sidedness of religion, and the tenacious will and need to survive.

Source: http://www.screenindia.com/fullstory.php?content_id=18673

Everyone of us liked the film. Lakshmikant also gave his mark of approval on the technicalities of the film.

Pros:

• Well defined characters and strong performances.
• Universal humor. More of situational and character based humor.
• Compact. Not even for a second did my mind wander away from the movie.
• Beautiful picturization. The village has been portrayed realistically.
• Relief. No fake looking enacting of popular Bollywood movies.

Promo of the movie:

View other promos.

A sure must see after Shwaas.