Alibag, Janjira and Kashid Trip from PUNE

19-Jan-2012

In evening, we started planning for 1 day beach trip by car, as my kids wanted to go to beach.

We finalized the map and plan. We looked at various websites to get an overview of the optimum time taken at various places. We thought of following plan

1) Leave Pune at around 6:00 am

2) Reach Murud by around 11:00 am (Google Map indicated 3.5 - 4 hours from Pune to Murud)

3) Go to Janjira and return back to Kashid at around 3:00 pm

4) Enjoy at Kashid beach and leave by around 5:30 pm and return back by 8:30 pm

20-Jan-2012 (Sunday)

Morning:

Me and my wife woke up at 5:00 am sharp as planned.

My 4 year son and 7 year old daughter also woke up "surprisingly" at 5:30 am without my efforts. Normally it takes 15-20 min for me to wake them. Probably the word "sea-beach" makes difference from "school" :)

Alibag beach

After getting fresh and having cup of tea, we started our journey at around 6:05 am by car. Didn't expect that I would be at right time :)

We got on expressway soon and quickly we reached Khopoli by around 7:15 am or so and whao!! reached Pen by around 8:00 am. Then we decided to take a tea-break and had some early breakfast just after Pen. The road was good and due to slight fog, there was very less traffic.

While having breakfast, we thought that we would reach too early and beaches are too good in the morning, so we changed our plan. We decided to move to Alibag first and then stay on beach for 2 hours and then cruise to Murud.

We started again at 8:20 am and reached Alibag at 9:00 am. Alibag is a nice place.. There are lots of zig-zags to reach beach !!. It was Anti-pulse polio day and so my kid had "2 boond zindagi ki".

After parking the car, we all ventured into the sea and played there a lot.

We got lots of garden tools, so my wife and daughter were pretty busy in making different kinds of castle :)

Queue at Murud for boat

By around 11:00 am, we left for Murud. It took nearly 1.5 hours to reach there. There was huge rush and many people were in queue to sit on boat. After nearly 3 boats had passed, we were lucky to get the boat and sat inside. My daughter/kid were traveling in the boat for the first time and they were enjoying "totally surrounded by sea".

Afternoon:

Finally, we reached Janjira fort at around 1:45 pm. We had already visited this fort few years ago and so we didn't need a guide. There was a person in the boat, who said that he would charge Rs. 40 per person and guide them about the fort. But nobody was interested. Even in the last, he asked us if we are interested, but we denied.

My daughter was interested in cannon, which were just above the gate and had some snaps.

Jaljira fort

I was telling her about the king/queen and the fresh pond lake. We had to catch the boat back again at 2:30 pm and after that we returned back to Murud. We had lunch "Maharastrian Thali", which was quite delicious. Then we moved to Kashid and reached there by evening 4:00 pm

Evening:

Kashid had totally changed. I last visited Kashid some 4-5 years ago and now there were many fun activities/club that had come up. There were good tides at 4:00 pm. So as expected, my daughter and son went into sea and enjoyed playing there.. My son was running behind tides and was informing him "No tide. This is not good manner. You should not touch me. You are good tide". At around 5:00 pm, we had to pull both kids out of sea, as I wanted to drive maximum in God's light. I planned to reach Pen by 6:30 pm or so.

I started from Kashid at 5:20 pm. But due to heavy traffic and narrow road, I could reach Alibagh by  6:05. Took a small tea/cold dring/petrol break and then continued towards Pen. OMG, it was highway and there were lots of cars/vans heading towards Mumbai.. It was too slow and due to few industries, trucks were also in queue. So we reached Pen by around 7:15 pm . Kids were already sleeping on the back seat of the car. From Pen we took road to ExpressWay (Khopoli) and then continued our journey to Pune. Finally we reached Pune by 9:45 pm. Took dinner and went to sleep quickly to be ready for Monday morning.

Thus we ended our 1 day trip successfully.

Few things that helped

1) GPS works. My wife's GPS phone was very helpful in deciding, if the route is correct

2) Some juices/quickly eatables stuff makes kid happy and makes journey better.

3) Google Maps :)

2 day trip to Ratnagiri, Ganpatipule from Pune - November 2010

As it was November time, we planned to go for beach this time. We had chosen Ganpatipule for the following reasons

• Good information was available on internet and one of my friend has visited few weeks earlier.
• I had already visited Divegar, Harihareshwar, Murud, Kashid and so I planned for something new.
• Google Map Zindabad

So we (me, my wife and 2 kids) planned a short trip to Ganpatipule (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganpatipule) on Saturday and come back to Pune (probably have dinner) on Sunday night. I wanted to have my cousin too along but he was not in Pune in this week.

Friday (19 Nov 2010)

I took some printout of maps and the various locations that could be visited in Ratnagiri and

Ganpatipule. Particularly the map and website http://sites.google.com/site/weekendtravelplans/ganapatipule was very helpful. I also saw that it would be around "full moon" and so tides would definitely be good during our visit to Arabian sea.

As it was just a day to leave, my wife did the preparation

• Home made cake
• Chips/Groundnut
• lots of cucumber
• 7-8 litres of water (with 1 kg chilled water early morning)
• Home made food vegetable
• Some toffees/chocolates
• Juices

We all slept by 10:00 pm in order to be awake by 4:30 am (alarm). We had planned to leave our home by around 5:30 am - 6:00 am in order to get very less traffic on highway

Saturday

Morning

My wife woke up early at 4:00 am and started preparing puris. I gave her minor help though :)

After getting fresh and cup of tea, we woke up our kids at around 5:30 - 5:45 am.

We left our home exactly at 6:00 am. We were on time.

We knew the route and decided to have the next stop (with petrol filling) nearby Satara.

So after around 2 hours of journey, after Satara, we took a (petrol)break and had tea. My kids were enjoying with various food items my wife had brought in the way itself. :)

By around 8:30 am (145 kms), we were at Umbraj. From Umbraj, we took a right turn to move towards the link road to Chiplun (on Mumbai-Goa Highway). Chipun is 90 kms from Umbraj. The link road is good enough just to have the speed of 40 kmph with few bad patches where we could not drive the vehicle even at 15 kmph. Anyways, I like enjoying driving and then, after crossing Patan, after a junction (45 kms from Umbraj), we turned left towards Chipun.

There are Kumbarli ghats and I decided my speed not to cross 40 kmph in turns. I myself violated it multiple times :). We saw monkeys on the ghat roads and my younger kid was seeing monkeys for the first time.

Around 10:30 am, we were at Chiplun. We took a short break of tea and puris (15-20 min). We bought a ball to play with on beach. After Chipul, we turned left towards Sagameshwar on Mumbai-Goa Highway and continued our journey.

Afternoon

By around 12:30 pm, we were just entering Ratnagiri. I stopped a person who helped me in identifying the proper route to various places. First we reached Thiba palace, a place where Burma king stayed for long time. It was not a big palace, but we still enjoyed the various sculptures of God and other things. We relaxed there a bit too. Next we planned to visit birthplace of Tilak (Tilakali). Birthplace of LokManya Gangadhar Tilak is a nice place. The person/guide showed us the various places. We had some snaps (as usual). I was feeling bit tired and also we didn't book any room before our departure. So then we decided to

proceed to Ganpatipule (around 30-45 min journey from Tilakali). We searched for a decent room and we got it in Ganpatipule inspite of heavy rush. We reached room at around 3:45 pm.

Evening

We all relaxed in the room getting some energy for beach in the evening. After having tea/snacks, we all proceeded to the sea-beach and reached there by around 4:45 pm. I thought that we were reaching bit early, but already there were hundreds of people on the beach !!

My kids enjoyed playing in the beach for long and they didn't want to come up. Forcefully, we had to pull our kids with promise of re-visiting the beach early in the morning. We thought that as the sun is set, it would be around 7. But amazingly we found that it was just 6:15 pm. We went back to our room and had bath and changed our clothes. At around 7:15 pm, we went to have our dinner at "Pure Vegetarian Restaurant" and we found a good place for dinner. We purchased few things like Ambapoli, which I saw on many websites and few other things. We all were very tired and by 9:30 pm, we all were asleep.

Sunday (21/Nov/2010)

Morning

We all were ready by 6:30 am to move to the sea once again. We washed our faces, because we wanted to visit the Ganpati temple first. We first visited the temple and then moved to sea. As I got little cold, I didn't venture much inside the sea. At 8:30 am, we took some snacks (poha/shira/misal pav/ vada pav/idli) at the hotel at sea-beach itself. Then we were back to our room in the lodge. We took bath and of course some rest. My kids were seeing the buffalo near to our room:). There were lots of papaya/banana/coconut trees. After again having a cup of tea, we checked out from the lodge at around 10:30 am and proceeded towards "Prachin Konkan". We cancelled our boating plan, as we do it regularly in Mahabaleshwar and Panshet (Pune).

We reached Prachin Konkan by around 11:00 am. We had already seen few pictures of Prachin Konkan and we knew that it was worth visiting once. They also allowed camera, which was great. Prachin Konkan is a good place where they have the models showing kinds of people during 5-6th century. More interesting were birds and masks in Prachin Konkan. We bought few wooden items for kids.

Afternoon and back to Pune

We had a good look At around 12:30 pm, we decided to move back to Pune. We first reached Niveli phata and then towards Chiplun.

Just before Chipul, at around 2:30 pm, we stopped at one good looking hotel to have some lunch and break. We for the first time, ordered "Maharastrian Thali". It was good one. We all enjoyed it (3:00 pm) and then we continued our journey towards Umbraj. We reached Umbraj at about 5:00 pm. We re-filled our car with petrol and then decided NOT to take official break, so that maximum driving is done in "God's" light. The speed was good (around 80-100 kmph). There were 2 toll nakas which took around 30 min :(

By around 8:00 pm, we were back to Pune. My wife prepared quick dinner and we all were sleeping at 10:00 pm.

It was good journey and the following things are important, if kids are along :)

1. Some regular refreshments.

2. Some favourite songs.

3. Things to play with.

etc.

Hope wishing you too a happy journey, if you plan :)

Defensive v/s Offensive v/s Dual

Defensive v/s Offensive v/s Dual


A day ago, I got turmoiled in a controversy over the Defensive v/s Offensive.
Sometimes, there is a feeling that one should be offensive and take more risks. On the other hand, if it goes wrong, then the person is to blame for being offensive and risking his "way of life".
As usual there are multiple positive and negative points to each of them

Let's take each with plus (++++) and minus (----) points and then take few examples for the same in "Indian" context.
1. Offensive
++++
(a) If succeeded, you are the star. You get a lavish lifestyle
(b) You become an icon.
(c) You think in a "different" direction

----
(a) The chances of being "Phunsukh Wangdu" in 3 idiots is rare. Not to talk about the proportion of people coming to Mumbai to become film star 20 years ago.
(b) If gone, you might be tempted to earn money/name/fame by "evil" section of the society.


2. Defensive
++++
(a) You stay on the ground knowing your realities.
(b) You are never "offsight" for few days/months/years.
(c) You stay "satisfied".

----
(a) You are always the one, who sticks to time as you are catching "Mumbai local train".
(b) Your thinking never goes to extreme. Only satisfying something "above" basic needs.
(c) Life is a daily routine, where you do something to earn/spend/save money.
(d) You look for more "Retirement" plans.


3. Dual

You are both Defensive and Offensive. You ensure while playing risks, those risks are "calculated". Or even if you play risk, you or your family members are not in dark about it. Your base is always strong (it could be family/money/education).
++++
(a) You have a strong base, so a proper kick up can make you the "charmest" in the world.
(b) You are very focussed on the thing you do. It is NOT necessary that you succeed in everything, but don't give up trying
There are hundreds of people, who failed but then learnt - Book

Examples of dual

1. Cricket - IPL
Initially, BCCI was giving very less amount to the players and there were only 2 formats - Test and ODI. But there were lot of "good" Ranji players, which could not play even a match in ODI. Nothing was being done. But as ICL (sponsored by ZEE) came up with 20-20 format, BCCI launched IPL. So they had original Test and ODI (being defensive) and also a new format IPL (offensive). It may happen that revenues/profits from IPL (new offensive) may exceed that of Test and ODI.

2. Football playing
To win football, both defense and offense is needed. Defence is to ensure that competitor do not ensure his victory by your loss and Offense is to ensure that you continue keep on trying the opposite. Whichever team has good offense and defense (and good luck), the team wins.

3. Software - Google
Google came up with Google Search in 1997. First it ensured that Google Search is fastest and widest. Then it ensured that it acquired/tied up with good sites like social networking sites. (Playing Defensive).

Then it realized that continuous R & D (or new applications are required). It has to be offensive. So it is trying to eat up the share of other companies, may be Microsoft Office (Google Docs/Presentations), Apple (Android) etc.

But while going offensive, Google always ensured that there is NO LOSS of users/customers who are using "Google Search". They are not shifted to different search like Yahoo/Bing.

Failed Examples
1. Yahoo - Played Defensive
Yahoo (at one time) had the best search engine. It had a very good share. But it was always playing defensive, just managing to secure its own market of "search". So there were failed talks of Microsoft acquiring Yahoo. But now they had started being offensive (offering more products)

2. General Motors
At one moment, it was pride for any human to have GM car. But in US, the gas was cheap and there was no inflation. GM was playing defensive. It didn't focus on R & D for other cheap alternatives. So today again GM is in offensive mode, with putting more money in enviornment-friendly, cheap technology.


I cannot quote any example of any company which was being offensive and failed for the sole reason that I prefer "success".

So this is the reason, I feel that playing the "dual" role is more important than being separately defensive or offensive

Enjoy !!

Adhir Garg

Holy Trip to Shirdi Sai Baba and Shani Shingnapur

Saturday, 31st January 2009, was the day we, my family, all decided to become holy for at least one day in the month:)

Planning

As planned, we all decided to go by car from Pune. I thought of driving the car myself around 500 kms.

There are two options of going to Shirdi (a) via Nasik and (b) via AhmedNagar. (Wikimapia) Reading on various websites, I came to know that AhmedNagar Road is bit lengthy but is very smooth.

Saturday morning we had to wake up at 5:00 am and leave home by 6:00 am.

Way to Shirdi from Pune

We all started in the morning by 6:15 am (we were late by ONLY 15 minutes). There was still darkness around (it is obvious in January last). Within few minutes, the car was on AhmedNagar highway. By 7:00 we were crossing KalyaniNagar. Great !! The road was good.

The sun had started to show its glory on us. By 8:45 am we stopped for Petrol and snacks just before AhmedNagar. We resumed our journey again at 9:15 am towards AhmedNagar. After enquiring for the Manmad road, which comes taking left turn from "Chowk", we were on the highway to Manmad. By 11:15 am we had reached Shirdi.

At Shirdi

Lot of guys pounced upon us asking us to park our vehicle. Actually ,they were trying to allure us to buy "phool maala" for Sai Baba, which we refused. After parking the car (Rs. 30/-), one of the phool-maala guy took us to Gate No. 4, but there was not a big entry.. There is a direct entry for all near the main highway itself. We should have caught the line there itself. We had brought our cameras/mobiles, which were prohibited in the area. hence we have to deposit them in the locker (2/- per camera/mobile) . It is near to Gate No. 4 !! We should have better kept them in the car.

Darshan

We were in the queue at around 11:45 am. This was our mistake as the aarti starts at 12:00 noon. Hence we were in the queue for around 2 hours !!. Many people were rushing and breaking the line. There was a part of mismanagement seen here. My small kid (4 months) started crying and we have to be separated out.

After being in round in 1 room and then in another, going the steps down and again going the steps up, we finally reached the "Samadhi Room", where we had darshan of the baba. It's so much relaxing after reaching the room. We took some prasadam from the holy place. My watch showed me 2:15 pm and that was the time, we all decided to move to Shani Shingnapur (Some pronounce as Singnapur). Feeling the urge of mouses inside the stomach, we paused at a hotel enroute to AhmedNagar. It is around 2 kms from Shirdi Sai Baba's temple.

To Shani Shingnapur

At around 3:00 pm, we continued our drive towards AhmedNagar. To go to Shani Shingnapur, around 40-50 kms from Shirdi towards AhmedNagar, there is a road which goes to Shingnapur. At such heated condition (when the sun started burning), we paused for a cold sip of "Sugarcane juice". We continued towards Shani Shingnapur. There was no problem, as there were lot of milestones. We reached Shani Shingnapur at around 4:45 pm

Similar to Shirdi, again lot of guys pounded over the vehicle asking to park the car in their areas. Again the reason was that to visit the holy place "properly", we need to take the bath and go in just one orange cloth. They would like to charge highly for it. But as we had to return the same day to Pune, we parked the car and visited the temple. While returning from temple, we took prasad (delicious barfi).

Back to Pune

By 5:15 we had left the Shani Shingnapur, and moved to Aurangabad highway to reach AhmedNagar, Aurangabad- AhmedNagar Highway is very beautiful and the car can speed up to 100 very easily. We reached AhmedNagar by 6:00 pm. Took a small break at AhmedNagar, and then continued towards Pune. Pune was 118 kms.

By 8:00 pm, we were at the Wagholi and by 9:30 pm, we were at home eating holy prasad and quickly-made-dinner. That's all for the trip.

I enjoyed the driving of around 500 kms. Sometimes above 100 kmph and fewer times because of bad stretch of the road

But the two best thing was that we

(1) Visited Shirdi Sai baba and Shani Shingnapur to get their blessings.

(2) Long drive of around 500 kms in a single day !!

May God Bless All !!

Shirdi Sai Baba ki jai !!

Enjoy !!

Adhir Garg

M-Factor In Life : y = m*x + c for success -Part 1 Career

What is y = m*x + c and M-Factor

Our life stands on this simple straight line equation.
For those who is not aware of this explicit equation of straight line, please look the following links.

http://thesaurus.maths.org/mmkb/entry.html?action=entryByConcept&id=2949
http://www.mathsisfun.com/equation_of_line.html#Countrynote

In brief,
for y = m*x + c
c - Some constant for the straight line
m - Slope of the line
x - always varies
y - final output dependent on the above 3 variables.

Let's relate this equation to few of the general things that exist

In this series the first is Career:

Career :

Take the example of changing the job from company X to company Y with reference to line equation:

a) c is the constant i.e. what you would have from company X. That covers your resume, your qualifications, your experience in your field say sales/engineering. This is assumed to be remaining constant while company Y hires you.

b) m is slope of your life. It is dependent on lot of factors e.g. time, your output efficiency, your skills developed in the time. For example your performance in the first few months in company Y would indicate the slope. It is not only performance, but minimum time taken by you to learn/grasp and apply new ideas and prove yourself.

The company can directly hire you seeing your resumes and your background verification, but they look to this M-Factor, so that how would the performance of yours would be leading to aligning of goals of the company Y. How much time would you take to be PRODUCTIVE? This I refer as M-Factor.

c) x is time variable, which decides the net output y. If your m is very high i.e. you are highly productive from day 1, then slowly your m would decrease. You need to take measure so that the product m*x always increases to a particular level. Obviously there are other personal/professional factors which we never have to forget.

d) y is the final output that you are delivering. This y should be always increasing. When there is a jump from company Y to company Z, then c for company Z should be y.


Mantra for success in Career :

1. Ensure that c for the next company is the y of previous company. Don't change your languages/learning frequently. e.g.

(a) If you had a experience of QA for last 5 years, then changing job of development profile in the next company might lead to decrease in the next value. c decreases
(b) If you are working on windows platform for last 10 years, it does not make any sense to you to jump to Linux platform. Remember hobby might NOT fill your stomach and pockets :)

2. Join the company where you see the value of m is high.
Ensure that y >> c.
We know that x (time) always increases, so your goals (for next few years) should be such that you achieve the desired "y". Your m factor should be such so that you can achieve the goal. The goal could be anything like Salary in FY 2010, my assets in year 2010, my knowledge in 2010, my friends/relatives in 2010 etc.

3. To ensure a big high in M (M Factor), you need to update your skills. It could be anything like going for higher education (Masters) or addition in your professional profile (like Membership/Languages) or Social domain (Your family/friends). We are all aware that lots of guys do join MBA so that the skill set increases or their career takes a jump.

Obviously you need to look at all factors to ensure your success in your career..

Best of luck in your career !!

Creative Story Writing....

Hi Everybody,

There was a "creative" story writing competition at my company Geometric, in which I participated.

Please find here the story :

Topic: “While struggling through each step in the desert, there was a splash of cool water on my back”

While struggling through each step in the desert, there was a splash of cool water on my back, and i realised that somebody was standing in front of me just like a mirage. I asked him “Who are you?”

I got reply “I am you, your inner self, who's been watching you since your firststep, even i can say your first breath.”

“How is it possible? If my conscience comes outside my body, how can i breathe, my heart can beat?”

I got a surround voice “It is you who think that you cannot live without me. But let me tell you, from the day one, I am independent. Whenever you commit a crime, petty or big, eg. Stealing a pencil from friend's bag, taking out money from father's pocket to buy cigarettes, fighting with friend even when you were cheating on him, bank robbery and the latest addition of murdering a couple for such a low amount of money few minutes ago”.

“How can you know about my deeds?” i queried, “I have never told anybody”.

“Thats what i am telling you, you never told such things to anybody, but i am aware of your each and every deed, because i m you!!”

“Where were you earlier?” I asked “when i didn't have money to buy a pencil and got thrashed from Headmaster. I was made to stand outside the class because of that”

“Where were you when my father continuously scolded me saying that you want money for buying cigarettes. Finally i took cigarettes and became a chain-smoker today?”

“Where were you when my friends teased me for the black scar on my face? So i have to give him similar mark so that in future, he never thinks of doing the same thing”.

“Where were you when i was hungry for days because of insufficient money. Who would paid debt if i had not done a bank robbery”

“I had to murder the couple because now i am a wanted criminal. If i had not done so, they would have told police and i would have been hanged”.

He replied “I was always with you, trying to tell you what was right and what was wrong. And now i want to tell you what would happen if you don't listen to me”.

“What should i do now? I am tired of this life. I have lots of money but nowhere to spend”.

Don't worry. I am always with you. I would tell you the right path, it is sure that you will be happy within your conscience”.

“What should i do?” i was crying.

“You should go and distribute your money in the charity and for the needed ones. For your life, i say that surrender to the police so that your misdeeds 'quota' gets finished here on this planet”.

Then only i woke to find myself in a pitch dark place.

How did you like the story ??

Enjoy !!

Computer C++ inline function module

Hi All programmers/reviewers,

I hope you would be aware of inline functions in C++. Here I will not discuss about "what is inline" and explain it, rather I would tell few important (in-line) about inline functions.

For information about inline functions, you can get the data using the links like
1) http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/inline-functions.html
2) http://www.codersource.net/cpp_tutorial_inline_functions.html
3) Inline or NOT to inline in C++ http://www.thescripts.com/forum/thread59977.html
4) Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inline_function

Let's take an example
//Declaration for C++ Tutorial inline sample:
inline int add(int x,int y);


If you are working on the code, you would have find that in most of the code, the inline function defintion is in the header file with declaration

//Definition for C++ Tutorial inline sample:
inline int add(int x,int y)
{
return x+y;
}


Why is it so ??
Let's take a simple example that the definition and declaration does not lie in the same file. Declaration lies in header file math.h and Definition lies in source file math.cpp

Let's go in the important property of inline functions.

It replaces the function called with the function contents inside the module. Here there is one condition attached that the inline function would work only in the same module e.g. if you have a module Mathematics which declares and defines the inline function add(int, int) and you have a different module called as Physics (has some file as phy.cpp) which calls the inline function as
s = add (a,b);
then the compiler (especially in Linux) is going to throw the reference error .. YES !! The reason is that the compiler is unable to open the function becasue the function is defined as inline in the other module.

How to Solve such issues ?

There are two ways to get the solution

1) Make the function as NOT inline. i.e. make the function as

int add(int x,int y) in declaration and define it in definition.

2) Declare and Define the function as inline in the header file itself. and then include this header file wherever the function add(int,int) is being called. This will ensure that the function add is also expanded as inline :)

So phy.cpp would be containing the line #include "math.h"


Enjoy !!
Adhir