Turning 35 and looking back

I am now 35+ years by my biological age. I wanted to write a small post here, mostly to read it again when I turn 40 or at some greater age.

First 22-23 years were mostly dedicated to formal education with some sprinkles of extra-curricular like theater, public speaking, writing. In terms of education it was a very regular one, with a graduate degree from Kirori Mal College, DU , in pure sciences (B.Sc) in 1994. Then a PG Diploma in Computers after my attempts to get into a MA (International Studies) at JNU failed. The high point of this phase was the time between 1992-1995. During this period I got exposed to a much bigger world doing lots of theater, learning lot many things and shredding so much of baggage which any avg middle class study-driven boy keeps. This meant going to various college fests, winning acting awards and so on. I was almost staying by myself after my class XI so I had more time and little or no family-pressure. After I finished my college in 1994, I enrolled for a evening course in Urdu. Did a program with National Museum and spent lot of them in their huge library. :). I also started to write as a Theater critic for a 'Sunday Mail' publications. Lots of things happening during this time. I stayed at JNU for probably 3 odd months.

Later a new group of friends in the PG course. My school life is not the high-point of my first 22-23 years of life since I didn't do much in school days, more so because there weren't enough avenues. My father had put to the best school which he could as per his means so I am really lucky to get what I got but as a school it didn't indulge in any genuine extra-curricular or things of that sort.

Next comes the work life. With my first job in a garage firm ACPL in early 1996, writing anti-virus TSR programs in assembly language was fun. My first salary was Rs 3600. When my daughter starts her school from April'2009, I would probably be paying more than Rs 3600 as her monthly tuition fee. And she is not going to a new age, new world, 20 students a call, international, all air-conditioned school. Its a regular school. But Rs 3600 were enough to pay for room rent, conveyance expenses, food etc. I was also taking some tuition which used to give me another Rs 650 - Rs 900 and most of that were getting saved. My next job was with Newgen (1997 - 1999) and Newgen was indeed a large firm. Then a brief stint at Quark, followed by Legato and finally at Adobe for last 7 years, since January 2002.

The high point of this period was 2000 - 2004 when two things happened. At a first level, this was the first time when I started to live with friends. Some of us took a large duplex flat in Noida and that bond is still very strong. I spent about 4 years there (2000 - 2003) and they were simply out of the world. I also bought my first car while I was there i.e. in Oct 2001. It was a WagonR and I still have it. We were at house no 437 in sector 37 and sometime back, we even attempted to have a blog on that.

Meanwhile I reconnected with some of the old college friends and met some new people in the process and we had a gang. We made numerous outstation trips and it was simply a blast time. Later I got married in Oct 2003 to a real old friend who was part of that gang and we had more parties. In fact there was a party almost every other day. We bought our 2nd Car, a Mahindra Scorpio, in 2004 and that meant more outstation trips.

By the mid of 2004 things started to move a little away. I had moved to my own house after my marriage so the connection to friends with whom I stayed with was gradually getting weak. The old college friend gang was also getting thinner since one of them moved to London. Others got occupied as they got married.

In 2005, Pihu came into our life. While Pihu was coming, our outstations trips reduced, gradually coming to zero. Parties stopped happening since we can't any long have a a drink-all-night-smoke-any-where scene. By the time Pihu was 2 months, we started our outstations trips to break the monotony. By the time Pihu was an year old, we moved to a new house and setting that up was keeping us busy. By this time, parties have almost stopped or probably they have taken a new form which meant less people, more clam and all that.

I would think that this is the time when the 2nd golden era finished. This was the time between 2006 begining to 2007 mid.

Smita took to work again and that pepped up things. Pihu started to go to Play School. And by the beginning of 2007, things started to change. We were again going out. Later I started Ghuamakkar in July 2007. Later in the year, I drove to Jaisamler. Things were again bright and chirrupy. In 2008, I drove to Allahabad and later all the way to Darbhanga. My work at Adobe was going steady and after a few changes, Smita was back to ZEE which she was enjoying. Zee gave her the freedom to work at flexi time. We also booked a house at the posh ATS, Paradiso, Greater Noida in early 2008. Last summer my niece has now started to live with us as she has taken a program at a nearby college.

Last month we went to Dubai, first international trip for the family together. I would guess that 3rd era has started from early this year and would probably carry on for some time. I would guess that we would most likely move to ATS house in 2009 as we complete 3 years in July 2008 in current house. or May be it would happen in March 2010.

I dont know what lies in future and probably I would want to write this kind of note when I get to 50.

Bravo M. S. Dhoni for enrolling to a Graduate Program

For a while I have been wanting to write some thing on the latest cricket sensation, Mahendra Singh Dhoni or MSD and I didn't want to just write about his cricket scores. So when I learnt that he enrolled for a Bachelor of Commerce program , to be a graduate, it made me to pause and think and probably share some of my observations.

MSD enrolling for a graduate program is not a normal thing to happen. He is too big a star and I wont be surprised if down the line, he would actually be awarded honorary degrees by the high-n-mighty of the academia world.

His enrollment is to be seen in the context of the millions of fans, mostly growing kids who watch him in Boost advt along with Sachin and want to become MSD one day. Imagine that each one of them would understand that leaving studies entirely is not the thing to do. Dhoni did his class X and XII from DAV School,Shyamli, Ranchi scoring 66 % and 56 % respectively. Both of these scores are ok scores, if not good or great, esp if ones sees them in the light of him spending almost all of his time on playing professional cricket.

He enrolled at St. Xavier's College, Ranchi and probably he wont have to attend as many classes as other folks but he would still need to write his exam. Its a really bold step and it wont come easy. Bravo Dhoni.

I keep telling everyone these days that someone should make a movie on him, name the movie as 'Inspector Vijay' with Dhoni in lead role. Believe me it would be a hit.

Use 'Copper Tank' Geysers instead of 'Steel Tank' Geysers

I noticed that my lone Geyser is leaking when we tried using it on one of those rainy but not-so-cold days. We ignored the problem since it was still not winters and later thought that the temperature regulator knob which is at the base of Geyser might be the culprit.

Meanwhile to mitigate the risk (Wow, what a phrase) I installed another one in my 2nd loo which was lying in my store, feeling left out. You know, just to have a backup. The leaking continued. Finally I had the time (rather inclination) to call a plumber but he was not of much help. Later I got hold of an electrician and he told me that the tank is leaking, there is no problem with the knob.

So far so good. I was relieved to know that now we have isolated the cause and now its a matter of just fixing the tank. But as you would have guessed, it was not that simple. After looking at the tank, I was told that I have been a stupid person to buy a steel-tank Geyser. Steel-Tank Geyser can't sustain the high pressure water which most of the new-world high-rise apartment gets and if for some reason they leak, they can't be repaired unlike a Copper-Tank one. Also Steel-Tank-Geyser are not known to handle too-hot or too-cold situations, both of which is fairly common here.

Well, I didn't know that there is something called a Steel-Tank Geyser and a Copper-Tank Geyser. I just worried about buying one of reputed brand. I had bought a Usha-Lexus which is like one of the better ones.

Anyway, that electrician gone and more time passed. Meanwhile my wife fitted a LPG-Gas-powered geyser in the 3rd loo (yeah, we have so many of them), giving me more time to put my act together.

I asked around and found out that I may be able to get a Steel-Tank from Usha if I work hard. A more worldly solution is to junk this and buy a new one, this time with a copper-tank.

I am yet to make up my mind on what would I end up doing but I thought that I would spread this advice since the winters are zeroing in. Always buy a Copper-Tank Geyser.

Troubleshooting "Header Image Rotator plugin" for Wordpress!

For a while I was looking at a way to change the photos on my travel experience site with least effort. Not that I finally found a good answer but I did find a WP Plug-In which seemed to be doing the job. This plug-in is called "Header Image Rotator plugin for Wordpress!" and here's the website of the author.

So I quickly downloaded and set it all up but it didn't work. Then I put a post at the forum but unfortunately I didn't hear back. I searched around and I could not find any answer.

At the same time my brother-in-law and myself were thinking about it, not the plug-in but about the fact that we should write the necessary code to change header-photos on its own. So recently both of us sat together and thought that before we write a new piece of code,lets see if we can fix this wp image rotator plug-in. We were doing everything as per manual but somehow it was not working.

Let me give a brief of how this plug-in works.

1. Normally any WP template, worth its salt, would have a style-sheet.
2. Typically they would have a header-image.
3. Header-image will have its own div or its own descriptor in the .css file.
4. Normally, header.php file would be using this div to set the header-image.
5. When we use this plugin we copy certain photos at a location and then tell the plugin the div which the header.php is using.
6. Ideally, the plug-in would replace the div with its own code.

After not making any headway, we though about looking at the executed code which the browser was getting. So we loaded the home page on a browser and did 'View Source'. What we found was that the plug-in was indeed setting the right div to a random image but after that statement, the original template was again setting the same div to what it usually sets, so what was indeed happening was
1. Plugin sets a random image from your collection as header-image
2. Then, the original template sets the default or what-so-ever header-image to that div.

End result is that for a user, the world is all same.

Here's how we fixed it
1. We copied the style-sheet div section of the header-image in the .css file and created another one with a different name. In my case the header-image css was . I created another called .
2. In plug-in settings, I mentioned as my css id for header-image.
3. In header-php, we used instead of

And Voila it worked.

If you are having some problems here, you can try your luck by doing above.

"Govindam Prasadam - ISKCON Noida' - Nice and homely food

Someone suggested that we try 'Govindam Prasadam' at ISKCON and being a sporty lot, most of us said, Why not. The other reason besides us being sporty was that on thursday, office food is a little drab in comparison to other days and 'Govindam Prasadam' was just of blocks away from our office in sector - 25A.

It was a group of 7 and after a 10 minute stroll, we found ourselves at the modest looking, 15 X 20 eating joint of ISKCON. The ISKCON at sector- 32 (right opposite the towering NTPC office in sector-23, on Atta-Flex road) is a new thing and probably the construction is still on. I would guess that the restaurant would get a bigger home once the construction is complete.

As of now, its a humble little place with polymer chairs and tables. Unlike the one in 'East of Kailash' this one doesn't give you many choices but I guess thats a matter of time. It can probably house 25 odd people at a time so it might get a little busy during peak time, also it may not be a great idea to enjoy this outing with a large group.

There are two Thalis which you can take. Rs 35 for a mini-Thali and Rs 45 for a normal Thali. In a regular thali you get unlimited supply of chapatis, two vegetables, one raiyta and rice. You also get some basic Salad and a sweet, both of which didn't seem to be under the 'unlimited' category. I think in mini Thali, you dont get sweet. Staff is polite and alert. They are usually the first ones to spot a need for another offering and are generous in their servings. All of us liked the food very much and would recommend it any day. Its light, fresh and very very homely. I would bet whether you can get this much at this hygiene level at Rs 45.

Since now the weather doesn't demand cool confines, I would suggest that you must try this on one of those boring office days. If you do try then please comment here on your experience.