Mumbai Marathon 2009

Its been so long... its been a year since i ran... the last that I had run was the 2008 marathon at Mumbai... This time it was gonna be tough... I was running for a cause and I had the marathon bug which pulls me every time to Mumbai to run the full-marathon (42.195 kms).
Had been doing some little push-ups, training my legs and doing some stretching, but it was not enough... Luckily my friend Subash had told me that there was this mid-night marathon in whitefield, b'lore on the 10th of jan 09. So without much preparation I went to run the half-marathon along with Subash.
Subash's parents had come along to cheer us up and the event had quite a lot of marathoners' for the odd-time that it was! We finished the tiring and tough track that it was with full of up-hill and down-hill to do... The weather though chilling wasn't good for people who were walking as the only way to keep ourselves warm was by running... while walking, the cold used to get in and make you stiff... Anyways after running 5 kms Subash got a bit tired and he started walking.. I guess he was alternating between long walks and short runs... I continued to run but at one place I made the mistake of taking glucose (powder) and that too without water. It made me very thirsty and kind of broke my run. So I started my walk and the pace of which is quite slow compared to others... I finished the 1st lap of the track in just an hour. But the 2nd track took quite a time and I think I finished the 22 kms in 2.5 hours. Finally got on to my bike and sped back home. It was 3 am and I was getting a head-ache. The body clock had started sending warning signs and so reached home in the chilling cold with my hands frozen as I hadn't got any gloves. Finally reached home near IIM-B in flat 25 mins and crashed into my bed!
Every year I do the half-marathon at b'lore as a practice for my full-marathon that I do at Mumbai. This one really helped as I burned some of the body fat accumilated over the year :) Anyways now it was time for the full-marathon and I was just recuperating from the body-ache that I had earned from the mid-night marathon. Luckily within a couple of days I was feeling better. I had booked a bus ticket for my journey to Mumbai and had booked a return flight back to b'lore.
I left b'luru on friday evening and reached mumbai the next day morning. Went to my aunt's place and had a nice nap! I refrained from the vada pavs' and all the tempting, mouth-watering oily food. Though I quenched my thirst with sugarcane juice that was present in each nook & corner and finally sunday morning arrived. My uncle who is a veteran marathoner, woke me up at 4:50 am and I got ready in a couple of mins.. He had trained himself in Talwarkars' and had a group of friends running the marathon. Uncle was running for the "end polio campaign" and he's my inspiration! I knew I would take around 6.5 hours to finish the marathon, while uncle was aiming at 4 hours.
So we caught the train to Azad Maidan. We were there at 6:15 am and there was a huge crowd and a queue. This time there was lot of security arrangement due to the Mumbai attacks and so it took us some time to enter the starting point of the run. Finally we started the run at 6:45 am along with the half-marathoners as the organizers wanted to give the slow runners extra time to finish the marathon.
I started the run quite slowly along with my uncle. Uncle was doing quite a lot to train for the marathon. He was doing a lot of running and then yoga, medidation and some gym...
Anyways my plan of just running with my uncle failed as my uncle kept a good steady pace even after 4 kms of continuous running. So I decided I would run at my own pace as I didn't want to hurt my legs and I need all my energy to finish the marathon!
So I was all alone but with the 30k runners! It was a very humid and hot weather that day. at around 8 am, came the International Professional runners, running like deers. I was lucky to get off them as unknowingly I came in the way of one of the runners, who pushed me gently to move me to the side. I was quite at the side of the road at chowpatty, but there were too many runners and they were almost taking the entire space of road... Anyways I just was angry with the guy who had pushed me, but then I thought it just happens and told myself to forget about it...
What excites me about Mumbai is the clean and wide roads and the crowds who support the marathoners all the way! The number of people who participate is overwhelming... Its absolutely amazing to run in the mumbai marathon... My heart beats like crazy everytime I approach the start line, I pray to God that things will be alright and he gives everyone the hope and courage to face the toughest of challenges. My eyes are filled with tears at the starting point... Some kind of emotional thoughts come and go and I get really motivated to do the marathon and then on hoping to do much more greater things for the greater good of everyone...
Anyways Haji Ali came up quickly and then I was done with 14 kms, the 1st of the 3 phases that I have divided the marathon into. Usually the first phase is the easiest and 2nd very tiring and the 3rd very painful :)
Mahalakshi temple and Haji Ali are 2 important places there. Then comes, Nehru centre, Worli Diary, Siddhi Vinayak temple and then Hinduja Hospital... Finally the toughest being Bandra Reclamation where the heat and odour is disgusting. This is the tiring part... And then I walked along to not hurt my legs... Then came the volunteers in the bus to pick up people who were finding it tough to finish the race... Then the police asked us (runners) to move to the side and use the foot path and the 4 hours time given for the marthon had ended. Many of us continued our journey to the finish. It was tough and agonizing. The mind tells you that it is enough. Don't trouble your limbs any more. The limbs I am alright, but I am not sure how far can I take you... After having a fight with my mind, I was at Haji Ali. Now it was an up-hill and very painful. The heat was unbearable. Very humid weather, it was taking a toll on all the marathoners. Thankfully finished Haji Ali by alternating my walks with some short runs... Finally I was at Chowpatty and the end was nearing. Slowly pulled myself and just a few kms before the finish I turned to a wrong road, which lead me right into Azad Maidan instead of the finish line. I had asked a pedestrian for the road to the marathon finish line and he directed me through another route. Anyways I reached Azad Maidan. That was the end of my 3rd Mumbai Marathon. Vowing to do it in less than 5 hours next year, I went back home to give my body a much needed break! I was not able to sleep as my body was kind of overheated though I was alright.
That evening spent some time with cousins and finally had a light dinner and went to sleep. Got up at 4:50 am for the second time to catch my flight back to b'lore. Unfortunately I hadn't thought about the goodies bag that I had been given by the organizers which had a lot of gel/oil tubes/bottles. The security didn't let me take one of the moisturiser inside the goodie bag :(
I don't understand the kind of security system we have these days... Anyways finally I was greeted by bengaluru international airport to a pleasant weather. It lasted for a few mins after which i was greeted by the bad b'luru traffic :)
I was limping for a couple of days of the run. But now I feel much stronger and ready to run! I ran with 2 things on my mind. Educating the poor kids and helping the wild life. Finishing off with the donations I am now looking to do some volunteering work.
Thats it from me. Hope to be back again with a bang!

Japan Habba 2008

Japan Habba 2008 will be held on Sunday 28th September at Jnana Jyothi Auditorium, Bangalore University, Palace Road, Near K.G Road. It is a Indo-Japan cultural Festival with lots of events. We will be having a Japanese Food stall by Harima Restaurant, Residency Road and Indian Food Stall so that you can enjoy your lunch at the event. Display and demonstration of "Kiri-e" (Japanese Stencil) in addition to Origami and Kirigami. I will be updating with more details on this blog.

Ping. Pong.

I have loved Ping Pong since the time I started playing.
My love for table tennis started when my brother and myself joined YMCA in Bangalore after our Summer holidays started just for getting to play TT. Before this we had played sometimes in Pollibetta club, Coorg but then I didn't even know to serve or hold the bat and had wanted to learn it badly. I had finished my 5th standard and my parents were getting transferred to Delhi. At YMCA lot of big boys used to play and since we were rookies, we didn't get much chance to play with the better players. Slowly bro and self played with each other and we improved. It used to be fun when there were many guys and only one table to play. We had this elimination round by circling the table and playing the ball to the other side and whoever missed had to go out. This way we used to get the order of play. whoever missed first was to play last.
After YMCA I didn't get much chance anywhere until we went to Srinagar. My uncle was in army and the army campus had all sports equipments. We played TT and also Tennis. It was fun. We played Football & Cricket in the evening. Kids used to play a lot especially since we had gone during our summer vacations.
I remember going to a Table Tennis competition in Delhi, as there were not many guys who knew to play TT. However, the other school kids were too good for us! Our school didn't have any TT tables!
When we were back from Delhi, again I found my new school in B'lore without TT tables. I was so much in love with TT that I used to look for a table wherever I went. Any club, any school, any place which had sports facility... Such was my craze!
Luckily my favorite destination - Pollibetta, Coorg had what I wanted. Nature and TT. The club there also had badminton, Carom and it was fun being there. We used to play badminton and TT till we were dead tired... After playing, we used to go for a walk or a drive into the coffee estates and then the forest boundary with the cool wind breezing through and the eerie sounds of insects, birds and animals!
Finally to my happiness I found few bad tables but enough to play in my college. The TT room used to be open only for a few hours during the day. We used to hurry to the TT room after finishing lunch as it used to be crowded lots of guys. Here I found that I was just average as many guys used to play very well, and some were state level players... Anyways I kept playing and though my techniques didn't improve much I learnt that there is much to be learnt!
PUC finished very fast with studies on my mind most of the time...
After a long break after my 12th, I joined BIT to do my engineering. Here after a few weeks I found that we did have a TT table and I was overjoyed! Not many good players used to come to play here. Still once in a while I used to find good challenges and go down fighting.
This went on until I finished my engineering and joined an IT Company - Caritor. Here we had two months of training and during this time, we used to play TT whenever we were free... Here the company managers' didn't really want us to play and have fun, but wanted to concentrate on our training. Hence we were allowed only after 5 and during lunch breaks. After our training, I never got to play TT. After close to 2 years in Caritor, I joined Adobe.
At Adobe, work environment is great. We had 2 tables and not many guys playing and thus began my new love for the game. Until now I never had a continuous access to TT and this really tested my love for the game. Sometimes playing everyday used to get me bored. Also my level of game had been average and hadn't improved and this really got me disappointed. After playing for a year to my heart's content, I finally stopped playing TT. But then how will this beautiful game let me go. What put me off was the fact that I had bought a costly TT bat - Butterfly which didn't have much spin, but had lots of control. This was good to improve my technique to learn to handle spin better. The Bat was good to play a defensive game, not aggressive. I tried hard but it didn't help. Finally I stopped playing with my costly TT bat. Then we had this competition in our office and I played with new bats. It helped me a lot as playing with the same bat didn't need much focus and didn't help me learn the game. Finally its time to play with a bat that I had to buy a long time back. "Kung-Fu" - A slightly costly bat during my college days, but comparitively less compared to the Butterfly bats, this bat has lots of power and spin. And I plan to improve and be unbeatable atleast in my office for the time being. I want to take a break for a year and then play in the international level. Hope that day comes...
Places not mentioned, where I got a chance to play Ping Pong.

MSS Club, Vijaya Bank Layout, B'lore.
Club in Mumbai.
A relatives house in B'lore.
My friend's house in Sagara.

All were great experiences.

Finally before I end, I was nick-named "pingy" in Delhi. Though I never played TT in Delhi, nor my friends knew about my liking for TT they phrased this while I played hand cricket/short cricket. What coincidence... Hopefully Ping Pong will be tamed one day by Pingy! :)

My Thoughts on good governance in Karnataka

We need to Create a honest, and intelligent society to take on the world. We are slowly moving to a globalized economy and to safeguard ourselves, we need to be smart and efficient.

Following are the things the Government should take up on priority:

Preserving nature and wild animals.

Cleanliness drive.

Zero tolerance for corruption. Govt is as corrupt as the public. We want all benefits but we don't want to pay our taxes. The problem is we are afraid to give our hard-earned money to the government as we feel the government will anyways eat away our money. So it is important for the government to take ownership and responsibility of the hard-earned money given by the people for the overall well-being of the society. Government needs to gain the respect of the people today.

Government should take ownership of their actions and encourage businesses to pay taxes by having varying category of tax slabs based on the current economic trends. Government should guide them at every step and help them re-build at the time of crisis. Government should educate businesses with current ROI (return on investment) for a business and local & global risks involved in different businesses.

It is important that we shouldn't invest in loss making ventures which doesn't help our people.
Also Government should aim at happiness index which is being recognized by governments all over the world. People should be made aware of the importance of being happy.

Aim to remove the quota system which has divided people based on caste and creed. We need to assist backward and under-privileged classes and not people based on their caste or creed.

Issuing Social Security ID as the primary ID for all citizens of the country.

Take up reforms that have long term benefits.

Create awareness on population control. Population has a direct effect on our natural resources. Encourage 1 child policy.

Inculcate core values in children such as honesty, discipline, cleanliness & timeliness.

Change the education system. In schools, have both english and Kannada as the medium of instruction. English is now a global language and it is very important for students to learn English. It is more important for us to interact with people especially when it comes to technology, the language of choice is English. To allow a balance, we can give option for
students to pick 2 subjects with Kannada as the medium and 2 subjects with English as the medium. I believe that learning 3 languages in schools is too much pressure on the students. Once a child knows one indian language, it is easier to pick up other Indian languages.

Encouraging speciality schools. Helping students to perfect in one field rather than become "Jack of all trade - master of none".

Improving the standard of Government schools. I think Government cannot run schools on charity. Government schools should charge tution fees based on income of parents. This will help the government to improve facilities and increase the renumeration of teachers. By doing this students from all classes of society will come to study in government schools.

Programs to highlight Karnataka's culture and heritage. Our culture is represented by our language. Promote Kannada by incorporating it in local businesses.

Improve public mass transportation systems.

For Bengaluru-Mangaluru region:
Provide for Bengaluru-Mangaluru passenger day train as soon as possible. Allow existing private
road transport businesses to participate and share the profits, by allowing them to invest in Cargo/Goods train. This will reduce the load on the national highway and lessen the frequent road accidents that occur in the ghat section. This will also reduce the cost of petroleum products as well.

Garden Guest - Caterpillar!

The Silver lining!

Its been sometime since I saw something so beautiful...
It was friday morning and around 9am when I was on my way to my office. It was just another day and mechanically I was driving my bike... I was nearing the bannerghatta road junction from my colony road which is a narrow horrible road, dusty and has litter and drainage overflow alongside. On this day, ie the 23rd May 08, I saw this dog running behind a 2 wheeler. The first thing that came to my mind was "since when did the dogs start chasing 2 wheelers during the day! I am ok if they chase during the nights, but this was not making sense. This dog was slightly ahead of me and then to my amazement I found a few more street dogs chasing this dog. However, this dog was unmindful of all the resident dogs along the street and continued chasing some of the vehicles. It was consistently barking. As we neared the main road junction, I saw a truck loaded with people. The people in the truck were construction workers. Finally as we approached the signal I saw the dog nearing this truck and barking at the people inside the truck. I found this odd and I was a little thoughtful about the manner in which the dog was barking. It looked like it was trying to tell something...
Since the signal had turned green I had to move, while the truck stayed back for a few more seconds. But I somehow felt that something was happening down there and so waited for the truck to pass me.
To my greatest surprise, I saw the dog inside the truck. The dog was so very happy to be with the people in the truck. What I saw was just amazing. There was no place for the people to stand in that truck, and somehow they were able to get some place for the dog. The dog could just manage to put its head out to get some air. But watching the dog I felt very happy. The dog didn't want those poor people to leave him behind. So it ran behind the truck asking them to take him along... And finally they had to listen.
The dog doesn't care if you are rich or poor. All it knows is that these people cared for him and so he would serve these people. It is a great joy to watch this expression of love.
It makes me think... Why can't everyone of us be like this beautiful creature. Live to serve. Live to help. Live to make everyone happy and live to make lives beautiful.

Short term investing - Guidelines

1. The stock should have some good news.
2. It should have higher than normal volumes.
3. Portfolio should always limit to 3 to 5 stocks.
4. Portfolio should always have spare money about 15%.
5. Don't sell when the stock is going up.
6. Buy only when the overall market has upward trend.
7. Sell your stakes when you see losses or stocks being dumped by big investors, as a precautionary measure, as this event foresights things are not going good.
8. New technology/innovative products, Energy, Food, Medicine are the future stocks
9. Buy a stock if you expect both the current quarter and the coming quarter results guideline will be good.
10. Some stocks recede after the earnings release and some move up. so check up this pattern in the chart and buy accordingly.
11. Check out the P/E, EPS, Beta, market capital (around 1 bln is good) and 52 wk high values.
12. research the demand vs supply theory before buying that stock. no demand no supply, stock goes down!
13. Check out the current market trend.
14. Look out for disasters that might soon occur that could effect the market. Oil prices and euro/$ value, bank interest rates, housing, agriculture, war, epidemic are important events to look for.
15. Medical penny stocks which expect medical discoveries/inventions are easy multi-baggers. Just be sure that the discovery/invention will happen soon :)