It was exactly an year back the November Sky had peeped to see the Rocket Boys of Bangalore launch their rocket. If you wondering what i am saying, then probably you should read my previous post here.
It has been an amazing year for us as well as for the rocket. We were thinking about various modifications which we could try out. We are planning to have a better parachute which facilitates a soft landing. We have been thinking about mounting some devices aboard the rocket which can be used for experimentation.
But the most important deal our rocket has won is it has attracted so many young students. Recently we had addressed a group of students near Marathhalli, Bangalore. They were amused and excited about the project. The most wonderful thing was parents also attended the session and they in fact requested us to carry out the science sessions periodically. What better way do you need to celebrate the anniversary of the rocket launch.
I am talking about my grand father J Shivananda Shastry. He was a versatile person and to be frank I have never seen any person of his decade who could possibly be so active and energetic at that age. I feel truly blessed to have grown under him. It was last year when he expired at the age of 96. I am writing this article in his remembrance.
Till today I feel proud to be his grand son and I cherish the joyful moments I had with him. He was a doctor by profession. He had served so many patients across many villages through out his career. By the time I was born he had retired from his government duties and he had a clinic in Aimangala (on NH4 near Chitradurga) where he was treating his patients. Daily he used to commute in a bicycle. Even today I am amused at the energy he had because I feel so exhausted and tired when I go to office daily in a bus.
During my school days I had Sanskrit as part of my curriculum. It was difficult for me to absorb the subject. I used to take his help to translate the Sanskrit text to Kannada/English so that I can understand. He was the only person in house who had knowledge of Sanskrit. As he had practiced Ayurveda he was well versed in the subject and he used to help me out. He was a regular visitor to the City Central Library in Jayanagar 5th block. He used read a lot of books and the most amusing thing is he used to complete any book within a couple of days. At last it so happened that there were no new books in the library which he had not read. I feel sometimes very much encouraged to read books like him, but somehow laziness creeps in and it takes almost couple of months to complete one book and then I feel I need some rest before picking the next book.
He was a very good cook and when my mother was not there he used to take full responsibility of preparing food. I used to assist him even though my assistance was of little help to him. There were days when he had prepared lunch and got it packed for my school. Even at the age of 90 he never gave up is cooking. Whenever he got an opportunity he not only cooked for himself but he also cooked for me and of course he prepared delicious and healthy food. One thing I must remember about him is his ability to balance his eating habits whenever he fell ill. He used to recover very soon just by managing his eating habits. He used to suggest the same to all his patients.
He used to narrate me stories of some of the cases which he attended as a doctor. Once a villager was pierced by a bullock and his intestine had come out. My grand father being the only doctor in the village had to treat him (well if it was in Bangalore the doctor would have asked the patient to come to hospital/clinic and then would have asked for verification from police in order to ensure that it was not a murder… and at last would have hollowed our pockets). With a lot of courage he had put back the intestine and told him that he had somehow stitched the ruptured intestine and gave him some medicines which would heal the wound. My grand father had lost all the hope he had about the patient being alive after the operation. To his surprise after one year the same villager came and thanked my grand father because he was alive only because of him. Can you imagine the kind of satisfaction one would have got by saving a life?
When I was doing by Engineering in Computer Science, I had to do a lot of projects as part of my curriculum. One of the projects which I was doing was a real time simulation of the stars in the sky. I and my friend were trying to simulate the movement of Moon and we found it difficult. As my grand father was following the status of the project he came to know about the difficulty we faced. He had learnt about the mathematics behind almanac when he was young. In the almanac, some mathematical formulae are used to track the movement of moon. After so many years he had forgotten the mathematical logic behind it. It is indeed acceptable at his age because I often tend to forget things at this age!. He was rather not happy about not solving the problem and so he had not slept one full night because he was thinking what the solution to the problem was.
I used to discuss with him about what is internet, programming… He used to get amused by the technological development. He often used to ask fundamental questions which were difficult to answer, not because it was difficult to explain to him but we ourselves didn’t know the fundamentals well. He always used to question us about the status of our projects and he used to wonder why these guys take so many days to complete a single project. I really didn’t know how to put our efforts in a way he could understand. But through out my education although he didn’t teach me or preach me, he made me learn by myself. I realize the importance of it now.
I had many more wonderful moments which I am unable to script it here because they were so elaborate that I probably should write a book or I found it difficult to put it in words. I hope not only me, but anyone who has come across him would probably find it difficult to write about him.
A few months back i along with my team who call ourselves the "Sharp Shooters" have created a photo blog called "nature smiles". Kindly have a look at it. The URL is
As I was following the news on the current scarcity of fertilizers in Karnataka, the above question arose in my mind. It was just twenty one days before B S Yediurappa took is oath as CM of Karnataka after the people of Karnataka gave BJP a clear mandate to form the government along with the independents. Although Yediurappa became the first CM to take oath in the name of the farmer, the recent scarcity of fertilizers for farmers in Karnataka has become a serious problem which is facing Yediurappa’s government.
After the JD(S) – BJP coalition government fell, the governor’s rule was brought in Karnataka. During this tenure only 11% of required fertilizer stock was sent to Karnataka [click here]. This scarcity of fertilizers did hit the farmers of the state as soon as the new government took its office. It started of with agitation by farmers in various districts of Karnataka. The issue became more serious when a farmer was shot dead at Haveri. The government sent a request letter to send more stocks of fertilizers to the state to solve the problem [click here].
Meanwhile the media has been printing headlines everyday about the death of farmers through out Karnataka. Well although 1 or 2 died because they had to pay huge amounts for the banks where they had borrowed loans (because of lack of considerable returns in their agriculture), the other farmers had died to family issues. The media in spite of knowing these reasons behind the death are projecting these deaths as an act of mismanagement by the state government. This seems to be an act by the media to create a bad image for the new government just to show that this government is inefficient to govern the state.
Media being a responsible medium to uphold the democracy of the country has to carefully analyze the issues and effects of the information they present. They should not indulge in writing articles that will disturb peace. They should also be neutral in their approach of presenting information rather than being biased towards political parties just for the sake of publicity or money. Although this is not the only time the media has misguided people but there are many such scenarios where media has indulged in such activity.
Some of the newspapers like Kesari and Maratha started by Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak (July 23, 1856 - August 1, 1920), who was an Indian nationalist, social reformer and independence fighter, should be a inspiration for the present media. Their editorials gave a vivid picture of the people's sufferings and of actual happenings. Tilak used to say to his colleagues that the media should imagine that they are talking to a villager and not to a university student. They should be sure of each and every fact. He used to expect each word to be clear as day light. He made his newspaper a medium to make his dream of “Swaraj India” a reality.
Probably the present media should rethink about their role in the society and should work hard in making Vision-2020 possible rather than concentrating towards making their media a business just to make name and fame.
Well it is not the rocket boys of Coalwood but the rocket boys of Bangalore. Although people won’t call us that way we have called ourselves ‘Rocket Boys’ after our rocket was successfully launched on the auspicious day of Deepavali. The festival of lights stood as a witness for this launch and what better day could we have chosen for this.
Being a science enthusiast, I like experimenting and playing with science. Along with me Adithya, Kiran, Sathya and the most important of all, my uncle Murali Mohan (I call him Murali Chikappa) joined together to execute the experiment which I thought of doing. Well since younger days I was interested in rockets and wanted to experiment with one. Others who joined me were equally interested in this experiment.
People while referring to any easy work say ‘it is no rocket science!’ but does that mean rocket science is that difficult? But if it is challenging and exciting then who cares if it is difficult. I was browsing the web for help regarding making rockets. I found an interesting link which said Water bottle rockets. What else does one need to start of with when you want to build a low budget rocket? As I browsed through the link, I came to know there was a whole community behind it. In the west it is an undergraduate level science project where groups of students demonstrate their rockets by launching it. Lot of enthusiasts like us, have experimented with these rockets and there is a lot of information about it on the web. Well when I came to know about the building of the rocket, I discussed about it with my group. We started designing the rocket and its launch pad. As the name itself suggests, a water bottle is needed for the rocket. We also needed a parachute to recover the launched rocket and a launch pad to launch it.
We picked a big cool drink bottle which was sturdy and which could withstand the crash during fall in case the parachute fails. Murali Chikappa had brought special material to make the fins and nose of the rocket. The fins were attached to the inverted bottle and a nose was designed to create enough lung space to house the parachute. The nose was tied to the bottle and placed over the bottom of the inverted bottle. We prepared a nice big parachute of 32 inches and with the help of strings tied it to the bottle and placed it in the area below the nose cone (pay load area). The rocket was ready to some extent and now we had to prepare the launch pad. The design was finalized and Murali chikappa who was indeed our chief architect had asked a plumber to prepare it. Ah! When did plumbers get involved in rocket making? Don’t get surprised after all it is a water bottle rocket and who else can prepare the launch pad for it. Ya the lauch pad was made out of PVC pipes. They were arranged in an H-Shape framework in order to provide a firm base for the launch. The plumber got the launch pad ready in a couple of days and all we had to do was to fix some accessories to it to help the launch.
Provision for fixing a cycle pump to the launch pad was made, and clamps and other necessary accessories were mounted on the launch pad. Now it was time for some testing. We threw the rocket from top of the house and tested whether the parachute was opening. Adithya really helped us out in this testing. After a number of trials we fixed various defects in the parachute. The final touches were made to the apparatus before the launch.
The first test launch was exciting. We were nervous because all the work we had done before was theoretical. This was our first practical experience of flying our own rocket. The apparatus was assembled on top of our house. The bottle was filled with water till the half mark. The bottle was inverted over the launch pad and fixed tightly using the clamps so that the water inside should not leak. Air was pumped into the bottle using the cycle pump. This increased the pressure inside the bottle. After the pressure inside the bottle reached an optimum pressure (which we came to know from a meter attached to the pump) we stopped pumping air inside the bottle.Then we pulled the clamp that was holding the bottle. The water gushed out of the bottle opening, and drenched me completely. In no time the rocket was around 30 feet above our head. Wow it was an achievement. We jubilated with excitement and happiness. The first test launch was a real success and it was a source of inspiration for the rest of the launches we made.Well after this launch we celebrated a pollution free deepavali by launching our rocket as many times as it excited us.
This was not the end… The rocket went on for its display at two science exhibitions. While it became an inauguration event at the science exhibition in Sri Vani Education Institute, Subramanyanagara it won an award at the other science exhibition. We had named the rocket AZAD and it proved to its name. It was a colorful and wonderful November Sky for us when our hard work turned into reality when the rocket had kissed the sky. I would like to thank and congratulate all the team members who made the rocket a big success.
I have written a travelogue of my trip to Madurai - Rameshwaram - Dhanushkodi - Kanyakumari along with my family and friends. If you are interested please follow the link
It has been 60 years since we got our independence. The political system of our country (Democracy) has bestowed its citizens with the right to form their government. Recently on May 10th 2008, polling went on in 89 constituencies across 11 southern districts of Karnataka in the first phase of the assembly elections. 55 percent of 17.3 million eligible voters voted and Bangalore recorded the lowest with just 40 percent turn out.
I have heard many answers given by people when you ask why you didn’t vote. “I wanted to teach them a lesson!”, “If I vote or not vote how does it matter?”, “I do not have my name in the voter’s list”, “I do not have id proof to do the voting”, “All the candidates are corrupt and are power mongers who give least importance to development, so why should I vote them?” and many more. Since 60 years, many governments have been formed and in the future, continue to get formed. But what has been the difference! Most of the cabinet ministers in the formed government do not have a healthy history or they do not have the vision to lead India. Who is responsible for this?
The unethical act of a party which failed to keep up to its promise of transferring power, brought the necessity of elections in Karnataka. The people of Karnataka were given the responsibility to elect a stable government which would successfully run for its complete term (5 years) concentrating more on development rather than political instability. Did we execute our responsibility? The voting statistics says it all. A couple of days back I was travelling in a bus. There was a conversation between 2 people, one who had casted his vote and the other who did not. The person who had voted made a strong statement “People who did not vote are like people who are dead!” It was indeed correct. We are living in our country, we want good facilities, and we have been given the responsibility to elect a government which would give us what we want, and at the end of the day it is the same we who will blame the government for not doing any work. Is it ethical on our part to put any such blame on the government when we have not voted?
The election commission had given the opportunity to add your name to the voter’s list. They had published the information in papers and news channels. Did we take it seriously to register our names in the voters list? No we were least bothered about it. Probably we even expected the election commission to come to our door steps begging to add our names. I think if there was a rule in the constitution saying that you would be given remuneration for the month only if you show the proof that you have voted then probably we would have taken that extra pain of registering our names and execute our right of voting!
I agree with many people saying “All the candidates are corrupt and are power mongers who give least importance to development, so why should we vote them?” but is that a solution to prevent corrupt candidates from being elected. We have the right to elect and not to elect a person. If you do not want to vote then register your voting right, but say that you are not interested in voting anyone. This would probably give you chance to prevent the corrupt candidate from being elected.
Are we trying to forget our responsibilities as citizens? Are we taking voting, elections and hence democracy lightly? Do we need stringent rules to wake us up and remind us of our duties?
We should feel proud that we are born in India, the land of culture and diversity. As Indians it is our responsibility and duty to work towards country’s progress. Don’t you think your vote is precious? If you had never felt that India is your home and electing its leader is your responsibility, then you must rethink about calling yourself an Indian. Let us all vote and make democracy live longer.
Anekal is my Mother’s native and I have visited this place quite a few times. This place is very near to Bengaluru and can be reached via Hosur road or Bannerghatta road. Every year a festival is celebrated here in chaitra masa, sapthami tithi (you should know a bit of hindu calendar jargon to understand this). I had been to this festival on 12th of April. Before getting to my experience in this year’s festival let me explain what this festival is all about. This festival is generally termed as jatre in Kannada. All Kannadigas might know what that means. During the festival the idol of the god is placed in a teru (another kannada term!). Teru is nothing but a very tall chariot about 30ft high, decorated with colorful cloth, flowers, banana leaves, ornaments and so on and so forth…, it has 4 wheels made of stone and long iron chains to pull it! The people who come to jatre feel that they get blessings by pulling teru in which the idol of the god is placed. The people use the chains to pull the teru around the temple premises on that day.
I have been to the jatre held at Anekal a couple of times. It was a long time about 8-10yrs since I had been to the jatre held there. The jatre has been sacred to my mother’s family as they used to stay in Anekal when they grew up and used to visit the temple of Timmaraya Swamy (the name given to Lord Vishnu here) to get the blessings of the god. I thought of going to the festival along with my mother. It was a weekend holiday and an opportunity to witness this grand festival which I could not have missed.
It was a bright sunny Saturday morning, a typical bengaluru summer day with around 28 degree Celsius. I packed my camera, water bottles and got ready. It was around 9:45 AM when we reached KSRTC bus stand in Majestic. We came to know from the authorities that the next bus to Anekal was at 10:15 AM. We had to wait for half an hour to catch the bus. There were less number of commuters and the bus looked empty and the conductor took a nice nap till Anekal as no passengers boarded the bus on the way. We reached Anekal at around 12:00 PM (45 minutes late), because of the state of traffic on Hosur road as many of you know!
It was a colorful day at Anekal. Thousands of people from in and around Anekal had gathered to celebrate the festival. The street to the temple was jam packed and the street was invisible. We could see the temple tower from a far distance. The temple site looked colorful. As we walked through the jam packed crowd we could see on either side of the road, shop keepers selling eatables, toys, balloons and many more things. There were giant wheels and all sorts of viable amusement sports. All the people were enjoying the colorful environment and immersed in happiness even though it was scorching hot. I had to drink water often to beat the heat. As I neared the temple I could see the teru standing tall and very well decorated. A new temple of lord Rama was also built and its tower was shining as it was painted with gold shade. We entered the temple and had to join the end of queue to get inside the temple. During all my visits to Anekal I had never seen a queue here. This time the people had turned out in large numbers and we had to wait for almost an hour to see the god.
After having a chance to see the god we came out of the temple and went directly to the site where the teru was standing. The tradition is to throw bananas atop the teru when it is pulled. This is an amazing sight. We bought some bananas and were all waiting for teru to be pulled. The teru was surrounded by thousands of people chanting lord vishnus name. A few volunteers brought the idol of lord Vishnu, shouting and dancing and did the parikrama around the teru thrice, as per tradition. Then the idol was placed inside the teru and hundreds of people who were holding the iron chains of the teru started pulling it. The stone wheels started rolling making a rumbling noise. The people around started throwing the bananas atop the teru. The purohit who was inside the teru to perform the puja had a bad time. He was fired with lots and lots of bananas. The bananas which were ill aimed targeted the people around and it was a real pain after being hit by these bananas as they were traveling like bullets. The teru completed its parikrama around the temple.
It was after a long time I had witnessed a wonderful and amazing event like this. I probably cannot put the entire event in words here as it might take a few pages. I suggest you to visit such an event and enjoy the environment that the event sets in the minds of the people. You can see the happiness, enjoyment and the respect to the tradition that has been followed from decades. It creates a feeling of oneness. Don’t you think it’s amazing?
This post is for those who didn't know that Indians were the first to use trigonometry. You might have learnt trigonometry during you younger days probably in your high school or college. Has anyone thought about why is there a sine of an angle (sin theta)? Why is it sine and not something else? How did it get its name and many more unanswered questions...? (But if you already know then this article is not for you!).
Trigonometry began with the chords. A chord is a straight line drawn between any 2 points on a circle. Later trigonometry was based on a concept which is a slight modification of chords called sines. A sine of an angle is half the length of the chord of twice that angle (Is your head turning? Don't worry a picture describes a thousand words).
Here sine of angle DAB is half the length of the chord BE which is a chord to the angle BAE which is twice angle DAB. Does it make sense?
But why is it called sine and not something else? Well we need to go back to history to find out why... As sine of an angle is half the length of the chord of twice the angle as seen above, Indians basically astronomers who used trigonometry extensively used to call it ardh-jiya in Sanskrit. If you know Sanskrit then you know ardh means half and jiya is chord. They even started calling it as ardh-jiva. Arabs who were interested and amused by the concept of trigonometry took the knowledge of trigonometry from Indians and called it as jiba. Well they probably won't use vowels in their language so they renamed it as jb. After many years Latin translators thought the word jb was acronym for jaib. But jaib in Arabic meant breast. In Latin sinus had breast and bay as two of its meanings. English translators took this word sinus and adapted it as sine to depict half the length of the chord of twice the angle...
Well this was just how sine got its name.. But if you are really interested in learning all (at least fundamentals) about trigonometry i.e. cosine, tangent, cotangent, secant, cosecant ... then just go through the link. It's worth reading
If you have ever traveled in an auto rickshaw in Bengaluru on the same route more than once, you understand what I am saying. I do travel nowadays from Domlur to Corporation in an auto. The meters installed in them might be weather sensitive! (Innovation isn’t it). They show different fares everyday for the same route I travel. According to actual tariff released by the Transport department the distance between Domlur to Corporation is 6.5 Km and so the tariff is Rs 39 (now it is 39+7 because of the revised rates). But the tariff shown by the meter usually oscillates around that figure. A small tolerance in the figures is acceptable but sometimes the meters run as if they are running a 100m race. They show Rs 45, Rs 48... ! I and my friend necessarily make some time while traveling so that we can fight out and get the justice. But usually they won’t give us the opportunity to fight with them. Our conversation in an auto with a illegal meter usually goes like this.... Navu: “En sir, meter hinge odthaidhe! (What sir, meter is running like this!)”. Once they come to know that we have learnt about the illegal meter they are using they usually switch off the meter and say “nimage dina corporation ge estu duddu agutho astu kodi sir (daily whatever fare you pay to travel to corporation in an auto pay that much)”. But yaradru Bakra sikadre topi hakodhantu nija.
So beware guys whenever you are into such a situation, where you think the auto rickshaw driver is cheating you, just note down his Driving License (DL) number which is usually displayed on the back of driver’s seat usually visible to the passengers. If you don’t find any such DL just don’t commute in such autos. Make a note of the Auto rickshaw's registration number put up on the number plate. Call the police and lodge a compliant. Another advice is to board an auto with a digital meter, although they are also corrupt sometimes. But if you think why all the fuss...! Then just pay whatever money the meter shows and enjoy maadi ...... :)
This is what the placards standing on the newly constructed NICE Road said on the 26th of January 2008. I am talking about the Great ELCIA run organized by the ELCIA. It was a marathon conducted for the right cause, on the right venue on an auspicious day. It was for a right cause because we all know how Bangalore Infrastructure is! Thanks to some wonderful and care taking projects undertaken by the concerned authority. It was on the right venue because of all the fuss that some headless politicians have created about this Bengaluru-Mysore NICE Corridor troubling Mr. Kheny who has taken the all the pain to provide the people of Bengaluru and Mysore this world class infrastructure. It was an auspicious day because it was 26th of January - The Republic Day of India.
It was a long time since I had run 100m at a stretch and first time in my life that I had run 3.5 Km marathon. Some how I had not participated in the marathons so far conducted. Having traveled 3.5Km in a vehicle I really had no idea of how difficult it would be to run 3.5Km marathon. I had even thought of running for 7 Km. But now I know the pain. But the good thing about any marathon is you get free T-Shirts, Cap, Energy drinks, Napkins and who can forget the certificate. I think most people get lured by the comfort they are given during this marathon...just kidding.
Yellow painted everywhere on the day with banners, placards and slogans criticizing the condition of our city's infrastructure. Mr. Misra one of the Lead India Finalists flagged off the event by waving the ECLIA flag. Participants ran for the 100m finish. Probably they forgot they have to run 3.5Km. I took a slow step by step run... probably after 1Km i couldn't go anymore. I stopped by and had some glucose. Walked for some distance and started running. My legs were giving up and I could not run anymore... Thanks to the cameraman who was capturing some AXN video, he asked me to jump over the camera kept on the road. Glucose...water...Glucose...water I pushed hard by taking intermediate pit stops. I saw the finish line and made up my mind and forgot all the pain in my leg and ran hard and finished the race but to my surprise already around 150 to 200 people had finished the race and I had to get satisfied with the fact that I had completed the race.
