Somewhere in Bhaktapur

I went to Picnic somewhere in Bhaktapur last Saturday (see i am posting it almost a week later.. i swear i am getting lazy). It was a small religious place with lots of small temples and gods. There is a lord Vishnu lying over water and guarded by snakes - which looks like a tiny replica of Budhanilkantha deity.

The entrance to the religious place - our picnic spot

Lord Garud

Can you see god appearing from fish mouth?

Tiny replica of Budhanilkantha deity

Later in the day we saw lots of farmers working in their fields - planting season just started. I have never seen people working in the fields, in a large number. It was terrific feeling.

I like this photograph

Drupal at YTC

I had a short informal presentation on Drupal to friends at YTC (Sap-falcha) on how Drupal works. Basically it was to give them a rough idea on how CMS should work - I chose Drupal because I know it well and there are other reasons too like active community, popular CMS. They found it worthwhile and even vowed to try it on their own. All the best guys.

ICIMOD seeks ...

We are expecting few major changes at ICIMOD since new DG, Dr. Andreas Schield, took over in April. Now ICIMOD is seeking lots of new professionals - different from what I was used to seeing. I hope to see big positive changes here.

Disaster Risk Reduction Specialist
Environmental Change Specialist
Senior Economist
Information and Knowledge Management Coordinator

links here http://www.icimod.org/home/vacancies/

ICIMOD Books-online: a satisfaction

I have been working on ICIMOD Books-online for the past three/four months plus and yet there are still little issues popping up every now and then. "It's almost complete" is my favorite line and I wonder when I would be in a position to say "It's done now". I can't wait for that day.

In fact I am very much satisfied with this application after more than two years in software development. It uses lots of ajax (I used jquery) and I have tweaked lots of jquery plugins for its purpose. The other interesting feature is that it is maintained at two different servers - local and online. Local server is accessible with in the ICIMOD premises only. That's make data entry job much easy and quick. I don't want people to take two hours to upload files. There are pdf files which are scanned versions of books and can go up to more than 40MB. Local content is synced with online content but there are lots of issues to be taken care of. I don't want all the database tables to be synced - especially downloads statistics table. Thanks to rsync tool - syncing folders is a breeze.

Though searching may not be very powerful, I have heavily tweaked sphider (open source search engine) to index directly from database rather than spidering through web links.

Now we have a plan to provide the application in DVD format - targeting researchers and academicians. Much work has been done - running database and web server from the DVD is not much of a problem - thanks to internet and the contributors.

The environment Minister inaugurated ICIMOD books-online on World Environment day, 5th June. So much publicity. Though I am not excited about minister inaugurating it, I am much elated on seeing my work on stage.

Give a try. See if you can find any books of your interest.

Snake in the workplace: adventurous

A snake was found sleeping under the bag in one of our colleagues room. There was a photo session of snake for several minutes, maybe scaring it. Finally one bold colleague used a long bamboo stick to get the snake out of the room. I was holding another bamboo stick behind him in case it slid away. Fortunately it didn't. I don't know whether it's poisonous or not but I really wanted to touch it and hold it by its tail - which I didn't do. But I would have done if there were some snake experts around.



I was imagining Steve Irwin or some other nat-geo guy carrying that snake by its tail and shouting "beautiful!" and all.

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Whitewater rafting: everyone should go for it once - atleast

I still feel water splashing in our faces at various rapids. Twisting and turning of our raft at these rapids were the most exciting part of entire trip. Many of these rapids even have names - the most dangerous one at Trisuli river is "Upset" and "Surprise", as told by our instructor or life guard or director of our boat. It looked like our boat almost overturned at this rapid but we managed to get through. We were busy shouting rather than paddling - some friends were even paddling in air at these rapids.



We covered 25km of Trishuli river, in the south of Kathmandu. We even dipped in the river - and swam with life jackets though. Later the water turned out to be really cold and had to get back to the boat.



While rafting, we had to follow our instructor, who would say "forward", "backward", "left forward" and so on. His favorite line was "Stop". He had to make sure that we didn't lose our direction and also that we didn't miss those interesting rapids. 3 hours seemed to be too short when we reached our final point. Arms were exhausted with paddling, so were the body and legs, but not our spirits. We wanted more.





Preparing for the show



It's me - showing some excitement



That's the Trisuli river we rafted through - our stop point

yet another doomsday: who benefits?

Some snaps taken during the morning hour of bandh, today. These bandhs (Valley shutdown) seem to be the only way of protest and the only way the government understands. The idea was conceived and brought into action by those people in the government and now others are just following in their footsteps. No one to blame.


Protesters busy carrying nearby objects to block the road. May God give them a little consciousness.



Police van and UN vehicle getting past the blockade at Maharajgung

Nature

Some of the pics that I took on my last visit to ICIMOD Godavari Demonstration and Training Center at Godavari.





A bee and the flower





A staring beetle





A gang of unknown bugs





Leaves from closeup





A pink bug

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USBCell: look around for new ideas

Charging battery via USB never crossed my mind, though I have seen and used MP3 player being charged after plugging into USB. But AA battery (USB Cell) charging with USB is something new for me. You may also charge them with your normal charger, after putting the cap on.

How about this? The world with no battery. The device getting charged from the powerful radio waves, emitting from super powerful transmitter. Seems absurd now. But you never know - some scientists may already be working on this.

The world is indeed full of ideas and these ideas are on an increase with every innovation. Look around us and see if we can conceive anything of our use - or anything that is going to solve a problem to some extent. I bet your life will get transformed that day. Keep exploring.

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French or other languages: gain with pain

I am in the third week of my french class and now can speak few sentences. There's a whole lot of conversion (english-french) and constructions taking place in brain, before words burst out of the mouth. And again most of them would be improperly articulated. It's difficult and yet fun to learn new stuffs. Sometimes it gets really frustrating when I don't understand anything our instructor is saying and i feel that I am the only victim. Later it turns out that most others are also on the same side.



The problem with beginners in any language is vocabulary. There are so many things you want to say but you don't know the words. You go through simple nursery books, comics and couldn't comprehend beyond first few words. Our instructor said that we would be in a position to understand simple comics after third level, which would take six months plus. That's a way too long for me. I am really looking forward to read comics after the first level. That means I give at least an hour to french everyday. Gain and pain are part of learning indeed.

technology vs us: who is using whom

My mobile had crashed two times, leaving me at the mercy of the callers. Technology does paralyse us at times. But still we are dependent upon it. Just to make sure that I don't go through the same agony, I now take monthly backup of my addressbook, transfer to my computer via bluetooth and then safely email to my gmail account. There are cases I have seen, when people totally get lost after losing their mobile. Well I am not preparing to lose my mobile nor crash it again, but just the precaution in case. If you notice, I am still at the mercy of the technology. I sometimes wonder if we are using technology or it is using us. This world has indeed become more and more complicated.

It's upto us!

1960: richest 20% of the world's population had 70% of global income

1991: richest 20% of the world's population had 85% of global income

Courtesy: http://www.iht.com/articles/1996/12/11/edbim.t.php



"A billion customers in the world are waiting for a 2$ pair of eyeglasses, a 10$ solar latern and a 100$ house."



There's a lot of inequalities among the richest and the poorest of this world and yet the cleverest designers are catering to the richest 10%, according to Dr. Polak. True! isn't it?



We can help billions of poor people and yet make money (only if u are money minded - i guess most of us are) or we can help few millions of rich people and again make money. What do we choose? It's upto us whether to bring long-lasting smile to the billion people or an instant joy to the insatiable million people.

For how long??

I stayed in queue for exactly 50 minutes to get fuel for my bike. There were hundreds of people waiting for their turns. How many productive hours of the nepalese citizens been wasted? Who cares? Those who should never get time to think about the citizens and their welfares.



Waiting in queue for 50 minutes with starving stomach. Ohh! Finally I got home, just to find that there's no electricity. It was load-shedding day. Well my would-be-unproductive hours seemed to be productive, though in some way. I must say that "They do think about us - randomly". />

being positive is hard

No matter how much I read about positivity, it's really hard to be positive. I was returning from my french class, there was a jam in New Road. It was not moving at all. I got off my bike and climbed the overhead bridge to see the vehicles, enveloping entire road - as far as my vision allowed - just sitting there without any sign of movement. I asked couple of people standing, "What happened?". Most questioned me back. Some were mentioning that something's to be with whining teachers, they were burning something. I still don't have any idea what might have happened exactly where at 7:30 in the evening today.



Anyways I turned back and came the long road - yeah we still have fuel shortage. On the way back, there was a mid-aged man, with a pot belly, in a scooter honking after almost every 3-4 seconds. I would count 1-2-3-4 and he honked and it continued for quite a long period. I wondered if he is obsessed with horns. So I let him overtook me. And he would still not stop honking, even in an open road. I was so irritated that everytime he honked, I would honk him back. He didn't seem to be affected at all. Finally he took another way. I wonder what's wrong with people here. They don't think or they don't have mind at all.

Runner's high: I felt it before I knew about it

I wrote about happy feelings after running, almost two months back. I have even recommended people to try running rather than consuming alcohol to achieve the same feelings as one would get during alcohol intake. I even derived an empirical equation



Tiredness = hanged - worries = happy feelings



I didn't know that people already knew about such happy feelings and have even given a name "Runner's high". Runner's high involves not only in running but all sort of sports and occurs due to the generation of chemical called endorphine during strenuous exercise. I felt it and now I knew about it.



Today is my probably the 6th run to-fro Budhanilkantha. My wish to run without breaks is finally accomplished today. I am happy about that and ofcourse there's runner's high. The mild rain on the way back added even more excitement and boosted my energy. I guess I experienced "runner's very high" today :)



Scott Dunlap seems to know a lot about runner's high and his feelings are also quite similar to mine - regarding the use of marijuna (in his case) vs running for the euphoric feelings.

'Telecommunications in all villages in a year' huh!

I wonder if Mr. Mahara did any study or consulted with telecommunication people before making statement like 'telecommunication facilities would be expanded at each village across the country in a year's period'. I hope he did. He is information and communication minister after all. I would like to see their work plan not just talking. I wonder if they think construction is as easy as destruction.



If you look at the ekantipur news, the above statement seems to make way for other topics like declaration of republic, constitutent assembly, Moaists People's Liberation Army...



It just seems to be waste of time to go through such news. But the headline caught my eyes. These media people do know how to get their audiences.

A short Shivapuri hike

Though it was a short hike, we had lots of fun talking at the colorful monastery somewhere at top of Shivapuri hill with Anna, Emma and Prajna. The rain was even more exciting, with one umbrella and one raincoat and 4 people with coordinated down hill walk. We didn't get to drench in rain though our pants got dirty and gave the look of the real hike. And I got to know lots of interesting facts on Sweden from Anna and Emma.

Foreigners do have lots of problems here. We have to pay Rs 10 to enter Shivapuri National Park while they have to pay Rs 250. I was surprised to hear that they are constantly approached by drug dealers, asking if they need any, while walking in the city. Interesting.


Kathmandu city as seen on the way


Girls pointing somewhere at the city


Way to Monastery (Yellow Building)


A whole lot of colorful Buddhist flags near Monastery


Emma, Prajna and Anna inside Monastery


A huge colorful drum inside Monastery

Boogie, the bday boy

The Boogie, alias Sugam bhai, was preparing to cut his birthday cake in the third and the last day of his birthday celebration series. I heard it - about the series. Yet to find the truth which I don't care, and also similarly non-important issue is about his name - why he is called "The Boogie".

Updates: Three days bday celebration mystery solved

It's so easy to get depressed here, learn to suppress it

I was just going through the daily online news and felt very bad reading all those bad news, making to the headlines.

Fuel shortage hits valley
[...]The current stock of petrol, diesel, and kerosene in the Kathmandu Valley is hardly adequate for two days,[...]

Patients return from Bir hospital empty-handed
[...]I came from Janakpur for my throat check-up, but they (hospital officials) didn't issue a ticket saying there was no doctor,[...]

Camps: Hell for PLA combatants
[...]They desert their camps and knock at the doors of locals, pleading for
shelter and protection from gales, rain, mosquito bites, and possible
harm from snakes and scorpions during the night.[...]

Ex-soldiers take to the street
[...]We will now hold an indefinite transportation strike in Chitwan,
Bharatpur, Mugling Bazar and Bhaise area of Makawanpur district
beginning Thursday to exert pressure on the government[...]

Besides there's daily traffic jams, water scarcity, terrai conflict... Few days and probably weeks back, I thought I wouldn't see news and read news. I hardly watch News anymore, though I skim through the online news once in a while. And it's enough to get depressed easily.

It is said that whatever is in our mind, will manifest. We are very prone to negativity. Negative thoughts are very very health hazardous as explained by Guru Michael Anthony in his freely downloadable howtobehappy book. Read how to be happy and may you help yourself and your surrounding in getting happiness despite the looming depression.

"I am always truthful, positive and helping others" is the mantra to bliss.

Wired Kathmandu

I still remember an ICIMOD colleague, a finnish lady, once mentioned to me, "I wonder why do people need to hang all those wires around the city". I looked around and wondered "Wow! she's right!". I have never realized that. After 25 years of staying here at Kathmandu, I saw that there's not a street, alley that don't have wires hanging in air. We are so much used to hanging wires, our eyes filter them unconsciously. We have to be reminded that it's there. Among those wires are electricity wires, telephone, channels cables, and now internet cables. I bet people would also hang wireless cables, if only they could.

From the visible perspective, Kathmandu should be one of the most wired city. What do you say, folks?

If you look down from my home veranda, there's a bunch of wires running across the alley towards my home and few of them are actually for my home - telephone, channel cable, internet cable and electricity. The white box in the dirty looking pole is actually the world link internet cable box. You can imagine how easy it was to get internet for me. Don't ever think of stealing internet from there.

Hail wired Kathmandu!! Now I see wires everyday ;)