Love Letter On A PostCard

A little while ago, I was reading "Khushwantnama - The Lessons of My Life" by Khushwant Singh. In the chapter "Journalism Then and Now", Khushwant Singh writes - I have never made any distinctions between Journalism and literature. They're both about communication. I had no problems writing about politics because I had opinions and I wasn't scared to air them. I was full of self-confidence and belief in my three-pronged formula of inform, amuse, provoke. The above 3 words are very important for any writer. A writer's writing should be to inform his readers, amuse them and provoke them to think after they have finished reading. Buy Khushwantnama: The Lessons of My Life from Amazon (India) Buy Khushwantnama: The Lessons of My Life from Amazon (US) Buy Khushwantnama: The Lessons of My Life from Flipkart.com

Kudos to the Indian Judiciary System and the laws, that the minor who was involved in the gang rape of a physiotherapy student which took place on 16th December 2012 in Delhi is sentenced to three years in a juvenile corrective home. The juvenile was charged of multiple crimes which included murder, rape, kidnapping and destruction of evidence. And yet, he gets only 3 years. Three years of punishment is too less for such a heinous crime. The punishment given is nothing as compared to what he has done. He should be hanged till death. The laws of Juvenile Justice Board, which gave the sentence today, should be changed for such acts. Today's verdict is like giving a platform for the minors to commit more crime. The law enforces us to have a driving license only after 18 but the same law is lenient in such cases where the minor not only raped the girl, but also inserted iron rod inside the victim's body and tore her uterus. The verdict is such a joke. It's like saying, " k

I love to read diaries. Especially those written by small kids because those cute little diaries portray the innocence of small children. For example, I've read a few pages of the Diary of Young Girl (Anne Frank). And recently, while there was a sale going on Amazon , I purchased "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" by Jeff Kinney. The Wimpy Kid series is quite popular amongst the kids with 9 other releases and a movie based on it. The other Wimpy kid series include [Click the below links to buy them from Amazon India] : Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Third Wheel Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hard Luck Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Movie  Jeffrey "Jeff Kinney" is an American game designer, cartoonist, producer, actor and author of the Wimpy Kid Series of books. In the Wimpy Kid series, Jeff writes about the daily struggles o

With the release of Android Device Manger, Google has gone a step further with the Android Platform. Now you can easily locate your Android Phone or Android Tablet using this feature.

Ever since I have completed my college, writing with pen and paper has been almost negligible - except a few times when I write in my diary or during meetings at my work place. I love writing with pen and paper. Although, during my school days I hated it, as the teachers used to give a hell lot of homework. I personally feel that writing with pen and paper helps you to concentrate more and you can easily create your pattern of thoughts. The sequence of thoughts can easily be established. Also during meetings, you can always note down important points rather than making a mental list which you tend to forget. Moreover, notes taken with pen and paper are easily available for your reference during further meetings. I have also noticed that taking notes during the meeting or some lecture keeps you less distracted. Note taking is also a great productivity tool. With the advent of technology, we have various tools for note taking (like Evernote ), electronic pens and writing pads or even rec

Have you ever fallen in love ? Have you ever been surrounded by grief due to love ? Have you ever felt that even after receiving everything thing in life, even after living a comfortable and satisfied life, at some moment, you feel that you're all alone and gloomy amongst all the happiness and loved ones? Do know gujarati language ? Then you should read Priyajan by Vinesh Antani. A novel that describes how heart is being grieved by love, how the life's first love remains engraved in our heart and what it takes to forget it and move on in life. A novel about love, about missing someone, about happiness and sadness, about various emotions and confusions, about relations and most importantly, about that something that pinches you deep inside after even after having lived life to the fullest and takes you to some another phase of your life that you've lived. There's no returning back to that phase of life, everything has changed and you have reached to a point where there&#

It's India's Independence Day . 66 years ago, on 15th August 1947, India was freed from the Britishers rule. Many Indians shared their patriotic feelings via status updates on Facebook and by tweeting on Twitter. It seemed that as the citizens of India, it was everyone's moral duty to share their patriotism on the social networks. However, this feeling will die the next day. Everyone would be busy with their daily chores and again after a year, their patriotism would wake up and would be displayed on social networks. Patriotism comes from within, from heart. It has nothing to do with your status updates or tweets or the Indian Flag as your DP (Display Pic). Patriotism is not a one day affair. It should be like unconditional love, like the love of a mother for her child. Love for your country and your countrymen. Look at the armed forces. They are the real patriotic people . They are the ones who keep the patriotic fire continuously burning within them. And we are the ones

Recently Yatra.com forgot to renew its domain name and it turned out to be embarrassing as well as loss in terms of business for Yatra. The loss is speculated to around 20 crores. A domain name is important for a business. It brings you business. It is your identity on the Internet. And if you forget to renew your domain, it can cause disaster for your business especially if it is an E-Commerce site. Here are a few tips to protect your domain name from expiring : Check your domain names' expiration date : Keep track of all your domains expiration dates. Set reminders for your domains and renew them well in advance without waiting for the grace period. Check the reminders : Before a domain is about to expire, the domain providers make it a point to send you multiple reminders in advance. Take them seriously and renew at the earliest. Also once in a week, make it a point to check your SPAM mail, in case the reminders go into them. Add your registrar's domain name

2 days back I attended the ceremonious Dewang Mehta IT Awards 2013 at the Gujarat Convention Centre, Ahmedabad. The awards are given to the students of Gujarat's Engineering Colleges for their innovation in carrying out their final year projects and to the toppers of all the colleges affiliated to GTU (Gujarat Technological University), Ahmedabad. The awards are given by the Dewang Mehta Memorial Trust in association with Gujarat Informatics Limited (GIL), National Association of Software Services and Companies (NASSCOM) and Gujarat Technological University. The award for the final year projects consists of 1 lac each to the team. In all 3 teams are finally selected. The projects are being evaluated based on originality, innovation, sustainability, implementation of the project as well as its scalability and most importantly the its social impact. Due importance is also given to presentation and communication skills. The students have to face a jury panel who evaluate their project

Today it's Organ Donation Day. And I have signed up as an organ donor on the TimesOfIndia website . I always wanted to donate my eyes and donate my body [ See Wishlist ] for medical research. But then, somehow I came across this Organ Donation Campaign by Times of India and signed up for it. I'll be donating my corneas (eyes), kidneys, heart, lungs, liver and pancreas. I've always encouraged organ donation. In fact, I am thankful to my parents for encouraging eye donation and due to it, my grandparents have donated their eyes. Even my parents have pledged for eye donation. And now I have also signed up as an organ donor. Please sign up and help some one. Pledge yourself and donate your organs. It's better to donate rather than be wasted by being burnt or buried.

Suffering from throat infection for the past two days.  Running nose. Weakness Lots of work Lots to read Hope to get well soon in terms of health :-)

First of all Happy Friendship Day to All. It's friendship day today and I didn't receive any SMS on my phone. All whatsapp'd. :-) And I wrote a post titled : Rise and Fall of SMS on my Technology Blog - Technological Notes .

Once there was a time when most of the youngsters preferred SMSing rather than calling or in extreme cases - just giving a missed call. Call rates are quite low, but still we prefer messaging as it's short, to the point, less disturbing and cuts the crap like "Hi, how are you?", "I am fine", "What's up?", etc.

This year Gujarat has received good amount of rain. However, the rains bring their own troubles and happiness. Last night it rained heavily here in Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad. Most of the colleges and schools were shut except a few like ours. Some of the roads were clogged with water. One of the major problems during rains is of stray animals standing on the road. It's quite troublesome for the vehicles to pass. And this creates life threatening accidents for the cattle as well the vehicle drivers. Just a few days ago I saw a dead cow being hit by a some vehicle. And 2 days back, a person died in Ahmedabad as he tried to save the animal being hit. Although there are rules for the cattle owners, they are hardly followed. Strict action should be taken against the owners and also the government should take some measures to avoid such incidents.

Gandhinagar completes 48 years of its establishment and will be entering in the 49th year today. On 2nd of August, 1965, the first stone of Gandhinagar was laid. Built on the lines of Chandigarh by two Indian Town Planners, Prakash Apte and H. K. Mewada, Gandhinagar has developed and prospered in many ways after it was proposed as the capital of Gujarat. I first visited Gandhinagar when I was studying in school and played badminton. I played my first Open Gujarat Badminton tournament here in Gandhinagar. And then, almost after 10 years, I again visited it with Jatin Sir. At that time, I really liked the beautiful, serene and greenest city of Gujarat, Gandhinagar. And now, when I am staying in Gandhinagar since 1 year, I have always liked it. Be the well maintained roads, the quite surroundings, the gardens or the amenities that the government provides, I've no complaints till now. Here are two rare clicks of Gandhinagar that I found on the Internet. The First Stone (Source : Gandh

I first came to know about the '30 day challenges' from Matt's Blog . Matt is a Googler and the guy behind Google's Webspam team. I have been following his blog for quite some time now and I came across his 30 days series of blog posts . 30 days is enough time to build a habit. However, I'd read somewhere that if you do a task for 21 days continuously, then it becomes a habit. I don't know how did they calculate exactly 21 days. So I've decided to try the same for 30 days. The days are going to pass, whether to try something new or not. 30 days will make a month and many such months will make a year and finally one day you'll die. Then why not try something new, something good, something innovative for the next 30 days. If you like it, you can continue. If you don't, nobody will force you. My 30 day challenge is to write at least a page everyday in my diary (and upload it to the blog, if possible). Thus, this post today, makes me complete my 1st day

Reading for me has been my favorite hobby and to nourish this hobby I have been collecting books and buying them to the extent that now there are too many books pending to be read. But still, whenever I see new books, I tend to buy them. Its like intoxication to drugs. I compare myself with a drunkard. A drunkard will always buy more and more bottles of liquor irrespective of the fact that his makeshift bar at home is stashed with numerous bottles. The same happens to me in case of books. I find a new book worth reading and I purchase it. So, now the time has come to temporarily stop stashing my room with new books and finish reading the stock available.

So Raj Babbar said one can have a 'full meal' in Rs. 12, Rasheed Masood quoted Rs. 5 and Farooz Abdullah quoted as low as Re. 1 for a 'full meal' in a country where even a cutting chai costs around Rs. 5. I don't understand in which era these politicians are living. These leaders should know what they are speaking before passing such kind of absurd statements.

Petrol prices hiked again. Well, does it matter? We need not worry at all with the increase in prices. Because we always fill our tanks with the amount available in Rs. 100. :-) As a kid, my dad used to fill the tank with petrol of Rs. 100 and later when I grew up, I did the same. Where's the price increase ? ;-)

It has been observed that rain do spoil your sport or rather your plans. And it did spoil my plan today to go to Bharuch. It started raining heavily here in Gandhinagar just when I reached home from college. I had planned to go to Bharuch today as tomorrow is non working Saturday and next day is Sunday. Anyways, as the Russian-American novelist, Vladimir Nakobov said - Do not be angry with the rain; it simply does not know how to fall upwards. But why I shouldn't get angry with the rain? It didn't rain much for the past 2 days here and now when I need to go, it started raining. I enjoy rains. In fact, its my favorite season. But then, sometimes it spoils your plans. And you are helpless. I would also like to quote Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the American poet and educator : The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain.

I like reading newspapers, my favorite being The Times of India in English and Gujarat Samachar and Divyabhaskar in Gujarati. However, after leaving home for M.Tech and then in job here in Gandhinagar, the habit of reading newspapers early in the morning has been discontinued as until yesterday we were not subscribing to newspapers. I continued reading newspapers' epaper on the respective sites but the joy of reading a newspaper early in the morning along with tea is incomparable to that of epaper. So day before yesterday, we decided to subscribe to Divyabhaskar and The Times of India. And today morning, I was waiting for them but the paperwala didn't drop today. But the neighbours got their respective newspapers and they were leisurely reading sitting in their armchairs and definitely I was feeling jealous. It reminded me of the days when I would regularly read the newspaper at home. The point for the post today is that I grew restless today while waiting for the newspaper. I

Just finished reading "The Butterfly Generation" by Palash Krishna Mehrotra. The book has been divided into three sections - One-on-One, Wide Angle and Here We Are Now, Entertain Us. The first section deals with short stories of 8 people in his life. Out of the three section, I liked it the most. There's his one photographer who's been hit hard by recession and now is in debt. He'd made a good amount of money in his good days and now he's waiting for his old days to come back. Then there's the story of how scriptwriters in Bombay write their scripts for the Bollywood. Also the writer has portrayed the lifestyle of drug-addicted call center guys; another story is of his girlfriends. The writer has effectively provided a view of all those small town guys coming to big cities like Delhi and Mumbai and feel liberated from the shackles of their parents and their conservative thoughts. The second section, Wide Angle talks about the issues mentioned in the first

Recently I purchased two books: Notes to Myself: My Struggle to Become a Person by Hugh Prather The Other Side of Me by Sidney Sheldon  Both the books are worth reading. Will write a detailed review about both these books later. Notes to Myself is a book that you'll read and read and re-read it. The book gives us an insight into the sweet, small moments of our lives that we tend to neglect. In today's world, we overlook small things. We are worried about our future and tend to forget today's happy moments. As the author says - " I don't need a reason to be happy. I don't have to consult the future to know how happy I feel now. " The writing style of author is soothing and comes from heart. Buy Notes to Myself from Flipkart.com   The Other Side of Me starts with the story of how Sidney Sheldon, as a young guy wanted to end his life by consuming sleeping pills with whiskey and how his father finds it and advises him to reconsider his decision. He says - Li

The first biological lesson of history in life is competition. The above quote is from the book "The Lessons of History" by Will and Ariel Durant. A man has to compete right from his birth. No matter how much we may wish that there should be equality - in wealth, in health or in any worldly things; but mother nature likes inequality. She yearns change, she wants everyone to be different, she makes us different and that's the rule of nature. And hence we have competition. Competition for wealth, love, things, etc. We should respect nature. We should respect the change. We should respect inequality. We should follow the nature's rules rather than fighting and dissipating our energies. If we keep faith in nature's way of working and let it work the way it wants, then and only then, we'll be happy. So we should stay cool and play life as a game which is full of surprises and up and downs.

Last week on Saturday, while I was on vacation, I and my engineering friends of had a small get-together. It was a long pending get-together. So after many discussions on WhatsApp and a few calls, a few of us decided to meet at Baroda. The participants were - Rahul & Soniya, Hemal, Sandhya and Myself. Apurva & Swati couldn't come due to some reasons. Kinjal also couldn't come. First, we went to Hemal's new house in Pashabhai Park and had snacks. After a while, we went to Inox just a few yards from Pashabhai Park and watched the new movie Raanjhanaa starring Dhanush and Sonam Kapoor. Didn't liked the movie much. However, the music of A.R. Rehman was good. After movie, we roamed in the Landmark store besides Inox and later decided to have dinner. Most of the restaurants were flooded and we had to wait outside. Finally we could manage to have South Indian at Sankalp. In all, we enjoyed the day and felt great. Missed a lot many classmates. I take this opportunity to

Atul Chitnis has aptly written a post for all those guys joining as freshers. He has written 20 tips for the freshers. Here's the link . 

While I understand that all things must come to an end, whether it's a television advertisement or one's life or the world itself, it doesn't make it any easier to deal with. ~ John Hodgman These days I hardly watch TV. And whenever I get a chance to watch, the ads seem to be so endless that sometimes I forget which program I was watching on the TV channel. However, there's a good news too. According to the link, TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) has started making attempts to regulate the advertising time. So its good news for regular TV viewers. However, this is going to hurt the channels. And this will also increase the ad rates which will directly affect small players.

I've always admired Chetan Bhagat as a writer. Have read all his books, my favorite being "Five Point Someone." Off late, other than writing novels, he's also popular as a speaker who talks about life, ' spark ' and other topics in general. He's also seen more as a youth icon amongst the youngsters. Today he tweeted about some of the lessons he've learnt in life. Here's the tweet. some life lessons i've learnt: twitter.com/chetan_bhagat/… — Chetan Bhagat (@chetan_bhagat) June 12, 2013

Being an engineer from a college affiliated to Veer Narmad South Gujarat University is itself a matter a pride. All VNSGU people would agree with me. ;-) Before the Gujarat Technological University was initiated, all the engineering, pharmacy and management colleges of the state were affiliated to the respective zone wise universities like the Gujarat University, Hemchandracharya North Gujarat University, Saurashtra University, Sardar Patel University, etc. Comparing VNSGU with GTU, I would like to mention a few stark differences that I've seen: We Always Used Reference Books : We, the students of VNSGU, never used to have books written by local authors/publishers that were merely copy-pasted summarized versions of the reference books. Even Gujarat University and Sardar Patel University had some books written by local publishers/authors. Studying from reference books, that too by foreign authors was too difficult for those students coming from Gujarati Medium. I still remember a b

What this world needs is a new kind of army - the army of the kind. ~ Cleveland Amory There was a time when I used to play badminton, a lot. It was during my school days. I used to train myself at the GNFC Sports Complex in Bharuch (Gujarat). One fine day, during the Open Gujarat Championships that were held in Bharuch, the organizers called Mr. Prakash Padukone to provide inspiration to the young shuttlers. Prakash Padukone is a former badminton player and the first Indian to win All England Championship and also the father of Deepika Padukone . Image Source : Wikipedia.org So in the evening when he was called, we all were busy to see the champion and meet him and get autograph from him. So an autograph session was arranged wherein he can give his autographs to the budding players. I too rushed to take his autograph, but some senior players pushed me before I could reach him. He saw this. And then he called me by signaling his hand and gave me autograph with a pen on a piece of paper

The Narmada Bridge, popularly known as Golden Bridge completes 132 years today. The bridge connects Bharuch and Ankleshwar and was built by the Britishers who needed a bridge for trading and administrative purposes with Bombay (Mumbai).  The construction of the bridge started in 1861 but in 1863 the pillars got washed away by the heavy flow of river Narmada. Again in 1867 and 1871, more pillars got washed away. Finally in 1877, the Britishers undertook the job and completed it in 1881 with construction cost of Rs. 45.65 lakh. Image Source : http://www.hoparoundindia.com/gujarat/ankleshwar-attractions/golden-bridge.aspx Why the name Golden Bridge ? The material used for construction was resistant to rust and it was so expensive to build the bridge that a bridge made of gold could have been made on a small river like Thames in England. Built for the Railway Line Originally, the bridge was built for the railway line Bombay-Baroda-Ahmedabad but later it was decided to use it for vehicles a

So finally yesterday, after the Knowledge Share of Deep Patel, I went to the Ahmedabad National Book Fair (2013). Before going, I called Jalpesh and asked him to accompany me which he readily agreed. Vikrant was with Jalpesh so he too accompanied us. After having some food, we went to the Book Fair and roamed about for about 3-3.5 hours. And was amazed by the crowd there. I bought 3 books : એબ્રાહમ એબ્રાહમ લિંકન - મણીભાઈ ભ. દેસાઈ હૈયું, કટારી અને હાથ (એક નિવૃત પોલીસ અધિકારીની કારકિર્દી-ગાથા -- જુવાનસિંહ જાડેજા). સંકલન : અરુણા જાડેજા An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth - M. K. Gandhi

It's 1st May, the day two new states were formed in India - Gujarat and Maharashtra. This year's Gujarat Foundation Day's celebrations are to be held in Navsari. Jay Jay Garvi Gujarat.

At the peak of sorrow, a man either dies or goes mad or becomes an artist. The best tunes of music, poems or ghazals composed in different languages and the world's best artifacts were created only when the pain in the heart of men blows him, demolishes his dreams and then the dried tears of his eyes flow in the form of music, poem or art work. - Yashpal Jadeja

Completed 27 years on 27th April 2013. Took a day off from the college. Vimal Pambhar was here for his final dissertation presentation at Ganpat University. I and Kiran Patel went to Mahudi (Jain Temple) on his new Activa and Anand Sutariya and Vimal Pambhar came directly from Mahesana. Our plan was to go to Tirupati Nature Park, Visnagar after taking darshan at Mahudi, but due to the summer heat we canceled the plan and returned back towards Gandhinagar for a visit to Amarnathdham, near Swapna Srushti Water Park on Mahudi-Gandhinagar Highway. While returning back from Mahudi, a man overtook from the wrong side in his car to which Vimal showed his hand. Later the man came near us and took out a wooden rod from his car and beat Vimal on his hand. He thought that Vimal abused him with words while he was driving his car on the wrong side. Meanwhile, Anandbhai and Kiran too came. Seeing them, he went away driving his car. After visiting Amarnathdham, we came home and rested

Today, it's Hanuman Jayanti , the birthday of Lord Hanuman. I have been always fascinated by Him; mostly because of his strength, looks and his fearless nature. Also, as a child, when we used to fear dark nights we were told to recite his name. I also learnt Hanuman Chalisa by heart and the Hanuman Chalisa sung by Gulshan Kumar of T-series was played by me innumerable times. Those were the days of cassette player. I played the cassette almost everyday before going to school. In between some years while still in school, we also used to frequent His temple on Saturdays on Station Road, Bharuch. Sometimes we also visited Gumandev temple near Bharuch. Occasionally I also observed fasts on Saturdays. On one such Hanuman Jayanti in the year 2000, I went to Vartej alone in bus for the first time. Many many happy returns of the day Hanumanji. May you guide us, bless us and give us strength to overcome the obstacles of life.

Watched Darbar hall museum

Excellent zoo at Sakkarbaug, Junagadh

After returning from Somnath and taking a short nap, we came here at Willingdon Dam, Junagadh

The mighty sun behind the mountains. On the way to Somnath with Tushar Trambadiya and Kiran Patel.

At Narsinh Mehta Lake, Junagadh with Tushar Trambadiya, Vimal Pambhar and Kiran Patel.

Had lunch at Swaminarayan Mandir, Junagadh with Tushar Trambadiya and Kiran Patel.

Past 2 days I am reading ‘The Fakir’ by Ruzbeh N. Bharucha. In this book, Baba explains Rudra on what is reincarnation ? Baba explains - Reincarnation is nature’s way of settling all pending issues and allowing us to go through all experiences necessary to take us up the ladder of evolution. Without reincarnation we would not have the opportunity to work out our destiny and work at our karma. Further he explains by giving the example of playing an outdoor game like football or basketball. Each game has its own set of rules which we, as players, need to follow or else we are penalized. Similarly life is one of the biggest game we play. We play by the rules, it is great. We break rules and we get penalized. Penalties may be limited for that particular game or may be passed on to future games. So if we do not obey life’s rules, we get penalized in the form of sorrow. Some penalties are for only the current game (present life), while some may be passed on for future games too. The player (

Attended a Knowledge Share event yesterday at Hotel Almond Inn, Near Sanand Cross Roads, S.G. Highway, Ahmedabad. The event was organized by CodeLogic and the presentation was given by Mr. Deep Patel of CodeLogic. The event was quite informative and the concept of sharing knowledge freely amongst the people was well appreciated. The speaker lived up to the expectations and explained the concept of Cloud Computing very well. I wish such events occur frequently and the process of sharing knowledge leads to an informative world.