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Finally it came!

I had applied for Post – Graduate Engineering Entrance even in Andhra Pradesh. I applied for it long time back but was upset as I didn’t receive hall ticket even after coming back from Vellore. I searched online whether it is available on the PGECET’s website for downloading but nothing was available, not even a single word mentioning hall ticket. For a while I thought it might have got rejected and that’s the reason I didn’t get the hall ticket. Even I searched one or two online forum regarding hall ticket, all had commented that it is not yet received by anyone. The entrance test was on 6th June 2011 but hall ticket was not received even on 31st of May. I tried to call up PGECET helpline numbers which gave prompt response that number is not in use!

I thought my chance to visit Andhra Pradesh missed and felt bad that Rs. 450/- which I had applied as entrance test fees is gone. Was just writing blogs sitting outside home on 31st May. Post man came and called up my name with a Close Up smile which always he gives. He handed over an envelope and went wishing bye. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was the hall ticket which I was desperately waiting for. Felt happy and the next move was to reserve tickets to Bangalore. Booked the tickets online and made a plan searching in Google how to reach the exam center and similar stuff after reaching Thirupati. I was happy as this is the second trip to Bangalore within a week!

Danger of using Maida flour

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Maida flour has become part and parcel of bakery industry. All the delicious stuffs, bread everything is made up of Maida flour. Maida flour is prepared from wheat by removing the proteins, roughage or dietary fiber substances. The wheat which is separated from proteins and roughage is bleached using benzoic peroxide and it will be softened by mixing a chemical called aloxanes, making maida flour to have many chemical components. 

 Maida flour was banned in many countries but because of political lobby and other things ban was taken back and maida is available in every country serving people with delicious bakery items. At least few of you might remember in earlier days maida mixed with hot water being used as gum to stick wall posters. May be this is the reason to name Maida as all purpose flour!
Recent research has also shown that using Maida increases the chances of human beings becoming diabetic. The chemical aloxanes used in maida can destroy the beta cells of pancreas which produce insulin to lower sugar levels in human beings. Not only maida all the flour which is available in market will have aloxanes mixing which gives softness to the flour and taste to the tongue. You may also observe that the flour you get by wheat or rice or any pulses will not be as soft as that of maida.

 Problem is not only with maida, in bakery industry along with maida chemical preservatives, essence, taste makers and artificial colors will be added to make bakery items tasty. These chemicals also have adverse effects and cause many problems in human beings ranging from constipation to all higher diseases. Avoid substances which contain maida as the major content. A balanced diet with knowledge of food what we eat can make us live longer happily and healthy.

Reference:
Influence of Aloxanes on the Apoptosis of Pancreas B-Cells of Rat, World Journal of Medical Sciences 4(2): 70-73, 2009

Vellore to Shimoga


Reached Vellore by evening 6’o clock searched for lodge and got a room in one of the big lodge ‘Chelliamman Lodge’ near to new Vellore bus stop. Enquired people about where is ‘Kaniyambadi’ to reach the college where exam center is located with much difficulty I found that the buses to Kaniyambadi will go from new bus stand. Had dinner and slept early so that I can get ready and leave to exam center. On the other side Indian Premier League (IPL) was going on and it was almost clear that Chennai Super Kings will bag the trophy.
Got up early morning and went to take bath, didn’t take head bath as my mother clearly instructed not to take it as it is the main reason for hair fall. Left from the lodge, reached the old bus stand and searched bus to go to Kaniyambadi. I couldn’t search easily as every board was in Tamil, asked a bus conductor about the place and for much relaxation he guided me to take up the bus standing in the next row. One more surprising fact for me was bus fare was lower compared to other states, I calculated roughly “one can travel twice the distance at Tamil Nadu for the same bus fare at Karnataka”. Reached college and introduced myself with two guys who were standing outside the college gate, they were from Andhra Pradesh.
Entrance exam went fairly well. Finished exam at 12’o clock and rushed back to Vellore for taking bus to Bangalore. Vacating the room, had nice lunch at Alankar hotel and got into Bangalore along with the two guys whom I met earlier. It was almost 8:30 PM when I reached Bangalore the bus drive just took six hours to drive a distance of two hundred and twelve kilometers, I visited one of my friend’s home for lunch as it was his daughter’s birthday. Having lunch there, again rushed to railway station to catch a train to Shimoga. Finally, got into train finishing short journey and slept nicely till next morning!

Sri Lakshmi Hayagriva Swami Temple, Bangalore

Sri Lakshmi Hayagriva Swami Temple is near to Bangalore bus stand i. e. majestic. I had been there once to attend one of my friends brother’s Brahmopadesham. Temple is an old one but now partly hidden as its entrance is surrounded by many shops of travel agencies. Rarely any one can know the existence of such temple in midst of such shops and wonders if any one visits inside. Temple is nice with many architectural design and cool environment, making people to love it at first sight.

Temple also has rare statue of Lord Hayagriva which is not so popularly present in all places. Recently the temple was showed in one of popular Television channel’s premier show. Show was for thirty minutes and it gave highlights of temple and its history. After reaching Bangalore I went to one of my friend’s home to refresh before leaving to Vellore. It was in morning 5’o clock and didn’t notice much about temple as it was quite dark also. I stayed at friend's home itself as he forced to stay as I visited him after a long time.

I was out of my friend’s home around 11’o clock on next day reaching majestic at 12’o clock (hopefully there was no much traffic) I climbed on the over bridge to reach railway station, just saw a gang of people on the other side of the road. There was nearly more than one kilometer queue, I got confused and started to think what is happening. Observing carefully I noticed that people were waiting to enter temple and take darshan of Lord Hayagriva. I was thinking how a show on television can make a place so popular

Update: Based on request of readers photos of temple location is posted.

Remembering Einstein at Railway Station

It is very difficult to understand how the things work in Bangalore, some roads will become one way and few will be blocked temporarily. Now because of Metro Train work and constructing fly overs has made few routes unfit for travelling by traffic jams and less space for vehicle movement. Similar thing happened at Railway station, it was almost a year that I took train ticket standing in queue for more than half an hour. I was nearing railway station and was happy that no queue in ticket counters. I just reached and saw counters they were empty, no one to issue tickets or the table and the computer at the desk. I got confused and asked police man on duty, he guided to go outside to but ticket!

I rushed out and searched for ticket counter. Somehow I made it to reach counter. I stood in queue for tickets. I was feeling the queue in which am standing is moving slow and other queues are moving faster. I looked at the guy sitting at the issuing counter, he was issuing tickets quickly but still I felt something is wrong with the queue am standing. All of a sudden I remembered a chapter relating to Einstein which was there in high school curriculum.

At that time what I knew about Einstein’s theory of relativity is “ we wont feel the time spent with a beautiful girl for hours, we feel we just spent some time but it is not the same while siting on a stove we can’t sit even for a minute”. The same thing happened to me at railway station “Even though the ticketing counter guy was issuing tickets quickly I was feeling it is late compared to other queues and also I felt am in queue from a long time which I was not”

Location display in Mobile Phones

I took Shastra express to reach Katpady junction as it is near to Vellore and I can reach Vellore by city bus. I got into train buying tickets, general compartment was crowded and there was no place to sit. Kept the bag below the seat and was standing thinking someone will get down in the next subsequent steps. A couple looking at me told that they will get down in K. R. Puram stop and I can take their seat. I was happy and at the same time I took care that no one should sit there before me. I was succeeded in doing so and sat once the couple got down from the train.

At subsequent stops instead of people getting down from the train, people getting into the train was more. There was huge crowd that even I couldn’t see which station has come. The people who were around me did not know any language except Tamil and I didn’t know Tamil. It was very much difficult to know which station will be the next and I was new for that route.

Mobile phones earlier used to show the place of tower so that it was helpful for passengers to know from which tower the mobile is taking signal and easy to know their location! Now, the mobile service providers have stopped that and give brief advertisement of their offers and similar stuff. I looked at the mobile phone instead of showing tower name it was displaying “dial *123*1234# for dial tone”. I cursed the service providers who mercilessly charge for roaming once we move to other state and doesn’t even bother to anything for subscriber’s benefit to know where they are!

A short journey!

I planned to appear for Tamil Nadu common entrance test for post graduate engineering admissions. I applied and got the hall ticket ten days before the exam. I had applied for the Andhra Pradesh post graduate test also to increase the possibility of getting a seat. I checked with the train ticket availability as I needed to reach Vellore to attend test, as usual the website showed huge number of waiting list. I thought of booking for Tatkal tickets which can be done only two days before the journey. After two days completing the class, checked for tatkal tickets, again there was waiting list and with a hope it will confirm I booked and it was in waiting list. I waited till chart preparation but it doesn’t get confirmed. By this time I had no option other than travelling by bus so packed with the luggage and at the same time it started to thunder and rain heavily. I got confused whether to travel or not, as I had two days time and I can start next day.

Thinking over a long time decided to take up bus and went as the rain was almost stopped and started to drizzle. Took the bus and reached Shimoga half an hour late than scheduled time as water had overflowed on roads and blocked roads making unfit for travelling. Reaching Shimoga, crossed the road to take Government bus to Bangalore. Got into the bus and gave a call to home to inform my parents about me reaching to Shimoga and getting into bus. Disconnecting the call I was planning roughly what to do once I reach Bangalore, calculating all these didn’t know when I got sleep and woke up only at capital city of Karnataka!

Never ending Television (TV) serials!

Finishing with the classes early, I was back home by noon and tuned to television to see what is being telecasted. It is really difficult for those who sit with me to watch television as I change with the channels very often. I changed few channels and it was time for serials. Serials are major attractions of few channels and have high viewer ratings. I was just looking at episode numbers. Some numbers has crossed the figure 1000 and the serials will be telecasted only from Monday to Friday.

One year will have 365 days (except leap year); there will be usually 52 or 54 Saturdays and Sundays. Adding 52 Saturdays and Sundays totally there will be 104 weekend days on which there won’t be serial telecast. Simple calculation of subtracting weekend days makes the serial telecast days 265. Now, you can imagine the same serial which is telecasting 1086th episode is being holding viewers from just 4 years and one month (265 days * 4 = 1104 days!) I was surprised and also astonished how the serials will get content to run it for 4 to 5 years.

After this calculation, started watching a television serial, it took almost 5 minutes to finish title song and 2 minutes for Recap of previous episode. The serial started at the 8th minute and at the 10th minute there was an advertisement break which lasted for 5 minutes. The serial started and there was a break at 20th minute lasted for 3 minutes. After that Serial started at 24th minute and ended at a small twist at 27th minute and again list of actors and their role started to scroll on screen making it to end at 30th minute! Finally I calculated the actual serial content telecast time and it was summed up to 12 minutes or less than that. Then I understood logic and magic of serial’s content, they will show 100 minutes captured video for roughly 10 days or so. If by mistake anyone misses to see an episode it doesn’t make much difference as an episode contains only ten minutes content! This secret makes serials run for several thousand episodes and survive longer.

Teaching Analytical Geometry

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In the previous blog I mentioned about the assignment I got to teach Mathematics to PUC students. I started with teaching Analytical Geometry which many of the tuition teachers avoid telling it is difficult or little number of questions will appear from it for the exams. As per the syllabus of 2nd PUC conic sections includes parabola, ellipse and hyperbola. All the three conics have definite well defined properties so that they can be sketched or traced very well with a bit of practice. The books which are specifically written for 2nd PUC Mathematics doesn’t develop an analytical approach to deal with conic sections, but all are filled with tons of formulae which are very hard to remember.

Instead of making Analytical Geometry boring with lots of formulae, the equations of conics’ tangent, directrix, vertex and foci can be easily derived analytically just by developing skill of sketching curves. This requires a bit of patience to teachers and a bit of practice to students and an idea of co-ordinate axes. Once a student gets acquired with these skills it is just a piece of cake to write anything for a conic whether it is an equation for axis or a point such as vertex, foci or end points of latus rectum. Only thing which is necessary to teach analytical geometry is creating an interest towards sketching curves I feel rather than loading student’s brain with tons of formulae.

Conic sections have lot of applications in diverse fields ranging from a small manufacturing unit to the celestial bodies. Creating an interest towards conics is very much important and essential than making it just a part of syllabus essential to study to get through the examination!

Back to blogging!

Couldn’t post any blogs from the last few days, being in small town am slowly getting used to frequent power cuts and low speed internet connection. This time pre-monsoon season has drastically changed the environment. Falling of trees by lightning on electric cable was common and power cut during that was inevitable. Along with it BSNL also has disconnected low speed internet service giving reason of thunder and lightning. There was no connection with outside world! Being in city for some years had made me used to high speed internet to browse anything and anytime but now nothing need to get the things done using what is available. The only connection is outside world is to connect to internet when the land line hone is working. Working and non-working of land line phone is another story, there are some instances in heavy rain regions where a zero candle bulb will be hanged on telephone instrument to keep it warm.

One of my friend had dropped from Bangalore, who has been working there from last couple of months as a software engineer. He sowed an idea of rural BPO in my mind. I was giving a thought to it as Government provides subsidy for starting and training the people for the working of BPO utilizing the rural talent. What I noticed is rural BPO will be mainly functioning based on the out sourcing work of Multi National Companies (MNC) and it is all about providing rural employment. One thing which made me afraid was frequent power cuts in the rural areas and low speed internet connections. Government has given permission to start rural BPO with an aim to provide better working opportunities for educated youth in the villages but at the same time Government is making not to explore possibilities in rural BPO by making frequent power cuts and no support for broad band internet connection. Thinking over the possibilities we left the idea of rural BPO.

Teaching biology has made me confident that I can take up a career in teaching. I finished teaching the syllabus mentioned for the second PUC Biology, now I have been assigned with the work of teaching Mathematics. Mathematics being one of my favorite subject and am enjoying teaching it. Along with syllabus of 2nd PUC am also trying to include the tips and tricks for CET and other similar exams. Hope things will be fine!

Journey by Train or Bus!

A common dilemma usually everyone faces before travelling is whether to go by bus or train. Train is always comfortable, there wont be jumps, stops o even traffic. If it is a long journey you can sleep and travel but there won’t be much tiredness. Only thing is train should be ‘on time’ and the station shouldn’t be far from the city bus stop or Auto rickshaw shop. Bus is comfortable for travelling small distance may be up to hundred kilometers. There will be jumps, stops and even traffic sometimes, back pain will start without any delay. Only comfortable thing is you will get many buses to travel but not the trains.

When to take up train and when to take up bus? Train journey should be preferred when the distance you are travelling is more than hundred kilometers and the time of travelling also matters as few trains will reach late or early morning making it difficult to wait in railway station for long hours. The railway stations will be usually situated outside the city and travelling to bus stand will cost much than the train journey. It is best to get down in the stations having bus convenience or nearer to the bus station.

Bus journey should be preferred when the distance is not much and there is less traffic. There will be number of buses and there won’t be only one bus. If in case a bus is missed, one can travel by other but it won’t be the same with train. Depending on the situation and convenience travel by train or bus but never get into bus or train while it is moving because life is precious than anything else.

Education as a business my personal experience

In my earlier blogs I mentioned about the school which told me to teach freely. The school is situated 12 kilometers away from my house, going to school and coming back was costly affair as I need to teach students on free basis. The school is of private management and having the reputation of charging highest fees from the students in the town. The in-charge of the school told me that he is giving me an opportunity to show my teaching skills and to teach free of cost at his school. I told him about the offer which I got to teach biology to second PUC students. I don’t know what he felt. He started to tell, young generation of today’s world is not having ethics and they run behind only making money. Finally he started to blame me, as is teaching to students as a business, with no intension of teaching and all. I kept quite and was listening to what he was telling. After that I told him that I will be conducting free CET coaching to the poor government college students, again he started to blame young generation as they don’t think about future and asked me not to do free teaching (even forgetting he is asking me to teach for him free!) as he is planning to start coaching in the near future charging heavy fees. I kept quite listening to his words.

He told about how he started his school from scratch to impart values, ethics to students and developed it and school has very good name. I couldn’t keep myself shutting my mouth, I asked him directly, how many scholarships you are giving to your students? How many poor children are studying in your institution? He answered that he is running a private institution and it will be very difficult to provide scholarships. The next question I asked is then why you charge huge amount as fees for students while applying for admissions? You have started school to impart ethics, values and similar stuff to students? He was shocked and answered he is making school as one of the best school in the town instead of answering to what I asked.

He also added his school is not after making money and all he is investing on school itself whatever money he is getting form it. I asked again, if you have started school with such an intension why don’t you run the school taking nominal fees? He started to convince me and told me to compromise with him so that I can join him to run his coaching center which is going to open. His plan was to pay me some amount as salary and take huge money from students as fees. My patience was out. I thought of telling him that he I running behind money and making education as business and also felt to ask whether that is ethics? Thinking he is elder to me and it is my duty to give him respect I didn’t tell it.

I told him clearly that I will teach for government college students free of cost for CET exams, the town has given me education till 10th standard, what I am today is only because of education I received here. I will give it back to society. After speaking this much, I walked out wishing him bye and till reaching home was thinking what is ethics, who is making money and whether am doing right? My inner self told me am not making business out of education and just finding out a way to live.

IT Coolies!

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It was long time I called any of my friends who were in Bangalore after I left from there. I went to Goa and changed the SIM card and couldn’t give it to all as I was getting adjusted to Goa and many other things were happening parallel with that. I left from Goa and back to native conducting tuitions to students. I thought of contacting my earlier classmates and friends whom I knew in Bangalore. I messaged few of my friends but there was no response for even two days, then I thought of giving a call.

I called one of my friends and he didn’t pick, I tried to call on next day, then also he didn’t pick. I thought something is wrong and called back again, he received the call and spoke as if he is ten years elder to me. There was no usual happiness or excitement in his voice. I asked what happened, why are you so dull? He answered that the work load is heavy and he is not able to cope up with the work tension, he mentioned about the deadlines which they have to meet being the employee to get good impression or rating in the review. Even he added that life has become so mechanical that he is not able to spend time with family members.

He was so upset that he is thinking himself as similar to a robot which does a routine work without any entertainment. Only entertainment he gets is on weekends that too sometimes he need to login and work from the home also. I felt it just like an unavoidable extortion of employees by the Multi National Companies giving perks and higher salaries making them exhaust to the core. I remembered one of my senior in school and now an engineer in one of the reputed multi national company who used to tell software engineer is nowhere different from a construction labor, only difference is construction labor works with bricks and stones at his choice and we work at closed Air Conditioned rooms on computers at others wish and choice! I felt software engineers can also be called as IT Coolies!

Self - Employment

Self-employment is the best employment. One can get into it learning certain skills. Self-employment can also be taken as part – time employment, through which students from economically weaker background and house wives who like to increase their monthly income can look into the aspects of self-employment.

To start any self-employment one need to gain or learn certain skills. It can be learning tailoring, embroidery, repairing of electronic goods, Screen printing, candle preparation, paper bag preparation, soap and detergent powder manufacturing, agarbatti preparation and preparation of decorative items etc., and the list is endless.

For those who want to start their own business, all nationalized banks will give special loans. Being at home you can create your future. There are many institutes which offers diploma in above said self – employment opportunities.

One of the prominent institutes imparting training on self-employment which is under the control of Central Government is:

Multi Disciplinary Training Centre,
Khadi and Village Industries Commission,
Doorvaninagar,
Bangalore - 560 016 (Karnataka) Ph: 080-25650285

For other regions and other courses go through the website http://www.kvic.org.in in which you can fill application online.

SMS language even in answer paper

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Conducting tests in between teaching is one of the ways followed in Indian education system to check whether the student has understood the topic or not. It wont check the over all ability of a student, it just checks how much a student can remember and reproduce in the specified test duration in the exam hall. This kind of testing students will not be fully authenticated, as we consider only the marks scored by the students in the exam.

I was also instructed to take the test, I announced two days before about conducing test and conducted too on the specified date. The same scenario of when I was a student was repeating in the exam hall. Few studios students were writing answers without looking anywhere else and a few were scratching heads and few were struggling to recollect the specific technical words. Only difference was that I was no more a student and was looking at how students will write.

After the test I collected the answer papers and the next step was evaluating papers. I returned home and started evaluating. I was shocked to see the answers a few students has written. Few students had used SMS language wherever possible. It was horrible to read and understand as few students wrote ‘u’ for ‘you’, ‘@’ for ‘at’, ‘d’ for ‘the’, ‘&’ for ‘and’, ‘ther’ for ‘there’ and ‘their’, ‘numb’ for ‘number’ and ‘btwn’ for ‘between’. Somehow I finished evaluation remembering the procession done by the Bangalore University students to legalize and give permission to even consider writing examination in SMS language! I was getting ready to go for class and my mobile beeped with a message which was from one of my student ‘ @ wat time u takn cls ?’ which in normal language meant ‘at what time you taking class?’ I just laughed myself and went to take class.

Origin of Blogging sites

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It has become quite common that everyone will like to be associated with the computer and internet world in one or the other way. In the last few years blogging has gained lot of prominence, everyone like to write blogs and update it or read it regularly. Blogging has become similar to writing personal diary daily but in blogging you will update on internet. It gained so much popularity in the today’s web world that all celebrities have updated their daily routines on one or the other blog site. Have any one made any survey or give a thought how blogging has started?

These questions were haunting me much, who might have started blogging? What was the purpose or reason behind starting such web sites on which others can write, read or share? I searched through lot of internet content for getting answers to these. In this blog I will write brief history of origin of blogs.

The first available evidence of blogging is the blog created by Justin Hall in the name Links.net when he was a college student in 1994. The term blogging was not coined at that time and his writings were referred as personal homepage or personal online diary. In the year 1997 the term ‘weblog’ was coined by Jorn Barger and later in 1999, Peter Merholz broke the word ‘weblog’ into ‘we blog’, in a small duration of time there after Evan Williams of Pyra Labs used the word ‘blog’ as both a noun and verb. In verbal meaning ‘to blog’ is ‘to edit one’s weblog or post to one’s weblog’. Starting from 1997 many companies came with idea of blogging and gained much popularity in 1999 because of availability of advanced tools for blogging.

Some of the prominent ones are:

  • Open Diary was started by Bruce Ableson in October 1998
  • Live Journal was started by Brad Fitzpatrick in March 1999
  • Pitas.com was started by Andrew Smales in July 1999
  • Blogger.com was started by Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan in August 1999. The term ‘Blogger’ was coined by Evan Williams for the product launched by the Pyra Labs, which had option for writing blogs. Blogger.com was purchased by Google in the year 2003 looking at the features and popularity of blogger.com.

In the initial developmental stage political leaders made use of Blog sites but now the scenario is changed, blogging sites have become popular and showing an exponential growth in the last few years making blogging sites not only restricted to political blogs.