Reflections from my Life!

Rajasthan Diaries - The Pink City!

karthicks_2005@rocketmail.com (Karthick) — Sun, 7 Apr 2019 12:59:00 +0530

Hi Guys,

A few weeks back, I was touring across Rajasthan covering Udaipur, Jaipur and Jaisalmer. This is an attempt to jot down some of the memories from the trip. Let me start with the part that was bang in the middle of the trip – Jaipur! Jaipur is an exciting mix of old and new. It is filled with a lot of history which seems to be sadly ignored in the cacophony of modern lifestyle. It is a pattern that you observe in a lot of Indian cities.

Arriving early morning from Udaipur, the fun started in the Railway station with the bargain for Auto Rickshaw. Ankur joined me for the trip and having a local helps a lot in any new city. We stayed in the Old City which has the cluster of heritage sites from the past. I was intrigued by the buildings having coral pink color and asked the sheepish question to Ankur. Only then did I remember that I was in the ‘Pink City’. The pink that you have in your mind and the pink that you find in Jaipur doesn’t help initially. It is amazing how the huge cluster of buildings inside the five gates are mandated to have the same color – it is quite a sight in the night to see them lightened up.

The first place in the trip was Hawa Mahal. I was hungry and we were still searching for a good breakfast place, there was traffic around around the Mahal itself was covered with dust which didn’t help. But, as we went inside and went up in the narrow staircases, we realized the beauty of the architecture. There were nice viewpoints and towers. The intricate glasswork does throw a spectrum of colors inside.

Hawa Mahal in the night!

We were still searching for Breakfast when we entered Jantar Mantar and we had to settle with Sandwiches in the canteen there. On a side note, there were tons of Kachori places all around which seems to be the go to breakfast in Jaipur, but I was not keen. Jantar Mantar started on a note where Ankur wanted to read each and every inscription available. We did end up reading all, but don’t know how much we comprehended though, as a lot were on astrology! The place is a marvel considering the detailed effort that must have gone into observing the universe when not a lot of modern instruments were available. The scale of some of the instruments available is gigantic.

Next stop – City Palace. City Palace is a nice mix of buildings and architecture. Darbar is the main place of interest here as it is one of the few places where you can see the exact setup of how the kingdoms ran. The armoury was even better as you see a huge set of weapons – swords, hammers, armours, ancient guns, etc. We spent a good time there analysing the science behind some of the weapons.

City Palace

As we left the City Palace, we took an electric Auto to Albert Hall. A point of note on the Jaipur Auto drivers – they are good at distracting people. Before we entered the city place, a driver was so keen to take us to Albert Hall saying there is nothing in City Palace. When we took the Auto to Albert Hall, a driver was so adamant that it is same as City Palace and we need to go to Jal Mahal. Finally the lady driver who took us there told us that we need to explore Maharani Market first. Thankfully, Ankur was there! The ride to Albert Hall was my first view of full-fledged Jaipur driving sense and I was left with a not so great memory of drivers honking all the time.

Albert Hall is currently the city museum. Constructed in the British era, the architecture of the building is a good example of Indo-Saracenic. The place was full of people – the City palace has a steep entrance fees and hence a lot of them choose Albert Hall as it is a mini version of what you see in City Palace museum. The key attraction there is a Mummy museum where they have a real mummy from Egypt. I don’t understand the correlation between Jaipur and Mummy though.

The other set of attractions in Jaipur are the forts which lie on the outskirts. As you start moving away from Jaipur, you realize that there are not just forts, but many walls and watch posts strewn across the hills.

Amer Fort from the outside with the moat!

There are three main forts – Jaigarh, Amber and Nahargarh. The first of the three has only one key attraction – Jaivana Cannon which was the world’s largest cannon on wheels when it was built in 1720. It has a range of 22 miles. The second one is the main tourist attraction of Jaipur. It is located right on the main road. You have to walk up, but still it is not nestled inside mountains the like the other two. It has a big moat which is still filled with Crocodiles (or atleast the warnings claim so).

Jaivana Cannon at Jaigarh

Amber Fort (or Amer Fort) is not just a fort, but it is also built as a palace with some royal architecture and intricate designs. Sheesh Mahal (Mirror Palace) is one of the most elaborate designs you will come across with heavy usage of small Mirrors. This fort is connected with Jaigarh fort for the royal family to escape in times of danger. Later, I came to know you can visit one place from the other through 30 - 45 minutes of walk – it must be quite an experience to do that.

Inside Amber Fort

Nahargarh is closer to the city, though the path is quite circuitous. It offers stunning views of the city. We went in the night, though I guess the views are good even during the evenings. There is also another interesting temple in Jaipur dedicated to the monkeys – Galtaji temple, which I did miss due to lack of time.

Before I left, I did walk a lot around the bazaars of Jaipur – the place it so lit up in the night, Hawa Mahal is spectacular, the shops are an interesting mix mostly aimed at tourists, there is lot of handwork around. Though I didn’t buy anything, I found the prices reasonable. There is lot of commercialisation given that Jaipur is a big city unlike Udaipur and Jaisalmer which were more friendly.

Feeding pigeons seems to be another favourite activity in Jaipur – saw a lot of pigeons outside Albert Hall and Amer Fort. They look lovely, but I guess they do cause a lot of issues – Albert Hall had lots of net to prevent them coming in.

Pigeons in front of Albert Hall!

What I found overrated in Jaipur was Birla Mandir, where the policemen were constantly chasing people away from taking photographs and Rawat’s Pyaaz Kachori. I did love the delicacies at Laxmi Mistaan Bandaar though.

The entrance tickets are quite expensive (Hawa Mahal – Rs. 50, Jantar Mantar – Rs. 50, City Palace – Rs. 200, Albert Hall – Rs. 40, Jaigarh – Rs. 70, Amer Fort – Rs. 100, Nahargarh – Rs. 100). All except City Palace are managed by ASI and the timings are same as a government office – 9 am to 5 pm which is quite a shame. The best weather of Jaipur is in the early morning and all places are closed then.

Final thoughts on Jaipur – two days is not enough if you want to patiently look into the architectural beauties of the palaces and the forts.

Happy Reading!

Why redesign a Website that works perfectly?

karthicks_2005@rocketmail.com (Karthick) — Sat, 17 Nov 2018 00:44:00 +0530

‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ goes a famous saying. When I was chatting with someone in office a few days back, we had a conversation around the changing User Interfaces and User Experiences in the modern applications (commonly called as the UI/UX in Tech lingo). The conversation was more focused on why customers resist change and are comfortable with the older UI however crappy it might be. A small conversation it was, but triggered thoughts in me as I had been pondering around this point in the recent past.

If you are in India, there is a good probability that you would have used IRCTC website at least once in the recent past to book train tickets. CRIS (Centre for Railway Information Systems) took a major initiative to revamp the IRCTC booking website and make the website feature rich and improve the User Experience. It was well known that older website was not so great, but it got the job done and people got used to it. The newer website took some time to get used to and more importantly there was only one key question around, ‘Where do I Login?’ For some reason, IRCTC decided to focus on new bookings and threw up the journey details right at the centre of the page and Login went somewhere into some menu. For a lot of people who just wanted to cancel the tickets, they were not able to find the Login and had a horrid time. The earlier website started with a Login. It might have been heavily inspired by the Redbus/Makemytrip websites, but the purpose is not the same. Today they have kept a red coloured Login button right at the top. But why change something that was working perfect?

When you design a new webpage or website, UI/UX takes the precedence. The impression you create, the placement of information and buttons, the fluidity and the navigation matters. But when you already have a solid user base who is comfortable with the interface, it is necessary to think much before changing the way things work.

Cricinfo has been another example in the recent past. Cricinfo has been a goto website for any cricket lover for a long time since we started tracking matches on the web. Famously their servers crashed the day Sachin scored the first double century in ODI. That’s the traffic they had. Ever since, CricBuzz came into picture with increased focus on Mobile App, a lot of users went switching over. Cricinfo decided it was time to revamp the website to fit into any gadget and became increasingly cluttered. It took more time to open the website, the commentary often doesn’t loads properly. Comments in the articles were one of my favourite features. There were only a handful of readers, but you knew most of them and looked forward to reading their perspective. Cricinfo decides that the volumes are not enough. When I tried to reach out, I get a reply that I can still comment on Facebook. Why move from a smaller intelligent sect to a larger garbage sect? There goes the user experience! The only good thing with Cricinfo now is that they still have quality reports from Sidharth Monga, Andrew Miller, Daniel Bretig, George Dobell and the likes.

More often than not, companies design new websites and believe that the features are intuitive enough for the user to figure out on their own. Around 2 years back, Airtel revamped their website with a lot of focus on material design and fresh icons. Earlier, there was a clear ‘Login’ button available and I was lost for a few weeks as to where it has gone. Only when someone randomly told me that they have replaced the wording to a person Icon, I realized that it is still in the same old place.

Quora is another example of consistently changing UI. The prime components of Quora is quite simple – Questions, Answers, Topics, Upvote, Downvote, Share, Search. The UI team are an enthusiastic bunch who cannot retain the design for a few months together. They move buttons from one place to another, replace words with icons, bring new icons and get back to word. Interestingly there a few questions in Quora itself as to why the platform has got such inconsistent UI.

Gmail has a good example of how to alter the User Interface without affecting the User Experience. They provide a guided tour when they get into a new interface. They still enable you to retain the older version for sometime before it is scrapped. And the core of the design remains the same. The wordings still remain the same and most of the times are the same place. You don’t suddenly start searching for old features.

Quite often, the software providers allow you to use the older version for a longer timeframe even after launching a new interface. The issue is that they donot let you flow smoothly from the older interface to the newer one. They don’t provide you with guided tours or guided trainings. And in most cases, the revamp is hard to adapt too.

While the purpose of revamping the UI will be to increase adoption and satisfy the user community, more often than not, it leads to the opposite.

Happy Reading!

Tales of Old and New Madras - S. Muthiah - Book Review

karthicks_2005@rocketmail.com (Karthick) — Wed, 15 Aug 2018 00:37:00 +0530

Tales of Old and New Madras by S. Muthiah

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Landing upon this book was a pure chance. I was randomly browsing through the Amazon's monthly kindle deals and ended up purchasing this gem for a cheap price. The book is authored by S. Muthiah the famous Madras writer and the man behind the organization of Madras Day celebrations in the recent years. This is not a book written in a single flow, but is a collection of 38 articles written by the author in various instance at various lengths. Strewn together, the book brings the stories of Madras from its founding days to the recent fiasco of the new Assembly building.

The first chapter starts with how Francis day got the land for Fort St. George by combining two villages back in 1639. To placate the Village headman Madarasen and the ruler Chennapa Nayak, he decided to name the fort as Madarasapatnam and the surrounding colony as Chennapatnam - the names of which has created controversies in the later years. After this interesting chapter, the book enters into a few articles on how rules were established in the settlement based on first reported Murder, a Rape Accusation and how Sheriffs were setup in the settlement. These chapters appear extended and creates a lull in the book, given the disconnect with the modern day.

After this comes the articles of late 18th and early 19th centuries, which are interesting. They cover pieces of famine relief (Cyclical rains seems to have been a eternal worry for the state), a few historical buildings, the Club House and the beginning of Engineering institute in the city. The author seems to have a critical remark of how the College of Engineering, Guindy has been let down off late, given how great it was an institute in the early days.

Then comes the tales of late 19th century which is the most interesting part of the book given that the city has attained a remarkable shape in this part and most of them remain intact today. These parts covers the tales of the Indo Sarcenic architecture of the old buildings, the formation of the Marina Promenade, construction of the Madras Harbor, the formation of Theosophical society and my most favorite part of the book - the Chepauk Cricket Stadium. It is indeed sad that the local cricket administrators have ignored the history of the ground completely in the name of modernization. How great it would have been to have an antique cricket museum or hall in the ground reflecting the long tenure of cricket here.

The book deals with various firsts in the city - Telephone Exchange, Bank, Movie Theaters, Studios, Newspaper, Magazine and looks into the history of how a few failed, while a few went on to become household names like Ananda Vikatan or The Hindu. The book then looks into the life of few famous personalities to have come from the city - the math genius Ramanujam and how prodiogious and unfortunate he was (he died when he was just 33), Kalakshethra founder Rukmani and how she found discovered and made Bharata Natyam popular, the Woodlands hotel founder K. Krishna Rao and how he setup the entire business, Thiru. Vi. Kalyanasundaram and his tryst with Labour Unions.

In the final part, the author briefly touches upon the major political events of the recent times - the death of CM Annadurai and MGR - their rise to power and in the process he covers the history of Justice Party, Dravida Kazhagam, DMK and ADMK. It is certainly indulging to read about the party in 1940s and 1950s and how they came to the current state.

The flipside of the book is that the author has just compiled the articles he has written at various points of time. This drives the lack of continuation at certain points of time and also lack of depth in some articles. The other effect is that certain portions keep getting repeated like there are lot of instances where the establishment of Justice party is meted out.

The book gives lots of interesting anecdotes all along. An entire chapter is dedicated to the rise of Indian English and how even the the Britishers had established a dictionary for that. The author keeps lamenting the fact that we have forgotten the Englishmen who established various institutions and facilities in the city. He is also critical of the modern day governments for not preserving the history. The author also brings the fact a lot of rules that forms the core of our country were actually established in this city in the founding days.

There is so much of history in Chennai, but so little a current generation Chennaite would know. This is a must read book for any History buff from this part of the country.

View all my reviews

A trip to Jogja - Part 2: Spectacular Borobudur!

karthicks_2005@rocketmail.com (Karthick) — Fri, 8 Jun 2018 23:39:00 +0530

Hi Guys,

To read A trip to Jojga - Part 1: The 9th Century Prambanan Temple, click here.

Borobudur has a famous Sunrise tour which is supposed to give a spectacular view of the sunrise amidst the mountains, but with the rains I decided it was not worth making it. After waking up at 6 am, the walk to the temple was took 10 minutes. A group of foreigners were coming back down the temple stairs after completing the Sunrise tour. A large chunk of school kids had come in for touring the temple.

The famous Buddha statue amidst stupas and the picturesque mountain behind!

A view from the top of the temple

A view from the side of the temple

While Prambanan temple is largely a Hindu architecture, the Borobudur temple is slightly different. The temple’s structures is more like a large cube with layers of squares inside. Constructed in 9 layers with 118 meters width a 35 meters height, the outer six are squares and inner three are circular with bell shaped stupas around. There are 72 small stupas and one giant central piece. Apparently, this temple was also built in 9^th century, probably before the Prambanan temple by the rival Sailendra Dynasty. And the temple was abandoned and rediscovered in the recent centuries. Indonesian Government has taken special interest in restoring the temple to show the world that they value their culture and are secular in nature.

The Rain Starts and the Umbrellas are out on rent!

One of the many Buddha Statues

As I reached the top of the temple and was having a look at the surrounding mountains and fields, the sky opened up and it started raining. And I having forgotten by Umbrella at the room had no choice but to take shelter at one of the pillars. And some Bollywood fanatic locals came up to take a picture – there a quite a few words that you will keep hearing across in Indonesia – it includes Shah Rukh Khan, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Ahchaa, Nahi… And as rain was not relenting, I took an Umbrella on rent (interesting business) for IDR 10,000 from the base. And then I began my walk up again to the top. After spending some time seeing the numerous Buddha statues around and taking a stroll through each of the layers which contains relics from the life of Gautama Buddha, I walked down. On the best of days with no rain, I believe one can sit in the top and enjoy the mesmerizing views around.

One of the many relics in the nine layers depicting the life of Gautama Buddha!

And one Selfie with the stupas amidst the rain!

Similar to the Prambanan temple, the complex is huge and there a lot of activities to do. Early in the morning, most of the souvenir shops were just being opened. And a chunk of tourists had started pouring in. Coming back to the guest house and munching on the no meat Nasi Goreng and feeding fishes in the paddy fields, it was time to head back to Jogja. This time, decided to take the local bus from Borobudur to Jogja. It costed IDR 25,000 a fraction of the Grab trip. The bus was as good as a rural Indian bus and the driver took his own sweet time to drive. Driving through some small towns and across rivers, we reached Jogja a little later than 1 pm.

The paddy fields behind the guest house. How peaceful life is here!

After having completed the main objective of the tour, it was time to have a look at the Jogja’s Royal Place called Keraton and a dutch time swimming pool in Taman Sari. And then I hit the traditional and classic shopping street of Jogja – Jalan Malioboro. After a stroll across, spent some time in souvenir purchase in the shop of Hamza Batik. After watching the local street vendors cook and the vintage street architecture, it was time to leave the lovely city.

One of the pools in the colorful Taman Sari - a swimming pool from the earlier centuries

The traditional Malioboro Street with a lot to shop!

The Batik drawing technique demonstrated live in Hamzah Batik store

And some Satays being prepared on the fly

As night falls, it is time to leave the wonderful city!

There is a lot more in Jogja than just the temples. There are few spectacular beaches to the west of the city, a few volcano treks around, an amazing cave visit is also there. All in all, to cover and enjoy Jogja in detail, you will need atleast 4-5 days with you which is a luxury.

Happy Reading!!!

A trip to Jojga - Part 1: The 9th Century Prambanan Temple

karthicks_2005@rocketmail.com (Karthick) — Sun, 27 May 2018 13:02:00 +0530

Hi Guys,

Indonesia is a large country with quite a lot of tourist places around the islands. Yogyarkata (pronounced Jogjakarta and often called as Jogja) occupies a key place in the hearts of the local Indonesians for the cultural heritage and amazing food the place offers. I decided to visit Jogja over a weekend back in March during my stay in Jakarta. The main aim of the trip was to cover the two major UNESCO sites – Prambanan and Borobudur Temples.

Hence, the first stop was Prambanan Temple. Situated at around 8 km from the Airport, I took a Transjogja bus to the temple. Prambanan temple (Candi Prambanan in local) is one of the giant Hindu temple complexes in the world. Constructed in the 9^th century by Sanjaya Dynasty as an answer to the Buddhist Borobudur temple, the scale and magnitude of the temple is spectacular. Supposedly, there were a total of 240 temples in the complex. Can you believe it? Of course, not all of them were big. The biggest of all of them is dedicated to Lord Shiva and is 47 Meters tall. There are two other 33 Meters tall temples dedicated to Lord Brahma and Lord Vishnu. Naturally, the temple is called a Trimurti temple. Apart from the three major structure, there are quite a few tall temples dedicated to the vehicles of the Gods and smaller shrines dedicated to Goddess Saraswati and Laxmi. And there are 224 smaller temples surrounding the perimeter, most of which have been destroyed today.

A Side view of the Temple Complex

The three main temples from Behind -
On the Extreme left is the temple for Lord Vishnu, the one is the center if for Lord Shiva and the extreme right is of that of Lord Brahma

One of the flank temples

The temple complex is large and you have to be prepared to walk around a lot. The entrance fee is expensive. A combined pass to Prambanan and Borobudur temple costs USD 40 or IDR 540,000 (Indonesian currency can drive you crazy!) The temple was filled with a large number of local tourists, particularly school kids. Quite a few school kids flanked me as they were given an assignment to interview a foreigner. After dictating the pre written questions and recording my answer, they wanted a photograph (Another thing you will come across is that kids will want to take photos with you, similar to how the Indian kids flank around foreigners for a photograph).

The peripheral temples are damaged beyond restoration

A statue of Lord Ganesa in the Shiva temple

On an overcast day, it was humid and tiring to climb around all the temples to see the statues. The temple walls are filled with descriptions of Ramayana and Bhagavat Geetha. A large credit has to be given to the Dutch rulers and later the local Government for restoring the temple. The temple is in a very unstable zone with frequent Earthquakes and is also in a close proximity to many volcanoes around.

The temple is flanked with inscriptions of Ramayana - here is one of them with Lord Ram

Monument describing Earth Quake

And the fallen tower

By the time I was done with the main complex, I was tired and was not prepared to roam around the other three Buddhist Candis around in the same complex. On a good day, you can spend half a day around in this place roaming around temples, taking pictures from a few photographic points, renting a bicycle, visiting the museum and crawling through the local souvenir shops. There is also a spectacular Ramayana Ballet performance organized at regular intervals. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend them.

A Silhouette of the temples on an overcast day

After getting a few souvenirs, it was time to get to Borobudur. Booking a Grab from Prambanan made it an easy journey at a cost of IDR 145,000. Borobudur is 40 kms from Prambanan temple and after taking a stroll through the paddy fields and villages, we hit the highway. And Indonesia’s rainy season started the show. It was raining heavily and densely. Effectively, it took 2 hours to reach Borobudur where I had booked a home stay for the night. After having a no meat Nasi Goreng (Fried Rice) and some Chocolate Milkshake, I hit the bed.

The plan was to get up early in the morning and visit the temple before the tourist crowd hits in.

Click here to read Part 2 - Spectacular Borobudur!

Happy Reading!!!

A Visit to the Great Living Chola Temples!

karthicks_2005@rocketmail.com (Karthick) — Mon, 1 Jan 2018 16:04:00 +0530

Hi Guys,

Wish you a very Happy New Year 2018! I’m here back with another post on my recent mini trip across three famous ‘Great living Chola temples’ as referred by UNESCO. It was an adhoc trip and it turned out to be a great one.

Day 1 – Train to Kumbakonam and Sunset at Gangai Konda Cholapuram

I started by journey via Cholan Express to see the temples built by the Cholans. This train is one of those rare trains in Indian Railways which doesn’t run on optimal passenger load thanks to the presence of sleeper and AC coaches in a daytime train. So, it is a suitable train for Adhoc trips. Nevertheless, let me skip the train journey and focus more on the temples. The train was an hour late as it reached Kumbakonam on the verge of 3 pm. It meant that I had to cut down Darasuram from Day 1 and keep it for day 2.

I kept my backpack in a nearby Hotel and got into a bus for Gangai Konda Cholapuram which is approximately 40 kms from Kumbakonam. The trip has a scenic dam on the way across Kollidam River. The dam has an island called ‘Anaikarai’ in between and the bridge on either side is one way which means vehicles have to stop on one side and wait for their turn. It was around 5.30 pm by the time I reached Gangai Konda Cholapuram.

Gangai Konda Cholapuram was built by Rajendra Cholan after he expanded his kingdom till the branches of the mighty river Ganga. He constructed the imposing temple here and moved the capital city to this place. A look at the place today and you will see it as nothing more a giant temple amidst a village. It is hard to believe a mighty kingdom was ruled out of this place once.

The Silhoutte of Gangai Konda Cholapuram amidst Sunset

The temple is completely built out of stone as are the other two temples. The temple’s main tower is the heart of the whole architecture. It is built very similar to the Thanjavur temple, but the key difference is that after the first two layers, the structure is more spherical in nature as against the tapering square in the Thanjavur temple. Incidentally, the temple is also named as Brihadisvara temple in line with the temple at Thanjavur. The temple has a giant Shiva Lingam and is a very peaceful temple with very little crowd around. The peace adds to the mystical feel of the temple. Outside the temple, the landscape is well maintained by ASI with lawns and trees attracting hundreds of pigeons and parrots. At Sunset, there was constant screeching from the parrots as they were settling down. Apart from the main temple, the surrounding complex has been destructed over time. After strolling across till sunset, I took a bus back to Kumbakonam and stayed there for the night.

The giant tower in Gangai Konda Cholapuram!

The big Nandi Statue and temple Flagstaff

Day 2 – Darasuram and Thanjavur

After thinking of starting as early as 6 am in the morning, I slept off and got ready by 7 am. Darasuram is a Suburb of Kumbakonam and is only 2-3 kms away from the main town. It was around 7.45 am when I reached the deserted temple. The temple is constructed a bit lower than the surface which means that you have to climb down a few steps and get into stagnant water (from the rains) to get inside the temple. Since, the temple is below surface level, water keeps creeping in through the stone floor, which has resulted in Algae bloom and not so pleasant odour.

This temple known as ‘Airavateswara Temple’ was built by Raja Raja Chola II in the 12^th century. The temple is said to be a much bigger complex with seven streets. However, only the main complex is present today. The temple is dedicated to Lord Shiva. As I went in so early, the priest was yet to come and he came leisurely after 8 am, by when a few tourists had come. So, a late start did help the process.

The temple is not as magnificent as the other two in terms of size, but it makes up with the intricate carvings on stones across the temple. For this reason, the temple reminded me of the Vittala temple in Hampi.

Darasuram temple entrance, which is a few feet below the ground level

The Chariot Shaped temple that reminded me of Vittala temple in Hampi

Those Intricate Stone Carvings!

I then came back to Kumbakonam, had my breakfast and started to the biggest and famous of the three temples in Thanjavur. After a bumpy ride, I reached Thanjavur around noon. Unlike the earlier two temples, this one was bristling with crowd and in particular lot of tourists had arrived at the complex.

This temple was constructed by the famous king Raja Raja Chola I in earlier 11^th century and recently the temple celebrated its 1000^th Anniversary. Named Birhadesvara which means the ‘Big Shiva’, the Shiva Lingam in the temple is huge fittingly. The temple is more famous for the giant Nandhi statue at the entrance and the colossal tower in the centre of the temple. The main tower is 16 storeyed with 13 of them tapering towards the top. The centre piece is the giant monolithic stone which completes the tower. It is an architectural wonder considering the grandeur and age of the temple.

Unlike the other two temples, this temple was significantly improved by the later Nayak rulers adding more sanctums and idols to the temple. Chief among them is the gigantic monolithic Nandhi statue at the temple’s entrance. It’s amusing that Raja Raja Chola’s son left this magnificent city and temple to construct a new capital at Gangai Konda Cholapuram. Had it not been for the later Nayaks and Marathas, Thanjavur too might have faced the same fate of the other two temple towns.

Unlike the other two temples, the main temple in Thanjavur had two giant entrance doors!

The magnificent temple complex!

Elephants and Horses carved on stones seems to be a common thing across the temples!

Not just the main tower, the other towers in the temple too are large and filled with intricacies which makes the complex an amazing one!

History is interesting! Cities that flourished once upon a time have fallen down big time today. While some like Thanjavur are still surviving albeit not to the full flurry, cities like Hampi or Gangai Konda Cholapuram have vanished. Forests and deserts have become big urban clusters today. Who knows what would happen to these cities tomorrow?

On that thought, I left Thanjavur and went to Srirangam before boarding a train back to Chennai!

Happy Reading!

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History - Elizabeth Kolbert - Book Review

karthicks_2005@rocketmail.com (Karthick) — Sat, 14 Oct 2017 20:14:00 +0530

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I grew up in a Sub Urban area with lot of vegetation around. As I grew up, the place was just being swallowed up by more and more houses. One of the hassles of the vegetation was that we used to get lot of uninvited guests to our home - weird insects, bats, worms and scary Snakes. One of the key lessons I was taught as a kid was what to do to protect myself from Snakes. I vividly remember a few six foot long venomous Vipers that we spotted in home. Today, the area has completely become an Urban jungle. Snakes have disappeared with more houses. We are happy with the fact that we need not worry about those snakes. But what has happened to those snakes? How has the loss of habitat affected them? What about other harmless insects and bats? A few endemic species could have disappeared. All because of us - Human Beings. This book, 'The Sixth Extinction' is exactly about this. How Human Beings are causing the sixth major extinction event of the world and how it is happening right in front of our eyes.

I was looking for a book in the last minute before my flight. I randomly came across this book on Amazon and decided to give it a shot. One thing I worried was that the book would turn out to be one of those preachy materials on the ill effects of Global Warming. This book by Elizabeth Kolbert is exactly that, but the author conveys it with a well strung research, tales and subtlety. Being a Journalist, the author has done justice to the job by spending a lot of time with fossil collectors, museum directors, biologists and conservationists to bring home the point of how we (Human Beings) are destroying the planet.

While unsurprisingly, the major cause of the Sixth Extinction is Global Warming, the author also points out to other strong factors that weigh in - Fragmentation of Habitats due to developing Urban Clusters and Forced movement of Species across continents, both knowingly and accidentally.

The author starts the book with how various species of Frogs have started disappearing in the recent years across Latin America. Frogs have been one of the resilient species on the face of earth. They have survived for the past 250 million years. Now, they have suddenly started disappearing. After a lot of research, it has been identified that Chytrid Fungus causes this. Chytrid Fungus is not a native found in Latin America. Humans have introduced it somehow and they have started playing havoc. These species that causes havoc are known as Invasive Species. Evolution would have equipped the frogs to save itself from known dangers, but then it never came across this Fungus in the past millions of years. Across the years as humans started travelling, we have introduced so many of these species.

What I really loved about the book was the abundance of information provided -

How Fossils were identified and unearthed in the 19th century and the efforts of Georges Cuvier and Charles Darwin identifying the fossils and establishing the first theories on Extinction of Species.
The relationship between increasing latitude and increasing number of species. While in the poles, there is nearly no diversity, there is abundance of diversity near the equator given the favorable climate.
How Global Warming is making the Ocean more and more acidic - Water absorbs excess Carbon Di Oxide to form Carbonic Acid. This in turn affects the calcification process required to form Coral Reefs which are the base of Ocean Life.
How it is not only animals that move, but also trees with change in temperatures. Some trees expand itself at a rapid rate through pollination and in the process negates the space for less invasive species.
How the chances of a species survival reduces with reducing habitat and fragmentation. Certain species are endemic to Islands and they often disappear soon. The same happen with increasing Urbanization.

It has been established that we are not the only Human Species that has lived in this planet - one of the key human species that has lived alongside us is Neanderthals. It has been established that on an average nearly 4% of our DNA contains Neanderthal DNA. It has also been established that Human Beings or Homo Sapiens in specific were the main cause of Neanderthals extinction. After a long struggle, Neanderthal's DNA has been established. They are almost same as that of us. But over the years, some change has happened that has made us so dangerous. Some tiny little Gene has made us so superior to the rest of the species - that we have even killed our sister species. So, the author wonders what is this 'Mad Gene' that causes that change.

The author finally concludes with a positive note by capturing some of the super human efforts taken by conservationists to protect the few endangered species and says our hope is that. While, we have singly killed all those species, we also go in great length to protect the remaining species. Countries like Australia and New Zealand have strict Biosecurity laws to protect their native species. If the Mad Gene signifies despair, the same Mad Gene signifies Hope as well.

On the flip side, I found that the author had used too many Biological names for the Species which became too tough to follow at a point. I would rate this as one of the best books I have read about our planet and the species that live on it. Having read Yuval Noah Harrari's 'Sapiens' augmented this book very well, as Sapiens had established how we became the conquering deadly species that we are.

If you have a little iota of guilt that we cause to the environment, this book is a must read!

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The Ocean of Churn - Sanjeev Sanyal - Book Review

karthicks_2005@rocketmail.com (Karthick) — Sun, 9 Apr 2017 12:05:00 +0530

The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History by Sanjeev Sanyal

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

After reading 'The Land of Seven Rivers', I was fascinated when I read that Sanjeev Sanyal has written a book focusing on Indian Ocean, a key geography oft missed out in the history books.

The author has a very interesting pattern of writing books - he knows the drawbacks of contemporary history books. History has often been looked at from a linear and singular perspective. We say that the British invaded India and ruled us for 200 years, but often miss out on other countries fighting in our territory and the Indian kings who helped the British and other happening of those times. Second, history often glorifies the victors and suppresses the losers. So, we have heroes and villains when most of them were actually people with shades of grey. Third, the western world believes only in written piece of evidence. The author believes that Oral verses continuing over centuries can't be ignored. The same stories have been spread across different countries and cultures. They might have shades of fiction, but they do have a tinge of reality as to what happened really in those times.

The book covers the happenings of events around Indian Ocean from the early human settlements to the recent world wars. He covers both sides of India as to how the western part of the country traded with the likes of the Romans, Arabs and how the eastern part traded with the likes of Indonesia or Malaysia. The trade has had a long cultural impact in many countries. Particularly the South East Asian countries still have a lot of cultural similarity with the South Indian states. There are a lot of temples spread across these countries. Temples played a key role in the trade as they acted as banks of those days.

In the later part, there is a lot of focus on Europeans as to how they started trading for Spices like Pepper and Nutmeg with the eastern countries and went on to colonize them and fight violently for territorial disputes. A very interesting aspect here is that the Europeans have often collaborated with the local kingdoms and hired mercenaries to fight the battles. So, all the while when we imagine that it was British fighting India, it was the Indians on behalf of British fighting the Indians.

The author also touches upon Religion and the way Religion helped kingdoms and tribes across history. It is little wonder that Religion still fires up people and unites them to fight for something or the other. Still lot of the Asian countries have statues of Hindu gods and they peaceful worship them before worshiping Lord Buddha or they attribute them as Pagan Gods. The trade also had a wide impact on Language. Most of the South East Asian countries have languages originating from the Brahmi Script.

The final part focuses on the World Wars and how the east Asian countries widely affected don't get mentioned anywhere in the war related documents. Many Indian soldiers fought on behalf of the British and similarly many Asian soldiers were involved and countries affected by war including the likes of Malaysia and Singapore. It is also interesting that the Indian Naval officers strike was a key reason for British to exit India as the Indian Soldiers played a key role in enabling British administer India.

It is interesting that certain landscapes got shifted from One hand to another hand during the colonial rule. In 1667, the Dutch forced the British to hand them an Island in the Indonesian Archipelago which grew Nutmegs in exchange for a big Island in North America. It was considered a big victory. The big Island turns to be Manhattan. Looks like Real Estate investments have remained tricky over centuries.

Books like this are very rare for they cover a very wide spectrum of things and gives you a very new perspective to History. If you are a history buff, get in, get immersed and come out with a refreshing view.

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Visiting the iconic MCG!

karthicks_2005@rocketmail.com (Karthick) — Sun, 2 Apr 2017 20:24:00 +0530

Hi Guys,

On a day when Dhoni’s six sealed the World Cup for India six years before, I’m back here writing a blog post on a cricket ground. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that the first cricket ground I would walk in my life would be the Melbourne Cricket Ground or ‘The G’ as it is called simply. Despite being so close to the iconic Chepauk Stadium in Chennai, I have never been inside.

Being in Melbourne on a short official trip, we were so close yet so far from the ground on the first four days when we had to put up with the hectic office hours and meeting preparations. On the final day, we had our return flight in the afternoon. But, I and my colleague were determined to not miss the opportunity to see the historical ground.

The G - from Outside

The G was two kilometres from the city centre we stayed and we decided to walk the distance bracing the chilly morning weather. After a serene walk along the Yarra River and a beautiful bridge, we were at the stadium by 9.50 am, 10 minutes before the first official tour kicks off. The 75 minute tour costs AUD 23. For AUD 31.50, you get in a combined pass for MCG and the National Sports Museum which is also in the same complex. As we were chasing time, we opted only for the ground tour. At 10, we were introduced to our tour guide, an elderly lady from the Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC). She was somewhere in her 70s or 80s, but she was the most energetic amongst the touring group and we had a tough time matching her pace (It’s a pity that I forgot her name). Along with the two of us, there were five others – two from England and three from Australia, meaning it was a group passionate on Cricket.

From the turf!

The tour started with us being let into the grass turf, where our guide explained the history of the ground and stands. The ground was established in 1853, when the settlement was just pouring in. The ground hosted the first ever test match in 1877 when 30,000 people attended the spectacle (it was a significant population of Melbourne back then). The ground has four stands – the great Southern Stand which makes a semi-circle and then Ponsford Stand, Members Pavilion and Olympic Stand which together make another semi-circle. With a seating capacity of 100,024, MCG is largest cricket ground by capacity. I have always been awestruck by the four layered seating arrangement of the MCG and that is what makes the stadium so special to me.

The Great Southern Stand - and the four layered seats!

We were slightly disappointed that the turf was being converted into an Australian Rules football turf for the AFL season that kicked off just the previous day. It would have been greater to see the ground with the cricket pitch, but still it was magnificent. After a couple of photographs for later memory, we were taken across multiple facilities across the four levels. Since, I will run into multiple pages if I describe about all of them, I am writing some of the significant ones.

While this is the home ground of the legendary Sir Donald Bradman, the MCC has made lot of credits to WH Ponsford who was overshadowed by Bradman during his hey days. This includes the stand named after him. There was names of all the players who has played for Victorian state (the state were Melbourne is located). The Home and Visitor change rooms has names of all players who has scored centuries or taken a fifer here. Bradman has scored 9 centuries here and our guide being a big fan of Bradman was going mad about it. They had pictures/photos of all the Australian teams that had travelled to England starting from the 19^th century. All the statistics, pictures, photographs, artworks had to do with Test Cricket. I guess MCC recognizes only that as pure cricket.

A plaque in memory of WH Ponsford

There were lot of special amenities for the MCC members including a fine dine restaurant and a great view of the ground from the Long Hall (made in similar lines with the Lords, except that batsmen don’t walk through this one). Another special feature about the ground was the library, which our guide told is one of the best sports libraries you would come across. Anyone is free to walk in here on Weekdays and refer to the books. They have a copy of Wisden from 1916 (due to World War only one of them was published and is worth millions in value in today) and the first dictionary that had reference to cricket back in the 1600s. Of course, these are locked and are there only for display.

The Long Hall!

It was interesting to see the olden day steel benches on display and our guide was saying that with cushioned seats the facilities for spectators has very much improved. A century back, spectators were supposed to stand and watch the match in the searing heat. The ground had hosted both 1956 Olympics and 2006 Commonwealth games. There were multiple plaques and arts in memories of those events. There were lot of artworks made specifically for the 150^th year of the ground.

Those ancient Steel benches!

Three stand out features to me – the ground was very accessible from the city – there was a train and tram station just outside. From city center, we were able to walk without any traffic interference. And the second one was that the entire stadium was friendly to physically challenged people including special seats for them across the stands. The final one is that they have captured and displayed the entire history of cricket in the ground and evoke strong memories out of it!

A view from the one of the ground's balconies - From Left( Practice Tennis Court, Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne Skyline including Eureka Skydeck, St Paul's Cathedral) and Train/Tram tracks just beside the stadium

Soaked in the history for the entire duration, it was time for us to come back to real world and rush to catch our flights back home… The G will always have a special place in my heart!

Happy Reading!!!

Sapiens: A Brief History of Human Mankind - Yuval Noah Harari - Book Review

karthicks_2005@rocketmail.com (Karthick) — Wed, 22 Feb 2017 22:29:00 +0530

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Quite often I get this thought, 'The universe is large. There are so many galaxies and our solar system is nothing more than a speck. Earth is even smaller. Yet, we are the only known living beings. The history of Earth is so vast and it has been there for millions of years. Humans have been there for significant part. Yet, we live in a space with so advanced technology and process complicated stuff out of a tiny little thing in our head known as Brain. Why are we destined to do this?' Yuval Noah Harari has tried to explain this in the book Sapiens. It is an attempt to explain how have Humans come to this stage.

The author defines three main timelines in the history of Homo Sapiens

1. Cognitive Revolution (70000 years ago)

2. Agricultural Revolution (10000 years ago)

3. Scientific Revolution (500 years ago)

When we co-existed with the animals out there in the wild, we were not on top of the food chain. The ancient stone tools discovered were not designed to kill animals. They were used to break bones and eat the marrows inside (So, the big Cats hunt and then lesser animals eat the rest and then scavengers scavenge and after all that humans broke the bone and ate the marrow). Being that weak, Sapiens had a lucky intervention in the form of Cognitive Revolution. Most animals can communicate in some form, but none as detailed and as sophisticated as a Human. This created knowledge and helped humans form groups and communities. It is interesting that Gossips form an important means of communication. It helps establish trust (and it continues till the day).

This was the phase when we were Hunter-Gatherers and Foragers. The author defines this as the best period of Sapiens. They had a relaxed lifestyle, worked less and were fit as they ate a mix of all nutrients. Interestingly, our liking for Sweets has been hardwired from this age. Sweets were such a rarity then and evolution made Sapiens gorge on any sweet they find as it provides abundant energy.

Accidents have always been an important cause of turnaround in Human history. Agricultural revolution was no less. A few Hunter Gatherers found that the wheat they gathered spilled on the way and new wheat grass sprouted. Thus started the domestication. The author further says that it was actually plants like Potato, Wheat and Rice that domesticated us than we domesticating them. Growing these required lot of energy - you had to settle down, plough, remove weed, water and it consumes lot of time. And you end up with one type of food as against the Hunter Gatherers. And due to settling down the human population arose significantly. Thus bigger societies were forming with a big hope of tomorrow, although the life of a farmer was worse than that of a Hunter Gatherer. Hence, the Author calls Agricultural Revolution as the 'Biggest Fraud' in Human History. And this curse continues to chase us today as he says,

'How many young college graduates have taken demanding jobs in high-powered firms, vowing that they will work hard to earn money that will enable them to retire and pursue their real interests when they are thirty-five? But by the time they reach that age, they have large mortgages, children to school, houses in the suburbs that necessitate at least two cars per family, and a sense that life is not worth living without really good wine and expensive holidays abroad. What are they supposed to do, go back to digging up roots? No, they double their efforts and keep slaving away.,'

Agricultural Revolution led to unification of mankind in a way that could never happen with animals - we started having Fictional realities like Money, Country, Kingdom, God which doesn't exist in nature. The author digs deeply into three main factors that led to mass unification of Humans - Money, Empire and Religion. All of this leads to Trust and enable unification. As he writes, It is interesting how deep the author goes into each of them and analyze the pros of cons of each.

He also touches upon and pity the domesticated animals that are treated in a very cruel way. 'Domesticated chickens and cattle may well be an evolutionary success story, but they are also among the most miserable creatures that ever lived. The domestication of animals was founded on a series of brutal practices that only became crueler with the passing of the centuries'

In the final part, the author analyzes the reasons for Scientific Revolution starting out of Europe and how it changed the course of the world. He believes is started because the scientists accepted Ignorance in first place. They were ready to explore and gain knowledge. The kingdom supported them and eventually they conquered the world. He also explains the rise of capitalism and interlinking of capitalism and science.

Finally, the author touches upon two aspects - the first one was something that I didn't expect the author would touch upon - Happiness. He tries to find out what exactly Happiness is and how do we define that. The last 50 years have infact been the best part of Homo Sapiens existence. In the entire past history, there was no such time of peace. Yet, does it impact happiness. We live longer than our ancestors. Are we more content? He feels that more research should be done in the field.

The final concluding piece is the future of Homo Sapiens - Will we become Amortal? Will AI take over? Are we Cyborgs today? He looks into various possibilities that might become true.

The depth and width of knowledge covered in this book is amazing. Every page has new information and he has tried to capture it as vividly as possible. Summarizing the book might provide some insights, but reading this book is something very different.

Finally, there are few people who say our generation is the worst of the lot and our ancestors were close to nature. The author disagrees, 'The romantic contrast between modern industry that “destroys nature” and our ancestors who “lived in harmony with nature” is groundless. Long before the Industrial Revolution, Homo sapiens held the record among all organisms for driving the most plant and animal species to their extinctions. We have the dubious distinction of being the deadliest species in the annals of life.'

View all my reviews

Wandering alone in Karnataka - Part 6: Plan, Cost and Suggestions!

karthicks_2005@rocketmail.com (Karthick) — Wed, 28 Sep 2016 20:49:00 +0530

Hi Guys,

To read Part 1, click here (The Start)
To read Part 2, click here (Exploring Hampi)

To read Part 3, click here (Reminiscence of Vijayanagar Kingdom)

To read Part 4, click here (Hampi-Dudhsagar-Madgaon-Murdeswar)

To read Part 5, click here (Udupi and Around)

In final part of the series, I will jot down the plan I had executed along with costs and provide some suggestions as well. By the way, this is my 250^th Blog Post (It has been 7 years, 1 month and 16 days since I started!)

Travel Plan

I started on a Saturday night from Chennai and reached back Chennai after 8 days on a Sunday morning in the following route

Dep	Arr	Train No/Name	Dep Time	Arr Time	Remarks
Chennai	Bangalore	12607/Lalbagh Express	15:35	21:35
Bangalore	Hosapete	16592/Hampi Express	22:00	07:10 (+1 Day)
Hosapete	Madgaon	17603/KCG YPR Express	6:20	13:55	Slip Train. 4 Days a week
Madgaon	Murdeswar	16311/BKN KCVL Exp	9:30	12:22	Only on Thursdays
Murdeswar	Udupi	13654/Bangalore Exp	16:30	18:15
Mangalore	Chennai	12686/Chennai Exp	16:20	08:00(+1 Day)

Out of the 6 trips, I had booked 2S in Lalbagh, 3AC in Hampi-Madgaon & Madgaon-Murdeswar stretches, Sleeper in rest. Given the crowd in Madgaon-Murdeswar stretch, I felt travelling by Unreserved coach would have even be fine and 3AC was not required. The total cost of train tickets came to around Rs. 2500.

Stay

I stayed in the following places

Hampi – Lakshmi Heritage homes (Rs. 900 per night for Non AC – One of the good places you will find in center of Hampi)
Madgaon – Hotel Greenview (Rs. 600 per night for Non AC – I stayed here as the Railway retiring room got cancelled in last minute – you could find better hotels)
Udupi – Hotel Shambhavi (Rs. 1100 per night for Non AC – again had an Airbnb option for Rs. 750 per night which was cancelled by Host. The hotel is nearby bus stand and a very good one).

I booked Hampi and Udupi via Cleartrip and effectively spent only around 2/3^rd of the total cost. The total cost of Hotel Reservations came to around Rs. 4100

Other expenses included around Rs. 3000 for food, Rs. 1000 for local travel (Cylce, Auto, Bus) and some miscellaneous expenses in temples and museums. Effectively, the trip made be spend around Rs. 11000 (well within the budget of Rs. 15000 I had in mind). I had got no souvenirs or made any shopping except for cashew nuts in Madgaon due to the limitations of having only a rucksack.

Suggestions

Most of my trip went on plan except at a few places. Making some quick suggestions to people wanting to explore the places

Hampi

There will be no network connectivity in most places. Download Offline Maps before heading to. Google Maps might be confusing to identify places, Satellite version works better.
Constantly look out for Hampi Map put by tourism department and places around the current location.
If you are short on time, hire an Auto. The place is huge.
A few places are secluded on Off days. Though I faced no troubles, I avoided venturing into a few places

Madgaon

I had a very short stay here and visited Colva beach.
Though I consciously avoided Goa, after coming back from the trip, I had a feel that having travelled that far, I should have spent one more day either in Goa/Gokarna/Karwar
Jog falls is also a nice place around here, but travelling to and fro would take atleast a day

Udupi

Udupi left me confused in terms of the number of places around to visit.
Do a good research before heading and choose from the following list – Kollur, Agumbe, Karkala, Kundapur, Mudabidri, Dharmastala, Malpe/Kaup Beaches. Most of the places will take around half-one full day. So, decide your interest and head out.

It was a nice trip visiting different set of places over a week. Hope you enjoyed reading my series on it.

Happy Reading!

Wandering alone in Karnataka - Part 5: Udupi and around

karthicks_2005@rocketmail.com (Karthick) — Sat, 3 Sep 2016 20:48:00 +0530

Hi Guys,

To read Part 1, click here (The Start)
To read Part 2, click here (Exploring Hampi)

To read Part 3, click here (Reminiscence of Vijayanagar Kingdom)

To read Part 4, click here (Hampi-Dudhsagar-Madgaon-Murdeswar)

Day 7 – Aug 5, 2016

Udupi is an interesting place with lot of scenic tourist spots around, but it takes time reaching each of them. I had a few options in mind – Kollur, Agumbe, Karkala among others. I had rounded it to two options – Kollur or Karkala. My friend Vijay had suggested me to head to the Kollur temple as it was located amidst forest and you also get free food (A good enough reason to travel two and half hours each way) I was finding Karkala interesting, but one review that I had read said Karkala has slippery steps and you got to be careful in monsoons.

So, I started the day with no clear plans. I went in search of breakfast and no restaurants were open at 8 am near the bus stand. So, I trudged back all across to Woodlands hoping that it will be open. Luckily they had just opened (their timing of breakfast is from 8.30 am!). After breaking my fast, I returned back to the bus stand. Instinctively, I caught a bus to Kollur. It took almost 2 and half hours for a 75 km trip. After Kundapura, the road was bad for a stretch of 10 km and I was wondering if the ride is going to be bumpy. But luckily the hill roads were much better.

Breakfast at Woodlands - Udupi Masala Dosa

As I reached the temple, it started pouring. There was huge queue and I was wondering, why I came here. I stood in the queue at around 12.15 pm and luckily I was sent in around 1.25 pm. Behind me, the line was closed and were to be remained close till 3 pm! After finishing the prayers, I went back to the Annadhanam Hall for food and joined the queue there. It took 30 minutes, but the food was pretty good and experience different. They had Rice with Rasam, Sambhar and ended with sweet Payasam. I came back and it was still raining. There was so much of rains at this place.

Kollur Mookambika Temple amidst rains

I started back at 2.45 and I was wondering where to go next. I hopped onto a bus heading for Kundapura and then went to Anegudde which is considered to have a beautiful Ganesha temple atop a hill. It turned out to be a dull place. So again, I started to Udupi at around 5.10 pm from there. At around 5.55 pm, I got down at Udupi Bypass and caught another bus to Malpe beach. It was a day of impulse decisions.

Malpe Beach

Malpe Beach is part of Malpe Village, a fishing harbour on the outskirts of Udupi. The beach is serene with White Sand, Coconut Trees, Huts and a few shops. After missing out Sunsets in Tungabhadra and Colva, I finally had my chance in Malpe amidst the heavy monsoon rains. The sunset was indeed splendid with huts and Gandhi statue in the backdrop.

Sunset at Malpe Beach

After sunset, I came back to Udupi and headed to the temples around Krishna Mutt – Chandramoulishwara Temple and Sri Anantheshwara Temple, both dedicated to Lord Shiva. Both were peaceful and not thronged by too many people. After that, went to Woodlands restaurant again for dinner. Had Udupi famous Masala Dosa and a few other items there. A very good place to have food if you are in Udupi.

Day 8 – Aug 6, 2016

The day started with a visit to Krishna Mutt. It was interesting to find the tradition of viewing the God through window also known as ‘Kanakana Kindi’. The tradition is that the famous poet Kanaka Dasa viewed Krishna through the window in 16^th century when the temple was affected by earthquake and the structure had collapsed.

Udupi - Sri Krishna Mutt

Then headed for breakfast at the traditional Mitra Samaja which is a dilapidated status today. Still the food tastes pretty good here.

After checking out, started to Mangalore at around 11.30 am. Reached Managlore by about 1 pm and was wondering what to do. Went straight to Ideal Café which is well known for Ice Creams. After having Lunch there, came back to the Railway station and started reading a book. Mangalore-Chennai Express uses the modern LHB rakes (which are more agile, safe and big). But as it started raining, we figured out the windows were not closing properly and water started spraying all around (was wondering if this is the localization of German Coaches). So, I settled on my upper berth for the rest of the journey.

Day 9 – Aug 7, 2016

The train arrived 45 minutes to Chennai on the final day. Totally, I lost 5 hours of my Trip thanks to the train delays. I headed back home amidst the hot Chennai Sun which reminded me that Southwest monsoons donot affect this part of the country.

Thus, my great expedition of Karnataka came to an end.

To be continued... Trip Plan, Expenses and Suggestions to form the final post of the trip!

Happy Reading!

Wandering alone in Karnataka - Part 4: Hampi-Dudhsagar-Margao-Murdeswar

karthicks_2005@rocketmail.com (Karthick) — Thu, 25 Aug 2016 11:18:00 +0530

Hi Guys,

To read Part 1, click here (The Start)
To read Part 2, click here (Exploring Hampi)

To read Part 3, click here (Reminiscence of Vijayanagar Kingdom)

Day 5 – Aug 3, 2016

I had kept a couple of alarms around 5 am so that I donot miss the train. But I woke up 15 minutes before the planned time, thanks to the Power Cut. The auto driver, Rama Li had come by 5.10 am much earlier than the scheduled time. I started around 5.30 am from Hampi to Hosapete Railway station and took a train at 6.20 am to Madgaon (commonly referred as Margao) The train was filled with Party mood with lot of people heading to Goa. The main objective of this trip was to experience the journey via Braganza Ghats (a section of Western Ghats) which is a 26 km rail route connecting Goa to the hinterlands. It is considered as the most complicated construction of Indian Railways. This route is most famous for Dudhsagar Falls which can be accessed only by train.

As the train headed towards Hubli it started raining heavily. After reaching Dharwad at 11.30 am, the train entered the dense cover of Western Ghats and was moving at a snail’s pace. So, the train was chugging amidst rains, forests and mountains. The excitement started building up as the train moved closer to Dudhsagar falls through tunnels and streams. From Castle rock station, it took almost 30 minutes to reach the place and it was marvelous with water flowing in full force thanks to the monsoons. Dudhsagar means 'Sea of Milk' and there is no exaggeration in the name. The falls is viewed better when the train takes the next turn and you face straight at the falls. At this point, you can view the falls in its entirety whereas in the first turn the train is so close to the falls and all you see is water gushing. After slowing down for 3 hours, the train was back at a good pace and reached Margao at 3 pm which was a delay of little more than an hour.

Dudhsagar Falls (Image from Wikicommons) - You get this view when the train takes a turn

Here came my next surprise. I had booked retiring room for overnight stay at the Railway station. The caretaker said no rooms are available. I said I had made online booking. He took me to the room. The room was turned upside down. They were treating it for Bed Bugs! Then the booking authorities had no clue of how to cancel the reservation and I wasted one hour. Then finally I managed to cancel it with some special reason and headed to a nearby Hotel based on Google reviews.

In the evening, I took a bus nearby and went to Colva beach which is one of the key beaches in South Goa and is 6 km away from the station. The city is filled with old buildings and green trees. I fell in love with the city. The beach in itself was beautiful with lot of people, both Locals and tourists. A group of fishermen were taking out fishes and crabs from the fishing nets and lot of dogs and crows surrounded them looking for some feast.

Colva Beach

A fresh catch

Little kids trying their Luck!

Again with cloud cover, I missed out on Sunset. After exploring the city market for some time, purchasing some cashews I went to a restaurant at around 7.55 pm and the server told me, ‘Sir, you are late. We run out of things by 8’. Then I don’t know what he thought, he went inside and brought me a Masala Dosa. After munching, I went back and crashed for the day.

Day 6 – Aug 4, 2016

The day started at 8.30 am as I headed back to Madgaon station. As I started walking, a guy came on a Motor Bike and asked me, ’30 Rs, OK?’. I was blinking for a minute before realizing these are bike taxis of Goa. Then he asked me how much I can give. I agreed for 20 Rs and he dropped me at the station. Despite being a walkable distance, the huge rucksack I had made me go for the ride.

After having breakfast at the Railway station’s restaurant (which was pretty good unlike the usual stuff we get in Railway stations), I waited for my Train which was from Bikaner to Kochuveli. Supposed to arrive at 9.20 am, the train arrived at 10.20 am. Half the train got down at Margao and I was wondering why I booked 3AC in the train when Sleeper would have done for the three hour trip to Murdeswar. In entirety, there were 10-15 people in the coach.

Hence started my journey through the Konkan Railways with tunnels, bridges and mountains. Naturally, the train was an hour late at Murdeswar too and I got down at around 1.30 pm. There were no Autos in the Railway station and I walked around 300 meters to the entrance of Murdeswar and got an Auto for Rs. 30 to the temple (for about two kms).

As the auto dropped me, I was looking at the mammoth temple tower and the statue of Lord Siva. But the sea was more mesmerizing with rough waves and cloud cover in the backdrop. I headed into Naveen seaview restaurant which was covered by Sea on all sides and ordered a Meal. And it started pouring outside. I had the lunch amidst breezy rains, amazing views and splashing water. The lunch was not great, but good enough and economical at 70 bucks. I waited for the rain to subside and then went straight up to the Shiva statue. Both the temple and statue are constructed by a business man known as R.N. Shetty. He owns nearly half the properties in the small town and I am not sure if this temple is a dedication to Lord Shiva or just another business with his own guest houses and restaurants built. The temple and statue are free to visit and to that extent what he has done good work not commercializing the entire area. The temple is huge with 18 towers, but I found it plain with nothing so aesthetic about it.

A breathtaking view of the temple

The majestic statue of Lord Siva

At 3pm, the temple doors opened and I visited the temple which is also neatly constructed. I was surprised to see patches of artificial grasses inside the temple. With the huge rucksack I abandoned my desire to go the 18^th floor and have a view (at a charge of Rs.10, a lift takes you all the way to the top). Coming out I sat by the sea and started admiring the sea for quite some time.

Inside of the temple

Naveen Beach Restaurant with nice Sea view and decent food

A view from the other side of the temple

At around 4 pm, I started back to the station (Rs. 40 Auto Charge) and waited for train Karwar-Bangalore express. The station is pretty picturesque with mountains on either sides. The sky opened again for a short span of rain. The train as usual came 40 minutes late and the compartments were fairly empty. A young boy studying 6^th standard started chatting with me on what I was reading on (he was curious about Kindle) and where I’m heading to. The train reached Udupi at 6.45 pm – 30 minutes late than destined. As I got into an auto and headed to my booked hotel (Hotel Shambhavi), it started pouring again.

To be continued...

Happy Reading!

Wandering alone in Karnataka - Part 3: Reminiscence of the Vijayanagar Kingdom!

karthicks_2005@rocketmail.com (Karthick) — Sat, 20 Aug 2016 20:41:00 +0530

Hi Guys,

To read Part 1, click here (The Start)
To read Part 2, click here (Exploring Hampi)

Day 3 – Aug 1, 2016

It was my second day at Hampi and I was determined to cover most of it that day. After an energetic toast and tea at Mango Tree, I rented a Bicycle (Rs.100 per day) and headed straight to Kamalapur. Cycles are good way of covering Hampi though it can be a bit tedious covering distances and riding across the hilly terrain. Kamalapur is a small village 4 kms away from Hampi and has 3 ATMs. The route is filled with all the key ruins apart from lush green paddy and sugarcane fields. After withdrawing money from one of the ATMs, I headed back the same way to start the exploration.

My Cycle for the day

First stop was Lotus Mahal which is inside the Zenena enclosure. There is the basement of Queen’s palace in this enclosure along with beautifully designed Lotus Mahal, the treasury building and a few Watch towers. Just outside the complex is the Elephant’s stable which consists of 11 spacious rooms interconnected with each other. After some imagination of how splendid this place would have been with Queens, soldiers and Elephants, I moved on (You might wonder how Queen's palace and treasury building are in same place - there is a contradictory view that this place was never the Queen's palace and was an administrative building)

Basement of Queen's Palace (Watch Tower visible on extreme left)

Lotus Mahal

Watch Tower

Elephant Stable

After taking my cycle, I headed to Hajarama temple which is said to be a temple built only for the Royal people. Then I headed to the Royal enclosure which houses a lot of ruins which were once the palace that were adorned by Kings. The entrance has Mahanavami Dibba which is tall structure with inscriptions of elephants, horses, etc. The detailing is exquisite. The kings and royal audience have attended ceremonies and festivals from this place. The complex also has a marvelous stepped tank which has beautifully carved out steps leading to the water. Apart from that there are ruins of the palace, King’s Audience and a underground war planning chamber.

Stepped Water Tank

Queen's bath

On the way back, I made a visit to a huge Krishna temple which is also currently in ruins, but the Government is making efforts to revive the temple. After that, I stopped near a hillock and visited Sasikavelu Ganesh, a huge statue of Lord Ganesh and started climbing the steps and ended upon the two tiered entrance and the Sunset point. Only, then did I realize I was at Hemakunta Hill and how the place is structured. I met another interesting group here consisting of people from Pondicherry staying in Hampi for 7 days and exploring. As I started back to the Bazaar, the sky opened up. The rain coat I had carried all the way came in handy. After finishing Lunch at Mango Tree, I came back to the center of Hampi and it started pouring again.

Krishna Temple Entrance

Sasivekalu Ganesh

I took shelter under the magnificent tower of Virupaksha temple. Once again an Auto Driver came asking if I wanted a whole trip of Hampi in Auto. As I said no, he started chatting with me casually and told he was planning to come over to Tamil Nadu on a trip. I learnt that there are totally around 50-55 temples around Hampi which will take days to cover. As rains slowed down, I came back to my room.

A view from the Sunset point

I went to Virupaksha temple in the night and it was just splendid. The sodium vapour light created a mystic feel to the temple. I again visited the inside of the temple with not much crowd. This time I was able to realize the temple is not just magnificent, but has so many intricate details. I promised to come over early next day to see the temple in broad daylight.

Virupaksha Temple - majestic in day and mystic at night...

Only by the end of this day, I was able to visualize the entire setting of Hampi and the locations of monuments. After looking into the map now, I was able to realize what I had seen and what I had missed out.

Day 4 – Aug 2, 2016

After two days of rains, it was a day with bright sunlight. I had few thoughts in my mind – To head to Hospet to see Tungabhadra dam, to cross the river and see Anegundi (the earlier capital of the kingdom) or visit the left over portion. Decided to go with third option and rented a cycle again. The day started with Virupaksha temple. I also met the same group from Pondicherry again at the temple. The temple was wonderful in bright daylight and it kept throwing new surprises at me. I took a detailed note of the inner sanctum carvings which were designed in the 5^th or 6^th century. After that, I went to an area marked as ‘Inverted Tower’. It is designed in such a way that light coming through a small hole makes the main tower appear inverted in nature. Interesting design!

Virupaksha Temple in Broad Daylight

Again went all the way to Kamalapur and went to the Archaeological museum. The entrance fee is Rs. 30 and there was no one inside apart from me. The four galleries had a few statues and in center there was a huge model of Hampi designed way back in 1978. The museum wasn't worth a visit.. As I came out, a boy came and told I have to give Rs. 5 for cycle parking and I had to visit a few shops around to get the change! I moved on to Pattabirama temple which is nearby to the museum. As I went there, the place was in complete shambles with the floors and roof opened up and work going on. I came back to the main road and headed to Ganagitti Jain temple which is again on the outskirts. There are quite a lot of Jain and Muslim structures in the area constructed in the same time period as that of Hindu temples.

Ganagitti Jain Temple

Again I moved back to the Royal Enclosure and now with my enlightened knowledge, I had a better glimpse of the place. There were lot of tourists this day compared to the first two days. It was good to see people around after roaming alone in most of the places. As I came out, I saw the two giant Doors kept in floor which I had missed the other day. Similarly, I visited the Underground Siva temple on the way back but it the underground portions were unreachable due to the rains. I headed back to the Hemakunta hill and went to see Badavi Linga and Ugra Narashima, two giant statues located at the entrance of Hampi.

The two giant doors

Badavi Linga - always dipped in water

The magnificent Ugra Narasimha

The day was hot and I was tired by then. So, I slept for some time in the afternoon before returning the cycle in the evening. Around 6 pm, went to Tungabhardra River for the sunset. Unfortunately the clouds avoided the scenic view. Made one last visit to Virupaksha temple in the night and then headed to the room. I had to pack my bags to catch an early train the next day and I was in no mood to pack. I was emotionally attached to Hampi by then.

Tungabhadra River in the evening

After a tough time, I packed things up and slept with dreams of how magnificent the city would have been in its peak. Every rise has a fall!

To be continued...

To read Part 4, click here (Hampi - Dudhsgar - Margao - Murdeswar)

Happy Reading!

Wandering alone in Karnataka - Part 2: Exploring Hampi!

karthicks_2005@rocketmail.com (Karthick) — Sun, 14 Aug 2016 10:22:00 +0530

Hi Guys,

To read Part 1, click here (The Start)

Day 2 – Jul 31, 2016

After finishing my breakfast at Mango Tree, I was all set to start my exploration!

A bit about Hampi here – Hampi is one of the biggest ruins that you will see in our country. Hampi was the capital of Vijaynagar empire which is of the key kingdoms in India around 14^th-16^th century in India and had the famous Krishnadevaraya as one of the kings. The city was established in the southern banks of mighty Tungabhadra River amidst Rocks and Boulders. The city has been constructed with Rock on Rock. The ruins are spread across 29 sq. km of Area and is a UNESCO Heritage site. There are around 85 key marked monuments and numerous unmarked monuments here.

Though I had seen a lot of maps on Hampi, nothing stayed in my head for the place is humongous. I started with Virupaksha temple which is the centre of Hampi today. It is a huge temple that was built across various phases starting from as early as 5^th century when the Inner Sanctums are said to be built. The outer structures and towers were built by the Vijaynagar rules around 14^th century. The temple's entrance tower is majestic at a height of 50m and 9 tiered. It is a still a living temple and visited by numerous people from surrounding villages every day. The mainy deity is Lord Shiva. The temple was so crowded when I visited the first time. Then I headed to Tungabhadra River which borders along the temple. The river is huge, was flowing full with monsoon waters and so scenic. Had to admire the stone steps that were constructed centuries ago to access the river and also the height prevents the flooding of river.

Virupaksha Temple

I came out of the temple and got a Local Map from one of the sellers and as soon as that happened, many Auto drivers swanked around me saying that they will take me around the full of Hampi. I was in no mood for that. If you are running short of time, Autos are the best option to roam around. They charge around 600-800 for a full day which is till 4 pm. After dissuading them, I climbed on the hill that is on the left of the temple. Also known as Hemakunta hill, the hill houses a few temples including temples for Lord Ganesh, Hanuman, Jain temples, a two towered entrance and a Sunset point. The first time I climbed, I had no idea where to head to and climbed down half the way.

Atop the Hemakunta Hill

Jain Temples on Hemakunta Hill

Then I headed straight from the temple and started following a trail. The trail was along the Tungabhadra River and was filled with boulders. It led to Kodandarama temple which is a small living temple. The priest outside advised me to go ahead and there are lot of places around. So, I started walking and after sometime I was roaming all alone with no idea of where the trail leads. As I was wondering of turning back, met a group of tourists coming from the other way. They advised me to go ahead as there are lot of interesting places.

Tungabhadra river along the trail

Ahead was an interesting place known as King’s Balance where Kings used to weigh themselves and donate to the villages around. Going ahead I striked upon the famous Vittala temple complex. Vittala temple is currently a ruined temple, but is known for the famous Stone Chariot. An impressive Chariot made completely of stone is constructed facing the temple. The entrance to the temple is Rs. 30 and can be used to access Lotus Mahal too if accessed on the same day. On coming out I figured out, there is an easily accessible way to the temple on the other side with a road connecting Hampi to the place (but that is at least 8 kms away from Hampi).

Vittala Temple

The famous Stone Chariot

Then I followed back the trail and as I reached Kodandarama temple, there was Chaos outside. A cobra had entered the temple and it was crawling around. A few Cows were coming by the way and they were threatening the Cobra and people were threatening the cows to get away. It was quite a scene. I headed to see the Monolithic Bull statue and then tried climbing the Matanga hill, but then stopped after 30-35 steps as I saw no one around. As I came back to Hampi Bazaar, monkeys were running all around snatching anything edible from people. A child lost her banana and her mother lost the flowers that decorated her hair. As I was clicking photos of them, one monkey snarled at me. I closed my camera, kept it inside the bag and rushed to Mango Tree for Lunch and it was already around 3 pm. It started raining as I was having lunch.

Monolithic Bull

One of those mischievous monkeys

After rains, I went back to room and then headed again to the Tungabhadra river. As I was sitting on the banks, the rains arrived again. This time it was quite scenic to see the rain spreading from west to east and how people figure out arrival of rains and cover the shops. And the rains meant an end to my explorations for the day.

To be continued...

To read Part 3, click here (Reminiscence of Vijayanagar Kingdom)

To read Part 4, click here (Hampi - Dudhsgar - Margao - Murdeswar)

Happy Reading!

Wandering alone in Karnataka - Part 1: The Start

karthicks_2005@rocketmail.com (Karthick) — Sun, 7 Aug 2016 20:09:00 +0530

Hi Guys,

It has been sometime since I took a break and went somewhere on a trip. After a few failed plans, I decided to go on a Solo Trip somewhere. But the question was where to. My first instinct was to go somewhere north of Delhi. Then after some pondering and considering the low budget in mind, I switched over to Karnataka which some of my friends had been insisting me to visit. Karnataka has so many places spread over, so again I had to circle down upon a few.

Taking clues from the trip we had planned (and cancelled) last December to Badami and Gokarna, I thought of expanding the list. I wanted to loop in Jog falls and Hampi. After doing all research over the internet, the final list was completely different considering all the travel options I had. The final plan was to spend some time extensively in Hampi before moving to Udupi and covering a couple of places en-route. I had made bookings just a month earlier and to my surprise, I got confirmed train tickets for all the places. Guess, due to monsoon the tourism at all the places are at a very low.

Day 1 – Jul 30, 2016

I had dumped all the necessary things into one trekking rucksack, thanks to my roommate who lent it for the trip. The first leg was to Hampi any my plan was to take Lalbagh Express to Bangalore and then catch Hampi express from there. It was pouring in Bangalore and the city was all over in the news. Two hours into the journey, rain started lashing and it was becoming gloomy. The train started to slow down. The stop over time between the two trains was a mere 25 minutes, but my hope was that the stop over time was 1 hour if I get down at Bangalore Cantonment station. Luckily the train picked up pace was on time (happened to be the only train that arrived on time at destination in the entire trip).

Hampi Express also arrived on time at Bangalore and the train was filled with a layer of water. Passengers carrying heavy luggage were facing a tough time. I fell asleep soon and got up at around 6.45 am ready to get down.

Day 2 – Jul 31, 2016

The train was just chugging into Guntakal station to my horror. We should have reached here by 4.45 am. So, I got back and fell asleep again cursing my bad luck. Finally, the train reached Hospet (now called Hosapete) by around 9.00 am, a delay of 1 hr 50 mins. I went outside and lot of Auto Rickshaws were calling out passengers for Hampi which is 14 kms away from the station. Ignoring the Auto drivers, I waited to catch a Bus to Hampi.

Hampi - A view of Virupaksha temple

After waiting for 15 minutes, an Auto driver approached me again and said he will take me to Hampi for 100 bucks as he had go back there. I was OK with 100 Rs for a 14 km trip. So, I got in and as we started off and went half a km, a bus with signboard ‘Hampi’ was heading to the Railway station. Still, I was content with the Auto. The driver's name was Rama Li and he was saying this is Off Season in Hampi and most of the guest houses would be empty. If you come directly, you can get one for Rs. 450-600 which otherwise goes for double in peak seasons.

I had booked in ‘Laxmi Heritage Homes’ based on reviews in TripAdvisor. After getting a few deals on ClearTrip, the cost of room came to almost Rs. 600 per night. The place is not as comfortable as a hotel room, but it is good enough for a nice stay. The owners of the place are really hospitable and make your stay good. My observation was that it is mostly foreigners who stay up at these guest houses. If you are looking for a full-fledged comfortable Hotel, you need to stay at Hospet and travel to Hampi which will take around 30 minutes. After getting ready at around 11 am, I headed to Mango Tree Restaurant for Breakfast (only good restaurant inside Hampi) and was all set to start the exploration.

To be continued...

To read Part 2, click here (Exploring Hampi)

To read Part 3, click here (Reminiscence of Vijayanagar Kingdom)

To read Part 4, click here (Hampi - Dudhsgar - Margao - Murdeswar)

Happy Reading!!!

Indian Startups - When Business Ideas are imitable...

karthicks_2005@rocketmail.com (Karthick) — Sun, 13 Mar 2016 23:14:00 +0530

Hi Guys,

There was a nice little pamphlet in today’s newspaper that was an advertisement for a new intra-city logistics service started in Chennai. I was wondering how many similar services have been launched in the past one year. I can remember seeing advertisements of at least two similar players.

Almost all the new start-ups in India have been facing the same issue – Imitations. During my MBA, 0ne of my professors concluded his Strategy course saying,

‘Strategy is something that will differentiate your business from competitors providing superior Value Proposition to Customers over a sustainable period of time’

In short, if a Competitor can imitate your strategy, then it is not a strategy in itself.

For starting a business, Ideation is important. You have a good idea which can get customers and make money – Investors will pump in money. But today, I guess it is enough if you can take someone’s existing idea and pitch in quoting less competition in the field and enter into a direct cost war with your competitor.

Eternally, the companies says that acquiring a customer is important. It is all about deals, cashbacks, acquisitions and sales at any cost. But, I am not finding any of the companies providing superior service to the customer, creating relationship and making efforts to retain the customer.

If you look at any of the newer business areas that has emerged, you can find a minimum of at least two players or sometimes as big as ten players trying to catch the pie. You have Ola-Uber fiercely competing and providing deep discounts to customers and big incentives to drivers. If you consider any of the aggregator services – let it be Food Aggregators (FoodPanda, Zomato, Swiggy, etc), Grocery Aggregators (Big Basket, Grofers, PepperTap, etc), Hotel Aggregators (Oyo, Zo, GoIbibo, etc), the strategies have been more or less similar. One players enters the business. A few imitations are born. The discount war begins. Cash burns and you end up in a Catch-22 situation.

One of the key lessons taught in Strategy is that reducing your price is that last thing you need to do and that too when all other cards are exhausted. Most of these players seem to have only one card with them and that is the Pricing. Sometimes, I do wonder if these players are too myopic and are not thinking out of the box to attract and retain customers.

It remains pretty much the same with the big Daddys out there – Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal. But, one significant thing I find in ecommerce business is that these players are trying something to retain the customers. From my personal experience, Amazon has been trying to provide a great customer service and by treating customer as the king, they are making significant improvement in the market share.

Ultimately, I do wonder if many of the founders really have the passion to become the next big thing. Most of the Investor’s money goes into filling the pockets of founders (as remuneration) and to Customers as cashbacks and discounts (You know, it has been ages since I paid my Phone bill fully – Thanks to PayTm and Freecharge).

Happy Reading!

Has the Smart Phone Industry Matured?

karthicks_2005@rocketmail.com (Karthick) — Tue, 5 Jan 2016 22:45:00 +0530

Hi Guys,

Long back, I had written a post on how Samsung was losing its plot in India in the Smart Phone segment. In this post, I try to find out the way the Indian Smart Phone Industry is panning out and how different players are fighting it out.

Has the Smart Phone Industry matured?

Large Displays, Better RAMs, Better Resolution, More Megapixels… This is how brands are differentiating. Even the flagships have concepts like Force Touch, Iris Scanner which are not really great innovations. Today any smartphone in the range of Rs. 10000 has a good screen, decent camera and a big display. And brands matter less and less. So many Chinese brands are coming in. Nubia, Meizu, PhiComm, Coolpad… These are some of the brands that came in last year and had a decent crowd going for it. Reliability has not been a big question mark as the OEM tends to be the same player. The newsmakers have been fast shifting… From Motorola to Xiaomi to OnePlus to Asus in a span of 2 years.

Flagships are not really attention seekers anymore. Who would spend 40000 bucks on a phone when a 10000 bucks phone has 75% of those features. Apple thought it could extract its brand premium and priced 6S at a whopping price of Rs. 62000. Only to realize that Indians value their money and had to reduce price by nearly 15% overnight.

Do UIs Matter?

With majority of phone makers coming out with their own UI like MIUI (Xiaomi), Zen UI (Asus), Oxygen OI (OnePlus), does it really matter to the end user? Some of the UIs are pretty different, but none difficult to manage. The interface remains pretty much the same. And it doesn’t seem to be a key feature that impacts Buying Behaviour. Before OnePlus Two came out, CyanogenMed (which was used in Oneplus One) was highly critical and said OnePlus Two would fail because there was no Cyanogen. OnePlus said Oxygen UI is the best UI that is available today. But, no one bothered about the UI. No one either criticized or praised Oxygen UI.

I just wonder why many companies donot stick to the stock UI like Motorola. It is less complicated, straight forward to use and people find it good. So, why spend lot of R&D on a UI which is really not different?

Less Choice is better?

There is a concept in Behavioural Economics which states that lesser the choice, better the proposition. More the choice, people tend to get away or become confused. Most of the companies had a very good sales in the first generation – Motorala (Moto E, Moto G, Moto X), Xiaomi (Mi3, Redmi 1S), One Plus One and Asus Zenfone. Once these phones started coming out with more and more models, people started getting confused and the sales started dipping.

Any new Game Changers?

One of the key requirements of users these days is better batteries. But if you raise the capacity, the phone becomes heavy. What we need is an innovative technology that could provide better powerful batteries. I don’t think any of the existing companies are looking to solve this. The solution could come in from a new player who specializes in manufacturing batteries (someone like Panasonic or maybe Tesla or a new kid in the block).

Apart from that, most of the innovations claimed by companies are really not Game Changers. And again they are easily imitable in nature. The Industry looks to have hit a plateau where larger display, more MPs and better resolution are available with everyone and are affordable too.

Worldwide too, it doesn’t seem vastly different with Apple gorging up 94% of the Smartphone profits despite selling less than a third of the smart phones. The remaining players fight for the 6%. Apple has been able to play with its brand name, replacements and stature. But, not sure how long it would convince people to buy Apple, just because it is Apple…

It appears to have lot of parallels with the PC industry. Effectively, it looks like a field where everyone around looks the same and you got to sell more, spend less to make more profits…

Happy Reading!

Gods, Kings & Slaves: The Siege of Madurai - R. Venkatesh - Book Review

karthicks_2005@rocketmail.com (Karthick) — Thu, 24 Sep 2015 22:42:00 +0530

Gods, Kings & Slaves: The Siege of Madurai by R. Venketesh

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The key reason for me to touch upon this book was 'Madurai'. Historically Madurai has been associated with Sangam Literature, Meenakshi Amman Temple and the Pandian Dynasty. And this book is about the downfall of the Pandyan dynasty which once had its wings spread across the entire Southern India and Sri Lanka.

The timeline of the story is late 13th and early 14th century. There are two parallel story lines. One revolves around Veera who is the illegitimate son of the ruling Pandian king Kulasekharan Pandian. The story deals with Veera's fight for power with his brother Sundar who is the legitimate son of the king. On the other side, we are taken through the Gujarat Region where an young boy Chand Ram is born with the prediction that he would become the ruler of Hindustan. Chand Ram is castrated when he tries to elope with a slave girl from the king's Harem and later he becomes slave to a Arab tradesman, where he is named Malik. Further he becomes the slave of Allaudin Khilji and later the general of the great ruler.

Malik becomes a great strategist and becomes the key for Khilji to acquire the wealth of temples from South India. Veera becomes king and doesn't expect the sudden strike from Malik along with his brother Sundar. Madurai has been left unprotected as no one expects a strike. Thus ends the mighty Pandyan dynasty.

What impressed me in the book was the vivid writing. Right from the childhood of the princes, the childhood fights, politics of crowning the princes, the strategies of Veera's war in Lanka or Malik's war in Warangal, the deception all make it a great reading. The Human emotions and psychology have been captured wonderfully. When Veera is afraid in the last war, the author portrays how the administrative nature of King's work has depleted the warrior in him. Even at the end when the entire city is destroyed, the brothers would be fighting for the rule which reflects the ego and rivalry they had in them. Similarly in Delhi, Khilji would have become a very timid person afraid of the great strategist Malik and would suffer a very bad end.

A great book to read if you are interested in History and wish to know about what happened in India in the 1300s.

View all my reviews

Happy Reading!

Having Momos with uninvited Cats!

karthicks_2005@rocketmail.com (Karthick) — Sun, 2 Aug 2015 16:05:00 +0530

Hi Guys,

A few months back, we (me and a few friends of mine) went on a trip to Coorg and on the way we stopped by at Bylakuppe to visit the Tibetian Monastery. We decided to have lunch at a small Tibetian restaurant. It was a pretty small place and we found out that we were the only guys at the restaurant.

We ordered a few Momos and as we started eating, two small cats came by. They were kittens maturing into the cat phase. Our table was right next to the window and one cat just peeped in. First she was a bit careful about stepping in. Once she learned that we were not going to do anything, she started to walk across our legs underneath the table. The other cat was still a bit shy and was just peeping through. Meanwhile, she started lying in between my legs and my friend Ankur was saying that she is fond of me. I was a bit scared as to if she would bite or scratch my legs. So, I constantly had a look on the cat.

Personally, I love cats for a few reasons. They are so quiet creatures. They move without creating any noise and sit on walls peacefully. Their movement is so graceful and they appear naïve, but are great observers of things around them. Somehow, I find some of those characteristics in myself and hence have some fondness on observing cats. They are so nimble that nothing happens to them even if they fall from a great height.

And so, while we were eating, an old Tibetan lady and her grandson came to eat. So, my dear cat left me and went there in search of something interesting. I was a bit relaxed as she was no more at our table. The old lady just took one of the Momos and fed it to the cat. So, I assumed that the cat might be domesticated and must have lost the hunting skills (domesticated cats rely on their owner for food and the hunting capability is lost). After finishing it, she came back to us. This time we gave a small piece of Momo and finally the other cat also came in.

They kept on roaming around the place for some time. They went out and sat on the window frame from outside. Finally, I gathered some courage and took my hand to touch the cat (something I haven’t done before). And this time she got scared and jumped down before even my hand went near her head. I never left her to touch me and she reciprocated the same to me in the end.

It has been a few months since it happened, but the cute cat does come into my mind quite often…

Happy Reading!!!

The Indian Taxi Industry - The competition intensifies

karthicks_2005@rocketmail.com (Karthick) — Sun, 19 Jul 2015 23:40:00 +0530

Hi Guys,

It has been nearly 8 months since I wrote a post on the increasing competition in Indian Cab Industry and how players are pumping in lot of money to attract customers. While the discounts and free rides have come down, the competition is yet to settle and the major players are trying hard to attract customers and most importantly retain them. While attracting has been easy, retaining has been difficult. Let me provide you two scenarios that I faced along with my friend.

We go for a team dinner. Come out at night 10 pm. Check out Ola. The app says you will be charged 1.4X as it is peak time. Check Uber. No additional fare. Uber wins
We are working on a Saturday and want to leave around 5 pm. Ola has a discount of Rs. 50 on that particular day. We check Ola. Again the app says that it is peak time and you will be charged 1.4X times, meaning the discount is virtually useless. Again we check Uber. No additional fare. Uber 2 – Ola 0

The point to be noted is that we checked Ola first before going to Uber. Ola had created that First Mindshare, but sadly they weren’t able to convert prospects to customers.

Regional players like Fastrack and NTL are also hitting back strongly at the new entrants targeting the Peak Time gimmick and over reliability of technology. When people thought that the regional players are out of Business, I think they have their own set of customers – Old timers without a smart phone, pre booked rides (Ride Later is very poor in Ola and Uber doesn’t have one), etc. Now, these players are also getting smarter and are rising their service levels.

The cost side of the Business is reducing as the driver acquisition is no more a high priority. When I went to Bangalore a few months back, had a friendly chat with one of the drivers who has tagged himself with one of these services. He said the company has stopped giving additional incentives for staying with them. For every km, a customer is charged Rs. 10. The service provider gives him extra Rs. 3. The commission is 10% which is Rs. 1.3. So in effect the service provider is making a loss of Rs. 1.70 for every km a customer rides. This is to keep both the customer and driver happy. He said before tagging himself with the service provider, he was riding for a travels which paid him Rs. 8 per km. So, he is getting at least 30-40% more and he is also getting more rides per day.

With introduction of peak time charges and increasing number of rides, I guess these players would no longer be pumping in money. Recently Ola has reduced their charges in Chennai by about 20%. The reason given is that there has been optimal usage of fleets leading to ‘economies of scale’. A quick search reveals that Ola has around 13000 Cabs in Chennai against Fastrack’s 4000. Uber’s figures remain unknown.

The other issue faced by Ola and Uber is the reliability of the drivers. A viral news spreading in the Social networking sites questions the authenticity of the fares as the drivers might start a trip well before they arrive at your place. This might be happening at a few places, but it raises a big question about the credibility of the Cab services.

A few months back, Ola and Uber looked very cheap and affordable. The customer acquisition phase is nearly over as the customers are used to the new age players by now. The key now is to retain the customers without affecting the trust. It is the trust factor that the new age players seems to be losing.

Competition is also good for the end customer as they get the best out of it. While the dust might have settled, the road ahead doesn’t look smooth. Lets see if someone can become a market leader, or if the industry would remain fragmented.

Happy Reading!

Why do we love some foods and hate some?

karthicks_2005@rocketmail.com (Karthick) — Tue, 5 May 2015 23:33:00 +0530

Hi Guys,

I am writing after a long time. I had many ideas to write, but didn’t write as I didn’t either have time or I was lazy. I will try to be regular from now on and I really hope I am. To comeback, I thought of choosing a very light topic.

As a kid I used to like Mint Chutneys very much. But as I grew up, I started hating it. Today I can forcefully have it, but never as fond as I used to have it when I was a kid. I never really liked Cauliflower as a kid, but now I have started having a certain liking for it. I don’t like a large variety of food stuffs, but I do forcefully eat them these days. But, still few items like Capsicum and Brinjal are too difficult for me to have.

Researchers say that genetics play an important role in our food habits. Genetics in the sense, not just a few generations, but the entirety of Human Civilization. Nutrients and Energy was very important for the survival and daily activity of human beings. So, they were adept at picking Ripe Fruits which were a good source of Nutrients and Energy. They were sweet. At the same time, many poisonous plants were bitter. You need to avoid them. It is hardwired in your brain to prefer sweet and avoid bitter taste.

One of my friends hates chocolates – anything that has chocolaty flavor like cakes, sweets, etc. She says the bitterness in the chocolate that makes her avoid it. But she doesn’t have a problem with White Chocolates. Another one of my friends hate Nuts. He doesn’t have a chocolate if it has Nuts. The list goes on with others too – Watermelon, Mushrooms, Apples, fries, Ice Cream, etc. Me hating Capsicum and they hating chocolates and nuts are because of the same reason. Somehow, our taste buds pick up the unique taste in them and send a strong signal to the brain.

But then how have do you start liking and disliking a few things. As a fetus in your mother’s womb, you inhale and exhale amniotic fluid, which is flavored by your mother’s dietary habits. So, whatever you mother eats when you are in the womb, you tend to develop preferences for them (in my case, my preferences and my mother’s preferences are completely different). And as an infant, you tend to eat whatever is fed till the age of two years – you don’t have personal preferences. When you turn two, you become Neophobic. That is you tend to completely avoid new food.

So many parents leave it at that and say my child doesn’t like it. But in reality, the child hates anything new. It takes nearly a dozen times to get used to it. One clever technic is to mix up new food with a used food. If the child still doesn’t like, then the child’s taste buds are really averse to them. This technique is known as Learned Preference and can be tried at any age.

What about my hate for Mint Chutney and liking for Cauliflower? I vividly remember me throwing up one fine morning after having Mint Chutney when I was 11 or 12. From then on, my mind has created a barrier between me and Mint. How much ever I try to convince myself that it is not going to do anything, I can’t eat it. Good thing, it is slowly changing. And I started preferring Cauliflower because of the Fries and then slowly it spread into other varieties as well. It was a Learned Preference.

Food is influenced by Psychological factors too. You prefer certain colors (I guess the orange color of Cauliflower made me like it), textures, shapes, etc. Similarly your mind is always looking for survival mechanisms and taste aversion is one of them. If a food made you sick, your mind avoids that considering it might be a poisonous substance.

The culture in which you are grow up also plays a role. Indians prefer spicy food. Many foreigners find it hard to even taste it. There are many cultures that eat anything and everything – ants, spiders, crabs, etc. It might appear gross to you, but is their staple. Even without tasting you are averse to them, but they are used to it.

It is too frustrating to hear comments from people, ‘How can you not eat it? It is so delicious’ or ‘How do you eat it? It tastes very bad’. Understand that it is because your taste buds vary and psychological preferences vary. Learn to respect the differences and move on.

Happy Reading!!!

P.S:

References and Extra Readings

The Indian Taxi Industry - A Cost gulping Business?

karthicks_2005@rocketmail.com (Karthick) — Fri, 28 Nov 2014 19:53:00 +0530

Hi Guys,

TaxiForSure, Ola Cabs, Uber – three names that have been dominating the headlines of Startup sites in India. If you are living in any of the metro cities of India, there is a lot of possibility that you would have used their services or at least downloaded their App. While Uber is an international phenomenon, the other two startups are home based and are heavily funded by investors.

As the articlein Live Mint today rightly points out, these players are doing the same as that of ecommerce companies. Throwing huge discounts in order to win Customer Loyalty. Deep down, I feel there is a flaw in the entire model of winning the customer loyalty.

There have been too many organized cab models in India before the advent of these firms – Meru, Easy, Fast Track, etc. Many of them were regional players. Though there was some customer dissatisfaction, generally customers were happy since they got a Taxi on call. The price model was good enough that everyone in the model – the owners, the drivers, the customers were happy and satisfied.

Now enter the new arrivals. To disarm the existing players, what can you do? Offer better services – Mobile App, GPS Tracking, etc. Still, Customers don’t switch? Well, then there is only one thing you can do. Play with the cost (in most of the marketing case studies, students’ first option would be cut the price. And any professor would advise not to use that option unless other options are exhausted as price directly hits your margin). All the new entrants reduced the cost by nearly 25-30%.

As the articlein Mint points out, these firms provide the discount to the taxi drivers. That is if the actual fare was Rs. 500 and the passenger paid just Rs. 280 due to discounts, then the driver would have got Rs. 200 less. Ideally the owner should have got Rs. 100 (20% of 500) as commission. But instead they now give Rs. 120 as discount. Imagine the situation – Cost: Rs. 120. Revenue: Rs.0. For the driver, it doesn’t make a difference, the customer wins, the owner loses.

Why are these firms doing it then? All in the hope of gaining Customer Loyalty. If you travel in Ola cabs today and like it, you will become a customer of Ola is their thought process. So, the Rs. 120 they lose today would be compensated if you travel twice tomorrow (when they increase the fares back). But then, what is the logic behind the fact that you would stick with them in future?

Michael Porter in his famous five forces strategy would look at the five forces that drive the competition. A simple analysis of the five forces for the Taxi Industry looks like this (pardon me for the very simple analysis).

What can we arrive based on the analysis?

Too low switching costs
No Product Differentiation
Industry operating completely based on cost factors.

Even if these players can consolidate at some point down the line and increase the price, what is the probability that a new player who has Deep Pockets won’t jump in and give low fares?

Is there Economies of scale in this business? With no Fixed Assets, no employees (in the form of drivers), the Economies of scale boil down to the marketing spends. It does help when you have a large market share, but it’s nothing compared to the economies of scale enjoyed by the retail industry or manufacturing industry.

With virtually no costs associated for the driver or the customer to switch players at a later stage, the industry looks like another cost gulping business, where you are going to lose a huge chunk of money in the name of gaining a false market share. Well the investment might look like a solid pillar, but then the pillar might well be laid on a sand dune waiting for a storm to wash it away.

Till the storm, I think as customers we might well enjoy our share in gulping the money.

Happy Reading!

The Big Billion Day and the Lessons learnt!

karthicks_2005@rocketmail.com (Karthick) — Sat, 11 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0530

Hi Guys,

‘The Big Billion Day’ will remain a most spoken about term in the Indian E Commerce Space. There are lot of chances as to that a case study would be written about it and lot of analysis would be done as to what went wrong and how it could have been done correctly. Flipkart made a blunder with the sale and it not only backfired on them, but boosted Snapdeal and Amazon by a huge magnitude.

Flipkart claims that it achieved the target of a billion dollar sale, but no one can verify their claims from the outside. If it did achieve, then Flipkart grossly miscalculated the potential they had. This is one problem with most of the flash sales. Big Bazaar had the same problems with their sales during their starting stages. Flipkart already experienced backlash with the flash sales of Xiaomi mobile phones and still I’m not sure as to why they headed for a day sales. A week long sales like what Amazon is doing would have been a better deal.

Another question is as to whether Flipkart made an attempt to fool people with false sales and stock outs. If it did try, then it has done nothing but eroded the trust people had on Flipkart. If it was unintentional, then it is a wakeup call for Flipkart. What the day has done is leave a black mark on Flipkart, but I don’t think people would move out soon. But, if people face the same issue a few times, then surely its going to hit the sales of Flipkart.

Out of the whole issue, Snapdeal has been the biggest gainer. With the dramatic advertisement in Newspapers, Snapdeal just ambushed Flipkart’s advertisement. If claims are true, they had 15 times more visit than a normal day. Snapdeal’s problems lie in the backend. Many people are unhappy with their processing of orders. So, for Snapdeal to set itself up, it needs to correct its backend issues before focussing on Ambushing Flipkart and Amazon.

There are lot of questions hovering on internet as to what would be the impact on Flipkart? I feel that this incident in itself would have a very low impact. Particularly it was a good strategy by Flipkart to apologize to its customers. E Commerce is just booming in India and Customer Loyalty is virtually non-existent in this space. If Flipkart can offer better price than other major players, surely people are going to choose Flipkart. But, as I said earlier, if Flipkart has two or three more incidents like this, it is going to take a hit on them.

The final question that arises in my mind is ‘what is the potential market size of E Commerce in India?’ From the way people flocked Flipkart and other E Commerce sites on Monday, it is humungous. With a country with a population of more than a billion and a country that gets more internet connectivity day by day, a country that gets more comfortable with online banking over time and gets comfortable with buying online every passing minute, it is difficult to predict the size. I think Flipkart created too much awareness on the sale beforehand and it boomeranged back.

It has created a small dent on the face of Flipkart. It is up to Flipkart to bring back its glory or fall back to a stage from recovery is difficult. It is also a great lesson for other E Commerce players in India.

With Government announcing that it will look into trader’s interests, the space becomes more interesting. Lets see how this space develops over the next few months.

Happy Reading!

Marketing Lessons: How to dissatisfy a customer with and without delighting him?

karthicks_2005@rocketmail.com (Karthick) — Fri, 15 Aug 2014 22:43:00 +0530

Hi Guys,

It is so often said in Marketing that a mere Customer Satisfaction is not enough and you need to go ahead and delight the customer for Customer is always the king. I and my friends have been facing quite a few situations with a few service providers recently. So, I decided to jot down those experiences into a blog post.

When Twitter came to the Rescue

One of my team mates had got a postpaid connection from a Telecom Service Provider (whose name rhymes with the largest network provider) in northern part of the country where they are not very strong. He got into a scheme where he prepays and enjoys quite a few benefits. The provider charged him some prepayment charges and along with that usual monthly bills as well. Dissatisfied he called the customer care and they said nothing can be done and he needs to pay the bill. He wrote mails and contacted them some 30-40 times.

The main problem with many of our customer care centers is that they don’t have a database for the complaints and every time we need to start from scratch. He had been asking for a revised bill and they cut off the connection after some point of time. Again he called Customer care and got the same response.

Frustrated, he tweeted about the poor service. And came the response! The largest Network Provider tweeted back saying that they have better offers and asked my friend to switch to them. These guys then realized and called back and requested my friend to stay with them and the issue will be resolved. That is how the situation is hanging in now. I hope they do a proper service.

When Customer service goes beyond delighting

There are two situations. First faced by a friend and second by me.

You buy a mobile phone using your credit card around 11 pm for around Rs. 15000. And then you doze off. The bank calls you back at 11.30 pm. They say they are suspecting a fraudulent usage of the card. The credit limit of the card is far higher and the amount is not that worrying to call you in the mid of the night and disturb. This is when you get annoyed, even though the customer service is good. This is what happened to my friend.

This happened to me the next day. I was trying to book tickets to travel home through a Ticket Booking service provider that is creating huge waves in South India through huge marketing spends. I have used their service before that too and their customer care unit is just great. They quickly respond and call you and help out in booking.

When I was trying to book the first time around 11.30 pm, the payment transaction failed and I was not able to book the ticket. I tried immediately and the ticket got booked. I got a call around 1.30 am. I was wondering who is calling in the middle of the night. It happened to be their Customer Care Center. They wanted to guide me booking that failed ticket. I got so aggravated and cut the call after giving a few harsh words.

At least, in the first case it was credit card and you could say it is better to be safe than sorry. The second case is a very poor customer service model where you service the customer based on reply back time and do not consider the privacies of the customer and the gravity of the situation.

I have very often seen scenarios similar to the Network service provider, but scenarios at the other extreme are new to me. It is good that companies are focusing on customer satisfaction, but it essential for them to know the limits as well.

Happy Reading!!!