Random Tangents of Thoughts ....

VoIP on iPhone

noreply@blogger.com (Hamza Hydri) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:08:00 +0000

Last week AT&T announced they will be allowing VoIP calls on iPhones. This was a welcome change for the mobile broadband users, giving them opportunity to be in touch with their contacts on networks like Skype etc. This would also open up the chances of using Google Voice on our iPhones someday soon.

Over the weekend, I tried making calls using Skype on my iPhone. I could hardly connect when I was on the AT&T 3G network. When I switched to WiFi at my home, I could place calls but could hardly hear the other person on the line. Looks like the network still needs some QoS tweaking to allow users to make VoIP calls.

The Facebook/Google faceoff

noreply@blogger.com (Hamza Hydri) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:53:00 +0000

I came across this interesting article by Fred Vogelstein in the Wired magazine. He compares the both the vanguards of internet world and how they are competing to re-define the web-sphere. I agree with most of his observations that Facebook would eventually change the way people search or view content on the internet. Facebook actually earns those brownie points where Google fails in providing personalized content for any information. Facebook has still a long way to go before it aligns itself beside Google in the dash to achieve supremacy on the information/content being searched. The more personal feedback users get for any topic they search on social networks, the more information they would share and Facebook is hoping on reaping benefits from this behavioral pattern. With Bing taking some share of the search pie, Google should be preparing itself to face a stiff challenge in the form of Facebook. The folks at Mountain View have already taken cognizance of this fact and are venturing into several initiatives which add the personalized touch to information seek.

PS: you could find me on Facebook

Bing!

noreply@blogger.com (Hamza Hydri) — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 00:03:00 +0000

I do not exactly remember what my browser home page used to be before I switched to iGoogle. I am so used to it now, that I could hardly imagine any other gateway to internet, as iGoogle satisfied all my needs. But as they say in economics, your needs are eventually determined by the options you have, iGoogle appeared to be that one-size-fits-all solution for all my home page needs.

This notion changed when I tried out Bing. The huge picture, with some useful information tidbits was a fresh change (being an avid photographer, I naturally love those great shots). Whenever you launch your homepage and have few seconds to spare, Bing provides a good starting point for some quick learning about issues and places.

To continue from where I left in my previous post, the other features I like about Bing are

- a quick summary of the result (however, this is not so cool when the result page is image rich and does not have much text content. Flickr result page gives a blank summary)

- the image search has some interesting options (colors, layout, size etc.) in the left pane. I found the people option (just faces, head & shoulders) to be interesting. It would be great to have a feature of finding similar images (to find out who on the internet is resembles me). But this would mean bringing in state-of-the-art image search tools into a generic search engine. If you ask me, I would vote for it.

Bing is definitely an interesting product, people would be playing a lot with it, before deciding if it meets their needs or not. Or rather should I say, would Bing change the internet search needs of the webkind.

Initial Experiences with Bing

noreply@blogger.com (Hamza Hydri) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 06:03:00 +0000

Bing got launched. And the blogosphere is all ga-ga about the incumbent comparisons between Google and Bing. You will find many raving about how the new search interface from big brother Microsoft is, yet you will find many ranting about the quality of search results.

I personally love the freshness Bing brings to the search world and would be trying it for a few days before making up my mind on it. But for an old googler like me, (whose interface to internet is through iGoogle, google search bars, etc), to migrate over to a new search engine is a big leap of faith. Not sure how long I am going to experiment with it.

What I like about Bing?
- the ability to preview your video searches, thats something new!
- the categorization of search results in the left pane, now this brings in the idea of conceptual search into mainstream search results. I personally like it, but not sure how many of the regular web surfers would love this cookie.

Whats in a name? Is Steve Ballmer thinking that people would eventually use the word bing as a synonym for searching on the internet? Well this could be answered in a few weeks on how people embrace it.

Sleepless in Seattle

noreply@blogger.com (Hamza Hydri) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:50:00 +0000

Ever since I crossed over the Atlantic and moved to US, my friends back in Europe have always been complaining that I am not pursuing my photographic hobby any further. Well, while in Italy my work routine was pretty different as compared to here and hence I could manage to create time to travel around the continent. While traveling around Europe you often end up taking some great photographs. Thats how I had managed to build a good photo gallery on Flickr. In Seattle, my work does not give me much leeway to exercise my creative cells and my traveling is now reduced to just between home and office.

With a sizeable Indian community in and around Seattle, there are plenty of activities happening on weekends. Cricket is one such activity which is scheduled on my weekends. There are couple of leagues for recreational and professional enthusiasts. So the hiking and climbing I used to do on weekends (in Trento) until last year has now been replaced with cricket. On some occassions I do get a chance to carry my camera around and click some shots of the city. So, all my freundeskreis aus Deutschland und giro di amici dal'Italia, please subscribe to my photo feeds on Flickr.

The new iGoogle interface

noreply@blogger.com (Hamza Hydri) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:42:00 +0000

The new iGoogle interface is such a pleasant change. The new version of the optimized home page experience from Google is available only to developers initially and is being made available to select users in a phased roll out approach. After the announcement last month, I was hoping this month they would expand the selected customer list to reach my ID ;) But the wait seems to be a little longer than expected. The new interface gives a very at-home feeling for all the plugged in gadgets. An instant view management for Gmail and Google Reader would be a big relief for me. So each time I open my browser, I hope my iGoogle page has been optimized :)

Gmail Contacts issue

noreply@blogger.com (Hamza Hydri) — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 21:42:00 +0000

Gmail has decided to drop off its feature of adding contact names automatically when you compose your mails. Earlier, whenever you wrote a mail to or recieved a mail from someone, that mail Id was automatically added to your contact list. And names from this list would be suggested to you automatically in the address bar. Honestly speaking, I was so used to this feature that I rarely remembered any mail Ids of my contacts. In the new version of its contact manager, Gmail allows a list for holding the "Suggested Contacts" names along with the "My Contacts" address list. For some wierd reason, I havent still had access to this new feature of Gmail Contact manager, but I hope I get back that auto-adding feature soon, such that I can create my list of frequently mailed contacts once and later not worry about remembering their mail IDs

Managing our Personal Expenses - The Buxfer Tool

noreply@blogger.com (Hamza Hydri) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:10:00 +0000

How many of you have lived in shared apartments with friends during your graduate life? Remember the time and effort spent in managing the shared expenses with your roommates? I remember my student life, living in a shared accommodation with friends and sharing my living expenses. It was quite an effort to keep track of the finances. Who owes how much to whom? During my travels and hikes across Europe along with my friends, it would become even more cumbersome to keep track of the expenses. I remember that small notebook we had to update with our names and expenses done, later split the expenses and exchange money.

Google Docs brought us some relief. We could create a Google Doc, mark our expenses in a centralized spreadsheet and share it with our traveling group of friends. Each of us could view and edit the sheet with the expenses we had paid for. This centralization eased the process to a certain extent, but still we had to do our calculations of splitting the bills.

One such student sailing in the same boat was Ashwin, who was a PhD graduate student from Carnegie Mellon University. Our man with brains, sat down and wrote a small script to manage his expenses - to keep track of how much he owed others and how much others owed him. His simple but smart idea formed the base for Buxfer - a social money website.

Buxfer allows users to keep track of their personal finances, regulate and organize loans and IOUs to friends. It informs you of what you owe and what is owed to you, as well as divide bills among a group of users. It has some good features like tagging your expenses, which could help you analyse your expenses in a better manner with some cool graphs and charts. Among other features are support for various currencies, support for multiple languages and integration with other online payment services like PayPal etc. With the growth in social internetworking, Buxfer has plugins and widgets with social sites like Facebook, where you can manage your expenses with your friends on your Facebook list. For all iPhone uses, the good news is that Buxfer has launched its iPhone application too. With some cool graphics its more easier to manage your expenses from your iPhone now.

Switch-Hitting : Improvisation in Batting

noreply@blogger.com (Hamza Hydri) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 05:30:00 +0000

During the one-dayer against New Zealand, Pieterson provided yet another reason to define him as one of the evangelists of modern day cricket. I have always been impressed by his bold attitude towards the game. Be it the decision of switching base from South Africa to England for a better career or be it the strong-willed hitting he brings to the crease during his batting. He has shown strength of character in crunch situations. Along with Flintoff, Harmisson and Hoggard he had brought a revival in English cricket during the summer of 2005. There have been a lot many eulogies written about him and I dont intend to add one more to them.

The reason to cheer about his batting in that game was his improvisation against Scott Styris. On two occassions he changed his grip from a right-handed one to a left-handed batsman just before the ball was delivered and carted the bowler over the boundaries. I have been a great fan of improvisations in batting in the recent times. It demonstrates the skill of the batsman to play innovative shots and take risks to a higher level. Especially in the case of changing ones grip, the batsman is too close to loose his wicket while changing the gaurd. And to do it effeciently and hit it for a six proves the skills of the batsman. I myself have a tendency for playing this shot atleast once in my innings. I love to do it especially to fast bowlers who are bowling a nagging off-stump line. Changing the grip and lofting them over the square boundary with a left-handed shot is a feeling to cherish!

There has been a hue and cry about the positioning of rules in such a scenario. Many purists were calling for the shot to be made illegal. Thankfully for the spirit of the game and keeping the thrill of the game alive, MCC has decided in favor of the shot. There remains a debate on the rules for LBW and wides in such a delivery. In my opinion, the rules should be applied depending on the batsmans grip while he was playing the shot. If a right handed batsman changes the grip to a left handed one, then his off stump switches with his leg and the LBW rule and wide rule should be applied correspondingly. Agreed the umpire might have some difficulty in judging LBWs depending on where the ball had pitched, but in such a situation he can always refer to the third umpire for the decision. Thats what technology is for - help in taking right decisions.

With this shot being legalised, I am eager to see more such improvisations from batsmen in the Twenty20 matches which are ideal for such shots. MS Dhoni, Pietersen, Misbah-ul-Haq, Yuvraj Singh - these are the batsmen to watch out for more such innovative shots.

Tips on development with Hibernate

noreply@blogger.com (Hamza Hydri) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 05:25:00 +0000

One of the common problems in query optimization using Hibernate is when one of your tables is associated with several other tables. This is a common problem and has a pretty straight forward solution. Consider a sample Hibernate mapping file of a table Student associated with other tables like Course, Professor

Now a simple query like

from Student where student_id := entered_id

will generate a sequence of selects from its associated tables, which will greatly effect the query performance time. To reduce this waterfall effect we have to load the associated objects in the initial query by using a "left join fetch" construction as shown below

from Student student
left join fetch student.course
left join fetch student.professor

However there are some limatations on usage of "fetch". It cannot be used on queries using iterate() or queries involving result row operations like setMaxResults(), setFirstResult() etc.

for further reading visit the detailed discussion on this site

For those of you starting up with Hibernate and would like to implement it using MyEclipse IDE, here is a good tutorial (though a slightly outdated with the versions)

LOST 4th Season review

noreply@blogger.com (Hamza Hydri) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 03:35:00 +0000

Its thursday again and I am not yet overcome by the eventful episodes of Lost screened on last thursday. I get a void sense of feeling in my daily thursday routine from now onwards, yes I am going to miss Lost for several weeks to come. Having followed this series across 3 countries in 3 different languages over the past 4 years, Lost has become a part of my life. Many of my friends and work colleagues are big time LOSTies. The usual friday routine was to discuss the episode of the earlier evening. Well looks like these activities are going to take a back seat atleast for a while now. Coming to talk about the recently concluded 4th season, I must admit this was by far the most action packed season of the series so far. The 3rd season was kind of a let down and many people including myself were beginning to get bored with the series. The story of Others was not exciting enough to satisfy our LOST-apetite. The only interesting character addition was of Juliet, but her presence in the plot seemed to fade away gradually. There was hope of a romantic angle between her and Jack when the last season ended, but good for all of us Jate fans, Jack came back to Kate during this season. With the entry of several interesting characters like Miles (the ghost-talker) and Faraday (the phycisist) one had hoped to see some interesting sub-plots in the narrative. But owing to the writer's strike, the series had to be cut short and we only hope to see more of the freighter folks in the next season. I personally liked the geeky-physicist Faraday and am looking forward to see more of his time-travel fundas unravel in the next season. Miles would have been one of the greatest characters this season, given his ability to talk to ghosts and spirits and given the fact that many ghosts from the past were appearing frequently on the island this season. The interesting plot was the gradual death of Claire, after that bomb blew up her cabin, one could have guessed from her abnormal behaviour that she was a ghost walking among the living. Her interactions with her Dad, Christian Shephard were touching and appeared to give more logical reasoning for her transition from the living to the dead world. Another interesting concept this season was using Christian Shephard to speak on behalf of Jacob. Whenever Jacob wanted to parley with any of the Island folks he was passing his messages through the senior Shephard. That raises a question here, why Christian Shephard? and why could only a few of them could see or listen to him, why not others. And does the fact that some of those who could talk to Christian Shephard (John Locke, Hurley, Claire, Micheal) make them any special than the others? Does this mean these people are already dead and somehow their mind is empowering their bodies to carry out a specific task the Island or Jacob wants them to carry out? The shocking revelation in the end about John Locke gives more credence to this theory, but if that is the case then why did a living Hurley escape the Island? There are several questions raised by the script writers here and we only hope that they do justice to them in the next season.

The season finale had all the elements for a blockbuster. The grande stand-off between Jack and Locke again brilliantly portrayed the struggle between the man of science and the man of faith. I just love the confrontations between these two characters. It was great to see Locke following his instincts about submission to a higher authority - a power which is as elusive to him as it is to us - and being crowned as the chosen one to lead the Others. Towards the end of the episode Jack started appearing a bit fazed out and uncertain in his vision - a characteristic in complete contrast to the Jack we all know. Was leaving the island the right thing to do? From the future flashes, we see that he deeply regrets leaving the island and is trying eagerly to come back. I guess the next seasons will deal with this plot of the castaways trying to lead a normal life away from the island and not coming to terms with the realities they try to get back to the Island. I loved the manner in which Locke was explaining the magical status of the Island to Jack, but unfortunately he couldnt make his point across to the skeptic medic. Sawyers sacrficial jump from the chopper and the kiss with Kate was very touching. Later when he walks out of the sea towards a rum-drinking Juliet reminded me of the scene from Casino Royale when Mr. Bond comes out of the sea. There was a small hint dropped towards a possible romantic union between Sawyer and Juliet for the next season. But its sad to see Juliet getting such a second had treatment in terms of romance. Little is known about Faraday and his group on the boat, I only hope that they were in the Islands zone and had traveled in time along with others. Ben's appearance in the deserts of Tunisia makes sense after the season climax. There appeared a sense of vengeance in him as soon as he appeared in that desert. How far is he going to succeed in his revenge against Charles Wildmore will be an interesting watch. The resurgence in Sun's character was remarkable. The manner in which her character develops into a revenge-seeking-sharp-business-sense woman was good. I am hoping that Jin had dived away from the freighter, before it blew up and had swam towards the island. This would have made him within the island's zone and hence would also travel along with the other people left behind on the island. As per my predictions, next season onwards we will get to see Sun's quest to get back to the island and save Jin.

Talking about re-unions, it was an overwhelming moment when Desmond meets his long lost love Penny. Infact the best episode of this season in my opinion was "The Constant". The manner in which the past and present moments of Desmonds life are shown, and the fast-paced narrative switching between Penny in past and in London and Desmond in present and on the freighter (both in different time-space frames) kept me glued till the episode climax. When Desmond speaks to Penny on phone, those feelings were emoted in such an intense manner, it certainly deserves an award nomination for the actors. To continue talking about the romantic angle of the characters, the episode showing the blissful relationship between Kate and Jack was very sweet too. Another twisting revelation was the identity of Aaron as one of the survivors. Honestly it was something totally out of the blue. Great job writers!

So whats next then? Will Ben continue to play a strong role on the islands politics or will Locke take over as the undisputed leader? The shocking revelation of Locke being the man in the coffin from last years season finale was another jolt in the blue. Though he is a bit eccentric in his mannerisms, but Locke was surely one of my favourite characters, especially for his philosophies and his never-ending faith in the island's powers. The character of John Locke allows the writers to introduce many such supernatural concepts into the story plot. I hope that the factors leading to his death are as dramatic as his life on the island and are properly justified given the strength of his character. By the way did any of you notice the poster of 4th season. In this image the reflection of the island shows many high rise buildings. Does that give a hint of time travel? Does that mean the island is going to move several years ahead in future in the next season? There are plenty of questions raised all over the LOST story line to capture the fascination of its fans. We are all waiting eagerly for the next season to get our answers. Untill then, our minds will be happy building our own theories about the island's future.

Shikwa and Jawab-e-Shikwa by Allama Iqbal

noreply@blogger.com (Hamza Hydri) — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 02:10:00 +0000

I found the translation of Iqbal´s famous Shikwa and Jawab-e-shikwa at the Al-Huda website. I am replicating it here for my reference :)

If you prefer the original Urdu script you can read the Shikwa here and Jawab-e-Shikwa here.

Shikwa:

Why should I abet the loss, why forget the gain,
Why forfiet the future, bemoan the past in vain?
Hear the wail of nightingale, and remain unstirred,
Am I a flower insensate that will not say a word?
The power of speech emboldens me to speak out my heart,
I'll sure be damned, I know, if fault my God.

Hear, O Lord, from the faithful ones this sad lament,
From those used to hymn a praise, a word of discontent.
Enternally were you present, Lord, eternally omniscent,
The flower hung upon the tree, but without incense.
Be Thou fair, tell us true, O fountsin head of grace,
How could the scent spread without the breeze apace?

The world presented a queer sight ere we took the stage,
Stones and plants in your stead were worshipped in that age.
Man, being inured to senses, couldn't accept a thing unseen,
How could a formless God impress his senses keen?
Tell me, Lord, if anyone ever invoked Thy name,
The strength of Muslim arm alone restored Thy fame.

There was no dearth of peoples on this earth before,
Turkish tribes and Persian clans lived in days of yore;
The Greeks and the Chinese both bred and throve,
Christians as well as the Jews on this planet roved.
But who in Thy holy name raised his valiant sword,
Who set the things right, resolved the rigmarole?

We were the warrior bands battling for Thy cause,
Now on land, now on water, we the crusades fought.
Now in Europe's synods did we loudly pray,
Now in African deserts made a bold foray.
Not for territorial greed did we wield the sword,
Not for pelf and power did we suffer the blows.

Had we been temped by the greed of glittering gold,
Instead of breaking idols, would have idols sold.
We impressed on every heart the oneness of our mighty Lord,
Even under the threat of sword, bold and clever was our call.
Who conquered, tell us Thou, the fearful Khyber pass?
Who vanquished the Imperial Rome, who made it fall?

Who broke the idols of the primitive folks?
Who fought the kafirs, massacred their hordes?
If the prayer time arrived right amid the war,
With their faces turned to Kaaba, knelt down the brave Hejaz.
Mahmud and Ayaz stood together in the same flank,
The ruler and the ruled forget the difference in their rank.

The rich and poor, Lord and slave, all were levelled down,
All became brethern in love, with Thy grace crowned.
We roamed the world through, visited every place,
Did our rounds like the cup, serving sacred ale.
Forget about the forests, we spared not the seas,
Into the dark, unfathomed ocean, we pushed our steeds.

We removed falsehood from the earth's face,
We broke the shackles of the human race.
We reclaimed your Kaaba with our kneeling brows,
We pressed the sacred Quran to our heart and soul.
Even then you grumble, we are false, untrue,
If you call us faithless, tell us what are you?

You reserve your favours for men of other shades,
While you hurl your bolts on the Muslim race.
This is not our complaint that such alone are blesse,
Who do not know the etiquette, nor even can converse.
The tragedy is while kafirs are with houries actually blest,
On vague hopes of houries in heaven the Muslim race is made to rest!

Poverty, taunts, ignominy stare us in the face,
Is humiliation the sole reward of our suffering race?
To perpetuate Thy name is our sole concern,
Deprived of the saqi's aid can the cup revolve and turn?
Gone is your assemblage, off your lovers have sailed,
The midnight sights are no more heard, nor the morning wails;

They pledged their hearts to you, what is their return?
Hardly had they stepped inside, when they were externed.
Thy lovers came and went away, fed on hopes of future grace,
Search them now with the lamp of your glowing face.
Unassuaged is Laila's ache, unquenched is Qais's thirst,
In the wilderness of Nejd, the wild deer are still berserk.

The same passion thrills the hearts, enchanting still is beauty's gaze,
You are the same as before, same too is the Prophet's race.
Why then this indifference, without a cause or fault?
Why with your threatening looks dost thou break our heart?
Accepted that the flame of love burneth low and dim,
We do not, as in your, dance attendance on your whims;

But you too, pardon us, possess a coquettish heart,
Now on us, now on others, alight your amorous darts.
The spring has now taken leave, broken lies the lyre string,
The birds that chirped among the leaves have also taken wing;
A single nightingale is left singing on the tree,
A flood of song in her breast is longing for release.

From atop the firs and pines the doves have flown away,
The floral petals lie scattered all along the way.
Desolate lie the garden paths, once dressed and neat,
Leafless hang the branches on the naked trees.
The nightingale is unconcerned with the season's range,
Would that someone in the grove appreciates her wail.

May the nightingale's wail pierce the listeners' hearts,
May the clinking caravan awaken slumbering thoughts!
Let the hearts pledge anew their faith to you, O Lord,
Let's re-charge our cups from the taverns of the past.
Through I hold a Persian cup, the wine is pure Hejaz,
Thought I sing an Indian song, the turn is of the Arabian cast.

Jawab-e-Shikwa:

The word springing from the heart surely carries weight,
Though notendowed with wings, it yet can fly in space.
Pureand spiritual in its essence, it pegs its gaze on high,
Rising from the lowly dust, grazes past the skies.
Keen, defiant, and querulous was my passion crazed,
It pierced through the skies, my audacious wail.

"Someone is there," thus spoke the heaven's warder old,
the planets said, "From above proceeds this voice so bold."
"No, no," the moon said," "tis someone on the earth below,"
Butted in the milky way: "The voice is hereabouts, I trow."
Ruzwan alone, if at all, understood aright,
He knew it was the man, from heaven once exiled.

Even the angles wondered who raised this cry,
All the celestial denizens looked about surprised.
Does man possess the might to scale empyreal heights?
Has this mere pinch of dust learnt the knack to fly?
What are these earthly folks? Careless of all respect,
How bold and impudent, the lowly dwellers of the earth!

Extremely rude and insolent, cross even with God,
Is it the same Adam whom angels once did laud?
Steeped in bliss, man is of wisdom's lore possessed,
Nonetheless, he's alien to humility's sterling worth.
Man feels proud of the power of his speech,
But the fool doesn't know how and what to speak.

You narrate a woeful tale, thus the voice arose,
Your heart is boiling overwith tears uncontrolled.
You have delivered your plaint with perfect skill and art,
You have brought the humans in contact with God.
We are inclined to grant, but none deserves our grace,
None treads the righteous path, whom to show the way?

Our school is open to all, but talent there is none,
Where is that soil fertile to breed the human gems?
We reward the deserving folks with splendid meed,
We grant newer worlds to those who strive and seek.
Arms have been drained of strength, hearts have gone astray,
The Muslim race is a blot on the Prophet's face.

Idol-breakers have left the scene, idol-makers remain,
Aazar has inherited Abraham's glorious name.
Wine, flask, and drinkers-all are new and changed,
A different Kaaba, different idols now your worship claim.
Therewas a time when you were respected far and wide,
Once this desert bloom was the season's wealth and pride.

Every Muslim then was a lover profound of God,
Your sole beloved once was the all-embracing Lord.
Who removed falsehood from the earth's face?
Who broke the shackles of the human race?
Who reclaimed our Kaaba with their kneeling brows?
Who presses the sacred Quran to their heart and soul?

True, they were your forbears, but what are you, I say?
Idle sitting, statue-like you dream away your days.
What did you say? Muslims are with hopes of houries consoled,
Even if your plaint is false, your words should be controlled.
Justice is the law supreme, operative on this globe,
Muslims can't expect the houries, if they follow the kafir's code.

None of you is, infact, deserving of the "hoor",
A Moses is but hard to fin, burneth still the Tur.
Common to the race entire is their gain or loss,
Common is their faith and creed, common too the Rasul of God;
One Kaaba, one Allah, and one Quran inspire their heart,
Why can't the Muslims then behave like a single lot?

Cast, creed and factions have disjointed this race,
Is this way to forge ahead, to flourish in the present age?
It's the poor who visit the mosque, join the kneeling rows,
The poor alone observe the fasts, practise self-control.
If someone repeats our name, it's the poor again,
The devout poor hide your sins, preserve your vaunted name.

Drunk with the wine of wealth, the rich are unconcerned with God,
The Muslim race owes its life to the poor, indigent lot.
"Muslims have vanished from earth," this is what we hear,
but we ask, " Were the Muslims ever the Jewish sects.
You are Nisars by your looks, but Hindus by conduct,
Your culture puts to shame even the Jewish sects.

If the son is alien to his learned father's traits,
How can he then claim his father's heritage?
All of you love to lead a soft, luxurious life,
Are you a Muslim indeed? Is this the Muslim style?
All of you desire to be invested with the crown,
You should first produce a heart worthy of renown.

The new age is the lighting blast, it will set your barns on fire,
It can't produce in groves or deserts the Old Sinai's burning spire.
The new fire consumes for fuel the blood of nations old,
The clothes of the Prophet's race are incinerated in its folds.
Don't be depressed, gardener, by the present scene,
The starry buds are about to burst with a brilliant sheen.

The garden will soon be rid of its thorns and weeds,
The martyr's blood will bring to bloom all the dormant seeds.
Mark how the sky reflects its orange purple hues,
The rising sun will flush the sky with its rays anew.
Islamic tree exemplifies cultivation long and hard,
A fruit of arduous gardening over centuries past.

Your caravan needn't fear the perils of the path,
But for the call of bells you own no wealth at all.
You are the plant of light, the burning wick that never fails,
With the power of your thought you can incinerate the veil.
We'll love you as our own, if you follow the Prophet's ways,
The world is but a paltry thing, you'll command the pen and page.

The end of Windows XP ?

noreply@blogger.com (Hamza Hydri) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 06:30:00 +0000

Are you using a Windows XP machine, if yes, then you might be interested in reading this piece of interesting information regarding the Microsoft timeline policy of providing support for its XP users.

Some Useful add-ons for Firefox users

noreply@blogger.com (Hamza Hydri) — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 00:56:00 +0000

The best thing about OpenSource technology is that there is a huge community of developers who are constantly coming up with some useful tools. Among the web browsers, my favorite is the Firefox. Simply because it is effective in blocking the ever-annoying pop-ups from several webpages, its effective in providing security from any spyware installations happening without our knowledge, plus it comes with a huge community of good souled folks providing numerous extensions - which not only enrich our user experience but also make our work easier.

One such add-on which I came across recently was PicLens. If you use Flickr or any such photo galleries, or rather any website which has a lots of photos to browse through, this could be a great tool to have. It provides you a virtual 3-D gallery of all the photos on that particular root URL. And its not just Flickr, this tool currently supports all the popular web hotspots like PicasaWeb, Photobucket, MySpace, Friendster, Google Images etc. It is currently supported on Windows and Mac platforms. If you are the person who spends a considerable share of your browsing time looking for images, then this is the tool which is a must-have ;) Give it a try

This is how my Flickr gallery would appear if your browser has PicLens.

Talking about add-ons, I would like to share two other tools which I personally find to be very useful.

gDocsBar is a sidebar extension for Firefox browser. Its a very practical tool which has a drag-n-drop feature to upload your local documents onto your Google Docs directory. I personally find it very helpful while working on any of my documents hosted on GoogleDocs. To give it a try visit here.
DragDropUpload is a Firefox add-on which helps you to attach files into your mails very easily. By just selecting a file and dragging it into the textbox area of the mail attachments we can provide a link to that file directly. It reduces the time needed to browse through the dialog box into the particular folder to provide the needed path of the attachment file. To install this add-on visit here

On a snowy night in Winter

noreply@blogger.com (Hamza Hydri) — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 14:43:00 +0000

'Be off!' say Winter's snows;
'Now it's my turn to sing!'
So, startled, quivering,
Not daring to oppose

(Our fortitude grows dim in
The face of a Quos ego),
Away, my songs, must we go
Before those virile women!

Rain. We are forced to fly,
Everywhere, utterly.
End of the comedy.
Come, swallows, it's good-bye.

Wind, sleet. The branches sway,
Writhing their stunted limbs,
And off the white smoke swims
Across the heavens' gray.

A pallid yellow lingers
Over the chilly dale.
My keyhole blows a gale
Onto my frozen fingers.

- Victor Hugo

About Cricket and the action Down Under

noreply@blogger.com (Hamza Hydri) — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 19:13:00 +0000

I havent been posting anything new on this space for quite a while now. I had been in India for the past 2 months and so was a bit busy with things there. As a cricket loving person I was looking forward to that time, because of the India Pakistan series and then the India Australia series.

I should honestly admit that no other series could upstage the last Indo-Pak series as THE boring series ever. There was nothing exciting in those matches. The old fighting spirit was lacking from the players and the Pakistani players seemed to be enjoying the dinners and parties hosted in their honor more than winning any matches against their traditional rivals. The real party began when the Indian team landed Down Under. The Border-Gavaskar series were a great one to follow. The end score line of 2-1 depicted the tough fight the visitors gave to the Aussies in their own backyard. The series started with Australia showing their cricketing prowess and the Indian team meekly went down in Melbourne. But as a giant was awoken from sleep, they put up a good fight in Sydney. Who knows if the umpiring was not such erroneous then the series might have ended on a different score line. The Aussie winning march met its waterloo in Perth, where the same Men in Blue became their nemesis, as it had similarly happened in 2001, where a winning streak of 16 consecutive matches was halted by the Indian team. Much of newsprint has already been dedicated to discussing the aftermath of that test and the racism controversy between Harbhajan and Symonds. The truth of that matter seems to have lost behind the shady curtains of BCCI and the ICC. Cricket again took center stage in the remaining tests, with the Indians coming together to give a brilliant display of talent and team work to win in Perth. Had the pitch not been so batsmen-friendly we could have surely expected a result in Adelaide and probably the series would have ended in a draw. Adelaide also bid farewell to one of the best players in the game. Adam Gilchrist finally hung up his boots after a glorious career in cricket. He gave enough reasons to cheer for any cricket fan no matter where his loyalties would lay. We will miss those attacking innings, those chirpy moments behind the stumps and that elegant walking which had become a Gilchrist trademark.

The IPL took centerstage with announcing its corporate sponsors. The entry of big names from the corporate world and entertainment industry into the cricketing arena promise a new revolution. The manner in which revenue will be generated and the manner in which the game will be marketed is bound to change soon. Lets wait untill April when the IPL would get underway to see how things unfurl from there onwards.

A theory on Languages!

noreply@blogger.com (Hamza Hydri) — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 09:12:00 +0000

Last evening, I was having a light hearted discussion with a cousin about Java, the programming language and I was trying to explain to him about the several Java based technologies. Since he is not from a scientific background, I was explaining to him what a programming language is using one of my analogies I had built based on languages in general. I do not claim ingenuity for what I am writing in the next paragraph. This is a simple analogy I have observed so far between programming languages and the common languages we speak in general.

We all know that any programming language has 2 broad components - specifications and implementations. Specifications consist of programming constructs (for eg. public, private etc in Java) and programming rules (order of usage like in Java we cannot write "static void public main(String s[ ])"). Implementations of the software languages are their respective compilers, class files (JVMs, .java files etc in Java). If we look at any of the spoken languages we have a similar scenario. Let us consider English for our discussion, though the analogy holds good for any other spoken language like German or Italian as well. In English we have constructs which we term as vocabulary or words in general. We have grammar rules for constructing sentences as well, but in contrast to software languages, spoken languages have an exhaustive set of grammar rules (to form accusative, nominative, affirmative, negative sentences for example). Poetry, Essays, Letters, Speeches, Ballads etc. (even Blogs ;)) could be considered as implementations of English language. Its my personal opinion, (not entitled to be completely true), that some of our spoken languages are better suited some specific tasks while some others are better for some other tasks. Based on the basic knowledge of the few languages I know, I find English to be ideal for technical parlance, Urdu is matchless for any pleasant (read as poetic or romantic) conversation with your loved one. Whenever I hear Hindi, images of an Indian politician addressing a crowd flash in my mind, while I feel Italian or Latin is good for composing Operas. On the similar lines, various programming languages are better suited for various domains. While some languages are better suited for web application development, some other languages are better suited for developing real-time applications. Well the only difference I observe between the two is the dialect factor. While dialects for a particular language differ from place to place, the coding standards for a particular programming language remain the same universally!

Re-Discovering India!

noreply@blogger.com (Hamza Hydri) — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 18:44:00 +0000

Its been a while since I have posted anything new. The reason being that I was on the move for a while now. I had been travelling from Italy-via-Germany to India and had not had enough time to sit down and pen some thoughts. I flew to Hyderabad from Frankfurt via Colombo. This was the first time I was flying with the SriLankan colors. The flight service was pretty good, with the stewards and air hostesses being very cheerful and pleasant. The interesting thing that you observe on the Asia-bound flights, is the sideways nodding of the head to indicate an affirmation. The food served was also quite good on the taste buds. We touched down at Colombo in the early hours of the morning. The Premadasa International airport appeared very small as compared to the relatively gigantic and busy Flughafen of Frankfurt am Main. Climate and ambience wise, Colombo appeared no different from Hyderabad. Well, that short stay at the terminal is no proper gauge to experience a city. I hope to return back and visit this beautiful island at liesure sometime in future. The flight to Hyderabad appeared to be endless, owing to the anxious moments of waiting to be back home along with my family.

As the flight was reaching India, I was recollecting a conversation I had with a friend this earlier this summer. Marta, an Italian friend of mine had been to India this summer for an internship at the Italian consulate in New Delhi. After her return to Italy, we had a good conversation about her experiences in India. Its usual to hear accolades about India and its culture from tourists coming back from there. Marta´s impression of India was no different from others. She was truely and deeply impressed by the diversity, warmth and friendliness of Indians. After talking about the positives, our discussion veered towards those aspects of her stay which had left some bad taste in her mouth. Traffic, sound and air pollution are the usual complaints even the Indians crib about and she was also kvetching about the same. But there were some irksome obsevations by her, which any other Indian male couldnt have noticed. While strolling along the bazaars of Delhi she would always be disturbed by the constant oogling of men, rickshaw drivers making impolite comments at her and at some instants even proposing to her! The non-chalant public behaviour like spitting on the walls or as I would like to put it painting-the-town-red-by-spitting while chewing a pan (betel leaf), or the unabashed peeing in the by-lanes and street corners, are sights which could shock any tourist visiting India. I could not find words to explain or rationalise this social attitude of a majority-if-not-all the Indian males. When the whole world is noticing the rapid growth of Indian economy and its vibrant technocrats, its high time the common man on the streets of India, also takes a step in that direction which could make his country a truly developed nation, not just in technology, science and economics - but also in public values and social ethics.

Each time I land at the Hyderabad International Airport, there is always a motley feeling of meeting my anxiously waiting parents in the visitors lounge and a prognostication of an ill treatment from the airport officials. Corruption is an evil which is so predominantly existing in the Indian brass, that the first few Indians who welcome you at the airport are chronic patients of this macabre disease. As soon as you leave the flight, one is asked to fill in a disembarkation form, which is to be submitted to a passport control official. Then your hand baggage is scanned and you have to collect your check-in luggage in the luggage claim area and later proceed to the exit gate, where custom officials control your baggage for customs. At each of these stages, you will find officials whose only motivation for work seems to be the extra income earned from the passengers returning home. Each time, I am shocked to see the attitudes of these officials towards their own fellow countrymen who are returning home to their families. For instance, there was this young guy who was coming back home from Dubai, where he was working as a labourer. He had done some error in filling up the disembarkation form, which could have been undone by filling up a new form and discarding the old one. But the smart official at the passport control desk asked him to shell out some Dinars. The poor guy was complaining about how painful it was to part with their hard-earned money to make things work with the officials at the airport. The baggage claim area is as chaotic as a fish market, with some of the conveyer belts not functioning. It was an embarassing sight for the Indian military officials who were there to welcome the contingents from other countries who were arriving to take part in the Military Games being held in Hyderabad. All said and done, if and when your baggage arrives on the conveyer belt, one has to take a deep breadth of appreciation as you are much luckier than the others who have been waiting endless for their baggage. And if your baggage is damaged, there is nothing much you can do except curse your badluck. While you are exiting the airport, for no rhyme or reason the custom officials ask you to shell out some money (preferably foreign currency) for the goods you are carrying. No matter how hard one tries to garner a reason from the officials, they always charge you for the personal electronics (laptop, digital or SLR cameras). As far as I know, electronic goods like laptops and any electronics that have been in use for more than 2 years are exempted from customs. But the custom officials refuse to agree and ask for some payment - the worst thing is you are not even given a reciept for that money. All that goes directly into their pockets. The whole staff seems to have a syndicate running between them. All the officials from the bag-screeners, baggage handlers, custom officials at the exit gates are hand-in-glove involved in this crime. And we passengers who are exhausted from the long travel and eager to meet our families have to comply to the inordinate rules set by these officials. Its high time something needs to be done about this rampant corruption in the Indian public service sector, only then can we truly celebrate the rise of this nation as a global leader.

The unsportive scenario of Indian sports

noreply@blogger.com (Hamza Hydri) — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 21:57:00 +0000

It was an amazing day for cricket lovers - a day of pride for every Indian cricket fan - a youthful inexperienced Indian cricket team under the leadership of a new captain, in the absence of a formal coach won the inaugural Twenty20 World Championship. A feat many of the experienced and talented Indian teams from the past couldnt accompolish - winning a world championship. Dhoni and his men deserve all the praise they are getting and we only hope that the momentum gained in the past matches is not lost, but converted into a sustained performance on the pitch.

A nation rejoiced and welcomed its heroes in a fitting manner. BCCI showered the players cash awards. Agreed the players deserve the lavish gifts and presents, but if we pause for a moment and ask a question whose money is being spent. The BCCI has offered cash incentives from its coffers and we dont question them. But what about the money being spent from the state exchequer and used as a publicity stunt by the ministers, who by riding on the good will of the people are presenting these awards to their players.I dont question if the players deserve this money or not, but why are the ministers not spending from their pockets and instead using the public money.

Agreed India is a cricket frenzied nation and the hype its cricket players are recieving can be reasoned to a certain extent. But what about its other sport heroes? The Indian hockey team recently won the Asian Cup. This news didnt generate the kind of hype the cricket win recieved. Hockey is the national game of the country and yet its players are given a second rate treatment. Just because there is no corporate money involved, the media also doesnt seem to show any interest in the game or its players. After the Chak de India movie, there was some initial hooplah for the flagging support for hockey in India, but now it has become a bygone issue. Watching the cricket players basking in the glory, the hockey federation has every right to question this prejudice towards them or any other sport. The fault not only lies with the governments attitude towards other sports besides cricket, but also with the people of India. The amount of interest shown in cricket eclipses the interest shown in any other sport. Not getting the due glory for their talent can drive the players to not pursue other sports. Football, Volleyball, etc are all in a sad state of affairs in India. We all agree that sports other than cricket need to be encouraged, their talents nurtured and channalized properly, but what are we doing towards it. If the change has to happen, it has to happen in the minds of the people who watch, follow and play sports. Only then can we hope to see India perform better at sports other than cricket.

Twenty20 World Championship

noreply@blogger.com (Hamza Hydri) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 10:51:00 +0000

Its as good as it gets. We couldnt have dreamt for anything better. An India-Pakistan clash in the finals of a World Cup (albeit Twenty20) is every cricket fans dream match. No matter what the result is going to be on Monday, fans from both the countries have a satisfied feeling from their teams. Just a couple of months ago, both the teams were knocked out in the first round of the regular world cup. After that calamitous performance in the Carribean, both the teams went back to the drawing board and in just a matter of months came out with teams frothing with youth and fresh blood. And the icing on the cake is that both have stormed into the finals, comprehensively beating all the other teams coming their way.

Clearly both India and Pakistan have been the best performers in this tournament. India was involved in three of the most exciting matches in the past week. Yuvraj's batting has been surreal and he has single handedly motored India's batting machine in this tournament. His fastest fifty record will be impossible to break untill another mad rush of adrenalin prevails on a batsman. He has had a golden run of form so far and the crowd loved each of the balls he dispatched home from the pitch. Dhoni has been very good in his captaincy so far, his field placings and bowling changes have all worked well. The good thing of having youth in the team is that the players are all on a buzz and there is a great vibe on the ground. The same holds true for the Pakistani team. Malik has been the alter ego of Dhoni. As usual Pakistan started a tournament with an internal controversy, but the players have handled the incident maturely. The best thing to do was to send the trouble-maker away from the stage and play cricket in peace. Misbah was a great find in this tournament. Between both the teams, Pakistan is the one having some experiance in this format of the game. PCB stages these Twenty20 tournaments in Ramadhan as night games, where all the hard hitting sloggers have come from. Misbah, Afridi etc are all products of these run feasts.

Time will come to a stand still for millions of people in the sub-continent and else where, when the two teams clash for the final trophy. India have history on their side, as they have never lost to Pakistan in any world cup match so far. But as Afridi puts it, Twenty20 is a different ball game altogether. A few good balls from Asif or Gul, or a few home runs from Yuvraj can turn the tables either side. With the short boundaries at the Wanderers, we could expect some great fireworks tomorrow from Uthappa, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Misbah, Malik and Afridi. So let the music roll, lights, cheers and boom goes the cherry sailing into the sky !

Travelogue : Paris - Louvre, Champs-Elysées, Eiffel Tower

noreply@blogger.com (Hamza Hydri) — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 17:26:00 +0000

The Louvre Museum was initially built as a fortress in the 12th century along the banks of river Seine. It went through a lot of changes, destructions, reconstructions and enlargements for over 4 centuries. It was finally at the conclusion of the 18th century, it was opened as a museum for the public. Though renovations and changes were still being done till as late as the end of the last century. During the reign of Francois Mitterrand, a massive metal and glass pyramid was added as the entrance lobby. At a height of 70-feet, this pyramid, which was designed by an architect named I.M. Pei, has a lot of controversy surrounding it. As is remarked in the Dan Brown novel "The Da Vinci Code", there are several conspiracy theories running around about Francois Mitterrand and his penchant for the number 6. This pyramid also features prominantly in the initial frames of the movie adaptation of the same novel. A couple of meters away is the downward pointing La Pyramide Inversée, which provides daylight into the lobby of the underground malls in the museum campus.

The museum has 4 levels - lower ground floor, ground floor, 1st and 2nd floors, with each floor divided into 3 sectors each - Denon, Sully, Richelieu. The lower ground floor has access to the Medieval Moats where one can see the foundation base which was revealed after excavations were done. The lower ground floor also has relics from Islamic art, Pre-classical Greek art, Italian and French Sculptures. These sections continue vertically onto the ground floor, where there is an elaborate section for antiquities from Iran as well. In the French Sculptures section of the Richelieu one can view the "Tomb of Philippe Pot", while the Mesopotamia section has some great relics of Hammurabi etc. The most vouched painting of the Louvre is the Mona Lisa. Infact the whole section of the Italian paintings and sculptures is a major attraction why people come to the Louvre. As you enter the museum, there are arrows indicating the path to the Italian section on the first floor, where La Giaconda or Mona Lisa is awaiting the curious visitors. Though photography is supposedly banned at major places in the museum, but people cannot resist taking their snaps along side the most famous painting of the world. In the same hall there are plenty of other master pieces from maestros like Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael. Other prominent paintings hanging nearby are the "The Wedding Feast at Cana", "The Raft of Medussa" and the "Madonna of the Rocks". Continuing on the same floor, but in the section of Richelieu are the Apartments of Napolean and othe Monarchs from the Rennaisance era. Visiting the Louvre is an exhilirating experience, but an avid art lover would just not get enough of it. Paris is home to many other famous museums like Musee d'Orsay, Musee National d'Art Moderne etc. which have some amazing artifacts on display.

Coming out of the Louvre, one is standing facing the L'Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel. This Arch was constructed at the orders of Napolean I, to celebrate the victories of the French army. Continuing your walk westwards, you enter the Jardin Du Tuileries with the Tuileries Palace on your right. The Tuileries Garden has a broad promenade and a serene water-fountain encircled with seating chairs, which provide a perfect spot for having a good evening walk with your family. Further westward is the Obelisk of the Place de la Concorde, one of the largest squares of the city. At its centroid is an Egyptian Obelisk, gifted by Mehmet Ali, to the French people. On either side of this obelisk are massive picturesque fountains. In the nearby vicinity are the palaces - Grande Palais and Petit Palais. The Avenue des Champs-Elysées starts from here and extends uptill the L'Arc de Triomphe on the other end. It is interesting to note, that La Pyramide du Louvre, L'Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, the Obelisk in Place de la Concorde, the Champs-Elysées, L'Arc di Triomphe and the Grande Arche de la Défense are all aligned in a straight line. The Champs-Elysées is the most famous and broadest avenue of Paris. As you walk down the promenade, you can see all the high-street shopping stores of Paris. Surely, not a place to be along with your partner, or you would risk shelling out heavy currency in any of its high priced stores. However its a great place to treat your eyes with stores like PLanet Hollywood, Disneyworld, fashion stores like Zara, Benetton, Gap, etc. The Champs-Elysées is also a place where the Parisians love to celebrate their joy and happiness, be it the national day of 14th July, New Years Eve, world cup victory etc. Its also the last stretch of run for the bikers of Tour de France.

The Eiffel Tower is synonymous with Paris. After all this monument has been adorning the Paris skyline for more than a century. It was initially constructed as an exhibit for the World Fair being hosted in Paris during 1889. Designed by Gustave Eiffel, it had been the tallest building in world for a long time. After the fair was over, the tower was commissioned to be torn down. But the Parisians had begun to love this monument, that the decision was overturned. Since then, the tower has been used for many purposes besides being a popular tourist spot. For instance during a certain period, it was used a giant thermometer, with lights indicating the current temperature The tower has 3 levels. The 1st and the 2nd levels are accessible through stairs. There are about 700 steps from the ground base till the observation deck on the 2nd floor. The top summit is accessible through a lift from the 2nd level. However one can take a lift to each of the floors from the base ground. The lifts run on all 4 corners of the tower. The view from the topmost level is very breathtaking. I would personally suggest to be there around sunset and view it from the top. And when it becomes dark, the city becomes bejewelled with monuments all around light-up by the focus lights. For all the right reasons, Paris is called the "City of Lights", because when you see from the top of the Eiffel Tower, you see a vast ocean of lights below you. During the night, there are huge beams of light skirting the Parisian sky from the top of the Eiffel Tower. Every hour, there are glittering lights blinking along the body of the tower for a couple of minutes, giving an amazing sight in the night sky. Below the Eiffel Tower you will find a lot of immigrant workers selling mini-replicas of the tower and along with other such souvenirs, they also sell a bottle wine with glasses. The idea of having a romantic moment with your loved one on the tower top or in the sprawling lawns at its base, is as dramatic as you can imagine it to be.

Travelogue : Paris - Arrival

noreply@blogger.com (Hamza Hydri) — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 16:54:00 +0000

Last month when I was at the Mini Europa park in Brussels, while going around the miniature replica models of the European monuments, one city that caught my fascination was Paris. For past couple of summers, I had been making plans to visit Paris, but they never materialised due to some odd reason or the other - either not having an appropriate group to go around with or not having booked the tickets or accomodations well in advance. Over the last 1 or 2 years the cheap flight schemes have changed the way people travel and plan their holidays in Europe. Ryan Air, German Wings, Easy Jet and similar flight services have some good offers for backpackers and young travellers like me, who dont mind the absence of the occasional courtesy of the air hostesses or the free onflight beverages during the relatively short flights inside Europe. Though these cheap flying offers have become a phenomenon in the travel airspace, one has to take these offers with a pinch of salt. The reduction in the ticket prices is often offset by the extra travel one has to endure coming to the city center from the airports where these flights operate, because sometimes these airports are quite a bit far and wide away from the city perimeter. And in cases like Paris Beauvais airport, the travel in the shuttle bus from Beauvais airport to the city ring of Paris is almost as long as the flight duration from Venice Treviso. To add to my travel woes, my baggage arrived in a badly handled shape. Though I checked in my tripod as fragile baggage, it reached Paris severely demented. I am not sure if I could be able to use it for taking precise night shots as I used to before.

The Beauvais airport shuttle bus drops you at the Porte Maillot center. We had a booking in a hotel close to the metro station of Porte de Vincennes and so we took the metro line 1 directly from Porte Maillot which took us straight to our destination. As I had mentioned in my previous post related to travelling in Greece (about arriving in Athens), I am personally receptive to the general vibes of a city from the initial infrastructure the city presents to its visitors. I am a big fan of the metro services in cosmopolitan cities. Living in Munich, I used to enjoy the luxury of hopping around the city in a well connected network of U-bahn which would run late into the nights. Though the U-bahns in Frankfurt were not as clean and tidy as compared to Munich, they connected the city pretty well and helped thousands of commuters move around the city without much chaos. Among the metro networks, I rate the London Underground the best. I found it amazingly organised and well managed. Inspite of being a complex network, the Underground stations are built in a planned manner, helping a new commuter or a visiting tourist through simplistic use of colour codes for the various lines. The metro network in Paris (owing to the size of the city and its over 2 million inhabitants) is a similarly complex but well organised network. Since we were too tired with the exhaustive travel (spending the same amount of time in the very uncomfortable seats of Ryan Air and the very comfortable seats of the shuttle bus), we didnt have much energy or zest to explore anything that night and headed straight to the hotel room.

I had taken French as a subject during my college days. For two years we had read the story of the Vincent Family travelling to France from Canada and experienced their vacation in Paris through the textual description of the L'Alliance Francaise text book used in India to teach French language by numerous colleges and high schools. I salute my French teacher who had taken the effort to work on our accent and rectified our grammar. Being an Indian, we had a naturally heavy accent in the French we spoke in the class. I still remember the absurd manner in which our other friends (who did not take French as a subject) would pronounce the title of the ballad "La belle dame sans merci" (written by John Keats), during our English poetry classes. As a student back then I had sincerely hoped to visit Paris some day and see in reality the places and streets I had read so much about. Over the years, sadly to say I have lost my touch with the French language, but I can still manage to understand the written French and some tidbits of spoken French. After having learnt French and getting an interface with the French culture, it was a natural progression to take interest in anything related to or connected to France. When the "Les Blues" won the Fifa World Cup in 1998, I was the biggest supporter of France in my neighbourhood. Since then Zidane has been an idol to me and I have been religously following his matches. Though Zidane is not a Parisian and I don't expect to see any of the current French footballers in Paris, as a die-hard fan of the French team I was very much eager to see the most vouched city of all Frenchmen. As is my ritual custom of watching a movie or reading a novel based on the country or the city I am planning to visit - before departing for Paris, I had seen "The Da Vinci Code" and "Mr. Bean's Holiday". Though there have been some better movies and novels based on the city of Paris, I could only manage to lay my hands on these. With my mind virtually on the streets of Paris and refreshed with my petit French vocabulary, I was all very excited to see the city I had dreamt to see since my school days.

The Mahabharat between BCCI and ICL

noreply@blogger.com (Hamza Hydri) — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 09:46:00 +0000

The ICL kicked up a strom yesterday by releasing its list of players who have currently signed contracts with them. The list popped up some surprises - names like Dinesh Mongia, who recently played for India and some promising newcomers like Ambati Rayudu showed some growing unrest among Indian cricketers against the hegemony of BCCI. In my opinion the players have taken a bold but correct decision to join the ICL. Cricket in India is followed like a religon. You go to any city gymkhana, you would find budding cricketers toiling it hard to make an impression on the selecters and breaking into the team - be it at the club level, zonal level, state level or Ranjhi level. The path to the Indian national team is the toughest one - working hard, performing in each of the matches at each of those levels, then waiting to win some favor from the regional selectors. Without a god-father who can market you to the national level, its a very tough dream to come true for thousands of budding cricketers across the length and breadth of India. There have been numerous cricketers who spent their entire career playing Ranjhi games and other national leagues, without getting a single game for the country. The match fees of a game in any of these leagues is like peanuts as compared to the match fees the 11 players representing the national colors get paid. Imagine the plight of these players when they see their counterparts taking home all the money, limelight and publicity, just because they were not fortunate enough to get that single break into the national squad. And when an opportunity like ICL comes along, its natural for these players to grab it with both hands. BCCI has long maintained its monopoly on the game and has toyed with the careers of so many cricketers who could have had international careers were they born in other countries where the waiting queue is not so high. With this mass exodus of the players to the new league, the domestic cricket in India has recieved a major setback. Teams like Hyderabad, Bengal and Punjab have been severely effected. As a knee-jerk reaction BCCI has raised the match fees for the domestic leagues in a hope to retain the remaining players. But the ball has been set rolling by the ICL and we can surely expect to hear more news on this front about player defections.

Apart from the domestic players, each of the teams in the ICL are planned to have some international stars in their line-up. Some big names were doing the rounds for a while now. Brian Lara is a confirmed to play the league, while some big guns from the Aussies are still pondering the thought of taking the plunge or not. Big hitters from South Africa like Lance Klusener have already signed, while the erstwhile stars from the Kiwi-land, Chris Harris, Chirs Cairns, and Nathan Astle are showing some interest in the league. Players from across the border added some more excitement to the list. Inzamam joining the ICL was predictable owing to the rough path his career was heading after the listless and forgettable 2007 he has had. After retiring from the ODIs his Test career also looks almost over, with the PCB giving him a cold shoulder. Joining the ICL could have been the best option for him to derive benefit of the 1 or 2 years of cricket left in him - as they say make as much hay as possible while the sun shines! But the jolt out of blue which Pakistan cricket recieved was losing their most dependable player, their spine of the batting line up - Mohammed Yousuf. Yousuf recently had the best patch of form in batting, accumulating runs like a kid collecting pebbles on a sandy beach. After the World Cup fiasco, the PCB was sure to make changes to their team composition. But in the process of a giving a new look to their team, the PCB has lost out on its golden-egg-laying-hen. With Yousuf joining the ICL and if PCB sticks to its guns of not selecting him for the national team, then Pakistan will recieve a great setback. With its bowlers already struggling to remain fit or clear of any drug scandals, their batting line up sans the big Inzy, the inform-run-machine Yousuf and the maverick Younis Khan, Pakistan team would need to depend on prayers than ever before to give any kind of fight to the opponents!

Travelogue: Verona

noreply@blogger.com (Hamza Hydri) — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 16:56:00 +0000

While I was in school I had enacted the character of the judge in the play of The Merchant of Venice. Back then the names Antonio, Bassanio and Shylock were strange sounding to us. Later when I read other Shakespeareren works like Romeo & Juilet or The Two Gentlemen of Verona, I began to agnise the prominence of the city of Verona in the writings of this famous bard. Little had I envisaged then, that one day I could be visiting this city. Verona lies in the Veneto region of north-east Italy about 80 km from Trento, my current resident town. So on the sunny weekend last week, I decided to make a trip to Verona.

It is claimed that after Roma it is Verona that has the most number of ruins of the Roman era. All the major touristic sights are along the river Adige which takes a contorted path along the city. The Castelvecchio is an impressive 14th century castle, now hosting a great collection of the Renaissance era. On its exterior is the Ponte Scaligero offering great views of the Adige on either side. In its vicinity is the cathedral of San Zeno Maggiore. This ornate Romanesque church is adorned with an impressive rose window and a magnificent cieling resembling an upturned boat. The exterior walls are elaborately decorated with ivory-coloured tufa and pink limestone.

One of the major attractions of Verona is the massive Arena from the Roman times, which is still in a functional state and hosts plenty of events, orchestras etc. In its prime days, it could accomodate the entire population of Verona who would gather to watch the gladitorial combats. Now it regularly hosts plenty of operas and orchestras. Listening to a prima donna in a perfectly acoustic environ under the cool summer night sky with a pleasant breeze blowing is an experience worth cherishing with your loved ones.

Talking about love, Verona is hometown to two of the most famous lovers of all time - Romeo and Juliet. The house of Juliet, located at Via Cappello, is a major draw point for all tourists - young and old alike. Couples (females especially) love to stand on the small marble balcony, the famed balcony on which Romeo is said to have climbed to meet his love. There is a statue of Juliet in the courtyard and the rumour has it that if one holds his/her palm over her bossom then your love is deemed to succeed. If only Romeo had done this when required then probably they would have had much greater luck with their love!

On the gates you find numerous locks which people hang in to bind their love for eternity. The walls of the walkway are spangled with love messages written in all kinds of languages the world has known. Inspite of a heavy penalty on being caught people smitten by the love bug always find methods to make a statement of their love on these hallowed walls!

Travelogue: Belgium - Brussels, Antwerp

noreply@blogger.com (Hamza Hydri) — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 10:20:00 +0000

Belgium is a potpourri of various cultures like Dutch, French and German. Often termed as the "cockpit of Europe", Belgium is the center of government for the European Union and is theoretically the capital of Europe. The capital Brussels is home to several offices and commissionerates of the EU with striking buildings dotting the skyline of present day Brussels.

The lower part of Brussels is well connected with trams and Metro stations from the Gare Centrale (Main Railway Station). The Grand Place square, with Hôtel de Ville and La Maison du Roi is the historical and commercial heart of Brussels and draws huge amount of tourists. La Maison du Roi is now being used to host a museum of paintings, tapestries and a collection of costumes created for the Manneken Pis. The Hôtel de Ville, built in the 15th century, is elaborately donned with ornate columns, sculptures and arcades. There are tours avaiable to view the tapestries and art work decorating the lavish halls of this town hall. Around the city center you would find a lot of shops serving hot waffeln with various delicious toppings. There are several shops selling the world-renowned Belgian chocolates. There is the Tintin official store close by selling souveniers and comic books of this famous character created by Herge.

The Cathédrale Sts-Michel et Gudule is the national church of Belgium. The west door of the cathedral has a magnificent stained glass window depicting scenes from the Last Judgement. The Palais Royal is the official residence of the Belgian Monarchy and has beautifully managed gardens sprawling at its entrance.

On the city outskirts is another popular tourist attraction - the Bruparck. It has the Mini Europe park, which has miniature models of major buildings and monuments from the various countries of the EU. Towering in its backdrop is another distinctive landmark - Atomium building, which represents the atomic structure of Iron. The Atomium has restaurants and viewing platform on its top, which presents panoramic views of the city.

Antwerp is the second major city of Belgium and is famous for its diamond markets. The Grote Markt is located at the center of the old city. At the square is the Brabo fountain with the statue of Silvius Brabo. The ornately decorated facades of the Stadhuis overlook the city square which is always crowded with visitors. Around 70% of the worlds diamonds are cut and polished here. The city has a lot of museums like the Diamond Museum, Plantin-Moretus Museum, Koninklijk Museum etc, displaying an impressive collection of various artworks, paintings of the 16th and 17th century.