When I saw an email sent from our work that we had a chance to secure a place to run London Marathon 2014 for the charity Right To Play, I immediately responded showing my interest. Online ballot for public place in London Marathon closed in few hours after opening last year, but major charities get a set number of entries.

I’m thrilled to have secured a place to run London Marathon. I’ve pledged to raise £2000 for Right To Play

I’m running mainly because of two things.

First, it’s been a long time ambition and dream of mine to run a full marathon, and secondly an opportunity to raise money for a good cause.

Right To Play is a charity that does an amazing job of empowering and educating children facing adversity by providing them an environment to play games and sports.

Here’s Right To Play’s mission and vision.

Mission: 
Right To Play’s mission is to use sport and play to educate and empower children and youth to overcome the effects of poverty, conflict and disease in disadvantaged communities.
Vision:
Right To Play’s vision is to create a healthy and safe world through the power of sport and play.

Right To Play’s volunteer local Coaches deliver their programs in more than 20 countries affected by war, poverty and disease in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and North America.

Right to Play has very high profile funders and partners like Chelsea Football Club and Goldman Sachs. I’m very proud to say that my company Polycom is one of them too.

I’ve been jogging/running 2 to 3 miles, 3 to 4 days a week for some time, but running a full marathon of 26.2 miles is different ball game altogether. I’ve got a full marathon training plan, and have started training accordingly. My 13 year old son is more excited than me about this whole thing. Although he’s not running the actual marathon, he’s fully committed to train with me. I’m really glad to have my son as a training buddy.

I’ve created a personal fundraising page at JustGiving. Your support will keep me motivated throughout the training period. Please dig deep and donate for this worthy cause.

I’ll post updates about my training experience here, on the JustGiving page, my facebook page and twitter feed.

Wish me good luck and please show your support by donating.

This year I’ve decided to participate myself and have some fun along the way. This will be the first time in my life I’ll be growing mustache for a month

It’s Movember and time to make a difference.

Men’s health is a cause I am passionate about but in order to make a difference I need your help. My commitment is to grow a moustache for the month of November and in doing so, raise vital awareness and funds for mens health including prostate and testicular cancer.

I am asking you to help support my personal journey by making a donation. The size of which isn’t important, every little contribution helps Movember to continue its funding of world class programmes. If you want to know more about what you’ll be helping to fund, you can visit Movember’s Program Overview page.

To highlight the importance of what I am doing, take a look at these statistics:
• 1 in 9 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime
• This year 40,000 new cases of the disease will be diagnosed in the UK
• 47% of testicular cancer cases occur in men under 35 years and over 90% occur in men under 55 years

If you’d like to help change these statistics, please donate to me by:
• Donating at: http://mobro.co/niranjankunwar
• Writing a cheque payable to ‘Movember’, referencing my Registration ID: 4430153 and mailing it to: Movember Europe PO Box 68600 London EC1P 1EF

For more details, take a look at the Programs We Fund section on the Movember website: http://uk.movember.com/about/funding-overview Thank you in advance for supporting my efforts to change the face of men’s health.

Day one, with a clean shave…

Update: Thanks to everyone who donated, I’ve managed to raise £226 for this great cause.

Final day, before shaving…

But now it’s time to move on, new challenge, new industry…

I’ve now joined Mimecast as a Technical Operations Engineer.

Mimecast provides email management as a single service in the cloud that helps you slash on-premise email storage requirements, ensure complete email availability, email security and email compliance, while providing services to help you get more from your email. We call it “Unified Email Management”.

Here’s a video that explains how mimecast service works.

I’m really excited about this new role and the new challenge where I’ll be working with core grid team to maintain, design and build core infrastructure, network and security.

I quickly sorted out my holiday at work and bought the tickets to Nepal. I haven’t been back home for last 4 years. We were excited about meeting our parents and relatives. After few days of marathon shopping and packing we were ready to fly. I had made up my mind a long time ago to visit Ram Bomjan (Buddha Boy) during my next trip to Nepal. My friend LTJ from Buddha Boy Google group helped me to get in touch with right people in Nepal who would finally take me to the tapasvi.

When we arrived in Nepal, the first thing I noticed was the chaotic traffic in Kathmandu, god… nobody follows the rule. After staying in Kathmandu for 2 days with my in-laws we drove to Pokhara, my home town, along the dangerous hilly highway, with breathtaking views. I missed these mountains, green fields and rivers so much.

From Pokhara, I called Uman Waiba, who’s also a Buddha Boy google group member. He assured me that he’ll let the committee members and Jas Waiba (Waiba Uncle) know about my desire to visit Ram. He asked me to enjoy my trip, visit my relatives and give him a call when I arrive back in Kathmandu. I requested him to come with me if he had time and he agreed. I can’t thank Uman enough for his help and kindness.

I was planning to go alone because I was warned by Uman that accommodation, food, etc… won’t be perfect, after all it was a village. I told him not to worry, and that I was ready to accept things as they were. Basically I was planning to go there without any expectations, I just wanted to be there in Ram’s presence, and no special treatment was necessary for me. But they really treated me well and I felt very much welcomed. When my 9 year old son knew that I was going to meet Buddha Boy, he wanted to go with me too. He promised me that he won’t complain about long bumpy drive, hot weather, uncomfortable bed to sleep or maybe not his favorite food to eat, etc… etc… I’ve to admit, I’ve never seen my son so well behaved in my entire life. This was sort of a miracle for me

Before setting out for the journey, I decided to take a driver instead of taking the wheel myself, which turned out to be a very wise decision. The road was very rough and dangerous. One simple mistake could kill you, literally. Half of the road was mountainous, single lane used for two-way traffic, we had to reverse our car in several places to give way because two vehicles simply would’t fit. It was extremely dangerous!

Rough road to Hetauda via Dakshinkali

First Meditation Site

We arrived at Bara in the afternoon, Waiba uncle had already set out for the jungle in the morning with other committee members. Uman told me that there was an important meeting going on between Guruji and committee members about the future role of the committee and Dharma hall project. We set our plan to visit Ram’s first meditation site in Ratnapuri jungle and his village today, then go Halkhoria jungle next day to see him.

After leaving the main highway, we entered the jungle, it was a rough path, graveled and still to be leveled by the dozer. We could see few people on foot, bicycle and motorcycles. The jungle was quite dense. We finally arrived at the first meditation site, where Ram meditated non-stop for 10 months. That’s when he attracted curious onlookers, skeptics, worshipers and the international media. That’s when discovery channel made the documentary, The boy with divine powers, and concluded:

“After 96 hours of filming, Ram has defied modern science by continuing his meditation and remaining alive.”

We walked pass the external wired fence and came to another gated fence surrounding the pipal tree. Committee members believe that he’s gained a lot of siddhis (magical powers) under this tree and is of great significance. It was hot and humid, I could hear the insects, birds and more closely mosquitoes flying around me, but I stood there sweating, in silence, and looked at the tree, the place where he sat for 10 months. I closed my eyes for few minutes, when I opened, I saw my son standing still beside me with his hands together. It felt very peaceful.

First meditation spot in Ratnapuri jungle.

From the first meditation tree it was around 20 minutes walk to the Dharma hall site, where foundation was already laid. Uman explained the difficulties with funding, and other challenges in building the dharma hall. He told me that it was Guruji’s wish to start his teaching from this place. I looked around, it’s in the middle of nowhere, but everything felt right and it seemed like a perfect place to leave the world behind and start anew.

Dharma hall foundation.

Meeting Ram’s mother

After driving through the jungle and crossing a very difficult river we came to a village, but we were lost. We stopped and asked several villagers way to Ram’s house, later it became apparent that the car won’t go to his village. It was getting late, so we decided to return. On our way back, we met the committee members. Had a chat with them and took some photos. As we were proceeding, we saw Ram’s elder brother, Gangajeet coming towards us on a motorbike, with two kids sitting behind. We stopped, Uman introduced us and told him that we lost our way while trying to go to his house. “It’s just 10 minutes away, come on follow me”, he said. I thought, wow… we’re very lucky. We followed his bike for 5 minutes, but after crossing a river our car couldn’t go any further. Gangajeet offered to give us a lift on his bike from there. He took me and my son to his house while everyone else waited in the car.

We were lost, a lady showing us the way to Ram’s village.

We met committee members on the way.

Following Gangajeet to his house.

As soon as I saw his house I recognized it, I’d seen it in photos and documentaries. Gangajeet took us upstairs, it was a dark room with a sofa and few photos. His mum was not at home, so he asked his kids to go and find her. In the meantime he showed me the room where Ram was born. They’ve turned it into a shrine, it felt like being inside a temple. I had a long chat with Gangajeet, he told me about Ram’s childhood and how he entered the jungle to meditate. I asked him how he finds being an elder brother of Ram. He replied:

“For Guruji, there’s no family or relatives, I don’t get any special treatments for being his brother. He doesn’t discriminate anyone based on caste, gender or religion. Everyone is equal for him.”

As we were chatting, Ram’s mother entered. I introduced myself and my son to her, told her that I’ve come a long way to meet him. She was a very hospitable, offered to make a tea, I thanked her and said my friends were waiting on the other side of the river, so will have to leave in few minutes. I asked if she’s ever talked with Ram after he entered the jungle. She said:

“No, whenever I’m there loads of other people are there too, so I just look at him and bow. I don’t know what to say.”

But she’s certain that her son is there in the jungle to liberate the whole world and she’s already come to terms that Ram is more than just her son.

Ram’s birth house.

Ram’s room.

Maya Devi, Ram’s mother.

Gangajeet, Ram’s older brother with his mother.

On our way back, we meet Raju Shah, committee secretary, his bike ran out of petrol, so we gave him a lift. He told us that committee was dissolved yesterday and a new one will be formed within one week. He said:

“I’ve been volunteering at the committee because I know Guruji is not fake, otherwise who would want to waste five years?”

I asked Raju if Guruji eats anything at all. He replied:

“In last five years I’ve not seen Guruji eat or request for food with anyone.”

He told us about his many encounters with Guruji. In one occasion when he asked “Guruji what should we do to provide you more security?”. Ram replied, “Nothing can touch me, you don’t need to worry about my security, you take care of your own well-being that should be enough!”

When I asked if he’s witnessed any miracles from Ram. He said “There’re many people who’ve witnessed countless miracles, but I’ve personally seen Guruji’s body in fire, he was in fire for around 1 hour, 7 minutes and we’ve the full video of it”. A short video of Ram in fire is available online .

We didn’t realize how 20 minutes passed. Raju Shah gave us the first hand account of Ram as he knows and why he’s been following him. After dropping Raju on the way we went to Waiba uncle’s house. I found Waiba uncle very friendly, we talked about Ram, new committee, dharma hall and many other things. We struck chord easily, like me he loves technology, gadgets and he’s a spiritual man too He arranged a hotel for us in a nearby town called Simra, we agreed to meet the next day at 8 in the morning, and go to the jungle.

Meeting Ram

It was raining heavily outside when we woke up, we decided to wait for a while until the rain settled down. We were going in a tractor, the concern was that the river might be too big during the rain for the tractor to cross. Finally the rain slowed and we set out for the jungle at around 10. I was told that 10 am was a good time because you might encounter wild elephant herds at 8 to 9 am. It was a very bumpy ride along the river and into the jungle.

On our way to Halkhoria to meet Ram.

Outer fence, 13km in radius.

The meditation site is fenced in three layers. The outer layer is of around 13 km in radius, second one of around 3 km and a final one of around 300 m. After entering the second fence we got off the tractor, I could see one cemented structure and two small huts, one of which was a kitchen. I was introduced to three ladies, one of them was Ram’s elder sister, they were very nice and welcoming. We were told that after meeting Guruji we’ll be served with special Nepali dhido and wild niuro. After chatting with them for a while we entered deep into the jungle and came across the last fence, we took our shoes off and walked bare foot then on. I looked at my son, to my amazement he wasn’t complaining. We kept on walking and could see the huge pipal tree and the chorten (built on top of the bunker where Ram did his underground meditation for 3 months), we went from the left side, I could see Ram from the side, sitting and meditating under the tree. It felt so surreal. Slowly we walked around and came in front. I could see him wrapped on a white cloth, sitting in lotus posture with his eyes closed. Waiba uncle approached him, that’s when he opened his eyes and put his hands on Waiba uncle’s head to bless him. Waiba uncle told him that I was there for his darshan. He looked towards us, our eyes met and I sort of told him yes, it’s me, with a namaste and nod.

Group.

Dhido and wild niuro, it’s was delicious.

Inner fence, we walked bare foot from there.

Ram.

That’s how he’s been sitting for last five years.

I approached him after Waiba uncle came back, bowed at him, he touched my head, then I raised and introduced myself. I told him that I’ve been following him since he started his meditation in 2005. I’d always wanted to meet him and being there, in his presence was such an honour. He looked at me and nodded knowingly but didn’t say anything. Then I called my son forward, I told him that my son fought the bumpy road, heat, jungle and mosquitoes to see him. At this point Ram gave a huge smile and I could see all of his teeth. We got back after this and everyone else received his blessing one-by-one. After everyone was done, I asked Waiba uncle if I could ask few questions to Guruji. “You’ll have to get the permission directly from him, go and ask”, he said.

I approached towards Ram again, this time with an intention to ask some questions. I asked if it was ok for me to ask him few questions. He looked at me, nodded approvingly and said “Huncha”, which means OK. This is how our conversation went.

Me: You’ve left the worldly life, and you’ve been meditating in the jungle for so long. Why are you doing this? What is it that you want to achieve?
Ram: I want to liberate the whole world by spreading dharma and insight I’ve gained through my meditation.

Me: Are you already enlightened?
Ram: Yes, I am. I’m already enlightened.

Me: So, you’ve already become a Buddha?
Ram: That I can’t tell you now. Time will reveal, you’ll come to know about this later.

Me: When will you start to give your teachings?
Ram: Very soon, the time is coming close.

Me: What is your core teaching?
Ram: I can’t tell you now but this will be revealed very soon at the right time.

Me: Is your teaching based on Buddhism or any other religions like Hinduism?
Ram: The religion is actually called Bodhis dharma, but it includes all religions, no one is excluded. I’ll be moving forward by including all existing religions of the world.

Me: Do you plan to keep your teachings within Nepal or spread it around the world?
Ram: The teachings will start from here but time will show how far it spreads.

Me: Do you know about your well wishers who live abroad but cannot come to meet you?
Ram: It’s up to them to come or not but there is no problem for my well wishers to come and visit me with pure heart. They’re always welcome.

I had many things in mind earlier but being there in front of him brought a strange kind of stillness in me, I forgot all the questions that I’d initially planned to ask. Everything I just asked came to my mouth as if someone put it in there for me, none of them were planned. While I stood in front of him, I had to constantly waive the mosquitoes away but I didn’t see any of them trying to land on him, he was there calmly sitting and talking to me, no sign of mosquito bites. I was told that the mosquitoes and the wild animals don’t do anything to him. It felt strange and nice to be around him, I had goose bumps, and felt like some sort of energy was pulling everything towards the tree.

Answering my question on religion, I thought by saying “Bodhis dharma” he meant Buddhism, but Uncle Waiba explained later:

“It’s not Buddhism what he meant, but a new religion altogether and it’s not practiced anywhere, as of yet. Guruji will explain his teachings and meditation techniques to the khenpo who’ll come to the jungle next week, which will then become a book.”

Ram is also directing a painter on-site to paint different gods and gurus from whom he received the teachings during his five years of meditation.

“These are gods which nobody in this world has seen before. Guruji will be known by a new name soon”, Waiba uncle went on, “His parents named him Ram, then his guru named him Palden Dorje, and now the gods from whom he received teachings have named him Dharma Sangha. He’ll be known as Dharma Sangha from now on.”

I returned back to Kathmandu, then to London and have been telling my family and friends about this amazing journey. I thought now I’ll share with everyone I’m still trying to digest all I’ve seen, heard and felt, but one thing is for sure, Ram is one of the greatest tapasvis this world has seen and I’ve a feeling that he might be more than a tapasvi. I think we’re living in a very interesting time. He’s already given few speeches, but the good news is that his core teaching should be out soon, but you have to remember what he says:

“I am only showing you the way; you must seek it on your own.”

The out-of-the box experience was similar to iPhone. Small package with gorgeous and slim iPad inside. I ordered a 32GB Wifi + 3G model, mainly for the GPS and mobile internet. I thought extra 100 quid was worth it. I bought the apple iPad case as well, which is probably the best case for iPad available. It really suits the iPad and can become a stand while watching movies, slideshows or when you’re turning your ipad into a digital photo album.

At first glance it looks like a big iPhone/iPod touch and if you’ve used them, it’s exactly the same way to use it. After all it runs the same iPhone OS. However, you’ll immediately start feeling the difference – mainly due to the speed and screen size. Everything is so much better than on iPhone. It was easy to connect to iTunes and get started (exactly like iphone). First thing I did was to connect to wifi, it couldn’t be easier! I ordered the O2 micro sim as well (pay & go). It was easy to insert and 3G internet works well.

Physically it looks gorgeous and perfect in every way. I thought it’s slightly heavier than it looks, but feels very nice to hold and use. It’s very much like other apple devices with few buttons (one home, one power on the top, volume and orientation lock at the side).

Once you start using it, the first thing you notice is the speed – you touch the safari icon and it immediately springs into life, same is true for photos, ipod and every other app. It’s amazingly responsive! The soft keyboard is similar to the iphones, but keys don’t popup when you press them. They’re quite big, and you can actually do some real typing with it.

Default Apps

I setup my Gmail account in Mail app. It’s nice, I like the sidebar, where you can easily navigate the emails and once you click the mail you want to read, it opens that email in full screen. You go wow…! I think Gmail (mobile version) in the browser is quite good too, I like the way Gmail natively organizes conversations. The google reader mobile version on the web is also very good.

Photos is amazing, you feel like a magician when you pinch and expand photo collection with two fingers. Videos is fantastic, I can actually foresee watching full length movies on this screen, while on the move. The iPod is much better than on iPhone because of the larger screen size. Built-in speakers are not that bad too. Youtube is another great entertainer. Maps is stunning, specially the street view.

Third Party Apps

After using the default apps that came with iPad, I started browsing and downloading the free native apps from the app store. Some of my favorites are ibooks, pages, marvel comics, the guardian eyewitness, tweetdeck, rightmove, WordPress, IMDB Movies and TV, Jampad, and … There aren’t as many native iPad apps as iPhone but I’m sure this is going to change with time. Anyway, you can use most of the existing iPhone apps too.

Network Admin/Productivity in iPad

Obviously web browser and the email client are the most important apps but besides that built-in VPN client works like a charm (it’s a cisco ipsec vpn client), I could easily connect to our office vpn.

RDP Lite and VNC Lite (both free apps) work very well to give you remote connectivity to windows machines.

I couldn’t find any free SSH Client, so I bought iSSH for £5.99. It’s a decent ssh client, which also supports telnet and vnc.

Skype doesn’t have a native ipad app yet but the iphone version works well on ipad as well.

Although you can read pdf files online and attachments in email, there’s no way to save and organize them locally in ipad, so I bought GoodReader for iPad (£0.59). It’s a pdf reader as well as file organizer, I can now carry my pdfs around with me. It’s really nice.

Initially, I thought I would continue to use Google Docs to create and manage my documents, but unfortunately mobile safari can only view the docs, not edit them. So, I bought pages for £5.99. But I think it’s useful and worth it. The interface is well designed for touch.

Few things I don’t like

– No front-facing camera. I think there should be no excuse not to include it, but I’m sure second generation iPad will have it.
– No third-party multi-tasking capabilities. Apple is bringing them on with iPhone OS4, so that’s good.
– No file management. I think apple should have something like GoodReader built in to the OS or at least as a free app.

Conclusion

Currently I see iPad as an excellent content consumption device but not-so-much content creation. But it has the potential to change all that with future upgrades from apple and new apps from third-party developers. My son really loves playing games and watching youtube in it and my wife loves browsing facebook Unlike iPhone, which is my personal device, I see iPad becoming not just my personal device but our family device. Also, from now on I can go on short trips with my iPad, confidently leaving my notebook behind.

Here’re some unboxing photos that I’ve taken, enjoy…

Click on the photo for larger image.

Engadget has a very helpful video – How-to: run Chrome OS as a virtual machine. The image they’ve used is from gdgt.

Another useful how to is at TechCrunch – Want To Try Out Google Chrome OS For Yourself? Here’s How. They’re running this Chrome image (downloaded from torrent) on Sun VirtualBox.

First I tried the image from gdgt on my Vmware Fusion, it booted ok but couldn’t detect the network and was impossible to login.

I then downloaded the image from torrent (used by TechCrunch), which detected the network but strangely didn’t let me login with my google account. I did create a new google account just to try this and to be on a safer side. After reading the comments on torrent site, I figured that you can login with user “mark” and password “chromeos”. Boom… that let me in!

The first impression after few minutes of mocking around was that this wasn’t anywhere like the one demoed by Google guys. No app menu and panels. It was just like a chrome browser in virtual machine. But after playing for a while and googling around. I figured that “Ctrl Alt t” takes you to the terminal – you can sudo with the same password “chromeos”.

After rebooting the Chrome OS from command line and re-logging in, the App Menu became available.

I could start the sshd

And remote login from my Mac

Personally, I think Chrome is trying to bring thin clients back in from of netbooks. Thin clients failed earlier because the networks were slow and “cloud” wasn’t there. But Chrome stands a chance as cloud is the future and it’s built with three very important goals in mind – Security, Speed and Reliability. Having said that, native softwares are absolutely must for it to succeed. Even iPhones need native apps!

As far as user experience is concerned, at the moment Chrome OS is nothing but a browser. If you want to experience the early Chrome OS – just install Chrome browser and browse your favorite sites :). I’m sure this is going to change when Chrome OS is finally released for public next year.

From November 19th to the 24th, 2009 Palden Dorje a.k.a. Ram Bahadur Bomjan will be giving blessings in Ghadi Mai. He plans this appearance in order to protest the sacrificing of tens of thousands of animals before they take place on the 25th at the Ghadi Mai Festival near Nijgad in Bara District. This Ancient Nepali Festival has taken place once every five years over several millennia.

I completely support him on this one.

More about Gadimai

For my RSS readers – wanted to let you know that Nirlog.com just got a facelift as well. I’ve changed my theme to Simple Balance 2.2, it’s a free theme loaded with pro features. I just love it. After testing around 20+ themes I settled for Simple Balance. It has a very clean look, options to choose different colors, supports widgets and has a built-in banner ads management system. It’s just perfect! Thanks Blogsessive for making such a nice theme and giving it for free. I’ve also tweaked the ads placement (hopefully this will give a better reading experience for those who read directly on the site). I’m displaying my last 5 tweets using a twitter widget, which is kinda cool. BTW, you can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/nirlog

I’ve also moved my domain nirlog.com and this blog to hostmonster (affiliate link). They seem to have quite nice reviews and was recommended by my friend Mahesh. It’s pretty cheap too. One of the most important feature for me was the SSH access, which they have. So far so good, let’s see how it goes…

I would like to thank ISL (my previous employer in Hong Kong) for hosting my blog for free for such a long time

It was a life changing experience being at the the operating theatre during her birth (I wasn’t allowed in the labour ward when my son was born in Hong Kong in 2000). Words can’t explain it! I’m sure all the dads who’re present at their child birth understand what I mean. The pain women has to go through and courage, love, care and tenderness that they show throughout pregnancy and birth is one of many things that make them so special. I think that’s one of the reasons mothers are so special in our life.

Here’re few photos I’ve taken.

Minutes after birth

With her mum

With her brother

With her dad

D90 is the very first DSLR to do HD video. I’ve taken few pictures and video with it and I’m impressed. The crisp quality pictures you get when you hook it up with your HD TV using hdmi connection is just breathtaking! I’ve bought few photography books and am reading all about ISOs, whitebalance, lenses, Aperture, Shutter speed, etc…

I’ve taken some pictures of my D90, enjoy…

Click on the photo for larger image.