26/11... A year later... niether forgiven...nor forgot

Last week we observed the first anniversary of 26/11 terror attack on Mumbai. This is certainly not an event which we should have an anniversary of. We have had events of terrorist striking our cities and killing innocent people in past, but attack on 26/11 shook every Indian from within. Entire nation stood still while witnessing the havoc created by 10 terrorists. We all were helpless watching innocent people dieing.

Looking back, in past one year there are many questions still unanswered. Kasab's court trial is taking a long time. Pakistan is repeating the same old stories and doing nothing against the masterminds behind 26/11 attack. Our forces are not ready to counter terrorism. They are not equipped with latest weaponry. None of the politicians are not held accountable for the attacks and they are politically reinstated.

But amidst this there are some positive things happening. A new NSG base is set up in Mumbai. This will have a quick turn around time in case of emergency. This will be helpful for not only for Maharashtra but also many surrounding states. We all stood as a Nation against the attacks and demonstrated our unity. Even after a year has passed, the sentiments of people towards 26/11 attack are not changed much. People are no more numb

We have neither forgiven nor forgot the attacks. We shall never forget what has happened in Mumbai. Shall never forget the sacrifice of Hemant Karkare, Vijay Salaskar, Ashok Kamate, Major Unnikrishnan and many other brave police and fire brigade personnel.

Lets keep their memories live. Lets pay our tribute to the martyrs of 26/11.

Bell the CAT

After much hype and intrigue the online CAT 09 is finally out. Specially this year's CAT is in news because of all technical problems students faced, labs getting collapsed, exams getting rescheduled etc etc. I appeared for it yesterday. To my surprise it went well without much technical difficulties although I had a tough time logging in the system and starting the exam.

Quite happy with my attempt keeping in my my preparations for exam. This new online avatar of CAT is very good. However it does have many shortcomings as compared to traditional paper pencil format. The biggest challenge being reading on a computer screen. This becomes worst when it comes to Data Interpretation questions. For me it was a 50-50 experience.

There is drastic change in CAT papers' format this year. There are total 60 questions to be solved in 135 minutes. Out of 60 questions 20 are verbal and English. The verbal section was very straightforward with only 4 types of questions. There were 3 paragraphs for reading comprehension with total 9 questions. A set of questions dedicated to grammar and punctuation. Rest questions were for completing a paragraph with most appropriate sentence and chronological arrangement of sentences.The difficulty level was medium to hard.

The rest 40 questions had a mix of quant and DI. There were 3-4 problems on DI with 10-12 questions among them. Along with it there were 3-4 questions on Data Sufficiency. The difficulty level for DI and data sufficiency was easy to medium. The rest all were quant questions. Some of the quant questions were real tricky. The key to quant questions was mathematical formulas. Most of the quant questions were based on simple algebra and geometry formulas.The quant section had medium difficulty level.

For someone who has studied seriously, CAT 09 was a free lunch. As the paper was easy one can expect the cutoffs to go steeper. IIMs might change the selection criteria completely.  That will come out after the results are out.

Overall it was a good encounter with CAT 09. Lets keep fingers crossed till 22nd Jan 10.

2012

2012 is yet another science fiction - action thriller from the stable of Roland Emmerich, the maker of The Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow. The movie is loosely based on Mayan belief that the world would come to an end on 21st Dec. 2012, as Mayan calendar ends there. There is no way that the world could be saved, the human race on the verge of extinction.

Movie starts in of year 2009, Dr. Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) lands in India. A young Indian scientist Dr. Satnam (Jimi Mistry) discovers that the core of the Earth is heating because of Neutrino radiations from Sun. This will make the Earth crest unstable leading to a series of tremors, volcanic eruptions, typhoons, tsunamis which will lead to massive destruction on Earth.

As usual America takes the onus of saving world from this catastrophic destruction. But this time they are joined by China and India. USA is secretly building some massive ships in China ( they cannot manufacture anything without help of China). The ship will save the Human species along with other important species in the world. But the berth on the ship comes with a price. Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) comes to know about this catastrophic events and is trying to save his children, ex. wife and her new husband from this disaster. They head to China to be able to make it to the ship. They manage to embark the ship and the world comes to an end with lots of sacrifice and talks of humanity.

.

There is nothing to be called as story in the movie. The movie has no storyline, the characters are not portrayed neatly. The movie also fails in acting department. The actors fails to leave any mark. But that is not something the movie is selling. The spine chilling action sequences coupled with some great special effects are the real strength of the movie. The limo sequence in which Jackson rescues his family from sinking soil and collapsing structures and two other similar plane scenes are really awesome. Not only they are beautifully filmed but also the angles, camera movements, panoramic views are amazing. It has truly given action a new meaning.

I will probably give 20 out of 20 for action and special effects and 12 out of 20 for story and other stuff.

Overall a good experience. Nice to watch on a 70 mm!!!!

Sachin vs. Sena

The Shiv Sena's latest remarks against Master Blaster shows Shiv Sena's frustration and agony after humiliating defeat in recent Maharashtra Assembly Elections. On the top of it, it also due MNS has hijacked Shiv Sena's traditional Marathi issue. This is also an indication of increasing apprehensions within Shiv Sena due to emergence of Raj Thackeray for the cause of Marathi Manoos.

The Shiv Sena and BJP alliance have failed to leave any significant mark as a strong opposition party in Maharashtra. This alliance had failed to put forward strongly issues related to people of Maharashtra in Assembly. The weak opposition is the real reason of Congress and NCP regaining the office in Maharashtra despite many issues like farmer's suicide, unemployment, rising inflation, electricity to mention a few.

It is hard for every Marathi to digest the comments made against Sachin and it is painful that they are coming from Bal Thackeray. Well Sachin will not give any importance to such things and will continue to deliver his best for country. He is more dedicated to cricket than such controversies. Hope he completes 13,000 runs in Test cricket at Kanpur.

This is time the Shiv Sena and BJP alliance must realize that making statements is no way to governance. Now for coming 5 years they will be sitting in opposition, it is time for them to come up as a strong opposition and act as a pressure group on the government. By doing a good job as opposition they can hope next term in office and by that time people of Maharashtra can expect better governance.

Eureka ... Eureka....

Don't imagine me running like Archimedes.

I have neither discovered anything nor found something great like Archimedes did...!!

The search has ended and I have got a decent name for my blog now. 

I am no more regal, no more Rjectives

Now onward my blog is going to be quill-driving.

Sounds little complicated right..

 but that's how I am.

Making things a little complex...

After all its all about writing and writing and writing

Happy reading…!! 

A night with blogs

Don't remember when last time I became insomniac. Maybe during engineering prep leaves (used to flunk a lot those days), but tonight was insomniac. Thought of going to bed after checking mails but found some really nice blogs to read and went on to read and read... Then started writing one and then second..... and didn't realize when sun came up.....

Anyways after a long time I will watch Sun rising...!! Good for me..

Well I am going to grab a hot tea.. c u bye...

The Alchemist Contd...

No way of going back to home, Santiago decides to work there. Soon he finds a job at a crystal shop. Santiago works to save money for his return journey. Soon the merchant and Santiago share a special bond. They have something in common. Both have a dream, the only difference is the merchant is living with the dream and Santiago is trying to realize it. After working for an year at the crystal shop, Santiago saves enough money to cross the dessert.

At the Caravan he meets an interesting Englishman. The Englishman is in search of a 200 year old Alchemist, who resides in the oasis in dessert. The Englishman teaches Santiago basics of Alchemy that he is studying.

After days of travel the Caravan reaches an Oasis in the dessert. During his stay at oasis, Santiago falls in love with a young woman of dessert, Fatima. Having discovered the true love, Santiago believes he has found the true treasure he was looking for. But his greatest test is yet to come. One evening in an unexpected encounter he meets the Alchemist.

Santiago realizes that his true treasure is not yet discovered. The Alchemist agrees to help Santiago cross the dessert to find the hidden treasure. With Alchemist, Santiago embarks on the last leg of the journey to great Pyramids. On this journey the Alchemist teaches Santiago the Language of the Universe. The language that connects every sole with another. They survive through the though times. Santiago completes the last leg of his journey - dangerous and filled with discoveries that help Santiago understand himself and connect with his heart.

The story is simple yet exotic and timeless. Santiago represents everyone who is trying to find out one's true treasure in life. The journey of Santiago to realize his dreams represents the path one has to follow and the difficulties one has to overcome in order to realize one's true dream. Santiago shows how along this way one should learn to listen to one's heart, read the omens and to understand that if we look to realize a dream, the entire Universe conspires to full fill it, if we let it.

The Alchemist is not just a book to read but an amazing experience to live with.

Boss Kaun Hain Malum Hain Naa...!!!!

Highest run getter in both the forms of cricket

First cricketer to score 17,000 runs in ODI

First cricketer to score 12,000 in Test

First cricketer to score 30,000 runs in International cricket

Most number of centuries in ODI 45

Most number of centuries 43 in Test

Most number of Hundreds in International cricket 88

Most number of man of the matches in ODI 60

Most number of man of the series in ODI 14

Highest run scorer in World Cup (1796 at an average of 59.87)

Highest run scorer in a single ICC event World Cup 2003 - 673 runs

Centuries against all major Test cricketing nations

10 centuries against Australia in Test cricket

Out of 43 Test centuries 23 scored away from home

Out of 45 ODI centuries, 32 times India ended as a winning side

Scored over 1000 runs in a calendar year in ODI's 7 times

Achieved same feat 4 times in Test cricket

Most centuries in a calendar year : 9 ODI centuries in 1998

Only player to have scored a century in all three of his Ranji Trophy, Duleep Trophy and Irani Trophy debuts

Only player to to be in ICC Top 10 rankings for 10 years

Involved in six 200+ partnerships in ODI matches, a record he hold with Saurav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid

In 2003 Wisden rated him as No. 1 ODI batsman in all time greatest ODI players

In 2002 Wisden rated him second greatest batsman in Test cricket after Sir Donald Bradman

Took average 25 innings to score every 1000 runs in ODI, Jayasurya took 33 while Pointing 26.75

Only cricketer to receive Rajiv Ghandi Khel Ratna, Arjun Award, Padma Shri Awards by Government of India

A record of having so many records.....!!!!

20 glorious years in International Cricket

and

still counting.....!

The Alchemist

The Alchemist is a book about Courage, Magic, Love, Philosophy, Language of the Universe, Dreams and Passion to follow them. It is a story of a boy, in pursuit of his Dreams.

The protagonist is a simple boy whose name is Santiago. He is a Shepherd. Not because he is poor or illiterate but because traveling is his passion and he wants to discover new lands and follow new routes. He like reading and he loves his Sheep. He has been away from home for a quite long He is now a well versed Shepherd and going places selling his wool. Everything seems to be perfect for Santiago until one night he has a dream that a child transports him to Egyptian Pyramids and tells him he will find a buried treasure there.

To interpret the meaning of his dream he visits a Gypsy in the next town. The lady tells him to go after the the treasure. Irritated and not so serious about his dream he spends some time in the town where he meets an old man. The old man tells Santiago that if the boy will give him 1/10 of his Sheep, he will tell him how to go after the hidden treasure. The man tells Santiago that he has succeeded in discovering his personal legend and he must decide if he is brave enough to follow it. The man tells him discovering one's true purpose is a person's only real obligation in this world.

A tough decision to make for Santiago. Will he give up his Sheep and go after a Dream that seems crazy? But Santiago's heart is telling him to go on and follow the crazy dream.

Next morning, Santiago gives 1/10 of his sheep to old man and sells rest of them. The old man who claims to be a King advises Santiago to follow Omens on his quest and gives him two rocks Urim and Thumim which will help Santiago when he is stuck in path.

Santiago lands in Africa, his first encounter with a strange land where only Arabic is spoken. He is afraid of the new place and the people. He meet a man who can speak his language. The man promises to help Santiago cross the dessert. But in no time the man disappears with all of Santiago's money. Santiago wants to cry, he is helpless on a strange land. Santiago is left with no money and now he can believe no one. The only thing left with Santiago is his old rusty Jacket and two stones Urim and Thumim.

The master is back..!!!

"Champions do not become champions when they win the event, but in the hours, weeks, months and years they spend preparing for it. The victorious performance itself is merely the demonstration of their championship character"

Millions and millions of cricket lovers experienced this yesterday, when master blaster delivered yet another champions' knock against Sri Lanka in Compaq cup final.

What an inning..!! what an inning it was..!!
An elegant and skillful inning, built gradually with great composure, temperament and consistency. Yet maintained strike rate of over 100. Runs scored in every corner of the ground.Every shot that came out of his bat, enriched the book of cricket.

Over 2 decades in international cricket, more than 27000 runs and still going strong. With growing age his cricket seems to becoming more and more perfect, resplendent and enjoyable. His ingenious sense of cricket, passion for the game and hunger for more, as young as the rest of the team.

Sachin is always criticized for not playing a winners inning in an important match, with this inning he once again silenced all his critics and led India to a much needed win.

This was Sachin's 44 th ODI century and 86th in International cricket..
Only14 more to go for a century of centuries...!!
common Sachin ... we are waiting ..!!

Power of compounding

no longer able to feed his family with the his meager income,
the poor poet decided to go to capital
he wrote a special poem
to recite in front of the king

the king impressed by the beauty of his poetry
granted him a wish

the poor poet said, "my generous lord, have a grain of Rice placed on the first square of a chess board, and with each subsequent square double the number of grains. what ever is on the 64th square I shall consider it as my reward."

confused king asked "that is what you want for as your reward?"

the poor poet said " yes, my lord."

the generous king ordered " so shall be"

a large chess board was placed on the floor of the royal palace.
the servants started placing the grains on each of the squares of chess board

1st square 1 grain
2nd 2 grains
3rd 4 grains
and so on,
by the time 32 square is filled, the number of grains grew to 4294967296
by 48th square, king had to empty his food warehouse.
by 56th square entire city's grains fell short of the humongous number
and by the time 64th square is reached, the king had no choice but to hand over his kingdom to the cleaver poor poet!!!

that's the power of compounding.
A little every month and it will grow in a huge amount over the years.

Angels & Deamons

Carl Marx quoted,

                            "Religion is a tablet of Opium"

How true it is..

      Religion makes man do greatest of sacrifices for mankind but man also does most hideous deeds , ever known to mankind, in the name of God. Dan Brown talks about these two sides of mankind in his novel Angels & Deamons.

      The book revolves around around quest of Robert Langdon, a symbolist at Harvard University, to reveal mysteries of an ancient scientific brotherhood, the Illuminati, and their revenge against their 400 years old enemy, the Vatican city. Dan Brown makes use of historic conflict between church and science.

      The plot of book is based in Vatican city and Rome, in a time frame of 24 hours. The book starts in one of the labs at CERN, when scientist Leonardo Vetra is brutally murdered and a secret and highly dangerous substance is stolen from CERN lab, the Antimatter. The dead scientist is branded by an ambigram "Illuminati". This is when Robert Langdon, a symbolist is called in for help by CERN director Kohler. Kohler calls in Vetra's daughter Vittoria. Meanwhile a canister containing the antimatter, the substance Vetra created, is stolen from CERN lab. The cannister has a battery that runs for 24 hours after which antimatter will come in contact with matter and annihilating everything. Later it is revealed that the cannister is counting down somewhere in Vatican City.

      In Vatican the Pope is dead and in order to choose new leader, Cardinals from around the world are gathered.To unfold the mystery and save Church from annihilation Robert and Vittoria arrive in Vatican only to find that four preferred candidates are missing. Convinced that Illuminati is responsible for kidnapping the four Preferiti, Langdon traces the Path of Illumination in hope to save the Preferiti and locate the antimatter.

      On the Path of Illumination, Langdon comes across four major locations within Rome city, each dedicated to Earth, Air, Fire and Water, the four prominent elements that Illuminati believed. At each of these locations Langdon finds one of the preferitis is murdered in a fashion appropriate to the element of the location also he is branded by that element on the chest. On the path of Illumination Langdon finds out about the secret Illuminati sculptor and the Church of Illumination.

      Meanwhile inside Vatican the camerlango is attacked by the Illuminati.The camerlengo, in agony, has a revelation and claims locates the antimatter. Camerlango and Langdon take antimatter to sky where it harmlessly annihilates. Camerlango manages a safe parachute landing leaving crowd in awe. Because of this "miracle" escape, camerlango becomes a favorite for seat of the Pope. The book ends with a spine chilling twist, revealing the true identity of the master mind behind the entire plot, which is worth reading and not revealing..!!!

      Throughout the course of the book, Dan Brown refers to Ancient history, architectures and symbols heavily. He not only refers them but also explains each of them with great details, still manages to maintain the thrill, pace and flow of the story. All the places, structures and their places used in the book are all factual, making the book more impressive.

I don't have time..!!

I want to read books..!

I want to hang out with friends..!

I want to connect to my old friends..!

I want to pursue a habit..!

but I don't have enough time to do all these things!!

do I really don't have time..!!

well I really don't....

I work for 8 hrs in the office..

commute eats up 2 hrs.. (dam Bangalore traffic..!!)

then misc household stuff takes 2 more hrs

and finally most important of all 8 hrs of SLEEEEEP..

and the problem is earth spins in 24 hrs..

so where is the time..??

but.....

the day I stopped hitting channel button on the little brother of the idiot box,

no more surfing through realty shows and news and movies and daily soaps and music channels and...

I found that I have all the time in the world

to read a book..

to check an e-mail..

to scrap a friend..

to call an old friend..

and to be myself...

A Database Design Tutorial

There are several different kinds of database representations. An Entity Relationship Diagram or a ER model, an Enhanced Entity Relationship Diagram EER model, Object Relational Model etc. ER Model is the most universally followed database convention at least in my experience with software application development. Any enterprise application today would surely have a database connected to it, so I think that understanding database design and to be able to design databases is a “must have” for Software developers personnel. In this article I would walk through some of the essentials to give you the basic idea by giving you an example. Once you know how it’s done in a “Non Textbook” way I guess reading the text book or some advanced tutorial would be very easy and interesting.

The First Step in ER modeling:

The first step in designing the database is to know what are the business objects or so called “Entities”. How to determine what the entities are? The textbook says Read the problem statement or the scenario and try to identify nouns. From a collection of nouns it would be much clearer to determine what the entities are in your system. No doubt it’s a text book approach. I have had very few instances where I had a problem statement and I could do a noun analysis for an object oriented or the database design. So try to think in terms of the business and ask yourself why? This is called the “ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS”. Ask yourself the question Why the customer wants to develop this system, who would be using the system, what features should be provided and most importantly what data needs to be stored?.

E.g. If someone wants to develop an online forum and you have to design the database for them, try to think what a forum does and generate a problem statement. The requirement would be vaguely “A discussion forum has many categories. In each category there are many topics and each topic may have many messages by different users. Old messages (let’s say 10 days old) are deleted automatically by the system. User can post new messages and edit their message” what would the database design be?It is evident with the problem statement that you need to keep track of categories, messages (post) and user. An entity in the system might be a strong or a weak entity. A Weak entity is one which cannot exist on its own in a system and requires a relationship with a strong entity (the one with a primary key) to identify its records. Such an entity is described by a double lined rectangle in the model. What attributes to store? What is a primary key? What is a partial Key? What are candidate keys? What is a super key? How to select them: Simply ask yourself what is the information that the system should store for a particular entity, importantly how that information would be identified at a later time? Is there a way, an attribute which uniquely identifies any record/row/ tuple in the table? What are some of the other important attributes the system has to store?
The answer to these questions would be very important to you in terms of database design. Primarily while resolving the ER model you would be converting all your entities to tables so what are the columns of that table. They are the characteristics of the entity. e.g. In our scenario what are the important attributes of a User (in this example we only require a loginid and a password but in a slightly complex scenario like a university registration system there might be many attributes like address , phone number , date of birth , previous college , social security etc Similarly what is the data about the categories we want to store (I guess the category name , Description , we would like to know the number of messages in the category and the topic with maximum posts and stuff like that but lets not talk about that here)The set of attributes which can together uniquely identify an entity instance constitute the Super key. The minimum set of attributes (subset of super key) which can uniquely identify a record in the database is called the candidate key. There can be more than one candidate key for the entity e.g. A Student number and the Social security number we use only one as the primary key of the table and the candidate key which we use to uniquely identify any record in the system is called the Primary Key ( The programmer assigned candidate key). Note in case of weak entities the identifying attribute is called the partial key instead of the primary key.

Step 2 : What are relationships and why? What is cardinality and multiplicity?

Once you have identified the entities, all of them think of the relationships and the cardinalities or multiplicity of the relationship. For the sake of simplicity check each of the entity against all others in order to clarify the design. Start with the User. How is the user related to Categories? A user can create a new category? If yes then we have a relationship. Then there are 2 things that need to be answered.1. Can a Single User create more than 1 category2. Can a Single Category be created by more than one user These two questions are the key to determine the cardinalities which would indicate how we resolve the database design in terms of tables.The relationship can have the following cardinalities:

· 1 to 1· 1 to Many· Many to 1· Many to Many

Similarly then compare if the user and topic has a relationship. That would be pretty similar to the first one. Now also compare the user with all the other entities.Note that relationship may also have attributes like the date/time when the message was posted etc.Relationships are indicated as diamonds in the design. A relationship with one of the participating entities is weak is called a weak relationship and is indicated with a double lined diamond. Resolving Relationship in the form of physical Database design:It’s a Science not an art J So you can generate the database physical design by pushing a button given the logical design , but the logical design is not a science its an art , thankfully otherwise we would be out of business JJ.

For 1 to 1 and many to many relationships create a new table for the relationship. Include the primary key of each participating entry. The union of all the primary keys which are referenced as foreign keys can uniquely identify any record in the table. So if the cardinality of both the participating entries is the same make a separate table. However if it is not take the primary key of the entity where cardinality is 1 and include it in the table where it is many as a foreign key. This is also called an identifying relationship sometimes. I would talk a bit about the enhanced ER in my next article; hope this would help you in learning the basics of database design.Some good database design tools are Dezign for databases by datanamic, Microsoft Visio, ERWin, Rational Rose and perhaps some other free design tool. If you have any queries, suggestions or feedback I would really appreciate it.This is a sample DB Design for a STUDENT GRADING SYSTEM which is a solved exercise from “Fundamentals of Database Systems” from ELmasri/ Navathe

Spring: java.lang.NoSuchField error : ruleMemo

The error is caused by org.antlr.runtime.BaseRecognizer class. The original antlr distribution, which comes along with standard Apache Ant distribution does not contain a field called ruleMemo in BaseRecognizer class. So if you have original antlr jar used in your application you are likely to encounter this error.
To resolve the error get the latest com.springsource.org.antlr jar from spring framework website. Spring has included the missing field in BaseRecognizer class. Include this jar in your applications lib directory and you are all set to run your spring application.

Early Exit......

Midnight of 14th June, millions of hearts broke and dreams came to an end when India, the Defending International T20 champions, lost to England in a do or die match. After the defeat followed the typical media post -martem about what went wrong and who is the culprit ......
Well it is obvious as cricket is religion in India !!!

After winning the toss Dhoni made the first mistake by choosing to chase instead of setting a target in a pressure game. It seems Dhoni was not confident of setting a respectable target and defend it. The similar mistake Ganguly in 2003 world cup final. The Indian bowlers looked in good form and did a great job by restricting English side to 153. With figures of 1 for 13 in 3 overs, RP stood different. Jadeja couldn't do much with bat but did toss ball well to bag 2 crucial wickets.

With best batting order in the world the target of 153 in 20 overs was never too big for India. With Gambhir and Sharma opening the innings, the Indian batting order looked pretty promising till the time Rohit Sharma fell pray to Sidebottom on a short delivery. Raina followed Sharma on yet another short ball by Sidebottom. India lost 2 quick wickets and that forced Dhoni to gamble. He sent Ravindra Jadeja at crucial 4th place in his debut match. English pacers capitalized well on the pitch and made intelligent use of short balls. Gambhir and Jadeja never looked comfortable in playing short deliveries by English pacers. Gambhi and Jadeja tried to give stability to Indian innings but soon Gambhir fell pray to Broad leaving India 62 for 3 in 10.4 overs. That brought Yuvi, the danger man, on strike who took some risk and tried to give some momentum to Indian innings. Soon Jadeja gave his wicket in an effort to kiss the boundry rope. 3 balls later Yuvraj followed him failing to play cleaver delivery ll by Swann. The fall of Yuvraj was the turning point of the match. India now reduced to 87 for 5 in 14 overs with Dhoni and Yusuf Pathan on strike, still 67 runs needed from 36 balls. This was the time for Dhoni to show his muscle. But instead Dhoni took a defencive stance leaving Pathan with no choice but to go for big hits. But Pathan's knock of 33 from 17 balls could not keep India's hopes alive in the tournament.

The result was loud and clear England thrashed defending champions India out of T20 world cup. Though many things were in favor of India like wining the toss, restricting england to 153, good batting order but they failed to capitalize on it. The innings played by Dhoni was probabaly
the worst innings. Even the worst tournament for Dhoni as a batsman and as a captain. He was too defensive through out the tournament putting pressure on the other batsman.

Overall it was a poor performance from india and an array of wrong decisions by captain against England. Truly speaking through out the tournamnt and especially in super eight matched India never played like the defending champions. India repeated same mistakes against the last match against proteas and couldn't even defend their pride.

But after all I am an typical Indian cricket fan, forgetting the past and looking for the future. Now i am looking for India to take on West Indies in Caribbean....!!!!

Humpi: A ruined Empire

On 7th March, Saturday, I got a chance to go to Hampi, a place about which I had read in history books only. It was a ad-hoc trip, without much planning. Me and my parents started at 8 am from Bangalore. At 12:30 pm we reached Chitradurga from there we took N-H 13 to reach Hospet. At 4:30 pm finally we reached Hampi.
Fortunately we got a Marathi speaking guide who took us to some of the fascinating places in Hampi. The old name of Hampi was 'Pampanagari' which later became famous as 'Kishkindha', the famous city from epic Ramayana. This is believed to be the birth place of Hanuman. Hampi was the capital of Hindu empire, Vijaynagara, established by two Raya brothers, Hakka and Bukka. The city was at peak of wealth, culture during the regime of Krishnadev Raya. The Vijaynagara empire went on to rule Southern India from 14th to 16th century. The city was plundered after Vijaynagara forces lost battle of Talikot to Deccan Sultans, who united to defeat the Vijaynagara kingdom. The loot was going on for more than 3 months. A series of plunders desolated the city.
The city of Hampi contains more than 500 monuments like beautiful temples, remains of palaces, marvelous lakes, ancient water supply system, aquatic structures, royal pavilions, ancient market places on the backdrop of of boulder-strewn hills and the river Tungabhadra. The monuments are spread over an area of 25 sq. km.
Though Hampi has a large number of monuments a few are notable -
Passing by the ruined Market and Royal Entrance to the city of Humpi, on right side you come to magnificent Badvi Shivling. This entire shivlinga is sculpted from a single stone. Its is believed that this shivlinga is created by a poor woman, therefor the name is Badvi Linga. This shivlinga is always surrounded by water. The water is brought here by an ancient water supply techniques which had a large number of small canals bringing water in the city.



To the left of Badvi Linga is another marvelous piece of art. The name of this fabulous carving is Ugra Narsingha statue.This is a 20 feet tall statue carved out of a single stone. The statue of Narshingha here is in Ugra Avtar. The Narshingha was accompanied by Lakshmi sitting to the left of Narsingha. The Lakshmi statue was destroyed during the plunder of Humpi by forces of Deccan Sultans. Cannons were used to destroy the statues of Lakshi-Narshingha. Today the Narsingha is without the company of Lakshmi and bears marks of cannons, still it is very beauty full.





After watching Narsingha you head towards the Rajmahal ruins(Ruins of The Royal Palace) and Hajara Ram Temple(Compound Ram Temple), a temple dedicated to Ram and worshiped by Royal family only.. This is the Pushkarini Lake, the only standing structure remaining in the Royal Palace. All other structures are destroyed so badly that only plinth of many structures is remaining. The Pushkarini lake was lit by thousands of lamp during Dashera festival. Near the Royal Palace is Hazara Ram temple. Hazara means compound, as this temple was next to the Royal Palace compound. The temple is dedicated to Lord Ram and was specially built for Royal family. Various events and carnival of Dashara festival are sculpted on the walls of Hazara Ram temple. The temple is without the statues of Ram and Seeta in the temple, as the statues of these shrines are destroyed. Not only in Hazara Ram temple but in almost all of the temples statues of shrines are destroyed or looted.
After watching Royal Palace you travel through the old city and come across to many small and beauty full monuments. But the identity of Humpi is the Vitthal temple and the Stone Chariot. The precise pilers and neatly sculpted figures on Vitthal temple and stone chariot will surely mesmerize you. This temple complex dedicated to Vittala, a form of the Hindu god Vishnu is an architectural highlight of Hampi. Most of the parts of Vitthal temple are collapsed. Today only the pilers and some walls form Vitthal temple. This temple campus contains many halls and shrines. The halls are noted for its extraordinary pillars with the animated carvings on it. A set of pillars, known as ‘musical pillars,’ resonates when tapped.. This music could have been listened in a range of 1 km. In front of the main building of Vitthal temple stands the iconic stone chariot. The complete complete stone chariot along with its wheels are carved from a single stone. The wheels of stone chariot were made such that they used to rotate like a normal wheel. Along with main temple building and stone chariot the temple complex contains many small but ornate temples dedicated to various gods. This is the largest temple complex among the ruins of Humpi. In front of the Vitthal temple complex lay the ruins of one of the major 5 markets of Humpi. The market was 1 km long, situated on both the sides of the road. Market where once merchants from across the world used to sell their goods, today stands destroyed.

There are many other notable monuments like Queens palace, Lotus Mahal, Jain temple and Virupaksha temple etc. The only standing monument is the Virupaksh temple. The temple is dedicated to Lord Shiva and is worth watching for it's beauty full paintings, pilers and sculptures. If all of them are to visit in detail it will require at least 5 days.
The ruins of Humpi reminds us the glorious past and wealth India had. Hampi is a vast open museum of history, architecture, religion and Man's power of creation and senseless destruction.