Z-Blogs

Unashamedly copying the lines from a Bollywood movie, it's certainly how I felt when I saw the huge rocks of Ramanagara. Going for a drive with friends on the smooth Bangalore-Mysore Highway towards Kamat Yatri Nivas, we stopped a while near the giant boulders on the outskirts of Ramanagara - a town 50kms away from Bangalore. Here are some of the pictures. Known as Closepet during the British rule, it was renamed as Ramanagara after Independence (after the Rama temple at Ramadevara Betta). Though Ramanagara has been important town in history and also famous for its silk farms, it was the…

If you have a little time to spare, do visit Bannerghatta National Park...and the Butterfly Park there. Admission is Rs.10, which is really worth it. Here's the Butterfly Park signboard:Bannerghatta National Park - Butterfly Park signboard (Pic: Deepa Mohan)The dome of the Park itself is a beautiful construction, with the lush greenery inside:Dome of the Butterfly Park (Pic: Deepa Mohan)And here are a few butterflies that I snapped inside:The COMMON MORMON MALE:Common Mormon Male Butterfly (Pic: Deepa Mohan)The PIERROT:Pierrot Butterfly (Pic: Deepa Mohan)The COMMON COASTER :Common Coaster Butterfly (Pic: Deepa Mohan)The BLUE MORMON:Blue Mormon Butterfly (Pic: Deepa Mohan)However, I feel…

Every classical music artiste faces, I think, the same dilemma after having finished the "AlApanai" of the rAgam. Will the audience be in a mood to listen carefully to the structure and lyrics of a new keertanam? New kritis need to be introduced every now and then; the Trinity, though they are the pillars of Carnatic music, need to give way, occasionally, to the dozens of other talented composers who are creating beautiful songs of their own. But new songs have to be introduced to the listening public now and then; only then do the many talented composers who create…

Sorry for the late post. I have been doing a lot of dashing through the streets this week to fulfil pending social commitments rather than the kind of travel I'd prefer. Today is the first real day to put my feet up, relax and wander through the web world. For those who want to travel and cannot (inflation, blasts etc), here's an interesting link I found on one of the blogs I frequent. Photographer Tito Dupret undertook this epic journey across the world in 2001, when he read that Taliban were destroying Buddhist temples in Afghanistan. He started a monumental…

All autos in Bangalore have things written on them; names of family members, loved ones, cinema idols, or at least the names of various cars that the auto-drivers hope their vehicles are like!So I was rather surprised to see a national AND parochial message on this auto:Though it is in Kannada script, it says, phonetically, "I love India...I like Mandya"!Good to know that as well as being a patriotic Indian, he likes the sugar belt of Karnataka, too, and finds enough sweetness in the fact to have it painted on his auto....Though this particular auto whizzed past too fast for…

Films of the late ‘80s and ‘90s immortalized the student populace as fun-loving, singing-prancing, volatile peoples; as entities with rebellious tendencies and a penchant for settling rivalries through bicycle races, boxing matches and dramatic fisticuffs. Having been a toddler when those films were made, I can't comment on the veracity of projections from that decade. Nevertheless, these Technicolor profiles of boys and girls seem to have been etched deep in the minds of concerned elders. So much, that friendly folk well past the college-going age think they know it all when they liken the students of today to Bollywood's bratpack…

Hi All, I am pleased to introduce and interview Manjula Sridhar, a high energy entrepreneur.  She is co-founder and Chief Technology officer of Aujas Networks, a pure-play digital security services company. Manjula co-founded Aujas Networks in February 2008, after a decade of experience in the telecom industry and several awards to her credit. Prior to founding Aujas, Manjula served as "Entrepreneur-in-Residence" at IDG Ventures India, a US$150 Million early-stage technology venture capital fund backed by IDG, the world's largest IT-focused media company. Question:  We have heard of entrepreneurs - you started as an entrepreneur in residence. Can you please tell…

After a long hiatus, I had gone out with friends to watch the Aamir Khan produced movie 'Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na' at Lido Mall recently. It was first time I stepped into the new Lido. Just like the movie which had a lot of fresh faces, the theatre looked mint fresh too. Who could have visualized that the land that housed the old Lido was so vast? The colourful and innovative plastic moulded chairs at the food court, the Noodle Bar lounge, the new Cinemas with comfortable chairs that have cola holders - the only downside to this is…

In recent times, many Indians have left their comfort zones to start their own venture. What was a trickle a couple of years ago is slowly but surely turning into a steady stream. In the past few months, I have seen a variety of professionals, including inter-alia alumni of the premier technology and management institutes in the country, erstwhile employees of the big four audit and consulting firms, chartered accountants, lawyers, engineers, doctors, scientists with a PhD and many more starting their own venture, attempting to raise venture capital for this. All this in Namma Bengaluru ... so imagine ...…

‘Work in Bangalore, Stay in Europe', announced a billboard advertising yet another apartment complex, as I walked along the dusty, narrow, one lane road that connects Jakkur and Amruthahalli. Far cry from the M5, this road. I wondered what part of Europe this billboard was referring to. Maybe Europe started only once we entered the hallowed portals of the complex. The menacing looking security guy who could easily have been an immigration officer in Berlin, checking your dirty-looking Indian passport and grudgingly applying an entry stamp on your visa. Blame it on the IT boom or our own middle-class notions…