It is vacation time!

It is home sweet home for a month, as I am in Chennai now on my annual vacation. It's been 4 days now and it has not been the usual "home sweat home", as the weather, surprisingly, is quite pleasant with intermittent drizzles. I was here in april for a one-week short vacation but this time, I managed to get time off for the full quota of 1 month.

It is Navratri time here in Chennai. Since we are here this year, Vidhya didn't create the kholu back in Cyprus like she did last year. My mom has kep a BIG kholu (deserves a separate post with photos!) and my house has been seeing a steady stream of visitors, keeping me confined to the interiors of our house.

This vacation looks to be a very hectic one going by the places we are going to travel to. Another reason is that Vidhya's bro is getting married and we have a lot of shopping to do. Like last year, i have an opportunity to witness a grand indian wedding of a close family member. As always, we have a pilgrimage tour for 5 days planned early next month before Diwali. I am looking forward to Diwali, since it will be my first Diwali in India in 5 years. Luckily, i will be back in Cyprus on the day of the Diwali Party. I am planning a 3 day vacation-within-a-vacation to Singapore along with my parents. lotsa things to do ...

With all this, i try to get in a few hours of badminton a day. And, I am supposed to be on vacation taking rest....

How not to feed fishes

If you had seen the photos and videos of the undersea walk we had done last week, you would have noticed that we were give pieces of bread to feed the fishes. In fact, this was the most fun part, as you get very close to the fishes as they eat out of your hand. But, there are always people who start to get unheard-of phobias just when they shouldn't happen. So, one of my friends (who went for the dive in another grp) in the video had mini-Ichthyophobia or for the layman, fishbitophobia! So, look at the video to learn how not to feed fishes.

Chakde India - The India Quiz Prelims

I conducted an India quiz about a month back here in amdocs. I am posting the prelims questions below. Leave the answers in the comments. Answers will be updated in about a week's time. By the way, the average in the quiz was around 75% and hence is supposed to be very easy.

1. Born to Narayan Paglu Rao in Maharashtra, she received her degree from Mooljee Jaitha (M.J.) College in Jalgaon. In 1962, she was also voted the "College Queen" in M.J College. She also excelled in Table Tennis and had won various inter-college events. She is currently married to Devisingh Ransingh (her third marriage). Identify her. >> Pratibha Devisingh Patil
2. One of the origins of the name of this place is from the word Kalikshetra, meaning "Ground of the Goddess Kali." Which place? >> Kolkata
3. 1. A Peepal tree 2. A banana tree 3. An idol 4. ??? >> Abhishek Bachchan. Aishwarya was "married" to the listed three before her marriage to Abhishek.
4. What do you have to do to make your life jingalala? >> Install Tata Sky. (From the Ad Jingle)
5. In Vedic times, a Brahmin boy was considered equal to an animal until a certain event took place. What was that event? >> Upannyanam or the thread ceremony
6. When Sachin Tendulkar went for his first Test series to Pakistan, he did not sign the contract with BCCI. Someone else signed it on his behalf. Who signed it and why? >> His father, as he was a minor then
7. This hill station is around 64 km from Pune and is also called the “Chikki” capital of India, as there are a lot of local outlets there manufacturing this sweet. Which place? >> Lonawala
8. Which Indian actor, who has not acted in any movies in his mother tongue, made his debut in the 1975 Kannada movie Katha Sangama? >> Rajinikanth
9. How do we better know baked chicken chunks cooked in curry sauce? >> Chicken Tikka Masala
10. What is common to Bo Derek, Maradona, The Prime Minister of England, Vishnu and this question? >> The number 10!
11. What is the capital of the state of Jharkhand? >> Ranchi
12. Lord Vishnu, in all his avatars, has spared the life of only one Asura. Who? This Asura who is still believed to be alive, visits once a year and a festival is celebrated because of his visit. Which festival? >> Mahabali and Onam
13. Yusuf Nulwalla, Sameer Hingora, Baba Chauhan, Zaibunnisa Anwar Kazi and Aziz Ahmed Mohammed. Who is the sixth? >> Sanjay Dutt
14. Dada, Abdulla & Co recruited a person on year long contract in the late 19th century and sent him for a posting in South Africa. Who? >> Mahatma Gandhi
15. Kusumpur, Pushpapur and Azeemabad are older names of which city? >> Patna
16. Below is the photo of the Indian team for a particular sport (a 1998 photo). Which sport? >> Sumo Wresting team of India!

    

17. On 31st October 1984, the 2nd ODI in the wills series between India and Pakistan was happening at Jinnah Stadium in Sialkot, Pakistan. Pakistan had won the toss and decided to field. India were 210/3 with Vengsarkar 94*. The match was abandoned then. Why? >> Indira Gandhi was assassinated

18. Whenever a forest is shown in a movie, it is always accompanied by a chirping sound. This is the sound of the cicada which is quite famous for the noise it produces in dense forests. There is a famous place in Kerala which is called ____ Valley because there are no cicadas in this forest. Fill in the blank. >> Silent Valley

19. English dictionaries tend to define the word as ‘a child's vehicle that typically has two wheels with a low footboard between them, is steered by a handlebar, and is propelled by pushing one foot against the ground while resting the other on the footboard’. What word? >> Scooter

20. Something made from sugar, corn syrup, corn starch and lecithin was enough to make Zaheer Khan very angry. What? >> Jelly Beans

21. In the NATO phonetic alphabet, A- Alpha, B- Bravo, C-Charlie etc. For one letter, something related to India appears. For which letter and what is the code? >> I for India

22. Father: Ramesh. He had 4 kids. Nitin, Savita and Ajit are three of them. Who is the fourth? >> Sachin Tendulkar

23. Americans call it a faucet. What do we call it in India? >> A Tap

24. For India, name the National Flower, the National Fruit, the National Animal and the National Bird? (0.5*4) >> Lotus, Mango, Tiger and Peacock

25. By doing a wordplay on the acronym html, this BITS Pilani graduate created something which took the world by storm. What? >> HoTMaiL

26. Who hit 5 sixers in Yuvraj’s last over in the match against England? >> Mascarenhas

27. Which is the national soup of India? >> Mulligatawney Soup

28. This waterway of around 150 kms width separates the Andaman Islands from the Nicobar Islands. What is its name? >> Ten Degree Channel

29. A word which has been formed recently. If you are ________, it means that you have lost your job because it has been outsourced to India. Fill the blank. >> Bangalored

30. X comes in different sizes like137*63 mm, 147*63 mm, 157*73 mm, 167*73 mm and 177*73 mm. What is X? I would definitely like to have many of the 177*73 ones. >> Currency Notes

If you are interested in more quizzes, check out my Quiz Page, which has links to probably all the quiz blogs around. Enjoy!

A walk on the wild side

The weekend before last we decided to take it easy by going camping. This weekend, we decided to do something brave (at least for me). We went for an undersea walk, a walk on the sea floor feeding fishes, supposedly the only one of its kind in Europe! For more photos, videos and details, Visit the Cyprus Blog.

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A weekend in the tents

Had been camping over the last long weekend to Governor's beach, a short drive drive from Limassol. The beach is clean and the waters clear enough for snorkeling. Over the past few weeks, i have perfected the art of floating, though a close-up would clearly show that i am extremely nervous while I am attempting to float!

Go to the Cyprus Blog for more pictures from the camping trip.

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Dreaming about you

We had a photo competition here in amdocs (the results are not yet out) and one of the categories was "dreams". I did a lot of research on the net for an idea and one of the photographs which i found (actually on a photoshop site) was that of a guy appearing transparent in a photograph titled dreamy. I liked the concept and wanted to get something similar done without photoshop, as the competition had strict guidelines about the use of photoshop. Vidhya came up with the idea of "Dreaming about you" wherein she is seated appearing to be asleep and i appear in the photograph like a ghost which will give the indication that she is dreaming.

This is the final photograph which we came up with ...

Of course, many questioned the validity of this photo, as it looked "pretty obviously" a photoshopped one! But, this is the photo straight out of the camera (converted to black and white). So, here are the steps to duplicate this photo

• This was taken in a totally dark room (absolutely dark)
• The camera was put in Shutter-Priority mode i.e. a mode where you can control the shutter speed and the camera handles everything else.
• I used a shutter speed of 10 seconds. This can be anything based on the effect you want.
• When the room is dark, Vidhya goes and sits on the sofa. Then, i click the shutter-release button (basically, take the photograph).
• Then, a light (preferably a powerful one located such that it doesnt put Vidhya in a shadow) is switched on for a fraction of a second and immediately switched off. Because of this action, the room (including Vidhya) are exposed on the camera.
• Then, i go into the frame, position myself. Then, the light is switched on and off (like the first time).
• Here is the logic behind the photo: Since i and the background behind me got exposed during the 2 times the light was on, i appear to be transparent in the photograph.
• Few things to get this photo right: Vidhya had to be dead-still during the 10 seconds. Otherwise, her changed position would get exposed when the light is switched on the second time. Get a background which can covey the transparency well.

We took a lot of attempts to get this right. First, Vidhya was not happy with my position in the photograph and complained a lot about my posing skills. Then, we moved around the props in the room till we were satisfied with the overall composition.

Sometimes the switching-on-and-off action was too fast resulting in a dark picture. In other cases, the switching on happened a little earlier than expected resulting in my movements getting exposed in the photograph.

At one point i got bored with the same pose i was giving and we wanted a different look to the picture. Lokesh and Sarvesh posed for us and it turned out to be a great photograph. We wanted to submit this photograph calling it "Nightmare". It was a tough call for us deciding which one to submit for the competition.

This technique can be used to produce some very interesting pictures if you think out-of-the-box! Look at the picture below where Lokesh posed and then i went into the scene with a keychain light and drew the horns on him.

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