Winding up 2008-happy new year 2009

Winding up 2008 with some random contents and updates…

1. Violinist in Belur Found outside Belur Chennakeshwara temple, a toy violin vendor was playing nice music using his 30 Rs violin made up of Coconut shell (karata), wooden sticks and strings. The quality was at par with any professional violin and it even has a volume control (by increasing the string tension). He could have had some decent success as a musician elsewhere, but is making a living selling makeshift violin. (Durability is a question, but for 30 Rs one shouldn’t complain) The below recorded video shows him playing 2 tunes- first one from Mungaru maLe, a kannada blockbuster and second one is airtel tune. 2. Binsar write-up on Ergo

A 600 words article on my Binsar trip got published in Ergo. Click on below image to enlarge and read it (Similar: Binsar trip travelogue on my blog * My other articles in Ergo- Wayanad trip, URLs in local languages) 3. Talakona write-up on CLAY

Talakona trip write up was accepted for publication at CLAY (Club Mahindra and You), Club Mahindra’s official blog. You can read it here. (read it on my blog here)

4. Effectiveness and proper usage of helmets Recently there was an article in Prajavani (a leading Kannada newspaper) that death by accidents hasn’t come down after enforcing mandatory helmet law by Karnataka govt. My opinion was that helmet as such is ineffective in protecting anyone, unless they’re put on properly-i.e. one should clip the strap at right tension, so that helmet stays firmly attached to our head and is not free to move around. But most of us simply put it on, without using the strap, just to avoid police fining us-when helmet is free to move around it will either come out during a crash or will pass most of the impact to the head, instead of absorbing the same- besides advocating wearing helmets, we should also advocate its proper usage. Guest authored a post on this topic at Churumuri and a good debate followed. You can read that here.

5. Foggy Bengaluru Didn’t know Bangalore gets this foggy- Found at 7 AM while driving on Bangalore-Hasan road, 25th Dec. Visibility less than 30 meters.

6. Safer way to drive your car

Some fancy car was being transported on a truck. Why not just drive the car? May be it is being ferried for some special purpose, say movies?

7. Elevated parking During my recently concluded coast to coast long drive (Chennai-Bangalore-Udupi and Back, 1850 kms in 5 days in a Swift diesel VDi, more photos and text later), we stopped for lunch at Kamat Upachar near Tumkur- there was a ramp meant for vehicles that need servicing. I asked the security if I can take the car on the ramp and park it. He said ok and I drove it up. That was easy, but getting the car down was not. As you can see in the image, the left side wheels got too close to the edge and had to drive reverse with extreme caution. With security guard, my cousin, onlookers everyone giving advise (come straight.. little left…. Swalpa right…stop… come come.. slowly… don’t worry…turn steering to right…) I finally got it down.

Also I feel I've managed to keep most of the resolutions I made at the beginning of this year- read eNidhi India new year resolutions (2008)

Happy new year...