Notes from Mathura-Vrindavan-Govardhan trip.

I visited Mathura –Vrindavan–Govardhan with my parents in February. 

  • Its advised to take the Yamuna expressway if traveling from Noida, it takes few hours & road trip across paddy/sugarcane fields looks lovely.
  • Other way is to travel via DTC bus from Kashmiri Gate or Local train.
  • All the 3 locations are nearby(when in personal vehicle) to each other & you can expect bumpy & crowded ride.
  • Prem Mandir in Vrindavan is totally unique its built by guru Kripalu Maharaj. They have a clean canteen with food in reasonable price. We had our food here once we were done with our entire trip.
  •  I loved Banke Bihari Temple for its uniqueness & honestly it added more faith in Lord Krishna after seeing all those devotees in big queues. I always avoided visiting temple where i have to wait for darshan. I am in Mumbai & yet to visit Siddi Vinayak because of it.
  • Sweets especially Petha/Peda is must try along with chai in kullhar.
  • Krishna Temple is mathura has major security around because of the disputed mosque next to it.
  • Govardhan also has many temples & its famous for the 21 KM parikrama(walk) which i happily escaped.
  • Also there is a Van(forest) which everyone believes even  now Krishna comes every night for his ras leela with Gopis
  • I also visited banks of Yamuna, i wish government could care more about it.
  • Last not the least, stay away from the pandas(priests) who claims to perform special puja for you and your ancestors. Most of them are touts.

Some Random Clicks

Yamuna Expressway, early morning.
Yamuna Expressway, early morning.
Tea Kullhar (earthen pots) before entering to Mathura Temples.
Tea Kullhar (earthen pots) before entering to Mathura Temples.
Banke Bihari Temple
Banke Bihari Temple
Sweet shop with Petha, Samosa & others in display.
Sweet shop with Petha, Samosa & others in display.
temple with priest
Little priest on one of the krishna temple on Yamuna bank.
Parents taking much needed rest in Govardhan temple.
Parents taking rest in temple.

 

Notes from Nagaland Trip

I visited Nagaland, northeastern state of India this March.  I visited Dimapur,  Peren and Mokokchung district.  I have tried to summarize my overall experience in simple notes.

Thanks 2 Achet for inviting me to this trip, am missing all the fun already. 🙂

  • Pork is a staple food & its common to keep pigs at home along with hens.
  • Although Indian government has only recognized 17 naga tribes  number is much more.
  • Christianity is dominant in the state & people are god fearing.
  • English is commonly spoken & medium of education.
  • Education has special importance & students walk few kilometers daily for schooling.
  • People are  humble & happy & well educated.
  •  The state has natural resources in abundance but pollution is a major threat.
  • Bamboos play major role in building houses & handicraft industry is largely dependent on it.
  • One can easily enter Nagaland via Dimapur but to visit most other districts one needs inner line permit.
  • If you like reading local folktales then do visit Signet Books, Dimpaur. They have good collection.
  • Don`t forget to being some green tea from local Nagaland brand named Amonar, its awesome.

                                   Some Random Clicks

Nagaland where nature meets humans. :)
Nagaland where nature meets humans. 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dimapur Bazaar
Dimapur Bazaar

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paren district on the top of the hill.
Paren district on the top of the hill.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interesting folktales collection.
Interesting folktales collection.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amonar Green Tea, am a fan of it.
Amonar Green Tea, am a fan of it.

 

Me & Achet trying to be little artistic after heavy lunch. :)
Me & Achet trying to be little artistic after heavy lunch. 🙂

 

 

Why i love traveling & preferably alone

 Why Alone?

When am alone its like am naked, out of comfortability zone.  I have to do my own shit & its a fun/learning experience. It makes me more independent & extrovert in my day to day life.

 

Reasons why i love traveling?

 

Food

Chicken Changezi [Nov Vegetarian delight]
Chicken Changezi [Nov Vegetarian delight]
Chole Bhature [much liked North Indian cuisine]

I am a foodie & one main reason i travel is to go try out local cuisine. India is so big every 100-200 KM one will find different food habit like other parts of world.

 

People

Saint enjoying panipuri [Pushkar]
Buddhist Monk [Ladakh]
I get to meet interesting people most of the time they are welcoming. At times some of them end up becoming friends for life. Talking to them gives you a feeling that we are facing same issues & we are striving for same i.e making our life better.

 

Peace

Mandrem Beach [Goa]

When am on road 90% times i prefer staying away from Internet & other connected devices. It brings much needed peace of mind. I get more time to think about myself & do some retrospection.

 Religion/Tradition

 

Priests on way to offer prayer to Madurai Meenakshi temple.

 

I get to see a lot of interesting practices. The way people in particular region offer prayers, how they celebrate a particular festival & all.

 

 

Technology Evangelist Checklist

If you are a technology Evangelist i am sure you would be following this checklist :

 

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  1. Spreading word about project/technology by speaking engagement, social media outreach.
  2. Acting as a mentor to n00bies who are keen to be part of your project/technology.
  3. Working without pride but more love/respect/harmony & with goal to expand the community to its best.
  4. Being passionate about project/technology as it will result in 100% efficiency.
  5. Knowing well about your technology to answer question of an expert developer to a college student.
  6. Goto guy incase of any argument among contributors on any specific issue.

 

What was i doing all this while?

Since i been asked again & again by lot many friends

  • Where the hell am i
  • What i been doing all this while

Simplest answer

I was traveling across India & these are the places i covered since new year. 

  • Delhi (I was in Purani Delhi regularly for food)
  • Nagaland (north-east)
  • Mathura-Vrindavan-Gowardhan
  • Haridwar-Rishikesh
  • Bangalore
  • Hyderabad
  • Ramappa (Spent new year night in peace with cellphone switched off mode)
  • Jodhpur-Jaipur-Ajmer
  • Bihar (Went to my hometown after 3 years)
  • Mumbai (Yes, am back here till May i think)

I will blog about individual journey in separate blog one by one. [hopefully]

On a highway

 

In simple terms am not dead yet, am alive & awesome. 

Searching for some answers.

I have been asking a few questions to myself over the past few months:

1. Am I happy?

2. Am I enjoying my day job?

3. What’s wrong with me? If anything?

4. Where should I see myself 10 years down the line?

5. Is this how life goes on?

I am not sure if am the only one thinking so much about my life or everyone does the same.

It took me few months & yes I have yet not figured everything & don`t have answer of all these above questions.

But one thing I have realized to have meaning in your life you really need to have some elements.

Some of these are:

1. Friends : Its really important to have some friends in your life who know who you are and come what may, they are behind you to help you in every moment/minute of your life.

2. Mentors: You need to have mentors who are always there in your life guiding you. It’s like showing you the ladder but you need to take steps yourself.

3. Family: Your lucky if you have parents supporting you in every stage of your life & believing in you.

I am lucky to have them all.

PLUS

4. Mute the noise: People around you who are always pessimistic about everything. Stay away from them.

5. Forgiveness: I am still learning to get this art in me, it’s too difficult. I am happy am trying at least.

 

meaning

I would hope in coming month things will get more clear & I will find most of my answers. 😀

 

 

 

2013: Year just passed

[Warning: Not  a tech blog]

I will keep it simple & try to summarize what all went to my life in 2013 in all fronts.

 

cookies

Personal: Made few friends & some walked away, part of life.

Trips: Traveled to cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi, Chennai, Pune, Sf, Portland & Hong Kong for conference/presentations or meeting friends.

Food: Yes as usual tried all sorts of crazy food during my travel to these cities.

Professional : Joined SwiftStack as community engineer enjoying my job, a lot needs to be done.

Others:  The year taught me a lot many things & especially the fact that nothing is permanent in our life & nothing should be taken for granted.

OpenStack Summit, Hong Kong

To those who don`t know i have joined SwiftStack as community/solutions engineer. Most of my time during this  summit i spent meeting a lot many interesting people around our booth. I was more interested in whats HOT from OpenStack Swift front & Mario wrote a nice blog summarizing over all talks sessions related to Swift.

As usual i met all my old friends who i been  helping all these while or vice versa. I also met guys whom i been following on twitter all this while. The other fun part of the booth crawl was book signing. My friend Kevin & Cody have written a nice book on overall OpenStack 

We at SwiftStack booth had book signing by Joe Arnold our CEO book title Software defined storage with OpenStack Swift. We are still giving away free copy of the book as part of our community engagement initiative, you can get your own copy requesting here

Like always it was awesome event, thanks to OpenStack foundation for organizing it in Asia, i had only 6 hr flight 🙂

You can watch the  Summit presentation videos here

OpenStack @OSIdays, India 2013

At OSI Days Bangalore, India we OpenStack India team organized a mini-conf. It was well accepted & we had many new faces participating as attendees as well as speakers. You can check the schedule of event here 

Its great to see so many students and professional folks joining our event. Last but not least Q/A session was my favorite part.

Thanks to organizers of OSI Days for graciously granting us venue like they did last year.

OpenStack Day India, September 2013

I know am too late to write about it but its better to write about an event rather than not.

banner_osi_days_2013

Its been great year for OpenStack India community, we crossed over 1700 members & at same time during the event met a lot many startup folks. Some of them are simple system integrators and some are working as solution provider while others are involved in product testing. It should be noted that companies like HP, DELL, Cisco and other multinational already has big team working from beginning. I was fascinated to find that one of the biggest ISP provider in India Netmagic is already using Swift in production & soon moving compute to Nova.

Thanks to all our sponsors & OpenStack foundation for the support, you can read the whole event report here  We as folks from OpenStack India team really worked hard to make this happen. 🙂