Ambarish's musings

It is the end of 2017, and I have had a colorful melange of a year. Things went north, south, east west, and some didn’t even move! This was the first year I took a few new year resolutions, and even worked towards them. I traveled far and near, met a lot of people(by my "lofty" standards) and learnt a lot of things. The Ambarish of 2018 will be very different from the 2017 version.   Let me review my 2017 resolutions, and where I stand: Get better at piano: Sadly this hasn’t happened. Mostly due to lack of time, I didn’t even touch my keyboard for the past few months. I have a lot of other important stuff on my plate now, and keyboard was the first to be put on the back burner. Write more: Yes! I wrote more, and not only did I write more, I also thought more. I put more effort into each and every blog post. Heck, I even wrote poetry. I have an idea for a detective novel, and I am building the characters in my head. Writin...

The cleaners: They make all the tables spick and span irrespective of what we spill on them, coffee, biryani, curd, soft drinks, and what not! Sometimes, I feel people just take the cleaners for granted, which is quite sad for a bunch of educated people like us. The washroom cleaners: They are always there to make the room fragrant and hygienic. I really salute you guys, and I just can't imagine what the work place would become into, without you guys! The guy who puts milk into the coffee machine: Some of the most memorable conversations happen over coffee at the coffee tables across the whole floor, and this guy goes around, and makes sure the conversations continue and everybody has something to drink. An unsung hero is this guy. The coffee guy in the filter coffee shop: This guy keeps all his customers awake! By making them coffee of their desired strength, he keeps people alert, and the conversations flowing among friends in different companies, but same bui...

For the first time since I started watching football, I am watching the North London Derby with some trepidation. Never did I imagine Spurs being superior opponents to Arsenal, and that too at the Emirates. But here we are, hoping Arsenal beat their nemesis. First 30 minutes are cagey, with each team prodding the other, creating not many high quality chances. One really good chance for Arsenal, as Bellerin fires one into the 6 yard box only for Lacazette to miss the connection from between two Spurs defenders 36th minute, just as I think Arsenal never score first in such games, Mustafi puts the ball in the net for Arsenal! Beautiful cross from Ozil resulting from a freekick. Mustafi with the sweetest of connections, from the penalty spot. Game on, Spurs need to come out and attack, which might just suit Arsenal. My fear hasn’t completely subsided, and if Arsenal concede before half time, I won't be surprised. Mike Dean is one of the most useless referees o...

It is dark outside I have a single candle, Illuminating my path A storm rages, threatening to engulf me. I have to protect the candle, at all costs. I have to brave the storms. How I protect my candle and survive the storm Is what defines me!

T his is about one of the greatest fictional characters of all time, the character who demanded us to think that men are neither black nor white but shades of grey. Played by Alan Rickman in the movies and in my head, this character makes you think, a lot. My own thoughts about the guy were constantly evolving not only as the books released, but also a good decade after the series ended. A really complex character, he was central to one of the greatest love stories ever told. He was born to a Muggle father Tobias Snape and witch mother Eileen Prince in a Muggle neighborhood. The very village where our hero’s mom, Lily Evans was born. He was born poor, and had parents who neglected him. It is quite possible that he was physically and/or mentally abused. His parents were constantly fighting, and his Muggle father did not really like anything magic. He didn’t really have friends back then, not even among muggles it seems. Though he was quite talented magic wise. He bonded with ...

I saw the Arsenal match this past weekend, and just now got out of the trauma. Football is my escape from reality(and boy did I need an escape this weekend) and Arsenal present us this. I can't even call that a performance, maybe a no-show? I am at a glaring loss to find any sort of explanation for this debacle. As soon as I saw the team sheet, I knew we were in for a hiding. Who plays a dreadfully out of form Welbeck over Alexandre Lacazette, who scored 90 seconds into his debut? Or even over Giroud, who offers a threat a defence like Liverpool's always hates? And why play a slow Monreal over a pacy Kolasinac against Liverpool's turbocharged front three? So many questions over team selection. One of the biggest ones, why play Ramsey at all? He has been woeful in midfield, and lacks the discipline to play in a double pivote. Quite how he managed it in the 2013-14 season is a question every Arsenal fan has. The match starts and Liverpool are all over Arsenal,...

Have you ever wanted to go on a trip so desperately? Just get out of the mundane? See incredible sights? Experience something visceral? I wanted to. And my college gang wanted to as well I guess. We planned for a grand trip to the north once before as well, only to abandon it for some lame reason. But not this time. This was it. The planners were on fire, citing places worth visiting. Trekking is a prerequisite in our trips. Somehow most of our group agreed to come and make this an unforgettable trip. So the fun actually started around 10 days before. Conversations from Pune to Bangalore to Hyderabad to Delhi about where to go, what to do, who will make the bus reservations etc. etc. From Kheerganga, we came to Great Himalayan National Park, and then finally settled on Patalsu for trek. What about the other days? Kasol and Manali were the chosen places. Everyone gathers at Delhi, then we leave for Manali, and then return back to Delhi was the plan. What about stuff to buy? I had ...

Organizing my travels has always been a headache. And most of all sharing them with people. Do you find yourself frequently thinking, "Where was this picture taken?" or "How do I share my travels with my family?" Introducing a panacea for your problems, Oleka! Oleka is the brainchild of one of my friends, who goes by the name Prashant Aher. I know this guy from VNIT, and this is a guy who solves problems elegantly. He and his cronies, who are my friends, have designed this wonderful app. Now that I have said enough, it is show time. You might remember I recently went on a trip to Coorg. I shared some of the pics on Oleka. Here they are: The landing page after logging in The Coorg trip that I created. Look at the different places it has tagged the photos under. That is intelligent. A particular photo and a memory attached to it A great UI design to complement the great idea itself. Here is the link for the app...

A state holiday comes on a Friday, and we pass up the opportunity to go somewhere? No chance. After a lot of plan changes, we went to Coorg, one of the smaller hill stations of Karnataka. We meaning, me, Brilliant, Kid, Enigma and Beautiful. Bangalore is so lucky that it has so many hill stations and sightseeing places nearby. The story of Coorg is quite funny. After booking tickets to Bangalore and securing an Innova for 3 days, we had the liberty to choose a destination. Ooty or Coorg? It went down to the wire, and was eventually decided by the non-availability of a state permit. Thus, Coorg became our host for the 3 days. Bangalore, or Bengaluru now, to Coorg is a very beautiful 5 hour drive via Mysore, or Mysuru now. Man, every city is renaming itself, what is up huh? Anyway, we stopped at a restaurant in Mysuru for lunch. I have been to Mysore before, and I still cannot believe how green the city is! Kudos to Mysore, for keeping the city clean and green. A few minutes later,...

Eyes meet Eyes look away. Eyes meet again, Sly smiles appear on both faces. Eyes look away again. What do those smiles mean? No one knows. Is there something happening? No one knows. Will something ever happen? No one knows. Till the next encounter, A pair of eyes long for that pair. My first ever public attempt at poetry :P

The current domain I work in, Web development, isn't one of my favorites. I mean, just rendering HTML pages, and saving and retrieving values from database gets mundane after a while. There are things that you can learn, but I guess there is a limit to it. At least on the backend side. The frontend side is one of the evergreen fields of webdev. If you are a frontend developer, companies will line up for you. Not so much for backend developers. And the most important aspect of your domain should be, in my opinion, that you should be fascinated about it. Every day before going to work, you should be excited about stuff that you are going to tackle. This, which is something I value a lot, isn't really happening for me. I am not saying I am a top web developer, just that it does not fascinate me. I am sure many people can sympathize with me on this one. So what fascinates me? What makes me go crazy about? A short and sweet answer would be ML and analytics. I just look at the ...

Today I am going to write about something that is incredibly difficult for me. I am going to write about some of the things that make me happy, in ways big and small, and in no particular order. This list is definitely incomplete, and I am just listing out as they came into my mind. Happiness is outwitting an opponent in sport(table tennis, badminton) Happiness is watching someone play a shot I encouraged them to, and win the point(table tennis, badminton) Happiness is watching Arsenal win. Happiness is watching Arsene Wenger put on a huge smile on his face. Happiness is watching Arsene's poker face when he toys with the media about transfer targets. Happiness is playing badminton. Happiness is hitting a perfect smash. Happiness is winning a long rally. Happiness is reading Arseblog every afternoon. Happiness is reading Runjhun Noopur's posts every day. Happiness is reading the exploits of Babur, as he set out to become the next Timur. Happines...