Satnav setting

'After 300 meters, please turn left'

'After 200 meters please turn left'

'Please turn left, turn left'

My satnav was shouting continuously in ladies voice. Though the voice was quite sweet, I was getting irritated more than ever as it is a familiar road now. I was sure the satnav designer might have kept some option so that it will give me the instruction only once instead of repeating it every minute. After coming home I started searching for all the settings, unfortunately couldn't find the relevant one. Thought I missed something and went back to the settings menu again, and I found the option which I was sure will do the job -  select the male voice.

ಟೆಲಿಫೋನ್ ಗೆಳತಿ

ಮೂಲೆಯಲ್ಲಿರುವ ನನ್ನ ಸೀಟಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಕುಳಿತುಕೊಂಡು ಕಂಪ್ಯೂಟರನ್ನೇ ದಿಟ್ಟಿಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದೆ, ಸುಟ್ಟು ಬಿಡುವ ಹಾಗೆ. 'ಟ್ರಿನ್ ಟ್ರಿನ್ ಟ್ರಿನ್ ಟ್ರಿನ್', ಪಕ್ಕದಲ್ಲಿ ಕುಳಿತ್ತಿದ್ದ ಗಿರೀಶ್ ಫೋನು ಜೋರಾಗಿ ರಿಂಗಾಗುತ್ತ ಇತ್ತು. ಗಿರೀಶ್ ಹಲೋ ಎನ್ನುವಾಗಲೇ ಆ ಕಡೆಯಿಂದ ಇಂಪಾದ ಧ್ವನಿ, ಕಂಪ್ಯೂಟರ್ ಮೇಲಿದ್ದ ನನ್ನ ಸಿಟ್ಟೆಲ್ಲ ಒಮ್ಮೆಲೇ ಕರಗಿ ಹೋಗಿತ್ತು ಆ ಸ್ವರದ ಮಾಧುರ್ಯಕ್ಕೆ. 'ಗುಡ್ ಮಾರ್ನಿಂಗ್ ಸರ್, ದಿಸ್ ಈಸ್ ಪ್ರಿಯಾ ಫ್ರಂ ಎಬಿಎನ್ ಬ್ಯಾಂಕ್' ಎನ್ನುವಂತೆಯೇ ಫೋನೆತ್ತಿ ಕೊಂಡು ಹೊರಗಡೆ ನಡೆದಿದ್ದ ಗಿರೀಶ್. ಲೋನ್ ಬೇಕಿಲ್ಲ ಅಂದರೂ ಕೂಡ ಹದಿನೈದು ನಿಮಿಷಗಳ ಕಾಲ ಪ್ರಿಯಾಳ ಹತ್ತಿರ ಏನೇನೋ ಪ್ರೀತಿಯಿಂದ ಮಾತನಾಡಿ ಬಂದ. ನನಗಂತೂ ಕರಗಿದ ಸಿಟ್ಟೆಲ್ಲ ದುಪ್ಪಟ್ಟಾಗಿ ಬಂದಿತ್ತು. ಸಾಲ ಬೇಕಿಲ್ಲ ಅಂದರೂ ಸಾಲು ಸಾಲಾಗಿ ಗಿರಿಶನಿಗೆ ಕರೆ ಮಾಡುವ ಪ್ರಿಯಾ, ರಮ್ಯ, ಅಮೂಲ್ಯರು ನಿಜವಾಗಲು ಸಾಲ ಬೇಕಿದ್ದ ನನಗೆ ಒಮ್ಮೆಯೂ ಕರೆ ಮಾಡುವ ಪ್ರಯತ್ನ ಮಾಡಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಖುಷಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ತೇಲಾಡುತ್ತ ಬಂದ ಗಿರೀಶನಿಗೂ ಅದನ್ನೇ ಹೇಳಿದೆ, 'ಅಯ್ಯೋ ಅದಕ್ಯಾಕ್ಕೆ ಅಳ್ತೀಯಪ್ಪಾ, ನನಗೂ ಎಲ್ಲರನ್ನು ಮೈಂಟೈನ್ ಮಾಡಕ್ಕಾಗಲ್ಲ, ಇನ್ನು ಮೇಲೆ ಬಂದ ಮೊದಲ ನಂಬರಿಗೆ ನಿನ್ನನ್ನೇ ರೆಫರ್ ಮಾಡ್ತೇನೆ' ಅಂದ. 

ಗಿರೀಶನ ಜೊತೆ ಕಷ್ಟ ಹೇಳಿಕೊಂಡ ಮರುದಿನವೇ ನನ್ನ ಮೊಬೈಲ್ ಟ್ರಿನ್ ಟ್ರಿನ್ ಟ್ರಿನ್ ಅನ್ನ ತೊಡಗಿತ್ತು. ಫೋನೆತ್ತಿದೊಡನೆ ಅತ್ತ ಕಡೆಯಿಂದ ಮಧುರವಾದ ಧ್ವನಿ, 'ಗುಡ್ ಮಾರ್ನಿಂಗ್ ಸರ್, ದಿಸ್ ಇಸ್ ಕಾವ್ಯ ಫ್ರಂ ಎಬಿಎನ್ ಅಮ್ರೋ ಬ್ಯಾಂಕ್. ಆಂ ಐ ಸ್ಪೀಕಿಂಗ್ ಟು ಕಿರಣ್?'. ಫೋನನ್ನು ಬಾಯಿಯ ಹತ್ತಿರ ತಂದು ನಿದಾನವಾಗಿ 'ಎಸ್ ಎಸ್' ಎನ್ನುತ್ತಲೇ ಹೊರಗಡೆ ಓಡಿದೆ. ಸುತ್ತಿ ಬಳಸದೆ ನೇರವಾಗಿ ವಿಷಯಕ್ಕೆ ಬಂದ ಕಾವ್ಯ, ಸಾಲದ ವಿವರಗಳನ್ನು ಕೇಳುತ್ತ ಹೋದಳು. ಸೂತ್ರದ ಬೊಂಬೆಯಂತೆ ಅವಳ ಪ್ರಶ್ನೆಗಳಿಗೆಲ್ಲ ಉತ್ತರ ನೀಡುತ್ತ ನಾನು ಹೋಗಿದ್ದೆ. ನನಗೆ ಬೇಕಿದ್ದ ಮೂರು ಲಕ್ಷಕ್ಕೆ ಬದಲಾಗಿ ನಾಲ್ಕು ಲಕ್ಷ ತೆಗೆದುಕೊಳ್ಳಿ, ಬಡ್ಡಿ ದರ ಕಡಿಮೆ ಇದೆ ಎಂದು ಮೂರ್ ನಾಲ್ಕು ಸಲ ಒತ್ತಾಯದಿಂದ ಹೇಳಿದ್ದು ಬಿಟ್ಟರೆ ಬೇರೆ ಯಾವ ವಿಷಯವನ್ನು ತೆಗೆಯಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಸದ್ಯಕ್ಕೆ ನಾಲ್ಕು ಲಕ್ಷದ ಅಗತ್ಯವಿಲ್ಲ ಎಂದು ಹೇಳೋದು ಬಿಟ್ಟರೆ ಹೇಗೆ ಸಂಭಾಷಣೆ ಮುಂದುವರಿಸುವುದೆಂದೂ ನನಗೂ ತೋಚಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಮೊದಲ ಕರೆ ಐದೇ ನಿಮಿಷಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಮುಗಿಯಿತು. ನನ್ನ ಮೇಲೆ ನನಗೆ ಸಿಟ್ಟು, ಉಳಿದವರೆಲ್ಲ ಸಾಲ ತೆಗೆದುಕೊಳ್ಳದೆ ಗಂಟೆಗಟ್ಟಲೆ ಮಾತನಾಡುವಾಗ ನಾನು ಸಾಲ ತೆಗೆದು ಕೊಳ್ಳುವವ ಐದೇ ನಿಮಿಷದಲ್ಲಿ ಫೋನ್ ಇಟ್ಟೆನಲ್ಲ ಅಂತ. ಅವಳಿಗಾದರೂ ಬೇರೆ ಏನಾದರು ವಿಷಯ ಎತ್ತಿ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಮಾತು ಮುಂದುವರಿಸಬಹುದಿತ್ತಲ್ಲ, ಅಷ್ಟು ಬೇಗ ಸಾಲಕ್ಕೆ ಒಪ್ಪಿಗೆ ಕೊಟ್ಟಿಲ್ಲವ ನಾನು ಅಂತನಿಸುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ಬಹುಶ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಒಳ್ಳೆಯ ಮನೆತನದವಳಿರಬೇಕು, ಸ್ವರ ಕೇಳಿದರೆ ಸುಮ್ಮ ಸುಮ್ಮನೆ ಯಾರ್ಯಾರ ಜೊತೆಗೆ ಮಾತನಾಡುವ ಹುಡುಗಿಯರಂತಿಲ್ಲ ಅಂದು ನನ್ನನ್ನೇ ಸಮಾದಾನಿಸಿಕೊಂಡೆ. ಬಂದ ನಂಬರಿಗೆ ಮತ್ತೊಮ್ಮೆ ಕರೆ ಮಾಡೋಣ ಅನ್ನಿಸಿತು, ಆದರೆ ಹೇಗೆ ಮಾತು ಮುಂದುವರಿಸಬೇಕೆಂದು ಇವಾಗಲೂ ತೋಚುತ್ತಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ನಿದಾನವಾಗಿ ನನ್ನ ಸೀಟಿನತ್ತ ವಾಪಾಸು ಹೋಗಿ ಮತ್ತೆ ಗಿರೀಶನ ಶರಣು ಹೋದೆ. 

ಮರುದಿನ ಮತ್ತೆ ಕಾವ್ಯಳ ಕರೆ ಬಂತು. ನಿನ್ನೆಗಿಂತ ಜಾಸ್ತಿ ದೈರ್ಯವಿತ್ತು ಇಂದು, ಹಾಗೆ ಗಿರೀಶನ ಅನುಭವದ ಸಲಹೆಗಳೂ ಜೊತೆಗಿದ್ದವು. 

'ಸರ್, ಫೋರ್ ಲ್ಯಾಕ್ಸ್ ತಗೊಳ್ಳಿ ಸರ್, ತುಂಬಾ ಕಡಿಮೆ ಇದೆ ಇಂಟರೆಸ್ಟ್'

'ನಂಗೆ ಮೂರೇ ಸಾಕು, ಬೇಕಿದ್ರೆ ಒಂದು ನಿಮ್ಮ ಹೆಸರಲ್ಲಿ ತಗೊಳ್ಳೋಣ' ಅಂದೆ

'ಅಯ್ಯೋ, ಅಷ್ಟೆಲ್ಲ ಸಾಲ ತೀರಿಸೋಕೆ ನನ್ನ ಕೈಲಿ ಆಗಲ್ಲಪ್ಪ'

'ಯಾಕ್ರೀ, ಬೇರೆಯವರಿಗೆ ಅಷ್ಟೊಂದೆಲ್ಲ ಸಾಲ ಕೊಡಿಸ್ತ ಇದ್ದೀರಾ'

'ಇಲ್ಲ ಸರ್, ಇವಾಗಿನ್ನು ನನ್ನ ಕಾಲೇಜೆ ಮುಗಿದಿಲ್ಲ'

'ಸರ್ ಅಂತ ಕರೀಬೆಡ್ರಿ, ಬೈಯ್ತ ಇದ್ದಾಗೆ ಅನ್ಸತ್ತೆ, ಕಿರಣ್ ಅಂತಾನೆ ಕರೀರಿ. ಅಂದ್ ಹಾಗೆ ನೀವು ಇನ್ನು ಓದ್ತಾನೆ ಇದ್ದೀರಾ'?

ಹಾಗೆ ಮಾತಾಡ್ತಾ ಆಡ್ತಾ ಅರ್ಧ ಗಂಟೆ ಆಗಿದ್ದೆ ಗೊತ್ತಾಗಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಗಿರೀಶ್ ಒಳಗಡೆಯಿಂದ ಸನ್ನೆ ಮಾಡಿದಾಗಲೇ ಗೊತ್ತಾಗಿದ್ದುದು, ಮೀಟಿಂಗ್ ಟೈಮ್ ಆಯಿತು ಅಂತ. ಒಲ್ಲದ ಮನಸ್ಸಿಂದ ಕಾವ್ಯಳಿಗೆ ಬೈ ಹೇಳಿದೆ, ಹೇಳಿದಂತೆ ಒಂದೇ ನಿಮಿಷದಲ್ಲಿ ಮೆಸೇಜ್ ಬಂದಿತು, ಅವಳ ಮೊಬೈಲ್ ನಿಂದ. ಎಲ್ಲೋ ಗಾಳಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಹಾರಿದ ಅನುಭವ. ಕಾಲೇಜಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಸಹ ಯಾವ ಹುಡುಗಿಯರೊಂದಿಗು ಮಾತಾಡದ ನಾನು, ಮೊದಲ ಬಾರಿ ಯಾರೋ ಅಪರಿಚಿತ ಹುಡುಗಿಯೊಂದಿಗೆ ಅರ್ಧ ಗಂಟೆ ಮಾತನಾಡಿದ್ದೆ, ಒಂಥರಾ ಬೇರೆ ಲೋಕದಲ್ಲಿ ಸಂಚರಿಸಿದ ಅನುಭವ.

ಸಂಜೆ ರೂಮಿಗೆ ಹೋದೊಡನೆ ಹೊಸ ಅನುಭವವನ್ನ ಎಲ್ಲರ ಜೊತೆ ಮಸ್ಸಾಲೆ ಹಾಕಿ ಹಂಚಿ ಕೊಂಡೆ, ಕಾವ್ಯಳಿಗೆ ಕಳಿಸೋಕೆ ಬೇಕಿದ್ದ ಎಸ್ಸೆಮ್ಮೆಸ್ ಗಳು ಅವರುಗಳು ತಾನೇ ಕಳಿಸಬೇಕು, ನನಗೆ ಕಳಿಸೋಕೆ ಇದು ತನಕ ಯಾರೂ ಸಿಕ್ಕಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಗುಡ್ ನೈಟ್ ಎಸ್ಸೆಮ್ಮೆಸ್ ಕಳಿಸೋದರಲ್ಲಿ ಅಷ್ಟೊಂದು ಕಾತರ ಇರುತ್ತೆಂತ ನನಗಾವಾಗಲೇ ಗೊತ್ತಾಗಿದ್ದುದು. ನನ್ನ ಮೆಸೇಜ್ ಹೋದ ಐದೇ ನಿಮಿಷಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಬಂದಿತ್ತು ಕಾವ್ಯಳ ಉತ್ತರ. ಒಬ್ಬಳು ಹುಡುಗಿ ನನಗೆ ಕಳಸಿದ ಮೊತ್ತ ಮೊದಲ ಮೆಸೇಜ್. ಎಷ್ಟು ಬಾರಿ ಓದಿದರೂ ತ್ರಪ್ತಿಯಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಕಾವ್ಯ ಎಂಬ ಹೆಸರೇ ನನಗೆ ತುಂಬಾ ಕುತೂಹಲ ಹಿಡಿಸಿತ್ತು, ಹೆಸರು ಕೇಳಿದರೆ ನೋಡಲೂ ಕೂಡ ಚೆನ್ನಾಗೆ ಇರುತ್ತಾಳೆ ಅಂತ ಮನಸ್ಸು ಒತ್ತಿ ಒತ್ತಿ ಹೇಳುತ್ತಿತ್ತು.

ಮುಂದಿನ ಮೂರು ದಿನಗಳಲ್ಲೇ ನನ್ನ ಲೋನ್ ವ್ಯವಹಾರವೆಲ್ಲ ಮುಗಿದಿತ್ತು, ಹಾಗೆ ಕಾವ್ಯಳ ಜೊತೆಗಿನ ಹೊಸ ಫೋನ್ ವ್ಯವಹಾರ ಶುರುವಾಗಿತ್ತು. ಪ್ರತಿ ದಿನ ಎರೆಡೆರಡು ಘಂಟೆ ಮಾತಾಡಿದರೂ ಮರುದಿನ ಮತ್ತೆ ಮಾತನಾಡಲಿಕ್ಕೆ ವಿಷಯ ಎಲ್ಲಿಂದ ಬರುತ್ತೆ ಅಂತ ನನಗೆ ಆಶ್ಚರ್ಯವಾಗುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ಹಿಂದೆ ಮನಸೋ ಇಚ್ಛೆ ಗಿರೀಶನಿಗೆ ಬಯ್ಯುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ನಾನು ಈವಾಗ ಅವನ ದಾರಿಯನ್ನೇ ಅನುಸರಿಸೋದು ನೋಡಿ ಆಶ್ಚರ್ಯ ಅನಿಸುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ಎಟುಕದ ದ್ರಾಕ್ಷಿ ಬೇರೆಯವರಿಗೆ ಹುಳಿ ಎಂಬ ಸತ್ಯ ಅರಿವಾಗಿತ್ತು.

ಹತ್ತಿರ ಹತ್ತಿರ ಮೂರು ತಿಂಗಳಾಗಿತ್ತು, ಇನ್ನೂರು ರೂಪಾಯೀ ತುಂಬಿಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ಫೋನಿಗೆ ಸಾವಿರ ರುಪಾಯೀ ತುಂಬಿಸಲು ಶುರು ಮಾಡಿ. ಆದರೂ ಮುಖತಃ ಕಾವ್ಯಳನ್ನು ಭೇಟಿಯಾಗಲು ಆಗೇ ಇರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಎರಡು ಮೂರು ಬಾರಿ ಪ್ರಯತ್ನಿಸಿದಾಗಲೆಲ್ಲ ಏನಾದರು ನೆಪ ಮಾಡಿ ತಪ್ಪಿಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತಿದ್ದಳು. ಒಮ್ಮೊಮ್ಮೆ ನನ್ನಲ್ಲೆಭಯ, ಎಲ್ಲಾದರೂ ನಾನು ಅಂದು ಕೊಂಡಷ್ಟು ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ ಅಂದರೆ ಏನು ಮಾಡೋದು ಅಂತ, ದಿನಾ ಎರೆಡೆರಡು ಘಂಟೆ ಮಾತಾಡುವವರು ಹೇಗೆ 'ಸ್ನೇಹ' ಕಳೆದುಕೊಳ್ಳೋದು ಅಂತ. ಒಮ್ಮೆ ಅವಳಲ್ಲಿ ನೇರವಾಗಿಯೂ ಕೇಳಿದ್ದೆ. ಕೋಪಿಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳದೆ ನಗುತ್ತ ಹೇಳಿದ್ದಳು 'ಒಮ್ಮೆ ನೋಡಿದರೆ, ಪ್ರತಿ ದಿನಾ ಕೂಡ ಬರ್ತೀರಿ, ಅದಕ್ಕೆ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಕಾಯಿಸುತ್ತಾ ಇರೋದು' ಅಂತ. ಆ ದಿನವಂತೂ ರಾತ್ರಿಯೆಲ್ಲ ಅವಳದೇ ಕನಸು, ಬಿಳಿಯ ಬಟ್ಟೆಯಲಿ ಅಪ್ಸರೆಯಂತೆ ನನ್ನ ಸುತ್ತ ಸುತ್ತಾಡಿದಂತೆ.

ಮತ್ತೆ ಕೆಲ ದಿನಗಳು ಹಾಗೆ ಕಳೆದವು. ಪ್ರತಿದಿನದಂತೆ ಮಧ್ಯಾಹ್ನ ಊಟದ ಬಳಿಕ ಕಾವ್ಯಳಿಗೆ ಕರೆ ಮಾಡಿದೆ. ಕಾವ್ಯಳ ಸ್ವರದಲ್ಲಿ ಏನೋ ಸಣ್ಣ ಬದಲಾವಣೆ
'ಕಿರಣ್, ನಾನು ಏನೋ ಕೇಳಿದರೆ ಬೇಜಾರ್ ಮಾಡಲ್ಲ ತಾನೇ'
'ಇಲ್ಲ ಕಣೆ, ಕೇಳು'
'ನನ್ನ ಎಕ್ಷಾಮ್ ಹತ್ತಿರ ಬಂತು, ಹತ್ತು ಸಾವಿರ ಫೀ ಕೊಡಬೇಕು, ಐದುಸಾವಿರ ಒಟ್ಟು ಮಾಡಿದ್ದೇನೆ, ಇನ್ನೈದು ಸಾವಿರ ಆಗ್ತಾ ಇಲ್ಲ, ಐದಾರು ದಿನದಲ್ಲಿ ನನ್ನ ಸಂಬಳ ಬರುತ್ತೆ, ತೀರಿಸಿಬಿಡುತ್ತೇನೆ, ಪ್ಲೀಸ್' ಅಂದಳು.
'ಅರೆ ಐದೇಕೆ, ಹತ್ತು ಕೇಳಿದ್ದರೂ ಕೊಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದೆ', ಕ್ಷಣವೂ ಯೋಚಿಸದೆ ಹೇಳಿದೆ 'ಆದರೆ, ಒಂದು ಕಂಡಿಶನ್ ಮೇಲೆ'

'ತುಂಬಾ ಥ್ಯಾಂಕ್ಸ್ ಕಿರಣ್, ಆದರೆ ಕಂಡಿಶನ್ ಏನು?'

'ಹಣ ಮಾತ್ರ ನಿಮ್ಮ ಕೈಯಲ್ಲೇ ಕೊಡೋದು' 

ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಯೋಚನೆಗಿಟ್ಟುಕೊಂಡಳನ್ನಿಸುತ್ತೆ, ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಹೊತ್ತಿನ ಮೇಲೆ ಹೇಳಿದಳು 'ಆಯಿತು ಕಿರಣ್, ನಾಳೆ ಸಿಗ್ತೀನಿ ನಿಮಗೆ, ನಮ್ಮ ಆಫೀಸ್ ಹತ್ತಿರ 'ನಂದಿನಿ' ಹೋಟೆಲ್ ಇದೆಯಲ್ಲ, ಅಲ್ಲಿ ಬರ್ತೇನೆ ಮಧ್ಯಾಹ್ನ' 

ನನಗೋ ಆಕಾಶ ನಾಲ್ಕೇ ಗೇಣು ಅನಿಸಿತ್ತು.

ಮರುದಿನ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಬೇಗನೆ ಎದ್ದೆ. ಕಾವ್ಯಳ ಭೇಟಿ ಮಧ್ಯಾಹ್ನವಾದರೂ ಕೂಡ ಹೊತ್ತಿಗೆ ಮುಂಚೆಯೇ ಎಚ್ಚರವಾಗಿತ್ತು. ಇರುವುದರಲ್ಲೇ ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿರೋ ಬಟ್ಟೆ ಹಾಕಿಕೊಂಡು ಬೇಗನೆ ಹೊರಟೆ. ಕಂಪ್ಯೂಟರ್ ಮುಂದೆ ಕೂತಿದ್ದರೂ ಕೂಡ ಯೋಚನೆಯೆಲ್ಲ ಮಧ್ಯಾಹ್ನದ ನನ್ನ ಪ್ರಥಮ ಭೇಟಿಯ ಮೇಲೆಯೇ ಇತ್ತು. ನಂದಿನಿ ಹೋಟೆಲ್ ನಮ್ಮ ಕಂಪನಿಯಿಂದ ಬರಿ ಹತ್ತು ನಿಮಿಷದ ದಾರಿ, ಆದರೂ ಕೂಡ ಅರ್ಧ ಘಂಟೆ ಮುಂಚೆಯೇ ಹೊರಟು ಮುಟ್ಟಿದೆ. ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿರೋ ಯಾವ ಹುಡುಗಿ ಬಂದಾಗಲೆಲ್ಲ ಇವಳೇ ಆಗಿರಬಾರದೆ ಕಾವ್ಯ ಎಂದು ಮನಸ್ಸು ಹಂಬಲಿಸುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ಎರಡು ಘಂಟೆಗೆ ಹತ್ತು ನಿಮಿಷವಿರುವಾಗ ಪಕ್ಕದ ಬಸ್ಸು ನಿಲ್ದಾಣದಲ್ಲಿ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಕಂದು ಬಣ್ಣದ ಹುಡುಗಿಯೊಬ್ಬಳು ಬಂದು ನಿಂತದನ್ನು ನೋಡಿದೆ.  ನನ್ನ ಕಾವ್ಯ ಇವಳಾಗದಿರಲಿ ಇವಳಾಗದಿರಲಿ ಅಂತ ಮನಸ್ಸು ಕೂಗುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಆ ಕಡೆ ಈ ಕಡೆ ನೋಡಿ ತನ್ನ ಮೊಬೈಲ್ ಎತ್ತಿ ಯಾರಿಗೋ ಕರೆ ಮಾಡತೊಡಗಿದಳು. ನನ್ನ ದುರಾದ್ರಷ್ಟಕ್ಕೆ ನನ್ನ ಮೊಬೈಲೇ ಕಂಪಿಸ ತೊಡಗಿತ್ತು. ಒಮ್ಮೇಲೆ ಏನೂ ಮಾಡುವುದೆಂದೇ ತೋಚಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಅಲ್ಲಿಂದ ಓಡಿ ಬಿಡೋಣ ಅಂತ ಮನಸ್ಸು ಒತ್ತಿ ಒತ್ತಿ ಹೇಳುತ್ತಿತ್ತು, ಆದರೆ ಕಾಲು ಮನಸ್ಸು ಮಾಡುತ್ತಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಯಾಂತ್ರಿಕವಾಗಿ ಫೋನೆತ್ತಿ ಅವಳ್ಲಿದ್ದಲ್ಲಿಗೆ ನಡೆದೆ, ಒಲ್ಲದ ಕಾಲನ್ನು ಎಳೆಯುತ್ತ. 'ಹಾಯ್, ಅಯ್ ಯಾಮ್ ಕಿರಣ್' ಅಂತ ಪರಿಚಯ ಹೇಳಿದೆ. ಮುಂದೆಲ್ಲ ಅವಳೇ ಮಾತನಾಡಿದಳು, ನನಗೆ ಮಾತನಾಡಲೂ ಏನೂ ಉಳಿದಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಒಲ್ಲದ ಮನಸ್ಸಿನಿಂದ ನನ್ನಲ್ಲಿದ ಐದು ಸಾವಿರ ರುಪಾಯಿಯನ್ನು ಕೊಟ್ಟು ಬಂದೆ.

ವಾಪಾಸ್ ಬಂದವನಿಗೆ ಮುಂದೆ ಹೇಗೆ ಅವಳಿಂದ ತಪ್ಪಿಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವುದೆಂಬುದೆ ದೊಡ್ಡ ಚಿಂತೆಯಾಗಿತ್ತು. ಇಷ್ಟು ದಿನಗಳ ತನಕ ಹಾಳುಮಾಡಿದ ಸಮಯ ಸಾಯಲಿ, ಇನ್ನು ಮುಂದೆಯಾದರೂ ಹೇಗಾದರೂ ಮಾಡಿ ಅವಳೊಂದಿಗೆ ಮಾತನಾಡುವುದು ನಿಲ್ಲಿಸ ಬೇಕೆನಿಸಿತ್ತು. ಆದರೆ ಒಮ್ಮೆಲೇ ಹೇಗೆ ಮಾಡಲಿ, ಈವತ್ತಷ್ಟೇ ದಾನಶೂರನಂತೆ ಐದು ಸಾವಿರ ಕೊಟ್ಟಿದ್ದೆ, ಐದು ದಿನಗಳ ನಂತರ ಅದನ್ನು ವಾಪಸು ತಗೆದುಕೊಳ್ಳಬೇಕಲ್ಲ. ಹಾಗೆಯೇ ಏನೋ ಒಂದು ತರ ಪಾಪಪ್ರಜ್ಞೆ ಕಾಡುತ್ತಿತ್ತು, ಕಾವ್ಯಳಿಗೆ ಮೊಸಮಾಡುತ್ತಿರುವ ನನ್ನ ಬಗ್ಗೆಯೇ ಜಿಗುಪ್ಸೆ ಬರುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ನಾನಾಗಿಯೇ ಅವಳ ಸ್ನೇಹಕ್ಕೆ ಹಾತೊರೆದಿದ್ದೆ ಮೊದಲಿಗೆ, ಅವಳು ಸುಮ್ಮನೆ ನನ್ನ ಸ್ನೇಹಕ್ಕೆ ಸ್ಪಂದಿಸಿದ್ದಳಷ್ಟೇ. ಪ್ರತಿದಿನ ಕೂಡ ಎರೆಡೆರಡು ಘಂಟೆ ಮಾತನಾಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ನಾನು ಅವಳನ್ನು ನೋಡಿದ ನಂತರ ಎರಡು ನಿಮಿಷ ಸಹ ಮೊದಲಿನಂತೆ ಮಾತನಾಡಲು ತಡಪಡಿಸಿದ್ದೆ. ನಾಳೆ ಅವಳು ಕರೆ ಮಾಡಿದಾಗ ಹೇಗೆ ಉತ್ತರಿಸಬೇಕೆಂಬುದೆ ಹೊಳೆಯುತ್ತಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಮೂರು ತಿಂಗಳ ಸೆಳೆತವನ್ನೆಲ್ಲ ಮುಖ ನೋಡಿದ ಮೂರೇ ಸೆಕೆಂಡುಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಕೊಡವಿದ ನನ್ನ ಮೇಲೆಯೇ ಅಸಹ್ಯವಾಗಲು ಶುರುವಾಗಿತ್ತು. ನನ್ನ ಹೊಸ ರೂಪ ನೋಡಿದಾಗ ಅವಳಿಗೆ ಹೇಗನ್ನಿಸಬೇಡ? ಆದರೂ ಕೂಡ ನನ್ನ ನಿರ್ಧಾರ ಅಚಲವಾಗಿತ್ತು, ಆದಷ್ಟು ಬೇಗ ಅವಳ ಸ್ನೇಹ ಕಳೆದುಕೊಳ್ಳಲು ನಿರ್ಧರಿಸಿದ್ದೆ. ಒಂದೇ ಸಲ ಮಾತಾನಾಡುವುದು ನಿಲ್ಲಿಸಿ ತುಂಬಾ ನೋಯಿಸುವುದು ಬೇಡವೆಂದು  ಐದು ನಿಮಿಷ ಮಾತನಾಡಿ ಮುಗಿಸೋಣವೆಂದು ಮರುದಿನ ಕರೆ ಮಾಡಿದೆ, ಆ ಕಡೆಯಿಂದ ಯಾವ ಪ್ರತಿಕ್ರಿಯೆ ಸಹ ಬರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಒಂದು ಘಂಟೆ ಬಿಟ್ಟು ಮತ್ತೆ ಕರೆಮಾಡಿದೆ, ಆಗಲೂ ಸಹ ಯಾವುದೇ ಪ್ರತಿಕ್ರಿಯೆ ಇರಲಿಲ್ಲ ಕಾವ್ಯಳ ಕಡೆಯಿಂದ. ಮರುದಿನ ಇನ್ನೊಮ್ಮೆ ಕರೆ ಮಾಡಿದೆ. ನಿಬ್ಬೆರೆಗಾಗಿ ಮೌನವಾದ ನನ್ನ ಫೋನನ್ನೇ ದಿಟ್ಟಿಸುತ್ತ ನಿಂತೆ. ಯಾರು ಯಾರಿಗೆ ಮೋಸ ಮಾಡಿದರೆನ್ನುವುದೇ ತಿಳಿಯಲಿಲ್ಲ. 

Death of the icon

I was one among the millions who mourned the death of the iconic leader of the technology, Steve Jobs. It was a sad feeling of losing someone whom you have admired a lot, whom you have considered as a symbol of inspiration.

I haven't used many of the Apple products, in fact the only product that I own is iPod classic. Just like the name, it is really a classic product. Other products that I have used is either at a store or from friends who own them. I have always considered them as expensive gadgets not in the easy reach of my  budget. Though I have given Mac look to my Linux Desktop, I haven't used any of the Mac systems. So, it is not that I was a great fan of Steve jobs because I found Apple products as great innovations that changed my life. But simply because of the great image I had about Steve Jobs, just because of the stories I heard about him which created an impression of a great character of him in my mind. I never bothered to verify the authenticity of the story that I have heard about him, I just believed it because I liked it. It was mostly from bits and pieces of information I heard from friends, and few other articles, videos I have seen in the internet. Based on that I had my own version of a story about Steve Jobs life, It's like this.

Steve Jobs was adopted by his parents as his biological mother wasn't able to take care of him. They were quite poor, Steve used to walk 7-8 miles to a hindu temple once in a week to have some good food during his school days. During that time he was attracted towards Hinduism, so came to India in search of Nirvana. When he was in Himalayas, one of the saints told him to go back to his country and find greatness in what he was doing, which is his 'karma' and he can't get his nirvana without fulfilling that. So he went back to US and after some time started his company 'Apple computers'. He made use of some of the extra courses on arts he took during his college days extensively to create stunning products at Apple. Soon the company became a grand success, so he hired a CEO to manage the company. However the same CEO fired him from Apple after some time to stop his grip on the company. After being fired from his own company, Steve started another company named NeXT. After some time he also started one more successful company called PIXAR, which was later bought by Disney. However Apple failed miserably after losing Steve as he was the main pillar of the company. So, they had to acquire his company in-order to bring him back and he was made the CEO of the company again. After this Steve entirely changed the look of the company by bringing in a lot of innovative products like iMAC, iPOD, iPhone etc to change the way people use the technology. During this time, he was diagnosed with one of rarest diseases, pancreas cancer and doctors told him that he will not be living for a long time. For a long time Steve lived as though that was his last day. However the disease was later diagnosed to be something that can be cured and he went through the surgery to win against the cancer. He never cared about money throughout his life and used to get only 1$ per annum as salary for his role of CEO. He often used to walk to office in barefoot and lived like a real saint throughout his life.

That was the Steve I knew before. I am sure when I was watching or using any of the Apple products, it is not just the product itself that I was seeing, it also the brand image of Steve Jobs that was adding more colour to those products. When I was watching the videos of him, it wasn't just the words from him that was inspiring me, it was also the path that he walked that was adding more meaning to his words.

However when Apple started having fights against Google over the smartphone platform, I started questioning the story I believed so far. I was wondering why a great person like Steve would question an open platform. When two people you admire a lot start fighting between each other, it is difficult to take a stand as who is right or wrong. When you like someone, you tend to blindly support him no matter what others talk about him. It takes a lot to change that view. I was very irritated by some of the comments about Steve after his death in some of the articles. I was still on the sides of Steve Jobs till I read more comments about him from others like Richard Stallman. So I thought of knowing little more about the life of Steve Jobs. At that time I got to read one of the lengthy article(18 parts) about Steve's life in theregister.co.uk (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/06/steve_jobs_bio_1/ and http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/10/steve_jobs_bio_2/). I did some more googling based on that and it looked like everything stated in that article was true or close to the truth. Also, it gave some logical answers to the questions I had earlier.

Jobs wasn't a technical person. He was more of a businessman or salesman, so he never really 'invented' any of the products. Rather he was very good at seeing what might sell and putting everything to bring that out to the market. Jobs started Apple along with with his friend Wozniak, who was the technical brain behind early Apple products. Interestingly Jobs had cheated Wozniak earlier of his rightful share, where he used his skills to make some radical improvements to one of the products he was working for. As Apple started growing, Steve started ignoring Wozniak and Wozniak quit the company in protest. During this time, Steve started working on Macintosh, which was originally developed at Xerox. Unfortunately, Macintosh became a big failure due to a lot of issues, but Steve wasn't ready to acknowledge any of his faults to the failure. He also tried to fire Sculley(then head of Apple) from behind, but that backfired and Sculley managed to remove Jobs from the general manager position of Macintosh division. He wasn't fired from the company, only stopped from intervening with the day to day activities at Apple. During this time Jobs managed to convince a team of senior engineers and quietly launched another company called NeXT. When working for NeXT, he bought Pixar which was more of an accident than a strategic move. NeXT didn't make the progress that Jobs was expecting, but neither Apple was able to make any progress without Jobs. So, Apple ended up buying NeXT and Jobs was made the CEO of Apple again. Interestingly, Jobs removed the very person who was the key behind buying NeXT and making him as the CEO. He was also planning to get rid of Pixar as it was struggling to make any progress. Miraculously, Pixar achieved a breakthrough in one of the deals due to some genius people working for it. And that success made Jobs a billionaire in no time. Even in Apple, most of the product design for the iconic iMac, iPod, iPhone etc came from Jonathan Ive, the main design engineer. Jobs was dead against the name of iMac itself initially. Yet the credit for all these products only goes to Steve, not sure how many people even heard about Jonathan Ive. Steve Jobs also had a daughter when he was 23 years, but he refused to acknowledge that he is the father for a long long time. He was also infamous for his autocratic management style and employees were really afraid of him.

Despite all these, Steve had a clear vision of what he wanted and he was able to achieve that. Though he wasn't an engineer, he clearly saw what would sell and what wouldn't. He wasn't afraid of what others thought about him, so just took the decisions that he felt right. As the author wrote in theregister, for every story about a bad Steve, there is an equal and opposite story about the good Steve. An inspiring co-worker, waxing philosophical friend and a devoted family person. Jobs was definitely not a 'good' person, but it is also difficult to frame him as a 'bad' person either. He may not have invented anything, might have taken overly credit for others work, but he saw what people might be interested in, he was able to sell those making them 'iconic'.

After going through these twists, I started thinking about the whole thing again. All the godly attributes that I had attached to Steve Jobs just vanished in no time. He turned out to be just a successful businessman from a great human being in my eyes. Slowly I started to see more greatness in Bill Gates than Steve Jobs. I am not sure whether the Stanford speech that he had given in 2005 would be as inspirational as it was if I knew all these things earlier. I am not sure whether the iPhone will be as shiny as I saw earlier without those godly attributes of Steve Jobs. I felt more sad, lost after reading the article showing the 'bad' Steve than the earlier news of Steve Jobs death itself.

I thought of writing this article after the death of Dennis Ritchie, creator of C programming and major contributor of Unix operating system. Almost no one noticed his death whereas the whole world mourned for Steve Jobs death. Many agree that the contributions of Dennis Ritchie to the computing world is far more commendable compared to that of Steve Jobs. Infact the entire Mac and iOS is based on the Unix operating system, still Ritchie wasn't given the due credit for his contributions.

I have started realizing that almost everything that we have learnt in our history book is overly manipulated, mostly by those in power for their advantage. It is almost difficult to know the history exactly as it happened, but by reading from many different sources with wide opinions, we can get some logical conclusions, at-least for our satisfaction. The more information you collect, more dimensions you will add to the story, often questioning your earlier views, making yourself a fool by believing it blindly earlier. It is like realizing several years later that the match you had enjoyed a lot was actually fixed! There is nothing wrong in making a hero from a normal person, masking all his bad traits and promoting only the good things. It is often helpful in providing an inspirational character for ordinary people to follow. A great personality which can be followed by thousands of ordinary people need to be special, needs to have a clean good image. Because it is often difficult to admire only a part of a personality. We don't admire Ravan for his courage no matter how powerful he was. But if every great personality that we believe in turns out to be an ordinary one, it makes hard to get inspirations from people in future. May be I need to get more matured to find inspirations from ideas rather than the people behind those idea, I need to start admiring a product just based on its qualities rather than the brand name behind it or the greatness of the person behind that product. May be I should partially close my eyes filtering only those things that I like to see. Easier said than done!

ವರ

ಕರಿಯ ಬ್ರಹ್ಮ ದೇವರಿಗಾಗಿ ಘೋರ ತಪಸ್ಸು ಮಾಡಿದ, ಐದು ವರ್ಷಗಳ ತನಕ

ಕರಿಯನ ಸ್ವರ ಕೇಳಿ ಕೇಳಿ ಬೋರಾಗಿ, ರಗಳೆ ಹೋಗಲಿ ಅಂತ ಪ್ರತ್ಯಕ್ಷವಾದ ಬ್ರಹ್ಮದೇವ 

'ಕರಿಯನೆ, ನಿನ್ನ ತಪ್ಪಸ್ಸಿಗೆ ಮೆಚ್ಚಿ ಬಂದಿದ್ದೇನೆ, ಬೇಕಾದ ವರ ಕೇಳು' ಅಂದ, ಸುಳ್ಳು ಸುಳ್ಳೇ

'ದೇವ, ಐದು ವರ್ಷ ಕಷ್ಟ ಪಟ್ಟಿದ್ದೇನೆ, ಕಡಿಮೆಯೆಂದರೆ ಐದಾದರೂ ವರ ಕೊಡು' ಚೌಕಾಶಿ ಶುರು ಮಾಡಿದ ಕರಿಯ

'ಒಂದು ದರ್ಶನಕ್ಕೆ, ಒಂದೇ ವರ, ಜಾಸ್ತಿ ಕೊಟ್ಟರೆ, ಶಕ್ತಿ ಕಡಿಮೆಯಾಗುತ್ತೆ, ಸರಸ್ವತಿ ಬಯ್ತಾಳೆ', ಬ್ರಹ್ಮ ಜೋರು ಮಾಡಿದ

'ಹಂಗಾದ್ರೆ ಒಂದು ನಿಮಿಷ ಕೊಡು', ಕರಿಯ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಯೋಚಿಸ ತೊಡಗಿದ, ಏನು ಕೇಳೋದೆಂದು

ಬ್ರಹ್ಮ ತುಂಬಾ ಖುಷಿಯಾದ, 'ತಥಾಸ್ತು' ಅಂತ ಜಾಗ ಕಾಲಿ ಮಾಡಿದ...

ತಲೆಕೆಟ್ಟು, ಬುದ್ದಿಕಲಿಸ್ತೇನೆ ಬ್ರಹ್ಮನಿಗೆ ಅಂತ ಮತ್ತೆ ತಪಸ್ಸು ಶುರುಮಾಡಿದ ಕರಿಯ, ಈಶ್ವರನಿಗಾಗಿ

ಐದು ವರ್ಷದಿಂದ ಕರಿಯನ ಸ್ವರ ಕೇಳುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ಈಶ್ವರ ಕೂಡ ಬೋರಾಗಿ ಪ್ರ್ಯತ್ಯಕ್ಷವಾದ, ಮೂರು ವರ್ಷಕ್ಕೆ  

'ಕರಿಯ, ನಿನ್ನ ತಪ್ಪಸ್ಸಿಗೆ ಮೆಚ್ಚಿ ಬಂದಿದ್ದೇನೆ, ಬೇಕಾದ ವರ ಕೇಳು', ಅವನೂ ಸುಳ್ಳು ಹೇಳಿದ

'ಪರಮೇಶ್ವರ ನೀನು ಹೋದ ಕೂಡಲೇ ಬ್ರಹ್ಮದೇವ  ಪ್ರತ್ಯಕ್ಷವಾಗಿ ಮೂರು ವರ ಕೊಡುವಂತೆ ಮಾಡು' ಬೇಡಿದ ಕರಿಯ

ಮಜಾ ಮಾಡು ಬ್ರಹ್ಮ ಅಂದು, 'ತಥಾಸ್ತು' ಹೇಳಿದ ಈಶ್ವರ, ಮಾಯವಾದ

ಕರಿಯ ಕಣ್ಣು ತೆಗೆಯುವುದರಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರತ್ಯಕ್ಷ ಬ್ರಹ್ಮ, 'ಕೇಳು ಬಡ್ಡಿ ಮಗನೆ, ಬೇಗ ಮೂರು ವರ' ಸಿಟ್ಟಲ್ಲಿದ್ದ ಬ್ರಹ್ಮ 

'೧. ನನ್ನ ಮ್ಯಾನೇಜರ್ ಕೆಲಸ ಹೋಗುವಂತೆ ಮಾಡು' 

'ತಥಾಸ್ತು' 

'೨. ಮ್ಯಾನೇಜರ್ ಅಕೌಂಟಲ್ಲಿ ಇರುವ ಹಣ ಎಲ್ಲ ನನ್ನ ಅಕೌಂಟ್ ಗೆ ಟ್ರಾನ್ಸ್ ಪರ್ ಮಾಡು'

'ತಥಾಸ್ತು' , ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಖುಷಿಯಾದ ಬ್ರಹ್ಮ, ಜಾಸ್ತಿ ತಲೆ ಇಲ್ಲ ಮಗಂಗೆ ಅಂತ

'೩. ಒಂದು ವರ್ಷವಾದ ಮೇಲೆ ಸಿಕ್ಕಿ ಮತ್ತೆ ಮೂರು ವರ ಕೊಡು' ಕೂಲಾಗಿ ಕೇಳಿದ ಕರಿಯ..

ಬ್ರಹ್ಮ ಪರ ಪರ ತಲೆ ಕೆರೆದು ಕೊಂಡ...

Root of complex PJ

You all might have heard about the complex PJ. If not google for it, you will get something similar to this

Do you want to hear a complex PJ?
Yes !
Ok, Its P + iJ !
Where is the Joke there?
Hehe, it is poor for real, and the joke is imaginary !!!


(for those who have failed in 5th std(?) Maths - complex numbers are represented as p+ij, where p is the real part and j is the imaginary part.)


Now, have you ever wondered who created this or when it was created? I heard this joke first in 1999, March (may be +- 2 months), when preparing for an exam in engineering college. In our first block room number 35, four of us (Dinga, Shrikanth, myself and bootha) are quite (in)famous for cracking PJs. Not sure which exam it was, bootha(his real name is Sunil) suddenly came up with this deadly PJ while we were all seriously studying! After that others were also hammered with this PJ. I still believe bootha hasn't heard this joke before as the use of internet was very limited and I haven't seen him browsing. If you get to know this joke quoted anywhere before 1999, let me know. Till then, Bootha will remain to be the father of complex PJ.


I remembered this while going through an update from one of my colleague recently in google plus, and thought I should share the root of complex PJ with others. That update said 
'All my work is complex! The effort is real, but the results are imaginary!!!'

Photography basics-2

When I bought my first DSLR - Sony A200, I was using it in the auto mode for a long time. I was also making fun of my friend who always keeps his camera in the manual mode and struggles in changing the settings to match the scene. My question was simple, if the camera can find out what is the best setting for a given scene, why bother fiddling with that and waste your time learning what those settings are for? Very soon I realized that I was wrong, but I still don't keep my camera in full manual mode always. There are a lot of places where you just can't go with the default camera settings. For example you want to take the photo of a waterfall showing how the water is flowing. Or you want to take a portrait picture with blurred background sometimes and focussed background some other times. Without knowing the settings, you can't tell your camera how to capture these specific scenarios. So, it becomes essential to know how to use the camera controls rather than leaving the full control to camera and it deciding how the photos should look like.

Every camera has hundreds of settings, I haven't looked at most of them. So I will only try to cover some of the basic concepts that helps in understanding few of them.

1. Sensor - sensitive plate that absorbs the light and transforms it to pixels, equivalent of film in the older camera

2. Exposure - Amount of light allowed to fall on the sensor for a good photo

3. Depth of field - Distance between nearest and the farthest object that is acceptably sharp in the view
4. Aperture - size of the hole in the lens that controls the amount of light entering the sensor
5. Shutter speed - How fast the shutter (placed in-front of the sensor) opens and closes exposing the sensor to light
6. ISO - sensitivity of the sensor

In simple words, the process of taking a photo is to make the light rays of the subject fall on the sensor. The right amount of light that needs to be collected by the sensor is called as exposure. If the subject is exposed too long, the picture looks washed out, also called as over exposed photo. If the subject is exposed too short, the photo looks very dark, called under-exposed photo. If you are able to determine the right amount of light for the subject, the task of taking the right photo is almost done. All cameras generally have a built-in light meter, which determines the right amount of exposure for a given subject. Once the right exposure is determined, that is converted to actual settings by changing the aperture, shutter speed and the ISO. Light meter generally gets the exposure right for all the cases except for very bright and very dark scenes. I am not sure how or on what basis the camera auto mode balances between these three settings to get the right exposure. The balance of these three parameters is very important as they also affect some other parameters affecting the final result. So these three are commonly called as photographic triangle.

Aperture is the hole in the lens that controls the amount of light entering the sensor. A lens marked as 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 has a focal length range of 18mm to 250mm and aperture size of 3.5 at 18mm and 6.3 at 250mm. Aperture is actually expressed as f/aperture. That means, lower the aperture number, higher is the lens opening and more light entering the sensor. Higher the aperture number means lower the hole size and light entering the sensor is also minimal. The number 3.5-6.3 on the lens represents the maximum aperture size for that focal length and can go as low as f/22 or lower based on the lens. Apart from the light, aperture also controls what is called as depth of field, which determines how blur the background(or non focussed) objects will be compared to the subject. While taking the portraits or some specific object, you might want to give the full attention of the viewer to the subject by making all other elements in the view blurred. This can be done by choosing a higher aperture (lower aperture number). Similarly, if you want your photo with a nice background in a famous location, you need large depth of field to keep the foreground, background and your subject focussed in the photo. This needs a small aperture (ie large aperture number in the camera). The depth of field can also be controlled by the focal length. In general, higher focal lengths give shallow depth of field.

Shutter speed determines how long the shutter will be open thereby exposing the sensor to the subject. The longer the shutter is open, more light that enters the sensor exposing the subject longer. If you want to freeze the motion of a subject, you need to keep a smaller shutter speed like 1/2000 or smaller. Bird photography, wild life and sports generally need very small shutter speed. If you need to capture the motion, you need to keep higher shutter speed, like flowing water or waterfall.

ISO is probably more easier to decide, which changes the sensitivity of the sensor to collect the light. Higher the ISO speed,  faster the camera collects light but it also adds more noise to the photograph than the lower speeds. So, it is always better to keep the camera in lower ISO speed when there is enough light and increase it only in tight lighting conditions like indoor or night photography.

So, putting a camera in manual mode is all about deciding the right aperture, shutter speed and ISO for a given scene. Understanding these three helps to determine the best settings for a given scenario. However, you may not have to keep your camera in manual mode always changing all three settings. Instead it would be often easier to keep it in Aperture(A) priority mode and set the aperture, which automatically determines the shutter speed for the right exposure. In general most of the lenses have a sweet spot, generally at around f/8, which is suitable for most of the scenes. You might have to change that when you need to control the depth of field. Similarly, when your aim is to capture the motion or freeze the same, you could keep the camera in shutter priority mode which selects the right aperture. When you are not satisfied with both, you can turn your camera to manual mode.

Photography basics- 1

So far I have been resisting to write this as I don't consider myself to be having enough knowledge to write even a basic article on photography. But then thought there is nothing wrong in putting what I know which might be useful for few people. It will also serve as a note for myself in case I need to refresh it in the future and someone more knowledgeable might correct my mistakes. So, this is more about summarizing what I know about photography from different sources that I have referred.

I consider good photography as having 3 distinct elements.

1. photography equipments

2. photographic mind

3. understanding of post processing tools

The first one is a religious  topic. I can probably find an answer to the 'best language between Java and C++', but I am sure I can't find an answer to 'the best photographic equipment'. There are a lots of camera brands like Canon, Nikon, Sony, Pentax, Leica, Olympus etc. All of them have their own mark in the photography industry. Majority of the camera market is dominated by Canon and Nikon. But the rest of them also have very good cameras and able to play in this market so far with their unique offerings. So instead of talking about the brands, I will try to concentrate on other basic things.

All cameras can be broadly classified under 4 types.

1. Point and shoot or compact camera

2. Entry level DSLR

3. Mid range DSLR and 

4. Pro DSLR

Main difference between a compact camera and DSLR is that you can change the lens in DSLR. DSLR stands for Digital Single Lens Reflex, which basically stands for the working principle of those cameras. The light coming through the lens falls on a mirror which sits just in-front of the sensor(equivalent of old film) and reflects that light upwards(90°), which will be shown via the optical view finder. While taking the photo, that mirror assembly goes upwards exposing the sensor to the light, thereby capturing the image.

DSLR operation (source:chucol)

There is another kind of camera called mirror-less interchangeable lens camera which looks very similar to DSLR, but in a smaller size. This doesn't work like DSLR's, Instead of moving the mirror element they adopt another element which redirects a part of the light to the electronic view finder. They are in between compact camera and DSLR which allows you to change the lens, but lighter in size compared to DSLR. Still, they can be  treated same as DSLR and falls in one of the  three categories. No company has yet announced a Pro mirror less interchangeable camera, but it may not be too long to see one. So here onwards when I say DSLR, its a broad category of cameras which allows you to change the lens.

Entry level and Mid range cameras are mainly differed by its price, features and image quality. Pro DSLR's are more costlier and often has a full frame sensor. Full frame sensor makes the camera equivalent to older film cameras. They give the same angle of view as in a film camera for any lens, whereas most of the other DSLRs uses APS-C sensor which is much smaller compared to the full frame. In general they have a crop factor of 1.6, which means a 10mm lens on a full frame camera is equivalent to 16mm on APS-C sensor camera. In other words, Pro cameras gives you a large angle of view covering a larger area for the same lens compared to other cameras. In compact cameras the sensor size is generally even smaller.

In DSLR world, the lens also has a major weight. Probably it is considered more important than the camera body as they last longer and changes in lens technology is lot less compared to camera body. There are different categories of lenses. 

1. Prime lenses

2. Zoom lenses

This category is made based on the lens focal length. In ordinary language, focal length of a camera decides the angle of view of the subject. Lower the focal length, you get a broader view and higher the focal length your view gets restricted, but the range/magnification(how far you can see) increases. Prime lenses have a fixed focal length where as zoom lenses have a range of focal length. If you are having a zoom lens, you can change the zoom level which changes the focal length internally to change your angle of view or to get a closer view of the subject. But if you have a prime lens, you have to move yourself to achieve the same. So, why buy the primes lenses? Because zoom lenses are harder to make and therefore expensive. Also the sharpness and image quality of a prime lens is always better compared to zoom lens.

The other classification is based on the usage

1. Wide angle lenses

2. Normal zoom lense

3. Telephoto lenses

4. Macro lenses

Wide angle lenses have a focal length range of around 8mm-21mm. Anything lesser than 21mm is considered as wide angle (for APS-C sensor) in general, which is around 35mm for the full frame camera. They are generally used for landscape photography. Another use is in real estate where you have to cover the entire room showing it as having a lot of space to fool the customers. Normal zoom range is between 35mm-105mm, which is generally used for street photography. Telephoto lenses are generally used for wild life photography, bird photography and sports. They generally have a longer range between 105mm-300mm or even higher. Sometimes they are also called as Macro as they provide decent subject magnification and can be used for photographing flowers. Macro lenses are generally prime lenses which provides 1:1 image magnification and allows close focussing of the subjects. They are used for flower, insect photography and also for portrait photography sometimes. 50mm Macro lens is good for flowers but you would need 100mm macro for insects and other moving subjects which needs to be focussed with some distance. Otherwise they might get distracted and move making it difficult to shoot.

Most of the kit lenses come with 18-55mm or little longer than that, which covers a short wide angle and normal zoom range. There are lenses with long zoom range like 18-250. But they are generally considered as inferior image quality compared to lenses having a short zoom range. But it mainly depends upon the lens and may not be true for all the lenses.

Apart from the camera and lens, it is also very important to have a tripod and a cleaning kit. And the addition of an external flash probably completes all the basic needs of an amateur photographer.

Having good equipment is just one part of the photography which you can buy by spending some money. But the more important thing is knowing what to shoot and how to shoot. This is more of an art than understanding the technology. There are a lot of established rules which might simplify the process of knowing how to shoot. But there is one rule above all these rules which says 'there are no rules in  photography'. That needs a pure artistic mind to see things differently than others and capture the same. People have taken photographs even 60 years back which are still considered the best. The technology at that time was no where compared to the current one, but not the photos taken at that time. That suggests, you really don't need a high end camera to take good photos. The photos taken by a DSLR need not be better compared to the one taken from a point and shoot camera. Good equipment definitely adds a lot of weight, but it is not the equipment alone that decides a photo.

Finally, it is very important to give a final touch to the photos you have captured before sharing it with others. In the film camera age, people are more careful before clicking a photo as the camera reel and the development used to cost a lot. Taking a photo with digital camera doesn't cost anything, but the people may not be interested in seeing each and every photo that you have clicked. So it is good to select only those distinct photos, make minor adjustments like cropping unwanted areas, changing the contrast, brightness where required. Adding a border might also make the photos look better. There are a lots of free tools to do these basic editing like picasa, picnic, f-spot etc. If you are looking for advanced editing, photoshop and GIMP are the best options. While photoshop is a paid software, GIMP is a free application available for both windows and Linux. The learning curve for GIMP is said to be high compared to Photoshop, but its free and allows almost everything that is possible using Photoshop.

In my next article I will try to cover what are the main things that you need to know in your camera instead of keeping the camera in auto mode, making your camera decide everything about the photo.

Snowdonia - North Wales

Generally I used to do some research about the places before going for vacation, but this time there wasn’t much time. Also there wasn’t any organized information about things to do at Snowdonia. So, just looked at 2-3 important attractions and took a print out of the same. Picked up Hebbar and Pooja on Friday night itself so as to save some time on Saturday.

Day-1
Unlike my usual routine, got up very very early at 7:00AM and got myself ready by 7:30. As usual others were late and we left our home at 8:00 for a long drive to North Wales. We have booked our rooms in hotel Esplanade at Llandudno, just infront of the beach. The drive was easy on M40 till Bermingham, but after that it was slow due to some accidents in M6. We took the normal motorway route of M40->M6->M56 and then A55 which was quite scenic. We reached our hotel at 2:00PM, the hotel was far below our expectation with all old carpets and cots reminding few hotels at Majestic. The TV was half the size of my laptop! Just consoled ourself saying that is what we can expect for what we have paid 

On first day we wanted to cover the cable car in Llandudno, that was the only thing we have heard about that place. It was quite close to our hotel, so we went there by walk, I wasn’t sure we will get our parking space back if we take our car out. We walked till the cable car only to find that they have closed it due to ‘bad’ weather. The weather was very nice, but it was very windy. The entire place was called Great Orme and the eastern side was called as Happy Valley. It is a listed public park and was dedicated to the town of Llandudno by Lord Mostyn in 1887 in celebration of the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria. The Llandudno pier and beach was a spectacular view from Happy Valley in that weather.

Llandudno Pier and beach

We spent close to an hour there just watching the sea, pier and the beach. As the cable car was closed we decided to climb the hill, the higher we climbed more beautiful the sceneries were.

View from one of the Great Orme points

Wind mills in action

beach view from Great Orme

With some resistance we followed Hebbar to Great Orme summit to see its other end. It gave nice opportunity to shoot some sunset photos, but we decided to comeback next day by car for the full sunset as it was getting late and we still had one hour to climb down.

View from Great Orme

It took close to one hour as expected to climb down and then we went straight to a Bengali restaurant to have some food.

Day-2
We got up early on second day as well and headed to straight to Llanberis to see Snowdon after having not so good breakfast at the hotel. Very close to Snowdon mountain railway, we saw a beautiful spot on the left hand side and stopped there for 30 minutes.

Lake Llyn Peris in Llanberis

After that we rushed to get our tickets for the mountain train, but the tickets were available only for 5:00PM in the evening. We weren’t aware that Snowdon mountain train will be so crowded. Hiking wasn’t an option as it takes more than 7 hours and we also wanted to cover some other places. So we took the tickets for 5:00PM train and headed towards electric mountain which is just 2 minutes walk from there. We bought the 12:00 noon tickets for the electric mountain and waited for our guide while the girls went for window shopping.
The tour started with a 7 minutes video about electric mountain followed by a guided site visit. The electric mountain is the hydro electric plant generating upto 12MW power which can serve the entire Wales. The power is added to the national grid and generally used as an emergency service where the demand is high during the day time. It is quite different from other hydro electric plants because it is a pumped hydro electric plant. There are two reservoirs with a hight difference of nearly 600 meters. The water is pumped to upper reservoir during night time where electricity is cheap and the same water is used to generate the electricity at day time when demand and price is high. The site works at an efficiency of 76% meaning it only generates 76% of the power used to pump the water to upper reservoir. It took a long time for me to understand why do they even do it if it is going to waste the energy. Apparently electricity can not be stored without converting it to some other form! And nuclear and thermal plants only generate electricity at a constant rate and most of the electricity generated at night time is not of much use as the demand is very low during night time. So they sell it at cheap rate during night which is used by these kind of plants. Hebbar suggested an easy idea used by Indians to cut the power for some villages when there is high demand instead of wasting so much energy. Don’t think they really heard him, so you will get to see the plant even when you go there next year.

After the electric mountain visit we had to follow Hebbar again to utilize 2 more hours before going for mountain rail. So we went to a viewpoint around 8 miles from electric mountain where lots of people were hiking. We also followed them for an hour but had to return as we were getting late for the mountain rail. The views from that place were also very nice.

We took the mountain rail at 5:00PM. It took 45 minutes to reach the summit. The views were spectacular till 70% of the peak and after that visibility reduced and the entire place was covered with fog. It reminded me of mullayaanagiri and bababudan giri in chikkamagaluru.

View from Snowdon

We spent 30 minutes in the summit and then took the steam train back to the base.

After that we went back to Llandudno for a marine drive to see the sunset we missed previous day. We reached the point just about the time to see the beautiful sunset.

sunset from great orme marine drive

We went back to our hotel after that and went for another Indian restaurant for dinner.

Day-3
Got up early again on third day and cleared the hotel bills by 8:30AM. After breakfast we headed towards Conwy castle. We reached the castle but couldn’t spend any time as none of us had the change for car parking and there was no one else there except for us. So we went straight to Swallow falls in Betws-y-Coed. After some difficulty with the Satnav, we managed to find the place.

Swallow falls - Betws-y-Coed

The falls wasn’t that crowded, so could spend some nice time there. After that we went back to Betws-y-Coed town to spend one hour exploring the town before heading back to Reading.

On a whole, North Wales was much better than what we initially thought, so will definitely plan to go there again.