The gorgious Night Queen

Yesterday night I was very fortunate to meet one of the rarely seen stunning beauty called, ‘The Night Queen’. No, don’t mistake me; I am talking about a flower called 'Night Queen' or 'Brahma Kamala'. I got the luck at my house owner’s residence in Shankarpuram, Bangalore. Before this, I had only heard of it & had never got an opportunity to enjoy the prettiness of this flower. Below are some of the pics taken during this rare occasion. Thanks to Raghu (my roomy) for his good work behind the camera. About Brahma Kamala Brahma Kamala is a divine flower.It gets its name because of the story behind the Lord Brahma’s birth in the Hindu mythology. The Lord Brahma is said to have born from the lotus springing from the Vishnu’s novel. The flowers bloom only once in a year. They start blooming only after the sunset & bloom completely by midnight. They won’t stay alive for a long time; they droop just after few hours from complete blooming.

The myth around 49-O

As whole of the Karnataka state is in the election mood, from past few weeks quite a few mails & blog posts were circulating around the internet informing people to make effective use of the section '49-O of The Conduct of Election rules, 1961' to keep the corrupt politicians away from seat of power. The content of the mail goes like this... "Did you know that there is a system in our constitution, as per the 1969 act, in section “49-O” that a person can go to the polling booth, confirm his identity, get his finger marked and convey the presiding election officer that he doesn’t want to vote anyone! Yes such a feature is available, but obviously these seemingly notorious leaders have never disclosed it. This is called “49-O”. Why should you go and say “I VOTE NOBODY”… because, in a ward, if a candidate wins, say by 123 votes, and that Particular ward has received “49-O” votes more than 123, then that polling will be cancelled and will have to be re-polled. Not only that, but the candidature of the contestants will be removed and they cannot contest the re-polling, since people had already expressed their decision on them. This would bring fear into parties and hence look for genuine candidates for their parties for election. This would change the way; of our whole political system… it is seemingly surprising why the election commission has not revealed such a feature to the public. Please spread this news to as many as you know…Seems to be a wonderful weapon against corrupt parties in India …show your power, expressing your desire not to Vote for anybody, is even more powerful than voting… so don’t missyour chance." At the first sight the whole concept seemed to be brilliant. But, i was bit suspicious about the existence of such an option in the constitution & it compelled me to do more research about it to know the actual fact. After Googling for few hours, i got some food for my thoughts & it helped me to know the truth. Yes, there is a section called 49-O in the constitution which gives us the right for choosing not to vote for anybody. But, it doesn't mention anything about re-election or something else if the 49'o votes are more than the winning votes. So, the second part conveyed in the mail was a total myth. I don't know which 'Mahaanubhaava' was responsible for creating such a fairy story. This is what we can find in the section 49-O of the constitution. "49-O. Elector deciding not to vote.-If an elector, after his electoral roll number has been duly entered in the register of voters in Form-17A and has put his signature or thumb impression thereon as required under sub-rule (1) of rule 49L, decided not to record his vote, a remark to this effect shall be made against the said entry in Form 17A by the presiding officer and the signature or thumb impression of the elector shall be obtained against such remark." The only purpose of this section seems to be to prevent the election fraud or the misuse of votes. So, don’t get fooled if you receive any such hoax mails about 49-O.

Barcamp Bangalore is back with its summer edition

The Barcamp is back in town with it's summer edition Barcamp Bangalore 6 (BCB6). The two day event will be held on 19th & 20th of April 2008 at the premises of Indian Institute Of Management (IIM) Bangalore. More details about the event can be found at its official wiki page. And also you can follow the BCB6 twitter to keep yourself updated with all the latest barcamp activities.

Kannada Bloggers Meet In Bangalore

Pranathi publications has organized a Kannada bloggers meet in Bangalore on Sunday 16th of March. As for as i know this is supposed to be the first in it's kind for the online Kannada writers or bloggers. With the increasing use of Internet & English, there is a greater need for the use of Kannada & other Indian languages in the online world to reach a wider number of geographically dispersed young population & to keep the stream of literature flowing. These kinds of events are sure to help the bloggers to meet & share their thoughts with other like minded people. This in turn can help the bloggers to take their blogs to the next level. I will also be attending this meet with same intention. Though, i don't have a Kannada blog, some of my posts are related to Kannada & Karnataka. Venue : Indian Institute Of World Culture, Basavangudi, Bangalore Date: 16th March 2008 Time: 4 PM BTW, i came to know about this meet from OnebyTwo Mahesh Malnad. Thanks for the info Malnad. Update: The bloggers meet witnessed a pretty good turnout from the Kannada bloggers community in Bangalore. More than 100 bloggers took part in the meet. The event lasted for about 3 hours. There were talks by Pavanaja, Hariprasad Nadig, Abdul Rashid & Shamsunder about the use of Kannada in the Internet and some technical pros & cons associated with it. In particular, Pavanaja's talk on how he started using the Kannada on the net way back in 1996 was very enlightening to the audience. For all don’t knows over here, Dr. Pavanaja is the person behind Vishwakannada.com which is supposed to be the first Kannada portal on the World Wide Web. The organizers from Pranathi gave an estimation that currently there are around 350 active Kannada Blog’s on the net. As I mentioned earlier,the most important part of the meet was networking, which helped the like minded bloggers to get to know each other. Pranathi deserves claps for organizing this meet which was first of its kind for the Bangalore Kannada Bloggers.

Gaalipata - Review

After hearing/reading lot of positive & negative feedbacks about Gaalipata in the media, i finally decided to check out the movie with my friend Harish ( the director in making) on one fine Saturday. Our main challenge was to get the tickets. We started our hunt for the tickets from around 9.30 in the morning. Our intention was to watch the movie in one of the good theatre without paying heavy black bucks. As a result we dropped some of the major theatres like Aparna & Pramodh. PVR & INOX was also out of our list as it was already filled. Then we started enquiring in other major theatres like Vaibhav, Kaveri & Fun but, that was also of no use. To our luck, finally we managed to get 2 tickets in the newly opened Lido multiplex through some third party by around 2.30 for the 3'o clock show. I think Gaalipata is the first movie of director Yograj Bhat released with lot of hype & hope. Even though, his earlier movie created a new record at the box office, there was no hype or expectation when it was released. Hardly few people knew about Yograj Bhat who had earlier directed movies like Mani & Ranga SSLC before venturing into Mungaru Male. I didn’t go to Gaalipata to see another film like Mungaru Male. My only expectation was to see a neat & fresh film. My one line opinion about the movie is 'it exceeded my expectations'. Yograj Bhat has again proved that he is one of the best in the industry. Neat narration, awesome visuals & catchy dialogues makes this film a special & unique one. Yograj Bhat has excelled again both as director & as a writer. He succeeds in smartly presenting the film even with a little story in it. I don’t understand why people expect heavy story with lot of unexpected twists & turns in every film. If you go to this film with such an expectation it is sure to disappoint you. The director has made an honest effort to infuse freshness in every scene of the film. Ganesh has given an outstanding performance. His screen presence & the way he delivers his one liners is simply superb. Digant & Rajesh Krishnan rightly match their roles & have given their best. Daisy Bopanna has given a silent but still effective performance. New comer Bahavana Rao appears lively through out film, but she appears to be very young in front of her pair Rajesh Krishnan. Neethu has given a neat performance & her 'Thoo' dialogues are sure to entertain the audience. All other actors including Ananth Nag have done justice to their roles. Technically, Gaalipata is one of the best made films in the Kannada Film Industry. Credit must go to South India’s top cinematographer Rathnavelu for his excellent work behind Camera. He has made the hills & mountains of Kodachaadri and Kodagu to look even more beautiful through his camera. The choreography is also top class, especially the song 'na dim dim tana' deserves a special mention for its awesome choreography. Music director Harikrishna also excels with some nice tunes. I won’t say Gaalipata is a flawless film but, the freshness it offers in almost every aspect of the film makes us to forget such flaws. On the whole, Gaalipata is a well crafted film & the entire team deserves applauds for its making. I don’t know what made the leading Kannada daily VK to write such a bad article about Gaalipata on the next day of its release in its main page. There is nothing wrong in giving a complete positive or negative opinion about the movie. BTW, Opinions are like ass, everybody has one. But, an individual’s opinion should not be portrayed as a public opinion. There was no need for VK to write a 100% negative review about the film in its main page as if it is a big national disaster. If they think Gaalipata is poor film, its fine. But, why can’t they remember lot of other poorly made blood shed films or 'dubba' remake films like ‘Cheluvina Chittara’ which conveys wrong messages for the society. Why cant they write about them in the main page on the next day of its release?