Aavarana by S. L. Bhyrappa

Recently I read a Marathi translated version of a novel called 'Aavarana(2007)'. The book has been originally written in Kannada by the bestselling novelist Professor S.L.Bhyrappa and translated in Marathi by Uma Kulkarni. The novel portrays the relationship between Hinduism and Islam - in the past and in the present, with two stories going on a parallel track.

The term 'Aavarana' is used in Vedantic literature to denote that aspect of nescience (Avidya) that obscures all things. It is the 'Avidya' that hides the real truth behind its covers. Prof. SL Bhyrappa chose the same name to his novel because he wanted to highlight the current so called Secular and Social faces in India who are trying to hide the real truth with the help of political support.

The book is very informative as the author has actually referred to many books himself before writing this novel. This list can be found at the end of the book nicely included as a part of the story. The incidents that he has narrated by means of a story are based on these references. The author has made very clear that the relationships between communities should be based on a strong foundation of truth rather than systemic misinformation. To be frank, today's education about the Indian history lacks the truth.

One should definitely read this book and have an introspection about what we have been taught since childhood and what is the actual truth. Certainly, no one should feel against Islam or any other religion, that is not the book's intent as clearly stated by the author. The intent is to understand that no relationship can stand successful if it is not based on a strong foundation of truth. Because truth will never die!

Wah! Guru

Last Sunday, I watched an excellent Marathi drama called 'Wah! Guru'. My favorite actor Dilip Prabhawalkar performed excellent in casting the character of Professor Sapre. The drama is based on Mitch Albom's best-selling novel 'Tuesdays with Morrie - an old man, a young man, and life's greatest lesson'.

It is a story of courage and optimism of Professor Sapre who is diagnosed with the terminal illness of Motor Neuron Disease (MND), a very rare disease due to which the patient loses his muscular control and finally succumbs to it. But Prof. Sapre asks himself - Do I wither up, or do I make the best of my time left?

He makes Death as his final project. Since everyone is going to die, his death can be taught in personal class, that's what he thinks. He starts teaching the bridge between life and death to one of his students by narrating small inspirational stories. And the student actually benefits from his teachings, his positive attitude.

I liked this dialog - 'When you're in bed, you're dead!'
And also this conversation between the student and the professor:-

Student : "Why should we care or think about death now as it approaches towards end of our life ?"
Professor : "My thinking is opposite. The life ends when death approaches us. And hence we need to think of Death every day."

The ebook is available @TuesdaysWithMorrie

So, please watch this wonderful drama or read the book if you haven't already ! Needless to say that my next plan is to read this book ! :-)

Making Gedit look like Textmate for Ubuntu

Textmate is the most popular editor tool available exclusively only for Mac OS. Developers love it due to its simplicity, lightweightness and excellent feature set availability. While working on Ubuntu (11.10 64-bit), we have the default gedit editor available which is also very good. However, if we want to have some Textmate like features with gedit, we can follow these simple steps to make gedit look like Textmate:-

(1) Installing extra gedit plugins :-

$ sudo apt-get install gedit-plugins

(2) Installing Textmate 'Monaco' font

Download from http://www.gringod.com/wp-upload/software/Fonts/Monaco_Linux.ttf and execute below commands:



(3) Installing syntax color scheme darkmate.xml

Download the darkmate.xml file from http://grigio.org/files/darkmate.xml

From gedit, go to Edit -> Preferences -> Font & Colors. Then click Add button and locate the download file(darkmate.xml). Also select the Monaco font.



(4) Activating installed plugins from gedit -> Edit -> Preferences -> Plugins



From this pane,we can enable following plugins as per our requirements :-
-Bracket Completion
-Code Comment
-File Browser Panel
-Snippets
-Word Completion, etc.

With these settings, your gedit now looks like Textmate :-




If you want to avoid the above steps, then we have also another option called Gmate. GMate is a collection of plugins, themes/styles and other improvements to get TextMate-like features in Gedit. The package will add some themes and plugins you can enable/disable from the Gedit preferences. To install GMate in Ubuntu, use the following commands:



In the upcoming posts, we will also try some other text editors available for Linux Ubuntu.

Recording tests with JMeter

We had a requirement of load/performance testing in one of my earlier projects. Instead of using commercial and expensive Silk performer, we gave a try to open source Apache JMeter and it worked really well for the purpose that we were looking for.

The Apache JMeter is an open source software, a 100% pure Java application designed to load test functional behavior and measure performance.

There is an excellent step by step guide available @JMeter proxy Step-by-step for how to record tests with JMeter. The guide explains the steps for creating a test plan with JMeter's proxy. The proxy records the requests sent to the server.

There are different kind of Listeners available for viewing load test results like Aggregate Report, Aggregate Graph, Summary Report, View Results Tree, Monitor Results, etc. Sharing one sample output of Aggregate Report :-



While setting up the load tests, we also need to take care of some config elements for more accurate results like HTTP Cookie Manager, HTTP Authorization Manager,HTTP Cache Manager, HTTP Request Defaults,HTTP Header Manager, etc.

I could not go through all the elements of test plan in depth due to time constraint, but one can go through these documentation links for stepping into more technical details :-

- JMeter User Manual
- Elements of a Test Plan
- Component Reference

Installing VM(with Ubuntu + RVM + Ruby + Rails) on my Windows 7 system

I wanted to give a try on my Windows 7 system to create and run Virtual Machine with Ubuntu OS. As my colleague Manohar rightly pointed out the reason @Ruby on Rails Development Platform in Enterprise behind this, I followed the instructions to install VMWare and Ubuntu on my Windows 7 laptop.

A. Download and Install VMWare Player which is free for personal non-commercial use.

B. Download 64-bit ISO of Ubuntu.

C. Create a New Virtual Machine for Ubuntu 64-bit using VMware Player. The steps are simple. It takes default 512 MB of RAM but I allocated 2 GB of RAM. It took me around 1 and half hour to install all the necessary files for ubuntu. So have a patience!

My host system configuration :-
Processor: Intel Core Dual i5 CPU, RAM: 6GB, 64-bit Operating System, Windows 7 Home Premium

Some issues that I faced and the corresponding resolution :-

(1) With Ubuntu 32-bit(recommended) ISO file download, the VMWare could not identify the 64-bit Ubuntu OS. So I downloaded 64-bit ISO file for Ubuntu 11.10 verison. With this file, the VMWare was able to detect 64-bit Ubuntu OS correctly.

(2) When I went ahead with the installation, I got 2 warnings/errors :-





To run virtualization software and virtual machines, hardware virtualization technology should be enabled. I enabled Virtualization Technology (VT) in motherboard BIOS settings which is disabled by default and then restarted my machine. This resolved my issue and Ubuntu(64-bit) was then successfully installed on my VM.

I followed the steps mentioned @Ubuntu, Ruby, RVM, Rails, and You to install RVM, Ruby 1.9.3, Rails 3.1.3 and mysql2. The steps are self explanatory and straight forward to follow. Thanks to Ryan Bigg for this !

Now I am ready to try out some ruby/rails development on Ubuntu @ my home pc :-)

Snaps from Sudhagad fort

My wife and I recently visited Sudhagad fort near Pali. Sharing few snaps captured from Sudhagad fort. (Sunset view is my favorite! :-)

Tailbaila view from top :-




Sunset view :-








Enjoy the nature beauty ! :-)

Security Check Fever

Terrorist attack is not new to Mumbai, rather I should say to India. After the Mumbai terrorist attack in year 2008 in which around 200 people were openly killed by Pakistani terrorists, the security measure concern was again raised as usual as it has been for every such terrorist attack in past. Security was again made tight in every government as well as private organizations, public places, etc.

However, this Security check Fever unfortunately did not last for long. We Mumbaikars tend to forget things fast as we are so called very busy people tied to the running clock. Thousands of candles were lighted protesting the so called Coward Terrorist Act and our security chain started to become weak once again.

The organization that I work in is India's one of the largest business process outsourcing service organizations. My organization was no exception to this temporary security fever. Initially, the security was made very tight. But since past couple of years, what I have observed is :-

1) Security guards most of the times only pat on the bag/sack to check whether a person is carrying any weighted thing.
2) They just ask people whether you are carrying any laptops/media or not.
3) In one of the office buildings there is no metal detector entrance gate or even no metal detector equipments.
4) The bag is usually not opened properly and checked.
5) The I-card at the very entrance is usually not verified with the person's face carrying the I-card.
6) The decklids of cars are only opened and checked. Security guards don't realize that the things can be carried away or brought inside from inside the car as well. From the bags inside the car or from under the seats for example.
7) Under Car Inspection mirrors are rarely used.
8) Person's shirt/trousers pockets are never checked at all.

I do not want to add more items to this list. The issue is when are we going to learn from History ? After all, the attacker has no different face to identify.
I would not be surprised if any terrorist attack strikes again in any part of Mumbai. And the only responsible people for letting this attack successful would be we, ourselves. So please be cautious and tighten our security measures !
Vande Mataram !

Kashmir photos

I along with my family went to Kashmir tour in the last week of December 2011. The nature beauty truly mesmerized our minds. Sharing some snaps of the paradise on the earth.

Other side of our Indian History

Sharing Last Speech by Nathuram Godse :-

JANUARY 30th, 1949 - The Mahatma was assassinated by a man called Naturam Godse. After he shot him, instead of running away, he stood his ground and surrounded. He said, "No one should think that Gandhi was killed by a madman"

One of the best speeches of All time, which is compared to Socrates's speech in his trial. The Judge was astonished by his speech and commented that if India had followed the Jury system of giving judgments, Godse would have been adjudicated as "Not Guilty" by the Jury, cause after the speech, the whole audience was in tears.

This is the speech given by Nathuram Godse in the court in his last trial for the murder of Mahatma Gandhi.

"Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revere Hindu religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had, therefore, been intensely proud of Hinduism as a whole. As I grew up I developed a tendency to free thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegiance to any isms, political or religious. That is why I worked actively for the eradication of untouchability and the caste system based on birth alone. I openly joined anti-caste movements and maintained that all Hindus were of equal status as to rights, social and religious and should be considered high or low on merit alone and not through the accident of birth in a particular caste or profession. I used publicly to take part in organized anti-caste dinners in which thousands of Hindus, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Chamars and Bhangis participated. We broke the caste rules and dined in the company of each other.

I have read the speeches and writings of Dadabhai Nairoji, Vivekanand, Gokhale, Tilak, along with the books of ancient and modern history of India and some prominent countries like England, France, America and' Russia. Moreover I studied the tenets of Socialism and Marxism. But above all I studied very closely whatever Veer Savarkar and Gandhiji had written and spoken, as to my mind these two ideologies have contributed more to the moulding of the thought and action of the Indian people during the last thirty years or so, than any other single factor has done.

All this reading and thinking led me to believe it was my first duty to serve Hindudom and Hindus both as a patriot and as a world citizen. To secure the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of some thirty crores (300 million) of Hindus would automatically constitute the freedom and the well being of all India, one fifth of human race. This conviction led me naturally to devote myself to the Hindu Sanghtanist ideology and programme, which alone, I came to believe, could win and preserve the national independence of Hindustan, my Motherland, and enable her to render true service to humanity as well.

Since the year 1920, that is, after the demise of Lokamanya Tilak, Gandhiji's influence in the Congress first increased and then became supreme. His activities for public awakening were phenomenal in their intensity and were reinforced by the slogan of truth and non-violence, which he paraded ostentatiously before the country. No sensible or enlightened person could object to those slogans. In fact there is nothing new or original in them. They are implicit in every constitutional public movement. But it is nothing but a mere dream if you imagine that the bulk of mankind is, or can ever become, capable of scrupulous adherence to these lofty principles in its normal life from day to day. In fact, honour, duty and love of one's own kith and kin and country might often compel us to disregard non-violence and to use force. I could never conceive that an armed resistance to an aggression is unjust. I would consider it a religious and moral duty to resist and, if possible, to overpower such an enemy by use of force. [In the Ramayana] Rama killed Ravana in a tumultuous fight and relieved Sita. [In the Mahabharata], Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness; and Arjuna had to fight and slay quite a number of his friends and relations including the revered Bhishma because the latter was on the side of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama, Krishna and Arjuna as guilty of violence, the Mahatma betrayed a total ignorance of the springs of human action.

In more recent history, it was the heroic fight put up by Chhatrapati Shivaji that first checked and eventually destroyed the Muslim tyranny in India. It was absolutely essentially for Shivaji to overpower and kill an aggressive Afzal Khan, failing which he would have lost his own life. In condemning history's towering warriors like Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Guru Gobind Singh as misguided patriots, Gandhiji has merely exposed his self-conceit. He was, paradoxical, as it may appear, a violent pacifist who brought untold calamities on the country in the name of truth and non-violence, while Rana Pratap, Shivaji and the Guru will remain enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen forever for the freedom they brought to them.

The accumulating provocation of thirty-two years, culminating in his last pro-Muslim fast, at last goaded me to the conclusion that the existence of Gandhi should be brought to an end immediately. Gandhi had done very well in South Africa to uphold the rights and well being of the Indian community there. But when he finally returned to India he developed a subjective mentality under which he alone was to be the final judge of what was right or wrong. If the country wanted his leadership, it had to accept his infallibility; if it did not, he would stand aloof from the Congress and carry on his own way. Against such an attitude there can be no halfway house. Either Congress had to surrender its will to his and had to be content with playing second fiddle to all his eccentricity, whimsicality, metaphysics and primitive vision, or it had to carry on without him. He alone was the Judge of everyone and everything; he was the master brain guiding the civil disobedience movement; no other could know the technique of that movement. He alone knew when to begin and when to withdraw it. The movement might succeed or fail, it might bring untold disaster and political reverses but that could make no difference to the Mahatma's infallibility. 'A Satyagrahi can never fail' was his formula for declaring his own infallibility and nobody except himself knew what a Satyagrahi is.

Thus, the Mahatma became the judge and jury in his own cause. These childish insanities and obstinacies, coupled with a most severe austerity of life, ceaseless work and lofty character made Gandhi formidable and irresistible. Many people thought that his politics were irrational but they had either to withdraw from the Congress or place their intelligence at his feet to do with, as he liked. In a position of such absolute irresponsibility Gandhi was guilty of blunder after blunder, failure after failure, disaster after disaster.

Gandhi's pro-Muslim policy is blatantly in his perverse attitude on the question of the national language of India. It is quite obvious that Hindi has the most prior claim to be accepted as the premier language. In the beginning of his career in India, Gandhi gave a great impetus to Hindi but as he found that the Muslims did not like it, he became a champion of what is called Hindustani. Everybody in India knows that there is no language called Hindustani; it has no grammar; it has no vocabulary. It is a mere dialect; it is spoken, but not written. It is a bastard tongue and crossbreed between Hindi and Urdu, and not even the Mahatma's sophistry could make it popular. But in his desire to please the Muslims he insisted that Hindustani alone should be the national language of India. His blind followers, of course, supported him and the so-called hybrid language began to be used. The charm and purity of the Hindi language was to be prostituted to please the Muslims. All his experiments were at the expense of the Hindus.

From August 1946 onwards the private armies of the Muslim League began a massacre of the Hindus. The then Viceroy, Lord Wavell, though distressed at what was happening, would not use his powers under the Government of India Act of 1935 to prevent the rape, murder and arson. The Hindu blood began to flow from Bengal to Karachi with some retaliation by the Hindus. The Interim Government formed in September was sabotaged by its Muslim League members right from its inception, but the more they became disloyal and treasonable to the government of which they were a part, the greater was Gandhi's infatuation for them. Lord Wavell had to resign as he could not bring about a settlement and he was succeeded by Lord Mountbatten. King Log was followed by King Stork.

The Congress, which had boasted of its nationalism and socialism, secretly accepted Pakistan literally at the point of the bayonet and abjectly surrendered to Jinnah. India was vivisected and one-third of the Indian territory became foreign land to us from August 15, 1947. Lord Mountbatten came to be described in Congress circles as the greatest Viceroy and Governor-General this country ever had. The official date for handing over power was fixed for June 30, 1948, but Mountbatten with his ruthless surgery gave us a gift of vivisected India ten months in advance. This is what Gandhi had achieved after thirty years of undisputed dictatorship and this is what Congress party calls 'freedom' and 'peaceful transfer of power'. The Hindu-Muslim unity bubble was finally burst and a theocratic state was established with the consent of Nehru and his crowd and they have called 'freedom won by them with sacrifice' - whose sacrifice? When top leaders of Congress, with the consent of Gandhi, divided and tore the country - which we consider a deity of worship - my mind was filled with direful anger.

One of the conditions imposed by Gandhi for his breaking of the fast unto death related to the mosques in Delhi occupied by the Hindu refugees. But when Hindus in Pakistan were subjected to violent attacks he did not so much as utter a single word to protest and censure the Pakistan Government or the Muslims concerned. Gandhi was shrewd enough to know that while undertaking a fast unto death, had he imposed for its break some condition on the Muslims in Pakistan, there would have been found hardly any Muslims who could have shown some grief if the fast had ended in his death. It was for this reason that he purposely avoided imposing any condition on the Muslims. He was fully aware of from the experience that Jinnah was not at all perturbed or influenced by his fast and the Muslim League hardly attached any value to the inner voice of Gandhi.

Gandhi is being referred to as the Father of the Nation. But if that is so, he had failed his paternal duty inasmuch as he has acted very treacherously to the nation by his consenting to the partitioning of it. I stoutly maintain that Gandhi has failed in his duty. He has proved to be the Father of Pakistan. His inner-voice, his spiritual power and his doctrine of non-violence of which so much is made of, all crumbled before Jinnah's iron will and proved to be powerless.

Briefly speaking, I thought to myself and foresaw I shall be totally ruined, and the only thing I could expect from the people would be nothing but hatred and that I shall have lost all my honour, even more valuable than my life, if I were to kill Gandhiji. But at the same time I felt that the Indian politics in the absence of Gandhiji would surely be proved practical, able to retaliate, and would be powerful with armed forces. No doubt, my own future would be totally ruined, but the nation would be saved from the inroads of Pakistan. People may even call me and dub me as devoid of any sense or foolish, but the nation would be free to follow the course founded on the reason which I consider to be necessary for sound nation-building. After having fully considered the question, I took the final decision in the matter, but I did not speak about it to anyone whatsoever. I took courage in both my hands and I did fire the shots at Gandhiji on 30th January 1948, on the prayer-grounds of Birla House.

I do say that my shots were fired at the person whose policy and action had brought rack and ruin and destruction to millions of Hindus. There was no legal machinery by which such an offender could be brought to book and for this reason I fired those fatal shots.

I bear no ill will towards anyone individually but I do say that I had no respect for the present government owing to their policy, which was unfairly favourable towards the Muslims. But at the same time I could clearly see that the policy was entirely due to the presence of Gandhi. I have to say with great regret that Prime Minister Nehru quite forgets that his preachings and deeds are at times at variances with each other when he talks about India as a secular state in season and out of season, because it is significant to note that Nehru has played a leading role in the establishment of the theocratic state of Pakistan, and his job was made easier by Gandhi's persistent policy of appeasement towards the Muslims.

I now stand before the court to accept the full share of my responsibility for what I have done and the judge would, of course, pass against me such orders of sentence as may be considered proper. But I would like to add that I do not desire any mercy to be shown to me, nor do I wish that anyone else should beg for mercy on my behalf. My confidence about the moral side of my action has not been shaken even by the criticism levelled against it on all sides. I have no doubt that honest writers of history will weigh my act and find the true value thereof some day in future."

Steve Jobs

I recently read one Marathi book - 'Steve Jobs:Ek Zapatlela Tantradnya (A Passionate Technologist)' written by Achyut Godbole and Atul Kahate. It's a brief biography of Steve Jobs - about his passion, life, attitude, innovations, revolutions and dreams.

The authors have referred to some of the books including 'Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography' by Walter Isaacson for writing his biography in brief while touching some important aspects.

I would like to mention one incident which I liked the most from this book. While Steve was viewing one printed circuit board of the earlier apple computer, he found that few circuit lines were not as straight as they should have been. So he immediately asked the engineers to change its design for making it perfect. His thinking was - 'Internal design beauty is as important as external design. We should strive for perfection.'

From his quotes -
'Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service. The iMac is not just the color or translucence or the shape of the shell. The essence of the iMac is to be the finest possible consumer computer in which each element plays together.'

Really a lot of things to learn from him ! Hats off to you Steve !