Hurtle.

Hurtle on Google 

Would there be any other way to describe the growth and resulting damage to the environment. 

Here are some things which I wonder if I should be doing more - 

1. Flying less, using a train more, especially for personal travel.

2. Driving less, using the metro more

3. Walking 

4. Eating less meat, wasting less food. (Apparently, 18% of CO2 comes from cows belching. That's a lot of CO2. It is a good thing that Indian's don't eat cows. Another billion of hungry mouths to fee would mean a lot more cows)

5. Eating local (not low cal, but maybe that as well) 

6. Going out less, eating in more

7. Using greener computers and ACs

8. Planting a tree (you can do that here for India and here for the Brazilian rain forests) 

9. Reduce the heating on your water heaters and room heaters by just a notch (don't tell your wife or mum - they will immediately think the water is too cold). During summer, insist on sleeping at 25 degrees with a cotton bedsheet and not at 21 degrees with a quilt. 

10. Shift work times to a slightly earlier time (in India) to get into the office when the traffic is less and the office is cooler. (Why don't more organisations do this is beyond me?)

11. Change your car and your TV less often. 

12. Buy smaller or more fuel efficient cars. Use CFLs.

 

All of these things will save you money. That's something to think about! 

A logical extension of point 1 is that one should not travel abroad for holidays. 

The fantastic arc of instablity (Pakistan, Afghanistan etc) and India's terrain ensure that foreign travel means hopping onto to flight (unless you want to check out the origins of Balti cooking in Dacca). Does that mean all travel should be avoided? I think that travelling inside India is also something we need to do more. Also, when travelling abroad, try to use trains more after maybe the initial flight.

So that's that. 

Blogger top level domains changed

I had an alert from the SEO team today morning - top level domains for some blogs appear to have been changed. I quickly opened up my blog (this one!) and sure enough,  Google has decided to change the URL of my blog from .com to .in.
I resent that, but thats only my opinion. What if I had printed a t-shirt with my blog's URL on it.
Funnily enough, the older url - saurabh-kumar.blogspot.com also returns a 200OK server response, which means that technically, that address also exists. 

This is slightly shady of Google. Matt Cutts has been preaching all along about migrating websites properly and not having the same content on 2 pages and so on. I think that today, my blog exists on two URLs - http://saurabh-kumar.blogspot.com and http://saurabh-kumar.blogspot.in.
I wonder if this has something to do with the IP used to update this blog. What if I now move back to the UK for a few years -will my blog then be on saurabh-kumar.blogspot.co.uk. Will I need to change my blog URL every time I move? Will all my readers (5 of them) need to keep a track of my location before they can read my posts?

Everyday fun.

Mail from Contact Us form on the website:

Name: ********

Email ID: ********.y2k@gmail.com

Telephone: 92********

Message: i want like yatra.com website given details to me as soon as possible.....

Reply sent:

Dear Mr ****,

Thank you for contacting Envigo.

To build  a website as specified by you the design development charges except that for all flight related booking paths will be Rs. *****.

For more details you can contact me on the numbers mentioned below.

We would prefer to communicate with you on your official email id.

Thanks & regards

Next email from ***hotel@gmail.com

Dear Sir Madam

i want full details for Quotation to me...

Reply sent:

Dear Mr Naidu,

As company policy we do not communicate on personal email ids please write to us from your official id and we shall get back with the details.

Thanks & regards

It gets funnier after this. But I will behave like an adult and shut up.

Baba 1922 - 2011

My Baba passed away peacefully on 29 April 2011. He was 89. He had been married for 68 years. He will be missed by his family, which includes his wife, 3 sons, 1 daughter, 12 grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren.
He was a simple man, not a man of big words and grand plans, but a man of simple thoughts and careful action. He was born in Mastichak (Saran dist, Bihar). After he got married and had a daughter, he moved to Chapra, a town which is close by. He left Mastichak because he wanted to ensure the his daughter got a good education. He had four more kids - he was able to educate them well. In Chapra, he built a house. His sons and younger daughter were married off from that house. He retired as deputy Postmaster, Chapra.
He was a man of habit and was a very punctual person. He was straightforward in his dealings. He wanted everyone to keep in touch with him through letters.  He used to write letters full of instructions, questions and news to his family, including me. In his letters to me, he would admonish me for not writing to him, fill me up on news from the entire family and ask me to write back to him quickly. Reading his letters also meant turning the blue piece of paper around a few times, as he would write on all possible surfaces of the letter if he needed to. With his letters, he was able to keep himself informed about his family, which were present far and wide - California, New York, South Carolina, Delhi, Mumbai, Patna and Darbhanga. This was just his direct family - I am sure he had a good idea about a lot of cousins and acquaintances which do not make the list above. 
When he used to come to Delhi, he used to take a bus and go to Chandi Chowk. This he did till he was about 76-77 years of age. He would have a list of things to get for Chapra but would also ask my mother if she needed anything.
He was a dedicated husband, to the point of being irritating to my grandmother. He would take constant care of her - constant really means constant. He would give her her medicines 4 times a day, check on her food and make sure she eats enough vegetables and fruits every day.
He was an amateur homeopath and read up books and kept medicines. I used to pretend to fall down and would promptly get Arnica 100 from him. He also always kept a Hajmola bottle and gave me 2 tablets (never more) every time I asked for it.
As he grew older, he became more careful about his health and that of his wife. He never ate any food which had not been freshly prepared. He would feel very cold and wrap himself up in a bundle of warm clothes at about 20degrees centigrade. On being asked why, he would remind us of his age.
He used to like eating meat (chicken, fish, mutton) but turned vegetarian a few years ago. When he was young, he used to cook his meat himself as his wife was vegetarian and would not cook meat for him.
I had not realised that I would miss him the way I do sometimes. I wish I had spent more time with him when I had the opportunity.