First Hunter completes the Hunt

Nitin.Kallikat becomes the first hunter to complete "The Hunt". So, he gets the 100,000 USD reward. Nitin, hope you received the cheque in your mail :-)

There are more than 80 people who have registered for the hunt. If you are stuck in a particular clue, just drop a comment in The Hunter's Forum and I shall add a hint. There are already many hints added in the forum. Please feel free to send in your suggestions/criticisms also. It will help me improve the Hunt.

Enjoy the Hunt, while I enjoy Dubai!

Deja vu in Dubai

On the two occasions I had been to USA (once each to San Jose and Atlanta), I was left asking the question "Where the hell are the Americans?". Now in Dubai, I am forced to ask the question, "Where the hell are the Arabs?". I know that the city of Dubai survives off immigrants, but this is too much. I didn't come all this way to Dubai to go to "Perumal Pookadai(Flower Shop)" or Ambal hair Saloon, I could have done this back home in Chennai. Wherever one goes in Dubai, you see only Indians. Same was the situation in San Jose or Atlanta. Somebody, please convey this to the census department on India. India is proclaiming happily that we are only 1.2 billion strong, but who is counting the millions of Indians overseas. Here in Dubai, it is yet another India. Everything is the Indian way, except maybe the restrooms!
Look at the following cycle of events:
In the morning, I speak to a Tamil guy in Ponnusamy Restaurant for a home delivery of Idli-Sambhar. Then, I give a call to my in-laws' Mallu Driver to take us to Meena Bazaar to have a look at the famous Rajasthani Textile showroom there. After shopping, we go for lunch to an Andhra Restaurant, Nandinis to have a spicy Andhra meal. After lunch, we wait for a taxi and a Mumbaikar, Rohan comes over in his taxi and drops us off at our next destination, The Shiva Temple. Then, we sign up for a walking tour of Old Dubai and guess what, our guide is from Goa. Oops, I forgot the Big Bus Tour (ya, the same company from London), whose driver was a pucca tamilian and the guide, for a change, a filipino! At the end, I am here typing this in a browsing restaurant, run by a Mallu whose only English I have heard is "halooo sir" in a mallu accent. And, I am supposed to be in Dubai, a city in a country of Arabs! The Indian government should have used Dubai to portray "Unity in Diversity" of Indians!

One of the things on my trip agenda was to dress up like an Arab (that white dress), but all I see here are shops selling Kurtas and Dhotis! Maybe, I gotta go to Saudi Arabia. Maybe, all the Indian immigrants flooded Dubai and forced all the local Arabs to Saudi.

Long Live the Indian proliferation!

Dubai - The City of Dreams

I am impressed! A hot desert in the middle of nowhere and Manhattan has every reason to be worried of this place as its competitor to being the Skyscraper capital of the world. Its construction boom-time in Dubai and these guys don't even think of anything less that few hundred metres tall. Look at some of the ambitious projects to happen in Dubai:

• 64 Residential towers alternating in Black and white called the Chess City
• An underwater hotel called Hydropolis
• UAE's biggest mall called the "mall of Dubai" to be completed in the next 2 years
• The world's Biggest Mall called "Mall of Arabia" , supposed to take 5 days just to walk through the entire mall (to be completed in the next decade)
• The world's tallest building, rumored to be 900 metres tall (The one in Taipei is just 500 metres high). In fact, this building is planned to be "extendable", so that it can always be kept the tallest building in the world.
• Palm World, 300 man-made islands resembling the world map, where you can buy any country you want and be its king/queen
• Dubai Marina, a huge complex of residential skyscrapers on the beach.

Some might dismiss all of the above as castles in the air, but that was what people would have said 20 years back, and look at where Dubai is now. An indoor Ski slope with 8 slopes, 40 Huge Malls, Palm Jumeirah (an island complex resembling the Palm tree), Burj Al Arab (the only 7 star hotel in the world) and much much more. The Dubai Marina, with its semi-constructed towers looks awesome, can't imagine the Beach Skyline once its completed.

Hats off to the rulers of Dubai for being great visionaries. Probably, they epitomise the term "rulers". The Arab locals (only a measly 20% of the inhabitants) have nothing to complain. They get free villas from the government, free electricity and water and have to act as signatories for any non-UAE industry setup in the UAE. This way, they are assured of huge sums of money for just sitting at home , while immigrants from the rest of the world slog to increase the economy of Dubai. Intelligent Economics, i must say !

Well, some theory works in Cyprus

After the Queuing Theory came crashing down in Cyprus, I didn't expect any other scientific or mathematical model to work in Cyprus. Yet again, the Cypriots proved me wrong. Chaos Theory rules in Cyprus. Yesterday, I started from Cyprus for Dubai. I reached the airport at around 4 pm for a 5.30 pm flight.

Ya, this is normal in Cyprus. You don't need to be a day earlier in the airport like in India! There were around 6 flights scheduled for departure in that slot of 2-3 hours. So, it was pretty much logical to have 6 counters and hence 6 queues. But, I had forgotten that Queuing Theory doesn't work in Cyprus. It was Chaos Theory which dominated the scene. Some smart Cyprus Airways official decided that things would speed up if all the 6 counters available catered to all flights rather than one each for a flight. So, it was any queue for any flight or rather any queue for all flights! So, Vidhya and I did our probability and statistical calculation and chose the slowest moving queue.

Half an hour later, after we had moved 1.2 metres forward, another smart cyprus airways official decided that the plan implemented by the other smart Cyprus airways official was getting nowhere and decided to change our queue to one particular flight. It so happened that out of the few dozen people in the queue only 2.5 (2 adults and a kid) belonged to this flight.

So, what happens to the rest of the people?

Chaos theory comes to the rescue. The people in our queue were of the opinion that we should be offered similar positions in other queues whereas people in the other queues, very politely pointed us the way to the end of their queues. Chaos rules !I managed to check-in at 5.25 pm and my flight was supposed to take-off at 5.30 pm. Finally, the situation became like the bus stands back home with the officials yelling out for each flight and people pushing their way through the queues with their trolleys. Even after all this, we managed to take-off at 6.30 pm, a mere one hour late. Hail Europe!

What a start to the Dubai Trip ...

No, I didn't visit the 7-star hotel,
No, I didn't go for a camel ride in the desert,
No, I didn't ride a quad-bike on the sand dunes,
No, I didn't do sand-skiing,
No, I didn't go for the famous Night Safari in the desert ..
So, what did i do ???
I had Sambhar Idli and Sambhar Vada in a South Indian restaurant! Heavenly ! The taste of True South Indian "Hotel" Sambhar beats all the pleasures on earth. Within 5 minutes walking distance of my in-laws house in Dubai are the following: Saravana Bhavan, Annapoorna, a Karnataka-style restaurant, Madras Cafe, Aapa kadai restaurant and some other south Indian restaurants with unpronounceable names.

Looks like my Dubai trip is to going to be gastronomically very enriching!

Almost Full

This is my entry for the PhotoFriday contest this week under the category "Full". Actually, I had another idea. When I was making coffee today morning, i had the idea of taking the snap of the boiling milk almost spilling out of the pan. But, i didn't manage to get an approval from my wife!

Off to Dubai !

for a 10-day vacation. It is Easter Season here in Cyprus and if i take 3 days off next week, I can get a total of 10 days vacation. Last Easter, I went to London. This time, it is dubai. Hopefully, the trip to Dubai will start off my travel section. I plan to post a complete travelogue of my trip, once I am back. Of course, I shall be checking on the progress of The Hunt from Dubai to provide hints to people asking for the same. The Hunter's forum can also be frequently checked for any hints. Last year, I had planned the trip to London in a much better way with a proper itinerary for the six days i spent there. This time, I have just created an excel with the things to do/places to see without a proper schedule. Moreover, my in-laws live in Dubai. So, any planning to be done needs to be done in consultation with them, rather than assuming that they would be interested in sand-skiing!

I just realised that, in order for me to continue updating my blog/checking mails, I had to reset almost all my passwords, since they worked through cookies on my local PC and I had forgotten most of the passwords!

Next post from Dubai, hopefully !

$100,000 reward for completing "The Hunt"

If you believed the title, then better undo it right now. The only prize you shall get after completing The Hunt, I hope, is your satisfaction of having solved so many different puzzles. The Hunt has been fully uploaded now, all the 35 levels. There are more than 60 people attempting the hunt now and I hope, many don't give up in the early levels, as the start of stage 2 is much easier. Of course, you can always visit The Hunter's Forum for any help on the clues. I have already put in many clarifications there. All the best !

Failure of queuing Theory in Cyprus

If you have done a graduation in any discipline, you should have encountered the basics of OR (Operations Research) which would have definitely included a lesson on queuing Theory. The most basic Queue which one can encounter is the Single Line - Single Servicing Entity Queue. For the layman, this means that there is a single queue which is serviced by a single servicing entity and the people in the queue go to the servicing entity one by one. This can also be called the FIFO Queue (First in First out). This is the practice in most places like post offices, banks etc. Of course, you have the slightly different variant, wherein you have a single queue, but multiple servicing entities, where the efficiency of each servicing entity comes into the equation.

Now, back to my experience. Today morning, I went to the Income Tax office to meet our assigned Tax Officer to file the returns. I went at 9 AM. If i had gone in at 9AM, my conversation should have been like:

Me: Hi, I came two days back. You asked me to come today to collect my documents.

She: What is your name?

Me: rajaram.

She:Here it is.

Me: Thank you. Bye

She: Bye.

Probably, it would have taken 43 seconds and I would have been in office on time.

But at 9AM, there was another person inside the office and hence, I had to wait outside.

After a few minutes, a Britisher came and joined me in the queue. This was, or rather supposed to be, a straight-forward FIFO Queue.

It was 9.15 AM now and I was already getting impatient.

Out of nowhere came an elderly Cypriot Gentleman and peeped inside the office. Then we heard a shrieking voice "Manamoooo" (Pronouned like Cho Chweeeeet). And this Cypriot guy went inside the office. The Britisher and I exchanged strange looks.

I consoled myself by saying that he was let in because he was old.

15 minutes passed by.

Then came a sparsely dressed Cypriot Girl, who also peeped into the office. Then we heard the same voice again "Manamoooooo". She also went it. She had a big folder in her hands (looked like an agent).

The britisher was visibly upset. He asked me "Shall i also peep inside and shout Manamooo". I told him that the lady inside would probably discover him to be a fake, with his accent. The girl inside took out a piece of cake and both started eating it and discussing all the worldly affairs. Another 15 mins passed by. Then, she took out a huge bundle of tax forms from her folder. The Britisher almost fainted.

Finally, at 10 Am, it was my turn to go inside.

The Britisher, with a very concerned face, asked me "Are you also going to do this manamooo thing? "

Grand Opening of the Gallery

Finally, I have posted some pictures to the gallery. So, the gallery is officially open! The first pictures to be posted are the ones from my London Trip, last Easter. The pictures on the main page are compressed ones, but good enough for the details to be seen. On clicking, a bigger picture (less than 50KB) would open up in a new window.

Since I am putting up the London pics first, I had invited Prince Charles and his two sons for the opening ceremony. I wanted Prince Charles to press the "Publish Post" for officially opening the gallery. Unfortunately, on the way to the Heathrow airport, they were caught in a traffic jam caused by paparazzis, who also wanted to tag along after they came to know the importance of the occasion. Anyway, its their bad luck that they missed out.

You can expect regular postings to the gallery. Sometime, in the near future, the travel and the Photography Tips & Tricks section would be cross-linked to the gallery section. So, enjoy the London Photos at the gallery.

The Hunt is on

The Hunt is finally online. There are 26 puzzles uploaded as on today and around 22 people are attempting it. In fact, one of them(Harish) has completed stage 1 (10 puzzles). Don't expect the usual kind of puzzles i.e. the kind which appear in the aptitude tests of IT companies. I cannot classify these kind of puzzles. Each of them is different in a different way! Go ahead, try The Hunt.

There is also a forum where all queries related to The Hunt can be addressed. Use this for any doubts, questions you have regarding the puzzles. Please don't post spoilers/answers to the puzzles here.

Chaotic or organised ?

Posting this for PhotoFriday for the category "Organised" ! It may look chaotic for our eyes, but I am sure that these pigeons must be commuicating to each other, charting out the flight plan :-)
Photo taken at the Kyrenia Harbour, North Cyprus.

Curvy Metal

Curvy
Originally uploaded by Rajaram S.

This is my first entry for "Photo Friday" and hopefully not my last :-).
This photo was taken on the Tower Bridge in London.

Bappi Lahiri - The Sexiest Indian Alive

In a recent worldwide poll conducted in India by www.poll420.com, Bappi Lahiri has come triumphant in the following categories

• Sexiest Indian Alive
• Best Indian in Bed

The poll was conducted online with the main audience being girls aged between 18-25. Bappi was voted "The Best Indian in Bed" by almost 62.2% of the voters with Adnan Sami coming a distant second with 21 % of the votes (Adnan got a good score, because many of the voters misunderstood the title "Best Indian in Bed" as "Best Indian who can be used instead of a bed").

So, why was Bappi the best? What is is that he has, that makes him the best? We contacted many of the voters to find out. The investigations revealed that we were scratching just the tip of a much deeper problem. Most Indian men, many presumed, were the "Wham, Bham, Thank you ma'am" type. If so, shouldn't Bappi also be the same? It seems not.

Bappi was said to have the longest ever foreplay for an Indian ever! Now, that's quite an achievement. We had to sweet-talk many of the voters to reveal more details. It seems that the secret behind Bappi's foreplay was his style of dressing. As he wears an enormous amount of jewelry on him, the time taken for him to undress (including the time it takes to remove so much jewelry) is so much, that the girls include this in foreplay and find it very arousing!!

No wonder that, after this poll, Indian Men are turning to Bappi as their fashion Icon.