Aarthi Ramamurthy

Seeing this picture, I can't help but get reminded of a set of snaps I took a month ago -



When you see a really good macro shot, you never get to find out the effort that went into the photo (just like software, might I say?) - in my case, I had to wait in my garden for three-fourths of an hour one (very) sunny afternoon, waiting for Dragonfly Dearest to settle down on a Tulsi (Holy Basil) plant. And when that finally happened, the wind God decided that it was too easy and brought in some breeze, and Dragonfly Dearest took off again. This took place in rather irritable cycles when finally, there was this one perfect moment and 'click' went my camera.

A couple of weeks ago, I spent a weekend in New Delhi attending Pratibha's wedding - this is the first time I'm attending a Punjabi wedding up close and staying with the family et al (the other Punjabi weddings I've 'attended' usually stops with smiling - wishing the couple - feasting - and getting out of there in an hour or so). And boy, are these weddings grand! There's so much food, talk, singing, dancing and gaiety and SO many people! In a few hours, your mind gives in to the sensory overload and stops reminding you that it's been more than a few hours since you checked your emails.

Pratibha's wedding was a lot different from the South Indian weddings (which I am more accustomed to). The 'wedding' part itself took place a little after midnight and was an event to remember.

I had a whole day left to go sightseeing and so, I got onto a Metro train (which was truly amazing - I've never seen a railway station or a train ever being so clean and orderly in India. The crowd itself, was a different story..) and headed towards Connaught Place - it hadn't changed much since the last time I'd been there (I've lived in N. Delhi for a while and spent a few summer vacations there as well). After buying myself a tripod (for my lovely point n shoot camera) for 200 rupees (and I hear it's dirt cheap) at Palika Bazaar, and ogling at XBox 360s (you never get enough of them!) and PS3s on display there, it was time to get some foooood at Bikanervala at Karol Bagh. For those who don't know me, I have an emotional attachment to this shop - I get hyperactive and excited when I'm in there and I love the food there (duh!).

Anyway, it was time to head back to Hyderabad, just in time to stop mails from spilling out of my inbox!

Update: Removed photos and Flickr link. I put up high-res pictures and they messed up my page, hence no pictures now.

Labels: Delhi

If you already know about Thinkweek papers (submitted by Microsoft employees) read by Bill Gates - you should probably know that Sriram and I had submitted a couple of papers this time around. Now, that's not a big deal - quite a few employees submit these papers.

The big deal is that Bill Gates left a comment on one of our papers, so when Sriram woke me up this morning to tell me this, I fumbled around and got to my laptop and started grinning like an idiot. This is just uber cool! And for once, I don't even need my morning coffee to wake up :)

If you are an MSFT employee, the internal link is here.

Labels: Microsoft