Juwal Bose Says

Team trip this year was to be something different as we had Eldhose married and his wife working with us. Hence the long time wish to make a 2 day tour was materialised. This called for a lot of planning and a lot more expenses. Full planning was done and perfectly executed by Eldhose courtesy of his college days when he did all the college tour organisings. Expenses were controlled with some wise decisions by the team. This time things were a bit more complicated as we had 2 offices at 2 different geographical locations. We had estimated 17 people to come and none to drop out as this was a premium event, but alas due to personal reasons many could not make it. Princy and Salini would have really liked to come, but there were more things that demanded their attention, hopefully next time we can have a full team event.

We needed to start at evening to reach mettuppalayam at early morning. Me and Dilip started from Palarivattom office at 8 pm to join the rest of the team for food at Aluva. After dinner we started off around 10 and reached Mettuppalayam at 3.30. We had booked accomodation at Asoka Inn. Every one were sleepy and most started sleeping even when we only had couple of hours to leave the place.

From Ootty Csharks Aug 2010

Day 1

We had arranged breakfast also from there and took off around 6.30 to the railway station. The Nilgiri Express was waiting for us. We had booked tickets earlier (something very wise to do if you wish to really get seats) and only the day before they had got confirmed.

From Ootty Csharks Aug 2010

Here are the details of the train travel. It was a steam powered engine, one of its kind. It was stopped once and restarted so it will be advisable to take this tour before they shuts down again.

From Ootty Csharks Aug 2010

I cannot possibly explain the whole journey where a train snakes through mountains, enters long tunnels, clutches to cliffs and passes over georgeous water falls and coffee estates filling all around it.

From Ootty Csharks Aug 2010

The 2 family got onto one coupe and all the rest were in another. Train had a 4 hour journey to make to reach ootty. It made many stops at different picturesque locals and stations where it also filled the engine with water. We could have photo sessions at these points.

From Ootty Csharks Aug 2010

Some of those stops were extremely beautiful and looked like out of a wallpaper.

From Ootty Csharks Aug 2010

But there were times when after few hours every one got contented and started sleeping off due to the last nights long journey. TA certain station the engine was changed to a diesel one and we continued onto ootty. We reached there to see ootty town covered with mist.

From Ootty Csharks Aug 2010

Suddenly rain started as though to welcome us and we all were terrified if this was the end of all our fun. Some decisions were to be taken fast and we decided to check in at our stay. The traveler was already there and had reached hours before the train. Our stay was at a most picturesque local called green county resort, although not much posh, yet satisfactory.

From Ootty Csharks Aug 2010

Misty mountains topped all around us ans we were all feeling the cold. Family couples were given individual accomodations when bachelors crashed into 2 rooms. After lunch we set off to botanical garden which needs to introduction. We spent a lot of time there even though partial rain try to play spoil sport.

From Ootty Csharks Aug 2010

I hope the couples too had a great time. I felt like the odd one out here LOL.

From Ootty Csharks Aug 2010

If you are interested in flowers and nature then this is your paradise. All kinds of vegetation was there and it was spread for acres.

From Ootty Csharks Aug 2010

We visited the Tea Factory after wards on our way to Dodabetta. That place made us buy some tea powder and home made chocolates for much higher prices than outside and made us late for the dodabetta entry. It had closed at 5 and we decided to call it a day. We had skipped rosegarden as everyone were feeling the cold and wanted to get back to the house. Had couple of beers and food at night and the team were terrified at the idea of a campfire. The cold was really too much for most of them but as the locals had later informed us, it was really low and a god given gift for us.

Woollen covers saved the day for us and we were all shivering while we slept that night. Next up Day 2.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Team from Csharks consisting of Eldhose and me (Juwal) had this wonderful opportunity to attend Indian Game Developer Summit at Bengaluru on Feb 27, 2010.

From IGDS

We reached at the venue close to 9 am in the morning traveling through train from Kochi. Nimhans convention centre was a great venue and many of the attendees were already talking snaps of the place. Registration went smoothly and saltmarch kits were provided which included a laptop bag, brochures, timetable, lunch coupon, notepad and pen.

Going in what caught our attention was the first stall by Adobe. We for pamphlets on the flash platform and Adobe keychains. We were really happy to see Adobe as gold sponsors for the event as our primary development platform was Flash.

From IGDS

We being an online game development company, were focusing to attend many of those informative sessions on online gaming. But there were sessions covering different streams of game development with focus on 3D, social gaming and mobile development.

From IGDS

There were stalls by nVidia, Ubisoft, Playdom, Aiga and more which also included refreshments sponsored by Redbull.

The event started with keynote session by Carl Jones from Crytek. I had played all their games and was a big fan of Crysis. I couldnt hold onto my seats when he demoed the latest CryEngine3.

We had some coffee and snack after that. Meanwhile i had met Yadu rajiv, a veteran open source game developer from Trivandrum and also the team from Chayowo games.

From IGDS

I choose to attend ‘creating successful online games’ by Robin Alter of Kreeda games. He explained the methodology followed at Kreeda for their MMO game about to be released soon.

From IGDS

I missed out the nVidia session which ran in parallel and came to know that they were raffling some nVidia graphics cards to lucky people in the audience. If i was a student at that point, i would have only attended all nVidia sessions LOL.

From IGDS

Next session i chose was by Harish Sivaramakrishnan, tech evangelist at Adobe. His session was on creating, distributing and monetizing flash games. He informed us how easy it was to really deploy iphone games with the new CS5 version of flash. He also let us know more on the Shibuya platform for monetizing flash games on AIR marketplace.

From IGDS

Next session for me was ‘the business of online games’ by Tridib Roy. This was really important session from our perspective as he disclosed lots of statistics and information which we could use for our online game business.

From IGDS

We broke for lunch and had some networking with delegates from other companies. Eldhose had some meetings scheduled with dignitaries from same domain. I took the time to catch up with Harish and the Adobe team at their stall. Met Ramesh, hemant and Vysagh and we talked about some usergroup activities for 2010. The team showed great support for the interest that we had shown for the platform and promised to help us out with the upcoming special events with the Kerala UG.

I happened to see people enjoying 3D gaming in real 3D with goggles at the nVidia stalls.

From IGDS

Next up was a session on Ghajjini, the game made by FxLabs on Torque game engine. We wanted to know more about this as it was an IP from India and an engine for which we had license. Imran khan explained a lot about how they went about the whole project from concept to final marketing. This was an eyeopener in many sense.

From IGDS

Sumit Gupta had this excellent session on ‘preparing for the great indian gaming rush’ which focussed on the need to get started with facebook social games development. He explained why the social gaming arena is ripe for getting started and how all will benefit on the long run.

From IGDS

I wanted to attend Yadu rajivs session on open source development but it coincided with ‘mobile game development’ session by Hemant. Hemant went about demoing the great Adobe Device central and Flash CS5 and showed how easy it was to create an accelerometer controlled game for your mobile device. He also controlled a PC client using a mobile device accelerometer control over a remote socket connection. For someone who understood the implications of the whole thing, it was huge

We had tea in between and got Tshirts and certificates from the counter. Eldhose, me, Yadu and harish hooked up after the sessions and had a great ‘Mallu’ time.

From IGDS

It was yet another of those unforgettable experiences, similar to one we had for Ficci frames. All thanks to the great event by Saltmarch, Wifi by Airtel and the great sponsors. We understood that our choices for the year 2010 were correct and got some solid information regarding online gaming sector. Looking for ward to a bigger event next time.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Thats a funny heading, i know. But then i felt we were all a little bit older and reserved this time around for the team trip. May be it was because of missing Vijesh and the eye sore-ed Rajesh. But then it remains a fact that we all were older and when we saw the gang of college students enjoying under the waterfalls, nostalgia and old memories rushed in. So it was time for another Csharks teamtrip, another year completed for Csharks and a recession year at that too. As the majority didnt want to walk too much as last time it was full of trekking, we decided to keep it simple by visiting Munnar and near by places.
First stop was the inevitable Cheeyappara Kuth, waterfall on the way to Adimali.

From Munnar Trip Csharks Aug 09

It was rainy season and both Valara and Cheeyappara waterfalls looked awesome. We had to pick up princy on the way as we were leaving early morning. My mother was there as a senior security officer for Csharks. Next stop was echo point, which was just an echo of the old spot. No more real echo, but the scenery was breathtaking. There was a confusion whether to go for boating or not, we decided not to. We had a shopping spree around that place and Abhi was eager to get going.

From Munnar Trip Csharks Aug 09

Now it was time for the awesome tea slopes of Munnar. cannot explain their beauty as you just have to see the whole horizon filled with tea plantations.

From Munnar Trip Csharks Aug 09

We had photo sessions around Echo point and in between the tea plantations. The leeches were severe trouble and all were suddenly over conscious. As usual i saw a leach trying to enter my shoes. Shyju got one attached to himself. Kailas came to rescue with a match. The next stop was Topstation. There was an entry fee of Rs15 per person and we got a discount at that place. We could get magnificent views of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. This place actually belonged to Tamil Nadu.

From Munnar Trip Csharks Aug 09

We walked down to the different view points and took some single photos. We also had access to wild oranges and we ravaged the orange tree. We enjoyed the beauty of the place for some time and decided to spent some time and have food at Kundala. Kundala had it all, but also had rain. It was a beautiful place with a dam, boating, a pine forest and horse riding. Initially it was raining and the boats were not being engaged.

From Munnar Trip Csharks Aug 09

We decided to have some food. Breadomlete was the only option available.

From Munnar Trip Csharks Aug 09

After food the rain was gone and team formed groups to go for boating. It was 1 hour row boating and pedal boating. Shyju and Abhi who led the row boat took some time to get used to the thing. They were initially going in circles.

From Munnar Trip Csharks Aug 09

Me and Eldhose went for horse riding based on the excellent negotiating talents of Eldhose. I cant explain how the riding was on such an open forum, but lets say it was an unforgettable experience. I recommend all males try it once.

From Munnar Trip Csharks Aug 09

On the way back we spent some time at Mattupetty dam and had some shooting practice. Some among the team had troubles with their stomach due to untimely food, but then it was sorted out. We had food at a basic restaurant at Adimali on the way back. We were curious of rajesh’s red eye but it turned out not to be a problem. Abhi had a bit of a altitude trouble when on the way back he had a stomach cleaning session.We were back early when compared to the other tours. We dropped princy at her place and got back safe to our office complex.

Other Csharks trip 1
Csharks Trip 2

Popularity: 52% [?]

From Athirappilly Trip

On the way back was a small falls similar to the one on way to adimaly. THis one was bigger and we enjoyed the scenery, took some more photos. Everyone was hungry and we hoped that there will be good hotels down there at athirappilly. We reached the place and immediately looked for hotels and found one with a good view of the falls. We could see the falls at a distance and hear the roar.
We had food, not bad as this time all were hungry. Time for dress changes. As the ladies were
outside we rushed to change dress into burmudas. All were supposed to jump in the water, but none
knew anything abt the chances of that and even no one was certain if they really wanted to jump
in. These were notoriously famous place for accidents in the water. There was a slippery path
leading down to the river. Mom was walking slowly and i accompanied her. Others went ahead and
found a lot of monkeys having a social gathering. Eldhose found that really amusing and he was
clicking away photos. he wanted a more intimate shot of the monkey and he tried reaching closer to
one perched on a chair. The monkey reacted ferociously and eldhose was taken aback. He helplessly cried out “Sorry,..Sorry..” and everyone surrounding went into a fit of laughter. So much for 100 literacy..a Monkey who knew English , or is it another monkey who didnt know that monkeys didnt know English?
Anyways we joied with the gang and we could see the river flowing ahead of us. It was a steep
climb down over the rocks so mom agreed to wait up. There was huge roar of the falls and the sight
on it was breath taking. About half the height was filled with watervapour and mist and tons of
water was falling down with thunderous sound. We enjoyed the sight and clicked some more photos.

The might of nature in full beauty! It was a place with network coverage and people started
getting and making calls. Now where were we supposed to bath? Devraj the guide(well not really)
told that it was another path which led to the bottom of the falls. We all started in that
direction..the climb down was dangerous as it was all slippery due to rain. Mom waited for us on a
bench perched on top of the falls. We went down thru the curves mud road in between the pine
trees. Anupama made abhi accompany her all round the total length of the road when we all cut it
short by climbing straight down thru a more dangerous path. Leter on Anu did make up for it by
climbing this path with us on way back.
The sight that awaited us was heavenly. The atmosphere was full of watervapour and had a heaenly
touch to it. Mist all over and we were drenched in water very soon. We climbed a top the rocks and
proceeded to see the full might of the falls. The sound was tremendous. Every one was delighted and rejuvenated by this unearthly experience. We had an unforgettable time there where we took a lot of photos and enjoyed thoroughly.
One totally rejuvenated team returned up after half an hour. it was time for our return. On the way back we went to drop Anu off at her home (at some place with out electric lines) and reached back at night. Many had small fits of fever and body pain the next day, but all was worth the fun. The spirits were soaring as we closed offices for Onam holidays.

Popularity: 30% [?]

From Athirappilly Trip

Ok..another travel blog and this time to Athirappilly and Vazhachal falls. When we think about tours from our office, they seem colorless and boring – well not for us. We had an unforgettable
experience back there @ athirappilly. We were 11 ppl including my mom who was supposed to take
rest due to chickenginuya, yet forced to come with us to lead our girl gang. Now that i think of
it, there seemed no need for that, thanks to our enthusiastic female couple. The plan was to leave
at 6.30 morning in our remodeled tempo traveller. The driver guy told us that DVD player which he
had bought exclusively for this trip was not working. We had taken the cd for Kalyana raman and
eventually the DVD player did work and we did see the movie. We had planned ahead to take some
fruits and some play items like frizbee and some indoor plaiying sets.Now that i look back we just
carried them with us and never had a chance to even look inside. Although we played the frizbee
for the sake of it at vazhachal parking lot.

FIrst stop was vazhachal. It didnt take much tie to reach the chalakkudy junction and we were very eager to get there that we missed all the good hotels. The only hotel that we coulf find wa sone
outside Dreamworld theme park. I wont repeat that mistake again. We had a mouth splitting Pori. We were all shocked as Anish did order an additional one. Damn , he was really hungry man! oh the
start was bad..although we had some fun on the traveller..the food let it down.
But then we reached the place. Nature in its fury mode. WHite water crushing down thru the rocks.
We could all just stand there and watch it for all day. It was beautiful sight. We walk along the
banks and mom sat on a bench letitng us to roam away. Now it was photo sessions. All had mobiles
with cameras and weere clicking away.. We thought of playing some games that we had bought with
us..but then all were too busy sight seeing. The couples with us were enjoying the sceneries..i
thought may be Sunil had forgotten abt salini as he seemed heavily consumed by the natures beauty.
We wnt up along the banks till the path led and then entered into the delta inside the river. We
sat there for some time chatting and seeing the fishermen trying to make their living. There were
people living on the banks..and they were going about their day to day life. It was time to get
back to the trveller. As we wnt back the child iside us suddenly got released.

The girls started it by getting on the swings. Then the boys followed. THey got on the slide and
the see saw. All were trying to weigh down Anish. ehhmm.. Me along with shiju and shyju went on
the slide and withpout sliding down, ran down.. well i still have all bones intact. When the girs
went away it was the boys time to get on the swings. That was nice time as we were children once
again.

Me and mom went to buy Honey which they claimed to be original and collected from the forests.
Outside all had started playing frizbee. Now it didnt last much as all got tired very soon..so
much for our ages..we are old now na. SO back inside the traveller we had to take one sudden
decision : whether to go to Sholayar Dams or not. The decisin was unanimously taken to go. SO we
started towards sholayar dams. Sholayar is a heavy forest which reminded me of our Mukruthy trip.

All the way there was elephant wastes..but no elephant to see. Suddenyl due to the eerie and scary
atmosphere all felt a little scared. We also started playing Bingo (thanks to Anish for that idea)
Bingo was a instant hit. We had to give 1 rupee to play and got money back if we got lucky. Anish
was the anchor first and on the way back it was shiju who never liked the idea of giving money to
play. ehhmm..

I felt kinda dizzy later on and we stopped the game..i felt the smell of unmistakable 5% alchohl
beverage..anyways. Then all of a sudden the driver stopped the vehicle and to our amazement we saw a huge snake slithering with remendous power..within 2 seconds it crossed the road and was gone. I asked the driver in confirmation of the snake “well that was a huge cobra right?” He replied “Well that not a cobra, but a King Cobra!” Wow a king cobra for real. and in front of us..this was
getting intense. Mom had already started talkingaabt how dangerous the forest really was. After 35
kms of journey thru the think forest we reached the dam. And there was the biggest
dissappointment. The dam was closed to visitors..we needed to take paases from trissur..35 kms and nothing! There was a lone big butterfly and Guards. The butterfly was thier sole companion in the forest. Too bad! We sat down and rested some time and then started back. When near a scenery was stopped and started our food session. Bread with honey! Depp forest and sitting besides the deep falls we ate our food. There was a big deer running across and we had some good time watching it dissappear into the wilderness. Salini spotted some Lion tailed Monkeys on the way back. We had water from one of the numerous springs nearby. I didnt notice it at that time but a leech had got on my arm. later on my way back i noticed it and we all had lessons on how to remove a leech. The dirver simply produced a room freshner and withing few seconds the thing detached itself. The blood didnt stop for some time and i had a cotton onti the wound. All were suddenly tense abt looking about themselves. What if they had a leech on them! The most curious thing abt these are that we wont even know these things are there even when they are sucking our blood. Vicious
things! It was a slow journey back and it was also raining. Everyone was in a mood to sleep..
salini was in look out for an elephant or a leopard. Mom was talking abt real tigers and even
smelling a tiger or an elephant nearby..

The wait was worth it as what was to come was an unforgettable experience.

Popularity: 28% [?]

On way back from angamaly we planned to see the Sankaracharya Stoopam and the Kodanadu Elephant Kraal. The stoopam had an entry fee of 2rs each and e can walk along the spiral staircase which depicted the life and journey of sankaracharya. There were different statues which depicted some important symbols which i could never figure out. On the top there is a big statue of shankaracharya with his disciples and the lords blessing him.From Okkal we took the deviation to kodanadu. It was a 10 km journey in Eldhoses Estillo. The entry pass again was 2 rs each. The attraction there was the small kid elephants and the Elephant cage which is used to train young elephants. They are contained in the cage and trained by professionals. Elephant ride for 4 cost 200 rupees and we were not in the mood.
On the other side there was the river where they bathed the elephants. When we were watching they took the kid elephant sfor a bath. All children and adults alike were amused by the little mammal. When a youg tusker followed ppl went into a small panic as they wll had to make way for the elephant. The Pappan or the elephant driver was explaining that he could get rs 4000 for one day for functions involving elephants.
There was a mini zoo also which had python, crocodile, monkeys, pigeons, peacock, deers and many other species of animals. Some notorious monkey there was famous for stealing mobile hpones from ppl and wreaking those for fun. The caretakers never warned any one and they are known to levy fees to get the stuff back from the monkey. hmm..anyways the monkey didnt attach us. One small monkey was roaming outside the cage and looked very cute.
We stared at the female elephant which was the biggest in the lot. She was showing some wierd facial postures. Then all of a sudden made some sounds and shook the head vigorously. Ppl were alarmed, but it was just something stuck in her mouth. She was trying to get that out. And meanwhile she let us see her bug tongue and the yellow teeth and gigantic mouth.
We rested at the park in the cool tree shades. Children were on the seaswa callin gout numbers of each swing they made. It was my first time there even when i lived close by. We made our way back another way which lead us to kuruppampady. I hope to visit thattekkad some day soon. Birds lagoon is the target.

Popularity: 39% [?]

Popularity: 22% [?]

Jaleel was the one who informed me about this barcamp being help for the first time in Kerala. The decision was instant, even when there was only 2 days to make the schedule and lots of works to complete, we decided to b apart of it. It was the 24Nov sat. The sunday one employee was getting engaged and we had to make that too. SO we just hoped this one to be worth it. The plan was all laid out instantly. Anish will join me and eldhose on the way at kayamkulam at late night 1.20 on the train. We were to get in Egmore Xp. Now on short notice we decided to get some samples of the brochure printed. FOr something to work out we needed emergencies SO by evening 645 we had the final draft of the brochure, all was done perfectly by salini and now it was upto us to get it printed. We never knew what to expect, if we could make the train at 10.30. The designer made an effort to get things movig asap. And by 915 we had 4 brochures with us. The colors seemed different, the different sides were out of match. And we had to compromise on the size. Well it is a sample right.
We got one bus to Aluva and we were not much hopeful about catching the train. Meals were skipped and banans were taken. But the good thing was, the train was late and we got in. Also there was not much rush and we got sitting space in general compartment. As expected anish was no where to be seen at kayamkulam. So we thought he will catch up at tvm. We got out at station at 345 am and got a room at the dormitory. ANish called early morning and he slept at the visitors room at kayamkulam. We got ready at 6.30 and by 7 we started to kazhakkottam.
We reached bhavani building where it was to be held. After enquiring at a lot of places atlast we found the place. One student was standing at the doors of the hall. No one else was there. We decided to have food. All were having stomach problems and sleep hangovers. This better be good. When we reached back, we met some kool guys who were the organisers of the meet. Kenny, renjith, and the gang was working hard to get this done. This being a 0 budget endeavour, was superbly executed. The flaw was that there were not much quality crowd with whom we could share some talk. Majority were students and there was no point making an impression on them. They are the future and they should be making better stuff than us. We were supposing to get a glimpse of Android- the google mobile platform. We talke don it with renjith who was the one supposed to take the seminar. Vishnu took a presentation in game dev in Ruby. We also thought for a while on taking a presentation. But the crowd made us decide against that. At noon we started back, to reach back home at 12 mid night. And to our dissappointment we found the brochure untouched. But what the hell we made the brochure finally.

Popularity: 18% [?]

Popularity: 22% [?]

I was there for barcampkerala3 at cusat campus.

This time around I took a session on Blender software tool. Can ceck the videos of that session here.
I cannot be rash and comment that things doesnot look good or promising, but lets say its like with a startup. It takes a great lot of time and effort for things to really get going. Now we all were of the opinion that barcamp culture in kerala has really come to age. The attendance and quality of craowd really betrayed everything. But then its great to be part of the core team with the vision and the will to persist.

So the different sessions taken were Development in Visual Web Developer by Shalvin P, Programming paradigms by Praseed, Fire bug by Binny, Scrumming with CollabTeam by Abrachan, Blending with Blender by Juwal Bose (me) and Mobile experience with m.mobshare by Vyshnu.

Microsoft had sponsored the T shirts and we spent rs 30 on each as it took some expense to get those across the border. The attendance was not as good as expected and hence the food arranged seemed to be too much. The organisers did a good work making it all taken care off.

There was a filler session taken regarding startups and ideas which seemed to help a lot of people wth some vision to go ahead and make a mark. Two people who really stood out were Praseed Pai and arun basil lal. Praseed with his paradigms class really made everyone think if they are a real programer r not. He had this vast knowledge that he even asked me lots of questions on Blender which was pretty much a boring topic for a techie. Arun on the other hand was the most active attendee with a lot of questions for everyone and with a lot of thought provoking remarks.

As for me I think we really need to rethink the total strategy here. Running around for sponsors, getting the event organised, getting quality crowd present sessions, getting space to arranging the event and when the turnaround is not so heartwarming, we should think another way. Lets make next barcamp an online meetup. We dont need much sponsors, not much running around for space or getting quality crowd travel to places. I dont know much about the technical difficulty if we video cast something which is being viewed by more than say 100 ppl around the state. But then once such a culture kicks off i believe it will be much better to organise and get things going.

Popularity: 10% [?]