Ramakrishna Viloma Kaavyam - A rare palindromic sanskrit Composition

रामकृष्णविलोमाकाव्यं - A rare palindromic poetry.
Sanskrit is famous for certain specialities, one of them being the Palindrome. One of them which immediately comes to mind is "विकटकवि".
This poetic composition, which was written by the scholar Dyvagyna Surya Pandita in the 14th Century, is a marvelous example of palindromic verses. It also has another speciality - This set of poems, when read forward relate to Rama and the Ramayana, and when read in reverse relate to Krishna and the Mahabharata. I have shown the first two stanzas of the poem below for a glimpse of this wonderful work.

You may download the entire document here.

Sanskrit provides us a plethora of such extraordinary compositions. I would be grateful if anyone can find explanatory notes to this poem.

भवदीयः अजेयः

NDE in IISc, saved by the Truck driver

I am now one week old at IISc. I have almost discovered all the "Marg"s of the institute. I am not yet formally a student of IISc. But this incident is nowhere connected to IISc except for the fact that it happened in IISc and I was a part of it. It could have happened at any place with a canopy of trees.
Karnataka just avoided being called a drought affected state due to the last week rains. Good. Detour to IISc Gulmohar Marg. I and Srikanth Pai(Spai) were walking to the Refresher course class, just after lunch on 28th july. We were near the ECE dept. on the Gulmohar marg. Just then a truck stopped and asked us directions to some obscure place at IISc. I am just a one week old kid there and did not know where the place is. The truck left and as we moved forward, a big branch of the tree fell right in front of us, around 10 m ahead. The branch fell on a TVS rider who somehow retained his balance and escaped unhurt. If there was no Truck driver and him asking us directions, I and Spai would have a been in a bad state. All's well that ends well. This gets filed into the list of NDE's experienced by me. In passing, I just remembered the NDEs of Kodachadri and the likes which were much more powerful than this.
Two conclusions (and many more implicit)-
-> Helmet rule is not for making money out of fine collected by the Police
-> On a rainy day, be careful walking/driving on a road covered by a canopy of trees
Safe and sound,
Ajay

CQ CQ CQ DE VU3TZI - The story of how I became a HAM

(Disclaimer: A very long story - read only if you are patient enough)
This is a chronology of events which finally end in me getting a HAM Radio Station Operator's License

April 2002 : I heard of HAM radio for the first time. I had built a small AM transmitter as a part of Summer School in Electronics 2002 in IETE Bangalore. I was in Class X. We had displayed all our circuits in a exhibition at the end of the summer camp. One of the visitors looked at my circuit and wrote in my suggestion book - "Good circuit. Hope you setup your own radio station. You should become a HAM". This triggered my curiosity. I had never heard of anything like this before. I asked a few people who were almost as ignorant as me, but got a very hazy idea of HAM radio as it being a hobby and needs a license before you can do anything in it. It was the time when I was literally "breathing" electronics. I tried to pursue the hobby part without worrying about the license part. I could not get much information, neither any help on this. Then came PUC, which is the time when everyone is so time consciously busy preparing for Board, CET, JEE and AIEEE, when even a extra minute of sleep is considered a waste of time, I had no chance to get HAM on my mind.

August 2005: At NITK, second year in ECE, I heard from seniors that there is a dormant HAM radio club in the institute. Cool! I went to Prof. Sumam David and asked her about it. She told me that ECE dept has nothing to do with HAM Radio club in NITK and it was being handled by Prof. Gangadharan of Mech. Dept. and incidentally he was out of Institute for his Ph.D. Hence the HAM radio club was non-existent then.

February 2006: Fourth Semester. ENGINEER 2006 hosted a Fox Hunt with the help of Dr. Sripati and Srikanth Bhat from Manipal. Mr Hegde, the veteran HAM enthusiast even at 60+ years of age was also there. We had absolutely no idea of what a "Fox" is, let alone how a Fox hunt is held. But I was very much excited. We had the same HHH(TM) team - Me, Sharanu and VK. Akella came in later - four in all. We had an antenna building workshop before the event. In the event, we built a 3 element YAGI for VHF range 144-146 MHz. The commercial citizen band receiver(88-108 MHz) was tweaked to receive 144 MHz. We were totally unprepared for the event. But We Won! This gave us the boost and we decided on getting a license.

May 2006: I enquired in Banglore and got the address of Indian Institute of HAMS (VU3IIH), Kanteerava Indoor Stadium, Bangalore. This institute conducts courses for HAM radio and helps in organizing license examinations. VK was at IITB. I and Sharanu joined the course. The most boring course ever. They taught us how "magnetical" field creates an emf...ah! boring. But the audience ranged from 12 yr olds to 50 year olds, from all professions, hence could not help it. This was the end of Sharanu's interest in HAM and he gave up. He never attended the rest of the classes. Filled up the form reluctantly. Wait-I started. This was the beginning of our application passing through the bureaucracy. We waited for us to be called for the exam. It was supposed to be held in June. My plan - Exam in June, license in July, buy a radio set in September - start using it. I was right as far as the months are concerned. Only the years got changed.

September 2006: Our 5th sem had begun when I got the exam intimation. Sharanu reluctantly came with me to the exam. We needed no preparation except for the rules of Amateur Radio part. Exam was a cake walk. Wait-II started.

November 2006: I got an intimation that I had passed the Grade II Restricted Amateur radio operator examination. Well it stated the obvious. Sharanu too had passed. It asked us to wait until further instructions from Delhi. Hence Wait-3.

January 2007: All HAM Radio correspondences have to got to Delhi, hence takes years. I got a call for Police verification. Done. Sharanu never turned up at the police station. He had given up. Wait-4.

March 2008: I had almost forgotten that I had applied for a license. One fine day, I received a letter which said I was granted a license and required me to send Rs. 25/- DD by regd. post within 30 days with the preferred call sign. I met Mr. Hegde and got a few callsign lists and finally sent the letter back. Rs. 25/- DD + Rs. 30 commission + Rs. 27/- postage - A 200% overhead. Wait-5 was a short one, contrary to my expectations.

June 2008: Got my license at last. Phew, sigh, whatever. Grade - II(R), but with a totally arbit Call sign - VU3TZI. It took the bureaucracy 23 months to issue a license. This is my experience with Bureaucracy. Albeit, I am a HAM now, after 6 years. CQ CQ CQ DE VU3TZI.

People interested in HAM radio should click here.
73, 88
VU3TZI
OM Ajay

In the Time Since the Last Post ...

In the time since the last post
- Final year Engineering has passed
- Each NITKian is back home with a Smriti book
- I am a B.Tech now
- Many NITKians belled the CAT and have joined IIMs - Swami, Naganand among the many.
- Many NITKians are ready for an MS/Ph.D in US - Soma to UIUC, Ashish to U of A, Vikram to UCSD, Poonam to PSU, Sounder to NCSU,...
- Amod left for Ph.D in Loughborough Univ., UK
- Many NITKians have got transformed from NITKians into IIScians clearing GATE - Me, Vijeth, Spai, Sampu...
- Other NITKians are a part of the best work force in industry
- Sharanu's waistline has been a time harmonic function - varying but never decreasing
- Takaal had an unfortunate ligament tear
- Sanjay has transformed into "Uncle San"
- Teja has remained Teja
- Sheru has finished his first year in Civil@NITK
- Scaled 14000 ft(Sar Pass) with 7 other fellow trekkers (await more details)
- Visited Goa, Belgaum, Jog, Kodachadri, Tadiyandamol, Kudremukh and many other places
- Visited the largest cave system in India (Belum) and the largest Banyan Tree in the world
- Attended more than 30 placement and Farewell treats
- Shuttled between Mangalore and Bangalore atleast 10 times by train
- Got a musical fountain built for Symphony@Engineer-2008, with all the bureaucracy in place
- Most of my friends own their blogs - Dha, VK, Ashish, Takaal, Sagar among the many
- Indian Economy is at its worst after 11.8% inflation
- Petrol prices have increased twice
- Bangalore and Hyderabad have got an International Airport
- Karnataka State politics has reached the lowest possible level
- My laptop has crashed twice.
- Vijeth has re-installed windows >26 times
- Measured Sagar's ECG >25 times
- I have lost a 120 GB Hard disk
- Watched Chanakya, House, Spiderman, Ducktales, 70+ movies on comp
- Finally got my Grade-II(R) HAM radio license after two long years of wait
- Learnt more words in a month(3500) than four years of Engineering
- Got a bicycle for commuting in Bangalore
- Learnt a few lessons, cherished a few moments
^C
The list can go on and on... But, this list serves a higher purpose than just Nostalgia, it serves as the "पताकास्थानं" of Sanskrit Dramas.

भवदीयः अजेयः।

B into B with a B in B

Riddikulus!
Final year of Engineering, people say, gives us a lot of free time. Yet, started last year, this blog is still empty. Though I wished to write, many circumstances did not provide me enough time to "post". Anyway, since the last post, more than a year ago,
-final year engineering has passed
-I am a B.Tech now
-Indian Economy is at its worst after 11.8% inflation
-Petrol prices have increased twice
-Bangalore traffic has worsened further...(the list continues in the next post)

Well, after this long long hiatus, I am Back into Blogging with a Bang in Bangalore!
ಅಜಯ್