Prashanth HN

Back in my Pre-University College (PUC) days I had huge craze about movies. That’s one of the reasons which made me run away to Hyderabad! Five movies in a week, in theater was my record! As I already mentioned in some other post, I was a huge fan of Hrithik Roshan, watched his every movie released in that period! one of the most hyped movie at that time was Kabhi Khush Kabhi Gham. I was eager to watch it before everyone else. Since I was pursuing PU in Tumkur, I had to come to Bangalore to watch bollywood movies.

So, I came to Bangalore to watch so hyped Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham in the first week of it’s release. Unfortunately I didn’t get the ticket that day. But I wasn’t ready to give up, I decided not to go back without watching the movie!  There was a cheap lodge infront of the theater who charge around 120 bucks a day. I took a room there & spent my night over there. Next day morning I woke up early & went to theater, stood in que! And yay! I finally got the ticket to watch that movie!!

It’s just that (teen) period we go crazy about some things! I don’t watch movies much, am very selective about movies now.

P.S:- K3G is now in my list of most hated movies

Living on Twitter since BCB4 (Barcamp Bangalore 4), July 2007. When I registered for Twitter, I had no idea about it & wasn’t serious on continuing it! So, I went with usual username which I use everywhere “hnprashanth”. But now a days it seem so lengthy, people often run out of characters (should I say 140!!?) because of lengthy usernames while replying or re-tweeting.

I made ‘n’ number of attempts to acquire @hn or @hnp on twittter which *were* inactive. But Twitter always replied saying “We will release all inactive usernames soon”, which never happened! Now, I don’t know what happened to these two guys, they are back on twitter I am just getting frustrated for not getting Twitter handle which I wanted the most.

Finally compromising a bit on username, I had registered @hnpr. But rejected right away by my friends on twitter!! Now it has become a tough for me to choose between @hnpr & @hnprashanth. Shorter one or the one well known to everyone!!?

What ya say!!?

Bangalore’s first Bloggers Meet happened around 2 years ago, probably in July 2007. I had just started to think about blogging, just had the domain techbangalore.com & having huge traffic of around 150-200 hits per day I felt having a domain is great deal & thought “I am the only one!” (Russel Peter style). I was not even aware of other blogs & bloggers at all! So, Bangalore Bloggers meet was very curious for me. With that curiosity in mind, got prepared for the meet & went to venue BrewHaHa, Koramangala.

I wasn’t as social as now, was just answering people who were talking to me. Few of them (Jerry, Adheeth) thought I am a Mallu going by my curly hair! And Sanjuktha was repeatedly asking “Are you really from Bangalore!! I was just watching all the people, what they talk, what they do, quietly sitting on a bean bag. There was long intro session & I was bit nervous when my turn came!! One of the interesting intros was from TheCruisemaniac (Ashwin Murali)! He was talking about some Para Gliding camp & stuff like that & people were WOWing at him! After the intro session, people started asking more about it & he was surronded by fairly good crowd. I was like “Who the hell is this guy!!? Looks like a BIG SHOT!!”.

I finally made my mind to say hi to The Cruiser! He wasn’t that interested to talk to me & handed over his buiss card. I thought it’s from his employer, but it had his Blog url, email ID & phone number. I was hugely surprised to see that black, simple buiss card (well Blog card!). Went back home & checked out his blog thecruisemaniac.com which was printed on his buiss card. It was pretty good & nice. My feeling about Cruise remained in mind!

Now we are big time friends (LOL) & I recall this moment whenever he ask me “Maga, suggest me some posts for my blog”!

I was in immense pressure, didn’t know what I was doing was right or wrong. But I had to do that, I was not in a position to face anyone with the truth. Took all the money which was there in my father’s wallet & ran! I had no idea where I was going, but wanted to go far away where my parents couldn’t reach me easily. Caught a bus to majestic so that I can decide on which place to go. There were so many travel agencies opposite to majestic bus stand. Went into the one which said “Sharma Travels” & inquired about seat availability for Hyderabad. It was around 12 noon & I got a last seat ticket to Hyderabad for the bus leaving Bangalore at 8:30 PM.

I had plenty of time to spend, but also feared of getting caught by any of our relatives. I needed a place to hide for few hours. I was a big fan of Hrithik Roshan, Sapna theater at majestic was running “Na Tum Jaano Na Hum”. Couldn’t get better than that to hide for few hours! I watched “Na Tum Jaano Na Hum” peacefully, what a movie it was! BTW, Hrithik Roshan runs away to UK in that movie

Had a light dinner & bought some biscuit packs for journey. Maska-Chaska was just released & it was my favorite! Got into the bus & settled at last seat. Bus started & WTF! this guy started showing “Aap Mujhe Ache Lagne Lage”! I was happy to watch yet another Hrithik Roshan movie!

All I thought while leaving to Hyderabad was, get there, find a job & never come back again to show this ugly face! With that in my mind I landed at Hyderabad. It seem somebody read my mind, a guy walked to me, took me to a small hotel, offered me a cup of tea. He said he will get me a job at Ramoji Film City as light boy! I was happy & asked him to take me in right away! But he refused & asked me to come next day. I had no money left in pocket to spend for stay & food. It was a horrible situation. Finally only one option was available to me, go to Aunt’s house! I called up my cousin & said am at Hyderabad, please guide me. They were confused, the news of me getting lost in Bangalore was not yet reached them. There were no mobile phones & my aunt relied on neighbor’s landline for communication. But sooner they got the news & kept me in home arrest.

Flashback: Why I ran away?

Teenage is considered to be very dangerous period of life. Where there will be very less control over mind & I was no exception. I was staying in hostel while perusing PU (Pre-University, 12th class). 1st year I was a good boy, but it didn’t took more time to learn how to bunk college! Initially it was fun, but later become addiction. I attended college regularly for about 2 months & bunked regularly after that! I was way too much addicted to movies, believe me it’s more than Andhra people’s movie addiction.

I spent all my PU time in watching movies, never bothered about what’s gonna happen next. How am gonna attend exams or should I attend it at all? Yes, you got it right, just like how I bunked college, I bunked the exams too. Even my roommate in the hostel thought I am going to exams when I was in theater. I continued hiding the truth & bluffing all the people around me. But how long could I keep doing that? Finally that day came, which I thought “it’s end”. It’s the PU result announcement day. But my bluffer mind was not ready to give up so easily, it was still searching for escape route! I told my parents that I checked the results online in a cyber cafe & I got 84%! It was most miserable mistake I ever did in my life. My parents were so happy & started calling each & everyone in their address book to pass the news. OMG!! everyone started congratulating me & a guilt feeling started dancing in mind. But it was too late, I was no where in the position to tell the truth. The last option left for me was to “Run Away”!

Three days later, my father came & took me back to Bangalore. I was expecting a powerful slap from him. But all my relatives told him to not to hit me!

P.S:- This is the first time I went out of Karnataka, or probably Bangalore!

I already posted that I am going to Star Party with Bangalore Astronomical Society. I finished my trip last night. Thought of sharing experience of my first sky observation session with BAS.

Naveen took care of introducing BAS members to all of us, I actually knew many of them already. Since observation session was going to be at night, we went to Talakaveri & came back in the eve. Trekking & getting lost inside the forest with new friends was lot of fun! We were back in the eve & started preparing to Star Party. That wasn’t much for me to prepare, but BAS crew was busy setting up the Telescopes, Binoculars on top of tripods. Naveen divided us into groups & assigned one BAS member to show & explain objects. There were three groups, one with naked eyes (;)), one with binoculars & the one with a huge Telescope! The idea was to look at objects with naked eyes, binocs & telescope & find how different they are. We went through many objects in the same way. I was impressed with double cluster, it looked as a small little white patch for naked eyes. Amar setted up his binoc to point to double clusters, I was curious to see how it looks like through binocs. It was awesome, through binocs, I was able to see two star clusters beside each other, I could see the stars in it overlapping on each other. It was not end, I was even more happy to see how spectacular it is via Shashank’s telescope. I could see the separation between stars clearly. I looked at Shashank to express my “wooooww” & looked back, bah! one cluster was gone! Shashank was ready to answer me & told me about movements of stars & sky. I asked hell lot of questions to Shashank & he was glad to answer them.

As observation session carried on I saw Andromeda galaxy, Orion Nebula, Bode’s & Cigar galaxies, Saturn with rings & two moons many more objects. Shashank wanted to show me how he does Astro Photography, but unfortunately sky got fogged & dew drops started accumulating on lens of his camera. But I got a good explanation about astro photography by Naveen. He told about lot of factors involved in astro photography including tracking, piggy packing..etc. Observation was great, it was my first.

I thank all BAS organizers & volunteers to make this to happen. Hope I would get time for next starparty.

Photos:

Pics of the trip are available on my flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/hnprashanth/sets/72157612953776521/. Don’t expect for any astro photographs, I am not into that yet. There is also no photographs of telescopes, equipmnets etc, because it’s not allowed to use flash lite in observation session. But sure, the pics gives you an idea how we enjoyed our trip

BAS (Bangalore Astronomical Soceity) is organizing Star Party at Coorg. I have missed out all the Star Parties organized by BAS until now for one or the other reason. This time I made my mind to go with them at any cost! We will be leaving Bangalore on 23rd Jan, Friday evening & coming back on Sunday (25th Jan). Actually, I never seen sky via telescope, BAS has really big ones! Looking for some really great Star Gazing sessions. You can bring your equipment if you have any. For more event details & registering for the event you can check BAS Event Page.

It was great experience trekking in Madikeri. I loved small waterfalls, we found many of them in our way. First time I realized the necessity of a DSLR camera. Scenaries were not captured so well on my basic digital camera. It’s just good for normal photography. Anyways here is my Flickr stream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hnprashanth/sets/72157611592263208/

After there were too many yes & nos, I finally decided to go for first trek of my life! Few of my colleagues planned a trek to “Thadiyendamol”, considered as one of the peak points in south India. The tour seems to be well planned (I’m not into that ). It’s a 4 day tour starting tomorrow, plans are there to cover other tourist places around. I have searched on web for few pics of the place, it just looks awesome!

Will post my experience & pics after coming back from there. Will tweet if network allows me to do so. Got to charge my cam, cellphone, pack my luggage. c ya!