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I was talking to krishi last night and then it hit me. Sometimes working for a company is like making a high school relationship work. When you get into a relationship, you buy your partner lot of gifts, take him/her out on every occasion you get and you think about him/her everyday. Joining a company is like that too. You tell all your friends how nice it is and how well they treat you, you give 110% for the company and the company treats you like a king. After a while in the relationship, things could go in two ways….

One of the most extraordinary things happened today. In the camp here, we have about 2 dozen monkey’s (bonnet macaques) which pretty much hang around here, as they get continuous food from our leftovers and they feel pretty safe here in the camp as the predators usually stay away from here. They usually wait outside the place where we eat and at every opportunity they get, they jump in, grab the food and rush out. Infact they are quite a problem for the staff here. Since the time I have come, I have started feeding them, so they don’t mess…

Today we had a bunch of retired forest officials coming over at the resort. While we were on the safari, we happened to see a Barking deer and I was telling them how this animal was quite rare to find in other forests etc. And then one of the person in the jeep tells the other one “This barking deer is one of the tastiest meat I’ve ever tasted. Come over to my place sometime and I shall arrange for the meat”. These are the forest officials who are suppose to protect these forests and animals and keep the poachers…

jwz has written an excellent piece on why enterprise software does not work in open source projects and also drives home some good points on general software projects. A *must* read.

Since so many people have left so many comments on my last post, I thought, I’d make a separate post about it. Yes, currently I’m on a sabbatical from work and 8 months will go in a jiffy and I will have loads of fun. But it’s easier said then done. Right now I have my hands in just way too many things, and this assignment will mean I will have to leave everything and go. That will include my consulting work / naturalist position / wildlife photography etc and these are the areas in which I am just starting…

I just got my first major photo assignment. The assignment is to shoot fashion shows etc on few cruises in Miami. I get to spend time in the cruse , all expenses taken care and a good pay check. Th only hitch is that, this is a 8 month long assignment. *Sigh* Looks like I will have to pass 🙁

Things have been slightly busy lately. I was in Bangalore and Hyderabad for couple of days last week. It was nice to meet all the folks back home, but the pollution and traffic jams are still the same no matter that, I just cannot get used to them. Sting concert was lovely too. Got back here to the forest over the weekend and I’ve have been having a good time here. Last evening we saw this leopard sitting on top of a tree and it refused to budge from there. We waiting for 20 min and the leopard, just sat…

This is probably the first cartoon that I’ve ever seen in my life. It used to come very often on DD in the late 80’s. Infact when I was watching this today, I realized I still remember every line and every scene of this song. It goes like “Suraj Ek, Chanda Ek…”, the cartoon in which a “didi” tells a small boy about Ekta? It’s a story to illustrate the importance of unity in diversity. I sure enjoyed it then (do even more now) and hope you will have pleasant feelings of nostalgia too. Ek Anek Aur Ekta

What a bird count it has been. We started at 6am and trekked till 6pm with an hour’s break in the middle. We managed to count about 2100 birds and 150 unique species. If you are interested, you can grab the republic day bird count list (xls file). I got to learn a great deal from other expert birders and now I can identify lot more birds very easily. Since it was a trek through the jungle, we had an amazing time and got to see lot more then birds. To start off, Bandipur is an elephant infested forest. So…

I’m at Bandipur National park right now with full power and almost high-speed internet access 🙂 Few Naturalists and wildlife experts have gathered here to do a bird species count tomorrow. We leave the camp at 6am and trek through the forest the whole day in 4 groups and eventually meet at a central location by the end of the day and compare notes on birds. I’m not a bird expert, but I hope to learn a lot through this exercise. I drove down here today afternoon and the evening safari was amazing. Spotted some 20+ elephants and 2 packs…