Interstellar - Stellar of a movie

Interstellar - Last few days, i have been going through a lot of reviews, comments. videos, even tutorials !!! on this movie. Some people love it, some see it as an extravagant effort to depict mediocrity and some people are confused on the "ending".

Some of the reasons attributed are:

1. Confused Ending - the end is where the debate continues. How can it be possible. How can everything be so perfect in the end. How can both the plan succeed. A lot of unanswered questions on time travel. space travel, role of gravity....
2. Loud Music - complaints that the music was too loud for the dialogues to be heard
3. Gaps in reasoning and dis-coherent screenplay - Some questions like why did NASA not contact the protagonist, why the best amongst of astronaut turned evil, repeated dialogues on the need for explorations and getting away from an agrarian society.

But leaving aside all the lacuna and drawbacks that are attributed, I feel the movie did inspire !!! The reason i am writing this blog after a long hiatus can be a good validation for this.

For me, the movie scores in totality !!!- Not because of scientific terms, the concept of love or anything else ...Here are my reasons:

• Does everything need answering: For me, just enjoy the spectacle and story. Reasoning is there for each scene and its a movie and not a science course....A lot of people have tried to answer to answer the time confusion....here is one attempt....not by me !!.

Interstellar Movie Timeline. by sivadigitalart on deviantART

• Spectacle: Movies like this take the movie technology forward. Ambitious plans ( growing acres of corn for realistic imagery, using IMAX camera to capture the Space near perfectly and capturing the view from a single person's vision are some of the things which i liked the most.
• Reinvigorates the interest in science - I need not say more - I ended up reading more about Warm holes, relativity, O Neil Cylinders etc
• Hans Zimmer soundtrack
• Amazing script of amalgamation of  time , gravity ,relativity and human survival instincts.
• Father Daugher relationship between Cooper and Murph and Dr Brand and Amelie
• And the last one - my favorite one - the wonderful recitation of the prose by Dr. Brand - Definitely Quite Inspiring....And i end this one with that...Do let me know your feedback on this blog..

Do not go gentle into that good night
Dylan Thomas, 1914 - 1953
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light........

Naina Peak Trek Snaps

Some picture of my trek to Naina Hills, Nainital on 12th april, 2014. Taken from my cell phone.

Starting Point

Nainital Lake

Midway

Lake at a distance

"Colorful Mountains"

Forest Flowers

Himalayas at a distance..Snow capped Mountains

Lake at a distance

Another view of the himalayas

Another view

Forest Office @Peak 

Woods at the top

Another View of the woods

View from the highest point

Mission Accomplished

Naina Peak as seen from the lake

Sitting Ducks

Nainital Library

The Scenic Locales of Pokhara

The Scenic Locales of Pokhara

Pokhara is a sleepy town located around a lake. The scenic beauty is mesmerizing and is must recommend to all the readers.

How to reach: Indigo and other airlines fly to Kathmandu on a daily basis. You can either take a connecting flight from Kathmandu or take a cab/ bus for a 3-4 hour scenic journey.

What to do: The place offers a lot of adventure activities and is also the base camp for Mount Annapurna. I would recommend the readers to go for Para Sailing apart from regular treks conducted by the local people. Apart from that, boating can be good alternative to bask in the scenic beauty of the place

What to see: There are host of temples, waterfall , cavesET all which can be accommodated for a full day trip.

What to buy: T-Shirts, old artefacts and other Souvenirs

What to eat: Fish, Fish and Fish. Simply a fish eater paradise and you will find good fresh water fishes there.

I have posted some personal pictures for our readers at various times in a day to showcase this vibrant town. Definitely a Must visit location!!!

10 memories of 2013

Yes, finally managed to write something and stopped recycling my older blogs to increase the views count. 2013, has been one of the great years - saw my little one take her first step, speak her first decipherable word...and the endless list. For me, i went back to weight i had 5 years ago . Here noting down the top 10 memories of  2013.

1.) Cycling - I had this latent wish of riding a bicycle since the last 10 years. And it became a reality this year. And i ensured my cycle does not become an added furniture by cycling regularly. Nowadays, i cycle everyday to office and take weekend longer trips......

2.) My Walking - My pedometer tell mes that i have walked more than 700 Km this year !!!

3.) www.Techsambad.com - I had this longing to start a professional blogging site of my own. I have made a small start - hopefully i ll nurture it to reach greater heights.

4.) Nepal Trip - Had a great vacation trip at scenic beautiful country of Nepal. Fulfilled one of my long cherished dream of Para-sailing.

5.) Mountain Trekking @ Shimla : Trekked the scenic mountains near Shimla

6.) Annysa first trip to zoo: Took my little one to her first zoo experience at the very own "Nandankanan" where i also started my first "animal" sighting....

7.) The first little steps of my little one : My little one took her first step this year and by the year end, i was cheering her as she participated in a "running race".

8.) Morning Ritual at Haridwar - The calmness and serenity experienced far from the maddening crowd of the city.

9.) Watching Rahul Dravid play live at the stadium for the last time. He scored 50 and was adjudged the man of the match.

10.) Annysa's first birthday : Great occasion where everyone shared their love and blessings to my little one.

Three things that Rajasthan Royals need to do to do well

Picture Courtesy: ESPNCRICINFO.COM

The match against Delhi Daredevils must have been a eye opener for the Rajasthan Royals. Being an ardent fan, i was surprised to see a below par performance from Rajastan Royals. In this match, Delhi had won 21 overs out of 40 and still managed to grab defeat from the jaws of victory. The late brilliance in the field by Hodge ( a splendid Catch and a direct Hit) to remove the set batsmen proved fatal for Delhi and they lost their way in the final over. Here are some recommendations for Rajasthan Royals for them to do better in this IPL season. I had a written a similar blog for Royal Challengers. Now doing this for another Royal.

Improve the bowling:
For me the team with greater bowling prowess will do well in this league. Rajasthan was plagued with Star bowlers which other teams boast off. In order to maximise their existing pool, these are some of the recommendation:

• Sreeshant spell was good. Baring that, nothing was special.Shreeshant should be saved for the last 4 over spell. 
• Badree bowled good 70 % of the time, the rest 30% did all the damage. He should be used in the start and middle overs. With Watson in for the next match, he might loose his place in the side. Badree can be replaced with an  local Indian spinner reserve.
• Siddhartha Trivedi was good and should be used in the middle overs. ( between 7th - 14th over).
• Rahul Shukla was a nervous debutant and should be persisted. He should open with Shreeshant and finish up his quota at a single go.
• Cooper was good in the death overs and should be conitnued in the same manner like this match.

Recommendation for the next match: With Shane Watson joining the team and his bowling under question, the existing bowling unit should be persisted. They should use the off cutters of Menaria and slow bowling of Binny more frequently.

Improve the death over batting:
Its early days, but Rajasthan Royals looked highly unprepared to tackle the death overs. Umesh Yadav bowling flustered the batting greats like Dravid and Hodge. More homework is required on the opposition prowess and bowling strategy to tackle the final overs. With Watson joining in, he should open with Rahane and Hodge should come second down. This will expose Hodge to more bowling and in turn prepare him for the death overs. Dravid seemed to be tired towards the end. Would recommend him dropping his batting position to the final overs to be better prepared physically to tackle the bowling. Dravid seems injured, which can be a blessing in disguise as it can give a good chance to the talented Menaria to prove himself in the first down slot  rather languishing in the tails.

More inspired captaincy:
When the Delhi Daredevils were blazing along, Rajasthan players had almost given up. Had it not been the momentary brilliance of Hodge on the field, Rajasthan royals would have definitely been on the loosing end. Hopefully, things will improve as tournament progresses. Opponents have become stronger and it will require an inspired performance on the field by this talent team to prove their mettle and captaincy can play a big role in that.

My Team for tomorrow and the rest of the league for key matches ( in batting order): Rahane, Watson, Menaria, Hodge, Binny, Dravid, Perera, Shukla, Trivedi, any local offspineer and Sreeshant.

Perils of having a perfect email address

Having friends in right places help. It helped to get a nice email ID. I was an proud owner of email id where i had to share my first name alone and not append any redundant information like some random number or waist size or birthday year or birthday date or your profession or your spouse name and the endless list.

I used to flaunt it. Everyone was amused when i shared my coveted ID. I was filled with pride and honor when anyone ( mostly it was everyone) asked about how i managed to get the ID. I started cooking stories which ranged from telling them winning a tough contest to being the first one to register in the site before it became a huge hit. I was basking in all glory. But as they say, there is an expiry date to all the things including the pride and comfort of having a nice email ID.

One fine day, i got a mail from a lady. She had written about her feelings for certain Subhankar and had marked the mail to all the possible mail ID possible in the world which contained the word of her beloved one. I thought it was an aberration. But i was wrong. It was just the tip of the iceberg.

Next in line, there was a deluge of emails from service providers to certain Subhankar who has evaded paying his bills. As these were automated, the provider did not heed to my request to verify the email ID. I continued marking those as spams but service provider found ingenuous ways to hit my inbox. Slowly the quantum of those email increased as the concerned person was a serial offender and had duped most of the companies. Still it constituted 10% of my inbox quantity. Regular cleansing was not possible and i learnt to live with it. With great power comes great responsibility - and i was responsible for the great power i had with the simplified mail ID.

With growing internet adoption and more subhankar having accessing the net, my email ID slowly became the convenient secondary email address. In some cases, their lack of proper english ended up registering my email address as well. Now proactive customer service meant the companies sending their updates to all the registered email ID. Some of the notable consequences are:
1.) Some people requesting to buy my non existent vacuum cleaner at olx and even rebuking me for not posting the picture in OLX.
2.) Some salaries Mismanagement at the vendor side blaming me for all the rampant corruption practice.
3.) Request to start the "Save the tiger" campaign at Sunderbans.
4.) Request to share my photo to an matrimonial site - My wife will be so happy !!!

Slowly and steadily, all these emails have eaten up my mailbox. Finding my emails is like searching a needle in the haystack. You can understand the pain as i immediately wrote this piece after seeing over 10k unread mails in my personal email ID. Next time if i don't share my email address and ask you to join my social network, hopefully you can empathize with me.

My facebook Analysis

10 memories of 2012

I had written a similar blog about 3 years back. As this happening year comes to an eventful end, i take this opportunity to jot down the 10 indelible memories of this year.

1. Feb 12, 8:08 AM. Gurgaon: A little angel came to our life, weighing 2.8 kgs and a total length of 47 cm. We named her "Annysa". This pic is one of her first pic with her mom and my personal favorite. 
2. My visit to Dhabeleshwar in the month of April. It remains as one of my favorite places. I had written a travelogue on it way back in 2009.
3. Back to Blogging: After an hiatus of 2 years, i made an attempt to blog again "frequently". The trilogy of stories written had the maximum views in my blog. Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. The number of views increased by manifold from less than 1000 in the year beginning to more than 7000 and still continuing.
4. Back to school: This year i had the opportunity to avail the online course on "In Memory Data Management" offered by HPI. I did a course after 10 long years!!!.  And it definitely felt good to pass with 84% :)
5. Trip to Tripura: I visited the calm and serene Matabari temple at Udaipur, Tripura.
6. Cheering for Odisha team at Women National games held at Gurgaon
7. Conducting Bollywood Quiz at Gurgaon which was well  received by the audience. At least, that's what they told me :)
8. Starting and quitting Tobacco again. Lets hope its the final quit from my end.
9. Visit to Old Delhi during the holy month of Ramazan. You can find one of earlier blogs on Old Delhi here.
10. Zipping again at Neemrana - The rain made it more dangerous and exciting. This is a pic with my brother, Ankur.

Again re-iterating what i had written 3 years ago - Hope 2013 is more eventful and i see more good movies, visit new places and learn/ experience new things. And I spend a lot of time with my little one as she grows up.

Wishing you all a happy and prosperous 2013

This week, a decade ago

My placement had just finished. The  recession due to the dotcom bubble burst ensured that 100% placement of our institute was not achieved. Out of 120 students, 80 were placed, which was a very good record considering other contemporary management colleges.

Ah, definitely it gives me a smile to think about that Nervous Subhankar of that time. Now looking back on this week, it is nothing sort of a comedy of errors. But, 10 years ago, it was a never ending melancholic week.

It was my first interview which happened on the second day of the placement seasons. The first day was sacrosanct  for the top graders and the difficult group discussion topics sealed my advance to the second rounds. Typical of a engineer, i was confident all the IT companies will come to my rescue on the second day.

One of my dream company was X, one of the largest IT services companies of that time. Being the nerd i was (rather i am), first round was a cakewalk and got me selected for the interview. I was nervous to the hilt. There were very few job offers made on the first day, which made the competition tough as top graders had also joined the fray. The interview started well. Couple of initial tough questions were either well answered or well left. Still, the thought of top graders vying for this job was playing on my mind. Suddenly, one member asked me about my favorite IT company and why. In my enthusiasm, i blurted out the name of company Y, which happened to be the competitor of X. Everyone in the panel stated laughing as if i had done an act of blasphemy. The way they wished me luck made me confident of not getting that offer. To me, it was the biggest set back. This was one company which took people in hordes and i had missed it.

Such was the aftershock that i failed in all of the 5-6 other placement interviews. It was as if i was having a bad nightmare. The confidence was down and skepticism grew towards all the good advises and pep talks rendered by my fellow batch mates  The world seem to have ended for me - to not to have got a job in the placement week.

On those trying times, one of my senior  told me something which i cherish till date. In his exact word "subhankar, campus week is just the trailer. The main movie starts once you are in the corporate life". How true. All 120 people got placed once we were out of the college and everyone is doing excellent. To my count, only 10 out of 80 are still with their job offered during campus.

Still, when i remember this week, a decade ago, definitely brings a smile. The way all my batch mates rallied behind each other and cheered us up during the difficult time was the biggest learning i could have ever had. This week was the week which i feel proud to experience it. And now to bring some smiles, my sucked up pose of the placement days with the ever cheerful and amazing Sukhmaya and Nepak Bhai, the person whose recommendation got me my first job.

One thing Mama taught me

Who is Mama ?

Mama is the center forward of the women's handball team of Orissa. Orissa team was participating in the recently concluded National Women National Games. I had the privildege of watching her play in a match against Kerala girls. Even though, Kerela emerged the winner by a whisker (14-12), the crowd was cheering for the  Orissa girls and especially Mama for the valiant fight that they put in.

Her father is a poor fisherman in a small village near Cuttack. She was spotted early in her fifth class by the local school teacher and her name was proposed to the district level SAI authority. She devoted more time for her games without hampering her studies. Slowly, she rose from the district level ranks to play for Orissa. With proper coaching, her skills can be accentuated to push her to the national levels. Now she is in her eighth standard and is supporting her family from the stipend that she gets by playing.

Learnings from Mama

I strongly believe that Sports has a great parallels to the way we lead our  life. We can learn a lot from watching a sports person. Often, we resort to studying the greats to imbibe their good qualities. We talk of how Sachin was very fastidious, Dravid , more disciplined and Laxman more gifted.

And here i am writing this piece on  a lesser known emerging player and that too on a sport that has hardly any following in India. One thing which i took from watching her play was her ability to put team above than individual.

There were many instances where i could see her modifying her game to suit the convenience of other team mates. Handball is a fast game. She sometimes had to reduce her running speed so that other team mates can catch up and work in tandem. Even though couple of chances which were created by her hard work were squandered by her other team mates, she was took it sportingly.

What impressed me  was that when one of her team mate was injured and required a pain reliever spray during the half time, she ran to the near by market to purchase one. She herself volunteered for the same in absence of the any support staff for the team as she knew she could run faster.

This is a picture which i took of the entire team after the match. I am not identifying who Mama was. For me, each team member was special , they played against all adversaries with a smile and unfettered determination.

Odisha Women Handball Team

Wishing them all the successes and glory for future !!!!

Post on SCN

Posted the second blog on SCN.
http://scn.sap.com/community/hana-in-memory/blog/2012/11/01/busting-two-myths-on-in-memory-management

There has been surge in the demand of system computing ability as more people have access to the applications with advent of smart phones and tablets. Data needs to be both real time and fast. In Memory Data management is one approach where we achieve the aforesaid objectives. But, the general question which everyone asks about In Memory is whether it is just a technology fad and whether it has been any applicability to the modern day Enterprises.

1. In Memory Data Management is just a technology fad

Fact: It is the need of the hour

Data is growing exponentially. With more automation, more structured data is being captured in our organizations. Also, with the widespread adoption of social media, views ,expressions and opinions are getting captured in Face book status messages, twitter tweets, Instagram’s pictures etc. which are categorized as unstructured data. The explosion of data can be summarized with the fact that the humans have doubled the amount of data that they produced in the last century in the last decade.

Nimble Organization analyzes information at faster speed to stay ahead of their competitors. For Example, Smart organizations are capturing their success of their product releases by analyzing the tweets and messages of its products real time and even making necessay course corrections. To make smart and faster analysis of the dataset so large and complex (which have been named Big Data for their sheer volume), having a faster system performance has become a basic hygiene factor of any system.

Disk Scan speed has only become faster by 10 times over the last 30 odd years. Compared to the data growth, it is not adequate and will add to more scan time. There is a requirement to remove the redundancy involved in scanning and moving the data from disk to CPU for processing. In Memory Data Management removes two time consuming processes to make the processing faster – Scanning the data from Disk and moving it to the main memory (DRAM). As the CPU have direct access to DRAM, the processing power is enhanced exponentially resulting in desired output.

2. In Memory Data Management Concepts are not applicable in Enterprises

Fact: In Memory Data Management concepts have evolved over the years to serve enterprises

Typical Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) stores the data in convient way so that Data can be easily writted on it but scanning these records is time consuming. Also, RDBMS cannot be compressed easily, a basic requirement, to load more data in DRAM. Using Columnar Database makes scan faster and enables more compression but with additional drawback of write back to Database overhead. Due to extensive encoding used for compression, it is expensive to insert, update and delete records in columnar database.

Enterprises end up using both the databases - RDBMS system to write to the database (OLTP Systems) and Columnar DB to scan the DB for analytics (OLAP systems). Data movement across the database apart not only adds overhead to the system but also makes data dated.

In Memory Data Management has evolved to cater to the Enterprise Needs. For Example, HANA, the In Memory Data Management Platform, has the columnar feature but performs only insert operations and avoids the time consuming update and delete operations. It segregates the data into passive data (data which have infrequent use) and active data ( regular/ recent data) for storage and operation optimization. Similarly, small modifications are done in the In Memory Data base to make it optimal for enterprise usage.

In Memory Data Management is the answers to today’s enterprise growing data computing demands. If optimized well, as seen in HANA, it can be deliver amazing results which can analyze a F1 race to de-codifying the genome project. Also falling memory prices and more processing power make In Memory data the most suitable technology to invest for future. Would love to listen to your comments on this article. Please put in your comments.

First blog on SCN

http://scn.sap.com/community/about/blog/2012/10/27/blog-it-forward-subhankar-pattanayak

My Colleague and Social Media Mentor, Mark Marcus asked me to start writing a blog and take part in the "Blog It forward" initiative. It is one of a innovative way to learn about the blogging process on SCN.

I am currently part of Value Engineering, Best Practice Center (India) and learning to leverage Social Media to reach out to my customers.

Here are the few questions he asked me to answer.

What was your Dream Job as a Kid ?

As a kid, I always wanted to be Magician. I was always fascinated by a magician named P C Sarkar and would never skip his shows whenever he performed in our town, Bhubaneswar. Then i came across P C (Personal Computers)and it was the great magician i would have even seen. It would solve complex problems within seconds. P C has shrunk over the time and has become graspable. Still I am amazed as during my childhood days about its capabilities.

What is your favorite place in the world?

My favorite place would be a river isle called Dhabelshwar, which is near to my home town. You have to cross a hanging bridge to reach the place. It has a calm and serene temple. The place is a lazy village with picturesque surrounding. The place is around 30 minute drive from my home town, Bhubaneswar. You can get more details and pictures about the place in one of my earlier personal blog.

What was the most fun project you ever participated in and why?

The most fun project i was involved would be the launch of SAP Value Management Center. It was a good team camaraderie where each team member worked towards a specific objective of meeting the launch date target. There were many creative solutions to the various bottlenecks and it came from each and every team member. We started out as team members but ended the project as life long friends.

In keeping the BIF going, I am asking the following questions:

1. What was your dream job as a kid?
2. What is your favorite place in the world?
3. What was the most fun project you ever participated in and why?

Bollywood Quiz at GGN - Final

Here are the questions used for final rounds of 6 teams. The media files have been removed.

Do post your answers in the comments sections.

Click here for the quiz

Bollywood Quiz at GGN - Prelims

This is the prelims questions prepared for the SAP Bollywood quiz at gurgaon. The media files will not work. In case you want the source files, please drop an comment and i ll get back to you...

A MORE BETTER VIEW.

And you can put the answers in the comments sections
Click on Prelims on the left bar to get started.

Prelims

Bollywood quiz

Do give your answers in the comments section. Do also refer my earlier quizzes which are there at http://www.slideshare.net/Subhankar42 http://subuwrites.blogspot.in/2010/06/new-quiz-url.html

More Confusion

PART 1: BRIDE HUNTING PART 2: RENDEZVOUS

The telephone rang.

Everything in this world is forced to a formal ending. Same had to be the case of this failed tryst. Nothing worked out as per the plan, the meeting supposedly failed like a pack of cards. So it was decided by the parents, of course, that the boy and the girl should have telephonic conversation to see if things can be worked out again.

After continuous pestering and cajoling, I agreed. I was confident that the girl would have also undergone the same fate. Now the key question was who will call whom. Before i could ask my father that the girls family should be calling, he had dialed in the number and handed me the handset. The girl was on the other end. After one minute of cold silence, a flurry of questions followed about what made me think that it was not working.

For the first time, i confessed up the first and the only reservation i had for this marriage. The girl was about five years younger to me and that was playing on my mind. She quipped that girls generally go for Mature Minds.Knowing myself well, i replied back that she might be making a mistake as "age does not guarantee maturity". That somewhat cleared the air for me but did manage to put some doubt in her mind. Now she wanted to think again and get back to me whether she is ready for this relationship. Genuinely cursing my tongue for making this stupid quip, i shared my mobile number on which she would be electronically messaging me the result of her thought process. She did not share her number.

I flied back to Bangalore. Two days passed by. It felt like ages to me as i was eagerly waiting for that coveted SMS. May be my killer statement would have made her look for guys closer to age group. Almost made up my mind for this failed attempt - after all she was a kid. She must be in school when i would have entered the engineering course. Still at some remote corner, some hope for the SMS was there. With this heavy heart, i went to a sports pub for the football quarter final match between my favorite team Argentina and Germany - it was 2006 football world cup. Argentina was putting up a great play and the match was down to the wire - the penalty shoot out.

Just before the penalties, I got an SMS from an unknown number - " I am sending this for the second time, why didn’t you call me back". Argentina lost and i was feeling ecstatic. Suddenly another contrary thought, one sms and your fave team lost - will it be the case going forward. I stayed with the positive thought. In my utter excitement, i called her back immediately without realizing that it was past 11 o'clock night. May be the intoxication of beer contributed to it. She hesitantly took the call with an warning that it will not entertained in days to come. Later on,my burgeoning telephone bills negated the same warning.

Apparently, she had sent a formal SMS that she was Ok with the relationship the next day itself and i should have called her to confirm that i was still interested. As i did not receive the SMS and did not reply, she took that i was not proceeding for the relationship. It was at the behest of one of her close friends that she sent the second SMS as a final good bye message.

I still think about what would have happened had her friend not asked her to message again. Maybe it was destined like that as we got married and we have been blessed with a little angel. I am writing this for the little one so that when she grows up, she can read all this.

And there are more stories in store for the new one. Some in person and some in writing.

Raunak-e-Ramazaan

Gate No.1 at Jama Masjid - The Trail Begins

Jama Masjid

On 17th August, we were invited by Itihaas, an NGO, to experience the celebration and festivities of Ramzan amongst the people of bustling Old Delhi. The walk conducted was very informative and was weaved around various stories of Mughal era. The rich insight offered by the stories highlighted the rich vision of our culture.

The Red Fort forming the Tip of the arrow

We started our tour at Jama Masjid where our walk directors described the city of Sahajahanabad (which is now known as Old Delhi). The city was built by visionary Shah Jahan, the mogul emperor – taking inspiration from the Hindu “shastra“and architected like a bow. The river Yamuna formed the string of the bow and the central Chandni Chowk was the road which formed the arrow.

Celebration Begins

It was quite fascinating to observe the fellow devotees breaking their daily fast. It was a celebration inside the Jama Masjid. The sight of ocean of People greeting, hugging and sharing food amongst each other was heartwarming. The most touching moment was when one of the families shared their food with us as if we were part of their family. These were some moments which has been permanently etched in my mind.

The Shops

After the exhilarating Jama Masjid experience, we were taken through the tour of crowded and buzzing alleys of the Old Delhi. It was an experience only to be felt. It was festivities all around. The smoke and scent of the delicacies of the street side food, the color filled decorated small shops, greeting people, smiling faces, running children in the narrow gullies are something to be experienced and not written.

Kala Masjid

Our next destination was Kala Masjid, Tuglaq era mosque (built around 14^th century) for more stories. We were told interesting facts around the historical events to depict the logical significance of rituals, design and festivities held during Mogul era and still continued in same vigor even today.

At Razia Sultan Grave

Our walk through the narrow lane continued where we were given briefings about the culture and societies as it existed three centuries ago. Our final stop was the Grave of Razia Sultan, one of the two female ruler in Islamic Era (Benazir Bhutto was the other one), situated at the interior parts of the city.

At Itihaas School

After the insightful journey, we were treated with a delicious dinner at the premises of the school run by Itihaas. The mouth watering succulent Kebabs, aroma filled Biryani and sweet dishes were prepared by one of renowned chef of Old Delhi.

As the evening came to an end, I was left with rich memories which I will be proudly carrying forward. Definitely , celebrating Ramzan in Old city of Delhi was an event in my life and I look forward to attending more of it going forward.

Team SAP - The Trail Ends