Manhattan has always been the most fascinating urban locale. With
its tall buildings it surely is a concrete jungle. The first time I
saw the Manhattan skyline from a distance, my heart beat skipped. It
was one of the most amazing things I had ever seen. And that the
thought that I am going work in Manhattan just added to the
excitement!

I stayed on the western side of the Hudson river and Manhattan is
on the eastern side of the river. My apartment had a beautiful
Manhattan view. There are beautiful running/walking/cycling tracks on
either sides of the Hudson river. I used to practice for my Marathon
by running everyday on the track which is on the western side of
Hudson which would always give a great view of the Manhattan. And
many times I used to run in the night & Manhattan looks straight
out of dream when you would look at it from the western bank during
night.

On a beautiful summer night in July 2007 I looked out of my room
window at Manhattan and saw that the clouds and the moonlight had
given a stunning look to Manhattan. Me and my roomie Chendur set out
for a photography session on the river bank and what transpired is
here for you to see!

Click
here for the full album on Picasa

Here is the slideshow

For me the Arushi Murder case always looked like another version of Shawshank Redemption (you will under stand if you have seen one of the all time best movies Shawshank Redemption).

This is how the case started.

1. 14 Year old Arushi is found murdered in her bedroom in Noida.

2. Body was found in the morning. Parents say that they were in the next room but did not hear any screams in the night, so they were unaware.

3. Father of Arushi, Dr.Talwar says that he had taken sleeping pills and also had a few drinks in the night, so he was fast asleep.

4. The domestic help Hemraj is missing, he is nowhere to be seen.

Now the needle of suspicion is pointing on Hemraj and police begins searching for Hemraj. Meanwhile, Noida police never takes proper forensic information from the murder location like finger prints, blood stain samples. They don’t even lock the room so that evidence is not destroyed. They just assume Hemraj is the murderer and start looking for him.

After 2 days it turns out that the dead body of Hemraj is lying on the terrace of Dr. Talwar’s house. Now the Noida police is stumped. They don’t know what they can do. Now it’s all a puzzle. Noida police starts building a theory which can explain the murder. They seize Dr. Talwars computer and send it for forensic examination.

Here is how the theory of Noida police goes (which is really very circumstantial, just the way Andy is convicted in Shawshank Redemption).

Theory of Noida police: Dr. Talwar and his daughter Arushi had a very bad relationship and Arushi was a ‘bad charactered girl’. Dr. Talwar comes home on the fateful night and finds Hemraj and Arushi in a compromising position and gets very angry. He then takes Hemraj to terrace and murders him. Later he comes back down, takes a few drinks and proceeds to his daughter’s room where she is sleeping and murders her. Later he calls the police in the morning and tells them that Hemraj has murdered his daughter. His plan is to put the blame on Hemraj and then to dispose off his body in a way that it is never found so that the case is never solved. Noida police also says that there is one more reason for this murder. Dr. Talwar had an affair with family friend Mrs. Durani and Arushi had objected to it, so he murdered her.

They try to come up with some ridiculous evidence:

1. They make an email which is more than a year old, written by Arushi to her dad public. The email is something like ‘dad I am sorry that I did this, please forgive me, I will never do it again’. Police say this shows that she was into bad things which explains that Dr. Talwar didn’t like his daughter. What a ridiculous explanation. For me, this email is just something which you can always expect a teenager to have written to her father.

2. Noida police claims that Dr.Talwar has confessed and he has signed a confession. It later turns out that, after the case is handed over to CBI, Noida police could never produce this signed letter! What heights can police go to prove their theory!!

For me, the above theory holds so many flaws. 

1. Is it possible that a father will murder his only child for a frivolous reason that she objected to him having extra marital affair (and beware, this affair is just an allegation by police with no proof). 

2. How did the police conclude that Arushi had a ‘bad character’?

3. It was also evident that more than one person was involved in murdering Hemraj, so this killing in ‘fit of rage’ theory doesn’t hold good.

4. Why is Noida police just investigating on one theory, why are they not examining other possibilities?

Now after the CBI took over the investigation some progress has happened on the case in a scientific manner. It does appear that Krishna, the compounder at Dr.Talwar’s clinic has confessed that the murder was carried out by him and Rajkumar who is a domestic help at Durrani’s home. Based on confessions of Krishna & Rajkumar (as printed in a section of media), this is how the new theory of how things happened goes.

Theory based on confessions: Krishna had been openly critisized for his bad work by Dr.Talwar in front of many people and Dr.Talwar had also threatened to remove Krishna from his clinic for his goof-up during a surgery. Krishna felt insulted and he wanted to take revenge on the short tempered Dr. Talwar. Krishna knew that Dr. Talwar lover his only daughter Arushi very much. Krishna, Hemraj and Rajkumar were mutual friends. All the 3 had got together at the servant quarters at Dr.Talwars place, which is where Hemraj lived and were having drinks. Rajkumar confesses that he had sexual intentions on Arushi. Krishna says even he would want something bad to happen to her as he hates Dr.Talwar. Since Hemraj doesn’t really object to these two friends of his, they proceed towards Arushi’s room where she is sleeping. Hemraj is probably aware that Dr.Talwar and wife sleep with A/C on with closed doors and they generally don’t realize what happens outside their room in the night. Rajkumar now tries to force himself on Arushi and she retaliates. Krishna probably had different intentions, he takes out knife from his pocket and slits Arushi’s throat (remember that all 3 are in drunken state). It probably happened so fast to Arushi that she was totally terrified and never had a chance to scream. Now Hemraj knows that he will be the primary suspect and tells his friends that there is no way to escape this and he is going to tell it all. Krishna calls him to the terrace so that they can plan what can be done next. On the terrace Krishna and Rajkumar murder Hermaj and they leave the place.

Now there is no witness & now since nobody has really seen Rajkumar & Hemraj visiting Dr.Talwars place they are completely out of the police Radar.

It just so happened that CBI realized that there were more than 1 murderers in the house, so they were trying to think who could have assisted Dr. Talwar (based on their assumption that he is the culprit). Since Krishna used to work for Dr.Talwar from long time and he also knew Hemraj, they interrogate him & when the suspicion grew on him and a narco test is done on him, the truth comes to light.

For me this theory looks very genuine. The biggest questionable object in this theory and the reason why Dr.Talwar is probably why still behind the bar is that he was at home on the fateful night and he never realized that two murders have taken place at his house. But I think it is understandable. Has it never happened to you that you are in a hotel room with A/C on and have locked my room and don’t realize if few people passed in the hotel corridor. I also know many people who sleep so deep that sometimes they can’t even hear a loud noise when they are sleeping. And as Dr.Talwar claimed that he took sleeping pills, I don’t think it’s very unreasonable that one would take sleeping pill before he slept. There are lot of people around with sleeping disorder who would take sleeping pill when they sleep. I don’t know about Mr.Talwar, either she also uses some sleep inducing drugs or she is also somebody who is not very sensitive while sleeping who cannot realize little sound coming in the house. And it is very much possible that Arushi was murdered so swiftly that there was no scream and since Hemraj was taken to the terrace with his own consent, I am sure nobody could hear him getting murdered.

Now if the second theory is really true, just imagine the plight of Dr.Talwar and wife. They had their loved daughter who was born after several years after marriage through IVF method is found murdered. Even before they could digest the fact, Dr.Talwar is arrested and put behind the bars. Police start making false statements saying ‘he has confessed’, ‘Arushi had bad character’, ‘Dr.Talwar had affair with family friend Mrs.Durrani’ which are all baseless allegations. Just imagine the mental state of Dr.Talwar who is behind the bars for no fault of his, I am sure he is totally broken and will take a long time to recover from the turn that his life has taken.

In between Media also does lot of character assassination of Dr.Talwar and wife. One section of media published report saying that Dr.Talwar had booked room in a hotel on that night and was not at home & he is just faking that he was at home. This is totally a baseless allegation for which no proof was found by CBI. Has Indian media lost moral values? I am sure there are sections in Indian media which never had moral values.

Till now CBI has not got even a single evidence on Dr.Talwar and my big question is Why is Dr.Talwar still behind the bars from close to two months without even a single evidence against him?

I do realize that the job of CBI was always difficult to start with because the case was handed over to them almost 10 days after the murder. Till that time Noida police had not collected any forensic evidence from the murder location like finger prints, blood stains, etc, they did not even lock the room where the murder took place, so Talwars carried out pooja and other ceremonies in the room unwittingly and lot of evidences got destroyed. The best thing to happen during this case is the handing over of case to CBI, otherwise I am sure Noida police would have put all efforts to make it another Shawshank Redemption.

Do check these links to get updates on the case –>

http://www.rediff.com/news/aarushi08.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noida_double_murder_case

Deccan Herald has featured my
photographs of Kukkarahalli Lake. Check out “Your Space” at the
bottom of the home page of www.deccanherald.com

(It sits there as of today July 09
2008).

When I was in India on my looooong vacation in 2007/2008 I decided
to capture the beauty of the Kukkarahalli Lake of Mysore on my Canon
Rebel XT. Most of the Mysoreans whom I showed the photos fail to
recognize that it is Kukkarahalli Lake. Not many have really
seen the beauty of this beautiful lake which is actually located at
the heart of Mysore city which is just another example of what
an amazing place Mysore is for living.

If you live in Mysore I would really suggest that you should be
going for a walk or for a run around the beautifully made 4 KM track
around the Kukkarahalli Lake. The best time would be early morning 6.
I took these photographs at early morning during sunrise.

Click
here to have a look at the entire album on picasa.

Capturing the golden moments of the fall season is every
photographer’s dream. I was no different. Since I happened to be in
US during the fall of 2007 I decided do a fall trip. Me, Chendur,
Titus and Monna started out to New Hampshire in October
2007 as the fall was little late in 2007. And as we had imagined it
was a treat both for our eyes and for our cameras! Check out the full
album to enjoy the golden moments of the fall season.

Finally my favorite Nadal conquers the ultimate grass court
championship -Wimbledon in one of the all time greatest matches.
Watch the highlights below

This is about the skydiving which I had done loooong time back
during my first visit to US early 2006. If you haven’t yet seen this
funny video of me skydiving do check it out, but do remember to
control your laughter

And here’s the photo slide show

Well, skydiving had always been one of my childhood dreams. My
room-mate Rahul suddently planned to go for skydiving and invited me.
Well I did not have much choice but to join him. So me, Rahul and
Karishma set out of the jump.

We wore the skydiving equipment and got ready for tandem. We then
started our ascent in the smalled plane I had ever travelled. It was
so small that one could almost touch windows at either ends if she
steaches her hands! Rahul and I were confident all the time while
Karishma was nervous and was not sure if she will really jump. But
what happened later was one of the greatest ironies!

I was really exited when I was about to jump with Gene. I had seen
lot of skydiving videos in TV and I had thought that I will float in
the air and will move towards earth slowly. Boy I was wrong big time!
All those videos are taken with camera falling at the same speed as
the person who is being recorded. So by looking at the video one can
never get the feel of the speed with which one would fall. As soon as
I jumped I realized earth was sucking me real hard I was falling
at a speed of around 200 KM/Hour!! And the gadgets I was having was
faulty. My glasses were coming off and I since the speed was so high
I was feeling that if the glasses come off my eyes might pop out!
Believe me the the wind was hitting my face real hard. I also
realized that I was unable to breathe! When I was jumping I was all
smiles and within 3 seconds my expressions had completely changed (as
you can see in the video!). We came down from 16,000 feet to 5,000
feet in 1 minute!

After this Gene opened the Parachute and it became real good. Now
I realized that the gloves with holes which was given to me was
causing severe problems. The air temperature was well below zero
degree centigrade and boy my palm really froze. But now the speed of
our fall had really come down and we were just floating in the air.
The view down was amazing. We took 10 minutes to come down from 5,000
feet to zero and this time was the most wonderful experience!

After coming down Rahul was very very eager to have a look at
Karishmas video. He thought that she would have been really terrified
during the fall. But we both couldn’t believe what we saw in the
video. Rahul and I were cool and confident all the time but we both
looked terrified on the camera while falling, both of us found it
difficult to breathe. And this was the best part, Karishma who was
afraid all the while looked really cool after she jumped into the
sky. She was smiling all the time in the video!!

It was an amazing experience which we would cherish for real
looong time.

I you haven’t yet seen my Phili Marathon Video taken by Lend A
Hand for India, here it goes. Can you spot me running?

Since this is one of the first few blogs (actually 2^nd)
that I am writing from my Macbook even though I am having Macbook
from more than 6 months! My personality has real hight swings, I
generally write a lot when my personality has swinged to the
direction of a ‘blog writer’. It looks like that’s happening now!
Also over the past 6 monhts I was in India mostly and traveling
around and involved with too many things that I couln’t really
contribute to my blog. “Ho sake to maaf kar de na”

Let me start this new season by writing something about Apple.
I have really become a very big fan of apple after buying my macbook.
Not that I did not like Apple before, but now it has taken over the
number 1 position from Google in my lists of favorite companies. Here
is my current prediction – ‘over the next 5 years apple will become
the biggest technology company in the world overtaking both Google
and Microsoft’. Well it definitely is a very bold prediction, but
Apple fans will know why

Let me put out some reasons for it. Coming to my Macbook. I
never had imagined that I will be such a satisfied customer of
Macbook. I used to have a Dell Inspiron E1505 before. I used to
always curse both Microsoft and Dell because the machine used to have
bad performance (even though I had Core Duo proessor and 1 GB RAM). I
have no such complaints with Mac. Mac is blazing fast. They give the
best hardware for the money they charge. Even though the Macbook
price looks like its on the higher side, believe me it’s worth every
penny. And the software, I can tell you that ‘Mac OS X is by far the
best operating system ever made till date’. Since most of the people
have always been using Windows, they don’t know that Mac OS X is
actually a better operating system.

1.It’s much more easier to use (it might take some time for
windows users to get used to it, which is very much understandable).

2. Its much more stable than Windows. Very rare that the OS will
freeze and you don’t really need frequent restarts.

3. The OS and all the software which comes from Apple (including
Mail, iTunes, iWork, iLife, etc) are all written in a very efficient
way. They don’t really need to used huge amount of memory space like
Microsoft Windows and other microsoft applications.

4. There is a feature called ‘Spotlight’ in Mac which makes
searching anything and everything in Mac very easy. This includes
files, mails, songs, videos, etc which are on the hard-drive. This is
similar to Google desktop but it has much better features than the
google software and since it’s integrated with the OS, it doesn’t
slowdown the system. Also it’s integrated with all Apple applications
which makes it very productive.

5. Mac comes with free software package called iLife which
includes Mail, Address Book, Calendar, iTunes, iPhoto, iDVD, iMovie
etc. These software so so useful that I was wondering how I missed
them all these years. These softwares makes my macbook sooo much more
productive than my previous Dell.

6. And not to miss, the look and feel, ease of navigation etc
which are apple specialties. This will leave any person in awe.

7. The battery life is awesome. It always lasts me for at least 4
hours.

I am sure there are lot of elaborative article. There are lots of
reviews available for Macbook. And there are also lot of videos
available on www.apple.com which
shows details of features of Macbook.

And coming to rest of the things from Apple. I am sure you would
have heard about iPhone. If you have really used iPhone or an
iPod Touch (which I proudly own), you will really know what the hype
is all about. If one looks into the market there is no product
anywhere close to what an iPhone is. I have even checked out Samsung
Instinct personally which is supposed to be the iPhone killer and
boy it just sucks. One can’t use it after having a look at iPhone!
iPhone is really getting $325 subside from AT&T for every iPhone
sold. And the subside becomes $425 if it is sold by Aplle stores. Can
you imagine the kind of money apple is going to make out of iPhones!
Since it’s priced at $200 for the 3G GPS phone, it will sell like hot
cake and Apple is going to make tons of money out of it! And now they
are also challenging Blackberry with new features which also makes it
a good business phone which can be used in Enterprise!!

They have also started an amazing web based feature called Mobile
me. This also shows how good Apple can be at making web applications.
They are not really far from Google in creating great web
applications.

Apple always know where the money is, Apple products never come
cheap. But they are always worth every penny paid for it. Out of the
3 big technology companies Apple, Google and Microsoft I think
apple is rising the fastest. If you just check the rise of Market cap
of Apple since Dec 2006 you will understand what I am talking about.

If you don’t already own any apple product you will soon come to
know what you are missing all these years. Do check out www.apple.com
& don’t miss the videos there!

For now you can enjoy the Macbook Air Video!! Trust me it’s
amazing!