I have been talking about this travel with everybody. This is the question I get asked all the time. It may not be the exact question but in essence yes. The most generic question “why train why not flight?” Well I love trains and I want to travel in Himsagar Express. Its the longest train in India. It starts at Kanyakumari (sagar) and ends at Jammu (Him). I want to spend 3 days in train doing nothing but tasting different cuisine at 54 different stations.

Why riding back all the way? Why not beautiful Leh/Ladak? I completely agree that Leh/Ladak is beautiful. The ride is one of the most beautiful rides in world. I would surely do it one day. But the whole purpose of this ride was not to see the beautiful India (Even though we are riding through Rohtang Pass – Manali). It was to pass through India and get the feel what it means to be India. How different we are and how much of India we can absorb in 20+ days.

More than that you have two of your best friends to ride along. what more can you ask for? Its a great time to look back and laugh at ourselves, to debate and think about next 30 years :) Yes, its my way to celebrate my 30th birthday. And hence the name #3kfor30

I would love to hear from you, here or on twitter. I have dashboard page for this travel. You will get to know everything about this travel from there. BTW I would love to meet you or your friends on the way. Just ping me @thej on twitter.

This saturday noon myself and Veetrag got a chance to record the 11 episode of 1by2coffee. We had great time talking about travel plans, Windows mobile 7 and all Indian UID.

It seems like our trouble in recording has not ended yet. Phone didn’t record for a while in between, so you might find a disconnect in between. We will improve in coming episodes.

Cup11: UID in India and Windows Mobile 7 seems to be fun

Like I had written earlier you can’t read/write Kannada on an Android phone. I have given this feedback to Google and its also on the bug list. But I am not sure when will Google implement it. The biggest thing I missed is reading Kannada blogs. But then this tip helped me to get Kannada back on mobile.

1. Search for Opera Mini on Android market
2. Install it
3. Or use this QR code

4. Type about:config in url bar and then press go
5. Scroll down until you see the setting Use bitmap fonts for complex scripts
6. Change it to yes and save
7. Now try sampada.net and you should be able to read Kannada on Android

This setting will make the Opera Mini to render the page on server side and then deliver it. Hence even though your phone doesn’t have Unicode fonts or rendering capability, you can still read it.

I tried it on my Nexus One and it worked. It should work on most of the other Android mobiles.

Well I am surprised, shocked and in disbelief. How could I turn 30 so fast? What I have done in last 30 best years? What will I do in next 30 years? Which probably is the life I am left with. In last 30 days, I haven’t slept properly. I am the guy who tried to reduce my sleep and failed after a point. But then this reduced my sleep considerably.

This 30th year has been a major milestone in my life. Took a break from my work, my sister got married, major travel plans next month (3kfor30?), all my close friends are married (no more attending marriages!) etc. But then I am still not able to sleep properly. May be now….

Wish me luck.

Just woke up now. I haven’t even read my mails yet, isn’t it kind of strange? iJanaagraha went live early today morning. Three months of hard-work is out for your eyes. Its no where near completion, we will stabilize and make it a much better system in days to come. Along with my own team, teams from Motif8, Tekriti worked really hard to get this out. The last minute sweet addition was ij mobile site created by MobStac.

Here is this small video which we created which talks about iJanaagraha.

Go visit Ijanaagraha, there some great stories and facts that needs to be heard.

Its Oct 2nd and its my hero’s birthday. Shastri JI was the most honest and gutsiest prime minister that India will ever get. He is such an inspiration for go getters and people who believe its possible.