Upgrading Zenfone 2 Laser ZE550KL to the latest firmware version - Error mount /asdf solved

I had bought my Zenfone 2 Laser in 2015. The phone is good enough if we use it inside the constraint of memory and internal storage space it is having. Definitely not good for gaming purposes. If you almost consume full capacity of the internal storage or memory, it starts misbehaving.

I was completely satisfied with the performance of the phone until recently. Started becoming unsatisfied when it suddenly started a problem of not able to update new firmwares getting released by ASUS over the air. The main drawback was that I was not able to apply the voLTE update which was required for Reliance JIO.

I tried updating new firmware manually by copying the firmware downloaded from ASUS website to the internal storage as per the directions given in the update manual available in the website. I got a mount error after trying to update. It looked like

error : mount /asdf

And then it would revert back to the previous firmware. I tried a lot of ways to overcome this. ASUS also didn't come up with a solution for this problem. With lots of check over the internet, I could find a real easy, less risky solution for my problem. I am mentioning it in this blog so that it would help fellow Zenfone 2 laser owners.

Disclaimer :- I myself have done these steps and overcame the problem mentioned. This might not work for all. Please do it at your own risk. I would not be responsible for any problems.

I have not faced failure for this procedure and I cannot help if you face any failure.

Prerequisites :-

1. Download latest software from the ASUS website

http://asus.com/in/ZenFone-2-Laser-ZE550KL/HelpDesk_Download/

Select OS --> Android

Do cross check your region(WW) and phone model(Z00L) as per the directions provided in this link. Cross check with your existing software version in your phone. Should look similar.

Store this software in your external SD card. (Not in internal storage). The zip file itself is the software file. Don't extract.

Please keep at least 2.5GB free space in your internal storage.

2. Download and extract the tools.zip from the below link

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0aLSwTxUBYETFVvQU1ZUHNFaEE/view

(Link Courtesy - Gadget RIDER)

Keep this in your laptop

3) Please ensure more than 60% battery before doing this whole procedure.

Procedure :-

Carefully follow the below steps.

 

1) Enable USB debugging -

Go to Settings --> About --> Software Information

Tap 'Build Number' seven (7) times to enable 'Developer Options' in settings

Once you do it, you can see 'Developer options' under settings

Go into developer options and enable 'USB debugging'

2) Reboot in the fastboot mode

Power OFF your phone

Press the volume UP button and Power button together to start the phone in fastboot mode.

Once started in fastboot mode, the screen will show 'Fastboot Mode!!!' written on the top of the phone.

3) Once the phone is rebooted in the fastboot mode, connect the USB data cable from the mobile to the PC in which the tools folder is saved.

Open the tools folder and run the flash-all.bat file in administrator mode.

It will execute by itself and close. Ignore the errors which you see in the batch prompt.

Remove the data cable. Remove and re-insert the battery for power cycle.

4) After inserting back the battery, we should restart the phone in recovery mode pressing the volume DOWN button and Power button together.

5) Once the phone starts in recovery mode, select option 'Apply update from SD card' by using the volume button and use Power button to select it

Now select the firmware file stored in the SD card by scrolling using the volume button and press Power button to select the file

Some yellow color text will follow and the phone will get updated.

This will take some time (near to 10 mins)

You will get a success message after this and the recovery options will appear again.

6) Select 'Reboot system now' using the Power button

7) After reboot you will get the app optimizer message 'Android is updating'. Please let this finish. This may take another 10-15mins

8) Now you can look into the Settings --> About --> Software Information to confirm that the phone has got updated to the latest software version you downloaded.

9) To enable voLTE, please go to Settings --> More --> Mobile Networks and enable voLTE

Hope this helps. 

Announcement - Demerging of 'വേറിട്ട കാഴ്ചകള്‍'

Dear Readers

The വേറിട്ട കാഴ്ചകള്‍ series in this blog is getting demerged into a separate blog. It just came to my mind that I should not write everything in a single blog. Different readers have different interests. So people who are interested in pictures and visuals as in the posts, please visit the below blog from here on. There wont be any updation of new posts of this series in this blog here after. By end of 2017, old posts of this series would be removed from this blog completely. Hope this would help readers of this blog search relevant posts in this blog easily. Do let me know if you have any suggestions.

Please visit

https://veritta-kazhchakal.blogspot.com/

Thank You for your continued patronage

പ്രിയപ്പെട്ട വായനക്കാരെ 

ഈ ബ്ലോഗിലെ 'വേറിട്ട കാഴ്ചകള്‍' എന്ന പരമ്പര വേർപെടുത്തി മറ്റൊരു ബ്ലോഗ് ആക്കി മാറ്റാൻ ഞാൻ തീരുമാനിച്ചിരിക്കുന്നു. തോന്നുന്നതെല്ലാം ഒരു ബ്ലോഗിൽ തന്നെ എഴുതുന്നത് വായനക്കാർക്ക് അലോസരമുണ്ടാക്കുമെന്ന് മനസ്സിലാക്കുന്നു. എല്ലാവരുടെയും ഇഷ്ടങ്ങൾ വ്യത്യസ്തമായിരിക്കുമല്ലോ. 'വേറിട്ട കാഴ്ചകള്‍' ഇഷ്ടപ്പെടുന്നവർ മേലെ കൊടുത്തിരിക്കുന്ന ലിങ്കിൽ പോകുക. ഇന്ന് മുതൽ ഈ ബ്ലോഗിൽ 'വേറിട്ട കാഴ്ചകള്‍' പരമ്പരയിൽ പുതിയ പോസ്റ്റുകൾ ഉണ്ടായിരിക്കുന്നതല്ല എന്നറിയിച്ചു കൊള്ളട്ടെ. 2017 അവസാനത്തോടെ പഴയ പോസ്റ്റുകളും നീക്കം ചെയ്യുന്നതായിരിക്കും. ഈ ബ്ലോഗിന്റെ വായനക്കാർക്ക് മറ്റ് പോസ്റ്റുകൾ എളുപ്പം കണ്ടുപിടിക്കാൻ അത് ഉപകരിക്കും എന്ന് കരുതുന്നു. നിർദ്ദേശങ്ങൾ സ്വാഗതം ചെയ്യുന്നു.

അനുഗ്രഹാശിസ്സുകൾ അഭ്യർത്ഥിക്കുന്നു. വായനക്കാർക്ക് നന്ദി അർപ്പിച്ചു കൊണ്ട് നിർത്തട്ടെ.

An eventful air travel

I was coming back from Mumbai to Goa booked in Air India flight AI683. The actual itinerary I received on booking had mentioned 1hr 20mins of travel which suggested the aircraft to be the small ATR type. But on the day before my travel I got a reschedule message from Air India. The departure time in the message seemed to be the same. When I cross checked once again it was the arrival time which got changed. 1hr 20mins of travel time was decreased to 1hr which suggested Air India changed the aircraft to Airbus 319/320/321. I actually became happy that I would be reaching Goa early and would be able to catch some good sleep.

Now lets come to the travel day. Reaching the boarding gate I understood why Air India changed the flight. It seems they got more passengers that day and I saw many foreigners to board this flight to Goa. Air India had recently got membership in the 'Star Alliance' and these passengers might be the code share passengers who are using Air India services via Star Alliance. The boarding was 10 minutes late. As expected the aircraft was Airbus A320.

On boarding the flight I understood the fact that it was very old. A bad smell caught my nose once I stepped into the flight. Something like entering a house which was not occupied for months. The crew courteously welcomed us. I didn't have to move much as my seat was in the front rows. Was sad to see that the seat was so stained and soiled. I didn't mind. But I was thinking about the impression it made on the foreign passengers about the Indian national airline. Moreover there were lots of mosquitoes in aircraft and many passengers were seen driving the mosquitoes away from their vicinity.

The safety briefing started.

'All exit signs can be easily identified by the exit signs and the floor path lighting'

When the air hostesses tried to show the fluorescent green floor path strips, they were not there. No floor path strips existed in the aircraft. The crew actually got embarrassed with that unexpected backfire. But soon regained their postures and continued the safety briefing.

'To fasten the seat belt, push the metallic end into the buckle. To adjust the belt the loose end can be pushed or pulled...'

I tried to fasten my seat belt. Buckled it. But was not able to adjust it. It was stuck. Later left it to the way it was. Pretty loose on my lap.

'In case of a fall in cabin pressure, individual oxygen mask will drop down automatically'

The demonstration unit they had was so dirty that the air hostess in front of me was hesitating to handle it properly.

Once the cabin was secured, the lights were dimmed for take-off. The passenger who was seated in front of me switched on the overhead light for reading. The lights behaved like ones in ghost movies. It blinked for sometime before slowly becoming on. Then after sometime it went off by itself. The crew couldn't answer the passengers questions on this matter.

The flight took off and was stable now. So the crew started serving dinner. My row was now getting served. All in the row opened the tray table and the passenger who seated next to me found one end of the tray table broken. For having dinner, he had to finally support the dinner box near the end of the tray table which was not broken. Other items included like tea cup and water bottle was accommodated in my tray table.

It should be remembered that the crew did their best to make the travel comfortable for passengers in spite of all the hardships and embarrassments they had to face during the flight course. Kudos to them.

An after-marriage life

Please read my earlier post 'After Friends Marry' to get an idea of my views on what happens after marriage.

http://rajeevdaniel.blogspot.com/2012/11/after-friends-marry.html

The post was written before I got married.  Now, I have more opinions which came from my own married life experience and from the continuous learning seeing many other lives in the society. My opinion has not changed from the ones I provided in the earlier blog post. I had let my wife keep all her contacts and best friends after marriage and I feel she is very much comfortable because of that. She being an understanding woman lets me also keep my friends and spend some time with them. We are able to bring good understanding between us without affecting majority of the other relationships. But I agree the truth that the time availability post marriage is lesser and we have to time multiplex between family and friends giving our immediate family a little more number of time slots.

One of my friend who was a software engineer got married to another software engineer a couple of years ago. He was a very active guy and was good in sports & games. Before marriage he used to play cricket after office times before coming back to room. He was very social and used to meet his friends in weekends, plan regular pleasure trips with his friends and occasionally used to have drinks at office parties or outside. He used to read a lot too. He was working in Hyderabad and she was working in Bangalore before marriage. After marriage she moved to Hyderabad resigning her job. The initial phase of their marriage was very happy as we normally hear in all cases. But gradually problems crept in. The main reason being his wife being away from her family and not having any friends or relatives in Hyderabad. She couldn't make good relation with her neighbours there. She started relying on TV serials for killing her time.

His cricket game post work time came to an end after some days as she was always eagerly waiting for his return. She used to call three to four times asking him where he reached. And he had to lie many many a times that he have work or he is stuck in traffic. Finally he stopped playing after work and directly started taking the way home. After reaching home too, he was not able to relax a bit and take a nap. She wanted him to sit near her when she was cooking. A die hard cricket fan like him was not even allowed to watch an India-Pak cricket match. She will ask - "The whole day you are outside. Why cant you spend some time to talk to me?". His weekend visits to friends also came to full stop. And if he drank he was supposed to sleep on the sofa.

He tried everything to keep her happy. The whole weekends were spent with her. Shopping or outings as per her wish were done. He tried to engage her in something like cooking. She did like cooking. But she cooked everything seeing the god-damn tv serials and there came a high risk of her forgetting things in kitchen like something kept on the burner or the cooking gas valve open. So that didn't bear any fruit and was abruptly stopped to avoid risk. He also tried to wake up many of her other interests. But that too didn't become fruitful. He also thought of having a baby so that she gets engaged. But she didn't want to get pregnant so soon after marriage and wanted to wait at least for a year. Thats when he decided to send her for a course. The course was related to the domain in which she had worked upon.

The training was a kind of internship where she had to work on a job which consumed most of her day time. She would go in the morning with him and get dropped at the centre. Evening she would come back little earlier than him. To his surprise, the evening calls stopped and he could see that once she s back from her work she got engaged in cooking and other activities. He just need to give her company for sometime. There were no complains anymore. She made friends at the training institute and made good relations with them. Her outing with them during weekends helped him to go back to his routines.

He understood the issue very late that once working lady like her when leaves her job and gets bound to household works alone, cannot kill time very easily. And that was the root cause of their problems. She wanted company, friends and attention which he could not provide all the time. Now as this training continued, she too could go back to her routines without depending much on him. So once the training finished, he found her a job which fitted her profile. This brought the balance back to their home.

So my suggestion to all is that let your spouse go for her professional aspirations, give him/her personal freedom for friends and acquaintances, don't impose any of your ideas on him/her, consider his/her family too when charting your time and over all make him/her feel loved whenever you are with him/her. Have a great family life ahead.

A story of getting laid

Disclaimer - The following post contains descriptions related to sex and might be inappropriate for certain audiences

Our hero in the story is a star performer in one of a leading software companies in India. Unmarried. Like all software engineers, he too had a dream of a company sponsored onsite job to an international location. Finally his dream was fulfilled. One month work in one of the customers office in Milan, Italy. He has been to many onsite jobs in India, but this was the first time for him abroad and he barely knew the conditions there. He imagined of cities like in India, but with bone piercing chill and of course better cleanliness. But lots of surprises awaited him in the city of Milan.

Our guy was informed that somebody would be there at the Milan Airport to pick him up. When he landed and came out of the airport, he saw a person with his name written on a placard. The person was dressed in a nice suit. The person should be someone from the customer office, he thought. Our guy went and said 'hello' to the person. Received a 'hello' in return. But nothing more. The new character barely spoke English. ("Ah, the days following would be quite fucked up without knowing the local language" - Our guy thought). But our guy understood that the person could recognise him. You are thinking how, right? The person had already picked up our guys luggage and started walking (:D). So our hero had no other option than to silently follow the person.

The person went straight to a Mercedes Benz TAXI. Yes. The man in the suit is a taxi driver (our guy pling!!!). Our hero looked at himself. He was wearing an old jeans (Yes. With a hole near the knee) and t-shirt pair. He felt embarrassed (dull). Our guy thought of taxi drivers in India. Khakhi or white shirt and pant, shabbily dressed, unruly hair and with pan parag in mouth; spitting occasionally here and there. Our hero developed some respect for the well dressed driver. After keeping the luggage in the back when the driver came to open the door for him, our hero told himself silently - "Sir, please sit in the passenger seat backside. I will take the wheel (:-P)"

The taxi went straight to a hotel which looked like some palace (Later after seeing some real palaces our hero will change his opinion). A welcome drink was there on check-in. The room was huge. Even the bathroom was as big as hotel rooms he used to stay in India. The bathroom even had a bath tub to have a relaxed bathing experience. The bed in the room was very soft and spongy. There were many other facilities including fridge, owen, coffee maker and iron-box. He could see a list there upon the fridge which marked complementary and billable items. Coffee sachets were complementary. Daily one juice and a cookie packet also came in the complementary list. Additional use of these would be billed. Other billable items include chocolates, condoms etc (Don't think that only items starting with C are billable :-P).

The hotel surprises didn't stop here. He removed the veil of the balcony wind-shields to discover that the view was fantastic from the balcony. The balcony had a view of an enormous swimming pool. Also there was from the balcony to step into the pool. Decks and chairs were also there for sunbath. Standing high across the hotel is the Santa Maria Basilica giving a nice view from the balcony. Just like any other tourist coming to the hotel, he too took some selfies facing the pool and the Basilica. Also one in the bath tub and one putting the shower cap. Didn't stop there. Took another selfie giving a victory pose with condoms put on his fingers. All to share with his friends and some to put in facebook. Everybody should drop their jaw seeing the pictures.

It was a five day working week there at customer premises. Saturday and Sunday were holidays. But will get allowance for work days as well as holidays. wooooww... Our guy had a small fear going to office on the first day considering the language issues and the first direct overseas customer experience he is going to have. But the friendly behaviour of the employee working with him there in customer office actually made him relax. The person knew good English and acted as a translator for our guy in case anybody he interacted with didn't speak English. That chap was below 30 years of age. That means both are almost of same age. This person always made sure that our guy is comfortable and there is nothing lacking during his tenure there. Time after time coffee and snacks were made available.

The first day during lunch the person asked our guy whether he will eat non-veg. But seeing the manner our hero ate that day, the person never enquired again about food preferences(giggle). Our hero was actually feasting there. While eating lunch from there, our guy thought of the idiotic customers in India who made him work till midnight and bought him only a small pizza to eat for the day. One day, this blind binge eating created some trouble for our guy. He ate pork that day and it seemed that it was not well cooked. As a side effect, he got a swollen eye with heavy pain. It was that person in customer office who took him to hospital that day and bought him medicines. Took him back to hotel also. This incident marked the starting of a small friendship between those two.

That very weekend - Saturday and Sunday. Our guy was staying back at hotel with swollen eyes, unable to go out anywhere for sight seeing cos of that. What to do? But there was some other thing in his wishlist to do before he returned to India. It was sex. He wanted to give a try. Till now he has never approached a girl. This is the first time. Therefore had a little fear too. He knew that prostitution is legal there in Italy. But didn't know where to go. He was not familiar with the city and its specific places for, ahem, 'jolly fun'. He was reluctant to ask the customer friend too. "What he will think!!!" - Our guys mind was swaying. Finally after lots of thought he decided to give a call to the friend. "Silly Thing" - The customer friend said. Was nothing embarrassing for him. It was very common there in Italy (:-P)

That night the customer friend took our guy outside. They went to a famous brothel in Milan. Brothels were called as 'Entertainment Centres' in Italy. The multi-storey building from outside looked like a pub and beer parlour. Lots of people sat and had beer in the arrival hall enjoying the music which was played there. The soft tunes of guitar were relaxing. Entering through the door inside will reach a big reception. The manager of the brothel stood there at the reception. Girls available were standing opposite to the reception wearing only lingerie. The customer friend had a talk with the manager first. 100EURO is the charge for 2hours. Should pay first. In normal cases our guy would have lost consciousness on hearing '100EUROs'. But he had come decided. He wanted to get laid despite what expense he had. He slipped a 100EURO note in the friend's hand who paid the manager. The manager gave green signal to select the girl our guy wanted. He pointed out a beautiful skinny girl. The girl did a cat walk towards our guy and took him towards the stairs. The friend gave our guy an ALL THE BEST (y) and told him that he would be waiting outside.

The ladies actually took customers to rooms available in the brothel itself. There are many types of rooms there, like that available in a hotel. For 100EURO you get a room with a bed and a bath tub. There are costly SUITE rooms also available. The first thing the girl do after reaching the room would be bathing their customers. This is important to keep away from foul smell as well as keeping the organs clean. The beautiful lady stripped our guy of his dresses and pushed him into the bath tub. She washed him with a shower gel which smelled of jasmine. She too undressed and cleansed herself. While cleaning herself, she gave our guy an opportunity to bathe her using the shower gel. While bathing her, he played with her small perky boobies. They were beautiful. By the time they finished, our hero was fully aroused.

After finishing the bath which took around 20min, she made him sit on the bed and asked him something, which to our hero was as good as an alien language. "English???" - Our guy asked her. She gave a negative response to him shaking her head. Bull shit. She don't know English. A panic rushed into his mind. This is his first time and he was expecting the girl to manage everything. He was looking forward to this, not only as a pleasure appointment but also as an opportunity for learning. Now how does he ask her to clear any doubt. How does he tell her that its his first time and he actually has no clue on where to start. She started showing some gestures using her hand. He too tried to tell her via gestures that its his first time. But in vain. Both of them didn't understand each other. Half an hour lost this way. Not only time. He lost his erection too. As a last option our guy called the customer friend and told him the problem. The friend asked him to give the phone to the girl. They had a brief conversation. The phone came back to our guy and the friend told him that he informed the lady everything. Our guy was still in a panic mood. The friend asked him to relax and told him that the girl will manage everything. Our guy just need to relax and enjoy.

The girl started smiling at our guy. Our guy first felt as if she was making fun of him. After all this is his first time(:P). But she just wanted to be nice. She took him in her hand and shook him up to erection. Took a condom and slipped it on him. She took her own ways to get a foreplay feel as the guy was not at all familiar. And you cannot imagine the joy he was feeling. After that she pushed him to his back and climbed over him. Yes. It was the moment. She slipped him inside her. She took the initiative to make the movements. After sometime she laid on her back and gave him the opportunity and space. But again she had to slip him in as our guy found it difficult to find the exact place.

The girl tried everything she knew to satisfy our guy. Even after 10 minutes he was pretty hard without seeing an end. Continued, she reached orgasm and still couldn't bring it out of him. She tried for some more time but in vain. She then told our guy by gesture that she will try a handjob. The handjob too couldn't bring the ejaculation. She now started showing gesture if he can do it by himself as her hand started paining. Our guy could understand from her face that she had some problem and was uncomfortable. So he decided not to go ahead. But he wanted to see her Vagina as he never had a chance to see the female sex organ directly. He wanted to clearly know where he could go in. The girl indicated that he should only see and do nothing else. He spread her legs and took a clear view of what was in there. Meanwhile he heard a knock in the door.

The knock was meant for an alarm. That only 15min is left on the clock for the two hour session to finish. Again the girl couldn't communicate this to our guy and required the friend's help to do it. The friend informed our guy that time is over and he should take a wash and get dressed. Our guy got dressed, thanked the girl, gave her a tip of 10EURO for her kind behaviour and finally a kiss on her cheek. After leaving, our guy told the friend that it was not success. The friend who was a married guy, chuckled. He kept smiling and gave a wise and valuable advice - "It is love which will bring  all satisfaction to sex. Its an act of love. An exchange of love."

True indeed.

Of course our hero returned home a bit richer ;-)

A horrible car service

It was august 14, 2014. Only two days more for my engagement. I wanted to clean my car interior and exterior to use it as grooms vehicle for the function. It was full of dirt following the recent heavy rains. So decided to take it to a newly opened car cleaning centre 'CAR ZONE' near NH bypass junction, Thondayad, Calicut who cleans car interior and exterior. They also have a cafe attached to the place for people to relax and wait until their cars are serviced. It's 400INR for a hatch back(I have a Renault Pulse hatch back) and more for a sedan. Cafe charges of course are extra as per the purchase made.

There was a huge queue when I reached there in the evening. Around 10 cars. The lady in reception told me that it won't be possible to clean my car that day. She also informed me that they were working on August 15 i.e Indian independence day. It didn't look good. But the requirement was mine. I again looked towards my car. It was dirty as a pig. I looked inside the service center towards the cleaning area. All were from the north and north-east. Majority Bengali speaking. No wonder they are working on independence day.

The next day I took my car there around 12 in the afternoon.  The queue was bigger than what I saw on the previous day. More than 15 cars already. People took privilege of cleaning their cars on the national holiday. I approached the lady at the reception with the car keys. Initially she refused to accept it for cleaning. But when I told her that I had come the day before and was asked to come that day she agreed. It seems there were less worker attendance due to the National holiday. I was asked to come in the evening around 6PM. I agreed. Anyway I had some work to do including a grooming session to prepare for the following day. My brother had followed me in his car, so we set out to complete those works in his car.

It was dark by the time we reached back to take the car. Around 6:30PM. It took me by surprise that none of the cars I noticed earlier in the afternoon was there at the time I reached back. How fast do they clean them? They were still cleaning cars in the dark. The lady at the reception was already gone. I enquired about my car with the guy sitting there now. He seemed to be the owner/manager of the service station. He checked the list and told that my car cleaning was completed already and ready for delivery. I paid INR400 and he handed over the keys to a guy there who lead me to my car.

The car was parked in front of the cafe. I unlocked the doors and switched on the lights to check the interiors. Interiors seemed fresh and awesome. The dashboard and seats are well cleaned. The floor also seemed clean. I happily shook hands with the guy there and got ready to leave. It was then under the light from the cafe I noticed a muddy patch left uncleaned on my back right door. They might have missed it as it was dark. I called back the guy and brought it to his notice who inturn called a worker to clean it up. I thought to examine the whole car for any more such patches left so that those can also be cleaned. There were a couple more such mud patches left on the car which they missed. But it came to me as a shock when I examined the bonnet. It was full of scratches. Please see the picture below.

BONNET

I called back the guy again and demanded an explanation. Initially he tried to retreat meanwhile I decided to do a thorough check-up all over the car. I could find one more clear scratch near one of the wheels and some minor scratches on the door and bumper. I caught him again demanded an explanation.

NEAR THE WHEEL

 ON THE DOORS

Now he started arguing with me that those are scratches which I already have on my car. My car is my daily pal and I exactly knew where all I bumped it and where all I have bruises on it. I took him to see some of those and told him that I am not talking about those. Even if I agree to his point that the scratches on the door/bumper/near-the-wheels came on the car without me knowing it, how the heck in the world do I agree to him that it came on the bonnet automatically.

Now I demanded the manager of the service station to give an explanation. I wanted to hear his perspective. Initially he tried to shrug off but I didn't leave. Gradually people in the cafe came out to check out what was happening. Some of them asked me what was the matter. The manager was yet not making any responsible statement. I started showing the scratches to them. They started talking between each other now. The manager went into an alarming state and wanted me out of the place.

It followed with heated argument between my cousin and the manager when the manager finally told the following statement - "It was not the responsibility of the service station to check whether any scratches are coming on the vehicle. The responsibility of the service station is just to clean the vehicle which is done". Then why the hell are we paying money? To get our car scratched? And that too 400 bucks. Isn't that amount enough for them to take good care of the car? And moreover the car was not completely cleaned too. It was left with mud patches. Okay. There is no point in arguing with the guy. We decided to leave. He finally told one more statement - "Please don't come back". Me, my brother and my cousin replied in a single voice - "Never again"

വേറിട്ട കാഴ്ചകള്‍ - VI - Thailand - Part I

A water monitor lizard seen at Lumpini Park, Bangkok

Lime Stone Formation inside a cave in Thailand

Hanging root of a plant in the Tortoise Temple in Bangkok

 Sand Barges in Chao Phraya River, Bangkok

 The Great Swing, Bangkok

 Plate form leaves of special kind of lotus - Found in Bangkok

 Small boats used by Thai people



Traditional Thai huts



Traditional Thai drums

 Mangrove cultivation

 A hanging flower found in Bangkok

Value of a coin

All of my friends in Bangalore would have traveled in BMTC city buses. And at least once they would have had a bad experience that the conductor writes the remaining amount behind your ticket and finally you end up not taking it back from him. I have experienced this many times and sometimes ended up losing big amounts. If we give 100 rupee not for a 12 rupee ticket, conductor writes the whole remaining 88 rupees behind the ticket. And customers usually forget it in a hurry to get down. And this cunning guys take advantage of it. They make a very big amount like this by EOD. Or if you are in Kerala say Cochin and you are traveling in any of the buses in the early morning hours with a 100 rupee note for a less than 10 rupees distance. You would have definitely got scoldings from conductor in a very bad manner.

Who is responsible for this? You people would blame those conductors. How would they be responsible? Definitely some are taking advantage of the situation. But the real problem lies somewhere else. The bank ATM kiosks we have disburses only 100 rupee notes or above. And therefore normal citizens don't have change with them for small purchases and they are forced to change this 100 rupee somewhere. Some prefer to do it in buses in which they travel everyday and does the first financial transaction of the day. There lies the problem. How you think a bus conductor can provide change to hundreds of passengers boarding his bus daily? How much of coins and small value notes he should carry? Would he prefer that? Consider that he does that and gives you change today. But what you will do? You will give all those 1 or 2 rupee coins to a begger on the road side or finally reaching home you will put all those coins aside or in your kunji (the small saving box). Because you don't want to carry heavy coins with you. And again next day you approach the conductor with a fresh 100 rupee note. Think over. Aren't you doing this?

There can be another opinion that it's the job of the conductor to keep proper change with him so that he can serve the passengers. But there should be a source of coins for them. I have seen some hotels and retailers sourcing coins. They get it from the beggars on a regular basis and stock in huge amount. Should conductors also do this? Another option is to get it from banks. But even the local bank they could approach also won't have so much in stock i think. Government has minted coins more than that is required, but all of them lies unusable to common man. Because some people don't want to carry weight and put them aside, huge amounts lies with beggars and other coin stockists like hotels & retail vendors.

What is the solution? It's not fair to demand that conductors should keep change for serving this huge number of customers. We all should take the responsibility for circulating the coins minted by the government. Should be ready to carry change. Whoever has change with them should tender the same to take tickets and passengers without change should be served by the conductor. But still I think there would be scarcity of coins. Bank ATM's should give options to enter what set of notes a customer require. Say in 1000s, 500s, 100s, 50s, and 10s. Banks should also facilitate coin disbursement kiosks along with their ATM's so that citizens can get change and thereby this can solve the problem which we are discussing in this blog. 

Any other opinions are welcome. Do comment

My Android Applications

Google

Both my personal and official google login are added in my android. Corresponding logins are used in specific google applications where it applies. Details are given in the below subheadings.

Google Calendar

The Calendar app displays events from each of your Google accounts configured to use with it. I have both my personal and official logins used in calendar. Calendar widget is added to one of my home screens. All my personal and official events gets added in the calendar which automatically comes up in the widget. Upto a limit it helps me to keep work-life balance. And you are familiar about the reminders possible using Calendar.

Google Drive

Easy to upload files directly from the phone to Google Drive now. I use my phone for both official and personal purposes. So there are occasions that I might need to view official files on the go or upload some personal photos during travel. All possible using Google Drive. A new feature supported in google drive is the SCAN feature for which i used CAMSCANNER application earlier. Now we can SCAN documents using the phone camera, crop, adjust and then upload to google drive. Fantastic feature.

Google Keep

I am somebody who forgets small small things and would like to note them down. Was using sticky notes earlier for this purpose and now Google has introduced keep. This also have alarm feature so that you can be reminded of something at exact time. 

Also during official meetings, now I don't take a note book. Note them down in Google keep. Even we can add pictures. Share of a note is also possible

Google Maps

Anybody need an introduction for Google maps? Improving day by day. As a frequent traveler I should admit that it helps me a lot. And recently Google has introduced to save a part of map so that we can avoid the requirement of data during use of maps. Only GPS will do (Not with phones where only A-GPS will work).

Google Mail

I require my personal email on the go. Having a good 3G connection no problem to have that in my mobile.

Splitwise

Are you sharing a rented house where you have shared expenses? Then splitwise is exactly what you need. It offers a perfect way to share your expenses and get it settled. In addition to splitting household bills with rand d mmates, it can also serve you for group vacations or individual spendings. Separate groups can be created for these. Month end splitwise will send you a summary of expenses and settlement report as email.

Expense Manager

A great application to track your income and expenses. You can have different accounts say personal and official. You need to enter your income/expenses immediately or on a daily basis so that you dont forget. Expense manager also has a reminder service to remind you of adding the expenses. You can divide the income and expenses into different categories and see individual category reports. Budgeting is possible for different  categories and you can compare in which category you have lost out in a particular month. Different kind of charts are also available so that we can have a graphical comparison of the same. Reccurring payments can be configured so that we dont need to add it every time it happens. Export of data to CSV format or upload to Google Drive/Dropbox is also supported.

NTES(National Train Enquiry System)

A must for Indians as we all use Indian Railways some or other way. The Indian Railways official app for train enquiry. The earlier version was a crap. But they improved well in the new app and its easy to use and helpful. The new version provides realtime information about trains and stations.

App features include :-

     Spot your train

     Live Station

     Train Schedule

     Trains Between Stations

     Cancelled Trains

     Rescheduled Trains

     Diverted Trains

Freecharge

Freecharge is one of the most convenient way to recharge your mobile, internet or DTH without visiting the retail shops directly. You can use your credit /debit card for making your payments. The application supports all major service providers. In addition, the application provides frequent offers above ones from the service providers; normally as cash back to freecharge credits which can be used later via freecharge.

Line

Line is a free messaging app very popular in many countries but in India. Here people use watsapp more so I use watsapp also. But I like line more. It supports voice calls and video calls in addition to messaging and at the same time remains a very light and fast application. Further to add, a PC version of the application is also available for people who want to use it in PC.

ES File Explorer

ES File Explorer is a free, full-featured file and application manager. It functions as all of these apps in one: file manager, application manager, task killer, download manager, cloud storage client (compatible with Dropbox, Google Drive etc.) and FTP client. It shows thumbnails and has built-in viewer. Its ultimate use comes for root users to manage the file-system.

My Days X

This application is helpful for both ladies and couples equally. Ladies can follow up their period and related information. Once you enter the current period dates, the application would provide you the estimated dates for periods in coming months. And as you enter the start and stop dates for a couple of months, it automatically adjusts the dates as per your cycle length and period length which is calculated by the application. 

You can see your high fertility days in order to get pregnant. This feature is very useful for couples for planning purpose. The calendar also provides you with opportunity to mark several details which would help you for proper planning.

1mg

This application gives information about the medicines prescribed to you and your loved ones. It gives details about the side effects of the prescribed medicine too. Equivalent medicines and approximate price of these medicines are also available in this app.

Automate It

Wanna get more out of your phone? Want to make your phone smarter? Automate It is exactly the application you need provided your phone is rooted. It helps to automate various tasks on your smartphone based on triggers and actions. We can define rules to do some actions based on some triggers in our smartphone. The application provides some basic rules by default and provides flexibility for us to define new rules. Also some rules which are popular can be downloaded from internet. Examples of some default rules available are low battery voice warning, quiet at night, normal in morning, enable data with GPS etc. We can enable or diable rules whichever are applicable for us. Please see the Automate It application description to see the list of available triggers and actions

Flashlight

A torch is required for everybody and you need not carry it separately if you have a smartphone with LED flash. This application will make your device a bright torch. It has evolved so much to have minimum memory footprint and battery consumption compared to other applications.

Memories

I used to write diary from my childhood times and from the time I started using smartphones I was looking for a good diary which offers good features and at the same time security. After trying out many applications I settled down with this application. Along with the text you write, you can also attach images and audio. A location can be added so that you can remember where exactly the event happened. There is password protection for the diary and as far as the review and comments of the app in Google Play are concerned the data seem to be safe. It has TAGS to organise and classify records. Another innovative thing from the developers is the introduction of 'Flow of Thoughts' which is a way to keep memories linked to each other and organised as continuous conversation. The whole diary can be backed up to google drive

Buying TV in Bangkok

Myself and my colleague were assigned a project in Thailand from the starting of this year. I was supposed to discuss the requirements with customer, freeze it and conduct the acceptance test. Upon acceptance, my colleague was to take over the project further to execution phase and closure. By June, the requirements were almost clear and we were ready with the acceptance test procedures. I decided to involve my colleague also during the acceptance testing as a handover process.

It was a time when all persons traveling back to India from Thailand used to bring back a TV as it is one single item available there with big price difference compared to that in India. Compared to the prices in India we could get price difference from 4K to 12K on TV models ranging from 32" to 42". Further Thailand offers a VAT refund of 7% for tourists which further adds to the reason to purchase a TV from Bangkok. During my trips I had brought a total of 4 nos of TVs from Bangkok in four different trips. All four for my friends. Their requirements were different. The models brought were 

1) Toshiba 32PS200T
2) Sony 40EX320

3) Samsung 40EH5000R

4) Samsung 32F5000ARX

In my first trip I had bought the TV from a well known electronic goods retailer in Bangkok - Power Buy in Central Plaza at PhraRam9. I should say that this was the place where I found cheaper price compared to other malls and branded retailer groups in Bangkok. But in my second visit, I had lot of time to explore Bangkok and went many local tourist places and markets. That was when I came to visit Indra Square in Pratunam Market near the Platinum Mall. There are many shops close-by; many specifically targeting Indians. Some are even run by Indians settled in Bangkok. The prices are well below what is offered in malls. In a shop inside Indra square, at a time minimum 10 people (Indians ofcourse) were paying the bills for the TV they purchased. So just imagine the amount of business they have.

My colleague arrived in Bangkok for the first time in the month of June. He had a wish to buy a TV for himself. So I took him to Indra Market to look for TV. I also had to buy TV for my another friend(the 4th TV). I did my purchase that day itself. But he couldn't decide on what model he wanted to buy till the end of his stay in Bangkok. The prices were so attractive that he wanted a very good TV now. Also this time the credit limit in his credit card almost finished; so he decided to buy during his next travel. Cos of that I requested him to take back the TV for my friend as my flight was to Cochin and my friend was located in Bangalore to where my colleague had return flight.

In July also, my colleague couldn't buy his TV. Despite my assurances on Indra Market as the cheapest place for TV, he tried to check out prices in other places in Bangkok during the short time he had in Bangkok and finally couldn't buy. During his trip in August he had already decided on the model he wanted to buy. But this time we had hell lot of work and finally he got time only on the last day. But how he would transport the TV from Indra Market to Airport. I actually got my customers there to help me transport it in their car to my apartment during the weekends for all my 4 TVs. But that day unfortunately (for him) was a working day and when my colleague checked out with my customer, he was not free. I advised him to hire a taxi and bring it; which he refused to do telling that he have to come back  to Bangkok again next week. We reached back together in India and after two days the below news came in newspaper. Such a bad luck for my colleague. He is travelling again only after August 26.

An emergency landing - The insider story

Recently a Bharat Airlines flight from Bangalore to Heathrow was emergency landed in Dubai Airport as some suspected terrorists tried to break into the cockpit and take control of the flight. Once landed in Dubai commandos stormed the flight and arrested 5 possible terrorists - A couple of Muslims, one Hindu, one Sikh and one British citizen who was a Christian. Investigators told media that all of them were converted to Islam in India and joined Indian Mujahideen. They were said to be continue leading their earlier life to be under cover. Reports said that all were linked and planned the attack at Bangalore a week ago. The reason is not yet identified, but it seems they were targeting to release their friends under the capture of Indian Government.

Now coming to the insider information on the incident. This lady was recently married and was going to her husband who is working in US under H1B visa. Her husband traveled a month after their marriage to work out all the documents required to take her and now she is traveling alone. She was actually supposed to travel in Air India flight to Heathrow and then onward to US. But Air India renowned for their planning and on time departures cancelled the flight to Heathrow due to indefinite delay in the arrival of their flight which should fly to Heathrow. Following lots of heated arguments and a couple of hours of waiting period, they agreed to get some urgent passengers on board Bharat Airlines which was flying to Heathrow. The lady also got a seat as she had to catch a connection flight from Heathrow to US and will miss it if delayed more.

Traveling in rainy season, the flight experienced some turbulence for around one hour during the initial phase of the flight. Seat belt sign was on and the flight attendants didn't come to serve dinner at that time. The lady who were tired of waiting for long time in the airport soon got asleep. And when the dinner was served she didn't wake up. She was sleeping with the blanket around her and the seat belt visible outside which is a signal for the air crew not to disturb. So the dinner was not served for her.

She actually woke up hearing murmurings around her and she found everybody standing in big queues. People were seen so restless and exhausted. She came to understand that these people were standing in queue for an entry to the toilet. There was some problem with the food served and majority in the flight have their stomach upset now. People who already entered the toilet were taking so much of time to come out. People in the queue were standing with one hand on their stomach and in the other hand fingers crossed.

The problem on board actually started when a guy who was in the toilet opened the door after he finished and while coming out again felt bad and tried to re-enter. The person standing first in the queue waiting this guys exit tried to pull him out and there started a fight. The crew members tried to interfere and now the whole flight started swearing at each other. Meanwhile a crew member was assaulted by a traveler as he tried to block the access to the toilets near the cockpit in the business class area. The whole flight were having problem and instead of trying to help the people, the crew tried to put their rules forward that the front toilets are for business class only(only 3-4 people were there in business class).

After some time the situation became critical that people started asking the crew to inform the captain about the medical emergency in the flight and make an emergency landing so that people can get medical attention. But again the chief flight attendant disagreed to do that saying the flight will reach the destination in 3-4 hours. This made the mob furious and those 5 persons mentioned earlier who got arrested rushed towards the cockpit and started banging on the doors. The captain who couldn't get any response from the crew and was unaware of the situation on board now cited an emergency to the nearest airport and asked help to handle the situation thinking its a hijack. Rest is what you read in the first paragraph. One thing I didn't understand is what mistake did those 5 do? Tried to get an emergency landing citing medical emergency? Or is it that they tried to bomb the toilet lol... So this is how you can become an extreme Islamic terrorist.

Solution for Prolific PL-2303 USB to serial driver problems in Windows VISTA and Windows 7

Today I faced one irritating issue. And i realised that many among us are facing the same issue. So i decided to help them through my blog. Many of the USB to serial converters available in the market are using Prolific chips and the drivers shipped with the product come from prolific. These wont get properly installed in the OS versions mentioned in the heading and a yellow mark appears near the device seen in Device Manager showing that the driver is not properly installed. The device manager will show the error as "The device cannot start (Code 10).

I had tried restarting the system, updating the driver after downloading the latest version, using windows update to find the correct driver etc. Also checked the internet and tried around 10 drivers from forums. And finally after three hours of hard work, a driver actually did the job.

Please use the below driver for proper working of your USB to serial converter. Hope I helped you in your problem

http://www.cooldrives.com/lib/cooldrives/vista-prolific-chip-driver-for-serial-adapters.zip

The cause of rape/women abuse in India - An investigation into the Indian Society

Available statistics say that in India, a woman is raped every 40 minutes. This is about the available official statistics. So what would be the actual count?  I think it would be five times. ie 5 in 40 minutes. Now if you look into the newspapers, its full of news related to rape and women abuses. Why is this happening in our society? This blog does an investigation into the topic

During the communal riots at the time of partition of India, large number of Hindu, Muslim and Sikh women were abducted and openly raped. There were tens of thousands of rapists belonging to all these communities exacting what they saw as communal vengeance. The reasons for these rapes was an overt assertion of their identity and a simultaneous humiliation of the other by 'dishonouring' their women. The people in general were infected with a spirit of vendetta and when not able to directly fall axe on the menfolks, took revenge by committing cruelty on the womenfolk of the opposite community. Also an ethnic cleansing was aimed by communal forces to push out minorities by means of murder and rape. Unofficial statistics tells that more than 100000 lakh women went missing in Punjab alone during the partition. And majority of them were abducted and raped or killed. Some were forced to suicide. Some were converted and forced to live as wives in the other country. And not to forget, some were killed by their own family to keep the family honour. In Jammu and Kashmir JKLF have been accused of ethnic cleansing by using murder and rape as weapon to drive out Hindu Pandits from the region.

All know the rape story of Phoolan Devi, the notorious dacoit. Phoolan was from the lower caste mallahs and was among the dacoits during the incident. The rage of the upper caste Thakurs on the lower caste Mallahs, both among the dacoits resulted in  the abduction and gang rape of Phoolan. Rape of lower caste women by upper caste men are common in states like Haryana, Rajasthan, UP, MP and Bihar. And MP records the highest number of rapes in India based on caste with over 70% of the victims dalits raped by upper caste. The upper caste considers these rapes as revenge on the lower caste people once referred to as untouchables whom now have attained position in government and authorities due to government policies, reservations and sometimes their own hard work. 

In the above cases, rape is little about sex and all about power. But it is not the case always. Rape is carried out to satisfy sexual need also. As a man, I am telling with authority that sex is a basic need of a human being born as a man. And for a man, not satisfying his sexual needs for a long time may affect him psychologically. You should have heard about allegations of rape in Jammu Kashmir and the North East being carried out by the Indian Army. I believe these are not allegations but the truth. These states and its people demand the Armed Forces Special Act of 1958 to be withdrawn, thinking that is the reason. The act gives special powers to Army to arrest any individual without any warrant or notice. In most of the cases(take example of Thangjam Manorama of Manipur) these women were arrested(mostly in the name of helping the terrorists) as per the powers to Army by this act, then raped or killed. I think the Government policies for the Army is responsible for the same and not the Armed Forces Special Act. The Jawans in the Army are subjected to terrible conditions in these places. Moreover they are not given enough leave to be with family/wife or have any good stress busting entertainments working in areas like these. We all know how much our HR tends to do stress buster activities in our organisations. Then think about the army Jawans who work in extreme conditions and with fear of life. I also believe that the Armed Forces Special Act is of course a requirement in such places where there are disturbances which cannot be handled by the local police or authorities. They handle the question of sovereignty of India in the border areas.

In many states in India, men outnumber women. The national average of the sex ratio, expressed as number of women per 1000 men is 933. And in many states like MP, UP, Haryana and even in Delhi it is in 800s. In these areas except Delhi woman is not considered a social being. They are just machines to give birth to male children and do the household works. Many men don't even have women to take in as wives. This brings in a feeling of inadequacy or incompetency inside them. And in places like Delhi, they have many opportunities to see other men mingling freely with ladies where their feeling of incompetency strengthens. Rape becomes a way to compensate for these underlying feelings of inadequacy and feeds their issues of control, dominance, authority and capability.

The main reason of low sex ratio is to be believed as female foeticide which is very common in these areas. People want to have male children to keep their heritage and family name. But why cant females keep the family name? They are the ones having the power to give birth. And I think they should have the right to keep the family name. If everybody want male children only, how will the human race go forward. The Holy Bible tells that God created human beings as male and female, as He thought that male would be incomplete without female.

Everybody know about the Delhi rape case which happened on 16 December 2012 in Southern Delhi. A 23 year old girl was gang raped in a bus in which she was travelling with her male companion. They were going back to their homes after seeing the movie "Life of Pi". All the five passengers in the bus including a minor and the bus driver were involved in raping the woman. Both the victim and her friend were beaten up by an iron rod. It is said that the minor did most assault, he even penetrated the iron rod through her genitals. The woman died from her injuries thirteen days later. The incident generated widespread national and international protests and was condemned by various groups. Subsequently, there were several public protests in Delhi against the Central Government and Delhi Government for not providing adequate security for women. Similar protests took place in major cities throughout the country against such heinous crimes against women.

It is said that all the people in the bus were under the influence of Alcohol. The animals inside these men revealed themselves under the effect of alcohol. Alcohol and drugs can be seen as another cause for the crimes against women. Not even this case, we have heard numerous cases of women abuse under the effect of alcohol. Its a usual case in states like Kerala where a drunk husband beats up their wives. But did you see the minor. He was the most cruel one among the six persons. Why does this happen. Studies show that many of the people suffer from low self-esteem and in many cases, have themselves been abused as children or are from disturbed families. Also not to forget, lack of proper education on sex at the right time can also be taken as a reason. As far as I remember i never got any such education, and our way of exploring about it wont be always right. This may lead to have a defective perspective on sex.

The most shameful and sad act came from the Jats. They want to lower the marriageable age of women to prevent rape. Do they think that women actually want to be raped and go in front of men asking to rape them? Or do they think anti-social elements will leave a married woman without raping her? What do they actually think? Or do they think? They also commented that they oppose death penalty for the rape convicts. By doing all these Jat community are unknowingly putting forward a point that there is no place for a woman in their society or in other words that they are still a men dominated society.

We talked about the causes of rape in North Indian states where the sex ratio is very low. What about the causes of rape in Kerala where the sex ratio is 1058 females per 1000 males. Still what is the reason behind the women abuses happening here? Its true that some of the causes discussed before plays a key role. Like alcohol/drugs, lack of proper sex education are some to name. But there is something more. Its common in Kerala that after some time of marriage, women places a no entry for husband. They stop having sex after a couple of children. Their attitude towards sex changes. And as you know marital rape is illegal in India. Still this happens in other states. But in Kerala, you do it - you are screwed. So as said before, no sex for months especially after marriage can make man mad. And Kerala is not a place where you can approach prostitutes. In the struggle to satisfy their thirst men often end up in doing crimes.

None of the causes said above can justify a cruel act as rape. Capital punishment is important in the current scenario so that people stay away from doing such a crime to women atleast due to the fear of punishment. But is that a final solution to these issues? I put forward these issues to the society and government for their scrutiny, comment and implementation of a solution. At this point I mourn for our sisters who became target of rape and hope we can have a better society with more respect to our mothers, sisters, wives and children :-)

After friends marry

Yesterday I was at RPs marriage. He is a very close friend of mine. We were together at school & college and maintain a very good friendship between us till now. I am definitely happy on his marriage. But I am also worried. You might ask why. Here is the reason. Once married, it is seen that people completely cut relationship with their friends and acquaintances. Is married life so busy? Or is growing upto your better-half's expectation such a tough thing that you wont get time for anything else? Is marriage giving of one's soul to his/her mate's keeping? Dont you have a personal life after marriage?

Right below I am having a discussion on impact of marriage on social relationships. I am trying to take some examples, discussions etc and illustrate my points. Please note that I am unmarried as of now. Any wrong opinions from my side shall be clarified so that I can correct it.

Do you have a best friend? Boy or Girl? Have you ever thought what will happen after they get married? I had not thought about that till one of my best friend, a girl, got married some years before. She was so close to me that she used to share each and everything with me. Whether she is worried or cool, happy or sad; she used to share with me. You can't imagine how transparent we were and how we used to understand each other and were supportive to each other. Even I knew when she attained her puberty. There were gradual changes in our lives as our age advanced but our friendship remained intact. From the discussion of study materials during our school time, to crushes on opposite sex during college times and finally to helping each other in getting job after our studies. Her father and mother knew me very well and I had good freedom with her. We seldom met in person. We shared our lives over phone and cards till the 20th century end and afterwards when email and online chat became popular we had better communication media to discuss things. Later in 2008 her marriage was fixed. She was extremely worried during the selection process and consulted me for each and everything. She had sent almost all photos and CV of the guys to my email for my opinion. Immediately after the girl seeing session is over she used to call me to give update about how cool the guy is or how stupid he is. Once the match was fixed, slowly she became busy with her 'wudb' and our communication decreased in time. I had attended her marriage where she happily introduced me to her hubby and we had taken a photo together. After marriage she moved with her husband to Chennai where he works and had not contacted me. I had tried to get her contact details but couldnt get it. And then it was recently i talked with her and that too in a facebook chat. I joined facebook very late in 2011 and found her in there since she was very active in fb. But in years the relation has degraded to a hi, hw r u questions. It didn't have the old charm anymore.

I had tried to discuss this issue with some of my female friends. In their opinion, after marriage spouse should be ones best friend and one should share everything with them. I don't disagree with this thing they told. But again why should we not keep our old friends who were there before our spouse; he or she; came to our life. In their opinion, it will depend on the spouse you will get. You will have to spend more time of yours for the family. Another thing they pointed out is that people seems possessive when it comes to their spouse and don't want them to be more close with others. Especially with people of opposite sex. Something else also came as an opinion from them. If there comes possessiveness in friendship then it is not friendship. It becomes something else. Yes its true. Either natural attraction to the opposite sex or something unnatural among the same sex. But for me the feeling cannot be defined as possessiveness. It was a feeling of frustration on loosing a good friend.

In India, bride is detached from her family and has to go to her husbands home after marriage. Normally in the process she gets alienated from their friends and acquaintances. In this case, as mentioned earlier husband should be their best friend and support them as far as possible. Husband and his family should make sure that the bride feels at home and comfortable in their house. But what if the married life didn't go so smooth and wife is not getting the required support from husband and his family? This is an issue most of the women in India are facing. Gradually they get mentally depressed. I think women can be saved from this depression if they atleast have their friends to talk with and share their problems. 

In my opinion there is no replacement for a person in our life. Your spouse cannot replace your close friends or vice-versa. That means you require both of them. We need to have a formula to work out after marriage to keep our friends. Husband can get familiar with his wives' friends and wife can get familiar with her husbands' friends. I think this will be the best way possible. Do let me know your opinions.