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Winter in April [26 Apr 2008|11:07pm] 13 comments|post comment

Muffins, Photo-editing sites, Web Services and so on [01 Apr 2008|10:12am] [ music | Avial - Karukare Karmukil ] Ten years ago I didn't know such a thing as muffin existed. I had come across a different type of muffin, which was called Ragamuffin on the jacket of an Enid Blyton book. But that was about it. Then one fine morning, muffin was discovered as a cure to fruits. Fruits, by nature gooey and slimey, could be easily hidden inside folds of butter, flour, sugar and cream and passed off as delectable non-fruits. In a world where fruit flies like a banana and time flies like an arrow the only way to keep fruit flies away and finish off bananas before they darken their faces is to make muffins with them. Fruits during the fag end of stay in my fridge(Day 4 or Day 5) often end up in muffins, like the blueberries in the photo below. Talking of photos, it's been ages since I explored photobucket or flickr. Was pleasantly surprised to see the presence of lot of editing features. Looks like these sites have released the ordinary user off the grips of copyrighted pricey image-editing software. Fun to play around with(as you can see I went overboard with these two) and if the final destination of your photos is the web, photobucket or flickr now have pretty much all the editing power you need. They say it is all about web services and the advent of Web 3.0?!! ( one more under the cut ) Since everyone is offering some kind of web service as an anti-dote to their other ills, I hope you'd overlook this mish-mash post after taking the Quick n Painless Enneagram test. It's supposedly scarily accurate about yourself, ofcourse you could always use a mirror for the same results. But go ahead, click the link, it is interesting and only two questions lie between you and the revelation! ...from dj_bennyb's blog Link: The Quick & Painless ENNEAGRAM Test written by felk ( my test results ) 10 comments|post comment

One Night @ The Call Centre [13 Mar 2008|08:18am] Note: The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of the author. The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by the general public. Now read on. When you are past thirty you have to ‘read books’ to know what is hip. Your fad sensors are past their usefulness or are oriented in a totally wrong direction. That was one of the reasons I picked up Chetan Bhagat’s book One Night @ The Call Centre on my last India trip, more than a year ago. Call Center was a hitherto unpredicted socio-economic phenomenon. It escaped the heavily prophetic eye of Indian astrology. Most of the Indian horoscopes made 20-30 years ago failed to mention it as a career possibility, in the same way they ignored computer-programming. Yet thirty years hence more than half of urban India find themselves mysteriously morphed into programmers or call center employees. Call centers became the great levelers – giving the non-professional(-degreed?) youth the same take-home salary and dignity as their professional brethren, not to mention an American alias. Thus in the dead of the night (of Indian kind) when some become werewolves and others Mr.Hydes, Jaydeep Menons become Jake Murphies with questionable Texan accent. I had crossed over to the forbidden territory (read America) when the first wave of calls reached India and had missed out on the whole hoopla. I left an India where people dragged around cell phones the size of microwave ovens to show they were ultra rich or uber cool. Today if I saw someone in a street corner in Delhi talking to himself, I’d probably rule out insanity and instead put the blame on an embedded micro Bluetooth cochlear implant. One Night @ the Call Centre was bought as a one-stop shop for all my queries regarding call-centers, youth and pop-culture in the present day India. It starts out promisingly, providing me with the answers I have been looking for in simple English. I almost recommended this book to some of my American friends, till I came across some inflammatory anti-American talk. You see, anti-American rhetoric is one of the easier ways to stay true to our socialistic roots. The US govt’s foreign policy tactics provides the shot in the arm whenever anti-american lobby looks like they are losing steam (that is another story.) Who in their right minds have not bitched about their bosses? For the call center kids, their top boss is some guy(s) sitting in an office in Boston or LA running the big company that has transferred its call operations to India. If you are capable of looking at big picture, the boss is the US of A. But this logic is kind of hard to understand when you hear someone else blaming your country (your country = USA.) People take personal offence reading a few lines in a book of fiction, remember Khomeini’s fatwa on Salman Rushdie. My American friends are better of reading the exotic yet non-toxic Indian prose like Jhumpa Lahiri’s. Probably 'One Night...' is not a wise choice for a book recommendation. The story gets pretty filmy towards the end – with emotions running high and omnipotent invisible beings making their presence felt - the kind favored in churches, mosques and temples. This book is sure to pass the Bollywood test. It has it all, the right mix of guys and girls in an urban setting (lots of foot-stomping songs), high drama, jingoism with power packed patriotic dialogs for instant gallery response (Sunny Deol is too old for the part though unless it is his home production.) In the hands of a good director, it has the no-fail formula for a Bollywood hit. We will have to see what Atul Agnihotri will cook up (The movie has been named Hello). Coming to the theaters near you this March it says. Review: Easy breezy desi 5 comments|post comment

Chocolate: A Behind the Scenes Look [14 Feb 2008|03:32pm] Scary dreams are no strangers to kids.I too had my share. One particulary scary one was where I hated chocolates and banished all those sweet nothings from my sight. Then I'd wake up and be relieved to find that I still liked Dairy Milk and Five Star. It was beyond my comprehension how our parents could forego chocolates and let us kids gorge the brown goo to our hearts' content. But somewhere during the journey from the brimming cup of childhood to the thin restrained lip of adulthood, the dream became true. There are atleast two tins of molding chocolates in the pantry that I know of (and I don't know much when it comes to my own pantry) so there is probably more. Two decades ago we were almost at the threshold of inhouse chocolate manufacture. Maybe it was in the seventies or in the eighties, a golden plant purported to give whopping economic returns was unveiled to the small farmer in Kerala. The plant was cocoa, our target was to become the Switzerland of Asia. We had the mountains, the valleys and the cheaper knock(ed)-off watches, the cocoa would take care of the rest and make us all Swiss Misses(and men could become watchmakers if they wanted.) We didn't hesitate, despite being city dwellers we nursed grand green ambitions of farming in our backyard - the size of a handkerchief. Six or seven cocoa plants accepted our invitation and decided to call our modular(read space constrained) yard their home. They had good growing seasons, were low maintanence and produced fruits which bore no resemblance to chocolate. Althought we didn't know it then, it was a time when the world was in dire need of Our patron saint of searches- Google, whose coming was still more than a decade into the future. Otherwise we could've found this site and learnt the art of turning raw cocoa beans into chocolate slabs from someone living in a desert in Southern California and put an end to all our tribulations. Elsewhere the real farmers who ventured out in to cocoa farming sacrificing their coconut plantations and tapioca plots were also hit a similar desperation, but on a larger scale. The cocoa fruit had no takers and the market was flooded with supply. For most of the cocoa-convert farmers it took years for a full recovery. Our backyard was enriched with ripened but purposeless cocoa fruits for ages before the plants became trees and succumbed to death due to natural causes, dust to dust. Today, a day when for a few moments world trades in chocolates and roses, a dedication to one of the plants which makes it all possible(the other one is featured in a songs by Poison, Seal, Bette Midler etc etc - thereby quite famous and has thorns, not wasting my time there.) cocoa tree cocoa fruits (p.s-These are not photos I took, the images might be copyrighted by someone else, if it's yours let me know.) 17 comments|post comment

To Hell in A Hand Basket or To Alaska? [28 Jan 2008|11:00am] The four horse men are taking a time out, they are not going to come and get us, but the Apocalypse is still on schedule. Are you ready for it? What are the essential items you should have in your survival kit? Read the next sentence uttered by the modern prophetess Naomi Klein and check the things you have. "Me and my friends are going to be fine. We have SUVs, we have generators, we have air- conditioners, we have bottled water and we bought land in Alaska." Five out of five and you should be fine. A ski resort sells for 90 cents. Boys are disappearing from native communities in the Arctic. Here in Anchorage we had rains in January instead of that fluffy white stuff that used to fall. Same story on the other side of the ocean. Rivers break open in the middle of winter in the high arctic. Yeah yeah yeah, you know all that(pfftt...anecdotal evidence) and you are still voting for Michael Crichton. Every generation has its treasured doomsday predictions and blames itself for having squandered the earth beyond repair. Are we just one in a long line of generations who have been forecasting our planet's cursed ride to hell in a hand basket? Or is it for real this time? Forget global warming, take the population. The earth is supposedly 80 years old in human years. An attack of a strain of flu virus which could take a week to clear out for a 20 year old person might prove fatal for an eighty year old(Not my concept heard it from some scientist, forgot his name.) This time the virus under the microscope is us – the humans. The human population was 978 million in 1800. All that population explosion ever since Adam's incident with the apple or the ape-man evolution (whichever one you prefer) had only been able to produce ~1 billion people by A.D.1800. By 2000, a mere 200 years hence we multiplied almost 6 times to almost 6 billion, thanks to progress(which is not a bad thing, but the population is.) Just between earth's 79th birthday and 80th birthday, the virus count increased by 5 billion. The newer strain is more polluting, venomous and uncontrollable than the previous one. Such high counts are enough to kill anyone in a jiffy. How much longer will this 80 year old earth survive and how long is a jiffy? While top scientists around the globe race to calculate the length of the jiffy to the nth decimal you can read some inspirational literature. Especially if you want to be one of the privileged few who will ride out in to a brand new sunrise when everyone around you is being mercilessly wiped out, thanks to their own actions. Your inspirational literature of the day is sponsored by the prophetic Naomi Klein(again.) "We are looking at a system of climate apartheid. The waters are rising. Some people are going to be left to drown - a lot of people. But there will be people who'll be able to drive out, not everyone would die and those people will build their global green zone, where - Alaska? But this isn't a joke. The land in the Alaska is getting more expensive. And I think that is clearly the direction we are going. I'd not say human extinction. But it is going to be a genocidal logic, I suppose the survival of the fittest but more what it is about is, me and my friends are going to be fine, we have SUVs, we have generators, we have ACs,we have bottled water and we bought land in alaska....." -Naomi Klein In these times of tumbling real estate and unstable markets the only hope is to drive North to the Future. There is more inspirational literature about the last place on earth(if you want to survive that is) plus an old uplifting photo from my archives. Here goes, "Alaska, come because of the scenery, stay because you're f#*king lost." "Alaska, nobody you know lives here." "Alaska, it's goddamn cold." 8 comments|post comment

[31 Dec 2007|06:58pm]

Suggestions on Lens [31 Dec 2007|03:03pm] All people who own DSLRs(Canon or Nikon), what is your walk-around lens and/or what is your favorite lens? TIA. 22 comments|post comment

Improve Your Presidential Candidates GK [24 Dec 2007|11:54am] From Associated Press, some of the most important snippets of information about the 2008 Presidential Candidates. Probably this'll be more influential than the Presidential Diabetes, Iowa Couscous or New Hampshire Pilaf. DEMOCRATS REPUBLICANS ALTERNATE CAREER CHOICE Clinton: "Continue to work for causes and issues I care about, in a setting like a university or foundation." Edwards: Mill supervisor. Obama: Architect. Richardson: Center field, New York Yankees. ALTERNATE CAREER CHOICE Giuliani: Sports announcer. Huckabee: Bass guitar player for a touring rock band. McCain: Foreign service. Romney: Auto company chief executive. FAVORITE FOOD TO COOK Clinton: "I'm a lousy cook, but I make pretty good soft scrambled eggs." Edwards: Hamburgers. Obama: Chili. Richardson: Diet milkshake. FAVORITE FOOD TO COOK Giuliani: Hamburgers or steak on the grill. Huckabee: Ribeye steak on the grill. McCain: Baby-back ribs. Romney: Hot dog. HIDDEN TALENT Clinton: "I love crossword puzzles." Edwards: "Jump shot." Obama: "I'm a pretty good poker player." Richardson: "Boxing trivia." HIDDEN TALENT Giuliani: "Listening." Huckabee: "Voice impersonations of dozens of celebrities." McCain: "Barbecue grill chef." Romney: "Singing." RECENT MUSIC PURCHASE Clinton: Carly Simon's "Into White." Edwards: U2. Obama: "The latest music purchase would probably be 'Ray' - the soundtrack from the Ray Charles movie." Richardson: George Strait, "50 Number Ones RECENT MUSIC PURCHASE Giuliani: Verdi's "Macbeth." Huckabee: Evanescence, the goth rock group from Little Rock, Ark. McCain: Likes "Sounds Of Summer - The Very Best Of The Beach Boys." Romney: "Selection of Roy Orbison songs from iTunes." There is more where it came from. 4 comments|post comment

Gift Ideas [21 Dec 2007|08:11am] [ music | Eagles : Long Road Out of Eden ] The Americans are spending and the Asians are saving. This is not a trend, but a natural law, hard-coded in to the genes as the epicanthal fold or 'God Bless America'. Today I heard a British economist utter the unthinkable - that this 'trend'(!) should change and Americans should do more manufacturing themselves. The radio followed this up with a timely warning to all listeners that they have only a few more gift-buying days left. This can only mean one thing, that the gift buying catastrophe color-level has been upped a point to iphone deep- red, which is a very dangerous place to be, other than California. There is not much left time to shop, let alone manufacture gifts in your garage. Some catalog companies have been cashing in on this human weakness of all U.S Americans ever since the days USPS was founded and have been coming out with the gifts that really appeal to the people of the New World . I find my eyes moisten with gratitude as I present a few 'can't-do-without' items from one such gift-brochure that make a beeline for mailboxes come December. Rotating marsh mallow toaster: Move over modified wire hanger, this is the super gadget that marsh mallows have been waiting to be impaled upon and to be taken for a spin while they are getting roasted. For the happy camper or the barbecue chef it cuts the labor involved in roasting marsh mallows by 83.6% percent. This might be a devastating news for those who have been scheming on getting a 'Disabled' license using the disfigurement of their hands caused by s'mores manufacturing as an excuse, but for the rest of us and the bling gang it is a heaven-send just like the Jeweled Cellphone Holder with Crystals: In cellphone community, this has to be the penthouse coveted by all cellphones, JLo's private suite. The sales are predicted to sky rocket in the hip hop music world where they have run out of teeth, belly buttons, purses and pets where they can put their bling on. Talking of bling and rappers, Fiddy Cent has decided to take on the Big Os(Oprah and Obama) declaring his support to Our Lady of the Nutcrackers, which comes next. The manufacturer of Hillary Clinton Nutcracker guarantees that Ms.Clinton's stainless steel upper legs are studded with steel teeth that'll will crack nuts fast and easy(bet her opponents didn't know about this genetic anomaly of hers) and should be kept away from children under 12 years of age. If the lady wins the elections next year this'd be a fitting nome-de-plume for her, considering all the rival Presidential candidates are men. One'd think this next item in the list should be given to not so vociferous people, but not so according to the manufacturers. It is an excellent gift for men whose existence began on the day they were dropped on to the fertile topsoil of their couches and have thrived there ever since.Considering their farthest transcontinental excursions have been to the refrigerator door, the Beer Mug with a Bell is almost like the second coming of The Dude or something. Here's the manufacturer's ad for Beer Mug with a Bell, "Remember the last time you were sitting in front of the TV watching a game and you picked up your beer bottle, only to find it empty? You politely ask your wife/girlfriend to please bring you a beer and she pretends not to hear you. You graciously ask again in a little louder voice. Again, no response. Now, you're thirsty and tired of yelling and yelling so you decide to phrase it a little differently in a little louder voice. This time she hears you and all hell let's loose. She yells back some unprintable comment and the fight is on! Now, we can save all that drama. Ring the bell and she will hear the sound and know that she needs to get up and get a beer for you. No more yelling and arguing, just a cold beer for the man of the house. Wasn't that a lot simpler? Save your marriage - buy a Beer Mug with Bell." Couldn't have put it better. A must buy gift for all your friends in doomed marriages or rather, get this for all the married men you know and do not have deaf spouses. You are welcome to add to this list of essential Christmas gifts with your own choice picks and the inventions we could not have done with out. Hail the creativity that accompanies Christmas! 5 comments|post comment

Louis Vuitton Presents: Mikhail Gorbachev [13 Nov 2007|12:37pm] [ music | Life in a Metro - Alvida ] If all the newspaper images that affected my childhood could be condensed to the most memorable few, it'd be just a handful. Among them will be – Kapil Dev's victorious grin holding the Prudential Cup, Rakesh Sharma floating inside the Russian space craft and the duo who were competing to occupy the driver's seat of the world at the time – Gorbachev and Reagan - sitting, standing, signing, discussing at numerous conferences and summits, with or without Raisa and Nancy at their sides. While Kapil's and Rakesh Sharma's achievements were the stuff dreams were made off, Reagan with his Star Wars, laser defense systems and MAD gave me nightmares. India's socialistic leanings and the Russian patronization we've been receiving ever since Nehru got infatuated with the largest European country that worshiped the hammer and the sickle only fueled my worries. I was certain Reagan would do target practice of his missiles on India before taking on the real enemy. So much for being the sidekick of the Reds. The eight year old me admired my parents' knack to be preoccupied with more prosaic stuff as housing loans and price rises and remain utterly unperturbed by the evil guy in the white house hatching plans to annihilate the whole universe. Atleast there was someone in the family who was doing the worry duty and they didn't even thank me. Gorbachev and his birthmark were my heroes at the time. Glasnost and Perestroika were useful concepts I had been advocating to my parents who were absolute dictators like the Commies Gorby was trying to preach sense to. Only that in Russian these concepts sounded weighty and people sat down and took note of them. To this day I believe that Gorby and Scorpions have a 50-50 share in bringing the Wind of change, which brings me to the purpose of today’s history rant. After what seems like a lifetime I saw Gorby again this morning, in the most unlikeliest of all places – in a Louis Vuitton ad! (Yes I am late, news arrives late when you have to rely on sled dogs.) It is not the first time Gorbachev did "I am in your capitalism eating your moneys" thing. He had done a Pizza Hut ad in the late nineties. Can’t blame the man, from his looks in this newest ad he could seriously use some moneys. The former President of USSR is pictured(taken by Annie Leibovitz) as traveling in a limo, the backdrop is what is left of the Berlin wall and beside him on the seat is a Louis Vuitton bag. There is a newspaper of some sort in Russian on top of the bag, which has given rise to plenty of conspiracy theories, I’ll leave you to make up your own. Meanwhile I express sincere thanks to Louis Vuitton for bringing one of the most important historical figures of our time to a magazine page near me. Long time, no see comrade :) 6 comments|post comment

Race for Ice Begins flagged off by Media Celebrity, Ms.Global Warming [19 Oct 2007|02:05pm] Thanks to Global Warming, the Arctic is up for auction and a major increase in action in the years to come. The famed North-West passage could be a bustling trade route anytime now. Chinese are already making all the Dutch pottery(Delftware). The tradition that started in Denmark in 17th century to so that they could compete with Chinese pottery. The battle has come a full circle, the Chinese have won(again!) and they need the North-West Passage for sending all that burnt clay from Asia to Scandinavia. So do the Americans and the Russians (and the Canadians in smaller font.) The North West Passage The North-West Passage and the Arctic Ice cap are not going to be in the hands of walrus and seal hunters or the occasional marine reseach crew for long. The warming of Northern Oceans have led to longer ice-free periods in summer leading to traffic commotion and more importantly revealing the hitherto hidden, lucrative undersea deposits of oil and gas. Where there is oil, there is a war(the smoke and fire analogy is so outdated.) and the war has begun. The Russians came first. Fifty years and fresh from a surprise win seized by Sputnik later, they made it good for the moon-landing setback by planting a tricolor Russian flag made of titanium, three miles below the polar ice cap on the yellow mucky sea-floor in Aug this year. Looks like they've more restrained territorial ambitions this time around, nothing as far and away as the moon, just a chunk of ice, closer home. But they are serious, as Mr. Chilingarov, Russia's most famous Arctic explorer and a deputy speaker of parliament, made clear before flag 'submersion' ceremony, that the effort is not just about expanding the horizons of science. "We are here to define the outer limit of Russia's territory," he said. A month before that in July, the US had announced that it would be increasing its ability to patrol the Arctic. What is there to patrol if Russians make off, right under the American noses, with all that petrol ? Looks like Americans thought about this same question long and hard and decided to send a team of oceanographers aboard the Coastguard ship Healy. They came back in September this year armed with sonar studies which found hints that thousands of square miles of additional seafloor could potentially be under American control. The floor might yield important deposits of oil, gas or minerals in coming decades. Royal Dutch Shell is preparing for exploratory oil drilling off Alaska's Arctic coast beginning next year. The Coast Guard is going to set up its first operating base on Arctic Ocean in the US's northern most town - Barrow, Alaska. Coastguard vessel Healy in the Arctic (Photo by Dave Withrow/United States Coast Guard, via Associated Press) Canada, which has the second-longest Arctic coastline, is currently conducting a $70 million project to map the seabed on its side as a prelude to making its own submission to the UN. Other competitors include Norway and Denmark(because of their claim on Greenland.) How do you decide how much sea your country owns? ( Answer behind the cut ) It is evident from the unfolding drama that some major changes will take place in the geopolitical climate of the world in the future. Eskimos will be the next Arabs, Middle East will shift to North Pole, directional North sign will be elimnated because all the world will lie South of the action (the North Pole), Polar bears will meet penguins for the first time when they both apply for refugee status at Galapagos, frozen dihydrogen monoxide will be a major building material - fit for kings(as marble used to be) and ice sculptors would be in great demand, whale blubber will replace caviar(same difference), but there still would be no hope to poor people - they will remain poor. 5 comments|post comment

Woodside Park [27 Sep 2007|07:58pm] A few photos from the park next door - Woodside Park(Eastchester). Alaskan fall is predominantly yellow(I remember tko_ak mentioning that) and its slight variations. Not many flaming orange trees here. ( 2 more ) 18 comments|post comment

35 Plus [20 Sep 2007|09:32am] [ music | Rihanna - Umbrella ] An observation: The most active journals in LJ belong to the 35+ age group. This could mean a couple of things, like people are not updating their journals regularly so that they can pass off as young. Remember those London ladies who caught Oscar Wilde's roving yet discerning eye, the same trick. It could also mean that those who missed the social networking bus run by famed operators such as MySpace, Facebook, Orkut, Friendster or deliberately refrained from using such public transportation facilities on the internet still insist on driving the rickety old LJ VW Van. Furthermore they type in cursive and think that SMS is some kind of female disorder. As for me, I've bought in to the carbon offsetting scam and has stopped typing altogether. Ending emissions and saving the world, one journal entry at a time. 12 comments|post comment

Final Exam [24 Aug 2007|02:23am] [ mood | grateful ] I write this in the faint gleam of the night lamp well past midnight because tomorrow life will take over with more current things, stuff that need to be taken care of, like that telephone bill that has to be paid before the end of the month. Tomorrow like everyone else still walking, talking and eating on this planet I'll deny death, shut my eyes on its existence in the bold brightness of mid-day sun. Tonight for two and a half hours when the world around me was asleep I walked through the valley in the shadow of death, in the company of someone who has faced it hundreds of times in her working life. From Pauline W.Chen - Harvard trained surgeon, a UCLA award recipient for the best surgeon of the year and the winner of several national awards for non-fiction and creative writing comes the revealing and thoughtful book - Final Exam: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality. Tomorrow I might not write this at all. Tonight I hold my loves a little closer, a little more tighter.... 9 comments|post comment

Some Really Orange Mushrooms [12 Aug 2007|11:13am] [ music | Anwar - Maula Mere Maula ] ( a few more pictures ) 4 comments|post comment

Yesterdays in Three Songs [02 Aug 2007|12:23am] Sunday afternoons with Shammi Kapoor, that was my Hindi class. I hated it when we were forced to learn Hindi in school by the virtue of it being the national language. None of our Hindi teachers were entertaining as Mr.Kapoor. His films, especially the songs where he traipsed with his leading ladies all sporting the same bouffant headgear and tight salwars were an integral part of our early childhood national language learning experience, the only part that I enjoyed. Later on in life I've come to realize the merits of Hindi - it is a very evocative yet simple language which speaks volumes, straight from the heart without the extra calories of heavy-weight tongue twisters, much like Spanish in that aspect. Here's a song from Teesri Manzil, one of my favorite sixties Bollywood movies, where Shammi Kapoor stars as quite a different drummer. Lyrics Everyone has a movie they strongly suspect the script writer plagiarized from their own life when they were not watching, because it is so 'you'. How could someone write about your life with such inexplicable accuracy that is almost spooky(ok,only the first half of the movie.) The movie in question is Aranyakam, the heroine even has a book, a Hero pen and a camera slung on her neck(check out the song) - my default accessories during childhood. Don't blame me for suspecting the film-makers, children are often susceptible to illusions of grandeur. The song still 'knocks on the the doors of my soul' (well it is a lousy translation of it's first line) Your loss, if you don't know Malayalam. Rainy days spent in a whole new world. The forbidden and the foreign unravels in rivulets falling from a higher ground. Reggae reminded me of ragas sung by Africans, earthy chants picked from around a primordial campfire. I had not heard reggae before that monsoon which became a flood and led to the temporary suspension of classes in schools and colleges. My first days at the Engineering college were washed in rain and tinted in blue like the cover of UB40 album, Promises and Lies. The tracks from this album, the first one I bought after I started college, included Higher Ground, C'est La Vie and Promises and Lies still transport me back to those days of teen spirit reeking of tomorrows and higher grounds, which we were yet to conquer. Ah, the hopes of the youth! The song below is Higher Ground, from the same album where UB40 talks about, "Every hour every day 'am learning more, The more I learn the less I know 'bout before, The less I know, the more I want to look around, Digging deep for clues on Higher Ground". Enjoy. Lyrics 9 comments|post comment

Tour de Texas Champ [17 Jul 2007|09:19pm] [ music | Editors - Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors ] In my house I am often equated with George W. Bush. Whether this ponderous honor is a result of my expansive domestic policy or my extreme dependency on oil (and fried foods in general) is open to debate. Anyway being the only Bush supporter in the house and a biker (just signifies bike ownership), I am glad I ran across this news about Dubya, the cyclist (although it is a two year old new-story.) ."…..Last year, a journalist from Associated Press joined the president on a lap of his Crawford ranch. Bush's heart rate, Scott Lindlaw reported, peaked at 168 beats per minute during the 18-mile loop. For a man of his age (59), that's likely to be about 95% of his maximum - which is the sort of intensity only elite athletes train at. According to AP, Bush completed the ride in an hour and 20 minutes. That's more than 13mph, which may not sound all that fast, but for an off-road cyclist, believe me, it's shifting. His resting pulse - a good rule-of-thumb indicator of fitness - is down in the 40s. On this form, Bush could not only hold his own in age-related cross-country races, he'd win some…." The Man is an inspiration, to say the least, to all of us fan-boys and girls. 6 comments|post comment

Book Bites [13 Jul 2007|09:51pm] [ music | Tokio Hotel - Through the Monsoon ] Who reads books these days? Book stores owe it big time to Harry Potter- the teenage wizard. In addition to being our planet's only hope against the evil Lord Voldermort, he administered CPR just in time to revive the almost expired Printed-Word. Ofcourse you can always cheat, I heard the last three books of the HP series in mp3s, so much for reading. But I did read the books below or tried to, before I ran out of steam or time, whichever happened first. FICTION A Dirty Job: A book discovered by pure fluke. Promising because it reminded me of the wacky stories of Douglas Adams : He-Who-Will-Write-No-More about Zaphod Beeblebrox, Vogon poetry or Dirk Gently. Dirty Job is the latest offering from the author Christopher Moore. After finishing that job I decided to backtrack on Moore’s earlier jobs and got Fluke (Or, I Know Why The Winged Whale Sings) by a deliberate exercise which involved going to the library and searching the Ma-Mo shelves. Fluke, shows less polish than his latest book, builds up pace half-way when I had almost given up on it. ( Excerpt ) Lisey’s Story: A Stephen King to refresh the memory how a Stephen King read like – not any better than the last one I read years ago about a Buick. Confusing, infusion of blood and gore not all asked for and an overload of private imaginary worlds. This should keep me off Mr.King for a while, but I've to confess he does some heavy pen-pushing and from the book sales it looks like there are more deranged in the world than previously accounted for. Absurdistan: Mind blowing fiction?(or fact if you live Baku?) by Gary Shteyngart. It is quite a trip if you co-habit a place bought from Russia more than a century ago with Russian artifacts (human and others) and is surrounded by Russian friends who still measure wealth in sequins and leather.Invade and inhabit the soul of an immigrant Russian, an incredibly funny one at that for your reading pleasure. ( Excerpt ) NON-FICTION The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman: 75% of this book I had read off the book-shelves in different houses, cafes and libraries – different copies each time. Finally borrowed a copy from the library and finished off the rest. Maybe because I am too late, it feels like an anthology of done to death tech blog thoughts on India, China, globalization, off-shoring, (insert more buzz words here). Although an exhilarating book for an Indian like me, Friedman's single dimensional analysis reminds me of televangelists selling God (God in this case being the incumbent twin powers of the East.) Ah, well it is hard when you are an atheist. Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India: Madhur Jaffrey's autobiographical journey in a pre-independence India. What surprises me is how British the life of the upper class in India was. An informative bio with names and places, that guides the reader thru' the erst-while social set-up of Northern India. Not left out are the traditional culinary tip-offs and tidings. The Cadillac Desert(American West and its Disappearing Water): Anyone interested in the man-made Eden that is California should read this environmental Western by Marc Reisner. I chanced upon Reisner four years ago in A Dangerous Place: California’s Unsettling Fate(my antiquated review here), which was another doomsday book about the wealthiest nation state in the US. It doesn't hurt to be informed, my information assimilation is going on, almost 2/3rds the way in to tracing West's disappearing aquifers. The Places in Between: Rory Stewart is a great walker, a humanist, speaks Persian and loves the people of Afghanistan. When such requirements are met in one human being there is only one thing he can do – walk across Afghanistan with a wooden staff, then write a book about it. Does being a journalist, preclude literary talents? I do not know. I was less impressed by the book than by its glowing reviews. I didn’t pass the half-way mark with this one. The Places in Between and Absurdistan had made the NY Times cut to feature as two of the top ten books of 2006. 2 comments|post comment

Dallas - Fort Worth [06 Jul 2007|10:07pm] Let the images do the talking, I am lazy as usual. Downtown Dallas is typical of American cities with tall fenestrated high-rises and a few signature buildings which will set it apart from other big cities across the country. For example the green glass skyscraper on the left sculpted like a prism is Fountain Place designed by I.M.Pei. ( Some more photos and notes ) A Fort Worth Street-side Moment 15 comments|post comment

Pictures from near the Port of Anchorage [20 Jun 2007|03:17pm] [ music | Euphoria - Aana Meri Gully ] Took these photos a couple of weeks ago on an unbearably sunny evening by Alaskan standards, temperature was in the high 70s. Today the sun rose at 4:20 am and will set at 11:42 pm. 4.5 hrs of what could be called twilight in between the day and the next day - no real night per se. Tomorrow(June 21-Summer Solstice) will be the longest day and after that we'll start losing daylight steadily till night equals day on Sept 23. To make sure that someone gets the maximum out of a vacation Alaska, the far-sighted visit Alaska during the Solstice. This is exactly what a fellow lj-er did. For the first time in my life I was graced by the presence of a person I met for the first time on internet. None other than arunshanbhag. Both our families spend a wonderful Sunday together, explored a little around Anchorage and arunshanbhag treated us to an sumptuous Alaskan seafood dinner. Thus my lj-block(I am not the most social of persons, especially when it comes to meeting someone straight off the www) is officially cured. Please be warned of the deluge of Alaskan photos awaiting you soon as the Marathon Man gets back home and starts sorting his photos. My camera caught an inferiority-complex bug and refused to come out of its cover, so all the history of the day is the copyrighted property of ze Man. If you are interested you can watch two more two-week old Anchorage snaps. ( Clickety Click ) 5 comments|post comment

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