Calcutta Trip

Dec 24 2005 to Dec 31 2005
Bombay-Calcutta-Jamshedpur-Bhuvaneshwar-Konark-Puri-Bhuvaneshwar-Calcutta-Bombay ... whew!

Kudos to Brij (and Maggi) for planning the entire trip so well.
An early morning flight always sucks – but what the heck – this was one of the high points of the trip – 7 days of touring India - yaaaaaaaaaay
Calcutta city was like any other city in India … only worse! It was a pleasure to see so many yellow Ambassadors as cabs! God bless Amby’s for their ability to seat 6  - and welcome to the land of trams – double yaay :)
The road to Heera’s Holiday Inn gave Brij (and the rest of us) the jitters … but it was a nice place – snug in the heart of Calcutta … a couple of blocks from Calcutta’s famous Park street!
Walking on Park Street on Christmas eve was good fun – the place was crawling with people … and we added 5 to the numbers :D Flurys was a fun place to be … albeit the waiting and pushing in the waiting lines – but hey that’s the festive spirit no?

Spellings in Calcutta are a different story altogether – we were fortunate to witness some of the most innovative spellings and sayings – and our favourite had to be “Mony loss is nothing loss but chariter loss is everythisg loss” – priceless!


The Graceful Victoria Memorial and its light show was good fun.


The Kalighat temple was an experience - I will say no more at this moment!


Lots of good yummy food at the Gupta's - novocaine for the vegetarian souls in Calcutta :) And all the cakes and pastries at the famous Flury's on Park Street.



We bumped into Mr. Ajit (almost ran over would be more appropriate) on the corner of iforgotthename street … and in less than three minutes, all of us were humbled/overjoyed/stupefied/sad to see the amazing talent of the man – the man who painted on greeting cards without a brush! Just uses his fingers and nails – awesome!

Of course the wannabe entrepreneurs in all of us started musing on the idea of trademarking his style and art and not only making big bucks but also give artists like Ajit his due! “Finger art” / “arty fingers” and the likes made their appearance and quickly got lost in the task of getting to Howrah station quickly.
We had to get to Jams for the wedding ...

All in a single day

Horsey’s marriage tomorrow … jet lag is still around - but the euphoria is keeping excitement levels high.
– All in a day’s work today
1am – walked out of the airport in Bombay
7am – woke up for the pooja
5 hours of pooja and more than 200 pictures later ;)
heavy traditional south Indian lunch
quick 45 minute shopping and Rs 8000 later
quick trip to the bride’s house to officially invite the bride’s family – and I was driving – yep barely 16 hours into the country, I was driving on Indian roads and nothing felt different … almost!
Got to get back and prepare for tomorrow – big day!

The smell of Bombay

Could smell Bombay for the first time … as soon as we walked out of the airplane at Bombay Intl. airport - despite all the headiness and sore sore throat!
Am I getting soft?

MP3 and Music

Those days of audio-cassettes, where we would listen to a tape till it got worn-out - literally! Albums were hard to come by and music got its due diligence ... an album was heard a few times before judgement was passed.
But of late, music has almost become like fast-food "to-go" - if it is not something that makes me stop what I am doing then it does not get a second chance! I don't really like that - one that it is not fair and two that I notice that I am doing something when I am listening to stuff ... not like the old times when I would stick the tape into my Walkman (a SanYo personal-cassette-player actually!) and simply “listen” to the music!
Life has gotten more complicated and music has become more diluted! Like Sarat pointed out, there’s an insane amount of music that is being produced - unlike days of yore! And with mp3's the whole situation seems like it has been put thru the blender!
Ask me my favorite albums and they mostly are the ones I heard on tape first! (‘cept Karsh Kale of course)! Bad. Not Good. Something needs to be done.
the worst thing is - I don't know what to do about it!

Random shapes

Was reading the interesting comments that Brij made in his blog about my arty-farty pics - very insightful observations by Brij (as usual).
And then D, made another insightful observation (as usual) - that she has noticed my fascination to flames, steam and other things related to fire!
Very very true - she couldn't be more correct - I am fascinated by fire.
On more pondering, I think it is to do with the randomness in shape that fire has. I I have never ever liked clean-cut and orderly designs - I have always been a stickler for random brush strokes and the likes - even scattered handwriting! - my hair, my ties, my tees ...
notes to self!

The lull after the storm

Kinda feel that way - with most of the homework and tests completed for this week.
At least no more sleepless nights working ...

Kinda unsure what to do - feels strange now that the weight's lifted! But I guess this is only momentary - with India 7 days away - things are going to get hectic soon!

arty farty pics - 2

quick snap in a store on Bourbon Street - New Orleans (Dec 2004)... will buy one of these busts someday :(


Diwali diyas at home (2002) - love the way the flames move in different directions.


selftest - with the JVC camcorder - March 2002 - lots of trial and error to get that right ... working by myself

Cool way to morph Images

Yesterday at the presentations, this group displayed digitally edited images of the Exploris lobby - much like how we did - but they had run the final images through a filter to gove it a "watercolor" or "painting" feel to it.
I thought that was really creative, since it not only looked cool - but also cleverly covered the smudges and blurs of the enhances.
things to keep in mind :)

Big Day

11/29/2005 - 6pm - we present our Creativity project at Exploris.
This definitely has been my favourite class till date - loved the class - loved the speakers - loved everything about it. Wish it could have gone on longer...
Our Project. (unfortunately the background image is not displayed in its entirety - I think it looks way cooler that way - need to figure out how to do that!)

New Skills learnt

Learnt how to spiral bind stuff – thanks to Preethu and her enthu to help me save some bucks on our report :)
The college of design has all the tools necessary for binding and heck its not complex at all - almost as easy as punching holes in paper! And definitely better than paying 5 bucks to Kinko’s for that! Unfortunately we did not have the time to get all the reports bound :( - but hey - I learnt something new ... and useful!

arty farty pics - 1

sticky note to pin some of my favourite pics -

I took the Elephant pic at the Smithsonian @DC (august 2005) - was tricky taking this pic without a tripod - but I thought it came out good :)


The Tea cups - well poor D had her cup snatched from under her lips (literally) - the light was perfect and the smoke was clear! (fall 2004)


Was walking back home one evening last winter and the sky was so pretty - I had to capture it. This time around I used a tripod :) (winter 2004)

The "houda" effect

How some words stick in your head and bring back random memories!
There was this lady who sat across my seat at COSL - she was quite loud and on the phone quit often – and she would speak in Kannada and keep saying “houda (pause) houda” … - best part was – she would call up the restaurant @SEEPZ at noon and ask them what was on their menu – each day without fail – she would listen to the entire menu and eventually order an orange juice – like clockwork!
Each time I hear “houda” all those memories zip by my head and I cannot but help smile! – I know … “houda”! (FYI – houda means “is that so”)

Another piece of knowledge!

Just a few months ago, I learnt from Cho2! that not all Indians (Hindus) believe that we all are God!
Yep – apparently there are two schools of thought, namely Advaita (the ppl who believe that we are all God!) and the Dvaita’s who
believe that God is separate from the rest of the souls. Very interesting stuff indeed – for I had never heard of this before!
And today D showed me a third point of view – the Vishishtadvaita – the folks who believe that God alone exists, but admits plurality!
I must admit that I did not completely understand their point of view – but the truth is that there are a bunch of people – in different flavors - who do not believe that All is God.
Nice.

Long Sleep

after a long time!
Woke up today after 15 hours of sleeping! Of course, this happened after 36 straight hours of work, shopping, some more work, some more shopping among other things!

If my name was Douq Quin

then I would write it like this ->
Excerpt from doodles in my note book. Really liked the way I wrote the speakers name!
And I notice that I ALWAYS write the date when I take notes - pat pat pat on the back!

Black Friday "frenzy"

It is interesting to experience the “frenzy” that happens when you enter the store! Had the experience @Staples today morning, after having waited for 30 minutes (in the cold) to enter the store. Waiting in the line at the cashier’s desk – I reflected on that precise feeling that I had experienced about 20 minutes earlier – had mixed feelings of elation, stupidity, guilt – can’t really place it – I guess “frenzy” explains it best!
It’s that time when probably no one is your friend – every man for himself – courtesy be damned! And you want to take more, much more than what you want or came for … just because!!!
Is this how man would behave when resources become (are) scarce?!!? And is this why this day is called "Black Friday"?
Point to ponder!

Thanksgiving Dinner @P&A

No turkey or turducken here (thankfully!) – only generous helpings of corn-bhel for starters, delicious Rajma, bisi-bele bhat, capsicum bhaji for dinner and rosogulla & Snickers ice-cream for dessert.
The game of UNO that took place in the meantime was quite interesting – picture this – 11 people playing UNO, till the end! Two games took a good hour and half – but it was boatloads of fun – especially when you have someone in the group who is a shameless and self-professed cheater! - and there’s someone who's the poor scapegoat who gets dinged with all the +2 and +4 and Skips no matter where she sits Interesting.
All this at P&A's place - they really are great hosts.

Is this a Car Review?

Interesting way to pen a car-review! Jeremy Clarkson on the Golf R32

Love the way Jeremy Clarkson writes – he spends very little space and time actually reviewing the car – but nevertheless does it so effectively and convincingly – NICE!
Makes you comfortable that he knows his business and his cars!

And as Brij states – he’s probably the “king of sarcasm”. Thank You Brij for bringing back that name into my radar!

Vellai Pookal

One of my favourite Rehman tamil songs from the Mani Ratman movie – “Kannathil Muttamittal” (Kiss on the cheek) – a wonderful movie on adoption against the backdrop of insurgence in Sri Lanka.
I wish I could have done the translation – but my Tamil unfortunately is not that good! Thank You Google! (and mouthshut.com)

Interesting to see me going for lyrics - I'm more of the "music" types and I generally don't pay attention to lyrics - but this one just grabbed my attention!

Vellai Pookal
=============
VeLLai PookaL ulagam engum malarhavae
vidiyum Bhoomi amaidhikaaga vidihavae
manmel manjal veluchcham vizhuhavae
malarae sombal muRiththu ezhuhavae
kuzhanthai vizhikattumae
Thaayin katha kathappil
ulagam vidiyattumae
piLLayin sirumugha siRippil (VeLLai)

kaatrin perisaiyil
mazhai paadum paadangalum oru maunam poal inbam tarumooOO
koadi keertanamum kavi koartha vaarthaiygalum thuLi kaNNer poal arththam tharumo (VeLLai)

yengusiru kuzhanthai than kaigal neetidumo
angu thondrayo koLLai nilavae
enghu manidha Inam poar oyinthu sayinthidumo
angu koovadho veLLai kuyilae (VeLLai)


Vellai Pookal (Translation)
===========================
Let white(peace) flowers bloom all over the world,
Let peace heal the unrest world(not the best translation),
let the sun’s rays fall on this soil,
Let the flowers lose their laziness and bloom.

Let the child open its eyes
in the mother’s lullaby
let the world wake up to
children’s laughter

In the breeze’s melody,
In the music created by raindrops,
Is there anything that give utmost joy than silence?
Would a crore melodies and words penned by poets be as meaningful
as a drop of a tear shed?

Let the moon rise in the place where the child reaches out its hands
Let the white bird sing in the place where there is no war.

Dinner Conversation

Sarat came over for dinner – interesting discussion on men and women – how women are more society-oriented … and why as opposed to men who are basically loners!
We observed that girls play with Barbie dolls (mostly) and dress their dolls up while boys pretty much play with cars – making and breaking them. Girls/Women are more social creatures – they would form a group and talk to each other when in proximity whereas a group of men could be extremely quiet and non-conversational. We tied that to the fact that men are the stronger (physically) sex and were historically in no apparent danger unlike women who were always in danger of being attacked by them horrible men and hence feel (and are) safer when in a group.
Women want to be felt a part of the herd while Men on the other hand long for a sense of power/recognition albeit only in a hierarchical structure – work, home, play etc.
We concluded that just like a lot of other animals(mammals) (lions, elephants etc.) , men are loners and generally live within themselves unlike women who are more socially oriented –we’re hardwired that way I guess!

The conversation then drifted towards the Mahabharata and both Sarat and D never cease to amaze me with how much they know about the Epic. Hopefully I will be able to know half as much and be able to tell our kids some good stuff 