from Denmark Christmas seals TO color symbolism TO album cover designs TO philately...A letter

From Denmark Christmas seals to color symbolism to album covers to philately...what was thought to be a mail sharing some good links ended up as a letter to my sis :)

http://grainedit.com/2009/12/22/denmark-christmas-seals-1962
I found the English terms for many skilled jobs :)

• Milliner – maker of hats
• Chandler – maker of candles / specific products
• Glazier – fitter of glass panes
• Cooper – repairer of wood barrel
• Wainwright – maker of Wagons

http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2009/12/29/color-in-film-m-night-shyamalan/
This describes Color symbolism in films: Manoj.N.Shyamalan

http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/04/09/grammy-award-winning-album-colors-2007
I loved the third cover among the listed ones.

http://grainedit.com/2007/12/20/israel-electronic-computer-stamp-1964/
We have evolved in length and breadth since 1964. But taking the next foot forward, what have we left behind and what we are leaving behind us??

http://grainedit.com/2008/05/20/modern-design-and-the-stamp-iain-folletts-stamp-collection/
Stamps teach different things for different people...role of colors for the graphic designer, marks the events for the historian, evoke the relevant thoughts of those interested, value of relation for the heart writing the letter and much more...

God created our eyes to perceive, our soul to feel and the whole human to adapt and live the life to the fullest.
Let's live it to our creator's wish :)

With lots of colors still unexplored...in us!!!
...Ck

It rained...

A sudden drop in the temperature this morning, I woke up at 4.00 am to a mild breathlessness in me. I thought of those two people whom I knew only by their names. My friend also woke up around that time hearing to my wheeze. He had the same thought running in his mind too. Surrounded by a pod of grave silence, our minds were wide awake with a cacophony of thoughts.

Suddenly the clouds rained with a roar, drenching the dew damp roads…no thunder, no lightning, it just rained its soul onto the earth. It rained its way into the gravity of the silence, roaring into our thoughts, shattering them and created a void within.

The rain not only penetrated the soil, it penetrated into me and restructured my priorities, my view of life and my love for it. Like a tap closing, the rains stopped in twenty minutes. An hour later the sun rays pierced and made itself felt through the fog. I know for sure that the Sun will shine…shine for me, my friend, and those two never met acquaintances.

Love...

You do not love someone...you share the love of YOUR life with them...

(Felt and penned during my recent holiday vacation in Penang)

The dragon fruit venture @ Penang

Never seen color and never seen shape, I and my mom were drawn by the colorful fruit at the entrance of Penang’s market complex. Curiously my mom turned to our friend’s daughter and asked how the fruit tasted… the answer was that she had never tasted one! We were surprised by her answer as she was born and brought up in Malaysia. Now I and my mom were determined in exploring the pinkish red fruit. Our friend’s daughter helped us as translator between Tamil and Malay language as Malay accented English was difficult to comprehend. It was priced 8RM per kilo and the fruit was weighing close to 650 gms…


Suddenly our friend called…and we set aside this venture and proceeded to the left side row of shops… Fishes with exotic colors, half alive squiggling in the plate were splashing the water in all directions. Next there were silent squids a dozen in a plate, moving in a very slight jerky fashion…next were 3-4 baskets of shellfish, prawns, crabs and some other creatures all snailing their way to the top of the basket. Leaving this there were the normal pomfrets and other sea fishes as well. Our friend ordered the fish and we were out. Next row of shops were all selling eggs…normal chicken eggs were brown in color! Till then I have seen only white eggs. There were smaller light blue colored eggs, even smaller dotted eggs…I gathered from the Chinese vendor that the eggs were of a bird called ‘kaadai’ in tamil, he tried explaining to us in English, later Chinese accented Tamil.


Way back, again the pink dragon tailed fruit caught our attention. This time we enquired the next shop where it was priced less by 2RM and immediately we paid and shoved the fruit into our bags. The shopkeeper lady action was very hasty in selling the fruit… maybe that was her usual way. Though our friend assured that the fruit tastes good we were a little bit cautious and bought only one fruit. The fruit was called as the dragon fruit.


Back home we relished on the tasteless? Less-sweet? fruit along with ice…even then, our friend’s daughter did not want to explore this fruit. The reddish pink flesh with embedded black seeds was so good to see that you would want to relish the entire fruit. It stained our tongue pink and the feeling was so divine and wholesome. I would recommend tasting this fruit given an opportunity.

Googling throws light on the innumerable benefits of this fruit (also called Pitaya) and I was surprised knowing that this fruit belongs to the same family as that of ‘Queen of the bight’ bloom. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitaya

The golden girl...

Recently this ad caught my attention in one of the Tamil magazines. I liked this photo for its composition, lighting, mood and the dark colors. The deep crimson red amidst a yellow lighting, and the dark oily green blouse, all give emphasis to the subject. I liked the model's pose flaunting an immense joy in her smile.

The only better thing that could have been done is the position of the hand bangles...the current position makes her wrist look thinner.

Coffee cravings...

A sudden craving for coffee erupted in me yesterday…the craving happened to be so deep that I could feel the black bitter taste of coffee decoction spreading down my throat. I barged into the office pantry and filled myself a cup of coffee. I felt like a kid satisfied holding a lolly pop. But that satisfaction turned into rage when the coffee tasted insipid: it was mere caffeine washed hot water. The anger turned into a sort of unfulfilled wish. The effect of bad coffee had actually created a void in me.

Post lunch and a project meeting, the craving digging deep inside urged me to walk out of the building. Engulfed in a blanket of moist and warm air post a lash of torrential drizzle, I strolled to the nearby food court. Sipping the coffee, I felt the sugary bitterness spreading down the throat, filling my senses. A gush of fullness shot from the stomach and I could feel goose flesh! Finishing the exciting cup of coffee, with the bitterness still clinging on to the palate, I stood up enthusiastically. Walking down to my office, I remembered my favorite verses from Pablo Neruda’s love sonnet XVII “I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul”

PS:

The moment I blurted out saying that I am not happy with the coffee, rudeness crept in the voices of the pantry manager as he was defending his premises: the ‘I am OK’ sort of behavior. I felt like laughing loud...and suddenly remembered a saying that you cannot wake someone who is pretending to be asleep!

Pomelo pomelo...

Driving back from Lepakshi to Bangalore, fruit carts with huge canon sized lemon caught our attention at Devanahalli... We stopped...sorry the fruits stopped us :) and bought one for tasting it. The lady who was selling them named them as Chakota. We relished on one and bought two more of that fruit.

The fruit's rind was more than 1/2 inch thick and was spongy spongy pink. The fruit was similiar to orange but it was very dry... some exotic fruit we thought and continued our journey.

After lots of googling I found out the name of the fruit as Pomelo, and is called as Chakotra in Pakistan/Afghanistan. It was excellent one to read about the fruit as well. It has lots of nutritive and medicinal properties as well

A grand fruit in the citrus family with a divine taste perhaps...

With some more googling, my mom found out a recipe: She boiled and blanched the rind and made some sweet candy out of it... a bittery-citrus-sweet candy and that is the way real life is...isn't it?

Lepakshi Temple ...Life in stone

We had been to Lepakshi temple a fortnight ago. Lepakshi temple is a typical 16th century Vijayanagar style architecture known for its stone carvings, statues and ceiling paintings. I witnessed one of the finest carvings on stone. For example, the elephant with a tree in its trunk or the coiled snakes or simple patterns like the ones below

Apart from these life forms, there were many designs carved on stone pillars which were really exhilarating .

The whole temple had much for the artistic eye. Just onto the right after the entrance, I spotted what seemed to be a row of horses pulling the temple as a cart...by the way it seems only two horses are remaining now!

In the periphery, a big statue of Linga and seven hooded snake catches your attention the body of the snake has the mesh like leathery texture carved out! A big in-complete stage floor / hall with pillars around really gives you a feel of a stage performer.

The front hall has some of the finest paintings in the ceiling; most of it is ruined, yet a few are in-tact.

A large Nandi or the 'Bull' stands outside the temple facing the God. This is the one which receives you when you drive into the village...

When we were there, a lot of renovation work was going on inside the temple. I wish this temple and its rich art is preserved for generations to come.

Driving to Lepakshi from Bangalore (120+ Kms)

Take NH7 from Bangalore: You cross Hebbal, Devanahalli (Bangalore Intl Airport) and reach Chikballapur. It is better to grab a cuppa coffee or munch something in Chikballapur. You also get a Bharat Petroleum with a restaurant for some yummy masala dosa. Leaving this ,it is just the barren landscape and4-6 lanes of asphalt that would fill your eyes in the next leg of journey. Crossing the state RTO check post on the state border, you get a place called Bagepally with some human activity. Ask for the route to Hindupur, and you would be directed to turn left into a single lane village road. Continue for 12-15 Kms to reach Lepakshi via a village called Chilamattur. You can also reach the place via Doddaballapur, but it happens to be a state highway. No idea of the road conditions

Slow and steady...is more dangerous in this case!!!

I was a middle-school grader when I started hating medicine. My doctor had prescribed a yellow colored pill that use to take the life out of me every time I took it to my mouth: it smelled like hell. After that time, I never encountered that yellow-colored item in my life.Ten years had passed when I came out of house to start my career. From then on every time when I use to come to Bangalore from Coimbatore, I would exactly wake-up to an exact situation experienced decades ago.This was not in my dreams...

It is reality: I wake up when the bus crosses the Bio-con factory area on the outskirts of Bangalore. The whole atmosphere in the area is filled with pungent medicinal smell that poses a severe health hazard. This seems a very small issue when compared to the recent swine-flu epidemic, but this is slow and lethargic.

Swine flu is nature's adjusting technique, but the health hazard posed by irresponsible discharge of effluents from the pharma industry is whose adjusting technique?

The forest route via Masinagudi...Paradise now, In future??

The route from Bandipur to Ooty via Masinagudi is a must visit for nature lovers...if possible on a less polluting bike or a personal car. You can spot wild elephants, different species of deers, wild buffalos, species of monkeys, peacocks and if you are lucky you can spot a leopard. For the binocular eyes, various bird species also call attention. The route via the forest has something for people who adore nature and this was the reason I stressed on a less polluting vehicle.

Till now, vehicle movement was restricted after six pm. Now with pressure from all traders, bus route and tourism operators, the forest ministry has lifted the ban effective this month. This is really a case of concern for environmetalists, wildlife enthusiasts and also local public as well.

The ban earlier was imposed by the Karnataka state government to protect wildlife and the natual reserves in general. The recent action by the central forest minister will cause ripple in those minds who are really concerned in conserving nature. How much money was presented to the ministry is a question for which answers are known only to ministry high officals and those vehicle operators involved.

Equation churning engine...

My friend just now introduced me to a computational knowledge engine christened 'Wolfram Alpha' (www.wolframalpha.com). Computational... what!!!??? leave it...lets call it as maths engine for short. It can do any mathematical computation for you, be it simple differential/integral or be it complex equation solving or be it any engineering equations (Seeing Butterworth and Chebyshev filters in the help page took me to my college days though I do not remember even a bit of it!)

Based on 'Mathematica' as the back end, this tool is really powerful, though slow. The aesthetics of the web page gives a scientific feel. And by saying this I do not mean it is only for the scientific/engineering community. It can even display the nutrition information of food stuffs, give out medical information of drugs, do a host of financial functions and also provide nutshell information on sports, history and many more.

Now that we have got one more engine in this world that churns out solution for equations, its success lies in our success, our idea engine's success or our mind's success. It is diligent in its part and the ball is always in our court to smash...

69 minutes, 10Km, 26th year :)

I completed the 10Km run in 69 minutes today... This run was a non stop one with a walk of 200 meters after the 6th kilometer. Felt happy by this achievement, that too on a day when I enter the 26th year of my existence in this world

World No Tobacco day and Sunfeast 10Km

Today is ‘World no tobacco day’ and today Sunfeast conducted the 10Km run in Bangalore. Except for two small posters no others sponsors including Sunfeast / ITC had posters emphasizing the tobacco health warnings.

How would Sunfeast do that when its parent company ITC is a leading tobacco company in India? Did it forcefully prevent other sponsors from hoarding No-Tobacco displays?

Spotted the black rumpted flameback

I spotted the black rumped flameback last week in our 'Global Village Tech Park' office campus. I thought it was a normal sparrow from far...but as I approached, I could see its red crest and golden back and black & white breasts.
I postponed my lunch and went in further to enjoy the woodpecker's colors amidst the coconut trees.
It was too awesome sight to express it in words...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-rumped_Flameback

Mella mella ennai thottu...

yuvan shankar has done an excellent remix of his father Ilayaraja's musical piece in the movie 'Sarvam'. The hero of the movie hears this music piece whenever his lover is around.

Today I fished out this song from youtube; the original song starts as ' Mella mella ennai thothu....' where the woman wants her lover to caress her in a staccato...Ilayaraja's prelude is also a staccato of violin chords, joined by the guitar with the flute mellifluously filling in later.

I am always against remixing of old songs...but yuvan has done a great job by keeping the original pace and instruments and improvised the recording.

Golden vines...intertwined with her thoughts

Golden vines intertwined with her thoughts...

I loved this still in the recent Tamil movie 'Sarvam'. I liked the lighting, background, her poise, costumes...amazing.
Kudos to the cameraman and costume designer.
Overall the background music score by Yuvanshankar was good.
Camera at most places was the bokeh type shots where the focus is on the subject with the background fading; this was a little annoying to me. And the next major was silhouette shots mostly with blue or red backgrounds. One shot was with the sun in the horizon...
The sets and lighting of the hospital shots in the first half were too exposed and swallowed the subjects unless the costumes were dark colored. In one shot, the same white color costume in the above picture amidst the hospital white background was too bland.

Rain rain come again

Walking in the rain is one of the activities that bring out the child in you…and yesterday I felt like a six year old boy :)

Returning from office by the 8.15pm cab was really boring with people hooked on to their iPod or cell phone talk or on to their own dream world. Just 10 minutes before my stop, rain lashed with heavy winds and woke the guy who was sitting opposite to me. He woke up angrily and took out an umbrella with a heavy sigh and probably wished that the rain would stop.

The rain sprayed on my face with the wind and I wished that the rain would continue...My wish was fulfilled...

Walking some half a kilometer in rain, slow and steady…enjoying the water drops engulfing my thoughts; I remembered my childhood days in Assam. The monsoon sweeping the town, myself on the front lawn playing like mad in the rain, my mom tired of calling me inside and sitting on the portico with my younger sister, then a three years old baby. From 3.30pm till 5.00pm fully drenched in the rain, I went inside only when my papa came back from work…After having a glass of hot milk I was floating paper boats in the water puddles with my sister looking at them…

Really nostalgic thoughts…thoughts of my childhood suddenly flashing and flooding my thoughts after about twenty years…

Watching the weaver

Weaver
Originally uploaded by Puneeth B C

I was delighted by the sight of a dozen weaver bird nests...They were deserted. Late after few minutes I planned to hide myself and hid nearby amidst tall grass bushes. This is the place where I watched their entire behavior pattern from close quarters...about 5 feet from their nests.
The weavers hopped from branch to branch, each time inching towards their nest and each time surveying their territory. Most of the time they were holding long stalk of grass in their tiny beaks. These yellow crested weavers land straight on top of their nest and with the help of their feet and pointed beaks weave the grass stalk into the existing structure. This was at the end of 15 minutes an now I wanted to call Puneeth so that they can be shot through our lenses.
I and Puneeth scrambled on our knees and positioned ourselves but the weavers sensed some risk...they came closer to their nest and again retreat back. Now we resolved to lying on our chest...he with his camera and I with my friend's binoculars. This time we ended up with some good shots. All the muted conversations and sign languages helped us. This was at the end of sixty minutes.

Watching the weaver, we lost our sense of time...We got to know how many minutes passed only when we were returning back from the small stream near which the weaver's colony were...

Spotting the Bee-Eater

Bee-Eater
Originally uploaded by Puneeth B C

Puneeth called me last Thursday and asked if I can join them for the trip to sight the flock of bee eaters that had arrived somewhere on the outskirts of Mysore adjoining the Kaveri river banks. We started late evening and reached there around 10.30 pm...the whole village was asleep except for few who were returning from the city. Our enquiries about the directions to the river banks arouse suspicion of the villagers...we were noted and tracked... Finally we went to the shores and surveyed the site. The moon was shadowed by the clouds then. With the help of two local villagers we camped on the outskirts of the village. Seeing the starry sky and those flickering fireflies made me feel heaven.
Sighting the flocks of bee eaters perching everywhere...it was a sight that defies expression. The intricate colors on the bee eaters neck and the body was awesome through the binoculars. Along with the flock we spotted a pied kingfisher, brown hornbill, white throated kingfisher and a family of weaverbirds. The weaverbirds caught my attention and it calls for separate attention in my blog as well. See you soon with the post on weaver bird...

This photo was taken by Puneeth...

Who rules over our creativity...?

Last week, a bus conductor handed over a old ten rupee note. I became a little bit confused as nowadays any rupee note comes with MK.Gandhi's smiling photo on it...

I always loved the older pre-Gandhi series of notes for its art work. The ten rupee note which I got has the Indian emblem 'Lion of Sarnath' on its obverse and a picture of two peacocks sitting on a tree, with deers and a horse on the reverse. The currency note actually resembles a piece of art. The greyish blue color of the peacock and the beautiful curved designs of the note left me dazzled until I shuffled it into my wallet where other notes were stuffed with same MK.Gandhi on it...

Michael Crichton...!!!???

It is 5 months already and I am getting the news now!!!

A mail from a community within the company linked to a presentation on global warming by 'LATE' Michael Crichton...I was taken aback by this news. Is Michael Crichton dead? and now I googled it to confirm it. A smoker, he battled throat cancer and died at 66.
If the news is true, then why was I not aware of it? I may very well say that I was busy with my project work...and all other odd reasons for why I did not get the news. I do have a single reason why I should have known it... the author, whose 'Disclosure' made me lost into its storyline; the same author whose 'Airframe' was in line with my own interesting subject; the same author whose 'Prey' made me its prey for a week... Anyways I feel sad by the news of the demise, so late...almost five months and now I am thinking how linked I am with the world and its happenings.

'TRYING'

Without trying out something you cannot conclude that you will fail

You tried crying seconds after you entered the world…and you cried for the first time
You tried spelling words…and you did talk

If you refuse to try... you would have never known your innate abilities…

And those which are earned without trying/sweating your blood are not relished…and the achievements fade with time.

And trying makes us younger and brighter…

So before you say you cannot do something…think if you have tried it.
And if someone says you cannot do it…refuse politely and say that ‘WE’ will try and conclude.

'I'

It is the 'I' factor that creates uniqueness...that creates wonders...that ascends the quality of your life. It is the 'I' that helps us breathe...It is the 'I' that keeps us really moving.

'We' as a team works when everyone loves their 'I's...
'Sharing' and 'Caring' happens when everyone respect others 'I's
Success is relished when 'I's join

Where are you...my 'I(eye)'s'
'I' love you all...

The Path to silence

The Path To Silence
Originally uploaded by siggito

The path to silence you are deep into a womb of thoughts.
Silence probes your thoughts...
Need for communicating arises then...

When wavelength's are aligned, communication between lives defies sound...then why did God create something called sound...

Feeling now, what I relished then...

My footsteps felt heavy thumping on the tar road. I could feel my footsteps clearly in the silence prevailing around...I returned from office to my friend's house just few minutes ago.
I was amused by the thought of how the earth would be feeling, when millions of people walk and automobiles race over it.
The same a colony of ants would be thinking of us when we stamp on them...killing them. I read this piece of thought written by Aurobindo/Mother, post the tsunami shaking off the Indian coast...
Then I relished those words, today I felt it.

Now I think the same with sleep which is taking over me... :)

Verbal voyeurism...

'Don't you watch MTV roadies?' questioned my friend as if I had committed a crime... Got to know from him that the TV series aired in MTV channel has to do something with adventure...Some colleagues of mine said they like the program because it has something to do with reality.

I forgot all of these conversations amidst my daily work…months passed by before I first witnessed this program. 

Returning back from office early, I saw my roommate watching the program. It was a selection for the ‘Roadies’ as they call. It was something like ragging and ripping apart a person. That was ok…

Last week I saw the roadies in action and found the participants verbally assaulting each other. Found that it has nothing to do neither with adventure nor with reality and what people relish seeing is just a vulgar pleasure in hearing something that is voyeuristic.

I just got up, felt the air engulfing my thoughts and went out for dinner mulling over my thoughts on what people really want as enjoyment.  

Midas touch

Power to Dream l
Originally uploaded by tteerriitt

I always love what Sun does to the frigid deep blue sky in the mornings...the Midas touch.

Frigid blue sky melting to sun,
Melting into silence until evening
Getting ready for another sunrise
With the power to dream...

Thanks tteeritt for the photo...

We are ready with our next mission, Are you game?

A fortnight ago, Friday evening I and my friend KK planned for a long trip to Goa, then shortened it to Mangalore, further shortened it to Nandi hills followed by Hosur... and shortened it further: we spent Saturday at the office... Saturday evening, suddenly an idea flashed while returning home and we got down much ahead of our place...
We dropped into our senior colleague Y's place without any notice. We rang the doorbell and hid ourselves near the stairs and just gave him a surprise when he opened the door. We felt some 10 years younger doing this act...
We still felt younger by forming a trio: I, KK and Y's daughter Ria opposing Y. Munching on the ready-cook popcorn prepared by Ria, the trio strengthened by the tea that Y had prepared.
We helped Ria to finish off some school maths and here began the real action...
We forced Y to join our trio for dinner, and to take his car out on a Saturday evening, made him to eat pizza which he hates to the core. It was all fun that evening...

We are ready for another storming action and creating a trinity with Ria...but when it will happen? Any suggestions Y?

Springing Bangalore...

Fresh violet bud leaves sprung up on bare trees a week ago and now are slowly coloring up a realm that is somewhere above 3 meters from the road level... It is pre-spring season in India and the trees have started to turn green!
It is always a pleasant morning these days, waking up to cool morning wind and the lush green trees.I love those orange colored, brown dotted butterflies, yellow striped butterflies that wish me good morning...

Sandesh Kadur's quest for 'Pogeyan'...

It was a sort of immersion into nature…I witnessed the short film by Sandesh Kadur on Western ghats. Thanks to my colleague Puneet with whom I went to watch the film at the British council in Bangalore. Sandesh has been photographing wildlife in Western ghats for close to a decade. His quest for ‘Pogeyan’ or the ‘Misty’ Indian cat is quite interesting; he spotted this member of the cat family few years back and now wants to spot it again as it is not classified / identified yet…He shared his adventure stories in his quest for ‘Pogeyan’. He said that living in the rainforests of the ghats is far safer than crossing the road in Bangalore… 

If you really admire nature and an ardent lover of it, then Sandesh Kadur’s adventures are online for you at http://www.sandeshkadur.com/

It is good to forget, but not this soon!

With all the josh of my new electronic cards arriving, I forgot to share my 185 minutes to finish the half marathon in Mumbai last week. This one was better than my last one in terms of my post recovery time. The crowd cheer throughout our 21 odd kilometers was a real boost, we never felt that we were alone or we were stressing our body to its extreme. My running pattern this time was 8km non-stop run, another 8-9 km staggered run and walk the last four kilometers…

Post marathon, we had been to the Elephanta cave islands, thanks to my friend Prakash: without him, I could not have managed to see the cave islands. I had in fact seen Mumbai when I was 10 years old, but nothing has changed since then…the same buzzing crowd, the same spirit of living perhaps, only I was 15 years older than I was then…

It was a festival indeed and whole Mumbai was a part of it...Thank you Mumbai, see you next year at the marathon...

My baby, in real copper and components...!

Today morning, I felt extremely happy holding my new baby in real copper and components.  Yes the boards I designed have arrived from the fab-assembly unit.

Before we woke her up to this real world and feed power, she was given a full check up… As any parent would propagate how bringing up children is a difficult yet enjoyable experience, my friends added similar such experiences of theirs to normal conversations.

She is just born; need to bring her up…miles of difficult path to go. But for now, she is the cutest baby I have ever seen because she is of my blood :)

Is India's future in rite / wright / right / write / ryte direction!!!?

rite / wright / right / write / ryte... So much of similar rhyming words?

Yes, all these words were collated from responses to a questionnaire presented to women students of PSG College of Arts and Science in Coimbatore. The questionnaire was a part of the one-to-one initiative from Vasantha Memorial Trust for spreading the awareness on breast-self-examination among women. Around 900 girls were given the awareness talk.

My mother who was a part of the initiative was amused by the answer to a particular question (Answer: Right) Some of the answers were rite (the mobile SMS effect perhaps), wright(Where did wright brothers come into picture?), right, ryte(Again SMS effect), write(What to write?) and many more similar sounding compounds. Many did not choose to right the write answer...sorry, write the right answer!

This left me wondering whether we are marching into future in the right direction??

Saving Satyam...at whose cost?

I was taken aback by the Indian government decision to flush in 2000 crore Indian Rupees to save Satyam IT limited. Government was in fact acting hurriedly in taking over the Satyam IT limited themselves. This highlights involvment of top government officials in the scam and now they are trying to hide themselves from the one of the Great Indian Shame of the century.

Our prime minister says that this will save us from the corporate shame in the eyes of other foreign countries, but at whose cost...Being the part of the scam the individual politicians, including state and central ministers along with auditors and directors of Satyam would have made a lot of money then (When the founder and CEO resigned the company following a confession of cooked up accounts, he held only 5% of stake in the company! ). Now politicians want to save the self destroyed corporate image usign the tax payers hard earned money.

Why should we, the tax payers of the country bear the burden for a bunch of selfish crooks affected by the virus of greed?

Real Work...

'I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine...'      _Ayn Rand from her 'Atlas Shrugged'

Real team work and fulfilling work starts when we understand the above lines in its entirety...

What do you say?

I am 24.60232717 yrs old !!!

Hey CK…this is not the right thing you have done…exclaimed my junior colleague during morning tea break. I was really amused by the tone he said those words. He was referring to my age I have put in the company networking portal.

Born in 1984-May, I am 24.60232717 years old as of today (This is what my computer calculated!). Now should I mention my age as 24yrs or 25yrs? Here started the debate…
Should I say my age is or 24.xxxxxx years then?

Whatever is, can’t we mention that I am always 16 + rest yrs as experience?

Smoking Ban, India and the World...

Before typing in my thoughts to the word processor, I thought it would be wise to delve deeper into the banning of smoking in public places around the globe. And I was right in doing so, because till now I was under the impression that India is the only country to impose such a ban. In fact we are actually delayed in passing such a bill: more than 80 nations have such bans in place (Courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_smoking_bans). To my surprise, the earliest smoking ban dates back to as early as 1590 brought about by Pope Urban VII and the first modern age ban was imposed by Nazis in Germany and was in effect till their fall in 1945 (Courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_ban).

Though governments round the world have banned smoking, how many nations are effectively implementing this rule is still an unanswered question. My feel is that, in India this ban as any other rule has transformed into an array of bribe collection mechanism. Curious about other nation’s success stories on such bans, I searched the web and found out one or two research paper exploring the barriers in implementing smoking bans. This clearly means that every other country is trying to achieve higher success rates in imposing smoking ban and are finding it tougher. Probably I will weave one of my next blog based on my reading of these researches. 

Lenses...

The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera." ~ Dorothea Lange (1895–1979)...
I saw this quote in one of my contacts in Flickr photo sharing site and felt how true these words are...

In fact, I welcome the new year 2009 by exploring an ocean of bits and pixels of frames shot by people world-over. A real satisfying experience that no words can express...

Wish you all a happy new year indeed.