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