WeeAre Bloggerz

When to begin?

2010-12-28T06:54:00.004-05:00

When to begin?

Bernard Moras

The New year that begins will it bring great joy? Would there be sorrows? Would there be problems to confront? All these questions rise in our hearts at the beginning a new year but a man of faith does not worry about these.

As we are at the close of the calendar year and look forward to a new year, it is good to reflect on beginning and end. Think of the year that has gone by. How did it go for you? May be you were joyful? There were days of rejoicing: a birth, a marriage, a promotion in your job, an increase of salary, a wonderful holiday you had, the new friends you made during the year, a growth in your business. Sure we need to rejoice in all these and thank God for them. But sometimes my sorrows may also come in front of me: reversals in health, wealth, missed opportunities, disappointments, new enemies, bitter quarrels, deaths in the family and days of anxieties. Let me be thankful even for these because these keep me humble and not elated but keep me grounded in harsh realities of everyday life. I am after all only a human being. I am subject to change but I need not drift with time and tide because only dead wood drift but a living being should react and be alive.

Let me examine my life and see wherein I have been remiss in the past year. Have I by my own negligence brought on these problems and difficulties that I confront today. If it is my fault let me humble myself before God and say sorry and begin a new way of life. When to begin? Today is the answer. The Psalmist in Psalm 95.7-8 says: “...O that today you would harken to his voice! Harden not your hearts...” Some people wait for the exact new year with a new year resolutions and break them soon after. Rather begin your reform now when God touches your heart. Ask him how to go about it and if you still do not get the answer, ask those who are knowledgeable, get the help that you need from the wise especially those who are spiritually motivated and not from those who may have selfish motives.

He tells himself like the Psalmist : “I have calmed and quieted my soul like a child quieted at its mother’s breast; like a child that is quieted is my soul” (Psalm 131.2) because my God is with me! Let others anxiously consult astrologers, palmists and the like but I will simply trust in my God and begin each day with confidence and joy and with the thought that nothing will ever happen to me without his sanction and his will is that I be always happy.

This is the simple faith to which God invites each one of us whoever we may be and wherever we may be living, whatever may be the job we hold. God wills my happiness.

From a post in Deccan Herald, Dec 28, Tuesday.

Bruhat Bruhadeeshwara

2007-10-03T07:38:00.001-04:00

Bruhat Bruhadeeshwara Inside!

Book Review - The Man Who Knew Infinity - Robert Kanigel

2007-07-23T11:25:00.000-04:00

The trip planned though was screwed a bit, I am happy about the things I was able to do. I guess, I should more often go on a long journey in a train during the day. Last week, the trip to CBE turned out to be a good one in two aspects. Not only did I meet a pal, but also was able to finish reading "The Man who knew Infinity" by Robert Kanigel.

This was perhaps my first biography reading about a mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan, one of the greatest ever. The book is extremely well written. The amount of research done on the subject shows up.

Be it, the details of his home town Kumbakonam, his family, his eccentricism, his passion for numbers, his struggle to get a job by showcasing his mathematical talent is well depicted. Then on, his efforts in finding a mentor, Hardy's role in his life, his trip to Cambridge and his work there makes the book a documentary in front of the eyes. Kanigel draws the picture of Ramanujan exemplifying himself in his work, becoming an enigma to his peers. At the peak of his success, becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society, his failing health short circuits what he would have achieved had he lived longer or "rediscovered" sooner, as Hardy puts it.

I best part of book I liked was Ramanujan's days in Cambridge. It brought a desire in me to at least visit the place sometime, if not more.

I would recommend the book to anyone having a taste for reading biographies, and more so something related to science.

This book added another - to read - in my list - A Mathematician's Apology by GH Hardy.

PS: I have heard somewhere that a movie is being made based on the book. Hope its as good.

Book Review - One Night at the Call Center, Five Point Someone by Chetan Bhagat

2007-07-18T12:50:00.000-04:00

I have gone back to a rigorous reading schedule off late. Though, it started off with some light reading, I have been able to read some serious stuff too. Let me write about what I read here.

After all, its been ages since I took time to write something on the blog myself, apart from posting pictures.

The two novels, One night at the Call Center and Five point someone - what not to do at IIT, by Chetan Bhagat, are easy reads. The plot in each of them is quite simple. A little drama - at office, in the first and at college in the second, makes the novel out of the real world. A bunch of young guys and gals who work in the call center, their life - in and out of work, is portrayed in the first. A li'l bit of lovey-dovey between a couple, office tensions between the colleagues makes it correlatable. Not to forget the bad boss who always is ready to screw.

The second, has the story around a bunch of guys who after a lot of "struggle" enter into the premier tech institute, IIT being toppers, who then become average students, not to mention distracted, then struggle to get themselves see through their degrees. Of course, there is some college romance, the tid-bits of college hostel life.

Both the books, I read were selling like hot cakes at some point! Though, I didn't find them as good, it is a good time-pass for a boring day or long journey.

De-Jinx

2007-06-28T11:15:00.001-04:00

Remarks of Bill Gates

2007-06-26T11:59:00.001-04:00

Remarks of Bill Gates
Harvard Commencement, June 7, 2007

(Text as prepared for delivery)

President Bok, former President Rudenstine, incoming President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, parents, and especially, the graduates: I've been waiting more than 30 years to say this: "Dad, I always told
you I'd come back and get my degree."

I want to thank Harvard for this timely honor. I'll be changing my job next year … and it will be nice to finally have a college degree on my resume.

I applaud the graduates today for taking a much more direct route to your degrees. For my part, I'm just happy that the Crimson has called me "Harvard's most successful dropout." I guess that makes me valedictorian of my own special class … I did the best of everyone who failed.

But I also want to be recognized as the guy who got Steve Ballmer to drop out of business school. I'm a bad influence. That's why I was invited to speak at your graduation. If I had spoken at your orientation, fewer of you might be here today.

Harvard was just a phenomenal experience for me. Academic life was fascinating. I used to sit in on lots of classes I hadn't even signed up for. And dorm life was terrific. I lived up at Radcliffe, in
Currier House. There were always lots of people in my dorm room late at night discussing things, because everyone knew I didn't worry about getting up in the morning. That's how I came to be the leader of the anti-social group. We clung to each other as a way of validating our rejection of all those social people.

Radcliffe was a great place to live. There were more women up there, and most of the guys were science-math types. That combination offered me the best odds, if you know what I mean. This is where I learned the sad lesson that improving your odds doesn't guarantee success.

One of my biggest memories of Harvard came in January 1975, when I made a call from Currier House to a company in Albuquerque that had begun making the world's first personal computers. I offered to sell them software.

I worried that they would realize I was just a student in a dorm and hang up on me. Instead they said: "We're not quite ready, come see us in a month," which was a good thing, because we hadn't written the software yet. From that moment, I worked day and night on this little extra credit project that marked the end of my college education and the beginning of a remarkable journey with Microsoft.

What I remember above all about Harvard was being in the midst of so much energy and intelligence. It could be exhilarating, intimidating, sometimes even discouraging, but always challenging. It was an amazing privilege – and though I left early, I was transformed by my years at Harvard, the friendships I made, and the ideas I worked on.

But taking a serious look back … I do have one big regret. I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world – the appalling disparities of health, and wealth, and opportunity that condemn millions of people to lives of despair. I learned a lot here at Harvard about new ideas in economics and politics. I got great exposure to the advances being made in the sciences.

But humanity's greatest advances are not in its discoveries – but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity. Whether through democracy, strong public education, quality health care, or broad economic opportunity – reducing inequity is the highest human achievement.

I left campus knowing little about the millions of young people cheated out of educational opportunities here in this country. And I knew nothing about the millions of people living in unspeakable poverty and disease in developing countries.

It took me decades to find out. You graduates came to Harvard at a different time. You know more about the world's inequities than the classes that came before. In your years here, I hope you've had a chance to think about how – in this age of accelerating technology – we can finally take on these inequities, and we can solve them.

Imagine, just for the sake of discussion, that you had a few hours a week and a few dollars a month to donate to a cause – and you wanted to spend that time and money where it would have the greatest impact in saving and improving lives. Where would you spend it?

For Melinda and for me, the challenge is the same: how can we do the most good for the greatest number with the resources we have. During our discussions on this question, Melinda and I read an article about the millions of children who were dying every year in poor countries from diseases that we had long ago made harmless in this country. Measles, malaria, pneumonia, hepatitis B, yellow fever. One disease I had never even heard of, rotavirus, was killing half a million kids each year – none of them in the United States.

We were shocked. We had just assumed that if millions of children were dying and they could be saved, the world would make it a priority to discover and deliver the medicines to save them. But it did not. For under a dollar, there were interventions that could save lives that just weren't being delivered.

If you believe that every life has equal value, it's revolting to learn that some lives are seen as worth saving and others are not. We said to ourselves: "This can't be true. But if it is true, it deserves to be the priority of our giving."

So we began our work in the same way anyone here would begin it. We asked: "How could the world let these children die?" The answer is simple, and harsh. The market did not reward saving the lives of these children, and governments did not subsidize it. So the children died because their mothers and their fathers had no power in the market and no voice in the system.

But you and I have both. We can make market forces work better for the poor if we can develop a more creative capitalism – if we can stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or at least make a living, serving people who are suffering from the worst inequities. We also can press governments around the world to spend taxpayer money in ways that better reflect the values of the people who pay the taxes.

If we can find approaches that meet the needs of the poor in ways that generate profits for business and votes for politicians, we will have found a sustainable way to reduce inequity in the world. This task is open-ended. It can never be finished. But a conscious effort to answer this challenge will change the world.

I am optimistic that we can do this, but I talk to skeptics who claim there is no hope. They say: "Inequity has been with us since the beginning, and will be with us till the end – because people just …don't … care." I completely disagree.

I believe we have more caring than we know what to do with. All of us here in this Yard, at one time or another, have seen human tragedies that broke our hearts, and yet we did nothing – not because we didn't care, but because we didn't know what to do. If we had known how to help, we would have acted.

The barrier to change is not too little caring; it is too much complexity.

To turn caring into action, we need to see a problem, see a solution, and see the impact. But complexity blocks all three steps.

Even with the advent of the Internet and 24-hour news, it is still a complex enterprise to get people to truly see the problems. When an airplane crashes, officials immediately call a press conference. They promise to investigate, determine the cause, and prevent similar crashes in the future.

But if the officials were brutally honest, they would say: "Of all the people in the world who died today from preventable causes, one half of one percent of them were on this plane. We're determined to do everything possible to solve the problem that took the lives of the one half of one percent."

The bigger problem is not the plane crash, but the millions of preventable deaths.

We don't read much about these deaths. The media covers what's new – and millions of people dying is nothing new. So it stays in the background, where it's easier to ignore. But even when we do see it or read about it, it's difficult to keep our eyes on the problem. It's hard to look at suffering if the situation is so complex that we don't know how to help. And so we look away.

If we can really see a problem, which is the first step, we come to the second step: cutting through the complexity to find a solution. Finding solutions is essential if we want to make the most of our caring. If we have clear and proven answers anytime an organization or individual asks "How can I help?," then we can get action – and we can make sure that none of the caring in the world is wasted. But complexity makes it hard to mark a path of action for everyone who cares — and that makes it hard for their caring to matter.

Cutting through complexity to find a solution runs through four predictable stages: determine a goal, find the highest-leverage approach, discover the ideal technology for that approach, and in the meantime, make the smartest application of the technology that you already have — whether it's something sophisticated, like a drug, or something simpler, like a bednet.

The AIDS epidemic offers an example. The broad goal, of course, is to end the disease. The highest-leverage approach is prevention. The ideal technology would be a vaccine that gives lifetime immunity with a single dose. So governments, drug companies, and foundations fund vaccine research. But their work is likely to take more than a decade, so in the meantime, we have to work with what we have in hand – and the best prevention approach we have now is getting people to avoid risky behavior.

Pursuing that goal starts the four-step cycle again. This is the pattern. The crucial thing is to never stop thinking and working – and never do what we did with malaria and tuberculosis in the 20th century– which is to surrender to complexity and quit.

The final step – after seeing the problem and finding an approach – is to measure the impact of your work and share your successes and failures so that others learn from your efforts. You have to have the statistics, of course. You have to be able to show that a program is vaccinating millions more children. You have to be able to show a decline in the number of children dying from these diseases. This is essential not just to improve the program, but also to help draw more investment from business and government.

But if you want to inspire people to participate, you have to show more than numbers; you have to convey the human impact of the work –so people can feel what saving a life means to the families affected. I remember going to Davos some years back and sitting on a global health panel that was discussing ways to save millions of lives. Millions! Think of the thrill of saving just one person's life – then multiply that by millions. … Yet this was the most boring panel I've ever been on – ever. So boring even I couldn't bear it.

What made that experience especially striking was that I had just come from an event where we were introducing version 13 of some piece of software, and we had people jumping and shouting with excitement. I love getting people excited about software – but why can't we generate even more excitement for saving lives?

You can't get people excited unless you can help them see and feel the impact. And how you do that – is a complex question. Still, I'm optimistic. Yes, inequity has been with us forever, but the
new tools we have to cut through complexity have not been with us forever. They are new – they can help us make the most of our caring – and that's why the future can be different from the past.

The defining and ongoing innovations of this age – biotechnology, the computer, the Internet – give us a chance we've never had before to end extreme poverty and end death from preventable disease.

Sixty years ago, George Marshall came to this commencement and announced a plan to assist the nations of post-war Europe. He said: "I think one difficulty is that the problem is one of such enormous complexity that the very mass of facts presented to the public by press and radio make it exceedingly difficult for the man in the street to reach a clear appraisement of the situation. It is virtually impossible at this distance to grasp at all the real significance of the situation."

Thirty years after Marshall made his address, as my class graduated without me, technology was emerging that would make the world smaller, more open, more visible, less distant.
The emergence of low-cost personal computers gave rise to a powerful network that has transformed opportunities for learning and communicating.

The magical thing about this network is not just that it collapses distance and makes everyone your neighbor. It also dramatically increases the number of brilliant minds we can have working together on the same problem – and that scales up the rate of innovation to a staggering degree.

At the same time, for every person in the world who has access to this technology, five people don't. That means many creative minds are left out of this discussion -- smart people with practical intelligence and relevant experience who don't have the technology to hone their talents or contribute their ideas to the world. We need as many people as possible to have access to this technology, because these advances are triggering a revolution in what human beings can do for one another. They are making it possible not just for national governments, but for universities, corporations, smaller organizations, and even individuals to see problems, see approaches, and measure the impact of their efforts to address the hunger, poverty, and desperation George Marshall spoke of 60 years ago.

Members of the Harvard Family: Here in the Yard is one of the great collections of intellectual talent in the world.

What for?

There is no question that the faculty, the alumni, the students, and the benefactors of Harvard have used their power to improve the lives of people here and around the world. But can we do more? Can Harvard dedicate its intellect to improving the lives of people who will never even hear its name?

Let me make a request of the deans and the professors – the intellectual leaders here at Harvard: As you hire new faculty, award tenure, review curriculum, and determine degree requirements, please ask yourselves:

Should our best minds be dedicated to solving our biggest problems?

Should Harvard encourage its faculty to take on the world's worst inequities? Should Harvard students learn about the depth of global poverty … the prevalence of world hunger … the scarcity of clean water …the girls kept out of school … the children who die from diseases we can cure?

Should the world's most privileged people learn about the lives of the world's least privileged?

These are not rhetorical questions – you will answer with your policies.

My mother, who was filled with pride the day I was admitted here – never stopped pressing me to do more for others. A few days before my wedding, she hosted a bridal event, at which she read aloud a letter about marriage that she had written to Melinda. My mother was very ill with cancer at the time, but she saw one more opportunity to deliver her message, and at the close of the letter she said: "From those to whom much is given, much is expected."

When you consider what those of us here in this Yard have been given – in talent, privilege, and opportunity – there is almost no limit to what the world has a right to expect from us.

In line with the promise of this age, I want to exhort each of the graduates here to take on an issue – a complex problem, a deep inequity, and become a specialist on it. If you make it the focus of your career, that would be phenomenal. But you don't have to do that to make an impact. For a few hours every week, you can use the growing power of the Internet to get informed, find others with the same interests, see the barriers, and find ways to cut through them.

Don't let complexity stop you. Be activists. Take on the big inequities. It will be one of the great experiences of your lives.

You graduates are coming of age in an amazing time. As you leave Harvard, you have technology that members of my class never had. You have awareness of global inequity, which we did not have. And with that awareness, you likely also have an informed conscience that will torment you if you abandon these people whose lives you could change with very little effort. You have more than we had; you must start sooner, and carry on longer.

Knowing what you know, how could you not?

And I hope you will come back here to Harvard 30 years from now and reflect on what you have done with your talent and your energy. I hope you will judge yourselves not on your professional accomplishments alone, but also on how well you have addressed the world's deepest inequities … on how well you treated people a world away who have nothing in common with you but their humanity.

Good luck.

Living the mystery of life

2007-05-15T13:15:00.000-04:00

(Received it as a forwarded article, so impressed by it that I am posting here)

Purpose of words is to create silence. Does every word you speak create silence in others or does it create turbulence in their minds? Purpose of knowledge is to make you feel that you don’t know! If the knowledge makes you feel that you know it all, then it has not fulfilled its goal. The more you know, the more you become aware of the unknown. Knowing is just pushing the brick a little further towards ignorance.

Before, you thought that you had less ignorance and now you know that you have more ignorance. Purpose of knowledge is to create awareness of the Being. This creation is enormous and infinite. It is a mystery. Mysteries are there not to understand, but to live. Love is a mystery, sleep is a mystery, your mind is mystery and all that you see around is a mystery. Your life is a mystery. Trying to understand mystery is confusion, but living it fully is called enlightenment.

There is one ‘‘I don’t know’’ that comes out of ignorance. This is an ugly ‘‘I don’t know’’. Then it passes through knowledge and becomes a transformed ‘‘I don’t know!’’. This is a beautiful ‘‘I don’t know!’’ which is a wonder. This is how every question turns into a wonder. What is the difference between a wonder and a question? Question is associated with sorrow and restlessness whereas wonder is joy in expression.

What is your life? After all, how many years are you planning to be here in this planet? Look in the light of the time. In the time scale, millions of years have passed and millions will come in the future. What is your life? 60 years or 70 years or 100 years? Span of life is insignificant. It is not even a drop in the ocean. In terms of space you simply don’t exist! This understanding dissolves the ego.

Ego is ignorance of your reality, ignorance of your existence. Now, just to know this do we have to do some thing else? Just open your eyes and see, ‘‘Who am I? How I am on this planet? What is my life time?’’. Awareness dawns in the mind. It does not worry about small little things like, ‘‘this person said this thing to me and that person broke away with me and this happened with that person and I am going to say this and that’’. All smallness will simply drop away with this beautiful ‘‘I don’t know!’’.

Ignorance has its necessity. Ignorance keeps the joy in the game. In a game if you know the result before you are playing you won’t be playing sincerely. If you know you are going to win a game you won’t put your 100 percent in the game. If you know that you are going to lose a game, then also there is no charm in playing the game. The game is joyful when its results are unknown, when they are hidden away... The nature is so kind and loving to you that it does not tell you about your future and does not remind you of your very old past. But, even with the short little memory it has given us we try hard to make our self miserable!

When the state of ‘‘I don’t know’’ passes through knowledge, you are delivered in another state of ‘‘I don’t know!’’... That is a beautiful ‘‘I don’t know!’’ and that is the end of knowledge. So the whole journey is from ‘‘I don’t know’’ to ‘‘I don’t know!’’. There is a saying that before enlightenment you chop wood and carry water and after enlightenment you chop wood and carry water. But with a slight difference; before it was a miserable ‘‘I don’t know’’ afterwards it’s a beautiful ‘‘I don’t know!’’. Every knowledge whether scientific or artistic leaves you in a place of amazement and wonder. You ask a poet, ‘‘How did you write this poetry?’’ He will say, ‘‘I don’t know!’’. You ask a scientist, ‘‘How did you discover this?’’. He will say, ‘‘Oh! I don’t know!’’. This ‘‘I don’t know!’’ level of consciousness is innocence.

Some of you might have the problem that the mind goes round and round. This is because you want to know all the time. Just remain in ‘‘I don’t know’’, the mind becomes quiet. Knowledge is like a detergent agent. You put the soap on the cloth, but wash it away. You never say, ‘‘it is a wonderful detergent soap, let it remain on my body’’.

All our struggle is to know more, know more, know more... you are trying your level best to understand your feelings and your emotions and you get into more and more and more confusion. This is what has happened with psychology today. It tries to explain to you why you feel like the way you are feeling. The ‘‘why’’ question arises always when you are unhappy. You say ‘‘why this problem to me on earth of all the people?’’... Nobody ever asked, ‘‘why am I so happy?’’ or ‘‘why is there so much joy and beauty in the world?’’. You want to understand, ‘‘why am I not feeling good?’’ or ‘‘why am I angry?’’, or ‘‘why is this not happening?’’.

The more you try to understand and try to dig it, you seem to understand less and less. The mystery deepens, but an illusion comes as though ‘‘I know it’’. But that’s for a short while. We ourselves do not know and we try to explain to others! Stop your explanations; your explanations have put you into a soup and make other people also more confused. You don’t know what is happening in your mind. Mind is like a rollercoaster — it’s a crowd. Something comes up sometime and then some other thing pops up.

Just be in the simple and innocent state of ‘‘I don’t know!’’. This life is a mystery — beautiful — live it. Living the mystery of life so totally is joy. Becoming the mystery is divine. You are a mystery!

Who

2007-02-21T07:37:00.000-05:00

Who

In the blue of the sky, in the green of the forest,
Whose is the hand that has painted the glow?
When the winds were asleep in the womb of the ether,
Who was it roused them and bade them to blow?

He is lost in the heart, in the cavern of Nature,
He is found in the brain where He builds up the thought:
In the pattern and bloom of the flowers He is woven,
In the luminous net of the stars He is caught.

In the strength of a man, in the beauty of woman,
In the laugh of a boy, in the blush of a girl;
The hand that sent Jupiter spinning through heaven,
Spends all its cunning to fashion a curl.

There are His works and His veils and His shadows;
But where is He then? by what name is He known?
Is He Brahma or Vishnu? a man or a woman?
Bodies or bodiless? twin or alone?

We have love for a boy who is dark and resplendent,
A woman is lord of us, naked and fierce.
We have seen Him a-muse on the snow of the mountains,
We have watched Him at work in the heart of the spheres.

We will tell the whole world of His ways and His cunning;
He has rapture of torture and passion and pain;
He delights in our sorrow and drives us to weeping,
Then lures with His joy and His beauty again.

All music is only the sound of His laughter,
All beauty the smile of His passionate bliss;
Our lives are His heart-beats, our rapture the bridal
Of Radha and Krishna, our love is their kiss.

He is strength that is loud in the blare of the trumpets,
And He rides in the car and He strikes in the spears;
He slays without stint and is full of compassion;
He wars for the world and its ultimate years.

In the sweep of the worlds, in the surge of the ages,
Ineffable, mighty, majestic and pure,
Beyond the last pinnacle seized by the thinker
He is throned in His seats that for ever endure.

The Master of man and his infinite Lover,
He is close to our hearts, had we vision to see;
We are blind with our pride and the pomp of our passions,
We are bound in our thoughts where we hold ourselves free.

It is He in the sun who is ageless and deathless,
And into the midnight His shadow is thrown;
When the darkness was blind and engulfed within darkness,
He was seated with it immense and alone.

- Sri Aurobindo

Lit up City

2006-05-21T23:53:00.000-04:00

The Lit up City of Vancouver

Space Needle

2006-02-25T15:29:00.000-05:00

Space Needle, Seattle in the night

Back Again!

2006-02-25T14:57:00.000-05:00

I always do this. Try to get myself active on the blog but for zillions of excuses, I don't. Trying again, now - How long will this spell be?

Wild Flower

2005-10-23T16:12:00.000-04:00

Wild Flower

Grass

2005-10-11T00:57:00.000-04:00

Grass
Intended to copy something. Grass can be red too, not green always :-)

Sunset in Rhode Island

2005-09-22T03:07:00.000-04:00

Sunset in Rhode Island

Jai Hind!

2005-08-25T22:22:00.000-04:00

Jai Hind!

Greenery Around

2005-06-19T23:16:00.000-04:00

Greenery Around...

Bridge

2005-06-03T22:40:00.000-04:00

Bridge

Bridges to the Sky or to the heaven?
Linking the Earth to cosmos
Get to touch the stars or kiss the moon
Or show the strength to mole hills.

Sweety Cuties

2005-05-22T02:59:00.000-04:00

Sweety Cuties

Its Spring !!

2005-04-28T00:48:00.000-04:00

Its Spring !!

If

2005-04-04T23:32:00.000-04:00

This is one of the poems, I am in love with. Every time I read it, it enthuses me to the fore. May be for you as well...

If by Rudyard Kipling
___________________________________
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Duo Sailing

2005-03-28T07:33:00.000-05:00

Duo sailing

Nut Cracker

2005-03-06T22:45:00.000-05:00

Nut Cracker

Waves of Life

2005-02-01T01:18:00.000-05:00

December 2004, will be remembered for the destruction caused by the mighty waves. It is way beyond my imagination what it would have been the plight of those people. May He give the strength to overcome.

Two other persona that passed away in that period were, MS, as she is known, M.S.Subbulakshmi and P.V.Narasimha Rao or PVN, an ex-PM.

MS's renditions of krithis, has as much amount of Bhakthi, to take the listener to depths of joy. 'Naanati Baduku Naatakamu', one of Annamacharya's is coming to my mind right now. There are so many others which are as exemplary, and I don't have an iota of knowledge to talk about them. You explore yourself.

PVN's, one of the last interview's which he had given to one of the news channel's can be read at this link. I particularly find certain sentences in them very typical of PVN and with as much wisdom. As pasted below: Q &A from:

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=46723&pn=1

But don’t exaggerate. Let me word this differently. You suggested to me in the past that what we are seeing today is perhaps chapter three in our history of reforms.

Sure.

• And chapter three would not have come if chapters one and two had not been written. Now there is no controversy.

And there is also another thing... How did chapter one come? It came from 0. Maybe negative. So taking something from 50 to 100 is making it double. But if you take it from 0 to 1, how many times is it?

• It’s infinite.

Infinite, and what it really entails is a complete U-turn without seeming to be a U-turn... So the question for you to consider is: which is more difficult?

• Certainly a change is more difficult than accelerating a continuum.

That’s why it need not be laboured too much, because it’s obvious.

This post was written as of 05 Feb 05.

Riotous Colours

2005-02-01T01:09:00.000-05:00

Riotous Colours

Back from Slumber

2005-02-01T01:05:00.000-05:00

Yeh, it was quite a long one. One sixth of Kumbhakarna. I am back from my slumber.

Though, I have had thoughts and ideas to write about, I sometimes didn't have the mood or the time to put them in words.

What better a time than, now. Its 5 mins to 1:00 in the morning, Feb 1st, 2k5, to be woken up by the desire to write.

I'd catch up with quite a few things that swept thru the past weeks. Some of which I feel, I should write about.

Hopefully, as one of my readers told me, shorter posts would be easier to read, (though, personally I like longer ones), I've kept the posts of the coming days as drafts today. I will try posting one per day (hopefully :D)

For today, I'm also posting an edited pic of fall colours in upstate NY.

Icy Tree

2004-12-26T01:22:00.000-05:00

Icy Tree

Fire Ball

2004-12-26T01:20:00.000-05:00

Fire Ball

Ice - Water - Fire

2004-12-25T23:39:00.000-05:00

I published my prev post rather hastily. I think I should have written something about the beauty of Niagara or perhaps I don't have enough words to describe it (in a concliatory tone).

Niagara, though not the biggest of falls, at my first visit, there was a 'WoW'. Grandeur was more from the mist rather than the falls itself. I learn that the amount of water that flows out is the largest (in the world?). When someone asked me, what do you think of the falls, since it is just about 150 ft, doesn't seem to be a great fall, I said, especially for people who like me, had the conception that a fall should be sometihng very deep and where water falls inches from heaven. True, 'Bluff' (Shivanasamudram falls in Karnataka, India) and Niagara should not be compared.

There's also a Hydel station downstream Niagara. I haven't been there though. Sometime I should, I say to myself.

I was thinking of these falls that I saw a couple of other pix which I want to post this time.

(Apologies for I have not yet mastered the art of posting pic, writing in one post. So you'd see the pics in the coming post).

The two other pix which should be seen alongside the water- Niagara pic are,

1. The Ice Tree - This was a pic taken of a tree, not sure which tree this is, when it was draped in snow. It makes it look black n white.

2. Fire Balls - Volcano?!! Nope. It isn't real. In Las Vegas, such stunts also attract as much crowd as the gambling dens. I was amazed at the amount of T&M spent on it. It can only happen in Sam's world.

Misty Beautiful Niagara

2004-12-20T23:05:00.000-05:00

Misty Beautiful Niagara

Ghoda Douda...!

2004-12-20T00:55:00.000-05:00

Horse Carriage in the City

Journal Three

2004-12-19T00:25:00.000-05:00

Great. Pat on my back (grin). I have been able to come back to post sooner :-)

After having warmed my couch last two weekends (courtsey: rain), I thought, I should do something better this time (even if it were to rain). Glad that it didn't. The morning was bright though cold, I made up my mind to get out of home. A walk in Central Park (CP), was long pending. So, why not today, I said to myself and left for the City.

After getting down at 23rd St, I first wanted to get my self enough calories for the impending long walk, so went to Lexington (for those of you who don't know (FTOYWDK: will be abbr in future), thats a street having quite a few Indi restaurants. But sadly, they didn't have a buffet menu and I had to lose more calories (good in one way, right? ;) ) to have a better refill (;-)), until I came across a new one on 32nd and Broadway. Finishing a sumptous lunch, instead of returning back to couch (the thought passed through though), I started my walk.

After a couple of blocks, around the Korean plaza, I thought its better to take a train till 57th and walk then onwards. Got off on 57th. I noticed a very artistically built building, which is a hotel, starts with a P..... hmm.. I guess. If I remember, I'll update it later. At the Columbus circle, there was the holiday fair, selling things like, scented candles, dolls, variety of paper made of hand, handicrafts and cute lil things. It more resembled the handicraft exhibition. Nothing enthused me to buy anything (grins: my wallet).

CP (www.centralpark.org), is a rectangular piece of land, right in the heart of NYC, 800+ acres. I was wondered when I saw boards about "conserving CP" and associations thereof. Perhaps like, Lalbagh (FDOUWK), environmentalists and people of NY are keeping it alive, I said to myself. I already was on one of those roads, curving in and out between the trees. There was quite a big crowd, though it was cold enough to turn water, ice. Skaters, joggers, cyclists, tp guys (like me?), romanticists, kids and all, seemed to be enjoying in the park. Also the horse, majestically stomping with a carriage behind (I'll post a picture of one from its family), as though it was taking pride showing the visitor, CP and the furry cuties (squirrells) running around in excitement beating the weather. (Squirrells - looks so big here to their relatives in India, may be they just follow the NA culture! ). After a mile or so, I saw theres a skating rink with people circling around with as much ease. From tiny toddlers to late 40s, everyone was enjoying and as much were there people in the queue waiting to slide on ICE. It reminded me of my ordeal on the rink giving me enough reason to feel my butt :-). Smiling to myself, I went closer to the rink and watched them glide. I wish, someday, I too, will skate (amen!).

From that location, it gives you a picturesque look of the City, perhaps for those of who have seen "Shrek" or "Finding Nemo", you might be reminded of the shot, I'm talking of. Sad, I din't take my cam. May be another time, after it snows, and it is a WP (white park).

The path led me towards a cottage built probably on a rock. Curious after looking at the Chess and Checkers board, I went on top to find it to be a shop with exhibits of art. But what made them to put the "Chess and Checkers" board, I thought, interestingly to find there were chess boards made on the tables surrounding that cottage. It surely would be a fun thing to spend time playing chess or checkers there, I thought, something I used to do as a kid near my grandparents' house.

I then saw a way, lined with various trees, oaks, birch and others planted in memory of someone. Spent sometime reading some names of which one name catched my eye 'Andrew Adam Shiva'. I smiled and went ahead. A mid-aged man was playing his saxophone (FDOUWDK, It is very common and its one of the features of NYC, there is also a streetside artists association) and almost dancing to it. I walked past him and saw a few people roller-skating close-by. I decided to sit for a while to see their skating, while I was humming 'Gingle Bells' being played on the sax.

CP's landscape not being flat through out, has a lot of rocks and a couple of hillocks. Seemingly a very different mass of land when you see the other parts of the city. Is it custom built?? I have to find out.

After the song, I went ahead when a couple stopped me to take their picture. The camera was old fahioned and was quite heavy. The experience of clicking it was different after being used to these P&S and my SLR. They thanked me and I made my way to the lake below. A newly married couple (still in the wedding dress), were taking pictures with the photographer giving them directions to make the best out of both the weather and the occasion. The lake was layered with thin ice, soon it should be frozen enough for people to skate over it! There are three or four lakes in CP, perhaps were constructed. One is quite a big reservoir, not sure what they use the water for.

While I walked along the lake, I saw a few ducks swimming through the cold water, and one of it suddenly started walking. It appeared to be thinking, "How come I'm walking on water? I see those fishes right under but I can't get my beak to it". Poor fella, I said and the duck seemed to leave that thought and go to its brethern for a chat.

I proceeded further climbing up the hillock, they call it 'The Ramble'. It was at this place, I felt being isolated totally from the city. In other places atleast I could see a few scrapers here and there, and couldn't also hear the sounds of vehicles going in tunnells below the park. I walked through the narrow path and reached a castle. From the top of which there is another good view of the city as well as the golf course. Came down the hillock and noticed that I had walked until 80th st. already. I could see another big lake, on the banks of which I walked for a mile or so and realised, it was getting dark and colder as well. I found the closest station was at 86th st and got out of the park there.

The west side of the park is called the Park Avenue and has one of the big hotels, Trump International hotel and Tower (FDOUWK, owned by man behind The Apprentice reality show). I walked back to 80th st to take a train.

My walk was not over as I still wanted to see the Grand Central Railway Station(GC). I took the C train, then the 1 and then 7 (it is not as far, though sounds from what I've said) to reach GC. Strolled inside the station, which looks a hotel than a railway station. There is a beatutiful painting/ engraving done on the ceiling of the hall within. May be a greek mythology, I couldn't recognise (as though I know everything). It was just 6 PM and didn't want to return home. I stepped on to 42nd st. towards Times Sq.

As I was waiting for the walk signal on the 5th Avenue, it came to my mind of the news the day before that Mr. Murdoch bought a penthouse on the 5th Avenue for, guess what?, $44 Million, I thought, let me see if it as much worth it (like I have more money than that and can bargain for a better deal). I turned on the 5th and walked along, couldn't recognise which building was it. Any way, I said to myself, when Empire State (ES) building is here for me, why should I get a penthouse. ES had a long queue and a board said there was a wait time of 120 mins. Certainly I didn't want to see NYC @ night after waiting for 2 hours ( I am yet to go inside ES). Well then, didn't find the penthouse, I found a Starbucks, as though to make up for the futile 5th Ave walk, to treat myself with a Caramel Macchiato and a Coffee Cake. Then I headed to the COMPUSA next street for some windowshopping and also at the Lord and Taylor store. It seemed to be a very expensive shop with variety of perfumes and jewellery. Not for me, I said and headed to the PATH on 6th Ave, calling it a day after five hours of Explore NYC walk.

Say Cheese!!

2004-12-12T23:53:00.000-05:00

Say Cheeeese !!!

A Step Forward.....

2004-12-12T23:29:00.000-05:00

Well, since this is still my second post, it took sometime for me to overcome the inertia of not blogging (but just reading). I promise myself (as though there are a whole lot of others), that I will make it more regular a thing to write.

While looking through my old pics, I felt, I should post this one as the first picture on my blog. So, this is gonna be a writo-picco-bloggo :-).

This was taken when I went to the African Safari (though not in Africa, you can see Africa in North America too, whose grace?!! ;) ). This cutie Giffe, as I would like to call it, came so close to the car we were driving, that it gave a lovely smile. Isn't it cute :-)

YoHooooo!! I'm tooo Bloggin

2004-12-02T02:09:00.000-05:00

It took quite a while, to do or not to do, should I or shouldn't I. After seeing sooo many blogs, I decided, this is reeallly a coool way of talking, to self, to friends, to others. I'm slowly becomin a bloggoholic ;)

I've always wanted to write. A diary. It never took off. As far I remember it was Jan 10th, on a cold winter night, while I was walking thru the snow to catch my train, I thought, its time to write something, about self, thoughts, rumblings, ideas and confusions. Did it take almost 3 years to start it out? Yeah.. Better late than never.. Kick off...