Monday, October 29, 2012

1872 : End of reason

Read this lovely quote in TOI today morning.
Shortages there are many on earth - oil, coal, water, clean air - but no scarcity is as acute as that of reason..
Kaushik Basu, chief economist to the World Bank
Bingo !!

Sunday, October 28, 2012

1871 : United Nations at work

Raavan has been secretly visiting the neighborhood Hanuman Temple. Either this is some serious acid tripping at work, or someone really seems in a mood to mend old bends Smile

Seems liked no one ever wants to see a city burning, that too by a tail end Smile, and my Raavan at his monstrous best, is still definitely no Joker Smile- who loved to watch the world burn.

1870 : Romancing the stone

Raavan met my mom today, (not for the first time), but today he was blushing, gushing and flushing all the time….like one new flirt.

Aha….it was such a treat to watch them court each other Winking smile

Seriously, I have never seen someone with 10 heads flirt before Smile

1869 : Zen Koan

I was talking to someone and telling him that I usually end up petitioning wealth, because I want “money to buy things I want”, versus (and I am seeing more of this in my neighborhood Smile), folks end up with an avarice for the green because “ it can buy them things money can buy”.

I don’t know if you see the subtle play of words, but in the real world, it’s salt vs pepper Smile

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

1868 : Lisa Genova Still Alice

Just finished Lisa Genova’s Still Alice, a fascinating look into the mind of a dementia (Alzheimer’s patient), very similar to Samantha Harvey’s The Wilderness (which is far more poetic, less real, but really haunting).

I loved the book, its un-down-puttable. It forces you to think of what life is, and what it could be.

My blog is a battle against one such eventuality Smile

I can see a lot more folks blogging after they read this book…serious….it makes you feel fragile.

Lisa%20Genova%201article-0-04394F35000005DC-574_306x456still alice 2010

 

#

Date

Author

Book

Rating

Comments

17 Oct 2012 Lisa Genova Still Alice 9/10 Outstanding. You just connect with Alice immediately and her life becomes yours. You can see shards of her mind through the book.
16 Oct 2012 Arthur C Clarke Rendezvous with Rama 9/10 Outstanding. It hooks you on completely, and leaves with emotionally attached with Rama, quite some time after you have finished the book.
15 Oct 2012 Salman Rushdie Joseph Anton 7/10 Good Read. Strictly only for a Rushdie fan.
14 Sep 2012 Walter Issacson Steve Jobs 9/10 Excellent read. I found it inspiring and the book made Jobs a more humane person with an infantile ego
13 Aug 2012 JM Coetzee Disgrace 10/10 Outstanding. My 3rd read of the book. If you have not read this book…I urge you to. Minimalism combined with stark imagery. Coetzee is cross between Kundera and Rushdie, my two other fav authors
12 Aug 2012 Randy Pausch The Last Lecture 3/10 Crappy. This is my third attempt at reading this narcissist take on dying. I have learnt more from the Jobs book than this shit tale. I have never finished the book.
11 Aug 2012 Garth Stein The Art of Racing in the Rain 9/10 Fantastic. It starts of as a cute book, gets philosophical, and actually gets damn endearing and makes a bigtime emotional connect.
10 Aug 2012 Milan Kundera The Unbearable Lightness of Being 10/10 Outstanding. My 3rd read….and 2nd in the last 2 years. What can I say? I plan to read this every year, at least once.
9 Jun 2012 Salman Rushdie Midnight’s Children 8/10 Fantastic. My 4th read…..strangely I did not enjoy it as much this time around.
8 June 2011 Robert Spencer Books on Islam (set of 2) 6/10 Engaging Read. But very Islamaphobic. I am genuinely interested in religion and philosophy, so I liked this history….but others might not.
7 May 2011 Milan Kundera The Unbearable Lightness of Being 10/10 Outstanding. My 2nd read.
6 May 2011 Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar 6/10 Read Once. Her poems are so much better.
5 Apr 2011 Salman Rushdie The Enchantress of Florence 7/10 Read Once. Only for fans.
4 Mar 2011 Stephen King The Shining 9/10 Haunting. Must Read. The movie and the book are both one of a kind.
3 Mar 2011 Michael Ondaatje Divisadero 4/10 Pass. Very mediocre book.
2 Mar 2011 Salman Rushdie The Satanic Verses 10/10 Outstanding. Controversies not withstanding. My 4th read, as a piece of fiction, this book is a masterpiece. Also, its really not disrespectful to Islam, all it does is use a bit of creative licensing while telling history.
1 Mar 2011 Salman Rushdie Shalimar The Clown 10/10 Outstanding. Fall in love with Kashmir.

1867 : iPad Mini

I liked both of these posts from my alter ego.

The title of this post is a tribute to his creativity, not mine.

Padmini ….o Padmini

and

iPadmini

Do read it and have a laugh.

1866 : How to eat a Masala Dosa

I liked this post, do read it….its an interesting way of killing time Smile How to eat a Masala Dosa?

1865 : Fifty shades of gray (and sepia)

(Another forward. Lovely photos. Source unknown. Reproduced verbatim.)

 

Some nostalgic pictures - A rarity to have - Needs to be preserved!
15th August 1947, First News Paper of INDEPENDENT INDIA

01

DAIRY MILK CHOCOLATE 1905 TO 1999
02
Stalin, Lenin and Trotsky
03
An Awesome paint of Leonardo da vinci
04
The front page of the April 16, 1912 evening edition of the Boston Globe, detailing the Titanic Disaster is shown
05
The Elephant Rock - 1858
06
Star Cinema ( now at Pakistan ) 1943
07
Shooting-the-mgm-lion-logo-in-1924
08
Incomplete Howrah bridge 1935
09
Howrah Bridge under construction... 1942...
10
HOWRAH BRIDGE
11
Calcutta bus stand near Howrah bridge, most likely on the Howrah station side of the Hooghly River 1944
12
view of the hoogly river at 1880
13
Last time Netaji was arrested by British police
14
A rare one of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and his wife Eimilie Shenkl
15
Gandhi ji with his wife Kasturba Gandhi
16
the crown of India
17
Maharani of Jaipur Gayatri Devi - 1940's
18
The last train , Dhaka to Calcutta!!! Taken in 1947
20
British India and Afghanistan border - 1934
21
Gandhi-ji with Netaji 1932
22
Jawaharlal Nehru, Bhulabhai Desai, and Rajendra Prasad (Center) at the AICC Session, April 1939
23
Chatim talay gurudeber janmodin 1937…
24
Rabindranath Thakur
25
Sharat Chandra with Surendranath
26
Bagha Jatin
27
deho rakhchen thakur ramkrishna paramahansa deb
28
rare picture of the family of maa sarada devi
28
1968 shayam bazar more
30
31
Family of Indira Gandhi
32
July 1983 Indira Gandhi felicitates Kapil Dev, captain of Indian cricket team
33
Satyajit Roy only 22 years old , picture taken at 1943
34
Asha, Mukesh , Lata , Kishore & Manna
36
rare picture of Kishore kumar & Bhupen Hazarika
37
awesome picture of RK, dilip sahab and Dev anand
38
Amit ji with his mom Teji bachan....
39
Jaya with her son & daughter
40
41

42
C. V. Raman - The Great Indian Physicist
Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, FRS (7 November 1888 – 21 November 1970) was an Indian physicist. He was the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930 for the discovery that when light traverses a transparent material, some of the light that is deflected changes in wavelength. This phenomenon is now called Raman scattering and is the result of the Raman effect
43
The original picture of Jhansi Rani Laxmi Bai. This picture has been taken by German photographer Hoffman 160 years ago
44
This was how the Taj Mahal was protected from bomber jets in 1942 during world war.
It was covered with huge scaffold, to make it look like a stockpile of bamboo and misguide bombers.
The covering is still incomplete in this photo. The whole of Taj Mahal was covered but this picture shows only the main dome covered. The govt. didn’t allow any photographers later to shoot the final scaffold cover.
During the India-Pakistan war in 1971, it was protected by covering it with a green cloth and making it almost invisible i.e. camouflaged within the greenery around it.
Even in 2001, after the Sep 11 attack, Archaeological Survey of India took up the precautionary measure to cover it with cloth and it took them more than 20 days to do that!!