The diary turns one :)

Yeah! The diary turns one year old today.....it was a year ago, that i began chirping on these pages. The pages that have nurtured me in many ways.....the pages that are a reflection of who i am.

You know the warm and strangely comforting feeling that one derives from turning the pages of an old diary..... The color and the smell of old pages invokes nostalgia.....recreating thoughts, images, feelings.....That is what this diary is for.....

Its really fun reading my own thoughts :). Sometimes it makes me wonder, if i were the person who wrote all that! Really, its fun looking at how my thoughts and feelings have shaped up. The many thoughts that i have poured here, have also sometimes given my friends and me a chance to cherish good old times.....

And the diary has become a space for me to chronicle the books i read, the occassional movies i watch and my holiday trips :).

he he, and did i say that the diary has some dedicated readers too ;). Though most of them refrain from improving the comments statistics on this page (hint, Ms. Moon and MD) :-D.

Few days back, i was wondering if i should be changing the look of my diary. I decided to let it be.....it looks as comforting as a favorite old book, that i'd love to read again and again.....

This may not be a well written blog, it doesn't pretend to be-but its a corner where i can feel cozy :). Now what can be more enjoyable than that :).

I saw a bumble-bee :)

Last week, my friend Swiss-Miss chided me a bit....."You have no life", she chirped! As i chuckled shamelessly, she continued, "You should enjoy life a bit, go out, have some time for yourself. Lets go to Lake Shrine this weekend".

Ah! This was not the first time that she asked me to visit this particular place. To her, this place means a lot. In her words, "Its so serene and peaceful, totally takes the stress of your mind". She always vividly decribes this place and its beauty. After my failed attempts to avoid going there, i finally gave in. I didn't want to upset a friend and given the fact that i was not feeling too well, i decided to take the plunge :).


The lake shrine indeed is a lovely place, with the lush greenery holding a beautiful lake in her lap, and its wears mostly an au naturale look.
Nestled in Pacific Palisades, near Pacific Coast Highway, this place did provide a few moments of calm, what with two lil' falls, a serene lake, swans, a variety of flowers, butterflies and even a bumble bee :). There is a service held in the morning for meditation, according to Swiss-Miss. She usually attends the same on weekends. We went there in the afternoon, so i didn't get to see what it was all about. For us, the main purpose that day was to go out and enjoy. And we did :).

The main reason my friend thought i would like this place is, ofcourse, its Indian roots/connection. The place was founded by Paramhansa Yogananda in 1950 and has Mahatma Gandhi memorial too.

These pictures are not the prettiest, but i enjoyed taking them :). It was quite adventurous though! You are not allowed to talk on your cell phone, and i clicked my pictures with a cell phone camera!! Not that i was talking, but its easy to misinterpret :).


Isn't that a pretty picture :). There were only two swans in the lake and i caught this one at the right moment. The garden is full of beautiful flowers, including roses, which are really fragrant!


And here's the picture that made my day :). A bhanwra/bumble-bee! Hadn't seen one in ages! It was a site to behold!


They even have a small suvenir shop/store. They have a great incense collection, and me being an incense lover, i did indulge a bit :). It is indeed a nice place, and we had a nice outing. After we got back to the University, we had our really late lunch at Elysee. It is a bliss to top it all with a chocolate cheese-cake, i tell you :).

Dreams and the duality of life.....

A cpl. of days back, Ms. Moon and i were chatting online and she happened to share a cpl. of her poems with me.....lovely writings! They really did strike a chord, because in many ways, they reflect my own thoughts too :). One of them talked about dreams.....dreaming with your eyes wide open.....and how they are equally wonderful, as the ones we see while sleeping.....may be even better! Atleast they don't leave us halfway through.....Dreaming at my own will, that sounds fantastic, even reassuring.....as i said, i am a dreamer :).

Its raining outside right now. Raining after a long long time.....The weather has changed so much since the bright and crisp morning.....and so have my feelings.....Swinging between hope and thoughtlessness, i have suddenly found my ground.....and i know, its okay to dream.....as i said, i am very much a dreamer.....i dream about reality.....

..............

That is an oxymoron.....Well, life presents you with lots of duality.....we just need to let go and accept this duality :).

Few days back, i was waiting at the bus-stop.....completely tired, and completely hopeless.....figuratively and literally.....i tried to cheer myself up by engaging in small talk with a cpl. of students who enquired about a bus schedule. They had been waiting for a long time. Finally their bus arrived.....they left, with a smile. Smiles are infectious, i smiled too :). And then, i noticed something.....A poor, homeless man was picking through the trash. That is an everyday thing, they sometimes pick out plastic bottles, cans etc, i thought. But this was different.....he picked out two huge plastic cups, almost filled and drank up the soda greedily.....as a tear rolled down my cheek, the homeless guy burst into a nervous laughter.....Was he happy? I don't know, i won't know.....but i learnt that life is all about living on.....i tucked my small worries and tensions into a tiny pocket in my mind.....my bus had arrived.....

Away from oneself :)

Oh! This is not some sad poetic reference for me being away from the diary for quite some time :). And you'd rather not get me started on that! There's already plenty of "i am lazy"' "i post only when i really feel like" stuff in the earlier posts ;). This one is about taking a real trip out of your own self and floating free :-D. Brought to my inbox courtesy dear buddy MD.

Few days back MD mailed to me about a cpl. of articles published in Science, about out of body experiences. We have all heard stories of people claiming that they had an out of body experience. Till recently such experiences were thought be either figments of someone's imagination or a result of treating yourself with hallucinogenic chemicals! However, things have been changing. Rick Strassmann proposes that in natural states, body's own hallucinogens such as DMT can trick one into an out of the body experience. And finally, there are these papers now, which describe how, without even taking any help from endogenous or exogenous hallucinogens, you can trick your mind/brain axis into having an out of the body experience! Finally, a more scientific and humane look! The authors basically have aimed at "disrupting the spatial unity between self and body" to quote them.

Read more about it here.

The experiments involved use of head-mounted video displays and manipulated the sense of touch to create such an experience. The subjects were made to see their own backs using the video displays and by manipulating the touch, they were made to feel out of the body!

For one of the studies, a team led by Bigna Lenggenhager and Olaf Blanke, both of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, asked people to stand in front of a camera while wearing video-display goggles. In one experiment, subjects saw the camera's view of their own back, computer-enhanced to create a three-dimensional "virtual own body." When the subjects' backs were stroked with a highlighter pen at the same time they saw their virtual back being stroked, they reported that the sensation seemed to be caused by the highlighter on their virtual back, making them feel as if the virtual body was in fact their own body.

Adopting a similar strategy to attempt to induce out-of-body experiences, Henrik Ehrsson of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, asked men and women to sit in a chair and don a video headset connected to two cameras that provided a stereoscopic view of their backs. As a subject viewed his or her own back from behind, Ehrsson used two plastic rods to simultaneously stroke the subject's chest and a location behind the subject's back. Although people felt the rubbing on their chest, in the headset they could only see Ehrsson's arm moving behind their back, reinforcing the sense that they were sitting at a location behind their actual body. The experience often elicited surprised giggles, says Ehrsson, who has tried it out himself. "You really feel that you are sitting in a different place in the room and you're looking at this thing in front of you that looks like yourself and you know it's yourself but it doesn't feel like yourself," he says. "It's almost like you're looking at a dummy." Nearly all subjects reported similar impressions on a questionnaire.

Brilliant, really! These studies remind me of the famous experiments by V. S. Ramachandran, who used mirror-image experiments with body-image, when he tricked the mind of the patients to cure phantom limb pain and tried the same for mirror agnosia and made the patients feel that the object they were asked to grab was within the mirror!

What's there in a name!

The answer is: 21 million dollars! As ridiculous as it may sound, but yes, the worth of art is measured by the name who possibly created it! That's the real world, my dear!

Few days back, it was found that a painting titled "Head of a Man", which since long had been marketed as a work of Van Gogh, and was apparently worth 21 million dollars, was actually not his work.....Fair enough. But what gets me is the sentence that has usually been following this news bite everywhere: that the painting is no more worth the prized amount!! Thankfully, WaPo has this redeeming quote from Gerard Vaughan in their coverage:

"It is very important to make the point that it's not a forgery," he told reporters. "There is no evidence to suggest that someone produced this picture ... to pass it off as a work by Van Gogh."

Valuing a work of art by just the "name" of the artist? Art appreciation assumes a totally new dimension!!

Wonderland and the old dreams.....

Few days back i finished this book "Hard boiled wonderland and the end of the world", a very surreal book by Haruki Murakami, my first book by this author. The book is too true to the title, and i don't mean it in a negative sense at all. It narrates two stories, from two distinct worlds. On on hand you have the really modern, fast paced wonderland and the other one is, well, the end of the world! The wonderland story is all about information wars, the strange new ways of protecting information, which use the most sophisticated device of all times: the human unconscious mind.....this world is not as simple as it looks! While the story in the wonderland is all about mind, the end of the world allows its citizens in only on one condition: that you have to surrender your shadow, the mind! The shadow then wilts away at some point, and that makes you a true citizen of the end of the world.....and while the shadow awaits its end, you would read old dreams: the broken pieces of mind and memory.....which ones belonged to someone.....

Two stories, two worlds, one connect!

Two sides of the brain, working independently?

Two minds within one?

Sounds lovely? Yes, it does! And that precisely is the surreal feeling i enjoyed the book for. The narrative is psychedelic, almost like a feverish dream! The only distractions to me, were, some of the lead character's obsessions (you'll know what i meant, when you read the book!) and the really show piece like female characters! The book could do without them (but thats my opinion). But you can easily ignore all that, and just enjoy the journey into these two worlds.....

The book has some crazy sounding, but interesting thoughts on mind! The author surely is fascinated with human mind.

The book has no ending.....or does it? You decide what to call it.....to me, it was an image of the beginning.....

and i think of Alice in the Wonderland.....

She likes it ;).

Ms. Moon, my dear dear friend, recently announced that she likes this diary blog better :). While many of you many not agree with her, i perfectly understand her reasons for this verdict :)). Its always more enjoyable when you know a bit of the backstory, eh? What say Ms. Moon :)). After all this blog has all those cups of chai, chit-chat and Boston stories.

While it is interesting to share what goes in my plate, for me its equal fun to write what goes on in my mind.....and that sort of nudges me to look at the posting stats! One post a month!! My inner voice says, "Sharam Kar" (have some shame)! where have i been! and i promised to Ms. Moon not to proclaim myself lazy anymore :)). So take it as those pages of the diary which remain empty, because there was too much to say.....or may be just nothing. How else do you describe emptiness.....Oh well, moving is a part of life.....Golden Girl has headed eastwards.....MD back to Europe.....One moment so full and the next one hollow! Takes time to reassure oneself that they are still there with me.....in thoughts, and yes, on Gchat and Skype ;).

Its funny, this whole definition of being close! Ms. Moon and i chat almost everyday even as we go about living in different continents. But while i was home, we hardly got a chance to talk much!! So draw your own conclusions :)).

And yes, not to leave you in this web of words, i present you with some pictures, for your viewing pleasure.....Enjoy :).

He remembered music and love.....

This is the story of man who, while forgetting most of the things due to his amnesia, remembered two things: Music and Love.....A WNYC mp3 on the life story of Mr. Clive Wearing, narrated by Debrah Wearing (his wife) and Dr. Oilver Sacks.



The whole story is amazing.....I have a feeling that this is gonna' be a part of his forthcoming book "Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain".

Summer time and a trip :)

Aha! i am here again! i won't repeat myself by calling myself lazy and such ;). its for the world to see :)). but there are reasons other than laziness for not showing up here for sometime! reasons, as warm and wonderful as a trip home, after three long years. A trip that packed a whole lot of goodies for me in a span of a lil' more than two weeks.....way more exciting than a roller-coaster ride :). Quite on the lines of a good, hearty and flavorful meal, which has all the ingredients and spices ;).

The joy that i felt holding the new additions to the family, my niece (my sister's daughter) and my nephew (my brother's son), in my arms.....i had been hearing from everyone how much my niece reminded them of me.....and indeed in many simple, subtle ways she is quite like me and i am thrilled that we hit it off instantly :)). Its strange and heartwarming how she reminds my sister and me of each other.....I find her smile and eyes like my sister and my sister in turn finds her looks to be like mine.....My nephew, on the other hand, is naughty, just like his father ;).

In them, the kids, we look for reflections.....reflections of our own childhood.....when things with apparently simple (only apparently, because i believe its not easy being a few months old, being totally dependent on someone, going through teething, ear-infections and such.....and not even being able to tell anyone, it just seems easy now, because we don't remember any of it! ).

Reflections there are, aplenty.....even when we sometimes look at ourselves in the mirror, we find reflections of our loved ones.....our parents and grandparents.....reflections, that reassure us that there is always someone with us.....

Yes, after three long years, i was home.....and then, it was like i had never been away.....


Still tingling with the crispness of summer sun , still feeling the comfort of evening breeze.....

Thoughts :)

I have been away for long!! and never imagined that i would do so ;). May be i was just being lazy. I have recently equated myself with Garfield :)). But hey, i have really gotten that lazy to not even type a single word over here for one full month! Irritating and amusing at the same time. Or is it because i didn't have much to say. Not true, cuz' there's been a lot that i felt like writing. Probably i published those posts in my dreams ;).



Recently, a very very dear friend of mine Ms. Affection visited me. Actually she was in the city for a conference so we met up quite a bit. it was fun, good fun. We have known each other since M. Sc. days :). I didn't get to show her around much (as if i myself have seen the city a lot), but we did go to a cpl. of my favorite spots, including The Third Street Promenade and the Santa Monica Beach :). And we enjoyed every bit of it, including the lil' ride on the Ferris Wheel after a long time! Its good to be childish sometime :)).


Also, inbetween i had to take cabs a cpl. of times. There's a certain cab company based in Beverly Hills which usually is very reliable. The first thing (or one of the first things) that i got asked after i got inside cab was "Miss, are you from India". The cab drivers, both elderly gentlemen asked this really endearingly. And while we chatted on the bad traffic on 405 and so on, it turned out that both of them were of Armenian origin. Infact, majority of the employees in the said cab company are of Armenian origin. These two gentlemen had daughters my age and had really sound knowledge of India and also "Bollywood" errrr.....Hindi movies! One of them asked me if Zeeta was a very popular Indian name. When i told him that i hadn't heard of this name before, he asked me if Geeta was popular. And i suddenly felt illuminated about what he was trying to say. He was referring to the popular Hema Mailini movie "Seeta aur Geeta" :). The other gentleman talked a lot about his daughter and other kids her age.

He said he felt good that i was so polite and respectful to him and then narrated a horiifying incident on how two young ladies his daughter's age, took the cab and didn't pay him and threatened him!! I had to believe him because he clearly sounded shaken as he spoke about it.....he was grateful though, that the next day when he went to the hotel where he had dropped them the previous night, those two kids were found creating problems in the hotel and given their due. His thoughts on having your roots in a certain place were also very touching.....in his own words, "You belong to place because you were born there, you learnt the basics of life there.....but you also belong to the place where you set up your shop, make your home and babies, see them grow up, the place where you turn from a young guy to a Grandpa, the place you pay your bills and taxes, the place that gives you food, fruits and water....."

Tickling: self vs. non-self :)

Jay Leno might think that its really ridiculous for a John Hopkins team to study why one can not tickle oneself, while there are bigger health reltaed issues facing man-kind. But this one got me thinking.....after all, its tactile impulse that the neurons receive. How does the brain figure out that it is self tickling and thus there is no need to jump etc ;). Our brain is smart, wired so, that we don't jump each time there is a self tactile pressure. When one tries to self tickle, the brain knows where and how the tactile impulse is moving, because its your own fingers generating that impulse. But for non-self tickling, its always a suspense! The brain can not track whats going to happen next, an alarm is set off and there you are, tickle tickle, giggle giggle :).

Apparently its our cerebellum that can distinguisgh between expected (self) and un-expected sensations (Original research article). Upon self-tickling, the cerebellum can signal somatosensory cortex of the brain on what sensation to expect, and this dampens the tickling sensation. Also, to quote from Robert Provine's article:

Tickle, an ancient laughter stimulus, is a means of communication between preverbal infants and mothers, and between friends, family, and lovers. Because you cannot tickle yourself, tickle involves a neurological self/nonself discrimination, providing the most primitive social scenario.

Its interesting how our brain is wired to distinguish between self and non-self: and isn't that the first line of defense.

Reign over me.....

This Friday i went for a movie-my first movie in a theater this year, and the first one after MD left for Europe.....We always wanted to see a movie in the CREST theater, which usually screen good indie movies and has a nice decor.....but somehow couldn't make it! But finally, i got to see a movie in this glittering theater.....

An old photo of CREST theater

By now, you all must be knowing what this movie "Reign over me" is all about. About someone having gone through a loss, leading to a total disconnect from the world around. About tragedy invoking denial.....and denial it is.....a strong one at that. Charlie Fineman shuts all the doors on any thoughts from his past, after a tragedy (or rather the tragedy).....He's living in a cocoon, if living is a suitable word here. With the ear-phones on perpetually, he moves about the streets of NewYork City on his trolley scooter, plays video games like there's no tomorrow, does few things obsessively and tries to escape by watching Mel Brooks flicks. All in a hope, that he can escape-a hope that makes him shun anyone who has anything to do with his past. His flight response, his denial is so over-powering that he refuses to recognize any kind of loss, be it his own, or a friend's. Yes, after years of living in a cocoon, he does find someone he opens upto-solely because the person doesn't have much clue about his past.....

There's no Adam Sandler in this movie-i only saw Charlie.....i am not willing to believe that Charlie is not real. He's very much there, there are many Charlies in this world..... His eyes don't meet yours, he mumbles a lot, he's as blank as empty space.....and the fact that i was watching this movie with someone who lost a dear one in the same tragedy in real life, and the familiar looking places from New York City, which very often made the backdrop, didn't make it any easier......i am notorious for shedding tears while watching movie-i even cry during penguin flicks-but this was something different.....something hit me real hard-its hard to explain what it could be.....especially in a particular incident when Charlie's friend suffers a loss, and all Charlie says is , "lets get breakfast", followed by some more gibbrish.....how hollow and drained can anyone get in pain..... but i have to remind myself that this is just a movie.....

Charlie, the near reality and the rest of the movie.....and i guess i should talk more about the latter. Don Cheadle, who plays Charlie's friend, and a dentist, is good and Liv Tyler (the shrink) quite OK. But the movie does have a perpetual irritant.....the character of the dentist's patient-she's really irritating.....But the movie owes a lot to Charlie. They say its Adam Sandler-the same guy who does movies like "Click", i say the movie has only Charlie, a real, believable person.....and any comments on him being a cross of Bob Dylan (for looks) and Rain man (for personality) are not well taken! Mike Binder, the director does a fair job in building Charlie' character, though the movie could have done away with some irritants.....You can read his interview here.

Go, meet Charlie-this is one more story to tell us about the tricks mind plays on us.

Something yummy awaits you :)

Dear readers,

You know that i never leave an opportunity to talk about food-so this time i went whole hog! Yes, i made myself a lil' online food-corner. And my chirps in this diary continue as usual :).

Hope you are all having a good time.

Cheers,
musical.

Reading Sybil.....

I finished reading "Sybil"-a book by Flora Rheta Schreiber, last week. This book had been on to-read list for years.....but having read the reviews, i could never summon enough courage to read it. I finally did, early this year.....

The book is about a girl Sybil Isabel Dorsett, who suffered from Multiple Personality Disorder-based on the life of a real person-Shirley Ardell Mason. Multiple Personality Disorder is a condition where you have a conscious waking self and the other alternate selves who rise from the subconscious/unconscious mind.....and the waking self has no clue of their existence.

Sybil, who first dissociated into her waking self and an alternate self at a young age of 2-3 years, had no less than 16 selves of different ages who inhabited her being.....two of them being males! This is touted to be the most complex of such cases. Sybil found herself united into one whole being in her 40s, after she went through a whole series of psychoanalyses-some based in hypnosis and sodium pentothal (the truth injection).....Her dissociations apparently originated as a defense to protect herself from the childhood abuse.....and that, to me, was the toughest part of the book.....the other possible cause being the conflicting religious values she faced.

In the book you meet Sybil and 16 selves, her parents, her room-mate Teddy Reeves, her psychiatrist Dr. Cornelia Wibur and even the author of the book. Her 16 beings are different from each other.....the volatile Peggy(s), the French sophisticate Vicky, the baby like Ruthie, Vanessa, Marcia, Helen, Marjorie, Nancy, Mary, the guys Mike and SID (after Sybil's initials), the un-named blonde and Sybil, as her waking self. Each with different desires and skills, each a fragment of what were to be the whole Sybil. Sybil was a really good artist.....some of her sketches are provided in the book-different selves preferred different style of painting.....some of her works can be viewed in this link.

There has been some controversy on whether Sybil was a multiple personality or an extreme case of hysteria. It is said that Dr. Cornelia Wilbur delibrately induced personalities in her patient during hypnosis.....and that it had something to do with the book deal. More details on this controversy can be read here. Shirley A. Mason, Cornelia Wilbur and Flora Rheta Schreiber are no more in this world to share the truth.....Apparently, Dr. Cornelia Wilbur's archives and notes were to be opened in 2005. May be that would bring some facts to light.

The book scores, whether as a work of pure fact or part fact-part fiction, am not sure. If its fact, then its one of the most complicated tales of human psychology and if fiction, then its imaginative! The book is reptitive at times, but only to underscore Sybil's trials and tribulations. The description of her selves is rather vivid and you connect and empathise with each of them.....and you are sure to miss them after the book is over. The pages dedicated to childhood abuse are graphic.....very painful, and i admit, i skipped through those partly.....it was too difficult to take.

Sybil gleefully enjoys her days being all for herself, after all her selves have been united.....on how she can do simple things all by herself, without another person from within taking over her.....

And in this respect, it gives a message similar to many of Oliver Sacks' works- We have a lot in life to be thankful for.....simple things that we don't even think about.....Like being one with ourselves.....

Yeh hai Cricket!

I guess its high time i should detach myself completely from Cricket! i know, i have been telling this to myself since years now.....what with all the match-fixing and the politics ridden scenario of Indian Cricket. But then, the game is far too enticing to avoid.....and like many an enticing thing, this one often leads to heart-break!!

Y'day, during our weekend chirping, no sooner did MD start whispering a few words about India-B'desh match, i began lecturing her on why i am not opening any of the web-pages that provide live coverage of the game. This, much to her chagrin! And then.....half way through our conversation and after hearing repeatedly from her about the dismal score, i got into the trap! yes, i was fervently refreshing the pages.....and i don't need to tell you how it ended. But, kudos to the Bangladesh team-they played real well.....

The results implied fans being upset, really really upset. A cpl. of days back dear ladies exchanged this friendly banter on which Rahul rules: Rahul Sharma or Rahul Dravid.....Bee, who was rooting for Dravid is now finding Gollum hotter than him! See, we girls have more than one reason for being upset. and may be guys too.....atleast those who paid for channels showing the World Cup! (sorry, i don't any girls who have subscribed for the said channels-good sense prevails sometimes).

ab aur hum kya kahein.....this is one time i am really tutoring myself to abstain ;). ah! the trap that Cricket is.....

and our historical arch-rivals didn't well either.....On a more upsetting note, y'day's events have been followed with something really sad.....

Yeh hai Cricket.....enticing, heart-breaking, addictive.....

Am bracing myself to fall into the trap for the next game!

Chirp chirp.....

Right this moment.....

The weather outside is bright and crisp, typical of SoCal. and i want my share of this brightness. Dhoop, this brightness is so soothing. remember that song, "kachhi dhoop, kunkuni dhoop".....its quite fun to chirp with your friends on a bright, sunny day. Bring in some chai and snacks, and its bliss :).

i spoke to Ms. Doll Wednesday night, and we exchanged the ritualistic weather trivia as well :). Kinda' crazy that while she was freezing, last weekend SoCal had record high temperatures! it had us both in splits. whats worse is that she craved for ice-cream as i longed for a hot cuppa' chai!!

and y'day i caught up with Ms. Moon and Ms. Wisdom on the chat. i often chat with Ms. Moon, but to find Wisdom online is bit of a rarity. i wrote a hello to them both. and while is was chatting with Ms. Wisdom i infomred her about my two-timing ;). Its so turned out that Moon and Wisdom were also two-timing me, they were chatting amongst themselves too :)). Girls, can anyone stop them from chattering ;).

hmm, and then there are those weekend chats with MD, its always like the good old times, when we would sit and chirp over a chai.

Oh, and meeting Golden girl over coffee sometimes and what do we do-Chirp :)).

This chirping makes us what we are, giving us a chance to connect with others, sharing thoughts and ideas.....helping each other grow.....

Sheetal, Manjul, Komal.....

Sheeta, Manjul, Komal.....

These words convey heartfelt emotions.....emotions of comfort.....comfort felt by the soul.....soul that was touched by the soft, comforting emotions.....

Yes, and these words belong to a song so melodiuos, so poignant that it evokes the same emotions in you.....

Y'day, while chatting with MD, we discussed about Sharatchandra's books.....and the one that i felt most about that moment was "Chirtraheen".....and as all of his books, this book to has strong female protagonists, my favorite being Kironmayee.....

And i remembered how i had found her character so striking, so well etched.....

and then, i thought of the song, that belonged to the televised version of this book. i came across this song through Sukhan's blog that links to this wonderful archive of Sh. Salil Chowdhury's music.....

and this song played on.....just as beautiful as the lyrics are.....i thought i would share this song (below):

Sheetal, Manjul, Komal

and i am still humming this song to myself.....feeling nostalgic.....

The coffee world stars ;)

This is very much in line with what i was talking about y'day. Well, sort of! Last night, i read this on Yahoo news :). Actually, i didn't completely read it then-and thought oh, well! this is about some local budding desi coffee shop naming themselves Starstrucks and trying to give Starbucks a tough time by sort of copying their name! I looked at this news in detail today morning, and was even more surprised who was behind this idea. I was shocked to learn that it was Shahnaz Husain, the queen of herbal cosmetics world!

As such, this whole idea didn't please me much. And not because i go to Starbucks a lot. Well, we all know that Starbucks is now trying to set up shop in India, and this comes close on the heels! If you think your product is great, why not provide them competition in the right spirit, based entirely on the merit of your products. And coming from such a well respected person, this makes the whole news even more pungent! I wonder how she would feel if someone tried to market herbal products which had a brand name similar sounding to her own brand.

If anything, this might actually hurt her business. Most irritating is that she is not willing to change the name. Quoted below is her response (Courtesy Yahoo News/Reuters):

Why should I give it up? Hundreds of others are deceptively similar. What to do? They have opposed and we will fight."

I personally would have thought of her venturing into the Cafe' chain business as an interesting move-go to her brand salons, get a spa treatment and enjoy coffee with your friends! It would have certainly made some news and people would definitely have lapped up the concept-its sad to see her making into news of the wrong kind!

Enough said!

That is so not fare!

Friends, there is a whole big world of blogs there talking about my favorite topic-FOOD :). Yes, food blogs are fun, they are a simply great podium for sharing thoughts and idea about the fine art of cooking. I am particularly an ardent fan of desi food blogs. These blogs write all about food-describing recipes in detail (with step-by-step instruction), sharing cultural trivia about regional dishes, creative and fun ideas for healthy khana and above all great, great pictures. I love cooking too, but i am lazy :). Cooking great food is one thing, but it really takes a lot of that extra something and plenty of hard-work to post nice detailed recipes with fantastic pictures on a blog.....These writers do it for the love of cooking, with an intention of sharing what they have learnt with years of experience.

Sample a few great blogs like Mahanandi, My Khazana of Recipes, Foodie's Hope, The Spice who loved me, One Hot Stove, Saffron Hut, Saffron Trail, Sailu's Foodand many many more (you would find the links in these blogs, and i am going to link them soon too).

Much respect to these bloggers for sharing their wonderful creations and pictures with everyone. and yes, they make it all available to us for free!

Lately, though, desi food blogosphere has suffered a lot-several big-time portals have been copying recipes with pictures from these blogs and posting them on the web-without ever taking their permission or even acknowledging the author! Now, how disgusting is that! I first read about this on Sailu's new blog on how Sify had stolen pictures from her blogand posted them on their food forum! and today i read this , this and this on Mahanandi, Sailu's blog and Trupti's blog, respectively. Yahoo India had stolen recipes from Surya Gayathri's blog. Now, how disgusting is that! These bloggers are ever willing to exchange and share their work, so why not give them due credit for their pictures and recipes, or request them for participating officially.....and don't give me this piece, as to how daal recipe would be more or less the same! Please, daal recipe may be more or less the same-but the language, presentation, little suggestions and pictures ARE NOT!

Friends, if you can-please do write a few words on your blog about this. We should totally support fellow bloggers in their fight against this sort of injustice.

Whats there in a name ;)

A cpl. of days back i had an interesting exchange with the wrap-around/duttee guy. So, he was looking at a signup list for some instrument and came across my labmate's initials, and he thought its me (our first names begin with the same letter). I told him it was my labmate. He then asked me what was my last name (he knows and pronounces my first name correctly)-when i told him my last name, he was like, "wow! thats a cool surname".

Hmm, surprised, i asked him what excatly was he implying. He said that i had a very traditional first and last name, surprising me even more. So, now i was a bit irritated and amused at the same time, wondering why he was going on about my name. He then said, "Like, you know, lot of people change their name soon as they come here-its nice that you didn't". This puzzled me even more-because what he said first that he found my surname cool, without knowing what it meant didn't really suggest me that he was pointing to an issue like changing your name in a foreign country. What he said also indicated to me that some people actually change their last name also!

Anyway, i asked him to elaborate more. He then said that he had an Indian friend who changed his name-so no one ever knew what his real name was. All he would say is that people are going to find it difficult to say his name. I told him that i didn't know anyone like that in person, but have read/heard about it from others. And you know, it really surprised him! He went on to tell me that he found this to be a common practice in people from Asia. He then said, "I have a long Spanish name too, and i have chosen to keep it that way" with a wink. He finally left me with this, "I wonder what will i do, if i ever visit Asia-i'll have to find myself a cool name" ;).

Now, in my opinion, if someone prefers to change their name, its fine. May be they don't have the patience to teach everyone the correct pronunciation of their name everyday and also they might not like their name being mispronounced. In same cases, it can truly change the meaning of a name. However, changing the surname! does that really happen! No clue.....

Anyway, as i said it was an interesting exchange-thought i would just share it. and am glad that people think my name is cool :)).