To all those who studied at Bishop Cottons; did you ever wonder where the "Special Building Fund" that we paid, without choice, when we joined went? The answer, my friend, is here for all to see.
A slightly clearer version of the Doctor.
"Love is slow poison. Wife is quick poison."
Seen at the Dastkar exhibition at Karnataka Chitrakala Parishad. (I was chauffeuring - the perils of unemployment, I tell you).
The Been Band by Snake Charmers. Reminded me of those awwwful Sridevi-Nagina type movies. Nice.
Das Mat like Das Kapital? Bongs!
Provo informs me that Russell Peters will be in India between the 28th of September and the 1st of October. He is performing at:
September 28 and 29, 2006
St. Andrews, Mumbai
September 30, 2006
Ambedkar Bhavan, Bangalore
October 1, 2006
Siri Fort Auditorium, Delhi
For those of you who don't know who Russel Peters is:
The obligatory Wikipedia entry, videos from Google and videos from Youtube.
And one video, as a sampler:
A friend once said that seven days of longing makes one weak.
What, then, does fourteen days do?
I received these pictures via an e-mail forward. I have no idea who took them or where they are from. If you know, leave us a comment.
Update: Chamique informs me that these pictures are by Steve McCurry. A full gallery of his pictures can be seen here. Stunning pictures, all of them.
So Mr. D, Crocodile and I went off to Masinagudi for 3 days last weekend. Pictures from the trip. (Notice the pun?)
Breakfast at Kamat Lokaruchi next to Janapada Loka. Funky idli, that.
Stopped near Nanjangud for a bit. Funky soda bottle, no? The picture was taken at, erm 9:30 AM.
In Bandipur. Jungle ka haathia with 2 calves, one of which did a mock-charge at Crocodile when he got out of the car to click photgraphs. Serves him right.
Croc's friend, Abid runs a small place called Wild Ways. It's very close to Jungle Retreat, for those of you familiar with that neck of the woods.
And he has a dog named Monkey and a cat named Ooty.
On our evening safari.
On our morning safari.
The safari went through some jungle trails looking for animals that were not spotted deer because we hadn't seen anything on our evening safari, night safari or the morning safari.
Tiger poo, apparently.
We also went up to Ooty, went to Doddabetta and made Croc do terrible touristy things like look through a telescope (more like a travelling microscope) at the Ooty Race Course but made up for it with fun lunch at the Irani Restaurant on Main Street.
After all our disappointing safaris, we went on a trek on the third evening. After 2 and a half hours of tiring walking on absolutely flat plains, we spotted a large tusker behind some trees and a stream ahead of us. In a minute, we had taken off our shoes, rolled up jeans and scurried across the stream. Good things adrenalin can do for you.
I was formulating a post asking why Ganesh Chaturthi is so popular in Karnataka as it is essentially a Maharashtrian festival when a friend dropped this off. Question answered!
Could someone let me know the names of these goodies? Chakli, Holige, Laddu and ...?
So I was reading the front page of the Bangalore Times (BT) when I saw what was billed as an exclusive interview that BT managed to get with Jennifer Aniston. Me being skeptical me, I had to check. As usual, they have stooped low.
This is a fabricated interview and plagiarized at that. The quotes are almost verbatim from an interview Ms. Aniston gave to the Daily Mirror.
Curiously, the website version of this ToI article, omits the exclusive interview tag to the interview.
In Red is from the Times of India article. In blue is from the interview in the Daily Mirror. He's a wonderful man — the cream of the crop. He is a great comedian and an amazing, dramatic actor. I always loved watching him as an actor. He thinks and he listens too. You don't always get that sort of fun with someone.
“He is the cream of the crop,” says the actress whose own comedy skills in Friends won her a fistful of awards. “He is a great comedian and an amazing dramatic actor. I always loved watching him as an actor. He thinks and he listens. He is a generous actor and likes to try things and I like to try things, too. You don’t always get that sort of fun with someone and feel like you’re on an equal playing field.”
People are lazy these days. Things are just more disposable. People don't value relationships enough, be it friends or married people.
"People are very lazy and it's very easy," she says. "Things are just more disposable. There's not a lot of value put on relationships."
You have to put a lot of work into it and exhaust every option before you split.
Then she adds, somewhat wryly: "You have to put a lot of work into it and exhaust every option before you split up."
I thought it was a joke. When my agent called me, I said, 'You have got to be kidding me.' But making it was therapeutic.
"I thought it was a joke," Jennifer says of the agent's phone call. "I thought, 'You have got to be kidding me.' But making it was definitely therapeutic."
So, who is Reagan Gavin Rasquinha? And how did he manage such an exclusive! ;-)
Update: MadMan had referred to the ToI as the Slimes of India and so I decided to do a Google search for the term. Lo and behold, the answer was:
The Google bomb has worked!
Here's a question for you, what are the websites/pages/blogs you read everyday? I've listed mine below, sorted by frequency and subject. Let me know what you read, okay?
There are a raft of other blogs and pages I read but those are only on occasion. Like:
I use Google Reader to manage my feeds.
What then, dear reader, do you read?
Neptune was tired of these hairy biped mammals invading his world, raping his children and pillaging his garden. And now this; they’d found the source of his everlasting youth and of Amphitrite’s beauty.
“No more!” he thundered.
As he sent Carcharodon onwards and upwards to do his bidding; she gently lowered herself into the water…
---
Posted in reply to this from Chamique.
And Recluse has replied to this here.
So I woke up this morning, to the furious caw-ing of crows and coo-ing of pigeons, wondering what the matter was. Usually, this out-of-tune symphony is a warning of a marauding troop of monkeys. But today, it was different. Like this...
Seemed a shame to disturb their reverie.
Wow! Looks like Gmail has an integrated music player now. Sweet! Now to upload all my MP3s and have my music accessible from any computer!
Update: Amit Agarwal posts to say that you can use it without logging in to Gmail!
"Here's the secret URL (works perfect in Firefox):
http://mail.google.com/mail/html/audio.swf?audioUrl=MP3_URL
Replace the MP3_URL with the actual location of the MP3 file on the web and play it inside Google Video."
Here is the story as it has unfolded thus far:
Bangalore Bytes.
Chamique.
Recluse.
Dibyo.
Deep.
Dhoomketu.
The Invizible Man.
And the now obligatory porn...
Thanks ya'll! Will someone conclude the story now?
"I am getting old now. Not in my heart. But in my body. The heart yearns to go on and on but this body sometimes tires and these wretched knees start aching after four hours of playing. And I now have that all-too-human worry. Thirty years ago, I used to think I had conquered or was about to conquer the world. What foolishness! Now I say, Bismillah, you haven’t reached anywhere. The world may know and listen to your ragas, but Bismillah, life will soon finish and your yearnings will still remain. This music is still an ocean. I want to cross it. But I have barely reached the shore. I haven’t yet even taken a dip in it." ~ SM
"I would add that as we are of the West and the West represents largely the continued existence of Greco-Roman civilization as "baptized" by Christianity down to our own time, the question is whether the moral resources of the West and hence its willingness to fight are so depleted that they will be overcome by the "non-Western many." ~ Father John McCloskeyI wonder what the pay is like at the office...
The airplane had been airborne an hour when she entered the toilet. She looked into the mirror and hated the girl of twenty going on sixty that she saw. The horrors she had seen and the family she had lost….
She mixed lip-gloss with Vaseline, stuck her mobile in the goo and walked out.
Slowly…
And Chamique has replied here.
Once you've read the reply above, please read the continuation that Recluse has provided here.
This is getting to be so much fun!
And once you've read what Recluse had to say, do read Dibyo's post here.
This really is fun! Anyone else?
And to answer the question, Dhoomketu picks up the thread from where Dibyo left off. Read his post here.
More! More! More! (...and ignore the porn in the comments below.)
One more, from The Invizible Man, read his entry here.
Someone to finish the story then?
Spellcheck on the title done. (Thanks Grammar Nazi).
Trigger Hippie, Bal and I went to Zero G last night because we heard Rave Magazine was sponsoring a Kailash Kher concert-thing. (It was actually a private party, which we kinda crashed).
Glad we did, though. It was by the pool with people sitting all around and the stage/mattress on one side. What the pictures don't tell you is the beautifully chilly weather that was well, beautiful. Bangalore man!
Prakash Sontakke on Indian Guitar (don't ask, I don't know), Sankarshan (from Hook) and another chap on the ghatam were pretty cool. Then Sankarshan came back with some other dudes, one of whom made his electric guitar sound like a violin, veena and a tabla. Trippy shit that.
Kailash Kher was quite outstanding. Unfortunately, we had to leave before the performance ended, which was still going on at 1145. Gasp! Where were the police?
I've been guilty, on more than a few occasions, of ranting about MSFT. But once in a while, they do release excellent software. And even rarer, is when it's free. Which is the case with this new gem from their stables.
It's called Windows Live Writer. It's a blog editor/post-er and runs on Windows XP. You can post to almost any Blog service, Blogger, Spaces, LiveJournal et. al., it's truly WYSIWYG, follows the familiar MS Word layout/format and since it resides on your desktop, you can compose a post at your leisure and upload it when you're ready with no flaky web-based editor to use. And it can even retreive previous posts for you to edit. It's free and has garnered rave reviews already. Give it a shot.
If you'd rather not, try Performancing for Firefox, Ecto and/or MarsEdit for the Mac.
Drop us a comment once you've used Live Writer.
He looked down upon the Earth, shining blue, green and brown, a glistening orb awakening to the first rays of the yellow sun.
They were his people, yet he’d never belong. They needed him but didn’t accept him as one of their own.
But so long as they needed him, he’d be there.
Waiting, watching...
Chamique has replied here.
The Codex does not list MRL’s for Alachor, Atrazine, Butachlor, Ethion, Isoproturon, Methyl Parathion, Monocrotophos or α, β and δ -HCH.I agree with your elucidation of Paternalism as a rationale here.
There is, in addition, another factor that probably did not weigh with our lawmakers, which I seek to highlight (primarily through personal experience).
The automatic police response to an accident involving a two-wheeler is to charge and arrest any other vehicle involved (if it is larger than the two-wheeler).
There may be much hand-wringing and protests, but this simple rule cannot be shaken from the minds of our traffic police.
As a result, the accused will usually be charged under some lesser provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act, as well as Section 279 of the Indian Penal Code (which deals with rash and negligent driving on a public road).
One would presume that in such an accident, the two-wheeler rider(s) would have sustained an injury. BUT, if a helmet is not worn by the rider(s), the chances of a more grievous injury and death is definitely heightened.
If death does follow, the police will add the charge of Section 304A (rash or negligent act resulting in death) which is much stiffer. The emotional and monetary effects apart, this also does not allow the accused to compound (compromise) the offence. The trial will be pursued by the prosecution and a conviction sought.
While some may moan about hairstyles and heat, the reality is that two-wheeled vehicles are just physically more unstable and therefore more vulnerable to accidents. Due to its physical structure, it is almost impossible to escape without injury. In such circumstances, and keeping in mind reckless driving, Bangalore traffic, road rage (and a million other factors), it is ridiculous to oppose a most sane suggestion regarding helmets.
The interesting thing is that once this becomes law, any opposition to it (including that hilarious online campaign) would be liable for prosecution under Sections 309(attempt to commit suicide) and 108 (abetment)!
But then again, the people opposing it are just speaking personally - maybe THEY have nothing to protect.
Click and drag the picture around. Zoom in, zoom out. Because you can.
Add a Google Map to your blog too...
This flash fiction post generated a couple of good 55-word compositions that deserve main page airtime.
Anonymous posted this in response to Seeker's question as to whether he was"...looking for a violent story in 55 words everytime? Or porn perhaps? Maybe thriller? Psychothriller? Sci fic? 55 words is restricting on such ambitious plots."
He loaded the bazooka with a plasma missile; the spacecraft had come to an abrupt halt.Recluse posted this in response to Seeker's earlier question on whether "... this still two way or three way now?"
Looking at Leila, he took her one last time, his lusty manhood plunging deeper than ever before, looked her in the eye and stepped out to meet the unknown.
And then she saw the tentacle creeping up behind him…
Girish watched him go and turned to the others.
"Well?" said Ravi.
“Let's call some girls and go out” said the smoker solemnly.
They all laughed.
"The usual, then" said Seeker.
They nodded.
-------------
Thirty minutes later, they were clustered around at the cafe. A 55 flashed on the dim screen.
“I'll be Anonymous” said Girish.
From the newspaper that pioneered the use of kerosene as toner, comes this remarkable effort at originality.
This is an article in todays Bangalore edition of the New Indian Express, on Page 9. Interesting enough and it does mention that "...an IP address installed at the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) was also leaded..."
They go on to, most thoughtfully, explain what an IP Address is, as below.
Except it's hardly fsking original! Dammit, Wikipedia?! This is a blatant rip of the Wikipedia article on IP Addresses. What do they gain by not citing the source?
I fail to understand. Would they lose their job by citing? Would the Science & Technology Editor be shown up as incompetent? Why? Why are you going the way of the ToI?
Gah!
She passed by them in a cloud of floral perfume that only exacerbated the taunting. He’d kept his silence for far too long, turned to them and asked them to stop.
Girish asked if he loved her. He said, “I once did….”, punched Girish and hurried after her.
They had some catching up to do…
Posted in reply to this by Chamique.
Curiousity, as is always the case, led me to the Google Blog Search page and this expermiment followed. If you care to repeat it, do remember that you'll get slightly different numbers and if you use the Google India portal, you'll get very different numbers.
Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad
Repeating this with Technorati showed pretty much the same.
Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad
But using the Google India portal makes for a very interesting set of numbers, far closer than the above data would suggest.
Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Chennai
Any ideas why?
Blogs are blocked again. At least on VSNL and BSNL.
See our previous post on on getting around this nonsense.
This is so inconvenient.
Family was in town and being NRI's they were craving some good ol' fashioned, southern Mallu food. So where do we go? (No, not Coconut Grove, not Windsor Pub even…) Karavalli, of course!
Karavalli is a restaurant that used to be good. Outstandingly good. Especially in its first few years, the fish was fresher and the appams were always crisper. Unfortunately, the years took their toll and the food became tired and pretty uninspiring. Which was when I stopped going there. They now have all these very impressive looking certificates up against the wall but those don’t count for much. Especially not the ToI ones. Let your tongue and your stomach be your judge. So dinner last night was the first time in over two years that I had eaten there. To cut to the chase, I left happy but not as happy as I have been before.
We didn’t order starters, simply because we’d all had rather heavy lunches, Eden Park for some, Tiger Bay @ Garuda for the others and decided to jump right in. We ordered Mutton Stew, Kane Masala Fry, Fried Crispy Bhindi, Green Mango-Drumstick-Prawn Curry, Mutton Roast, Pepper Prawns, Appams, Egg Appams, Neer Dosas, Partahas and Curd Rice.
The Mutton Stew was good but too watery. They’ve skimped by using the first and the second and perhaps a watery third pressing of coconut. And a more generous bagaar would be welcome. And also, I'd rather they cut the potato into thick quarters and not dainty slices. But it tastes close to what it should. The Mutton Roast was too wet, they should’ve fried it more. I liked the masala but if they’d used more onions and fried it longer the result would have been far better. Oh, and when they say mutton they mean full bodied, overpowering mutton, not dainty delicate lamb. Be forewarned.
The Kane Masala Fry needed help. Perhaps in the form of some feeding before it was fished. Rather anemic looking they were and I find that they are better rava fried, as found at Anupam’s Coastaal Express or Fishland.
The Bhindi was nice but hardly Mallu, or coastal at that. The Green Mango-Drumstick-Prawn Curry was the highlight of the evening. Outstanding. Not some overly large rubbery prawns, but juicy little morsels. The tang from the mango wasn’t overwhelming but just right. Went superbly with the Neer Dosas which were wonderfully soft and sheer. The Pepper Prawns were pretty disappointing as the seasoning overpowered the succulent taste and the overcooking did the same to the texture.
The Appams were very good, crisp and brown and lacy and soft in the center as was the Egg Appams. The Parathas were good but Empire and Imperial are better. I liked the Curd Rice, slightly acidic and cold. Pity it didn’t have pomegranate in it.
We skipped dessert. Not surprising really… A few pictures, in no order below and one of what I believe is there attempt at authenticity as regards the kitchen!
So Recluse, Dilettante and I decided to get some tea last night. Ended up going to Savera in Shivajinagar. Now whoever said Bangalore didn't have a nightlife? There was a Qawali in full swing, at midnight, the restaurants were all open and the place was packed to the rafters with midnight diners. Interestingly, not a single woman to be seen! Excellent tea though, Sulemani.
Hilal was open, the place has terrible food but is popular simply because it’s open pretty much through the night. Butter chicken and fried rice anyone?
This is the logo at the Coffee Shop at the Grand Ashok.
And this is the logo of 24/7 Customer.
From the Jobless Picture archive - auto rickshaw art.
Check out this link. It's pretty cool, except the dude who runs the blog doesn't really reply to the comments and some pictures could do with a little social commentary (case in point). Anyway, minor cribs about an excellent collection.
Another link. Mainly Pakistani art.
Advertising for the movie Shastri.
Shah Rukh Khan with Vijay(?). Cosmopolitan, nevertheless.
The venerable Doc with Ambarish (still with the immediate need of Optrex eyewash).
Update: It's Shankar Nag, not Ambarish. Thanks Corporate Whore.
I have eyes only for you...
Not really art, just a rick with pimped out tyres.
