Shyam's Blog

Leaf and nature's art of straight lines on it Bridging the gap

The picture of this grass looks like audience and their hands out from the packed crowd, cheering and clapping for the beats played on stage

An old lady knitting on Mayflower II ship ( About Mayflower )

Did you watch last night's "America's got Talent" on TV? This Rappin Granny has caught the audience all over. 72 year old Rappin Granny is with full energy. No doubt I dislike rap, but this Granny has great charisma. She is one of the TOP contenders for "America's got Talent" competition and has reached the finals!!!!!! She has 15 grand children and 4 great grand children :). Listen to her here.....

I just completed a book in which the kid gets an A-grade in Math. This makes me feel, "I am out of school. Who will me report card from now on?". But, I found the answer to the above question. The answer is "Life". Life will give me my report card. Life is my teacher and I am its student. As life goes on, I am sure to learn more. More I learn, more challenges I face. Challenging the challenges is the exam of life. Till now, my report card reads, "Pass" :). I will put a comment for myself in that, "Work harder. Room for improvement". I think that is what my teacher in school used to write ;).

It has become a routine to do some reading on my way to office and back home. It has become a substitute to a nap after an incidence where my nap was too deep and missed my train stop. ha ha ha. After reading Life of Pi, I caught this book - "The curious incident of the dog in the night time". It is one of the most "hatt ke" (meaning, non-cliche) books I have ever read. It puts me to laugh and think state seeing the way Christopher things about life. He is a teenage kid who hates colors yellow and brown . He likes math and he hates crowd and doesn't eat at places which are unknown. Strangers are the people whom he keeps away from. Full wierd kid!!! Many more things like these.... Lastly, he hates to lie. But, he does tell 'white lie'. A 'white lie' is not really a lie, but just incomplete information ;) which acts as a lie in important situations. As the title suggests, the book is about a dog named Wellington. An incident occured and that is th...

The Big Dig project here is being rebuked for lack of safety after last week's collapse of one of the columns which led to the death of a woman travelling in the tunnel. Now, the Governor says that the tunnel will not be opened till complete safety tests are performed. What were they doing all these years? Some people believe that the construction company lacked proper safety plans which were overlooked by Govt. Safety Officials. Surely, "Big Dig" project is in "Big Jeopardy".

When people come to know that I am into classical music, first thing they ask is, 'how do I recognize a raag?'. If they know some form of music, I might start explaining them something. If they don't know anything about music theory, I would start seeing the clock. Explaining from scratch takes a while and needs some patience from me and from the listener. When I practise with people who know music, but not much of the classical style, it is very interesting to see how they start picking my explanation. With a few examples from the movie songs or by playing some notes on the keyboard or the guitar, it becomes a good proof to what I say. On some occasions, it turns out that the listener plays some of his own things coming out of his/her mind or the one which he/she composed. It is fascinating to realise that they really did a nice composition and they did not know the 'raag' or 'melody' of that. Then, I start asking myself, "do we need to know the term ...

Birds with the same feather flock together Not me..., I am waiting and watching them go by.... Thought for the day : Weekend is coming and it is usual for many to plan a temple visit. They flock like picture 1. Don't know how 'bhakti' comes pouring when weekend arrives!!! People visit temples to see HIM. Have they ever thought, "why not make HIM visit me?"Why don't they think, "why not make my home a temple rather than visiting temple?". All my arguments are based on 1) Saint Purandara's "elliruvano ranga emba samshaya bEda, elli bhaktharu karedharalle odhaguvanu" . (listen to song sung by myself) which means, HE is everywhere and don't have any doubts in your mind, whereever his devotees call HIM, HE appears there. 2) Basaweshwara's "enna kaale kambha, dEhave degula, shirave honna kaLashavaiyya...". which means, our legs are the pillars, body is the temple and the head, the golden sanctrum.

“Mom and dad, you are welcome to Grammy Awards Ceremony”. Surely, I need wait for a while for the above statement to come true. Grammy became closer to me by one step when I met one of the legends of World Fusion last night. That legend is the lead of a band which plays Indian, African and Jazz – World Fusion in a good sense. ‘yeh world hai na world (Bunty aur Babli style), iss mein dho tarah ke sapney hotein hai. Ek – jo aankh bandh karke dekhte hai; dho – jo aankh khulla rakhke dekthe hai’. The first one is when we are asleep, while the second one is what I do ;). I can see dreams better during the day because I wear corrective lenses which make my vision better J . This is what I am doing right now. Is it called ‘day-dreaming’???!!!!!! So fortunate am I to meet legends in the ranks of …… . I will not name the people here because the list is a long one L . OK will complete my dream a bit more and then take you through reality ;). If I can meet people so talented as … (no na...

This was shot using a Yashica hotshot camera in Summer 2004. Place: Great Salt Lake. Just try to see the picture without the birds in it. Really, three is crowd.

The European Union commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish (Euro for short). In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c". Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard "c" will be replaced with "k". Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced by "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20 per sent shorter. In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expected to reach the stage where...

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