Drops of life...

Nothing lasts forever. Might it be 2009 or might it be recession. For me it is stagnation. Finally there are signs of beginning of change. Lets hope its for better.
The pic was taken sometime during the rains this year, I dont remember much :)
Cheers!!!

Remembering good times...

Relax n smile :)

Orwellism-2

Few quotes by George Orwell (Part-II)
- Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting.
- Society has always seemed to demand a little more from human beings than it will get in practice.
- The best books... are those that tell you what you know already.
- The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.
- The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.
- To survive it is often necessary to fight and to fight you have to dirty yourself.
- War is war. The only good human being is a dead one.
- We may find in the long run that tinned food is a deadlier weapon than the machine-gun.

The pic is some unknown flowers. Cheers!

Orwellism...

I am reading “Down and Out in Paris & London” by George Orwell and its fantastic. I knew Orwell as an author of “Animal farm” and “1984”, but this book is entirely different. Its more of an autobiography, about his days spent in poverty in these high cities. This is not about the upper class life that we read in many novels, but its more the opposite, its real and its honest. Here you don’t look at poor people with pity as is done in most movies and literature. But you see them as real human beings. And you see their life, not with prejudice of misery, filth and charity but you see it more subjectively, through the eyes of an author who has himself been through it. It comments about difference between how people like us perceive poverty and the real hand to mouth poverty. More than this, you see Orwell as a person (instead of a novelist) and you perceive people through eyes of Orwell. After reading this, I am beginning to feel that I am understanding Orwell better, understanding what could be motives behind style of “Animal Farm" and “1984”.
I believe, I somehow relate to ‘world view’ of Orwell, atleast as far as people are concerned. Though it is not same as ‘moral dreamworld’ view that most people today seem to be believing in, but its more close to reality and its wonderful nonethless.
All this talk of poverty and inequality reminds me of a dialogue from the movie "Enemy at the Gates", it goes - "We tried so hard to create a society that was equal, where there'd be nothing to envy your neighbor. But there's always something to envy. A smile. A friendship. Something you don't have and want to appropriate. In this world-even a Soviet one- there will always be rich and poor. Rich in gifts...poor in gifts. Rich in love...poor in love."
Hmmm...the picture is flower of some weed :)
Cheers!

Samayeechyaa Shubhrakalyaa...

Few quotes by George Orwell (Part-I)

- A dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.

- All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.

- Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.

- Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.

- Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.

- Men are only as good as their technical development allows them to be.

- Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.

- Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.

Hmm...the flowers in the pic remind me of an age old marathi song Samayeechyaa Shubhrakalyaa. I am not sure many people have heard this. You can find one version that was sung by Arya online.

Cheers~!

1984...

Those who control the past, control the future. And those who control the present, control the past.
- quote from 1984 by George Orwell.

Animal Farm

That is a stray dog, inside some sort of sewage pipe. As I later found out, it is injured. Hope it gets well soon.
Cheers!!!

All thorns have a purpose

Tender...

I have nothing important to write :)
Cheers!!!

Happy Diwali !!!

...and wish you all a prosperous new year ahead :)

And yes the pic is with 4 seconds exposure. I was worried of camera not being steady since I have no tripod, but somehow managed without that. Surprisingly (I mean with my shaky hands) I could take many more pics with long exposure but me too tired to crop resize and post them all. Maybe I will keep them for next diwali.

Cheers!!!

Ssshhhh...!!!

Remains of the last rain

Dasara...

Its dasara today and the flowers you see in the pic are 'zendu'(I dont know english name for these). Dasara time, and you see loads of these in the market.
This plant is naturally growing near my house and I am wondering about botanical question of 'how did this propagate here?'
But I like them like this better, on the plant, than prunning them, making garlands and tying them somewhere on the door and putting them in dustbin the next day.
There is also a tree nearby, leaves of this tree are exchanged as 'gold' on dasara and sometime back I saw that the tree was looking leafless and barren as it was robbed of its leaves for dasara.
I agree people cant exchange real gold on dasara owing to sky high price of gold but if you spoil trees like this, then probably you are also poor in some other sense.
I am not criticising dasara tradition, but isnt letting things grow naturally, a still older tradition?
Anyways, be it garlands, be it flowers, these are mere symbols, and meanings behind symbols are more important than the symbols themselves. Those who understand that, are the really ones who celebrate. Others are like sardarjees in that joke, you point them to something important, and all they keep looking at, is the finger!

Happy Dasara again!!! Cheers!!! :)

Introspecting...

Evening...

Durogh i musluhut amez
Bih uz rastee bu fitna ungez.

"An untruth that preserves peace is better than truth that stirs up troubles."
- An ancient saying (from Travels into Bokhara by Alexander Burnes)

Past

We've got a throwaway culture. People, plastic, pop bottles, principles.
Everything's disposable. The nation's suffering from memory disorder.
Two hundered years ago? Impossible to imagine.
A hundred years ago? Too hard to think about.
Fifty years ago? Ancient history.
A movie made ten years ago is considered old.
A TV series made five years ago is a classic.
Most books have three months shelf life.
Sports organizations no sooner build stadiums than they blow them up so they can replace them with newer, uglier ones.
The grade school I went to was torn down and replaced by a strip mall.
Our culture's so obsessed with what's new, we distroy the past and pretend it never happened.
I want to write an essay that convinces people that the past is important.
I want my readers feel it and smell it and appreciate it.
- Creepers (David Morrel)

Unlocked...

Some windows are better kept open :)

Sacred...

Things that are sacred, are better placed somewhere in the corner, away from disturbance. You dont notice them often, but you always know they are there.
The pic, some small flower...I placed purposefully in the corner :)

Subtle Senses

Yes, I remember the times when life was perfect.
The pic is a creeper on the wall :)

Unknown...

Few quotes by Oppenheimer:-
- Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.
- In some sort of crude sense, which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.
- There are children playing in the streets who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago.
- When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.

The pic...i dont remember what exactly it is hehe :)

Physical realism

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
- John Adams

Reflections...

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.
- Confucius

The pic is some neem leaves :)

Deep Blue

If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things in nature have a message you understand, Rejoice, for your soul is alive.
- Eleanora Duse
So, is your soul alive?

Anyway, the pic is a blue flower, some stray plant growing near my house after rains :)

Drop-ped...

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.
- Abraham Lincoln
Hmmm...the pic is first few drops of rain :)

Thirsty...

If God would have wanted us to live in a permissive society, he would have given us Ten Suggestions and not Ten Commandments.
- Zig Ziglar

Now a days there is a lot of noise in media on freedom and rights of so called 'classes of people', the kind of people who want freedom to exert their 'personal choices'. Is this the same 'freedom' we faught the british for? I dont know. Does democracy mean allowing people to do anything even though they want to do stupid things? I really wonder whether people are making rational demands or this is just what is called 'individualism' in a capitalist democratic society. Maybe we are streaching the word 'freedom' too much.

The pic, some kind of bird you find here. Looks like its thirsty, isnt it?
There is shortage of water in pune and the old lady who stays two blocks away has her overhead tank overflowing at 3 o clock at night. Now since I am working in high tech, the question that comes to my mind is, "Are these the people for whom we are developing better technology? People who just know how to consume and how to waste?"

Shaded...

Selected quotes by Warren Buffet :-
-Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.
-Derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction.
-Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.
-A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought.
-I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States. No man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of the word, without coming here.
-Beware of geeks bearing formulas.
-Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy; profit from folly rather than participate in it.
-If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.
-Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway.
-Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

Yea, the pic is the tree in front of my house. Dont know who planted it though ;)

Shadows and Gloom...

The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.
- Michelangelo

Hmm..anyway, the pic is quite old, taken in bangalore :)

Waiting for rain...

Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.
- Rabindranath Tagore

Coming back...

One believes that if nothing happens, one disappears. That is not true.
- Isabelle Adjani
Yea..the picture is of some unknown plant growing after first rains here. I didnt see any of these during long months of summer but after first showers of rain, they suddenly appear out of nowhere. Yes, if nothing happens, doesnt really mean one has disappeared, isnt it? I especially like the shape of leaves, wide and all encompassing :)

A Messenger...

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature.
- Anne Frank
Yes, the pic is 'umber' fruit :D

Snailed...

Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.
- Anonymous
Now, that pic is a snail shell :D

Quietly...

Sit quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.
- A Zen saying.

Yes, thats an old pic, a butterfly :D

True beauty...

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.
- Albert Einstein

The pic is grown up plant of 'Mirchee' :)

New-ton...

Few quotes by Issac Newton -
- Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.
- I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.
- We build too many walls and not enough bridges.
- If I saw further than other men, it was because I stood on the shoulders of giants.

Yea, the pic is too old to remember except that it was rainy season. I miss rains!

Small Wonders...

Do i need to say anything more?
- Cheers!!!

Serious joke...

World War-II, one of the most horrific wars, shaped the face of the world. When the war was in progress, the big-three(Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin) met in 1943 at Tehran. The following incident that happened during this conference, is taken from Winston Churchill's "World War-II Vol-5".
The big three, the most powerful men at the time were having diner togather. The matter of discussion was what should be done to Germany after the war.
The German General staff, he(Stalin) said, must be liquidated. The whole force of Hitler's mighty armies depended upon about fifty thousand officers and technicians. If these were rounded up and shot at the end of war German military strength will be exterpated. On this I (Churchill) thought it right to say, "The British Parliament will never tolerate mass executions. Even if in war passion they allowed them to begin they would turn violently against those responsible after the first butchery had taken place. The Soviets must be under no delusion on this point."
Stalin however, perhaps only in mischief, persued the subject. "Fifty thousand," he said ,"must be shot". I was deeply angered. "I would rather", I said ,"be taken out into the garden here and now and be shot myself than sully my own and my country's honour by such infamy".
At this point the President(Roosevelt) intervened. He had a compromise to propose. Not fifty thousand should be shot, but only fourty-nine thousand. By this he hoped, no doubt, to reduce the whole matter to ridicule. Eden(one of the staff) also made signs and gestures intended to ressure me that it was all a joke. But now Elliot(Roosevelt's son) rose in his place at the end of the table and made a speech, saying how cordially he agreed with Marshall Stallin's plan and how sure he was that United States army would support it. At this intrusion I got up and left the table, walking off into the next room, which was in semi-darkness.
I had not been there a minute before hands were clapped on my back from behind, and there was Stalin, with Molotov on his side, both grinning broadly, and eagerly declaring that they were only playing, and that nothing of a serious character had entered their heads. Stalin has a very captivating manner when he chooses to use it, and I never saw him do so to such an extent as at this moment. Although I was not then, and am not now, fully convinced that all was chaff and there was no serious intent lurking behind, I consented to return, and rest of the evening passed pleasantly.
Hmmm...anyway..:) the tiny plant that you see in the pic is mirchee :)

Built-in knowledge...

Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.
- Benjamin Spock
Yea, the book in the pic is Winston Churchill's World War-2 vol. 5 (Closing the Ring) :D

Footprints of man...

Nature and nature's laws lay hid in the night. God said, Let Newton be! and all was light!
- Alexander Pope

Yea the ruler in picture i used to use during my engineering years hehe :)

Surviving beauty...

Thats some wild plant grown in rubble near my house. Nature thrives even in the extremes, isnt it?

Yin and yang...

Complementary opposites. Created together in a single moment, bound together as parts of a mutual whole.

Sometimes, one plus one is really greater than two. Isnt it?

Yea the pic is shells you find in sand.
Cheers! :D!!

Still life...

Still life...so calm, smooth and so peaceful!

As a consequence of summer and ongoing construction work we have no garden so i will be posting more and more still life photos and less of nature photos. Please bear my 'experimental photography' for sometime.

Cheers!
:D!!

Newton's dilemma...

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.
-Albert Einstein

Yea...those are stones you find in sand. The composition too you must have seen at a number of places, I guess its very natural for humans to put stones on top of each other. :)

Soft, radiant and alive

Pictures express so much more than words can, aint it?
Yea, now thats a bunch of wildflowers, these plants tend to grow almost anywhere and some are so rare that i have seen them only a few times. Dont know how they propagate and survive.
Cheers! :D

Mundane 2...

When I admire the wonder of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in worship of the Creator.
- Mahatma Gandhi
Yes thats a sunset from our terrace! since we are building another floor up, I hope I will be able to get still better sunset pic than this :D

On other thoughts, ironically(ironically because i have quoted Gandhiji), SM got 8 oscars, and i wonder,"Poverty in India still sells?". By the way, if people are celebrating in the name of acceptance of indian cinema on international scale, then, have they themselves accepted the movie? I used to hear lot of protests till the very last week. Really...people forget so soon!

Trapped in an Ice Cube...

Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.
-George Bernard Shaw

Token of good times...

Truth is stranger than fiction; fiction has to make sense

-Rosten Leo

The laughing philosopher...

Ask a philosopher 'what is philosophy?' or a historian 'what is history?' and they will have no difficulty in giving an answer. Neither of them can really persue his own descipline without knowing what he is searching for. But ask a mathematician 'what is mathematics?' and he may justifiably reply that he does not know the answer but this does not stop him from doing mathematics
-Francois Lasserre
Logic is invincible because in order to combat logic it is necessory to use logic
-Pierre Boutroux
An intellectual is a man who doesnt know how to park a bike
-Spiro Agnew
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends upon the unresonable man.
-George Bernard Shaw
All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher
-Ambrose Bierce
Lecturing is transfer of information from notes of lecturer to notes of students without anything passing through the minds of either.
-Unknown
And...yes..the plant is really strange one we have, the parent had lot of hair like leaves but the one you see in the pic has something similar to rose leaves hehe :D

Invaded...

Just for a few moments, put aside your thoughts and just imagine...there is an alien invasion (and these invaders are god-like aliens not the terrible ones shown in american movies) and these friendly aliens sign a friendship pact with humans. The aliens have hyperadvanced technology and they have their own different style of (near ideal) civilization and they are ready to share all this information with us. Now, a revolution happens on earth. Suddenly there is an end to terrorism, global warming is made nil, no recession, no countries instead a single identity called earth(hence no wars), all politicians are scrapped(instead we have just administrators)and, all cities are rearranged so no traffic jams, no housing problems, no water and food shortages. So...there is an end to all the problems!
Now; what will happen to you?
Yes, you will be happy, of course a dream has come true after all. (As time passes, maybe you will realize that you have nothing much to do, life might get boring but anyway, thats not the point). What i am driving at is, you might face with something like a loss of identity. We always keep some part of our identity as a reaction to something that is outside and exactly this is what you will lose. For example, if you are a religious person, you will no longer need some aspects of religion. Most people say, they believe in god, but very few people believe in god out of pure love and most of them do because they ‘need’ faith. They need faith to fight uncertainties of life. Their faith exists as a reaction to fear. Now, its no longer needed. Also, you dont need moral code that religion gives, as it is built into your style of (alien)civilization, hence now you can no longer call yourself a ‘good person’. We call ourselves as 'good people' because 'bad people' exist. If everyone gets included into 'good people', we can no longer have sense of being a 'good person', rather you will 'just be' and i dont know how many of us like 'just being'. Most of us will lose lot of 'content' in their life and their life will become sort of 'empty'. Now, why will you have this 'empty' feeling? because till now, the locus of your life were not 'yourself' but it was something else, it was the world outside.
When we are children, we are mentally free but as we grow up, our focus shifts to education, career, needs and survival. For most people, their thinking becomes centered around these things and slowly, over a period of time, these things become the main locus of their life and people start defining everything based on this locus. We even define what we want in our relationships based on this. For example, (this is what I hear from most people about friendship)"we 'need' friends to share our 'burdens'", is defining friendship in a negative way instead of saying that "I want to make someone a friend because I like him and because I want to". Maybe that’s why there is a difference between friendships made during childhood and friendships we make when we grow up, because we have defined the relatiohship half-heartedly. If we are thinking about everything in this fashion, then maybe we are putting forward an excuse 'the world is not a good place' for not being better ourselves.
I am not saying that there is anything wrong with working for survival but just that maybe we are overdoing something. Someone has said that there is nothing wrong in losing but its definitely wrong to become a ‘loser’, so on the same lines i will say, there is nothing wrong with struggling but its definitely wrong to become a 'struggler'.
Yeps; the pic is some leaf, but i dont remember which tree, lol, :D

Fressshh...

When i was in school, they(here "they" means teachers, children's bookwriters, elders etc aka 'the authority') used to tell us stories. The story used to begin with something like- "Once upon a time, living in some village, there were two neighbours. First one was a kind, noble, hardworking man. Second one was exactly opposite. He was a lazy, cruel, and unhelpful man...." and such stories used to end with- "So what is the morale of the story? Good always wins over the evil". I believe even now the children are being told such stories, maybe with some modifications like the two neighbours living in a city instead of a village, but i guess the core remains the same. The point is, why we teach children what is just not true? why not tell them that the fittest is the one who survives and its the law of (dear and beautiful) nature? Will it not prepare them to face hard facts of reality instead of ultimately learning them by first experience? There are two institutions which i feel are very similar, and i doubt were invented by the same person, one is school and another one? ofcourse jail :D. Yes, what can be more inhuman way of taming a (enthusiastic, bubbling with energy) child than to make it sit for 8 hours a day at one place feeding all information into its tiny brain? By the way, how many of you remember clauses of Treaty of Versoy? if you dont remember,and it didnt make any difference in your life then why did we all learn it? I learnt many things long after i graduated, things that really matter to lead a normal life but we dont even get a scent of it in the whole two decades of education.(On the lines of Treaty of Versalles, did you know that during the second world war, when Hitler successfully occupied France, he made French people sign the decree of surrender(aka Second armistice) in the same train bogie in which germany was made to sign decree of surrender during the first world war? but no, we want children to become obidient citizens and not pride individuals who fight for their rights, aint it? And in education when a person is named evil, for him, pride translate to ego and it becomes something evil.(By the way, didnt our own gandhiji say that a person is not evil but its the tendancy that is evil and we should be against the tendancy and not the person?)
Now a days i heard that there is some innovation happening in schools, especially in field of blooming creativity in children, (shall we call this PZT effect? (a deliberate mistake in the name PZT hehe i dont want to get sued :D) u know the movie, a child who is highly creative but keeps failing in exams? and then there comes AK the superteacher? anyways..:p) and now all parents want to unravel hidden(?) talents in their children. Folks watch the movie and what parents remember after coming out of theater is the shining face of a 'bright smart child' and what they promptly forget is that the movie was related to autism and doesnt apply as it is, to all children. But I guess its not fault of the parents, as every child has 'learning disability' to some extent isnt it? Okay i am being a bit sceptical here, and children really do have potential, but still, if everyone gets creative, shall we be able to call it creativity? And on the other hand, imagine, how this creativity thing gets implemented in school. There are lectures(lectures!) dedicated(fixed dedicated one hour for doing art exercises after learning "Structure of indian parliament" for one hour!) where the teacher(not superteacher AK this time but some middle class lady who does teaching just because she has a BEd (and she has BEd because she couldnt get admission to any other better course) and who has come to school today after having quarrel with her husband on grocery bills) keeps telling 'be creative.. be creative..Rohan if you arent creative enough in this term, you will lose the grade!'. And also, on the top, the "creativity homework"(aka, another headache for parents who are already doomed uncreative owing to their grown up age!). Anyways, my own schooling was highly uncreative by todays standards but(i dont like blowing my own horn but still :d) when i learnt photography, it didnt get me into any trouble. I agree that some things are best taught at a certain age but declaring all children having creative instincts is a bit overdoing it. (instincts-means something vague and fuzzy, which cannot be described in words, which cannot be accepted and cannot be denied on solid grounds, you remember the monster who cant be killed during the day, during the night....?). I believe i was fortunate that my parents let me be myself and have a natural childhood and didnt try to unravel any (hidden?) talent in myself. Now, when children have so much burden of studies, why to add another subject to increase the already excessive academic competition?
Hmmm....yea, the pic shows fruits on some nearby tree, they give a very beautiful sweetish fragrance when they are fresh!
cheers!:D!!