Journey to the Centre of India

My journey to the centre of India... well let me make things clear. It was not very adventurous as my blog title might suggest. I did travel recently to the city of Nagpur helping my folks shift base over there and Nagpur happens to lie at the geographical centre of India. Theres a Zero Mile Marker to indicate this point.



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I barely went in to explore the city as i was trying to make myself useful in helping to settle things down in the new quarter so no photos of the place to upload this time around.


The train journey from Kolkata to Nagpur was an experience to remember. Travelling with 32 pieces of luggage is not very pleasant. Much thanks to the two coolies {luggage porters} whom we hired to carry our things and also shove in what seemed like a hundered pieces of bags and suitcases into every available space around us in our train compartment. A few days back i had sent the major bulk of our household items by truck to nagpur and i wished we had all travelled in that same truck which was pretty spacious. Anways we made it through. 

Red

Above is a photo of my daughter - a little tired but strong enough to pose for the camera. The only one i took while in Nagpur. She's wearing a Ji-Sung Park t-shirt. He scored the only goal in Man Utd.' recent match vs Arsenal. Park plays for Manchester United. I guess our recent shifting trip was like a football match where we won. A mix of excitement... hard work....tiresome but mission accomplished in the end.

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Kids working - collecting plastic bottles and other valuables.

It has been a long time since i travelled long distance by train. I learnt that trains always get delayed [departure] by at least 5-6 hours on  the Howrah - Mumbai route. We took the Azad Hind while going and above is pic i took while entering Howrah station back today on the Howrah Mail. This train was supposed to reach at five in the morning which would have allowed me to get back to office on time but no chance. While the train halted before entry into the station,  seeing kids ...some who seemed just about as old as my daughter ...collecting waste was not a pretty sight.

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Nakhoda

After the long train ride i decided i needed to take a long walk home back to my pad and i came across this....I recalled seeing it on some travel channel and here i was near it for the first time.  A partial shot of the dome + minaret of the largest mosque {Nakhoda} in Kolkata (Rabindra Sarani / M.G. Rd.).

Freely Legal

Just some free stuff that I've come across i'd like to share.


Words from the inspirational Seth Godin. Not a recent book but if you've not read it, it's just the right stuff you'd need to reinvent yourself. .. that is if you want to... Below are some extracts...

Do you remember learning to factor quadrilateral equations? x2 -32x +12? Why were you taught this? Why did they spend hours drilling you on such clearly useless content? Simple: you were being trained to be a compliant cog, someone who could mindlessly follow instructions as opposed to seeking out innovation and surprise....

Art isn’t a painting or even a poem, it’s something that any of us can do. If you interact with others, you have the platform to create something new—something that changes everything. I call that art....Art doesn’t follow instructions or a manual or a boss’s orders...

Feel free to click here to download the book- 66.01 Brainwashed [pdf] 

*****************

Okay now for some stories..to be precise....

Machine of Death - A collection of stories about people who know how they will die.

I havent read any of the stories in here...but judging from the dinosaur comic inspiration that started this book..i know it's got to be good....

Click here to download a double-page spread version [pdf]

Click here for other options {single- page / podcast} all free.

Okay folks... i think i'll leave the rest of the stuff i'd like to share for a "Freely Legal - part II" post.. :-)

- enjoy -

Food & Drink[s]

Reading rule no. 8 in the book for bloggers, it says that one must post something about food at least once. Yes that's right..there are 102 rules and this rule is in the top 10. Okay i just made it up but blogger friend Sekibuhchhuak always posts photos of {delicious} food so  i felt it was time i posted a photo of something that i've eaten and really enjoyed. 

Behold the famous Chelo Kabab for which Peter Cat is renowned for here in Kolkata. If you do drop in the city.. go try it over at Park Street.

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Also dont {forget to} Drink. I had to pause a bit as i was adding the pic below because it seems posting alcohol related images is frowned upon by some folks ..as i learnt on master blogger Illusionaires post.. :-)  hic.. anyways 3 cheers!!!

wrote the little poem in there when i was on my 8th bottle. 

Even Shakespeare would admire it. No?

Like money

The Social Network is getting good reviews. Have not yet watched it though.

In the future, Mark Zuckerberg will have his own country - offline.

The other day, back from work as i got off the bus and headed towards my source of food for the night i realised that i'd left my wallet in the office. I only had 2 two Rupee coins in my pocket..bus fare change. No cash & no plastic card to withdraw money. Luckily i remembered that i had some coins in my cave so quickly i went and dug out my coin bag.

Added  up to 21 Rupees and 50 Paisa. Good enough to buy a simple meal here in Kolkata. I was very grateful to the ignored coins that i first did a photo-shoot for them before i bid them coins goodbye. Back in 1991 my mother gave me 4 rupees as pocket money to take to school one day and boy..did i feel rich!!!

3rd Largest Country is Down #facebook

Facebook was down around 12:57 AM?? here in India and other parts of the world... as i write this post many people are highly tensed as they still cant log into the *3rd Largest Country.....

I logged into Twitter and did a #facebook search.. and started seeing really hilarious tweets.. so im sharing some that i quickly copied and pasted in here.. first off ..below is a print screen i took of the Twitter home page that shows the "Top Tweets".... the tweets ive highlighted had me smiling extra wide ear to ear... highlights in green are my notes..

• FACEBOOK is down! I repeat Facebook is down! Apocalypse has come!
• EVERYONE CALM DOWN #FACEBOOK IS DOWN DON'T PANIC...*RUNS IN CORNER AND CROUCHES IN FETAL POSITION ROCKING BACK AND FORTH* 
• so #facebook is dead. I now have nothing to do with my evening. I wish I had a life and some friends.
• This is the point in time when we all complain it's unreasonable for a free product with 99.9% uptime to be down for half an hour #facebook 
• And for the first time in two years, everyone just checked their MySpace account. #facebook #FBjokes
• Oh I Thought My Computer Was Tripping .. Cus #Facebook Isn't Working .. LOL.
• #Facebook is down and people are goin nuts. I remember life before Facebook... 
• Holy Shit #facebook doesn't work. What to do now?!Freaking out. Just joking, god save my #twitter account
• #facebook is down :)) farmers are going crazy [in case you live on another planet.. this is a reference to the popular "facebook game" called Farmville]

• #10thingsToDoWhenFacebookIsDown have a day off. Tell to clients- ' we cant work without #facebook'!!!
• Mark Zuckerberg's probably throwing a "I am Web god" tantrum & building a Web browser that only allows people to enter #Facebook. #firefox [Mark Zuckerberg - facebook co-founder] 
• People are freaking out because #facebook is down. So this is what the Cuban Missile Crisis felt like.
•  
• Breaking - The #Suicide rate is up 212.5 percent in America, Western Europe & Asia since #FaceBook is down! #SaveTheTeens #SaveFaceBook 
•  
• #Facebook is down - publicity stunt for THE SOCIAL NETWORK? Tweet yes or no. [The Social Network is a film being made on the beginnings of Facebook]
• First #twitter gets a virus, now #facebook is down. What the heck am I supposed to do at work... work?!?!?
•  
• I know what's wrong with #Facebook, I broke up with him and now he doesn't want to talk to anybody. What a big baby.
•  
• really hope my 500+ virtual friends are alright. #facebook #fail\
• I'm cracking up at all the "Facebook is down" tweets. #facebook
• Co-workers freaking out about #facebook. Girls - your farms & frontiers will be fine. 
• 
  
• DNS FAILURE: #Facebook is down which means 9 months from today, many children will be born.
  
  and heres my lame tweet:   

facebook -down right now, now go read a book.. offline..wait i dont have any offline..im gonna die- help! #facebook #down #sarcastic

In case you are not familiar with Twitter...the hash mark "#" works like tags in Twitter...i hope you get the idea of what tags are..eg: #hungry typed in the search would throw up all tweets that have been tagged with hungry..


*3rd Largest Country - if facebook = a country [via]
If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest in the world with a population of more than400 million people

Living Days

Zhu Qiyu - Jingtai Emperor was born on this day, year 1428. We share the same birth date. I miss[ed] him.

September 21 also happens to be the International Day of Peace. So hopefully im gonna have a very peaceful day. I hope to rest in peace someday.. but until that day comes i'll continue
Learning to Live...



Learning to Live: Music ~ Dream Theater / Lyrics ~ John Myung.. off the album Images and Words.


What else can i share? well maybe something profound... maybe a little on Life. Yes life, umm my life has been full of life..umm okay let me just share something i read.. 

LIFE, n. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. We live in daily apprehension of its loss; yet when lost it is not missed. The question, "Is life worth living?" has been much discussed; particularly by those who think it is not, many of whom have written at great length in support of their view and by careful observance of the laws of health enjoyed for long terms of years the honors of successful controversy. 

"Life's not worth living, and that's the truth,"

Carelessly caroled the golden youth.

In manhood still he maintained that view

And held it more strongly the older he grew.

When kicked by a jackass at eighty-three,

"Go fetch me a surgeon at once!" cried he.

these words on life via

I shall end with with a little Kanji... below is Kanji for Life
written using a mouse so it's pretty not upto the mark..

...i love this site which
allows you to create stuff like this...your browser should be on the new-ish side..supporting HTML5..
yes HTML 5 will make your online life better... im yet to find the ultimate secret to the perfect life offline..but im sure it involves a little beer and pork...roast..+ good music...
~ shalom ~

Independent Indians

Independence Day {India} coming up next week so i'm feeling patriotic and thought i should write a scholarly post on how we got our independence from the British. Since i was an out-standing student i reckon me won't be able to write much on this subject. I guess even a Shashi Tharoor tweet on the subject might be more enlightening.. maybe.

Anways to the point.. hello mic testing.. i proudly present promote .....INDIEAN Vol. 1. A compilation album from IndianRockmp3.com featuring indie bands in India. At this moment, writing this post..the download link for this bilkul FREE album does not exist..so i shall update later or you can keep yourself posted by visiting the IRMP3 site.

and below is a little infographic i made just to show the bands featured in Vol 1 of Indiean...

Click here to view a larger image 

So dear readers..pay attention!!!
As you can see in the map we have a band named Demonic Resurrection from Mumbai and promising young band from up north called IAFWAY
[I am fake who are you?]. Judge them not from their names for they are all very good bands.

Hopefully Indiean Vol. 2 will  feature more bands from the east and north-eastern parts of our country. I personally have been guaranteed a slot in upcoming albums starting from volume 1½ ...or maybe from volume 555..depending on when i start to write some listen-able music.

Enough of my nonsense...heres the Track Listing:

01 Erase- Dark Horizon
02 – F.O.P.S. – The Circus
03 The Tribe -Lucid Recess -
04 Field of Thought – Blakc
05 Order of the D.N.A – Kryptos
06 Vanquish – Sledge
07 – The Unrelenting Surge Of Vengeance – Demonic Resurrection
08 Battle Cry – Devoid
09 – Engravings – IAFWAY
10 Temple Of Zeus – Artillerie
11 DemonPra – Scribe

+ Surprise Bonus Track

Here's a little info from the folks at IRMP3 about the making of this album

Two years ago when we first started this website we were pretty much clueless about the direction we were heading. Our only aim was to gather all the ‘legal’ download links in one place and provide platform for Indian acts and  fans

450,000 hits later we look back at these two marvelous years and take great pride in being an integral part of Indie India over the Internet. And this is our token of appreciation for all you ‘Indieans’ who have supported us in promoting Indian bands , IRMP3 will release its first FREE digital Compilation album comprising of  11 bands that were featured as ‘Artist of the Month’ on the site.

जिंदाबाद इंडियन रोक MP3 डोट कॉम   !!!!

UPDATE!!!...  TO DOWNLOAD CLICK HERE

Mind your language

So i was walking home drunk the other day and i decided to take a different route to avoid known faces and i came across this sign board. Felt as if it had been put up just for me... okay well i wasn't drunk.. i never drink and walk.

Anyways this evening i took a snapshot of it.. so that i'll print it out and put it up on my own front door... only problem is that im the one who's waking up the neighbours at night with my loud singing + "music"...

few nights back a group of men from the mosque next door told me to shut the folk up..Yes i really do live wall to wall next to a mosque.

So after promising to keep my volume down i was in no mood to be a nuisance and get kicked out from my neighbourhood. Well the next best thing was to watch some new stuff i'd got from a friend recently.

Yes, the whole 1st season of  good old Mind Your Language. Enjoyed it a lot. Loads of laughs... one of my favourite bits..

Jeremy Browns [the English teacher] asks Max [the Greek student] a question..

"Explain to me.. what is the meaning of syntax?" 

to which Max answers not very confidently..

"The tax you pay when you go to the church[?]"

Definitely gonna get the whole series..seems it ended because "many people" found it racist... checking into some fan sites and comments on the imbd message boards.. majority of the people actually love[d] the series. Anyways folks ..i shall end with this lovely Bushism..

"We've got a lot of relations with countries in our neighborhood."

~ George W. Bush {Kranj, Slovenia, June 10, 2008} ~ 

ok just one more {D.C., June 27, 2006}.....

"We shouldn't fear a world that is more interacted."

Bushisms source: http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/blbushisms.htm

The Yes Men

THE YES MEN FIX THE WORLD is a screwball true story about two gonzo political activists who, posing as top executives of giant corporations, lie their way into big business conferences and pull off the world's most outrageous pranks. This peer-to-peer special edition of the film is unique: it is preceded by an EXCLUSIVE VIDEO of the Yes Men impersonating the United States Chamber of Commerce. Because the Yes Men are being sued for this stunt, p2p is the only way that this film will get seen. Please spread the word!

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE + GET THE TORRENT FILE.

So..stop your current download session of Inception..and go download The YES MEN FIX THE WORLD film. ...and if you've not yet seen Christopher Nolan's Inception do go watch it at theatre near you... i loved it!!!!!!

I've just watched the Yes Men' film. They even came to India...Bhopal. [context - gas tragedy]

{Screenshot - Andy Bichlbaum posing as a spokesman for Dow Chemicals which took over Union Carbide...}

am not attempt in writing a review... if you've not seen it... do see...

Photos - dogs, meat, gods, car & a bike

Just clearing up my harddrive... dug out some photos i'd taken sometime last winter....Click on them for a larger view...One thing i've noticed a lot - dogs sleeping in threes..Hmmm what else should i write in this space?

Well, let me plug some..okay two to be precise -- artists relatively not rich n famous.

Ladies first - give a listen to Miri. A hint of Macy Gray in her voice...i love her accent. I had crush on a girl..Miri when i was in high school...yes yes i confess, i did a facebook search  sometime back..and instead of finding her i found this Miri... now go listen: myspace.com/wheresmiri One of the best unsigned artists i've stumbled across..

Next up - listen to the Metal Farmer from Mangalore aka Pritham D'Souza...got this one from the IndianRockMp3 fb wall.

This guy plays different genres..and well he is a farmer...Morbid Pitbull being one of his projects.. the others have names like Sticky Frog. He has a rather large banner so scroll down to get to the embedded audio player.

My favourite track from the Morbid Pitbull project is The Evergreen Script. prithamdsouza.com/p/morbid-pitbull.html 

.

No offense intended to anyone ..regarding the photo with car and idols which i've titled as Disposable gods ...on my flickr page

Nothing to Say

Woke up late yesterday and checked my watch to see if i could make it in time...reach the church before the service ended. At least i would not be late for the youth service where i had to preach. Yes me - preach. A joke. A short sermon they said. I'd declined many times before. No escaping.

Standing in front of our small congregation... the youth barely total up to form a football team.. Cant be so hard i said to myself.... Ive even "performed" in front of a crowd of not less than 400 people during the [cough] wild days of my youth.. But preaching? in a church...Daunting.

Took a taxi and off i went. Put on my media player to calm my nerves and the song that comes up is Soundgarden's Nothing to Say... i'd recently downloaded their old A-sides compilation album..love it.
Sorry i digress...well the song was not very encouraging. Switch it off.

Thumbed through the pages of my little Bible "revising" what i planned to preach and by the time the gates of the church appeared i was in total confusion. I shall end here and report no more. Nothing to Say.

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• In other news... the World Cup...the team that i support is doing fine...oh yes i included a LOT  of football in my sermon .. this much i shall reveal. Thanks to a tip from Sekibuh Chhuak.
  
  
• What else?.... oil is spilling and some bands are boycotting BP.
  
  
• I came across an interesting topic. Mother Teresa / The Missionaries of  Charity. In bad light. Lots to say. One could start by  visiting this facebook group to get an idea - STOP The Missionaries of Charity. As i am in the city of the Saint this is something i shall to try to investigate further. Time to put my degree in journalism to use.
  

Destroy angels: how to

                         destroy

There's a tiny little window
Swarms of locusts fill the sky
Maybe I just disappear, If I can
Keep my head above the tide.

A drowning is my favourite track off this album. 

Love Signs, Dance Moves & Death

Even if you do not listen to rock music all that much, songs like Holy Diver and Rainbow in the Dark must have passed through your ears at some point of time. Ronnie James Dio was the man behind these rock classics.

Am not a diehard fan of Dio and dont really follow his work but hearing about his death from a tweet made me do a quick Google search to confirm this sad news for rock music fans the world over. I'd actually got
this news from a tweet on a popular technology website which had Twitter feeds embedded in one of its pages. Had to mention this just in case my boss thinks im wasting office time reading music news...

Anyways ... for those who might not know, Ronnie James Dio is credited for popularizing the  \m/ hand sign - the [devil'] horn...or to put it more mildly the 'rock on' sign. Featured here is a photo of a person showing the sign..but  in this case ..it's a little different.. its also used as a Texas Longhorn sign...

Not to be confused with the hand sign for 'I Love You'.

My wife gave me this piece of information and we used to show each other this hand sign while we romanced each other, dancing around the trees in the Victoria Memorial grounds....

Now here is a photo of Barack Obama flashing this 'love sign'....notice the thumb sticks out..

Now, for some piece of information...interesting / amusing ... depending on how you take it.
The person who 'invented' this love hand sign was supposedly an 'occultist' ....meself was smiling ear to ear as i read this line on this site....and headbanging in agreement as i linked it to Dio' devil' horn sign.
Those who 'know' me should not at all be surprised that i read all these kinds of brain draining enligtening subjects with the sincerity of a doctorate research scholar...

Heres my own contribution: .. LOVE ..backwards is EVOL... evol ...evil...get it? the evilution... }:-)

For me it all links up.. the Illuminati - Barack Obama - Love/Devil Horn hand sign ... and of course 'rock music = devil' music....Black Sabbath - Ozzy Osbourne who is  = The Prince of Darkness.. his successor
as vocalist in Black Sabbath = Dio. Dio's last album with the band members of Black Sabbath who 're-grouped' themselves as Heaven & Hell had a song titled Bible Black.....

I've even discussed this music and Lucifer relationship a bit in an old post of mine.. Music Origins: Jubal Cain..

...and recently i came across this video on YouTube.. "Slayer goes to Church" .. a must watch..with audio on for full effect. NOI. In case this video is longer available here on my blog do a search on Google for the same.. hilarious.



Okay im going too far.. I repeat, no offense intended to anyone... In fact back at home folks dance in church.. dancing to frenetic/fast drum beats..I guess it's the drums that really drives people to headbang to heavy music or do amazing back flips in church ... yes on occasions you'll see the dancers performing back-flips/front flips on the church dance floor!!!! and that too mostly middle aged women folk...

I'm still feeling a little sad that i missed the chance to hear and witness Chris Adler playing the drums... and of course the rest of LOG in Bengaluru.....maybe a day will come when i do get to see them..
But not a chance anymore to witness a rock legend who could have probably made it to India... - R.I.P Ronnie James Dio.