World Wide Telescope

Demo - Worldwide telescope at ted.

No kidding !

Cleopatra Stratan - Ghita , she is the singer and 3 years old

Friday Dinner - Pitla and Chapati

Chapati, Pitla, curds and sliced tomatoes sprinkled with salt and pepper

Another of my recipe blogs,

Pitla or Jhunka is one of those side dishes cooked either when there is no vegetable at home or one is too lazy to cook an elaborate sabzi. It goes well with both hot rice and chapatis.

Main ingredients : 4 table spoons of besan (gram dal powdered) and 1/2 finely chopped onion.

1. Heat 1 tsp oil add asafoetida and some mustard seeds wait till the seeds splutter.
2. Add cumin seeds and chopped onion, some salt and turmeric.
3. Once the onion gives itself to the heat and turns tender add some chili powder or green cut chili both work.
4. Add 1/2 cup water and let it boil.
5. Now is the tricky part, add besan to this boiling water spoon by spoon and keep stirring. The idea is not let it form lumps, if need be add more water.
6. Let it boil a little longer to get nice uniform consistency( you want all the besan nicely cooked to avoid any uncomfortable consequences the following morning :) )
7. Salt status check, add accordingly. Squeeze some fresh lemon on top and garnish with coriander.

Add ghee while serving and serve it hot.


After food and a glass of nice cold water, it is time to chew some beetle nut(I know not all would approve of this....:) ) and wander about my small patio.... that completes the experience.

Photosynth

Using photos of oft-snapped subjects (like Notre Dame) scraped from around the Web, Photosynth (based on Seadragon technology) creates breathtaking multidimensional spaces with zoom and navigation features that outstrip all expectation. Its architect, Blaise Aguera y Arcas, shows it off in this standing-ovation demo. Curious about that speck in corner? Dive into a freefall and watch as the speck becomes a gargoyle. With an unpleasant grimace. And an ant-sized chip in its lower left molar. "Perhaps the most amazing demo I've seen this year," wrote Ethan Zuckerman, after TED2007. Indeed, Photosynth might utterly transform the way we manipulate and experience digital images. - from ted.com

Yeh faasle teri galiyon ke

Yeh faasle teri galiyon ke hum se tayen na huye
Hazar baar ruke hum, hazar baar chalen

- Gulzar

I couldn't walk the distance.. I started a thousand times and stopped a thousand times...

Listen to this beautiful gazal by gulzar..

All you die-hard romantics...

Play the song and sing along !

Before I could catch

The sun set before I could catch.

chakshu rakshak

M K Gandhi died 60 years ago...

While he was alive, he was impossible to ignore; once he had gone he was impossible to imitate.
- Shashi Tharoor (The great Indian Novel).

Vaishnav jan to tene kahiye je

Happy Republic Day

Wishing all a very Happy Republic day.



Bismillah Khan playing the mangala vadya - Shehnai this auspicious occasion.

Lazy weekend and Remington Steele

My lazy weekend is coming to an end. Finally Seattle's winter got to me and I am down with cold.

Spent yesterday and today watching Remington Steele a detective series which I used to follow a long time ago. Thanks to a friend who told me about hulu.com which has the entire series online.

Oneliners from the series...

"Irresponsibility is not a sickness. It's an art."
"Remington Steele never shows up wrinkled."

Amazing combination Pierce Brosnan and Stephanie Zimbalist.

Tony Robbins: Why we do what we do....

Video recommendation for this week...

Tony Robbins: Why we do what we do, and how we can do it better.
I have been telling my friends around to watch this talk, very inspiring.




In this fast-paced talk (clocking in far shorter than his typical three-day seminars), iconic motivational speaker Tony Robbins explains how to unlock your true potential, and asks the audience (including former Vice President Al Gore) for a bit of high-level interaction. The spontaneous on-stage interaction between Gore and Robbins creates an unforgettable TED moment, and also demonstrates the power of Robbins' direct -- even confrontational -- approach(From ted.com)

Humour in Uniform

I stumbled upon Simpu Singh the math teacher.... these are very funny channel V ads.

Some humour to cheer up...

A Vision of Students Today

In video recommendation for this week we look at a video developed as part of digital Ethnography class at KSU. A very interesting style of communication. Watch it, it is fun to
see how internet and the digital revolution is influencing our everyday life.

Ethnography (ἔθνος ethnos = people and γράφειν graphein = writing) is the genre of writing that presents varying degrees of qualitative and quantitative descriptions of human social phenomena.(source wikipedia)




a short video summarizing some of the most important characteristics of students today - how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams, what their lives will be like, and what kinds of changes they will experience in their lifetime. Created by Michael Wesch in collaboration with 200 students at Kansas State University.

why people do what they do

For the recent few months I have been very curious about why people do what they do. Have been wondering what is it that drives one to work or spend immense amounts of time, energy and beyond. Wanted to find out for myself so I have been talking to people.

Story 1.
I met this very interesting person on my flight. I will call him uncleji respecting his age and the experience in the art of living. For most part of his life he was with the mainstream media the TV world. Seeing all the whos who from practically every field(politics,sports and entertainment).He talked about his media coverage tours with the then prime minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi. Work on super hit tv serials like "Yeh joh hai zindagi" which had taken the telle by storm in India during the 80s. "Circus" and Shahrukh khan, the reigning king of Bollywood. It was very inspiring to hear him speak with bubbling enthusiasm and sheer passion long after retirement. He said "more importantly it was the team and the kind of people I worked with. It was like hanging out with some good buddies and that was work".
Did it make any difference ... you bet. Millions of people all around India would be glued to their tv sets to watch, to kill their everyday rut. I take this opportunity to thank uncleji for all his hard work in bringing those wonderful shows while I was growing up.

Will write more as I talk to more people. All in the quest of my vocation ...

Video recommendation

I am starting a weekly video recommendation on my blog. Videos featured are intended to have high interest content.

To start with here is a talk by Joshua Prince-Ramus: Designing the Seattle Central Library.



Architect Joshua Prince-Ramus takes the audience on dazzling, dizzying virtual tours of three recent projects, including the Seattle Central Library, Museum Plaza in Louisville and Dallas' Charles Wyly Theater. Adopting what he describes as a "hyper-rational" approach to architecture, Joshua Prince-Ramus explains how logic can act as the catalyst for extraordinary buildings. He previews an ambitious new theater in Dallas, a hyper-customizable performance space in which everything -- stage, seats, walls, ceiling -- can be altered on the fly. He concludes with an animation of the 1.1-million-square-foot Museum Plaza in Louisville, scheduled for completion in 2010. (borrowed from ted.com)

Sanjaya says

The last verse in Bhagavadgita.
Sanjayauvacha (Sanjaya says)

Yatra yogeshwara Krishna ,Yatra partho dhanurdharaha
Tatra shri vijayo bhutir druvo nitir matir mama

Sanjaya concludes with his opinion that,
Where there is vision and acumen (Yogeshwara Krishna) along with readiness to act with conviction (Dhanurdharaha Partha) there would be wealth, success and justice.

Snakes and ladders

We all have played this game while growing up. Easy board game on a hot holiday summer afternoon. I recall having played this game with various changes in rules to accommodate the younger members of the family. I remember my sister (much younger than I am) would get to roll the dice again if she was bitten by a snake. The snake bites were not poisonous for her once she had crossed the block marked ninety. It was still interesting to play instead of frying oneself in hot south indian sun.

Recently I was introduced to a very different view of this game. My niece who is about 3 years old comes up with this theory. She says when you are at the tail of a snake you race like a snake and move up to the block where it has its head. And when you hit the top of a ladder you slide down to the block at the bottom of the ladder. I felt this was very intuitive. If you look at this theory closely snake is not considered dangerous, its positive qualities of swiftness in motion defines the rule. The idea of going down the ladder too fits well with the laws of gravity. We all know it is hard to climb up the ladder and easy to slide down. Well I buy the argument, I might play it like this the next time around.

Happy Independence day

Nehru's speech on the eve of Indian independence 1947.

Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.


Some rare videos



More inspiring words from our former prime minister Atalji

Vande Mataram

Rajasthani folk

Rajasthani folk inspiring mainstream bollywood melodies.

"Rajastan" brings to mind vibrant colors energetic folk with feet tapping rhythms and mind calming melodies. Time and again the popular bollywood music gurus have taken refuge in the nomadic singers of rajastan getting "inspired" and bringing these tunes to a greater audience.
Folklore is such an integral part of any land, singing words of wisdom, telling stories with young princes, talking trees, animals, daemons everything under the sky, earth and beyond.
The manganiar and langa folk musicians from Rajastan sing balads praising kings, Hindu gods
and qawaalis by sufi saints. A range which cuts across all communal barriers.

Here are a few sample tunes you might have heard in a famous bolloywood number.

Performer: Chanan Khan Artist
Songs: 1.Dama Dam Mast Kalandar / 2. Nimbula / 3. Holi Song / 4. Sufi Bhajan
Place: Jaisalmer, India


Piya to se naina lagere..



I had to share this for its rhythm.