tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16217688578954830442024-03-14T02:11:28.267+05:30Life: One Day at a Time!Sharing my thoughts... and inviting you to share yours!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02631139991975456343noreply@blogger.comBlogger58125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1621768857895483044.post-64517647607411881482018-11-11T16:29:00.001+05:302018-11-11T17:09:51.395+05:30Meaning in life?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I've been reading lots of articles on the web lately. Most of them through pocket.com. When I finish one, I see links to several more and then go on to read some of them. Hours of timepass, if you know what I mean.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">One of these articles was about meaning in life. I lost the link, so I can't post it here. More specifically it was about how to find meaning and how the 'finding' aspect might be easier than we think. I did not agree with most of it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">What is this meaning anyway? There are plenty of definitions: take your pick from the hundreds around. Seems like there's one for everyone, with minute variations. But largely it goes like this:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">1. I want meaning and purpose in my life.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">2. I don't have it already, and I'm unlikely to discover it in things that already fill my life.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">3. It has to be novel, unique, in other words "cool" or "cooler than most", or else why even bother.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">4. There is probably one single, silver bullet-like thing that will fill my life with meaning and I will then live happily ever after.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">5. I'm jealous of most of my friends and acquantainces who seem to all do very cool stuff, like yoga or painting, and can't stop raving about them. Some are shameless enough to pretend to be humble about these endeavours. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">6. If I'm going to find meaning in my current job, I must be absolutely passionate about it. Or I need to switch and find one with that much meaning and passion. With that I will probably solve the problem forever and never worry about my life being unfulfilling or meaningless again. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">... and the list goes on. You get the idea.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Don't admit, but most of us can identify with the list I just put up. We are all more alike than we care to admit. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">My point is that instead of chasing this elusive thing, either secretly or openly, we would all be much better off just dropping it altogether. Be honest with yourself: do you really find your job meaningless, or have you forced yourself into believing so because everyone else thinks your kind of job can't have meaning? Did you just pick a hobby, any hobby, just to fill that void, or do you really enjoy it and want to keep at it? Are you working too hard at your friendships, etc just to work 'meaning' into them, or do you really enjoy the company and your friends really are worth your time and energy? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I suggest we take another look at these aspects of our lives and be honest about how we feel about them. That would be a start.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The next step, for me anyway, is to identify something that I truly enjoy and find fulfilling, and then do it in <i>secret</i>. Don't do it for facebook likes, or for bragging about it when friends get together. Don't tell anyone if you can. Just go to it regularly and enjoy the peace and 'meaning'. I have a feeling that by keeping it a secret from everyone else, we eliminate the temptation or pressure to sound 'cool', and that keeps us honest about it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I already have a couple of ideas in mind and I'll start with something soon. I hope to stay honest about enjoying and finding meaning in it. Wish me luck! ;-)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Thanks for reading my rant.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Regards,<br />Aashish</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00202828576608398248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1621768857895483044.post-69765751698546141082017-12-13T18:51:00.000+05:302017-12-13T18:51:52.509+05:30Fake Stories of Success and Recovery<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I've done this many times before, and today I was at it again. I have a compulsive need to search for effective ways to treat or manage anxiety. I've been doing this for almost 10 years now.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Searching the web, I've read more articles and blog posts about anxiety than I can remember. I've read hundreds of success stories of people who apparently fought their way out of the mess that is anxiety and related disorders. </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There are many, many websites full of tips and lengthy articles on how to deal with anxiety and countless 'testimonials' to the effectiveness of the methods. I've trawled through scores of them for years looking for 'answers'. An incredible number of people claiming to have 'recovered' or 'managed' their anxiety either by simple changes in their diet, habits, and, wait for it: positive thinking, or through a course under a "life-coach" (blech!!).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On all those too good to be true and 'you can too' success stories, I call BS. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For example: A 'survivor' begins his story by telling us how good his life was. He claims he had a near-perfect life: a good relationship/marriage, a well-paying job, good physical health, and everything else you can imagine. Then, he says, he got hit by anxiety so hard that he struggled to keep his career, wrecked his relationship, and made a mess of everything else along the way. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">However, our miserable character miraculously managed to recover and is now thriving again! And he says, "If I can, YOU can, too!". He goes on to list down several 'tips' that you could try and 'get the life you want' and live happily ever after. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Incredibly, many of those 'survivors' became therapists (read, successful businessmen) themselves! Many of them have written best-selling books on how to fight anxiety (rolling eyes!).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The more I read these stories, the more I'm convinced that they are all fake to begin with. Most of them are shameless sales pitches for their 'products' and 'programs'; some direct, others not so much. Not surprisingly, these sites are plastered with adverts featuring a variety of anxiety clinics, drugs, books, and yoga and meditation courses. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Even blogs from seemingly independent individuals not directly associated with these commercial websites look suspicious to me. They all reek of fiction, and fishing for advert clicks seems to be their only motive. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The story teller claims 'I was just like you' and 'I know how you feel', but I don't trust him. I think not everyone is so lucky or capable, in my opinion, to be able to stick through it through pure grit. The almost miraculous claims also mean that the miracles probably wont happen to you, because that's what they are: miracles. Or you could look at them and think to yourself: '<i>this person is nothing like me. He was bright, intelligent, and positive to begin with. A real winner. He hit a rough patch along the way, but his innate 'positive-ness' eventually won, and so he is thriving again. I don't see anything in common with him: I'm miserable, negative, and without any real talents. I will never be like him</i>'. So, instead of giving hope, these stories take it away. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Are these stories really meant to depress you beyond all hope and eventually drive you to their support programs, books, healing practices, and medications?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At last, today, I wondered if there are </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">any</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> credible stories of anxiety recovery/management out there. Anyone who has ever written about anxiety anywhere on the web seems to have done it for a) web-traffic/clicks and advertisement money, or b) promote their own anti-anxiety businesses. I'm finding it increasingly hard to believe that anyone ever wrote something helpful out of goodness of their heart, to share their true experience so that someone out there might benefit from it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Disgusting!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For once, I'd like to read a few honest stories from genuine, compassionate people, whose simple motive is to share their experience. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Thanks for reading!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Aashish.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>P.S. A book called 'Feeling Good', by Dr. David Burns, is the closest thing I've seen to genuinely effective advice and techniques. I recommend it honestly, with no benefits to me. Enough said!</i></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00202828576608398248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1621768857895483044.post-15484653154384674692017-09-16T23:37:00.002+05:302017-09-29T18:08:36.876+05:30Getting nostalgic about... nostalgia!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It started when I was in college. By this time of the year, right around Diwali, a strangely nostalgic feeling would come over me. I could never point out what was I really getting nostalgic about, but I felt it anyway. It was poignant, as all nostalgia is, but it was also something else. It was <i>beautiful</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In the evenings every now and then a gentle gust would feel ever so slightly crisp and dry and would even smell different. It brought with it all those bitter-sweet feelings and memories. The chill and the emotions often gave me goosebumps. I also remember feeling a sense of anticipation of something very happy around the corner (the festival, but something else too that I could never explain). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I have a distinct memory of standing alone in the balcony of my hostel room one evening after dark, the room still dark behind me, watching the lights coming on in some of the other rooms. A nippy breeze blew past and I suddenly felt a surge of emotions: nostalgic, happy, and lightweight. It was as if my habit of obsessing over tiny things had vanished and I felt relaxed and free. I can recall the feeling very clearly to this day and it makes me happy inside. :-)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ah, good old days! (see what I did there: getting nostalgic </span><i style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">about</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> nostalgia itself)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I think I've grown to be more and more cynical and less jaded about all things good. Experience with lots of things over time shows you the less-than-pretty, and more importantly, <i>temporary</i> nature of everything. So I think I am less susceptible to get emotional about all this now.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But man, back in the day it all felt so good! I was young and foolish and had dreams, wishes, and fantasies. They kept me happy and hopeful. I could allow myself to enjoy such emotions and feelings. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It was easier to let my guard down and just enjoy little things in life (music, movies, and hanging out with friends being a few).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Not anymore. Sigh!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Anyway, Diwali is around the corner again and I look forward to meeting nostalgia again when I head home for Diwali next month!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Enjoy the changing season! Leave a comment here if you have a similar experience or memory.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Cheers,<br />Aashish.</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00202828576608398248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1621768857895483044.post-71251819248469501962017-05-20T23:28:00.001+05:302017-09-29T11:55:09.852+05:30Song Memories <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I feel a really good blog post coming on and I'd better write it down before it fades away like a dream does after you wake up.<br />
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A few days back I heard a song on the radio; one that I only heard a few times many ages ago, but I instantly recognized the voice. It was Bryan Adams! It was wonderful, really. So today I looked up 'One night love affair' on YouTube and there it was! I listened to it more than a few times, letting all the memories of the time when I was a huge fan come rushing in, soaking in that superb music and vocals, and generally having a party by myself.<br />
Here is the YouTube link for y'all to enjoy, if you are a Bryan Adams' fan.<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/W3SwEZ2WoUA" width="459"></iframe><br />
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This particular song is less familiar to me, I should admit, but I had his another album "So Far So Good" on tape and I wore it down listening to it. It was my treasure. Ofcourse I loved 'summer of '69', 'everything I do', 'heaven', and many more. Over time, however, I grew out of these songs, developed different tastes, kind of moved on. But listening to these oldies today felt so good as I've not felt in a long time; in fact I've practically stopped listening to any kind of music for quite some time now.<br />
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More than anything, these songs reminded me of the good times when I was young and had my own little world of dreams and fantasies. Well, dreams and fantasies somehow died a slow and quiet death and are now dead and burried. No more hopes and dreams, no more grand wishes and plans; just a quiet struggle to trudge hopelessly blank through each day. The only tiny hopes are to just survive for the rest of my life and hope to raise enough to stay comfortable. Nope, you can't tell me to just 'cheer-up, take a break, watch a movie or something' or worse 'go have some change/adventure/trip'. Those don't work and I know better, sorry. I know a lot of you still have grand ambitions for the future, more power to the lot of you.<br />
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Back on the main topic: enjoy the song, enjoy a few more like it, refresh your minds and memories, and have a good time!<br />
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Cheers,<br />
Aashish</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00202828576608398248noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1621768857895483044.post-19345461580632406292017-05-04T01:22:00.000+05:302017-09-29T11:55:23.650+05:30A Forgotten Picture<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I would like to show a picture that I clicked more than 6 years ago using a smartphone camera. The phone was a Nokia E63, that was very closely a Blackberry knock-off. It was a very good phone of its time and I have good memories of it.<br />
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But its camera was terrible, even by standards of its time. I never cared much for a phone-camera's performance (still don't) so it hardly mattered to me. I trusted my little Canon digicam for any shot worth taking.<br />
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That being said, I knew how to drive a camera, or could learn my way around an unfamiliar one in a short time. So I 'learnt' my phone's severely crippled camera, too, and what it could or couldn't do. With that camera I once managed this shot.<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WOccfkh8WPg/WQozpxm9nvI/AAAAAAAABNw/B8-HKSBB8fAVm9zs8cYyWmrQ-4dZyJuewCLcB/s1600/06022011%2528001%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WOccfkh8WPg/WQozpxm9nvI/AAAAAAAABNw/B8-HKSBB8fAVm9zs8cYyWmrQ-4dZyJuewCLcB/s640/06022011%2528001%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Of course its very grainy and not very sharp, but I really like the colours and composition. It's simple, yet pleasing.<br />
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So what I really want to say is this:<br />
<i>Camera does not matter.</i> Learn how to drive the camera that you have and it will outperform your expectations.<br />
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Cheers,<br />
Aashish.<br />
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P.S. That little white thing at the top of the picture is the moon. :-)</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00202828576608398248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1621768857895483044.post-3775957452551476222016-10-22T21:11:00.002+05:302016-10-22T21:12:17.701+05:30Back Home!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Well, a much delayed announcement as I've been back home for about three weeks now. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Dubai was nice, overall anyway. But I was rather busy the most of the time, and lazy while I wasn't while I was there. That explains why I didn't even add a second post about my 'experience' in Dubai. No excuses, just plain lazy. I spent much of my free time watching YouTube and TV.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I went around a little bit and saw some nice things and places, though. Here's a link to my Google photos album if you'd like to see some photos. <a href="https://goo.gl/photos/PG5VTnM3s4oG7mu88" target="_blank">Dubai and Abu Dhabi</a></span><br />
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<a name='more'></a>Dubai is a great city with great infrastructure, tourism, and has all good things that money can buy. But you see respect for local culture and religion too. For instance during the azan, which happens five times a day, all music and entertainment in public places such as malls goes silent in pious respect.<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">You can shop-till-you-drop in amazing malls, savour rich variety of food, go sand-dune bashing, hang out in the souks, and do much more depending on your taste and pocket-size. Dubai has something for everyone to enjoy, but I'd like to say that most of the really good things require a rather heavy wallet. Shopping freely is only feasible if either you are carrying a ton of cash, or the store is giving a handsome discount. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I've been musing today about something and I'd like to write about it here, but I think it should be another post.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Cheers,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Aashish.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00202828576608398248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1621768857895483044.post-49606531807083998282016-08-20T20:56:00.002+05:302017-09-29T11:55:41.703+05:30The Dubai Experience<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Hello Everyone! :-)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I am in Dubai these days. Arrived here in the last week of July on a 2-month work-related visit. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Out of the country (and my comfort zone), it has been an interesting experience so far. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Having heard of Dubai's glamour and all things flashy, I'm finally getting to see the real Dubai as a commoner. Well, on the ground the picture isn't quite as colourful as tourism promotion commercials would have you believe. It's a city like any other: lots of super-markets and malls, well-built roads and pavements, buildings packed as close as possible, and huge crowds of hardworking common men and women going about their daily lives. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Yes, the infrastructure is somewhat better than what you would find back home, people follow rules and queues more scrupulously, pedestrians get much more respect crossing the streets, and the list may go on. But in the end it's just another city! To me, there is hardly anything that would make me choose living in Dubai over Bangalore. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Now, I'm not saying Bangalore is a better place to live universally, but I'd choose Bangalore over Dubai any day. This is even with Bangalore having incomparably worse traffic and tightly packed crowds besides may other things. Bangalore or any other city in India just feels more like <i>home</i>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I almost forgot to mention: the place is hot as hell! It's extremely hot </span><i style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">and</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">humid. Day temperature commonly touches 44 degrees while the nights are not far cooler. The sun is blistering and even a gust of wind at noon feels like from a blast furnace. On a typically humid day, you'd be soaked in sweat within minutes of stepping out. So there isn't very much stepping-out to do. All indoors are suitably air-conditioned, though. But this also means that you can't just stroll out for some fresh air. By comparison Bangalore is paradise! :-)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I've been here just over three weeks now, so I now know my way around and have a fairly good idea about how life is here. My view of this city hasn't changed much from the first impression after landing. We could debate endlessly over merits or Dubai over Bangalore and vice-versa, so please remember that I'm only indicating my personal preference here. Yours may vary.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I'll write more about the experience in the coming days. Hoping to get a glimpse of some of the better things here and write about them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Cheers,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Aashish</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00202828576608398248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1621768857895483044.post-74534589830526269832015-12-26T20:38:00.000+05:302015-12-26T20:38:10.513+05:30The Force Awakens. Indeed!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I went to the latest Star Wars movie last evening. Like thousands others, I too had been waiting eagerly for the release, and wouldn't have missed it for anything.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Now come the obvious questions: how is it? (duh!), tell me more about it, etc, etc. Here's what I think of it, but I'm not about to give away any spoilers. Read on.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I watched all the previous Star Wars movies only a few years back. They were all excellent. I really liked the basic story-line, special effects, the characters (especially the characters), and more. However, I'm not a hardcore fan. Sorry.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So I was familiar with the past stories and looked forward to the latest movie. I wondered if 'may the force be with you' would sound as cheesy and funny as it does in all the jokes and references. The special effects are greatly improved, as is evident from trailers, so I wanted to see more of the old stuff (characters, aliens, X-wing planes, etc) in new light. The last movie came out many years back, so there was a lot of catching-up to do, I thought. </span><br />
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8d/A_screenshot_from_Star_Wars_Episode_IV_A_New_Hope_depicting_the_Millennium_Falcon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8d/A_screenshot_from_Star_Wars_Episode_IV_A_New_Hope_depicting_the_Millennium_Falcon.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Force Awakens delivered on all fronts. Tons of catching-up, superb CGI, old characters, everything. Some of the old elements are well-preserved and refreshed without trying hard to reprise old cliches just for the heck of it. So you see the alien bar with every kind of alien in it, light sabres, the Millenium Falcon (I know!!), Han Solo still talking his way out of murderous money-lenders and traders, Chewie, R2-D2, (I should stop here), and more of the old stuff that you remember and love, without feeling like its 'just the same old thing, so what's new?'. The stormtroopers could use a little overhaul in design, in my humble opinion. I joined-in when fans in the hall cheered at the entry of Han, R2-D2, the Falcon, Chewie, and Leia. You can feel a collective smile spreading across faces that are familiar. Their appearance alone makes it more than half worth going to the movie.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There is a lot of mention of the 'force', but it doesn't seem like an overkill. There is only *one* time someones actually says 'may the force be with you', and it makes you smile, again. :-) This movie was lot about catching-up with the past, and I expect to see it mature with further sequels. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Another pleasant surprise was stellar performances by the two new faces. I mean, really impressive. Refreshingly good to see these two new characters develop while the old ones step just a bit into the background. Very well done. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">All in all, a must see or even do-not-miss-it-for-the-world for any Star Wars fan. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The ending suggests more sequels, so look forward to those in the coming years. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Cheers,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Aashish.</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00202828576608398248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1621768857895483044.post-65435482815815213682015-12-25T02:23:00.000+05:302015-12-25T02:25:31.512+05:30Remember this music-player?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Remember this?</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VQb9lbhpnac/Vnxav5vkjkI/AAAAAAAAAn4/6nONkAyQ7gw/s1600/audacious.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="276" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VQb9lbhpnac/Vnxav5vkjkI/AAAAAAAAAn4/6nONkAyQ7gw/s400/audacious.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; text-align: left;">About 10-15 years back Winamp was a very popular music player on Windows computers. It was simple to use, very inuitive, elegant, and worked quite well. However, I was never much into it as I preferred Windows Media Player over Winamp and other similar software. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Since many of my friends loved Winamp, I got to see it around a lot and associate it with memories of college and hostel life. Good times! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Winamp was also probably the first multimedia software I ever saw. I remember being very surprised when I first found that computers could actually play music and video, and my first introduction to it was with Winamp. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">For a long time, this player remained forgotten to me, until tonight. I just discovered a Linux (Ubuntu) equivalent of Winamp and all the old memories came back in an instant! The player is called Audacious. It's a joy to use and the interface is identical to Winamp. Only now can I truly appreciate just how well-designed Winamp was: extremely intuitive, minimal, and beautiful to look at. And ofcourse it works very well, giving very good sound quality and very good presets (downloaded separately). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I just realized that Winamp may still be a very popular piece of software! Maybe it was just me not using it all this time. Or there could be many more souls like me out there. I just don't know and haven't really bothered to check on the internet. Let me know what you think of it, if you still use it, or have memories of it like I do. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Cheers,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Aashish.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00202828576608398248noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1621768857895483044.post-91405301956493261372015-12-08T00:53:00.000+05:302015-12-08T00:58:31.675+05:30A Plausible Solution.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As I mentioned in my last post, I often waste away a lot of my time sitting in front of the TV or my laptop, or even my phone. The general idea is to do 'nothing' as a means of recharging my batteries after a week of hard-work. But sitting idle does not work for more than a few hours. After that the lack of doing nothing except for staring at illuminated screens, eyes glazing-over, only adds to the lethargy and boredom. </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But I persist, convinced that doing nothing and resting as much as I can is the best way to make-up for all the work I did the whole week. I ignore the build-up of boredom simply as my inability to find a movie or game or book interesting enough to be worth my time. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Sleeping too much during the day only makes things worse. I often sleep through an afternoon only to wake up just as it is starting to get dark and realize that I could've spent the lovely evening enjoying the weather outdoors. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And it's not even the weekends; more often than not I spend my after-work, after-dinner hours in front of the TV, convinced that I'm just getting the rest I need and couldn't possibly summon energy for anything else. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I could go on describing the crisis giving more examples and details, but I think I should stop here.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Despite the infinite boredom, there are moments when I realize that the solution is really just to get off the chair or out of the bed and do something. Anything at all. Taking ANY action helps, and encourages further action, and so on. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">For example:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Try cleaning up your house, room, table, or cupboard. Few things give me a deeper sense of peace and joy than to sit at my newly uncluttered study-table and just take in the neatly arranged things and that squeaky clean surface. Or you could try ironing your clothes and hang them up in your cupboard. While you are at it, pick out the dirty shirts and throw them in the washing machine. Yep, I just recommended a bunch of house chores for the terminally bored! But removing unpleasant clutter can be an effective boredom-buster and I suggest you try it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To this I'd like to add one more 'dimension', so to speak. When setting out to do your anything thing in the middle of such boredom, try and focus only of this one thing. No more office tape from the past week playing in the back of your head; just turn it off the best you can. Let go of all judgement and expectations. Just tell yourself that this is just one little thing that you are going to do for only so much time, and then get on with it. The idea is to snap out of the dreamworld in your head and into the present moment in time, pay attention to what you are doing, and discover the simple joy/peace in doing very simple stuff. This is easier said than done, and I speak from experience. It is not a switch, I know. But with some perseverance it should become quite doable before long. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Hope this rang a bell. :-)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Cheers,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Aashish.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00202828576608398248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1621768857895483044.post-61354112458723614322015-12-06T01:04:00.002+05:302015-12-08T00:58:54.144+05:30Boredom.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When I'm not working, I'm often looking for something 'interesting' to do. It could be something to watch on TV, something to explore about on the internet, something to write, make, design, think-up/think-through, whatever. It could be anything, as long as its something that would snag and hold my interest. However, most of the time when I'm bored to death, I just can't settle on what this interesting thing should be. Because in that moment everything feels not 'exciting enough' for some unknown reason. </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;">In other words: I'm very bored, I want to do do something 'cool' with my time, but I have no clue what I want to do. And so the free hours and days (weekends) go to waste and I stay in my perpetual state of anxiety about not having found anything worthwhile! It gets worse, though. I waste all of my down time in front of the TV with a glass of juice and a bowl of snacks, or browsing the app store looking for an exciting new app worth trying-out, or wading through wikipedia and other websites reading-up and refreshing my useless knowledge bank about useless things. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So, cleaning-up my cluttered table and cupboard gets ignored, besides some other half-important chores. I get high on instant 'shots' of feeling wise and learned or like a connoisseur of movies or whatever by indulging in all the means to find moments of instant gratification. True happiness does not come that way, but I can't find the focus and energy to invest in any of the countless 'interesting' things I could do.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Weekends go by, leave days fly past, and days with less workload trot away, while I anxiously wait to stumble upon something exciting with hardly any patience to take the time to try a few things and settling on one thing. I mean, who has that kind of energy, right? It's hilarious!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">All in all, a complete and utter waste of a lot of time and chunks of my life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Do you feel the same sometimes? How often? I'd be very glad to know I'm not alone.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Cheers,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Aashish.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00202828576608398248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1621768857895483044.post-36653800083425198552015-10-10T20:43:00.000+05:302015-12-08T01:00:00.853+05:30Melancholy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Melancholy is good. Even though they won't quite admit it, most people enjoy melancholia more that the happy stuff. It's almost like a drug.</span><br />
<pre style="white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">You take some and it gives you a bitter-sweet pain. But it's 'pain' and not 'happy', so you feel bad and sorry for yourself. It's so tempting, even addictive, to stay in that mood. You mildly feel like a victim, so the pressure to shake it off and dive into work, or take care of people, etc etc weakens a little bit. You tell yourself that you can slack off and do nothing. Even when you do manage to break out of this cycle of self-pity and inertia, you secretly crave to get back to it whenever you can. <a name='more'></a>Doesn't that sound like addiction behaviour? A half-junkie or an occasional snorter may not look quite messed-up to the world on a normal day, but when he gets a chance, he goes straight for his stash to get a hit. In my view, a lot of people enjoy melancholy just like that. We even like movies telling melancholic stories because they let us live that fantasy for some time.
Staying happy and being productive and generous is hard. Letting go of the past, dealing with the present, and looking ahead is hard. It takes a lot of physical and emotional energy. There are happy personalities too in this world, but those are relatively rare. Being melancholic is easier: you play the victim, or a tired-from-worldly-duties person, a broken heart, or vaguely 'someone who's been through stuff', and you have a valid license to stay in the shadows without high expectations of coming out in the sun and move forward in life with courage and hope. Even the idea of missing out on a lot of good things in life doesn't tempt you enough: you either feel unworthy of them, or don't think they're actually worth the trouble!
Does that sound like you? Well, know this: you are not alone!
Take care,
Aashish.
P.S. Don't worry, I'm doing just fine. Just scribbling a few thoughts here. Really. :-)</span>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00202828576608398248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1621768857895483044.post-2567451057258008822015-08-08T00:42:00.002+05:302015-08-08T00:42:30.704+05:30Photographs on Paper: the Old Fashioned Way.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Do you remember the times when photographs were seen on paper and not on back-lit screens? Many of us were quite young when we had to wait a few days to actually 'see' the photos from our latest vacation, a school farewell party, or an annual fest at college. Photos almost exclusively existed on paper. They were lovingly arranged in an album and stored away safely. When our friends and family wanted to see them, we couldn't just magically send them off: we had to meet in person. As the photos were passed around, stories behind them were shared, along with smiles and laughs, compliments, comments, often over some tea and snacks, in <i>person</i> and not expressed with emojis. We actually <i>met</i> and <i>shared</i> what we felt and thought to each other directly about the 4X6" (mostly) rectangles. <a name='more'></a></span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And those photos have lasted decades, almost in original condition if the were carefully kept. Pull out that album from you drawer and the photos are still there to be enjoyed. You don't need to upgrade or retrofit your software to 'open' them, nor do you need an expensive, battery-hungry device to look at them.</span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Not that I want to complain too much about the virtual absence of actual meetings or roll my eyes at the way we so easily and often carelessly share photos through our smartphones. I, for one am truly grateful for some of the truly wonderful ways in which digital photos can be used and shared. No, I'm not quite complaining. I'm merely making an observation about the way it was and the way it is. We could debate over the pros and cons until the cows come home and still wouldn't settle.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Having said that, I'd like to suggest that some of that 'old school' charm of prints can be experienced even today. If you were too young to remember clearly, or are too young to have ever seen it, I'd humbly recommend that you select some of the very best photos you have on your digital devices and order some prints online. A little online search for a printing service, and a rate of approximately Rs. 7 or 8 (including shipping) should not be too hard to get. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I recently ordered a few prints online from our latest trip to Coorg. We had all shared the photos on our phones and computers and looked at them lots of times. Still, when the prints arrived yesterday, the joy of it was refreshed, as if were taking our first look at the pics. I spread them all out on the carpet in our hall and my wife snapped a picture of <i>that</i> from her phone and sent it off to our friends! :-) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We labelled the brown envelope in which the prints arrived and put it away safely. These photos will never go obsolete or get lost in an electronic mishap. And the joy of holding prints and passing them around is something that I would recommend once again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Cheers,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Aashish.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00202828576608398248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1621768857895483044.post-48761641492794644742015-08-05T00:42:00.001+05:302015-08-05T01:06:52.677+05:30A Word on Being 'Passionate'.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">*Warning*</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Intended sarcasm (and some cynicism) ahead. Proceed at your discretion.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">How often have you heard people gushing about how 'passionate' they are about something? I'm sure you hear it quite a lot. Sometimes to the point where you can't help but wonder about the reasons why everyone else seems to be so very passionate, except yourself. You might have even wondered whether you apparent deficiency of it makes you a cold-hearted machine that simply can't feel the passion that apparently comes so naturally to everyone else. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My guess? Well, its either a) these people really do have so much emotional and physical energy to pump into their multiple passions, or b) they just want to fill a void in their sense of worth by faking it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Oh well, maybe I'm being a little harsh here. There is a third possibility: people use the word 'passion' in a very loose way. They use it to describe almost anything that makes them excited. They have either not given it proper thought, or worse, don't even care to, to differentiate simply what excites them from their other sincere interests that truly run deep. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I think that's the one that's more likely than anything else.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This kind abuse of the word is often annoying, and sometimes even disturbing to me. Too many people around you and on your favorite social networking site swear by their "passions", often posting selfies to prove their love for whatever their object of infatuation is. Travel, hiking, camping, and (*gasp*) photography! You identify the list?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Taking a few little trips a year, camping maybe once a lifetime, and shooting some pretty flowers without any serious thought, do not count as passions, atleast not in my book.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A passion is deep.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Consider this example:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A person who travels to places all alone, with his not-so-fancy camera, spends time reading about photography and far more time actually going out there trying to apply what he learnt, honing his skill, improving his 'eye' for detail, colour, light, and much more, just *might* (and I emphasize might) be on his way to discover if photography really is his 'passion'. That is how deep it goes. Shooting a few macros and turning you camera setting to BW alone does not give you any bragging rights. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">While I'm sure all this doesn't apply to everyone out there, I still think it's a safe generalization. Your opinion may vary, so take mine with the tiniest grain of salt. That said, I'm sure you've seen and known plenty of people who abuse this word so ruthlessly, and so got my drift by now.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There is nothing wrong with being passionate, or even having more than one at the same time. Be passionate about whatever it is you truly want to be passionate about. But things that just give you a momentary high and nothing more don't deserve to be listed as your passions. You true passions are sacred, and should be treated as such, with due respect. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">By all means, follow your passions; they make live worth living; but pause a moment before you label every 'cool' thing as your (or others') passion. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Want to know what my passions are? Or would you like me to elaborate on something I just said? Well, I'll be happy to tell. Just leave a comment here to ask. :-)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Peace!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Aashish. </span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00202828576608398248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1621768857895483044.post-90909515636308661282015-07-28T16:45:00.000+05:302015-07-28T20:28:17.422+05:30So Long, and Thanks for all the Inspiration!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We all loved him, and we loved him straight from the heart. An outstanding scholar, devoted teacher, brave-heart, passionate leader, and yet uncommonly down-to-earth and kind. Not to mention immensely popular. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">He truly was the proverbial 'rockstar'.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I've been a 'fan', like millions of others.</span><br />
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I think I should stop here, because all this and more has been said about him by far too many. And not just since last evening, but for years and years. I just feel tongue-tied saying all his one more time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The real reason I'm writing this post is to urge you to read his autobiography 'Wings of Fire', if you haven't done so already. The book has many, many wonderful stories from his entire life, stories that inspire religious tolerance, hard work, perseverance, integrity, and respect for our teachers and mentors. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The man talks about his monumental failures and successes, pays tribute to so many of his co-workers and seniors by name, gives credit to everyone on his 'team', and proudly acknowledges immense contributions of so many unsung heroes that made India's missile and space programs a success. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Every story is a lesson and an inspiration. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We all know he was a brilliant professor (duh!) who had more experience working on the industry shop floor than in a lecture hall. But when you read the book you will begin to see just how much he <i>really</i> knew about things ranging from aircraft design, to rocket technology, to material sciences (he taught composite materials after his term as President), to nuclear power, and the list has just started. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Besides a hardcore techie, he was also a brilliant leader who knew how to bring people together and get them to work as a team, gave credit where it was due, stood by them in the face of great challenges, and led from the front by staggering example. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">When you read about his failures and disappointments (Nandi the hovercraft, RATO, SLV launch, more) you will also see how he bounced back from each of them. He was exceptionally brave. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">He was one of the first people who built India's space program by hand. Literally. There are stories of him working on rockets. So, yes, he got his hands and fingers into building the rockets that later evolved into what we see today. He's been there and done the <i>real </i>work, too. Rockets were not the only area of tech he specialized in: he played instrumental roles in the nuclear and missile programs as well. A blog post is too small for any more details, so go read the book if you are curious. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Notice all those doubters and cynics who make a face when a PSLV mission succeeds, or a test fire of Agni passes with perfection? They seem to <i>know </i>that most of these are imported, assembled, and then simply branded made-in-India. Well, read the book and you'll never side with these people again. All the rockets and missile systems were made right here in this country: composite casings, precision electronics, motors, guidance systems, and everything else. Read the book to get it straight from the horse's mouth. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Ok, how much do you know about Profs. Vikram Sarabhai and Satish Dhawan? Having worked with them closely, our dear doc has written some wonderful stories of them. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If you like, you could search in the sidebar on this page and order the book. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I'll call it a post now. :-) Looking forward to your comments!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Cheers,<br />Aashish</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">P.S. He will be missed so much!</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00202828576608398248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1621768857895483044.post-82719265495445239552015-07-11T20:36:00.001+05:302015-07-11T20:40:40.569+05:30'Serial' Obsession.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We have all seen our mothers, aunts, sisters, and friends crazy for their favourite TV series. Almost of the elder ladies we know watch Indian soaps: the ubiquitous saas-bahu dramas, the one-good-lady-pitted-against-the-world types, besides a few other varieties. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Now I'd like you to take a moment to recall the times you've joked, even mocked them for their obsession with these shows. I'm sure there have been times when you've shaken your head in disbelief at how deeply they relate, empathize, love, or hate the characters. They revel in their joy and cry with them in their times of despair. They cheer for them in their difficult times and curse in disgust for the evil character who is making their favourite heroine's life miserable. I could go on describing the relationship they have with these characters, but you get my drift, I think.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Now, here's a confession, and an apology: I now 'get' how they feel, and so I'd just like to say I'm sorry for all the mocking I've inflicted and potentially disrespectful things I might have said in the process.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So what bolt-of-wisdom-from-the-blue just caused this change of heart? Well, it's simply an observation that I too am very attached to the 'serials' that <i>I</i> watch. My list of favourite shows is quite different, though (but I don't mean to say superior in any way). The list isn't very long either. I'll only name Grey's Anatomy (on Zee Cafe, btw) here. There, I said it! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I'm very fond of the characters, too. I know a lot about them, feel terrible when they get into trouble, cheer for them when they are down, and (almost) cry tears of joy when they pull through (I know, right! :-D Who would've guessed!). So no, I have no right to make fun of all the ladies who watch their special shows. They can relate to the characters and stories too, and hence their love and/or hate for them, and that's that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">That's all I had to say for now.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Thanks for reading,<br />Aashish.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00202828576608398248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1621768857895483044.post-62926391323682824242015-07-04T21:37:00.001+05:302015-07-04T22:04:08.885+05:30A Homestay Review<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This is a review of the <a href="http://coorgchilipili.com/en/" target="_blank">Chilipili homestay</a>. We had a wonderful time there and I recommend it to anyone looking for a cozy place smack in the middle of a coffee plantation and more or less isolated from everywhere else. If that's good enough for you, then you might as well stop here. If you are curious about the details and pictures, read on.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Coorg is one of the favourite destinations for Bangaloreans planning a little break. Searching online for a place to stay, one can see a plethora of reviews and feedback about every category of hotels and homestays. It's easy to get confused reading very positive and downright negative reviews of the same place next to each other. Regardless, </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I'd like to add one more to those reviews, hoping it would be helpful to someone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If you Google Chilipili, the first few results will give you all the information you need about the place: getting there, tariffs, food, etc. There are plenty of great reviews for it, especially on <a href="http://www.tripadvisor.in/Hotel_Review-g2559924-d1584940-Reviews-Chilipili_Estate_Stay-Hoskeri_Village_Kodagu_Coorg_Karnataka.html" target="_blank">tripadvisor</a>. From personal experience, I can say that the good reviews are all well deserved. If you want to take a look at some photos, find them <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/105797335262261788363/ChilipiliHomestay" target="_blank">here.</a></span><br />
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<b><i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Location</span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The homestay is located about 18Kms off Kushalnagar (sorry, it's not in Madikeri, if thats what you'd prefer). If you speak with the owners, they will recommend you visit the Bylakupe monastry, have lunch, and then head for the homestay. I found it to be very good advice, so I'll second it. To get to Chilipili follow the Google map results and directions from the owners. On the way through coffee plantations and trees keep your eyes peeled for the signs that the owners will ask you to watch for and you'll do just fine. By the time you reach there, you'll be able to feel just how far away you've come from anyplace busy and loud. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b><i>Ambience and rooms</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Chilipili homestay is part of an estate, meaning you'll live surrounded by lots of greens and sounds of birds and insects. The 'rooms' are actually small cottages with clean bathrooms, running hot water, and your very own porch/verandah area that has a dining table seating six. The insides are not too lavish, but nicely done and comfortable. It's a 'homestay' and not a full-fledged hotel, so if you can't do without steam irons and hairdryers, bring your own! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It rained heavily during the 2 days we spent there, so everything was cool and damp and even more beautiful. While it rained around us, we sat in our little porch having tea and taking selfies :-D .</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b><i>Food (and wine!)</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Your package will include breakfast and dinner (not lunch). We all really enjoyed the food very much. It was home-quality, tasted great, and there was more variety than we expected. The breakfast had dosa, idli, along with sambar, coconut chutney. If south-indian food isn't for you, then they also had bread, butter, and jam. We were served two different types of idlis (on two separate days): the plain one, and a masala variety that had a light green colour. One of the days we also got rice roti along with a curry. The rice roti is traditional to the region, we were told. It was very good, as was the rest of the food.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Dinner had chapati, rice, curries, dal, and a kind of dish that I cannot recall the name for but it was steamed, thin, rice-noodles served on a piece of banana leaf (very similar to idiappam from Kerala). And there was the dessert! On both occasions, the dessert was not something you could immediately name (I couldn't): once it was more like part-pudding, with a crumble base, and another time it resembled kheer with a generous amount of pineapple in it. They were both served chilled and tasted fabulous!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">All the food was served fresh and warm. It was delightful.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Before dinner we were served a tray that had four shot glasses and two small decanters of homemade wine. The first day it was red grapes and white wine, and the next was starfruit and pineapple. There were all delicious to me. :-) But I particularly enjoyed the red wine and bought one bottle when heading back. The wine is homemade, so it's sweeter and non-alcoholic. If the commercially available wine in Bangalore is not your taste (being not sweet at all or anything), then do try this one. But then again, what do I know about wine.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b><i>Other stuff ...</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">You are free to roam the surrounding plantations, look at coffee berries growing, listen to rain falling on the leaves, and take photos. The homestay area has some landscaping, lots of potted plants and flowers. There are some animals too: a dalmatian, two pugs, and a bunch of ducks. They are let out for some time in the morning and are a delight to watch scampering around. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There are enough opportunities to take great photos and selfies, so go crazy. ;-)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The owners also sell organic honey and homemade jam besides wines. We brought back some jam and honey too besides a bottle of red. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Last but not the least, the owners Mr. Ganapathy and Mrs. Darshan and the entire housekeeping staff are very friendly and do everything they can to make guests feel at home. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Finally here is the <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/105797335262261788363/ChilipiliHomestay" target="_blank">link to the photos</a> again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Thanks for reading,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Aashish.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00202828576608398248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1621768857895483044.post-78825545474089951502015-02-22T20:58:00.000+05:302015-02-23T09:29:30.610+05:30Hiking<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wife and I just got back from the movie 'Wild'. It was about a woman who suffers through a lot in life and then sets out on a 1000 mile hike to find her strength. You can easily find and read the details online. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As one might expect, the movie was all about the hike: the physical challenges, the dangers of hiking alone through woods, remote towns, and deserts, and experiences with people along the way.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I'd say I didn't find it all that thrilling; it was a little slow, didn't have too many twists and surprises, and was more or less predictable all along. That said, it did have some spectacular photography of several regions of the US. Truly splendid. It also depicted the real challenges of hiking: the weight on your back, water (and its shortage), food, dealing with the weather, making a tent and a fire, the gruelling strain on your legs and the rest of your body. The portrayal was very accurate, atleast to my knowledge. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The reason that I really managed to sit through the movie was that it actually brought back some memories of hikes I've had. I wasn't alone, ofcourse, with a bunch of friends a bunch of years ago. In my personal experience hiking and backpacking sounds much, much easier on TV. In the real world, <i>hiking is hard</i>. Fun? Yes, sure, but still hard. As you walk with a huge backpack, your shoulders and legs hurt, you crave warm food and a comfy bed, and if it rains, you get cold. Trust me, you need to understand what you are in for if you decide to go for any serious hiking. In short: be prepared. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kaushik, you remember Kodachadari, Green Trek route, and the Munnar trek? Each hike was enjoyable in its own way, but also had its share of challenges. I remember both sides equally well. Watching the movie today I went through all these trips in my mind. It was amazing. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I really want to go for another hike and I know what I'm asking for. :-)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If I manage to go for one, I will post all about it here. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Take care,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Aashish.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00202828576608398248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1621768857895483044.post-61696043408327769862015-01-02T20:49:00.000+05:302015-01-28T17:00:27.457+05:30A Pleasant Surprise!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For the past few days I've been strangely craving for some 'open' space. As in under open skies, some fresh air, and some green grass and trees, you get the drift. I thought I'd have to go someplace like Bannerghetta park or Nandi Hills to get any of the scenery I wanted to see. There is no such place close to where I live in Bangalore.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Or so I thought.</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8lxtu-ITQdM/VKav796_27I/AAAAAAAAARE/mQy5uNOyeks/s1600/IMG_0034.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8lxtu-ITQdM/VKav796_27I/AAAAAAAAARE/mQy5uNOyeks/s1600/IMG_0034.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Agara lake happens to be not too far from my place. I pass by it daily on the way to work. But all these days I've vaguely seen it as a neglected pond overrun with weeds growing in the water and around it, water gone bad and smelly, and hardly anyone noticed it anymore. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, as I passed by it from the <i>other</i> side a few days back, I noticed it had a walking trail around it. Not a very well maintained one, but it still looked functional. And so I decided to give it a try today.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I reached the lake just after 5 PM when the sun had started to get lower and the weather seemed pleasant. Most of the water was covered by water hyacinth, it didn't look very 'fresh', but it wasn't exactly stinky as I had expected either. The walking trail looked alright and several people were enjoying a nice stroll. A few were jogging. Some found good spots right by the water's edge and enjoyed the view and the weather. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There was some wildlife too: a few birds (ibis, ducks?) foraged for food in the water and made nice little wakes as they swam around. A pier-like structure at one point allowed one to get within touching distance of the water. I noticed some small fish (and tadpoles?) swimming next to it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Clear blue skies with a few dots of clouds, a gentle breeze, and warm light of the setting sun made it all worth being there. The sunset was particularly nice. Not bad for a lake I thought was dead, or atleast too dull. I'd recommend you to check it out if you have absolutely nothing to do one of these lazy weekends. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I plan to go there again soon with my wife.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here are some <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/105797335262261788363/AgaraLake" target="_blank">photos</a> from my little evening walk. Feel free to give feedback! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A Very Happy New Year 2015 to everyone. Wishing you success and happiness in everything you do! :-)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cheers,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Aashish.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00202828576608398248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1621768857895483044.post-3461670450772620182014-12-06T20:21:00.000+05:302014-12-06T20:58:04.468+05:30Home Alone - I<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wify left on a two-week official trip to the states this morning. That leaves me home-alone, with more time than I know what to do with. On the flip side, it gives me an opportunity to catch up with certain things that I've been meaning to do but just didn't have the time for, and do some quiet thinking on some others.</span><div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is going to be a series of posts to share my experience of being alone at home, along with finding out if I really can keep my promise of doing justice to 'things I wanted to do', or simply waste the time away on TV, web surfing, and sleeping.<a name='more'></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, this is day one. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After seeing her off at the airport very early in the morning, back home I slept my fill today. Not a sound to disturb me, except that obnoxiously loud wall clock. The house hasn't been so quiet in months; it's almost eerie. By evening now, I've learnt to find peace in the silence. I listened (over and over again, and then again) to some music I downloaded, watched TV, made lunch, tea, and slept some more. Ah, bliss! :-)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hey, don't get me wrong: I didn't want her to leave in the first place. But she <i>had </i>to; it's work! And now that I have some time, I might as well get a few things done and make the most of it. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Writing about it all was also a part of the promise, so here I am catching-up on the writing. I intend to get back to my little hobby (electronics stuff) tonight and finish-up a little on a board I had started to design earlier. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All in all, not a bad start. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wish me luck so I can keep at it and make the most of my little 'vacation' time. I'll write more about my little accomplishments and adventure and musings in the days to come. :-)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thanks for reading,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Aashish. </span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00202828576608398248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1621768857895483044.post-62481956263488123612014-12-04T14:21:00.000+05:302014-12-04T14:42:11.625+05:30Seen on the web<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Today I saw something on a <u><a href="http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2014/12/a-big-difference-between-fuji-and-micro-43.html">blog</a></u> I visit regularly. I paraphrase (well, kind of): "A year is a very long time; it is more than 1 percent of what you are left with." Think about it. It's perfectly true and a little discouraging. Or, a little scary, depending on how you see it. <span style="font-family: sans-serif;">And we generally tend to consider our lifetimes as really long. </span>In any case, it reminds us to use our time (or what's left of it) well. </div>
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Cheers,<br>
Aashish.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00202828576608398248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1621768857895483044.post-81426574268838860682014-11-30T11:56:00.003+05:302014-11-30T21:45:38.747+05:30Rewind<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A few days back I purchased this online:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's called Rewind. This little piece of plastic helps keep your earphone chords from becoming a tangled mess. You could use it to manage other chords too, with a little creativity ofcourse. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The inventors of Rewind are Witworks. From the About Us page of <a href="http://witworks.in/" target="_blank">Witworks</a>: "</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Witworks is a Bangalore based collaborative invention company, which designs and sells consumer products created by its online community.</i></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">" </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As for their first product, Rewind, you can see and read all about it from their website. In summary, it's a nifty little idea solving a common problem. Even though the gadget itself doesn't use complex technology to solve the problem, modern prototyping and materials technology made it feasible as a product. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I came across it on Facebook, when someone posted a link to the website (and it earned him a small discount on the purchase). I took the bait and clicked. The promo video was very impressive. It told the story of Rewind and witworks: how a bunch of enterprising college graduates got together, had an idea, and then went onto make it into a product. More than the product (Rewind) I was impressed by their story: the courage, persistence, and spirit of enterprise. And this was the reason I purchased Rewind. I wanted to support the people who had the courage to go for it, and potentially inspire many others to do the same. And they were offering a better discount on buying three so I went for the offer. That, and I really like the name of their company. :-)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All said, Rewind is still a bit pricey. Sure, this may be due to all the investment costs of R&D, prototyping, marketing, and what not, but for the buyer it <i>does </i>feel a little costly. Yep, its the hard truth about it, in my opinion. Drop the price some more and it should sell better.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But it does solve the tangled wires issue nicely, just like they show in the video. Practice winding-up your chords a few times and its easy enough. </span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zonwxOt4EDc/VHq4Czf0X9I/AAAAAAAAAOI/jS2pJmwb354/s1600/IMG_20141130_112819~2_PerfectlyClear_PerfectlyClear.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zonwxOt4EDc/VHq4Czf0X9I/AAAAAAAAAOI/jS2pJmwb354/s1600/IMG_20141130_112819~2_PerfectlyClear_PerfectlyClear.jpg" height="259" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Checkout their website and the videos, <a href="http://witworks.in/" target="_blank">here.</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thanks for reading!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Aashish.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>P.S. The pics here were taken with a phone cam. :-) Just wanted to make a point.</i></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00202828576608398248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1621768857895483044.post-87316741160326582252014-11-09T01:12:00.000+05:302014-11-10T20:53:02.489+05:30New Phone! :-)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My Nokia had been showing it's age lately and so it was overdue to be replaced by a better device. After much deliberation and reading numerous reviews I finally bought a new phone. It's a <a href="http://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B00NEFFWF6/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=3626&creative=24822&creativeASIN=B00NEFFWF6&linkCode=as2&tag=liondaatati-21&linkId=2JVAZNQCF3R2CCT5" target="_blank">Micromax Canvas A1 with Android One (Magnetic Black)</a>. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's not only my first Android, but also my first touch-screen phone. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I love it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's a definite upgrade from the old Nokia: I'm especially impressed by the design of android user interface. Not to take anything away from Nokia, which made brilliant devices, but this is surely a breath of fresh air, to me. BTW, if you think this is going to be an in-depth review of the phone, I'm sorry to disappoint you: I'm only going to describe some of my likes and dislikes about the phone. If you find any of it helpful, you're most welcome. Now, on with the rest of the review.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: orange;">Googleness</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This phone is as close to a true google phone as it it gets: the hardware is designed by Google, the android OS is as pure as it comes, and both hardware and software have been optimized to work with each other. It's a big reason I bought an Android One phone. So if you are a Google fanboy like me, look no further, especially if you are on a budget. That said, the phone has too many Google apps that will try to use tons of data: location information, news and weather, playstore, voice commands, photos, gmail, and then updates for the apps themselves. All this need to stay online will drain both your battery and your data usage. Be careful to turn them off if you don't need them. I did and have been happy ever since.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>The Android One Experience</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Android One was launched by Google with a lot of optimism, and I think they are onto something here. This is a phone by Google: a company that is well respected for its robust and well-engineered products, and the phone costs you just 6.5K. It's a dual-sim device, has a dual camera with flash, a very respectable screen, runs on a quad-core processor, and runs a software package supplied entirely by Google. Not bad for my money! Sure, you could get some Chinese stuff for far cheaper and better sounding specs, but they are not Google, or Android One. :-) I wouldn't touch them. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Specs aside, regular android users may not be able to tell the difference from other android phones. This is expected. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The phone truly is very responsive to touch, the camera responds very quickly, has enough features for me to explore and use, the user-interface is just lovely (like almost all Android phones), and the open and close times between apps is surprisingly good. Besides that all you have to do install apps suited to your needs and you are set. All in all, <i>very </i>hard to beat at this price range. Kudos to Google! And yes, the battery lasts a day comfortably for most users, like me. That's probably all you need (unless your usage is significantly more than average). Most phones out there today last more or less the same on a full charge, so splitting hairs over <i>exactly </i>how long the battery lasts is pointless.</span><br />
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<span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>What</i><b> I </b><i>like in my new phone</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here's are some of the things that I'm really digging in my new device. But they are not specific to this phone; I only discovered them now after my massive upgrade from the E63.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The front cam is a plus as I can use it with Skype. The image quality is as expected for most phone cams, which is fair enough. The touch response is really good: I often barely finish landing my finger on the screen and the phone responds! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One area/app that Google has really matured in is the voice commands. The engine is excellent at understanding voice inputs. I clearly remember a time when Google's voice input software was frustrating. It has definitely come a long way! So much so that I often use it to input text into whatsapp and sms, since I'm still coming to grips with the touch keypad. 'Nuff said.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another delightful feature is Quickoffice. There is nothing else that comes close if you care to write or edit notes and documents on such a small device. Before I even opened Quickoffice I started looking for a small, simple app to take down notes. I didn't find anything to my liking. I then decided to give Quickoffice a try and was taken by it instantly: very intuitive, familiar, and <i>beautiful</i>, just like MS Word on my PC. The other apps I tried didn't even have undo/redo if I clumsily deleted a large chunk of text that was produced after 25 mins of hardwork. If you don't have Quickoffice on your phone, or haven't considered using it yet, I'd humbly suggest you give it a try. </span><br />
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<span style="color: orange; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>And I can't comment on ...</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gaming performance, as I'm not a gaming fan. Angry birds is good enough for me, so you get the idea.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">HD movie playback, as I really can't watch entire movies or any video clips longer than a couple of minutes on such a tiny screen. Besides, I'm not so much of a resolution buff. To put that into perpective, I have a CRT TV at home and I find it adequate.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Camera 'clarity'. Don't get me started on this one. All I can say is that if you don't like the photos that your phone produces, then the ones produced by a digicam or even a DSLR in your hands suck just as much. But you probably don't see it that way, and I don't have the patience to elborate further. Learn your camera before you complain.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Music capability. I'm no audiophile, but I can tell good audio quality from bad reliably enough. This phone's audio quality is good enough for my taste. But you might know better than me, so I'll reserve any claims here.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That's it, folks! I appreciate your time and patience to read my posts. Really. So, Thankyou!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">:-)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cheers,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Aashish.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00202828576608398248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1621768857895483044.post-63696901207539624142014-10-26T20:49:00.003+05:302014-10-26T20:52:01.162+05:30Where is 'home'?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Ah! Just one more night and tomorrow we'll be on our way back home. Can't wait!", wify said as she settled down in bed at night.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We were in Delhi on our whirlwind visit to her in-laws and mine for Diwali and had started to miss Bangalore sooner than we expected. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Technically, according to lots of people living away from their hometowns, we were already at home because, well, we <i>were </i>at home.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They would most probably hesitate/flinch at referring to their rented 'room' as home. To them, home is where and only where </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">you grew up, and/or your parents live there. So when you are 'home' you are at your parents' place. Period.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I disagree. Respectfully.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To me home is where I live. It's a place that I choose to call home because the place feels like it, to me. The place where I grew up, where my parents live is home too. But I left 'home' several years back to work in Bangalore, then moved to Kochi, and then back to Bangalore. Everytime I moved, the new place started to feel like home after a while. Each time I made myself comfortable in my new homes; kept them as organized and clean as I could and </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">bought things to make them look better.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> But not everyone is interested in calling their 'room' home. I commonly see that people living outside their hometowns for work treat their places of residence with a carelessness that borders on contempt. Not only do they show no intention to keep them neat and clean, much less home-like', they dismiss any references to them as home with clear disdain. Its a little sad, if you ask me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here another interesting instance. A few years back as I was preparing to leave from work in the evening a friend called. We talked casually, exchanging little updates. He then asked, "Aur, kahan hai abhi?" (where are you right now). I replied, "bas, ghar ja raha hoon" (going home). He seemed caught by surprise: "kya! tu Dilli aa raha hai?", he asked (are you coming to Delhi?). I clarified, "nahi office se nikal raha hoon" (no, I'm just leaving the office). To which he said, "toh aise bol na ki room pe ja raha hoon, vo ghar thode hi hai" (then you should've said that you are on your way to the room, that's not home, dude). You see what happened there? Self-explanatory. But somehow, I felt very mildly offended: this was a place I called home, a place I went back to every evening, relaxed, made and ate dinner, and then had a good night's sleep. This was a place where I spent most of my time when I was not working. So I said to him, "bhai, ghar vo hai jahan main rehta hoon, bass dilli hi ghar nahi hai. Home is where I live". How many of you have had to explicitly specify 'room' or 'home' like me?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, the different cities I've lived in now feel as familiar as home. I know my way around them if I were to visit them again, and I'd also feel slightly proud of that too. While I lived there I adapted well to the environment: the people, the way of life, even language (I follow Malayalam, for example, and I love it). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So even though wife and I are not living in Delhi, we have made Bangalore our home, atleast for now. My wife's remark made me smile; I was glad she now felt more at home in our rented Bangalore flat than our native homes! And sure enough, once we did get back from the trip, our little 2BHK felt as homely as it possibly could. Home, <i>sweet</i> home. :-)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let me know what you think of your 'adopted' (or temporary) homes. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cheers,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Aashish.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00202828576608398248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1621768857895483044.post-63552124033722939592014-10-12T23:55:00.000+05:302014-10-12T23:55:20.400+05:30A 'Fast' Experience<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ever tried to fast for a day? I mean really, the real deal, no food <i>and</i> no water. I suggest you try it. Once. Just for the experience of it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I tried it just the day before. Yes, it was worth it. :-)</span></div>
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I know that you know what I mean, and what this fasting is all about. <wink> Hehe.</wink></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So wify and I began early morning, before daybreak, with some <i>really </i>early breakfast. You see the irony here? Starting a day of fasting with <i>breakfast</i>!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway, the rest of the day started as a normal saturday. Except we were not supposed to eat or drink anything. Not even a sip of water. I know, right! And this was supposed to be a weekend! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oh, well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So the day went on. We killed time watching TV, making small talk, doing little stuff around the house. Around noon we went to the market for some 'vrat' shopping and wify got some mehendi on her hands. All this time all I could really think of was 'food'. Yearning for just a little bit of anything: paratha, sandwich, even toast. Not to mention a good cup of tea. Wify had some more experience at fasting than I, but even she wasn't actually that much better off than me this time. Besides, having the day off we really didn't have much to distract us from missing food like that. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hunger does strange things to you. We were both (okay, especially me) irritable, cranky, and on the verge of snapping, and getting worse with every passing hour. By evening we were starving more than a famine-hit district. Our energies (and blood-suagr levels) dangerously low, we lay around the house, hardly making any movements. Talking less and less. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The day stretched on like a whole week! </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I couldn't wait for it to end. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finally, the daylight started to vane and we could now look forward to dinner! We started planning for it. Cooking was out of question: we already needed supports to stand up and walk around. So we decided to eat out. I even dialled up the nearby resaurant and got a reservation. All set.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yessssss!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And now we had to wait for the moon to show up so we could end the fast and take our first bite in what seemed like ages. The TV new channels showed moon popping out all over the country: Kolkata, Jaipur, Lucknow, even Delhi! We watched and waited, with our stomach growling audibly at the sight of people breaking fasts. But no one mentioned good ol' Bengaluru. The reason being a cloud cover over the city. It showed no promise of letting up, so we gave up hopes of a peek at the moon. A few minutes past the expected moonrise time was all we could wait; wify did the honors first and I followed. It was over! We had survived! It had been a long day. Okay, lets go to dinner.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the restaurant we dug into our long-decided choice of food: tender naan with delectable dishes and a lemon soda to wash it all down. As we enjoyed the food, the hunger of the day felt like a distant memory. Oh, the bliss! Food, <i>glorious</i> food! Yeaaahh!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Topped off nicely, we decided to walk back home.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since then, I noticed that I've been enjoying food better than ever before. Even regular daal-roti tastes delicious and tea seems like one of the best things mankind has ever managed to produce. All that hunger also slowed me down physically and mentally. I can't explain it exactly, but I think I now feel more calm and relaxed. It feels good! :-)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I suggest you give fasting a try. You might get some good out of it too! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cheers,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Aashish</span><br />
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