Nine and Zeroes

Its been a long journey and a bond that has only strengthened over time. Radha completed 90,000 kms recently and is still going strong!



With some minor denting/painting done last week, she is shining like new, and gives a lot of new hatchbacks a run for their money!

Thank you FIAT for making such a brilliant car! Hope you keep doing the same for years to come!

I'm Free - Picture it!

Freedom I believe is perception,

Freedom I believe is understanding of rights, and acceptance of responsibilities

Freedom I believe is to express

Freedom I believe is to grow independently

Freedom I believe is to know, and share!!!

The Global Times, a biweekly newspaper of the Amity Group of Institutions, gave Amity students an opportunity to express what freedom means to them through one of my favorite mediums! Photography!

This competition saw some real good moments through the camera of students of all ages, and what you see below are winners of this competition!

Freedom to smile, freedom to be with someone who makes you laugh, freedom of expression, and freedom to be is what I see in this delightful photograph by Harshit Walia...

Freedom of space, the freedom to enjoy, freedom to do without controls! That is what gully cricket has been for me always! Shashank, who is in Xth standard has been able to capture the mood just right in this photograph!

Dance like no one is watching! Bhuvan Ravindran, in his photograph, has been able to capture this expression of freedom so well!

Birds and Free are two words that go together! While it always hurts to see birds in a cage, I can spend hours watching birds enjoying their grains in many corners of the city, and flying around! Manas, in his photograph, has captured this free flight of birds!

These were the winners of this competition! and trust me there was no dearth of absolutely amazing photography in this edition of The Global Times! Do enjoy some more photographs on their website : www.theglobaltimes.in

Lane Driving is inSane Driving!

There is a 90km roadtrip that I do every day for work, and pass by a bottleneck which was initially supposed to be a flyover to ease traffic movement! Please welcome the RTR Flyover, or Rao Tula Ram Flyover!

Delhi has its fair share of flyovers, and they have really helped the traffic movement! The number of vehicles increasing is what causes the jams! not these flyovers! This one however has a history!

When RTR was inaugurated, traffic was allowed to move from Subroto Park/Gurgaon/Airports towards RK Puram! Someone in the Delhi Traffic Police realised that it was causing way too many jams, and reversed the traffic flow... So now this 3 lane flyover was for people moving from RK Puram/Vasant Vihar/Munirka towards Subroto Park/Gurgaon/Airports, and started causing the jam on the other side!

Some more brainstorming made it a time bound flyover... mornings one side, and evenings the other side! So jams now moved from one side to the other!

And finally, they have now allowed traffic from both sides to use the flyover, the middle lane is used as a the imaginary median, and there is enough space kept at the entry for a single lane traffic on both sides!

All of these approaches had their followers and critics both, but what boggles me at times is that why could they not build a wider flyover like the 1000s others in Delhi!

But this post is not about what you have just read! this post is about what you are going to read, if you have reached this far!

There is a trick to get onto the RTR... I have labelled the approaching traffic lanes as

1. Sharafat Lane (This is the right most lane)

2. Badmash Lane (Second to the right most)

3. Badtameez Lane (Third/Fourth to the right most)

4. Pencho Lane (Any other lane)

Now as the names suggest, the Sharafat lane is the slowest of them all... If you are stuck here, you are probably going to enter the flyover after 3 vehicles from Pencho Lane, 2-3 from Badtameez Lane, and 2 from Badtameez Lane have zoomed past... Let's see how this looks like from the top usually!

More from the phone!!

I am starting to like Android (but not as much as I loved the iPhone)...

A few good apps on the App store such as Evernote, Google Gesture Search, and Dropbox have made today interesting as well...

What you see below are two pictures that I took using the phone and then edited+uploaded using an app called littlephoto...

Phone Photo Phunn!

Trying out how photographs from the phone work out.. a few look nice so far..

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara

There is such a significant change in the movies from about 5 years ago to now! I get to notice it and appreciate it a lot partly because I take pictures!!!

Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag was a flop, a ridiculous movie, however it was a movie with one of the best photography examples! Take any shot from the movie, and it could be used as a reference to how pictures should be taken! I loved it from that perspective... Could have watched it without sound too!

A lot of firang movies are extremely good examples of well managed lights, nice subtle colors or loads of them when you need'em, brilliant depths of field and what not!

Zindagi Na Milegi dobara scores a lot of points from me on the photography front! I am sure there is a name to it in cinema language (Cinematography to be exact), but I would call it photography for it to register well in my mind!

Absolutely delightful light, brilliantly shot under the sun, happily exposed scenes (both indoor and outdoor) and not to forget lovely editing!

Add to this

1. a nice light combination of multiple stories running in parallel

2. interesting dose of humor and right proportions of emotion

3. SPAIN and a filmy version of what to do when in Spain documentry

4. moments that you would have wanted to live and would have lived too! I have had the doordarshan scene in my life a few times already

5. affection and love and honesty and trust and lack of it stiched almost perfectly well

6. sequences that would make you ask yourself about when you are going to do them (because most of it is definitely doable)

7. a nicely fast paced, still slowing down movie which would make you breathe in the moments you would want to... the deep sea diving or the long drive in a vintage, or the breathtaking skydive...

8. comedy where it should be, and beautiful poetry where it should be. I thought it was Farhan Akhtar who had written the poetry in addition to the movie, however it turns out that it was Javed Akhtar who did! not surprised!

9. an honest real to life friendship and moments

And what you get it is a movie that you should watch again... because Zindagi mile na mile dobara, is movie ka show dubara ho sakta hai :)

What I did not really like about the movie though..

1. it missed a bit of name calling.. there are moments where good ol' friends do not resist the macho pencho language... this movie was too clean to be true

2. part of the skydive was clearly fabricated... though it did seem that these guys had jumped, I would have loved to see the first tandem jump or atleast a mention of it before they make a solo jump... It is IMPOSSIBLE to have your first jump as a SOLO jump! that kind of was messy!

3. Hritik Roshan gets to kiss Kat! not fair! :P

A lot of us could compare the roles of the three, and say Farhan got a better role than Hritik or Abhay did a better job than Farhan or similar things... I however feel that the three were so good in what they were supposed to do that I would not really want a change if given a choice!

Here is a little about the two festivals that you can see in the movie too..

1. Tomatina Festival : An annual festival (last wednesday of August) held in Valencian Town of Bunyol! Approximately 40000 kilograms of Tomatoes sees the end of day on that last wednesday. The great Spanish tomato fight starts around midday for an hour or so in Valencian... The small town with a population of about 9000 is a host to over 30000 people during the annual Tomatina festival, so its best to stay in nearby towns and take a train to the festival!

2. Pamplone Bull Run : Again annual in nature, this is held every year mid-July in the city of Pamplone, Spain. It is a part of the San Fermin festival, held in honor of Saint Fermin. The bull run starts every day at 0800 hrs and continues from 7th of July through the 14th of July. Participants have to be 18+ years of age and can run a total of 826 meters from start to finish, unless they are finished early by the raging bulls! :)

Back to the movie! Myself and Pooja really enjoyed it! and I would love to watch it Dobara!

Oh, and did I mention that Farhan Akhtar, more often than not, sounds like he is about to cry!

Who are you gonna be?

One of my online friend's recently asked a question on FB about what people remember of their childhood dreams, what did they want to be when they grew up!!

Some pretty interesting answers could be read as responses, and what I see if that after a certain time in your life, money stops playing a role and becomes a necessary accomodity, and satisfaction and peace starts moving towards the top of the "wanted" list! Does it happen because people have earned enough, or know that they have enough capability to earn for their current and future needs, or anything else, and it could be answered in many ways! What is for sure in all of these answers is that with time we tend to set our priorities right, and have enough clarity or atleast we feel that we have enough clarity to move in the direction we "want" to move in, and not what the society or peer pressure or competition "makes" us move in!

And I believe its never too late to be what you wanted to be! or to realise what you really were, what you have become and what needs to be done to be what you've always been or wanted to become!

That's all that I have to say about that!

With that line from Forrest Gump, here is another quote from it!

Jenny Curran: Do you ever dream, Forrest, about who you're gonna be?

Forrest Gump: Who I'm gonna be?

Jenny Curran: Yeah.

Forrest Gump: Aren't-aren't I going to be me?

Long break!

This has been the longest that I have stayed away from Chai ki Dukaan... Unbelievable actually... there is so much that I want to get out of my system, but am not really finding the time or energy to do it that it has started killing me inside!

But that would continue happening, there would be something or the other that is going to be an issue, something that would be a challenge, something that would not go the way I want, or something that I would not be able to resolve or even think of a resolution! that happens! will happen!

What is important, and extremely, is that I continue to remind myself that are better days ahead! There is something nicer about everything that is happening! there is!

I need to repeat this to myself a number of times these days!

On a brighter note...

Saw a few good movies in the last few weeks!

Delhi Belly! How come I did not know that it was partly an english movie dubbed in Hindi? I ended up being confused for the first few 10 minutes of Delhi Belly trying to understand why the lips were not in sync with what was being said!

Also there is a certain music and flow in in how Delhi junta swears, and it was totally lacking in this movies irrespective this movie being capable of killing someone with an OD of onscreen swearing! Vijay Raaz is the only guy who is delivering the hindi Pencho Maacho words the way they sound like more often than not! Infact he did that brilliantly in "Pran Jaye per Shaan na Jaye". If you have not seen that one yet, you should!

Delhi Belly made everyone laugh! and hard! Mostly the situational comedy part, and at times the swearing part! but it did make everyone laugh! It was a through and through fun movie to watch, almost at the same pace right from start to finish! and post this movie, we were wondering as to where did the time go!

A plot that has been repeated a number of times in one way or the other, and still was as entertaining as it could be!

I also saw X-men First class! For people who have not seen the first 4, this might not make a lot of sense, however it was a movie which is full of action, and is not loud at all either! Very fine crafted action is what I like about all the X-men series and this one was no different! Needless to say, a must watch if you are following the series so far!

Also saw a total waste of time, Double Dhamaal, and its not really worth talking about here!

More later....

Paper or Digital?

With almost every good magazine having archives available online (FOC- Free of Cost) its a tough call to subscribe for a paper print! Nothing beats the good old romance of a paper print, but is it worth it?

Some magazines that I am referring to here :

• Outlook Traveler
• The Economist
• Business Today

Not to forget that a most magazines are available in online editions for reading on laptops/tablets/e-readers and other handhelds!

Still a paper print? May be! or maybe not!

a lot has been going on

Crank Highvoltage Sharepoint Exchange Lotus Notes Lotus Live Office 365 Status update Deadline Traffic 1.25 hours Chickpeas Green Tea Flat Tyre Coffee with one sugar Swipe in Monitor Torrents Palio RED Toll Plaza Southie Bade Achhe Lagte hain Morning Playlist Lenovo Thinkpad L420 Phone call Birthday Party MBlaze Notes Cold Coffee Caller Ring Back Tone Printout Fridge Magnet Boss Dubai Busy 24 Dell Formals Rain Drive Orccha Blackberry Painting Windows Reinstall Photography Macbook Pro Talking Tom Sudoku 90% Mustang Nonsense Commitment Ring Loneliness Tourist Birds Palmolive Transformers Bose Kungfu Panda

Panipat to Jalandhar (NH1)

If you are planning to take a roadtrip which involves NH1, and the stretch after Panipat, plan it with some buffer time on your hands... 6 laning of the highway between Panipat and Jalandhar is on full swing, and the good news is that once its complete you would be crossing over a 100 flyovers on this stretch with state of the art roads gently massaging your cars tires throughout!

The bad news, however, is that most of the time you would be driving in service lanes (which are at times 2 lanes wide, but mostly just about 1.5) along with the local traffic and highway traffic! The situation is bad while going towards Jalandhar though, its a little better while coming back!

I drove to Kurukshetra this weekend, and what takes just about 1.25 hours from Panipat, took me well over 2 hours! And the worst part being that I missed a beautiful sunflower field on the way for some reason! I really would have loved to take a few pictures there!

Cha Time Photus!

Tea Time Photographs...

Rose Petals from Vrindavan

New Delhi And Pictures (Lodhi Garden, T3 Terminal)

Some stills from New Delhi...

From the mosque next to Bada Gumbad, Lodhi Gardens, New Delhi...

Trollies stacked together at the T3 Terminal of Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi

I see ICICI

My ICICI debit card went kaput, and I had to request for a new one! There are two ways to do it...

1. You could walk into a branch and take a duplicate card, which is generic and does not have your name on it... its just a start-up kit(I assume)and they associate the card to your bank account.

2. You request for a new card either online or through the branch. In this case you get a card within 7 days after 4 days of you placing the request! and you get the pin in a separate mailer!

In both cases you are charged a fee!

Everything is great so far!

What caught my attention is that the new card that I got is valid till 2021... 10 years from now! There is no way this card can be used for the next 10 years if one is an active debit card user, and thus ICICI is all set to earn a fee from cards which become unusable after a few years!

Smart!

On the other hand, my credit card, which is from Citibank comes with a 3 year validity. (I am sure there is a logic and business reasoning behind the validity of these cards, which I am not aware of and would love to know and understand) I am not a debit card user, and at most I use it for an ATM transaction once or twice (tops) in a month. My maximum use of the debit card is for online transfers, and I might actually keep this card active, alive, and intact!

Do you know if other banks also play the same game? What is the default validity of their debit cards?

Places - London

Two girls walk past a municipal building next to London's famous Tower Bridge (more popularly known as the London Bridge)

The last passenger @ London Tube's Bow Road Station

See more photographs on my FACEBOOK Page or AndPictures

A few stories untold

Please do visit www.andpictures.net

...

One of the most tiring, both physically and mentally, weeks is finally coming to an end! a good one at that!!!

Thank you uncle God!

Drinking guidelines!

"Don't drink to feel better, drink to feel even better!"

How do you know, 2010

Have you checked AndPictures yet? Here is the link : www.andpictures.net

Chaibaaz Dithi (चायबाज़ दिथी )

My mailbox conked off, and I could not check this email from Dithi for a while, and when I finally managed to access it today, I felt so super nice reading her thoughts about Tea..

Dithi is an amazing artist based out of Geneva, and I do not have words to express how beautiful her work is! Please do visit the links at the end of this post to explore Dithi's world of mind blowing paintings!

- Why Tea?

....‘coz it makes you feel like you are home, you are warm and everything is going to be fine when you take that first morning sip. Almost 4 years in Europe (read: being surrounded by café lovers & Espresso fanatics) couldn’t take the chai lover out of me, if anything, I hold on to it more sip by sip.

- What if you had to make a flavor of tea, what would you have in it, other than Tea leaves?

Grated juicy ginger bits, crushed Cardamom/Elaichi, cloves, a couple of crushed black peppercorns, a nice ghazal and some sufi songs in a husky female voice!

- What would you do if you were given two days in a tea estate?

I would try not to get lost!! Wait, let me explain where that came from: Way back, sometime in the 70s, my parents were visiting the Makaibari tea estate and my mom and sis could not find their way back from the ladies room for a little while. That made a rather scary picture of a tea estate in my mind, of being this endless 3D maze that you never find your way out of if you get lost.

That image was crushed (phew!) on our visit to the Munnar tea estate. It’s unreal; you are surrounded by beauty and serenity. I’d like to just listen to good music, help myself to a serious tea drinking indulgence and, of course, let all that inspiration find expression in a little bit of artwork may be?

- Tea in a cup? or Tea in a steel glass? or Tea in a kulhad (earthen cups) or tea in a paper cup? or tea in a glass? and why?

Kulhad on the road, whenever possible, am a Bengali who loves her ‘cha’ in the ‘bhaand’ (Bengali name for the delightful terracotta cup). At home, I like collecting handmade ceramic cups and mugs by various artists all over the world. I also enjoy observing the various ways in which tea is served in different countries, e.g. Moroccan tea in coloured decorative glasses, Chinese tea in white or blue porcelain cups, etc., that sort makes the tea drinking experience that much more exciting and authentic.

- What is your earliest memory of Tea?

Earliest and strongest 2 memories:

1. Dad having several cups of very strong tea all through the day, he still does. He is the unparalleled tea King in the family!

2. We were not encouraged (read: not allowed) to have tea as kids.

- Do you remember when you had tea for the first time? Is it related to why you like tea so much?

Because it was such a big deal for me to have tea as a kid, I remember, one of the joys of the newly found freedom when I moved out of home for the first time to stay as a paying guest in Kolkata (while in college) was being served tea for breakfast everyday! When I went back home after that, the tea-rule changed. That was such a ‘grown-up-&-can-have-tea’ moment!

- Your favorite T-shop? and why?

Many. Dolly’s tea boutique in Kolkata, love the Fab India Organic Tulsi tea, in Geneva I love buying caddies from Terre D’oc and Teakoe.

- Your favorite brand of tea and why?

I like Tata teas for the desi masala cup, Tetley Early Grey for a flavourful cup of black and Terre d’Oc blends for an occasional designer organic tea (their spicy black from India and Earl Grey from China are super!)

- Your favorite website related to Tea and why?

Many, you’ll know why when you hop over:

http://www.rangacupofchai.blogspot.com/

http://www.chaikidukaan.com/

http://www.terredoc.com/english/Default.aspx#

http://www.teacaddy.czi.cz/

- If Tea was a person, what would that mean to you? What would that person be like?

Would be a ‘he’; dynamic and strong, yet, a much grounded person whose company would be nothing less than therapy for my often-jittery nerves.

- Your favorite T-picture please...

- Your favorite T-quote

Well, I came across this Japanese proverb recently and loved it: ‘If man has no tea in him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty.’ So true!

- Your website/blog

www.deezden.blogspot.com

www.deezden.etsy.com

This concludes the Tea Talks series for now, except that I am to answer these questions and post them here :)

Have you checked AndPictures yet? Here is the link : www.andpictures.net