Thursday, July 15, 2010
Oh! precious swallow's spit
Find myself in Hongkong once more, loitering around in winglok street as I often land up doing. Hongkong is one of the most pedestrian friendly cities I know. Climate is benign with occaisional showers this time of the year, however I certainly didn't mind the drenched welcome that the skys showered me with, having missed Mumbai rains. Walking along some shops kept seeing round white sev type bowls selling by the dozens nicely packed in transparent boxes sort of what we'd use for gifting sweetmeats. I guessed them to be birds's nests on being asked about them by a friend. However since there were so many shops dedicated to selling only these, that too in one of very central districts of HK, I was surprised. Couldn't figure out how they could be selling so many birds nests, considering they are harvested only twice a year in Indonesia and I would expect them to be a rare delicacy. For uninformed let me tell you birds nest look like white or brown sev (what muslims have at end of ramadan for eid a sweet delicacy), with round bowl like nest shape. They're made by birds (Swallows) I think secreting saliva and weaving them. In order to maintain sustainable bird population there r neccesarily restrictions on harvesting in the wild, although I'm sure some people might have found a way to make domestic farms for them aswell. In any case my confusion about seeming profusion of availiblity and hence implied casuality nd non rarity of buying it was quickly resolved when I went in a shop and asked price for a pack. 45000 hkd for a pack about 1kg. That would be about 7000USD per KG!
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Making of a cake!
Chocolate, Sugar added to butter S
Delicious liquid, flowing nectarFlour, choco powder sieved to savor
Whipped up eggs smoothen the flavor
Baked to satisfaction, succulent creation
Icing on the cake delicious perfection
Friday, July 9, 2010
Naqiyah's Songs
As mentioned in previous blogs, Naqiyah loves to make up impromptu songs and poems. I consider this a creatively liberating experience when one can break into a song without nary a thought of whether it is appreciated by others or not.. totally unselfconscious.
On her grandfather's birthday when she suggested some things that she can buy for him, I told her that things are easy to buy and anyway not appropriate or special enough gift for someone she loves. Instead asked her to come up with something else.
Here's what she did:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QprpXDt3XHA
On her grandfather's birthday when she suggested some things that she can buy for him, I told her that things are easy to buy and anyway not appropriate or special enough gift for someone she loves. Instead asked her to come up with something else.
Here's what she did:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QprpXDt3XHA
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
One more chocolate cake
Making a chocolate mud cake now:
Ingredients250g butter, chopped
200g dark chocolate, chopped
2 cups caster sugar2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup self-raising flour, sifted
1 1/2 cups plain flour, sifted
1/4 cup cocoa powder, sifted
1/4 cup water
----
Also Chocolate Ganache :
2/3rd cup condensed milk200 Gms chocolate
-------------------
Not sure how it will turn out since 70% chocolate was recommended, but when i tasted the final batter before putting in oven it tasted bitter. Will know in about 30 Mins
---------------------Success.. didn't have the cake yesterday, rather just finished cooling it and put on the icing etc. It was too late about 11:30 pm and Naqiyah was already sleepy.
However we cut the cake today and its awesome! Pure delight. Not too sweet, not too bitter, chewy, just the right creamyness from the iceing.. its pure evil.. Only downside is makes it feel like a sin to have such pure chuncks of Cocoa and Chocolate going into the tummy!!! All care about paunches has to be forgotten when having this one !
Satisfied.. Highly Satisfied :)
Best toy ever!
Had a ball of a time today with Naqiyah playing with balls! A big rubber bouncing ball, a bare room with walls and floor empty to do as we wish.. kicking, punching, heading, bouncing, catching, passing...endless fun. Took some small rubber balls and more fun. Balls indeed are best and cheapest source of fun known to us, imagine so many games that are popular and we love are all variation on the same theme!
Add a stick and we have Cricket, Baseball, Tennis, TT, Golf, Squash, Hockey a long list
Add legs and we have soccer, football
Water and we have water polo,volley ball etc
Hands and ofcourse we got basketball, handball
List goes on.
Meanwhile oldest known game played with Rubber ball is ULAMA
And most basic ball game is to keep hitting the ball without allowing to bounce twice, and of course playing catch with the ball.
Add a stick and we have Cricket, Baseball, Tennis, TT, Golf, Squash, Hockey a long list
Add legs and we have soccer, football
Water and we have water polo,volley ball etc
Hands and ofcourse we got basketball, handball
List goes on.
Meanwhile oldest known game played with Rubber ball is ULAMA
And most basic ball game is to keep hitting the ball without allowing to bounce twice, and of course playing catch with the ball.
PIGS ~ PIGS ~ PIGS
Came across ATMA website ( Action for tribal movement association) http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3024047926213070694 while connecting to Rahul Gandhi's twitter.
An interesting article on Piggery promotion will list a small part of it about advantages of eating and farming pigs which I didn't know:
1. WHY DO PIG FARMING?
The challenges faced by our country in securing the food as well as nutritional security to fast growing population need an integrated approach for livestock farming. Among the various livestock species, piggery is most potential source of meat production and more efficient feed converters after the broiler. Apart from providing meat, it is also a source of bristles and manure. Pig farming will provide employment opportunities to seasonally employed rural farmers and supplementary income to improve their living standards. The advantages of the pig farming are :
1. The pig has got highest feed conversion efficiency i.e. they produce more live weight gain from a given weight of feed than any other class of meat producing animals except broilers.
2. The pig can utilise wide variety of feed stuffs viz. grains, forages, damaged feeds and garbage and convert them into valuable nutritious meat. However, feeding of damaged grains, garbage and other unbalanced rations may result in lower feed efficiency.
3. They are prolific with shorter generation interval. A sow can be bred as early as 8-9 months of age and can farrow twice in a year. They produce 6-12 piglets in each farrowing.
4. Pig farming requires small investment on buildings and equipments
5. Pigs are known for their meat yield, which in terms of dressing percentage ranges from 65 - 80 in comparison to other livestock species whose dressing yields may not exceed 65%.
6. Pork is most nutritious with high fat and low water content and has got better energy value than that of other meats. It is rich in vitamins like thiamin, Niacin and riboflavin.
7. Pigs manure is widely used as fertilizer for agriculture farms and fish ponds.
8. Pigs store fat rapidly for which there is an increasing demand from poultry feed, soap, paints and other chemical industries.
9. Pig farming provides quick returns since the marketable weight of fatteners can be achieved with in a period of 6-8 months.
10. There is good demand from domestic as well as export market for pig products such as pork, bacon, ham, sausages, lard etc.
An interesting article on Piggery promotion will list a small part of it about advantages of eating and farming pigs which I didn't know:
1. WHY DO PIG FARMING?
The challenges faced by our country in securing the food as well as nutritional security to fast growing population need an integrated approach for livestock farming. Among the various livestock species, piggery is most potential source of meat production and more efficient feed converters after the broiler. Apart from providing meat, it is also a source of bristles and manure. Pig farming will provide employment opportunities to seasonally employed rural farmers and supplementary income to improve their living standards. The advantages of the pig farming are :
1. The pig has got highest feed conversion efficiency i.e. they produce more live weight gain from a given weight of feed than any other class of meat producing animals except broilers.
2. The pig can utilise wide variety of feed stuffs viz. grains, forages, damaged feeds and garbage and convert them into valuable nutritious meat. However, feeding of damaged grains, garbage and other unbalanced rations may result in lower feed efficiency.
3. They are prolific with shorter generation interval. A sow can be bred as early as 8-9 months of age and can farrow twice in a year. They produce 6-12 piglets in each farrowing.
4. Pig farming requires small investment on buildings and equipments
5. Pigs are known for their meat yield, which in terms of dressing percentage ranges from 65 - 80 in comparison to other livestock species whose dressing yields may not exceed 65%.
6. Pork is most nutritious with high fat and low water content and has got better energy value than that of other meats. It is rich in vitamins like thiamin, Niacin and riboflavin.
7. Pigs manure is widely used as fertilizer for agriculture farms and fish ponds.
8. Pigs store fat rapidly for which there is an increasing demand from poultry feed, soap, paints and other chemical industries.
9. Pig farming provides quick returns since the marketable weight of fatteners can be achieved with in a period of 6-8 months.
10. There is good demand from domestic as well as export market for pig products such as pork, bacon, ham, sausages, lard etc.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Success ?
Success is a credo that all respect. But who's to judge what constitutes success. A friend has posted on his facebook that he's finally achieved it all. I know him well. I see that from a point of view he has.. money, fame, recognition.. yes could be defined as success.
For me success seems to have a different flavor. Consider my day yesterday, I'm sitting lonely nary a sip of tea or bite of food .. through the day. Wrote a short essay on nature. Enjoyed the new realisation regarding Man's relationship with nature ~ vis-a-vis Parasitic as against Symbiotic.. Success?
Worked on a proposal for another friend, he said it should be such that it makes it a no brainer and his plan gets approved immediately. I submitted it to him.. he took his time, then reverted to me.. yes it was as he expected, requested me to forgo any credit for the plan.. he'd submit it under his name ~ sure I agreed.. another favor done, a satisfied friend, fullfilled relationship.. success?
Started working on plan for my dream project for the nth time. Had been promising my partner that I was working on it since 15 days. Hadn't written a word. Quite unlike me. The deadlock was due to the fact that I'd done one version of it already. It was deemed not quite ok. I knew the idea's were fresh. The concept was genuine. It was not getting rejected on substance rather on the presentation. However to have ones idea's disconsidered. To have the substance overlooked hurts. To redo it was difficult. Was hitting a writers block everytime I tried it. I could do everything but that it seemed. Lemme spend hours writing million other proposals, it was absolutely no problem. But that one thing which I had to simply do at any cost.. was not happening. Finally started on it again. Opened a fresh document. Started writing. Liked what I came up with. A pradigm shift to approach of our industry. A new way of looking at things leading to obvious conclusions for future action. Executive summary done I decided to reward myself. Was already 9pm. Decided to cook chicken biryani. Tandoori chicken. Even barbequed the chicken rather then baking in oven. Went whole hog. 1 AM. Food was delicious. Executive Summary had showed me the way. Success?
Success takes many forms. Many people yearn for it as a goal. A mission to accomplish. This is one way of looking at it. I hope to look at it a bit different. Day at a time. Task at a time.
Today's success ~ woke up late. Naqiyah's piano lesson in 3 hours. Attacked the project plan again. Finished off 30 pages in 3 hours. Looked good. Success! With Naqiyah to music school, she played happy birthday tune first two lines, more importantly enjoyed the Teacher's rendition of 'Give me some sunshine', I believe finally fully appreciated what magic performing, playing music can be.. Success! Went swimming, she surprised me by swimming whole lenght of the pool, unaided, unexpected... she can swim now ! Success!!! Turned around and asked me "IMPRESSED?" I was too taken aback to answer.. such maturity from 5 year old was unexpected.. my little baby is growing up fast and I'm around to capture and record the moments! Success!! Had to reward her. She'd been looking forward to a story in which Naqiyah gets trapped in Killer Whales stomach.. Had reminded me many many times. I had to make it good. Pressure is not good when i'm making up impromptue stories. Made her laugh. Many times.. She enjoyed it. Truely satisfied. SUCCESS!!!
For me success seems to have a different flavor. Consider my day yesterday, I'm sitting lonely nary a sip of tea or bite of food .. through the day. Wrote a short essay on nature. Enjoyed the new realisation regarding Man's relationship with nature ~ vis-a-vis Parasitic as against Symbiotic.. Success?
Worked on a proposal for another friend, he said it should be such that it makes it a no brainer and his plan gets approved immediately. I submitted it to him.. he took his time, then reverted to me.. yes it was as he expected, requested me to forgo any credit for the plan.. he'd submit it under his name ~ sure I agreed.. another favor done, a satisfied friend, fullfilled relationship.. success?
Started working on plan for my dream project for the nth time. Had been promising my partner that I was working on it since 15 days. Hadn't written a word. Quite unlike me. The deadlock was due to the fact that I'd done one version of it already. It was deemed not quite ok. I knew the idea's were fresh. The concept was genuine. It was not getting rejected on substance rather on the presentation. However to have ones idea's disconsidered. To have the substance overlooked hurts. To redo it was difficult. Was hitting a writers block everytime I tried it. I could do everything but that it seemed. Lemme spend hours writing million other proposals, it was absolutely no problem. But that one thing which I had to simply do at any cost.. was not happening. Finally started on it again. Opened a fresh document. Started writing. Liked what I came up with. A pradigm shift to approach of our industry. A new way of looking at things leading to obvious conclusions for future action. Executive summary done I decided to reward myself. Was already 9pm. Decided to cook chicken biryani. Tandoori chicken. Even barbequed the chicken rather then baking in oven. Went whole hog. 1 AM. Food was delicious. Executive Summary had showed me the way. Success?
Success takes many forms. Many people yearn for it as a goal. A mission to accomplish. This is one way of looking at it. I hope to look at it a bit different. Day at a time. Task at a time.
Today's success ~ woke up late. Naqiyah's piano lesson in 3 hours. Attacked the project plan again. Finished off 30 pages in 3 hours. Looked good. Success! With Naqiyah to music school, she played happy birthday tune first two lines, more importantly enjoyed the Teacher's rendition of 'Give me some sunshine', I believe finally fully appreciated what magic performing, playing music can be.. Success! Went swimming, she surprised me by swimming whole lenght of the pool, unaided, unexpected... she can swim now ! Success!!! Turned around and asked me "IMPRESSED?" I was too taken aback to answer.. such maturity from 5 year old was unexpected.. my little baby is growing up fast and I'm around to capture and record the moments! Success!! Had to reward her. She'd been looking forward to a story in which Naqiyah gets trapped in Killer Whales stomach.. Had reminded me many many times. I had to make it good. Pressure is not good when i'm making up impromptue stories. Made her laugh. Many times.. She enjoyed it. Truely satisfied. SUCCESS!!!
Lessons from the Nature
Bindi requested me to write short speech for her niece. Got me thinking.. here's my take on it:
Lessons Learnt from the Nature
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loss of lively hood of the fishermen due to Oil spill in Gulf of Mexico. Thousands died in Bhopal Gas tragedy. Hundreds of thousands in Latur earth quake and the Tsunami.
The events of gloom and doom, when faced with Natures fury remind me of famous lines from a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson’s
Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's final law
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed
Be it for resources or shelter. We can't survive or sustain without bounty that is provided free to us by the Nature. We can learn from it, or not, but its there and we are dependent on it. Now and again, we see it in its awesome force, when Nature decides to teach us a lesson or two. Its sort of a cliche to say we have to learn from Nature, and more often its misused by propagators of homegrown remedies rather than to look into deeper existential state which we find ourselves in.
Let me see what I think nature teaches us. It certainly is not just a Mr.Fixit offering sundry cures for small time ailments and cute alternatives for frequently used manmade tools.
Care for and about the environment : First thing nature tries to teach us is we share this planet. We are dependent on the ecosystem. If we tamper with it, if we don’t care about environment, when we take it for granted, we shall be in trouble. We are product of nature ourselves. No less natural then anything else we see around us. We have evolved in this environment but not so far evolved that we can dis-consider precocious condition that we live it. Droughts, famines, floods and storms are also reminders. They tell us that our food sources, our living environment, our entire existence and sustenance is dependent on our ECOSYSTEM. When one link fails it can start a chain of cascading events which can be catastrophic.
Nature shows us the past, so that we can be careful in future also that life is fragile and precious, once gone cannot be brought back: Nature also lets us glimpse of ages gone by. Species and organisms that ruled the earth. Mammoths, Dinosaures, Saber toothed tigers.. strong powerful creatures who were wiped out most possibly due to climate change. Changes in environment. It is reminder of what can be, if we are not careful. It also shows us that life is fragile and once we lose a species we have lost it for ever. Biodiversity has hidden within solutions to many problems that plaque the mankind. From antibiotics to anti malaria tablets, to finding ways to dispose of waste in ecofriendly manner, to new techniques and technologies for generating energy, to even learning deeper lessons about sustainability of species and need to control our predatory all consuming behavior. Within biodiversity we shall find answers.
Nature tells us to Learn and evolve, the power of the POSSIBLE: All is not grime though. Nature shows us other aspect. Of Nurture. Of caring for the whole. It sustains and cares for millions of species of life. It shows us life’s longing for itself. Life wants To Be. Strength, survival, evolution, we find it in nature. From the way birds evolved and learnt to fly, to the way fishes adapted to live on land. From tiny bacteria who can survive even on hot sulfur outlets in depth of the sea, we see the continuous evolution for survival. There is a very very important lesson in this. Lesson is EVOLVE. LEARN. We are where we are today, as the prime predator on this planet because of evolution. Because of our constant yearning to learn. Certainly nature shows us that learning is good. It is function of growth. Look around us, examples are bountiful and abundant.
Finally all it takes is a press of a button on a nuclear warhead to destroy all, or an oil spill to corrupt all. We need to understand that we have had privileged existence. We have used abundant resources provided by Nature and our behavior has become consumerist and parasitic. It is time to take note of the damage done. To go from having parasitic to symbiotic relation with our environment. To strive to protect that which remains. To nurture and grow for future generations. We have to do it ourselves, else Nature will teach us how, and Nature’s lessons are not always pleasant, although they are memorable and important.
Lessons Learnt from the Nature
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loss of lively hood of the fishermen due to Oil spill in Gulf of Mexico. Thousands died in Bhopal Gas tragedy. Hundreds of thousands in Latur earth quake and the Tsunami.
The events of gloom and doom, when faced with Natures fury remind me of famous lines from a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson’s
Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's final law
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed
The above events denote our dependence on our environment. When we corrupt our environment we pay a price. When we don’t pay heed to it, or don’t understand and respect its power, we also pay a price. Nature looks good but can easily be wild and furious. We have to respect it!
Be it for resources or shelter. We can't survive or sustain without bounty that is provided free to us by the Nature. We can learn from it, or not, but its there and we are dependent on it. Now and again, we see it in its awesome force, when Nature decides to teach us a lesson or two. Its sort of a cliche to say we have to learn from Nature, and more often its misused by propagators of homegrown remedies rather than to look into deeper existential state which we find ourselves in.
Let me see what I think nature teaches us. It certainly is not just a Mr.Fixit offering sundry cures for small time ailments and cute alternatives for frequently used manmade tools.
Care for and about the environment : First thing nature tries to teach us is we share this planet. We are dependent on the ecosystem. If we tamper with it, if we don’t care about environment, when we take it for granted, we shall be in trouble. We are product of nature ourselves. No less natural then anything else we see around us. We have evolved in this environment but not so far evolved that we can dis-consider precocious condition that we live it. Droughts, famines, floods and storms are also reminders. They tell us that our food sources, our living environment, our entire existence and sustenance is dependent on our ECOSYSTEM. When one link fails it can start a chain of cascading events which can be catastrophic.
Nature shows us the past, so that we can be careful in future also that life is fragile and precious, once gone cannot be brought back: Nature also lets us glimpse of ages gone by. Species and organisms that ruled the earth. Mammoths, Dinosaures, Saber toothed tigers.. strong powerful creatures who were wiped out most possibly due to climate change. Changes in environment. It is reminder of what can be, if we are not careful. It also shows us that life is fragile and once we lose a species we have lost it for ever. Biodiversity has hidden within solutions to many problems that plaque the mankind. From antibiotics to anti malaria tablets, to finding ways to dispose of waste in ecofriendly manner, to new techniques and technologies for generating energy, to even learning deeper lessons about sustainability of species and need to control our predatory all consuming behavior. Within biodiversity we shall find answers.
Nature tells us to Learn and evolve, the power of the POSSIBLE: All is not grime though. Nature shows us other aspect. Of Nurture. Of caring for the whole. It sustains and cares for millions of species of life. It shows us life’s longing for itself. Life wants To Be. Strength, survival, evolution, we find it in nature. From the way birds evolved and learnt to fly, to the way fishes adapted to live on land. From tiny bacteria who can survive even on hot sulfur outlets in depth of the sea, we see the continuous evolution for survival. There is a very very important lesson in this. Lesson is EVOLVE. LEARN. We are where we are today, as the prime predator on this planet because of evolution. Because of our constant yearning to learn. Certainly nature shows us that learning is good. It is function of growth. Look around us, examples are bountiful and abundant.
Finally all it takes is a press of a button on a nuclear warhead to destroy all, or an oil spill to corrupt all. We need to understand that we have had privileged existence. We have used abundant resources provided by Nature and our behavior has become consumerist and parasitic. It is time to take note of the damage done. To go from having parasitic to symbiotic relation with our environment. To strive to protect that which remains. To nurture and grow for future generations. We have to do it ourselves, else Nature will teach us how, and Nature’s lessons are not always pleasant, although they are memorable and important.
Friday, July 2, 2010
iRiver - Books here I come
I have been faced with a dilemma of late. I have stopped liking books I used to like.. Seems my tastes and perspective has changed. However a book in dubai generally costs upward of 80 AED onwards. So I can't go about picking up books at random trying to find out whats new and good. Most of the books on bestseller shelves don't seem to have much appeal and i'm seriously struggling. I have been consistantly making do with Non-Fiction since past few years.. but my joy and appreciation of reading did not emerge from Non-Fiction. I have been an avid, ASIMOV fan, a Dunes (Frank Herbert) enthusiast, beginning from Noddy and Famous Five, to Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew to legion of Marvel and DC comics and Archie/Richie Rich and others.. I've been facinated and inducted into the pleasures of reading by fiction. So it is sad and i feel a sense of loss that I can't find anything to read! I do pickup and read some novels now and again while at airport, in malls also in India etc from Aziz, but have been on the whole disappointed.
One way to overcome this issue was to download books online and read them. This way I could get access to books which otherwise I couldn't buy or didn't want to buy, and I could buy those that I really liked for my collection. However I suffer from dry eyes syndrom and sitting and reading on computer for any lenght of time is not easy for me. Epaper seemed like a good answer, and Kindle by Amazon a step in right direction. However Kindle has AMAZON DRM and can't accept any other books. Seemed like all the other ebook devices using epaper had same issue. I even have a project ongoing with a development house in Beijing after I convinced their CEO that developing a cheap ebook alternative that will not lock readers into particular drm format is a good option.
So imagine my delight when browsing through a sale with a friend in Sharaf DG I came accross iRiver's Story (Ebook Reader).. It has Absolutely no information on the packaging about what it was all about and what it could do. Strange, strange.. The sales guy told me, it was the first time he saw that device in their shelves (seems they must have recieved the shipment but due to lack of interest, shelved it and only now in the sale they had taken out the dead stock.) So I checked out the reviews on my BB. Surprisingly i saw that although a bit old device launched about end of 2009 (old by fast tech standards I'm sure there are many new ones better ones on the way or on a shelf somewhere), it did support open format pdf / doc! Also with a price tag of 1130 AED, it was expensive but would not make me cry if I saw tommorow a much better version at cheaper price ~ specially since it really is something I have wanted all along. So I made instant happy decision and bought the piece.
At home now, and inexplicably even the device after opening has no user manual or ny other info. Considering that i've always been irritated by tons of paper companies waste printing user manuals in 10 different languages I think, on the whole this is not such a bad thing specially since I generally never tend to read one. I have connected it now to the PC using USB and shows me its charging battery. I have no idea as to how long it will continue doing so etc etc... But one thing is for sure - It looks and feels awesome, the build quality and the design is very similar to kindle and I'm happy. Just waiting for it to finish charging ( I think it may give me some indication when it does) and to fire it up :)
World of reading .. I'm back !!!! :)
One way to overcome this issue was to download books online and read them. This way I could get access to books which otherwise I couldn't buy or didn't want to buy, and I could buy those that I really liked for my collection. However I suffer from dry eyes syndrom and sitting and reading on computer for any lenght of time is not easy for me. Epaper seemed like a good answer, and Kindle by Amazon a step in right direction. However Kindle has AMAZON DRM and can't accept any other books. Seemed like all the other ebook devices using epaper had same issue. I even have a project ongoing with a development house in Beijing after I convinced their CEO that developing a cheap ebook alternative that will not lock readers into particular drm format is a good option.
So imagine my delight when browsing through a sale with a friend in Sharaf DG I came accross iRiver's Story (Ebook Reader).. It has Absolutely no information on the packaging about what it was all about and what it could do. Strange, strange.. The sales guy told me, it was the first time he saw that device in their shelves (seems they must have recieved the shipment but due to lack of interest, shelved it and only now in the sale they had taken out the dead stock.) So I checked out the reviews on my BB. Surprisingly i saw that although a bit old device launched about end of 2009 (old by fast tech standards I'm sure there are many new ones better ones on the way or on a shelf somewhere), it did support open format pdf / doc! Also with a price tag of 1130 AED, it was expensive but would not make me cry if I saw tommorow a much better version at cheaper price ~ specially since it really is something I have wanted all along. So I made instant happy decision and bought the piece.
At home now, and inexplicably even the device after opening has no user manual or ny other info. Considering that i've always been irritated by tons of paper companies waste printing user manuals in 10 different languages I think, on the whole this is not such a bad thing specially since I generally never tend to read one. I have connected it now to the PC using USB and shows me its charging battery. I have no idea as to how long it will continue doing so etc etc... But one thing is for sure - It looks and feels awesome, the build quality and the design is very similar to kindle and I'm happy. Just waiting for it to finish charging ( I think it may give me some indication when it does) and to fire it up :)
World of reading .. I'm back !!!! :)
Atkan matkan dahi chatakan - Rajneeti
Awesome is getting lost in the melody of this beautiful song from Rajneeti. Love the female singer's voice Antara Mitra I think. The movie itself ofcourse had non of the redeeming values, and did no justice to awesome cast it boasted. Voilent, sensless , drivel! Nothing anyone can take away from it.. The movie propogates hate.. it throw mud at the Glass house , much reviled, much abused, and much underappreciated that is Indian politics. India is a democracy of 1.3 Billion people folks.. you hate what others are doing, do it yourself. If you have particular point to make about particular instances of bad governance make those points. This movie is nothing but sensless hate mongering.. Sad!
Magic!!!
Much of my conversations with Naqiyah revovle around and evolve from stories. We at times discuss intricacies of why Popla ( a japanese kid who's always scared of tiniest things) finally joins Naqiyah/Tinkerbell Nani on adventures and how Naqiyah manages to send Storm Dragon ( an increadibly powerful being who by accident lands up in our space time from past) back to time and saves the world as we know it!
Now considering that all adventures have multitude of characters all with amazing fantastic abilities, magic and power, it is finally Naqiyah who's crowned Princess of the Jungle. Princess of a Jungle being ultimate crown that gives her domain and control over all things alive and wild.
Why does this happen.. why a human , a child at that, like Naqiyah is more powerful then the magical fairies, elves, dragons and dwarfs ?
Because being a human she has the most powerful magic of all! "Difficult things become Easy" Magic. Basically she possess an ability to try and solve difficult problems , tasks and issues by abilities and answers which she does not already have. She can try and try and try until she can solve the problem. Eventually the most difficult problems will become EASY to solve because she'll try, practise and be patient. All other creatures dont have this magic. They shall either be able to do something or not! Naqiyah intrinsically being non-magical uses the most powerful magic of all to solve any and all problems.. magic of work, patience and trying something until it becomes easy to accomplish!!
Basically ofcourse this Magic is really there for all humans to use. Only some of us realise this. And many of us realise it later then we ought to. I realised this late. I would think i'm good at things and try to do things in first shot. Be happy with whatever good/bad/ugly result i got, compare myself with fellow beings who similarly approched the task as a beginner and be done with it! It is only shortly I've realised that no matter whether I can do something ok, or well, or not so well.. important is only if i've done it a few times and after having given it a through go, can I really sit back and look at my efforts and judge them. Initial efforts without trying and without applying the "MAGIC" have no value. They shall pale in comparision to the final output!!
Now I'm teaching Naqiyah training her similarly. For example, if she makes a drawing .. she'll excitedly want to show me. Although i'd appreciate it, i do remind her that I would be even more happy when she has tried this sort of drawing a few times and showed me result of her efforts. Particularly satisfying is seeing her eyes shine when she put in an hour trying to play a piece of melody and finally gets it, or joy in her voice after we try many attempts at playing around with " I love u, u love me, we are a happy family"- making a parody of it, she comes up with a version "I love u, u love me, we are a magic family, we can try everything , we can do everything, and practice shall make things easy" which satisfies both of us. Ofcourse her version goes on quite a bit longer and once she's with me i'll probably note it down. It also changes quite a bit at each recital since she sings impromptue.
I think we humans really forget what we have. Ask any of us to learn a new language - we'll say its difficult to do..! but really it is not so. A baby learns to speak few words and understand from very very young age.. by 2 ~ 2and half Asma talks and makes herself understood quite well. She's already learnt gujarati. We can too but with half as much effort learn to learn a new language. We forget that we can and imagine that we were better at doing it when we are kids. I beg to differ, and think it is not so, it is only that as a kid we put in a lot of effort. Now we can't find time for even a small part of that effort and hence we fail, but given even a part of similar effort, we'd accomplish much more now. Also other things.. like balancing and walking.. We learn when we're so young.. But does anyone notice how much effort a baby takes to do this.. How much practice and how much time.. Also for each word to learn? Repitations, and practices? Immersive environment? How about for me or you to learn ice skating (lets say) or Juggling etc.. many a times we'd think its too difficult and not try. We forget what we have, and give up on ultimate magic we possess. I believe we humans can do more .. much more than we give ourselves credit for.. All it needs is use of our intrinsic magic !
Now considering that all adventures have multitude of characters all with amazing fantastic abilities, magic and power, it is finally Naqiyah who's crowned Princess of the Jungle. Princess of a Jungle being ultimate crown that gives her domain and control over all things alive and wild.
Why does this happen.. why a human , a child at that, like Naqiyah is more powerful then the magical fairies, elves, dragons and dwarfs ?
Because being a human she has the most powerful magic of all! "Difficult things become Easy" Magic. Basically she possess an ability to try and solve difficult problems , tasks and issues by abilities and answers which she does not already have. She can try and try and try until she can solve the problem. Eventually the most difficult problems will become EASY to solve because she'll try, practise and be patient. All other creatures dont have this magic. They shall either be able to do something or not! Naqiyah intrinsically being non-magical uses the most powerful magic of all to solve any and all problems.. magic of work, patience and trying something until it becomes easy to accomplish!!
Basically ofcourse this Magic is really there for all humans to use. Only some of us realise this. And many of us realise it later then we ought to. I realised this late. I would think i'm good at things and try to do things in first shot. Be happy with whatever good/bad/ugly result i got, compare myself with fellow beings who similarly approched the task as a beginner and be done with it! It is only shortly I've realised that no matter whether I can do something ok, or well, or not so well.. important is only if i've done it a few times and after having given it a through go, can I really sit back and look at my efforts and judge them. Initial efforts without trying and without applying the "MAGIC" have no value. They shall pale in comparision to the final output!!
Now I'm teaching Naqiyah training her similarly. For example, if she makes a drawing .. she'll excitedly want to show me. Although i'd appreciate it, i do remind her that I would be even more happy when she has tried this sort of drawing a few times and showed me result of her efforts. Particularly satisfying is seeing her eyes shine when she put in an hour trying to play a piece of melody and finally gets it, or joy in her voice after we try many attempts at playing around with " I love u, u love me, we are a happy family"- making a parody of it, she comes up with a version "I love u, u love me, we are a magic family, we can try everything , we can do everything, and practice shall make things easy" which satisfies both of us. Ofcourse her version goes on quite a bit longer and once she's with me i'll probably note it down. It also changes quite a bit at each recital since she sings impromptue.
I think we humans really forget what we have. Ask any of us to learn a new language - we'll say its difficult to do..! but really it is not so. A baby learns to speak few words and understand from very very young age.. by 2 ~ 2and half Asma talks and makes herself understood quite well. She's already learnt gujarati. We can too but with half as much effort learn to learn a new language. We forget that we can and imagine that we were better at doing it when we are kids. I beg to differ, and think it is not so, it is only that as a kid we put in a lot of effort. Now we can't find time for even a small part of that effort and hence we fail, but given even a part of similar effort, we'd accomplish much more now. Also other things.. like balancing and walking.. We learn when we're so young.. But does anyone notice how much effort a baby takes to do this.. How much practice and how much time.. Also for each word to learn? Repitations, and practices? Immersive environment? How about for me or you to learn ice skating (lets say) or Juggling etc.. many a times we'd think its too difficult and not try. We forget what we have, and give up on ultimate magic we possess. I believe we humans can do more .. much more than we give ourselves credit for.. All it needs is use of our intrinsic magic !
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