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Showing posts from 2014

Dad’s 10th Death Anniversary

It’s been 10 years of loneliness without you, Dad. You were, are and will always be my everything.

The in-house temple

I think it was one of my cousins who euphemistically called the toilet, a temple. It wasn’t supposed to be offensive to the holy institution; just a hilarious way to allude to the place we all needed to visit daily for obvious reasons. The redefinition caught on with me and I gladly propagated it among my folks. In retrospect, it wasn’t entirely out of place. The new ‘temple’ was where I would go to relieve myself of waste, more physical than mental. It was also a place for a spiritual experience, not necessarily of the divine kind though. The ‘spiritual’ high I attained was on account of the many books I loved re-reading in complete privacy. With no one around, the tranquility was unbeatable. As long as I didn’t linger too long, I could read uninterrupted. By the time I emerged, I had won battles, flown to space, dived underwater and romanced an imaginary sweetheart. I’ve travelled in space and time since them. My physical books have made way for digital blips that need to be downlo...

Fond memories of one of the greatest people I ever met

Battery Issues

My Nexus 7 battery was draining at an alarming rate all of a sudden. It would drain 50% overnight even when I wasn’t using it. I’ve still not ascertained the culprit but I guess an app that forcefully stopped background-apps when the monitor switched-off was the reason behind the anomaly. I’ve uninstalled many applications just to be on the safer. Apps have the bad habit of running as background services in Android (not specific to Android though; is by design). I’m happy that the alarming running-out-of-juice has been finally fixed.

Y O Y

Google saved Blogger by buying it just when it was about to tank. For a while all was good. Google made some very obvious and much-needed improvements to the platform. And that was it. Since than, Blogger has been one of Google’s neglected babies. Blogger’s biggest rival - Wordpress, marches on. Blogger, on the other hand, sits idly.

Ari Halloween!

Very sad news

Came to know just now that Arvind Raddi uncle passed away in 2011 after falling into a coma when a careless driver on a scooter knocked him down. I am deeply pained by this news. The cause of his demise fills me with anger.

Dad flies with NASA

Asha flies with NASA

 

Arihant flies with NASA

I’m flying with NASA

An ordinary morning

It’s Saturday morning and we are still in bed. Arihant is awake and threatens to ruin the tranquil that fills the room. He demands freedom from the crib. I give in and say adios to the ephemeral peace. Ari gives off a shirk as excitement ripples through his body in anticipation of a morning of fun as I pull him out of his nightly confines. He has begun to pick the three languages we speak at home besides his native gibberish. He refuses to shut up. It’s a good thing I love music and presently wearing my noise-cancellation ear-buds to drown the cacophony. Ari makes a trampoline out of my stomach. His mother pulls herself out of bed, harbingering another day of privileged living.

A beauty at Reading station

Sunday Morning

Sunday morning. Arihant gets up from his cot and snugs between his parents. He bribes his mom into waking up by planting kisses on her cheeks. Tagore streams into my ears. Daylight pours in through the window and beckons me to another gorgeous day.

Making memories

That moment when Arihant rushes into the room, pulls an earphone from my ear, places it into his own...and smiles back at me. He then kindly places it back into my ear, though it doesn't quite fit. I readjust. He playfully goes through the motion repeatedly until boredom hits and he finally rushes out with renewed vigor. It completely ruins my listening but gives me something priceless in return- a moment that will drift into one of countless fond memories. I must have annoyed my father in ways not very different, in times not very ancient. I'm sure he didn't mind

Arihant pronounces some difficult names

It took me 23 years to hear Tanya in full-blown glory

I heard Dexter Gordon’s Tanya for the first time 23 years ago. I was hooked. I’m hearing it again as I write this post, but this time on my just-arrived Monoprice headphones. Tanya never sounded this good. I wish there were audio enthusiasts around me with whom I could share my enthusiasm. Dad?
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Arihant eats ice-cream for the first time!

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I have a Nexus 7. It's great but I'm not convinced one needs a tablet if a decent smartphone is available. My smartphone is really smart. It outsmarted me into believing that it was actually usable when in fact it's utterly worthless. It's phones like the Huawei Blaze that give Android a bad reputation.

I have a Nexus 7. It's great but I'm not convinced one needs a tablet if a decent smartphone is available. My smartphone is really smart. It outsmarted me into believing that it was actually usable when in fact it's utterly worthless. It's phones like the Huawei Blaze that give Android a bad reputation. from Facebook

Office

I've had to spend the usual £30+ to needlessly come to office today as my home Internet connection broke yet again yesterday. Loving the solitude though.

I'm a musician who never learned to play

I never had the patience to endure Beethoven's 9th Symphony. It changed yesterday. It was probably one of the most beautiful things I ever heard in my life. I've heard of meditation doing great things to the mind. Well, it can't be any better than drowning to Beethoven's music.

Me

Let me see nothing but the Heavens above Let me hear nothing but Beethoven Let me embrace no one but my Father Let me feel nothing but the touch of my Son Let my heart beat for nothing but love Let me die happy
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Ari says goodnight to me for the first time

It's a priceless moment. I couldn't capture it but Asha goaded me into recording it the second time it happened, minutes after the first. Though Ari had to be prompted, it's unforgettable nevertheless.

Wiring a lot of services to Blogger. Thanks to IFTTT for the big help. The only thing that I dislike in the current setting is the weird multiple lines and a comments image/hyperlink being appended to my blog posts on Blogger when sent across WordPress. I could use some CSS to hide some of the flab, but it’s still an ugly approach.

Ari after a Sunday siesta

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Ari loves to swing

The local park isn’t far from home and is often a welcome respite from the sedentary life we live. The park has a children’s corner that’s well availed by the kids in the vicinity. Ari is too young for most of the facilities, but a specially crafted swing has gained a near-complete hold over him. Pulling the two apart is a heart-wrenching exercise. After today’s mesmerising swings, Ari was in no mood to go home and the tantrums he threw attained epic proportions. Luckily, Asha was well equipped to handle the situation. We let the kid lie on the ground and cry his heart aloud while we calmly waited for his rage to ebb. It worked like magic.

Fish

We were getting tired of salmon. A Bengali housewife suggested an outlet where we could buy Ilish fish, a favourite. We tried our luck today and weren’t disappointed. It’s also a lot more economical than I had imagined.

Ari in New Delhi

This is funny! Brothers bond together and explore the world.

Ari

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Andover station, my frequent destination.

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Jim Reeves only Film "Kimberley Jim"

A few inches from the Moon!

National Museum, Cardiff I’m standing beside a stone brought back from the Moon by the Apollo 11 mission.

April Fool prank on the Telco Colony group

This one will go down as a classic, I am sure! I gave the Telco Colony group a real scare this morning by writing the following post: A policy change. This group has swelled enormously since its inception. We also take great pride in the kind of discipline we have been able to inculcate in spite of the growing numbers. But it also breaks my heart to turn away the many people who apply for membership. I fret at night thinking of the sin we commit each time we say NO to a membership request. The memory haunts me. To make matters worse, we also constantly keep deleting posts deemed inappropriate. But what right do we have to judge others? Who are we to decide what stays and what goes? It’s time to deal with the guilt of misplaced authority. So starting tomorrow, we will see some drastic changes: All membership requests will be accepted. We say No to no one, even to those who have nothing to do with Jamshedpur. We allow all kinds of posts. You’ll have absolute freedom to post anything...

Jobs (film)

Watched the movie today. Liked it. But no matter what I learn about Jobs, I can never like him.

A Heavenly Mess

I saw a group of Christian evangelists arguing with some Muslims (staunch followers, it would seem from their attire) on Sunday near Shepherd's Bush Station. I wish I could linger a little while and have some fun at their expense. I pity these folks. They are embroiled in their own mess. And they prefer it this way.

The White Tiger–Aravind Adiga

Finally completed the book today.

Telco Colony

Lost and lost

I have lost the priceless music archive I had taken 3 years to build. I don't have the heart to rebuild it, the effort would be too strenuous and  overwhelming. Depressed. I had taken great pains to build it to my exact taste. So many years of diligence wasted. Can't stop feeling sorry for myself.