Tid Bit from My Diary

During my school days someone once asked me a question which was kind of silly when I first heard. Was it a car or a cat I saw? But the fun in that sentence was the letters are in exactly the same order from both starting and end. It is the same as in the word Malayalam . I was very impressed to know such a line being the little boy that I was at that time. Today I attempt to create a silly question of my own based on etymology. Will a maverick guy be lynched and end in mausoleum if he was a Casanova ? Well this sentence might not be as interesting as the earlier one but it does have something special in it. All the main words (italics) in the sentence have got something in common. They are all derived from name of persons who walked this planet once upon a time. This is an attempt to find out who they were and what they did to be part of the English language. Samuel Augustus Maverick (July 23, 1803–September 2, 1870) was a Texas lawyer, politician, land baron and...

Change is the only constant in life while weight is the only constantly changeable truth! As we move along the journey of our life we meet a lot of people and also leave them behind as we continue on our path. Sometime we do not remember much of that person anymore but certain comment or act of his stays with our for a long time. I remember one such statement which will make all the health conscious people shudder. While I was in Delhi we had an Accountant (a hot shot stock broker now) who used to come for a week every month and do the auditing and prepare our salary cheques. He was loud spoken north Indian with lots of anecdotes and excellent sense of timing. That made him very popular with this bengali man who was just being exposed to Hindi and Punjabi languages. Our usual lunch was dal makhani (black dal with white butter) and tandoori rotis with the option to top up with a quarter makhan or half makhan (25gm or 50 gm of amul butter). Then we were young and hungry, not at all pertu...

Picture @Getty Images I was doing a project which has been designed on an Equine theme. Once you get to meet the horse lovers you are already ushered into a all new Horse world inhabited by a different type of people. I was introduced to this world in New Delhi while we got involved with the design of a farm house within a stud farm. But this time around it is much deeper and longer and I had to do some research to be able to understand them and be able to talk sense. I would like to share some curious facts that might interest many a dummy like me. A Horse Is A Horse When... A horse is usually not considered to be a "horse" until it is 5 years old. Before that, males are known as colts and females are known as fillies. However, it is still acceptable to call a colt or filly a horse. A foal is a very young horse and can be either male or female. A yearling is a foal after its first birthday How long do horses live? An average life span for a horse is around 20 ...

These images have made few rounds by email and most of us must have viewed them. But I thought these are a few frames that gives us an idea how THEY viewed us. If I can use the phrase looking through their lens... I feel we Indians (natives) were quite under nourished 100 years back. These image bear the copyright of "Underwood & Underwood ". But according to wikipedia "The company ceased business in the 1940s." I could not ask for permission for using the photographs. I would say these can be described thus .... "Some images to Remember and some to Forget"

Last month I had attended “ The Hotel Show ” at the Dubai International Trade Centre. It was a one of its kind yearly occurrence with exhibitors from around the globe descends here to showcase their products. Everything that you see and you do not see when you walk into a hotel as a guest was on display. It goes without saying that stuff that we do not see surpasses what we do with a great margin but this is not my point of discussion. It was very encouraging to see how the business houses are putting up a brave face in the wake of the economic Tsunami that has struck the entire world. Everyone was being extremely optimistic and kept focusing on to the sunny days ahead and we all know that it is not too far away. There were amazing and awesome products on display like stabilized natural plants to designer’s furniture. Similarly exciting were the technological concepts focusing into providing a unique and integrated guest experience. There was a design competition for the employee unifo...

"Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions." --Pablo Picasso On my way to work today I had a very interesting realization. As all creatures in this planet was starting a fresh day I was amazed to find how distinctly color coded is our world. As a kid I remember one of the lessons they taught us that color coding is one of the ways of sending signal to others in the animal kingdom. We were then told about red being associated with danger and subsequently our knowledge was updated with the explanation that red could be viewed from the farthest distance because of its wave length. That is why red is used for traffic signal and all other danger notice. Similarly we see water tankers of different colors eg blue, green, orange, yellow each carrying a different category of payload. If you hit the orange one you know that you have hit the SHIT! But we seem to have adopted this very well in our everyday life. While every one is free to choose and wear any color at a ...

One of the most common pieces of furniture that we use in our everyday life is a Chair. How many times so we try and find out how this chair came into existence. Some of the most sought after chair design has been designed by famous architects. Usually we associate architect with building design and we always try and distinguish the interiors designed by architects with that designed by Interior designers. Some tend to argue that Architects are very rigid and lack imagination when it comes to designing interior space. On the other hand architects themselves consider interior design as mere of decoration. Following are a few of the chairs designed by some of the greatest architects of our times. Frank Lloyd Wright once said that "Every chair must be designed for the building it will be in." This "Barrel Chair" made of natural cheery wood with an upholstered leather seat was designed in 1937 for Herbert Johnson's house and apparently was a rework on a design he cr...