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...