Tid Bit from My Diary

The advantage for people who have been around during the seventies and eighties in India is that they have witnessed Indian television bloom, closely followed by the IT and telephony sector. Then came a revolution of sorts riding piggyback on smart phones, tablets and pads and it combined all of the above into one device. Commercial break, I remember was not despised so much in those early days of Indian TV. Advertisers then were few and far in-between and the scheduled commercials brought in welcome break for the viewers to run out and complete some chores. This used to mimic the intervals we experienced while watching a movie in the theatre. However, what irritated the viewers were the unscheduled breaks the results of technical glitches. The most hated screen shot of the television that I can still vividly remember is “rukawat ke liye khed hai” or its English translation, “sorry for the interruption”. When I walked into the TV room of our hostel during college days, I dis...

Pablo Picasso once said " Colours, like features, follow the changes of the emotions ”. With a going to be 8 years doting daughter, it’s her emotions that changes and our family follows. Very few will disagree on the benefits of involving children in decision making process early in their life. This is particularly valid for such decisions that touch their lives constantly and colour of the living spaces is quite high on that list. Colour can communicate easily through symbolism and no wonder that white have been reserved by Priests, doctors and politicians. This probably is the scenario in most households though the adults have to bring some rationale or even overrule their suggestions at times. Adults in this context usually refer to the ladies of the house as when it comes to colour schemes, the man even if he is a pro, doesn't stand a chance. However, not everybody can visualize the final looks of any particular space based on a small swatch of colour available ...

We have grown up in the seventies and the eighties in which could easily be classified as a utopian society. Since child hood we have been hammered with only one mantra and that was Health is wealth. While there can be no argument that in today’s world health as the only wealth is not good enough. We often wish that somebody taught us these fundamental principles of life early in our lives. Alas! The days of agriculture based economy does not exist any more for most of the urban generation. One could be as fit as a race horse but will still need other form wealth to gallop through a decent university to be worthy of picking up a job and start a family. Today I give a sachchi advice to the young generation. It’s important to leave no stone unturned early in life to develop sound body and mind. But it is equally important to take all necessary steps early in the life to start the process of developing wealth with a firm footing. There are other aspects of health and wealt...

The other day I was whiling away my time while my daughter was taking her music lessons. The pictures I have posted here are not worthwhile but something one would categorize as pure time pass. Nevertheless I tried to capture the moon in a night sky with a Samsung phone camera. One thing has intrigued me was why pictures from all cameras gets stored in a folder called DCIM.  What is DCIM anyways?  I now discovered that many many moonlit nights back DCIM, which is an acronym for Digital Camera IMages, became the default directory structure for digital cameras. Once a memory card is inserted into any camera, the camera immediately looks for a folder by the name of ‘DCIM' folder. That is true for every camera – whether it is a DSLR, other dedicated digital camera, Android phone or an Iphone. If it doesn't find one, it creates one and similarly some desktop image-editing programs are designed to look specifically for ‘DCIM' folders on any media inserted into the...

Image Source Advices are available in abundance these days and given half a chance, we don’t hesitate to deliver one. An American comedian once stated that it is too bad that the only people who run the country are too busy driving a taxi cab or giving a haircut. This makes it a bit more difficult for us to decide whom to listen to or whom not to and more importantly which one is genuine. There is no denying that we need advice to sail through our life, after all we cannot afford to make all the mistakes ourselves in one lifetime. The best strategy probably is to let other people advice but not let them decide for us. We need to be like the mythological swan that can drink the milk and leave the water behind. But humans are strange animals. Most of them suffer from the congenital weakness that they know everything until off course when it’s too late. Only exception being the medical doctor but that too is now jiggling as people use Google first and then call for the phy...

Virtual Reality or VR is not a new phenomenon.  During 1950s, Morton Heilig described an “Experience Theatre” that effectively engages all the human senses drawing the viewer into a on-screen activity. This vision was subsequently transformed into reality and a prototype called “Sensorama” was built and patented in 1962. When a stereoscopic bike ride scene of a movie was viewed in this, one would also have the hair blowing and complete with sound, smell et al. Sensorama pre-dated digital computing and is a mechanical device but still considered the forerunner of today’s VR and Morton L. Heilig has been referred by many authors as the father of Virtual Reality. VR has come a long way since then, riding piggyback on the gaming industry. This is also being extensively used to train the armed forces by simulating war front like situation,training commercial air plane pilots, simulating parachute jumping and the likes. It has been making inroads into the life of common person t...

Story # 1 Ramdin was a poor man living in the village with his wife and children. He was not a god fearing person but loved his God. He prayed Lord Vishnu two times every day and remembered him every moment. But he was so poor that he could hardly make his ends meet. Narod muni, the highest disciple of Vishnu was perplexed by this situation and could not understand why someone who was so devoted to his lord has to suffer so much. Where is his mercy! Narod went up to lord Vishnu and begged, do something for this devotee of yours. He doesn’t deserve this suffering. The lord smiled and the land got the best weather in centuries. The crop yielded an unusually productive harvest while the trees were full of fruits. But poor Ramdin gained nothing out of it as he did not own any.  Next time when they were together on the daily tour, Narod muni raised his concern about Ramdin. Lord said, “I gave the best harvest ever. What else can I do? If it’s not in his luck, its ...