Thursday, June 28, 2007

Stories of Feral Children

Yesterday, I was going through an India Today book in a good, upscale restaurant near Koramangala. The cover was fantastic and a copy of a very popular Beatles album called Sgt Pepper....There was a series of Photos which told the story of India through the 60 years of Independence.

But one photo caught my eye. It was a boy who was "captured" and brought back to the human society after being brought up by Wolves in 1958. The India Today referred to him as "Ramu, The Wolf Boy".

The photo remained in my mind the whole day.

Mowgli from the Jungle Book, Tarzan are all examples of "feral children".

In reality, there have been a lot of documented stories, where children have been raised by animals, and there is a term for them called "Feral Child". The behaviour of a Feral Child is a very intriguing study. They are not exactly "human", if you understand what i mean. It seems they lack empathy, joy, laughter (which come due to social environments)

When completely brought up by animals the feral child exhibits behaviors (within physical limits) almost entirely like those of the particular animal-carer, including its variety of instincts, fear or indifference to humans

The website Feral Children.com contains all the documented Feral Children.

One helluva really interesting read was the story of Amala and Kamala : The Diary of the Wolf-Children of Midnapore (India) (which is more than 40 pages with lots of photos.) You can find it here.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Puzzle

You have two boxes full of pills.
- Box A contains pills of type "A"
- Box B contains pills of type "B"

Both Box A and Box B have equal number of "A" pills and "B" pills respectively.

The "A" pills and the "B" pills are physically identical and one cannot differentiate between them.

You are supposed to take one "A" pill and one "B" pill everyday exactly .
Any other combination ( AA, BB or just A or just B) will have disastrous side effects.

One day, you take one pill from Box A in your hand, and accidentally 2 "B" pills falls on your hand. (So your hand has the pills A, B,B ) and these are indistinguishable from each other.

How will you avoid any disastrous side effects ?

PS :- Found this on Outlook (the magazine) this month. :-)

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Underground Music Radio

India is a country where Rock and Metal bands have it real difficult to make it big. So how can they break it and make it into the business. Here's how :-

RadioVeRVe started in June 2006 as a means to aid independent musicians across the country promote themselves. Started by a group of friends it was predominantly rock music from around the country. As the team members gained more and more expertise they realized that there were a lot more genres and artists who needed a platform for their talents. This lead to the birth of new and improved RadioVeRVe, which not only plays rock music but also Classical, Gospel and Konkani.
Music, especially contemporary music in India has been progressing at a stupendous rate over the past few years and today it has reached a point where one cannot but sit up and take notice. A wave of freshness and originality has been welling up for sometime now which should soon reach its peak

RadioVeRVe was formed at the beginning of this wave and has been trying to take the goodness of this music to the masses in a form that is appealing to them.

Today, RadioVeRVe is all set to ride this wave and change the face of entertainment in India. Drawing on the experience of the many years of intimate involvement with the music scene, the technology advantage and the limitless possibility of the world wide web, RadioVeRVe aims to be at the forefront of the “Indian Independent Music Revolution”.


And as I log into this radio station, there is a band by name "Avial" (lol!!) playing some song. I am glad about this initiatives. Then there was Pentagram and other songs....Awesome! I don't understand why popular Radio stations don't promote Indian Western Music....Really they should try that. We have had good musicians like Garry Lawyer and Colorblind, TAAQ, Pentagram, Parikrama and so on.

As far as the software programming aspect, I could recognize one name , "Atul “Toolz” Chitnis"...He is a prominent blogger on Livejournal. And there was another guy from PESIT who is also there in the board.

Good, I'll try this online radio station.

Log in to :-
http://radioverve.com

Friday, June 22, 2007

Cheeni Kum

Teju :
Didn't I say that I had heard the Title Song of Cheeni Kum somewhere ?
Yes! finally i found it.....It is from an 80s film called Mouna Ragam.

This is the original song. It was a complex movie, complex & sophisticated music .... Illayaraja was at his best in this movie.

And of course, there is Jothe Jotheyali from Geetha in the movie too. Illayaraja has recycled his old numbers.

But they sound awesome in Cheeni Kum.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Wonderful Wonderla

If you have the time (on a weekday) , I suggest you to visit WonderLa. Out of the ten rides I went to six of them....Boy! it was fun. On weekends, it seems the place is (costly + crowded).

The place is extremely well-maintained. Lots of sporty, high thrill rides and super fast water sports (all water sports are based on water rides).

There were a few rides which were really awesome. My favorite was a ride called Mixer. It was like taking a drug and floating in air :-). We were tightly fastened with some clamps.

Another one was called Maverick. Maverick was a complicated swing like device which turns in every imaginable direction. I felt like a WW2 pilot who had lost the control of his plane and hanging on to dear life.

And then I saw a ride called Insanity. The ride had Rammstein's "Du Hast" as the background music and was really fast. This was the ride which I did NOT want to venture in. But they say this ride was AWESOME.

And then there were the Watersports. They are all side based and super fast. You can go and enjoy the speeed in almost all the rides.

It was a super Team "Outing" exercise (Rather than a team "building" exercise) !!!!

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Puzzle

What is the size of the largest square that will fit in the unit cube?

I was trying for an answer for the above question and I found an answer after googling.

Boy! I was surprised to see that Richie has answered correctly....I just happened to see his name.....I think that is you only, right?

Check this link

Jag, yeno maadta irthya .... irli...

Monday, June 18, 2007

I can't see my blog without any activity for so many days. Not that I didnt have anything to say.

Started using my company shuttle. Some primary reasons to switch to shuttle :-

* It is affordable. I spend a fraction of my monthly fuel cost for the car.
* Driving in the evening is a pain. But when you are in shuttle, I can close my eyes.

Disadvantages :-

* Routine is really tight. Should not waste a minute at office,
* Very long duration for commuting by shuttle. In car it is quicker.
* I cannot stop for my favorite hotel/ gaadi when i am using a shuttle.
* I miss my daily dose of radio
* Car has to be taken out atleast three times a week. Otherwise, I feel bad for not
maintaining my car.

Hmm .... Waiting for work is raelly boring sometimes.

Meanwhile I have started observing the stray dogs in Bangalore as I travel in a shuttle. This is a small observation I made.

If you see a well settled dog*, just look around. Within a few yards, there will be one of these :-

a) bakery
b) hotel gaadi serving chitranna and chutney
c) pani puri shop
d) pork/mutton shop
e) Darshini
f) Cigarette shop which also sells tea and buns.

If there are a few of these shops on the same lane, you find a pack of dogs. I think these dogs would have formed an alliance and they allow NO OTHER FOREIGN dog in their territory. They drive the foreign dog away.

Strangely all the dogs are male. God knows where are the female dogs.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Was checking out the latest youtube videos. I was hearing about a certain Esmee Denters a youtuber from Netherlands, who became extremely popular because of her "soulful" voice.

She has become so popular just because of youtube, that she got signed by a major record company in the US.

Her voice is really like magic. Check this video out. Awesome voice.

Also catch the Kannada song Hosabelaku by a youtuber with music and all that here!

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Titbits of conversation yesterday :-

Me : "Pallakki" film channagi idya ? ]

Bhel puri wallah : Saar aa film nod bedi.....Adaralli Hero kai alli heroine chappli ethsthaare... Director obba huchcha ansathe...

:-)

Another incident where audience was allergic to the non-macho scene was in the movie "Padayappa".

In the famous "swing scene" of Padayappa, many people started calling Ramya Krishna bad/profane names. They could not digest the fact that Rajni had to stand in front of a proud woman.

People cannot accept a non-stereotypical change in any form of art.

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Touch

There are a lot of techie companies who are going gaga over touch-based technology/ computing. The touch sensitive input devices and all that.

I guess, I seriously considered touch based technology after seeing the yet-to-be-released Apple's iPhone. Motorola quickly came up with a Moto-Rockr and this phone is pretty good too.

But what about the next step of evolution of a personal computer ?

Now I see two more devices which are in the pipeline which are creating a major hype and hooplah. Both are from Microsoft. Both are REALLY expensive. They call the technology as "surface computing" and the devices as "surface computing devices".

Bah.

Here is a quick hasty google result of the products :-

Microsoft Surface. Surface is essentially a Windows Vista PC tucked inside a black table base, topped with a 30-inch touchscreen in a clear acrylic frame.

Microsoft Milan. The tabletop computer, for which Microsoft has created both the hardware and the software, is entirely driven by touch — there is no mouse or keyboard.

Although a mouse can become obsolete, the concept of a keyboard can become more of a software than a physical keyboard in the future.

That is all okay, but everything is driven by money, if you ask me.

$5000 is a little too much for a PC, (which is, at this moment, of history of mankind) a tertiary necessity.

Saturday, June 02, 2007

Working Class Heroes

This was a song written by John Lennon with Yoko Ono. Green Day have covered this as a part
of their contribution to the Darfur Campaign. Check the strong and impacting video here

And of course the lyrics by John Lennon is like a shot in the head .....

As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be

When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and class less and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be

There's room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill
A working class hero is something to be

If you want to be a hero, well just follow me

John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band