Friday, June 29, 2007
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Mumbo Jumbo
NOW, LEARN THE SONG JAMBO :
So the elephant (ok, technically, a Mamalodian) trundled down watter slippery slopes its ancestors used to tumble down. It would soon die because of the tumble. It was the heart of Africa, in a time when spring was churning beneath a long ice winter. No not the ice age. At least, not the recent one in popular consciousness. It was another great flood, even before that. Back in the days of the Mamalodions. Ok, Mamalodion is to Mastadon what Mammoth is to Asian Elephant.
Now the Mamalodion, was umm... ok, just a big jolly old thing with hairy ears and stuff, but it was facing a difficulty in surviving. This was because the planet was ruled by apes. No really, just apes, before mankind like gets extinct and the apes supposedly take over. That is just a theory proposed, what already happened is that we descended from the apes. That's speaking metaphorically, like we evolved from the apes, they didn't just give birth to us. Yeah, there is a difference, each generation thought they were giving birth to themselves, but every generation changed a bit. Like they started with sticking sticky sticks into deep holes to see if ants would get stuck to it on the way out. Anteaters have a natural ability to do this with their tongues, and hence have not evolved to using microchips. Only the Raptors have done it before.
But it started with just that, a sticky stick stuck into a deep hole. Now deep holes had a surprising number of things in them. The apes of the time of the Mammalodian were still more ape than human. See, sometimes, it is just difficult to say if you are talking about man or ape in particular time periods. To be specefic, a human specimen from this time period has been missing from a long time. No one has found that piece of fossil evidence which would actually bridge the gap between man and monkey. This is not really necessary to prove that men evolved from monkeys, at least, according to most people who believe in evolution. In fact, many have gone ahead and proclaimed apes to be humans, and many early humans to be apes. In fact, after Darwin came around and suggested the idea, people rediculed him by calling him of ape descent. That is, unfortunately, exactly what Darwin wanted. So people have confused humans to be apes, and apes to be humans. Bigfoot and Yeti romp about in remote locations, some people retain fetishes for excessive body hair, and sometimes, bang in the middle of nowhere, there emerge creatures like Humanzees.
The mamalodion slipped on the mud formed under the melting ice, and slowly creeped down the gradual slope, right to a small herd of pre-humans on what would eventually be the banks of the Zambezi. The frostbite had eaten past the layers of flesh long ago. The pre-humans were afraid of it. The corpse they new, would soon stink and spread disease. The only agent of the spread of the disease they understood was the smell. They honestly believed, in their primitive minds, that the smell of rot itself was the cause of physical changes in their bodies, including those that made them retch, cough or pass out.
When they were ill, they believed, that through their noses, a spirit of death, posessed them, that drove their bodies to convolutions, and eventually death. They can be forgiven for such a thought, even forgotten. In fact, we may still, seriously believe, that people can be posessed by spirits. You can imagine the terror in the eyes that watched frostbite seeping into the corpse of the dead creature. Life was harsh in this period, one slip and you could become fossil fuel.
What happened next can be interpreted by primitive minds as an act of god, and by advanced minds as a random co-incidence. Here's the deal, its already history, its in the past none can change, so deal with it. Lightning struck a tree and it caught fire.
The humans, did not run away howling in alarm like a few ancestors before them would have done. The impulse was very much alive in most of them. Only the older pre-humans shouted in alarm. The made primitive noises of disgust. Trill with your tongue the air that comes out in a shoooooo....
Withdraw... do not venture further, return. That was the meaning of the call. The younger pre-humans dared to go where no pre-human had. They too, thought of stopping in their tracks, but hadn't expirienced life enough to actually do it. They stood their ground and gazed unto the burning tree.
And it flickered. And it burnt. The branches, the leaves, the aerial roots, all caught fire. Trees, allowed to grow wantonly, had matured for long and hard. These were the very heralds of the rain forests, for they were yet to spread life to the earth. These were the mothers of the trees of the first spring in living memory. These were the mother trees of Eden itself.
And one tree was burning. And the pre-humans, could sense the warmth in their skin. For as long as their instincts could remember, they knew of nothing but ice. They had felt nothing but cold. They had stuffed snowsoil into their mouth, and digested the grubs inside to survive. The only thing between their skin and the ice age was their hair. Clothes, were still to be designed. The heat was a new sensation for them. It was a curiosity. The male pre-humans thawed so much, that they even got involuntary erections. They were drawn to the fire, their very bodies demanded it. Those who were old, recalled of old warnings of fire spirits, anything to bright was considered harmful. The sun was a constant reminder. Every other light was a mere sliver compared to the sun. The sun slipped down to earth from between the branches, from between the openings of the cave, and even underwater. So the pre-humans had reasoned that any light had somehow slipped through there from the sun. That too, can be forgiven. Those who were old, followed suit to, protected behind the young ones.
Eventually, the herd gathered around the tree, and watched, as large parts of it fell... fell on the mammoth. The humans went to sleep, comfortably positioned around the fire, slowly made drowsy and comfortable by the dancing shadows as living flesh churned out the oils necessary to fuel the fire that burnt it - on the Mamalodion.
The next day was the first day of spring. The clouds cleared. The eagles ventured out. The Zebu searched for their lost ones. The Sabretooth tigers rested in their high perches. The Archeopterixi screeched in the blue sky laden with white clouds that had caught the early morning gold of the rising sun. The pre-humans saw a large spiral of smoke rise into the sky. They thought the fire had killed the evil spirits of the Mamlodion, and vice-versa. What happened next was unprecedented in human history. No one had expected the spirits to duel in such a manner, and both end up defeated. The fire had spread everywhere again, there were no shadows to block it. It was afterall, day. Humans, for the first time, were unafraid of animal flesh. And they were hungry. They were used to shoving anything remotely digestable into their tummies. Only, they had nothing to tear the meat into small enough pieces to actually do this. The entire herd started making all kinds of efforts, some tried beating it with rocks, others tried poking it with sticks, yet others just bit in with their mouths, and some searched for particularly tender spots to eat into... these ended up at the anus and the genitelia.
It didn't matter really, everyone ended up being full in their stomach, and everyone rested peacefully for another night. The next day, the foul spirits won, and they all came to their senses, and didnt eat any more of it. Ok, one deviant tried, and died a few days after that. That was fine really, according to the herd. He was old and fat, and had a lot of meat on him. Pity they couldn't eat him... though someday, someone would invent fire.
If you were given a piece of roasted human meat, would you eat it? Ad gurus use this: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal.
So the elephant (ok, technically, a Mamalodian) trundled down watter slippery slopes its ancestors used to tumble down. It would soon die because of the tumble. It was the heart of Africa, in a time when spring was churning beneath a long ice winter. No not the ice age. At least, not the recent one in popular consciousness. It was another great flood, even before that. Back in the days of the Mamalodions. Ok, Mamalodion is to Mastadon what Mammoth is to Asian Elephant.
Now the Mamalodion, was umm... ok, just a big jolly old thing with hairy ears and stuff, but it was facing a difficulty in surviving. This was because the planet was ruled by apes. No really, just apes, before mankind like gets extinct and the apes supposedly take over. That is just a theory proposed, what already happened is that we descended from the apes. That's speaking metaphorically, like we evolved from the apes, they didn't just give birth to us. Yeah, there is a difference, each generation thought they were giving birth to themselves, but every generation changed a bit. Like they started with sticking sticky sticks into deep holes to see if ants would get stuck to it on the way out. Anteaters have a natural ability to do this with their tongues, and hence have not evolved to using microchips. Only the Raptors have done it before.
But it started with just that, a sticky stick stuck into a deep hole. Now deep holes had a surprising number of things in them. The apes of the time of the Mammalodian were still more ape than human. See, sometimes, it is just difficult to say if you are talking about man or ape in particular time periods. To be specefic, a human specimen from this time period has been missing from a long time. No one has found that piece of fossil evidence which would actually bridge the gap between man and monkey. This is not really necessary to prove that men evolved from monkeys, at least, according to most people who believe in evolution. In fact, many have gone ahead and proclaimed apes to be humans, and many early humans to be apes. In fact, after Darwin came around and suggested the idea, people rediculed him by calling him of ape descent. That is, unfortunately, exactly what Darwin wanted. So people have confused humans to be apes, and apes to be humans. Bigfoot and Yeti romp about in remote locations, some people retain fetishes for excessive body hair, and sometimes, bang in the middle of nowhere, there emerge creatures like Humanzees.
The mamalodion slipped on the mud formed under the melting ice, and slowly creeped down the gradual slope, right to a small herd of pre-humans on what would eventually be the banks of the Zambezi. The frostbite had eaten past the layers of flesh long ago. The pre-humans were afraid of it. The corpse they new, would soon stink and spread disease. The only agent of the spread of the disease they understood was the smell. They honestly believed, in their primitive minds, that the smell of rot itself was the cause of physical changes in their bodies, including those that made them retch, cough or pass out.
When they were ill, they believed, that through their noses, a spirit of death, posessed them, that drove their bodies to convolutions, and eventually death. They can be forgiven for such a thought, even forgotten. In fact, we may still, seriously believe, that people can be posessed by spirits. You can imagine the terror in the eyes that watched frostbite seeping into the corpse of the dead creature. Life was harsh in this period, one slip and you could become fossil fuel.
What happened next can be interpreted by primitive minds as an act of god, and by advanced minds as a random co-incidence. Here's the deal, its already history, its in the past none can change, so deal with it. Lightning struck a tree and it caught fire.
The humans, did not run away howling in alarm like a few ancestors before them would have done. The impulse was very much alive in most of them. Only the older pre-humans shouted in alarm. The made primitive noises of disgust. Trill with your tongue the air that comes out in a shoooooo....
Withdraw... do not venture further, return. That was the meaning of the call. The younger pre-humans dared to go where no pre-human had. They too, thought of stopping in their tracks, but hadn't expirienced life enough to actually do it. They stood their ground and gazed unto the burning tree.
And it flickered. And it burnt. The branches, the leaves, the aerial roots, all caught fire. Trees, allowed to grow wantonly, had matured for long and hard. These were the very heralds of the rain forests, for they were yet to spread life to the earth. These were the mothers of the trees of the first spring in living memory. These were the mother trees of Eden itself.
And one tree was burning. And the pre-humans, could sense the warmth in their skin. For as long as their instincts could remember, they knew of nothing but ice. They had felt nothing but cold. They had stuffed snowsoil into their mouth, and digested the grubs inside to survive. The only thing between their skin and the ice age was their hair. Clothes, were still to be designed. The heat was a new sensation for them. It was a curiosity. The male pre-humans thawed so much, that they even got involuntary erections. They were drawn to the fire, their very bodies demanded it. Those who were old, recalled of old warnings of fire spirits, anything to bright was considered harmful. The sun was a constant reminder. Every other light was a mere sliver compared to the sun. The sun slipped down to earth from between the branches, from between the openings of the cave, and even underwater. So the pre-humans had reasoned that any light had somehow slipped through there from the sun. That too, can be forgiven. Those who were old, followed suit to, protected behind the young ones.
Eventually, the herd gathered around the tree, and watched, as large parts of it fell... fell on the mammoth. The humans went to sleep, comfortably positioned around the fire, slowly made drowsy and comfortable by the dancing shadows as living flesh churned out the oils necessary to fuel the fire that burnt it - on the Mamalodion.
The next day was the first day of spring. The clouds cleared. The eagles ventured out. The Zebu searched for their lost ones. The Sabretooth tigers rested in their high perches. The Archeopterixi screeched in the blue sky laden with white clouds that had caught the early morning gold of the rising sun. The pre-humans saw a large spiral of smoke rise into the sky. They thought the fire had killed the evil spirits of the Mamlodion, and vice-versa. What happened next was unprecedented in human history. No one had expected the spirits to duel in such a manner, and both end up defeated. The fire had spread everywhere again, there were no shadows to block it. It was afterall, day. Humans, for the first time, were unafraid of animal flesh. And they were hungry. They were used to shoving anything remotely digestable into their tummies. Only, they had nothing to tear the meat into small enough pieces to actually do this. The entire herd started making all kinds of efforts, some tried beating it with rocks, others tried poking it with sticks, yet others just bit in with their mouths, and some searched for particularly tender spots to eat into... these ended up at the anus and the genitelia.
It didn't matter really, everyone ended up being full in their stomach, and everyone rested peacefully for another night. The next day, the foul spirits won, and they all came to their senses, and didnt eat any more of it. Ok, one deviant tried, and died a few days after that. That was fine really, according to the herd. He was old and fat, and had a lot of meat on him. Pity they couldn't eat him... though someday, someone would invent fire.
If you were given a piece of roasted human meat, would you eat it? Ad gurus use this: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal.
अब्बे हिंदी में खुद लिख रह है यह ब्लॉगर, इसकी माँ का॥abbe एल्लिप्सेस दल ना गूगल तेरी तो ...
Use spyware doctor. I was under the impression that it was some cheap old snazzy software. Turns out that even Google recommends it. Trusted my comp to it, and it took over by popping continuous and irritating pop ups of it stopping a gazillion different Trojans from working. Trojans are all you need to be afraid of, I think, my updated symantec really takes care of the rest. It has one weakness, and that, turns out to be Trojans, which, spyware doctor can handle like no other. If you get irritated of the constant alerts telling you what it has done, just shut it down. It is safe enough to handle even stupid pricks who get irritated by its alerts. It runs in the background, showing no traces of system usage, popping up no alerts that inform you what it has stopped from working, and showing absolutely no clue whatsoever that it is still working. Use it, and you will know why it still works after you shut it down.
Monday, June 25, 2007
1st photo on an FM2
First roll on an FM2, and this is the only photo that does not end up shaken... Ah well. Friend of mine, name's Jordan, very apt at spinning a book at the tip of his index finger.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Karnala.
It was the only school picnic I had missed. Didn't feel too much at a loss back then because by all accounts, all that happened was a bit of dance and a visit to a biogas plant. The only birds they saw outside the cages were the sparrows. They had gotten terribly excited over monkeys and crabs, but that was understandable in a jungle where the only wildlife was stray dogs, crows, and humans.
Things changed today. Going with a bunch of photographers you meet online makes the whole thing look better. Anyway, they called it a trek and well, it was something I had missed long ago, so I thought I would give it a shot. Four thirty in the morning, I was awakened by a call, one of the guys in the trek was just confirming my presence. I rushed to Dadar station without thinking too much, and still, very much, asleep. The bus ride to Panvel after that woke me up enough to get to know everyone.
Eight of us. So it was a walk of about an hour and a half. If you end up at Panvel bus depot, and want to end up at Karnala fort, for heaven's sake, clarify with the driver of the tum-tum or the tuk-tuk or the gavti auto... whatever you might called the three wheeled Indian limo, that you want to head to the Karnala bird sanctuary, and not Karnala sports club, where you can apparently catch cricket matches over the weekends. This was a mistake we did, but we caught an ST to Alibaug, and dropped off at Karnala's gate. Pay the gatekeeper twenty bucks for your ticket, hide your video cam, just in case, and shell out an extra buck for a map. Today he had only one, and I got that one. It has a very wrong map, and a list of birds you will not see on the way up, and probably haven't heard about if you are not an ornithologist. Finding out which of the rampant and wild tracks within the sanctuary are actually represented on the map is a challenging thing to do. Infact, the map on the board before the second gate has an entire track missing from the map they give at the first gate.
Basically head upwards, any which way you want, and unless you hit upon the very very steep short cut (the map does not use the word "very" even once), you will probably end up at Karnala fort in an hour and a half or so. Up there, we met a bunch of hikers, exchanged a few stories of climbing and such, and he told us that this was like an introductory trek for those who want to get into that sort of a thing.
I definitely remembered my lungs screaming for oxygen on the way up. This was nothing compared to the things they had done. There were one or two sections where people gave up completely. The first point was a small temple, with a broken top... things got much steeper after that. The second stop was the actual pinnacle, people didn't usually venture beyond that. And you can't, it just goes upwards, and the only way to climb it is to use at least four people and ropes, and a tree on the umm... left side as you walk towards the pinnacle. Its this creeper on the sides of the pinnacle, and that's all you have to clutch on to. Of course, if it rains in the season you try to do this, the rocks will be too damn slippery, and you will reach a heaven beyond the one you just trekked into.
The bunch of trekkers there finally clarified the difference between hiking, trekking, and climbing. Trekking involves walking long distances to places that haven't had roads constructed to them as yet. Hiking is walking or travelling free, or at least dirt cheap, from one point to another, by any and all means possible. Climbing, is well, going up something steep.
These people had gone to glaciers and could recall particular holes in different mountains where you could shove in your climbing rope. I do not know their terminology, nor could totally understand their enthusiasm, but they seemed like a bunch of really happy people. They had endless praise for one another, and the praise was received with endless modesty. They left on the note that we would meet again in "some such place".
Noon was yet to hit. These guys did things early. I know friends who wake up at noon and wander about aimlessly till evening. Infact, I was like that some time ago.
Anyway, it is interesting to see photographers in action. Just before they click, their eyes dart around the frame checking for things that would make the thing look bad. Their legs and shoulders are hunched almost like they would hungrily pounce on some food. They behave exactly like hunters in a sense, only they use cameras.
We relaxed with a steady wind, and the sky drifted some clouds towards us every now and then. Everything would become foggy and the trees and the turrets of the forts would gradually get consumed by the vapor, and then revealed again suddenly, in a matter of minutes. From our vantage point, we could even see the receding clouds. It wasn't rain, the rain was below us. I was scared of lightning, but did not voice any opinions about this.
You know those pictures or movies where the clouds are slowly rolling over the mountains, pushed by the wind. Yeah, only the mountain, was below our feet. So the winds were pushing the clouds over the mountains, below our feet. Our feet may have been on the ground, but it wasn't too difficult to imagine that we were walking on the clouds. We sat in the clouds, ate in the clouds, photographed each other in the clouds, and even smoked in the clouds. There might be rainfall somewhere that smells like cloves.
The coming down bit was easier than we imagined, but we got slightly waylaid and hit everything from slabs of crystal to condoms. There is a lot of insect life, the leaves beneath your feet are in different stages of decay in this season, so there is a nice tonal range from dark brown to bright yellow... which looks like gold leaves.
Had tea at the bottom, figured out that you could book bungalows for four hundred bucks for a weekend, and then bussed back home dead tired and dirty.
End of story I think, here are the pics.
Friday, June 08, 2007
बुंच ऑफ़ ट्रेवल photos
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Bunch of travel photos. The solar/windmill apparatus is discussed as one of the state of the art technological innovations in Artemis Fowl. Surprised to find it in thane. And the titles are not my fault, blogger converts it to hindi at its own violition.
ओल्ड wallpapers
These are wallpapers I composited a long time ago, and forgotten about. Back when text on the bg was cool. Not exactly ashamed of it now, but find the visual styling a bit too garish. Found them on an old cd...
Thursday, June 07, 2007
The point of no return
The point where the paradigm shifts
The ground beneath our feet is hard pressed
There is a juice secreted by the pituitary gland that kicks out a load of electricity from neurons. This electricity can be safely classified as “brain activity”, but this is done under the assumption that none of it gets out.
If the sum total of the Brain Activity throughout the lifespan of an individual is considered at once, then the person can be understood as a human, for which, all possible communication from a human must be grasped in relation to all other human communication. Difficult, but is possible, however, unfortunately, for this to be done, the author needs to die. So buy a sharpener.
The point where chaos makes sense
The point where timeless moments are realized
During the period of the consciousness known as sentient brain activity, different neural pathways get activated under the guidance of our Ego. The Id and the Superego give starkly contrasting ideas, but it is the Ego that initiates action from the body.
The sum total of human actions, in context with all other human actions, can be considered, very simply, a tale of human activity. A piece of history if you will. The human in consideration automatically gets nominated as the hero of that piece of history. Conversely, pieces of history have the uncanny knack of getting heroic. Time amplifies all that is heroic about a story, and all that is heroic about a story is the only thing that makes the story a worthwhile tell. Unfortunately, all that eventually remains of history are legendary and fantastic tales of heroism, which later on become myth, and finally fade from the cultural relevance, and are therefore lost. Even if they are commonly told and re-told, what remains, is the hero and the heroism, not the history. So buy an eraser.
The point where a new order sets in
The point where the revolution is realized
The general and unwritten history, the true stories of our past, can only be guessed by the deeper studies of human action and behavior with respect to each other. This is the suppressed heritage of our forefathers. Our racism, our politics, our culture, our philosophies, our belief systems, our economics, our psychology and our fashions are all bred in the chaos that was yesterday. Our understanding of the cosmos, that is our environment, is distorted by an as yet unforged future. Buy a pencil. Sharpen it to a point. Then erase the whole thing.
During dreams, hallucinations or otherwise unconscious and unsupervised brain activity, neural pathways open up automatically, at their own violation, the brain chooses, without external influence, what it wants to believe. The brain reads into itself, automatically, and without direction. Knowledge of such experiences is rightly considered to be “unreal”.
Therein, lies the catch.
The ground beneath our feet is hard pressed
There is a juice secreted by the pituitary gland that kicks out a load of electricity from neurons. This electricity can be safely classified as “brain activity”, but this is done under the assumption that none of it gets out.
If the sum total of the Brain Activity throughout the lifespan of an individual is considered at once, then the person can be understood as a human, for which, all possible communication from a human must be grasped in relation to all other human communication. Difficult, but is possible, however, unfortunately, for this to be done, the author needs to die. So buy a sharpener.
The point where chaos makes sense
The point where timeless moments are realized
During the period of the consciousness known as sentient brain activity, different neural pathways get activated under the guidance of our Ego. The Id and the Superego give starkly contrasting ideas, but it is the Ego that initiates action from the body.
The sum total of human actions, in context with all other human actions, can be considered, very simply, a tale of human activity. A piece of history if you will. The human in consideration automatically gets nominated as the hero of that piece of history. Conversely, pieces of history have the uncanny knack of getting heroic. Time amplifies all that is heroic about a story, and all that is heroic about a story is the only thing that makes the story a worthwhile tell. Unfortunately, all that eventually remains of history are legendary and fantastic tales of heroism, which later on become myth, and finally fade from the cultural relevance, and are therefore lost. Even if they are commonly told and re-told, what remains, is the hero and the heroism, not the history. So buy an eraser.
The point where a new order sets in
The point where the revolution is realized
The general and unwritten history, the true stories of our past, can only be guessed by the deeper studies of human action and behavior with respect to each other. This is the suppressed heritage of our forefathers. Our racism, our politics, our culture, our philosophies, our belief systems, our economics, our psychology and our fashions are all bred in the chaos that was yesterday. Our understanding of the cosmos, that is our environment, is distorted by an as yet unforged future. Buy a pencil. Sharpen it to a point. Then erase the whole thing.
During dreams, hallucinations or otherwise unconscious and unsupervised brain activity, neural pathways open up automatically, at their own violation, the brain chooses, without external influence, what it wants to believe. The brain reads into itself, automatically, and without direction. Knowledge of such experiences is rightly considered to be “unreal”.
Therein, lies the catch.
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