Stonewash

Washing your own clothes on an old-fashioned stone and a bar of soap is much more hard work than I thought it was. The stone is really effective as a scrub, in fact this is the stone bottom in the bathroom as well. More modern houses should use stone strips or panels for cleaning purposes. The difficult part is not the cleaning, which is easy enough, but the actual drying of the clothes. You have to wring the damn thing, and it is really back breaking work. By the time I reached the jeans, my hands could wring nothing more, I was really exhausted. So I tied it up against a screw in the wall and wring it. By the time I was done with it, the screw in the wall was bent. Ah well. Then came the drying. I had to carry the clothes to the terrace, arrange for a line, and hang up the clothes on it. Despite my agressive wringing, the drying took all of three days, and two of them in-doors.

Absinthe@Le Rock, B'lore

Tried out Absinthe@Le Rock in Bangalore. The guy who served gave two different drinks, refused to lemme have the damn thing neat, and off all the things used a god damn cofee filter as a strainer. There were no pyrotechnics either, we didnt want it. The thing tastes like a mixture of listerine and peppermint, will probably have a shot or two some other tiem before heading back to Mumbai. Ah well.

Playing@Furtados

Ok this is Eddie, one of my seniors from College back in Bombay. Met up with him and a bunch of his engineering students and Bangalore. We indulged in some devious activities around Forum mall, and then headed out for an impromptu jam at Furtados, around the corner. Damn them LTDs, they are enough to make your blood boil.

Namma Metro

Ok, this is it, inside the Bangalore Metro. Namma Metro. This whole set up put in the middle of MG Road is outrageous. Not only can the passing terrorist click pics, the innards and panels of the metro is up for display too. So anyone who wants to sabotage, or get hands on some plans, way to go, you can do it even before the damn thing is put on a rail. Ok. yeah, that's just me venting some frightendness, and its very difficult to pass on a chance to tell the govt why it is not doing such a great job after all. Then again, there is the CWG fiasco. This shit feels good, and there is plenty of standing room, which is probably the best aspect of the whole business. Sort of designed along the same sensibilities of the shuttles at airports. This means that the trains are gonna be fast.







hmmm....

Yamdhoot sighting

Spotted, the infamous Yamdooth in one of the side lanes of the oldest part of Bangalore. This bike is reputed to be so powerful, that the local nickname for the beast was an Indian God of death. Never seen one of these in flesh and blood, just heard of em creatures by reputation. This is supposedly the most powerful bike to be allowed to hit Indian roads evar. Im sure its something liek that.

As fresh as it gets

A vegetable vendor in Bangalore, growing his wares out of a plastic container just out of the shop. It really does not get better than this. I've heard tell of a small town off Mysore called Bettadapur where the people are so proud that they do not get anything from outside their own village. Apparently, each household is an independent, self-sustained unit. You drop in for a visit, they will go to the backyard to pluck out some cofee. Then for lunch, they will rummage around the various vegetable beds in the gardens to prepare the food. Look, we were eco-friendly for reasons beyond the industrial backlash and associated realisations. Most of India was eco-friendly because we never really strayed that far from nature. WTF am I talking about here? ?

Handicraft exhibition in Bangalore

No clue why I went there. I ended up there without knowing exactly what it was. Ahh... fond memories. Feels like im doing "soemthing else"

Barral Roool

Sooo many of em

Silent Soviet Invasion

So apparently from the day India won it's independence, till the day the Soviet Union shattered, every day a plane used to land in the Madras (now Chennai) airport, with a cargo of Russian literature. Now that's a lot of Russian literature injected into India. No one really knows the scope and extent of the propaganda, but it happened. I just wish there were more of it. Yeah, communism is a proven failure, but so is capitalism. I just think communism had a cleaner heart, and was more answerable to people around them. At the very least, communist propaganda literature is much more elevating than capitalist propaganda. Anyway, have fun with these images.








I can guarantee one thing though, the whole "dumbing down" thing would have been unheard of if the reds had won the rounds, and capitalism had not taken as big a hold over the world. This is because a mag for kids talks about fucking superconductors in technical detail, while still keeping it simple for kids to understand. The Russians are great at explaining stuff. But probably a little too audacious at taking credit.


"The Great October Socialist Revolution and India's Independence are linked by strong bonds. The October Revolution gave a powerful impetus to national-liberation movements. JAwaharlal Nehru said that it had kindled the flames that couldn't be put out!"

There was of course, a scary edge to the propaganda as well. Sometimes, they were clearly trying too hard. Ah well. There is a lot in there, someone should just dig it all up and distill it better.

Inception

This is the shit. Posters of Inception plastered around the town looks liek this. Wait till you spot the Karate Kid or the local features, the self explanatory "Shaolin Vs Evil Undead" and the busty beast lady "Kreola". Will leave that to your imagination. Oh yeah, and it gets better sometimes:

CuSO4

Finally figured out why the flash on my brand new phone is not working, but Im glad I found it after I took the above photograph by mistake. The natural colour of the copper sulphate crystals showed up despite the lack of lighting, and my hand showed up grey for some strange reason. This looks like a great pped photograph, but it is actually just a combination of flaws in the device and tricks of the lighting. Ah well. PS anyone else notice rock salt growing into cubes, but never exactly making it there?

Sundial

This is a sundial that my great-aunt is trying to make. This is a pretty impractical way to tell time, and just thinking about it lead me to thinking of how fruitless the enterprise of keeping track of time was. There are about twelve odd hours of daylight everyday, and its the same day over and over again forever. Knowing exactly how much of the day has passed is impractical because making a device that keeps track of time is sure to kill a considerable portion of it, and looking at the time every now and then only murders it more. Dammit, imma turning into time poleece. Everyone should sport a fuzzy but practical device. Like the time should only be vaguely accurate.

No flare is moar flair

Got hold of a hilarious Jan 1980 issue of Stardust. The people who wrote the mag back then really knew how to pack a punch in words. The writers seem to rain insults down on the biggest of stars, and the whole thing reads like a time capsule. Also, the ads sometimes had as many words in em as the articles.

PS.. the phone oriented the shit on it's own