26th October 2010

Drives werewolves crazy

Apart from driving werewolves and dogs crazy, the full moon has other powers as well, especially the full moon that happened last Friday. It is celebrated as Kojagiri in Maharashtra. The best part of the festival is that it gets together people who are too busy to socialise otherwise, mostly because of the TV. Instead of family, this festival is celebrated as a community. People collect milk and leave it in the open and drink it in the night and it is supposed to have the power to heal you.

25th October 2010

“Five bucks ain't worth what they used to be”

Five bucks are indeed not worth what they used to be. In 1995 I bought my motorcycle and Rs.52 would get me 3 liters of petrol, today that is almost the price of one liter of petrol in Delhi. I guess these two coins both of Rs.5 but significantly different in size are symbolic of the decline in the buying power.

24th October 2010

Half for Radish, half for leaves

At the start of the season, everything comes with attachments, like this bunch of radishes. These leaves are useless for most people, vegetable seller will gladly remove these for you but only after he has weighed it and charged for them. In a month's time, rate for seasonal vegetables like these and cauliflower will drop by 80% or even more. The lower cost and unlimited supply mean these leaves cost more in transport than they can fetch in the market. This starts a strip tease of veggies when they start shedding these leaves gradually.

20th October 2010

Today is my day... or maybe not

Some days are tough, it is very difficult to get even the simplest things done and you end you wasting all your energy without accomplishing much. Some days are what you call "your" days when your breeze through everything, accomplishing even those things that your expected would take very long. I try to make the most of those days. There is yet another kind of day which is very deceptive. It appears everything is happening perfectly but it doesn't always. Last Friday was like that. I called someone to repair my comp and they came within half an hour and took less than 20 minutes to fix the problem. I called up Airtel for a broadband connection and by the time I was through talking to the customer service, I had three missed calls from the sales guy who eventually landed up at my place in 15 minutes. It seemed like I'd be up and ready quite soon. But it only seemed like that. In reality, I am still trying to reach the sales guy who won't answer his phone. You can read more about it on Mental Floss

19th October 2010

Balloon?

The headlamp in my motorcycle when I bought it in 1995 looked much different than this one. This one looks like one of those long balloons with its tip not inflated.

18th October 2010

The only thing stopping me...

Most people use their teeth or nails to strip wires, I can't do either. I have always had a hard time stripping cables and it is not something I can do cleanly in one attempt, especially with poor quality cables where the wire is much weaker than the insulated coating. A few years ago I saw my motorcycle mechanic using scissors to strip wires quite effortlessly. I tried it and it works best with blunt scissors so this was not so effective for me either. Yesterday I had to connect a few cables and before I started, I bought these wire strippers. I have seen electricians using these all the time but never thought about getting these for myself till now. I guess this is what they mean when they say "The only thing stopping you is yourself"

17th October 2010

Happy Dussera / Durga Puja

15th October 2010

Babhor Sahib Gurudwara

Me getting too spiritual? Not really. The places you can visit in Nangal are usually these religious places. There aren't any malls or fancy restaurants to go to, which I feel is a good thing. It is very nice to get away from a noise and crowded place like Delhi or Bombay to go to a place where you can experience complete silence and totally empty roads in the nights.

14th October 2010

A plant in a forest or a forest in a plant

13th October 2010

Working harder or smarter

If working hard was really as important a virtue it is made out to me, then donkey would have been the most respected animal and you would take it as a compliment if someone called you a “gadha”.

12th October 2010

Ten percent of a Rupee

Why does it say what part of Rupee a coin is? It used to be like this on all coins, five paisa had "Twentieth of a Rupee" written on it 25 paise a quarter and so on. Was it to help people with poor mathematical skills in understanding the worth of a coin? If so, shouldn't the coin also tell you "which" tenth part of a Rupee it was... maybe they thought if you are that dumb, you are not likely to be in possession of money.

This reminds me of Hitchhikers Guide to Galaxy. It was initially a trilogy but then a fourth part was written so it changed from trilogy to "a trilogy in four parts" and when the fifth part was released, it was called "a book that gives the word trilogy a whole new meaning"

11th October 2010

Shocking

It may look like this bat is looking at you but it only looks that way. In reality this bat has been roasted a few days ago. His grip is so strong that his dead body is still hanging on the power cable that was the reason of his untimely departure from this world.

8th October 2010

One for the road... or maybe not

I was visiting Mira's sister in Parvanoo and quite close to their home, I saw this truck carrying pipes that had fallen in a ditch. To make it worse, it fell on a hut killing a woman and her two daughters and the husband ending up in the hospital. Speculation is one of the most popular sports in India and everyone who saw this was an eager participant with most of them concluding the driver was drunk. I don't know the truth, however as a model citizen, I too will indulge in our national sport and I also feel the driver was high on at least cough syrup if not rum.

Later I was told that a neighbor of my sister-in-law has a couple of recovery vans and he does a brisk business during the holiday season. His phone is ringing off the hook during winters when a lot of people from plains go to hills and quite incorrectly assume they are above average drivers, even on hills.

6th October 2010

Anand Pur Sahib - the birth place of sikhism

This is the gurudwara of Anand Pur Sahib - the place that is called the birth place of sikh religion.

4th October 2010

Team work

Do you love travelling? Do you dream about going to places you have heard about or seen on TV? When you do travel to some of those places or maybe even other places, do you actually enjoy the travel as much as you thought you would?

I guess when these ants were enlisted, they too were told that the job would require a fair amount of travel. What they were not told was how heavy the baggage would be and the number of companions may be a little too much for comfort.

3rd October 2010

Happy Teachers Day

Currently we are on a short holiday... actually if this qualifies as a holiday is upto individual interpretation. We started from Delhi on the morning of Saturday and we will be returning on Thursday and during this we will be visiting three towns - Chandigarh and Nangal in Punjab and Parvanoo in Himanchal Pradesh

This is Manuraj blowing soap bubbles in a friend's house in Mohali which also happens to be our first halt.

The Commonwealth Games have started today. The TV channels have realised that now people are interested in the actual games and they won't be able to sustain their TRPs by continuing their criticism of the games, they have also changed their tunes.