Post at the end of Wilshire Boulevard

Post at the end of Wilshire Boulevard
Originally uploaded by Richard-

This dude never gets tired of Bokeh! No wonder they call him the Bokeh Boy in flickr! The best part is that he does each and every bokeh work better than the previous and every one of them is a master piece. This tempts me to pick up th 50mm and shoot but i guess not now, maybe for laters, right now i better study some SAN stuff or ill be unemployed in no time

Post at the end of Wilshire Boulevard

Post at the end of Wilshire Boulevard
Originally uploaded by Richard-

This dude never gets tired of Bokeh! No wonder they call him the Bokeh Boy in flickr! The best part is that he does each and every bokeh work better than the previous and every one of them is a master piece. This tempts me to pick up th 50mm and shoot but i guess not now, maybe for laters, right now i better study some SAN stuff or ill be unemployed in no time

Theru Kooththu

Sometimes it’s just plain bliss to meet up with certain people and certain things in life, especially when it’s unexpected.

Last Sunday i was at MGM resorts. My company is closing business in Chennai and moving to Hyderabad. They hosted a farewell party at the MGM resorts. After the party i walked out of the place and passing by the sea side restaurant i heard a very familiar music that i have been used to as a child back in my dad’s home town Lalapettai, a little village off South Arcot District.

I walked in curiously and found these people performing theru kooththu and i was too happy to see them. These people apparently i found out are from Lalapettai too! In fact they live in the same darn street as our home is located in and we had an awesome conversation about Muththukadai bus stop that we need to get down to reach this Place.

Muththukadai is nothing but a tea shop owned by a guy called Muththu. While Muththu is long dead the tea shop is ultra famous and has been run by their children and grandchildren for generations now. From right to left the artists here are…

1. Siva (the guy in white silver shirt)
2. Rani (the lady who is standing in the middle)
3. Thirumalai (the guy dressed as a woman in the extreme left)

We talked about the village, the BHEL factory and all the good it did to the place and the development and the temple our family hosts for the entire village, blah, blah, blah!

Call this an unexpected gift it sure was. Meeting up with someone back from the village days was so awesome. He had lots to talk but the Restaurant’s Manager was mean and did not want to wait. Despite me ordering a Cocktail for the sake of sitting with them to have a chat he wanted them to pack and leave.

I hope they would call me, I promised them prints of these pictures. If that happens it would be kick ass, I could probably do another shoot with them.

These guys are playing at the MGM Beach resort till the 17th Jan 2008. So if you are dropping by for Dinner Buffet (Costs Rs. 450 including tax and the food is decent) you can enjoy the performance of these folks.

Theru Kooththu

Sometimes it’s just plain bliss to meet up with certain people and certain things in life, especially when it’s unexpected.

Last Sunday i was at MGM resorts. My company is closing business in Chennai and moving to Hyderabad. They hosted a farewell party at the MGM resorts. After the party i walked out of the place and passing by the sea side restaurant i heard a very familiar music that i have been used to as a child back in my dad’s home town Lalapettai, a little village off South Arcot District.

I walked in curiously and found these people performing theru kooththu and i was too happy to see them. These people apparently i found out are from Lalapettai too! In fact they live in the same darn street as our home is located in and we had an awesome conversation about Muththukadai bus stop that we need to get down to reach this Place.

Muththukadai is nothing but a tea shop owned by a guy called Muththu. While Muththu is long dead the tea shop is ultra famous and has been run by their children and grandchildren for generations now. From right to left the artists here are…

1. Siva (the guy in white silver shirt)
2. Rani (the lady who is standing in the middle)
3. Thirumalai (the guy dressed as a woman in the extreme left)

We talked about the village, the BHEL factory and all the good it did to the place and the development and the temple our family hosts for the entire village, blah, blah, blah!

Call this an unexpected gift it sure was. Meeting up with someone back from the village days was so awesome. He had lots to talk but the Restaurant’s Manager was mean and did not want to wait. Despite me ordering a Cocktail for the sake of sitting with them to have a chat he wanted them to pack and leave.

I hope they would call me, I promised them prints of these pictures. If that happens it would be kick ass, I could probably do another shoot with them.

These guys are playing at the MGM Beach resort till the 17th Jan 2008. So if you are dropping by for Dinner Buffet (Costs Rs. 450 including tax and the food is decent) you can enjoy the performance of these folks.

The New Indian Anthem

I came across this video. My cousin prakash pinged me this one.

Whoever visualized this concept is just an awesome brainy master at direction. The power of simplicity explained in one video. Unbelievable.

The New Indian Anthem

I came across this video. My cousin prakash pinged me this one.

Whoever visualized this concept is just an awesome brainy master at direction. The power of simplicity explained in one video. Unbelievable.

When NO becomes scarce

I’m seriously wondering, when on earth did the word “NO” become a luxury to be used so scarcely? Off late i find people using this very less. Maybe its just me or maybe its the norm or maybe in not in sync with times but this is what is happening.

You walk up to a friend, you scrap em on orkut or send a msg and ask them if they would care to join you out on a weekend plan or a simply day hanging out to kill boredom and the response you get is unbelievable.

I know that a “NO” or a “No Thanks” is a perfect response for every simple situation regardless of the person, place and time involved in any situation. Yet what you get is a direct insult like a “poda vennai”, “onakku vera velaye illaya?” or rude upper case shouting to state a simple negative response such as a no. I wonder what part of me is that makes them feel im so cheap enough to take this kind of a treatment.

The fact in reality however is that i take this treatment and pretend as if nothing happens. Often the lame excuse is that i say “people always need a second chance” but truth is i need an excuse. You have to draw a line, if you get rid of every one around you because they don’t respond to you like you expect them to then loneliness is the only company you can have.

Isolation is a heaven to visit and a hell to stay.

When NO becomes scarce

I’m seriously wondering, when on earth did the word “NO” become a luxury to be used so scarcely? Off late i find people using this very less. Maybe its just me or maybe its the norm or maybe in not in sync with times but this is what is happening.

You walk up to a friend, you scrap em on orkut or send a msg and ask them if they would care to join you out on a weekend plan or a simply day hanging out to kill boredom and the response you get is unbelievable.

I know that a “NO” or a “No Thanks” is a perfect response for every simple situation regardless of the person, place and time involved in any situation. Yet what you get is a direct insult like a “poda vennai”, “onakku vera velaye illaya?” or rude upper case shouting to state a simple negative response such as a no. I wonder what part of me is that makes them feel im so cheap enough to take this kind of a treatment.

The fact in reality however is that i take this treatment and pretend as if nothing happens. Often the lame excuse is that i say “people always need a second chance” but truth is i need an excuse. You have to draw a line, if you get rid of every one around you because they don’t respond to you like you expect them to then loneliness is the only company you can have.

Isolation is a heaven to visit and a hell to stay.

Jesus is now a Brahman?

I recently came across this webpage that was created for purposes of evangelization. Quite a nice presentation on how great the god of Christ is and how his love will save the world. In technical terms this webpage is a fantastic collection of not so very accurate but a very complete collection of Hindu Gods and Goddesses. I cannot deny the fact that they have taken the efforts to put together this long list of gods. Born in a Hindu family it’s quite difficult a task frankly and they have done a good job. However the funniest thing is that they have explained the Hindu Gods in such great precise detail it looks like a documentation of Hindu Deities. Nevertheless there are some cheap statements the website pulls of which i would like to address here.

After explaining in detail the concept of everything being a divine being in Hinduism unlike the monolithic Christian religion which sings the praise of a Christ they feel it is their responsibility to take a dig at Hinduism by saying things like “these gods are not God, they can not make stars, nor roses, nor human hearts...”

I’m actually impressed. So does that mean that Jesus Christ could make stars, Grow Roses and also fix human hearts? It looks like i can fire all the astronomers in NASA since Jesus can take care of the stars and celestial bodies. I could fire my gardener since Jesus can grow roses. I could also nuke all the Heart Surgeons in town and be done with it because Jesus could not fix hearts too.

However the humble reality is that you would end up paying the price of gold for a rose, have no clue about what’s around the planet and which asteroid heads our way or have all of our senior citizens with heart ailments bite the dust.

Then the text goes on to describe Vishnu as…

Vishnu, is the savior and protector of mankind, he incarnates, like Jesus, but 10 times!… the last one, as “Kalkin”, is still to come. He is very popular, and shown as one of his 9 incarnations (”avatars”), as fish, tortoise, a boar… the last 3 were Rama, Krishna, and Buddha, who are very popular, most specially Krishna for Hinduism…

I have some problems with this statement. The number of times Vishnu reincarnates is not a specific number in Hinduism. Secondly the Christian illiterate who wrote this page needs to know Vishnu does not die like Jesus Christ but he takes several forms as per the requirement to relieve human kind of evil forces. For example in the “Narasimha Avataram” he takes the form of half man and half lion and represents a very beastly and ferocious form. This is because his purpose of killing Hiranyakasipu needs to be fulfilled. Hiranyakasipu cannot be killed by a man or a beast, so the half man and half beastly form.

Having said that being an atheist i care not if Jesus does or Vishnu dies, neither of them are real and are fairy tales of prehistoric men who wrote all this stuff while smoking grass.

It does not stop here. The guy says the last one is “kalkin”, excuse me but is not that supposed to be “Kalki”? I find it really funny because he talks like an expert and know all of Hinduism but cannot even spell a 5 letter work right! How difficult could it be spelling Kalki, never mind.

The Final section of the page goes to say the following…

Rama and Krishna never existed, like Hamlet or Holmes, never existed and they do not exist right now, they existed only in the imagination of the novelist. Jesus Christ is God, a person live right now… he is real, he can clean all our bad karma, forgive all our sins… he is the real Brahman made flesh who died on a Cross with love, to pay for all our sins, to clean all our bad karma, and resurrected to give us a new glorious life on Earth, and an eternal life in Heaven, as the “person” we are, and without the need of any reincarnation… and it is free, just believe in Jesus!… He is at your side right now!… Christianity

Advertising just could not get better could it? Rama and Krishna never existed? Maybe yes, they never did just like Jesus Christ did not exist. Little does our author realize that there is not just evidence for Krishna and Rama to have existed but there is no evidence for any religious entity to have existed in the history of the human race. Probably the only proof of god to have existed is Buddha and Lord Mahavira, if at all you could call man turned divines as god. There is no proof for Mohammed or Allah to have existed.

Technically speaking there is one point that could prove enough that a person by the name of Jesus Christ, the lord or the so called saviour of mankind never existed. There was a great Philosopher named “Philo” who lived during the times of Jesus Christ. He lived from around 20 BC to 50 AD approximately and documented most of the things that happened during those times. Being the expert and the genius of an identity that he was he should have mentioned in at least one of his many hundreds of literature that he wrote about the great son of god Jesus Christ. Guess what? He did not write a thing about Jesus or his Christ. Considering the fact that Jesus was a ultra famous personality who was known amongst every one and Phylio and Jesus, both of them lived in Jerusalem its astonishing a fact. Out of the hundreds of odd miracles of Jesus Christ performed its funny that Phylio did not even document one to state that he knows someone or someone by name Jesus Christ existed during his times.

Forget Phylio, let’s consider he was a retarded fellow who supported the Jews and wanted to mess with the history of Jesus and hence smoked all the information during the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But then we have a particular astronomical event that would have attracted the attention of anyone interested in the “heavens.”

According to Luke 23:44-45, there occurred “about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour, and the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.” Yet not a single mention of such a three hour ecliptic event got recorded by anyone, including the astronomers and astrologers, anywhere in the world, including Pliny the Elder and Seneca the Younger who both recorded eclipses from other dates. Note also that, for obvious reasons, eclipses can’t occur during a full moon (Passovers always occur during full moons), Nor does a single contemporary person write about the earthquake described in Matthew 27:51-54 where the earth shook, rocks ripped apart (rent), and graves opened.

Its funny the Christian missionaries are happily badmouthing every other religion when their stories and accounts are a classic example of embarrassment in the first place.

Jesus is now a Brahman?

I recently came across this webpage that was created for purposes of evangelization. Quite a nice presentation on how great the god of Christ is and how his love will save the world. In technical terms this webpage is a fantastic collection of not so very accurate but a very complete collection of Hindu Gods and Goddesses. I cannot deny the fact that they have taken the efforts to put together this long list of gods. Born in a Hindu family it’s quite difficult a task frankly and they have done a good job. However the funniest thing is that they have explained the Hindu Gods in such great precise detail it looks like a documentation of Hindu Deities. Nevertheless there are some cheap statements the website pulls of which i would like to address here.

After explaining in detail the concept of everything being a divine being in Hinduism unlike the monolithic Christian religion which sings the praise of a Christ they feel it is their responsibility to take a dig at Hinduism by saying things like “these gods are not God, they can not make stars, nor roses, nor human hearts...”

I’m actually impressed. So does that mean that Jesus Christ could make stars, Grow Roses and also fix human hearts? It looks like i can fire all the astronomers in NASA since Jesus can take care of the stars and celestial bodies. I could fire my gardener since Jesus can grow roses. I could also nuke all the Heart Surgeons in town and be done with it because Jesus could not fix hearts too.

However the humble reality is that you would end up paying the price of gold for a rose, have no clue about what’s around the planet and which asteroid heads our way or have all of our senior citizens with heart ailments bite the dust.

Then the text goes on to describe Vishnu as…

Vishnu, is the savior and protector of mankind, he incarnates, like Jesus, but 10 times!… the last one, as “Kalkin”, is still to come. He is very popular, and shown as one of his 9 incarnations (”avatars”), as fish, tortoise, a boar… the last 3 were Rama, Krishna, and Buddha, who are very popular, most specially Krishna for Hinduism…

I have some problems with this statement. The number of times Vishnu reincarnates is not a specific number in Hinduism. Secondly the Christian illiterate who wrote this page needs to know Vishnu does not die like Jesus Christ but he takes several forms as per the requirement to relieve human kind of evil forces. For example in the “Narasimha Avataram” he takes the form of half man and half lion and represents a very beastly and ferocious form. This is because his purpose of killing Hiranyakasipu needs to be fulfilled. Hiranyakasipu cannot be killed by a man or a beast, so the half man and half beastly form.

Having said that being an atheist i care not if Jesus does or Vishnu dies, neither of them are real and are fairy tales of prehistoric men who wrote all this stuff while smoking grass.

It does not stop here. The guy says the last one is “kalkin”, excuse me but is not that supposed to be “Kalki”? I find it really funny because he talks like an expert and know all of Hinduism but cannot even spell a 5 letter work right! How difficult could it be spelling Kalki, never mind.

The Final section of the page goes to say the following…

Rama and Krishna never existed, like Hamlet or Holmes, never existed and they do not exist right now, they existed only in the imagination of the novelist. Jesus Christ is God, a person live right now… he is real, he can clean all our bad karma, forgive all our sins… he is the real Brahman made flesh who died on a Cross with love, to pay for all our sins, to clean all our bad karma, and resurrected to give us a new glorious life on Earth, and an eternal life in Heaven, as the “person” we are, and without the need of any reincarnation… and it is free, just believe in Jesus!… He is at your side right now!… Christianity

Advertising just could not get better could it? Rama and Krishna never existed? Maybe yes, they never did just like Jesus Christ did not exist. Little does our author realize that there is not just evidence for Krishna and Rama to have existed but there is no evidence for any religious entity to have existed in the history of the human race. Probably the only proof of god to have existed is Buddha and Lord Mahavira, if at all you could call man turned divines as god. There is no proof for Mohammed or Allah to have existed.

Technically speaking there is one point that could prove enough that a person by the name of Jesus Christ, the lord or the so called saviour of mankind never existed. There was a great Philosopher named “Philo” who lived during the times of Jesus Christ. He lived from around 20 BC to 50 AD approximately and documented most of the things that happened during those times. Being the expert and the genius of an identity that he was he should have mentioned in at least one of his many hundreds of literature that he wrote about the great son of god Jesus Christ. Guess what? He did not write a thing about Jesus or his Christ. Considering the fact that Jesus was a ultra famous personality who was known amongst every one and Phylio and Jesus, both of them lived in Jerusalem its astonishing a fact. Out of the hundreds of odd miracles of Jesus Christ performed its funny that Phylio did not even document one to state that he knows someone or someone by name Jesus Christ existed during his times.

Forget Phylio, let’s consider he was a retarded fellow who supported the Jews and wanted to mess with the history of Jesus and hence smoked all the information during the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But then we have a particular astronomical event that would have attracted the attention of anyone interested in the “heavens.”

According to Luke 23:44-45, there occurred “about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour, and the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.” Yet not a single mention of such a three hour ecliptic event got recorded by anyone, including the astronomers and astrologers, anywhere in the world, including Pliny the Elder and Seneca the Younger who both recorded eclipses from other dates. Note also that, for obvious reasons, eclipses can’t occur during a full moon (Passovers always occur during full moons), Nor does a single contemporary person write about the earthquake described in Matthew 27:51-54 where the earth shook, rocks ripped apart (rent), and graves opened.

Its funny the Christian missionaries are happily badmouthing every other religion when their stories and accounts are a classic example of embarrassment in the first place.