Thats Simple. I will remember that.

Human memory is fantastic. We humans remember alphabets which we learned when we were young, we remember all our school stories at the reunion but lets face it elephants are huge, have a brain the size of our intestine (or even bigger) and science has proved that they have awesome memory.

I think someone should go tell the Singapore National Parks board that they are in charge of parks and all that but only humans read notices that they put up on the notice board and that only humans have email addresses and that only humans can send them emails and that only humans know that this is the new age and that only elephants have elephant's memory.

Look at the email address in the picture I captured at one of the parks here and think about really long email addresses you have seen. I bet you wouldn't have seen any email address longer than the one in the picture (in green color).

I wonder how many emails the National Park board has received on this email address. I wouldn't even login if this were my email address. At times when people just mention their twitter handles to contact them, only geniuses in the government can come up with an email address like this.

PS: As I re-read the post and re-look at the email address, I don't think it is very difficult to remember but I have written the post so I will post it anyways.

Please put sunrise on my schedule!

You have a schedule at every stage in your life. When you are a student you have a schedule. When you grow up and start working you have a schedule. Irrespective of whether you are a housewife, working male, struggling worker or a retired romeo, your life revolves around schedules which you stick to and these schedules changes at every stage in your life.

I was a morning person in my school days. For a few months when I was in Class X, I used to get up before sunrise and go to my building's terrace and watch night turn into day, see the moon go from being the brightest object in the sky to almost invisible in a matter of minutes, see stars for a few minutes even after the sun was out, see the sky change color from black to purple to orange to yellow and so many shades of all of these colors every single morning.

My schedule changed when I joined college where getting up early in the morning was no longer a priority. I started loving the sunsets then. At one point I used to work for a BPO so I used to work all night and sleep all day and had no chance to catch the sun rise or set. After college, I started working and have been working for employers who do not insist on me coming to work at 9 am sharp. That gives me time to sleep past sun rise and work is never done even when the sun has finished its duty.

I was in KL this September (2009) for a quick weekend travel and my return flight was a 730 am flight if I remember. I had a long taxi ride on my way to the airport so had to leave the hotel at about 6 am. I caught the sun rise that day. It was special because it had been a few good months / years since I saw this beautiful sight. My camera was in my bag which was in the cab's hood so I clicked a few pictures from my cell phone camera. The pictures below do not do justice to the beauty of that morning.

I would love to become a morning person but getting up earlier than usual on a working day is becoming too much to ask for given the fact that I do not sleep on time but I am sure one day when things in my life change, my schedule will force me to become a morning person and I will get to catch the most beautiful sights of the night-morning sky again and again and again.

One way street

Some of the most profound thoughts do not make sense when you read them the way they are but add a real life example and it all makes sense. A lot of proverbs do not make any sense at all and you wonder what made someone make a disillusioned statement that does not make any sense at all but then there are instances in your life which are almost the most perfect application of that proverb or that profound thought that never made sense when you read it.

I did not come across anything profound. Nothing depressing happened in my life leave alone anything depressing happening related to any proverb.

I just came across this signboard at a park while walking through this popular tree-top bridge. The bridge had a fixed capacity and was built to not handle weight beyond a certain limit so they put up this signboard to manage the flow of traffic on the bridge.

Think about life and read the same signboard and it still is as applicable as it was on that wobbly tree top bridge. I think it is more applicable to life and how it is so complicated and how there is so little under our control in spite of us trying to control everything that we do. Here is the sign. I will leave it for you to do the deep thinking from here on. If it does not make any sense right now then it will make some sense some day when some thing happens.

Are You Seriously Selling That?

Imagine this: It is a very hot day. You have been running around getting a lot of things done on a weekend. You go to a food court. You are very thirsty. You need something to drink. You go to the most popular stall in the food court. They are selling 'PEE Blender'.

Yes you read it right. It is pee blender. Sounds ugly right? Thats what happens when you grow up thinking in one language and you read something that is written in another language but means something in the language that you grew up thinking in.

Look at the picture below to see what I mean:

For those who don't dig what I mean above,

in Malay, susu = milk

in Hindi, susu = pee

Breakthru solution to an old scientific problem

For years, scientists have been trying to find out what goes on in a human's mind between consumption of cyanide and death. The chemical is so strong that within a few seconds of consumption, the heart stops functioning and the person dies. The premise and the approach of current research is very smart actually. Researchers make the subjects consume cyanide and give them a piece of paper and a pen so that they can write what happens to them after they taste the chemical but because there are just a few seconds, most research has been inconclusive.

I have a solution to this problem. I figured out a way to make these subjects communicate how they feel after cyanide. The method requires a few months of preparation before launch.

Steps:

1. Create a TWITTER account for the subjects
2. Make them post their every single moment from something as major as taking a leak to something as minor as feeling dizzy while out for a jog
3. Convince them that they will go to hell if they don't publish every thought
4. Promise them 7 virgins if they make it to heaven (don't disclose gender at this stage)
5. Create fake twitter accounts, follow these subjects and appreciate their silliest updates

Once you have confirmed a thorough addiction to twitter take the following steps:

1. Take the subjects to the lab
2. Give them their cell phone
3. Remind them of point 4 above
4. Give them cyanide

You will find the result of the test on your twitter timeline if you are following them or on when you search for their twitter handles. Do RT their final tweet and leave @replies with RIP messages. At this stage you might want to disclose the gender of the virgins you promised in step 4 of stage 1 above.

You can follow me on twitter too. My twitter handle is @jitendraba and if you are new just visit twitter.com/jitendraba, login to your twitter account and follow me. I am not planning to consume cyanide anytime soon but I eat good food, watch loads of movies and post reviews of all this and more on twitter.

(Apologies that understanding of the above article requires geek level 3.5/5 and above. This is right back at those who write articles with words used in the 14th century and earlier just to show off that they have no life and went to the library more often.)

Simple life, tough choices

I reuse plastic bottles, jars, etc at home and everyone should. Reuse, reduce and refuse is what will help us not increase the amount of plastic that is already out there.

Recently, I had to make a decision which was not easy. I had to choose between two things and it was one of the most difficult thing to do. I might sound like a reality tv show's judging panel but sometimes it is difficult to pick one from two.

I love Nutella but have you seen the Nutella jar. It has the most weird shape in the history of jars. It is slim all the way up but suddenly at the collar it gets extra plastic muscles or bones or whatever so that the round cap fits on top. What can you do with such a jar? I discard the jar every time, don't reuse it.

The other day at the supermarket was when I had to pick between mother nature and taste buds, another plastic jar out in the dump yards or another round of tasty hazelnut spread all over my bread, another thing with unlimited useless life polluting the environment or another thing which will pass thru my mouth in thirty seconds but ooh what thirty seconds those will be.

I gave in. I picked Nutella instead of giving up eating it. Actually, I took middle ground. Instead of buying the tiny jar, I bought the big jar which will be sent to pollute the world only half the number of times the tiny jar would have been sent under the assumption that my rate of consumption remains the same which is slightly unlikely but at least the intention and the approach is scientific and to some extent green.


Moral of the story: Reuse, reduce and refuse but if you love something that might harm the environ, give in and make sure you go green in other aspects of your life to balance the quantity of injury you cause to this environment. Remember, your actions will impact what the future generations get and if you crib about the previous generation then it is time you take steps so that gen next doesn't crib about you. Break the chain, change the game, you don't always have to be the same (unintentionally, the poet just jumped in...I think a poem is in the making).

'Were you?' or 'Was I?' - What would be your answer?

Someone somewhere must have said sometime that the best way to judge a person, if you are a judgmental bastard, is to observe their first reaction to things. People usually do not show who they really are. Their response to situations is different based on the audience observing their response. Such response requires some thinking and assessment of the situation at hand. How about instinctive reactions? Thats what I am talking about here.

Imagine you are at a train station at a not so busy hour on a weekend so there are not many people around. Trains don't come as often as they do on weekdays so you have to wait unusually long before you board the train. It is an underground metro station so you have very limited things to check out other than advertisements or umm well people. Imagine you are waiting at the left side entrance of the door and there is a super hot girl waiting at the right side entrance of the door. You are checking her out and she is checking you out and both of you are trying very hard to avoid being caught in this game. You are using the glass door to check her out. She is pretending to look at the indicator behind you and checking you out. The train finally arrives and both of you board the train choosing to walk in opposite direction after you entered to avoid giving the obvious impression. You still sit at a distance where you can check each other out.

The next day you are with a co worker and this girl whom you were checking out comes and starts talking to your co worker. They both catch up about how the weekend was. You feel ignored because you know both the lovely ladies. Well, almost know both of them. You are sort of vulnerable at this point and if you are asked anything at this point your reaction would be instinctive more than calculated. Imagine now that your co worker introduces her friend to you and your co worker's friend says "were you the same guy who was checking me out while I was checking you out at Bababa* train station yesterday?"

(Time to bring the judgmental bastard out who will review your first reaction and judge you)

If you react by saying "were you?" then you are a big predator flirt who is willing to attack the target anytime there is an opportunity irrespective of what people think of you, your act or your behavior. Meals are important to you and you leave home with a fishing pole ready to fish when you see one and eat it like there is no tomorrow.

If you react by saying "was I?" then you are the biggest moron on earth who was told by a girl that she was checking you out but all you wanted to defend was you were not checking her out when you actually were but you did not want her to know and according to the nervous you, it was important to defend this now so that you make a good impression and stand some chance with this chick in future but you are totally wrong because she probably knows that men don't listen but then she also know's that good men are big predator flirts and those who are not are not worth the effort.

There can be other 'first reactions' to this question but this is all I could think of before Kakaka* station arrived. Thats where she got off. It was a not so busy hour on a weekend so there are not many people around. I pumped up the volume on my ipod and started thinking about something else.

*PS: Station names used are imaginary although I would name stations Bababa and Kakaka if I were the 'station namer' in this city.

PSS: Kapil, I hope this is deep shit. If I dig deeper, you will stop stalking my blog because of the content. Hope you are now content since you are now part of the content of this blog.

Almost home away from home

Singapore doesn't fail to amaze me. Apart from being super efficient, it has people from so many different cultures living and working together that there are a lot of people who are not Singaporeans but call it their home. I won't call it home because it has not been that awesome for me yet but then again it has just been 10ish months and as an optimist I expect everything to get awesome-er with time.

It is not home but it doesn't fail to remind me of home one way or the other. This other day I went for a meal with my friend and we wanted to eat Indian food. We went to Ananda Bhavan. It is the oldest vegetarian restaurant in Singapore and is very popular with the pure vegetarians who only eat veg food all the time. The place has great ambiance and even better food but there was something else that caught my eye.

Look at the bill below. It has the item description in English and surprisingly Tamil. I was really surprised, confused, overjoyed, homesick, proud and cheerful when I saw this. I am not a Tamilian but when you are away from home, anything remotely related catches your eye and brings back memories. It is these small things here and there that make Singapore an exciting place and close to home even when you are away from home.

Some things don't go well together

I did a road trip with my friends in June across the Konkan stretch. I like the way life is in some of these places. No one is in a hurry to do anything. Meals are eaten and enjoyed unlike cities where lunch interrupts work and dinner is the last thing we do before setting the alarm clock for the next morning. I was happy to live the life their way when I was in Konkan.

We were at Amboli (a very beautiful hill station) on day 1 and had no idea what to do post lunch because we wanted to catch a glimpse of the sunset and sun doesn't set right after lunch. The place is known for great weather so there was pretty much nothing to do between lunch and sunset. We were sitting outside the police station which was right next to the place where we ate lunch. We saw some kids playing football and rushed to join them.

That is where I saw this car. I walked to take a closer look and I don't know who put a vodka bottle next to the car but someone did. I am an organized freak so my hand just reached for the bottle and put it on the car's bonnet. Then the photographer in me woke up and clicked this picture and yesterday the story teller in me did some work on the photo. Here is the final outcome:

Don't drink and drive. They don't go well together unless you drink only non alcoholic beverages. I hope Giancarno Fisichella did not drink too much after yesterday's qualifying because the pole position will not be of any use if he comes drunk to the race track.

Sweet sound of happyness

Did you ever own a piggy bank? Do you remember the sound that those coins made when you would run everytime dad came home from work to ask him if he wanted to contribute to your bank? I used to open and count how much money there is on a regular basis and would stack all coins together based on their value and would keep the special ones different from the regular ones before adding em all back in. Like Uncle Scrooge, I loved the sound of MY coins. The only difference was I could not swim in my sea of coins like him.

Recently I picked up Hershey's chocolate chips recently. Wondering what connection this has with piggy banks? Here is the connection.

I keep these in my refrigerator and visit the kitchen like a gazillion times just to grab a few more so that watching TV is fun. Yesterday, I was singing a song on my way back from the kitchen to my room and I heard a sound. It was the sound of these chocolate chips jumping and tossing in my hands and trust me it was almost like the sound of coins jumping and tossing in a piggy bank. Almost like the sound MY coins made.

I wish I get death before I get diabetes because I don't think I can live happily without chocolates. Live your life. Don't hold back when it comes to doing what you love and eating what you want to eat unless you are living for someone else's happyness.

Indians @ the movies (part 1)

I went for my first Bollywood movie here and it opened my eyes. I saw things in the cinema hall that I have not seen in a while. Then I figured all those things I saw and more apply to Indians and Indians only. I am not making fun of Indians here. I am just highlighting the stereotypes.

Here is what we Indians believe about movies (when we are in a movie hall):

1. A good performance has to be appreciated in the movie hall itself. You don't want to wait till you meet Saif next to tell him you liked his comedy. What if you forget? He might feel bad.
2. Why pay 4 times for Samosas when wifey can cook em at home and sneak em in?
3. Cell phones have to ring. Why put it on silent mode when you have 'I like to move it move it' as your ring tone? Every one loves that song and deserves to enjoy it.
4. I will take my kid to watch any movie with me till he is 5 years old. After that, he will start to understand things and these movies will have a bad influence on him. He won't understand anything till he is 5. I guess that's why they don't sell tickets for kids who are 5 or younger. He can sit in my lap while I watch the movie.
5. You must wear fresh jasmine flower in your hair. It only adds to the ambiance of the movie hall.
6. I have to tell my friend what I think about this scene right now. We always watch movies together. Today he is sitting 6 seats away from me but that doesn't change the way we watch movies.
7. Why do I look at the ticket to see where I have to sit? I will call my friend and find out. The movie just started like 10 minutes back so its ok if he talks on the phone. Plus I am sure he did not put his phone on silent mode. His ringtone is 'I like to move it move it'. Every one loves that song and deserves to enjoy it.
8. I will behave if I actually mein meet Deepika Padukone. Now she can't see me so it is ok to whistle. Plus, all my friends are whistling at her. I don't want them to think I am gay or something. I promise I will behave when I see her for real.
9. I am so happy I started a coversation while waiting in this movie hall. My next question will be 'Are you a gujju/bengali/tamil/marwadi?'. I know this is not 'Gujarat/West Bengal (or just Kolkatta)/Tamil Nadu/Rajasthan. I know this is a different country but it is possible that he is from 'Gujarat/West Bengal (or just Kolkatta)/Tamil Nadu /Rajasthan'.
10. I know Madan bhai will call. He calls after dinner every day and we talk about the stock market. He doesn't know I am at the movie hall but that is ok. I know my phone is not on silent mode but why put it on silent mode when I have 'I like to move it move it' as my ring tone? Every one loves that song and deserves to enjoy it.

More to follow...

The masks that we wear

I visited a dentist for the first time here and the something strange happened. The dentist and her assistant were wearing a mask all the time from the time I entered the clinic till I left. Even when I was doing small talk while filling up my form they did not take the mask off. For one second I thought I am in some Arabic place where they do belly dancing but these chicks were not wearing anything quite like those belly dancers.

There are 2 ways of looking at why they wore their mask all the time. They probably were one of those extremely hygienic med people who wanted to be extra careful. With swine flu in the air, there are people walking with masks even on roads so I won't blame these two if they were trying to take some precaution.

Another reason why they did not take their mask off could be that they do not have great oral hygiene. I am not but people are judgemental. When you go to the gym, you would look at how muscular your instructor is to judge how good a job he is going to do on you. Go to a salon and you are bound to judge the hair dresser's hairstyle. These two probably did not have great oral hygiene and in these tough times, no one would want to lose any business because of judgemental human nature.

I hope it is the former. I still have 2 more appointments with this dentist over the next one month and they better do a good job.

On a deeper note, people do wear mask all the time but forget that other people are people and judge them. Think about the last time you wore a mask and thought no one would notice it is not the real you. Think about the last time you judged someone for hiding their real identity behind a mask they thought you wouldn't notice. Think!

Things that developed nations can do but developing nations can not...

Technology is an expensive resource because of which some things that are done in a developed country can not be done in a developing country.

I saw an example when I was at this bus stop. They now have technology where the government can paint glass and it still remains transparent. You can't see that it has been painted again. It looks just like it was before it was painted but the government wants you to know that it actually painted the glass. So what you see in the picture is what the government does.

It is like eating french food. You know you ate something. You paid a huge sum for tiny pieces of food. But you can't feel it in your stomach.

PS: The above act was not done by the French governement.

Child, you will be named Justin Case

If you are a parent and intend to send your child to school then please name your child something simple. What would you like more: a simple name and a special future or a special name and an unpredictable future? You might unwillingly put your child's career in jeopardy in your quest for a special-deep-meaningful-historic-philospohical-greek goddy name for your child.

If you are a discoverer in the quest for a new land, please note that we have discovered all new lands and there is nothing left for you to do. If you are an inventor then don't just think about how useful your invention is going to be. Take a step back and name your invention very carefully. You might want to consult a non-engineeer-non-mechanical-non-geeky-non-dorky person to name your invention. Please don't try to invent something and then name it too. You

can have a cake and eat it too but you can not invent something and name it too. That is just not recommended.

This is what happens when you invent something and name it too. I would have named it an

'Emergency Door Button' because it looks like a button.

I would name it 'Emergency Door Knob' because that is still better than naming it what it actually is named. This is there at the exit for most buses in Singapore and I laugh everytime I see this.

Sab Kuch Naya Hai...Kuch Ho Gaya Hai...

Before you jump to conclusions, there is no love or there is but there is just one person involved. It takes two to make a good gossip. There is me and there is, well, no one. I just said there is only one person in the story here. Only Saif, no Preity.

I am just excited about my new cable and internet connection. I moved to this new place on June 1 and being a Sindhi, decided not to take up an internet and cable connection right away because I was going to be out of here for the second half this month. I spent the first half without a tv and internet and came back on Monday and today I have my new internet connection and my new cable connection. I had an awesome day today and this just made it better.

I have an interesting bus journey story that I want to share but that can wait for another day. Not everything new is good but this sure is. Cheers!

Limerick or Haiku?

On that cold winter day

they were walking down the hallway

he did not say what he wanted to say

and regrets it even today

from his window he can see her children play

(or)

 and from that day on in the month of May

he decided he is going to swing the other way

at an anti-Prop 8 campaign he met Ray

and is now married, happy and gay

Remember. There is always a choice. Always. 

Why I stopped after my 4th round of ice cream?

You know why Spock had those crazy ears that he had? Because he is from Vulcan and they don't have ice cream there and lack of it can do that. Earth is the only planet with ice cream so if you are reading this, you better do something for this planet to live long and prosper. I was recently at Just Acia in Singapore. They are great people. Along with their really tasty food, they have free flow of ice cream, coffee and softdrinks.

I love ice cream and make sure my tongue gets some ice cream every day of my life so when I went to Just Acia and they said 'free flow of ice cream...' my head went whoa baby baby and I decided that I am going for 6 rounds of ice cream and getting 3 scoops per round and will eat my meal in between.

I ordered this Korean Kimchi Soup with Rice that you see in the picture. The spoon was so cute. If you notice the base of the spoon is not at the usual 180% with the handle, its at

90%. Pardon the picture quality, I used my cell phone camera. Getting back to the story, I got my first round of ice cream and finished it even before my food came. Then the food came but finished one more round before I started with my meal. Ice cream was my meal and the food was just side dish to be eaten in between ice cream. The soup was really tasty though and I am so glad, that was the only thing vegetarian on the menu.

Now you would wonder why I would stop at 4 when I decided on 6 rounds. Let me tell you there was place in my stomach and unfortunately there was place for other tables in this restaurant. Right across our table was a bunch of 8th grade girls who were enjoying their meal like good school kids should but when they finished their meal, it was time for ice cream and I agree that the ice cream was really tasty but it was definitely not a turn on in any way. These girls started giggling, screaming and making orgasmic noises while feeding each other ice cream. They assumed that everyone else around is deaf or dead or too bored to react or too tired to care or too generous to forgive or too gay to find it cute. I was none of those and was really annoyed and irritated. I tried focusing on the ice cream but could not and when I was thru with with my 4th, I had to throw in the towel, well paper towel, and decided to leave and for those few mintues, I wished my home was on planet Vulcan but then again you don't get ice cream there & I think I might not look very cute with those long pointy ears and ladies, for the love of God (from Earth or Vulcan), STOP FAKING IT!!!!

I am not the only thing that looks good...

I not only look good, I cook food that looks good too. When I started, I would mess up even something as simple as microwaving noodles. Not that I am some super cool cook ready to quit my day job and do cookery shows on tv, I am just happy I cooked something that not only tasted good but also looked good. Here is what I cooked the other day...

and rewarded myself with this...

Men, Math & Cooking...

I usually don't cook and am very bad in the kitchen. I have almost set the kitchen on fire a few times (shhh...don't tell my roommates...they don't know) during my attempts to cook. 

The other day, I called up my mom to ask how one should make fried potatos. She told me to put it on low flame for 15 minutes. I was really hungry, very lazy, impatient and I am a guy with slightly above average math skills. I told myself, 15 mins @ low flame = 5 minutes @ high flame = less work = awesome. It did not turn out awesome because god forgot math when He (yes He) designed potato's DNA. Women, if you observe, are good at things where math skills are not required like gossip, shopping (they never look at those numbers on the price tag), and cooking. Yes, for all those ignorant men out there, I am no genius and that above formula (which I thought will make me the next Einstein) does not work. The potatos got overfried and it took me 10 mins to wash the pan and 10 hours to digest that food.

I am getting better at cooking thought. I cooked food again today and it was very tasty. I will put pictures of that in the next post. So if you are in the neighbourhood, drop by and I can cook you a meal.

Have you ever been on the inside?

I am very bad when it comes to vocabulary. My brain will not process words which are not on the list of 5 year old kids' 'words to know' list. It is very selective and chooses words which will require minimum brainwave stimulation for recall and always tries to keep a list of 'most used words which usually make sense and have not got me in trouble so far' list so that there is even lesser brainwave stimulation in everyday communication.

Other than that my brain loves words which sound nice. It came across 'dilly dally' and there was instant love but it had no idea what it meant. When my brain heard those words, it was 4 in the afternoon on a boring Friday. That is the time when the brain is about to quit any attempt to take anything in. It is also the time when my brain prepares itself for the epic battle with time. It usually finds these 2 hours before weekend one of the toughest. There was instant reaction from my brain. It first instructed the fingers to type 'brb' in the chat window. I was talking to a co worker and my brain did not want me to look dumb by asking her what those words meant. Even in those lazy hours, my brain is always worried about my image and constantly works towards protecting the already set notion (that I am super smart and know so much more than others) about me. There is some portion of the brain dedicated for this task and it usually delivers great results.

Then this master brain instructed my fingers to type 'dilly dally' in the search box on Google. My brain relies a lot on Google and most smart comments that you would have seen me make on issues like war and why Barack Obama should go phatdippin are what someone smarter expressed on a website which was indexed by Google. This brain has never been so excited to do anything on a Friday afternoon but it was waiting for Answers.com to reveal what this magical combination of sweet sounding words meant but the internet crashed. The brain started abusing the tech guy, it then started hitting the F5 key a few times before the button almost popped out of the keyboard like a popcorn. The internet was back and there was the answer in front of my eyes who passed it on to my brain.

So my brain found out that it practices 'dilly dallying' like all the time but did not know there was a word in the English language for that activity that it does. It always thought that it was the only brain in the universe doing it and because no other brain was doing it there probably wasn't a word for it. After the fascinating discovery came the weekend which was a good one in a long time. My brain is instructing my fingers to stop typing now...

Moving on up, to the east side...

There is entertainment and there is internetainment. There is a web comedy duo thats making history and watching their show is like hanging out with friends. They make comedy web music videos and have a weekly show. I am talking about Rhett McClaughin and Link Neal from www.RhettandLink.com.

I am a big fan of their weekly show. It is not a tv show. It is an internet show and thus the term internetainment which btw is not on Wikipedia. There is no fixed format and sometimes they just pick up a topic and start talking. Watching the kast (thats what it is called) is like sitting around a fireplace with your hommies and having a fun conversation. I even get a cup of hot chocolate milk or something when I watch the show every Saturday. It is telecasted on Thursday night from the US so weekend is the only time I can watch it.

This weekend, I youtubed a few old series' theme songs. I wouldn't do such a thing but on this week's show Rhett and Link spoke about old tv show theme songs. I was wondering if it was a good idea when I read the show preview page but when Rhett and Link do anything, it is always a good idea. They reviewed a lot of old tv theme songs, spoke about actors from those series and as usual, played some music. In fact, the subject line of this post is the title of the theme song for 'The Jeffersons' and Rhett and Link released a video of their version of the song. Check it out here. It is very peppy and has a very nice feel to it.

Rhett and Link do their show every week and it a must watch on my list of weekend things to do. They even have a wikipedia entry. I wonder if I will ever have a legit wikipedia entry. I hope I do and I hope it is for something great. If you are reading this, youtube some of your favorite tv series theme songs. I guarantee, it will be a good one hour or so of internetainment.

So if you are in the neighbourhood on a Saturday and are a Rhett & Link fan, be my guest. Food and (soft) drinks will be on me :-) and in case you don't have time to watch a lot of Rhett and Link material, let me know and I will tell you which ones are the funniest.

Disclaimer: This is not an advertisment. I am not paid by Rhett and Link to do this. I wrote this post as a fan and because I am happy I am a Rhett and Link fan.

Indian without the dot...

I am not the health conscious types and d not go for regular workout but this weekend I was not doing anything special and I decided to just go for some exercise in the park. The park has different sections depending on what type of exercise you want to do. I was in this section where you could use poles to do all sorts of things. I am not sure what it is called.

After a while some kids showed up and one kid started doing a 270 degree flip around a pole. I always wanted to learn how to do it, I have tried doing the flip a few times but I usually have ended up landing on my big bum and hurting myself. Today, I thought I can try it with some help from the expert kids. I asked the kid if he will teach me how to do it and he agreed. As usual, I failed to do it properly a couple of times but managed to save my bum. I was about to give up but my reputation was at stake plus the kids really wanted to see me do it and kept motivating me to do it. I gave it one more try and did it. It felt really nice to know my body could do this and you know me, I am fat, lazy, foodie, lazy, fat, etc so it really meant doing something that special. We exchanged hi5s. The kids really wanted to do the upside down spider man but were really afraid. I taught them how to do it and all of us were having a great time.

I am talking about 7 or 8 year old kids. They were Singaporeans. An Indian kid walked in a little later. Now at that age, you don't expect them to know a lot and I am in no way criticizing them in any way but see how the human mind works. The first time the mind sees something it takes that as a reference point every other exposure to that concept slightly changes the mind's opinion. It is very rare that the image that the mind builds is completely changed ever and only dramatic events make it happen. Subtle daily exposure does not change the image that the mind built on its first interaction.

Coming back to the story, so as this Indian kid walked in, the Singaporean kid said, he is an Indian without the dot. What he was referring to is the bindi. It is worn by Indians especially belivers in the Chakra Philosophy who believe that forehead is the 6th chakra through which energy escapes and that putting on a bindi will prevent this energy loss. There are a lot of Indians here in Singapore and a lot of people of Indian origin who moved to Singapore a few generations back. I was surprised to see that some of the Indian communities follow the culture with more respect and dedication than what you get to see back in India. As part of that, you will see a lot of Indians wear the bindi and I am guessing this Singaporean kid in the park had seen these Indians here and his cute little brain made an image of Indians with these initial interactions. This image will not undergo massive changes at his age. Once he grows up and learns more about all this, he will realize that not all Indias were a bindi.

Maybe, he will read this blog post and learn the fact sooner :-) 

Anyways, I was thrilled to learn how to do a 270 degree flip and the events at the park gave me something to think about on an unusually empty Sunday. If you read till this point, take a step back and see if you remember something that you changed your opinion about dramatically and let me know what it was.

Why do I fell on top of the world today?

If you have ever been to Bombay (I still call it Bombay) in the monsoons, you will know how heavy the rains can be and if you grew up there as a kid you know how much fun it can be to be out there playing cricket / football with your mates or running up to your apartment's terrace just to get wet and escape the humid weather.

I was eating my dinner and noticed some unusual activity. The curtains started fluttering at an unusual pace, clouds started pouring everything they had in them and making the thundering noise to make everyone take notice, crowds started running for cover not because they did not want to fall sick, they wanted to save the most precious thing in today's life: their cell phones.

Over the last few years, even I took cover every time I was caught unawares in the rain but today was different. This week at work was pretty tough on me and the weekend did not have a great start with my external hard disc crashing one day before I was planning to back up the data. I looked outside, then at myself and then outside again. It was clear what I wanted.

I threw my mobile and just ran out. It was strange at first because every other time, I have been out in the rains, it has always been with my buddies. Today it was just me and only me. And Singapore is pretty different from Bombay. People don't like the rains as much as we do back in Bombay. I even got the 'wtf is wrong with you' look, the 'tgiil (this guy is in love)' look, the 'saala Indian will always be an Indian' look but after the first couple of minutes, it started getting better. The fun I was having blocked all these stupid thoughts and I started to enjoy what I was doing.


I think this was the first time I went out and enjoyed the rain after I started working. 9 to 5 just changes you so much. I am not the same person that I was anymore and I think I have changed more after coming here but today was a day very different from the last few years and the chocolate ice cream that I ate after that was the icing on the cake.

But really, I feel like all the stress that was there just got washed away with that little time in the rain. I really feel like a new person. All of it might go away once I reach office on Monday morning but it is still better than every other weekend where I keep thinking about how bad the week was. So, my little piece of advice will be 'just go get wet in the rain the next time it rains' and I bet you will feel awesome too.

This is what he told her

I am not a poet but I started writing this the other day. Its a poem but it is incomplete. The world is full of possibilities. There are so many things which are beyond our control but we still live everyday trying to control every minute detail in our life so that things go the way we want them to go not knowing that what is going to happen the next minute.

Coming back to my poem, see what I have written so far and see why human nature is so dynamic and so unpredictable:

you don't know how much i love you
you don't know how much i care
but I should learn to let go off you
holding on to you is not fair.

you see that mountain
that's my destination
and i know it seems too far
the road is rough
and the climb is tough
taking you with me sounds bizarre

I am unable to write beyond this because there are two possibilities that I see right away and I don't know which way I should go. What do you think? You can give it a 'i wanna stand with you on a mountain' ending where the boy takes the girl with her and tells her that he wants her to be with her when he gets on top and he wants her to be there and share the journey. You might be someone who would take the 'i love you a little too much and it will pain to see you take all this suffering for me' ending.

Pick one of the endings and finish the poem for me. I will host both versions of the complete poem here after which you will never see a poem on this blog. Akon should stop performing. Crazy ideas he puts in innocent minds.

Do you know how elephants die?

What comes to your head when you think of the largest animal of our planet? There is no predator strong enough to challenge this mighty animal. Even baby elephants weigh 120 kgs (260 lbs) at birth.

One of the smartest animal on the planet, elephants are knows for their skills with which they use tools. Some elephants, when trained, can use a paintbrush and paint pictures better than art zeros like me. They are also one of the only animals on the planet to have mirror self recognition skills.

Such an amazing animal but do you know how elephants die? To understand that, you need to understand how they eat their food. Did you know, 60% of all the food that an elephant eats lives its body undigested. An adult elephant can easily consume anywhere between 140 to 270 kgs (300-600 lbs) a day. Their diet consists of leaves, bamboo, twigs, tree branches, etc. To crush this food, elephants use molars (their set of teeth at the back of their mouth). Elephants, unlike other mammals, do not grow baby teeth which mature into permanent teeth. They have cycles of tooth rotation through out their life. Think of molar as a conveyor belt which crushes everything on the back of elephants tongue.

The elephant molars wear down with use and the remains fall out. When an elephant becomes very old, the last set of teeth is worn to stumps, and it must rely on softer foods to chew. Very elderly elephants often spend their last years exclusively in marshy areas where they can feed on soft wet grasses. Eventually, when the last teeth fall out, the elephant is unable to eat and dies of starvation.


I was shocked to learn this about elephants but thats how mother nature manages life on this planet. How else would an animal so huge (known to take down rhinos, known to have no natural predators) die? Another great lesson from mother nature which, like always, does not fail to impress.

I clicked this picture with my Nikon point and shoot camera at the Singapore Zoo on my most recent visit. I am hoping to learn photography and eventually move on to a DSLR camera and have much more control on the photo's elements. Please feel free to leave a comment or tips if you have any.

I love elephants. I hope we all can do our bit to save the elephants.