Google Blunders

Atlantis is back safely and now it will be used to hunt Laden :)
And Mush is also there.

Madras Coffee

This is speciality of Madras - the way they serve the coffee. It's commonly reffered as 'madras filter coffee' and 'capi' in desi language. It's available in full (Rs. 7 to 10) or mini (Rs. 3 to 5) form. The vessels which you are seeing in the picture are traditional madrasi Dabarah and tumbler. Tumbler is very helpful to cool your coffee if you feel it too hot, although it need some practice if you really interested doing it in proper manner. Don't underestimate this style as it's now in "Quickie's" menu here. I would like to add that it's full of milk and sugar (for those who are not from India).

Thought

This is what Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (founder of the Art of Living an International Foundation) has said about Hinduism:

“Hinduism is not a religion; it is just a way of life that thousands of Rishis have written about. It is such a democratic religion where everybody has the freedom to think, write or say whatever they want. We have no opposition for any other philosophy coming into us. We have no opposition for the Bible to be part of our own study. Nobody here will say, 'If you read the Bible, you will go to hell'. It is an inclusive way of looking at life, and that is what we need in the world today. We have no objection taking food from every part of the world, listening to music from every part of the world. So we need to globalize wisdom too.”

I wish this message spread to all.

Blog updates

With upgrade of blogger, my blog got updated to beta blogger before few days but today it's truly updated because now you can see the changes.

You can see list of categories (blogger says it 'labels' but I don't like that word!) and new archive explorer tree view. And you can see 'categories' given to each blog. Unfortunately I lost my statcounter code but I regenerated from statcounter.com :) Happy ending!!

Madras shopping

Oops ! Madras is Chennai now! Anyways the style is good old Madrasi. Nothing is changed.

A general stores like shown above is very common in madras. But I cann't say it as general store as they sells very limited items. Banana, biscuit, packeted namkeens, news paper and Tamil magazines is must. At many shop we can also find English magazines and other stuffs like my favorite nestle polo :-)

I am semi-vegetarian now

कुछ समय से मैंने मांस व अंडे बंन्द कर दिया है (सिवाय दरियाइ जीव)। अब मैं दिन मे ज्यादातर दक्षिण भारतीय थालि लेता हुं और रात मे सुप के साथ दोसा खाता हुं। यहाँ तमिल नाडुमे केले के पत्ते पे भोजन लेने कि प्रथा है जो कि आज भी लगभग सारे भोजनालयोंमें निभाइ जाति है। यह मैरा पत्ता है जिसमें से स्वादिष्ट दोसा मैंने तमाम कर दिया है।

Dancing on the face of death

Yesterday, after reducing some work load from the tons of it, I with my other two colleagues went out of the office for evening coffee. While I was waiting for my coffee, I felt some procession was passing from the restaurant. I turned back to have a look at it. Dancing-rejoicing people were leading the procession and a man was beating drums like anything making their presence important. At last a van decorated with flowers was coming. The back door was open making all insides visible to everyone. I was expecting a statue of one of those thousands lords but I was wrong and I was really stunned when I perceived the actual. The van was carrying a dead body. I saw two men, whom I believe dead person’s close relative, were seating near the body keeping their head down like every thing is lost. What I saw was absolute sadness on their face and nothing else. Whatever was happening ahead of van was not at all matching with the spirit of people following the van. Even, I had no reason to believe that the procession was one.

It was Shocking !! Tottaly shocking! Later I came to know that this is common practice in Tamil Nadu (an Indian state).