Gunrock, Trimulgherry - Birds Paradise!

The baya weaver birds thronged neem trees within and palm trees beyond our backyard, a couple of years back (scroll down and click on the second picture below to see an enlarged version). Now, local changes have brought in pretty Little-Bee eaters, Spotted Munias that I have never seen before in addition to Red-vented bulbuls, parrots, pigeons that frequent this place. 

Standing strong and yet sturdy is Gunrock tank atop Gunrock hill in Trimulgherry surrounded by beautiful boulders that can capture your imagination! A screen shot of Zojila (asterisk), our home, in relation to Gunrock hill (click on the first image below) will give you an aerial view of the locales and the pretty environs rich in biodiversity.  Currently home to priceless flying-fauna,  snakes, other terrestrial and arboreal animals, insects etc, except for two exposures, the rest have been manually captured on Canon EOS 1000D last week while carefully rambling among rocks!

I wonder from where these new birds arrived and for how long? Until the next human settlement comes into the scene? However, memories last a lifetime and perhaps forever through this blog!

Baya weaver bird nests

Little-bee eaters as viewed from our balcony

Has it been chisseled?

Sideview!

Foothills of this rock, ground for cricketers

Spice finch/Spotted Munia (viewed  23rd Sept 2012)

Rocks of the Deccan Plateau are ~2500 million years old! Let us do our best to preserve them! High-resolution images will be available upon request.

Twinkle, twinkle...Mysore Pak!

Playing with shapes, what do you see first?

The first stanza of this 19th century poem is beautiful. The sheet music is available on Wikifonia, a site for musicians to publish and collaborate! I just stumbled on it. The concept is novel with lot of scope, should you register. 

Visit www.wikifonia.org

Inspired by numerous variations, since its first publication, I made the following 6 lines to be sung after the first stanza of the original poem that the diamonds hold (see the text within the image). The 3rd and 4th lines are of the same tune, sung in harmony or with seconds.

Carl Sagan once said,

“We are made of star stuff”

Should you happen to think like this,

Isn’t death a beautiful kiss!

“Starfish in the sky!”

Up above the dust so high.

Thanks to Google & Picasa I could do the basic fixes and effects to create the “Starfish in the sky” for this blogpost! Incidentally “Starfish in the sky” happens to be the opening line of the song composed by Joji in San Antonio as a 4-year old! Sky is the limit to one's height of imagination.

Coming back to the point, one can savor the diamonds, Mysore Pak, a timeless birthday sweet that took shape, but not on his star birthday! It was on 4/9. Imagine multiples of these floating on a starlit sky.

Ahoy! Sixty one diamonds! How many stars would that make?

What’s on your mind?

What is on Anna’s wall, my Dad’s!

Well, do you see the white-wall on the wall?  Yes. It is social networking - Always Live and Alive! 

I firmly believe that social networking skills are heritably wired and if required, one could take a lesson or two from my Dad by just being with him!

A self-made witty person, he has always been ahead of his time, extremely modern in thinking, clear diction, and a high-tech Guru full of ideas, an avid tennis champion of the yesteryears. He is still an avid cricket fan, loves sports, a born singer with a strong voice and flair for writing! Amazing talent that can be traced back to his roots in Kotayyam where he grew up in a musical family!

Amazingly, Manni, my Mom, to match him and his needs in every aspect, is a natural musician with the most melodious voice ever! For her, singing has always been a way of life, being raised in a family that breathes MusicAir! The time after sunset and before dinner, during my holidays in Trivandrum, as a child, used to be filled with lilting Veenai-Voice of my grandmother and uncle’s mridangam and then ours. For Manni, music is synonymous with cooking! It was therefore music, music and more music that filled not only Karamanai streets but also rocked our beds gently in Marredpally! While my mother sang more often, interestingly, these days, my Dad has taken his call and sings to us after perfecting a song!

This prized photo with his grand daughter, taken last year, speaks volumes of his dapper demeanor, grace, and love for people, sport and most importantly writing on the wall! Which he does everyday and lets everybody know what exactly is on his mind. While you too can write on his wall, which needs no invitation, I am eagerly waiting to connect the coming festive season!

Anna’s collection and fondness for branded T’s, Harvard Grandparent, FIFA etc and of hats is unmatched. I got this white one from a Bora boutique in Trimulgherry, in a nondescript lane. He wore this cap on Diwali last year when Joji visited.

Probably he saved the more decorative one for Ramzan!

Ahoy Sixty One!!!

I made this eggless cake in our microwave for Appa on Krishnashtami! It is my first one baked on our new Whirlpool in the convection mode! It didn't start off as a cake, or as anything at all for that matter. I was simply bored and feeling a little low so my sub-conscious mind decided to play 'house-house' while I mixed various ingredients, ruthlessly using the mixer-grinder while my father made an attempt at a peaceful nap. So as I picked ingredients I decided to make chocolate cream/ganache that I would layer with biscuits and ice-cream for dessert. Since I didn't want the mixing to end I added corn flour and decided to see what happens when that goes into the microwave-oven for 6 minutes at a temperature I don't remember. When it came out I was surprised to see it had hardened to a molten state...yummy crumbs! So I sprinkled sugar powder infused with  cocoa powder on top. The result- a beautiful cake-like substance that hardened the minute my mother tried to cut it. It could have ben a cake, it could have been a giant biscuit. But it stayed midway and that's where it stayed till it gained plenty of sympathy votes by all who gave it respect as an edible something. Well it was pretty good as a tea-cake! It was delicious...just not the right texture! However, the right present for Appa's Star-Birthday! Happy 61st from all of us! 

Appa's US travels

I I have enjoyed travelling in the US. Here is a sampling of all the places I have been to. California....the mountains, the ocean and everything in between!

From Appa's California Trip Aug 2010

From Appa's California Trip Aug 2010

From Appa's California Trip Aug 2010

From Appa's California Trip Aug 2010

From Huntington Library Appa Preeti & Cymon August 2010

From Getty Villa Malibu & Santa Monica Pier August 2010 Holzschuhs & Gopals!

From Getty Villa Malibu & Santa Monica Pier August 2010 Holzschuhs & Gopals!

On an earlier trip, I visited Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana! Lush forests, swampy lakes and vast blue skies.

From Appa's 2007 US trip

From Appa's 2007 US trip

From Appa's 2007 US trip

From Appa's 2007 US trip

From Appa's 2007 US trip

From Appa's 2007 US trip

From Appa's 2007 US trip

From Appa's 2007 US trip

Math and Music - with some digression

My visit to the Land of Plenty and Prosperity 13 years ago, in San Antonio, considered to be the 9^th largest city in the USA, has been very enriching in many ways. My flexible hours of working enabled me to watch my small kids learn and grow to Music and with Music of all genres while she post-docked to hard and soft metal in her lab. We had the big boom box given by my wife’s sister who was in Austin at that time. Being just 4, Joji went to pre-Kinder at Glen Oaks Elementary School which was for a few hours each day. Preeti studied in Pat Neff Middle School and being an 8^th grader, she had full day school. Both dabbled in a lot of KTFM 102.7, from the boom box – fit for a theatre, sang all the possible songs they heard and learnt at the school choir and interestingly, Preeti sang and played practically all the tunes she knew on the Diano-Piano that we got for Joji from San Marcos. My sister-in-law once remarked to my wife: Why don’t you send Preeti for Piano lessons since she is so good? It did not take much time for my wife to put her thoughts into action. She had just started to drive the Honda Accord that I bought couple of months after our move to San Antonio, for a mere $3000-00. Ever since, escorting kids to after-school activities was hassle-free and driving was enjoyable too!

Preeti commended for her mathematical and musical aptitude in school as well, quickly enough got selected to sing for the Region Choir! Her foray into music was further propelled when she went to Taft’s High School for a year and joined the school choir while continuing to take piano lessons after school. Joji on the other hand, sang all the nursery rhymes learnt at The Tabernacles (Secunderabad) and Glen Oaks. She picked up Spanish quickly and sang Spanish songs taught at school. My wife is still amazed as to how a 4-year old could sing adult songs, heard over the radio, with great fervor and emotion. So it was Yamaha School of Music for the 5-year-old until our return to India in December 1997. Music has since then been ceaseless, seamless and an integral part of our life! We get nostalgic listening to the two compact discs of the Christmas program that thrills us to this day and a valued treasure in our chest!

While this is just one face of the diamond, the other phase of my life began soon after our return. Coping, caring and getting back to brass tacks took a while but as resilient humans, we survived spiritedly despite drop in haemoglobin levels of my three girls!  I found good piano teachers, thanks to my wife’s Dad who introduced us to Piano Mathews. There is no turning back since then and life has cascaded beautifully with ups and downs of musical notes from the Piano quickly complemented by violin strains from wee fingers.

This is an important milestone with LIVE Musical conversations!

There are numerous articles in addition to one in 1998 that showed that children, who learned piano at an early age, were able to better memorize. Is there a connection between the two “M’s”? Does one look for that consciously? My wife does not think so. Just follow your natural ability and passion with inputs from your local environs. Enjoy the purity of thought or idea. Hone your skills and talent is her general word of advice to the youngsters. She thinks that people with a musical bent of mind also have a deep fascination for natural beauty, discovery of truth and fascination of the vast expanse of our universe – the Cosmos!

During our house move last year, she located a printout of a very old email from her friend, in San Antonio, who wrote about Galileo in response to the last sentence of the above paragraph of her email. Galileo’s Dad was a violinist. Apparently, the mathematicians at that time were Pythagoreans who believed that prime numbers ruled the Universe and that tonal quality had to be based on prime numbers. Her friend also wrote that Galileo’s father considered Pythagorean harmony as some kind of heavy metal rock group and had a strong dislike for mathematicians. It seems that he forbade his son from becoming one and ensured that he become a musician.

Galileo watched his Dad spending hours to get the tonal quality and harmony from his violin by weighting his violin strings and laying them across the bow. He would add to the weight as he plucked the strings. Galileo would often sneak to seek his passion for math. You may know that several discoveries were made during his lifetime from these early observations! Galileo used the same method to prove to himself that two objects of different weight and equal size would reach the ground at the same time. 

“By weighting violin strings and placing them across a sloping board (a track so to speak), he made himself a high-tech instrument. He had an ear for a perfect beat, and thus he rolled his ball down the track and positioned the violin strings perfectly so that the balls made a bloop to his beat. Then he measured the distance between the strings and found that acceleration increased exponentially and that the balls rolled equally down the track. All this without a stopwatch! Thus Galileo was ready for his photo opportunity on the Tower of Pizza”.

Such is the humor of her friend at San Antiono who cared to write in great detail! My wife reconnected with her, thanks to facebook. Her friend being an avid reader of physics books wished she were in India to experience the apex of the leonids in December 1998. Obviously people at San Antonio would have missed the grand spectacle as it was under a ‘cloudbank’ for over a week at that time. Probably 25 inches of rain during this period of one month compensated for the denial of this view to the Texans in San Antonio. My three girls were lucky enough to witness this from our terrace at Durga Vihar! I joined them a little later and by then it was daylight!

These days one can go to the WWW for spectacular shows of the cosmos, real-time videos included. But can anything compensate for a live show, the cosmic shampoo, Live Music and the Math Olympiad? 

Can something that gives joy be such an ordeal? Implications of the Highest Mathematical or Musical Order! Care to comment?!

Vedic Chitra Shala, Koti - My growth curve! At Exponential phase!

Paplu and Puppy Live - Display picture at Chitra Shala
for several years

~10 months old! My Mom's love!

Double-breasted Botha! That is me! Do I look familiar?

I was stylish at 13!

                                                          Calangute Beach at Goa, Skinny 17

And now Solid Sixty - Going strong!

Pictures of my childhood days in Koti are to be treasured for the Next-Gen!

This studio (Chitra Shala) at Koti had my pictures up for display for several years!

Chitra Shala has live pets that include cats and this pup just loved being with me!

I was bonny, blithe and a happy child!

 Pyar se log mujhe Paplu kehte hai!

Abhi bi!