If you are at least an iota concerned about the Earth and how our policies, habits and ignorance is causing the one planet we call home to suffer, then please check out this video by Annie Leonard and the team at “The Story of Stuff“.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLBE5QAYXp8&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00&border=1]
I have been showcasing here the eight different paintings that I have recently completed. The first one in this series was the bulb, the second one was ‘Hover’ and the third one was ‘Colored beach houses of Cape town’.
Continuing further, I present today,’Women Power’.
The idea behind this creation is actually not mine. I found the painting in an online community and decided to render it using watercolor and pencil. Unfortunately, due to not making a note of the website address then, I am now unable to locate the original source and name the actual artist here.
Anyways, thanks to the original artist and I hope you like my render here.
Kolkata is known throughout the World as the ‘City of Joy’, but politics in its cruelest avatar has sucked that joy out of Kolkata and has fractured the Bengali society into pieces. The recent Lalgarh incident has highlighted how deep the problem of mismanagement and bad governance is in West Bengal.
Bengalis have always been proud of their intellectual heritage and liberal culture. Bengal has over the years produced stalwarts like Rabindra Nath Tagore, Vivekananda, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Satyajit Ray and Subhash Chandra Bose. History has enough proof of the might of the people living in this part of the Gangetic plains. The great Greek Historian Megasthenes in his book Indica describes the Gangaridai kingdom whose power was such that even Alexander the Great decided not to cross its boundaries. The contribution of the Bengali people to the Arts and Sciences in India needs no proof. The first Industrial revolution in India beginning in Bengal is not a mere accident but the result of superior political and educational conditions existing here.
However, sometimes over indulgence in intellectual pursuits can make one dumber than the actual dumb. Pseudo-intellectualism by a few enlightened ones is mainly responsible for the current crisis Bengal is facing. Hanging on to an idea based on an ideal world view, even if the entire dark side of the catch has been exposed is hyper stupidity. Communism, when presented in its raw form really sounds very appealing. Everyone working for the common goal, earning equally, equality everywhere, everyone happy, indeed sounds exciting, but practical considerations plague the idea.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of USSR, the real pitfalls of communism were exposed to the world. The problem with this romantic notion is that it considers everyone a saint. If everybody turns into one tomorrow, the idea of communism will indeed flourish. But, credit to God, not everyone is as holy. For the system to succeed, you need people who are self-motivated to the core. You have to give your 100% even if there is no pressure, which is something nobody is willing to do. Another problem with the notion is that it ignores the fact, ‘With great power comes greater greed’. The official machinery, which is supposed to control the entire setup, begins to show sign of rigidity and hyper-reactionary politics owing to this avarice.
Bengalis have always been the kind of people who question. They are the type who takes the problem head on to see its worth. The opposition to the traditional Hindu customs of Sati and Dowry by Raja Ram Mohan Roy is a great example of the questioning spirit of the Bengalis. But, I wonder where this tradition of confronting authority has vanished over the years. The fall of USSR and other communist states failed to open the eyes of the people here. They refused to look at the practical problems facing the ideology and repeatedly voted the CPM and its allies to power. Look what their rule has done to the once prosperous state. In 1960, it was one of the two richest states in India with an economy 105% that of Maharastra, but now that figure has gone down to around 69%. The per capita GDP figures paints an even sorry picture of the situation. Besides, the three decade rule of the communists hasn’t vastly improved the plight of the people here. Talk of equality!
Left leaders cite China as an example of the success of Communism. Even if China is a communist country it runs its economy in a totally capitalistic manner. The Bengal government tried to replicate China’s success by inviting industries to set up base here. As we all know, they failed miserably at that. After the Tata’s vacated Nandigram, the situation has worsened and now many major projects in the pipeline are in grave danger of being shelved. When the Left front government cites China, they fail to highlight the unique conditions existing there. Chinese political system is authoritarian and as such they can take controversial decisions and implement them with an Iron Fist. In India, you do that and you are out in the next election. If you follow the Left front’s policies closely, you will find it to be soaked in greed. To maintain their hold on the ‘Writer’s Building’ (WB State secretariat) they have for long instigated hate against capitalism or anything they deemed can challenge their rule. Thus, they were directly responsible for the militant trade-unionism and the flight of the industries from West Bengal. When at the turn of the twenty first century they realized that their economic policies are pushing WB to the stone ages, they hurriedly tried to implement the IT Policy and other such Industrialization plans and thus committed some grave mistakes (land acquisition issues), which ultimately led to their defeat in this year’s elections. In India, you can’t decide like they do in China.
Today, Bengal is once again at crossroads. If the recent elections are any sign, then it can surely be concluded that the Left’s bastion has been breached. The people of Bengal have had enough of these dhoti-clad babus dictating their every move. They have handed the baton to the sari clad Didimoni (teacher). How Mamata Banerjee handles this pressure cooker situation remains to be seen. This transitory turbulent phase in Bengal’s present is surely going to define the future of this great place. Come 2011 State Elections, we will see where we head from here.
Continuing my presentation of the eight paintings, today I present the ‘Colored beach houses of Cape town’. This is a mixed media work involving poster colors, pens, water colors and water pencils. I have actually made a mistake in drawing the lines on the first yellow house, but decided not to correct it.
The earlier two paintings are the ‘Bulb’ and ‘Hover’.
Hope you will like today’s presentation.
To all those budding speedsters, watch this video and take the chill pill..
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY4hICSiRa4&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]
This should be a reminder to everybody that the machine, which we drive can kill, maim and destroy not only you but also many families and loved ones…
2. Complex calculations and loading of huge amounts of data will be accomplished in under three seconds. In the movies, modems transmit data at two gigabytes per second.
3. When the power plant/missile site/whatever overheats, all the
control panels will explode, as will the entire building.
4. If you display a file on the screen and someone deletes the file,it also disappears from the screen. There are no ways to copy a backup file — and there are no undelete utilities.
Corollary: Deleting a file instantly removes all copies of said file from disks, memory, frame buffers and caches across all computers in the universe.
5. If a disk has got encrypted files, you are automatically asked for a password when you try to access it.
6. No matter what kind of computer disk it is, it’ll be readable by any system you put it into. All application software is usable by all computer platforms.
7. The more high-tech the equipment, the more buttons it has. However,everyone must have been highly trained, because the buttons aren’t labeled.
8. Most computers, no matter how small, have reality-defying three-dimensional,real-time, photo-realistic animated graphics capability.
9. Laptops, for some strange reason, always seem to have amazing real-time video phone capabilities and the performance of a CRAY.
10. Whenever a character looks at a terminal, the image is so bright that it projects itself onto his/her face.
11. Computers never crash during key, high-intensity activities. Humans operating computers never make mistakes under stress.
12. (From Independence Day) No matter what kind of virus it is, any computer can be infected with it — even an alien spaceship’s computer — simply by running a virus upload program on a laptop.
13. (From Jurassic Park) A custom system with millions of lines of code controlling a multimillion dollar theme park can be operated by a 13 year old who has seen a Unix system before. Seeing an operating system means you know how to run any application on that system, even custom apps.
Note: What OS was it really running?
(1) “These are super computers”. A CrayOS?
(2) “Quicktime movie, Apple logo, trash can.” MacOS?
(3) “Reboot. System ready. C:\” DOS?
(4) “Hey, this is Unix. I know this” Unix?
The computers in Jurassic Park were Cray supercomputers running the MacOS as a graphical shell of DOS all layered on top of a Unix base. (Simply put, it is not possible, you dung-head)
14. You cannot stop a destructive program or virus by unplugging the computer. Presumably the virus has it’s own built-in power supply.
15. You cannot stop a destructive program downloading onto your system by unplugging the phone line. You must figure out the mandatory “back door” all evil virus programmers put in.
16. Computers only crash if a virus or a hacker is involved.
17. All text must be at least 72 point.
18. Word processors do not have an insert point.
19. The only way to reboot is to shut off the main power to the building.
20. Passwords can be guessed in three and exactly three tries. If you cannot guess the password in three tries, you must give up immediately. or the computer will start initiating the destruction sequence.
21. Any task or program can be executed by simply pressing Enter, no mat
ter which program or window is in the foreground.
22. All scanners, video cameras and digital cameras have a resolution of approximately 500 megapixels. Any image can be infinitely magnified with no pixelization.
23. Security will not improve over time. Nonaffialiated personnel can take over a space ship without needing an account or access control.
Corollary: Anyone can override access control lists in the future.
24. All hackers wear black T-shirts or Hawaiian shirts and have crazy hairstyles.
25. Incoming messages are displayed letter by letter. Email over the Internet works like telegraphs.
26. Microsoft Windows doesn’t exist. Macintosh has a 75% market share.
27. GUI operations, such as image selection and manipulation, can be handled easily and quickly via the keyboard.
I have been showcasing here the eight different paintings that I have recently completed. The first one in this series was the ‘Bulb’.
Today, I present the next one, which I call ‘Hover’. It basically depicts two dragon flies in action. It has been done using water color on specially colored paper.
Hope you will like it.
Google Image Search is awesome. I once read somewhere that the number of results Google Image Search returns for your query is directly proportional to the popularity of that query. So, I decided to do a mini experiment of mine based on that fact. I searched for the Head of the state of 15 different nations and created an excel sheet based on the number of results returned for each person. Here are the results.
No doubt Obama is the most famous. He gotta be. All other results show us how popular (or rather unpopular)the other leaders are. But the most striking result is for the Chinese Premiere. The extraordinary low result are surely a sign of censorship.
Our very own Manmohan Singh manages to hold ground amonng all these statesman. Kudos to the septuagenarian for still being able to inspire.
Paulo Coelho is one of my favourite writers. His books are filled with worldly wisdom, the sorts of which we all know but are seldom able to identify and implement in our real lives. He presents practical life tips in beautifully constructed stories which are authentically positive and inspiring.
Here, I present a small story from that book about a boy and a pencil. This story called “The Pencil” is an instant refresher course in ‘The Art of Living’. Here it goes….
A boy was watching his grandmother write a letter. At one point, he asked: “Are you writing a story about what we’ve done? Is it a story about me?” His grandmother stopped writing her letter and said to her grandson: “I am writing about you, actually, but more important than the words is the pencil I’m using. I hope you will be like this pencil when you grow up.”
Intrigued, the boy looked at the pencil. It didn’t seem very special. “But it’s just like any other pencil I’ve ever seen!” “That depends on how you look at things. It has five qualities which, if you manage to hang on to them, will make you a person who is always at peace with the world.”
“First quality: you are capable of great things, but you must never forget that there is a hand guiding your steps. We call that hand God, and He always guide us according to His will.”
“Second quality: now and then, I have to stop writing and use a sharpener. That makes the pencil suffer a little, but afterwards, he’s much sharper. So you, too, must learn to bear certain pains and sorrows, because they will make you a better person.”
“Third quality: the pencil always allows us to use an eraser to rub out any mistakes. This means that correcting something we did is not necessarily a bad thing; it helps to keep us on the road to justice.”
“Fourth quality: what really matters in a pencil is not its wooden exterior, but the graphite inside. So always pay attention to what is happening inside you.”
“Finally, the pencil’s fifth quality: it always leaves a mark. In just the same way, you should know that everything you do in life will leave a mark, so try to be conscious of that in your every action.”
