When you are extraordinary and you still do the simplest things with great care.

Aug 21, 2006

We lose a Gem

By 6:42 AM 2 comments
Ustad Bismillah Khan passes away from The Hindu

Varanasi, Aug. 21 (PTI): Shehnai maestro Ustad Bismillah Khan, one of India's most celebrated classical musicians, passed away in the wee hours today.

The 91-year-old Bharat Ratna awardee, who had been ailing for quite some time, died of cardiac arrest at the Heritage hospital here.

Khan had been admitted to the hospital on Thursday with age-related health problems and weakness brought on by his refusal to eat solid food.

Aug 18, 2006

Thought

By 7:18 AM 3 comments
Sometimes when you think life cannot get worse than this it just does.
And sometimes when you think that there is no end to this darkness...
just then it bring out the silver lining.

Aug 17, 2006

Don't question my coffee ...

By 9:39 AM 2 comments
Coffee Might Trigger First Heart Attack in Some from msn.com

This latest finding will most likely keep the coffee debate percolating among health experts. Previous research has suggested that coffee does not raise heart risks, and might even protect against high blood pressure and diabetes. As a matter of fact, only decaffeinated coffee has been shown to possibly boost the chances of cardiovascular trouble.

Aug 16, 2006

Filhaal

By 7:58 AM 2 comments
Ae zindagi yeh lamha jee lene de
Oh, pehle se likha kuch bhi nahin
Roz naya kuch likhti hai tu
Jo bhi likha hai, dil se jiya hai
Yeh lamha filhaal jee lene de - 2
Maasoom si hasi, bevaja hi kabhi
Honton pe khil jaati hai
Anjaan si khushi baheti hui kabhi
Saahil pe mil jaati hai
Yeh anjaana sa darr ajnabi hai magar
Khoobsurat hai jee lene de
Yeh lamha filhaal jee lene de - 2
Dil hi mein rehta hai, aankhon mein baheta hai
Kaccha sa ek khwaab hai
Lagta sawaal hai, shaayad jawaab hai
Dil phir bhi betaab hai
Yeh sukun hai to hai, yeh junoon hai to hai
Khoobsurat hai jee lene de
Yeh lamha filhaal jee lene de ...
Oh, pehle se likha kuch bhi nahin
Roz naya kuch, oh likhti hai tu
Jo bhi likha hai, dil se jiya hai
Yeh lamha filhaal jee lene de ...

A moral question

By 6:54 AM 1 comment
Blood on the tracks via ALDaily

MORAL PHILOSOPHERS and academics interested in studying how humans choose between right and wrong often use thought experiments to tease out the principles that inform our decisions. One particular hypothetical scenario has become quite the rage in some top psychological journals. It involves a runaway trolley, five helpless people on the track, and a large-framed man looking on from a footbridge. He may or may not be about to tumble to his bloody demise: You get to make the call.

That's because in this scenario, you are standing on the footbridge, too. You know that if you push the large man off the bridge onto the tracks, his body will stop the trolley before it kills the five people on the tracks. Of course, he will die in the process. So the question is: Is it morally permissible to kill the man in order to save five others?

In surveys, most people (around 85 percent) say they would not push the man to his death.

Often, this scenario is paired with a similar one: Again, there are five helpless people on the track. But this time, you can pull a switch that will send the runaway trolley onto a side track, where only one person is standing. So again, you can reduce the number of deaths from five to one-but in this case most people say, yes, they would go ahead and pull the lever. Why do we react so differently to the two scenarios?

Aug 14, 2006

Aug 9, 2006

Home grown terroist in INDIA??!!???

By 11:47 AM No comments
India Fears Terrorism May Attract Its Muslims from NYTimes

It is an intresting... NO it is a serious matter. It will be so much more difficult to fight these terror attacks if the "terroist" we were killing or being killed by were our fellow countrymen/women. This probelm if not dealt soon will result in many more blasts like the once in the recent past. Wonder what can be done... politician will do nothing other than make it a vote bank issue.

friendship....

By 9:54 AM 1 comment
Friendship Among the Intellectuals via ALDaily

“It is painful to consider,” wrote Samuel Johnson about friendship, “that there is no human possession of which the duration is less certain.”

Too true. Some friendships die on their own, of simple inanition, having been quietly allowed to lapse by the unacknowledged agreement of both parties. Others break down because time has altered old friends, given them different interests, values, points of view. In still others, only one party works at the friendship, while the other belongs to what Truman Capote called (in a letter to the critic Newton Arvin, his ex-lover) “some odd psychological type . . . that only writes when he is written to.” And then of course there are the friendships that end when one friend betrays or is felt to betray the other, or fails to come through in a crisis, or finds himself violently disputing the other on matters of profoundest principle.

Book I want to read...

By 9:35 AM No comments
"The Felmale Brain" came accross this book via the following article and the article is worth a look too.

FEMME MENTALE via ALDaily
San Francisco neuropsychiatrist says differences between women's and men's brains are very real, and the sooner we all understand it, the better

Aug 7, 2006

Aug 4, 2006

Close Encounter

By 8:28 AM 3 comments
It is these people I saw yesterday on mumbai local train... Frequent travelers know the rush at Kurla. So as usual at Kurla people poured in and I heard a shrill voice screaming at someone "Randi hat saath mae bachha hai" The lady must have been 70 something with a baby girl of 7 in front of her. After forging her way in she settled herself few paces away from where I was standing and asked the little girl to move to the side. I was shocked that after screaming at another women to make way for the kid she is asking her to move away. But then a girl of at most 15 or 16 moved into my view. She was holding a another baby girl of 3 who was crying in burst and to top it she was pregnant. I had this sudden erg to slap someone and say what the hell were you thinking. All I could was move a little away. After a while someone got up and gave her seat to this "women" and someone gave the crying baby some biscuits and she stopped crying.

People might have given her food or a place to sit but the fact still remains "A girl of 15 with two kids, one crying of hunger and third on its way." And all I can do is write about it and then get on with life. Do we get immune to such things and let it pass? I wish that i never do...

Aug 2, 2006

Search