Saturday Night

Relax at ECP beach along with friends, Danny & Prakash, late in the night lying down on the sand watching the night sky and counting those stars with soothing sound of the waves in the background. Enjoy the dinner at Turkish restaurant, Kebab Station, with soft hot Pita breads and delicious dips like Salsa, Humus and Cacik followed by Vegetaria rice all along with sips of Milo Dinosaur. Back to seas sitting on the rocks near the shore with Carlsberg in a hand and chatting on the various subjects from science to spiritual to future plans and finally ending up the whole session at midnight with a lovely game of Bowling at Marine Bowl. One of the lovely ways to spend a Saturday night. Cool!!

learning MALAY on the go...

I had been to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, few weeks ago and caught these message boards written in Malay. Whenever I travel to Malaysia, I learn some Malay words through various sources but somehow forget some of them the moment I reach Singapore :( So this time decided to capture them permanently in my camera and then slowly transfer to my brain :))

Note: The translation is on as is method. So may be wrong grammatically ;) If any word is wrong or not apt, please correct me.

Remember, all these are just for fun :))

- reminder -
- saturday week - 17 cents/30 seconds -
- place gathering during emergency -
- danger -
- limit height -
- caution branch danger - reduce speed -
- entry -
- caution - people blind passage -
- area voltage high -
- except emergency -
- caution - area accident reduce speed -
- caution - lamp signal is ahead
- reduce speed - area palace -
- caution reduce speed -

Happy Independence Day!

Last week Singapore saw its 44th National Day. Now it's India's turn. Today India celebrates its 63rd Independence Day. The day every Indian has to recall the history. The day every Indian has to understand the true meaning of independence. The day every Indian has to realise its current state.

Going back six decades to the past, I imagine how our ancestors faced the days in the clutches of britishers' hands. Innumerable sacrifices, countless martyr deaths, endless struggles. Some chose violence. Some chose non-violence. But their aims were same. Their goal was one. Freedom. The first thing that we have to mention is their vision. They dreamt of freedom. They foresaw their children's future. The next thing that cannot be spoken without appreciation is their courage. The courage to fight against the strong force in those days. The other thing was the unity. A bunch of religions, hundreds of languages and thousands of castes. Nevertheless they were united for one purpose. Freedom.

After so many struggles we finally got independence. But are we really maintaining that freedom? Aren't we misusing what we got? Making public nuisance through various crap banners on the roadsides, spitting on the roads, throwing rubbish wherever one feels like, illegal encroachment of lands, creating groupism reservation in the name of equal rights, fight for separate land, cutting down the trees for artificial development, excess usage of electricity & wastage of water all in the name of freedom and fundamental rights. Some of these activities are in fact now lead to global warming.

Let's keep aside these concerns. What about the strengths that our ancestors had? Do we have the vision about our future India? Do we have that courage to fight against the political corruption? Are we united to fight against the breeding terrorism? How strong are we to face the challenges thrown by the other world countries? These questions are not just to others but even to myself. I dont totally deny that we dont have these qualities. We definitely do have. Our country has very obviously seen a remarkable development in the last 62 years. It is not easy to achieve this development by any country that is vast in geographical area and home for rich and diversified cultures. That is India. In spite of various religions and innumerous races we are united always as one nation. Such is our achievement. Indians are shining not just in the other countries. But India itself is shining in the outer space of our planet Earth. While we have crossed various milestones in the past years we also have started laying foundations in different significant areas.

We are strong compared to hundreds of other countries in the world. In fact we are playing major role as advisories to many countries on the critical issues. But the strength that we have today is far less powerful than what our freedom fighters had at those times. Let's develop that courage and vision. Let's have strong unity in diversity. Let's be responsible Indians. Let's contribute our best to save the planet earth where we belong.

Vande Mataram! Jai Hind!!

Charmaine

I received a mail from one of my friends about a little girl named Charmaine. She is just 4 years old but suffering from stage 4 Neuroblastoma, a debilitating cancer that occurs in children. Doctors here have told that the chance of survival is only 10-20% but suggested the drugs that can give her a chance of survival to 40-50% are available in New York, US. However the treatment cost seems to be so high that the upfront deposit at one of the hospitals in New York even before the treatment begins is US$350,000 (SG$500,000).

I dont know who this little girl is.
I dont know who her parents are.
I dont even know any of her friends or relatives.
But I know the value of a life.

I know to an extent what a little girl is like.

I know to an extent how her parents undergo the pain.

What I'm doing or going to do is secondary. But what I request the readers is to do something that is possible at their level. A small effort from hundreds will contribute to a huge help.

Below is the link that is created by her friends and well wishers.

http://ourfeistyprincess.com/

Hasty thoughts

This happened today in MRT while travelling on my way back to AMK from Jurong. The priority and the second seats were taken by a young Chinese couple while the third one was occupied by a young Indian guy. The couple were well dressed while the guy clearly looked like a labourer working in some construction site. As the train stopped somewhere in Bukit Batok (dont remember the station exactly), an old chinese Singaporean man of around 70 years boarded. Since the priority seats, meant for people like pregnants, old & disabled people, were occupied by a couple, he walked straight towards the Indian guy in the third seat. The old man hurried to the guy without even turning around. The act makes one think as if the guy has taken his seat. But the guy stood up immediately and offered the seat to the old man very modestly. I felt very bad over this incident. Bad I meant the behaviour of the old man. Why didn't he ask the couple for the seats? Is it because the couple is neatly dressed and the guy is not? Or is it because the couple is Chinese and the poor young guy is an Indian? Why did the man behave so strangely? In a country like Singapore where human discrimination on the basis of race is hardly heard or rarely seen, this incident in train disturbed me a lot. Yet I could not conclude on the exact reason.

As I was lost in various thoughts, the train approached a station and the couple got up from the priority seats. Ghosh! The woman was actually a pregnant which the old man has probably noticed while entering the train and hence didn't approach them. May be even the woman must have sighed to offer the seat which the old man must have refused. Also the guy must have offered the seat and all these I failed to notice. I was trying to re-evaluate my understanding about the old man but was astounded by him again. As the couple left the place, he immediately kept his left hand on the second seat as if he is reserving it and asked the same indian guy to sit there.

How ignorant could I have been? I had misunderstood the old man not knowing the truth completely. All my wrong calculations about the old man shattered in seconds.

Who is the Hero?

Too busy these days with office work, hence no camera and no shoots :(

So thought will post a different picture this time. This one was taken on last Sunday at the lunch party at Masala Art near City Hall. Two of my colleagues are going back to India next week and this was a farewell occasssion.

So who is the other hero? (one is me :) )

Away for few days

Away for few days

Happy Parents' Day

There is no dictionary or language in this world that has exact definition about parents.

Happy Parents' Day.

Cyclone Nargis

One of the deadliest natural disasters and the second biggest in Asia since Tsunami of Sumatra in 2004 (the first being Earthquake in Pakistan in 2005 which killed more than 70,000).

Nargis cyclone hit Myanmar in the first week of May resulting in the worst damages to the country & its people. As per the official reports, more than 22,000 are dead while more than 40,000 are missing. However some reports from U.S. agency in Myanmar estimate the toll to cross 100,000. Helps have already started flowing in from United Nations and various countries including U.S., India, Thailand among others.

May I wish the affected people of Myanmar for a quick recovery and peaceful life ahead.

God bless them!!

Photographers, captured.

I tried to capture these photographers on my camera when they're trying to capture others :-)

Significantly, all these photographers are my good friends whom I captured when we had been on different trips to different places.

note: the photographer on pic 7 below is me & it's obvious that I could not have clicked it.











You can expect Part 2 very soon :-)

back again!

Wow! It feels great to write a posting after a very long time. It's more than a year since I last wrote any article. It's more than three years since I last used this blog place. I could not continue due to various reasons. Now I'm back hoping to be in touch regularly. There're lots in my mind to post here like pictures, thoughts, travel experiences & lot more. Let me see.

Wish myself good luck :)

Bye