17 March 2014

An evening at Milton’s

Every Sunday Sharmila and I have our date night at Milton’s. When you go to the same bar every week for years you tend to get to know the folks at the bar and their families and many of the regular customers (and Sharmila too 🙂 ). And that is part of the charm of our date nights. Without Milton’s our date nights would not be as memorable.

Case in point: Today’s featured singer Jamie was merrily singing and I was focusing on my Bourbon, when a small kid – he could not have been more than three years old – escaped from his parents and strolled into the bar area. As if on a cue, Jamie started singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”. As the kid watched Jamie mesmerized, all the folks in the bar spontaneously gathered around the kid and Jamie and joined in the song. Eventually, the harried dad who must have realized his son was missing appeared on the scene too!! After the song, everybody clapped loudly and went back to their seats laughing!!!

It is these impromptu moments in life that gives you what scripted schedule can never give you – they sense of some unique moments that probably will not repeat again!!

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14 March 2014

Millions “worldwide” do NOT celebrate Pi day today

USA Today Tech Section front page carries an article that declares in its first statement “millions worldwide celebrate Pi day today” (today being 3.14). That led me to the curiosity question – how many countries follow MDY format for dates? Who are these other “worldwide” folks? Want to take a guess? Only USA!!! Okay, I am discounting Belize!

More than 10 times the population of USA in this world write their dates in DMY format. That should mean they would celebrate July 22 (22/7) as Pi day.

China – with more than four times the population of USA – follows another format – YMD.

But then, we will come up with any excuse to eat some more pie!!! 🙂

11 March 2014

Crazy animal facts

The fact that I am asking you this should tell you what the answer is. And yes, they are crazy but true!!!

1. Which animal has killed more humans in Africa? Hippos or lions? (I could not believe this)
2. Which animal can go more days without water? A camel or a giraffe? (What? What about that ship of the desert thing????)
3. You have a white cat which has blue eyes. Therefore it is deaf. True or False? (Go figure this one)
4. Which one is more likely to kill you? A champagne cork or a poisonous spider?
5. Which is the food most number of people are allergic to? Cow’s milk or peanut? (Bad news for my folks back in India)
6. Every year, which one of these kill more people? Bees or snakes? (Wait till Sharmila finds this out 🙂 )
7. An average bed has how many dust mites? About a dozen or about as many people are there in this world? (There goes my sleep in a Marriott bed tonite)
8. Which kills more people every year? Coconuts or sharks?
9. Which accelerates faster than the other – by about 50 times of the other? A flea or the space shuttle?
10. Which one of these two animals have been proven to prefer blondes over brunettes? Man or mosquito? (Really? Who came up with the study? Incredible!!!)

At this point I decided to stop reading any further. Else I might come across something absolutely crazy like a hippo can run faster than humans or something like that… What? That is true too?

I give up! Good night folks!!

5 March 2014

Ahmad Wali back again!

Ever since I had that conversation with that Afghan cab driver in DC, I have been trying to dig up more songs of Ahmad Wali on YouTube. Here is one that is just amazingly mellifluous (at least to a Bengali ear). I am also intrigued by the influence from common roots of Indian songs and Afghan songs on each other. The tunes of most of his songs remind me of some other song I have heard before. (And I cannot understand a single word of what he is saying).

For all my Bengali music lover friends, which Nazrulgeeti does the second song of Ahmad Wali (starts at 5:35) remind you of? There are parts of the song that have almost the same tune!!

And for my Afghan friends (read Miriam 🙂 ) what is the meaning of the song he is singing?

1 March 2014

Nice qawwali to end this Friday evening…

“Muthhee bandh key aanewale,
Tu hath pasarey jayega
Dhan daulat jagir se tune
Kya paya, kya payega?

Chadhta suraj dhire dhire
Dhalta hain dhal jayega”

You, who are born in this world with your fists clenched (symbolizing wanting to hold on to your belongings)
Will die with your palms open (symbolizing you will have to give up everything when you die)
With all your money, property and belongings
What have you got? What are you going to get?

The shining rising run … will slowly but surely be setting on you!!

26 February 2014

Where is the bright goal line?

Yesterday, while visiting my doctor, I heard something that made an impression on me. We were discussing my theory of splitting up our retirement period and taking long time offs multiple times in our life and pursuing other interests than work. My doctor himself regularly takes time off to go serve in Haiti, Honduras etc.

As we exchange notes, one similarity came up in both our experience of discussions on this topic. Most folks worry of the financial stability aspects of taking time off. And the consequential never ending pursuit of financial stability since the goal line keeps getting moved as we even remotely approach the goal line that we had set for ourselves before.

He told me a story of an old friend of his who had put this in a great way. Evidently, what he said was that he did not need a lot of land. He just wanted to own the properties adjoining his!!!

That is an awesome picture of describing a never ending goal!! Had a hearty laugh!!

22 February 2014

Celebrating Feb 21

Sharmila and the kids are at the Demi Lovato show. I got the whole house and evening to myself! So I decided to kick up my own cacophony at home 🙂

This being the World Mother Language day [the origin goes back to a very unfortunate incident. When the British, in their infinite wisdom, divided India along religious lines before they left in 1947, Pakistan was born as two large noncontiguous landmasses – one is what is today known as Pakistan and the other one is what is today known as Bangladesh. It was originally called East Bengal – because the dividing line broke apart a state that had Bengali speaking guys like me into East Bengal (as part of Pakistan) and West Bengal (as part of contiguous India – where I was born)].

Later East Bengal was renamed East Pakistan and then after its war of independence (Pakistan has a different view on this), it became Bangladesh. In between, there was a move by Pakistan to have a common language – Urdu as the national language. East Pakistan revolted against this – as they wished to keep their language Bengali as their official language – and the protest turned deadly with four students being shot dead.

Much later, UN recognized this day as the World Mother Language day to celebrate diversity in this world.

To celebrate that, spent a couple of hours listening to Bengali songs by singers from Bangladesh – some really young and upcoming talent like Dina, Saju, Liza, Shadhona… My absolute favorites are Chanchal Chowdhury and Momotaj!

Speaking of cacophony, I experimented with a combination of tabla and cajon to those tunes. I had a very faithful and appreciative listener as you can see in the picture 🙂

Also, I do not think UN sanctioned wine as part of the World Mother Language day, but I threw that in for free 🙂

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