24 April 2021

From the bartender’s corner – Tamarind Martini

While looking for cocktails that use Spicy Tamarind vodka, I came across this recipe. It actually does not use tamarind vodka. Instead, it uses tamarind paste (which I had!!).

Thoroughly mix half a lime worth of juice, couple of pinches of Tajin salt, quarter spoonful of tamarind sauce and a spoonful of sugar in a mixing glass. Pour ice, 2 ounces of vodka (I used Tito’s) and 3 ounces of water and mix thoroughly. Pour into a martini glass that has been rimmed with Tajin salt.

Nice tarty taste with a kick from the Tajin salt…

24 April 2021

Finally, got the clearance!!

The good news is that after fourteen months, I got the message that I am finally cleared to go back to hospices to spend time with people who are in the last stages of their lives. Need to still get the painful subcutaneous Mantoux test done (to test against TB), but right now I have been assigned two young ladies (both 87) pining away their last days in two different hospices. And I have a brand new mask to show off too!!

The bad news is of course, none of my old friends that I got abruptly sundered from are there any more. In fact, most passed away without even being able to see their loved ones at the height of the pandemic.

23 April 2021

This was a favorite song for my mom

Brought out one more vinyl record from the India trip, cleaned it up and listed to it. Nazrulgeeti by Anup Ghoshal. One of the favorite songs for my mom is on Side A – “Nai chiniley amaay tumi”

I think the words go this way…
“Nai chiniley amaay tumi
Roibo aadhek chena
Chaand ki janey kothay fotey
Chaandni raater hena”

Roughly translated…
“So what if I remain a stranger to you
Somebody vaguely familiar to you?
The moon does not know either
Where the fragrant flowers bloom in the moonlit night”

19 April 2021

Answer to the marbles in Brownian motion puzzle…

The easiest way to think about this problem is not to think of number of marbles in each color but the differences in number between colors. Let’s say “a”, “b” and “c” are the pairwise differences in colors. Their values are 10, 10 and 20 to begin with.

Let’s see what happens whenever there is a “hit”.
If the marbles are of same colors, of course no change in count happens – so a, b and c remain the same.
If the marbles are of different colors – then those two colors go down by 1 each and the third color goes up by 2. Which means the pairwise differences either remain the same (the two colors that hit) or they change by 3 (one color goes down by 1 and the resulting color goes up by 2).

So, the first concept to realize is that a, b and c always change in steps of 0 or steps of 3. There are no other step changes they can have.

Now, let’s say what if the marbles actually did become all of one color. What as the step right before it? We would have had to have all marbles of the same final color excepting two – one each of the other two colors. Thus if finally everything is green, in the penultimate step, there has to be one red, one blue and rest green. The red hits the blue to become green.

Note that in that penultimate step, the pairwise difference between two colors (that have one marble left each) is 0. And that is the second concept to realize.

Now putting these two concepts together…

Well, we started with a, b and c being 10, 10 and 20. Going in steps of 0 and 3, can any of these numbers ever get to 0? No. Therefore it will never reach the penultimate step.

Which means the marbles will never be of the same color !!

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