Sailing High

haha..I dared to take shots in the rains in Goa and now I feel worried. Should take my camera for the check up once. Meanwhile let me know what you feel about the pic.

One of the first nice photos (or atleast as people told me so!) that I could shoot using my new D50 SLR camera. The first step towards more serious photography. All the best to me :)

..and I realized it just a while before.
I am talking about Nikon and their world famous series of digital cameras. I own a Nikon D50 which is an entry level SLR camera brought into market a year earlier.

Minutes back, I came from a tiring photo shooting with anti-reservation students protesting outside MB. (Detour: it is another story; I would cover some other time)
Excited to see the pics, I was trying to connect the transfer cable to my camera. What I got in turn was the shock of my life. Yes, literally, an electrical shock. The shock, like it almost took the life out of me. My pulse and heart beat was still racing for couple of more second before I got normal. Luckily I could manage to keep camera clinging to me and only the lower portion of body hitting the wall besides me.

As I became normal, first thing I did was switched on my camera. No, the camera was not focusing...no it was not shooting either. Hurriedly, I pressed on the LCD button. The monitor was working. The colors of the images looked normal. The data was not lost. I checked settings. All was fine. The camera refused to focus. The pictured would not click. The zoom ring was hard to rotate. It resisted.

All along the mind had stopped working and I was praying more than thinking.
A flash thought. I switched to manual focusing. Tried moving the focus ring and then I heard a click as if something freed from a locking. It was in fact the beautiful work of excellent servo motor that helps the lens focus in auto and allied modes. It had locked itself in the event of shock so as to avoid any damage.

After a while, the camera was working fine again. I thanked heaven and could only see Nikon up in the air. The camera indeed is a great buy on every front.

Good news:
Federer wins the "best player" and Nadal wins "the best newcomer". Federer said later,

"Him winning the Newcomer and me winning the big one, that's a great sign for tennis."

Valentino Rozzi, finally, an award that describes his experiences with Laureus. “Spirit of the sports award" He has missed on the award for last 2-3 years straight
For unaware souls Kapil Dev was one of the jury members. So Indians do have representation at this globally prestigious and the Mecca of sports award.

Bad news (for race crazy):
Fernando Alonso went back empty hands. It would be a tough call. To be the youngest ever Champion in the fastest sports on earth is no mean feat.

As expressed by a fellow mate:
1) “The society in which they live (the OBC families) have a kind of tradition and culture (along with rigid mindsets) which do not allow them to strive to move up the social strata. But reservations would change this. There will be an incentive because there will be more obvious opportunities.”

Keeping the important point in mind that the said group is not being discriminated and neither the institutions they want to get in through quotas disallow them the chance to admission, I have following to say:
Now doesn’t this sound like a "free lunch". Everyone likes it. Isn't it? Sorry to be blunt but it's a shame. The society should be one of a pattern where the backward groups self-help themselves rather than being dependent on someone to carry them ahead. It's equivalent to promoting beggary and pity for anyone to be demanding "alms".

2) Next is a weird analogy: “People evade taxes. Scrap tax laws if reservations are to be scrapped for same reasons.”

What kind of reasoning is this? No law or rule is 100% effective and need not be. But then there is a difference between tax laws and proposed reservation law.

Tax laws even with their current form are doing "good" and removing them would do enormous harm. (Alternatives if any are also welcome)

On the other hand, reservations will do no good if made applicable but scrapping them would do a lot of good to our country. Moreover, there are alternatives which pro-reservationists do not want to hear. (But then these are long term genuine solutions. We are interested in gimmicks)

Spend money and efforts on bringing them into mainstream on their own. Do not simply try to lift them and put them on the driver’s seat. They will harm themselves and many more.

and the same arguments/issues/motives are spelled out by the observers. But lately I have come across few interesting articles which are worth a read. They do a more objective, comprehensive and rational analysis of the subject at hand.

Worth a read.

A year since I stopped blogging. Sometimes I was lazy but more often dumbfounded, flabbergasted and lately stupefied.
Simply inexplicable I am. So I decide to move on to another form of blogging. From words to pictures. I have found time in photography and whoa! I have the means to express myself again. A picture is worth thousand words. I got my substitution.
So anyone who is on this blog, reading this - simply interested or an aimless rover - find me on my photoblog:
Shutterbug

Well, no one would believe it.

So many admonished me., fudged curses of CC, BC...everything to extol me to do at least something in a week prior to the report submission... to mask the shameless idle, one and a half month.
I understood it all, like always, but never acted. for action requires much more than just brain response. U need to work with other body parts. the hands, the legs ..But then I had to reboot the entire body system. Reprogram everything tuned to function only for entries like, "food, alcohol, outings and of course, bantering."
As the panic bells started ringing with 7 days remaining (as they always do), I rushed for entire makeover of my life-style.

In seven days of reading journals, googling references and copying the past works, I could satiate my Prof as I did much more than what he expected. I also picked up his grandson from kindergarten in the afternoon and dropped both of them back home. Then I also dropped him occasionally to a nearby paan shop and did not mind downloading classical Tamil songs for him. U know all this with reading papers, journals, thesis and what not. Hush...

Finally I managed AA..ya in capitals. below are sum of the exhilarating moments while working for the report:

A friend after hearing about AA, "Congos dude! I thought that I was a big fraud. Scored AB for just a month's work. ..u r not just the biggest, but the greatest fraud. Keep it up"

My guide during a mock session, "Listen fellow, This is it. I am having my last cigarette in hand, and as it finishes, I am off. Do hell with your presentation or you could get me another packet. Do u have bike? "

My examiner during the QnA session to me, "I'm confused. Who of us has not understood a word about this presentation but pretending so"

A (girl) friend in Jamshedpur, " AA, what is that? that too only for u..i thought u will be getting something big. and I'll have a share of it too"

Wud u like to comment too?

just realized that I am being a lil too much philosophical..not good for my brains..heart either..so let's put up a permanent full stop to this (damn)"world" series. If u noticed rightly, my last few blogs are all about the world and me :D
Disgusting??? eh?? Even I think so?

PS: who said cut the crap?