Something more to say...

MMA

2011-12-12T21:12:00.003+05:30

MMA stands for "Musical MIDI Accompaniment".

If you want to install MMA in ubuntu:
take the latest deb from http://www.mellowood.ca/mma/downloads.html#deb.
Download the .deb file and open with Ubuntu Software Center and click install.

Then run a software synthesiser by installing timidity-daemon. Most soundcards don't have midi built-in so we need software synthesis timidity. Timidity-daemon runs in server mode.

command => sudo apt-get install timidity

install pmidi: command => sudo apt-get install pmidi

run timidity in a terminal => timidity -iA -B2,8 -Os1l -s 44100
To exit press CTRL-C in the terminal it's running in.

Uncomment TIM_ALSASEQ=true in /etc/default/timidity so that timidity daemon is started on every boot.

create a folder where you want to run mma command (e.g. /home/ratan/my_mid)
create a file mmarc in folder /home/ratan/my_mid and put SetMIDIplayer aplaymidi -p128:0 in that file.

go to /home/ratan/my_mid and type => mma -V lfusion Chords=Bm,Bm,A,A,G,Em,Bm,Bm Tempo=123 Count=200

if you want to run MMA in windows:
http://www.mellowood.ca/mma/win/WindowsHowto.html
and you can install VLC pluging to play .mid file:
http://wiki.videolan.org/Midi

Some useful links:
https://gist.github.com/824120
http://www.mellowood.ca/mma/examples.html
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Midi/SoftwareSynthesisHowTo
http://www.kara-moon.com/forum/index.php?board=21.0

I

its one year!!

2010-12-05T18:29:00.002+05:30

its been one year since I last wrote on blog. Looks like my "Awaking" is not over yet :))

Awaking

2009-12-04T19:54:00.018+05:30

And then one day you find
Ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun"

As most of Pink Floyd's fans know, above lyrics, it has been taken from Time song. Well, I am listening this song while writing this blog.

Did I miss the starting gun?
Did someone tell me when to run? ...

There are many questions still hanging but I don't have the answers. Well sometime we become so much preoccupied by our work, careers, ambitions, family and friends that such thoughts do not occur to us. But sometimes we get plenty of time when we really sit back and have a look around us, our past and start discovering some interesting things about past. These things may be not be very important or interesting to be noticed at first glance, their pace may be very slow that it doesn't register our attention. But when these changes are complete we notice the results.

These changes can make us smile or can make us wonder what went wrong. But one thing which is common to all these changes are we cant do anything about them but accept them as they are!

Well coming back to question, I didn't missed the starting gun :). Well I wont deny that I ran at right time, but well I ran, or at least I tried. May be I was not clear as I was ruining so fast that didn't notice where I was running to, assuming that 'people' are with me, supporting me. When I stopped to catch a breath for my aching lungs, I realised that I can't recognize the location! What... wait I mean I don't know where I am right now. I can hear the voices of familiar people whom I had presumed to be always with me, but I cant see them now. Had I lost the way or I am on correct way but rest of the group took the different path, I am not very sure of. But one thing is clear that I am alone, I am with me, And i am still breathing, I pinch my face and it hurts. So I am alive too. Then where am I now? Where I am heading to? Where are the rest of the group?. I cant find any answer. I am just looking for any passer by who can tell me where I am now? Hope I find the answers very soon but I am very happy that I am awake now.

The manali adventure

2009-08-12T14:00:00.005+05:30

I had been to Manali in year 2005. That time i played a lot with snow as it was the start of April and city was completely covered with snow. I visited it again this time last weekends. Everything looked normal except crowd and snow. It is off-season!! So you expect less crowd. Anyway we got cheaper deal for hotels, but transports and other basic things are very costly. We went to Rohtang pass. The journey was amazing. Many time we felt that our life was on the mercy of our skilled driver :) Many wild flowers, nice landscape, petite and ferocious water falls, dogs with shining hair, polite Himachali people, adventure and fun seeking bikers with camping materials tied nicely on their bikes, rude truck drivers with menacing looks are very common scene here. A must visit for all :)

What are you waiting for?

2009-06-10T21:31:00.005+05:30

What are you waiting for? This is the most annoying question faced by me these days. Any guess what i am talking about? Damn its the same question which haunts every bachelor? "hey dude! get married! what are you waiting for?". Another version of same question,"beta ab to tumahri umra ho gayi hai, shaadi kab kar raho ho?". Someone save me from all these questions. I can't ask for help from the God cause i heard somewhere that its he who makes the 'jodi' ... its like asking for help from someone who is the first place made you run for your life!... ohhh.. i am just a bit off track. So i am talking about the questions about weddings. Married poeple want me to get married because they cant tolerate seeing anyone bachelor and given a chance they will explain me in detail about the advantage of getting married. And sometime its like listening same advice twice a week from same person! Juniors have become smart and now they have overcome the typical social attequete of saying,"you get married soon so that my number will come". Kudos to them. Experience teaches everyone and now they are not waiting for me. But the moment they get married, they start asing the same question.! strange...

Practical vs Emotional

2009-05-03T11:57:00.003+05:30

Are you emotional creature or a practical one? Does this question sound familiar? Its Indian culture to ask personal questions to anyone closely or remotely known to anyone. People don't mind answering these questions and they ask the same questions in return :). So we can't help but choose between answering straightforward answer or you maintain a diplomatic silence or misleading the person in front of you. So where were we? ... OK I remembered. We are discussing what do yo say when people ask whether you are emotional or practical one? Have you ever thought this one when you are alone or did you even think about this when someone comments out that you are very practical or very emotional or something like that? Are you that practical who only thinks about yourself or you think which is practical for you and your friends. Are you emotional for your self or do you also consider for your friends. Are you practical one who gets emotional whenever someone makes some personal comment on you which don't like? Are you the emotional one who gets practical when you deal with other's issue and you turn to be emotional the moments it involves you? Are you the practical one who hate yourself for not being emotional or are you proud of being practical. Are you the emotional stuff who hate yourself for being emotional are you proud of being emotional? Are you the guy who think that you are emotional while rest of the world consider you practical?

Shogi: picture

2009-04-14T21:55:00.002+05:30

Shogi

2009-04-14T21:44:00.003+05:30

Shogi is located near Shimla. Best way to reach Shogi is to take a bus from Delhi to Shimla and bus will drop you a Shogi.

Best place to stay is Wood Park resort.
Things to do: Wood Park has some recreational activities like rock climbing, rope walking, trekking, climbing spider web, born fire, star gazing, monkey tapping and nature walk through mountains.

Walking to this place is just like walking to forest. All one can hear is chirping of birds; sounds of leaves and nothing else. It is surrounded by tress and an untouched nature.

where are you?

2009-03-10T23:17:00.002+05:30

I logged to gmail and enabled in-built chat. One of friend asked,"are u there on orkut?". Then somebody else asked,"are you on twitter?", "aren't you on facebook?". I am generally loyal, and currently my loyalty is with orkut. With a big list of friends on orkut, it becomes difficult to follow friends in orkut. Lots of status changes, hundreds of photos upoladed each day, i find difficult to cope with it. Thank you very much, i am pretty much tired with Orkut itself :)... can't think of joining facebook or something else at this moment. But i joined twitter just to see what's new there.

http://twitter.com/ratan_freebird

infinite loop !

2009-01-18T18:31:00.006+05:30

Have you ever felt that your life is stuck in an infinite loop? Before you say no, its better to explain what i mean !(my friends say what i say and what i mean sometime are two different things :). So what i define an infinite loop of life as such state of mind where you feel like that your life is getting repeated. You feel like you are repeating the same mistake again and again and feel good or sad later after, you feel you thinking very hard to choose the option presented to you, each time its as hard as it was earlier. Only things that may be different are circumstances and people you are dealing. That's what we define an infinite loop of life.

Social suggestion box

2008-09-19T19:30:00.005+05:30

A social suggestion box is a generic name which broadly defines handling of feedbacks or suggestions in a social way. Instead of tradition way where few 'selected' people are empowered to select the ideas, here all can select which idea is good and which is not. So that good ideas are selected and organizations can work upon those ideas for benefit of themselves, employee, members or clients.

In a social suggestion box, people can submit their ideas. People can vote on these ideas and select the best ones. So it helps to gather lots of ideas and then bubble up the best of them.

see more on social suggestion box.

booksyoulike

2008-09-19T19:30:00.002+05:30

Well did you ever felt the need of having a e-library where you can request book of your choice? Well see the link booksyoulike. Here I have listed all the books i have and some books which were donated by my friends. Hope that this list keep on growing.

Richard Wright... we will miss you!

2008-09-16T19:48:00.003+05:30

I am returning to this page after 2nd July, 2007, more than a year. Yesterday evening I went to watch 'Rock On'. I liked the movie. Then i got a call from my drummer friend from Bangalore today morning. I told that i missed him very much after watching the movie. And he told that he had not watched the movie but definitely go this weekends. I reached my office and heard that Richard Wright is no more with us. I was shocking news. I went to google and searched about this news. And i felt sorry that news was true. I searched the people's reaction about this news. I came across David Gilmour's blog.
http://blog.davidgilmour.com/2008/09/richard.html

I believe that indeed he was a great musician and people will remember his contribution to music for a long time.

Asmita Summer Theatre Festival

2007-07-02T00:01:00.000+05:30

I had planned to go to Kasauli this weekend. But plan was to be cancelled due to some unavoidable reasons. I was in a full mood of going outside. I tried to have some plan made spontaneously. But nothing succeeded. So I thought of having a Delhi tour. I thought a lot of taking my bike or not. Finally I started alone for National Museum by bus. I got down at Barakhambha road and took an auto to National museum. We roamed around museum but I took a while before we could actually locate it. Anyway it was a treat to myself. Such a huge collection including Harappan artifacts, Archaeology (800 sculptures), Buddhist art, Indian miniature paintings, evolution of Indian scripts and coins, decorative arts, jewellery, manuscripts (section was under renovation), central Asian antiquity (wall painting, painted silk banners, pottery objects), coins (1672 coins!), painting from Tanjore and Mysore, Indian textile, pre-Columbian and western art, wood carving, musical instruments (17-19^th century collection, 125 instruments), tribal life style in north west, arms and armour, temple chariot. Finally had a nice lunch at cafeteria at third floor of the museum.

Then I left for Safdarjang Tomb, followed by IHC by walk. You can always find some painting exhibition there. Then left for jantar mantra. Went o CP and palika bazaar and bought music video and lessons. Then went to Sri Ram centre to watch a play. The play was called “30 days in September”. It’s written by Mahesh Dattani. It was directed by Arvind Gaur under Asmita banner. This play is build around child abuse and tries to lift the veil on the hush-hush subject. After the play there was exchange of views among the audiences initiated by director. It was a wonderful play.

On Sunday, there was closing ceremony of Asmita Summer Theatre festival. The play was Rakt Kalyan written by Girish Karnad. It was directed by Arvind Gaur. The play deals with a man called Basvanna eight hundred years ago in city of kalian. He assembled a congregation of poets, mystics, social revolutionaries in Karnataka. They opposed idolatry, rejected temple worship, upheld equality among sexes and condemned caste system. But event took a violent turn when they acted on their beliefs and out of caste marriage happens. The movement ended in bloodshed.

swimming: 45 lapses

2007-07-01T22:40:00.000+05:30

Well as I wrote earlier that I finished 10 lapses nonstop. And one week later, on one fine Saturday the weather was really nice. The water temperature was optimum for swimming. I finished 10 lapses of free style at one go. Then I thought of doing three lapses at one stretch. And finished 45 lapses of free style in 47 minutes. My god! I felt like I don’t have hands or legs when I came out of water. Feels like my stamina is increasing day by day.

Swimming

2007-06-20T23:54:00.000+05:30

I am swimming for last 4 years. To be exact, it's 2 months in Bangalore and 2 seasons in Noida and third season is going on. I have tried my maximum stamina and could manage maximum of 4 non-stop lapses in 25 meter pool. I had somehow managed to finish the 4th lapse.
Last Friday the weather here was really present. It had rained after a hot days. In the morning, when i entered the pool i tried to go for tested 4 lapse of free style. While finishing the 4th lapse I thought that i had some more stamina left and could manage some more lapses and i tried 2 more lapse, then again 2 more and then 2 more!! so it counted some 10 odd lapses of free style. My god i couldn't believe that it's me who did it. Any way i was so tired when i went to my office. And rest of the day, I wished if i could get rest my back!!

McLeod Ganj Revisited

2007-03-01T10:15:00.000+05:30

I am back in McLeod Ganj after 3 months. While visiting first time, I have decided that i may revisit this place in future. Well i went there in a group of 11 people. We went to patahnkot and then to McLeod Ganj by road. We stayed at Hotel Natraj. I visited Dalai Lama's temple, St Johns Church in wilderness, Dal lake. We had a nice dinner and lunch at Carpe Diem which specializes in Maxiacn, Italian and Chinese food. While doing a tracking on a hill, we reached one sign board which says beware of tiger crossing!

Mughal Garden

2007-02-19T06:51:00.000+05:30

I visited Mughal Garden yesterday. It was established by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1931.
I liked tulip and china main roses. There are 128 varieties of roses. Some names I remember are
Just joey, first prize, eiffel tower etc. It i sspread over 13 acres. Herbal garden has more than 34 varieties of herb. Then comes biodiversity garden. You can seen peacocks, ducks, deer, geese, turkeys, rabbits, parrots and parakeets.There is a circular garden, which looks like a terraced bowl planted with fragrant varieties of stock, mignonette and tall dalhias dotting the periphery.

Fact file:
Open to public: 10th February to 18th March,
Timing: 10:30 am to 4:30 pm
Entry: Gate no 35 on church road, North Avenue
mobiles, purse, camera, food bag are not allowed.

9th Bharat Rang Mahotsav

2007-01-19T11:59:00.000+05:30

It was the first good theatre after leaving kgp. Yesterday I went to Kamani Auditorium to watch a Hindi play, "Parti Parikatha". It's an adaptation of the book, "Parti Parikatha" by Phanishwar Nath 'Renu. The Director is Dr Sanjay Upadhyay. The group is based in Patna. The casts were really good and talented. Lots of 'Bhojpuri' dialects were used. It was really fun to see the play. Audience liked one character, 'Diwana' very much. Lots of music and dance was used to show the parallel mythological story. This play was presented by NSD.

36 Hours

2007-01-11T11:00:00.000+05:30

I went to Bangalore during New Year. I had asked for holidays between Xmas and New Year. But I hadn't decided where I will go for my vacation. I couldn't go to Goa like previous year, because no stag was allowed by friend circle. I booked my tickets for Spice Jet airlines. I was supposed to leave on 27th December and return ticket was on 1st January. On 27th morning, I got up at 4:30 am as my flight timing was 7 am. I got sms that my flight is delayed by 2 hours. Well I went to airport accordingly and found, to my surprise that flight was further delayed due to dense fog and low visibility at Delhi airport. I reached Bangalore at 4:30 pm, due to 6 hours delay of flight.

Now the turn of return journey. My flight was supposed to start at 5:55 pm. I got another sms saying that flight will leave at 7:20 pm. Due to heavy traffic on airport road, I reached airport early. All airlines were cancelling their flights due to very low visibility at Delhi. Around 9 pm, I came to know that spice jet flight is not going to take-off that night and Spice jet will accommodate me on 2:45 flight on Wednesday morning. I was feeling like ****ed up. I ran to other airlines if they could send me to Delhi on Tuesday. But many were cancelled, cause they didn't had CAT -III trained pilots and few airlines who could flight on Tuesday were charging like the shop owner in the corner of a dimly lit street of a riot-affected city. I tried to look for other options like going to Ahmadabad or Jaipur, and then continue rest of the journey on train or bus. I didn't want to pay some 20 k bucks to reach Jaipur on Tuesday evening. Anyway i returned to my friend’s house on Monday night. They were delighted to see me again.

Tuesday was sort of holiday for me. All friends had their office open by then. I went to Forum mall by 10:30 to watch 'Happy Feet'. Tickets for the current show were not available. I bought the tickets for 1:30 pm show. I had plenty of time. I went to Landmark and took one book 'Screw it, Let's Do It' by Richard Branson. I almost finished the book. It was interesting book. I was looking such kind of book to get inspired. I bought that books and couples of CD, then went to see the movie. After that I went to Allen Solly and bought two trousers. After spending few bucks more, I returned. I spent rest of the time on net. I called few friends if they were free to have dinner with me, but I found none. I started for the airport at 11 pm and after doing luggage check-in, found that visibility was still bad at Delhi. Our flight was supposed to start 1 hour prior to scheduled time. But flight started at 1 hour late according to re-scheduled time. I reached 3:45 pm at Hyderabad and captain of flight announced that we had to wait at Hyderabad till visibility is improved at Delhi. Hyderabad airport was chocked at that time. People refused to wait at airport lobby in such cold and wanted some sort of accommodation. But we were refused, because our flight was no-frills flight. I had to spend next four hour, half asleep on the flour next to a car put on exhibition. Our flight started at 8:30 am and we reached Delhi at 10:30 am. I reached Noida by 12 and had to leave for office immediately. And this is not the end, I came to office on my bike, traveling some 30 km one way is such a chilled weather.

Time of my life

2006-11-15T15:25:00.000+05:30

I don't know what to say about this. Lots of changes going on around me, not all initiated by me. And not all of them look good to me, either.

my worth!

2006-11-15T15:18:00.000+05:30

And high up above or down below
When you're too in love to let it go
But if you never try you'll never know
Just what you're worth
-courtesy Cold Play (Fix You)

I am feeling the same.

ART

2006-08-25T11:17:00.000+05:30

Calendar Art coutesy Niraj. Cool Pic man!

Creativity!

2006-08-25T11:12:00.000+05:30

Characterisation...

A Guy with Gayes!

2006-08-25T11:05:00.000+05:30

Spot Five differences!

I am SO cool!

2006-08-25T10:49:00.000+05:30

In a 19th Century church at McLeodganj, India.

qchord

2006-06-06T09:52:00.000+05:30

One fine day I got a call from some unknown number while I was strolling towards office canteen for lunch. The person introduced him as the representative from Suzuki music and he was calling from Bangalore. I was thinking of telling him that if he could call me later, cause I was hungry and didn’t want to delay my lunch. Before that he already had sent a mail to me to introduce himself and expressed his interest in the yahoo group http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/hindisongsandguitar and wanted my cell number to contact me. We talked for one hour on music only. He expressed his concern that in India, most of the children are not introduced to the music in the schools or at home. This is quite different from western counterpart. To tackle this situation, Suzuki music has introduced one instrument, called Qchord. As we know that chord is some selected combination of some notes which is played as accompaniment in a song. He informed me that I will get a Qchord for review purpose and I was supposed to write a review for it.

I got a sample of Qchord from Suzuki music by courier. It looked like an amalgam of guitar and keyboard to me when I opened the pack!! It’s looked more like a keyboard having a guitar neck!!
Without looking the manual I connected the power plug and switched on the power. Some LEDs switched on. I played a chord and bingo!! It’s so simple to play.
Well, this instrument is really the perfect instrument for accompaniment. For people who don’t want to spend much time to learn the chords and notes on a musical instrument, it’s a short cut for them. You don’t have to go for music classes and you don’t have to practice a lot to play your first song on it. Press the demo button and learn how to use the strumplate, the ‘touch-pad’. Plug –in the song and rhythm cartridge and play on the strumplate for your favorite songs. You can even change the scale of this song to suite your own vocal scale.
There are very few buttons to make you less confused. But these controls are adequate to have variety of options required for an instrument as accompaniment.
The response of strumplate plays different note even if it is touched at the same place for a given chord. It sound nice, But it would be more useful if strumplate plays the same note of that scale when touched at the same point.
I asked my friend Addy to play it and he liked it very much. You can read about his feeling at his blogs: http://off2work.blogspot.com.
Overall, it a nice instrument for accompaniment really useful for children and can be used in the schools

Trip to Agartala

2006-04-25T09:03:00.000+05:30

Well I visited Agartala. I had to attend my friend's marriage. I had been really busy in my project work and had been spending long time in the office. Suddenly I got the news from my friend that he is getting married in Agartala. I knew both bridegroom and bride. And it was one of the rare occasions that I got the marriage invitation from both side. I didn’t have the option to say no. Though I was doubtful whether I could make it out or not. Finally I left to Agartala along with my friends, who were going to get married. Starting from the ride in the taxi, I started pulling their legs, because I was not going to get this opportunity again. We had a break at Kolkata. I joked that it’s really grateful to them that they accompanied me up to Kolkata and now I can visit my home place and would come to their marriage later. Anyway we reached Agartala in the afternoon.
First thing you notice while coming out of the airport is the surrounding greenery. The whole place is full of lots of trees and shrubs. The roads are in good shapes and one amazing thing about Agartala town is that all the roads are straight and cross each other perpendicular. So it’s very easy to roam around in the city streets and not get lost. City life is peaceful and it’s full of Bengali population. The city is cleaner than many cities in West Bengal and it’s less populated. It may rain and time of the day but generally the sky is clear after the rains. One day it rained for one hour and after that it was bright day, making one clueless where the rain water did go! Due to militancy problem we were prohibited from going outside the main town. As we had plenty of time we visited some places twice. Some place worth visiting are Ujjyanta Palace, Rabindra Kanan (a local park, entry fee Rs 2), government museum, MBB College. I went to airport whenever I got the opportunity to receive the guest, because the journey from city to airport is really nice with lots of green field and roads which run up and down. Once I went to see the Bangladesh border. It’s was really nice to breathe in so clean air after a long time. Hope to visit such more places in near future.

Greenary at Agartala

2006-04-23T23:00:00.000+05:30

One of beutiful landscapes at Agartala

The Taj in all its four-pillared glory!

2006-04-21T10:07:00.000+05:30

I went to Agra and tried my photography skills out. Now, I decided to show them off as well!

GIR, 2006

2006-02-20T09:54:00.000+05:30

Levi's Great Indian Rock Show, 17-19th Feb, 2006, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi

Bands participated
Cassini's Division (Kolkata)
Demonic Resurrection (Mumbai)
Medusa (Mumbai)
Prestorika (Delhi)
Zero (Mumbai)
You Code Name is: Milo (UK)

If I was to be asked to arrange the list in the order of my preference, then I would say that I had already done it! Cassini's Division was a dull group. It bored me a lot. Denomic Resurrection starting number was good one, but they drifted away and their next tracks were all boring and disappointing. Medusa performance was as usual as last year's. They prefer to play hard metal and they are charming and dynamic to see. Prestorika was the first band of the evening who’s all tracks was really worth mentioning. A big applause to them.
After these four bands, came the non-participants bands. Zero was amazing to see. It was a four member band.
Rajiv Talwar on vocals, Warren on guitar, Siddharth Coutto on Drums and Girish on Bass. They played an amazing instrumental, called 'charismas in July'. You can read more about them at:
http://www.rsjonline.com/Bandlands/Band.asp
The surprise of the day was, Your code name is Milo. People went crazy seeing them play.
More about Milo at http://www.yourcodenameismilo.co.uk

Why International Artists avoid Delhi!!

2006-02-16T14:05:00.000+05:30

Bryan Adams came to Bangalore and Mumbai. Led Zeppelin performed in Mumbai and Bangalore!! They deserted Delhi with their live performance. Why all these international artists avoid Delhi?
There’s a lack of a good venue. Venue should be such that it is accessible to the people and artists. It should close enough for the crews to set up the stage and should have proper security. That’s why rock show can’t be performed in some village or empty place outskirt to Delhi.
The groups managing shows in Delhi find it really difficult to go through bureaucracy hurdle. They have to go through many departments to get the needful clearances. It’s difficult to convince to them the plan. Plus in such events the turn out of people is around 20 to 30 thousands people. For such a big event departments unwilling to give the clearance.
For all the events in Delhi, a large no of passes has to be given to clubs and many influential peoples. It turns out that this category needs some 30% of the total ticket. This turns out to be a loss to the organizing groups. And nobody will be willing to organize such events.
Are the people mature enough to listen these artists performing here? There will be a large number of people who will come to the show just keep their social status. These people have nothing to do with music. And these people are mainly responsible for the disruption of the shows. People in Delhi appreciate Bhangra more than rock! In fact they appreciate hip-hop, techno, rap more than rock. That’s why Shaggy can perform in Delhi but not Led Zeppelin. People like to dance here. So any performance which can make them dance is acceptable to them. But they can’t dance to rock music. A rock event like Great India Rock Show (GIR) draws less crowd than any live performance where you can dance.
Hope some miracle happens and we can see them perform in Delhi!

Why I like PBwiki?

2006-02-15T09:06:00.000+05:30

I came to know about this site when I got an invitation from my friend. I created a login to this site and got my page. Then you will ask what so great about this? There are many sites which offer you the same and maybe they offer more space than PBwiki. But there are some reasons why I like PBwiki more than other such sites. It has some easy tool which helps to develop my page very fast. I don’t want to spend editing my page with HTML tags. Then formatting is very easy here. This site restricts the numbers of ads which appear on your site. I would suggest using the site and seeing how easy it is to use.

PBwiki makes creating a wiki as easy as making a peanut butter sandwich
I use this page for my hobbies. It got a page dedicated to music. This page has link for chord finder, links to yahoo group, hindisongsandguitar, some guitar lessons, etc
You can see my page at http://ratan.pbwiki.com

You can get your own page at http://PBwiki.com

Music Videos

2006-02-14T09:57:00.000+05:30

Last week while watching some music channel, I came across the music videos "Naam hai tera" and "Tera Surror" by Himesh Reshammiya. Rather than talking about the lyrics or music composition or catchiness of the songs, I would like to illustrate some funny points about the videos of the songs. Generally, music videos are more like mini films wherein the story flows along with the music. To be frank, I couldn't understand either of the videos. There are lots of questions unanswered!! Why does the hero weep so much in the video? I guess he must be having some sore relationship with the heroine, but what’s the reason behind the sore relationship? How the hell are we supposed to know he has got some problem with his heroine in the video until he tells us! The heroine is seen playing "cello". Suddenly she is angry on the hero and in the next scene both are seen weeping in two different frames. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know myself. Then she comes back in the last scene, and to my surprise, walks to the stage and starts playing the cello. It looks like our hero was expecting her on the stage and had made the prior arrangement to keep the cello and an empty chair on the stage. Now I couldn’t understand one thing, if he was expecting her to come on the stage in the end, then what’s the point of weeping for her, knowing the fact she would come anyway.
In the video, one girl is seen playing the guitar. Her hips and bosom move more than her left hand fingers!! (She is right handed; I can make it out the way she is holding the guitar)I don't know what kind of guitar she is playing which requires her to use her delicate body parts rather than her fingers!!
I watch videos just for time pass. And I want them to be simple and enjoyable. I don't like them to intricate matters which are difficult to understand. I don't want to look for some hidden clues in the video and solve the puzzle why he or she is behaving strangely. My life itself has lots of puzzles that need to be solved. I don't have the time to solve the mystery of the hero or heroine's puzzle in the video.

My Manali-Shimla trip

2005-07-20T11:21:00.000+05:30

I had gone to visit mountains in March. I mean I went to Kullu-Manali and then Shimla on this extended weekends (5-8th March, took holiday for 7th). We had four people as a Team. We started on Friday night and reached Manali at 11:00 am on Saturday. We went for sight-seeing on afternoon, mostly temples and hot springs etc. Then on Sunday we went for snow towards Rohtang pass. We spend some 5 hours in snow. It was thick snow; many times it was thigh-deep. We wanted to learn skiing there. After 2 hours of continuous struggle to balance, falling on snow, hurting legs, arms, hands, getting many bruises on the body, I was able to balance perfectly. Other three persons of the group had left the attempt at the early stage after falling many times! They were busy taking photos and throwing snow at each other, I was busy doing skiing and in the last I was able to descent the slopes of snow without falling. But of course there were some local people and foreigners who were doing it so perfectly that I also wanted to do like them but I will need some one week of training. On Sunday night we left for Shimla by bus. The road was such a narrow and we were going on roads which look hanging on the valley, I couldn't sleep at all! I had a doubt if we reached shimla in one piece. I found myself at the mercy of nature and driver. He was driving so fast and confidently on the steep curves that I thought many places we will fall in the valley or hit the other vehicles coming from front. Ok we finally reached shimla at 3:00 clock in the morning. In the dark the lights form the houses on the peaks were looking like the stars in the sky (you had to be here to believe it!). That day we went for sight-seeing in Shimla (including climbing the mountains, pony-riding etc). There roads are really good to walk. And on Tuesday we took one narrow-gauge train from Shimla to Kalka. This trains is famous for it's journey all through the mountains and lots of nice scenery along with it, but it's slow ( max speed some 15-30 kmph) and from Kalka we took another train to Delhi and reached here at night. I liked this trip to mountains and have the desire to go again and again.

Reincarnation

2005-07-19T14:32:00.000+05:30

Rakhu couldn’t believe it. Was it a dream or was it simply real? Sometimes it’s difficult to believe even the real ones. He rubbed his eyes and looked in bewilderment! He instantly recognised his bed, his clothes hanging on the wall. So it was only a dream. He felt sad after this realization. He felt sad realizing the truth. He asked himself why was he in such a hurry to find out what was real? Even if it was only in a dream he could have enjoyed a little more before waking up. He came out of his bed. He looked around for a few moments in the house and came outside. It was early in morning and people were asleep around. Cool breeze touched his cheeks and he felt a little better. He thought that it was a nice day and he should set early for the day’s work so that he could make more money than he usually did.

He picked his bag up and walked down the lane. He didn’t like the work at all. He needed more money to fulfil his dreams and the only way to get the money was to work. He had thought of leaving the present work and working in some tea shop as a helper, but he didn’t know how to read and write so nobody was willing to take him as a helper. He had crossed the lane and came to the main road. There were lots of beautiful houses on this road, with big lawn, gardens and many trees. He looked back in the direction of the lane he had just walked by. There was a big contrast between the world that lived in that lane and the world where he was standing now.
He thought of his house, if you can call it a house, which was very small in size. It was made of some paper, bamboo sticks, and the ceiling was made of polythene. There were only few broken utensils, one oven made of bricks, one ragged blanket which worked both as a mattress and a cover, few torn and stitched clothes. That’s all that was there in the house. He shared that space with his mother and little sister. The space was hardly enough to sleep for two people. After all it was a slum and many people there hadn’t a chance to sleep under a roof.

He took the way towards the railway track. He was a rag picker. He started his day by picking coal from the railway tracks. There were many mail trains running late at night and he used to get some coal. He would sell the coal to the local tea shop owner. He knew that he was under paid but what else could he do. There was a single shop in his neighbourhood and all his neighbours would collect the coal from the railway tracks themselves and they were not willing to buy from him.

He reached the tracks and found the track was empty. So he must have reached there very early and he could see lots of coal on the tracks. He felt good that if he started collecting the coal at somewhat faster pace, he could make more money that day. His mind wandered and he remembered his mother, sister and his house. He felt sorry for his family. Suddenly some past incidents became very clear in his mind. He wanted to concentrate on the coal scattered across the tracks which needed to be collected very fast before someone else came. But he couldn’t stop his thoughts. He remembered some earlier incidents when he was very small. His mother and he used to live in the slum looking tent. He used to play all the day while her mother worked as domestic helper in one of the beautiful houses he had crossed while coming to the tracks. His mother used to feed him in the morning whatever was left of the dinner from the previous night. Then she would go for her work. He used to play with other children till afternoon when her mother would return from work. She would bathe him and serve him the food she would have brought from her employer. She would tell him to behave himself and stay at home and keep an eye on the house. As soon as she would leave for her work he would start playing again. He would play till the evening when her mother would return. She would cook some food and he would be waiting eagerly for the dinner. It was the only meal her mother would cook at their house. His mother would bring the rest of the food from her employer’s house.

Generally the food was not sufficient for them. He would always snatch the plate from her mother. She would try to tell him that he should be a gentleman and share whatever she has brought among themselve. But he was growing and he was always felt hungry. He had a very faint idea about his father. He had heard about him that he was a drunkard. He never did any work. In the evening he would come home drunk and insult and beat her mother and him. One day, just after her sister was born, she came home early and found that he was waiting for her with another woman. He told that he didn’t want to stay with her anymore and would live with another woman. That was the last time his saw his father.

Rakhu went along the tracks as he picked the coal. He didn’t know why his thoughts wandered so much today. He remembered when her sister was a little older; they were once in big trouble. One day his sister was very hungry and she was crying. He was also hungry as the meal was always insufficient for his family, but he had taken larger share of the food. He ignored his sister and enjoyed his game with other children of the same age. When her mother returned with her food in the afternoon, he was feeling very hungry. He took all the food and her mother tried to stop him. He ran away with the food. His mother started crying and pleaded to him for his sister. He finished his meal and when he came back in the evening he found that his mother hadn’t gone for work. Her sister was asleep in her lap. She didn’t tell him anything. He looked at her sister. She was very thin for her age and her skin was pale. He looked at her mother and realized for the first time that she looked so tired. He felt very sorry for his deed in the afternoon. He thought that her mother worked so hard to just feed her children and he took all the meals most of the time. He went near her mother and sat near her. He told that he was sorry. She didn’t say anything but smiled. He came outside and thought what he could do for his mother and sister. Nobody went to school from his area as they didn’t have enough money to spend for the school fee and books. So he could only become a helper to someone. He tried to talk to the tea shop owner, but he told he didn’t require him. He saw that his friend picked rags all day and sold it to earn some money. He joined them to earn some money. And he had been coming to the track regularly every morning.

From the day he started his work, he felt happy. Even now food was always less than their requirement but they could survive somehow. He was thinking that he would work hard and earn lots of money. Then he would tell his mother not to work anymore and take rest. He would buy some new clothes for his mother and sister. And after saving some money he could even build a larger tent for them. He was bending and picking coal, completely lost in thoughts. Suddenly he felt some commotion behind him and came to his senses. He heard a loud horn behind him and heard someone shouting. Before he could turn and look around what it was he felt a tremendous force on his body and he was thrown in the air momentarily before and fell on the tracks and a trains crossed over his body. He was hit by a train.

Somebody had seen him too engrossed in his thoughts to listen to the whistle of the coming train. He had shouted but it was already late. As the train passed and stopped after some distance, the onlooker saw another boy who had the similar appearance as the boy hit by the train. Another boy was picking coal on the other track. The boy looked at the pieces of flesh were parts of a live body a few moments ago momentarily and then continued picking the coal. One Rakhu was dead but he had reincarnated himself. The second Rakhu was picking the coal on another track.