Gandhi and I…

January 30. The day when the father of the nation, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, was assassinated.

I remember this day from the school. At the assembly, on this day, we would be reminded to follow the silent standing ceremony at around 10 or 10.30 am. The bell would ring at an odd time in midst of the class period, and we would all stand for one single minute in silence to commemorate the assassination of Gandhiji. We considered this break a warm welcome to the same routine of the teaching. In those days, I don’t remember having a break in the morning session.

In the high school, we had to study full history and autobiography of Gandhiji, “My Experiments with Truth”, in the form of English-II subject. Though it was the edited or the simplified version, we had to study his whole life. It was interesting at some points, but from the point of view of exams, it was not. I even once wondered, if Gandhiji was not there, we would have escaped this subject etc!

When I was in school, I remember watching the film Gandhi, on either August 15th, January 26th or October 2nd. But I remember the school book rather than the film.

The Vortex

Today, I was just going through the archives. I feel that I have reduced penning down my thoughts and feelings. Rather the short stories, movie reviews, articles, recent happenings are the topics I have been blogging off late.

There was a time, when I used to blog, when my mind blew out of the proportion with suffocating words and rants. For me, at that time, I never cared about the number of readers, or the traffic. I blurted out all my thoughts, sometimes directly or sometimes through analogy. I used to finish the posts within half hour or so, and without spell checking or re-reading the draft, I just published.

Now looking back, I feel those posts do have a personal touch and is more readable. Like the innocent outburst of a child. It worked, because things happened at that time. The race with time, the busy life schedule with many many things, the glimpses at various nook n corner of city life which gave spark to various thoughts and views.

I do not wonder what has changed. I know what has happened. And I know what should I do to change. But then, something is pulling me back. Maybe its the fears or the various choices available. The point of time when you feel like slapping yourself for the inability. The time when heart says lovingly to wake up, and when mind pushes it down with the lame and age-old excuses of practicality. The time when you await for your heart and the soul to win over the mind battle. The time when you await the death so that you could be re-born to a fresh life.

People say, time heals everything. It answers the strangling questions you have been asking in the early ages. But then, how do we wait for time until it heals or gives me the answers? Isn’t time running away? From me and from my life?

The vortex has knocked me out into the deep darkness of unconsciousness.

PS: This post too has been completed now within half hour. You do have it in you, when it wants to surmount you.

WT #7 : Tools, Toys and Photo fun effects

In Webscape Tidbits Part 7, let us see some tools and utilities along with what all you can do with your photos!

Photo fun effects

Okay, you have so many photos of Christmas and New Year holidays. Now what? How about some digital processing? Adding some photo effects? Sounds cool, huh? Good, now check out the websites below to start with!

The first common task done by people is to upload their photos straight to Flickr, Picasaweb, Photobucket, Orkut and Facebook. But before sharing pictures, why not have some fun?

If you had liked the Photofun post, then here are few more to play with your photos:

Make Money Online. Will you?

Money has always been an integral part of our life. And when you are able to make money online, will you resist doing it? If not forever, it does seem tempting enough to try out at least once. For example, have you tried mGinger yet?

Blogging maybe the latest popular trend, that entered the world of advertising. Increase traffic, link exchange, keyword enhancer, content-rich, make money online etc have become the new jargon. Earlier, I guess ads were more popular for selling products, services and referrers.Along with the popular Google Adsense, there are other networks like AdBrite, Bidvertiser, Chitika Premium Ads, Performancing Ads, ReviewMe, PayPerPost etc. For more money making ways from internet click  here, there and here. 

Rising from the crumbles

The rain started drizzling all of a sudden. The streaks of water drops were lashing and swaying amongst the winds.

It was getting cold. I remained lied down in bed. As though my mind was sleeping and body awake. I closed my eyes. Some black and white images got rendered across them. I opened my eyes. I couldn’t survive it anymore. I enabled the songs from my Walkman phone. Loud. So that it could drive away all the sleepiness from my mind. I closed my eyes. No images now. Great. I succeeded. It was then the rain started.

I got up heavily and moved over to the window. Slightly opened one inch of it. I sniffed a bit. To smell the earth. I couldn’t get anything. Maybe, it got dried up too. Just like the tears of broken heart.Maybe the earth too cried. She couldn’t control the spinning neither the revolution. She was destined. To live without day and night and to witness everything that goes on within her and on her surface.

Blog Related: Feeds transfer and Advertising

This week, I transferred all the Feedburner feeds to Google Adsense. This transfer was announced by both the parties long before. But I had a good trouble with those two. Both accounts were on different Gmail IDs.

Long ago, I had tried to insert the Adsense for feeds a while ago, but they never appeared. Later I realized, maybe there are not linked yet. But then, there were so many rumors that transfer of Feedburner has several disadvantages. I thought of turning to FeedBlitz, but the interface was so complicated to me, that I never understood where to start with. I turned back to handle Feedburner and Google again. I had tried to introduce them to each other, but ended up duplicating. Now that I had ignored about it, with despair, for some time, Feedburner himself offered me yesterday to move the feeds automatically.

If you are a subscriber to this blog, either through email or RSS feeds, please let me know of any discrepancies happened recently. If no problems, then be happy, and I am happy too And those who haven’t yet subscribed, please subscribe immediately.

One more problem yet to rectify is to link Google Adsense and Google Analytics. It seems the notification will appear automatically in the Adsense admin panel. Here again, both are on different mail IDs. Why did I create so many mail IDs.

Inauguration of Advertising:
Yes. Advertising options are open for registrations formally. Please click here for details. The current theme does not support 125×125 ads and the horizontal banners. A new theme will be activated as soon as I have the slots filled for the same!

Happy Reading!

Barack Obama – A Ray of Hope?

Barack Hussain Obama has been sworn in as the new President of United States on January 20th 2009. People all over the world are considering it as a sign of hope. Is it so?

I had not planned to watch the live telecast of Barack Obama’s oath. It just happened. The energy and inspiration in his speech was remarkable. I shamefully acknowledge that I knew nothing about the politics. But the few words I could translate from his speech to my mind and the emotional tears of the crowd gave me a vision of the hope and expectations of United States civilians on the new President. And I sincerely hope that their hopes do come true.

In overall, 2008 was a dreaded year, at least for India. There were the series of bomb attacks in various cities, and the Mumbai Taj attacks, for which the rift is still on between India and Pakistan. The year marked the economic recession which accelerated the job loss of many people which still continues. The blow up of Satyam fraud, in December, added to the heat.

Lalbagh Flower Show at Bangalore

The flower show in Bangalore Lalbagh gardens started last week. Over the weekend, having nothing else to do, we went over to click them. I mean the flowers. Yes, photography has been getting on my nerves every time I see my photographs and the experiments.

To those residing in Bangalore from a quite long time, this flower show may not be a new thing. I have been to other flower shows too, like in Thiruvananthapuram at Kerala, but flowers are always refreshing.

The entry fee is maximum Rs.40/- for adults. I saw huge numbers like Rs.150 and Rs.200 in the price listing for the car parking, though I am not sure, whether its true! Thankfully, we went on bike which can be easily parked for just Rs.5! There was no special fees for camera, which provided great opportunity for many photographers. There were tripods, and huge big, wide, or whatever lenses stuck near the huge varieties of flowers.

A note to self

Yes, I did it. Last week I accomplished part of one of my new year resolutions. To publish a blog post daily. As I look back, I feel some of them could have been better if I hadn’t written in haste. But I couldn’t delay it. I just need to improve myself under the pressure.

It all started when I was asked to guest post for Fashion Film Review within one day. I needed to see a film and then write review on it. Not just a simple review, but a more serious one, considering the fact, that there was never a funny post in that blog! And I was shattered to pieces by seeing the diffidence in me, and the way I struggled to write it down at a stretch. Hence I had decided that time itself to increase the frequency of the posts in this blog.

Lack of topics and words outflow from my mind  constrains the goals. Though already late, I plan to continue this mission as long as it goes. I need all of you reader’s support and hope that you bear my rants and my perfection deficiencies.

Happy Reading!

List of WordPress Plugins I use now.

Are you one of those who are lazy to upgrade to WordPress 2.7? You are missing a lot many features then.

After I upgraded my blog to WordPress 2.7, blogging has been much easier. If one of the useful features I use is the comment reply from within the admin panell, then the other is the installation of plugins. You can search and install within the admin panel, without any ftp client. I have now been frantically trying out various plugins, activating and de-activating them. Earlier the number of plugins I used were very few, say 6 to 7. But now, the number has gone upto 16. I wonder is there any limit to using the number of plugins. There maybe few plugins which may increase the load on the server or takes huge time to load the blog page, but I am not sure which one. Everytime, I try to beautify or add new feature to the blog, there is an associated plugin available online. But I think, rather than messing up the code, its better to play with plugins and widgets as it is very easy to maintain.

Do you want to know the plugins currently being used on this blog? Here they are :