Odds & ends

I've been away from Bloggerville doing many different things. I've traveled a lot this month (both for work and for pleasure). I still have a lot of catching up to do with all the blogs i frequent.

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My two best friends - the Devil and the Scarecrow- got hitched on the 20th. I had my work cut out as the Devil's appointed photographer. She is a pretty little Devil but with the Scarecrow by her side, she looked her evil best. ;-) She'd promised to smile for my camera ONLY and since she broke her word, it's perhaps a good time to tell her that i was bumping beers with the Scarecrow groom until 3:00 am, just hours before the wedding. :D
I wish the very best for them. I hope they like the photographs.


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The magazine (Balyam Kosam) which was to print a photograph i'd shot has its latest issue in print with the photograph on the front page. Another magazine (Transmission Lines) has requested a travelogue with photographs. Transmission Lines has already printed a couple of book reviews i've written on "My Temporary Son" and "Maus". These magazines have small readership/circulation; nonetheless it's exciting to see your work and name in print. It's a different high. :-)

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I donated blood yesterday. While i lay on the bed thinking random thoughts and playing with numbers as is my wont, i gave myself a new goal in life. I want to donate blood for the 50th time on my 50th birthday. Counting down from... 47... :-)

EDIT / UPDATE 27/12/2008: Added photo.

Closure

Light many lamps and gather round his bed.
Lend him your eyes, warm blood, and will to live.
Speak to him; rouse him; you may save him yet.
He's young; he hated War; how should he die
When cruel old campaigners win safe through?
But death replied: 'I choose him.' So he went,
And there was silence in the summer night;
Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep.
Then, far away, the thudding of the guns.

-Siegfried Sassoon

friend

Come back, will you,
you-dragging your shadow.
Blinded by the white light
your shadow weighs a ton.
Haven't you been told?
Only your fight can feed your soul...

You won't be lost
won't be hurt
won't be left out in the dark...
We won't be
slipping off the edge
hanging by the thread...
We have a purpose
we fight on for you....

Let's fight this,
not being told
when to fold...
Let's not hear
another nay
so long as
the white light fades away.

Thank you, kids.

Recently, I had the opportunity to shoot (photographs of) kids at a painting competition. This photograph from that shoot finished among the "Honorable Mentions" of a photo contest. I suppose i owe them kids one. Happy Children's Day.


Update2: Here's the photograph

RIP Michael Crichton

I just read that this best-selling author (and film maker?) who happened to be one of my favorite authors at one time died unexpectedly in LA. He fought a courageous and private battle against cancer. His best known work...

The Andromeda Strain (1969)
The Terminal Man (1972)
The Great Train Robbery (1975)
Eaters of the Dead (1976)
Congo (1980)
Sphere (1987)
Jurassic Park (1990)
Rising Sun (1992)
Disclosure (1994)
The Lost World (1995)
Airframe (1996)
Twister: The Original Screenplay (1996)
Timeline (1999)
Prey (2002)
State Of Fear (2004)
Next (2006)

Rest in peace, Mr. Crichton.

Let's Tee off...

... on a long overdue tag game. Here's what one's got to do.

"Comment and I'll give you a letter, list ten things you LOVE which begin with that letter, then post this in your journal and give out some letters of your own."

A Reader from India assigned the letter 'T' and here's my spin on it.

1. T for Trevor - I've always had a thing for names beginning with 'T'. ;-) Hence the pen(n) name, Trevor.

2. T for Talisman - I love the engraved kind. I'm not a believer of the occult; I just happen to like the idea.

3. T for Table Tennis - Well... let's just say YMCA thought pretty highly of me and i liked how they thought. ;-) I love Tennis too.

4. T for Technology - I love gadgets. Ma wondered if i'd grow up to be a mechanic because as a kid i liked to open up cars rather than play with them. I keep track of the new and obsolete, especially so when it comes to cameras and lenses. I can write an essay on LCD vs Plasma and store it on my wrist watch with a built in USB drive.

5. T for Trivia - Big fan of general trivia (not of the quizzing kind). Great ice-breaker.

6. T for Trekking - It's great fun for nature enthusiasts. The longest and the most memorable trek of my life has been the Bright Angel Trail. A steep 17 mile round-trip down (to the Colorado river) and up the Grand Canyons (South Rim).

7. T for Travel - Travel, nature and photography go hand in hand. Travel lets you explore biodiversity. It adds to your wealth of experience. FWIW, Tasmania is high on my must visit list.

8. T for Toblerone - Chocolate, honey and almond nougat - what's not to like? On one of my flights from Frankfurt to Hyd... i'd rather not say.

9. T for Triumph - Oh, it's heady and intoxicating. I love the head rush.

10. T for Towel - Reading the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was like an epiphany. I quote...
"A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough. More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc, etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with."

Heinrich's Dream

"What if you slept? And what if, in your sleep, you dreamed? And what if, in your dream, you went to heaven and there plucked a strange and beautiful flower? And what if, when you awoke, you had the flower in your hand? Ah, what then?"

-Coleridge

"...the world becomes a dream, and the dream becomes reality."

-Novalis

Dedicated to those in the transports of artistic rapture; to those whose perception cannot tell a dream from reality.

Update: For the uninitiated who'd like to know more about Heinrich's dream, please click through the title. If you don't want to read through everything, just search for Heinrich. :-)

"breast is best"

I was (still am???) a Rajya Puraskar scout. I was listed for President Scout but I couldn’t attend the camp. That’s got nothing to do with breasts. Patience. Now, to be an RP scout, you’ve got to collect various “merit” badges along the way, attend multiple training/scouting camps and clear your pratham, dwitiya and tritiya sopan testing camps to be eligible for the RP testing camp. That still doesn’t tell you why the breast is best. Behave.

One of the “merit” badges and my favorite one at that was the “Friend to Animals” badge which adorned the prize centre position of my shirt sleeve - patched with various other badges as well. I might also throw in for equal measure that I’m a big time dog lover. Yet, for all these years, I’ve failed to identify with the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Or the Blue Cross for that matter but that’s another story. To me, PETA’s been the fringe group of people comparing commercial animal facilities to Auschwitz. Anyway, to unravel the "breast is best" mystery, one has to read the following letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, cofounders of Ben & Jerry's Ice Creams.

September 23, 2008

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Cofounders

Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc.

Dear Mr. Cohen and Mr. Greenfield,

On behalf of PETA and our more than 2 million members and supporters, I'd like to bring your attention to an innovative new idea from Switzerland that would bring a unique twist to Ben and Jerry's.

Storchen restaurant is set to unveil a menu that includes soups, stews, and sauces made with at least 75 percent breast milk procured from human donors who are paid in exchange for their milk. If Ben and Jerry's replaced the cow's milk in its ice cream with breast milk, your customers-and cows-would reap the benefits.

Using cow's milk for your ice cream is a hazard to your customer's health. Dairy products have been linked to juvenile diabetes, allergies, constipation, obesity, and prostate and ovarian cancer. The late Dr. Benjamin Spock, America's leading authority on child care, spoke out against feeding cow's milk to children, saying it may play a role in anemia, allergies, and juvenile diabetes and in the long term, will set kids up for obesity and heart disease-America's number one cause of death.

Animals will also benefit from the switch to breast milk. Like all mammals, cows only produce milk during and after pregnancy, so to be able to constantly milk them, cows are forcefully impregnated every nine months. After several years of living in filthy conditions and being forced to produce 10 times more milk than they would naturally, their exhausted bodies are turned into hamburgers or ground up for soup.

And of course, the veal industry could not survive without the dairy industry. Because male calves can't produce milk, dairy farmers take them from their mothers immediately after birth and sell them to veal farms, where they endure 14 to17 weeks of torment chained inside a crate so small that they can't even turn around.

The breast is best! Won't you give cows and their babies a break and our health a boost by switching from cow's milk to breast milk in Ben and Jerry's ice cream? Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Tracy Reiman

Executive Vice President

Ben and Jerry’s response was classic:

“We applaud PETA's novel approach to bringing attention to an issue, but we believe a mother's milk is best used for her child.”

I’m certain PETA’s done some good work but how can one take PETA seriously when their very mention is a reminder of naked women photos on billboards, magazine covers, centre page spreads and articles like these? I’d have posted their campaign posters here if not for the moral police in me which rates this blog universally readable.

So long.