Travel Time Again!

Well, next week would be travel time again. This time to Sweden for around 3 months or so. They say it is already cold there and going to get even more colder by the coming months.

We will be off to a city named Linköping. Work there should be hectic, and let us hope it is hectic. The laziness and the lethargy gained here in Athlone, would wear off somewhat.

Also, starting to get excited about December. The counter says:

14 weeks, 06 days, 19 hours, 38 minutes 48 seconds, and 288 milliseconds
but she says that it is not going to be before 07:30 in the evening that "shubho-drishti" shall take place. Hmmmm......

Also what is this fuss that I hear about dependent visa in Ireland??? God!! I pray to you! please....

HTML 5

I started to read about HTML 5 since yesterday. It promises to bring revolutionary changes in the way we write mark-up code for our browsers to render the hitherto "static" web pages. What interests me specially are the new video, audio and the canvas tags.

Watched the seminar held by the Google guys involved in the development of Google Chrome regarding the HTML 5 support in that browser, for the future. Most impressive.

I also got to know that Firefox has started to provide support for the video and the audio tags from version 3.5.2 onwards. So here it goes... listen to the promo of "Inteha". The player you see below is from a pure HTML tag (the audio tag). No flash plugin involved, no Silverlight or Shockwave either.... :D... And if you are seeing a "Your browser does not support the new HTML 5 audio tag yet." message.. then that is what it means.. Grin, Grin...

Countdown timer to the Kaaboom day of my life

My Kaaboom downcounter

:D

From my very first days of programming the 8085 micro-processor and later on the 8051 microconrtollers, the x86 family and the Pentium micro-processors, I have a facination for the digital timers and counters. Well, decided to program this one in javascript. It is a down-counter, with a large number of bits in its register bank!!

The code is obfuscated, though you guyz using your grey cells may not require much of an effort to decode it. I hope. Grin, Grin!!!

Sweetest wish

.. Well I got that in the morning today, for the first time.

Chitra Ji

Well, I have posted a lot of JS on this blog, but may not have posted much about Chitra ji. So I decided to dedicate this one to her. I have posted a lot about her works in our PDJS wordpress blog though.

Chitra ji, is said to have brought in a whole new dimension to the life and personality of Jagjit Singh. Both came from totally different backgrounds. Chitra ji is said to have "polished" JS's outlook and image. Their first meeting was at the house of Chitra ji in Mumbai, where JS had come to record for an advertising jingle. And boy, did they have a fight! JS has a bass voice and Chitra ji has a high pitched voice. Neither was ready to compromise on their style of singing for the recording. Little did they know then, that in the future they would form the most popular duet pair, outside the film music industry, not only in studio records but also on live stage performances, revolutionising the mordern ghazal singing.

Below is a video from a very rare performance by them in the year 1979, at Vancouver Canada.

The ghazal "Meri Zubaan Se Meri Daastan..." by Chitra ji (offset 2:59) is said to have a story behind it. Sudha Malhotra recorded this ghazal eventually in her album which was composed by JS. But Chitra ji's short rendition above is classic by all means. Chitra ji never recorded this ghazal commercially later, but used to render it in 'mehfils'. Chitra ji had a fondness for this ghazal it seems. By the way the ghazal is by Sudarshan Fakir, the lyrics are below. The 'beher' of the ghazal is: mujtas musamman makhbuun mahzuuf Pattern: 1212-1122-1212-112 or mujtas musamman makhbuun mahzuuf maqtu Pattern: 1212-1122-1212-22 both of which can be used interchangeably as per the laws of Urdu prosody.

मेरी ज़ुबां से मेरी दास्तां सुनो तो सही,
यक़ीँ करो न करो महेरबां सुनो तो सही|

चलो ये मान लिया मुजरिम-ऐ-मोहब्बत हैं,
हमारे जुर्म का हमसे बयां सुनो तो सही|

बनोगे दोस्त मेरे तुम भी दुश्मनों एक दिन,
मेरी हयात की आह-ओ-फुगां सुनो तो सही|

लबों को सी के जो बैठे हैं बज़्म-ऐ-दुनिया में,
कभी तो उनकी भी खामोशियां सुनो तो सही|

कहोगे वक़्त को मुजरिम भरी बहारों में,
जला था कैसे मेरा आशियां सुनो तो सही|

Men or Women, humans are all the same

I have always held this view, from my childhood. Many a times in the debates hovering around the sort of topics, "women are better than men", men are potrayed as "bad" character guys. Examples are often set by citing politicians, law enforcers and positions to that effect, and the way they misuse them.

The only reasoning one can give, is that since the ratio of men in these positions are far more in number, such abuses of power are reported more from the men category. Women politicians (of the very few) also tend to be corrupt, inefficient and "rude".

Men are often quoted to be disrespectful towards women (and I do not deny that) but women have been equally known to pass on derogatetory statements about other women, when the going gets tough. Obviously, I am referring to statements made by Ms. Rita Bahugana against Ms. Mayawati. God knows what those "feminists" would have done, had a man made those statements! In fact no women organization of the country seems have condemed it so far!!

Human nature is all the same, be it a man's or woman's.

Change of reference frames

कर रहा था ग़म-ए -जहां का हिसाब,

आज तुम याद बेहिसाब आए.

-- Faiz Ahmed 'Faiz'

This rendition by Begum Akhtar is marvellous. Until a few months ago, when I used to listen to this 'sher' in her voice, I used to be in a state of desperate depression. But in the recent past, this sher has a completely different effect on me. I feel immersed in a soothing essence of a beautiful thought.

And the reason for this change? The change of reference frames. So relativity holds true not only in physics, but in one's life and mood too.

By the way, here is that epic rendition: