Chit-chat with Pandit Ravi Shankar...

I talked with Pandit Ravi Shankar today... It wasn't just "meeting" him, but "talking" with him. Uptill now, I have seen some great Indian classical musicians really closely.. like Zakir, Rashid, Bhimsenji, Jasaraj, Hariprasad and Shivkumar.. I have seen them face to face, I have touched their feet.. but I never got a chance to talk with them. But this time, for Ravi Shankar, I made it.. I talked with him.. Hurraaay !!!

Ravi Shankar himself and Anushka were playing in SD after a long time. SD is their home town, thus I have seen Ravi Shankar multiple times at different concerts. Since last one year, he had some shoulder injury so wasn't able to perform, but now he has started his musical journey again.

So me and my music group buddy went for the concert. When concert was over I thought abt meeting Panditji... My friend initially thought that "I am crazy" :), but when I told him how I have seen Hariprasad, Bhimsen, Shivkumar in pune.. face to face.. he also got enthu...

There were almost 100 people waiting outside greenroom... We weren't on the guest list either.. Only family and friends were allowed to visit.. I was the "back-stage crasher".. as usual.. so obviously we were at the tail end..

..but at last.. the moment appeared.. When we entered the greenroom, I saw Anushka talking with her american friends, but my eyes were looking for Panditji .. and there he was.. sitting on a sofa, talking with a american couple... Panditji looked at me.. and I guess he got little bit confused... probably he was thinking "who the hell is this young fat guy".. so he invited me and asked my name... I touched his feet and told abt myself.. immediately he identified me as "Marathi".. asked me about my liking towards music.. details abt my tabla.. Gharana... how long I have been playing.. What I am doing in San diego.. and at the end.. he said "surely meet me again"... hshhhhh.. while leaving the green room, I said hello to Anushka also !!

When my friend was introducing himself.. I was observing Panditji... nobody can believe that he is 87 years old.. His age is hard to determine from his cheerful face. He still has his legendary aura with him.. he was cheerful, bubbly and in an excited mood.. distinctive similarity with Pt Bhimsen ji.. I guess age or physical strength is never the issue with these legends. I am sure that its damn difficult for a 87 year old person to move his fingers on the sitar as smoothly as his young blood... but his brain and heart surely puts him in trance, inspires his fingers to move and his complex compositions comes to reality on sitar.. When you listen to him, you definitely get the feeling of a great composer, artist.. a complete musician... a legend..

Whenever these legends perform on stage, I always think that "what must be going in his mind.. what is he thinking abt while playing?" "Would he be worried abt his fingers not moving as fast as before".. or "he just enjoys the music and goes in trance".. you never know...

Any way, felt good after meeting & talking with him... a life time moment to cherish.. Infact my friend went crazy after meeting Ravi Shankar.. it was first time in his life he was visiting a great musician so closely and it turned out to be a chance to "talk" with him !!

In the concert, Anushka played "Puriya Dhanashri".. it was "so-so"... somewhat noisy :).. her "Kirwani" was good though... Infact a fellow flute artist "Ravi Kulur" was strikingly noticeable.. and finally Panditji rendered a marvelous raga "Jan-Samohini"..

..I hope I will get a chance to listen to him again...

200 calories..

200 calories.. just a fraction of your daily diet.. the number seems really small.. probably a doughnut or handful of peanuts or 2 coke cans.. and thats its.. you will consume 200 calories in seconds.. Take a look !!

...but to burn these calories.. ain't easy as it seems.. it takes around 20 mins of running @ 5 mph for my body type... Its surely a pain.. so now whenever I come across free food in QC meetings, I have to think twice... I have surely lost the appetite for desserts or cookies.. not because I don't want them.. but just to save some efforts on trade-mill..

and guess what... loosing 1 pound of body weight requires to get rid of 3500 calories.. hmmm do the math...

but still... since last couple of weeks.. I am consistent in burning calories.. at-least 300-400 calories everyday :) !!

Come on Cartman... Fight !!

Oh GOD...

Oh GOD,

Why are you so "depressed" these days? Why are you "hiding" yourself from us? Why there are so many "storms" in your life.. causing "murkiness" in my life?

Your "fuzziness" has affected my "seeing". You have "cried" in last 4 months. Because of that I have lost my "transparency".

Last week you showed me the "light" and I was able to explore the "heaven" again.. I saw thousands of "light sources".. "colorful diamonds" from your "treasure"..

But in this week, I am again "under the black matter".. lost my "vision" again... why are you putting me in this mode? Are you so "depressed"? Are you going to "cry" again ?

I was planning to "visit" you tonight... like last time.. but it looks like you don't want me to...

Oh GOD.. please make my "nights" cheerful again :-) !!

Lirpa Loof...

Lirpa Loof is going around everywhere since last couple of days.. I always browse for these every year around this time... but this time I almost got loof-ed.

I guess you don't know what is "Lirpa Loof".. Here it is !!!

Few of these from Google are just awesome..
- 2007 - TiSP
- 2007 - Paper Gmail
- 2006 - Romance
- 2005 - gGulp
- 2004 - Job Offer at moon
- 2002 - Pigeon Rank
- 2000 - MentalPlex

Infact this Page Not Found error message from google is damn funny.. Google Rules !!

Assassination of Bill Gates affecting stock market in 2003.. is indeed hilarious..

but frankly.. this one about AppleTV almost had me.. for a moment I thought that I should buy AppleTV.. and the next moment I saw that tag "lirpaloof" :)..but after reading the comments and details, I am totally confused again, if it is indeed true or not..!!

Any way, Slashdot also has geeky collection for this year..

Did you come across any interesting "Lipra Loofs"?

We.. The Indians..

We.. The Indians.. 11 people represent our country in a game of cricket.. They are the "chosen" one !!

Mr. Sachin Tendulkar - Greatest batsman ever..
Mr. Virender Sehawag - Highest score made by an Indian in Test Cricket
Mr. Saurav Ganguly - Holds the Indian captaincy record for the most Test victories.
Mr. Rahul Dravid - Highest test batting average of any Indian batsman in history
Mr. Yuvaraj Singh - Best fielder currently on the team.
Mr. Mahendra Singh Dhoni - Ranked second in the official ICC cricket rankings for batsmen in limited over internationals
Mr. Harbhajan Singh - First Indian bowler to take a hat trick in Test cricket
Mr. Ajit Agarkar - World record for the fastest 50 wickets in One-day international cricket.

..and remaining 3 bla bla guys..

These 11 Indian idols lost miserably to Sri Lanka today and thrown out of WC 2007.

Their records show that they are THE best ones in India... then.. what happened???

Mr. Sachin Tendulkar - The richest cricketer ever.. can't spare much time through advertisements.. Greatest batsman really don't need any practice.. Any way looks like it was his last world cup.. Bye bye !!

Mr. Virendra Sehwag - "Nawab of Najafgarh, Delhi".. Looks like he is busy with his restaurant "Sehwag Favourites".. really can not spare time for practice.. Lost his form but "Dravid Zindabaad" motto has saved his seat in Indian team !!

Mr. Saurav Ganguly - He just made a comeback.. how can we blame him? "Prince" takes a while to settle !!

Mr. Yuvaraj Singh - Either busy doing affairs with "Kim Sharma".. or "Xbox360" advts for Microsoft.

Mr. Mahendra Singh Dhoni - Because of his shoulder length hairs or because of tinted glasses, he really can not see the ball.. how can we blame him?

Mr. Harbhajan Singh - "Sardaar".. Indian team selected him for his best "bowling" record against SriLanka as compared to "Anil Kumble".. but "Sardaar" didn't understand his role in the team !! Instead of taking wickets, he put up sixes in the batting...

Mr. Ajit Agarkar - I still don't understand how he gets selected every time.. probably for his looks..

Can't we choose 11 players out of billion people that can really show India's potential? Nope.. Its not possible...

Star Gazing 2007-03-10

I went for star gazing at Tierra Del Sol (TDS) on Saturday with San Diego Astronomy Association group. They have their own observatory with 22 inch optical telescope. TDS is an hour drive from SD and the site is excellent. You can catch Mag 7 stars easily with naked eye.

My main objective this time was to do some binocular astronomy, like observing Messier objects. I had list of 16 objects to locate within 3 hrs (thats pretty lame objective for pros.. but for beginners like me its okay :)). Bob & Ravi were also with me and they didn't know much abt stars. So we had good beginner's session with fundas and then with constellations.

Best part of the star party was...

- Saturn from 22 inch. Bob said that it was like a textbook image of Saturn. Rings were just fabulous. 4 of its satellites were clearly visible !!

- Watching M41 open cluster in Canis Major and M36-37-38 open clusters in Auriga through binoculars was fun. I tried to locate these objects from SD multiple times and it was frustrating. But at TDS, I got them within a minute.. I was damn happy :) !! Infact for M36-37-38, I first observed them through binocs and then checked their relative-locations in sky-chart.. and it was perfect. It was indeed (a small scale) achievement for me. I am sure that now I can find them from SD also.

After 3 hrs, whole thing got ruined because of cloud cover and winds. We were planning to wait till moon rise @ 12:34 and then observing moon through 22inch would have been fun.. but gusty winds were just unbearable !!

Overall, I located 10 messier objects out of 16. Others were lost because of the cloud cover... bad luck.. bad day for star gazing !!

Any way, my Nikon 10x50 binoc, which I ordered last week, is on the way.. I should get it tomorrow.. Feeling excited !!

Faster Than Light...

Ever thought about moving faster than light? ..Or.. do you know "anything" that can travel faster than light?

The speed of light "c" is 300,000 Km/s in vacuum. In any other medium, light's speed is always less than "c". Anything with "mass" can not travel at speed of light. These are universal truth or basic assumptions in physics.. on which whole "physics" is based..

But NEC researchers have made a breakthrough where they got "something" moving faster than light.. Any guess on what that "something" is ?... :)... the light itself.. These guys made the light break its own record :) They have developed new type of "medium".. a special "vapor".. that can make light travel 310 times faster..

Unbelievable.. and they did it in year 2000 only.. Hmm.. wasn't aware abt it before.. here is the press release.

Actually.. While reading abt "Faster Than Light", I also came across some interesting experiments. There are "things" that can really travel faster than light.. both in "absolute" terms and "relative" terms.. From this article,

Think about how fast a shadow can move. If you project a shadow of your finger using a nearby lamp onto a far away wall and then wag your finger, the shadow will move much faster than your finger. If your finger moves parallel to the wall, the speed will be multiplied by a factor D/d where d is the distance from the lamp to your finger and D is the distance from the lamp to the wall. It can actually be much faster than this if the wall is at some oblique angle. If the wall is very far away the movement of the shadow will be delayed because of the time it takes light to get there but its speed is still amplified by the same ratio. The speed of a shadow is therefore not restricted to be less than the speed of light.

Others things which can go faster than the speed of light include the spot of a laser which is pointed at the surface of the moon. Given that the distance to the moon is 385,000 km try working out the speed of the spot if you wave the laser at a gentle speed.

Stand up in a clear space and spin round. It is not too difficult to turn at one revolution each two seconds. Suppose the moon is on the horizon. How fast is it spinning round your head? It is about 385,000 km away so the answer is 1.21 million km/s, which is more than four times the speed of light! It sounds ridiculous to say that the moon is going round your head when really it is you who is turning, but according to general relativity all co-ordinate systems are equally valid including revolving ones. So isn't the moon going faster than the speed of light? This is quite difficult to account for.

These are all examples of things which can go faster than light, but these are not physical entities.. They don't have "mass". It is not possible to send "information" faster than light on a shadow or light spot.. so "FTL communication" is not possible in this way...