Aasim started it all!!

Usually we dont exchange gifts on Valentine’s day BUT this time Aasim wanted to give his mother a secret present on Valentine. He had seleted this wrist watch before we went to Delhi and had made me promise that we will buy it when we get back.

Yesterday when I asked him to come along to buy that watch he suggested that I go alone and get it on his behalf!! I did not.

Swati got the hint that we were up to something, went out and got me this!! Though not real antique it is well made and the carvings on handle and sheath are real nice.

The last picture in the set is something I stumbled upon rummaging thru old memories. There was this guy at the road side or some fair who for Rs10/- wrote our names on a grain of rice!!

I am related to people I don’t relate to!! – Calvin to Hobbes

I underestimated the power of my puny dial-up, I was indeed able to upload all the pictures yesterday but then I had no time to write about it.

The pictures are in a chronological order, I am writing below “what was what” as much for my reference as for anyone else 😉 The complete picture set spans a period of 2 days, have shot some interesting fillers between the various ceremonies, so here are the ceremonies in serial order

“goad bharai” literally – filling the lap – Groom’s mother and aunt blessing the bride for happiness and fertility.

“tilak” Bride’s brother honoring the groom and then vice versa

“ring ceremony” Borrowed from the west… …

Everything is interspersed with lots of loud music, dancing and good food.

Next day

“mandap gadna” Groom’s uncles and brother in-laws bring things which will be used for the marriage pavilion (this is symbolic now)

“haldi” Groom is applied a paste of turmeric and sandalwood, this action usually spills over to other members present and is generally lots of fun 😉

Then before leaving for the venue the brother in-laws get the Groom ready and the ladies do some more stuff significance of which escapes me now.

“baraat” The Groom is taken on a horse back in a procession till the venue accompanied by music and dancing and fireworks.

After which is the marriage ceremony depending on the “mahurat”, the designated auspicious time, In this case it was so late that the guest had dinner and went home before the actual ceremony could take place… …

As luck would have it the NiMH on my camera ran out of juice by this time and all I could get was a couple of shots of the Bride being brought back to the Groom’s house… …

Just to repeat everything is interspersed with lots of loud music, dancing and good food.

Interested? The pictures are here

As an aside if anyone feels that Me and Swati look so unslept – it is because we were 🙁 Add to it Swati’s Asthama which has been going on since past 2 months… …

BTW Two of the pics of Swati which I took before we left are here and here

A matchmaker after a wedding is like a fan after autumn :Chinese proverb

New Delhi girls are more pretty than those in Chennai, Bangalore or Mumbai (in that order)

Came back today morning 4 am with lots of pictures, memories, sweets, sore throat and a fever. Rushed right back to celebrate Bakr Id.

The fever is down but the body ache is killing. Hope to be better by tomorrow. Have optimized the wedding pictures for the web but they still amount to 16Mb (169 total) I don’t think all of them will be uploaded today.

Been wondering if to write a detailed account of the wedding or just let the 169000 words speak for themselves… …

The island of South Georgia, southeast of the Falklands, lacks roads or airports. The only access is by sea, the journey can take up to 10 days.

We leave in an hour or so I think (basically will get up when Swati hollers) Will be back on Wednesday morning and hopefully I will have a lot of pictures of a typical north Indian wedding rigmarole.

Morning me and Swati were talking how nice it would be if we had jobs instead of our own business – right now instead of trying to tie a hundred dispartate things together I would be happily just waiting for the journey to begin and not have a care… …

I signed up for an RPG which begins this weekend – hope they don’t kill off my character before I return.

May be I shouldn’t have … …

Thankfully Swati’s asthma and allergies are all under control since we made qt the official *Office Cat* she stays in the office and is not allowed inside the house. qt doesn’t mind it because she gets to sleep undisturbed in the office.

“Photography is bringing order out of chaos.” – Ansel Adams

Me: So how long will it take to finish
Geek: 6 weeks
Me: OK I will quote 8 weeks
Geek: Hmm… make it 9 weeks.

This is a real life conversation between me and my senior programmer. While at first glance it might seem funny BUT is in fact a reality of estimating release dates and scheduling software projects.

We learned it the hard way but those interested can read up this and this

Tomorrow we leave for Delhi to attend a marriage. Aasim is all excited that he will be traveling by train and also that his mama (thats mother’s brother in Hindi) is getting married. Aasim has a special status as he is the only child of this generation in her family

Swati tried out her payals and dresses today had taken some pictures but most of them did not turn out too well. She might post them if she has time… ….

Another review of my book, this time at Linux Journal (huh? it is there in the URL;)

I am pleased with this review because this is the first one which mentions specifically the topics I wrote on.

Hmmm… but the royalty checks tell some other story unless I am being short changed by WROX

The fastest bird in the world is the Asian spine-tailed swift. In a level flight, it can reach a speed of 102 miles per hour (170 kilometers per hour).

Sam Verma, an NRI from nearby town of Betul, touched down in his 4 seater plane at Nagpur,Sonegoan, airport sometime yesterday morning.

There were two things which excite me about this seemingly routine travel of a rich bussiness man.

1) The plane he was flying was indegenously assembled
2) The plane used a bio-fuel derived from agricultural waste – basically ethanol

According to reports he wants to assemble and sell such planes in India. The planes would be priced as much as a small car.

Have managed to lay my hands on two more of the Star Wars novels and “The book of lost tales” by JRRT

But before reading those I plan to, like , re-read the four Robot novels by Issac Asimov. On a similar note I also saw a Foundation novel which has not been written by Asimov but approved by the Asimov foundation – did not pick it up as I was not sure.

Oblong, linear, oval, elliptical, awl-shaped, spatulate, deltoid, and reniform are different types of leaf shapes

Yesterday, or was it day before… anyway… Took some pictures in the garden to get the texture of leaves of various plants. Here are the results.

Another weekend – am not planning anything for tommorow – since past four week every time I did that something or the other turned up 🙁

Want to experiment with backlighting one of these days… …