The Lonesome Road

The first camera that I ever used was an analog Nikon camera that had been in the family forever. Of course, at that time I was no big fan of the device.

I’ll be very honest here - I was a (really) bad shot with the nikon. Most of the pictures that I took used to come out overexposed and shaky. To this day, I am a bad shot with analogs. Of course, I haven’t tried photography with SLR’s - but that’s a different post.

My first digital camera was a Sony DSC-P93. This camera came into my hands a couple of years back and made me fall in love with photography. It was a fun and easy to use point-and-shoot. Unfortunately, I had to leave it back home before I came to the US.

Once here, it did not take long before the abundance of things to photograph and the inability to do so had me itching to get my hands on a new camera. Of course, this time I wanted something more than a simple point and shoot. The lessons had been learnt well on the older camera. I was looking for a good (heavy-ish), stable camera which took standard memory cards, and most importantly - had a high zoom. After a lot of research (thanks to Anshul), the choice finally came down to my current camera - the Canon S2IS.

Why all this intro? Well, it’s a small thing really. Even as I took up hosting, I knew that my photoblog updates were going to exceed my blog updates. There’s not much I like to write about - but put a camera in my hand and I will start looking around for something to photograph. This post is basically a small celebration for the 50th photo put up on the photoblog.

For all those who wonder why I don’t update my Flickr photostream too often and/or why the dates on the photos on the phoroblog are from May, here is the explanation: I do three levels of filtering on all my photos.

(1) Basic : No blurs, sharp subjects. This step eliminates only the shaky and out of focus snaps

(2) Flickr worthy: From each set, there will be a set of photos that I like enough to upload on Flickr.

(3) Showcase: Is a subset of (2). The photos that I really like from (2) will be put up on the photoblog (and Flickr).

Once all the photos that I want to showcase from a set are over, the remainder that satisfy criteria (2) are uploaded in a set to Flickr.

Whew! I hope that clears things for the (few) curious people.

Later all!

In my inbox, chain letters are dealt with harshly. They are summarily banished to the junk mail folder and then sent to the big deal mail box in the sky. The chain letter that came in today will have a slightly different fate. While I will not forward it, I’ll put it up here. It expresses the same ideas that Anshul’s post did. I see no point in repeating what has been said so well.

With no further intro - here’s the letter:

A letter from Mumbai

Dear Terrorist,

Even if you are not reading this we don’t care. Time and again you tried to disturb us and disrupt our life - killing innocent civilians by planting bombs in trains, buses and cars. You have tried hard to bring death and destruction, cause panic and fear and create communal disharmony. But every time you were disgustingly unsuccessful. Do you know how we pass our life in Mumbai? How much it takes for us to earn that single rupee? If you wanted to give us a shock, then we are sorry to say that you failed miserably in your ulterior motives. Better look elsewhere, not here.

We are not Hindus and Muslims or Gujaratis and Marathis or Punjabis and Bengaliies. Nor do we distinguish ourselves as owners or workers, govt. employees or private employees. WE ARE MUMBAIKERS (Bombay-ites, if you like). We will not allow you to disrupt our life like this. On the last few occassions when you struck (including the 7 deadly blasts in a single day killing over 250 people and injuring 500+ in 1993), we went to work next day in full strength. This time we cleared everything within a few hours and were back to normal - the vendors placing their next order, businessmen finalizing the next deals and the office workers rushing to catch the next train. (Yes the same train you targeted)

Fathom this: Within 3 hours of the blasts, long queues of blood donating volunteers were seen outside various hospitals, where most of the injured were admitted. By 12 midnight, the hospital had to issue a notification that blood banks were full and they didn’t require any more blood. The next day, attendance at schools and office was close to 100%, trains & buses were packed to the brim, and the crowds were back.

The city has simply dusted itself off and moved one - perhaps with greater vigour.

We are Mumbaikers and we live like brothers in times like this. So, do not dare to threaten us with your crackers. The spirit of Mumbai is very strong and can not be harmed.

With Love,
from the people of Mumbai (Bombay)

I love this city!

I’ve been a long time Stephen King fan. At one point in time, I owned around 30 books that he had written (I am counting those he wrote as Richard Bachman as well). Of course, this was before book worms decided that I had to many books and ate quite a few of them. When they finished their food, I had fewer than 10 left.

All that apart, I hated the first King book that I read. Technically, it wasn’t a King book, it was one of the Bachman books - Thinner. I was cribbing about the book to a friend and he dumped a copy of The Dark Tower II - The Drawing of the Three in my hand.

So, I took his recommendation that the book was good, and gave King a go with a clear mind. And boy, was the book great. The characters, the interactions and the plot were amazingly good. Of course, once I finished book 2, how could I not go after book 3 (The Waste Lands)?

Of course, a few things did not make sense in book 2 as I had not read book 1. Long story short, bought books 1 - 3 and re-read them in order. Book 3 ended in a cliff hanger - and I hated King for that. Of course, all this reading also introduced me to the other books that he wrote. If you are reading the Dark Tower series, it makes a lot of sense to read his other books - trust me on this.

After a long wait, Book 4 (Wizard and Glass) finally came out. The problem(?) with this book was that it dealt a lot with Roland’s past. It does a good job of providing the back story and the motivation of Roland’s quest, but at that time I was a lot more interested in knowing when Roland was going to get to the damn tower of his. Now that I have finished the series, I think I will give it another go.

The gap between books 4 and 5 (Wolves of the Calla) was longer than I anticipated. Also, by that time, I had moved on to other authors and different genres. When I finally got my hands on the book, I was disappointed. To be honest, of all the books in the series, this is (according to me) the weakest one. Why? Simple - it does not move the story forward. Well, not too much in any case. It felt like the entire novel was just to set up the ending. I did not enjoy slogging (yes, it wasn’t that good) through the book just to have the last 10 pages move the story forward.

Once that book was done, I gave up on the series. Well, gave up is a little strong - I just stopped bothering about it. For around 2 years. The other day, when I went to the local library, I saw the last two books in the series (The Song of Susannah and (duh) The Dark Tower) next to each other. After a lot of internal debate, I took them home - and fell in love with the series all over again.

The Song of Susannah had all the made the series great in the first place. Characters, plot lines, interactions - the works. And the story was moving forward - hurtling forward in fact. And the book was small - well, small compared to the other books in the series. It was so good that I finished it in a day.

That left only one book to go. The one where Roland achieves his goal (or does he?). Was it going to be the culmination of King’s work - or was it going to make me hate him forever? Let’s just say he ended it the only way he could. As he says, the ending just wrote itself - and I am not disappointed/upset by it. In the light of the end, quite a few things that happen in the book make sense.

Yes, there is nothing about the story, the characters or the plot in the post above. It’s simple. If anyone is inspired to read the series because they had the patience to read this article, I don’t them to have any preconceived ideas. Approach it with a fresh mind. Those who have read other King books will enjoy the series a little more. Here are some of the books you should try while/before reading the series : The Stand, Salem’s Lot, Insomnia, Hearts in Atlantis, and It.

In many ways, this series is King’s Magnum Opus. It almost feels like all the other books that he wrote were simply window dressing for this epic. This is his Grand Unified theory, bringing all his works under one umbrella. As an avid fan, I will not be disappointed if he bows out now and never writes another work. Book 7 - The Dark Tower is gift enough.
Khef, Ka and Ka-Tet.

Say thankya.

As I have written earlier [loneroad.info], I am a big fan of reading the information that is written on cans and other packing devices.

Now, the thing is, for the most part, the labels are normal. They simply provide information about the product and some nutritional statistics. But every once in a while, there comes a label which provides enough amusement to make up for the effort.

Now we take a tanget.

It’s nearing the end of the mango season in India. Unfortunately, in the US mangoes are really expensive. But, summer will not be summer unless mangoes are eaten. The solution - mango pulp. Yes, I know there are artificial flavours and preservatives, and added sugar. Who cares - it tastes like mango. So shoo. Also it costs $1.49 for a large can making it very affordable

Anyway, the purpose of that long winded introduction was to set up the warning label that I read on the can. It says :

“Factory: Product made in a nut free area, but nuts elsewhere”

What in the name of God does that mean? Of course, the rational (and correct) answer is that there are no traces of nuts in the factory where the pulp is produced, but there may be nuts in the area where the product is stored/stocked or during transportation.

I leave you, constant reader to draw your own conclusion from what you read.

Until next time - may your area be nut free