Dulled Evening.

Cold breeze,

setting Sun at the blurring horizon,

fading buildings in the mist,

headlights peeping in between,

a bus waiting in the depot for company,

not one, lots of thoughts in the mind,

make it a dulled evening.

Haafiz Ali Khan Awards 2009

Day before yesterday I attended the Haafiz Ali Khan Awards 2009. Raju got the passes and I was under the impression that, it was an Indian Classical Music concert, until I reached the hall (Nehru Center, Mumbai).

The Haafiz Ali Khan Memorial Trust was formed after the death of Ustad Haafiz Ali Khan. Trust instituted the Haafiz Ali Khan yearly awards in 1985 to felicitate the musicians, who have become legendary figures in their lifetime. This year the awardee was John McLaughlin. An English jazz fusion guitarist and composer, also know as Mahavishnu John McLaughlin.

Harsh and I reached the Nehru Center, where the award ceremony was conducted, after a lot of hassles. At one point, I thought that, we were not going to make it. But fortunately we reached just in time for the John McLaughlin's felicitation.

We learnt about the Haafiz Ali Khan Memorial Trust and the Haafiz Ali Khan Awards. Also, later, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan talked about his father. It was very inspiring to hear about a legend from the other. Then comes the speech of John McLaughlin after his felicitation. He started very humbly by saying 'To be honoured by you in this way is something more than any musician could expect. I am speechless.' When one is standing too tall and says something like this, they are just reminding us that, to stand this tall you need to have your ground grip firm. You have to have the right attitude from the beginning. He talked about musical journey of his life. When he said at the age of eight, he started playing western classical, Raju turned to me and said 'Dude, I am quitting music' :-) . He then went on with his amazing experiences in life and how and why he came to India. About Mahavishnu Orchestra and how Shakti was formed. It was very inspiring to hear him speak.

Felicitation was followed by a performance  by Aman and Ayan, the son's of Ustad Amjad Ali Khan. They performed two compositions. First up Raga Malkauns followed by Raga khamaj. It was quite an experience. Specially when these days I have started listening and reading about Indian Classical music. They performed  for an hour or so. Amazing thing about their performance was the coordination that they had. I was hearing them live for the first time and I was very amazed. After the performance John McLaughlin gave them accolades and praised their talent.

So much to hear that evening, music and experiencees of legends. I was really thrilled after the ceremony. While I was getting back home with Raju on his bike, throughout we were talking of the experience and did not realize when we reached home, and that we had traveled almost 25 km. :-)

Bells

bells, originally uploaded by acharekar.

Silence of the bells is the warning of an alarm.

Lohagad Trek, Bike Trip. (Lohagarh)

    
Harsh came back from UK. He wanted to go out for a trek and for biking. So we decided, we will go to Lohagad, on a Sunday (25th Oct 2009). Friends had come down to our place on Saturday, so I decided, I will not sleep that night as we had to leave early in the morning. We started at around 0600hrs from Dadar station. We were going at about 70 km/hr. It was very cold and as usual we were not prepared. But we kept going. (Hit me..!) We reached the Lohagad in 3 hours. We could not go all the way up to Lohagad Village on bike, as the road was not very nice. Then we walked a bit to reach the village. Nice Nimbu Sharbat was enough for us to get refreshed and we went ahead. Climbed the fort, wandered all over the fort, clicked a few snaps and took a small (very peaceful, much needed) nap for an hour or so near the Shiv Temple. While I was sleeping, Harsh was busy catching fish with the help of a small net, that he was carrying. He successfully caught about 6-7 fishes. We then left the fort. Came down to the village. Harsh got the bike up to the village with lot of difficulty, while I was waiting at one of the tea stalls. :) Then we immediately left. On our way back we were pretty tired, so did not want to hurry. So coming back took us approx 4 hours. And it was bad. Thanks to Harsh, he had put a hard plastic cover on his bike seat. It was really hard. Imagine sitting on that hard plastic cover for four hours. :(

Kolkata short trip, December 2007

     I visited kolkata in December 2007 on my way back, when I had gone for the YHAI trek to Sandakphu, West Bengal (Darjeeling). In Kolkata, I  stayed at Mr. Partha's place, whom I first met on the same YHAI trek. I visited Belur Math, Dakshineshwar Temple, Howrah Bridge, Victoria Memorial hall, Science city etc. I did not get to interact with many localities, though. I had delicious Bengali fish preparations by Mrs. Partha (I call her Jyotiji). That was the best part of my Kolkata stay. :-) Great company and visit to nice places made my trip memorable.

     While roaming in  Kolkata, during my one and a half days stay, I clicked few snaps and took short videos. Later, I compiled a short video about places I visited in Kolkata and added a nice soundtrack in the background. Here is the video.

Pune trip

     I went to Pune for some personal work last week. I was just going to return after meeting my relatives and finishing my work. But on the day I returned, in the morning, actually early afternoon, my cousin took me to see three of the four famous dams nearby Pune. We visited 'Khadakwasla', 'Panshet' and 'Varasgaon' dams. It was just after the rain, partially cloudy and unusually cold at 12.00 pm. Overall, pleasant atmosphere. We roamed around panshet sinhagad area for 4 hours. Amazing short trip. I could click few snaps in that trip with Minolta S414. :)

Storm clouds over Mumbai

Storm clouds over Mumbai, originally uploaded by acharekar.

Yesterday, in the evening it became stormy. Clouds gathered in the sky in a very short span of time. I took few snaps of the sky then. And they came out pretty good. Quasi edited couple of them. The result is the above, it is very very close to what we saw from the window in terms of lighting and colours etc.

Tablet strip, Guitar and Raju ...

     Title sounds crazy, isn't it ? Well, the video is crazier. Raju (Rajendra Vellury aka Chota Father) is the craziest of all guitarists I have met. Once I gifted him T-shirt with "Remember my name, you will be screaming it later" written on it.  :-)

     Around a couple of years ago, my routine was pretty interesting. All day I used to be at work, learning great stuff everyday and at night friends used to gather at our house at matunga, where Quasi and i were staying. Of those, Raju and Chavri were permanent members. :-) One evening, we were just sitting and discussing something, when Raju picked up the guitar and a tablet strip and started playing. Fortunately, I had the camera besides me and I started recording him playing. It turned out great, no doubt about it. When I told Raju that i am uploading this video on youtube , he laughed and said "I will record something good for you". It took a couple of years for it, to make it to youtube though.

     While he was playing, pirate made his presence felt. Pirate was a stray dog, whom we used to feed sometimes. Raju named him Pirate, probably because he could see only with one eye. Pirate was the guardian of that area, specially at nights.  Probably the only dog, whom i might have fed. Felt good after remembering him. Well, one more reason to like Raju's video. :-)

Good Morning..

 

 
     After a long time up at 6.00 am., after couple of years may be. Feels good about it. Hope it continues this way.

Facebook fun.. ?

     This is a very good example of how four people sitting in a room, given an unusual medium of communication, go to a peak of their creativity, to bring crap out of them.

     We were sitting chatting, were supposed to be studying btw.  So Raju thought of putting one of his creative quotes on facebook and ... it all started. Then we went on commenting on it. We started thinking too much, to put some weird comments. Subject of the discussion was lost in the initial 4-5 comments itself. And it kept changing at an average of 3 comments/subject and with no good pattern it kept repeating. We went crazy. Started doubting, if we really are crazy, since then. Quasi, Nipra and Raju were putting highly creative, geeky comments. I kept rotating the subject of the conversation and kept fuelling. It was fun. We expected no one will have the patience to go through all of it, but I was wrong, at least couple of guys did that and they liked it, amazing :-p. It was a shear waste of time, but we enjoyed it.

     Thanks to Quasi for all the hard work, in taking the screen shot of the conversation.
     Ohh yes, if at all you are going through the comments, please don't think that we have disrespected anyone here. Its is just a coincidence, if you find similar persons or situations in real life.

Finally Started working

  After taking break from work, finally recently started working on something. Started reading this book called "Pattern Classification" By R. O. Duda, P. E. Hart and D.G. Stork. It is a book you must learn, when you want to study neural networks, machine learning, decision theory etc. My most primary objective being upgrading myself as a mathematician, computer programmer; plus there are other things to it.

  Finding it pretty hard though, but thanks to Quasi for initial boost up and motivational talk which helped me get started. Lets see how far i go with this. Have written a post about what i studied in the first chapter. Here's the link Introduction to pattern classification.