It’s monsoon time again and what can be more frightening for mumbai city than that. 400 mm in just a day and the rumour is that there’s no respite from it for the next 24 hours too. It’s my prediction that there are atleast 2-3 days in the month of July when rains have total command over this city and it brings it to a complete standstill and it has come true almost all the time.
bhooshan
When Nature Calls
The God who painted nature in its varied hues and moods is the greatest. He must’ve worked painfully hard to produce such flawless beauty which entices the human mind, even though he may not be physically present there. He then blesses us with rains & cleanses his creation to its original form and welcomes us to enjoy it. To my mind, this is definitely the season to be one amongst nature.
The Discovery of ‘English’
This happened a few weeks ago but it’s worth a mention. And it’s not the review of Nehru’s timeless classic ‘The Discovery of India’. I happen to be an inactive member of GFXArtist. My purpose of joining the community was to network with other fellow designers and see what work they do. Their Chat Room is very well-known amongst the members and is a place where I frequently like to hang out.
On one such occasion I got introduced to a member, 17 years (?) old Jane from Norway. She’s an artist herself. I was taken by surprise one day when she asked me “how do they pronounce my name”. Citing a cultural ‘grand canyon’ that existed between us, I got what she was saying and I quickly typed ‘Boo-Shun’, just they way they do in dictionaries everywhere. And then it struck me!! After some research into the language, I discovered that there’s no letter such as ‘Bha’ in english!! Infact there’s no letter that starts with ‘Bh’ except for ‘Bhutan’ which is pronounced as ‘Boo-tan’ by the westerners :-)
In the end, this turned out to be just too much ‘gyaan’ for her and Jane has now decided to call me just ‘Bo’ :D. In retrospect, I felt that Hindi/Sanskrit and the other Indian languages are far rich in phonetics which are missing in the rest of the global languages. Perhaps I have to yet come across a language that is richer than the one my countrymen speak :-)
Powerless Without Internet
The fact that I have not been able to post anything in my blog is because my internet connection has gone haywire at my house. Hathway says it’s a problem with my modem & they would send an engineer soon. This was on Sunday night, when I lodged my complaint. On monday I rang them up 5 times in a span of 4 hours in the evening to inquire about the status of my complaint, but to no result. Their server is down sometime or their software has crashed on the other.
I have never expected any prompt service from Hathway. Their plans are good but their support / service lags behind the rest. Infact, I have come to the conclusion (call it cynicism if you want) that in India people are interested in only selling the product to you. The rest is all your headache.
Anyways, I have been promised that the engineer will come today in the evening and I am pretty sure that he’s not going to come :-) Until then I am powerless.
Got my WACOM
I have entered the elite gang of people who have owned the WACOM Intuos 3 Tablet (tabby as I lovingly call it). It cost me a lot of money but I decided to go for it because I wanted to try my hand at art & illustration. I have always yearned to free whatever creativity that I possess in my mind.
The tabby is neat and I got used to it within no time. I also did, what they call a speed paint which is basically a quick rendering of thoughts in Corel Painter. You can see it in this thread. It’s entitled – Village Tree. I am hoping to do a lot more fine art with my tabby now :-)