As The River Flows

            Depleting natural resources and degradation of the environment is a primary contemporary preoccupation of environmentalists today. Air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution, ozone depletion, green house effect are issues we are familiar with.  A relatively new concern is that of Light pollution. For the past few years environmentalists have been researching on the harmful effects of light pollution. This is a phenomenon now fairly common in the cities of developed nations of the world. Changing lifestyles, shifts in workplace demands of both customers and retailers, are some of the reasons that have led to the presence of a fairly active night life which consequently poses demands on artificial light requirements. This is the primary cause for Light Pollution. How and when does Light Pollution occur?             When excessive artificial lighting enters the night sky, it gets reflected off air borne water particles and water droplets. This causes a c

                                     Everyday actions are increasingly being handled electronically, rather than through the use of pen, paper or face-to-face interaction. The technique of studying and electronically capturing the physical characteristics of a person is called Biometrics. The physical characteristics studied may include finger prints, hand geometry, eye-structure or voice pattern. Biometrics involves using these physical characteristics as a password or a form of identification. The need for biometrics can be found in the central, state and local governments as well as in the military. With rapid growth in electronic commercial transactions there is a great demand for fast and accurate user identification. There are broadly three different types of user identification: 1) Something the user knows – A password, a PIN (personal identification number), or a piece of information. 2) Something one has – A card key, a smart card, or an ID (identification) c

                             Hello! Glad to meet you. My name is Waterbird. I am a parasail. Never heard of me? Well now you have! It’s time to get to know me. Come along let me tell you about myself and my exciting life. How was I born? You must’ve seen parachutes, the round objects with the help of which ‘people’ come down from aircrafts.  Right? Well these ‘people’ are usually pilots, sky jumpers and other such professionals. Pierre Lamoigne an instructor was trying to teach his pilots ‘how to come down with a parachute’. It was quite a complicated task taking them up in the aircraft each time for the training practice. Pierre hit upon a bright idea for the practice sessions. The parachute with the ‘flyer; was attached to a jeep. When the jeep pulled along the parachute filled up with air and the pilot was gradually ‘lifted’ up in to the air. This is very similar to your kite lifting up and flying in the air. As the jeep moved the ‘flyer’ was pulled along in the a

“Susan wake up”, the shrill voice of her mother jolted Susan out of her sleep. “Come and help me clean the meat, dig out some potatoes from the yard and……….” “Oh no! Not again”, Susan thought “another day of no college!” She hated missing college. Susan lived with her Mother, Father, elder brother Sandy and Grandmother. They lived in a beautiful little house her Grandfather had once built beside the river in the small village Sabato. Grandma was old and could not be of much help with chores around the house. Susan was the one who always helped mother and she liked doing it all of it. Well almost all except for cooking. She loved to eat but disliked cooking very much. Her father was a bee keeper in a bee farm. Once every fortnight he also doubled up as a sales person and would go to the market to sell the honey. It was hard work. Father would leave very early in the morning when he went to the market by bus and he would return late in the night with his friends and a feast had to

Parenting is a wonderful journey of self-discovery. Children make us sing in joy, tear our hair, heave in sigh and of course they make us laugh a lot. Sharing some such  hilarious  episodes of parenting. “Mama mm…Mama mm…” my 4 yr old sobbed in between deep sighs as he attempted to complain about his 6 yr old brother over the phone, when I made my regular afternoon call from work in the afternoon to check on the house help and my sons. “Yes baby. What is it?” I asked softly trying to comfort the hassled child. “Mama annayaa hit me mama soooo hard…” he wailed “Oh that’s bad dear. Where did he hit you?” I gently prodded “On that part Mama with which we bend our hand, which is like the knee of the leg” he wept as I stifled a guffaw at the other hand, enjoying the tiny tots attempt at describing the elbow and aptly making  up for the vocabulary deficit! ******** Speaking of vocabulary, the multi- ingualism  of India threw up interesting episodes with children. “Shut the

                                       It is funny how ridiculous the workings of the mind can be even when you are supposedly middle-age and apparently wise.  It was the in January 2012, the summer of Hyderabad was ebbing away (yes I meant ‘summer’ and not ‘winter’. We only have summer and severe summer in the city anyways) and I’d just returned home after a hectic week of researching for a new project, a multi-art fusion production. Not a good time to get the loosies. But loosies  aren't  particularly superstitious fellows and  couldn't  care less when they set out. Set out they did and with what vengeance! I must surely have cheated on a loosie in one of my past lives. My bowels auditory performance could match my 6 yr olds drumming on my kitchen dabbas. What I had decided to overlook as a ‘small thing’ one which I could possibly ignore, seemed to have taken offence to the lack of attention and doubly ensured it got all (and more) of the attention it deserved