I'm so tired today, just all exhausted and all out of energy. Being up 19 hours can do that to you.
Next Plan of action would be get some sleep, probably meditate on a hill somewhere like my relaxed friend the cow.

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'Suicide tree' toxin is 'perfect' murder weapon

[Via New Scientist]

Here's a short extract.

A plant dubbed the suicide tree kills many more people in Indian communities than was previously thought. The warning comes from forensic toxicologists in India and France who have conducted a review of deaths caused by plant-derived poisons.

Cerbera odollam, which grows across India and south-east Asia, is used by more people to commit suicide than any other plant, the toxicologists say. But they also warn that doctors, pathologists and coroners are failing to detect how often it is used to murder people.

See picture.

Sad part of about this toxin is

Half of Kerala�s plant poisoning deaths, and one in 10 of all fatal poisonings, are put down to Cerbera
Three-quarters of Cerbera victims are women. The team says that this may mean the plant is being used to kill young wives who do not meet the exacting standards of some Indian families. It is also likely that many cases of homicide using the plant go unnoticed in countries where it does not grow naturally.

Dowry killings or sucides probably.Reading into the Kerala Connection a little.
A article in the frontline refers to Kerela as "The State of Dispair"

Kerala is something of a role model in welfare-oriented development, and yet the State has been reporting one of the highest suicide rates in the country

.
<contd reading here>

Also here article source from the Times of India (TOI)


Suicide cases highest in Kerala

Here are some frightening facts stated in the article.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala continued to be on the top of the list of suicide cases with more than 9000 suicides reported annually, which was around 27 persons a day or more than one person per hour, according to organisers of a two-day conference, which begins here from January 24.

The number of persons attempting suicides in Kerala amounted to 80,000, Mohan said. "Murder suicides", commonly called family suicide, were also highest in Kerala, he said adding all these were official figures from police records.

Post inspired by Boing Boings's post Tree of Death

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Xocoatl

Say that to yourself Xoco - atl. What does that sound like ?
To me it sounds like chocolate. Well it is.A word from the Maya language, xocoatl derives from xoco, bitter, and atl, water. Bitter-Water the word that inspired the spanish to call it chocolate.
I love chocolate don't you ?
The primary stimulant(things that make things addictive) in chocolate is the theobromine, which is frequently confused with caffeine. Contrary to popular belief, chocolate does not contain significant amounts of caffeine, except when caffeine is added by the manufacturer.
So it you call yourself a chocoholic (I do) your probably addicted to theobromine(highly addictive). Being a chocololic would put you in the same league as a crack addict or a heavy smoker ,well almost it works the same way atleast.
That would explain why people don't like sharing their chocolate bars?
Well I don't mind sharing, sharing it with my clothes I mean.Here is some picture to lucidly explain my argument.


As you can baby akshay(I'm cute ain't I??) is already on his way to chocolate addiction.

Death By Chocolate
Chocolate is actually toxic to all animals, but the average human being would have to eat about 20 pounds of chocolate to be affected.Large amounts of chocolate can cause the following epileptic :-
seizures, heart attacks, internal bleeding, and eventually death.
Never Never feed your dog or your pet cat chocolate..

Why does taste so darn good ?

Part of the enjoyability of the chocolate eating experience is ascribed to the fact that its melting point is slightly below human body temperature and so it melts in the mouth. Chocolate also releases endorphins in the brain, which makes it nice regardless of taste

Anyways I'm thinking of starting a chocoholic's anonymous, any takers?

Ugly Cucumbers

I met one recently and I tell you, this was one really ugly cucumber!!
As cucumbers go, this was probably, Marilyn Manson the cucumber.


He was green,this evil evil green with small sprinkly freckles spread over like a bad rash which made his complection scaly yet smooth like the exterior of a just moulted snake.
An a beak , a beak like a vultures'.
But sadly our friend the ugly cucumber is no more.
He was served raw yet he was not shaken.
May he be digested in peace.



I'm leaving you with one of my favourites poems as a kid.



The Vulture

~Hilaire Belloc

The Vulture eats between his meals
And that's the reason why
He very, very rarely feels
As well as you and I.

His eye is dull, his head is bald,
His neck is growing thinner.
Oh! what a lesson for us all
To only eat at dinner!

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Reflections of Reflections.

A picture can say a thousands words.Mine say just a few

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Bono Bhai & U2 have been around for sometime now, well before I existed now. I�ve in the style of the Rolling Stones licked all the Wanderers have produced from 1980's Boy to 2000's All That You Can't Leave Behind . So why should 2004 be any different. It's been I know be been several Sunday bloody Sundays since Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby & Rattle and Hum(I absolutely love Rattle and Hum).Anyways I've not lost hope in the band which was once and may still be the greatest foreign exchange earners in Ireland. Therefore I got** myself a copy of their latest album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and I gave it a listen.
You all might have heard Vertigo on the radio and you must be telling yourself "This U2 sounding like U2" sticking to what they know best. But the rest of the album is somewhat similar with whiffs of the same old U2ish vibe, the melody take you back years. It took me two runs, for the songs to sink in but they've sunk in know and the music has this strange familiarity it slower than most of their albums
But like I said earlier the album has a strange familiarity to it like you have heard the stuff before and you cannot put your finger on it.

Well that sums up How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb which eventually unravels itself as a work of genius melding religion, love and life into emotionally thrilling gifts.

My favorite songs so far has been Miracle Drug & Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own.I'm going to be listening to it all day..

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Blogaddiction

I hereby promise [Akshay raises his left hand, see picture] to blog in sickness(as you've seen) and in health until death, take me away.

Well it looks like I'm addicted, many of us suffer from this strange addiction, this, blog addiction.What else will explain me comming back each day posting something new and even more inane than the last.
This obsession goes beyond clicking on the little orange[Publish Post] button on the bottom right corner of my screen, it's like publishing these post has become a part of the Tennesee Waltz, I call my life.
It all started out as an innocent expereiment in June 2003. Inspired my the first monnsoons rains I wrote my first post .I didn't know what it[blog] was, what it was used for or how to use it even but I stuck with it, posting as I said before something new and even more inane than the last.
I went on rambling, moving from post to post .

From

asking
Why the CIA factbook described Serbia as a country slightly smaller than Kentucky.
The question floating around in my head is How big is Kentucky ??

TO

.
A Post on the twin blasts in Mumbai(Remember)

Monday, August 25, 2003


Location : Same
Environment : Tense

Subject-- It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

Death and Destruction , shattered glass on the grounds,puddles of blood and the sounds of the raging sea in the background.It's so easy to kill a man , but it's much harder to forgive him. Fear in people eyes , blood on their faces.
Bombs go off everyday in the hearts and minds of men not explosives but of hatred.Hatred has no end.
Hatred has no end.
Hatred is our end .

But mostly I've published ramdom thoughts(all very boring yawn!!) peppered with triviality on things that have caught my eye.I tried to do some travel blogging in Sri Lanka but failed

I've done some wierd posts from being a lefty ( Gauche! & My Sinister Awkwardness Disproved. )to Getting a letter from H.G Wells ( no kidding !!).
From Cobras and Riki Tiki Tavi to Indo-Pak Reunification (Part 2 & Part 1) to school nostalgia (I felt like Alice in Wonderland on Magic Mushrooms.) to not speaking my mother tongue (Caveat Reader!! ) to Jap Death Poetry and so on not to mention a Short Story (Eva [WARNING : badly writing])

All I'm trying to say is that I've come a long way as person from June 2003 probably each post I've done since then documents some change.

It's been a good experience documenting what I've felt,seen and heard and put them down in words.
Words sometimes not illegible but words non the less.

Update:- My fewer got a lot worse today fewer reached a high of 103F and the medicenes I was on made me really drowsy and sleepy therefore couldn't give my exam(sob!!). Looks like I would have to give next sem which will be a drag but it atleast its not my fault .. The good news is I've started to recover and I did reluctantly go to a doctor and will most likely be fit before my next exam.

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I feel

terrible

absolutely

terrible

Terribly Terrible

if I can put it like that.
If I were to put how I feel into a picture this would be it.

What is going to make me feel better ? ?

This might be it .


I don't believe in doctors(I hate them to put it mildly), therefore am self medicating myself to the following.

40 tablets of Septilin (Himalaya Drug Company)
Dosage- as and when I feel over the next month.

Bactrim
Dosage- when I feeling especially BAD.Right now would count.

Vitiman B & C Complex
Dosage- Twice a day to keep my strength up.

Soup(Knor:Chicken Noodle) and allot of Hot Liquids(Elichi Chai) -
Dosage- as and when I feel .

I would like to add Brandy to the list but I'm out of that.

The timing is so f#$^ing perfect a day before an exam.
Porbably the delirium will help me pass.


UPDATE - 2200 Hrs Its official I got fewer. Possible diagnosis it could be viral which would be the absolute worst case. Popped in some paracetamol (crocin)

Being sick is bad enough , being sick before an exam is even worse and being sick alone tops it all.I'm sick, before an exam and all alone well this sucks.

I'm apologise for being so crude but you could just blame it on the damn virus.

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As I enter into my 19th year as a person, I have a lot to say but not so many words to say it. Year Eighteen had its ups and downs, it�s trivialities, it�s changes, it�s loves and it�s hatreds but it�s all over. I have lived so many lives, danced so many dances, spoken so many languages, and sung so many songs and when I look back sometimes and it all seems the same.
Change is so constant is that even if everything seems the same it�s not. A d�j� vu is not really a d�j� vu it�s a strange reaction for some feelings you want to keep inside. We change so much that we break, dissolve and we crawl away from the people we once were. Well to be honest I didn�t mean this post to be in cohesive bits of nonsense but since I�m here. What the heck?
I remember supermarkets in France sell wine in tetra pak cartons, like it�s milk. You know what would be great if they would sell champagne in cartons unscrewing the cork won�t be a problem anymore. Will it ?
Don�t you think homeopathic medicine promotes placebos as treatment? I don�t doubt they work and I quiet like the idea of small balls of sugar dipped in alcohol being the treatment to every ailment known to man .
Life is so many moments, I�ll give you to the example of my mobile phone (He's mentioning his mobile phone he�s like every other teenager [I�m I still a teenager, well but it�s my final year] obsessing about small phones with no wires). Yes my mobile phone/cell phone, quiet a trendy model mind you (that�s what matters these days doesn�t it , your ipod [which I possess] or your slick camera phone [no camera on mine ] yes this is what really matters, for you are a better person if you�re materialistic). Well back to phone, for a piece of plastic case filled with Chinese Integrated Circuits it�s had quiet an eventful life. Apart from being dropped countless number of times, it bears a scar from being to placed too close to a mosquito coil. Does anyone smell burning plastic? Now it looks like a brown mould has taken up permanent residence on the top of my phone. Some people drop there phones in buckets of water I burn mine . If that�s not enough I dropped it while driving today, if it wasn�t for Nick who risked life and limb to save it from a most unfortunate meeting with the tires of a PMT bus.



This post isn�t over yet.
Coming up next �shameless self promotion of a thoughtless mind� but first here�s a word from our sponsor.(read it in a fake English accent , if your English you get choice of foreign accent ,Yorkshire counts well if you�re from Yorkshire �.).

Are you happy with your long distance service provider? ( Just kidding )

Now back to our regular program shameless self promotion.. I had a really great day, better than my usual. I decided to take a little vacation so I took the morning off and went sightseeing with my new buddy nick. We went to Pataleshwar Cave temple, 8th century temples cut out of a single rock right in the middle of Pune. Damn peaceful definitely worth a visit and what's better entry is free. We then went to Shaniwar Wada and walked the ramparts. The third place we went to reminds me of Bob Marley It's called Rasta Peth. I would have a post on this soon probably but you would have to wait . I will be not posting till the 16th of December. I know it sucks especially for me but exams call. If you�re interesed you could read my other blog, Pune Blogging . Geetanjali has an awesome post lined up for you on Nala Park(s)? which I really enjoyed incidentally . Geetanjali, you could visit the University garden I really like it, you know it's was once a botanical garden or you could visit Empress Gardens (it�s near the race course) newer been there but I�ve heard it's good . There are a lot of gardens and I wonder why they still call Bangalore the garden city.

I sure have been rambling on forever but that�s what I�m a trivial rambler. Thinking of calling my cell phone scarface from now on.

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The answers has newer been so simple that it has been difficult to grasp.The root of all our difficulties is self-interest.

I read this quote and it made allot of sense to me .I'm opens to your thoughts and views,of course.

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I woke up before dawn today. To welcome the Sun on the dawn of a new day
May the next New Year bring light to your darkness and love to your heart

Happy Diwali

I was in Ahmednagar most of the morning ,actually not Ahmednagar I was in Meherabad which is a few kilometres off Ahmednagar.Nothing like the country to put you in good mood Eh?

I have pictures.

Nothing like a road journey to put your thoughts in perspective.Doesn't it look as if the the tracks extend to infinity  


This picture remindS me of fields of gold.The grass was still from the rain we had yesterday. 


Pebbles.I just love the sensation you get when you walk on pebbles barefoot.  


Canvas of a perfect blue. 


I'm blinded my shadow in the well of darkness. 

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Written on the Verge of Death ; Japanese Death Poems.

Imagine casting off the fabric of your life and condensing it into seventeen syllables, three short lines. You could in the traditions of wandering monks and geisha and samurai write a short a Poem.
A Death Poem.

My companion in the skies
of death,
a cuckoo.

-Fufu

Jisei, is the ancient art of writing � a farewell poem�. A traditional Jisei was mostly written in tanku form((five lines with 5-7-5-7-7 syllables respectively) but a great deal of them are also written in haiku form also .
You would probably think a death poem has a underlining negativity to it. Well I think the Jesei is about embracing death, embracing inevitability. Once one ceases to worry about life and death, one can begin to enjoy oneself; just as, when one stops worrying about when the mushrooms will kick in, the walls start swaying.

ill on a journey
my last dream wandering
Over withered fields.

-Basho

The great haiku poet Mutaso Basho apparently did not leave us a death poem. While approaching the final hours of his life, his students pressed close around him, hinting that it would be a good time for him to prepare a final haiku. Basho turned to them and said, �Anyone of my poems could be my death poem.�

Ending, I would like to say again that a Death Poem is about living a life of spirtual discipline and a mastery of your writing craft and coming to terms with your destiny and accepting your mortality.
A message at the end of one journey and at the beginning of another.

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Bombay Nomad ;From Dadar to Parel to Worli to Prabhadevi and then to Bandra

In the words of Desmond Morris

�The city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo.�

Most of us live in urban spaces. Spaces well defined by their mass of glass, steel and concrete.They say there are 8 million stories in Naked City (NYC) but where I grew up there where 16 million.

I moved around a lot when I was young ....not that I moved from house to house from city to city, my case was somewhat different we moved from house to house in the same city. I was Bombay Nomad of sorts. From Dadar to Parel to Worli to Prabhadevi and then to Bandra I did the rounds. Come to think about it,it was an almost clockwise movement every 3 years.

Every failed monsoon thousands make their way into the city in search for a something better. The dreams of millions broken, fulfilled or forming, these are the building block of cities.

I have had different views of the metropolis from a first floor view of a long abandoned mill to a 16th floor view of stark contrast as far my eye could carry . My room window has stood face to face with the Arabian Sea to the cacophony of Prabhadevi traffic to the serenity of Pali Hill.

When I think Bombay, I�m magically transported to 6am Churchgate local train; you would find me under the layers and layers of multitude. Speeding by, all you see are distant pictures through, rusting bared windows and the smell if only I could describe.

A blend of sweat, rusting metal, eu de cologne, paint and tears, that�s the bittersweet smell of life in a city that sleeps but never stops.

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Peradeniya Botanical Garden

Situated in the Hill capital Kandy. A visit to the Peradeniya Botanical Garden garden provides spectacles of extraordinary beauty and absorbing interest for any nature lover and casual visitor. The extensive lawns play host to a variety of flora from all over the globe.
The best know attraction of the garden is the orchid House, which houses more than 300 varieties of exquisite orchids.

[A brief extract from my Lonely Planet - Sri Lanka]

Anyways it's was an awesome place. I would like to go back there in the future, as for now I have some pictures I can share with you of the 'exquisite orchids'.I have already shown you the giant fig tree.Incidently another name for the fig tree is the Bodhi Tree.


Orchids


Orchids




And Guess what ? more Orchids




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Trivial Links
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Orchids -

Orchids (Orchidaceae family) are among the most diverse of the flowering plant families, with over 1000 described genera and 25,000 (some sources give 30,000) species, and perhaps another 60,000 hybrids and varieties produced by horticulturalists.... [continue to read about them at Wikipedia]


Note - Don't copy and paste from a third source without reading the matter first . I�m just too careless.

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Sloping Roofs And All The Jazz


Living in a matchbox styled Tokyo type apartments in Bombay most of your life, you get used to small compact living spaces. I would think most denizens of the city are not used to open spaces and suffer from self-induced Agoraphobia. When I moved to Pune. My eyes slowly got used the ever increasing dimensions. To elaborate a little I live in my grandparent�s house. My grandparents are now deceased therefore I live alone.

My mother gets these brilliant ideas sometimes. My mother is a firm believer in buying things first and finding uses for them later. As an example to this, there was once an old Parsi house on Palli Hill. An ever-dimensioning bread of houses. I say 'was' because it has been demolished to make way for yet another large super sprawling ugly apartment complex. Anyways this old Parsi House had a 150-year-old teak roof. So as they were demolishing the poor creature my mother being my mother bought the roof. This would seem to be pretty funny or impractical to most because we have no use of the darn thing in the first place.
Since we now a 150-year-old teak roof and no use of it really, my mother got yet another brilliant idea Why not refurbish the house in Pune with sloping roofs and all the jazz incorporating the newly acquired roof ?

Therefore I was forcfully moved into the garage, which I should say was a dark stuffy load bearing structure, with a coconut tree running through my living room. I lived there for a greater part of a year while the refurbishment took place. Refurbishment I would say is wrong word to use. If you think demolishing a structure building another one, laying a new slabs, building a roof from with a set of wooden trusses as refurbishment then refurbishment it was.

Seven painful months later it was finished and I could move in to my new room. I�m not sure if they name houses in other countries but in India they name their houses like if it were a person or a dog or something. Therefore presenting to you Meher Nihal.

Here is what you�ll see if you ever walk through my front door. The wooden fa�ade is another example of my mother�s impulsive buys. It from a 1000-year-old temple in Ratnagiri somewhere. Then there are the two wooden Thai Buddha In front of which is a Vietnamese paper bowl.


This was the Parsi teak roof I was talking about, above.


My favourite place in the house the roof. Notice the terracotta Mangalore tiles.



My table, the perennial mess.



I believe they call this a Pergola [An arbor or a passageway of columns supporting a roof of trelliswork on which climbing plants are trained to grow.]


The library.



Look at all those chickoos.


To my mother, a tribute to her eccentric yet creative genius

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On the morning of the sun, the sky dances - A story of the Siberians Cranes


Sitting on a rock among other rocks and a pebbled beach at my front and the wind at my back, I wait. The sea glistened like a thousand mirrors and her frothy edges moved over the pebbles like a mothers hand. I took small puffs of air in through my teeth only to taste the salt at the tip of my tongue .I hear them, a sound trumpeting their arrival. A sound so distinct yet so far away like panpipes resounding through the Andes. The clouds now block the sun like they sometimes do and in the distance, I see them.
Flying in formation in black tipped Vs, they gleam happiness, they have reached. They�re journey of a thousand miles has almost come to an end. This thermal has bought them to their winter home. They swoop down breaking away from their warm blanket of hot rising air, landing on the beach in front of me. They do this like clock work just like the millions before them.
I watch them intently as they danced and they sang. Singing in their flute like musical voices dancing with a long, intricate sequences of coordinated bows, leaps, runs and short flights.
They are the The Siberian Cranes .

I say to myself

"I�ll sometimes think that warriors brave
Who met their death in bloody fight
Were never buried in a grave
But rose as cranes with plumage white"

But it time for them to go, fly away but I would always remember them like flowers in the wind.


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Trivial Links
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Here the Wikipedia Article on the Siberian Cranes

I found the interesting webpage of Angelo d'Arrigo

Angelo d'Arrigo holds a number of world records in the field of flight, principally with microlights and hang gliders, with or without motors.

In 2001 he initiated a sequence of breath-taking events which saw him flying alongside various birds of prey as he attempted to learn from them their techniques for migratory flight by taking advantage of thermal air currents for long distance flight with low energy consumption.
In 2003 he flew 5,500 kilometres from northern Siberia to the Caspian Sea in Iran in the company of a flock of Siberian Cranes who had been born in captivity and considered him their parent: the bird is at risk of extinction and in order to try to save the species, Russian ornithologists hatched this plan: have the eggs incubated under Angelo's hang-glider, so the chicks saw this as they hatched. Have Angelo be with the chicks as they fledge. And when they were ready to fly, have them fly alongside Angelo so they would consider him their mentor. That way, he could show them the traditional migratory route for their species. They had no other way to learn it.

In 2004 he is attempting to fly over Mount Everest with a pair of Nepalese eagles.

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