From a Nature Lover's camera

We have a nice old mango tree in our backyard. While building our house, my father wanted to chop it off  since he feared it will damage our building structure. It took a lot of assuring from my side and a dream from his mother to make him comfortable about leaving granpa tree untouched. Once we had the building ready, he once told me that he was glad he gave in to my suggestion of not cutting it as it makes our house more prettier and keeps it cool.

So you can tell from the story that I love nature and call me a tree hugger but there's nothing that brings me more joy than seeing a tree filled with lush green leaves swaying in the wind and nothing that brings me more sorrow than seeing a tree being felled to build more houses or widen roads. Flowers bring joy to everyone and so do birds so my feelings are no exception but animals of the other kind are a different story. I like them in the jungle or in the zoo. Now if I don't stand in front of a snake, a bear or a tiger smiling and enjoying its beauty while it crawls/prowls towards me does that make me strange? If I don't stand and smile enjoying the way a monkey jumps from one place to the other while it slaps me does that make me strange? Hopefully not many will say it does. Nevertheless I like capturing anything from the nature - a pretty flower (or a bunch of them), a rain bathed tree, a colorful fruit, a silent river, thundering clouds or an animal of any kind (not the creepy carnivorous kind - at least not while in direct contact with them) in my camera.

*Please click on them to view larger images

A couple of hours before I was to travel to NJP station from Jalpaiguri to board my train back to Sealdah, all of a sudden the sky turned dark with clouds moving in from nowhere and winds gushing at a speed of at least 100 kmph. As much as I was nervous about not making it to the station on time, I could not help but get hold of my camera to take a few clicks of those amazing clouds.

On our way back from visiting a site in Kalchini, all of a sudden we found ourselves in the midst of a storm. When it stopped there were trees all over the road so we had to find alternative ways to get to the main road from the jungle but while we did so, we could not help admiring the beauty of the lush green jungle drenched wet after the rain  glistening in the light of the sunset.

The puddles created by the rain stopped our vehicle at one point and when we got out of the car I realized I was standing in front of this tree - the same tree that I had purposefully stopped in front of in my last visit to take a picture. What a coinicidence? In english "nature calls" means something else (we're not going to talk about that - thankfully) but well, this was another type of a call from nature. The arch of the tree looked even more prettier after the wet shower.

 

One of the good parts of visiting the various catholic health facilities is that I get to enjoy and take pictures of their well maintained gardens (and orchards in some cases). 

It is that time of the year - there're Lychees everywhere - especially in North Bengal. All the Catholic facilities coincidentally have at least one Lychee tree. Those sparkling red lychees looked so pretty (and not to mention mouth watering) on those lush green leaves that it seemed I was looking at a Christmas greeting card filled with all those red on green. So the camera obviously  had to come out of the bag ...

10 Strange Ideas that made Someone an Internet Millionaire

The page of a million dollars.

One million pixels, and charge a dollar per pixel. Perhaps the most foolish idea that could happen to anyone. Still, Alex Tew, 21 years is now a millionaire.

The Million Dollar Homepage (http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/) is a website conceived in 2005 by Alex Tew, a student fromWiltshire, England, to raise money for his university education. The home page consists of a million pixels arranged in a 1000 × 1000 pixel grid; the image-based links on it were sold for $1 per pixel in 10 × 10 blocks. The purchasers of these pixel blocks provided tiny images to be displayed on them, a URL to which the images were linked, and a slogan to be displayed when hovering a cursor over the link. The aim of the website was to sell all of the pixels in the image, thus generating a million dollars of income for the creator.

   

Email from Santa Claus. 

A brilliant idea. Get yourself a postal address in the north and chicken are intended to Santa Claus, charging parents $ 10 by sending a letter to his children. 

Byron Reese Started his company, www.SantaMail.org, which sells fully personalized letters from Santa Claus all across North America (they're even postmarked from North Pole, Alaska, to give them an authentic feeling). Reese sold 10,000 letters in 2001, his first year in business. Though holiday sales have increased every subsequent year, he still looked for ways to expand his offering. Now, parents can order birthday cards for their children from Santa as well. The strategy pushed 2005 sales to $1 million.

Lenses for Dogs. 

Create lenses for dogs and sell them online (www.doggles.com). How did they manage to have stores all over the world with that idea?

Invented by Ken and Roni di Lullo, Doggles are tinted goggles designed to fit the shape of a dog's head.Doggles are constructed out of a polycarbonate material with elastic straps to secure them to the dog's head. Lenses are tinted and provide protection from ultra violet rays.By 2004, Doggles were being sold in 4,500 shops in 16 countries.Prescription Doggles were launched in 2004 for dogs who are losing their sight. Prior to ordering, the dog's eyes are tested by a veterinary ophthalmologist who issues a prescription for the lenses

Laser Monks 

 A monastery of eight monks who fill your laser printer cartridges. A monk, Fr. Bernard McCoy, O. Cis, accidentally started the business while in need of a printer cartridge for one of the monastery’s printers and realized how expensive laser print cartridges were. This realization triggered the monk to find a way on how to cut down costs on laser print cartridges and distribute the saved money to various outreach programs.

The monastery of the laser monks is part of the Cistercian Order which has been in existence for 900 years. Given the fact that monasteries are supporting themselves, they needed to generate income from various sources such as growing plants and mushrooms, conference centers for company events and even growing Christmas trees.

The monks thought of the laser print cartridge as a viable business since it is regarded as a necessity especially by business owners. Manufacturing a low-cost printer cartridge helps consumers spend less and the monks generate more income to fund their charitable works.In 2005, www.lasermonks.com sales volume reached 2.5 million dollars.

Balls For Antennas. 

You can not sell antenna ball online. No way! But that is exactly what Jason did Wallden and now a millionaire.

Jason Wall is president and CEO of In-Concept Inc., the company behind Antennaballs.com, which manufactures more than 500,000 custom antenna balls per month.Based in Glendale, California, Antennaballs.com owes its success to one “man”: Jack. It all started when Wall saw a Jack In The Box fast-food commercial in mid-1997 that said the company had sold more than 3 million antenna balls. Sensing opportunity, Wall came up with a few designs he thought would penetrate the auto accessory and novelty industries. After selling four million balls through local gas stations and convenience stores, Wall recently landed some major national accounts, including AutoZone, Circle K and Wal-Mart, and he’s negotiating licensing deals with Universal Studios. With sales of $1.15 million for 1999 (one year after he started his business), Wall attributes timeliness to his overnight success. Six years later, Jason Wall is a multimillionaire.

Letters of exercises. 

Packs of cards with exercise routines in them..

FitDeck (www.FitDeck.com) is a unique deck of Exercise Playing Cards that makes exercise more simple, convenient, and fun. FitDecks are available in 56-card and 26-card Booster decks. 56-card FitDecks specialize in bodyweight-only exercises (i.e. Bodyweight, Junior, Senior, Yoga, Pilates, Stretch, Prenatal, and Postnatal). 26-card Boosters may require certain equipment (i.e. Exercise Ball, Pull Up bar, Dumbbell, Office, Travel, Kettlebell, etc.)

 It may sound like a disaster. But Phil Black, a former Marine and fitness instructor reported $ 4.7 million profit last year 

Quotes For Positive. 

How would you like to go on a date with an HIV positive person? Paul Graves and Brandon Koechlin thought that someone would, so they created a dating site PositivesDating.Com for HIV positive folks last year. Projected 2006 sales are $110,000, and the two hope to have 50,000 members by their two-year mark.

Designer diaper bags. 

Tired of wearing diapers in a cooler? Christie Rein was tired of carrying diapers around in a freezer bag. The 34-year-old mother of three found herself constantly stuffing diapers for her infant son into freezer bags to keep them from getting scrunched up in her purse. Rein wanted something that was compact, sleek and stylish, so in November 2004, she sat down with her husband, Marcus, who helped her design a custom diaper bag that's big enough to hold a travel pack of wipes and two to four diapers. With more than $180,000 in sales for 2005, Christie's company, Diapees & Wipees (www.diapeesandwipees.com), has bags in 22 different styles, available online and in 120 boutiques across the globe for $14.99.

TruGamerz 

(www.trugamerz.com)

Faux-suede padded covers for game controllers and gel thumb pads for analog joysticks? No one will buy that. Forget it. 

Utilizing patented designs, TruGamerz offers personalized controller accessories that focus on the gamer by supplying products that enhance comfort and control over the gaming experience.

The product proved to be so popular, it got picked up by Target.com and Walmart.com and annual sales now exceed half a million dollars.

Bones of luck. 

Fake wishbones. Now, this stupid idea is just destined to flop. Who in the world needs FAKE PLASTIC wishbones? A lot of people, it turns out. 

No more fighting at the Thanksgiving table over who gets to break the wishbone; this year, just buy plastic wishbones from Lucky Break Wishbone.

Now producing 30,000 wishbones daily (they retail for 3 bucks a pop) Ken Ahroni, the company founder, expects 2006 sales to reach $1 million.

Raavan: Not exactly what you expect from a Mani-Rahman Combo

Having come back to writing on my blog after such a long time, you'd think I'd write something more classy than movies to start with - something like health or current hot topics in India like the Maoist scenario or the Ajmal Kasab case or even the poor performance of India in T20 World Cup. But dumb as I am, I will stick to what I am good at discussing - and that's movies and music (especially bollywood). The rest can come in the next few posts.


If you have gone through my previous posts, you probably already know that I am an ardent listener of Rahman's music but what I have never spoken about is that I love watching Mani Rathnam's movies (ever since I have watched Roja) and eagerly wait for each and every movie that he produces/directs. Since Rahman's an usual in Mani's movies, it comes as an icing on the cake or as it we'd like to say it in hindi - "Sone pe Suhaaga". Rahman has always given his best music for Mani Rathnam and so the expectations are always high and why not? Just look at the track record - Roja, Bombay, Thiruda Thiruda (Chor Chor), Iruvar, Dil Se, Alaipayuthey (Saathiya), Yuva and Guru. All of them had awesome music so why wouldn't we expect the upcoming Raavan to enchant us in the very same way?

But, maybe Rahman found a better partner in Danny Boyle post-Slumdog and Mani is no more his favorite producer.It does seem that way because when I heard the Raavan soundtrack for the first time, all I could hear was noise. When the trailer of the song Beera was aired, it acted like an appetizer and everyone was wanting for more but when 'more' finally came, I am not sure I am satisfied. I understand that its characteristic of Rahman's music that it gradually grows on you with time and once it does grow on you, its got an extensive durability and therefore stays with you for a long long time and so I listened to the soundtrack a couple of times and I have to say that a few of them did stand out but not all of them.

Beera Beera for one is definitely one of the better tracks and I think I am gradually liking it a lot. Khili Re portrays the versatility of the composer showcasing a completely Hindustani( the classical style and not the movie) type of music with a bit of fusion - quite lovable. Same goes for Behne De and Ranjha Ranjha - both of them are pretty good compositions but that's just 4 of 6. Thok de khili's got a great picturisation - really loving it but I am not sure that's a good composition or if I'd be listening to it a couple of years from now and Kata Kata is remniscent of a few songs from Thiruda Thiruda and Iruvar which were totally rhythm based and lacked the durability factor.

They say, there were a couple of tracks by Asha Bhonsle and Sonu Nigam that didnt make it to the CD because they did not quite fit to the movie's screenplay. But my take is - who cares if they did not fit to the screenplay? Is it mandatory that all songs on the Audio CD be shown in the movie? Hell, I'd love a movie without any song and dance but the point is - we dont want to see it on the screen; put it on the damn CD so that at least we can listen to it and enjoy the music. I am sure we missed out a couple of good ones which could have made listening to the soundtrack so much more satisfying.

Nevertheless, I'll say the music of Raavan is good but I am a bit disappointed 'cos it's not exactly as good as what you'd expect from a Mani- Rahman combo. It could have been so much better - but alas we'll have to do with what's on the platter.

And no matter how good or bad the music is, Raavan still stays the most awaited movie for me - the trailers just enhance the excitement. For the uninitiated, Raavan is about a Naxalite leader ( so you see I am still sticking to my favorite political topic) who has kidnapped a police officer's wife and how with time, the kidnapped understands the activities of the kidnapper in the community and realizes the gray areas between good and evil. Quite an interesting topic isn't it? And from what we get to see from the trailers, it might turn out to be an amazing viewing experience.

Trailer 1: Beera Beera

The complete song: Beera Beera




Trailer 2: Behne De

The complete song: Thok De Khili

The other songs in the movie:


Ranjha Ranjha




Khili Re

Kata Kata