Let me show you a trick... I'll make everyone disappear

OOOOOH! BUNNY BUNNY!

Originally uploaded by Aline Jasper

This is a cute bunny indeed!
by Aline Jasper via Flickr!

Ay vocal pe dhellay daal… dhellay

“[Ladies and gentlemen… Khadki junction blues… ]”

[clap clap]

“Aye Gokul CLAP NA!“

“Haa…” [clap clap] “Woof!”

“Ay vocal pe dhellay daal… dhellay”

“EeEe… uuuhHhho… [Falsetto] Eenaaff eenaff eenaff” …

“Can you uh… raise my bass please on the monitor I can [murmur]”…

“shall we go…?”

“Chalo… I’m ready”

“Ok… I think we’re ready to go…”

“So lets play now”… “lets play”

[sachin tendulkar voice] “go get it… “

Funky Guitar riff…

An awesome start to a Khadki junction blues song aptly names as Headrush Pink Rojez soundcheck!

PS: I’m a fan!

One of the many gems from Pune, this Funk rock and fusion band... check out their album - Bopodi Love affair... and songs like Contemplate, Gentle rain, Sausy finger chips (jain) and Journey to funkeshwar!

completely trippy!

The spoils of the wall

More than a year ago, I ambitiously printed a 40"x30" photo of Menavali ghat, Wai, that I had clicked a few months before that.
Last month, got it mounted.
Yesterday, I fixed up the hooks to it.
Today, I was supposed to go out of town... so I left it for later.
Then... the phone rang...
my bus got canceled, so they put us in another bus which meant I was home for another 3 hours. So I marked the correct distance on the wall, drilled holes in it (with a manual driller, mind you.) Plugged it with screws and VOILA...
Now, its on the wall!
Today was the day where i was to finish the ill fated task that I had set out to do last year...
Now to finish packing...

flipped view of things

I play badminton but they say, it runs the knees. I cycle but they say, that too ruins the knees.
so, I have been going for yoga sessions for a month and a half now. Its pretty intensive. And every time, I come back home with my muscles nicely stretched and relaxed, and my bones in their correct place.
Today, i flipped when I was told to do the Shirshasan, and quite literally too.
As I rested on my neck and arms, and tried touching my back to the wall, I felt all my blood freeze. What the hell was I doing here? Wasn't I better off cycling and playing badminton? Would my neck bones crack while I tried to rest my body weight on my neck and head? would I fall off sideways and break a few bones once I lifted my legs towards to wall? Heck... would I even be able to completely lift my legs in the air on to the wall?
Jump one, halfway... jump two - right leg touched the wall behind...
Jump 3- I was up, legs and back straight against the wall, all my incredible burden resting on my frenzied little head losing all sense of orientation and direction. I thought that it was supposed to feel good with all the blood rushing to the brain... provided there’s enough of it… the brain I mean.

Since my legs were up and free, I was almost floating, save my neck muscles that were still feeling the stress.

I came down feeling my neck and shoulders and arms and fingers and my feet disappearing… I felt doped for a second… in a good way.

You may fly with your feet raised high above the ground… but always keep your head firmly planted on the ground.

Guaranteed to give you an phenomenal high… even if for just a second!

the 35mm Hexomniscope project - I

It all started last year, when I discovered Photojojo - a new online photography newsletter, and subscribed to it. Filled up with fun snippets about photography, DIY and photographers and etc, I discovered - more than a year later – An article about pinhole photography.

That led me to a website where they showcased all sorts of bizarre pinhole cameras, which in turn led me to the HEXOMNISCOPE!

From their website:

"The long awaited very rare limited quantity all metal Hexomnisope pinhole camera which has 6 pinholes and 6 individually operated shutters around its circumference to make 6 overlapping 60 degree images onto 120 film. Shutters can be turned on and off independently, but have a single release. 4 complete images of 6 pinholes each can be made on a roll of 120 film. Pinhole diameter is 0.0055 inch for an f stop of f180. All handmade. A very sophisticated design by Matt Abelson. Made to perfection! You will be amazed at the craftsmanship of this absolutely wonderful new camera. It is approximately 5 inches high and 5 inches in diameter. Weighs almost 3 pounds. 120 film winds around inside cylinder. The Hexomniscope is only available from the Pinhole Resource. Comes with an instruction CD giving clear instructions for use and exposure guide. Designed and made by Abelson Scope Works."

So I want one, but priced at a little over $1500, and as my story usually goes, I don’t have the necessary spare parts to buy it … So following my usual story and script, I think of making it to my own silly specifications.

The hexomniscope is developed for 120 format film. I've used that format only once, so decided to make a 35mm film paper version for the same.

The f stop of a pinhole is calculated by determining the size of the hole and the focal length (distance from the pinhole to the film). So a camera with a 0.5 mm diameter pinhole, and a 50 mm focal length would have an f-stop of 50/0.5, or f/100. Others are even higher, up to f/360. It all depends on the size of the hole.

From that and this - http://www.mrpinhole.com/calcpinh.php; I get :

IF and only IF:

focal length = 40 mm

pinhole dia = 0.25 mm,

THEN and only THEN:

f stop is f/160

if ISO = 100, 35 mm film

image dia = 76.8 mm

angle of view = 40

Similarly:

focal length = 25 mm

pinhole dia = 0.25 mm,

f stop is f/100

if ISO = 100, 35 mm film

image dia = 48 mm

angle of view = 70

Damn pinhole!

My hexomniscope will look a little different, since its for 35 mm film. It will be shorter. Around 5 cms in height.

The only other time I have tried pinhole is with my dSLR and a pinhole disc in place of the lens. Works wonders! Now hoping this works wonders too…

punk is not ded

punk is not ded
Originally uploaded by DraconianRain

yet another new idea! to draw my own graphic novel... sounds fun, eh... maybe revive that whole Pop art stuff with the protagonist as a guitar scratching, sarcastic atheist architect who goes around vowing to destroy every single ugly, high energy consuming building in town... how cool?
Not much I suppose...

The very essence of 'Indianness...'

As one thing leads to another…
Yesterday afternoon at home, I felt like channel surfing. And as my fingers flickered over the now unfamiliar remote control… I stopped to watch the Music channels. The two most popular ones – M tv and Channel [V]… Its really been a while since I heard some nice new music on these music channels.
M tv hardly plays music these days, it seems… Their obsession with Roadies knows no bounds…
So I switched over to Channel [V]. And during the break, I saw an amazing advertisement. It was a public service message.

It showed Indian, and their stuff- sofas, TVs, fake flower bouquets, tables, chairs, computers, Car seats, credit cards and almost everything else … all covered in plastic…
Then this little Indian guy goes to a little Indian Mobile shop staring at stuff there, and the big Indian shopkeeper barks at him asking what he wanted… and he asks for a typically Indian mobile cover…
At the end of the advertisement, there’s a message – ‘Be Indian, use protection’
… How cool?!

The advertisement was in no way exaggerating. The other day, I spilled some water on my keyboard, so disconnected it and let it dry. Later, I reconnected it and googled for some more info on what could be done.
I was browsing through an American forum where everyone was discussing what they did when they dropped Coffee or beer on the keyboard. (Do they ever drink water?) They mentioned waterproof keyboards and new keyboards. As I read along… some guy wrote: ‘If you just keep the plastic that the keyboard comes in - on it, it’s the cheapest waterproofing you have!’ … And the first thing that came to my mind was – This guy must be Indian!’
And… he was!

the revival of the Brownie Hawkeye project

This time, photo scans with sprocket holes intact. The very reason why i revived this project was because I could finally get decently scanned images with the sprockets intact. And since the brownie is a medium format point and shoot, it exposes the part of 35mm film around the sprockets too. Unlike SLRs. This makes the picture most magical...

the results are never sharp in this project. And that is due to the following reasons.
1. The fixed shutter speed of the brownie (which is pretty slow)
2. the meniscus lens aberrations towards the edges, and I somehow never manage to load the 35mm film centrally through my homemade 35mm film adapter...

The results are as follows:









All this scanning was possible because of a unique tubular contraption that keeps negatives in place and enables me to take pictures of the same through my digital camera. Obtaining the digital positive is the final stage of the process.

This is another shuttlebox attachment for my 400D with one end holding the negative and the other end open to fix on the lens. Ideally, this tube is to be held with the negative exposed to a bright source of white light, and the open end on the lens. The length of the tube will depend upon the minimum focus length of the lens in use.

Big Fak-Ap

I read on the front page of the The Indian Express, that Obama admin called the Pakistan- Afghanistan situation the Af-Pak policy. Experts called it the Pak-Af strategy. Now, with Pak hurtling towards anarchy, critics are dubbing it a potential Fak-Ap...
I loved the fact, that this made the front page of many newspapers around the world!

The Election Commission has a sense of humour

I voted today, and had them mark my middle finger with indelible ink.
Not just me, it was for everyone ...

The Election Commission has officially allowed me to show my finger to the ones who deserve it.


PS: I read that the reason for this unique practice is that some places in Maharashtra had nagar panchayat and gram panchayat elections recently and voters there had their left forefingers marked...

Tauba yeh recession, tauba be-rozgaar...Tera political attyachaar

Jaspal Bhatti ji- the creator of memorable satirical shows on the plight of the common man like - ulta pulta and flip flop show- that were aired on Door Darshan during the early 1990s, has done it again…

He launched his ‘Recession party’ in Mumbai recently. Just to describe the financial situation of their recession hit party, they held their meet in a small dance rehearsal hall in Andheri offering only chai and vada- pav to the media present there.

Party manifesto

1. We will not divide people on the lines of cast, creed and religion. Of course we will divide the society but between wise and fools.
2. We will reserve 50% seats for fools in the parliament if voted to power.
3. We will provide a stable Government by negotiating our alliance with any party irrespective of their ideology because we ourselves have no ideology of our own except for money making.
4. We will create more slums in and around Mumbai to strengthen our vote bank and win more Oscars.
5. We will arrange more development funds for Mumbai so that boats could be provided in the rainy season. Every year Mumbai reels under water as a result of faulty sewerage system.
6. We don’t promise to maintain greenery in the ever increasing concrete jungle. We may not be able to save mangroves and other green trees but we definitely will provide every citizen green optical glasses free of cost so that everything looks green to them.
7. For increasing sense of security among public more funds would be provided on the personal security of MPs and ministers.
8. The improvement of personal financial health of our ministers will be given priority over everything.

Their party symbol is Chameleon (known for changing colours.)

Taking his Prime ministerial ambitions more seriously, Jaspal Bhatti in his letter to the Chief Electoral officer has already sought clarification whether the election commission would allow satire in their campaigning and don’t book them for violating the election code of conduct.

And making clear this very intention amidst the strong competition, he says: ‘I’ll be the PM and all of you can be Dipti PMs’.

And I say to Mr. Bhatti... Congratulations on yet another achievement... hum aapke saath hai...!!

Have you ever seen...

A white elephant?
A a bat standing upright on a branch?
A student awake in a history class?
A zebra crossing?
Steffie Graph playing tennis in high heels?
An Eskimo in shorts?
John Abraham riding a cycle?
The pink headed Duck?



...seen Baichung Bhutia dancing on a TV reality show?!?!
That... I did today...