Jonathan Galveston Seagull

One of the best things I like about Houston is - driving down to Galveston and taking the ferry across to Crystal Island. Two reasons - its very naturally peaceful and its free. A 20 minute ride takes you from Galveston to Port Bolivar, which is on the Crystal Island. An added advantage of the ferry ride is that you can take your car on the ferry, drive it off the ferry and roam the island. The ferry rides have been offered free of cost since 1930, and the view from the upper deck is magnificent. If you like feeding low flying seagulls, this is the place to be. Here is proof, enjoy!












Tested here is the Kodak 100 TMX Black & White film, results of which are quite impressive on prints, these are low quality home-made scans of prints and barely do justice to the clarity on print. Overcast afternoon rendered low-light and shots were taken at full open aperture of 4.0 and low speeds of 1/60-1/30 using a 70-300mm telephoto lens, thus losing depth and incurring some shake.

A Touch of Evil

Bhaskar stood 80 feet above the water, his fingers clenched on the riveted handrail. A drop of sweat made its way through his brow over taut nerves. He had been standing on the Howrah Bridge since dusk, or was it afternoon ? He did not know, time had lost him. Again. Time always played that trick with him. The Kolkata sun was long gone and so had his love for Smita.

It seemed like an eternity. He met Smita Afreen during his third year at Presidency, during the annual college fest. She had the most enchanting eyes his had ever met. The endless night-long conversations that ensued, the long phone calls when he had graduated and got a job in Kolkata, the sunsets they shared on the banks of Hooghly, the altercations in her family regarding his religion, their wedding amidst non-consenting relatives, their new apartment. Everything seemed like a wild roller coaster ride. A ride, of his choosing.

The apartment, he thought, that was where he did wrong. They had moved into the new apartment this summer, 6 months after their marriage. It was a posh locality with lots of friendly people. Shekhar was a good friend, or at least he was one until sometime ago.

Shekhar came into their lives very naturally, he lived next door. The three of them shared many evenings and dinners together. Since Shekhar was single, he spent many evenings at their place. Over rounds of drinks and rummy, Bhaskar had missed the sparkle in Smita’s eyes when she laughed at Shekhar’s jokes and boyish charm. Bhaskar’s promotion two months back meant longer hours at the office. The more he worked, the more distant she appeared to him. He was surprised when he found the bottle of expensive perfume on the nightstand. “Shekhar got it for me, the other day”, was her casual response.

Then more gifts followed. Bhaskar hadn’t bothered much, Shekhar was a good chap after all. Until Wednesday afternoon. Two days back, he had to return home early due to an acute pain that had spread in his abdomen. He had pressed the bell 4 times before it was answered by a harried Smita. Her hair was in disarray; her eyes had a tinge of evil. “Bhaskar ! How come you are so early from office today ? Me and Shekhar were just discussing Veerappan’s murder”, she half-expected him to believe it.

Bhaskar hadn’t slept the whole night. How was he supposed to live with the fact that the woman whom he had so dearly loved, had not been faithful to him ? He loved her more than his own life and suddenly all her words seemed to be hollow now. She had betrayed his trust. How could she even sleep peacefully in the same bed with him ? In the dim moonlight filtering through the window screen, her face appeared to mock at him. He had decided to put an end to it.

Today, was a holiday for Dussehra at the office, he did not have to go to work. The pain in his abdomen had recurred this morning. “Do not take more than 4 pills within 18 hours sir, these tablets are very potent”, the chemist had warned. Smita was preparing a four course festival lunch.

She had been flitting gaily around the apartment, making small talk about the latest Shobha De novel she had been reading. Bhaskar would not look straight at her. “How can she expect me to reciprocate with tenderness when she has been so treacherous herself ?”. Bhaskar appeared a fool to himself in his mental mirror. “She does not deserve to live”, he had finally passed a judgment on her.

Lunch was an extravagant affair that afternoon. Shekhar was his usual charming self, telling stories made up by himself. Smita had been cherubic all morning, the afternoon saw her the same. She had asked umpteen times, “What’s the matter, you look pale ?”. He made excuses of the pain he had been feeling. Bhaskar excused himself from the table, he had a very important file to be delivered urgently. He would be back in an hour or so, he said. He had mixed the pills in a bowl of kheer.

Yes, it seemed like an eternity. The breeze from the river softly caressed his hair. He stood still, very still. The buzz of the cellphone got him back to life. The distraught voice of Smita seemed to resound from some far off land, “Wh..where have you been ? I..I’ve been trying to call you…since 3 hours..Shek…Shekhar collapsed at our place..they took him to the hospital, he…he was declared dead..Bhaskar..i’m scared, come back soon”.

His mind was at peace, the pills had been potent.


S Rahul Rao
Stillwater, Oklahoma. 26th Oct 2004

A fraction of life

What is an Impulse?

Impulse = (Average force) x (time interval)?

Get a life man.

Is having a fling considered an impulse?
Is loading your plate at the buffet line considered an impulse?
Is throwing all your precious marbles on a silly bet as a kid considered an impulse?

It could be all of these and maybe none of them. I am not a behavioral specialist or a psychologist to keenly observe these phenomena of the human mind and reflect upon them in a scientific manner. I will however try, to dissect some general observations of mine with the knives of time.

Like Amitabh said, there are two kinds of people: One whose life will be based on his impulsive decisions and how they turn his life’s flow, the other will be more deliberate with his decisions and act upon them after much forethought, a planned strategist if you may. How do impulsive tendencies develop and why do they lead people astray? Is your life more colorful if you are a spur-of-the-moment chap; will your wife be bored if you carry a timetable at all time?

What happens if you are impulsive: you tend to make travel plans in 3 minutes, pack in half hour and in a few hours; you are strolling in a new city. You could be shopping like a maniac and end up spending 3 months salary on clothes which you will forget about in 2 months. Suicide attempts are impulsive. Serial killers however, are well planned and deliberate. Drug addicts often times depict impulsive behavior. Then why can some top scholars at top institutes of education smoke weed as much as they want and stop right before their exams and still pass, while thousands others die smoking it in ditches and deserts. Overdose. High levels of willpower and a strong mental control over impulsive behavior is the key.

Some other examples I’ve seen personally are: Impulsive wanderlust. As a kid, when I learnt how to bicycle, I would ride it to distant parts of town just to see what was. As a student I was studying close to the town of Mangalore in South Karnataka, a bus line would take me from my college town to Mangalore in 40 minutes. Some afternoons, I would take the bus to Mangalore by myself and measure the city’s streets on foot for hours aimlessly (sometimes with a camera), just exploring new paths and gullies. This impulsive wanderlust bug will leave only with the soul.

Creative impulses, many times I’ve picked up my camera with an instantaneous idea, some lenses and filters and in a few hours I would have made photographic images better than I had ever. In 2005, one January afternoon, I was struck with the sudden impulse of learning how to sketch with charcoal, I went the same afternoon to Wal-Mart and got a set of charcoal pencils and pored over sketching books at the library, recreating and learning all night, by next morning I had made the 3 best sketches I ever made, I made some more that week and just like that the impulse had vanished. I never made any charcoal sketches again.

Impulse buying behavior of a customer is a highly studied field for marketing strategists. The check-out counter aisle at any supermarket is a perfect example of this. You are queuing up at the counter to pay for your merchandise, but the time that you spend idling at the line, is when your eyes are caught by the colorful candy or mint boxes – there the impulse strikes and in a couple of minutes you are paying few more dollars for stuff that you didn’t set out to buy. Consider web based sales, there are numerous books written about how to make a website’s check out page more efficient and simple to navigate. The vendor needs to reduce the number of clicks required to reach the final page, the order page has to be streamlined to eliminate scrolling. All this, is to reduce the probability of an impulse becoming deliberate and the customer abandoning the cart. The entire multi-billion gambling industry at Las Vegas and elsewhere is based on impulsive gambling.

How does being impulsive affect our personal relations? A girl will break up with a guy if she thinks he may break-up with her. This is an example of an impulsive pre-emptive strike. A relationship gone dull sometimes gets invigorated by impulsive decisions of the couple to do something together.

Can love be an impulsive alchemy?

Brownian Motion

"Aapki shaadi ab tak nahi hui?"

Every single desi guy answerable to that question has a funda leading to an answer, of his own.

"Global Warming", this is a close childhood friend of mine.
On being asked how, he replies: "I did not buy a vehicle because of global warming.
The roads of Bangalore are narrow and the traffic unmanageable, that adds to the problem of owning a vehicle. Because of parking problems and long transit durations stemming from heavy traffic, everyone wants to live in the city and hence land rates and apartment rents have gone up in Bangalore (BLR) city. Because of these two problems combined, I live on the outskirts of the city and travel by bus to work everyday."
"Since, the cost of a basic 2 bedroom apartment at BLR is now 50 lakh rupees (which is extremely high for a young desi at BLR), every one wants to be a software engineer and go work on an onsite (USA/UK/EU) project for 3-5 years, scrimp a lot, come back to India, put half the amount in downpayment, do EMIs for the rest. (And if planned well, have a US citizen baby in the meanwhile). If both spouses are software engineers, that wait time is reduced by half. This is why everyone wants to marry a software engineer at BLR, and I am not one. So, because of global warming and this vicious circle spawned by it, I am unmarried."

Another chap: "I can cook and do my own f*cking laundry, then why the f*ck would I want to waste my salary on f*cking teddy bears and f*cking Prada sunglasses that she will lose anyway...Its a bad investment man. I will put all my money in international trading, drive a Ferrari at 30, and die single".

In the middle of last year on a lazy sunday afternoon, sitting on the balcony in the 19$ outdoor chair that I picked up at Walmart, I was thinking...why am I unmarried? Jim, my middle aged divorced neighbor, smoking his cheap cigar in the neighboring balcony, with his belly hanging out from his undershirt while smilingly eyeing the nubile single mom walking on the road, was impervious to my deeply desi thoughts about marriage. That is when Robert Brown's words from my High School science physics text book came running to my rescue.
Here is my concept:

Brown-ian Motion -

Robert Brown explained the random motion of atoms in a fluid, kept in a contained environment. It goes as follows:

In a given Set A of N atoms, comprising of species X and Y (mass M1 and M2), contained in a closed environment without external influences/forces. The pattern of random movement of atom X (mass M1) will depend on the total number of atoms N and the ratio of masses M1/M2.

The Mean Free Path (without colliding with the next atom) of atom X will be longer if N decreases or M1/M2 increases.

A very nice animation of this phenomenon is given here, where you may also tweak the ratios and look at the concept in action.

Consider this: X is the average desi male living in the US. Y, of course, is the female counterpart. Ratio M1/M2 is the pull of attraction. Since the total number of desis in the US is low, there is very low probability of X colliding with Y. Also, if M1/M2 is a not strong enough, then M1 will deflect marginally before continuing on its earlier path.

If atom X is taken to a Set B (India), the total number of atoms N, tends to infinity. Hence the Mean Free Path of apna atom X is greatly reduced between collisions. It experiences a great number of collisions (k), and a high impact head-on collision K will result in an ionic bond between atoms X and Y. Other atoms from the same slot in the periodic table will attend their collision by taking 4 days of medical leave.

Unfortunately, I belong to Set A, which is the reason for my singlicity.

Image Courtesy: gutenberg.org, Rob Schurko

Its Fine

Then there was this one week, which was just Fine!
Monday night, I quietly slip a check for the month’s rent in the deposit box for the leasing office in a white envelope measuring 4.125 inch x 9.25 inches with one of those cute little see through windows at the front for address, hoping nobody notices that the rent is late by a week (amnesia strikes more people than flu). Tuesday I find a letter stuck to my door stating: Letter of Eviction. Dumbfounded, I talk to the leasing office and get slapped a fine of $210, to stay. Thursday afternoon, I’m driving home happy after a superb banquet luncheon, and I see those all too familiar red and blue flashing lights in the rear view mirror. I was doing 77 in a 60 MPH limit zone. I normally do 80. It was my little Christmas gift to the City of Houston ($233). Friday evening, my car is lost. Of course, it got towed! 2 hours and 184 dollars later, I’m thinking: maybe I’m not handicapped after all.

Gifts can be brought on credit cards, fines are always paid in hard cash.

20 paisa smile

One of my uncles had a ritual of praying to the lord every friday, and handing out alms to the poor on the streets at a precise time of the day. Hence, the beggars would line up outside his house doors every friday. Sometimes he would ask me to hand out the 10-20 paise coins to the poor as an act of goodwill. As a kid, I didnt think much about it until later, when I sympathized with the poverty stricken who would line up smilingly under the harsh sun for just 20 paise.
Today, 20 years later, I was looking at the forex graph for Rupee Vs Dollar, the dollar had risen 20 paisey (from 39.4 to 39.6) and that fact made me smiling glad (I earn in dollars).

The ironic similarity between my smile and the beggar's struck me numb.

The smiling faces of presidents from coins and notes, suddenly make sense now.

For money, we all are poor.

Texas Renaissance Festival - 2007

Texas Renaissance Festival, is an annual occurance in the otherwise sleepy town of Plantersville, TX. Happens every Oct-Nov, scheduled dates can be found here. If you were traveling from Houston like I was, you will be better off taking I-45 North all the way to Conroe and then driving West on Hwy 105 to Plantersville. Hwy 249 from Houston to Plantersville, plain sucks with the numerous traffic signals until you are out of the city and have crossed Tomball. Plus there is all the traffic going to the Fest, if you are visiting over a weekend. Entry tickets may be purchased for a few dollars less at HEB or Randalls and some other locations listed on the official website. There is plenty of parking and the fair grounds are converted spectacularly with medieval times scenery and the costumes people wear will have an average Joe like myself reaching for that camera.

Jousting Knights at an arena, axe throwing, drench-a-wench (she had a real bad tongue), aiming tomatoes at this fella, dancing gypsies, music from a long lost french era, english/french/european foods and crafts, pirates, women dressed as european upper class from the times of Queen Elizabeth I, can be all seen here. Without wasting anymore words, here are the pictures. Enjoy.