I had long been fascinated with all things African. It is the only continent where you hear more about genocides than any actual development. It is quite unfair because there are actually peaceful nations in Africa and a lot of creative development goes on there because of the poor infrastructure of many nations.
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Starhub has advertised for long about its broadband 100Mbps pipe ("Feel the rush of 100 Mbps"). And given that I work extensively online on servers that are quite remote, this was like a dream come true. I was one of the earliest subscribers to this scheme.
However, since then, I have got much to regret about the service. I have had my modems replaced twice and each time I had to give up working for 2 days - wait for the service man to come and replace the modem.
Today, however, it got worse. The modem just got replaced a few hours ago, and the new modem now stopped working. Thankfully, after much firm talk over the phone with an intelligent customer service guy on Friday (before the modem got replaced), I got them to provide me with the 100 Mbps internet service on my Digital Voice modem and this was still available - so I had it moved to my workspace and connected the router from there. So everything works - except for the loss of my landline.
Of course, you can imagine i was WILD. The customer service made it worse when I called after the newly replaced modem broke down. He refused to give me a time by when it will be fixed. He kept insisting the problem was with the signal cable point and not with the modem - but the digital voice cable modem works flawlessly when connected at the same point. I suspect, the problem is AGAIN with the modem - which would make it the FOURTH modem I have got replaced in the space of 2 months.
I think it is the worst service I have got in Singapore so far. And to think I am subscribed to the maxonline "Ultimate" which is the most expensive of the lot.
There is an awesome arts festival afoot in Mumbai - Kala Ghoda Festival and Caferati is hosting an evening of it. The depressing part is I will leave Mumbai on the same day, just before the event starts :(
Here are the details:
Date: 12th February 2006
Venue: David Sasson Library Garden, Kalaghoda
Time: 5.30 p.m. onwards
Last weekend was celebrated in the Kalaa Utsavam festival at the Esplanade. There are an amazing variety of free performances which are worth paying for and watching.
The Saturday we looked at Prana and ogled at the amazing fusion of the Spanish guitar, sitar, tabla and the mridangam. The group even had their CDs on sale only for SGD 10 which I grabbed quickly. They were selling like hotcakes anyways!
The songs they played had parallels with pop songs as well as old bollywood songs. I realised that Stings 'Fragile' and 'Tum bin jaaon Kahan'from Pyar Ka Mausam are very similar, both of which are similar to a song Prana played.
Meanwhile, we also got to see the amazing manipuri tribal dance and sword fight. The dance was quite similar to bhangra without the usual bonhomie and exuberance.
The Sunday was the Eastern Rhapsody by Vikku Vinayakaram, Selvaganesh, U. Srinivas, Taufiq Qureshi. Man, it was awesome! Vikku, Siva and Taufiq excited the audience to perform with them, which was an amazing confluence of rhythm. It was amazing to see the kind of effect a mass rhythmic expression has! Taufiq is very passionate about rhythm and explained to us how our daily life is infused with rhythm - the heart beats, the coughs (he is an amazing mimic as well!), the quarrels, the travel, etc.
Taufiq can also produce double sounds simultaneously! It was as if he was playing a set of drums with his mouth!
Chanced upon the whole Indian menagerie - Kaps, friends from uni, and Cogito (sorry for not recognising!). But surprisingly, the concert hall was not full. I wished they allowed us cheap ticket holders to move to the middle :(
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Those smiles.
Those won me over, erasing my resentment and anger at waking up at 6 on a sunday morning, getting ready and going to a place that didnt even exist in the Street Directory.
I saw the kids as they were practising their well rehearsed song. Andy was exactly like Calvin, picking up a fight with the a big guy (who looked like Moe!) and of course in this case, Susie was there to support Calvin!
There were twenty of them, creating a ruckus in the Chen Su Lan Methodist Children's Home somewhere in Serengoon Gardens. The Chindren's Home houses kids from 4-12 who come from broken homes, abusive or poor families.
We were around ten, led by Vrush, who had thought and planned the whole thing. The plan was to take the kids to an oldage home and let them play with the oldies there.
And so we did. It was a riot.
Old People Nursing Home Caretaker: "The old people eat five times a day"
Dawn (seven years old): "SO MANY TIMES AH!"
The kids played dodgeball with the oldies enthusiastically. The whole place was filled with joy, happiness and excitement. I have never been so excited in my life.
Then, the cameras were fished out. And instantly, the only thing the world was made up of was the camera. Kids were milling around, wanting to be photographed.
Six year old Kid: "Only girls do like this." (showing the V sign 90 degrees rotated, near the eyes).
Ry and Shao: "Stand with us for the photo."
A ten year old kid was asking if the old people fight. Startled, I asked why she thought so, and she said she overheard a person saying so. I didnt want to know what her story was. I was afraid.
Me (holding out chocolates): "Take as much as you want!"
Ry takes one.
Me: Take as much as you want! The teacher wont say anything!
Ry grabs as much as she can with her small nimble fingers.
Ry (clever to avoid the teacher catching her in the act): Hold these for me till we finish.
Oh, I loved every moment of it! And I thought I will come back within an hour, but ended up staying till the end.
What I got present to was the miracle of happiness. We, so called "privileged" people, didnt have one tenth of the happiness of the kids at the Children's Home. And at that moment, I just saw how in the apparent quest for happiness, what we gather simply pave the way for more sadness ("i wish I had more of money! more branded goods! More shoes! More bags! more money -did I say that before? more..").
The kids taught me.
All it takes to be happy is a chocolate.
I know there are diseases that are gender dependent (rather harmone dependent), but I didnt know that Dengue was also gender dependent! Today, I saw somebody reading the 'Home' section of Straits Times on the MRT which carried a huge illustration of how Dengue infects men and women. The first half was about dengue mosquitoes infecting men and the second half was about how infected women inturn infect the mosquitoes!
A google search didnt yield any link to women being the only people who can infect the mosquitoes with dengue virus (to make them carriers). Is it true? Can anyone confirm this?
(I cant access the Straitstimes website as it is paid membership =()
Update: As Mitokondrion says, it was simply an act of political correctness to show the cycle of Dengue in Singapore (use men first and then women). Perhaps the caption should have been well formed instead of putting it as 'women infect mosquitoes' it could be something like 'patient infects mosquitoes'- definitely less gender biased!
I almost missed mentioning Software Freedom Day that was held at Orchard Road on September 10th. I think the mainstream media missed it too...sigh.
Anyways, seems like the Software Freedom Day was a riot! We had a tux that was dawdling among kids, screechy delirious teenages, respectful grandmothers and grandfathers.
Deepak S and Deepak J were volunteering by evangelising Ubuntu, the new mac OS of the Free Software World, and distributing free copies of the same.
Next year, we better get some HOT cheerleaders to distribute and propogate the Free Software Movement ;-)
Pics have been generously contributed by tuxmann
We met yesterday at a little known comfortable cafe called The Mind's Cafe. A few of them had already made themselves home at the venue while people kept trooping in.
It was refreshing to see new faces and new blogs! The Celebrity who I invited to join - Chetan Bhagat - came! and it was awesome to share with him about his first book and the upcoming one! He has a very beautiful wife Anusha (who should hopefully start blogging soon!).
We also had another non-blogger Sunil (who just Stands Out because of his height!) who is into podcasting! Preetam as usual was fascinating us with his stories and tales while I caught up with Sadagopan, Marasim, Anispice, Kaps and Mitokondrion.
Nitin dropped by later coz of his blogging assignments =D (which just goes to show how dedicated he is!). Later, as the evening drew to a close, several made their way to the National Library and a few of us headed to Dhoby Ghaut for some dinner.
It was a fun evening with lots of people. But next time we better orgazine some calorie burning activity instead of a normal gathering =D (for my selfish interest of course =D).
Related Read Kaps entry on the Bloggers Meet
Flickr Users! Use indibloggersmeet as a tag (first created by Ashwin) to tag your photographs so that all photographs can be seen from one link!
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