Jalebi-phafda @ Jethalal style!

Ever since I have been following "Tarak Mehta ka oolta chasma" (probably for a decade now), I had this dream of having jalebi and phafda in the style of Jethalal Gadha. Having deprived myself of this activity since the passage of many many season, I got to this act in a non-descript restaurant at Goregaon today.

I had plans to capture the image of using both the hands but could not muster a volunteer because all my accomplices were having their dig in the similar fashion. That can wait for some other day.

I now envy the Sunday break of Jethalal of jalebi-phafda combination.

Another shift...

Yes, with 3 years elapsed at a place, the transfer was looming large on my head too though lightly because a quarter had elapsed in this FY.
Mumbai, the city I am consoling myself that I shall be able to adjust but somewhere in the heart of my heart, I am afraid of facing and staying in the city with so less a salary.
Yes, the good thing is that I expect the city to teach me to live in thrifty, face harsh conditions and manage life better.

Today in history @ 28 Jan....

Birth anniversary of:

a. Padma Vibhushan Pandit Jasraj (b. 1930). Though he is famous as a great classical singer, his stint in music started being a tabla accompanist to his own elder brother. Soon he was fed up with the step brotherly treatment meted out to tablists as they were treated as minor artists. He vowed not to cut his hair till he grasped the nuances of classical music. He finally cut them after his first performance in AIR. He  is married to the daughter of V Shantaram.

b. The great nuclear scientist Dr. Raja Ramanna (b. 1928) who is famous for conducting the first nuclear test for India at Pokhran on 18 May 1974. A little known fact about him is that he had professional Masters degree in Music from Bombay University. He grew under the agesis of Dr. Homi J Bhaba and after Bhaba's untimely death, he steered the nation's nuclear plans and was the last name in that area for close to 4 decades with his association spanning from BARC to IAEA, IISc, Dept. of Atomic Energy and NIAS.

c. Field Marshall K M Cariappa  (b. 1899) who was the first Indian Commander in Chief of the Indian Army. The day he became so i.e. 15 Jan 1949 is since celebrated as Army Day. He was instrumental in forming the Territorial Army and strengthening NCC which would come of use to the nation in later combat years. He is one of the only two officers of Indian Army who have been awarded the 5 star Field Marshall status; the only other person being Field Marshall Manekshaw. He was also the ambassador to Australia and NZ post retirement.

d. The techie billionaire Vinod Khosla (b. 1955) who is credited of co-founding SUN Microsystems.

e. Punjab Keshari Lala Lajpat Rai (b. 1865) was part of the famous Lal Bal Pal trio. His death in 1928 owing to lathi blows during his protest against Simon Commission was a major turning point in India's freedom fight.

f. One of the richest person of the planet Carlos Slim Helu (b. 1940).

g. Sir Henry Stanley  (b. 1841) who is credited for his discoveries in Central Africa.

Death anniversary of:

a. O P Nayyar  (d. 2007), the great film musician. I wrote about him on his birth anniversary on 16 Jan..

b. Sir Francis Drake (d. 1596), the first Englishman to circumvent the planet by water.

Other notables:

a. Nuclear fission was discovered by Otto Hahn in 1939.

Today in history @ 27 Jan

Birth anniversaries of:

a. Dmitry I Mendeleyev (b. 1834), creator of the first Periodic Table which had elements being arranged basis their atomic weight and properties. This enabled him to predict the nature of many elements which were not even discovered then.

b. Famous music composer Wolfgang Mozart (b. 1756).

c. Lewis Carroll  (b. 1832); he was basically a mathematician, though famous for writing / creating Alice in Wonderland. He was also an ace photographer and is also credited to design the modern game Scrabble.

d. Our own Bobby Deol (b. 1967).

e. Actor Shreyas Talpade  (b. 1976).

Death anniversary of:

a. Geologist Adam Sedwick (d. 1873) who is credited for coining the terms Cambrian and Devonian ages.

b. Ex President R Venkatraman (d. 2009).

c. Sir Francis Drake (d. 1596) who is famous for completing the circumvention of the globe by water.

d. Famous writer J D Salinger (d. 2010).

e. Comedian Charlie Callas (d. 2011).

Other notables:

a. John Lewis Baird demonstrated the television for the first time in 1926.

Today in history 25 Jan...

Today in history @ 25 Jan

A. Birth anniversaries of:

a. Noted Indian singer Kavita Krishnamurthy (b. 1958)

b. Noted Bengali poet Michael Madhusudan Dutta (b. 1824). Considered by many as the greatest Bengali poet of all times gave the first Bengali sonnet. Besides, he was a lawyer with a degree from London primarily based on the patronage of Iswar C Vidyasagar.

c. Noted Indian physicist A P Balachandran (b. 1938) considered as one of the greatest living exponent of quantum physics.

d. Noted Indian economist Bibek Debroy (b. 1955) who is a permanent member of NITI Aayog since inception. Member of various committees spanning Central & state governments and UN, he is also famous for translating the Mahabharata into a ten volume treatise in  English (this project took 4 years). He was the ideator behind doing away with a separate Railway budget. He is an aluminus of Ramkrishna Mission, Narendrapur, Presidency Kolkata, Delhi School of Economics and Trinity.

e. Noted Indian writer and entrepreneur Ashwin Sanghi (b. 1969).

f. Noted British playwright Somerset Maugham  (b. 1874).

g. Noted British chemist Robert Boyle who gave the world Boyle's Law (b. 1627). He was one of the original founders of The Royal Society, a membership which is still rare and given only to men and women of excellence in Science.

h. Bangiya Vigyan Parishad (estd. 1948) which is India's first organisation for popularisation of science. S N Bose founded the same in Kolkata and it is still popular.

Death anniversary of:

A.  Notorious American gangster Al Capone (d. 1947).

Today in history @ 18 Jan

Birth anniversaries of

a. Dolby Ray (b. 1933), inventor of the noise reduction system known as Dolby NR and founder of Dolby Laboratories.

b. Oliver Hardy (b. 1892) of the famous "Laurel and Hardy" fame.

c. A A Milne (b. 1882), creator of Winnie-The-Pooh

Death anniversaries of

a. Rudyard Kipling (d. 1936) famous for the books Jungle Book, Kim and The Man who would be King. He is regarded as a major innovator in the art of the short story and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907. He was born in Bombay and is buried at the "Poets Corner" in Westminister Abbey. I first came to know him from the powerful poem "If" which I consider as one of the finest poems I have ever come across.

b. Harivansh Rai Bacchan (d. 2003) ; noted Indian poet of the Nayi Kavita literary movement (romantic upsurge) of early 20th century Hindi literature. He was born Harivansh Rai Srivastava; was called bachchan (meaning Kid) at home. From 1941 to 1952 he taught in the English Department at the Allahabad University and after that he spent the next two years at St Catharine's College, Cambridge University doing his doctoral thesis on W.B. Yeats. It was then, that he used 'Bachchan' as his last name instead of Srivastava. Harivanshrai's thesis got him his PhD at Cambridge. He is the second Indian to get his doctorate in English literature from Cambridge. After returning to India he again took to teaching and also served at All India Radio, Allahabad.
In 1955, he shifted to Delhi to join the External Affairs Ministry as an officer on Special duty and during the period of 10 years that he served he was also associated with the evolution of Hindi as the official language. He also enriched Hindi through his translations of major global writings; besides Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat, he will also be remembered for his Hindi translations of Shakespeare's Macbeth and Othello and also the Bhagvad Gita. However, in Nov 1984 he wrote his last poem 'Ek November 1984' on Indira Gandhi's assassination.
Bachchan's work has been used in movies and music multiple times. Few notable are:
"Rang Barse", the famous Holi song from Hindi movie Silsila starring his son
Couplets of his work "Agneepath" are used throughout in the movie Agneepath (1990 film) again starring Amitabh Bachchan and later in the remake Agneepath (2012 film)
Couplets of "Koshish karne waalon ki kabhi.." are used in the movie Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara
Manna Dey sang the musical version of Madhushala
'Koi Gata Main So Jata', a beautiful song from the movie Alaap sung by K. J. Yesudas starring his son Amitabh Bachchan

c. Kundan Lal Saigal (d. 1947). Before he became famous for his singing and acting, he worked as a railway timekeeper, a salesman for Remmingtin Typrwriters and as a hotel manager. Many male singers who started their career in 1940s and 1950s started their journey by immitating him.

O P Nayyar...

Today in history @ 16 Jan

The birth anniversary of  Omkar Prasad Nayyar (b. 1926) popularly known as OP in film circles.

a. Opee is reported to have commanded the highest fees in the Hindi movie music world at the height of his reign as a composer. He was the first Hindi music director to receive 100,000 rupees for his his compositions for a movie. It was a very substantial sum of money in the 1950s.

b. Born in Lahore, after partition, OP moved to Mumbai and after many years of struggle finally landed himself a full-blown project with the film Aasman. Geeta Dutt who was impressed with OP’s unique style while singing for the film introduced OP to her husband, the legendary filmmaker, Guru Dutt for Baaz. “The rest, as they say, is history. OP used to call this journey A-Z (from Aasman in 1952 to Zid in 1993—a total of 73 films).” The Geeta Dutt-OP Nayyar duo created magic starting with Aar Paar, Mr & Mrs 55 and CID, which is indelibly etched in people’s memories forever.

c. He worked extensively with Asha Bhonsle delivering many cabaret and forward-looking dance numbers which are famous today also.

d. Interestingly, OP had decided very early that he had to become successful without ever recording a single song in Lata’s voice. He went ahead with that decision and remains the only composer in Bollywood’s history to do so!

e. It is said that OP was an authority in homoeopathy and qas known to cure severe medical cases; and all for free.

f. In his last year's,  he remained as a paying guest in a very small home at Thane aloof from his family and the film world. Surayya and Shamshad Begum were only allowed to meet him. As per his wishes, his demise was not informed to his family members.

Sa to Sa paradox

Isnt it incredible to discover / note that a million tunes can be and has been also created with just these seven notes. Some thoughts around this:

a. We have so many resources around on the professional front as and in the personal sphere also.  Imagine the possibilities of creating so many great things using the; all that is required is the list, prioritization and creating a positive atmosphere where each can meaningfully cointribute.

b. Each one of us has a combination of strengths on an individual level covering story-telling, recitation, fashion, cooking, flirting, writing, memorizing, writing, drawing, thinking etc.. Each one of us is thus a powerhouse for creating something which shall not only be self-rewarding but also be beneficial to the society at large.

5 Jan ...

Birth anniversary of

A. M A K Pataudi

B. King Camp Gillette (b. 1855), the inventor of disposable razor. He was a salesman and invented the disposable razor at the age of 48.

C. Paramhansa Yogananda (b. 1893), the famous yogi and proponent of Kriya Yoga. His famous book "Autobiography of a Yogi" has been translated across many languages of the globe and is a compulsory reading in Theology across many universities of the globe.
It is told that Steve Jobs used to read the book at least once every year when he was alive and had arranged for gifting one piece of this book to every person who attended his funeral (he had planned the same when he was alive).

Nice pick @ The life of K

"Of you, too, we have the highest hopes. Steady and widen yourself, and try more to bring the mind and brain into subservience to the true Self within. Be tolerant of divergences of view and of method, for each has usually a fragment of truth concealed somewhere within it, even though oftentimes it is distorted almost beyond recognition. Seek for that tiniest gleam of light amid the Stygian darkness of each ignorant mind, food by recognizing and fostering in you may help a baby brother."....advice to K

10 Jan...

Birth anniversary of

A. Noted lawyer and distinguished Constitutional expert Fali S Norman (b. 1929). He is a former Additional Solicitor General of India. His son Robinson Nariman is a sitting judge of Supreme Court and has been the Solicitor General of India.

B. Noted Carnatic musician and playback singer K J Yesudas (b. 1940). He has been the recipient of one National award and 5 filmfare awards.

C. Hrithik Roshan (b. 1974)

D. The first Railway minister of India John Mathai (b. 1886, d. 1959) who also presented 2 budgets as Finance Minister. Basically an economist, he was HOD, Dept. of Economics, University of Madras. He was the first Chairman of SBI when it started in 1955. Besides being Vice Chancellor of Mumbai University, he was also the first Vice Chancellor of University of Kerala.
His son Ravi Mathai was the first Director of IIM A (at the age of 38) and is credited to have laid the foundation of what it is today. His nephew is the legendary Dr. Varghese Kurien.

E. One of my two demigods on earth and my idol, my own father.

Nice picks @ The Life of K

"The pleasant dreams my brother and I had of the physical are over...We had great fun in life though we were of different temperaments. We somehow understood each other without effort...It was a happy life and I shall miss him physically all through this life.
An old dream is dead and a new one is being born, as a flower that pushes through the solid earth...A new strength born of suffering is pulsating in the veins and a new sympathy and understanding is being born out of the past suffering. I greater desire to see others suffer less and, if they must suffer, to see that they bear it nobly and come out of it without too many scars. I have wept but I do not want others to weep but if they do I now know what it means...On the physical plane we could be separated and now we are unseperable... As K I now have greater zeal, greater faith, greater sympathy and greater love for there is also in me the body, the Being, of N...I know now, with greater certainty than ever before, that there is real beauty in life, real happiness that cannot be shattered by any physical happening, a great strength which cannot be weakened by any passing event, and a great love which is permanent, imperishable and unconquerable."

Kavi Neeraj...

Today is the birthday of Kavi Neeraj, the legendary Hindi film lyricist. Respected and regarded that he is from my perspective, I append few aspects of him, all thanking Google.

Neeraj, the pen name is famous in film Circles; his original name was Gopaldas Saxena

He was a Professor of Hindi Literature in Dharma Samaj College, Aligarh until Dev Anand heard Kaarvaan guzarta...at a mushaira and told him that they will work together— a promise that Anand kept. He invited Neeraj to Mumbai in the early 60s and introduced him to SD Burman, who was working on the movie Prem Pujari at that time. The rest as they say is history.

He abruptly stopped writing poems for films at the peak of his popularity. Instead, he chose to write and publish them in books.

The reason why he quit writing songs is strange: he considers himself unlucky. The reason for this mentioned by him was that at least two or three prominent music directors of Hindi film industry expired. He draws examples of Jaikishan of the music duo Shankar-Jaikishan as well as of S D Burman. The deaths of these music directors when they as well as Neeraj were at the peak of their popularity, left him very depressed and he made a decision to quit the film industry.

Some of his masterpieces are:

Aye Bhai Zara Dekh Ke Chalo – Mera Naam Joker

Dhiire se jaanaa khatiyan me – Chuppa Rustam

Dil aaj shayar hai, gum aaj nagma hai, shab yeh ghazal hai sanam - Gambler

Karwan Guzar Gaya Gubar Dekhte Rahe – Nayi umar ki nayii fasal

Khilte Hain Gul Yahan, Khilke Bikharne Ko – Sharmilee

Maine kasam Li – Tere Mere Sapne

Meghaa chhaye aadhee raat bairan ban gayee nindeeyaa – Sharmilee

Mera maan tera pyaasa – Gambler

Phoolon ke rang se – Prem Pujari

Rangeela re – Prem Pujari

Shokhiyon Mein Ghola Jaaye, Phoolon Ka Shabaab – Prem Pujari

4th Jan...

Today in history: Birth anniversaries of

a. Louis Braille (b. 1809), inventor of Braille system of reading for the blind. It's strange to note that he himself was blind since the age of 3.

b. Issac Pitman (b. 1813) who invented the system of shorthand, a revolutionary concept till date and

death anniversary of one of India's greatest scientist Prof. Satish Dhawan (d. 2002). Prof. Dhawan is considered as the Father of experimental fluid dynamics research in India. He had BSc degrees in Mathematics, Physics and Mechanical Engg. besides a degree in English, MSc in aerospace engineering & aeronautical engineering and double PhD s in Mathematics and aerospace engineering.
He was Chairman ISRO as well as Director of IISc Bangalore.

New Year 2017

Yes, the day as planned started with a home-made Puree laden breakfast. What happened next was a first experience for me and Sambhab i.e. his father bathed him.

It was a learning for me and him too.