Blog of CyberBrahma Broken friendship

I was behaving in a peculiar manner for the last few days. Yes. Odd. I was actually demeaning myself by going after a friend of mine who suddenly said he hates me – quite uncharacteristic of him. His behaviour was bizarre and inscrutable. He started playing coy – why this sudden “kolaveri da”! I was foxed. I tried to unravel the mystery but to no avail. He remained incommunicado for the most part.

It was a veritable agony for me. It was all-consuming. I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. The brain rewired all synapses focused on this single nagging riddle. Why this fellow, who was such a cuddly buddy, suddenly walked out on me? Oh God, gimme the answer..!

All reason, Id, self-respect, ego, super-ego (Sigmund Freud turns in his Austrian grave!) – all vanished. Here I am begging him to wise me up as to why this stonewall, with advance apologies galore (just in case).

But on second thoughts, why had I reacted the way I did? Why didn’t I compose myself and just let sleeping dogs lie? Why didn’t I remain stoic and start analyzing things in a sober way which I do normally in all such situations? A chance mention in an article on eavesdropping of cellphone conversations provided the answer to this puzzle. Here it is (Source: Cracked.com):

The human brain likes things to be predictable, and it can’t really relax and “tune out” something that doesn’t make sense. You might notice yourself trying to fill in the other half of the phone conversations you overhear. It’s the same mechanism that makes it so hard to walk away after you’ve seen the first 15 minutes of an episode of CSI or Law & Order: The brain naturally hates leaving questions unanswered. Suddenly, you’re trying to solve a puzzle instead of concentrating on how little you give a shit about the exact drunken position he passed out in last night.

“Since halfalogues really are more distracting, and you can’t tune them out, people become irritated [and], even more importantly, their cognitive performance is impaired”, avers a Cornell University study.

Postscript: Solved the riddle ultimately but still no joy! Normalcy in the relationship is still elusive since the root cause of the friction seems to be a chance remark on my part that has hurt the other party so deeply that the boo-boo couldn’t be soothed even by profuse apologies of gargantuan proportions.

So here I am, terribly bruised

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Blog of CyberBrahma New Jersey residents pray for snow this season!

After a premature snowstorm in October, 2011 which caused widespread devastation (Read my post: “Every natural event has a meaning and purpose“) almost of the whole of New Jersey state has been snow-starved till 23rd of December 2011, dashing the hopes of getting a much coveted “White Christmas”. In addition, the skiers are hoping – rather praying for a quick snowfall before X-mas.

At N.J. ski resorts, warm winter threatens snow-centered business. Without cold or snow, not many skiers will be headed to the slopes during the holiday stretch, when resorts usually make 10 percent to 15 percent of their revenue. Hence they are trying to rig up man-made snow to woo skiing customers!

(source: www.nj.com)

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Blog of CyberBrahma Curvaceous Gina Lollobrigida

The theme music of the romantic comedy of yesteryears, “Come September” has been lingering in my ears bringing forth the reminiscences of the Jukebox prominently placed in the Gupta’s State Hotel on the Luz Corner (in Mylapore, Chennai, India) wherein I used to bung in a 25 paise coin to listen to that evergreen melody composed by Bobby Darin. But what is more remarkable about that movie is the svelte hourglass figure, sultry face with triangular chin, bewitching smile – who can forget the timeless beauty of Gina (Luigina) Lollobrigida![See post to listen to audio]

A sex icon of the tinsel world of 1950s and 60s, the Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida appeared in an average of two movies a year in her prime. Her score is more than 60 American, Italian and French films. Her earthy look and short tousled hairdo were so popular that she earned the nickname “La Lollo” meaning ‘beautiful breasts’ in French! They were so crazy after her that they went to the extent of naming a curly lettuce as “Lollo”. No, they didn’t stop with it. The French? Yes. They even coined a word “lollobrigidienne” and added it to the French dictionary to mean “curvaceous”. Her alluring beauty made Playboy magazine to rank her as no. 20 on the list of the “100 Sexiest Stars of the Century”.

Gina Lollobrigida was born in 1927 in the mountain village of Subiaco, about 50 miles southeast of Rome. She came from a working-class family and grew up during the time of Mussolini and the World War II. After studying painting and sculpting in school, Gina began walking on the ramps and finished 3rd in the “Miss Italy” competition of 1947. Her film career started with Italian films. She emerged on the Hollywood scene in 1953 in the John Huston film “Beat the Devil.” In 1955 Lollobrigida appeared in the movie titled, “The World’s Most Beautiful Woman” (which she truly was!), for which she received the Best Actress award. Her 1961 film “Come September” won the Golden Globe as the World’s Film Favorite. And here I come to the nub of this article!

Come September is a very light comedy and it would give a feeling of reading a P.G.Wodehouse novel, peppered with with a generous dose of unexpected twists and turns and comic events! In the end, the actor whose performance makes a lingering impression in your mind is that of Walter Slezak who as the sneaky majordomo Maurice secretly misappropriated the owner’s (Rock Hudson, the hero) villa as a hotel, and also has the temerity to persist in doing so even after being caught red-handed! His role reminds me of the wily “Avinasi” in Kamal Hasan’s Tamil blockbuster, “Michael Madana Kamarajan”, superbly portrayed by the inimitable Nagesh.

But that doesn’t let your mind wander away from savoring the exquisite beauty of Gina Lollabrigida!

As an end note let me provide a post-film life sketch of the actress by stating that Gina pursued her passions as a singer, sculptor, painter and photographer and is still going strong.

A woman at 20 is like ice, at 30 she is warm and at 40 she is hot.
~ Gina Lollobrigida

In the 1970s, Gina’s film career slowed (not until 1984 when she appeared again as an actress-on the American television series “Falcon Crest”). But she immersed herself in other passions. As a photographer, she traveled the world and captured images of Paul Newman, Salvador DaIi and the German national soccer team. A collection of her work, Italia Mia, was published in 1973. In 1975 she directed the documentary, “Portrait of Fidel Castro”, and also made a film of life in the Philippines. As a sculptor, she created works like “My Friend Liza Minnelli” and “My Friend Marilyn Monroe”. She also became a corporate executive for fashion and cosmetic companies. In 1993 France awarded her the “Legion of Honor” for her artistic achievements and for her humanitarian work with UNICEF and other organizations.

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Blog of CyberBrahma Every natural event has a meaning and purpose

I discussed about the Autumn Leaves and Fall colors in my previous post. I had also mused that there is a specific reason for the leaves leaving the host trees during autumn. One weird happening in October 2011 in north-east parts of US stood testimony to the wisdom of nature in setting out happenings in clockwork precision so that each event has a bearing on the other.

A premature snowfall occurred on 29th October, 2011 in north-east US around the states of New Jersey and New York. Take a glimpse of it as I saw it on that day:

But it is not a simple snowfall. It was a snowstorm that caused havoc of mammoth proportions. The devastation caused by the few hours of snowfall was widespread and serious. There was no power in many parts of New Jersey state for about 3-4 days. The annual Halloween parties and colorful processions to which children look forward to were cancelled. Trees were uprooted, buildings damaged by the trees falling on them. The list is endless. On top of that, it also caused the death of 8 NJ residents, as reported by The Star Ledger in www.nj.com/

Please watch a tree falling on a house:

You can read further in this report with graphic detail titled, “October snowstorm in N.J. brings snow, traffic snarls, downed trees and power outages” and muse about the real reason for such massive damage. remember, New Jersey experiences snowfall and snowstorm every year during winter and there is nothing new about it. And they do not cause this kind of damage. What then was the difference?

It was the presence of leaves in the trees!!

Yes! The leaves fall during fall aka autumn) and keep the trees ready to receive the snowfall. The snow flurries just embrace the barren twigs and branches down through the trunk leaving the tree unmolested. That is the reason for the falling of leaves preceding the onset of winter. But October 29th was premature. The trees were not ready. Much of the leaves were still not severed from their hosts. So the snow settled on them and became ice. The tree branches could not bear the combined weight of the ice plank fused together as the flurries on the leaves solidified. And they started falling on roads, houses and power lines.

And that bears out the brilliance of nature in scheduling events in such a way they relate to each other establishing the equilibrium.

But some aberrations do occur like the on we are talking about, perhaps to make known the principles of the nature’s innate mechanism. And a warning not to tinker with nature by GM Food, BT cotton and Monsanto!

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Blog of CyberBrahma Metamorphosis of colors from bright yellows to vibrant reds during fall

I have always been fascinated by the magical splendor of colors that the leaves display at the start of the fall in US during September-October. The changing matrix of colors of fall foliage never fails to surprise and delight me. Why does a fall leaf changes color? Where do the yellows, reds, purples and oranges come from? These questions pop up every time I watch this game of chiaroscuro played with clock-work precision year after year by the “Autumn Leaves”!

Curbing the tendency to dwell deep into a long-winded botanical explanation of the phenomenon, let me try to put it in everyman’s language.

Why and how leaves change color during autumn?

Leaves are plants’ food factories endowed by nature. They manufacture most of the foods necessary for the tree’s growth. Plants take water from the ground through their roots and carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the air and use sunlight to turn water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and glucose.

This food-making process is called photosynthesis. That means “putting together with light”. A chemical called “Chlorophyll” present in the numerous cells of the leaf helps make photosynthesis happen. Chlorophyll is what gives leaves their green color.

The leaves contain many color pigments in addition to the green pigment, viz: yellow, orange, red etc. But most of the year these colors are masked by great amounts of green coloring during spring and summer.

But in the fall (autumn), length of daylight gets shorter and temperature also falls considerably. To match with this change, the leaves understand their passive role and their chlorophyll breaks down. Consequently the green color disappears, bringing forth the hitherto dormant color range of yellow to orange which give the leaves part of their fall splendor.

A few other chemical changes may also occur, which cause additional colors like red and spectrum of reddish and purplish fall colors of trees such as dogwoods and sumac, while others give the sugar maple its brilliant orange.

The autumn foliage of some trees show only yellow colors. Others, like many oaks, display mostly browns. All these colors are due to the mixing of varying amounts of the chlorophyll residue and other pigments in the leaf during the fall.

In addition to this metamorphosis of colors, the bonding between the stem of the leaf and the tree get severed and the leaf is finally blown off by the wind or it falls from its own weight. This completes the “fall”.

Crowds of autumn tourists flock every year to the flame-colored hills of north-eastern US, to view the fall foliage aka autumn leaves. There is a booming tourism industry in those parts.

And this is the story of the rich and vibrant hues of the fall foliage!.

Come winter, and the trees start hibernating! (But is there any other reason for the leaves falling off the trees? May be there is. Wait for my next article!)

The highly informative and illustrated “Guide to Fall colors in New York state” (Click to read the PDF file on inlay) features color images of the fall foliage of 47 tree and shrub species. If you can’t view the PDF file for any reason, please visit this web page of The college of environment & forestry to download the PDF.

Here is an album of photos taken of the woods nearby from my room window:

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Blog of CyberBrahma Offspring of centuries of superstition and tyranny!

Here is some candid observation by Swami Vivekananda while on a visit to Japan in 1893. The Swamiji is famous for not mincing words. Read on..

Only I want that numbers of our young men should pay a visit to Japan and China every year. Especially to the Japanese, India is still the dreamland of everything high and good. And you, what are you? … talking twaddle all your lives, vain talkers, what are you? Come, see these people, and then go and hide your faces in shame. A race of dotards, you lose your caste if you come out! Sitting down these hundreds of years with an ever-increasing load of crystallized superstition on your heads, for hundreds of years spending all your energy upon discussing the touchableness or untouchableness of this food or that, with all humanity crushed out of you by the continuous social tyranny of ages – what are you? And what are you doing now? … promenading the sea-shores with books in your hands – repeating undigested stray bits of European brainwork, and the whole soul bent upon getting a thirty rupee clerkship, or at best becoming a lawyer – the height of young India’s ambition – and every student with a whole brood of hungry children cackling at his heels and asking for bread! Is there not water enough in the sea to drown you, books, gowns, university diplomas, and all?

The present situation is not much different, isn’t it!

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Blog of CyberBrahma How a lone nut transforms into a leader or a Guru!

It is because of a dynamic follower or a disciple. Take the case of Ramakrishna. The world came to know of him only due to Swami Vivekananda. It was Vivekananda who founded the Ramakrishna order comprising of the Math and the Mission. He organized them after the passing away of Ramakrishna in 1886.

But for the joining of the dynamic and influential Vivekananda aka Narendra Dutta as the disciple of Ramakrishna he would have been just another mystic nut!

Derec Sivers has an interesting insight to this tipping point of the first follower who makes the leader what he is.

Listen to Sivers expounding his theory of Leadership:

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Blog of CyberBrahma Anything is possible!

She is an Academic Member of the Behavioral Finance Forum,
a Fellow at the Applied Statistics Center at Columbia University,
an Oversight Board Member at the ING Institute for Retirement Research,
and an Institute Fellow at TIAA-CREF.

She was a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study and has received grants from such institutions as The Jerome A. Chazen Institute of International Business, Citigroup Behavioral Sciences Research Council, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the National Science Foundation.

She has taught courses in Management, specifically in Globalization, Leadership, Entrepreneurial Creativity, and Decision Making at Columbia Business School and at the World Economics Forum in Geneva, Switzerland.

She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.S. in economics from the Wharton School of Business and a B.A. in psychology with a minor in English from the College of Arts and Sciences.

She then earned her Ph.D. in social psychology from Stanford University. Her dissertation, “Choice and its Discontents,” which asks the question: are there circumstances in which people are better off when they have their choices limited or entirely removed, received the prestigious Best Dissertation Award for 1998 from the Society of Experimental Social Psychology.

Her research appears in academic journals of a wide range of disciplines such as economics, psychology, management, and marketing. Her research has been cited in such periodicals as Fortune and Time magazines, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal, as well as on National Public Radio and in books such as Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink and The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz.

And she has written a book, “The Art of Choosing“, which explores the mysteries of choice in everyday life.

She is Ms. Sheena Iyengar. (Wikipedia page)

And she is blind from her childhood!

She is an American citizen born to Sikh parents.

Watch her speaking with such profound confidence and authority:

If you can read Tamil, please view my journal entry on people who could see better than us without eyes..!

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Blog of CyberBrahma Chayya chayya song in Hollywood movie Inside Man

“Inside Man” is one of the better movies of Denzel Washington, who is among my favourite actors with Brad Pitt, Jason Statham, Morgan Freeman and Clint Eastwood sharing the list It is totally different kind of bank heist story with nothing happening in the end, ostensibly! No shooting, no bloodshed in spite of hostages.

But what is intriguing about this movie is the title song. They have simply plagiarized the “Chayya chayya” number of “Dil Se”, the Hindi (Bollywood) blockbuster of Shahrukh Khan. I couldn’t find any credit for the original song.

You can listen to the title song of Inside Man here:

And the original from “Dil Se” here:

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Blog of CyberBrahma Rio Bravo a Musical Western

I was lucky to stumble upon this wonderful western while zapping through different genre of movies in Netflix. I am awfully happy I did. It had the real pros. Yes, John Wayne and Dean Martin – could you ask for more! But that doesn’t diminish the role of the handsome Ricky Nelson (Boy, can’t he easily pass off as Elvis Presley if he rocks a bit while singing..!).

Yes, I am talking about “Rio Bravo” (USA 1959), a archetypal Western with John Wayne, rifle, pony and works!

Here are a couple of songs from the movie. I love them. You have missed something if you hadn’t seen the movie.

And here are the lyrics of both the songs:

1.
The sun is sinking in the west
The cattle go down to the stream
The redwing settles in the nest
It’s time for a cowboy to dream

Purple light in the canyons
That’s where I long to be
With my three good companions
Just my rifle, pony and me

Gonna hang (gonna hang) my sombrero (my sombrero)
On the limb (On the limb) of a tree (of a tree)
Comin’ home (Comin’ home) sweetheart darlin’ (sweetheart darlin’)
Just my rifle, pony and me
Just my rifle, my pony and me

(Whippoorwill in the willow)
(Sings a sweet melody)
(Riding to Amarillo)
Just my rifle, pony and me

No more cows (No more cows) to be ropin’ (to be ropin’)
No more strays will I see
‘Round the bend (’round the bend) she’ll be waitin’ (she’ll be
waitin’)
For my rifle, pony and me
For my rifle, my pony and me

==
2.
I wish I was a apple hangin’ in a tree
And everytime my sweetheart passed
She’d take a bite off me
She told me that she loved me
She called me sugar plum
She threw her arms around me
I thought my time had come
Get along home, Cindy-Cindy
Get along home, Cindy-Cindy
Get along home, Cindy-Cindy
I’ll marry you sometime
I wish I had a needle
As fine as I could sew
I’d sew her in my pocket
And down the road I go
Cindy hugged and kissed me
She wrung her hands and cried
Swore I was the prettiest thing
That ever lived or died
Get along home, Cindy-Cindy
Get along home, Cindy-Cindy
Get along home, Cindy-Cindy
I’ll marry you sometime

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Blog of CyberBrahma Lest folks may take them home..!

They didn’t say “Pick one” or “Take one”, but “borrow” one – to drive home the point that you’ll have to return it. Human beings will be human beings, what…!

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Blog of CyberBrahma Secret of successful marriage!

Total submission to the wife is a surefire recipe for a sustained peaceful married life bereft of even a teensy-weensy misunderstanding!

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