GOD Tusi Great HO - Enjoy Life

Words Of Wisdom

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 12 Sep 2018 08:39:00 +0000

1. A day without sunshine is like night.

2. On the other hand, you have different fingers.

3. 42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.

4. 99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.

5. Remember, half the people you know are below average.
6. He who laughs last, thinks slowest.

7. Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.

8. The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese in the trap.

9. Support bacteria. They're the only culture some people have.

10. A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

11. Change is inevitable, except from vending machines.

12. If you think nobody cares, try missing a couple of payments.

13. How many of you believe in psycho-kinesis? Raise my hand.

14. OK, so what's the speed of dark?

15. When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

16. Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.

17. How much deeper would the ocean be without sponges?

18. Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines

19. What happens if you get scared half to death, twice?

20. Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?

21. Inside every older person is a younger person wondering, "What the hell happened?"

22. Just remember -- if the world didn't suck, we would all fall off.

23. Light travels faster than sound. That's why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

24. Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapenos.

******

Shakti

Mystery of Namibia's 'Fairy circles' were believed to be created by aliens or legendary gods - Solved

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 16 Mar 2017 04:01:00 +0000

'Fairy circles' have long been one of nature's greatest mysteries, prompting wild theories they were created by aliens or legendary gods.

These images show the vast areas that are covered by the mysterious fairy circles that pock the grassy desert of Namibia and why they have captivated the imaginations of visitors to the region. But now a team of scientists believe they have finally unravelled what causes these strange circles of bare earth to form in their millions.

Writing in the journal Nature, scientists say these self-organised regular vegetation patterns are created by a combination of plant and insect behaviour.

The researchers from Princeton University and the University of Strathclyde looked at two leading theories for the fairy circles to make the discovery.

The first theory suggests that plants around the fairy circles help their neighbours but compete with distant individuals in a tug-of-war for water and other scarce nutrients.

The tug of war causes the landscape to organise into rings of deep-rooted plants that are capable of draining water from a main reservoir.

The second theory argues the circles are formed by subterranean ecosystem engineers, such as termites, ants or rodents. According to the termite theory, a species called Psammotermes allocerus is engineering the circles by destroying the plants above them.

The two theories on their own aren't enough to explain the bare patches.

But Corina Tarnita and colleagues at Princeton University combined both of these theories into a computer simulation.

They show that, instead of one or the other, a combination of competition between subterranean social-insect colonies of the same species and a tug of war between plants can explain the self-organized regular vegetation patterns.

They believe termites may create the large-scale pattern, and plants help establish a small-scale pattern of fairy circles.

The unusual patterns seen between circles are plants that establish an orderly root system so they don't compete too much for limited water.

"Out of all these processes, where each is doing what they need to, emerges this large scale pattern," Tarnita said. The circular shape is a result of termites venturing as far as possible from their own colony's nest without encroaching on a competing colony.

It's not quite a conspiracy, says co-author Robert Pringle, because the creatures aren't trying to make the patterns. "There's no master plan, there's no kind of blueprint for what's supposed to emerge," he said.

Several outside experts contacted by the Associated Press weren't convinced by the study, because they weren't comfortable with the author's assumptions about rainfall and especially termite colony lifespans.

Last year, photographer Thomas Dressler revealed a series of photographs captured from the air that reveal the scale of these bizarre patches.

Found in hotspots along a 1,242 mile (2,000km) long stretch of desert between Angola and South Africa, they transform the landscape into something more like the surface of the moon.

Mr Dressler, 58, from Marbella, Spain, took the pictures from a hot air balloon and a small plane during three visits to the area between 2010 and 2014. He said: 'I regularly travel to this location because the Namib Desert, including the pre-Namib, for me, belong to the most stunning landscapes on earth. 'I came across this phenomenon by chance during one of my very first visits. 'It was very exciting to fly over the area for the first time.'

The fairy rings, which measure between 6 feet and 40 feet across (2-12 metres), are essentially bare patches of earth in the stubby grass that grows across the Namib desert.

Local legends say the fairy circles are the footsteps of the gods while others have suggested they are burn marks from dragons living beneath the ground.

Some have suggested they may be the landing spots of UFOs or the sleeping spots of Namibia's national animal the oryx. There are some scientists who have suggested the circles are created by radioactive patches of soil that prevent the grass that covers the landscape from growing.

Amazing things of Dubai

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 15 May 2014 06:55:00 +0000

Dubai Police Cars

Largest suspended acquarium of the World

World's Tallest Building - Burj Khalifa

World's Highest Tennis Court

AC Bus Stand

Gold ATM at Dubai

Rotating Buildings

In Dubai, Wild animals can be found sitting in the passenger seat.

Largest Flower Garden of the World

Twisty Tower

Skiing at the Mall

Skying at Mall

Inventions of Old times

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 15 May 2014 06:24:00 +0000

Built in Ash Tray

Cigarette Umbrella

Dimple maker

Cycle run by Dog

Machine to measure beauty

Still cycle of old times

1 - Cigarette Umbrella

Modern technology has led to some pretty crazy inventions, but they're nothing compared to these wacky inventions from the past!
Take this invention from 1931, the umbrella made just for protecting cigarettes from the rain! Apparently, it's inventor was sick of his cigarettes getting soaked when it rained so he created this elaborate device to protect them. It even has a little spigot on the bottom to allow the user to drain any water that does manage to get inside. Seems he thought of everything!
- See more at: http://www.gadgetpics.com/gallery/6804/15-wacky-inventions-from-the-past#sthash.ZHrlevoA.dpuf

Best ever things made from Balloons

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 07:21:00 +0000

Amazing Illusions

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 07:24:00 +0000

1. This is blivet, also known as a poiuyt, it is an undecipherable determine, an eye impression and an difficult item. It seems to have three round prongs at one end which then surprisingly convert into two rectangle-shaped prongs at the other end.

2. Now try to see what exactly is happening in this illusion given below:

How to prayer to GOD !

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 07:17:00 +0000

Learn How to prayer to GOD

Six-legged baby successfully operated

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 08:18:00 +0000

Doctors in a Karachi hospital have successfully removed the extra limbs of a baby boy who was born with six legs.The operation lasted for about two hours, and the baby is now in stable condition, doctors at the National Institute of Child Health (NICH) in Karachi said on Thursday.Birth defects like the Mermaid syndrome, a deformity where the legs are fused together, Craniopagus, a phenomenon where twins are joined at the head, and Dicephalic parapagus, a condition of having two heads, occur rarely but prove challenging to the medical world. Here are some instances of successful treatment of congenital diseases.

Most beautiful places of the WORLD!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 11:21:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 11:24:00 +0000

UP boy makes world record for 34 fingers

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 06:29:00 +0000

A baby boy, who was named Akshat, has registered his name in the Guinness World Records for having a total of 34 fingers and toes. He is just over the age of one and hails from the Bareilly district in Uttar Pradesh.

Amrita Saxena, the mother of the child, says she couldn't believe that her son broke the world record."At first, I couldn't believe that my son has broken the world record. I came to know about it when one of my family friend informed us about previous world record was with a baby born in China with 31 fingers. We registered the data of our child in the Internet and after that I was asked to submit few documents. Now, my son's name was registered in the Guinness World Records," says Amrita.The Doctors have said that it was a rare phenomenon and diagnosed it as polydactyly."It's a case of polydactylic. It is a congenital physical anomaly in humans, dogs, and cats having supernumerary fingers or toes. It is due to certain defects in the bone development of the uterus. It is absolutely curable. Generally people go for plastic surgery. And in few occasions it can be cured normally, if the polydactyly is minimal," said Dr. Parul Gupta, a gynaecologist.The parents of Akshat wants him to undergo the treatment to cure it and lead a normal life.

Best of Raju Shrivastava

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 10 May 2011 06:17:00 +0000

Best of Raju Shrivastava

WWE Extreme Rules 2011 Results

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 05 May 2011 11:23:00 +0000

The fifth annual WWE Extreme Rules came to you, live on pay-per-view, from the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa, FL. Since the shocking announcement a couple of weeks ago that then World Heavyweight Champion Edge would be forced to retire from in-ring competition, forcing the eleven-time World Champion to vacate the title, SmackDown has been without a World Heavyweight Champion, but on the one night that the WWE goes extreme, Edge’s best friend, Christian, would look to rectify the situation as “Captain Charisma” would face “The Mexican Aristocrat” Alberto Del Rio in Christian’s specialty, a Ladder Match with the winner claiming the vacant World Heavyweight Title, but after the surprising reveal this past Monday night during the 2011 WWE Draft, Alberto Del Rio is now a member of the RAW roster, meaning that, if Del Rio wins the World Heavyweight Title, he will take the title with him to RAW, leaving SmackDown without a World Champion! The WWE Championship would be up for grabs in extreme fashion at Extreme Rules as well as the self-proclaimed “Most Must-See Champion in WWE History” The Miz would defend the WWE Title against John Cena and the man who took the spot originally held by R-Truth in the match, “The Prince of Parkour” John Morrison as the three Superstars would battle in a Triple Threat Steel Cage Match where the only ways to win are by pinfall, submission, or escaping the cage with both feet touching the floor! Despite his shocking draft to SmackDown via the 2011 WWE Draft, Randy Orton still has unfinished business with a RAW Superstar by the name of CM Punk as “The Viper” would face the leader of The New Nexus in a Last Man Standing Match where the only way to win is to incapacitate your opponent to the point where he cannot get to his feet by the referee’s count of ten! While RAW lost Randy Orton, among others, in the 2011 Draft, RAW also gained some of SmackDown’s best, including the incomparable Rey Mysterio, but much like Randy Orton, Rey Mysterio has some unfinished business before he heads to Monday Nights as “The Ultimate Underdog” would be looking for revenge against the Superstar who defeated him by questionable means at WrestleMania, as well as repeatedly assaulted him over recent weeks, in Cody Rhodes as the two would square off in a Falls Count Anywhere Match where pinfall or submission can occur anywhere in the arena! Ever since the anonymous General Manager of RAW ruled him the winner of his WrestleMania match by disqualification, the self-proclaimed “Voice of the WWE” Michael Cole has crowed about being “undefeated” at WrestleMania and has even had himself knighted as “Sir” Michael Cole, all the while aligning himself with “The All-American American” Jack Swagger to assault Jerry “The King” Lawler and Lawler’s legendary friend and colleague, “Good Ol’ J.R.” Jim Ross, but at Extreme Rules, the Hall of Fame team of Jim Ross & Jerry “The King” Lawler would be looking to shut Michael Cole once and for all as they would face the so-called “Sir” Michael Cole and his trainer, Jack Swagger, in a Country Whipping Match, a match that has a lot uncertainty regarding the rules, but one thing is known for certain, the match will feature a leather strap for the competitors to use against each other! Since 2009, the team known as LayCool, Layla & Michelle McCool, has dominated the Divas division together, holding the Women’s and Divas Titles both together and individually as the team established a seemingly concrete friendship, but personal animosity has driven these former best friends apart and it has become apparent between the two accomplished Divas that there is only room for one of them in the WWE and, at Extreme Rules, the first British Women’s Champion in WWE history, Layla, will go one-on-one with the first Diva to win both the Women’s and Divas Titles, Michelle McCool, in a match with no disqualifications and no count-outs with the loser being forced out of the WWE as the career of one of these Divas will end in a Loser Leaves WWE Match!

Match Results

•Last Man Standing Match: The New Nexus Banned: Randy Orton def. CM Punk following the RKO off of the top rope.

•United States Championship: Tables Match: Kofi Kingston def. Sheamus (c) with a modified Boom Drop through a table to win the United States Title.

•Tag Team Country Whipping Match: Michael Cole & Jack Swagger def. Jim Ross & Jerry “The King” Lawler by Michael Cole rolling up Jim Ross.

•Falls Count Anywhere Match: Rey Mysterio def. Cody Rhodes by pin following the 619 and Splash in the ring.

•Loser Leaves WWE: No DQ & No Count-Outs: Layla def. Michelle McCool by roll-up to force Michelle McCool out of the WWE.

•World Heavyweight Championship: Ladder Match: Christian (with Edge) def. Alberto Del Rio (with Brodus Clay & Ricardo Rodriguez) to win the vacant World Heavyweight Title.

•WWE Tag Team Championship: Lumberjack Match: Kane & Big Show (c) def. Wade Barrett & Ezekiel Jackson by Big Show (c) pinning Wade Barrett following the chokeslam to retain.

•WWE Championship: Triple Threat Steel Cage Match: John Cena def. The Miz (c) & John Morrison by pinning The Miz (c) following the Attitude Adjustment off of the top rope to win the WWE Title.

Detailed Results

The show kicks off with one of the most vicious and extreme matches in the WWE as the biggest acquisition for SmackDown in the 2011 WWE Draft, “The Viper” Randy Orton has one piece of unfinished business before heading to SmackDown as Orton would face the leader of The New Nexus, CM Punk, in a Last Man Standing Match, where the only way to win is to incapacitate your opponent to the point where he cannot get to his feet by the referee’s count of ten and, as decreed just prior to the match by the anonymous RAW General Manager, The New Nexus is banned from ringside! It would not take long for the extreme to commence during the match as CM Punk would get a pair of kendo sticks from underneath the ring before wearing Orton out with several kendo stick shots before Orton would finally fight back with a kendo stick shot to the mid-section of CM Punk, but Punk would regain the advantage by catapulting Orton into the exposed steel turnbuckle! Punk would then continue his punishment of Orton and would set up a steel chair in the corner, but Orton would manage to fight back and would send Punk careening into the chair in the corner and all the way to the outside of the ring, where Orton would continue the assault!

After driving CM Punk into the ring apron and into the ringside barricade prior to a big powerslam on the arena floor, Randy Orton would look to put CM Punk away as Orton would expose the announce table at ringside, but Punk would fight back temporarily before Orton would regain the advantage over Punk as Orton would roll Punk into the ring and would look for the RKO, but Punk would dodge the move before successfully hitting the GTS on Orton, but Orton would just barely get to his feet in time as Orton would stop the referee’s count at nine! Punk would continue the assault on Orton with a back suplex on a steel chair, but Orton would utilize the ropes to get to his feet again! Punk would then look for a side Russian leg sweep on a folded out steel chair, but Orton would come out of nowhere with the RKO, but Punk would roll out of the ring to his feet at the count of nine! Orton would follow Punk to the outside where “The Viper” would set up for his signature DDT on the arena floor, but Punk would fight out of the move and would send Orton spine-first into the steel ring post before Punk would place the steel chair around the neck of Orton before sending Orton into the steel ring post with the steel chair compressing the neck of Orton, but still Orton would make it to his feet! Punk would then drag Orton to the announce table where Punk would set up for the GTS on top of the table, but Orton would fight out of it and strike with the RKO on Punk on an announce table that did not budge from the impact, but Punk was able to roll off of the table and land on his feet long enough to break the count!

After the RKO on the announce table did not get the job done, Randy Orton would go for the move that has gotten the job done so many times in the past for Orton as Orton would go for the career-jeopardizing punt to the skull, but CM Punk would dodge the move and would send Orton face-first into the steel steps! After Orton got to his feet again, Punk would roll Orton into the ring and would look to come off of the top rope on Orton, but Orton would recover and would deliver several kendo stick shots to Punk on the top rope before Orton would deliver a sinister RKO off of the top rope, which would finally keep CM Punk down for the ten count, earning the SmackDown-bound Randy Orton the extremely hard-fought victory!

Backstage, the new SmackDown acquisition, United States Champion Sheamus would confront his new boss, SmackDown General Manager Theodore Long as he would state that he does not “like it” and Long would assume that Sheamus means the bonus match that the GM made where Sheamus will defend the United States Title against the man he attacked on SmackDown, Kofi Kingston, in a Tables Match, but Sheamus protests that Kofi is not even from the United States and he demands to see a “birth certificate”, but Long tells Sheamus that he should worry about keeping the United States Title!

In a bonus match made by SmackDown General Manager Theodore Long, one of the newest additions to the SmackDown roster, Sheamus, would defend the United States Title against the man he attacked on SmackDown in new RAW acquisition, Kofi Kingston, in a Tables Match, where the only way to win is to put your opponent through a table! At one point in the match, Sheamus thought he had the match in hand as he would go for the Brogue Kick that would send Kofi Kingston through the table on the outside of the ring, but Kofi would land on the arena floor, avoiding the table! Shortly after this, Kofi would run into a similar problem as, with Sheamus on the ring apron, Kofi would hit Trouble in Paradise on Sheamus, only for Sheamus to land next to the table instead of through it! Then, with Sheamus using the table to get to his feet, Kofi would seize the positioning of Sheamus as Kofi would dive off of the top rope with a modified Boom Drop that would send Sheamus crashing through the table to win the United States Championship, bringing the title back to Monday Night RAW!

Backstage, R-Truth is being interviewed by Todd Grisham as he tells Grisham to “shut up” before claiming that him not even having a match at Extreme Rules is a “conspiracy”! Truth continues that he knows for a “fact” that neither The Miz or John Cena wanted him in the match and John Morrison “stole” the opportunity from him and, if there is one thing he cannot stand, it’s a “thief”!

Before he and Jack Swagger would face Jim Ross & Jerry “The King” Lawler in a Tag Team Country Whipping Match, the self-proclaimed “Voice of the WWE” Michael Cole would brag that he used to be a war correspondent, so he is not “scared” of facing the Hall of Famers in a Tag Team Country Whipping Match and calls Ross & Lawler “incontinent retirees”!

Then it was time for the Tag Team Country Whipping Match as the self-proclaimed “Voice of the WWE” Michael Cole, wrapped in bubble wrap for protection, would team with his trainer, “The All-American American” Jack Swagger to face Hall of Famers “Good Ol’ J.R.” Jim Ross & Jerry “The King” Lawler in a match where the four competitors would compete in the match like a normal tag team match, but both teams would be armed with their own leather straps! Shortly after entering the match for the first time, Michael Cole would dare Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler to hit the protected Cole with the straps and, with the straps not doing any damage to the bubble wrap covered Cole, Lawler would hit Cole with a right hand before taking the protective bubble wrap off of Cole! After being repeatedly assaulted by Michael Cole and Jack Swagger over recent weeks, Jim Ross would have payback on his mind as the Hall of Famer would whip Jack Swagger with the strap before locking in his own ankle lock, leading to Swagger making the tag to Cole! Jim Ross would then pick up where he left off on RAW as Ross would whip Cole repeatedly before locking in his ankle lock again, but a distraction by Swagger would allow Cole to get a roll-up on Ross to pick up the surprising win!

After being assaulted by Cody Rhodes time and time again over the inadvertent steel knee brace to the face that left Rhodes in need of reconstructive surgery, Rey Mysterio would be looking for revenge before heading to his new home on RAW as “The Ultimate Underdog” would face Cody Rhodes in a Falls Count Anywhere Match, where pinfalls count anywhere in the arena with no disqualifications and no count-outs! After fighting around the ring, through the crowd and in the backstage area, the match would conclude in the middle of the ring as Rey Mysterio would spew a green mist into the eyes of Cody Rhodes, which would allow Rey to hit the 619 and follow it up with a splash to pick up the win!

Backstage, Layla confronts the RAW and SmackDown Divas and apologizes for all she has done to the Divas before Kelly Kelly tells Layla that they don’t like Layla, but they like Michelle McCool even “less” before wishing Layla luck in her match!

After their partnership and friendship completely fell apart over recent weeks, one member of the team known as LayCool would be forced out of the WWE as the former friends would square off as Layla would go one-on-one with Michelle McCool in a Loser Leaves WWE Match with no disqualifications and no count-outs! At one point in the match, Layla would look to have the match won after hitting the Lay Out, but Michelle McCool would manage to get her foot on the rope, allowing the match to continue! Shortly after this, Michelle McCool would hit the Faith Breaker on Layla, but a weakened McCool would be unable to go for the cover right away, which would allow Layla enough time to recover and counter a pinfall attempt by McCool into a roll-up to pick up the win, preserving her career and forcing Michelle McCool out of the WWE!

Things would then go from bad to horrible for Michelle McCool as, with McCool crying in the ring over being forced out of the WWE, Kharma would come for Michelle McCool as the gargantuan Kharma would march to the ring to confront a fearful McCool as the gigantic and unbalanced woman would get her hands on the former Women’s & Divas Champion as Kharma would drill McCool with a double underhook facebuster before laughing maniacally as the rest of the Divas watch what could be their future from the backstage area! Can any Diva stop this unreal threat to the Divas division? Who will Kharma target next?

After Edge was forced to relinquish the World Heavyweight Championship a few weeks ago due to his retirement, SmackDown has been without a World Heavyweight Champion, but that all could change as Edge’s best friend, Christian, would compete in his specialty, a Ladder Match, against the biggest acquisition for RAW in the 2011 WWE Draft in “The Mexican Aristocrat” Alberto Del Rio and, if Del Rio wins the vacant World Heavyweight Title, he will take the title with him to RAW! After going to war with countless ladder shots and failed attempts to claim the World Heavyweight Title, Alberto Del Rio would look to finally finish Christian off with Christian lying prone on a ladder bridged from the ring apron to the announce table as Del Rio would dive off of the top rope, but Christian would move out of the way, resulting in Alberto Del Rio going crashing into the steel ladder! With Alberto Del Rio down on the outside, Christian would look to finally claim the World Heavyweight Title belt, but Del Rio’s protégé, Brodus Clay, would come out and would try and take Christian out, but Christian would use a steel step ladder on Clay, taking Clay out of the equation! Having recovered from his spill to the outside, Alberto Del Rio would re-enter the ring and would use the steel step ladder to add extra torque to the arm of Christian with the cross armbreaker! With Christian down, Del Rio would look to claim the World Heavyweight Title, but with the title belt moments from being in his grasp, a car horn would blare throughout the arena as former World Heavyweight Champion Edge would roll in in a Jeep as the horn would distract Alberto Del Rio long enough for Christian to knock Del Rio off of the ladder on top of Brodus Clay and Ricardo Rodriguez as Edge rushes down to ringside to cheer his best friend on as Christian would ascend the ladder and finally grasp the World Heavyweight Title belt to achieve his lifelong dream to become the World Heavyweight Champion, prompting a celebration between friends as Edge congratulates the new World Heavyweight Champion, Christian!

With Superstars and NXT Rookies, including former champions and Corre members Heath Slater & Justin Gabriel, surrounding the ring, Corre members Intercontinental Champion Wade Barrett & Ezekiel Jackson would be looking to do what Slater & Gabriel could not as Barrett & Ezekiel would challenge Kane & Big Show for the WWE Tag Team Titles in a Lumberjack Match! During the match, Ezekiel Jackson would look to have things well in hand for his team after managing to hoist Big Show up and deliver a scoop slam, but Wade Barrett would opt to tag himself in and would look to outdo Ezekiel by attempting to hoist Big Show up for Wasteland, but Barrett would not be able to lift “The World’s Largest Athlete” and Big Show would deliver a chokeslam to Barrett and, as Ezekiel watched, Big Show would pin Barrett to successfully retain the WWE Tag Team Titles for himself and Kane! After the match, all hell would break loose as all of the lumberjacks would brawl in and out of the ring with Heath Slater & Justin Gabriel finding themselves in the ring with Kane & Big Show as the WWE Tag Team Champions would plant the Corre members with dual chokeslams!

Then it was time for the main event as the self-proclaimed “most must-see champion in WWE history” The Miz would defend the WWE Title against former WWE Champion John Cena and “The Prince of Parkour” John Morrison in a Triple Threat Steel Cage Match, where the match can end by pinfall, submission, or escaping the cage with both feet touching the floor! During the match, John Cena would look to have the match in hand after locking in the STF on The Miz, but Miz would use the bottom rope to choke Cena, forcing Cena to release the hold as Miz attempts to escape through the cage door, but Cena would prevent the escape! Shortly after this, John Cena and John Morrison would battle on top of the cage and, after Morrison would kick the steel cage door into the face of Miz to prevent another escape, Cena would knock Morrison off balance, leaving Morrison split on the steel door before Miz would drag Morrison back into the cage! Later on in the match, John Morrison would start to escape the cage, but with Cena and Miz getting to their feet below, Morrison would opt to dive off of the top of the cage with Starship Pain to both men and, with all three Superstars down, Morrison would slowly climb to escape the cage through the door, but R-Truth would rush out would deliver a knee to the skull of Morrison, compacting Morrison’s head between his knee and the steel steps! Truth would then enter the cage and would pummel John Morrison in the corner before the unbalanced R-Truth would even deliver the Axe Kick to John Cena! Truth would then turn his attention back to Morrison as Truth would plant Morrison with the What’s Up before symbolically climbing over the top of the cage and dropping to the outside! With both of the challengers down, The Miz would climb the cage, looking to escape and retain the WWE Title, but John Cena would meet Miz towards the top of the cage and Cena would fight his way out of an attempted Skull Crushing Finale off of the top rope by Miz and would deliver the Attitude Adjustment off of the top rope en route to pinning The Miz to finally win the WWE Championship for the first time in almost a year!

Scientists Attempt to Crack Secret Code of the Axolot

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 07:00:00 +0000

The axolotl is one of a kind in nature: It can regenerate severed limbs, organs and even grow back its spinal column after injuries. At a new research center in Hanover, Germany, researchers are trying to unlock the Mexican salamander's secrets -- and whether they can be applied to humans.

HAPPY DIWALI AND A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR TO Y OU & YOUR FAMILY

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:39:00 +0000

A simple Puzzle for you & your kids

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 08 May 2009 11:08:00 +0000

Here is a puzzle for you ...

Imagine you are in Africa. You have been tied hanging on a tree with a rope anchored on the ground, a candle is slowly burning the rope, and the lion is waiting for you to drop and be his lunch.
Your survival hinges on the rope staying intact, there is no one around to help you. What to do now ..........

Puzzle

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 08 May 2009 11:07:00 +0000

Sing a Happy Birthday song for the lion ...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 06 May 2009 09:17:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:31:00 +0000

Masala Dosa Personality Test

There are many ways to eat a masala dosa ..What ever the way one eats; there is a very good reason for doing that. It shows some traits of the person that is you...

Case 1: People who open the masala dosa and eat it: These are the people who are very open about their life. Everyone one the persons friends would know all about him/her. I have generally seen guys do this rather than girls. Some people think that it is a gross way of eating but in truth, these people are just portraying who they are and how their life is.

Case 2: People who start from both end and approach the masala later: These are the people who like to wait for the exiting things to come to their life. Sadly when the times comes, they are not too interested or just do not know how to enjoy it to the fullest. These are the folks who just want life as either dry or exiting. They just do not know how to phase their life and enjoy it no matter what. There are two types of people within this group

Case 2.1: People who do not finish all the masala: These folks just do not care as much for the fun times as they are already brought down by the harsh reality of life. The dry periods in their life has left them with so much scars that they do not want to be really happy when the time is right. They just take only as much as they needed and end their life. A very sorry state indeed.

Case 2.2: People who finish all the masala with the little dosa they have: These are the folks who just are the extremes. They just go all out in life. No matter it is dark or bright. They may not enjoy life to the fullest but they sure make sure that they get every single good and bad thing out of life. Sometimes these folks are really hard to get along with. They are either your best friends or your worst enemies. They do not have a middle path at all.

Case 3: People who start from the middle and proceed to both ends: These are the people who like to get right to what they think is their best part of life. Usually these guys finish of the good portions in a hurry and get stuck with nothing but worst parts of their life. The thing to note among these people is that the tendency to burn out very early in their life. Like the above case, there are two kinds of people in this group too.

Case 3.1: People who do not finish the dosa: These folks are really the saddest of people. They are the ones who tend to end their life as soon as it hits the bad patch. For them, they only need and want the best things in life and nothing more. Typically, they are not prepared or tuned to life as a whole. They just want to enjoy from first till last. Sadly, no one in the world can live without even an ounce of sadness in life. Not even the richest of the richest. But to self destruct at the mere sign of distress is very bad. That is what these guys tend to do. Some learn to live life but most of them do not.

Case 3.2: People who do finish the dosa: These folks are the typical human beings. We all enjoy the greatest of times in life and push the sad parts thinking about the great times in life. Typically the plate is clean and nothing is left for fate or in life. Happiness and sadness are part of life and these guys know that and are kind of prepared for it. Life is not always happy but there are moments of happiness here and there.

Case 4: People who eat the dosa making sure that the masala lasts for the whole dosa: These people are very rare. These are the people who like to attain balance in their life. It is hard to displease these people and it is hard to make them really happy. They like their balance and are very protective of it. Sadly these are the people who tend to be lonely as anyone else may upset the balance of their system... Perfectionist to the core and are very careful. These guys do not make the best company but are needed in any group to make the group from going hay wire.

Case 5: People who do not share and eat the dosa as if it is precious: These folks are very protective about their life. They do not want anyone to come and interfere in their life. They like to hide their true nature and intensions for their benefit. Beware of such people as they are in every group for their own need and nothing else.

Case 6: People who offer their first bite to others: These guys are overly friendly. They do anything to be part of a group and make everyone feel like the group is important than the individuals. They are the glue that holds any group together. They are very friendly and bring the best of all the others in the group. They go out of their way to help other friends. Most groups should have a person like this and they are the ones who plan the group outings and other group activities. Once this person is out of the group, typically the group slowly falls apart.

Case 7: People who take one or two bites and then offer the dosa to others: These guys care about friends and friendship but they take their time to get into the group. They take their time in making friends and they typically are very committed once into the friendship. These guys like to always be in the side lines and typically do not jump into anything in life. They always take their time to analyze the situation and then make a decision. These guys take the better safe than sorry approach.

Case 8: People who wait for others to make the offer first: Typical people I must say. They are unsure about everything. Even if they wanted to offer, they will wait till the other person offers the food first. If the other person is silent, so are these people. They are the followers. They do terrific idea, they will pitch it to someone else and get their advice before proceeding. Sadly, most of the elderly world like these types of people.

Case 9: People who offer dosa only when they cannot finish it on their own: You all may be familiar with these kinds of people. People who are very generous only when all their needs are fulfilled. These folks are selfish but at the same time not misers or greedy. They just want to satisfy themselves before they give it to the world. They typically do not stuff themselves nor do they tend to starve. They are very good people who would give you the best of advices in life. They would make sure that you are not sad following their advice.

Case 10: People who offer the whole dosa and eat from others plates: These folks are other extreme. They know what they want, they get what they want but they cannot enjoy what they want. Instead they tend to settle for other things in life which satisfies the needs but does not satisfy the person completely. These guys are termed as born losers cause even when they have the thing they wanted, they can't stop others from stealing it from them. So next time you sit with a person eating a masala dosa, look closely and see if he falls into one of the above categories. You may be surprised as how much it reveals about the person

* Enjoy eating Masala Dosa.

Watch the rare wonders of nature…….

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 09:32:00 +0000

Watch the rare wonders of nature…….

The classical natural wonders are huge and hard to miss - vast canyons, giant mountains and the like. Many of the most fantastic natural phenomena, however, are also least easy to spot. Some are incredibly rare while others are located in hard-to-reach parts of the planet. From moving rocks to mammatus clouds and red tides to fire rainbows, here are seven of the most spectacular phenomenal wonders of the natural world.

1) Sailing Stones

The mysterious moving stones of the packed-mud desert of Death Valley have been a center of scientific controversy for decades. Rocks weighing up to hundreds of pounds have been known to move up to hundreds of yards at a time. Some scientists have proposed that a combination of strong winds and surface ice account for these movements. However, this theory does not explain evidence of different rocks starting side by side and moving at different rates and in disparate directions. Moreover, the physics calculations do not fully support this theory as wind speeds of hundreds of miles per hour would be needed to move some of the stones.

2) Columnar Basalt

When a thick lava flow cools it contracts vertically but cracks perpendicular to its directional flow with remarkable geometric regularity - in most cases forming a regular grid of remarkable hexagonal extrusions that almost appear to be made by man. One of the most famous such examples is the Giant's Causeway on the coast of Ireland (shown above) though the largest and most widely recognized would be Devil's Tower in Wyoming. Basalt also forms different but equally fascinating ways when eruptions are exposed to air or water.

3) Blue Holes

Blue holes are giant and sudden drops in underwater elevation that get their name from the dark and foreboding blue tone they exhibit when viewed from above in relationship to surrounding waters. They can be hundreds of feet deep and while divers are able to explore some of them they are largely devoid of oxygen that would support sea life due to poor water circulation - leaving them eerily empty. Some blue holes, however, contain ancient fossil remains that have been discovered, preserved in their depths.

4) Red Tides

Red tides are also known as algal blooms - sudden influxes of massive amounts of colored single-cell algae that can convert entire areas of an ocean or beach into a blood red color. While some of these can be relatively harmless, others can be harbingers of deadly toxins that cause the deaths of fish, birds and marine mammals. In some cases, even humans have been harmed by red tides though no human exposure are known to have been fatal. While they can be fatal, the constituent phytoplankton in ride tides are not harmful in small numbers..

5) Ice Circles

While many see these apparently perfect ice circles as worthy of conspiracy theorizing, scientists generally accept that they are formed by eddies in the water that spin a sizable piece of ice in a circular motion. As a result of this rotation, other pieces of ice and flotsam wear relatively evenly at the edges of the ice until it slowly forms into an essentially ideal circle. Ice circles have been seen with diameters of over 500 feet and can also at times be found in clusters and groups at different sizes as shown above.

6) Mammatus Clouds

True to their ominous appearance, mammatus clouds are often harbingers of a coming storm or other extreme weather system. Typically composed primarily of ice, they can extend for hundreds of miles in each direction and individual formations can remain visibly static for ten to fifteen minutes at a time. While they may appear foreboding they are merely the messengers - appearing around, before or even after severe weather.

7) Fire Rainbows

Amazing Facts

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 11:49:00 +0000

A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue. i know some people who can do some amazing stuff too.
Giraffes have the same number of vertebrae in their necks as humans. Their lips are prehensile, their tongues are 21 inches long, and they cannot cough.
Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying
Galileo became totally blind shortly before his death.(probably from looking at the sun too much)
As of 14.10.2003, only 0.6% of people actually sign the guestbook. Its true. Over 120,000 visitors. Yes, the statistic did go down.
Goldfish have the memory span of about 3-5 seconds, thats why you can leave them in a small jar and they wont get bored and you can also over feed them till they kaput.
If you leave a goldfish in a dark room for years, it will turn white. (be reminded of the RSPCA though)
A pregnant goldfish is called a twit
If you rubbed garlic on the sole of your feet, it would be absorbed and eventually show up on your breath (unsure)
If all the gold in the ocean were mined, every person on Earth would get about 20 kgs of gold each. Thanx clem
When glass breaks, it showers TOWARDS, not away from the force that broke it. To reiterate, I will repeat it again one more time, to recap, TOWARDS the force, not away.
People drank gold powder mixed in with water in medieval Europe to relieve pain from sore limbs.

Indians have a reason to cheer - OSCAR

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 06:50:00 +0000

The Indian Oscar

Unlike the earlier Oscars this years Oscar gave lot to rejoice for Indians. A bunch of awards for Slumdog Millionire and Smile Pinky in short documentary section. ‘Smile Pinky’ is a 39 minute-long documentary about a cleft-lip girl and her struggle for joy in an alienating society. Though both the films, Slumdog Millionire(Danny Boyle) and Smile Pinky( directed by Emmy-nominated producer Megan Mylan), the film crew contains mostly Indians.

A R Rahman got 2 oscars for Slumdogs music(best original song(Jai Ho) and original score). Kerala born Resul Pookutty bagged Oscar in Best Sound Mixing category for his work on Slumdog Millionaire. Pookutty hails from Vilakkupaara in Quilon district, Kerala.

READ THE STORY OF A R RAHMAN ... CILCK HERE

THE OSCAR LIST

Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire

Best Actor: Sean Penn, MilK

Best Actress: Kate Winslet, The Reader

Best Director: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire

Best Original Score: A.R. Rahman, Slumdog Millionaire

Best Song: A.R. Rahman for Jai Ho penned by Gulzar Slumdog Millionaire

Adapted Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire

Best Cinematography: Anthony Dod Mantle, Slumdog Millionaire

Best Sound Mixing: Resul Pookutty (India), Ian Tapp and Richard Pryke Slumdog Millionaire

Best Film Editing: Slumdog Millionaire

Best Short Documentary: Smile Pinky

Best Foreign Film: Departures (Japan)

Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight

Best Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award: Jerry Lewis

Original Screenplay: Dustin Lance Black, Milk

Animated Feature Film: WALL-E

Animated Short Film: La Maison en Petits Cubes

Makeup: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Costume: Michael O'Connor, The Duchess

Art: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Animated Short Film: La Maison en Petits Cubes

Live Action Short Film: Spielzeugland (Toyland)

Visual Effects: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Sound Effects: Dark Knight

Smile Pinky

The documentary is about a six-year-old girl born with a cleft-lip in the far-away Mirzapur. The poor girl is shunned and ostracised by the society, while a surgery to get rid of the deformity is out of question.

Made in Bhojpuri and Hindi, the film is directed by Emmy-nominated producer Megan Mylan, and also talks of Ghutaru, a similar social outcast due to his facial deformity.

The curing surgery is simple, but seemed out of bounds until Pankaj, a social worker travelling village to village, crosses their path. The film was shot in the village and G S Memorial Plastic Surgery Hospital where Pinki was actually operated by plastic surgeon Subodh Kumar Singh.

Resul Pookutty

The name Resul Pookutty has become almost synonymous with sound direction in Hindi films, especially after the success of Sanjay Leela Bansali's `Black.' Resul was recently in Thrissur in connection with the second Thrissur International Film Festival.

Resul hails from Vilakkupara in Anchal in Kollam district and it was fate that landed him in tinsel town, that too in Bollywood movies.

Joining the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune "was a turning point in my life." Resul passed out from the Institute in 1995 and moved to Mumbai, the dreamland of Indian commercial filmmakers.

"That was a natural immigration as a graduate of the institute. Ninety-five per cent of the technicians of the Mumbai film industry are alumni of FTII, Pune," points out Resul. "After my graduation from Pune, my interest to specialise in sound became clear, and today I feel I am successful, both aesthetically and commercially," he says.

Importance of sound

Until recently sound artistes were merely considered as sound recorders without much significance in the industry, but Resul's generation totally changed it into sound direction. Rajat Kapur's `Private Detective' was his maiden work and after that his career graph accelerated. His recently released films include `Black' and `Mathrubhumi - a national without women' by Manish K.J. (this film, an Indo-French venture, eamines the issue of female infanticide). `Missed Call' by Mridul Vinay and `Mixed Doubles' by Rajat Kapur will be released soon.

SOURCE:THE HINDU

AR Rahman's Journey to Oscars

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 06:26:00 +0000

The Mystic Master

Music and spiritual surrender are the two big themes of AR Rahman’s life. As he returns with the Golden Globe, SHOMA CHAUDHURY explores how the public gift and private search intersect to create magic

BEFORE THE gift, there was the prophecy. After their first child — a girl — was born, an array of astrologers told the disappointed Tamil music composer, RK Shekhar and his wife Kasturi, that they would soon be gifted with someone extraordinary: a son whose name would illumine the world, a musical genius whose soul would arc across the sky.

Dileep Kumar was born just over a year after on January 6, 1966. The name — AR Rahman, mysteriously wrapped in instant and acetylene fame — would come later, but by the time he was three, the signs were firmly in place. He was, indeed, the fortunate one: he could play the harmonium before he could speak; and soon after his birth, his father inexplicably began to prosper. The word spread. His sister Kanchana, the elder one, music coursing in her blood too but born without prophecy, remembers her father taking the little boy to Sudarshan, a reputed music director, when he was four. “I hear your child can play anything,” Sudarshan challenged him, “let’s see if he can do this.” He played a particularly complex piece, then covered the harmonium with his veshti to make the playing more difficult — a kind of surrogate blindfold — and handed over the harmonium to the young boy. The calm little boy executed it perfectly. Humbled, Sudarshan leapt up and embraced the child.

The virtuosity has never abated since. On January 11, 2009, watched by elated countrymen across the world, Rahman became the first Indian to win the Golden Globe — a coveted precursor to the Oscars — for his musical score in the acclaimed Hollywood film, Slumdog Millionaire. This may be just one more crest in the stream of awards and recognitions that have lapped around him — a Padmashree, four national film awards, 12 Screen awards, 21 Filmfare awards, among innumerable others — but the excitement around the man Time magazine called “the Mozart of Madras” has never been higher, his name never more luminous.

In Chennai though, away from the champagne speeches and applauding lights of Los Angeles, a more profound underlayer of Rahman’s music reveals itself. It is three days after the award, the maestro is yet to come home. The city is unusually quiet; the shops are closed, the roads are empty. It is Pongal and everyone is on holiday. Rahman’s studio — AM Studios — the most state-of-the-art, hitech studio in all of Asia, usually bustling with dozens of musicians and directors and sound engineers, is empty too. The four-storey white and lilac and parquet building has the aura of a prayer house, zinging with the vibration left by an intense concentration of human energy. In the heart of the studio is a large room that can host a 30-piece string orchestra. Facing it, in a glassed-off control room sits a massive mixing console — a Neve 88R, estimated to cost Rs 4 crore — a console with such a daunting array of knobs it could tune the universe. Elsewhere in the building, small soundproof rooms house gleaming pianos, synthesisers, violins, harmoniums, and drums. In a large, airy room on the roof, instruments of every conception sit waiting for the imaginations that will finally unlock their sound.

A world to win A visbily moved Rahman accepts the Golden Globe award
Photo HFPA

The silence is a kind of serendipity: it allows one to sense what very few people know. Rahman’s music — always new, groundbreaking, wildly intuitive, experimental, a kind of sound that masters of cinema craft like Baz Luhrmann, Shekhar Kapoor and Danny Boyle say “they had never heard before” — is deeply rooted, in fact, “sourced”, from Rahman’s idea of divinity.

When Rahman, or Dileep as he was known then, was nine, the radiant prophecy seemed to falter. His father, Shekhar died suddenly — on the very day his first film as a music director was released. The golden circle was breached, the family was devastated. Kasturi was certainly overworked, and insufficient sleep had precipitated her husband’s cancer. Although her sister and parents were part of the large joint family, there was no one to turn to. It fell on mother and son to find the money to keep the family together.

Rahman remembers it as a difficult, opaque time when there seemed to be no answers. His mother made some money by renting out musical instruments, but by the time he was 11, Rahman was more often out of school than in, repeatedly called away from the playground by his mother to record music for a fee. It should have felt like an escape: he was never particularly interested in school or playground games, for that matter. In fact, he had such low attendance and marks, he was asked to leave his first school. He went to another local one for a year, and then joined MCC. Barely a term in, when he was about 15, he gave up school altogether. He played the piano and guitar on television shows, and became a sort of “roadie” with different Malayali, Tamil and Telugu composers. For a year, he played with the celebrated Iliayaraja. It should have felt like an escape, but it didn’t.

Kanchana says her brother wanted to be an ordinary boy — sleep late, play carom — and used to resist being woken at seven by his mother to practice the piano. But the mother, fervently knocking at temples, churches, and mosques, was determined to refuel the prophecy. Suddenly, around the time he was 11, destiny came knocking again. The family met Karimullah Shah Kadiri, a Sufi pir (at a railway station, goes the apocryphal story). Karimullah foresaw the boy’s entire future and said Dileep would come to him in 10 years. “That was the turning point,” Rahman admitted in a rare moment of candour to a CNN interviewer. “Everything happened as he said it would.”

ON HIS music teacher John Jacob’s insistence, Dileep applied for a scholarship to study music in Trinity College, Oxford — a crucial interlude that exposed him to western classical music. In 1987, around the time he was 21, moved by everything that had happened to them — dreams, oracles, signs — Dileep, his mother, and two younger sisters converted to Islam (Kanchana would convert a little later).

Two years later, in 1989, he set up Panchathan Record Inn in his backyard — the foundation stone was laid by Karimullah Shah — and began to make jingles for ads. In 1991, legendary director Mani Ratnam took a chance on the untested youngster and invited him to score the music for his new film, Roja. With the divine assurance of a prodigy, Dileep proceeded to break every rule with his debut.

Family man Rahman, seen with wife Saira Banu, wants to spend more time with his children
Photo SHAILENDRA PANDEY

Now, on the eve of Roja, seven new names were offered to him: Dileep chose Allah Rakha Rahman, the first of the 1,000 names of Allah. Soon after, Roja was released, and as the pir had prophesied, the Isai Puyal — “musical storm” — AR Rahman was born. Wrapped in instant and acetylene fame.

Like other prodigies across time who have bent the arc of history, Rahman’s debut track was unlike anything anyone had heard before. It sent ripples through the industry and got Rahman the National Film Award for Best Music Director, the first time ever for a firsttime film composer. In 2005, Time magazine picked it as one of Top Ten Movie Tracks of All Time. “Rahman is like a weaver. With Roja, he created this incredibly intricate, complicated sound that no one had ever tried before,” says lyricist and friend Prasoon Joshi. “The Indian music and film industry had always relied on extraordinary melodies and singers, the mukhara and the antara. But Rahman played with the structure, he layered the melody with different strands of sound, he created spaces where one could listen to a single string or enjoy a beat before returning to the voice. He created a river with many side streams you could step into. It was unlike everything that had gone before.”

Over almost two decades since, the experimentation has never stopped. Director Rakeysh Mehra likens Rahman to the great Chinese travelers of 2,000 years ago, who wandered the world gathering influences from faraway lands. Western classical, Indian classical, reggae, hip-hop, rap, rock, pop, blues, jazz, opera, sufi, folk, African beats, Arabian sounds — there is nothing Rahman has not dared to meld together. No new voice he has not dared to use. No texture of sound he has not strained to perfect. The stories are legion. Of how he got Maryem Toller, a Canadian, to sing the hit song Mayya, Mayya, itself triggered by the sound of a man selling water, saying mayya, mayya — Arabic for water — overheard on a Haj trip. Of how he got R&B singer Ash King from the bylanes of London to sing Dil Gira Dafatan for the forthcoming film, Dilli 6, although King didn’t know a word of Hindi, just because he liked the texture of his voice. Of how he spotted Naresh Aiyar, who had been sidelined by judges like Adnan Sami in a Channel V talent contest, and picked him to sing the sublime song Ru ba ru. Of how he spotted Blaaze and Sukhwinder and Madhushree and Vijay Yesudas and scores of other new voices he has launched in the world. Of how he took 17 years to give his sister Kanchana — or Raihanah, as she is called after her conversion — a song of her own in the blockbuster Sivaji, because her voice finally matched the sound playing in his head.

The stories are legion; what is less known is Rahman’s understanding of his own gift. Unlike Mozart, the legendary giant TIME magazine compared him to, whose creative genius seemed to flow from some mercurial, manic yet sublimely flamboyant ego, those who know Rahman say he has absolutely no ego. A little like the shy Srinivasa Ramanujan, the untutored mathematical genius from Chennai who believed his prodigious acumen was channeled to him by his family devi, Namagiri, apparently Rahman too believes he is merely an instrument. As director Shekhar Kapoor puts it, “Rahman does not believe music resides in him, but that he sources it from a field of consciousness that exists eternally. He believes that to access or to be able to reach that ‘field’ you need to be very pious. I believe as long as he continues to believe the music is not his, that he is merely the conduit, he will have no limitations.”

The search for piety — the complete purity that will keep him in touch with his music — has meant a kind of twin journey for Rahman. On the one hand, there has been an ever amplifying outward honing of craft, a restless search for new stimuli, a mastery of technology, a constant self-education, a perfecting of the conduit. Parallel to that has been an ever intensifying private inward journey towards submission and surrender to the will of God — a destruction of ego, an effacement of self.

At the heart of this journey are two figures. Arifullah Mohammad al Husaini Chisti ul Kadiri — son of Karimullah Shah, no more than in his 20s or 30s, who took his father’s place as Rahman’s spiritual teacher after his death. Said to be descendants of Hazrat Mohammad, Arifullah’s dargah in Karrapa sharif, Andhra Pradesh, is both pilgrimage and refuge for Rahman. ‘Malik Baba’ Rahman calls him. AM Studios, set up in 2005, is probably named after his initials — Arifullah Mohammad — an educated guess, because even many of Rahman’s closest associates say they don’t know what the initials stand for.

God is music Rahman, seated at his piano, believes his creativity is divinely inspired
Photo SANJAY GHOSH

(My brother is the most secretive man in the world,” laughs Raihanah. “If I ask him for a house, he will give it to me. If I ask for a studio, he will give me one, just don’t enter mine, he will say.”) But an observant eye cannot fail to miss it. A small picture of Malik Baba adorns the entrance to the studio that hosts the tuning console for the universe. There are curious palm-marks in auspicious chandan on many windows and walls — quiet signs of faith.

RAHMAN IS the most spiritual person to ever touch my life,” says Mehra. “He has zero ego, there is no ‘I’ or ‘me’ in him.” “It is true. He has a surreal influence on people,” agrees Deepak Gattani of Rapport entertainment agency, who constructs most of Rahman’s extravagantly mounted concerts and has been a friend for 16 years. “He has taught me there is more to life than we normally see. He never has knee-jerk responses to things.” “He is sent by God, kudrat ne unko banaya hai,” says singer Kailash Kher, who has toured with Rahman often. “One day you will see him in Los Angeles, standing with people like Weber and Boyle and the owners of Fox. The next day he might be sitting in a dargah among fakirs and dervishes.” “His spirituality is not something others can understand,” says his sister. “I am in complete awe of him. He is a blessed thing. God considers him a special child. He has surrendered totally — every move, every action, every thought is surrendered to God.”

This surrender has taken many forms. Absolute simplicity. Frequent visits to dargahs. Generous alms to the poor. Sleeping on bare cement or sand if necessary. A sublimation of material desire not related to music. (Rahman apparently loved cars, but never drove anything fancier than an Innova until he finally indulged in a BMW last year, 18 years after monumental commercial success.) Sometimes, for others, the forms of surrender have seemed more irrational and inexplicable. For instance, his daughter was born with a hole in her heart, but Rahman refused to have her operated. Prayers, he believes, can change destiny, so he surrendered to the healing faith of his pir. Miraculously, his daughter was cured when she was two.

(“God always looks after him. It is uncanny. What others have to knock for just comes to him,” laughs his sister. Press for examples and she says facetiously, “You might be traveling abroad and desperate for some good hot food. People like us will have to worry about going out in the cold, catching a taxi, finding a place. But Rahman will just be sitting and praying and then, suddenly, someone will come and ask him, what would you like to eat? North Indian or South Indian?”)

But in other cautious snatches from friends respectful of Rahman’s desire for privacy but willing to share their marvel of him, slowly a small trickle of illustrations pile up. Gattani talks of an unexpectedly stormy night in Bangalore. Thirty thousand people are gathered in the Palace Grounds. Rahman’s pioneering Three Dimensional Concert — staggering in scale — is about to start. A sudden squall catches everyone unaware. The backdrop collapses, the grounds flood. Amidst the panic, an unperturbed Rahman locks himself in his green room for half-an-hour. When he emerges, he tells his associates to ask the crowd what they want — have the show or postpone it. Have it, they say. On cue, the rain stops, the songs roll out. Just as Rahman sings the last bar of Vande Mataram, it starts raining again. “It was astonishing,” says Gattani. At other times, when an important decision is to be taken, Rahman retreats into himself and says he will ask for “permission”. A couple of days later, depending on how the divine consultation has gone, he calls back with either a refusal or a go-ahead. Take his most cherished project — KM Conservatory, for instance, a pioneering school of music he has dreamt of for years. Initialed after the elder pir, Karimullah? Again, no one knows. For a long while, there was talk of partnering with the government. Finally, Rahman said he would seek “permission” for the partnership. It did not come and Rahman went it alone — funneling huge sums of personal money and passion to start the conservatory on his birthday last year.

Malik Baba is the most visible manifestation of this surrender. It is to him that Rahman turns to most. Often, to a critical eye, such faith can seem to skate precariously close to subjugation rather than creative surrender. But it seems to work unerringly for Rahman. “Everyone may not understand it, and it may not work for everyone,” says superstar Aamir Khan, “but Rahman is a very spiritual person, and in a curious way, his complete surrender to his faith opens him up completely. It frees him to work.”

The other figure key to Rahman’s journey is his mother, Kasturi — or Kareema Begum, after her conversion. “Amma”, as she is universally known — a jovial, quintessentially motherly figure — has remained a powerful leitmotif in Rahman’s life. “Their relationship is like the bhakt for his bhagwan,” says Kher. He follows her wishes with unquestioning faith — “aastha” is the evocative word he uses. “If she had asked him not to go to LA to receive the Golden Globe and go to a dargah instead, I am sure he would have done it.” She, in turn, is affectionate, solicitous, the keeper of the prophecy, often traveling with Rahman on his tours abroad. Ask her about her son and she says, “He prays five times a day. He is Allah’s gift.” “Old worldly” her elder daughter calls her, momentarily dismissive, and through the crevices of the brisk praise that follows, you catch a glimpse of the inevitable shrapnel around a blessed sibling — the mistakes of a conservative family, the unintended but painful eclipses, the little neglects, the big oversights, the sisters unconsciously less precious than the boy. “We were there, somewhere in the atmosphere,” jokes one of them.

The foundation Mother Kareema was determined that her son should become a musician
Photo SANJAY GHOSH

BUT NOW it is the fourth day after the award, and late in the evening. The maestro has come home and the driveway to his house is swarming with waiting journalists. There is a comforting smell of incense in the air. The windows in his reception are curtained with white veshtis, carpets adorn his walls. It is a decorative detail repeated in all his buildings.

The Panchathan Record Inn — Rahman’s private studio, his sanctum sanctorum — is a lush, comfortable room draped in rich red curtains, alternated with white. Computers, consoles, instruments and hi-tech gizmos strew the room like books might in another’s study. It is past midnight before we meet; a journalist’s deadline looms over the meeting like a vengeful shadow and in an unfortunate inversion, Rahman is game for a long conversation, but I am in a hurry. The encounter is briefer than it should have been. Still, none of the conversations around him has prepared one for the man himself. Neat, boyish, he is incredibly youthful, light-hearted — calming in an odd way — and disarmingly open. Every account of him has steeled one to meet a man of few words — the secretive brother one has to tease things from. Instead, Rahman is willing to talk about everything. And is, often, unexpectedly funny.

As we retrace his life, it is suddenly cast in more complex light than music, prayer and simple surrender. “I did not convert overnight, nor did anyone force me,” says Rahman.

“It was a long process. I was really intrigued by the whole Sufi thing and had gone very deeply into it, puttingx aside three hours every day to learn Arabic. I was drawn to Sufism because they have no regulation, no rules, no distinction between Hindu-Muslim — they just look straight into your heart and see your love for the auliyas, the noor of the Prophet.”

THE SURRENDER, too, has a complicated relationship with the music. “When you are in a creative field, particularly something like film or music,” says Rahman, “you can be tossed between highs and lows, good reviews and bad reviews. To maintain equilibrium, you have to detach yourself and abandon yourself merely to the service of music — look at it all from a different perspective. For this, the destruction of the ego is very important. At the same time, there are ironic counterpoints. If you don’t have an ego you can switch on and off, you cannot make music, you cannot do something extraordinary. You have to be committed to the idea of excelling the standards you have set yourself, fulfilling expectations. So, there is a good ego and a bad ego. Something like music also draws you away into another energy field — money, fame, women. For a long time, these impulses used to pull me in separate ways — the desire to renounce and the desire to achieve. You can never perfect these things, but finally now, I feel I am walking in sync, with both impulses hand-in-hand.”

Over the years, Rahman admits to many moments of stasis and saturation — phases when he felt enough is enough, he had done it all and would like to renounce the world. Each time, he laughs, something would come and uplift him, raise the scales. When Roja was offered to him, he was fed up with everything he had been doing: the jingles, the recordings for other music composers in Malayalam, Telugu and Tamil. “I revered Mani Ratnam and it was my dream to work with him. I thought this would be the last soundtrack I would make, so I just did what I pleased. I wanted to have fun. There were no walls in my head, no limitations. All the young people were listening to Western stuff those days, even me, so I thought, what’s the problem, are we not experimenting enough? And I let myself go.”

THE INSTANT and meteoric success brought its own counter stasis. “I thought, this is it,” says Rahman. “I have won the National film award, now I can just live off the earnings of my studio.” But then the excitements and challenge of the Hindi film industry came calling. Rangeela first; then a flood of other Hindi films. When the stasis of that threatened, there was the spike of Elizabeth, Bombay Dreams and Lord of the Ring. The western world came calling. By the time that threatened to pale, the KM Conservatory had been born, and Rahman’s Foundation Against Global Poverty — committed to eradicating poverty in India, Africa, and now, he chuckles, even America. “With all of this, I struggle less with the desire to renounce. I have found new meaning, a new sense of duty towards living, not only towards these projects, but to my wife and kids, and even my music. I see music now as being all about love, a service to humanity — it is about sharing joy with fellow human beings,” says he.

For many years, Rahman’s family — wife Saira Banu, daughters Kathija and Raheema, and son Rumi, were rarely seen publicly around him. “I plan to take them around with me much more now,” says he. “Be it in my studio, my tours abroad, or on my spiritual journeys. I don’t want them to feel separate. My father was such a huge influence because we were always around him. Without him, there would have been no music in our life.”

Typical of Rahman, his encounters with the western world too have yielded deeper things than success and awards. “After my first National Film Award, the Golden Globe has mattered the most to me because I wanted to bridge that vacuum — the fact that no Indian had won these international film and music awards. But as an individual, there is only so much of fame you can take in. Very quickly you detach yourself from it, you are only there as a representative of something else, not as an individual.”

What the forays into the western world have yielded for Rahman then is an expanded consciousness. “When I went to London first for Bombay Dreams, I was living isolated in this house, making music, meeting nobody. I used to pray five times a day and try to keep my fast. All around me were these pubs and drunk kids would piss under my window. Each time I went out, I would come back and bathe. But slowly I realised love can transcend all these segmental issues. You need to find a larger perspective which bridges all these worlds — west and east, Muslim and non-Muslim, or whatever else divides us.”

Bridges — that is an apt metaphor for Rahman and his music. In a jostling, frenetically commercial world — brimful of quick encomiums and sudden deaths — it has become difficult to gauge the true merit of things. Is Rahman the Mozart of our times? We may not be sure yet, but of this we can be certain: his music offers a way to bridge that huge void between the known and the great unknown from which earthly beauty stems.

A BLOCK AWAY from Rahman’s home, his new sense of “duty towards the living” is illumining a new generation. As the maestro was flying back across the continents with the globe — literally — in his hands, on the day of the Pongal holiday, you could have chanced on a handful of young boys and girls on the first floor of AM Studio. Students of Rahman’s dream project, the music school, KM Conservatory, they pored over their computers and music sheets. Occasionally, the strains of music wafted out from adjoining practice rooms. It would be difficult to find a more eclectic group: Anurag Sharma, 16, had given up on school and traveled with his mother (another keeper of prophecy?) all the way from Delhi to rent a room in Chennai for the opportunity of studying music in Rahman’s school. Ashrita Arockiam, a 23- year old post-graduate in English from Hyderabad, was straining to put together a scholarship to study music abroad, when the opportunity to do a similar course suddenly bloomed on home ground. Saurav Sen, 32, a computer engineer from Kolkata, gratefully gave up his job, and exchanged it for a year cocooned in music.

mix of foreign and Indian faculty, exposure to Western and Indian classical music, training in music technology, and a chance to workshop with many of the great musicians across the globe is only a part of the grooming the students from the Conservatory get. Three of the 40 chosen for the full-time foundational course — all of them had to audition before they were selected — are already apprenticing with Rahman. “We put together a concert every week,” says young Anurag, “whenever he is here, Rahman sir sits in on the session. It is amazing to be able to do that.”

But before the stasis of this can set in, a new scale is waiting for Rahman: the dream of creating India’s first symphonic orchestra. “We are a country of a billion people, bursting with talent,” says he, “why doesn’t India have a single orchestra?” KM could well be the womb for that. And in nurturing all of this with love, he might finally overcome the difficult opacity of his own teenage years.

Comedy at its Best

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 09:36:00 +0000

Facts of Life

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 09:23:00 +0000

No piece of normal-size paper can be folded in half more than 7 times.
The first product to have a bar code scanned was Wrigley's gum.
Earth is the only planet not named after a pagan God.
A Boeing 747s wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight.
The new 787 Boeing was revealed on 7/8/07 or July 8th, 07.
Adding a drop of olive oil and lemon juice to an ice cube then running it over your face gives you better results than some expensive skin care products.
The Germans tried to copy Coca-Cola and came up with the drink Fanta.
Every day is about 55 billionths of a second longer than the day before it
Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
The largest potato was grown in Lebanon by Khalil Semhat near Tyre. The spud was 11.3 kilos (24.9 pounds)
Footprints of astronauts who landed on the moon should last at least 10 million years since the moon has no atmosphere.
The national orchestra of Monaco (a nation in Europe) has more individuals than its army.
Earthworms have five hearts
The Himalayan gogi berry contains, weight for weight, more iron than steak, more beta carotene than carrots, more vitamin C than oranges.

You have to be at least 58.5 inches to be an astronaut. (Click here)

Unique animals. Hippopotami cannot swim (ppl have said that a hippo can swim, but i dont think its classified as swimming. I'll check), whales can't swim backwards, tarantulas can't spin webs, crocodiles can't chew and hummingbirds can't walk

Ants

Ants make up 1/10 of the total world animal tissue
An ant can survive for up to two days underwater.
The animal with the largest brain in proportion to its size is the ant.
Ants dont sleep. Thanx teepo (apparently noone can be sure since they don't have eyelids, they also have no need for sleep)
Ants taste like sweet tarts. (from experience..)Thanx RiffSingr

Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.

The weight of air in a milk glass is about the same as the weight of one aspirin. (But one also wonders how big a milk glass is... anyone?)

The gases emitted from a banana or an apple can help an orange ripen. (Not sure which fruits are concerned).

Adolph Hitler was a vegetarian, and had only 1, and i repeat, ONE, testicle.

Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones were once roommates. Thanx Rebecca

Australia is a major exporter of camels

Australia has no native monkeys. (in the wild)

Australia's box jellyfish has toxins more potent than the venom in cobras, and is one of the most dangerous jellyfish in the world

Apparently 1/3 of people with alarm clocks hit the 'snooze' button every morning, and from 25-34 age group, it is over 1/2. (r u 1 of them?)

Hans Christian Anderson, creater of fairy tales, was word-blind. He never learned to spell correctly, and his publishers always had errors

On average, Americans spend about 6 months of their lives waiting at red traffic lights

There is air in space, but very little of it. In fact, it is equivalent to a marble in a box 5 miles wide. Most of the gas is captured by the gravitational pull of other celestial bodies.Thanx M.Lerner

Abdul Kassam Ismael, Grand Vizier of Persia in the tenth century, carried his library with him wherever he went. Four hundred camels carried the 117,000 volumes.