This world can be shaken by the presence of Shakti. Shakti is the force that is latent within women. I don’t mean that in a way that symbolises lust, but that the divine energy of bringing forth power of birth. To intitate that catalyst reaction lies with the man. But the caring and nurturing can only be done by the woman. I firmly believe that women are a species that demand respect for what they have to go through. No more so than the Mother.
It is the reason why your mom’s food is always the best, it is laden with the love that Shakti can bring forth. The only other Shakti that can “shake” up your world is the presence of the pro-creator Shakti. But how important a role does she play in the role of the man?
The saying or Sloka goes “Mata, Pita, Guru, Daivam”. That means Mother, Father, Teacher, God I humbly salute you. There is no mention of Wife, Brother, Uncle, Aunty etc. What does that mean? Does it try to signify the fact that one can learn to be content with only those 4 influencing factors? Or is it flawed?
I mused about it for a while and I believe that there is the overall picture that is being represented while people get lost in the details. Mata symoblises the birth, the mother, the womb that protects you, nurtures you and molds you. The Pita deals with the father symbol, the one that keeps you firmly grounded, that teaches you to follow in the manly way, to “lead” the energy, to be the initiator or the catalyst. These 2 are the foremost energies that one should pay their respects to.
What people don’t realise though is besides the Mother every other energy or being can be substituted by any other form. To put it simply, it means somehow who teaches you the way of the Man canbe your father. The way of Knowledge can be taught by anyone thus forming the Guru. The Devam or divine aspect is the ideal that you lean towards and forms ones ultimate aim and desire and an end to the goals.
Various cultures pay ode to the Shakti force in the same way. It has the power to domesticate, the urge to slow you down and “nurture” your life. It is the balancing force. It is the reason why Yin and Yang are always found together. It is the reason why Shiva’s Linga is always on a mount or a womb of creation. Without Shakti there is no completion.
To Shakti, I pay my humble homage and my respects. This is a series of Hindu related learnings I wish to write down in my search for learning the scriptures and slokas to which I have been born into. I believe the natural transgresion of this would be my search for the meaning of God. The meaning of Life in its infinite complexity. I hope you enjoy the articles and I look forward to hearing what you have to say.
I haven’t . I would love to be a part of their team and did apply, but I haven’t heard from them. They say that if you don’t hear from them in 4 weeks, you can consider your application rejected. Now there are a couple of reasons that might be the reason, but more or less I think it’s about having specific skills but not limited to that domain. Here’s a piece of the interview that I read today with Samwise Didlier (he’s the pro who made all Starcraft and Warcraft 3 characters we have come to love).
Karune: So, how would you recommend that other people, like artists, get involved in the video game industry? Or just getting involved to become artists, you know, full time?
Samwise: Right. Well, for getting into the industry, I would totally recommend taking any kind of courses in Max or Maya or any other 3D programs because that’s how games are made now. Unless you’re doing Flash-based games, you know, stuff like that, you’re going to be doing 3D. So get involved in that. Even if you’re just a concept artist like some of the guys on our team, we really want guys that can do, a variety of things. Like our concept artists on our team, we can all model, we can all texture. We may not be as kick-butt as some of the Blizzard cinematics modelers, of course, but all the characters in StarCraft II are made by our concept guys and our texture guys and stuff like that. I guess another thing too would be try to be really well-rounded. You know, a lot of places just want a guy who’s a texture artist and all and that’s great but, if you can, if you’re just a texture artist but then you can also model stuff and texture your own things, then, all of a sudden, you’re worth more. Like “Man, we can count on this guy to do whatever.”
That’s the secret. That’s what I am going to work on this year of rediscovering talent. There are 3 designers who I know in real life that have impressed me a lot and hopefully someday I can make stuff that’s worthy of their attention. Check them out - Naina, Nikux, Dubey.
I met Naina like once in Gurgaon but was very impressed with her work on Design. She has a great blog and keeps spamming twitter and facebook all the time, so you can’t really miss her ;).
Nikux, is a junior who studied with me in IITK, there is only one word to express his skill :- Wow. I remember us putting together a poster for our gaming tournament and I sat 2 days with him. I had to pay up in icecream and canteen treats, but you should have seen the poster that came out of the lad. Fantastic. I wish I get a copy of it from somewhere.
Dubey’s the guru of everything photoshop. I have been bugging him to get me started on learning photoshop and design in general and I think he’s really got it into him to convert his fantastic talent of photography to something in Design. You should seriously check out his photographs, guys a pro !
I was surfing one of the channels on Youtube that I subscribe to and I came across this great tip.
Follow these instructions to get the best quality out of my videos:
1. Click on the HD button once it is available (takes about 20 minutes after the video first shows up on Youtube).
2. If your computer can handle HD video, type the code “&fmt=22″ at the end of the web address for the video and hit enter. You’ll now get full quality, 30 frames per second…it’s AMAZING!
If your computer cannot handle HD, then type the code “&fmt=35″ for a non-HD version, also with great framerate. Enjoy! Thanks darksydephil
That’s right. My brother decided to opt for the erstwhile G1 Android developer phone and I was left with this shiny showcasy “digitial media” equipment. Sure I heard the buzz around and everyone seems to have an iPhone so I was kind of cussing since I had my eye set on the Nokia E71.
What a f-in fool I was to think that.
The iPhone is perhaps the single best piece of Hardware I have ever possessed. There is such beauty and elegance to it that it wants to make me cry. I have the 2g 16gb version, which I think is far better than the 3g Version and since I am going to be in India for sometime, there is really no need for me to rush to get that version. The peeps in India are slow when it comes to the net.
In the next 5 days I spent with the iPhone I learnt all about Jailbreaking, why should one jailbreak the phone, getting SSH installed and running a remote telnet login into with WinSCP. Most of these things are common place to hardcore users, but to someone like me who has never gotten that techy with hardware, there was a certain elation when I got things working.
I now have the pdf reader app called Docs installed. I have the latest version of Installer (which I don’t think is all that hot) and most important three great apps called
Cydia - for running all your customisation needs and especially useful because it’s maintained really well
Facebook - cause we have to you know? This is a fantastic app for facebook and has so many features.
Twitterific - this seriously is far better than the mozilla extensions.
I am currently looking at the Air Sharing app for reading pdfs because the ad in the Docs app is annoying after a while.
I also learnt that all ringtones are stored in the .m4r format and all video files in the .mp4 format, so I have to get most of my videos converted. But with this beautiful machine, I can’t have asked for a better thing to pass my time with. If you need any help with your iPhone 2g, drop me a comment or hit me up in the email and i’ll do my best to help and perhaps learn from you too.
Most of the apps that I get are downloaded from the iTunes software. You basically register a login/password first. Then download the app you want and while synching the iPhone you basically choose to synch and then you have it installed !
I would have to give mad props to Cydia and BossPrefs, 2 apps that has made my life SO much easier than before. I’d also have to believe in that nothing cannot be done if you are willing to spend the time and not get frustrated by what you see. It also helps that there are cool friends to help you out as well.
Kage is now iPhone powered yo.
Everyone reading this can drop in a birthday wish to my younger brother Kaushik who celebrates his birthday today (20th March). Fine young man like his elder brother this lad is. So I got together some pals and this is what they had to say (click link for bigger pic)
I know it’s been a long time and many great people have mentioned that I shouldn’t start with an apology. So I wont.
I’m working on a couple of things, one of them is finding out the goal or the direction to do what it is i want to be recognised as/with. It pains me to see that half competent nincompoops making their way to millions of dollars with half the talent that i possess. That’s not an arrogant statement or a boastful one. It is to say that there is a missing thing in me that these people have. While we are on the same field as far as “raw skill” goes and even more bestowed in some areas, the primary reason I am not doing what I am doing or you aren’t taking that next step is because you are afraid.
What if you give up that cushion of comfort and be pushed into the unknown? Can you handle the fear of losing everything? I used to think dictums like “when you have lost everything you have nothing to lose so go on etc”. But that’s not really my problem. My problem is I am unable to zero in on that particular thing or skill I want to do and want to achieve greatness is.
So how do you determine that?
What I have done is to list my passions in order to find some sort of confluence or congruence in the patterns while extending it to find a fit in an industry that can pay. All talk is cheap when you don’t get some monetary benefit. You don’t have to work ONLY for the benefit, but you do need some healthy sustenance once in a while.
I have been doing a lot of soul searching and for some reason I’m not able to target down a list of 2-3 items that I want to be the best at. So once that is done, I should hopefully write a lot more on that topic, but for now I’ll leave you with some great career advice from Scott Adams.
I recommend a general formula for success. Allow me to explain.
If you want an average successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths:
1. Become the best at one specific thing.
2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things.
The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. Few people will ever play in the NBA or make a platinum album. I don’t recommend anyone even try.
The second strategy is fairly easy.
Read the rest of this gold post here.
by KG on February 9, 2009
I know, the title is weird, but there are things that are starting to grow on me in this place. It cannot just be one of the best sandwiches in the world called Felafel, that’s doing me in. You might call it falafil, filafil, feelafil.. it doesn’t matter we know what you mean and we know what your stomach’s seen.
To quote Wiki,
Falafel is usually served in a pita-like bread called Arabic bread, either inside the bread, which acts as a pocket, or wrapped in a flat bread. In many countries falafel is a popular street food or fast food.
This sandwich is made up of a paste called homoos that’s basically a chick peas crushed paste that is the closest to culinary heaven that you will visit. Seriously, take it from a foodie like me, the things you take when you are stranded on a lone desert are some french fries and falafel. This is what it looks like.
That being said though, the Diet coke in this country sucks. The taste is downright weird and doesn’t have that taste I have so often visited in the afternoons after lunch. I am starting to miss that but the rest of the stuff here more than make up for it. Where else can you readily get a Moleskin book just blocks away? The internet gaming here? Costs only 80 Rs for 3 hours. Isn’t that awesome? I can’t help wishing I land up with something here during my studies as well. I also found a really good blog that follows the stuff in Kuwait in 248 AM, thanks to my brother who pointed it out to me. It’s run by 2 lebanese people who are married and have a good sense of humour. Also an iphone and a free trip on Wataniya Airways! And it’s really good to have a conversational blog style and the first blog where pink as a color is acceptable, that must be the doing of Nat no doubt, but I hope I can get to meet these cool folks some day. Ok I am heading back to finish the rest of the sandwich.
by KG on February 8, 2009
If you exhibit particularly masochistic tendancies and are seeking ways to fulfill those desires, let me introduce you to the world of Squats. I have been doing the strong lifts program for 2 weeks now and I can definitely see some changes and yesterday I tried to up the scale by taking in more weights than usual for the squats. Bad - F*in - Mistake. While you are eager to push yourself to the limit and want to ape the 300 pound gorilla squatting next to you it is wise to know that you can only do so much at a time. Take it easy and do it slow, but be steady.
Squats are a sexy exercise to get your blood pumping and if you add a paratha your mom cooked one hour before you do them, then not only do you get the “pump” in your intestine, you want to literally “puke your guts out”. But be strong. Use the toilet when at home, at the gym there’s no excuse for being a girl.
by KG on January 31, 2009
Sometimes hitting the gym is near impossible. For some reason this is so true in India, you JUST don’t want to go hit the iron. Whatever the reason may be, but I’m here in Kuwait and it’s totally awesome going to the gym. I know I have only been to the place for a week, but I’m working on it and spending an hour at it. So often you want to slack especially after the first day where after you do the squats, every fibre of your being aches in agony and the only thing you want to do is die. But you live. That’s what successful people do, they push that extra mile to get the task, no matter what it takes. And you got to do that. Because Fitness and Body building are about 2 things.
Mental strength and Physical Strength.
Mental Strength means having the toughness to push every nerve and sinew that extra rep till the body wants to die, and then you push one more. Whatever workout you do , the first few reps are the warmup those don’t hurt because the body is used to doing that much work, it is safe, at home. Well you got to kick it out, throw it out in the harsh wild where you step it up, but it’s not masochistic torture that I urge you on to. I ask you to just take it one step higher like I am trying to do. If you do 12 pushups easily, then aim for 15, when you reach the 15th one, push one more for 16 today. Try 17 tomorrow and slowly get it up to the number you desire by setting a goal. The euphoria in achieving that extra pushup is something everyone has to experience for himself (read Fantastic).
Physical strength means your body is “Strong”. Not “Showy” but strong. You don’t need 100 veins popping out and be a stiff hulk if you can’t even run fast or bend down and touch your toes or lift your leg high up. The key word is Flexibility, you have to maintain that. That’s one of the reasons I have Arnold as my mentors, he’s a guy who not only used mental toughness to carve his body but also had a very “strong” composition often winning the worlds strongest man competitions in Austria. His counterpart however had the bulging muscles but couldnt touch his feet nor move fast enough. That’s crap, in the real world you got to be able to move fast, think fast and be quick on your feet.
So anyway this post is inspired by something my friend Saran pointed me out to. Read through it and be inspired and here’s to your good health for 2009.
I asked one question: “What do people who make successful physical transformations all have in common?”Here’s what they told me.
by KG on January 26, 2009
So I have been fooling around the website Face Your Manga. Head on here and get your own avatar. Here’s what mine and my brother’s look’s like. Heh don’t we look similar? I think we do.
This gives a lot of fun things to do.
