India smoke map

A few posts back, I had mentioned a Nasa picture showing smoke from wood and dung chip fires hanging over north India. I finally got around to it and dug it up from thr NASA website. You can see the smoke stretching from Punjab to bihar in the picture.

The red dots are actual fires. These are the fires lit up in Punjab after harvest to clear the fields. An amazing picture to put things in perspective.

Ice cream at india gate

Over the last couple of months, I have become a Delhi-wala. One of the
things that you just have to do to earn this distinction is to eat
icecream at the India gate at midnight.

It used to be a grand sight a couple of years ago, with the India gate
lit up at one end and the grand rashtrapati bhavan on the other end.
It's probably a good thing that they have stopped lighting up The
monuments these days, but it definitely does take away a bit of charm
from the whole exercise.

Yet, not to be denied their pound of fun, people still flock to the
ice cream wala's . It Was the begining of the long weekend so whole
families with children in tow were walking in the grass along the
rajpath.

Great fun it was till cops came along and shooed off all the icecream wala's at midnight. A most recommended activity - eating icecream at the India gate.

Chandni chowk

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In the lanes that join or leave chandni Chowk in Delhi, lies a whole another world. As you enter these lanes, thew buildings close in on you and mostly illegal wiring closes in a net on your head. Yet inspite of this, you can still see the original latticed work on th balconies and grills - an indication of possibly better dyas in the years gone by.

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The red fort

Had gone to chandni chowk at Delhi a couple of days back with Jayati .
The atmosphere out in that part of the town is amazing. Gorges
ourselves on the food out there like 'Dahi wada' and jalebi etc and
even has boondi is ladoo at a shop that's been around since the early
1700's.

Great fun it was except for the fact that
Had gone there on a very distracting work. I think I'll have to go
there again one of these days again. Atleast to take a somewhat decent
picture of the red fort.

The roadside shop

This is a picture of the part of the shop where I bought the glass
thingy yesterday. There so Many amazing picture frames being sold
there for less than a dollar each, that I Couldn't resist a few days
back and picked up about half a dozen of them.
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I have now been put under restraining orders by puja not to approach
within twenty feet of another frame selling shop.
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Today's buy

Bought this piece in a flea shop on mehrauli- Gurgaon road. They were
asking for 300 Rupees for it, but I managed to haggle it down to 100
rupees ( a little more than 2 USD) .

I'm still not sure what practical use it might be put to, but i'm sure
we'll think of something!

Nizamuddin railway station

Reached Delhi pretty much on time to complete the trip.

This grafiti was painted near the car park.

Good morning

The train crossed bhopal and Jhansi in the night and we Passed mathura
about 0630 hrs. The train is still about half an hour late, so I
should be reaching about eight.

As I stood in the doorway I could smell the smoke off the wood fires
and the cowdung chips. I remember seeing a NASA picture showing the
whole of the north India covered in the smoke off these fires.

Ghodadongri

The train barely stopped here at the small station of ghodadongri.
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Sitting in an airconditioned compartment distances you from whatever
is going on outside and I miss the feel of the smells and the shouts
of porters at the way stations and the hasty negotiations on the cost
of poha or a plate of samosas purchased through the Window. And I miss
the rush or wind in the face from the endless Indian plains and the
metal shutters that had to be dropped down when it rained in the
middle of the night.
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I remember that a train journey used to be accompanied with a strong
iron smell that would permeate every cloth that you wore. I just don't
get it anymore. Must be all those years of sailing on rustbuckets that
killed my iron smell.
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Amla station

Free kick on the train

I wouldn't have believed it unless I saw a picture. :).

Has anyone ever heard I this brand? Apparently it is made by the
premanchal breweies in distt. Raisen (MP)

iPhone app tryout- the writepad

Travelling by train does give me enough time to waste and I was not
going to let the opportunity go to waste .

I had uploaded the writepad APP from Prasad on my iPhone and was
determined to See how it would work . I must declare right away that I
have nothing against the keyboard of the iphone . Its just that using
the finger to do the writing Seemed to be a neat alternate to have at
my fingertip :)

As Such I have used it to type this Post and must Say that I am rather
impressed with the result. Though I have taken the better Part of an
hour to get these words out , the Progress toward the end was Much
faster , with me belting out upto three small words at a time .

The hand gestures Such as for return or for space are easy to remember
and once you get used to the app, rather fun. Getting the long words
out is still a challa nge , but Somet{in g I will hopefully get
better at :]

-- This message was composed with PhatWare WritePad 1.6.

Sent from my iPhone

Train trip

Off on another train trip. This time on the gondwana express (2409),
from nagpur to Delhi .

Have armed myself with a tiffin box, and collection of hemmingway and
laxman stories and some optimism.

Happy travelling!

Happy gudi padwa

Happy new year to all.
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iPhone 3.0 vs android

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A few days back Ajeet sent me the comparative table of the iPhone
firmware versions and the android.
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I'm not sure where he got it from so can't give proper credit for it.
But 3.0 does promise to be a pretty neat jump ahead. And once the apps
around the 3.0 come out in iTunes, the iphone should be an all new
playing ground. :)

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