A poem

While shuttling between office & home, I found an interesting stuff in London tubes; bunch of poems- worth reading & remembering. Every tube train has at least one poem besides their inside ads . I'm not sure if they're some kind of sonnets or what. Though the max journey lasts for about 10 minutes or so they made me to ponder over their meaningful words, thought provoking lines. Mostly they're hatched-around the themes of living, desire, hopes of London life.

Check this interesting poem I saw in one of the tubes between Waterloo & Canary wharf. It captures the true mascara of London & its fast paced life.
Optimistic Little Poem

Now and then it happens
that somebody shouts for help
and somebody else jumps in at once
and absolutely gratis.

Here in the thick of the grossest capitalism
round the corner comes the shining fire brigade
and extinguishes, or suddenly
there's silver in the beggar's hat.

Mornings the streets are full
of people hurrying here and there without
daggers in their hands, quite equably
after milk or radishes.

As though in a time of deepest peace.
A splendid sight.
This is what I found about these poems in internet:
"Poems on the Underground, founded in 1986, is supported by London Underground, Arts Council England and the British Council, which distributes the posters to its offices throughout the world. Poems are selected and the programme administered by the writer Judith Chernaik and poets Gerard Benson and Cicely Herbert."

Gizmo de K800i


A new induction into my gizmo squad. I just upgraded from Nokia 6600 phone to Sony Ericsson K800i. I bought this cute piece in UK for 232£ (6£ more for Vodafone connection) Though there is no hard & fast reason to ignore N70 (Music edition) this time, what brought me back to SE is, benevolent service of my initial phone T610. I suppose, except for minor set-backs T610-is 'what the phone can be' even now. But times have changed & my preferences too...I think my inclination is more towards a ease-0f-use, easily accessible menu system, non-hanging intuitive space, uncluttered interface, ultra clarity, & not a symbian phone again please...

I had i-Mate or Dopod PDA in my mind. But me being the hard user, wear & tear of these smart phones in my hand is pretty fast ;) Still there's lot to go for me to become a blackberry user & use smart phones with stylus. For me using stylus- is certainly a difficult task than becoming a CEO to use Blackberry :) The final contender for this times cell phone selection was Moto Ming, the cutest phone on the block , but again the stylus came on the way!

Reloading in London


It's like a dream come true: I'm in London. Have seen it in movies, have read & heard a lot about it in school days, media & publications. But there's nothing like being myself in London :) It's the place of wonders if you're here for the first time. It's my first trip to UK from my Indian office.

Got to experience this lovely place especially between- Feb to March- the perfect blend of sunshine, winter winds & romantic drizzling time. It's awesome experience being here in this lovely post-winter season. To add to the elegance, my home is just on the banks of river Thames, Dock land. The first view out of big window is mild waves, floating ducks on river Thames. There's a silent street just besides my bed room window: I hear no sound of traffic or heavy horn even though good number of vehicles move everyday. Rarely I here a roaring sound of suzuki hayabusa or honda 1000CC bikes slicing the wind & disappearing in just a minute.

Wet pavements say 'hi' to me in the morning; revealing their dawn romance with mild drizzling. I can feel the freezing wind gushing into my nostrils. It seems like inhaling cool air having menthol mint :)

Initially it was like 'waking up from a sweet dream & finding it in reality :), But life is slowly moving into calm pace between busy Canary wharf & Elephant Castle tube stations. This underground tube station is a big wonder for me when I keep hear: Devegowda making big noise about small metro project in Bangalore !

I remember desktopping dashing car wallpapers erstwhile. I'm seeing those cars live on the streets of London now a days. Wanna see best of the best cars? come to London. It's eye-treat watching a sexy Ferrari just besides you on the road. Open-top or double-decker buses are nearing extinction in Bangalore ? come to London, they are fad here.

I remember this phrase time & again here: ' People makes societies, not governments'

| More to come, more to write on this lovely place. |

Earn out of Flickr.


When I meet my photographer friends, one topic is pretty common while we hang around. At least one among us wanna upgrade from point & shoot digital camera to DSLR. Someone wants to mount new macro or wide-angle or some other lens on existing gear. Point is same: more the addition, more the flexibility & power to photography thrust !

End of the day, hobby remains adept. But what do you earn out of these heavy priced gizmo's unless you use these gizmo's make some money out of it? At one point acquiring new gizmo's trend sooner or later turns out to be a tiresome spendthrift habit. one can argue, come on, when you intend to do anything for your own happiness- money is not a thing to count. Agreed. I believe, there should be certain source of income to feed the need to flex ones cam to mount lenses or to expand.

In midst of all these thoughts, I happen to see an interview with Kuwait based photographer Hamad Darwish, who was contacted by Microsoft viewing his photos in Flickr. It was interesting to note for me too, as we both share a common platform: Flickr.
Hamad Darwish might not be a household name, but if you use Windows Vista, then his work is on your computer. In fact, it might be even on your desktop right now! Assuming IDC’s predictions are accurate, then before the end of the year, up to 90 million people will have the chance to see Hamad’s work, and all he had to do was upload it to Flickr.