Me and My Muse

Monday, September 19, 2016

The escapist

To wander in the virtual realm of ether
Where intentions darken to singularity,

Dimensions are devoid of aftermath
It's meaningless to pursue life...
Perhaps lifeless to pursue the meaning

At the end sleeping awake
Dreams dissappear slow but steady, but surely

An escapist still lives on, inspite of hope and despair, an escapist will escape all feelings to stand up and fight till the next dusk



Tuesday, October 08, 2013

Our very own festivity of hues, lights and dance

The 'pujas' kicks off in style ...

Like always my wonderings never end... Is it promoting 'idol worship' or 'animal labour' or some other social evils?

Economically it definitely a mixed ripple across all 'Bongs' (I purposely use the term as as the term 'Bengalis' have been gulped down by cosmopolitanism back in 1982 or earlier) ... Well its another story.

The purchasing side of the economics, in this time of the year (or from couple of months back) is in a mood to splurge. And it does not stop with proverty. In its like 'drinking life to the lees' experience, to drop in the last penny for a few celebratable days of the year.

The selling side ofcourse, puts in but in terms of efforts. They gather whatever they get, in whatever form or quality and present infront of people (not necessarily customers), who most of the time are totally unsure about their need or credit-limit, for pounding on them. This cuts across clothes, food, gifts, sweets (yes somehow its different from food too) and everything else. I dare not forget convayance too, in a time when it premiums anywhere between 15-300 percent more in the city (oh the city here is called Calcutta, the very old English loving place - not nearly even the city of joy)

There remains millions if not more, forgotten and lost stories of sadness, remorse and loss. Which are either ignored as trifle or considered a blessing (in disguise of curse) by the ten-fold goddess.

It is mostly found that the concern of livelihood or well-being among the celebrating population (which engulfs close to all) is transformed into a surprising concern of showcase-ability or merrymaking to the limit, where the care for self enjoyment wins over all others. The social eyebrow is also remain un-raised in all such cases. This goes on again in all forms. Starting with the most competent traffic rulers. The simplest examples start from the heavily trafficked roads which hardly can remain on the verge of a collapse in other parts of the year and narrowed (if not completely blocked) but semi-permanent 'pandals' (temple look-alike tents). These structures vehemently block travel possibilities, at a time when vehicular movements (even for those who need it - like ambulances) are of utmost importance. The traffic situation prefers to allow such events with complete legal/political support and people are either dumb or mum  In fact any amount of grievance or complaints about such instances are considered as stupidity or party-spoilers.

The next most affected are people suffering from non-sound-tolerable diseases. The noise level of the city post noon starts from squeals of merrymaking to loud megaphone music. The average time to sleep shifts towards morning, for most of the crowd and so does these sound engines. The regulations, if at all in existence, are all on paper and seldom pops out of it. These couple of instances were just examples and not the end of the list.


[The journal is currently under composition]

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Friday, October 04, 2013

Dugga Dugga

Aaj shokaler brishti janiye gelo pujo eshechhey... 
Ghonta nei, dhak-dhol nei .. shudhui jhom-jhom-e metechhey
Jhom-jhom er suur eriye, ektu pothe egiye, aalo jodio berolo,
Tobey eki? tulor megh je kaalo, kash fuul jawl er tolay haralo.

Prithibi juurey lal hahakaar, maa er kaachhe lukiye rakhi
Amader 'sonar bangla' notun rong-e juure amra sukhei (bodhoy) aachi

A

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Monday, October 08, 2012

Morey Jaoaar Gaan


Keno osthir osthir e pipasha
Jani na e ki hingsha na hotasha
Obhishap gile birokti Ar byastota
Chhera bostar bostubaad ta
Aakkhep acid er jibon
Kichhu Hatchhanir prolobhon
Keno beche dewa okaron
Ochena joto aabhoron
Bishhash jeno Shudhu bondike
Kalo istofa e prithibir jomite
Bishree joto mostoker bomite
Chabuk marte marte morte

-A

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Tuesday, March 06, 2012

Illusion is reality

Illusion is imaginary
But it gives life, propels energy
Or sometimes, lets breathe
In the blissful shroud of ignorance and happiness.
In belief thus remains sanity (or a false sense of it)
And that is freedom of the heart
For when a soul strikes its course
It knows not why or how, except that it has to
Same for life, we know not the meaning
Or the reason of livelihood;
Of being born, eat, grow and die.
All but faith, a credence, a certitude
A feeling of 'Yes, what I think is true'

A

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Sunday, March 04, 2012

Anger

Wrath disturbs my thinking
Thunder frequents chaos
That day and today,
Tomorrow; may be forever
I remain angry like the storm

Silence disturbs my sleep
Close to hell, the red: close to blood
Home comes to hatred
Longing for the island without sun
Which remains dry like death

Breath disturbs my smelling
Smoke, smoked to burnt

-A

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Lost in time

During day I did not
Dusk brought night closer
And I gazed outside the window
Into the bewilderment

You smiled and asked 'Why?'
I don't recall whether I smiled
But I looked back, unscathed
Into the fanthomless darkness

The engine blew another siren
Foretelling the hour of uncertainty
We remained silent as ever
And the journey continued...

No one knows for sure
What happened that night
Or the next morning
But I lost You forever

-A

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Sunday, January 16, 2011

My photography blog

I announce the launch of my newbie photography blog:

It basically has shots now. More later...


-Arnab Pal

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Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Silent Delicacy

Just found a booming number of hits for RECEME in the past 5 days (2000+ hits).The obvious option was to google for “receme” detect my suspicion.

Here is what I found…

At least 5 top tech mags have listed/linked-to my project at code project:


http://www.dotnet-news.com/detail.aspx?ID=45918
http://www.elifemagz.com/category/application-software/programming/
http://www.dotnetonweb.com/dot-net-tutorials/c-sharp-tutorials/receme-remote-command-execution-through-email-exchange/
http://www.devasp.net/net/search/res/r354712.html
http://en.serialcoder.net/technews/RECEME+-+Remote+Command+Execution+through+eMail+Exchange.aspx

The original posted article resides here:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/applications/receme.aspx

-A

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Thursday, May 27, 2010

A little journey in the world of pictures


I'm Arnab Pal. I live in Bangalore, India with my wife. I was born (on March 14 1982), grew up and educated in Calcutta, India. I was there until 2001.
The first camera I touched was my Father's Yashica, when I was 15 or so. It was a film camera. An amazing experience, but I remember how in those days every shutter click was so costly and how we had to keep 10 albums in our old cupboard while still worrying about moisture and bugs to spoil the images.
My photographic experience almost came to a halt for 8 years after 2001 while I joined college in Nagpur (also in India). I did not take the Yashica. Somehow I bought a film fixed focus camera which worked for only a year.
The next camera (bought in August 2009, after a long pause), was again a low priced Kodak C140 (as I was short of money and badly needed one for my trip to Germany. With this I kind of had a hang of digital cameras and basic composition techniques. Though limited in features, it gave me some kind of content and motivation. I remember :p in a period of 4 months I had clicked more than 4000 photos. About 10-15 of them were keepable.
Came January 2010 and I got the hang of Canon's Powershot SX20. My sincire friend, Aninda Sadhukhan, bought it for me from the US (costed about 369 + 40 for accesories like bag, stand, batteries, 8GB card and reader, etc). I was in 2 minds when I bought it for me. I lingered around 1000D and 500D for quite some time. In fact I had almost bought 500D as the cost of it was similar. Then popped the question of lenses. My nearest photo guru, motivator and friend, Sayantan Debnath, told me that I would have to invest in lenses sooner or later.
I laugh at my thinking at that time. I did not know, what a lense is and how I needed it once I bought a DSLR. The lack of funds forced me to buy the SX20. And now almost 5 months with it which makes life pretty simple.
SX20, qualifies as a super-zoom 12meg camera I would say. I carry it always, though its heavy, and occasionally get paid, in moments, for my labour of carrying it. And now I am in Germany again. But I dont have enough chance to travel like last time. So the SX20 just sleeps all day in my backpack, unless once in 2/3 days while I just try a hand at some landscapes / moments.
This provokes me to talk about the SX20 (though I dont know its okay to talk about it here). SX20 is a decent camera. Atleast for low -budget-high-expectation-people like me. It has 20X optical, though I am upset with the degraded sharpness at increasing zoom. At 20x (560mm equivalent) it is terrible. So I dare not use it these days much. At 1X(28mm equivalent) its good but again the sharpness at long distances in landscapes is crappy. I had tried all hyperfocal and other tricks but it just doesn't work.
Another depressing thing about this camera is its control of manual focus. The Manual focus control is a small wheel behind the camera which is sometimes more sensitive and sometimes not. May be I am slow too to decide on a good focus while using it. The visibility is also difficult. There is a small part in the screen which widens to show the the actual focus. But I still need a lot of practice to make the focus decision. Also the fact that once the camera is switched off all manual settings is gone (no prefocus etc).

Canon has tried to make the SX20 with basic manual controls;
a) DOF setting (min 2.8 and max 8.0) you can set this by selecting the round dial on the top of the cam to 'M'/'Av' and then 2 clicks on the middle button behing the camera and then turn the small wheel round
b) Shutter speed (min 15s and max 2000/3200). Similar controls with 'M'/'Tv'
c) Manual focus (the auto focus system is really buggy unless you focus on really close subjects) For subject futher than 2-3 m the autofocus is always incorrect and immensely out of focus.
Thus, choosing manual focus is what I am forced to do mostly. I dont know if the SLR cameras has the autofocus systems better than this. The SX20 takes about 2sec to decide on the autofocus (the later the more prone to errors).
Sometimes I try to autofocus on a subject 3-5 meters away and check the distance. I get shocked to see the distance calculated is 50cm or so. Then I have to switch to manual focus -> zoom-in the subject -> and set the focus correct. To make things worse; when I zoom out again the focus re-adjusts again to something else. So I have to remember the zoomed in distance and then manually adjust the focus again (fro the 3rd time) after zoomout. I get irritated by all this. May be thats the price you have to pay for buying a PnS with some basic manual controls.

So here are the most important drawbacks I am struggling with everyday (help to overcome this; is welcome). And now I feel the SLR option would have been better :)
Dont take me wrong, I am in no intent to part with the SX20. It still serves a lot lot lot of purpose and is great for a PnS to have all this packed in a still so sleek body.
I post my pictures at
http://behind-a-shutter.blogspot.com/.

This post is originally posted here:
http://digital-photography-school.com/forum/general-chit-chat/3-introduce-yourself-463.html#post992572

-A

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