A random youtube browsing led us to discover the full series of the epic Indian TV show 'Mahabharat'. I was very much fond of this series when it used to get broadcast every Sunday years ago. So I could not hold my breath and started watching the series.
The Pandavas went to the forest after loosing the dice game for the second time to Durjodhana and his gang. One day they were very thirsty and the eldest brother Yudhisthira ordered the youngest one, Sahadeva to look for some water. Sahadeva found a lake but before he started drinking water from it, he heard a voice from within the forest: "You cannot drink the water without answering my questions". Sahadeva ignored and died as soon as he drank the water. The other brothers and Draupadi were anxious at the delay and Yudhisthira ordered the second youngest, Nakula to look into the matter and also bring some water. Nakula found the same lake and faced the same incident. He died too. In the same manner, other two brothers Arjuna and Bhima lost their lives.
Now Yudhisthira went to the place and found the dead bodies of his brothers. He also heard the voice that announced: " My dear Yudhisthira, I am Yakshya, the owner of this lake. Your brothers did not bother to answer my questions before drinking water from my lake. Hence they died. If you don't answer my questions you would face the same fate."
Yudhirthira did not ignore the Yakshya and answered his questions successfully. Yakshya was very happy.
At his moment, before Yakshya could announce Yudhisthira's prize there appeared a female voice:
"Congratulations! You have been selected to win a free apple i-Phone".
A flash ad on the website!
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Saturday, July 19, 2008
The lady at the toll plaza
I just returned from an unbelievably bad Hindi movie show at an equally bad (to a good approximation) movie theater in Virginia. For those who might want to learn from our mistake, it was 'Kismat Konnection'. Except for a very few isolated comedy scenes my poor senses found nothing interesting to see or hear.
It was a late night show and our plan was to have food from a well known Indian restaurant on the way and then go to the movie hall. We were keeping a tight schedule and my friend driving his new Camry was bitching about Virginia roads for not-very-clear directions and frequent toll plazas.
We feared that we missed our desired Exit and decided to ask somebody in the next toll plaza about the correct directions. Fortunately the next toll station was not very far ahead and moreover it was not an all-automated one, we found a probably-Indian lady to help us!
My friend asked: "Excuse me, did we miss the Exit no. 10?".
The lady looked at my friend, started a word or two in English and then continued in Hindi: "Aap Exit 10 miss kar chuke ho, saamne Exit 8-se right le lijiye." It seemed she was feeling happy to find a few Desi people and speak in Hindi.
My friend continued but looked so puzzled. He asked me: "Did you understand what she said? Was that Hindi?" My poor Tamil friend!
It was a late night show and our plan was to have food from a well known Indian restaurant on the way and then go to the movie hall. We were keeping a tight schedule and my friend driving his new Camry was bitching about Virginia roads for not-very-clear directions and frequent toll plazas.
We feared that we missed our desired Exit and decided to ask somebody in the next toll plaza about the correct directions. Fortunately the next toll station was not very far ahead and moreover it was not an all-automated one, we found a probably-Indian lady to help us!
My friend asked: "Excuse me, did we miss the Exit no. 10?".
The lady looked at my friend, started a word or two in English and then continued in Hindi: "Aap Exit 10 miss kar chuke ho, saamne Exit 8-se right le lijiye." It seemed she was feeling happy to find a few Desi people and speak in Hindi.
My friend continued but looked so puzzled. He asked me: "Did you understand what she said? Was that Hindi?" My poor Tamil friend!
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Space between two molecules
I have been thinking about what I should write in my first blog for last few hours. Some of the topics I started writing about were too serious for a first write-up and hence I aborted them. I was trying to remember back old days when I used to write random incidents in my diary. Here I start with the following.
Two years back, when I was at TIFR, Mumbai I attended a seminar on Physics education by Prof. Jyotsna Bijapurkar of HBCSE. She was talking about a study conducted by HBCSE on a class of around 35 students who were taught school level Physical sciences. After each session they would often get a quiz set. It was quite amazing to learn about all sorts of different answers from them. In fact the purpose of the study was to learn about the difficulties in understanding certain concepts of Sciences. On one occasion, the students were taught about the concept of constituents of matter like atoms and molecules. The question was: what is in between the gas molecules in a jar of gas (say Carbon di-oxide)? There was an accompanying diagram showing few Carbon di-oxide molecules in the jar.
The answer of the majority: 'Air' !!
Two years back, when I was at TIFR, Mumbai I attended a seminar on Physics education by Prof. Jyotsna Bijapurkar of HBCSE. She was talking about a study conducted by HBCSE on a class of around 35 students who were taught school level Physical sciences. After each session they would often get a quiz set. It was quite amazing to learn about all sorts of different answers from them. In fact the purpose of the study was to learn about the difficulties in understanding certain concepts of Sciences. On one occasion, the students were taught about the concept of constituents of matter like atoms and molecules. The question was: what is in between the gas molecules in a jar of gas (say Carbon di-oxide)? There was an accompanying diagram showing few Carbon di-oxide molecules in the jar.
The answer of the majority: 'Air' !!
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