Netaji in Nagaland

I came across this TV report on IBNlive which brought back many memories. It was when I was a schoolboy in Nagaland. An aging Naga gentleman had mentioned seeing Netaji's INA march through his village. On seeing my interest he had sat down and talked long about those days. Netaji had come in from Burma with the Japanese. His eyes took on a gleam as he talked animatedly about the march of the Japanese, their food, their equipment and their medicine. The last had amazed the villagers. Apparently the Japs had a lotion that cured cuts in no time at all. The villagers had benefited well from Netaji's march passing through. And he was definitely left in awe!

Our cuties

Fischer Lovebird pair for Jr

Music aficionado

Never too soon to start!

Dirty Business

At the Childrens Park Sandbox.

And now

And now, originally uploaded by stacktop.

In the previous post I'd put a picture of Achintya with his Chotodadu when he was just a few months old.

Here's a picture from 2008 Christmas day when we had all visited Innovative Film City (Chotodadu had just bought him the cycle he's riding on the previous evening).

As time flies

ChotoDadu, originally uploaded by stacktop.

Cakes on wheels

For his first birthday, Achintya had a cute cake shaped like a Volkswagen Beetle. That was from JustBake in Indiranagar.

Today we chanced upon a JustBake that has opened on Varthur Road, quite near our home. And started thinking about cakes as the second birthday approaches. The proprietess told us that the current rage is a Lightning McQueen. The mischievious one that's seen in the eponymous Disney movie. Well well...

DSC H1 works again !

At the Sony showroom, originally uploaded by stacktop.

So we made it to the Sony Service Centre in Indiranagar (Ph 25296138). And almost took a receipt for the camera. When. The engineer tried their battery on the camera and it worked! I was rubbing my eyes in disbelief. I thought I'd tried all batteries in the house after fully charging them. What a relief! Wont have to decide between the H50 or 1000D anytime soon :-)

Well well. We then traipsed down to the Sony showroom on the ground floor. Got a pair of regular batteries and a MiniDV head cleaning cassette (this one cost a bomb - Rs 875!). And kept on taking pictures with the newly recovered camera. What a joy! Achintya was thrilled with all the gadgets in the store and wanted to spend the evening dancing to VH1 songs playing on the LCD television's there. I had to haul him into the car actually kicking and screaming.

Am planning to get better with the camera. Found a nice whitepaper.

Sony DSC H1

In 2000 I'd bought an Olympus Digital Camera. The impressively named Camedia D 360L, with all of 1.3 Megapixels and an 8 MB SSFDC card, cost me a good 350 bucks.



Image transfer was via RS 232 serial cable, and I remember starting the transfer before sitting down to lunch and still having to wait for it to complete. Come to think of it, it was not that bad. I had extensively used it and some of the pictures are a pleasureable reminder of the bachelor days... Ahem, around 2004 the camera decided to go to Davy Jones Locker.

I started badly missing it around end of 2005 and started looking at what I should buy.
Based on a friends input (thanks Raju!), who'd also bought the same, I bought the then freshly launched Sony DSC H1 for around 400 bucks. This was such a pleasure. It was highly capable and was also very easy to use. We could just hand it to anyone and they'd click away in Auto Focus mode. We used it well for the first 2 years. And then in 2007, when our son was born, we just went overboard clicking away. I noticed that we'd clicked over 5000 pictures in the last 2 years. Well, all good things come to an end (I guess). The other day it stopped working. Boots to review mode, but when I put it into any of the shoot modes, it shuts down with a small noise near the lens.



I am plannning to take it to the Sony Service Center. Let me see how it goes. Meanwhile, I've already started looking for probable replacements if this doesn't get fixed. So far the Sony DSC H50 and the Canon EOS 1000D have looked good.

2009

Everyone expects 2009 to be of unprecedented difficulty. And yet, I have received unprecedented amount of New Year Wishes (Some from friends whom I hadn't heard from in years - so quite nice actually, thanks!). Maybe this is not a contradiction really. Perhaps unprecedented challenges bring out that ultimate human ability - to hope.

Here's wishing that all my friends get the strength to get through the difficult times ahead and emerge the better for it.