Paul Van Dyk: The god of trance

Talking of music I must tell you that I am an ardent follower of trance, electronic and euro dance music. And one guy, whose music I believe is earth-moving, is Paul Van Dyk. I have never heard music so hypnotic. Nothing pushes me to dance (I am not a dance buff though) as much as this guy’s music. I tell you what you got to hear it to know it. I have the following albums from this guy:

1. The Politics of Dancing Vol. 1 and Vol. 2
2. The Politics of Dancing 2
3. Out there and back
4. Reflections

I wish to have his older albums like seven ways, 45 rpm etc but could not find them here in India. And getting them shipped from else where is turning out to be too expensive. Other guys I listen to under these genres is BT, DJ Tiesto, Oakenfold and a few others. Worldspace’s channel 202 aka “System” is a heaven for people with similar tastes.

Evanescence: New album out in October

Evanescence is a popular band which is mostly into alternative and gothic rock. Few rock bands have females in the group and that too as a lead singer. Evanescence’s only lead singer Amy Lee is one who fits the bill very well. She’s got a great voice and I like her songs and style.

Evanescence shot to fame with their album “Fallen” (at least for me) which contains hits like “Bring me to life” (OST Daredevil), “My Immortal” and “Going Under”.

Over three years after “Fallen” they are now coming out with another album by name “The Open Door”. A track by name “Call Me When You're Sober” has already entered the countdown charts. I heard it on WorldSpace Top 40. Though I am an avid fan of this group, I must admit that I was not very impressed with this track. It just seems to lack the power of songs like “Going Under”. I don’t know how to put it but I simply did not like the song! But I am sure that Evanescence is not going to disappoint me and I hope that other tracks will be good. I had been waiting for their new album eagerly.

Google Sketchup

Google does not stop fascinating me! Was checking out Google labs the other day, when I came across this software called Google Sketchup. It is a 3D-design software which is fairly powerful yet very simple and easy to use. And as usual (with Google) there is one version which is available for free.

I downloaded the software and the tutorials were easy to follow. I finished them in a jiffy. As I had no 3D-idead to put on screen I just created a model of our television cupboard that we got recently done. Though the fine wood carvings cannot be reproduced in this software, what ever I could make of the cupboard was fairly good I guess.

Other than that I also made a crazy skyscraper. Crazy coz every thing in it is round :-). I am sure it will be hell of a challenge for architects to created a skyscraper of that sort in real world ;-) For more about this software check out Google Sketchup

Our scum on orkut too

Many of you who are using the social networking system called orkut might have seen the plethora of disgusting communities created by Indians and Pakistanis. These communities abuse countries, cultures, religious beliefs and gods.

Like unrelenting insolent fools we have carried our lamenting disgust and hatred to a social networking site like orkut to display to the world the height of our foolishness, religious fundamentalism and uncivilized animal side.

I wish that all such people get a chance to confront each other, so that they fight and kill and realize that this hatred is nonsense and inconsequential. I am not a universalist or some thing but yeah I definitely believe in toleration. First: religions were made for man and man was not made for religion. Second: religions were formed to give a direction to the civilization and beings. Our motive should be to work for the improvement of the less privileged people and as a whole try to evolve into a more advanced and relatively superior society than we are at present. As I have always thought, if god exists then our motive here is to work towards knowing the mind of god (based on the concept of Stephen Hawking) rather than abuse and kill in its name. This requires that we rise above these unimportant quarrels and try to become some thing in life rather than waste our time creating hate communities on orkut.

Get a life guys!

Ustad Bismillah Khan: The maestro

Many of you (who follow the Indian news) may have heard about the demise of the legendary shehnai (Indian clarinet) maestro Ustad Bismillah Khan. I write this post to pay my heartfelt tributes to this legend.

Though I have not been an avid fan of classical music, this man along with a few others has been vividly engraved in my memory. Few pieces of music have moved me deeply and Ustad’s shehnai is one among them. I believe that India has lost a great asset in the field of classical music. Yet the man has immortalized himself for ever with the music that he has left behind for us to cherish. My Salaam to the Ustaad.

Eleven Minutes – Paulo Coelho (Book Review 002)

ISBN: 0060589280

Paulo Coelho is a popular author who shot to fame with his best-selling book The Alchemist. He has also written other books like the pilgrimage, the Valkyries, the fifth mountain, the Zahir (being his latest) and many others.

Eleven Minutes is very different from his other works for it is based on an adult theme and contains vividly described scenes of sexual intercourse and “eleven minutes” the name itself refers to the average duration of the act.

Eleven minutes is the story of a girl called Maria. She was born and brought up in a Brazilian village. Just as any innocent young girl would, she had also fallen in love but had to face disappointment at a young slender age. This left her heart-broken and she becomes convinced that she will never find true love in her life. Her experiences teach her that she is a beautiful and can use this characteristic of hers to her advantage.

She decides to earn money and support her family and in this pursuit she ends up in Geneva, Switzerland as a dancer in a nightclub. She realizes that the money she was promised back in Brazil was a farce and that she would have to find another way to make quick money. In pursuit of money and fortune she ends up working as a prostitute in a bar called ‘Copacabana’.

Her experiences as a prostitute have been described in vivid detail by the author and bring the reader close to the Maria, the central character of the story. During her work as a prostitute Maria meets many men and gets to have a very close look at their mental abilities and psyche. She learns the tricks of trade very quickly and soon becomes a subject of envy among her colleagues. Unlike many others, in spite of the profession she was involved in, she had an intellectual bent of mind and she used to read many books on topics varying from economics, politics to management and finance. This brought her respect and business.

Over a year had passed since she had arrived in Switzerland and she decided that she should go back home. A chance meeting in a coffee shop brings her close to a famous painter called Ralf Hart who is also one of the elite clients at the Copacabana. Soon she realizes that she has found the true love of her life in Ralf Hart. However, at the same time her experiences with an elite client at the Copacabana leave her in a difficult situation. She develops a strong fascination for sex and at the same time she knows that life has given her a reason to live – Ralf Hart. Maria ends up being at cross-roads where she has to choose between a path that leads to no where – a path of dark sexual pleasures and a path that that gives a meaning to her life – a path that gives her what she never got – true love.

Paulo Coelho is a master craftsman whose works are capable to impacting the day-to-day lives of his readers. His work Eleven minutes ensure that the reader remains glued to the book from the first page till the end. However, I found that climax of the story was pretty predictable and that lulls the feeling that this book creates throughout. This story, that is so gripping throughout, leave a rather ordinary feeling at the end, except for the fact that the author reveals at the end of the story that Eleven minutes is based on a true story. Nonetheless I would recommend this book for (a) the kind of feeling it gives throughout, (b) it happens to one of the first on adult themes by Paulo Coelho and well written too.

Biological Weapons: Issues and Threats by Chari & Rajain (Book Review 001)

ISBN: 9812104046

This book published by the Indian Research press, has been edited by P.R. Chari and Arpit Rajain. Before I move on to the book, I would like to mention a few words about the editors as given in the book. P.R. Chari is a former member of Indian Administrative Services and has also served in the Ministry of Defense. He has worked extensively on Nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. Arpit Rajain has been working as a Research Officer in the Institute of Peace and Conflict studies since 1997 on Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) issues.

This book appears to be a collection of articles, research papers and essays which cover various aspects of Biological and Chemical Weapons. We all know that use of Biological and Chemical Weapons (BCW) is nothing new especially in India where it has found mention even in the ancient texts. But in today’s scenario there is common global enemy which is stateless and which does not fight war from the front (like in the battlefield). Yes, I am talking about terrorism. After the September 11 attacks, the London bombings, the recent Mumbai blasts and various other events, it is clear that the terrorists will stop at nothing and will make every possible effort to cause terror and pain. Every time they strike, they strike with all that they have got and cause massive damage by attacking innocent civilians. So if terrorists are able to acquire WMDs they can create havoc and bloodbath.

Set on a similar note the book tells that the BCWs are the most dangerous of the WMD club for fairly simple reasons:

The cost of production (money and intellectual capital wise) is not high which make it much easier to acquire and launch when compared to some thing like nuclear weapons. Hence the BCWs are called “poor man’s WMDs”.

Detection of such weapons and their storage or preparation is very difficult to check as they can be prepared inside the premises of biotech companies or drug units and go undetected even in a verification check due to the underlying complexities in such weapons.

Some thing can be done about the nuclear weapons (for e.g. missile shields, early warning systems etc) but even the most advanced countries are not fully prepared to handle a large scale bio-chemical attack as there is little we can do about it.

While these and MANY other points are discussed in the later chapters of the book, the initial chapters talk about Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). It talks about the various treaties signed by the developed countries to set certain norms for regulation of BCWs and they all are incomplete in some or the other way. While the initial chapter can get difficult to comprehend for a reader who is new to the subject, the later chapters are a good read.

I would highly recommend the book if you are interested in the subject of bio-warfare and weaponry and its implications now when a new challenge has emerged.