Pot/Vase paintings

 When I was in college, I had a fetish for pots and vases. I used to collect containers of various sizes, shapes and materials and turn them into vases.

Here's a collection of a few vases I had made during those years.

 Marbling has always been one of my favourite techniques of painting terracotta pots. This technique is so called because the final effect reminds us of the patterns on marble stones. I use oil paints while painting terracotta pots as it adheres well to the surface. In the above picture there are two pots that have been painted with this technique. The first one from the left has been painted in blue on a base coat of white, giving it a porcelain effect. The second one from right has been painted brown on a base of yellow, giving it a more earthy feel. For this technique, paint a terracotta pot with more than one coat of paint for the base color. Leave a time gap of a few hours between the coats. Leave to dry, Once the pot is completely dry, fill a container big enough for the pot to submerge in it. Add a few drops of contrasting oil paint to the water. Swirl the water , submerge the pot in the water and swirl it in the direction of the water. An elegant yet abstract pattern is formed on the water.

 The second technique that I have used is embossing using dough/clay. On the second basket from left and the third pot from right, this technique has been used. Here I have used epoxy putty to make various fruits: I mix both the pastes in the epoxy putty kit and mould it into strawberries. These strawberries have been stuck on to the middle of the basket . A few grooves have been made in the mould to represent the seeds of the strawberries. Similarly bananas and cherries have been made for the pot. This has to be done very quickly as epoxy putty dries at room temperature. Once this dries paint the basket/ pot with a base color and pain the fruits as well.

Another favourite vase of mine has been bamboo. I used to cut bamboo poles to 12-10 inch pieces.  These bamboos can be painted with various techniques.

One more technique is the flow technique. I mix a little glue to a color contrasting to the base coat. I drip a little color on the pot and and turn it in various directions so that the paint flows in the direction that the pot is bent in. This creates and abstract design.

Sunni undalu

 Mom is visiting us and we have an abundance of sweets to eat. But my favourite has always been sunnundalu, made with urad dal.This is a simple but delicious recipe.

 For these you will need

 Urad dal (Blackgram) - 1 Cup
 Powdered Sugar - 1 Cup
 Elaichi (Cardamom) powder - a pinch
 Ghee (Clarified butter) - 1/2 cup


Dry roast the urad dal in a heated pan until the lentils turn a coppery color and a beautiful fragrance emanates. Keep aside to cool. Powder the lentils and mix the powdered sugar and elaichi powder to this.

If you want the sweet to be crunchy make a rough powder, if you like the sweet to melt in your mouth, make a fine powder.

Now heat the ghee until it melts. Pour the hot ghee into the powdered mixture and make round balls. Melt in your mouth, delicious Sunni undalu are ready to eat.

Pisa, italy

  Of all the attractions in Italy, The leaning tower of Pisa can be considered a tourist trap. The number of people around you in peak summer makes it even difficult to get a good view let alone a good picture.

 Pisa is a city in Tuscany in Italy, although it is well known for the leaning tower of Pisa, this city has about 20 other historic churches , and quite a few bridges across river Arno. Pisa is directly connected to many of the main cities in italy by rail and road. There are three railway stations around Pisa, Pisa Centrale, Pisa Aeroporto and Pisa San Rossore.The nearest airport is the Farez Airport, which is an hour's drive from pisa.

The main attraction is Pisa is as mentioned earlier, the leaning tower of Pisa, which is within the Piazza dei Miracoli a walled area in Pisa. The four main components of the Piazza dei Miracoli are the Duomo (cathedral), the Campanile (the cathedral's free standing bell tower), the Baptistry and the Camposanto.The Piazza is mostly grassy with a paved way connecting the four edifices.

  The focus of the Piazza is the Duomo which is a cathedral, entitled to Santa Maria Assunta.

The campanile, or the bell tower is famously known as the leaning tower of pisa or the Torre di pisa. The tower leans about 3.99 degrees. This means that the top of the tower is displaced horizontally 3.9 metres. Most of the crowd who visit Pisa visit only to view this attraction. However the best time to see this is in the off season, or early in the morning to avoid the maddening crowds.

The baptistry is a religious building in the Piazza dei Miracoli. It is the largest baptistry in italy

The Campo Santo, also known as Camposanto Monumentale or Camposanto Vecchio is a historical edifice at the northern edge of the Cathedral Square. .

Once in Pisa take a few hours to walk around the town and visit the bridges and the other historic churches. Take in the beautiful italian buildings and have a meal at one of the laidback outdoor restaurants and enjoy the italian experience.

At home Facial

 When I was younger, I used to follow this once a week routine, that left me with flawless skin. I got a little lazy as I started working and completely forgot about it over time.

 Those of you who want healthy skin, but don't want to spend time at a beauty salon, try this at home. And guys, this one works great for you too, this routine is not just for women. All the material you need to use is usually available around the house.

 To start off, use an apron or a towel to cover your clothes . Tie up your hair or use a hairband so it will not get in the way. Wash your face with a face wash and pat dry.

 Step 1 (Cleanse) -  Take a table spoon of milk in a bowl. Dip some clean cotton wool in the milk and apply on face and neck. Massage in circular motion for about a minute. Remove the excess milk with cotton and wash off with plain water.

Step 2 (Scrub) - Mix 1 Tspn Besan (Chickpea flour) with 1 tspn sugar , make a paste with rose water. Scrub your face with circular motions until the sugar melts. Wait till the Chickpea flour dries. Wash off with plain water. 

Step 3 (Steam) - Heat water with mint leaves and steam your face. Remove blackheads.

Step 4 (Tone) - Wrap an ice cube in a towel and rub on the face. Apply rose water on cotton wool and dab on face.

Step 5 (Mask) -
Oily Skin - make a pack of crushed fresh fruits. Massage on face.Leave till dry and wash
Dry Skin - Mash half a ripe banana, mix with 1 tspn honey and one tspn olive oil. Massage on face. Leave till dry and wash
Normal skin - Massage with milk cream, leave till dry and wash.

Step 6 (Mask 2) -

Oily Skin - Mix 1 tbspn, sandalwood powder with milk to make a paste. Apply evenly on face and leave to dry. Wash off with plain water.
Dry /Normal Skin - Mix a tspn of powdered Oats and powdered almonds. Mix with a tspn of milk cream. Make a paste. Apply evenly on face. Leave to dry and wash off with plain water.


This whole routine will take 30-45 minutes and gives you wonderful , glowing skin

Cloud Computing - IaaS

 A couple of weeks back, I wrote about what Cloud computing is and we discussed a few examples of SaaS. Today I will talk about IaaS(Infrastructure as a Service)

 IaaS is the most basic of the cloud computing services. Putting it simply, servers are rented out to the users for virtual use. Computers are provided by the cloud service providers to the end user, to use sometimes as physical but mostly as virtual resources. The user runs these virtual machines as a guest using a hypervisor.

A hypervisor also known as a Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) is a hardware virtualisation technique that allows multiple operating systems to run concurrently on a host computer. Some examples of a hypervisors that are used in IaaS are Xen and KVM (Kernel based Virtual Machine).

The cloud computing service providers manage pools of hypervisors in order to manage to cater to a large number of virtual machines. Some more examples of Iaas could include songs in a virtual machine music library, file-based storage and IP addresses. VLANs are also one such example. A Virtual Lan is a group of hosts , that even though they might not belong to the same physical location, communicate with each other as part of the same broadcast domain.

The hypervisor pools are usually installed in data centers. From here the cloud service providers supply the required resources on demand. Mostly for the Wide area connectivity, the Internet is used. However, in some scenarios Carrier Clouds are used.

 Unlike SaaS, Cloud users have to install the operating system images along with the application software on their machines. Here it is the cloud user who is responsible for maintenance of the operating system and the software.

 Iaas services are typically billed on a utility computing basis. Utility computing is basically the packaging of resources as a metered service. The advantage is that there is almost no cost to aqcuire the computer resources, and the computational resources are rented.

 Some examples of IaaS include Amazon CloudFormation, Rackspace Cloud and Google Compute Engine

Movie Review - Golmal(hindi, 1979)

 I was watching this film called Bol Bachchan starring Abhishek Bachchan and Ajay Devgan. This pathetic attempt at comedy is supposed to be the official remake of the 1979 Amol Palekar starrer Golmaal. Golmaal has been a benchmark for comedy movies for years. Such subtle but hilarious comedy has not been seen in Hindi cinema for a long time now. I have decided to review a few Hrishikesh Mukherjee classics in my movie reviews.

  Let's start with Golmaal then. Golmaal was directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, written by Sailesh dey and had music by R.D Burman. In leading roles were Amol Palekar, Utpal Dutt and Bindiya Goswami. This film has influenced many a director working on comedies. The characters Ram Prasad Sharma and Lakshman Prasad Sharma(Lucky) from the film Main hoon na were tributes to the lead roles in Golmaal.

Ram Prasad Sharma, (Amol Palekar) is on the lookout for a new job and his uncle (David) suggests that he attend an interview with Bhavani Shanker( Utpal Dutt). Bhavani Shankar is a man of traditional and wierd tastes. He dislikes today's youth as they show more interest in music and sports and do not believe in hard work. To get the job Ram needs to

• have a moustache
• wear kurta pyjama
• feign ignorance about sports and music
• act traditional and conservative

Ram creates a fake persona at the interview and gets selected for the job as Bhavani Shankar is impressed with his values.  One day Ram takes leave from office citing his (dead) mother's ill health as a reason. He goes to watch a football match, where Bhavani Shankar sees him. In order to save his job, Ram lies that he has an identical twin, Lakshman Prasad Sharma , who has no moustache and does not have a job.  To save this story, Ram comes up with a string of lies and this leads to some hilarious scenes.

 Bhavani Shankar wants Lakshman to teach music to his daughter Urmila (Bindiya Goswami). Urmila and Lakshman fall in love, but Bhavani Shankar wants Urmila to marry Ram. When Bhavani Shankar who is impressed by Ram's values decides to meet his mother, they hire a socialite Mrs Shrivastav(Dina Pathak) to play the part.

This leads to more lies when Bhavani Shankar accidentally meets Mrs Shrivastav at a party and then she lies that Ram's mother is her identical twin. The scene which follows is the most hilarious one in the movie. Watch it here.

How Bhavani Shankar realizes the lies and how he has a change of heart forms the rest of the story.

Amol Palekar carries the movie effortlessly on his shoulders. His comic timing is amazing and his portrayal of the soft spoken Ram and impish lakshman is impressive. Utpal dutt is his usual self in the role of Bhavani Shankar. Dina pathak, Deven Varma , David and Manju Singh form a great supporting cast. Bindiya Goswami looks pretty but has nothing much to do. The music by R.D Burman is amazing, with songs like Golmaal and  Aane wala pal being popular to this day.

 Golmaal is an evergreen comedy with Hrishikesh Mukherjee's signature style. It is one of the films that I love watching over and over.

Talent of the week - Swapna koganti

 When I started looking for talent to introduce on my page every Thursday, I realised I did not have to look too far. I'm surrounded by such wonderful and talented people.

Today's talent is Swapna Koganti. She is a dear friend and a published author. Her first telugu book, named 'gajugayi' was released in 2010. Swapna is a software engineer by profession and a writer at heart.

 Gajugayi is the story of Swapna's maternal grandmother Anasuya. The story captures her journey from an innocent little girl to a determined woman. I will mention more about the book in one of my book reviews.

 

The cover page of Gajugayi

Swapna believes todays generation though talented has no time to understand and follow the values and ideals of the past and we barely know about many traditions. She wanted the world to read about her grandmothers life, so they would know the importance of education and sticking to values in one's life.

 Swapna is a voracious reader and loves to write. She hopes to run a magazine of her own someday. She is a keen observer and we can notice this in her writing style. Let's hope this multi talented writer comes up with more such wonderful books. Here's wishing her all the best.

P.S - I know I did not do justice to Gajugayi. I am saving it for the book review :)