Sunset in Mangalore at Panambur beach 

Prem 

The Cardamom Club

You might wonder what this entry is all about. It all starts with a last page column titled Last Word in The Week magazine. One of the writers of this column is a Jon Stock, who's in England, and I assume comes regulalry to India.

And so he happens to write articles about India. Last time I had wanted to post links here about an column he wrote several months ago. It was about calling help lines in England, where the calls were routed to India. And how he would call these help lines, such that he could talk to an Indian. Anyway I was unable to get The Weeks online link for that article and soon forgot all about posting it here. He writes very regularly about India in his columns. He must have been an Indian in his previous birth, since he writes nice things about India.

Todays column Breaking the vaccuum and mentions about a blog being maintained by an Indian in Delhi called Vivek's Space. And The Cardamom Club is a book which Stock wrote. In the Week column this week, he confesses to googling the titles of his book, which lead him to Vivek's Space. Vivek first penned an entry saying he was borrowing this book, and later made an entry saying the book was not worth reading, and not worth commenting too. Heh! Heh! Now Stock tried to "speak" to Viivek on his journal but he didn't believe that he was the real Jon Stock until Jon Stock on my Book. Heh! Anyway Vivek is now pretty pleased bout his new fame, in The Week entry.

Warli paintings

Last month there was a exhibition in Mangalore on various items. One large furniture pavilion, and lots of odds and ends. There were some 5 stalls selling framed and unframed paintings and prints. There were several very gorgious looking paintings, many of them imported. Anyway these were very expensive, but there was this one stall selling Warli paintings. At very reasonable prices and with a very unusual frame type. Note the photos, none of them are looking like your typical frame. These look like a trampoline from top.

The first one are a set of four paintings, if you click on them, you'll notice that the topmost is of the rising sun, and in clockwise order, of the midday sun, sunset and the moon. All in a community populated by stick figures, which is unique to a Warli painting. The seller told us that these were mass produced paintings, and hence very cheap. The basic painting I think are screen painted, and then hand painted. We also bought three other bigger paintings. Essentially in three shapes, rectangle, square and a triangle. You can see the rectangle and traingular shapes here.

A million Dollar woe: Dhoni’s ton puts gamblers 'under check'

LAHORE: India's victory powered by Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the second one-day match proved too much for hundreds of gamblers in Pakistan, who were cheated out of millions of Rupees after being tipped by bookies about Pakistan's sure victory.The total bets for the match exceeded Rs 9 billion. Nearly 35,000 gambling centers of the city assured gamblers of Pakistan's sure victory of not only the toss but of the match too. Pakistan, however, not only lost the toss but the match also.A record bet was placed on the Pakistan team after Sachin Tendulkar got run-out. "The betters were shocked by Pakistan's defeat. Some were even seen crying their heart out," the Daily Times quoted a bookmaker as saying.A pair of young gamblers, who lost Rs 2,30,000, said, "We don't normally bet on Pakistan, but due to the tip we were sure that we would have a windfall. Gambling isn't a fair business, so we can't complain against bookies."

7 Apr 2005

Ah! And also read this Woolmer to get his birth certificate from Kanpur hospital. I knew he was born in India, but didn't know he had yet to take his BC;-)