With the latest weapon in hand, her whole body was poised for attack....gaze locked on to the airborne intruder...As the 6 legged devilish creature entered the weapons range, her grip tightened...and then.. swish!!...with a deft stroke, she struck...but the creature was still smarter and she missed...Without loosing a second, she struck again...bullseye!...the enemy plummeted to the ground and lay there motionless...but there was no time for a double check or a victory dance...the allies of the victims were still in tha air...she quickly chose her next target...within minutes, almost the entire fleet was brought to ground..half a dozen electrocuted bodies lay on the ground, all around her..she beamed contentedly..and at long last, the war was over and the day(more precisely, the night) was saved....
No, i am not narrating a scene from some crazy hollywood sci-fi movie. Its a household reality- my sister's battle which she puts up with the mosquitoes everyday, before she goes to bed! And u would have guessed, by now, what weapon she was using... Ya,u are right.. its the deadly, so called, "Mosquito racquet", the new terminator in town..
Mosqitoes- the word instantly brings out a frown on every face, particularly the keralites (i don't have any idea of the condition in the rest of the states). This blood sucker has kept abreast of the humans in regard to population explosion.The blame can be doubtlessly put on the people's 'pursuit of development', which have disrupted the eco system that once kept their numbers at bay and offered them newer habitats to breed in large numbers. My guess is that there is atleast 5 mosquitoes for 1 person in kerala now(In alleppey and eranakulam, the number will be slightly higher). The mosquitoes wouldn't have been this much annoying if they had just done their bussiness (blood-sucking) and then left us alone.But, no...they don't stop at that..They want to drink your precious blood, infect u with diseases and still want to sing their heart out near our ear drum, while we are desperately attempting to sleep! I am sure each and every one of us have lost atleat one night's sleep and cursed God for creating the little devil, owing to this afflictive opera.
The simple and obvious way of dealing with a mosquito is, ofcourse, clapping your hands and crushing it to pulp..But this can be pretty weary owing to our poor strike rate and its astounding acrobatics. Naturally, humans began developing ways to fight them in a more comprehensive scale. And so, was born the 'mosquito coil', which suffocated the mosquitoes (and some poor asthmatic humans too) and drew them(mosquitoes only) out of our homes. But soon, they evolved to be resistant to the toxic fumes. Then came the more cleaner, "All-out", to which too, they have gained tolerance upto some extend. But atleast they smell better than the coils. The latest weapon in the line, is our all new electric racquet, that uses a high voltage to electrocute them to death. So far its been absolutely fool proof and is capable of bringing down an entire gang in a short span of time. The only way of eluding this terminator, is to become electrically insulating. For our sake, lets hope our enemies don't evolve to it!!
P.S: I hope i dont get beaten up by my sister! :-D
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Thursday, July 1, 2010
"Barathukichem"
No, its not some strange foreign language!
If u had met me when i was around 2 years old, and asked me my name..this is wat i would have replied- 'barathukichem', the easiest way, a little kid could comeup with, to pronounce his metre long name 'Bharath krishnan'!
If u had met me when i was around 2 years old, and asked me my name..this is wat i would have replied- 'barathukichem', the easiest way, a little kid could comeup with, to pronounce his metre long name 'Bharath krishnan'!
My love story
Ok..here goes my first blog...I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I m not going to talk about some girl, as u would have expected with such a title.Other than people, We all fall in love with many things in life- cricket, football, tv, internet, computer gaming, travel, movies, SMSing and so on. Somewhere along the run of my life me too fell in love with such a thing....Photography..
I guess i was introduced to it by my cousin, Vishnu Chettan, when he brought his first camera, Kodak KB10, a simple point and shoot type film camera..I must have been some 11, 12 yrs old then. Apparently, he too shares the love for photography. Soon enough, i started bugging my parents to buy one for me too. And after some years of bugging, i got married to my first camera..Kodak KB12, a slightly improved version of my brother's. But soon I realized that being in love with a film camera is like being in love with a millionaires daughter..its an expensive affair..One roll of film with 36 shots will cast about Rs12o and its developing and printing will cost another 250..In effect, i had to spend around Rs370 to take just 36 photos!
Since then camera has been my regular companion on all our family tours. Atfirst i was settled with taking photos of people and places we went. But soon thoughts on wildlife photography, especially bird photography, crept in me. But, with a camera having no zoom at all, it was like planning to buy a Honda Civic with only Rs100 in your pocket! I knew it well; but still was adamant. AHANGARAM...wat else to say! Anyway in each roll of film i brot, i kept aside 3,4 shots for my experiments. Since there was no zoom in the camera, i had to get really close to the birds to get a fairly decent photo. So i spent many hours trying to get as close to them s possible. But they didn't share my noble intentions and flew away at the slightest hint. But after hours of patience testing, i finaly got close to 2 or 3 of them and clicked away. But the results were devastating. The subjects were of the size of a speck in the photos. My relatives laughed their heads off when i pointed out the specks and told them that is supposed to be the bird i was trying to photograph..3, 4 films and a humengous amout of my time got flushed down the drain! And finally i had learned the lesson!
Years passed by and age of the film cameras gave way to digital cameras. Now u didn't have to worry about the number of shots u fire. That means u have enough space for your little experiments. But i never got a chance to lay my hands on a digital until my brother brought one..Sony H9..A semi-professional digital camera with 8.1 megapixels and an astonishing 15x zoom! The only camera that i was familiar with, had just two buttons. One for rewinding the film and the other one for taking the shot. But the new camera in my hand had a great asortment of buttons, spread all over the camera body. After some fruitless hours of pondering and experimenting, I finaly arrived at the doorstep of google! From there i was taken to the world of photography, a fascinating world full of shutter speeds and apertures, exposure, white balance, Macro, ISO and so on..With the newly acquired wisdom, i set out to put them to practice. The outcomes were amazing. I found that, with a camera, a most insignificant water droplet on a leaf can be transformed to a mesmerising picture!
Some months later i was married the second time. This time, to a digital beauty. Canon powershot SX110. Since then it has been my faithful companion on all my trips :)
I guess i was introduced to it by my cousin, Vishnu Chettan, when he brought his first camera, Kodak KB10, a simple point and shoot type film camera..I must have been some 11, 12 yrs old then. Apparently, he too shares the love for photography. Soon enough, i started bugging my parents to buy one for me too. And after some years of bugging, i got married to my first camera..Kodak KB12, a slightly improved version of my brother's. But soon I realized that being in love with a film camera is like being in love with a millionaires daughter..its an expensive affair..One roll of film with 36 shots will cast about Rs12o and its developing and printing will cost another 250..In effect, i had to spend around Rs370 to take just 36 photos!
Since then camera has been my regular companion on all our family tours. Atfirst i was settled with taking photos of people and places we went. But soon thoughts on wildlife photography, especially bird photography, crept in me. But, with a camera having no zoom at all, it was like planning to buy a Honda Civic with only Rs100 in your pocket! I knew it well; but still was adamant. AHANGARAM...wat else to say! Anyway in each roll of film i brot, i kept aside 3,4 shots for my experiments. Since there was no zoom in the camera, i had to get really close to the birds to get a fairly decent photo. So i spent many hours trying to get as close to them s possible. But they didn't share my noble intentions and flew away at the slightest hint. But after hours of patience testing, i finaly got close to 2 or 3 of them and clicked away. But the results were devastating. The subjects were of the size of a speck in the photos. My relatives laughed their heads off when i pointed out the specks and told them that is supposed to be the bird i was trying to photograph..3, 4 films and a humengous amout of my time got flushed down the drain! And finally i had learned the lesson!
Years passed by and age of the film cameras gave way to digital cameras. Now u didn't have to worry about the number of shots u fire. That means u have enough space for your little experiments. But i never got a chance to lay my hands on a digital until my brother brought one..Sony H9..A semi-professional digital camera with 8.1 megapixels and an astonishing 15x zoom! The only camera that i was familiar with, had just two buttons. One for rewinding the film and the other one for taking the shot. But the new camera in my hand had a great asortment of buttons, spread all over the camera body. After some fruitless hours of pondering and experimenting, I finaly arrived at the doorstep of google! From there i was taken to the world of photography, a fascinating world full of shutter speeds and apertures, exposure, white balance, Macro, ISO and so on..With the newly acquired wisdom, i set out to put them to practice. The outcomes were amazing. I found that, with a camera, a most insignificant water droplet on a leaf can be transformed to a mesmerising picture!
Some months later i was married the second time. This time, to a digital beauty. Canon powershot SX110. Since then it has been my faithful companion on all my trips :)
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