Vodafone half marathon - cheering and some bike stunts

Yesterday was the world's richest half marathon. People of all ages, and sizes ran. I didn't. My last attempt taught me that running 21kms without practice leads to a lot of ache. So I went to cheer the runners. At India gate saw this group of kids who had modded there regular bicycles for doing stunts. Young people have so much energy, venting that pentup energy in something like this is far better than doing drugs and those other kind of thrills.


And this is a clip from the race.

I have a roof, I mean my barsati has. It’s a triffle difficult to climb, but once you are up there you can see around.
A petal of the lotus temple.
Factories spewing black clouds in Noida.
And thousands of other roofs. And each roof has at least half a dozen black, cylindrical, water tanks. “Syntex ki tanki” as they are called. On a silent evening as I stand upon my roof, I seem to hear them talking. No I am just kidding, trying to pass of as an arty writer. They actually seem to be like serious gargoyles on their 24/7 duties. If you look from a flight over delhi, you may see them as freckles over a teenage Delhi’s cheeks.

When in yo near
theres flat beer
salt and lemon
would make it taste less queer.

Have you seen these type of chickens?

Ignobly great

The ignoble awards are out. If I would ever be a billionaire, I would give out some of the billions to the winners. And then maybe it'll loose its 'ig' and be called as Kaa awards

MEDICINE: Brian Witcombe of Gloucester, UK, and
Dan Meyer
of Antioch, Tennessee, USA, for their penetrating medical report "
Sword Swallowing and Its Side Effects
."


REFERENCE: "Sword Swallowing and Its Side Effects," Brian Witcombe and Dan Meyer, British Medical Journal, December 23, 2006, vol. 333, pp. 1285-7.


WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Brian Witcombe and Dan Meyer


PHYSICS:
L. Mahadevan
of Harvard University, USA, and
Enrique Cerda Villablanca
of Universidad de Santiago de Chile, for studying how sheets become wrinkled.


REFERENCES:


"Wrinkling of an Elastic Sheet Under Tension," E. Cerda, K. Ravi-Chandar, L. Mahadevan, Nature, vol. 419, October 10, 2002, pp. 579-80.


"
Geometry and Physics of Wrinkling
," E. Cerda and L. Mahadevan, Physical Review Letters, fol. 90, no. 7, February 21, 2003, pp. 074302/1-4.


"
Elements of Draping
," E. Cerda, L. Mahadevan and J. Passini, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 101, no. 7, 2004, pp. 1806-10.

Walking around in JM

The last month has been a whirlwind of activities/emotions. Today we went to old delhi, the area near Jama Masjid. Awesome fun. Walked around the lanes selling everything from sequins with little bits of clothes in between. And belts with jewelled buckles for guys. And mannequins with black cloth wrapped on their eyes.
We ate seekh kababs, roasted chicken in makhan ki gravy, seb doodh ke saath, shahi tukda, habshi halva.
Forgive me if I missed something..when there is an interesting company I tend to forget the details.