Ramblings
I missed Durga Puja in Calcutta this time - I've been missing it all these years (four, I think) but this time I really wanted to be there and be part of a festival where the entire city is celebrating. It is a four day long festival and people start preparing for it two weeks in advance. For nearly a week every business is closed to make way for revelry. In the evenings the city comes to life as everyone gets out on to the streets. Pandals, tasty sweet-meats, heady incense, loud chanting accompanied by the dholak and invigorous dancing - it's a different world. The towering idols represent not just religion but the tradition and culture of a people handed down, unchanged, over generations. It is the coming together of a people united as loosely as they are divided.
I haven't quite seen anything else like it in Bangalore, nor even heard of such a celebration anywhere else in India. Perhaps the Ganesha festival in Bombay might come close.
I'm going to be home for about nine days during the Diwali week. I need to figure out what to do there. I don't think I'll be able to read like before - I just can't manage to read for hours on end like earlier. Reading Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide has made me want to make a trip to the Sundarbans. The story isn't much to speak of but the descriptions of the tide country and some of the mumbo-jumbo make it worth the read. I hope it doesn't rain there in November - I really want to explore around a bit.
I'm tired of my user-pic - no, all my user pics - now; looking for another.
I've been looking for a good Db access module for Python for Oracle and haven't found any that I'd like to use. The two or three I saw have some issues or the other or people warning that it isn't tried and tested enough for production use. Hasn't Python been around for quite a while now? I didn't think adoption would take so long.
Does anyone know why the movie Chariots Of Fire was named so?
I haven't quite seen anything else like it in Bangalore, nor even heard of such a celebration anywhere else in India. Perhaps the Ganesha festival in Bombay might come close.
I'm going to be home for about nine days during the Diwali week. I need to figure out what to do there. I don't think I'll be able to read like before - I just can't manage to read for hours on end like earlier. Reading Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide has made me want to make a trip to the Sundarbans. The story isn't much to speak of but the descriptions of the tide country and some of the mumbo-jumbo make it worth the read. I hope it doesn't rain there in November - I really want to explore around a bit.
I'm tired of my user-pic - no, all my user pics - now; looking for another.
I've been looking for a good Db access module for Python for Oracle and haven't found any that I'd like to use. The two or three I saw have some issues or the other or people warning that it isn't tried and tested enough for production use. Hasn't Python been around for quite a while now? I didn't think adoption would take so long.
Does anyone know why the movie Chariots Of Fire was named so?