The world I know.....

The icicles gave a natural decoration to the glowing street lamp. I thought it is beautiful.

I lost a game of darts. The queue seemed endless and my beer glass was almost empty too. It appeared to be frosted over but in reality were merely coated with dust – or so I thought. People of all race, size and height crowded the place. Some are scantily clad while others exposed only their faces and hands. The dart game resumed right after I handed over the darts. Few people played pools and most are crowded around the counter. The bartenders had put on a show of their talents in dealing with the bottles and glasses. Game three of the NBA finals between Lakers and Magic is underway, and the cheers and jeers from the crowd even suppressed the loud background music. Slowly, I made my way to the counter. After what seemed like an hour, finally I ordered two Monster Bombs – I really don't want to be in that line again. An elderly man was beside me. His eyes were following my glass, so I asked if he would like to have one, which he gladly accepted. After few sips, he asked me which t...

Which will you consider more dangerous, misquotation or misinterpretation? I had been reading few articles from Bhutanese news sites, and frequently the reporters are being accused of misquoting the interviewee. While the officials insist on having incorrectly quoted, reporters have their own justification and proofs of having quoted correctly – often with equal passion. Although this practice could lead to some unwelcome consequences, it is not really an irresolvable issue. If needs be, we can simply resolve it by bringing both parties to the same table. Perhaps the actual truth might be somewhere in-between the two extremes. On the other hand, the problem of misinterpretation is in being subjective. While a phrase might be accurate word-to-word and letter-to-letter, the implied meaning would differ depending on the context, culture, and time it is being used. There are thousands of phrases which are being misinterpreted and have now become just another cliche. “Religion is the opium ...

" Don't Fall Off the Mountain ", an autobiography book written by Shirley MacLaine narrates her childhood days in the suburbs of Virgina, adult days in New York and Hollywood, and the adventurous journeys – in search of her true identity – from the deserts of Africa to the high mountains peaks of the Himalayas. She writes about her involvement in the civil rights movement in the United States to her escape from the political revolution of the small Himalayan Kingdom. She talks about the intolerance of the white Americans towards the African-Americans during the segregation and the Jim Crow's era. She takes a tour to Mississippi to “see their world through their eyes”. It was a era when every white, no matter what his work was, was a member of the KKK. She writes about the first hand accounts of the brutal acts of the KKK. She describes about a journey she took along a klong in Thailand. Suddenly, an infant toppled head first into the klong and the parents don't ma...

Is brute force more brilliant than brilliance itself? This question could sound quite stupid if not considered seriously. Garry Kasparov, regarded as the greatest chess player in the world played a match – six games – against an IBM designed chess computer (Deep Blue) which mainly relied on brute force computing power, and the Deep Blue won the controversial match. Garry Kasparov was born in Baku, Azerbaijan (U.S.S.R then) and won the world chess championship when he was 22 – thus becoming the youngest champion. He held the world champion title from 1985 till 2000. He is best known for his five matches against Anatoly Karpov, another Russian grandmaster in chess. He played with Deep Thought – a chess computer – in 1989 and won the match. In 1996, he played another match with a chess computer (Deep Blue)and won. In 2003, he played a match each with Deep Junior – An Israeli designed chess computer which won the computer chess championship - and X3D Fritz. Both the matches ended in a d...

Nauryz is a non-religious Kazakh folk celebration of the spring – I am wondering if it is the same festival as that of cherry blossom festival in japan. Nauryz is mostly celebrated in the west and central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkey. It is celebrated on spring equinox. The central theme of Nauryz is renewal, cleansing, the coming of spring, and the birth of new life. During the course of history Nauryz has become a symbolic New Year in many cultures. Nauryz is one of the most ancient, respected and favorite holidays in that part of the world. My university has about 70 Kazakh students and I got invited by few of my Kazakh friends to celebrate their celebration. It started at 5:00 pm but I could reach the spot only at 6:00 pm since we got lost. By the time we reached there, few girls – wearing their traditional attire – were dancing to a traditional music tune. A Turkish student performed Kanun – it looks like our Yangchen – and the small crow...

We had been planning to bring together as many people as possible from different countries and have a feast. Today is the day, yay! We will have fifteen people – all from different countries (well, consider Hong Kong and China as separate. I hope the Chinese government is not reading this LOL ) – meeting in our apartment today. Well! Basically the idea is that we will all cook some food which is native to our country and everyone will get to try different food. Everyone had been busy since morning – not me though. I woke up at 12:00 noon (Common, it's Saturday) and went to Wegmans to get my recipes. All my friends started working on their respective food from 2:00 PM. Some started chopping garlic without peeling the dry skin, some started burning eggs while trying to make omelet, and some started calling their mother back home. One of my friend brought the computer in the kitchen and loaded the page which has detailed instruction on how to prepare his food. Well, he was even follow...