RSVPing R.S.V.P. is a short form for “répondez s’il vous plaît” which translates to “respond please” and is actually a French phrase which is considered old fashioned and formal and not used these days. But you would see the use of RSVP in India for many wedding cards. I am no French expert but here is a pronounciation snippet for R.S.V.P But how a French word became a common parlance in India and continue to do so. Lets try…
Cryptocurrency and Exchange like WazirX If you are looking for a primer on Bitcoin, I wrote this years back. Feel free to check it out. Recently on July 18 2024 WazirX, an Indian Crypto Exchange, was hacked and there was $230 million dollars heist (2000 crores in Indian rupees) which was about 40% of its over crypto assets. Indian Crypto scene is still in infancy and many earlier exchanges like Zebpay, Coinex shut their operations owing to regulatory challenges or…
Sharda Sinha: Doyen of Bhojpuri Music I am not sure but maybe it’s somewhere in 1990s. We used to live in a place called Boleng in Arunachal Pradesh. There were many times when our days began with music of Sharda Sinha. Imagine a morning, sun shining through the lush green hills, bright blue sky and rays coming in through the windows. In the morning sun you could see the dust in the air and it was a Philips Tape Recorder…
Sahib, Sindh and Sultan: Steam Engines of the First Passenger Train Its 3:35PM on April 16th, 1853 and Sahib, Sindh and Sultan, three steam engines of India’s first passenger train were ready, all spick and span new, between then Bombay now Mumbai, then Victoria Terminus now Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus to cover 21 miles in 57 minutes to Thane. The train was filled with more than 400 invited dignitaries including the Amelia Cary, Viscountess Falkland, wife of Governor of Mumbai Lucius…
A brief Intro Jagadish Chandra Bose was an Indian scientist whom I knew more about his research on plant physiology but it never came to my notice that he was a pioneer in wireless technology. Before he changed his attention to botany he was into physics and electromagnetics. What we know today as the latest 5G technology (millimeter waves) in mobile communication, he was working on such stuff in in the last decade of 19th Century. It was common for…
Panchatantra – A project It was sometime during the Covid a thought came to my mind about starting a Podcast. I have been a listener to Podcast for a while. It was probably a lost love that I rediscovered again. As a kid, I remember listening to BBC Hindi News under the night sky. Also I remember listening to Hello Farmaish ( हेलो फर्माइश) with my mother in the afternoons after the school. I still remember a road trip where…
Entangled Life Recently I started reading Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake and one thing that stuck with me is the Carpenter Ants and their relation with a family of fungi Ophiocordyceps. Now the world of fungi and how they affect our lives is amazing. As a kid I remember there was a sensational story of few ladies dying after eating some wild mushrooms that turned out to be poisonous. The more you read about the world around that is not…
8:00 AM Anand realizes that he has a meeting in another half an hour. Today he also needs to drop his daughter Anu to the school bus. “Anu, Anu!! Wake up its time for the school.” Anand hurriedly calls out. Anu reluctantly gets out of the bed and starts with “I don’t want to go school” as usual. Anand picks her up and goes through the morning chores quickly enough and gets Anu dressed up. A quick breakfast for her…
QWERTY For the story of Qwerty keyboards, we will have to go back 150 years to late 1880 when one Mr. Christopher Latham Sholes was tinkering in his lab in Milwaukee to develop the prototype for typewriters. Now the legend has that the Sholes was trying to develop a layout such the expensive typewriting machines won’t get jammed. There is no conclusive evidence to suggest that this was the case and some research has debunked this theory. But whatever may…
Plan We have not been travelling for more than 2 years now and there was a family event and we managed to travel to Lucknow. We didn’t had lot of time at our hand and our three year old daughter didn’t allow us lot of flexibility. Limited time there but the city is very intriguing. City The city has two sides, the Old Lucknow that is on one side of the Gomti River which is stuck in time. Then there…
100th Post I started to write on a blog 10 years back and registered shabdh.com about 8 years back. Its my humble attempt to share something useful or interesting. Since this is somewhat like a milestone for me I thought I will just do some giveaway to mark the occasion. Here is a book that I am planning to giveaway to a randomly chosen person who has liked the post. Since I can ship only in India, this is limited…
Mother Tongue There must be a reason why we call the language that one speaks as a kid as mother tongue. In ancient times women folks were generally no that mobile and were not migrating as much as men. So when a bunch of men migrated and displaced local population, they took the local women as their wives and the young kids learnt first the language of their mother and hence the mother tongue. India and its languages कोस-कोस पर…
Calculus – A little Personal Background Calculus was introduced to us in India in Plus 1 is the CBSE curriculum (we have a 10 +2 system, where one spends 12 years in School + 3 years in Nursery, KG1/2 before getting to school). I am an engineer and have taken many courses in mathematics but unfortunately my interest started waning down quite a bit and I missed the fun in doing mathematics and it became a very dry subject for…
Conference Room 1729, KGF, Bangalore, Circa 2118 Kolar Gold Fields have been recently resurrected by the Indian Entrepreneur Antriksh Shah who made his fortune in the hi-tech startup. He has bought all the remaining physical as well as the trademarks and branding. But he has been very secretive with what he wants to do with all these assets. Meanwhile Srini Asteroid 99944 is a Near Earth Object which will be travelling close to Earth’s vicinity in the year 2121. Scientists…
Tail Event? Talk about a tail event and disruption, Covid has been a tail event that nobody wanted and hair cutting salons in India are hard hit. While doing my own hair cut today myslef I was thinking if someone would have asked me pre Covid “Would you cut you own hair at home ever in your life by yourself?” My answer would have been straight no. Almost everyone has a favorite barber shop and also a chosen barber to…