Parting lines (updated)

1. What (and why) boys think about their bikes is as unexplainable and complicated as girls!
Bigger or smaller, boys will be boys!

2. It's official!
Valentino Rossi will be riding for DUCATI corse faqctory racing MotoGP team from 2011.
This also means that this is his last year with his favourite Yamaha YZR M1, the bike he developed over last 7 years, and brought victories for the Yamaha team. The greenish yellow 46 on blue Yamaha will now be seen on red Ducati.

3. This is what the 9 time world champion Valentino Rossi said yesterday in a press release on his parting from Yamaha,
"Now the moment has come to look for new challenges; my work here at Yamaha is finished. Unfortunately even the most beautiful love stories finish, but they leave a lot of wonderful memories, like when my M1 and I kissed for the first time on the grass at Welkom, when she looked straight in my eyes and told me ‘I love you!"
:)

Read the full press release here.
UPDATE: Reading between the lines of Valentino , what makes him much more than the best rider ever... what is more important than winning, to him?

TOUCH sensitive

when was the last time?

you dipped your fingers in a bottle of paint,

and left an almost alive trail on the white paper,

slowly feeling the dryness of paper

or may be of your finger!!

when was the last time?

you felt like biting into the chocolate-soft brick of clay you just made.

or almost licked the remains on your fingers!

and kept re-touching that still-wet vase infinitely,
just because you liked that touch so much!

when was the last time?

you tried cleaning that old antique brass bowl

with some dry coarse powder,

till it turned into a glossy yellow surface!

and smelled fascinating new!

when was the last time?

you made a bunglow of brand new playing cards,

with utmost careful breathing and your gentle hands,

or tried picking up the the glass jar broken into pieces

and learnt what 'careful' actually means!

when was the last time?

your touch gave some life to the material,

and brought a smile on your face,

and realised that sensitivity of your touch,

can do much more than the rectangle on your laptop!

Both images from 'Preschool Crafts' website

Pure Italian

If you are from the world where JLo stands for Jorge Lorenzo, this is a big news for you!

Valentino Rossi shifting to Ducati from the next MotoGP season!

The news that every Italian was waiting for, for many years! It seems finally their dream is coming true. Finally.... Italian flag and the Italian rider on the Italian bike.

Finally.... no confusion being Ducati fan and being Rossi fan.

Ducati Desmosedici and Valentino Rossi... what a combination!

Finally, it will be Red + Yellow... ( do I mean orange? ;) )

I am waiting for official news and next season!

(somehow I still continue to like yamaha also... at least untill I afford a Ducati)

Love RED Hate RED

Somehow my clothes (especially white) have a special affinity for red stains, though not the type seen above, but from the ones they are soaked with for washing. It's been happening for years! Whenever I feel I have successfully understood the science of staining, I am taught a new lesson! And the tuition fees are quite high sometimes, considering the 'value' of those clothes. The worst thing is, these laundry accidents happen only after I have worn them for some time and received some compliments! Till that time both the stainer and stainee choose to stay away from each other. And then one fine morning, a new discovery is made. Somehow in every such accident there is only one stainer (mostly red) and only one stainee (mostly white!). All the other not-so-important clothes in the bucket just remain spectators, happily swimming and (secretely) leaving their dirt in the brutal red liquid at the crime scene (bucket). And there I sit, heavy-hearted, segregating the criminal, victim and the spectators in the bathroom, thinking again, someone has shown their real colour today!
:(
Ok, can someone tell me why only a particular fabric gets stained and not every fabric? Also as I have observed, stain is received only from the direct contact with stainer (छूने से फैलती है types) and not from the coloured water in bucket. Why so?
And to all my friends in Apparel, textile and fashion industry, isn't it possible to provide a piece of same fabric with every garment you buy, for stain testing at home?
Found this interesting site/blog in this reference. It has some nice pictures too!

GURUs

came across a nice (sounding) TV ad after a long time, or may be its the beautiful jingle that I liked!
This is one of the ads for Samsung Guru mobile and its made by all the gurus indeed!
read this jingle:

उनके आंसू उबल पड़े,
जाते जाते देखा है,
दस नम्बर दस उंगलियाँ है,
बाकी हाथ की रेखा है।
फांसले है भी और नहीं भी,
दिल तो जेबमें रख्खा है।

Ok, this is written by none other than Gulzar, directed by Anurag Kashyap, shot on Amir Khan, music by Amit Trivedi (DevD, Aamir etc fame) and sung by Mohan (I don't know :( )
I feel nice that they made a simple and touching (to target audience atleast) ad for a phone also simple and without any 'touching' features!
I liked the locations and colour palette used for the ad too! Watch this beautifully shot ad on youtube here.
(p.s. they have edited the secondlast line in jingle to reduce the duration I guess!)

I never knew I like orange!

The list of my orange things,
1. my Yamaha :)
2. a wall in our house in kalyan
3. two bedsheets ( the jaipuri cotton one is missing :( )
4. towel (yes!)
5. racing stripes (hahaha) on my blue bathroom slippers (!!!)
6. two KTM stickers I put on my helmet
7. my deo
8. I found my pendrive also glows orange!
9. cuff -collar etc of the grey jacket I baught today (please don't imagine)
10. earpiece of my headphones
11. clothes hangers
12. one khadi shirt (more yellow than orange though)
13. desktop wallpapers on both my laptop and office comp these days!

And I used to think my favourite colour is blue!

overGreen

'Green' is in! Literally...Globally... and in abundabce! Everyone is going green, whatever way possible, no matter to what extent, but they make sure they SHOW it!
Being in an eco-friendly transportation industry myself, and because of personal interest I keep searching for new information/updates in eco-friendly or so called green field wherever possible... but mostly internet. What I come across most of the time is webpages fullll of green colour, complete with graphics of leaves and all. I bet people have planted more trees on webpages and other promotional material than in their garden!
Time has come, people going green start availing services of qualified designers instead of those knowing some graphic softwares and executing their client's instructions (mistaken as brief).
Save trees, decorate your websites?
(P.S. there is (hopefully) no website overgreen.org as of now)

Design Concerns

Cigarette packaging misleads smokers.

Not just some words like 'light', 'mild', 'silver' etc but some design elements like illustrations or light colours etc need to be eliminated legally from packaging of cigarettes. Some words have been outlawed in more than 50 countries already, but thats not enough.

Read here why.

रंग

प्रत्येक वर्षाचा किंवा काळाचा रंग असतो असं मला कधी लक्षातंच आलं नाही। पण आज 'सकाळ' मध्ये एक लेख वाचताना अचानक मला ते सगळं वर्णन black & white मध्ये दिसायला लागलं ! त्यातील काही वाक्यं अशी होती:
"१९७२-७३ ला स्वयंचलीत वाहनं अत्यन्त अल्प स्वरूपात होती। मी माझी सायकल पुण्याहून नाशिकला नेली होती। नाशिक मध्ये रविवार कारंजा नांवाचा अत्यन्त गजबजलेला एक मोठा चौक होता। तिथून आम्ही double-seat जात होतो।" वगैरे वगैरे।
आता हे वाचताना पहिल्या वाक्यातंच माझ्या कल्पनेतून सगळे रंग उडून गेले! १९७२, स्वयंचलीत वाहनं नसणं हे सगळं मी रंगांमध्ये imagine च करू शकत नाही! त्या काळी रंग नव्हते असं नाही, पण त्या काळचं जे काही photo, films, prints etc पहायला मिळालंय ते सगळं black & white! त्यामुळे १९७२ हे वर्ष रंगीत म्हणजे नक्की कसं असेल हे imagine करणं फार कठीण! पुन्हा "मी माझी सायकल पुण्याहून नाशिकला नेली होती" हेसुद्धा आज पचायला जड़ जातं। आणि सर्वांत कड़ी म्हणजे १९७२ साली रविवार कारंजा 'अत्यन्त गजबजेला' म्हणजे नक्की कसा असेल? एकंदर हे सगळं वर्णन तपशिलात imagine करणंच इतकं कठिण होतं की त्यात रंग भरण्यापेक्षा थोडासा अंधार,थोडासा पांढरा उजेड आणि एक सायकल इतकच चित्र मला त्या स्वयंचलीत वाहनांविना गजबजलेल्या रविवार कारंज्याचं दिसलं !

joy of painting....

Moving ahead from painting our imaginations on paper or on screen.... to actually painting the vehicle panels ( with dirty primer coat on them) is just an awesome experience!!!!! seeing the body changing its colour gradually with fluid movement of the air gun around it can't be described in words... The smell of spray, the magical motion of hands holding the gun, the sexy waterfall just behind the slowly advancing body panels (to dissolve and wash away the extra paint spray) and the result!!! the wet glossy paint on vehicle... wowwwwwww... even the way these body panels are arranged on the fixtures hanging from the moving conveyor look like dynamic sculptures!!! I was so overwhelmed by the experience that I actually enquired about the training for it to the paintshop head!!!!! hope I actually end up setting up a small paintshop at R&D and then PAINT the plastic panels!!!! wowww feels so nice...
I fell in love with colours all over again!!!!
:)