The latest rage in India are LED lights of various fashions, be it small torches, lanterns, garden lamps or even lamps that fit into the common bulb holder socket found at homes! These come in different wattages starting from 1W upto 3W or more and save you thousands of rupees in precious money when used in place of conventional lamps.

One such company making LED lanterns is Flexitron and I came to know about this company through some business contacts. I happened to buy a 1W LED lantern that has two LEDs facing each other, one from top, and one from below. The lantern costs Rs.900 upwards and comes with a charger similar to that of your mobile, which shows a red indication when charging and a green when done. Each charge of the battery can run this lantern more than 14-15 hours and the charge also lasts upto more than 10-12 days which makes it very very handy for homes in India where there are frequent power cuts.

The light released by this lamp is strictly not phenomenal, but it can easily brighten up a dinner table to an extent where one can comfortably have dinner even in times of power cuts.

Any product has to be handy in ways more than one, and this one is no exception. This lantern also comes with a Nokia phone charger with which you can charge your mobile phones during power cuts by deriving power out of the lanterns battery. Thanks to Nokia’s large scale monopoly, at this time this lantern only supports nokia phones, but it isnt far off when more multi model phones also garner support from our humble lantern.

Well then, is it a cool gadget for 900 bucks? I would like to think its quite expensive as usually is the case with any new products. But if you do think of the energy it saves over days and years of working, the amount seems negligible. The only problem then being warranty and support. For one year there is warranty on the lamp and I do want to believe that the company making these lamps does not shut shop or change business. But its hard to say what can happen due to business dynamics to such companies who are initially interested to be innovative and then change track later on. Hopefully my lantern will be safe for a few years.

In these days of use and throw gadgets, I would not be surprised if I find more and more people having greater spending power leading to more and more cheap, reliable, use and throw gadgets, there by keeping the economy revolving on and on!

If you care to buy one, do call flexitron at +91-80-25531512, speak to Prithvi. you wont regret the purchase! Move on bulbs and tubelights, give way to the swanky new LED systems.

I had a chance to visit the jayanagar shopping complex in Bangalore, for some purchases for a family function, after a long long time. I must say that the market and shopping complex is a world of its own. With so much in store inside, a shopper cannot possibly go home empty handed out of this place.

The ground floor of the complex is a place with thousands of shops huddled close to each other selling many things from footwear, clothes, birthday party items, coconuts, vegetables, flowers, perfurmes, powders, vermon, garlands, spices, toys and household goods among other things.
There were shops that were also specializing in selling photo grames, idols of gods and goddesses, plaintain leaves, flavoured mint and mouth fresheners as well. The jayanagar fish market was a place which I could smell to find where it was, and it offered a variety of fish, prawns, eggs, and other sea food.

This market can be compared to any other flea market worldwide and the prices are down to earth and enables every shopper to buy things at a bargain. Other than the ground floor, this complex houses three more floors having government offices, bigger retail shops, clothing accessory shops and cosmetics of well known brands too.

Outside the complex are road side vendors who sell many knickknacks, mainly handkerchiefs, flowers, vegetables among other things. This place is worth a weekend visit, and while you are there, dont forget to eat at Ganesh Darshan, the erstwhile Dosa Camp, a fast food joint near the market. There are many bank ATMs at your service too in this area.
Around the periphery of this complex are handicraft shops, handlooms, mobile phone shops, book shops and famous restaurants to dine in. There is also a well known cinema theatre here. The best way to enjoy your day is to travel by bus or by the famous/infamous autorickshaw, a three wheeler ride. Getting an organized car parking slot is almost impossible here during the day.

Shown below is a macro mode photograph that I took with my Olympus C770 UZ camera. In the macro focus is a golden ring, with a neatly carved out Lord Ganesha. The nice little piece of jewellery sits with a nokia phone in the background. The intricate amount of work on this ring is awesome and I like this ring the most among my collection.

Its a gala occassion at our home, and what better way to celebrate the same than to adorn the beautiful hands with the famed mehndi patterns.

At Rs.50 per hand ( < $1.25), doesnt this creation look awesome? 🙂 Now this is one hand that is waiting for all appreciation to be showered on it.

Rathi Thee Thee – [audio:http://chowchowbath.com/sivaji/Athiradee.mp3%5D

Balleilakka Balleilakka – [audio:http://chowchowbath.com/sivaji/Balleilakka.mp3%5D

Oru Koodai Sunlight – [audio:http://chowchowbath.com/sivaji/Oru_koodai_Sunlight.mp3%5D

Sahaara – [audio:http://chowchowbath.com/sivaji/Sahaara.mp3%5D

Vaji Vaji Vaji – [audio:http://chowchowbath.com/sivaji/Sivaji.mp3%5D

And Bajaj said, yes its done!!

Image credit Nicolas Mirguet (https://www.flickr.com/photos/scalino/)

Challenge: When the Chinnaswamy Cricket Stadium in Bangalore approached Bajajfor floodlighting their cricket field, we were sure of being inside the winner’s circle. But the task ahead was tough, unlike the rest of the India stadia. The lighting had to overcome the huge canopies covering the stands. Canopies, that could cast a huge shadow over the area near the boundary line. For Bajaj, it meant critical aming of each floodlight, besides the raising of the towers to over 60 metres. And 100% victory.

Solution: With Bajaj on the job, the GE Ultra Sport Floodlights soon bathed the Indian Cricket Team in their glory as they effected one of their greatest victories over Pakistan in the ‘96 World Cup, and yet again when they comprehensively beat Australia in the Titan Cup. Needless to say, every such victory is a victory for Bajaj Engineering and Projects BU too.

Today I had a chance to finally splurge on some real good low light night time photography at the Indira Gandhi musical fountain.

Image copyright : http://www.chowchowbath.com, http://www.thebangaloreblog.com

The photos did come out well, but the fountain itself sponsored by the Indian Railways, was too basic, and the effects and lighting repeated many times. For a half an hour show and a Rs.10 ticket fee, this is more than one can ask for to spend a cool summer evening away from the din of traffic.

Deconstructivism in architecture, also called deconstruction, is a development of postmodern architecture
that began in the late 1980s. It is characterized by ideas of
fragmentation, an interest in manipulating ideas of a structure’s
surface or skin, non-rectilinear shapes which serve to distort and dislocate some of the elements of architecture, such as structure and envelope.
The finished visual appearance of buildings that exhibit the many
deconstructivist “styles” is characterised by a stimulating
unpredictability and a controlled chaos.

One such of these buildings (though where the decon element is only on the elevation rather than the whole building itself) is on St.Marks Road. It looks like an upcoming mall or something, and pretty unique in itself

Original image credit : Addision Godel (https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorcasino/5556359175/)

For more on decon, have a look here

A new car is a new car !! so much so that one tends to drive it even before proper registration has been done !! wonder where they want to go so fast in life ?

Its always important to know what you can do to help when there is a fire at your workplace or home, but do you know how many types of extinguishers are there and what sort of materials they use it for? There are water based ones, CO2 based ones, available, and this training at our office only helped us get a first hand view of how to use these extinguishers! Though it was a mock drill, it also helped the fire department understand how casually people respond to fire. So the next time you hear and alarm, get out of the building immediately, fire or not!

Also the security personnel displayed a pump hose which could throw water at unimaginable heights upto 4-5 floors of the building, I must say it was really impressive!!