Ratlion's Den: 2010

Friday, December 24, 2010

More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.*

R.Krishnamurthy (1927-2010)

This is my paternal grandfather.

Dad thinks this picture was taken around 1947 when Thatha was simultaneously studying and working in Calcutta. I think he was already married to my grandmother at the time.

He passed away this Tuesday, on 21st December 2010, just 3 months after Amamma left us.
She was 79, he was 83. They would have celebrated their 63rd marriage anniversary next year.

Rest in peace Thatha.
Wherever you are, I hope you're with Amamma. And I hope you're happy.

*The title is a quote by Lord Alfred Tennyson that I've heard Thatha mention often. It's something he truly believed in.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Cocolin!

© 2010 Radha Ramachandran

Spotted this chocolate bar on a trip to the supermarket a couple of days ago and
brought it home with me solely for its packaging.

I like the whimsical wrapper, but the taste? Not so much.
Kinda tasted like what I imagine 'fake' chocolate might taste like! Not good!

Friday, November 5, 2010

Painted wooden eggs and a pinecone souvenir.

Painted wooden eggs from various handicraft exhibitions and a pinecone souvenir from a trip to Kodaikanal.

>O<
"Pick up a pinecone and count the spiral rows of scales. You may find eight spirals winding up to the left and 13 spirals winding up to the right, or 13 left and 21 right spirals, or other pairs of numbers. The striking fact is that these pairs of numbers are adjacent numbers in the famous Fibonacci series: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21... Here, each term is the sum of the previous two terms. The phenomenon is well known and called phyllotaxis. Many are the efforts of biologists to understand why pinecones, sunflowers, and many other plants exhibit this remarkable pattern. Organisms do the strangest things, but all these odd things need not reflect selection or historical accident. Some of the best efforts to understand phyllotaxis appeal to a form of self-organization. Paul Green, at Stanford, has argued persuasively that the Fibonacci series is just what one would expects as the simplest self-repeating pattern that can be generated by the particular growth processes in the growing tips of the tissues that form sunflowers, pinecones, and so forth. Like a snowflake and its sixfold symmetry, the pinecone and its phyllotaxis may be part of order for free"

~ Stuart Kauffman (At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity)

:)

Monday, October 4, 2010

Illustration Friday: Old-fashioned & Beneath

© 2010 Radha Ramachandran

An old-fashioned gentleman standing beneath a garland of paper triangles.

Sooner or later I will open that Etsy shop (hopefully sooner than later) and a card set with this illustration will be one of the first things I put up for sale! (So there Universe!)

It's been awhile, IlloFri. How've you been? Or rather, how do you do?

:)