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BOTS wedgies - awesome saddle bags for your bike!

2 days ago | Rohan Kini: blog@BumsOnTheSaddle.com - Home

IMG_20120126_112449
Awesome Saddle bags at the store

A truck load of new BOTS Wedgies have arrived – Sultry Red, Dirty Fellow Yellow, Sexy black, Cool Blue, OMG Green

What is a wedgie you say?
BOTS Wedgie is the bestest Saddle Bag in the world. The perfect size which will take in everything your biking heart desires.

Your bike is longing to have a Wedgie but cannot drop into BOTS?
No worries, we can ship a wedgie to your bike – just email us at admin@bumsonthesaddle.com

A Happy bike is our motto

Do check out a portfolio of our wedgies

Challakere Brevet | 400 Km

7 days ago | Rohan Kini: blog@BumsOnTheSaddle.com - Home

posre

Brevet Summary

Date: January 28, 2012, 6 AM
Start: Indian Institute of Science, New BEL Road Gate
End: New BEL Road
Distance: 400 km
Time limit: 27 hours

Visit the IISc Randonneurs site for more details

Seeing double: how Ruby shares string values

11 days ago | Pat Shaughnessy: Pat Shaughnessy - Home

How many Ruby string values can you see?

How many times do you think Ruby allocates memory for the “Lorem ipsum…” string while running this code snippet?

str = "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit"
str2 = str

…or what about while running this snippet?

str = "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit"
str2 = String.new(str)

…and this one?

Entrepreneurship Moments

12 days ago | Lalatendu Das: Interpretations of Technorealism

Who is an entrepreneur?

In the mid 1980’s, Harvard Business School professor Howard Stevenson defined Entrepreneurship as “the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled”. Theoretically anybody who demonstrates the aforesaid behavior can be an Entrepreneur.

What it takes to be an entrepreneur?

Unfortunately for many, being an entrepreneur is an end state and it requires harsh trade-offs. Some leave stable jobs to chase that one Big idea. Others start by putting together a business plan backed by a detailed market research. Even some start by searching for the right angel investor. Often times, the very entrepreneurial spirit perishes in the complexities it entails.

Is it really that arduous to be an entrepreneur?

Not if we treat entrepreneurship as a journey, a collection of contiguous decision points and apply our entrepreneurial spirit at each of those. John Burgstone in his book, ‘Breakthrough Entrepreneurship” writes “Every time you want to make any important decision, there are two possible courses of action. You can look at the array of choices that present themselves, pick the best available option and try to make it fit. Or, you can do what the true entrepreneur does: Figure out the best conceivable option and then make it available.

So the right question would be “did I act like an entrepreneur” today? Yesterday? Everyday? If answer is consistently yes, you are an habitual entrepreneur.

Queenie's Treasury

13 days ago | Queenie Takes Manhattan: Queenie Takes Manhattan

Aaaaaand...we're back! After a bit of a hiatus for the holidays (when real-life shopping and partying took over for the imaginary sort), I'm ready to reboot the Treasury for 2012. And it's going to be a luxe, lavish, happy, colorful kind of year, kids.

First up, this golden flatware from West Elm. I love how the rich, shiny color is set off by the supremely clean lines of the design. I'm thinking that - when it's back in stock, as West Elm has promised it will be - I'll buy a set to mix in with my vintage sterling. I think the combination will be divine.

Next, a perfect cold-weather food project, for those of you who enjoy that sort of thing. My friend Lucy Vanel lives a pretty amazing life in Lyon, and you can read all about it on her exceptionally beautiful blog, Lucy's Kitchen Notebook. (You can also engage her for what promises to be an incredible food tour of the city.) Today she posted her latest project, duck wing confit. Duck wings are traditionally neglected for their meatier breast and leg counterparts, so Lucy was able to snag a whole bunch of them at three euros a pound. Add in a bit of time, a whole bunch of rendered duck fat and some herbs, and you have a winter's worth of tender goodness.

I always find Rita Konig's particular brand of casual polish enchanting. This shot of her living room inspired me to finally pull together a few stray corners of my own tiny apartment. The result has been an ongoing sense of harmony, comfort and oh-so-grown-up-ness. I could get used to this.

Experiments with PhoneGap and Sencha Touch

14 days ago | Rocky Jaiswal: Still learning ... Thoughts of an Agile developer

Lately I have been interested in learning some mobile programming. With so many options it was difficult to decide which technologies and frameworks to use. With a little advice and some experimentation I finally selected PhoneGap and Sencha Touch. PhoneGap …

Read more »

A little kick.

17 days ago | Queenie Takes Manhattan: Queenie Takes Manhattan

Aside from sautéeing them with a serious amount of garlic, my favorite way to prepare shrimp is to roast them. They get all plump and juicy, and as long as you pay attention and don't overdo things, they come out perfectly ready to eat.

You can just toss them with some oil, salt and pepper and be done with it, but I love adding a bit of mustard and lemon juice to the mix.

Now, to make it worth your while, you have to use a good Dijon, and I don't mean Grey Poupon. Maille is my favorite, and it's available in pretty much every grocery store these days. It's only marginally more expensive than the pardon-me-do-you-have-it variety (in some stores, no more expensive at all), and it packs way more mustard flavor. (It's also better as an emulsifier in sauces and dressings, which is mustard's other big role in classic cooking.)

The mustard adds kick and the lemon adds freshness, and together you have one pretty perfect package. The best part? These babies will be ready in under 15 minutes total, so you can throw them on top of your favorite salad and get to eating in no time flat. (I particularly enjoy them alongside my tomato, avocado and onion salad, or atop my lentils with bacon.)

Mustard Roasted Shrimp

1/2 pound large or jumbo shrimp, cleaned and de-veined
1 tsp. canola or grapeseed oil, divided
1 tsp. good Dijon mustard
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 tsp. lemon juice

Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees. In a medium bowl, toss together the shrimp, 1/2 tsp. of the oil, the mustard, the salt and the pepper, until the shrimp are well and evenly coated. Using a pastry brush, brush the rest of the oil all over the bottom of a small roasting pan or oven-proof skillet.

Arrange the shrimp in the prepared pan, laying them in a single layer. Once the oven has come to temperature, place the shrimp in the oven and roast for 10-12 minutes, until the shrimp have turned completely opaque and are just firm to the touch.

Remove the shrimp from the oven and toss with the lemon juice. Taste for seasoning and serve immediately.

Serves two as part of a meal.

How to Customize Twitter Bootstrap’s Design in a Rails app

18 days ago | Pat Shaughnessy: Pat Shaughnessy - Home

You can find part 3 of my Twitter Bootstrap and Rails series over on rubysource.com. I plan to post again here on my site next week with more on MRI Ruby internals, following up on some of the issues I discussed last week with Ruby strings.

Going solo.

18 days ago | Queenie Takes Manhattan: Queenie Takes Manhattan

After my trip to Sonoma, I worked from San Francisco for a few days. I had one day where I worked from the office, but without my friend YaeRi. Left to my own devices, I decided I'd give Super Duper's veggie burger a whirl. I got it with everything, plus avocado, and it was wonderful.

Equally delightful - if a bit overwhelming - were the garlic fries, tossed with parsley and a bit of parmesan cheese. Make sure to get the dipping sauces, too. Split these, though, if you're not on a solo expedition like I was - you don't want to be the only one with the garlic fries breath, you know?

Super Duper
721 Market Street (Between 3rd and 4th)
San Francisco
415.538.3437

The Holstee Manifesto Lifecycle Video

18 days ago | Rohan Kini: blog@BumsOnTheSaddle.com - Home

<iframe src='http://player.vimeo.com/video/34414313?title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0' height='225' width='400'></iframe>

The Holstee Manifesto Lifecycle Video from Holstee on Vimeo.

Simply awesome – live your life to the fullest!

Run with a view.

19 days ago | Queenie Takes Manhattan: Queenie Takes Manhattan

Over the course of our weekend in Sonoma, I went on three morning runs.

They were chilly, but beautiful.

I mean, running in Central Park has its charms, but even the views downtown from the north side of the reservoir have some stiff competition when it comes to these.

Kashmir photos

20 days ago | Niranjan Sarade: InLoveWithNature

I along with my family went to Kashmir tour in the last week of December 2011. The nature beauty truly mesmerized our minds. Sharing some snaps of the paradise on the earth.







Family style.

22 days ago | Queenie Takes Manhattan: Queenie Takes Manhattan

Way back when at the beginning of December, I flew out to San Francisco for the very best reason of all - to celebrate a friend. My friend Jason turned 30 recently, and 13 of us gathered in Sonoma to fête him with the proper pomp and circumstance. On our last day, we headed over the hills to Yountville for a visit to one of Jason's very favorite places, Thomas Keller's family-style restaurant: Ad Hoc.

The deal with Ad Hoc is that you show up (you can, and probably should, make a reservation) and eat whatever's on the menu for the day. You can sign up for menu updates on the website, but I kind of like the idea of being surprised. We went for Sunday brunch and completely hit the jackpot: chicken and waffles. Before the true debauchery started, though, we had a delightful citrus salad, with crème fraiche and frisée and candied nuts. It was amazing - the different kinds of citrus (pink and ruby grapefruit, blood oranges) were luscious and juicy, and the nuts added richness while the crème fraiche added body.

And then came the main event: fried chicken with sourdough waffles. Two dishes like this one were brought to the table, and the six of us killed them both. How could we not? It was the best fried chicken I've ever had. (Keep in mind, that's coming from a Yankee, so...) I could tell the meat had been brined, but only in the good way (not in the overly-salty, too-watery way), and the crust was crisp, flavorful, and adhered. Adhering is key, you know, because you want some in every bite. Skin that comes away in one piece with the first bite is no good to me.

The waffles were delicious, too - crisp on the outside, tender on the inside (not unlike the chicken, come to think of it), and speckled with bits of rosemary. Doused with cream gravy and maple syrup, the plates of chicken and waffle were just...so good. So satisfying. So wonderful.

I could only eat three bites of dessert, but not for lack of delicious. It was a spiced chocolate pot de crème with Chantilly cream, with snickerdoodle shortbread served alongside. The cookie and chocolate went marvelously together, and that's coming from a woman who rarely likes anything other than marshmallow, caramel, salt or nuts coming anywhere near her chocolate.

After lunch, we went for a little stroll around Yountville, starting in the garden behind the restaurant. As a born and bred Northeasterner, I don't know that I'll ever get over the magic of citrus trees in full bloom. Or perfect fried chicken.

Deploying ruby on rails(3.1) app to Heroku and their issues

22 days ago | Doel Sengupta: Doel

I am working on a rails 3.1 app and lately was trying to depoy the code in Heroku. Heroku has excellent tutorials for the same, but you can encounter some issues which are out of the scope to predict that, for Heroku  or anyone as it lies with your system. Same was the case with my system. I am trying to enlist such issues...don't give up hope I know there are plethora of others..try googling them or adding them here in the comments :)

  1. Fatal error, port 22 can't connect to the mentioned url: The error is caused as port 22 of your machine is blocked. You maybe behind a firewall or using a secure connection (like vpn) to connect to the network. Please disconnect vpn to connect to heroku or check your firewall settings and even if that doesn't work ask the infrastructure team to unblock the port 22. This may appear while pushing your changes to github repository too.
  2. permission-denied-publickey-when-deploying-heroku-code-fatal-the-remote-end:  I found the solution from stack overflow. It is not able to find the keys in heroku, try uploading those to the Heroku site using the following command from the application directory from the command prompt. heroku keys:add ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub 
  3. Assets are not precompiled : Either you can refer to the Heroku site  or execute the steps in sequence.
    (i) Add a production block in the database.yml
    (ii) precompile the assets in your local with the following command RAILS_ENV = production rake assets:precompile
    (
    iii) git add public/assets
    (iv) git commit -m " pre complied assets"
    (v) git push heroku master
  4. [remote rejected] master -> master (pre-receive hook declined) error:  This usually occurs after you  have added a new gem and trying to push the Gemfile without the Gemfile.lock being updated. The best way is to remove the Gemfile.lock,
    (i) rm rf Gemfile.lock from the app dir
    (ii) bundle install (this will create a new gemfile.lock)
    (iii) git add . (iv) git commit -m "bundle" (v) git push heroku master
    Refer to this stack overflow issue for details. 
  5. Unable to install pg(posgre) gem in ubuntu:  To install pg gem in ubuntu, apart from adding the gem in the bundler you need to first install the package for installation of the native extensions and the dependencies for the pg gem.
    (i) From the root directory in ubuntu, install the package with this command
    $ sudo apt-get install libpq-dev
    (ii) Add the pg  gem in your Gemfile.
    (iii) bundle
    (iv) git add .
    (v) git commit -m "added pg gem for heroku deployment"
    (vi) git push heroku master
  6. Sprockets::Helpers::RailsHelper::AssetPaths::AssetNotPrecompiledError: To precompile assets and make them working in production(heroku url), add the assets to precompiled as string in production.rb file.
    (i) config.asset.precompile = %w(styles.css example.js)
    (ii) 
    config.asset.precompile = true



    Ladies who lunch.

    22 days ago | Queenie Takes Manhattan: Queenie Takes Manhattan

    When Louisa visited New York ahead of Thanksgiving, we spent a whole day together doing a whole lot of nothing. Or, more specifically, got ridiculously long massages and then had a ridiculously long lunch at Balthazar, one of New York's best approximations of a Parisian brasserie.

    Oysters and Champagne were both enjoyed, as was a fair bit of salty conversation. I do love visiting Austin, but sometimes I wish I could have lunch with Louisa every week.

    Json, unable to build gem native extension error in windows

    24 days ago | Doel Sengupta: Doel

    I am working in a rails 3.1 app. My Gemfile is not having any json gem version specified, still one of the gem is having a dependency in json, which was resulting in the error above, I have tried

    But neither of them worked in windows. Then I started my app in VMware+ubuntu and it worked like miracle. So it's a windows issue try installing ubuntu with a virtual machine in your windows and start a hassle free coding in rails :)

    Never create Ruby strings longer than 23 characters

    25 days ago | Pat Shaughnessy: Pat Shaughnessy - Home

    Looking at things through a microscope
    sometimes leads to surprising discoveries

    Obviously this is an utterly preposterous statement: it’s hard to think of a more ridiculous and esoteric coding requirement. I can just imagine all sorts of amusing conversations with designers and business sponsors: “No… the size of this <input> field should be 23… 24 is just too long!” Or: “We need to explain to users that their subject lines should be less than 23 letters…” Or: “Twitter got it all wrong… the 140 limit should have been 23!”

    Why in the world would I even imagine saying this? As silly as this requirement might be, there is actually a grain of truth behind it: creating shorter Ruby strings is actually much faster than creating longer ones…

    Unpacked gem...in vendor/gems has no specification file. Run 'rake gems:refresh_specs' to fix this

    25 days ago | Doel Sengupta: Doel

    When you have unpacked/localised a gem for an earlier version of rails (before rails 3 and the concept of bundler came in vogue), the specification file under the vendor/gems folder might be missing which gives the error in the title of the post. Don't have to panic, you can easily generate a specification file for the same.

    Go to the gem directory under the vendor/gems/ folder

    1. cd vendor/gems/factory_girl_rails-1.0.1
    2. gem specification factory_girl_rails > .specification [Don't specify the gem version while generating the specification file].
    3. Or if you have to mention the version use the syntax below
    gem specification factory_girl_rails -v 1.0.1 > .specification

      Integrated, Semi-Integrated and Conventional Headsets

      25 days ago | Rohan Kini: blog@BumsOnTheSaddle.com - Home

      dreadset_2009

      Some interesting tech reading about headsets on your bike from Chris King

      Integrated, Semi-Integrated and Conventional Headsets

      25 days ago | Rohan Kini: blog@BumsOnTheSaddle.com - Home

      dreadset_2009

      Some interesting tech reading about headsets on your bike from Chris King

      vmware and localhost

      28 days ago | Oscar Villirreal: Digital Caveman

      Recentrly I’ve included into my suite of software VMWare Fusion. I was previously using the open source Virtual Box and a copy of Windows XP to emulate IE7 inside of my mac. I’m a web developer so IE counts wether I like it or not. Even though I had these tools I realized to hitting [...]

      Infinity in technology

      about 1 month ago | Oscar Villirreal: Digital Caveman

      Ray Kurzweil just faded out from my iPad as I was watching one of his lectures/speaches. He was talking as usual about how fast technology has evolved an will continue to evolve as time passes by. He also talked about the nature of technologies exponential growth and even game some insight into what the future [...]

      Why Cycle?

      about 1 month ago | Rohan Kini: blog@BumsOnTheSaddle.com - Home

      cycling makes you sexy

      Reason #1.million.one

      Why Cycle?

      about 1 month ago | Rohan Kini: blog@BumsOnTheSaddle.com - Home

      cycling makes you sexy

      Reason #1.million.one

      A weekend with CouchDB, Solr and Torquebox

      about 1 month ago | Rocky Jaiswal: Still learning ... Thoughts of an Agile developer

      Ok, I am lying it was actually a long weekend and I had something working beforehand (but that was before I knew Ruby or really understood how to write decent Ruby code, I am just a little bit better now). …

      Read more »

      Configuring nginx with JBoss / Tomcat

      about 1 month ago | Rocky Jaiswal: Still learning ... Thoughts of an Agile developer

      So you have brought a new EC2 machine. You are a Java / JRuby / Scala developer and you are all excited to put your site out to the world. Problem is your server JBoss / Tomcat runs on port …

      Read more »

      Merry merry!

      about 1 month ago | Queenie Takes Manhattan: Queenie Takes Manhattan

      Merry Christmas, everyone! I'm enjoying a cup of coffee in my Christmas cup before heading over to my brother's place to open gifts and have some waffles, bacon and insanely delicious maple syrup.

      If you're celebrating today, I hope you and yours have a great one. And, if you're not, you should go see Young Adult. I hear it's truly awesome.

      Photo from the early 1980s. My grandparents' living room; my first kitchen.

      Rails upgrade from 3.0.7 to 3.1 and asset pipe-lining

      about 1 month ago | Gourav Tiwari: easy_software = Agile.find(ruby_on_rails)

      Following my previous blog, I happen to work on another rails upgrade at the beginning of my new project. This time rails 3.0.7 to 3.1. I though, I should document these steps, as it might help myself or someone else in future.

      I googled and found a good discussion on stack-overflow. As Forrest Ye gave the right answer, I began the migration step by step, as it is written:
      "Edit Gemfile, change Rails gem version

      gem 'rails', '3.1.0'

      Also adds new gems introduced in 3.1.0

      group :assets do
        gem 'sass-rails', "~> 3.1.0"
        gem 'coffee-rails', "~> 3.1.0"
        gem 'uglifier'
      end
      gem 'jquery-rails'
      run

      bundle update rails
      Then run rake rails:update and resolve conflicts."

      I found few conflicts and before accepting them, I tried to understand:

      1. config/application.rb:
      I paid attention to:
      config.assets.enabled = true
      config.assets.version = '1.0'
      which means you are enabling assets pipe-lining  which is one of the feature of rails 3.1, I accepted the changes.
      2. config/environments/development.rb:
      config.action_view.debug_rjs = true
      which has been deprecated, so this line should be deleted, if you are using rjs in views, debugging is not supported now.
      config.assets.compress = false
      which means assets compression is off in development, I accepted the changes.

      config.assets.debug = true
      it means, you can see the assets being loaded in logs. I accepted this change.
      3. config/environments/production.rb
      I saw again configuration related to asset pipeline:
      config.assets.compress = true
      config.assets.compile = false
      config.assets.digest = true
      Simply, accept these changes.

      Once this is done, move all assets from public/images, public/javascripts, public/stylesheets to app/assets/ directory. Again, you have to make sure, that you
      Include css/javascript links in your layout file like this

      <%= stylesheet_link_tag "application" %>
      <%= javascript_include_tag "application" %>
      Again, it is important to understand the behavior of asset pipeline and how it works. For example, in application.js file, you will have:
      //= require_tree .
      that means, all the files from assets/javascripts directory will be loaded automatically, as application is being loaded, in hierarchical format. If you do need js files in sequence, mention that above this line, e.g.:
      //= require jquery 
      //= require jquery_ujs
      //= require highcharts
      //= require_tree .

      Similarly you have application.css file, which will load assets in hierarchy, so override it if needed. 

      One important thing I noticed is about images, which are embedded in stylesheets. I had stylesheet.css as:
      /*
      *= require_self
      *= require_tree .
      */
      #header { height:20px; }
      body {background-image:url(../images/mainBack.png) !important; background-repeat:repeat-x;}
       So, after moving images to app/assets/images directory, I have to remove the relative path of the image:
      body {background-image:url(mainBack.png) !important; background-repeat:repeat-x;}
      Similarly for all other styles and that is it!
       

      Other side of our Indian History

      about 1 month ago | Niranjan Sarade: InLoveWithNature

      Sharing Last Speech by Nathuram Godse :-

      JANUARY 30th, 1949 - The Mahatma was assassinated by a man called Naturam Godse. After he shot him, instead of running away, he stood his ground and surrounded. He said, "No one should think that Gandhi was killed by a madman"

      One of the best speeches of All time, which is compared to Socrates's speech in his trial. The Judge was astonished by his speech and commented that if India had followed the Jury system of giving judgments, Godse would have been adjudicated as "Not Guilty" by the Jury, cause after the speech, the whole audience was in tears.

      This is the speech given by Nathuram Godse in the court in his last trial for the murder of Mahatma Gandhi.

      "Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revere Hindu religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had, therefore, been intensely proud of Hinduism as a whole. As I grew up I developed a tendency to free thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegiance to any isms, political or religious. That is why I worked actively for the eradication of untouchability and the caste system based on birth alone. I openly joined anti-caste movements and maintained that all Hindus were of equal status as to rights, social and religious and should be considered high or low on merit alone and not through the accident of birth in a particular caste or profession. I used publicly to take part in organized anti-caste dinners in which thousands of Hindus, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Chamars and Bhangis participated. We broke the caste rules and dined in the company of each other.

      I have read the speeches and writings of Dadabhai Nairoji, Vivekanand, Gokhale, Tilak, along with the books of ancient and modern history of India and some prominent countries like England, France, America and' Russia. Moreover I studied the tenets of Socialism and Marxism. But above all I studied very closely whatever Veer Savarkar and Gandhiji had written and spoken, as to my mind these two ideologies have contributed more to the moulding of the thought and action of the Indian people during the last thirty years or so, than any other single factor has done.

      All this reading and thinking led me to believe it was my first duty to serve Hindudom and Hindus both as a patriot and as a world citizen. To secure the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of some thirty crores (300 million) of Hindus would automatically constitute the freedom and the well being of all India, one fifth of human race. This conviction led me naturally to devote myself to the Hindu Sanghtanist ideology and programme, which alone, I came to believe, could win and preserve the national independence of Hindustan, my Motherland, and enable her to render true service to humanity as well.

      Since the year 1920, that is, after the demise of Lokamanya Tilak, Gandhiji's influence in the Congress first increased and then became supreme. His activities for public awakening were phenomenal in their intensity and were reinforced by the slogan of truth and non-violence, which he paraded ostentatiously before the country. No sensible or enlightened person could object to those slogans. In fact there is nothing new or original in them. They are implicit in every constitutional public movement. But it is nothing but a mere dream if you imagine that the bulk of mankind is, or can ever become, capable of scrupulous adherence to these lofty principles in its normal life from day to day. In fact, honour, duty and love of one's own kith and kin and country might often compel us to disregard non-violence and to use force. I could never conceive that an armed resistance to an aggression is unjust. I would consider it a religious and moral duty to resist and, if possible, to overpower such an enemy by use of force. [In the Ramayana] Rama killed Ravana in a tumultuous fight and relieved Sita. [In the Mahabharata], Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness; and Arjuna had to fight and slay quite a number of his friends and relations including the revered Bhishma because the latter was on the side of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama, Krishna and Arjuna as guilty of violence, the Mahatma betrayed a total ignorance of the springs of human action.

      In more recent history, it was the heroic fight put up by Chhatrapati Shivaji that first checked and eventually destroyed the Muslim tyranny in India. It was absolutely essentially for Shivaji to overpower and kill an aggressive Afzal Khan, failing which he would have lost his own life. In condemning history's towering warriors like Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Guru Gobind Singh as misguided patriots, Gandhiji has merely exposed his self-conceit. He was, paradoxical, as it may appear, a violent pacifist who brought untold calamities on the country in the name of truth and non-violence, while Rana Pratap, Shivaji and the Guru will remain enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen forever for the freedom they brought to them.

      The accumulating provocation of thirty-two years, culminating in his last pro-Muslim fast, at last goaded me to the conclusion that the existence of Gandhi should be brought to an end immediately. Gandhi had done very well in South Africa to uphold the rights and well being of the Indian community there. But when he finally returned to India he developed a subjective mentality under which he alone was to be the final judge of what was right or wrong. If the country wanted his leadership, it had to accept his infallibility; if it did not, he would stand aloof from the Congress and carry on his own way. Against such an attitude there can be no halfway house. Either Congress had to surrender its will to his and had to be content with playing second fiddle to all his eccentricity, whimsicality, metaphysics and primitive vision, or it had to carry on without him. He alone was the Judge of everyone and everything; he was the master brain guiding the civil disobedience movement; no other could know the technique of that movement. He alone knew when to begin and when to withdraw it. The movement might succeed or fail, it might bring untold disaster and political reverses but that could make no difference to the Mahatma's infallibility. 'A Satyagrahi can never fail' was his formula for declaring his own infallibility and nobody except himself knew what a Satyagrahi is.

      Thus, the Mahatma became the judge and jury in his own cause. These childish insanities and obstinacies, coupled with a most severe austerity of life, ceaseless work and lofty character made Gandhi formidable and irresistible. Many people thought that his politics were irrational but they had either to withdraw from the Congress or place their intelligence at his feet to do with, as he liked. In a position of such absolute irresponsibility Gandhi was guilty of blunder after blunder, failure after failure, disaster after disaster.

      Gandhi's pro-Muslim policy is blatantly in his perverse attitude on the question of the national language of India. It is quite obvious that Hindi has the most prior claim to be accepted as the premier language. In the beginning of his career in India, Gandhi gave a great impetus to Hindi but as he found that the Muslims did not like it, he became a champion of what is called Hindustani. Everybody in India knows that there is no language called Hindustani; it has no grammar; it has no vocabulary. It is a mere dialect; it is spoken, but not written. It is a bastard tongue and crossbreed between Hindi and Urdu, and not even the Mahatma's sophistry could make it popular. But in his desire to please the Muslims he insisted that Hindustani alone should be the national language of India. His blind followers, of course, supported him and the so-called hybrid language began to be used. The charm and purity of the Hindi language was to be prostituted to please the Muslims. All his experiments were at the expense of the Hindus.

      From August 1946 onwards the private armies of the Muslim League began a massacre of the Hindus. The then Viceroy, Lord Wavell, though distressed at what was happening, would not use his powers under the Government of India Act of 1935 to prevent the rape, murder and arson. The Hindu blood began to flow from Bengal to Karachi with some retaliation by the Hindus. The Interim Government formed in September was sabotaged by its Muslim League members right from its inception, but the more they became disloyal and treasonable to the government of which they were a part, the greater was Gandhi's infatuation for them. Lord Wavell had to resign as he could not bring about a settlement and he was succeeded by Lord Mountbatten. King Log was followed by King Stork.

      The Congress, which had boasted of its nationalism and socialism, secretly accepted Pakistan literally at the point of the bayonet and abjectly surrendered to Jinnah. India was vivisected and one-third of the Indian territory became foreign land to us from August 15, 1947. Lord Mountbatten came to be described in Congress circles as the greatest Viceroy and Governor-General this country ever had. The official date for handing over power was fixed for June 30, 1948, but Mountbatten with his ruthless surgery gave us a gift of vivisected India ten months in advance. This is what Gandhi had achieved after thirty years of undisputed dictatorship and this is what Congress party calls 'freedom' and 'peaceful transfer of power'. The Hindu-Muslim unity bubble was finally burst and a theocratic state was established with the consent of Nehru and his crowd and they have called 'freedom won by them with sacrifice' - whose sacrifice? When top leaders of Congress, with the consent of Gandhi, divided and tore the country - which we consider a deity of worship - my mind was filled with direful anger.

      One of the conditions imposed by Gandhi for his breaking of the fast unto death related to the mosques in Delhi occupied by the Hindu refugees. But when Hindus in Pakistan were subjected to violent attacks he did not so much as utter a single word to protest and censure the Pakistan Government or the Muslims concerned. Gandhi was shrewd enough to know that while undertaking a fast unto death, had he imposed for its break some condition on the Muslims in Pakistan, there would have been found hardly any Muslims who could have shown some grief if the fast had ended in his death. It was for this reason that he purposely avoided imposing any condition on the Muslims. He was fully aware of from the experience that Jinnah was not at all perturbed or influenced by his fast and the Muslim League hardly attached any value to the inner voice of Gandhi.

      Gandhi is being referred to as the Father of the Nation. But if that is so, he had failed his paternal duty inasmuch as he has acted very treacherously to the nation by his consenting to the partitioning of it. I stoutly maintain that Gandhi has failed in his duty. He has proved to be the Father of Pakistan. His inner-voice, his spiritual power and his doctrine of non-violence of which so much is made of, all crumbled before Jinnah's iron will and proved to be powerless.

      Briefly speaking, I thought to myself and foresaw I shall be totally ruined, and the only thing I could expect from the people would be nothing but hatred and that I shall have lost all my honour, even more valuable than my life, if I were to kill Gandhiji. But at the same time I felt that the Indian politics in the absence of Gandhiji would surely be proved practical, able to retaliate, and would be powerful with armed forces. No doubt, my own future would be totally ruined, but the nation would be saved from the inroads of Pakistan. People may even call me and dub me as devoid of any sense or foolish, but the nation would be free to follow the course founded on the reason which I consider to be necessary for sound nation-building. After having fully considered the question, I took the final decision in the matter, but I did not speak about it to anyone whatsoever. I took courage in both my hands and I did fire the shots at Gandhiji on 30th January 1948, on the prayer-grounds of Birla House.

      I do say that my shots were fired at the person whose policy and action had brought rack and ruin and destruction to millions of Hindus. There was no legal machinery by which such an offender could be brought to book and for this reason I fired those fatal shots.

      I bear no ill will towards anyone individually but I do say that I had no respect for the present government owing to their policy, which was unfairly favourable towards the Muslims. But at the same time I could clearly see that the policy was entirely due to the presence of Gandhi. I have to say with great regret that Prime Minister Nehru quite forgets that his preachings and deeds are at times at variances with each other when he talks about India as a secular state in season and out of season, because it is significant to note that Nehru has played a leading role in the establishment of the theocratic state of Pakistan, and his job was made easier by Gandhi's persistent policy of appeasement towards the Muslims.

      I now stand before the court to accept the full share of my responsibility for what I have done and the judge would, of course, pass against me such orders of sentence as may be considered proper. But I would like to add that I do not desire any mercy to be shown to me, nor do I wish that anyone else should beg for mercy on my behalf. My confidence about the moral side of my action has not been shaken even by the criticism levelled against it on all sides. I have no doubt that honest writers of history will weigh my act and find the true value thereof some day in future."

      Adorable and caffeinated.

      about 1 month ago | Queenie Takes Manhattan: Queenie Takes Manhattan

      Healdsburg is one of my very favorite places in all of Napa and Sonoma. It's small and charming, but chock full of excellent shopping, food and coffee. And they decorate the pine trees in the park in the center of town, too. So freaking adorable!

      On this trip, we made a stop at Flying Goat Coffee before making a circuit of the town. I haven't made an exhaustive survey or anything, but I feel comfortable saying it's unlikely you'll find a better cup in the area. I had a bittersweet mocha, and it was delightful. Rich and interesting, and not at all too sweet. My friend Jeff had the Mexican version, with a whole host of ingredients that sounded overcomplicated, but actually turned out to join together and sign in perfect, delicate harmony.

      And such pretty machines, too.

      Flying Goat Coffee
      324 Center Street
      Healdsburg, California