The River and Dreams

This one is for all the Dreamers!!!

You know a dream is like a river

Ever changin' as it flows

And a dreamer's just a vessel

That must follow where it goes

Trying to learn from what's behind you

And never knowing what's in store

Makes each day a constant battle

Just to stay between the shores...and

I will sail my vessel

'Til the river runs dry

Like a bird upon the wind

These waters are my sky

I'll never reach my destination

If I never try

So I will sail my vessel

'Til the river runs dry

Too many times we stand aside

And let the waters slip away

'Til what we put off 'til tomorrow

Has now become today

So don't you sit upon the shoreline

And say you're satisfied

Choose to chance the rapids

And dare to dance the tide...yes

I will sail my vessel

'Til the river runs dry

Like a bird upon the wind

These waters are my sky

I'll never reach my destination

If I never try

So I will sail my vessel

'Til the river runs dry

There's bound to be rough waters

And I know I'll take some falls

But with the good Lord as my captain

I can make it through them all...yes

I will sail my vessel

'Til the river runs dry

Like a bird upon the wind

These waters are my sky

I'll never reach my destination

If I never try

So I will sail my vessel

'Til the river runs dry

Yes, I will sail my vessel

'Til the river runs dry

'Til the river runs dry

Too bad my PC had to reinstall its OS. I lost all the play counts of my song collection therefore. I'm sure this one had a good many play times; and yes it should. Garth Brooks who is a country fellow with a good deep cow boy voice (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6TLqpe1y4s) is giving a wonderful musical beat to it. Specially the opening music. 

No words to describe the meaning of the song. It's high above my vocabulary. The author is saying about dreams and how you should lead them. He starts everything by defining the terms first; Dream equal to River, and Dreamer equal to Vessel. All through the song he briefing this metaphor in poetic way. Chase your dreams and never give up. 

I get to know this song was taken as a funeral song in western countries counties. Don't know how it can relates to the death. May be it plays for the people who had sail their vessels to a destination before river was dried out. Or maybe for the people who's in sailing and stepped into rough waters. Or for people who was dare to danced in the tide. Bluesheets idea is that "This poem reminds us that life is shorter than we think; and if we just stand on the shore watching the river go by, then life will be gone before we have a chance to live it." Maybe this is how it relates.

This song is reminding me several things in art and entertainment industry. A movie, a Sinhala song and a Sinhala poem. It's fun to relate things with one another by creating links.

The movie: The Bucket List

The song: Galanna Galanna by Indika Upamali

The poem: The last verse of Vassanaya by Rathna Sri Wijesinghe

The Bucket List

It was  a story about two old men who received their death notices. One is a billionaire and other one is just an ordinary senior citizen. Yep! he is Morgan Freeman. One has no care about life, and spent the day as he want to the maximum. Other one was a family man and gave his life to it. They were complete strangers who were met at the same hospital room, cancer patients.

They were dislike each other at the first instance. A billionaire and a commoner! In the same hospital room! But thereafter  a bond was created between them thanks to a bucket list. The commoner had a desire to complete a list of things that he would never guessed that he could done; but didn't had any money to spent on them in his lifetime. The billionaire had a desire to do crazy things and go for the adventure; but didn't had any time to spent on them in his lifetime. That connects them together to fulfill their dreams before cancer cell takeover them. Thumbs up movie and it's like sailing the vessel when river got drys.

"Galanna Galanna"

ගලන්න ගලන්න ගලන්න ගලන්න
ගංගාවක් වී
උල්පත පසු කර...

වැවක් වෙලා නතර වෙන්න
නෙලුම් මලක් යට .....

විල් දිය මත ගල් කැටයක්
වැටුනු වෙලාවට...
රැල් සිය දහසක් නැගේවි
රිදිලා හදවත...

දූවිල්ලෙන් වැසුනු දාට
මුලු මිටියාවත...
සිහිකරන්න කඳු පාමුළ
මව්කිරි උල්පත...

බිම්මල් යට පිපුනු පැතුම්
පෑගී යන විට..
කඳු මුදුනට නැග බලන්න
ජීවිතයේ උස...

This song was sung by Indika Upamali as lead when she was a teen. It was for a teledrama telecasted on SLRC long time back when we were kids and I couldn't get the name of it to my mind now. It was about protecting a lake. Should be a nice story but I couldn't remember any of it other than the main actor who was trying to save the lake or somewhat. This song was appear as a welcome song of an event on the story.

The song was first a poem done by Rathna Sri Wijesinghe.

ඇල්මෙන් අකුරට ඇවිදින්
අකුරු අහිදගෙන
කදු මුදුනට නැග බලන්න
ජිවිතයේ උස..

The above part was removed from the original poem to add my favorite verse in the whole song "බිම්මල් යට පිපුනු පැතුම්". And that's where the Dreamers stick in.

"Vassanaya"

This is another epic piece done by Rathna Sri Wijesinghe. "Vassanaya" was a one generation's favorite as it was selected to be appeared in Sinhala Literature text books. And our focus is gone to the last verse which is the peak of the whole composition.

‘ගිම්හානයේ ගිලන් වී කෘශව සියුමැලිව
ඇදී ඇදී ඉකි ගැසූ ගඟ නැවත පිරිපුන්ය
දුෂ්කරයි කියා හැර යා යුතුද ජීවිතය
කටු පොකුර සිප ගනිමි හෙට මලක් වනු පිණිස’

― රත්න ශ්‍රී විජේසිංහ
‘වස්සානය’ කාව්‍ය සංග්‍රහය.




So dreamers, did you found any link between these four classics?

How to Convert Your Touch Phone as Digital Writing Pad for PC

For a recent e-learning project work, I had to do a writing task in a multimedia presentation. As only pointing device I had was a mouse, I had to come-up with alternatives. We could write a big letter, word or two such like "Hello" and "Good Morning" with mouse of course, but this is writing of a few code snippets. Some teeny weeny thing. Wacom, Digipro and so forth writing pads are out of the budget. So the only savior was; my precious phone with Android. Remember how it saves the day when I not having a microphone to record a voice over.

I tried few apps in the google store, but not a one was working correctly. Not running the server application in PC or client version in the mobile. And some are not compatible to my capacitive touch phone. But exceptional this app. Thanks go to developer.

WiFi Drawing Tablet

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wifitablet&hl=en

This can be found on the above URL. Here is how it describe himself. "Turn your android device into a wireless drawing tablet."

Too bad it only allows WiFi to connect with the PC for data transmission. But no installation needed in the PC. It is just a simple double click on a jar file to run the server. Therefore you'll need Java to be installed on your machine. As I was already fulfilled with those requirements, I didn't find any difficulty in setuping this tablet system.

Luckily I had a stylus which goes with a capacitive touch screens. It was totally insane move to bought it at the first place few years back, and was never used for the silly purpose I had in mind. But it was ideal with this app to write something very teeny tiny. So now it's my rescuer. Even though the app support the finger touch, it's not suitable to write anything very small. So with this app I can write almost anything in the screencasts.

If you can see this stylus clearly, you will see it doesn't have a pointed end. As it is a capacitive supported stylus which will mimics the finger touch, it has a plastic cap attached to a spring. As we the humans are used to write with pointed tips, using of spring is ideal in this design. We can perceive and feel this spring as a pointer, but not the circular cap. This stylus was a low budget one in capactive area, and surely there'l be more in the market now.

After perfect setup of the system, you can run the jar file and it will runs the server. Here you'll be given the IP and port that you need to configure on your mobile app. After that, the mobile app and the server app would be connected. Then Viola!!!! we can start the work.

The benefit of this app is, we can see what we are writing at the bottom of the stylus. I mean in the touch screen. Because I'm not used to move the stylus by looking just at the PC screen. (Wonder how'd I trained to do with the mouse long time back.) I dunno about this app's usage in drawing or any other high end graphical tasks, but this one is ideal for my purpose; Writing. You can trigger the clicking activity on PC by having two touches simultaneously. And do the dragging in the same way or else by pushing a button to drag activity. And to hover the mouse cursor in the PC just use the touch.

Once again thanks goes for the developer. This is a perfect low budget solution till the collection increases to have a real writing pad for the work.

Here's how the screencast goes.

"Issara man giya" with "Twenty Years Ago"

It's a place when you're in, you want to get out; but when you're out, you want to get in.

The School.

This nice song sung by Sunil Edirisinghe has a wonderful rhythm, and if you take the original, the instrumental combination was amazing too. (Is it udakkiya?)The song was talking about the memories which combined with the school days.

ඉස්සර මං ගිය පාසැල ඇරිලා
පුංචි පැටව් පෙරහැරෙ එනවා
හේවිසි ගහගෙන හූ හඬ දීගෙන
ලන්ද පුරා දුව පැන එනවා
මේ දරු දැරියන් නොදුටුව දෑසින්
එක දරුවෙක් තනිවී එනවා

It was the school that I went long time back. School is over and little kids running all the way here and there making their signature noises; shouting, whistling and drumming.  But among them, there's a one child, no one had noticed, all alone.

ගහකොළ සෙළවී ඔහු දෙස බැලුවා
බිම් මල් හිනැහී හිස වැනුවා
ඒ දඬුමංකඩ තිත්ත පැටවු රැළ
ඔහුගේ සුවඳට ඉව කෙරුවා
මේ විසිතුරු හැර කොතැනක යන්නද
පුංචි දෙපා එක තැන රැඳුනා

Nature smiled, nodded and looked at him. The little fish gang in the pond sensed his smell. How could someone left seeing this nature's beauty? So his little feet stayed there.

ඉර මල පිපිලා දොඹ ගහ මුදුනේ
නෙළුම් රටාවකි තණ ගොල්ලේ
නීල කොබෙයි රැළ පේලි සැදී හිඳ
මුතු ඇහිඳියි මදටිය ගාලේ
ගිනි මද්දහනේ කුසගිනි නොදැනී
තාමත් ඔහු මේ වන නිල්ලේ

Bloomed flowers, grass garden and birds parade. Mid noon, burning hot sun and empty stomach. But he is still there with the greenery, feeling no hungry.

පොත් පිටු අතරේ නොරැඳෙන දෑසින්
වන වදුලේ අසිරිය දකිනා
ගම් දරුවන් මැද මේ දරු පැටියා
මගේ නෙතට කඳුලක් නැගුවා
ඔහුට මුවාවී පාසැල් යන්නේ
මා දැයි නිකමට මට සිතුනා

The same eyes that not keen to wandering through the books, is seeing the amazing scenic beauty in green forest. Among the other children, this little kid make me a tear in my eye. Because just this thought, it was me who go to school through hiding behind of him.

ගායනය : විශාරද සුනිල් එදිරිසිංහ
සංගීතය : එච්.එම්.ජයවර්ධන
පද රචනය : කුමාරදාස සපුතන්ත්‍රී

Music by H.M Jayawardene
Lyrics by Kumaradasa Saputhanthri

I think this song is a expanded version of Mahagama Sekara's words (I couldn't find it right now, guess it should be his) and summarized version of the movie Taare Zamin Par.

"Life was so much easier twenty years ago". This statement is true in two perspectives, either for someone's self, or as a whole community. Yes, as a society 20 years ago human life was not complicated. If we define the term 'complicated', people take it in so many ways. As we discussed in 'Have we become slaves or masters of machine?' post, the term complicated in this context, have a new meaning. Is it complicated, or are we being slaves. Being slaves of the technology. As a person, surely life is easier for anyone 20 years back in time, as he is not carrying even quarter of the weight of this world that he is carrying right now.

This song which sung by Kenny Rogers talking about the things, he did twenty years ago in his hometown and turning for the future; today. It was a look back reminisce of young memories of a grown-up old man. But in a way, it is already passed 20 years after releasing this song. So the things mentioned in here  are might be 40 years ago for us.

It's been a long time since I walked

Through this old town

But oh how the memories start to flow

And there's the old movie house

They finally closed it down

You could find me there every Friday night

Twenty years ago.

I worked the counter at the drugstore down the street

But nobody's left there I would know

On Saturday mornings that's where

All my friends would meet

You'd be surprised to know what a dime would buy

Twenty years ago.

All my memories from those days come gather round me

What I'd give if they could take me back in time

It almost seems like yesterday

Where do the good times go?

Life was so much easier twenty years ago.

I guess I should stop by Mr. Johnson's hardware store

His only son was my friend Joe

But he joined the army back in 1964

How could we know he would never come back

Twenty years ago.

If you lived in all your younger years in a place and you have to move on for your adulthood for another place, whether the memories in old place are good or bad, you will take it most precious. If you ever had a chance to visit again that old place, surely all the memories from those days would come gather round you.

So this author, he had a visit and the memories started to flow all over himself. He sees how the things had changed. Shocked by the closed movie hall and recollect how he spent his time in there those days.

Surely if someone had a chance, no one would forget to visit the place where the first hard time teenage earnings took place. But when you see that no colleagues were found to be there of your days, you will feel heartbroken how the world is moving.

Of course never would misses to meet your old friends. Yes, they may be no longer lived in here. But their shadows may haunted in the places you all used to gather around. And funnily you'd remember the things you bought those days, that could never be bought to the same price today.

If it was a time that the country is in a war, it would be a one part of your entire life; the things you see, you heard; a big part of your memories. Victory or loss, it would be memories, lessons learned.

So what would you do if there's a possibility to go back in time? Would you go? What would you give a away to grab that offer?

Time is moving. World is changing. It may be like yesterday. Life was so much easier, twenty years ago.

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May be useful this paper article how "issara man giya" song was created by Saputhanthri.

http://www.silumina.lk/punkalasa/20120325/_art.asp?fn=ar1203256

Gregory Peck Hits Again

This is the month of Gregory Peck's 13th death anniversary. Before knowing that, I was able to add few more movies into my Gregory Peck collection in this month after the Mockingbird. Isn't it a wonderful coincidence that the anniversary held near to the date you had the thought to extend the collection?

The reason for the Mockingbird at the first place was the old hit, Guns of Naverone which was once telecasted in tv long long time back, and the Bollywood's Lakshya, where Hrithik was a soldier boy. The first time I watched Lakshya, also somewhat long time back, the faded memories of Guns of Naverone risen up because of remembrance in similar titbits among the two. Majorly the rock climbing approach. With holding that memories to check whether Lakshya was a partial copycat, the time flew away. And that's how Guns of Naverone was occupied by me after sometime later. I mean who would waste resources to watch a 50s 60s old Hollywood hit without no good reason. :P

And this 'To Kill a Mockingbird' was there next to the Guns of Naverone, and suddenly clicked in the faded mind it was the adaptation of a stupid translation of a book I read sometimes back. And that stupidity was mainly because of this English name and not being familiar with killing mocking birds and poor translation of bringing the concept of it into Sinhala.(stupidness was there only before watching the movie and now I own the translation. Hope to get the Harper Lee's  Pulitzer winning original one and the 2nd part of it 'Go Set a Watchman' which was published after her death but written before Mockingbird) And it's a good enough reason to check the movie how it go with the translation. And you know what happened thereafter, if you read that post 60s movie marathon.

Then thereafter 'Roman Holiday' came up to the collection with few more. For today I can say I'm a proud owner of his top 5 movies with two others. So it includes, Twelve O'Clock High, Spellbound; among the popular and The Yearling and Moby Dick among the others. Hope I could find the movie where the locations were used as Ceylon. And you know that's before Bridge on the River Qwai or Indiana Jones. And there was a story when he was in Ceylon aka Sri Lanka for the movie, he caught up with a flu and drink inguru koththamalli and praised that quick home remedy publicly in the press conference, and was just like a slap on the face for the Colombian aunty ladies who were too much westernized those days.