Author Archives: Trichur Hotel

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On Vacation

Category : vacation

Posting vacation photos right from Singapore 😉


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Life of Pi

Category : Movie

Yesterday I watched the movie, Life of Pi. I have read the book but I never understood what the author was alluding to. The 3D was not necessary, I believe and it did not enhance the visual experience much. But somehow the 3D glasses helped me to have a peek inside and I think, I know what it all means now. I may be wrong, but hey, this is my blog and this is my story!

Mr Patel was passionate about Indian culture and was enjoying the potpourri of east and the west in the picturesque town of Pondicherry, now called Puducherry. BTW Puducherry actually means ‘new town’ and not new cherry. But he was forced to migrate to the French Canadian city of Montreal along with his family in his adolescence.

It was a culture shock for him and he found it difficult to adjust though the rest of his family integrated well. The rebel in him revolted against many things and he was supported in his initial days only by his mother. But ultimately he left everyone and everything and started a lone struggle against the foreign and unknown in the company of his rebellious alter ego. It was hard for him. But ultimately he realized that every culture, however serene, has a shared carnivorous underbelly.

After this revelation he took a plunge into the unknown without even a second look and Mr Patel became Mr Richard Parker and lived happily ever after in Montreal with his wife and 2 kids. So my story has a happy ending. Please comment, if you have a different story 🙂


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Peel Score

Category : peel score , technology

Before I start, Merry Christmas and happy new year to you all.

I have been trying to give a facelift to my skin deep blog. Its position keeps fluctuating between 1 and 10 on google for the search string ‘dermatology blog’. Recently I started reviewing dermatological devices and products on skin deep blog. Then I realised that I need a grading / rating system for technologies.

Dermatological laser
Dermatological laser (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Star rating is too common. I wanted to use a more innovative system like the cow rating by tucows for software. Finally I espoused ‘peels’ and called it ‘peel score’! I defined 1 peel to 5 peels grading. I took a photo of a peeled orange with my mobile and wrote a php script to automatically generate the html code.

You can see the result here. This is how the rating will appear.
GulfDoctor.net peel rating
My Rating: 5 peels
What is peel score?


Feel free to use this grading system in your blog or website if you too critically evaluate dermatological devices and products. I have just started using it in my blog. I gave full five peels for the new laser system from philips and 3 peels for the theory that dopamine agonists may be useful in hirsutism.


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National Day – 2012

The National Day brunch overlooking Dubai fountain and the tallest building! Dubai skyline at night on national day below.


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The male psychology

"OLD SPICE ODOR BLOCKER BODY WASH IS SO P...
“OLD SPICE ODOR BLOCKER BODY WASH IS SO POWERFUL, IT CAN BLOCK B.O. FOR SIXTEEN HOURS!!!!!!!” (Photo credit: edwick)
How to market a cosmetic product or service to men? From my experience women tend to notice new products in the market more than men. It may be easier to reach men through their partner because of this. Gift coupons might work as a significant proportion of men’s cosmeceuticals are gifted by their female partner. However the purchase of personal care products is borne out of necessity in men. Men give more importance to price and endorsements. It is vital to give a convincing explanation of how a product works. Men do not have preconceived ideas about what they require to improve their looks. They are more open to suggestions. Men do not compete with each other as far as looks are concerned. They just want to be different. Men generally come with their partners for consultation and consider them experts while women usually hide cosmetic services from their male partners. Tired looks is a common male complaint. The most common male concerns are hairloss and body odour.

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Chakravyuh – Arjun Rampal

Category : Bollywood

 Chakravyuh is a Bollywood political thriller directed by Prakash Jha starring Arjun Rampal, Abhay Deol, Esha Gupta, Anjali Patil, Manoj Bajpai and Kabir Bedi. The director along with his team (except the last two) came to Lamcy plaza for the promotion of the movie which is due to be released on 23rd, one day before its release in India. The plot seems to be interesting and the movie may be worth watching. The crowd was not much unlike the Kareena visit. Arjun as always tried to go that extra mile to interact with his fans as you can see. Anjali Patil somehow did not seem to be at ease. She is a gold medalist from National School of Drama. Esha looked more elegant in her outfit than the Raaz 3 promo. Abhay and Prakash were charming and down to earth.


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Gitex – 2012

Visited Gitex 2012 – the biggest and the best consumer electronics retail platform. It was very crowded. Didn’t see any new products!


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Skin Color Measurement

Category : Cosmetics , Evolution

English: "A Venerable Orang-outang",...
English: “A Venerable Orang-outang”, a caricature of Charles Darwin as an ape published in The Hornet, a satirical magazine Deutsch: Man sieht Darwin als Affen dargestellt, was eine Anspielung auf seine Evolutionstheorie sein soll. Seiner Meinung nach entwickelten sich die Menschen aus den Affen, was damals eine völlig neue Vorstellung war. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today I read an interesting article about the evolutionary significance of colour vision. (Why am I getting into evolution so much? Darwin’s ghost is haunting me!) The author believes that colour vision evolved to sense oxygenation modulations in the hemoglobin under the skin. Interesting theory indeed.

I (We) have been working on an algorithm to measure skin colour for some time. Accurate skin colour measurement may be a useful tool in cosmetic dermatology though it may test the claims of many fairness cream manufacturers! The algorithm is far from perfect.

Want to test it? Click here or the banner below to access it. Be warned!! Use it at your own risk and do not upload any pictures that you don’t want me to see.

BTW are you ready to test the next fairness cream?


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The transgenerational conflict

English: This is a recreated vector image in S...
English: This is a recreated vector image in SVG. The original “Human_evolution_scheme.png” was made by JosĂ©-Manuel Benitos. The following was stated by the original author: “Simplified scheme of human evolution, it does not try to be trustworthy, but a symbol of this process” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Listen2Me
Listen2Me (Photo credit: beapen)

Today I read a well structured and exceptionally comprehensive review of the theories and evolutionary significance of ageing. The author argues that ageing may not be a fortuitous consequence of post-reproductive decline of evolutionary selective pressure as “Evolutionary Theories of Ageing” (ETA) suggest but a phylogenetically conserved, signalling pathway controlled inexorable progression towards death. As Anti-ageing and its pragmatic cousin graceful-ageing are pivotal to cosmetic dermatology, we should be aware of the evolutionary significance of ageing. The author substantiates, based on 400,000 published scientific papers, out of which 4000 have been referred in this monumental paper, that ageing may not even be a group selection process due to resource limitation but a individual germ-soma conflict over the utilization of resources. A transgenerational conflict between germline cells and soma is happening inside you!!


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Bollywood Stars in Dubai

Category : Bollywood

Few of the Bollywood‘s hottest stars came to Lamcy to promote their new releases. The crowd was manageable when Emraan, Esha and Bipasha came for the promotion of Raaz 3.

But the crowd went berserk when they saw Kareena the next day! But it was fun. I was on the third floor, but could still get a descent glimpse of her though she could stay only for 10 minutes. She came for the promotion of her new movie Heroine.