vishkk
vishkk on Hacker News
Since I shared it last time, I have been still working on it — adding more content, tiny improvements and enrichments, and socializing it so that i can get some crowdsourced help with the content and research. I would say I worked more on the CMS/admin panel behind it.
Those of you who are new to this, Qawwali is predominantly south asian genre that is centuries old. My goal with this website is more like wiki, or a gateway for anyone wanting to get introduced to the genre. One of the main, and the complex feature that i worked on was building family trees/lineages.
https://www.qavvali.com/
Posted by
vishkk on Sunday May 24, 2026 @12:40AM
from the show-hn dept.
https://www.qavvali.com/
Hey folks — I’ve been working on this pet project for the last few months, and would love some feedback.Qavvali (or Qawwali) is a South Asian genre that I’ve been passionate about for a while, and I’d love to introduce it to as many folks as I can. There are many aspects of the genre that I love, and I can go into depth if anyone is interested. AMA — happy to reply in the comments.Meanwhile, my...
sure thing —- feel free to share with anyone else interested. It starts at 1PM EST, and goes on for roughly 8 hours so drop by/tune in anytime you want:
https://luma.com/823kzuci?tk=IiDKu2
Thank you, and absolutely! I have been trying to get more people to try — my friend and i host a Zoom listening session every 3 months or so where he curates a playlist to introduce new artists.
Not sure if it is niche, but focused on one South Asian music genre -- been working on this personal project to compile, and collect resources from reliable sources along with mapping lineages of people. Also, I archive a lot of music for this genre from different sources before it vanishes from internet!
https://www.qavvali.com/
EDIT: I have one more page but that is not in navigation yet for people not familiar with the genre. The site is still work in progress -- if you have any feedback, please do leave it here, on the website if you can. The content curation is the most tedious part!
https://www.qavvali.com/tradition/
Pretty cool —- should do it for NYC subways!
Posted by
vishkk on Friday March 13, 2026 @09:49AM
from the astra-mag.com dept.
Thank you for sharing -- that was a great read!
Didn't have vocab for it, but seems like I have been doing something similar. For example, having a JIRA ticket on my board that I don't want to do will make me finish all the other tickets. I will procrastinate till the last minute -- kind of pitting one ticket against all others for myself to get the stuff done.
Whatever it was — a lie, the truth, or, most likely, their mixture — that caused me to make such a decision, I am immensely grateful to it for what appears to have been my first free act. It was an instinctive act, a walkout. Reason had very little to do with it. I know that, because I've been walking out ever since, with increasing frequency. And not necessarily on account of boredom or of feeling a trap gaping; I've been walking out of perfect setups no less often than out of dreadful ones. However modest the place you happen to occupy, if it has the slightest mark of decency, you can be sure that someday somebody will walk in and claim it for himself or, what is worse, suggest that you share it. Then you either have to fight for that place or leave it. I happened to prefer the latter. Not at all because I couldn't fight, but rather out of sheer disgust with myself: managing to pick something that attracts others denotes a certain vulgarity in your choice. It doesn't matter at all that you came across the place first. It is even worse to get somewhere first, for those who follow will always have a stronger appetite than your partially satisfied one.
- Joseph Brodsky
I was checking when I created my account, it is March 21, 2014 -- hitting my 11-year anniversary in two days!
I do the reading, but now I have a problem of finding the best reading too, and the whole rabbit hole is reading about what could be the best reading.
I have been actively working on it, and sticking to one thing and just starting, but i am a creature of habit and love hoarding and finding resources.
Posted by
vishkk on Thursday December 05, 2024 @08:20AM
from the newyorker.com dept.
I shared this link earlier in one thread, and someone suggested that it deserves its own post. So, let's discuss these strong opinions — agree, or
disagree. Share your strong opinions.
Posted by
vishkk on Monday November 25, 2024 @09:40AM
from the wmjas.wikidot.com dept.
hahah love it, thank you for sharing!
Nabokov's recommendations:
http://wmjas.wikidot.com/nabokov-s-recommendationsI love Dostoevsky too much and am quite happy in my bias and echo chamber of that—he was one of the writers that I read in my early days, and to date, I feel that he changed a lot in me or resonated so much that I can't explain.
I believe Nietzche said this about him "the only psychologist from whom I had something to learn."
And one of my favorite quotes by him:
For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build one up out of these fragments. And all the time your soul is craving and longing for something else. And in vain does the dreamer rummage about in his old dreams, raking them over as though they were a heap of cinders, looking in these cinders for some spark, however tiny, to fan it into a flame so as to warm his chilled blood by it and revive in it all that he held so dear before, all that touched his heart, that made his blood course through his veins, that drew tears from his eyes, and that so splendidly deceived him!”
Not entirely related to the article, George Lakoff's Metaphors We Live By is quite interesting. How, over the years, the words we use have become associated with the context in the past, or borrowed from other contexts, literally or figuratively. For example, IIRC, the book mentioned that all, or most of the words we use with time are related to money -- we spend, waste, lose, invest. Words related to arguments come from war/battle language -- defend, attack, counterattack.
I wonder if euphemisms have some metaphorical overloading that changes over the time, or so.
Posted by
vishkk on Thursday December 21, 2023 @03:46PM
from the newyorker.com dept.
One of my favorite products -- been using it for note-taking, journaling, and miscellaneous stuff for almost a decade now!
Definitely one of my most favorite writers in the last few years — been pushing people around me to read him, and have managed to make one person a fan. Advocacy to be continued!
“I’d woken up early, and I took a long time getting ready to exist.” - Pessoa
Absolutely! Hoping that more and more people read him!