We don’t much of have a culture either at home and at our community to listen to music, so that sort of forces me and Ali to dig deep and keep looking for alternate sources of entertainment or education that we can indulge in when commuting from home to office. We were delighted when there was the explosion of podcasts on the internet. Those who may not be familiar with the term, a podcast is simply the internet but delivered on Audio. And you have podcasts on huge number of topics, be it from religion/spirituality, politics, documentaries, or Classic Story Telling. To hear podcasts all you need is an mp3 player, which may not be an ipod. Infact, a huge number of mobile phones these days have built in mp3 players, so to hear a podcast on the go, all you need to do is download it to your pc and then download that podcast into your phone. It’s really not that difficult, but you’ve got to do it once to experience it’s simplicity. Sure, but it still doesn’t beat having an ipod, as that makes downloading, syncing and listening to podcasts even easier.

We’ve (me and Ali) recently been hearing the podcasts of Oprah and Eckhart’s webcast discussion of “A New Earth”. These webcasts are a chapter by chapter discussion of Eckhart’s latest book A New Earth. I must say that I finding it fascinating. I’m currently in the middle of Chapter 2 of the podcast series. Eckhart is always a pleasure to listen to and Oprah…well she provides good comic-relief now and then. I do hope to join the webcast in one of the forthcoming sessions. Meanwhile, pickup the book or do hear these podcasts, when you get the chance.

Where we first got to know this stuff
We were introduced to the subject by Kahlil Jaffer’s series of lectures entitled “End of Negative Suffering”. What he basically says in the series of lectures is that yes that we are human and having this material form we are bound to go through hunger, sickness ie physical suffering. But we need not endure anger, jealousy, resentment, depression ie emotional/negative suffering. Infact we are not designed to do so.

You’ve got to hear it to believe it. I might say that it’s the best audio entertainment I have heard. Listen to the enchanting stories of Mary Shelley, Edgar Allen Poe, Oscar Wilde and others in The Classic Tales Podcast. Although some fables have been written over a hundred years ago they still carry hard-hitting lessons and be not surprised if you see yourself in some of these stories.

The production quality is excellent. The voices that B J Harrison performs with is life-like. Be it a fair Italian damsel or a Scottish middle-aged gentleman or a bratty American kid, BJ carries these performances with impeccable class.

I’ve heard quite a few tales from the podcast, my favourites have been: The Tell Tale Heart, The Mortal Immortal and Ransom of Red Chief. I secretly hope that B J soon performs The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde.

Ps. If you feel you’ll enjoy this, Have a look at other podcasts that I recommend too.

Considering that it was iPod’s 5th b’day earlier this week, I thought this would be a good time to review a few podcasts that I keep download and listen to farily regularly.

The first podcast on my list, goes with the really wicked title…The Naked Scientists. The Naked Scientists Podcast is described as, ” a media-savvy group of physicians and researchers from Cambridge University who use radio, live lectures, and the Internet to strip science down to its bare essentials.” Other than being educational & highly-informative, these podcasts are most of all so very entertaining. Dr. Chris Smith is without doubt one of the wittiest and most talented presenters that BBC Radio has. I’ve listened to quite a few of their shows and I’m yet to see been caught off-guard by any question thrown at him. And he this knack of simplifying and explaining the most complicated scientific theories/phenomenans. This podcast is a must for anyone who has even a passing interest in National Geographic or Discovery TV channels.