Reflections and Resolutions

Now that we are in the end of 2010 , when my junior asked me "so what are your resolutions for new year? " my thinking process as to what were my reflections and resolutions for this year kick start.

It was very easy to tell my resolutions.. I have only one resolution for years now , "Never do anything that you will have to hide from anybody else ,most importantly you own self! Do Everything that you have passion for , and learn from anything and everything that comes your way",Although this resolution is never altered , my understanding of it has!. When i was thinking of this , as though my smart ipod understood it started playing a Bollywood song from roja "Dil hai chota sa .. choti si aasha! masti bari mann ki.. bholi si aasha! exactly my resolution :) .


Now reflections were a little hard to think of ,rather to put to words .Had i been with the same mind set as that of 09 considering only the success rate , then i suppose i would have claimed that this is one of the worst possible years and cribbed about it for days, But today as i sit and write this blog there are very few things that I regret about rather I would like to put it as , if I am asked to repeat this year there are very few things I would have done differently.

So When i was wondering what changed ? There was a spider trying to climb up the wall in my room and fell , which reminded me of a story i had read in primary , Which goes like this .. " There was a king who was defeated by his enemy and was betrayed by his friends , he after losing all hopes goes and hides in a cave , where he sees a spider which was trying to weave the web and go up. It tries once and failes, it then moves a little up but still fails.. This repeats 17 times and then it succeeds and reaches the top, This incident moved the king and he then vows to get back his throne and fights and finally wins! So yes this was my outlook this year , I might have faltered but have learnt how not to take faltering steps again , although there are certain things beyond my control which i would still brood about , i have learnt to fore go of things i cannot change but accept and move on , wh ile still striving to achieve the best. Probably I started off my year well ,with atlas shrugged and fountain head from ayn rand to now ending it with a book on chanakya , This has helped me to change my outlook towards a lot of things around me for good, Now i don't want to bore any one reading this with free advice but happy to share that I had a great year.

Actually in a recent trip there was scene which moved me, there was an elephant that was chained sadly looking(appeared to me) at some tiny chirpy bird gaily, freely sitting on a rock.. This reminded me of the smile of a tribal girl living on limited means. It is up to the interpretation of a reader to understand what my point is in here and why it appeared in my reflections.

All excited to embrace a new decade with 2011 :) . Happy new year !

Belur A Masterpiece

Each time i go any historical architectural sites in India i get a altogether different perspective of the place , similarly although I had visited Belur thrice before , my fourth visit this weekend gave altogether a new perspective of the place and Indian heritage.

Let me put down my findings of my recent visit to Belur also some facts known but that got re-enforced .As i had innumerable clicks from my earlier visits i decided to put down my camera and just look through my eyes.

Firstly i was asked a question by my friend , do you know why every temple has a garuda kamba? I was actually surprised i didnt know! He then told that it supposedly acts like an antenna and resonates all the bhajan's or mantra's that are chanted inside the temple.That was
cool ,Then my rusted brain remembered that in Hampi one another explanation was they would light the tip of garuda kamba with fire and thus enitre village would know of the occasion.

Thankfully we hired a guide[I still feel guilty for having given a wrong info before hiring a guide though] . It started off bland with same old things that I had heard before. He then mentioned makara animal with trunk of an elephant (for its strength ), ear of a cow(for its sensitivity) , tail of a peacock (beauty), and many more but i was already admiring , how beautifully the best of all in one was captured was amazing. Just imagine makara as a society !! best of everything!

Our guide then moved on to statue of vishnu with four hands each holding different ayudha/weapon and he mentioned that there were 24 different forms of vishnus ! suddenly there was something itching in my brain.. OMG he was talking of permutation!! 4!! I wonder why the hell had i not realized this in my earlier visit! But then there were other bustling bubbles four weapon;s would also indicate 4 purushartha's(dharma artha kama and moksha).

But then my thoughts were curtailed when I realized he had moved on to 42 shilabalika's , For all those who think it is just statues of beautiful young women , No it is not , You cannot but admire the intricacy in each carving , expression in each one. But beyond all!! statues there are not just dancing poses but there are statues of huntress and other professions as well , one that caught my attention when he told that was the statue of a woman who appeared to be proud because she knew how beautiful was , but i didnt think that was the reason, probably that scultoror who had created that great a masterpiece would not have cared .. she must have known/loved herself so well to be that proud!

There were many many such beauties like a statue representing ecological balance / jeevo jivasya jeevanam [ reminded me of aja putram balim dadyat devaha durbala ghatakaha]
Also one amazing thing reminded me of open source development model was there was a small block which was empty.. among all the sculptures , it apparently was because the scultor with humilty left it to someone who could fill that space with something that would give more justice than what he would do to that space.

Let me complete this writing by mentioning this last important point , there are layers of miniature sculpturing as a base with elephant at the bottom to indicate strenght , then comes lion representing power , above which is horse that shows speed and then flowers with the significance of beauty.Also above layers are adored with simple daily life of humans , ramayana , mahabharatha and then sculputre if gods and godesses indicating a blending demarcation of jeevatma and paramatma.

This ended my visit to belur with darshan of chennakeshava in mohini alankaara, sayonara...

There is always a first time in Everything..

I had laughed my guts out when i had heard this for the first time in the context of people talking about flunking in some engineering exam , FAFL i suppose. But then these were the lines that I remembered when i had to travel all alone to France for two weeks . Being a person who hasn't traveled even 100 kms without family/friends, managing myself for 2 weeks was indeed a memorable experience.This blog is for every Individual who might face this situation , A message to convey that it is not really that bad :) .

The minute I had to leave my parents behind in airport and boarded the flight fear engulfed me , probably a bird learning to fly might have experienced the same feeling when the only way was to to trust its wings .After my uneventful flight from Bangalore to Dubai , I was super excited to have got a window seat (Which i always prefer) from Dubai to Nice..As it always helps me experience what a bird might feel when it is flying up in the air , crossing clouds to reach the serene sky up above.Funny thing is Nice Airport is situated just besides the sea and it appears as though the flight is going to crash into the sea but to relief it does land smoothly on ground with sea gulls flocking around!.

It was only when i collected my baggage did i realize that i was all alone in an unknown country where i was a complete stranger to everyone around and was living my worst nightmare! But first words i remembered were that of my mom's "Dhairyam sarvatra sadhanam" which means "you can win world with courage".It helped me get back to normalcy and proceeded to my hotel room.

My room was one beautiful place overlooking Alps , My life was half back when i could connect to internet and talk to my folks :) . But then i needed water to get my other half of life back .. So i ventured out looking for a supermarket.As i was clueless and i have great respect for my direction skills ;) i decided to ask an old couple.Their confused expression made me realize that they were clueless about what i was talking in English and they only spoke french, Inspite of that they were encouraging and wanted me to use more words , so i made a gesture of chocolates and water and then they realized and i can never forget what they did , they walked all the way with me for about 300mts till the supermarket, pointed me to it and left saying good evening (bon soir) child .. I was no longer a stranger there .

My office experience was equally cherishable, It was nice to see people i talk/work with over email in person, [It is this factor that will not put airline business under loss :P at least for timebeing].But the quality i admired was their ability to get into the depth of the subject, irrespective of how significant it might appear , Probably my comp sci friends can relate to, when i say they were debating enum over #define , or considering a single int variable's impact at the system level. yet another amazing attitude is , every one belongs there to one team , if you don't get what i mean , many a times we get so damn bogged down by our domain that we don't bother what happens in others module/driver/domain , which was not the case there! if your neighbor is facing an issue no matter what team he/she belongs to , they discuss the problem , try their best to help out . All i could see there was passion for what they were doing.

Then came the weekend which I didn't want to sit brooding over my state so decided to explore old nice , Monaco , old nice over the weekend .Although its fun to explore a place only with family or friends , it was an altogether new experience to travel around the city alone .I , being a person who can lose my way from a known street in Bangalore was actually surprised that i traveled alone with a map and a simple but great tip :D given by a colleague of mine [whenever you think you are lost walk towards the sea and you will find your way!] .Probably that's why it is "Necessity is the mother of invention/learning".

One person i cannot forget to mention in this blog is a lady by name Evelyne who was my taxi driver for 2 weeks. One who always talked to me for 30 mins journey to make sure i was ok, One who got me maps and told how i could get to places over weekend. With her accent she called me mythro [ i didnt correct her as it meant the same a friend]. It was only one day when she told that she was a lawyer by profession for 30 years and then was retired but still continued to drive taxi to support her mentally retarded brother , and told me that she also worked as a lawyer for free to help poor when not driving her taxi!, one thing what she said that i will always remember is "Mythro it doesnt matter what work you do as long as you are content and giving your best , I dont think i have to tell this to someone from the land of spirituality"

Finally i was done with my 2 weeks stay and had to head back home :) ,I was bustling with joy but at the same time I had an experience to remember. But my ipod touch is getting smarter day by day , as shuffle of songs started playing "Baaro sadhana kerige song by bendre" on my flight back :) , I have still not been able to find an answer for why people leave India[Birth country] and move out. My humble request to whosoever stumbles across this blog and have reached till here to grow and thrive the society that had thrived you!.


checkout for some pics from my camy dearest in here :

Nice
Old Nice
Monaco
St Laurent du var

My experiments with Life - I

I have been listening to discourses of Prof K S Narayanacharya for about 2-3 weeks now thanks to 2 of my friends for triggering my thoughts and ego to listen to those discourses and also for sharing the link.

http://www.kannadaaudio.com/Songs/Discourses/home/Indina-Jeevanada-Mele-Mahabharathada-Belaku.php
http://www.kannadaaudio.com/Songs/Discourses/home/Vishnu-Sahasranama.php

OK so why blog ? It has changed the way i look at myself and world . It has also strengthened my faith on Indian Scriptures . so i would like to share my understanding with examples.
One major take away was what krishna told arjuna "Do anything that you do with utmost dedication without any expectation" [I would like to add prejudice to expectation].This may sound either way too simple or way too complex.But But.. there is an extraordinarily simple yet powerful hidden secret in this statement.That is the belief factor .

Normally it so happens that when you believe in what you do without considering any factor of "success-failure" "like-dislike" you normally tend to do things that you are really passionate about or what you are good at without wasting effort on crap.It results in satisfaction allowing harmonious co-ordination of body and mind.
Otherwise had you concentrated on the outcome , it is general tendency to have fear of failure , fear of not living up to the expectation of yourself or others. Now once you fear, mind starts simulating scenarios where it places you as a loser thus disconnecting body-mind harmony and thus resulting in stress/failure .
Now that paul the octopus is dead I still think Netherlands lost to spain because of the predictions of paul! as Netherlands had already accepted defeat even before putting up the fight!

Expectation is a monster that eats you irrespective of whether you win or lose.When you expect something and reality is closer to what is expected then you dont learn anything new as you already knew. Now if it so happens that it did not turn out to be what you expected you are so disappointed that your mind shuts off without taking anything in!.
Had we all learnt getting prejudiced or expectation when we were born , I guess none of us would be walking today.

Now let me take examples , Recently i had to travel to Bombay and Hyderabad. On one hand I was heavily inspired by David gregory Robert's shantaram and his description of Bombay and on the other hand deeply apprehensive as i was travelling alone without family or friends for first time and had heard several stories on mumbaikars being rude.Now had i gone with this expectation i would have been thoroughly disappointed as the Bombay i saw in 8 hours was not even close to DGR's description but way better and people right from my driver till the consulate really friendly.Although i wouldnt say same thing to Hyderabad its not a bad place either and its amusing to read telgu characters similar to kannada but with spirals[chakkuli in kannada, Marathi is devanagari script i suppose or is it that I read hindi boards :D ].Anyway the point is its fun to explore life without prejudice or expectation.

When the concept is so simple ,i have realized it is the toughest path to tread , After all these realization , when i started off to read SL byrappa's Kavalu i was totally disappoined after the prelude itself ! I was expecting another Avarana/Parva and it turned out to be different! so expectation is just built into our system which we need to start rebuilding. solution ? Practise practise and more practise! I'm set!!

Now other take away was to see god in everyone
Sarva Bhutaanaam cha atmanaam |
sarva bhutaani cha aatmaani ||
Ikshate yoga yuktatma |
sarvatra samadarshanam ||
When everybody curses Hinduism(typed sanatana Dharma from now on) for being non secular , which other sect says that there is god in every one and everyone should be treated with respect. It upholds equality not just among humans but across species.It also makes one humble as one realizes that everybody is good as I am as they all have portion of the same god which i consider as ultimate and is within me.

Common Wealth Games : Celebrating Slavery

Sometimes I wonder if Britishers had injected some slavery bug into our genes before leaving India. If you are wondering what the hell am i talking about here goes the entire Article to explain myself.

If you have ever wondered what common wealth games is ,

a Quote from wiki

"The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and previously known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states. All but three of these countries were formerly part of the British Empire."

It is a game that is played by members of common wealth nations , members who were part of British colonies.Basically one's ruled by British!

So after celebrating 61st republic day , if we still get Prince charles to come and inaugrate[ok jointly with Prathibha but still!!] the Common Wealth Games, arent we celebrating our slavery? Had Subhash Chandra Bose been alive today , this act would have cremated him alive. Is this the respect we are paying for all the struggle?

Now if you say Globalization, India getting visibility and such crap , The only visibilyt we got was for ,"The Great Indian Corruption". When It might not have affected any of these corrupt officers , It has bled the heart of every honest tax payer in India.Yes Inaguration was great , there was folklore , there was this great Indian railways program with people from different parts of india from kashmir to kanyakumari coming in. Again is this our reality ?, Doesnt the whole world know of the issue we are facing in Kashmir , Naxal problem ? Isnt this the act of wearing silk robe for a day when everybody knows that you wear rags otherswise? Had we honestly used the same money to fix food, education , funding for sports , encouraging entrepreneur rather than showing bigotry by organizing games , Probably we would have been far far better.

But then wanted to humor myself , Inspite of all the rage , Bingo! Remebered this joke about English :

"British might have ruled us for over 200 years but Indians have been taking the revenge ever since by killing their mother tongue day-in and day-out"

Just looked around and found these pictures .. :-)

Living the life cycle of butterfly in a day

One of my favorite game in my childhood days was to run behind those colorful butterflies in the small garden in our backyard.It has always been an enigmatic , pleasure filled , exhilarating experience , the sense of joy and freedom.It was recently when i visited the butterfly park in Bannerghatta national park(Bangalore) the same pleasure was recreated.

This time thanks to my canon S5IS camera and hardship with which i was trying to take picture of butterflies,the guard there took pity on me and i was lucky to have got an opportunity to see the entire life stage of the butterfly in the laboratory there.It has also taught me an invaluable lesson for life. so i would like to share the details of the life cycle of butterfly(with pictures) along with my perspective of the cycle as i find it very similar to the mental lifecycle of us human beings.

Butterflies belong to the group insecta and reproduce by laying eggs , And there is a high probability that you will pass off the eggs without even noticing it.

Eggs of butterfly 1

Then comes the larvae/catterpillar stage. In the initial stages it supposedly sheds its skin several times before growing into an adult. This information forced me to draw a parallel of the learn/unlearn cycle that we go through, How many times do we shed our ignorance and build a new layer of fresh knowledge.This is a beautiful stage of growth is what i think.Here are 2 pictures of larvae of 2 different types of butterflies sorry that i forgot the name though.

Larvae of a butterfly

Larvae of butterfly 1

Pupa stage is the true testing stage in the butterfly life cycle, it is a stage where it builds a cocoon around itself.In the natural scenario it also has the responsibility to camouflage to protect itself from predators.But the interesting phase is the end , where it has to struggle its way out , it is this struggle which gushes the blood into its wings from its body and brings out the beautiful butterfly out.Once we learn/pursue what we believe in it is the assimilation and the introspection that makes the learning worthwhile. There might be struggle but the end result is always an enlightened mind and success.
pupa of butterfly 1
Then finally as the result of all these hardships comes the butterfly colorful and beautiful all set to explore the world , fluttering its wings without any rest jumping from flower to flower as though to make the fullest of its short 7 day life and relieve itself of the lethargy of staying dormant for so long .I could relate this to the "ah ha" minute that follows after solving a tough problem or anything that you can relate to .. which may be shortlived but unforgettable.

Butterfly 1

With this completes the butterfly lifecycle and my walk in the butterfly garden. Well i was thoroughly rejuventaed after this expedition, looking forward for more of these..

Race called Life

I am not saying anything new in this blog , but posing a question which we tend to ignore even when we know the answer.

There is an African proverb that reads

Every morning in Africa ,a gazelle wakes up

It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed

Every morning a lion wakes up,

It knows it must out run the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.

It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle When the sun comes up you better start running.

I am pretty sure that atleast 9 of 10 of us will be following this proverb day in and day out.

But if you try to introspect do you know what you are running after ? When the lion knows what it is after and gazelle knows what it is running from I'm pretty sure that 7 / 10 of us will not know for/from what we are running.

It so happens that , when we start running we tend to forget what our real ideals and morals were , probably we would have already crossed what we were after even without noticing it in the wake of this run.

Infact I was intrigued by the fact that the rate at which heart ailments among the mid 30 is increasing at alarming rate ,that shows the pressure or stress that we bring upon ourselves .In fact my neck pain which turned out to be something minor was a sort of wake up call i must say.

No I'm not propagating communism saying that every body should remain satisfied with whatever one has and it does not matter if you are poor or miserable as long as everybody else is in the same state.. in fact I'm a hard core ayn rand fan promoting capitalism.

At the same time I want to remind myself and whosoever is reading my blog that probably while running we are prone to taking on every crap because we don't have patience or time to think whether it is good or bad.

writing this I remember a colleague of mine who told that do what you want to do today because twenty years down the lane sitting in your balcony you should not regret about what you did not do today. yes it makes a lot of sense and it goes by principle that if you dont have time to do what you want to do then probably you have not understood your priorities well.

When it not possible to halt it is always ok to slow down , do you remember the details of things around you when you hurried ? or when you took things slow ?. I guess when you slow down you do things better ok now I better stop writing more ,this is more of a remainder to myself to introspect what and why I'm running and re-prioritize if needed.

What are you waiting for put on your thinking cap?

Understanding (mis)Management

My itch to understand this question why people leave/switch company? triggered when my junior asked why a senior member in team was leaving , although he was leaving for his own personal reasons the question was valid ; So as always my buddy Google points to the answers to weirdest of the questions i had earlier so I tried this search out.

There were umpteen research done by esteemed companies which said people leave when they think that they are not paid enough for their work or if they have a bad boss or when they feel that they are not recognized for their work .when I sympathize people who think they are paid less, pity those hapless souls with bad boss I don't think that is strong enough reason to quit a job. I could not continue this search as I had to attend to many things at work so my thought was curtailed there.

Idle time in bus is the time when all these memories/unanswered questions haunt back so as I was thinking and thinking a thought struck my mind ,yes it is the reason! idle mind indeed!!! when one feels that one is not learning anything new or making progress in one's work that is when the frustration builds creating emptiness that ruins the mind. Idle mind is just like stagnant water that stinks.

I have heard that people play farmville in office just to be occupied ; if one can play that horrible a game (come on don't tell me you find abandoned Cow or some farm animal update interesting, if so you should reconsider the work you are doing) I can imagine the level of frustration . I remember having gone through this phase although for a brief period but thanks to my management it was fixed early nevertheless I had thought of leaving atleast 100 times a day in that period but I guess that is one of my good decisions not to have quit.

So yes coming back to the topic I think not making progress or not learning is a major factor for people to take drastic step of changing jobs ,besides that I want to list few others which I think has more impact than money ,if you still remember the start of blog where I have not commented on recognition as a factor , IMO when you have good work you don't really care for recognition but even the most selfless soul who has worked hard on something will agree with me that if somebody else is credited for your work or somebody less worthier is praised when you are chided you lose interest in continuing .so recognizing wrong one is greater evil than not recognizing.

Now i was quite clear about the fact but I wanted to understand this more so some googling along with little data collection from my own friends helped me understand this better, let me try to explain , major reason that frustrated people was when they had a boss who would let the pressure and bad name percolate down but would always hog the good name. But then there were several different minor reasons widely varying right from having a smart ass team member who would have great tempo with boss and try to get all the good name for what is not done but then a organization which cannot recognize such phony bunch it's not worth staying, to Having a bunch of disinterested people in group who would spoil the spirit , or having a bad work life balance.

As a conclusion although there could be 100 other reasons I personally believe that not making progress and wrong credit would constitute 80 percent of the reason why people change jobs.

My Favorite Movie/Novel Quotes

For sometime now , i wanted to list all my favourite quotes from novels/movies .Although a huge post , here is a small set of my all time favourite quotes , will add more in coming posts.Being a huge Ayn rand fan i start off with quotes from her books.


Atlas shrugged

1) In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.

2) Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason.

3) Rationality is the recognition of the fact that existence exists, that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it, which is thinking...

4) Love is the expression of one's values, the greatest reward you can earn for the moral qualities you have achieved in your character and person, the emotional price paid by one man for the joy he receives from the virtues of another.

5) If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down on his shoulders—what would you tell him to do?” " To Shrug

6) Contradictions do not exist.Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises.You will find that one of them is wrong.

7) What is greatness? I will answer: it is the capacity to live by the three fundamental values of John Galt: reason, purpose, self-esteem.

Following are links to John galt's and Fransico d'anconia's speech in atlas shrugged.
http://www.working-minds.com/galtmini.htm
http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/economics/money/1826-Franciscos-Money-Speech.html

Fountain head

1) Every form of happiness is private. Our greatest moments are personal, self-motivated, not to be touched.

2) The person who loves everybody and feels at home everywhere is the true hater of mankind. He expects nothing of men, so no form of depravity can outrage him.

3) To say 'I love you' one must know first how to say the 'I'.

4) From the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from a single attribute of man - the function of his reasoning mind.

5) It would be kinder to acknowledge people’s existence by hating them


We The Living

1) Do you believe in God, Andrei? No. Neither do I. But that's a favorite question of mine. An upside-down question, you know. What do you mean?
Well, if I asked people whether they believed in life, they'd never understand what I meant. It's a bad question. It can mean so much that it really means nothing. So I ask them if they believe in God. And if they say they do—then, I know they don't believe in life. Why?
Because, you see, God—whatever anyone chooses to call God—is one's highest conception of the highest possible. And whoever places his highest conception above his own possibility thinks very little of himself and his life. It's a rare gift, you know, to feel reverence for your own life and to want the best, the greatest, the highest possible, here, now, for your very own. To imagine a heaven and then not to dream of it, but to demand it.

Legally blone : Elle woods

1) Passion is key ingredient of life. It is with passion, courage of conviction and strong sense of self that we take our next steps into the world.Remembering that first impressions are not always correct,You must always have faith in people.And most importantly, you must always have faith in yourself !!

PS I Love you

1) All I know is, if you don't figure out this something, you'll just stay ordinary, and it doesn't matter if its a work of art or a taco, or a pair of socks! Just create something... new, and there it is, and its you, out in the world, out side of you and you can look at it, or hear it, or read it, or feel it...and you know a little more about... you. A little bit more than anyone else does... Does that make any sense at all?

2) Finding someone you love and who loves you back is a wonderful, wonderful feeling. But finding a true soul mate is an even better feeling. A soul mate is one who understands you like no other, loves you like no other, will be there for you forever, no matter what. They say that nothing lasts forever, but I am a firm believer in the fact that for some, love lives on even after we're gone

Gone with the wind

1) Someday I’m going to do and say everything I want to do and say, and if people don’t like it I don’t care.

2) After all, tomorrow is another day!


Pride and Prejudice

1) Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates

more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.

2) Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion

Shantaram

1) A dream is a place where a wish and a fear meet. When the wish and fear are exactly the same, we call the dream a nightmare.

2) If fate doesn't make you laugh, then you don't get the joke.

3) Luck is what happens to you when fate gets tired of waiting.

4) The past reflects eternally between two mirrors - the bright mirror of words and deeds, and the dark one, full of things we didn't do or say.

5) The real trick in life is to want nothing, and to succeed in getting it.

6) People always hurt us with their trust. The surest way to hurt someone you like is to put all your trust in him.”

7) Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears. In the end that's all there is. Love & its duty,sorrow & its truth. In the end that's all we have - to hold on tight until the dawn.

8) Fate gives all of us three teachers, three friends, three enemies, and three great loves in our lives. But these twelve are always disguised, and we can never know which one is which until we've loved them, left them, or fought them.

Ladies Coupe : Anita Nair

1) Among the five elements that constitutes life ,I classify myself as water .Water that moistens , Water that heals , Water that forgets , Water that accepts,Water that flows tirelessly , water that also destroys.For the power to dissolve and destroy is as much a part of being water as wetness is. In the world of chemicals it is called a universal solvent swayed by the character of all those who take over it. But just because I am familiar, I am not typical.

Millennium Trilogy

1) "Friendship-My definition is built on two things.. Respect and trust , both elements have to be there and it has to be mutual!.You can have respect for someone but if you don't have trust ,then friendship will crumble..."

Totto-chan

1)Having eyes, but not seeing beauty; having ears, but not hearing music; having
minds, but not perceiving truth; having hearts that are never moved and therefore
never set on fire. These are the things to fear, said the headmaster.

PS:All the quotes above are property and copyright of their respective owners.

Appearance says it all

Its been quite sometime since my last blog , but neither did i have anything compelling to write about nor the right mindset to write a blog as all my focus was shifted on my photography blog.

Life is all about learning something new everyday and i want to share what i learnt by traveling in a bus on Friday.Friday i took a volvo (Ac bus in bangalore) from my place to Marathalli and it is a long 2+ hours of journey.Normally that bus is full of office goers as the price of the ticket is quite high.

When the bus stopped in banashankari stop , a dhoti clad ,villager looking old man boarded the bus and then 2 old north Indian ladies who were mumbling some chants followed. Immediately the conductor started shouting at those 3 people and was telling that this is a high priced ticket bus and there is checking in next stop and asked the driver to stop the bus and asked those 3 people to get down from the bus.

I was seriously taken by surprise by such a behavior , from the expression on the old man's face it was evident that he was surprised too. In a calm way that old man asked the conductor to tell the ticket price ,and told that he was ready to pay for it and asked why should to get down if ticket was priced high ? and then promptly paid the ticket amount. Also when the conductor asked 10 bucks from those 2 old ladies for 2 stops and when they were counting change of 50paise / 1 rupee and were short by few bucks , the old man volunteered and paid for their ticket and the conductor moved away in shame. This gesture of the old man atleast made me guilty as to why did it not occur to me to pay for those ladies.

This one really moved me and in a way changed the way i want to look at life. This is just an instance , but how many times we see this kind of discrimination based on appearance in our day to day life at various levels.Even when we know that most of the high end frauds/cheating is done by a white collar well behaved/ appearing person we still go by appearance.

Yes it is true that , when you don't know a person ,you just go by how a person looks/conducts and many a times it might turn out to be true too,but not a rule , thus hereon atleast i have decided not to be judgmental by how a person appears and make a love or hate decision at first shot but to treat everyone alike and respect everyone.

Probably i might have missed out on knowing so many good people because of this mistake all these years , better late than never.So just wanted to jot this down to remind myself few months down the lane , if i forget my own learning.

IPL,Cricket ,India ,people,bollywood basically random thoughts

People who know me will be squirming and wondering what is this cricket moron writing about IPL , me writing about cricket is like an illiterate commenting about shaskespearean book, but then IPL isnt really cricket is it ? It is more masala, more bollywoodish and all about money.

"Cricket is a religion in India" , I remember having read this umpteen times right since my school days .My brother being a huge fan of cricket whether i like it or not i have been watching cricket but then i really really dont mind watching IPL.

Indians have always supported cricket team also Indian govt has funded cricket may be at the cost of other games (result is obvious in Olympics et al) but still we always cheer India as a team right but then hats off to Lalit modi for segmenting the cricket into bits and pieces within India and getting players from other countries and still make people follow it., How did it tick off by the way ?
1) Suddenly followers of cricket who were fighting for india as a team are now fighting for teams by state per se.
2) Hard to get tickets for rare matches are made available for a reasonable price and now everyone gets to see it.
3) A match for which initially you had to set aside full day is now 3 hours , time taken for a typical bollywood movie, so it is now a perfect after office hour entertainment.
4)But I guess the biggest plus it gets is because of the glamour involved , suddenly bollywood and cricket was one ! Bollywood stars being owners/brand ambassadors of any franchise, so be it the after hours party which makes to page 3 or the cheer leaders .Thus this factor makes it
more appealing to non-cricket crowd .

But one thing i must admit about this set up is that it is extremely honest , we have all known that money and self - obsession rules any day and what other set up but IPL proves it better.Though the viewers identitfy the team by their region , if you see the team there a lot of foreigners playing so what is the identification for them ? Before we all used to raise the cricketer to a level of sacrificial philanthropist who owes all the runs to india and his fans in here .But what would a greatest player in IPL tell ? At max he would tell is he his hitting for his team or the regional fans but is it really ? Knowingly or unknowingly we all admit that its all money that the player cares for(very fact that a player can be moved from one to other proves it) . Now if we get to the non IPL set up lets see what is the incentive for a player there , he would bag more endorsments and also win some accolades which will make sure he will continue to remain in team and thus would be able to secure his endorsment rating but the money factor there is less acknoweleded. Where as in IPL is more pronunced and thus i call it honest.
Now coming to the people aspect of it we often are hard core Indian cricket team supporters be it in world cup or any tri series or even a 2 team matches for that matter , but now what is driving us to support IPL ? There was report in TOI that TRP rating of IPL has fallen this season less than some popular serials on TV , but is it ? May be ? if so what is the reason ? The very people who would watch match on TV are now in stadium and identifying themselves with the cricket of their region remains just a reason , because if that was the case with whom would keralites or people from Assam would identified themselves with ?
So has IPL proved that cricket in India is not as sanctified as it was hyped to be and more mortal ? So now would this make people watch less of it after few years ? Not really .. People will still be drawn to it now not just with the hope of following or cheering it but also with the hope of one day playing for one of the region (especially kids and teens), without realizing the fact that it is only the top of pyramid that makes fortune when there is a huge under thrived base.
But IPL rocks ! For its revolutionary idea and yet getting people to watch it. I know i'm a little late writing this blog but still ....

Farming - A curse in India?

When i was walking back home on 12th march around 9pm , I saw a huge pile of tomatoes lying on the ground and some people fighting with the stray dogs to get the share of those free tomatoes , as i was wondering as to what's happening there i saw a man gloomily looking at the pile.
As usual my curiosity always wins and i asked him what was all the tamasha about,He told that those tomatoes are the one's that was grown in his farm in Magadi(near Bangalore) which he had got and failed to sell as the retailers were not ready to pay even 2rs/kg.As it would cost him more to transport those back he had left it piled up there.
I remembered my attempt at gardening when i was in 3rd standard or so when we were taught about seed germination, My first patch of coriander leaves from soaked seeds are still a fond memory ,why then? How often do you feel proud of a single tomato or even a bean grown in your small vegetable patch.The farmer sitting there would have felt the same pride and pleasure on his patch too, more so when his livelihood depends on it ,but the sad state is he will not be able to support his family with the earning nor would he feel the pride anymore.
Isn't a person like him who will either fall towards suicide,so that he will get a death amount that will at least keep his family alive, or leave the land untilled and search for some unskilled job in cities ,adding another mouth to be fed,instead of feeding several?
What is happening here is sheer injustice , denying a man of basic amenities who not only works hard for his living but is also responsible for filling all our bellies.
What is our, for the people, by the people ,to the people,government doing on this one ? Right since i was a kid i have always seen that the best thing they do is to waive off farmer loans or announce certain amount of money on death of farmer who commits suicide.
Is it really benefiting the farmer is a question to be asked.. Instead of loan waiver which would mainly help landlords/plantation owners(As i really doubt whether our banks give loans to small scale farmers who really need it), wouldn't fixing a fair price for all food grains/vegetables etc help them ?
Wouldn't a easier method to buy all their products from the farm directly avoid the pain they have to go through ,transporting ,dealing with the middle men ?
Wouldn't usage of cold storage or appropriate storage mechanism after buying help ,Instead of talking about some bullshit story of BT seeds which will make the farmer dependent on others for yet another parameter(How often do you read in news that the government doesn't have enough stock to supply fertilizers/water/current to farmers? It will next be the turn of seeds if this is allowed!)
Is it so difficult to carry out some measures, when it is a question of lives of crore's of people who depend on agriculture ,also noting that at the end we all need food to live and it is a matter of our nation's self sufficiency too?
Now if anyone says forget government there are countless NGO's and microfinance which helps them finance the question we need to ask is are they really helping,as we read many many scandals..
At the end of this write up the problem of those countless farmer still exists and there is some farmer drinking the pesticide to kill the weeds to kill himself of all the miseries he is facing abandoning his wife and kids to the mercy of fate..

5 Reasons Why its Good to be or not to be a Woman -- Women's day special :)

Tomorrow being women's day (march 8th) just wanted to list down top 5 reasons from the top of my head as to why it's great to be one also 5 reasons why it sucks to be one(Though many hold in Indian context):

Now let me start of with the benefits
1.You have to pay less tax on your pay than your male counterparts.
2.Assume you are caught by a traffic police you can always escape with a suggestion of a tear drop same holds for any argument you have on non work environment ( I haven't and will never try this one though ).
3.There is reservation for women in bus , also how can a bill on reservation in election for women that will be put forth tomorrow be forgotten.Also talks about reservation in work place(Trust me we don't need it)
4.You always can experience and express all your emotions without any hindrance.(It could be while watching movies like legally Blonde,Kate and Leopold,Serendipity or Notting hill too :D )
5.You can always keep yourself busy or pep up your mood and never get bored for hours by just window shopping.

Now coming to reasons why it sucks though a huge list is possible let me confine to 5 points
1. Irrespective of how hard/smart you work in most of the places you have to be far better than guys to reach the same position as they do.*
2. Irrespective of your Grey matter it is always the case that you will be judged for your looks than your brains! . Which frustrates any woman with self esteem.*
3.Its always a woman who has to give birth to the child and go through the process and its really unfair that it is neither transferable nor there is a easy upload download method.**
4. I guess this one comes even without mentioning that working women are expected to multitask day in and day out ,as both home and work are now no longer an option but mandatory fields one stimulates emotions and other brain.(A homemaker is taken for granted to do all the work at home)**
5.Last but not the least you have to go in search of restrooms to Pee! and hygiene in bathrooms a major reason for discomfort..

*No offense meant nor it doesn't have any bearing with my employer !!!
**Info based on others experience !

After reading this if it has occurred to you that the tree is totally unbalanced where the negatives by far outweigh the positives , Yes that is the fact though not for people like me but for countless souls struggling day in and day out.
But it is not pity that is expected but respect because every woman is proud of herself , A word of appreciation is all that is needed .
For all the good done without any expectation go now and wish all the woman in your life, be it your mother ,sister,colleague,friend, neighbor...

"Yatra pujyante naari ramante tatra devataha :) :) :) "

Birthday Blast :)

This one is dedicated to one's who made my day on feb 11th :).
As a kid i had always liked to celebrate my birthday with chocolates , cakes etc but it was when i was in 3rd standard when i went to give cake to a newly joined teacher on my birthday that she told that one should not celebrate birthday because it indicates that you are one year older and closer to death so birthday is not worth celebrating and asked how can you celebrate when there are countless souls who dont have this luxury ,though mom said its all bull shit and the words are not worth heeding in some corner of my mind i never forgot those words though i always knew it was wrong i couldn't find an explanation, until recently thanks to john galt a character in atlas shrugged written by ayn rand.

Birthday is a day when you are born ! what other day makes you feel more alive than that day.. Life is a gift which one should enjoy and live by what one thinks is right and only people who dont think their life is worth living or celebrating find solace in thinking of death than enjoy being alive and strive to achieve better :-) .so I had decided i will enjoy my day no matter what but thanks to people around me for making it even better than i thought it would be.

Mom and dad sneak around to make sure they dont wake me up accidentaly(But its a known secret that i would be awake all the time they are around but still act like im asleep just to enjoy the effort they put in and listen to their whisper :P) and wait till my alarm buzzes and then wish.
Then comes the part for which I shamelessly wait to see well thought out gift from my bro :D.

This time there was a added surprise :P it was none other than my 3 yr old niece who came to my room n asked "atte doddamma told your happy birthday is it ?" on acking she started singing the happy birthday song sung in her school with clapping n actions :P once done she asked for a chocolate :P , As i thankfully had i gave one to her but saw her still standing there so i asked her what ? she said elli innu cake chips kotte illa , n mumbled attege gotte illa birthday ge enu madodu anta and she went down and she was calling me hey birthday girl baa , It was really funny .. I always knew she treats me more like one of her age than as her aunt :P but this was heights but i was enjoying nevertheless.

I have to mention a cool surprise given by my college friends by coming to office with yummy cake and also lunch we had in lajwab (where we were ironically made to sit near booze :P though the gandhian in me was busting to revolt I have to admit the colors of those liquids were funny like the one;s u see in magic shows :) ).

But then came the worst part of the day; working after presumptuous lunch , but then am glad that work beat my eyelids, though the battle was close ;O).Then as i reached home mom waiting with all my fav food prepared but wait how can it complete without aru dropping by :) , For past few years aru(my school frnd) has spoilt me by her presence and a pack of sweets :-) .By the time i had dinner eyelids won the battle finally but overall had a gr8 day but am happy that i'm now able to enjoy it without being conscientiously guilty for being happy :P.

Moon now bigger and brighter

Right since i was in high school having watched srk movies ,all movies have atleast one dialogue that when one is love the moon looks bigger and violins play in the background , lol i had never got a chance to experience that even with many love at first sight ( my ipod touch or canon s5 is digi cam or some old geeky prof :D ) but....
It was on 29th January 2010 ,When i was walking from office to bus stop in btp by lake side around 6:20 with a romantic song are jaane kaise kab kahan playing in my ipod touch and me as usual staring either at lake or sky but then there it was staring at my face ,full Moon shining bright and appeared much bigger than as always.It was more like a proud face which anyone would admire.
It was only after coming back after some googling i read that it is 50k kms closer it being at the perigee and thus its going to be 30% brighter and 15% bigger .Thank god i still dont have to doubt my sanity or eyesight :).
so what else but to take out my cam(Not to forget i badly wanted to try some practical of the theory on photography i was reading on here it is
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials.htm (need to thank bro for this one)) and take some snapshots here are few.

"I" , The individual

Bindra does not make into the shooters list for commonwealth games from india.

shashi taroor's twitter followers count reaches 6L

kareena kapoor redefines size 0 among indian women

captain gopinath merges air deccan with kingfisher , mars marries venus.

Fairness cream gives xxx beauty which elevates social status of him/her.

What is common among all that news , the fact that it is one against/influencing many.It is not about an individual i'm talking about but about the cause and the society which is the target audience.

Why was bindra kept out of commonwealth games just because he respected his self-respect more than NRAI ? I am not trying to justify anyone as all i know is the news from the media which again is a questionable source , but isnt it always that respecting oneself make people hate you?

Now coming to shashi taroor with all due respect to him , as it is not him i'm talking about but this news is just an instance to illustrate what i want to put forward.Before his "cattle class" comment he hardly had 40k twitter followers but then no matter whether people understood it or not he was made an icon .. But did anyone realise that it is us whom he called as cattle class ?

And then when it was his personal opinion to bash foreign policies that was made a huge public cry and that increased his popularity and his twitter follower count reached 6L.But at the bottom line have we questioned ourselves as to what is our view on that and what is it that we really think above all that publicity ? or what is delivered to us.

Now size 0 of kareena kapoor , I remember the very same news coming up as kareena is down with some deadly disease which makes her look like a ghost , but the very same media tweaked it to make a mass market out of it , How many ads do you see that markets size 0 ,right from a basic sugarfree to laptops! all endrosing the same news as though its a newest and best thing to do to oneself and its sad to see so many people falling for it,inspite of reading some one line last page news that lots of anorexic girls having acute bone problems or exhausted to death.

But have we ever questioned whether we want to achieve that at the cost of one's own health ?

doesnt what makes you happy more important than what people think of you ? same holds with the fairness cream marketing inspite of so many news that such creams can damage your skin and also can lead to skin cancer people try to use it , but why just to please some one else ? have we forgotten atleast in india that draupadi/sita much adored beauty were not fair? Why coming to present day priyanka chopra/bipasha basu stand as an example ? Inspite of all this people fall for ads endorsed by actress (who endrose all possible conflicting brands too).

Now captain gopinath started off with a a great motive but why did he choose to giveup his cause ? Man who can concieve the concept of cheap airlines to masses cant be so weak ? I hope his ties with kingfisher airlines turns out well and not dampen his spirit/motive.

With all the above news If you are wondering what the hell i'm talking about it's about "I" the individual.Media and other people's influence have encroached us so much today that it is easy to be led than to lead , thus as we tend to easier way to join the mass but in the process do we realize that we are killing our own self and indiviuality ? Its always an average which is taken when it comes to masses , the spikes are lowered ridiculed and cut down to match the average ..

But it can always be a group and it is not even close to The individual. As long as one does not realize one's individualtiy all that he/she does is it to morph what exists and never add and thus becomes a part of a pronoun "he/she". It may not be ground breaking but atleast an attempt to add your personality to create something new makes a difference , when i say difference it may not be to the world but oneself.

If you have read bhagavatgita/fountainhead its the same; everything upholds "I" the individual.

Nothing explains better than

"nainam chindati shastrani; naina dahati pavakaha |

nahchainam khledayantyapo; nacha badhyanti marutaha|| "

I know its a difficult path but i'm learing to tell "I",because "I wish", "I like" nothing holds unless you know how to tell I.(But the very fact that i have used we earlier makes me an amateur yet :0)).

Why am i writing this? If i expect someone to read and learn how to tell "I" then i become a parasite/second-hander again as i depend on others , so this is more of an introspective writing to help myself.

Solar Eclipse

I have never used my blog till date to share some gyan[:D] , So let me break that routine.Though not sure how many will agree that this news was useful :).

This is about solar eclipse , Friday 15th january 2010 being solar eclipse i'm pretty sure every one in bangalore / southern india will be super excited about it as one can see ~85% of eclipse very close to seeing a ring.

But I'm equally sure that right since we were 3~4 year old's when one was old enough to understand the funda of solar eclipse we were told not to look at the sun and not eat during the period of solar eclipse and also it is prevanlent in many households (I dont think i need to mention that it is strictly followed in my place)to put a dried grass by name darbe into all containers with cooked food stuff and into water.

I remember i had aways resented it and called it stupidity but all such harsh comments gleefully ignored until i turned 10~11 and there was a total solar eclipse visible in bangalore and all my school pals were busy buying some goggles to view solar eclipse and my mom knew that it was inevitable to convince me about it ..

By then i atleast had some sense that eyes have a lens which can concentrate the light and focus on retina to burn it out which can result in blindness, But was a super confident on those goggles and was ready to watch it for minutes, But then it was only when mom explained it to me did i realize , so here i quote though not exact words but on similar lines..

Firslty i have already mentioned as to why one should not look at the sun not only on eclipse but on any day for that matter .

Now coming to goggles what exactly does it do ? All it does is that it reduces the intentisity in the order of 10^6 (Also tries to block uv and IR rays) but still exposure to longer duration beyond say 10secs is still harmful { To prove this you can do simple experiment of using a lens and hold it against sun with a paper held below (once in bright sunlight and then in shade) ,Both the time its going to burn the paper though in shade it may take a little longer.}

Also there is no guarantee that the goggle is conformant with what is it is expected to do and it is not a risk worth considering the gift of vision is at stake.

Now coming to the topic of why to fast during solar eclipse and the usage of darbe.. It is told that during solar eclipse there are certain harmful rays which increases the bacterial growth and thus not advisable to eat , and darbe is known to have great capacity to diffract light and sound waves and thus used to preserve the cooked food."

So when i was about to leave almost convinced but greatly disappointed that i cannot watch eclipse ,

Mom stopped me and gave me a 15"X15"(approx)cardboard and asked me to cut out a 2"X2" hole and paste chocolate wrapper(Aluminum foil also will do). and make a small hole in it and to hold it against the sun and look at the reflection it cast , I didnt believe that it would work but surprisingly it did only later did i know that it was easier version of a pinhole camera.That was how i watched my first solar eclipse and waiting to watch one on 15th :).

Now before i forget I musnt forget how mom and her siblings used to watch solar eclipse in her village , they used to get cow dung and mix it with water in a bucket and used to watch the reflection cast by sun.. cool na I really love how one can go about even the seemingly toughest problem if one wants to do something really badly :).

Now i know i did enter the controversial territory when i quoted about harmful radiations from sun during solar eclipse , yes science says its bullshit but have they been able to prove it completely ? May be some of the facts proven by vedic period have turned out into plain non-sense superstition due to manipulation in stating those facts but we cant deny of all the glory , why dont we try to provide proofs to those facts (either proving them to absolute right or wrong) rather than bullshitting them and trying to hide them as a shame rather than displaying it as a star of our great heritage...