Perpetually Perplexed

I see him almost every day. He kind of lights up the place. Many days I just see a glimpse of him and then he disappears. After few minutes he reappears even more beautiful. Well, I am talking about setting sun I get to see on the drive back home( Yes, I am one of those few fortunate people who can return from office before night fall). The color of him will even be better than any beauty blushing before going to meet her lover. And clouds will try to imitate him and decorate the whole sky. Together they paint a picture which is a feast to the eyes. And the wonderful thing is this picture is different each day but beautiful every day. If god is the creator of all this then " God you are great!!!!"

Forgot what I was writing yesterday. My son snatched the keyboard from me and tried to save so that he can start playing games. Yeah, I know I should discipline him more. But I think it is little too late now, when he is 5'10" tall and 14 years old. Was an office meeting and the lecture was don't be an open book. Yeah, that is what I am and that is the root cause of all my problems. I changed the title of my blog as that is the biggest question troubling me. I am like that kati patang which does not know where it should go.

After getting that out, now I can write something meaningful. Such as things which make me really happy. 1> Reading some good book munching some snacks. 2> Getting a program un-stuck and get the output 3> Reading the craps I write in my diary 4> Watching some really funny film even if it is subtitled foreign language film 5> Talking to loved ones on phone on and on and on..... 6> Sleeping in a winter morning completely wrapped in warm rajayi. Now you wonder which part of it is housewifish. Nothing. Zilch. Right. So what. I need not feel happy only if I cook, clean or feed.

What should I write. Finding difficult to put my thoughts into words. One feeling which lingers. That there is no-one. Absolutely no-one.

Toyota had told the world that it ran out cars , with toyota khali (qualis). Now it decided, No it is not khali but innoova (ಇನ್ನೂವ ). Or does it mean that, it is innova khali only? And you have a passion bike, you have a pleasure scooter. Why not necessity? The bikes are neither pleasure nor passion in Bangalore traffic. They are more of a majaboori. I know, that name is not enticing enough. But you need to tell the truth to public. A metador had on its backside, MAAZA PAPAD. That made me to think. This person carries papad everyday. And he is afraid that anyone may ask for papad. Or is it that he is trying to sell papad of the company called MAAZA. Some for wheelers will have "een goudre?". I think these will have regular conversations with their vehicles. This talk would be initiated by the gaadi as een goudre. The children will wear T shirts which say "chatter box" "miss attitude" and so on. But why don't they buy T shirts wh...

I am a semi atheist or to put it correctly, a confused atheist. But I heard from many people, why we should pray to God. "Beleiving in God makes us stay away from wrong works(galat kaam)" - colleague 24 yrs "At least as long as you are praying, you will not have any other worries " - papa 63 yrs What are yours reasons for believing in God or not doing so? Well, is it?    Anyatha gatirnasti tvameva sharanam mama That is    As I have no other go, I am praying to you

We always try to find faults with others. For a change let me acknowledge all the people who helped me a lot. Does this look like a speech at award winning ceremony. Ok let us say I am practicing for my speech for let us say A noble prize for my blog!!!!!!! My parents taught me to think, not to accept anything without questioning, at the same time live in such a way as not to hurt others. Well they never told us that we were girls and girls should not do this, girls should not do that. They taught us to value reading instead of blind faith. They taught me to be honest. Pity they could not teach me the importance of hard work. They in thier 60's are much more active than me. My husband taught me the importance of descipline. Again I am not a good learner for that. And he taught me the meaning of patience. Tell me who else will bear it if a 43 year old wife of 16 years acts like a child. My niece taught me the importance of determination and will...

I was half asleep. Now power cuts have made me lazier than usual (if that were possible). I can not read and it will be too early to cook(my standard time to cook is 9pm). Hence this sleep. This way BESCOM people will increase the Bhoomi bhara. (Ok, not only my weight. There could be hundred others who may sleep during power cut). OK , so I was half asleep. And wanted to fly in air. Too much of Richard Bach I think. Then I was thinking if I hold an object which has negative gravity, then my net weight will reduce (Like a negative charge and a positive charge together, the net voltage difference would be reduced. I know this is not how an electrical engineer is supposed to talk. ) and at some point my weight may become zero. (Such things can be thought only when half asleep. When awake, our rational mind will not let any idea to creep. Remember Newton's apple?) Then I can fly. Isn't it great? But what is this material with anti gravity? May be anti matter. Which consists of ...

I am not going to say that I read only (useless) blogs and internet jokes. I do read serious stuff too like "understanding Linux kernel". Joking! Currently I am reading a Hemingway. But that is not today's topic. Topic is what I read when I am riding. Church board said " Yeesu kristave namaha". What do you say for this. Namo namaha. Show this to RSS and convince them christians are re-converting into Hinduism. On the back side of an auto " Hudugana nenapu fits nante, baratte hogatte" "hudugiya nenapu Aids nante. baratte hogalla". Can you ever think of a metaphor better than this? Well "ammana ashirvada" "appana ashirvada" etc. etc. is too common. But a vehicle says "Granny's gift". Whose granny is this. I want her to be my granny. Many will have some god or goddess name. Bangaloreans are really pious people. Some auto and taxis want to show their love for fight. The board they have is a pailwan asking who...

Days seem endless In your absense Am missing even our eternal fights One and Half Decade of Being your maid Sorry, but almost that Still your one smile Converts the thorns into Roses So what if that smile Is for anyone but me You see Romance is my middle (and first and last ) name

If he is there, He must not trouble good men Am I a good man? If he is there He will not tolerate mindless violence Violence to him is but kids' play If he is there He will not test , test and test devout people They need not be devout?? If he is there He will make everyone as good as himself Now there are no good people so is he not there????

Huge buildings Shining lights Streets as clean, you would want to sleep there Shops bursting with fancy goods But no, this is not beauty, beauty is only when it his creation 7 course meals, air conditioned rooms no work but shopping But this is not comfort Comfort is home Home is dirty (Can write my name on dust) Home is choatic Home is nothing but luxurious But it is HOME Natural cave Gigantic idol Batu is Great For it is him - muruga!! Narrow lanes Rain water filled pot holed roads humble shops Hey, Lanka is homish

Well I almost understood why you have become a stone (idol). But I am unable to understand why do you still remain a rock. Can't you see thousands dying everyday all over the world? Don't you see people are being killed, are killing in your name? Can't you see that these people are blackening your name? Can't you unrock yourself and tell these people to stop fighting? Tell them that you are only one and all of us are your children. Tell them that if they kill others, they are physically hurting you? Can't you tell them that you are everywhere and even in our hearts , so they don't have to flock to shrines and get killed in a stampede. Or are you really enjoying all this. Like the greek people enjoyed the fights of slaves. If you can not stop this blood bath, you are not fit to be a God. Go away from this earth.

I never knew that middle age will bring so many problems. Somewhere I read the original life-span of man was only twenty years. May be it is true. By the time you are forty, most of your organs will be in bad shape. So god is telling us. See your situation is not good at all. How long do you want to drag on? Start from feet. By the noon time, I will be painfully aware of their existence. I have to drag them instead of them carrying me. And eyes. Leave threading the needle, I have to increase the font in Internet explorer to large. I have to pester my collegues to install new softwares which will allow me to see larger fonts than stupid telnet. If there are small wiggling things in rava, I can not see them at all. Of course I can ware glasses which are so meaningfully called chaalish in Hindi. But put on the glasses when reading, remove them when walking, put it on again and forget it somewhere. Is very tiresome. So no glasses unless I HAVE to stitch something. Then stomac...

I am very scared about sharing my name and other details in the blog. (You blog because you are sure of annonymity. If you had the courage to share your feelings and thoughts openly, then blog world would not have started and grown so much) So you can see nowhere in the blog I mention about what I am, what is my name etc. But now I am sure these people can find out and know you. I have heard that internet people can find which area you are from. But associating you with an annonymous site. How do they do that? How did I come to that conclusion? Well, any (damn) thing I search in google, I will get the same google ad. "How to have a flat ab". How do these people know that I have an ab which is real need of exercising.

Today's TOI Jugular vein has an article about non-existence of roads in Indian cities. I have a consolation here. I have been travelling in this particular road since almost three months. In the busiest magadi road, there is a combination of speed breaker ie road humps and pot holes. Speed breakers we are very painfully aware of. They are meant to kill the speed but they very effectively make you lose control. (On ring road, between Hosakerehalli and Mysore road junction there are some 4 speed breakers. Each one is a series of 4-5 humps. Driving through them is a night mare.) Just now I read, one parent has gone to court against BBMP as his son lost control over a speed breaker and fell and died. Anyway these are speed breakers. And potholes are very very popular. Now in Magadi road, it looks as if somebody designed a road hump but was very economical with tar. So it was a terrible combination. In that busy road, everyone used to go at a speed of -10. And obviously everyone would p...

We blame politicians for everything. But are not we also to blame? We keep quite when someone is using religion to spread hatred. We happily agree to whatever they say atleast mentally. Even if we don't agree to their propaganda, we keep quite. We don't protest. So we are to blame as well. Why don't we realise that the person who teaches us to hate for whatever reason, does not want our well being. For he knows like everybody else that "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind". Then what he wants is not our good, but his personal gain, may be votes, may be power. Please let us take an oath, not to listen to these people. Let us understand, religion means love not hatred. Now look at our own karnataka. Churches are being attacked. No one is talking about them. Why, we want one more communal violence? We want Christian terrorists? DO we? For heaven's sake. We have so many problems ourselves. We want roti, kapada and makaan. And then a god to pra...

I keep reading alternately depression articles and IT articles. Now OK I am spilling the beans. This blog is one of my escape routes from complete lost feeling. How do I manage to remain sane? Am I sane now? Should ask someone!! I don't see one soul who listens to me or understands me. Well nor am I able to understand myself. I work to escape from this desperate feeling but feel even worse there. So I quit 2 jobs already and am in third one. Where is solution

Trapped everywhere In work, in home(?), in life There is no escape There is not even back button No undo Ctrl+Alt+Del ????

This is what is required. Passion about work. Forget it. Atleast not hatred, grumbling, cursing everytime. Today I saw my students working all the programs, thinking, discussing, debugging. Gone are the days, when they will call saar or mam for syntax errors. Now they are even trying to solve segmentation faults themselves. Well, I had thought that these kids are gone case. They spell bubble sort as bobble sort and such things. But no, English is not our tongue. They have every right to misspell it to any extent they want. And THAT does not say anything about their capacity as a programmer or atleast would be programmers. I have this one student who actually smiles when I explain a new concept. Great!!! This kind of smile is not available to everyone. I know, these kids once they get a job, will talk to us as if they are in sky and we are on the paltry ground. If they talk that is. Next thankless job, next to mothers is teachers. But it is similar to mothers in its rewards as well. A m...

hondadallaadaru haku, kocheyallaadaru haaku. raaghavendra hengaadru maadi roadanna daatidare maneyalli haayagiruvenu raghavendra

Richard Bach has written a book called "Nothing by chance". I would like to add my own saying " everything has a reason behind it". You don't see the reason and get mad. Like everybody else, you will curse the "Bengaluru mahanagar palike" or whatever is your city corporation for the bad state of the roads. ( you say bad is very very tame word for that ?). But again you are not seeing the reason behind it. You know very well that, we need to conserve water. If the BMP people fill in all the pot holes and tar the surface cleanly, how can the rain water sink to the ground and how will ground water table recharged? See, these people do think really about the future. There is another reason, why the roads will not repaired. Beijing olympics, we won only 3 medals. So these people are training Indians for next olympics. For a new event called as hurdle driving. An Indian Shoemaker the formula one racer (this is not how his name is spelled? O...

Normally my dialogues on the road will be monologues. For example when a normally car driver (owner/driver anyone ) is going too slow in front of me, I will say "hogayya". But it will be inaudible to the concerned person. Many a times when I am driving wrongly, overtake from left, suddenly apply break, change lane without observing who is coming behind etc. ( and I do these things too frequently), I will mumble a sorry. That is it. Like Yesterday, I was amused by this writing behind a jeep. "Hell is full I came back". Poor hell. It could have accomodated this one person. But today it was dialogue and that too non-verbal communication. No, no, nobody threatened to kill me for my miserable driving. A girl winked at me. Again don't get ideas. I am not lesbian. Well I had stopped at the signal. A car which had stopped in front had this beautiful girl. She looked at me and I at her. I smiled a tiny smile. She too tried to smile. And then, she ...

Normally students would have studied a procedure oriented programming language and find the concept of objects and classes confusing. We have to give them real life examples which they can relate.  e.g. Me the teacher is an object. No, no, I am not supporting the MCPs that all females are objects. What I mean is I have certain behavious and attributes. So teacher is an object. My attributes are short, forty three yeared, oval homosapien. These attributes describe me. and my current state. I have certain methods. These methods can modify my state. For example I exercise (once in let us say 15 days for 10 minutes....). This will reduce my weight attribute by let us say 1.0e-12 kgs(i.e. 1.0X0.000000000001). I eat pastries. This method will modify my weight attribute by 0.5kgs. There is an external method - the great TIME. (main samay hoon!!!!). This method has modified my shape from straight line to oval. :-( OK, this gives some idea about methods and attributes and objects. But...

We are all standing in a row on the start line, hands on accelerator. On our vehicles. The moment signal turns orange, the accelerator goes to maximum and all vehicles start zooming ahead. The only thing we see is the road ahead like Arjuna seeing only fish's eye. Well, this is not the scene from a bike racing. It is everyday race which happens on Bangalore roads. But unlike actual races we don't try to hurt our opponents. Actual racers don't do that either, you say? OK, I mistook the computer racing game for real. But effort to hurt anyway is very much present here too. In the form of pot holes. We are speeding as we want to make up for the delay caused at the signal. Then "Dhad". We land in a pothole which is as big as a well. (may be it is brahut bengaluru mahanagara palike's way of rain water harvesting!). If we don't fall down, we are lucky. If we see this pothole ahead and try to escape from it and suddenly turn, we are sure to collide with the ...

Today was solar eclipse that is grahana in sanskrit. I am surprised at the popularity of beliefs on this eclipse. Almost every one feels we should not eat during grahan time , we should have a bath after grahan and all. Why do we need to do that. Don't we study in school why and how a eclipse happens? Why do we have to leave our rationality at the work-place?

About bomb blasts in Bangalore and then in Ahmedabad, Why, why I was thinking. These blasts are small intensity but well planned. Not meant to cause lot of harm. When they have planned the blasts so well, why such low intensity bombs? It is not as if they are amateurs. Then I heard a burkha clad woman saying in Ahmedabad. This a plot to create islam phobia. That is a possibility, don't you think so? Whomever I talked after the blasts was saying, we should teach a lesson to these muslims as if it is a well established fact that muslims are the culprits.

Now CBI has released Dr. Talwar on bail. And three servants are charged with the murder. What about the theories of media and police? Character assasination of Arushi and her father? Should not be the police more responsible and not give such baseless allegations on a child who is dead. Is the media only concerned about sensitization and will it go to any extents to increase viewership? How could they think that a father will slit his daughter's throat? No father will ever do that no matter how angry he is.

Renato is having a difficult time. His best friend , father figure and mentor has died. His teen aged daughter is pregnant and wants to keep the baby. He himself is finding life has lost its taste. But most important of all, his town is at the verge of being drowned by a dam which is about to be built bear by. He gets a dream which he interprets as if he goes to pope and shakes his hand while touching his behind, his luck is going to change. Well, what follows is he gets a long list of people who want their names in a chit to be taken to pope to change their lucks too. But the nice part is his and the town's luck does change because he has carried a toy boat he had found near his house and gives it to pope. And Pope realises that boat has a symbol of an old Saint. And the church decides the place where toy boat is built is holy and builds a shrine there. And that now belongs to church. So the government can not seize that property to build the dam. So no dam and the town is saved...

I had closed all the window. Whom am blocking anyway? Mosquitoes or fresh air. But from the gap between window shutters, somebody sneaks inside. Guess who? Nice, breath taking, fragrance of jasmines who have spread all over in the garden. God, you will give even for those who don't ask and also close their hearts. In NDTV Imagine reality show Lux Junoon, Annu Kapur sang this song "Aanchal Mein Saja Lena Kaliyan, Zulfon Mein Sitare Bharlena, Aise Hi Kabhi Jab Shaam Dhale, Tab Yaad Hamen Bhi Karlena". Where did these lyricists got such wonderful ideas. Too good! God send me such nice things once in a while to make me feel that the world is not really that bad !!!

My next book to be read is Renato's Luck by Jeff shapiro. I thought it would come in Italian category. Looks like he is an American author. But how did I select this book to read. By instinct. Like I select the road to travel by instinct. And always get lost. Four days continuosly, I got lost when riding. I select the wrong road. Then think that this is parallel road, so I can somehow reach perpendicular road to both and there take turn back. And no, I would have taken the opposite direction , or the parallel road would end in a dead end or something else would happen. I will end up in a small gulley and realise I am completely lost. I ask someone, and somehow manage to reach my destination. See, great instinct power!!! But this book did not produce the usual result of my instinct. It is light, not being trivial. And good style too. What a relief after Gunter Grass!!

Line is this week's topic in Heads or Tails . A line is a sequence of points ? I am forgetting my school geometry. Or a straight line is shortest distance between two points. Again something must be wrong. Line is not distance. Ok,ok, a straight line is the line with shortest distance between two points. That is straight line. What about ordinary line? Slightly bent here, or a curved line or a completely twisted line like a stretched spring? How do you define them? Let me guess. Line is a series of points who have decided to stand very close to each other in a - line!!!. Or, line a series of continuous pixels of the same color. Now you get it, right? In fact if you zoom, zoom and zoom you can really see the pixels. (Pixels are POINTS ) Let me speak poetically. Line is a point which does a walk or dance (?). When some one says line, you always think of straight line. But as I told you earlier, if there is one straight line between any two points, there can be infinite , unlimited nu...

This the most difficult book I have read. Most difficult topic, after h-parameters in electronic ciruits. (Now don't ask me what are h-parameters. I sincerely don't remember). The first part of the book is about Walter Mattern and Amsel, best friends and blood brothers.Mattern is the grinder ie he keeps grinding his teeth. Amsel is a plump boy who sings in a melodious voice and who is half jew. Mattern protects his friend always. Second part tells the story through Harry from letters to his cousin Tulla. And it also describes pre-war years and about Hitler's dog Prinz. War starts and engulfs everyone. This fire does not distinguish whom it burns. Mattern's teacher though he is not a jew, is taken to concentration camp because he is eating vitamin tablets meant for children, but more because he is lacking enthusiasm about the war. Amsel makes mechanized scarecrows wearing SA uniforms. Mattern beats Amsel with other friends and lets him freeze in the snow. In the third pa...

Gunter Grass's books are not books. They are epics. How can I ever finish this book :-( But you see, I am not just reading novels - (people pronounce it as if they are lowest of lowest things to be read only by dumb people ) I did also start again exception al reading and trying coding of Java. Why do Java and C++ call the errors as exceptions . We all know from Murphy that errors are normal. Non-errors are exceptions. When I write a language I will write something like try{ ----} catch (exception e) {"I can not believe it. Your program works!!!"). Now I realised at least for this topic Sun Java tutorials are insufficient. But Java World has good article on this. Do you believe I have started relearning Java without having a single printed book on Java. I have "Thinking In Java" and "Sun Java Tutorial " both soft copies. I did have a book which I have lent to someone don't even remember who. It does not mean that if I had a book, I would have read...

Kenzaburo Oe is Nobel winning Japanese author. A quiet life is one of his finest creations ( I am lying. I haven't read any other book) The story is told by a 20 year old girl - Ma-chan. She is taking care of the house and her two brothers. Her parents have gone to California where her father has taken up an assignment. And mother has accompanied him because he is in one of his depressions. The elder brother Eeyore is mentally retarded but is very sensitive and composes great music. The book describes the difficulties, anguishes and feeling of nothingness faced by the girl. She wants to protect Eeyore from everyone, but also realises their future as bleak. Family friend Sugeto teaches music to Eeyore and helps them. When Eeyore takes up swimming lessons, the coach Aril tries to seduce Ma-chan but she is saved by Eeyore. At this point of time mother realises how wrong she has been to leave the children and comes back to them. A writer who is self-centered makes the children feel aba...

You all tell me flower is the greatest creation of GOD. Flower is beuty, flower is fragrance, flower is nature in its best attire! I beg to differ. Flower is ephemeral, flower is fragile, that is weak and flower is sacrifice which is stupidity. Now you see the flower with its colorful petals and breath taking fragrance. By evening what is left is withered petals fallen to the ground. WHY should it live such a short life? Some of you may argue plastic flowers are eternal. They are not flowers. They are imitation. For that matter even beauty is ephemeral like flower. Today you may be gorgeous Aishwarya Rai. But very soon, you will transform into an old lady - overweight, with a double chin and walking like a penguin ! This week's theme in head or tails is flower. To see more entries click http://headsortailshome.blogspot.com

THis is what I should have named my blog. Whatever I attempt is always messed up. :-( I tried as simple thing as finding the size of integer in c++ compiler. It just said 4 bytes. I was sure it will say, 8 bytes because Intel core@ processor is 64 bit processor. VC++ 6 said 4 bytes. OK old compiler. May be it does not have 64 bit support. Downloaded VC++ 2008 express edition. It took me SOME time to figure out how to compile program there. Then A great disappointment. Still 4 bytes. I tried google in vain to see how to set 64 bit support. Left it. OK. Linux is always better. I was confident my Linux C++ compiler will give me 8 bytes. Again a disappointment . The answer was 444(sizeof(int),sizeof(long),sizeof(p) - p in int *). Posted a question regarding this in Linux forums. Funny thing is /usr/include/bits/wordsize.h defines __WORDSIZE as 32. Now where does sizeof(int) come into picture ? I was supposed to read perl? Ok moms are meant to be multitasking. The p...

May last week a lorry skidded and fell into a ditch in Hassan District in Karnataka when the driver tried to avoid a live wire hanging on the road. 40 people died and 40 other injured. The lorry was carrying a marriage party. Now who is to blame? The driver? No it is the govt! Villagers have complained about this wire with no results it seems. We Indians do not value the lives of fellow human beings. So the government and officials have the attitude 80 in a billion is nothing!! The best part is nobody bothered about this incidence. Most probably that wire is still hanging there waiting for its next victim. Look at this discussion http://mboard.rediff.com/newboard/board.php?service_name=&boardid=news2008may29kar&from=story

Scanned through Indiblogger list for Bangalore bloggers. Luckily Got Pratima's mind over matter. And got this competition. The orbis terrarum challenge http://exlibrisbb.blogspot.com/2008/03/orbis-terrarum-challenge.html ? ... . We have to complete reading 9 books in 9 months and review them in our blog. But here is my tentative list of books to be read. 1> Dog years - Gunter Grass (Germany) 2> Marble Faun - Nathaniel Hawthorne (USA) 3> Good Earth - Pearl Buck (China) 4> The Buddha of Suburbia - Hanif Khureshi (Pakistan) 5> Some book by Taslima Nasreen (Bangla Desh) 6> Some small book by Dostovesky/Tolstoy (Russia) 7> English August - Upamanyu Chatterji (India) 8> A room with a view - E.M.Forster or any other book by him(UK) 9> Yet to be decided Now Good Earth I thought would qualify as chinese. But it may not. 2,4 and 7 I have already read. A re-read is necessary to write a review. First book I am reading but very very slowly because every w...

Yesterday I was on top of clouds for achieving the set up of internet on Linux. The joy was more because had taken so many days. But as always, the happiness did not last long. Son came in the evening and told now net is not working in Windows XP. And he told make it proper NOW. Husband adviced him to study more rather than wasting time on net. And the tussle went on. I tried to connect to net and always the message was could not connect to broadband phone line is busy. The next step is customer support. If you have ever tried BSNL customer support you will empathise with me. I went through the steps "press 1 for kannada 2 for English" "press 1 for broadband 2 for init" and finally "press 9 for talking to our customer support executive". Here the recorded voice kept on playing "Your call is important to us Please hold on". I held on but soon realised that if I do that without having my dinner, I will have to starve to death. So dinner over. ...

I was under the dilemma whether to blog this or not. Ok, anyways. Atlast I was able to configure my ethernet adapter and then internet and now I am switching over to linux. So I can work on perl while referring at its tutorial in the internet . Imagine I don't have to store a page in pen drive reboot the system and then try those lessons in Linux and reboot to windows again for next lesson. Hopefully I can even learn php or python. Bye for now. Got to go and perl!!!

A headlines - A dog howls everyday when there is mangalarathi going on outside the temple. The story. It was late in the evening. I wanted to purchase a packet of curds. Suddenly it started raining. I ran and ran with all my might to the temple. See! This is called dramatization. It was evening but did I say it was dark? Nor was it lonely. It was a busy street. And I did not run a kilometer. Temple was just across the street. Then why did I run ? It was raining, right. I did not want to get drenched completely. Why temple? Why not? Though I have not made up my mind whether to be an atheist or a budhdhist or a plain hindu, waiting for the rain to subside in a temple is better than waiting outside a grocery shop for the crab I am (Less people in the temple you seee. If you don't include the Gods!) I made one round of God (pradakshina) or rather gods. There are 3 of them. I did one big namaskara as . See Ramdev says it is a good exercise. Then I saw smal...

Sankranthi was one active festival during childhood. People were supposed to give each other Ellu bella (Ellu - sesame seeds, bella - jaggery). But our town was a Maharashtra border and there, folks prepared kusurellu. (Ellu coated with sugar - it will have a star shape) Mom learnt its preparation- one long tedious process. Roast the sesame seeds on copper thick plate for a long time,  adding few drops of sugar syrup at a time. This syrup will form a coating and gradually ellu will look like star. So this ellu was distributed. We children were supposed to dress up and go to all neighbouring houses and give ellu to everyone and do namaskara to elders. But the next day was school. We will give ellu to all teachers. And then. Then the school will not resume. We will start our pheri - go to school number 2 (ours was government school number 3) and there ellufy to all teachers there and then to school no 1. and so on. We did not distribute this ellu to children but only to teachers. ...

It all started with perl. No this is not a spelling mistake. I am sure about that. perl is a scripting language. I had played around it with a little. And it seemed quite easy. So I thought I will learn it thoroughly to improve my job prospects (what an optimist!). Well perl comes with Red Hat Linux which is present in my computer in other partition. But somehow when I boot using Linux internet is not working. I found that the reason is Linux is somehow saying a wrong ethernet adapter 3c501 and telling that is not present. What we have is intel pro 100. I googled and found the driver for this device in Linux. Now how to transfer this to Linux partition? It is possible to read windows files from Linux if you mount the Windows partition in mnt directory. I tried mounting the disk partition I got error - wrong file system type. I tried fat32, msdos, ntfs. Nothing seems to work. Again rebooting with windows ( mine is windows xp) and googling. Ok, I right clicked on the drive and foun...

Very rarely can we go between the clouds - when still being alive. But in Kudremukh it happens. what you see in the picture are clouds in the kudremukh valley. Entrance of the Belur temple - You can see shilabalike on the top of the pillar - Belur This pillar is supposed to be the miniature of Belur architecture because it contains all kinds of carvings found in the temple. Every inch of the temple has wonderful carvings

You might remember my opinion about this ceremony. Last week had to attend the marriage. Found plenty of humour there. There is a custom called antahpatala (hope I am right). The bride is brought (ideally carried ) by maternal uncle. Bride and the groom stand opposite to each other while the priest chants some shlokas. All the while there is a thin cloth (normally a panche) separating the two so that they can not see each other. Well it might have been meaningful fifty years ago where boy and the girl get married without seeing each other. Now a days, this custom does not bring many surprises. It is the same old face the bride(groom) has consented because (anyatha gatirnasthi - there is no other alternative). Well now imagine how you can add an element of surprise here. The priest removes the cloth and the bride shouts "GUMMA". Second possibility, when the separation is removed, groom sees not the girl but her great granny shouting "April fool!". Third one is so...

We try to buy higher and higher resolution camera. Do we ever pause to think what is the resolution of our eyes? Can you name a single gadget which has lasted 43 years of very rough handling, and still can catch tiny change in the shade of the color in the far corner of the sky while still cropping other unwanted portions like a cable and a building? You can not. So O human being, you can never beat the God in manufacturing.

We are in a constant need to tell about us to others. Perpetually. But we are well past the age where "Moma, I drank water", "Moma I did potty", "Momma look at my new drawing". We even realise talking thus will make us look more ridiculous than we already are. But the need is still there. So ? so we blog....

Now "Men are from mars and women are from venus" is a cliche used for all types of opinion difference between them. But my question is why do these people from different planets need to stay on earth? Together ? Could not they have stayed in their respective planets ? Imagine. The martians and venusians go to extent of staying together- in one house. And then they give it a name marriage. The pomp and the festivity of this occasion is unbelievable. And on top of that , they take ridiculous oaths like "till death does us aprt.." etc. Remind them these oaths an year later, they will gladly give death to each other to make them apart. Just like Buddha's disciple could not get a house without death to bring mustard seeds, you can not get a house without fight between martian and venusian. It goes on and on , non-stop , 24x7 in each and every house. While the little martians and venusians sit and watch and gradually learn. Learn how to fight th...

As I am writing this I am thinking how many MBs of upload and download will be gobbled by this. Well not many flowers. And my garden is as organised as my blog. Isn't it? Let me get next image. Don't be confused. The beautiful long leaves are not of Rose. But a mango plant which is adjacent.. Are you getting the beau...tiful fragrance. These are jasmine flowers.

Many times we would be so much upset over trifles like husband and son etc that we do not notice the beautiful things around us. There was this bird with bright blue feathers. So beautiful (looked at all synnonyms from Word. Did not get a better word). It was really breathtaking. Where is mobile? Why? Would I like to call this blue bird and tell her she is exquisite? No, audience. My mobile is my digital camera. But only problem is I would want the bird to stay motionless to shoot it. (Finally I did not capture it in my Nokia n72) There was this butterfly sitting on some flowers and had wings more colourful than the flowers. We housewives need to atleast come outside and stand in our garden to look at these things. That reminds me. This is my garden.

Some years ago, after sending son and husband in the morning, I would sit infront of the TV, looking at the clock and telling to myself I will get up at half an hour and go to kitchen and cleaning. And this half an hour would be postponed at every half an hour. In the meanwhile Kitchen would be crying with sink filled with dirty vessels. Many things changed. We moved to a bigger house, so came the maid. I got a job. No more washing vessels for me. Now again I am jobless. And maid is on one week official leave. So here I am. Thinking I will leave the computer and go to cleaning etc at 9:45. If at all I do get up at 9:45, I will sit with daily sudoku from newspaper and tell myself, I will go after sudoku. And it goes on and on. This is my destiny.

In the good old days, people used to call not so smart person as tube light. Our contribution to this nomenclature was, the dumber he gets, the longer is the tube. But now in my house, not the tube, but the switch itself is tube light. Put in another way, it is not flashing, igniting, burning fast. But ask my husband, he says I don’t know how to switch on the light. Well, I am 43 and not such a long tube and I might have switched on and off million times. But no, he is convinced that it is me who is having a problem not the switch. Well when you switch on a light, you expect it to glow or not glow. You don’t expect it be in a tri state. I go to kitchen for dumping a dish into sink, I switch on the light, dump the dish, wash my hands and come back. While coming back I religiously switch off the light . ( Otherwise "Is it Deepavali today, why all the lights are on?" Roars the husband). But all in vain!! Because that @#!!$ switch did not turn on at all. ...

"Ek machchar … "all we hindi film loving Indians remember this dialogue of yesteryears. May be for once a movie dialogue is truthful. These mosquitoes do really make us impotent. We live in an developing area. So there are many empty sites. And we believe that is the major reason for large number of mosquitoes. It is believed that they come inside the house just before it gets dark (like pre-teen kids). So I religiously close all the windows ( all 17 of them) at that time and then sit getting baked in the heat. Then around 8 pm when we feel we will scream because of heat, one of us will open sitting room window. Ha, they are all waiting. They dutifully enter the house and start attacking us. But I felt they have some consideration towards me. If I sit on sofa, watching some worthless soap, they bite and bite and make me getup." Do you want to become even heavier(if it is possible)" they ask. "Get up and go to the kitchen and cook something ...

I think I am in love. Don't start telling what else do you expect? watching the tv day in and out. That too what type of soaps!! Heroine who is married fifth time is longing for her third husband who is having an affair with first husband's sister who will run away with her cousin who.. The ridiculous stories they show! So obviously being a stay-at-home housewife (read rot- at-home), having no better work, I will ofcourse fall in love!! And then you will start guessing who the fortunate (fortunate, with my all grey hair and far sighted eyes !!) person is. Don't do that and break my poor husband's heart. In fact I think I am in love with my own husband. Ridiculous !! Preposterous!! Can anybody fall in love with one's own spouse, that too after one and a half decades (decayeds) of marriage? After three sixty five times fifteen bitter fights ? Impossible!! But it has happened. And you have to believe me. You see, my husband went on official tour six days,...

Was watching a political program (The Big Fight) about reservations in educational institutions to backword communities. Let me explain it like a mother. When your baby trying to put small steps, do you stop her and tell her no baby, you can not walk. You are so small. I will carry you instead. Does any mother say this? No!!Because mother knows that by doing this she will harm her baby instead of helping it. Let us say your school going kid is competing in running race along with some other kids, who may be the offspring of let us say national level champions. Do you tell your child or the teacher that your child can not compete with these kids as they are privileged and let the finish line for your child be moved backwords? How ridiculous is sounds ? Doesn't it? That is how you pro-reservation people talk. One of the panelists is saying in his village of OBCs, every house has a gun. And in the neighbouring village of upper castes, every house has a computer....

Aayi used to prepare chutney with orange peel which would be delicious sweet and spicy and sour with beautiful flavour of orange. She would dry the skin(peel) and dry it for 2/3 days, roast this with red chillies, sesame seeds and grind with grated coconut. We the lazy and impatient generation want things easy way. So I tried grating this peel. I got around 1/8 tsp grate from one orange. Roasted this with 8 byadagi red chillies. And ground it with 1/4 of coconut grated, salt and jaggery to taste. It was delicious. Keep the following things in mind. It should both sweet and spicy. This chutney should be eaten with rice rather than dosa or idli. And while grating grate only the orange portion of the peel. Another chutney you can easily (read lazily) make for rice is cucumber skin chutney. Anyway you have cut a cucumber for raita/majjige huli. Instead of throwing the skin, wash and chop into small pieces. Now roast these with 3-4 green chillies and 6-8 red(byadagi) chillies and 1/2 tsp se...