Perpetually Perplexed

I have a plant in my garden. It is almost unrooted. It is attached to the soil just by a 3 or 4 strands of hair like roots. Still it is surviving. Well, I am like that. I do not belong anywhere. My parents are from a remote village in Karnataka. But I  hardly spent any time there except for some days in the vacations. I don't have any attachments with that place. My dad used to work in a place called Haliyal for 7 years. All my childhood memories are of that place. It is border town between Karnataka and Maharashtra. But in that marathi dominated place, we were outsiders. Then when I was in 10th, my dad got transferred to Sirsi which is very near to our native village. But I hardly stayed there for 3 years. I came to Bangalore for my Engineering education and am here since then except for 6 years when we were in Muscat. And Bangalore, I have spent three quarters of my life here. But it still it is not my home-town and I do not like this place. When I see in TV people living i

It started 21 years ago. I was a novice in the field of English books. My colleagues were discussing about "Bridge across for ever" by Richard Bach. I was curious enough to buy it and read it. It WAS good book about soul mates (yawn...) Then my cousin gave me "One".    But "Illusions" is the one book I liked very much. If you feel everything is illusion (maaya in Sanskrit), life becomes less difficult. Anyway I liked it so much so that even today I can quote some lines from that book "What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly. " Beautiful   " You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true. You may have to work for it, however." "Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. Being true to anyone else or anything else is not only impossible, but the mark of a fake messiah." Of course I did not remember all these words, I had t

Her vacant eyes Stare at the ceiling endlessly But now and then There is a flash Of Immense Hatred in the eyes Is there? Hatred for the beast Who brought her to this Whose cruelty has no limits He is now free, why not her? Hatred for us We just pity her Doing so demean her even further. Hatred for Time Which is mercilessly slow Is dragging on and on 37 years is too long for any body to suffer Hatred for God The so called Almighty If he can not even control his own children He can at least give mukti to her Dedicated to Aruna Shanbhag the nurse who is coma for 37 years

   You have heard this ad about Life Insurance Corporation . Zindagi ke saath bhi, zindagi ke baad bhi. Well I hear it in FM radio many times. ( I would rather hear Mr. Ghanta)    So you are there. Up. Enjoying all the luxuries which on earth would have disqualified you from entering the heaven. Drinking the soma rasa, watching the mujira dance of apsaras and eating heavenly food.   trinnnnng..... trinnnnng   You are not able to escape this $#%$# mobile even here. You swear. You are not sure whether you go to hell if you swear in heaven. trinnnnng..... trinnnnng Ok, ok, you go and pick up the phone "Hello sir, Good day, My name is ABC. We have this beautiful plan in LIC. This is tailored for you. You have to think about your dear ones and.........." Ha! Zindagi ke baad bhi. You grind your teeth and smash the phone .

   This was the phrase of some matrimony site. But things have become too difficult for my little brothers back home. They are not finding a bride to marry. You might have read the stories in newspapers. How Havyaka brahmin boys are not getting bride.    The girls most of the times will be at least graduates. They are not ready to marry a boy who is not in city, who is not an engineer. If the boy is in  the village, looking after  areca nut  agriculture, even a high school educated girl is not ready to marry him. So if you go to Sirsi, Siddapur villages, you can find 4-5 bachelors in their late 20s and 30s in each village.    The problem is worse because, the parents will be aged, and many times ill. There is no daughter in law to take care of the household and the old parents.     Many boys are even searching for brides from other communities and castes. They are going in search of girls to far off places.   Well,  I agree that even in our Havyaka community, the parents of gi

Rising Sun      After a long time I completed a book within three days. In the good old days I used to read till 1 am and complete a book in one day. Now, I have just grown old.     The reason behind fast completion is , it is a detective kind of book by Micheal Crichton. I normally do not bring detective books from my library . I feel I am well past that stage in life to read Sidney Sheldon and John Grisham's. But the previous book I read by same author was some kind of science fiction about teleportation etc. ( I did some googling. The book is TimeLine ) So I thought SF is ok, let me bring it.    Rising Sun is about Japanese companies taking over American Industries. But the story revolves around the murder of a girl in a Japanese office. Yes, it is mystery. And a good one time read.    Well, at least one good thing is it made me interested in Japanese life. The Rock Garden I was reading previously was also about Japan. But the two books are completely different.

Yesterday was a happy day. Because tomato plant in my kitchen garden has a tiny kaayi (greem unripe fruit). At last!! I have been waiting for this for almost a month.     Normally tomato seeds, taken from the fruit will never sprout to a plant. My mom has an explanation. Because the seeds from the fruit are sweet, the ants will just kidnap  the seeds. This particular one luckily did survive that stage.    So there was this tiny plant. I would water it everyday. I would also pour the water with which rice is washed, vegetables are washed. I would pour diluted curds, anything and everything for my dear little tomato plant. One fine day, there was a bud and next day there was this flower. I was dancing with glee. Aha, the tomato has blossomed, Now  I can eat saaru made from my own tomatoes.    This flower was followed by many more flowers. The plant grew taller. But there is no hint of fruit. I started wondering whether tomato is flowering plant instead of fruiting plant ?    But I di

1> Head of state of which country is having lot of trouble at home-front?       a> Egypt                 b> India 2> What is our chief minister's popular phrase?      a> Catch me if you can      b> He started it 3> Which mobile technology is currently rocking India ?       a> 3G       b> 2G scam 4> How do you succeed in  Administrative service ?       a> By hard work and honesty       b> By cleaning the shoes of ministers from your hanky 5> What happens to honest officials in India?      a> They are awarded and promoted      b> They directly reach heaven immediately (Yeshawant Sonawane)

Rangoli is a design created from white powder in front of houses.(See wikipedia article) Ladies or maids will wash the court yard of the house early in the morning and put rangoli. Two days back, it suddenly flashed to me. What is the reason behind rangoli? Well, every person will have a creative itch. The poor women, who rarely go out of the house do not find any outlet for this. By putting a beautiful rangoli, they will satisfy their need to express themselves. So is the case of devara nama (devotional songs sung during pujas ) Good, our ancestors thought at least something about the needs of women!! Again that is my theory. If you ask some other people, they may say it is to welcome God and Guests to our houses.

     He is an Indian working in Cairo hotel. In december he sent back his family to India. Now he wants to come to India too. But he is unable to come. All the banks and ATMs are closed. So he is not able to withdraw money. And our Indian Airlines is not letting him board the planes because he has no money.    Tell me, is it fair? Isn't our government concerned with our citizens' safety? For all the foreign exchange earned by NRI, the government should at least bring them to our country in this time of crisis.     And after all 45000 is a very very small fraction of the money squandered by our politicians in scams.

 When we were children, (yes, even we were children. may be even now. dil to bacha hai ji!!) , there was this riddle. When a boy comes late to the school, teacher asks the reason and boy answers. " It was raining. And the road was completely slippery. If I put one step forward, I was slipping two steps backward. " Teacher accepted the excuse. But the riddle is how did he ever reach the school?    That is not the point here. I am like that boy. I work half a program one day. I will be too happy with myself and spend another week in front of Idiot box or equally idiotic facebook apps. No amount of self-help articles in the net are helping any way. What do?

   Let me tell you why I hate TV. In order to collect more and more reasons, I keep staring at it 31 (24 plus 7, Did you not hear Jake in Two and a half Men?). Unless I am using the computer. To play word puzzle.      Look at the reality shows. A show like Emotional Atyachar is atyachar on the viewers. It is an effort to tell people "see you deserve it for being foolish enough to believe all these fights, adultery and bickering on this show are real". Come on, who will be senseless enough to wash all their dirty linen, along with the wardrobe, in the public?     And  look at Roadies. Agreed that kids need to be tough to survive in this bad, bad world. But does that mean that the hosts of the show insult the participants so badly? And I do not want to say anything about SplitsVilla.  It is too much even for a open minded Indian   person like me.     And the program managers in Start TV, I think are green people. How? See the most hated shows like Koffee with Karan, Bachelo

Look MathruBhumi    Our Democracy is being burnt    EveryDay    In broad daylight    In front of hundreds of people    It is burnt to ashes    It is sold    Sold in suitcases    In votes, in supports    In party splits    It is burnt everyday    It is looted    And sent to foreign lands    By our leaders    It is burnt everyday     It is killing itself     With the destitute farmers      By eating adulterated      Fertilizers     It is being paraded naked     With dalit women      And in the flashy vulgar display of Wealth by Rich       Democracy is burnt everyday P.S. : And we are playing fiddle like Nero