Perpetually Perplexed

These meditation people certainly know how to take the fun out of everything. They keep saying ' always find good in others. Never judge people' If we always find good in others and not judge them, how can we make fun of them? And if we do not make fun of others, how can our spirits be uplifted  or how will we feel happy? And after all we came googling meditation in order to be happy, right? Look at our Hindi songs. The ones which we love are the ones which badger others. Be it 'Ek chaturanaara' or more recent 'Pappu can't dance saala'. Some of you may also love the sad love songs of Rafi or Lata. But they will either remind you your love who cheated/left you or remind you the fact that you never had a love making you more miserable. So why sing  and be miserable when you can sing and be happy, very happy indeed. So come on, dance,  saying 'Pappu can't dance saala', imagining your enemy to be Pappu and you to be Micheal Jackson. 

Angaadi is an intelligence official being posted to Kesaruru -( kesaru - mud, dirt, ooru - town). Once famous for its cardamom production, this place is producing lesser cardamom year by year. The government has posted Angaadi to find out the reasons. But he wonders if there are some outside forces involved in this and if there is any link between this and the death of scientist Jogihala who was studying new species of cardamom with a very high yield. Patil who works in the cardamom board is a rationalist and gets very angry at beliefs about ghosts and even God. He tries to convince people that there are no ghosts by giving medicine to people who were sick supposedly because of ghosts. He cures these sick people but not the blind faiths of villagers. They start thinking he can chase away ghosts! Jayaram is a writer from Kesaruru who can write stories based on few facts such that the story looks too real to be imaginary. Angaadi asks Jayaram to tell a story linking cardamom yield, ...

I studied in a kannada medium school. So till 12th standard, my book list comprised only of Kannada books. I used to read serials in Sudha, Taranga. In those days "dharavahi" was the one which came in magazines. TV was a rare luxury. I would read novels. But not too many of chiklit kind. May be because no one would read them at home. I even remember reading "Mukajjiya kanasugalu" by Dr. Karanth. How much I could really discern from these book, I am not sure. Bhyrappa, Gatti, Devanuru Mahadeva, Lankesh all these authors I have read in those days. Once I came to Bangalore for my engineering, I decided I would read English books. I started from Mills and Boons. I might have read 4-5 books. Then I was nauseated by them. Then I moved on to detective books like Sidney Sheldon and Robin Cook. Yes, science fiction too. I remember a hostel-mate - an architecture student who was raving about Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Not to be left behind, I read the book too but did not...

It was 2001 and I was studying a Java. Of course on my own. Of course with the help of the internet. And somehow I came to know about brainbench website and took the Java test.( At that time, Java was the only language I was aware of. But had a good friend to discuss it about.)  And to my surprise, I passed the test. And this site still conducts tests in many programming and other topics and most of the tests are priced at $49.9. But once in while, there will be some tests which are free of cost. Many of the times these are introductory offer. Since 2001, I have taken Java again, C, C++ and all the times these were free tests. Call it Indian mentality or plain shrewdness. I do not have the logos with me because the certifications expire in 3 years and now they are no longer free tests. :) Few days back I visited the site and saw that Android 4.0 was a free test. I took the test. It was tough. But here is the award

Ashwini Angadi from namma Bengaluru was one of the seven girls awarded  the youth courage award for education on Malala day by United Nations. Ashwini was born in a poor rural family in Karnataka. She had 100% visual impairment in both eyes. She was discriminated everywhere. She did her 10 years of schooling in special schools, then completed her p.u.c in NMKRV college where she was a rank holder. Even in her B.A. she secured a rank. She was offered a job in an IT firm, but she declined it to work for the NGO Leonordo Cheshire Disability and helps disabled children in their education. In the award ceremony, Malala declared that the day should be called Ashwini day instead of Malala day. Malala Youafzai Malala is a  teenage activist and blogger from Pakistan.  A Talibani militant tried to assassinate her  in October 2012 for her efforts to promote girls' education. But even after the attack which was almost fatal and has disfigured her face, she did not s...

Like many other days, he just walks outside his door and keeps wondering whether the lost treasure has come back. Silas Marner had lost his God and close friend long back. In Raveole he knows no one, nor does he try to know and  he kept himself busy by working on his loom whole day and counting his savings of gold coins in the night. But now that gold too was gone. So he unknowingly goes out of the house in the evening, standing there and waiting for the treasure to come back. He stands outside for some time and comes inside and sits on the chair. He sees some thing shining near the hearth. Is it his treasure? He bends and touches this gold. But instead of hard metal what touches his fingers is soft curls. A small child is sleeping there. And now the child wakes up and starts crying "mammy". The "mammy" was completely intoxicated and lying outside his house in the snow. Silas goes and brings the doctor. But the woman is already dead. Silas declares...

Supreme court passed a ruling that the MPs , MLAs and MLCs who are convicted in a case will be disqualified on the date of conviction. It scrapped the provision in the act which provided the legislators a 3 month window period where they can appeal to a higher court and keep their seats as long as the case is pending. In the TV discussions yesterday, it was really comic to see the politicians of both major political parties to defend this ruling and saying meekly that it is their personal opinion and they do not know what is party's opinion yet. Do they have doubts that the parties from which they are elected would not want the criminals to be disqualified? How lame is my question? In the scenario where 30% of these MPs and MLAs have criminal case and 14% have serious cases against them. And these " rulers who have broken the rules " do not belong to one party. All parties small and large have criminals as their legislators and parliamentarians.  And one of these p...

Ratnarashi Pandey was married at a tender age of 14. She had to suffer a lot from the hands of her abusive husband. But being the stronger type she continued her studies and got a divorce from her husband after 13 years of marriage. And she cleared the civil services exam. Kudos to this girl. But that is not what the government said. It denied her the job as she had committed a crime of child marriage. Twice she cleared the exam and twice she was rejected the job. As she had to bring up her two children, she needed the job. She went to high court and then supreme court and finally won the case. So this is how our rules and laws punish the victim instead of the offenders. In far away Chechenya, which was once a part of Russia, but now independent country, girls are not supposed step outside their homes without hijab. And if they talk to any male other than their family members they should keep a distance of few feet. But that does not stop the kidnappers from kidnapping these gir...

She was the first woman to win a Nobel prize. And only person to win Nobel prize in two fields. Marie Curie was the inventor of Radium and Polonium and found theory of radioactivity.