Perpetually Perplexed

I was and still am in a dilemma, whether to write this post here or in Android tips and tricks. Anyways I feel this is the better place. I finally completed (hopefully) my new version of Kannada-Hindi keyboard with all new features. I was working hard with hard keyboard support and predictions. Then my son told me off handed that no one will have patience to type ಕ ಾ  etc as they want to type fast. So using his suggestion, I added transliteration feature. That is , you do not have to search where is  ಕ . Then how will I add ಾ. You type in English keyboard kaa, lo, your ಕಾ is shown on the phone. And the words you type, whether in Kannada, English or Hindi will be remembered and shown as predictions. Don't you already feel it is awesome? It really is ;-)  Now my keyboard supports transliteration, prediction, number in Hindi/Kannada and a small note editor. You can pay a tiny amount of 50 rs and download it from  google play

Munna does not have a proper name. Because his mother is bed-ridden. And his father is busy pulling rickshaws in town faraway from home. So teacher names him Balaram. But he gets a better name - "White tiger" by the school inspector who was really impressed by the correct answers provided by this kid and says he will recommend a scholarship and a better school for Munna. But the pride does not last long. His family has to spend a lot of money for the marriage of Munna's cousin. And so Munna is taken out of school and put in a tea shop. His father falls very sick. He is vomiting blood. He with his cousin take the father to a town hospital. But the doctor is not around. Nor does he come in the evening when he is supposed to be coming. And father dies there in the hospital, uncared for. Who will bother about one more death in the darkness?  In the tea shop, Munna sees the drivers and is enchanted by their uniform and their lifestyle. He wants to be a driver. He begs a...

I wanted to write a post about late Narendra Dabholkar who was killed last week for because he had the courage to fight against superstitions and so called babas. He was trying for a long time to bring the bill against superstitious practices. And the irony is Maharashtra government passed this bill immediately after his death. But I did not write that post. One: because I was busy with other important things - like TV and my coding. Two, I felt I have some superstitions of my own, which I am unable to overcome. But why do I believe in such things whenI do not even know for sure if God is present or not(absent :) ) ? But one thing I certainly do not believe in, is the idea of heaven and hell. Come on, who can believe that once we die, our souls -assuming that they are present, will either rot in hell or enjoy in heaven!! How can be there pleasure or pain without the body? I seriously suspect that this concept of heaven and hell was invented in order to keep people away from mischi...

In a school in Bangalore, a class  6 student was upset because she scored low marks and teacher asked her to bring her parents. Upset girl tried to commit suicide by jumping from the canopy of first floor in school. Teacher Barnali Raut who observed this rushed to save the girl, but fell down. She sustained severe injuries. We normally hear stories about how bad people are, politicians, police, teachers, any one and everyone. But we rarely hear or rather remember the stories of good Samaritans.  The reason why we remember only bad stories may be we want to believe people are bad. And our mind tells us see how good I am  among all these bad people. There is another aspect to this. Media will highlight such stories of corruption, rape, violence etc. Even today the story of this teacher was not on the front page. It should have been. Is it possible that people who read about violence in papers, watch such thing in news and movies, unconsciously become more viole...

I was sitting next to my sulking husband in the car. There is nothing new to it. Whenever we have to go out, he sulks. He feels I waste his time and money going to malls, where I window shop or buy some trifle like soap. I retort saying I would have bought many more things, but I know he would not agree. But if I give up and we stay home, he will stare at some Bachchan film after crime patrol after CID after Savadhan India after some other film. And I will be forced to watch these. instead of Big bang theory or GA or How I met your mother.     So, if we stay home....... he will be sulking, may be a little less. See I don't get to sulk, because we need a viewer to sulk, and he can not see me, as I do not appear on TV. So he was sulking and driving and I was seeing vehicles and people. Suddenly the FM started the song "It happens only in India". I woke up to the fact that the day was Independence day. The day when our forefathers released us from the foreign rule and mad...

We feel that after 20 years of globalization and IT revolution, the living conditions of many of the Indians has improved drastically. We also see that middle class has really arrived and even lower class people are not having to worry about where their next meal is coming from. We have blame the government for providing 1Re rice and job guarantee scheme for poor people. We urban women blame these facilities provided for them because we do not get domestic helps who will literally complete cleaning our entire house for a pittance. But rural folks really face problems as they do not get labor to work in their farms and it is not possible to get the work done without labor. They will have one or two children in the family and at least one of children would be working for an IT company in state capital. And the best part is, even the working class people will have maximum two children, and even these children will be educated and will be working in a town.  But what we do not kno...

I am again doing multi-tasking or shall I say multi-reading? Knowing too well that multi tasking is less efficient and I am NOT a multi-tasker. So I am reading "Calcutta chromosome", "Eat pray and love" and "ಯಾರದಿ  ಕಾಡು "  And happy to say that none of these books are of the type - I have to read this book :( and at the same time they are not trivial either. " ಯಾರದಿ  ಕಾಡು " is by Mahashwetadevi. No I did not learn Bengali overnight. I am reading the kannada version which was re-translated by telugu version. And the book is good so far. More about it in a later post. And "Eat pray love" was the book I thought is something like a chicklit or some kind of romance. But Elizabeth Gilbert's book is about the journey of a woman around world in search of meaning in life. Again, so far I like the book. Calcutta chromosome is thriller by Amitav Ghosh. I picked the book because I am supposed to read 12 more books by Indian readers by ye...

Finally I have found my bliss. In the form of a cleaning/decluttering site called flylady.net. The one thing which I thought too menial even to detest. So I follow some basic principles like keeping the kitchen sink clean everyday. And trying to shine bathrooms.  So does that prove that a lady, no matter what is in her grey matter is born to clean? Is this the purpose of life I was searching all these years? Or as the site says, was my mind cluttered because my home was cluttered? May be this too will pass.

But politicians do  Note:  The line from the famous Hindi patr iotic song "Sare Jahan se Achha" h as t he meaning - Religions do not teach us  to hate each other    B air means animosity

There aren't many things common between these two women of the Indian Subcontinent. Durga that is Durga Shakti Nagpal is an IAS officer in UP of India and Jiya is  a cartoon character in first animated TV series "Burkha avenger" in Pakistan. Durga Shakti tried fighting the sand mafia in UP by confiscating the sand trucks and slapping FIRs on persons involved. One of whom happened to be a wannabe MP. Jiya is a mild school teacher in day and burkha clad super hero during night. She fights evil characters who are not witches or demons, but fundamentalists who stop girls from attending schools and corrupt politicians. Her weapons are not swords or magic wands, but pens and books. OK, both are women fighting for justice. But in Burkha avenger Jiya wins against bad people. And Durga Shakthi was suspended with a charge that she demolished a religious building there by incited communal disharmony. (If inciting communal violence was an offense, what would happen to so many ...