Perpetually Perplexed

I am not doing Ikkeri Basava here. Don't you know Ikkeri Basava? There is a famous statue of a Bull in Ikkeri in Karnataka. The story goes like this. A tourist once put his finger in side the nose of Basava and a scorpion bit his finger. Of course the bite was not serious or fatal. But this man told everyone that you should find out what is inside the nose of Basava because it is a great experience. So many other curious tourists got bit by scorpion and spread the awareness :) No, I am not doing that. I think. Here are few points why driving in our roads is good for you Do you know the cheeks of Hema Malini. Not now, But when she was the dream girl. According a politician - driving in his home state was like driving on the cheeks of Hema Malini. So you don't want to miss that experience! Whether you are monotheist, polytheist, atheist or some other theist (in plain English, whether you believe in one God, many Gods or no God), you will remember your God/s when driv...

I am really in the middle of dhcp soup. You don't know what is that? You don't want to know. Anyways, one good thing about all these is knowledge. I came to know that someone can hack and introduce a rogue dhcp server in your home network. And second good thing is courage. I fought with BSNL on their help line. Yes, you don't need much courage to fight over phone with help line people. But I need. And the best part is ISP people tell us, there are some technical problems. What are the technical problems? Tell us. May be, we will be able to help you. Or at least we will try to google and find help from internet. So does the word "technical" mean, we don't know what the hell is happening. But  think we have scared you enough not to pursue it further? I thought that word was  magic or witchcraft. :(

Today I saw blog of a man  who stated that his ideal job was house-husband, but he could not get it. He thinks he is being funny. Or may be sarcastic. But believe me. Being a house-wife or a house-husband sucks. No amount of blogging, googling or any other activity can fill the huge empty feeling you have always. The reasons could be various. When your kids grow up, you really don't have to take care of their needs so much. They make it clear that they don't need you. And after such long marriage, you are not very important in your spouse's life either. You are not master of the house. Nor are you a servant. Who are you? Do you belong to the house at all? If you do not belong to the place where you stay 24 hours, where else do you belong?  May be I like to play the victim card. Like they say everyone of us want to feel rightfully wronged. But let me make it clear that no one stopped me from being a working mom, other than  my  incredible laziness. But dear gir...

Or at least once in three four days. And by praying I mean, not just mumble few words of God, the traditional way of going to the God's room (the room to which you have confined God or assorted Gods as in our case ), and lighting a diya and prostrate with some incantations prayers. With diya, and more so with the electric light, you can see the cob-webs on the roof and on walls and make a mental note of removing them soon ! If you are procrastinator like me, as usual when doing one unwanted to task, you will remember many other tasks you could be or should be doing and the chances of getting them done is higher. And chances of remembering these tasks is not very high on other times as your nose is glued to TV or laptop on all other times. The exercise of prostrating and touching your forehead to floor is a good exercise for your tummy and you feel happy that your exercising for the day is done ;). Ask Baba Ramdev.  It is like kapal bhati. The more namaskaras (as this ...

I am reading Mohammed Yunus - the Grameen bank fame and Nobel peace prize winner. His book "Banker to poor" is inspiring and thought provoking. Second chapter I think is about his childhood. He talks about pre-independence days. He says his family and all relatives were pro-partition. That made me prejudiced about him. He was pro-pakistan. That means he was against India. And why am I reading his book? Of course I am not reading the book for his political views. That is of no concern to me. I am really happy about the way he helped the people of his country overcome their poverty without losing their dignity. All these feelings of us vs them are really irrational. I used to feel offended when somebody scolded Brahmins, Kannadigas, Indians. OK, the person who generalizes and blames or makes fun of a community are really ill-mannered to say the least. But I am stupid to feel offended by it.  No matter who we are, we are all human beings. And are descended by common anc...

I saw this image in facebook saying "Your mama is so fat that her weight is negative". Though offended about reference to mama, I got curious. How can weight be negative when it is too high. Then I remembered 16 bit signed integer, if exceeds 15 bits, becomes negative as the sign bit becomes 1. But what is even more interesting is one of the comments "It clearly shows you have run out of arguments to make mama comment". So true in our current political scenario! Look at the comments all these political parties are making about each other. The comments are  really because they don't have things to talk about their achievements and do not know how to solve the problems in the future. And top it all, they blame others saying "they started it". Preposterous. Even children stop saying this after an age of 8-10. Why don't any party tell us, how are they going to reduce inflation, reduce corruption, provide bijli, makaan and paani (power, house and w...

I was not feeling so well. Emotionally. Without any particular reason. I went to terrace to walk as usual. Then I remembered a certain person who walks in a very arrogant way. As if the arms are wider than they are and body erect and head held high. I started imitating that way and immediately I felt better and calmer. How it happens, I am not sure.I am no psychologist nor a medical professional.  So through out the day, I practiced that reminding myself to be straight and each time I instantaneously felt better. I need the reminder, because I am your average middle aged under confident woman.  Hence I feel, these kind of techniques should be advised to people and believe me, they help better than any medication. Note:  It seems the power postures really work. For example, according to a lifehacker post,  before an important meeting, instead of hunching in front of a smart phone, if you are stretched with a news paper, your confidence is increased.

Image courtesy : blog.madeforschool.com.au Yes, it is our duty to teach our children to be proud of who they are and value their strengths and understand their weakness. We need to praise them genuinely for their achievements and not be to harsh them on their failures. But we have to be vigilant that we don't make them feel that they are better than others. This will make them arrogant and which creates problems in social interactions. Let me assure you that my parents are not at all responsible for my low or let us say negative self esteem. If at all I am able to survive today, that is because of love my parents showered in childhood. Remember we are talking about a story 40 years ago. My parents never told us to be submissive just because we were girls. They never dragged us to temples for every festival or forced us to  pray daily.  I experimented with my religious beliefs and finally have realized that God is like an SOS number, whom you can call when you scared in...

On 4th November, activist Sharmila's fast entered 14th year. She has been fasting since Nov 4th 2000, asking the government to repeal AFSPA. Sharmila is from Indian state Manipur, and is political and human rights activist and a poet. She is currently facing trial for "attempt to suicide". AFSPA - armed forces special power act - is being used in Manipur and other north eastern states since 1980s. This act gives the power to the armed forces  to arrest anyone without warrant, on the suspicion that they have committed or about to commit a cognizable of fence. Sharmila claims that this act is the root cause for violence in Manipur. On Nov 2 2000, 10 civilians were shot dead in Malom a town in Imphal valley of Manipur by Indian paramilitary forces, while waiting for a bus. Next day newspaper carried images of these people. November 4th Thursday, Sharmila started the hunger strike requesting the government to repeal the act. She has contacted various political...

Columnist Jug Suraiya writes in Times of India that Congress policy is not exactly pro-poor, but rather it is pro-poverty.How else do you explain the fact that the party could not eradicate poverty even after ruling the country for almost seventy years? And let us not single out Congress party. Each and every party will produce some populist scheme or the other at election time, just for the sake of votes. Free electricity, free TV. I think you have read about Akhilesh's free laptops getting spoilt in a godown as he isn't getting time to distribute them. Do you expect people to work, if they get rice at Re 1/kg? Some one should remind these people the proverb "Give a fish to a man, he will eat one day. Teach him fishing, he will eat his entire life"

 I don't think you assumed that I  visit Kashi(Varanasi), Rameshvara, Gokarna etc annually.  I don't. In Indian Institute of World Culture (IIWC - located  near Taxi stand bus stop, Basavangudi, Bangalore) library every year on November 1st, there will be sale of old and discarded books. And some of the books will be really in OK condition and quite inexpensive. So I go for this sale every year. This year, I once wondered whether  I should  go? I hardly find time to read 2 books (again borrowed from this library) in one month.  What will I do buying more books? I told spouse these books are for old age. He asked why can't I buy them then? Why? I am not have enough energy to go so far independently. But sadly by the time I reached all the fiction books were sold out. But the place was filled with Engineering and IT books . What will I do with those books?  Came back empty handed. Not exactly empty handed. I bought 12 clay lights for 30 rup...