Perpetually Perplexed

I love aunt acid quotes.  She is middle aged and always angry and a little bit feminist. So all of us can relate to her.

Image courtesy : Happiness Project

How many news channels do we have in our country? May be 5 English, around 15-20 Hindi and many more in regional languages. These channels will have to show news 24 by 7. But who will watch the same news 10 times a day. And it is not possible to search for new news every hour. So to get better viewership, they try to show discussions. The idea is good. Because you pick a topic say inflation, or say climate change or some current event. And call spokespersons from political parties and discuss the topic. That way viewers - the nation, will know what is the opinion and more importantly action plan of these parties on the topic. Theoratically. But what happens in reality? The topic would be more often what controversial statement politician A from ruling or opposition has made. And there will be chaos in the discussion, each participant out shouting the other. And finally it comes down to "he started it. " What will the nation know from these discussions other than wh

Laash pe makeup, Laash pe makeup, Lash pe makeup Keeps shouting a young man in Arnab style. That is the program "On AIR with AIB" a satire from AIB shown in Star World and Star Plus. The program is good. Some reviewers feels it has lost its edge. The reason could be, if the program talks about any political party, the channel will have to bear the brunt. So Star might have told the AIB not talk about any political party. Sad. There was an episode which talked about how little TV channels talk about north east. When there was a flood in Assam on first week of Sept 2015 - in which 50 people died and 1.5 million people were hit, we did not get to see any news about this on TV. Instead what we saw was the stories revolving around Sheena murder. So the duo on AIB kept on showing how the TV channels were talking about Sheena's body being applied lipstick  instead of Assam floods. A family uses makeshift banana raft to reach safer areas on Sept 2 :Img courtesy : qz.

Please watch and beware of new terror group called Unoffended https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXpFlTR-UEY

This cartoon in Times of India is the summary of this year - 2015. Cows have right to life. But not all humans. In our Indian democracy all are equal. But cows are more equal than some human beings.

There are plenty of us who want to help the needy and want to do something to help the society. But we have no funds. That did not stop these workers from helping the children. For wood workers wages of  each day counts. But that did not stop 1100 wood workers from Bangalore carving out new furniture from broken chairs and desks in schools, orphanages. They worked the whole day free of cost. The drive was a part of "Shrama dana divas" an initiative by Fevicol champions club. Thanks to their work, many school children going to government schools can sit on chairs instead of floor.

Appination - App + rumination When I was in the finishing stages of my app - C Questions, I used to worry about the topic for next app - 6th app. But I worry no more. Which does not mean I have got an idea for a fancy app which is easy to develop, but still attracts millions of downloads. It just means that I have been busy. I am busy making my "Shataka" better, fancier and cooler. Shataka - if any of you have installed it, is an app where you should arrange the numbers so that the row sums and column sums in 3 by 3 grid are all 100. People often confuse this app when Sudoku. I should keep telling everyone SNS - Shataka is not Sudoku (Remember GNU - GNU is not Unix). The grid has only 9 elements and the game involves mental math. But not to worry. It is not as tough as it sounds. Because all the numbers you need are there. Look at this picture. If I were to get 100 in first column, what do I need? I need 54. And 54 is available in the list. Drag and drop 54. Now

I was watching "Last Comic Standing" on TV. Because suddenly we are getting all channels on our TV. Not just the advertisement channels. Yes, our cable TV connection was being completely unreliable. And hence the switch over to DTH. These DTH providers have applied butter to over noses - viz they are showing all the channels including HD channels free for the first month. So, I was watching the above said show in HD and a young stand up comedian there was me. Except for the fact that he was a male, he was 30 years younger than me and he was a Caucasian. But the same wide eyes, the same scared look. And the same feeling that any moment he will break down. But despite all this, he was participating in this contest for stand up comedians. That needs lot of courage and will power. He inspired me. Yes, we can't help the wide eyes, bent heads or flushed faces. But what we can help is, lead our daily lives in a calm manner despite all this.

Look at Chennai. Look at Dadri. Look at Syria and Paris. Why all these? Why? Why? WHY? because Due to energy crisis and other reasons, the light at the end of the tunnel has been switched off until further notice. -God

I did not know that a day would arrive when I would go hunting for a blog post. Writing a non-educational blog post because you have to is like trying to defecate when there is no pressure. Why did I add a disclaimer there? Non-educational? Because in an educational blog, you have material - does not matter if thousands have written about that material, thousand times better than you. Does not matter if you read their material, try to understand them, then struggle hard not to use their words. But you have material. Period. Here you do not have material. Or you do not have material which you are allowed to write. Without the fear of being banished or exiled. And you do not like to write praising some one. That will be sycophancy. You can not censure. You do not want to complement. I could write about vegetable prices. That is the only place I visit outside my home. Vegetable prices have gone in a exponential. And funny thing is the tactics used by shops. Now they pack 3 pieces  in

We hate this porein language. So we abuse it whenever possible. So mens(!) and womens(!) were what? Sale? In saner notes, we ridicule others for their use of a foreign language. What does it tell about us?

We surround ourselves with gadgets, helps and other tools to reduce our work. Almost to zero percent. So that we don't have worry about our daily chores. So that we can worry about what our neighbors are doing.

I think the problem with us is that we pray to God in a language we do not understand. Does he understand. He must. Or else he may take the help of Google translate. See, all our holy books - we have so many of them, are written in Sanskrit. How many of us can read these books and understand these. To make matters worse many of these are in verse. When our knowledge of Sanskrit does not get beyond gachchati gachchataha gachchanti, how can we read and understand these shlokas? We can not. So we do not read. And tell our swamijis and gurus to tell the gist of the holy books to us. They do tell us. But they tell their own interpretations. In some religions - their scriptures are translated into their own languages. Any one can read and understand. But do we have Vedas in Kannada? Or Hindi? Apparently we do. So says google baba. But google devotees and religious devotees are two different sets who do not intersect. So to come back to the problem. We have too many religious books (ju

If there is one thing common to all of us, all over the world, it is hatred. French people hate English and  the feeling is mutual and genetic. Americans hate Russians and Russians hate Americans. Indians hate Pakistanis and vice versa. Israelis hate Arabs and Arabs hate Jews. Christians hate Jews. Hindus hate Muslims. Muslims hate Hindus. Bangalore Kannadigas hate Tamilians and all outsiders. Poor hate rich. Villagers hate city people, who have it all so easy. And all of us hate politicians. Once they reach or cross teen-age, children hate parents. But parents do not hate children. They in turn, are unhappy with their own parents. So my list is going to be endless. But the question is, why do we hate. Do we hate people who have power over us - like children hating parents or we hating politicians. Or do we hate people who we think will some how harm our existence? Is hatred a form of phobia? A fear that these people will occupy our nation and we will have to flee or be their

ಬೀದಿ ಬೀದಿಯ ಅಲೆದು ರಸ್ತೆ ರಸ್ತೆಯ ಸುತ್ತಿ ಅವರಿವರ ಮನೆಯ ಹೊರಗಿರುವ ಹೂಗಳ ತಂದು ನಿನಗರ್ಪಿಸುವೆ ಇನ್ನಾದರು ದಯ ಬಾರದೆ ದೇವಾ ಕಾರುಗತ್ತಲೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಕೊರೆವ ಚಳಿಗಳಲಿ ಮಳೆಯ ದಾಳಿಯನೆಲ್ಲ ಸೈರಿಸಿಕೊಂಡು  ಹೂಗಳ ತಂದು ನಿನಗರ್ಪಿಸುವೆ ಇನ್ನಾದರು ದಯ ಬಾರದೆ ದೇವಾ ಹೂ ಮಾರುವನಲ್ಲಿ ಚೌಕಾಶಿ ಮಾಡಿ ಮೊಳ ಕಡಿಮೆ ಹಾಕಿದನೆಂದು ಜಗಳವನೆ ಮಾಡಿ ಹೂಗಳ ತಂದು ನಿನಗರ್ಪಿಸುವೆ ಇನ್ನಾದರು ದಯ ಬಾರದೆ ದೇವಾ ಆ ಹುಣಿಮೆ ಈ ಪಾಡ್ಯ ಎಲ್ಲ ಹಬ್ಬವ ಮಾಡಿ ನೂರು ರೂಪಾಯಾದರೂ ಕೊಂಡು ತಂದು ಹೂಗಳ ತಂದು ನಿನಗರ್ಪಿಸುವೆ ಇನ್ನಾದರು ದಯ ಬಾರದೆ ದೇವಾ

ನಿರಂತರ ನ್ಯೂಸಾದೆ. ತಾಯೆಂದು ಗುರುತಾದೆ ಸೇಡಿಗೆ ಹಗೆತನಕ್ಕೆ ಆಯುಧವಾದೆ ಸತ್ತರೆ....    ಸಮೂಹ ಸನ್ನಿಗೆ ಕಾರಣವಾದೆ ಹರಿ ಹರಿ ಗೋವು ನೀನು

We have all heard and seen social networks being used for assisting people, some times even spreading hate and violence. But here is a completely different case. Mumbai based Ram Subramanian wanted to do some thing about increasing intolerance in the society and spreading of hatred. He posted a message in facebook asking people to write a post it note and take a selfie with it saying they do not hate Pakistan and set it as profile picture. This went viral in both countries thousands of citizens in both countries joined the campaign and spread the message.   To participate, tag your love note selfie with #ProfileForPeace on social media. This proves that we are and will always be peace loving people. Hate politics will not work with us. 

He is living a peaceful life as a magistrate of a small town. His people are peaceful. He knows there are barbarians - or rather nomads beyond the lake some where in the woods. But they visit the town only once a year for trading their goods. But one day all these change. A colonel from the empire (name is not specified in the book. It could be any empire) comes with the news that barbarians are planning a revolt. And the colonel has come to arrest these barbarians and find out more about this revolt. Magistrate tries to convince him, that barbarians do not trouble them at all. And going in search of them in deep forests is very very difficult because nobody has the correct maps. Colonel does not listen and goes in search of barbarians. Thus starts the saga of cruelty, torture of barbarians and even fishermen by the soldiers of the empire. Magistrate is responsible for feeding and watching over the prisoners. He sees one barbarian woman who has lost her eye sight, whose foot has

My dear fellow citizens, I have few questions and a request for you. The new government has come to power promising us of acche din and sabke saath sabka vikas. Should we not ask about these? We need proper support for the farmers, more so because of deficit rains. We also need electricity for all our work. We need good roads so that our backs are not broken driving on the pot holes. And we need roads in the rural areas. We need drinking water. We also need some control over inflation so that the thought of food does not bring tears instead of saliva. Why are we not asking questions about these? Why are we spending our energy fighting over things which come after the above mentioned things. And fighting over things which may cause more and more violence in the country. Which will certainly stop the growth of the country and individuals. Please friends, let us stop this madness. Or else we may go back to dark ages again. 

I do not remember reading much of world history in our school days. We read a lot about Indian history, even Indus valley civilization and about world wars. But nothing about Greek or Roman civilization, I think. So I am really finding the book "Glimpses of World history" by Nehru very very interesting. Imagine reading a history book, not out of compulsion! Not only has book tries to cover the history of different parts of the world, the insights of Nehru on various events make the book all the better. And the best part is it is in my phone. No, no, I am not one of the persons who buy kindle for reading. The book in pdf form is available for free download. Again his-story is a story of great empires and emperors and their invasions. And it is also a story of cruelty, war and killing. If only it were her-story instead of his-story. And along with my e-book, I need a physical book. After finishing Gold, I have brought "Waiting for Barbarians" by Coetzee - a s

There was an emperor in China by the name Wang Teng. But he adapted another name - Shih Huang Ti, with the meaning "  The first emperor". He wanted himself to be recognized as first emperor. And he hated history. He made all the great books by philosophers like Confucius and history books to be burnt.  His edict read that "Anyone who uses antiquity to belittle  modern times will be put to death along with his relations." And he kept his word. Hundred of scholars who tried hiding their beloved books were buried alive. So today, our own people - though they like antiquity and our old culture and our old scientific inventions, do not like Gandhiji. They  find faults with him in history - their own version of history. They say - "Upliftment of dalits was an idea of Ambedkar. Tolerance has been our culture from very beginning. He, Gandhi in fact was against development and wanted people to remain in villages. His idea of non-violence was asking Jews to not prot

There was a Bapu, who was fasting unto death to stop communal violence. And here are his children. All of us. Killing each other in the name of religion. And then using the murder for electoral gains. Bapu, it is good that you are not here to see all this.

The difference between crime and public service is more of station than of substance. When I was small, there were many poor people, and rich were the enemy. Now rich are still there, poor are also enemy. Any society worth its salt, will stop itself from self destruction. We are not doing it. So we are not a society at all or we are not worth our salt. Such quotes are numerous in the book and are more and more sarcastic. Bruce Gold is trying to write a book on Jewish experience in America but he hardly remembers anything about his childhood.  So he asks his elder brother Sid - the same Sid who always tries to pull his legs. Sid remembers. He is new to school and English language is new to him. So he speaks it in a funny accent. Other children in the school imitate him and he does not even realize he is being made fun of. Even in the neighborhood other children let him play with them. But often treat him very cruelly. He does not complain for the fear of losing his playmate

Gold is a professor and a writer. But in his father's eyes he is a complete Idiot. Father does not leave a single opportunity to condemn his son. And his siblings too are not proud of him because he writes something which they can not understand. So Gold is treated as baby by his sisters. Mocked by his father, step mother and brother. And he still feels hurt because no one appreciates him, not even his children. So far I can understand the protagonist, relate to him and feel sympathetic with him. But when I see that he does not work honestly as a professor, he misguides kids to lure them into English department, I stop relating with him. What a hypocrite I am. If the hero of book is rude, self centered, almost anti-social, it is OK. But he should not go against my value system. (Do I have one?) So suddenly all my enthusiasm to read "Good as gold" by Joseph Heller evaporated. So back to TV and mobile games. Nothing succeeds as planned : So Gold feels all his

ಏನಾದರೂ ಆಗು ಮೊದಲು ಮಾನವನಾಗು says a kannada poem. We all need to know that and remember that phrase always. Whether it is IS or Sanathana sanstha, do these people not agree that we are all children of God? And if they agree, do they ever think about why HE  would want some of his children to be killed by other children? Did you know that the founder of this Sanstha was a hypnotist earlier and people have filed a case against him saying he uses hypnosis to convince people to join the organization and perpetrate violent acts? We the common men and women need to think about this.  Should we say that Hindu terrorism is justifiable because of the presence of muslim terrorism? And don't we want to become good humans first? With little bit of tolerance?

Rao a middle aged government servant, starts working in a TV serial  as Gandhi. Gradually he finds himself understanding and following principles of Gandhi. But ours is not a time where Gandhigiri brings positive result. Rao's only son leaves his house and later is arrested because he has a defaulted a loan. His mentor's son - whom he promises Godse's role, loses the role. And Rao feels utterly helpless. Compromising with the situation and willing to pay a bribe for release of his son, Rao feels he is not worthy of playing Gandhi's role. Let us look at one scene. In the studio where the serial is being produced, some evil looking men enter. One of them keeps asking the prices of various recording equipments. Then he asks "why are you casting Rafeeq as Godse? Don't you have any one from our community to play the role? If you do not remove him, all these equipments will be broken". Looks familiar, isn't it? 2011 film by Girish Kasaravalli makes

Aung San Suu kyi

We Bangaloreans are facing 4 hours of scheduled power cut and some more hours of unscheduled power cuts as well. Let us return this unscheduled to our leaders. Let us give them unscheduled elections. Are we not disgusted with the pre-poll alliance, all the juggling, and then post poll alliance and resort politics - as is happening in Bangalore now. We are. All this circus is done to win the elections. Imagine a situation where elections are announced just one week in advance - just enough time for the administration to make arrangements. There will be no closed door meetings between leaders of different parties. Also no election campaigns where people will be brought in lorries to clap for the leaders, with our money. No distribution of sarees, lungis and hooch and biryanis. Then again, if they do not campaign how does the voter know whom to vote? They do have eyes and brains. They can see how the parties are ruling, which of their problems are resolved and which are newly creat

You are feeling blues, you want to lighten mood. You search for a joke. And what do you get, a dirty bundle of text full of innuendos which make you sick. Why can not any one write simple clean humor? Which is not a rambling like mine.   One writer who used to write excellent subtle humor was Wodehouse. His stories of Bertram Wooster and his "gentleman's gentleman" butler - Jeeves, are "ekamevadvitiya".  Most of us grew up reading his books and chuckling in the class room. But his books are not of the type which make you guffaw like "Three men in a boat". Again, if you have not read TMIAB, you are not literate at all. Sorry, some serious flaw in flow today. Make a point to read the book immediately. You can read it online from Project GutenBerg Raold Dahl's William series are good, suitable more for children. I tried to remember another author whose satire was excellent. He is Saki - Victor Hug Munro. Saki's works are also availabl

We all read in history lessons that to teach a lesson to European rulers, our fore fathers banned European clothing. Now we do not have colonial rule. Those hoarders are our own people. But does that mean we let them loot us? We should teach these people - people responsible for sky high onion prices, also a lesson. Not to chase them out of the country, but to make them less greedy. I am no economist and not even a bachat centric mom. But even I know the supply demand rule. If the demand for onion reduces in large amount, the price should come down. Let us all decide to use very little onion in our cooking. Morning chutney does not need onion. Nor does the Sambar. Yes, you can cook sambar without onions and tomatoes, and it does taste equally good. For our palyas or sabjis, we can add asafotida, curry leaves or coriander leaves for flavor. I do not know much about North Indian foods or Non-vegetarian foods. But I am sure these cooking can also be done without onions or with

We Indians are a patriotic lot. In spite of cursing our country and its law makers thousand times a day, we strongly believe that India and Indians are THE BEST. But most often our patriotism is expressed in limited ways. Pakistan bashing (rarely) America bashing Calling any one who opposes our leader as a traitor   Only people who actually care for our country and save its borders are our soldiers. When all of us say "jeevam bhadrani pashyanti", these soldiers play with their lives to save ours. We the common Indians, remember about the word - patriotism only on Independence day. May be this rule applies to citizens of other countries as well. But not Beirut Banksy. He draws cultural figures on the walls of Beirut. It is his effort in reuniting the Lebanese, who are divided in political and sectarian divisions. His real name is Yazan Halwani. 22 year old Halwani peels of political posters off the walls to make room for his murals. Lebanon has undergone c

As my cable connection is playing tantrum, I am not watching GA today, instead I will blog about it. What is the problem with cable connection? Who knows, the cable operators say it is some problem on our side - just like telephone. Just like telephone. Grey's anatomy is Grey - Meredith Grey's story. Almost all the characters are some how related to her. And since the story is about a hospital, all of them are doctors, and honest, empathetic, unrealistic doctors. There is handsome Derek Shephard - Grey's boyfriend. He has run away from his very beautiful doctor wife Addison because she cheated on him with his best friend - Mark Sloan. The story drags a lot here, Addison too comes to same hospital with the intention of patching up her marriage. Mark Sloan comes there too. And there is a huge mess. Then there is Calliope Torres, she is having on and off relationship with Mark Sloan - Shephard's best friend. This Dr. Torres marries George O'Malley

Dear fellow bloggers, a little piece of advice. Comment on politicians all you want. Blog about goondas too. But never question religions and beliefs of people. No matter how insane they appear. You do not want to be shot at. You have your families to think about. Yesterday you have heard about third rationalist to be killed in three years. Narendra Dabholkar a rationalist, Govind Pansare - a writer and communist, now M M Kalburgi ex VC of Hampi university. Their sin was just that they some how offended sentiments of very religious people. And these religious people as we have seen from history, go to any lengths to save their Gods and relgions. They think the God has told them "vinashaya cha dushkrataam" sambhavami yuge yuge. They are helping God in vinash-ing the dushtas. So never blog about God or religion!

I thought I was ready for books like Jiddu Krishnamurthy. I watch Brahmakumari's awakening most days, I watch Avadeshanand's discourse many days. So may be I have become spiritual, I thought. But the book "Wings of eagle" by JK was like "kabbinada kadale"  to me. The author keeps asking more and more questions. Until the lay readers like me are completely confused. I tried the next thing which often helps me. Went to youtube videos. But no, that too did not help. May be I am not yet ready for JK yet. Sister Shivani, Tiny buddha or even Beliefnet should be my food now. And the face - why does he look so much tormented in the photos? Of course, this world is enough to bring any sensitive man to tears. But we expect a Guru to be beyond that stage. - having reached equanimity? Now do you ask me who gave me the right to comment on great philosophers like him? But "Blogistan" is a free country, last I heard. (Until someone decides to knock on

I regularly watch Awakening with Brahmakumaris. Well, not as regularly as Grey's anatomy. But close enough. Sister Shivavi  talks really well for a person from such an organization. Or she knows how to handle us -  sem-atheists, semi-spiritual and fully confused people. Yesterday she was talking something about Ramayana. Saying that deities would never kill another person- even if the other person is a demon. And deities will never doubt their wives. The stories (I think Ramayana) are symbolic. Or the stories are thus written, because the message with a great story line, would be stay in your mind for a longer period. If some one tells you not to covet other man's wife, you will listen with half an ear, still drooling over your neighbor's wife. But you listen about the mightiest of kings, whose heads - all ten of them, were chopped off, for that sin, you unthinkingly control your wandering eyes. Some one tells you not to usurp your orphan cousin's property, you

Five Current Buns in the Baker's shop Big and Round with a Cherry on the Top Along came little Jack with a penny one day Bought a current bun and took it away. Four Current Buns in the Baker's shop ----- Three Current Buns in the Baker's shop ------ Two ------ One ---- No current Buns in the Baker's shop Big and round with a Cherry on the top Along came little UKG children with a penny one day Sorry said the Baker, No more current buns today. My 3 year old son would sing this rhyme with all enthusiasm. What I found interesting was in all the rhymes, UKG - upper kinder garten students were bad, did not get current buns etc. Why? Children, most of them have an enemy - normally one entire class as an entity. May be their senior class, may be other section, may be non-English medium class. This enemy is bad, and will be hated with the spirit only children can muster. So this principle of enmity for unity, is this developed in childhood? And it is compl

Very often you find me walking around in my house, dragging myself from room to room. No, I am not trying to cover my 15000 steps a day. Nor am I trying to come up with an astounding app which will be the next facebook. It is just that I would be searching for my glasses. See it could be anywhere, next to the TV, below the sofa, on the study table, on the kitchen rack. Hence the walkathon. This may be good for my health and weight. But not for my mind. But I am a housewife and I can afford to waste some time doing search operation - without involving google. But you readers, are busy, and you are running late for your office and you can not find your car keys. There is an app for that. Too. FIND a device by Belagavi based SenseGiz uses a bluetooth based device which can be attached your car key- let us say and tells you its location by beeping. Little disclaimer here. I am in no way connected with this device. I just thought, it would be a good product and it is developed in o

We are always in an effort to capture the moment to make it eternal - a little bit at least. We see a beautiful sunset, we see a flower whose colors and contours mesmerize us, we see a child smiling. Instead of enjoying the moment, we run for our mobiles. To capture the moment in our phones - with higher and higher pixels. These moments are ephemeral for a reason. No one will be enthralled by a sun set, if it lasts an entire day. And our efforts to capture the moment too are superfluous. I realized it yesterday when a fragrance pulled me out of the house to a beautiful scene. A flower is standing in all its glory and spreading its fragrance to the entire neighborhood. How do I capture this fragrance? So we can only marvel at HIS creations and feel blessed. (Did I write that sentence? I who whines entire day why me)

First rule of attracting attention to your book or even blog. Give a controversial title. Ha! I keep grumbling about people who watch the same movies again and again and again. But I do have my own set of movies I watch multiple times. And OMG is one of them. Oh My God  is a satirical comedy with Paresh Rawal in the lead. And the story revolves around God or more accurately acts of God. Second rule of blogging - watching movie sitting on the couch and planning a blog post is wrong. The movie is old and hence the post topic is stale. As Paresh Rawal in the film, there could be millions who lose their livelihoods in floods, earth quakes, tornadoes etc, but still do not get insurance money because the normal property insurance does not cover losses due to natural calamities. People lose their houses, their belongings, everything in a flood AND they do not get anything from insurance companies despite having paid all premiums of the insurance. They will have to wait for government c

 

Tashi and Nungshi are from the most patriarchal state of Haryana. But these 23 year olds have climbed Seven Summits - highest mountains in each continent and their motive is to inspire all the girls of India. They have also skied to North pole and South pole. They are the first twins to climb Mt. Everest.  They support the cause of Indian girl child. So they prove to us that anything is possible when there is a will. Even if you are a girl/woman.

During Cultural Revolution in China from 1966 to 1976, intellectuals, writers, artists - people who had the audacity to talk against, were publicly humiliated, abused and even executed. And this was normally carried out by students.

Why did I not tell you all? I have published Version 2.01 of my Indian Newspapers and Magazines app for android phones. The new version has entertainment section. It also has more newspapers in regional section. In previous version, there was no option to add your own newspapers. It has been reintroduced in the new version. So install the update and read your papers on your phone.

You read in many books (mostly Western) that the window or the house has a beautiful view. Not such a luxury in "namma Bharatha". Not for urbanites at least.  Many of our windows have a view of neighbors front door from where you see the lady with whom you are not in speaking terms, or the solar tank on the top of neighbors house. And of course it will be black, as darkness. And I am talking about independent houses, not apartments. Luckily for us, our kitchen window had a decent view. You could see road and beyond that some trees and of course sky. You guessed it right, the site behind our house is empty. It was a good thing. At least one incentive to go to kitchen for us - ladies who abhor cooking.  I could gaze at the sun or moon and get all romantic and cook a reasonably edible meal. Then came the bad days. Of my kitchen window and hence my cooking. Instead of Sun, or bright sky, I started getting the view of men and women. Who were in such a nice empty place t

Did you know that Harper Lee's second book will be released very soon. The book "Go set a watchman" was Lee's first attempt in writing novels. But the publishers asked her to improve on it and she wrote the highly successful "To kill a mocking bird". She has not published any book since then. Lee is now 89 and lives in assisted living facility in Alabama. Lee had thought that this book was lost. She found it recently. Many of the characters from "To kill a mocking bird" are also present in this book.  The book is available in amazon.

Have you ever seen any bird squatting on a lowest floor of a building. No, they always choose the tallest building and sit on window of highest floor. And the trees. They never face downwards, nor grow towards earth. They always grow tall and proudly lift their head to the sun. Even the vines who are so weak, who have no proper stems, defy gravity and climb above with the help of another plant. So to aspire is the law of nature and law of God for some of us with a religious bend of mind. We too should always aspire. Always.

God and Satan had a huge fight about supremacy. They decided they will find out who is mightier using a coding competition as it was the "cool" thing, and as miracles, protecting or decimating were taken over by mortals. They started typing furiously without looking left or right. Satan with a wicked grin on his face and God with an arrogant smirk on his face. Hours passed and the challenge was reaching finale. And the onlookers - lesser gods (and lesser satans?) were sitting on edge, biting their nails. "Dhom" suddenly there was a power cut. We are talking about pre- laptop era and UPS systems were affordable only to ultra rich. And God was not one.  So both systems blacked out. You could hear the shrieks of fans, here on earth. In a few minutes the results were declared and God was announced as the winner. Why? Because God saves! Why am I writing this stale joke now, when one does not  have to save, as laptops have batteries and its users have tai

Madi in Kannada roughly is being in a pure state, bathed (with dripping hair :) ) and wearing madi clothes - silk or silkish. You will see most of the priests in Hindu temples in this madi. Well God expects us to be pure before we can perform any rituals. Or  so we believe. Madi some times also refers to the pure cloth worn for such purpose. Saree or panche. Silk is madi. But when polyester clothes entered Indian households, they were thought to be madi, and more economical too.   But madi is also followed by women on festival days. In the dawn, they bathe, wear silk saree and start cooking. Again these foods will be offered to God, hence madi. 30 years ago, in my native village, the practices were more severe. The women should wear madi everyday because every day, food is offered to God - called Naivedya, before eating. And as a convenience method, women could wear their daily clothes if they are not touched by the unclean. Unclean is everyone who is not wearing a madi. So wome

People call her Ajji and most people do not know her name. She and her cat live in huge house with large garden. Ajji is probably eighty but sharp for her age. Most of the day, she sits by the window. People say she has 5 children. Her eldest son is in America, her daughter who was in Bangalore has died.  Her children, grand children or great grand children never visit her. A maid comes daily to Ajji's house and cleans the house and feeds her town gossip. This maid Sheenamma is her only window to the world. After Sheenamma goes home, ajji analyzes the news Sheenamma gave, with the cat. She talks to the cat as she knows it can understand each word ajji says. If some one comes to their house offering to pluck coconuts or mangoes in the garden, she sells the fruits to them keeping a few for her self. But one day, the cat dies. Ajji telephones a shop keeper Ramanna (I think his name is Ramanna) "Ramanna, the cat is not moving. It is not eating food. Please send some one

ಕಣ್ಣು ಮಬ್ಬಾಗಿಲ್ಲ  ಬಾಗಿಲಿಂದ ಕೀಲಿಸುತ್ತಿಲ್ಲ   ಅಷ್ಟೆ ಕಿವಿ ಮಂದವಲ್ಲ  ಫೋನಿನ ಪಕ್ಕ ಕುಳಿತು ಬಿಟ್ಟಿದೆ ಕೈ ನಡುಗುವದಲ್ಲ ಹಬ್ಬದಡಿಗೆ ಮಾಡಲು ಕುಣಿಯುತ್ತಿದೆ ಮಗಾ ನೀನೆಲ್ಲಿ?  ನಿನ್ನ  ಕೂಸು ಮಡದಿಯರೆಲ್ಲಿ?  

My home town has changed a lot. People have become richer. IT revolution has produced an  engineer in each home with a very good job with fat salary, settled in City or USa, bringing home expensive gifts like cars to parents, or building new home for parents. But there is a dark side to the story. Those young men who are left behind in the village are becoming extinct. They do not have any prospect of ever getting a bride and hence procreation. Hence the village schools are getting closed. They have old parents, mother finding it very difficult to maintain the house. Then there are other parents, who have all their children in cities and are unwilling to come back home. These old people are  migrating  to cities risking ill treatment by sons and their families. Some are staying back in the village with large empty houses, which are very difficult to clean and maintain, farms which are difficult to cultivate as getting farm hands is difficult and expensive. So my place is becomin

Harry is commissioned by his publisher to write a biography of well known writer Mamoon. Publisher Rob, tells Harry to write a sizzling story about the life of author. Mamoon does not know this part, but is willing to share his life story with biographer because he wants to revive his career. Mamoon is in his seventies, and his books are not selling so well. His wife has very expensive tastes. He feels, when this biography is published, his book sales will improve. Harry himself needs this book badly as he is a budding writer with only one book so far to his credit. And he adores Mamoon immensely. Mamoon is an Indian based author settled in London, always in controversies, always rude to people. And as expected he is not willing to shared anything with Harry. Harry starts feeling suffocated in the farm house of Mamoon and would have fled from there. But his girl friend comes as an angle and softens Mamoon with her charms and her massaging skills. She even makes the writer give

I need brain stimulation frequently. And I desperately need it when I am upset or feeling lethargic. And TV is not good. It dulls the brain further. Books may help me but it takes more time. If I am in a hurry and I need immediate mood lift, I can use some games - like word games or puzzles. Peak :   When I first downloaded it, I went all gaga over it. It had good UI, it gave me different set of games each day. There were different categories like languages, math and cognition. But by month end, I would use only word drop kind of game, and since it would not appear each day, I was upset and uninstalled it. But if you are willing to buy the premium version, it is good game for exercising your brain and feeling good about yourself. Elevate :  Well, I have downloaded it yesterday and I am still infatuated at it. The difference from Peak is, here the games appear to be more concrete. For example, you will listen to  a sentence - and the sentence does not appear on the screen, and

I find ads which appear in youtube more intersting than their TV counterparts. Is novelty of the ad the reason? Or is it because ad creators know the chanchala mind of net users and hence put more effort into it. I also should tell something about Kannada ads. If there is an ad in Hindi about product A, the same ad is literally translated into Kannada and is telecast. Which makes it dull and some times meaningless. Are these people well versed with our language or not?  Take the example of "Swach bharat". In Hindi, Vidya Balan says to conclude "jahan soch, vahan shauchalay". And in Kannada ad, she says "elli alochaneyo alli shauchalaya". At least if she had used "manassu", it would have sounded better Out of all the recent ads, the ones I liked are "She touched the pickle" because it tries to eliminate ignorance. The ad I dislike very much is Tanishq, where Katrina says don't get married because your ex boyfriend is getting m

I like all of us, keep saying that India and its youth are upto no good. But today's news made me realize that  the new India provides opportunities for all and any one can reach their dreams in our Indya. When every kid is busy with their studies, this boy would help his mother make garlands. The boy had to help his parents because his father was an attender and mother was selling garlands. That did not stop Abhilash from topping St. Joseph's college in II PUC with centum in both Electronics and Maths. This college paid his engineering tuition fees. Now he is the topper in Electrical and Electronics branch in BIT and has won 7 gold medals. There are plenty of examples like this. Children studying very hard to raise above poverty. Our education system is not as bad as we think it to be. And more importantly it is not out of the reach of poor. And there are lot of NGOs and other people willing to help a child study. And parents of these children, though not able to pay th

I bought this book because it was written by editor of Outlook, one of the best English magazines in India. Is it also because recently he has expired? I am not sure. Or is it also because the author is self proclaimed pseudo secularist - at a time when the word - secularism is ridiculed or frowned upon. And the book is really good. The author gives us an in depth view of the world of journalism, media and politics. And the narration is detailed without ever getting boring. Consider an essay about should newspapers be owned by big industrialists. In India and in world over, it is difficult for a newspaper to survive without financial backing of a rich industrialist. Because running a news paper is costly and most often lossy business. Industrialists run this business and in return they expect the paper should support their causes. An editor will always have to struggle between the duty to tell the truth and need to obey his proprietor. Honest editor will often be fired and will

Bored of your same old bathroom with same old flooring? How about a 3D floor like this?  How would you like your bed room floor looking like this? I am amazed. When I saw it in Lostateminor , I had to blog about it. Or at least post these images. Spectacular!

I was watching a discussion about demolition drive in Bangalore in News 9 channel. The same demolition drive in which hundreds of families have their houses razed. Governments famously punish the victim. These people who have lost their houses, did not encroach the land. They bought it from the people from layout developers paying a huge amount to them. They have all valid khatas, they have been paying taxes for many years. Now how do they suddenly become illegal? Where do these people go and live now? Would not it be logical to ask the real estate agents  or the government to give them compensation? You can punish the guilty later. First provide rehabilitation for these people. And I heard one point in the discussion. Is it really feasible that, these lake beds after being evacuated of  "illegal encroachers" , will be rejuvenated and become alive lakes? Looking at the condition of other lakes, this seems highly improbable. So dear government, please rejuvenate exist

If you watch Frankly speaking with Arnab Goswami - (people call it barely speaking with Arnab ... - rightfully so. He rarely lets others speak. Isn't it his show. Never, ever, never ever can any one else talk.) If you watch this show, you can hear "Congress blah blah blah Rahul Gandhi blah blah blah Rahul blah ....:. So my opinion - Arnabda, if you take Almighty's name as many times as you take Rahul's name, you can very well get Moksha and be in Swarga.

She hears him frequently. Ewan gives her useful suggestions. He consoles her when she is upset. But he is not visible. She has not lit the fire place since he has stopped becoming visible. She says that, she is not telling herself also that he is dead. As if it some how betrayal. And it will hurt him. She declined the offer by her sons and their spouses to come and stay with them. She wants to stay in her house. Her and Ewan's house and of course Aphinland. Aphinland is the fantasy world she has created in her youth. It is exciting world with dragons, demons, hexes, weapons, forts etc. She has written books on this land and sold them. Her publishers want her to join social network to promote the sale of her books. But why does she need more money. Money did not cure Ewan's tumor. This is how the story goes. What made me like the book. Because it is in large print - soothing for eyes. Or because I am reading a female narrator's book after a long time. Or because t