Perpetually Perplexed

There was a new development today. No. No. I did not fight with any one. Nor did I threaten any one. I was taking one of my numerous breaks. Why? Just because I work from home, I can not take any breaks? If you are willing to consider my app development as work instead of "time pass". So I was taking a break and I see a young boy and a girl sitting in front of our gate and talking. First instinct was to ask who are you. But before I could ask the boy told they were sitting "simply". OK. No issue. But I think and I am almost certain that surrounding people are  observing and thinking how can they exploit the situation. So I told the boy please go and sit some where else as it won't look good. The girl walked very fast after snatching his mobile. And the boy went with his bike few minutes later. Was that moral policing by this old auntie? Or was it to save myself - old or not, from further gossips. Already my people tell me that I should not bother about ...

ಇತರರ ಕೆಳ ಬೀಳಿಸಿ ನೀ ಮೇಲೆ ಹೋಗುವದ್ಯಾಕೆ ಅವರ ನಾಶವೇ ನಿನ್ನ ಉನ್ನತಿಯೇ ಅವರ ಗೋರಿಯ ಮೇಲೆ ನಿನ್ನ ಮನೆ ಯಾಕೆ ಯಾಕಿಷ್ಟು ಕ್ರೌರ್ಯ ನಿನದು ತನ್ನಂತೆ ಪರರ ಬಗೆದೊಡೆ ಕೈಲಾಸ ಎಂಬ ಮಾತು ಅರಿಯೆಯಾ

I am happy that all of us are becoming card swiping tech savvy citizens. I am also happy that the so called digital divide is diminishing very fast. But my question is how effecient are our systems in handling these things. Day before, I paid my cable bill using an online payment portal. The payment was successful because I received an sms that my money has been deducted, but I did not get transaction successful message on my computer screen. Then I had to go to the website of cable people and verify there. Today it was telephone bill. Again similar problem. Payment happens, but the sms from telephone company is terse "we have received your payment. we will process it" and their website still shows that we owe them the money by tomorrow. I, the self proclaimed tech proficient person who was both time and knowledge to pursue these matters online and offline, am facing such difficulties. What will the ordinary people do? The semi-literate people, who just know how to mak...

Luca Ann was very black. Ebony black. So black that her mother did not want to touch her. And her father left them because he thought child was not his. The tragic thing was Luca would feel happy when her mother slapped her because she will touch her. Her life in school was worse. Children would throw bananas at her and mock her. But one day 8 year old Luca became bold enough to testify against one of the teachers who was molesting children. Her proud mother took her to a jeweler and gave a ear rings. Now the grown up Luca Ann does not visit her mother, but sends her money. She is confident and she has learned to dress in such a way so that the ugly duckling has turned into a swan. But she is rejected once again by her boyfriend Booker. He simply leaves her. Because she went to visit her molester and tried to give her money, but was beaten until she was unconscious. Booker has his own childhood tragedy. He had lost his brother Adam to a serial killer. And Booker is unable ...

If some one asks me what is your driving force, my reply would be one word - fear. So is it for most of other people, though they may not realize it, or may not admit it. I was planning on  a long blog post writing some personal stuff. Of course claiming victim hood. Because of my fear. In America, the current president elect got elected because of fear of people.  People there are afraid that they lose their jobs and livelihoods to immigrants and to outsourcing. When a person came along who told them that he will build a wall around the country, figuratively and literally, people gladly elected him. Similar is the case in our country. Here the other people are muslims. We are afraid that they marry so many wives, the produce so many children. And one day they will outnumber us and start ruling us again. So the party which promised to show these pakistani people in their place, we voted for that party. Even in regional politics, Kannadigas hate Tamilians because they ...

Recent famous a wedding and  a funeral - or a burial, should have told us, where to redirect our surgical strikes. But we are keeping our eyes tightly shut, only listening to soothing commands and repeating them, unwilling to open our eyes, unwilling to think and analyze.

Unlimited internet access on your phone  - is it a good thing or a bad thing? Well depends on how you use it. I am not going to start a lecture now like moms and dads are supposed to do. I will just tell you my experience. For many years I hardly ever used internet on my phones. Wifi connection was present. But why would you use it? Only time I used mobile internet was for testing my programs and for podcast addict - the downloaded podcasts were my sleeping pills.  Mobile internet I would try now and then and would be scared to death by the mobile currency they would gobble. It took me a long time for me to realize that the kids who are always "connected" using phones, use internet packs.  Next I tried using these internet packs - either they will be too expensive or valid for something like a day.  All these changed when I got Jio. ( Let me clarify. I am not a brand ambassador of Reliance.)  I struggled a lot to get SIM. After many visits to reliance d...

My C blog has only 97 published posts where as this has 1000+ posts. So I am always perplexed! Yesterday my perpl - leave it, my confusion was about money situation. Some countries face shortage of food, due to war or some natural calamity etc some times. Some other times people face shortage of money due to recession, drought and so on. What do we have here now. We have money, but we don't have money. Some thing to ponder about!!

I had written in an earlier post that HE is omnipresent. Or at least that is the title he likes to call himself. But now I am having doubts. If God were present, would he let our country become so chaotic? A chaotic as Arnab's show? Would he let the common man and common woman be afraid even to breathe? Would he let kindness, morality and sympathy vanish from this earth? Would he let the wide spread hatred to flourish every where on this earth? Is he becoming from omni-present to omni-absent. Or has he migrated to another universe, so that he can have a little peace and quiet

People here and every where else are turning very very cruel - if I may use that word. If they feel threatened, questioned, or inconvenienced in any way, they will try all kinds of language on the other party. More so about women. During Kaveri riots people would call very ugly names to TN chief minister. Not only politicians, even common women are not saved from these ugly words. And neighbors do that very frequently. Let us see a case. Let us say some one says a that the "character" of such and such woman is not good. Do you believe them? Of course, you will. You say "how can there be smoke without fire". You also say "Why does she act so nervous". Or "Look how bold she is. She must be really bad". You say "Why is she hiding in the house? Why is she afraid?" Or you will say "Where does she go every day? What does she do?". You say "Everyone is talking about her. It must be true". You say "She is keeping q...

Thought I will write some thing in android blog. But no, I can not frame words around the post. So it is better to babble/ramble  here. Regex - Stands for regular expressions. Used in programming languages and scripts for pattern matching of strings. Efficient and ugly. And very very very difficult. I tried the entire morning to write an expression which gobbles all the text between let us say abc and def. Read stack overflow, blogger posts. Watched youtube videos. I was not getting what I wanted. And I did not have time and patience to learn everything. Because it is very complex. If you have mastered regex, kudos to you. Then I wrote my own tester, a small android activity which lets you enter text and regex and does pattern matching. ( I realized it is long time since I designed a layout file) After an hour or so I finally got the result. (abc).*?(def). Quite simple. Isn't it. So back to gobbling of text in my actual program. And gobble it did not. So how come it worked...

Finally, at last I have published the update to memory app. Well this certainly is a good app for keeping your brain active. There are 4 games in the app. One is for face memory. One is classic cards memory and the other two are patterns memory and Simon. Simon is one game I am fond of.  The game has 4 colored buttons which glow in a sequence. And each of these produces a unique sound. You need to remember the sequence and repeat it. May be because of music notes, it appeals to me. I tried adding some tabla sequences instead of the usual saa, re, ga etc. But it was not sounding good. And there were some glitches in face memory too. Initially I added some politicians and authors faces. Then was worried about any copy right issue. Finally I settled for cartoon faces. So they may not be cute or pretty.  In faces game, you will see a set of faces and then one face is replaced. You need to identify the changed face. What are you waiting for download the app tod...

Screen orientation is an important aspect of mobile devices. In earlier devices, it did not matter. Whether you held your phone straight or rotated, the screen would always be really small. Now in the days of 5, 6 inch screens and phablets, your portrait and landscape orientation makes a lot of difference. You can read much longer lines in landscape, but fewer lines before you have to scroll. Now when you rotate the screen, the contents of the screen rotate. Not happening in your phone? You need to pull down the menu from top of mobile screen. The same menu, used to put phones in silent mode. Yes, that menu has an option for automatic screen rotation. You should enable it. You did not know that? Your child/grand child will be very angry when teaching you mobile. But once you enable auto rotation, you have another problem. You are watching some Ted video. On the bed. Either because you want to put yourself to sleep or you feel you are genius if you watch youtube videos instead of...

My cousin was very little - may be two years old. When ever he saw something he would tell his mother - we also should get this.  We never really grow out of this. We see something which our neighbors have, our relatives have. We should have them. It could be as small as a new design in steel spoon or as big as a car.  If we are unable to afford that item, our anger turns towards our spouses for not having enough money. Then it turns towards the owner of the said item.  If the person who has it is below us - then we will be outraged. How dare he/she buy such a thing? Where does he get the money for it?  I hear many of you saying that you are not so mean minded. In fact you believe in charity - you give out stuff to people, to your domestic help (the items which are too old or out of fashion for you). But tell me frankly, do you feel happy when your colleague or your spouse's colleague buys that new car you were dreaming of buying? Do you really feel "happy f...

MemoryPro - the game is lame. That is what you will say. I know. It has primitive user interface. Has no action. OK. I am talking about my first android game app. The one before Shataka. The game intends to test your memory and improve it. Who are the audience? I am not sure. Elderly? Kids and youth certainly will not like this game. Not women either. To start with there was word and number games. Later I added patterns - which has colors and sound. So I found that I want to play that. In this version, I am getting rid of words and numbers completely. Instead I am adding face memory and Simon. I added and then deleted zigsaw puzzle. I think, there is no point in patching up an app which nobody wants to play. Instead I can devote my time to some other new apps. But an ocean is made of many many insignificant , lame drops. Right? OK. Time to use analyze. Not psycho analysis. My part time counseling course did not teach me that. (What ever it had taught - few buzz words , I have...

When I start developing /updating an app, I devote all my waking hours to that app - except when I am eating or I am watching TV or I am cooking. No, the high light here is one app. I devote my time to one app. Only after I release that app, I can move on to next app. So that's what was happening, when unfortunately admob decided it no longer shows ads in my app. I was worried, angry and upset. Nothing new in that. Then I thought, let me update the app with new ad id and publish it again. But when updating, I need to resolve bugs (and introduce new ones). And why not add more features. Like material design. Don't smirk saying material is almost 2 years old. None of my apps still had that feature. So came material design and recycler view instead of list view. Then came long list of new papers. Adding them, testing them, changing the names to regional language and back to English. In the mean while I tried admob with new adid. Not working still. I tried adding other...

What will you do if you know for certain that some one is accessing your computer, but unable to find out who and unable to stop them? If you do not know what their intentions are, or what they are going to do next? You feel helpless. Even more so when you are introvert and you do not have contacts outside. You feel miserable and you feel very very angry, at the world and at yourself. I first thought it is our bsnl telephone and internet that is at fault. My internet would stop working without reason so frequently. And error would be authentication problem with ISP. I tried taking all kinds of precautions. I also wrote many mails to bsnl. I gave written complaints to them about internet and phone. See, by then my phone would always have a background noise, some times too loud - and it was not instrument fault. Nothing helped the situations. Even today, my landline is bugged. Many a times I am unable to make some calls using landline and the calls work if I use mobile.   ...

We are all chauvinistic about our mother tongue. It does not matter that we do not watch TV shows from that language, do not read from our language, do not speak in that language outside our homes. But we are chauvinistic. So I decided our other brethren and sistern (!)  will feel same and decided to add paper names in their own languages. No, I do not know how to write all 13 official languages of India. Nor can I read them. But apna google hai na. Using its input tool for transliteration, I did write all paper names in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Gujarathi etc. Next stage was testing. Not a very pleasant stage for any app. For this app, testing was horrendous (too strong?) I am supposed to click on paper name and view the paper on mobile screen. But when I do not know what is the name and what paper is shown on screen, what do I test for. All I can see is kaake kaalu gubbi kaalu (feet of crow and sparrow ). I would rather have my app not cool than have an app which shows wro...

The book is Ignorance by Milan Kundera. And the subject of the book is nostalgia. algia comes from algos which means pain. So this nostalgia can be many times as bad as real physical pain. You are away from your home, from your people. You remember only happy memories and think that those days at home were so good. Yearning to go back, but knowing too well that you can not, and little bit consoled by this, you are in really strange situation. But one thing you do not apprehend is, the home is not what it was earlier. Place will be changed, people too have changed and so have you. The source of your nostalgia is no longer present. The story revolves around a woman who has emigrated to France from Yugoslavia because of communist misrule there. Now the country has given up communism, as other countries in the 90s decade. So it is safer to return. She recollects a poet who has quoted that he will wrap his sadness around himself and go to sleep for 300 years. I am not an emigre. I ...

ಅವಳು ಬಲ್ಲಳು ಅರಿಯು ಯಾರೆಂದು ಬಲ್ಲಲವಳು ಚಕ್ರವ್ಯೂಹವೆಂದು ಹಿಂದೆ ಖಡ್ಗ ಹಿಡಿದು ನಿಂತಿಹರೆಂದು ಸುತ್ತಲಿಹರೆಲ್ಲ ಶತ್ರುಗಳು ಮಿತ್ರರಾ ಆಪ್ತರೆಲ್ಲಿ ಬರೀ ಭ್ರಮೆ ಹೊರಬರಲು ಅಸಾಧ್ಯ ಬರದಿರಲು ಅಂತ್ಯ ಕುಗ್ಗಿ ಕುಬ್ಜವಾಗಿ ಮಾಯವಾಗುವಳವಳು ಆದರಲ್ಲೇ ಇರುವುದು ಅವಳ ನರಕ ಮರು ದಿನ ಮತ್ತೆಲ್ಲ ಮರೆತು ಮರೀಚಿಕೆಯ ಹುಡುಕಿ ಹೊರಟವಳ ಹುಚ್ಚಿಗೇನು ಹೇಳಲಿ

The latest mode of attack seems to be ad networks. I am not talking about attack by our country. I am talking about attack in my life - real or perceived. I have one news app which has considerable downloads. And I used to get some ad revenue from that app. Some reward for all the effort I am putting. Till August. In august suddenly admob network by google decided to stop sending ads to my app. Writing multiple mails to them did not help. OK. Like any other frustrated person, I decided to leave google and use some other ad sdk. But funnily enough, after adding sdk and testing the ads for a day, this network too started showing an error in the dash board saying my app url is wrong. I am unable to fix that. So the attacker - hacker wants me to develop more magnanimity. He wants me to learn about nishkama karma - work without expecting any returns. So be it. So be it.

It has been a normal day so far. Waking up at 4 am and trying to fix the ad issue of the app unsuccessfully. Some random noise outside the door of garbage collectors. Taking an early nap and waking up to the voice of self telling I wanna die and to the smell of garbage and plastic burning some where near by. Reverse horn (these things still exist) of a vehicle nearby. It is been a normal day.

Feminism - such a bad f-word. You are a feminist - you are smoking, drinking woman who does not care about Indian Samskriti. This is the interpretation of our people about feminist woman. Slut shaming is our samskriti. We never blink an eye before saying another woman is having bad "character". So how is feminist movement in India. Take a look here http://elle.in/magazine/does-feminism-need-better-pr/

paritranaya vinashaya sadhuunaam, paritranaya dushkrataam sambhavami yuge yuge I take birth again and again to decimate the good people and help the bad people. This is my version of Geetha shloka regarding current context.

There are green activists and there are big corporations. Corporations are controlling everything. They are de-facto government. Rich people of these Corps live in a separate worlds and plebeians live in another world (slum). Green activists are trying to save man from destroying himself and the earth. Their efforts are clandestine because if found, activists just disappear. Because these activists are pose a hurdle to Corps. Even the church is part of these corps. Priests try to interpret bible words into some thing which benefits Corps. Corps have huge research facilities. And some such places, they have invented vitamin pills which have some disease vectors mixed. People who take these pills fall sick. More medicines are sold. Patients are hospitalized - hospitals run by Corps get more money. So men are plundering other men and the earth non-stop. Then there are pain ballers, who are frustrated, angry plebeians who are  almost psychopaths. Pain balling is gladiator ...

I had almost stopped reading. By reading I mean non-technical stuff and non-newspaper. Why? Did I take up a job? Have I suddenly become highly motivated to cook and clean. None of the above. I realized that I do not read beyond first 10 pages of any book. First few hours of a day are spent going between kitchen and terrace. And next few hours are spent being sthitha - not sthitha prajna. Rather shayita - if there is word like that in Sanskrit. I hardly get up from couch, watching repeat shows of TV serials which are making me nauseated. And I snack non-stop. As if TV and food will fill the void. So rather than returning unread book with late fees, I decided not to bring any books at all. But then I brought two books. To restart the habit of reading, I should bring an interesting book, which will be better than TV serials. Detective novels? But that is an insult to my reading history. I, who have read authors like Maughm, Sartre and books like Tin Drum,  should read childish ...

Common man and woman is afraid. Afraid to speak, afraid to raise their voices against injustice, afraid to question authorities. Why is it so? Has our country suddenly become autocratic? I don't think so. Government is as it always has been. Barely functioning. But the so called fringe elements are becoming louder, bolder and can I add - more cruel. And the government, the police and the judicial system,  hardly protect the common man against these fringe elements. OK. Many people are sharing this view. But I was actually surprised to hear Mohandas Pai saying that he is afraid to name those responsible for Monday riots in Bangalore.  He is a renowned industrialist,  if he is afraid to speak out, what is the status of us - middle class, salaried people.  Our rulers want to keep us in fear. So do political parties. Because people who are afraid, are easy to manipulate.

My frustrations, anger feelings are better expressed with images. Of course borrowed. And who else can say these better than aunt ACID?

I was and am tired of my windows laptop. Things start disappearing from time to time and I am unable to bring them back. Few months back it was network indicator.Why do I need indicators? Because I need to be disconnected almost always. Because I am paranoid surrounded by unfriendly wifi connections of some unfriendly, almost hostile people. So I thought let me buy a ubuntu system and live happily ever after with that system.  Happily ever after is not written in my kismet. When I first bought the system, sound was not working. Then lan connection was not working and next wifi was not working. Windows tweaking is simple - relatively. You just enable and disable some services. At the most you may need to use registry editor. Or worst case scenario, factory reset fixes the problem. You may need to install all software all over again.. But ubuntu is different. Users of this system are supposedly geeks. So if you have fever, ubuntu gives you an anatomy book and asks you to fix ...

Our government is trying its best to clear storm water drain encroachments - doesn't matter if a few hundred common people lose their houses. But where is the storm water. Since floods in July end, there has been no rain. There may be a drizzle for 2 minutes or an occasional rain for 10 minutes. What is happening to all the clouds which hover around us through out the day? Have they decided we are not worthy of their showers? Or, are they disgruntled, disappointed and disenchanted like most of us? And  why is no one talking about appeasing rain gods with havanas? And why is no one talking about el-nino effect either - the one angaraka for all weather related anishtas? How will be summer this year? Moving away from loka samachara, I am completely side tracked by some event. My one app, which had good downloads has stopped showing ads. I tried contacting concerned people. By now, I should know that I can not do anything by contacting people through mail - mobango is a very good ...

We all love green. We also love to sit, to rest our tired, aged feet. How about growing our own grass chair? Isn't it great! This design - Terra was crated by Andrea Sanna and Piergiorgio Robino in 2000, the chair has a card board frame. You have to bury it with soil and sprinkle it with seeds and in a few days you have your own greenest chair of all.

Sheldon says "We must be doing some mindless, mundane activity to solve unsolved problems". Of course his language is more geeky. That is the exact reason why I am always glued to  the TV. I did not invent some ground breaking invention. But yes, I did get some idea - from the TV show itself. Normally TV serials - English ones are about murders, lot of them, and how to nab that serial killer. Or about lawyers who try to save those who commit these murders. Or about flings - infinite number of them. But the mini series "Angels in America" was completely different. It was more like a serious novel. The kind I read. (used to read). OK. In one scene, Prior - a gay AIDs patient, climbs staircase. Leading straight to heaven. The staircase which is burning. He does not catch fire at all! Now he is in an old and dilapidated building, facing a table full of officials. But these officers have wings - they are angels. He tells them he has come to return the book. He w...

A girl Harriet Ray from England walked into a store. Two clerks made a comment on her shorts and were giggling. Instead of getting angry, she smiled at them and complimented them. Then she posted this in her facebook post. "..... I do feel slightly saddened that you think it's OK to speak about another female, or in fact anyone, in that way. I don't believe you gained anything from it apart from looking a little bit silly when you realized I heard you. If somehow you end up reading this, as Cornwall is a very small place, can you be a little bit kinder with your words? Some people's skin isn't as thick as mine has become, and the next person's might be very thin indeed. ....."

We used to hear this quite often "Share your happiness to double it. Share your difficulties to halve it".  But of late, experience has shown me that difficulties or problems rarely get halved when you share them. So you start telling your sob story to someone. The one who is listening is too human, inundated in his/her own problems, having his own belief systems, perceptions, prejudices. He can not empathize with you. So he may not agree with what you say. If he expresses his disagreement, you will feel let down. If he stays neutral, you see that he is not supporting you and suspect that he is not on your side. Remember the one who is listening is not your mother, to unconditionally support you. My own experience has been, each time I share my difficulties, I feel let down. I feel that nobody understands me. Not surprisingly, I feel angry towards the universe, in general. So, you have problems in your life (who does not?), start a blog, like me. Throw up each and ever...

Bigger animals hunt smaller animals. Lions,  tigers, sharks and foxes chase and kill and eat other animals. The ones who are being hunted never complain, never go in search of justice. But accept the fact and just get hunted down. We humans are in an illusion that we are refined. So we think that weak are equal to the strong and mighty and have same rights as everybody else. How ignorant can we be! No matter which kind of government our country has - democracy, communism, rules for strong are different from rules for weak. Or in other words, people are not equal. Rich and powerful can do almost anything and escape the consequences. But the weaker ones, do not even have a right to breathe. So we need to surrender to this fact and take life one day at a time and face problems of that day only.  Never question about justice, never ask about our rights, just suck it up.

I was listening to a TED talk about how to grow a forest in your own backyard. In the video, he explained how we can develop a forest in 10 years. Most of us in cities do not have the privilege to do that. Because we concrete each and every inch of place in our houses. But this idea can be implemented in parks and other public spaces. The way  monsoon is playing hide and seek with us, we need to do something. Before our places turn to deserts. Here is the link to the video

I was watching TV non-stop. Why? Because that is what SAHM-A do. What is A - always. Stay at home mom always.  Why do I stay at home always? People try to call names even when you are cooped up in your home 24 by7. What will they do if you go out? Any ways I stay at home and watch TV excessively. So that I can feel bad about myself and project it on others. First one was a TV serial - a historical TV serial about Ashoka. The formula these people have invented for such serials seems like this - take some facts, add few villains, few vamps and few facts from other stories and some young romantic love of children in early teens and plots. Most important of all, each episode must show all actors' faces in close-up every ten minutes. Uff. Then there was a  discussion about how Lokpal which started with the intention of making political class and bureaucrats accountable, and now is harassing NGOs. Did you know that around 15000 NGOs have been banned from accepting foreign fun...

Talking about twisted, my laptop is equally twisted too.  These days, it will open CD tray by itself. I am 51 and still in working condition. My gadgets need to learn some amount of longevity from their master.

I think - That no boss, no autocrat or no ruler wants to be feared. They instead want to be respected. The difference being respect comes from love or comes along with love. And most often, fear comes with hatred. But after a while, they will settle for fear.  May be still convincing themselves that people - at least some people respect them. P.S. I need to add "I think" for all my theories  because some times my theories are "twisted" according to many, to use a milder word.

Ultimate truth: My blogging is a way of procrastinating my kitchen work.

I announced boisterously "I will do a Ph.D. in comparative analysis of Hinduism and Islam". Where? Of course to my parents. (And mom reminded me of my age :) ) Because I want to do something about the violence - of large and small scale happening in our country in the name of God. And of course I am worried about violence in other countries too. You just now read my previous post - didn't you? I want to study these religions - understand them and write my own commentaries on them. Wow, when did I become ambitious? And when people read these "commentaries", they will realize that God does not give a damn about who prays to him or who prays to his neighbor. He just wants to be left in peace. And then people will not stop killing people of other religions.  And then people may have to die of old age, or as we like to say "when HE decides to take me to heaven/hell" God bhi khush. Hum bhi khush. Great idea? Isn't it? But how do I implement ...

Don't you feel worried or at least disturbed when you hear terror attacks happening every day?  Agreed. It is not happening in our country so much. It is happening in West - the rich and hence envied West. But there are our people in the West. And in a way, all are our people.  It is not that we Indians, do not talk about this terrorism. Many Indians, have started telling - "that is why it is difficult to trust muslims". It is really scary. We Indians - who have been the most open hearted people, are becoming myopic.  OK. I am getting side tracked again. All these events should be really scary to the ordinary muslims in our country and those all around the world. The people who have nothing to do with terrorism, who want to earn a decent living, educate their children and save a little bit for their old age. In short, people like you and me.  These people are at the receiving end of Islamophobia and hence they need to raise their voices against terrorism. Us...

The God Varuna - or the Rain, is learning from us , the mortals. Here in Bangalore and in other parts of Karnataka, it is cloudy, without ray of sun shine from morning to evening.  Just for drama - for dikhava.  W here are the rains? It hardly drizzles once or twice a day.  Whatever happened to predicated above  average rain? 30-7-2016 He is guffawing sitting on black clo u ds . "Are you happy Usha, or do you need more rain?" .  I f you do not know, it rained like crazy on 28th night. People were to be rescued using boats - in riverless, sealess city of Bangalore.  

ಅದ್ವೈತವ ನುಡಿದು ಅಹಂಕಾರಿಯಾದೆನಯ್ಯ ಬ್ರಹ್ಮವ ನುಡಿದು ಭ್ರಮಿತನಾದೆನಯ್ಯ ಶೂನ್ಯವ ನುಡಿದು ಸುಖದುಃಖಕ್ಕೆ ಗುರಿಯಾದೆನಯ್ಯ ಗುಹೇಶ್ವರಾ ನಿಮ್ಮ ಶರಣ ಸಾಹಿತ್ಯದಿಂದಾನು ಸದ್ಭಕ್ತನಾದೆನಯ್ಯ       - ಅಲ್ಲಮ ಪ್ರಭು

Did I visit the 80s and click these photos of rural life in our home town? No I do not have time machine yet. Watch closely. These are cement models. But they look so realistic.  Shalmala shilpa vana in Sirsi - Chipagi is in the outskirts of Sirsi town and has beautiful like like models of rural life. It is hard to believe that these are not real.  Hope this garden fashioned after Rock Garden in Gotagodi near Shiggavi, will soon have more models.

Some opinions about religion in a reddit dialogue was amusing.     1) In olden days when people did not understand many events happening around them, they attributed everything to God and that gave birth to religion        2) Poverty and religion are interlinked. For those people whose life sucks, religion makes their lives tolerable by telling them that there is a hope for them; if not now, at least in after-life        3) Some quote "Religion is accepted as true by fools, as false by wise and as useful by rulers"    4) Religion was used to exploit many ignorant people and is still being used.    5) A crucial point - religion makes people better by preaching things like love thy neighbor, paropakarartham idam shareeram, and when people help others, are kind to others, they feel good about themselves. I think that reddit was little old; because there was no mention of how religion is turning people ...

At times when everyone - media, judiciary, and common people are leaning towards right and overtly or covert ly supporting our own version of fundamentalism, the Tamil Nadu high court judgement which stated that Perumal Murugan should continue writing is a silver lining in the cloud.  Kudos to the Indian judiciary. And Indian Democracy.

As I am not watching mindless TV shows any more, I have started another equally mindless routine- FB. My justification is it gives me some good insightful articles through the sites I have liked and it gives me some lols . Insightful articles will be opened in another tab and would not be read. lol ..s are many a times really lame Today I got a link to what smart ( or some other positive objective) people do in the morning. First page was they open the blinds. Wow, great!. I dreaded seeing the next thing . And I logged out of fb.  I know that most "good" articles are from BrainPickings and readers' digest and tiny budha and bigthink . So a "smart" person goes directly to these sites. Not through a third party - time wasting social media site.  But there are other ver y good pages I come across, though very rarely. I don't know in what order they show posts from liked pages.  Here is such a great one Isn't it simpl y beautiful ?   I think i...

I attended a two day workshop on "Women and spirituality and yoga" or something like that in my home town Sirsi. One thing I liked about the program was a lady suggested starting  a program called "Sandhye" in this town where elderly people can meet one another, chat and spend some lighter moments. May be once a day or twice a week. A program like dignity foundation in Bangalore.  Image from New Indian Express Our elders need and deserve that. They should meet like - minded people and should be able to talk and to be listened to. I request all of you to start or support suc h programs in all our towns and cities.

Too much is not good. ati sarvatra varjayet So too much of spirituality will make you think Tum ek atma ho paramatma ho jeevatma ho pretatma ho  - hu hu hu hu

Our general idea is that if a person becomes member of legislative assemblies in Indian states or MP, his next four generations need not have to worry about money.  And as always, generalization is wrong. Here is an MLA who is now living on streets, as he is finding it difficult to find rented houses for the measly Rs.20,000 pension for MLA.   Shingara Ram Shahunggra was an MLA in  Garhshankar town in Punjab in 1992 and 1997. He and his family were living illegally in irrigation department house. After being evicted from there, they have no place to stay. Shahunggra says "I entered politics to participate in Kanshi Ram's mission to empower the lower castes and I never tried to make money during my two stints. My salary was not enough to build a house during my assembly days. .." So what is the moral here? That honesty never pays?

In the good old days, the terms - omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent were the adjectives used solely for one and only God. Now these kids have changed the entire universe and also the meanings of these words. Now Omniscient - google Omnipresent - smartphone Omnipotent - smartphone  Google knows everyt hi ng. Or that is w hat we strongly believe.  Smart phone is p resent every where. In homes, offices , schools - though they are banned here, roads. Try to recollect -  in one day ,  if you venture outside, how many smart phones do you see.  And smart phone s ca n d o ever y thing. They can make you talk to others . A ND they can bring you food, clothes, and almost every thing else. They work as wallet, as clock and calendar, as torch . M ost importantly they act as a smart camera. They can act as your physical trainer, your entertainer . So they ARE omnipotent.    (In my special and exclusive case omnipotent - neighbo...

He is lonely. He does not work, nor talk to anyone, nor goes out anywhere. He is holed up in his room.  He is a  the doctor whose last rites were to be performed by katha nayak in the story "Leaf storm" by Gabriel Marquez. Do you empathize with him? He asks Meme to abort their child. He is not willing to marry her. He is unwilling to treat the patients even in the times of crisis.  But the Colonel empathizes with him and antagonizes the whole village to give bury this man.  The entire story revolves around the dead body of this man in a dead town.  So is this story also tells us that "we have the rights only for our actions, not its fruits"?  

I keep writing slightly humorous posts about him and his men again and again. He keeps punishing me in ways no one can imagine. He or shall we say HE has decided, only outlet for my feelings, emotions and everything else is through internet. So he tried disabling the internet - by giving errors such as "authentication error by ISP".  Now he is punishing me by sending me to some other ISP like Jain telecoms etc instead of BSNL. He might be giving access to some one else through this. And he knows that no amount of me complaining to BSNL is going to help because he has already filled their ears through his proper channels.  Now today's revenge is he is not letting me go to nursery live site thinking that I may browse through the plants and feel slightly better.  He sure is one vengeful GOD. 

  Some how I did remember the name of site designboom and went there. And there it was. The artists efforts in beautifying Indian cities  by decordating rickshaws .  Who wants to write a post about rickshaws - in Indian cities. So I continued to browse through the site and got this beautiful orchids at the entrance of central park - not central perk, in New York. This stainless steel work is from Isa genzken and is breath taking.  I know by now you are intrigued by ta xi -fabric project - where artists dare to b eautify Indian cities.  Here is one of the arts by Nasheet S hada ni . It is called tasuvvar - which in Ur du means imagination.  Here a  rick sh aw is painted wi th abstract painting of starry sky surrounding Huma yun's tomb .  

I am in an image spiral. That is I am doing nothing but search images and download them. Not the images of stars or sportsmen. It all started with the idea that my app is slightly (?) dull in its appearance. So I need to put actual background images for screens - not just drawables with linear or radial gradients in bluish colors. Why me for graphics - am I not the coder? But you already know that I am one woman army. One lazy woman army. And of course I was excited to find lot of background free images which can be modified and used - something like GPL or LGPL. And the best part was those images were editable - using inkscape. The excitement did not wear off easily even after realizing that editing and bringing them to good shape is very very tough. I did, what I have been doing all these years - took the images and deleted unwanted text pixel by each pixel using GIMP eraser. Still it was patchy. I did take one image some how. Then the next part was searching for images for ...