Perpetually Perplexed

Samajha raha hai ya bhadka raha hai A very good question indeed. Context : Mahabharatha War - Krishna is preaching BhagavatGeetha to Arjun When Sanjay tells Dhritharashtra how Krishna is preaching Arjuna about how soul is eternal and body is mortal and every one who is born should die. And since all his elders, cousins and teachers in the battle field are souls which has no birth and death, Arjun should perform his duties - which in this case is to fight the war. When Dhritharashtra listens this, he asks Sanjay - "Is Krishna preaching Arjun or inciting him" Well. Everyone including this confused soul agree that Bhagavat Geetha tells you most profound truths about human life. But  look at the context. When some one tells you "Jaatasya maranam dhruvam" in a funeral, he is trying to console you. When the some one tells you the same sentence in "Ranbhumi" - in battle ground, is he not asking you to commit violence? Again context. The Krishna - w...

What do I write - when my mind is filled with sounds. a) mind - shouldn't it be ear? b) Should it be noise instead of sound? Well, I need some calming, enchanting or at least not harsh sound files to put in my game. Yesterday I was trying to download - did not get right one. Surprise, surprise, there are software which can generate sound effects - none of them enchanting , calming or melodious. So the next step is audacity - this is a free software which lets you edit sound files. I took some of my Hindustani files - trying to cut  a piece small enough to put in the app. No it was not working. Back to freesounds.org. But again, either the sounds are too long or they are not good. Do you know I tried recording - of all the things , the bell - from God's own room. No, not sounding right again. So the gist is, having or acquiring tools does not make you a song composer, just like watching few videos about drawing does not make you Da Vinci. By the way, I found a wa...

Yesterday was creative day. I cut a head, got some gears and tried adding these gears into cut head. This sure must be most novel way of making a person's brain work faster. Of course, I was talking about images. See I do not do so well in artistic things. But I have to have an icon for an app. For each and every one of them! So I try, google, cut and paste, gimp around, spend weeks together and finally come up with an icon, which gets kind of response as it is oookaaay with a bland face. You want an icon for memory - you google for it.  you get cd memory, sd card even a hard disk and after a long scroll, a few beads with ugly looking brain inside.  What if I use a face which is trying to remember something? Then I may offend - the category of people who feel the face looks like theirs. DO YOU THINK WE CAN NOT REMEMBER SOMETHING. Don't you know that the whole concept of memory was invented by our ancestors. Don't you know that Chitragupta kept a computer to ...

Some books seem mysterious. Not Sherlock Holmes kind of mysterious. Mysterious as we are in a whole new world where every thing is so different, but still familiar. Familiar because you feel you have entered that world. "Leaf Storm" by Marquez starts with the death of a doctor who is almost an outcast in the town on Mocondo. Only friend of doctor, A Colonel, tries to arrange final rites of the man with the help of his servants. Colonel's daughter and grand son are witnessing all this. Doctor is hated by all in the village. Mayor of the town when ushered, instead of giving permissions for burial, is trying to delay the process by asking all strange questions. The story is narrated by Colonel, his daughter Isabel and her son alternatively. As I told you earlier, even though the story takes place in first half of twentieth century, it does not feel outdated at all. Again the question remains - what makes these books so intriguing? The depth of characters? Mystery ...

So you pray when you are helpless. The Godmen and women, and everyone in God department know this too well and I suspect, want to keep you helpless as long as they can? They tell you give 100 rupees to some temple. Do a puja for God xyz. Chant the prayers of God abc 100 times. None of them tell you, how exactly these devout actions by you will solve your problem.  But hundreds tell us, that they pray to some temple, or some Godman and they got cured of so many ailments. Their financial condition improved. Their children got married/ got employment etc etc. How did that happen? It is called faith. Faith brings some solace to mind. It gives people hope. And when there is hope, our brain changes and that bring about improvement in physical health. I will end with a personal story. I used to get numb legs when driving a long distance. So much so that I used to feel that the entire leg will start shaking. It was dangerous, as I was traveling in a two wheeler in busy Bangalore r...

Have you played Shataka lately? I played it today too. I am almost addicted to this beautiful game. Wow, who would have guessed numeric games can be fun! Of course I am lying. I have to. I am not just the developer of this game. I am pathetic marketer too. I wish one day I could write a game to get me addicted to it.  But that part about me playing the game is true. And I have reached level 8. Like this.   

The current perplexity - when you are not well say a simple cold - do your nerves become number or brain becomes dumber? So by now you have guessed I am not well - and yes I have cold and using that as excuse to not do daily chores. Cold could be a reaction to very very cloudy sky in Bangalore, which is due to heavy rains in Chennai which is due to depression in Bay of Bengal  So today I was roasting semolia - rava/suji in microwave oven. And let me tell you, it is fast and efficient. But you need to remove the glass container out of oven and mix the contents once every minute. I as, any middle class Indian, do not use gloves for removing hot glass bowl from oven, because I don't buy one. I use kitchen towels instead. But today I was able to remove this hot glass bowl with bare hands. And it is not the effect of any medicine because I hadn't taken any. So may be my brain is not processing the pain signals correctly because it has become hazed? But if my brain is not pr...

Was reading an article in TOI by Aakar Patel about Pakistanization of India. He ends the article with this poem by Urdu poetess Fahmida Riaz from Pakistan तुम बिलकुल हम जैसे निकले अब तक कहाँ छुपे थे भाई वो मूर्खता वो घमारपन जिस में हम ने सदी गवाईं आखिर पहुंची द्वार तुम्हारे अरे बधाई हो बधाई

I am trying to search for some volunteering work or join some NGO. Because I am well fed, have a vehicle and have time to kill. No, I am not trying to belittle the good Samaritans who make it their mission to help others. But my point is, those who volunteer are the ones, who don't have to worry about how to get their next meal. I am again not denying the fact that these people could spend their time, money and energy on kitty parties, mall visits and other things.  What I am trying to highlight here is that God has given them everything in abundance, so they can afford to be helpful. But what about our aam admi or aurat, who if volunteers for one day, will have to lose her/his daily wage, who can ill afford to spend bus-fare to travel and who has to feed his/her own family before thinking about world poverty. But these Bangaloreans have proved this theory wrong. A group of 30 auto drivers led by Suresh Kumar travel through all parts of the city and help poor parents to get ...

Care Craig Santos Perez My 16-month old daughter wakes from her nap and cries. I pick her up, press her against my chest and rub her back until my palm warms like an old family quilt. “Daddy’s here, daddy’s here,” I whisper. Here is the island of Oʻahu, 8,500 miles from Syria. But what if Pacific trade winds suddenly became helicopters? Flames, nails, and shrapnel indiscriminately barreling towards us? What if shadows cast against our windows aren’t plumeria tree branches, but soldiers and terrorists marching in heat? Would we reach the desperate boats of the Mediterranean in time? If we did, could I straighten my legs into a mast, balanced against the pull and drift of the current? “Daddy’s here, daddy’s here,” I whisper. But am I strong enough to carry her across the razor wires of sovereign borders and ethnic hatred? Am I strong enough to plead: “please, help us, please, just let us pass, please, we aren’t suicide bombs.” Am I strong enough to keep w...

I was 10 or 11 years old. And a disaster happened. I failed in my maths class test. I got 9 out of 50. I, who was the topper in the class, for whom mathematics was the easiest subject, failed in maths. And I could not let this news reach my parents. I took the answer paper, hid it in a cupboard and put a pen on the latch of the cupboard. I did not know how to get hold of locks or keys. I did not even think that I could actually tear that paper or throw it away. I was very tense for the next few days. Thankfully nobody found out. But my mother did find out about the paper a month later. She took the paper and asked me what was that. I did not answer. But she did not scold me, nor did she bring up the topic ever again. She must have realized  I have repented enough. I wish I were half as much a good mother as she is. But our teacher would scold some times. "ಮೊನ್ನಿ ಪರೀಕ್ಷೆಯಾಗ್ ನಾಕ್  ಮಾರ್ಕ್ಸ್ ತೊಗೊಂಡಿ ನಾಚಿಕಿಯಾಗಾಂಗಿಲ್ಲಾ" But he too was fond of me in his own way. When an ...

Some little birdie told me that one method to increase app installs is facebook. And of course I revisited facebook. I created pages for two of my apps. Gave the video urls, uploaded photos - or screen shots. And spent some time trying to write some catchy posts. All for no use. My miserable apps remain miserable. (Thank you, Dr. House, - miserable is not such a pathetic word anymore). The pages have been visited by none - have been liked by none. No, not exactly none. It is one. Me :( I don't know the M of marketing. That is the reason even thought my apps are awesome, they have so few installs. Sad. One more sad - of this M life.

People, I understand you love dogs. You play with your dog, you walk with it. May be you gossip with it. But first train your dog. Train your dog not to bark the entire day. Not to bark at your neighbors. Not to eat neighbors vehicle seats. Not to stop people walking on the road. In other countries, people will sue you in these situations. Troubling the neighbors is your work. Do not make your poor dogs party to it.

I was watching few episodes of brain games - I think that was the name. The show host was telling a technique called visualizing. If you want to achieve a task - which looks almost impossible, visualize you doing it - let us say 10 minutes a day for one month. The program host wanted to learn rope walking. And that needed some physical training too. So visualize that you are walking on the rope and you are in sky. And at the end of the month, you can achieve it. Does it work? Why don't we all try it? We all have some goals which we want to achieve, but are unable to get much progress. And instead of googling about the problems or instead of watching TV, let us all try to visualize our success each day for a month. Then let us compare our results. wikihow on how to visulize