Perpetually Perplexed

Do people like to be alone? And I am not talking about teenagers who feel their parents are suffocating them. Do any mature adult wants to be alone? I seriously doubt that. Because instinct of talk is one of the basic instincts. Why you even hear babies talking incessantly even though nobody understands them. Even animals - felines and canines talk among themselves and with us. Again we don't understand them. Sadly. So you need to talk. Period. And though you can talk to yourself, people do not like this. They think avanige/avalige marulu. mental - manasika. Psycho. So you need another person with you so that you can hear your own voice - such a beautiful and pretty voice. Incessantly.

Don't we all?

There was once a king. He used to visit a barber to get his hair cut. Barber noticed that king's ears are donkey ears. Or at least they looked like donkey's ears. When king saw barbers eyes fixed on his ears, he glared at him and threatened "If you tell it to any one....". King did not need to complete his sentence. The poor barber understood and kept quiet. But how long can a person keep such a secret? He started getting fatter day by day. When a friend asked him about his weight, the barber told him that he has a secret which he can not tell to any one. And the secret is growing bigger and bigger in his stomach and he is getting fat. The friend had a suggestion. He told the barber to go to woods and tell the secret to a tree. The tree won't talk. So the secret will be safe. And the barber has it out of his chest. So the barber agreed and went deep into the forest and selected some tree and told it "king has donkey ears". It so happened that ...

Today I finally had my jnanodaya - I realized why men like - love their vehicles and are so passionate about it. Men love to have their daily dose of adventure. A vehicle gives it to them. Sitting on it, they feel they have super power, they are invincible. Not only that. Riding a vehicle on Bangalore road gives them real adventure. They have to cross hillocks. People call them man hole covers. They come across sudden obstructions. And they have to avoid the wells. And if they are lucky enough, they have to ride through the rivers. Rivers on the roads if it has rained heavily. Luckier ones get to swim in rivers, if they are unable to locate a drain in overflowing roads. For the aggressive types, there can even be verbal duels with extreme invectives. Sad thing is there can not be sword fights.  So if this is not adventure sports, what else is? I am sure men and women on moon will be wondering why do number of craters keep growing on this planet. And why some times they...

But some how make you feel better from bitter

Life is not all black and white.

A fake news article Bengaluru Sept 15: There are news from various parts of south India that the epidemic of "Thinking" is increasing, not only in cities, but also in towns and villages. The recent punishments given out by concerned citizens to the so called thinkers has failed to act as deterrent to these people.  For the first time in the history of the country, there was a peaceful protest in the city of Bangalore against Thinkers. People were seen holding placards saying "Thinkers go back to Pakistan", "Godless people", "Down with thinkers" etc. Politicians and bureaucrats alike are worried about this new plague inflicting the country. They are of the opinion that thinkers are worse than terrorists. Or they are "thought" terrorists. They cause serious damage to the national integrity and harmony among people. Through their thinking and writing they are inciting other people to think too. And once every one starts to think...

I completed another book. But the book is beautiful and sad. The books "Of love and other demons" by Marquez is quite disturbing. The story is from 19th century and revolves around the life of 12 year old daughter of a land-load (Marquis) - Sierva.  Her father the Marquis is fearful person and lives in his own world. Her mother Bernarda is a nymphomaniac and detests her daughter from birth. Sierva  lives with the slaves and learns from them multiple African languages, and their customs. One day a rabid dog bites her in local market. Her father starts worrying about her and takes her to a local doctor who says she is not having any symptoms of rabies. There was no cure for rabies then. Marquis takes Sierva to a convent in Santa Clara for exorcising. She is locked in a prison there and is bound to her bed by straps. Father Cayetano who comes to exorcise her falls in love with her and starts visiting her secretly every night. One day he is caught and is punished. H...

Unaware of the havoc caused by the torrential rains last few days, the plants on my terraces are rejoicing the abundance of water and cool.

Those of us who can not travel due to various reasons, may not be able to see sun setting in the infinite ocean or he going for rest behind cool mountains. But sun sets anyway. Even on our roof-tops. Turning from dazzling, blinding bright white to crimson, then going and hiding behind the trees and then vanishing.

Inclusion : we want to be part of a group. We are willing to do most things for this. Cognitive distortion: Once we decide that we have a certain opinion on some thing, we find all different reasons to justify that. Same thing is true for actions we do. Understanding : To fully understand - or at least momentarily understand our problems, we need to see it in others. Solitary Confinement : Is the best way to break the strongest of men/women.

We have even reached a state where we say Murders of our people is more important than murders of your people

We may need to change the newspaper we are buying. Today I noticed that there is no mention of country wide candle light protests happening in many cities protesting against killing of Journalist Gauri Lankesh. Not a single mention in times of india. This is not the first time, this paper has omitted news like this. We know TV channels are not unbiased. But we expect at least newspapers to give us correct, complete and unbiased news. Sadly that is not happening. And people who have the courage to give honest news are being shot down. In front of their own houses. Watching the news yesterday, I was thinking of shouting "beke beku nyaya beku". Then I realized people are actually doing this protest. Not just in Bangalore, but also in Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad and other cities. TV channels are smart. They wait for the story to develop. Then they apply their own filters depending on which party they are learning towards. Then show this un-unbiased news with so much con...

Yesterday I was helping out my nephew by asking him some Linux commands while cooking in the kitchen. Then I realized I do know some of these commands and I know them well. I know not only C family of languages, I also know the "kabbina kadale" unix commands. I was immensely happy and wanted immediately to blog these commands. Then I told myself "do not deviate, you have an app to work on". Not that I have done anything in the last two days. I was happy and little bit surprised. Why? The amount of malign I am going through! My knowledge sure surprises me. Again I am spending my times waiting for the next unwatched episode of one or two serials I am seeing. And I blame so many people for my unwillingness to work. Yes, I am going through lot of difficulty in this neighborhood. Yes, I feel alienated from the entire world most of the time. That is not an excuse to do some useful work. That in fact must inspire me to work more. I should realize that at least I a...

Dystopia - is a community or society that is undesirable or frightening. It is antonym of "Utopia" - which is ideal society. We Indians use a term for ideal society - Ramarajya - Rama is the hero of the epic Ramayana. His kingdom was supposedly very good. People were honest. Rulers were kind etc. But again I wonder about Sita who was deserted by King Rama just because of some gossip. Anyways, so Ramarajya. We also have read in our history lessons that Vijayanagar empire was very very good. People never closed their front doors. So there were no thieves or robbers. Gold, pearls and diamonds were sold on streets. So I remember vaguely. It could have been part of book by one of their courtiers - so there might be some exaggerations. At least now, we all feel we are in the middle of dystopia. Rulers do not care about citizens. Citizens are petty minded and money minded. People kill each other over trivial issues. But some times I wonder. Were people better than this an...

Here are two photos from my rooftop garden. not well maintained. But the plants occasionally take pity on me and bloom into beautiful flowers. :) Wanted to catch sun shining through rain drops on the flower. Could not. But this photo is not bad.

I unsuccessfully searched for the name of this tree. I even tried google image search. ( Google is telling me the best result  for this image is tree!!) What made me interested in this tree? The flower in this tree looks like it was imported from a shorter plant It is not common - at least not in parks of Bangalore - most of the trees here have small yellow flower It has subtle fragrance No, the most important reason is it brought back memories of childhood. In our ancestral home, we had a plant which would blossom out with similar flowers, but red in color. The flowers will have long stem like this. We would pluck them and make garland of these. The name would start with madhu or something. Some mallige - jasmine. OK, now I even tried searching in nurserylive. Unsuccessfully. This park is better the one closer to our home. There are actual trees and plants inside the park. Not just weed. There are many trees along the periphery. And some flowering plants in t...