Wonder why a banner is called a banner when it does not ban anything?! May be initially the banners were used to display slogans that urged people/readers to ban something...
Liked the new banner of my blog? I am not banning anything though! ;-)
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Hi!
Suddenly some words keep ringing in the air.
Am I myself making my life hectic and tiring? Have I forgotten how to live life? I keep jotting the points in the To-DO list and keep striking them off as soon as I am done with them. Is life just this?
What’s on the mind shows on the face! Why I do brood over things so much? I sometimes feel like taking my brain off my body and relax. If I don’t take a break soon, I am bound to join a mental asylum.
Those were the words from one of my best friends. He was narrating how we both had met for the first time and what he thought of me then. When I think about my past, I realize many at times that I have not genuinely smiled or heartily laughed in ages. Have I forgotten how to laugh… How to take things lightly and make fun of all my flaws and short-comings and do things that I always love to do? Why do I keep taking up others’ things and keep cribbing that I have lots to do?“She was sitting right there, and when I greeted her with a ‘Hi!’, she responded back with another ‘Hi!’… just another ‘Hi’… no smile.. nothing! What a typical candidate was what I thought!”
Am I myself making my life hectic and tiring? Have I forgotten how to live life? I keep jotting the points in the To-DO list and keep striking them off as soon as I am done with them. Is life just this?
What’s on the mind shows on the face! Why I do brood over things so much? I sometimes feel like taking my brain off my body and relax. If I don’t take a break soon, I am bound to join a mental asylum.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Ayomayam Jagannaatham
The very first look at the pink little gajam(Elephant) reminds us of the saying in Telugu: "Ayomayam Jagannaatham!" which can be translated as "Everywhere everything is a confusion!" 
There are some people in this world who always have a confused look on their face. You ask them something and immediately they are all confused and it takes some seconds for our question to sink into their mud-heads and it takes some more long moments for their head to decode the question and process it and spew out the response... Well, many of my friends think that I am one such person and one such friend gifted me with this gajam. He says that the moment he saw the expression on this elephant, he was reminded of me!
Does the gajam look like me?
There are some people in this world who always have a confused look on their face. You ask them something and immediately they are all confused and it takes some seconds for our question to sink into their mud-heads and it takes some more long moments for their head to decode the question and process it and spew out the response... Well, many of my friends think that I am one such person and one such friend gifted me with this gajam. He says that the moment he saw the expression on this elephant, he was reminded of me!
Does the gajam look like me?
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Wish I had known this earlier!
Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead. -
Benjamin Franklin
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Lost, but Found!
As I enter our cabin, I see my colleague sifting through a pile of things on our desks, pulling out the chest of drawers, looking under the desks and scrutinizing every nook and corner of the room. As soon as he sees me enter the cabin, he asks at once, “Did you see the network port for this label printer?” and continues, “I remember keeping it right here on this modem, but I am unable to find it.” His words come out like a flood gushing out of his voice-box. He looks very anxious and is thinking aloud trying to recollect where he had put the external network port. “I should have locked it up in my cupboard. There are many rats that roam around during the nights… May be one of them took it away. But what will a rat do with it? It’s not an eatable. Did someone else take it for safe-guarding? Let me go ask at the reception.” All this sentences are incoherent and inconsistent. Poor thing! He can’t help it. The network port was indeed expensive.
His frantic search reminded me of another incident narrated by my maternal grandfather. My thatha would have been in his teens then. He would wear veshti(dhoti) during those days. One day he washed and hanged his veshti out for drying. When he returned home, he realized his veshti was nowhere to be seen. He felt bad because he had only two or three veshtis that he would wear in rotation. He searched everywhere and asked everyone about it. He thought may be one of his family members would have taken it and kept it in his shelf, or may be it just fell off the clothesline due to a gush of wind and might have drifted farther away from his house. He searched whole of his backyard and neighboring houses too.
All the time while he was searching, he continuously chanted a mantra. This ma
ntra is supposed to get back anything that was lost. It goes like this:
Karthaveeryaarjuno naama (A person by name Karthaveerayarjuna)
Raaja Baahu Sahasravaan (he has thousand strong arms)
Thasya smarana maathrena (if we think of him for a moment)
Gatham Nashtancha Labhyathe! (whatever we have lost, will be found)
My thatha was sincerely urging Karthaveerayarjuna to search and get back his veshti. Like a miracle, he found his veshti, but it was of no use to him.
But why so?
That evening their curd-vendor came home to sell them curd. And what did my thatha see on him? His own vesthi! The vendor was wearing my thatha’s veshti. He might have flicked it from their backyard. Generally all vesthis are white in color. So the vendor might have thought that no one will discover his theft. However every veshti also has a border or some stains that are uniquely identifiable to the owner of the veshti. My thata found his veshti because of Karthaveerayarjuna, but what was the use? He could not take it back nor use it!
Sometimes even when we find our own things, they may be rendered useless to us.
Coming back to the Karthaveerayarjuna slokam… This slokam has helped me many times in finding my misplaced things. I do not know whether Karthaveerayarjuna himself searches them for me, or chanting of this mantra makes my brain to concentrate more and to recollect where I had placed those things. Whatever be the reason, thatha’s Karthaveerayarjuna works wonders!
His frantic search reminded me of another incident narrated by my maternal grandfather. My thatha would have been in his teens then. He would wear veshti(dhoti) during those days. One day he washed and hanged his veshti out for drying. When he returned home, he realized his veshti was nowhere to be seen. He felt bad because he had only two or three veshtis that he would wear in rotation. He searched everywhere and asked everyone about it. He thought may be one of his family members would have taken it and kept it in his shelf, or may be it just fell off the clothesline due to a gush of wind and might have drifted farther away from his house. He searched whole of his backyard and neighboring houses too.
All the time while he was searching, he continuously chanted a mantra. This ma
ntra is supposed to get back anything that was lost. It goes like this:Karthaveeryaarjuno naama (A person by name Karthaveerayarjuna)
Raaja Baahu Sahasravaan (he has thousand strong arms)
Thasya smarana maathrena (if we think of him for a moment)
Gatham Nashtancha Labhyathe! (whatever we have lost, will be found)
My thatha was sincerely urging Karthaveerayarjuna to search and get back his veshti. Like a miracle, he found his veshti, but it was of no use to him.
But why so?
That evening their curd-vendor came home to sell them curd. And what did my thatha see on him? His own vesthi! The vendor was wearing my thatha’s veshti. He might have flicked it from their backyard. Generally all vesthis are white in color. So the vendor might have thought that no one will discover his theft. However every veshti also has a border or some stains that are uniquely identifiable to the owner of the veshti. My thata found his veshti because of Karthaveerayarjuna, but what was the use? He could not take it back nor use it!
Sometimes even when we find our own things, they may be rendered useless to us.
Coming back to the Karthaveerayarjuna slokam… This slokam has helped me many times in finding my misplaced things. I do not know whether Karthaveerayarjuna himself searches them for me, or chanting of this mantra makes my brain to concentrate more and to recollect where I had placed those things. Whatever be the reason, thatha’s Karthaveerayarjuna works wonders!
What happened to my colleague's network port? Well, he never found it. May be because I did not teach him this mantra. You see... he seems to be too modern for it! ;-)
Monday, June 8, 2009
Bull’s Eye becomes Scarecrow
As we enter the manufacturing plant, a lot of colored plates catch our attention. These plates have been hung from the ceiling of the factory. These plates have concentric circles painted on them in catchy colors. Is there some target practice going on in the plant? Or is anyone playing Bull’s eye (game of darts) here? No. Not at all! These plates serve an entirely different purpose. They are used as scarecrows, or rather as scare-pigeons!
It is a popular belief that the pigeons do not stay in places where shootings go on. Wherever shootings go on there are dart boards or target plates around. It seems that the pigeons do recognize the dart boards as symbols of death and stay away from them. The clever factory workers/management have dangled these plates near to the ceiling all over the plant to scare the pigeons.
From what I could gather from the workers, the number of pigeons has drastically decreased. The bull’s eye scares the pigeons indeed!
House Hunt
Man proposes, God disposes...
Appa proposed that we will find and shift into a new house by the end of the weekend and God did everything to dispose off my dad’s plan. After traveling on foot all around our locality for more than 4 hours each day, what did Appa get in return? A well worn out pair of chappals! Going around with Appa, I realized how difficult it is to find a suitable house, in good locality, in good neighborhood, within our budget and big enough for us.
Of course, we did find a lot of brokers who were willing to search for us if only we were ready to shell out half the rent to them. I somehow feel, it’s too much money to the broker and at this point of time, none of us in our family could afford it.
By the end of the weekend, we are were extremely disappointed and wondered why God was so partial to Appa.
Anyway, I am not writing this post to crib or complain about the failure of the house hunt. I wanted to list out some tips to find a house for TO-LET, without a broker.
Appa proposed that we will find and shift into a new house by the end of the weekend and God did everything to dispose off my dad’s plan. After traveling on foot all around our locality for more than 4 hours each day, what did Appa get in return? A well worn out pair of chappals! Going around with Appa, I realized how difficult it is to find a suitable house, in good locality, in good neighborhood, within our budget and big enough for us.
Of course, we did find a lot of brokers who were willing to search for us if only we were ready to shell out half the rent to them. I somehow feel, it’s too much money to the broker and at this point of time, none of us in our family could afford it.
By the end of the weekend, we are were extremely disappointed and wondered why God was so partial to Appa.
Anyway, I am not writing this post to crib or complain about the failure of the house hunt. I wanted to list out some tips to find a house for TO-LET, without a broker.
- Look for the TO-LET board hung on the gate or the balcony (this point is too obvious)
- Go through classifieds in Deccan Chronicle (this point is also a very obvious one)
- Start early. That is when we get to meet the newspaper boys and milk delivery boys. They are the right ones to know which house is empty (nice idea na?!)
- Enquire the dhobi or the isthriwala or the radhdhiwala in that locality for details of available houses (most of them may have turned into rental brokers, beware!)
- If you are searching during twilight or dark, look for portions of the buildings/apartments that do not have any lights on. They are most likely to be available for rent. (This one really helps. We found close to 5 portions using this technique.)
- If all the windows of a building are shut or if the building is getting newly painted, we can stop there and enquire!
I learnt all this by observing the way Appa was progressing towards finding a home for us. In spite of all our efforts, we failed miserably. Better luck next time!
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