NathanWorld

Avani Avittam 2011

2011-08-06T15:27:00.004-05:00

Found the site www.avaniavittam.org that has mantras and procedures for iyer and iyengar.
Googling for avani avittam 2011 spits out lots of results and suggest to look for the one closest to your tradition and follow.

Veda patasala + CBSE school

2011-05-23T12:25:00.002-05:00

In an earlier post i had talked about "Establish Anglo-Vedic schools [in the true sense of it], and create English-educated society with Vedic fundamentals."

Well, i came to know of a new school in chennai. Sri Kanchi Mahaswami Vidya Mandir. Check it out.

Elections 2011

2011-05-13T23:48:00.004-05:00

Well, It has been a long time since i smiled on the election results day. Still i am not extremely positive with the outlook.

I really hope VaiKo develops the grassroots, takes over the moth eaten DMK and grows as a viable honest alternative in time for 2016.

Endhiran

2010-10-02T01:53:00.003-05:00

Watched Endhiran. Cant agree more with this.
Thankfully no corruption, no dishonesty, no black-and-white flashbacks, no social preach dialogues.!! Give all marks to Shankar for that.

A R Rahman Live in conert - Jai Ho tour. (review??)

2010-09-19T00:40:00.006-05:00

It was about five years ago that i attended Rahman's 3D tour in London and posted the review here.

I attended the Jai Ho - Journey home concert today in Dallas. I would not call this post a review, but my opinion (more comparison) of the whole thing.

The show scheduled on July 4th was rescheduled to today, spoiling our otherwise plans for the independence day weekend. The show was scheduled to start at 7 and it started at 8.30. A big let down on the part of the organizers.

They had been publicizing in the radio about having indian food stalls, which had extremely tasteless food.

It was expected to be very expensive but, they were selling items costlier than what they had written on the menu.! And then provided the rudest response when questioned. The American Airlines center ticketed zone was not more than 70% full.

Now, Dallas is not London. However there was a glaring lack of star singers. Daler, Shankar, Kailash Kher, Sivamani, yes, no Sivamani!

Lip synch was very obvious and at most places it was lip-out-of-sync.

Let me copy the parts from my earlier review, that are applicable ditto for this concert as well.

".......The man behind the camera was pathetic. He made sure, the camera is always not on the right person...."
"....... along with ‘yeh to des hai tera’,[again tamil mixed in the second stanza.]......"
.......In comes the great Hariharan, packed with tons of energy. His asking ‘Tamillu paatu padalaamaa??’ in a proper ghazalic tone, and the roaring response to it...."
".......chaiyya chaiyya looked out of place sans Sukhwi......"
"........nd the 'Bombay theme' flute were stopgaps in the middle....."

The parts that i enjoyed are
1. Superstar song from Sivaji
2. Superstar song from Endhiran
3. Aaroomaleeee.
4. New singers Alphonse and Vijay Prakash.

Most songs from slumdog were played, they put some effort in the visuals and stage setting, but as we all know it is irrelevant. Women singers were jazzy and wore western costumes, unlike the chitras and kavitha krishnamurthys. (transforming into entertainers, instead of singers?????)

The London concert was 3.5 hrs, this one was 2.5 hrs (probably they performed in Houston yesterday and got delayed?

If what Dallas saw is what this tour is all about, you will lose nothing by not attending it.!

Analysis of indian general elections 2009.

2009-05-16T14:12:00.008-05:00

Psephologist and self proclaimed political experts, the TV news anchors are all analyzing and talking about whether the way BJP handled 26/11 or Varun Gandhi episode made the difference.

How Rahul Gandhi has brought change to the country blah blah blah.

My opinion: All BS.
My Heroes for UPA: Raj Thackeray, Vijayakanth, Chiranjeevi.

Analyzing the leads/results, in most states the current state government has won the majority seats. Be it TN, AP, Kar, Mah, Orissa, MP, Raj, Guj, Bih, Chattisgargh, Delhi. Exceptions in UP, Kerala, WB etc.

Election result majority positions by state

UPA, NDA, ThirdFront, FourthFront ---Courtesy: NDTV.com

Now what does this mean? Does this mean in most states, the people are satisified the performance of their current state governments? Is there a pro-incumbancy factor sweeping the country towards the state governments and central government.?

Superficially, it appears a big YES

Or Is It? Is it pro-incumbency or Divided anti-incumbency? On preliminary analysis it is divided-anti-incumbency at work.

Anti Incumbency votes divided in the following states significantly to provide a pro-incumbency result.
TN - AIADMK, Vijayakanth
Kar - Cong, JDS
AP - TDP, Chiranjeevi
Mah - Sena-BJP, MNS
Bih - Cong, Lalu-Paswan

The above five states made all the difference. Had NDA became the biggest coalition had they won Rajasthan and Delhi, then the heroes for NDA would have been DeveGowda, Lalu-Paswan.

Now, the bigger question is why did the people not consolidate anti-incumbency vote to a single bloc rather than splitting across two or more challengers.

The answer to the question is evident as well. All the challengers who had to split anti-incumbency votes had already been provided with full term opportunities either in running the respective state government of participating in central government.

Be it AIADMK, Sena, TDP, Lalu all of them had been given their chance. Hence a growing number of voters were looking at alternative than the traditional challengers. Thus providing a wave of pro-incumbency results across the nation.

To prove this theory, if an overwhelming number of constituences have second position and third position votes totalling to 1.25 times the first position vote, especially of the incumbent, then divided-anti-incumbency has won the election rather than performance or pro-incumbency, as proclaimed by UPA. Let me try to do the analysis after all results are out and put the info here.

Now, what is in store for the opposition/challengers? By now, they would have made the analysis in the above stated lines, coz politicians are gazillion times smarter than the psephologist.

The take away shall be to consolidate anti-incumbency forming better alliances in subsequent alliances.

However alliances bring their own issues of life and death for the parties. Case in Point Tamil Nadu. In TN, in the absence of any major wave, neither AIADMK can win elections as long as Vijayakanth is in play and same is the case with Vijayakanth.

---start hypothetics---
If I were Vijayakanth, i will choose my prime enemy, whether it is DMK or AIADMK.

If i choose DMK, then to defeat it i shall align with AIADMK and win an election however i cannot then call myself as an alternative anymore. So I will alienate myself from AIADMK after the victory and in the subsequent election, to avoid divided-anti-incumbency i shall join DMK. This shall take me into the same viscious circle that PMK and MDMK fell into in mid 1990s and have ceased to be a challenger anymore in this election.

My other option shall be to choose AIADMK as my enemy and continue as a seperate challenger to continue help DMK win and AIADMK get weaker. However by the time AIADMK becomes weak enough for me to be the prime challenger, DMK would have gained from strength to strength and be formidable, rich enought be pay Rs.1 lakh per vote, by having been in power for all the years while i am busy weakening AIADMK.
---end hypothetics----

Vijayakanth, and all the secondary challengers in indian politicis, learn lessons from PMK and MDMK, or pray for a wave.

It will be very interesting to see how regional parties and challenger parties evolve their strategies after this elections, more than how BJP re-invents itself.

Health Care

2009-04-18T23:29:00.003-05:00

One of my friends recommended the Michael Moore movie Sicko. I should say i was impressed by the way an obvious truth was hidden from the people of america and how Mike managed to present it.

In India, we have socialized health care and private care in parallel and have seen how socialized care is corrupted and inefficient and how the private care is increasingly going the same route atleast the way it operates if not the quality of care.

I have also managed to experience first hand how the NHS system works in UK, and vouch for its description in the movie.

On one hand it gives what is in store for privatize health care in US and India. Other hand it provides some hope that there are better systems that can come here.

However we dont know if the current system will move to the worse before other systems can even come here.

2008

2008-12-28T17:50:00.001-06:00

2008 has just been an year of routine. But this is absolute disappointment. :(

Elections 2007

2007-12-22T22:18:00.000-06:00

Ufff!!
After 2004 Parliament elections, Karnataka state elections, 2006 TN state elections, UP state elections, atleast there is one result that has come to be, on what i believe is good for the country.
Let this spread over to Himachal results later this week, and to the national elections!!

God Save India!!

Menu for Avani Avittam.

2007-08-26T22:04:00.000-05:00

I had asked my mom to send me the bare minimum Menu that we traditionally prepare in our family, for avani avittam.
It is as below. Sharing it just in case.

Poli,
Ammai vadai,
Saddam,
Paruppu,
Veg curry,
Kottu(optional),
Sambar,
Rasam(optional),
Appalam(optional),
curd.

Avani Avittam Yajur Upakarma 2007

2007-08-12T13:25:00.000-05:00

Avani avittam [Yajur upkarma 2007] falls on Aug 28 2007 and Aug 29 is Gayathri japam.
Visit here for details updated in 2005 and here for 2006.

For 2007, i found the mantras at Vadhyar.com. You can refer to this to perform the annual duty.

If you find better sites or resources, kindly let me know through the comments of this post.

God Save Tamil Nadu

2007-05-10T05:08:00.000-05:00

Kannagi!!
The legendary tamil lady. She was considered an ill omen, by the previous government.
Thankfully, the DMK govenment took over. Found the statue, and installed it with all respect in its rightful place. So is the love of Karunanidhi for Kannagi.

Now, his family has actually surpassed Karunanidhi in expressing their love for Kannagi. Yes MK just installed the statue twice. But his children, have actually followed the footsteps of Kannagi.

No, I am not talking about the one spouse concept, or chastity. I am talking about burning of Madurai.

It is a shame that this has happened. I repeat what is said here on May 12, 2006.
"God Save the State, Country and World "

Political crisis - Reservations Again!!

2007-03-29T23:54:00.000-05:00

What the Supreme court said yesterday on the Reservations is something which is definitely heart warming!!

1. It has agreed that Reservations/affirmative action is needed in the country to uplift bacward.
2. Backward does not mean only those who are born in certain castes.
3. Creamy layer of these castes do more harm to their brethern than upper castes.

TamilNadu politicians are planning a bandh.. Go Get A Life.. Loosers..

Now the country polity is in an unique crisis. Let us see how.
1. Parliament is the sole representative of people's will.
2. Democracy is rule of the people. [Thus parliament thinks it is supreme]
3. The consitution says that, Constitution is superior to Parliament. [The collective wisdom of the Constituent Assembly members is superior to the parlimentarians at any point in time.].
4. The Constitution also says that Supreme Court is the Guardian of the Constitution. Which means Parliament can enact laws, but Supreme Court has the authority to decide whether these laws confirm to the basics of the constitution.

So all those folks who think Parliament is supreme are on one side and all those who think Constitution is supreme are on the other side.

Had i been asked to choose this in late 1950s or early 1960s, i would have gone with the Parliament lobby. But looking at what the constituents of the parliament today of, it is nightmarish to even think of giving supreme authority to a group of selfish, power hungry loots.

Supreme court and Consitution, you are Supreme, and it is not long before the country goes on the streets over this crisis, and i am with you folks. [At this point in time ;)]

Thiruvanaikovil Thaer

2007-03-21T06:30:00.000-05:00

Back in India, due to lack of connectivity at Home, i am not able to actively blog off late.

Every time i would want to put up a blog, the intensity of what i wanted to write, did not over take the inertia of not updating the blog.
Now, there is something which has had a big impact on me, and I am grief sticken.

It is regarding the tragedy at Tiruvanaikovil car festival.

I make it a point to attend the celebration every year, if i am in India, probably i just missed a couple of years.
This year too, i had taken a day off [since Ugadi holiday in Bangalore was on monday, and according to Temple almanac it fell on Tuesday.] and went to Tiruvanaikovil.

And this is what i had to witness.

I have heard my elder folks talk about such thing happend in the past. But this has really come as a rude shock to all those who looked up to this event as an event of social strength and thanks giving.

May Akilandeshwari and Jambukeshwarar rest them all.

Below are the pictures that i took.

Questions on Belgaum border issue

2006-10-05T06:16:00.000-05:00

There was a bandh yesterday in Bangalore, in this context, let me ask some of the genuine doubts which I have. [Please note, I am neither from Kar nor Mah, and all I know abt this dispute is after coming here.]

1. Belgaum has majority of Marathi speakers, and why does Karnataka want to impose compulsory Kannada on them?
2. The people of Belgaum have shown their faith in MES policy [integration with Maharashtra] by electing two MLAs from their party. The corporation of Belgaum has MES majority and the Mayor is from MES. Now, why does the Government of Karnataka not recognize the view of the majority of Belgaum?
3. Kashmir and Telengana Naxalite, in my personal view are different from Belgaum issue, mainly because the MES and Marathis have taken the Democratic path, and from the representation they show[MLAs and Mayor], they have gathered quite a handsome support.
4. Kannada Activists doing thisto mayor of Belgaum is unacceptable and barbaric to the height.
5. Treating the mayor of a city is such a manner is equivalent to treating every resident of the city. Why did the Karnataka Government allow this to happen, right in front of the Vidhana Soudha.
6. What is the necessity of removing the Belgaum flag from corporation office. For me it feels like, sending a message to the Marathi speaking people that, you cannot maintain ur identity in this state.
7. “Either recognize our right to identity and language, by not thrusting kannada on us, or if the GoK thinks that, every body in Karnataka should learn Kannada compulsorily, then let it be, but we would want to opt out of the state, and join ourselves with Maharashtra, after all birds of same feather flock together. Either Let us Live or Let us Leave” - if this is what a person from Belgaum asks, what would be the answer to this.

Ps: Let us not talk abt implementing reports and committee findings at this point, because they might not represent the true picture on ground. After all, Karanataka still does not recognize the Kaveri Tribunal Interim Award [which might be genuine considering situations on ground] Infact, the Supreme Court in 2002, had asked the S.M. Krishna Government to Obey or Leave, for not respecting the award.

Reservations - again :)

2006-09-05T04:32:00.000-05:00

Happend to read this inpsiring article in Rediff.

Though i liked whole of the article, i was particularly impressed by the following piece,

//Quote//
Reservation
Reservation should be a mix of all criteria. If you take a caste that comes under reservation, 80 per cent of the people will be poor and 20 per cent rich, the creamy layer. For the general category, it will be the other way around. I feel equal weightage should be given for the economic background. A study has to be done on what is the purpose of reservation and what it has done to the needy. It should be more effective and efficient. In my case, I would not have demanded for reservation. I accepted it because the society felt I belonged to the deprived class and needed a helping hand.

Today, the opportunities are grabbed by a few. They should be ashamed of their ability if they avail reservation even after becoming an IAS officer or something like that. They are putting a burden on the society and denying a chance to the really needy.

I feel reservation is enough for one generation. For example, if the child's father is educated, he will be able to guide the child properly.

Take my case, I didn't have any system that would make me aware of the IITs and the IIMs. But I will be able to guide my children properly because I am well educated. I got the benefits of reservation but I will never avail of it for my children. I cannot even think of demanding reservation for the next generation.
//End of Quote//

Now, go here, and check the "Solution for the reservation issue", which i had provided.

Hmm. Atleast i have some takers. :)

avani-avittam-yajur-upakarma-2006

2006-08-08T03:21:00.000-05:00

This was the post last year to signify the Upakarma. This year, the yajur upakarma is observed on 9-aug-2006, the gayathrijapam on 10-aug-2006.

Please find smartha yajur sampradaya at Kandamangalam.com

Vaishnava Sampradaya details are available at Ahobilam.com and prapatti.com
ChennaiOnline has posted audio clip and text of the mantras. This contains the Mahasankalpam part also.

Panchangam.com has come up with the mantrams in our 'Notice' format. Though this doesnot contain the mahasankalpam part.

Routines accomplished...

2006-08-01T02:04:00.000-05:00

When i wrote this last year, it was the only season i missed in the last 15 years. Fortunately this year i was back to charge my batteries. Currently amidst of very tight show-like-working, deliberately took a week off, visited kuttralam.

Also today is Aadi 18. This is the day when newly weds visit Kaveri, offer prayers, and let the marraige garland into the river.

This year is Thalai aadi, but due to this, the aadi perukku was not celebrated but just observed from few hundred miles away from home.

Though offerings were not made, the custom of Kalanda saadam, was aptly kept up. Am typing this after a sumptuous lunch of Puliyansadam, Thengaai saadam, Akkaraadisal, Thayir sadam, Karuvadaam, more milagaai.. :P

And may this Aadi perukku keep the world fertile and peaceful.

Dinamalar report
Maalaimalar report

And am very happy to share with you that, Metter dam has consistently maintained a Record Level of 100ft for one continuous year till yesterday. :)

Also, the Tamizh Daily calendar in the right hand side, has started to work again, after being down for sometime. :)

Alternate professions ?!?!

2006-06-15T03:17:00.001-05:00

Priya has raised the question,

If.... if incase you HAVE TO switch fields once in every 5 years between your 30 to 50 yrs of age assuming that your monetary needs are taken care in upper-middle class standards, what (4-5 professions) you would wish to do (and say few words about it) ?

I did not have much of thinking to do.

30-35 – Learn samskritam, PaTanam, Vaachikam. Attain ‘Pandityam’. Don’t know if 5 years would be sufficient for that.
35-40 – Read and interpret Vedas, Upanishads, their Bashyams, Kalidasa’s works et al
40-45 - Take up the task of spreading all those learnt in the past ten years.
45-50 – Set up permanent infrastructure to continually do what I was doing in the last five years.
50 + - Go back as a student and learn more of what is learnt from 30-40

Though the above do not really qualify as professions, tell me, why somebody would need to be a professional when monetary needs are take care ;)

Also, along with the above prime interest, the following would be my parallel interests through the years
30-35 – Visit the temples of tamilnadu and make a comprehensive volume of bhakti compositions associated with them.
35-45 – Establish Anglo-Vedic schools [in the true sense of it], and create English-educated society with Vedic fundamentals.
45 + - Learn the nuances of theoretical carnatic music and appreciate the greatness of the ragas and krithis.

Now getting back to work, to continue the shitty consulting documents i am busy preparing since the past fortnight. :(

I tag all those who dare to dream, to get themselves tagged. ;)

Paradigm Change and Solution for Reservation Issue - Attn: Anti-reservation Students

2006-05-30T03:54:00.000-05:00

Continuing on my take on reservations from here.

In today’s media, we see the following types of people,
1. Anti-reservation – the so called forward people
2. Pro-reservation – the so called backward people, who have benefited from reservation
3. Anti-reservation folks from backward classes, and pro-reservation folks from forward classes

Now, of the above, who wants the backward to continue remaining backward? Who is acting as the block in their development?

I say, the answer is 2.

How??

Make a reality check on the ‘2’ people, on how many of them have torn off their Caste certificates after benefiting from reservation in either educational institutions or government jobs.

How many of them have thought “yes, I have benefited from reservation once, it is enough for my family, based on this help provided by the society, I will rise. Now, let the real benefit be passed on to someone else who really deserves it.”

How many of the ‘intellectuals’, or ‘social-justice-champions’, or those ‘habitual-brahmin-bashers’, who flock the internet, newspapers, newsgroups, political stages have really said, “Let me give way for the deserving”.

Even an I.A.S. officer who has benefited through reservation, wants the benefit to be passed on to his children and grand children, irrespective of more deserving people, who need the society to uplift them.

Including some of those anonymous people who have commented on my blog, and who are trying to project anti-reservationists as selfish people, are the real selfish folks who are against development of the backward community.

The student organizers of the anti-reservation protests will have to start looking at the intellectuals supporting reservation from this perspective.

If doctors who got medical seat through reservation, come forward to argue for continuation of reservation, the first thing to be told to them is, ‘Go, tear you caste certificate and those of your children, let the real deserving to use it, and then come forward to talk about uplifting of the backwards in the society.’

The real reason for the backwardness of the so called backward people is their own folks who have moved ahead. The creamy layer is the only block that prevents the real fruit of reservation to reach the section of the society for which it is intended to.

The votes of the creamy layer are also not large in number, when compared to the rest, so why does the government not bring the creamy layer clause in the reservation? The answer is clearly political. If creamy layer clause is implemented, then all the leaders of the so called backwards, and the opinion makers of those classes would loose their unconstitutional, undue privileges, and make way for the real deserving.

And that is the only reason why, all the so called, voices of the pro-reservation in any forum, will oppose the creamy layer, and economic level based reservation tooth and nail. Their intention is NOT to uplift the real backward classes, but to take all the privileges themselves.

Solution for the reservation issue:
The only solution the anti-reservation students can put forward to the Government and accept could be as follows:

Any person who avails of the reservation quota in education or employment exhausts it and their children doesn’t get to enjoy it.

Go to the university, college, Government employment records and implement it right away. Revoke the Caste certificates given to the children of those who have benefited once from the reservation.

Make sure, people from the same community who have not got a chance, get a genuine chance.

By doing this, every year, we reduce the number of people who claim reservations, because with every batch of folks passing out of colleges, or getting jobs in govt, a chunk of people get their Caste certificates Revoked. Thus the % of population in backward category reduces. Hence the % of reservation also goes down. [for. Ex. In case of tamil nadu, 69% becomes 65% in two years, and 60% in 5 years and so on. ]

Immediate Action Points for the student community leaders:
Apart from protesting against reservation, the need of the day is
1. Educating the real backward people about the need for creamy layer clause.
2. Create awareness among the so-far-non-benefited backward people, about the importance of excluding the benefited backwards.
3. Make them understand the real intention of the pro-reservation-elite-backwards, which is highly self-centered, and how ‘bringing-social-equality’ is a lie.
4. Drive the rural-poor-deserving-OBCs to force the elite-OBCs to tear off their caste certificates, which is the only way, their lives will be bettered by reservation.
5. Force the Government to implement the creamy layer clause and exclusion of the already previleged.
6. Understand that increasing the number of seats is not a solution for the current problem.

Reservations – agitations – Tamilnadu

2006-05-19T01:35:00.000-05:00

Update: Please find a newer post on the similar topic here.

Please find an earlier write up on Success of reservations here.

Why does TamilNadu behave differently than the rest of the country? Asked one of my friends.

There are no anti-reservation agitations going on, there are people who cannot and do not want to differentiate anti-reservation and oppression of the under privileged, no voice against reservations in private sectors. These observations led to the aforesaid question.

Well I had to explain a lot on this, and let me try to share that.

Going back in time, the caste based politics started in TamilNadu started much before it happened in rest of India. To evoke sentiments of the people and to capture power, politicians had to identify a social enemy to fight with. The minority Brahmins were the unlucky choice.

All the backwardness of the state and the people were attributed to the Brahmins, similar to what Hitler did in Germany against Jews.[though really the Brahmins were only poor in government servants whereas the wealthy land lords who wielded power were all from non-Brahminical castes].

Sentiments were raised, Power was captured and 40 years have rolled over since then. Over the last 40 years, the only affirmative action towards implementing the policy of social equality has been reservation. Now, go through the following statistics

87.05% of the population gets benefited by Reservations. The rest 12.95 will have to compete only for the remaining 31% of the seats, in educational institutions, state government jobs et al.

Tamil Nadu Population (Projected)
Category Population(2001) % of Total Population % of Reservation
BC 2,87,93,980 46.14% 30%
MBC 1,08,77,310 17.43% 20%
DC 21,46,755 3.44%
SC 1,18,57,504 19.00% 18%
ST 6,51,321 1.04% 1%
Others 80,78,809 12.95% -
Total 6,24,05,679 100% 69%
Source: http://www.tn.gov.in/policynotes/bc_mbc_welfare.htm

This means that, if there are 100 seats, 69 are taken up Communities-Benefiting-From-Reservation [I cant call them backward, since most of those who enjoy reservation are already forward and in the creamy layer.]. The rest 31 seats are in Open Category, where the CBFR and CNotBFR have to fight it out. Now practically the CBFR folks competing for the 31 seats are 87% of the population and are creamy. So they tend to take up 28 of the 31 seats.
So, at the end, out of hundred seats, 97 seats go to the CBFR and 3 go to CNBFR.

Please find the article in The Hindu, which analyses the Medical admission in TamilNadu colleges for year 2005. Out of 1445 seats, 40 seats have been taken by CNBFR [so called ‘Forward’ communities], rest 1405 seats have gone to folks who get benefited by reservation.
source: http://www.hindu.com/2005/07/20/stories/2005072011970100.htm

The conclusions are

There can never be a protest from students in Tamilnadu. A classroom consists of about 90% of students who get benefited from reservations.
Since 87% of the population gets enjoys reservations, no government in the future dare to reduce the percentage from 69%. Once a majority has been given undue privilege in a democracy, it cannot be scraped at all.
On the contrary, even if a TN government says that, 100% seats are reserved and all the forward community students have to be kicked out of the state, and passes an Act in the assembly to this effect, the 12% of the folks in the state do not command any power to react. They will have to accept it and live with it. The 12% in the state is just at the mercy of any opportunities that are provided by the rest.
This is a lesson for the people from rest of the states. If you let more than 50% of seats to be reserved, then there is no looking back. Even for making a protest demonstration in the future, the anti-reservation junta will be in a minority in the classrooms. So this is the last chance to fight against undue advantage to the already much-forward, creamy folks. There will be more folks to for ‘Pro-Reservation’ agitations.
Regarding reservations in Private sector, it is already there. What I mean is, if 95% of the students graduating are from the backward and below, how come an organization can staff itself without at least 50% of its employees from the 95% of the pass outs. In fact on taking number, it must be astonishing that 97% of the employees from the state would have been from the reserved categories, because even the few folks who get to be educated in TamilNadu, force their way out of the state/country for better prospects, for self and future generations. Thus there is no voice against reservation in private enterprise from Tamil Nadu.

God Save the State, Country and World

2006-05-12T01:53:00.000-05:00

Amidst the tight work schedule, took a day off to perform the democatic duty. And now the results are out.!!

Whether it is good or bad, let God save the country :)

It is very interesting to see that, the difference in seats won by the two alliances grossly skew the thin margin in the total number of votes. [with the few results which I studied.]

What I mean is, there is a large number of constituencies which have a very narrow margin.

Madurai East won by DPA has a diff of 52 votes,

DMK Gen Sec. Anbazhagan won by hundred odd votes.

Minister Radhakrishnan loses in Tirumayam by 315 votes

Minister Nayinar nagendran loses in Tirunelveli by 402 votes

P. Chidambaram once said, elections are always about negative votes. People come to vote to defeat somebody and not to elect somebody. [though it was meant to be the other way].

This time around, I think there was a wave in TN to defeat the UPA/DPA.[This is what the pre-poll surveys also predicted.] But, this wave did not solidify into the AIADMK+ votes as it did in 2001.

It got distributed among AIADMK+, DMDK, BJP

In the seats where the AIADMK+ has won the victory margins are big.
In the seats where the DPA has won, the margins are low and are infact less than half the number of votes DMDK/BJP received.

It would be interesting to see the grand total number of votes polled by both the alliances. I will not be surprised if the AIADMK+ had received more votes than DMK+ which has got about twice the number of seats won by the former.

B2B

2006-03-01T04:13:00.001-06:00

Back to Bangalore! After abt 3 years of roaming around, have finally touched down at Bangalore yesterday afternoon. Planning to be here atleast for a few months before work carries me elsewhere.

Definitely looking forward to re-start the frequent-blogging habit.

And I would like to introduce a friend of mine, a colleague and room mate for 5 yrs now, sound party Udhay. If you can read tamil fonts you will have a nice time there.

In the mean time let me get out the Jet lag and come up with fresh posts.

Saving the Earth

2006-02-07T17:37:00.000-06:00

Priya has tagged me for my ideas on Saving the Earth for future generations.

Here goes my 2c.

Save the Earth for future generations.

1. Message of Peace and brotherhood

When there is mutual hostily among human beings, comes the Ego clashes resulting in the necessity to raise and display one's 'High handedness' at 'any cost'.
The 'Any Cost' part of it is the fundamental to all the maladies faced today.

If we work backwards on that statement, we finally end up with the 'mutual hostility' as the root.
Spreading the message of peace and brotherhood [not the missionary type brotherhood] reduces a lot of harm we do to Earth.

2. Education and Awareness

Education, i mean is making every individual streamline the thought process so as to analyze the macro effect of every action/inaction. This is something which is lacking today. Every indivudual has to be told his duties and responsibilities.

3. If both of the above doesnt work, wait for 2035. Come to Chicago, stop Will Smith from destroying the new gen robots which impose a curfew on human kind in order to prevent us from self destruction. [further info here]

ps: i have a hard date of going to back to india by feb last weekend, and am working with that, so the posts would be few for a couple of more weeks. apologies. :)

Match Point

2006-01-19T11:49:00.000-06:00

I watched this movie on the last weekend i stayed in Bay Area. Couldnt make this post earlier, since am still settling in Chicago and the new assignment. Will take up the India!=Hindi sequel and the comments for the part 2 sometime this weekend and before that i wanted to tell abt this movie.

A friend of mine and I were just driving and was talking abt thalaivi Scarlett Johansson, and just droped in at the Cinema as an extended part of the conversation. Did not see any reviews, didnt know the casting. I would suggest you to watch the movie with such less information.

It is a simple story...[no, there are no spoilers ahead.] The casting is nice and they played to their roles. The time and priority of scenes in the story has been well managed.

After the movie, there was a sense of satisfaction and the feeling of completing a nice little 2 page short story. :) Any more, if i say can either set bigger expectations or end as a spoiler. So, enjoy it yourself.

Of Course, thalaivee was as gorgeous and attractive as ever. :P
Can watch the movie a second time, for her. ;)

India != Hindi contd... [Part 2]

2006-01-12T17:44:00.000-06:00

Continuing from here, we had comments which i had earlier heard from lots of other friends of mine.

First, Hindi is NOT our only national language, it is just one among the 22 languages, recognized as the national languages of the country. Refer here.

Hindi has just been given the official language status, since that is the language with the maximum native speakers in the country. [Hindi is not the Majority language, that is, majority of Indians do not have Hindi as the mother tongue!].

According to the Official language Act, the country is divided into three regions,
--------------------------
f) "Region A" means the States of Bihar, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh and the Union Territories of Delhi and Andaman and Nicobar Islands;
(g) "Region B" means the States of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Punjab and the Union Territory of Chandigarh ;
(h) "Region C" means the States and the Union Territories other than those referred to in clauses (f) and (g);
--------------------------
And the acts says that, for communications with Region C [=third class??]
--------------
3) Communications from a Central Government office to State or Union Territory in Region "C" or to any office (not being a Central Government office) or person in such State shall be in English.
---------------

Thus there is no association with using Hindi and being Indian, in the laws of the land.
I stand corrected and say, Hindi is as alien to me as '~~Spanish or Arabic~~ Oriya or Urdu' is, or as alien as Tamil is to a native Hindi speaker.

Now, how many of us have heard Hindi Natives saying, “When you talk to somebody in Chennai/Tamilnadu in Hindi, they don’t respond you”. They point is why would somebody come to Chennai and talk to a Autokaarar or a koolikaarar in Hindi?

How does it feel, when is say, 'When you go to delhi/lucknow and talk to a cab guy in Tamil, he does not respond!" ?? Wierd.??

Then,why do i get worked up when people come to me at bangalore/chennai and say 'Hindi is our national language, and you will have to learn it'.

To answer this, we have to go to 1965.
Post independence, the only goal of the students in South[esp Tamils] was to get a central government job. The percentage of Civil servants and in general the percentage of employees in the central govenment offices stand as testimony, though i donot have exact numbers.

All the recruitment exams and interviews were conducted in English. Then out of the blue, came the announcement , 'it is 15 years since the constitution came to force and so, from now on, only Hindi will be the medium replacing english'. This meant,
1. There is an undue advantage for all the native Hindi speakers
2. The people of south had to learn Hindi. Their English skills were not recognized.

It was an indirect message from the North saying "Either learn Hindi and compete with Native Hindi speakers to survive, or just perish".

After a long agitation, the central govenment came down choice was given to either take the exams in Hindi or English.

It was again a decision which put all non-native hindi speakers[a telugu, kannadiga, bengali, tamil...] at disadvantage, but the immediate impact was felt only by the Tamils because the way to earn bread is made lot lot tougher suddenly. [It is like saying from 2006 the engineering entrance exams are to be conducted in Latin]. The decision resulted in the biggest ever language struggle in tamilnadu with lots of students killed by police action, and the resultant political change is history.

But, the students of Tamilnadu intelligently chose to slowly move out of the large scale dependency on Central govenment jobs, got their strong english skills even stronge, started finding newer opportunities rather than learning Hindi and competing on a one sided field.

Then came the banking revolution of 70s which came a good opportunity for South Indians to get a employment without the requirement of Hindi. This was followed by the Middle East boom during late 70s and early 80s.

This is when the Central government services went off the radar of a over whelming number of Tamil students, and were safely in the hands of 'Region A' students. And in a sense, learning Hindi became completely optional for a student in Tamil Nadu, that is the student can have an equally good career without learning a word of Hindi as much as he had by gaining Hindi expertise.

By now, the choice for taking the Civil Services in all the national languages were made available, but it did little to divert the attention back.

And now came the IT boom of 90s and 2Ks where the economy and opportunites in Region-C states increased exponentially. The wheels have turned around in 30-40 years. Majority of the native-hindi speakers now had to migrate south for a career. The knowledge of Hindi as a enabler of a decent career in india became insignificant as compared to what was in 60s.

Now, what is happening!!

I have a native hindi speaker, who has come either to Bangalore/Chennai/Hyderabad, to make a living, and cribbing about the natives not having Hindi proficiency, given the fact that 0% effort is made to learn the local language. Along with this, comes for free, the jingoistic advice 'Hindi is our national language', and you will have to learn it.

Consider this situation,
1960s,
we were told "Learn Hindi"
"Why"
"That is the only way you will survive. Learn Hindi and compete in a one sided playing field, or Perish"
We took the threat head on. Worked hard, created opportunities and made those who gave us the option of 'Perish', to come down for a living.

2000s.
we are told "Learn Hindi"
"Why"
"Because it is our official language, you will have to respect... blah blah blah..."
What do you think we will do.??, laugh about it and make a post on it in the blog. :)

to be contd....

ps: I would want to make it clear , I do not have anything against Hindi as a language. Also that, I r/w/t/u fluently in Hindi, as much as i do in Kannada, Malayalam, French or Samskritam, also i had put a rough draft of this post much before the comments of the part 1 of the post was made, so this is not written in a direct response to any of the comments.

Moving On!

2006-01-09T10:57:00.000-06:00

Thanks to Narayanan sir, met Jagan and Robbie yesterday on my way to Chicago.

Yes, I have relocated to Chicago for a short assignment. Still having the effect of the cold welcome i got early in the morning, after living in the pleasant bay area.

Need to get settled at the new place and work!!

"Learning Hindi is a critical need"

2006-01-07T21:42:00.000-06:00

Learning Hindi is a critical need - sez who?

Definitely not me, then who?

The answer is here !!

One Year!!

2006-01-06T00:53:00.000-06:00

I just found out that, it is exactly one year since i put my first post on this blog.
Though, had been a blog hopper for a loooong time before that, started this blog only an year ago and wanted to write travelogues starting with my terrific 2005 new year weekend in wales.

I was neck deep in work all through, along with my salsa classes in the evenings and sight seeing during weekends, the blogging just became yet another new year resolution.

Then in June, it happend. I had to work from home for 7 weeks and my mobility was severely affected. Blog hopping was the only way out, and i had so much time to kill that i even started actively blogging.

It is a nice journey from then on. Made a lot of friends in the blog world. Getting to know of the happenings of fellow blogmates more often than parents back home. That is a sign of being a part of a healthy community.

A Big Thanks!!!

and if you have some time to kill, why dont u just visit my archives starting from July and have a glance of those posts which u wud have missed, lot of my that-came-out-good posts[unlike this one :P] are there :)

Happy Maargazhi 17

2006-01-01T01:40:00.000-06:00

Today's Tiruppavai is 'Ambarame Sore Thanneerae..'
Today's Tiruvempavai is 'SenKaNavan paal, Thisaimugan paal...'

Incidentally today is the first day of the Circa AD 2006 year, and wishing you all a very happy and prosperous year ahead and years to come.

Aandavaa

2005-12-30T14:36:00.000-06:00

Naraynan Venkittu Sir called me on thursday evening and we met for dinner at where-else, Saravana Bhavan.

In the course of the conversation, got reminded that long long ago, i too learnt music for a decade. So thought lemme try my hand[voice].

Please find my maiden audioblog. I donot have a microphone, so sang it on to my mobile phone.[uff. i got a reason to blame for the poor voice.. yuppiee]

find the lyrics here.

Jo and Narayanan sir please forgive :P

India != Hindi

2005-12-29T14:08:00.000-06:00

Though, this post was in my mind for quite some time, after reading Thennavan’s post, I squeezed some time for this.

Gandhiji defined freedom as ‘When a young lady with lot of jewels is safe on the streets late in the night, that is when we have attained complete freedom’.

For me, it is ‘When a Native Hindi speaking person, accepts a non-Hindi native speaker as no-less an Indian than him/her, given the fact that, the non-Hindi person does not know Hindi, and does not want to learn Hindi, that is when we have attained freedom.”

Corollary is, “I do not know Hindi, and I do not want to learn Hindi. In such a case, if a guy from North India, does not come to me and give lectures about lack of my respect to the Indian Union, or lack of patriotism, that is when I have attained freedom.”

India is a country with Unity and Diversity and not Uniformity. Imposition of Hindi, is the root cause for the fading away of the rest of Indian cultures.

One language in the country is given a higher preference than the rest of the languages, and the speakers of that language have an undue advantage than the rest.

All countries with the above situation have broken into Civil wars, Sri Lanka, Unified Pakistan.

In India, this does not happen because, there is no One-on-One, that is Hindi is not pitted against any single language. It is pitted against a group of languages and cultures. This leads to group effect.

A Bengali feels that, we are not the only one at the disadvantage; we have Tamil, Kannadigas, and Telugu speakers. And vice-versa. Thus the impossition of Hindi has gone unchallenged, which would not have been the case if there are only two languages in the Countyy, Hind and XYZ.

The Department of Official Languages site says that, if I need to communicate with the federal government of My country, then I can not do it in My mother tongue, but will have to learn the language of some other part of the country or some other part of the world.

To be precise, for me, on the language front, the only difference between before and after Aug 15. 1947, is that I have been given an option of being a slave of. Now, I can choose my master, either English or Hindi.

I am proud of belonging to India, the sense of Indian is tied deeply in me. I consider myself with no less or no more Indianness than any body from any other part of the Union.
At the same time, I do not approve of Hindi being imposed on me. India IS NOT EQUAL to Hindi. Learning and accepting Hindi is not a pre-requisite for being a true Indian.

Hindi is as alien to me as Arabic or Spanish, and if at all I learn Hindi it should be 100% only out of choice.
Putting it the other way, Hindi is as alien to me as my mother tongue is to a native Hindi speaker.

More to come on this.. over the weekend....

Safety concers back home

2005-12-16T13:35:00.000-06:00

""Bangalore may be growing in IT, but the amout of insecurity is growing faster in all the metros. The criminal political nexus can shake your life top to bottom anytime.[might be for the ancesteral house you own in prime location or whatever..]
This is a huuuugggeee factor in moving out of the 'developed' world to India.""

The above is a part of the comment, i recently left on Thennavan's post.

And this is what i read today in the papers.

It is of high probability that, our kith and kin could have been in place of Prathiba. I put myself in the shoes of her immediate family and it took a long time to get within me. My heartfelt condolences to them.

With the exponentially widening Rural-Urban Rich-Poor gap, unless explicit measures are made to protect every individual, all of us are vulnerable in the increasing aggressive societies of Indian cities.

They have not remained the same as they were 5 or 10 years ago, when most of the NRI left.

That too, after having lived a life with considerable security, in the West, the truth will be very bitter back home with the mafia operating right from the heart of bureacracy, to the realators, down to the cab drivers/domestic helps, every one of us is vulnerable.

Mylapore Tank

2005-12-09T17:44:00.000-06:00

Where is Mylapur Tank!
It is to the west of MountRoad between the Railway tracks and the MountRoad, to be precise, i am referring to the places called T.Nagar, Kodambakkam, Nandanam and call them Mylapur Tank!

Am I Nuts?? No...

This is what i am talking about. Chennai as in early 1900s.

.
Courtesy: Ian Poyntz and Rootsweb.

You would definitely have found out the reason why chennai has been flooded so much in these rains.

Bay Area Bloggers meet

2005-12-04T19:51:00.000-06:00

The week was hectic as it was during the last month, and i had not checked my yahoo mails for 3 days(! full 72 hours).
And on the saturday morning[rather afternoon], pleasantly surprised to find the plans for a BayArea bloggers meet and counted me in.

Had to set an alarm this morning to wake up early [11 am], and jogged the coupla miles to SaravanaBhavan.[seems, this is turning out to be a Bay Area ChennaiDosa, in patronising Bloggers Meets :) ].

It was 2 hours of fun as we discussed everything from tech stuff, to happenings in blog world, to each of our lengths of names ;)

On the whole it was an excellent opportunity to identify with the blogging community.

Please find Sundar's version and photos here.

The Last Word!

2005-11-28T12:07:00.000-06:00

If all the English words in use, are put in alphabetical order, which would bee the last word?

After a really hectic three weeks of work, came the ThanksGiving weekend. I profoundly thank the ThanksGiving, for, it could not have come at a more appropriate time. :)

Drove over to Las Vegas. Chose not to travel on the wednesday evening and sunday evening, and thankfully avoided the hours and hours of traffic jams.

On the way in I-15, was this exit named ZZYXZ. Among all the curiosity it raised, the first one was how to pronouce it.

Please find related information here, and this supposedly is the the last word.! :)

Tied down!!

2005-11-08T15:42:00.000-06:00

The new assignment at San Jose, is taking on me.. full time n big time :(
I chose to commute through public transport[London hangover?!?], than get the car.

The commute is 1 hour each way. That gives me 2 solid hours to get my thought process going and gives me lots of threads to write about. In the same breath, it leaves me with very little time on the computer at home.

So, till i get time to breath, and blog, [which i think shud happen soon], i will just be bloghopping with whatever time available, and an occassional post now and then.

Hmm.. eppadi irundha naan ippadi aayiteen.:(

Capital Punishment

2005-11-01T20:44:00.000-06:00

I have generally found myself on the other side of the majority opinion of the net-enabled people regarding Capital Punishment, POTA, "Moral Policing" and related issues.

This news item about the latest Capital Punishment provided by the Delhi Court on the Red fort attack is something which is worth reading.

The judge has said "this is a case where life imprisonment would be inadequate and ends of justice would be served only by awarding the death sentence". And I believe there are a lot of similar cases. Law is not only to regulate people, but to act as an effective deterent as well. Given that, in India, a 'life imprisonment', is not for 'life' [as in John Grisham's 'The Last Juror'].

In this context, President Dr.Kalam's stance on Capital Punishment has been disclosed recently in news articles like this. But once a capital pushiment is reduced to life, it is 14 years, and in 7 yrs, and the prisoner is released on 'good conduct' for a national leader's birthday.

Effectively a court has granted Capital punishment to a person, and he comes back into the society within 7 years, which for me personally is unacceptable.

Interestingly, also, after abt 2 days after the verdict, still i have not found the 'human rights' activists to flood the media with cribs against the indian judicial system. Ok, since it is diwali, the MSM is on vacation?? Mebbe tomorrow they would be back??

Public - Intelligence! Private - Ignorance?

2005-10-28T20:46:00.000-05:00

I spent seven days in bangalore in October 2005. Those were the top seven tough traffic days i had been through in bangalore, since late 1980s, from when i was a frequent visitor to the Garden City.

For those who just hear abt Bangalore traffic condition, let me give a heads up. When bangalore started growing big in IT during late 90s, an industrial estate was established by the State of Karnataka, called as Electronics City. This place is on the HosurRoad[southeast of bangalore], 17 kms from center of Bangalore and 23 Kms from Hosur[which is in Tamilnadu state].

During early 2000s, leading IT companies, who had offices scattered in rented building all over the city, started buying plots in the ECity, building campuses and moving in. Thus the traffic of the city started flowing in unison towards the ECity. Bangalore started growing towards south and south west. Real estate prices shot up around this area.

The the offshore boom started to grow exponentially. Companies started adding in 10000s per quarter. The real estate business fell into the hands of mafia, with prices rocketing artificially. More grave was the pressure put on the city's infrastructure. Lives of non-IT folks started to become miserable. The cost of living on the whole increased exponentially.

The traffic became highly unmanageable, with every IT firm impregnating the roads with hundreds of buses to ply their employees. The roads were completely blocked with the buses cars two wheelers of the employees. The 12 Km journey from a south bangalore residential colony like B.T.M layout and Koramangala to the Electronics city, which started to be 20 mins in 2000, is now 2.5 hrs.

Earlier there were traffic bottlenecks at the junctions. The administration resorted to building flyovers at some of these places, resulting in traffice reaching the bottle neck faster, thus the whole 12 Km stretch has become a 2.5hr bumper to bumper traffic zone.

The IT firms did
1. Import, hundreds of thousands of people into the city, without proper notice to the civic bodies
2. Resulting in artificial rise in real estate, making lives of non-IT people miserable
3. Putting huge pressure on the Roads and overall Infrastructure
4. Increase in cost of living of the whole city.

The IT firms are now joining hands to blame the government for not providing infrastructure. What will the government do?? Will the government plan for 100,000 professionals, which will quadruple in a years time??. Has the Industry given clear estimates of the needs??

No, i am not siding the government. The indifference it shows is highly condemnable.

What i am trying to convey is that, even an active government would not have been able to satisfy the industry demands and the pressure it puts.

Now, i compare the whole thing to the public enterprises of the early times. Simple example of BHEL in Trichy. When the company was in its peak during 80s, the sum of salary earned by BHEL employees was more than the rest of the city.

The Township had more number of cars than the rest of the city. Had the enterprise just built the huge company and let the pressure of the employees on the Civic bodies, Trichy would have crashed in a day. Thanjavur road in Trichy would have been the Hosur Road of Bangalore. Real estate prices and cost of living would have ensured that, all non bhelites would have to vacate the city.

For that matter, every public sector enterprise[Trichy itself has OFT, HAPP, Railway GoldenRock Workshop, Bangalore has BEL,......] had the vision to build Townships of its own whose benefits were not known[atleast to me], before seeing what the IT sector has done to bangalore.

Is it because the IT managers thought that their responsibilty ends where they pay taxes. Or is it the 'Core Competency' management concept, which drove them away from doing anything other than its core business, or is it sheer indifference and selfishness towards the society??

It is high time that Government proposes, owning a township as a pre requisite to according permission for any enterprise. The Fords, Hyundais, Nokias, and other IT companies will do the same thing to Chennai, what was done to Bangalore.

The govenment has to come up with a directive before approving a project, which asks for
1. the number of employees who are to be employed in the site.
2. What are the plans for the infrastructure needs for the employees?
3. Where does it plan to accomodate them?
4. Is the enterprise looking forward to the government for raising residential colonies?
5. How much is the company going to burden the existing infrastructure?
6. What are its plans to mitigate this?

Only when these questions are put up and satisfactory answers received, should a project be approved.

But i doubt, in the mad rat race to grab investment into a state/city, any government would take this seriously. But unless these are done, a city and its infrastructure will be severly strained.

Kaveri Vellam

2005-10-26T18:58:00.000-05:00

After a long long time, cauvery is in spate, and Trichy is flooded. The last time it happened was in Nov.1977.

There was a time when trichy was flooded in 1994, but it was largely due to rain water and not cauvery. Same was the case in 1999 November, when lakes around trichy had breached and the city was flooded.

But this time, Not only trichy is flooded but so is Kaveri.After a thought, it dawns, that, water has not entered the city, but the city has entered into the river.

Yes, in the 1930s, my maternal grandfather used to bathe in cauvery north bank which is 2 kilometers further north of what it is today.

After the building of KRS and Stanley, the river was made to a trickle. All those lands that were amphibious, that is they are considered as river, during monsoon, and as land during summer, became residential colonies.

All the inundated parts of the city, mainly thillainagar, vayalur road, new nagars around srirangam are specifically classified as such reclaimed areas.

This is not a problem with Trichy alone, it is prevelant in all cities, Chennai, Bangalore, etc etc.. When the cities grow, and the demand for residential colonies are on the rise, the low-lying aspect of the locality is hardly considered for decison making. Not jus low-lying, but also, lying in the way of waterflow is equally bad.

For the sake of clearing up of these encroachments, public support has to be accorded to the municipal authorities. If it is not being provided, then the only way is to ask for the floods to come year after year, to let people know which is what.

Back To Dollar Desam!!

2005-10-24T13:14:00.000-05:00

After a long stint in PoundPradesh, i just had 2 weeks in India, which co incidentally got me to my granny during her last moments.

And saturday 22nd was her Dasasthu, and i flew back on sunday.
Just arrived at SFO, and still jet lagged due to the lousy itinerary, thanx to 1 day notice for this assignment. This is my fourth assignment here in US over the last 5 years.

Sorry, i was not able to visit any blogs over the last two weeks, when i was in india. Need to clear up the arrears doing over time.

And yes, i too have lotsa things to share. :) Keep coming.

My paatti!!

2005-10-18T01:09:00.000-05:00

I had gone to Trichy for a 5 day vacation, after a long time. It was an eventful trip, though I was not able to cover 90% of my to-do list.

The event of the trip is the ShivaLoka prapti of my PitaMahee.
Smt. Lakshmi Ammal, W/O Shri.T.A. Swaminatha Iyer. [Born, Thai Pooradam, Pramadeecha varsham 1914A.D. Died: Purattasi, Shukla Ekadesi, Paarthiva varsham, 2005]

She had to relocate from Perungulam[one in the Navatirupati of tirunelvei], up north[that is how she calls it ] when she got married at the age of 7, to the 15 year old post master of Tiruvanaikovil.

Widowed at the age of 30, with 5 children aged 9,7,5,3,1 [Yes, my granpa was calculative ;)], and absolutely no money, equipped with just the will power and dream to build a generation, her struggle with this world had begun.

The seed she sowed then, has grown big and has reaped nice and tasty fruits, and lots of offshoots. She slept last Thursday midnight having seen her dream accomplished.

As everybody of the earlier generations, she had struggled a lot in the hands of her in-laws and even her un-understanding husband, but that made her stronger and built her will power.

After the diwali night of 1944, when my grandpa left them literally in the streets, she had no option but to struggle. Her only choice was where to struggle. She chose the familiar Tirunelveli town and moved into a small non-brahmin street there. [Yes, this was a revolutionary move she took.] Her brothers were against this, and stopped any help. The reasons, she told me was, one, the then chaps of the agraharams were all big land owners and lazy bones, associating with whom would have a corrupting influence on her children. Second, her brothers would start helping her and use her children as unpaid servants, thereby breaking their self respect. ‘Self respect is what is needed to succeed’ – is what she says.

It was not the best of times to loose a child to Typhoid, but it made her work for lesser number of stomachs. Day and Night, hard labor, continuously for years, first to get both her daughter married, then to get both her sons educated well.

Twenty years later, she moved back to Tiruvanaikovil. By then, all her in laws, wanted her back. She was their only hope.

She told me of her move - ‘from the day I got married to your thatha, TVKovil is my home. Tirunelveli is just a temporary resting place. I want to live in the house, where ur thatha lived, die at the same place as he did, and be cremated at the same ghat as he was.’

After about 61 year, she accomplished what she wanted to, at the same house, in exactly the same place, and at the same kollida karai rudra bhoomi.

She was the proponent of the Samsaram Adhu Minsaaram concept of ‘Nee sowkiyama Naa Sowkiyam’. We stayed within a couple of kilometers distance from her. But she would never come and stay with us unless there is an occasion. We used to visit her almost every alternate day, and she would visit us often. She was 91+ when she died and it was the same story. She lived independently. Having said that, she would never celebrate a festival or pooja alone, she would always join either of her children’s homes.

She is the most respected in our families. Born as the 14th child to a wealthy couple, she even had some of her nieces and nephews elder than her.
For the last 10 years, she was the only survivor of the 14. Thus the descendents of all of them, numbering hundreds looked up to her as their parental figure. All of us heeded what she used to say. The following is what she had to tell as the lessons she learnt from her experience in life.

1. Believe in yourself and only in yourself
2. Do not let down your self respect and self esteem
3. Self control is the key to driving yourself to your goal
4. Sacrifice is the only way to success. You cannot have the cake and eat it too.
5. Do not attach sentiments to life.
6. Labor always bears fruits.
7. He is all powerful.

Now, coming back to the Wednesday, 12th Oct, 2005, I had just landed in Trichy after 6 months [Even then I was on a week vacation only]. I have read lot of blogs saying ‘received a phone call saying ‘paati poitta’’ and she was this, that, yada yada. All through the last 3 years I had been thinking, it would be the same case with me. One fine day I would get a call and would shed some tears and get back to work. It was not to be.

I met her on Thursday noon sharp, in the same hall outside the swami room in our ancestral house in Tiruvanaikovil. She had grown weak since I last met her 6 months before, and was bed ridden for the last one month. It was my privilege to clean her change her clothes, pour my love, kiss her, whisper in her ears, and gently rub the bottom of her feet. She opened here eyes, I saw the same brightness in her eyes which I saw 10 years before. She tried to move her limbs, gave a big smile and went back to sleep. All the neighbors and relatives, who were around were surprised, for she had not smiled this big for last so many days. For me, it was all the same paati.

I then went around meeting my other friends, and suddenly got the call saying that, paati’s breathing has got heavy, and the panting was growing noisy. It was sometime by 9 pm in the evening. My other cousins who work in Trichy had gone out of town for official work, and me who was hundreds of miles away was just sitting near her. Gave her some milk and made her sit with support from my shoulder. The panting had then reduced maybe due to change of posture. So I let her sleep and made sure I too slept there. I about an hour, I could hear the panting slow down. Took her head on my lap started reciting bhagawan nama. And within 5 minutes, it was all over. The pulse had died down, the breathing had stopped. An era had come to an end.!!

She is the seed from where a new generation took life, and her life is a text book lesson for the art of living.

Shambo Mahadeva!!

Saraswathi Namasthubhyam!!

2005-10-11T06:34:00.000-05:00

Today is Saraswathi poojai!!

The last 3 days of Navaratri are dedicated to worshipping Saraswati. Saraswati is worshipped chiefly at Koothanur in the Intgrated Thanjavoor district.

Akilandeshwari of Tiruvanaikovil is believed to have taken the saraswati swaroopam and spit her beetle leaves into the mouth of the lazy idler, who then became the pun-man kaalamegappulavar. Worshiping Saraswati at Tiruvanaikovil is considered to be very auspicous.

Uttamarkovil near trichy has Brahma and Saraswati sannidhis.
Sharadha devi of Sringeri, is the saraswati swaroopam, revered by Adishankaracharya himself.

And, i have landed back in Bangalore, and heading to Trichy for the Vijayadasamai. Really looking forward to bask in the beningn grace of the Best-Place-On-Earth.

Dussera wishes to one and all, and prayers for removing the darkness of ignorance.

Saraswati namasthubyam varade kamaroopini
vidyarambam karishyami, sidhir bhavathume sadha!

Yaa kundendushara haaradhavala,
Yaa shubra vasthra vratha,
yaa veena varadhanda mandhitha kara,
yaa shwetha padmasana,
yaa brahma achutha shankara prabrithibir sadha poojitha,
saa maampathu saraswati bhagawathe nissesha jadya paha!!

Shocking!!!

2005-10-07T10:19:00.000-05:00

This is not the kind of blog anybody would like to read, about a city where you are going to land in the early hours of day after tomorrow.

Shocking indeed!!

Meanwhile continue believing me here.

Believe Me!!

2005-10-06T09:00:00.000-05:00

Yes, please believe me.

1. For a change, i got really busy with work for whole of the week. Couldnt spend usual time in blogs.

2. Had lots of ideas and thoughts regarding a host of things starting from Moral policing to Navaratri, but cudnt find time to put them on the post.

3. And I met Unnal Mudiyum Thambi Kamalhassan.

The idea to meet him was there for long, mainly for boasting among the UMTK Rasigar Mandaram that, I met thalaivar. Unfortunately i couldnt make it to the UKB Maanadu over the aug long weekend.

In such a context, there was this open invitation for a meal in Chennai Dosa over the weekend. 'Aaha Sokka Sokka, aayirom porkaasu, enakke kidakkanum enakke kidaikkanum'. Went to the comments section of the post and filled up the application well on saturday morning itself.

Then kept on refreshing the comments section every 5-10 till late night and till evening of sunday :(. 'Sokka, Enakkilla Enakkilla'!!

Then came the blessing on monday morning. Later came to know that Sokkar was busy over his car MOT over the weekend, and could relax and find time only on monday morning. :P

And as you have belived in point 1, i got busy since monday morning, and was able to check the response only on tuesday morning. Immediately got in touch with Captain and got the co ordinates of UMTK and called him.

The Meeting was fixed on wednesday 5th October evening. Dint have lunch, so that i donot mistakingly insult the host by taking less food :D. And then came this nasty 'aapees velai'[based on belief 1], scheduled at 17.30 BST. X-(

As I was already fasting over the afternoon, talked with UMTK and then pushed the aapes conf call to 19.30 hrs, and planned to meet from 18.00 to 19.25 hrs. ;)

Though i have just written 'talked with UMTK', the talk itself was abt half an hour. First thing was where to meet. It was driven by the following constraints.
* I had so less balance on my mobile that, i cannot even give a missed call.
* Secondly, when u get into london underground mobile signals die out. While in the tube you are being transported to pre-mobile eras as well ;), along with ur destination.
* UMTK has seen me in fotos, i have seen him only in the UKB maanadu longshot photos.

Central Line ticket gates, Meeting point, Big train timing board, and after a looong discussion, it was decided to meet at platform 16 in the station, at 17.55 hrs.

Then it happend!!! There was this imposing personality walking towards me, with ilayaraja rerecoding. After a hand shake it was like ppl known for ages meeting. Ice breaking?? what?? There was no ice to break first of all.

We were then, wondering where to go, thinking abt some desi restaurants around. Here to go, there to go, where to go? wherever it may be, first we had to go to the cash machine, coz dubukku was running short of cash ;) [Believe me no.4, i offered to pay for the meet, samudrathula poi argyam vidradhu illaya andha maadhiri :P, apporam thalai irukkumbodhu vaal aada koodadhunu adangitein ;)].

Then decided to go to McD, the closest available place. Got the only available thing on the menu, and sat on the tables outside. That is where we started the arattai. Again the 'world is small' concept was reiterated. Among all other things that were discussed, important was the tips and a story from him, for Dubukku has set a good precedence in what i am upto :P.

It was so very interesting, taking us through one and a half hours like a minute. and it was time for me to run for work again.

And again i am running for a meeting, and this is what dubukku has to say. :) ensai.

I will be out of blog action over the weekend as well. Will catch it back on Monday.

Netherlands - Part 3

2005-09-30T12:13:00.000-05:00

Continuing from Part1 and Part 2.

After a tiring first two days, the third day started a bit late, as expected. The first thing on the list was the Anne Frank Huis. This is the Huis, or House where Franks were hiding for about 2 years against the Nazi persecution.

I have read Anne Frank’s Diary before, so it was very much possible to associate her favourite tree or the scribbling on the wall to what she would have felt. It is definitely a place to go, to feel how cruel human mind can grow and what fear can do..

It was abt noon and we had abt 7 hrs left for the end of the trip. The options available to spend were to walk around the city again or go to any of the art museums. While we were trying to arrive at a consensus among the 12 member army, another idea of going to a rural side and visiting a wind mill came up and most of us agreed on that. [mebbe due to lack of options, since none of us were big Kalai Aarvalars.].

We took the train to Zaanse Schans. As per the ZS page, The Zaanse Schans is a delightful old hamlet on the banks of the river Zaan with characteristic green wooden houses, charming styalised gardens, small hump-backed bridges, tradesmen's workshops, historic windmills and engaging little shops. This enchanting hamlet gives an excellent impression of how a typical Zaanse village must have looked like in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Apart from the cluster of windmills and houses there are also several museums, restaurants and a visitors' centre to be found as well as the possibility of taking a boat trip on the river. The Zaanse Schans has become one of the top tourist destinations in the Netherlands.

Find an excellent view of ZS.

We then moved on to the DeKat Windmill.

The mill is huge. Two stone of 3 Tonnes, like our Thaer Chakkaram are constantly rotating on a stone base. This set up is used to crush the clay and lime required to make paints and pigments.

This is powered by the Wind. The transmission of energy is full by wooden shafts and gears. They are located in different floors of the mill.

The ground floor consists of the Rolling Stones.

The next floor is for the Gears,

The second is for the Shaft. The third is again for gears.

When you come out of the first floor, the huge fans gush around with enormous speed. It appears as though it is rotating slowly and feebly. But the experience when they pass very close to the ears is highly blood freezing.

That is really something which needs to be experienced.

Nearby was a Cheese making factory, producing the famous Holland Cheese in its ancient way. This factory is just a minute walk from the windmills. Both these are surrounded by lush green fields. It was an excellent rural place to stay and enjoy.

But we just had few hours more in that excellent country. Just took a train to amsterdam. Again did some shopping for souvenirs and took the bus/ferry back to London.

Cheers!!

2005-09-27T06:23:00.000-05:00

Just got the 10000th Hit last night!!
I put the counter on July 4th this year and in abt 85 days, and 47 post, the 10000 mark is reached!!
Didnt have the count of it at all. Juz casually went to check if BlogPatrol, which was giving problems last week has got okay, and found this!!

Though the number doesnt mean anything, all your comments mean a lot!!
Cheers maite :)

Also, happend to move from the 21st floor window where i was there for more than an year, to un interesting second floor center table at work.. :( Will have to copy past the blogs into a text pad or word doc and read ;) for most of the time, or have the browser minimized to the size of a popup.

Coutrallam Part 2

2005-09-24T17:44:00.000-05:00

Continuing from here,even though the coutrallam season is over and even purattasi is almost half way through.

The description and the trivia of the falls are best when it is from the local folks. Krishna, waiting to hear from the horse’s mouth.

Now, let us continue from the halwa shop towards the Main falls. The sannadhi veedhi is lined on both the sides by seasonal shops selling everything from hair bands to jaadikai oorugai and masala to freshly made banana chips. The banana chips making process needs to be described. The chips master picks up about ten peeled raw bananas and puts it in the hand slicer and slices it into a huge pan of boiling coconut oil. Once he has started, he keeps moving the peeler higher and farther from the pan, to a level where it is an artistic skill. The angle in which the slicer is held, and the pressure on the bananas are so accurate that, the slices fly from abt 5 feet distance into the pan forming a nice trajectory. :)

Further towards the falls, on the left is a small pillayar in an arasa marathadi. He is truly in a Maniratnam like surrounding, with the shrill of the falls encompassing him. After a hello to him, and proceeding further, is when the first view of the falls opens widely. The cataract reveals so beautifully with a rhythm that kick starts fresh blood into the arteries.
A nice gingili oil massage to the head is imperative before trying the waters. The smell of freshly ground oil, hmm.. I love it.!!

Then it is time to bid bye to our women folks as they tread towards their side of the falls, which is on the other bank of the stream. Invariably the side of the falls where water force is lesser is made the women’s section, amidst lots of cries of foul play from them. :)

If it happens to be a weekend, there is a queue for entering the falls. The queue takes from 5 mins to even 30 mins. The closer you go, the more exciting it becomes. At the first drizzle of water kissing the body, a shiver is sent through the spine. The chillness is scary, initially. Just over come this and walk into the falls, and that is where words and adjectives stop.

In crowded days, there might be some pushing and pulling on the periphery of the water flow, mostly by the hydro starved chennaites who would take a mug and bathe with it in Coutrallam. Manage to penetrate and move in, and its you you you and only you, along with some other seasoned folks who enjoy just standing, without the push pull, shouting that happens on the periphery.

Stand there, facing the Vimanam of Kutraleeswarar a.k.a. Tirukutralanathar. Recite Sivapuranam, Rudram, Chamakarm, Purushasooktham, Shiva manasa stotram, shiva panchakshara stotram, lingasthakam, bilvashtakam, all while being pounded by gallons and gallons of water at incredible speed. Liberation Happens!!. The experience is heavenly.

Walk out of the waters, when contentment is attained. No police man or crowd controller will bother to hurry us up, as long as we move into the waters, and not do Kaka kuliyal, where the crowd is! All the oil applied on the head is gone!! Not even a drop of shampoo or seeyakkai podi.

After floating out, 2 things need to be done, first is to check the money that was secured in 10 Padma Coffee plastic bags, pinned to the inside of the shorts or tied to the veshti is intact, and second is to maintain a safe distance from all those folks moving towards the falls, else there is a high probability that we would again end up with oil all over the body.

The waters from the falls are supposed to be herbal nature, since they run through the herb rich podigai malai, and do not cause cold or other general complaints that arise due to prolonged indulgence in water.

No changing of dress or anything, jus keep walking with the wet clothes on! Even otherwise it is bound to get wet, because of the constant drizzle [malai chaaral]. Head straight towards the restaurant, for what would be an excellent meal.

One the way, hot hot molagai bajji and masala vadai, from the nadar kadai server as the much needed starters, in the chilly weather.The limited vegetarian meal served at the xyz Vilas Brahmanaall hotel, is really tasty and will be doubled by the appetite generated by the Falls bath. It is again time for dessert, the Velu kadai tirunelveli halwa. Go to the hotel room, change to dry dresses and fall sleep for the afternoon.[The only place where I sleep in afternoons is coutrallam, couldn’t control that mate :P]

The evening starts with visit to the Shree VenuVaakVaadhini sametha Shree Kutralanatha Swamy darshan. VVV is known as Kuzhal Vaai Mozhi amman in Tamil. The temple is of the nayakar architecture and has an excellent ambience. Lots of small stories involved with the temple.

FYI, during the floods in early 90s, whole of coutrallam was devastated, the temple was in 10 feet water. The boulders rolling over had destroyed the falls.

The temple trip is followed by another round of bathing-eating-sleeping cycle, with the addition of hot Masala milk for the night. :)

This routine is repeated for the next 2 days with the name of the falls are find-and-replace by Five Falls, Old Falls, Sitraruvi, Pazha thotta aruvi etc…

Visiting Coutrallam is one, which I would recommend people to have it in the plan-to-do-before-I-die list.

Dharmo Rakhshati Rakshitaha!!

2005-09-20T08:01:00.000-05:00

"Dharma protects those who protect it"

In the latest 7 tag spree, it was heartening to note, that a lot of people put in '7 things you plan to do before you die' as 'Starting Vedic school', 'donating money to vedic cause', 'contributing to veda patashalas', 'learning bhakti composition', 'spread the vedantam philosophy' and similiar sounding phrases.

The Dharma in based on Vedams, and protecting Vedams is what is meant by protecting the Dharma.

Very unfortunately, the current political set up in India, doesnot recognize the Dharmam and the Vedam. Hence protecting them and inturn getting protect has fallen into the responsibility of the Private.

I have argued with lot of my friends on the priority of Dharam Raksha, over the needs of a general welfare state, for a lot of reasons like this, and more.

A friend of mine had forwarded a request for a Tamil Vadhiyar, and asked joked abt me taking up that profession. The following is my reply to her.

*************************
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: Need reference to a tamil brahmin priest
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2004 09:55:52 -0000
From: Swaminathan T J
To:

Super! definitely.
That is the service which would give me atmost satisfaction.

I donot need any money or remuneration, but I want people there to appreciate and value what they are doing.
There is not point if the function they have at home is just for the sake of the ritual :(

---------
Brahmans protect and preserve the Vedas and Culture, The Vedas are belived to protect the Whole of the society, and the society in turn protects and takes care of the needs of the brahmans.

Rest of Society ----> Brahmins ---> Vedas
------<---------<--------------<----
With increase in atheism, and loss of values, the society's belief that, the vedas will protect them is gone.[this is what is called as Kali kaalam].

So, once this belief is gone, they no more protect the brahmans, who incidentally are directed by their Dharma, not to have any thing for the personal desires and are supposed to be thinking ONLY of the society.

This loss of belief transltes into Brahmin taking care of his ownself.[like what I am doing today, the society is not taking care of me, so I need to work and earn and live for myself]. In such a situation, the Brahmin is growing selfish, and he no longer confirms to what has been said as his way of life. So he no longer devotes time to protect the largest knowledge trove the Vedas.

This results in the most painful course, of loosing the vedas, since the protector of vedas, the brahmin, is busy feeding himself. But there are some brahmins left in the world, who still have, protecting vedas as their foremost duty, ahead of feeding themselves[or feeding themselves using vedas, sometimes]. They are great people and mahathmas. Selfless, Made of sacrifice and powerful.

Thus the above cycle becomes

Brahmins[like me] &
the Dharama accepting-->Real Brahmins[who protect vedas]-->Vedas
Non-Brahmin minority.
--------------<-------------------------------<---------------------------------- I always want to be tending to the real brahmin [selfless, not cared even about the next meal, leading the simplest way of life, no desires, no wants, just thinking about the good of the world, peace for everybody around]. But I cannot be the perfect brahmin because of social compulsions, and so I am bent on encouraging every individual who would want to be the real brahmin. All the above derivations, are built on the one and only conviction that the vedic form of life is the best way, and the vedas are the ultimate knowledge resource for self realization in this world. I will try and write to you on how I got convinced on the above truth and will pass on the convictions to u, sometime later.
-------------------------
*************************

UK Desiya Murpokku Blogger Kazhaga[DMBK] SeyarKuzhu koottam.

2005-09-18T12:39:00.000-05:00

After the earlier UK bloggers maanadu[conference], the seyarkuzhu[working commitee] of the UK bloggers met under Captain with the able guidance of UK Hrithik Dr. Ayya along with yours truly.[right right..]. Yes i had the privilege to be in the meeting between Captain and Dr.Ayya.

Me joined Dr.Ayya, at preston road, and ran through his precious collection of fotos videos. They include his A,N and the photos where Dr.Ayya and his Asin are together. [indha kalyana foto album la ellam vidha vidhama iruppangale andha madhiri :P]. And the countless episodes of Sapthaswarangal recorded where one of his darlings were singing :).

After the hectic KT session, we set foot towards Chesham, in Zone D, the outermost in the london underground zones. Chesham, Chiltern hills, which by itself is like a proper holiday resorting place, and our Captain has set the headquarters there.
Reached there on dot 15.33 BST, as planned. Captain was full of praise for the punctuality displayed by his fellow cadres. Reached the headquarters took the delicious Chakra Tea, and sat for the discussion at abt 16.00 hrs. The marathon session continued till 20:00 hrs, when Dr.Ayya intervened and proposed a dinner break.
You wont believe, we dint move from the locations for 4 hrs, no water, no bathroom breaks. [even though we dint have to send a note and ask permission from our secretary of state.]

All podhu vaazhkai topics, and arasiyal were alasifiyed.[Highly classified information] Did a perani on the high street of chesham and back to the headquarters to finalize resolutions on the dinner table.
We had to finally leave by abt 11.00pm taking the last train, me needing to travel to the zone 4 in east from zone d in north west.. taking me abt 2.5 hrs.. uff.. and the loong day came to an end and it was an evening to relish.

Dr.Ayya was also taking lotsa fotos, asking people to pose and pose and pose, and took a lot of fotos of himself as well. They are available here, but Dr.Ayya has censored most of his photos, in an effort to spare the jealousy of guys.
Ensai..

PonOnaShamshagal

2005-09-15T06:11:00.000-05:00

Today is Onam, also Vamana Jayanthi.
Let us remember the humility of Mahabalichakravarthy, and his devotion to MahaVishnu, like Prahaladha, his grandfather.

Vamana Avathara is probably the shortest of the avatharas, [both in physical and in the duration terms.]

Brahmachari Vamana is supposed to have done the Samithadhanam before going to Mahabalichakravarthy's yagnya. It is because of the samithadhanam that he got what he is entitled to even when sukracharya tried to prevent it.

Samithadhanam reads,
'Yomagne bhaginaghum santham
Atha bhagam chikeerishathu
abhagham agne thamkuru,
mam agne bhaginam kuru, swaha'
Which means,

Hey Agni, when somebody tries to snatch away, what i am rightfully entitled to, [based on my karma], please deny the snatchers, and get me what i am entitled to.

Let me put a seperate post on samithadhanam, which i had been doing twice a day daily for 13 years, sometime later.

Onam is known for the pookkolam, the onakkodi [new dress], and ofcourse the multi course feast, OnaSadhya. Enjoy it in webindia.

Wishing you a happy onam, and a prosperous year ahead.

Straight from Trafalgar Square!

2005-09-13T11:24:00.000-05:00

Took an hour off during lunch and caught all the action along Strand and in the Trafalgar square!
The Barmy army in full strength singing Jerusalem and Rule Britannia and God Save the Queen.

A great experience indeed!

From behind the stage. [click on the foto and find the sea of heads..]

From the crowd.

AshYESSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2005-09-12T11:29:00.000-05:00

On 25th of July i had put up this Post. Little did anybody had in the wildest of dreams that exactly 7 weeks later, the English will have the Ashes.

I had earlier said "all of us were expecting a nail-biting Ashes. After all, monopolies have been destroyed this year from Schumi to Arsenal/ManU, with the exception of Federer. We thot it is Australia’s turn. That too after their initial losses in the series, infact once to Bangladesh, it appeared obvious that the time has come for the wheel to rotate."
And Yes, indeed the wheels have turned and today both the things i said have gone correct, one being the raise of new kings, and the other is the exception of Federer from this trend. :)

McGrath said before the tour that, he expects a 3-0 or 4-0 and not a white wash, coz he expected rains to play havoc in one or two matches. And the rains did spoil two of them. But on the contrary, the rain seemed to have saved the Oz from a 4-1 loss.

Flintoff and Pieterson have done brilliantly in the series. Sure chaps for the future. I would definitely consider the Poms a lot before putting my money for the 2007 world cup champs.

While i am writing this, the match is not yet over, and we have abt 20 overs left in the day. Let me pack my day now and slip in to the sports pub and party. Tomorrow, there is a huge celebration planned in trafalgar square. FYI, the square was booked last week itself, anticipting the victory.

Uff.. atlast cricket has also got its monotony broken. No, neither i am a terrific English Cricket fan, nor an Aussie cricket trasher, just a fan of Cricket. And this test series result is definite incentive towards healthy competition.

Video on Kanchi case

2005-09-10T06:54:00.000-05:00

I happend to get a forward, which contained the speech of Dr.Subramaniam Swamy, made in New Jersey on July 23rd, 2005.

It gives a stronger defence case.
Some parts might sound strange, but as he says, Truth is Stranger than Fiction.

Listen to the following and fyi, i donot have any political affiliations :)

Part 1 - Dr. Subramanian Swamy deals in the First Part as to how the case was foisted on the Kanchi Acharyas and Kanchi Mutt

Part 2 - Dr. Subramanian Swamy deals in the Second Part as to why this was foisted on the Swamijis and who are all behind the conspiracy

Part 3 - Dr. Subramanian Swamy deals in the third part as to how this present issue can be solved and how any future occurrence of this sort can be prevented

UnTagging myself

2005-09-08T09:54:00.000-05:00

ufff. managed to complete it, after being tagged by Vatsan and Arjuna.

Though it is tiring, it is one nice way to get to know of fellow bloggers.

Seven things you plan to do before you die:

1. Gain proficiency in Samskritam
2. Gather enough cases to proove 'Sacrifice and Self Control are the keys to success.'
3. Study the history of human civilizations
4. Tour around every possible landscape on earth
5. Set up a vedic and sanskrit school
6. Start counting properly

Seven things you can do:

1. Listen to any music
2. kill time before the computer
3. convince with objectivity
4. Enjoy healthy fun
5. Excercise restraint and stick to decisions
6. Early to Rise and Early to Bed
7. Tag 7 more bloggers

Seven things you say most
1. Narayana! Namashivayaa!!
2. Pozhachu kidandha
3. ogay ogay
4. ENIS [E Nalla irundha sari, where E in {edho, epdioyo, engayo, ennavo..}]
5. Arasiyalla...['idhellam sagajamappa' is understood]
6. aha. kilambitanyaa kilambittan
7. 4000 much [The numerical value changes based on how awesome the object is]

Seven things you can't do
1. Cook
2. Watch TV serials
3. Keep the ear plug out when the mosque nearby cries.
4. eat pasta
5. let my team mates know that i have a mobile.
6. not visit a temple atleast once a week.
7. Complete another Tag

Seven things that attract you to the opposite sex !!!
1. Smile
2. NAK
3. Aathu baashai
4. Taste for Carnatic music
5. Appreciating bharathiyar/Kural/bhakti movement compositions
6. Chella thoppai
7. ditching the 'cho chweeet' baashai

Celebrity crushes
1. Julia Roberts
2. Kate winslet
3. Harini
4. Gabriella Sabatini
5. Tabu
6. Roshini [Guna]
7. Samyukta Varma

I Tag
1. Vinod
2. Vinayak
3. Kasturi
4. Priya
5. Ramya
6. Siddharth
7. Lavanya

MahaGanesha! Mangala Moorthae!!

2005-09-07T06:26:00.000-05:00

Mangala Vinayakar, aka Uchipillayar, the Hero of Trichy. Happy Birthday Darling!!

The following are the 12 Pillayars in the Tiruchirappalli kshetram.

1. Uchipillayar at the top of the rockfort,
2. Sevvandhi vinayakar at Kalyaana Maathrubootheshwara sannidhi,
3. Manicka vinayakar at Malaivasal
4. Vazhaipazha pillayar at SouthWest corner of the Giri pradakshinam
5. Nandikoil vinayakar at Mid of the Southern pradakshinam [nandikoil street]
6. Arasamara pillayar at North West corner [andar veedhi mukku]
7. Bhajanai pillayar aka pandian pillai sandhu mukku pillayar at West quarter of Andar street [North pradakshinam]
8. Ratna pillayar aka Ezhai pillayar aka Pandadimal sandhu mukku pillayar at the mid of andar street
9. Sidhi vinayakar aka ration kadai pillayar at East quarter of andar street
10. Kezha veedhi pillayar at East and North Andarstree junction
11. Sarukku parai pillyar at mid of East Andar street
12. Karupanna sami koil pillayar at Juction of East Andar street and South pradakshinam[chinna kadai theru]

It is customary to have darshan of 108 pillayars on this day. Thanks to eprarthana, have the darshan here.

The following are the ganapathi stotrams which i chant daily in the morning immediately after waking up.

*********************
Gajananam Bhootha Ganadhi sevitham
Kavitha jamboo palasara bakshitham
Umasutham shoka vinayasha karanam
Namami vigneshwara pada pankajam

Mooshika vahana modhaka hastha
Shyamala karna vilambitha soothra
Vaamana roopa maheshwara putra
vigna vinayaka pada namasthe

Agajanana padmarkam gajananam akarnisham
aneka dantham bhaktanam eka dantam upasmahe

Vakra thunda mahakaya suryakoti samaprabha
nirvigram kurme deva sarva karyashu sarvatha

shuklam baratharam vishnum
shashi varnam chatur bhujam
prasanna vadanam dhyayet
sarva vigna upashanthaye

Aindhu karathanai aanai mugaththanai
indhi ilampirai polum aeyitranai
nandi magandanai nyana kozhndhinai
pundhiyil vaithu adi potrugindrome

paalum theli thenum paagum paruppum
ivai naangum kalandhunakku naan tharuvein
kolam sei thunga karimugathu thoomaniye
nee enakku sangathamizh moondrum thaa

Theeyiyum veyyon punalinum thaniyon
aayinum eesan arul arivar illai
seyinum nallon aniya nall anbarkku
thayinum nallon thazh sadayone

Thiruvaarkkum sei karumam kai koottum - senjol
peruvarkkum peedum perukkum uruvakkum adhalal
vaanorum aanai mugathonai kaadhalal
kooppuvar tham kai.
************************************
Prayers to Mahaganapathi as he showers his blessings on all of us.

Netherlands - Part 2

2005-09-06T10:03:00.000-05:00

The Second day’s plan was a package tour across Holland. Now what is the difference between Holland and TheNetherlands? [I asked this to the tour guide], since lot of websites say they are as related as England and Britain. The tour guide told, Holland is now being used as a colloquial name not only for the two provinces but to the whole of the Kingdom.

The tour started by abt 10.00 am from Central Amsterdam. Thankfully, the group was just English speaking and Spanish speaking, so we happened to hear the commentaries only twice.
As we moved out of the city limits, the flat, green, country side was more than welcoming. The odd windmill on the way, the bicycle track running alongside, all were typical of Holland.

Our plan was to drop in at Aalsmeer Flower Auction to visit the world’s largest flower auction. But since it was a Sunday we just had to pass through the looooong glass houses of the auction centre. This place is just bordering the Schipol airport and hence it is possible to ensure that, the flower auctioned today reaches the end customer anywhere in the world within 24 hours!! The Tulip gardens could be visited only from March to June, so we had visited off season, no ‘oh! Sukkumari oh Sukkumari’. :(

A visit to the Wooden Shoe factory was next. Since I had not heard about that, I thought it would be something like the Paadarakshai worn by the swamijis of our land. On visiting, I found these were not just footwear, but Shoes.

I wanted to try one, but dint want to risk my feet, recovering from metatarsal multiple fracture, into the rigid shoe. The chap there produced a shoe in less than 3 minutes. It is just the key cutting technology, A golden source is replicated to mass carve the wood into shoes. These are still widely used in rural Holland, to protect the feet against ever-damp soil. But most of the produce nowadays go in for souvenir markets. The below is a picture of the shoe factory and all the wooden shoes

It was again time for urban landscape. We had a in-coach drive through Rotterdam. This city had the largest port in the world, till 6 months back, before Shanghai’s new port over took it. With a nice skyline and aesthetic architecture, the city reflects a typical 20th century creation, except the couple of buildings which stood the blitz.

The next destination - the city of Delft. This place is famous for Delftware, or hand painted porcelain ware, and the ancient churches. Peacock is one of the two factories producing these. The demo of end to end process was interesting. The demonstrator said “This art was brought to Holland from China by the Merchants. This is just one of the two factories producing original hand painted Delftware. There might be a lot of Chinese duplicates in the souvenir shops. Please check the trade mark and buy.” Nice completion of a cycle!!

It was time for lunch and it was time to taste the best Dutch Pan Cakes. I had a pan cake, topped with pineapples, ice cream, honey and …. :)

Again travelling through the Country side, we reached The Hague. [The Political capital of The Netherlands]. Lovely city with an ancient and modern mix. The International Court of Justice is the UN wing for international dispute resolution. This lost the respect after USA withdrew recognition after ICJ delivered a judgement against the US. The following are the International Court of Justice and the World Peace Flame lit outside that.

The Hague has a nice long beach. It was sunny and we had some fun there. The next stop was Madurodam. This is the miniature Holland, reduced by 25 times. All the other spots of Holland, like the Delta Works, Schipol airport were all available here for view.

Schipol Airport at Madurodam

Hans of Holland at Madurodam

It was evening by then, and we returned to Amsterdam. Took a canal cruise through the highly networked canals of the city. Again walks through central Amsterdam, dinner at a Desi restaurant, before hitting the bed.

To be contd….[The concluding part will have the visits to Anne Frank house, exploring the country side on our own, visits to working Windmill and Dutch cheese factory.]

Netherlands - Part 1

2005-09-03T16:44:00.000-05:00

Had a bit of slogging to do at office. Hence couldn’t put this post earlier. Even now, just managed to squeeze some time for this, to have it in the web before the American long weekend stories hit the stands. ;)

I never thought that a holiday visit with a gang of 12 desi friends would stir so much of thoughts within.

Netherlands, I know is a unique country with
1. Prostitution legally allowed
2. Brown café selling weeds legally
3. A flat Pan Cake country [lowest is -7m below mean sea level, highest is 380m above mean sea level].
4. 42% of the country is below sea level and is protected by dykes and dams build across the sea.
5. 20% of the total land area is reclaimed from sea.

Little did I know that, I will end up travelling through the country side visiting 4 cities in 3 days, getting enough time in between to think on what I had seen.

Since this was an off the fly trip, flights were either fully booked or very costly. The choice was either to cross the North Sea or the English Channel. While we were deciding, the North Sea route also got fully booked. The only option was to take the Coach-Ferry-Coach through France and Belgium into Netherlands.

On reaching there, and after checking in and refreshing, I had been to the tourist info centre to look out for and book for package deals. There was a queue and it took me abt 30 mins. As I came out, my pals had already started their Amsterdam tour. Yes, some of them went to the café and initiated themselves into the grass root level. [and later some of them got sick, felt blown out and headed for the hostel in the afternoon. that is a different story in itself. ]

After some roaming around in the central parts of the city, it was time for lunch.
There are a lot of Indonesian cuisines, as a mark of the Dutch East India company’s exploits. As it happens always with a large group, we had to split into smaller sub groups based on preferences. I belonged to the one which just had Margaritta pizza.

The plan for the afternoon was just to roam around the city following the various Amsterdam Walks and to visit the Heineken brewery. Got to know the ins and outs of the Brewing process, and was offered a complimentary coupon for 3 pints, which I exchanged for cola, and a souvenir beer glass.

Next stop was the hyped Sex Museum. This did not turn out to be interesting for me. Just ran through it fast and came out asap.

While waiting on the streets I found the lamp posts modeled to show ‘XXX’. Fyi, the flag of Amsterdam has them.

This foto has the following identities of Amsterdam
1. The XXX lamp post
2. Distinct bicycle lane
3. The tram line
4. The indonesian connection. [The man in the bicycle]
5. The teasers bar, famous for it body shot.

It was time for the sunset and the default pilgrimage to the world famous Red Light district began. Though I had read about this place earlier, it was a huge shock for me initially, with all the scantily clad women peeping out of the red lighted door sized glass windows lining the streets. I was initially very uncomfortable and developed a pitiable reaction to them. But in sometime, I happened to understand the professionalism there.

I could see tourists, families, with children, even desi families with children strolling in the core of the district!. As I read somewhere, the two questions raised by somebody before visiting the place is, 'Is it Safe? Will it be a shock?' and the answer for both are a 'Yes'.

It was just business, as much as an accountants office. I happened to come across this article which has approached the business academically. The following lines from that seemed to be very true.

In Amsterdam, the commodification of bodies has been perfected
to the level of an art form. The red-light district resembles the
modern open-air shopping mall in the United States. Relatively
clean streets, little crime, a neon atmosphere, and windows and
windows of women to choose from--every size, shape, and color
(though not in equal amounts).

As one half of the gang decided to watch a live show, the other half of us found our way to a Thai restaurant and then to the hostel to retire after the long day.

To be Contd...

Continuing on Rainbows ;)

2005-08-30T10:23:00.000-05:00

I had been to The Netherlands over the long weekend and had a whale of a time. We were a group of 12 chaps on the Invasion of Holland Mission ;). Explored the country side as well as the urban areas of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Delft. Was not able to access the internet [hence netheir could blog nor bloghop], got voluntarily cut off from the world [didnt even care abt the Ashes score.]. Let me put a seperate post for that.

Now, I found the comment from Sundaresan in my earlier post, pointing to details on double rainbows. On going through this, i found the 'half circle' rainbow.

And voila, i have seen a perfect semi circle rainbow[horizon to horizon], and that too standing right under the Eiffel Tower. :)

Hmm.. this rainbow shooting seems to be a very nice hobby, but very much dependent on the climate.

Enjoy them! Sorry i couldnt capture the whole half circle, so have taken it in two quarter circles. [Photos taken on The Maundy Thursday evening, 2005]

The eastern side of the tower

The southern side of the tower

Double Rainbows

2005-08-26T05:14:00.000-05:00

Yesterday when it had just rained, i spotted a nice double rainbow from my 21st floor window, one end at Canaraywharf and the other over the Tower bridge.
Very unfortunately i dint carry my camera then. [Sorry i dont have the mobile camera as well].
But i had earlier caputured a couple of double rainbows. Enjoy them.

This one taken on 2004 Gandhi Jayanthi. I was at the Greenwich Royal Observatory, standing exactly over the 0 degree longitude facing north. The millennium dome and Thames are visible.

This foto taken on 17-Jul-2004 is very related to my earlier post. This was taken from the Tenkasi-kutralam town bus. In Kutralam, rainbows are like mottai thalai in tirupathi. Double rainbows tend to disappear very fast. Unfortunately, i was in a moving bus. By the time i took the camera from my bag, the rainbow faded and the bus took a turn to come into a nasty angle :(. If you can locate a broad thin spectrum to the left of the tree touching the bund, you have a good eye sight :)

குற்றாலம் - Kutraalam – Courtallam – Coutrallam

2005-08-22T13:37:00.000-05:00

The above names bring with them, freshness, energy, fun, spirituality, adventure and lots and lots of exciting meanings! One will have to land there to experience what it means.

Aani-Aadi [Jun 15 – Aug 15] is the peak season in Kutraalam, a foot hill spot in south Tamil Nadu known for its natural water falls.

For 16 years, I was a regular for the season. This year an excellent season has just come to an end and I have missed it, for the first time.

Kutralam is the foot hills of the podhigai mountains [an easterly extension of western ghats]. It, is abt 5 km from Tenkasi and Shencottah railway stations in Tirunelveli district of Tamilnadu. It is also very well connected with the rest of the state and bordering towns in Kerala.

MainFalls photo courtesy TamilnaduTourism

The very name of that place is enough to take people through the nostalgic expressway.
While travelling towards K, we can start feeling the temperature reducing, the breeze strengthening, the clouds gathering, the On and Off 5-minute-drizzling cycle, the green fields, the vaaikaals [irrigatation canals] like the one in the opening scene of Roja.[ btw, Sundarapandipuram is close to Kutralam], from abt 40 kms distance. All of them transporting us from the routine to a tryst-with-nature holiday, instantly.

Entering the town is marked by the distinct mundri oodu smell [cashew shell], used as the fuel in the mess and hotels around the town, and the shenbagam flower fragrance pleasing through every sq. inch of the town.

As any busy location, this place also has very good places to stay and equally lousy places. I remember when we sometime in 89/90, we took a buggy place [literally] and had vowed never to comeback to this town again.[But prasava vairagyam took us back next year]. Then after a couple of trials, we zeroed in on an excellent, friendly lodge. It is like a private guest house, lots of freedom.:)

Next thing after checking in at the lodge is to change to Kutralam Uniform. For men, it is either naalu muzham veshti/lungi with thundu, or shorts with thundu. Women stuff themselves all day into the nighties, and a thundu. [Aruvi Thundu is a towel, which is light and holds very less water. It is easy to squeeze and light to carry. These are sometimes referred as Kutralam Thundu].

When the season in Kutralam is good, there is always a drizzle and sometimes a heavy pour. The best part is that, apart from the locals, nobody cares about it. All of us who are on the leisurely stroll towards the Aruvi, enjoy getting drenched in the rain. The child inside pops out. The falling droplets remove the fatigue and strain from every muscle and bone of the body.

Steaming glass of filter coffee now, brings heaven on earth. That is what the co-operative milk stalls do. Co-Op milk societies from Rajapalayam, Shencottah, Srivilliputtur open their shops in all strategic locations and serve the best of filter coffees and hot milk for astonishingly cheap prices. Pick up a glass, stand in the drizzles wearing just a shorts and an aruvi thundu, have a sip. Sorry, this is where words end…

I will be mentioning lots of eateries and shops in this post. We had been regulars at these places for abt 15 years. Got close with them as friends, that we invite each other even for domestic functions. The Tirunelvei halwa shop Velu, gifted a big silver vilakku for my sister’s wedding.

On walking through the sannidhi theru [street] towards the main falls, lots of halwa shops line up both sides, and we stop by our Velu’s stall. He offers a complimentary welcome 50g for each of us. The hot sweet put in a piece of banana leaf floats in ghee more like a nazhuvara meen [slippery fish], always tending to run out of the palm on to the floor if not attended properly. The moment the first piece slides through the throat, would one realize how true is all the hype abt Tirunelveli halwa. Slurp Slurpp. Mind u all of these are happening while the semi naked body is basking in the drizzle.

Next destination is the Main falls. We have walked through this lots and lots of time. But the excitement is always on the raise. The thrill brought by the sound of water cracking on the rock tickles every nerve ending.

To be contd….

Done for this year..

2005-08-19T07:57:00.000-05:00

The ritual for the year, accomplished. Avani avittam, and yagnyopavetha dharanam done.

Woke up at 4.30, had Vapanam done.[3 finger thickness ;)]followed by all regulars.

Reached the temple by 7.00[as scheduled].

Very surprised to see abt 50 people assembled today! Reiterated that the world is small.
"Naa Trichy, neenga?" "Naanum dhaan"
"Naa Andar veedhi!" "Naanum dhaan!"
"Naa Tiruvanikovil Ayyan Theru" "Wow!, Enakku poorvegham Thekku theru"
" Naa RECT", "Mee too!!"

Lot of mobile number, email id, business card xchangings happend ;).

According to IST[S-Stretchable], the proceedings started only by 8.00am. [supposedly the gurukkal had later agreed on a grahapravesam assginment till 7.45 am].I knew this would happen, and had told the client and my managers that i will be working from home ;) today. Aadi asanju poonal pottundu, aathuku varumbodhu 10.15.

Namba oora irundha, it wud be abt 13.00 hrs that we come home. Vaasallaye harathi karachu vechundu ppl will be waiting. Ullae nozhanju ellorukku namaskaram panni, one round of collection will happen. Pakkathathu aedhuthathu maama, ellor kitteyum colleksion kodi katti parakkum. Appuram vadai payasathoda oru kattu kattitu sogamma arattai adichundu.. hmm.. adhu vaazhkai..

Today, i came home, nobody there to receive, naane kadhava thirandha, mailbox la 10 junk letters. Apporam, nothing to eat :(, The only feasible option was to order pizza, but Oh-no-not-again feeling was overwhelming. So decided to cook and eat.
Before that logged into the office network to see if anything urgent was pending. Thankfully, as usual and typical of a friday, everything was calm.

Suddenly got great enthu and went in to the kitchen at 10.30 started experimenting with my culinary skills. Finished by 11.30. I was surprised with my creations and took a snap of it.

Clockwise from left. Kathrikai Ennai Curry, Vendaikai saambar, thakkali rasam, saadam, paruppu+paal payasam, thayir, vendaikkai thayir pachadi, Ghee, thanni. [No vadai ]

Aasai theera saaptutu, ippo dhaan logging back to start working.

Now you are asking me was the food tasty? rite?.
My dad used to say, that food is always tasty on avani avittam and sraadham days. According to that thumb rule the food was very tasty. slurp slurp... [The logic behind is that, on those days we have a late brunch and the hunger makes the food appear tasty :p]

Till I wake up, sorry work up, please enjoy the food!!

Avani Avittam - Yajur Upakarma 2005

2005-08-17T08:29:00.000-05:00

Friday, 3rd of Aavani, is the Sravana Yajur upakarma day for the Parthiva year. [19-Aug-2005].

Info for Londoners/SouthEasterners:
This year Yajur upakarma is scheduled at
London Sri Murugan Temple [sorry abt the cached link, the site seems to be down :(], in two batches on 19-Aug. One at 7.00am and other 1.00pm.

General Info:

<Update-1200GMT-18Aug05> smartha yajur sampradaya at Kandamangalam.com </Update>

<Update-0745GMT-18Aug05> Vaishnava Sampradaya details are available at Ahobilam.com and prapatti.com
</Update>

ChennaiOnline has posted audio clip and text of the mantras. This contains the Mahasankalpam part also.

Panchangam.com has come up with the mantrams in our 'Notice' format. Though this doesnot contain the mahasankalpam part.

The ideal process of upakarma is as follows

1. Vapanam - Shaving.[including broadening the forehead, for a prescribed width of 4 finger thickness, which is nowadays adjusted with just a couple of hairs.]
2. Snanam - Bathing and purification

3. Sandhyavandhanam - Daily dawn prayer.
4. Samithadhanam - [for brahmacharis only]
The above are a part of Nitya karma and are supposed to be done twice daily. This is at the dawn.

5. Kamokarishith japam - This is for self-purification.[Not for first time Avani avittam chaps.]

The following are then supposed to be performed in the noon.[These are also a part of Nitya karma]
6. Maadhyanyakam - Noon prayer
7. Brahmayagnayam - Daily Rememberances and Offering to Gods,Rishis,Vedas and for some, Forefathers.

8. Mahasankalpam [Taking Resolve before the academic year]
9. Yagyopaveetha dharanam [Changing of yagyopaveetham. formal induction]
10. Kandarishi Tharpanam [Prayer to the Vedas]
11. Vedaramabam [Intial lessons](Some traditions do Vedarambam before Kandarishi Tharpanam)
12. Sravana homam [This homam is not performed by everybody. The guru performs it and we are just witnesses to the prayers.]

13. Evening Sandhyavandhanam
14. Evening Samithadhanam

Next day Gayathri Japam
1. Sandhyavandhanam
2. Samithadhanam
3. Sahasra gayathri Homam/Japam

Out of the above, all mantrams are in the audio clip or in the document, except the Vedarambam. This will have to be repeated only when instructed by a Guru, and he makes corrections, if we go wrong. This is because, it is belived that Vedas can be counter productive if they are mispronounced.

Update: Note: Please feel free to refer or forward this to anybody who might need this. Also, if you have related info, for other vedas or sects, please drop a comment, so that it will be helpful for all.

Independence Day - The Rising

2005-08-15T09:11:00.000-05:00

Iniya Swathanthra dina nal vaazhthukkal.
Let us remember all the sacrifices made and the price paid by our ancestors to secure this freedom for us.

Happend to watch the Aamir khan movie 'The Rising - Ballad of Mangal Pandey', over the weekend. First of all, my friends who had been there on friday told, that most of the movie is in English and the Hindi dialogues have subtitles. So, i thought i will watch it.

*No Spoilers ahead*

I had not read any reviews, nor heard any part of the script from my friends. Went with the open mind and liked the movie.

Was expecting a default jingoistic storyline, surprised not to find any. No one-man-killing-thousands, long lectures in the court, fiercly patriotic songs, betrayal by a greedy sepoy, or artificial villianising. Had these been there, i would have sighed 'pst, one more to the pack'. But, this was different and i liked that.

Reviews for the artists or the technicians have already been done elaborately in the mainstream. So lemme not get in there.

There is nothing in the script, which would kick our adrenalin, make us stand behind Mangal, raise the inner spirit.. tch tch.. sorry. You donot have the go-kill-them spirit aroused.

It was exactly what it was said to be, a Ballad. Taken so un-bollywood like, mebbe primarily targetting the academy awards jury.

The script is not very gripping. It allows distraction and parallel thoughts while the movie is still running!
I couldnt help but started thinking about the spirit of Mangal, JhansiRani, NanaSaheb, TantyaTope, Bahadur shah. The brave deaths of all of them, the blinding and execution of the moghul emperor's sons in front of his eyes, deporting him to Rangoon prison, the selflessness displayed by them, the vision they possesed, the sacrifice made by them, the value of our freedom and the price we paid for it.

I couldnt control my tears, yes after watching this simple ballad, i couldnt do it. Had it been a expected jingoistic drama, i would have started thinking abt the dinner ;) but it was not to be.

That is the success of the movie!

தோட்டம் வளர்த்தேன் தோட்டம் வளர்ப்பேன் ;)

2005-08-13T09:21:00.000-05:00

அடியேன் தோட்டம் வளர்த்த கதையின்[இங்க, இங்க, அப்புறம் இங்க] நிறைவை எழுதுவதர்க்கு முன், தோட்டம் கொஞ்சமாவது வளர்ந்துவிடாதா என்ற நப்பசையில் சில நாட்க்கள் கடத்திய பின், சரி நமக்கு விதித்தது, நாம் விதைத்தது எல்லமே இவ்வளவு தான் என்று இறைவனை வேண்டி துவங்குறேனப்பா..

நார்தன் லைன் ஓடவில்லயே,
நட்ட ரோஜா, பூக்க வில்லயே.
பிக்கடிலியோ லேட்,
போட்ட விதையோ வேஸ்ட்.

பக்கத்து ஸீட்டு ஜென்னி
எதிர் ஸீட்டு ஜூலி
நீங்கள் எல்லாமே போலி,

உங்களை நினைத்து வைத்த
செடி எல்லாம் காலி.

என்று, காதல் தோல்வி அடைந்தவன் போல, [தாடி எல்லம் இல்லை, ரொம்ப யோசிக்கதீங்க], தத்துவ கவிதை எல்லாம் பாட ஆரம்பிச்சசு.

“அடுத்த கட்டம் என்ன??”

க.வி.கை.நி. கடையில் கொடுத்த பூத்தொட்டி உள்ளது, இதில் ஏதாவது செய்வோம் என்று சிந்தித்து, யோசித் போது...

ஆஹா, போன வருஷம் ஊருக்கு போன போது, துளசி விதை கொணர்ந்தோமே, எம்பெருமான் பெயரில் அதை விதைப்போம் என்ற ஞானோதயம் கிட்டிற்று.
சரியா சொன்னீங்க.. தத்துவத்துக்கு அப்புறம் இறை அர்ப்பணம் தான்.

இந்த கட்டத்தில் தான் வாசக அன்பர்கள்(!) சிந்திக்க வேண்டும், எப்படி, தோட்டம் வளர்ப்பது, ஒருவனை இறை மார்கத்தில் இழுக்கிறது என்று.

“உடல் வளர்த்தேன், உயிர் வளர்த்தேன்“ – திருமூலர் கூற்று
“தோட்டம் வளர்த்தேன், தெய்வம் வளர்த்தேன்”-அடியேன் கூற்று.

நல்ல ஒரு சனிக்கிழமை, இறைவனை வேண்டி, துளசி விதைதாயிற்று. தினமும் காலை மாலை, ஸந்த்யாவந்தன அர்க்யம் மற்றும் கூடுதல் நீர் ஊற்றி, மூன்று வாரம் பேணியாயிற்று.

இதோ, அதற்கான பலன், கண்கூடாக!! துளசி துளிர் விட்டிருக்கிறது. மாமனின் அருகே மருமகனின் அருகம் புல்லும் அரும்பு விடுகிறது. இணைத்துள்ள புகை படத்தில் காணவும். [சரி சரி, றெம்ப பாராட்டாதீங்க]

ஹ்ம்ம், தோட்டம் போட துவங்கி, துளிர் விடுவதர்க்குள், வசந்த ருது, க்ரீஷ்ம ருது, கடந்து, வர்ஷ ருதுவே வந்து விட்டது. ;) இன்னும் சில நாட்களில், இங்கு குளிர் காலம் துவங்கிய பின், அடுத்த வசந்த ருது வரை, தோட்டத்தின் பக்கமே போக முடியாது.
அதனால இந்த வருஷத்துக்கான தோட்ட வேலையை இத்தோட முடிச்சுக்கறேன்பா!!

எல்லாரும் நிழற்ப்படத்துல இருக்கர துளசிய வணங்கிக்கோங்கப்பா...

அப்புறம், இந்த வார கல்கியில், அமரர் கல்கி கத்திரிக்காய் பயிரிட்ட கதை வந்துள்ளது. அவரும் நம்மள(!) மாதிரி தான் போல, படிச்சு ரசிச்சுக்கோங்கோ!!

Update on - A R Rahman Live in Concert – 3D(?) Tour

2005-08-11T04:24:00.000-05:00

As an update to my earlier post, please visit here, for the video clippings of the concert.

This site suddenly became the top referrer to my blog, after they linked my review at their site.

The videos shud have been taken at the Birmingham Concert, which was on day next to that of London concert. Though the videos are for just about a minute, it is enjoyable.

Enjoy them!!

Arasiyal - contd...

2005-08-10T06:00:00.000-05:00

As a continuation to the NAP-NAK discussion, i wanted to share the below mail. The context is that two of my NAK friends are apprehensive about getting married to a NAP, thinking that their life would be caught between adherence of strict rituals and the demands of the moden world.
I happend to know of their apprehension, and conveyed them that, their being carefree today, doesnt make them out of sync of marrying a NAP. And told them, after marriage, they would infact tend to be adhereing to those traditional practices more than their men. [of course, it is an observation which is made based on my little expereince, hence there will be exceptions.]

Ennala mudinjadhu, rendu NAKs oda NAPphobia va pokkaradhuku chinna muyarchi.. :P
Read from the bottom.

*************************************
Good..

I remember to have talked to u about, not providing enuf fundamentals to NAKs. Our way of life is prescribed assuming that NAKs are at home, so the idea of imparting values and subjecting them to a system early in life,have not been given appropriate attention. [like for boys, we have upanayanam(poonal), brahmacharyam, sandhyavandham.... Et al. That is, anytime if a guys goes weird in life, and later wants to return, he can fall back to his fundamentals,].

So it is time that we tailor our parenting strategies to impart enuf values and spiritual thots both into boys and gals alike, after all, tomorrow they are going to meet the world almost the same way.

Now coming to your apprehensions, they are true only to a very small extent. It is the fear factor that is blowing things out of proportion in your minds.

What I am trying to convey is, what you are now, and what u will be five years after marriage, will be completely different, and take my word, most of u will be the pivots around whom the whole spirituality and value building of the family will revolve.

The convictions to substantiate are..[of course there are obvious exceptions.]
1. Most families today are jus the man and wife, and with very less parental intervention.
2. Most guys today are very adjusting and practical, mind u.. even the guy who says I am conservative, doesn't impose it on his wife.
3. In the world where both the partners work alike, the only thing that is expected early in the marriage is love and sincerity, not madisaar kattindu samaikaradhu.. ;)
4. Guys have turned out to be astonishingly sacrificial, driving a sense of reciprocation among the so called "broadminded" and "modern" girls around.
5. With the responsibilities of the family descending on the girls, most of them tend to adapt and lead THE life, this may not be "kulichuttu, madisar kattinduthan samayal panannradhu " daily, but understanding and appreciating that doing it is the proper way of living, and raising to special occasions and enjoying doing it.

Take my word..
If u have got good fundamentals, then u r going to reflect it later in ur life, irrespective of how u r today.
Let me rephrase, you will be a Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, of your mom with 'Find and Replace' of the corresponding time parameters to point to 2-3 decades later.

-----Original Message-----
From:
Sent: Monday, May 31, 2004 5:12 PM
To:
Subject: RE: hi

u r correct..
but theres no way out .. u have to choose among the available..
orthovo.. ennavo.. poi than adjust pannikanum..
naan kovil pakkame poga mattenn.. athala vilakku kooda etha mattenn.. ( seyanum nu thonathu)
ennakku bayangara orthovo vandhu amaya porathu..
kulichuttu, madisar kattinduthan samayal panannumnu sonna enna panrathu..

-----Original Message-----
From:
Sent: Monday, May 31, 2004 5:09 PM
To:
Subject: RE: hi

2 weeks back oru group vanndanga, some ortho gumbal ..payan kitta sonen, me not ortho types nu, he said, am more ortho than modern :) . and avanga paakave some tradi yaa irundaanga..no way i'd suit them.so mutual No.
namba konjam ulagata paathutom ..adaan expectations jaasti ya irukku..we want some body broadminded...and not the narrow thinking conservative iyengar gumbal.wht say? :)
*************************************

Arasiyalla Idhellam Sagajamappa

2005-08-08T06:00:00.000-05:00

Robbie's post triggered me to share a mail.

Take this post with a lot of salt, and see this as a humour post!
Some NAPs [Namba Aathu Pullayandan]are there, who want to fall in love(!). But their values doesnt allow them to date any x or y. They are so conscious that, they would want to know the gothram of a girl, before going and initiating a conversation with a new NAK[Namba Aathu Kuzhandai], who has joined his company or project or his class.

By the time, they finish the gothram,sub sect research, get to know her nakshatram, go to trsiyengar.com and find the star match, the NAK would already have been picked up by the Remos around leaving our Ambis kicking the sand and to wait for the next NAK to appear in their RADAR.

The following is a mail chain among such poor despo NAPs. Read it from the bottom and have a hearty laugh!!

**********************************************
-----Original Message-----
From:
Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2004 3:12 PM
To:
Subject: RE: Best Strategy..

Mudichchan..
Mavane. Let us be prepared to face everything daa.. :(

* Jaadhi madham ellam andha kaalathu kattu potti thanam. America la jaadhi irukka? Appadenu kekkanum..
* Oruthar oruthar manasa purinjunda appuram [! Adhu aenna nu aenakku innum puriyave illai maapla], indha ulagathla yaarumae adhai thadukka mudiyadhu appadeenu padam podanum.
* Beer, thanni ellam vaanghi oothi koduthu, ulagathla ivvalavu sugatha nee brahmana ponna poradhu izhandhutta appadeenu aedhuthu sollanum.

Thinkin what to add.. :(

-----Original Message-----
From:
Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2004 2:04 PM
To:
Subject: RE: Best Strategy..

soaka sonna ....
* Engootula enaku yarumee mukiyam iille...needhan ellameenu sollanum..
* Dependent visala onsite kootindu poreenu sollanum.ok*l*v$l%..amma appava kootindu poovana????
* emmadhamum sammadhamnu sollanum...(avanuku enna..brahmna ponnungaladhan bracket poduvaanunga... ivaluga ipadi alanja..yara korai solradhu...)
* nalla ensai pannittu.....namba rendu perum pirinjidalam..kadaluku mariyadhi pannnidlaam...Nee ungootuku poidu..nan engootuku poidareen...

Ashte!

> -----Original Message-----
> From:
> Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2004 1:22 PM
> To:
> Subject: Best Strategy..
>
> Machchi,
> The best strategy to find a nice good,NAK, has been deviced by me daaa, after lot of experience..
>
> First thing.
> 1. Cut the kudumi.[if at all u have. ;) ]
> 2. Poonala kazhatti kaveri la veesu,
> 3. Start eating Panni kari, maattu kari, kozhi kari salad.
> 4. Do lot of pachcha porukki thanam.
> 5. Throw all culture, and values into trash.
> 6. Do what ur d*&k says and donot think and act.
>
> Machchi. add to the list daa. Let us make a BOK and distribute it among the poor NAPs like us, who would never be able to get a nice good NAK.

****************************************************

Time to Get Back to Work…

2005-08-05T13:02:00.000-05:00

Yes, Aadi 18 is over and it is time to get back to work.
Wondering what I mean??
According to our calendar, the year is split into two halves, Uttarayanam and Dakshinayanam. Uttara-ayanam [Northern Path] is when the relative position of the sun moves towards the north[mid jan to mid jul]. Dakshina refers to south. Dakshinayana is from mid jul to mid jan.

As discussed here, the agriculture and productive season is the Dakshinayanam. This is because the rivers in TN have their catchment in Western ghats and have water from the monsoon, starting from Aadi. The farmers get busy in sowing and till January are busy with the crops.

The aadi ammavasai, the new moon day of aadi, is considered auspicious for prayers to forefathers. Though this day is common to everybody, the kshatriyas, and the defence community pay homage and respect to all those who lost their lives earlier and start a fresh round of weapon making, culminating with aayudha pooja.

This is followed by Aavani avittam, where the vaishya and brahmana people get themselves rejuvenated for a new work cycle. The brahmanas have this ritual called Vedarambam. [veda aarambam], when they change the sacred thread[Rethreading and Multithreading ;)]. Learning of new Vedic lessons start from aavani avittam and continues to start of Uttarayanam in January. From then on it is just the revision, till the next dakshinayanam.

So, this half of the year is when highly productive specialized functions are accomplished. The conditions are also conducive for this work. Unlike uttarayanam, the climate in TN during this time, is moderate. Rain and shine compete with each other. The extreme temperatures are gone.

The festivals of this period are fully domestic in nature. Starting from aadi, the jenmashtami, chaturthi, navaratri, deepavali, karthikai, all are domestic festivals, unlike uttarayanam, where public festivals like, brahmotsavams, teppams, poochoridhals fall. [of course exceptions are there..]

The uttarayanam on the other hand is when all public events like building of temples, fairs, public festivities, travelling to nearby towns and cities are undertaken. The temperatures and climate reach extremities. And it is when people are out vacationing, since concentrating on the job is difficult.

Is this the similar reason, why Christmas is celebrated in the western world, when climate reaches extremities and productivity falls to the lowest!!

ஆடிப்பதினெட்டு – ஆடிப்பெருக்கு

2005-08-03T07:29:00.000-05:00

Today is aadippadhinettu [18th day of the Tamil month of Aadi]. This is the second most important day in the lives of the Kaveri delta people, after the harvest festival of Pongal.
The relevance of this date and its impact on the society has been waning for the past 3-4 decades, from when the dominance of agriculture on the economy started declining.

Aadi padhinettu, is traditionally the day when sowing begins for the annual crop of paddy. It is when the monsoon on the western ghats have peaked, and in the “pre-karnataka” times, it was when Kaveri was in full spate.

Hopes, dreams, et al gets converted into prayers, on this day. Mother Kaveri is the deciding parameter in whatever decision is taken later in the year, be it buying a cow, or getting a bigger piece of land, making some jewellery, sending children to school, getting daughters married, and what not! If she fails, or if she overflows, it is end of story for us.

I remember, early in 90s we flock to Chinthamani Padithurai or Amma Mandapam, and some of us adorn Her with manjal, kumkumam, new bangles and flowers. It would be a great sight to stand over the Kaveri paalam, and look down on the west. She would look like a huge golden saree[thanks to the setting sun] with red double side border[thanks to vermilion from CP and AM]!! The newly wedded of that year, preserve their marriage garlands and offer it to Kaveri to keep it in safe custody and bless them with success prosperity and peace throughout their lives.

Kalandha saadham is the neivedhyam for her that day. Akkaravadisal, Puliyanjadham, thengaisadham, elumichambazha saadham, with karuvadam, poricha appalam, more molagai, all in Her name.

Baloon, peepee, kalar kannadi, pori kadalai, all are default in the shopping basket!! By abt 6.25 all of us go on the kaveri paalam and turn eastwards facing the railway line. Brave youths board the 6.30pm office train at TiruchyTown Station and climb to the roofs of the compartments and as the train passes over the river, they keep diving one by one from that height, and the one with a clean dive will get a huge round of applause from us. ;)

What great days they were!!

The last Adi18 I was at home was in 2001. I cannot forget that day, it fell on Aadi Vellikizhamai, I went to Tiruvanaikovil to have Akilandeshwari darshan. While returning, on the bridge, what I had was the most painful sight.

The mother, after feeding her children for thousands of years, got all her milk dried up. I parked my vehicle, got out on to the bridge, cried aloud. [I don’t know how and why I did that, I hadn’t done for a long long time then].
Was it because
she lay bare, like a desert, without a drop of water or
she lay bare watching her children cry around her or
she lay bare hoping to show some water to those who were digging deep to see some water to offer the manjal, kumkumam. [All those less hopefuls just strewed then on the sand] or
I am going away from here in a couple of weeks, to go out and look for greener pastures or
the thought that I am abandoning my mother when she is no more productive?

This year, after a long time, we have had a nice monsoon, but still there seems to be no water from Mettur on Aadi perukku. Though late, let us pray for the water to reach in time for the crop raising this season. Hoping for better rains thorugh the years to follow, and the Mother to get back to form and feed her children like usual.

Flash news: Updated on Aadi 18, 2005, 16:45 GMT
Report from Trichy says, there has been water flowing through Kaveri, after a gap of abt 5 years. The chaps who used to jump from trains have got old now, and the young chaps dont know how to do it, so that part was missing. But they were jumping from the bridge on to the river. And more importantly, there has been a huuuuge crowd visiting the river today, and trafic remained blocked for hours around the area. People flocked in thousands of cars[yes, the automobile cars, not the carts], this being the first real aadi 18 since the neo-economy-driven-propsperity hit Trichy.
சுடச்சுட மாலைமலர் ரிபோர்ட்

A R Rahman Live in Concert – 3D(?) Tour

2005-08-01T09:43:00.000-05:00

The evening of Saturday, July 30 2005, Wembely Arena Pavilion, witnessed the premiere of A R Rahman’s 3D tour.

Let me first do the short Crib.[to ward off kaN drushti]

The minor one was to reach Wembely that evening, as Jubilee line was closed from West hampsted, and the rail replacement bus took abt 1 hr [thanks to the rain and traffic snarls] to cover that distance which is normally done in 8-10 mins. So had to enter the show late by 10 mins.:(

The man behind the camera was pathetic. He made sure, the camera is always not on the right person. It was damn glaring during the half time break, when ARR was introducing the accompanying artisits.

The real one was the absence of 3D glasses as described in the webpage. There were no glasses available and we saw nobody wearing it.:( When asked one of the crowd control persons [though I knew he was not the right person to ask, but thought he migt have hade have a briefing on this], he did not have any idea of what I was asking. Wondering, was there an announcement or anything, just before we entered? Still in the dark!! There was a huge screen behind the stage, and something like the 3D screen savers were running there! Is this what the 3D thing was??

The show is effectively a 2D show. Now enuf of cribs, the fun and partying started !!

But before that, first a round of applause for the commitment these guys displayed. It was said on stage that, the show was abt to be cancelled, first because of security concerns in london, and then due to the incessant rains and flight cancellations in Mumbai, that would have made it impossible for the artists to come to London. Mumbai was floating and most of the artisits, shankar mahadevan said, had to wade their way in hip and neck deep waters to reach the airport.!! Thanks guys for making this show after so much 'personal trauma'[in ARR's words].

Rahman was at his best!! Hamma Hamma[Tamil paattu] was the pick of it, along with ‘yeh to des hai tera’,[again tamil mixed in the second stanza.]

Daler, for the large Punjabi crowd, did his Hindi ‘thaniye thannan thaniye’ with the usual pep, and the Chinnama Chilakamma from Minaxi.

Alka yagnik’s Taal, Sadhana Sargam’s hindi ‘snehidhane..’ along with madhushree’s yuva piece did justice for the female voice.

Some songs, I heard there for the first time. Like this one from Zubeida [hearing this for the first time as well, forgive my not following bollywood ], were the dampers for me, to relax and get seated for sometime,. :p

In comes the great Hariharan, packed with tons of energy. His asking ‘Tamillu paatu padalaamaa??’ in a proper ghazalic tone, and the roaring response to it, followed by Vennilave vennilave.. Super..
Then came the solo Nila kaigiradhu + Uyire Uyire..
izhachchu izhachchu padaradhunu periya solluvale…adhaampa adhu.
Apporam, andha 'pachai nirame, pachai nirame' paatu…
sorry adhe solradhukku andha vaarthai.. varthai dhaan vara mattengaradhu.. abirami abirami..

‘Sandhana Thendralai..’nu namba prodigy Shankar mahadevan pudicha pudila yengayo poittaru. His best was the Lagaan ‘ghanana ghanana..’. At the end of the song he said, ‘the story goes that the clouds disperse after this song, but had the story been such that, it rained heavily after this song, Rehman would have composed the following piece’. Then started raining in voice, in combination with our one and only Sivamani, and got Mumbai in Wembely! Real breathless.!!

A 10 minute solo was just the tip of the percussion maestro Sivamani. When he got the crowd clapping and them drumming alternating to the claps, it was so involving.

Kailash Kher’s voice was new and fresh. The Yuhi Chala chala and the Rising song – Mangala mangala were testimonials.

There was this youth Aslam, who was humming in the background and took Sukhwinder and Udit’s voices, and did it to perfection. Though chaiyya chaiyya looked out of place sans Sukhwi, Aslam did a great job.

A solo from Bombay dreams, and the 'Bombay theme' flute were stopgaps in the middle.

After abt 3.5 hrs, which flew like just 3 mins, the VandeMatam summed it up!!

The journey back home, which was longer and tiring than the To journey, didn’t seem tedious. The concert was a recharging experience. I forgot myself so much so that only after thumping the feet and dancing for a long while, did I realize that, I am recovering from multiple fractures in my feet and needed to play it cool :P

I would recommend people to hop on the 3D tour, if it comes to ur city. Worth a visit, but don’t have expectations on the 3D part. :)

Success of the Reservation Policy!!

2005-07-29T11:31:00.000-05:00

The headline news in dinamalar on Friday has proved that the purpose for which reservation system was brought in Tamilnadu has been achieved.

The article says, out of around 1500 Medical seats, 464 seats were for open competition [after the 69% reservation]. In the 464 seats, the Communities-Not-Benefiting-From-Reservation [sorry, I can’t call them ‘Forward’ communities], have just managed to take only 59 seats [abt 12.7% in open competition]. This turns out to be about 4.22% of the overall seats, which is close to the percentage of the population CNBFR have in the society.

This is what the visionaries of the Social Justice movement in Tamil Nadu wanted and they have achieved what they wanted. Hats off!! Every field, every opportunity in the country will have to be distributed to the people based on the percentage in the population is the policy of most of the political organizations today. This takes them one step closer to what they aim for.

Now, that the whole system has become a success, and Social Justice has been established, is it not time to start reducing the quotas. [which was supposed to start 10 years after independence??]

Or is it not time to make significant changes in the program to assist the people who have either remained or moved to the lower strata of the social structure due to the churning of the society in the past 50 years in the name of ‘social justice’.

Teaching as a career in India

2005-07-28T02:19:00.000-05:00

Rajesh’s post on math teachers kicked me to writing this. Teaching or Educating, as it is now called, is listed in the Noble professions list. I am sure there would be a teacher in every one of our families, a thatha / athai /maama. All of such people of yesteryears I have met have been a very dedicated lot. Love their profession, contended, dream of producing better citizens. They expect in return, just to hear, their children [my mom used to call all her students as children] have done good, got better in life, of course along with their paltry pay, barely enough to support a family in a small town/village.

But today, who is taking up this profession?? Where is this in the Radar of a bright career aspirant?
Leaving apart the intellectuals in the premier institutes of the country, who constitute less than a 1000th of the whole community of teachers, I have to say from my experience that this profession has been the option of only the bottom X% of the class. Exceptions being folks with locational constraints or having a high degree of contentment, or either of the working spouses who wants to have a better work-life-balance. I am yet to see a person from the current generation who has taken to teaching in India, as a matter of choice.

Those who are a bit smart have exploited the money making opportunities available, starting from daily tuitions to entrance and special coaching. I know of a lecturer who was a project guide for a group of students, and ended up doing the whole project for the guys @ 5KRs. And wait, he evaluated his own project for nice internal grades! How pathetic!!

The system is now producing a generation of people trained in exploiting short cuts in the world. A generation of people just satisfied with the marks they get, [mostly by working 3 pervious yrs question papers, anybody can get 75% in any of the TN university exams, since the q-paper setter chooses from a combination of questions from 3 previous years papers, so that he doesn’t waste time, and he can go to take a tuition or entrance coaching class], following the policy 'just need good Ends, irrespective of how the Means are', which obviously fire back in long term and produce Ends just as good as the Means are.

There is a justification going on, that the teachers are also humans. They would also need money and more so, also have greed for money as everybody else does. Agreed, but at what cost?? Like Rajni says in Annamalai, Panam sampathikka aairam vazhi irukkumbodhu yenn ya indha punidhamana thozhilla asinga paduthareengha??.

On more thought, I could not, but massively appreciate the vision our forefathers had, when they put down the rule that, the learning/knowledge class has to beg even for their next meal, and not save anything for themselves.

Update: Random Access continues...

நம்பிக்கை

2005-07-27T06:01:00.000-05:00

அன்பர் திரு. நாராயணன் வெங்கிட்டு வின், ‘நம்பிக்கை’ கவிதைப் போட்டிக்கான எனது பதிவு. அன்பரின் முயற்சி மிகவும் பாராட்டத்தக்கது. வாழ்த்துக்கள்.

கை வைத்ததால் சுரந்ததாம் வைகை!

பட்டணக் கூலி வாழ்க்கை, நிரந்தரம் ஒரு வேளை உலை,
இவை எல்லாம் துச்சம் என

விடியலில் படுக்கை தொலைத்து
நிலத்தில் கால் பொதித்து, கலப்பயில் கை பதித்து,

தலையில் கை வைக்காமல் “இங்கும் சுரக்கும் வைகை”
என்று, உழைக்கிறானே என் காவிரிப்படுகை
விவசாயி, அவனது மறுபெயர் தான் நம்பிக்கை

Tranliterations:
Kai vaithadhaal surandhadham vaigai!

pattana kooli vaazhkai, nirantharam oru veLai ulai
ivai ellam thuchcham ena

vidiyalil padukkai thulaiththu
nilaththil kaal podhithu kalappayil kai podiththu

thalayil kai vaikkamal "Inghum surakkum vaigai"
endru uzhaikkirane en kaavirippadugai
vivasayi, avanadhu maru peyar dhaan nambikkai.

Ashes to ashes

2005-07-25T06:50:00.000-05:00

My dream and desire, to watch a competitive Ashes has gone to ashes. Pieterson, Harmison, Vaughan were all the beams of hope for English revival.

After an excellent summer last year, after whitewashing everybody, there was lot of expectations from the English side.

The England and Wales Cricket Board [the, ECB - now, don’t ask where the ‘W’ is, he is sitting across the Atlantic ;)] pumped in new life to the side with a good team selection. Experience playersd like Thorpe had to make way for the young blood, which is a very good sign that the team is aggressive and is high in confidence.

Along with the team, all of us were expecting a nail-biting Ashes. After all, monopolies have been destroyed this year from Schumi to Arsenal/ManU, with the exception of Federer. We thot it is Australia’s turn. That too after their initial losses in the series, infact once to Bangladesh, it appeared obvious that the time has come for the wheel to rotate.

The match started on an overcast Thursday morning, which then turned out to be a very good one for Poms. Harmison taking a 5-for, by abt 2.30 pm, everyone in the office started hunting for tickets. Not long before, Mr.Consistent McGrath showed the if-u-can-do-that-i-can-do-this arrogance, completely gatecrashing into the poms' evening party plans. So much that they started to pray for the rain as early as 3rd day.

Surprisingly the Rain Gods responded, but they must have gone out of stock to continuously flood St. Johns woods for more than 2 days. They held the innings till the 4th day afternoon, and suddenly got All-Out, bowled by Sun. Then, the familiar procession started and it was all over in the fourth day.

Lot of rebuilding, retrospection and thinking needs to be done by both teams before they go into Edgbaston. Ozs thinking of how many records they can break, and Poms, abt where the RainGod prayer Mass should be conducted.

Why to go to a Sivan Temple??

2005-07-23T06:07:00.000-05:00

Those who have gone to the Sivan Kovil would have known of the habit of sitting before coming out of the temple. The sitting time varies between just a second to the maximum of a minute.

And you will be surprised to find, that the whole purpose of visiting the Temple is for that Sitting.

Saiva Sidhantham has advaitam in its deepest root.
“ஆதியனே அந்தம் நடுவாகி அல்லானே,
ஈர்த்து எனை ஆட்கொண்ட எந்தை பெருமானே”
“Aadhiyane andham naduvaaghi allane!
Eerthu enai aatkonda aendhai perumaane!” is how Manickavasagar calls the Almighty.

If the whole of this universe is one, why do we need to go to a particular place to search him??
The samsara sagaram acts on us everyday and it is a fact that the normal loukeeka[worldly/earthly/materialistic] human mind cannot practice advaitam 24hrs a day. Thus it is prescribed to visit the shivalayam to practice and meditate on the oneness of the universe.

If we are going to temple to meditate on the oneness of the universe, why do we then have so many Gods and Idols there??
A normal child has an exam tomorrow, and before opening the book this afternoon, if he watches a very interesting movie, it will be difficult for him to concentrate on his studies, right away. Just being rolled in the samsara sagaram, and immediately starting to mediate on Brahmam is not an easy task. The deities in the temple are meant to gradually bring the devotee into the world of spirituality.

The procedure for worship in a shivan kovil, astonishingly matches with this.
The worship starts with SriGanesha. The agama shastras have made the form of Ganesha [human body, elephant face, pot belly, and with all this sitting over a mooshikam] so well that, concentrating on Ganesha as the supreme power and worshiping is, relatively easier, and to come from the world around to the spiritual mindset.

Worshipping and concentrating on the parivara devatas, [who mostly have human form mebbe with 4 arms] as the supreme, get the mind closer to the spirituality and prepares for realizing the oneness.

This is then followed by the ShivaLinga darshanam. The supreme now has a form, but it is just a simple object where the mind can concentrate.

Now that the individual intellect has been able to come out of the hassles of the daily routines, it is ready for the next step, to reach out to meditate on the Brahman. This meditation is what is done while sitting in the temple before coming out.

Thus the range of deities present in the temple is to prepare oneself for the sitting and meditating on the supreme.

For effective realization of the supreme,
1. Go to the temple, preferably alone, if not possible, detach from the companion for the time in the temple. It is important that the closest and only influence you have before sitting to meditate is the Ganesha / Subrahmanaya / Lingam.
2. Spend enough time at the sannidhis till you have got the mental set to move on to the next stage.
3. Concentrate at least for 10 minutes, where you are able to realize the beauty and magnificence of the oneness of the universe.
4. Enjoy the bliss, get recharged, and composed to take on the rest of the days.

Ps: The above views have come up purely out of my thought process, which is hence limited to the exposure I have.

Roles in the society

2005-07-21T08:32:00.000-05:00

I was working in Rome during spring 2004. All my friends and colleague were Romans and other Europeans. We had lots of parties together, and in one, we started discussing about each of our cultures.

Some of them already had an idea of the Indian society, and rest all of them just had a view that India is a country of rich heritage and defined society.

I got a lot of queries from them wanting me to explain the social split up they had heard of [the caste system].

I went on to explain the reasons that would have put this system in place. The communitist society that prevailed that time, specialized roles, interdependent living, ‘you take care of my security, I will take care of your finances!’ I projected the essence of the whole system.

Later I went on to describe how the system was exploited by invaders to discriminate people and establish the Divide and Rule policy. Also how the system was later misused by vested interests for personal needs and the strength of the modern society to cleanse the discriminations.

That apart, everybody seemed to be convinced about the positive points of the system. One guy told, this was an ideal system, to bring in harmony in the society. Other was trying to associate the current western society in to the ChaturVarna blocks, and was surprised on how well, it fit.

Then I went on to explain the strict rules prescribed for each division, in order to prevent misuse of the system. Like isolating knowledge and money, by canonizing the Knowledge class to beg for their next meal went down with a big surprise.

Then suddenly one of my friends asked
“Hey, to which level do you belong to?”
“I belong to level 1”.
“Wow! You belong to level 1! That’s great!! We have got a prince amidst us!!!”
“What?I am not from the Royal, I am from the humble begging Knowledge class”
He looked puzzled!
“Then you said you belong to level 1??”

And this the biggest surprise everybody had that evening! A society developed thousands of years ago, giving priority to learning and knowledge ahead of the rulers of the land!!

Purushasooktham – a simple view

2005-07-19T06:32:00.000-05:00

The primary scripture for a non-professional Vedic learner, who goes to Veda class in the evenings after college or work, is the purusha sooktham.

This is one of the scriptures describing the Indian concepts of creation of universe. Let me try to put down a primer on what I find in that, in this post.

It states that the universe initiated from an all powerful source called the Purusha. This could be equated to the Vishwaroopa of SrimanNaryaana and to the Lingodbhavam of Prameshwara. The description of the purusha with thousands of eyes and feet, corresponds to the endless huuuge body of energy believed to be the source of the universe. [The Aum is believed to be the vibration resulting from the primordial energy].

“chandrama manasojathaha, saksho sooryo ajayatha,
mukhadindrascha agnischa, pranadh vayurajayacha,
naabhyathaseeth anthariksham”

Then the scriptures go on to describe that the sky are created, the moons created from the manas of Purusha, the Sun from his eyes, the air from his breath. The creation of seasons et al.

How did all of these get created?? Is it that, the concentration of energy creates matter, as much as splitting of matter to generate energy.
Yes, the sookta says, the creation happend when there there was a yagnya with Purusha. Though yagnya literally means sacrifice, it also means determination, concentration.

This scripture emphasises the theory of advaita. Understandably, stating that the whole of this universe is one, manifested in multiple forms.

Along with this there is an important social aspect to this. There is the verse which says,

“Brahmanosya mukhamaseeth, bahoo rajanya kruthaha,
Ooru thathasya yadh vaishyaha, padhyaghum shoodro ajayath.”

It means, Brahmins came from the face, Kshatriyas from the shoulders, Vaishyas from the thighs, and shoodras from the feet.

Vedic bashers, and self-proclaimed social equality champions, argue vehemently that, this is the proof that Veda splits the society, and puts the brahmanas as superior and shoodras as inferior.

I would look at these verses as
1. A great one to establish equality. Yes, it says all of us are born of the same father/parent.
2. The verse never mentions about superiority of one class and inferiority of the other.
3. The organ from which they were born perform the similar function to the body as they do to the society.
[Brahmins were supposed to take up education and brighten the society, as a face does, the kshatriyas are from shoulders which are the primary source of self defence, the vaishyas from thighs, where extra fat and nutrienst are deposited and used in time of need acting as bank/reserve, above all the shoodra is the one who carries the society though, like a feet does.] Thus each and every one of the varnas is equally important to the society as much as these organs are. Without any one of them the society is a crippled one.

There are a lot of literal translations in the net for this, which may sound a lot like a gradma's story, unless we use our discretion to think more on why it is said so.

Ps: The above views have come up purely out of my thought process, which is hence limited to the exposure I have to these scriptures.

தோட்டம் வளர்த்தேன் தோட்டம் வளர்த்தேன் – பாகம் – 3

2005-07-18T07:02:00.000-05:00

ஒரு வழியாக தோட்டத்தில் முட்புதர்களை களைந்தாயிற்று. பாதியை வெட்டியும, மீதியை எரித்தும், பார்ப்பதர்க்கு குத்து மதிப்ப்பக, நம்ப ஊரில் கட்டாந்தரை கிரிக்கெட் மைதானம் போல் ஆகி விட்டது.

இதிலேயே பாதி நேரம் போய் விட்டதால், அணுகுமுறை மாற்ற வேண்டிய கட்டாயம். [அதாம்பா ஸ்ட்ராடஜி!]

“ஒன்றே செய், ஒன்றும் நன்றே செய், அதுவும் இன்றே செய்” அப்படீனு பெரிசுங்க சொன்னதுக்கு ஏற்ப்ப, வாசல் கொல்லை என்ற இருதாரங்களில், பின்னவளை பின்னுக்கு தள்ளியாயிற்று.

சரி, அடுத்த கேள்வி, என்ன பயிர் செய்யலாம்??

ஒரு முறை, எங்கள் கல்லூரி, பேராசிரியர், “இப்பொழுது, உங்களிடம், எதை பற்றி பேசுவது? இதை பற்றியா, அதை பற்றியா” என்று அடுக்கி கொண்டே அறை மணி நேரம் கழித்தார். அது போல் அல்லாமல் சட்டென்று, ரோஜா வளர்ப்பதாக, அதுவும் பக்கத்து வீட்டுப் பெண் தினசரி காலையில் நீரூற்றி வளர்த்தாலே, மஞ்சள் ரோஜா, அதே போல, என்று முடிவாயிற்று!!

உடனே அருகே உள்ள ஒரு பவுண்டு கடையில, விதை/கன்று வாங்கச் சேன்றேன். இந்த 1£ கடைகள், நம்ப ஊரு “எதை எடுத்தலும் பத்து ரூவாய், வாங்கண்ணே, வாங்கக்கா, தரமான பொருளுங்கக்கா, கம்பேனி விளம்பரத்துக்காக சிறப்பு விற்பனைண்ணா” போன்றவை. எங்க பாட்டி சொல்வது போல “கழுதை விட்டை கை நிறைய” என்று கிடைக்கும்.

கையளவு விதை, இரண்டு கன்று வாங்கி, தலையில் முண்டாசு கட்டி, “கடவுளெனும் முதலாளி கண்டேடுத்த தொழிலாளி” னு புரட்சி தலைவர் மாதிரி, நெனப்பு. பாத்தி வெட்டி, பயிர் செஞ்சு, உரம் போட்டு, நீர் ஊற்றியாய்ற்று.

அன்றிலிருந்து, தின்மும் காலை கால் ம்ணி, மாலை ஒரு மணி, நீர் ஊற்றி, செடியுடன் பேசி. அது பூத்து குலுங்கி, அந்த மலர்களை செண்டாக்க்கி பக்கத்து ஸீட் ஜென்னிக்கு கொடுத்து, கட் பண்ணி, ஸுவிட்ஸர்லாந்தில் பனிச்சறுக்கில் டூயட். ஸ்ஸ்ஸ்ஸ்ஸ்ஸ எவ்ளோ ஸூப்ப்ர்ர்ர்....

இரண்டு வாரம் கழித்து, விதையில் இருந்து ஏதும் மாற்றம் இல்லை, ஆனால, கன்று, சற்று காயத்துவங்கியது. ஆஹா, பழைய பட்டை உரிந்து, புத்துயிர் கிடைக்கப்போகிறது.
பட்டை உரிந்து, பட்டுப் போகிறது என்பது, எனக்கு அடுத்த வாரம் தான் விளங்கிற்று.

க.வி.கை.நி.[1] கடையில் சென்று முறையிட்டதற்க்கு, மிகவும் வருந்தி, ஒரு பூத்தொட்டியை இலவசமாக எனக்கு அளித்து, வாயை அடைத்து விட்டன்ர்.
சரி அந்த தொட்டிய வைத்து என்ன செய்தேன்.?? அடுத்த, இறுதி பாகத்தில் அறுக்கிறேன்.

The Knowledge

2005-07-15T07:25:00.000-05:00

Which is the toughest memory test in the world?

This morning, I happend to pick up a black cab for the last leg of the journey to work. Since there were traffic snarls and signals, happend to talk to the driver.[He strictly dint talk when the vehicle was moving or when he had to concentrate].

I had earlier heard about The Knowledge,[the answer for the earlier question, that is the qualifying exam for london taxi drivers.] and wanted to hear from the horse's mouth. Here is what it is,
The names and exact locations of the 25000 streets in london and the 1400 locations of interests have to be remembered!! Tough? Now hear this, the shortest distance between all of these will also have to be remembered. Anybody to calculate the combinations??

Typcially, it takes about 3 to 4 years for learning this completely. If the student is highly proficient and spends all time into this, it can be done in 2 to 3 years.

And wait, this is what Wikepedia had to tell me 'There is some evidence that doing The Knowledge can result in measurable physical changes in the brain of a potential cab driver'!! Physical changes in the brain!!

I asked my driver how does he look at the streets of london. He said, he has a perfect map on his mind with each and evey landmark and street name marked in it. Everytime he drives through the city, he feels like moving a finger over the map.

There are other strict rules for getting the GreenBadge[the license for london taxi driver].

So much for the power of the human brain. I asked him if he has used the GPS products. He said they are very slow!!!

Equally strict are the rules regarding the make of the cabs. They are so strict that, one company in Conventy specially makes them. One of those regulations is that the vehicle should have a 25feet turning circle.!!

How nice, if we had similar rules for taxis and autos in namma ooru.!!

BBC article on brain growth
Scientific American frontier on 'The Knowledge'

Assimilating into a society

2005-07-14T07:44:00.000-05:00

We had seen this movie 'Bharata Vilas'. What a comedy stuff?? How many times we have switched off the TV, when we got the national integration songs.[Desa virakthi padalgal, aka desabakthi padalgal].
We find it perfectly ok for "aathla theertham saptutu, schoola thanni kudikanam".

Identifying oneself with the neighbourhood and the society we live is the key to assimilation and acceptance.

Bharata vilas has a good point, people there have not lost their identity, at the same time have accepted and recognised their neighbours and have a harmonious community.

The current generation in tamilnadu has come up wholly as a community mainly due to 2 reasons.
1. The school. This has been a great unifying factor. The common schools where the integration of pupils from the whole spectrum, nourishes the acceptance of differences, from the young age. The hostels at school, at college, and the flatmates, when shifting to work have all reminided us to be a part of the community and still preserve the individual identity derived through the family and birth.
2. The media. The exposure to a common media, mainly entertainment, nurtures the opinions almost in the similar directions. This makes oneself identifying with the socieity, a very simple activity. [An, example is the results of the public elections of tamilnadu over the past decade and a half]

Now, this tendency is carried over by all of the expatriates. Though we maintain an identity based on our culture, we tend to be extremely cautious not to be isolated. I can see a lot of our expat people in the Community Securitiy Watch meetings, the education and service initiatives, thereby contributing to the building of a strong society as much as the natives. This integration brings a feeling of neighbourhood, that translates into a feeling of safety, in turbulent times.

The lack of assimilation into the society, not identifying with the mainstream, living as isolated communities, always has unpleasant repurcussions. Even dangerous effects, so much so that persons born in the same country with birth certificates from this soil, have turned to kill their own innocent people, in the name of whatever whatever.

Oh! Thames - Father Thames

2005-07-13T06:08:00.000-05:00

"Oh, Tiber! Father Tiber!
To whom the Romans pray,
A Roman's life, a Roman's arms,
Take thou in charge this day!"

Like what Horatius [verse LVIX]prayed to Tiber, i did that to Thames today.
From my 21st floor window looking at the Thames, the monument, the gherkin, the tower bridge, the canarywharf on my left and the london eye to my right.

I am back to office after abt 6 weeks of working from home, since i broke my metatarsals 2,3,4 on june 4th in a competitive game of football.[Will meet you with a seperate post on my NHS experiences.]

One word. The city has changed. The city where, the weekend starts on thursday afternoon, stretches till tuesday afternoon, the pubs overflow from 5 in the afternoon. The pep atmosphere of the city which rejuvenates in the morning was not there this morning.

The railway bashing, which invariably opens a conversation with a co-passenger waiting for a delayed train is missing. People are dug deep into Metro.

All the regular friendly faces which i used to see for the past one year, were not recognizable at all. Yes, all those nice goaties have become clean shaven.

I had been to brick lane for lunch. The bangladeshi area was unusually tight lipped. The fun and smile on those at the counter was not to be seen. The bollywood songs that are usually played were swtiched off.

Well it definitely is not an illusion, for i am talking abt tangible observations.
What do i call it? Mourning for the victims? Becoming serious about life? Showing a brave face?
whatever it may be, one thing was sure, it was not fear.

Science in Stotram Mantram

2005-07-12T10:32:00.000-05:00

Trying to understand the nityakarmanushtana mantras and stotras [everyday rituals], and associating them with science and current discoveries reinforces our belief in the scriptures.

What is the source of energy for earth?

Isnt it that every movement of even the subatomic particles in this world is powered directly or indirectly by the sun. Your eyeball movement while reading this, or my finger movement while i was typing, the movement of blood within our body and the breath which we take, are powered by the energy of the sun.
The hydro electric, thermal, solar, wind, oceanic whatever ways of energy production, everything is solar powered.

The cars, the trains, the rockets, the bicycles, this computer all of them.

Till the arrival of Copernicus, the whole of the western world was beliveing in geo centric theories of the universe.

When did the eastern world get to know of this??

to know that, let us see the above fundae being put in the following simple, sandhyavandhanam suryanarayana mantram.

Namah savitre jagateka chaksuse,
Jagat prasuti, sthiti nasa hetave,
Trayimayaya trigunatma dharine,
Virinchi narayana sankaratmane
Dhyeyah sada, savitrmandala, madhyavarti,

Salutations to the sun who functions as the sole eye of the world, who is the cause of the creation, sustenation, and dissolution of the worlds, who is of the form of the veda, and who appears as Brahma, Vishnu and Siva by the manifestation of the three gunas. We must always meditate on SuryaNarayana, who is centred in the solar orb.

Savitramandalam or Suryamandalam - The solar system. This word is still used in tamil medium science books. How relevant are these mantras to todays world!!.

But we dont know how did mantra came into existence, who do we need to point out as the discoverer of this theory, like what the western world did with copernicus. It is all shravanam.

There is a lot of fundamental scientific concepts in the centuries old mantras, which have been lauded as pathbreaking discoveries in the western world.

God - a perspective

2005-07-11T08:12:00.000-05:00

Ganesha Stotram - Vakrathunda mahakaya Suryakoti samaprabha
Lingasthakam - Dinakara koti prabhakara lingam,tat pranamami sadashivalingam
ayyapa sharanam - Koti surya prakashane - sharanam ayyappa

So, Is God somebody equivalent to the brightness of 10 million suns?

Possessed people all over the world, and those who claim to have seen Them, [using Them, instead of a Him/Her to explicitly avoid the Gender association] say they experienced a brightness which is as much as billions of suns put together.

Is God, all the energy and matter in this world.?
Then,
God = All the matter in this world + All the Energy
= The energy of the matter + All the Energy
= [Mass of the universe]x[square of the speed of light] + the energy of the universe

Does this make God as somebody who has within Them, the sum total of the energy of the whole universe?
Is this what the first three extracts from the scriptures try to convey??

But there is one more dimension, which needs to get clear.

It is about the control for the energy and the authority on when to get energy in to Mass and into what form.

So does that make

God = {[Mass of the universe]x[square of the speed of light] + the energy of the universe}
x {Logical control factor on deciding and controlling the mass and energy}

Well, doesnt that translate into Advaitam and Thiruvilayadal Concepts??

தோட்டம் வளர்த்தேன் தோட்டம் வளர்த்தேன் – பாகம் – 2

2005-07-10T08:52:00.000-05:00

முடிவுகளா எடுத்து, ஒரு முடுவோட கிளம்பிட்டான்யா கிளம்பிட்டான்யா னு கிளம்பின எனது கால்பந்து பராக்கிரமத்தை கேட்பதற்க்கு முன் தோட்டம் விஷயத்தை சொல்லி விடுகிறேன்.

முதல்ல எனக்கும் தோட்டக்கலைக்கும் எவ்ளோ சம்பந்தம்?

திருச்சிரப்பள்ளி மாநகரிலே, சிறிய தோட்டம் இருக்கும் வீட்டில் தான் குடி இருக்கிறோம். இன்னும் சொல்லப்போனால், உச்சி மலைகோட்டை மீதேறி, வடக்கு முகமாக நின்று கீழே பார்த்தால், தென்னை மரங்கள் தெரியும் ஒரே வீடு.

அப்பப்பொழுது தோட்டத்தில் இருக்கும் புஷ்ப செடிகளை பார்த்தது அனுபவபட்டவன், ஆம் பார்த்து மட்டும் தான். !!

சரி, இப்பொழுது களப்பணிக்கு தயாராவோம். மாடிப்படிக்கு கீழே யாரும் திறக்காமல் இருக்கும் அந்த மஹாமஹ கதவை [எங்க திருவரங்க ஸ்வர்கவாசலை கூட ஆண்டுக்கு ஒரு முறை திறக்கிறார்கள்.] திறந்தால, பண்டை கால ஆங்கில நாகரீக அகழ்வாராச்சி போல் ஒரு உண்ர்ச்சி [ஃபீலிங்கு].

ராபின் ஹூட் காலத்தை முந்திய, துரு ஏறிய பெரிய கத்திரிக்கோல். [விளம்பரத்துல ஒரு பையனுக்கு முடி வெட்டுவதற்க்கு கொண்டு வருவாங்களே அது] அப்புறம் ஒரு கதிர் அரிவாள், ஆங்கிலேய களக்கொத்தி. இவை தான் அந்தக் கிடங்கின் பொக்கிஷங்கள்.

[குறிப்பு:- இந்திய மண்வெட்டியோ களக்கொத்தியோ, காலை அகட்டிக்கொண்டு, வெட்டும் மணலை கால்களுக்கு இடையே குவித்து, எனது விஷயங்களை என்னுள் வைத்துக்கொள்கிறேன் என்ற தத்துவத்தை(!) அடிப்படையாகக் கொண்டது. ஆனால் மேற்கத்தியவைகளோ, மணலை வெட்டி, எதிராளியின் மேல் போட்டு, பொறுப்பை கழிக்கும் தத்துவம்.(! ஆஹா.. என்ன ஒரு புல்லரிப்பு... தத்துவம் நெ.1539) ]

இவற்றுடன் என் ஒரு கை ஒரு கால்!! இதுதான் எனது வளங்கள். [Resources னு சொல்லுவாங்களே..][அந்த ஒருகை ஒரு கால் விஷயம், கால்பந்து பிரதபத்தில்..]

சரி, ஒரு நல்ல முஹூர்த்த நாளாக பார்த்து.[லண்டன் முருகன் கோவில் கும்பாபிஷேகத்தன்று, அவரை வணங்கிவிட்டு], அறுவடை துவங்கிற்று. குனிந்து, நிமிர்ந்து வெட்டி அறுத்து ஒரு வழியாக புதர்களை களைந்தாயிற்று.

சில நிமிடங்களில், “அடேய், உனக்கு இது தேவையா” என்று ஒரு குரல்!, யார்னு கேட்டால், நம்ம இடுப்பு சார் தான்.[அவர் என்ன சிம்ரன் இடுப்பா? பார்த்தவுடன் அடையாளம் தெரிய?? ]

“என்ன் ஐயா,வாங்க. நல்லா இருகீங்களா? என்ன விஷயம்... “
”ஆமாம், நா நல்ல இருக்கர்து பத்தி தான் விஷயம்.” என்று சீறினார்.
”இன்னும் இரண்டு நிமஷத்தில, களத்தில் இருக்கும் துருப்புக்களை வெளியேற்று, இல்லை வெடிகுண்டு தாக்குதல் துவங்கும்”
ஆஹா, அமெரிக்கா மாதிரி, ஆழம் தெரியாம கால வுட்டுட்டோமா??

”சரிங்கண்ணா, நீங்க் சொன்னா பேச்சே கிடையாதுங்கண்ணா” என்றதும், வரம் கொடுத்த சாமி மாதிரி மறைந்து போயிட்டார்.

நாங்க தான் ஐடியா மணியாச்சே. பின் பக்கத்து புதர்களை “கட்டுப்படுத்தப்பட்ட தணல் முறை” [Controlled Nuclear Reaction அப்படிங்கற மாதிரி !] எனும் நவீன முறையை கண்டுபிடித்து கையாண்டு அகற்றி விட்டோம். [அது இன்னானு உங்களுக்கு இந்நேரம் தெரிஞ்சிருக்கும!]

சரி, அடுத்து பயிரிடும் படலம்.. களப்பணில களைப்பயிருச்சு. அத்த அடுத்த தபா வெச்சுகலம், இன்னாங்கறீங்க...

தோட்டம் வளர்த்தேன் தோட்டம் வளர்த்தேன்

2005-07-09T05:20:00.000-05:00

ஆஹா. வஸந்த ருது பிறந்த பொழுது, இந்த நகரம் எவ்வளவு அழகு!!

நம்ம ஊர்ல இருப்பதெல்லம் மூன்று.
1. வெயில் காலம்,
2. கடும் வெயில் காலம்,
3. காற்றழுத்த தாழ்வு மண்டல நாட்கள்.

அவ்ளோதான். அதனாலயோ என்னவோ, இந்த ஊரின், தினசரி தட்பவெட்ப மாற்றம் பார்த்து ரொம்ப ஆச்சர்யமாயிருந்தது.

நம்ம ஊர்ல எவ்ளோ நாளைக்கு நாம தினசரி வெப்ப அளவை கவனிச்சிருக்கோம். 8.30 செய்திகளில் ‘வானிலை அறிக்கை’ னு சொன்ன உடன், காத்திருந்தது போல, அப்பா கையிலிருந்து தொலைஇயக்கிய பிடுங்கிண்டு, HBO வில் ஜுலியா ராபர்ட்ஸ் படத்தின் துவக்க காட்சியை காண ஓடியிருக்கிறோம்.

குயில் பாட்டும், குருத்து ஓலையும், கொஞ்சும் மொட்டுக்களையும், அவ்ற்றை எழுப்பும் வண்டுகளும், [அட, அந்த காலத்து படத்துல, காதல் காட்சிகளில் Zoom Out பண்ணி Frame Change பண்ணி Next Shot ல BGM போட்டு காட்டுவாகளே, (நம்பள மாதிரி சிறுசுங்க(!) கெட்டு போயிட கூடதுனு), அதே தான் ] தினம் தினம் காண கிடைத்தபோது மனசு மிகவும் லேசாக, கவலை இல்லம இருந்த நிமிஷத்துல முடுவு பண்ணிணேன்.

என்ன? முடிவா? ஆமாம்.. வீட்டில் தொலைக்காட்ச்சியை, வீட்டுக்காரரிடமே [அட, வீட்டை எனக்கு வாடகைக்கு விட்டவருங்க] திருப்பி கொடுத்துடலாம்னு.

மொதல்ல தொ.கா. லைஸென்ஸ் கட்டணம் மிச்சம்.
வீட்ல கூட தங்க வரப்போற வடமொழி பசங்க கூட சண்டை மிச்சம்.
பாதி ராத்திரி F1, கிரிகெட், கால்பந்து, அனாவசிய தொடர்கள், திரைப்படங்களில் கழியும் ராக்கூத்து மிச்சம்.
நொறுக்கு தீனிகளாலும், எடுப்பு சாப்பாட்டாலும் விளையும் உடல் கேடு மிச்சம்.
”முன்ன பின்ன சமயக்கட்டுக்கு போயிருக்கியா? ” என்று வரப்போரவளிடமிருந்து வசவு மிச்சம்.

இவ்வளவுக்கு பிறகு, என் வீடும் சுற்றமும் எழில் கூடியது, வஸந்த ருது வந்ததாலா, இல்லை நான் அவற்றை கவனிக்க துவங்கியதாலா?

இந்த சுகம் நிறைந்து கனம் குறைந்த தருணத்தில் நான் எடுத்த அடுத்த முடிவுகள்.
1. பள்ளி காலத்திற்க்கு பின் என்னுள் தூங்கபோன நீண்ட தூர ஓட்ட வீரன், மற்றும் கால்பந்து வீரனை தட்டி எழுபுவது
2. வீட்டில் முன்னும் பின்ன்ம் மண்டி கிடக்கும் புதற்களை களைந்து, தோட்டம் அமைப்பது.

மிகவும் நல்ல முடிவு என்கிறீர்களா?
அப்பொறம்?? அவ்ளோதானா??
ம்ம்ம..

தோட்டம் வள்ர்த்தேன் தோட்டம் வளர்த்தேன் னு நம்ப மன்மதன் [10£ டிக்கெட் கொடுத்து Southhall சென்று பார்த்த படம் ]சிம்பு மாதிரி தலைப்ப வெச்சுட்டு அவ்ளோதானானு கேக்றீங்களா?

இல்லை இருக்கு, அது ஓரு பெரிய்ய்ய்ய்ய கதை. அதை அடுத்த பதிவுல பதிக்கறேன்.
ஓகேவா...

Socio Economics of building temples

2005-07-08T04:45:00.000-05:00

As told in my earlier post and in a comment in subha's page, here is part1 of the email, i wrote to my friend on the socio economics of temples.
*********************
Apart from being a place of religious activity, the temples had a big socio-economic role to play. They doubled up with roles like, public meeting place, centre of education, the granary, the community centre in the communitist society. [A perfected form of communism and socialism which existed in India, much before the other two came.] So does the feasts of Car festival, Float festival were community events more than religious ones.

But before that, building of such huge temples also was a part of shrewd economic strategy.
The 8th to 12th centuries AD, were the time when most of these temples were believed to be built.

The demography of the the tamil nadu represented concentration of population along the cauvery delta, and some scattered around the palar, pennar, vaiga and thamiraparani, and the chief occupation being agriculture.
This means that the people of the region were employed from the aani[mid june], when the tiling of the land started, to aadi, when the sowing happened [the aadi pathinettu, or aadi perukku, is when the Tamil rivers are full, with the south west monsoons setting over their western ghat chatchment areas.]. After the weeding and other crop bringing measures, the harvesting happens by Jan [Thai pongal time].

Now, from thai to aani, the 6 months period, the whole population is going to be unemployed. This is when the administration had the challenge of utilizing the man power and providing employment. When people in rest of the world were mainly into attacking neighbours for providing employment and boosting the domestic economy [even for the latest armed conflict which we witnessed, this was told as one of the reasons].

The administration did the following.
1. Heavy taxing in the harvest months.
2. Compulsory community employment in the dry months with wages from the collected taxes.
3. Highly subsidised food during the sowing/nursing months.

This model of society was highly effective with everybody have defined roles to play. Interdependence of the elements of the community and balance in the society was maintained.

Now, for the compulsory community employment, the main activity was building temples, followed by building dams/bridges, business with neighbouring societies, strengthening of the armoury, compulsory education to qualify oneself for his role in the society and sports activities.

This is how the construction of temples had maintained the balance in the society and kept the people active. There was no devils workshop there.

Did we ever think, we have so many temples standing through all tough times, but we do not find royal palaces/forts/castles anywhere around, even 1 palace to 100 temples,?? So, were the administrators so self less?? Was temple and society a higher priority than building their own palaces??

*********************

London in Chaos

2005-07-07T07:02:00.000-05:00

It was just yesterday that i had blogged abt the effectiveness of the public transport in London, and today i was planning to share with you the joy of the London2012 victory. But it has been overshadowed by the attack here.

I am working from home for the last one month, and this morning my flatmates and neighborhood friends started their journey to work. Then came this news, that the Tube between Aldgate and Liverpoolstreet had a power surge resulting in an explosion. The London transport has been suspended.

As soon as it was identified as a co-ordinated attack, the whole central london was sealed off. Buses travelling into the city were halted. On Tv, the scene of the bus [i think it is 205, which i used to take] ripped and raped got my heart out. Goodness..

It is painful. It really puzzles me...Why? Why does somebody need to do this.. What is it going to achieve?? Killing innocent people going to work in the morning, will drive whatt????

Sarve bhavanthu sukhinaha. Sarve santhu niramayaaha.

Congestion charge Hike - London

2005-07-06T09:40:00.000-05:00

Starting from the 4th of July 2005, the Congestion charge in london is hiked to 8£.

What is this CC??

If any vehicle has to be driven inside central london mon-fri 7.30am-6.30pm, a penalty of 5£ a day has to be paid. This has been recently hiked to 8£ [approximately the cost of 10 lites of fuel].

Does it sound attrocious??? Wait a sec..

There were huge protests when this was introduced 2 yrs back, but later this has been found to be extremely effective. CC has served as a great deterent for using private transport within the city. [with the narrow victorian edwardian and georgian roads]. Statistics show that, the roads have been decongested heavily, the pollution levels dropped considerably, accidents reduced a lot, the number of people using the public transport increased, made all of the Tube,Train,Ferry,Tram,Bus run to capacity, making commuting safer, cleaner, faster and cheaper. The amount collected through the CC is again ploughed back into building the transport infrastructure of the city.

Now, what if this is put in place in Chennai/Trichy/xyz town in namma ooru??, where the astronomical surge of two-wheelers over the past decade has literally suffocated the city, a system like this would be a great thing.

But, before this, a strong public transport network needs to be in place providing an effective alternative to private transport.

Ada pongappa.. edhavadhu nadakkaradha pathi pesuvom.. hmm.. :(

Novel Intro : Appam Vadai Thayirsatham - Balakumaran

2005-07-05T13:29:00.000-05:00

Appam Vadai Thayirsaatham - Balakumaran

This Story by Balakumaran left a lot of impact on me. This was published in AnandaVikatan from jan 2001 to sep 2001.

The story opens with a lad getting his job in the big apple. [no, this post is not a spoiler]. Before his starting, their family goes on a different kind of pilgrimage to their ancestral village.

They go to the railway station in a town and sell Appam, Vadai and Thayirsatham, and the story goes in flash back. A Brahmin family and 7 generations back.

The head of the family is making a tough living on vaidheeham. [For that matter all the Brahmin families were living on vaideeham till at least a known forefather generation, which makes the plot easily identifiable with most people]. They take the tough decision to part ways from vaideeham and they never look back.

Now, after creating a successful generation, they chart out what is it that made the difference? What are the ingredients for success? What is the essence of their lives and what are the qualities that need to identified and passed on to future generations?

If tomorrow, our children are to start their lives from scratch, what are the primary tools that we need to equip them with?

All the answers are in there.

For having a sense of time, the whole story is woven with the independence struggle, starting with the First war of Indian independence and touching every milestone of the movement.

Buy it in India, Borrow it in London

Interesting Mail on 'Love' in Todays sense:)

2005-07-05T11:56:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine has written the following email.. Donno if it is true these days ;)
One of our common friend told us, that a guy expressed his love to her and she also felt the same. This was our guy's reaction to it ;)
Good one..
*********************
So u r being loved. interesting. Paiyan yaru,??? avan kolam enna, gothram enna? (chaaruhasan voicela padi:))

pesama love accept panniko, park beachnu enjoy pannu, Devi theatre last seat, Marina, Mahabalipuram, Yamaha drive, V-day gift, occasional smooches, I love u nu potta Card, some junk poems (tamil is also accepted )
eg:
engO senRaay,
eppOtho en manadhai vittu
kannedhirE irundhaalum
manadhil mattum illaiyE nee

(Just copied from somwhere:))) I dont spend time on these...:)

oorlendhu amma varumbodhu, andha carda marachindu....

un roomla roomies illadha poodhu you can take him there and discuss about life, marraige, kids, old-age, parents, your brother, his brother, collegues, Ar rehman, (NOte, he will also like ARR, just because you like ARR:))))

if he eats fish and you will also eat fish just for LOVE!

Night 11:00 clock phone varumnu edhirpathundu, avan panalaeena adutha naal pesama koochindu, (Avan paavam kadan vaagni public boothlendu 1 mani neram kadala pooduvan;)))

Namala yaralum pirika muidyadhunu apdinu appo appo solikanum...! Nee sathiyama enna kalyanam panipaya???nimashathuku nimisham ketundu....avan paavam dharmasangadama vazivaan;)))

Kadisila....appa sir solra mapiliaya kalyanam panindu...aedhoOru Sethuraman (eg. Name) abindu passportla spouse name fill panindu, chennaila night 1:20am (note midnite) singapore airlines pidichu, singapore poi, angedhu 10 hours stoppver, 13 hours flight pidichi Los Angeles poi, oru chinna veetula azaga kudi eeridanum....

This is love! correct me if I am wrong ( I mean the flight timings....;))))))
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SethuSamudram - misnomer ???

2005-07-04T11:32:00.000-05:00

The PrimeMinister of India and the leaders of the UPA shared the stage on the inauguration ceremony of the SethuSamudram project.

There are still lots of reservations from a lot of quarters regarding, the possible environmental imbalace due to this project, the Cost-Benefit analysis and Return on Investment of the project. [from a business perspective ofcourse, not in a political perspective]

The dre[u]dging of the 300 m wide canal in the palkstrait is reversing the mythical engineering marvel of the vanarasena under the supervision of Nala. We even had forwards showing photos of the RamaSethu, the adams bridge[wondering how does the translation take place :@] taken from a NASA satellite [i asked one of my friends to confirm if this is true.. He has still not go back :P]

Sethu refers to The Bridge
There are lots of sethumadhavans, sethuramans, around the ramnad area. The royal dyansty of the land is christened 'Sethupathis', meaning ruler of TheBridge.

Hanuman flew over it once in the To direction and twice in the fro :). Ramachandramurthy and Lakshmana crossed TheSethu and flew back. Seetha matha flew in and out. The Vanarasena shud have crossed The Sethu both ways.[GTP bandwidth analysys :P]

And now, we are going to cut through the Sethu and turn the clock back to pre-ramayana era. Helping Samudrarajan undo what Rama did to him.[Gender reference reproduced as-is from Ramayanam.]

All Said, who gave the name Sethu Samudram?? What does that mean??
Literally "Bridge Ocean"?

Is it that, if a bridge is let over the bay, it is the "Bay Bridge", and when we let the ocean over the bridge it is the "Bridge Ocean - Sethu Samudram"??

Or is it "Sethu Samudram Kaalvai",? - building a canal over the bridge which was built across the ocean???

Beats me..

Thiruvanaikkaval

2005-07-03T12:58:00.000-05:00

Comment posted on Shuba's page on akilandeshwari and thiruvanaikkaval [http://thinnaiarattai.blogspot.com/]

அற்புதம்! திருஆனைக்கா சிறப்பு பற்றிய கட்டுரை மிக்க நன்று. Fyi. ஸமஸ்க்ருதத்தில் அஷக்த – Weak, அஷக்த: - Unableதிருவானைக்காவல், திருவானைக்கோவில் என்று இரண்டு பெயர்களும் வழக்கில் உள்ளன.மேலும் அகிலாண்டேஸ்வரி அம்பாள், கன்னிகை. அதாவது, திருவானைக்கவலில் அம்பாள் பரமேஷ்வாரனிடத்தில் பக்தை வடிவில் இருக்கிறாள். பிரம்மோத்ஸவத்தில் திருக்கல்யாண உத்சவம் கிடையாது. தினமும் சாயரக்ஷை பூஜைக்கு பிறகு, அம்பாள் வெள்ளுடை மட்டுமே அணிகிறாள்.[அதுதான் தவத்திற்கான உடை]. மேலும் கோவிலின் கட்டமைப்பு, குறிப்பாக நீரோடை அமைப்பு [drainage system], மிகவும் நேர்த்தியானது. ஷிவ லிங்கம் 10 ஆண்டுகளுக்கு முன் வரை[திருவரங்கம், திருவானைக்கா பகுதிகளில், அடுக்கு மாடி குடியிருப்பு, மற்றும் ஆழ்துளை கிணறுகள் வரும் வரை] நிலத்தடி நீரின் நிலையில் இருந்தது. [The sanctum was so low that it was in the level of the water table.] முக்கிய நெடுஞ்சாலையிலிருந்து, கருவரை அடையும் வரை, சின்ன சின்ன படிகள் மற்றும் சறுக்குகளின் மூலம் கீழே இறங்கிக்கொண்டே செல்கிறோம். மழை காலத்தில் நீர்நிலை உயரும்பொழுது, கருவரைக்குள் நுழையும் நீரை வேளியே நந்தவனத்துக்கு பாய்ச்சி, அதிகப்படும் நீரை தெற்க்கு தெருவில் உள்ள ப்ரும்ம தீர்த்தம்கரை எனும் குளத்தில்[இப்பொழுது, அந்த குளத்தை ஆக்கிரமித்து, ஒரு எண்ணை ஆலை இயங்கிக் கொண்டிருப்பது வருத்தம்.] சேர்ப்பதற்க்கான கட்டமைப்பு மிக திட்டமிடப்பட்டு கட்ட்டப்பட்டுள்ளது. அதிலிருந்தே அதிகப்படும் நீரை காவிரியில் கலப்பதற்க்கும் கட்டமைப்பு உள்ளது. இங்கு, தேம்ஸ் நதிக்கரையில் உள்ள அமைப்புகளின் [உலகத்திலேயே அருமையான, நீரோடை அமைப்பக கருதப்படுவது] தரத்துக்கு பல நூற்றாண்டுகளுக்கு முன்னறே கட்டப்பட்டது.ஆனால், இப்பொழுது தாங்கள் சென்று தேடினால், இதெல்லாம் அகப்படுமா என்பது சந்தேகம். அறியாமை முற்றிய நிலையில், ஆயிரமாயிரம் வருடங்களாக காக்கப்பட்டவை எல்லாம், நகர்புற வளர்ச்சியில் சிக்கு சீரழிக்கப் படுகின்றன.திருவானைக்கவலில் ஐந்தாம் சுற்று, [விபூதி ப்ரகாரம்], சிவ பெருமான், அவர்களே முன் நின்று கட்டியதாகக் கருதப்படுகிறது. இறைவனை நினைத்து, பலன் எதிர் நோக்காமல் அந்த மதிலை கட்டிய திருப்பணியாளர்களுக்கு இறைவனார் திருப்பணிக்குழுத் தலைவராக உருமாறி, திருநீற்றை மட்டுமே கூலியாகக் கொடுத்தார். அவர்கள் அதை இன் முக்த்துடன் வாங்கி, வீட்டுக்கு சென்று பார்த்தல், அவை பொற்துகள்களாக மாறி இருந்த திருவிளையாடல், இங்கு பிரசித்தம். இவ்வளவு பிரசித்தி பெற்ற ஐந்தாம் பிரகாரத்தை வலம் வர, இந்த சித்திரை மாதத்தில், இந்தியா சென்ற போது சென்றேன். Ignorance, Neglect ஆகிய தலைப்பில் கவிதை எழுத வேண்டியவர்கள, அங்கு ஒரு புகைப்படம் எடுத்து வந்தால் போதும். முழுவதும் ஆக்கிரமிப்புகள், வாக்கு வங்கிகள் அனைவரும் அந்த மதிலை ஒரு சுவராக்கி வீடு அமைத்துள்ளனர். [குடிசைகள் மட்டும் என்று எண்ண வேண்டாம். அருமையான இரண்டு அடுக்கு மாடி வீடுகளும் அதில் அடங்கும்.]கண்ணில் நீருடன் ‘தர்மோ ரக்ஷதி ரக்ஷித:’ என்று தேற்றிக்கொண்டு வருவதைத் தவிர வேறு ஒன்றும் அறியேன், பராபரனே.

The Beautiful Country - Wales

2005-01-06T08:08:00.000-06:00

Araf :)