Hoorray!

I have had - and still have - quite a few loves in life. Like that coffee, freshly brewed in the morning; the rain that pours at night, leaving the wet earth of dawn as the only evidence of her mysterious visits; Sunday mornings; the lights of the city on a weekend evening; an early morning train ride on a relatively empty MRTS; my Amar Chitra Katha collection; walking through the streets of Thirumylapuri - or Mylapore - to visit Kabali; an evening turning to night on the Bessy Beach - and the list goes on. I now have another addition to this endless list of loves. She was selected after a lot of thought and discussion. Introducing Bhooma! She is a Royal Enfield Himalayan - all of 411cc, a good amount of power and performance at my call, with just a twist of the throttle! The automotive forums are abuzz with a common theme - niggles and issues with the bike, as well as with Royal Enfield in general. However, there are an equal number of happy owners, who enjoy the bike as t...

One of the first news report I read this morning is this - http://indianexpress.com/article/india/politics/muslim-techie-beaten-to-death-in-pune-7-men-of-hindu-outfit-held/#.U46d2V4S8zI.twitter It immediately elicited a flurry of responses along expected lines from the usual, useful idiots. Even the basic courtesy of expressing condolences for the dead person and the bereaving family was seen to have been forgotten, in their haste to tie their favorite punching bags to the conspiracy. They did not stop to think that the outfit named here had as much probability to be NOT related to RSS or any other parivar organizations, and could be floated by anyone, and funded by anyone. Not that the useful idiots ever demonstrated an ability to think. Now they are also demonstrating their insensitivity to loss - because it is a loss only to someone else and not to them. Without digging back on their 1400 year history, and with events of only the 21st century, we can conclude that the follow...

I thought of a lot of titles for this post: "Ache Din Aane Wale Hain" "Iss Bar Modi Sarkar" "Time for a new India" Some more are running around in my head. But the most predominant emotion in my mind was - relief. When the election dates were announced, I couldn't wait for this day - the counting day - to come sooner. Now that it has come and is almost over, the feeling of euphoria has given way to relief. As of this moment Modi is taking 268 colleagues along with him to the Lok Sabha for sure, according the Election Commission of India 's website. In a few more minutes, that number will change to 280. This is a big relief, since to run a government - the central government or The Government of India - he needs only 272 members in parliament. Along with the MPs from his allies, that number is somewhere beyond 330+. The trepidation and the excitement I felt yesterday when I penned the previous post were long gone - in fact they were dis...

For 2014, I wanted to read at least 100 books. Across genres, in both English and Tamil. Accessibility was not a problem, since I have bought a large number of books in the last 2-3 years. However, I forgot to consider that this is an election year. Over the last 2-3 months, I have been deeply immersed in following the people, the trends, the incidents and everything that a huge election like this brings. I was totally sucked in. As an ardent supporter of Modi and BJP, I wanted to take part in this process much more intently, though in the end, all I could do was go to the polling booth on voting day and press the button. I was so immersed in it, that I even forgot to complete and publish this post, which i started to pen last month! Anyway, now that elections are over and results are out - technically, they came out yesterday since it's already 12 AM on the 17th of May, 2014 - I can now go back to my books. I seriously have to go back to my books! It's not like...

Tomorrow is a big day. It would be a day marked in the history of India and a turning point in Indian politics. After a lengthy 9-Phase election, counting happens tomorrow - all the epithets like world's largest democracy, largest electorate, just a 100 million short of the combined population of US & Europe at this moment have been trumpeted again and again. Still, we need to keep the numbers in mind. The number of Indians who were eligible to vote were 814.5 million.  Of these 66.38% or 551.3 million people have voted (including yours truly, exercising my right to vote in the fifth election since 2006).  Our votes have been recorded in 1.4 million electronic voting machines, which will reveal the numbers tomorrow.  For more of these numbers you can refer this comprehensive page on Indian General Elections, 2014 over at wikipedia. This is a big enough spectacle to attract the attention of a large part of the planet. Running around right now are exciteme...

What exactly is patriotism? Is it also just a form of lust for land? What does a militant fanaticism towards language hide? Instead of freeing you, do these abstracts immerse you in emotional extremism? The strong emotions that you feel when you think of your Motherland, Mothertongue - Do they bind you much more firmly to the dirt of the land? To hatred? To violence? "Daanah Pah Daanah Da Nana..." Long before the singers began singing, the beat got me going. This song is written in a language of a small group of people who tend to sheep and goats in a harsh landscape. Akhtar Chanal Zahri is the writer as well as the singer. Born in Balochistan, he grew up belting folk songs in Brahvi, his mothertongue. In Brahvi, he has penned this incredible song, to describe his land, its beauty. This language may be tribal and harsh, but it blends itself to so much lyrical beauty and is thereby lofty and sweet to me. I have been listening to this song repeatedly, mesmerized by i...

Why is it that I can never do the one most important thing I always want to do, i.e. write 1000 words a day? This is one serious issue, which I never could fathom. I write reams of comments on facebook - a lot of arguments, debates, jabs and pokes, and plain nonsense. But I somehow seem to slowly lose the ability to sit down and compile my thoughts. It is with such a sad state of affairs that I have to welcome an otherwise hearty 2013, after a nice, overall pleasant and wonderful passing of 2012. 2012 brought me several new friends. I started learning a foreign language - español - and hope to reach a comfortable level, to speak and write. I learned swimming, though I am yet to perfect it. I got a comfortable new job, in which I can confidently stay for a good amount of time to come. I added quite a number of books to my library. Oh yes, I even got this brand new laptop,  Lenovo Y480 . It is another story that I could not do much of what I primarily wanted to do with this laptop ...

Serve We can get anything today for money. This bartering of money for objects and results has undervalued the value of both money and the thing it buys. The irony is calling that effort or result bought with money as a “service”. What then, is the real meaning of service? Expending one’s efforts with no expectations of any kind in return is service. It is done for the sake of the effort, for love, for the betterment of the person receiving it. To serve is to learn, to grow, to realize, and to enjoy. The act of serving helps the person performing the service more than the person receiving it. It clears the mind and purifies the heart. Such is the power of service, where even those who at first are not inclined to perform the act willingly, are soon touched by the joy of service. After all, they cannot escape the virtue of happiness and contentment when it spreads from their own hand. We “I” do not serve. “You” do not serve. “He, She, It” does not and “They” do not se...

Do you love masala movies? If you do, then you’ll definitely like Along The Way. To be true to the style of the book, it is the story of one Mr. VSA Tanikaburla by Mr. TGC Prasad. Venkata Subramaniam Adisankara Tanikaburla, also called as Venkat or more jovially as VSAT is our hero - who starts off as a very unassuming third year mechanical engineering student at NIT, Kozhikode and ends up as a... easy to guess if you like or at least have watched a masala movie - especially the Telugu or Tamil varieties. When you watch one such movie, you can predict what will happen next. This book is very similar, since it is full of cliches of the ‘boy-meets-girl’ kind and has everything - love, friendship, family, sorrow, trials and triumphs, except one thing - fights. In spite of the cliches, I couldn’t help laughing at the so many humorous digs at friends, girlfriends, parents, in-laws and most importantly - managers at workplaces. And our hero is honest enough to be “vocally self-critical”(...

Deciding on what to write has been really, really tough. Coupled along with "writer's block" (when I've not even begun to write!) it has almost strangled my blogging and regular writing. Finally though, I am a lot more confident of writing consistently, unlike the first two years of blogging, which saw just about the number of words that can fit in to a mobile phone text message or two. The confidence arises from my deciding on what I'll write, while wishing ardently that this will help me overcome my writer's block. Yeah, I want to write about everything under the sun. But this small problem of lack of knowledge and too much attention to detail and unwanted perfectionism stops me from doing just that. So, I will stick to two main categories that I know a wee little bit: books and music . Books, reading, writing, authors, characters, plots - I'll try to present everything that catches my eye. I read both English and Tamil, so both will find a place h...

Concrete is not cool. You understand that when you get a shock of green. A shock. That’s what you will get first when you travel to Anaikkatti, unprepared. Green is cool. The Arsha Vidya Gurukulam is like the centre of a forested valley on the Nilgiri moutains. Anywhere you turn, there’s a peak. There is always a lingering feeling that a giant, invisible hand manicures the woods inside the campus. But they are so naturally tranquil that, as you begin to drink in the scenery, you automatically dive into yourself. The boundary between that external greenery and your internal self are somehow blurred. The sounds of Rudram-Chamaka chanting that you hear in the distance only heighten the blur. Doubts, questions that you never knew you had, never knew you could even think up, creep in to your mind. Doubts only Vedanta could answer. Correct that - only a Teacher of Vedanta can answer. Strike even that out - only a Guru who has spent his entire lifetime enlightening people through Ve...

I ask a lot of questions. No, I change a lot of my statements to questions. Why? It induces people to respond. As a rule, questions beget more responses than statements. That way, I'm sure to elicit an answer - from myself or from someone else - most of the time. I naturally do ask a lot of questions - to myself. Even if it were intended to another person, I wait to ask. May be in the course of a talk or speech, my questions will be answered, instead of me jumping the gun. And many a time, I downplay my questions and don't ask them in public. I find it easier to approach someone and ask them questions face-to-face. This is also to create an opportunity to personally know someone. Asking questions crystallizes ideas or problems. It is then easier to express or execute the idea and find solutions to problems. Asking the right question, to the right person, at the right time is an art. It comes to a few people naturally; to a lot of others, with practice. So, if you need som...

Today I was working. In a mid-sized corporate company. I quit today. From tomorrow i'm taking up a new role. Many new roles in fact. Foremost among those roles will be - a student. It had taken me two years and a little more to make this decision; the one that was in the back of my mind all the time. But I was afraid. To make the change. Afraid of the initial period, where I might have to struggle. Afraid to leave the comfort and security and the routine. I was not confident to take that step and venture out in to the big, bad world - paradoxically. Not anymore. I'm raring to go now. There is still that small, tiny-winy bit of fear. But i'm confident of crossing any obstacle that would come across my path. This confidence originated in the understanding of the paradox. For I was already out in the big, bad world. If I decide to leave it, I would actually go to a more secure and stable world - from the world of money to the world of knowledge. I want to study and g...

The first time I came across the phrase "Spiritual, but not religious" was as an option for "Religion" when I signed up for Orkut. And I have found this phrase to be quite intriguing since then. As I started adding friends to my profile, I found many of them opting for this option. I doubt if they understood the meaning of this phrase properly. I am trying to understand this phrase too. Like jeans, pizza, coke, google, nuclear weapons, credit cards, gene modification, pollution, communism etc, this is an idea imported from the west. The two operating concepts here are "Religion" and "Spirituality" . And only if we understand what these two concepts really mean, can we understand the phrase "Spiritual, but not religious". When I think of religion these are what spring up in my mind - dogmas & doctrines, rituals & sacrifices, rules & restrictions, faiths & beliefs. These are considered as essential aspects of a rel...

What the heck!!! It's gonna be almost an year and I've not put up a post on my blog even once :( This "starting a blog" thingy has always been in my mind - thanks to the hundreds of blogs I go through and a equally good no. of mentions by my friends. And then came the idea of making money out of a blog. Gosh! That was a great idea! Who doesn't like to make some quick bucks on the trot, 'cos all you've got to do is place your backside firmly on a seat in front of the computer and type away - and Lo! You've got your coin box tinkling... Sigh!!! If it was only so easy. Some things were conveniently forgotten. First, it's not that easy to "place your backside firmly on a seat in front of the computer and type away" - I am quite lazy. Even if I manage to sit down to type, three keystrokes down the line, my mind just goes blank. What next? What was the topic, theme I was thinking about? Everything gone. Next is that "coin box ti...