Set of 5 stories - 55 fiction, Season 3

1) The realization

Today was the death anniversary of his father, he had not called his mother to avoid the uncomfortable conversation. As he sat on the beach, his eyes filled with tears, he saw a soap bubble drifting & popping in front of his eyes. He realized the fragile nature of life, what is there today is gone tomorrow!

P.S: Sometimes the loneliest of situations bring profound realizations. It's okay to avoid the uncomfortable conversation. 

2) Non-Judgemental 

        As tears of happiness rolled down his cheeks, he thought that finally there was one person in the world who would truly love him regardless of his looks, financial status, behavior etc. & more importantly not expect anything in return except a little bit of love. The newborn held her dad's thumb tightly as she fell asleep.

3) Random events 

       Three insignificant events happened almost simultaneously on a pale blue dot revolving around a normal yellow star. A soap bubble exploded to the amazement of the boy, a man felt alone but ecstatic for no reason in the crowd, and a woman felt sad after successfully finishing all the chores at home.

P.S : Don't take life too seriously, your existence is just so minuscule on a cosmic scale. 

4) The returned help

            He often gave a rupee or two to a beggar near his office. One day, while leaving the office it was raining heavily & he wanted to reach home soon. When the bus arrived, he noticed that his wallet was left behind in the office. The same beggar came & said, "This 20 rupees will help". He thanked the beggar. 

P.S : Sometimes small acts of kindness will go a long way to help you when needed.

Set of 5 stories - 55 fiction -Season - 1

1. The need

Being a salesman, he went in search of durable & tough shoes from shop to shop, as his job would make them worn out soon. On his way back home he saw a beggar with torn sandals. He felt sad & gave his new shoes to him as thinking that he needed them the most.

P.S: Apart form the idea in the story, many a times we shop for things which we really don’t need. Donate generously the old things you don’t need. May be it will reach a person who is really in need of them.

2. The same old story.

"Hey, tell the story of how we met at first. I love the way you tell" asked wife to her hubby.

"How often do you wanna listen to the same old story?"

"I'm 70 yrs old & keep forgetting things”

“Eh, how come you never forget that you have a memory loss? Anyway here it goes...”

P.S : We dream of spending great time with our spouse on great vacation or movie or some outside country trip. But we rarely imagine a scene where we are just comfortable in old age in the company of our spouse in the coziness of our home. 

3. The Dilemma 

He was trembling with fear, thinking of reasons to avoid the situation. His wife would finally discover the truth which he has hid since many years. He was not concerned about the problem. He wondered if it was more than it appeared. Then the doctor came in & said "Come on, Step on the weighing machine"

4. The care

The small white one got scared seeing a big thing in Pooja's hand, but felt relief when it found that it looked similar. It was big & had a shiny leg. The small one couldn't see the sky as that thing was all above it. Pooja's mom called 'It will rain, Stop playing with mushrooms & come inside'

5. The promise

“Dad you promised me sweets today!” said the little one. “Yeah, I know son the store was closed today, and they had cleaned everything for tomorrow’s festival, not even bits & pieces were seen. Tomorrow I'll get you, big pieces of Laddu, barfi & all that I can carry on my head ”said the father ant.

Note: Please click on the label to read more of my 55 fiction stories. Happy reading. 

Why So Serious ?

                 
Why So Serious ?  ...........Coz I am not a clown in the zoo of life, middle class life.

    There was an article in the recent Sunday times, 'Life' supplement that why is that sometimes guilt component involved in having fun. We offer for extra working hours to our bosses before requesting for  leave. Finally the article concluded that work life balance is important & we should give time to fun, apart from work. Thus the overview was to have a healthier work life balance in life.
   Very true, going further the thing behind us being so serious always is probably in the way we are brought up by our parents. In Indian society where middle class forms the major chunk of working population, work is considered very important as they say work is worship. Myself & most of my friends come from middle class life style & everyone seems to be having a conservative mindset where the terms like leisure, vacation, holiday time quality time with family are underrated. The term smart work is pretty new to us all. What our parents taught us as success mantra was hard work & over hard work. Basically some families emerge out of poverty into middle class & they are too afraid to look back. Hence the emphasis is on working harder, hard work being directly proportional to the financial status. The whole idea of work is centered around financial security. Parents do hard work & really worry a lot about saving not only for themselves but also their kids. Unlike in some cultures where kids get separated from their parents & find their own passion profession etc in their life, Well in Indian family the mindset is not to help children find their own passion, profession but to make them get into good stable secure job  so as to ensure a stable future, which may often be family business etc. Doctors kids become doctors mostly coz there is no one else to take care of the establishment, the nursing home or hospital, the hard work, they already have done. Most of our parents spend all their life in hard work & never take time to relax or spend leisure time. My parents dream was to have a good houses in which they can spend their old age, something of their own.  With limited income their philosophy was to save as much as possible.  Well with this all mentality in family a child naturally learns to have a conservative mindset. Why simply take risk when you can be reasonably happy with little or no risk. well we can pretend to be hay as well, although we may be not. I hate this concept -Why take the risk & become achiever in long run after lot of hard work when you can lay safely  become instantly ordinary person & as well pretend to be happy. Well we can always think that you can earn more money instead of spending leisure time on holidays or something. In software profession meeting project deadlines are more important than taking a break for personal reasons. 

Common-man & his Superpower

     With so many superhero movies, He-man, Superman, Spiderman, Ironman, Hanu-man, (these English channels pronounce Hanuman as Hunu-man) & noe the avengers which includes many super heroes, I felt kind of lonely, it made me wonder, who am I ?  Is there a superpower I may posses, perhaps unknowingly ? Can I describe myself completely when I say - I am common man. Does this definition encapsulate my personality, attitude towards life etc completely?  What is my character, my personality in comparison to these heroes ? Yes I am a common-man, although it rhymes with all super hero names, common man is just yet any man, you see in a crowd & pick anyone & define him, this definition totally explains me, & yet I once discovered my super power too - Its adjustment in life. Especially Indians get adjusted to anything & everything, that probably comes in their blood or learnt from parents. So I wonder sometimes, Is this adjusting attitude a kind of superpower?  On one hand it makes life easier & probably happier depending on the extent of enjoying on the compromised things. A typical common man optimizes on everything, on every thing he purchases, he worries about inflation, savings etc, going green is added now. Common man's life is synonym to simplicity, with no glam sham. Indians adjust on anything & everything. We many sometimes take it by default that we need to adjust on a particular issue without even consciously trying to be idealistic about our expectations. Indian standard time is always an offset ahead of the correct time. Official meeting happen late than scheduled time. Doctors make their patients wait after giving an appointment time. In Bangalore 'Swalpa adjust maadi' has become so common phrase meaning adjust little bit. The transport system runs late by default, say a govt bus arrives after exactly after half an hour of its scheduled departure time. People stand on the bus door with just one foot & hand inside, the trains are always crowded, even there was an instance when pilot allowed a kid inside cockpit.        

        I always wanted to be someone special, the monk who sold his Ferrari or the guy who purchased it. On the fantasy side, I don't know I always wanted to be Spider-man, just loved the pleasant & wonderful character in the movie.

The pic is from the movie- A Wednesday, amazing movie based on the concept of common man becoming furious & taking some action against terrorism. 

Shah: Mene Kaha Naa I Am Just The Stupid Common Man

Fishy ideas

                     This discussion happened among a group of Five small fishes below the white round rock most popularly considered as pebble & is recorded as the most important discussion in the history of aquatic kingdom ever. Five small fishes were on way back home from school when Nemo probably the most intelligent among them started this discussion:

Nemo : Hey guys have you ever thought there could be multiple worlds out there...I mean I kind of get this weird feeling that we live in a small world called ocean, but there may be another world which we may not even know it exists.

Marvin: Yeah, we always hear that humans catch fish & in this way we loose some of our friends & relatives. They are taken to another world.

Nemo: Hey come on, this is not the world I am talking about. We know this world ...its present just right above ours & we can just see when we pop our heads up. I am talking about the world beyond our planet earth.

Tom: yeah, my grandpa was telling that earth is one of the rarest planet on which life is possible. There may be other earths which may support life.

Tim: Hey Tom I have got a question for you, did your grandpa mean there are fish on other planet similar to earth ?

Jerry: I guess so, he may have meant fish life only. Its very unlikely he may have got out from here & traveled in space & seen aquatic life there.

Ted: Also, I have heard that there are multiple stars which have planets like earth revolving around them....Ah I think ours is called solar system. I am sad about Pluto loosing its planet's status, these humans how can demote Pluto of its planet status. It's just cute.

Tim: yeah in fact this is part of our studies in next standard. My senior friend of mine was telling he went back to his class teacher to get an extra mark for his correct answer of 8 planets which was actually wrong but after humans proved that there were only 8 planets his wrong answer became right.

Nemo: hey guys!! Just imagine if we could land up in another planet's ocean.

Tom: So whats the big deal !! it would be the same .

Jerry:  no it would be different ..there may be other species.... as well as other species of fish...might be bigger in size !!! Ah, I am scared now.

Nemo: My grandpa was telling there could be collection of stars called galaxies & many galaxies exist in this world. Humans call it Universe. They are not able to come up with the theory to explain the universe still. they just make up some shit like big bang theory etc, they don't even know what happened before big bang & how the entire thing would end.

Tim: So, why have they declared themselves most intelligent beings on this planet. If they live outside water that does not mean they can declare whatever they want.

Dorothy: yeah, the theory they have come up to explain the working of the the universe is called the big bang theory which states that there was a big explosion from which all this universe began. The galaxies formed & solar system & planets like earth which can support life forms like us

Tim: Why care about it anyways we cannot get out of this water anyway, chill folks, enjoy the water !

Tom: No, its not about caring its about finding the truth. I have even heard that there are complex objects in universe like black holes, worm holes, time machines in which we can travel through time & go into past or present.

Ted: Hey thats a good one, I have a brilliant idea, if I ever get a time machine, probably I can ask my dad to buy it as a birthday gift, I am going to go to my past & reappaear my exams so that i will come first to class.

Linny, no Ted Marvin you dont get it, when you go past in time you would not know the answers that time also. Its just like first time you appear for your exam

Nemo: Ahhhhh folks folks would you stop this discussion I miss playing after school in fact I would not be part of this discussion if it was not the storm prediction this evening. guys, dont you get it !! All these are FISHY IDEAS !!  Who is up for Scrabble !

Dorothy: I have even heard that there a particular species of human being weird guy named Sunil who has authoring a book which contains ideas like this. Its an old book, but good to read though, Do you guys want to come over my home, I will read it ....you all can listen....

there is whispering heard: hope it will be as interesting & a little more complicated than our last year's nursery rhymes i suppose

As they dont have a choice all go to listen Dorthy reading the book which goes like this:

And there comes a star fish,
Star - Fish -  sorry guys i couldn;t resist & overheard this conveersation, can anyone tell me if you have ever seen a star shaped like me ?  I wonder why humans named me star fish anyway  ?

Nemo:  Oops Charles Darwin missed you, or apparently he never knew the reason while naming you !

......to be continued

The pleasure of letter writing

The pleasure of letter writing
                            ....an insight into whether letter writing has lost it's sheen ?

I recently posted this on FB Wall of a good old buddy of mine

Me     :  What’s up bro, u look so f* up?  How many beers last night?

Reply :  WTF?  I stopped drinking from last night J ROFL ! 

Me     :  Dude, seriously start drinking, look what have you become in a day.

Out of nowhere, a sudden thought ran across my mind – Why did the primary school teachers teach us letter writing at all, when we are not using it anyway. Probably it was 5^th standard or so when we had to write those stupid letters to pen friend etc. So polite official & humble, with formatting & all, as if he would receive it in whatever country he stayed & replied.

  Image credit: The Motor Cycle Diaries.

A letter back home read : 

Dear mom...Buenos Aires is behind us

Behind is as also the miserable life

The faculty, the exams and the dissertations that make you sleepy

Before us lies all of Latin America

From now on we will only trust in "La Poderosa"

                                                                               ……from The Motorcycle Diaries

           Gone are the days when letters & postal service was main medium of communications. Apart form official mails, writing a letter to a friend, relative, or to a beloved person brought joy & had its own thrill in anticipating the probable thoughts of the reader. At the other end when the post man delivers the letter, the wonderment behind the question - Whose letter is it?  fills up the mind. Excited reading of the letter like trying to read the mind of sender & replying back are yet other pleasurable aspects. You may have been on some college trip writing back home the things you liked the most, details about the places visited, or sent a post card back home - the ones which carry a picture of the place on one side. The Pankaj Udhaas song Chitti Aaye hai, Aaye hai Chitti Aaye hai, seemed so wonderful & relevant with this postal concept. 

                 With the advent of instant communications using electronic media, internet has not without a doubt brought a revolution in the way we live our lives, the way we stay in touch. Optical fibers across oceans floors & satellites orbiting earth transfer information in almost real time i.e with slight or no delay at all – certainly the most effective one. Unlimited storage mails, social networking sites like Orkut, Facebook, Twitter, IM- instant messengers like Yahoo & Gtalk almost eliminate the need to write a letter & post it as mail at your nearest post office. The entire aim of social networking is to bring the entire social networking experience in electronic media accessible by just being plugged into the wall from the corner of your house, Thanks to those free Sms’es & now the latest trend - twitter where people can post silly things like:  I missed brushing my teeth today LOL! etc, thereby keeping their friends updated about even most silliest thing happening in their lives. Software professionals hardly find the need to use a pen, leave the case of writing letter to someone. I don’t carry a pen around, work is mostly on office laptop & find it easy to write down any note in my Blackberry or Ipod. It's easier to maintain, paper gets misplaced every time. Apart from the Go Green campaign of printing only very essential items writing has become a passé in modern computer offices. More & more offices which used to function on paper records are now opting electronic media thus avoiding paper which is indeed environment friendly. Nobody has time these days to sit & write a letter an hour long to parents etc, even if they are not familiar with internet mailbox etc. As the Airtel advertise says truly states - Impatience has become the new life, even breakups happen over sms’es.

              At 25 paisa, post card was the commodity which retained its price for longest duration. A 1 Rupee Inland letter served the purpose well for most of the personal communications. Thanks to postal department which still connects the remote parts of India, where there is still no internet connectivity or mobile towers have not come up yet. Many TV serials feature this – a son working in city sends money order & letter about his well being to his parents back home in village & the post man all senti n stuff reads it to his illiterate parents.        

     When it comes to romantic love letters in not-very distant past, the love letters exchanged could be treasured & read over again to feel the love again, to relive the moments of their love life. Nothing beats the touch & feel - the pleasure of reading a handwritten love note from person whom you love. Perhaps this delay in communication through mail creates a romantic void, desperation, missing of each other, making them realize the depth of love between two lovers, to hear from each other, meet each other. A letter sent from a Soldier to eagerly waiting parents back home, bringing a sigh of relief hearing about their son along with making them proud. Perhaps Pankaj Udhaas singing chitti aayi hai song appreciates & glorifies the feeling behind this letter writing paradigm. Although internet era brings its own advantage of effective & faster communication, letter writing though is not as popular as it used to be. I recall a couple of instances in my life when a letter brought me utmost joy, like a reply to my query about careers in Astronomy from a noted astrophysicist Prof Jayant Narlikar & was so excited & jumping with joy when my letter was read out on DD national TV serial, Surabhi.

            

              I wish to fill in the ink in the old fountain pen, found in my old cupboard & write a letter once again, but wonder whom to send! don't have the addresses of any of my friends, only IP addresses are important in this era !

Astronomy vs Astrology

     During the Kalpaneya Yatre @ JNP, there was a lecture organized on Astrology mainly with the objective to debunk myths. the audience was professional astronomers from IIA, ISRO scientists, Astrophotography enthusiasts like MR Ajay Talwar, amateur astronomers like me Naveen, & lots of BAS members, educators film producers, art enthusiasts movie directors etc, Shrusti school of arts folks etc. After the session which was on the basics of astrology, the debate & questionnaire was really insightful. this was sensitive topic from ages. As someone rightly put out to debunk myths about astrology we must understand the basics of astrology & explain to people that whats wrong in it, even the astronomy part of the astrology is wrong. someone had a nice argument about eclipse, they consulted  several top gynecologists to know the reason behind the pregnant women advised not to go out during eclipse. The reply came that we don't know the reason, but we advise precaution better don't go out during eclipse. Exactly, fear of consequence is what prevents us from trying out a thing thinking why the risk simply. I & Kiran were discussing: Somethings are under our control, we go to astrology or prayer to make the things which are not under our control to make them turn in our favor. we can study very hard for the exam all night to get good marks but the paper should come reasonably easy to score good marks. So a simple technique of a pooja in morning may save us from getting low marks , then why not try it, simply why the risk ?  similarly we apply same logic for bigger things in life. we buy a house investing all our life's hard earned money on that & that should be essentially on Auspicious day & the house should strictly follow at least basic fundamentals of Vaastu. At least i should not have argument that      IIA conducted a breakfast session during eclipse to disprove any beliefs that eating during eclipse will be harmful.         

    

  ...to be continued. 

Revenge against destiny

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 15; the fifteenth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

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5.30 a.m  at Green valley railway station, Jammu & Kashmir :

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Chotu : Wake up, Wake up my friend, listen carefully. I want you to do one work of mine, give this parcel to my brother on his birthday next week, I wont be there promise me that you will not open it & see. This belongs to my brother, Just give it to him & tell its last gift from me. Keep this safely with you. I have wrapped it in plastic cover so that it will not get wet. I am going somewhere, I have made a choice probably the most important decision of my life. I am sick & tired of this life. If am earning only Rs 50 selling team here, hence cannot rejoin my school. I will not end up anywhere near my dreams. Besides I will be having guilt of not taking care of my bother. I am just choosing the less worse thing, in fact I suppose I don’t have a choice.    

Destiny has played a dirty game with me, I am going to reply it now.

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6: 00 am train arrives at Green valley 

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Boom ! A loud blast is heard, Bomb Blast & next instant three compartments burning with fire, there is blood everywhere, many people catching their last breadth, many already dead. 

Police & ambulance, fire brigade rushing to towards station.

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Report by local newspaper next day
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His name was Chotu, Police have confirmed this is the case of Suicide bombing, another shameful act of terrorism, this is the third bomb blast in the city in last 5 months. Making a child a carrier of bomb by giving him money is cheap act of terrorism.

When we asked police more about the blast, the police have told us 'Although no terrorist organization has taken responsibility for the blast, what else can be the reason? we are so easy targets of terrorists here in our valley always, he was a waiter at local stall, sold tea at platform & in the train. He came here last year after his parents were killed in the market bomb blast. They owned a general stores in the market. The hotel owner was care taker of these two brothers Ram & Sham. Chottu or Ram elder brother was about 15 yrs old, but everyone called him Chottu.  His brother & friends are denying that Ram could ever do this bad thing. He was speaking with two strange guys one week back, after serving them them tea. They were talking to him something for quite sometime, may be asking him about the city. 

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Rotary School, Jammu & Kashmir
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       This is the story of Chottu, this is the beautiful picture I took one month back of the Station. Today this platform is in ashes. Terrorism never stops like this, only increases. Use the correct approach to stop terrorism. Rehabilitation of the victims should be done essentially, otherwise they will loose their normalcy in life and get carried away for doing anything anti social for sake of money. If the govt had some school or some NGO could have taken care of Ram & Sham & continued their education. they would have not done this.

          This is the moral science class & we have heard many nice stories. But children, this is not just a stroy, this is reality, things happening not far from our school.  You all are going to be the next future of India, you need to bring about a change. While the corrupt policy makers are busy making money for themselves & public opinion's vary over a trajectory from denial to acceptance, people just want to be told it's over. But it's not.

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One week later..
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Chottu's friend gives Sham the parcel and tells Happy Birthday Sham, your brother gave me this parcel to give it you, he said its his last gift. I think Chottu wanted you to be happy always.
They together open the packet & surprised to see ten thousand rupees. Sham tells I miss my brother, he was the only family I had, how can he think I will be happy with this money, I don't want this money, I want my brother back.

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Credits
Image - Alston Station by Wandering Soul
Courtesy - www.deviantart.com via www.blogaton.in

Changing times, changing interests!



myself @ IISC bookstore

         Life is strange isn't it?  How things change rapidly with time, how our interests, hobbies, passions change in course of time, no fixed time period though. Apart from Astronomy, which is inbuilt in my gene, when I was in hostel during engineering days it was Hollywood flicks & chicks. Thilak my friend inspired me to watch English movies. This was a wonderful world of story telling. I saw so many movies, that if anyone asks my favorite movies I can tell over hundred of them easily. Easy availability facilitated this, thanks to torrents & piracy; otherwise I would never have afforded so many movies. Say in 4/5 years now watching a movie has become a passé in my life. What really happens when you watch so many movies is expectations increase or other side effect is you get irritated by so many not-so-good movies coming all the time. Nowadays it blogging, writing & reading books. Just find very hard to find time, Attracted towards blogosphere which is also platform of story telling, various stories about so many things in the world & out of the world. I didn’t know such a world existed until some months before. Very young people have such an excellent command over English & write so elegantly that makes me wonder how come they have opinion about anything & everything. Some of them write so elegantly, so expressive that they bring out the exact opinion in reader’s mind they wanna convey, apart from creative writing blogging is all about beautifying your blog as well, people play with HTML like paint brush. Some blogs are so full of art & beauty. 

Thoughts_behind : IISC library has some of the best colletion of physics books, was very glad to see latest printed releases of Feynman Lectures on Physics. So many books to read, So less time left in life !

Happy teacher’s day

                     To all the teachers out there, I wanna express my gratitude & wish them a very happy teacher’s day. I don’t have any particular teacher in mind to call up or recall & wish exclusively, not because they were not good, but I was just different & got drifted away from my education at quite early stage, hence lesser appreciation towards things & teachers. As I a good listener, I always wanted to be a student in class room of the great scientist & teacher Dr Richard Feynman. I have been most inspired by his books & lectures & learnt so much. I wish, I could be in his class saying “Thanks professor”   .

The best books in Physics  :  Feynman Lectures on Physics

     As my sister said it - the American education system is designed in identifying & improving strengths so that people excel in what they are good at, achieving something in life,  hence the number of PhD's in US exceed by a large factor compared to India,. The Indian educational model identifying only weakness, doesn't even care about the interest of students & does not appreciate the strengths etc, hence making all people normal persons.  They invest their time & mental energy in improving their weakness whole lifetime & hence become ordinary persons just like everyone else. Education model basically should concentrate in helping students in identifying their interest. Counselling should be an essential part of the school activities. More important then that education system should focus on inculcating good values of our society & culture thus giving out responsible & best citizens for tomorrow. We must start implementing new policies which calls for an unconventional approach now ! 

Return

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 14; the fourteenth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

Here goes a few lines of Aerosmith's Tune….

I could stay lost in this moment forever

Every moment spent with you is a moment I treasure

I just want to stay with you in this moment forever and ever

Don't want to close my eyes

I don't want to fall asleep

Cause I'd miss you

And I don't want to miss a thing....

                 There are quite a few occasions in my life, I have felt I can’t afford to miss even a fraction of a second without enjoying to fullest-the ecstatic moments to cherish in my entire life. Enchanting Ganapati Bappa Moraya in Pune’s splendid Ganesh Chaturti festival was an incredible experience two years back, although I missed celebration of the same back home. Those huge artistic beautiful idols, devotees in thousands, ten thousand watt speakers, dancing & celebrations all were such ecstatic moments that they can’t be described in words. I felt as though I was in another dimension of living where my mind went into some sort of a hibernation and the heart chanted prayers of Lord Ganesha. Somehow for the first time in my life, I appreciated the beauty of God & the need to be thankful to Him to whatever he has given me. A deep mystic sense of gratitude arouse in me. Everyday while leaving home, as the Lingayat tradition goes, I apply 3 horizontal lines of Vibhuti on my forehead, rapidly recite a prayer without knowing its meaning, more importantly without knowing it's significance in life & rush to live my daily life without even realizing what God meant to me. It's like, I give a power point presentation to god about my wishlist in life & erase the vibhuti as soon as I am out of mom's sight, thinking it had become a passe. 

      God is not essentially an incomprehensible form whom we blindly worship. God is a feeling, an Ehsaas, an emotion, a tribute to the creator & sustainer of life, a feeling of thankfulness etc. You can customize God to the form you like to worship, May it be in love towards your parents, profession, knowledge, possessions etc. You may see God in your beloved people, in  your family. Sounds rather bizzare- I find God in Astronomy- the subject I love the most. I find God in the love towards my family - my parents & grandparents who were freedom fighters. I have heard stories from my grandma about how Ganapati festival & processions happened in pre - independence days & hence have a sort of emotional attachment to all this. As a family tradition the idol we bring is from same shop made by the same person every year. 

         All great scientists who are logical thinkers throughout their lives are firm believers in God. This spirituality, devotion, is all beyond logic. We need a much higher level of thought process to understand & appreciate such things. Ordinary people like us who do not care much what mythology or history defines God to be, have an option to perceive & worship God in whatever form we like.

Ganesh Chaturthi, which was initiated for the purpose of national integration among Indians during days of freedom struggle, creates a wonderful atmosphere of joy, happiness celebration in home as well as in society.

I am waiting for the return of this splendid festive season, to re-live the Ganesha moments again (modaks included!).

Ganapati Bappa Morya, Purchya Varshi Laukariya !!

P.S : First job, new city, first time living away from home, no friends at all - I went to Pune & my uncle's friend picked me up & on way to his home, where I was supposed to be staying for a week, saw  Dagdusheth Ganapati  & exclaimed Whoa !  such a beautiful idol !  - first time I left saying the 'F' word for all exclamatory things, after 4 yrs of hostel life - my first dose of refinement I suppose. 

Unlike other Gods, probably the duration for which we keep Ganapati idol makes it so special, kind of missing feeling after festive season. Hope to catch up both this year - Pune's Ganapati celebrations & at my home too. For those of you who have not seen the Pune's Ganapati festival, do make a plan to be a part of the same this year.


You can get more info at : Ganesh_Chaturthi@Wiki

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Finding a way !

             I was really very impressed by this pic & thought it deserved a blog-post, How true isn't it ? If we intend to do something really, your mind just desperately overworks to devise a method, a plan, a way to accomplish it somehow. If it's a bit on unlawful side, later there is philosophy which comes to rescue, and we can take comfort in its belief, proving the righteousness of our action. One confession: I was really impressed by an article "Seven mysteries of physics" in New Scientist magazine, in old racks of my School/College library, which nobody read anyway. I liked it so much that i just wanted it & devised a clever way to steal it without getting caught, coz i knew how the system works, not the system of check being done at exit, but the librarian not allowing me to have the book, in-spite of truly expressing my interest. This was a tough job, though not as tough as Oceans's folks stealing a Casino. I would have regretted if I had not done that.  Anyway, thanks to internet which allows access to knowledge across the world.

             We have got to do the best with what god gave us, the resources which we have, tell me if there is any other way to be happy ?  Finding an excuse is very easy. There can be hundred arguments to not to the do the work & lazily lie on the couch , dusting oneself up & get moving is the key. Just being careful not to allow procrastination to creep in, otherwise things will have assurance to be accomplished but may never be as life is short. Rethink on your assumptions about everything, strengths weakness etc etc & reevaluate the strategy time to time. Don't apply obsolete methods which may fail in this kalyug. Whatever you do have a plan B , plan C also if possible, & allow enough happiness in you plan B to keep the people around you happy.
I think I must stop, thats a overdose of philosophy, that too on a Sunday !

Who is this God person anyway?

      Probably there is no God, enjoy your life : read the quote on the side of bus, Volvo buses nowadays have lot of good advertisements these days which just captures the attention. Although many people just don’t care what microprocessor is running in their laptop, but everyone likes a take a look at Intel’s upcoming processor. As I looked at this quote I began to wonder, was this an advertisement for selling happiness, was this an add to not to make money or sell any product but some what bring about atheism or just a message “take a break dude, chill out, enjoy ! ”




Different cultures have different assumptions on histories of God

Seems like true sometimes, owing to the fact that we can never figure out what or who actually is God. Is this universe itself God. Then we humans being a part of the universe are also part of God. We too are divine in one form & hence everyone can worship oneself.





History & mythology is overloaded with innumerable concepts about God. All civilizations had to introduce God in their culture & tradition. No one could dare to run their society in good manner without the concept of God. All civilizations spent a lot of their efforts to build magnificent temples, conduct poojas.





In India, Indus valley civilization the oldest running civilization ever has innumerable cultures & traditions & hence many many concepts about god.

India is called a land of snake charmers, since it was a profession, so considered holy & divine & worshipped in the form of God. Then came the industrialization .the tools which provided livelihood in factories machinery etc were worshipped as God. Ayudha pooja what we call.

to be continued ...under compilation

Escape

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 10; the tenth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

Is life = func(obligations) ?
       I had a busy day, day out with friends & must admit I had to post something hurriedly for the competition, these hang outs are uncommon in my friend's circle, though we are in 20's something guys & like talking about various flowers in the world, but we fall in the category of responsible middle-class, middle-aged-youth software professionals where marriage is on hit list, & as usual jumping companies like Spiderman, so that we can do the best in terms of earning money & learning new technologies, thus trying hard to maintain balance between professional life & personal life & never find time to have reunion with good old buddies. Life is not like a simple see saw maintaining balance with these two alone. There are dreams, aspirations, hobbies, which may not have turned into career owing to some conditions. I was thinking of coming up with some good concept about 'escape' since this morning. All I could come up was that first line 'life is a function of obligations'. But, when I went out with my friends, these thoughts vanished & I was just enjoying the flow, no office worries, no house obligations, just a carefree perspective towards things coming along. Probably this was an escape from daily life of office chores. This weekend was certainly an escape from stress in my case. I asked my friend what is your instant thought, when I say the word 'Escape', he told the Escape of key of keyboard. Unlike his thought, my initial thought was the great escape of Shawshank from jail (movie: Shawshank Redemption). Truly, What a great movie that was! So, wondering what makes me truly liberated & blissful something similar to feeling when Shawshank had after escaping form jail & the dialog "Andy Dufresne... who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side". This is one of my favorite dialogs. So, what is my 'other side’? This weekend or holiday trip spent with friends? Is it a silly lie to my manager & a break from normal office day? A day spent with beloved talking her shopping & fancy restaurants or a movie? Quality time spent with family & friends? A random reading of good blogs (am now fascinated with blog world after being obsessed with Hollywood flicks & chicks for nearly 4 years now). I was just enlisting the possibilities where I may feel liberated. But, since I am crazy about astronomy, I think I would like to take a break & spend some time reading a poplar astronomy book or listen to podcasts of some physics professor or hang out for star party with my friends form club (http://www.bas.org.in/), break my head on concepts of theoretical astrophysics, write down some more weird thoughts in my never-finding-time to-continue book 'Beyond your thoughts' etc. Yes, this constitutes my escape, may not be exciting to many, as few people are interested in astronomy stuff. I wonder what escape means to others in sense of spending spare time. I am sure, everyone has a escape in sense of spending spare time. Do let me know in comments section. This will be a good insight.
      In philosophical realms, I don't mind taking a break & running away form realities of life, family obligations, office chores once a while giving myself time to do the things I like to do. I think the take away more important then winning or loosing this competition is insight it has brought me & clearer sense of understanding about the things which keeps me moving. Thanks blog-a-ton for providing this opportunity.

I wanna run away form this reality as fast as I can…
Escape into my little wonderland, where anything is possible
Only to return back into real world & embrace reality more strongly
For now, I know that the escape is not an escape but just an insight into my own self.


PS: A star party, a term in realms of amateur astronomy is one in which people fascinated to watch the night sky or interested in observational astronomy spend night watching the sky somewhere outskirts of city with telescopes & binoculars. This basically involves identifying constellations, spotting & observing stars, planets, double clusters, open clusters, nebulae, galaxy clusters, comets etc with telescopes. Applying the knowledge of observational astronomy & Optics for observing many of these things I just like to fall asleep just for a couple of hours before day break wondering about the mysteries of cosmos.

The fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton and links to their respective posts can be checked here. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

Missing childhood !

I wanna feel young again  

I wanna play in the rain

to wash away all the pain

to relive the innocence once again

for the youth that doesn't make sense anymore

for the lost dreams in life's obligations

for the compromises made with oneself for making life seem alright

for living life right from other’s perspective.

for all the sacrifices done which feel worthless now,

for all the such things & many more, was the pleasure gained worth the pain ?   

i just wanna be myself, to relive the innocence of childhood,

to hug to my mom every time I am scared.

I wanna feel young again,

I wanna fly the paper aeroplanes from roof of my house,

I wanna maneuver the paper boat in the rain water lanes

I wanna run in the garden, catching butterflies
I wanna fly my kite high in the sky 

for the life in 20's something, nothing seems to be in my control,

only a desperate feelings to take control of things all around me

which seems to fall apart..

I wanna feel kid once again…

I wanna carelessly ride my bicycle

knowing dad 's always there to lift me up when I fall

I wanna jump around doing nothing all the day

As I know, just can’t do it anymore,

I just wanna return to the childhood innocence once again,

to feel the bliss of being a care-free naughty kid !

I wanna return to that life where all the small things created excitement. Eating from tiffin boxes of friends, getting new compass box, taking something interesting to class everyday like pencil, stickers, toy, magnet, a new key chain etc. I am struck with blackberry & apple organizing my daily activities on them, I just wanna return to time when I could just simply eat them. There was a time I could play F1 sitting on the floor whole day with all my toy cars. I just wanna pretend crying for no reason at all & mom consoling me for hours taking me in her lap. I just wanna live life once again, Amen !


Oh Childhood can you come just once again please !  

The ecstasies of a last-bencher !

               How do you expect a guy to be whose dad is a physics professor?  Studious, pretty serious, ambitious, first bencher, taking notes seriously & excelling in all things with a great academic record? Well, I was hardly like the description above & never liked the first bench. Owing to height, I was made to sit last bench in school days, this trend continued in high school & college etc. You know what? Sitting in last bench has its own advantages & I enjoyed it a lot. First of all the probability of making line of sight eye contact is less, you get saved if you haven’t done the home work or assignments. Basically the essence of being a last bencher is you can have your own space, create friends circle there & have your opinion on all things taught in the front. You get to explore the lighter side of fundamentals taught there & enjoy in a cool way as we will learn the actual concepts before exam anyway. First benches are for intelligent guys who mug up things & wish to get higher grades whose sole purpose is to outperform others without having choice of their own. I have friends who were first benchers & had ambitions like marine engineering, advertising, singer, actors, army etc, there were a dozen who told that they would become scientists or astronomers, at least I managed to become an amateur astronomer, but that’s a different topic anyway. But now all are in IT companies just like everybody else. Last benches are for intellectual ones whose level is one higher than intelligent ones & have a cool & unusual opinion about the concepts. For e.g. in engineering I never understood the subject Information theory & coding. I was always wondering if the life on earth would end, we should have backup of all the information, the knowledge gained over ages archived, so that life could continue even if handful of humans left on planet or by having a server on mars or suitable planet & migrating there in case of any catastrophes on earth. With the advent on internet, the amount of information has increased so much that there is so much repetition of information if at all we decide to archive it. That database would be huge even with today’s terra bytes hard disks. No doubt I managed to pass the exam with difficulty.    

                In engineering, suddenly the number of intellectual guys tends to increase & last benches are more in demand. Last ones get filled & then the first ones. Infact at many occasions at my college SDM Dharwad, which rhymes with Harvard & we have a popular saying “Rejected Harvard to study in Dharwad” few first benches would mostly remain empty & professor would have to shamelessly ask students to come in front. Unless the teacher is pretty looking lady it’s pretty hard to motivate the students to come & occupy the front benches. Other advantages of last bench include you can sleep so that you can find time off-class hours for more important things like eating, roaming, chatting on various flowers in the world. You can keep staring at girl whom you like & just enjoy the time passing by watching her because you are damn serious about your one sided relationship with her. Parents often insist their kids to sit near to board because they believe this will impact their performance. Well, I seriously doubt that as I have friends who are first & last benchers who are software engineers in Infosys, TCS, and Wipro just like everybody else. I recently had to sit in first row as apparently all the seats were taken at a lecture at IIA - India Institute of Astrophysics. The lecture was on Bose Einstein condensate which was cool of course as name suggests. This made me nostalgic & recall the long forgotten sweet memories of being last bencher all through my life. Hence this reminisce post.

  

I miss you last bench wherever you were!!

God bless the last benchers with more fun ;-)  

Nostalgic feelings of a time traveller

Stories of time traveler part-1
I have loved & fantasized about the concept of time machine, the philosophical part of & the theoretical astrophysics part of it, seen it in several films & hence a kind of obsession. I was just wondering if I get a chance to time travel, how wonderful would that be. Probably I can go back to my high school days; they were probably the best days of my life, not very best to associate myself singing the ‘summer of 69’ for those memories, but they were worth a good recollect & enjoy feeling nostalgic about them. I would time travel back to my class & look at myself when I was an 18yrs old kid. So I continued imagining. A series of thoughts ran across my mind. The first period was Maths & Kulkarni started to explain factorization. Well there was nothing much exciting about it as myself along with few more others in class would have learnt the same in his tuition class few days earlier itself. I did not hate or dislike maths but just believed that unless you are a genius you cannot achieve anything great in it as it’s quite tough. That’s why I instantly appreciated Charles Herman’s (John Nash imaginary roommate) dialogue in the movie A beautiful mind which goes “Mathematics is never gonna lead you to higher truth, because it’s boring”. Sometimes the understanding would go void like division by zero is not defined. I wondered if there are any researches going on that understanding? On that day, I had factorized it so much some a2(a2+b2) equation that I went ahead un-factoring it & arriving at the question itself & wondering what was going on ? Accidentally I had scored 25 out of 25 in 1st test & kind of needed to maintain my reputation or impression n class, oh come on whom am I kidding? It was all for maintaining impression for girls; I took extra interest in learning things. I had heard that beauty & brains would not go together & I was happy with the thought that a beautiful girl would be interested in me. What to do with herself being intelligent anyway? There was this girl Neeta whom I used to ask doubts. She was too brilliant in maths that I often wanted to tell her that she must seriously think of going for higher education in some good university abroad. I never told her this I suppose. Some times we fail to tell things which we regret later in life. Then the science teacher walks in. she is kind of reading the science book & explaining things, not that interesting though. But the contents were my favorite as it was astronomy. It was more of astronomy fact book than a book intended to arouse curiosity & excitement in young student’s mind about the mysteries of universe. But since I loved astronomy from I don know like from second standard or something so I loved it anyway. That was the time when Pluto enjoyed its status as a planet; I feel pity for Pluto now. Lot of things have changed about mankind’s understanding & hence perception of universe since then, We have Hubble’s telescope encircling the earth & doing pretty good job taking very nice pics of deep sky objects which were never seen with best telescopes on earth, thus confirming the fact that galaxies are moving from each other, in other words our universe is expanding. Now we have observational evidence backed with statistical data to confirm the big bang theory which tells that our universe was created in big bang & since the bang galaxies are moving away from each other, also farther the distance between them the faster they are moving apart. I learnt more astronomy reading articles in newspapers than the science text book.
I was always a last bencher & wondered whether it was just owing to height, but still managed to get a pretty decent rank. I have always loved the last benches, because the probability of getting Line of Sight eye contact with teacher is less & you can be in your world exploring the humorous aspect of the things taught in class. the front seats are for the intelligent kids who are too ambitious & have clear goals in mind of what they wanna do in their lives, but as I have observed they end up doing quite the opposite of it. I had couple of friends telling that would join Army or navy & couple of them telling they would be astronauts. All of such kids have ended up in Infosys, TCS, and Wipro nowadays. The back benches are holy they are for the intellectual people like us who like to have their space & time to interpret things in their own way. Well in engineering classes the competition for getting back benches is more as suddenly the number of intellectuals tends to increase apart from the fact to avoid being asked for submission of assignments.
Then was the games period, the much awaited one, like the Vardan given by god after getting impressed for the morning prayers for so many years. Sir asked to count randomly 1 & 2 & made 2 teams to play football. After a while I forgot who my teammates were & after a while I forgot where my goalpost was. Probably I think others had forgotten as well, as everyone seemed to be running behind the ball. So I followed the rest, ran fast behind the ball wherever it went just trying to grab an opportunity to kick it & this was fun !!
Then as usual we went late to the moral science class as the sir would not scold about that. The subject was considered passé even then. He told some story centered around the concept of hope & at quoted at the end “We should have hopeful hope not hopeless hope” which was more practical as we can hope for things we can really achieve I life. Neither the school nor the students give much importance to moral science. I now believe that this should be given importance as these lessons make us more human. Make us realize what we want out of life, identify ourselves & our place in society which are very important to lead a good & happy life. Then we had the social science history class, we put the “F” word to right use the first time “Who the fuck cares when the battle of Plassey was fought or arrange bunch of such nonsense happenings in chronological order”. I seriously believed that we should not mug up things which we can always look up in book. Come on what is the purpose if preserving books for then? If we feel the need to throw away the book then we no longer need the things contained in the book.
The hindi class was always good as hindi teacher would read a line in the book & go on telling some interesting story & at the end of class she would always tell “dekho mein kahan se kahan pahoonch gaye” we all used to reply Kahin nahi pahoonche madam, bas chapter ke pehle line mein he hai ! & then there were tests & marks comparision. This was the time india was blessed with evergreen bollyhood hits like DDLJ & KKHH & DPT & it was good to imagine ourselves as hero & fall in love with beautiful girl in class.
I took a deep breadth & realized I don’t wanna return to present life’s mindset which is more of a routine & responsibilities etc. There is not much fun & we cannot do childish things anymore. ....

The big fat corporate lunch

        “Did you like the Pizza Sir?” : A voice came from behind my head from waiter boy at pizza hut. “Ya absolutely, we enjoyed our pizza, especially the cheese toppings were delicious!” I replied in american ascent, something which I had gained just for kicks by watching loads of pirated hollywood movies !

But I had this deep thought...switching over to my original UK style.No No it’s not United Kingdom English, but my original Uttara Karnataka accent from the American ascent... en pizza no eno? namma hubballi-dharwad avarege jwaladda rotti, badnikaye palye, menacinahindi, kotra eshto khushi aage bidteve....esht divasa aat nodu tinlarada. Baddemaga....ondu tundu bread piece kottu myala eno palle haaki, bissie made noora aivathu rupaye bill hachtaan....ishta rokkadaga mane mande ella oota maadbahudittu...meaning for people from north Karnataka would like to have Jowar roti & brinjal curry, red chilli chutney which makes us delighted as its our food style. What's there in a circular piece of bread to overprice it to Rs 150, whole family could dine with with Rs 150.

      As I am not a foodie, I generally tend to enjoy eating anything in veg served with love. People tend to enjoy the food from the area they originate from probably because of the emotional factor involved with it. They connect to the people there, lifestyles, food styles etc, thus making eating a pleasurable experience. You may not admire to the extent when you daily eat your ethnic food items, but when you have it after many days...you certainly will love it lot after missing it for sometime.

              You know, when i was a kid, my mom used to tell interesting stories while she tried to make me eat. i can still remember the story of probably because i listened to it like over a million times ...may be was my favorite then ! Dad was coming to home from office after hard work & getting Mishra Pedha laddu or sweets for home. He met an ant on way which was a kind of our family friend. the ant asked about family members about me etc, this basically included the day to day activities which made the story new everytime, clever trick haan ! mom used to include what i did at school what she did recently etc. Dad after briefing the friendly ant asked about its family children etc & gave a piece of laddu for it to take it back home. It wrapped & headed for its home which was the corner near our house entrance. When the food on plate was almost getting over, she told the hard work & the pain that goes behind the scene : the scene of her making me eat. the story behind every rice seed. A farmer ploughs the field with hard efforts day long in hot sun, puts the seeds in the soil waits desperately for the rain, prays to god that rains should be sufficient & at the right time, cuts the crop cleans it & sells to shopkeeper, dad earns for it with hard work in office, mom brings it from shop & cleans & cooks it...so this is the story behind every rice grain. After hearing this who would even think of wasting even one grain in plate after finishing the lunch. not even a child right ? I would get a bit scared & simply finish the last pieces of food on the plate. What I gained was respect towards food in general & the wisdom or realization that there could be hundreds of hungry stomachs which can get the food if I don’t waste it. Things were simple to implement this funda when i was kid as mom used to eat in same plate, so technically i did not waste any food. Generally Moms have weird ways to make their kids eat anyway, so food for me has always been an emotional factor rather than an enjoyment or passionate sort of thing. Hundreds of farmers in India even today commit suicide owing to their situation of debts no rains  etc & we so called while collar people assuming that we do lot of hard work sitting in front of computers for the whole day, reading some statistics on internet about these stuffs, dine at costly restaurants ordering the things we aspire & passing comments over every item we eat, scolding the waiter for not making it exactly as you had told him. Well, I feel all this very uncomfortable to be a part of this scene. In really appreciate the process followed in our office the left over food is taken in Omni to to NGO. So we need a process to prevent the wastage of food, which is so precious. If somewhere the food is extra, it should reach the hungry stomach somewhere else. Please just spare a thought when you eat the next time. This is so true isn't it ?