Weekend That Was (29-Nov-200)

Last week, it was a heavy week workwise, that had some load on the weekend too.



I visited one of my friend's new house warming ceremony, got an opportunity to meet new friends. The apartment was very good. Bangalore is expanding in all directions. BDA owns some area, BBMP owns something else. The huge land opposite to the Ragigudda slum could have been converted to a greenery area. But the government is putting it heart and soul to convert into a money making machine.  A report says the figure Rs. 73 lakhs crores refers to the amount paid as bribe in India in the last 18 years. All that we are living and breathing in this earth have come to us because someone paid bribe. Every flat registration is going through a bribe cycle - not necessarily by the flat owner - but the building owner to the government staff and he includes it as part of the package. Should we focus on the corruption and lose our peace or focus on our family and enjoy our lives?  My neighbour is losing peace over the trouble given by another neighbour. She was depressed with the way people treat. We took her to Shirdi Sai Baba temple near to my house and she felt good about that.  We spoke about bad karma and to get rid of the people who create negative energy.  Sometimes the weather also creates mood.  Bangalore is getting unconformtably too cold that people catch depression mood. An evening home made hot crispy bajji lights up the evening mood but eating 10 pieces create chaos inside. Sapna Book House officials said they were soon opening their 6th branch in Koramangala. They are planning to invite Dr.Kalam as a guest to one of the events.  I suggested them to open a book house in JP Nagar too. There is no book shop in this area. TV reality shows are getting bad day by day.



A family friend's married life is in trouble - I am wondering how I could save it. We invite hundreds of people to the wedding ceremony but when getting separated we donot involve any. These days the trend is that its not the boy's family that creates problems; its the girl's. Seriously.



The Crest Edition of Times of India did not reach me on Saturday. I am planning to write to them for a copy. 



Next 3 weeks are going to be very hectic. Looking forward for interesting and inspiring days ahead.

In Gossip Mood

I wonder why do people gossip. Last week, somehow I caught in theme of 'gossips'. Some of my friends always carried gossips - and latest updates of celebrities that I would hear without blinking. I would liked a film actor or actress, but my friend would immediately share something that make me think the actor was no more worth 'celebrity'. Some of the friends had that 6 degrees of separation (see link). They lived in the area where the celebrities lived; or friend's friends would have contacts in the celebrities circle.  Also, weekly magazines like Vikatan (இதை படிக்காதீங்க முதல்ல) and குமுதம் (16 பக்கம் பர பர)  always carried a column "Do not read this" .  Above all investigative journals also have plenty of news about corrupted politicians. The website http://www.thatstamil.com is one website that carry gossips which are mostly true.My gossip gene is activated that makes me believe no one is great.



Additional Reading

Why do people gossip?

Sri Sathya Sai Baba's Birthday

Today is Sri Sathya Sai Baba's Birthday. I did not remember this. But while I was reading an article (The Speaking Tree) in TOI, I just recalled that today is Bhagwan's birthday. Today I went to my office in a different campus and in the meeting team someone had 'snacks' on the meeting room table. Later someone offered me saying 'Today is Saibaba's birthday; take sweets'. It was a pleasant surprise to me and felt blessed.



I have many friends who are great devotees of Sai Baba; they also do social service as part of Sai Baba's mission.



During my childhood, I had a dream wherein I saw Baba in his white dress (which he wears only on Shivarathiri, I guess). I was coming down in a building's footsteps and was seeing Baba about to get into a black car.



After several years, I saw Baba in person in 2007 in his ashram in Puttaparthi. He was a bright personality and when his wheel chair went around, the entire crowd obeyed like anything. There were chants, Bhajans, etc. The whole environment was very divine.

Complex Questions

I asked 'complex' questions to mom:



Q:What is inferiority complex?

Mom:  Thinking low of oneself





Q:What is superiority complex?

Mom:  Thinking high of oneself



Q:What is shopping complex?

Mom:  Thinking .....

Sunday (22 Nov 2009)

This morning, I had been waiting next JSS College, Jayanagar to meet somebody.  There was a big crowd waiting for a training event. It was a training session for marketing aspirants. All the aspirants tried to look professional - some wearing dull, old trousers, some in suits, some in french beard, some too professional, some very native, some always on phone, a team-lead like person surrounded by set of 'dull' people and finally there was a car where the executive driver was on his cellphone as he drove. It was interesting to watch so many people at the same time.



Afternoon was as usual - not so inspiring.



Meanwhile my kid her smashed her little finger while slamming the door and she was very cranky about it.  Then after a long time, I had a 1 hour chat with my family doctor Dr. VS in my native. We spoke a lot of topics: EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), Books, our past time activity LBP (Little Birds Park) and every day practices.



Evening Raj Tv was broadcasting Idhayathai Thirudaadhae, a masterpiece by Manirathnam. I watched some part of it. Then we went to 9th block to buy some medicine, while returning a 2 wheeler came in the wrong direction and bruised against my car. We went to Saibaba temple with family and back home

Forces that rule us

I am struck by the thought we are ruled by certain forces: Religious, Spiritual and Inner Forces.



Religious forces - These are man made and what made sense in some context is senseless for the rest of the ages. But the followers take religion as their identity and live and die for it.  We have certainly control over these forces.



Spiritual forces - Spiritual is not same as God. May be its opposite. I believe in spiritual forces that do the weave the entire world. Nobody would have thought of the electricity till we saw the electric forces in action. Electric force is invisible, cannot be felt, but it activates. Same with spiritual force. That's exactly is God. God does not wear colourful dress and a crown, with garlands, and bunch of sweets and fruits in front of him. I find it absurd why I am still stuck there. We have certainly control over these forces.



Inner Forces -  All our inner forces - good and bad - results of our thoughts, experiences, hormone activities - low and high, lifestyle,  something which we can streamline with lots of discipline.  My dream of dead fishes have no relevance until I really understand the reason. We have certainly control over these forces.



See, we have control over all these forces. Life is to live.

Busy Saturday (21 Nov 2009)

I could only yawn with Airtel announcing 60p roaming charges and other telecom news where mobile number portability can happen for just Rs.13.  I went to Airtel to convert one of the postpaid connections to prepaid. But decided to retain for some more time after understanding what the other telecom players will bring in. I also enquired about Airtel's plans for wireless broadband. Looks like Airtel will unveil new packages sometime by December end giving competition to Reliance and Tata Indicomm. (But I will never encourage going to Tata Indicomm's internet services no matter what. I have enough bad experiences with them)



Call police (100) to complain about the roadside pirated CD sales and books sales on the Jayanagar 3rd Block. The lady attender spoke kannadish English and asked repeated questions on details. She said she would immediately send the police to take action. I waited in shade for about 15 minutes to check if police was coming. I called her again and got a docket number. Yet to check the status.  The piracy is happening in the city even when the police is doing rounds on the road!  There is one in front of the Airtel office, Jayanagar.  Is any public bothered to inform?  I saw more learned, educated folks buying the 'best seller' books and the CDs.



Airtel cable laying guys had dug a huge pit on the footpath in front of an apartment. A car which usually parked on the footpath fell into it. I was happy that he would never park on the footpath again. But what about the pedestrians. I followed up with Airtel, Corporation...the pit was open for two days. I logged a complaint on BBMP's new website Spandana(see link), and also followed with JP Nagar executive engineer. The pit is temporarily filled.  After several followups, I could also reach the Airtel engineer Velu. He was not apologestic but was full of excuses and justified that he had filled the pit temporarily due to rain. I asked him why he first of all dug it when there was rain. He claimed he was the boss. Wondering how to take this issue further. These people lack sense.



My traffic police friends have made the footpath very clean that BBMP vehicles are not parked there any more.



The 9th Cross road has been now dumped with stones for road laying, a sign that some contractor has grown rich by several lakhs. There is also a lot of silt dump on the side road, an "intelligent" by the corporation done only during the rainy days. (They dump all the filth into the drainage regularly. And then get separate budget to desilt or reconstruct a drainage)

The day coincided with "Anniyan" movie on the TV where in the hero confesses "I get angry on every small wrong practices in the society".



The previous night I had a dream where I saw "a bowl full of Sambhar floating with dead fishes; How much ever I fished them out, I always saw more fishes. Someone had neglected those fishes while tapping the water".  I told my mom about the dream, she said that I was going to make a lot of money.  But dream interpretation guide warns me of "loss of wealth through dire calamity"  (see link).  I will post the results no matter what :-)



My 7-year old nephew Avaneesh at Delhi is not well that he is down with Typhoid for the past few days. I am hoping that he would recover soon and back to his mischievousness.

Visit to Nandi Hills, Forum Mall

While I snoozed the 5.30 am alarm, I could only get up at 6.30 am. Dad reminded me that I had to be in office at 7 am. I got fresh and waited for other friends to join at office.

80 Kmph at 4th Gear drive to Nandi Hills: We had planned for Nandi Hills this morning. It was my first visit and first drive to Nandi Hills. I never tried at highest gear on the highways road. My friends guided me as I drove;  one vehicle driver advised me what should I do if I planned to drive slowly. Another one applied a sudden brake while I was wondering where to deviate. Good that he did not abuse at me as I he had to take a u-turn and I had to go straight. But while returning, I decided to go full speed, while I peaked 120 kmph, traffic police caught me for speeding with a fine of Rs.300. I asked the police to prove me that I have sped beyond 80 kmph. I got a demonstration of the video is being analyzed: my car video showed 89 kmph. Then there was a joke on me that I have mastered the driving that even police issued speeding ticket!

Nandi Hills: Though we started at 7.30, even at 9.30 we were still driving. Its far, far, and finally we reached. Everyone was hungry, we munched some cucumber and some snacks. Monkeys galore, one monkey managed to get a snacks pack from us. It was foggy all over. We walked; we saw mention of Tipu Sultan's place every where but we didnt have clue of what Tipu's relevance was. The place reminded of Kodaikaanal, a very popular hill station near Madurai (Tamil Nadu). We reached a restaurant where we had egg omlet and noodles. Then we visited the temple and we drove back. I did not expect there will be so much crowd. It was a good experience in all.  The maintenance of the area can be still improved. Toilets, Restaurants, Temple surroundings, protection from monkeys etc are some of them. We also did not have mobile signals working, it was too bad that I could not tweet!



Forum Mall:  We managed to reach Forum mall for lunch around 2.30 pm. We all were hungry. We had a good lunch and a lot of chat. After that, we went to Landmark; it was crowd every where. Every visitor in the shop was buying something; Even the book section was flooded with visitors. Eric and I shared a gift book for each other.



Then I dropped my friends at their locations and returned back home. I would like to drop dead at bed but before that had a shower (that I failed to have this morning), had dinner and some time with my kid before I wrote this blog.  Its time for bed; hope I will not have any Monday blues!

Some Common Expressions

Some common expressions among our public - have you noticed them?



Talking to foreigners:  Our guys look into the face of the foreigners with a wide smile (as though very happy). Whatever the foreigners say we laugh wide because its the easy thing to do. Our guys always smile like Lord Vishnu throughout the conversation.



Girls on mobile:  The girls walking on the road use their mobiles as a companion. They walk like robotic without minding who looks at them, and what they are supposed to look at: the roadcross, traffic signal.

Two famous models

I am recently noticing two models and artists being the attraction on the television and ads. One is Rukmini Vijayakumar and another is Divya Parameshwar.   Rukmini has acted in tamil film பொம்மலாட்டம் (Bommalattam) and Divya has been appearing on various ads the recent being Hamaam. Rukmini is a classical dancer and also has a website.  Divya's ads are very famous including the 3 Roses Ad, Kalamandir, Hamaam etc.

Its My Saturday (14-Nov-20009)

Today is my in-laws 29th wedding anniversary. We had planned to visit Raja Rajeshwari Temple. This temple is close to my inlaws hearts always - reason provided later in the blog. The traffic on the road was better but the roadsense of our people are not better. Pedestrians, 2-wheelers, autos, tempos - almost everybody used some logic or no logic to interfere on somebody's path.

The Banshankari's roads have steeps and lows that learners will sure to find it difficult to drive.

The Raja rajeshwari's temple, like a developing city, is undergoing gopuram work. A board boasted of 5 crores investment for the gopuram development. I was thinking 'wow' but isnt there a commercial behind it? Does India, especially South India  need so many temples and adoration for temples?  When I visit certain temples, I donot get instant bhakthi. I certainly moved from religious to spiritual. Good theme for another blog entry.

There were two or three displays requesting to switch off the mobiles. But, I could hear the familiar Airtel tune from one of the pujari's cell.

My in-laws belong to Pattamangalam, an under developed remote village, 70 kms away from Madurai. The village remains under developed, because several people from village are working in the other countries like Singapore, Dubai, Malaysia. The Raja Rajeshwari temple's architecture, sculptures are the hand works of the sculptors from Pattamanagalam. This is #1 reason why in-laws regard this close to heart. Another reason is some of the pujari's are known to my inlaws and my father.

We got a special entry. Why do temples give special entries? My father started a social networking by giving references to various other uncles and aunties that made the pujari very happy.

Inside the temple's campus, there is a water tank where people throw coins and currencies. There are also peacocks, love birds, rabbits, parrots that attract the kids. But plenty of water is being wasted inside through leaking water tubes and tanks are being cleaned. A lots of polythene bags are being used for prasadam's. Can Goddess Raja Rajeshwari help in saving Mother Nature?  We also visited Nimishamba temple.

Afternoon, solar water heater marketing person visited me. He did not have better plan for provisioning solar water heaters for the entire apartment. We did not want the water heater to occupy the terrace space. We have asked for a proposal so that the space and aesthetics are taken care.

I also spoke to my new traffic police friends regarding the footpath encroachments. They were too busy with weekend traffics.  (Its 200% coincidence: Mr.Anilkumar messaged me just now that one goods-auto parked on the footpath has been removed and taken to police station). Read my previous blog entry.

My colleague called me to say that tomorrow we would visit and one of the resorts on the BIA (Bangalore International Airport) road to spend time with our customer.

Just received Ananta Vikatan. (Planning to review Vikatan and Kumudham starting this week) 

Bangalore Traffic Police

I call the Police Central Complaints from my mobile by dialing - 100.  A lady always responds with 'Namaste Sir...Bangalore Police Central Complaints...".  The call attender speaks very gently, listens to us, and promise action.

I recently read in Traffic Police Commissioner Mr.Praveen Sood saying that the 2 wheelers would not be stopped for mere document checking.  But we still a lot of police stop 2 wheelers for document checking. Last saturday, I thought of talking to one of the traffic inspector directly.  Near JP Nagar 2nd Phase, I went and asked what were they checking for. There was kannada-speaking-uncle police who could not understand my English. There was another fresher-police carrying Blackberry (tech savvy!) in his hand. They clarified all the tempos and autos without uniforms would be penalized; and two wheeler riders without helmets.  Many vehicles took diversion the moment they saw the police.





Recently, I had logged a complaint on the traffice police website on foot path encroachment (near Diwakars Hospital) by the corporation vehicles. [The BBMP executive engineer Mr.Krishna Kumar had already clarified that those vehicles belong to BBMP contractor and he would not take any responsibility.]  There was not any response to my online complaint. Today, one Mr.Mari Gowda from JP Nagar Traffic police called me and said he would like to take action on those vehicles. I asked him to contact me in the evening. One Mr.Anil Kumar, a young police called me and had visited the site. I clarified the details to him over phone. He was very gentle over phone and promised removal of these vehicles by tomorrow after confirming with BBMP.



I will certainly write an appreciation letter to his senior officials, if that happens.

Cake Mixing Ceremony

Yesterday I was invited for a Cake Mixing Ceremony in the Hotel S.  Very few outsiders and more participation from the hotel chef's, headed by the President of the hotel, we had fun. We were offered 'chef cap' and glouses. Then cherry, dry fruits were spreaded on the table. Then we were asked to drop few silver coins on the heap. Then we poured wine and started kneading the mix. This mix will remain soaked in a can till the Christmas and goes for a cake preparation. It was a fun experience.

Bangalore Book Festival 2009

I had been to the much awaited Bangalore Book Festival 2009 yesterday. For the first time, I had taken my entire family and they certainly enjoyed. I determined not to buy any English books as I can buy them as well from FlipKart.com for a good discount.  My plan was to buy Tamil books as I would get them for a discount of 10%.  My family picked the most of the books. I got an opportunity to interact with Flipkart folks and shared my feedback. Apart from that we also bought several small books for my kid. I will be adding the purchased books details in my online library catalogue.



I am not sure if I would visit them again today or next week.



I am also eagerly waiting for the Strand Book Festival that is expected around Nov 26th or so near Chaluyka Hotel.



Related News

News in Indian Express

DNA India

Times of India

Education is getting costlier

It is disheartening to note that our education system is getting costlier day by day. Right from an application form for Rs.500 to donation of Rs.1 lakh for a pre-kg admission, the cost of education right from the childhood is ever increasing.

The schools always have justification like 'building fund', 'charity donation' or 'education society' but I do not think it should be enforced on a public. All the interviews are mere eyewash; its based on the parents educational and earning background, seats are allowed.

On the other hand, the standard of the government schools, their education system, the logistics and every thing in bad shape.

If we do not control this now, one thing would lead to another and put a question mark in our value system.

I have written to the President of India, hoping for response and some action