Few pages of my book

Lucknow - Ayodhya - Varanasi - Mirzapur - Prayagraj

2026-01-15T11:14:00.000-08:00

Consecutive North India Trip for Dec Vacation – 2025

A long due family vacation with the in-laws was pending and what better it could be, if it is not a spiritual place. So, we picked Ayodhya/Varanasi as the main destination which can cover temples, shopping and mouth-watering street food.

Being from South India, Kashi is always considered sacred and a must-visit for middle-class and above families who can afford post-death rituals for parents/grandparents. Similarly, I visited in 2006 (19 years back) when both my head and association with parents were strong. It is another 19 years later — 2025 (might be a good coincidence) — that I get to travel with my pseudo parents and family (in-laws). With no expectations and calmness in mind, I get to start the trip. As our family contains elderly and infants, my eagerness to visit every famous and historically significant place can’t be entertained, so I had planned for a comfy trip.

Sudden acute pain before we started created confusion — should I drop out and let the family go, or should I take the risk with my tooth and handle it in UP? With trust in Mahadev, we took the risky approach.

Day 1 (Dec 23) – Arrival

With the flights to Ayodhya having huge layovers and high cost, we planned to land at Lucknow airport. The simple quote at the airport mesmerized me —
“Muskuraiye, aap Lucknow mein hai.”
Such a simple and common statement written in such a big font surprised me and truly brought a smile to my face.

A sudden meetup with a stranger who shared the origin of Varanasi — the area between rivers Varuna & Assi, and the difference between Kashi (area near the ghats) and Varanasi — and his suggestion to stay in the galiyas of Kashi intrigued me even more to explore Kashi first. But we had booked in a well-maintained area of Varanasi due to accessibility and the crowded rush.

Stay: Radisson, City Center (Just ok hotel)

Day 2 (Dec 24) - Lucknow

After hotel breakfast and a slight delay, we headed to Bada Imambara (fort built by Awadh/Oudh). The infrastructure and cleanliness pleasantly surprised me. For the first time, I was surprised to hear continuous announcements to take a guide, else they wouldn’t allow entry into Bhool Bhulaiya (Labyrinth).

With the breathtaking view of the fort, we joined an ongoing group with a guide (pocket-friendly) and saw the stepwell — a typical structure built to keep cool during summer, store water, and even anticipate oncomers from a far distance through the water mirror. The Bhool Bhulaiya seemed like a place designed for soldiers to walk around the central hall to guard and easily confuse enemies and fight.

The masjid is within walking distance. Rumi Darwaza is also adjacent, but we couldn’t go as we got late packing and had to start for Ayodhya.

After hearing suggestions from multiple folks, we went to Dastarkhana for special non-veg food for my wife and son. Though I enjoyed the food there, the sweet poetry on the walls and tables made me spellbound. Being an art lover, I fell in love and tried my best to memorize:

“Wo aab wo hawa kahin aur nahin milta,
Milta hai bahut sheher, magar Lucknow nahin milta.”

While waiting for the cab, a security guard suggested a chikan kari cloth store. We went in without expectations, but I loved the soothing colors, fabric, and work at dirt-cheap prices. We bought a lot for ourselves and the family.

Finally, the Tempo Traveller picked other family members from the airport and we headed to Ayodhya.

Stay: Awadh Classio, Faizabad
(Amazing rooms in the mall where they have multiplex, shopping area & restaurants)

Day 3 (Dec 25) - Ayodhya

Started early for Ram Mandir with the help of a guide. The much-awaited temple visit for us and also for the entire nation since the Babri Masjid demolition in the 1990s. Though it looks huge, spacious, and well maintained, something was missing for me. I couldn’t connect emotionally as I felt it is newly built.

It made me realize that we enjoy emotional connect more than physical connect. Usual old temples make me feel they are very old — they make me time travel, imagining all the old kings and people who visited the place, and now I am also doing the same. I feel special and energetic due to this pre-conceived notion rather than any real physical effect.

We went to Hanuman Mandir, Dashrath Mahal and Kanak Mahal (Kaikeyi’s gift to Sita Devi) in the morning, and Sarayu Ghat aarti in the evening. The entire space developed with ghats and decorated places surprised us. While returning, we got to see Lata Mangeshkar Chowk and different Ramayana scenes as murals on the walls. A casual walk would have made us feel much better.

Day 4 (Dec 26) Ayodhya -> Varanasi

I started early alone to Guptar Ghat (place where Lord Rama took samadhi). While waiting for the auto, a hawker on the road was serving hot puri. The taste, the heat in chilled weather, and the right level of spiciness took me to a different level.

The auto driver took me via the Cantonment area which reminded me of the need for security due to ongoing tensions in the past. The huge temple near the calm, less crowded ghat (away from Ayodhya) gave me the necessary space and feel to enjoy the place and the moment. That soothing morning was definitely one of the best in the trip.

After returning to the room, we started towards Varanasi, touching Nandigram (Bharat Kund) — outskirts of Ayodhya kingdom where Bharat ruled using the footwear of Lord Rama. It is an interesting temple where the footwear is kept underground and the temple of Lord Rama is on top.

After the serene and less crowded Ayodhya, the buzzing city of Varanasi overwhelmed me in the first few hours. We immediately headed to Kala Bhairava Temple (protector of Kashi). Crazy crowd with a 3 km line and 2 hours of standing pushed me to the extent that I didn’t want to do darshan. With no fear of rejection or failure, my mother-in-law boldly cut the queue and we all joined in.

That made me think about sophistication and fear of rejection limiting ourselves to rules, stopping us from thinking out of the box — and more importantly, the integrity and ethics inside a temple which itself is considered the protector of integrity and ethics. Without thinking much, following what everyone else was doing, we completed darshan and then visited Mrityunjay Temple (almost no rush).

Stay: Stay Vista Sun Rise (Airbnb) - Luxurious huge rooms and great service.

Day 5 (Dec 27) - Kashi Temples

A really big day — Kashi Vishwanath Temple. We started at 3 AM to head to Kashi for tickets and queue. The story repeated — powerful and influential (so-called protocol people) cutting the queue and getting direct access to God. This fortifies my belief in inequality in nature, including in the creator’s place.

We later visited Vishalakshi and Varahi Temple. Surprisingly, only Telugu people seemed to be around — shopkeepers, beggars, and neighbours trying to speak broken Telugu to run business and make a few extra bucks. While returning had tasted the famous Malayo, Bun Maka in Shree Tea Shop

Had good lunch at a famous veg restaurant which served everything in king’s style.

In the evening, we went to see the famous Ganga Aarti with the same guide. “Heavily crowded” is still a small word to describe the density of people standing on steps, boats, cruises, houses, hotels — any place where a human could get sight of the aarti. We paid ₹500 per person to grab a spot on a boat for a direct view right in front of us.

It was nice, but deep inside I felt it was more of a ritual to attract people and make it visually appealing. Inspired by Haridwar’s Ganga Aarti, it grew into three spots in Varanasi — two in Dashashwamedh and one in Assi Ghat. The moment I realized it is newly inspired, I lost the emotional touch — similar to Rama Janmabhoomi temple. It shows it is an inspired event, not an original age-old culture. Still, the sync, live kirtan and music made it spiritual. Heard that aarti performers even get chances to go to rich NRIs’ homes — good for them.

Day 6 (Dec 28) - Sarnath

Another morning spent alone at Assi Ghat, known for yoga and buzzing crowd. Went on a boat tour till Namo Ghat and returned. The weather was so cold that visibility was less than 100 meters, yet people were religiously taking bath for spiritual cleansing.

The modern development of Namo Ghat, history and look of old ghats made me time travel. Despite clumsy roads and restrictions, kids were playing cricket on ghat steps — fielders at different levels. Guess Sourav Ganguly might have practised here — that’s why his off-side was so strong 🙂

My discovery of a toy store — Agarwal Toy Emporium just outside Assi Ghat — made my day. Artistic magnets, books, old coins, gramophone CDs, their covers, 1940s postcards — bought quite a few to satisfy my hoarding mindset for history.

The visit to Sarnath in the second half was truly life-changing — an operating-system reset moment. The 45-minute journey made me search about Sarnath: why Buddha gave his sermon here and not in Varanasi, why travel here after enlightenment in Bodh Gaya, and why start a new religion when Hinduism already existed. ChatGPT made it easy to quench my thirst — the answers were so mind-blowing they shook my 38-year belief system.

More than the answers, the interaction with the cab driver and local temple guide made me fall in love with the people. They had so much affinity — they say they are so attracted to the place that they can’t leave. Like Bholenath, they are happy and chilled in life. Money doesn’t matter much — they are content with whatever they earn.

One thing was common among every localite — no hurry, no rush, no greed, no tension. It is easy to identify a non-Varanasi person — they have all the opposite qualities. Rickshaw drivers, shopkeepers — no matter how narrow the lanes, how crowded the place, or how nasty the customers — they just smile and move on. Wish I could bring a part of that into me.

In the evening, went to Assi Ghat for another boat trip with family and had tasty Pehelwan Lassi and other milk products

Day 7 (Dec 29) - Mirzapur - Prayagraj

As my mother-in-law couldn’t offer diya prayers to River Ganga, we went early to Manikarnika Ghat (near Karnataka Ghat) to offer prayers (don’t tell others it had a gold piece too 😉).

We got a Muslim cab driver to go to Prayagraj. I was curious how he would react to Hindu temples and rituals. He perfectly fit the Benarasi character — chilled, smiling at problems, believing nature will take care. God’s name doesn’t matter.

He took us to Vindhya Vahini Temple, Mirzapur — where monetary extraction was the highest of all. The pandit was more like a gunda — pushing people, forcing shortcuts, demanding extra money, even threatening curses. People like these make me hate religious systems — and people like us also take advantage of shortcuts. Inequality is part of nature.

Finally, we reached the boating area for Sangam. Police had stopped boats after 4 PM, but money and small lies again bent rules. The boatman rowed for two hours non-stop — hardworking, underpaid, respectful to his owner. That’s the emotion managers try to build in employees.

After prayers at Sangam, we went to Bade Hanuman and Alopi Temple. ChatGPT searches on Shakti Peethas and Alopi further shook me after Sarnath revelations.

Stay - Lalith Villa (Airbnb - Alopi)

Day 8 (Dec 30) - Anand Bhawan

With all key temples done, we had a lazy day. Lunch at El Chico, then Anand Bhawan and Swaraj Bhawan. Nehru’s rich life, his endurance in married life, jail and struggles increased my respect for him despite his current political image. Indira Gandhi’s transformation from a sweet child to a tough Iron Lady was equally inspiring.

At Bharadwaj Ashram, priests scolded for not entering and not giving dakshina — again making spirituality feel like emotional business.

Day 9 (Dec 31) - Return

Another lazy day — just travelling back to Bengaluru.

GAQ FAQ

2023-10-23T21:42:00.002-07:00

1. Why should I not drink alcohol?

Buddhism and Islam condemn alcohol because it induces a loss of self-control -> Why?

2. People who think of God 50% of time but can't let others win in ego fight. Why?

3. Why should I not have fun with girls?

4. Why don't I have a lot of friends?

5. Why should I do Pooja with costly homam and pooja samagri, when the pandit expects money, none of the family believe in benefits of pooja

6. Why do I need to perform pooja? What if I don't?

7. Everyone struggles to meet their demands and they find happiness in the progress. It is same irrespective of the level of Maslow Hierarchy, then what's noble about self realisation?

8. Who is right? Ramakrishna Paramahamsa or Vivekananda? One tried to attain moksha himself, and other tried to help others and change the world?

9. How to live? With righteousness & sincerity or with fun & frolic?

10. How to interact with others? I like to stay indoors after interacting with a lot of people.

11. What is the definition of success? High positions or lot of money or public fame?

12. Is it better to show-off the skills or get work done?

13. How to divide time for spirituality vs hobby vs family vs work?

14. What is love?

15. Intellectual happiness vs materialistic happiness? Which is a better option?

16. Power of +ve thinking vs Power of Pessimism? Pessimism works for me as I get to prepare for the worst and end up being happy with whatever I achieve, which leads to contentment.

17. Human mind craves for 4 things - Sex, Tasty Food, Power & Other Ego satisfying activities.

18. Humans always want to go higher

19. Recipe for success - Memory & Oration (W/ Confidence, Energy, Action, Slow, Style and pinch of Humour)

20. We tend to love things/people that don't hurt us. Once they start hurting, we tend to avoid. That's why we love things, if the item reciprocates then there is no limit. Thus, dogs are the most loved.

21. Why does Sachin, Kohli, Ronaldo work so so hard? Is it for the recognition/craving for public's love/sense of duty? Believe many others in other fields do more hard work than these but the success achieved for these 2 is different

22. 4 ways of Humour - Exaggeration, Self Demeanment, Others Demeaning (movies), Talking about sex

How to play in a ground w/o goal post?

2023-01-28T12:55:00.005-08:00

On a Radhasaptami night, due to the lack of the sun rays at night, my mind seemed to act weird, thus writing these thoughts. I even asked my dad a while back about my dilemma, which was seeded by him 36 years back by naming me Goutham, who removed all the goal posts (read desires).

As I chant Nirvana Satakam every day, which says I have no mother/father/teacher/friend/Veda/yagna, there is one and only eternal soul which is pure bliss, I started to delineate myself from everything around me, including my own family members. During the family crisis and issues, pain to the closest family member or the biggest fights with the nearest people caused me distress. So, I had to remind myself and digest Nirvana Satakam concept a lot more often to relieve the emotional pain to thus disassociate me from not feeling associated with any of my close family members.

Similar to the family connections, I have also disassociated with the objects and goals around me. Whether it is a fancy car, luxurious house, exotic vacation trip or a fancy household item. Causing me not to chase any of my materialistic desires. Thus removing the goalpost in my life.

During this confusion, I was thinking about my past of why I had such a dilemma before or if it was due to the Nirvana Satakam effect. Then I realized, there has always been a strong force of desire that kept me moving, whether towards happiness or sadness, but I had a goalpost and I moving towards it, with a few goals and misses.

For example, in my childhood, my dad had always wanted me to get admitted into IIT, so from the age of 13, I had the goal of studying for IIT or getting admissions couldncouldstitution that can ease my path to IIT. With that thought, I spent 5 years (13 to 17 years) working hard for IIT but ended up in NIT. Then suddenly I felt like life goals are achieved and just have to relax in life. That's when life hit me through my batchmates who made me realize how backward I was in non-educational activities like sports, putting across point, persuasion, event management etc. I had always got a goal to lear many and improve in those areas. But I had much more gaps to fill which I felt needed then. So, there was a clear-cut goal.

Similarly, the adrenaline rush to impress a girl and get a chance t date has always been,en a goal for all boys including me. That goal also pushed me in the long run.

After graduation, I got into the dream company in a core sector. Then again my lifetime goal was achieved. Again I felt how terrible I was with people management and playing politics was needed at that point in time. I was busy learning and understanding the missing puzzles.

Again, it is the fever of higher education of MBA, I tried for IIM but got into XIM. Another goal to run; then again a job had its own goals to fulfil. Then the fever of onsite, for which I slogged like an ass but the visa interviewer didn't like my face or tone or shirt and rejected me twice with 1 min interview. There was a definite goal, and I was busy chasing it; it could be successful or failure, but I was on the run.

10 years post that, I am in a decent position in life with an understanding wife, a smart kid and a fair job with a handsome salary. What happened in these 10 years has changed my thought process. Studying books about the mind, how it works, and its evolution made me think about myself from an outsider's perspective. My understanding is that nature has set up every animal in the world for nature's benefit and nature's principle which is 'life should go on'. Thus, every animal does activities to abide by this rule of continuing life by surviving, thriving and replicating. The same applies to human beings and me. From the external perspective, somehow, I don't want to be part of this whole cycle. If at all I go by this, another rule created by certain kinds of people kick in, that is Capitalists. They have a rule of 'create an artificial desire for people so that they can buy more and get them more profits'. All the activities around me, like buying a fancy car, wearing branded clothes, and going to exotic locations are all cogs in the capitalistic gearbox. Again, I don't want to be part of this vicious circle.

Now, by coming out of the vicious capitalistic circle, what am I left with? What should be my new goal in mid-life? The questions that haunt me every day and also every 30+ year corporate employee. Because it is the age group in life where we suddenly land in a position without a goalpost. Adding to that, is the spiritual angle of disassociation from materialist things.

On the whole, the spiritual angle of disassociation from goals, and awareness of the vicious capitalistic circle want you to come out of the loop, and the situation of the mid-30s without any goal increases the impact on the mind multi-fold, causing panic attacks of what next.

People who didn't go through this experience will certainly feel this experience crazy and will surely write off saying foolishness. But, the actual person who experienced this can really understand the pain. Even I could compare my current state with the past. The desires which caused happiness or sadness in the past look like a luxury now. To draw an analogy, desire is like the charged battery, which creates the difference in potential to run the electrons, thus lighting up the bulb or rotating the fan. The desire charges up people to run. So, the desire can lead a person to be happy to sad where mostly it will be sadness. That's why spirituality asks to kill desires to be blissful. Which means, we are indirectly killing the desire or urge to do something in life.

I dont want to leave the reader a lot of questions and confusion, rather want to leave with certain tips to handle which is also a takeway for me.

1. Human is a social animal, so always chose people of your interest to discuss and share thoughts. Self analysis works but it takes longer and painful step. Doesnt work for all to solve alone.

2. Out of all the desires, the biggest and toughest to suppress is the desire to get good name. When you can't kill it, nothing wrong in fullfilling it too

3. Having no goal is not possible, definitely everyone tend to work towards a goal. Materialistic people look for materialistic goals and spiritual people look for spiritual goals of nirvana, meeting god etc. So, try to chose a meaningful goal in life

4. Try to read old scriptures to understand what people have already researched on the topic of idle mind or goalless state. You can build analysis on top of it. I am going to target to complete Bhagavad Gita this year.

Life is great by the beach - Go Goa for New Year !

2023-01-07T11:23:00.010-08:00

1300 kms of travel, 7 families, 2 months of planning, innumerable myntra, h&m, ajio orders & returns, 5 meetings to decide the location of Goa- for the new year to set it as the 'lifetime event', and on the night of new year, we were shocked to see marriage reception like party where an old man hosting retero soothing songs and childish games, and the audience are casually sitting in the chairs like they have come to witness a school event.

However, our group didn't step back, instead of waiting for someone else to create a rocking environment, we put on the dancing shoes to set the floor to fire.

That's the way our new year end.

Day 1 (28 -Wed): Journey of 650 kms from Bengaluru to Panjim, which has a steady degradation of roads from 3-way lane -> 2-way lane -> then to 1-way lane -> halfway and then ghats before reaching our resort. Best part of the journey was the drive through the thick jungle the road was covered with a canopy of trees shade, which can be enjoyed better by peeping out of the sunroof of the car.

Day 2 (29 - Thurs): Dona Paula beach for the sunrise (View point is little ahead), Fontainhas Portuguese Heritage Buildings (now Restaurants), Titos Lane Market, Baga Beach, DJ at shacks

Day 3 (30 - Fri): Anjuna Beach, Anjuna Flea Market, Got the feel of Sunburn Festival (Could have covered: Casino at Big Daddy/Majestic Pride)

Day 4 (31 - Sat): Bambolim Beach, Panjim Flea Market, Cruise on Mandovi river, New Year Gala night (Could have covered: Immaculate Church)

Day 5 (1 - Sun): Return to Bangalore

At the end of the trip, my son has asked a good question. "Nanna now the group name should be changed to 'Went' Goa instead of Go Goa right?"

Exploring unexplored - Chikkamagaluru 4 day trip

2022-12-15T10:28:00.005-08:00

"All we expect is some kindness and a smile on the face"

A parting statement told by our homestay owner in Chikkamagaluru struck my heart so deeply that I kept pondering all the way driving to Bengaluru.

A relaxed unplanned trip was sought to commemorate our 9th marriage anniversary, so all we did was book a homestay as suggested by one of our friends and drive there without planning for the nearby attractions. As we covered quite a few scenic well-known and less-known places, created a list for the benefit of all if anyone plans for a trip. Wish you a happy vacation.

Day 1:

Drive from Bangalore to Chikkamagaluru. Took 1.5 hrs to cross city limits, so better to start before 8 to escape the traffic.
Visited Belur Chenna Keshava Temple
Water sports in Yagachi dam (5 km from the temple) and had a pleasant time in Yagachi Park too.
Reached Smarika Farms Homestay amid Coffee and Pepper plantations.

Day 2:

Baba Budhangiri & Datta peeta temple in the same cave. A unique place where Hindu Temple and Dargha share the same roof.
Attigundi Peak - Less famous in Google Maps, but one of the favourite viewpoints on the trip. Like an SBI symbol, taking us to the centre of a circle through a line and leaving us to view the 360-degree)
Jhari Falls - 3-step waterfalls that can't be reached by usual vehicles. Special jeeps are kept to ply and let you enjoy the heavy off-roading experience.
Mullayyana Giri Peak - 500 step climb will land you at the highest peak of Karnataka, marked by a Shiva temple. Hot maggie quenching the hunger while cold clouds hit your face is a mesmerizing experience.
Sitalayyana Giri Temple

Day 3:

Annapoorneshwari Temple (Horanadu) - Age-old privately managed temple consecrated by Adi Shankaracharya. It is customary for men to remove upper garments on the premises. And the best part is the free tasty food provided as prasad to all the devotees, by using efficiently and traditionally managed 2 halls to support the huge inflow of people
Kaleshware Swami Temple (Dakshina Kashi) Kalasa
Soormane Falls (Very less known place but has a beautiful waterfall creating a curtain of water, apt for photo lovers. The water is so clear that fishes and stones are crystal clear. Even the water taste super sweet)

Day 4:

Bonda Soup at Atithdi - Hot soup with vada refreshed with the taste and warmth during the chilled weather
Devarmane (Trans: God's house) View Point & Temple
Can be covered - Shettihalli Church (Underwater in the rainy season, visible otherwise)

A few reflections I had after the trip was that all that is green in Google Maps or area filled with trees is not the forest. Most of the area on the mountains is broken into patches and sold to someone to grow commercial crops either by the Britishers or the Indian Govt.

Fertile land brings good and quality agricultural produce, bringing more money to people, and helping people to think about the finer details of life, and leading to better spiritual maturity in the location. Horanadu is 5 times richer in fertility than nearby areas, so no wonder many great spiritual centres like Dharmasthala, Sringeri, Annapoorneshwari temples are established there.

Traffic on the highway on the weekend will not let you miss the busy roads of Bangalore traffic. It is better to leave before lunch to beat the traffic, or else you will be the traffic.

Western ghats are one of the underrated tourist spots which deserves much more credit and attention than it has now. One way it is good that it is less disturbed by humans now.

Many mountains and hills have reddish stones and soil, which made me remember the Noamundi mines; upon confirming with the localities, it is actually iron ore, but govt didn't give permission so far. But definitely, one day, all the beauty would be ripped apart for the so-called resource for the human development of creating infrastructure. It is like wreaking havoc on nature to create cars, laptops and metal chairs to describe how beautiful nature is (was).

South Tamil Nadu Trip - 7 days (Madhurai - Rameshwaram - Kanyakumari)

2021-12-25T23:49:00.008-08:00

People say that visiting a temple is more of a destiny than a choice. It seems true in our case too where we had no plans of travel and suddenly a sweet family friend in our society has benevolently invited us to join them in the car for the trip where the tedious work of selecting hotels and making itinerary was already done. We had to just book the hotels and pack the bags 😊

The biggest motivator is our son who is more excited than any of us as the host family's son is his bestie and he started counting down every day. The shopping, packing, and planning were very excitingly done by both the families together and the trip was also successfully completed covering much more than what we had thought and enjoying much more than the initial expectations.

The only surprise element is the tyre burst & a dent on the car at the same location in Rameshwaram on different days, otherwise, it was a pretty smooth and fun trip.

I have shared the places visited, attractions that could have been covered, and hotel names we stayed so that others than plan better and avail much more fun than ours. We went in the 3rd week of December 2021 but Sun in Kanyakumari is blazing. You might need to carry some extra sunscreen lotion to avoid tanning.

Hope you have a safe vacation!

Day 1:

Bangalore to Madhurai (Car) : Hotel: Astoria by Sparsh (2200 w/o Breakfast)
Nayakar Palace/Mahal (erstwhile king) - Maniratnam songs shot (Bombay Kannanule)
Famous Jigar Thanda (Jigar Thanda & Basanti drinks) - Must drink
Nayakar light show (quality not great)
Traditional dress shopping at Ramraj for Meenakshi Temple
Paruthi Paal (Cotton Seed Milk)
Theppakulam street food - Nice sightseeing of the temple in the middle of a vast tank

(Meenakshi Temple at night)

Day 2:

Meenakshi Temple (Shivan Temple & Meenakshi) - Need not take the guide
Start to Rameshwaram
Pamban Bridge cool breeze

Can cover in Madhurai:

Gandhi Museum (Sunday closed)
Alagar Kovil (Lil away)

(Train crossing the Pamban bridge near Rameshwaram)

Day 3:

Rameshwaram - Hotel KNP Nest - 2000 w/o bf - Can try at Kashi mutt for Rs 700 near temple (1-week adv Phone booking)
Agnitheertham ocean bath (No waves, Lil dirty)
22 kund bath (Rs 25 for General, Rs 250 for special service with full bucket (small) water @ each kund for each person). Take 25 rs ticket unless huge crowd
Change clothes at the designated place inside the temple, as wet clothes are not allowed inside main temple
Siva and Parvati temple visit (Gen tckt good enough)
Train to Mandapam at 2:30PM to see Pamban Bridge
Return to Rameshwaram by bus
Abdul Kalam house - Place where he grew up. An inspiring place where a lot of his awards and space work are put on display. Didn't like the usage of the top floor for the commercial activities of selling souvenirs.
Beachside relaxation in the evening
Laxman Kund, Sita Kund, Krishna temple (can skip or see from outside) - All of them are next to each other
Gurdwara visit

1212 pillars like this are situated in Aralmigu Ramanathaswamy Temple (Jyotirling)

Day 4:

Attempt for Spatika Darshan - in the same temple (4-5 AM), due to rush couldn't see. Visited temple again
Ram Kund, Panchmuki hanuman, Floating stones (sample stones used by Lord Rama for the bridge) , Ramar Paadam (good view @ Hilltop), Sugreeva Theertham
Dhanush Kodi last point, Ghost town (Church, Rly station got washed in 1964 cyclone)
Villondi Theertham (Sweet water well in the middle of the ocean, by Rama to quench Sita's thirst)
Checkout and start to Kanyakumari (Patches were not good)

Can cover:

Tirunelveli temple on the way to Kanyakumari & famous Halwa in darkroom shop

(Dhanushkodi endpoint where Ram Sethu bridge continues till Srilanka)

Day 5:

Kanyakumari - Hotel Ocean Heritage - Rs 1900 with Breakfast. Take **4 & **5 series but not **6 & **8 series rooms as they are very congested). Can try at Vivekananda Ashram too.
Triveni Sangam bath (3 oceans meet, Lil rocky but water is clean with fewer tides)
Vivekananda rock memorial (last boat @ 4PM) - Inspiring to know that a follower of Vivekananda Swami - Eknath Ranade from Maharastra was determined to build a memorial for Vivekananda for his contributions to humanity and India
Sunset Point (not clear due to pollution)
Market visit on road
Huge market area with a lot of gift options (shop we liked the most) at dead cheap price

Day 6:

Kanyakumari Amman temple near Sangam beach (remove shirt for men & women in traditional dress)
Sankaracharya temple, 16 pillar mandap, Tsunami Memorial - same place, Gandhi Memorial (Ashes), Kamraj (ex-CM) Memorial, Acqua world (aquarium for kids), Kids park (water sports)
Vattakottai Beach (Lil dirty) & adjacent to it there is a nice freshwater stream, Fort (closed at 4 30pm), Lady of Ransom Shrine church - Gothic Architecture (Close at 8 PM)

Day 7:

Second-time visit to Sangam for sightseeing, Rock memorial, Thiruvallur statue (Couplets are motivating)
On the way to Nagercoil Rly station, visit Thanumalayan Temple (Suchindram) - Must visit due to the famous story of Astri and Anasuya and temple size. Anasuya made trimurti into babies with her chastity power.
Return Train to Blr at 7:10 PM

Can cover in Kanyakumari:

Sunrise from Kanyakumari Pier
Vivekananda exhibition, Bharat Mata temple, Wax Museum, Fort, Padmanabha Swamy temple /fort (120kms)

(Deer set bought in the market road near Amman temple for 30 Rs only)

Our friends went further in the car to Kodaikanal and we wanted to end the trip after Kanyakumari, thus returned to Bangalore in train. Hence you see the start was in Car and the return was in train.

Interest! (Non-finance term)

2021-09-23T12:24:00.000-07:00

After a certain age, interest is mostly considered as a dreaded word after taking umpteen loans, credit cards, and other borrowings. I would like to share my experience about the other 'interest' - 'the feeling of wanting to know/have or learn about something or someone'.

People usually complain about unfulfilled wishes/interests. Trust me, having the pain of unfulfilled interest is better than having no interest. When life frustrates you and tests you to the core, we usually attain this stage momentarily, where everything in the world looks silly and find no interest in anything. Nature has nicely weaved our minds and surroundings. After a few reasonably good instances, our mind will again start hovering again towards the same or increased list of interests, unless there is big enlightenment obtained under a bodhi tree.

Our interests drift so easily over time and age. If you ask any person about the interests of his/her previous stage or future stage, it will generally look menial or frivolous. And, the interests that belong to that age group look like the most prominent thing in the world. For example, if you ask a kid about their future interests towards the opposite sex, job or money, he simply laughs at it. The same would be the response if you ask about the same interests to an old-aged person who passed through the journey. That is the beauty of interest, where it keeps on changing but makes sure, it maintains its prominence in everyone's heart.

The penchant a kid has towards toys in early childhood doesn't exist when he/she moves to middle childhood, where interest is more towards playing sports, hanging out with friends. The same interest doesn't exist anymore when the person grows into adolescence, where new interests are on video games, boyfriend/girlfriend, music, art, cracking good competitive exams, etc. Again, the same doesn't exist anymore after becoming a Young man/woman, where the new interests lie in securing handsomely paid jobs, luxurious living, dating partners, etc. Now, comes the Middle-aged man/woman, like me where the person must have been married or blessed with a kid or two. At this stage, the interests lie in buying own house (even if it is on loan with 'interest'), career progression or some people have interest in getting married or have stable married life or begetting a kid. Next comes old age, where interests would be in getting children's marriage done (if the kid turns out to be dumbos and can't find his/her own mate), upkeep their health, and ensure secured recurring income.

In this cycle, there is a villain called spirituality/philosophical mindset. If this bug bites a person's mind, then the interests slowly start evaporating, including the interests of that age group. He would only be left with doing the act as a responsibility or as a conscious act of materialistic enjoyment without any attachment. With this mindset, the person lives in attachment with detachment and lives in pure bliss.

So, ponder over this journey of interests over age and consider what could be the right way to nurture interest.

Truth behind 'kisibikabhi' sarkar.......

2014-05-16T14:06:00.001-07:00

It is the time when everyone is happy that a dynamic leader has become PM who can show a growth trajectory and give better governance. I am also one among the many who is happy for seeing a dynamic and smart leader. His marketing skills which took BJP to the next level in Indian politics are an epitome of his smartness. Sometimes I feel BJP wouldn’t have got majority of this level if Modi hadn’t done marketing so high. Whatever may be the reason, we have got a good leader, mark my work it is leader not good person. I have got two doubts at the stroke of midnight over the upcoming govt.

1. What is the growth he is growing to bring? Is it the inclusive growth, taking in account of the environmental issues or just a higher GDP growth and employment to everyone

2. What is the guarantee that the newly elected representatives won’t get involved in corruption

Let us discuss the second point which is more close to my heart. What is the guarantee that the newly elected will rule without corruption? I think it is an oxymoron. I will tell you why it is so.

A close family friend of ours has won ZPTC election in Andhra Pradesh. As a matter of fact is that she spent 1 crore rupees for a mere ZPTC seat. Image what would be the expenditure for an MLA seat. Taking on the lower side, it won’t be less than 10 crores. Similarly if you take for an MP seat, it will not be less than 100 crores. One of the allegations that Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan, Loksatta Party president put on state parties is that they have spent 8000 crores for the elections (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GI18to06l4). Still we are taking figures on the lower side and doing the calculations. India has got a total of 543 MPs and 4215 MLAs. Without taking local governing bodies like ZPTC, MPTC, and panchayat system we get an estimated amount of 96000 Crores (543 * 100 + 4215 * 10). The number doesn’t stop here. Every seat will have at least one opponent who might have spent an equivalent amount for his try to win the election. There are many seats where more than 4 strong contenders stand for a seat but being on the optimistic side, we consider as only 2 important contenders. So the opponent would have spent an equivalent amount making the total expenditure to 2 00 000 crores (roughly). So where does such a huge amount of money from? It is a known answer to all that is industrialists or rich individuals. Now people who have invested will definitely try to take back the money, in fact more money than they invested from the market. For a tenure, only the winning candidate will get the benefit of laundering money (invested amount) and when the opponent wins in the next or so on, they will get the money back. So finally everyone will get their money from the market. So these 2 lakh crores are definitely going to go the pockets where they have come from. Everyone expects a profit from the investment or else they wouldn’t have invested in such a risky business, they will take a minimum of 3 lakh crores which is also being very optimistic. Now the political leaders are not so innocent that they‘ll just see the investors making money. They‘ll also try to make money so that they can use for the forthcoming elections or use it for their personal luxury. That would again cost another 1 lakh crore which will sum up to 4 lakh crores. This is not an exaggeration; it is a pure fact because of which there are many industries and business under the name of relatives of great politicians. ex. Chandra Babu having heritage dairy farm, Jagan having bharati cement and many countless businesses. All these figures are calculated without considering the local government like panchayat and ZPTC etc. If we include all those, it‘ll just be double to 8 lakh crores. Again, all this expenditure is just for the election time. There would be many more expenditure in middle of the tenure like agitation, protest, seminars, conference etc. Many friends, relatives, colleagues would want deals at a lower cost. All these are not included.

So on a whole we came up to a figure of 8 lakh crores which is going to be laundered from the treasury (Consolidated fund of India). As a matter of fact 2G spectrum scam has got 1.7 lakh crore laundering. Our budget has got estimated expenditure of 16.5 lakh crores. So all these people who are contesting in the elections have spent a lot to get the seat and they will definitely want to get the money back from treasury or at least from money that should reach common public. They will do that slowly in a 5 year time without letting the scams known to opposition. But just imagine the amount of money that is being wasted and diverted because of election campaigning. Apart from that the legal expenditure by election commission for conducting election is 25000 crores (LS). With all the above information do you think that winning govt (who so ever it is) will have pure and non-corrupt governance?

Sometimes I feel monarchy, zamindari system, dictatorship is better than democracy where people won’t be fooled in the name of rule by the people and they would be saving more than 8lakh crores every time.

Now, let’s see the second point which is growth with inclusive of environmental issues. This is again related to the point above. They can’t generate so much money from the present system. They have to create money to fulfill the hungry industrialists and politicians. This can be done by taking more natural resources (ex – land, creating SEZ, allotting mines etc.). This is the easiest way for development and also most stupid way of development. We are using the resources of the next generation and claiming it as growth. What is the use of growth when you don’t have fresh air to breath and clean water to drink? As someone rightly said, 3^rd world war would happen over fresh water only. There are lots of wrong definitions for growth. We developing nations just try to copy the living style of developed nations and name that as development. Some of the common heard definitions are ‘If someone has western dressing style, he/she is civilized and developed. If we have more number of industries, then we are developed.’ Have a look at an industrial area and compare it with an interior natural habitat. Just observe the levels of pollution and hell we created around ourselves. Western countries have very less population, so the govt could afford to provide such luxuries facilities to everyone. If India tries to do so, the resource usage will quadruple of the present usage. Ultimately we will have less number of years to live on the resources.

Take the case of Gujarat which is called as a developed state under the leadership of Modi. Many industrial belts have spoiled the land and left barren. The forest coverage % of Gujarat is around 9% which is very less compared to other big states like AP, TN, Karnataka and Maharashtra. These states have got around 20% or more. Similarly the developed nations have given the luxury of producing harmful products like paints etc. to the India sub-continent (Pak, Bang, and India). These clever nations don’t want the harm to happen to their countries but get the product from us.

This is how under the name of development we are getting raped, gang raped.

Amidst all the allegations and speculations, wish Modi Sarkar bring an inclusive growth and corrupt free India.

Jai Hind!!!

Idiosyncratic View

2012-10-04T15:06:00.001-07:00

Idiosyncratic View

Budget! Budget! Budget! This has been the buzz word from the newspaper to the class presentation topic. Exactly one year before, I was trying to mug up the facts and figures of last year budget, so as to impress the people on the other side of the table with my just-in-time (JIT) knowledge, in the admissions interview. This year, after getting 9 months of business gyan, my view on budget has gone a paradigm shift.

Disclaimer: People say that my thoughts are pessimistic and think in a weird way. What to do, everyone is unique in his own way. This is my way, I ‘ll take you through this way now.

Out of recession, huge growth potential, investment in some sectors, financial inclusion, decrease in fiscal deficit, technical advancements, globalization, privatization so on and so forth. But not even a single word on sustainability, environment and welfare. All long we have been short sighted with the stiff competition and urge to grow in the global world. Every other nation wants to be at top and increase their economy. We all want to increase our standard of livings and income. But At whose cost are all these things done? It is at the cost of our future generation.

We are more concerned about the financial stability of the nation by decreasing the debt and fiscal deficit. How do we save ourselves, by increasing the revenue. This is done again, by increasing the production by increasing the investments. It means exploiting more resources at a greater rate. Ultimately producing waste at a greater rate. To defy the second point, people quote about the green drive and production efficiencies. In reality, who doesn’t know that all these are less than 5% of the rate of destruction that we do to mother earth. How do people miss a simple logic that with no resources there is no economy. First of all we need to have some resources to run the economy.

Rise of corruption and destructive actions are on the other side. To aggravate the issue, political wars between nations and organizations are on rise. Confidence of a human being on another human being has gone abysmal. No one is content with the government and its approach. Everyone started assuming the perfidious in others and implementing the same in their work. “If I don’t do this, I can’t survive”. This has become the common mantra in every individual to undergo illegal things.

No one is ready to accept the defeat and lay back. All are vying for the top spot and improved economy. Take the example of European crisis where the economy in Greece has to boost up to survive. I don’t deny that it is the need of the hour for that nation. As per populist view invest more money to produce more to earn more cause to produce waste more and exploit the resources more. But will it make any sense to live happier now and compensate this with living sadder in the future. Everyone is happy that India has a huge youth population, median age is 25. This is a curse disguised as a boon. Same is the case with Japan now. If we take population control measures now, all these people will be make old age group in 25 years and everyone will start lamenting for having high old population. The remedy for this is to have more children. This causes again population explosion. Why can’t we accept defeat? What if we let the economy how it is. Why can’t we forfeit growth? Let’s try to give prominence to sustainability over growth. We can’t and we don’t because we don’t want to suffer by keeping someone else, who is yet to born, happy. We have a myopic view about prosperity and we do forget the rest. We have a strategy to screw mother earth to the core to gain maximum benefits.

Try to bring change in your thoughts. It’s none other than your grandson or daughter or great grandchildren who are going to suffer. Is this the compassion and courtesy you have towards them? Let’s change. Let’s have the courage to accept the failure and stop our thirst for more comforts and benefits. It is high time we bring change by being the change. Or else it is not far away to see the doomsday. If the rate of extraction of resources goes in this fashion, you yourself can witness the day of chaos. Let’s start count down!!!

Running Ideas

2012-10-04T14:58:00.002-07:00

Many ideas running through
Heart bearing much pain though

No words to describe
No one to ascribe

Life seems a roller-coaster
But crust seems the dominator

Life is an abysmal pit
Ur every step drags into it

Only way to live happily inside
By leaving ur feelings aside

As the famous quote goes
This world is not for the grief-stricken ones

Death - The ultimate ruler

2012-10-04T14:52:00.001-07:00

Death

Death – The most dreaded thing for human being, at the same time one of the valuable gifts
given by the god to mankind. It is one of the limited few that is guaranteed for every animal on
the globe. Many stories, many experiments, lot of scientific research but till now, even with the
most advanced technology, the question is still left unsolved – what happens to the person after
death. Where will the power inside him/her (soul) go to? A slew of questions float on this topic.
Again there is another single word answer for many such unsolved questions. That is GOD.
Name any question that is beyond our modern science reach, we simply answer them saying the
involvement of supernatural powers or GOD. So for time being we can consider GOD to be sole
reason for anyone’s death. It is completely his wish and whim to take anyone’s soul.

Death is the counter part of the birth. Because of which may be the mourning for a person is
always in such a grand way, parallel to that of the birth of a person. No matter how bad the
person is, society mourns for the person. They do remind and appreciate the slightest of the good
things done by him.

Many difficult problems get solved permanently by this single word (Death) and also many
temporary problems rise after this. It is such a thing that everyone feels sorry after that. Complete
creed of Nazism was ended with the death of Adolf Hitler. Ramayan ended with the death of
Ravan. Mahabharat ended with the death of Duryodhana. Many examples can be stated for the
problem solving with death. Even at the society level, many family and corporate problems
would be solved with the death of a person. Had Jinnah died before the partition, India-Partition
wouldn’t have happened. A very big problem would have solved then. Similarly after the death
of the erstwhile CM of AP, Dr. Y S Rajashekhar Reddy, the whole Andhra politics has gone into
turmoil. There was a huge instability in the governance. Similarly the death of Indira Gandhi
because of the operation blue-star caused huge genocide in the country. The consequence of that
incident is felt till today. Many deaths of the bread winners of a family lead to much of financial
crisis in the family. Moreover, the family members lose their morale grounds and face difficulty
to cope up without proper guidance and support. Even history has so many examples stating that
death of a person caused both violence and peace.

Now we are into the society where government is willing to invest crores of rupees to protect
a person before slapping a death penalty or acquittal of that person (Azmal). In the opposite
side, anti-human organisations are spending so much of man hours, effort and money to kill a
prominent person or a group of people. This shows the importance of the life. It is irreversible.

This is similar to a diode where electrons (soul) passes from anode to cathode but cannot come
back by any cost.

As said by one of friends, death is the end for all and beginning for all. Billions have died in the
history of mankind but very few are remembered now. We should aim at increasing the life span
of our name not our life. Though every name is supposed to be forgotten but let’s try to keep our
names written in the pages of history for a longer duration of time.

Knowing so many things about it, let’s stop frightening about the speculated dooms day and
enjoy our lives. Having said that death is an irreversible activity, let’s do our best for ourselves
and for the society so that at least our name will remain immortal.

what u can find/do in a b-'school' that u cant in an engg 'coll'

2012-10-04T14:50:00.000-07:00

1. u will have better quantity and quality of girls in ur class
2. u ll learn to wear suit in 2 mins
3. you will get to see girls roaming in your hostel
4. You will b used to make presentations with 10 mins of notice
5. You can stay late nights not by playing games or watching movies
but by doing case studies and by preparing for quizzes
6. You start correlating the business terms in pink papers(Economic times,etc)
7. You will use laptop more than ur notebook
8. semester is replaced with word term
9. you will get newspapers and magazines for very low cost (10% of general price)
10. There will b more committes than number of holidays
11. ability to pass plagiarism test, though the content copied from net
12. realise problems for bunking even a single class
13. your patience will increase to listen multiple presentations (2 hrs each) in a single day
14. Learn how to take a survey
15. it may happen that the person whom u ragged in engg coll may rag u in bschool

Perfect Balance

2012-10-04T14:46:00.000-07:00

A few words ached the heart,
hurting the ego,
assasination of mutual trust,
keeping them both distant,
counter blow not given
is not incapibility,
it's respect given
for a fellow human being

bearing the pain
better than to let others feel
is valid for all
how long you hold
how many you bear

more you hate
more you keep him in heart
more you think
more you recollect the pain

dilemma between hitting back
and forgetting the past
different justification
with different reasons for both

who can do what,
should take that justification
there is no right
no wrong either
everything should balance

all human maturity
is decided by the accuracy
of getting near to perfect balance.

Selfish Me & Sell-fish-you

2012-10-04T14:43:00.003-07:00

When I tried to rename the document as selfish, first thing that struck my mind is FISH inside Selfish. What a fish is doing inside selfish, is fish also a selfish creature? No, whole universe is made around the base of selfishness. Selfishness means maximizing his/her own goods/profits. And dictionary says, “Concerned chiefly or only with yourself and your advantage to the exclusion of others”. Going back to my 9th class days, my teacher used to say that every element tries to increase its stability by bonding with a suitable other element which can give the required electrons by ionic or covalent bond basis. Here also, every element is trying to satisfy itself by maximizing its own benefits. Now moving ahead to intermediate second year days, my physics teacher used to say that every bubble tries to come to shape by which it will have minimum surface area. So it attains a spherical form, aren't bubbles trying to be selfish by decreasing its surface area. Enough of education stuff, you don’t need any physics or chemistry to understand, why should a touch-me-not-plant contract when you touch it? Isn't it behaving selfish? Of course, here it is a matter of attack on them; still it is trying to be selfish by protecting itself. Try to take a chocolate/biscuit from a child's hand, see the raucous it gonna make then. Isn't the baby trying to be selfish. So, I generalize that the whole world is made up of selfishness. Lets say, you have unknowingly put your hand on fire and your brain instantly gets the signal to take your hand off, it is the default selfish act made by the brain. Had this system not been there, how many of us would be left with burn free bodies.

Why did give this crap as introduction? Just to give a preview before mapping it to human beings. Many a time we quibble saying that he/she is very selfish. Yes they are. They are ought to be like that. Nature itself is selfish, who are you and me to stop? There can be counter argument saying that, there should be a limit to everything, we cant be so selfish. ROFL, I cant stop laughing to such a idiotic reply. Where is the limit drawing to make a bubble looking sphere. Should it stop transformation after becoming elliptical? How foolish it is? Everyone is right in his own way like that of an element. Some elements may need electrons in iconic bond some may need it in covalent bond(sharing). There is no right for any of us ask them. At least you are half convinced that being selfish is valid, at least not wrong.

Carrying this forward, people take bribes and does corruption work to get their work done. Whats wrong in it again? They are just being selfish by maximizing their own benefits but by taking some illegal methods. I have a point here; any method available is a valid/legal method. If not, that method shouldn’t be available to him in the first place. So finally its proved that being selfish is not wrong, rather being selfish is the only thing that drives this world and makes everyone work. Had a Tiger doesn’t think of itself and stop eating deer, what will happen to its breed. How deer will populate in the forest eating all the grass. If a man doesn’t think of himself and stop using animal fur to cover him, half of the world cant be occupied with human population.

Hence, I make a point here that being selfish is no wrong rather it is the driving force behind every successful individual in this world. Be SELFISH, be SUCCESSFUL.

2011-05-02T03:03:00.000-07:00

Stint of championship

Many a times we feel that for no reason we feel up/down in a day. Sometimes we will be so depressed that we don’t want to do anything similarly at times we feel so high that we behave like the king of the world and act very enthusiastically. Why do people feel so? After so many thoughts and provocation I have come to a conclusion and this article was generated. As said by Malcom Gladwell “ Small things create huge differences”. Our day rather life is decided by a very few things that we cant imagine. One important thing is the stint of championship. Let me state an example, a boy of age 5 is getting ready for his school and by mistake his left leg shoe is interchanged with the right one. While his mother is hurry in packing his food, she noticed his shoes and scolded with a grim face saying that he didn’t know even how to wear shoes at this age also. She gave him a slap and changed the shoes. Her intention was not to frighten him, she had loads of love towards him and her gesture shows her concern towards her offspring. But this small incident could create a huge impact on the little mind. He may feel dull for the whole day or rather he may get into depression if he doesn’t get interesting things in the school. This decreases his efficiency to 30%. Had the same day been started in this way, like her mother noticed him of wearing the shoes in opposite way but approaches him with a nice smile? If she says “So nice of you beta, you are so helpful to mamma by wearing your shoes on your own. I feel very proud of you beta, but from next time remember that this shaped shoe should be worn to the left leg and vice versa” then the effect would be tremendous. He will be all energetic in the whole day and actively participate in the school events. His efficiency my even go up to 120%. In both the cases the incidences are same and finally he wore the shoes properly but the wordings given by his mom gave him a feel of championship. He himself felt that he is a very great person; he is helping his mom a lot.

Generally we find gully cricket in India where we have non text book rules like one bounce catch out, direct hit to the wall out etc. These games are played exclusively for passing time. A normal guy who played a match like that caught a crucial one bounce ball and made the batsman out. Thus lead his team to win. Though this incident seems to be a general one its impact on that person on the rest of the day will be huge. He thinks himself to be great because of the same stint of championship. It doesn’t matter how small it is, the person shall get that stint. He will be in the clouds and subsequently his energy levels and enthusiasm will be very high.

Even the key principle for the addiction of alcohol or video games is the same. People who say that they get the KICK after they drink, means that they get into a trance where they feel that they are the kings of the world and enjoy the stint of championship. This gives them again extraordinary energy levels. That’s why people do unusual things after drinking. Coming to the case of video game, the game is so designed that by playing casually you cant win it. You need to be little cautious while playing. So when you complete the game you are injected with the sense of championship. You feel proud of your game. Your energy levels will be high and you will be very enthusiastic. But in reality it is nothing such great. The game manufacturer injects that winning feeling in you and you are his victim.

This concept is slightly applied to lovers also. Why do people are so incline to love? Yes, it is again the same stint. When he wins a girl’s heart he feels like hero of the world. Had this is the only reason every love would end with the acceptance of the proposal. The other important thing is the bestowing of love. The affection and care bestowed by the partner creates a sense of championship. That’s why so many are affected by the magic spell of love.

If a person can artificially inject this stint he can live happily in his life and face any sort of problems with ease. In India we can easily see many castes based chauvinist people; they too have this stint. They think that their forefathers are champions and they have this winning streak in their blood. That’s why we can see many people who even after repeated defeats still come into the competition. Rather than their courage and spirit this chauvinism plays a crucial role.

If you are feeling down, all you need to do is to just inject an artificial feeling of championship, the same world looks very beautiful and you will be happy too.

2010-11-06T00:47:00.000-07:00

Golden DUCK

5% of the world’s population, 25% of the world’s energy consumption and 75% of the world’s pollution generation – all these attributes belong to a single developed country, USA. Yes, these facts might be astounding you; it’s hard to accept the bitter truth. I am neither an environment activist nor a critic to blame the way USA handling with environment. Cornerstone of my blog is to find the right way of dealing with environment.

For what we all are struggling - just for a better society and a better living. Every individual struggles in the cut-throat competition just for the development of his own and his family. In the macroscopic view, every country tries for the upliftment of its economy and its living standards; sometimes even some organizations like UN, IMF, World Bank, G-20 etc assist for the growth of others. Discussing the parameters of the growth of an economy, a country with two digit growth percentage is undisputedly in the high way to the development. This is achieved by huge increment in the production of steel, extraction of minerals, manufacturing of automobiles and many more. Every sector is in turn linked with the huge consumption of natural resources which are mainly non-renewable. So where are we heading towards? - Early completion of the resources which were gifted by the mother earth. It’s a showcase of the Golden Duck story where we are restricted to think only of the meat of the duck rather than the lovely golden eggs it hatches.

If the undisputed world’s super power USA, what every nation aspires to become, has such an astonishing figures of pollution and energy consumption then how can any other country can’t maintain such figures? In my own typical way let us start from the root causes of all these. Firstly, a country with just 5% of the world’s population requires 25% of the world’s power shows how much more energy an average person is using in USA. All this is because of the developed state where most of the people have access to the machines, and huge numbers of technology driven industries are prevalent. Average per capita income of their citizens is much higher than the average per capita income of the world. Thus they have the purchasing power to buy more appliances and machines. Again this in turn creates the demand in the industry sector for the goods and demand in the power sector. Thus plethoras of industries are formed to satiate the demand and all they want is raw material which is mostly non-renewable. So a huge production requires a huge amount of the raw materials, and the gifts that we are giving back to the nature are the effluents to the water bodies, smoke to the atmosphere, and some non-biodegradable materials. Ironically, we proudly celebrate the industrial revolution and industrial growth as man’s achievement.

Apart from the holocaust to the nature, many industries claim to have reduced their wastes % per item produced. All these facts are apparently pleasing but in absolute terms overall waste generated by the company per year is increasing exponentially, because their production is growing at a much higher rate than the decreasing rate of the waste per item. Keeping all this apart, what are we doing to counteract the pollution done previously? – Making more agricultural areas into SEZs, encroaching the forest area by deforestation for mining leases, approaching to mineral rich mountains and disturbing the flora and fauna, giving money to the poor countries for the carbon credits etc. Instead of negating the previous pollution levels we are adding up the pollution levels by thinking that all the previous mistakes are absorbed by the nature. Nature has some rate to digest the polluted air by converting them to useful form. We have to find out that rate and limit our pollution levels to that, whereas nothing is done in the present scenario.

In case of resources there are very few renewable resources and rests of them are non-renewable like metals, oil etc. As we can’t replete the used resources better make a limit for the usage of resources per year and stick to that limit. My suggestion may be highly hypothetical since it is difficult to restrict the demand. If we don’t restrict ourselves, then the dearth of resources restricts us. All these are possible with strict government rules. Moreover, we can cut short resource consumption in industries like defense, automobiles, etc. When we are talking in terms of survival strategy, luxury shouldn’t come into the picture at all. All high energy consuming appliances and machines are to be strictly banned. Public mode transport should be made compulsory. Such bold steps can only salvage us.

If we are expecting a Sub-Sahara country to have an economy and living standards like USA then think how much of energy and resources are required. So called “Positive side” of the given case is that increase in demand which gives ample avenues for the growth of industries and increase in employment opportunities. Thus we can witness the increase in GDP of the nation. But what is the use of development if everything is going to end. Better opt a safer and wiser way which may be hard for the present times but useful in the long run. Even if single under developed country is transformed into a developed country estimate how much more % of energy is required for the running of such a nation. Another 25% of energy is required. Similarly 75% more polluted gases are released into the atmosphere. Are all these things desirable?

This doesn’t mean that we should stop developing. My main motto is to insinuate the consequences of growth without wisdom. In a nutshell, development requires increase in consumption of resources per person. So if we want to increase the consumption of resources per person without compromising in the absolute value of consumption of resources only option left is to decrease the population. If the development made this year causes us to increase the per capita increase in the resource consumption by X% then similar %(obviously the percentage is less than x, think how) of population decrement should be there. Only in that case we can think of long runs about human kind in the world. This idea will not be advocated by the industrialist because decrease in population causes them loose market demand initially. These industrialists are hand-in-glove with the politicians who won’t accept such bold steps. If things continue like this, then days are not far away when wars are raised just for oil and food, thus transforming the world into a chaos. Presently we all are in a mad run to make the Mayan civilization’s prediction of doomsday on Dec 21^st, 2012 is true.

2010-09-10T21:06:00.000-07:00

Twin cities to my twin eyes

No wonder that Hyderabad is called a Pearl City, because it is so exquisitely embellished with many beautiful things that it desires that name. I have come to the city in pursuit of coaching for a competitive exam, but the beauty and discipline of the city enthralled me so well that my mind is busy in searching for the apt words to accolade the city. As every coin has two sides, even there are few stains on the beauty of the city and here I wanna elaborate both along with my experience in the first few days in Hyderabad.

With an empty brain I had landed on the plat form which was supposed to the final stop of that train, so I reluctantly came out of the train so as to keep my brain tension free for few more minutes. No sooner had I come out of the station I saw a spate of auto and taxi drivers rushed towards me. With few verbal interchange I was able to come out of the crowd but this time I come across with a much bigger crowd with whom I am going to compete. Oh my god! There was a heavy traffic with full of commuters going here and there, and not even a single having time to spare and talk with others. At last with the graceful benevolence of a person I boarded my bus i.e., 10H (New set of numbers that I need to remember from now onwards, as if the things to be remembered for now are not enough). My appreciation for the city started with the bus that I boarded what a bus it is! It is made up of a completely transparent body with outstanding seating arrangement, making the person who is standing in the bus to feel jealous of the person who got opportunity to seat. Digital display at the front of the bus showing the travelling route makes you understand the changing trend of the local transport system. Finally I reached my friend’s room and got ready.

While walking in the colony roads, I had to keep two things in mind that I don’t step into the puddle of mud and also save myself from the sprinkling of the water caused by the trespassing vehicle. Such is the deplorable condition of the roads in Hyderabad. I don’t know how much the farmers are benefitted from the monsoon but the local pubic are bearing the brunt and of course the PWD department too. Then I had the lunch with my beloved friend in north Indian hotel (irony is that when I used to be in north India, we used to eat in south Indian restaurant and here the opposite).

To avoid the unnecessary time waste to wait for the bus I took the auto to go to Ameerpet. Initially it was all empty and sat in the back seat like a king, then after going for a few yards there come the villains. 3 software employees (girls) who are early twenties asked for a share in the auto. Then the autowala asked me to sit beside him in the driver’s seat. “Yuk!!! I won’t leave my seat, I grabbed it first”. These were my inner thoughts but unable to argue with them, I came quietly beside the driver. After few yards, there comes another two software professionals seems to be looking smart wearing a well ironed formal dress and a tag in their neck showing that they are the pet dogs of Bill Gates.(SW professionals don’t be annoyed with the title pets dogs of bill gates, because I appease myself by saying so that I don’t need to repent for rejecting a SW job). The autowalla again stopped the auto for these two persons also. Then I thought that what is the use, no matter how much you earn is this the way you are travelling to your offices. Whatever thus I had a opportunity to sit at the brink of the seat where the glance at the side buildings of the city roads is clear. All the way I hadn’t put my head, its not because of vanity, its because of the ravishing buildings and its architecture. I could see all possible vehicle brands on the road which are present in AP. I was extremely awestruck when I saw both Mercedes-Benz show room and a E-series car at the same place. I was just waiting for a Ferrari to come across but I didn’t see it so far. Here I got the opportunity to have the almost all upper middle class family used brands. I could see every show room for the company name that I know so far. Even I had enriched my knowledge about the brands and its stables.

The wide road with sand dunes covered along the road makes me feel that an apartment can be easily built with the sand strewn on the roads. Real fun of sand will be experience only when you drive a bike without a helmet and a sunglass then you can even taste the sand particles. You will face another problem if you ride a bike without knowing the route. Once you bypass a turn where you are supposed to take then it will cost you at least another 2 km of ride (which is the radius of srikakulam).

Finally the boiling issue in Hyderabad or any other metro is the ubiquitous findings of love pair. It is very common to find a young couple especially unmarried, sharing light moment with each other or doing romance with each other. Or else it’s a common scene in Hyderabad to find a coupling riding on a bike with a minimum speed of 60kmph and boy wearing a helmet and the girl draping her dupatta over face. You could hardly find any gap between them and that scene will definitely make any adolescent guy/gal to look for a boy/girl friend. So are there any girls with same sort of feeling and wanting to pair up with me??

2010-08-31T20:44:00.001-07:00

Had his dad put a name that starts with ‘J’ to him, he could have been a much successful person. Yes, I am about the relationship of his life with J. One day I was just thinking, why he was stranded in the jungles of Jharkhand. Then one spark has lightened my brain which pointed out the beginning of Jharkhand. Its Jay (J) but ironically there is no Joy in ‘J’harkhand. Then my thoughts were surrounded by all the words that start with J. First and the foremost that come to my mind is Jamshedpur, which has turned his life upside down.

A simple guy with above average intelligence and excelling in none of the fields, but a ‘J’ack in all trades, having lots of inferiority complex, does what mama says in home, having no individuality and so on so forth, has got all the pressure from all the sides when he got a rank got admission in NIT JAMSHEDPUR. If luck brings him the rank and admission then how come he is culpable? All are expecting him to keep the success go on, but how will this “masoom ladka” explain them that only luck can do any miracle further. However, he has made some impression on the hearts of all his friends and relatives. But reality is known to him only.

In this way, a guy who stays at Srikakulam which is 100km away from Visakhapatnam hasn’t been to Visakhapatnam till his 13^th birthday, entered the Jungles of Jharkhand at 17. Keep a note on the beginning of the Jharkhand again. Its J, why the hell that he got seat in Jharkhand only where there are 16 other NITs and 7 IITs. May be it’s the spell of J.

After the 4 years of engineering I thought that his relation with Jharkhand will come to a standstill and can start enjoying the ravishing software buildings, exuberant city culture, and the most important is seductive mini skirts. But an untimely off campus job offer(7.1 LPA) in Tata Steel lured him back to Jharkhand. Then he was placed in Jharia division of Tata Steel. Oops, again J.

After 6 months of unscheduled training its time to get placement in Jharia division. Placement was given in Jamadoba Colliery. Yes, your observation is right. Again the word has started with J. Nothing more is required to strengthen the theory that ‘J’ is haunting him.

Another example goes like this; a very good chum of him who has been supporting him all the way from his childhood in both good and bad times has also the name that starts with ‘J’.

Finally lets have a look at the mathematical view, the number of letters in his name are 10 (GOUTHAM RAM) and the letter which at 10^th position in alphabets. Its again the invincible letter ‘J’. So lets hope that he will open up a new company whose name starts with ‘J’ :P

2010-08-04T12:13:00.000-07:00

Interest makes you to learn something about it,

Urge to make livelihood makes you to learn something about it,

Society teaches you something people and way of living,

Family and friends teaches you something about culture and tradition.

But there is something else to learn about the things for which you are living.

The above sentence is not as simple as it seems to be. I myself took 23 years to rise this question and dont know after how many years ill get the answer. But still with considerable optimism i am glad that at least i have got the question and sooner or later ill get the answer too. My life has gone through 21 years of rigorous studies which was completely bookish. Moreover the decision to take which stream and the target of my excellence were also predefined. So i had nothing to tickle the grey cells. I was just a robot to grasp the things in the book and vomit the same in the exam. In this process i learnt nothing. Rather i memorized everything. Later on, after stepping into engineering college, a bit of freedom and tastes were developed. In turn interests were developed which made me to incline to learn about my favorites. This is one of the causes of the knowledge you gain. More or less this is same with everyone.

Similarly we learn a lot of things about a spate of topics. But a few strike the right chord. That is learning about life. Why are we living and why should we live and what are we supposed to do. Nowhere it is mandatory to learn about these things nor our life cycles doesn't compel to understand this. However, it is the mother of all. After completing the education, all are busy in the cat race to grab the job and fulfill their wishes. After that they try to fulfill the wishes of their relatives. Finally till the death, all are engaged in the cat race. It means before knowing the purpose and proper way of life all are completing their lives. Isnt look ridiculous? Yes it is, it is simply like this. We are playing the guitar with six strings. We are happy with the sound that we produce. But the basic fact that we forget is the tensioning the strings. If we spare some time to do it, the sound will be soothing and ravishing.

Probable answers that i collect:
I tried to collect the answers from the elders, many say that try to keep up your verisimilitude . Some other say that

2010-05-02T04:26:00.001-07:00

iam a big fan of krishna
dnt mistake me after reading this question. i just wanted to clarify my question. Please someone solve my puzzle.

recently i have read gita with its translation by a.c.bhaktivendantaswamy.

In that it is said that, for happiness you have to control ur panchendriyas.
For that you should fill ur mind with the chantings of krishna.

i somehow feel that, its just like engaging our mind in solving a puzzle which doesnt have a solution. Its very simple. if you ask someone to prove that the product of the slopes of x axis and y axis is (-1). which is actually not. x axis slope is 0 and y axis slope is infinity. Obviously there is no solution for this puzzle. But if you can indulge in his mind that there is definitely a solution then he ll work day and nite to solve that problem. Thus definitely he will not have either fun or sadness. Which gita also says the same thing. never react to happiness or sadness. so indirectly we are killing someones time and life to do an unsolved puzzle for the sake of stability. Which srikrishna says in gita.

so i feel that, gita might have been created by some intelligent persons in the past rather than a real one. definitely the level of anxiety and enthusiasm will not be the same before and after you do a thing. after you enjoy a thing. you will be fulfilled and satisfied. after repeatedly doing a thing you will get frustrated. Similarly i doubt that gita might have been written by some intelligent people who have completely experienced their life. after experiencing it, it may look unimportant. But for a new comer, lots of expectations and goals will be there. So indirectly we are misguiding the people by saying that leave the life and fill your mind with the prayings and chantings of krishna. ( which may or maynot be true).

please someone solve my query.

2010-03-01T03:29:00.003-08:00

A proposal

Naa hrudayam loki pravesinchina VANI
nuvvu naa jeevithanike RANI
nalo alajadi reputhondi nee VONI
nuvvu sare anale GANI
neeku arpistha naa PRANANNI
nuvvu kadante naa brathuku KALAPANI...

2010-03-01T03:16:00.001-08:00

NENU PREMINCHANU O MISSU
PARIMALISTHONDI AAME SOGASSU
AKARSHINCHABADUTHONDI NA MANASSU
PARUGULU THEESTHONDI NAA VAYASSU
KANI DORAKADAMLEDU ADDRESSU

KHALI AVUTHONDI NAA PURSU
THARIGIPOTHONDI NAA BANK BALANSU
AYIPOTHUNNANU HAVISSU
ADUGUTHUNNANU O KISSU

2010-02-11T07:11:00.000-08:00

Many a times we want to go to a nice place, like Switz or Paris to enjoy. But do we really enjoy by going there. What is meant by enjoying?? Lets us think that we have enjoyed by going there. After spending some time there we will come back to our place and we have some reminiscence of the tour. We share the trip to our friends and colleagues that I enjoyed the trip. Lets see by 'what what' analysis. Do you really have the exact scene in the tourist place where you liked? Leaving some exceptions we forget many. But still we say that we enjoyed the trip and we want to go there again. So what I perceive is that all our mind wants is that state of mind where we got excitement. If you can give better excitement by sitting in your room then all those pounds that you poured for the travel agents are of no use.

It’s as simple as this. We like seeing beautiful sceneries. Why do we like it? Because some state of excitement in our mind by seeing it makes us happy. Advance in the technology brought those scenes into pictures and movies thus making the same feel of going there just by sitting in the hall chair. Hence crores of business is running for it. A bit advancement of the technology is, if we can give some medicine or material that creates same excitement or sensation in our mind then we can do business in billions of dollars. So I mean to say is that don’t run behind materialist pleasures, develop an environment where you can develop better happiness than the materialistic pleasures.

2010-02-11T01:35:00.000-08:00

Well, hope everything will be well in this world. As said by a well known poet world is not just topological land, world are the people living on it. In depth, world will be well only if people are well. So how can we make this world well? This question has lasted from the days of beginning of civilization of earth to the till date. Even great scholars like Gautam Budha, Vardhaman Mahavira or our Gandhi have sacrificed their lives to know the answers. A common principle in all of them is giving up the desires which are reflected by their simple life. Initially when I read the line I was very much attracted to it. But later on, when I thought of implementing, it left me lots of question in my mind. So if any of you can give me a proper clarity to my confusion Iam humbly obliged to them.

Firstly the point that giving up desires is an inbuilt desire that we WANT to leave the desires. This has stopped me to think further in the starting itself. This point is violating itself. Even if we condone the initial hurdle and move on, another point that stopped me is that, why a person will come to this path. We are doing these entire things for the desire of happiness. As one who is coming in this path is for the search of happiness, so if he has that desire for happiness how can he be happy by searching? This point may be debated by saying that wants that are mentioned are only bodily pleasures but not mental then I will state an example. Suppose some one wants to be a collector or a doctor. This is a mental pleasure so what he does is hard work. There is no pleasure in the process. But finally if he doesn’t turn up to be then he will be in a pool of sadness. Ok, let’s say that one has given up all the desires then why will he have a desire to live. There will be no interest for further growth, no entertainment, no future. Finally he will lose the interest to live and commit suicide.

My above statements may seem to be pessimism but this is how my mind feels. It doesn’t mean that Iam proving that there is no solution for happiness. Neither Iam against to the principles of the above persons. My search for the ultimate solution for a man to be happy made me to think so. All that I wanted to try to know is that, are there any anomalies to the fact that “No one will die virgin; everyone is fucked up by life”?

2009-01-13T02:22:00.000-08:00

One day I have boarded a train to go home on the occasion of Sankranti. After one month I was coming back to my home so my heart was completely filled with ecstasy and happiness. As there is no direct train to my home I was supposed to catch a train at Howrah, so for that i have to do a tedious journey of 5 hours from Dhanbad to Howrah in a passenger train which stops at every yellow board that comes across.

There comes the spice of the story. I was just passing time by reading a day past news paper. After few minutes an old man has come and was asking for money and i just given a glance at him and continued my work. After a small chit chat with my co-passengers, a kid has come cleaning the floor with a shirt completely dirty and also wearing a shirt which also looks like the same and asks for the money. After a while a semi blind person came singing a song and asking for the same. By now you must understand what the point that I am stressing towards is. Ya its begging. Begging which is considered to be least valued profession which contains so many facets. I don’t want to criticize them or raise a finger towards, my point is looking the number of ways in it.