Lucifer House Inc.

Greek v/s Geek

noreply@blogger.com (The Fool) — Sat, 26 May 2012 10:21:00 +0000

Greek: Why hello there!

Geek: Hello is there so that humans can greet each other. It is usually the first word people say when they pick up the phone. Talking of phones, Graham bell was supposed to have invented the telephone. But some claims state that he had actually stolen the invention from one Elisha Grey.

By the way, you missed proposition ‘is’. You should have said ‘Why is hello there’. But this is a common mistake most non-native English speakers make. Talking of which where are you from?

Greek: I’m Kyra from Greece.

Geek: Kyra, an interesting name! In Greek, it means Lord or Lady. It is of Egyptian origin meaning ‘Like Ra’. Ra of course is the Egyptian sun God, the oldest of the Egyptian Gods. The myth of his journey through the 12 hours of the night is a fascinating one.

Kyra is also the name of a simple, fully featured, industrial strength Sprite engine written in C++. The Kyra engine is suited to 2D, isometric, and quasi-3D games. By the way gaming is a passion for me – both creating and playing them. What do you like to do?

Greek: I like to go outdoors to have fun in the sun, play some volley ball with my friends and relax with a nice cold drink

Geek: Nice rhyme – fun and sun! Bun, dun, gun, pun and run are a few other words that rhyme with these words. Let us try to make a sentence with all these words. I was eating a bun in the sun and having fun, when a dun came after me with a gun and I had to run. There was no time for a pun though. Who can think of a pun or to have fun in the sun, when a dun is after you with a gun? All you can think of is to drop the bun and run in the sun.

But if I run in the sun, my pale skin will turn dun. So there is no escape from the dun either ways. Now that is a pun! In case you don’t know, dun can mean a debt collecting agent or a brownish color. If you keep playing volleyball in the sun, your skin should also have turned dark. How come it is so fair?

Greek: All thanks to Lakme Sun expert.

Geek: Sun expert? Who is he? Must be a hot shot scientist! And what is a Luckmy? A newly discovered solar system? So much research still remains to be done on our own sun and there are folks researching suns of other systems?

Greek: No, no. It has nothing to do with the sun. Lakme is a brand.

Geek: Ah! I get it. It is a brand of cold drink? Is that what you are relaxing with? Cold drinks do help you beat the heat, eh?

Greek: It is not a cool drink. It is a fairness cream.

Geek: Wow! They are now bottling fairness and selling it as creams? I am sure it must be selling like hot cakes. That is possibly the only place fairness can be found in today’s world.

Greek: I mean sunscreen. Stuff that protects my skin from the effects of the sun.

Geek: I get it. So what are your plans for the summer?

Greek: This summer, I’m going have fun in the sun on an exotic beach.

Geek: Exotic beach? That sounds interesting. I am interested in knowing how an exotic beach is different from a normal beach. Will the sand be green and the water pink? Will there be flying pigs, dancing monkeys and singing donkeys performing there?

Greek: Err… I don’t know all that. All I know is I am going to have fun thanks to Lakme skin expert.

Geek: What kind of fun, may I ask dear? I am having fun right here in front of my computer. What more fun can you have in the beach?

Greek: It can't be explained. It has to be experienced. I am fun loving, enjoy my music and love travelling. And I am going to live it up on the beach.

Geek: Leave it up? Leave what up? Only thing I can think of is hot air. So you are planning to sit in the hot beach drinking some cold aerated drink and leaving out hot air? Doesn’t exactly sound like my idea of fun.

Greek: (Putting on a pout) You are just impossible. No use talking to you! Can you even imagine the kind of fun I am having? Lakme Sun Expert has allowed me to be bitten by wanderlust and have all the outdoor fun I want whilst staying sun protected.

Geek: What is this wanderlust? Some kind of super bug? Whatever it is I don’t care to be bitten. Don’t these Lakme guys have a cream to protect you from being bitten by these bugs as well? I just have to leave the windows open in the night and I can also have indoor fun being bitten by mosquitoes while staying sun protected if that is what fun means.

Greek (Puffed up with earnesty): But staying indoors how can you enjoy sunshine like never before? See what you have done to yourself. What is the use reading so much about about technology, science, space travel, aliens and all that? You look so thin, wizened and pale. Combined with your large spectacles, you look like an alien yourself. Have you ever had a girl friend? Or for the matter has any girl passing by even given you a second look? What do you have to show at the end of the day for all your so called intellectual pursuits in the darkness of your room?

Geek (suddenly breaks down into tears): Yes. You are right. Sunshine has been lacking in my life all this while. Give me some sunshine. Give me some rain. Give me another chance to grow up once again.

Greek: Here take this tube of sun screen, apply it on your skin and go out and enjoy the sunshine without getting sun burnt. What more, the wax in the cream makes your skin waterproof too. So you can enjoy the rain as well without getting wet. You will get another chance to grow up once again.

Geek (Beaming): Thanks Kyra. Thanks Lakme for giving me one more chance. This time I will grow up once again and turn out to be a handsome hunk who will be every girls’ dream.

Posted for Contest sponsored by Lakme. This is their facebook page. The picture has also been taken from there.

Cloud Black and the Seven Sardars

noreply@blogger.com (The Fool) — Mon, 21 May 2012 17:37:00 +0000

Once upon a time there was an evil witch. Now the time of magic is past its prime. So in the current times, the witch is just a socialite, a former model and an actress. An actress, who does dope, drinks like a fish and smokes like a chimney. In short a complete vamp. The original witch was married to a king. This socialite instead is married to a liquor baron who also owns an airline and an IPL team. Is he any less than a king, eh? What if the socialite does not have a magic mirror to tell her if she was the fairest in the land? She could easily check if she was the most popular. What else were news websites and tabloids for, to say nothing of social networks?

A heroine is a heroine by any other name. So it does not matter if we call her Elena, Kyra or Layla. What matters is she is the heroine. And since sponsors wish it so let us call her Kyra. And probably the original Snow White story was also written for a contest where heroine’s name kept changing. So the clever writer must have given her a generic name 'Snow White' so that there won’t be too many changes in case the heroine’s name was to suddenly change. But nowadays a name such as Snow White would be considered to reek of racism and proclaiming the superiority of white skin. So let us call her Cloud Black instead. And obviously a girl called Cloud Black has to be dark, right?

Now this socialite one day discovers that this Cloud Black who happens to be her step daughter as well by an interesting coincidence that usually happens only in stories, has suddenly become more popular than her. This could have been due to any of the many reasons. A lithe figure, generosity of nature, sporting accomplishments and academic prowess to name a few! But it does not matter to the story which of these it was. The bottom line was she was more popular and her socialite step mom was goddamn badly pissed. So she called up the D-company guys and asked them to finish her off. These guys take her and throw her into the sea. Why only drowning and why not some other means of death one may ask. Why not drowning I ask back. After all so many cool folks died of drowning and one of the most popular movies was about folks who died of drowning.

As luck would have it she gets washed ashore on an exotic beach complete with a year’s supply of Lakme sun screen. And who would be on the beach at that moment but seven sardars: seven total pagal mundas on the roll. That’s the exotic part. It will be cool to say there were seven of them because there are seven notes in music or seven days in a week. But honestly, seven is just a random number just as likely to occur as six or eight. If we start explaining all this, this would be a novel and not a blog post. Coming back to the point, these dudes are rocking the beach when the sea suddenly throws up this hot babe. They just can’t stop their eyes popping and tongue lolling involuntarily. So they all hustle each other to give her a cardiopulmonary resuscitation. It is only in England, we have such a complicated name for this thing. In France, it is called just a kiss. One more example of Victorian hypocrisy!

Well, in the original story, Snow White cooks for them, washes for them, scrubs for them and does all kind of bum work in return for a few morsels of food and the so called protection. But let us be realistic. This is the twenty first century. There ain’t no such things as hot chicks working as maid servants for free. She does sleep over at their place. But they have to do their own grub work and run their beach side dhaba in the night. In the day all eight of them rock the beach in the hot sun. The melanin in her naturally dark complexion protects her while the Sardars have turbans and beards to protect them. But she still uses Lakme sun screen because that is the purpose of life, the universe and everything in this story, isn’t it? For without Lakme, would this story have ever been written?

Now it will be nice to write how all the eight of them live it up in the hot sun. But then what is the point? As I mentioned earlier, this is part of a competition and so many others have already written how Kyra rocks the scene on the beach. So if you are interested in reading about all that, click this link to check out the posts of the other contestants. And when you are about it you may as well click here for the sponsor’s link as well. After all I am writing all this for their sake only.

All good things come to an end. And as luck would have it, the paparazzi are all over again and her step mom learns of her survival. She makes one last ditch attempt to bounce her off. She comes in guise of a sauve face cream saleswoman and palms of poisoned face cream to her. Cloud Black makes a rare exception and uses this other cream instead of the usual Lakme cream, gets poisoned and drops dead. The Sardars are unable to revive her. Now is the time for an ole shole hulk with six pack abs to step in complete with a cool Thunderbird or Karizma bike. He comes over and gently applies Lakme cream on her face to magically revive her. Once again Lakme saves the day and all of them live happily ever after. And if Lakme give me a prize for this entry, I will also live happily ever after.

Picture Credit : Snow White

The Devotion of Suspect X - Review

noreply@blogger.com (The Fool) — Sat, 12 May 2012 13:41:00 +0000

Japan is a country with scarce natural resources. So they can hardly afford any waste. Their cuisine tries to find use for almost every part of the plant or animal that is being cooked. Toyota gave the world the lean principles whose main focus is elimination of waste. The book ‘The Devotion of Suspect X’ embodies this Japanese ethos. There is not a portion of the book that goes waste. Even seemingly insignificant portions contribute to the overall story. In the end I got a wow feeling how everything tied in so neatly.

Usually literature and science are considered two different worlds. This book kind of bridges the gap between the two. The two protagonists are men of science – one, Ishigami a mathematician and the other Yukawa a physicist. The story is a murder mystery skillfully woven around mathematical concepts. Somehow the entire story revolves in some way or the other around two problems of mathematical logic. Whether or not it is as easy to determine the accuracy of another person’s result as it is to solve the problem yourself? Which is harder: devising an unsolvable problem or solving that problem?

For those tired of stories set in US and Britain, a story set in Japan comes as a breath of fresh air. Sake, Sushi, bento boxes and karaoke build up the typical Japanese environment. The people, their emotions, their motive are all so typically Japanese. For those who are not much associated with Japanese culture, these things might appear strange. But they add an element of unpredictability to a story that makes it more interesting.

In most detective stories, we know what the problem is and the mystery is typically around the solution. And usually the options are clear. But it becomes more interesting when you don’t know what the problem is. That is the strongest element of the story. All along the book, it looks like an open and shut case that is going to be resolved in the next few pages and you wonder what is going to happen in the rest of the book. But it is like an optical illusion. Every time you seem to have come near it, you find it is still a little way ahead. And then a totally unexpected end comes right out of the blue.

Compared to traditional novels, one may not be able to relate so closely with the characters in this story. The characters remain closed and distant. Also the final fate of the characters might not be satisfying to all readers. But somebody well acquainted with Japanese culture can kind of relate.

In the final analysis, I totally love this book. But it is a book that appeals more to the head than the heart. And you need some love for theoretical mathematics or logic to be able to fully enjoy this book. However what will appeal to every reader is the quick pace and the easy flow which makes it an effortless read. Touchy feely folks who are sure they hate logic and mathematics can definitely give this book a miss. I would recommend all others to definitely give this book a try.

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com. Participate now to get free books!

The Singer and the Lion

noreply@blogger.com (The Fool) — Thu, 03 May 2012 16:57:00 +0000

What was he to do now? One option was to just sit and play ‘Angry Birds’ and hope that alien would be back. But was that a risk worth taking when the future of humanity was at stake? This was not some trivial MBA assignment to just put aside feigning ignorance. The starting point was quite clear. He had to find out where he was. He activated the GPS of his mobile phone to check. Mycenae, Greece, it said. Next step was to find out the best route to Nemea.

The Google map was so perfectly mapped that even the lion’s den was clearly marked and Harvi had no problems reaching his destination. Now came the difficult part of killing the lion. His first thoughts were to order a gun from Amazon. But then there were 2 issues. He had been pretty bad at using guns even during his NCC days. It was unlikely that there had been a sudden quantum jump in his shooting abilities. The second issue was that of funds. The heroes of the old had benevolent Gods gifting those weapons, food, steeds and what not. But these days there were no such things as free lunches. He had to depend on his own finances and he knew that a good hunting rifle would wipe out all his savings.

When everything else fails, Google comes to your rescue. So he decided to check if he could find a more economical and efficient way of killing a lion on Google. As expected the internet did give him lot of answers. The first method was called the Newton method. It said, “Let the lion kill you. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Implies you killed the lion” But then there was a small issue. If he died on the first challenge, who would take up the remaining 11 challenges? The lion? So this method would not do. Then there was the software engineer’s method. “Kill a cat and claim that your testing has proven it is a lion. If anyone comes back with issues tell that you will upgrade it to lion” This idea seemed more promising.

Harvi searched the internet for kitten sounds. It did not take much time to find one and download. He started playing it and soon a sweet little kitty was lured in. He then addressed her, “Guess what I have in this mobile?”

The cat gave him a quizzical expression. He continued tantalizingly brandishing his mobile phone at her saying, “I just picked up the latest gossip on the cat fights in Bollywood. It’s all here.” The cat began to run around his legs and take mini leaps to reach the phone. But he kept the phone high above its reach. After sometime the cat could not bear the suspense any longer and dropped dead. Curiosity had killed the cat.

Next step was to take picture of the cat’s corpse with his 8.0 Megapixel camera. Then he quickly downloaded a photo editing software for mobile phones. With that he morphed it into a picture of a lion. He was sure he could carry off the deception. It was all about confidence and belief in oneself. If his marketing research professor could believe all his cooked up data why would the alien not fall for the morphed picture?

With these thoughts, he was on his way back to Mycenae. The Greek king stood at the place entrance waiting for him.

“The first challenge did not take too much time, eh?” he said, his flat voice matching his expressionless face

“Ready for the next one? Here you go. Destroy the Lernaean Hydra”

He was here a moment and he was gone the next. He had not even asked to see any proof of completion of the first task. Then suddenly it dawned upon him. Of course! Why had he not thought of this before? The aliens could read minds. So he had directly read it all out of his own head.

But then his mind was suddenly filled with anticipation and doubts. The aliens had given no indication whether he had succeeded or failed in the first task. By the earth standards it could be deemed a success. After all fudging was the norm here. Physics teachers knew students fudged lab data. HR managers knew candidates fudged resumes. Auditors knew company accounts were fudged. Viewers knew media fudged the news. Everyone knew everything was fudged. But they pretended to believe everything was all right and carried on with life. The fudging was the glue that held together the entire human civilization. Wasn't that what sophistication all about? The day someone called the bluff the whole civilization would fall on top of each other like a cards tower. He hoped things worked the same way with alien races as well.

But this was not the time for all these philosophical musings. He had all the time in the world for that later if the world survived. Now the priority was to figure out what this hydra thingy was.

Submitted for Internet is Fun Contest. Click here for the first part of the story. The story in fact continues after this and is a complete story of 14250 words. But I am thinking of expanding it further into a novel. So I have not put up the rest of it here. In case the novel does not materialize the rest of it will come up here.

Picture credit : Lion Picture

The Singer on the Roof

noreply@blogger.com (The Fool) — Wed, 02 May 2012 17:13:00 +0000

Allah ke bande hasde allah ke bande

Allah ke bande hasde jo bhi ho kal phir aayega

Allah ke bande hasde allah ke bande

Allah ke bande hasde jo bhi ho kal phir aayega

A thousand donkeys could not have brayed with as much gusto. There were rules in the country about noise levels in the wee hours of the night. But those laws did not hold inside the campus. Most of the students had resigned themselves to their fate. They had been subject to this torture every exam night. It was his way of letting out his exam stress.

But today the powerful voice had caught somebody else’s attention. It was going to be a defining moment in the history of mankind. Little did the well built young man with a blue turban, a flowing dark beard and thick glasses realize that soon the fate of the entire mankind would come to rest on his broad shoulders. For thanks to him an alien race had become aware of the existence of humanity. He was too lost in his own singing to notice an unidentified object descending rapidly towards him. He was caught by surprise to see a strange reptilian looking creature standing in front of him.

The aliens did not speak like humans. But they had mastered their own form of telepathic communication through which they were able to communicate. They began to send images into his head. They were a merciful race and were willing to spare the humans. However they were curious about the human race and wanted to subject them to some tests and study them. The test would consist of a series of twelve challenges to test the intelligence, ingenuity and resilience of the human race. If he successfully cleared all the hurdles, it meant humans had potential to hold their own among the advanced races of the universe. The aliens would depart in peace. If he failed, the human race was doomed.

Of course there was a third option. He could refuse and leave the aliens to pick an alternate candidate. Any sane person would have chosen the option. That way the buck would be passed to someone more capable. Maybe a world leader, a scientist or an army general would have been a more suitable representative of the human race. But then he was a Sikh. And it was mid night. So backing out from a challenge was out of question. So Harvinder Kuldeep Singh, who was finding academic pressure too hot to handle, now had the burden of the entire world on his broad shoulders! The unlikeliest of champions!

Suddenly there was a heavy gust of wind. The wind was building force by the minute. Harvi lost consciousness as he found himself seized by the eye of a tornado. He did not know how many hours had passed before he regained consciousness. He opened his eyes. What a crazy dream it had been! It was still dark. Maybe time to quickly study something for the exams.

But where were the books? He could not find them anywhere. In fact he could not find anything at all. It was not even his room. Where the hell was he! This place seemed to be much larger. As his eyes adapted to the dark, his eyes fell on the furniture in the room. The place seemed like a palace? What was happening? Was he still dreaming? But then things happened in dreams. Here nothing was happening. He was getting bored. He could not remember getting bored in a dream ever before.

He put his hand into his pocket. His fingers brushed against a flat rectangular object. Was it what he thought it was? But you never know in these weird dreams. He quickly pulled out the object. And, yes! It was his Samsung Galaxy mobile phone. At least one problem was solved. He wouldn’t be bored now. Angry birds would keep him company. He got so engrossed in the game he did not notice the light flooding into the room as the sun rose.

He looked around and the place did look like a palace indeed! He suddenly noticed that he was no longer alone. A man of regal bearing stood in front of him. He was a middle aged man with a robe woven out of the richest fabric, a neatly trimmed dark bead and a laurel wreath crown. The man walked up to him taking graceful strides.

“Well young man, ready for your first challenge?” he boomed.

Harvi realized who he was talking to with a start! The aliens must be shape changers or they had abilities to create strong illusions. He was never going to find out which. He nodded his head. He had made the decision the previous night. There was no turning back now.

“Your first task is to kill the Nemean lion.”

“To kill the Nemean what?”

“Lion. Panthera Leo. A carnivorous species of genus Panthera family Felidae found on the planet earth.”

Harvi never even remotely imagined his challenges would be anything of this sort. He had never killed a mouse and he was now supposed to kill a lion. Before that he had to figure where this lion could be found. He turned to the alien to ask him. The alien had disappeared. He was now on his own.

Submitted for Internet is Fun Contest. Click here for the next part of the story.

Picture credit : http://www.allgoodseats.com/fiddler-on-the-roof-tickets.html

The Man in the Dark Helmet

noreply@blogger.com (The Fool) — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 16:30:00 +0000

It was never going to be an ordinary day. None of his days ever were! Ordinary days were for ordinary people. Ordinary people did ordinary things. Wandering around aimlessly on a deserted island was definitely no ordinary thing. Nor having a helmet on one’s face 24 hours a day! He wore it even while sleeping and eating. The helmet was attached firmly to his head covering his entire face. It was made in such a way that he could open the front visor only up to half was up his nose. Why had this been done to him? Was his face so grotesque that no one wanted to risk seeing it even on a totally deserted island?

Dipesh had been an ordinary person all his life. Till that fateful day! He had studied engineering, loved cricket and was a software engineer. A description that would have easily fitted any of the hundred thousand young men in the country! But a letter had changed all that. The letter had looked quite innocuous at first. It was not the first time he was receiving something like this. But mostly these kinds of mails came by e-mail and landed in the junk folder. In the past he had won millions of pounds in lottery, received request to help princes in distress in African countries claim their inheritances and offers of juicy roles from some of the world’s top companies. He was not the one to fall for such scams. Only thing was this this time it was a snail mail and the contents of the letter seemed too far fletched even for a scam.

The letter addressing him as Prince Bantu read as below

“Let me introduce myself. I am Bwanga the chancellor of treasuries at the royal court of the kingdom of Bikerlandia. You possibly have not even heard of this country. It is a small oil rich nation in the middle of South America. You will be even more surprised to learn that you are the heir to this kingdom. One of the heirs, to be precise!”

“This might be totally unexpected and possibly unbelievable for you. But even I had not expected I would be writing this letter 25 years back when I had you sent to your foster parents in India. But current circumstances in our country have necessitated this step. Your twin brother who currently sits on the throne has turned out to be tyrant and people are suffering under his oppressive regime. However the kingdom’s ancient code has no legal provision to replace him.”

“I and some of the other loyal courtiers initially thought of bringing you back and have you stake your claim on the throne. But some vested interests including some foreign super powers are backing him and this can lead to civil war resulting in large scale bloodshed. So we have decided on a more covert course of action.”

“In two days time I shall be flying down to meet you. I shall explain our plan in detail then. I would request you to come to the dinosaur park in Gandhi Nagar and wait near the tyrannosaurus rex model between 5 and 6 in the evening day after tomorrow. “

“Please do come! Since it is a public place, you have no reason to fear for your safety. I only want to put my case before you. After that it would be your decision whether to join us or not. If you decide not to join us, we shall leave you to enjoy your life in India and never make any contact with you.”

Dipesh was tempted to tear up the letter and forget about it. But somewhere in his mind, something seemed to fit like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. He had always wondered about the reason for his lack of family resemblance. Also his late uncle, his mother’s brother had worked for years at an oil company in Latin America. So the Latin America connection was somewhere there. He wondered if he should consult his parents. But if Bwanga had written to him directly, there had to be reasons. His mind sprang a thousand questions. He just could not resist his curiosity and found himself at the dinosaur park the day following the next.

The next few days had been a total roller coaster ride. Bwanga’s very looks and demeanor had something strongly convincing about it. When Dipesh heard the plight of the country's people, he had no second thoughts on what he had to do. The plan had been simple enough. It was supposed to be a straightforward person swap like so many twin brother Bollywood movies. But then at a high level most plans look simple. It is the details that tend to take on challenging proportions. For one he had just a single month to master the ways of the royal court. Then there was this matter of getting him into the troubled land of Bikerlandia.

His foster parents had bid him a tearful farewell. They understood his sentiments and had not tried to stop him. Everything had worked as per plan and in a month he found himself a monarch. Not of a large kingdom, but a king nevertheless! Things had in fact worked too perfectly. Possibly this was not to the satisfaction of one gentleman called Murphy who had made a few laws that governed the affairs of men. So slowly things that could go wrong began to go wrong one by one following Mr. Murphy's laws.

The monarch of the kingdom was also the head of the order of the knights of the Harley bike. The 15th day of Dipesh’s ascension to the throne coincided with the national bike festival. The king had to lead the knights on a day long bike procession around the country. But there was a small challenge: Dipesh did not know how to ride a bike. And Bwanga had not had time to teach him. But Bwanga as always was resourceful and had a solution for every problem. Instead of the king, a body double would replace him in the procession. But there was a small catch. For the plan to work the noble chief knight of the order of Harley bikers had to be taken into confidence.

The chief knight Kuwangu had turned out to be an inflexible old patriarch who lived by the last letter of the rule book. The moment he heard of the deception, he totally refused to go with it. Bwanga had wanted to silence him. But the noble Dipesh would not have the blood of an innocent on his hands. Kuwangu had immediately blown the whistle. The original king was rescued from captivity and re-instated on the throne. Kuwangu was too merciful to have Dipesh killed. But an impostor with resemblance to the king always posed a threat to the throne. He would always serve as a trump card in the hands of any would be conspirators. So he had had the biking helmet affixed permanently to his head so that nobody could see the face that was a carbon copy of the king’s face. Dipesh was then been exiled to one of the remote islands on the pacific.

He had eked out a lonely existence for close to a year. But today he was going to have company. A boat was seen nearing the island. It had landed on the island and a group of fierce biker knights got out. They did not have much difficulty finding him. Dipesh’s brother the tyrant had found out about him. He had had Kuwangu thrown in prison and had him tortured to find out where Dipesh was exiled. He had then sent out his knights to permanently end the threat to his reign.

As the knight’s sword was about to feel the depth of his bowels, he let out a loud scream and things went dark. Next he was aware of someone shaking him. It was his mother.

“You were yelling in your sleep, son. So we came to see if something was wrong.”

He was back in his bedroom in India. He touched his bosom. There was no wound. It had all been a dream. Phew! What a sigh of relief!

The next morning was Saturday. He decided to stay at home and relax. The nightmare had felt all too real and he still needed time to recover from it. At 11.00 am, the bell rang. It was the courier man. He had come to deliver a letter and a parcel. A letter again! His mind was filled with anticipation as he opened the envelope. Thankfully the letter was not from any Bwanga of Bikelandia. Instead it turned out to be a pleasant surprise. It was a letter notifying that his entry had won a prize in the Castrol Power 1 Biker code contest. This had an immediate uplifting effect on his mood.

Happily he opened the parcel to see his prize. As the wrapping came off to reveal the prize, he froze. In front of him lay an object he was had got too familiar with recently: a dark helmet!

This post is part of the contest It was never going to be an ordinary day.. on WriteUpCafe.com

This post has also been entered in the Castrol Power 1 Biker Contest organized jointly by IndiBlogger and Castrol

Picture Credit : Picture of man in helmet

I Rhyme without Reason

noreply@blogger.com (The Fool) — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 02:44:00 +0000

“The most beautiful but the most unfortunate of the seven is what is known as psychic. This in its purity of type is a very rare hand to find. The name explains itself – that which appertains to the soul. The very word seems to suggest to one’s mind the old fable of the envy of Venus towards the maiden Psyche – the war of the Goddess of passion against the more spiritual charm of the daughter of the soul. In its pureness of type it is a hard hand to find: nineteenth century civilization does not encourage such rare flowers of lily whiteness and icy purity; the calmness, coldness and dreamy chastity of such a type are not sought after by the present-day sons of the soil, whose heads are bowed in the quest for gold, and whose blood is heated by the closeness of the cattle. “

The above passage is from Cheiro’s ‘Language of the Hand’ describing a particular type of hand known as the psychic hand. I find this description fits the writings on the blog ‘I rhyme without reason’ more than anything I can possibly say.The writings are sensitive and gentle like an early morning breeze. The writings remind me of the old Romantic poets like Wordsworth and Keats. Of course I am not suggesting he has reached their level. But the potential is definitely there. But for this type of writer, the writings must necessarily come from the heart and only his heart can tell him how to reach the next level. Visiting more scenic places and reading more from similar kind of writers can help the process. One suggestion I have is to avoid frivolous prompts. They can adulterate the purity of the writing of this kind of writer.

Coming to the more mundane practical aspects, the name is definitely appropriate as is the background with stylized writing and well chosen header pictures with well chosen quotes. Indeed he does live in words and writing is like breathing to him. The picture of a comic lion with a pen also goes well with his pen name ‘Leo’. The light yellow shades of the background are representative of his finer shade of writing unlike stronger colors that go more with much more intense and loudly passionate writings. The interaction is pretty decent. Navigation has scope for improvement. The sidebar links to his favorite poems and stories makes it easy to find the best works. But I am unable to find any way to locate posts by type say love poems or nature poems. The archives are a very tough way of finding something from over a thousand posts. Also some kind of random post widget can also help readers randomly sample works. I find the widget giving traffic by country totally useless and suggest removing the same.

In terms of content, the poems and stories are mostly on softer topics dealing with emotions handled with high amount of sensitivity. Nature, love beauty, dreams and passion are recurring themes in many of the works. I am tempted to suggest diversifying into a wider range of topics. But then people have their specialties. After all you can’t ask Shakespeare to write detective fiction or Arthur Conan Doyle to write plays. However I find his stories pretty good and would definitely suggest writing many more stories especially ones having some mythological connections. As far as the poetry goes, I recommend adding a note giving some context/ explanation as blog readers have low attention span and may not spend too much time doing critical analysis of poetry. So some amount of spoon feeding is in order.

Overall this blog is a treat for those who appreciate poetry and lyrical fiction. Find presented below 5 posts selected by the blogger to give the readers a preview before deciding to launch into the entire ocean of his writings.

Veilleuse
Envy of Mornings
Why should I not smile when I believe in me
On Heart's Papers
The Journey

A Museum of Memories

noreply@blogger.com (The Fool) — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 18:48:00 +0000

Relentless is the flow of a river in flood

It sweeps aside and carries away all

More relentless than water is time

Nor man nor God nor demon can

Dig in their feet and resist its flow

Everything that had a beginning

Necessarily has an end waiting

But to eternity will survive the little

Moments stolen from time’s flow

And preserved in the depth of my heart

Three decades of time has passed by me. It has brought along some precious rubies and diamonds. It has carried away a few of my sapphires and emeralds. One day it will carry me also away with it. But there are some moments I have secreted and hidden deep inside my heart safe from time’s flow. Here you will find on display some of those rare moments. Don’t think of stealing them. Imagine how tight the security must be if even time has not been able to steal them away.

What has no hands or legs, does not go tick tick, but wakes you up at the dot of seven in the morning nevertheless? The answer is the sweet aroma of fresh tea boiling on the kettle wafting from mother's kitchen. Dinner is usually the time of togetherness in most families. Morning tea was ours. With father’s erratic work schedule, it was rare for us to have dinner together. Morning tea was when me, my father and my mother sat leisurely for 15 minutes and exchanged sweet nothings. So much have we discussed over these cups of morning tea over the years! More precious to me is that cup of tea than the most divine ambrosia.

As a rule, man is a fool,

When it is hot he wants it cool

When it is cool he wants it hot

Always wanting what is not

When we had Doordarshan as the only TV channel, so many times have I wished we had multiple channels like in the US! But now with the coming of cable television my dreams have come true. Am I happy? You bet not! I miss those 7.00 pm Kannada serials and 9.00 pm Hindi serials on Doordarshan I used to sit and watch with my mother. Every day there used to be a different serial, not the same one everyday like now. And the serials would get over in 13 weeks and a new one would start. Sometimes dad would also join in for the 9.00 pm serial. People say television kills family conversations. But in our family, it stimulated conversation. I can recollect numerous discussions I have had with my mother around these serials. Those days are gone, serials of that caliber are gone, and mother herself is gone! But memories remain.

The next one is going to be a weird one: going shopping with my dad! What is this? Some crime against gender stereotypes challenge? Well, not exactly! Here, the shopping I am talking about is for books. Initially it started off with second hand story books. Then when I got older, it was second hand sports star magazines as I was crazy about maintaining a scrap book of pictures and statistics related to cricket. Then even later it was computer magazines for the free CDs having trial version of computer games. The books have changed over the years but the excitement of going book shopping with dad has remained the same. This has been one major casualty of having my own income. But the memories remain and possibly one day I should take my dad to a book exhibition and get him to buy me books for old time’s sake.

Lot of research has been done to understand the nature of human intelligence. If one were to ask me, I would say the ability to tell stories and appreciate them is one of the critical aspects of human intelligence. And I was introduced to one of the greatest story tellers in my very young years: my grandfather. Possibly my deep interest in stories also was inherited from him only. He has probably told me hundreds if not thousands of stories from Indian mythology, Shakespeare, English novels, movies and various other sources. In my childhood the very news that my grandfather was coming to visit would thrill me to the bone. I have read so many books and seen so many television series and movies since. But nowhere have I found the magic that my grandfather’s stories had.

People whine so much about the summer heat. I even recently heard a person remark that he is not a summer person. Well, I have always been a summer person. The reason being summer vacations! Now I no longer have summer vacations. But even the memories of my summer vacations while at school are sufficient to invigorate me on the most tiring summer days. Most of my summer vacations were spent in my grandparents’ home. It was a large house in Chennai with lot of people – grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins. We used to play cricket without stumps, tennis without a net and racquets. Lots of indoor games were also there, traditional and modern. Then there were lot of other miscellaneous activities as well: messing around in the garden, cutting wood pieces with a hacksaw and helping my uncle who ran a factory at home with the packaging.

I developed my love for English movies during these vacations only. Those were days before computers and DVD players. VCR was the in thing then and my uncles had bought one newly. So every day I would visit the local VCR library with my uncle and cousin for choosing a movie. Every weekend trips would be planned to places in and around the city such as the local zoo, the snake park, the beach, museum and temples. I lived in nuclear family without any siblings. So the joint family experience during summer vacations was something really out of the world for me. The excitement started from the moment I landed there. The whole family would come out to greet me the minute I was at the gate. Recently I was at the wedding of one of my cousins. All the folks came ahead to greet me like old times. Immediately all the old memories came rushing back to my head and I felt totally overwhelmed.

Equally fun was my vacation at my other grandparents home. There were no other kids there, but my grandparents and unmarried uncle more than made up for the absence. My grandparents had preserved well all the board games my mom and her siblings had played with in their childhood. And then there were chess and playing cards. My uncle knew so many different games that could be played with playing cards. Both my grandfather as well as my uncle were accomplished chess players. My favorite board game was Monopoly. My grandfather and grandmother would sit and play Monopoly with me for hours together. My uncle was a very shy and reserved person who was more comfortable with children than with adults. We would converse for hours about cricket and about technologies of the future. He had an excellent sense of humor and every moment spent with him was a pleasure indeed. But eventually I grew up and was no longer a child. That kind of created a gap between me and my uncle. Nor can I be playing board games with my grandparents anymore at my age. But the memories of those wonderful moments still remain fresh in my mind.

There are many more moments on display. But unfortunately it is already closing hours. You need to visit again to see the remaining displays. And new items are being added to the display every passing day of my life as events are rapidly being moved from the present to the past. For instance the lovely evening walks I used to have with my wife in the first year of our marriage. A moment it was here in the present. Then suddenly I changed jobs, my work timings changed and the moment became an addition to the archives.

Catch, then, Oh! catch the transient hour,

Improve each moment as it flies;

Life's a short summer--man a flow'r:

He dies--alas! how soon he dies!

Picture Credit : RQuack at Deviant Art

This entry is a part of the contest at BlogAdda.com in association with imlee.com

The Legend of the baikadu

noreply@blogger.com (The Fool) — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 19:13:00 +0000

The grandsire was one of the rare few who could lay genuine claims to the title of warrior poet. He had been a skilled hunter and a stubborn fighter in his days. He was the pride of the prides. One of the most revered ones. But in spite of his violent reputation, he had retained a love for the finer arts. He was an accomplished poet and story teller. Now in his old age, his strength and dexterity had deserted him. His poetry and stories were what still made him much sought after. His most popular story was the legend of the baikadu. All the cubs had gathered around him that night for another narration of this legend.

The grandsire cleared his throat and began, “Cubs, hold your breath. Today I am going to tell you about the most powerful creature that has ever lived. I am the only one who has seen this creature and lived to tell his tale.”

There was pin drop silence. All the cubs were listening with bated breath. The grandsire continued, “It was many springs back when I was still a cub. My father was the leader of the pride, a proud and magnificent lion. I was very playful and often strayed away on my own. On one of the days I had strayed away too far and found myself on the road. “

There I heard a loud noise like I had never heard before. I was filled with anticipation. What was this creature? My first instinct was to run from that spot. But my curiosity got better of my fear. I went ahead to take a look. It was like no creature that I had seen before. And so fast it was moving. It covered close to a 100 leaps distance within moments. I could just catch a glimpse of it. It looked somewhat like a horse but the neck was much longer.

The creature seemed to have broken wind as it passed by. And such dark and foul smelling wind it had left behind. I wonder what it must be eating that it gave out this kind of gases. The creature disappeared within moments leaving me surrounded by the gases. And even the gases! How powerful they were! I nearly choked to death.

I immediately rushed to tell my father about this amazing creature. Dad would not believe me. He could not believe there was a creature more powerful than him. He roared loudly and asked, "Was this creature so loud?"

“No, dad! It was louder.”

Dad roared even louder. And he again asked, “Louder than this also?”

“No, dad! Much louder than this and anything else you can possibly muster.”

Dad was very furious. He put in all his energy and gave such a loud roar than the whole forest seemed to shake. But still he could not match that creature. The effort had really strained his throat and he had hardly been able to speak for the next few days. Having given up on the roar he wanted to match his speed against the creature. He ran quickly and took a leap once. Then a bigger leap! Then a superfeline effort that nearly cost him his bones! But still he could not match the creature’s speed. Having failed to convince me of his superiority, he decided to dismiss my tale as the fanciful imagination of a hyperactive cub.

The story would have ended with that if not for me discovering a carcass of one such creature on the road one fine day. Its upper part had been severed from the lower part. The lower part was motionless. The upper part was still moving around. I am not sure how that portion of the creature managed to keep itself animated even after being severed from the lower part. I quickly went to get my father. The moment my father saw the creature, he rose to the challenge. He immediately pounced on the moving upper part and brought it down. Red colored blood flowed from this part and my father feasted on it. He gave me a morsel also telling me that eating a portion of the creature that had scared me will imbibe in me its fearsome qualities. And indeed delicious it was. I am not sure if that imbibed any qualities of the creature in me though.

Then we moved on to try out the lower part of the creature. The creature seemed to have only two legs and such strangely shaped legs they were. My dad could not believe that these creatures could generate that kind of incredible speeds with such funny legs. The legs tasted so horrible! The rest of the body was worse. It was too hard and we gave up after we nearly broke our teeth. Soon blood began to ooze out from the lower part as well. But the blood was black in color and did not have the usual pleasant smell of blood at all. The very sight of this fluid seemed to scare us. But the brave lion that my father was, he decided to drink some of it. The moment he drank it, he began to feel uncomfortable and it was not long before he lay dead.

I was scared and ran from that place as fast as I could with my tail between my legs like a common cur. As they say prudence is the best part of valor. My father’s pride had done him in. The creature had been deadly even in its death. I never wanted to see that creature again. From that day I have kept away from the road. I have also ensured that none of the members of the pride did stray anywhere even close to the road.

The faces of the cubs looked grave as the grandsire completed his story. Normally that was effect the legend of the baikadu had on them. The voice of the grandsire wafted through the silent night as he finished his narrative with some of his poetry.

Vroom Vroom Vroom he roars

Louder than a thunder storm

Swift as wind is he

King of the road he

To him must bow even the king

Of the whole jungle

Deadly is he in

Death even this baikadu *

Beware ye lions

* - Note on spelling and pronunciation - Humans often tend to spell baikadu as biker dude

Picture Credit : http://beauty-animal.blogspot.in/2011/05/beuty-of-lion.html

This post if for a contest 'What Motorcycling means to the Indian Motorcyclist' sponsored by Castrol. You can find their FB page here.

Two Blogger Awards and One more Contest Loss

noreply@blogger.com (The Fool) — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 06:21:00 +0000

Tale of three brothers

A huge army came from one direction. Caravans filled with wealth came from the second direction. Nobody came from the third. The two brothers converged on the inn. In ten years, the elder brother has gained power. The second brother had garnered wealth. Where was the third brother? Suddenly they recognized the inn keeper. He had married and settled down at the inn. He was busy playing with two little kids. The inn soon rang loud with arguments? Was wealth greater or power? They suddenly stopped and looked at the silent third brother. The happy contented look said it all.

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This year I have been participating in lot of contests. But I don’t seem to be winning anything this year. Yesterday I bit the dust in yet another contest and was trying to swallow the disappointment. Then I thought what if I don’t win awards. More important is to win hearts. In these 4 years I have made so many good friends in the world of blogging. Even before the results, one of these friends SIS told me not to base the worth of my writings on contest results. Write for yourself and the one or two friends who genuinely like your writings. After the contest results, another friend DS told me something on similar lines. Thinking of it, friends like these mean more than contest victories. So I was a winner after all.

In this context, I am thinking of the blogger awards. I have already posted about the other 5 awards I had received. Today I have yet another blogger award. This time from Princess Poo, a sweet little blogger! The award can be found here. Thanks a lot for the award, princess. I really appreciate.

Then going through my old blogs, I noticed another award I had missed out. It is from another young blogger Devan Harikumar. Thanks DeVan. It does mean a lot to me. Sorry for the delay in accepting the award. Here is the award link.

In the world we assess the value of things by their scarcity. By that principle, contest awards are scarce while blogger awards are abundant. Does that mean blogger awards are less valuable than contest awards? Diamonds are rare. Air and water are abundant. Think about it.

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A stupid choice

Duryodhana was jubilant. He could not believe Arjuna’s stupidity. Lord Krishna had tried to trick him and give the hand away to Arjuna. And his stupid cousin had frittered away the opportunity. He had gotten Krishna’s powerful Yadava army? And what had Arjuna got? Just a Lord Kirshna who had vowed not to lift weapons!

Verses from my heart

noreply@blogger.com (The Fool) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 03:19:00 +0000

Some spiritual leaders have compared the human mind to a drunken monkey stung by a scorpion. I was having a similar initial thoughts going into the review of this blog, a kind of double whammy. Though I write poetry, I find I do not relate to most people’s poetry. I personally find poetry on most blogs tedious, wordy and pretentious. So I am not overtly excited about poetry blogs. And add to it the blogger is a teenage girl. I know it is wrong to have stereotypes. But the mind unconsciously tends towards stereotypes. Going in with such a negative mindset, this blog turned out to be a pleasant surprise to me. It would not be exaggeration to say I was overwhelmed with the quality of the writings on the blog appropriately names ‘Verses from my Heart’

Let us now go over the various aspects of the blog one by one. The title is an excellent one. I am surprised no one had already taken this name before her. ‘Verses from my heart’ is an excellent description for a poetry blog, more so for this blog. The verses are indeed from her heart. The background is well chosen. The background is like the maroon velvet curtains of a stage show which goes very well with the poetry theme. The header is also nice in pink with a heart and the picture of a small girl writing. It is simple and honest like her poetry. As is the tag line ‘Straight from the heart, Simple Words, Giving an insight within me’. Though tag line gets the point across, I feel there is scope to make it more terse and catchy. Another suggestion is to make the sidebars a bit wider. One can hardly see those beautiful curtains currently.

I need to exercise restraint to avoid effusing over her lovely writings. Such is the effect her writings had on me. Let me instead try to focus on areas that stand out and what possibly can be improved. The poems exhibit a maturity beyond her years. Some of the themes are really deep. The words are simple, honest and come straight from her heart. I have often felt poets should give an explanatory note. But most of the poems on this blog need no explanation. The blogger articulates very well and literally weaves images in the reader’s heart. The poems also have good structure and rhyme scheme. She has written just four stories. But each story is a gem in itself. They plots are kept simple but narrated with finesse. The flow and language makes even her longest story an effortless read. Then there are rants and personal experiences which I did not focus on at the blogger’s requests. But from what little I saw, her personal experiences are narrated in a very interesting manner and definitely worth a read.

In terms of feedback on content, as of now, the content is good as it is. But I feel so far the focus has been narrow and I wonder about the long time sustainability. She is good at what she writes. But I fear in the long run, content may start feeling repetitive and reader may start losing interest. So my personal recommendation would be to start exploring a wider range of themes. The blogger should also be writing more stories and narrations of interesting personal experiences. In terms of poetry, she is good at rhymes, structure and refrains. I would like to see her experiment with classical forms such as sonnet, triolet, rondel etc.

There is of course scope for improvement in terms of widgets, navigation and interaction. Interaction is decent. In my opinion, a blogger should reply to every comment without judging the intent of the commentator or value of the comment. The popular posts and labels do provide some navigation. But I do not like labels much as it leads to too much scrolling. I personally prefer static pages with links to posts. Random post and previous/ next post widgets are something that can be added at the end of posts to improve navigation. As the amount of content goes up, classifying by theme can also enhance reader experience. In terms of widgets, page does not look cluttered as such. But I fail to see any utility in the live traffic widget. Who is interested in knowing if a reader from Bangalore is currently reading your content? You can see all that by yourself later on google analytics.

Generally I would recommend everyone to check out this blog, especially the ones interested in poetry and literature. One of the keys to success is to know your own strengths and weaknesses. Lot of people are not too comfortable selecting a limited number of posts as their best ones. But this blogger definitely knows which her best works are. She has selected an excellent set of 5 posts to showcase.

To the Love of my Life
Incandescence
The Voice of the Messenger
For Love in my Life is yet to come
My first short story

Blogger Awards

noreply@blogger.com (The Fool) — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 17:43:00 +0000

The saint and the dancing girl

He was filled with remorse. He had insulted her by refusing to witness her performance. She was a pious woman and an artist dedicated to her art. He had failed the divine Mother’s test. He had been too proud of his saintliness and it had lead to his fall. He at once begged her forgiveness.

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Sometimes we become too high brow and consider ourselves above certain things. I have always felt tags and blogger awards are frivolous and not keeping with the dignity of a sober blog. So I have always politely declined to participate in it. Recently I have been thinking about it and realized being tagged is a kind of acknowledgement of my presence in the blogging world. If we look deep into our hearts, what we need most is someone to acknowledge our existence. I wanted to acknowledge the last award I received itself. But I kept postponing and meanwhile another blogger gave me yet another award. So I thought I will make haste and put up a post expressing my heartfelt gratitude to the bloggers who have passed awards to me.

My first award came from Vibuthi Bhandarkar, a wonderful blogger who has published her own book of short stories. She was one of my earliest friends in the blogging world. She honored me by sending me a free copy of her book for review.

My second award came from a girl called Tejaswee Rao in July 2010. I had somehow missed it then. Today I went to her blog and to my shock and dismay found that she had expired within a month of tagging me and the blog is currently being maintained in her memory by her mother. It is a small thing but I am wishing I had accepted the tag when the blogger was still alive.

My third award was from a lady who calls herself confusedyuppie. Unfortunately I do not know anything about her. But still she has mentioned my blogs as one of those she loves and regularly reads. Nothing makes a blogger happier than a reader who loves and regularly reads his or her blog.

My fourth award was from Elvira Lobo. She has left a few lovely comments on my blog now and then. Beyond that I do not know her too well. Nevertheless I am extremely delighted to be chosen as one of the 15 bloggers worthy of receiving recognition.

The most recent award is from Kajal Chanchani Nayar who has recently become a regular follower of my blog and a great friend on Indi Blogger. Last but not the least; I thank her also from my bottom of heart not only for giving me an award but for being the catalyst finally precipitating me into action to put up a post thanking all those who honored me.

Now coming to the challenge part, here I am dealing with 5 different challenges. It will become a complete mish mash if I were to take up all of them here. So I would request you all to kindly excuse me from the challenges for the time being. Maybe sometime later I will come up with a post that will incorporate all the challenges.

The other part is me passing on the award to 15 other bloggers. Whereas I greatly appreciate this gesture of being conferred an award by a fellow blogger, this is not my way of expressing my appreciation to my favorite bloggers. I do it though my comments and reviews. So I would request to be excused from this part as well. As I said the idea in itself is good and I am thrilled at receiving these kind of awards. But I feel it would be tad out of character for me to be giving these awards.

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Donkey in doldrums

He wondered what he had done wrong. He only wanted to express affection to his mistress. After all isn’t that how the poodle welcomed her daily? And she seemed to love it. But when he had tried to jump on to her lap and lick her face, the washer woman had given him the cane.

Daffodils

noreply@blogger.com (The Fool) — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 11:47:00 +0000

Oscar Wilde in his book, Picture of Dorian Grey says, “Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly.” Before my feminist readers gang up and come after me with their hatchets to lynch me, let me clarify that I don’t really subscribe to this view point as such. But I could not but help remember this quote when I was going through the blog Daffodils of Aabha Midha. Of course the blog does have pretty decent content, but more than the content, it is the presentation that makes this blog stand apart. One look at the blog and you can feel the love and care the blogger has taken to create this blog. The blog’s title daffodils and the url ‘smile wid(th) abha’ symbolize the blogger’s spirit.

The content is mainly the experiences in Aabha’s life. Every human is unique and has something interesting to share. Here we get to know the various interesting aspects of Aabha’s life. The narratives are full of warmth and honesty. She openly shares her feelings and views on various day to day happening in the limited boundaries of her home and town as well as causes related to the larger universe of the nation and the world in general such as feminism. Every post leaves the reader with an overall nice feeling.

Let us now go over her wonderful presentation. The back ground with a long distance blurred nature landscape and the daffodil fields in focus at the heading gives a nice fuzzy feeling the minute the blog comes into view. As they say well begun is half done. The appropriately chosen title comes out well, large and bold amidst the field of daffodils. The catch phrase ‘Slice of Life’ characterizes the purpose of the blog very well.

I would give full marks for the navigation. She has used the static pages to effectively give links to her different posts. Since I follow the same scheme on my blog, I am especially partial to this kind of a navigational construct. In addition, the popular post widget, the latest post widget and Google search further add to the navigability. In terms of widgets used, the blog does not look too cluttered as such. And it is nice to see widgets supporting her favorite causes. But I do not see much value as such in the live traffic and online counter widgets.

One of the best aspects of her posts is the simplicity and brevity. The posts are short and make an effortless read. No unnecessary verbosity. The text is supported either by original pictures or appropriately chosen from the internet. Most of the self shot pictures look pretty decent and are indeed a visual treat. The interaction with the readers is also pretty good.

If one were to go by her self- proclaimed objective of sharing a spectrum of her life with her readers, the blog is already doing a great job and there is not too much that needs to be done differently. But there is a glass ceiling to the level of achievement possibility for a purely personal blog in terms of traffic or fame. Especially a personal blog without glamour, controversy or comedy! So if the blogger is aiming for greater heights, she should consider specializing and look at taking the blog in a niche direction. Indian society, religion and culture could be one possible niche I can think of. Depending on the chosen niche, work has to start on identifying the right audience, their mindset and their needs. Then the blog must be customized to cater to those requirements. But that’s a choice I would leave to the blogger.

Overall, an excellent blog if one wants to steal a quick glimpse into the day today life and times of a typical Indian woman. Her posts are general feel good reads that anyone can relate to. I have given below a sample of best posts selected by the blogger herself as a starting point to explore her blog.

As You turn 21 Surbhi:

Call of the Dentist:

Little Moments of Happiness

Rim Jhim Rim Jhim Rum Jhum Rum Jhum:

My Father's Daughter

An evening in After Life in Japan

noreply@blogger.com (The Fool) — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 18:17:00 +0000

Many of us have speculated what heaven would be like. If one were to ask me, I would say the capsule hotels in Tokyo are the closest to my concept of heaven. That one evening I spent at the capsule hotel has been etched indelibly in my mind.

The trees have shed all
The leaves of the year gone
New year beckons

Man comes into the world empty handed and empty handed he leaves. He has to leave behind all the possessions of the previous world as he moves on to the next world. As you enter the capsule hotel, you leave behind all you possessions at the entrance as you leave the outside world and enter the capsule world. You even enter a changing room and leave all your clothes behind and put on the robes of the capsule world. That done you are now a denizen of the capsule world.

All trees look alike
Not a color nor fragrance
To discriminate

It is a different world inside the hotel. It does not matter who you were in the outside world. Inside all are the same. Everyone wears the same type of robes. Everyone is by himself. Everyone eventually dies alone. Everyone come to the capsule hotel alone. People tend to go about their business ignoring all the others at the hotel as if the others do not exist. No one talks to anyone else.

The only distinguishing mark is a rubber strap with a number around the wrist. The hot water spring, the cold water pool, the baths and the sauna are free for unlimited use by all. Also free are the showers, the soaps, the towels, the shaving sets and tooth brushes and paste. You ask and it shall be given to you. But then there are things you need to pay for as well. The foot, head and neck massages, the aromatic oil body massage, the Thai full body massage and the Swedish massage. But then you have come in leaving behind all your worldly possessions. For all that you enjoy in this world, you need to pay for in the next world. They note down the wrist strap number and charge against that number. When you are ready to return to the outside world, you will have to cough up the dough.

One gentleman called Douglas Adams has written a book called Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. In that he says “Man has always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much...the wheel, New York, wars and so on...while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man...for precisely the same reason.”

You need to spend time in the hot water springs in Japan to get a first hand understanding of the pleasures of mucking about in the water. This capsule hotel has both open and closed hot water springs and cold water pools. Both have their charms. The closed ones of course are cozier. But there is a certain excitement being inside water with a view of the sky. And I think I neglected to mention these springs and pools are located on the terrace on the fourth floor of the buildings.

The mind is already free leaving behind all of one’s burdens at the door itself. But the bare body itself may have become a burden for few. That’s where the massages come in. There is a massage for the foot, for the neck, for the hands, for the face, for the head, for the body. Whatever massage you want, you ask for it and you have it. Under the dexterous fingers of the professional, one almost experiences an out of the world experience.

Food and drink are available in abundance and one is spoilt for choice. The choicest delicacies are on offer at the food court. But then here too as in the outside world, there ain’t no such thing as free lunches. Your wrist strap number will be duly noted and for whatever you enjoy in this world, you need to pay the price for when you move to the next world.

The strap is the key to everything in this world and it holds the key to your final resting place as well: the capsule. The capsules are like tubes piled one on top of another in stacks very close to each other. Each room will have close to a 100 capsules. No one can beat the Japanese in economy of space. In some ways a capsule feels like a coffin. There is space only to lie down. No place even to sit. The capsules have numbers. Any guesses what the capsule number is? Yes. The number on the strap! You have ladders to climb up to the higher capsules. The capsules are locked and the keys are attached to the respective leather straps. You open the lock, enter and go to sleep. Interestingly it is very comfortable inside. You have lights, pillows, sheets, blankets, temperature control and even a television with a remote control. All that inside a coffin sized capsule. I am sure the robots would have kept humans inside something like this only in the Matrix movies. But one gets real sound sleep inside these capsules. Maybe because it feels secure like inside the mother’s womb. Don’t know if it feels the same inside coffins as well.

Trees come back to life
As the last snow melts away
Green leaves spring anew

After an evening of hot springs and the relaxing massages, one feels invigorated in body and spirit as one leaves the next morning. Back in the outside world, the entire previous evening’s existence feels like a dream. But one feels full of life, fresh for life’s challenges.

Writer's note : My attempt to narrate an experience in an impersonal tone. Been seeing lot of folks adding poetry in their stories/narrative. My first attempt at incorporating three Haikus inside a post.

This post is an entry for Incredible Stories contest sponsored by Mahindra

Picture Credits (In the order of appearance on the post)

1. Winter Tree
2. Dolphin
3. Capsule Hotel
4. Green Tree

That Last Night

noreply@blogger.com (The Fool) — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 18:34:00 +0000

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 26; the 26th Edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton. The topic for this month is 'That Last Night'.

He rolled to his right. He rolled to his left. He lay on his back and tried to count imaginary sheep. Ninety nine sheep had jumped over the fence. He had no patience to watch the hundredth sheep. He switched on the light and picked up a novel. Five minutes passed. Ten passed! Fifteen! But he had still not got past the first line. A black and white alphabet soup swam in front of his eyes. He gave up and put down the novel. He opened the door to let in some cool breeze.

March had still not come marching in with all its fire and fury. Fresh cool air flooded the room. Equally fresh memories flooded his mind. He had come here exactly nineteen months back on a hot sultry night. He had been greeted by two guys sitting in front of the television watching a cricket match.

“Hello. Have you also come for the preparatory course?”

His mind took a journey back to the preparatory course. That had been fun. The course had been very light and there had been lot of fun and frolic. The three of them had become fast friends and they had spent the evenings exploring different parts of the city. In the night they would come back to recline in front of the television watching one of the late night movies on Star movies or HBO channel.

The television was still there as were the chairs. But dust had settled on the chairs. The television stood silent as if dumbstruck. A new name and face came to life in his mind as his eyes drifted from one locked room to the next. Would he see those faces again? The laughter, the light banter, the serious discussions! And the spirits! Yes, the spirits! In spite of the state wide ban on them, the spirits had an uncanny knack of finding their way to the souls that yearned after them.

From the light of the tube lights he gradually descended into the darkness of the stairs to emerge into the shadows of moonlit night. He was soon in front of the college mess. But it was not the meals that he remembered which said something to their credit for seldom are hostel mess meals remembered in a positive light. His eyes were fixed on a small area near the entrance: the notice board. However the notice board had no notice. Throughout the first year, he had dreaded the post lunch surprise test announcement notice. Now he wished he could see one again one last time.

The next stop was the class room block. The past two years his life has been equally divided between here and the dorms. Again memories began to fill his head threatening to overwhelm him. The professors’ droning voices, the alert raised hands trying to score class participation points, the invigorating tea between classes! This place held lot of emotions, joys and sorrows, hopes and disappointments, excitement and boredom! Classes, exams, campus placements – all had happened at this very place.

By now the night was well into its unholy hours. He still had 2 hours – enough time for the auditorium, the playgrounds and the lawns. The director had welcomed them at this auditorium on the first day. They had entertained their seniors with their performances on stage here on talent night. They had entertained companies with their patience off stage during summer placements as the companies bored them with their presentations. In the second year the juniors had entertained them. Then it was the turn of the companies to entertain their ambitions. Finally the director was back again to bid adieu during the convocations.

Finally the hour had arrived. As he wheeled his luggage out, his eyes fell on a cardboard box with some hay in it. “Julie, Julie”, he called, finally breaking the silence of the night. No Julie came. He just shrugged in resignation and proceeded towards the gate. He had come here alone and alone he would leave. His juniors had all left on their term breaks. His batch mates were all already back home. He was the last one to leave campus. No one left even to say goodbye to him!

As he was about to board the waiting taxi, he heard a short bark. Someone had come to say goodbye to him after all. It was Julie, the stray they had adopted in the dorm. He gently patted her on the head as he boarded the Taxi. His eyes were fixed on the campus as it blurred away in the distance.

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

Dreams gone Wrong

noreply@blogger.com (The Fool) — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 06:51:00 +0000

The last 10 years had been a real roller coaster ride for him. Now looking back it almost seemed like a dream. He remembered that fateful day he had gone into his boss’ cabin to tender his resignation letter. That had been a long time back. He could not remember why he had wanted to resign. That did not matter either. For that was before opening the door of the cabin. His life could easily be divided into two parts – BOCD (before opening the cabin door) and AOCD (after opening the cabin door). All BOCD events did not matter anymore. Only AOCD events mattered.

He had been most pleasantly surprised to see an angel waiting inside. Her very sight had mesmerized him.

“Hi, I am Vishaka, your MD’s daughter”, she had introduced herself

At first he could not find words. But he eventually got to talking with her. An hour of waiting for the MD had been magically transformed into a second. He wished it had lasted longer. But he would again be meeting her over a cup of coffee later that evening. The four hours till the evening close of business seemed like 4 years. The concept of time was so relative! The resignation letter lay forgotten.

Within a year, he was married. Half a decade later he was still besotted with his wife as much as he had been on the first day he had met her. But sometimes an object can be made smaller without reducing it in any way. In a relative sense, by putting a bigger object next to it. That is what had happened to his love for his wife. It had been rendered smaller by emergence of a greater love in his heart. His two lovely children, the apples of his eye! He had done well in his career as well. In 5 years, he had become the youngest MD in the history of the firm, on the way to become a partner. What more could one ask from life!

Then one day the winds suddenly changed direction without warning. The American economy was going into recession. The financial sector was hit badly. The company had to close shop. He soon found himself without a job. But that was part of life. He was not exactly on the streets. He had managed to feather his nest well in the years he had worked and had enough saved up to take care of the next 20 years without an additional penny earned.

Being without a job had turned out a blessing in disguise. He could now spend more time with his family. Things had gone on nicely for a year. Then one day suddenly his lovely wife had fainted in the kitchen. Apparently she had been having dizzy sensations for the past one year. She had been ignoring them. A visit to the doctor had confirmed their worst fears: it was cancer. He put all his heart and soul into her treatment. She was taken to the best hospital in US. The most expensive drugs were procured. But even the best efforts could not stall the inevitable. He found himself a widower in the eighth year of his marriage.

But he still had his children to think of. He needed to be strong for the sake of his children. He did his best to cheer them up. They spent a lot of time together going on trips to all exotic places around the world. Time they say is a healer. Now at the end of 10 years, one could not say categorically that things had turned out entirely bad, he reflected as he looked on fondly at his two children playing happily in the water. Yes, there had been a few tough years like the time of his wife’s sickness and death. But by and large, they had gotten along life decently.

His reverie was broken by a shout, “Papa, Priya is drowning”

It was his son Rahul. Rahul was swimming fast after his drowning sister. But the eddy current was too strong. He jumped into the water and swam towards his children. By the time he reached them, it was too late to save Priya. Rahul was also fast getting sucked in. He sent up a silent prayer as his hand reached out to save his drowning son. The first time he had prayed in the last 10 years.

As he prayed, he remembered his spiritual master. He had wanted to give up worldly life and take up spiritual pursuits on a full time basis 10 years back. That was why he had wanted to resign from his job. All the BOCD memories began to flood back into his head.

He suddenly found a hand shaking him. It was his master. “You have still not left for office? I thought you were planning to go there and submit your resignation letter today.”

He opened his eyes with a jerk. He had dozed off in the Verandah. It had all been a dream – a dream gone wrong. 10 minutes here had been 10 years in his dream. He wondered if his master had something to do with the dream. Was this the Maya his master often spoke about?

Picture credit

http://christianbackgrounds.info/waking-up-from-a-dream-backgrounds/

The Cinnamon Journey

noreply@blogger.com (The Fool) — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 07:48:00 +0000

“Variety is the spice of life”, it is said. What better way to seek variety than to go on a journey. That is what this lady from Indonesia has been doing. She has travelling to places of pilgrimage all over South and South East Asia. The Cinnamon Journey is a record of her sightings and musings during her travels.

To start with, I must say I found the title very catchy. The word cinnamon has a rather exotic feel to it and kind of excited me to immediately go and check out this blog. The motif designs in the background kind of keeps with the title and maintains the exotic Oriental feel. The dark background inside for the posts gives a good effect to the photos. So I would give full marks for the title and background. My philosophy is simple background for picture blog, attractive thematic backgrounds for text blog.

I would not really put this blog with the regular travel blogs. I would prefer to put it in the personal blogs category. Her purpose is to capture her internal spiritual journey through pictures and words as she makes a physical journey through places of pilgrimages in Asia. She also points out her specialty is her personal musings around the history and culture of the places she visits. That is the most endearing aspect of the blog. The photos are also more offbeat and not the typical ones on travelogues. They are of the sights that made her think and she honestly shares her thoughts with us. So we get to see places through her eye.

Talking of the overall quality of content, the photographs are excellent. The writing is interesting though a bit weak on the language side. The importance of grammatical correctness has always been a matter of debate. Bad language is only a problem when it distracts the reader from the content and becomes an irritant. Here that is definitely not the case. I find the usage somewhat cute, if I can call it that. Most of Asians talk similar kind of English. So it adds to the general authentic Oriental ambiance of the blog.

Coming to the areas that can be improved, the overall readership and traffic seems quite low for a blog that has been active for close to 3 years. I can think of three reasons for this. There is hardly any navigational support. There seems to be very limited interaction with readers. The content is too personalized. Let me take up each of these aspects separately.

The archives are the only way to navigate the blog. Even labels have not been used effectively. So it is very difficult to access and read old posts unless reader is very passionate and wants to pore over the entire archives. Definitely a lot of work needs to be done in terms of navigational widgets and more effective use of labels.

In general the volume of comments is low. However even the few comments that come don’t seem to be responded to. Musing kind of posts can trigger lot of discussions with others sharing their experiences. The blogger should reply to every comment and promote more discussion to improve reader engagement.

In terms of scope of content, I feel it is too narrow. A little bit more offline research on history and legends surrounding the place and some more structure to the content can make it more broad-based. Inclusion of the things such as logistic details of getting to places, shopping, climatic conditions etc. can attract people looking for travel guides as well.

Overall I would say it is sweet and nice blog. If one is interested in places of pilgrimage in South East Asia, this is a good blog. One can also see Indian places of pilgrimage from a different view point here. I have given below a sample of best posts selected by the blogger herself as a starting point to explore her blog.

1. Home of Shiva
2. Its all about Faith
3. Loro Blonyo
4. The Last night at Ganga Arti
5. Saigon Destination - Cao Dai Temple

Three things I want to change - I, me and myself

noreply@blogger.com (The Fool) — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 06:36:00 +0000

Slaying the Monster

After years of hunting, I was face to face with the monster. Its innocuous looks could not deceive me. Its deadly green eyes gave it away. I slashed at it in all my righteous fury. Die, you vermin! A drop of blood touched the floor as a shard from the shattering mirror hit my face

A Backbite Victim's Tale

I was deeply hurt. I had always considered Amit a close friend. And he had been making uncharitable comments about me behind my back. What would my image be in front of the team now! Back biting was something I hated the most. If only there was some way one can banish all these wretched backbiters from this world.

A few days had passed. I was having tea with my colleagues. We were having a good laugh at the stupidity of our new manager Raj. He had done his MBA from some top Business School. But when it came to technical matters he was a total dunce. Then suddenly a thought passed my mind. Wasn’t what we were doing exactly what back biting was all about? How would Raj feel if he came to know about what we were saying about him behind his back?

My wish had come true. I now had at least one backbiter in my power who I could banish from this world – me. But back biting was just an effect. What was the cause? Few moments of pondering and the answer presented itself – jealousy.

Fair Wages

“This is unfair, master. I have been slogging since morning. He has only been working for the past one hour. But you are giving both of us the same wages.”

The master replied calmly, “Am I or am I not giving you what I promised when you started work.”

He had no answer to that.

Comparisons - A zero sum game

But what was the cause for the jealousy at the work place? I decided to probe deeper. It was not as if everyone was jealous of everyone else. There were specific patterns to this jealousy that I wanted to unravel. Amit was jealous of me because in spite of both of us having the same level of seniority and exhibiting same level of capability, I had got the promotion ahead of him. In case of Raj, I was jealous that he was my manager in spite of being the same age as me just by the merit of having done a MBA.

If I could generalize the root cause of jealousy in this context, it is the feeling that the other person deserved less but is getting more. International surveys have also shown employees’ happiness with their salaries was not absolute but more in comparison with what their peers were earning. But this kind of comparison is ultimately a zero sum game and it has to change. And the change has to start with me. I need to learn to look at things from an absolute perspective and not relative to my peers.

The King and the Snake

The snake bit King Nala and he transformed into a dark skinned hunchback.

“Is this how you repay me for saving your life?” he seethed in fury.

“This is for you own good. You will now be safe from your enemies. They would not be able to recognize you in this form”, replied the snake.

A silver lining on a dark cloud

I have solved one part of the problem. I should stop back biting. But there still would always be others who would backbite about me. And that would continue to hurt me. What am I to do about that?

Well as they say there is a silver lining to every dark cloud. One just has to look for the silver lining. And the silver lining here is this: it can serve as a feedback mechanism for self improvement. After all there can’t be smoke without fire. If someone says something about you, it must have at least some basis in truth. And that bitter truth is something your office colleagues might be hesitant to share openly with you in a professional environment.

There are so many things about oneself that falls in one’s blind spot. Whatever you hear said about you behind your back is the critical feedback that you need for your improvement. That is the reason kings in ancient times used to go around the city in disguise to hear what people are saying about them behind their back I guess. It would of course hurt to hear such things said about you. But often I have found things that hurt are the ones that helped me become a better person. So if one takes it positively and is looking to change and grow, even back biting might serve a constructive role after all.

Writer's note:

Here I have attempted to combine 55 fiction with a philosophical musings kind of post. All three stories are 55 fiction, stories told in exactly 55 words. The first is entirely my own, second is based on a biblical parable, the third based on a story from Indian mythology.

Picture Credits (In the order of appearance)

1. Green eyed Monster
2. Toiling laborers
3. Biting Snake

First plunge into chilly waters

noreply@blogger.com (The Fool) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 06:52:00 +0000

As long as one is within the protected environs of one’s home, the whole world looks scary and one fears to venture out. I was once discussing with a friend about adventure fiction by one naturalist Willard Price. I mentioned how I longed I could have that kind of nature adventures. But he was more practical. He said he really enjoyed reading those books as well but he preferred to enjoy the thrills in the safety of his couch curled up with the book rather than expose himself to real hazards. Though I argued with him a lot, I realized I too had indulged only in arm chair adventures so far. I longed for something more real. But I was set in my habits, my activities and my friends. I had no clue where to start. Then suddenly out of the blue, an opportunity came my way. I blindly took the plunge without thinking. Like the first dip into chilly waters!

I was quite a reserved guy by nature and mostly confined myself to a select group of friends at college. I was in one of my close friends' room when four guys burst in. I kind of knew them vaguely. I had had a minor run in with one of them in the first year and he had stopped talking to me the past 3 years. I was busy finishing some assignment that was due the following Monday. I did not even bother to raise my head to acknowledge them. These guys had just completed an exam and were planning to go on a trek to a nearby waterfall to de-stress. They had come to my friend to borrow money from him for the trek. He lent them the money but politely declined the offer to join in on the trek. He was not really the trekking type. For some reason these guys decided to do me the courtesy of the offer as well.

Normally I would have returned the courtesy with a polite refusal and they would have got on with their trek. But I don’t know what came over me that day.

“Thanks for inviting me. Sure I will join”

They too were probably not expecting this and seem to have been taken aback by my response.

“It’s a very tough trek. We will have to sleep in the open tonight and then tomorrow morning we would need to climb 5-6 hours.”

They probably thought this might intimidate me. But instead that further steeled my resolve.

“No problem. I am coming”

They tried one last ditch attempt.

“But we have to leave in 5 minutes or we will miss the last train.”

But I had made up my mind.

“Give me 2 minutes”, I said and went inside my room, pulled out a backpack and stuffed in whatever clothes I could lay my eyes on. Then I opened the drawer and pulled out whatever currency notes I could find and stuffed them into my pocket. In exactly 2 and a half minutes, I was ready for my first adventure.

We had to take the local train to this village Gummidipoondi on the Andhra Tamil Nadu border. From there we had to catch a bus to Tada where this waterfall was located. We had to reach before sunset if we hoped to make it to the base camp by nightfall. But the first bus was too crowded and the next bus was after 2 hours. Needless to say by the time we reached the village in Tada, it was well into the night. So we had to find a place to sleep in the village itself. That did not seem much of a challenge to me. Some hotel or lodge was sure to have a room free. But then there was a small catch here. There were no hotels or lodges in that little village.

We knocked at the door of one of the larger houses and asked if we could get a place to stay. They asked us to make ourselves comfortable on the open Veranda of the house. It was the first time I would be sleeping without a roof over my head. The idea kind of excited me.But my spirit was dampened when I saw who would be our sleeping companions: a drunkard and three stray dogs!

The drunkard was fast asleep. He had his mouth open and was snoring loudly. The place reeked with the smell of alcohol. We decided to ignore our new companions and go to sleep with our backpacks as pillows. But we could hardly get a wink of sleep. If the dogs were not barking, the drunkard would be snoring or muttering in his sleep. And the overall surroundings kept the mind on red alert and sleep would just not come.

We were relieved when the sun finally rose. We got up immediately and left without even stopping to thank our hosts. We were not too sure if they would be too happy to be woken up so early in the morning. The starting point of the trek was pretty close by and it was a pleasant trek for the first couple of hours. Then the sun started beating down upon us in all its ferocity. Also the path was not as scenic as I had expected. Most of the leaves had dried up and not too much greenery could be seen.

It was quite an arduous climb. But we maintained a steady pace and within a couple of hours we were at the base camp. Soon we were by the waterfall and stream. We stripped down and got into the water and had fun for an hour or so. There was a long tree branch jutting right over the water. We climbed on to it and sat there chit chatting for a while. By now I had been accepted as part of the group. One of the guys had brought a packet of cigarettes. He lit one and passed it around as we relaxed on the branch. I was not a smoker. Nor did I intend to become one. But I had managed to find a place in the group with great difficulty and did not want to lose out on the camaraderie by acting like a wet blanket. So I also took a puff and almost immediately let it out and passed on the cigarette. I don’t know why. But somehow smoking tends to foster male bonding.

By now we were hungry. My companions had brought along kerosene, cooking vessels and Maggi noodles. We went around looking for dried branches fallen on the ground. Since it was summer, finding fire wood was not much of a challenge. We gathered some water from the waterfall and soon we had some Maggi cooking. This whole process of finding firewood and cooking in the middle of wilderness reminded me of Tom Sawyer and Enid Blyton adventure stories. Finally the Maggi was ready. I had never imagined just plain Maggi could be so delicious. Maybe it was the hunger or the natural surroundings or just my mental state. But at that moment I found the noodles just amazing. For drinking water, we gathered water straight from the water fall. I am usually very finicky about hygiene and drink only packaged water and insist on washing my hands before I eat. But somehow all that seemed part of a different world, a different time. I was now in a world where old rules no longer applied.

It was still afternoon and we had a lot of time with us. So we decided to climb up further to the middle camp. However we decided to leave our bags at base camp. We had not seen a single soul in the vicinity since morning and we were sure our bags would be safe. The trek to middle camp was tougher. But that was fully compensated by mind blowing views we got of rock formations and waterfalls. I had never seen anything like that ever before in my life. I was so inspired by the sights that I forgot my tiredness and insisted that we should carry on next to top camp as well. But my friends were mindful of the time constraints and decided to head back to base camp.

A nasty surprise greeted us at the base camp. All our bags were gone. There was absolutely no trace of them anywhere. Everything was gone, including our clothes. Luckily we had kept our money with us. We knew we had no hope of recovering our lost items in the midst of this wilderness. So with a Stoic air, we began our descent. As they say misfortunes seldom come alone. Though I had managed the trek very well, same could not be said of my shoes. One of my shoes opened up at the toe and it became impossible to walk with the shoe on. So I had to dispose of the shoe. So I covered the rest of the journey with one foot bare. I must have looked a clown in tee-shirt and shorts with a shoe on only one foot. The rest of the trip was uneventful except for a moment of gaping on sighting a girl in modern dress at Gumidipoondi. By night fall we were back at our rooms.

My mother always used to say the best part of the journey is the obstacles you face and how you overcome them. If it is just the scenery, one can as well just see them on television or read about them on a book and be satisfied. The challenges are what contribute to real excitement. So true! To date I cherish the memories of my first trek.

This post is an entry for Incredible Stories contest sponsored by Mahindra

Picture Credits

This post describes an event from 12 years back when I was not even aware of the existence of something called a digital camera. So obviously I have no original photos to post. However I have put some pictures from the net to break the monotony of reading. Find below the picture credits in the order of appearance in the post.

1. Backpackers
2. House Veranda
3. Branch over water
4. Cooking with fire wood
5. Tada Waterfall views

Education for the 21st century

noreply@blogger.com (The Fool) — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 16:45:00 +0000

Scene 1: My mind wants to soar high in the air. It wants to leap and to bound and go on a flight of fantasy. But my body is shackled. Mind tries hard to pull away. But the body cannot move. I am a prisoner. I am glued firmly to my seat. I try to control my mind and focus on the professor’s sonorous voice. The mind rebels! To all external appearances I appear to be sitting calmly trying to concentrate on the professor’s words. But inside my head a battle is raging. It is a clash of the Titans. Finally both contestants are so dead tired that they decide to call a temporary truce to rest and recoup.

“You there!” I am jolted awake as a piece of chalk hits me.

“Can you please repeat to the class what I was just explaining?” I look around confused.

“Er, Sir”, I mumble.

The whole class breaks into laughter. Am I the idiot of the class?

Scene 2: I am in my room, in front of my books. I read through the first paragraph. It is so dry and dull. I try hard to focus. But it is like climbing a smooth rock face. I cannot get a grip anywhere and I keep falling off. This is sheer torture, some kind of self immolation. I can’t take it anymore. I put the book down and switch on the television.

Scene 3: I am filled with remorse. I am reminded of the story of the ant and the grasshopper. I had been the lazy grasshopper round the term. Now the winter has arrived. The diligent ants have built a reserve of knowledge for the next day’s exam. Within one evening I have to frantically scamper around gathering whatever shreds of knowledge I can find to sail me through the dreaded exam.

Why do I have to go through this ordeal again and again, again and again, year after year, not for one year, not for two years, but for twenty whole years? Be it school or engineering or MBA, the story remains the same. Why this Kolaveri Kolaveri di?

Is the problem with me or with the educational system? From what I have heard from people, I am not the only one who has been through such an experience. Further we have evidence on paper: the grade cards! If one were to go purely by my description, it would be a foregone conclusion that I was bottom at school, college and post graduation. On the contrary I was in the top 10% in school, in the top half at college and top one third of the class in post graduation. So I am guessing more than half the folks were in the same boat as me. So if I had the opportunity to change one thing: it would be the education methodology.

To solve a problem one has to get to the root of a problem. So I tried to understand why it was that I could not maintain my attention in the classroom or apply myself to my text books. The two key reasons that came to my mind were an inability to relate to the subject matter and insufficient participation in the learning process. Let us consider each of these separately.

Let us consider two scenarios for a basic need like hunger. One scenario is you eat what you feel like eating when you are hungry. The second scenario is irrespective of need, somebody else decides what food you have to eat, how much you have to eat and when you have to eat irrespective of your need. Which one would anyone prefer? Isn’t it the same case with knowledge? Wouldn’t it would work much better if the onus is on the student to extract the knowledge he needs rather than the instructor pushing knowledge to the student.

Moving on to the other reason let us again consider two options. Say you want to learn how to swim. In the first option, you have the best books on swimming and lectures from the world’s best swimmers. In second option, you have an average coach. But you are thrown into the pool and guided through the swimming process, practicing as you learn. Which one would be more effective?

Now that the requirements are established conceptually, we have to see how this can be achieved in practice. In the earliest times, this was achieved by apprenticeship of a student to a master craftsman. But in the age of mass production and industrialization this model became impractical. However the answer to the problem created by progress in technology can be solved by technology itself. Whereas it might not be possible to expose students to real life situations, computers provide an opportunity to create virtual situations through simulations.

What I am saying might seem like stuff of science fiction. But what I am saying is very much real. I have actually experienced this kind of learning. I learned more about geography and business from playing the game rail road tycoon than any text book. I learned history from the games civilization, Caesar and Pharaoh. So I think computer game like simulations are the way to go for education systems of the future.

My dream is to develop such a system that would understand the needs of different professions and guide students through the learning process through a series of simulations. I want to be the change that I badly wanted during my student days.

Picture Credits (In the order of appearance)
1. Professor
2. Student
3. Force feeding
4. Swimming Book
5. Railroad Tycoon

Team g square

noreply@blogger.com (The Fool) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 07:08:00 +0000

Why do we travel? Of course some of us are forced to travel in order to keep up with professional and family commitments. Let us leave that aside and again ask ‘Why do we Travel’? Everyone gets so excited about going on vacations. Is it really worth all the hype? I have been pondering this question for a long time. I have tried to find some meaning in vacations. One of the things I discovered was learning new things on each vacation – like rock climbing, skiing, snorkeling etc. Another thing is collecting souvenirs from different places. I am still on the lookout for more answers. Team G Square blog is one place that has brought me very close to the answer I have been looking for. The authors of this blog– a husband and wife team really know how to really squeeze every last drop of value from a vacation. They have managed to experience every place they visit in an entirely holistic manner and capture the same in their blog. They have captured the natural landscape, the local myths & legends, the flora & fauna, the history and the architecture and beautifully present it to us through pictures and words on the blog.

The strongest point of the blog according to me is the true passion for travel underlying the digital manifestations of the same on the blog. The truly passionate traveler can derive much more value at a spot 2 hours from home than a typical vacationer from an exotic foreign location. One can find a wealth of information scattered all around this blog – about logistic details related to travel to specific places, about flora & fauna, about history and about architecture. The blog also has good navigational constructs to help a new reader explore information related to his specific areas of interested. There are drop boxes with heads under different categories from which the reader can choose based on his or her interest and view all posts related to that topic. Additionally the 'popular post' widget and 'related post' widget further guide easy navigation.

There were some areas which I felt could have been done slightly better. To start with, I felt the name of the blog could have been stronger. Possibly the name has a strong personal association for the bloggers. But for a new reader, it does not convey any information on the nature of the contents. It does pique one’s curiosity though, which is a good thing. However no explanation has been given about the genesis of the name to create a recall in the reader’s mind. I could certainly suggest giving an explanatory note about the reason for the name.

Green is the color of nature and a green color background is a natural choice for a blog that places a lot of premium on nature. However the green on this blog is kind of dull and is not as vibrant and full of life as it should be. A darker background would have also been a good choice considering the number of wonderful photos taken in bright lighting posted on this blog. I find darker backgrounds tend to amplify the effect of bright photographs.

Coming to the content, whereas it is rich in information, more can be done on the style and presentation. The current method of presentation is a strong focus on the pictures from the trip and a little bit of background information. I feel it is like a set of loose threads and does not appear tight knit. The narratives can be made much more interesting if it is has more structure and it all ties in together like a story. Also a little more of personal touch in the narrative can help connect better to the readers.

The one remaining aspect is interaction. Like most travel bloggers, the level of interaction is not very high. If traffic is more, replying to everyone can be tough. But responding to everyone can help retain readers and develop a loyal reader base in addition to the floating traffic from search engines. Also a section for readers to ask general questions about travel in Karnataka can greatly improve interaction.

Overall I would say an excellent blog for people wanting to know more about places to visit in Karnataka and also for the confused travelers like me seeking to find the true essence of travel. I present below a few posts selected by the author as a trial sample.

Places to visit around Bangalore

A journey to the land of rice fields

noreply@blogger.com (The Fool) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 02:55:00 +0000

It was early morning. Night had taken its time and cooled the huge rock that overlooked the city. It would take just two hours for the sun to undo the night’s entire 8 hours effort. But luckily we were up and could enjoy these 2 hours of pleasant weather. I was not sure how many of my friends would have agreed with me though. Many of them would have placed a higher premium on 2 hours of extra sleep on Sunday morning.

I sat at the window seat on the bus to Vayalur. My mom sat next to me. We had recently moved to Trichy and this was my first visit to this temple. My mother was visiting this temple after 15 years and she was very excited.
“As you know God Muruga is my favorite God. And Vayalur has always been my favorite temple. I used to come here often during my school and college days. The memories of my last visit to this temple are still fresh in front of my eyes as if it happened yesterday. I had come with my entire college batch after the completion of our MA final exams. We were a group of 15 girls in the economics department. One of them was a Christian but she had also come along anyways keeping with the group spirit. We had come to pray that all of us pass the exam and complete our MA successfully. We all were a close knit group and there was no cut throat competition those days. Today there are so much more job opportunities than my time. Yet instead of becoming cooperative the environment in education institutions has become all the more competitive.”

I nodded in agreement. By now the bus was moving at full speed. At this time there were not too many passengers and the ambiance inside the bus was rather pleasant. We could not talk any more as the bus driver had started playing music. The song that was playing was Kanda Shasti Kavasam, a devotional song extolling the divine qualities of God Muruga. The song brought back some pleasant memories. This was one of my mother’s favorite songs. I remembered sitting with her in the pooja room at 6.00 every evening during my summer vacation and reciting after her. It was a really lengthy hymn that took around half an hour to recite fully. Initially I would get bored and impatient. But eventually my mother’s persistence had paid off and I had come to enjoy this activity. Unconsciously I was now reciting within my mind after the singer on the bus stereo phone.

While my mind was held captive by the song, my eyes latched on to the wonderful scenery outside. Wherever one looked, only one color caught your eye - green. There were rice fields, coconut groves, a few mango trees and a few settlements scattered here and there, mostly belonging to the farmers. The air was fresh and it felt really good. I turned and looked at my mother. She also had a kind of distant entranced kind of look. Clearly the environment had been working its magic on her as well. I soon returned back to my own reverie. I didn't know how much time passed when suddenly the bus conductor decided to dispel the spell. We had arrived at our destination. The bus stopped with a jerk, the song stopped playing and the conductor was shouting in his hoarse voice for everyone to get down.

The place Vayalur also was extremely scenic surrounded by fields on all 4 directions. I wondered if the name of the place itself came from this fact. In Tamil, ‘Vayal’ means field and ‘Ur’ means town or village. This Muruga temple in the midst of all these beauties of nature reminded me of a story my grandfather used to tell me of how God Muruga had wooed his consort Valli. I would have imagined a similar place as the setting for that story. Valli had been a tribal girl and God Muruga had appeared before her in the middle of the fields as an old man. He had proposed to her in this guise and she had spurned his advances. Then the God Ganesha, the brother of Muruga had appeared before them in the form of an elephant to frighten her. In her fear, she had agreed to marry the old man in return for protecting her from the elephant. Of course this is basically a summary version of the story. It was much more interesting the way my grandfather narrated it. However my mother always insisted that her grandfather could narrate it even better. Her grandfather had been part of the village theatrical group and so he could narrate the story in a dramatic way accompanied by dance and songs.

The temple was quite small compared to some of the other temples in and around Trichy. There was a temple pond opposite to the temple. One could see a shoal of fish swimming around lazily in the pond. There was not too much rush at the temple. So it did not take much time for us to reach the main shrine. The shrine had a really divine aura. Since there was no crowd, we could stand there and partake of the divine beauty of the idol for how much ever long we wished. After standing there for some time, we took some holy water, walked three rounds around the temple, sat at the courtyard for a while and were soon ready to leave. As we were leaving, much to our delight, a peacock flew down and alighted in front of us. It was the first time I was seeing a peacock outside a zoo and I was very excited to see thus beautiful creature. It looked breathtaking in its entire colorful splendor. Seeing a peacock at a Muruga temple is also considered a good sign as the peacock is the God’s steed.

We were soon on our way back. This time the bus was more crowded. Now they were playing the latest Tamil movie songs. Only dawn was the time for devotion. Rest of the day was for enjoying the worldly pleasures. But these small distractions did not affect my serene state of mind till we reached home.

Within an hour of reaching home, mother had idlis ready for breakfast. They were some of the best idlis I have had ever had. The batter had been hand grinded by my mother. Always idlis that are made from hand grinded batter taste better than those made from batter made on electrical grinders or mixers. Moreover, these idlis had that ingredient X that hotel idlis can never have – mother’s love. That gave the idlis a really heavenly taste.

Overall it had been one of the most satisfying days of my life that I remember even 15 years later. Looking back at each event of the day separately, they look petty and mundane. But taken together like the different threads woven to form a tapestry, one can see the contours of something really charming. Add to it the past memories and associations with each of the little events, the whole thing seems nothing short of pure magic. That’s what I call a real experience.

All pictures are taken from google images. They are all generic photos without clear ownership. If anyone claims these photos, I would be willing to take them down and pick up alternate ones from millions of similar ones available on the net.

Wanderlust

noreply@blogger.com (The Fool) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 04:36:00 +0000

Not everyone has an opportunity to be an adventurer travelling all around the world or even all around India for the matter. But it is interesting to meet people who have done it during your journeys. Listening to them can be as fascinating an experience as doing it yourself. Lot of my friends had met such people in India and abroad. I had heard of Europeans, Australians and Americans taking a year off just to travel. But I have always felt I never meet such interesting characters. I always travel with ordinary boring middle class people who just go to office and do their jobs. The only time they travel is to take their families to nearby hill station for the kids’ summer vacations. Maybe that’s how India is.

These were my thoughts till one train journey from Nagpur to Chennai changed it partially. It took another journey from Bangkok to Bangalore to fully change my opinion and start believing in wander lust as an inherent human trait irrespective of age, nationality or financial status.

Those days I was still at college and I had not traveled much. I was returning to my college in Chennai after spending my summer vacations with my parents in Nagpur. Opposite to me sat an elderly gentleman. In Tamil, there is a saying ‘ Aall paadi, Aadai paadi’ which would roughly translate as half of you is defined by your personality, half by your clothes. Going by the gentleman’s clothes, he looked like yet another boring middle class grandpa. As the train started moving, he started attempting to make conversation with me. I was not at all interested and kept giving half hearted replies to his inquiries about me. Then just to be polite, I also decided to ask him about himself. That was the turning point of the conversation.

Some of the most travelled folks are people from the army. This gentleman however was no army colonel. But a defense person nonetheless! He worked at the ordinance factory. He had been working at the Chandrapur factory the past 3 years and had now been transferred to the one in Awadi in Chennai. I geared myself, expecting to hear the same old sob story about how difficult it is to pack and move every time. But I was in for a surprise. Apparently he considered transfers the best part of his job.

“I do not need to work for a living. We have a lot of farm lands in Varanasi and the farm income is more than enough for me to get by. But I love to travel and see different places. That’s what I love about my job. In a span of 38 years, I have lived in 15 different cities all over India. Chennai is going to be my last assignment. I am already beginning to dread the day of my retirement. But my wife and children will be happy to have me back home.”

This was a total googly. Who would have thought a farmer from Varanasi would have so much passion for seeing places that it would drive his career decisions! I had a delightful time the next 5-6 hours listening to him regaling his experiences in the different cities he had lived in. Listening to him, I realized one thing. Visiting a city for few days on vacation is like making a casual acquaintance. But only when you stay and work in a city, you really connect with the soul of the city. 15 cities had bared their soul to this farmer turned weapons maker.

Years passed since this experience and I had settled down in a software job. This afforded me opportunity to see a bit of Europe and I began to view myself as a seasoned traveler. But still my travels were limited to Western Europe and I looked forward to meeting globe trotters and listening to their adventures. A smelly middle aged man with a French beard speaking a bad mixture of Hindi and English was hardly my idea of an adventurer. I wrinkled my nose as such a person came and occupied the seat next to mine.

The rest of it turned out to be a déjà u kind of experience starting with him trying to initiate conversation with me and I trying to dodge him. Only this time I was talking to an international traveler. This man apparently worked as a cook on merchant ships. He had been working for almost 20 years and he had seen almost every part of the world. He had a few amazing stories to tell about the places he had seen and life abroad a ship. I had only read about captains and first mates and sailors in sea stories such as Robinson Crusoe, Sea Wolf and Mutiny aboard the HMS bounty. And here was a man sitting right next to me who had been there, done that and seen it all with his own two eyes.

His naval career had been cut short when one day suddenly his arm had frozen. He was unloaded at the next port and had to return home by flight. He had consulted various doctors. But none could find a cure. Merchant ships it seemed were excellent pay masters and he had already saved enough to see his kids through and have a comfortable retirement. But what he missed most was the travel. Then someone had suggested a pastor who did some faith healing. He had been skeptical but had taken his chances and that had proved to be his salvation. His career had been reinstated and he was back on a ship. That had strengthened his faith in God and he had become a devout Christian from that day.

These are but a few of the many interesting people I have met on journeys. Everyone says one learns a lot by travelling. The learning does not come by sitting quietly and saying “Mom says not to talk to strangers.” It is by meeting and talking to different interesting people that one truly expands ones horizons. And these two experiences have thought me never to judge people prematurely. All one needs to do is to keep an open mind and keep travelling. You never know what kind of interesting person you will meet each time.

The girl on the train

noreply@blogger.com (The Fool) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 04:03:00 +0000

The movie ‘Before sunrise’ added a new romanticism to train journeys. After that I am sure many a lady or gentleman have fantasized about an exciting romantic rendezvous on a train. Well, I am not exactly of the romantic disposition. But I had watched the movie in question. And I was not entirely resistant to these natural human desires. So such thoughts did cross my mind on my first train journey to Vienna. After all, the hero in the movie also was travelling to Vienna. He too was alone. The law of attraction says if you strongly desire something, the entire universe conspires to make your wish come true. What I had assumed to have been just a passing thought did seem to have been a very powerful desire. For indeed the occupant of the seat opposite to mine turned out to be a comely lass just leaving her teens and entering her twenties. I was not sure if she was Spanish or French. But definitely she was not German. Her hair was wrapped in a bandanna. I no longer recollect any other aspects of her attire.

General wisdom says 'more the merrier'. But not so in the case of pretty girls! Here one would have to slightly alter the saying. The merrier should become messier. That was the situation on the train for there was not one girl but two. So they kept whispering and giggling to each other paying least heed to me sitting on the opposite seat staring at them. So much for ‘Before sunrise’! But still all was not lost. It was up to me to seize initiative. I tried hard to make conversation with them. But somehow the words failed to travel from my mind to my tongue and everything I had to say remained unsaid. Finally one of the girls condescended to notice my presence and grace me with a few words, “Do you want to sleep?”

I wonder if the girl’s question has sent the mind of the reader racing. A little bit of explanation regarding the seats on European trains will help the reader interpret her intentions. The opposite seats on a train can be extended and joined to form a bed for three. There were no other passengers in the compartment. So we could have a comfortable sleep by joining the seats. Words still continued to fail me. I mutely nodded by head and got up to help them join the seats. And soon I was sleeping with two pretty European girls! And by the time I woke up, there was no sign of either of the girls. As I got up, my hand reached to my back pocket and I discovered that there was no sign of my wallet either. Immediately my suspicions fell on the two girls. Had I been 'honey trapped ' as they call it in the newspapers?

However the girls were the last thing on my mind at that moment. For there were more serious concerns. I would soon be in an unknown city with not a penny in my pocket. I was wishing I had hidden some money inside my socks, in the secret pocket of my pant and inside my bag as I always used to. I of course still had my room bookings. But what would I do for food and my journey back to Cologne? I did not even have money to call up my friends. Only hope was to turn myself in at the local police station and hope they would safely deport me back to India. Only silver lining on the cloud would be that I could save on the return air fare if the Austrian police sent me back at their cost.

The thought of a saving money calmed me down a bit and I decided to check around the compartment to see if the law of attraction could magically attract my wallet back to me and save me all the trouble with the police. I looked under the seat. And guess what! Right under the seat was the wallet. My joy knew no bounds. I immediately pounced on the wallet and opened it to examine the contents. Everything was intact. Phew! What a relief! It must have slipped out of my pocket and fallen off the gap at the end of the seat while I was rolling in my sleep. With the air of suspicion cleared, the two angels were back on the pedestal. I regretted having misjudged them so hastily. But they were now gone and I could not even apologize to them.

Though I had missed the opportunity that time, another opportunity presented itself in less than a year’s time. This time back home in India on the famed Indian Railways. Only hitch was the girl in question still had a decade and a half to catch up with the other two girls. Anyways I did not want to concern myself with these temporal technicalities. She would definitely be pretty young lass for whose attention all young men would vie for in another 15-18 years time. There is nothing like being too early, is there? This little Indian Angel was much more talkative than the two European angels. She spoke up to me, “I like to eat groundnuts, green peas and cashew nuts. What do you like to eat?”

I don’t know if I had mentioned that I have what they call a ‘sense of humor’. So I decided to try it with this girl. “I love to eat babies. Small, chubby, rosy ones like you", I said pointing my finger at her close to her face

The girl did not wait to hear more. I felt a sudden tinge of pain surge through my finger. She seemed to have decided to undertake a preemptive strike before the cannibal in front of her made his move on her. She had bitten my finger hard. Luckily, milk teeth are not too strong and sharp or I might have ended up losing a finger. Such was the force behind the bite! But I had learnt my lesson that humor and kids do not go together.

“Once shy, once bitten” is how I would summarize my overall experience with girls on trains. Subsequently I never met any more girls on trains. In fact I never met girls anywhere, except the ones my parents arranged during the bride hunt. But that’s altogether a different story. As I said earlier, I am not exactly of the romantic disposition. Come to think of it, I really did not like the movie ‘Before Sunrise’ all that much either. Did someone mention sour grapes?

Picture credit - guardian.co.uk

Slaying the monster

noreply@blogger.com (The Fool) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 08:02:00 +0000

I could not find the owner of this picture. The site I found it on was using it without credits. Will give credit if I can find real owner.