Srininomics

The last post...

2016-09-09T06:09:00.000-04:00

To all the readers of my blog who have read and commented and discussed and encouraged and more, I would like to express my deepest thanks. This blog has been fun over the last many years and has come to hold a smattering of thoughts and ideas which were important to me in different ways. It was fun sharing these with you and getting to know your viewpoints as well. Have also made a lot of friends through this blog and am really very thankful for this experience.

Umm...Ok...but what's going on?

That said and done, I have recently been looking over the blog with a critical eye and have come to the conclusion that it has become quite a bit messy...in the sense that too many unrelated topics are located in one place, and it becomes very difficult to understand what this blog is all about now. Ideally every domain needs to be hosted and maintained in separate blogs so that people get what they are looking for. I mean readers who subscribed to this blog after reading a few posts on Book Reviews should not end up getting posts about Cooking in their daily feed (and vice versa), unless they want to. If you think about it, this can be a big turn off, that I have unsuspectingly dished out to my readers.

I have been through many changes in life recently, and have learnt and experienced tons of new things, which I am all eager to share. Wasn't able to write a lot over the last couple of years due to these changes, but I might just be getting a handle on them now. So, am all excited to start again. However, I did realise that the blog needs to be organised well. For this, am going to have to break this blog into multiple new ones - each of them concentrating only on one domain (or a few connected domains). I have just started on this today, and hope to have these up and running in a few weeks, with the posts from here, and a few new ones.

What happens to srininomics?

Well, this blog will keep running for a few more months, and will have a couple more posts after this one, with links to each of the new specific blogs that I am working on, and maybe some information about them.
Somewhere down the road though, it would probably be correct to remove all the old posts and replace with a generic page containing these links, so that visitors can choose the content they are interested in.

In military tradition, the Last Post is a bugle that signifies the end of the day's activities.
It might be apt, to sound the bugle here, here and now.

This is not the end, but a new beginning with multiple better, more organised blogs on the way. I really hope all my readers would follow me there as well, and also that I am able to produce quality content that they enjoy reading in the years to come.

Thanks a lot, wish each one of you all the best, and hope to see you in my new blogs as well.

Coriander Chutney

2016-04-07T05:59:00.000-04:00

Coriander Chutney

Description:

Coriander or Cilantro is a herb that is extensively used in Indian cooking. It is known to be a versatile herb that brings a fresh taste to a wide variety of dishes. It is also a good source of Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Potassium and dietary fibre.
Coriander Chutney is used as an accompaniment to a wide variety of Indian snacks like bhajias, pakodas, wadas of different kinds, idlis, dosas, upmas, etc. It can also be used to prepare sandwiches, chats, bhel puris, or as one of the sauces used to dress pizza bases to prepare Indian style Pizzas. Very useful to prepare this chutney upfront and keep it preserved in deep freeze for vacations and occasions where guests are expected.

Serves: 3-4 adults

Preparation Time: Approx 5 minutes

Ingredients:

Fresh coriander leaves and soft stalks, approx 1.5 cups
Lemon - about half
Green chillies - 4
Peanuts - a handful
Salt, to taste
A few mint leaves (optional)

Steps:

Wash the coriander leaves and stalks thoroughly, and chop into medium-small pieces. Discard any hard fibrous stalks.
Add peanuts, green chillies, the corainder leaves and mint leaves(optional) to a grinder. Add a little amount of water, and grind to a smooth paste
Squeeze lemon juice on top of the paste, and mix thoroughly. Add salt, as per taste
Use immediately as an accompaniment for Indian snacks, or in sandwiches/dosas/bhel puri/chat. Store in the fridge/ freezer, for a bit longer shelf life
If using mint (pudina) leaves, the taste is enhanced by the minty flavour. However, the shelf life is drastically reduced, and the chutney needs to be used within some 3-4 days. Otherwise, the chutney will be good for a couple of weeks (stored in fridge / freezer)

Beetroot Leaf Dal

2016-04-05T03:15:00.000-04:00

Beetroot Leaf Dal

Description:

Beetroot leaves or Beet greens are an excellent source of Potassium, Vitamin C and dietary fiber which are needed in our daily diet. But, they are often an ignored source of nutrition in India. I have seen far too many times that beet greens are just ripped away and discarded in the marketplace, while selling/ buying beets. This is a wastage of money, an excellent source of nutrition, as well as something that can be used to make some tasty Indian food. There is also the added benefit that beet roots can be stored for a longer time when their leaves are present as well.

Here I present the basic dal made with beet greens, which is not just quick to make but also a colourful, flavourful and healthy accompaniment to rice or chapatis.

I hope, this motivates you to bring home those colourful red-green leaves.

Serves: 3-4 adults

Preparation Time: Approx 20 minutes

Ingredients:

Beet greens - leaves and stalk chopped into small pieces, approx 1.5 cups
Onion - 1
Garlic pods - 5
Tomato - 1 big
Tur Dal - 1 cup, boiled in a pressure cooker with salt
Hing / Asafoetida, a pinch
Turmeric powder
Red chilli powder
Mustard seeds (Raai)
Fenungreek seeds (jeera)
Capsicum - 1 small (optional)
Oil, to temper, as per taste
Salt, to taste
Coriander leaves for garnishing

Steps:

Tur Dal:
1. Pressure cook the tur dal with a bit of salt to your desired consistency. If you like the dal completely mashed, keep it for 4-5 whistles, or if you prefer a cooked yet firm dal, keep it for fewer whistles.
2. While the dal is cooking, please proceed with the beet greens
Beet Greens:
1. Chop and wash the beet greens wash. The soft red stalks as well as the green leaves can be consumed. It's necessary to wash thoroughly 2-3 times in order to make sure all the mud is gotten rid of.
2. Heat some oil in a pan. Crackle mustard seeds and jeera seeds in it.
3. Add the chopped onions (and capsicum), and roast till they are just about to start turning golden brown.
4. Add the chopped garlic, asafoetida, red chilli powder, turmeric and fry for a couple of minutes.
5. Add the chopped tomatoes and cook it for a couple of minitues till the tomatoes turn soft.
6. Add the chopped, washed beet greens and fry for a few minutes. Then add some water, and bring to a boil.
Combine everything:
1. Add the cooked dal to the boiling beet greens mixture.
2. Add desired amount of water, to make the dal have your preferred consistency. If you like a watery dal, then add more quantity of water. For thick dal, little or no additional water would be needed.
3. Check if the stalks are cooked. Try to cut through one with a knife. The knife should cut through with minimal pressure.
4. One done, garnish with coriander leaves (if desired).
5. Serve hot with rice, or chapatis/rotis.

Murungakkai Sambar

2016-04-03T01:14:00.005-04:00

Murungakkai Sambhar

Description

Drumsticks (called as Murungakkai in Tamil, and Shenga in Marathi) is a storehouse of Vitamin C. A few bites are sufficient to provide more than double the amount of vitamin C needed for the day. It also contains a lot of Potassium, dietary fiber, magnesium and manganese, making dishes made out of drumstick very nutritious, yet tasty accompaniments to a meal.

Drumstick Sambhar is one of the most popular South Indian delicacies, and is an essential feature in festivals, functions etc. While growing up, I used to look forward to weekends, where my mom would prepare this dish, which is one of her specialities; and also happens to be the first dish that I learnt before getting married. After marriage, me and my husband look forward to weekends, where we could enjoy cooking as well as eating some home made murungakkai sambar.

It's quite simple to make, and requires very basic ingredients that would be typically available in most Indian kitchens.

Serves : 4 adults

Served with steamed rice and papad/thoran/poriyal

Preparation time: Approx 30 mins

Ingredients

Drumsticks-3 to 4
Additional diced vegetables like cauliflower, pumpkin, potatoes (optional)
Tomatoes -3
Tur dal
Tamarind Paste
Curry leaves
Turmeric powder
Sambhar Powder (1 tsp - optional)
2 to 3 tbsp of oil
Dhaniya seeds
Chana Dal
Red Chillies
Asafoetida (Hing)
Salt to taste

Steps:

Tur Dal and Drumsticks:

Cook tur dal in a pressure cooker, for 3-4 whistles.
Boil the chopped drumsticks with the cooked tur dal, till the drumsticks are cooked.
If desired, additional vegetables like cauliflower, potato, pumpkin can also be added here.
While the drumsticks are cooking, proceed with preparing the wet ground masala.

Wet Ground masala:
1. Heat 2 tbsp of oil. Add 3 tbsp of dhaniya seeds, 2 tbsp of chana dal, 3 to 4 red chillies, curry leaves.
2. Once dhaniya seeds turn slightly brown, add grated coconut and roast it for 2 mins.
3. Allow this mixture to cool. Add some water and grind this mixture to a fine wet paste

Combine them together:
1. Coarse grind tomatoes to a paste. Add this to the boiling drumsticks.
2. Add 2 tbsp of tamarind paste, pinch of asafoetida, 1-2 tbsp of sambhar powder (optional), salt to taste, pinch of turmeric to the boiling mixture.
3. Allow to cook for a few minutes so that the tangy flavour can enter the drumsticks.
4. Add the wet ground masala prepared above to the boiling mixture, and cook for a few more minutes till done.

Tadka:
1. For tadka, heat 2 tbsp of oil, add mustard seeds.
2. Allow it to crack, add curry leaves. Add this tadka to the sambhar.

Serve hot with steamed rice and side dishes of your choice.

3 Myths that Sanskrit lovers must know about.

2016-01-31T23:40:00.004-05:00

This is something that I have wanted to say for quite some time now.

Well, my readers and friends know that I really care about Samskritam / Sanskrit, and that my excitement peaks whenever someone mentions this language. Have been studying material provided by organizations like Samskrita Bharathi and Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, during my journey so far, and I really love every bit of it. I hope to one day become really proficient in the language and be able to teach many other enthusiasts and fellow learners.

However, it really upsets me sometimes when I see that people feel the need to include fantastic claims about Sanskrit while they are speaking about it. I mean,..what's the need, seriously? Sanskrit is a very beautiful, melodious and well structured language as is. It has so many good things in it which can be said instead to convince / attract people to the language. Instead, so many well meaning, respectable people feel the need to use fantastic claims which do not stand the least bit of scrutiny. This might turn off others from taking these people and the language seriously, and might actually harm the movement.

In this article I am going to try to bash some of these myths and replace them with facts which were most probably twisted at some time in the past to create the same.

Myth 1: Sanskrit is the "mother" (janani) of all languages. All languages have been derived / born out of Sanskrit.

No way.
Sanskrit is not even the mother of all "Indian" languages, leave alone all world languages.

There are a huge number of Indian languages which have been derived from Prakrits, or language families other than the one Sanskrit is present in, particularly in the north eastern, southern and tribal regions of India. These languages are as much "Indian" as Sanskrit or Hindi are. It's disrespectful to both Sanskrit as well as the other languages to claim this relationship when it doesn't exist.

What is true though, is that Sanskrit has influenced and affected all of the major languages spoken in the Indian subcontinent and beyond, whether or not the language was born out of Sanskrit in the first place. A big part of the vocabulary, grammar, and word usage in languages like Bengali, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Malayalam, etc. comes from Sanskrit words or words of Sanskrit origin. So, it has indeed had a major impact all right. However, that doesn't make Sanskrit the "mother" of all (Indian) languages.

In fact, even languages like Marathi, Punjabi, Hindi etc which are claimed to be daughters of Sanskrit, have come out of Prakrit languages like Maharashtri, Shauraseni, Magahi (respectively) mixing with a liberal amount of Sanskrit (which would form the formal register of the respective languages), and underwent standardization in vocabulary and grammar rules to form the languages as they are today. So, these languages should be called daughters of their respective Prakrits, with Sanskrit enriching them and giving them their modern form today.

Fact: Sanskrit has influenced and enriched all the current major languages of the Indian subcontinent. The amount of influence differs from language to language, but it is not minor and even languages like Tamil (which has a lesser number of Sanskrit words as compared to others) has had a big influence.

Myth 2: All sounds in other languages can be expressed in Sanskrit. Sanskrit uses all parts of the tongue to produce sounds and is hence perfect.

Umm... not really. There are sounds like zha (ഴ in Malayalam, ழ in Tamil), short vowels in South Indian languages, and sounds like lla (ळ in Marathi) and other languages which are not present in Sanskrit, .If we take international languages, then the number of sounds (and hence parts of the tongue not used in Sanskrit) becomes pretty large.

Fact is Sanskrit is a pretty balanced language, and uses most parts of the tongue. It organizes the sounds pretty scientifically, and has a good, consistent grammar structure. This structure has had an influence on a huge number of other Indian languages as well (which also follow a similar pattern of organizing sounds based on the part of the tongue from where the sounds originate).

Myth 3: Sanskrit is the best languages for Computers. Nasa has published some report (or is working on some project) that microprocessors based on Sanskrit can give faster computation. Nasa even gives training in Sanskrit to all it's astronauts.

Gosh! Honestly, this (which is recited as if it's an uncontested fact by unsuspecting Sanskrit lovers) is what really drives me nuts. Just ask any computer engineer or IT professional you know about this, and you would know that this is all myth. Computer professionals who are also Sanskrit lovers usually suspect that something is wrong with this claim, but surprisingly choose to keep quite, thus making the non-computer folks think that this is a true canon.

Let me try to clear up this point here:

Computers do NOT understand human languages (at least as of today). They only understand something called as machine language. Computer programs are written in what are called Computer languages (e.g. Java, C, C++ and others). These are different from human languages (e.g. English, Tamil, Sanskrit, Chinese, and others). The instructions in these computer languages are finally converted into executable machine code using different utilities like compilers, interpretors, or assemblers based on the type of the language. Finally, the computer will work based on this machine code.

The higher level computer languages are written in a human readable manner, typically using English keywords. It's quite possible to construct a computer language which uses Sanskrit keywords, but it would require an interpretor / compiler for converting this Sanskrit language program into machine code. Currently at least, nothing like that exists in the market today (or at least is not popularly used). I am ready to bet that most computer engineers / IT professionals would not have heard of any Sanskrit programming language till date.

Similarly, it is not possible to "use" Sanskrit to create faster microprocessors; and it's highly unlikely that NASA will spend time teaching Sanskrit to astronauts unless they discover a group of Sanskrit speaking aliens in space, or India becomes a space superpower and insists on using Sanskrit for all communication with US astronauts. Astronauts are chosen for other capabilities, not their conversing ability in Sanskrit and other languages (although some basic spoken English/Russian/Chinese might be present in the syllabus of astronauts in order to be able to manage basic communication with colleagues from different countries).

Actually, this myth (and related myths) arose due to a paper presented by Rick Briggs about using Sanskrit in Natural Language Processing. The basic idea here is to spare people the "pain" of learning computer languages like Java and allow them to write programs in a natural language (like Sanskrit) instead, thus making it easy for humans and computers to converse. It talks about Sanskrit grammar saying that it's possible to translate the same into a form understandable by computers (similar arguments can be made for certain other languages like Turkish and Lithuanian too, which use conjugates and have precise grammar rules). This paper however, does NOT claim that Sanskrit the best language for usage in computers, nor does it say anything about computers already using Sanskrit and computer professionals needing to learn the language. Sanskrit is just used as an example in this to prove the point that it might someday be possible to create utilities that can translate human languages (at least certain human languages which have a precise grammatical structure) to machine code.

Facts: Sanskrit is not used in computers or NASA today. It is possible to create utilities that will convert Sanskrit instructions to a form understandable by Computers, but no such utilities exist (or are popular) today. Even if created, getting widespread acceptance for this utility is going to be a big challenge (considering the challenges already faced in reviving Sanskrit as a widely spoken language) today.

I believe that Sanskrit is a beautiful language, with a very rich history, very refined grammatical structure and a poetic, peaceful sound to it. It has big vocabulary consisting of many words for every object/ idea to explain different nuances of meaning, and also has a system to generate new words to express new ideas which make the new word very intuitive to understand. It can also be considered the mother (or at least a benevolent aunt) of most Indian languages, and has a pride of place in four major world religions. In fact there is a huge list of real good points of Sanskrit.

I urge lovers of Sanskrit to talk about these points, rather than unknowingly mention myths and half-untruths which have originated around the language these days. Sanskrit does NOT need these crutches to stand on. It has proud, strong roots of its' own. Let's make sure we talk about them.

जयतु संस्कृतम् Jayatu Samskrutam

Ironing lessons

2015-12-14T00:42:00.000-05:00

Was thinking about disagreements, and how they quickly escalate to unmanageable levels at times. About how you end up worsening things when you try to take control. On the other hand, nothing gets resolved, and things still worsen over a (much longer) period of time, if you adopt a conciliatory stance. I was thinking about this, when I suddenly started getting answers from somewhere.

In my sights was an ironing board, and the humble iron that I use most mornings to iron my clothes. Examples started pouring in to my thoughts,..both from my real life experiences as well as (at least in my perception) from the iron's.

Wrinkled clothes cannot be fixed without a heated iron. Putting weight on the wrinkles, without any heat, might seem to fix them at that time,... but the wrinkles will reappear the moment the pressure is removed. So too, any disagreements (or indeed, any problems faced in life) cannot be resolved without the right approach/attitude. This might call for a firm hand to take charge of the situation and lay down the rules at times, but definitely not always. Sometimes it might call for a different kind of firmness. That of conviction, sincerity, honesty or belief. Irrespective of the kind of heat required to smooth out the challenges being thrown up, what will most definitely not work is the lack of conviction or belief in yourself. If you lack self belief or are unsure about what you are doing, then any solution that you come up is going to be as effective as a cold iron. The problems are gonna reappear soon.

At the same time, it's important to remember that ironing requires heat...not fire. Situations of conflict might need a firm stance,... but definitely not anger or a full blown out face off. Anger/panic will not solve anything. It will only cause your hands (representing yourself) or the fabric (representing the situation / relationship) or both to be burnt and damaged, sometimes irreparably for ever.

Yet another point to remember is that the amount of heat required depends upon the fabric material. Similarly, every situation will require to be dealt with differently. Applying the same amount of heat every time causes either an ineffective result (due to too little heat), or a disaster (burnt cloth due to too much heat).

Ultimately though, what matters the most is to handle the situation correctly. With care. It's important to not let anger, fear or panic get the best of you. It's also necessary to give the task an adequate amount of time, as big bang solutions mostly do not work well and end up in either disaster or no solution at all. Just like it is necessary to consider the cloth's fabric material and make sure to iron with the grain of the cloth whilst taking your time and applying the right amount of heat and pressure; so too situations call for a finely balanced, skilful handling in order to reach a favourable resolution that lasts.

This semi-meditative state lasted only a few seconds,...but left me amazed by how many life lessons we can learn from the unlikeliest of sources,...even a simple household appliance could teach us so much if we keep our eyes, ears and mind wide open. It's amazing to get such glimpses now and then.

Unity is strength

2015-12-12T22:36:00.001-05:00

Once upon a time in a village called Rampur, there was an old farmer called Dasharath. He had four sons, Gopal, Ramu, Balu, Bharath. His sons used to quarrel with each other everyday. He decided to teach them a lesson.

One day he called his sons,
"Gopal, Ramu, Balu, Bharath, Come here. I want to talk to you".

The sons immediately went to their father's room. The farmer gave each one of them a stick and said: "Sons, I have given each one of you a stick. I want you to break it".

His sons could easily break the stick into pieces. As soon as it was done, they started quarreling again with each other, over who broke their stick first.
The farmer sighed and gave each of his sons a bundle of 15 sticks each and said: "Sons, now I want you to break this bundle".

The sons tried very hard to break it. Despite putting in lot of efforts, they were unable to break it.The old farmer then said , "Sons, Please stop quarreling with each other. You could easily break a single stick. However when the sticks were bundled, you could not break it. When you are united, no external force can cause harm.I want you to work together and help each other."

The sons realized what their father wanted them to teach.They stopped quarreling with each other and lived happily ever after.

Moral of the story:- When we are united, we can withstand all the difficulties that life throws on us.
There is strength in unity. United we stand, Divided we fall.

Note from Sri:

Fables is a series of short stories written for usage as bedtime stories for kids. We are also in the process of developing our app for bedtime stories. We will update here, once it is ready :-).

Also, this is the first post from my wife Suchi, who joins me as a co-editor on this blog going forward. Hopefully, the two of us together should be able to keep this blog alive with new content coming in all the time.

Thanks guys, and have a great day.

Batata Demse bhaaji

2015-11-22T09:13:00.000-05:00

Batata Demse bhaaji

Description:

Demse, Tinda or the Indian Apple Gourd is a small round squash like vegetable having an interesting taste. It is quite versatile and can be cooked in a variety of ways similar to how we use potatoes. It's also quick to cook and hence can be a good option when you are in a hurry. It's also a good option for a side dish when serving rice with dal or sambar.

What I have prepared here is a "no onion, no garlic" version with capsicum that we Indians like to prepare during days of festivals / observances. It will be tastier with finely chopped onions and garlic fried in oil along with the capsicum.

So, here goes.

Serves : 3-4 Adults

Preparation Time : Approx 20 minutes

Serve with : roti, chapati or a rice with dal/sambar combination.

Ingredients:

Demse (1 large or 2 small-medium; chopped into bite sized pieces)
Potatoes (2 large or 3 medium; chopped into bite sized pieces)
Oil
Mustard seeds (Raai)
Fenungreek (Jeera) seeds
Udad dal (1 tablespoon)
Turmeric powder
Red chilli powder
Onions (1, optional, but recommended)
Garlic (5-6 cloves, optional)
Capsicum (1 big or 2 small-medium)
Salt
Coriander leaves
Peanuts (few)
Asafoetida (Hing)

Steps:

On a tava, heat some oil. Add some mustard seeds, jeera seeds, peanuts and udad dal to it.

Once the mustard seeds start to pop, add the onions, garlic and capsicum and fry for a couple of minutes.

Add hing, turmeric, red chilli powder and salt to the mixture and mix well.

Add the chopped potatoes and demse and mix well. Shallow fry for a few minutes.

After a couple of minutes add some water to the mixture and cover the vessel. Allow the vegetables to boil till they are firm (i.e. they haven't lost their shape yet), but cooked (i.e. we are able to cut through a piece of potato and through the apple gourd with a spoon/knife without applying too much pressure).

Add chopped coriander leaves and serve hot with rotis/chapati or rice with dal/sambar.

Enjoy...

The chained elephant

2015-11-05T07:29:00.000-05:00

Once in a village, there came a big travelling circus. Everything was going great, until there was a big accident one day, and the circus tents caught fire. The people and most of the animals were saved,..all except for one elephant in it's tent who was caught in the fire and got burned, leading to a tragic death.

Blame flew here and there, and in all directions Investigations were made to determine the cause of the fire. Curing the investigation, they found that the elephant was not bound in iron chains or to one of the strong poles / enclosures (as was assumed by everybody, including the investigators). Rather, it was a measly (albeit long) piece of rope, tightly tied to one of its feet, and not even connected anywhere. The elephant could easily have escaped / run away at any time. The dumbfounded investigators noted what strangely seemed like a suicide...wherein the elephant had, for some inscrutable reason, stood in the midst of the burning tent... bleating with deep agony and horror while the flames slowly consumed him from all sides.

Why would a strong elephant which could have broken free of even iron chains (were it bound in them), come to such a fate? To understand this, we have to understand how an elephant is trained. The mahouts start with young elephants, and they bind them in strong chains tied to trees or poles or other strong objects which the young elephant can't (yet) break free from. It simply isn't strong enough at this point. It keeps trying for some time to break free, but the chains hold it back, while at the same time cutting through its ankle skin a bit every time the elephant tries to tug away, thus causing it a lot of pain. At one point, the elephant just gives up, accepting it's 'fate'. After this, it does not ever try to escape again,..believing that the act is unfruitful as it does not have the strength to break free, and that it will only end up hurting itself and causing unbearable pain if it tries to break free of the bond. Even if the bond is only a weak rope tied to a wooden peg stuck into loose ground,...or even if the rope is not connected to anything, it continues to feel the (tight) rope around its leg, and believe that it can't break free of this "bond" and continues to remain bonded. This self imposed belief in its own weakness / limitation is what held the circus elephant back from escaping, even when it was surrounded by fire.

This story is a metaphor for unrealized potential, and for perceived weakness causing an inability to act. The mind convinces itself that some goals are simply unattainable and that making any attempts in that direction will end up making the situation worse. There is also a psychological term for this state of mind (which is unsurprisingly called as "Baby Elephant Syndrome"). It closes itself to changes happening within and around it and enters a state of self imposed ignorance.

Kumbakarna's boon

2014-08-06T23:17:00.001-04:00

Finally, after a long penance, the three brothers were about to get their just rewards from Lord Brahma.

Finally, He would finally surpass all the devas, and come to be known as the greatest asura.

With swirling excitement, and a barely suppressed chuckle, Kumbhakarna asked for, and was blessed with... "long sleep" *.

* : This incident comes from the Ramayana, at a time when the three sons of Rishi Vishravas - Ravana, Kumbakarna and Vibishana had just completed a long penance to propitiate Lord Brahma, culminating in His appearance before them to grant their desired boons.

Vibishana asks for and gets blessed with Vishnu bhakti.
Ravana asks for and gets a boon assuring him protection from being killed by any heavenly being or immortal or God (protection from everybody other than a mortal human being).
According to legend, Kumbhakarna actually desired for निर्दैवत्वम् (surpassing gods), but he was so excited at the time of asking for his boon, that his tongue slipped, and he ended up asking for निद्रावत्वम् (long sleep) instead, and ended up being blessed with it.

Spoken Sanskrit lessons

2014-07-27T14:26:00.003-04:00

Spoken Sanskrit lessons

Am lucky to have met a few really good language teachers during my school and college days in India. My good luck streak continues at having found a great teacher for conversational Samskritam here in Canada. She volunteers for an organization called Samskrita Bharati, which has branches all over the world, and particularly big branches in the USA and India. The methodology used by Samskrita Bharati has an interesting approach consisting mainly of immersion methods modified to fit the major constructs of Sanskrit, and a lot of games, stories, songs and fun activities thrown in. Different kinds of games and activities are used depending upon the age of the participants. All these tend to make the sessions very interesting and something that students can look forward to.

According to the teachers at Samskrita Bharati, language learning in a natural manner has multiple steps (बहुनि सोपानानि). The first step is listening (श्रवणम् ). Then comes understanding or comprehending (चिन्तनम् ), speaking basic language (संभाषणम् ), reading (पठनम्) and writing basic language (लेखनम् ), learning and using the grammar (व्याकरणम् ), finally leading to the use of speaking and writing scholarly language (पाण्डित्यं ).

My teacher mentions an example to illustrate this concept of natural learning. The example is that of a child learning it's mother tongue at home. Initially, for a period of a year or two, the kid just listens to the mother (and other family members) speak the language. Somewhere during this time, the kid also starts comprehending the words and linking them to specific meanings, assisted in no small part by the actions (अभिनयम्) accompanying those words. After some time, the kid starts experimenting with small words and sentences. Encouraged by the response received from it's mother and other family members, the kid starts listening, understanding and speaking more words and slightly larger sentences. At this stage, the sentences uttered by the kid will have a number of mistakes. When this happens, the parents do not point out the mistakes and punish the child, but rather respond to the kid in a loving manner, by repeating the questions and replying with the correct words and using the correct grammatical constructs, which the child listens to and incorporates into his/her vocabulary. This loving approach to teach a child who is starting with his/her language learning process with patience is instinctual and ingrained into our psychology by nature. Also, this process automatically makes kids comfortable with and aware of the most commonly used words in everyday conversation, which form a major (more than 90% by some accounts) of all spoken language thus developing their comprehension skills manifold. This process continues every day over a few years, till the child starts speaking communicating perfectly in a grammatically correct language, without having ever stepped into a school or learnt any formal grammar. Later, when the child actually starts studying formal language and grammar in school, it is simply a step to formally learn / reinforce what he/she already knows in an instinctual manner, and which is hence easy to learn at this point.

As opposed to following a technique in schools (for additional languages) which mimic this natural manner of learning, the approach followed in many schools is that of starting with reading and writing lessons, followed by grammar. Rote learning from text books is typically 'par for the course', and we hardly have many language teachers experimenting with the defined syllabus to include more fun activities and games, in order to get through to their students There is some focus on comprehension skills, but hardly much time / focus is spent on listening skills or conversational skills, which get picked up mostly as a side effect of a reading-writing-grammar based approach, with a bit of comprehension thrown in. This is why practical language skills sometimes end up taking a back seat, and we tend to sometimes have a situation where people can read or write excellently in non-mother-tongue languages but find it so hard to comfortably speak or converse in them. This can be seen very commonly when it comes to skills in Samskritam (Sanskrit) language in India today.

Language learning should be fun. It needs to come with a clear recognition that not every person speaking a language is going to become a scholar in the same. So, spoken language needs to be kept simple to learn and use. That's why the concepts of immersion and learning through conversations, stories, songs, games, and with the help of interactive websites like duolingo are such a hit; whereas beginning language studies with writing and ever-more-complicated grammar lessons are such a big put off.

Please be honest. Have you ever wondered (like me) about the possibility of conversing with each other in Sanskrit? About the possibility of really understanding shlokas, shubashitas and mantras in an instinctual manner (i.e. the way you understand the meaning of what people speak in your mother tongue without trying to analyse individual words and their conjugations)? About the fact that every language has a common register (which is used for everyday conversations) and a scholarly register (used for writing big / advanced scholarly books), where the common language is necessarily simple (definitely much simpler than the scholarly version of the same language) and uncomplicated? About finding out what the common register of Sanskrit ( संभाषणसंस्कृतं - Sambhashana Samskritam - Spoken Sanskrit) is like, and can it really be simple to learn and speak? Do you agree (with me) that the prevalence of rote text book based learning destroys the fun in learning languages? Whatever your personal reasons for being interested in Sanskrit, do you wish that it were not so daunting and complicated to learn, and that there were an easier way to study it?

If, like me, you have thought about these topics (or are thinking on those lines now, after reading this post), I strongly urge you to find out about Samskrita Bharati activities in your area Try to attend a one or two day shibir (workshop) where you would go through an initial crash course of what Spoken Samskritam sounds like, and be amazed at the number of congnates you would find with most languages from various parts of the Indian subcontinent like Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali, Assamese, etc (which is why, the knowledge of one or more Indian languages would definitely help to speed up your learning). All that you need to take to the session is enthusiasm to learn and a willingness to get rid of shyness / inhibitions (संकोचं त्यक्तव्यम्) to participate in the games / activities conducted in the class.

Here is a useful youtube playlist, to give you a taste of what's in store. However, please remember that a live session with teachers and fellow students is much more effective (and also more interesting).

Finally, if any of my audience is from Delhi or Mumbai or Bengaluru, there are shibirs going to be conducted in your cities during the first week of August, which you can sign up for by contacting the respective karyakartas in these cities. Please find the details in the flyers below:

New Delhi:

Mumbai:

Bengaluru:

All the best for your efforts to learn Samskritam.

Shakariya Methi / Ratalu Methi

2014-07-26T14:49:00.002-04:00

Shakariya Methi / Ratalu Methi

Description:

Sweet potatoes (Known as Shakariya in gujarati, Shakkarkand in Sanskrit, Shakkaravali kazhangu in Tamil) are one of the most nutritious vegetables available, containing a high amount of vitamin A, fibre and carbohydrates, and a decent amount of kinds of vitamin B, potassium and manganese. I had some reddish sweet potatoes (also called as ratalu sometimes) available, and was looking for some nice new (to me) way to prepare the same, when I came across an awesome dish presented in spiceroots. It looked really good, and so, inspired by it, I decided to try out a dish on the same lines, with some minor customization on my part.

The sweet taste of sweet potato, the bitter taste of fenungreek leaves, the spice from the red chillies and the tangy taste of tamarind mix well in this dish to produce a nice end result.

So, here goes.

Serves: 3 - 4 Adults

Serve with roti, parantha or pulao.

Preparation time: Approx 20-25 minutes

Ingredients:

Sweet potatoes (1 large or 2 small-medium, peeled and chopped into bit sized pieces)
Oil
Fenungreek (methi) seeds
Fenungree (methi) leaves - fresh or frozen
Red chillies - whole
Turmeric powder
Salt
Mustard seeds
Coriander leaves (optional)
Tamarind - Date sauce (chutney)
Water
Peanuts - Dry Roasted
Amchur powder
Asafoetida (Hing)
Frozen or fresh peas (optional)
Corn flour (useful to thicken the gravy, if required).

Steps:

Sweet Potatoes and methi:

Peel and chop the sweet potatoes into small bite sized pieces. Wash them with water.
Wash and chop methi (fenungreek) leaves into small pieces. If you are using frozen methi leaves, then thaw then in a bit of hot water.
On a tava, heat some oil. Add some mustard seeds and fenungreek seeds to it. Once the mustard seeds start to pop, add the washed sweet potatoes to the oil, and mix well.
Add asafoetida, turmeric powder and salt. Allow to roast on medium heat for some 6-8 minutes (till the sweet potatoes are about half done.).
Continue with step 2 while this is cooking.
Once the sweet potatoes are about halfway done, add the methi leaves and some water to the mixture. Add the fresh / frozen peas too, mix well and bring to a boil.

Masala:

Coarse grind the roasted peanuts and red chillies (dry grind).
Once the sweet potato - methi mixture is brought to a boil, add amchur powder, a spoon of tamarind-date chutney, and the ground peanuts - red chilli mixture.
Add some water, mix well and allow to cook till the water is mostly evaporated.

The dish is ready once the sweet potatoes are smooth (test with a spoon / knife) but haven't lost their shape yet, and the peas and methi leaves are cooked. If there is excess water remaining at this time, then add a spoon of corn flour powder, mix well and heat for a minute or two. The corn flour will absorb the excess water.
Garnish with chopped coriander leaves. Add some more salt to taste (if required). As salt was already added while roasting the sweet potatoes, be sure to taste the end result before adding more salt.
Serve hot with roti / chapati / parantha or pulao.

Mambazha Pachadi

2014-07-21T20:36:00.001-04:00

Mambazha Pachadi

Description: This dish belongs to the Keralite and bordering (i.e. Tamilian / Tulu) branches of cuisine, and is a special occasion / festival kind of dish made from ripe mangoes. The steps are pretty straightforward, and essentially consists of boiling mangoes chopped into small pieces with some spices, adding a ground mixture prepared out of coconuts and spices, and garnishing it with mustard and udad dal. The final product (if prepared right) will be a sweet - sour - spicy curry, with the different tastes performing a kind of delightful dance (Kathakali, if you will) on your taste buds (and might also transport you in time and place to a different setting, if you happen to have any childhood memories related to such tastes).

So, here goes.

Serves: 3 - 4 Adults

Serve with steamed rice and papad/thoran/poriyal .

Preparation time: Approx 20-25 minutes

Ingredients:

Fresh (or frozen) ripe mangoes
Oil (Coconut oil for a more authentic taste)
Grated Coconut
Udad dal
Red chillies - whole
Red chilli powder
Turmeric powder
Salt
Mustard seeds
Curry leaves
Coriander leaves (optional)
Dried tamarind powder (optional)
Water

Steps:

Magoes:

Chop the fresh or frozen ripe mangoes into small bite sized pieces (I have used frozen mangoes which are available at the supermarkets here, and are deliciously sweet when thawed a bit).
Boil the mangoes with turmeric, red chilli powder and a bit of salt till they are soft
This will take around 10 minutes or so. Continue with step 2 while this is cooking.

Wet ground masala:

Coarse wet grind the coconuts with a little bit of water.
You can add red chillies or some tamarind powder, or some other desired spices during this step for a different taste. I have added half a spoon of dried tamarind powder.
Keep this aside.

Merge the ingredients:

Once the mangoes are soft, add the coarse ground coconuts to the mixture. If necessary, add some more water at this step.
On a frying pan, heat some oil, and add mustard seeds, red chillies (whole) and udad dal to it.
When the mustard seeds start to crack, and the udad dal starts turning dark, turn off the flame, and add curry leaves to it.
After a few seconds, add this garnish to the mixure, and allow to boil for a few minutes.
Add coriander leaves and salt to taste, if required. Some salt was already added while boiling the mangoes, so please taste the curry first before adding any more salt.
Serve with rice.

अद्यतन् भोजन विषये - About today's dinner

2014-07-16T20:29:00.001-04:00

अद्यतन् भोजन विषये ::

अद्यतन् पाकः सम्यक् अभवत् |
क्वतिथं, आलुकस्य व्यञ्जनं, अवलेहिका, दधि च अस्ति | रोटिका नास्ति परन्तु ओदनम् अस्ति |
क्वतिथे सुकन्द, रक्तफलं, शाकपुष्पं, दालं इत्यादि अस्ति |
व्यञ्जने आलुकं, महाकन्द (लशुनं), मरीचिका च अस्ति |
व्यञ्जनं कटु अस्ति | व्यञ्जनसमेत क्वतिथोदनं, दध्योदनं च खादामि |

Meaning:
Today's dinner was very good. It consists of sambar, dry potato curry, pickles and curd. There are no rotis though there's steamed rice. The sambar contains onions, tomatoes, cauliflower, lentils, etc. The dry curry contains potatoes, garlic and chilli peppers. It is quite spicy. I will eat some sambar rice and curd rice with the dry curry.

Word meanings:

अद्यतन् - Today's
भोजन - Food (Dinner)
विषये - About
पाकः - Cooking (Dinner)
सम्यक् - Good
अभवत् - Happened (past tense)
क्वतिथं - Sambar
ओदनं - Cooked (Steamed) rice
आलुकस्य - Of potatoes
व्यञ्जनं - Dry curry
अवलेहिका - Pickles
दधि - Curd (yoghurt)
च - And
अस्ति - Is there (present tense)
परन्तु - But
रोटिका - Roti / Chapati (Indian bread)
नास्ति - Is not there
क्वतिथे - In sambar
सुकन्द - Onion
रक्तफलं - tomato
शाकपुष्पं - Cauliflower
दालं - Lentil
इत्यादि - etc
व्यञ्जने - In dry curry
आलुकं - Poato
महाकन्द (लशुनं) - Garlic
मरीचिका - Chilli pepper
कटु - Spicy
व्यञ्जनसमेत - With dry curry
क्वतिथोदनं - Sambar rice
दध्योदनं - Curd rice
खादामि - I eat (present tense)

Karuniso Ranga!

2014-07-15T23:49:00.001-04:00

According to tradition, Pundaradasa is believed to be an amsha avatara of Narada, the divine sage-musician devotee of Lord Vishnu, who descended on earth to spread the tradition of naama sankeertanam (which is the chanting of names of God, set to music). During his earthly descent as Shrinivas Naik, he got completely engrossed in running the gemstones/ jewellery shop that he had inherited from his father (turning out to be really good at it). Over time, he turned into a big miser and looked down on religious and charitable activities, completely forgetting the reason for which he had taken this avatar.

Lord Vishnu decided to intervene and remind him. Due to good karma and grace of the Lord, Shrinivas was married to a pious lady called Sarasvatibai. One day an old man in tattered clothes came to Sarasvatibai and begged her for help. The man told her that his daughter's marriage had been fixed to a well behaved, hard working groom. But he did not have any money to perform the wedding ceremony. He did not want to let go of such a good match, and having nothing to mortgage and no other way to raise money, was forced to beg for help. Sarasvatibai was moved to tears by the elderly man's pitiable condition and gave him her bridal nose ring (mukkuti) made of diamonds, given to her as a marriage gift during her wedding to Shrinivasa. This elderly man in turn, took this very nose-ringwent to Shrinivasa's jewellery shop to mortgage for some money.

Shrinivasa Naik immediately recognized the nose ring. He made the elderly man sit outside his shop and wait, while he locked the doors and went home to question his wife. Meanwhile, Sarasvatibai was sure that her husband would discover this soon, and was very worried. She prayed constantly to Lord Narayana to somehow solve this predicament. She was having a bath at the time Shrinivasa reached home. When he checked the jewellery locker (where she kept her jewels while bathing), he was surprised to see this nose ring present there.

His doubts thus solved, Shrinivasa rushed back to the shop, where he had left the poor elderly man waiting. But, he could not find him anywhere. In the elderly man's place, was an angelic being, dressed in rich clothes and having a divine radiance who blessed him, and disappeared. Bewildered, Shrinivasa ran home to his wife, who confessed what had happened, in the process lifting the veils of ignorance from his eyes. He took to a charitable life, and started signing praises of the Lord. One of his memorable compositions "Mosahodenallo naanu" speaks about his regret at having wasted 30 years of his life by not getting to know the grace of Hari before (yauvana dali shri hari pada nambade, muvvaththu varusha mOhAbdiyalli biddu - By not believing in Hari during my youth, I have spent/ wasted 30 years of my life, wallowing in ignorance). Later in his life, he found the grace of a realized Guru (Sri Vyasaraya) who initiated him into the Madhwa (Dwaita) tradition, travelled extensively (his wife and children too accompanied him on a lot of these travels, thus breaking the then extant societal norm of renouncing society to pursue devotion), challenged degraded societal norms and superstitions causing divisions and injustice in the society while simultaneously espousing the greatness of bhakti (devotion) through his padagalus, codified carnatic music, and composed some 4.75 lakh padagalus before ending his bodily existence at the ripe age of 80. He has thus, left a permanent mark on the landscape of bhakti tradition as well as carnatic music, and is remembered with much reverence to this day.

Let's listen to a well known padagalu from him - "Karuniso Ranga" in Pandit Bhimsen Joshi's amazing voice.

Link to You tube video:

Link to audio: Karuniso Ranga

What I know about this padagalu is from explanations heard during different (live and recorded) traditional upanyasa functions (which are like narratives of traditional devotional stories mixed in with devotional songs/ abhangs / padagalus/ krithis/ etc). Also, the large number of congnates that Kannada seems to have with Sanskritam, and memories of the stories from Ramayana, Mahabharata and Srimad Bhagvatam heard during childhood, definitely help to understand the lyrics better. The translation produced below has been taken from this link My focus below is to add a few words (above the excellent translation by Sri Chakravarthi Madhusudana) about the different references Purandaradasaru has made below in his beautiful poem.

karuniSO rangA karuNisO
hagalu iruLu ninna smaraNe mareyadante,
karuniSO rangA karuNisO

Meaning: Bless me, Ranga, bless me
So I will never forget to remember you night and day

rukumAngadanaMte vrata mADalariyenO
SukamuniyaMte stutisalariye
bakavairiyaMte dhyAnava mADalariye
dEvakiyaMte etti muddisalariyenO,
karuniSO rangA karuNisO

Meaning: I do not know how to perform vratas like Rukmaangada
Nor do I know how to praise you like the sage Shuka
I do not know how to contemplate on you like the Enemy of Baka (Means Bhimasena. In this context, it probably means Sri Madhvacharya who is believed to be an incarnation of Bhima.)
Neither can I hold and adore you like Devaki did.

References from the Epics:

Rukumangdha:
King Rukumangadha was a pious king who used to faithfully observe the vratha of Ekadashi without fail. He was put through a series of difficult situations by the Lord to test his devotion. Through all these trials and tribulations, he held steadfastly to his faith, and during a particularly difficult test (wherein he was about to slay his only child) he was blessed with a darshan of Lord Vishnu Who takes him and his wife with Him to Vaikuntha. Here, Rukumangada is held up as the supreme example of how vrathas (observances) are to be kept.

Shukamuni:
Shuka maharishi was the son of Maharishi Vyasa, and is widely regarded as the main composer of Srimad Bhagvatam. According to legend, this epic was composed by Vyasa, and recited for the first time by his son Shuka to the dying king Parikshit. The Shrimad Bhagvatam was then re-edited to include the questions put by the king Parikshit to Shukamuni, and the answers received therein. Shukhmuni is held up here as an example of scholarship/ knowledge.

Baka vairi:

A reference to Bhimasena, the enemy (vairi) of Bakasura. This could also be a reference to Madhwacharya. As per Madhwa tradition, Lord Vayu is believed to have incarnated thrice on earth to serve Lord Vishnu in his various forms - firstly as Hanuman to serve Lord Rama, then as Bhima to serve Lord Krishna, and thirdly as Ananda Titrtha (Madhwacharya) to serve Lord Vishnu in this age of Kali. Ananda Tirtha is held up as an example of how to indulge in the contemplation / meditation of the supreme Lord.

Devaki:
Devaki was the mother of Lord Krishna. No love in this world can compare to a mother's adoration for her new born baby. The adoration and motherly affection with which she held baby Krishna is an example of pure unadulterated love.

garuDanaMte pottu tirugalariye nAnu
kareyalariye karirAjanaMte
vara kapiyaMte dasyava mADalariye
siriyaMte neredu mOhisalariyenO,
karuniSO rangA karuNisO

Meaning: I cannot carry you and wander about like Garuda can
I cannot call out for you as the King of Elephants did (Reference is to the story of Gajendra Moksha)
I do not know how to be a dasa like Hanumaan
I do not know how to serve and make you happy like Sri Lakshmi.

References:

Garuda :
Garuda is the mount (vahana) of Lord Vishnu and takes the Lord with supersonic speed all over the universe. He plays an important part in many stories like the slaying of Narakasura and the episode of Gajendra Moksha. Here, he has been held up as an example of speed.

Kariraja:
Kariraja means the king (raja) of elephants (kari). This is a reference to the Gajendra Moksha episode narrated by Shukamuni to Parikshit raja in the Srimad Bhagvatam. Kariraja was a great devotee of Lord Vishnu, who was reborn as an elephant due to a curse in his previous birth. Once, while having a bath whilst contemplating on Lord Vishnu, the elephant's foot was caught by a crocodile. This crocodile was a Gandharva in his previous birth, cursed by a sage (whom he had made fun of) to become a crocodile in his next birth, but be released from the same when he is set free by Lord Vishnu on being invoked by a pious soul. When Kariraja was thus trapped, he started calling out to Lord Vishnu for deliverance. On hearing His devotee's hails, Lord Vishnu arrived on His mount Garuda, slew the crocodile with His discus weapon - the sudarshana chakra (thus freeing the gandharva from the curse) and saved His devotee. The elephant king then composed a famous prayer called as Gajendra Stuti, and was granted moksha by Lord Vishnu. This episode is captured very beautifully in the eighth canto of Srimad Bhagvatam, and is used here as an allegory to represent supreme surrender to the Lord.

Varakapi (Hanuman):
Hanuman, the great vanara, is held up as an example of dasya (service). His devotion and service to Lord Rama, throughout the epic of Ramayana is well known. The worship of Lord Rama is deemed incomplete, unless his faithful dasa. The word dasa literally translates as servant in English. This is an example of a Sanskrit / Indian word that doesn't translate well to English. In the context used here, dasa means much more than a servant. It implies willing service, love and devotion on part of the dasa for his master. It also denotes an absence of pride in oneself, and hence some qualities of spirituality/saintliness. This is the reason the saints of the Haridasa tradition called themselves as 'dasa'.When it comes to service to the supreme, there is no greater dasa than Lord Hanuman.

Siri (Lakshmi):
Goddess Lakshmi is the consort of Lord Vishnu. She is the embodiment of love from which all devotion to God flows, and of the supreme bliss that follows. She is represented in the Lord's chest (heart) in his famous iconic form as Lord Venkateshwara of Tirupati hills.

baliyaMte dAnava koDalariyeno
bhakti chalavanariye prahlAdanaMte
olisalArenu arjunanaMte sakhanAgi
salahO dEvadEva purandaraviTTala

Meaning: I do not know how to be charitable like Mahaabali
Neither have I the persistent devotion of Prahlaada
Unlike Arjuna, I do not know how to cherish you as a friend
Please help me, Purandara ViThala, God of all gods.

Bali:

Mahabali Chakravarti (or Maveli as he is referred to in Kerala) was a benevolent asura king, and the grandson of Prahlad, who is recognized as one of the greatest devotees of Lord Vishnu. He was himself a devotee of Lord Vishnu, and practised a lot of charitable and religious activities. However, he had one failure - that of excessive pride, and was an expansionist who wanted to rule over all the known worlds. Once, after defeating Indra and the army of the devatas in a bloody war, Mahabali was performing the Ashvamedha Yagna to formally annex the heavenly realm to his kingdom. At this moment, Lord Maha Vishnu appeared in front of him in the guise of a dwarf brahmin (Vamana) and asked for three paces of land in alms, to which the king readily agreed. At this moment, according to tradition, Bali maharaja was warned by his Guru Shukracharya of the real identity of Vamana, and the danger to him and his kingdom. However, even then, fully knowing the danger he was stepping into, he agreed without any hesitation to perform the charity requested of him.
Vamana's small form suddenly grew large, and in just two steps Lord Vishnu claimed Lordship over the earth and all the known planets and realms. Without any hesitation whatsoever, Mahabali offered his own head to place the third step, and thus complete the offering of charity. Lord Vishnu was very pleased with his devotion and sense of Charity and granted him two boons, before placing his foot on Mahabali's head and banishing him to a different realm of existence. The first boon was a permission to visit his ancestral capital kingdom in the land of Kerala once a year (which marks the festival of Onam celebrated with much fanfare and devotion by people from Kerala) to see his people (King Mahabali was known to really love (and was loved a lot by) the people of his kingdom). The second boon was being appointed as the king of Sutala (another realm of existence), in which Lord Vamana himself served as his dwarapala (attendant).

King Mahabali here is held up as an example of charity. It's just not possible for a normal person to knowingly (being fully aware of the consequences) and willingly, give up everything ever earned, including his own existence up to charity, the way Mahabali has demonstrated.

Prahlad:
Prahlada, the son of the demon king Hiranyakashipu, was a saintly boy who's heart and mind were full of devotion to Lord Vishnu. He would worship Lord Vishnu with great humility, love and devotion, which irked his demonic father no end. Hiranyakashipu threatened, punished, abused and even tried to kill the boy (many times). Through all these trials, tribulations and abuses, Prahlada's trust and devotion in the supreme Lord remained unshaken. Ultimately Lord Vishnu himself took an incarnation in the fierce form of Narasimha to save and bless his little devotee. Prahlada is held up here as the supreme example of steadfast, unshaken bhakti (devotion) to the Lord.

Arjun:
Arjuna was a friend of Lord Krishna. Their friendship and loyalty to each other is a matter of record in the great epic Mahabharata. Lord Krishna himself served as Arjuna's charioteer during the climactic war of Kurukshetra. When Arjuna faltered in the battlefield , Lord Krishna took on the role of a teacher, and instructed him in not just his duties, but also with complete knowledge of yoga, the essence of existence and much more (through the divine episode of Geeta Upadesh). Their conversation (which is part of the epic of Mahabharata) became a book in its own right, and is recognized as one of the holiest books in Hinduism - the Bhagavad Geeta (or Song of God).

In the well known, distinct Purandaradasa style, this particular padagulu is replete with rich and vivid imagery from epics like Ramayana, Mahabharata and Srimad Bhagvatam. In simple, yet stirring lyrics, he extols the qualities of great realized bhaktas, while simultaneously expressing his own shortcomings / failures compared to these bhaktas and asks for the Lord's blessings, grace and protection, thus succeeding in painting a really beautiful mosaic of images inside our head.

Truly, "Dasarendare Purandaradasarayya" !

Book Series Review - Twilight

2014-07-14T23:22:00.000-04:00

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Really really boring for large sections of the book, and you can safely skim through much of the storyline without missing anything important. This is specially true for the middle part of the book where the gist of most conversations is the same and can be summarized in just two dialogues ("Oh Edward...I love you"...and... "No Bella...I'm dangerous. You should stay away") which can really get on your nerves at times.

However, the story did pick up towards the end, and left the series posed on a cliffhanger of sorts, with a lot of possibilities for the coming parts...thank God for that or I would have ended up kicking myself for starting this book again after giving it up once.

Here's to hoping that the remaining parts are better.

New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Much better than book 1. Lots of action, and interesting characters. I think Jacob and his werewolf gang had a lot to do, in making this book much more likeable.

Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Parts of this book are really good,...but parts of it are boring too.

Really, the overall story seems kinda interesting, even if I sometimes grow tired of the way it is narrated. I am really enjoying it...even if I have come to really hate parts of it.
I guess I am gonna see the series through to the end after all.

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephenie Meyer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a real interesting read, and provided a fascinating insight into the life of a newborn vampire. It was also really good to hear the story from a different voice.

Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

My rating is 3+, however not really a 4. I am not completely sure why I am so reluctant to give this book a better rating. It's probably because I didn't really like the characterization of Bella. In my opinion, she is simply "weak" (Sorry...I couldn't think of a better word), and it appears that this quality is being celebrated, and that peeves me a lot. I mean,...all right, I agree that love is a great thing and all,... but how can blind self sacrifice, obstinacy and a blatant disregard for rules/norms be presented in a positive light to readers (most of whom are teenage or young 20-something girls)? I did not like that the relationship was so unequal, and the girl looked so totally powerless, unwilling to think clearly (e.g. not be creeped out when she discovers that she was being stalked,.. when she should have been), and so depressed/suicidal (she simply does not care about self preservation at all). That's simply not the kind of person I would want kids in my family/friends' circle to grow up to be, and I wish this was given a more balanced treatment (Don't really know if that was possible in this storyline, but I sure wish it was).

However, I must agree that the twilight series does get better after the absolute disaster of (large parts of) the first book. So, do not give up after the first book,...skim through any (irritating) sections if required as and when you come upon it. Believe me...the remaining three books are much better, and some sections are really good, so this effort would not go waste.

I also found the werewolves (or shape shifters, if you will) much more intriguing than the vampires... and loved the legends / stories told by the elders. The chapters narrated in Jacob's voice were really good too. I wish more chapters of this book and previous books, were narrated in his voice rather than Bella's.

View all my reviews

Book Review - 1984 by George Orwell

2014-06-30T14:54:00.001-04:00

1984 by George Orwell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this a few months ago,...although have gotten to posting a review only now.

This is easily the best dystopian novel that I have read till date.

Quite a bit disturbing when you really think about it. The picture showing the extent to which a totalitarian government could control everything and everyone, is very grim and scary. All the more so, because some of the incidents/trends shown in the novel can be seen happening today...although surely not to the extent shown. Am sure to remember this book (and probably become suspicious) whenever I read about surveillance, scanning of emails, chats, messages and other forms of communication and other strong laws.

No wonder this book is so famous. It REALLY makes you think.

This novel would most probably make it into any all time list of the best fiction reads. I heartily recommend it to all my readers, who are into fiction.

View all my reviews

Today, this weekend.

2014-06-29T20:35:00.000-04:00

अद्य किं कृतवान् ?

अद्य भानुवासरः (रविवासरः) अस्ति |

सामान्यतः सप्ताहान्ते (विशेषतः भानुवासरे) मम कार्यालये विरामः भवति |

अतः अहं प्रातःकाले स्वल्प विलंबेनैव उत्तिष्टामि |

अनन्तरं तद्दिनं कदाचित् अटनम् करोमि, अथवा मन्दिरं गच्छामि, अथवा चलच्चित्रगृहं गत्वा नूतन चलच्चित्रम् पश्यामि, अथवा आपणं गत्वा आवश्यकानि वस्तुनि क्रीणामि, अथवा किमपि अन्यत् कार्यं करोमि |

परन्तु अस्मिन् सप्ताहान्ते अहं गृहे एव आसम् | क्षालनयन्त्रेन मम मलिनानि वस्त्राणि क्षालितवान् |

Meaning:

What did (I) do today?

Today is Sunday. Usually, I have a holiday on weekends (especially sundays). So, I wake up somewhat late in the morning. Then, on that day, I sometimes roam around, or go to the temple, or go to a movie hall and watch the latest movie, or do groceries at the local shop, or something else.

But, this week I was at home, and did my laundry.

Word Meanings:

अद्य - Today

किं - What

कृतवान् ? - Did

भानुवासरः (रविवासरः) - Sunday

अस्ति - Is

सामान्यतः - Usually

सप्ताहान्ते (सप्ताह अन्ते)- During Weekend (सप्ताह - Week; अन्ते - at end)

विशेषतः - Especially

भानुवासरे - On Sunday

मम - My

कार्यालये - In office

विरामः - Holiday

भवति - Happens

अतः - So

अहं - I

प्रातःकाले - During morning

स्वल्प - A bit

विलंबेनैव (विलंबेन एव) - Late (विलंबेन - Late; एव - Is). Here एव is used to add emphasis to विलंबेन.

उत्तिष्टामि - I wake up

अनन्तरं - After that

तद्दिनं - That day
कदाचित् - Sometimes

अटनम् - Roaming

करोमि - I do

अथवा - Or

मन्दिरं - To temple

गच्छामि - I go

चलच्चित्रगृहं - To movie hall

गत्वा - After going

नूतन - New

चलच्चित्रम् - Movie

पश्यामि - I see

आपणं - To shop

आवश्यकानि - Needed / necessary

वस्तुनि - Things

क्रीणामि - I buy

किमपि - Something

अन्यत् - Else

कार्यं - Work

परन्तु - But

अस्मिन् - This

गृहे - In house / At home

एव - Is (Here, meaning only)

आसम् - I was

क्षालनयन्त्रेन - With (by using a) washing machine

मलिन - Dirty

वस्त्राणि - Clothes

क्षालितवान् - washed

Ramayan based skit, with a twist

2014-06-28T17:36:00.001-04:00

We (me, my friends here in Canada, and their talented kids) had put together an interesting skit for last years Diwali party here. The kids dressed up in costumes and enacted some scenes from the Ramayan.
It was a bit of a challenge to get the kids interested in the story, as it turns out that many (or rather, most) of the kids here did not grow up with, and were not exposed to these stories as we were. So, I did have a hard time answering the many questions that they came up with. After just one practice sessions, it was very clear to me that an Indian style play is most probably not going to fly here, at least not easily. I started to feel that I was losing them. Practice was uninspired and dull. The kids didn't make any secret of their feelings that they would rather be dancing or playing video games than practising the play.

All of a sudden, inspiration struck out of the blue, in the form of a video on TV with a rapper singing some fast lyrics while swaying to the beats of music. And...I was all inspired to try this out. But wasn't sure where to start. I checked out google to see if anybody else had come up with something similar, and found an amazing attempt by Shejar which was very similar to what I had in mind. Lots of ideas were bubbling over in my mind now. During practice the very next day, I asked one of the kids if he could rap in between the scenes of Ramayan, and whether he knew some simple yet cool dance moves to go with the rap,...something which the kids entering and exiting a scene can sway to...and the climate just changed. All the kids were excited at the possibilities now.

Ok...I had a rapper now, and was mentally visualizing a musical style Ramayan, with some cool dance moves and all...but time was running out. Where were the lyrics, the music, the dance steps,...and how do I put all of them together with the Ramayan skit that is to be played out, without losing control of the storyline, how do I teach all this to the kids, and get them reasonably comfortabe with it in just 3 more days.

Well,..to cut to the end,...after really pushing ourselves over the next three days and nights, we finally did pull it off. I spent the next two evenings and nights awake, writing rap lyrics (which came out pretty decent,... even though it's clearly not something that will ever feature in some winning list), mixing background music for these songs,...and rewriting the play half a dozen times to fit everything in as per the changing dynamics, turning into some kind of an 'agile' project. Also ended up pulling all the parents in, and giving them handouts so that they can coach their kids at home. The kids put in a lot of effort too, but time just simply ran out at the end. As yet another twist to the story, ...all our practice was done assuming that the skit would be played on a stage with the actors facing the audience, which would all be located in front of them,...but at the actual venue, it turned out that it was to be performed in a "street play" kind of setting (where the audience is seated in a circle, or a giant arc forming an almost complete circle surrounding the actor on three or all four sides), really confusing the performers. But, we did get a standing ovation for the performance nonetheless :-).

So, WE finally pulled through and did it, and it was quite a success (even if the lack of practice did show). We had many options to give up the complete attempt, but we stuck with it, and am glad we did. Ultimately, when the performers are kids, it also adds a cuteness factor, which I hadn't factored in (while imagining unmitigated stage disasters in my nightmares).

So without further ado (after a really long behind-the-scenes story), I present the script below. It is no prize winning act, but was a lot of fun, and would most probably figure among my favourite memories from Canada (when I look back on these days,...say 20 or 30 years down the line).

RamLila– with RAP sequences
(Final Published Script V 2.1)

Compiled for the Deepavalievent of Nov 2013, held by and for our merry group of friends and families, located here in Brampton, Canada.

Outline:

This is designed for kids, with a few scenes enacted in pantomime. The story is strung together by two narrators and a rapper who will describe most of the story including a few dialogues between them. The actors and the narrators need to be in synch, and act/recite accordingly.

Ideally, the rapper should perform some basic dance moves (mostly with his hands) while he holds center stage, so that the scenes getting set / reset in the background wont draw much attention. Kids walking in or walking out of the scene while rap music is in progress should also sway to the rhythm while taking their steps.

Produced and Directed by : Poonam and Srinivas, respectively.

Narrators / Actors:

Narrator 1:		Narrator 2:	********
Rapper:	********

Ram:	********	Lakshman:	********
Hanuman:	********	Vishwamitra:	********
Sadhu (for Hanuman scene):	********	Sita:
Ravan:	********

Monkeys:

Wild Animals:

			.

Scene 1: Vishwamitra / Balakandam

N1: Ladies and Gentlemen, On the occasion of Diwali, we are proud to present our very own Ramlila– a skit based on the Ramayana, performed by some of our most talented kids.

N2: Ramayana is a great epic composed by the sage Valmiki, and tells us the story of Rama, the brave warrior prince.

Placard: Ayodhya

<Vishwamitra enters and walks one circle around the stage, and reaches one side>

N1: Our story starts at Ayodhya, the capital city of the kingdom of Kosala, where Dashratha the scion of the sun dynasty rules, with his three queens and four sons, in great splendour. He rules over a great, prosperous, peaceful kingdom where everybody is happy and follows dharma.

N2: One day the sage Vishwamitra comes to visit him, tells him that his yagnas are being disturbed by demons, and requests the king to send his sons Ram and Lakshman for protection.

N1: Ram and Lakshman were hardly 16 years of age at that time, and Dashratha was greatly concerned for their safety. However, on the advice of his kulaguru Vashishta, he agrees to send his kids with the great sage Vishwamitra.

N2: The trio walk towards Vishwamitra’s ashrama. The great sage instructs them in a number of divine mantras, yogic techniques and powerful weapons. He imparts to them knowledge of bal and atibal mantras which will help to overcome exhaustion, hunger, physical weariness etc, and the the illusions caused by the powers of demons respectively.

N1 (Tadaka’svoice): “Muhahahaha. Who will become Tadaka’slunch today. Something smells delicious. Muhahahah”

N2/ Vishwamitra: Ram. Lakshman. Be careful. This is the demonessTadaka. She has a lot of magical powers. Use the weapons I taught you.

N2/ (with voice change) Ram and Lakshman (with folded hands): As you say Guruji.

N1(Tadaka’s voice): “Arre waah. Two beautiful princes with Vishwamitra.No wonder, it smells so good today. Today, I will have a sumptuous dinner. Here I come.”

N2 (Narrator’s tone): So saying, Tadaka attacks Ram and Lakshmanwith her magic powers. She creates all sorts of illusions and distrurbances. But, the brothers fight bravely. Finally, Sri Ram strikes her down with an arrow. Tadaka falls to the ground.

Placard: Siddhashrama <Chanting music starts…followed by rap music...>

N2 (Mareechi’s voice): Muhahahahha<evil laugh… to start after a few chants>. Looks like the silly old Vishwamitra is up to his chanting again. Come Subahu, let’s teach him a lesson that he will never forget. Muhahahahha…!!

N1 (Narrator’s voice): So, starts Vishwamitra’s yagnawhile the brothers stand guard. Mareecha and Subahu hear the chanting and come over to ruin his yagna… again (!) . They reach the ashram and start throwing dust towards the sacred firepitsof the yagna. They start creating all sorts of disturbances and illusions.

N2: Ram and Lakshman bravely fight the demons, killing Subahu. Seriously injured, Mareechaflees for his life all the way to Lanka.

<Both brothers draw arrows, place it on their forehead invoke powers and fire. They do this a few times.>

----Vishwamitra Rap ----

That conquering pair / of royal race /// Skilled to observe / due time and place

Came to the forest / with the sage /// Saw the demons cruel / screaming with rage

Took out their arrows / bows and swords /// Did not waste time / parring with words

Oh prince look out / ere they come close /// Here comes the battle / look out for foes

Then came an arrow / swifter than thought /// and screamed the demon / utmost fury wrought

Ram and lakshman/ the brave brothers fought // beat up the demons / leaving no doubt

Thus were the evil fiends / slain in fight /// Disturbers of the / holy rites

(Chorus ) : Jay Shri Ram/ Jay JayShri Ram /// Jay Shri Ram/ Jay Jay Shri Ram

Jay Shri Ram/ Jay Jay Shri Ram /// Jay Shri Ram/ Jay Jay Shri Ram

Scene 2: Sita / Aranyakandam.

Placard: Panchavati <Narration below will continue from the previous scene. Ram, Sitaand Lakshman (in that order) will enter together and walk once or twice round the stage. They reach a corner, sit down, and talk about something. Here, small children dressed as animals can enter the stage and run across making animal sounds to mimic the forest.>

N2: After the yagna, the trio arrived in Mithilawhich is in modern day Nepal, and are welcomed into the city. In the court of Janaka, the king of Mithila, Lord Rama breaks the divine Shiva dhanush, and wins the hand of his beautiful daughter Sita.

N1: In beautiful ceremonies lasting almost a fortnight, the four sons of Dashratha- Ram, Lakshman, Bharathand Shatrugna, were married to the four daughters of Janaka – Sita, Urmila, Mandvi and Shrutikeertirespectively.

N2: The royal couples lived a life of bliss in the kingdom of Ayodhya. Soon it was time for Dashratha to name his heir apparent, to succeed him on the throne.

N1: Rama was everyone’s favourite, and there was hardly any doubt in people’s mind that Rama would succeed his father, but a devious scam cheated him out of the throne and also imposed a sentence of vanwaas i.e. exile into the forests for a period of 14 years.

N2: In order to uphold the honour of his father’s word, Ram, Sita and Lakshman gladly accepted the sentence. They crossed many mountains, rivers, forests and valleys meeting many different sages and rishis, and having various adventures, finally reaching and settling down in a beautiful forest called Dandakaranya near a place called Panchavati.

N1: Here the trio lived a frugal, but blissful life. They didn’t have rich clothes to wear, exotic delicacies to eat, or expensive furniture in their home, but in each other’s company, these years became their happiest. They spent 12 beautiful years here till a sequence of tragic events changed everything.

< Sita looks at the horizon, stands up, calls Rama and points to something mouthing that she wants the doe as a pet. Rama nods and leaves after the doe with his arrow drawn.>

N2: One day, Sita saw a golden coloured doe walking near their hut, and she desperately wanted the doe for a pet. Ram immediately set out after the doe to bring it as a pet for his loving wife. Lakshman stays behind to guard Sita.

N1: <shouts in Rama’s voice> Aaaaah. Help!!! Lakshman!!! Help!!!

N2: Alas, the golden doe was none other than Mareecha, the villain who escaped Rama’s arrows in Siddhashrama. Sita was tricked into crossing the magical line, and gets kidnapped by Ravan, the asuraking of Lanka when Lakshman leaves to look for Rama.

N1: The brothers go crazy looking for Sita all around. They meet the brave eagle King Jatayu who tells them about Ravana’s foul deed.

<As soon as Ravanenters, the rap music starts. It reaches a crescendo when Ravanand Sita are stuggling, which is when the rapper enters and starts the forest rap>

----Forest rap----

Note: In this rap say ‘Rama’ instead of ‘Ram’ ...as it rhymes better

Prince of Ayodhya/ Rama his name ///Far spread his achievements / glory and fame

Went with Vishwamitra/ demons he braved ///With his bows and arrows / the sages he saved

Went then to Mithila/ there the story carried /// Broke the holy bow / and Sitahe married

Then they lived in bliss / loved waited feted ///Till the day came / when Rama was cheated

Out of his kingdom / to forests they went ///eating wild fruits and / sleeping in a tent

Happily they walked / the trio amazing ///In wide pretty forests / with wild deer a-grazing

All pretty good / till an act so foul 0/// Demon king Ravan / Sita he stole

Lakshman was angry / Rama was torn /// Heart weeping hard / bloody and shorn

Tears turned to fury / like an angry bee /// Set out to Lanka / far across the sea

Across the forests / dark and sheer /// Crossing hills and valleys / far and near

Looking for Sita / all across the land /// Never stopped walking / puddles or sand

Then they found the monkeys / who showed the way /// To the land of Lanka / Ravana’s sway

Chorus: Jay Shri Ram / Jay Jay Shri Ram /// Jay Shri Ram / Jay JayShri Ram

Jay Shri Ram / Jay Jay Shri Ram /// Jay Shri Ram / Jay Jay Shri Ram

<rapperexits>

Scene 3: Hanuman / Kishkindhakandam

N2: We now come to the story of Hanuman, another hero of this epic, who is soon going to meet the princes and help them find Sita. Hanuman is an incarnation of the powerful Lord Shiva, born to Anjana and Kesari, who were humanoid creatures called as Vanaras. He was adopted as a god-son by Pavan – the wind god, and is hence also known as Pavanputra – the son of the wind God.

N1: Being the adopted sun of the wind God, and an incarnation of Lord Shiva, Hanuman had spectacular powers like shape-shifting, superior strength, the ability to fly, and amazing wisdom.

N2: As a child, Hanuman was very mischevious. He sometimes teased the meditating sages in the forests by snatching their personal belongings and by disturbing their well-arranged articles of worship. Finding his antics unbearable, but realizing that Hanuman was but a child, (albeit invincible), the sages placed a mild curse on him by which he became unable to remember his own ability unless reminded by another person.

N1: This happens later in the story, when the wise bear king Jambavan reminds Hanuman of these powers, on the shore of Rameshwaram.

---Hanuman rap ---

Mighty Lord Hanuman / with a monkey face /// Strongest of all / and holding a mace

The dearest of Pavan / the God of the Winds /// Destroyer of wicked / evilish fiends

Over the sea / crossing mud and mire /// He reached Lanka / his tail got set on fire

And he moved around / running sprints and dashes /// Burning down Ravan’s palace / turning it to ashes

And he found Sita / gave her the ring /// Rama’s on his way / do rejoice and sing

Helping Lord Rama / through thick and thin /// Hanuman made sure / Rama’s gonna win

Thus rose the legend / don’t ever fear /// When you call his name / Hanuman’s always here.

Chorus: Jay Hanuman / Jay JayHanuman /// Jay Hanuman / Jay Jay Hanuman

Jay Shri Ram / Jay Jay Shri Ram /// Jay Shri Ram / Jay Jay Hanuman

<rapper exits> Placard: Rishyamukha parvat, near Kishkindha <Ram and Lakshmanenter. They slowly approach the meditating Hanuman, and rouse him. Ram blesses Hanuman. They talk a bit, and then walk from one end of the stage to the next and back - twice, finally landing in Lanka…and continuing with the next scene.>

N2: The brothers continue walking towards the south. They meet the brave and wise Hanuman, at the foot of a mountain called Rishyamukha, located in a region called Kishkindha, which falls in modern day Karnataka.

N1: With Hanuman’s help, they befriend Sugreeva, a monkey king and many others. Together they gather an army of monkeys, bears and men and travel towards Lanka which is where Ravana’s kingdom was located.

N2: They reach a place called Dhanushkodi on the island of Rameshwaram at the far southern corner of India, and construct a bridge called Nala sethu, or Rama sethu to Lanka.

N1: A war of epic proportions begins between the armies of good and evil, on the battlefields of Lanka. This bloody war continued for 13 days, at the end of which Rama slays the demon king Ravana, and installs his pious younger brother Vibishana on the throne of Lanka.

Scene 4: Lanka / Yuddhakandam.

<Ram, Lakshman, Hanuman and a few monkeys are standing on one corner of the stage. Ravana and a few demons on the other. War music starts (approx45 seconds)…and the two armies should move towards each other. Ram, Lakshman, Hanuman, and Ravana do not face off with a enemy. Each of them will come to the center for a few seconds and then move to a side. Ram and Lakshman shoot arrows in different directions. Hanuman jumps and throws his mace around. Ravanalaughs an evil laugh.>

---Lanka rap ---

<Rap music starts at the end of the 45 second war music. The fight continues in the background, while the rapper raps and even after he exits, till Ravana is killed>

Ravan took Sita/ and the stage was set /// ON the fields of lankathe two armies met

Beating the drums and blowing the horn /// the war of Lanka was thus born

Crossing the lands / woody and muddy /// Started a war / real bad bloody

All the demons shrieked / full of fright /// When along came Hanuman / brave with might

Clashing with swords / maces and shield ///Fought the armies hard / on the battle field

Then came Megnath / and the fiends shouted /// Now for sure / the monkeys would be routed

Took out the brahmastra/strongest in town /// The arrow flew dizzy /and Lakshman fell down

Hanuman bought the herbs / and saved the day /// All say with me “Jay Hanuman ki Jay”

Ravan came roaring / his fangs all bared /// and maddened with fury / the monkeys were scared

Then came Ram / with bows arrows blazing /// All watched in awe / a sight so amazing

An arrow hit Ravan / His army wept and ran /// Ravan was quashed / Yo! Ram’s the man!!

Chorus: Jay Shri Ram / Jay JayShri Ram /// Jay Shri Ram / Jay Jay Shri Ram

Jay Shri Ram / Jay Jay Shri Ram /// Jay Shri Ram / Jay Jay Shri Ram

N1: Thus, the forces of good triumphed over Ravana whose deeds at that time were evil indeed. Rama brought back Sita and started his travel towards Ayodhya.

N2: Diwali is that day when Ram, Sita, Lakshman, Hanuman and their followers reached Ayodhya, where they were warmly welcomed by Bharath, who was governing the kingdom in Ram’s stead. Bharath had oil lamps called as deepas or diyaslit across the streets that night to welcome Ram back from exile. This is how the festival of Deepavali or Diwali got its name.

N1: On Diwali, we light Diyas to commemorate the story of Rama, which is seen as a symbol of the victory of good over evil, and to welcome and guide good thoughts, good actions and good fortune into our homes.

N2: While Diwali is popularly known as the "festival of lights" ,the most significant spiritual meaning behind it is "the awareness of the inner light". The celebration of Diwali as the "victory of good over evil", refers to the light of higher knowledge dispelling all ignorance, thus leading to moksha.

<Everybody joins hands and close their eyes.>

N1 and N2 chant together:

"ॐ असतो मा सद्गमय | तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय | मृत्योर्मामृतं गमय ॥

॥ ॐ शांतिः शांतिः शांतिः ॥"

<Kids open eyes, hold hands together and bow down to the audience.>

Scene Closes

Book Review - The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

2014-06-27T22:59:00.000-04:00

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It was an interesting read overall...although I had to skim through parts where some descriptions grew very lengthy and kinda boring (probably because I'm not a fish / sea person). The storyline too seemed a bit thin,...with not much more than overwhelming stubbornness driving the protagonist to do what he did. It also seemed a bit far-fetched for such an experienced fisherman to not think more seriously about (and plan beforehand for) the threats posed by sharks before going into deep sea fishing in his home terrain, and to end up with the prize of his efforts, open and exposed to sharks from all over,...all ready to be looted. Also, it seemed plain madness firstly to kill such a giant fish, in shark infested waters...and then to keep battling shark after shark in order to try and take the dead fish home, which was days away by fastest speed.

That said, the story is really highly symbolic, and is essentially a metaphor for a lot of things in life. It is really deep that way, and makes you identify with and feel for the protagonist and the nigh-on-insurmountable wave after wave of troubles that wash over him, after he achieves his goal (albeit without taking these very lurking dangers seriously enough and planning for them, even when he was going out into an area that he knew beforehand to be infested with these very dangers). But then it was the big prize pulling our protagonist; and in its glitter, he could see little else. Once that zeal caught hold, he definitely could not give up the hunt...and he just didn't have the strength to force steer the fish to go a particular way. The only way to win the prize was to keep going with the flow,..wherever it pulled him to,..and to keep struggling till he was successful. This is what he did,..but ended up exposed and vulnerable in deep, treacherous waters infested with dangers of all kinds. Our protagonist had struggled so hard against and finally won a great prize, ...and that same prize was attracting all these dangers towards him, which sought to claim it for themselves. The protagonist struggles desperately against increasing bleak odds, till he finally reaches back home with just a token of the prize (and thus his struggles culminating in his greatest achievement) still remaining with him.

When you see it in this light you can really spend a long time thinking about this story and the deep symbolism contained within. That makes this book a classic, all right.

View all my reviews

Sparrow - चटक ! चटक !

2014-06-26T20:46:00.000-04:00

चटक ! चटक !

- विश्वासः

Presenting a beautiful, melodious poem by Vishwas kavi, that I have been humming for a while now. It's very simple and cute, and brought a smile to my face when I first heard it. Have also included a link to it's audio version below.

The plot consists of a kid calling out to a sparrow to come and play with him/her, and it is primarily a children's poem,...but that's no reason for the young at heart to not also sing along :-).

I hope you enjoy listening to and singing it as much as I do.

Lyrics: (विश्वासः कवि कृत)

चटक ! चटक ! रे चटक !

चिंव्ँ चिंव्ँ कूजसि त्वम् विहग !

नीडे निवससि सुखेन डयसे

खादसि फलानि मधुराणि |

विहरसि विमले विपुले गगने

नास्ति जनः खलु वारयिता ||

चटक, चटक, .. ||

मातापितरौ इह मम नस्तः

एकाकी खलु खिन्नोSहम् |

एहि समीपं चिंव्ँ चिंव्ँ मित्र

ददामि तुभ्यम् बहु धान्यम् ||

चटक, चटक, ... ||

चणकं स्वीकुरु पिबरे नीरं

त्वम् पुनरपि रट चिंव्ँ चिंव्ँ चिंव्ँ |

तोषयमां कुरु मधुरालापं

पाठयमामपि तव भाषाम् ||

चटक, चटक, ... ||

Audio Link: chataka_128kbps.mp3

Rains

2014-06-25T20:01:00.003-04:00

वृष्टिः

इदानीं बहिः वृष्टिः भवति |

अद्य प्रातः आरभ्य आदिनम् एवमेव मन्दवृष्टि: आसीत् |

इत्यतः इदानीं वातावरण अति सुन्दर रम्य च भवति |

तर्हि अहम् उद्यानम् गत्वा अटनम् कर्तुं इच्छामि |

Meaning: It's raining outside right now. It has been drizzling lightly like this since morning today. Due to this, the weather has become really pleasant. So, I wish to go to the garden and wander around.

Word Meanings:

वृष्टिः - Rains

इदानीं - Right now / Presently

बहिः - Outside

भवति - happen

अद्य - Today

प्रातः - Morning

आरभ्य - Starting from

आदिनम् - Whole day

एवमेव - Just like this

मन्दवृष्टि: - Light rain / drizzle

आसीत् - It was

इत्यतः - Due to this

वातावरण - Weather

अति - Very

सुन्दर - beautiful

च - And
रम्य - Pleasant / Pleasing

तर्हि - So / Hence

अहम् - I

उद्यानम् - Garden

गत्वा - After going

अटनम् - Wandering

कर्तुं - To do

इच्छामि - I wish

Early Morning Schedule

2014-06-24T22:32:00.000-04:00

प्रातः काले किम् करोमि ?

अहं प्रातः काले सार्ध षट् वादने उत्तिष्टामि |
करदर्शनम् कृत्वा "कराग्रे वसते लक्ष्मिः" इति मन्त्रम् वदामि |
अनन्तरम् दन्तदावनम् करोमि, शौचालयम् गच्छामि, स्नानम् करोमि, प्रार्थनाम् करोमि |
तदानन्तरं अल्पाहारम् खादामि च चायं पिबामि |
अनन्तरं युतकम् उरुकम् च परिवर्त्य, पादत्राण धारयित्वा कार्यालयं गच्छामि |

Word meanings:

प्रातःकाले - In the morning

किम् - What

करोमि - I do

अहं - I

सार्ध षट् वादने - at 6:30 (time)

उत्तिष्टामि - Get up / awake

करदर्शनम् - (Literally) looking at hands.

There is a tradition among many Hindu families of starting the day by looking at your palms and praying to God with the following prayer, first thing after getting up in the morning: । गौरी ॥"

Meaning: At the top of the hand dwells Goddess Lakshmi, at the centre dwells Goddess Saraswati, and at the base of the hands dwells Goddess Gauri (Parvati). Therefore, we should look at our hands in the morning and contemplate on God.
There can be slight variations in this morning prayer according to different traditions.

कृत्वा - After doing

"कराग्रे वसते लक्ष्मिः" इति मन्त्रम् - The hymn/shloka starting with "कराग्रे वसते लक्ष्मिः" mentioned above.

वदामि - I tell / recite

अनन्तरम् - After that

दन्तदावनम् - Brushing teeth

शौचालयम् - Toilet

स्नानम् - Bath

प्रार्थनाम् - Prayer

तदानन्तरं - Then, after that

अल्पाहारम् - Breakfast (or small meal)

खादामि - I eat

च - And

चायं - Tea

पिबामि - I drink

युतकम् - Shirt

उरुकम् - Pant

परिवर्त्य - After changing

पादत्राण - Shoes

धारयित्वा - After putting on

कार्यालयं - Workplace

गच्छामि - I go

On a journey to learn Spoken Sanskrit

2014-06-24T22:30:00.000-04:00

Have been putting in some efforts to learn to speak the beautiful language 'Samskritam' with assistance and blessings from teachers, students and others in this great land of Canada, who speak and use this ancient and amazingly rich language at different levels of proficiency, in their day-to-day lives.

It's really not too easy to find people who speak Sanskrit. I mean,..actually speak and communicate in Sanskrit. A large majority of people with Indian roots do use some Sanskrit though, usually to recite religious hymns, or shubashitas (collections of sentences which teach about different topics / morals), or to remember what they learnt by rote during their school days (gajah, gajau, gajaah).

Thanks to the efforts of organizations like Samskrita Bharati, learning to speak this language has never been easier. They have come up with resources to teach the spoken language through immersion methods (which is used today for learning european languages, and by natives of languages all around the world to learn their language, and would also most probably have been the method used in ancient India before we started using English as a medium to teach Indian languages). They teach Sanskrit through the medium of Sanskrit and by making liberal use of props, actions, and games. This makes the learning of language really fun (as it should be!).

I have found this personal project a very rewarding experience so far.
Am now at a stage, where I have started to develop an elementary level of comfort and proficiency in understanding and speaking basic spoken samskritam, and I hope to continue this journey and become more and more proficient over time, in this ancient language of the land of my origin, and to do my bit to help other seekers I come across, who might wish to tread on this path (of learning spoken samskritam) in the future.

With salutations to the divine inherent in you and me, I am starting a new project on my blog today to record some baby-steps in the journey of learning the beautiful language of Samskritam. I plan to publish commonly used sentences, word lists listing things that I see around me, a short description of day-to-day activities in easy words, the occasional poem, shubashita, or short story, links to useful resources, etc.

I hope that over a period of time, this personal project turns into a collection of resources that might someday prove useful to a few people just starting out on this journey that I am currently undertaking. At the very least, it does show a promise to grow into a travelogue which will help me retrace my baby steps and remember this phase of my journey.

With that note, let me start with a traditional prayer:

   ।    ।    ।
    ।
    ॥

Book Review -The Immortals of Meluha by Amish Tripathi

2013-06-07T10:37:00.003-04:00

The Immortals of Meluha by Amish Tripathi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While definitely not a retelling of the Shiva purana (as some people have claimed,...probably under the sway of awe and admiration for the story),... this book is an amazing read, nonetheless.

A very enjoyable mix of history, fiction, mythology and traditional stories (passed by parents and grandparents to kids) from the Hindu faith. This book is definitely a page turner, and keeps the reader absolutely captivated and enthralled. It took a lot of self control to remember that I have to go to office the next day and resist the temptation to read it through the night. Even if fictionalized in this book, Shiva is drawn up in a very careful, true-to-image way,.. and this makes me wonder if the story outlined in this book (or at least parts of it) could have really happened.

I am also really impressed with the research which is evident from the work, although certain sections might have needed a tad more work in this area. For e.g. the reference to 'sangamtamil' seems a bit strange to me, as I have only heard the word 'sangatamil' so far which refers to ancient tamil literature, and the language used in it...definitely not any territory or demarcated region. Also the 'm' sound halfway between the word makes it sound unnatural. In ancient tamil works, the tamil speaking part of the country was called as "Tamilakam", which might have been a more appropriate term to use. However, this is a very minor point...which does not really take anything away from the book.

To summarize, a really delightful book that I would readily recommend to all who have an interest in fiction, period stories, ancient India, eastern mythology/religions and/or fantasy/adventure stories. Although not really required, an Indian background or some exposure to Hindu stories might help to appreciate this book even more.

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