we are miniscule

Mountains are not Stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion.”  - Anatoli Boukreev

google "litter on mt. everest" and we'll be surprised to see that it is no less than a dumping ground.

in fact, there are articles online where in mt.everest is called world's highest dumping ground.
we as climbing enthusiasts, we should be ashamed. to be precise, this is a shame.

mountains have been always given a sacred place and is this how we treat the tallest mountain on this planet ?  there is a reason why mt.everest is not called "sagarmatha" in nepalese and "Chomolungma" in tibetian . it is given the highest regard and is seen as god.

we are miniscule and these temples only help us get better than what we were

the treat for the eyes after all the pain

in my perception, the attitude conquering the tallest peak or be it any peak is just plain wrong. it has to be about conquering the fear, the aching muscles, the "can i do it ?/ can this be done ?" thoughts.  the brief window of 15 days, generally between may1 - may 15 is the permission given by nature for human kind to experience the beauty it offers. the brief window where in we can find out the what one can do.

mountains, peaks, waterfalls, deserts are all temples which pose challenges so that we can get better than what we were before attempting to scale them, cross them. these are temples where we can seek the answers to the underlying fears. Overcoming our own fears and accomplishing the enduring challenge only makes us better and conquer our fears. NOT conquer them.

it is because of this attitude problem, the tallest peak is in sorry state of affairs. one cant imagine the status if the tallest peak was accessible all through the year.

Nature works in mysterious ways and always proves its superiority (because it is supreme). This time it took avatar of an avalanche and some other time it had taken the avatar of a tsunami.

it is high time that people learn how miniscule they are in this universe. the faster the better.
or else, in George Carlin's words - the planet will be here and we'll all be long gone. The planet is going to shake us off like a bad case of fleas.

double standards

http://guardianlv.com/2013/11/india-mars-mission-to-launch-amidst-overwhelming-poverty/

वोह करें  तोह  रास  लीला , वाही  हम करें  तोह character  ढ़ीला ???

Dear writer of the article,
When USA was at war against the Vietnam, in 1969, they went to the moon.
Coming to the "Overwhelming" poverty, rightly pointed by you, most of the poverty is not eradicated because ours is a country where people fight to be called under-privileged. Nothing can be done about that, sadly. Undevelopment is because of lack of willingness and not because of lack of technology.


So, India is proud to point it out to the world that it launched the MOM because IT CAN and that too at the minimum cost of Rs 450 crores. And, with a population of 120 plus crores, it averages out to less that 4 Rs per capita..a cup of chai is now at a minimum of Rs 5.

And lastly, yes, we have poverty and that is why we build cars in under Rs 2 lakh. We take pride in it because WE CAN build it.

securing the FOOD

long ago...long long ago...
nobody knows how long ago...
this happened...at least in panchatantra or jataka tales...
there was a benevolent king, whose name is not of concern.
once, during his kingdom tour, in mufti, he noticed that some poor and cripples were begging for alms in front of a temple. after all, benevolent he was...he introduced a scheme where lunch and dinner was free and nobody would go hungry in his kingdom again...the smart prime minister opposed it and hence was given pink slip...day by day, number of blessings showered on king increased ( to be read as number of lazy bugs binging on free food increased) and even the kings army suffered from lots of free food...
it is but natural for any country / kingdom to have a traitor, this kingdom also had. the news that army was fat and weak reached the enemy king and he planned an attack...
the benevolent king was shocked at the state of his army and none of his ministers could give an idea to save the kingdom. so, the minister who was given pink slip was summoned...
he took innumerable banana leaves, smeared them with food and got them dumped in front of city gates.
the enemy king mistook that these leaves were from the army and thought his army would be outnumbered easily and took to his heels...
All is well that ends well...

but then, map the characters in this story to the characters running our country today...
to my knowledge, nobody is capable of mapping themselves to the wise ministers role...

the poor are being helped by giving them rice at rs 1 / a kilo, no doubt... but, has anyone thought what could be the repercussions of this ? in my view,
people (labourers/poor) are given free food in this country ...
why do we study ? work ? to earn...why earn ? to feed...
if feeding is met, then why work ? in a few days time, nobody will be available for labour. why should they work ? their food needs are met!
now, agriculture is labour intensive... with no labourers, agricultural productivity of this country will go down...
and then, how on earth, will these benevolent KINGS provide rice / wheat at Rs 1 a kilo ?
answer is already out there...
either this :
Sir, am from a very poor country called India...could you give alms ?
or
mortgage the country!

jai hind

Are we erasing our past by writing our future ?

full is empty ? yes, it is!

it is 2am. and a thought.
is full empty ?

Optimist : glass is half full. Pessimist : glass is half empty. Engineer : glass  has twice the volume it is holding.

now, what is the hardest substance ? for now, am going with diamond, keeping aside the present day scientific advancements. mohs scale of mineral hardness
diamond, is hardest. an allotrope of carbon. so is graphite. but is soft. reason : difference in spacial arrangement of carbon atoms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Diamond_and_graphite2.jpg

in diamond, the carbon atoms are arranged in the form of cube at a length of 0.15 nm, forming covalent bond. the 4 valence electrons of 1 atom are shared with 4 of the other carbon atom.

dia of each electron : 0.0000056 nm

roughly 200000 electrons can be fitted in that cube length.

to get an estimate of the distance in our units... our avg height is 1.5m and the next person is roughly at 400 kms away. practically, the space in between is empty.

take water in the glass. at the angstrom level, it is empty. so is gas. so is everything. 

there is vast emptiness.

so, here are some questions / answers / confusions

is hard hard ? is soft hard ? 

but, full is definitely empty. 

We, the people !

This city is very strange. literally.
Highly inhospitable. weather is always at its worst.
This city experienced few rains in last couple of weeks. It rained cats and dogs for 15 min and the traffic ground to a halt.
water water everywhere.
the highly acclaimed OMR (six lanes and has a toll booth) has knee deep water. 15 min of rain and this is the status.
यहाँ रोड में खड्डे नहीं है। खड्डे में रोड है .
the ECR is no better either. it has no footpath. one has to walk in flooded portions else he could be mowed down by a speeding bus / water tanker.
and, interestingly, no one complains.
people here are, donno what to say!
the roads are dug to accommodate underground drains and these channels are above the ground level. when authorities get to know that it was wrongly designed and not serving purpose, they will, may be, shell out more money to repair and dig again. sustained employment, you see!
the city has quite a bit of roads with road divider in the middle. yet, half the traffic is in the wrong direction, because 'U' turn is far off.
The buses stop in the middle lane of OMR for the passengers to get off / get in.
The share autos take a turn just about anywhere. no rules.
there is no hotel which serves dal-chawal, chapati-dal at night.
This is going to be endless list of complaints of a person who is an immigrant in this city.

why cant people here complain to get there city back in order ?

this is the answer i get : if city is in order, there will be more immigrants and may be that cant be tolerated.

Shades of the Sea

what is hell ? has anybody seen it ? well, i have. In my humble opinion, feeling very sleepy at 2330 hrs, time of year being last week of may(peak summer) , place being chennai and above all, POWER CUT. all of this in combination is the perfect recipe of hell.

another recipe, long and tiring day at office, totally hungry, with plans of cooking upma of all dishes (simple to cook). everything is almost set and about to start the fire, POWER CUT.

with these two events, happening on 2 consecutive days, was totally out of mind. next, a walk to the beach.

5min there and am at peace and in 1 single piece. i saw a boat on the shore and my mind responded f4 and 20s  should do the job. walked back home, collected my gear and walking again with a happy heart, started clicking.

Also decided to start a new collection of photos. Title being Shades of the Sea. Will see how far it goes. Will see how many shades i will be able to see.

seeing is believing

what is found in mahabharatha, is found everywhere||
what is not found here, is found nowhere||

the dharma yuddha starts. Arjuna is confused. Lord Krishna gives upadesha. this is Bhagavad Gita.
during the course of upadesha, Arjuna wishes to see the cosmic form of Lord Krishna

मन्यसे यदि तत् शक्यं मया द्रष्टुं इति प्रभो|
योगेश्वर ततो मे त्वं दर्शय आत्मानं अव्ययं ||

manase - you think; yadi - if ; tat - that; shakyam - is able ; mayaa - by me;
drashtum - to be seen; iti - thus ; prabho - O Lord; yogeshwara- yoga -- eeshwara - Lord of all mystic powers; tatah - then; me - to me ; tvam - you; darshaya - show ; aatmanam - your true self ;
 avyayam - eternal;
if you think i am able to behold your cosmic form, o my lord, o master of all mystic powers, then kindly show me that unlimited universal self.


श्री भगवान उवाच -
न तु मां शक्यसे द्रष्टुं अनेन एव स्व चक्षुषा |
दिव्यं ददामि ते चक्षुः पश्य मे योगमैश्वरम्  ||


na - never; tu - but; maam - me; shakyase - are able; drashtum - to see; anena - with these; eva- certainly;
sva chakshusa - your own eyes; divyam - divine; dadami - i give; te - toyou; chakshuhu - eyes;
pashya - see; me - my; yogamaishvaram - divine inconceivable mystic power;
But you cannot see me with your present eyes. therefore, i give you divine eyes. behold my inconceivable mystic form.


why all this excerpts from the bhagavad gita ?
in order to make arjuna see his mystic form, krishna had to give him special powers. the eyes which arjuna had were not of any use to see the divine form. ( equivalent to a 1000 suns etc etc etc this is only what sanjaya has seen because of divya drushti given by vyasa to give running commentary to dritharashtra. arjuna never spoke of what he saw and i speculate the vision sanjaya had was way more different than what arjuna had)
our eyes are tuned to be sensitive in the so called visible spectrum range ( about 390 nm to 750 nm ) in the electromagnetic spectrum
this leaves me with these questions...


what percentage of the electromagnetic spectrum can the human eye perceive ?
nature is way more than what meets the eye!
why has nature made us practically blind ? ( we get to perceive only a infinitesimally small percentage of electromagnetic radiation )
and-seeing is believing ???

the monk who sold his ferrari

disclaimer : i have not read the book.

the monk who sold his ferrari.

the title says - a monk who sold his ferrari.

if a person has a ferrari and decides to become a monk, why did he sell it ?
he should have given it in charity.

just a small humor... 

bulletsu, bombsu & bhagavadgeete

|| सर्वे जनाः सुखिनोभवन्तु ||

this does not mean that people employed in the SURVEY department are happy.

it means let there be happiness to everyone. let everyone get the capacity to SURVEY their minds. 

-- ಬಿchi

seriously it is a bomb, in form of a bullet and with teachings of bhagavadgeete!

time to cleanse

यात्रा संस्कृतं तत्र सम्स्क्रुतिम
एतद श्रुत्वा अहं विस्मितास्मी. भारत देशस्य संस्कृतिः पुरातनं अस्ति किन्तु बहु सम्यक अस्ति | संस्कृतं अति सरल विज्ञानिक च अस्ति | १०००० वर्षे संस्कृत भाषे कोपि व्यत्यसं नास्ति | एतद  भाषा बहूणि भाषासु मातृ भाषा अस्ति |
एक विचारं | प्राचीन काले संस्कृतमेव आसीत | वेद - उपनिषत एतानि महा ग्रन्तानि संस्कृतमेव आसीत | इदनीम्तने सहस्राणि महोदयाः कन्नड - आङ्ग्ल- इति भाषाणां भाषन्तरं कृत्वा पुस्तकानि प्रकाशं कुर्वन्ति | किन्तु भाषन्तरं  कर्तुं समये पण्डितस्य अभिप्रायः आगन्तुं शक्यते | एताः अभिप्रायाः तस्य गुरवः अभिप्रायाः सन्ति | एताः अभिप्रायाः अस्माकं चितनं विकारं कुर्वन्ति स्म | सहजोदसीन अभिप्रायः तदा आगचति यदा वयं संकृतमेव पठनं कुर्मः | तदर्थं वयं संस्कृतमेव वदामः | संस्कृतमेव चिन्तामः |
वदतु संस्कृतं | जयतु मनुकुलं |

confusion1

pic describing my current state. but it is satyaveer in the pic.

here is the confusion.
all of us want the same thing spiritually, at the end. mukti. mukti from this cycle of birth-death-birth. so many philosophies to guide. yet they are all different in their own ways. these days, there is also a steep rise in the hindu religious fanaticism and the sole purpose of following a particular path is missing. absolutely. 
now, i dont know how to put my confusion.
yet here i am.

dwaita says

यदि नमपरो न भवेत् श्री हरी 

      कथमस्य वशेत जगातेदभूत |

यदि नमनतस्य वशे सकलं 

      कथामेवत नित्य सुखं न भवेत ||

advaita says

|| अहम् ब्रह्मास्मि ||

people have followed both. achieved their goals. yet there is this difference. why so ? 

maya

came to know that our brain works on 12 W of power. and millions of nerves are triggered with thousands of stimuli. in order to optimize the power consumed, our brain processes only the required stimuli, controlled consciously  or sub-consciously.
we are able to talk converse over phone even in crowded majestic. mind filters out unwanted frequencies.
also, our M1ND 15 AL50 ABLE T0 R3AD TH15.
mind makes suitable assumptions while reading the
the above line.
it deos eevn tihs. example of siutable assumptions.
this means mind is hardwired to repair the faults to a certain extent,  to see, to perceive things.
this may not be right always.
mind does amazing things. no doubt. but, in reality, things are definitely something else. while concentrating on something, there is a loss of thousands of other stimuli. even these are a part of the real "real".
it is all in the mind.
may be this is MAYA.

the down low

season 6 - episode 10 of house md

a cop, under cover for 16 months, is on his death bed. was on this assignment to bust a drug dealing gang. starts coughing blood, counting his last minutes, the gang is arrested and he dies a hero in his own mind. guess, that is better than nothing.
through out the above sequence, there is not a single dialogue. not a single word spoken. but a background score - maggot brain by funkadelic is played. the pain while dying, the joy when gang is busted, the sense of being a martyr is all conveyed by a guitar solo.
music does stuff which words cannot, a lot! 

Freedom

it is what it is!

AVEO LS (VGIS - 1.4 L gasoline engine) review

got this wonderful machine on 16th may 2010. but never got a chance to drive it so much that i could write a review. was always waiting for it and 5th march 2011 was the D-Day. journey was from mysore to baradevanal, my native village in yadgir dist.
Route : Mysore - Hiriyur - Bellary - Sindhanoor - Lingsasugur - Tintani Bridge - Baradevnal and back.
Distance - 585 km one way. I need not say much about this road. For ppl who are not acquainted with this region, this is sheer sarcasm! :)

Stretch between sindhanoor and Lingasugur is about 40 km and out of which 25 km cannot be called  "Road". there are big-stones, very big-stones and huge potholes. if one wheel falls into a pothole then the bottom of the car gets scraped. saw a lot many cars getting a flat.
covering the whole stretch in one go - in 12 hrs flat (10 hrs 30 min of journey time), with stoppages for tea, lunch, dinner etc etc etc, with avg mileage of 16-17 kmpl  - AVEO did it.
The best car in its class!

PS : VGIS stands for Variable Geometry Intake System.

ransom

this weekend was awesome.
my mate was ill and needed to see his doc. so took him to mysore and in 6 hrs, my mate is back in shape, to do 100 + kmph
left office at 1715 hrs. reached marathalli at 1740 hrs and it started to pour. this is something i always wanted. riding in the rain. got fully drenched. reached silk board junction at 1830 hrs and the place was dry as bone. passers by were staring at me, looking at my drenched sweat shirt and probably thinking - from which planet has he come ? krypton may be :p
reached ring road junction at 1930 hrs and was home at 2155 hrs.
on sunday afternoon, left my place at 1240 hrs. reached ramnagar at 1430 hrs only to see that farmers have blocked the highway and the traffic was piling. by the time i reached, it was 2 km long. fortunately, was able to do some off-roading and reach a state highway which leads to magadi via manchinabele dam. it was longer by 30 kms and i reached my room at 1730 hrs. i really felt sad that i dint have my cam to click pics of the protest. and i was called shameless for making that statement and was asked to reach room quickly. :-)

reason for protest : better price for silk worm cocoons.

what was the need for causing so much of inconvenience for us and holding us for ransom ? they have really let us down.
some time, what if we stop using what they grow, as a mark of protest ? what if we start living on canned food for a month. what will happen to all the perishables farmers have grown ?
raising voice is good. making presence felt is better. but should it be annoying to others ?

what the hell!

its today. sunday morning. love the morning rays of sun, newspaper and a hot cup of tea.
grabbed the newspaper(TOI) and the first page looked weird. there were words missing in the headlines. photographs missing. just the borders were marked to signify that some photograph should have been there.
Sammelana chief opposes renaming ______
_____ slams probe report.
CM to declare _____
it was more like filling up the news ourselves, how we like it.
how would this be ? - Sammelana chief opposes renaming his dog.
CM to declare - Am bankrupt.
down the page, it says anything incomplete can be a pain - especially when it comes to oral care. turnover for complete oral care.
and tada - a full page ad for listerene mouthwash!
a national daily and 2 pages of ad on the first page ?!!
where are we heading ???

its always said that there is only so much news that fits into a newspaper. which means that there isn't enough news.

weighty words

Organisation, Development, Skill-set, Version-Control, Complexity, Resources, Capability, Empowerment, Diversity, Bandwidth, Best-Practices, Globalization, Customer, Satisfaction ( who knows whose!), Long and Short term, Infrastructure, Logistics, Benchmarking...The list is on!

Use any conjunction or preposition between these words and the sentence always ends up meaningful.
here are some more, to add a little more weight to this post.

skilled dedication
effective communication

managerial literacy
high concentration of service-oriented skills
technical competence 
dedication
accurate peer assessment
proprietary reasoning
budgetary alignment
applications design
installation
implementation
client training
effective mediation between clients, programmers and end users
exceptional combination of technical/communication skills
expertise
skillset
programmer monitor
supervisory skills
conceptualization
consulting
consultant
project consultant
follow-through project management
focus on project management
Systems Engineer 
team player
team facilitator
team leader
project facilitator
successful project implementation
general management competence 
autonomy
independence 
entrepreneurial creativity 
entrepreneurial implementation

   

unwind-3

have always been a fan of tom and jerry. every single time tom or jerry or spike try to fall asleep, they make sure the bed is comfortable and before hitting the bed, they give out a loud phew!. every single time i see them doing that or setting up for a relaxing mood, i feel i should be doing the same.
and i did.
a bottle of coke and some potato chips and The Broker in my hand. and i read till i fell asleep at 0430 hrs
and whole day i spent lazing around like tom. no jerry to spoil my laziness.