28 Mar 2010

Moral of the stories

Story 1
On his eighteenth birthday, his master sent the boy out into the world to spread the teachings of their Grand Master amongst the common people.  He was to survive by begging for his meals in the time-honoured bhikshuk tradition.  (Bhikshuk in Hindi means a monk who begs for his food.)

Descending from the mountain monastery, which was the only abode the young man had known in his life thus far, the sights and sounds of the city streets amaze him.  Odd creatures walk around, mixing with the men of the city.  Male children he has seen before but these other creatures who look strange, dress, walk, and speak differently, are a mystery to him.

Soon he is hungry.  As he has been instructed, he holds his begging bowl in his hands and stands near the threshold of a small dwelling.  The householder welcomes the young monk in and washes his feet to show respect.  He then calls his teenaged daughter who walks into the room and fills the monk's bowl with grain; enough for that day and the next seven.  She joins her hands in a graceful namaste and smiles a respectful greeting.

The young man cannot now hold back his questions.  He asks the man who the creature is and is told.  He points to her breasts and asks what they are.  The father of the girl knows about all-male cloisters of monks who live in the higher regions in absolute seclusion until they become eighteen years old.  He is not offended by the innocent questions.  He explains the purpose of breasts.  In some years, his daughter would be married and milk from her from breasts would feed the babies she would bear.

The young man stands still in contemplation for a while and then hastily returns all the extra grain that he has taken.  He says he will accept food enough for that one day only.  And when the householder asks him why he was returning a major portion of the offering, the initiate turns to him and answers: 'My master told me tot take enough only for one day.  I disobeyed him when I took more than what I would need for today.  But I now see my mistake in being concerned about tomorrow.  When arrangements are already in place to provide food for a child who will be born many days from today, I am a fool to worry about what I will eat tomorrow.'

[Taken from One Life to Ride by Ajit Harisinghani.]
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Story 2
In a field one summer's day a Grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart's content. An Ant passed by, bearing along with great toil an ear of corn he was taking to the nest.

"Why not come and chat with me," said the Grasshopper, "instead of toiling and moiling in that way?"

"I am helping to lay up food for the winter," said the Ant, "and recommend you to do the same."

"Why bother about winter?" said the Grasshopper; "We have got plenty of food at present." But the Ant went on its way and continued its toil.

When the winter came the Grasshopper had no food and found itself dying of hunger - while it saw the ants distributing every day corn and grain from the stores they had collected in the summer. Then the Grasshopper knew: It is best to prepare for days of need.

[Aesop's 'The Ant and the Grasshopper' story, copied verbatim from eastoftheweb.com.]
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Moral of the stories: There’s an interesting and convincing story about every damn thing!

27 Mar 2010

25 Mar 2010

A cop with a heart

I just got to work.  On my way, this traffic cop stopped me.  He wanted to check my papers.  I don't like stopping for showing the papers.  Well, who likes it all anyway?

He beckons me to park the bike on the side of the road and quite annoyed, I give full throttle, the bikes moves with a loud vrooooom, and I stop it near the edge.  The cop, being a good man he is, sees my impatience and asks me if I am in a hurry to reach office.  I don't answer him, but I am busy taking the papers out of the bag.  He asks me again, this time a little louder, "Are you getting late for work?  Are you in a hurry?"  I still don't want to answer him; but I have to.  I say "Yes" and nod my head.  He says "If you are in a hurry, why don't you just say that?  Go, go".  And he sends me off without seeing my papers.  This really pissed me off.

I mean, what the hell?  This cop here, he was doing his job.  Asking people to show their papers is part of his job.  What's the big deal if I am in a hurry?  And he'd just let me go just because I overslept and I'm running late?  grumble grumble!

22 Mar 2010

A geeky, Indian t-shirt

I just received the first t-shirt I designed for myself.



Forgive the lousy quality of the pictures; but I should say I like the shirt.  Leave a comment if you want the same shirt for yourself; I'll share the artwork with you.

18 Mar 2010

Hyderabad

If you know me reasonably well, you know that I hate the place I live in now: Hyderabad.  This post is not about why I hate it, but to list out things I like about Hyderabad.

First in the list is electricity.  Since last year, there is a regular 2-hours power cut every day.  But before that, power cuts used to be very rare.  Hardly ever power goes off, and even when it does, it comes back pretty quick.  Sometimes the electricity board here works at completely odd hours to restore the power back.  And the best part is, they don't disconnect your power lines if you don't pay your electricity bill once.  You can not pay the electricity for 2 or 3 months easily (based on how much your bill is, of course).

Second one is the weather.  The wind and breeze especially.  At around 4pm today I went out to next door Barista to eat something.  After a refreshing coffee and chocolate muffin, walking in that breeze towards the office felt really nice.  Riding the bike is a pleasant experience too, because of the winds.

Next on the list is the roads of Hyderabad.  Okay, I must say that I hate the traffic here.  But I like the roads.  They are not the best in the world; but they are pretty good.  There are roads filled with potholes and all that, like everywhere else in India.  But most of the times the roads are good enough.  (When I think about it, most roads in Andhra Pradesh, including state highways, seem to be good.)

Well, that's all, I guess.  When I am super-irritated, maybe I will write the reasons why I hate Hyderabad.  I am sure that would be a longer list ;)

17 Mar 2010

Rant: Buggy buggy Flash

Flash is probably a textbook example for how bad a software program's quality can get.  On the other hand, Flash is a good candidate for a business case study on how a terrible product can still be successful.

PS: If Flash you gives you headache too, try FlashBlock Chrome or Firefox extension.

16 Mar 2010

Rebroadcast: a new blog

I have started a new blog called Rebroadcast.  This blog will have very short posts, mostly a line or two.  None of the content is my own original creativity; I only rebroadcast parts of what I liked.  The blog is at rebroadcast.manki.in.

(Did you know I have a similar blog in Tamil too?  It's called மறு ஒலிபரப்பு and is available at maru-olibarappu.blogspot.com).

13 Mar 2010

Ye Maaya Chesaave

Saw Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa sometime back and loved it.  Well, the movie felt a bit longer than it should be; but I really liked the movie.  Went to see the Telugu version of the same movie with a couple of friends.  They almost killed me for recommending this movie to them.  But then, I had no idea they would change the story in Telugu version.  Okay, spoiler alert: I am gonna talk about the story of the movie; don't read if you'd rather see the movie first.

In the Tamil version, Karthik naturally moves on after Jessie leaves him.  He focuses on work; tries to write some scripts; and eventually starts a relationship with another girl.  Jessie too, like most sane people would, gets along with her own life.  In the Telugu version both of them are stuck with their "first love" for years.

In the Tamil version there was a lot happening in the last 10 or 15 minutes and that was good.  In Telugu version -- well, nothing really.  They meet, they say long dialogues, they dance for a song, hero accomplishes something, they get married, and all that crap.

In my opinion, Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa is another good movie of Gautham Menon's; and I like him for this movie, along with his other movies.  Ye Maaya Chesaave is not, in my books, a Gautham Menon's movie.  It's just another Your Average Telugu Movie.

9 Mar 2010

My companion said...

After walking for some time, I was tired as dead.  I sat down panting.  My companion said, "You don't need to carry the world on your shoulders.  Leave it aside, and you will move easier."

5 Mar 2010

Random Thoughts: Mind

I used to think of life as a music player.  Maybe life isn't a music player, but our mind is.  In fact, mind is not a simple music player.  It's a VCR.  It records and replays a lot of things.  Identifying the tapes we replay over and over again can be of help.