Interim Solutions

During my college days, I and my friends were what I consider now to be a fun loving lot. Our ‘gang’ constantly endeavored to have fun and on hindsight I think we were pretty successful at that. This is not to suggest we did not have our share of worldly woes and worries. We were quite concerned about our grades, our perennial shortage of money and our future (with a vague, far-away haziness).However, as might be the case anywhere, any time with adolescents (how about a brand of perfumes called “Adole-scents”) most of our “concern energy” was spent on the topics dealing with specimens of the opposite sex. I have rambled on thus far stating stereotypical factotums about young college going males to get you to appreciate the nuances of an incident involving one of our gang members. Thomas George was his name and he hailed from an affluent back ground (in comparison with most others of our gang). In line with what is expected of the affluent class, he almost always obliged to pay up the...

As I type this, few of the cellars of the ancient Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple at Thiruvananthapuram have been opened under government and judicial supervision to reveal unexpectedly huge amounts of ancient treasures. The partial inventory that has been released compares well to the treasures Sindbad finds in exotic palaces on his maritime sojourns. As of now there are two cellars still left to be opened up and already the conservative estimates of the wealth runs into hundreds of billions of Rupees. The treasures were apparently stored in secret chambers complete with code marks and other rich symbols and symbolisms of a bygone “treasure” era. Pay respects to the erstwhile rulers of Travancore who kept these assets in safe custody for all this while. Point to note is that lot of the artifacts could easily fit into the definition of personal articles (example: the throne of Kulasekhara Perumal that was used for the consecration of the King) and could have very well been kept in the per...

in much splendor, across the forested defense lands and across vast swathes of urban and rural landscapes and from across the Arabian sea and may be even further from the coast of Madagascar and unknown seas and lands beyond. Shaking everything in its path winds blazing across, pummeling down huge walls of water. Nostalgic moment this , the arrival of Monsoon in its full glory, cant help thinking back to my childhood, was it more beautiful, did the fear of nature's fury and loneliness add colors to my memories of this beautiful rhapsody of nature. Can't say - i am drinking in every bit of it standing in my balcony , oh what magical treasures the rain clouds behold in their dark, swollen bellies and long noodly hairs waving madly in the winds !!

List of interesting reasons why the apartment complex I live in is a microcosm of the nation ( should read as country) at large. -- Very undemocratic ,  around 55% of Indians take part in the national elections and roughly the same percent are members of the residents association -- There is a looming security issue and a greater infrastructure issue (read water, roads, sewage) and the focus continues to be on trivial stuff  like fighting over the color of the national anthem -- There are scams abound  - 2G , 3G etc at national level and G2A, G3A etc at the apartment level ---- -- Actually speaking , nobody cares anything about the community at large -- Beautiful scenery - located between 2 lakes and a forest on one side , but lot of shit around -- There are many wealthy citizens and the poor ones are not far away -- High rates of inflation but there are two cars per house -- North Indians are all over the place and many of them think "Kannad"...

Found an ancient BBC interview of the Prince. Amazing how he snubs the interviewer ( around 4:55) !! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MScv3KpdeE&feature=related Also, watch the series of his explanations on Shankarabharanam - amazingly lucid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyQS5quY6d8

Not sure if this has happened to you , but if you do drive around in Indian cities it is highly likely that it has. Off late there is a remarkable increase of this phenomenon in the city I live and hence it has prompted me to crib about this (admittedly, I do not need much of a trigger) a) Scenario 1 : How to decide where to go ? This scenario seems to happen more on the narrow city by lanes (higher probability of this happening narrower the road). You would find two (usually two, more the merrier) bikes sort of idling near the middle of the lane with their riders actively engaged in discussing some topic of immense importance. You have no choice but to slow down and stop and honk and if you pay attention you can make out that the topic is usually about deciding on which restaurant to go to or which movie to watch or better/worse still which girl to ogle at !! b) Scenario 2 : Friends for life travel together Again best done on narrow lanes, you would find...