Father's day

I saw many kids in the post office today. A brother and sister came in clutching dollars, selected Father's day card, waited patiently in the queue and sent the mail. Waiting for my turn, I was wondering where all can their dads be. Afghanistan? Iraq? Or a cheerful office in Seattle or California.

My thoughts took me back to my school days, when we used to send rakhis to Indian soldiers at the LoC, and the joy when we used to get a reply from them. My best wishes to those soldiers and those kabuliwala's 1 who have not met their kids in a while.

After a while, I too looked at the cards. One simple message, which particularly struck me and I want to dedicate to my baba- " I am glad, that you're my dad. "

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabuliwala 

Baaaaaaaaaam...

The first school picnic that I remember was my 1st std picnic to Appughar, Nigdi. I remember those small go-karts, and mostly head-on collisions with other kids' karts. The experience was so painfully fresh that I have never dared to ride a bumper car..till yesterday.

Yesterday, we had our 2nd Co-op picnic at "Whirlyball" - playing lacrosse on bumper cars. The only other Indian Co-op in my building warned me- whatever happens dont get out of the car..the floor is electric. He also mentioned that the game has had very few fatalities so far. My supervisor joked that maybe i should wear a helmet.

My picnic started with donning casuals, going from office to the south campus with friends, where a bus was waiting. Once there, I looked at the cars through the glass window. The cars had a rubber sheath at the bottom, so dashing wouldnt be so bad..or so I thought.

When I actually started the car, the first realization that hit me was..there are no brakes. Joysticks manouvered the car, to turn left, move joystick to right. Muddling indeed. Once the supply to the cars started, my 10 minutes in hell began. I kept banging against the walls, which did not have any rubber to break the impact. Banging on others' cars gave a lesser jolt. My teammate Shreyas's car got most hits by me. Finally out of arena..sore, bruised black and blue wherever the joystick hit me during the wall collisions.

My roommates insisted on a second round. Oh no. Shreyas didnt learn anything from experience, and was my teammate again. But this time I was better, since I finally got hang of the "just sufficient acceleration" and the manouvering.

2 painkillers, a night's rest and a make-shift hot-compress == "odhani heated on a tava" or hot water bottle later; still extremely sore... Have to cancel today's try-outs for athletic team selection..I was planning to run 5k today :(

Random

My sunday started with pandora and then reading random blogs through "next blog" links on the blogger.  If i "like" a track/ blog, scores of tracks/ blogs of the same genre are pulled up. You call that reading my mind? Not today dears..I wanted to listen to forgotten songs, read random stuff solely so that I dont restrict myself to one genre and lose out on others.

As an elex engineer, one of the random things we need day in and day out is a random number generator which is used to simulate noise. But there is a very definite order behind the so-called random yield, and hence the name "pseudo-random" number generator.

One of my favourite games is "JAM" (just a minute) wherein you blabber random things for a minute. Your competitors should not be able to draw up any links to anything you said previously, else you lose the game. Pandora, blogger..can you play JAM with me today? Or should I look out for a human mind with "un"artificial intelligence?

Unity in divinity

This week's "things to do in Dallas" was a surprise trip to DFW Hindu temple. Its good to go on a trip planned by someone else; this time my friend donned the planner's hat. Inspired by manu's (from tanu weds manu) travelogue to reach his girl; let me put forth our trip's details. 1 km walking, 25 km by train, 12 km by bus and 2.6 km dehydrating walk at full noon to  finally reach the temple.

The temple is very beautiful. It is a multi-deity temple- Vitthal-rakhmai, Radha-Krishna, Shrinathji, Ganesh, Shiv, Mahalakshmi, Balaji, Murugan, Ayappa, Shri Ram-panchayatan and Durga. Shrinathji's idol supports the mount govardhan on His little finger. My friend asked why the same temple houses Radha-Krishna and Shrinathji as two different deities, when they both are Lord Shri Krishna. Joshiji, the temple priest, said - in India we made foodstuff principally out of rice and wheat. From the same wheat seed, someone makes chapati, someone bread, other a paratha or someone else a naan. Similarly, these idols are a manifestations of human creativity. Vishnu sahastra-naam enlists 1000 names of Shri Vishnu. Each of these names is associated with a different image and different qualities are attributed to the image. But, eventually, one god resides in every idol and every being..सः एक एव प्रभुरद्वितियः |

Manthan

I am a great fan of Indian mythology. Its fun surfing cross-linked wiki pages. Mind is a gigantic web of cross-linked memories too. A school memory took me to the churning of the great ocean.

We had a free period called zero period. Our class teacher was the school's co-ordinator for ESPN school quiz, and she used to pop quizes in the free period. Once the topic was mythology, which was (and still is) my forte. The question asked was, which God's abode is at Vaikunth. Bang comes my reply- Vithoba. Now this teacher used to ask questions out of a book and treated the answer printed at the back of the book as the sole authority. In this case the answer printed was Balaji, and my answer dint fetch us any points even though I claimed that Vithoba and Balaji both are in fact manifestations of Vishnu.

So this memory which popped out of nowhere took me to "vaikunth" search, which led to the great serpent "shesh naag" and then to another serpent "vaasuki" who had a role to play in the mythological churning of the great ocean.

Being a fan of Dan Brown and Christian allegories, I wonder if this story is to be taken literally.

For one, moon was created at the same time as the earth. Indian lunar calender predates these stories and Indian civilization was very advanced in astronomy.  So when the story says that moon was born out of the ocean, I really take it with a pinch of salt. This leads me to very strongly believe that the hidden meaning behind this story is something that runs far deeper than the celestial objects that emerged out of the ocean.

So, the churning of the ocean yielded several precious things..petroleum? minerals? possible..
There was a potent poison that came out of the ocean too..In Ramayana, ravan's brother is performing nuclear experiments under the ocean. Is something on similar lines the potent lifekiller hinted in the story?
The churning was primarily done to obtain the elixir of life. Practically, I cannot think of anything else that restores life, other than pure potable water. So wait a minute, is the story suggesting a way we can get potable water out of saline water? Yeah yeah, I know about Reverse Osmosis, but no one denies the role of centrifugation in separating things.

Food for thought..and motivation for further surfing.. 

Places and their names

My 1st indi-venture away from home was participation in IIT-Madras's Shaastra. Me and my partner had no confirmed accomodation, and after some cajoling were put up in the hostel with a large group. All the girls in that group were from the same place - Vizag. Me and my friend gelled in with them within a short time. For the whole of my stay in IITM, I kept wondering what Vizag is. Finally I mustered enough courage to accept that i am no geography wiz, and asked them about vizag? How come such a beautiful place with awesome beaches exists in India and I havent even heard of it..vizag is Vishakhapattanam. Of course I have heard about it!

So now when my Dallas roomy says she studied in College of Engg. Trivandrum, I quickly google it to confirm that Trivandrum is indeed Tiruvananthpuram. It then dawns that my geography GK is not just based on school education, but also on daily news. Surely news readers wont call it Vizag or Trivandrum.

I had heard about Vasco da Gama loads before we learnt about him. But before I saw the sea-route his ship had followed, I thought Calicut was same as Calcutta.

My native place is close to Pune, the city I grew up in. To go to my native place, I have to take a bus from the main bus terminal in the area of Pune called "Shivaji"nagar. So when someone talks of "Sambhaji"nagar, i picturize a smaller bus terminal. :P