Eat, Pray and love

For some reason, we Indians will never understand what causes divorce in the west.In this movie, i missed the first few minutes, but from what I saw I could not understand what caused a divorce for Liz. The rest of the movie was a good watch, sometimes intriguing but not really intellectual.
I never knew that Bali is a place where she will find love, I was expecting her to goto Paris. Anyways, it is a nice afternoon watch on a lazy Sunday. Julia Roberts as usual is pretty although she looks a little old especially in Saree.
For one thing, the picture these hollywood movies paint about India is so misleading. For people who had never spoken to an Indian or never saw India would think this is a stinking place, with only poverty and if I were they I would think how could it be the home of spirituality? Such a misleading picture of India for audience.
Oh well!!! I almost forgot what drove me to blog about the movie - the new word - Muffin top. I learnt it from movie, liked the analogy and how it is used in movie.
All said and done, I liked the Italy part of the movie. Happy watching.

Cost of Mama's handmade breakfast

Sometimes I am just too lazy to get up and go to office. Can't blame me, have been doing this for close to 10 years now. All these years I travel minimum of 30kms to get started with work. cant blame again , tried multiple ways of getting home close to office, the only ways are getting office close to home or stop working. For now, I continue to bank for opportunities on option one.

Anyways , one such lazy morning, I missed my cab to office. I rather took my time that day, I had a sumptuous hot breakfast of plain parantha with a variety of sides - banana crush(:-)), curry leave chutney powder, curd . Finally, had a full glass of hot without chicory coffee, and got geared for my journey towards office. I usually have to take 3 buses - 6 , 15, 15 km break up each - when I miss the cab.

This day I took an auto for the first hop - nowadays almost everybody thinks money gets dropped from trees for guys with laptop on their back. Crazy. The auto guy said Rs 60 , no meter. It would have cost me Rs 50 with , so I said fine got in.

At the next hop I waited for 30 mins to see if I had a luck with new direct bus which would avoid another hop. But god had different plans, I took the usual red bus. Another 35Rs , but this is normal, I never repent paying this money, it feels worth.

So finally the last and worst hop - tin factory it is called. You say the name to any Bangalorean, he knows its bad. Its so famous. I waited for another 30 min, for some reason Sun was very happy this day, all bright and scorching. No luck, not a single bus, usually I get one in like 10 min. Finally I said to myself, what the heck , lets take an auto. The auto guys brain in action again, said, no meter , 120Rs. It was too late by now and I was tired and just wanted to get out of the place, so I said fine. I spent 215 Rs to reach office.

Lets see what were my other options
1) nothing by cab , but no home made breakfast, got to really hurry
2) Start little earlier, hurry up , and catch buses - 3 buses
Well I don't repent a single bit it was just the price of a peaceful tasty breakfast watching some scene from one of the good English movies. For those of you who have watched Friends enough , Whats not to like in (Joey style) - breakfast good, peace gooooooood, movie gooooooooooooooood

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Who is watching ....

Every time I get into aero - plane, I am excited not about the travel, but the journey itself.I make sure I get window seat always. There is something about viewing the cities from high above.When I am on ground these cities seem so important for our existence but from the sky they just seem like specs, totally insignificant . Or when the sky is filled with clouds it is a different feeling to get in between them and be amazed at the beauty we are so close to but still so far. I always wonder , how nice it would be if I had a home in the cloud :-) It also brings in a kind of humble feeling and I start thinking, about what is the significance of my existence. My home is probably a dot at that high altitude and cannot even make out where it is. Imagine how I would make any difference to this world just by my existence. At the same time, I cannot stop wondering about the power such a small being has - look at the power of some of the revolutions spawned by a single leader like Gandhi / Nelson Mandela. Another thought I get every time is, we all are coached in our religions about God watching all of our actions. Looking at a view of the city- just the city i live in- and identifying the houses / monuments is such a tough task. If God has to watch the whole of earth with all the beings, I cannot even imagine how he should be or how he would do it. That is when I come back to some of our spiritual learning and realize why there is the concept of -"God Within". Every religion preaches this. The greatest messiahs , the most thoughtful people of all religion were enlightened with this concept and have enunciated this - "God is there within yourself and don't search outside for him". Just thoughts ......

Book Review : One flew over a cuckoo's nest

Well, I took quite a bit of time to read this fiction. Ken Kesey's amazing creation. The book is refreshing , not just in terms of the new kind of story, but the narration and the language. It is sarcastic at times. I would sometimes laugh myself sitting in the cab reading some chapters. It has all of it - plot, story, jokes, philosophical views of author, reality of the society. Its one book apart from The Fountainhead which I would not mind reading again. Basically it revolves around the fact that how society sidelines some of the human beings and constantly makes them realize their deficiencies(Deficiencies in the eyes of society). If you ever felt you are an odd man out in a group and the group is constantly telling you that, thats what this book is about. But here the group is the whole system, the society, the families - knowingly or unknowingly. Good read I must say.....

Views

While reading a book -"The idealist view of life", there was one note from author where he says that - the religion and the belief, the practices are something which one inherits from his birth." If you think about it , probably it is the best reuse ever - inheritance - Inheritance of belief, inheritance of religion, inheritance of views about what is right and what is wrong and a lot of day to day practices. We inherit all of these from the families into which we are born. One way this is good, imagine if every one of us were to be born and then understand all of this ourselves - from scratch. It takes a lot of thought and knowledge for a human being to come out of this initial shield and then try to create a different view about religion imposed , and the day to day activities part of it. For example, as we start understanding a lot of the beliefs and scientifically try to reason, we unveil that not all practices are needed or are correct. In this line of inheritance a lot of things have just mutated so much that they are no more valid. Now there is no need that this new view is the right one in the eyes of your society, people who have grown so far in their thought , will now be very staunch about what they now think is right. Because they are the creators of the view, they are not just following something. This can be a better experience if our education systems were equipped to help us question rather than gather information. The Indian education system today just ensures that we know things but does not emphasize enough that we believe, with a reason about what we know and the view we have. While reading one of the books - a philosophical one rather - it was hard to keep up with the topics discussed. Often after a day's work it is hard to sit and concentrate on abstract topics like the ones above. Although the book and the topic is good, its very intense and there is no story. A story does not have to be like the way it is in fiction, but just make you come back to the book to complete what ever the chapter put a question on. This is when I started realizing the importance of stories full of life in Hindu religion to showcase principles of religion. The Vedas , the Upanishads are abstract in this sense, it requires one to concentrate with lot of thought put into whatever is being read. When they realized , it is hard to achieve and propagate this knowledge is its abstract form, the Puranas came into picture. They have colorful stories, Making it easier to still emphasize on what they want to communicate but in a different manner. This is the reason, we have rituals to engage a human beings mind on activities which will keep them busy. If all of this is taken away and if you were to just lead the life - just you as a human being , it would become monotonous for those of us who have not found the real human bonding - love.

Amazing creation

I recently met somebody and have been quite amazed / baffled. I did not really appreciate the person sentimentally( for the short time I communicated) but for the short glimpse of few days I got to interact, I had to say I was quite Amazed and had to say "What a creation".

Nothing else other a human being be so advanced among God's creations. When you meet thinkers or beings who realize that there is something more than the usual money and fame one wants in life, it is indeed an astonishment. In one of the books I was reading where the author was talking about intuitive knowledge, he was explaining why things like studying, getting job, getting married and having kids , creating property have been the milestones for more than 70% of the human species. He was telling that we dont know what else to do with our time, and sometimes I feel what he said was right.
Take for example marriage, although there are reasons of progeneration and general norm of evolution to make this important, in the world we live in, this is close to a business. Matrimony sites showcasing available brides and grooms, talking and figuring out on blind dates and then when it actually gets finalized, all of these are business like. But then alas!!! man does not know what to do if he is not going to be married.
The rest of them have evolved similarly, today's eduction in India is an excellent example. There is hardly any use of what we study in the classrooms of life. But then we dont know what to do if we dont put our kids to school, we just follow the standard route like flocks of sheep.

Differences

A poor man walks a mile to get a handful of rice, a rich man walks a mile to digest the same handful of rice.
I read this somewhere recently, can't recall though where. In and around us although nature just treats us like humans - just plain homo-sapiens, we have distinguished ourselves into different races, different genders. There is gender bias in office, racial bias in public places and worst further in countries like India there is caste -ism everywhere in one form or the other.
If we are stripped of all of these and if we have to look at ourselves and talk to ourselves about what is our worth, one will re-gain the right thought and right path. Tall claim of course, but read any scriptures this is what is told .
Often i wonder, why being simple is so difficult. This is the simplest thought but yet very difficult for us to realize.
As long as we don't realize differences are here to stay.