Where god's presence is felt

Usually my travels include places which will have religious importance, architectural importance, a river close by. Reason for such choice is my family.It  includes my parents , my sister's kids and us - basically the old, young and the middle aged. So to satisfy all the sections we end up choosing places which have something for all of us.

In all such travels in the last few years, what I have observed is that there are smaller places close by to the main place which are much better and enjoyable than the actual place itself.

Here are some examples
Tirupati , Tirumala
The name of Tirupati takes one back to thoughts of  the long and lengthy queues, the hot weather and lots of people with hardly any peace for mind, sometimes making you wonder - "I am soaked in sweat and I will feel Godliness once I reach the sanctum of Balaji ".  So our usual journey included the traditional visit to Tirupati, the lower temples of alamelu Mangapura,a Papanasanam . But on our second day we headed to a place called "Applaayakunte", this was not more than 40kms from the main Tirumala. Here we found the real peace, the drive itself was wonderful in the midst of paddy fields with the view of how the seven hills look like Sesha - the snake on which Lord Vishnu rests . Once we reached there , unlike the hot weather we had lived with so far, this place had cool breeze and the sculpture of Lord Venkateswara was also beautiful and so huge.Not just this , the water from the well was very sweet , most of all there were far less people and the ones who were there were a lot sweeter.

Mantralaya
Second in such experience is Mantralaya. Good thing about Mantralaya is , it has lesser crowd compared to places like Tirupati. We enjoyed the river on the first day, but were really upset after seeing that the sewage was let into the same river not too far from temple. So we decided not to goto the river the second day. On the second day, after the darshan of Raghavendra Swamy's Brindavana, we headed to cross the river Tungbhadra in a coracle and visit Panchamukhi Anjaneya. We visited another place called Bichhali, this was the most serene place and as the story goes, Raghavendra Swami's disciple used to come here for meditation. Apparently, the place has a lot of Nagarakallu - snakes carved on stone and worshipped. Place is famous to have had very frequent snake visits.
The places was serene and the river's flow was aggressive. So visit to Bichhali made our visit to Mantralyam more memorable.

Udupi
Udupi is known for the Krishna Matha and is a hub for the various dwaitha matha  Matas.The main city of the Udupi was very hot since we went in early may. Here we went to a place called Pajaka Kshetra which is the birth place of SrimadvaCharya. The place was about 15 kms from Udupi.This place again was very serene and scenic.

We usually goto religious places to get a divine place and reach out to the divine energy.But sometimes, we cannot get the real peace we need and we believe we get when we reach the sanctum because of the now common long queues for darshan . But In all the smaller places the biggest difference from the main place is the number of people. The reality is that when with nature, man feels the presence of god more than in the actual temples.

Change is Eternal

This is a mantra - Change is the only constant. Without it  we would not grow. But still our inertia to change puts us in a very bad mental state from the time we know its going to come till it ceases to be a change anymore.
I have recently been suggested to work on a new project, the project entails me to leave my team, leave my collegues, goto a new company and be a consultant. I am already getting allergic to the thought. From the time , I wake up till I goto a deep slumber, this is one thought that bothers me terribly.
But then it is required, it will happen . I hate tomorrow since this question will starkly stare at me tomorrow. But nevertheless "Thou will have to change your routine" is the rule.
Everytime I face this situation, I think that "I dont think enough before making decisions", I jump to conclusions. But no matter how much I do -"Think", i end up in this not so happy situations. But typically, one put into it, I have so far managed to wade my way and still feel the experience worth the risk.
Lets see where this takes me to.

Sunrise

Where are you?
I have come alone to talk to you

oh! thy sun why dont you come out
Its the early summer and I need your warmth
I have gone through a lot

Where are you?
I have come all the way to talk to you
Alone and awake and thinking aloud
While the green parrots speak
and the birds chirp
In the silence of the trees

I want to talk to you
Where are you?

I have been waiting all night
To meet you and greet you in the young morn
To welcome the new day, to bring new thoughts
oh sun why are you so shy
come fast and give me warmth and
the strength to face every thing under your eyes

oh Sun!! where are you?
I have come to talk to you! all alone!!

Full circle

We usually say life comes full circle. We have a lot of evidences in our personal lives and social lives.
Recently while watching the poster for a movie , another 3D , this is the same thought which crossed my mind.
The history of today's films starts way back and the forefathers for today's movies were the dramas.
So initially the Drama company had the actors come on stage and act. Live. If they did some mistakes, they had to correct them intelligently . In fact if you listen to some of the veterans of this field, they give us details of how an actor had to be all rounder  - singer, good speaker , command over language , suitably looking for the role and most importantly actor. And how although not well educated, these dramatists evolved to be the best.
The next phase was to record these and play them and we got the movies . The history of the movies can be a subject for a whole book and still the author might be left with a feeling of incompleteness. Its a vast subject.
Today we are crazy about three dimensional viewing. Every new movie can now be viewed three dimensionally.
Does n't it seem as though we are going back to the drama season? we are going back to age of dramas -  actors as they are, how they would really look if they stood in front of us. Not the fullest sense, but still is. Its an evolution at different level. While the yonder year dramas had the actors present , the background scenes were two dimensional . Today 3D is best used for the surroundings the actors are still acceptable as two dimensional views.
So then what next, my guess is that the view will be different every time, with something new and interesting. Imagine watching a different ending every time for the same movie, or different pairs of actors, or different backgrounds , what will it be  - time will answer.

The 1980s Born generation of India - Change boomers

So what is so special about the ones who were born in the decade of 1980 in India.

Lets see... We were a generation who did not have TV at their homes as if it was part of our homes. We got it as we grew - may be when we were 5/6/7 years old. So we saw TV. We had our times on Doordarshan - few selected programs. While some of these played, the roads would be deserted , everybody would be watching them like todays cricket match endings. We then got the cable television which initially seemed like a buffet dinner and lunch.


Then we went to school just like any other generations , we realized for an Indian Middle Class family - A home, food, clothes and education were the things our parents dreamt of. Most of us just stopped dreaming and even today cannot dream because we have so much within us - realities bite so hard we dont dream.

Then we saw computers , used it for programming, Saw a world without Google and then started googling. In our childhood we communicated with out friends over letters. As we graduated we moved to emails.  So we moved from one age to another age where world was so small, some student in some city of US had the same questions as us. We realized this with internet.

Remember so far not many had mobile phone.

Then came mobile phones, gadgets for calling, gadgets for texting. Still we used to browse on a desktop.
A lot of us within the age of 25 yrs have travelled more miles than our parents ever did -how? A lot of us went to US, saw a whole new culture. This culture where Car was a necessity and having a car did not mean you are rich, this culture which was very open about relationships, where you could chose your life partner , where drinking was not  a problem, it was normal to have drinks.

This brought us closer and fumed a lot of intercaste, interreligion marriages, looking at us and realizing that we are quite rational a lot of our parents agreed with this first out of culture behaviour.
Now we had money, some of us did not like what we did for this money we switched our profession - Software engineers became teachers, opened restaurants, moved to drama and theatre, with the surplus money we started experimenting. Still at 2011 we were not even thirty and few were in their early thirties.

At this moment we turned back and looked and saw that we already had nephews , neices who were already dreaming. This is the generation which had television as part of the house like food on table. This is the generation for whom mobile phones are gadgets which they started playing with. This is the generation which looks at Facebook to recall birthdays. When we look at them , we do not see us in them. Our parents cannot understand their language. We are the mediators who understand what they are talking and who value what our older generation thinks.

May be every generation thinks about itself this way, but for sure there are facts which back the 80 borns. They are the generation who have seen the values of their parents , the realize money is not easy, but they also realize that they need to live their dreams, fly freely once. This is the generation which can put the values into their kids, this is the generation which will give birth to the next new generation, the new generation which can dream. They will be the ones who will light the future of India. This is the generation which would have seen advanced technologies like laptops, ipads and impossible is not the word they will accept. They will pioneer into every fields and the 80 borns will encourage them in their dreams. Values will come back once we and the new generation realize that money alone is not sufficient for one to be happy.

We will also see a demoralized personal lives and how our lifes are not anymore about food, clothing, home alone and a lot more , but finally we will get to the right blend of values, discipline , money and professionalism.

Fermented Salted and Flavoured Chillies

First let me explain what a salted and flavoured chilly is. For those of you who come from the southern part of India, it is called  as "BalakaDa MenasinaKai"(to be fried chilly),"UupMenasinakai"(Salted chilly) .
It adds flavour and is a must for making some of the specific type of sambars and on every foodie Sunday.

The way to prepare this is to get fresh green chillies, cut them right in the middle only on one side, so that you make some space to fill salt. Mix, Jeera or cumin seeds, Asofoetida or hing to the salt and grind it to fine powder. Fill this into the chilly. Dry the chilly in sun for 3-4 days. You then have the so called Salted, flavoured chilly. The Salt reduces the hotness of chilly, the spices add flavour. You need to deep fry this in oil to golden brown and it is ready to be used similar to a pickle with rice and sambar.

OK..... So far I explained the procedure and how to make the chillies.

Now, this is a sunday in the Month of November when the whether is cold - mornings are very sunny , but evenings are cold.We usually don't expect any rains. I went to a farmer's market nearby and saw that the chilly was looking good - fresh, succulent and green.
I bought a good one Kilogram.
With all my enthusiasm, I made the above preparation, all steps done exclusively by me alone - from washing, cutting, making the filling , filling and drying.
2 days later, I was happy to see the result, they were creamish colored with strains of green, they just needed one more day of Sun  to be the perfect little ones.

But how can god be happy always!!! He started crying the next day by mid noon.
It started drizzling , and then for the rest of the day it was cloudy. Now for some reason God was really upset and day after day for close to a week the skies were always cloudy. So much so that I was nostalgic about Seattle where I spent some time . Of course god had his reasons, his friend, The Arabian sea was angry and there was a cyclone.

Now the chillies were half dry . They are still drying as I am blogging, it is now close to 2 weeks since I prepared them. God seems getting better and I might have the perfect little late ones in a week or so.
This is the recipe of Fermented Salted Flavored Chillies - Exclusively by Gayathri and blessed by one and only God- the god of rains!!!

Murphy's law prevails

Every time I fill petrol in my car after a few days the price would rise.Its like the day I bought the car, mother earth decided , am going to stop giving petrol to these people. Now that Gayathri has bought a car, let her suffer and pay the price for me!!!
I have paid 50Rs to 74 Rs over a period of year and half. Percentage wise that would be close to 48% increase. So everytime I visit for refill, I feel I should have filled up the whole tank the previous time and would have saved some money.

The day before yesterday, I stepped out with my family and realized I was about to empty the tank. I went to the usual bunk, to fill gas. I asked for 20L, he said there is only 2L available since there was a tanker strike. I said fine and got what ever he had. I was panicking a little since I still had atleast 40kms to cover and with my driving, the fuel is not usually used in the most efficient manner. The gears are not applied at the right time  :-)
Still amateur.

Then I hit the NH and on the way we sighted another Petrol Bunk , we got in and immediately i asked the guy to load 20L , he said he has it and loaded it and there was no Tanker strike. So far so good, I was now happy that even if I travel the whole distance in second gear, I still have sufficient petrol.So all of this was post Wednesday noon.

Everything well and good, next day before going to bed I was browsing the news paper, for lack of better books and lack of good movies at that hour, so that I can strain my eyes a little and sleep. And Lo!!!, there was a article with headline "Petrol Prices decreased by 78 paise on Wednesday - Thursday midnight". What a paradox, Alas the saving is very less but still, Murphy's laws prevails in this world.