It’s another morning and I have to go to the office as usual.  But why didn’t she give me my morning cuppa tea? 

Yes, today’s paper is right here but who opened the obituary columns on page 8? 

What the hell, this is my picture in the Obituary column. But what is my photo doing here, I am alive and I called my wife. 

Nobody listened. Nobody came. What the hell’s going on? 

Where is my mobile, I will give her a call. I remembered, it was kept in the next room.  (more…)

‘Twitter’ is a famous and fantastic on-line podium which brings millions of people together on one platform. The main facility here is spontaneous human interaction and ‘freedom’ of speech. You can convey your feelings, pass comments on current events, convey discontent about the goings on around you and which affect you. You can make friends and follow people and lead by example to make others follow you. 

Twitter basically revolves around the principle of followers.  In this social network, if you follow people, they follow you. Its’ reciprocal. Each and every tweet is different, with no language barrier whatsoever. Most of the tweets are in English though very few use their own dialect. The original product name for the service was twttr, inspired by Flickr. 

Twitter

I am getting a feeling now that ‘twitter’ is an addiction. Just wondering what these million people used to do just four years ago? Dawn to dusk and well past midnight I find them there only. They can be termed as ‘twittaholics’. Twitter was conceived as an off-shoot from the SMS somewhere in March 2006. People tell each other what they had for breakfast, recommend songs to one another, tell tips about future education and now some of them have started to tell you how to make money online while tweeting.  (more…)

Set in the mountainous terrain, the plush green forests, tall trees, the cool breeze,  dust free environment, flowers and their odour, the beautiful clean roads, the pollution free city –  is  Seattle. It is located between an inlet of the Pacific Ocean to the west called Puget Sound and Lake Washington to the east and is  about 100 miles South of the Canada – United States border. 

It is the Headquarters of Microsoft and Boeing companies. The people there are well educated and the weather during August to October (summer and fall  days) is the best in the year. The leaves on the trees turn from green to light yellow and then to brown after which they fall.

Recently we got a chance to re-visit Seattle and would like to share its beauty and grandeur with my readers. (more…)

 The way you dress indicates  in what profession you are  to a certain extent and  it reflects on your personality. Perceptions might vary and exceptions are always there. In India, it is trouser/shirt for the office goers and for household chores. For women, it is saree or suit,   for the both, working and non-working. For boys and girls, it is jeans tee-shirt/tunic and sneakers.

For leaders it is the payjama/kurta and a half jacket, all whites. Sometimes it is the traditional Dhoti/kurta and jacket. And this is their dress code for over half a century even while attending international conferences. (more…)

‘Deepawali’ or ‘Diwali’ is certainly the most magnificent of all Hindu festivals. It’s the festival of ‘lights’ that’s marked by four days of celebrations, in which the country is illuminated with brilliance and dazzles everyone with its’ joy. Diwali is celebrated on a nation-wide scale on Amavasya – the 15th day of the dark fortnight of the Hindu month of Ashwin, (October/November) every year. Amongst Hindus, across many parts of India and Nepal, it is the homecoming of Lord Rama after a 14-year exile in the forest after his victory over Ravana. The people of Ayodhya (the capital of his kingdom) welcomed Rama by lighting rows (avali) of lamps (dipa), thus its’ name, ‘dipawali’. This year it falls on 17th October. (more…)

If I look down memory lane, I come across a faded memory of the postman who used to knock our gate and simulatneously ring his bycycle bell to announce his arrival. I or anyone else in the house used to run towards the gate to find out what the postman had brought for us. ‘Telegram hai sahib’, he used to say. And the word telegram sent a chill down the spine and horrible thoughts came to the mind in a flash of a second. Who? What? Why? When?  Where? Oh  Rama – bless me!!!  It was a….. (more…)

Ravana

Dussehra is also called ‘Vijaidashmi’ and ‘Dus Hara’ meaning cutting of ten heads. Dussehra is observed all over India as well as Nepal. This festival has a significance of celeberating  victory of Shakti over mahishasura and also that of Lord Ram over Ravana. The festivities are observed by  aplying ‘Tilak’ on the forehead, payers, observance of religious rituals like burning Ravana effigyand keeping fast for eight days.

It is a unique festival celebrated all over India for different reasons & with different ways of celebration. We all celebrate this festival to mark the victory of good over evil. This festival is mainly important to the Hindus and is celebrated for 10 days.

Vijayadashami is celebrated on the tenth day of the bright fortnight of the Hindu autumn month of September end or beginning of October and is the grand culmination of the 10-day annual Navaratri  festival. (more…)

Shri Asaram Bapuji

A true incident.

Bapuji had arrived in town and was at the Ashram. We reached the Ashram at 10.30 am and parked my car opposite the main gate under the trees and adjacent to the dried out bushes. This was the first time I had ever gone to this Ashram. It was a tin-top hanger type shed with a small house visible behind it and some portion was still under construction. All over the floor there were blue plastic sheets spread out for people to sit on. When we reached inside the ‘pandal’ there were around 100 people present. I got the ‘Darshan’ of Bapuji at 12.30pm, the sermon went on for about 2 hours followed by ‘prasad’ before dispersing.

When we came out of the Ashram on to the main road, there were about a dozen cars parked here and there, but my car……. (more…)

In this time of recession, the real estate market bubble has burst. Gone are the days when people used to invest some amount in plots, houses or flats and reaped a fairly good harvest in a short span of six months or a year.

In India, today there are no buyers available. At the same time the sellers are not reducing the price of the property they are holding, hoping against hope that the prices would one day rise. But the prices have not risen in the past two years.

The concept  of ‘own-sweet-home’ is now no longer in operation. When there are no buyers in the market – then what are all the people doing?  I asked a friend who promptly replied “Compared to buying – renting is cheap”. Mathematically, a smart move, I think. (more…)

Never criticise a Saint 

I was looking for something and I stumbled on this site,  and I  know now that some people are deliberately writing against Sri Sri Ravishankar’s work  Only they know how, why,  by whom they have been motivated to do this? I have only one question to the people who are questioning the abilities of a Saint. What is their awareness level in the spiritual path? Have they  achieved enlightenment in religion and have reached  the highest echelon?  If so, only then will I listen to  their  comments .

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is a spiritual and humanitarian leader. It was very disturbing to read people talking against  his teachings and against his organisation in a blog which has also been commented by others. This is highly inappropriate and people should desist from making irrational comments against any saint. (more…)