Another day to work
Originally uploaded by bhatpraveen.
Another day to work via KH Road traffic. Taken from Sony T610.
Cruising to Honnavara - precursor
My much awaited vacation is in the offing. I'll be driving to Honnavara with my parents this Saturday to be back only the next Sat! This is the first time I'll be driving this far in my Wagon-R, though I've taken a trip earlier on my bike on this sector.
Yesterday, Sriram gave finishing touches to the drive planned via Shimoga. He's been over these roads more no. of times than he can recall. So he didn't really need a map while chalking up route plans for me. We're scheduled to start around 0630-0700 from Bangalore, towards Tumkur. Tumkur is expected to pass by in a couple of hours, depending on our break at Kamats', past Nelamangala, for b'fast and lunch packaging. Once this is done, I plan to drive till Shimoga before we have our luncheon and continue again till we break at the Sharavati viewpoint. This will be our final stopover before we arrive at our destination: Honnavara, factually Karki.
More, on return.
Yesterday, Sriram gave finishing touches to the drive planned via Shimoga. He's been over these roads more no. of times than he can recall. So he didn't really need a map while chalking up route plans for me. We're scheduled to start around 0630-0700 from Bangalore, towards Tumkur. Tumkur is expected to pass by in a couple of hours, depending on our break at Kamats', past Nelamangala, for b'fast and lunch packaging. Once this is done, I plan to drive till Shimoga before we have our luncheon and continue again till we break at the Sharavati viewpoint. This will be our final stopover before we arrive at our destination: Honnavara, factually Karki.
More, on return.
Stalemate
Yes, this refers to chess. I was a chess freak a lot many years back and retain the insanity a little, still. I'm not saying that I am good at it, but I love to play the game. Most often people watching my game get frustrated due to the slow pace of it. I hate the game of blitz not because I always lose, but it is an insult to chess when it is played rapidly. It can be likened to harsh, unthought, biased, angered decisions! Chess is a classic game that needs to be respected for its unimaginable possibilites in each and every step. The only way the purity and sanctity (literally) of the game can be maintained is by playing it slow, unless you really think fast, treating it as the very essence of your life. Think of each step as an important decision of your life, knowing quite well how a wrong move can change the entire scenario!
I don't follow any standard opening schemes or anything like that, nor do I know any standard defences, but I do get inspired by opponents moves at times and try to carry these into my game too, with less success though! Enough talk about me, back to the game...
Stalemate, as every chess player knows, is a situation where the game can't move further, because (the current player doesn't have her King under check and) any of the player's available moves would put the King under check. This results in a kind of a draw thats mostly frustrating for the opponent if she's leading! This topic stuck me from a puzzle: Knight's tour. The situation that one gets in while solving the said puzzle is similar to the title. I found it very difficult to finish it off once, that too with a pattern-help from someone else. (As a trivia, this colleague's resume was filtered by me and he got a slight advantage over others since he'd put *chess* under hobbies on his resume :)
I don't follow any standard opening schemes or anything like that, nor do I know any standard defences, but I do get inspired by opponents moves at times and try to carry these into my game too, with less success though! Enough talk about me, back to the game...
Stalemate, as every chess player knows, is a situation where the game can't move further, because (the current player doesn't have her King under check and) any of the player's available moves would put the King under check. This results in a kind of a draw thats mostly frustrating for the opponent if she's leading! This topic stuck me from a puzzle: Knight's tour. The situation that one gets in while solving the said puzzle is similar to the title. I found it very difficult to finish it off once, that too with a pattern-help from someone else. (As a trivia, this colleague's resume was filtered by me and he got a slight advantage over others since he'd put *chess* under hobbies on his resume :)
Some gurus are different
I've read books and articles by, or about, quite a few spiritual leaders. Most gurus have directed that the one single goal of life is moksha. All this is inline with advaita philosophy advocated by Adi Shankaracharya. Apart from this, even dvaita followers are of the same opinion, although they have a different definition for moksha.
Recently, I've been hearing Swami Ramdevji's discourses over his pranayama/ yoga classes (on Aastha TV channel). It all depends on the audience and the topic thats ongoing, but I was really surprised when he said that moksha is something that shouldn't be the goal. In fact, he went on with something like "Moksha paakar kya faayda jab aap na haat hilaa paaoge na pair, na kuch kar paaoge? (what use is liberation if you're unable to move your hands or feet or do anything of the sort)". This kind of talk gels pretty well with the modern audience, I guess. What moksha has to offer is something that will always be strange, it will always be of the sort that one can't imagine, explain or perhaps, even feel. We're bound to describe things in known/ understood words that fall short by immeasurable amounts to express what moksha would be! Generations -- nay, yuga-s -- have passed with many a leaders spending their lifetimes to express what moksha is for the benefit of us mortals; still we understand hardly anything about it! But then again, when you're doing pranayama, the body is the most useful tool!
The closest example of such (spiritual) advise is what Ramakrishna paramhamsa gave: we/everyone wants to taste the (sugar) syrup... who wants to be the syrup? Thats how I prefer to understand Sw. Ramdevji's words.
om tat sat
Recently, I've been hearing Swami Ramdevji's discourses over his pranayama/ yoga classes (on Aastha TV channel). It all depends on the audience and the topic thats ongoing, but I was really surprised when he said that moksha is something that shouldn't be the goal. In fact, he went on with something like "Moksha paakar kya faayda jab aap na haat hilaa paaoge na pair, na kuch kar paaoge? (what use is liberation if you're unable to move your hands or feet or do anything of the sort)". This kind of talk gels pretty well with the modern audience, I guess. What moksha has to offer is something that will always be strange, it will always be of the sort that one can't imagine, explain or perhaps, even feel. We're bound to describe things in known/ understood words that fall short by immeasurable amounts to express what moksha would be! Generations -- nay, yuga-s -- have passed with many a leaders spending their lifetimes to express what moksha is for the benefit of us mortals; still we understand hardly anything about it! But then again, when you're doing pranayama, the body is the most useful tool!
The closest example of such (spiritual) advise is what Ramakrishna paramhamsa gave: we/everyone wants to taste the (sugar) syrup... who wants to be the syrup? Thats how I prefer to understand Sw. Ramdevji's words.
om tat sat
Metablog
I've always wanted to blog this one; in fact I wanted it to be my first blog entry. However, I missed it over passing time and aging memory. Metablog is (expected to be) a blog about blogs in the same way that metadata is data about data. If we just leave that as another of my stupid definitions, can we move on?
Well, blogs were meant to be, and still do mean, weblogs. How long they'll just remain restricted so is a question not many have answers to. Google (and others) seem to have big plans with various blogs being quite a contributing element. Imagine the (research?) ideas of various people onto your server. Also think of it as parallel journalism in most cases. Or unbiased first-hand opinion or mostly information from known sources. It could even mean democracy or free-speech online. Top all this with cross-references among blogs. Does anyone remember the concept of six-degrees? Google, with their amazing search engine can definitely get the best of blog content to seekers. Not only so, they'll have huge revenues coming from context-based advertising.
Okay, I've been rambling all over the place without a well-defined thread of thought. Try listening to http://www.broom.org/epic/ols-master.html.
Well, blogs were meant to be, and still do mean, weblogs. How long they'll just remain restricted so is a question not many have answers to. Google (and others) seem to have big plans with various blogs being quite a contributing element. Imagine the (research?) ideas of various people onto your server. Also think of it as parallel journalism in most cases. Or unbiased first-hand opinion or mostly information from known sources. It could even mean democracy or free-speech online. Top all this with cross-references among blogs. Does anyone remember the concept of six-degrees? Google, with their amazing search engine can definitely get the best of blog content to seekers. Not only so, they'll have huge revenues coming from context-based advertising.
Okay, I've been rambling all over the place without a well-defined thread of thought. Try listening to http://www.broom.org/epic/ols-master.html.
The middle finger!
caveat: Some may find the blog offending... goes with the topic, please!
Over this weekend, I was screening Seinfeld, when I hit upon an episode that starts with Jerry making pun on showing-the-middle-finger in his stand up comedy. Therein, he's wondering how the gesture of pointing your middle finger at someone is expected to cause embarassment to the other. He goes on to say that it could well have been the middle toe or something like that and concludes as to how foolish the act seems!
Just to come to think of it, how common has this gesture become in recent times. Last Friday, I was driving back home from office a little late in the evening and was upset with people driving fast in my lane, from the opposite side, at the best speed they could gas up! Then when I calmed myself, I reached the junction where the side road elevates, meets another road, where I have to take a left. There was a Zen in front of me that was not giving me the way. To my surprise, this fella stopped in the middle of the road... at the junction... on the slope! I flashed, he didn't move! I honked, he didn't move! Further, he pulled his hand out and... yes, showed the middle-finger! I guess the guys were drunk... perhaps, returning from some junk party. Some two guys got off. This idiot didn't have any signal on. He just moved ahead after some time, making a right turn.
All this while, I was sitting there mum, thinking: there's no use, why get upset! I made a left and just for the sake of it, pulled out my hand to make the gesture to him, knowing well enough that he couldn't see it. I know I can't do such things, nor am I the fighting types, but I wonder if I'd traded my Wagon-R and got myself a Tata Safari, would I've rammed into the Zen?
Watching this Seinfeld episode, I just burst out laughing. Perhaps, the Zen driver felt better, thinking how big a thing he did. Idiots, just watch out if I get a Safari ;)
Over this weekend, I was screening Seinfeld, when I hit upon an episode that starts with Jerry making pun on showing-the-middle-finger in his stand up comedy. Therein, he's wondering how the gesture of pointing your middle finger at someone is expected to cause embarassment to the other. He goes on to say that it could well have been the middle toe or something like that and concludes as to how foolish the act seems!
Just to come to think of it, how common has this gesture become in recent times. Last Friday, I was driving back home from office a little late in the evening and was upset with people driving fast in my lane, from the opposite side, at the best speed they could gas up! Then when I calmed myself, I reached the junction where the side road elevates, meets another road, where I have to take a left. There was a Zen in front of me that was not giving me the way. To my surprise, this fella stopped in the middle of the road... at the junction... on the slope! I flashed, he didn't move! I honked, he didn't move! Further, he pulled his hand out and... yes, showed the middle-finger! I guess the guys were drunk... perhaps, returning from some junk party. Some two guys got off. This idiot didn't have any signal on. He just moved ahead after some time, making a right turn.
All this while, I was sitting there mum, thinking: there's no use, why get upset! I made a left and just for the sake of it, pulled out my hand to make the gesture to him, knowing well enough that he couldn't see it. I know I can't do such things, nor am I the fighting types, but I wonder if I'd traded my Wagon-R and got myself a Tata Safari, would I've rammed into the Zen?
Watching this Seinfeld episode, I just burst out laughing. Perhaps, the Zen driver felt better, thinking how big a thing he did. Idiots, just watch out if I get a Safari ;)
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