The Gopher Story!!!

The first thing i noticed when i landed in Minneapolis during the start of fall is an abundance of gophers(squirrel cousins) running around from tree to tree,chasing each other. It almost seemed to me that the gophers outnumbered the humans in Minneapolis. They looked very cute with a long bushy tail and with quick glances around, they being very scared lot, and running away from humans as they neared them. I really got fascinated by these creatures.

As you might find in US there are several dustbins around the housing complexes and you can sometimes find some gophers running near them in search for food. One fateful day i noticed a gopher caught in the hole of a dustbin near my house. I was not sure how it got in(probably because the dustbin had its top cover open) but it was trying to get out of it from a small hole and got stuck. Its hind legs and its bushy tail were not coming out. It was fighting to come out of the hole with its head and its fore legs out. No matter how strongly it was trying to come out it couldn't because its hind portion was fatter and its legs and tail weren't coming out. I felt pity for it and placed a thermo-col piece close to it so that it could use it as a support to pull itself out. But it was very ferocious, probably out of fear, that it crushed the thermo-col with its legs. I did not dare to touch it fearing it might bite me. Well i tried helping by pushing it from behind using a thick stick. Unfortunately for it there were some trash thrown on it so it couldn't overcome it to come out. I removed the trash for it but it couldn't help itself out because of its fat body. Later on in the evening i saw two american guys wearing those baseball gloves trying to pull it out but of no avail. By this time the gopher lost its energy and wasn't trying to come out. The tired guys finally gave up saying "after all its a gopher" and went their way. The poor helpless gopher lost all its energy and i could sense its end was near. The next morning i could see it hanging out of the hole lifeless. I felt lot of pity for it and wondered if i couldn't do my bit much to help it out. Of course a couple of others too tried but couldn't get it out.

Somehow the cleaning guys never took an interest in removing the carcass and the location being on my return way i everyday could observe it lying there lifeless. It was very depressing to watch it everyday. Sometimes I tried to ignore it and took another route to avoid it. One day it occurred to me that we people too get trapped like this gopher because of our greed,selfishness and our actions.

I cannot fathom how it could have entered it, i reasoned to myself that it might be looking for some food and ventured into the dustbin. For a gopher its a forbidden man made territory to have entered in search of more food while it could find its sources on trees and around. Or it could have accidentally fallen from the top of the adjoining tree. But I thought to myself that we humans sometimes deliberately enter these forbidden zones in terms of habits like smoking,drinking,working a lot with scant regard to health for lucre,corruption,overeating knowing fully well of its consequences and we get trapped like that helpless gopher unable to come out of it.

The traps could be like cancer, overweight, bad health, loss of credibility, loss of love,loss of life which we cannot get back most of the times. Some try to come out them with the help of others or by themselves, some live to experience the fate that they have brought on themselves. Yes i could sense some great lesson for the mankind from the actions of that poor gopher and the subsequent end it met.

Probably every person should look within themselves to check themselves from going into these traps laid with our own hands from which there might not be a return. We need to be wary of such things and constantly WATCH OURSELVES!!!

2010 Round Up

Well After a long time writing a post...Like all the zillion news papers(which i started reading online after coming to US) i am also writing up some things that happened this year from my side of course:-

1. Got Married
2. Quit my job...no no the above point has no bearing on this..hehe
3. Back to studies after a long time..Been a while since i exercised my hand writing homeworks with a pen. It looked odd for me in the beggining because the pen and my hand couldnt keep pace with my thoughts. Ofcourse i am very much at ease with the keypad so submitted most my works using MS word:)
4. Came to US(Minneapolis) before that. Finally even i landed in USA. More about this in another post.
5. Saw the first snow fall of my life...Only seen it in movies and one artificial snow fall in Hyd..The real snow beats it by miles. Imagine one fine day i woke up early and found the whole city was covered in white snow....
6. Failed for the first time in an exam. Yes i failed in an exam...And started reading fundas like "Failures are the stepping stones to success" and "Failures teach a lot than Success"...Enuf of the philosophing from my side.
7. Got stuck in a bus stand with a girl(she is my wife ofcourse) and we prayed together for the bus to come while shivering in the cold. Here goes the song "Hey Krishna Mukunda Murari...Please send the 10 bus eesari"(For those who dont know telugu eesari means this time)
And an english prayer too "God,We Love You , You Love Us,So please send the Bus"
8. Watched telugu movies online...Never watched them like that before...Made good use of the internet speeds here.
9. Wore Four layers of clothes for the first time my life to keep myself safe from the negative temperatures...Hail Minnesota Winter..
10. Finally last but not the least..Fell about 10 times in the slippery snow and each time I got up looking sideways hoping no one observed me...

Thats the top ten i could think of.....Ciao...

Why Marks is not equal to Success

I watched Three Idiots some time back and its adapted from Five Point Someone which i loved very much. One thing that struck chord with me was about the Education System and its over emphasis on marks and the most flawed equation of life

MARKS = SUCCESS

A spurious equality without sufficient proof. In mathematical terms marks are sufficient but not a necessary condition for success. We were hardwired from our childhood to get more marks. Its even more important that you need to get more marks than the immediate neighbour you know(human mentality). There have been many successful people who demonstrated that the above equation was wrong, say a Bill Gates or Apple founder Steve Jobs(these people are rather well known but there are several others who proved this equation wrong time and again). A better equation keeping the right hand side term the same is as follows:

PASSION+ OPPORTUNITY = SUCCESS

Yes thats very true if you have passion for something and the right oppurtunity comes about, it will bring the best out of you and definitely you will succeed. I am not a good mathematieian but some learned intuition tells me that the above equation requires little more elaboration to make it more precise. Particularly the right hand side term.

So what is SUCCESS. Success is a very subjective term and depends on the person who identifies with it. Its not what others say about you. You have achieved success when you feel you have accomplished something close to what you are capable of. A small example, If you feel you are you can run for a mile and if you are able to run without much exhaustion you have succeeded and thats according to YOU. Someone may have run 10 miles but his success metric is compared to his own perception that he can run 10miles. To an outsider the guy who ran 10 miles might be a successful person but for the one who builds stamina to run that 1 mile is able to achieve it, he is a successful person too. Ofcourse as a popular quote suggests SUCCESS is a journey, the person should continue building his stamina based on his passion to run for much more miles. Isnt it. So if one feels that with his passion and his energy, he achieves his goal based on his target(not others target) with the resources available, he is a successful person. In simple terms Its all about what you have achieved compared to what you think you can achieve of.

Mathematically, SUCCESS is obtained if and only if

YOUR ACHIEVEMENT = WHAT YOU CAN ACHIEVE OF

Now all this ranting about brings me back to moot discussion of how our education system values success in terms of marks only. We see many people who are so called successful(with their 100/100) or centile scores feel empty within. First the very metric people are judged by our system is based purely on marks. However there are several exceptions when companies choose people but lets concentrate on education system. Everybody wants to be successful. But when only the above first spurious equality comes into picture it could be a total disaster sometimes. Meanwhile the other true equation gets jeopardized in our system because the Passion part is killed as we grow up. We are made to believe that attaining marks is the ultimate aim of our life and people start judging you by this. But who cares when you grow up. Nobody is interested in how many marks you got in your 10th or bachelors etc. Finally your work and your skill determines your success as a person. But here again people tend to bring in some unknown equation when you grow up that "MONEY= SUCCESS". All these spurious equations are only for the other people who are looking at you. What you feel within matters most because the truth is after all nobody cares.

There are many more pitfalls in our education system which refuses to bring out the inner talent in a person to make him successful. Remember we are hardwired differently when we were born and also the apparent software(environment you grow up, learnings) that runs over it is also different and that makes us different "systems". I apologize for bringing too much technical stuff into this blog but i just wanted to let people know about the analogy. That makes us like different things and also the degree of liking differs. One has to accept this and take the route that suits best to him which will enable him to feel successful. In my next blog i will talk more about the ills of the current system and how much pressure that brings on our children because of exams(or rather pressure to attain the required marks since i feel exams are important) and hence the subsequent dissappointment. Another equality i would like bring to forth and which i believe in strongly is

DISSAPOINTMENT = EXPECTATION

PS: I need to catch up some sleep before i write much more lucidly:)

Childhood Games

Day before yesterday i was watching a television Ad on XBOX gaming console which is apparently offering our own "Gilli Danda" game- The earthy form of cricket. As usual just as anything familiar brings back past memories this Ad got my flashback wheel rolling and rolling till my school days..It also reminded me of many other other games which are quite interesting. I am compiling a few interesting games which have this earthy flavor and those which each one of us might have played sometime when we were kids.

1.Sab-Ja-Indoor:

It is a version of hide and seek. A "Den" is elected among the group and he has to count till 50 or hundred while others go and hide themselves in the most inaccessable and places where they are not easily found. And you might know what happens next but just want to elaborate for the sake of completion. THe Den has to find out the each of the group members by shouting "Friend X indoor" while avoiding being banged on his back by another hiding friend shouting "Sabja". If the Den is able to uncover all his hiding friends then the first one to be caught becomes the den. But if the current Den gets slammed on his back by any others without being caught or if the friends collude to make him the Den again he has no other choice but to start counting till 100 against a wall. Some mischievous friend might stand right behind the Den while he is counting up the numbers against the wall and slam on his back saying "Sabja" as soon as the Den completes counting. Now coming to name of the game itself i was quite perplexed when i was a kid as to what sabja means. Then finally a couple of years back when i was recalling old games i realised that it means SAB(everyone) JA(go) INDOOR(indoor to hide somewhere). I finally unravelled the nomenclature after almost 20 years. Better late than never. The interesting part is where one can hide themselves. Somehow kids being small find some ingenious places to hide. Behind doors, behind pillars, under the beds, inside cupboards(this is dangerous) and some go to the neighbouring houses to hide. A kind of pre game rule has to be established to define the boundaries which a person can hide.

2. Current Shock:

This another interesting game which we used to play. You need atleast three people to play this game. Similarly to the previous game some unfortunate bloke is selected as a Den by some funny methods, i will talk about them later. You also need a big terrace or good enough ground. Requires lot of running to. The Den has to run behind the players and some catch hold of them and say Shock. The caught player has to stay still at the place till another unshocked player gives him "Current" to move. If all the players get "shocked" by the Den then the game is over and some how the slowest fellow to be caught first will become the next Den.

3. Chain Cut:

This is also similar to current-shock but the caught players join with the Den and form a human chain and run behind other players. The one who is not caught will be the winner. If the number of players are more there are chances of forming huge chains. Depending on the arena to cover, sometimes a few exceptions are made with mutual understanding and the larger chain breaks off into smaller chains to catch the running players.

4.Dodge the Ball:

This game is quite athletic and particularly a high adrenaline game. In this game the Den has to try hitting the other players with a ball and the players should avoid getting hit by the ball. We used to play this a lot in our school ground. The players start running around the ground the den should shoot the ball at the legs of other players. There are certain rules, you should hit the players above the hip. And there are many instances of conflict when the Den claims that it has hit below the hip while the player refutes. Once a player gets hit he teams with the Den to hit the other players. The last one to remain is the winner. To avoid the ball you have to be very quick sometimes doing some high jumps or duck quickly or run away from the line of attack of the ball.

5.Seven Stones Game: fondly called in telugu as "Yedu Penkulata" :)

The players are divided into two teams. It also requires seven flat stones and a rubber or tennis ball. The stones are placed one on top of another in a small circle. The teams stand on either sides in the beginning. The team that holds the ball gets three chances to fell off the stones and run helter skelter. The other team will try to hit one of the players in the "ball holding team" while the team members try to restore the vertical arrangement of the stones before one them gets hit by the ball. This game was considered rather rustic and was not allowed in our school. I am really not sure why it was considered as an "uncultured" game not to be played by "cultured" enthusiasts. After every game of cricket we used to play this game on the pitch. The stones were placed in the center of the pitch and fun began. But once we were severely repramanded and caned by our nutty PT master for playing this game. It was subsequently banned and as you know we continued to play the game secretly...Hehehe....Its a fun game and team game. Every player contributes to the team. By either gaining attention of the team and dragging them out of the ground zero zone while other players arrange the stones.

6.Gilli Danda:

This was another banned game in the school but our own version of cricket played with two sticks-one longer and one shorter.It is also called "Guti Billa" in telugu. I think i need not elaborate on this game as all of us know it.

7. Cricket:

The game most of our indians like. From childhood every person gets fascinated by this game either because of the constant exposure to this game on television or the apparent passion with which people follow it making it a game that must be played some time or the other in life. Peer pressure. Well even if we do not find a good pitch,bat of ball several innovative things double up as bats and balls. First even the slightest space available can be converted into a cricket pitch. The wall,a chair, bricks place over one another, bamboo sticks act as wickets. I remember drawing three lines on a wall once to treat as a wicket. Even in my current room, my roomie and myself played cricket with an empty carton acting as a wicket. Coming to the bats-any thick object(relative to the ball of course) with the slightest flat surface acts as a bat. My school has lots of mango trees and cocunut trees. The fallen of branches of the coconut tree perfectly replaces the bat. In the class room the examination pads, Hard bound textbooks act as a bats. Similarly many objects can act as the cricket ball. Sometimes a wound paper wound by a rubber band acts as a ball.Several new rules crop up based on the need- one step catches, only full tosses, underarm bowling,off side only or leg side only batting, 1D(one declared if it crosses a certain boundary to save the batsmen from running),2Ds,sixes and so on and on and on.....

8.Book Cricket:

This is an interesting time pass game played during school days in the back benches...It can be a single player game or involve multiple players. Any boring text book can be put to good use by playing this game:) All you need to do is randomly open a page and look at the even number and the last unit's place digit is your score. 0 means out, 2 means 2 runs,4 means four, 6 means chakka maara, 8 means out again. Its random and a chance game. But full time pass as you can play ten players games and total the final score. I remember it was 1996 cricket world cup time and i was in 8th std and fell in love with this game. I would play very honestly if it was any other nation except Pak. I used to convince myself that if a 0 comes for an indian player its a "noball" and would try again till i get a six or four or sometimes rarely give a two as a consolation. Hehe...I played a world championship and of all things England won it once. I played so many times till India won the world cup and declared it myself that it is the only valid tournament. National Jingoism at its best.

So i cant remember other games much but some other ones that were probably left out can be pointed out by the readers...Oh ya ya ya...I remember one game is "Neela Banda" in telugu or "Land" and "elevation" when translated into English. Its simple the denner stands on the land other participants stand on elevated places and switch from one elevation to other while the den tries to catch them. Hmm....Life was great fun in childhood isnt it?

Other good old telugu movies i watched

Well...ETV telecasts some good telugu old movies....Sometimes i get bored at the pace of the movies thats why i lose interest...But the following movies captured my imagination a lot with the story and acting and dialogues..They are as follows...

1. Totikodallu----watch it just for Surya kantams acting...I watched the whole movie till 2.30 am glued to ETV..imagine..

2. Ramudu Bheemudu-----all the rich twin, poor twin and later they get swapped stories are copied from this...watch it for NTRs cute acting

3. kanyasulkam....i watched it many times during childhood thanks to my ammamma...chaste telugu and a great movie...i have to watch it sometime now so that i can appreciate it and enjoy it better...

4. Missamma...A very cute movie...

5.Nartanasala...except for the long drawn courtress dances...rest of the movie is great..

6. Pandavavanavasam...Great movie depicting an important episode in Mahabharata

7. Of course Mayabazar...the greatest movie of all time...Ppl should learn the art of screenplay from this movie...never a boring moment..

8. One particular hindi movie which my uncle made me see and i really liked it...Do Ankhen Bara Haat(I use this name several times during dumb sharades...a really dumb name to depict easily but a very good and touching movie worth wathcing). Famous song "Ee maalik bante he ham...." Reformation of six theives by a man who sacrifices his life in the end.

9. Sri krishna paandaveeyam...another gem of a movie on Mahabharata..

10. Ave kallu..nice suspense movie...Superstar krishna is more handsom than mahesh babu in this movie...hehe:)

11. A movie with a song that goes "janma mettitira anubhavinchitira"...A rich brat(NTR) going blind and realising his mistakes and his reformation..Not so boring...

Will update this once i remember any other movies...Note they are not in the order of their importance..will take some other time to sort them...

Mayabazar in Colour..Wow Gonna Watch it!!!

Mayabazar is touted to be one of the greatest all time classics in the history of Telugu films. And it absolutely deserves it. Vivaha bhojanambu song is my childhood's favourite song- watching S.V.Ranga Rao i mean Ghatotkacha devouring the food items. When i watched it some time back on television thanks to ETV i was really mesmerized. A perfect story and great characters,acting attention to details...Great screenplay...lilting music and the most hilarious and great dialogues...The perfect formula which i guess no other movie can come up with....Learnt that its coming in Colour and watched a couple of trailers of it and i am looking forward to watch it on the big screen. 1st day :)

http://www.idlebrain.com/movietape/mayabazaar-color.html

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