Indian Concept of Time!!!

Ever keenly listened to the mantras a priest chants before any ritual. He mentions something like this "Svetha Varaha Kalpe...Vaivaswara Manvantare....Bharata kande..Bharata Varsha..." and then a mention about the ruling star and day of the week.....before blessing us mentioning our gotra and our name to transfer the "Phala" of the ritual to the concerned person.

The time and location of the place where we are before blessing us with our name and gotra.

Well you must have also read about the four yugas- Satya or Krutayuga, Tretayuga, Dwaparayuga and Kaliyuga. Well these yugas are characterised by their time period and sustenance of Dharma or Righteousness in the people. Let me mention that in Satya yuga Dharma stands on four feet(means every person is very righteous and truthful), in Tretayuga righteous ness stands on three feet(Some sort of psychoogical malignancies and cruelness are visible in the society), In Dwaparayuga Dharma stands on two feet(characterised by vileness in the society though within some limits). The bad thing about Kaliyuga is that Dharma is said to be standing precariously on only one feet. I need not explain as we can see so much unrighteousness and baseness around us everywhere. I will not dwell much on this philosophical point of view for now but lets see the duration of the periods of the four yugas.

Kaliyuga = 4,32,000 man years

Dwaparayuga = twice the period of kaliyuga = 864000 man years

Tretayuga = Thrice the period Kaliyuga = 12,96,000 man years

Krutayuga = Four times the period of Kaliyuga = 17,28,000 man years

Comment:- Good that the bad period is of the shortest Duration:)

Now a set of these four yugas is called a mahayuga which is equal to the period of (a simple calculation 1+2+3+4=10) 10 X 4,32,000 = 43,20,000 man years. How simplistic!!!

The story doesnt end there....

 

71 such mahayugas make one Manvantara. Another time unit......

14 Manvantaras comprise one day of Brahma, the creator and an equal period is said to span the night of Brahma. So total 28 Manvantaras make a day or a Kalpa.

Phew....But its not yet over.......

Just like us the creator Brahma's year consists of 360 kalpas or Days(What a close coincidence with 365 days.) . And one hundred such years make the lifetime of one Brahma. Time for the next Brahma to take over the mantle.

Hmmm...now lets see at what point of time we are and lets relate it to the one we have started out with. 

In the current lifetime of Brahma this day is called Svetavaraha Kalpa. In that 6 Manvantaras are begone. The seventh one is called Vaivasvara Manvantara. In this again 27 mahayugas are already completed and we are running in the 28th Mahayuga of which some 3,600 years have gone by. Still a loooong way to go for the Kaliyuga to end(its period is 4,32,000 years).  So dont be panicked that kaliyuga is going to end in 2029 some bakwaas.....

God Bless!!!

Reference:- Srimadbhagavata Puranam "Brahma's time scale"

Lets get our ACT together!!!! YES WE CAN!!!

It was really heartbreaking to see the devastation in Mumbai caused by the bloody terrorists. I got glued to my television and to news on the internet waiting for the ordeal to finish. Indeed i felt ecstatic after the NSG commandos finsihed their Operation Black Torando and Operation Cyclone at Nariman House and Taj respectively. I pray and wish for the peace for the departed souls affected in the dastardly crime. I also salute to the Army men who fought without the slightest concern for their lives to weed out the slippery terrorists in the three buildings. 

And i was equally pained by the reckless and insensitive comments made by our so called politicians. Its a shame on them. They dont deserve to serve people. Now is the time we should wake up and exercise our democratic rights to choose the people in whom we have the confidence and those people who feel "accounted for" the people who have elected them. But its rather tricky situation to choose "One better theif out of ten theives" as one of my friends put it.

But a sheer look at the numbers that turn out for voting tells a lot about our political lot's value and worthiness. Approx. 40-50% of registered voters turn up for voting everytime. That means the majority of the people are not for the mandate. We are getting people whom we do not want to be ruled by. And these politicians win after gaining a majority of votes from this low turnout. That means they do not reflect the collective will of the people. Just a few people whom they managed to "buy" their loyalty.  And we later crib that the politicians are bad.

Democracy is not bad as many people who are shouting their lungs out. Its a hallmark of our society where everyone has a right to voice their opinion. But lets use that right of ours and be responsible to choose the right person to lead. YES WE CAN my folks!!!

About a Stopped Watch!!

Yesterday as usual i dressed up hurriedly and put on my watch only to realise later that it had stopped ticking at precisely 11 hours 16 minutes and 56secs. At first i got terribly shocked and trembled at the thought of entering the office when ppl start coming out of a scheduled meeting. Thank god and thank my mobile which showed the correct time and i was relieved.

But somehow inspite of knowing that my watch had stopped i kept wearing it throughout the day. It struck to me that "A Stopped Watch shows the correct time atleast twice a Day". You may call it heights of positive thinking( but i say it is sheer plagiarism because i read it somewhere) . For the past few days I was slightly down on my confidence levels because of the things happening around or the fact that nothing was happening around:-). Thought life has come to a standstill. But my Stopped Watch taught me a lot to look at the brighter side of the things and to just move on.

Well I made it a point to look at my watch at the two times when exactly it was showing the correct time(relative to the nearest clock of course).

Dont throw away a stopped watch. Wear it the whole day. Thats what i suppose is called "wearing your attitude" of postive thinking. But never desert this attitude.

For my part i will continue wearing my stopped watch otherwise i will never get a new battery for it :-)

Who is a Khel Ratna?

I congratulate Dhoni on receiving the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award which is the highest sporting award given in the country. The only other reciepient of the award for the sport of Cricket is the incomparable Sachin Tendulkar. Though Dhoni deserves recognition I feel his selection for this award was a little premature as he is in the international cricketing world only during the recent past. The Khel Ratna Award is given to those who have displayed their sporting talent on an international platform consistently over a long period of time or have reached the acme of thier field. It is true that Dhoni has resurrected the sagging image of Indian Cricket by winning the 20-20 world cup last year in South Africa after a dismal performance in the One day international world cup the same year. Being the captain of the one day team he is also credited to the winning of the elusive Australian one day championship. However I feel some of the contemporary Indian cricketers with illustrious careers over a longer span have been ignored. For instance take Rahul Dravid. He has been around since 1996 in the Indian Dressing Room. He has over 10000 runs under his belt in two of three versions of today’s cricket, test cricket and one day international cricket. He was instrumental in many famous successful Indian exploits around the world. Though he is currently out of form, he is still highly regarded as a great batsman with an impressive average of about 54 from 124 test matches. He continues to maintain a competitive average of 40 in over 300 one day international matches. Probably his recent slump in form started towards the fag end of his forgettable tenure as a captain. His notable achievements as a captain were the overseas series wins against West Indies and England. But his past performances with the bat cannot be undermined as several of his knocks are still imprinted in the hearts of Indians. He donned the role of a rescuer on many occasions when most of the Indian batting collapsed in both test and one day cricket. No wonder he is hailed as the WALL. Didn’t he exhibit a consistent display of his batting prowess over a long period of time in the fiercely competitive world of international cricket. He definitely deserves recognition akin to the Khel Ratna Award.
Dhoni represents the new,youthful,aggressive face of the Indian Cricket which has risen up like a phoenix. He represents the youth of the nation and is a stark example of the rise of an underdog from the bylanes of the semi urban India. But that doesn’t qualify him immediately for such an exemplary award. The primary criterion for the award should have been a consistent performance over a period of time under various conditions. One gets to doubt the basis on which a sportsman is evaluated for the award. Is the award committee trying to conform to the popular demand? It sends out a wrong message that a true performer is not given his due respect in the country.

About Trivikram by Trivakram:)

My favourite movie director and writer is Trivikram Srinivas. He is a favourite for many Telugu film buffs. Broach his name or any his movies i bet it evokes a chuckle or a "punch dialogue" from his movies. Humour is one of the ingredients of a good film and we all crave for that humorous dialogue or a comical scene when we watch a movie. After all we watch movies for entertainment. But humour is rather difficult too. In many supposedly comedy movies we see jokes falling flat or gives us a nauseating seen-that-heard-that feeling. No wonder inspite of many attempts to make funny or humorous movies only few of them succeed. We love humour that is slapstick and the subtle, neutral or dark humour.
Coming back to the main topic Telugu movie comedy is primarily based on subtelty of the dialogue and originality of the situation. Most of the successful comedies in Telugu were dialogue based and situation based and these are the ones that click. Others leave a bad taste or just fissle away due the lack of originality. Particularly the one of the earliest comedy-film director writer who comes to my mind is Late Jandhyalagaru. He gave us many memorable comedies. His comedies are mostly based on the eccentric and subtle characterisations garnished with the humourous satirical dialogues. But after him there werent many people who could emulate him or create a mark for themselves save an EVV Satyanarayana or an SV.Krishna Reddy. But they tend to be repetetive and the former some what cheesy. The advent of Trivikram on to the scene brought a whole new dimension to dialogue based comedies in Telugu films.
He makes use of the rich vocabularly in telugu mostly colliloquial to create meaningful dialogues that rhyme. Its like listening to a sweet song. At the same time the dialogues which are apt to the situation are rib tickling literally. His dialogues and characters are mostly self deprecating or sarcastic. The characters throw witty reparts at each other. Or the characters make humourous observations with analgies of the situations they are in. He shows that everyone can have a good sense of humour. He started off as a dialogue writer and gave us memorable movies like Nuvve kavali,Nuvvu Naku Nachchav,Manmadhudu,Jai Chiranjeeva, Malleswari,Chirunavvutho.
His dialogues are also laced with wisdom and very pithily told without sounding preachy. Tacit,lucid and concise are the hallmarks of his dialogue writing. He proved that one can give a profound message by using the minimum words without resorting to melodramatical, high pitched utterances. And the way he explains or propounds a situation with analgies is truly commendable. You get a feeling as though you are listening to a wonderful lecture which is being told to the audience in an entertaining way leaving the exposition of the statements and debating to the discerning minds of the audience. You like a movie when the director and the writer respects you as an intelligent individual and does not take you for granted. The point is his dialogues are very logical, amusing and at the same time gives the emotional depth as required by the scene.
No wonder he was the highest paid writer in the industry during his early days and he won consecutive Nandi Awards, which are the highest state awards given to successful and creative cinematic efforts.
When he turned to direction that lucidity and the style of his writing translated into the visuals effectively. He is the dialogue writer for all his directorial ventures. He is just three movies old as a director but each of his works are commendable and highly successful. His first movie as a director is nuvve Nuvve, which tells the tale of a relationship between a father,his daughter and her boyfriend(the hero). Her daughter wants to marry the hero against her fathers wish. The ensuing clashes between him and the gal's father are arresting cinematic experiences. The characterisations were beautifully developed and will always be etched in our memories. The dialogues are as usual laced with humour and the same time the emotional and the crucial dialogues are piercing. The way the hero convinces the heroinne's father is very interesting. The hero's characterisation is truly wonderful. The he handles a situations and reacts to them is eyecatching. A hero need not be bashing up villians and throwing them airborne several feet high rather he should be fighting his opposition with his wits.
Then comes his second movie Athadu. It really propelled him into the zone of exalted directors of Telugu Film Industry. The shots were canned stylishly and as usual the hero's characterisation is truly wonderful. It tells the tale of a professional killer who by fate has to impersonate a dead man and later solves the miseries of the dead man's family and also cracks a murder mystery which might jeopardize his life. Wonderfully played by Mahesh babu who is adept at underplayed dialogue delivery. The way a villain marvels at the hero's bashing up of his henchmen elevates the heroism. The scene is equally humorous without losing the impact. The action scenes are very stylish and i guess it even made the housewives and ladies watch the fights with enthusiasm. He doesnt show much blood and gory rather displays the hero's prowess in a great way. His movies have many powerful scenes and dialogues and the comedy is truly hilarious as is his mark. The third movie that has come in the recent past is JALSA. Another wonderful and successful movie. He completes a hatrick. It is a story of a reformed naxalite who is search for love and about his carefree attitude. The movie starts with showing him as regular compulsive drinker. However the way the narrator(Mahesh Babu again) describes his habit and his propensity to drink on all the 7 days of the week is truly hilarious. During the later half of the story the powerful confrontation scenes between the hero and the villian are wonderful. Ofcourse there are many of his characteristic punch dialogues throughout the film. Regardless of the early bad reviews people wrote its stands as a cute movie which revitalized Pawan kalyan's charm on the silver screen. You will never forget the character Pranav played by Dr.Brahmanandam(I think nowadays they are calling him like that).
And you cannot ignore the way Trivikram shows his women leads in his movies. They appear truly beautiful and angelic and everyone would long for such women in their lives. He shows them as simple and beautiful women without resorting to vulgarity. There is never a vulgar dialogue or a disgusting scene in his movies. Clean movies. I guess every one would agree with me that we wish to have a girlfriend like "Anjali" in Nuvve nuvve, or "Bhagi" in Jalsa, or a playful and childlike cousin(Maradalu) like "Poori" in Athadu.
All his movies which he has written or directed call for an encore. Movies are memorable when they have the repeat value.
I havent mentioned any of famous dialogues. I wish to add a little more on that. But Iwould like the readers to go and see his movies and enjoy them. Great going Trivikram. Looking forward for his upcoming move Varudu starring Mahesh Babu Again.

Why i named my blog "Curd rice..." as if somebody cares to know about it after all

Hmm...Ever been to Andhra or to remote villages in Andhra. Do you know what they eat during hot summer days either as a breakfast or for lunch. No guesses and the question is too cliched as it is giving away the obvious answer. Yes. Perugannamlo Avakaya...Ahaaaa.....Tastey Tastu......Slurp Slurp..my mouth is watering as i am writing this and i can see the same in your facial expressions..Geeeee...Clever AAHHH Sravan!!!! Well...Enuf of the self glorification. Curds gives a cooling and a calming effect(and also what our science text books preach-pencilin) while the Avakaya serves to cater to our taste buds. Allow me to say "Amma,Andhra,Avakaya marchipolemu"(well i dont have an Anjali as Tarun did in Nuvve Nuvve). 'So whats ur point Sravan, you mean to say that your blog should also serve as a cooling and calming agent bringing a couple of chuckles while serving the interest buds of the reader'(agian glorifying myself and please again allow me to do so as it is MY BLOG!!!). Hmmm....I dont know how good or bad I am at writing. Pardon me for my grammar mistakes(well here it is-read grammatical mistakes,adjective baba) or anything offensive i have written unintendedly...Official disclaimer!!! Anyways...I have so many ideas but too lazy to write it down and post. Much more lazy(with a capital L) to write on a paper and then copy it to the computer at my liesure(if you may seem to suggest me, because the idea of my liesure is sleeping or reading or talking-in short no physical work as writing or typing). I promise you i will try to post AFAP-as frequently as possible with my own idea of a Frequency!!! HEHEHEHE......

Bangalore traffic teaches you patience

Hmmm...Well talk about Bangalore to Bangloreans(or they themselves will bring it up-favourite topic) you will hear incessant frets about how horrible the traffic is, how long one takes to cross a road(trust me even crossing a road also takes time waiting for the vehicles to clear off and sometimes you suddenly find yourself stranded in the centre of the road with vehicles passing in front of you and behind you almost grazing you as if you are a part of the unexisting divider-human dividers i guess), how longingly you wait for the signal to turn green(meanwhile revisiting your kindergarten age by relearning the numbers backwards..120 119...111 secs more-SUCK!!!) and finding yourself again stopping at the same damned red signal(it looks like you will never move beyond this crossing while you can learn the numbers you have missed earlier-backwards ofcourse...). Very true. The red signal has a unfair advantage over the green signal and thanks to innumerable vehicles before you who take thier own sweet time to kick start their snoozing vehicles before budging inch by inch. In this melee you see some over enthusiastic drivers trying to overtake you at the snail speeds(Schumis of the slow racing) sometimes giving an anatomical beauty spot to your vehicle(a horrible scratch or a cute dimple sorry bump-priety zinta istyle) on any side of your car(depending on which side the rogue vehicle is). Sometimes they move on being(or pretending to be more precise)unmindful to or ignorant/brilliantly innnocent(good actors) about what mark they have left behind. I guess these people have taken the maxim "Leave your trail or mark behind" too seriously. Sometimes few people(caught red-handedly) flash foolish smiles and lift thier hands in I-couldnt-help-it-boss-That-sucker-beside-me-was-coming-too-close-to-me kinda look and move ahead unrepentful. Well i have also given some helpless looks to the drivers of few vehicles which i almost grazed. But you dont have time to get down and pick up a fight and you should suffer in silence(giving an angry scornful look is all you can do) and divert your mind to the CD that is playing or to the non stop chatter and songs on the FM. Ignorance is bliss. These FM dudes are semi-helpful folks, in the sense they give you prior information that so and so road is jammed and you will be screwed up if you take that way. Sometimes it proves useless because either you are already on that road or there is no other way because of the one-ways. "Where there is a road there is a one-way". And these auto wallas. Given the slightest gap or a mere sense of it, they figure out ingenious ways to squeeze into it. While the bikers are as usual trying to sneak in thorough whatever crevices they find in the jam. These guys-autowallahs and bikers are adept at giving your car a beauty streak. And in turn they give you angry looks as to why-cant-you-give-me-some-space-i-am-going-to-take-my-ias-exam-and-its-my-last-chance kinda expression. Somehow the traffic moves on and people start honking as they wade through the traffic as if i-want-to-win-the-race-to-get-past-the-signal YOU-LAZY-BUM-MOVE-ASIDE. This is a crude snapshot of the absolute reality. Have patience Machcha!!! My patience threshold has increased a lot and hope yours too will be increased once you ride on bangalore roads. Dont loose your cool and increase your BP. Increase your patience instead and resign yourself to being held up in a jam while you listen to the FM chatter or your favourite song or even catch a nap and wake up at the sound of a blaring horn...POOOYYYYYYY POM POYYYYY:-)

Pay Rent

Yesterday i went to Swamy's Ashram for Darshan. Bhajans were going on when we entered the Ashram. It was a pleasant experience. We waited for a couple of hours singing bhajans. A person next to me was singing whatever he could make sense of what he heard composing his own lyrics with a passion. Though at first i felt a little tinge of scorn for killing such beautiful words but then it dawned to me that he was immersed in the bhajan and was better than few other people who werent singing anything at all. Swamy came and i could catch a very distant glimpse of Divine Incarnate(i dont care what you people think or not). Well then a former Vice Chancellor of the excellent Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning gave a discourse. One thing he mentioned was in today's world people dont care about their parents while they ought to because they owe their existence to them. Well then he goes on to say you should rever your mother. "She provided you accomodation for 9 months. And you are obliged to pay the rent". Thats why they are called parents. Amusing observation but with deep significance. Your mother bore you while your limbs and body was taking shape and brought you in this world with life. And now here you are reading what I have written with your eyes and your whole body sitting in front of a computer and thinking with your brain. We should be indeed indebted to our parents for giving us life and bringing us up as to what we are today. We ought to take care of them and be loving to them. The word indebted is too soft a word, to describe the feeling one should have towards his/her parents.
The Vice Chancellor who delivered the discourse is an alumni of IISC.

One more thing he talked about was "Knowledge without compassion is inhuman and compassion without knowledge is ineffective". We see the world moving forward with many technological advances. Well they are making us lives easier but killing humanity in return. Just making our death easier. He talked about how todays technology without a human touch has led to impending calamities like global warming and environmental destruction. Its not enuf to a good engineer. Technical know how is required while Love for your fellow beings is necessary. The atom bomb is one of the cliched examples and you can find many more around you. Coming to compassion without knowledge is ineffective. Look around yourself and show compassion towards people or beings who deserve it. We should have the knowledge and intellect to choose where to chanellize our compassion. I may be too vauge in my statements but still looking for the deeper significance.