My Romance with the Rain

As I was about to leave from office today, it was raining heavily...I wanted to reach home quickly fearing getting stuck in a traffic jam. Evening showers and traffic jams are a regular in Bangalore, but when they come as a "package" either because of your bad timing or sheer ill luck it can be quite frustrating. My point is not to rant about traffic but about the rain. Coming back to the story, as it was raining heavily and sensing my urgency to reach my car one of the friendly co-workers who luckily had an umbrella with him offered me the shelter of his parasol till the parking lot.As I neared my car I had to part with the umbrella and the helpful employee. After thanking him profusely, I ran towards my good buddy "santro". However I couldnt avoid getting soaked by the rain. After a few rain drops trickled down my spectacles, there was a sudden rush of my childhood feelings of getting drenched in the rain while going back home from school. I loved this feeling so much that I had a sudden urge at that moment to stand still and feel the rain pouring down upon me...I had to stop an involuntary action of raising my arms out welcoming the rain and start off a male version of "ennalaku gurtochchavo vaana" song. Better sense prevailed over me at the thought of being looked at as a freak by my co-workers at the office...

But seriously speaking getting wet in the rain is a wonderful experience. I dont know how but i enjoyed the rain a lot. Several times while coming back from school i used to deliberately cycle my way back to my house as the rain pounded. The sensation of the rain drops falling on your head while it trickles down from your face is unmatched. It gives you a soothing feeling and on some occassions common cold(sometimes might lead to complications like pneumonia..So please dont get overenthusiastic). By the time I reached home I used to shiver with my lower movable jaw hittiing the upper jaw vigourously. After nodding to concerned chides from my mother for exposing myself to the rain and after drying up my hair I used to feel refreshed and recharged. Natural shower na...Great isnt it..

I figured out the spiritual aspect of the rain too...We are born out of the five elements and our scriptures teach us that ultimately we have to merge with the universe. Thus being united with rain is a soul-stirring experience. But why dont we feel the same with fire...Hmmmmm....A good counterpoint.

For all those grown ups who think they are missing their childhood dearly, here is a stupid recipe for an experiement, to enjoy the rain, which you can try out at your homes...Kids please ignore this experiment and save me from the curses of your parents..

Warning: People who catch cold easily because someone two lanes away has sneezed and people prone to any breathing related infections please avoid this...This is only for those crazy people who have enough number of White Blood Cells in their bodies to resist themselves against respiratory infections...Now pls dont go and confirm with your annual medical report, although it is advisable:)

Things you may need:
A perfect rainy day (check with your local weather report, if it says "cloudy skies and light to heavy showers expected" and if you are lucky it will be true. This is your ideal day!!!)...

Dark colored clothes...

Empty side of the terrace where no one can see you...

The driest turkey towel in your house...

A hair blower if you can afford it....

Dry ironed clothes..

Hot cup of tea once you complete the experiement..

A couple of anti cold pills and an Amrutanjan balm just in case...

Now you can estimate the craziness of this experiment!!!

Now time for the ludicrous experiment: (caution:make sure no one is around at your house).

1. Wear the dark coloured clothes on the rainy day...This is to save you from any blushes if somebody catches hold of you..

2. Go to your terrace and make sure no one is watching you so that you dont risk being laughed at later or end up in youtube with a video titled "my crazy neighborhood guy/gal" depending on the insaneness of the individual observing you...Or some maniac or lovelorn person might get more than amused by your feat that they will end up stalking you...Am I scaring you enough? So better be careful.

3. Wait for the rain to pick up and become steady..Don't venture out when the rain is coming hard at you..If you are unlucky and if it is a hailstorm you might end up at your nearest health care center and have to give lengthy explanations for your (mis)adventure.

4. Enter the rain zone.....Feel the rain on the face and your body till you can handle it..You will feel like melting into the eternal universe...thats what I call soul stirring experience. However, if it rains too heavily you will also experience your soul coming out of your body because of breathlessness.

5. Get soaked up for five to 10 mins and optionally shiver for a while...Enjoy the moment!!!

6. Come out of the rain...Do I have to tell you?

7. Wipe your head completely dry with the driest turkey towel and use the hair dryer if you have one...make sure your head is thoroughly dry...Change into dry ironed clothes...

8. If the tea is ready sip it slowly reminiscing about your stupid experiment, while watching the rain if it is still lingering around, ...or start watching the equally stupid programs on the television and think about the story you are going to cook up for your folks when they find out about your soggy clothes.

9. If you start sneezing by the night take the anti cold pills or alternatively apply amrutanjan till it burns your nose and tell yourself that you will never do this again. This experiment is not for you boss. May be you have grossly overestimated your WBC count...Hehe!!!

Sachin Carries on and on and on

At the risk of sounding cliched, I would like to say "when sachin bats India stops". The GOD of cricket has completed two decades since he first represented India and is going on and on and on with more and more runs being piled up and new records being broken. Sorry he is no more breaking any records...He is setting new records and scaling new peaks which do not seem to scaled within immediate future. It has become a common feature of Sachin removing his helmet and raising both his hands(while looking up at the sky). Today he is the first person to complete 30K runs both in Tests and the shorter version of the game. He played only one international match in the shortest version of the game and scored only ten runs(interesting trivia I found out on Times Now channel) which does not have any relevance considering what he has achieved so far. I wish him more cricketing years and great achievements. Just for the sake of exaggeration hope my grand children will also keep counting his centuries...hehe...

Outstanding Couple

They can take different stands on an issue but should always stand by each other when in need and stand up for one another when it matters. Ofcourse they should understand each other well and should withstand the trials and tribulations of life so that they will stand out in the crowd of couples. Finally on a nonsensical note they should stand beside each other when being photographed together:) Now a standing ovation please for my post.

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.