Life is an illusion

 I collected some bite sized wisdoms from twitter. They are always bite sized - who has the time to read a full article? And the articles anyway are all behind paywalls.  You tell me I can read them from physical papers and magazines? But my eyes are always glued to screen. So here are some of them - They made "secular" a bad word, "socialist" a bad word, "modern" a bad word. Now even "intelligent" is a bad word. So please stay communal, capitalist, orthodox and dumb. Then you are no threat to rulers. And their followers will not attack you.   The rulers don't have to put all of us in chains. Keep the middle class occupied with EMIs and salaries, so that they don't have time to rebel. Keep poor occupied with multiple jobs and struggle to survive. Keep the immigrants in perpetual fear of deportation. And so on.  At first lies were ignored. Then lies were tolerated. Next they were repeated. Next they were made normal. And now the few people...

No, I am not announcing my breakfast for today. I am recollecting the catchy youtube short video I saw yesterday.  Three women - supposed to be cave women - dressed in cave dress - my hurried google search did not provide me with a word,  are discussing their mornings. One of them complains - eggs are so costly, there are no vegetables in the house. And that is why she made uppittu.  Then the chorus starts.  I am not here to talk about whether cave women knew how to make much disliked uppittu . But to talk about the Youtube shorts depicting family dramas. This particular video was by a Kannada Youtuber, the channel is called Vickypedia. And this video was OK to the eyes. Even though the three women wore bright neon colored wigs - teal, orange.    Unfortunately, many other Indian men creating such shorts do have beards and mustaches. And when they want to show the role of a woman, often mothers, they just cover their heads with a cloth - presumably pallu. Ho...

I have been listening to this book by Hanya Yangihara called A little life.  Hanya Yangihara as the name suggests is an American of Asian descent.  The book is about 4 friends and their lives in New york. The story of Jude, JB, Willem and Malcom. Of these Jude has had a very unfortunate past. Brought up in a monastery, being ill, treated by the monks there, turning violent as a result, some how surviving that, he is currently drags his leg while walking. Because of this unbearable pain and because of past trauma he cuts himself often. And wears full sleeved shirts always, none of his friends know about his self-harm.   His mentor Harold takes a liking for him and allows Jude to stay in his house. Julia and Harold treat Jude like a son. One day Harold pops up the question - can they adopt him? Never having seen parental love and affection, Jude is exhilarated, but afraid that this dream might get killed any time.  26th October The story is getting sadder as we pr...

 This one verse from Bhagavadgita summarizes the world we live in and the current situation.  यथा प्रदीप्तं ज्वलनं पतङ्गा विशन्ति नाशाय समृद्धवेगाः । तथैव नाशाय विशन्ति लोकास्तवापि वक्त्राणि समृद्धवेगाः ॥ २९ ॥ Transliteration yathā pradīptaṁ jvalanaṁ pataṅgā viśanti nāśāya samṛiddha-vegāḥ tathaiva nāśāya viśanti lokās tavāpi vaktrāṇi samṛiddha-vegāḥ Meaning :  Just as moths rush with great speed into a blazing fire to perish, so too do all these worlds rush swiftly into Your mouths for their destruction. We know that the gadgets we use, the vehicles we drive are changing our earth and its weather and we still keep buying these things competing with one another. We know that the wars destroy everyone and everything, not just soldiers, but common men and women and  children.  Still we actively or passively support or participate in wars - or our leaders do with our silent support. We know that the Pandora's box we have opened or the monster we have created called ...

 We are greedy people. We prefer digital platform if it saves 50 paisa. But in some cases we have to resort to digital platforms out of necessity. And these platforms are not very trustworthy. That is not to say that non-digital forms are very reliable. We will talk about that later.  I had to send some sweets to my son who is in another country. And I selected the site FNP as it was known devil. The website said same day delivery and there were some OK-ish options. We selected a sweet one quarter kg and sent it.  Don't laugh at me on hearing the prices. The total price was six and a half thousand rupees, half of which  was their shipping charges. For that price, my son could have bought 10 such boxes - I presume. Anyhow, we sent it and got a nice message from them saying that it was delivered. I was happy.  But then came the shock - it was not delivered. And the circus started. I called their helpline. The kind lady said that since she is from domestic section,...

 As is my custom, I went to terrace with my tea early in the morning. Yes, I know tea on an empty stomach, so called 'bed tea' isn't great for my health. So I make it a point to gulp down few sips of water beforehand.  Early in the morning does not surprise you if you are boomer like me, but for younger ones, here is the explanation. We "older ones" are awake in an ungodly hour and will be tossing and turning. And waiting for dawn so that we can jump out of that miserable bed.   So I went to terrace and I noticed few tufts of white and shiny wispy clouds in the blue sky. Of course alongside were some ominous gray clouds. And I wondered is today a special day to have such clouds, or all these days I never lifted my neck and head up. Instead concentrating on fallen leaves and puddle of water if the drain is clogged.  Yes, Bangalore is having early morning rains many of these days and we are welcoming it - ಅಂತಾದರೂ ಬಾ, ಇಂತಾದರೂ ಬಾ, ಎಂತಾದರೂ ಬಾ.... So that was nice and...

 I have been anxiously, fearfully watching the AI drama. Will we all be killed by robots? Is there 10% chance that we all will be killed? Or 10% of us will be killed by robots?  I have been watching video after video which say otherwise. Which tell that these AI companies are not telling us something and this is some diversion plan.  May be true. Or just like Indian offices used 'Server not working' for any kind of problems they had, are these companies want to blame AI for  problems  in the future? On behalf of rogue players (or rogue government players or both) Not sure. We can only surmise and hope and believe that this too will pass or we will pass.  So isn't this the time make use of AI for our benefit. No, I am not pouring out my heart to chatgpt or claude. I think that thing has solidified long ago. I am using AI for day today problems and minor decisions. e.g. I asked which rumba - robotic vacuum cleaner to buy. It suggested me a not a very popular ...