Life is an illusion

 We Indians are really very smart. You must have read whatsapp forwards saying how Indians lead in NASA and of course IT and everywhere else where intellectuals are needed.  But we must admit the fact that we take some time - the lag is present. For example we took almost one hundred years to get freedom from British rule. Gandhiji (or may be some one else - we can't believe these corrupt historians), convinced people to peacefully protest and win back our freedom.  This time it might take a little longer. Because for one to become free, one must realise that one is not actually free. But all of us are in a kind of stupor and intoxication induced by generous doses of dharma prema and desha prema by social media and television. And not realising that our right to speak, eat, sing, write or protest is being snatched by us. Only freedom we are left with is to parrot. And we do that willingly and very frequently.  So it certainly may take much longer.  

 Since we moved to this house, which is far away from the library, I have been trying to restart the habit of reading. Multiple times. Unsuccessfully.  The apple devices have an inbuilt app called books where you can download many of the classics and read them. The UI is really beautiful - feels as if you are turning the pages of the book. So I downloaded many books and tried reading them. Could not go beyond first 50 pages. Then I went to Project gutenberg and pdfworld and downloaded books from them to this app. Still unable to read. Not for the lack of time obviously.  Then one fine day I joined this redit group called 52 books. The idea is to read 52 books in an year, which is reading a book per week. And decided I will take up my physical book collection to start with. And took Doris Lessing's The four gated city as the first book. I may need a month or two. I will need two months time to finish the book as it is enormous 650+ pages. But still I got hooked.  The hero of the boo

 And  childish jokes stolen Teacher: how do say ‘ Liza sit down’ in Hindi?  Student: E liza beth 

 If I am bored I take a bottle from the kitchen and start painting on it  imagining myself to be Picasso. That would keep me busy for an hour or two. Painting, then losing patience, then realising it looks ugly , and then washing the paint off.  If I am more bored, I download and install my programming ide. That will take care of at least half a day.  Realising that I may never have a functioning integrated development environment. And if the bored to much larger extent, I can always format my hard disk and  reinstall my OS. That will keep me busy and tensed for a day. So the idea is, never blog when you are bored or tensed or feeling wretched. It will often lead to writing incomprehensible but bad posts and then deleting those posts.  See, blogs do not have rules or syntax. You can write almost anything. And you do. With resulting repentance. And after all, what purushartha or stryartha (is my sandhi  right?) is achieved by blogs? It’s just a slightly modified form of grumbling. For t

 Mariam is a young lady looking after two children and taking care their mother and their house. She is taking care of her brother's children as their mother is severely depressed and is suicidal. And her brother who has lost is his job and now is working as a bouncer in a night club is irritable and very rude.  Mariam also works as a cleaning lady in three houses. She has been advised to visit the psychiatrist after her frequent fainting episodes. She visits the psychiatrist and is very polite and sweet but mentions the name Synan whose house she cleans and is apparently is attracted to. Now it is strange to find such a serial in Netflix. Ethos - a Turkish serial is a real life drama where everyone is miserable in their own way. Mariam is sad because she is burdened with her brother's family and is not married and is working as a domestic help. Her sister in law is depressed and tries to kill herself 3 times because her husband has lost his job and also is very abusive towards

 You are what you read or write (or as is the current situation - netflix). So I realized after writing a quite mournful blog post. So since I don't want to start my day with a wailing, here is a funny (read sarcastic) poster. Which I promise I did not steal from pinterest but created myself.

 I have kept my promise. I told you I will write my own version of countdown game. And I wrote and published.   Basically this is a game where you are given 5 numbers and an answer. You have to get the answer using all of the 5 numbers and +-*/ and brackets.  The internet has told that the game is for school kids. But honestly, I am struggling to solve most of the times.  Give it a try.

 We unnecessarily vilify the social network facebook and Mr.Zuckerberg. In fact google and Mr.Sundar Pichai knows much more about you than Facebook ever will.  If you don't believe me, just go to myaccount.google.com and see the details there. Google knows that you browsed about how to renew your vehicle insurance. In the year 2018. It also knows where were you - each day, since the day you were born. Or at least since you started using google.  But let me admit, today I saw a feature called autodelete for browser history and location history. Please use it. And google knows about your family and friends. And all the personal information about them. It also knows what videos you watch, which videos you search, which you like, which you dislike.  So, ladies if you worry that nobody understands you, stop worrying. Google understands you. May be little bit too much.  But what about the ISP - internet service providers? Don't they have your call history, your search history too? We

 The dress was lying on the washing machine for 24 days. Before that it was hanging on bathroom rod for 48 days. Why? Because I had decided to cut the long sleeves short.  I buy the long sleeve kurtas often. Because that’s what is available. Some fashion experts might have decided that Indian women need long sleeved top wear. May be they are justified too, as some of us tend to be slightly hirsute and we do not believe in waxing.  So I buy these long sleeved kurtas and wear them sweating and swearing. But the clothes I wear at home can be modified. Should be modified. What with summer approaching and bright happy sun glaring at us the entire day.  So I even read an instructable on how to shorten your sleeves. And was waiting for some free time. No, not free time, but motivation.  So yesterday that wonderful moment did arrive. I cut the sleeves, restitched the ends and washed. All ready to wear today. And today, in the middle of summer there is fog in the morning and the weather is cold

Bear with me if I repeat myself. Today I came across yet another website - homeschoolmath.net  with lots of maths worksheets for school children. The worksheets are good. Here is one example.   The worksheets are classified by grade levels, then there are fractions, decimals, money, ratio and proportion etc. I am doing my bit in making your kid angrier at you ;)       Then there is a math game for younger kids. There will be 5 numbers and a target number. Using any of the +-X/, you should get the target number. You can play that game in soulmaths.com   As you have correctly guessed, I will be soon writing my own version of this game. Within a week may be. 

Saw this some what common kannada quote on a van yesterday "Shatrugala ashirvada" which translates to "Blessings of enemies". So true, so true. All of us have to thank our enemies for so many of our actions. We would not buy that flat screen 42 inch TV if not for our neighbor's boasting about theirs. We would not buy so many of our gadgets if not for our enemies. If  Rahul Gandhi decides to quit politics, and the entire Gandhi family quits politics, what will our TV channels talk about? Whom would they blame for everything under the sun - including the weather? If we did not have other community to "fear", how would our politicians ever win votes?  If one of the spouses decides to quit the game, who would the other spouse blame for everything? Yes, we all need enemies. Enemies motivate us - more than friends or family - with the help of the phrase "wait till I teach him/her a lesson".

   Why do I blog? No answer. Who is my target audience? No answer.  At least I need to write something which may give some sort of information to some one, some where, some time.  Here is one topic - environment. We have squandered up all natural resources and leaving behind parched lands, dried up rivers and lakes and deforested lands for our children. That is completely wrong and should be criminal.  Now you ask a valid question, what can I do to stop this environmental disasters? I am an individual without any powers - I can not make the governments listen to me. But we all can do our tiny bit to save waters, trees and futures. Alilu seve - we all know about the squirrel who wanted to help in building bridge to Lanka.  So here are some steps for you to save water https://friendsoftheearth.uk/sustainable-living/13-best-ways-save-water And here are th e steps to save natural resources