Life is an illusion

 Some 25-26 years earlier, every child- and their mother wanted to say “I am a complain boy/girl”. Cute, smart and energetic. The power of advertisements!!! And then there were Harry Potters books. Every child and many adults in every English speaking country was reading those books, talking them and loving them. Again it was a great and successful campaign. Now coming to think of it, the creators of these ads can make or break a company. They need to be recognised and appreciated. They deserve it. So we can’t ignore the Arnabs and Navikas of this world.  Good work, people.  Great work!!

 

 

Thoughts From A Secular Humanist April 20, 2012 by Anita Jose  I have no invisible authority I am not mentally enslaved, I am not an unworthy sinner Who is waiting to be saved. My actions are my own Responsibility for which I will take, Credit for the good and penalty for the bad The payment for my deeds only I can make. I’m not the innocent, confused child; ‘Humble’ messengers try to find, I’m a skeptic with adult reasoning Who has left Faith behind. The answers gifted by logic and reason Are far more appealing to me, I keep searching for the still unknown Not fitting baseless assumptions dishonestly. Morality for me is not derived from an ancient book With tiring tales of brutality and occasional verses of love, To be good and to care for my fellow beings I don’t need promises of gifts from above. The knowledge and wisdom accumulated by science Sincere and provable, without disguise, Is what I find more comforting and reality revealing Th...

  December 16, 2012 I love shopping. May be that is one isolated thing, I share with other people of my gender. I love books. And I just enjoy shopping books. Leave me in a book shop. You will find a kid in sweet shop.  But reading them, is a different matter. I have been collecting a big set of unread books. Keep thinking, first I have to finish reading the rented books from library. Or I am too young to read this book, may be when I am 60/70/80. Who can read Jiddus and Thich Nhat Hahns from end to end?  When Grey's anatomy or Packed to the rafters is beckoning you, teamed up with stumble upons and facebooks? I have been reading a polish author's book about an Ethiopian emperor since last 2 days. I don't remember the book title and the author's name is difficult to remember and very very difficult to pronounce. Day before, I read  2 pages of introduction and yesterday I read 5 pages of the book.  But back to book shopping, I used to sh...

 All of us eventually face this disaster  problem. No, I am not talking about old age. I don’t have any problems with old age as long as it doesn’t bother my arthritis. I am talking about running out of memory and unable to click any more photos. We can’t completely blame our false impression about our photography for this. Our phones do beautify our efforts- a lot. So we need to click everything. And our phones groan with discontent and finally stop one day.  So there must be some place where we can preserve these master pieces. Most of you may use your laptops. I can’t , as I format my laptop as frequently as a teenager changes her attire.  So this time I decided I will use Pinterest website. It IS full of such works. But due to some problems unique to my phone these photos I store are being rotated by 90 degrees. Pictures with added advantage of neck exercises, right?  And don't be surprised to see images of Dr. Rajkumar everywhere. It appears th...

This post was written more than a decade ago. But I haven’t still found him. :)   Where is GOD? April 26, 2009 I was driving on the same old road with the same old people the other day. Suddenly I saw a quote on a vehicle "God is just behind you".  Hey, what did I do this time? Just two days ago, I paid 100 bucks for crossing a red signal. But so far on the road no signals were seen. Did they come to know that I still haven't done my scooty's emission test? Then a sober voice said, it is not police, not traffic police. Only god.  Godaaa, that's okay. No need to worry. He will forgive me for any of my sins. Even if I do not have the tradition of asking for mercy on one day after committing all kinds of not so good things throughout the week. My god knows that, I am not responsible for any of my actions but my karma is. Anyway I was relieved and did not turn back. But I did look in the rear view mirror. No I could see no one who remotely looked like thevomnipotent G...

 As long as I am home I will be in autopilot mode. Eat, expel and repeat. With a sprinkle of cooking and cleaning. But when I do go out of the house and have actual interaction with actual people, I will have an existential crisis. What is my raison d’être? Purpose of my existence? There isn’t one.  When I look at other people buying expensive things like furniture I remember the meme - we buy things we don’t want with the money we don’t have to impress the people we don’t like. But what do I do? I buy cheap plastic items I don’t need, only because they are cheap.  So people, and me included, try to fill this absent “raison” with shopping. Makes one feel powerful. But even this feeling is ephemeral. And we are not Ambanis and Adanis to shop till we drop -dead.  when we are feeling miserable again, we look at the success of other people around us and feel worse.  Then we try to drown these “silly” thoughts with pacifiers of our own choice -be it eating, religion,...

 This book is the story of Asa Leventhal. He is being stalked by an old acquaintance Albee and blamed for his misfortune.  Leventhal’s wife is currently away. Also he has been attending to his sick nephew in the absence of his brother. But Albee keeps following him and attacking him verbally.  Albee is in a very bad condition. He has been drinking for many years. His wife went away. Then she was killed in an accident . Albee didn’t even go for funeral fearing that his in-laws will blame him for her misfortunes. He is jobless. And he blames Leventhal for all these. Many years ago, Leventhal was job hunting. And Albee referred him to a job in his own office. And Leventhal attended an interview in this office. When he realised, he will not be getting the job, he argued and fought with the interviewer - Albee’s boss Rudiger. What was he to do? As he asks a mutual friend  “Wipe the spit off his face and walk out quietly? “  This enraged Rudiger. He felt Albee has pur...

Popular theme to talk nowadays is how great our country is, how wonderful our religion is, how strong our nation is etc. And I for one never believe in popular themes. But I relish the festivals of our religion nonetheless. One festival particularly - Ganesha festival. Ah, the Colors, the decorations, the wonderful array of sweets which the women prepare with much devotion and back breaking work. Two eyes aren’t enough to watch these festivities - as we say in Kannada.  According to history Ganesh celebrations in large scale were initiated by Balgangadhar Tilak around 1893 with the intention of unifying people of various strata of life. (Unifying is not a popular theme, I know) Large public Ganesha celebrations accompanied by discourses, music, dance drama etc. started during those times.  And the tradition has continued all these years. And it does prove an opportunity for people to forget the hopelessness and wretchedness  drama of their lives and spend few days in devo...

 

 If you think this is a typical marriage reception from Karnataka - northern Karnataka, you would be partially right. It is, but the people are cement sculptures. Unbelievable?  You will see such hundreds of sculptures  in this “utsav rock garden” in Gotagodi Karnataka.  There are scenes depicting the bygone era scenes from villages -like two women preparing flower garlands, a man making a kambali - black coarse blanket, men and women haggling in the market , to name a few.  I was really overwhelmed with nostalgia.  And then there are modern  paintings and artworks. Most of which I couldn’t understand fully but scary nonetheless.   According to their website the man behind this sculpture garden is Dr Solabskkanavar. It is worth a visit.

 Do you think you can solve this puzzle? You have to get a sum of 100 in all the three rows and all the three columns. All the needed numbers are given below.  What about this puzzle?  5 cells are already solved. Great! But did you notice that the sum of each row and column should be 77, not 100? Good. Do you love this puzzle? Then may be you will like my Shataka app ?