Life is an illusion

I have been continuing my series of simple math quiz for school kids. Currently i have quiz about  fraction addition and subtraction ,  conversion to decimals ,   simple numbers  quiz - with +,-,X and / , square and square root,   word questions on multiplication , and  countdown puzzle - where you get the target using the given 5 numbers. And of course Shataka   All these are written using HTML and javascript. You need not install any app and waste your memory as these are all webpages.  Hope these help your kids and you in making numbers little bit interesting.

 Glow is not one of my favorite shows in Netflix. It's one of those which I watch out of some kind of compulsion - like boredom.  Its story-line is different. It is about a TV show - reality TV show of women wrestling matches. And about the lives of these women.  Ruth is a struggling actress past her prime, never getting any good role in spite of her talent. In many auditions, she is rejected. So when she comes across this audition about female wrestling matches, she eagerly accepts this. She chooses to ignore many many red flags. Like she is not a wrestler, the director seems like big a*** and it's for a local small time TV channel. Her new life in this very strange surrounding might have been slightly better if her friend would not have barged into the sets and assault her inside the ring, providing a very nice entertainment for all. But Ruth does not attack her friend back as she is guilty. Of sleeping with this friend's husband. That's not all. The director Sam is i

 I completed my "This is us" marathon yesterday. Or rather I skipped to the last episode of season 5 and watched it.  Those of you who have not heard about it, it is the story of Jack and Rebecca Pearson and their triplets. Randal who is the adopted son - who is black, is a successful financial executive and also a philanthropist with a successful wife and three happy daughters, one of whom is adapted.  Kevin is a movie star, who had struggled earlier with a failed marriage and addictions, but now is quite successful. Kate is now happily married with two children - but again had struggled a lot with her obesity. And their father had died when they were 17, in a fire accident. And Rebecca has remarried Jack's friend Miguel and is struggling with early Alzheimer.  All thing considered, it is a good show. But, can't we have less flash backs? If, Jack Pearson, the favorite of the children, who died many many years ago, were alive, he would have remembered the flash bac

 Systems - most kinds of systems are in place to empower the mighty and oppress and exploit the weak. Don't you all agree? Take religion for example. The devout person, who doesn't harm even fly, will often find himself/herself in difficult situations. The religious figure - I am certainly not naming any religion here as all are equal n this aspect. The religious figure consults with "higher power" and advises a solution - which most often does nothing but fills the pocket of said figure. Problem still persists - the victim blames self and decides god is some how angry with him/her. For being gullible? The bank which lends few lakhs to common man sends goons to the house when he delays payment. But when the ultra - rich people try to flee the country with many crores of bank's money it asks "do you want me to pay for the flight ticket".  The marriage works as a system where a man buys a de-facto servant in a ceremony with the blessings of thousands of pe

 She is wondering whether her reliance on GPS - or her spelling out that is causing google maps to behave crazier than ever. It is showing all wrong directions - because she knows some of these places and they are not walk-able distance from her destination.  So she would like to say Ladies never ever tell anything to everyone through social media or blog posts. She remembers a joke - " a thief walks into a house and points a knife at the lady of the house. "Give me your phone, your new watch your husband bought you for anniversary, the gold chain you bought for the festival". The lady is surprised. "How do you know all these?" she asks. "I am your facebook friend", the thief replies.  Yet another day, yet another adventure. Imagine, how so many adventure in your mid fifties! But again, as she is always dependent on spouse for everything, even vegetable shopping alone is an adventure for her.  But now she has started liking the Bangalore buses - the t

 She started her journey with lots of trepidation. For once she would explore not the contents of pantry, not explore some social media contents, but real life situations. That was not a very comforting idea for her. Always hiding, always avoiding social situations, she had managed some how to live like this all these fifty six years.  But now the situation called for it, she had to do this thing, and alone. She started studying google maps religiously. OK, it is not bad at all, it's one straight road - almost. When there is a signal, one has to keep left, easy thing to do. She can do it - she decided after hours of study. What she had not anticipated was rain - that God Varuna who has become very arrogant and violent these days. But again, it' only drizzling, will not matter so much. At some point during the day, rain has  to stop, shouldn't it - she reasoned.  Equipping herself with a jacket and of course a helmet and a strong - eh, somewhat dillydallying will, she launch

I have been currently reading 15 chapter of a book. Don’t  be so surprised I rather heard it,  instead of  reading. Easier, much easier. You have heard about audible? No, I didn’t subscribe to audible. Being a middle class Indian of boomer generation, will I ever pay for a book which you can’t even hold in your hand? And pdf to kahin pe milta hoga?  No I haven’t subscribed to audible. But found free version called librivox  where volunteers read books - most of them classics. So I started with moon and the six pence, and completed 15 chapters.  It also gave me some step counts for two days. Double benefit!  Now, the book is about an a man named Stradler. Who at the age 40 runs away to Paris. Leaving behind his well paying job as a stock broker, a pretty wife and two children. But unlike most flights of similar nature, he didn’t run away with his secretary or a waitress. He ran away to become a painter. When confronted by the protagonist he tells him “ i took care of her for 17 years. N

 Many decades ago, in the first winter in our previous home, I realized that I can get direct sunlight - dhoop, bisilu , direct to our dining table. And I was euphoric - ok extremely excited.  One hour of sunlight, free home delivery, free of cost, for your convenience. Well I had overlooked the hard work my spouse put in buying land and constructing that house. He didn't actually build it for me, right?  Then as days passed, this sunlight lost its novelty and I completely forgot about it. Until today. I had been complaining about this fog, rain and clouds to everyone. Then suddenly there was bright light. Aha, surya deva - decided to come out blues or bluish grayish clouds. So I ambled to balcony and started enjoying that happy feeling of sunlight kissing all my limbs and it was bliss. Ha, it is deja vu. Different house, different day but same warmth and happiness. I remembered the dining table sunlight. Yes, let me shamefacedly admit it. I can enjoy this lazy warm morning with a

 When I reluctantly opened my eyes today morning, there was sunshine. And I was exuberant. This sun who had abandoned us since last 4 days, has decided today to appear upon us and brighten our lives. I hear him saying, now I have this on writing, I will remind this proclamation to you in April.  Anyways. I am trying to read a little bit of philosophy. OK, you caught my lie. I am listening to some podcasts and watching youtube videos. I am trying to understand the principle of absurd. Absurd : Yes, now it is more evident than ever. Whatever good, bad or world shattering things we do, they are all utterly meaningless. Our lives do not matter, our actions don't either. We may search for some meaning in life non-stop until our heads all turn grey -we can't any. Because there isn't one.  Isn't that the " Myth of sissypus" tells us? Carrying a boulder up the hill using all his energy and more, but knowing too well that it is going to roll all the way down Huh, I th

  If you can keep your head when all about you        Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,    If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,     But make allowance for their doubting too;    If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,     Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,     And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;        If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;    If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster     And treat those two impostors just the same;    If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken     Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,     And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings     And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings     And never breathe a word about your

Just like the judicial system, the technology companies treat us the common, good citizens as thieves and hackers as gentlemen.  If you don't believe me, ask anyone who has lost gmail password or any such password. Once, many years ago I simultaneously forgot two passwords, one to my developer account and the other to blogger account. Both were recovery mails for each other. I tried for many days in vain to recover the accounts. No, I could not recover these accounts. Even today, I tremble in the middle of the night, when I hear the word two step authentication.  So the result was I was lost my 7 blogs and 6 android apps.  All these bitter memories swamped me again yesterday while I was trying to recover my iphone account password. I tried all the steps given in the support websites. The mighty program kept asking me same questions in a loop and rejecting my answers. And to add salt over my wounds, after few minutes, there would be a notification asking me whether I tried to reset

 Roads drenched with entire dust and dirt of Bangalore, angry cursing drivers, roads blocked at traffic signals for kilometers. Wow, I loved it. No, I am not this much of a masochist. It was just that, I hadn't driven my two wheeler for a very long time. May be I was missing my freedom. Or it is some kind of stockholm syndrome. Afterwards, for the entire day, I was feeling as if I conquered Mt. Everest. I AM silly, aren't I? And what  did I want to buy for doing all this great adventure? I wanted to buy some curry leaves, coriander leaves and few lemons. Which was literally available right next to my home.  But anyways, the weather was pleasant. Though  it looked like a rainy Bangalore, it wasn't raining. It was foggy and nice.  But why didn't the fog lift by noon at least? Is it yet another plot by our neighbors? I am joking, of course. Today, exhilarated by this achievement I watched “madmen ”all day. Other days, I watch some other, any other serials. Its OK.   I WILL

What is this life which is full of fear We can’t even grumble and whine W. H. Davies didn’t write the poem thus in 1911, but your sincerely has modified it slightly. Appropriate to the current atmosphere.  When you grumble and whine, aloud, you are labelled as anti. Anti hindu, anti national etc. And some extremely patriotic/ religious person will file an FIR and you may even be arrested.  But have you noticed the attitude of the left people? They  act so high and mighty and brainy and treat the other side as ignorant idiots.  When we complain, dislike and passionately oppose and condemn the bigoted people, are we not becoming exactly  bigoted? Yes, everyone knows that these waters are too murky to even look at. But our anger and resentment which to us is highly justified, will in no way clear the muddied water. Nor do social media wars.  Only thing we can ever do is pray to the almighty who in all probability taking a big nap. We can only pray to him that “ sabko sanmati de Bhagwan ”

This world is full of lunatics. Don't be offended, my dear lunatics. I am not telling this. It  was just my impression after watching the hindi netflix series - sacred games. I do watch hindi shows too. A little bit of patriotism is good, right? And many times, these Hindi series are much more realistic, artistic and better than international series. - Patal lok for example.  Yes, the sacred games is about not any games nor is it sacred. In fact, it has all kinds of masala a bollywood film uses -  there are gangsters, drugs, rags to riches stories, pretty girls who dance. And there are gurus - remember sacred. Sadly this guru believes that this yuga - this age is evil. It is ending, but the demise of the kaliyuga should be accelerated. So that the satyayuga can start sooner. The problem with this guru is, he has this magnetic charisma which attracts thousands of followers. Which is not surprising as we Indians are religious and are genetically inclined to believe "holy" p

Yesterday I came across an article or rather a book review of Amartya Sen’s book "Home in the world". In that review,there was a mention about the 1943's man-made Bengal famine . I have read about this famine multiple times. And each time I read it, my blood boils.  Apparently during that time in Bengal, around 2 to 3 million people died of of starvation, poverty and diseases.  The reason - mismanagement by the British. And  world war and the soldiers snatching the food of the citizens. Britain prioritizing  soldiers over normal citizens when distributing food and clothes. And also closing of water ways, burning of crop etc. to stop Japanese army coming into India through Bengal. They wanted to win the war or not lose it. What if  few lives of brown people have to be sacrificed for this grand cause.  Grrrrrrrr. So I think it is time for us to completely ban British and their language. Wait, if  English is banned, what will happen to us Bloggers? Our only way of communic