Life is an illusion

Frank and Cee are just two scared children. Running away from home and then coming back, never really finding where their home is.  First they run from Texas leaving behind their field, their crop and their horse Sarah. In fact at that time, Cee was still in her mother’s womb. They escape from Texas, from what kinds of atrocities, we don’t know. They arrive at Lotus, Georgia with the hope that their grandpa Salem Money will give them shelter.  He did give shelter - but barely that. His new wife Lenore, did not like the arrival of this large family in their house barely large enough for 3 people. And she expressed it often. Salem did not dare to criticise his wife, as she is the one who held the purse string. As Franks’ parents were   out of the house working, the children were the ones facing the brunt of Lenore’s anger and frustration. Frank and Cee never really complained to Ma and Pa about the mistreatment at the hands of their step grandmother. But even if they had done so, their p

  Devavrata So it all started with goddess Ganga marrying the mortal Shantanu. With a condition that he should not question her - no matter what her action is. And that results in 7 children of the Kuru king being thrown into the river Ganges. When she tried to carry the eighth son too, king stopped her and questioned her. And the end result is she deserted him, but didn’t drown the eighth child - our protagonist Devavrata.  Ganga nurtured this boy in heaven and when he is eighteen brought him back to the king. And everything was hunky dory for a while. Until a day, the king ventured to the river again.  He is attracted by a heavenly fragrance and went in search of its origin. Of course it is a young lady, this time not a goddess, but a young girl. King is enamoured by her beauty and wants to marry her. He approaches her father and asks her hand in marriage.  Funnily the fisherman was not so subservient. He asked whether the king will promise that his daughter will be a rajmata. Will h

 Continuing my efforts with "maha" bharatha, I tried reading the story of Shantanu. Shantanu was the king of Hastinapur and was the son of Prateepa. He spent most of his time hunting. May be because, his time was peaceful and his army was strong and people were happy.  One day in one of his hunting expedition, he saw a beautiful maiden - as beautiful as an apsara.  He fell in love with her and begged her to marry him. The lady in question turned out to be Ganga from heavens, daughter of Jahnu.  It is a funny story that this Ganga had previously begged Shantanu's father Prateepa to marry her. She straight away sat on his right thigh. He being a gentleman told her that he does not entertain other women. And also she sitting on his right thigh, can be his daughter or daughter in law, not his wife. Rejected Ganga went back to heavens after promising him that she will marry his son. So coming back to Shantanu, he asked the pretty lady to marry him. She obliged but with a pre-c

 I read a few things in the last few days. a. He surrounded himself by "yes men" and they were not giving him good advice. Did you think that I am talking about politics, you are 100% wrong. I am not talking about any political leader. Not this time. But about a Kannada actor named Darshan who is currently facing murder charges.  b. BBMP - bangalore city corporation body has invited individuals and institutions to adopt parks and squares. They can develop and maintain these. What will they get in return? A beautiful city which was once called garden city. But that news got me thinking. (Thinking is the only thing I do almost 20 hours a day). What if the welfare schemes like free ration/subsidized ration, free bus fares for women etc. are also outsourced to willing institutions? Let us say a company like Google can easily provide ration to poor of Bangalore without any burden. In return, the local body can provide infrastructures to the city which will help Google and others.

 What should I write? When this mind has become a mess? There is nothing in it except for hundreds of detectives I watch. I thought and decided I will start translating again - this time the one and only epic - Mahabharatha. Good and ambitious decision. But how feasible is this? I started with source - there is no dearth of Mahabharath source. The best according to me is Sanskritdocuments which converts the languages also for us. So I need Vyasa's Sanskrit verses in Kannada language -   change the language in the top widget. Lo, I have it in Kannada. So I copied the first parva - aptly called adiparva (adi - beginning), first chapter. And saved it safely in my editor.  Then came the actual work - translation. I had already decided not to go for word by word translation - what with the obstacles I faced during translation of ashtavakragita etc. So I easily selected an English translation from wisdomlib.org which also has grammar analysis of original words.  Narayanam namaskrutyam na

 I miss this. I miss writing something, anything in my blog.  And translating school lessons, even with tool tip texts is not quenching this need.  Innumerable times I have thought about lines to write - then decided against it. Thinking what am I trying to tell. Which is not said by thousand others in much better, much poetic, much stronger words. But as the song goes "I am not singing for you to listen. Singing is my dharma". So writing is for my own peace of mind.  By the way, I noticed a comment by an unknown person for my previous post asking if I wrote the post myself. My inner voice had some strong words, why does my inner voice gets angered so fast? But then, any comment is good comment, right? So I have question to the world in general - our "nation" in particular. How and why did a party with muscle power, man power, institutional power and "divine" power, lose so many seats?  Ah, by now I am tired of so many people analyzing what went wrong in