Dew

This post has been picked up by Bangalore mirror dated 31st December 2009 This morning, I woke up to hear the sad news about the actor, Dr. Vishnuvardhan's demise. Always when a child is born, you feel great and when a life is lost, there is an unsettled, unknown feeling of sorrow, whether or not you know the person. The clock doesn't stop anyway. I had my work day ahead, so, I stepped out of my room with a cup of tea as usual, to watch TV. Usually some music is on, mostly devotional. Today, there was a news channel that was telecasting ( is still telecasting, as I write this post three hours later ) the proceedings at the actor's house. There were a lot of people around, grieving over the loss. There was this telephonic condolence talk that was also being relayed. A caller who seems to be a great fan of the actor starts off his condolence note with a 'Good Morning'!!!!!. How can you say Good morning when it has not been a very good morning for most fans and near a...

Yes, if it sounds like a newspaper headline, so be it.. One evening, I was on my way back from work on a Volvo bus. Just the previous night, I had gone through this wonderful piece of work: http://themadmuggle.blogspot.com/2009/07/chicken-that-never-crossed-road.html An article worth your time and effort. So, it was easy to imagine the chicken trying to cross Marathahalli Ring road. If it ever did, it would be on CNN-IBN Flash news. The ring road is quite wide; a two way road, each has got two lanes ( or is it three? shall check today); then there is a lay-bye area sort of a road on both sides, used by two wheelers and pedestrians to reach the side roads on the ring road. So, if you set out from a side road to cross over to the other side, you will have to cross four stretches. Do not talk about pedestrian crossing here. Between two signals on this road where you see the Zebra crossing lines, the distance is at least ten minute walk. There are times when you need to cross the road and ...

We were on Christmas vacation; on a mini-tour of the places of historic importance with my cousin's family. Day before yesterday, the 26th of December 2009, Afternoon 2:00P.M; Poompuhar Beach, Near Nagapattnam, Tamil Nadu. I stood on the rocks that blocked the waves of the ocean from the shore and enjoyed the sea breeze. In a moment, for some vague reason, that I am unable to place, my mind went back to the same day, four years ago, on Bay of Bengal. It was the Tsunami day, 26th December 2005. I took a careful notice of the waves now and sensed that they were quite violent. My home town is on the Bay of Bengal coastline and my house is around 10 km away from the beach. The beach in my home town is THE major attraction and we have no count of the number of times we have accompanied our guests to the beach. To me, the beach is a great place to spend time with people, where we get to meet old friends... where you get to see diamond sparkles in crystal clear water on a sunny morning......

Hello People, Christmas Greetings to all of you. I wish you and your family Merry Christmas and a very happy holiday season. Enjoy the moment!!! :) Smile, Dew :)

I was searching for some work artifact ( yes, my work related old references are called artifacts) and stumbled upon a folder with some of my pictures, old and new. Although I am always for hard copy photographs and photo albums, of late, we have all shifted to soft copies mostly. When I ran a slide show of the pictures, few thoughts came up: A photograph's clarity is directly proportional to the camera used. The thought flow in your mind just before someone clicked a picture of you, also defines how beautiful you look. The traffic, the climate, the travel, and the peaceful good night's sleep - All these define your actual look. Good, Bad, Ugly - Its all photo technique, some natural and some artificial. If you are going by looks, a photograph is a bad idea. It is usually valid only as on the day it is taken. Photographs in the mind, hard disk or photo album are excellent keep sakes and records of fond thoughts. Photographs can teach you time travel, to the past mostly. Photogr...

I recently attended two wedding functions; This was after a very long gap, so I guess wedding observations are taking some space on my blog. What I am writing here is not what I noticed in these two wedding functions, but my general observations in Indian weddings. India knows to celebrate weddings. Applause.. Wedding is a very special occasion - The beginning of a life-long relationship that is the pivot of a happy family tree. There are extremely grand weddings (You cannot spot the color of the girl's saree, count the number of items on the lunch menu, and can never give your gift without having to wait for an hour in the queue to meet the couple), and moderately grand weddings ( You can tell the saree color, you can manage to taste most of the items on your plate, and can meet the couple fairly quick to greet them). The South Indian Tamil weddings mostly fall into one of these categories. At a South Indian Tamil wedding you will see/face all these: Bright colored silk sarees. Bu...

God sends gifts in various forms.... Hey wait... This is not a spiritual post, but one that tells you how my faith in God worked for me, as it always has :) The 5th of December was a very important day for me, because I had a paper presentation in a writer's meet. The presentation was important for a lot of reasons: One, I have not taken the stage for about 10 plus years now. Two, I cannot keep it short when I talk ( or write, to be honest) and I had just eight minutes to say all I wanted to say on the topic. Three, I am talking about a subject that everyone knows, so I cannot afford to make mistakes. Four, my stage fear is very popular with me and my circle of friends. Five, the audience will have a lot of new comers to the field and I have the responsibility of setting a good example. The presentation was scheduled at 8:30 A.M and I set out promptly at 7:20A.M. I had estimated about 10 minutes to hire an auto to the venue and about forty minutes of travel. Even if the traffic is ...

I got a chance to attend this writer's conference in Bangalore last week. The entertainment evening had this wonderful fusion dance number by two pretty and smart young ladies... or I'd just say the girls whose dance cast a spell on the audience....'Aaja Nachle' was one song.... the others I don't recall, as I am not very good at remembering cine bits ( music, stories and characters inclusive). What I definitely remember is that the music notes of the three songs were fused very well and the dance steps were in complete agreement. So, what makes this dance so special that it called for a post on my blog? This girl Ms.Damsel forgot that it was the stage and she is performing before a crowd of 500 plus people; she went into a new world where she was with the context of the song, her expressions perfect with the lyrics of the song, and her steps so gracefully tuned for the dance... She lived in the moment; the entire stage, the audience, her costume and the next step....