Midnight Fun

Qk.ly: http://bit.ly/bsxMidFun

Jack Walsh: How much is here?
Jonathan Mardukas: Neighborhood of three-hundred-thousand.
Jack Walsh: That's a, that's a, a very respectable neighborhood.

This day doesn't come around often so i wanted to write about a movie that's close to my heart and that doesn't come around that often, Midnight Run. It has Robert De Niro, one of my favorite actors, and that hilarious Dennis Farina, who turns 16 today! Too bad we don't see him in more films.

The synopsis on the DVD goes:

Jack Walsh (Robert De Niro) is a tough ex-cop turned bounty hunter. Jonathan "The Duke" Mardukas (Charles Grodin) is a sensitive accountant who embezzled $15 million from the Mob, gave it to charity and then jumped bail. Jack's in for a cool $100,000 if he can deliver The Duke from New York to LA on time. And alive. Sounds like just another Midnight Run (a piece of cake in bounty hunter slang), but it turns into a cross-country chase. The FBI is after The Duke to testify—the Mob is after him for revenge—and Walsh is after him to just shut up. If someone else doesn't do the job, the two unlikely partners may end up killing each other in this hilarious, action-filled blockbuster from producer-director Martin Brest (Beverly Hills Cop).

Stanley Kubrick once said: To make a good movie, you should have five to six sub-plots and be able to stitch them all together into a coherent whole.

Not only does this movie do that beautifully, but it also has many memorable lines and characters. Some of them:

Alonzo Mosely: Let me tell you something, asshole. I've been working on this Jimmy Serrano thing for about six years; Mardukas is my shot. I'm gonna bring him into federal court, and I don't want any third-rate rent-a-thug who couldn't cut it as a cop in Chicago bringing him to LA on some bullshit local charge. Do I make myself understood?
Jack Walsh: Can I ask you something? These sunglasses, they're really nice: are they government-issued, or all you guys go to the same store to get them?

and

Jonathan Mardukas: Did she hurt you, Jack?
Jack Walsh: Yeah, she did.
Jonathan Mardukas: I'm sorry.
Jack Walsh: What're you sorry about?
Jonathan Mardukas: I'm sorry you're hurt.
Jack Walsh: I'm not hurt.
Jonathan Mardukas: You just said you were hurt.
Jack Walsh: I'm not hurt.
Jonathan Mardukas: I just asked you if you were hurt and you said "Yeah, I'm hurt."
Jack Walsh: That's because you made me say that.
Jonathan Mardukas: Jack, you're a grown man. You're in control of your own words.
Jack Walsh: You're goddamn right I am. Now here come two words for you: Shut the phuck up.

and

Jonathan Mardukas: You lied to me first!
Jack Walsh: What the - -YOU LIED TO ME FIRST!
Jonathan Mardukas: Yes! Yes. But you didn't know I was lying to you when you lied to me down by the river. So as far as you knew, you lied to me first!
Jack Walsh: How can I argue with this guy. I don't know what the phuck he's talking about.

and

...

Some of the shots that have stayed in memory are:

Jack steals Alonzo's ID

Kid in the flight (as Jack "fingers" Alonzo's ID)

"Are Your Gonna Propose?"

Two hit-men (Tony and Joey) report their miss

Jimmy warns Sidney

Jack's kid, as he leaves w/o taking her money

The Litmus "Configururation"

Marvin "I'm always thinkin'" Dorfler

The Director (Martin Brest) Makes an Appearance

Alonzo Nets Jimmy

Neighborhood of 300K

"The place draws the name"

Qk.ly: http://bit.ly/bsxPlaceName

Once in a while, i wonder about these:

• Why was our childhood Quarters called Sea Sands, which sounded like a place in California, where life's a beach?
  
• Why did GMail allocate my kid an email ID that went Neti…Rama, using portions of my name?!
• Why do i refer to Roger Lee as Roge? Is it because he runs a forge?

When i changed my name in late 1990, CPKK suggested that i go for Sriram Shastri, dropping the initial V. My mother was horrified as the V stood for the Emperor at Tirumala. I think she even did a trip there to beseech His forgiveness!

Anyway, i had a dream the next month, where the present name was indicated. What i liked best about it was that it had the initials of the old name; so it wasn't a name change as much as a name enhancement.

So how does one get a name? Steinbeck has a detailed discussion on the naming of California in his Log from the Sea of Cortez: (sections from pp. 114-117)

'The name, California', Clavigero (a Jesuit monk) goes on, 'was applied to a single port in the beginning, but later it was extended to mean all the Peninsula.…'

Clavigero says of its naming, 'The origin of this name is not known, but it is believed that the conqueror, Cortés, who pretended to have some knowledge of Latin, named the harbor, where he put in, "Callida fornax" because of the great heat which he felt there; and that either he himself or some one of the many persons who accompanied him formed the name California from these two words. If this conjecture be not true, it is at least credible.'
…
Lake and Gray include an interesting footnote in their translation (of Clavigero's history of Lower California). 'The famous corsair, Drake, called California "New Albion" in honor of his native land. Father Scherer, a German Jesuit and M de Fer, a French geographer, used the name "Carolina Island" to designate California, which began to be used in the time of Charles II, King of Spain, when that Peninsula was considered an island, but these and other names were soon forgotten and that given it by the conqueror, Cortés, prevailed.'

And in a second footnote, Lake and Gray continue, 'We shall add the opinion of the learned ex-Jesuit, Don José Campoi, on the etymology of the name, "California" or "Californias" as others say. This father believes that said name is composed of the Spanish word "Cala" which means a small cove of the sea, and the latin word "fornix" which means an arch; because there is a small cove at the cape of San Lucas on the western side of which there overhangs a rock pierced in such a way that in the upper party of that great opening is seen an arch formed so perfectly that it appears made by human skill. Therefor Cortés, noticing the cove and arch, and understanding Latin, probably gave to that port the name "California" or Cala-y-fornix, speaking half Spanish and half Latin.

'To these conjectures we could add a third one, composed of both, by saying that the name is derived from Cala, as Campoi thinks, and fornax, as the author believes, because of the cove, and the heat which Cortés felt there, and that the latter might have called that place Cala, y fornax.' This ends the footnote.

Our (Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts) feeling about this, and all the erudite discussion of the origin of this and other names, is that none of this is true. Names attach themselves to places and stick or fall away. …. But in geographic naming it seems almost as though the place contributed to its own name. As Tony says, 'The point draws the waves'—we say, 'The place draws the name.' It doesn't matter what California means; what does matter is that with all the names bestowed upon this place, 'California' seemed right to those who have seen it. And the meaningless word 'California' has completely routed all the 'New Albions' and 'Carolinas' from the scene.

Interestingly, California adds up to 32, one of the very lucky numbers in numerology.

I am impelled, not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession.
—John Steinbeck, in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech

Spring Gleaning

Britisher to stranger on the road: "Spring in the air!"
Startled American: "Why should I?"

The first thing i saw this morning was a koel (images) flitting about the trees in the neighbor's house. Last afternoon, i had snapped this tree getting ready for spring:



Both of them came together in this nice Catch-22:

మావిచిగురు తినగానే కోయిల పాడేనా
కోయిల గొంతు వినగానే మావిచిగురు తొడిగేనా

Did the koel start singing
as soon as it ate the budding leaves?
Or, did the leaves start budding
as soon as they heard the koel's voice?

Infoscions might remember this discussion on the BullBoard.

Is Dark Matter the Formless Brahmn?

All that is invisible is verily the Infinite. All that is visible is also the Infinite. The whole universe has come out of the Infinite, which is still the Infinite—Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

This post is a result of mul"e"ing over the following posts by Gopa, one of my childhood buddies:

• Dark Energy
• Soul Searching Experiments, which mentions that a soul weighs about 21 gm (that number is very interesting, as LOVE and TRUTH also add up to the same number numerologically)
  

and the following news item:

Mysterious web of "dark matter" found

Canadian and French scientists have found enormous chunks of super-mysterious dark matter each 270 million light-years wide, stretching across the sky like giant cobwebs.

And it's all invisible. Dark matter is material that we can't see or detect with any known instrument. But it's suspected of being six times more common in the universe than regular matter—stars and planets and your body.

This huge network of dark matter shows up only indirectly. Its gravity is strong enough to distort the light of entire galaxies— hundreds of millions of stars at a time.

Heck, that dark matter's so big that you can shove the entire Milky Way Galaxy into it and then some. No WinZip needed ;-)

That:

it's suspected of being six times more common in the universe than regular matter

makes me wonder whether this dark matter/energy is actually the Formless Brahmn. One can't see It generally, but in an exalted state, It becomes visible. For instance:

• Swami Vivekananda's XP of Cosmic Consciousness
  
• Swami Vijnananda's XPs.
  

Mister God, This is Anna, that delightful little book by Fynn, has a very interesting point on dark things:

to be updated

In The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, one reads:

Sri Ramakrishna at the Dakshineswar Kali Temple

Sri Ramakrishna (to Trailokya and others)—…. The Puranas say that evolution is followed by involution. For example, take the bel-fruit. It has a shell, seeds and kernel. Throw away the shell and seeds and you have the kernel. But if you want to know the weight of the bel-fruit, it will not do to throw away the shell and the seeds. That is why, after negating the universe and its living beings to reach Sat-chit-ananda, one sees that He Himself has become the entire universe and its living beings. The kernel belongs to the bel-fruit, just as the seeds and shell do. Butter is a part of milk, just as buttermilk is; they belong to the same substance.

Even so, one may ask how Sat-chit-ananda has become so hard – touch the earth and you find it hard. The answer is that blood and semen are fluids, but they produce such a big creature as man. It is possible for God to do anything.

One must first reach the Indivisible Sat-chit-ananda and then, coming down, observe these things.

What use is so much knowledge
to you, Arjuna?
I stand sustaining this entire world
with a fragment of my being.
—The Bhagavad Gita, 10.42

He's part of America's troubles (6)

After almost half a century heading (leading?) Cuba, Fidel Castro, a 41, steps down on his own (Google News). Many US Prezs and plots came and went, while he hung in there.

When he became the leader of Cuba, there was a glowing Exclusive Feature Supplement in the RD that went:

I Saw Castro Liberate Cuba

readable version

But the love affair of the West with this Cuban crusader soon soured.

He was also featured in some favorite crossword clues such as the title of this post and:

He doesn't have much faith in Castro (7)

Lingo Lila

Qk.ly: http://bit.ly/bsxLingoLila

As usual, Gurcharan Das gave a lot to "mule" over this Sunday morning with his wonderful article in today's SToI:

Leap into a bilingual world
…
The linguist, Peggy Mohan, likens the evolution of the English language in India to the mobile phone. Just as our masses are leapfrogging to cell phones without going through a landline stage, she thinks that English might evolve in the same way from an elite to a mass, second language of the fast growing Indian middle class.

This English is primarily a skill, linked to getting a job, and is associated not with the culture of Shakespeare but with the popular culture of Hinglish—Bollywood, FM radio, SMS, and advertising. Of course, mixing English words with our mother tongue has been going on for generations. Earlier, it was the aspirational idiom of the lower classes. Now, it is also the fashionable idiom in upper class drawing rooms in south Delhi and south Mumbai. Hence, this English is shared and democratic.

Reminds me of the start of English, August, the Indian Catcher in the Rye:

"I've a feeling, August, you're going to get hazaar phucked in Madna"

Last evening, our shuttle court caretaker was telling me:

I studied in an English medium school, but when I joined the Palm Meadows Club, I couldn't speak a single sentence in English as I was too shy.

He said that in pretty-fluent English. I knew exactly what he was talking about, as i was in the very same position early on in life. Though we studied in an English-medium school, when our cousins came over from Durgapur, we were tongue-tied when they asked us to speak in English. Only when i went to IIM-A did English become second nature. Now it's an effort to think and speak in any other language, including Telugu, my mother tongue, which has effectively become an other tongue :-(

To return to the article:

At great sacrifice India's poor send their children to private, English-medium schools of varying degrees of quality. The children face incomprehension initially, but eventually most of them manage to take a leap into a new world. This happens because a child is naturally bilingual.

One of the very interesting benefits of speaking more than one language is:

Bilingualism delays onset of dementia

People who are fully bilingual and speak both languages every day for most of their lives can delay the onset of dementia by up to four years compared with those who only know one language….

Researchers said the extra effort involved in using more than one language appeared to boost blood supply to the brain and ensure nerve connections remained healthy – two factors thought to help fight off dementia.

"We are pretty dazzled by the results," Professor Ellen Bialystok of Toronto's York University said in a statement.

Once i escorted Dean Dobson, an Aussie working with Microsoft, to the Infosys campus. He spoke only one language. What a pity! I am very average at picking up languages and yet i speak four (English, Telugu, Hindi, & French) and am learning a fifth one, Mandarin (see It's Raining Languages). If you go to the Majestic bus stand in Bangalore, you'll find most of the shop guys there speaking at least five languages (English, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, and Telugu) very comfortably.

Remember reading that PVN, that polyglot who remained silent in many languages, was learning Spanish when the Congress was out of power in the late 1980s. He was then in his mid-60s!

"I presume you know at least three Indian languages, English, Hindi, and Bengali, yet you find it so difficult to communicate here. And three languages you could be masters of Europe."
—English, August

Childhood Memories

Qk.ly: http://bit.ly/bsxChiMem

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be
—First seen on a T-shirt worn by 4# Murthy

Google Maps in a blog?! Here's how to do it

While hanging out with the kids the other night, was reminded of some incidents from my childhood days at Sea Sands in Vizag.

The ground (the "Oval") was the scene of games:

• Action-packed raucous cricket matches with the nearby Pithapuram Quarters
• Ball-busting football
• French cricket, thanks to Madhukar and Shekar.
  

Some members of the Sea Sands Sollu Sangam

The Oval provided fantastic views of the Bay of Bengal. We had a promontory view (the sea was a staircase till it met the horizon) of the Bay. This photo by (MSR) Rambabu gives a flavor of that:

Bay of Bengal from Sea Sands

MBL (Marine Biology Labs) was certainly a weird place for kids and we would sneak in to check out some exotic specimens from the sea, with their foul-smelling preservatives. It was also an entry point for watching movies in Waltair Park (to the South West) on the sly.

One memory of MBL i can't get rid of is the visit of Jalagam Vengala Rao. Can't recall whether it was before or after the Emergency, but he arrived late in the evening, as usual, in pouring rain. Tons of Ambassador cars came rolling in the night (thanks, Gopa).

Along with them came monstrous cockroach-like creatures (thick carapace instead of the standard one), which got attracted to all the tubelights strung up for the occasion.

Get the heebie-jeebies (ఒళ్ళు జలదిరుస్తుంది) just to think of them, even after 30 years. Any one of them would have given the antagonist in Giant Cockroach In Bathroom 'A Harrowing,Kafkaesque Experience,' Grad Student Says a run for its money.

In Jumanji, when Alan Parrish says: (warning Judy and Peter about how much more complicated the Jumanji game is than they thought it to be)

You think that misquitos, monkeys, and lions are bad? That is just the beginning. I've seen things you've only seen in your nightmares. Things you can't even imagine. Things you can't even see. There are things that hunt you in the night. Then something screams. Then you hear them eating, and you hope to God that you're not dessert. Afraid? You don't even know what afraid is. You would not last five minutes without me.

i am reminded of these creatures.

One of the cousins of these creatures once flew in our open door, went scudding across the living room, and thudded into the opposite wall. It spooked us no end. We had to cover it with a peeta (one of those "small dining tables") till we recovered.

The funniest memory must be the one concerning the car of Angus, one of the Anglo-Indians. He would visit Rajesh in #21, right across our house, in his Ambassador; having a car those days was a real big deal. On one of his nocturnal visits, he went in and came out after a short while. We heard the shout "My Car!" and went out to investigate.

He had forgotten to engage the hand-brake and gravity, that insidious "bitch" that acts at the speed of light, sent the car rolling down the small gradient towards the Oval. By the time Angus came out, it was well on its way into the gutter in 7#Nani's house. Nothing could be done that night.

The next day, there were a lot of theories floating around how to extricate the car. 14B Ramana gave an idea while my Dad gave another. I argued vehemently with my Dad that since Ramana was studying Mechanical Engineering, he should know better. Ultimately, a variation on my Dad's idea was used to pull out the car. He still ribs me about it!

I never let my schooling interfere with my education.
—Alex Ayres, The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain

Fooling around in Vizag

Self-Surrender

Qk.ly: http://bit.ly/bsxSelfSur

Was reading about the only recorded exposition (Chapter 39) of Shirdi Sai Baba on a verse (04.34) in the Bhagavad-Gita:

Baba clarifies that:

1. It is not enough merely to prostrate before the Jnanis. We must make Sarvaswa Sharangati (complete surrender) to the Sad-guru.
2. …
3. Seva is not rendering service, retaining still the feeling that one is free to offer or refuse service. One must feel that he is not the master of the body, that the body is Guru's and exists merely to render service to him.
   

How does one do that? Swami Saradananda demonstrates: (God Lived with Them, page 334, middle)

When Saradananda prostrated himself before the Mother, as a witness observed, it was an unusual sight. He melted, as it were, on the ground before her. He showed that with his salutation he offered at her feet his body, soul, and everything.

My Dream Nandi

Love this Nandi at Chamundi Hill, as well as the one at Nandi Hills. Once i had an unusual dream* concerning this escort of Lord Shiva:

I was in a temple, where the Nandi ran out at speed and scraped my back. It's strange how you feel pain in a dream, but i did.

When i went back into the temple, the Nandi got ferocious and towered over me, with its forelegs raised in the air. I kept my cool. After a while, it calmed down and blessed me!

* Suratkar told me a strange thing on seeing my horoscope: "You'll have dreams where you are in temples". Weird, but true.

Rock on, Betty

readable version

It goes:

…Then we stopped at the cafe for iced lattes…

Betty: I love blogging!
Archie: So I see!

Archie: But can't we finish the date before you write about it?

Heh.

Do Unto Others…

Though it's a fashion among the glib
To take a poke at women's lib
My policy is not to rib
But to lib and to let lib.
—From an RD of the 1950s

Sometime back, came across an article which said that only one funda is required for living life. Yesterday, was surprised to read that the same is used by none other than the Global Indian for 2008:

"'Do unto others what you’d like others to do for you' goes a saying from the Bible, which Ratan Tata follows", says Anant G Nadkarni, vice-president, Group CSR, Tata Council for Community Initiative, whose association with Tata goes back three decades.

Felt that a specific instance of this was indicated as the very first of Ten Commandments for Peace of Mind:

1. Do not interfere in others' business

Most of us create our own problems by interfering too often in others' affairs. We do so because somehow we have convinced ourselves that our way is the best way, our logic is the perfect logic, and those who do not conform to our thinking must be criticized and steered to the right direction, our direction.

This kind of attitude on our part denies the existence of individuality and consequently the existence of God, for God has created each one of us in a unique way.

I had gnoted the above on V-day and, the very next day, was surprised to see Sarika Sehrawat, a rallyist, espousing the same in India Today Woman:

A code you believe in: Live and let live. Don’t intervene in anyone’s life.

Kali-Kala

Qk.ly: http://bit.ly/bsxKaliKala

…
of restraints, I am death.
…
of measures, I am time.
—The Bhagavad Gita, 10.29-30

During his visit to our place on SAT evening, Dr. Shamsundar pointed out this passage from Tantric Yoga and the Wisdom Goddesses to us: (page 66, middle)

Time is the working out of a cosmic intelligence. It is the very breath of the cosmic spirit. Time is not a mere mathematical concept but the very stuff of our experience, the rhythm of our lives. What are we apart from time? Time is our mother and origin, as well as our final abode. Time is a mother who eats her own children, which is one of the terrible aspects of Kali. Yet in devouring her own children she is also returning them to her wholeness and delight.

Was stunned by it, as it reminded me of one of the most intense XPs of Sri Ramakrishna, the AquaMonk, whose birth anniversary falls today: (pp. 21-22 of the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna)

He had a vision of the divine Maya, the inscrutable power of God, by which the universe is created and sustained, and into which it is finally absorbed. In this vision he saw a woman of exquisite beauty, about to become a mother, emerging from the Ganges and slowly approaching the Panchavati. Presently she gave birth to a child, and began to nurse it tenderly. A moment later she assumed a terrible aspect, seized the child with her grim jaws, and crushed it. Swallowing it, she re-entered the waters of the Ganges.

Vaastu and Beyond

At the start of 2007, we fortuitously ran into a Vaastu Consultant called Dr. Shamsundar. His USP is that he does Vaastu without Destruction. Using Sri Chakras, he converts unsuitable length/breadth ratios of plots, houses, and rooms into favorable ones such as:

• 1.6, which is, of course, the Golden Ratio, or
• 1.0, or
• 1.2, which is good for businesses.
  

During our discussions, he revealed that he was a devotee of Swami and that Swami had blessed him saying that he would do well in his work and benefit the people for whom he did vaastu. Incidentally, Shamsundar was the name of the horse of Shirdi Sai Baba.

Later in 2007, Dr. Shamsundar met Dr. David Frawley, aka Vamadeva Shastri, in New Mexico. Dr. Frawley pointed out that Dr. Shamsundar was only addressing part of the problem, by concentrating on the positive energies. What about the negative energies of a place?

So, Dr. Shamsundar added DasaMahaVidya to his repertoire. These are the ten forces that emerged out of DurgaMBA during Her ferocious fight with a demon and they address the following:

• Time transformation
• Space transformation
• Beauty transformation
• Energy transformation
• Word transformation.

More in the book called Tantric Yoga and the Wisdom Goddesses by Dr. Frawley.

You can also see some paintings of Mahavidyas by Sanatan Society.

We were struck by Dr. Shamsundar's pleasing and humble manner and his sincerity in helping others. Interestingly, he's born exactly one year before Bill Gates, which makes him a Scorpio Horse (as usual, Suzanne White's predictions are bang on).

This is what a front-page article in a Bangalore Times issue of FEB.2007 had to say:

Stars go for astro architecture
Hollywood or Bollywood, celebs seeking peace are roping in vaastu experts
Madhu Daithota & Pallavi Borkar

MICHAEL JACKSON'S crazy about it, so is Sandra Bullock. Back home, the Bachchans swear by it, while Shilpa Shetty can't do without it. It isn't a gizmo obsession that we're talking about, but a fascination for vaastu.

So it isn't surprising when Bangalore-based celeb vaastu consultant Shamsundar is called in to rectify the homes of celebs not just in India but also in Beverly Hills — including Michael Jackson and Sandra Bullock. Shamsundar says celebrities lead very stressed lifestyles, so they're constantly craving peace of mind. "They're open to anything that'll help them improve the quality of their lives", he says.

Michael Jackson was very disturbed because he was unable to sell a property he owned in LA. "He was going through a financial crisis and was counting on the money he'd get from the property to bail him out", says Shamsundar, who spent three hours 'energising' the property with Sri Chakra, an ancient method of rectifying energy fields. The property, claims Shamsundar, was sold for a premium rate within a week after vaastu correction. "Jackson's agent told me the singer was really happy", he adds.

Even Sandra Bullock has enlisted his services for her home. "I used a similar technique for her home", he says.

The soccer stadium and the soccer team of Denmark, too, have been 'rectified' by Shamsundar. "The stadium wasn't fetching them enough revenue, but once I corrected its faults the stadium started getting them great returns", he says.
…
Agrees Shamsundar: "When I was doing up Shilpa Shetty's house I didn't make any structural changes either. I made corrections at the entry point and the dimensions in the house with the help of the yantras."
…
Shamsundar has also worked on the homes of Akshay Kumar, Vishunuvardhan and Karnataka Chief Minister, HD Kumaraswamy's official residence.

You can reach Dr. Shamsundar on:

vaastubliss@gmail.com
or

+91.98450.18839

A Great Joy

WiFi got a card from her colleague at school. It was made by her colleague's kid and had a very inspirational message:

A great joy is always deep in our heart and always we can find it there.

To me, it sounded more like a message from Ramana.

Shades of Evil

Read a wonderful quote in a recent AWAD:

Evil is like a shadow—it has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it.—Shakti Gawain, teacher and author (b. 1948)

వీడే

The title reads VeeDay and means This Guy Only in Telugu. Liked the lingopun on that.

Valentine's Day has a different ring for me.

It was on that day in 1993 that i XPed the powerful look of Swami. I had gone to Brindavan along with WiFi and there was a big crowd, as usual. I got some space in the open area, on the right side of Sai Ramesh hall, and, due to some reason, Swami came that side. He wasn't more than 20 feet away when He looked right into me. Still to recover from that, even though it happened 15 years ago.

Sunlight on Swami

Guess it must have been one of His yogic glances.

As a result of that look, I'm not really that interested in photos of Swami where He's not looking at the camera. But the ones that do fill me with bliss.

Swami near our Puja Room

Italiano? No problemo!

The other day, i got a MSG in some other lingo:

niente Sastrissimo... niente prego

I guessed that it might be Italian, looked up a suitable site on the Net, and did the translation. But all that took some time.

Today, i saw this GMail web clip from TV Raman:

Google Translation + Gmail help people communicate

We recently made our machine translation technology accessible from within Gmail and Google Talk, which gives mail and IM users instant access to translation capabilities at the point where they might most need them, e.g., when communicating with friends and colleagues around the world. If you find yourself wanting to translate a few words or short phrase, you can IM an appropriate chat-bot to obtain an immediate translation. As an example, the Google translation bot for going from English to Chinese is available as en2zh@bot.talk.google.com. In general, translation bots are named using two-letter codes for the source and target language.

With this, quickie translation is just an IM message away. Just add it2en@bot.talk.google.com to your list of IM buddies in GTalk and fire away in Italian. You'll get the response in a jiffy.


For good measure, i checked a couple of Spanish phrases used in Tortilla Flat, pinged es2en@bot.talk.google.com, and got them more or less correct. One of them was "Pon un condo a la cabeza", which is, of course, just a sophisticated way of calling a guy a dickhead!

Debut Débâcle

Reliance Power (RPO) opened and crashed like a deck of cards last morning. The market witnessed another bloodbath and a fall of 834 points, the third worst fall of the Sensex. The Malaysia Star reports: (other news)

Reliance Power slumps on debut

MUMBAI: Shares in India’s Reliance Power sank as much as 21% in a chaotic debut yesterday as valuation concerns and global market turmoil dented investor demand following its US$3bil IPO, the country's largest.

The poor start for a share that had initially been expected to double was a further setback for India’s record pipeline of IPOs this year. Two offerings, including a US$1.6bil one from Emaar MGF Land, were shelved last week after a tepid response triggered by the global credit crunch and US recession worries.

Heh. I checked the numbers and both of them turned out to be 8s:

• Reliance Power adds up to 53.
  
• RPO, its ticker, adds up to 17.

Ouch. When i googled for the Reliance Power home page, i was amused to find it Under Construction.

Des rêves de Ramana

Read that folks who lose their hand take a long time before their one-handed state gets reflected in their dreams.

Ever since that wonderful trip to Tiruvannamalai last April, Ramana hasn't been far from my thoughts. So it was nice to get this early-morning dream in early December last year:

Was moving slightly above the ground (in a plane?) when i saw a nice temple for Arunachala. Was thinking: "What the heck is this?", when the temple was followed by more temples and open mandapas, in the middle of a long avenue.

Was hoping to see Ramana when i saw Him seated in one of the mandapas, in the same posture as in Sri Ramanasramam. Strangely enough, saw him lying flat, face down, in another mandapa.

In both cases, He was looking towards the temple at the head of the avenue.

In the dream itself, i started crying ecstatically, standing on a wall at the end of the avenue.

Earlier this month, there was another dream, wherein i was narrating two incidents from the memoirs of Kunju Swami:

…to be updated…

AI-by, Baby

There was a news item today in the ToI that i googled to get the original:

Babies reveal natural gift for numbers

Véronique Izard at the University of Paris-South in France and her colleagues have discovered that babies have brain circuits dedicated to noticing quantity, adding weight to the argument that humans possess an innate sense of numbers.

Intriguing.

When Marvin Minsky was asked why he was interested in Artificial Intelligence, he said:

I want to know what a man is that he can understand a number, and a number that it could be understood by a man.

Incidentally, he couldn't "crack" AI. Since most scientists believe that consciousness is a by-product of matter, they spent millions of dollars chasing that mirage. What a colossal waste! If only they had the view that it's Consciousness that comes first and everything else from That.

TNA of Lead India Finalists

Qk.ly: http://bit.ly/bsxTNALI

End of post updated with
video of RK Misra winning the first Lead India initiative

Not the TINA factor nor their DNA, but The New Astrology applied to the two remaining finalists of Lead India.

The Libra Snake, RK Misra, versus the Aquarius Pig, Devang Nanavati.

This is what the High Priestess has to say about the Libra Snake, the Enchanting Crusader:

Magnetism personified. The Libra born in a Snake year will, above all, attract. This combination is a mostly happy one. People born under this sign may be less so. This is because they are not only irresistible; they are also stubborn and willful. They want things done their way, and like to order others around subtly. Often, things are done for them, their way, by willing lackeys. These people have charisma to burn. Libran Snakes rule others through emotion. They are capable of sensing exactly what another needs from them. They are remarkably perceptive and even have a gift for the supernatural. Librans born in Snake years know how to exalt an audience with their cool, reasonable yet emphatically sentimental discourse. These people are born to serve as shepherds of human flocks, moralizers and brotherhood mongers.

On the Aquarius Pig, the Audacious Artist, she writes:

There evolves from the blend of Aquarius with Pig a brash quality that borders on lumpishness. Perhaps the Pig's naturally pastoral, countrified side imitates Aquarius's openness. Or maybe the Aquarian subject picks excess sincerity from the Pig and becomes too direct. But whatever the mechanics, this subject comes up both bold and forward. These people are aggressively charismatic. They know how to attract crowds and please them.

Though the numbers of Saturday, a D9C3, seem to be favoring Mr. Nanavati (a D3C4N48), the suave talker, my vote goes for Mr. Misra (a D2C6N15), who walks the talk.

As Feynman found out a long time ago, innovation is very difficult in the real world.

Update on 10.FEB (SUN)

RK Misra won the jury round with a tennis score (6-1) and the Lead India Initiative. He received the award from former President APJ Abdul Kalam.

Wee, Mee

WeeMee, that's what Skype calls your profile image. Sometime back i created one, making a micropayment. It was total Value for Money.

When we got the Wii, kiddo created a WiiMii, which is what your avatar is called in Wii. Weird!

Gong Xi Fa Cai

The trouble with the rat-race...
...is that even if you win, you're still a rat.

Or, welcome to the Chinese New Year. It's the Yang Earth Rat (Wu Zi) this time, from today all the way till 25.JAN.2009.

There was some discussion on the Net that this Chinese New Year started on 04.FEB itself, but i have my doubts about that. I've been noticing that the Chinese New Year starts exactly two lunar cycles before Ugadi (and one, if there's an adhika maasam). With the New Moon getting over today at 9:33 AM, the Chinese New Year of the Earth Rat is in full swing even as i write.

Here are some predictions that i have dredged from the Net, in no particular order, except that the blog posts come up at the end of the list:

• Chinese Animal Predictions For 2008—Year of the Yang Earth Rat
• Year of the Earth Rat
• Suzanne White on Year of the Rat
  
• Year of the Earth Rat—February 7, 2008 - January 25, 2009
• Suzanne White's Predictions
• Your Fortune & Luck for the year of the Earth Rat 2008
• Happy Chinese New Year!
• Chinese oracle's predictions for the year ahead
  
• Shocking Predictions for the Year of the Rat
• Year of Rat May Portend Losses in Asian Stocks, Astrologers Say
• Canadian Rats celebrate year of ascendancy
• Honolulu Numerologist Predictions for Year of the Rat
• Chinese astrologers offer Year of the Rat stock tips
• Chinese New Year—So long, Fire Pig: Next 365 belong to Earth Rat
• Flaming Yin Year of Rats and Rodents
• Turbulence ahead for Year of Rat, Chinese astrologers say
• Rat Pack
• Happy Chinese Year!
• I'm excited, but after last year....
• Welcoming the year of the Rat!
• Year of the Rat - new ventures, new beginnings - a new house in your future?
• Year of the rat is here
• Fung Shui For 2008
• Chinese New Year 2008, Year of the Rat

Here's wishing you all a "Zi"rful Year :-))

Easy, Peachy BillC

There's something about BillC. Just the thought of him cheers me up! Done some amazing karma in an earlier Life, without a doubt.

He was a big hit in India when he came here in 2000. Outlook Classics had a wonderful photo of him:

Let's not rake up the…well, internal matters of the White House. Andar ki baat hai, and we aren't Matt Drudge in any case. When he graced this blighted land with his looming build, all six foot four inches of Arkansas beef, sunny smile and all, India (especially its women) couldn't get enough of him. Hotel menus still sport 'The Clinton Platter' in his honor. He himself was quite a dish, inhaling all the adulation that came his way like a born star. By the way, his presence also signaled a geopolitical tilt in subcontinental affairs.

Suzanne White sent me an interesting article called A Candidential Who's Who—A New Astrological Look At The Current Presidential Candidates, which had an illustrative anecdote of his concupiscent charisma and easy wit:

By now, the entire restaurant was in heat. A kind of groupie estrus malaise had come over all the women. I was the worst hit. A 68 year old 16-year-old with a digital camera. I kept hot flashing it up at the towering Bill as he still stood near our table now talking to Chef's Restaurant's owner who is of course called Chef.

"You were born on the same day as me," Chef told Bill. "August 19, 1946."

"Oh that is a co-incidence now, isn't it?" said Bill.

I had written a New York Times Op-ed piece about Clinton when he was running against Dole. It was all about New Astrology signs and how Clinton was a Leo born in a Dog year and Dole was a Virgo born in a Pig year and what that meant for the outcome of the election. I had, even back then, compared Bill Clinton to a Labrador who jumps up on you and laps off your makeup just to say hello. Eager and friendly but perhaps not all that well-bred.

FYI, this Bill Clinton person is a giant. I looked up and shouted over the restaurant's hysterical din, "You're a Leo/Dog! You are both Leo/Dogs."

The way those men looked down at me then made me sure that both Clinton and the Chefster had me figured me for some batty old woman who lives half-snockered in a trailer under the overpass outside the city limits and who dreams of having something - anything - even her obituary - published in The New York Times.

But Bill had nonetheless connected. "A Leo/Dog huh?" He hollered back down to me.

"Yes." I shouted. "You are a Leo and you were born in a Dog year. That makes you a Leo/Dog in New Astrology. I invented it. It's a book!"

Now I was really a rattling loony tunes. I got that old sizzly feeling of impending immortality. I was talking to a former president of the United States about The New Astrology. It was like sitting right next to Salvador Dali in the cinéma in Paris. I did that once too. It also felt sizzly.

"Well," said Bill, leaning down to me. "I'm a Leo/Dog, huh.

“Yep.” I chirped. “That's what I said. You are a Leo/Dog.”

He smiled, placed his big hand on my shivering shoulder, gave a nod and confided, “I've been called worse."

© Suzanne White

Bill-Hill'y in a Buffalo, NY restau

A Dangerous Combination For Marriages

Qk.ly: http://bit.ly/bsxNJD5C8

Today's the first D5C8 in a while. Like so:

• Day Number, D = 5
• Compound Number, C = 8 (5 + 2 + 2+0+0+8 = 1+7).

Mercury, which rules the 5s, creates an explosive combo with Saturn, the lord of the 8s, and does not bode well for marriages that start off with weddings on the D5C8.

Pandit Sethuraman (PS), the great numerologist of Mylapore, Chennai, had written a very informative book on numerology in Tamil.

CPKK once told me that the main reason for writing the book:

PS had noticed that weddings that occurred on a D5C8 resulted in marriages getting into difficulties within the first year itself.

I recall the wedding of an Infy person on 05.MAR.1998 (a D5C8), which ended sadly with the Infy person dying suddenly within two weeks.

While at MaarsIndia, one of my pals was attending a wedding on a D5C8 at Mysore. I told him this funda of PS. Later, he said that the marriage didn't work out.

Fortunately, the reverse combo (D8C5) is not that dangerous for weddings, though the 8 might irritate.

The D5C8 will occur at least three times in a year and at most six times; in 2008, it'll occur six times (5, 14, and 23 in FEB.2008 and NOV.2008). So it's quite easy to avoid this combo for weddings (you have to calculate the Compound Number only if the Day is 5, 14, or 23).

Incidentally, the Valentine's Day A-320 accident of 1990 at Bangalore HAL airport (another report) also happened on a D5C8. One of my IIM-A seniors, a very enthu guy called N Chandrasekhar, was charred beyond recognition in it.

Changez! C'est la vie

Qk.ly: http://bit.ly/bsxChangez

The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.
—George Bernard Shaw

Last evening, WiFi had a visitor. During the course of their conversation, the visitor was mentioning that things are changing in Palm Meadows and, now, there's too much group-ism.

One thing i was very impressed with Sammy, when i re-established contact with him on the Mandarin course, was how much he lives in the present. The net effect is that he's so comfortable with whatever's happening around him. When a situation crops up, all he says is that it is (there). So what do you do about it?

The other day, i was commenting on the aggressively obscene in-your-face ads in The Forum mall and whether it was for the good (you become immune to them) or bad (folks get more horny and aggressive). Sammy's response was:

There you go Again!

which i shortened to TYGA (not the Russian one), to give me a knock on the head when i start this type of questioning :-)

He added that the only place where that sort of question (good or bad) makes sense is when you're designing something. For instance:

Should Blogger give an option to delete an entire blog?

Of course, Dr. Spencer Johnson had written a bestseller with his lovely parable on change, Who Moved My Cheese? (download PDF).

Another person who embraced change as a way of life is Suzanne White. In Making Friends with Change, she writes: (it's so good that i quote the entire page)

I espouse change.

I go after change. I seek it out. I hunt it down. I nose about like a truffle hound looking for change. And if I can’t find any, I sometimes make change happen.

Sometimes, when I don’t expect it, when change just up and happens, I do my best to welcome it.

Most people are inhabited by the familiar. They remain close to what is comfortable and stay with what is safe. They never color outside the lines. They work the same territory every day. They do their chores and pay their bills and take their holidays at the same time in the same places. That is the way they feel most secure.

Are they bored? Maybe. Yes. They might be bored. And they might complain of being bored. Did they choose boredom over change? Not really. Not consciously. But. come to think of it yes. It’s safer that way. Change might prove to be dangerous or at the very least uncomfortable. Many people fear discomfort and as a result they continue to resist change.

My so-called fascinating life is never safe. I guess I don’t believe in security. I know in the pit of my being that not one of us is ever safe … from illness, despair, loss, fear, poverty, sorrow, self-doubt or lies. We are but specks afloat in this vast universe; and if we don’t want to be bored and we don’t want to be disappointed and we don’t want to be depressed, we must make our own amusement. Fun is always there right under our noses. To create it, we must only dare to espouse change.

If I am today the author of five books and friends with people of all races, sizes, shapes, colors and professions, it’s largely because I am so cozy with change.

And were I advising a young person starting out, I would say, “Make it your business to live your life your way—even if it means crashing through screaming crowds of people who want you not to. Be selfish if you must. But be you.”

You can email Suzanne.

In keeping with this, here's my new look:

The best part was when both the kids said that i looked different and at least 10 years younger. Yahoo or should i say, Ms. Yahoo?!

The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.

Thought Trough

Keep "mule"-ing over how thoughts arise. Esp. since i am a believer in Edgar Cayce's reading that the soul enters the body at the time of delivery and it's the Infinite Spirit that sustains the fetus from conception to delivery. More….

Effectively, the Infinite Spirit has been in the body longer than my (or your) soul. Is That the genesis of all thought and subsequent actions?

When i get a thought, from whence has it come? Let's say i'm trying to think of a nice title for a blog post, suddenly it comes out of the blue. One has to scratch one's head to figure out how it so mystifyingly appeared.

In the mid 1980s, TVK Bhanu Prakash was doing TM (Wiki) and he explained the idea behind TM very nicely:

Thoughts can be likened to bubbles rising from the bottom of a deep ocean. As they rise, they become bigger and bigger. TM teaches one the trick of capturing the nascent bubble and extinguishing it asap.

As if in synchrony, got the following thoughts for the day from AHAM:

What does it matter how many thoughts rise? At the very moment that each thought rises, if one vigilantly inquires, "To whom did this rise?" it will be known "To me." If one then inquires, "Who am I?" the mind will turn back to its source (the Self) and the thought which had risen will also subside. By repeatedly practicing thus, the power of the mind to abide in its source increases.—Sri Ramana Maharshi

and another from Sai Inspires:

Any happiness experienced through the mind is not spiritual bliss. It is transient physical pleasure. Not recognizing this truth many pursue so-called spiritual exercises with the mind. The mind should be ignored. It is concerned only with thoughts of one kind or another. The (self) Aathmik Principle can't be understood by such thought processes. Divert your attention towards the Aathma (Self) and dismiss all thoughts. If you cannot get rid of thoughts, then cultivate good thoughts. Turn your thoughts towards the Supreme Lord. I have often compared the heart to a lock. If you turn the key left ward, it gets closed. Turn the key to the right and the lock opens. Turn your heart God-ward.—Divine Discourse, October 7, 1997

The more i push this envelope, the more i feel that it's actually the Infinite Spirit that is doing His work, rather than us. He gives the thought and, hopefully, the energy for the subsequent action.

Take Him out of the body and it's dead. The soul has to go back from wherever it came from. In an extremely rare case, the soul is ejected from the body, but He keeps on driving it, as in the case of Ramana Maharshi—An Incarnation by Death.

To me, that's a very liberating thing. No more quibbling about the amount of work i had done on some activity vis-à-vis someone else!

Thou workest Thine, own work; men only call it theirs.
—Sri Ramakrishna in His Last Visit to Keshab

God is in the details

The thing i enjoyed most about Swami Premananda's XP in the last post was the bit at the end:

For a brief moment he danced in ecstatic joy.

Such small cues make the XP realistic.

On my b'day in 1996, Sammy and i were at the BBU J-Curve meet. I had just read the following XP of Sri Ramakrishna in the morning: (The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, Chapter 44, page 830, bottom)

God talked to me. It was not merely His vision. Yes, He talked to me. Under the banyan-tree I saw Him coming from the Ganges. Then we laughed so much! By way of playing with me He cracked my fingers. Then He talked. Yes, He talked to me.

For three days, I wept continuously. And He revealed to me what is in the Vedas, the Puranas, the Tantras, and the other scriptures.

When i shared the same with Sammy, he observed that it must be true as no one can make that up:

By way of playing with me He cracked my fingers.

And what to make of this in Chapter 16?

Saturday, December 15, 1883
Story of Prahlada
…
While listening to the story of Prahlada's love for God, Sri Ramakrishna went into an ecstatic mood.

Hiranyakasipu, the king of the demons and father of Prahlada, had put his son to endless torture to divert the boy's mind from the love of God. But through divine grace all the king's attempts to kill Prahlada were ineffective. At last God appeared, assuming the form of Nrisimha, the Man-lion, and killed Hiranyakasipu. The gods were frightened at the rage and roaring of the Man-lion and thought that the destruction of the world was imminent.

They sent Prahlada to pacify the Deity. The boy sang a hymn to Him in words of love, and the Man-lion, moved by affection, licked Prahlada's body.