Cold-Stone-Hearted-Woman

  It was a very small elegant beautiful hut on the side of a single road which can fit only one vehicle with four wheels. Vehi-cles often shared two side wheels whey they overtook or when their path crossed in a journey. The small beautiful hut on the sides of this small road housed a lovely couple with two sons and three canine family members. It was a poor but lovely family. The lady of the house was a very talkative woman but was also a very kind, caring and supportive wife for a crippled, bold, humble and well mannered husband. The man of the house, husband of a kind hearted talkative noisy woman, father of two young bright active and intelligent sons, was a government school watchman. The house was a makeshift arrangement for this modest family and it was lo-cated just outside the school gate and besides this main road which was moderately busy.

   This humble family adopted 3 canines (you may call them dog but don't dare to do so in front of any of this family mem-bers) namely PETER, RAM and MULLA.. These three canines have not only occupied a major portion of their hut but also a major portion of their heart. These three canines in return paid back their love by assisting the man of the family during night shift in his duty as security guard of government school. In addition the family owned two Panthers (motor cycle brand with peculiar sleek de-sign and noise) which were their commuting vehicles. People can easily identify from the sound that someone from Guard’s family is on wheels, such was the uniqueness of the Panther’s sound. The whole family travels on panther in all possible combination, hus-band and wife, husband and kids, father and son, son and mother, father and canine, son and canine as riders and pillion riders re-spectively but the rider was always someone who had a verifiable driving license. Humans from the family as riders and the canines (PETER, RAM and MULLA) as pillion riders was such a adorable scene for the villagers to admire and talk about.

   In addition to being a helping hand and a additional walking leg to the guard, RAM, PETER and MULLA were great friends of the lady of the house. At times they are her stress busters. She yells at them, orders them, hugs them, feeds them, talks to them on her lonely days. They were always competing for her love and attention. She had been a very rational lady and always shared one-sixth of love and affection to those who lived in that humble but beautiful hut. She has always been a warm lady with kind heart in contrast to her noise talkative outlook which often deceives anyone his is meeting her for the first time. People always have this opinion about her—talkative, noisy cold hearted woman. People have been harsh and mean to her because of this miscon-ception. She never cared and was not even aware of it. All she cared was dividing her love and attention into one-sixth and distribut-ing it equally to the co-habitants of her palace.

   On a beautiful Sunday, the man of the house, the Guard of the school, got his weekly off and wanted to take his family for an outing. Husband and eldest son on one Panther, wife—the lady of the house and youngest son on another panther, with the village people noticing them by unique Panther’s noise left for a family outing leaving their canine family members at home. They decided to go for a movie in nearby town. Their sons wanted to watch the movie for two reasons, one because all their friends have already watched the movie and boasting about it in school, secondly their most admired and favorite teacher who is like a mentor to them talked highly of that movie saying that this particular movie teaches young people about love and compassion. It was a good movie and the family enjoyed the movie as well as the whole outing trip. On the way back home they had a nice chat with each other and the significant part of that chat went like this;

Eldest son: Nice movie and good to know about Love and Compassion.

Father : Good that you guys enjoyed the movie and the trip.

Youngest son: Yeah, good movie. But don't you guys think we should also have love and compassion in our house too?

Mother: What made you to ask such question? We always have love and compassion at our house.

Younger son: Do you think so? Then why do people in our village call you “noisy-cold-hearted-lady”?

Mother: Who say such things to you about me? (She was really shocked to hear such things from her son)

Younger son: People in the village and my friends at school.

   By then they were approaching their destination—Their Home. From distance they can see their house and RAM, PETER and MULLA. On seeing them the three canines got exited and started barking with matching decibels of the two Panthers. The three started running towards them on the road as the family was nearing the house on their Panthers. The lady of the house was shouting at the canines for two reasons. One, obviously she was upset about her younger son’s comment earlier, second she was worried about the safety of the canines on the road because of approaching vehicle at high speed. They were meters away from their house when the horror suddenly happened in front of their eyes. As she feared the drunken rookie on a speeding lorry hit and ran, leaving RAM, PETER and MULLA lying on pool of blood. The three canines were fighting for life on the side of the road near the hut.

   The visibly shocked family parked their noisy Panther on the side of the road and ran towards their severely wounded ca-nines . The Guard and his both sons held RAM, PETER and MULLA respectively on their lap and were worried and crying with the lady of the house no-where around them. Within minutes people gathered around them and everyone noticed the lady of the house emerging out of the hut with water in a small vessel. To everyone's surprise and with her family members watching she poured water on RAM, PETER and MULLA and within minutes the three died of chocking in water and blood. Everyone gathered around them were hell shocked and were murmuring—cold-stone-hearted woman. The younger son looking straight at the eyes of her mother said angrily “ See, you are really a cold-stone-hearted woman” and ran away crying in to their house, with his elder brother tailing him to the house in an effort to console him.

   She too was saddened by what happened but only she knew there was no chance for them to save RAM, PETER and MULLA and only thing she can do is not let them suffer in pain. By pouring water on them she made them suffer less. She looked at her husband for comfort not opinion from him. Her compassionate crippled husband with his limping leg approached her, under-standing his wife’s intention behind the act gave her a comfortable hug and took her to their hut. The gathered crowd dispersed with murmur and gossip. Later, the Guard with the help of his lady and sons buried RAM, PETER and MULLA adjacent to their hut.

   None of them had dinner that night. The younger son was still angry at his mother, went to sleep early along with his brother. The man of the house, the Guard noticed his lady weeping in the corner of the house. He approached her and consoled her by saying “you did the right thing by pouring water on RAM, PETER and MULLA as they were severely wounded and no way any-one could have saved them. Since you were close to RAM, PETER and MULLA, you couldn't see them suffer like that and you smothered them by pouring water”. She was very happy to know that her husband understood her true intentions but was still wor-ried and weeping. She said “Now, I have proved that I am actually a cold-stone-hearted woman to our sons. They will never love me again” and she started crying. Her husband hugged her again and said “from tomorrow when your love and affection for them in-creases from 1/6th to 1/3rd, they will understand that you are a lovely person and it is the opinionated society and gossiping people who are stone-hearted and cold, not you”. On hearing this she felt very relieved and went to sleep after sending her husband for night shift at the school gate.

   The limping Guard never felt he was crippled in his life because of such a kind lady in his life. Today sitting at the school gate alone at night with tears in his eyes, he felt crippled without RAM, PETER and MULLA by his side.

Breaking the Taboo.......

I am definitely not a GOD person and this is definitely not about GOD.

I recently visited Khajuraho – one of India’s world heritage site declared by UNESCO. A very nice place depicts the amazing architecture and advanced social life of the people. The temples were neatly designed and raised on a platform using marble stones, and the sculptures on the temple walls were of sandstone.

What was my purpose to visit the temple? One of my roommates was getting married at Khajuraho, and he said I can look at this site too after the wedding. Also there was a Taboo attached to this place and I love to do what is generally considered as Taboo. So I have made a plan of attending the marriage and site seeing this ancient temple site. As usual, the procrastinating guy in me made a terrible plan and made this trip almost impossible. However, all thanks to the guys “PUNE RAIL SEVA” who book emergency train tickets. They are very reliable in last minute train booking, and till the date whenever I approached them; they never failed me to get a ticket. I recommend them to anyone living in PUNE for emergency train ticket.

On reaching Khajuraho, took a share auto to the temple site. I was the 13^th passenger in the share auto, and I guess PIAGGIO originally designed the auto for four people. The auto driver was reluctant to start the auto as he was visibly upset to see only 13 people whereas his expectation was to pack minimum 20 people in the auto. But the poor guy has to give-in to the demands of the impatient 13 people, who were cursing him already to start the auto. It was a 10 rupees ride to the Kahuraho bus-stand.

From Khajuraho bus-stand one can hire auto/bike/bi-cycle or walk to reach the different temples around Khajuraho bus stand. There are a total 22 temples in three groups – the Southern group of temples, the eastern group of temples and the western group of temples of which the western group of temples were declared as world heritage, and they are main attraction. The Jain temples in the eastern group are very elegant ones.

I hired an auto, and the auto driver was sort of kind guy (found out later he charged me double for the ride sensing my Hindi accent, Rs 600 for usually Rs 300 ride) to guide me around the temples. He, first took me to the southern group of temples, which had three to four temples one of them is called Chatbhuj Mandir. The temple architectures were very meticulous and so detailed. “The architecture of the temple can be summarized as symmetry and perfect repetitions." All temples have a central deity or Moorthi with well decorated walls and on a raised platform with steps leading to the deity. However, non-of these temples are visited by people for poojas or darshan. They are very neat and clean but people don’t worship in these temples for some unknown or may be known reason.

I could see most of the tourists were foreigners or NRI and very few Indian tourists were visiting the place. There was one Indian NRI couple, few Koreans, Americans, Mexicans and Spanish. There was this Indian NRI student with her classmate named PETER from Scotland. She said she brought him on a cultural trip to India, and she was so so bad with Indian history and Indian Epic, especially Mahabaratha that she was simply blabbering to this poor PETER from Scotland. (I am no good at these epics but if somebody says Mahabaratha is based on LORD RAMA, I can say he/she has zero knowledge in the subject). I was growing impatient with her blabbering which at some point she sensed and said sorry in private not wanting to appear silly to her friend PETER from SCOTLAND. I don’t understand why people don’t keep shut if they don’t know things. Sometimes some people try to be louder in a group, so they can appear to have more knowledge than the rest of the group. Anyway, she was an overenthusiastic kid sportive enough and open to correct herself. On the back of the temple, there were these local guys who were offering marijuana to this POOR PETER. However, he politely denied their offer and shared a cigarette with them. Then we moved to the last two temples in the southern group – Vaman mandir & Javari Mandir.

The most interesting thing happened to me at southern temple. With the usual group, we were looking around the temple, and I came across this couple who looked Indian in their retired age and on seeing them using the same type of hired auto as me, I just asked them how much they paid for the auto. The old guy replied suddenly with an American accent “300 bucks” which brought a loser feeling inside me. There are general indicators to identify Indian in a group. One is making others feel BAD. The old guy asked me back how much did you pay for your ride? “Rs 600” I, replied. Suddenly, he started bursting out in laughter with his wife and said the most terrible thing “Don’t worry; there is no point in regretting now. You already paid double to the autowala and lost your money, just enjoy the ride." I was talking to myself inside, “this bloody accent oldie is definitely INDIAN; he knows exactly how to make you FEEL BAD in a situation”

The autowala overheard the conversation and asked me “What did that uncle tell you about auto fare?” I replied that he charged me more than what the uncle paid for his auto, for which he had a very logical explanation. He said he is guiding me on the site by taking me to all small temples first and then to the main site of attraction later which he said other autowalas will not do for Rs 300. And most interestingly, he said he is teaching me the importance of patience and slowness in seeing the temples of khajuraho which I understood from his crude words was a complete metaphor for lovemaking.

Then we moved to the eastern group of temples where Jain temples were located. My only thoughts when visiting these Jain temples were “why on earth somebody will place Jain temples next to these erotic temples of Khajuraho?” It clearly indicates that there existed two kinds of people with two extreme thoughts, one embracing SANYASAM and other embracing LIFE’s SIMPLE PLEASURES. Legend says that these temples were built to prevent the influence of Jainism on youths of that period.

Next site was the western group of temples, which is actually the UNESCO site. It was very well maintained with lush green lawns. Another legend says that “Moon GOD fell in love with a beautiful daughter of a priest. One night Moon GOD came down to earth attracted by her beauty, seduced her, had a passionate night and in the morning promised her that she will have a SON who will rule the whole earth and the Moon GOD went back to sky. As promised SHE did have a son, who established CHANDRA DYNASTY which had an advanced society in India. To honor his mother’s extramarital affair he built these temples depicting erotic pictures and hidden side of human desires and wanted his people to talk about what was considered as taboo” I am not a historian and leave the responsibility of verifying the authenticity of these legends to the historians. The artistic way of expressing human desires has to be appreciated and everyone should visit this place once.

These are the only temples in INDIA where you can see people were more interested on the walls of the temples than the central deity!!!

Crazy Thing called life….Embrace Spontaneity....

It was a normal Saturday night and I share this room here at Pune with the most HEADSTRONG GUY* I have ever met in my life.That night Surprisingly he was in listening mode (so unnatural) and I was in a philosophical mode (which you develop the moment you see anybody younger to you listening to you), so a small conversation started.


Bala: Hary, What do you think the purpose of life?


Hary: Bala, I have been thinking of the same after shifting the room with you, and it has been a taunting thought which I am finding difficult to find a suitable answer for. What do you think of the same question. (He expected me to give a boring and lengthy answer but there was a seriousness in him).


Bala: DUDE, I think there are only two things about which one can be very certain in life, Birth and Death. All you have to do is just to find a way to time pass in-between. So life is just a time pass between Birth and Death.(I said this with the flow without any thought but later we realized that would fit for the "perfect answer" we were looking for the "purpose of life")


That small conversation left me with a deep thinking and made me to list out these crazy things one can do to "TIME PASS". Some of them I practiced, some of them I practice and some I wish to practice…..


1. Treat people with courtesy and respect and involve them in all your crazy activities however bad they are to you. Eventually they will see  the point in you and join you.
2. Start a virtual business, make them believe in your idea and give them a suitable position in that company like CEO, President whatever they want to be.
3. Learn HTML and WEB designing….believe me you don’t have to be a computer programmer to do this…visit codeacademy, coursera websites they have easy guidance for novice…
4. Lend a hearing ear to your friend who is in bad mood and needs a pep talk. Take him/her out and make them feel good.
5. Tell your friend, "Let us make a movie using only our mobile camera" and move away when he starts thinking "you are really crazy" but still prove him wrong by making a movie on him.
6. Get into a ugly fight and argument with your roommate and stop talking to him for months.
7. Start abusing your house-broker for looting your money.
8. Start doing exercise for a week and give free advise to your roommates like "you have trained ROCK in body building"
9. Make cold coffee at room and offer it to your roommates (secretly wishing they do not want).
10. Keep alarm early in the morning and do not wake up. On top of it wake your roommate from sleep and ask him to stop it. (It is good if the alarm is set at 4 am, 5 am and 6 am continuously and keep funny alarm sounds)
11. Start preparing food with your own recipe when maid is on leave and feed them with the worst food they tasted in their life.
12. Compliment your maid for her food (dirty minds be careful what you are complimenting for otherwise you will end up in jail). We have a maid, when I complImented her for her new earring, she was blushing and  started preparing nice food for us from next day. The other day I saw her using lot of oil in food (she uses 1 liter oil in 3 days) and I showed her my recent medical report showing "avoid oily foods". She said I will reduce oil. But to make her understand the seriousness of it, I said "Mousi, Mujhe Shaadi karna hai" (I meant I am not yet married so please use less oil in food). She gave a smile and continued with her work. Next day she complained to my roommate that " I asked her to marry" (Never thought wrong use of language would land me in such a trouble" But later I had to explain her "I have no plans of marrying her!!!")
13. Start growing plants in the middle of the room and annoy your friend by telling them we need more oxygen in the room!!!.
14. Start cycling with your friend and make him lose weight, in the process you too.
15. Start swimming with your friend and make it a group activity.
16. Start teaching to kids around your place and see the excitement in their face (Like they met Einstein …..it happens only if you are true and involved with them while teaching).
17. Start drinking "Redbull" with other guys while they booze and start behaving crazily as though you have boozed…
18. Start reading books completely not relevant to what you are doing currently in life and start discussing with your friends. Make them do the same….(I convinced the HEADSTRONG GUY to do that !!!)
19. Bring delicious food and share it with your friend and when they say "No, I am dieting", tell them to do the dieting on your behalf, you eat on their behalf.
20. Ask your friend to give his bike on rent and tell him a detailed explanation "why he has to put petrol on it"
21.  Prepare to do list…strike out all the items when in actual you have accomplished only one task…repeat the same …..it has a psychological effect on your peers and friends when they see it….
22. Stock Maggi and milk packets at room and sell it with 100% profit to your roommates when the shopkeepers go on indefinite strike….
23. When your friend takes you for a treat order all the delicious and most costly foods in the menu and when served just taste a bit and say Dude just realized I am having a stomach update!!!
24. Crack a joke and laugh on your own joke in-front of all your roommates, till they end up laughing with you.
25. Commit to you friend for going out and end up not showing up there and not even call to inform them that you wont be coming.

NEVER EVER LOSE YOUR CURIOSITY AND CHILDISH CRAZINESS IN LIFE.... 

*(HEADSTRONG GUY - Before meeting him I thought I was the most headstrong guy in the world. He made me look so small at our first conversation and I was not so pleased to see "my personality inside him").

Creativity and time pressure

Watch "Creativity requires TIME" on YouTube

The gerson miracle

Watch "The Gerson Miracle - Cure all ailments by simply changing your diet." on YouTube

Smartphone and new place

New place and new environment. Got moved to a new room with new guys. It has been a hectic but very learning experience shifting to this place. In the process made and broke few friendships. Feels good to be self sufficient again and the new setup also seems to be economically reasonable. Have you ever had a roommate who keeps an alarm at 5am and sleeps tight wherein you wake up and wonder what for did he keep alarm if it is going to wake others except him? BTW got a new s3 which was bought after a lot of thinking-over. This is in exact contradiction of my stand against smartphones in the previous blogpost but i take back my words. Smartphones are the smartest thing to have considering the mammoth of benefits and fun they provide and the new experience of communicating, one should experience it to feel. I am feeling it now and it is an awsome feeling to use a smartphone. Although i find it awkward of the fact that it attracts unwanted attention wherever you take it out, but i got used to it now.

Doomsday and my weekend!

How do someone know today is doomsday? Yes today The May 21 2011 is doomsday where the world will meet it's end when it Clocks 6.00 pm according to this crazy guy who has earlier failed predicting the same in 1994.  Reading  " The Wild Geese and the Water by OSHO" not a bad thing to do on doomsday cum weekend. Started with cleaning and moping the room, tidying up the things that makes my room - good start for the day. Cleaning gives you kinda good feeling like mind cleaning I guess metaphorically. You feel so refreshed and charged especially when you do it in the morning.

Got a Bike this week which has been my long pending wish!(Damn my procrastination) Hmmm... started cycling with the new one. Kinda facing problem with the gears but should get adjusted to it soon. This is my way of going green and moreover it should help me reach office which is now at cycling distance!!! It is "Hercules Drift Roadeo" I would recommend this model to anybody looking for bike in pune. I got it from a shop named Bedke cycles near Rhatani Fatta ( I dont know how to spell it Phatta or fhatta) or if you are looking for some real sports bike then RIDE at Aundh should be good but be prepared to burn ur pocket ( they have got cycle starting from 17k to 1.75 lacks). Thanks to my friend Advait who also happened to be my colleague for helping me to get this bike. 

Coming back to the Doomsday, It is 16.51 in my clock. So I got hardly one hour to live. Oh man what am I going to do in this one hour? Keep guessing will post back from heaven!!!

Moral Stories - Herd mentality

You are not an Indian, if you have not grown-up listening to stories. Your childhood is filled with all types of stories; especially moral stories. I too have grown up listening to lot of them. These stories play a major role in shaping up our character as we grow and mature.This is my favorite story which was told in one of my moral classes in school. " There was a classroom full of students in a school and a teacher was walking outside the class by the window. Suddenly, he was interrupted by a banana-peel thrown out of the window by a student. Infuriated at this act he enters the classroom and ask the students, "Who has done this mischief?". As typical of our herd mentality nobody came forward either accepting the mistake or pointing out the culprit. The teacher got more infuriated at this and asked the whole classroom to stand on the bench. With some murmurs the whole class stood on the bench except one BOY. On seeing him, the teacher shouts; how dare you not listening to my words when everybody else is obeying my orders? The boy replies politely, Dear Sir first-of-all I have not thrown the banana-peel and secondly,"WHY SHOULD I FACE THE PUNISHMENT FOR SOMEBODY'S MISCHIEF? On hearing this the teacher felt moved by the Boy's courage and asked the whole class to sit down. The moral of the story is, " Forgo the herd mentally and try to stand-up and show your character if the situation demands even if you are alone "

Nice story, but what bothers me is the culprit is still left to enjoy! What moral is this?