Ahobilam Day 1

We had a couple of days of holidays for diwali so we decided some time back to travel to Ahobilam. The schedule was for 3 days (22/10 sun , 23/10 Mon and 24/10 Tues ) . All Set for the travel , I would post the travelogue in abt 4 posts to give a picturesque description of our trip.
The first post would contain a general description covering the details abt the place, how tor each etc . Each forthcoming post woudl contain details on my stay in Ahobilam .

Aho+Balam= Oh What a strength ! is the etymological meaning of the place.
Lord Nrsimha is the presiding deity of the place. This avatara a noteworthy avatara in the dasavatara. This avatara was to show the omni present nature of the divine supreme. This also was to prove that belief and Sharanagathi ( principle doctorine of Sri Vaishanavism) to the supreme would never go astray.

This place is also known as Simham vel kundram which is a then(north) naatu thirapuathi (mangalasasanam by Thirumangai Azhwar).

How to Reach Ahobilam

For detail travel and maps , please mail me or I would plan to put them in the forthcoming post

If you are travelling from Chennai . Cuddapah should be the closest city (abt 400-420 kms frm Chn ) . Cuddapah -> Allagada -> Ahobilam (23 Kms).

For bus bookings try this link Bus tickets and for hotel bookings in Ahobilam you might want to try Hotels

From Hyd :
Take NH7 -
Hyd -> Kurnool -> Take a diversion here -> travel towards Cuddapah ->Nandhyal -> Allagada ->Lower Ahobilam .


Having Reached Ahobilam , You should be prepared to visit all the nine temples spanning lower Ahobilam and Upper Ahobilam .

Lower Ahobilam has

1. Prahlada Nrsmha (Not counted in the 9 )
2. Chatravata
3. Bargava
4. Yogananda

While you travel to upper Ahobilam you will visit

1. Karunja

Remaining 5 ..( note that as already mentioned Prahlada Nrsimhar is not in the nava nrsmhars )

1. Ahobilam
2. Varaha a.k.a Kroda
3. Malola
4. Jwala
5. Pavana
   

Other 2 important places one must not miss is Prahlada Padi and Ugra Stambam.

The point to be noted is each Nrsmha is a Swayambu.
Let me take you an overview of each Nrsmha one by one . How one can reach the stalam ..specialities of the stalam as told by a battar( Mr.Phani Raghava 94417 60871).This would also contain in the order we visited.

1) Prahalada Varadan :
Prahalad Varadan sannidhi is in the lower Ahobilam. As I mentioned before this is not counted in the nava Nrsmha sthalam. Moolavar Prahlad varadan stays with his consort Chenchu lakshmi thayar. This is a small temple. The Lord married Chenchu lakshmi thayar here and hence kalyanotsavam is a very common occurence as it is in Thiruvinnagaram.There is a ahobilam mutt close to this temple and this should be your base.

2) Yogananda Nrsmha :
From 1) this temple is about 1-2 kms . One can walk this distance easily. This is located in a very small hillock very similar to the varadan at Kanchi. Yoganada Nrsmha sanidhi is a small sannidhi and I dont remember having seen a thayar sanidhi . This nrsmha is presiding deity of Lord Shanaicharan ( Shani bhagawan ) . All Shani Doshams would be gone if we pray this lord. The battar was kind enough to open the sannidhi for us alone at 7:00 pm.

3) Chatra Vata Nrsmha :
While on the way back from (2) to (1) we can reach this sannidhi . Amma told me these sanidhi's have been renovated and have got much better than what it was before 7-8 years.
Chatra - Umbrella Vata -tree .As it is clear the nrshma is said to be under a tree which was like an umbrella.
The is a kethu Stalam and Nrsmha is "Sangeetha priyan" meaning he likes his devotees to sing songs to please him which the kuttis did by singing Varaveena ( mohanam) and Shree gananatha (malahari) .
I started my SVS rendition as is my usual practise as it was almot 7:30 then. We came back to our base for our night stay where the battar said we could go to (1) for satrumurai ( a special pooja performed in Sri Vaishnava temples ) .
We rushed and myself , Janesh and Puru anna had the divine blessings to be as a part of the Goshti that night.
The best part of the whole trip was that trip fell on Swathi thirunakshtram . Now Swati is the avatar nakshatram of The Lord. The nava kshetras being in remote locations are all open for this Swathi and thirumanjanams are performed on this day. When we ppl were in the goshti amma, manni had booked for Tirumanjanams for Jwala and Kroda.

To add the icing in the cake this Swathi was the 100 th Swathi ..what is 100 th Swathi ? Lord has been in this ddivyastalam for several yugams and is he only 100 swathi's old .. I will tell you what this 100 swathi is about in the next post.
Be ready to trek with me to all the other kshetras ...

Madhu
NB: I dont want to post the fotos as I would suggest you ppl to visit the place to see the beauty of the place for yourself where in you can enjoy the beauty of the places and get the blessings of the divine Supreme.

Lot to write

I have a lot to write .. But stuck with some work .
Please wait for

• Ahobila - Nava Nrsimha stalam
• Bangolrean traffic
• Home Alone

Just have got a few of them ready ..but need to post it

Ciao Soon

Madhu

Nobel Prizes

Its nobel prize time. All nobels have been awarded. If you are a scientist then you want to have the coveted prize for sure. The prize winners in various categories are

Physics
=======
John C. Mather
George F. Smoot
for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation .
From what I understand their discovery has supported the big bang . Bozz why do only big bang supporters get Nobels .. There are other theories... Come on profs work on them and get the nobels .

Medicine
=========
Andrew Z. Fire
Craig C. Mello for their discovery of RNA interference - gene silencing by double-stranded RNA

I need to read through their lecture to understand what exactly have they done . Onnum puriliya ..Didnt understand head or tail of the work . Only the key words could i understand .

Chemistry
==========
Roger D. Kornberg
for his studies of the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription.
FYI , Eukaryotes are multicellular organisms like us and prokaryotes are single cellular organisms.
Chemistry and Eukaryotes ....mmhmm must be a biochemical discovery .

Economics
=========
Edmund S. Phelps for his work on macroeconomic policies . Seems his work is on tradeoffs between inflation and employment .
If only his work aids in reducing inflation and increasing emplyment it shd be great...God knows the other way arnd could happen too ..Coz I dont believe economists .

Literature
=======
Orhan Pamuk has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures ..
What ? discovered symbols and got the Nobel .. I too can do this right .

Peace prize
========
Muhammad Yunus
Grameen bank ( Strated by Mohammed Yunus )
Mohammed Yunus started the Grameen bank which works on microcredit to female population of Bangladesh . We in India too should follow this to eradicate poverty . Not that bangladesh is a rich country, But seems this is a good process for the development of the economy .
Agreed but should he not be given a nobel for economics and not for peace .
The logic is Peace can be attained only if poverty is gone. and mr yunus has worked towards the social economic development of the poor .

Source

Last but not least , if at all therz a nobel for Bug fixing.. We SW developers should get it . Aint it ?

Madhu
Nobel prize winner in 2030 ( thinking which category would i get a nobel in ) ..Vote or it and let me know which i best suit for.

Google ...First penny

Its about a month since i have restarted my blogging and I added the adsense in my page. I keep track of my adsense login too .. I always thought adsense was just a gimmick and google would never give me any money . But today I see some money in adsense account . mm thats a good progress .From what I understand its based on
Payperclick and impressions on page. More number of clicks more pay.
So makkale in case you happen to pass by my blog , click on one of the advts so that I get some money . It seems Google pays the user only if $100 are accounted for . Its a long way now but I assure you that once i get my $100 , i would throw a party for all the regular visitors .
I have added another feature , You can do a google search from my blog . So , In case you want to do a google search , come to blog , search .
Keep coming , Keep clicking and keep searching .

Madhu
the googler

WIFI is working

Wireless is finally working ..Probably is that why it is called WiFi (wireless finally)

Madhu

Seethamma Mayamma

I listen to a lot of carnatic music ..Not that I cant sing.But listening aspect is far superior to singing capability :( . Mostly all of the songs are in Telugu as most of the musicians sing the great saint Thyagayyar's krithis .
The great Saint has composed all his krithis in Bakthi Rasa and the only God he knew was Lord Rama. Lord Rama was his father and Seeta was his Mother . In this aspect I would post the song which brings out the meaning . Once in a while I would also try to put in songs which I have enjoyed listening and want others to enjoy as well . I would also try to put the meaning along side the song.
http://www.musicindiaonline.com/


Sithamma maayamma

Raagam: vasantaa

Aa: S M1 G3 M1 D2 N3 S
Av: S N3 D2 M1 G3 R1 S

TaaLam: roopakam
Composer: Tyaagaraaja
Language: Telugu

Pallavi

sItamma mAyamma shrI rAmuDu mA taNDri


Anupallavi

vAtAtmaja saumitri vainatEya ripu mardana
dhAta bharatAdulu sOdraulu mAku O manasa

CharaNam

paramEsha vashiSTha parAshara nArada shaunaka suka surapati gautama lambOdara guha sanakAdulu
dharaija bhAgavatA-grEsaru levvarO vArellaru vara tyAgarAjuniki parama bAndhavulu manasA

Transliterating the song is not a good job..I think Tamil version shd be better..

சீதம்மா மாயம்மா

ராகம் : வசந்தா

சீதம்ம மாயம்மா ஸ்ரி ராமுடு மா தன்றி

Anupallavi

வாதாத்மஜ சௌமித்ரி வைனதேய ரிபு மர்தண
தாத பரதடுலு சோத்ருலு மாக்கு ஓ மனசா

சரனம்

பரமேஷ வஷிஷ்டா பராஷர நாரத ஷௌனக சுக
சுரபதி கௌதம லம்போதர குஹ சனகாடுலு
தரைஜ பாகவதாக்ரேசருலு எவ்வரோ
வாரெல்லரு வர த்யாகராஜுனிகி பரம பாந்தவுலு மனசா

Now the meaning :
Pallavi

சீதம்ம மாயம்மா ஸ்ரி ராமுடு மா தன்றி

சீதம்ம - Sita மாயம்மா - My mother ஸ்ரி ராமுடு - Sri Rama மா - my தன்றி - Father
Sita is my mother , Lord Rama is my father

Anupallavi

வாதாத்மஜ சௌமித்ரி வைனதேய ரிபுமர்தண தாத பரதடுலு சோத்ருலு மாக்கு ஓ மனசா

வாதாத்மஜ - Lord Anjaneya சௌமித்ரி - Lakshmana வைனதேய - Garuda ரிபுமர்தண - Shatrugna தாத( thatha ) - Jambavan பரதடுலு - Bharatha சோத்ருலு மாக்கு - My brothers ஓ மனசா - O mind

All the mentioned above are my friends .

சரனம்

பரமேஷ வஷிஷ்டா பராஷர நாரத ஷௌனக சுக சுரபதி கௌதம லம்போதர குஹ சனகாடுலு தரைஜ பாகவதாக்ரேசருலு எவ்வரோ வாரெல்லரு வர த்யாகராஜுனிகி பரம பாந்தவுலு மனசா

பரமேஷ - Shiva , வஷிஷ்டா - Sage Vasishta

பராஷர நாரத ஷௌனக சுக சுரபதி கௌதம லம்போதர குஹ சனகாடுலு _ all rishis like Parashara , narada , Saunaka, Suka ,Gauthama , Lord Ganesh , muruga ,etc

தரைஜ - In this mother earth பாகவதாக்ரேசருலு - Great Bhagavatas எவ்வரோ - Who ever வாரெல்லரு - All those பரம பாந்தவுலு - Close relatives வர த்யாகராஜுனிகி - Thyagaraja's மனசா - mind

Oh My mind ..all the above mentioned are my relatives ..So beware ..

Thanks to my couple fo colleagues to decipher some of the telugu sandhis ..

Madhu

BSNL and DLink GLB-502T

I got a new BSNL broadband phone connection. Thanks to BSNL, i had to purchase my ADSL modem. I decided to purchase D-Link GLB-502T .Therz another story on why i got this modem. ( to be precise its arouter)
Now I will try and put some screenshots and step by step procedure to configure your comp (XP) and Ubuntu linux with the ADSL router .
Connect the ethernet cable , from the router to the Comp. This is all the the hardware setting you need to do .

• The modem has 2 ports, From 1 you need to connect the ethernet cable and from the other you need to connect to the fone line.
• start your modem
• Boot your comp.
• For XP
• open N/W Connections
• Enter the ip address as 192.168.1.2( Local LAN)( Infact last dgit cud be nething from 2 to 255)
  
• Enter subnet mask 255.255.255.0
• Enter default gateway 192.168.1.1
• Enter the DNS ips
• 61.1.96.69
  61.1.96.71
• Type http://192.168.1.1 in your browser
• It will open the following page
• 
• Enter admin/admin and log in
• You will see
• 
• Create a new connection as shown in the following screen
• 

Type = Bridge

PVC Settings VPi=0 , VCi=35

Click Apply and Go to tools menu and to System commands in the left menu

Now wait for 2 mins for the router to boot up . Alls done in the router's side .

Run a PPPOE dialer with your login and passwd provided by BSNL .

Open Sesame ...the whole of internet is waiting for you

Madhu

Indru Oru thagaval

"Inrou oru thagaval", was a popular AIR program on weekdays at 7:40 am during my school days. I am not sure if the program is being aired even today . its a 5 min program and the agenda was pretty straight forward. A small story with a big message and the program ended with a small joke.
Initially I started listening to the program to keep up my time. The broadcast was my breakfast time during school days. During the course of the time , I became a big fan of the program for its short and sweet stories. The hero of the program was Thenkachi Ko swaminathan whoz there in the foto right above. His voice suits a grandfather's voice who tells bedtime stories to his grand children. the morals and teachings in the program come a long way in ones life.Mr Swaminathan, seems to have retired from AIR and seems to have joined SUN TV . I just happened to see him in the morning show during my breakfast at 9:00 AM the other day and I was reminded of some of the stories narrated by him.

One of the nice stories that I still remember goes like this .

" There were 2 buddhists monks . They were crossing a river. They saw a beautiful woman who was struggling to cross the river. She asked the monks to help her cross the river by carrying her in their shoulder. One of the monks said it was a sin to carry woman. but the other monk carried her along and helped her cross the river. The woman thanked the monk and lleft on her own way. After abt 10 mins , the monk didnt help the female told the other."Our Guru has asked us not carry woman".
For this the monk just replied , "I have left the woman in the bank, but it seems you have carried all until here ". This monk realised his folly .

Sucha small story with a huge meaning aint it..

Madhu

Hair cutter...

Today is sunday. Enakku thalaikku melai velai irukku. adhu thaan ba hair cut pannanum. I have a lot of sentiments about choosing my saloons. Dont know how I picked up this habit. Barbers are unique and have a philosophical aspect . They are the ones who reduce your headweight :-) with your consent .
The first vivid memory of mine when ,I was taken to barber was in Kalpakkam wa "MADURAI Saloon" in the shopping store complex with my appa. The barber placed me in a swinging chair. Iwas small and hence he put a small wooden plank so that he was ok with settings.
He took out his pair of scissors and booooo... i started crying . I was thinking he was going to cut my head :-( and that cudnt happen . I didnt know what was happening , a couple of other barbers with my father tied me up and finished the act.
From then on I tell you till I came out of my town, I dont remember having got a hair cut from any other barber. Any Sunday , i went to the saloon , I would be given priority over others as I have been one of the regular customers. Even in my college days, I used to wait for my trip to kalpakkam to have a hair cut. the charges were special for me. The barber charged 5 rupees lesser for me . Its another matter that i would tip the barber wth the same 5 rupee.
I picked up the habit of reading sindbad in dinathanthi , varamalar ,etc in my wait for my turn. I have seen several small kids cry like what i did. I used to laugh at myself. Now I miss all the dinamalars adn the tunukkus . All i get to read is the telugu newspaper ...I dont read them , I just see the jalebis printed in the newspaper thinking if these are to be eaten.
i dont remember having a single freak incident with my barber. he was careful inhandling me . All that he wud ask me was "long" or "short". When I was introduced to C datatypes , iwas thinking kerninghan and Ritchie would have had a barber like mine. He just waited for my reply and started his artistic task of cutting the 60 adi koondhal of his highness. Poittu vaanga sir .
mission completed ..I would walk back home or drive in my champ as a victorious gladiator . After every hair cut Amma would say, innum konjam kooda cut panni irukalamay .."Amma idhukku mela cut panina mottai thaan adikanum " was my regular reply.
i was dictated to walk to the bathroom straight and poured water as if i had attended a funeral. After a quick bath my coffee and The hindu are ready and thalikku melai velai slowly accumlates till my next hair cut.

Madhu

ஓரு நடை பயனம்

Hyderabad Heart walk is on Sept 24,2006. This event in association with Yashoda Hospitals has been initiated to create awareness among people on heart ailments and prevention. After the Hyderbad Run , this is one big event in Hyd with a lot of corporate participation.
Walking is the simplest of excercises. It involves most of the muscles and reduces the chance of heart ailments.
One of the first things the parents feel proud abt a new born baby is when it starts walking. These days I have seen parents having clicking fotos as memoirs of their kids first walk in this mother earth. I dont remember when I started walking ..should have been slower than others of course . In my school days, long distance walking was a rare oppurtunity . The max I would have walked would have been from my school to my home on the days when school bus used to be late.
My family members were great walkers . All my uncles walk for Kms together just to keep them fit. Even to this day my uncles wake up at 4:30 am (yes you read it right ..AM) and walk for about 1-2 hrs ....mm...
Sitting in front of the dumb terminals, we bug fixers have forgotten to walk.More so I have forgotten to walk. I had been to chennai to meet my Patti who was in Nanganallur with my chittappa. My periappa from madipakkam, came to meet my Patti. while returning back, he asked me if I would want to accompany him. I said why not ? First he said he wanted to visit the Anjaneyar temple. It was a saturday and periappa has a habit of doing 108 pradakshinams on Sat.
If this old guy is able to do it why not me ( Madhu come on u can do it !!).Like a good boy I followed him for all the 108 ... Got some good puliyodharai and sakkarai pongal ( will later write how to make them ) .
We both started and I thought we would either take an auto or a bus . But to my dismay periappa started walking ..WALKING another 5-6 Kms ...not possible..My thoughts were on the great Dandi march ..Gandhiji had a purpose for that walk . What was ours ? Why should we walk this far ..
After walking for abt an hour and half we reached home . My legs were abusing me . I hadnt used my legs continously for this long . I was feeling tired. Oru Coffee kidaikuma periamma .."2 mins da " will get you .. While i was sipping my coffee my 3 year old niece came home after playing out . Ah !!! now the walk made real sense . I always believed after a hard toil the result is always sweet . Talking to my kutti niece I felt the walk was sweeter .

Madhu

Mutual Funds - Basics - Part 1

My Cousin asked me whats a Mutual fund and he asked me to give him some advice on choosing advice on Mutual funds .Well I am not a Warren Buffet to give him advice nor am I a free consultant. So I thought I would give a small write up on Mutual Funds so that the adsense picks up proper ads and I advertise my blog.
Coming back on Mutual Funds, i would like to share the basics on Indian Mutual funds once in a while.

Basic : A Mutual Fund is a company which invests money in the stock market on behalf of investors. The money is pooled in by the investors and inturn they are issued units or shares.

NAV : The net asset value (NAV) of a mutual fund is simply its assets minus its liabilities.
In other words, NAV equals the fund's worth. If a fund has assets of 50,000 and liabilities of 10,000
it would have a Net asset of 40,000.

It is from NAV that the price per unit of a fund is calculated.
By dividing the NAV of a fund by the number of outstanding units, you are left with the price per unit.
In our example, if the fund had 4,000 units outstanding, the price-per-share value would be 40,000 divided by 4,000 which equals 10.

The NAVs of funds are constantly changing and, as such, so are their price per shares.
Funds usually wait until the end of each trading day to recalculate their NAV and individual share prices.

See You after some time on another round of Mutual Funds.

BTW, tip for my cousin :
Some good Mutual funds I am invested are HDFC Prudence, Reliance Growth Fund .

MMTS Timings

I have been a strong recommender of travel by MMTS . It saves a lot of energy and time . I have pasted the train timings from -to Sec/Hyd and Lingampalli . Check it out

Train no	Sec/Hyd	Begumpet	Hitech
FL1	6:57	7:13	7:30
HL1		7:56	8:13
FL2	8:15	8:31	8:48
HL2		8:46	9:03
FL3	8:52	9:08	9:25
HL3		9:51	10:08
HL4		10:41	10:58
FL4	10:57	11:13	11:30
HL5		15:16	15:33
FL5	15:32	15:48	16:05
SL1	16:05	16:21	16:38
HL6		17:16	17:33
FL6	17:27	17:43	18:00
HL7		18:26	18:43
FL7	18:37	18:53	19:11
HL8		19:41	19:58
FL8	19:40	19:56	20:12
HL9		20:36	20:54
FL9	20:50	21:06	21:23
HL10		21:51	22:08
FL10	22:00	22:16	22:33
Train no	Hitech	Begumpet	Sec bad
LF1	4:59	5:14	5:42
LF2	5:47	6:04	6:22
LF3	8:12	8:31	8:47
LF4	9:27	9:44	10:02
LF5	10:17	10:34	11:02
LF6	15:22	15:39	16:02
LF7	16:52	17:09	17:27
LF8	17:27	17:44	18:05
LF9	18:57	19:14	19:32
LF10	20:02	20:19	20:37
LF11	21:12	21:29	22:00
Train no	Hitech	Begumpet	Hyderabad
LH1	6:42	6:59	7:15
LH2	7:12	7:29	7:45
LH3	8:57	9:14	9:30
LH4	9:42	9:59	10:15
LH5	11:17	11:34	11:50
LH6	16:17	16:34	16:50
LH7	17:32	17:49	18:05
LH8	18:48	19:06	19:20
LH9	19:22	19:39	19:55
LH10	20:37	20:54	21:10

Lalu- Masti Ki Patshala

Lalu in IIMA should have been a great learning experience for the guys. Good or Bad , thats for the guys to say. Most of us always have an opinion that Lalu was no Good. he is proclaimed for his Gundagardhi and the Fodder Scam. Imagine Cows were foddered for multi millions ( I hope I was one of the cows which the Prof. took care off , i wouldnt be working in a SW company and fixing bugs this way :-( )
When he became the railway minister in 2004 the white elephant( Indian Railways) was in huge loss and was falling towards bankruptcy. here comes our prof and makes a turn around. his philosophy is simple as he claims , "milk the cow else the cow will be sick ".Prasad said: "Wagon is the bread-earning horse of the Railways. Load it adequately. Make it run and don't stable it." The idea was to load the wagons in a better fashion and have a better turnaround there by increasing the freight capacity. His magic worked . The elephant is getting colored !!
I did see a couple fo people writing that lalu didnt do much the beauracrats were running the show and making this possible. Now where were these officers in the previous govts ? Probably they were milking the cows too . Some others were making remarks saying India's GDP is the factor for the turnaround .mmmm this is a good argument . But guys why take credit from Lalu... If a company makes a loss the CEO is cursed and if it runs into profits CEO needs to praised.
now whom wud u accolade for the railways performance ?

Madhu

Places to visit

Check out this link ....

Can you see me grow ?

Madhu

Puzzles

One of my favourite passtimes is solving puzzles. My all time favourite is
Fill up the blanks with numbers
There are --- 0s,---1s,---2s,---3s,---4s,---5s,---6s,---7s,---8s,---9s in this sentence.

Hope to get puzzled and keep puzzling again.

Slice of Life

It defies the laws of nature if you are a Tamilian and you dont read "THE HINDU". I Love the paper, dont know why .. esp with the morning coffee in a davara tumbler. Sipping Coffee slowly is like drinking the divine ambrosia, with the newspaper of course. Now dont ask me whihc one is better , the newspaper or the coffee. both complement each other and i cant leave out the other.
Infact I feel the day is lost if I miss either of the two.
The newspaper comes out with a lot of great journalists penning different speicailised articles. notably a few of them are R.Mohan (hez not longer with the Paper I guess) , Malini Parthasarathy( I always thought it was she , but never could guess it was he until I saw him in my cozins marriage) , Nirmal Sekhar ( another sports editor). Somehow these guys are serious in their columns . they ought to be for the content they are publishing . They give detailed analysis of the economic and socio political scenraios.
But one of them several of us who wouldnt have noticed at all is One Mr V.Gangadhar. I love his style of writing. i dont see him write off late ( probably hez not being paid enuf due to cost cutting ) . he used to write on alternate weekends in the Sunday Magazines.
Most of his works were on food esp palakad food. I am a connoisseur of food myself . I vivildly remember that he used to give a detailed descriptions of the cuisines that he used to write about. mmm..My mouth used to water. he had a mumbaiya attitude which were clear in his writings. his subtle humor reminded me of the great RK. When other articles on were on Education , Tourism etc , his slice of life with a cartoon by keshav used to increase my hunger on a weekend.
There were times in college , I used to discuss about the food that he wrote with one other roommate of mine. We used to have lengthy discussions on various food items and of course the proper combinations that need to be served without which it wouldnt go well.
I am not sure if he has stopped free lancing as I dont see any articles from him these days. But I continue to enjoy my food and try out various dishes ( courtesy my mom ) and relinquish my weekend lunches.

After all my motto is " YOU EARN AND FIGHT ALL ONLY TO EAT and SLEEP" if you cant do either the whole purpose of struggle goes for a toss .

Madhu

FLASH NEWS

One of the most silly professions today is media . It could be any kind of media , be it television , newspaper, Radio ,internet any thing . Why do i feel this ? Is it my individual thought. I believe most of you would agree with me.
There are hazaar tv channels who are flashing news around . FLASH NEWS : Manmohan's flight takes off .... Now what kindoff news is this .. Most of the news channels create news rather than recording news . All channels want to be the first to air the contents, no one cares what content they air. The Pranoys and Rajdeeps are busy making big time money minting channels just by debating with no results coming out of it .
Gone are the days when all of us used to wait for the DD news at 9:00 PM at night. That was the only half an hour my dad used to let me watch the old black and white EC TV( dont know if they have stopped their production). The news used to be precise , clean and the English used to be unpeccable. DD still has the quality but they maintain a sombre tone which has let them down .
What has led to my frustration is the same Sachin who was "END"ulkar a few weeks ago has become a Bradman. Is this the way media needs to report . I agree media earns their bread and butter, but at the cost of being first , content is compromised and is lost.
At this rate one day you would see news flashing, LALU prasad sleeps today . Hope that day is far off and media personnels tie up their sleeves and present content rather than spice.

Madhu

Hairy Controversy

A lot has been about hair and his meddling with the Pak's scores in the recentmost concluded match between Eng and Pak. This is the first match which was forfeited in the history of Cricket. mmmm...This is a new record in its own way though not for correct reasons.
The issue was simple , Hair saw the ball's paint had been scrubbed off and "thought" the Paks had cleaned the shean and penalised them 5 runs. Inzy intially carried on the game and I didnt understand what transpired in the dressing room, he didnt walk into the field until both umpires came and asked them to play.After some discussions Paks agreed to continue but the panel decided to stop the play.

letz do a post mortem from all angles

Umpires:
We dont think it was a mistake and the rule says that if the ball is made out of shape, the batting side gets an extra 5 runs. We are correct in incorporating the laws

Umpires decisions are final and binding !!

Paks:
We dont cheat . 5 runs is not a problem but we have been disgraced . Hair is a racist and his attitude is wrong against the asians . We dont want to play.

Spectators :
Whoever is right or wrong my money is gone for the day ..

Media :
We got something to bite for a few more days. Hair is correct sometimes , Inzy is correct sometimes , both of them are wrong mostly .

Madhu:
ah something to blog about ...

Gajini

Everytime I open this page, I vouch that I would blog more frequently to improve my writing habits. It never happens.

This is my nth attempt....ao aptly named gajini. will see how long will it take for the next attack

Madhu

Paati

Do I Blog only when something bad happens ?

Alas , I need to say my paati has "attained acharyan tiruvadi " ( a vaishnavite way of saying she has breathed her last ) on 19 th April 2006 .

Madhu