What is Fear ..

Is it the fear of heights, shivering while approaching the 16^th floor terrace of your apartment block just to enjoy the occasional breeze?

Is it the fear of scoring 0 in the test even though you knew it was your fault that you partied late last night?

Is it the fear of a lizard, tiny and harmless as it may look!

Is it the fear of getting tetanus shot when you are in dire need of one?

Is it the fear of getting trampled by vehicles when you are crossing the road say, even a one-way?

Is it the fear of injuring yourself while playing rugby that makes you not try it even once?

Lastly, Fear of losing a loved one, or hurting a loved one …Which is your worst fear?

• "The only thing we have to fear is fear it'self - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified, terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

• "All of us are born with a set of instinctive fears--of falling, of the dark, of lobsters, of falling on lobsters in the dark, or speaking before a Rotary Club, and of the words "Some A ssembly Required."
  ---- Dave Barry

• "Why are we scared to die? Do any of us remember being scared when we were born?"
  ---- Trevor Kay

• "Courage is not the lack of fear but the ability to face it."
  ---- Lt. John B. Putnam Jr. (1921-1944)

Break Free

This is back here on popular demand :P

This is my first post after nearly a month's hiatus and hey first post for the year '08 ... :-)
A friend of mine has recently got his eyebrow pierced and he deemed it a painful experience, I asked him why he got it done...

His answer: “just for kicks, I didn’t wanna grow old and think I didn’t do anything crazy in college”

This remark made me smile but had me thinking the whole day…We all have a rebellious streak in us but how many of us actually listen to it and break free ..

Childhood and teenage—parents make rules
Marriage-spouses and in-laws set limits
Finally in old age-kids have issues !



There are some who want to color their hair a shade red or a garish pink.

There are a few veggies who are rebellious about wanting to try eating a piece of chicken.

While driving a bike at a devilish pace may seem like an instant kick for several guys ,there are others who hang on to their daily puffs like darlings thinking they are in heaven. these puffs could be a mixture of various legal/illegal substances or plain nicotine..

Households where alcohol is a taboo always have the naughty young ones running out to grab a beer when a match is scheduled and returning home late in the night with proper defense mechanisms in place to face family members:--easily achieved by mint/mouth freshners/coffee/chocolates or by simply staying back at a friend’s place ;-)

I have always wanted to have short hair with red streaks in the fringy area..and also wanted a tattoo with something in devanagri script which i haven’t decided would be what !

And of course the navel ring is a subject of immense fascination to me ..

I have never brought up these issues at home else all hell will break loose.
The haircut is an absolute no-no since at all family do-s ,aunties will whisper oh,this girl is too modern ,and those red streaks ,my god,what was her mother doing !

The tattoo is an achievable dream and I think I will go for it once I am old enough to earn and decide independently. The tattoo is regarded as a rebellious display of youth by elders whom I know. And there is even talk of some crazy HR policies that do not take too kindly to a tattoo,though I am not pretty sure of this .but one day,I will take the plunge .until then ,will be content with just giving furtive glances to the existing rebellious species around me . I get to see enough of these at college  lol

Just remembered ,its easier to don a pink/red wig and save the embarrassment to my loved ones !



Finished reading “The Namesake” it’s a very depressing book ….

Love in the air??

It’s past Valentine week and I am getting some really big surprises this year.

Revelations galore this week

People in question are Miss. X and Mr. Y

Miss.X

Quite close to me, we meet at family gatherings often and I thought I pretty much knew her until she told me she is in love and everything looks good...Apparently this is going on from the past one year...I was stunned and could only remember her descriptions of him and her being really happy. Parental approval granted, touché and things r looking rosy at the moment.

Mr.Y

Now, Mr.Y is someone whom I have known really well since the past few years. He would bore me with his technical skill but comfort me in moments of emotional distress .Today he tells me “Time to tell you something” I should have expected it coming .He is head over heels in love with a girl whom he has met on the net, and hasn’t admitted it to me since a really long time. Not that I am angry but isn’t it more than a mere co-incidence that two people whom I have known inside out, (well quite much are in looove J)

And there are the depressed ones

While one is lamenting about no reason to celebrate Valentine’s Day and instead prefers to spend quality time with horses: P

Another is sulking sitting 4,952 miles away from his love and cribbing . how was your Feb 14th this year ?
happy belated Valentine’s Day to all of you .

day 3

day 3 @ chennai --officially was our last day there.

We directly had lunch at 11 am and the previous day our hosts noted our preferences and we were treated to a traditional meal .I loved the vettai columbu and the balekai dishes that were made especially for us. We bid our good-byes to our relatives and the extremely sharp and agile Pati at whose place we stayed these 2 days.

Then we reached the city railway station after a very long drive approximately 2 hours phew!

The journey back by the Bangalore Express was tiring and there were a lot of vendors who kept screaming out their wares .I managed to buy some CD there even in this confusion :- ) Reached Blore by 8:30 and just crashed into bed after a long day .

This Chennai trip has been a very memorable one, thanks to my relatives who were the epitome of hospitality and made sure we enjoyed every minute of our stay there .A big thank you to them.

Also thanks to appa for financing my shopping binges and amma for finally making this trip happen after planning it for about 3 semesters ,lol !

Mystic Mahabalipuram

Day 2

It’s been a long time since I came back from my Chennai trip and gotten into my usual routine of going to college and blah blah.

So it’s going to be a lot of umm’s that set me thinking back here while I write this

We woke up early and left Chrompet by 8 am or so.

Reached Mahabalipuram at around 11 and had some plot visits to complete.

After that moving along the elegant East Coast Road, we reached the Pancha Ratham Rock Carvings there.

Again here, phoren tourists all around us walked dazed looking at the fantastic sculpture of the period of the Pallavas.

The carvings consisted of 5-6 single rocks carved out with pain staking detail to depict elephants and beautiful Pancha rathams. We couldn’t get enough of the place and strolled around and went inside the caves and sat admiring the sculpture.

An interesting sculpt was that of Ardhanareeshwara ,integration of the male and female bodies representing Shiva and Uma.

Meaning Of Ardhanareeshwara (androgynous)

"The Atma is Purusha (Brahman) and the body is Prakriti (Feminine Principle) in human life. So. every human being is androgynous (Ardhareeshwara). The Principle of Shiva (Shiva-twa) teaches the unity of Prakriti and Purusha. This is the true meaning of Shivaratri. Forgetting this principle, man considers this physical body to be made up of merely blood, flesh and fecal matter. No doubt, it has these constituents, but one should not forget the fact that divinity permeates this body." Sai Baba. SS, 3/99, p. 72.

Read on ...

• The religious centre of Mamallapuram (formerly Mahabalipuram) was founded by a 7th-century- Pallava king, Narasimhavarman, also called Mamalla ("great wrestler"), for whom the town was named.

• Pancha Rathas (Five Chariots) - five monolithic pyramidal structures named after the PandavasArjuna, Bhima, Yudhishtra, Nakula and Sahadeva) and Draupadi. An interesting aspect of the rathas is that, despite their sizes they are not assembled — each of these is carved from one single large piece of stone.

• Most of the monuments are of Pallava dynasty except the original Sthalasayana Perumal temple was constructed in Vijaynagar times and the Mandapas belong to Chola days.

We came out of the temples and entered the shopping area. It was filled with shops that stacked the same kind of things, shell jewellery, shell show pieces, intricate mirrors with shells and the like. I was happy since I could finally get to shop !
My loot included bags, gifts for friends’ back home, jewellery and the like. I bought a very intricate mirror with sea-shells stuck all around it. Haven’t yet hung it up anywhere there .Oh yes, Vanity, No apologies :P

Also visited the Temple at Mahabalipuram and Lord Ranganathaswamy was in a very unique manner waving out his hand to the devotees and calling them .he is called STHALASAYANA PERUMAL here.

From there, we left to Pondy bazaar.

A nice jam welcomed us at the entrance, near Krishna Sweets Headquarters and we finally decided to walk the 100 m instead of simply waiting in the car for the traffic to clear out.
The entire stretch of Pondy Bazaar mesmerized me, Of course we have our own Commercial street, Brigade Road and MG Road but it always feels good to step into the shopping hub of any city .I visited T nagar the last time I was at Chennai and I liked that place too.

And for the good one hour we spent at Pondy Bazaar, I gazed at Naidu hall and the other multi branded outlets but didn’t step into them: P
I bought various little things here, a ring holder in plaster of paris, jhumkis in black metal, Bangles, all well bargained.
Finally I bought a joothi –yeah those flat shoes, the ones lucknow is known for.
The price quoted was 275, I heard it as 75 and was overjoyed; I tried them on and was telling amma wat a great deal it is when the guy screamed out “275 sister! “And I came crashing down, no way; I argued .I said 200 and the guy instantly packed it up. I felt foolish and my relative also felt that my bargaining skills were at an all time low that day. Dejected yet happy with my purchases, we went back home.

Now I had to pack up all our huge mass into our tiny 2 kits, I spent a good 45 minutes and carefully packed up everything. The mirror had to be taken care of since it was really fragile and I even managed to bring back my kite in one piece :- )

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Kanchi in a Kaleidoscope

Kanchi in a Kaleidoscope



Day 1 started at 5 am, Woke up, left Chrompet by 7 …



Reached Kanchipuram, entered a 300 year old house right next to the Varadaraja Permual temple. The lady of the house took great pride in telling us how old the house was .Clad in green cotton “madi saar” /Kachche Sari; she stood fiddling with age old vessels in the kitchen, and acknowledged our vannakams. She was going to accompany us to the temple .Being a Friday; the long queues would make our entries late she said. We nodded.



While we spent some time at the ancient house, I observed the ceiling, it was extremely high; about thrice the size of the heights of our normal homes .The entrance door was huge and there were no locks! They didn’t lock their homes those days said the lady; I stepped out and saw a beautiful courtyard so big it could easily accommodate 50 people!

I stood outside soaking in the religious aura that the place had. I could see men clad in pure white panches /dhotis vibudhi smeared all over chanting and marching to the temple.

Saw Ladies with fine jewelry and pakka madi saars draped over them; the tilakam and Shree Charanam neatly drawn on their foreheads buying jasmine flowers and hurrying to the temple. The sight of these saris itself amused me, in the hot weather, how r they so comfortable in such sarees? I find the normal sari itself quiet a test of patience. A friend had even once remarked “why do you walk like a battery operated doll while wearing a sari” to which I couldn’t even answer since I was busy trying to walk!

The street was lined with many sari shops; Kanchi has the tagline “SILK CITY” quite aptly since all the womenfolk of the place are brand ambassadors wearing them 24/7. Jokes apart, Kanchi produces some of the finest silk and is home to many weavers and co-operative societies that market genuine silk saris.



We went to the temple and had the darshan of the Lord. A few curious phirangs were merrily clicking photographs of a function happening there at the temple. They were watching each and every ritual with great interest, their Canons and Nikons zooming in and out every minute.



At this temple, there is also the golden lizard which has a mythical tale to it.



Read more about it :-

The place houses a gold & silver lizard, it is said that they were once son and wife of Ayodya king Sakaranis, due to sin committed by them, they were converted into lizards.A prayer to lord Varadharaja absolved them of the sins.Now these lizards are touched by the devotes to wash off their sinsand start afresh account.

The main temple is reached by climbing 24 steps for the darshan of lord Varadharaja, who in his majestic form with Four arms holds you in captivated.


Source: sulekha.com



I touched it hoping for a friend’s eternal fear of lizards to be absolved soon.

Clue: - she comments regularly on all my posts.



Next stop was the famed Kanchi Kamakshi temple; a short distance away from the first temple. This temple is the hub for most Iyers and Kanchi muth devotees. Huge cutouts of the Kanchi mutt seer welcomed us at the temple; they were the managing committee of the temple I learnt. Kanchi Kamakshi’s darshan was smooth, only a half an hour queue :)





Then it was Saravana special South Indian meals at the Saravana Bhavan at Kanchi, they are a popular chain of restaurants in Chennai and also have branches all around the world.

There again another group of Swiss tourists at the table next to us were crying with glee when their open dosa arrived, they clicked more than they ate: P



We resumed our journey back to Chrompet with me napping off.



In the evening, we went to Marina Beach. It is the second largest---now corrected :P "longest" beach in the world after Miami, Florida I learnt. Still not verified that on wiki.



I flew a kite on the beach ,quite amusing ,considering it was my first try, the kite did manage to fly but only in the direction opposite to I was trying to navigate it each time .



I enjoyed the waves splashing onto me; we spent very little time at the beach :(



From there, we went to the Parathasarathy Temple. This temple just left me speechless; hundreds of women dressed up intricately were standing at the thaiyaar sannidhi while the men recited Vedic verses. Being a Friday, there was a total religious halo around the temple. The Lord at this temple, Lord Krishna in the Gitopadesham Avataaram was the most handsome Lord I have seen till now. He even had a moustache supposedly to disguise himself; I do not know the right story.



We called it a day after having another visit to another Saravan bhavan’s specialty restaurant where I devoured mini idlis and some delicious sweet whose name has slipped out from memory.



Day 2 @ Chennai: - will be posted soon





Chennai is full of hoardings and my god; the roads are so wide that I thought I was dreaming! Traffic moves at a considerably better pace there but hey, no city can beat us: P Chrompet where I was put up is quite far away from the city and to commute to a point it takes a minimum of an hour or more. Every drive felt like Mathikere to Maratahalli @ Chennai …



Till next time then, Vannakam!

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