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Showing posts from September, 2008

What I Missed While Walking Past the Kanchi Mutt

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A place I passed every day without really understanding it. As a kid growing up in Malleswaram, devotion wasn’t something we discussed — it was just in the air. The smell of agarbathi in the evenings. The noise of vendors lining up on 8th cross before a festival. The quiet expectation that you showed up, bowed your head, and moved on. Ganesh Chaturthi. Varalakshmi Vratam. Deepavali. Janmashtami. Ugadi. The calendar moved, but the pattern stayed. The Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham in Malleswaram was part of my daily route to school. Not something I questioned. Not something I deeply understood. Just… there. Every morning, on my way to school, I would slow down for a second in front of the Mutt. Just enough to bow my head toward Kanchi Kamakshi from outside the gate — and then hurry along before the school bell. It was a ritual for as long as I can remember. I don’t know if it came from devotion. I did it because my parents did it. The street...
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Daalara Daalara...

Well, the economy is in pits. Every bank is sitting on the edge, and in an unenviable position waiting to spiral downwards. The problem is, it seems to be happening with alarming ease. Yes, the economy is in doldrums, to say the least. Well, that means, the Indian rupee should be gaining on the dollar right. But, contrary to that, there seems to be a reverse effect. The rupee is weakening by the day, and having fallen in the bracket of an NRI (you can use whichever acronym to suit your needs - Non Returning Indian, as in Swades, or Non Reliable Indian (as in monsoon wedding) doesn't make a difference to me, for me it is Never Rewarded Indian ), there is always that selfish glint in my eye to see the dollar strengthening. So, the common perception among the folks is, Oh, don't keep anything in the bank. Send everything back to India. This is the best period for you to take advantage of the dollar exchange. After all, you never know how long it is going to last. The do...
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Sh(t)ock brouhahahaha!

My friends can vouch for this, and will agree wholeheartedly. Well, I was never a person with a great amount of intelligence. Translate that to the financial world, and you can put a big cipher in front of my name. I find brilliant ways to land myself into all sorts of mess, and somehow, gasping for breath, would claw my way back, before realizing the futility of the whole exercise. At the end of the day, there should be lessons learned. If not, the mind keeps taunting you with, I told you! Why did you have to get into all this? It has happened in the past, it happens now, and I can tell you in no uncertain terms, I am just waiting for the future! As soon as entered the corporate world, I was lured into the world of stock market. This certainly has to be the way to make money. What can a software engineer fresh from college earn anyway? There has to be other alternate ways of making money. So, trusting my financial "intelligence" that was embedded in me right from bi...
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A "weightless" proposition

Right from time immemorial, read right from birth , I have never had it in me to give importance to fitness. I was never one of them to go around flexing muscles, by doing those pull ups and push ups, that added an aura of invincibility to your personality. Moreover, in India, I always thought it was difficult to devout time to such meaningless activities. Obviously, it is hard to imagine paying a few hundred bucks, going to the nearest gym, and spend about an hour or two in solitary confinement. That, for a person like me is totally unimaginable. Half the time was spent in travelling and the other half, chatting with friends and eating tonnes of junk food by the wayside. At one point, I felt I needed no physical activities, since I felt that spending time bowling and fielding cricket balls, more than served my purpose. Later did I realize that even in cricket, people like Ranatunga and Warne existed with disproportionate assets. In spite of all this, when somebody out of the b...
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