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Showing posts from August, 2008

A Few Steps from Home, A Lifetime of Faith

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Some bonds are formed not in conversation, but in quiet trust. Some companions never speak — they just walk beside you, through every chapter of life. Hanuman Temple As you grow older, simple things begin to hold deeper meanings. When I was a kid, I would visit the Hanuman temple near the Malleswaram Railway Station almost every day. I’d do my pradakshanams — the quiet circumambulations — and whisper to Lord Hanuman to help me do the right thing. Over time, the visits became less of a request and more of a rhythm — part of the everyday music of life. Just a short walk from home, the temple stood like a familiar friend. And yet, it became more than a place — it became a witness. Every important moment in my life was somehow tied to that small shrine. Before paying my exam fee, I would stop there. Before collecting my hall ticket for the tenth and twelfth board exams — it went straight to Hanuman’s feet first. Before campus placements. Befor...

Word of mouth

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It is no surprise that word of mouth plays a major factor in the success of a product. Be it movies, restaurants, shopping malls, brand names, music, theme parks or be it anything, word of mouth surfaces and resurfaces time and again, putting the final zing thing in a person's mind. OK, let me go for it or No, the reviews are bad, let us forget the whole thing! Our minds are embedded with set ideas, obtained from different sources that we are absolutely tuned to what we should expect. Over-expectations can sometimes be a real dampener. You expect a lot of things from something, and, even if it is above average, you get the feeling of being let down. The reverse mechanism, don't hear from anybody's mouth , can sometimes work out to a terrific advantage. You know nothing about something, and when, finally, you get the taste of that something , it leaves you with an exhilarating feeling. Now, I should go around telling something about this . So, the bottom line is, ove...

Maami, the match maker!!!

In what can be termed as the most orthodox form of arranging a marriage, the match making process is tied to fate rather than love.  Though the conservative image of India is changing, arranged marriages still form the most popular way of tying the knot.  Speculation and analysis fills the household as soon as people realize that there is a boy or girl of marriageable age.  The mega event begins not just a day or two before the marriage, but months, sometimes years in advance, so that the best proposal is sealed.  In this duration, magically, every elder in the house will remember you, and each time, you are encountered with, Ennada (What's up?), as if their sole aim in life is to extract a blush from you.  You are hardly the type to care about such things. Anyway, Karthik Chandramouli ( remember the protagonist of the Boston video mimicking Rajini ) and I came up with a gist of the conversation that would take place between two tamil maamis.  I have to...