Sweet Painful Gift

I like to go jogging in this park. Start with a brisk walk and slowing move to jogging on the paved fitness trail. It was the usual track. The park is normally filled with families with children around the picnic tables, some bikers, people with their pet dogs and those familiar jogging faces. But today was a bit different. I had reached the park a little late from my usual time. The exit area was really crowded. The inside however wore a deserted look. One of those rare occasions where you have the entire trail for yourself!!

The brisk walk had moved to jog and I was next to the children’s play ground. There were 2 kids playing on the slides. Very soon I reached the intersection near the garden. The path I was threading crossed the one coming from the other direction. I slowed a bit as I jogged the intersection. On the crossing lane were 2 dogs running towards me. Hounds or maybe retrievers but they looked really ferocious. There was a man behind them and he held the short lease. As they got closer I noticed that the man was on a skate board and the dogs were actually pulling him!! I continued jogging and very soon I could hear them on my same lane. Suddenly there was a loud noise and I turned around. The man on the skate board had fallen down. Before I could think of helping him I had noticed that the dogs were on loose. My heart skipped a beat!

I turned around to see if there was some place to go where the dogs wouldn’t follow. Unfortunately there was nothing in sight. It was just the guiding track in that serene surrounding. I looked back and the dogs were closer than before. Their determination to bite and rip me off to pieces was even more evident and I did the obvious. I started running in the opposite direction. I knew it was a futile effort as there was nothing really protective in sight. I took God’s name and prayed as I ran. Maybe my prayers were answered. I heard the man calling out for his dogs. He was probably running behind us. The dogs seemed to have stopped. I thanked God and tried to make full use of this opportunity and run to a safer place!

As I turned around I heard the dogs too had started to run behind me and I immediately realized that it had been a while since I had been to the temple and why will God help me when I remember him only in such dire situations? I started running to my full speed again. The faster I ran the louder I could hear the growls. I felt the dogs were now too close to me and were probably inches away in sinking their teeth into my flesh. I saw a pond or a lake on my right and dashed towards it. As I reached closer to the water body I could see the ground below the water and so dashed across it. I was half into water as I waded across. Soon I was on the other side and the dogs too were on the edge of the pond. They had still not got into the water and this gave me some time. In front of me was a barbed fence. I knew if I somehow crossed the fence I can be safe and I ran for my last hope profusely sweating. The fence was made by tying thin metal wires to poles. The wires were 2-3 inches from each other and stood probably 6-7 feet high. My aim was now to pull out the bottom most and crawl under it to safety. Both the dogs were now almost in the mid of the pond. I had to act now and I had to act real fast. I pulled the bottom most wire with all my might and it gave away. One wire closer to heaven!! A shrill noise like a siren or something started as the wire gave away. The dogs had now swum the pond and were almost out. I had no time to pull the second wire. The noise was becoming shriller and louder by each second. It was becoming unbearable. It was clouding my brain so much that I could no more focus on the dogs or their snarls. I think the dogs had backed off with that sound and I too wanted to escape it. I lay on the ground and crawled on my back under the broken wire. The sound was too much for me to take. I somehow wanted to cut it down. I wanted to close my ears and escape from this piercing force. Something must have happened when I pulled the wire and I had to stop this.

With great difficulty I pulled my self up and looked around. It was very hazy and dark. Slowly I could see some light under the blinds of the window. The noise was still defying and I had to stop it. I turned on to my right and saw the alarm clock. It showed 5:45. I hit the button on it ending the deadly battle!!

What a pain this alarm clock is!! Can there be a more lethal combination than an alarm clock and a Monday morning?!!!! It was gifted to me and I cannot throw a gift!! This is the pain which I see last before shutting for the day and this is the pain that pulls me into the day!! I don’t know who invented this but I know this is the most useful; pain filled gift you can give or ever receive!!!


~Narendra V Joshi

A Dishonored Death

One of the rarest and probably the most difficult thing is may be finding a Kannadiga who has not seen a Rajkumar movie. A recipient of the Dadasaheb Phalke award, his was a larger than life image in Karnataka. The number of people who attended his cortege in Bangalore stands as a testimony to this fact. An estimated 500,000 people had gathered to have a last glimpse of their idol.

I might have seen around 20-30 movies of Rajkumar out of a little more than 200 movies in which the star acted. A versatile actor, who started his career as a dramatist and later moved to cinema. He was also a talented singer whose renditions ranged from classical to devotional to even fast numbers. He is one star who never smoked on screen and except for a few films in his initial days he never played the role of a drunkard. Every movie of his were family entertainers in real sense with the subject of good over evil and he being on the good side most of the times keeping to his extremely staid image.

There was a sense of incommodiousness as I read through the news items of Rajkumar’s life. I feel the names of Balakrishna, Narashima Raju and Vajramuni should go synonymously with the name of Rajkumar when the talk is about a movie. A majority of hit movies of Rajkumar had either Balakrishna or Narashima Raju or Vajramuni or all of them; Balakrishna, I have heard was partially deaf. His screen presence is really note worthy. He almost always played the role of a crooked relative or a friend. Narashima Raju, on other hand almost always played the role of the comedian/supporting actor and Vajramuni the role of the villain. Probably it is this combination which was the formula of success of most of the movies. Straight comedy, devoid of any sarcasm or vulgarity was the trade mark of Narashima Raju. Bunny teeth, razor thin physic and his innocent foolish questioning look makes him the toughest competitor for any comedian. Vajramuni on the other hand was probably born to play the part of a villain! His voice, hairstyle and his dialogue delivery were simply superb. Those were the days, in my opinion, the golden era of the Kannada film industry. An industry with the fan enthroned king, Rajkumar at the helm. The king, who was a demigod to the fans, yet humble and down to earth. Such was the life of Rajkumar and the respect for him in the hearts of the people.

But fate seemed to have planned other wise for this respected and honored star who met a dishonored demise. The unruly rampage and the riots that accompanied his last journey leave a permanent scar. The death and destruction that followed will be written alongside the name of the thespian in the pages of history. The only other time I had seen riots in Bangalore growing so much out of proposition as it has happened now was when Rajkumar was kidnapped by Veerappan. The law makers exactly knew what to expect but were simply incapable to handle it. This incident exposes the horrifying attitude of a section of fans of this cosmopolitan city. The same fans who were responsible for the fame and honor, gave a send off, with destruction and dishonor.

~NVJ

Mr. God, Please wake up.

He is all knowing; he is all powerful; he is everywhere; he is in everything; the air you breathe; the food you eat; he is the beginning; he is the end; he is the purpose of every life; he is one who makes all rules; he transcends sin; he is beyond limitations......

He is dumb; he is shy; he cannot protect himself; he silently suffers all humiliation; he needs support; he lacks courage; he has gone into an indefinite hiding..................

Who is He? He is Mr. God.

I was reading about the recent cartoon controversy in which God of one religion was showed inappropriately. There were more such related links which took to different such incidents in which people had “misused” the names/life stories etc of Gods of other religion. Every time it had happened, there were protests from people of the religion whose God was in news. People burning posters and flags and other things to, disgrace the other persons God. Most of the protests had turned violent and people had even lost their life in them. But one striking missing piece is that, there is not even a single mention in any of the news, of God himself trying to protect his own image and reputation.

Just see around for yourselves. Everybody will react in some manner to show their anger if they have been abused or ridiculed. Some might react immediately and some might take a longer time but everybody will react. But this person Mr. God hasn’t ever reacted in spite of he being the centre of controversy and in spite of the fact that it is his name that is getting tarnished. If he is all knowing, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omni this, Omni that etc where is he? Is he sleeping? Is he afraid of something? Can’t he show his displease?

Okay, for the moment let us concentrate on what he has already done instead of what he is doing. He has created everything around us; he has created humans, put brains in our heads so that we have the ability to think. He made people come up with different languages, beliefs and more importantly different religions having different God’s!! Look into the teachings of any religion. It is the same. Peace, Peace and more Peace. He is the person who makes all rules and his creations are really beautiful. But did such a minor thing of not creating different Gods and different religions miss his mind or he couldn’t he think about it when he created all this? If only he had given only enough intelligence to humans to create only one religion or have all people follow only one God none of the incidents which happen in his name would have happened. Or much better, don’t create any religion at all. (Maybe this is a bug in his coding which missed out testing too!! But even after so many production problems this bug is still not cleared or corrected!! I am only wondering why he can’t fix this bug!!!!!!!)

Starting from creation, every aspect, of the concept of religion was ridden with problems which God never took responsibility of. So I think the root cause for all these problems is God himself in one way or the other. He is the person to be blamed and not anybody else. It’s high time he takes action to protect his image and reputation or take responsibilities and fix the bug he has put, if he truly wants peace, peace and more peace.


~Narendra V Joshi

Geocluster event for Kansas City Region

I was watching the news of the thanks giving sale that was happening, with people waiting outside the shops as early as 3 in the morning daring the snow and cold and importantly missing their sleep over it!! I had felt the sale is definitely not worth the effort to go out in cold and miss my sleep over it. But one question still remained in my mind. What can be those situations/events which are worth braving the cold and snow and losing sleep?

Today I came across one such event which was really worth the effort of waking early on a Saturday morning and making it in cold and snow. It was the Geocluster event for the Kansas City region. We reached the venue around 12:30 PM and the event started by 1:00 PM and ended around 4:30 PM. Yup, I am giving the start and end time together because the event rolled out so smoothly that the next time I checked my watch was when it finally downed the curtains!!

As like any gathering, this too followed the customs by starting off with the welcome note. Almost immediately was the Break the clues round. It consisted of clues which would lead to the movie name. There were 14 clues to squeeze and extract the movies names from. We were successful in breaking 8 of them and the winners were just one ahead of us. They had got 9 correct!! The next event was a superb Jugalbandhi by Anand and Supradeep. All the pieces played were good. Of it I liked the Bombay tune very much. This was followed by 2 dance performances. The first one was by Neena for the “Doola Re” song from the movie Devdas in the background. A gifted dancer and it was showing in every step of the dance. She was followed by the Sudhakarbabu for “Prabhu Jackson”. He started off for the famous song “Deekah Tumko” from K3G and ended with a Tamil/Telugu song, I guess maybe from a Prabhu Deva movie. The Hrithik Roshan steps from K3G were well executed. I don’t know if the steps for the second song was his own or from the movie, but it was entertaining!! But what I am still unable to understand is the name “Prabhu Jackson”. If the second song is really from a Prabhu Deva movie as I am guessing, the apt name would have been “Hrithik Prabhu”!! If it is not a Prabhu Deva movie than I am totally lost!! Anyway the immediate call for lunch after the dance halted my deciphering thoughts!! Whether it is “Prabhu Jackson” or “Hrithik Prabhu” it was an entertaining one!!!

The appraisal piece enacted during the lunch was the most memorable!! Apt timing and mostly a direct take from the recently concluded appraisal process!!!

This was followed by stunners by other accounts, event. This was really a stunner for me. I did not know that my manager (Sreeni) could “really” sing. He sang 3 songs from 3 different Hindi movies. He has a good voice. ( No, No I am not flattering!! My appraisal is already closed!!!!!) Something I did not know earlier.

This was followed by an event exclusively for kids!! Balloons were tied to the left leg of each kid which they had to burst. The “”Kids”” took over from the kids and finally burst the balloons using forks!!

This was followed by the Dumb Charades event. People were divided into different teams based on the colors they had!! There were 3 rounds, 1 Hollywood round, 1 Bollywood round and a books round for appetizing the book lovers!!

The last event of the day was the Tumbola!!! Waiting for the desired number to be called and crossing out the called numbers on the rows/columns!! Each first fully completed row attracted a prize followed by a prize for the full house!! This was again a thoughtful event which saw almost 100% participation.

The curtains were drawn at around 4:30PM thus putting an end to this memorable event though people were still enthusiastic to continue and enjoy. The organizers deserve a good round of applause for the well organized event. Every item was thoughtfully planned and executed. Every minute spent at the event was worth the effort people had put in braving the snow and cold.


~Narendra V Joshi

Sleep: The Sustainer of all life

My computer clock here shows 6:30 AM and has added a count to my zillionth peaceful sleep filled, night. I had slept around 10 PM yesterday night and woke up now!! Another 15 ½ hours to go for the zillionth + 1 to happen!!!

Wonder how many hours God might have spent researching to create this wonderful element called sleep. So peaceful and wonderful and generous!! The more you sleep the more you will want to sleep. Never asks a question or never comments. Never asks for something in return. All it takes is, the clock ticking to 10 PM and my head touching the pillow; and boooom… I wake up and find its past 6 in the morning!!! It’s like you start to code a new program and before you can realize, your code is out there sitting pretty!! I think waiting for the clock to go to 10 PM is a barrier I have put for myself. A feeling of some sort of guilt encompasses me if it’s still not 10 PM and I am planning to sleep. If only instead of an hour the day light savings was to advance the clock by 2 or 3 hours it would have been really good!!!

Sit in front of TV or have a book in hand, you can sleep. It doesn’t matter whether you had food or still feeling hungry. It doesn’t matter whether you have your exams the next morning or if the world is going to end in an hour!! Sleep is like time which doesn’t wait for anybody.

Assuming that everyone sleeps for 8 hours a day, I wonder what we would have done if sleep was not at all created by God. Currently it is 8 hours sleep, 8 hours work and 8 hours for other activities. If sleep was removed then that additional 8 hours had to be equally divided among the remaining two or maybe 16 hours for one and 8 hours for the other. Further there would have been no use of pillows and comforters and sleeping bags etc, except maybe used only in hospitals. Don’t know what we would be doing at night if we are not sleeping. Or maybe God would have made a day to be only of 16 hours or day with no darkness at all. That would mean that either earth would never rotate or God would have created 2 suns. Now if earth would never rotate then one part of the earth is always in darkness and one with always light. If this is the case the part which is always in light would have been burning hot and part which is always in darkness would have been bitter cold. Else if we had 2 Suns then it would have been burning hot always. Either of which cannot sustain life. Further, if we go by theories which suggest a direct relation between speed of earth’s rotation and gravity, again we can see that life is threatened.

This proves beyond doubt that sleep is the most important element on earth. It is sleep which is sustaining all life on earth!!! Air, Water, life, food, work everything depends on sleep. It is almost impossible to imagine a world without sleep!!!!!!!!!

Yet sleep has been one of the most looked down and neglected element. Work-shy, laziness, lethargy etc have been the words for this crucial, life sustaining element. More research and propaganda is needed to fully understand the concept of sleep and its life sustaining characteristics. The day people start understanding and appreciating the importance of sleep, the world would start becoming a better place.


~Narendra V Joshi

Are the Gods angry?

This is the question in my mind now. I just finished reading an article in the online newspaper which reads Delhi is sitting on a potential killer temblor and a major earthquake of about 6.5 on the Richter scale could occur in Delhi. I am just wondering what has suddenly changed or happened? And to my memory 2005 seems to be the year which has seen most number of natural disasters.

First we had the Tsunami even before we could actually step into 2005. The opening of the year itself was on a bad note. The earthquake which originated in the Indian Ocean triggered the Tsunami which devastated the shores of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, South India, Thailand and other countries with waves up to 100 ft. It caused serious damage and deaths as far as the east coast of Africa, with the furthest recorded death due to the tsunami occurring at Port Elizabeth in South Africa, 8,000 km away from the epicenter. Indonesia suffered another disaster with the earth quake that occurred in that region in March.

Next was the turn of rains. Mumbai had received 94.4cms of rain on a single day which is really too much to imagine. I was there in Mumbai on one of those rainy days. To compound the problem, the plane I was in skidded off the runway. Fortunately nothing happened to anybody on the plane. The rains were so heavy that it actually took more than an hour to get into the Mumbai airport from the stranded plane as visibility was extremely low. Hardly anything beyond 10 feet was visible.

Then in the US, there was this hurricane Katrina affecting all places in its path with New Orleans and Louisiana bearing the brunt. Even as the scattered life was trying to limp back to normal, hurricane Rita made landfall.

And now, earthquakes in Jammu and Kashmir and other northern parts of India and some places in Pakistan. The people of Jammu and Kashmir were already suffering due to the militancy there and this earthquake is just adding to their bundle of woes. And with winter close on their heels the situation looks really grim.

And down there in the southern parts of India, it’s mid of October and still no signs of rains leaving place for the fall. There was another article in the newspaper which read that for Bangalore, October 2005 already has the distinction of getting the highest monthly rainfall in 49 years. We still have 13 days to go before October draws to an end. People living in the low lying areas would have been the ones severely affected due to these rains.

There seems to be something wrong somewhere. Things seem to be going really haywire this year. It might just be a coincidence that all these major disasters are happening this same year or the Gods are really really angry.




~NVJ

The Non-Veg Experiment

Culinary still seems to be an evolving art with innumerable experimentation happening at every home around the world. I think this is one art which has very few barriers and restrictions as long as the preparations are edible!! One of those very few barriers may be a stanch vegetarian, teetotaler Brahmin like me preparing non-veg food!!

It was around 7 on a Thursday evening. I checked the refrigerator for vegetables. We had mint leaves (pudina), 2 or 3 tomatoes and onions. I had experimented on 2 different dal varieties the previous 2 evenings and today wanted to cook something else. Thought of different combinations until the unthinkable thought came to my mind. Preparing a non-veg delicacy!! I knew that if I have chicken I can prepare a good dish with it, for my friends of course!!

I tried putting the thoughts aside and sat in front of the TV to watch the football match. A picture of the chicken item that I wanted to make however had already formed in my mind. My mind was busy working on the recipe. By 9:30 that night I had constructed the recipe and had also visualized the final picture!! The only imperfectness in the picture, I preparing a non-veg dish. I quickly brushed the thoughts aside, went to sleep after having curd rice with pickles.

The untried recipe was still there in my mind and I had again started thinking about it on Friday evening. “What if I marry a girl who is a non-vegetarian?” This was the strongest propeller and I finally decided that I go ahead and experiment on the recipe I had drawn!!!! But I did not want to touch meat and could not even think about it. And without touching an ingredient there was no way I could prepare something. I checked with a friend, if he will cut the chicken and put it in a bowl the way I wanted it which he immediately agreed on!!

So there I was ready with a non-veg recipe and the ingredients needed for it except for the main ingredient, the chicken!! I did not want to buy meat and in future too, if the girl I marry wants meat she has to touch it herself. I will just accompany her and pay for it!!

I put all the ingredients on the kitchen table. Cleaned the mint leaves and put them in the grinder, added jalapeno pepper and garlic. The chopped onions were fried in oil with mustard and pinch of turmeric. Put the mint and pepper paste into the fried onions, once the onions had turned light brown and left it on low flame constantly stirring it. I then added finely chopped green pepper into it and stirred it well. Then I put the masala powder, jeera, pinch of asafetida and salt. I then called up one of my friend and checked with him if he can bring the chicken. He was surprised to hear ME asking for chicken!! I asked him to bring boneless chicken and gloves, to wear while stirring the preparation!!! By the time he arrived with the chicken and the gloves I was ready with the gravy. He put the chicken on the table. I could see the meat through the transparent plastic cover. I could not even touch the cover leave alone touching the meat. I called my friend to prepare the meat. He washed the meat and cut it into small pieces, added salt and turmeric to it and put it into the gravy. We closed the lid and left it on a medium flame. After about 15 minutes I added cut coriander leaves for seasoning.

All friends tasted it and said it was good!! The look and the color of it felt good to me too!! I was happy about myself for having successfully cooked a non-veg dish and not have touched it. I could not think of a name for it nor knew if any chicken item is prepared that way!! I suddenly realized that I had not cooked anything for myself. After spending 1-1 ½ hours in the kitchen I had cooked something which I don’t eat!!

I had curd rice and pickles for dinner for myself while my friends had chicken. But I was happy for having come up with a new recipe!! My friend named it “pudina chicken”!! So for the second time in the week I had a dinner of curd rice and pickles, but this time I was more contented than before!!!

Note-
I have put in only the names of the major ingredients here. So do not try it at home!!



~NVJ