The Car Driving Circle of Life

Just had a thought about the circle of life as it relates to the position of the family members in the car.

When you buy a new car, you are in the driver's seat. Possibly, with your spuse as the navigator and the parents in the back(ground). Once you have kid(s), they will make a lot of noise to try to sit up front, so the spouse moves into the back(ground) to make the children sit there. Slowly, the kids grow up and take over the navigator seat. As time goes by, they move into the driver's seat while you shift to the navigator. Soon, your kid gets married and the spouse takes the navigator seat while you join your spouse in the back(ground).

Sounds like the circle of life, doesn't it?

Where no one has gone before...

I was murmuring this phrase to myself when I went into a theater recently to watch the new Star Trek movie. Not because I was recalling that iconic title sequence from Star Trek. It was a reaction to the almost empty movie theater in front of me.

I think it is but a true reflection of how little people know about Startrek in India. It is simply not popular here. I don't know why. It had good stories and an optimistic, if western, outlook of the future. Whatever the reason, I was just thankful that I had a chance to see the movie on the big screen in India.

My wife and I both loved the movie. So, I think if it was marketed well by paramount and possibly dubbed into local languages it might have found a bigger audience.

Proud to be an Indian today

"I, Manmohan Singh, do solemnly swear...". When I hear this, I feel proud to be an Indian. Not because I am a Congress Supporter. In fact, the party I voted for won a single assembly seat. Still, I feel proud when I see Manmohan Singh take the Oath to be the next Prime Minister of India. Because, it shows that India has elected it's new representatives in a democratic, largly incident free, and peaceful manner. As an Indian, I cannot help feel proud of that.

We, the people of India, have participated in one of the most important events of our lives. With all it's negatives and problems, the fact remains that we have a new government democratically elected and there would a peaceful transition from old to new. This is a cause for celebration, especially when we look around the neighbourhood of our country. We, the people of India, have decided that a Sikh gentleman and an Italian born catholic should take charge of the reins of the government responsible to a billion+ people. The people of India have decided to look at the capabilities of people rather than their religious or ethnic leanings. How can I not be proud to be an Indian today?

However, though proud, I do realize that there are many problems with the electoral process still. Over 40% of those eligible to vote did not or could not vote. That is a travesty of democracy. There was use of money power and divisive politics. Due to multi cornered contests, parties are getting elected while actually getting the nod from less than 30% of the electorate. The bargaining for the cabinet berths is getting a little ugly. Such things would need to be looked at by all of us, the voters, to see what can be done. Possibly, we can make some changes to our choices in the next election? :-)

One final thought. Though I respect Dr. Manmohan Singh and consider him to be a clean politician, it saddens me that the man that would preside over the fortunes of billion+ people is afraid of fighting an election himself and getting elected. This is the one black spot in an otherwise impeccable credentials of our Prime Minister. I think, the congress party should make use of the positive vibe sorrounding Dr. Manmohan Singh and put him up for Lok Sabha as soon as possible. Other wise, For all the good things he may have done and will do, Dr. Singh will also be remembered as the man who was afraid to fight an election.

You and I share similar interests if ....

You and I share similar interests if

• You wish you had a Valet like "Jeeves"
• You would love to go to Blandings Castle or the Drones club
• You don't think "Ickenham" is an icky Ham
• You would love to go to London with "Uncle Fred"
• You know the Empress of Blandings is faaaaaaat and you like it that way

• You get the urge to say "Qpla" or "Live long and Prosper"
• You want to wish others "Peace and Long Life"
• You get the urge to use the Vulcan salute
• You can argue about the the virtues of each of the Startrek series and movies
• You know the release date of Star Trek XI in your country
• You know "Babylon 5" has nothing to do with history
• You know the full form of TARDIS
• You know there have been ten Doctors

• You are more interested in meeting Agatha Christie than Hercule Poirot
• Your hero is Arthur Canon Doyle and not Sherlock Holmes
• You loved "The Lost World" NOT written by Michael Crichton
• You know Professor Challenger as well as Sherlock Holmes
• You love reading R. K. Narayan as much as Alistair MacLean
• You know the significance of the phrase "Frodo Lives"
• You liked reading and watching Perry Mason stories
• You still love reading Asterix and TinTin

• Your favourite computer game is "Thief: The dark Project"
• You love playing the Fan missions for Thief
• You love playing Age of Empires, Diablo, Myth, Deus Ex and Pandora's Box

• You can recite the three laws of robotics from memory
• You can even recite the additional zeroth law
• You know that "Psychohistory" is not the history of Psychos
• The phrase "I, Robot" reminds you of Robbie and not Will Smith
• You know R. Daneel Olivaw
• You admire Arthur C. Clarke and
• You loved and were disturbed by "Childhood's end"
• You know who berserkers are in Science Fiction
• You know who Maud’Dib is
• You know the answer to “Life, Universe and Everything”
• You know which planet is “Mostly Harmless”
• You don't think that the phrase "Grandfather Paradox" means "Why did I have HIM as grandfather?"
  
• You can say "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"
• You loved to watch the "Dick Van Dyke show", "All in the Family", "The Jeffersons", "Sanford and Son", "Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "Law and Order"

• Your favourite movie is "Maya Bazaar"
• You feel the urge to sing "Vivaha Bhojanambu" before a meal
• You like to watch Nagaiah in the old movies, especially Tyagayya
• You can get into arguments over who is better? SVR or NTR or ANR?
• Your favourite singer is Ghantasala

How many of these interests do you share with me?

We saw all Gods and Temples at one place

My Family and I had the good fortune to visit Yadagiri Gutta recently to have darshan of Lord Narasimha. On the way, 3-4 kms before the temple town, there is a place called Surendrapuri. There we stopped by a place called "Kunda Satyanarayana Kaladhamam". It was one of the best decisions we could have taken.

Here you can see statues and replicas of most of the great hindu piligrimage sites from Himalayas to Srilanka and various scenes from the sacred texts. The scaled replica of the main diety and the Vimana of various piligrimage sites are depicted beautifully. Each would be atleast 12-15 feet high. There are desriptive plaques in Telugu and English describing each replica.

Some of the highlights are:
1. There are beautiful large recreations of Vaikuntham, Brahma Loka and Kailasa.

2. The feeling you get when you walk into the Brahma Loka and see and walk between gods and Rishis meditating and praying in front of Brahma and Saraswathi is fantastic.

3. While you walk through the various gates of Vaikuntham, you can also see the various avatars of Maha Vishnu before finally seeing his huge form on the equally large Adi Sesha.

4. There is a huge depiction of the Vishwrupam of Lord SriKrishna as he sings the Bhagawadh Gita to Arjuna.

5. You walk in Ganga and see the great temples on the banks of Ganga. There is a beautiful depiction of the Amarnath shrine as well(Ice Lingam).

6. They also have a long line of statues showing the story of the Ramayana, Bhagavatham, the child hood of Pandavas and Kauravas and Hanuman.

7. There are statues of the dikpalakas along with their consorts and vehicles. I don't think I will ever get a chance to see a statue of Nairuti on his "Sava" Vahana anywhere else.

8. You can also walk through Naga Loka where Vasuki is presiding over his domain.

9. Yama Loka is depicted too clearly :-). It can be very scary for kids.

10. There is a depiction of the famous scene from Manu Charitra where the Matsyavatara pulls the Ark of Manu with the great Sages, Manu and other animals and plants in it.

11. A huge replica of the churning of the ocean by Devas and Asuras with Vasuki as the rope aroung Mandhara mountain with everything that come out during the churning including Airavata, Uchchaisrava, Maha Lakshmi etc.

12. You can walk through the Padma Vyuha and see Abhimanyu being attacked by Duryodhana, Karna and others.

There are many many more scenes from the sacred texts.

There were a couple of minor errors, of course. In such a huge undertaking, it is to be expected. Out of literally hundreds of replicas each containing 2-4 statues at a minimum ( not counting places like Brahma Loka, Yama loka etc which had dozens of statues), a couple of errors are not important.

It is about one and half hours drive from Hyderabad and costs 300 Rupess per person on holidays and 250 Rs on other days. For what we get to see, I think this is cheap. They don't allow cameras and cell phones inside. So, We could not take any pictures. But, it was well worth the time we spent there.

I guess Lord Narasimha was happy with our decision too. When we finally reached the temple, we had darshan in 10 min. Last time we went there, it took us over 2 hours. :-)

Once a Thief .....

I had recently dusted off an old game that I had bought in 2000 and started playing it and it's sequels. The Original game was called Thief: The dark project[Wikipedia]. This was a game that created a new genre that did not exist before. The first person sneaker. The genre also took off because of this game. Unfortunately for the admirers of this game, it was the year of Half life. Otherwise, I am sure Thief would have won all Game of the year awards. Though I like playing both of them, I prefer Thief over Half life myself.

The story of the original game was different and interesting. It's graphics were nothing to write home about. But, the sounds in the game were fantastic. When had you ever played a game for the fantastic sound qualities rather than the graphics? I remember connecting my surround speaker system to the computer 8 years back and playing this game in complete darkness. During one of the missions featuring Zombies and with assorted "ghostly" sounds, I got so scared that I had to stop playing it for a while and later continue it after putting on the light in the adjoining room (light in the same room would have ruined the game play). I spent (or wasted :-) )many hours hunched over my keyboard in complete darkness, courtesy Thief. It was such a completely immersive experience that many other games with much better graphics could never provide. I remember this one time when I started playing it in the evening and I suddenly realized that I had been playing the game for so long that I forgot about dinner and that it was 1AM already.

When the sequels were announced I bought them as soon as they were released. I liked them too, but nothing beats the original, in my opinion. Though, from the perspective of game play, I preferred the second.

I had played many computer games before and since then. But, Thief is the one that has stayed with me and one that I recall fondly from time to time. A tip of the hat to all the folks at erstwhile Looking Glass Studios for providing me with so much entertainment.

London Lights

I was looking at a blog showing some beautiful pictures of London. So, I wanted to point to a few pictures of the very same city that I really liked:

From London Lights

Can you see the ghostly cycler below?

From London Lights

From London Lights