Hibernation :-(

HI,
Of late I am losing interest in blogging and am yet to find out the reason.So am planning for a self incuded hibernation. But I would not like to lose some of the articles I would have written if it was not for my disinterest. So what I will do is make a short note on what was in my mind. I don’t think I will elaborate it any day. If at all I blog again it will be coz I will lose interest in "not blogging".

Article: 1
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Charity Begins at home; corruption???

Points that made me write abt it
a) college library had limited stock of text books that were of interest to students. so there was a huge competition to get it under free-book-scheme (scheme where 2 books would be) given to students for the whole semester).And when there is more demand and less supply, corruption is sure to breed. In this case the librarian would take token money(read bribe) from some students and reserve books for them. On the distribution day, While we would struggle to get the books ,they would come 2-3 days later and take the book. This was the first form I bribery I encountered in my life and still feel bad for not fighting against it( and certainly not ashamed for NOT using that service ).

b) This is based purely on what I heard. The story goes that lecturers and wardens share new utensils and other items that comes to the college hostel. And only a part of it goes to the students staying there :-( How cheap!! It reminds me of how the money collected for earthquake/tsunami/flood affected ppl is distributed.

c) and finally the claim for transportation done by the employees .I have seen employees overcharge the claim amount for reimbursement. Also those who go onsite get false bill and claim them back here. another form of corruption :-)

d) there are so many other things that I have lost count


Article :2
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Of God, and religion
Wanted to write what I thought abt the God, its existence, religion, birth and death. And had collected enough points. but now in no mood to write. One of those points is that a person will undergo the birth and death cycle until he gets moksha(salvation).Each person takes a step near moksha every birth. It’s like a product which is tested again and again and you find bugs in every iteration and then solve them and once it passes required test it is released !!!


Article 3:
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I wanted to write about the team building outing we had.We had gone to pegasus institute where we played team-games and learnt a lot about ourselves.It was planned to be on the similar lines on that of the kotligad blog I wrote long ago but I delayed it enough to lose interest now.

Article 4:
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Well I hv lost interest in this particular blog I am writing too.So will stop here.


Ok bye signing off for now.Going in search for an inspiration and motivation for writing again...............

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How I was Phoonked !!!

Catch me on any weekend and you will find me doing one of these things: Sleeping, watching movies, reading novels or eating. Eventhough the past weekend had the same schedule, the sequence of events occurred during those two days still give me chills.
Somehow I felt that the theme of that weekend was "RED and BLACK". And this is why....

It all started when an evil friend of mine invited me to watch a Kannada movie called "Madesha".The movie had a notorious reputation of not having got even an 'A' certificate due to extreme violence shown in the film. The producer finally managed to release it and I went to watch the movie. All I could find was that the hero (?!) SRK kills everyone in sight without any justification. There was too much violence, bloodshed and crime for a film and I came out of the theatre with my blood boiling .But my friend- turned-enemy had escaped by then.It was nothing but co-incidence that I was wearing a red T-shirt over black jeans that day.Though my dress has nothing to do with the story unfolding below,it was just blending well with the Red & Black theme.

I took the bus to my home and on the way saw some funeral procession. For the first time in my life I did not feel bad seeing a dead body. I felt as if he was just another victim of our Madesha’s anger. It did not occur to me that this funeral was real.
Coming home ,I saw my brother playing Doom on PC.I sat there and watched the demonic creature shoot at sight. I could not bear it for long and left for dinner. My mom had prepared a red colored Sāmbhar. I purposely declined it and chose to eat pure white colored curd rice. But that red pickle and red papad still would not leave me...

At this point of the story the RED theme fades and BLACK theme comes to picture …

As if this was not enough, now I decided to watch "Phoonk" on my system. Although I believed that RGV cannot make a better horror flick than RGV ki AAG, I chose to watch it for 3 reasons: I somewhat like parapsychology, supernatural fictions and that the hero was a Kannada star.
I liked the film with all its weird camera angles, crows, dolls, nimbu and of course black magic. After watching this film, my mom telling me to cut a lemon for some preparation the next day was just a co-incidence. Or was it??

I still had some time to KILL (Oh no.. this word is not gonna leave me) . So I started reading a detective novel called “Sherlock Holmes" but soon started to feel sleepy. I changed my ringtone to "Gayatri Mantra" so that even though anyone calls me at night, I should not get startled but hear a nice prayer. And then I slept. Suddenly in the middle of the night I heard some eerie laughter. It was not sounding like a human being .I thought I was just hearing things. But some time later I heard it again. Now this was serious. I got up and drank some water. As I was looking for the source of the laughter, I could hear some faint sound of bell ringing somewhere.
I opened my window slightly and could feel the cold breeze blowing outside. As I strained to see what was happening outside in midst of the darkness outside, all I could see was a closed goods auto rickshaw. I suddenly realized that the bell sound was coming from inside of the auto. Now the sound grew clearer. I could hear some woman chanting something. It was creepy. My heart started beating fast. Why would someone park an auto near the middle of three roads and chant some mantras at this time of the night. I was sure that this had definitely something to do with black magic. That woman seemed to have some evil thoughts in mind. As an avid detective novel reader, by now I had found out how to make a logical conclusion given a set of evidences. And to hit the final nail in the coffin, I heard a small child crying in the house outside which the auto was parked.

Now the statement "You wont believe it until it happens to you" made sense. Here I was, watching (in my mind), a woman performing black magic on some girl and I was helpless. I like these supernatural things and powers but hate when it seems to cause 3D effects :distress,disease and death.

I thought all this was too much to bear and went to my bed and tried to sleep again. Now it might be around 4 AM when I heard that evil laugh again. And this time I could not sleep. Just out of curiosity, I went to see what happened to that auto and....

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What I saw completely took me by surprise but I was very relieved by that sight. Still I had some doubts in my minds but the fear had vanished. So I slept peacefully and waited for the latest developments. Next morning I did a small research on the last night happenings and got all my doubts cleared. Here are the facts:

That auto was parked there as it had run out of fuel .And at 4 AM; I saw its owner refill the petrol and explaining his friend how he had to walk in the night to get the fuel and took him so much time to get back.
Just behind the auto,in my opposite house, (obviously out of my view), was a neighborhood aunty offering prayers to the "Brahmakamala" (or Nishagandhi or Night Blooming Cereus) which had bloomed only that night. She found it auspicious and did not mind offering prayers to it (and in turn creating fear in my heart) at that point of night. This was the reason of the woman chanting and the bell sound.
And it was due to this sound in latenight that the small child got frightened and started crying... (To hell with black magic, even prayers create terror!!)
The last link in the whole story was the evil laugh. It turned out to be that in the sleepy mood, instead of Gayatri mantra, I had set some scary ringtone for calls. And to end from where it all started from, it was the same evil friend of mine who had called in those unearthly hours thus making my phone to create terror filled music. Reason: well he was traveling and since could not sleep; he would give missed calls to his friends at random times just for fun.
My mind was now crystal clear knowing that none of the events were linked to one another and of course no black magic...


Then all of a sudden I heard another faint set of laughters...But this time it was Sherlock Holmes, Ram Gopal verma, the lemon seller and the crows :-)

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Winning isn't everything

It’s high time that I accept that the events that unfolded after 8th August 2008 changed my whole perspective of what I thought about winning. If you have still not guessed what happened on that day, let me tell you .It was the day when China opened the Beijing Olympics with a stunning spectacle leaving everyone in the world spellbound. It is surely unlikely that any other host country will ever be able to devote such investment and resources to an opening ceremony. Such a flawless exhibition of synchronization, choreography, discipline and imagination was rarely to be seen in the recent years. And yes I am still in awe for the magnitude of the event. Never in my life had I seen a show where such a large number of people perform with such harmony. I would like to give full credits to the people who came up with such a show. It surely set a benchmark for any kind of event to be hosted from now on. As the saying goes, “First impression is the best impression”, the opening event itself showcased what was in store for the rest of the event. I never cared to watch Olympics all these years but when the start was so splendid, I was left wanting for more....

My next few days became too mechanical. After returning from office ,I would sit in front of the TV to watch Olympics (bearing the torture of the dismal coverage by doordarshan).Over the next few days I saw many mistakes being made, many hopes shattered and most importantly many world records being broken. And it is this part of the world records that made me write this article.

Yes I am talking about these 2 persons who made me rethink the definition of winning: Michael Philips and Usian Bolt. Winning gold is good and breaking world records is better. But the way in which it was done was what we call “Great”. Winning 8 medals out of 8 in swimming is utter domination. And it was a long time that this type of domination was achieved in swimming. And the way in which bolt completed his last 10 meters of his 100m sprint with his fist thumping his chest and celebrating even before winning and still breaking the world record was a spectacle to behold. It showed us that it was not only winning that was important but doing it comprehensively was the new in thing.

I wondered now that whether it could be seen in other sports as well and I could recollect a few who made us feel that there was no thrill in watching the sport if you knew who was the winner beforehand. To name a few, here is the list: Michael Schumacher in F1,Tiger Woods in golf, Federer in Tennis (Nadal is not as consistent),Australia in cricket etc.
These were the people who seemed to be bored of winning. There always seemed to be an aura of invincibility around them. I sometime wondered what would motivate them to practise when they knew they were the undisputed leaders in their game.

Somehow I feel this phenomenon is also come to academics too. Toppers now not only try to get better marks than the others but try to see that the gap between them and the next best is very large.

The competition is not becoming tougher, its made tougher by the winners ,who instead of competing with others ,try to beat themselves thus increasing the gap with which they defeat someone.


I had read this interesting one liner somewhere :"Just when I had found the key of life, someone changed the lock".
Now I feel it’s very true.

To conclude, this is what I have to say: Winning isn’t everything…..being invincible is :)

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