Kulting my sister's cycle

Today is special, I had my first brush with kulting(stealing) stuff, that too my sister's cycle! Want to know what really happened?

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Daily I check whether my sister has come back or not. On seeing her reply to my mails, yesterday morning, I thought that she has come back. Later in the evening, I saw her cycle near the department, which convinced me that my thought was right. On seeing the cycle, I found that its front tire is punctured and the cycle is in very bad state. I have used her cycle many times and I thought that it was time for me to repay back. But if I ask her politely for the key, she would never give me. She told that she cares about me. So she would not allow me to get pained. Therefore I tried to open the lock with my own cycle key :). And to my surprise, it worked as if it is the right key. But again there was another problem. There won't be any cycle shops open in the evening and I could not take it the next morning because she might be searching for it. "My bad luck", I thought, and I locked her cycle and left.

Later in the night, I met Prateek from TCS lab and inquired him if she is really back or not. And he told that she has not come back. "So I still have a chance to get her cycle repaired", I thought. Unlike helping other friends, it is tough to get a chance to help my sister. She does everything on her own, a very big independent :P. So I decided not to lose this chance.

After waking up in the morning, today, I unlocked the cycle with my key and dragged it to my hostel (I usually sleep in the lab). After going to my room, I felt lazy and wasted lot of time browsing stupid stuff. And by the time I got ready, it became noon. Then I came out thinking that I would give the cycle to the repair shop. But to my astonishment, I could not find it. "Oh God! where is the cycle? If I lose it, she will kill me!", I said to myself. Then I asked the security guard. Pointing to her cycle, he asked "Is this the cycle you are searching for?". "Yes, yes!", I said. "Tell me your room number and name. Somebody filed a complaint against you. You stole his/her cycle", he said. At first I got scared, I thought "Who might have noticed me bringing her cycle? I was very careful while unlocking it, nobody was around". But again I convinced myself that it is my sister's cycle and I brought it this far to repair it and there is nothing wrong in that. I daringly told him "Yes! I brought the cycle. It is my sister's. And I brought it to get it serviced". I was thinking of who that person who complained might be. Many questions popped out of my mind - "Did Shiny sell the cycle to somebody? or did Shiny herself has come and complained against me?". So I asked him, "Who is that person who complained? What is her name?". He told that a house keeping servant (woman) came and complained. "Ah! now I understand", I murmured. Shiny knows few cleaning servants in the department. So she might have given her cycle to one of them temporarily or may be permanently.

Then I ran to the department, to find that person. I went there and searched near all the bogs. I never got a chance to know where these serving people stay. Finally I met a woman and when I said two magical words - "Shiny", "cycle"; her faced glowed like thousand volt bulb. She started talking in Tamil and I don't know Tamil. She put all kinds of expressions on her face (tensed, weeping, etc.) and I understood that she got properly pained. "How much trouble I caused her", I thought. For us, losing a friend's cycle is merely an issue of money. We can buy a new cycle for him/her. But for them, it is different. Rarely do people give them things they can't afford and losing those things is awful and sad for them. In this case, she has to return back the cycle to my sister and if she loses it, it will be a big problem.

So I had created hell lot of trouble for her. "Now it is the time to set things right", I thought. I brought a Tamil speaking friend from RISE lab and with his help, she and I had come to a decision that we would go back to the hostel and get the cycle. And after that I could give it to the repair shop. While going back to the hostel, again by walk, I bought her some biscuits to calm her down. She looked more tensed than me.

There is one last twist left in this story. When we reached the hostel, the dumb security guy :P had sent the cycle to CCW office. "Now the cycle is gone.", I thought, "Impossible to get from CCW, they would have chained it and thrown somewhere". And when we went there we found the poor cycle chained and put along with the other lost ones. "Time to beg and fall on their feet, we can't lose the cycle at any cost", I said. We did not have any documents of the cycle. But we would not give up. So we went in and started requesting. In my most respectable tone, I started asking for cycle - "Sir Sir, my sister's cycle sir :P. Please give it back". And I told the whole story and she too told the same in Tamil. He got very confused and asked "I still don't understand you both". Luckily there was clever guy beside him who understood and explained him. I guess he was in good mood and he allowed us to take the cycle back. "Huh! at last! we got the cycle. Thank god", I said and we took the cycle back. I told her to go back on her own and I went to the repair shop and finally gave the cycle for servicing.

Let me not share this story with my sister :). I will tease her by telling it later and she'll get real angry for doing all this :D. Ha ha ha...

Partly Cloudy

"Partly Cloudy" is an amazing short film by Pixar Animations. When I watched it for the first time, I could not stop watching it again. Even after that, I watched it many times. If you have not watched it, you can watch it here.

What strikes me the most is the theme of friendship, the film portrays. It reminds me of my own friends. That is why I like to watch it again and again.

It starts with an innocent dark cloud who is lonely and doesn't have good creative skills compared to other white clouds. With some effort, he creates a small alligator. The important thing to note is that he likes the things he creates. To him, all his creations are good. According to that world, birds carry these creations and drop them at right places. And for the birds, his creations are not so liking.

After he is done with his creation, he waits for some bird to come and carry it. But being at a lower level than other clouds, and being a dark cloud may be, none of the birds come to him. This situation reminds me of my old days in my school. I joined a new school in my 4th class and continued till 10th. I used to be the most silent person. And for one or two years, I never had good friends. Also I was not a clever guy and being very silent, nobody used to talk to me. I used to be fat too. I guess, these traits scared people off. And may be because of that I still crave for friends and people to talk.

Going back to the film, a weak bird finally approaches him. Though it is weak, it decides to work for him. He was very happy that finally a bird came to him. He makes friendship with the bird and the bird too makes him a friend. The bird bears all the pain of his creations and cheerfully works for him. The bird is the ultimate symbol of this film. I can compare it with all my good friends who stay with me in spite of my painful bugging and caring. I still remember my sister Shiny telling me that she introduced me to her old friend as the "new bugging IIT friend!". I was so happy for that. It never mattered to me that I am so bugging and caring. She was the first to understand me and I was perfectly fine with her introduction.

Back to the film again, the bird becomes too tired and seeing that the other birds are having good time, it decides to leave. This scene is very common to me. It reminds me of all those friends who "used" me and left. I too cried like the cloud many times. Back to the school days again, few years after joining, people found that I am good at maths and started making friendship. They are all false friends who befriend me because they want something from you. And when their need is over, they will leave. I had to learn this lesson the hard way. I used to feel very bad when a friend leaves. Now I understand how foolish it is to feel like that. Still I allow people to "use" me. But when they leave, I pity them. Thanks to Granny for teaching me this lesson. I hope one day she'll understand what friendship is.

Once again going back to the film, the twist in the story is that the bird doesn't really leave. It goes to another cloud for help. And our black cloud doesn't know that and starts crying. This teaches two lessons, the first is that true friends never leave you and the second is that true friendship is valued by everybody. The second lesson can be inferred from the fact that the other cloud tries to help the bird bear its friend's pain. I never had any friend who left me and came back. I hope I will never bring such situation, like that of the bird, to any of my friends.

Finally I want to say that friendship, like any good relation, needs understanding and bearing of pain. Friendship doesn't mean that the friend will bring heavens down to you. Neither does love. Friendship is also a form of love. And hence you can bear the pain happily, unlike an unwanted relation.

Happy sufferer

Last few days I haven't had good sleep. Hence I decided to sleep for a long time today. But I did not get sleep. So I started thinking on this topic - "We suffer so much in our life, but why?". Suffering due to our work is easily explainable. We endure the pain of work because:
a) we like the work or
b) we like the outcome or
c) we are forced to do it or
d) we like to get pained just like that :P

There are other higher forms of suffering which are not so easily understandable. As usual let us use the lens of love to understand these things.

1. I like Rama Chandra not just for his greatness, power, etc., but also for being a great sufferer. It is said that Rama and Sita are one of those unfortunate couples who suffer the pain of separation all through their lifetime. He missed her for so much time. And when he finally was able to meet her, he put her to a test of purity. Imagine the pain he would have suffered. Even after the pattabhisheka(act of becoming a king), he had to leave her to forests (according to Uttara Ramayana). He always inspires me in times of suffering. The suffering is often called "Viyoga-duhkam" - the lack/loss of wife.
   
2. Suffering does not mean being sad. People who suffer can also be very happy. Suffering and happiness can be completely independent. Being happy is the best way to take the pain. Being sad is the worst way to take pain as you would suffer more.
3. If we think carefully, we'll find that love is the reason behind both happiness and suffering. That's why understanding it is not easy. Here suffering is not first order affect of love. It is the suffering to achieve the love. For example, Rama would not worry if Sita goes to Janaka's house(first order does not cause pain).
4. How does love cause suffering?. According to me, conflicts in love give raise to suffering. The conflicts have to be resolved using some laws like "dharma". Rama loves the people and also loves Sita. He cannot accept her without testing her purity because it will conflict the love towards people. Hence he uses dharma and puts her to a fire test to achieve both love. Here Sita suffers as she had to jump into the fire which can potentially kill her. But she loves Rama and can bear any amount of pain. Love also helps in bearing the pain.
5. Does love demand action? It does when coupled with dharma. You can always say "I love all" and leave things as they are. But the point here is that you should love all equally. Can Rama love Sita and Ravana simultaneously and leave Sita to him? No! That would be mean that he is loving one more than another. Again this is a conflict and dharma comes into picture. Another way to interpret this is that Rama loves both equally, but he would help Sita only because she has been praying for help. Helping her is rightful than helping Ravana according to dharma.
6. Thus, love coupled with dharma would be a very powerful tool to understand life. Prof Ganesh used to say that one should have an anchor in life. For him, it is dharma. He tries to see through the lens of dharma.
7. Having an anchor is very important in life. People often choose the easiest one - "take the least painful choice". If that is the anchor in your life, you keep on avoiding things which are painful. You can easily lead a life but would never achieve any fulfillment or understanding of life. Some people go for "best output" as their anchor. I don't like that even. What is the point of doing something which you don't like even if the outcome is something great. My anchor is always "love+dharma". One should always follow one rule and should not vary it according to situation. Often we try to follow something in one and something else in another situation. Best example would be acad life and personal life. In acad life you do things which you like. But in personal life you do things just to take away the pain. We try to avoid people/things/issues which are painful.
   

Examples from my life:

1. When I want something which my papa does not like, there is a conflict. Simply said, the first order pain of love is the pain caused by you. I would not cause pain to my father and instead love him and do what he said. That's what dharma says. That something which I loved can still be loved but not given priority. If it is a human being, there is a problem. I can treat him/her in the same loving way. But if they are still unhappy because of me, I have no choice. Either I have to break the law and choose one of them - papa or the human being, or I have to suffer endlessly throughout my life.
2. My granny is one perfect example for me. I treat her like any of my friends. But she is innocent and always tries to avoid me. I try not to cause any pain to her. And hence I suffer because I have to avoid her. But there is no problem in suffering as I am always happy, a part of which is derived from the fact that she is happy if I stay away. Again suffering is second order like hiding, running away :P, etc.
   

I hope my understanding of things help you in times of suffering and make you a "happy sufferer".

---
Kashyap

Hari Tum Haro

"Hari Tum Haro" is one of the greatest songs written by Mirabhai. Lets see what Wikipedia says about this song:

"Hari Tuma Haro is an Indian bhajan or devotional song by Mirabai, the poet saint. Mahatma Gandhi reported this song to be his favorite. Gandhi once expressed the wish to hear M S Subbulakshmi sing the song. Subbulakshmi answered that she had not practiced the song. Gandhi replied that he would rather hear her speak the Hari Tuma Haro than hear someone else sing it. Feeling obliged, Subbulakshmi recorded the song and had the record delivered to Gandhi on his 78th birthday. After Gandhi's assassination, radio stations played Subbulakshmi's recording of Hari Tuma Haro repeatedly after announcing the death of Gandhi." [ Taken from Wikipedia ]

It is a very nice and pleasant song. It is available in Youtube and also in the Lan (for IITM students). One should surely try listening to it if one likes slow songs. Here are the lyrics and their translation:

*hari tum haro jana ki pīr
(O Hari(Krishna), end the human suffering)

draupadī kī lāj rākhī tum badhāyo cīr
(By lengthening Draupadi's garment,
thou hast saved her from disrobement)

bhakta kārana rūpa narahari dharyo āp śarīr
(Thou wearest the human cloak (through avatarhood) to protect your devotees)

hiranyakaśyapa mār līnho dharyo nāhina dhīr
Thou hast slayed (asura) Hiranyakasipu in thy fiercest form (Narashimha or Man-Lion)

būdate gaja rāja rākhyo kiyo bāhar nīr
(Thou hast recused Gajaraj (cf. Gajendra Moksha), by taking him out of the water.)

dāsi mīrā lāl giradhar
(O Lord Giridhara, sings thy servitor, Mira)

Another meera song, which is very good is enadhu uLLame.

Fun with kids

I woke up just now and I still remember the fun I had yesterday. Last weekend, many of my friends also had fun. Shiny went to her relatives' house. Gay and his gumble(akila, ramya, etc.) had fun at his house. Vinu went home. As far as other friends like TS are concerned, they are non-religious and hence this weekend is like any other weekend for them.

Back to the point, I had good fun. It was my cousin's birthday yesterday. I went to their house in the morning, at around 10:30. And my favorite movie, "LavaKusa", was being played in the TV. It is really good movie and I can't stop watching it. How many times I see it, it always looks new. The love between Sita and Ram is quite appealing and is shown excellently in that movie. Its story is based on "Uttara ramayan", which is the Ramayan after Rama kills Ravana and goes back to the kingdom.

After the movie is over, we had lunch and we started decorating. As usual, I slept late the previous night and felt very sleepy. Though decorating is a tedious job, it brings the part mood to all. The "happy birthday" balloons hanging all over, some stuck to the walls, cheer me all the time. I felt like my own birthday. I don't remember celebrating such a party for myself, may be I had one when I was too small. After the decoration, my uncle and I went to get the 2 KG cake which was ordered the previous day and some chips and drinks. All this time, when we were working on arrangements, my aunt was cooking so many good stuffs - bajji, bonda, etc.

While all these were happening, the evening sun rang the party bell and we quickly winded our work and dressed ourselves for the merry time ahead. The birthday boy, Kaushik, wore his new dress and started playing the piano. As he pressed the keys, a sweet tone started welcoming the guests. "Kids!", I thought, "so many of them are coming. I will surely have fun". I like kids very much for their innocence.

The kids came in lots, holding their parents. And when they left their parents for their usual gossip, they started grouping together. I prefer kids compared to elders. So I went to them and started talking to them. Suddenly I found that they talk different languages and most of them are multilingual. There were many telugu and tamil speaking ones, few hindi speaking kids and two kannada speaking brothers. They all talk well in their own language and know little bit english and tamil. It was sufficient for them to have fun. I liked them very much, for they understand each other very well, in spite of the fact that they can't communicate well. That's why they are great!

It was tough for me to talk. I know telugu and english, but only little hindi and zero kannada. And I found one little hindi speaking kid who was very enthusiastic. His name was something like kushal or kushoni. I couldn't understand him well. He talks hindi better than me and the embarassing part to me is that he is in PRE_KG! A pre-kg fellow talks hindi better than me!!! I can't accept such a thing. So I started talking to him. He is a chatterbox like me and more open than me. He beats me in all my qualities, except for my little knowledge in sciences, which he couldn't understand. So here is a small conversation:
He:"tera naam kya hi?"
I:"mera to naam nahi hi"
He:"naam nahi tere ko? tho ghar me kya bulate hi?"
I:"ghar me tho kashyap bulate hi", "Tum kya kar the ho?"
He:"main school me padta hu. Tum school jate ho kya?"
I:"nahi. Tum ko balloon chahiye kya? voh bada red vala"
He:"Voh red nahi. maroon!"
I:"Acha, yes. maroon wala. tum chote ho na. main lekar ata hun"
He:"main bade ho ne se tum ko balloon de doongE"
...

Like that we chatted and ate sweets, chips, bonda, bajji, everything. I took photos of all those kids. I don't know any of them and I am not sure if I will meet them again. They don't have email ids or phone numbers to keep in contact. I don't think they will worry about such things. All they want is fun and they don't mind playing with anybody who likes to play with them. I like the way they live. When we grow old, we start clinging to things and also people. People develop tastes and have huge list of preferences. I still like to play like a kid and have fun with anybody who likes to play with me. But unfortunately many people act like they are grown ups and never play with me. Hey Rama Chandra! why don't you make everybody a kid? Then, I can play with everybody!

Love-II

Time has come to write another article on Love :). Suffixing the previous entry's title was really good idea, otherwise I have to come up with a new title for this entry.

I like to live the life of ideal characters, 'Ramaha', 'Shivaha', 'Anjaneya', 'Sita', etc. I am a old style person, and hence I like those characters. I also like carnatic and hindustani music. That's why many people don't like me :). Many don't like the music translations in my blog. There are many people who don't like many of my things and ways.

But the music translations which I write are for my favorite songs. I listen to them day and night and sing them all the time. I like to write about them. Similary Ram ji, Sita devi, Parvathiparameshwarau, etc., are my gods and friends from a long time. I can't take anybody else as ideal. But many people don't like it. They are not like me, or in other words, I am not like them. My granny once said "You are all like me. That's why I made friendship". But after some time, she said "You are not like me. I don't want to make friendship. Good bye". I felt very bad. After thinking for a long time, I decided not to make friends. And I stopped being friendly for a long time. During last summer, I didn't make any new friends at Google(except my mentors). I was scared that people will not like me because I am not like them. I was very sad. I don't want to reminisce those old sad, gloomy days. After coming out of that sadness, I understood many important things in life. Here they go:

• I don't need to be like others. I don't need to listen to latest music because lot of people do so. It is good to live like Rama, Krishna, etc.
  
• But now, people may not like you and don't make friendship. These days people have completely messed up definitions of friendship. If you show pity and try to help, they may not like it. But if another does, they accept it very happily. Sometimes showing pity itself is a crime. You will be hated and cursed.
• So how do you deal with so many weird people. They want you to act like them, or otherwise they won't like you. They want you to act nicely till the work is done and then leave. How to deal with such people?
• The solution is "Love". Ah! finally to the crux of the story. I just need to love all. Never hate. See through love and everything will fall straight. Once Slinky said "You should not see the world through these these black and white shades". He was right. We should not even have two labels like good, bad; love, hate; etc. We should just see through only one color, i.e. love. And everything will be clear.
  
• Love all your friends and make sure that you do it by not causing pain to them. Love will never cause pain to the lover or the beloved. Therefore love them and do things which will be good for your friends, but it should not be wrong doing. If your friend does wrongs, warn him/her and still he doesn't stop doing bad to the world, act against him if you are the right person to do so. And surely leave him, without hating.
  
• Love those who don't like your habits. Understand that they are innocent beings who are unable to accept you, as you are.
  
• "A friend in need is a friend in deed". You don't really need namesake friends, who don't need you unless there is work with you. You don't need such friends who can't love you back. A friend is one who can love you back like you love him/her. He may not help you sometimes, but that is because he/she might have felt that it is not right to help or he/she is busy.
  
• Love turns into care when you have to freedom to do so. Care doesn't mean pestering. It is very simple to understand. If you find that your friend is not well, you will ask him/her how he/she is and buy them a fruit or a biscuit packet if you can. This is care and you can do it for all your friends. Those who love you back will never hate you when you care about them.
  
• Love is one of the best ways to deal with people. Love is not work done to others. You don't love somebody because he/she works very well for you. You should never love for the work they have done. You should love all for they are all beings like you.
  
• Help is different from love. You may have preference in helping. In general, you like to help your mother more than your friend. This is because of the love they show. Your credits belong to all those who love you. It is because of them that you have come this far. Without them you are nothing. Therefore giving preference in helping is nothing wrong. And love decides the preference. In India we have a great tradition of taking guest as god. Here is a nice story which highlights that tradition: "There was once a little village, and in it there dwelt a poor Brahmin with his wife, his son, and his son's wife. They were very poor and lived on small gifts made to them for preaching and teaching. There came in that land a three years' famine, and the poor Brahmin suffered more than ever. At last when the family had starved for days, the father brought home one morning a little barley flour, which he had been fortunate enough to obtain, and he divided it into four parts, one for each member of the family. They prepared it for their meal, and just as they were about to eat, there was a knock at the door. The father opened it, and there stood a guest. Now in India a guest is a sacred person; he is as a god for the time being, and must be treated as such. So the poor Brahmin said, 'Come in, sir; you are welcome,' He set before the guest his own portion of the food, which the guest quickly ate and said, 'Oh, sir, you have killed me; I have been starving for ten days, and this little bit has but increased my hunger.' Then the wife said to her husband, 'Give him my share,' but the husband said, 'Not so.' The wife however insisted, saying, 'Here is a poor man, and it is our duty as householders to see that he is fed, and it is my duty as a wife to give him my portion, seeing that you have no more to offer him.' Then she gave her share to the guest, which he ate, and said he was still burning with hunger. So the son said, 'Take my portion also; it is the duty of a son to help his father to fullfil his obligations.' The guest ate that, but remained still unsatisfied; so the son's wife gave him her portion also. That was sufficient, and the guest departed, blessing them. That night those four people died of starvation". You can see that the poor brahmin gave preference to wife and children first and then to the guest. He gave his share to the guest. His wife and children also gave preference to the guest and gave their share to him. They gave preference to the guest more than themselves because the guest is in need and has pleaded them. Showing love/mercy is the greatest quality. Here, there is no question of "should I give to my son or the guest". But the question is "should I eat or my guest". And since helping is great, he chose it compared to his self need. That's the path less taken and hence it became the greatest sacrifice in history.
  

Now you can see the power of love and how you can understand everything in terms of it. It is not simple to love everybody and everything. I can't fully love those who hate me. When my granny passes by, my heart beats 120 and sometimes I get very scared that she will shout at me. I know that she hates me and curses me when I am nearby. Hopefully I will get used to it and happily sing even before her.

I conclude this post by pointing out to two AWESOME songs:
song1 song2

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Notes:
1. The brahmin story is taken from Vivekananda's "Secret of work".
2. If you want to know the meaning of the first song, check:
http://www.ruclip.com/video/klsLXm_r01U/lord-krishna-muddugare-yashoda-annamayya-kirtana-devotional-song.html

Maakelaraa Vichaaramu - Raga Ravi Chandrika

This is one of the most beautiful songs written by Tyagaraja ji. Beauty lies not only in the raaga, but also in the lyrics. I love his songs mostly for their inner meaning. None of these modern day songs can come near to them.

This song, "Maakelera vicharamu", explains why we should not worry at all. Tyagaraja follows the principle of "bhakti". If you are good "bhakta", lord will always help you. Being a "bhakta" means to love the god and indirectly everything he creates and bestows to us.

Here goes the translation, copied from a good blog:

---

pallavi:
mAku-ElarA vicAramu
maruku-anna SrI rAma candra

mAku-to us; ElarA - why should we; vichAramu - worry; marukanna-gave birth to maruku(Cupid); SrI rAma chandra - O rama chandra;

O Lord SrI rAma candra, Father (anna) of Cupid (maruku) (marukanna)! Why (ElarA) should we (mAku) (literally for us) (mAkElarA) worry (vicAramu)?

---

anupallavi
sAkEta rAja kumAra
sad-bhakta mandAra SrI kara (mAkEla)

sAkEta - ayOdya; rAja kumAra - son of Dasaratha; sath+bhakta - true devotees; mandAra - the great mandAra tree which gives wishes; SrI - Lakhmi; kara - bestower;

O Prince (rAja kumAra) of ayOdhya (sAketa)! O Wish Tree (mandAra) of true (sad) devotees (bhakta)! O bestower (kara) prosperity (SrI)!
O Lord SrI rAma candra, Father of Cupid! Why should we worry?

---

caraNam
jata kUrci nATaka sUtramunu
jagamu-ella meccaga karamunanu-iDi
gati tappaka ADincedavu sumI
nata tyAgarAja giri-ISa vinuta (mAkEla)

jata kUrchi - group together; nAtaka - related to drama; sUtramunu - strings (like mangala sutram(u) :P); jagamella mecchaga - praised by everybody in the world; karamunanu iDi - hold with your hands; gati - order; tappaka - without missing; ADincedavu - play; sumI - isn't it true?; nata tyagaraja - saluted by tyagaraja(not sure :)); giri+isha - Lord Shiva; vinuta - praised;

Having harmonised (jata kUrci) (various elements of the drama) and holding (iDi) the strings (sUtramunu) (of the puppets) of the drama (nATaka) (of Universe) in your hands (karamunanu) (karamunaniDi),
to the appreciation (meccaga) of the whole (ella) Universe (jagamu) (jagamella),
You make us (Or the Universe) dance (ADincedavu) without missing (tappaka) even a single beat (gati), isn't it (sumI)!
O Lord saluted (nata) by this tyAgarAja and praised (vinuta) by Siva – Lord (ISa) of Mountains (giri) (girISa)!
O Lord SrI rAma candra, Father of Cupid! Why should we worry?

---

The song really gives you strength and power to do anything. You don't need to worry about anything if you follow dharma and pray him. I don't care writing this entry even if my eyes are not well... Why should I worry? He is there! [ That doesn't means I stop taking medicines and just pray. We should also follow our dharma ]

References:
http://thyagaraja-vaibhavam.blogspot.com/2008/02/thyagaraja-kriti-maakelaraa-vichaaramu.html

Latest insti news by GJk

Good evening! Welcome to the Kat's channel. Today's news:

1. Cats have reportedly stopped listening to humans. A little boy reported that the cats in the Caveri hostel have formed a union and stopped obeying humans. He found that a cat has completed ignored his call and was reluctant to even turn its head. He got angry and shouted at it. But the fat old cat did not care and jumped at the poor little lizard who was live telecasting the scene. We deeply regret for the loss of our young journalist lizard who used to be our best photographer.

2. Archaeological survey has revealed that some hostels had room numbers greater than thousand and are still being used. It is found that the oldest hostels like Caveri have room numbers like 1018, etc. It has come out as a big shock for an undergraduate student who went in search of a graduate student and he immediately reported this revelation to our channel.

3. Dr Devdas Menon is going to give an awesome lecture on October 7th. Nobody in our campus should miss this wonderful opportunity to listen to such a great person.

4. Last but not the least, lot of people are sick!!! Numerous cases of conjunctivitis have been reported. People are requested to follow hygienic practices to avoid further spreading. The little boy Jagannadh reported again that four of his friends are sick. Here is the latest news about them:

• Shiny - Apart from conjunctivitis, she is also attacked by a brainless fever. The little boy questioned the fever, "Why do you attack people who are already sick?", and the fever could not answer and ran away from him.
• Suvinay - He too was attacked by conjunctivitis and was homed. He is recovering quickly and will be back by next Monday.
• Pranesh Srinivasan - The master mind behind the 'Python talk' is being attacked by various illnesses. The reason is quite unknown and the master is using python to quickly find the reason. He said that we need to wait and see how powerful python is. (The master has promised wonderful tricks!)
  
• Kirtika - Last but not the least is the only person the little boy is scared of. And she is also sick. She has been ill since years and this sudden and huge degradation of her health caused serious concerns to many. The little boy thinks that somebody should really take care of her health, if she is busy taking care of Shaastra's health.

Adding to the troubles, Dr. Ramya reported that all her medicinal fruits are over and she can't dole out any more for any patient. The little boy requested her and tried to bribe her with a Silk chocolate. But the righteous doctor found this silly and laughed at him. His poor friends, like many other sick people, have to wait till the good trees bear new fruits.

This brings us to the end of today's news. Let us meet again some day. Good night!

Cats and Ants

"Recently there has been a surge in the population of cats and ants in our hostel", a cat reads these headlines of the local newspaper and immediately orders a meet. The ants too, are invited as they are not the enemies of the cats. The dogs, who are their enemies, are not allowed inside the hostel. A humble human security guard stops the dogs from entering the hostel.

"What is this meet for? Why are we ants invited to this?", asks the ant princess. "We heard that there is a population surge in both our communities and thought that you would be facing problems similar to us".
Ant - "What troubles are you facing? We don't have much of a problem with our population, though it grows exponentially."

Cat - "As you can see, our kittens are starving. We can't find food. We have no proper shelter too. We live beside the stairs and it becomes dirty when it rains."

Ant - "Well we don't have such a problem. We stay in a proper warm room. Food is abundant all the time. We really thank god for giving us all these things."

Cat - "Oh! You are living very happily then."
Kitten - "Mummy! I too want to stay in a room."
Mother Cat - "Hey ants! can you spare some space in your room for us? After all, we have been staying together in this hostel from a long time and we are the owners of this hostel. We will help you when needed."

Ant - "We ants are known for our goodness. We can surely give you some space in the room. But the problem is that the room is not suited for cats. It is closed almost all the time. And the human inhabitant is a mad fellow. He used to try to blow us away. But we being strong people always come back. After few days he stopped bothering us. He creates small storms far away from us, but cares not to blow us away."
Another ant - "He is really mad fellow. He follows us sometimes. We get so embarrassed. Almost all the time he stays in our room, he switches on some kind of thing which goes on making noise. We know so many languages, but that noise doesn't belong to any languages. Only our singer ants enjoy it."

Cat - "Oh! then, is there such a room for cats too? How did you find that room?"

Ant - "One of our ants was going for a morning walk and saw a photo of a gardener cutting grass, on the door. Then it went in and found that it is the best suited for ants. It is full of food. The human inhabitant often distributes food to all his friends. We collect the food he drops foolishly and eat. He is really a big fool. I suggest you to search for a room in which the human is like this fool. The human should not stay for long time. Because you are cats, the human should not lock his door. Search for such a human who doesn't bother to scare you away. There are many such lazy humans dwelling in rooms which we are supposed to live. Go! Find for a room! It is our hostel! Send the best of your search cats to find a fool."

The cats start searching for a room so that they live in it... To be continued.

Love-I

Love doesn't necessarily mean romantic love. Love to me means much more than that. It doesn't need a lover. Love is an independent object to me. Like many other things in this world, acquiring Love is not an easy task. To have it is to embrace it and show it to all. And only when you can show it to all, it can be called Love.

My understanding of Love comes from Vivekananda's "Secret of work". I present some paragraphs from it to make it easy for you to understand what love is:

"The whole gist of this teaching is that you should work like a master and not as a slave; work incessantly, but do not do slave's work. Do you not see how everybody works? Nobody can be altogether at rest; ninety-nine per cent of mankind work like slaves, and the result is misery; it is all selfish work. Work through freedom! Work through love! The word "love" is very difficult to understand; love never comes until there is freedom. There is no true love possible in the slave. If you buy a slave and tie him down in chains and make him work for you, he will work like a drudge, but there will be no love in him. So when we ourselves work for the things of the world as slaves, there can be no love in us, and our work is not true work. This is true of work done for relatives and friends, and is true of work done for our own selves. Selfish work is slave's work; and here is a test. Every act of love brings happiness; there is no act of love which does not bring peace and blessedness as its reaction. Real existence, real knowledge, and real love are eternally connected with one another, the three in one: where one of them is, the others also must be; they are the three aspects of the One without a second — the Existence - Knowledge - Bliss. When that existence becomes relative, we see it as the world; that knowledge becomes in its turn modified into the knowledge of the things of the world; and that bliss forms the foundation of all true love known to the heart of man. Therefore true love can never react so as to cause pain either to the lover or to the beloved. Suppose a man loves a woman; he wishes to have her all to himself and feels extremely jealous about her every movement; he wants her to sit near him, to stand near him, and to eat and move at his bidding. He is a slave to her and wishes to have her as his slave. That is not love; it is a kind of morbid affection of the slave, insinuating itself as love. It cannot be love, because it is painful; if she does not do what he wants, it brings him pain. With love there is no painful reaction; love only brings a reaction of bliss; if it does not, it is not love; it is mistaking something else for love. When you have succeeded in loving your husband, your wife, your children, the whole world, the universe, in such a manner that there is no reaction of pain or jealousy, no selfish feeling, then you are in a fit state to be unattached.

Krishna says, "Look at Me, Arjuna! If I stop from work for one moment, the whole universe will die. I have nothing to gain from work; I am the one Lord, but why do I work? Because I love the world." God is unattached because He loves; that real love makes us unattached. Wherever there is attachment, the clinging to the things of the world, you must know that it is all physical attraction between sets of particles of matter — something that attracts two bodies nearer and nearer all the time and, if they cannot get near enough, produces pain; but where there is real love, it does not rest on physical attachment at all. Such lovers may be a thousand miles away from one another, but their love will be all the same; it does not die, and will never produce any painful reaction.

To attain this unattachment is almost a life-work, but as soon as we have reached this point, we have attained the goal of love and become free; the bondage of nature falls from us, and we see nature as she is; she forges no more chains for us; we stand entirely free and take not the results of work into consideration; who then cares for what the results may be?

Now you can see what Love really means. I have not mastered it. Nor am I near to the end. There is a long journey ahead. But due to God's grace, through a friend, I learned a bit of it. I understood that, to know Love, you need to know what Hate is. One should understand that opposites are not really opposite but are contained in each other. Many philosophies talk about this and I too believe it.

It all happened by fate. A war raged between her and me. I was forced to hate. I was forced to go against her. But I resisted it. I never tried to hide my Love. I held it with all my strength and I still hold it. It is the same thing I show to my parents or my Shiny or Vinu. I showed it in the morning to poor kitten and the beautiful rose in the garden. I will continue to show it to all beings.

I will love all. I will love the bad, but will never tough it. I will love my enemy, but will never help him/her. I will love all, for God is love.

Jagannadh Kashyap Garimella

Heccharikagaa rara He rama chandra

I decline myself from writing anything other songs. May be I will revive later. But for now, I don't feel good and don't want to spread the sadness disease. These songs are miraculous. They magically bring out the hidden happiness.
---

హెచ్చరికగా రారా హే రామ చంద్ర
హెచ్చరికగా రారా హే సుగుణ సాంద్ర

పచ్చ విల్తునికన్న పాలిత సురేంద్ర (హెచ్చరిక)

నిను జూడ వచ్చు భగిని కరంబు చిలుక
మనసు రంజిల్ల నీ మహిమలను పలుక
మిను వాసులెల్ల విరులను చాల జిలుక
ఘన త్యాగరాజు కనుగొన ముద్దు గులుక (హెచ్చరిక)

हॆच्चरिकगा रारा हे राम चन्द्र
हॆच्चरिकगा रारा हे सुगुण सान्द्र

पच्च विल्तुनि(क)न्न पालित सु(रे)न्द्र (हॆच्चरिक)

निनु जूड वच्चु भगिनि करम्बु चिलुक
मनसु रञ्जिल्ल नी महिमलनु पलुक
मिनु वासु(लॆ)ल्ल विरुलनु चाल जिलुक
घन त्यागराजु कनुगॊन मुद्दु गुलुक (हॆच्चरिक)
---
Meaning:
Pallavi: heccarikagA rArA...
It asks lord rama, brimming with virtues(suguna sandra), to come(=rArA) slowly and cautiously(=heccarikaga) so that Tyagaraja may behold him.

Anupallavi: pacca viltunik(a)nna...
O father of cupid, who hold sugarcane bow(paccha(resembles sugarcane) viltuniki anna). O Protector (pAlita) of Lord (indra) of celestials (sura)!

Charanam: ninu jUDa vaccu bhagini karambu ciluka...
The parrot in the hands of your sister parvathi, comes to see you. It speaks of your great might, leading to the exultation of your devotees' minds. As the angels shower flowers, your charm increases greatly. Finally, once again, O rama! come cautiously so that Tyagaraja may find you.
---

It is interesting to know that it is Rama's sister(Parvathi Devi) who cursed him to become a man and face all those troubles. This is when Mr Ravana takes away Parvathi from Shiva :) She gets angry and curses Mr Vishnu. You know why? Vishnu ji tells Parvathi that Ravana will come and ask for Shiva and she'll be left alone. So Parvathi goes along with Shiva to Ravana to stop that. And the twist is that instead of Shiva, she gets booked :). Ravana sees Parvathi and all of sudden, changes his mind and asks Shiva to give her :)
And hence it is interesting to know that she likes to know about her brother.

This is how a good relation will be. In case of a mistake, one will quickly understand the other and forgive them. If Parvathi and Vishnu stick to their guns, there will be nothing other than the world's destruction. Now a days, many people lack understanding. They quickly give up saying "you are not my type", etc. I strongly believe that humans are all equal and there is no difference between two good persons. In their heart, they are the same, they fight for the same good. Comparing external features is just meaningless.

I learned about the above things from the movie BhooKailas, an awesome, superb, excellent movie. It is one of my most favorite movies.

Good bye to all,
Kashyap

---
The translation is taken from this link.

palukE bangAramAyenA kOdaNDapANi

By now most of you know that I am not well because of the fight with granny to force her to expiate her mistakes. And I am also trying to atone for my mistakes by doing good things :)

This translation is dedicated to Akarsh ji, who requested me for it long back. Here it goes:

Ragam : Ananda Bhiravi; Taalam : Adi

Pallavi

palukE bangAra mAyenA kOdaNDapANi

Split:paluke - your voice; banagaramu Ayena - became like gold ?, i.e. precious; kOdaNDa pANi -the wielder (pANi) (literally hand) of bow (kOdaNDa).

Meaning: O kodanda pani! O rama! your voice has become so rare like gold. Why don't you speak even a single word ?

Anupallavi

palukE bangAramaye pilacina palukavEmi

kalalO nI nAmasmaraNa maravanu cakkanitaNDri

Split:palukE – your voice; banagaramaye – became gold; pilacina – if I call; palukavEmi – why don't you reply; kalalO – in my dream; nI – your; nAmasmaraNa – chant of your name; maravanu – can't forget; cakkani + taNDri – beautiful + father(god is equivalent to father in many religions);

Meaning: O unforgettable person! How much ever I call you, you never speak a single word. I can't forget your name even in my dreams. But still you never reply to me.

Charanam1

enta vEDina gAni suntaina daya rAdu

pantamu seya nenentaTi vADanu tanDri

Split:enta – how much; vEDina – request; gAni – but; sunta (little)+ ayina – even a little; daya – mercy, grace; rAdu – not coming; pantamu – being stubborn and adamant; seya – to do; nenu + entaTi – I + how big/great; vADanu – person; tanDri – father;

Meaning: How much ever I pray you, I don't get even a small drop of your mercy. How can you be stubborn at me ? I am puny little creature compared to you and is it right for you to act like that ?

Charanam2

sharaNAgatatrANa birudAnkituDavu kAvA

karuNincu bhadrAcala vara rAmadAsa pOSaka

Split: sharaNAgataha = sharaNu (request to help, to save) + Agataha (one who comes); sharaNAgataha + atrANa(one who is in problem, in a difficulty); birudu – title/award + AnkituDavu – dedicated to you; kAvA – aren't you that person; karuNincu – show mercy/pity; bhadrAcala – bhadrAcala hill; vara rAmadAsa – famous ramadasa ; pOSaka – one who helps and takes care of him;

Meaning: Aren't you titled the great savior of the needy ? O protector of bhadracala ramdasa! please show pity on me.

References:

http://mnareshkumar.wordpress.com/category/uncategorized/భధ్రాచల-శ్రీరామ-దాస-కృతు/శ్రీరామదాసు/

http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.2:1:6802.gwynn

Death-I

Hi all,

Today I want to write about death. You can see that this is death 1. In this I will give my views and opinions about early death. Note that they may change in future.

Death, like birth, will happen only once in a lifetime and after that life ceases to exist. This is the reason why many are scared of death. But I am not. I believe that death is a way to relieve ourselves of this boring, painful life. I believe in Hindu mythology, where Sri Krishna says that death will never destroy the Atma. The comical explanation He gives to Dhanunjaya can be understood from this conversation:

---

partha: Hey paramatma! I can't kill all my relatives and friends. It is insane. Help me out. please :'(

adipurasha: Ha ha.. Who are you to kill ? Even if you aim your bow on the weakest person and try your best to kill that person, you cannot!

bharatarshabha: Why ? If I try my best, can't I kill a single person ? I am damn confused. JagamElE Paramatma! who else can I ask other than you. Please explain kAro.

madhusudana: Now listen carefully. What you can do is only an attempt, Karma. It is the only thing you can do. You can rise your bow and give your best attempt. But after that what happens is not in your hands. It is my decision. I am the one who delivers you the result. Therefore even if you try your best and I am not satisfied by you, you are gone! Nothing will work for you without my consent.

One more thing you have to note is that even if I allow you to kill that person, you can only kill his body. The atma inside him is indestructible. You think that he is dead, but he is only physically dead. Therefore don't be sad that you are killing your relatives and others. It is me who is doing everything. You are just an actor. And your aim is to follow dharma and kill the bad people. And you have to work in that direction. The result should not affect you. I will give you when I feel like :P

arjuna: Purushottama! I am enlightened! Thanks a lot. Now back to your work. Steer the chariot to the middle of the enemy crowd. I am going to try my best to kill them and you are there to actually kill them :)

---

Now after krishna's explanation, we understand that we should not be scared of death ever. Therefore lets discuss about more scary part, early death.

Simply said, death's purpose is not to die but to accomplish something by dying. Our aim is to follow dharma and in following it if we need to die, we should. We should not die in vain. Take for example my grandmother who died recently. Her aim was to reach heaven and she constantly tried. She prayed daily, helped whomever she could. In an attempt to reach Him, she did whatever she could. Finally one day he graced upon her and she left the world. Her aim was never to die, but to pray, help and teach people like me.

So far I explained that death is not the end and dieing should not be on purpose, but an outcome of following dharma. Classical example from Hindu religion is goddess parvathi. In her previous incarnation, she was named Sati and she immolated herself because of her father. After that she was born as Parvathi, the daughter of Himavanta.

Death of a person is unrelated to age. If you die young or old, the post death activities remain the same - crying and forgetting. Therefore I believe that it doesn't matter when we die but what we achieved by dieing. I end this entry by requesting all my friends not to believe in my existence. Life is like a puzzle and I don't know when the doors of death are going to open. All I know about it is that it is like a travel. We travel from our body to heaven or to another. And there is nothing to worry, just believe in god.

---

Note: Don't ask me why I am writing about these arbit things now.

ls rise lab

Some time back, I decided that I will go back to my room. But then what will I do there ? Watch another movie or some music channel. No no. Already people are complaining that I am watching Television a lot, that too music channels :P. Instead, I decided to write this blog entry, which I wanted to write from a long time. This time I will also be technical. Always philosophical or funny is not good. Sometimes it is good to play with the devil hiding in the details ;)

Now I am going to write about people I know in rise lab. I virtually lived in this lab for more than 2 months. I lived there because:

1. There are many good people there.

2. I can access internet all the time.

3. It is very peaceful in the night and there are nice chairs which are suitable for sleeping.

Don't ask me why I didn't stay in systems lab where all my friends are there. It was a run-away mechanism from somebody. Only Shiny knows the real truth. Even I forgot :P.

Note: My blog, Picasa pics, etc. are all personal to me. I include all my friends and relatives details in them. But that doesn't mean that I am making them public or advertising them. Pics are never made public. They are shared with the right persons. Blog is public, but everybody knows how famous it is :P The main purpose of all these is to capture few memories of happy moments in pics and some worthy thinking in blog. One should remember that the artificial facts like sexy, handsome, etc. can never describe a real person. They are just artificial and they are not a measure of how good their heart is.

First comes Balvir Kumar. I first met him through my granny (check the note in the end to know about this granny). But then I forgot him. Later when I started living in rise lab, I always sat beside him unknowingly. As usual, I peep through and watch what others are doing :) My intrusive nature :P. So I saw him struggling with some latexpdf thing and immediately took over his computer and fixed it :D. That's all. From next day he started talking to me :) ha ha.. Karthik raghavan explained me a bit about his project. So I inquired about his project. It is very interesting ! He is also very enthusiastic person and always wanted to put fundaes on his project. But I postponed many times due to lack of time. Finally one day before I left insti, I asked him if he can still put fundaes. He said that he'll come to the lab the next day and put fundaes. Awesome ! he'll come to lab just for me and put fundaes. I know his house is near and he has bike :P. But still he is god. His project is very good.

About his project: "Handling Cache Faults by Dynamic Binary Rewriting". Scared by this big title ?. Don't worry, even I copied it from his thesis paper I have now in my hand. Few points regarding his project:

a. It is about virtually indexed caches.

b. Assumption: A cache set can become faulty. Therefore the region mapped by that set in VM is faulty, ie it is not accessible.

c. Solution: don't use that region. How ? if it is data, map it to some other location. If it is code move it some location and execute there.

d. The solution above is simple said, but there are many issues.

e. Data cache faults are handled by segmentation. The faulty region is not mapped and the data in that region is relocated to a new segment. Therefore accessing faulty area will give segfault, which will reroute the data fetch to the new segment. Still there are other issues with boundaries.

f. Instruction cache faults are also handled in similar fashion. The code in the faulty area is moved to new segment and a jmp is put in the code before the faulty area. Now the problem comes with offsets. The jmp/call instructions with fixed offsets are dynamically rewritten for the new locations. But for indirect control transfer like jmp (%eax), it is not possible to rewrite the instruction and execute happily. Instead a int 3 is put in that location and the debug routine will execute the original instruction. If you know Intel arch, a fault will rerun the instruction. All these complications are also handled.

Coming back to non-technical side again, after discussing about the project we talked all arbitrary things. I asked him where he works and about his work. It is also very interesting. He works in defense labs. There they make custom boards and run custom apps without OS on them. So his work is to write those standalone apps on those boards. It is vvv interesting. Just that it is a government job and not paid so highly as corporate ones. His friends are working abroad in firms. During his time, the jobs were not so abundant and he got this job. He liked it very much and he stayed with it. He recently got married too and his wife wants to go home :) . With people like me, nothing stays secret :P. So he is going home this Friday and he is not going to come back soon :'( He is also not coming for convocation. He gave me his Chennai phone number and also Chandigarh one. So I told him that I will come to Chandigarh someday to meet him :D

Similarly other good people who are leaving this time are Girish, Karthik Raghavan (music lover like me :P) and Arun Tejasvi. I can write big stories about Girish and Karthik, but I don't have so much enthu now. I may write later. Again I am mentioning these people because they are leaving this summer and I should not forget them.

There are many other people who are still going to stay in insti like pawan, abhinav and others. I will write about them when they leave ;)

Feeling so tired now. I had one cup of horlicks. But nothing seems to work. Very tired. One last thing. Today I found the reason why my cointerns are calling me garimella. According to north indian style, if we have 3 names like garimella jagannadh kashyap, the middle name will be father's name; the last one is surname and the first one is my name. Similarly sachin ramesh tendulkar, sumit ramesh somani (my cointern from Jaipur).

Note: granny, mentioned in the 6th para, is an adopted granny. She is young secret person, whose details I can never reveal.

First week at Google

Hello,

My life has seen a big transition after leaving my institute and joining google for intern. I have written dairy daily. Today I want to share the experiences, the fun and the painful things. Here it goes.....

Sunday (Day 0):

It was my first flight travel. It was very nice. I really enjoyed it. One trouble I faced was that I didn't know that I have to check-in early. I went in 20 minutes before the start and in 5 more minutes it was going to close. I was very lucky.

Then I got into the plane. I opted for window seat and I got it. I always like the window seat, whether it is train or plane. As it was the first time, I was bit tensed. But I tried to look cool. It started like a tora-tora or giant wheel. I thought that it will be as stable as a stationary one, after reaching the high altitude. But it was not like that. It still moved this way and that way, much like riding a bike.

After I reached hyderabad, there was cab waiting for me. I felt that I am very lucky to get all these services. I reached the guest house and I was really amazed to see a nice ac room allotted to me. I can stay there for 3 months ! There was also a lan cable to connect to laptop but I didn't have laptop.

Though I was treated very nicely, I felt caged. I reached the room at 5:30 and I am left alone there. My room had TV too. But alone I can't stay. So I waited for dinner time. And when the clock struck 7:30 I ran to the dining hall. You can guess why. To meet people :D

First I met ashish. He was from iit kanpur and his native is also kanpur. He got a full time job in swe. We watched cricket for some time. Then one woman came. In the start we didn't know that she is so great. Later she told us that she came from US. She worked for MS in Redmond and then changed to Google NY and then came to Hyd for some reason. She talked about MS and Google. It seems that in MS the product development cycle is large as releases don't happen often. It is opposite in Google. Also she talked about the evaluation system in Google. It is all peer based. The manager is just for namesake and doesn't even have the power to promote. Peers are the main evaluating people. After that she farted about apartments (ashish wanted to know about apartments), then about bedsheets (she bought a bedsheets worth 8k the day before). All these were interesting and I spent two and half hours in dining room :) After that I met my peers in my floor. Most of them are from IITB. I thought that I will talk to them later and went back to my room.

Later, in the night, I didn't get sleep. I watched quantum of solace. Like many films, the sexy villain becomes the heroine :P Same old fart. The movie was over and I felt sleepy. Then I switched to some channel and it was playing the song Masakalli. In that sleepy state the song made me feel like a hero. Just that the heroine was missing :P. May be I was dreaming. I don't believe in dreams. Movies and songs are no way close to reality. I like the song because of their acting. The two are so happy all through the song. And the birds, the gullies, I like them all. May be that's why that song caught my attention all of sudden.

Then my thoughts scattered. I became very very sleepy. One side I thought that I should rock in Google. On the other, last semester's griefs crept in. As they say, only in the end all your sins appear to you. Like that I thought and thought of the old things and at some point I crashed :P The Tv was still playing something.

Day 1:

Ek Ladkhi ko dekha to kaisa laga...

The day ended with this beautiful song, in which the hero has no job other than following the heroine. And she too doesn't have any job. Guess nobody would have seen a love story like the 1942 love story. Too old to fit this tech age.

With just one day my track changed from good old ram ji's songs to "womanizer" :D. One day of work changed everything :P. In the morning, every half an hour a cab comes to transport people from guest house to office. Even in the cab, the AC will be on. And obviously the office is a big 5 floor building with centralized AC.

Google treats its employees very nicely. I worked on the first day too. I was completely taken away by the awesome facilities in the office. And food is everywhere ! Don't know how many cokes I drank, how many chocos I ate. The only thing which rescued me from food is work. I know that I should not eat so much. But I excused myself by saying that it was just the first day :)

I got so used to work that even my mentor got pained :P He requested me twice to go home as it was the first day. Don't know why, but I was hating enjoyment. May be I was badly affected by that before and decided that I won't enjoy anymore. Or may be I inherited this nature from some friends whom I work with. But I keep changing. Work and fun, both are important. I can't leave either but have to maintain balance. I know people who gave up study for enjoyment and vice versa. Both are wrong and I should learn how to balance both. Even if we are pinned down on time, we can allocate at least half an hour to play a game or watch a cartoon. Things like these cannot be taught and we should learn on our own. If we try to teach somebody because you care about that person, you may fail. Instead you may hurt them even. It is not so easy to teach people. And only great people can do that :)

In this great play of god, the only way to understand him is by understanding others.

Day 2:

meri sapno ki rani kab ayegi tu ..

Aah ! I was watching the old film "Karan Arjun". Putting peace in life. Amresh Puri and his big eyes :P. Again the story was a fairy tale.

So what was the special ? Nothing much. I played fooz ball. Learning it bit by bit. I tried to control the food intake. But not possible. I ate a lot in the afternoon. I had to read up a lot and start coding. Imagine I would be working on Google's code !

Still I was not used to fun. May be I needed some more time. That's all for this day. I can't write about Google's technologies.

Day 3:

Jijoo is one of the members in testing team and his birthday was on this day. Happiness everywhere but just not in me. Something is wrong :P I went completely out of control. I ate whatever I saw :) I know that I should not eat so much and drink so much coke. I have to control myself.

I said "sorry, later" to all those who asked me to play. I invited loneliness. Only work was in my mind. Don't know what happened to me on this day. I shouted at people at home. Too much work made me tired and irritated. Should somebody come and save me, I thought.

Again who can save me other than myself :P I left the one who can save me. I sent him to an important friend for some reason. He is the great Jagadanandakara. Without him, it is tough for me to be happy. But wherever he is, he will be cheering me. And I just hoped that the next day will be good and slept happily.

Day 4:

Singh is king..

Kashyap is king :P

As I prayed, happiness embraced me this day. Don't know if god really exists but just the belief in him will do everything.

I played gully cricket for 2 hours. I watched Naruto. It was so funny and exciting. In this episode, Kakashi died after a fierce battle with Pain. I watched Terminator 2 in the night. Also the testing team went for a treat as few of them got promoted. So I didn't have much work.

Though I didn't talk much with my co-interns in the start, slowly I made friendship with them. Never did I have all gult teammates or many gult friends. Shiny is a good example. She is non-gult and my great sister.

A small problem with google hyd is that everybody talks in hindi and I am poor in hindi. So I tell them that I can understand hindi and they can talk in hindi but I will speak in English :P. A bit tough to understand their jokes, but slowly I will understand them :)

Today (Day 5):

Kaise bataye kyun tujhko chahe yaara batana paye

Well, this song is one of my favorite. It looked fitting for me today. No idea why :)

Today's more fun. I got lot of fundaes from my mentor regarding my project. I will be working seriously from Monday. Today too I played gully cricket. I talked to my mom for long time. I am writing this blog entry :) So today is totally fun. Tomorrow I will go to my aunt's house, which is nearby. Otherwise I will be bored in the guest house. Alone, what will I do ?

One for good and one for bad

Dear reader,

Today two great people left me. One for good and one for bad. The one left for my good will come back to me with more love and friendship. And I am ready to greet her and hug her. She taught me so many things in life like independence and friendship. She is my dear sister. And everybody knows her.

Coincidentally another great person left for my bad. I will never reveal his identity as he doesn't like it. This is the person whom I used to revere a lot and take pride in. But slowly stupidity crept in and I craved for his friendship. Worse, I wanted to talk to him and be with the person. And when I found that these things are just dreams, I turned bad. I sent harsh mails and letters. Instead of finding a position in the person's heart, I broke his heart. The person never understood me and finally decided to leave me.

In the end, I had tears only for the one who left me with her warm wishes, the one who cared for me and supported me all the time. All I wanted are these warm wishes and if the other person could have understood it, the person would have never left me. But as great people said, we should help others and never expect anything from them. I utterly failed in following this rule. I always like to help others but sometimes I expect something, like I expected friendship from the second person. This is a great mistake and I shall not do this again.

I learned a great lesson today. I shall not be sad or happy as once Vivekananda said, these two are chains, one made of iron and another made of gold.

Thank you,
Kashyap Garimella Jagannadh

Raghuvamsa sudhambudhichandra

I have been writing about all boring and stupid things. To change track, I am going to write about a beautiful song called "Raghuvamsa sudha...".

raghuvaṃśa sudhāmbudhi candra śrīrāma rāma rājarājēśwara raghuvaṃśa sudhā-ambudhi candra śrīrāma rāma rājarājēśwara

రఘువంశ సుధాంబుధి చంద్ర శ్రీ రామ రాజ రాజేశ్వర

Split:
raghuvamsa - belonging to raghu dynasty; sudha+ambudhi = sudha means honey or amruta & ambudhi is ocean; chandra = moon; sri rama = ram ji; rajarajeshwara = (sanskrit samasa - rajayoho rajeshwara) king of kings;
Meaning:
O moon to the nectar-ocean of the Raghu lineage!
Sri Rama, lord of emperors!

agha-mēgha māruta śrī-kara

asurēśa mṛgēndra vara jagannātha

అఘ మేఘ మారుత శ్రీకర అసురేశ మ్రుగేంద్ర వర జగన్నాథ

Split:
agha=sin; megha=cloud; maruta=wind; srikara= sri + kara=doer of good;
asuresa=rakshasas or demons (:P); mruga+indra=king of animals (lion); vara jagannatha=Lord of the world (and ones who give lot of boons)
Meaning:
O wind that drives away the sin ! O doer of good !
O lion terrifying the asuras ! O vara jagannadha ! (vara is a token given to those who give lot of boons like "vara venkatasatyannarayana")

jamadagnija garva khaṇḍana
jayarudrādi vismita bhaṇḍana

జమదగ్నిజ గర్వ ఖండన జయ రుద్రాది విస్మిత భందన

Split:
jamadagnija=born out of sage jamadagni; garva=conceit; khandana=destroyer;
jaya=praise; rudra+adi=shiva and others; vismita=surprise/astonish; bhandana=bound/arrest;
Meaning:
O destroyer of Parasurama's conceit !
All praise the lord who surprised even Shivaji !

kamala-āpta anvaya maṇḍana
agaṇita adbhuta śaurya, śrī vēṅkaṭēśa

కమలాప్తాన్వయ మందన అగణిత అద్బుత శౌర్య శ్రీ వేంకటేశ్వర

Split:
kamala+apta(lotus+friend)=friend of lotus; anvaya=family/dynasty; mandana=decoration;
aganita=innumerable; adbhuta=wonder; saurya=bravery/person with bravery; sri venkatesa=lord venkatesha
Meaning:
O king who is the ornament to the dynasty of lotus loving people :P
O doer of innumerable wonders ! O vEnktesa !

---

Lasting dreams (continued)

I could not stop writing another post to explain my real dreams and reply to the comments for the previous post.

First comment by kirti:
"Deep. PhD,cool job and writer - all pretty feasible.
Get a "stud" PhD based on your work here at IITM, that will lead you to a job at NASA and then write a book about your achievements and experiences at NASA."

By her personality of being a great dreamer and with her infinite positivism, she came up with a plan to make my dream come true :) Thank you baby. But dreams are very tough to come true. [She is still a baby, stubborn and confident. I envy her for the number of care-takers she has. My rank would be some hundreds, in the list of her care-takers]

Ramya said:
Interesting, thoughtful and feasible too!
15-20 years from now:
Dr. Garimella Kashyap, the PHD Singer Writer NASA Scientist with his wife, mom and kids :)

You are like describing the last scene in a movie :P Thanks for the comment :)

Vinu wrote:
i am pretty sure u can acheive all ur above mentioned dreams except the last one :D

Don't care about me :) You are anyways putting peace in life.

My real dreams or aims are quite simple:

I want to work hard in anything good I do.
I like to help everybody. Make my friends happy, etc.
I want to change somebody, which is infeasible, as many say.
---
Song kanukontini ( http://thyagaraja-vaibhavam.blogspot.com/2008/06/thyagaraja-kriti-kanukontini-raga.html )

Lasting dreams

Hi all ! It is long time since I wrote my last post. Reasons are many. Most obvious ones are my laziness and my tight acad schedule. I want to do my best in acads, without caring about anything. Hence a chaotic schedule and in the middle of it I want to write about my lasting dreams. Dreams which I always wanted to come true. Most of them are common to everybody. It is always nice to pull some time to write about things like what you dream to become, what kind of person you like to be, etc. It gives you a break from acads and also a chance to dream :) [ I rarely get dreams during the night ].

Here goes the list of my great grand dreams, very few of which I endeavour now:

PHD: When I was young, I use to tell everybody that I would become a scientist. Poor boy Kashyap didn't even know who a scientist is and how difficult it is to become one. But now I know how tough it is to achieve any scholarly position like PHD or scientist. Unluckily the sullen weather casts down heavily on this poor little boy's dream.

Singer: I do not think that I can become a great singer. But I love to sing all the time. Any song which is good. My all time favourites include carnatic music, old telugu/hindi songs. Coincidentally carnatic means "old", which means that I sing and listen to only old songs :)

Cool Job: Let the dream job be just a dream. Very difficult to get. What can it be other than an "Engineer in JPL, NASA" :D ... I like the real time stuff. A small extension to this dream is to work for them on internet and live in a village in India, doing farming on other side.

Writer: May be I am sarcastic with myself.
me:"Kashyap ! With your poor english, how can you dream of being a writer ?"
me:"That's why it is a dream :P."

With so many languages, we are gradually changing to monlingual system, forgetting our mother tongue.

Gift for my mom: I am the gift for my mom :) I will take care of her more than anybody, when I start earning. This is a very feasible dream.

Make lot of good friends: Though I have lot of general friends, I do not have many good friends. I classify my good friends into:

i. Babies: They are more like babies, knowing nothing about this world. I like babies very much. I love to see them grow, learn and stand on their own. I help them in achieving these. But sadly I have to leave them after they grow :'(

ii. Great people and committed people: They are very knowledgeable people . I like to stay with them and learn from them. They are like brothers and sisters, always helping and guiding. They do not leave you, even if you are far away.

iii. Once-in-a-while friends: They talk sweetly once in a while and run away.

I like to make more friends from any of the above categories.

Love a girl: I love so many people. But as we are humans, we always like to live with somebody. One can't go to the city centre and find one to live with. I think that a person is in love with another, if he/she can't live happily without the other. We can see how painful it is to fall in love :P (you can't live without your lover). Given my level of dumbness, I simply pave way for others. I abhor competitions in this field and I simply quit if I am a distractor. This dream is of least priority now.

--
Sorry for the arbit statements in the end, as I am very sleepy. And morning 5 am is a bad time to make general statements.

Songs:
Led Zeppelin - Stairway To Heaven (Courtesy: Manjunath)
Dil Hum Hum Kare - Rudaali (Courtesy: Kirti)

The unforgettable month

This month will ever be remembered by me, for all the happiness and sorrow it brought. It started with the new year celebrations. I was in my aunt's house then, enjoying the party there. There was a children dance programme in their apartment. After that we played housey. And when the clock ticked twelve, we had the new year cake cut. "What a nice way to start the new year", I thought for myself.

Just after a week, came Kirti's birthday. Ramya came up with a secret plot to disguise us all, including the big cake, to surprise her dear friend. Everything went well and we finally ended up eating the whole cake. Later we went to CCD, where the birthday girl turned to a just born girl (:P) and acted childish. Like the kids who do nothing more than what is told, she ordered what we requested and did not order for herself. And later she complained when we were eating, which was very funny :)

After the first week passed, acad work got more prominence. It was not until Saarang that fun had its sumptuous role. The starting ceremony of Saarang was awesome. It was presided by BMK. He amused us with his grand performance. Sometimes it looked like a badinage of musical instruments. Gummadi, Subhashini (good sister) and I went to the starting concert. Slowly many other friends joined us. This was on Day 0 of Saarang.

On day 1, I was very lazy and didn't go for any event. But day 2 was very interesting. I went for pottery workshop and watched dramatics for 3 hours. After that I went for the Shaankar Eshan Loy show on day 3 evening. Those guys really rocked the show. We were dancing, may be it could be called jumping, all the time. I went alone to the show and got scared by the long line for entry. Quickly I found some friend (Rahul) standing midway and I joined him :) After more than half an hour of waiting, I entered the theater. There were hordes of people inside and I was lucky to find Slinky(god), who cleverly reserved seats beforehand. Not to get bored, there was Ramya to fart at times during the show. The show was rocking and it went till 10:30. I got completely exhausted after the show and went back to my room.

On day 4, I got back to my routine life. I enjoyed so much during Saarang. But life cannot have happiness throughout. And hence came the sad day. It was on Republic day (26th Jan). When I was buying a gift for my friend(Subhash), I got a call from my father telling that my granny expired. Like anybody, I tried to forget it. But it's not that trivial :P I slowly got upset and also quarreled with a good friend. I just stayed more than a week with my granny during my winter holidays. It is not so simple to build a relation or to destroy it. I still miss her. She used to be the chatter box, never ending. And I pray that her soul rests in peace.

Vathapi Ganapathim Bhajeham

This is a really great song. I wanted to understand it. Just singing it doesn't make sense. Here goes the lyrics and the meanings of the individual words.

Vathapi Ganapathim Bhajeham

Vaaranaasyam Vara Pradham Sri

Words meaning:

Vathapi - place where Mr Ganesha is born; Ganapathim (trutiya vibhakti in sanskrit) - ganesh ji - our hero; Bhaje+aham - worship , me; Vaara + haasyam - elephant, smiling face; Vara - vows; Pradham - gives (actually "showers"); Sri - symbol used to show token of respect;

Order:

aham vatapi ganapathim bhaje | haasyam vaaram | Sri vara pradam

Bhoothaadhi Samsevitha Charanam

Bhootha Bhautika Prapancha Bharanam

Words meaning:

Bhootha+adhi - elements of nature + others; Samsevitha - together(sam ?) worship(sevita); Charanam - feet; Bhootha - elements; Bhautika -world Prapancha - five ?; Bharanam - pervades;

Order:

bhootadi samsevita charanam | bhautike prapancha bhoota bharanam |

Veetharaaginam Vinutha Yoginam

Vishwakaaranam Vigna Vaaranam

Words meaning:

Veetha - desires; raaginam - transcends; Vinutha - revere; Yoginam - by sages;

Vishwakaaranam - cause of the world; Vigna - obstacles; Vaaranam - obliterate ;

Order:

raaginam veeta | yoginam vinuta | karanam vishwayoho | vignaam vaarana |

Puraa Kumbha Sambhava Munivara Prapoojitham Trikona Madhyagatham

Muraari Pramukhaadhyupaasitham Moolaadhaara Kshetrasthitham

Paraadhi Chathvaari Vaagaathmakam Pranava Swaroopa Vakrathundam

Nirantharam Nithila Chandrakandam Nijavaamakara Vidhrutekshu Dandam

Words meaning:

Puraa -water; Kumbha -pitcher ; Sambhava - born out of; Munivara - sage; Prapoojitham - first worshipped;

Trikona - some magical triangle (no clue what this is); Madhyagatham - stays in the middle; Muraari - Vishnu - the great; Pramukhaadi + upaasitham - important people like him(vishnu)+ meditated;

Moolaadhaara - important deity; Kshetra+sthitham - religious places + stays;

Para+adhi - ragas like Para; Chathvaari - the four; Vaagaa + athmakam - sound + form;

Pranava - some sitting state; Swaroopa - form; Vakrathundam - twisted trunk;

Nirantharam - always; Nithila -bears; Chandra+ gandam - moon + forehead; Nija+vaama+kara - left hand; Vidhruta + ikshu - xxx+sugar; Dandam - stick;

Order:

Puraa kumbha sambhava (agastya) munivara prapoojitam | Trikona madhyagatam | Muraari Pramukha adhi upaasitham | Moolaadhaara Kshetrasthitham | athmakam Para adhi Chathvaari Vaagayoho |Vakra thundam Swaroopa Pranava | Nirantharam Nithila Chandra gandam | Vidhruta ikshu Dandam Nijavaamakare |

Karaambujapaasha Beejaapooram Kalushavidooram Bhoothaakaaram

Haraadhi Guruguha Toshitha Bimbam Hamsadhwani Bhooshitha Herambham

Words meaning:

Kara+ambuja+paasha - hand + lotus + noose; Beejaapooram - goad and fruits; Kalusha+vi dooram -evil + drives away ; Bhoothaakaaram - gigantic, huge form;

Hara+adhi - hara and others; Guruguha - guruguha; Toshitha - adored; Bimbam - face;

Hamsadhwani - hamsadwani raga; Bhooshitha - adorned; Herambham - Vinayaka;

Order: ambuja kare paasham , beejaapooram | Bhoothakaaram kalusham vi dooram | Guruguha hara adhi Toshitha bimbam | bhooshitham hamsadhwanaye Herambham |

Aah, how beautiful the lyrics are. Ganesh ji should fall straight to this flattery :P.

Please listen to this song, if you have access to it. ( You can always ask me if you don't). Also it is in Sanskrit, the easiest language :)

@insti junta: search for "vathapi ganapathim MS" in the lan [size:11.4 Mb].

References:

http://www.ecse.rpi.edu/homepages/shivkuma/music/vatapi.htm

http://nadhasudharasa.blogspot.com/2007/01/vathapi-ganapathim-bhajeham.html