'Seeing' the girl!

If you all thought that an arranged marriage, that too in the late seventies was a boring and insipid affair, you have another think coming; HipHopGma gives a rollicking account of her engagement. :)

Of Marriage, Mythology and Murder Cases

Sandhya, the Piscean Dreamer, has got a job! So her blog has been rechristened from Of Marriage, Jobs and Murder Cases to Of Marriage, Mythology and Murder Cases.

Some of her latest posts:
A Tribute to the Human Spirit
Hail the Ashwini Kumaras
Sudama and Mob Justice

She still retains her style of writing, weaving together the apparently unconnected, and her penchant for murder cases hasn't dimmed one bit, but info on the marriage front seems to be a little scanty.

In want of being me...

In want of being me says, "Sometimes, everybody at various different circumstances crave to be themselves.To not wear a mask and just be themselves. This place is one such attempt."

I loved the idea and the blog - In want of being me.
Sample posts - Destination US of A.
How my thoughts wander.

Nothing philosophical, nothing too deep - just life. :)

God of All things

I have been pretty ambivalent with regard to my belief in God. Even now I am confused; but reading Tharini's post on this, God of all things, showed to me that God is a matter of faith and not one of proof. Reading her post was a kind of revelation to me. I reproduce a part of her post where she realizes God:

[...] It was near midnight and the house was quiet. We spoke in hushed tones, so as not to wake her parents, and the room was bathed in the soft glow of the lone bedside lamp. And in that charged and vibrant atmosphere, the mellifluous notes of the flute wafted from the player. Soft, soulful music of enchantment. I had goose pimples listening to it. And the myriad questions I had, came tumbling out of my head and the answers that I sought found me so easily. And all the pieces of the puzzle that were dancing wildly over my head and just beyond my reach, now seemed to fall down into their respective places, and they fused together to form a complete whole. And out of that, rose a beautiful vision....a vision of God, his divine grace and his far reaching ways, and my soul was alight. [...]

I am a frequent reader of Tharini's blog Winkie's Way though I have not taken the effort to comment on her posts; she comes across as a sensitive, thoughtful and caring person - she has many more lovely posts, its worth going through her archives.

Courtesy: Kathambamaalai.

G'ma is back hip-hopping.

G'ma did say that she'd be taking a break and I thought I might as well skip the commercials in the mean time; but to my dismay she has not only returned but has also come up with 4 posts since! For a person who needs the daily dose of Kolangal, I was almost in tears. :( But thank God being late to see posts isn't as serious as missing an episode about Abhi's latest problems; one is at least able to have access to the posts. Here are some that I liked which happen to be a couple of philosophical questions:
Is being good bad?
Does candor pay?

Welcome back G'ma; Happy 'hip-hop'-ing.

Welcome back!

Quite a few of my blogging buddies seemed to have gone into hibernation and slowly they are getting back; it could also be that I haven't been visiting their blogs as much as before. :( Sorry folks.
Here is what they have blogged on recently:

Shikha - An end to the hiatus - Part 1 - Does she mean that part-1 of the hiatus is over and another one is in the offing? ;-)
She describes the wonders of traveling in Europe.

Raman - Even this regular blogger seemed to have gone into a shell - what with his marital duties and trying to get a good name from the wifey, I don't blame him. ;-)
Now he seems to got out her clutches and has posted quite a few posts:
Deprivation Syndrome - or the sour grapes reaction.
GPL for dummies - a non-techie explanation of the meaning of the GPL license of software - even I understood.

Brownie- has 2 posts since her return:
World cup - she discusses the 2020 World cup win by India in her characteristic style.
She has another post, laced with her brand of humor, - Ignore this - where one can feel her sense of ennui after her return from England.

Boo - back to her blogging duties after a break of nearly 4 weeks has a new template. She records the darndest things that kids say. She seems to have had a whale of a time in Madras and is now back in Zurich, confused about how she is going to catch up with all the reading that she has to do in blogosphere. PS: She has to take an exam on this shortly. All the best Boo. ;-)

I know this is a poor effort, because all of you would have already read these posts, but the doctor has prescribed that I need to necessarily persevere and be active, if I am to get out this feeling of indolence.

Will come back with more from blogging buddies.

An Awww... Post :)

An "Awww... post" from srini_vas.
Courtesy: RKVS Raman - Quarterly Report.

Blog Interviewer

Deepa, whom we know as the person who knows a lot about adding widgets and things like that to make one's blog look swankier has recently been interviewed by Blog Interviewer. Besides the template-tips blog she also hosts a poetry blog - Appreciating Poetry. Please have a look at her interview to Blog Interviewer.

A random note from a Pakistani diary

Read one of Bubbles' random thoughts.
And this part About her struck a chord:
My views on everything and everyone change so continuously that I think I need this blog just to remember how I was feeling about something a week ago.

PS: Bubbles sounds so much more positive and better than confused babbler. :)

How to get a driving license

Tintin recounts his experience while trying to get a driving license - mighty useful for DL aspirants.
Learners license
Driver's license-1, DL-2 and DL-3.

Tintin has an interesting blog, aptly called Reflections, as he does reflect on life.

Nice place to be

Getting rid of my blues...

Pri's post on Airlines Hotel and her links to Preeth's posts, Nice place to be-1 and 2 have helped me get back on my feet. Bangaloreans would identify with these posts.
Tata. :)

The Brownie is back!

The abdicating / absconding / whatever Brownie is back, although at a different address. :) Now I have to update all the old links. *sigh*

Many of her older posts are available, but the chronological order of the posts is lost. Oh, we can't have everything can we?

Who is Gavin?

Sounds pretty much like the first sentence of Ayn Rand's Atlas shrugged. I am spending the last half hour reading negative reviews of Fountainhead and immensely enjoying myself. For all you Fountainhead enthusiasts please have a look at these reviews.
Coming back to the question - Can Gavin or GB clarify?

For Book-lovers

There is this site, Shelfari, which a friend of mine introduced me to. It is a social networking site that aims to bring together people with a passion of books. (Pingu, are you reading this?)
It facilitates

• creating your own cyber-bookshelf (Jay - you have your own library, right?)
  
• creating a network of friends
• reviewing books (Brownie, Manasi, Madura, Peej, Frida and others)
• exchanging messages with friends and others about books (Vishesh)
• and probably many more things.

Its a great site for book-lovers. I don't know if there are any other similar sites to do a comparison.


Links to some interesting pages:
Abha-Interesting set of quotes about words in her profile page.
A random page of reviews of Rohinton Mistry's - A Fine Balance.

PS: The site sometimes is quite slow and probably has a few bugs.

Collective failure of society

Collective failure of society reminds me of the story of four people: Everybody,
Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There are different versions of the story. This might look like a funny read, but on reflection one is likely to see the tragic outcomes of this attitude as is revealed in a number of instances.

Arunn expresses his anguish at one such instance that he came across in his post - Sad but true.
Mridula records two such incidents in her posts -
A Tragic Death at IIT Kanpur.
More deaths at IITK.

Can we do something about it?

Your life in your thumb-print!

To be honest wth you all - I am in the mould of all those muggles who consider anything related to magic or the supernatural as unbelievable. But now evidence is provided by a man of science (whom I also trust) that these things do work! Dr. (Daddy) Narayanan records his own experience of Nadi Jyothidam. Nadi Jyothidam is a divination method where the thumb print of a person is taken and used as an index to retrieve the scrolls (leaves) from an ancient archive of predictions made for literally everyone.

Stray Pup for Adoption

I was walking down Church street and saw this absolutely cute advertisement in front of Glenands - The Pet Shop:

I'm black & white
my one eye is blue
It doesn't work
but I can still see you

PLEASE adopt me
i'm only 2 months old
helpless against the
             RAIN+COLD.

ADOPT
this stray
          puppy


For more information
RENUKA 99869 20656
  +
  PALLAVI
      99864 23534(?)

Made me misty-eyed.
Any takers?

PS: This pup is still available and is with CUPA now.

PPS: Do you want to pamper your pet?

Feeling maudlin...

Listening to I wanna grow old with you.
View it here on YouTube:

Westlife - I wanna grow old with you


Westlife - I wanna grow old with you - Spiderman-2


Westlife - I wanna grow old with you - lyrics.

Feeling maudlin.

Of Experience, Swami Vivekananda, marriage ...

There is no substitute for experience.
I've taken the liberty to rework Mrs. Indira Gandhi's favourite quote during the emergency: There is no substitute for hard-work.* I fully agree with Mrs Gandhi, but I cannot fully agree with the former statement, which is what Raman seems to imply in his post - The Experiential factor.

Interestingly he quotes a friend of his who holds the view, "Vivekananda never got a first hand experience of what a man enjoys in marriage and so whatever his views are on Brahmacharya as a better way of living are totally based on half knowledge . They cannot be complete and authoritative." He further goes on to substantiate this statement by relating his experience of his marital life (bliss?) till date, which has made him change his attitude-to / view-of life. Raman also observes that we might say this is just a honeymoon period and things would look rosy now since each of you are in a condescending mood. Quite clairvoyant, Raman seems to be. ;-)

I am not a Swami Vivekananda buff to either accept or reject the statement about him, but one of the commentors, multisubj yb, on Raman's blog gave a link to one of his blogs, Vivekananda YB which apparently studies and analyses [on] Vivekananda's epistles, with a different perspective.

* This quote is originally attributed to Thomas Alva Edison.

Spice up your blog.

A few days ago I had posted on some tools that could be used to communicate with 'visitors' to one's blog. One of the things suggested was rating of posts, without having to go through the bother of commenting. Two blogs where I've seen a rating tool being used are:
Priablog and
Deepa's - Some Template Tips and Tricks - This blog has a most comprehensive coverage of the different things that one can use to spice up their blog. Here Deepa describes how to add the rating feature to posts.
As a test I've added the rating feature to just this post. I seem to have encountered a bug. So I am taking it off for the moment.

Now, I've put the rating feature on all the posts.
Deepa spent the better part of today afternoon helping me to do this, because it required a template upgrade. Thanks Deepa.
PS:Itchy, now you know who to go to if you want help regarding your blog widgets and layout.

I am removing the rating feature; nothing against it, just that I am not using it.