Idle musings

It was a small article in Bangalore Times available at https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/from-rome-with-love-caravaggios-50-million-painting-debuts-in-bengaluru/articleshow/121836107.cms that made me curious. A masterpiece from an Italian painter is coming to Bengaluru: that was something interesting. What does a painting worth $50 million look like?! I don't know if (or when) I will travel to Italy to see works of the Renaissance artists. Here is a famous painting from there that was available here. Mentally, I decided that I would go there during the weekend and use the opportunity to see Caravaggio's painting "Magadelene in ecstasy". On Sunday, the day was ideal for walking: the temperature was in the mid 20s in Centigrade, the sun played hide and seek with the clouds even during the morning and afternoon and I overcame my "take it easy, it is Sunday" mood. By 11:50 a.m. or so, I was at the ticket counter of National Gallery of Modern Ar...

"Mangana kayalli manikya kottange" is a Kannada phrase that literally translates to "like handing over a gemstone to a monkey". The Hindi equivalent is "Bandar kya jaane adrak ka swaad". Its literal translation is "What can the monkey know about the taste of ginger". Both these phrases are about experiences that appear to be beyond the capacity of one's limits, in this case the monkey's! I felt a lot like the monkey/s in the phrases when I booked tickets to the Mahindra Percussion Festival 2025. My knowledge about percussion, drums and classical music in general is minimal - at best! That did not prevent me from reserving two tickets on Sunday, 02-Mar-2025 though. I wanted to experience the percussion festival for myself. My wife and I reached Prestige Center for Performing Arts early, drank coffee at the Food Court in Forum South Mall and collected our wristbands for entry into the auditorium. What we saw was that there were many familie...

    Thanks to my brother, ten of us in our family enjoyed a four day stay at Kabini Jungle Lodges and Resorts from 24-Dec-2024 to 27-Dec-2024. The time spent together was memorable.     On 24-Dec, a Tempo Traveller picked all of us from our homes. My wife and I were the last ones to board, being closest to Mysuru road on which we had to travel. The vehicle was clean and well maintained. Our driver drove steadily, speaking only when he was spoken to. We stopped at a restaurant for breakfast. The crowd was pretty heavy. Since there were ten of us apart from our driver, finding a table for all of us together took some time. Breakfast was relished. I notice that whenever there is an early start, I feel hungrier earlier than usual. It was the same here: all of us were ready to savour breakfast. A couple of days ago, we discussed about visiting Srirangapatna or Mysuru on the way, but on 24-Dec after breakfast, all of us felt that going to Kabini directly was a be...

One has heard of father-in-law, sister-in-law and other “in-laws”. I coin a new term today: “friend-in-law”! My wife has a friend from her working days who she has known for more than twenty years. The friend, her husband, their daughter, my wife and I visited Puducherry recently. I had half a mind not to write a blog post, since we had visited Puducherry earlier. My blog post https://fewidlethoughts.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-recovery-smart-phone-and-trip-to_1.html shows my impressions about Puducherry in 2012. What is the point of repeating myself? Then it struck me that I have written about Dubai thrice, the first time at https://fewidlethoughts.blogspot.com/2003/06/dubai-2003.html , then https://fewidlethoughts.blogspot.com/2008/01/dubai-and-uae.html and also at https://fewidlethoughts.blogspot.com/2013/12/my-nieces-dance-recital-and-dubai-again.html . My wife’s cousin spoke with me a couple of days ago. During the conversation, I spoke about the Rajgiri fort that we visited on t...