Idle musings

     From 12-Oct-2026 to 19-Oct-2026, my wife; her parents; her brother, his wife, their two sons and I spent two nights in Macao and four nights in Hong Kong. This blog post describes a few cherished experiences.     NOTES: 1.) I have NOT included people in the pictures in this blog post. Please contact me if you do want to see pictures of people. My purpose in writing this blog post is to share some of what I saw and experienced and while the people and the interaction is a highlight of the trip, it is secondary to me - as far as his blog post is concerned. 2.) For the same reason, I have avoided names as much as possible in this blog post.     I am someone who likes stories, history, legends, mythology and have some (little) interest in  spirituality and philosophy. In this trip, I made a pilgrimage of sorts and also saw a display that was a showpiece for entertainment and commerce. In spite of myself, I preferred the commercial show!   ...

    In the early part of 2026,I read online that the movie director Christopher Nolan was involved in making "The Odyssey" based on the Greek poet Homer's poem. As https://fewidlethoughts.blogspot.com/2004/01/a-beautiful-book-fellowship-of-ring.html and https://fewidlethoughts.blogspot.com/2017/03/my-review-of-name-of-rose-by-umberto-eco.html discuss, I have read books after watching the movies. This time, I was determined not to let that happen. I read Homer's "The Odyssey" first, during my commute to work and back!    On a Saturday, my wife's brother, my wife and I watched the movie in IMAX format. It was a visual and aural treat! During battle scenes and scenes with people, the sound effect was such that our seats reverberated at the sound. It sent my heart racing.     This blog post talks about both, the book and the movie.     The book I read was a translation of the poem in prose form. In the book, the hero is Ulysses; in the movie the her...

     My wife went with her friends to watch "Parva" ("Chapter", loosely), a Kannada play directed by Prakash Belawadi based on the book of the same name by the author S. L. Bhyrappa. It is based on the Mahabharata, the Indian epic of a conflict between cousins. The book contains the "Bhagavad Geeta", the "Divine Song" in which the God Shri Krishna educates, admonishes, guides and exhorts his friend and cousin Arjuna to fight in a war, uttering philosophical words that ring true today, just as they did in that time. The Geeta has inspired many people, including Mahatma Gandhi. Even without the Geeta, the Mahabharata is a superb story. The book "Parva" explores characters and relationships and morality itself, stripping the divinity away from the Mahabharata and considering the characters as purely human, with all our jealousies, anger and egos included!     "Parva" the play is based on the book. My wife admired the play and sai...

      On Friday 15-May-2026, the newspaper supplement announced blandly that the famous Kannada actor and singer Dr. B. Jayashree and a group would be performing "Saavirada Sharanavva" on Saturday. Both my wife and I are fans of her musical talent. We also knew of her fame in theatre. It was natural that I booked two tickets - after checking with my wife!     The essence of the show was Dr. Jayashree talking about her life and experience in Kannada theatre interspersed with songs from her plays. For a couple of hours, I was transported to the world of theatre. The show was beautiful. The women singers accompanying Dr. B. Jayashree backed her up admirably, as did the men. The accompanying musicians were also good.     In the rest of this blog post, I will be stating what Dr.Jayashree said, but this is only from my memory. I am sure that the words were different. Also, I am translating what she said in Kannada to English. I did not use my mobile phone at...

      Yesterday (06-May-2026), during my post lunch casual browsing, I came across a tweet about Donald Hoffman and his interface theory of perception. As https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781119170174.epcn216 informs us, the theory is that (here I am quoting from the link) "our perceptions have been shaped by natural selection to hide objective reality .... "     The theory zapped me! What we see, hear, feel, taste and smell may be unreal! So why does the greenery in the park near my house look so refreshing?! The theory has its critics, of course. It is not proven and could be completely wrong. Still, it provides fascinating possibilities.This was the sci-fi movie "Matrix" couched in scientific jargon!     My thoughts went to the concept of "maya", https://www.britannica.com/topic/maya-Indian-philosophy introduces the concept well. Here also, there is the idea that the world is unreal! The parallel struck me.     I read abo...