Idle musings

On 10-Dec-2017, my wife, her parents, her paternal uncle and aunt and I visited the Ghati Subramanya temple and Lepakshi. Lepakshi in Andhra Pradesh is famous for a statue of Nandi. As it turned out, the trip had other highlights to offer too. This is the renowned Nandi at Lepakshi A few photos and notes about the visit follow. Note: There are no photos of our group in this blog post. We left home at around 7 a.m. in a SUV taxi. The drive was smooth, since it was early on Sunday morning. We took a deviation on the highway to go to the Ghati Subramanya temple. There was no good restaurant on this road. It irritated me to see luxurious resorts, but no decent restaurant ! The positive aspect was that the road had even lesser traffic than the highway. With vineyards on one side and various vegetables, the road kept us engaged. We finally ate breakfast at a small restaurant. The Ghati Subramanya temple is several hundred years old. My wife's father said that the temple

I finished reading the book "Adiyogi", released by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev on the weekend ending 12-Nov-2017. To anybody interested in Hindu mythology and philosophy, I recommend the book. It has been co-written by Arundhati Subramanian. I was curious about the book, following the consecration of the 112 feet tall face of Adiyogi as reported in  http://isha.sadhguru.org/blog/inside-isha/announcements/prime-minister-unveil-112-ft-tall-face-adiyogi-mahashivratri/ . I ordered the book in May 2017 and got around to reading it only in October 2017. The significance of the Adiyogi, Lord Shiva is brought out well. The contradictions we see in Shiva are explored and examined. For example, on one hand he is termed as Bholenath, the simple one. On the other hand, the term Rudra, the "terrible one" is also an epithet for Shiva. On one hand, he is considered as the first yogi and yoga is associated with stillness and calmness ; on the other, Shiva dances the Tandava dance

It rained heavily in the afternoon on 05-Oct-2017 in Bengaluru. The web page www.thehindu.com/news/cities/bangalore/bengaluru-battered-and-bruised-by-record-rain/article19807256.ece   describes the effect of the rain on that day. The rain on that evening was 65 m.m., quite a lot for the month of October ! I work at Manyata Tech. Park. I use a Volvo bus service established by the Tech. Park to travel the 20 k.m. to work and back. In the morning, the bus comes at 7:45 a.m. and I usually reach Manyata by 8:40 a.m. The evenings are more of a pain: I usually take the 6 p.m. bus and I enter home at 7:50 p.m., typically. This means that I spend nearly 3 hours in the bus every day. Since I cannot change the location of my home, this is a routine that I am accustomed to, now. I feel dissatisfied sometimes, but by and large, I am OK with my work and the time spent on it. However, on 05-Oct-2017, my patience was tested. That afternoon, it rained heavily. At 3 p.m., I could see heavy rai

I visited Cleveland in the beginning of April 2017 on work. This was my second visit to Cleveland. My first visit is described at  http://fewidlethoughts.blogspot.in/2016/10/my-american-experience.html . The second visit has been just as enjoyable as the first. I describe my second visit in this blog post. In the second visit, my knowledge on processes increased after participating in a workshop at work. On the personal side, some photos from my visit are available in the password protected album http://s897.photobucket.com/user/sumamirle/library/Cleveland-2017 . If you wish to see them and do not have access to it, do let me know and I shall send you the password separately. My first visit was during the American summer time. This visit was in the beginning of spring or end of winter. The temperature was around 10 to 15 degrees Celsius mostly. In the flight, I watched a couple of movies, sleeping for an hour or so. I stayed in the same hotel as in 2016. One impo

On 26-Feb-2017, I finished reading the book “The Name of the Rose” by Italian author and philosopher Umberto Eco. The ideas expressed in the book have left me marvelling at the wisdom of the author. Just like Tolkien transported me to Middle Earth many years earlier, mentally I was in a medieval monastery in Italy when I read "The Name of the Rose" (henceforth called TNotR in this blog post). Further, the message of the book is just as relevant today as during the setting of the book, which is more than 600 years ago ! My introduction to the book was the movie of the same name, starring Sean Connery and Christian Slater. The movie was shown on a TV channel. The idea of a priest in the 14th century who thinks and acts logically like Sherlock Holmes was a novelty to me. The presence of Sean Connery and the monastic environs of the movie whetted my curiosity. I ended up watching it completely. When the credits rolled at the end of the movie, I saw that there was a book of the s

This blog post contains my impressions of a weekend visit to Watehalli Home Stay, near Sakleshpur. My wife and I spent the weekend from 04-Feb-2017 to 06-Feb-2017 at the home stay. NOTE: As is my practice, I have avoided using names. The photographs here do not have people in them. The photographs with people are available in the album shared separately . If you wish to view the photos, do let me know via email. I will provide the link . We set off in the morning by bus. The Airavat Club class bus was comfortable. The fare came to Rs. 1100 and I regretted having to give away the only two Rs. 500 notes that I had. When the bus stopped for a coffee break, I paid using a Rs. 2000 note. Thankfully, I got the change. The movie "MS Dhoni: The untold story" kept us engaged during the journey. It seemed to be a decent movie. We must have seen most of it by the time we reached Sakleshpur at 12:30. I had requested the home stay owner to provide a pick up. The vehicle arrived a couple