Idle musings

My wife and I were in Mysuru from 20-Jan-2018 to 22-Jan-2018 to attend a friend's wedding. We visited the sand museum and the sea shell museum. My impressions on these places and Mysuru in general are shared in this blog post. We caught a regular KSRTC bus to Mysuru at 10 a.m. Our driver believed in the "horn and drive" philosophy. Every time he changed lanes to overtake, he would blow the horn, put his hand out to indicate and then overtake. If we were sitting in the middle rows of the bus, I might have applauded his caution. As it transpired, we were in the second row. The blare of the horn constantly assailed our eardrums ! "I feel like I am in an ambulance !", quipped my wife. "If the noise continues, I will have a heart attack and then this may become an ambulance !", I remarked ! Near Srirangapatna, our road was blocked. A tractor with a trailer overloaded with sugarcane had toppled. "This must have happened just now. Look, a wheel is s...

I had a week off from work in the last week of December 2017. I had planned to visit Trichy and Madurai, but that was not destined to happen. Instead, I have experienced the simple pleasures of getting up later than usual, read the newspaper leisurely, savour breakfast and lunch and enjoy afternoon siestas ! On one day, I walked for a couple of miles on the spur of the moment. All in all, the week was restful. Like me, there were a few other friends also who decided not to go out. To one of them, I suggested that she could stream and watch Malayalam movies, as she is from Kerala. Another friend of mine had sent me a link that showed me that a Kannada hit movie that I had seen in the theatre was available online for viewing. I suppose this was when I realised that I could also watch movies during my week off, since I purchased the Google Chromecast device a couple of months ago. Typically, I have used Google Chromecast to stream old Hindi and English serials. My mother, my wife, my...

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...

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 ...