On Small Remedies

The story holds you and slowly leads you on. It is a book to be sipped slowly and relished, not to be read in one gulp to get to the end. Because you know this is a picture of a slice of life and its not going anywhere...Some books match our mood of life at the moment. And this one met mine...More...

The greatest sari on earth

This unique sari will be displayed in the Chennai Silks showroom in Chennai. But it is not just an exhibition piece. It can be worn just like other saris. Provided one can meet the price tag of USD100,100 (about 4 million Indian rupees)...More...

Staying in vogue

I have to send my laptop to the service center to get a minor problem rectified, and I will be away from it for a few days; the thought itself makes me feel miserable, even though I have tried my level best to channelize my time away from the computer as much as possible...More...

Rewind to the 70’s

I still remember the first advertised TV’s (color TV came during the Asian games) were companies like Daynora, Onida, ECTV, Keltron…there would be two channels, DD1 and a local channel. You waited a whole week to see the one telecast movie which was an award winner; of course, arty like Mrigya…The most popular program being the movie songs hour (Geetmala?)...More...

Sex education

A separate meeting with parents is as much required to brief them about the need for sex education to their children and alleviate their own fears and anxieties...More...

Going the Dostoevsky way

My writing probably won’t be that dramatic – indeed, swatting mosquitoes is about the only violence that you will see – but prepare yourself for poignancy and get a bunch of Kleenex...More...

Romance of the coffee house

He organized a worker’s cooperative by the former employees of the Coffee Board and started the first Indian Coffee House at Trichur, Kerala in 1958. It has now grown into a chain of nearly 400 outlets all over India. I believe that Coffee Board still runs about a dozen India Coffee Houses...More...

A schoolboy visit to dasara exhibition

I cannot imagine what we would have done if I had not spotted him. For, it was a continuous downpour which went on well into the next morning prompting the following morning’s newspapers to carry a front-page headline Fourteen hours of continuous rain in Mysore...More...

Would Sanjay Dutt show the way?

For someone convicted and sentenced under the Arms Act Sanjay is among the fortunate few who don’t need to worry about unemployment when he comes out of jail. But think of the plight of his jail mates. Real punishment for them begins when they come out of jail...More...

Where there is a will there is a way...

CEO of Costa Coffee, Virag Joshi has employed ten people who can not hear or speak for its outlet in South Delhi. This group of ten people was hired on experimental basis, was trained for forty-five days...Says Virag Joshi,They are a part of the society and there's nothing wrong in them. What we can do, maybe they can do it better....More...

Abe on mushrooms

There are over 100,000 different types of mushrooms and fungi. They are crucial to sustaining life on earth...Several species of fungi are poisonous. Therefore, never eat a mushroom from unknown sources, like those that grow wild...More...

Life before the idiot box came

I refer to the 1960s and 70s. The middle of the road and footpath was a virtual playground every evening.Getting children back home was a headache for parents.On holidays, they had to search the entire neighbourhood if they wanted their kids home!...More...

Get Real, Arshad Warsi; This Isn't Reality TV

Skinheads and hoot-and-run scumbags are almost everywhere. You could report to the police. I reckon Britain has a law against racial abuse. But then you can’t legislate against racial mentality, can you ?...More...

Theatreman Pralayan

He steps in only when a host encourages its senior students to get involved in a play, respond to it, debate issues, expand the production and gain some thing more than curtain call applause...Not long ago, Pralayan also worked with the girl students at Avvai Home in Adyar...More...

At the airshow

More photos...

Syrian Christians (Nazranis)

Would you believe that there was a time when Syrian Catholics were not allowed to read the Bible? The reason given for this was that laymen who were not trained may end up attributing wrong interpretations to the statements in the Holy Book...More...

Masale Dose memories and mania

This hotel owner Ballal sat at the cash counter and used to relay the orders to the kitchen from there with his typical loud voice [“moor masaale”….”! The hotel was once famous for its MD taste as well as a Radio which was another attraction...More...

Latha on parenting

Children should be like a packet of seeds of flowering plants that one possess. You plant the seeds, nurture the seedlings and give them the best care you can give. All along you don't know what colour or size or form the flowers will turn out...More...

My English text-book

I must say my school-text books were far better than what I’m reading now. It’s no joke when I say my brother’s eight standard textbook is far more advanced than the primitive 2nd PU English book that I am destined to read...More...

Arabian nights

It is reported that Dubai is growing so fast, that 50% of the world's cranes used in construction are to be found in Dubai. A popular joke here is in the form of a question: What is the national bird of Dubai?
Answer: The crane!
Mallus in Dubai invented this joke,it seems....More...

Of an unfilmed Pak movie

The unfilmed Pakistani movie – Laaga democracy mein daag – has a high-powered cast led by President Musharraf. The movie, in the horror genre, is still being evolved, with a climax that has yet to be scripted...More...

Cough, cold and fever

When I said complainingly ‘why don’t you listen, my throat hurts when I have to repeat it’, he said ‘why say it at all? ‘ Very Buddha-istic...My maid was glad she could get on with her chores without instructions or comments...More...

Blog dead ?

View from my window.

Have we surrendered to terror?

In the cacophony of allegations and counterallegation muddied by insinuations, it's no wonder that neither public places are well-secured nor a meticulous investigation is done in the event of a tragedy...More...

Kannada: getting it right

Mispronounced words in Kannada make awful listening. It’s been rampant and no body seems to be aware of their own mistakes - not that everybody is perfect - while they speak, leave alone grammar...More...

Bangalore media: Silly season is here

My sense is that ministers fed the secretariat reporters self-serving statements and lofty welfare announcements. What is spoon-fed is usually spin and hype, rarely, hard news. And officials, generally more reliable than their political bosses, can’t be expected to part with anything more than what they would want media to know...More...

Oh, Kabuliwalah!!!

I hope Khaled Hosseini and you all will read the Kabuliwallah story and allow that story to fill your heart & eyes. It was Tagore’s gift to an Afghan in 1892...I was fortunate that three Afghan movies I had seen earlier, prepared me for the various scenes in the Kite Runner and Kabul...More...

Mom, can I be a nail polish designer?

My wife is not amused by this cynicism. You are a boor and a brute, she tells me, for casting aspersions on Manish Malhotra's enormous contribution to the vast and challenging science of nail polish design...More...

Britain strikes back at the Empire

Recently there was an interesting news item. The British retail chain Marks & Spencer is planning to sell curry in India through franchise shops. Soon Indians can taste 'British' curry without visiting the Curry Houses of that country...More...

Staying (dis)connected

How many of us really keep in touch with our old friends? All of us have met so many people since childhood ...We lose track of some of them just due to the sheer number of new faces that we meet everyday. Obviously, you give it your best shot to stay in touch with all, but the inevitable slowly seeps in...More...

Ara in heritage homes

Ara means an enclosed storage area, often used for threshed grain – paddy in the Kerala context. Landlords who owned and cultivated large areas would have such storehouses near the fields and also an in-house granary to stock un-husked rice for home consumption...More...

Dog haters and their tactics

Read a disturbing write up in a newspaper about dog haters and their tactics to kill dogs that they have been promoting on the social network orkut...i wonder what makes them think on those lines!...More...

Living with long term illness

This Blog is, therefore, a harrowing recounting of long term illness. It is not for the faint hearted who hate hearing bad news, and avoid sick people, even if they are close friends or relatives...More...

ERR's Bangalore, in mid-50s

Most of State Govt. employees would walk it out to Taluk office and Atahara Katcheri with Mysore Peta on their heads and wearing their marriage coat over Kachhe Panche! Few people rode cycles and fewer who wore Kachhes, because of the fear of unfolding risk!...More...

Dubai Air Show - 2007

Like most Air Shows, there were people from the defense forces from around the region, I found too many of them from the Pakistani Air Force. Here I thought that they had an emergency going on in that country...More...

November noise naraka yaatane!

I wonder why celebrations like these and even festivals come to the streets and create a grand public nuisance. They have to be held in auditoria or inside homes with least disturbance to others. If disturbing is their right and a form of bullying, what can the common man do?...More...

Drop expectations

Case after case that i meet at my counselling centre come to me with a baggage of disappointments, unable to bear them, unable to drop them and move on in life. they get stuck, brood and brood and get into depression...More...

Manivannan’s here to stay; sorry, Shimoga

As a Mysorean my first thought on learning of the fall of the Yeddyurappa government was, “Manivannan won’t have to move, after all”. His transfer order to Shimoga would have been given effect had Mr Y survived Monday’s assembly session. Mysore municipal/MUDA commissioner Mr Manivannan would have moved to Shimoga, Mr Y’s native place...More...

Domestic waste disposal

This list of guidelines for three-way source segregation of waste was circulated by our residents’ association. I am posting it here because it could be useful to others as well...More...

Bangalore politics stinks

Sick -- that's in one word the state of politics in Karnataka today. Since September, the state's politics has been going from bad to worse. To what depths it can further descend remains to be seen...More...

Management lessons from dogs

I'm no management expert but I'm quite sure biting one's colleagues, barking at visitors and pooping in public have no place in the book on sound business practices...There is one dog behavior, though, that is thought to be the key behind rapid growth in the organization...cringing, wagging one's tail in the presence of superiors...More...

Lakshmi-Varsha reconnect

“You know,” she chuckled, “ It’s weird that the only people I hate are the people I like,”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s funny, it’s quite difficult to explain. It turns out that the people I usually quarrel with are often my best pals, get it?...More...

Horn Musicians

Oftentimes, they honk the horn without even analyzing the availability of space for the other fellow to leave for him. They press the button simply because they have the facility!...More...

Toughest job on earth

I am reminded of a child’s words to its parents: “Papa and Mama, Love me most when I deserve it the least for it is then that I need it most”...More...

Abraham's blog day thoughts

The inspiration for my entry into the blogosphere was my good friend from Bangalore college days, Jacob Matthan (Sushil). He now lives in Finland and successfully handles about half a dozen blogs, the flagship being Jacob's Blog...More...

Madras music season

We have tried to get Mylaporeans and Adyarites to offer bed and breakfast facilities for the 'December season'...We have also tried to coax people to host 'coffee and chat' nooks and meetings so that visiting artistes, touring groups and south India-bound tourists have a space to get a closer 'feel' of music and dance...Perhaps, my friend V. Sriram will after all decide to host at least two heritage walks devoted to music /dance in December...More...

Back to normal

Gautham asked me if I knew how to catch a squirrel. I replied in the negative. "Climb up a tree and pretend to be a nut". Vyaas considered this carefully and added "in your case, you don't need to pretend" and ran away before I could clout him one. Kids!...More...

Emu farming in India

Kerala too has got into the act. In May this year my brother Jacob at Olavipe bought three pairs each of emu chicks and fairly grown up ones, twelve altogether, on a trial basis....More...

A-bomb and Vedic connection

And he insisted he slept well, believing that using the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved more lives than they erased because they eliminated the need for a drawn-out invasion of Japan...More...

Karnataka CM on thanksgiving rounds

He has been doing the rounds of temples and mutts, has done homa at his official chamber at Vidhana Soudha. He has paid a visit to his village astrologer near Tumkur...More...

Attack!

“What’s the time,” he asked. I answered.
“What’s your name,” he asked. “None of your business” I said.
He came closer and I was getting jittery. His eyes looked red. He meant business.
“I only want 500 Rs., ” he said...More...

Mysore be damned; shift Mr M to Shimoga

Surely, there must be many Manivannans in the our civil administration, if the C M were to apply his mind to finding a suitable officer. But then our chief minister seems in a hurry to make Shimoga ’shine’. Never mind, if Mysore be damned, in the process...More...

Washing away your echchal

...when I eat outside, I just close my mind to the way it is cooked. It is too scary to think about it...I have also realized that it is very difficult to explain the concept of echchal to a person who has never understood the importance of it...More...

Journalists and their family life

Parents, faced with their children's dream to be journalists, ask us: 'how good is the career, is it safe, is there family life for a journalist?'....My answer: Families where parents have the perfect 10 to 5 job aren't free of problems, are they? I know a family: the husband and the wife are officers in banks; but they are in two cities and their daughter stays with her grandmother...More...

Life in the 60s

We, therefore, decided to travel to Bombay....The route was Mysore – Bangalore (Change Train) – Guntakal (Change Train) – Poona (present day – Pune – Change Engine) – Bombay. It would take two nights – two days to complete this journey...More...

Divine strokes

She uses natural colors from rocks, earth and vegetable sources, and brushes from kora grass to squirrel hair. She learned the skills of making brushes and gold and natural colors from the legendary master, Sri Deoki Nandan Sharma...More...

A silent reunion

I wanted a precise confession, complete understanding of my accumulated guilt. Guess what I did? I wrote a five page ‘sorry’. It’s the biggest letter I have written to anyone. Writing, I believe is the best form of expression, better than talking...More...

Dick Francis - Under Orders

Its very sad and disconcerting when you go 'off' an author you've enjoyed for years. Dick Francis has been a prime favorite for years. I would walk for miles to get one.
But now his latest, Under Orders seems so so-so...More...

A different Diwali

I was quickly updated on what’s stirring in the bollywood world when Uma mam was teaching Mechanical effect of electric current and also understood the entire storyline of Om Shanti Om and Saawariya, because a dear friend was kind enough to narrate them...More...

Charity at Diwali Time

It reaches out to the elderly in 'homes' across the city and the state. The idea to do works of charity popped up when the women realised there was more that people in 'homes' needed than just bhajans and pleasant exchanges...More...

B and a Malayalam song

SK,worried that Vayalar had not written the lyrics yet, went across to the bar where the poet was and requested him to speed up. Perhaps, Vayalar was irritated at being chased. He asked for a piece of paper and sitting on the bar stool, wrote ‘Chakravarthini’....More...

E-magazine for women

I hope there is nothing stopping a man giving publicity to a women's venture! From Shruthi's blog I came to know of JustFemme, what's perhaps India's first e-magazine "by women for women"....More...

Mysore bloggers milan; a modest affair

It was modest enough to be a drawing-room affair; but it brought together a mixed bunch – a Singapore-based aviator, a builder, cardiologist, a techie company CEO, a biz journalist, Lions Club activist, a bureaucrat and a ‘was-man’ (has-been newsman). The binding factor is they all blog or read blogs...More...

A Thousand Splendid Suns

The link between the first two parts of the book is a blue Benz car that is once seen before Mariam’s house for a few hours. The thread wears thin as the pages are turned but still holds. Here Hosseini takes the risk of the readers loosing interest, but survives...More...

Less noisy Diwali

Diwali, after all, is a festival of light. But during the past years it had become a festival of noise, not even sound. The worst affected are children, elders, pets and patients...More...

Still missing 'em - II

I'm finally with my son. Seven teachers are clustered around him, convinced that an ambulance would be in order. The injured party is lying on a couch and reveling in the attention...Gautham has the martyr look. My suspicion is that there's nothing wrong with him...More...

Now what - Kerala special tea!!

A tea stall is not for the loner. Never would you be left alone, somebody is bound to ask you the time, or the state of life or for that matter the state of the nation, which you must be prepared to answer, eloquently...More...

Still missing 'em

Gautham is the major inquisitor. Vyaas is a little close to puberty and is fast acquiring the teenage penchant for maintaining long periods of silence when parents are around. Gautham, however, has an analytical mind and answers to his questions usually beget more questions...More...

We have a haircut

But somehow, I would get away with it. My relations with my sisters were like Musharraf's with the US. The US keeps telling Musharraf don't do this, don't do that and so on. Musharraf says yes and then goes ahead and does precisely that...More...

Singapore-type car quota in Bangalore ?

In our democracy simplest of matters are settled through a long-drawn consultative process. It may be someone’s considered opinion that 2 and 2 make 4; but there may be others holding a different view...More...

Letting go

I’ve been giving away things, big and small recently and they never stayed in my mind. But giving away the old TV is reverberating in my mind. It’s like parting with a member of the family...More...

Around Bangalore and in Kolar

As we drove into the city, his initial comments were that traffic in Bangalore was much more organised and less chaotic than in Delhi. But the next day, Friday, his impressions changed. He discovered how it had deteriorated since the last time he was in the city a year back...More...

Blogs and our cops

The police blogs that are in place in Karnataka – Udupi, Dakshin Karnataka and Chitradurga , though it hasn’t been active for over a year now, – prove that there are, in our police force, some doers who blog as well...More...

Pills, pills & even more pills

Something interesting - do you remember the much hyped bird flu hysteria?? How many of you know that the chairman of the Tamiflu (the only medicine for Bird flu) company Gilead Sciences Inc was Donald Rumsfeld till he became US defense secretary...More...

Market on a roll !

Of the things I understand the least, the pride of place goes to the stock market. It's not that I understand the theory of relativity any better, or the theory of which color goes with what. Its just that everybody seems to understand the stock market and I haven't a clue...More...

Five minutes, please....

Get up. It is time to get ready.
Ma, 5 minutes, please!
I have no idea how many times I would have played out this situation in my life. It all started during my school days, when I had to get up early in the morning...More...

Rahul Dravid's 'colonel'

There are some weird things about dropping Rahul Dravid from the Indian ODI team against Pakistan. We saw a player management company defending the team selection. What is their business in this matter? Well, they handle ‘Colonel’ Dilip Vengsarkar’s column...More...

Cub Reporters at Work!

There were at least 20 school students in the room. And they listened to Anusha, a student of Padma Seshadri, K. K. Nagar; of how the pigeons used to nest in the house of her friend's neighbour...Any good story is good for a community newspaper.And this is what we encourage senior students to report for the month of November..More...

Rock Star Rocket Scientist

Something seems to happen to you guys when you cross the Atlantic. You become a changed personality. I wanted to find out why?" said Dr Kalam...The large audience just loved the opening...More...

On man-woman relationships

There is something very special when men take to looking after their wives. Maybe it’s because nurturing is not the gender role usually allotted to them. No one remarks very much when women do the caring...More...

Mysore Bloggers Milan

Wouldn’t you say, it would be nice if we have a MBP-ers get-together in Mysore, say, on Nov. 9 or 10, five-ish in the evening? We could meet at my place, if our numbers could fit into a living room...More...

Windows Vista R in a circle

Ironically, and this is where I put my most original observation that there is no justice in this world, the less people understood the computer, the richer Bill Gates and the software clan got...More...

Blog Summit, Las Vegas

Over 120 thousand blogs are created every day; 22 of the 100 most popular websites in the world are blogs.Blog readers average 23 hours online each week...it's like someone spends to close to one day out of every seven days in the blog world, for reading, writing, commenting, etc all related to blogs...More...