Abraham says it with a photo

Happy New Year.

Thoughts for 2008

This is the time when there is much in the show window, but nothing in the stock room
A time when technology can bring this letter to you
And a time when you can choose
Either to make a difference ………………. or just hit, delete!...More...

Crisis in Australian team !

Worried that frequent defeats of the Indian team might lower viewer interest and thereby hurt the board's advertising revenues, the Australian Cricket Board had specifically instructed their team to lose to the Indians...More...

Bradman's 100 in 23 balls

Was done in an era of uncovered pitches when batsmen were not covered like Egyptian mummies from head- to - toe - with helmets, extra padding from Ribs downwards and hand guards right up to the bat handle! Can anybody ever beat this record?...More...

School for entrepreneurs at Kharagpur

A school, I guess, for the kin and close cousins of the Birlas, Nandas, Ambanis; the tech-millionaires, and of those who have made fortunes on real estate, and mushrooming malls and multiplexes...Wonder if the idea of a five-year course at Kharagpur appeal to this lot?...More...

Cricket: Why Australia's so good

Don Bradman in one of his interviews had revealed that in Australia the young cricketer is asked by his parents on his return home “Did your team win?” What do we ask the young boy here? “Beta, how much did you score…?”...More...

Kerala: NRI remittances

most Keralites do not feel secure about investing in industrial ventures in their State. The major contributing factor for this apprehension seems to be the State’s history of industrial unrest...More...

My camera saga

Officials gave instructions to deliver me a brand new camera as the components of Canon S2 IS were not available. I was both charged up and emotional at the same time. Charged up because, I got a new camera of better configuration and features and emotional as I was parting with my Canon S2 IS, as it couldn’t be cured of its ailments...More...

The year-end cheer

Singapore is all decked up for Christmas and New the Year grand party that culminates with one of the best fireworks displays in the World. Its all open to the public at the Marina Bay area. Hotels all round the Marina Bay have been booked up...More...

Cellphones - their part in my hair loss

So when my finely honed instincts drag me towards the crap-phone counter, Sheela and the boys feel I'm being a cheapskate. "Dad", one of the boys said, "even the guy who washes the car has a better phone". There was much truth in that statement...More...

Unwelcome VVIP visits

Some people happily say this year's [2007] Mysore Dasara Procession inauguration was a peaceful affair. Reason: Hardly any interference from those VVIPs [and their chelas]!! Whom should we blame? The rotten system or the person at the helm?...More...

When terror takes a new turn

It's too complex an international issue that it'sn't easy to even suggest remedial measures. But now, it's a feeling of dreadful uncertainty of the future. One can only be hopeful that things would get better...More...

Biriyani chaya

Brown ring test – How many of you remember this from Chemistry class? I still remember fellow blogger and friend Pradeep’s dad N Balakrishnan Nair teaching me the basics of testing for nitrates in chemistry class...More...

Is Pakistan a failed state ?

Pakistan too has elections. But how much conviction do they, like the present one, carry? The duly appointed Chief Justice is under house arrest, judges are changed at will, the Constitution is amended by executive orders,...More...

Mindset of a suicide bomber

Psychologists have also found in them a lag in their emotional and moral development that makes it difficult for these children to discriminate right from the wrong. They are generally insensitive to others emotions...More...

Ek Jhakaas sa Argument...

they are arguing about the channel little girl wants,
about which baby channel she wants to watch on the digiturk tv box. the whole advertisement is about the digiturk tv box thing...More...

Praveen's 2007, month by month

As the years roll by and as the New Years' greeting pile up, different facets of life have changed considerably, but like any other thing, the usual aspects of life have moved on accordingly without affecting any real change in personality or related traits...More...

Kerala's Christmas spirits

For Christmas, from December 20th to 25, Kerala with an adult population of about 2.2crores (22 million) spent Rs.85.48 crores (USD 21.37m) on liquor sold through official channels!...This is an increase of 22% from last year...More...

Presidential holiday

our Prez Prathibha and 10 of her kith and kin decided to holiday at Andaman & Nicobar island and you know what was the repercussion of her decision? Some 60 most precious trees in the most environmentally protected park there were mercilessly cut down just to make a helipad for her jolly landing!...More...

Merry Christmas

Tanay captures the spirit in his camera...More...

Residents initiative to turn the city green

If each one of them were to plant a sapling to mark their bon voyage, we would have green cover in many neighborhoods and also the stretch between the city to Devanahalli in three to five years...More...

Dinu's aero-memories

He was an "Air Wing Cadet" in his college and I used to get his waste balsa wood pieces to try and make my own model, using magazine pictures as a base. I made two, one a rough model, but the other is my favourite Concorde [pictured above]...More...

Thieving badam powder from kitchen

Having been caught in the act and being deprived of the opportunity to gobble my hare of the ‘Badam Powder’, I decided to go on dharna at that very spot,demanding my share. Unfortunately - ‘that very spot’ turned out to be right over the vessel of hot milk...More...

No such word as 'terrorist' for BBC

While the first reports on the BBC website referred to "terrorists" later they changed it to "bombers". BBC's explanation was: they do not want to use words that "carry emotional or value judgements"...More...

Mysore airport, a status report

Truck loads of material was seen arriving every five minutes, material that would be used at the site. The main runway to cater initially for ATR-72 type Aircraft (68 passengers) is being completed. This will be extended in the second phase to accommodate larger Aircraft such as the Airbus A320/Boeing B737 types...More...

Mylapore Fest-2008

What started off as a simple kolam contest that 'Mylapore Times' hosted for the neighbourhood in a school playground over a decade ago, has grown into this Fest.Sponsored by 'Sundaram Finance', the Fest continues to grow...More...

Sing For Your Supper

I've got to the stage where I think basic manners should be drilled into kids. And they should be allowed to go and stay with other people more often, so that they learn to share and care and adjust to new circumstances...More...

Of a mother and her daughter

They feel things about sunset that the others don’t. And out of their inner vision, sometimes, emerges pieces like Reflections of an Evening in Gowri Mohanakrishnan’s blog... Now, who is Gowri Muthukrishnan? All I know is that she is the daughter of Maiji, the 80-year-old blogger and a great-grandmother from Chennai...More...

Why are foreigners charged more ?

There is obviously a case to be made for levying flat fees for everyone - Indian or foreign - and I've heard that they're considering flat fees of INR 250 or so. But honestly, if you've been to Taj and seen the number of poor people that come there - none of them could afford this...More...

Patterns in the sky

For more photos...

BBC: London Calling

it has kept pace with time, without losing its traditional core values: it hasn't changed, even though it has adapted to modern technology. Not many media organisations can claim that...More...

Burgers oursourced

Normally I don’t think too much about outsourcing, mainly because it is a fact of today’s life. If you can’t do it efficiently at the right price, find somebody else who can. Then again, man has always wanted to profit from life and will take every short cut possible...More...

The 'new age' marriages

In this age of cheap phone calls, every little incident is reported and gets magnified as it reverberates from mind to mind. There is no space for the young couple to be by just themselves and find their own equilibrium even if parents are far away...More...

Of fasting, feasting & festivals

Yesterday was Vaikunta Ekadashi according to Hindu calender. Ekadashi is the 11th day of each fortnight in a month when many Hindus observe fast and next day, on the dwadashi day, they have early lunch and feast...More...

Taslima Nasreen: Where does she go from here ?

I wonder if she ever regrets having written something, so long back, that was to pose a life-long challenge to her life;...Those who assert their right to write their personal truth on socially sensitive issues ought to realize that such freedom comes with social constraints, and consequences...More...

My daughter's coming...

So, when my daughter calls to say,'I may be coming home for this Xmas',....it’s having the house filled with sound- music and TV. Upto midnight or beyond. Clothes and books scattered everywhere. And trying hard to clamp down on my mouth from saying things like 'why don't you bathe'?...More...

A tough one...

Who needs words when photos can speak ?

Choking games - a dangerous fad!

Can games be so bizarre as to take the life of a boy?! How can people keep quiet about the appearance of such games on Internet? It seems, groups of youngsters play this game, wherein, the children try to choke themselves inorder to get a ‘kick’! out of the sensation of suffocation...More...

A Christmas gift

A short story by ERR was published in Deccan Herald this time last year...Read on...

Those vanishing hills

Hills are being flattened for building construction, cutting stones, for obtaining earth for filling low or water logged areas and so on. Laws to prevent this may or may not exist but the indiscriminate mining carries on nevertheless...More...

Rolla; Graduation walk and Nostalgia

Graduation ceremony, for many, marks the highlight of the course completion program. Studying abroad, masking out whatever is happening back home, fighting out those bouts of depression that can leave you with a very troubled feeling without actually knowing the reason; the uncertainty of the future gradually transforms to something really meaningful and these moments leave you with an emotional high when you are proclaimed as a Master of Science graduate in your area of discipline...More...

Of the judiciary and its activism

But I have not heard or read about a bench of the Supreme Court passing remarks on fellow judges of the same court. This act of the two-judge bench caused me concern for more than one reason...More...

Cooking gas from kitchen waste

Office canteens and restaurants, buying LPG at commercial rate, are natural candidates for the kitchen waste gas plant. The technology has been tried and tested. It has yet to be trusted by business promoters and a critical mass of middle-class households.More...

The Desais, the book people

Just been skimming through Feasting, Fasting By Anita Desai. And I'm going to return it barely read to the library...Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai, is also a book which I haven't been able to finish although I have tried several times...More...

An act of kindness

The ferrymen had waited for the car to come back and Sasi didn’t have to drive the long way around (one hour extra). A week later the sick man’s brother came home to tell us that he had recovered and to thank me for the help...More...

Santa's job profile

Finding a person to play Santa is real difficult.Even if you want to pay him for the job.Is it because there aren't many people around to liven up people's lives?...More...

A Rare School Shooting...

Children are reflections of societal and parental values. A simple nourishing value system and strong parental involvement in this changing world are something those that are needed...Do you feel that children would enjoy their school life under the surveillance of CCTV and metal detectors? One of my friends, Deepti poses many such questions in her post ?...More...

The huttu habba mania

But in the recent years we are reminded of huttu habba of second line or third line leaders at district and taluk levels, not to speak of current or former ministers, what with sponsored ads , in colour, are published in regional Kannada dailies...More...

Cadell, a 'feel-good' writer

I own one Cadell -The Past Tense of Love which is the best I've come across so far and its something I resort to once in about every two years when the world is just too much for me to restore my smile and balance...More...

What's new on the web ?

Knol, which is short for knowledge, would allow people to create Web pages on any topic. However, unlike Wikipedia, which allows anyone to edit an entry, only the author of a “knol,” as the pages in the service would be called, would be allowed to edit...More...

Backyard cricket

Dad used to play for Madras Presidency College in his heydays and he taught us batting & bowling in the longish front yard that served as our makeshift cricket pitch. The first cricket bat was fashioned out of a reaper – plank from some packing material by our ‘karyasthan’ Eecharan...More...

Ramanathan Krishnan, India's tennis legend

Newspapers carry a report from Kula Lumpur stating that the renowned Indian tennis player Ramanathan Krishnan was awarded Lifetime Achievement Award by the Asian Sports Press Union...More...

Do hearts THINK ?

It is not just our neurons and neural pathways in the brain that store and activate our memories. Our organs do it too, specially the heart!...Many of the recipients of heart transplantation have shown remarkable changes in their thinking and behaviours...have undergone surprising changes in their personality traits...More...

About that school shooting....

No use blaming western influences, violent computer games and English movies: after all, villains -- virtual or real -- are not a modern-day phenomenon. If "the evil" is able to increasingly influence our children, then it only indicates how less potent "the good" has become. We have been celebrating festivals commemorating the victory of "the good" over "the evil". But in our day-to-day lives, who is winning?...More...

Brand India or business pariah ?

Maybe, our ‘India Everywhere’ campaign at Davos hasn’t been good enough. What India needs to get herself ‘shining’ is produce more of the likes of ‘Steel’ Mittals and ‘Citigroup’ Pundit...More...

Osteoporosis

Heavy consumption of alcohol retards bone growth and also increases the risk of falling. Exercises like walking and climbing stairs are good...Have a balanced diet. Avoid cola based aerated drinks...More...

When Dinu tried to bribe a cop

When we student-cyclists were caught by the TP there was the usual sympathy-begging by way of falsely telling that our houses are in a far off locality – usually “Vidyaranyapuram” [3-4 miles was far off then!]...More...

Browsing, at a bookshop

One thing I dislike is someone asking can I help you? Do I know what I want? Of course not. I’ve just come to take a look and be beguiled into buying some book I never knew existed...More...

Gesturing in Traffic

A certain Menon...stretches out his right arm sideways, exactly at 90 degrees to his upright trunk like a cricket umpire signaling a 'no ball'. There are those who do it a la an Ambedkar "action-statue", compelling the onlookers to curiously look in 'that' direction. There are others who exaggerate the angle of the arm, almost pointing skyward, making those around to look up there...More...

In the name of development

Why escalate prices here so local people cant afford to buy and create worry for themselves maintaining a damp, badly built unit? why dont they keep the money in the stock market?...I wish India didn't shine so much. Increasing the divide more and more...More...

Village remembers its Irish 'father'

Murphy named the place that was to be his home till death in 1957, after his mother and the local river. Yendayar is a combination of ‘yen’ (my) ‘thai’ (mother) and ‘ar’ (river). There he established India’s first successful rubber plantation...More...

British library to close down

Kerala government (a communist one) has shown interest and assured whatever help it can give to help keep the library open. Even chief minister V S Achuthanandan made a surprise visit to the library on Saturday. But I doubt if the British Council will reconsider the decision, though I wish it does...More...

shortcuts of brain!

We buy unneeded things and end up hoarding or throwing away things...because our mind thinks of those vivid images created in our brain after watching the advertisements on TV every now and then, gets swayed by the colourful info and makes a poor decision of going in for something that was totally unnecessary!...More...

Alerting ICICI account holders

The e-mail looked authentic, and even carried the ICICI Bank logo; the message was clear; and I was close to getting conned online. They call it phishing – pronounced as ‘fishing’. The idea is to fish for sensitive information from unsuspecting customers...More...

'Hotmail' Bhatia on business 'failure'

When Sabeer Bhatia, who made his first million early in life, talks about the idea of 'failure' he ought to be taken seriously. It is not in our business culture to embrace failure, he says - 'we have not matured with the idea of failure'...More...

A simple click

I found a threesome in a nearby camp in reverie over a glass of wine and lost in a deep discussion. The click of my shutter apparently caught on to it, or maybe the wind carried that to me...More...

A Pooh-Poohing primer

How do you pooh-pooh a journalist at a press conference? I can imagine the journalist standing up and asking the Pakistan manager.
Journalist: "Is it true, sir, that you and your team are actively involved in match fixing?"
Pakistan Manager: "Pooh-Pooh"...More

Mobile mania

My cousin was narrating a funny incident that happened when the mobile phone had made its entry into their house a couple of years back in the small town of Krishnaraja Pete...More...

Kerala rice crunch

Apparently, the bureaucrats are not bending over backwards to help the people’s representatives who have been insulting them. And so the mess...More...

Finding ‘Nemo’ - Lost in translation

No, this is not about Nemo the fish or the movie ‘Finding Nemo’ though I enjoyed that animated movie very much…As usual, at certain moments I felt sad for the Nemo family and my son was making fun of my teary eyes,...More...

Triggers

Why certain headlines or even lines from an article in the newspaper or magazine catch your eye depends 100% on you. The frame of your mind. And what has been going on in your life...More...

Why certain headlines or even lines from an article in the newspaper or magazine catch your eye depends 100% on you. The frame of your mind. And what has been going on in your life...More...

An overlooked issue

Generally, the ICSE and the CBSE students were recognized to be hostile and indifferent at school gatherings—we never mingled and had those strange attitude problems which are difficult to explain...More...

Chennai, at Christmas time

Every year, this young man, working for a BPO, presents a sound and light show on the birth of Jesus in his drawing room. Deepak recorded a Thamizh sound track a few years ago, in addition to the English, to help his neighbours enjoy the story...More...

Kannada movie: an afterthought

The ending of the movie was what actually impressed us the most. It was absolutely realistic, with no jarry melodrama. It was plain and simple, and it really hit the mark with us. We walked away with a very good feeling - What an ending and what a movie!!!...More...

Malaysian Indians

I don't think these issues can be sorted out on the streets. The Malaysian PM has appointed a committee to look into the anomalies in representations and benefits. The Malaysian Indian leadership should seize the opportunity and get their issues resolved...More...

Temperamental ATM

Promptly the printout came showing debit for the amount to my account, but no money. Momentarily I was a bit confused about what to do. The worry was whether I would loose the money...More...

Remarkable surgical procedure

As Dr. Bruner completed the surgery on Samuel, the little guy reached his tiny, but fully developed hand through the incision and firmly grasped the surgeon's finger. Dr. Bruner was reported as saying that when his finger was grasped, it was the most emotional moment of his life,..More...

Women’s Obsession with Body Image

I agree that all of us desire to look ‘prim and propah’ with ideal figures. But let our dreams be realistic according to our height n weight, age and our health conditions...More...

Temple Tour

Temple going has become the cheaper alternative to family holidays, a cousin remarked, himself the trustee of a temple. So many new practices are springing up to propitiate the Gods. And the media does all it can to spread this cult...More...

Sculptress by Minette Walters

...the wealthy can afford to be law abiding, generous and kind. The very poor cannot. even kindness is a struggle when you don’t know where your next penny is coming from...Poverty is only uplifting when you can choose it...More...

Somaari katte

It happened in one such session on the stone steps in front of the then University Union building opposite the Maharaja's College ground where a group of youngsters were chatting in the evening. Sri M.Ananthaswami Rau, now 91, is a living witness...More...

The Rubaiyat: Omar Khayyam revisited

Marozzi starts with a statement that what most people know about Omar Khayyam could be summed up in two words – the Rubaiyat. This is true in my case. My love affair with the Rubaiyat started in the early 1950s during college days in Bangalore...More...

Swara across the seas

There was devotion in the air, but this was not a temple. We were at the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, a pretty suburb, just north of San Francisco and the occasion was the 85th birthday earlier this year of Khansahib Ustad Ali Akbar Khan...More...

Dinu at the Glades

But I had to witness the dismissal of local lad KB Pawan and Sudhindra Shinde also. Karnataka were in trouble and they never came out of it despite Yere Goud's century the next day. Eventually, Rajasthan went back with more points...More...

Raising halla over Sakrama

A majority (as high as 80 percent) in the property-owning segment of a city’s population may well be guilty of violation of the city building laws. But this doesn’t make it a public cause, considering that Sakrama is of little relevance to those who have no landed property; and the law-abiding house-owners...More...

Apur Sansar

... was a visual treat. Each frame was thought out carefully and in black and white - it was really sensational. The debut of both Soumitra Chatterjee and Sharmila Tagore,..More

Planting noni for profit.

Have you heard of Noni or Indian Mulberry that is US$3 billion business? Common names of this plant include great morinda, beach mulberry, nono, nonu, mengkudu and ach...The plant which belongs to the Rubiaceae family is a native to India and South East Asia...More...

Stock market Shenoy

Every one regardless of age, sex and financial standing had become a gambler. Could one of my pronounced goofiness be far behind?..Back then, the stock market used to operate on the “outcry” system, where trades were verbal, noted down in little trade books and then settled at the end of the day. Not a computer in sight...More...

Our celebrity-obsessed media

It wasn't as if he was coming home with an Oscar. Lesser mortals in his circumstances would have preferred to make a quiet entry and slip into their homes unnoticed, even by those in their neighbourhood...More...

A filmy reality

She and people of her ilk -- who are, whether we like it or not, invaluable players in a democrartic society -- should be perceptive about, focus on and act on -- not lines of film songs but -- matters of far wider import and impact, that have a beairng on people's aspirations, livelihood and comfort...More...

Dinu on his family doctor who was playmate

We have always called him 'Subbanna' as far as my memory takes back to his days of Devaparthiva Road. Around the late 1960s, Subbanna had joined MBBS and used to live in a small out-house next to writer [Smt.] "Vani"s...More...

My college, teachers, my friends

Kumarans is special, unique and talanted. Our college is not just about books and studies...and,these are the cool girls of the class, who simply love to...'chill out'...They are what one calls 'the Bindaas girls' in college langauge...More...

Blogging, Abraham's style

And the words do come, along with another problem. I type with two fingers. The thoughts run ahead of the keying in process...A more sensible method would be to build a ‘posts’ bank whenever one gets the time, and select the day’s post from it. But that does not give the thrill of struggling to meet the self-imposed deadline...More...

World AIDS Day

The available treatment now is the Anti Retroviral Therapy or ART. The medicines are very costly and they are being distributed to the persons infected at a subsidized rate by our government...More...

Communication

Back home I told Appan. He smiled and said that the priest did right by presenting the point in a manner that even the least educated in the congregation could understand the concept. That was a lesson to me...More...

Mega land grab in silicon city

Law providing for special courts to try land-grab cases - the Karnataka Prevention of Land Grabbing Act, 2007 - has been awaiting the President’s assent for the last eight months...Now that the state is under President’s rule; and that the committee report is with the government, we, the people, hope that there would not be any further delay in the Presidential assent...More...