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Showing posts from October, 2010

A more Dangerous Strain of Corruption.

From VIR SANGHVI's article in today's (Sunday, 31 Oct 2010) Indian Express: In the old days, corruption scandals would follow a familiar pattern - a minister taking a bribe from a businessman for some favour. But now a new pattern of corruption is emerging. The CWG Loot and Adarsh Building Society scam. Distinctive features of the new scams and corruption are : # Nothing is sacred any longer. People will make money out of anything with a complete absence of shame. Nothing is sacred, not the CWG and India's prestige, not the sacrifices of our martyrs. # The hallmark of the new corruption is that people will defile anything in their greed for big bucks. # Once upon a time it was the politicians who had a monopoly on corruption. Now people from all fields - sports administrators, local Govt officials, bureaucrats in case of CWG, and Generals, and Admirals in case of ABS. Gs and As felt no shame in misusing the names of Kargil martyrs to get flats worth crores allot...

Story Telling

Now, here's a good story to tell .. Story telling has been in vogue from time long ago. Particularly in our country. Our paatis, thathas, ammas, appas used to tell stories, especially from our puranas and ithihasas to us when we were small kids. This is the way we learnt about Sri Rama, Sri Krishna, Shiva and many other Gods and their deeds. Prahlad, Dhruv, Hanuman, Bheem, Arjun became our close friends. We disliked Raavan, Kamsan, Hiranyakasibu, and other bad characters. We remember these stories even today because we listened to these in our very young days, with intent, interest, and dedication. Bhakti was always embedded in such narrations. In our childhood there was no Amar Chitra Katha books, or TV channels, or VCDs/DVDs to learn the Mythology. It was only our Paatties and ammas who inculcated the habit of listening to stories. These women were gems in story-telling. With a paththiram full of paruppu Satham or Thayir Satham and surrounded by a few grandchildren, these...

KOLU - 2010

I had written my first and only blog on KOLU in 2004 - read here . From then on we used to celebrate Kolu every year except for 2008 when Girija had passed away. This year, 2010, we started the preparations on 7th Oct when the slotted-angles and sheets were taken down from the attic and steps (படி) were erected. The dolls were also taken from the attic, dusted, and generally cleaned. With this step over, Krithika decorated the place and arranged the dolls. Arvind took care of serial lights. Thus the Kolu started this year. Guests started coming from the next day, that is 8th Oct. Aditi was ecstatic and excited. UPDATE on 17 Oct 2010. Today (17 Oct) is Vijaya Dasami Day. The day auspicious for commencing education / music etc. Chi Sriram, (2 1/2 years young), s/o Arun is going to school from today. Yesterday, Saturday the 16th, was Sri Saraswati Poojai. We performed it from 10-45 to 11-40 AM. Aditi's books were kept predominantly. Thus ended this year's Na...