Swami Dayananda Saraswathi's 80th Bday

I happened to attend to this function yesterday in Kamarajar arangam. Though I was initially weary, considering the distance and the traffic, I persuaded myself to go.
It was indeed time well spent.
I could hear so many stalwarts like Dr.Padma subramanian, Avvai Natarajan, Venu srinivasan and finally Swamiji himself. Some salient points from guests' addresses :
a) HIndu dharma /sanathana dharma is ageless and doesn't have one text and god, like some other religions. It has numerous texts and sages. And it has never claimed to be the most superior and tried to establish it through force.
b) Swamiji has started a school for Odhuvars, to propogate devaram and thiruvasagam.
c)Swamiji has done yeomen service to spread hindu dharma.
d) Swamiji has guided Latha Rajnikanth in setting up her Ashram School, and has given a lot of ideas to make schools more rooted in our ancient wisdom.

Now some points from Swamiji's speech :
a) Humans attain heights when they are present at the right place at the right time. I happened to be so. One cannot plan to be at the right place and time. There are so many variables and humans can't control that. Due to blessings and grace alone, one can be at right moments.
b)We should protect our dharma not by preching it, but by living it. We have this great duty , more so now as there's a lot of evil forces acting to disrupt our religion.

How to be a Change Agent ??

Thursday's are special to me and this day proves it yet again.
I got so disenchanted and frustrated at my failure to change certain environmental parameters and bring in attitudinal changes within the family because, I think that its now time to give back to the family, which has been the pillar of support so far in life. But since the old psychological roots in people get in deep and thick, Iam facing great difficulty in uprooting them.

Today I was at my wit's end and got so drained emotionally that I felt like running away and embracing solitude for few weeks. Many of my well-thought out ideas for the betterment of the family have been rejected outright and not adopted due to strong inertia , resistance to change and cosy comfort zone and I feel miserable , unable to change the course of a boat which is gradually floating towards an abyss.

Objectively speaking, I think I've tried so many different approaches towards acheiving my goal, and I taste a bit of success in shaking the roots once in a while, but the roots prevail.
Well, Iam amazed at how great leaders could bring in big-time transformations to the organizations, when Iam stuggling to transform a very small group !!
Well, I ffelt like the frustration-personified Arjuna , before Gita emerged from the lord.

I've taken some resolutions now.
1) I study Mahabharat, esp the strategies of Lord Krishna, given his success at handling hoards of evil forces in a very pleasant and strategic way.
2) I will study Bhagawat Gita, as I hope I'll learn the path of right action
3)To learn Chanakya neethi and Art of war, as they are masterpieces in the field of strategy.
4)To be well-versed in all YSS lessons and be very regular in practice (Incidentally, my lesson today spoke about problems in being over-touchy and sensitive and how affectionate approaches yield great results rather than harsh ones. Thursday magic again ! )

I realize that there's no point in using brute force in trying to coerce people, which works sometimes, but creates rebellious feelings most of the time !
I want to be the change that I was to see.
I want to implement those best practises in my small family first, before extending it to the larger family.
Ideas include reading and discussing good books(Culture and heritage, Ayurveda, lives of great people), developing interest in arts, socializing with positive people etc.
I hope to be successful at the proof of concept.
God , help me !

Another trip to trichy

I went on yet another trip to temples around trichy between 19/9-21/9, combining with a medical check up.

19/9
We arrived at trichy at 6.30 AM and reached our relative's house at around 7 AM.
It has rained heavily the previous day and the weather was so welcoming.
We quickly got ready for the long day ahead of us, had breakfast and reached Srirangam by around 9.30. On the way, we bought flowers to offer at temples through the day, at a flower bazaar near srirangam temple. Boy, what a variety of flowers at very nominal prices ! In a short while, I resembled Santa , carrying back a huge bag of various flowers like lotus, rose, vrukshi, marikozhundu, thulasi,arali etc.
We entered Srirangam temple at 9.30 and felt blessed to have a darshan on PurattAsi's 1st saturday. Ranganathar was covered with oil-was called thaila kaapu, and hence we could have darshan of his chest and upwards. Post-darshan, we sat in the prakaram and I was singing some songs on the god and my wife did some rAma japam. Interestingly, as soon as she completed her japam, a boy aged 9 ran towards her and offered her some kalkandu !! Well, we both felt so blissful at this event and believed the Ranganathar gave an instant acknowledgement of her japam. We visited other sannidhi's like Ramar(There were 3 ramar sannidhi's in the temple), thaayar, Dhanvantri, ChakrathazhvAr. narasimhar and set out to Thiruvaanaikovil at 11.30Am.

We reached just in time for uchi kAla puja,when the priest dressed up like a woman and offers puja at the Siva shrine, symbolizing the goddess offering puja to the lord. This is a unique feature in this temple.
We bought special tickets and hence could have a very nice darshan of the god and the goddess.
I really loved the exquisite sculpture of this temple and it looked so fresh.
Interestingly, I found a sculpture of women playing violin, just above the god's shrine.
Also, the navagrahas all stand pointing towards Sun , which is special.
I felt like learning more songs to sing on such occasions and I wish it happens soon.
We reached home at 1.30.
We had taken an auto for the whole trip and he charged 250Rs for the whole trip, including the waiting period. But while dropping us, he started to make a fuss about having waited so long etc and started quarelling. Well, after such wonderful darshan's , I didnt want to argue for a mere 30 bucks and hence dispensed it immly.
IN the evening we set out for Uchi pillayar temple.
We again took an auto and reached the temple at 4.30. There was a beatiful kolu waiting for us in the temple. Next, we visited a pallava rock temple on the way to Thayumanavar swami.
Just like the last trip, thaumanavar sannidhi made my mind still and peaceful.
It was quite dark by then and hence we couldn't take many snaps along the way.
We finished uchi pillayar koil, descended by around 7.30 PM, did some shopping and reached home at 9PM. End of a nice day !

20/9
Today we again set out to Ranganathar temple with huge bag of flowers. As my wife gave a handful of Tulasi and flowers to Chakarathazhwar, the priest was happy and gave her a big bunch of neelothphalam flowers asking her to distribute it to others ! Was an interesting moment :).
Today I didn't feel like standing in the Q so I sat in the outer prakaram and was singing . Eventually, my wife too joined me as the crowd was mad ! So we set out to other shrines.
Today there was a sahasranamam archanai going on in the Dhanvantri sannidhi. Our flowers were used instantly, which was satisfying !
After covering all shrines, we bought some prasadam.

We reached Jambukeswaram by 12.15 and today the darshan was wonderful.
After finishing Jambunathar shrine, we bought a 25Rs tkt for the amman shrine and we sat in front of the ambal for a gud 20 mins . Trick is, since we sat, the security cudnt spot us and push us out ! Ofcourse, this was divine will mainly :) . After a satisfying morning session, we reached home by 1.45 PM for lunch.
We set out to Main guard gate for an evening full of shopping . we visited the kolu sale, had jigir thanda in a hotel, got some snaks, clothin etc. I got a metal daaya kattai, which was the purchase of the day ! We reached home by 8.30 after a great day.

21/9
Siruvachur(Missed makalipuram), samayapuram, gunaseelam, vayalur, ayyappan, nachiar, urayur, kallukuzhi, giri exhibition

Pilgrimage around Trichy [15/7/09 - 18/7/09 ]

More details coming up :
Day 1 :
Ranganathar, Akilandeswari Uchikala puja
Nerur

Day 2 :
Ranganathar, uchi pillayar, nachiar koil, Akilandeswari amman
Day 3 :
Uthamar koil, Narasimhar koil, Thiruvellarai, Samayapuram

KJ Yesudas Concert

Attended my first KJY concert !!! Huhoo !!
Needless to say, it was superb.
It was on the occasion of the 12th Gollapudi Srinivas award. There were some stars in the hall like PBS , P.Susheela, YG Mahendran fmly , KJ Yesudas' fmly etc, but the real highlight was actress Rekha and the gorgeous Shruthi Hassan's anchoring. It was very nice.
And I felt quite inspired to see Resul pookutty, given that he used to walk 8KM to reach school daily and study under kerosene lamp etc. What hard work and grit , all the way up to Oscars !! Salute !! Iam highly driven by his life !!

But my prime interest in the event was the concert of KJY and here's the list of songs he sang :
1.Vanajaaksha (Varnam)
2.Gajananayutham Ganeshwaram[Dikshitar kriti , chakravaham]
3.Endaro mahanubavulu[Sri Ragam, Thyagarajar ]
4.Pavana guru pavana [ Hamsanandi composition by Purandara dasar]
5.Kannan yen karuppu niram [Malayalam song]
6. Kondalalo nelakonna [Annamayya's song]
7.Hindustani song on lord krishna on same raga as above [not sure of the name ]
8.Ayyappa song on yemani pogaduthuve annamayya song's raga in telegu
9. Krishna nee begane baaro
10.Harivarasam , to end the concert.

Was quite memorable !!

Ignite Chennai

I happened to attend this community event on 7th Aug in Thoughtworks auditorium.
Got to know about this thru thoughtworkers.com.
I reached the venue by 5.45PM, but the event started about 15 mins late, at 6.15 PM.
In this time interval, I could have networked with some people, but somehow didnt have the mood.
I think the event was well organized.
Its just an oratory event, where each participant can present on any decent topic under the sun, for 5 mins.
There were all sorts of topics ranging from 'how to present', ' marathons', 'go green','j2ee refresher'(!!) etc, but I like the way the topics were sequenced.
The ice breaking opening talk was 'how not to mess up a prezo' and it was quite funny and drew good applause.
We went to a T break at 7.45PM and the talk before the break was ice breakers. As I'd expected, it was a game and not a talk.
The whole crowd had to think of a number from 1-5 and have to do grouping based on the number they thought "without talking" and just handshaking. IT was god fun.
My classmate Siddi talked on "All projects are maintenance projects and quoted a nice book "Software conflicts 2.0".
The last session was about how important were accompanying instrumentals in a song and how we easily overlook them.
Finally all speakers were given an unique momento- A bamboo sapling, as it absorbs a lot of carbon from the atmosphere. And they were distributed by the security guard- Great gesture , this !
Not to forget, the snak in the break was superb. Samosa, cutlet and some chipss !!
Have to attend more of such in future and develop more friends in such communities !

Journey of excellence

I happened to meet my Prof a couple of weeks back and some of us Alumni had a long chat with him. He caught up with the kind of work we were doing and we had a highly informal chat where he spoke about the way he worked, his hobbies , his childhood etc. That in itself was a great blessing for me, as he's one of the people whom I look upto in life, in addition to Sachin, Vishy and ARR.
So meandering along many topics, he shared something with us, which is worth writing in gold !
He had a meeting with the CEO of SWATCH group, the leading swiss watchmaker and he had asked the CEO about how they are able to be the top in the world and the CEO immediately took him on a ride to Alps. My prof was shown the watch making shops along ALPS and asked him to guess how long would it take to make a watch ?! My Prof posed the same question to us alumni and we shot some figures.
The answer is 3years !
Well, each watch piece is a piece of art for the workers and they get so very involved in it that it gets elevated to an art-piece status !
So the message from my pose was "Try to get deeply involved in whatever you do that it gets elevated to a piece of art" !
I think we know a lot of things and even this funda must be known already . But then some messages get an added import when its delivered by a special person and as they say, "It had arrived".
Let the journey of excellence reign !!
Thathasthu !