The Nandankanan wide life sanctuary, 20 kms from Bhubaneshwar was a feast for the eyes. The lion and tiger safari was a hair rising experience. 

Well I felt very sad the trip had to end. But vacations are always short and very busy. I wanted to share a few snaps from my trip for all snaps visit http://photos.yahoo.com/arun_ri and click of Varanasi folder to access the pictures. 

Cauvery like a suicide bomber

The monsoon surprised everyone by arriving 10 days in advance this year. We had just enough to normal rainfall in the past decade and this year the black cloud seems to have stayed over Chennai and Tamilnadu.

The 2nd week of October saw the arrival of North East Monsoon, the only rainy season on the eastern coast of India. It was Mumbai earlier in the year that got badly hit by the South West Monsoon in June and now the epicenter seems to be moving closer to Chennai. A few planetary movements predict Chennai to be hit by 2 cyclones this year. Infact the Almanac (Panchangam) has clearly pronunced the dates for such a happening. Nov 10-15 and Dec 10-15 window will keep Chennai afloat.

We've received approx. 70 cms rainfall in the past 2 week which is 90% of the total rain that Chennai receives during Oct- Dec monsoon cycle. We have another 45 days of monsoon and I am sure we are going to be wet, cold and soggy. Gone are the high and dry days when the dark
cloud cover teases you and skips over Chennai and keep going northward.

The spirit of Diwali hasn't gone down by a bit. Hoards of people still step out of their house when the downpour abates and then T-Nagar the retail capital of India gets hit by the swarm of shopping bees. Iti s definitely a dull season for fireworks with incessant rains.

Some low lying areas are water logged and but we need not worry about trees falling in Chennai. With the advent of software boom in Chennai the ecological cover was damaged long back leaving nothing for the rains and storms.

Tsunami shelters were hit badly in the rains and people have to evacuate shelters. Christmas started last year with Tsunami, then we saw the quake in Iran and Afghanistan, floods in Mumbai, hurricane season in US, and quake in Himalayas and now rains in southern India.

The temple town of Trichy is innundated with cauvery in spate. Karnataka receiving excess rainfall this year and cauvery is filled to the brim. She is dancing from bank to bank threatening to swallow a lot of lives. The life line of Tamilnadu, Cauvery now is moving fast like a suicide bomber. Lord Ranganatha is simulating what it is like to be in PaarKadal (Ocean of Milk) and Lord Jambukeshwar is doing tapasya under water (Pancha Bootha Kshetram - temple for water, one of the five elements in nature).


Mettur, the reservoir on Cauvery is all filled up to the brim and worrying about the inflow and possible breakage of the dam, officials have released the water. While delta regions have been receiving good rainfall. Cauvery is merrily dancing bank to bank like a stripper while rest of the Tamilnadu neither can enjoy nor can cry.

Autos still make a fortune, they charge a premium to wade to the knee deep water and get you to work. GN Chetty Road in T-Nagar had 4 feet high water from the rains. A few pictures here were taken in Mount Road, Chennai's downtown area.

Roads were kind of empty this morning, only buses were plying that too with very less frequency. Autos as always were out there hopping like frog and the little exhaust pumping enough smoke to choke to you death.

Nobody can see your tear when it rains, all you can do it wail and create noise. I am doing that online this morning.......

Do hedges protect anymore??

Hedges are made to protect the house, but what if the hedges start to encroach and take over the house that it is supposed to protect? Well the purpose of having hedges is defeated then.

Well drawing the above parallelism into religion, this will clearly explain what the Catholic Church is faced with today. Religion was created by man to take care of the society, act as a moral police. Religious practices guided the followers to live a rightful and truthful life. For example, a Sunday mass in the church brought the family together and serve the society once a week. Today we are sacred to bring our children for the Sunday mass. We are afraid of our kids being abused and hence feel they are better off staying at home and reading the bible.

Those days we didn’t have a judicial system and hence the religion set boundaries acceptable to the society to ensure smooth running of the engine. There was a time when rulers and kings obeyed religious laws and took care of the society. Then there was the time when science began questioning religious beliefs and practices and it was during the medieval times the State was run by the Church. Anyone who was an atheist or who questioned the Church or its practices was ostracized and thrown out of the society. Well religion was never created to punish or humiliate members of the society. It was created to bring about peace, harmony and help with the seamless functioning of the society.

Well today the same religion has created rifts between countries, individuals and the sole purpose of religion is questionable. The Catholic Church that lives by the bible and preaches against family planning, abortion, is tolerating child abuse and molestation charges against its clergy and priest. Priest who are next to God in any religion are turning into abusers and molesters. They are abusing the religion and exploiting the followers leaving a scar that can never heal in the innocent hearts. Religion, the moral police is failing in is duty but acting amoral.

The Church ignored complains all this while, and was in denial. They’ve also acted aggressively and settled a lot of abuse cases before it reached media and public, but the day has come and the bottled up genies have come out to expose and haunt the Church. Bad karmas catch up to you like the good one, may it be Judaism, Islam, or Hinduism.

Well I am not writing this to slander the Church. My idea is to bring to your notice the role of religion in the society. Well God never created any religion and all religion was created by man for his own well being and the well being of the society. When religion can’t solve the very purpose of its existence well then it needs to be thrown out. Is this a problem with the religion or the so called followers, hijackers of the religion?

Well it is time to think for not for too long to let the hedges eat up the building. The dead end will become a deadly end.

The city worships....

Today is the end of the 9 day doll festival. It is Saraswathi Poojai, Shri Saraswathi is the Goddess of learning, who is divine knowledge personified. The sound of Her celestial veena awakens the notes of the sublime utterances of the sacred monosyllable, "OM". She bestows the knowledge of the supreme, mystic sound, clarity of thought and nobility of ideas as represented by Her pure dazzling white clothes, with the hands holding the veena and books seated on the white lotus. We worship Goddess Saraswathi to gain knowledge, dispassion, devotion and prosperity.

Mother Nature had already cleaned the city yesterday, but she gave another refreshing wash this morning. My sister went around the house putting sandal paste and kumkum (red color) on each of the appliance and tools at home. IT'S ONE of those rare days when you won't yell at your PC when it hangs, or kick your bike in frustration when it dies in the rain. On Ayudha Puja, buses come driving down the road like a newly-wed bride, with six- to eight-foot stalks of plantain roped to their fronts, endless strings of flowers, haldi (tumeric), kumkum (red color), and all. Kids come on their bicycles with small banana leaves symmetrically arranged about their handlebars. Storefronts compete for the best displays and the most expensive sweets are distributed, not to forget generous helpings of kadle puri (peanuts and puffed rice mixed with jaggery). Born from the practice of honouring weapons during the Pandava rule, Ayudha Puja has now morphed into the worship of tools. The tradition still continues……

Pre Monsoon arrives.....

I was still in bed this morning and the ceiling fan was in full blast. I decided to warp myself better in the blanket to keep me cozy. I partially opened my eyes, but it was still dark outside. I could hear the shower from Mother Nature but could not hear the cuckoo birds this morning. They probably had taken the day off and were resting in a dry place. Chennai received its first pre-monsoon shower this morning. Laziness and reluctance made me stay in the bed for a longer time. Well wish I could take the day off like the cuckoo birds.

A rainy day in Chennai is absolutely delightful if you stay home and watch it from the deck. Well school kids draped in raincoats from head to toe were waiting patiently to be picked by their school vans and busses. The pedestrians were hopping like a frog to avoid the puddle splash from the fast moving autos’. Women cringing and hiding under the little shade in the bus stop to avoid the drizzle. People in colorful rainwear, from branded raincoats to ordinary plastic bags wrapped around their head, all of them racing to get under the roof before the next bout of shower. Most of the two wheeler drivers had rolled their trousers till their knee to avoid the splash from the frenzy bus drivers. Some roads were a nightmare to commute, telephone guys had dug up shoulders and there is no “Caution” marked anywhere. Auto drivers drive a little careful on rainy days to avoid water entering the engine; well Chennai roads are not visible during monsoon.


While sitting in the auto this morning, I constantly had to watch out for the puddle and plead with the auto driver to avoid going near the local buses. These buses are ruthless and if they managed to get my trousers I will have to go home and take a fresh shower and come back to work. Traffic had backed up for miles and tempers were running a little high. The best place on a rainy day is your deck and then the cozy drawing room. Sip a cup of hot chocolate and lay on the couch, catch a old movie or pull out the old albums and just reminiscent the halcyon days. Order mom to make some fried potato chips and veggie bajjis (slices of veggies covered with flour and fried)

Well this is just a pre-monsoon shower but let us wait for the real monsoon to come down. Hope the Mayor and other civic officials come down from the Ivory towers to see the city’s preparedness for the upcoming monsoon season.

Eclipse, Beliefs and History.........

• Accurate records of eclipses are known to have been kept since at least 747 BC. Many authorities believe Stonehenge was constructed for the purpose of recording and monitoring eclipses. o Ancient civilisations explained eclipses as evil spirits attacking the Sun or Moon. It was customary to run into the street, shout, scream and make as much noise as possible to frighten the spirits away.

• Some thought a huge black dragon swallowed up the Sun or Moon. The places in the zodiac where eclipses occur are known as 'the Dragon's Head' and 'the Dragon's Tail'.

• History records numerous reports of fearful Roman emperors trying to deflect the personal effects of an eclipse by murdering their top ranking statesmen on the advice of astrologers.

• The prospect of the eclipse on 'Black Monday', 29 March 1652, had the citizens of London so terrified that it was reported: "hardly any would work, none would stir out of their houses.... The rich fled London, the poor prayed for deliverance and a thriving trade was conducted in cordials claiming to allay the effects of the eclipse". To the embarrassment of astrologers, the eclipse passed without any notable disaster.