Most fervent prayer

"
... and my father drops me off a Saturday morning services.
 "You should go," he tells me.
   I am seven, too young to ask the obvious question: why should I go and he shouldn't? Instead I do as I am told, entering the temple, walking down a long corridor, and running toward the small sanctuary, where the children's services are held.
  I wear a white short-sleeved shirt and a clip-on tie. I pull open the wooden door.  Toddlers are on the floor. Third-grade boys are yawning. Sixty-grade girls wear black cotton leotards, slouching and whispering.
  I grab a prayer book. The sears in back are taken so I choose one up front. Suddenly the door swings open and the room goes silent.
  The Man of God steps in.
   He stalks like a giant. His hair is thick and dark. He wears a long robe, and when he speaks, his waving arms move the robe around like a sheet flipping in the wind.
   He tells a Bible story. He asks us questions. He strides across the stage. He draws close to where I am sitting. I feel a flush of heat. I ask God to make me invisible. Please, God, please.
   It is my most fervent prayer of the day.
  "

---Mitch Albom in 'Have a Little Faith'

My Struggling Lower Nature

I found this nice little verse, which very well describes life. At least my life. 

In the swamplands long ago,
Where the weeds and mudglumps grow,
A Yipiyuk bit on my toe…
Exactly why I do not know.
I kicked and cried and hollered “Oh!”
The Yipiyuk would not let go.
I whispered to him soft and low.
The Yipiyuk would not let go.
Yes, that was sixteen years ago,
And the Yipiyuk still won’t let go.
The snow may fall, the winds may blow.
The Yipiyuk will not let go.
I drag him ’round each place I go,
And now my child at last you know
exactly why I walk so slow.

As Saint Paul puts it, O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?, so do I.

Thanksgiving Weekend Bonanza

It had literally been over a month since I watched a movie when Thanksgiving weekend arrived. Movies was what I had in mind for the weekend. Although I watched just 4 movies, none of them were worthy to be missed either and thanks to my brother Benjamin I got the perfect preview to each one of them.
Here are the movies and what I like about them. 
V for Vendetta - Awesome futuristic thriller. Great concept.
Side Effects - Too many twists to resist watching.
The Game - Classic brain-boiler. Very engaging movie.
Zodiac - In the end my desire for a biographic movie fulfilled. Serial killer fantasies. 

For Thinking

For thinking.

A year is 365 days because the earth takes that many days to complete one full revolution around the sun.
A month is 30 days because the moon takes that many days to complete one cycle of waxing and waning.
A day is 24 hours long because thats the time earth takes complete a rotation about its axis.

What about week? Why is a week 7 days long? Is there any natural reason for that?

For Bible believing creationists, its simple. God created the earth in 6 days and rested the 7th and that completes the creation.

Any other viable reason?

MotherBoard Diaries

BSOD, an acronym that's given me a lot of head ache ever since I knew about it. For those who aren't familiar with this, it means blue screen of death, a blue screen that is generated by windows due to some error. The system has to be restarted to use again.

BSOD has plagued my system at home for as long as 4 months. 4 months of frequent blue screen while trying to use a computer can freak any sane soul out. So the least said about me the better! From my part the best that I could do was to turn the desktop background colour to deep blue same as the colour of BSOD just to acclimatize myself to sudden bsod attacks.

Long story short, the repairing started with a HDD change, it then moved on to a full system service and format, a RAM change until finally the technician was driven crazy. Ultimately the motherboard was opened and worked upon and my relation with BSOD was unceremoniously cut off. BSOD attacked my system once again but left it unscathed.

PS: My relationship with BSOD rekindled at work when multiple systems were attacked by BSOD. All I could do was G-R-I-N seeing colleagues struggling with it.  

Allahabad Ride

Allahabad, the Kumbh Nagari, is an interesting city. One gets to experience a lot of things he wouldn't have had gone through all his life.

Tempo rides in Allahabad takes a lot of determination, sweat, energy, and even teaches you patience. The two seats facing each other is packed with 4 pupil each side and the driver refuses to start the vehicle unless all 8 possible seats are filled. But the driver keeps things interesting with the tracks he plays in the CD player he has fitted in the vehicle with skewed shape. The songs ranges from bhojpuri dj mix to gangnam style to even Avicii's levels!

I've read about public ear cleaners of Mumbai and road side dentists of Varanasi. The road-side hair cutting and shaving facility in Allahabad in comparision is much less strange. It is as common a sight as people spitting chewed tobacco in staircase corners of government buildings. But the real surprise is when you spot guys asking the 'saloonist' to shave their armpits.
The first thing that went through my mind seeing this: "Shaey, should have taken the camera"

Traveler vs Tourist

“The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.” - G.K. Chesterton

The difference between a traveler and a tourist is something I hadn't noticed until recently when I embarked on a 'travel' to Munnar with Jyothi. It was then I realized that one becomes a traveler when he plans for a Ernakulam visit and ends up in Munnar. The traveler sees what he sees but the tourist see what he has come to see, is the lesson I learned after the trip.

My journey was to begin from Trichur, my hometown, with the plan to visit the recently opened much hyped LuLu mall in Ernakulam. That's when Jyothi, who was in Ernakulam calls me up with the Munnar idea. Within no time, we meet in Edapally and take a bus to Adimali because we didn't want to wait for a Munnar bus (traveler's instinct). On our way, a car rammed onto the bus and we changed to a Munnar bound bus. Munnar welcomed us with some heavy rain which set the mood for the rest of our trip. It indulges our olfactory system with supreme odors of high quality coffee and tea. But a call to a friend is all we needed to  decide that TopStation, some 35kms from Munnar, would be our destination.
Took a slow jeep ride to the TopStation. The top station is not a tourist destination, so all the top station can boast of is just a small tea shop and a old guy's house. We rented a room in his house complex for the night. Enjoying the nature is best when there is minimum human exploitation around and that's exactly what top station offered. Sound sleep too.
Early next morning we walked back till Yellapatty some 7kms before deciding to take the jeep ride back to Munnar. Thus ended the trip that made me a traveller! Travelling is all about doing whatever you think you can.