Maalolan

Friday the 2nd of April 2010, Maalolan, my son, was born in Trichy KMC Hospital at 5.58PM. It was a normal human child birth. Padmini had labour pain on April 1st, but when she had gone to hospital, the doctor A.Meenakshi Sundari(known as AMS) asked her to go back saying that still the time has not come! The next day again at afternoon she had pain again. This time she was admitted and rest is history[for our family ;)]!! All this while, i was travelling from Bangalore to Chennai, unaware that she has been admitted. I was in chennai a week before and while going back, had forgotten to take my mobile phone with me. Earlier doctor had informed that the due date is around 12th of April. When i reached my home mom was waiting for me to freshen up so that she could tell the news that Padmini is admitted, but before that my niece mridula(6 yrs) couldnt wait to break the news!

I was in Chennai that weekend as my brother had prayed to offer a vadamala to Nanganallur Anjaneyaswamy. I had to come for this as my brother was in London at that time for work. This he had prayed a few years back and he had booked this date in year 2009. We were asked to come to temple at 6'o Clock and i was getting ready for that. My mom was confused because, if we get the news of child birth, then we are not supposed to go temple for 13 days! She wanted to hear the good news, at the same time she didnt want to miss the opportunity of going to temple. We decided to let the situations to take its own course. I think we were ready by 5.45 or 5.50. I went inside kitchen(which is also our swamy room) to pay my obeisance to Gods before leaving. I prayed to God that everything should go fine. Mom also prayed and we were ready to leave. At that time, Padmini's mother called my mom to tell the biggest news of my life. amma was extremely thrilled and she came and hugged me! It was a very emotional moment and i dont have any words to describe it. I became "Appa" and she "Paati"!!

We had asked Veeru mama(amma's elder brother) to accompany us to the temple and he was waiting for us in the temple. Myself, Amma and Subha(my bro's wife), Vedha perimma(amma's elder sister) and Mridula went to temple. We met my Mama and mami there at the entrance. Mom, myself and subha waited outside the temple as others went inside. In Nangainallur, even if the temple is crowded we could always have a very good darshan of Hanuman as he is very tall, standing at an height of 32ft. We were making continuous phone calls informing everyone of the good news!

The next day i went to Tiruchirapalli along with amma, Mama and subha to meet the new born. While travelling to trichy, i got the news that Mahesh babu, my school mate, also became a father of baby boy. We reached there at around 12.30 and went directly to hospital. Padmini's father was waiting for us and he took us to the room where padmini and the child was put up. When i had gone there, he was not sleeping. I saw padmini and she gave me a smile! Again, i saw the baby and i wanted to lift him, but then i was afraid to do that. Mom immediately went and started talking with him, like, "Kutta, Appa vanthirukkada, paathaya nee", "naan un Paati daa" et al. She is a loquacious lady and it is very difficult to keep her quiet for some time!! But it looked like the baby was enjoying listening to her!! He slept off after some time and woke up again only when we were about to leave. We took a few pictures of him in subha's mobile much to the chagrin of my amma. We left at around 3 and went to subha's chitti's house at subramanyapuram. We had a coffee there and then returned to chennai. i wanted to go to Srirangam ranganathaswamy temple to thank Aranganaathan, but then i could only see and salute the Rajagopuram from the distance as i should not go to temple. The car was whizzing past the gopuram and i was chanting in my mind the paasuram "Pachaimaamalai pol meni, pavalavaai kamala chengan*achyuta amararere, aayartham kozhunthe ennum*Icchuvai thavira yaanpoi, Indiralogam aalum*Acchuvai perinum venden, arangamaanagarulaane".

Intuition

We all know that the ultimate goal in physics is to have a single theory which explains and link together all known physical phenomena. It may take some time before this is achieved. That might be the ultimate truth of human existense. But right now the reason for me to write this blog is because, i believe, Science may not be the only path to discover this truth. I have a strong reason to believe that even we could take the path of metaphysics to discover this truth and that is what our great philosophers of India has done. Maybe people wont accept that, because, unlike science, in metaphysics, one experiences the truth himself and it cannot be proved to everyone.

I need to give a few examples here to prove my point. Vedas and upanishads have mentioned about big bangs and big crunchs, there was this nyaya-vaiseshika philosophy which said that ultimately, the entire universe is made of atoms. vedas talks about the five elements too. I dont know whether our ancestors, the seers, did some experiment to find these out. But i am sure that, one of the tools they used was Intuition. To find out something new, knowledge is required. But knowledge can take you only up to a point, after which intuition becomes necessary.

i believe when early philosophers found out a lot of things by obeserving our surroundings, todays scientists are finding out new laws, sitting inside their laboratories. Now-a-days their only observation is through microscope or telescope.I dont know how much intuitive they are.. May be if they retrospect on what their ancestors had done, it might throw some new light. Even the great scientist Einstein has said "Imagination is more important than knowledge". Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, India's First Vice president, In his book "Idealist View of Life" has made a powerful case for the importance of intuitive thinking as opposed to purely intellectual forms of thought.

I will end this with a quote : "Where knowledge ends, Intuition begins".Develop your intuitive thinking. But always remember intuition and dream is different ;)

Cheers
Ananda

காதல்

பார்த்தமுதல்நாள் வருவதோர் காதலா?
இதை எழுதும் ஓர் கவிஞன் மெய்யான கவிஞனா?
அது ஒரு கண்மூடித்தனமான அன்பல்லவா?
இதை அறியாத வாலிபன் கதை திண்டாட்டமல்லவா?

பிறகு காதலின் வரையறை தான் என்னவோ?
அதென்ன உலகத்தின் மாபெரும் மர்மமோ?
இதை அறிந்துகொள்ள பல யுகங்கள் தேவையோ?
அன்றி ஓரைந்து நொடிகள் மட்டுமே போதுமானதோ?

தாய் தன் மகன்மேல் வைப்பதும் காதலே
குடிமகன் தாய்நாடின்மேல் வைப்பதும் காதலே
எதிர்பார்ப்பு இல்லாமல் வருவதும் காதலே
அன்பும் அரவணைப்பும் காதலின் சுவாசமே!

அன்பை பகிர்ந்துகொள்ளும் இதயங்களிடத்திலே
தோன்றும் திடமான உரவேதான் காதலே
இந்த உன்மையை அறிந்து காதலிப்போர் வாழ்கையிலே
துக்கம் என்பதற்கு இடமே இல்லையே!

Chetan bhagat the fourth idiot?

There is a lot of controversy regarding who is to be given credit for the movie "3 idiots". Chetan bhagat or Rajkumar hirani/abhijat joshi. The first thing that came to my mind was whether the movie was really different from the book Five point someone. Since i have read the book already, my first urge was to go and watch the movie to find out the differences. Thats when i started looking at this issue from a different angle. Are they doing some marketing gimmick to promote this movie. I read in chetan's blog that "A few million copies" of five point someone where sold. If these few million readers go and watch the movie other than the normal movie going buffs, then they can rake in more moolah. A small calculation tells that if atleast a million people(out of few millions that bhagat claims) watch this movie for 100 bucks to find out if it is really similar to FPS, then that is around 10 crore rupees!!! I am sure that there will be many idiots who will fall for this. Knowing amir khan, who is good at marketing his movies and Chetan bhagat's IIM credentiels, this is no easy guess. Moreover, Vidhu Vinod chopra made it more exciting by shouting at a journalist!! Anyways i believe that an amir khan movie is always watchable and they dont need any cheap marketing to promote the movie! I dont know who is making us idiots. Is it amir khan or chetan bhagat. The good thing for them is they are getting more mileage from this controversy and the bad thing for us is we shall lose our money if we fall for this. Time for me to go and finish "Two states"!!!