Asprins and Vodka

"...you chased a bottIe of aspirinwith a bottIe of vodka.

I had a headache."

From the movie Girl Interrupted....

Shogun Continued

A note on my previous post. I have been planning to get my hands on Shōgun by James Clavell for about four to five years now, but never really got down to reading it till recently.

The interest for Shōgun actually arose from another excellent and interesting book I read about five years back called Cloud of Sparrows by Takashi Matsuoka. I was discussing the book with a friend of mine (who had actually lent it to me for reading) and he mentioned that Shōgun was much better than Cloud of Sparrows.

I was on the look out for the book then my reading interest also changed and it also slipped my mind, since my reading interests also changed over the period and now I am back a full circle with Shōgun I guess.

karma is karma, neh?

Recently in one of my travels, I saw The Last Samurai on the television. I was also half way through the book Shōgun by James Clavell and found a lot of similarity between the stories. Both about people from outside Japan during a period of conflicts between internal factions caught up in the war.
What I found interesting about both the movie and the book, especially the Shogun was the views of once race on the other each looking at the others as barbarians.
In my travels across the globe I have met a lot of people and lot of traits which I associate with their country, which I have later come to realize is not very true, how judgmental can we become just by viewing a small sample and branding the whole?

Any way I have been collecting some extracts from Shōgun which I thought of presenting here

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"Karma was an Indian word adopted by Japanese, part of Buddhist philosophy that referred to a person's fate in this life, his fate immutably fixed because of deeds done in a previous life, good deeds giving a better position in this life's strata, bad deeds the reverse. Just as the deeds of this life would completely affect the next rebirth. A person was ever being reborn into this world of tears until, after enduring and suffering and learning through many lifetimes, he became perfect at long last, going to nirvana, the Place of Perfect Peace, never having to suffer rebirth again."
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"Karma is the beginning of knowledge. Next is patience. Patience is very important. The strong are the patient ones, Anjin-san. Patience means holding back your inclination to the seven emotions: hate, adoration, joy, anxiety, anger, grief, fear. If you don't give way to the seven, you're patient, then you'll soon understand all manner of things and be in harmony with Eternity"
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"That night Toranaga could not sleep. This was rare for him because normally he could defer the most pressing problem until the next day, knowing that if he was alive the next day he would solve it to the best of his ability. He had long since discovered that peaceful sleep could provide the answer to most puzzles, and if not, what did it really matter? Wasn't life just a dewdrop within a dewdrop?"
******************************************
Shōgun by James Clavell

More on Karma in its various Avatars from Wikipedia

Challenge of Flatism

We have been slow to rise to the challenge of flatism, in contrast to Communism, maybe because flatism doesn't involve ICBM missiles aimed at our cities. Indeed, the hot line, which used to connect the Kremlin with the White House, has been replaced by the help line, which connects everyone in America to call centers in Bangalore. While the other end of the hot line might have had Leonid Brezhnev threatening nuclear war, the other end of the help line just has a soft voice eager to help you sort out your AOL bill or collaborate with you on a new piece of software. No, that voice has none of the menace of Nikita Khrushchev pounding a shoe on the table at the United Nations, and it has none of the sinister snarl of the bad guys in ''From Russia With Love.'' No, that voice on the help line just has a friendly Indian lilt that masks any sense of threat or challenge. It simply says:
''Hello, my name is Rajiv. Can I help you?''

From
It's a Flat World, After All
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: April 3, 2005 in the New York Times
(P.S - The article requires registration)
The entire article gives a very interesting perspective of how the world is changing ..... check it out

Ambiguity - Some Quotes

Neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity. - Sigmund Freud

If I take refuge in ambiguity, I assure you that it's quite conscious. - Kingman Brewster

On the road from the City of Skepticism, I had to pass through the Valley of Ambiguity. - Adam Smith
The awareness of the ambiguity of one's highest achievements (as well as one's deepest failures) is a definite symptom of maturity. - Paul Tillich

I'm a participant in the doctrine of constructive ambiguity. - Vernon A. Walters

We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!. - Douglas Adams

Visit to the Temple

Today we decided to visit the Livermore temple about an hour drive from where we stay.
Today is a Saturday and woke up at 9:30 and at 10:00 had a good breakfast of Poha and started for the temple.
The other guys had to entice me with the lure of an excellent canteen at the temple to get me to there.
I had been earlier to the temples in NJ, Connecticut and St. Louis and always found it crowded during the weekend (especially the canteens) so was surprised when the temple was not as crowded as I expected.

interesting incidents,

• An a timer (with a remote) mentioning when the next archana is
• 3 Different pujas happening at different parts of the temple each in a different language
• Different to hear one of the puja happening in English - the lady of the family conducting the puja was reading some passages from the scriptures in English
• Another corner another puja with the son and his wife conducting the puja (with the kid next to him so I presume the first birthday of the kid) and the grandmother capturing the whole ceremony using a camcorder
• Another corner of the temple a group of kids help close some plastic bottles (I don't know for what) but the funny part was the carton containing the plastic containers said 1800 vials with child proof covers (Closed by kids)
• The priest asking people to form a queue to one side to see the god in the Sanctum
• ironing boards with silk do this in a corner behind the praharam...True Indian style addition to the brick and marble beauty
• People congregating into small groups and you listen to different languages and dialects
• Water running - as usual someone forgot to close the tap after washing their legs (I did close it)
• To top it all - there was no canteen ........But there was a special prasadam counter and all the crowd was there (half an hr wait so we skipped it)

On the way back from the temple (after a quick pit stop at the udipi restaurant for tea and bajjis to go - to make up for the lack of food at the temple) we set out on a drive towards some windmills near the temple and it was a very scenic drive.

It reminded me of the trip I made to Kanyakumari last year for my Cousins marriage and on the way back was playing with my Digital camera and got some excellent photographs of the Windmill farms at Muppandal. The photographs have to wait till I get back to India in a couple of months.

Coming back to CA, the weather was excellent, bright and the mountains were beautiful with the Windmills running and cows grazing around it. It was an excellent 15 mile drive with green mountains on either side dotted with windmills and farms of cows and goats which looked like brown rocks and they dint even move.

We were then discussion, how true that the places you see in paintings really exist and you can see them even today. (Thumbs up to US for maintaining their Natural Reserves)

On the way back we saw a signboard for a reservoir & fishing, Expecting a good spot to soak in the beauty of the Day and the sights we just turned into the place and drove in.

The place is called Los Vaqueros , its an man made reservoir for holding low salinity water for use at a later date for drinking. When we went there were not many people around. Actually during the few hours we spent there we saw only three groups of people, this meant a peaceful palace to enjoy the nature.

There is an trail to go from the Interpretive Center (Not information center and they don't know why its called Interpretive) which takes you to the view of the Dam and the water body.

We went along the trail and the view was amazing a lake surrounded on all sides by green mountains with a few occasional windmills. No people around once you get into the trail or on the shoreline. Saw a father and Son fishing from one of the docks (There you can see the bonding happenings).

We went to the wrong side of the reservoir so we couldn't do the boating, was talking to the Lady working there, she said during summer people come down there for having a picnic especially in the evening and then return. She also mentioned that the place is not much publicized and that it does not attract big crowds there are few occasional visitors (Like us ) who miss a turn and end up in this beautiful place.

To make the eventful place even more interesting, we were checking out some localities for my friend to buy a house so we went in this street which had this interesting board

Pregnant ?

Need Help ?

Call XXX XXX XXXX

we couldn't help but smiling at the board (especially that it was next to the church?)

I was wondering how do you interpret such a sign?

Pregnant? - No

Need Help ? - Yes

Call - XXX XXX XXXX

Any way we went to a community and go down to check the locality and enquire about the house prices, schooling district etc. When we saw this amazing Aeronautic Display with free falls, 360 turns, loops few times I even thought pretty soon I am going to see the flames looking at the speed at which the aircraft was doing a free fall, luckily nothing happened.

Then it was time to get back to home, which by the way is not bad because of the view of the mountains (A separate log on that later)

Finally I mange to write another large blog...Hope it is interesting.

Life in USA

"I was the only one talking, and all the suppressed misery of living in America surged from me. Oh, how many times I had wished death to entire college football teams. It was impossible to meet a friend without making a fucking appointment weeks in advance, and there were no coffee gardens where you could sit and watch people walk by. I was sick of being asked where I was from and I hated Bush and his Jesus freaks. With every particle of my being I detested the word "carbs" and the systematic extermination of joy from American life, etc. "
from
THE CONDUCTOR by ALEKSANDAR HEMON
New Yorker
Issue of 2005-02-28
Posted 2005-02-21

This passage in the story somehow struck me, Another reason could be
another event around the same time, the interview of Aishwarya in the Late Show

Aishwarya was asked "Is it common in India to live with their parents?"
and her answer - "we don't have to take appointments to have dinner with our parents"

Was insightful.

There are a few questions for which I never was able to find the right answer. They say the best way to answer a unnecessary question is to ask back a question, Ash did a good job at that.

I usually get very defensive to such questions... Lesson learnt - be offensive, ask back a valid question.

Now I know how to reply

PS: Rest of the interview was not so great, it was very artificial and she was giggling and smiling a lot.

Movie

My luck with the movies changed when I moved to California and finally I saw two good movies

1. Sideways
2. Hitch

Both were really nice movies to watch. They are not artistic but they are fun to watch and funny in their own way.

Sideways is original and starts like one of the Art movies but is refreshingly funny and nice if possible I would like to make a trip to the wineries

Hitch is like an funny Indian movie with not much of logic and Nice Dialogue.

Both are what you call Popcorn Movies. You sit with a bag of popcorn and enjoy.

Came back from Hitch Yesterday night only to find both me and my apartment mate has forgotten our keys and it took us over an hour of calling him on the mobile, home telephone and banging the door to wake up the third guy sleeping inside(Or at least what little noise we could make without waking the neighbor's or them calling 911)

Finally we gave up was on the way to another friends house and try our luck waking him when luckily he woke up and attended the call.

Lesson Learnt - fix a Bell / Have a key in the wallet