Onamashamsakkal !

Happy onam everyone.

I found this excellent article which I think is worth reproducing here.

Onam - The Festival of Exuberance

Kerala is celebrating another New Year- Year 1179, according to the Malayalam calendar, also known as “Kollavarsham”.

Chingam or Bhadrapada, the first month of the calendar ushers in ONAM, the national fiesta of Kerala. After the rain drenched Karkidakam with its privations, Chingam is a welcome month of plenty. The sky becomes blue, the deep forest becomes greener and it is time to reap the harvest, time to celebrate and to rejoice along with the Nature. And Onam epitomizes the newfound vigour and enthusiasm about everything around. It is celebrated with traditional Malayalee fervour with visit to temples, family get-togethers, gifting each other clothes called Ona-kkodi and lots of merry making.

This picturesque ten-day harvest festival has been part of Malayalee psyche for centuries now. There are records of Onam being celebrated during the Sangam Age. Onam festivities have been recorded during the time of Kulasekhara Perumals around A.D 800. It is believed that during those days the whole of Chingam was celebrated as Onam season.

The Philosophy of Less.

There used to be a time in my life when I used to wait for sunday evening to come so that I can go to my neighbour's home and watch Giant Robot on the television.

There used to be a time in my life when I had 10 rupees in my pocket and I used to be happy counting the number of eclairs I could buy with it.

There used to be a time when I had a lot less than what I have now and I used to be happy.

Life is Elsewhere, the title of the Milan Kundera novel, comes to my mind. When we have a lot going for us, It is strange how our mind is not able to fix its attention on any one thing. The mind is disconnected from the senses. What is right before us is not seen.

A hundred channels on the TV ? More often than not, we would just keep on surfing and end up seeing nothing at all. One channel ? We end up watching what is available and inspite of ourselves end up enjoying it.

It has been told in countless stories already of how the poor are happier than the rich. What could be the reason for this ? It is the Philosophy Of LEss( POLE ) working in their favour. Simply put, They have less. Their mind is focussed on what they have. Their dreams extend only as far as seeing a sunday evening movie followed by bhelpuri.

The fact that children are happier than adults could again be attributed to the philosophy of less. Their minds in not occupied by the impending war against iraq or the russian hostage crisis. All they know and care about is playing. Their mind has focus. There is minimum of clutter. There is less so that there is more room for happiness.

The concept of “unlearning” has caught the fancy of academicians all over. Maybe, It has a greater significance as a way to prepare your mind so that hapiness can come and stay.

The Philosophy of Less will be explored in greater detail in a later post.

instant poetry.

caught up in a poetic frenzy for 10 minutes fuelled by the frustrations of a normal work day, i wrote up these extremely silly lines in this thread at Sukanya's place.

aayina humaari mujhe dekh ke yeh pooche,
hassi woh tumhari tum kahaan chod ke aayye ...
....
phoolon ke beech tumhaara yeh chehra dekhaa,
mann hi mann ek aur haseen yaad banaake sambhalke rakhaa ...
....
zindagi ke yeh kuch pal yuhin guzar jaayye na kahin,
pyar kiyye bina maut tumhaarre nazdeeq aa jaayye na kahin.
....
sitaaron se baatein karna tumne sikhaaya,
raaton ka neend churaana humne sikhayaa ..

.

i know they are silly but then i guess we need to be silly once in a while to be happy. The curbs that we place on ourselfs come in the way of enjoying the simple things of life.
...
cut cut cut
...

Before i convert this silly little post into yet another intelluctual discussion on what we are, why we are so and why we are not what we were or can be, let me put a fullstop to this post.

Punar Janmam.

Lately, I have been reading MY blog. Strange as it sounds that is exactly what I have been doing for the last three days. Before you guys put me in a straightjacket and pack me off to the nearest asylum, let me clarify myself :)

As you all know, I have this terminally ill and close to dying site called Tamizhan.com. After briefly entertaining notions of building a community site built around it, I have dropped the plan for lack of time, energy and motivation. But I cannot sit idly watching that site die :( So I decided to approach the problem seriously and do a complete re-organisation of that site and along with that, this site. So I have been reading my blog to solve the question of how to re-organize my sites.

Here is what I found out ( Nothing earth shattering really :-) )

Three things happen here :

1. Every once in a while, I manage to write something reasonably long and worth reading. This is a rare occurance and happens mostly once or twice in a month :-)

2. I post a lot of links to other sites/stories. This happens frequently.

3. Rarely, Very rarely I write about myself. The archives show me that this has happenned maybe less than 10 times in the last six months.

Now I have two sites and three types of articles.

For the first type of articles, I have re-designed Tamizhan and am re-opening it. ( PS : I am not the kid in the photograph there :) ).

For the second type of posts, I have started a new chota blog at masala.tamizhan.com under the name masala : netLife. This should be the most frequently updated of the three.

And the third type of posts, the ones which talk about my own life, will remain in this site. I hope to write a lot more of what happens in my life in an effort to create an archive of my own life so that at a later point in life, I can look back and laugh at myself :-).

So thats it folks.

Hop over to Tamizhan and Masala to see the newly opened sites. Not much of a design there actually. Something barely enough to hold the content. A more complete design will be put up shortly.

Do tell me your views on all three :-).

The day after

I got a hundred odd responses to the rediff.com article that I wrote ( If you havent read it, read it here). I am happy to find that 85 % of the people agree with my views, around 5 % agree partially and the remaining 10 % disagree. I am happy with these numbers and I can live with them.

Some are the responses, I got are :

Manoj says

Hello,
I cannot conceive of any more simplistic way to say GOD IS LOVE and to make a point that no religion or god ever preached fighting.

Thank you very much, Anand.

Tirumal says

Hi
I just wanted to say that this was very powerful. How true... every word that is said in this diary... what a service of Rediff to humanity... Just keep up these standards of excellence. Just made my day.....I have printed it... saved it.. Thanks.

and so on.

Some of the *very* negative comments include “Let us kill this guy” and “This guy is a complete failure in life” . I dont know what to say other than criticism should be directed towards what i said, not a personal attack on me.

Some of the more positive criticisms were centred around the communist idealogy and how such experiments have already failed. What I have to say here is this : Communism took away much more from a person other than his Religion. A person was stripped of all his possessions. What I was wishing for was the removal of just the religion. Maybe, that will result in a more pleasing endresult. Again, you cant suppress something. If we have to end religion, It has to be by a majority decision. Once you suppress something, it will rear its head in some form or the other. So if at all something of this happens, it has be accepted by the majority as the best way forward. I know it is wishfull thinking and that was precisely the tone in which the article was written. A wish, A hope for a better world.

My good friend, Ammu wrote in saying Man's basic nature is the problem and that has to change not religion. What I had to say to her is this : Agreed, Man's basic nature has to change. There is something of the animal left in all of us. It lies sleeping in all of us, waiting for the right amount of provocation to rear its ugly head. Religion is the one of the biggest triggers for this. There is something fundamental about Religion and God that provokes a Man more than anything else. So I suggest we take away this trigger. Hopefully, things might improve.

As usual in a debate, People agree and disagree. I am happy that i have struck a chord in many a heart and that is the good that I will carry forward from all this.

Thanks for reading.