Robin…

It’s been more than three months, I joined my new organization Moog controls. With new friends who fall in the same wavelength as mine, it did not take much time to adjust to new environment. The routine is more the less same as it was in Geometric. Usually have to take a walk from my place to pickup point, it takes less than 10 min (This is the only exercise I do and added up almost 4kgs more to my existing weight… Dinesh… U need to think seriously boy…). Our new cab driver Murthy is not much talkative as Manju, our cab fella in Geometric. He is quite, but pretty organized and decent. Minds his work, never mingles with anyone, and neither joins any cab parties either (we’ll change him soon though). But never misses out any of the cab mates unless it’s too late.

We have a good group in mechanical team. Very jovial and fun loving people, but at work all will be damn serious and professional.

Daily, I board cab around 6.20 in the morning and reach sharply by 7.15 (I take a good nap in cab). There won’t be much of noise as well as environmental pollution early in the morning. The day starts with cup of hot tea and some light gup-shup with pals. Usually will be related to some general stuff or pulling someone’s leg (or sometimes mine is also pulled). By 7.30 everyone will glue to their computer monitors. All of 27 heads will indulge totally themselves into work with occasional email forwards and chats across the table, either for some general discussion or kind of help seeking and troubleshooting from colleagues.

Almost a week back Ranjit, Chandru and Harish, my colleagues observed some sound coming from window.

“Tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic”…

Initially they though must be due to the window curtain frame hitting the glass… But later when it repeated regularly, they decided to check out from where the sound was coming from.

There was a small bird, Chandru calls Robin, was sitting and hitting the glass window. May be Robin was trying to come inside the office. Was he looking for an association with us or he wants to gain knowledge about what we folks do here…? Robin looks very handsome and smart. Since the windows will be shut to have a controlled temperature for AC, he has to knock the glass of the window. Interestingly he keeps knocking window glass on Gnaneshwar’s side sometime and Sripadh’s side. We think he is inclined towards CFD and Structural analysis.

“chewn….chewn….chewn….chewn….”

He grabs attention from the ones sitting near the window and moves away and sits on nearby tree calling his friends (or may be girlfriend/wife… wink). Robin is repeating this routine from almost a week and since we don’t understand his language, we are unable to establish a formal communication with him. But surely will establish soon and try to check out his area of interest and how soon we could be friends.

We would like to see Robin as one of our member and we share good time amongst us.

As the concrete jungles occupy the extension limits of the city, we are really excited to see tall trees and greenery around our campus. On a sad note, it’s really un-imaginable to estimate the number of birds and other species displaced from one place to other as we go on building the new apartments and software parks. There were hundreds of trees being cut in the name of flyovers, underpasses and metro project. It is hard to estimate how many Robins were either displaced from their homes and how many simply got killed in the name of these flyovers, underpasses and metro project. It sounds like some movie where an alien ship comes, displaces human beings from their place and occupies all of our land (Remember I AM LEGEND movie…?).

Frankly speaking the GARDEN CITY, Namma Bengalooru has lost all its charm when it comes to greenery. Daily so many trees are cut. The summer is becoming hotter and hotter. And this is gonna go worst in future.

Still the future is purely in our hands. We can still build a good future…

Wish the ecological balance of this planet is preserved and the nature and human beings maintain the equilibrium avoiding more man-animal conflicts…

(Photos – Chandrashekhar K N)

Ohh God….!!!

After liberalization almost everything has become commercial. Especially after Y2K, we only tend to see money. In one of my previous blog “House To-Let” I did share how some people converted their tiny homes into money making (rather sucking) machines.

Apart there are many others who are in the fray who simply suck the hard earned money as if it’s their right to do so. And they do it without any regret or shame.

An auto driver who demands whatever he feels throwing away all the rules and regulations. For him one and half meter starts around 8.30 pm only. In case the place is located in remote area then that could go up to double the meter. And in case your destination is very nearer then he will not bother to return the change. (I only met one Auto driver so far who promptly returned 1 Re).

We have loads of commercial complexes and multiplexes whose sole intention is to suck money.

There are many many restaurants who simply charge double to North Indian meals than south Indian meals. (Don’t understand the right logic behind this)

Now latest is “GOD”.

Yeah, temples here (else where too) are fully commercialized. We had been to nearby temple on Mahashivarathri last week. The “archaka” (priest) was very  sincerely blessing people with Prasad and Teertha (holy water) to those, who had given more “dakshine” (offering to god) compared to one who have not paid anything. There was a kind of negligence in his eyes while giving Prasada and Teertha to such people. Interestingly he was chanting mantras which were no where related to lord Shiva (instead they were more onto lord Vishnu) raising questions about archaka’s knowledge of vedic procedures to be followed.

This is not the first time such incident happened . Sometime back my wife wanted to go to Sri Raghavendra swamy math near Navarang circle (Dr. Rajkumar road). Being Thursday, there was a huge gathering of devotees as usual. The archaka did not care for people who did not put any dakshine in mangalarathi. For these devotees he did not offer anything, even teertha was given to only those who offered some dakshine in mangalarathi. Finally on Thursday, few people returned from “Rayara Matha” without any prasada. (I think GOD also should be observing all these things and how he is being used as a marketing tool. He will not be very happy though).

Once we went to Bull temple in Bangalore. It was around 9 in the morning. Though there were 3-4 archakas roaming around here and there, but nobody bothered to even look around. Even after calling and asking them to give teertha-prasada, these people were in their own world. It seemed as if they were waiting for some one to arrive, as their eyes were glued to the entrance. Yeah, our guess was correct. Around ten minutes later, a person who seemed to be either a rich politician or a businessman with 4-5 of his people rushed in. His appearance clearly showed that he was a more than rich category person. Suddenly all of archakas rushed in and started performing pooja. It was more to appease their VIP guest than GOD. There was a kind of satisfaction in archakas as the VIP passed through the main door. As he went, we expected at least later they would concentrate on remaining few devotees. But now they started to discuss about what best they could done to impress their VIP client. We thought it was too much to stand there and decided to come out. (I remembered the way we used to treat the client visit to our company. I think that rich fella was one of the important clients to them.)

There have been new innovative techniques like special darshana, special prasadam and so on at an additional cost. You pay slightly more money and will get darshana early bypassing the Que. There will be tickets issued for all mundane things we perform at temple. Soon in future there would be no darshana without paying money. With such treatment to devotees or people who come to seek solace in GOD, the selfish and commercial behavior of temple staff will be disappointing.  And soon GOD would not like to see (or people around him will not let) poor people forcing them to seek peace in some other religion (This is being emotionally and cleverly used to convert backward tribal into some other religion as well. But at this point of time I don’t want to talk about that issue).  Religion is being politicized, commercialized and used to divide people across different social statures. Religion has become a tool to amass wealth and misguide people for few people’s selfish objectives.

The so called “Threat to Hinduism” is more from such people than others “foreign elements”. We need to act fast to save every religion from such elements to maintain the sanctity of this great country. Let every Religion guide us to peace and love rather than dividing us.