The Fifth of Nine.

Well it turns out that satisfying trips to Mangalore can be made, even without a Twister at Cherry Square. We took one such trip last evening to witness the 'Mangalore Dasara' celebrations being held at Kudroli in Mangalore. Roads upto 3 kms away from the main venue were lit up and festivity could be felt in the air.
The main celebrations were happening at the Kudroli Gokarnanatha temple. It turned out that we didnt know much about Navrathri celebrations or it's significance. All I could connect were hazy dots about Durga Matha slaying Mahishasura, 9 days of festivity, proximity to Deepavali and that was pretty much it. Oh yes, also there was this one day on Saraswati Puja when the Resnick and Hallidays and the Parkersmiths would take a jaunt out of their dusty shelves and be wiped and worshipped. So, as I rode the supercrowded Express to Kudroli, I made up my mind to gain some knowledge about Navarathri.

The lane leading upto the temple was thronged, with the usual peddlers and beggars(Damn, I miss those summer vacation temple fairs at my village). The arrangements seemed nice and the lights looked stunning and the twilight was still receding slowly. We were bathed in blissful yellow light in the temple complex. Each of the temples dedicated to different Gods were beautifully decorated. The main attraction was the NavaDurga idols about which I will mention a little later. The Darshana was good and it was calm experience, the large crowd notwithstanding.
All in all, it just felt good to be there.
I suggest people close to Mangalore to take just a couple of hours and be part of the celebrations. You can alight at the Lady Hill stop and take another bus going to Kudroli. It will definitely be worth the effort.

So, as I knew very little about the significance of the festival, I thought I will do some research and it turned out to be a enlightening to say the least. In any case, I will just mention here, the Navadurga, Her Dhyaan Mantra and the English translation. I was fortunate to be able to capture some pics of the idols kept at the temple and I was happy that I learnt something about each of the idols.I have posted below, the Navadurga, along with the pictures of the idols at the temple.

Vande vaanchhit laabhaaya chandrardha krita shekharaam

Vrishaarudham shuladharam Shaila-putrim yashasvinim

May the illustrious Shailaputri Durga whom I salute and whose head is adorned by a halfmoon, who rides nandi a bull and carries a spear fulfill the desires of my heart,.

Dadhanakara Padmabhyam akshamala kamandalam

Devi prasidathu mayi brahmacharinya nuththama

May the supreme Brahmachari Durga, who holds rosary and kamandalu in her lotus hands and whose nature is to attain Sachchidanandamaya Brahmaswarupa the Existence-Knowledge-Bliss absolute, be propitious on me.

Prindajapra vararoodhaa chandakopastha kairyutha

Prasadam thanuthe mahyum Chandraghantethi vishrutha

May that Durga Devi, who rides on Garuda, the king of the birds, who is endowed with intense anger and violence and is renowned by the name of Chandaghanta, bestow her grace on me.

Suraa sampoorna kalasham rudhiraplu thwamevacha

Dadhanaa hasthapadmabhyam Kushmanda shubhadaasthu may

May Kushmanda Durga who holds two pitchers full of blood in her lotus hands and the universe is created, sustained and drawn within herself in a wink be propitious for me.

Simhasanagatha nityam padmashritha kara dwayaa

Shubhadaasthu sadaa devi Skandamaata yashaswini

May the renowned Durga Devi Skandamata who is eternally seated on a throne and whose hands are adorned with lotuses, be ever propitious to me.

Chandrahaasojhwala karaa Shardhula varavaahana

Katyayani shubham dadyath devi danava ghathinee

May the ever watchful Durga Devi Katyayani, who holds shining Chandrahasa (Sword) in her hand and rides a magnificent lion and destroys the demons, bestow welfare on me.

Karala roopaa kaalabjaa samanakruthi vigraha

Kalaratri shubha dadhath devi chandatta hasini

May she Bhayankari Durga who is naked with long lips, riding an ass, shining in various hues looks formidable because of the halo of her lustre and is adorned with multi coloured ornaments remove my darkness of ignorance.

Shwethe vrusha samaarudha shwetambara dharaa shuchih

Mahagauri shubham Dadyaan mahadeva pramodadaa

May the Mahagauri Durga who rides a white rishabha bull and who wears spotless white clothes and remains ever pure and also provides ever lasting bliss to Mahadeva Shiva bestow all auspiciousness.

Siddha gandharva yakshadhyie asuraira marairapi

Sevya maanaa sadaa bhooyaath siddhidaa Siddhidaayini

May the ever victorious Siddhidayini Durga, who is always worshipped by the hordes of siddha, gandharva, yaksha, asura, and deva, bestow success at my every venture.

Although we tend to shoot down certain ideas as plain mythology of the gone ages and that they have no meaning to this day, let us also realise that the principles that each of the stories that we term so naively as childish fiction are actually all the more relevant today.
Great Thought evolves in trying to search for the Creator - be it in the search of Truth on the Chariot at Kurukshetra or in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.
Great Art evolves in trying to reach for this Creator - be it in the Classical danceforms or in the strumming of an electric guitar.
Let us celebrate in our own way, the victory of good over evil this Dasara and make these golden ideas a part of our life.

Meetings along the Edge

Leaving the world behind,
Rediscovering the self,
Attempting to make complete sense out of something at the least,
Justifying held ideals and discovering new ones,
Remaking the boundary between triviality and profundity....

Our recent trip to Gokarna was an unintended quest for some form of clarity.



Four hours along the Konkan rail,
Rickety ride to Kudle,
Delightfully secluded and truly multinational shack,
an all the more satisfying sizzler,
Warm soft sands, the cool and clear sea, the blazing hot sun and the chilling drizzle - and that delectable interplay among them all.
Eeriness of dead fish at the sea,
Raw force of the almost divine waves,
Little trek up a hillock,
One of nature's endlessly beautiful endless panoramas,
Adverted to the insignificance of all that was important,
Frantic descent in the fast-receding twilight,
Silent tea by the shack,
Well deserved Russian Salad,
The bizarre "Gokarna Lights",
Deep slumber as crashing waves lullaby,
Pancakes as in Pancakes for breakfast,
Effortless trek to ॐ,
Sober introspection by the rocks, amidst incessantly crashing waves,
The King - both the fish and the fisher,
Rickety jesht-adjesht on rick to station,
Four hours down the Konkan,
and.... we're back!


Everything's so quiet and peaceful and as I hurriedly write this memoir, I anticipate this high I ride to recede soon and things to get more obscure and muddled as days go by.
Here's hoping it doesn't or at least not before the Cow's Ear is revisited.



PS - "Meetings along the Edge" is a brilliant instrumental by Pandit Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass.

Whatever happened to Learning

A post on similar lines was intended for quite some time, but I could never really get myself to putting it down.

Before entering NITK for a degree in Electrical Engineering, there was no clear idea as to what I wanted to do and what I needed to do. Like anyone else, most of the learning that happened involved gigantic tomes of pointless reactions and formulae. After all, it was sacrilege to not enrol yourself to a prestigious JEE coaching place. What was all the more disappointingly ironic was the fact that some of the finest ideas of science and mathematics were being introduced during this period, including calculus, linear algebra and quantum theory and the only thing that mattered was how an MCQ could be posed and what could be the best possible way to go about answering it.
The most prime of time was lost in such meaningless exercises.
So, for me the usual typical story followed - an almost worthless JEE rank and I had to 'compromise' with an EE seat at NITK Surathkal. Ah, well! I thought undergraduate studies at such a reputed institute would bring some welcome change with its approach to teaching and my approach to learning.The fact that this blog continues to rant, should tell you if that expectation was fulfilled.
The usual studying-for-marks concept continues, notwithstanding the 'continuous evaluation' adpoted here.The fact that we students, being more independent continue to choose another path,indicates that we are cuplable right from the start. The only incentive that stands out is a possible AA or a just managable DD or one of their ugly cousins.

And as I come to the last year of study (no points for guessing which of the ugly cousins favoured me), all hopes for learning for the joy of it is quashed under the oncoming fury of CAT,GRE,GMAT,GATE and what not.

Its perhaps in our own interests that we pursue something that is actually intellectually satisfying, independent of the system that we are in, because it is not going to change for a long time to come(I hope it does).

For too long, in the coming.

*Reserved for lame excuses for not having blogged for like 8 ass-butt months.*

Yes, with that out of the way, I should mention that an aimless Saturday evening,a day before the TOEFL can be encouraging to revive a long -dead and rotting blog.


I have been occupied with 3 rather interesting books for the past couple of days. Actually one of them has tried to keep me occupied for over a month now. Needless to say, it hasn't done a very good job of it. I borrowed 'The Constants of Nature' by John.D.Barrow from a friend(link serves as cheap thrill to a blogging noobie as well as publicity to namma Gullu's blog) of mine. The author - a research professor in applied mathematics with an obvious passion for astronomy tries to figure out the deeper meaning of the constants that arise in nature, if they ever exist. The book makes for some real heavy reading and this has been the major reason why I haven't come around to finishing it.

Anyway, the other two that have occupied most of yesterday and today are 'Glimpses of World History' by Jawaharlal Nehru and 'Gödel, Escher,Bach - an Eternal Golden Braid' by Douglas R Hofstadter. The former, as most would know is a compilation of a series of letters that the Pandit wrote to his daughter, Indira Gandhi over 30 months from jail. Nehru does full justice to his title, displaying a stunning grasp of the past and present affairs of the world, with minimal references while in immurement. The other book is what I want to write about in this blog.

Yes, it might be premature to write about a book (especially this huge one) only after reading it only for 2 days. But that only strengthens the case for it. In just a couple of days, the book has had a really strong hold over me. In the words of the publisher , the book is "A Metaphorical Fugue on Minds and Machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll". The book actually in a some way till now has tried to address what the author calls 'Strange Loops' that he thinks occurs everyday. Basically, he is trying to address the reason why a set of apparently meaningless symbols can combine together to form meaning, just like how ultimately lifeless particles can come together to form life. He attributes this to a strange kind of loopiness whereby the particles become aware of themselves. (At least that is just one of the many things I am guessing the author is getting at).

The book begins with a descriptions of people in the title :
Gödel was a famous logician in the beginning of the twentieth century, Escher a famous Dutch graphic artist and Bach - the immensely famous German composer in the early to mid 18th century. Each of these people in some form, displayed through their works - in mathematics, art and music respectively how this enigmatic idea of "Strange Loops" can come about.

Although the material can get tiring and formidable at times, the satisfaction of having understood, at least in part what such an impressive author says , is great.
Do read the book or at least what is purports to explain. I am sure it is in someway related to your boring Sunday musing, "What is life? What is consciousness"........

Born In Time

In the lonely night in the blinking stardust of a pale blue light
You're coming through to me in black and white when we were made of dreams
You're blowin' down a shaky street you're hearing my heart beat
In the record breaking heat where we were born in time.

Not one more night not one more kiss
Not this time babe no more of this
Takes too much skill takes too much of will
It's too revealing.

You came you saw just like the law
You married young just like you ma
You tried and tried you made me slide
You left me reeling with this feeling

On the rising curve where the ways of nature will test every nerve
You don't get anything you don't deserve where we were born in time.

You pressed me once you pressed me twice
You hung the blade you'll pay the price
Oh babe that fire is still smoking.

You were snow you were rain
You were striped you were plain
Oh babe truer words have not been spoken
Or broken.

If there's a mystery in the foggy world of destiny
You can have what's left of me where we were born in time.


*OK What in God's name does this awesome sounding track mean?!!*