It's good to see familiar faces in a place where you once lived.
It makes you feel 'you are part of it even now'
Finding familiar faces seems very easy too in small cities rather than in big cities.
Visiting favourite shops and finding familiar faces in Davangere where i spent my weekend recently was one such experience.

Less than 48 hrs and three Telugu movies is hard to digest that too in a situation when you are in a bus and can't look away.
Movies with hard-to-believe actions (some of the actions does look like a scene from a comedy movie), filled with violence, with born-to-rich-dads heroes (Jr.NTR and Charan Raj) are a nightmare.
It's worse when children watch the same with their wide open eyes.

Memories

I just finished reading the review about this book 'Moonwalking with Einstein' by Joshua Foer (a science journalist) who trained his memory and won the U.S Memory Championship.
And it seems like a very good one.

In one of the interviews when asked (which i really think is true):

'What is the connection between memory and our sense of time?'

He says, 'As we get older, life seems to fly by faster and faster. That's because we structure our experience of time around memories. We remember events in relation to other events. But as we get older, and our experiences become less unique, our memories can blend together. If yesterday's lunch is indistinguishable from the one you ate the day before, it'll end up being forgotten. That's why it's so hard to remember meals. In the same way, if you're not doing things that are unique and different and memorable, this year can come to resemble the last, and end up being just as forgettable as yesterday's lunch. That's why it's so important to pack your life with interesting experiences that make your life memorable, and provide a texture to the passage of time'.

Changing fate

Long back i had read a witty poem about 'a person who visits a dentist and dreads that his fate might be completely changed after his dental treatments'.
That's the way he describes the pain he undergoes while the dentist performs his procedures.
The pain is so immense that he had to clench his palm very tight while his nails poke against it.
This, in turn, might erase the fine lines in his palm and would alter his fate forever!!!

Every time i visited a dentist (which i did very often) i would remember this poem and laugh.
For the last three years i was happy that didn't have to meet a dentist but the joy was short lived as i had to meet him again recently.

Of course these days the procedures get over very fast and easily compared to few years ago, so the dentist cannot change one's 'fate' in these days. But the fillings and the subsequent 'crowns' fixed on the tooth can definitely change the way people smile or laugh (as they have to open their mouth and everyone can see the 'steel tooth' instead of natural one.)

And this time when i opened my mouth in front of the dentist he himself aptly defined it as being a 'dentist's paradise'!!!

Fragrance

No one can beat this sign board which was infront of a railway crossing:
"When close the gate
Then take the queue".

Ecological Intelligence

Last week in the TV I happenend to see an interview with Daniel Goleman speaking about the Science of Relationships.
Goleman is considered to be the father of Emotional Intelligence and his book "Emotional Intelligence" topped the New York Times Bestseller list for almost year-and-a-half.
After this success he spoke about Social Intelligence and now very recently he has come with another idea called "Ecological Intelligence".
Ecological Intelligence is nothing but the intelligence that we use to make this planet a more greener place to live in.
Explaining the same in his website, he gives an example: 'Three teen-aged girls are at a shopping mall looking for sunscreen. It’s an impulse purchase, and it has to be an all-natural choice. They think they’ve found what they’re looking for at one store, but on the way to the register one of the girls takes out her phone and swipes it by the barcode of the product they’ve selected. Moments later, as she’s pulling out a credit card at the register, her iPhone announces an incoming email. It’s a short message informing her that the item she is about to purchase contains compounds that are linked to the decimation of coral reefs. Moreover, the plastic container is difficult to recycle. Because her phone has pinpointed her location via GPS, she also learns that another store in the mall carries a “greener” sunscreen that has neither of those two problems. The girls leave the register and make a beeline for the other store.'
His interview on the TV lead me to discover all these details about him and his new terminologies and finally led me to this article by which I think many can contribute to save our planet.

The false 'depths' of Araku valley

Call it the exaggeration of the locals or the extreme advertisement of the AP tourism or the bad taste for travel of the people of A.P, Araku is indeed not a tourist destination from any angle.
We had heard a loooot about the place and the unavailability of any pacakges from APTDC and the train tickets gave us the impression that it's not the place to be 'missed'.
As per our (me n S's) internet search and the local folks it was the train journey from Vizag to Araku that's supposed to give the best view of the scenic beauty.
May be it was a sign when we didn't get the train reservation that we were headed in the wrong direction which we didn't notice.
Actually we found it was through road that we could enjoy more rather than the crowded and ever screaming people in the train (screaming as the train passes through several tunnels).
The only hotels that are situated in the Araku are managed by APTDC whose service is utterly chaotic.
The sooo called local sight seeing places are nothing but a tribal museum and a botanical garden which give the impression of nothing more than our lifestyle in the village and a park respectively.
The whole tour was so depressive and the only ocassion when I laughed that day was when a lady in the so called botanical garden was showing her husband 'the pineapple TREE':0 in actual a decorative plant with light green leaves which stood tall and haggard.
Nothing could be more dissapointing than this!
Of course, our trip to the next destination the after that was more appealing and it compensated for the previous day.

I think my unfinished tasks tend to get sorted out more easily when i am angry.
When i am angry, i don't think twice whether to finish the job or not but just start doing it.
May be that's the reason it's get done more faster too.
But getting angry only for the reason of getting my undone jobs finished isn't a good idea either.

Footprints of Vizag trip

I and S did enjoy our holiday at Vizag.
But, there too we were destined to experience a disappointment.
Though we had a great time at Vizag, our satiety levels were brought down by our Araku visit (about which i will write separately).
Beautiful and clean beaches, serene light house and hotels and restaurants serving to tingle our taste buds made it a good destination.
Our little one too had a great time getting into the blue water of Bay of Bengal.

Panna

Panna is a book,a fairy- tale meant for children. But, the moment I saw the book I was taken by the beautiful drawings inside it which I later learnt is Madhubani folk art.
It's written by Kamala Das who is a poet and this book is her first attempt in writing children's book.

"Panna lives on the seaside with her brother Moti, a fisherman. One day, while waiting for Moti to return from the high seas with his catch of fish, Panna falls asleep. When she wakes up, she finds she has magically reached the land under the sea. And what a wonderful land it is, with its pearl-lined streets, coral houses and green moving sky. Here she meets the Fish King and Fish Queen. But becomes of poor Moti when he returns from the sea and finds his beloved sister gone?"

This being the story, children would certainly enjoy reading it as did I.

To kill a mocking bird

I must admit that I started reading this book because of Mouna's suggestion and I am glad I read it.
I read it twice- the first time I was forced to give away the book to the library when I had almost finished it. So had to borrow it the second time. So as not miss the link I started it from the beginning and it was good as things gave much more meaning to me when I read it the second time.
There were several instances where I would laugh loudly at all the adventures of Jem, Scout and Dill (especially the Boo Radley incident) and would look up to see if someone is watching me laughing like that.

One can relive their childhood days while reading this book.

I think it's not just the humor that bound me with the characters but the intricacies with which they teach the simple lessons of life, of adulthood and growing up.

The little episodes of Boo Radley; fire at Ms. Maudie's; Jem and Scout's encounter with Mrs. Dubose; Atticus shooting at the mad dog; Dill's running away; the case of Tom Robinson and at the end Boo Radley saving the children from Mr. Ewell; all carry such good messages with a touch of humor.

I really enjoyed reading the book.

The Act of Smiling

A few years ago I happened to read this book called 'Phantoms in the Brain' by Dr. V. S. Ramachandran. He said there are two different circuits for the act of smiling. 'When you see a friend you grin. But, when the same Friend aims a camera at your face and asks you to smile you fail to do so. Instead of a natural expression, you produce a hideous grimace.

The reason these two kinds of smiles differ is that different brain regions handle them and only one of them contains a specialised "smile circuit". A spontaneous smile is produced by the basal ganglia. When you encounter a friendly face, the visual message from that face eventually reaches the brains emotional center or limbic system and is subsequently relayed to the basal ganglia, which orchestrate the sequences of facial muscle activity needed for producing a natural smile. These entire cascade of events happen in a fraction of a second without the thinking parts of your cortex ever being involved.

But when someone asks you to smile, the verbal instruction from the photographer is received and understood by the higher thinking centers in the brain, including the auditory cortex and language centers. From there it is relayed to the motor cortex in the front of the brain, which specialises in producing voluntary skilled movements'.

So when you smile next time at your friend and at the camera remember the work that our brain carries out.

Shadow on the wall

The shadow of my favourite Tara devi idol.