Hello again. So I've been dormant, and surprise, nobody probably noticed. But I'm somebody who hankers after approval and attention from others, so I was gratified to learn that I've gotten visitors from Egypt, among other countries. Yes, you are being watched by Big B. Just kidding.

I got married in the ensuing hiatus, and its a nice change, believe me. The wedding was the fun part, and it was good to have lots of loved ones around you for the big occasion.

We went honeymooning to God's own country(that's Kerala, a state in Southern India) and were awed by the lush greens in Thekkady and Munnar, and the houseboat experience at Alappuzha was wonderful, though we did have a little tiff with the mosquitos there. Kerala is a very hospitable place, though its really too full of coconut oil for my liking.

And while I was off, I find that the stock exchange's index continued its northward movement without me riding its coattails, and as usual I'm caught between fear and greed on whether to jump in now, when prices are already heated up to the sky.

Leads me to think, what is this pursuit of money for? Why do we lead our lives absorbed in petty things, which are shown up to be so only when confronted by the really important things. Beats me. I mean, I think I know all the answers, but it doesn't help, and I continue to be petty(or at least doing the petty act).

I shall continue some other day before I dump my entire philosophy on this blog.
Cheerio!

I'm always full of opinions, and I say to myself that I can express them pretty well to others, but its pretty surprising how I find very little to write about in my blog. Is it because my life is pretty dull and uninteresting? Perhaps. Or maybe this will change if I jot down my thoughts as they occur so that I can post them later.

Anyway, since my last update, I've rediscovered the pleasures of using private transport(selfish me, so hang me for it ;-P), and travel by car on my H-O-H route. It saves me a lot of time, and allows me to spend some time working out at the nearby gym.

I also have other longings: to be able to play the violin really well, and to make a difference in the life of a few less-fortunate people. I think I should be able to do both, but just don't know when.

I discovered "stumbleupon" recently, and really love it. To me, it brings home the beauty of the internet in a way I've not experienced before. Instead of wondering what to search for, and only chancing upon some good sites, this is a neat way of navigating your way thru the riff-raff on the net. But again, there's just too many more sites than I can do justice to ever...

Bangalore travails: Since I changed jobs recently, and my new office doesn't have enough parking space(which is typical of all these high-rise office buildings here), I decided to chance my luck with the "common-man" bangalorean, and travel by bus. I prefer buses over autos(ubiquitous 3-wheeler transports for Indian cities) for these reasons:

1. a bus is more comfortable over the potholes, of which there are many
   
2. you feel a little less of the noise and air pollution, of which there is lots
3. there is lesser problem of coughing up the right "change"
4. I reduce congestion and pollution on the roads(he-he, but I'm being serious)
5. I like observing people, and there's more people in a bus to observe :)
   

But Bangalore buses are the worst among all cities that I've seen. You can pile on a list of complaints that will include:

• sign-boards : this problem comes in all varieties. Sometimes there are none, sometimes they're poorly illuminated, they're all written in Kannada and Kannada only, the number is written in yellow on a red background, which, believe me, is not very good for visibility. Thank God for the numbers, which are in english numerals, but a few years back, even numbers were written in Kannada. I think that *really* encouraged a lot of "outsiders" to learn the Kannada maathu. Some buses, just to relive old times, come without any numbering(!?!?!?), and signage in pure Kannada(I hope).
  
• bus-stops: most of the bus-stops do not have information on which buses stop there. What is more, most buses stop almost as an after-thought, bang-in-the-middle-of-the-road, forcing old women and children to navigate between other speeding vehicles(including the ubiquitous autos) in order to board. Sadistic?
• cost-cutting: What's really pathetic is that sometimes drivers issue tickets, and if you're wondering what's new since this system is in place in almost every developed country, here the poor driver has to collect the money, tear the ticket from a set of books, give back change, all mostly done while he is driving since he has to move from the bus-stop where he has parked bang-in-the-middle-of-the-road!!! In a country which is flush with the educated-unemployed, you would think that they would have at least one conductor per bus...

So in spite of all these things, I have still stuck to my bus travails, ahem, travels. And I feel Bangalore can learn a lot from Chennai, which is just 300 kms away, in order to eliminate most of these problems. Not that the Chennai Metropolitan Transport Corporation is perfect, but its certainly better.

Funnily enough, Bangalore's aping of the west is taken to newer heights: yesterday, I saw a bright sign at a particularly busy intersection which said: "Buckle up, its the law"!!! I remember seeing this only in the US before. What's funny is that most of the vehicles on the roads here are 2-wheelers(motorbikes, scooters etc.) and autos, none of which really have any safety mechanisms. And usually cars here can't travel at speeds of more than 25 kmph within the city, which means safety belts don't matter much. So what is that sign really doing there? Improve the bloody infrastructure guys, put more buses on the road rather than wasting money on bright signs that mean zilch to real public safety.

anniyan : meaning alien. It is Shankar's newest film, and I quite liked it, even though it comes across like a rehash of his earlier hits Indian, and Gentleman. Especially, the lead actor Vikram's grouse that everyone blames others' deficiencies for the lapses in the system, while justifying their own lapses by saying that everyone else does it! Pretty cool. Just what I do, and perhaps you too :)

Which is fine, maybe, but upto a limit, since we can't all be perfect. Maybe most of us wont think twice about littering the street("it's just a bus ticket, a little piece of paper"), but perhaps almost everybody would baulk at doing something that we know would directly harm another person. I mean, if most of us weren't like this, then the world would truly be much more difficult to live in.

Its really a number of small things that cumulatively will result in bettering society. I've heard that cities in the US, in the 1960s, were crime-ridden with mafia and thugs, but their civil government is truly enviable now(like that of many other developed nations). So perhaps India will get there too, and the elements that go into transforming society(and hence government), are slowly getting into place - higher literacy, better oppurtunities(though not for all, yet), and more knowledge of the outside world getting into even the rural backpockets.

I am very hopeful, and like it is said in the song, "jana gana mana" from the film "ayitha ezhuthu": "kanavugal vella, kaariyam thuNai", meaning, "actions are the ways to realize dreams.

The Title's in thamizh(aka Tamil), a language that is the native tougue to about 80 million people around the world manam = heart/mind; oru = one; kurangu = monkey.

Thanks to Blogger for providing me this venue. I have many random thoughts, and I'm very opinionated and like to launch into a discourse about anything that I know something about. I try to curb that tendency in verbal conversations(with reasonable success). But I don't need to extend such courtesy in my blogs! I'll also try to forget the thamizh proverb "nirai kudam thaLumbAdhu", transliterated to "water does not slosh when the vessel's filled to the brim"(ugh!). Of course, you're invited to respond to my postings.