Seshadri's Musings

I came across this phrase last week.   I don’t remember where I saw this.   You can attribute it to my getting old!!   This phrase got into my mind and made me write this blog.   When I began to think about this, it all seemed to be too true!! Giving to others bring a great joy to the giver.   It can even be a small thing for the giver but the act itself is so pleasurable that you end up giving more than you bargained for!   And as long it brings you joy, you keep on giving!!   It may not necessarily be monetary in nature.   It can be things, things that can make them happy like wishing them on their important dates, doing something out-of-ordinary for them, making people cut cakes for the first time in their life on their birthdays/anniversaries when they are over 70+ etc etc.   On my part too, I give happiness to others whenever I can and I am happy that I have done all the things mentioned above 😊 .   Like calling the per...

In late October, my wife said that she wanted to go to Tirupati in December. As I had taken up an assignment at that time that had a 6-day work-week, we decided to do it on a Sunday.   She booked the online slot for darshan for 16 th December and I booked the flight tickets for the same day.   I booked the flight tickets for early morning and late night so that in case there is crowd for the darshan, we might still be able to catch the last flight to Hyderabad for our return journey. On 16 th we caught the 7am flight and landed by 815am at Tirupati.   I had already booked a self-drive car at Tirupati.   As the car site was between the airport and the temple, we took an auto to the site and got our car.   Out slot for darshan was at 1pm, so we had breakfast and went to the Tiruchanur temple.   After the darshan, we went to Tirupati.   Before our climb to the temple site, one lady from CRPF asked for a lift to the temple site.   We took he...

Yes, you heard it right😊.  Sometimes it is best to be lazy and let things drift for some time before you spend your mind/energy on it.  As long as you remember that the thing is still pending to be done, it is ok to relax for a bit and then do it.  Sometimes the thing itself will drift away or resolve itself without you having spent any time pursuing it!! Remember when you used to worry earlier for very petty things and when it got resolved, you were wondering as to why you spent so much time worrying on it!!  That is what life teaches you.  The things that seem mountain today will turn out to be a molehill tomorrow.  So, stop worrying and let things slide till you can work on it to solve it or it gets resolved on its own.  Your worrying about it is not going to help anyone.  The only thing that will happen is that you will be losing your sleep on it by imagining the worst that is going to befall you.  Tomorrow is anyways going to ...

Everyone loves to eat tasty food and more so when they don’t have to cook!  Just order from your mobile or laptop and hey presto, the food arrives at your doorstep, ready to eat!!  With so many companies giving out so many offers online, it makes sense to order online and eat, right?  You are always far away from the truth!! 😊 I also thought so and was ordering food online, well, now and then, which turns out to be once in 3-6 months or so😊.  Since I had some good offers, and wanted to try online ordering of food, I went ahead and ordered food online.  The food was good and I was happy for ordering online without having to go out and getting it. The other day, there was a function at our place and I thought why let the ladies of the house spend time on cooking and let us order from outside. I was checking out the online prices at a well-known place in Kukatpally and had checked out the menu card.    I totaled the items that I wanted to orde...

Welcome to the new world!!   Where anything you do online, is tracked and monitored.   And it is monetized and sold to people who want to know what you are doing online and your spending habits.   And now you are told before itself that whatever you do online is going to be used against you and would be shared with anyone the company feels that it is ok to do so, your privacy be damned. Remember the time when before installing any Windows software or any other software, you were shown an I Agree page where, unless you clicked on “I Agree”, it will not move away from the screen to install the software.   Earlier also no one bothered to read the 3-4 page of information and used to click on I Agree to start the installation.   Now the software has been replaced by an App.   Here you are not given a 3-4 page of information to read.   It just says that by clicking on the “I Accept” or some such Icon, you are handing over whatever information is ther...

You find so many languages in the world that some words in some language translate into quite different in another language.   Many times, it brings a smile to our faces when we hear of them.   Although if a proper research is done into this, one can earn himself/herself a PhD on this subject alone!! During my trip to Indonesia, I had learnt a couple of words that were an enjoyment to me and I am sure will bring smile to your faces too!!   Kindly note that all of the instances have been conveyed in a manner to entertain and may not have happened in reality 😊😊 While boarding the Thai Airways flight to Indonesia, I was listening to songs on my mobile through the headset.   So, I did not hear anyone till I sat on my designated seat.   Once seated, I removed the headset and wanted to know what movies they were showing during the trip.   I then started hearing “Swati Kha”, “Swati Kha” quite a number of times. I thought maybe there is a kid in the f...

Hi All. I am back again after a long break!!  This blog is just an update as to what all I had been doing in the preceding days.  It will also give a gist of some of the topics that I will be writing about in the next few weeks.  Though I was pre-occupied with a lot of things during this break, mainly it was due to laziness that I avoided blogging!! The break happened as a necessity during July.  I had to leave for Indonesia for some emergency.  During the flight trip and my stay there, I learnt quite a bit of words which I will be using in one of the blogs.  Even though it will be like making fun of another language, please be assured that I have no ulterior motive in this!  I will try to present it in a funny way. During this time, my mother also turned 70 and we had a celebration at our house where many people came to wish her. It began as a non-starter and went to become a well-attended and a happy occasion.  The people who had come had a...

These days you come across so many people, in all walks of life, who will have the gall to do or say anything and then try to get support from others to either justify their saying or saying that they meant something else.   For people living in social media, everything that you say or do is to get attention and then look for ways to convert it into regret in case it does not match with people’s expectations. Recent case is of Priyanka Chopra.   She had known that the episode in Quantico titled, “The Blood of Romeo” was the story of thwarting of a terrorist attack by Indian nationalists and putting the blame on Pakistan for it.   She would have studied the script and then only would have acted in it.   Maybe at that time it was more of how much money she was getting paid rather than concentrating on what she was doing.    As expected, when the show went on air, she got such a voluminous backlash which led her and the producer ABC to apologize for th...

In continuation to the Games series, here are three more games that I have played in the past and are quite interesting.   Playing these games make you fit and also quite enjoyable to play. Long Jump – This is generally played in a ground with some 2-8 people.   We used to make the 2 lines of hurdle by using our slippers!!   The idea is to jump over the space, between the arrangements of players’ slippers!!   See the diagram below You start with three feet of distance between the two rows of slippers, which everyone will cross, from one side to another.   If anyone’s foot touches the slipper while crossing, he is declared out and is out of the game.   Once when everyone has crossed, you increase the distance between the two lines to 5 feet.   Keep on repeating this process of jumping and increasing till such time only one player is left who has not been declared out.   He is then declared the winner.   Why we need to play thi...

I know that seeing a place like Delhi and enjoying its uniqueness will not suffice in 2 days.   But, since nowadays, people have less time to do things physically and do more things online, this will come as a handy tool for seeing some of the important places in Delhi and tick-marking this place in their bucket-list!!   I know that this can be done as I have just done this last month. First identify the list of places that you need to visit in Delhi.   Since I was a Delhiite once upon a time, this trip was for my daughter who had never been there before.   I had done a similar trip with my son some 2 years back.   Once the places are identified, you have to know where you will be staying in Delhi.   With this 2 information, open Google Maps and put the list there as destinations.   Give the time of travel as half hour between the places and give about half hour to one hour for visiting the place.   With this you should be in a good positi...

Don’t get surprised by the heading as to whether I have turned religious!!   The time has still not come!! I recently had a chance to visit this temple in Delhi and just wanted to share my experience with you.   In fact, this temple was not in my itinerary during my Delhi trip.   By chance, one of my friend’s wife mentioned about this when she was enquiring about my schedule for the day.   I thought in case I am able to finish the other sight-seeing’s on that day, maybe I could visit this too.   It so happened that the other visits got over quickly and I went on to spend some 6 hours in this place!! I had a misconception that this is a temple of Gods.   This is actually a temple for one Mr Swaminarayan who lived from 1781 to 1830 in India.   Of course, his followers consider him to be their God.   The main deity in this temple is of Mr Swaminarayan.   The temple is spread over a vast area and you would require some 3-4 hours to com...

Nowadays there are so many money-making machinery available, that we do not even think about how much is made by these institutions/companies/organisations.   I don’t know if these “extra” money is suitably taxed or they just end up making someone’s pocket fatter.   I am just illustrating a few of them below.   I have not mentioned any names as this is a generalized malaise across all the industry. First on the list are the Schools and the Colleges.   In schools, many of them have started their own store where you have to buy the books, uniforms and other materials related to the school work.   Since the school is availing one vendor for sourcing all these items, the schools will be getting some “huge” discount on these items.   But the parents are sold all “these” items at the MRP!!!   The discount that the school has worked out with the vendor, goes to fatten its own pockets!!   It is another matter that most of the items are available ou...

Continuing with the games that I had played during my childhood, here are 2 more that I enjoyed! Pittoo – This is played outdoors in a park or a ground.   You need 7 stones, preferably flat ones that can be arranged one above the other.   Marble stones are preferable as they are flat.   And one tennis ball.   This is a team game. You can have any number between 3-7 in a team.   In the center of the ground, the 7 stones are placed one above the other, as displayed below. A toss is done to determine which team gets to hit the stones first.   The hitter of the team stands some 15 feet away from the stones and throws the ball to hit the stones.   A player of the opposition team stands some 15 feet away from the stone, on the opposite side, to catch the ball in case the player is not able to hit the ball.   In case the player is not able to hit the ball 3 times, he is declared out and does not participate further as long as his team is ...

I have deleted my Facebook account.   Of course, the catalyst was the knowledge that Facebook data has been compromised and my data might be lying anywhere from Chechnya to Chinchpokli!!   I am not sure what they can do with my data as I was not using the account to post anything.   Well, maybe about 10 odd posts from the time I had opened the account!!   I was only logging in when I will get a mail from Facebook that someone had messaged me.   Or if someone wanted me to like their post.   Or if someone wished me on my birthday.   With closure of my Facebook account, anyone wanting to wish me would have to actually call me.   Else they can keep their wishes to themselves!! I am amazed that there are lots of people out there whose life only revolves around how many “likes” they get on their posts.   These people don’t have any other life and most will get into some kind of depression if they don’t get sufficient “likes”.   If you a...

During my childhood, punishments, either in school or at home, were very common and I have received quite a number of them during my school-going days.   With the kind of rage that is spread nowadays, whenever there is a news of a teacher having hit a student, I am wondering as to how as a society we have stooped to such a level that out future generations are going to be bratty and having a false sense of entitlement. In the earlier days, whenever we used to complain about our teachers at home, the first question asked was what we did to get the punishment.   It was a given that the teacher will hit a student only when the student had done something wrong.   Of course, there were some sports teachers for whom hitting a student was time-pass.   But as long as you did what was expected of you, you could even escape from such teachers too. I remember one incident from my school days when I was punished. It was after the Sanskrit half-yearly exam in my 8 th ...