Friends

 Am I ready to blog about the theme for week 50:  Friends :

 

What is a friend ?  These are some of the definitions, I found on the internet, divided into 4 categories.

A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts.

A person whom one knows; an acquaintance.

A person with whom one is allied in a struggle or cause; a comrade.

One who supports, sympathizes with, or patronizes a group, cause, or movement.

What is my definition for a friend ? A friend is a person who does not expect anything in return and is always with you when you need them. A person who follows your activities closely without rebuking you too much, is supportive of you most of the times.

And, this is particularly true for all those married people because they do not appreciate these qualities in their spouses.

Do I have friends ? Not many in the first category. A person whom one knows, likes and trusts. It is very difficult to trust people. From the innumerable stories I hear, I just cant fathom how people whom you trust so much end up cheating you, both friends and relatives. The people whom I consider my close friends are people whom I trust completely. Just a few people with whom I have shared my feelings about everything.They are your back bone in life whether you see them everyday or not.  I am a person of very few words. I talk very little. I take a very long time to get used to a person. If and when that chemistry clicks, I become very close to them.  Otherwise, I don’t talk much.

The second category, whom one knows and is an acquaintance. I have thousands of acquaintances and I just wish them and get on with my job. They come into our lives for a particular period of time and after that, they don’t mean much. Many of them drift away while a few of them keep in touch. I have a few of them who wish me on my birthday and don’t keep in touch with me otherwise. I still appreciate them.

The third category of people whom we meet for a cause. I met a couple of people when I went to Kanpur for doing a workshop. I spent 15 days there. One of them, I met on the train to Kanpur. He did not know hindi at all. As the train moved into North India, he needed a translator. And for the next 15 days, he was so close to me, because he needed somebody to help him with the language. The moment we got back to Tamil Nadu, his need for me just evaporated. These are people who fall into this category. People who will make use of you till their needs are met.

Finally, about the virtual friends that I have, who belong to the 4^th category. I don’t chat much and I don’t befriend people so easily on facebook either. There are more than 100 friend requests in my facebook account and I am very choosy about allowing them acces to my space.

About the people in our 52 week group, there were more than 75 in the begining and it has dwindled down now. I don’t think that excepting a few, the others will keep in touch with me. Wishing every one of them the very best in life.

A thought provoking topic, which made me respond immediately. Friends and friendship is the essence of life. The spouse is an example. She has so many friends and my God, I have seen her chat with her friends on and on and on and on... There was one occasion when I did not even understand from where she got the energy to chat through the night!

She always says that I don’t have friends and I don’t know their value.  Maybe. But I am happy with my set of friends.

Happy friendship.

What is in a name?

Am I ready to blog about the theme for week 46:  

What names (men's and women's) do you like best? Why?

What is in a name?

Nothing at all. It is only an identity. I am one of those types who do not remember names at all. I have had thousands of students and there is no way I can remember their names. I remember many of their faces very distinctly but I struggle with their names. May be because of so many students, I have gradually been attuned not to have favourite names.

There are many people who name their children with alphabets A, B, C so that their names are the first ones on the roll call. Does that matter? There are many who name their children without even knowing the meaning of it. Fancy names are a norm today. Goldwater is a name which is offbeat for me.

Names which are easier to be spelt and pronounced are the ones I like. There are some names which I used to have trouble while taking the attendance in college. And students would laugh at that. Many people take attendance by the numbers but I always used to call the names and pronounce them as right as possible.

What are the names I like the best? Akhila, my favourite neice, Ashwitha, Bhoodevi (sometimes the teachers make fun of this name calling the student moodevi if she is a dullard), Latha, Sravanthi and Vidya. And for boys, Anand, Balaji, Krishna,Venkatesh etc. The reason for this is either because they are God’s names, or I like the meaning or they are my favourtie people’s names.

My very own enterprise

Am I ready to blog about the theme for week 20:  What would you name your enterprise and why?

I was ready from the day the post was announced. It is only that it has taken so many months for me to post. 

I was always interested in publishing a couple of text books, the first time I came very close to doing it was in 1998. And from that day, I have always wanted my enterprise to be named as SRAMA Enteprise. 

Srama in telugu means hard work. And from my perspective, Sra stands for Sravanthi and ma stands for Mahesh. I am not sure when or whether this enterprise will ever publish a text book written by me. 

Who knows what is in store for us?

Robot and its impact on my life

Am I ready to blog about the theme for week 44 "Imagine a future in which we each have a personalized robot servant. What would yours be like? What would it do? What would it look like? What would it talk like? What features would it have?

A personalized robot servant! For the generation past us, it would have been the lady of the house. Whether I like it or not, or you like it or not, it is a fact. I cannot imagine how much work the lady of the house does. No robots can ever replace them. To do it day in and day out like those great ladies with that love and affection, our robots would land themselves in repair very soon. I have seen so many people sit and not even move an inch and expect their wife or their mother to do everything for them even today. I do not even understand how they can do that.

What would my robot look like?  I would like it to be child-like and talk in a child's voice.

What about its features? Surely I would not like it to be like a child.

What would I want it to do? It is tough to think, but I would like it to remind me when I have to take my tablets. I am so sleepy and so irresponsible that I forget the tablets at night. I do not eat breakfast and occasionally do not pack lunch to work when I wake up late. Maybe I would like my robot to do that for me. Fix my breakfast and lunch so that the people around me won't bother me that I don’t take care of myself.

It would be nice if it could do exercise on my behalf, but I think that is asking for too much. What fun would it be, if it started doing all my work? Maybe, the robot would start typing my posts too! And comment on yours too. Would that be nice? I guess not. I would be its slave then.

What a thought! Amen to my personalized robot!

Deepavali the ultimate festival for me.

 Am I ready to blog about the theme for week 47: What's your favourite amongst the festivals/ celebrations you regularly observe, and one that's not part of your tradition that you'd perhaps like to adopt (and why).

Undoubtedly, Deepavali as a kid living on the main streets of the Parthasarathy temple in Triplicane. What else can be more exciting? New clothes, lots of sweets and lots of crackers to burst!

In our locality, it was the custom to get up early in the morning, have a bath and start bursting crackers by 3.30 a.m. or 4.00 a.m. I used to burst crackers till 6 in the morning along with all my friends and neighbours. It was important for us kids to observe and boast about which house had the maximum amount of litter from the burnt crackers. It was then time to go to my Uncle’s house where I would spend the rest of the day again bursting crackers. In the evenings, sometimes, we would both go back to Triplicane or to his cousin’s place where we would spend the evening.

And now, to think that I have lost  interest in crackers since over 20 years. The reason for that could be the fact that I moved away from Madras to Bangalore for doing my engineering. Those days, Deepavali in Bangalore was nothing compared to what it was in Triplicane.  

Later on, the prices of crackers went up and the issue of child labour cropped up. These two issues brought down my interest in bursting crackers.

I still love watching the fireworks. As a kid, my Uncle used to take me to St. Thomas Mount near the airport from where we could see the fireworks around the city.  Occassionally, we would see the fireworks at the Gymkhana Club. As an adult now, I go to the beach along with my wife and look at the sky for those beautiful colours.

If there are festivals which I would like to adopt, it would be either Ramzan or Christmas. Ramzan for the fact that it is a month-long ritual culminating in mouthwatering biriyani for me and Christmas, the festive mood that comes with it and culminates in the New Year celebration.