BONE EATER

I started missing home food when I was doing my B.Tech in CIT (till now I am missing it). During those times, many of my hostel mates including me used to envy another friend (we call him as vadai) who also stays in our hostel. Just imagine when we were missing mothers home made food, this guy still has his mothers hand made lunch in Coimbatore, whereas his mom is in Chennai. Still wondering how it is possible. It's because his father serves as a pilot in Indian airlines, so whenever he flies to coimbatore, he brings a hot pack food for him. We always enjoy his mother food, especially non-vegetarian food, she cooks great. One of the reason for writing this blog is because of him. After a very very long time, I got in touch with him. I wanna a share one of his poem, to my surprise my name was there..

Cognition In A College Mess

Money is a strange glass that defines
every man’s vision is what went in

munching drumsticks with friends, at my
college mess. Ruby-ringed Mathew bit

the main meat off his drumstick, sided the rest,
pushed back and exalted “Wow! I am done”.

“Never waste food”, I retold what my father
ingrained in a bourgeois me, and showed

how much meat still resides at the corners,
how to relish those; to make the clean bone.

Nalin smiled at us, chewed, swallowed
the fragile bones and repeated my words.

Pradeep Dhavakumar

Following is the link

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/cognition-in-a-college-mess/


If you guys have time, kindly go through his other poems also, they are finely penned......

Thats the way I eat non-veg, no leftovers of the traces of meat or bones. Is eating meat is good for human health or not is a great research topic, as several societies has different and contradicting views. To know the truth by myself, I experimented with myself by controlling my diet. In my family we have a rich meat diet, so right from my younger days I used to eat meat, I changed my diet to strictly to no meat and no egg diet over a period of time for several years.
1 year - No meat No egg, next
1 year - Included Meat, next
3 year - No meat No egg, next
1 year - Included meat, next
3 year - No meat No egg, next
1 year - Included meat, next
1 year - No meat but included egg, next
3 year - Started eating all kinds of meat

Nearly after more than a decade of experimenting, what I felt is, It doesn't matter as long as you eat food and satisfy your appetite. It seems that on extreme conditions of food availability, our brain develops some circuits to make certain food delicious or bland based upon the demands placed by our physiology for those nutrients which are available in that food. So if we are provided with only vegetable sources or we make strong decisions to be on strict vegetarian diet then we will explore many vegetarian options to satisfy all the physiological demands for the nutrients. And if you are on meat diet then the exploration of vegetarian options is limited as the meat satisfies most of the physiological nutrient demands. I believe this might be one of the reason for a limited vegetarian options in american foods. More meat, some bread, then limited common vegetables like lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, kidney beans, carrot and broccoli. For the past four months, my diet includes only american food (mostly fast food), no spices at all. So nowadays even when I go to Americanised Indian restaurant, though the tase of the food their never gets the indian feel, currently I feel it is delicious.
Apart from the above mentioned observance, which are similar to a discovery channel study. I also felt a little bit change in my psychological approach. Whenever iam in vegetarian diet, i was calm and composed and in other case I was little bit aggressive. I am not sure whether this is due to diet or my will power to focus and control myself to strict vergetarian diet all those times. Because people who meditate also has calm and composed approach due to their high focus and control among themselves. If you guys have some inputs, kindly let me know. I started it as simple blogging, but somehow diggressed into a form of research article...hmm what to do!!!!

Idle thoughts

MIND & CHILD

Mind and child, both will be never satisfied with the things offered and never say clearly what they like.
Mind and child, both demands attention all the time, even while sleeping.
Mind and child, both get bored with any kind of new toys within a short duration of time.
Mind and child, both wander here and there without any fear, in spite of their inability to move.
But somehow both find, adapt and feel safer with certain persons or things and if they miss them, they search for them in crying.
Don’t you think now the childlike mind has become childish mind?
Childish or childlike, Whatever, who wants to control child or mind?

Kindly set free both to see magic and charm.

Advisor Matters the most

I read the following story in my first quarter of PhD program and laughed a little, today I experienced the value of my advisor, when from no where, an unknown person stands in between me and my PhD qualification. So following is just a copy / paste of the story, for all PhD aspirants. Bye...n Joy Life n work.....

In a forest a fox bumps into a little rabbit, and says, "Hi, junior, what are you up to?"
"I'm writing a dissertation on how rabbits eat foxes," said the rabbit. The fox scoffs, "Come now, friend rabbit, you know that's impossible!" "Well, follow me and I'll show you," replies the rabbit.They both go into the rabbit's dwelling and after a while the rabbit emerges with a satisfied expression on his face.

Along comes a wolf. "Hello, what are we doing these days?" "I'm writing the second chapter of my dissertation, on how rabbits devour wolves," the rabbit responds, confidently. The wolf asks in dismay, "Are you crazy? Where is your academic honesty?" "Come with me and I'll show you." replies the rabbit.As before, the rabbit comes out with a satisfied look on his face and this time he has a diploma in his paw.

Looking into the rabbit's cave, as everybody should have guessed by now, we see an enormous, mean-looking lion
sitting next to what little remains of the wolf and the fox.

The moral of this story is: It's not the contents of your thesis that are important --it's your Ph.D. advisor that counts.

Courtesy of north#NoSpam.hgl.signaal.nl

Mystery

Girls say it is any Mr.Y
Guys say it is any Ms.Tery

Philosophers say it is beauty of life
Scientists say solving it as purpose of life

Parents say it is their toddler needs
While toddler enjoys it

you may say any one of the above
while i say, i belong to the sign of mystery

The following picture has forced me to write on "MYSTERY", I drew this picture couple of years ago. Initially, i didn't like this picture that much, so i didn't scanned it and kept as such in paper format in my file. But when i showed it to many of my friends, they loved it. Even my mom liked this picture a lot. Many felt the passionate side of the image. Might be even i felt the same it seems , which forced to keep this picture for myself for these many days . Anyway now i wish to break that mystery by sharing this picture .

Jaane kya dhoondta hai, yeh mera dil

" Jaane kya dhoondta hai, yeh mera dil
Tujhko kya chaahiye zindagi "

"wonder, what my heart is searching for...
Life, what do you want...... "

( my translation.... forgive me if not proper)

These are the starting lines of a song by Nida Fazli for the hindi movie titled "SUR". Also incidentally this was the same didactic question which i ask to myself every time for all the past and present acts of mine. During my childhood days ( 6-10 years old), i had the peculiar habit and the urge of seeing new places and seeking small adventures on my own. But one of the main disadvantage of my actions was that my parents, friends and relatives are not aware about my whereabouts during that time . This created a panic in my parents hearts and it got worsened when many of my neighbors started to refer me as a "runaway boy". At the same time one advantage of my acts was that i always return back to home within a day on my own, except for two occasions, once my grandmother found me and the other time my mom found me. Whenever i returned back to home there will be many questionings, scoldings, beatings, thrashings, advices etc...so on and on..... and every time i am not able to tell the reasons for my acts, which i really don't know so i always used to keep silent. This silence frustrated my parents a lot and which in turn made me very very sad. This affected my studies in a large way, i used to fail or just clear my exams marginally. As every troubled parents my parents also looked for help from every possible way, they consulted many astrologers and even some psychiatrists. From all of them came a positive reply for my parents, "this kid is a good boy no problems with him", "this boy is smart and normal "etc and so on. But some how my parents came to a decision and said that i can do whatever i want but i have to inform them in advance. This simple thing called FREEDOM or LIBERTY established an crystal clear understanding between me and my parents. After that there is no looking back , in each and every forward step i took , i used to convince my parents and my parents used to convince me and we proceed together.
PARENTING, my goodness, a daunting, frustrating at the same time a pleasurable task. I can aver that my parents are enjoying it a lot, as they have not only managing a menace like me, they are also taking care of my diligent brother and my lovely sister. I feel parenting is a subjective quality and parents are need not be compared with other parents ........Oooooo sorry for digressing ................PARENTING is a completely different topic, i dont want to write about that now. My crux for this post is "Jaane kya dhoondta hai, yeh mera dil" (Wonder, What my heart is searching for), Although currently everything is fine (no problem for anybody because of my small adventure acts), but still i don't know why i did and doing those acts. After those school days acts, i went to hostel in CIT for doing my Engineering degree, there also i did similar kind of acts , many times i got some company and sometimes i did on my own ...they tagged me "NAADODI" ( meaning explorer) . After college, i went to mumbai for work, there also i derived some time to do similar acts .....they tagged me "NEWLIN" ( as i always looked for doing new stuffs). Now, finally in US doing my PhD ....still i do similar acts , now here for my company i have my own car.... but some of my friends says that its an "escaping act" ... but i don't think so.... as i always come back to do what i am supposed to do.
One such act which i did on the thanksgiving break is that i took pencil and paper and rushed to Lincoln parish park and started sketching the lake view ( see below). This, i never did before, but suddenly the thought came and i did that.....reason ??? i dont know????

(After dabbling with photoshop)

Like this i am trying my hands in many other fields......Why iam trying ???? I have no answer......

but one thing is sure, life cannot be taught in school through established courses, it has to be felt through the course of living over the unpredictable events as it unfolds.

I think my PhD is easy ..... let me complete it....

Bala Hanuman

Cartoons ...... some say it is for kids..... but i deny that since still i like cartoons a lot . If I think of Cartoon, the very first thing which strikes me is Tom & Jerry and many other productions of Walt Disney. Indian based cartoon characters are very few, on doing a short web search i found many Japanese based cartoon charcters also, much recently i saw a Japanese cartoon film centered upon character Naruto, i enjoyed it. It seems our guys are just picking up, the recent Indian cartoon film "Hanuman" is an indication of that. The movie covers all the parts of the Hanuman's presence in epic Ramayana. I felt the movie a sort of OK kind as it retolds Ramayana , I would have appreciated it much if they would have delineated the character much in any one of the section of Hanuman's presence in Ramayana. But I was much attracted to the creation of Bala Hanuman sketch, it is so cute and beautiful. Hats off to the creator..... Above sketch is my replica of his creation.

DEER

Iam new to this blogging world, and iam not a good writer too. But anyhow iam attempting to write about deer. Deer is a common animal in India, but due to human civilization and spreading cities, it is becoming a rare species. When i came to US , i was surprised to see Deer common in almost all states, but at the same time i felt very sad whenever i see a hit deer on the sides of the highway. In many of the prehistoric tamil literature works and in many indian epics like Ramayana, deer has played a very significant role. More commonly Deer's eyebrows are used as a metaphor for narrating beauty of heroine's eyebrows and the way Kavarimaan ( one variety of deer in India) sacrifices its life to safeguard the prestige & respect of its group is often used as a similie in many movie dialogues.
In my childhood days, whenever any guests come to my home , i used to take the role of a tourist guide and show ZOO ( Vandalur in Chennai) as one of the attractions of Chennai, so much oftenly I used to visit ZOO, moreover it is very near to my home. During those days iam not that much attracted to deer, but much recently me and my friends went for a safari in Natural Bridge Zoo in Virginia state, there i got a very close look of many Deers . On this trip only i realised and started to appreciate the beauty of Deers as mentioned by historical tamil poets. I donno why this change in me, is it due to the closer look of Deer? or due to age ? still not sure but anyhow iam happy for realising it now.
Only few months after that , i was driving back from Houston to Ruston it was early morning 05:00 AM and i was pondering about speeding ticket which i got one hour before on US 59S. I was driving at the speed of 60MPH, suddenly i saw a female deer infront of my car trying to cross from the left side of the road to the right, i donno whether to slow down or maintain the speed, initially i reduced my speed to around 55 MPH and suddenly I remembered the snapshot of me and my friends discussion on how to handle the car when a deer comes across. We were discussing this on our forward journey to Houston, we came to a conclusion that it is safe to maintain the speed on such occasions. So based upon that i didnt reduced my speed below 55 MPH . Bang came the noise, the Deer hit the right side beamlights and a rolling screeching noise was heard for few seconds , still i kept on driving with only one beam light on , smoke started coming out from my bonnet , still i kept on rolling, Engine alarm indicator appeared then i decided to pullover . Slowly i pulled over and went to see in the front , my entire right side around the beam light is damaged . I was searching for some blood stains and any remains of the deer , but surprisingly i didnt find both. The car i used is rental one, a brand new DODGE CHARGER 2007 model , i felt very very sad for both the Deer and the car. But somehow i was consoled by the driver of the towing vehicle. He is a very old man, by judging my melancholy face, he said, "Dont worry my son the deer might not have got killed, it might have got banged a bit and started limping back towards the woods, look we didn't see neither the blood stains nor the body, so cheer up. You are very lucky guy to come out of this accident without any hurts ". I thought for a while and felt optimistic, before the old man left, i felt certain drive within me to give a hug and i did that . I felt his friendly warmth in the cold morning. This gave me full of energy to come back to Ruston and conduct the Diwali celebrations ( first event of our AIS group) though i was physically drained. From that onwards for few days all of my friends called me as deer hunter.
One month after that incident, i got the mood for pencil sketching after a gap of nearly four years, knowingly or unknowingly the first pictrure i drew is a deer couple ( the shown picture) after this only I drew Preity Zinta's picture (1st blog). Though everything got completed well, it seems that the sadness got etched in my heart.