Certain observations are timeless. These observations tend to cut experience to its essence. The following lines by Longfellow is one such observation

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footsteps on the sands of time.

Footsteps, that, perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwreck'd brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

In the phantom menace the following is said of Anakin Skywalker even as a boy

He gives without any thought of reward

For all of us there are individual things that make us get up every morning and make us strive and perhaps inspire us in their wake. And perhaps the sacrifices that went before us, of our parents, of those that loved us, are not invain and not only keep us on the path of humanity, but inspire in us the value of hardship, strife, and just being good and all this in an age that is ripe with frivolity and folly.

On friday I took my son for a medical check up that is due at the end of 3rd year. To see his cognitive functions etc. He did quite well..

Being a friday and a late appointment I was in a willing dispoistion to acceede to his usually uncharacteristic demands.

I took him to a Burger king on Philips, adjacent to the Avenues. Although almost 6 in the evening the place is sparse at best with customers.

I picked up his food and headed for the middle of the restaurant while most of the people sparsed around the windows and edges. Narayan wanted a table change to where other people are sitting.

With this new arrangement right behind me I hear two fairly advanced, both in age and perhaps in size as well, women and three children. Two girls, one about 9 and one about 15. The girls are bright and pretty. It was not a coincidence that Narayan picked this table, although he is only 3 and a few months.

Right across them sat a young man around 16 with a leg stretched into the aisle. He was small in stature and looked like any ungroomed 16 that is quite lost.

It didn't take long for Narayan to splatter the toy all over the floor. I was about to pick them up as I see a hand reaching Narayan with the pieces of the toy. It was a bit of a distance for a young man these days to unlazy himself and offer to help, and especially unsolicited and unexpected. Idleness, hanging pants, being cool and loose seem to be very much in praise. So this came as a surprise move.

I was fairly touched for a number of reasons. These days people fight so much for religion, race, and any difference in general. Surprising how this kid of 16 is able to put aside the obvious differences and instinctively help, these not only strangers, but unmistakenly foreigners.

I thanked him as much as I could. Later I took Narayan to the play area. Their 9 year old joined us. The slide is one of those 4 storied mazes. Although fascinated, Narayan was hesitant to go in there. I was a bit lazy and sat in the breeze leaving Narayan to figure out himself. Daniel, as I came to know his name later, came by and was telling his sister to help the my son and show him how to climb into the slide. Like any 9 year old she was shy and in no mood to cooperate.

I asked Daniel, what's wrong with his leg as I had noticed he was limping coming into the play area. He told me that in high school some kids roughed him up on the track and that tore his knee a little bit. And he told me his name is Daniel and he lives in St Augustine, and he is trying to get to a technical college to get a diploma in computer repair.

He then got up, with his unbendable leg, and took Narayan up the slide through that maze. They did that a few times.

Soon it was time for them to leave. I thanked him a lot and I saw them leave the restaurant. A few minutes past that I saw this old beat up chevy with 3 kids in the back and two oversized ladies in the front, and tires half sunk and windows down heading south on Philips highway.

I was thinking how did someone get to amass these virtues despite the difficult of circumstances. I see so many teenagers growing with no hope for themselves or for others.

Not victory, Not money, Not fortune, Not luck, but this act of humanity seem to have restored my spirit for the day.

Suddenlty Longfellow seemed to make sense.

Who will I tell
When weather extraordinary
wash over my way with gentle wind

Who will I tell
When ruffling leaves newly born
But yeager to break free
sway with abandon
in a transparent gail that sustains life if not bring forth

Who will I tell
when water bearing clouds roll over the skies

Who will I tell
When sheets of water rushes 
down to earth to seek life

Who will I tell
When white flowers
Open in the brightest of smiles
In numbers multitude

Who will I tell
when brilliant rainbows skirt
the Eastern skies
and the platinum clearings
in the western skies

Who will I tell
the dancing rituals of rain
Timeless and age old

A folded mirror

Take every number from 1 through hundred. Say 5. For that number write down every combination of addition facts. It is simple, Kavitha said. "Just do this", she illustrated:

0 + 5
1 + 4
2 + 3

0,6
1,5
2,4
3,3

wow that is a lot of work. Will you ever be done with it? How long will it take. I needed to know how many pages will this fill if this is done for all numbers from 1 to 100.

Roughly half

I know roughly that the number of addition factors are about half the given number. So the total number of facts will be the addition of all numbers from 1 through 100 divided by 2.

1 + 2 + .... + 100

How much will that be? Although I know there is a formula for that, why not have some fun and derive it

1   + 2 + .... + 100
100 + 99 + .... + 1
________________________

101 + 101 + ..... + 101 (100 times)

_________________________ 

So the total is 100 x 101

Say that is roughly 10,000.

Half of that will be 5,000. I need to do this because I have added the series itself. The addition facts will be further half of that. that would be 2500.

How many pages

So she needs to write 2500 facts. Assuming 25 lines on a page and each line accomodating 10 facts, she can accomodate 250 facts for one page. Total is 2500 facts. So if you divide 2500 with 250 facts for each page you end up with 10 pages.

Not too bad. The teacher does not have too-ill but only slightly-ill of intentions.

How long will it take?

it could take 30 minutes to complete a page. In a day you may push a kid to do two pages. So it will take a week to do this for a number like 100.

Say, there is a kid that deserves a twice as much enlightenment and the temptation is to assign to do this exercise for 200. Well 200 is double that of 100.

But if you figure out the math the kid instead of working for 2 weeks actually will have to work for 4 weeks to complete this. If I were to create a table of this relationship between numbers and weeks you will see, perhaps expected, but nevertheless unsettling reality.

100, 1 week
200, 4 weeks (1 month)
300, 9 weeks (2 months and 1 week)
400, 16 weeks (4 months)
500, 25 weeks (6 months and 1 week)
600, 36 weeks (9 months)
700, 49 weeks (almost a year)
800, 64 weeks (more than a year)

what is between 100 and 800, they seem close enough but with respect to this exercise one kid would have wrapped it up in 1 week (however grudginlgy) but the kid with 800 will have to work for an entire year

What if they share

Say you have allocated two students to do this for a number like 200. One might be inclined to give kid1 to do the 1st 100 and give the second kid from 100 to 200. By looking at the above time frames the 1st kid would spend 1 week for her 100 and the second kid will end up spending 3 weeks on her 100 (which is from 101 to 200).

Folded mirror

Imagine a string where you write these numbers from top to bottom: say for 5

0
1
2
3
4
5

If I fold it right smack in the middle

 |
2|3
1|4
0|5
 |

See if the line in the middle were to be a mirror those are your addition facts. where each addition adds up to the same number which is 5.

So for number 6, say, one can turn the addition facts exercise into a folded-number-writing exercise by writing

0 1 2 3
6 5 4 3

and refrain from writing the sum because the sum is always 6.

But again doing so might turn the work pointless.

Looks like a case of elite curiosity killing the cat.

Freedom Unchained,
Nature, is spectacular in its randomness
Randomness Perhaps a name aside for nature
Randomness Perhaps at the core of Of Intelligence

The road from a concrete Mall
Previously cleared of a southern pine growth
on perhaps private lands
headed in to a tee
left or right but not through

Overlooking a view of a partial lake
through a small left over growth of 
huddled pines similarly southern in appearance
the clearing for the view produced by 
left over by vehicle tracks

In a surrounding of impending construction
They stood
having taken a number of years to reach
this perspective of a great view
Perhaps of no particular utility to us
We will loose them
and the seller will sell the land
I wondered what is of more value
something that took this long to grow
or something we will build 
and rebuild every few decades

Across the portrait of the landscape
In front of to be precise
stood a traffic bar 
5 or 6 car lengths in span
hoisted by an equally tall black beam of steal

A sign on the post read 
as I took left barely willing to loose my vision
For sale, contact the 10 digit number

Soon low and high
Buildings will rise
A tree separated from its cousin
will stand alone

The lake will be stripped of its mystery
The nakedness of rippling water aginst the concrete
A view oddly unnatural
The lake and the buildings both man made.

Translated from Telugu...

Where is my Beloved? Where is my Son? Where has dissipated my endless Kingdom? You see...

Neither your offspring, nor your beloved,
Nor those that held u in dearest regard since birth,
Those that shared the same womb as you,
Neither your kin
Not even your friends - mind you -
Will follow you - in the End -
If credit at all that follows pray be it your good name.
Such is truth.

Anchored, all your affluence, will not, either, string your way - in any manner -
To you or another in what bearing - stipulated the stars the inescapable profit,
No prayer will amend!

In your potence, pride - without purpose -
For Indigent shall be the Monarch,
And Monarch an indigent
As Time frames all Fortunes.

"The reason Einstein was so successful was that he was a loner and always went his own way, even if it wasn't popular"

- John Moffat ( A life long friend of the wizard )

It is an interesting observation in the age of collaboration (or atleast a certain begining)

John Moffat works for Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.

To hold you fast
To my bosom
Is to add love
To the vastness
which otherwise only barren

It is ok if I perish later,
if I can glow now,
said, a Firefly!

It is ok if I perish tomorrow,
if I can be more today,
said, a Rose!

Dawn has brought a beautiful morning to the Heavens.
Almighty on his throne was in a good disposition.

"A Forest of Oaks,
Regal, Tall and Stately,
Or A Metropolis of Humans,
Untethered, where they Think, Move and Fly,
Would you like to be planted!"
He so asked a Sapling!

The Sapling replied
"Dear beloved father,
Plant me in a Desert,
That I may know not any limits"

A fork in the road,
I have found myself at.

The first path straight in all its turns,
The other perhaps curvy all the way.

Neither I know well enough for bias.
I could take any as they both get me there.

I agonize, instead.
"is this right or that?
Would I regret?
Would one be too long?
Or the other hard?"

I asked a Sage, the Siri, the Oracle, 
And even an 8 ball!
"How should I lead?"

They all replied the same!!!

"Take any as it matters little which!
Matters most is you commit to what you choose.

Yet be there a lingering doubt,
Take the one that perhaps be harder,
as in equal proportion it would be rewarding!"

With the same un-attenuated smugness of carrying a miracle
Fulfilled lay pregnant lakes - to the hem -
A sodden summer in Florida

Last night I was hoping I could work with Kavitha for an hour after the never-seem-to-end house chores of the eventing. I was too tired to plead, and cajole her into doing some of the workbooks she has. So I sat with her on her bed reading the hardships of 1930s in the Great American Dustbowl. The book was a fast read as I have always been interested in the larger factors in the environment that crafter much of the history and people with in it. Kavitha looked over a couple of times and duly noted what number I was at. Being on number 16 did not impress her too much. I subsequently ignored while she was trying a contraption by tearing apart the empty pages from a note book.

"I am making instructions to fold this map"

There went 1 page, 2, page and then 3 pages.

Around page 35, she interrupted.

"Dad, see if you can follow the directions and fold this paper as per the instructions".

I looked at the well creased a4 size paper. I took it in my hand and proceeded to fold it at the creases, while wondering why there was a large single headed arrow in the middle of the page running bottom to top.

"Dad, you cannot do that. You have to follow the arrow to fold!"

"Ok!" I said, and folded the paper up from top to bottom while bending the arrow right in the middle. She disagreed.

"No, you have to fold it from bottom to the top so that the tail of the arrow goes and meets the head and not the other way around."

So, I conceded. I folded the paper once.

I was surprised to see another arrow show up, now on the half folded paper. I folded it again. And another arrow. Finally the arrows led me to fold the paper to the size of a quarter, on which it was written.

"Good Job!"

Growth

Pralayagnini Karatalamuna,
Sikharagrini Konaveluna,
Mundu Mundu.
Sari netiki,
Tadabadu chiru padumula uravallu.

Burden

Mukkupachharani mrudu kumarulu.
Palincharuga
Tallulai, Thandrulai.
Pempu vahimparuga
Mantrulai, Rajulai.

Credits

Borrowed a line from a film "Lavakusa" and borrowed a phrase from the greatest pair "Tirupathi Venkata Kavulu".

A Trickle and a Torrent

A step today ventured
Another step tommorrow commited
A journey of thousand miles:
Though difficult to imagine,
By derivation is conclusive.

Futile is not by any means a trickle,
But a good place to start a torrent.

Raise your hand,
Pump the air,
Take a cheer,
Count your wins.
Small or big they are all wins.

All desire and planning is a function of Time
Stress far more phenomenal
Elusive Time
Cooking, like many, is a matter of Time
Those Abs are made with Time, albeit by way of kitchen

Waste not,
For I am in no mood to hear,
Your million words of generalities,
And speeches more

A proposition instead, I make,
should you lend me an ear..

Arms open,
I must anticipate,
Arms tight,
I will embrace
Should you offer a single word concrete.

From far they came
with lights in their eyes
Lit the world, fittingly
By way of Silver Screens

Big water flow through Amazon.
Impregnable in defiance stay insulated Sahara.
I know,
A big river in a rain forest is Tradition.
An adamant stream in a desert is Character.

So many come to You
With many names
Yet in their reverence
You seem alike

To stare up at the night sky,
To see so many stars with life,
Not Alone,
Blinking and Bright I go with you!
Let's wonder, as one, gladly, how not alone none is

For some,
A deepening night
Alpaka sheets
A cozy lamp
A good book
Life is simple

Some say Oceans are Mighty.
If I were a river,

They bemoan

I am a Snake trying
To swallow the Ocean!!

Oh, One on the white horse,
To what graceful lands,
filled with promise and flowers,
You hurry to!!

Thorny, dry, and difficult,
I demand you avert your handsome visage,
as by my right, I need addressed.

Unlike the beautiful, carved, and garbed suitably,
those princesses that you seek, 
I yield not for your charms,
nor for your heft, weight, or fame.

I yield, perhaps, when I am convinced,
I am your destination,
Turn orthogonal.
Pay my tribute.

Pray that you realize,
it is only through me,
is the path to the promised land.

Dance with me,
Perhaps a minute, a moment,
or eternity.

Unless I become your present,
Future is never.

A kid goes to school,
A worker to his mentor,
A reader to his poet,
And an audience to their composer.

There is an onus on the later,
To expect the former to swell high,
And not dip low, 
For murky streams in the long run
Proliferate.

Arrow of Time,
That subtle paramour -
Gashes Naught
It leaves - when it cleaves
Your precious heart into two

You spar
You argue
Not unlike a dialogue
Mathematics is a matter for conversation

You question the obvious
You question convention
Refusing to accept the unexamined
You ask
Why!

I say I don't seek an answer
I search for the question

Ask me why
I shall tell you what I know
of Mathematics.

Furthermore, remember,
"I don't get it!!"
is a beautiful phrase.

Day turns to Night,
Night turns into Day,

Behind me, before me, and then all around,
Shades of light wax, wane, and turn,
As in a heaving bosom,
Mornings rise and fall.

Like the dried up bark of a Joshua tree,
I press on to my tomorrow,
For 5000 years.

Still working,
Through Rain, chill, and frost,
Through Skies clear, blue, and stormy.

Kyoto, Japan

Yesterday you were a smear of Blue, in a ridiculous costume,
Today you were a great creature with a Heavenly Basudi.
In Truth,
I don't see Beauty, it appears
She finds me.

"I have made this letter longer than usual, because I lack the time to make it short" - Blaise Pascal

Every puzzle,
Every Trick,
Every Legerdemain,
Every Idea that is brilliant,
Are like the master Notes of a Composition.

Not for the Notes,
But Search for the Composition,
as it is that which is the genesis,
Of the Puzzle,
Of the Trick,
Of the Legerdemain,
Of every idea that is Brilliant!

A sea of humanity
Besant Road
Braadi pet
Church Gate
Times Square

Oh, Sea of humanity,
Dont sell urself short,
For you make them!

Quality, quality, that Craft
By which living things - in making or use -
Be Divine!
Gulabjamun, a soggy pleaser, or Bittergourd perfected?
Not even a Contest!!

Sky an endless blue
Sea to the horizon blue
Blue is Kanhayya
Vastness unsuited
Dare not paint it blue
Aloof
Her eyes starry blue

I came here uninvited,
Like a River drawn by the slope.
I have no Over Lord.

Yet, uninstructed, as it is my way,
That I shall enrich the lands and minds,
That I pass by!

Precisely, perhaps, as desired by the
Lord that mandated the Slope,
Which at times appear as,
Gravity,
Incline,
Drift,
Charm,
Beauty,
Even Service!

No, No, No. No, I don't describe me that way. I am as straight an arrow as there is one in its shape and in its path. Brilliance needs a scheme, and legerdemain that I am not just born with.

But I do admit that I am an easy target as a tested parent. Very suscepting to whining especially when paired with tears that don't seem to stop.

I pick up Narayan and Kavitha between 5 and 6 in the evenings and occasionally there is an errand or two to attend to. That hour of the evening seem to be set aside for unexpected events. Over years I have seen it all. Soiled underwares, pants and even shirts. At times my son seem to be a walking frgrance. When all else seemed normal he would just throw up in the car just in case If I am not paying attention as a parent but wondering how pretty the evening was. And he would be fine as soon as we get home. So I thought the answer is keep a towel in the car. So by that logic half my house is in the car. There is the pillow. there is the blanket. There is a hair brush. A combination of edibles both new and discarded. A fridz in the trunk ....All I need is a self generating nuclear reactor so that I am prepared for all emergencies that seem so routine

JCA is like a guarded and elongated fortress that is built for people with a chip on their forehead so that they can be checked as they move every feet. After going through this maze and emerging with my two kids I must have counted 30 times because Narayan had this incredible urge to pass water. And 5 minutes prior to that while we were in the presence of such a facility he was absolutely certain he was dry as a desert. I surrendered to this argument everytime albeit with clenched teeth.

And we would be visiting publix and in the middle of the aisle he HAD to use the restroom, this time as he describes it with twisting legs that the need is a longer one but he could make it a shorter one. So there isn't a bathroom that we haven't visited in the course of a few years.

Yesterday, we were in Micahels. It is a store no man should enter. We were there for display boards for a project for Kavitha. This is one bathroom that we had never vistited. After many inquiries we found it cornered. No getting away from Narayan. We walk in and there is the sink. Everything in order and clean. We pull the door to the toilet. It is locked. I told him he would need to wait his turn. Well he was not about to. He bent down and saw there was no one in there. We pulled the door again and it was locked. There is no key hole to lock it. As I was wondering to the mystery how on earth it got locked from inside, the 6 year old was already half way through the opening half of him inside and half outside saying he could open it.

I was thinking "ok he had to go, so he is going to head for the toilet". Instead he opens the door from inside and says "oh that is simple to open this door!!". It all happened in a split second.

I was scratching my head "who is brilliant!" who locked the door from inside and gone or Narayan that this seemed routine to walk under and open the door. It just didn't occur to me that was a solution. Well this kid should teach a course on out-of-the-box (or toilet) thinking.

But again if I weren't gullible or not overly impressive father with his son, I suspect the sneaky guy had done this before.

They lit a lamp in my head
It is burning through night and day
Creativity has a price to pay too!
Be kind to those souls
Judgement is not ours

Stay and see renewal
Sky the great canvas
Gets a new coat every day

Arrayed on the horizon
I suspect is not a
Welcome Committee,
But an end less Cavalry!
If you are in Hell, Churchill said, Don't stop!!

I correct him, "as in cash (cache)"
Yet he - with utmost obedience - 
says catchee everytime!

He says "at the rate of" 
while I mumble you mean "at"?

I reckon,
In Certainty rooted stagnation.
Oh so I love a skeptic, 
For truth may lie next door!

To gain Golden Wings,
A Chrysalis First Be!!

One rides emotions - full gallop -
Logic - at best - a walking companion
Such is the burden of the collective

God is a creature of motion
In no permanency Gods faith kept

Stars recede at incredible velocities
Sun a cauldron of inhospitable fire
Every heavenly neighbor largely a calamity

Why that
We walk upside down
And believe ground under is conveniently flat

Yet,
And most shocking of all,
World seem so constant!
And tomorrow so predictable!!

Not when divided, but in whole and integrated,
At the right size beauty is conceived!
In Convolution meaning is attributed,
And this is my incomplete ode to Machine Learning.

When you know the path
You really don't know the path

When you arrive with out knowing
Then you know the path

Sweltering Summer
Hushed to hear the cuckoo skilled
Unstirred however the brightly plumed peacock

Principles at first,
Hammered to habits.
They yield.
No bounty today not unlike the in-habitual!
But everything tomorrow, I mean everything!

Gathering streams
Exploding stars
Under Florida trees
Daily summer rains 

In rose colored Fire
Sky is made red,
Morning is augured
By the Grand Satan!

To precipice 
Or Profit,
It beckons 
chaotic actions
Of lit minds.

Present is not benevolent,
Present is not kind,
Nor is it anger or revenge,
Neither, as such, it is ambivalent,
It demands none nor favors any,
For Present is not a state of mind!
 
Present is not a zero hour,
Present is not at 8,
Nor is it at 5 and quarter,
Neither, as such, it is temporal,
Although perhaps of Time,
Present is not a moment in Time.
 
Present is not quiet,
Present is slow or slower,
Present is fast or faster,
For sure, say I, Present moves!
 
By Counts and Clocks,
Present is when you make not,
An Account it!!
Allowed duration for a task,
Mundane or Profound,
When Exceeds infinitum,
Present then Is for all foreseeable future!

It is a snake, no not! A tree trunk
I say it is parched earth, never a pachyderm!
Distressing Discord.
As long as I swam in the pond I never saw the Lily.
As long as I was a denizen of the swamps I never saw the Cypress

Permanence is not a state that the dew is aware of. 
Like in physics,
There is neither time nor space 
outside of the universe.
There is no outside!

Burdens in two kinds come.
One is to make your myself better. Hard. 
The other is to make another better.
First one, it appears, a walk in the park!

As in entropy an unattended tree will wither. 
So is our life. 
How do you deny fate its due! 
Yes some are unpreventable. 
Otherwise may be a good number. 
Yet every generation plays dominoes with fate.

Neither for fear nor for favor
should I seek Faith

Neither for loss nor for gain
Should I seek Truth

For things that are not bound to Earth
Stand in Divine contrast

Irrespective of my Faith,
For the sake of Truth on its own,
Do I not offer shoulder for another
Not for favor on Earth or in Heaven.
Due to such I am Human.

To be strong or great is to be humble
To be stronger or greater is to be humbler
Is it not then by ratiocination,
To seek the Strongest or Greatest on Earth or in Heaven
Should you not seek the humblest?

So, with humility
my conduct, I pray, be colored

So, with humility,
And not in righteousness,
Truth on my journey, I pray, be sought

Battles and wars may bring purpose
Yet all joy
Shrouded In wan memories of departed
As the sword lay silent at dusk

People thank God profusely
How close they are
To the parking garage

Inspiring.
Edison's light that veins through
dark cities as Golden yellows at night.
Humans are here,
We make things beautiful as well!

Once in a while i see an egret in Florida
Whiter than the nascent snow
Why not all the time - I murmur for a long time

Barely ankle deep
The autumn lake in Florida
Murmuring to the silent egret -
Whiter than the nascent snow -
Where are many more?

When Joy diminishes,
There goes discipline
In dissipating smoke.

By eschewing daily devotion
Path to perdition paved.

All Future 
Very Present modified!

Every Task a Start
Every Effort a Beginging
Every Day a Dawn
Every Spring a Source
Every Creation a Genesis
Every Journey a Step

To prevail on the phantom darkness
Light a lamp
An act known
A stand taken
An action arrayed for your faculties to stand behind
For them to stand aligned. 

Symptoms addressed,
Bemoaning cure - stayed elusive -
Elegance, only a symptom of excellence!

From a Telugu Song...

Bhuvi taarala padhamu minchi

Ghana taarala nadhigaminchi

Saktiyutudu
Yuktiparudu

I am haunted by my failures.
I wake up many mornings
To prove them wrong.
Every succesful offspring
owe their crippled brethern in the wake.

Oh, To perfect ones art,
To dive again and again
All Day
I dream of skies open
I wish the world bestows such freedom!

Eduru choostuntaru
Vaana leni mabbula vaipu
Aa Oka varsham kosam

For some,
Splintering clouds where hopes are kept!
How fortunate those that live in a desert,
For without smoke screens above
Some extract oil from sand.

As quickly Fortune favors
Deserts as fast
Meanwhile Fancies quite many!

In the garden
A pin pricked me
Tender when seen - all souls
Needed fardels bearable when bare made
Cold mornings by a bitter drink comforted

Some quietly transform human condition,
While many talks vacuously!
Not too far an argument needed 
To fear I aid the later

A suffused chill,
This late morning surveys.

Like premonition of burdens that never come in ones,
No ravens call, and silent is the chill.

Sweeter than an affluent Flute
Hoots a woodsy Grand-master 
For all near and far that lends a ear!
No owl no where has ever sung a grander song

Flirting Robins play
Burrow with their thickets.
A stranger knocks at the door - 
Only to find wood peckers
Sizing their beaks on hardy palms.

I sit transfixed, sigh
Yet the human propensity daggers my heart 
To get up and move

I pray, you stay my friend,
With burdens least,
To be wise before the Year!

You know me ever long I was a child,
Faint, frail, and weak,
Now laden with a thousand arrows of life.
To summon your bravery
You, that is wealthy, handsome, and strong!

Goals Imminent
Unknown, may be foreign, actions
Hard Day

Lettuce, Onions, Carrots
And those sweet Beets!
Oh my!
Don' t over use a good thing!
What will u do after?

We sit,
Wonder,
And Leave!
That is life.

As far as anyone knows
That is the truth.

Yet,
Every action i take
Seek to portend permanence!

I so want to be a 
Grasshopper
And not an Ant.

Without limb or leg
They dug the wells of sorrow.
Behind caged glass - at a distant kept
Prudent, with care and circumspect, may 
Peruse to be shaken but not stirred

Caravaggio: 38
Raphael: 37
Alexander: 32
Ramanujan: 32
Galois: 20
Riemann: 40

On the Ascent sits half Moon
Witnessing the chilled night.

Leaf, limb and Wren
Sure in wonder
Stay silent.

Far flew his consorts
For the Prince of the Night
Surveys the Silence he Lit
On this cold January Night

Paradise is not a place
But freedom to know
When you walk into one!

To stones and rubble
When in favor half wits turn,
Personify possibility - 
That one can break the shell
And be a butterfly if not a tempest in Fugue

Can't believe August in only a day or two away. Summer is evident even at 7 in the morning. He is 11. Sturdy 5 feetn'all. Occupying the passenger seat as I drive to drop him off at JCA.

As I was ruminating the fate of life where every second of it is used to take care of life, what point then of life is.

"Dad, Where is the hardest place to drive?"

I was never given the impression that I am a trusted source on any subject especially by my kids. I am tolerated I suspect for conveniences they richly deserve. Espcially when asked on a subject that I have discounted myself, I could not hide the authority in my voice "Umm, downtown! Every Downtown I suppose. Ya DOwntown. I think. Yes! It is DOWNTOWN!!" Wanted to discourage any doubt there after.

"I am not going to go anywher near Downtown! DEFINITELY! When I drive! I will be CRAAAAAAZZZYYYYY to go anywhere near downotown." A period. A head nod. The word used is not "sure", "you know", "ummm" but "DEFINITELY". He has a way of saying DEFINITELY that is distinct where every letter is rolled in his mouth and considered, and every syllable is uttered and stressed to impose age that was not there. Then there was silence for the rest of the drive.

May be life has a small point!

"Dad, what is Haste?"

Winter has its Fall,
and Summer its Spring.
Incessant, by Time both pursued, 
Never in Haste, 
but only in Impact, Accumulated! 

You need not Sprint!
Like Seasons that promote Grwoth, 
Instead, You should walk Swiftly.

Head down
In deep thought
Wolves move.
It is the pet pedigree
That blusters at the ordinary

I was briefly browsing the first page of Religio Medici. Never mind the name or the book. It strikes me that the sign of a healthy society is self examination and critic.

FFAAUULLTT  TTOOLLEERRAANNTT  FFAAUULLTT  TTOOLLEERRAANNTT

iiff yyoouu wweerree ttoo pprriinntt tthhiiss pprriinntt ttwwiiccee..iiff yyoouu wweerree ttoo pprriinntt tthhiiss pprriinntt ttwwiiccee..

"I adore...."
Someone said.
On your travels -
Luck be with you 
I wish for you ardently -
You get to say "I adore..."

There was a lad,
that wanted to do super well in life!

So he went to school,
where he was told, 
first and second, when squared, is the same
as the first squared,
the second squared,
and twice both,
all put together!

He was sad and suspicious,
led him to be loud,
"How'z that gonna help me?"

A man from Mars came to talk to the lad
"You see, we use that kind of stuff to build Rockets"
A Nobel Woman came to convince him,
"You see, we use that kind of stuff to advance ourselves"

The lad was a skeptic,
"No snake oil has ever cured an ailment!"
He turned to the kid that seemed
to play a lot.
Especially with things that get squared for no good Reason.

He asked him
"Do you want to be a famous Rocket Man?"
"Do you want to be Laureate"
"Do you want to be famous"

"NO!!" the Kid said.
"I ain't know any of those,
I just like when things get squared!!!"

In a gush or in a drone,
If all were to leave,
Would I still perorate? 
I should say less than wanting
when unsought.

Relevent and brief,
New and unknown before,
I should say more than expected
when sought.

From the familiar,
From the known,
Speech should rise like a swell.

"Dad! Read. What is my temprature?"

"Why don't you read the numbers. I will tell you what the temperature is."

"Six..."

"No that is a 9"

"9 ...7....8"

"That is 97.8"

"Is that good?"

"Yes. That is an awsome temperature"

"Ok. I am going to test my awwwwm pit. Read. What is this temperature?"

"Tell me the numbers! I will tell"

"9 ....what is 0 ....6"

"I don't know that is like 96.7"

"Oh! no! You awwwe woong. There is no 7 at the end. It is a zeeeewooo"

"Ok it is 96.0 then. Stop bugging me. I am trying to eat dinner."

"What does 0 mean? is it big or small"

"It is the smallest"

"Ohhhhh! So my mouth is sicker than my awwwwm pit!!. You can have your dinner now."

In witness of a great sight
You never want to look away

In hearing a great story teller
You stay sit

In reading a great pen
You never want the print discontinued

While in the company of love
You never want to leave

I am so odd and different,
That I am glad in this Land where
I have no crisis that is named Identity!
I am glad it has no name or shape or form in this land.
With my blots and blemishes,
Thoughts and twisted limbs,
I am glad I have so many
Profound things that I think of,
But never of identity.
Like trees in a crowded forest,
I am glad to push and shove,
Twist and turn,
Crawl and climb,
To seek the Sun,
Unaware of my shape and limb.
I am so glad Identity is not my crisis!

I am ill-prepared for wars and battles -
Quick jabs disorienting come to find -
Like a large banyan i plan my roots over eras.
I only grow as from a seed.
It is by deeply facing uncertainty my next leaf is crafted,
In perfect balance, in time.

Like a trickle,
Like a lamp,
Like a petronus,
An immortal voice beaks at my door to let it in:

Sandehim-paku manma, Sri Raama-chandruni, Seethamma!!!
And ...
Mukku-pachharani Muni-kumaaru-lani Venu-kaadu-chunti..

If a student allows here is a long lasting way to teach math 

1. Play chess - to teach focused thinking

2. Practice calligraphy - for being present

3. Practice synonyms - for intelligence

4. Paint long chains with links - to understand derivations

5. Read fiction - to know why do this at all (abstraction)

Play is a good thing. 
So is Math. 
Neither needs a reason. 
So on with both.

Deep immersive introspection. 
Hearth of creativity.

In returning and rest shall ye be saved;
in quietness and in confidance shall be your strength.

- Isaiah 30:15

I watch, and am
As a sparrow alone upon the house top.

- Psalm 102

patram pushpam phalam toyam
yo me bhaktya prayacchati
tad aham bhakty-upahritam
asnami prayatatmanah

He who offers to me with devotion only a leaf, or a flower, or a fruit, or even a little water, this I accept from the yearning soul, because with a pure heart it was offered with love

- Bhagavad Gita, 9.26

"Why should I yield?"
An educated daughter asked her father
In Grade 3 this daughter has arrived
When in disapproval this question was raised

The father told her a story

To the best of schools she went
Intelligent, smart, and confidant she became
Matters abstruse, subjects difficult, back and forth she mastered
But yield, she did not

Swells of curly hair, with complexion much desirable,
she was deemed pretty.
An air of unquestioned sophistication she carried
But yield she did not

Any amount of education,
All the sophistication in the world
are of little worth 
when you know not how to yield

To yield despite your right
To be patient despite your turn
Each by itself is worth a phd
At least in my book
And for certain, I believe, in the book of wise

"Don't talk to me in words complicated"
The daughter pointed out to the error in argument

The father replied 

To yield is to give
Especially when you don't have to

To yield is to let go
And again when you don't have to

And when you are in 4th grade
You will also know
To yield is to concede
In order to Gain

"How should I yield"
She asked, sure to extend the argument
The father dug deep and said

Like a father to his daughter
And a mother to her son
As the ground to your feet
And as the sun to the clouds
And like a Red wood to the scurrying ant

With love
with good faith
Just like a big sister you are to your brother

National Fugue unchecked.
While
Thou shall not kill,
Love thy neighbor,
Words in wait of the Messiah again

Where there are none
there may not be any.
Where there is, however, one
There may be many.

Evi talli nirudu kurisina hima-samoohamulu
Gurajaa-dekkada!
Sri Sri Leduga?
Raachakonda, Taapi
Dharmaiah,
Mari ValLeri?
Peddayana,
Gudipaati Venkata chalam.
Sokamemo!
Atyavasaramayina vela,
Migili-poya-nayya mee Goppa Telugu panulu.

Are we what we are given?
When I look back
some have struggled to become Paupers
and some Potentates,
like pre-disposed leaves blown in a genetic wind,
in apparent delusion of self-determination.
Could we really change who we are?
Could we really make the right choices?
Could we discipline our mind to see the truth,
And when not the courage and conviction to forgive ourselves!

Perhaps, as a collective human race,
we are at a stage to finally understand
and solve this quagmire called human mind.

To discipline, 
To Rein in,
the goalless neurons,
to a determined purpose,
I pray be possible,
not necessarily by medicine,
but by that called WILL,
and an ample dose of repeatable Science.

A summer evening
Painted with perfume...
Flowering Jasmine

Kala danduru deenula yeda
Kaladanduru anni disala

Kalado Ledo!

kaladata mari, siri kannela bhara kuchonnathin
Bhagyamata, pujimpan yaa kumkuma raaga-chonulan

- with apologies to Pothana, Kaalidasa, and a many number of fair ones.

Learned me

Narayan is 3. He is an imitator. That is an understatement. He is a great imitator. Even before he was 2, right after he could walk, this is what he did. I was washing dishes and Kavitha was doing her home work at the kitchen table. I would interrupt once in a while, turn around and talk to Kavitha about her work. At times I have a habit of standing on my left leg and crossing the right leg over. After a couple of times of this routine, I notice a diminutive disturbance around the kitchen entrance which has no doors but just a wide partition wide enough to pass the widest of our relatives.

I turn my head around to register the view with attention. I see Narayan smiling and his lips quivering to stop an impending giggle. I have noticed his one hand rested on one side of the entrance while his body leaned away straight and supported by one leg. He is now working his other leg to get it crossed over. In a couple of tries he got that pat. He now says with the tone of a satisfied comedian "Whadu think!".

Now the other day, I was helping him with his dinner. With out supervision he would make the kitchen a war zone. So I make it a point to sit with him on an adjacent contraption (Usually this is a chair, but could vary to include any makeshift replacement, as he broke two of them already) and help him with his dinner. Having grown up with so very few chairs, I have a tendency to assume the lotus position when presented with a flat surface. If I can't turn both feet in, I will make do with one and assume "half a lotus" position. So there I was sitting half lotus and feeding him his dinner.

Through this I am watching him wiggle in his chair with one leg down and one leg up. I tell him "Narayan, stop the wiggles and eat your dinner." It occurs to me barely after that he is trying to imitate me in his chair. Soon after he says "I am sitting like you.." obviously admonishing a clueless grownup. I change my position. He changes his and asking me again if he was sitting like me. Having explored this imitation until I am fully tired, he turns his attention to his next curiosity. He seem to be preoccupied with the "genesis" of all ideas. He has to know where things came from. For instance in this case he asks "Dad, who learned me this!". He is yet to distinguish between "learn" and "teach" otherwise the sentence is perfectly formed. Nevertheless I tell myself the established equivalence of "learn" and "teach" is profound.

Raned out

Got to be quite frustrating to his sister that he won't leave her for anything. When her friends see him approaching they all yell "Oh, No!". Anyway he went to a neighbor's house the other day to spend a couple of hours. He came back with lots of stories and how he and another boy stole their marbles and "Raned out fast" before they could catch them. He didn't say "runned out..". So as early as 3 they already distinguish the idea of tense and the disonance of a regular verb and the need for an irregular verb.

Kidnapped beans

Recently he has been introduced to the saltiness of boiled peanuts. Both Kavitha and him love to chew (if not eat) on these peanuts. They consume a few cans every week. It wasn't hard for us to run out of these. The other day he wanted peanuts. I told him we ran out. "Ahan! I see them.." he says. He goes and grabs a can of Kidney beans, and walks out "Here they are".

"Narayan, they are kidney beans, they are not peanuts!"

"What are they? Kidnapped beans! I love kidnapped beans. They make me strong.."

The lazy bone

Getting him dressed after a shower is a daily ritual. First of all he wants me to carry upside down from down stairs to upstairs. He is mildly (I think and I hope) obsessive. So this routine is a must. While upside down he would try to capture whatever objects he could capture and carry them to the shower. These objects included clothes, a rubic cube, a number of abandonded dinosaurs on the floor etc. After the shower he has a specific way for me to carry him to the bed and so on and so forth.

For a few months now, he wants to pick the clothes himself. And he doesn't want to wear any night clothes. He dresses himself in jeans and proper shirt. I let him do it, and most of the days he ends up going to the day care in the same clothes. Bystanders think that I could do better. I am not so sure.

Last night, he is in a relaxing mood. He said he wanted me to pick the clothes. I get him his jeans. He didn't like the particular jeans I have picked. He didn't want them. I said very nicely, in a non-threatning way, "Narayan, then get up from the bed and pick your own clothes". He looked at me a couple of times, weighed the situation that would require him to get off the bed and pick his clothes. He said "Ok give those jeans, I will put them on.".

Where ever you are,
What ever it is,
Let Life be a Song.

Your Love is your Dream
In the end be.

Without ego,
Without fear,
As you dare to be brutally honest,
Let Life be a Song.

All imperfections shed
In immense long time
Tread softly on, if at all,
What was made keen by selection

Inanimate things
These pesky Lids!
Oh,They relocate alright, rankling me - unseen -
Not just into corners but to oblivion

Tilting tables, wobbling chairs
Leftovers, vestiges, legacies and throwbacks
And More
Rotten cheese and clouds that never rain
I hate lingering tasks

I have searched for Heaven all my life.
Never found it.
Only place I haven't looked 
Is the center of Hell!

I stole a quarter
My mama said.
Not this time, I knew.
My dark cheeks turned rosy,
Her palms red.
I have not learned much I can tell you,
Except
Her agony before
And ever since then.
Such I learned is helpless Love.

Ceaselessly 
I take myself to the altar
To show you the way
If not this, what else is love?

Marachi poduru gaaka naaketi verapu.
Massi povunu naa prathi goppa Ghanatha 
Mari oh Naa Raghava,
Maruva-nayya Nee chathuratha!
Prtyakhsha Meppudu Aaa Nee Meni Nunupu

If you think of future present is never perfect!
If you not think of future, where it goes you Never Know.
Breathe Now!
Know every letter craves its attention,
Hope then sentence strong.

Malliswari and Krishna Sastry translated [I might add poorly].

Notions of Swaying Fragrance settled in my thought.
Tides of breaking moonlight fill my sight.
This night is suffused with bliss.
In how long my prayers bore fruit!!

As the branches' thrushes whisper,
As the leaves' light breezes rustle,
As playful ripples play in the pond,
As I hear a muffled flute in the distance,
Perhaps you came!
Perhaps you called me!
My tear filled eyes span near and far.

Not a moment from here on, won't you leave!
This heart in swell, won't you let break!

In how long my life bore fruit,
And How suffused in bliss is this Night!
 

It's sight short,
Stature diminutive.
Barks at every moving thing!
In quarrel its use for language.
Only sufficiently amicable
To get through the evolution's noose.
Angel content with-in its narrow domestic walls.

- with a phrase borrowed from Tagore

A journey of a mile I began,
It was depressing, ellusive, frustrating.
I had to meander a thousand miles
before I reached.

Industrious summer Sun
Sunk into the dusk.
Take your gait
And come ashore Merry wind!
Hint our young groves, gardens, and orchards
Fancy that their young buds - come harvest -
turn the size of nurturing breasts

I regret in December and January
That
There are no rains that don't quit
There are no snows that don't stop
That there are no nights that last beyond day break
Time, may I ask that you stand a bit

You ask!
No, I don't believe in lottery.
No, I don't believe in Miracles.
Joy, sorrow or sweat,
All I want to do in my life is perform a miracle.

Be kind. Be generous. To yourself!
Never Omit to be More
I hear
With many missteps
We will have a chance to perfect

2 x protein,
Creamy and Delicious!
It said.
Pitiful, Earth-like, 
That translated!

monochromatic flock

Mute, I cry and scream
In my own Great void
Supernova

Ceaselessly
As i err with curiosity,
Some of those labors,
You may favorably see as fruits

My Grand old man 
Never spoke of our collective heritage 
With pride,
Only with reverence!

Of others with wonder 
Never in less light. 

That is what I remember
Of my Grand old Man

A banana may rot.
An apple may have a smirch,
A pancake a stench.
But a Waffle, for its sake, should not Err!!
Lest, it should be stuck with,
Awful Waffle!!!

There is no one in awe of you than I
Yet it is ordained
You be Heaven and I the Earth
Seemingly for eternity apart
 

Nights, Terrible nights,
The realm of ghosts and ghouls
And of prowlers outcast
As many of the lores go

In a place no where, 
far from the lights,
On one such empty void night,
Me and a night lamp,
I recollect were sitting by a beam supporting the roof overhead
among a hamlet by the woods

No doubt the night was dark,
Yet the air, cool and refreshing
The security of the night was reassuring
The wisdom of silence was palpable

The world around seem to have fallen asleep
Sorrows around seem to have been paused for the night
Progress seem to have postponed for the morning

Book in hand I feel guilty
Amassing my riches while the world sleeps
Like that old man greedy

While the night lamp 
Burns its mid night oil
In the night serene
I seem to have found an unfair vantage

When the dusk settles
Night is not too far
When all the charms lost their shine
I am empty inside
I go in search of shells
To see beauty in a poem or two

He is 5. He is a lovely boy. He is so much fun to be with (when I have time to spare).

I was watching with him one of those disney channell shows. The set was a restaurant. There was a girl trying to figure out aloud how much hot cofee to pour on a piece of cofee-cake. I see my son's arms go up, his eyes lit up in horror, his mouth open in puzzlement and he yells "NONE!!!".

He is sure wired for sillyness and comedy.

Among newly imposed fortunes
I sought the confidence of a Captain
I walk away instead unsatisfied
With the bluster of insubstantial hooligans

In his satire "1984", Orwell told us a way to write "very good" as "good plus" and "superlatively good" as "good plus plus". What good are synonyms to modern times anyway! Just kidding.

In a language an "object" may be known under different names that we call synonyms. An object may have earned these multiple names due to a context or any number of other reasons.

Synonyms when stood by themselves are more like a set of colors in a crayon box. Their true powers come along when they keep company in a fellowship where any other name would be inappropriate. It is as if the sound of a company of synonyms forming a sentence should not contain a discordant note.

Consider the following telugu "company"

"Rayamuna Theru maralpu"

It is a begging in earnest by Prince Uttara to Arjuna to "turn the chariot around" in a battle facing the esteemed Kaurava commanders. To translate the nouns in English it would be

"Quickly Chariot Turn"

With in Telugu, none of the three nouns used are common for what they represent. But using the more common nouns for those objects will make the sentence either too pretentious or too streetworthy.

Consider another "fellowship", in Telugu again

"Kuru Kshithi Pathi" ("The king of the Kaurava lands")

This is how Arjuna introduces the "Kaurava King" to Prince Uttara. Again it is quite hard to get it sounding any better using any other words.

Like chameleons, words keep their harmonic company in their synonmized forms. A well formed sentence is like a painting where the right hue is chosen for a pleasing panorama.

:-)

Synonyms for Fellowship

What is there
Not to like about "Oh"
In Telugu
Tops or Bottoms
A pair to die for!

In life we take lot of things for granted. Some of them are obvious like breathing, walking, eating etc. These are obvious. Not so obviously we also take for granted our capacity for empathy, trust, love, listening and care.

Teams depend on trust to survive and succeed. How does one develop trust?

By Caring

I must care for the work I do. I must care for those that work with me personally. I take pride when I am even a small reason for your well being and success.

By putting oneself in the others shoes

I want to see from your point of view. I want to encourage your point of view. I want to encourage you to own your ideas and help them be better. I want to sit through, think through and explore your ideas. I want to learn your perspective. I think this is a good thing. I believe I do not loose myself to be you.

By letting Ego go

I want to acquire a broader outlook. I want to circulate a broader outlook. My glory and my past I shall not bear on my present. I am a commoner in a common set of ideas. I am not privileged. Nor am I disadvantaged. I want to start my sentences with yes. World is far and wide. I want to be the skeptic that can perfectly walk.

By listening intently and intentionally

Silence is the greatest communicator. I want to observe. I want to assess. Like a reed I want to bend to the stormy talk. With my eyes wide open I want to listen.

By putting others needs first

I want to understand the needs of others. I will put them first.

By taking pleasure in others success

I derive an incredible joy in seeing others succeed.

By realizing all profit is 'Service', especially to others.

To be profitable is to be in business. To be in business is to serve. When I serve I have no fear that I am not trusted.

My Parting Thought on Trust

Call me crazy. I think these attributes are teachable.Through culture. Through communal expectations. Through personal fulfillment. Through training.

Spoons
Cups
Knives
Lids
Plastic containers
Coffee cups
More Spoons
More knives
Scissors
China
Wine glasses
Cutting boards
Rice pots
Curry pots
And their lids
Ladles
......
No that is not a purse,
My kitchen sink,
Infinite, it seem, in depth.
An Aegean stable.
At least a  bottom less list.

I wonder every time
How do they get done?
By hook or crook
One by one!

Sunrise.
Sunset.
In a firmment at drift, prearranged,
We matter our affairs.

Those that be as trees are
When Growing
Those that be as hills are
When decaying
Unaffected by the praise of winds
Unconcerned by the wear of rain
Not passive, but original
Their being

Compact And Petite
Even it looks better
This "Maiden" by name Telugu
Disa-landu (in all directions) Lessa
Eee Telugu Bhaasha 

I am not liberal prose
In inadequate crevices of language
Lies deeper meaning
I am a poem.

Greatest sacrifice is to alter another's trajectory
Most parents do as a daily pooja
All acts
Small, Large, and mighty
At best as illustrious, gain or loss!

Captains long - stood erect - on shaken hulls.
In disarray, pitch the placid seas!
Prettiest Moon on the splendid Sky

Probability is a branch of mathematics that is the exact or precise science of inexact and imprecise.

When I have read "Big Fish", unlike many others, I wasn't entirely moved. But I did have to look this word up as it sounded familiar but I was not sure of its meaning any more.

The journey that followed isquite interesting. As it turned out the "exotic" word actually means something that is common enough and something that occurs every day.

A related word "quota" is not only often used in English but also quite common in Telugu representing a "an ongoing or frequent allocation". Most likely this association was borrowed from English to Telugu. Odd, a word I found so foreign, could easily have been deduced by my Grandfather that never spoke a word of English. Worlds apart yet connected.

The later part of "quotidian", namely "dian" or "dias", apparently comes from a Latin/Sanskrit root meaning "day".

To top it off the word "quo" or "kwo" or "ko" is a familiar word in Hindi indicating how. A similar word "quis" still exists in Hindi meaning "who".

So the first part of quotidian quot is related to "how many".

Even quote seem to have been derived from a "sequence of numbers".

I also wonder now what the origin of "Koti" (10 million in Telugu) is. It will be interesting to know if the origin of that word is Sanskrit.

I have just checked and apparently it is a sanskrit number representing those millions. Here is the link

SANSKRIT NUMBERS: Ordinals

Kindness and Love,
Reason and Rationale,
Tolerance and Empathy,
Are my guiding lights.

To serve,
I perfer not as my Obligation,
Rather, let me choose as my Right.

I would rather not look into a mirror
but on to a meadow.
Yet, it is my staunch right to declare so.

Certain delicious sweetness to taste,
A pleasant infirmity in my head,
Lips filled with red wine far off, 
A notion grandly adorned

Reflections

Small and numerous,
Ride on those victories.

Restore heart,
borrow sail,
Small and numerous,  
Ride on those victories,
To lay the path ahead.

See not,
Despair and defeat.
Set aside,
Waylaid those be.

Small and numerous,
Recognize, Recall,
Ride on those victories.

Song is the sword that cleaves Hell,
Leaves it yet unbroken,
With Love.
Be the Sugandham (Fragrance)
Be the Pied piper

Fragrance for a rose
Optional

Kunthi addressing Draupadi - A light translation of Bammera Pothana

Boundless intelligence
Consideration outside measure
This last brood of mine
 
Knows no noon
Nor the hour to eat
This last brood of mine
 
Thus as a kite listless he become
And when sad haloes surround him
He is pleased again seeing you
 

Unaware of travails,
Unaware of station,
Unaware of sorrow,
Unaware of victory,
Unaware of defeat,
Unaware of us,
Seasons take leave.
Unbid new seasons arrive.

Sun gets closer
flaring summers in its wake.
There comes that season, as the Moon gets closer, 
When brighter nights come upon.

Soon after dark on a January evening,
When all seem to have less of a reason to walk out,
I opened my door on a Moon of few days.
A chill of rustling air mingled into my pours
in a volume of fog that descended for a graze in the night.

Proportionately, picturesquely,
Afloat, yet afirm, Above the tree tops,
Neither to the West,
Nor to the perfect South,
Ways in between, More to the West than to the South,
In the Southwestern sky,
The silvery moon shone rendering all else dark. 
Like a candle ensconced by a black veil
Untrammelled by all other light,
Its definition precise.
The vast sky retreated in shame,
Few stars dimmed in deference.

Rupturing my silence,
in the most quietest of manners,
The knowing Moon,
The smiling Moon, said:
"Freedom is having the capacity
Freedom is having the wits
Freedom is having the facility 
to recognize paradise when you walk into one".

God knocked on my door,
I didn't hear it.
I traveled to Paradise- instead!
Beauty, before my eyes,
I chose to look in the mirror instead!

Take to the seaside
Get a loft
Design something
Or plot
Just
With a pencil
On a wall sized paper

I roam freely as long and as far my limbs let me.
I see the abundant green canopies sway in soothing gait.
I am free and no one could judge otherwise.

No one hurt me.
I am not a prisoner.
I have all one can ask! Freedom.

I saw a Pa and a Son,
On a spring evening coming to a close.
A slushy mat of rolling grass,
barely drained of the morning pours.

A ball is pitched.
A hit! Run and get it!
A miss! Run again and Repeat.

Say I, "You want a catcher?"
Caught a few right in the Mitt,
And just one on the nape of my Wrist,
Pride moved the dusk along.

Move a door ajar,
Hold a cup,
Turn a wheel,
It is a tortuous pain a few dusks forward.

It is not sudden,
It is not unbearable,
Yet on every movement,
Guttorally "ouuuuuuu...",
If not me, perhaps for the World to bear,
it is so painful!

I have no misgivings,
that I am anything like a tiger,
but wailed like one on each step,
whose shoulder dislocated a few days prior

For the first time in a long time I am alive,
Complacency to my wrist is a distant memory!

With each blinding pain, I wondered,
Whose heart is wrenched?
Whose eyes swelled an Ocean?

I stare!
I am not a prisoner!
I am free!

A horse, a cat,
a dog, a human,
Aren't we all, when naked of norms,
Alone?

Perhaps it is early morning,
and the dusk of Evolution is far!

Shake your chills.
Shake your mane.
Away, Shake your fears.

Let all else dissipate.
Drift, Coalese your senses to a singular purpose.
Play like a child,
falling down, getting up.

Some call it education.
Some call it learning.
This is effortless, This is joy.

They were spoken for each other.
She the prettiest in body and mind, and he prime handsome.
What happened?
He married and no one heard of him since then.
She married a miser, in spite, or for Love.

Grape is not a fruit
as there is Grapefruit,
And Grapefruit is not Grape!!

Can nothing hold ALL, the immense?
Positive and negative charges
Particles and Anti-particles
Their numbers suit any 
For they annihilate each other to nothing.

When you tie your shoes,
Seconds, or a Minute, they will be tied!
Why count?

When you read a Book,
It will be read!
Why flip again and again,
Only to see "How much left?"

When going to Disney,
why ask,
"Are we there yet?"

Be it tieing shoes,
Or Reading a Book,
Or going to Disney,
They all take what they take.

Pondering the end before due,
is only going to ruin the Joy,
Which otherwise could have been!!
Or delay precisely what you seek.
And worse, could manifest plaques,
Alas, Of the Arterial type.

Why sprint,
Slow the Time instead!

When you are open nothing is small - 
For an entire Universe,
There is room enough even
At the center of a tiny atom

I ponder, i smile,
Over unimaginable distances,
Cuckoos Many
Fell silent, Preening their feathers.
Yet they hold, Social - are we!

As on earth lie all Godly affairs,
No intelligence is superior, but just intelligence.
No idea is sacred, only truth.
So much preaching,
So small beauty.

There are no prophets,
Just you and me.

Taste is one of hunger and thirst!
Why do we seek it in food and water?

He is 5. He is loud. He is lazy. He needs a fulltime servant. Having exhausted every minute of the waking day, the other night, he was walking down stairs with me to go to bed. He negotiated the 20 or so stairs and he noticed Jasmine the small pup we have sleeping on the floor while her bed was unoccupied.

"Ohhh! Jasmine, you should sleep in your bed!!" he picked her up in an embrace close to his small body, put her in her bed, and then covered her with a blanket.

He then says "Dad, I want to stay 5 forever!"

"Why?"

"Because, if I grow up I won't like puppies any more. I won't like Power Rangers any more. I won't like Ben 10 any more. So I don't want to be a grown up. I want to stay 5."

"Sure, Narayan, I won't have it any other way. Lets do that then."

"Ok, Dad, Cancel all my birthdays. Ok!! I am going to be 5 forever."

A life well spent
A rest well earned
Under A blanket of stars with brightly abandon
An old man laid there in reflection

Carved entirely of Nature
Crafted of hand
From trees local the legs and seams made
Of hibiscus rope the bed was woven
By hand when he was only a few years younger

Under the robes flimsy, light
but eminently appropriate
His skin still bears the marks of weaving

A 5 foot companion thin and slick
lay beside him lifeless 
yet a friend of his in circumstances all
A crutch for his mind and body

A prayer or two he uttered
Hey Ram, in honesty he said
The rhythmic zingle of the beasts chimed in agreement

All cares attended
All creatures tenderly cared for
It is his turn
It is his time

to look at the stars in silence
in open
in the gentle swaying of the trees 
in the west bound wind
in Happyness perfect

Every whim of the nature a lullaby
The man is resting
Come and see the nature of that you seek

The hour slithers on...
The bird and the beast is up,
and so are those that stir the bayou.
Won't you be up and create,
to shackle the moment,
and freeze it for the future.

I have heard this narrated by one of the brothers on car talk this morning.

There was a lawyer pounding on a victim for not answering his question of whether he did or did not (that is how I suppose lawyers talk, they give options also called traps) say he was fine to the state trooper.

The victim was eager to tell his whole story and not constrained by this "yes" or "no" lawyer speak. So he says he loaded his farm truck with an ass (some kind of an animal that humans are expected to be kind to)and on his merry way to his farm (whistling and all that) on one of the many highways. At this point the lawyer makes a plea to the judge that this man is not answering his question.

Nevertheless the judge is very interested to hear about the ass (Please, take your mind out of the gutter. It is an animal, people). So the man continues. He was soon hit by a trailer and he found himself in a ditch while the ass chose to land in a nearby one. He was hurting real bad and so was the animal. He could hear it moan. A trooper appeared on the scene soon after. Looked at the animal and point blank went the weapon and there were no more moans.

The trooper approached the victim. And the victim submits to the court that he was pleased to tell the patrol he was absolutely fine and the kind officer could sheath his weapon safely.

Thought may seek strength from others, like vine.
Thought must be independent, unlike vine, however.
River of influence may shape it in time,
but the best of it like a polished rock will prevail the floods.  

Who of you
Wants to shed
Your live long encumberments
To extract and fly

Atleast by a morning subsequent
If not today that is already bound

Past your noon
You still with weary eyes
Hope held

Carry into an endless night
Same wake - if unsated -
Held in jealousy

So u state on your stake
Resolute

In witness of a great sight
You never want to look away

In hearing a great story teller
You stay sit

In reading a great pen
You never want the print discontinued

While in the company of love
You never want to leave

The greatest Tomb
Fitfully
Straddles a Tragedy

I admire people who wakes up every morning with a propelling purpose.

John Muir,
Richard Feynman,
Venki Ramakrishanan:
Among like them many,
Wondered about the world,
And spent their life
Doing something about it.

Visalita Viswambunan,
Vignulye,
Nuthana Vidhatalayyena,
Suthulan,
Gamaninchare Kannuletthi!
Talalupare Mannanan!

When you walk out,
You walk out into a painting.
Every day!
Contemplation in a chrysalis suited.
When flown, a butterfly!

Naadi, Nenu, Naaku,
Maaku, Memu, Manadi,
Us, I, We, Ours,
Mine, Mine, or Me!!

Would be perfectly alright,
If uttered,
By a well dweller,
Or a bridled horse with blinders!

Else should heed Krak des Chevaliers:
"Grace, wisdom and beauty you may enjoy, 
but beware pride, 
which alone can tarnish all the rest"

In a barren scape we seek out our pebbles, rocks and diamonds
we read a book
we hear a song
we see a film
we see an act
we collect what we like unbehooved
we make a home
we become more than us
No, we are inspired to be more than us

In petulance, the Father
Smeared the thick oil paint
On the western canvas
In summary of his incongruent sons

Burdens of the world not on their shoulders
Themselves wrapped in modesty 
Their hearts content in their bosom
Neighbors, friends, and family
Gathered that night like on nights often

Hand woven cotton around their head
Finely tempered tobacco to be hand rolled by their side
In the first quadrant of the night
They sat on benches 
in reflection of the calamity outside

Tiles from local kilns, 
Crescent in shape, 
Robust reddish brown in composure,
adorned the roof above. 
15 foot in depth and 60 foot wide,
A fair expanse sliced bamboo.
At that hour of the night,
to cots, of wood and hibiscus threads, in line,
The roof had been home.

A thin blanket spread, a cotton pillow, a sheet to cover,
Children laid there listening to the dance outside
and to the hum of rain on the roof, continuous.
Never a sound more soothing was heard.

Down the eaves of faithful tiles, 
rushed waters in a silver curtain,
Descended the 7 feet clearing
with a noise only falling water can make,
A rustle, a din,
incessant, hurried, many toned,
parting comfort from calamity,
parting safety from chaotic churn.

Single but not lonely
A kerosene lamp of concave glass
A protected flame in its womb 
hung on the wall.
In lamp light, in the shimmering silver,
There come to be on that night, like nights often,
Ruminating men and resting mothers.
A child's heart took wing
in a cocoon of security.
All the world seemed approachable.

In skies above a war was on its way.
Arjuna, Archer of the skies was on his chariot of fearsome wraiths.
As the wheels rumbled and ascended
Lynch pins fell, scorching heavens in stripes of fire.
From under the blankets pronouncements came: "Arjuna" "Arjuna"

Like a flock of birds, in a cackle,
Streaks of water currents rushed out the front yard
and out gushed from the compound wall

To the observant ear
near by yet faint
there drifted the sounds of cow bells
from the rhythmic sway of nodding heads
of young calfes, of mother cows,
of work horses the prized bulls, 
all a family of gentle giants
satisfied in their element
Hay dry, Corn stacks juicy,
in handsome ways gathered, broken and consumed

Among nights such a night was special
Empty and nill a night usually is.
Like a true friend came rain, unannounced,
Morning would be sad when there would still be rain no longer, 
when living beings would stir again in unrest
when attended burdens would take their seats on bent shoulders.
However on that special rainy night
Guiltless rest was what seemed imposed in measure ample.

Men talked, not of their work, not of their worries
Women talked, not of them, not of their worries
They both wondered of things simple.
Of life they discovered for a night, on that rainy night.
Like the tiled roof above, like the ground just outside, 
The living come to feel what it is to be alive.  

Cattle fed, in rain,
Drinking water carried from wells, in rain,
Muddy feet, wet hair, damp clothes,
Children bathed in steamy hot water, in rain,
All tidy in the end,
When all prevailed in the midst of difficulty
"Thanks for the wrestle" the mind said to an otherwise calamity. 

Company of surety,
Hum of rain on the roof,
Silver curtains of rain,
Cackle of the running waters,
Cow bells just beyond the courtyard,
Rumblings in the belly of the sky,
Moments when neighborhood when washed walls lit in white,
Difficulties, the challenges, the calamities,
These I miss

what I miss: draft

While I wade through the shallows
like those on the verge of dried up river beds
like those that form after a summer rain
and reflect in pride..

You seem to leap over the mountains
Jump through the cascades
Ski the powdered ice in vertical dimension

Among us
Among you and me
all comparisions are insignificant
like a sapling to a Red wood
and an anzenu to a veteran
and what is given to what is possible
and what is possible to what that can be only dreamed of

Like a spirit that is incessant
You stand tall
Albeit in mortal disguise

Why say a lot!
Beauty summits in brief
A haiku

"Mom! Simon is a diarrhea head."

"Narayan I want to watch TV. Can you stop jumping on the bed."

"But he is mean!"

"Ok! if you continue with this, I will hang you upside down!!"

"Ohhh Yaaaaa! Then I will thwo up on You!!!. How about that"

In my "6 year old speak" "Thwo" should be translated to "Throw".

May I wish
That power
In twice proportion
Bestow
Restraint

Anxious
Anger
Agony
All spill too eagerly to ones lips
While the one with weight waits augustly
Anguish

Kusalama neevu kusala mena?
(How are you!)
Did a loved one kiss you?
Has the sun warmed up your eyes?
Has the cold pleased your soul?
Has your son opened a book?
Did u see the moon come up?
Has your pillow complimented you?
Were your friends pleased to see you?
Have you lost ur mind in at the 9th hole?
Were the greens indifferent then?
Have u understood the lament of a poet?

Tell me,
What happened yesterday!

What Gogol story u laughed at.
What Tokyo Tower did u see?
At what new truth have u smiled at?

Sukhule, Bhrathal, Sutul, chuttamul?
(All well? Brothers, children, relations?)

Disuse of humanity!
I wish I was a tree,
Or a bird,
Anything ok, but human!
Dates, Papers, and borders,
Websites, Registrations, and expectations!
When were u born?
Where were u born?
Can u prove it?
Are you a being when not recorded?
Everyone knows about me,
Except when it is in my profit that you know!

What a waste of humanity
For I exist only on paper
And soon may be only in digits
Oh what a waste of being human!