Light of the Lamp

Hello,          We are in the middle of summer season and in lot of places the heat is felt. Even in Bangalore, the summer is getting hotter with each passing year. Talking about summer, this time is always synonymous with vacations, especially from schools before going to the next grade.                                  Alright,  I am not going to write about summer vacations, but about our visit to Mahabalipuram (near Chennai) during last month. We were in Chennai for a wedding recently and it has been my longstanding wish to go to Mahabalipuram. And of course, I did not want to miss that chance. This place is only 45 kms from Besant Nagar (Chennai) and can be easily finished as  a day trip. One thing you have to take into account is the scorching heat of summer. So take enough liquids with you.                   ...

Hello folks,                    16th of April every year makes me a year older, but as they say it is all in your mind how young or old you feel. This time I decided that I would make my day more special by showing off my 'selfie'ing.                                  For some time, I have been clicking on my own and posting the images in Facebook without realizing that I am doing selfies. The word selfie is a recent coinage and we won't find the meaning of it in the standard dictionaries. With the advent of smart phones, anybody finds it convenient to click their own images and instantly post in Social networking sites to envy their friends. The younger generation seems more confident in clicking 'selfies' and instantly posting them. The infamously famous selfie was clicked by Barrak Obama with British Prime Minister David Cameron and Vice Chancellor ...

 Hello everybody,                               With the elections round the corner, everybody's mantra is NaMo, RaGa(Rahul Gandhi) or A K(Arvind Kejriwal), depending on the choice of the alliance. While the voter turnout has remained same in the state of Kerala compared to the previous elections, the same has seen a rise in some states of North India.  Is it because of the entrance of  Aam Aadmi Party which vouches to fight the ever prevalent corruption or is it because of the NOTA (None Of The Above) option in the ballot papers? Though the NDA alliance is more likely to form the Government this time, we all want to know how much Aam Aadmi Party has made impact on the aam aadmi and the other two major parties. The phrase 'aam aadmi' will not be used by Congress and BJP as it has become the name of another party. I should follow lot of campaign meetings at various places and debates between vario...

Hi folks,                    Something is keeping me away from this beloved space. Writer's block? ;) ...About 1&1/2 months back, I posted that nostalgic article on terraces. After that, there is this period of lull for no particular reason. Of course, regular activities or pass times keep happening like browsing, playing games online. The other day, when I was sitting and browsing and relaxing, I heard this sound of  a bucket falling down. I jumped from my seat to go and check what I guessed. Yes, it was a monkey (Jai Anjaneya!!!) searching our trash can to find something to eat. The service area door was open and I immediately locked it. Otherwise, the bananas from our fruit basket would have vanished the next second. Yes, this is a monkey in our own building and not an image borrowed from google!!!                                  M...

Hello,            The word terrace itself makes me nostalgic. Terrace (of a house) has been or still is very important part of my life. The terrace of a house is the topmost open area where one wants to get away from the distractions of the house and enjoy the open air and also a place to introspect or think loudly and quietly. One may go to the terrace to mug up or revise the academic books for the forthcoming exams or whenever one wants to think of his/her lover, or when he/she is unhappy. One goes to the terrace to escape the daily irritations or distractions, but to find himself  'distracted' there also.                                   The earliest memories of terrace I have is one on top of my grandparents' building. During my annual school vacations, we used to go to my grandparents' house in Chennai. It is an old 3-storeyed building, the first of its kind b...

Hi,         Happy New Year, Pongal, and Sankranti  to all of you. By now, I have published more than just a handful of articles describing my travel experiences giving the readers the impression that I travel a lot. We travel to explore new places only once in a while, though my travel wishlist is endless. There were no school or college excursions during my childhood. We have traveled to very few places before my marriage. In my childhood days, we used to go to Chennai during school vacation to stay with my grand parents and other close relatives. I will write on my childhood memories separately. Coming back to the travel topic, I find that when most people are content taking a handful of family photos to publicize in their profile pages, we take photos which will cover lots of details of a location.                                              ...

Hi,         In my earlier post    ' Lamp Lamp, burning bright-Happy 3rd Birthday ' , I put in the P.S (postscript) that I'll post a birthday gift to celebrate the 3 years of blogging. :) I delayed a little bit, but it is always said that 'better late than never'. Well, here is the gift.                   It is done with watercolor pencils. The image is a bit dull, and I'll post a brighter one soon!!!               HAPPY BIRTHDAY once again. Lots of  love, Deepa.

Hello,             Happy holidays to all of you.  Finally, the wait is over and most of us take time off to spend vacation with family and friends. When many parts  of our planet will be freezing with cold weather, places in South India generally has tolerable weather and folks enjoy the moderate winter before bracing up for the harsh summer days. I look forward for the winter days when there is festive mood in the air with the colours of Christmas. I listen to a lot of Christmas songs that is played in an online radio station.                                                 This day of the month marks 3 years of completion of my blog writing. I started to write in December 2010 by inaugurating with a simple post "Quote for thought" which contains        “Instead of thinking about what you're missing...

Hello,                 I vaguely remember having read somewhere that when a 100-year old woman was interviewed, what is one thing she had to say. She laughed and said, "at 100, I do not face any peer pressure."                           The moment a child is out of the womb, the one thing that constantly follows him/her is peer pressure. My baby's weight is only 2.5 kg, while her baby's weight is 3 kg. We will not say that it is peer pressure, but comparison. If a baby's weight falls within normal, there is no need to worry that it is underweight and weak. But when relatives or friends start telling about the weight to the new parents, it will set them thinking.                                 As per Wikipedia, peer pressure usually sets in during adolescent stage, when students feel pressure to p...

Dear friends,                          Hope all of you had fun during Diwali bursting lots of crackers and distributing sweets among your friends and relatives. Last year, during the time of Diwali, I posted an article titled 'Lighting the Lamp'(Go to the link  http://deepanagaraj.blogspot.in/2012/11/lighting-lamp.html )  which highlighted the tragedy at Sivakasi factory which involved more of onlookers than the workers in the factory. This year, there was a different kind of tragedy. Just three days before Diwali, a bus traveling from Bangalore to Hyderabad hit a divider at Mehaboob Nagar in the wee hours of morning killing about 45 passengers. Most of them were traveling to the hometown to celebrate Diwali with their families. According to the follow up investigation, reckless driving, faulty road and poor safety measures were responsible for the accident. The bus was also carrying passengers above the normal...

Hello readers,                         The other day, I was having breakfast of dosas with my parents. I love dosas. If  I go to a restaurant, especially the South Indian ones, the first thing that is tempting for me to order is always dosa. Masala dosa, plain dosa, ghee roast, paper roast, butter dosa, rava dosa, rava-masala dosa....the list is endless. Slurp.  But, one variety of dosa which is not in my favourites' list is wheat dosa. As a child I shied away from it as much as possible and these days I am trying to like it. :) My father usually makes batter for wheat dosa. He is very good at making dosas. As we were eating the wheat dosas, we were discussing that wheat dosas are something which people loved to detest. Even  Bhanumathi did not like wheat dosa.                                      Who is this Bhanuma...

Hi dear friends,                           It is that time of the year when the festival of nine days (Navarathri or Dasara) is celebrated in full swing. In southern India, ladies invite each other to view the sequential doll arrangements and gifts are exchanged along with snacks. Ladies and children are encouraged to sing the deity songs. In north, Dasara is celebrated with Dandiya  and Gaarba dances. Ravana effigies are burnt to celebrate the good over evil.                           Instead of writing about Navarathri festival and the traditions that are followed during this time, why have I chosen to write about a stinking topic? Let any number of festivals come and go, we cannot deny that our country has a dubious statistics of more than half of the population not having access to toilets and sanitation. It is a shameful joke that more Indians ha...