Personal Weblog of Deepak Vasudevan

Ten Commandments to Peace of Mind Only a peaceful ambience along with a mind that is in calm and composed state can act towards elevated and enhanced productivity levels. A friend of mine was sharing a few points as some steps towards peace of mind. I just thought I would share the same with other interested readers as well. Do Not Interfere In Others' Business Unless Asked. Most of us create our own problems by interfering too often in others' affairs. We do so because somehow we have convinced ourselves that our way is the best way, our logic is the perfect logic and those who do not conform to our thinking must be criticized and steered to the right direction, our direction. This thinking denies the existence of individuality and consequently the existence of God.. God has created each one of us in a unique way. No two human beings can think or act in exactly the same way. All men or women act the way they do because God within them prompts them that way. Mind your own busin...

Fifteen Commandments to Stay Positive in Negative Situations Life is not always a bed of roses. It just witnesses and/or presents a lot of sine-curve situtions of crest and trough throughout. It is just the experience that one gains to greet smiling situations without too much ecstasy or prevents/saves on from crashing/succumbing to a grievous situation. In one of the mailing lists, there was an interesting tips on keeping fresh in an otherwise desert-like situation. In other words, a few tips to stay positive in negative situations. I just thought I would share these with other readers as well. Never respond when you are not calm. If you are not sure that you are calm refrain from responding at that moment. Take time to calm yourself down first. A little deep breathe should help gathering calm and compose face. Speak in gentle tone to reduce the tension of the situation. Realize that you can find opportunities in negative situations. Albert Einstein said: "In the middle of every...

The Day that empowered one to meet the other soul made for it Today is the most sweet day. Officially it empowered me to meet my darling and venture into arranging the nuptial binds. I am fondly recalled of Dil To Pagal Hai's quote 'Some one some where is made for you' Click here to listen to the hearts' song.

Conflicting Behavior of Blogger Vs Wordpress Templates Without any template level HTML editing, when you just start using the builtin templates of Google Blogger and Wordpress.com blogs, I just realized one interesting and important thing that we should take care whilst embedding big images or IFRAMEs in each of them. I am sharing these tips over here for the benefit of other bloggers as well. Blogger allows extreme flexibility of embedding IFRAMEs and similar HTML controls, whereas Wordpress restricts the same. At best in the latter you can hyperlink them. When the embedded image/object sign exceeds the specified width, the right navigation of the blogger just goes below the page (after all the posts complete), whereas in Wordpress the object gets clipped after its content area. Perhaps if you are using Wordpress installation on your own servers, you might be able to edit it and overcome the limitations of Wordpress.com hosted blogs. But the scope of this post is an advisory to the b...

An Interesting Contact with a Friend ... I was writing an email to a long-back friend. After typing the long message and sending it, I just got a quick response from his address. I was just surprised how come he is online at a weird Sunday afternoon at his office. Interestingly the reply was 'Out of Office' reply. The more crowning thing was that my message was recieved by the email server just on the day his Out of Office (OOO) reply has started to work and to flag his vacation. For your own assessment and review, check out this post datetime timestamp and an abstract of the OOO reply below: " I will be out of office from 14/06/09 - 21/06/09. I will respond to your message upon returning to office on 22/06/09 (Monday)."

Quick Snaps of various Nature Spots in Karnataka My sincere thanks to Mohan Chandran for sharing with me some beautiful snaps of various natural scenic tourist locations in Karnataka. I have just came across another Zoho product called Zoho Viewer . I have uploaded the nature spots document over there for the benefit of all readers. You can check it out from here .

Two Lord Ganesh Temple Blogs My sincere thanks to Mohan Chandran for sharing with me two weblog URLs of Lord Ganesh which are as follows: Yanthrodharaka Mahaganapathi, Gargeshwari MHATOBAR SHREE VINAYAKA DEVARU, IDAGUNJI I would like to share these URLs with other readers so that everyone can visit these temples/blogs and to get His divine blessings.

The essence of 'Vaikasi Visakam' 'Vaikasi Visakam' is one of the very important festivals in a lot of Hindu temples mostly Sri Vaishnavite and Lord Muruga temples. This comes around Mid-May to Mid-June. I just thought of sharing a Lord Murugan Alankaram in a temple that 'VS Rangachar' shared on the occasion of Vaikasi Visakam. You can even check out the Vaikasi Visakam celebrations flyer in a Lord Murugan temple in CA over here . I have shared the photo over here and have also embedded it below: Even for Sri Vaishnavites, Vaikasi Visakam is very important festival as it is revered as birth date of Sage Nammazhwar (Satakopan/Vaghulabharanan).

Mount Kailash -- Maan Sarovar Parikrama My sincere thanks to 'VS Rangachar' for sharing with me an exquisite presentation comprising various pictures taken during Maansarovar Parikrama of Mount Kailash in the Great Himalayan Mountains, which are the abode of Lord Siva. I have shared across the same here for the benefit of other readers. I just thought I would also provide a little more information about the procedure for the Parikrama as published by the Ministry of External Affairs. You can check out the 2009 booklet from here . There are also other private tour operators who offer this pilgrimage however care needs to be taken on the past experience and (medical) assistance that the tour operator offers for the pilgrims during the Parikrama.

'Sridevi' and 'Moodevi' Whilst posting about Madipakkam , we just saw about 'Moodevi'. I just thought we should be seeing in depth more about them and hence this post. In our another post about ' 'Aalakaala Visham' and 'Thiruneelakantan' ' we saw about one byproduct of churning Thirupparkadal by Devas and Asuras using Mount Meru and Snake Vasuki. The other byproducts of the churning operation were: Lordess Mahalakshmi Lordess Moodhevi The former is revered as 'Lordess of Wealth' and the latter is revered as 'Lordess of Impoverishment and Suffering'. Going by the history, the latter is elder to the former. The latter came first and then the former came out of the ocean. People normally acuse Moodevi. But the world's rule is that both right and wrong would exist; both darkness and brightness would coexist. Whilst the righteousness/brightness is symbolised by Lordess Mahalakshmi, Moodevi represents falsehood/darkness. T...

'Aalakaala Visham' and 'Thiruneelakantan' Whilst posting about Madippakkam , we saw about 'Aalakaala Visham'. I just thought I would also briefly highlight about this topic for the information of all readers besides the fact that since it is about chanting the name of the Lord, it is good for us. Long time back, there was a demand amongst the Devas and Asuras to go in search for elixir -- the medicine that would give longevity and remove the cap-limit of death on the person who consumes the elixir. The elixir (called amrutham) was supposed to be hidden in Thirupparkadal. The questions that came before the parties were: How should we search the big ocean? What is the search weapon to use and deploy for the operation? They decided to make use of Mount Meru to churn the ocean by tying the divine snake, Vasuki. One side of the snake-rope was held by Devas and the other side was held by Asuras whilst they started the operation of churning Thirupparkadal . When the ch...

An Interesting Observation in Blogger ... Just observed whilst blogging about Madipakkam that when I submitted the entry, instead of 'Your post is published', I was getting back the list of posts screen besides the following message flashing on top of the screen: "Your post will be automatically published on xx:yy". Not sure, if this is a new feature or my system clock time is being used and it is a minute faster than blogger server time which is causing it. Whatever be it, this is another welcome feature from Google Blogger that now we can even schedule future posts and leave the responsibility to Blogger to air it only when it is apt. Good work, Blogger Team!!

A Turbulent Travel Experience Through Madipakkam Today I was commuting to Guindy from Tambaram in B51, which would ply through the notorious Madipakkam. When I tag a sense of notoriousness to Madipakkam, it is because of multiple reasons: Bad roads. You can see the bus jumping high up to a skyscraper level in the various potholes of the street. Unmanaged traffic chaos prevailing almost all 24x7 and quite interestingly this remains unmanned by any traffic cop. Interestingly, we have the following police stations lining up this 15 km stretch -- Madipakkam Police Station, Adambakkam Police Station and St. Thomas Mount Police Station. I first thought of sharing this on my travel weblog but it caters to more than just commuting through this stretch and hence writing a brief description in my personal weblog. For sure if any one goes through this road, they would need the help of Amrutanjan almost quite immediately to seek solace and relief from backpains. I used to wonder whether Chennai ...

"Our Wishlist to Indian Railway Minister" On 11th June 2009, Go-Ergo had an interesting user survey "Send your wishlist to Mamata Bannerjee as she gears up to present the Railway Budget in the first week of July". I just thought of sending my opinion which was as follows: "Need a conscious attention towards containing unwarranted entry and squatting in reserved coaches, besides enforcing disciplined and ethical reservation system along with stepping up passenger-friendly security cover throughout the ambience". You can check out GoErgo (11th June) from here .

It is time to change the mobile ... My mobile (Nokia 6030) had been with me since 2006 May. You would have read my earlier post on my purchase of Nokia 6030 . My mobile, due to ageing reasons, had been suffering a lot for a while, particularly ailing from the following symptoms: Failing battery. A pace-marker (replacement battery) could not help much too. Stability. Even a little vibration was enough to switch it off. Currently due to various commitments and my Todolist only able to allocate a shoe string budget for this replacement, I had to go through a week's research on the migration strategy to a newer mobile. With inputs from my peers, I zeroed in on the following mobile model: Samsung E1410 Guru Series This along with the exchange of the old mobile came to around $55. Some of the quick and good features of the new mobile are: Music Player GPRS Voice Recording FM An adventure into Samsung product (a new one to explore) Away from Nokia, which is currently deteriorating in qu...