Monday, June 29, 2009

Ten Commandments to Peace of Mind

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.


  1. 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 business and you will keep your peace.
  2. Forgive And Forget:

    This is the most powerful aid to peace of mind. We often develop ill feelings inside our heart for the person who insults us or harms us. We nurture grievances. This in turn results in loss of sleep, development of stomach ulcers, and high blood pressure. This insult or injury was done once, but nourishing of grievance goes on forever by constantly remembering it. Get over this bad habit. Life is too short to waste in such trifles. Forgive,Forget, and march on. Love flourishes in giving and forgiving.
  3. Do Not Crave For Recognition:

    This world is full of selfish people. They seldom praise anybody without selfish motives. They may praise you today because you are in power, but no sooner than you are powerless, they will forget your achievement and will start finding faults in you. Why do you wish to kill yourse lf in striving for their recognition? Their recognition is not worth the aggravation. Do your duties ethically and sincerely.
  4. Do Not Be Jealous:

    We all have experienced how jealousy can disturb our peace of mind. You know that you work harder than your colleagues in the office, but sometimes they get promotions; you do not. You started a business several years ago, but you are not as successful as your neighbor whose business is only one year old. There are several examples like these in everyday life. Should you be jealous? No. Remember everybody's life is shaped by his/her destiny, which has now become his/her reality. If you are destined to be rich, nothing in the world can stop you. If you are not so destined, no one can help you either. Nothing will be gained by blaming others for your misfortune. Jealousy will not get you anywhere; it will only take away your peace of mind.
  5. Change Yourself According To The Environment:

    If you try to change the environment single-handedly, the chances are you will fail. Instead, change yourself to suit your environment. As you do this, even the environment, which has been unfriendly to you, will mysteriously change and seem congenial and harmonious.
  6. Endure What Cannot Be Cured:

    This is the best way to turn a disadvantage into an advantage. Every day we face numerous inconveniences, ailments, irritations, and accidents that are beyond our control. If we cannot control them or change them, we must learn to put up with these things. We must learn to endure them cheerfully. Believe in yourself and you will gain in terms of patience, inner strength and will power.
  7. Do Not Bite Off More Than You Can Chew:

    This maxim needs to be remembered constantly. We often tend to take more responsibilities than we are capable of carrying out. This is done to satisfy our ego. Know your limitations. . Why take on additional loads that may create more worries? You cannot gain peace of mind by expanding your external activities. Reduce your material engagements and spend time in prayer, introspection and meditation. This will reduce those thoughts in your mind that make you restless. Uncluttered mind will produce greater peace of mind.
  8. Meditate Regularly:

    Meditation calms the mind and gets rid of disturbing thoughts. This is the highest state of peace of mind. Try and experience it yourself. If you meditate earnestly for half an hour everyday, your mind will tend to become peaceful during the remaining twenty-three and half-hours. Your mind will not be easily disturbed as it was before. You would benefit by gradually increasing the period of daily meditation. You may think that this will interfere with your daily work. On the contrary, this will increase your efficiency and you will be able to produce better results in less time.
  9. Never Leave The Mind Vacant:

    An empty mind is the devil's workshop. All evil actions start in the vacant mind. Keep your mind occupied in something positive, something worthwhile. Actively follow a hobby. Do something that holds your interest. You must decide what you value more: money or peace of mind. Your hobby, like social work or religious work, may not always earn you more money, but you will have a sense of fulfillment and achievement. Even when you are resting physically, occupy yourself in healthy reading or mental chanting of God's name.
  10. Do Not Procrastinate And Never Regret:

    Do not waste time in protracted wondering " Should I or shouldn't I?" Days, weeks, months, and years may be wasted in that futile mental debating. You can never plan enough because you can never anticipate all future happenings. Value your time and do the things that need to be done. It does not matter if you fail the first time. You can learn from your mistakes and succeed the next time. Sitting back and worrying will lead to nothing. Learn from your mistakes, but do not brood over the past. DO NOT REGRET. Whatever happened was destined to happen only that way. Why cry over spilt milk?

Fifteen Commandments to Stay Positive in Negative Situations

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.

  1. 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.

  2. A little deep breathe should help gathering calm and compose face.

  3. Speak in gentle tone to reduce the tension of the situation.

  4. Realize that you can find opportunities in negative situations. Albert Einstein said: "In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity."

  5. Look at the content of what people say to you for something positive that you can act upon to improve yourself. Don't just reject the whole messages.

  6. For the rest of the messages which is negative, simply ignore it.

  7. Maintain positive view of the people. Maybe you don't like their messages or behavior, but that doesn't mean that you can hate them personally.

  8. Realize that having negative feelings will just hurt you, not them. So there is no reason for you to have any negative feeling.

  9. If you make mistakes, be open to admit it.

  10. If you make mistakes, remember this quote by George Bernard Shaw: "A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing."

  11. If you can, listen to motivational audio program to feed positive thoughts into your mind.

  12. Talk to a positive friend who can encourage you.

  13. Remember your favorite quotes to give you inspiration and motivation. This is one reason why you should have quote of the day.

  14. Look at the negative situations as your training sessions for real life. The higher you climb in life, the worse the negative situations would be, so you'd better be prepared for them.

  15. Realize that you can't please everyone. In fact, nobody can. Sometimes you need to just let some people go. Realizing this will relieve you from a lot of unnecessary burden so that you can focus on the people that you can positively interact with.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

The Day that empowered one to meet the other soul made for it

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.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Conflicting Behavior of Blogger Vs Wordpress Templates

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.

  1. 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.
  2. 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 bloggers with respect to inserting images and third-party objects within the blog post.

An Interesting Contact with a Friend ...

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

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

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:

  1. Yanthrodharaka Mahaganapathi, Gargeshwari
  2. 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'

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

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'

'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:

  1. Lordess Mahalakshmi
  2. 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.

There is also an interesting story about Sridevi (other name of Lordess Mahalakshmi) and Moodevi. Once they entered into a heated argument on who is more beautiful? They approached one sage and asked this question so that they could get a third party judgement on their query. The sage closely observed them and their question. He didn't wanted to give any ad hoc judgement which would please one and hurt another. That would also rather be catastropic. If Sridevi gets infuriated and leaves, there would be dearth of wealth. If Moodevi gets angry, then there would melancholic sufferings slapped on the victim. He told them that he can give the judgement but before that they should do something. They should walk for a few distance which the sage would observe and then give his judgement. The two sisters did as instructed.

Now the sage turned to Moodevi and told "You are beautiful whilst departing away or walking off.
Then the sage turned to Sridevi and told "You are beautiful whilst arriving in or walking majestically in".

The two sisters got immensely happy by the most amicable judgement of the sage. The underlying or the bottomline of the story is as follows:

"It is beautiful when ignorance leaves us, and it is beautiful when wisdom and truth come to us."

'Aalakaala Visham' and 'Thiruneelakantan'

'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:

  1. How should we search the big ocean?
  2. 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 churning operation became furious and intense, Vasuki was unable to bear it and it started vomitting-emitting the world's deadly poison called Aalakala Visham. To protect the world from being sabotaged by this highly venomous material, Lord Siva intervened and drunk the entire poison in one gulp. Lordess Parvathi caught hold of Lord Siva on His neck to ensure that the poison didn't cross the throat and enter Him. Since the poison just spearheaded on His throat, it intensified and collapsed there but producing a dark blue complexion on His neck. This gave Him the name 'Thiruneelakanta'. 'Neel' means blue and 'Kanta' means 'neck' (in Sanskrit). You can check out this page for more details about related Siva temples too.

An Interesting Observation in Blogger ...

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

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:

  1. Bad roads. You can see the bus jumping high up to a skyscraper level in the various potholes of the street.
  2. 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 cops are really security conscious since with such an amount of chaotic road conditions, I just imagine Madipakkam to be another hideout of terrorists (similar to the one that would be shown in Tamil Film Roja, where the track used to wind, unwind, tangle and entangle; and with so many obstructions in the simple 15 km stretch that starts from Medawakkam Koot Road and terminates at St. Thomas Mount Railway Station. Interestingly, the four kilometer stretch from Eechangadu to Medawalkam Koot Road which was serving as a highspeed bypass road for Pallikaranai has also been ruthlessly and callously dug by the good samaritans in the state administration for reasons best known only to them.

In the bus in such a road condition, I used to wonder how effectively the conductor is able to quickly jot down the ticket entries when each 'stage' passes by. Today, I had to make some quick jottings when someone was telling a message on the phone and I really got pissed up by the violent amuck turbulence that shook me like anything between Eachangadu junction and Kilkattalai. If at all there is Olympic contest of writing in moving buses, I am sure we can field our MTC conductors who have taken the Madipakkam route and they are sure to win us a lot of laurels and tonnage of gold medals.

In Tamil some one commented a while back, perhaps in a comical way though that 'Madipakkam is so called because there are so many bends in the little stretch'. In Tamil, 'pakkam' or 'pakam' can be roughly intrepreted as 'stretch' or 'segment' and 'madi' means 'bends' or 'curves' (applicable to clothes in most cases). The tamil equivalent sentence would be "மடிப்பு நிறைய இருக்கறதால தான் இது மடிப்பாக்கமோ?". Not sure, if there are people representatives from this stretch who are really aware of these bad things about their neighborhood and doing something for the betterment of the same. On a personal front, I wrote a couple of email petitions to Chennai Corporation but the good devils over there didn't bother to write a reply even. Some one told me that it falls under panchayat and not under Chennai Corporation. I am trying to see if I can get hold of the respective Panchayat and submit a petition to them to mend these maladies for the welfare of the people.

The worst thing in Madipakkam is that during monsoons, the area gets inundated like anything that transportation services are literally cut. During acute monsoons even boats are summoned to serve the region. Some one has even recorded a video of this during the previous monsoons and shared across over here.

With all these cons on one side, there are some good things to speak about Madipakkam too. Perhaps as the Tamil proverb goes where there is a big slush, the beautiful Lotus blooms from there ("சேற்றில் பிறந்த செந்தாமரை போல்"). It is also said that Lordess Mahalakshmi (The Lordess of Wealth)came out from Thirupparkadal only after some of the most cruel things came out. Some of those entities were: (1) Moodhevi (The Lordess of Impoverishment) (2) The World's Worst Poison (Alakaala Visham). Perhaps, Madippakkam represents this history and reminds us only after wading through all these tussles and hassles, one would be able to witness the bliss.

Let us see them too.

  1. The beautiful Sri Ayyappan Temple in Sri Ayyappa Nagar.
  2. The street next to Sri Ayyappan Temple has been named as Sabari Salai.
  3. Sri Oppiliappan Pattabisheka Ramar Temple (Ram Nagar), Madippakkam

Saturday, June 13, 2009

"Our Wishlist to Indian Railway Minister"

"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.

Thursday, June 04, 2009

It is time to change the mobile ...

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:

  1. Failing battery. A pace-marker (replacement battery) could not help much too.
  2. 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:

  1. Music Player
  2. GPRS
  3. Voice Recording
  4. FM
  5. An adventure into Samsung product (a new one to explore)
  6. Away from Nokia, which is currently deteriorating in quality at least in India. I have shared another review on my few experiences with Nokia Customer Care here.

The customer representative where I purchased the mobile told me that this model would not have CellInfo display like in Nokia. Interestingly when I was going through the options, Menu -> Messages -> Broadcast -> Yes did enable the CellInfo display for me.

There is another interesting thing to observe. The cost of mobile in India is actually decreasing along with values being packed into it, thanks to the intense competition in the industry amongst multiple players. My first mobile (purchased around 2003) was Motorola T190, costed around $107.

Just thought of sharing this review with others so that more people can try exploring this Samsung model.