Goodbye 2013, Welcome 2014

This year was a year of travel and bonding. My hubby and I visited Tirupathi, Goa and Mysore in India and almost all the major cities of Europe. It was a year of bonding with the family. Every passing year, I learn more about my hubby. He is a wonderful person and the learning never ceases. I celebrated the major festivals in my hometown, Warangal amidst our parents, in-laws and other close family members. The love and warmth from the family spices up the festivals. Oh yes! I forgot to mention about the mouth-watering and delicious dishes that my mother and mother-in-law cook during festivals, which lead to packing up of pounds, which I am yet to lose.

On the external front, this year has been a year of surprises and disappointments. Arvind Kejriwal from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) becoming the Chief Minister of Delhi was indeed a pleasant surprise for me. I was shocked that the Supreme Court upheld section 377 which criminalizes gay sex and is an offence punishable with up to life imprisonment.  Our country has gone back ward by upholding section 377. I feel bad for the LGBT community. They have a long battle to fight, just to exercise their sexual orientation. I am also quite disappointed by the security of women in this country. The judiciary and the police do very less to make the roads safe for women. Well, this is the end of my complaints for this year. I will start afresh next year.

I am hopeful about next year. India goes to elections and the NaMo vs. RaGa political battle gets hotter than ever. Budge any two Indians and they will start on a discussion about who will be the next Prime Minister of our country. I hope that 2014 will bring all of us lot of pleasant surprises and progress on personal, professional and political fronts.

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Image from google images

Go Goa Gone

My hubby and I had a two-day vacation in Goa. Goa is the California of India. It is the land where foreigners come to party and have fun, sun bathe on the white sand beaches, swim and surf in the deep blue sea.

(L to R) Drinks at Arambol Beach, Pretty huts on Mandrem beach, people surfing and doing water sports at Vagator beach

What I loved in Goa were the Mandrem, Vagator and Palolem beaches. All of these were white sand beaches. The fine sand slipped through my fingers when I held it.  The sea was blue and clear, and the touch of water on my skin was refreshing. These beaches were not at all crowded.

At Mandrem Beach. A brown carpet was laid down for us.

View of Vagator Beach from Thalassa Restaurant

At Palolem Beach

I liked concept of hiring a bike or car and going around. My hubby and I did not have to depend on anybody. We roamed around North and South Goa with the aid of GPS on our phones. We drove along the narrow roads lined with green fields on either side. We saw sparkling creeks, surrounded by dense vegetation. We smelled the sea in the air as we approached the beaches.

I loved the food at Thalassa Restaurant and Martin’s corner. The sea food and the cocktails were delicious and were at affordable prices when compared to Bangalore.

                                                  King Prawns at Thalassa Restaurant

Sunset at Aguada jail

What I did not like in Goa was the Calangute Beach. It was completely commercial. I felt breathless in the torrent of humanity at Calangute. I also hated Britto’s restaurant, which is located on Baga Beach. Everybody who goes to Goa visits this restaurant as though it is some kind of ritual but it is not worth it. The place is completely overrated. We ordered mutton chops and it was way too spicy and greasy.

I did not like the non-stop party culture in Goa. It was fun for a couple of hours but after sometime I started feeling bad for the locals. Almost everybody will be on high all the time. Few of the locals were rude; we got shouted at while crossing the road. The guy did not even have patience to slow down. I did not understand why people were in such a great hurry. I also hated the narrow two-way lanes of Goa which made driving a bit of pain.

There were a lot of foreigners in Goa. I realized that beauty of nature along with the booze makes a few foreigners do crazy things.

At Vagator beach, we saw a buffalo enjoying the serenity of the sea. It sat facing the sea, observing the gentle waves. Its dark skin shined in the sun. May be the buffalo wanted to soak up the sunlight in the cold winter. The pesky foreigners did not allow the buffalo to enjoy its beach time. One foreigner tried to place a green cap on the buffalo from an arm’s length whereas the other foreigner got ready to take the picture. I felt bad for the buffaloes in Goa. They have to deal with these troublesome foreigners who disrupt their privacy.

No comments!

The City of Love

Paris has several nicknames the city of light, city of love and international capital of style. We went to Paris in August, the time when Parisians go for vacation. Parisians also need a break from all the fun and need to get serious sometimes.

In Paris, the first stop was the Eiffel Tower. Vinay, our tour manager told us that he once got a Gujarati tour group to the Eiffel tower.

They looked at the tower and said, ‘What’s the speciality in this? It is made of junk’.

Yes, the tower is dark grey and plain but it is one of the civil engineering marvels. It stands 320 m tall yet rests very lightly on the ground.  People other than the Gujaratis’ are fascinated by it. An American woman named Erika Eiffel even married the Eiffel Tower. In the night, the tower sparkles and it is one of the most romantic sights in the world. Hundreds of lights on the tower twinkle at random times and steal the glory of the stars.

We went on a Siene river cruise around ten ‘o’ clock in the night. On the cruise we saw, a few antique boats parked along the river. One of the boats had beautiful potted plants and a woman was watering them. Watering the plants on the river looked ironic to me. Just throw the pots in the water then they would have enough water for life.  

We passed beneath the aesthetic bridges. The sculptures on the bridges looked at us with muted silence. A young Chinese kid, about 3-4 years old sat beside us along with his mother. Whenever we passed beneath the bridges; he shouted in his cute loud voice, ‘Helloooo’ and waved his hand. The people on top of the bridges helloed him too. We saw couples huddled together and kissing one another. A kind puppeteer on one of the bridges played his puppets to us in the brief span we went beneath the bridge.

As we passed along the river we saw a piece of the Parisian night life. The youth sat in groups with vodka bottles and other drinks by their side. Guys wore cool hats and scarves. Women wore long gowns, short skirts and coats. We also heard loud music and saw people were dancing. A person of African origin was teaching a white woman how to dance. A dining cruise passed by us. Couples seated across each other got to know one another as they waited for the food. On the banks of River Siene, I saw nothing but love and happiness. Paris indeed comes to life in the night. 

(L to R) A street opposite to National Academy of Music, The Louvre Pyramid, River Siene and L'Hotel national des Invalides

Eiffel Tower and the view from top of the Eiffel Tower

Slum Tourism

I was surprised to read about the slum hotel in South Africa built by Emoya Luxury Hotel & Spa. The hotel is constructed to replicate the slums. It consists of private shacks or Shantys, made with corrugated iron sheets. This hotel is for people who want to experience the slum life but do not want to go to the slums. The slum hotel is the first Shanty Town in the world which has underfloor heating and Wi-fi. It also equips the tourists to heat the water by themselves and use a long drop toilet. If you look inside the shanty it was very much unlike a slum with all the basic amenities so naming the place as a slum hotel is misguiding.

                                            Shanty town constructed by Emoya Luxury Hotel & Spa

                                           
                                                                Inside the Shanty 

I felt it as mockery of the people who have no other option but to live in slums unlike the rich who have the option of choosing the hotel slum life, stay there for a few days and get back to their normal lives. If people really want to experience slum life they should go to the slum areas, stay in their houses as paying guest, eat as they eat, live as they live and then pay them the price which is equivalent to their stay in a five star hotel. In this way the slum tourism is beneficial to both the parties and there is no need to construct new counterfeit slum areas.

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Images  from http://www.emoya.co.za/g5/v1/Emoya%20Hotel%20&%20Spa/Accommodation/Shanty%20Town/shanty-town.html

Cute butts and load of shit - Part 2

Continued....Read Part 1 here

For sometime, the ass play by the animals of the Bandipur National Park continued. The animals still longed for the calmness and serenity of their forest sans the humans and their catcalls, boohoos and flashes. They retrieved farther into the forest, away from the bumpy road and came out onto the road only to shit.

The next batch of tourists could not spot any animals but they found loads of shit along the kaccha road. All kinds of poop of different shapes and textures were lined on either side of the road. The tourists went away disappointed.

The forest officials understood that the animals were boycotting the humans but they cannot close the Safari and neither could they plead the magnificent creatures to come out. They figured out a new way to amuse the tourists.

The next time a disgruntled outsider on the Safari told to the bus driver that seeing the animals in Bandipur is farce, the driver asked the tourist to step out. The tourist wore shorts and had a camera hanging by his neck.

He did not like the suggestion of stepping out of the bus. 

He said, ‘Hey! Wouldn’t the animals come out? Will I not be in danger?’

The driver replied, ‘Do not worry Saar. No animals at this time, in this place’

The guy stepped out.

The driver asked the tourist, ‘Saar, do you see this shit?’ and pointed towards a considerable size of dark grey mass.

‘Yeah! So?’               

‘You see Saar, this, elephant shit’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘You see how much ground covered under it and the way it spread’

‘So?’

‘It must have come from up there to spread like that. Big animal, so elephant. You see that other small pieces of shit’ and pointed to some black pellets,  ‘came from small animal, may be deer. This is a proof that there are animals at Bandipur.’

The tourists felt that it would be silly to put up pictures of different textures and sizes of poop on their facebook page, so they returned unhappy.

And hence the story goes. The animals never came out and the forest rangers tried to pacify the tourists by showing them the shit lined along the road. After some time, the tourists stopped visiting Bandipur and the animals lived happily ever after. 

                                                         The End

No more Animals were sighted at Bandipur National Park. You can still go there for nature's beauty and serenity 

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This story was inspired from my collegues' discussion during Safari Trip in Bandipur

If you like this story, there is one more Bannerghatta National Park Safari Story

Cute butts and load of shit - Part 1

It was a pleasant evening in Bandipur. Cool breeze with the smell of flowers touched their faces. The calm evening was interrupted by the cries of the birds, flying to their abode to retire for the night. Alas! The wonderful evening did nothing to soothe their problems. All of them gathered to discuss about the issues that were troubling them. 

One of them said, ‘Them point at me something which lights up, it scares me’

Other said, ‘Them came behind me one day. I was walking along the path. There was this huge thing which made a loud noise, ‘chug chug chug’, came after me. I had to run fast, my paws hurt’

One more said, ‘Them also throw things, my little one ate one and fell sick’

The leader decreed, ‘It is enough! We have waited long enough for them to change their ways. We cannot wait any longer. They come into our lives without caring about our feelings. It is time to teach them a lesson, for life.’

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It was Safari time at Bandipur National Park. All the tourists got into the grey van. The driver/tour guide promised to show the tourists, lions, tigers, elephants and what not. None of the tourists realized that unlike a zoo, they were at the mercy of the animals for their darshan. They took out their cameras and turned them on, ready to capture the beauty of the nature.

The tourists first saw a peacock picking out the grass. The tourists were mesmerized by the beauty of the animal. They took out their cameras and clicked. In the excitement of the peacock sighting, few of the tourists forgot to turn off the flash. The peacock made a distress call.

The van moved further along the bumpy road lined with bushes on either side. They saw a herd of elephants. It was indeed a lucky day! As soon as the driver stopped and the visitors were about to click, all the five elephants showed their backs and nonchalantly started smelling the grass. They waited for ten minutes but the butts of the elephants still covered the camera lens.

The bus moved on. People thought it was a weird luck. Wonder of wonders, at the next stop they saw five tigers. No sooner did the van stop; the tigers also showed their backs and started twirling their tails. The same thing happened with the deer, bison and peahens. What a weird day it was! 

One of the tourists exclaimed to another, ‘Dude! Why are the animals showing their asses to us? Don’t they know that we are not interested to look at their butts? ‘

Next day the tourists’ facebook page was filled with the pictures of elephants, tigers, bison, peacocks and peahens asses. Their friends wondered if they should like the pictures or not.

To be continued....Read Part 2 here

The animals which were sighted at Bandipur National Park before they boycotted humans

Virtuous Animals

Do you know about the lion and rabbit story in Panchatantra? There was once a greedy lion that used to kill and terrorize animals just for the pleasure of it. All the animals in the forest went to the lion and made a pact with the lion. They asked the lion to stop the unnecessary killing and they would send an animal every day to the lion as his meal. The lion liked this agreement. One day it was the turn of an intelligent rabbit to become the lunch of the lion. It went to the lion very late. By that time, the lion was very angry and it decided to kill all the animals in the forest to teach them a lesson. The rabbit went and told the lion of another powerful lion in the forest. The lion asked it to show where it was. The rabbit took him to the well. The lion looked into the well and thought of its reflection as another lion and roared. The roar echoed and the stupid lion jumped into the well to battle with the other lion and died. All the animals celebrated the death of the cruel lion.

What did this story tell me? The animals in the forest recognized the lion to be greedy and wanted to get rid of it. The lion was called greedy because it desired more than what it had and killed the other animals just for the fun of it, even though it was not hungry. It told me that the animals were virtuous. They had values which they stick to, they hunt only when hungry. They do not hoard their kill.

What about humans? We hunt all the time. We are the greediest animals on planet Earth; we covet for what is not ours. We hunt for wealth, for power and for satisfying sexual pleasures. The hunters look for the people who are weak and can be succumbed easily. The hunters wield the weapons and threaten the victims to get what they want. The hunted are non-existent people in the eyes of the police and the judiciary. They are neither rich nor powerful, they are either poor or middle-class.

The attack on a woman in a Bangalore ATM made me realize that it is time for humans to learn virtues from animals. The incident has shocked many, because it happened in broad day light and in a crowded area. It shocked me because the miscreant came prepared with the weapons. He was bent on getting what he wanted no matter the consequences.

The attacker entered the ATM, closed the shutters and asked the woman to withdraw money. When she refused, he hit her on the head three times with a machete. After she was unconscious he took the valuables in her purse and fled. After sometime, a few passersby noticed the blood; they called the police, who rushed her to the hospital. The woman is now conscious but the right of her body is paralyzed. The hunter is still on the loose. The problem is that we do not have intelligent rabbits anymore; they have become lazy and refuse to use their intelligence on such trivial issues. After all what is the value of a poor or a middle class ‘Indian’ life? It is nothing. 

My Grandfather and my Religious Affiliations

In our life there are there certain incidents that we remember forever. These memories are etched in our conscious mind because the time, the place and the company are all conducive to that adherence factor.

When I was about 12-13 years of age, my grandfather and I were walking along an almost deserted street. The fruit vendors closed their carts, with flashy bright colored plastic sheets. Few of the auto drivers alongside the road were safely ensconced in their back seats and gave in to the call of dreamless sleep. The cool breeze touched us and the moon shined on us as though it was a special moment.

The silence around us made me think deeper. I asked my grandfather, ‘What happens after death?’

‘You merge with nature. You become part of nature; you are in the rain, the clouds and the streams that make the land fertile. After that you are born based on the good or bad deeds you did in your previous birth. You must have done good deeds in your previous life’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘You are born to good parents who take care of you.’

I nodded my head.

I want to be like a few of my friends who belong to the higher echelons of life, people who are devotees of science and not religion, who denounce the presence of God. I cannot. There are a few questions that Science has’nt been able to answer yet. My continued faith in religion springs out of the inability of Science to comprehend the un-experimentable phenomena.

The first question is, ‘Why is Science far behind nature?’ 

We know beforehand about catastrophes like cyclones or earthquakes, why can’t we stop them? The most we can do is to evacuate people from the area of calamity. Why didn't we make a monstrous machine that swallows this destructive energy and uses it to power up humanity rather than consume it?

The second question is, ‘What happens after death?’ 

This question leads me to pick up a book about how to prepare for death at one of the Ramakrishna Math’s bookstores. My husband was shocked to look at that book in my hands, he must have thought not even one year into marriage and she picks this book!

In the book Autobiography of a Yogi, Swami Yogananda answers the question of death. All living things are in a cycle of life and death. We are born in different socio-economic levels of society based on our karma and until we attain moksha i.e., become one with God, we are reborn. There is one problem with this theory; there is no way to test it until and unless we have knowledge of all our previous births, if we have any.

Science has been dabbling with creating micro-organisms in lab but it is still far away from creating a Frankenstein. The first law of Thermodynamics states that Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. When we are dead, the life energy should go somewhere. Science does not answer where. Take a new born child, who due to some unfortunate incident is killed in an accident or has been drowned. The child is brand new, why can’t we just like a new car which had an accident, repair all the parts and make it run.  Machines run on energy no matter how screwed up they are. You can fix them and they will at least run sputtering and muttering. Why can’t we do the same with living beings? Repair them and bring them to life from death.

These two questions still hold my affiliations with religion. The day Science answers these two questions I will denounce religion and join the bandwagon of atheists.

                                                       The quandary of Science and Religion

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Images from google images

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is a book written by Amy Chua. Amy Chua is a Chinese American. In this book she writes about her strong and willful parenting style as a Chinese mother and compares it with the weak American style of parenting. Americans hold their children’s whims and wishes above their own, whereas Chinese children are enforced to act as per their parents’ wishes and choices.

­­Amy Chua writes about the generation decline in Chinese immigrants who come to the United States (I think the generation decline philosophy applies to all Asian immigrants). 

The immigrant generation is the hardest working. They come to the States almost penniless and work hard to become successful. They also live thriftily, save money and spend it on their children’s’ education and real-estate. They are also extremely strict with their children lest they forget their roots and behave in an American way.

 The next generation (Amy’s), the first to be born in America, will be typically high achieving. They will play the piano or violin, will attend an Ivy League or Top Ten Universities, earn more income and be less frugal than their parents. They will often marry a white person and relax their parenting style. Amy married an American and is a Professor at Yale University of Law. 

The third generation reaps the best. They are born with golden spoons in their mouth. They will have wealthy friends who get rewarded for B-pluses, wear the designer clothes and are likely to disobey their parents and ignore career advice. The third generation is headed straight for decline. 

Amy’s children, Sophia and Lulu belonged to the third generation and she wanted to prevent the generation decline. The eldest daughter, Sophia, is the obedient and sincere Chinese-American. The younger daughter, Lulu is rebellious and there are a lot of skirmishes in the book between Amy and Lulu. 

Amy forced Sophia to play the Piano. At one point of time Amy finds small teeth marks on the piano on which Sophia played. 

Lulu played both violin and piano when young. As she grew up she played the violin more. Sometimes, Amy would make Lulu skip her lunch/recess breaks at school so she could practice violin. The children were always busy, with their piano or violin sessions. They were not allowed to go to sleep over, have a play date, be in a school play and get grades less than A.

I thought her parenting style was extreme when she rejected the birthday card her daughters’ made, saying that they have not worked on it enough and makes them do her a better birthday card. Amy’s mother-in-law expires due to cancer. The children have to write a short speech for their grandmother, which will be read at the funeral. Amy is behind the children correcting/editing their speech. Amy did not care about the kids’ grief at losing their grandmother; she wanted a perfect speech which everybody will appreciate.  

I found it a bit humorous and ridiculous when Amy tries to practice her Chinese parenting style on her pet dogs. After her futile efforts she settles that her pets will not have jobs like bomb sniffer dogs and lets them be as they want. 

It is definitely not a book from which you can take parenting advice but it gives you an idea of one extreme in parenting style.

                                      Amy with her daughters Sophia (on Piano) and Lulu (on viloin)

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahari

Jhumpa Lahari’s novel, The Lowland is a story of two brothers.

Plot: The story is based in Tollygunge, Calcutta. It starts with how the brothers, Subhash and Udayan spend their childhood in Tollygunge. In their teens Udayan joins the budding Naxalite Movement in Calcutta and Subhash goes to do a Ph.D. in the U.S. The rest of the story is about how Udayan’s life changes and how it affects Subhash who is in Rhode Island. He is far away from Tollygunge, yet not that far.

It is also a novel about relationships. The novel tells about how one brother, Udayan gets more love from their parents than Subhash, the complicated relationship between Udayan’s wife and her daughter and the scars each person carries in their hearts, yet on the surface they pretend that everything is going to fall into place. Reading this novel, I felt that each of the characters is so complicated. The decisions of one character affect another like ripples in the pond and the effect is farfetched

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What I liked: The description of Calcutta through the eyes of Jhumpa Lahari. In India, Tollygunge and the lowland in Tollygunge was the focus of the novel. In the U.S., the beaches of Rhode Island get a good showing. I loved the way the author jumped across different timelines and the way she wrote about different points of view from each character. You get an insight into the character’s personality and why each character behaved the way he/she does.

What I did not like: The novel had too much showing and very less dialogue between the characters. After a certain point of time, I skipped all the descriptions of the cities, the universities, the houses in which the characters lived and jumped right into the story. The main twists in the plot were predictable.

Rating: If you are a budding writer, this book is a must read. For all others 3/5

Pink October

You get what you get when you get them

This is what Clair Huxtable tells to her daughter Rudy Huxtable in the Cosby Show. It is the end of summer and Rudy has to go to school. She feels bad that she is still a young girl, because her breasts haven’t come yet. Rudy feels that she will be ridiculed by her class boys. One of her friends brings a bust enhancer cream that promises to guarantee results in just two days. Rudy asks Clair if she can excuse herself for 48 hours from school. Clair and her husband Bill Cosby dig deep into why she needs the 48 hour break. When they come know the cream, they had to force themselves to stop laughing and explain to her that it does not work that way.

Cosby tells to Rudy, ‘You can as well put mayonnaise on your chest and get the same results’.  

Clair explains to Rudy, ‘Growing up to be a woman is a natural biological process and you cannot speed it up. You get what you get when you get them’

Ruby obliges and decides to go to school.

October is the breast cancer awareness month and I could not get this story out of my mind whenever I saw the pink ribbon in my e-mails. In my company, we do a human formation of the pink ribbon and wear a pink colored dress on one of the days in October to show our support for the cause.

 I told one of my friends, ‘Tomorrow is a breast cancer awareness day in my company’

She asked, ‘What are you going to do?’

‘We are going to make a human formation’

‘Of the br…?’

‘No silly of the pink ribbon’

The pink ribbon is the symbol of breast cancer awareness not the breasts.

I also wondered what this big ado about breast cancer is. I have heard about the campaigns in the U.S., I did not know that in India as well, we are having such awareness sessions. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has concluded that over the past two decades, there is a steep rise in the number of breast cancer cases in India. As a matter of fact, breast cancer has been declared the most common form of cancer in India, surpassing cervical cancer. In metropolitan cities almost 1 in 20 women are suffering from breast cancer and Bangalore is the breast cancer capital of India. Now, I am glad that I am aware of this malignant disease. More statistics regarding breast cancer can be found at this website - http://www.breastcancerindia.net/bc/statistics/trends.htm

Early detection of breast cancer can save lives. Medical professionals recommend self examination of the breasts in the ages of 25 to 30, clinical breast examination after 30 and Mammography after 40, once in every 1-2 years. Mammography is a diagnostic and screening tool to examine the breasts and detect lumps or microcalcificatoins (coarse calcium deposits) in the breasts. Mammography is a non-intrusive procedure, there is only some discomfort. About 70 % of the unscreened women succumbed to breast cancer, whereas only 30 % of the screened women became victims of breast cancer. Mammography does save lives.

(http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865587620/Research-points-to-lives-saved-by-regular-mammography-screening.html).  

Women as well as men love boobs. It is time to take a stand and detect this demon early, for a long healthy life.

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All images from google images

The Power of Habit: Why we do what we do in Life and Business

The Power of Habit is a book written by Charles Duhigg. In this book, the author writes about how habits are formed in individuals, in organizations and societies and how habits can make the entities better or worse.

The most interesting story in this book is how the American retail chain Target, banked on their customers’ habits. North American baby market is worth 36 billion a year and Target wanted to attract/retain the customers who were in the early phase of pregnancy. Target developed an algorithm which is based on the products that people who were pregnant bought. If any new customer brought these products frequently, the algorithm identified them to be the would-be parent. After identifying the customer base, Target would send baby coupons to the would-be parents so that they can use them on their next trip to the grocery store.

Imagine the shock of the people if they knew that their neighborhood retail store was spying on them.  

A father angrily stormed into a Target store and demanded to see the Manager. He said to the Manager, ‘My daughter is in high school and you sent her coupons for maternity products’.
The Manager apologizes to the father and tells it was a mistake. The next day, the Manager makes a courtesy call to the father and apologizes again.
The father says, ‘I am sorry. Apparently there were a few household affairs which I was not aware of. My daughter is pregnant’.
After that Target used the sandwiching technique to send the coupons. They would send the customer, baby product coupons alongside wine bottle openers or dining sets coupons so that they seem random and innocuous. No more fathers were hurt after Target changed their marketing technique.

Habits are brain’s way of saving effort. Habits are a three step process. First there is a trigger, which tells the brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use. The second is the routine which is physical, mental or emotional. Finally there is a reward which helps brain to figure out that this particular routine is worth remembering. 

Let me take my example for understanding the habit loop. For some weird reason, I always have craving for food as soon as I get home from office. My hands immediately reach to the eatables in the Tupperware boxes on the dining table. It is mostly unhealthy stuff, food that is fried in oil. My cue is craving for food after a tired day at work. Then follows the routine in which I eat the unhealthiest stuff and I pack up pounds. ­­Third is the reward in which the craving for food is satisfied but it is followed by guilt.

Fortunately, habits can be modified by changing the routine in the three step process of trigger, routine and reward. I will still have the craving for food but what if I replace the stuff on my table with healthy stuff like fruits or cut vegetables? I would be choosing the fruits or veggies rather than the fried foods. Well, an inventive way to trick the brain.

This book is like a thesis but it does give interesting details about the power of habits.

Bathukamma

After a gap of seven years, I got the opportunity to celebrate Bathukamma and Dussehra at home. In Telugu, Bathuku means live and Amma means mother. The festival is worship to the life giver or Goddess Shakti. Legend has it that Devi after killing the demon, Mahishasura faints. All the women pray for her to be alive by saying ‘Bathukamma (live mother), Bathukamma’. Devi wakes up on Dasami. Bathukamma is celebrated by the women of Telangana region on the day before Vijayadasami (Dussehra). Flowers of different colors are arranged in concentric layers on a tambalam (brass plate) and stacked up on top of one another to form a conical structure, which is also called as Bathukamma.

                                                               Bangaru Bathukammalu

On the morning of the festival, I participated in sorting the flowers used for making the flower arrangement. The flowers which we used were tangedu (cassia), gunugu (celosia), velvet flower, banthi (marigold), chamanthi (chrysanthemum), lotus and pumpkin flower. The flowers were arranged in nine layers. The belly of bathukamma should be filled with flowers and leaves as well; otherwise the pyramid structure would not stand. The heavy belly made the bathukamma also heavy. After making the bathukammas, they were placed in the puja room, in front of God.

(L to R) Flowers used for making bathukamma, tangedu (cassia), gunugu (celosia), velvet flower, banthi (marigold), chamanthi (chrysanthemum), lotus and pumpkin flower (images collage created from google images)

In the evening, all the women of the household got dressed up in their best attires. We took the bathukamma from the puja room and started to the nearby Venkateshwara Swamy temple. The temple was crowded with women folk in their dazzling sarees and ornaments. I loved the attire of the kids; they were completely traditional in pattu langas, their long plaited hair was bedecked with pearl ornaments or ornaments made with multi-colored stones. 

                                                                   Two girls dressed traditionally 

                                        Bathukammas in the glow of candles and jewellry of the women

At the temple, there were Bathukammas of all sizes and colors, little ones were cute and big ones were magnificent. The women danced around the bathukammas by clapping their hands in a rhythmic fashion and singing the folk songs of bathukamma. After completing the song and dance ritual, the women gave each other pasupu (turmeric), kumkuma and sattu pindi prasadam (roasted powdered corns mixed with sugar or jaggery).

                                                  Bathukammas of all sizes, shapes and colors

                        Warangalite women dancing and singing around the Bathukammas 
 
The bathukammas will be baded goodbye by placing them carefully in the water to be carried away by the waves. There is a story behind this tradition. A sister comes to brother’s house to visit him. The brother leaves to the town on some work just before she comes. The sister decides to stay until her brother comes home. She goes to the lake to bathe along with her sister-in-law. Their clothes on the bank of the river get mixed up. The sister ties the saree of her sister-in-law and vice versa. They have a fight and the sister-in-law throws the sister in the river. In the night, the sister comes in the brother's dream and tells him the sordid story of her death. Her brother goes to the river, and on the bank, he sees a tangedu plant.His sister says, ‘I became the tangedu plant after sister-in-law threw me into the water. Make bathukamma with tangedu poolu and throw it into the river’ and her brother does as he is told and the Bathukammas are immersed in water to this day.

Image from http://www.imagesinbox.com/2013/09/bathukamma-festival-images.html#.Ulva8hBQavY

 I grew up listening to the stories of bathukamma from my grandmother. She told me about the mega-sized bathukamma’s they made during her childhood and how four or five men got together to lift the bathukamma to carry it to the nearby temple. I am glad that I finally participated in one. Bathukamma will indeed be one of my favorite festivals.