Alarm Clock

I should have titled it alarrum clock. That invokes the right image in my mind of a relentless ring from a bedside beauty that would always ring at the right time, and ring with such character, and also respond to my little tap to acknowledge it as I reluctantly woke up. Or should I say 'her' given the dutiful, beautiful, personality of the alarm clock.

The alarm clock is something that epitomises man's achievement in the modern world. If I were to list just three things, they would be clocks, bicycles and trains. They show how Newtonian creatures did come to life in our midst, and make our lives more meaningful, and add to the colour and texture of life.

These were not overpowering. They were not going to drive our lives. We would work with them, much like we did with horses and cows and knives and scissors, to accomplish true 'living'.

But how the alarm clock has changed! You cannot buy a wind-up mechanical beauty any more, except some cheap Chinese look-alikes or old antiques. Gone are the days of majestic, ornate, time-pieces with character.

Even the quartz portable clocks are vanishing. Who would buy them, given the million apps on the phone to remind you, awaken you, and speak the time in different accents!?

But have you noticed? I am talking of alarm clocks that rang and had no snooze button. That meant they had a form and a function, and did what was expected. The same with match sticks and hurricane lamps. Today, nobody makes a fire except with a fancy lighter for some barbecue or a diya festival. You can even buy flickering plug-in plasticky 'brass' lamps!

Once there is a snooze button, I feel the character is lost. You don't have that pristine contract of the predictable Newtonian world. Then everything becomes 'maybe'. Just like people perhaps drove more carefully when they did not have airbags.

And if the alarm is coming from my mobile phone, damn it. It does not even ring with any 'truth' in it!

I also find the multifunction calendar+thermometer+clock+radio an extension of one's wishfulness and a mere show-off. It is quite handy as an office gift, but perhaps totally useless, since you can never get around to buy replacements for those tiny batteries later on.
Oh for the world of true alarm clocks!
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Faith. In Truth and Love.

Visit this lovely site: http://archiveofindianmusic.org/

Archive Of Indian Music · Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's Spiritual message

During his stay in England in 1931, when the Columbia Gramophone Company requested him to make a record for them, Gandhi pleaded his inability to speak politics, and added that, at the age of sixtytwo, he could make his first and last record which should, if wanted, make his voice heard for all time. Confessing his anxiety to speak on the spiritual matters, on October 20, 1931 he read out his old article "On God":

"There is an indefinable mysterious power that pervades everything, I feel it though I do not see it. It is this unseen power which makes itself felt and yet defies all proof, because it is so unlike all that I perceive through my senses. It transcends the senses. But it is possible to reason out the existence of God to a limited extent. Even in ordinary affairs we know that people do not know who rules or why and how He rules and yet they know that there is a power that certainly rules. In my tour last year in Mysore I met many poor villagers and I found upon inquiry that they did not know who ruled Mysore. They simply said some God ruled it. If the knowledge of these poor people was so limited about their ruler I who am infinitely lesser in respect to God than they to their ruler need not be surprised if I do not realize the presence of God - the King of Kings. Nevertheless, I do feel, as the poor villagers felt about Mysore, that there is orderliness in the universe, there is an unalterable law governing everything and every being that exists or lives. It is not a blind law, for no blind law can govern the conduct of living being and thanks to the marvelous researches of Sir J. C. Bose it can now be proved that even matter is life. That law then which governs all life is God. Law and the law-giver are one. I may not deny the law or the law-giver because I know so little about it or Him. Just as my denial or ignorance of the existence of an earthly power will avail me nothing even so my denial of God and His law will not liberate me from its operation, whereas humble and mute acceptance of divine authority makes life's journey easier even as the acceptance of earthly rule makes life under it easier. I do dimly perceive that whilst everything around me is ever changing, ever dying there is underlying all that change a living power that is changeless, that holds all together, that creates, dissolves and recreates. That informing power of spirit is God, and since nothing else that I see merely through the senses can or will persist, He alone is. And is this power benevolent or malevolent ? I see it as purely benevolent, for I can see that in the midst of death life persists, in the midst of untruth truth persists, in the midst of darkness light persists. Hence I gather that God is life, truth, light. He is love. He is the supreme Good. But He is no God who merely satisfies the intellect, if He ever does. God to be God must rule the heart and transform it. He must express himself in every smallest act of His votary. This can only be done through a definite realization, more real than the five senses can ever produce. Sense perceptions can be and often are false and deceptive, however real they may appear to us. Where there is realization outside the senses it is infallible. It is proved not by extraneous evidence but in the transformed conduct and character of those who have felt the real presence of God within. Such testimony is to be found in the experiences of an unbroken line of prophets and sages in all countries and climes. To reject this evidence is to deny oneself. This realization is preceded by an immovable faith. He who would in his own person test the fact of God's presence can do so by a living faith and since faith itself cannot be proved by extraneous evidence the safest course is to believe in the moral government of the world and therefore in the supremacy of the moral law, the law of truth and love. Exercise of faith will be the safest where there is a clear determination summarily to reject all that is contrary to truth and love. I confess that I have no argument to convince through reason. Faith transcends reason. All that I can advise is not to attempt the impossible."


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Likeabike: why didn't I think of it before!?

And I think you can buy it online for about $50.-

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Uh oh Da Vinci. Cavemen drew better!

Read this!
http://www.businessinsider.com/cavemen-drew-animal-movements-accurately-2012-12?utm_source=alerts



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No one killed this tree

Have you seen Vidya Balan's muted, sombre, acting in the movie No One Killed Jessica, a real-life story about a politician's son who shoots and kills a young lady bar-tender point blank and buys up witnesses so they refuse to tell what they saw, in court?
I saw with horror a handsome Gulmohar being laid low this morning with power-saws next to a nearby park. Who killed this tree? Some suspects:

1. I, who spoke with a black tongue just this morning about this sylvan haven of a park with all its tall trees.
2. The power shut-down last night during the rain, blamed on the tree interfering with overhead power wires.
3. The KSEB who didn't invest in underground cables, but tangled their wires with tall trees.
4. Mysore Maharaja, who inculcated the culture of tree-lined residential colonies.
5. The civic watchdogs who lie asleep.
6. The house-owners, who want their power fixed no matter what, to watch TV.
7. The staff and onlookers who perhaps gain from selling off the stout branches.
8. The jugaad heroes who tell us that we should carry on the way we run our country, and 'God Help the Greens.'
9. The tree itself, for having proudly shown off its growth.
10. God, who created this kinked world of men and trees, in constant competition for survival and flourish at each other's expense. Well stop it here, I say. Didn't Chaitanya extol the tree for its ultimate quality of tolerance and forbearance?

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I'm a Tourist

I stir from deep slumber as I hear the Faceless Voice again.
"We've landed! Welcome to The World. This is your happy layover, all-paid.
Go out and have fun! Just remember to be back on time,
So you won't miss your onward connection in this endless journey."

I blink, confused, as I am birthed into the brightly-lit
Arrivals, full of people, strange sights, noises, colours.

A friendly nanny at Assistance smiles.
"You don't have a care, dearie, go out, have fun.
Leave your cares with your baggage on board.
This is your Fun Day in the The World."

The guys in uniform are easy, as they check
My documents more than my face.
After all, I'm a layover tourist.

I go around to malls, museums, art schools, arty schooners.
Food courts with coconuts, orchids, coloured straws.
Lobsters cooling their claws on ice, ready to be cooked.

An hour of massage. Meditation.

Parks full of make-believe rain-forests.
Feathered performers that strut about and sing in a cabaret.

Skating rinks, soccer stadia. Esplanade by the shimmering waters,
where I take in magic tricks and singing bands.

At last it is time to go back to the endless journey.
As I march into the lounge, I smile to see x-rays and body scanners.
You see, I don't really care. It is time to go.
I simply wait for the Faceless Voice to call me aboard.

Well, I am happy it was not an ego-trip. It was only a layover.
To a tourist, nothing really sticks. So it's all fun!