Resuming...

Resuming after long time...

Lot of water has flown down the bridge of time...

When filled up with Hope, Optimism, ambition, excitement, hard work, faith in God and love...Life is always exciting!!

God is Great and He will always be Great!!

Looking forward to pen-in wide range of thoughts in coming days!!

Enjoy Life!!!

India Against Corruption

On 22 Aug 2011, self and family participated in India Against Corruption Rally on Chennai's famous Marina Beach. What began as a moderate crowd of 100-150 people, slowly sweeled into thousands. When the candle march started at about 7 pm, there were more than 10000 people.

The feature of the rally is similar to the protest started by Anna Hazare and India Against Corruption Group. Organiser were not from any political party, crowd gathering was spontaneous and voluntarily... so there was a bit of disorganised way it gathered. However, I could see more and more middle and upper middle class people, ladies, children and senior citizens. They abided by the requests from volunteers (many of them rose to the occassion), responded to the slogans in the sea of Tricolors.

Many in the crowd brought the posters and placards, denouncing the corruption. As it was not a professional political rally, there was shortage of professional slogan shouters. So few like yours truly, rose to the occasion and people happily responded. Army training on 'word of command' and 'gala phadna' in parade ground was really useful here.

I could not see the conviction on the faces that this act would end the deep rooted corruption in India. However, I could visualise the satisfaction that everyone was contributing their bit for better India. And that could be one of the reason almost all families brought their small children with them. Although, the Sunday evening crowd wandering on enormous Marina beach was much larger than those in the rally, sense of purpose of fighting 'sencond war independence' was palpable on the faces.

As evening grew and candles were lighted, the beaming satisfaction only grown in magnitude.

Long Live India and Indian Democracy!

Visit to a Universal Town - Auroville

Recently, I had opportunity to visit Auroville in Pondichery. The concept specifically appealed to me was about society beyond the boundaries of countries, communities, colors, creeds, etc. A society driven by "Humanity".

In this UNESCO acknowledged project, more than 2000 people of various age groups, from 35 nationalities have settled down. Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. But to live in Auroville, one must be the willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness. Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages. Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realisations. Auroville is a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual Human Unity.

http://www.auroville.org/

Kindly be considerate

Hi Everybody,
Please excuse me for the smaller font and lack of proper arrangement of text and photos in the previous post.
Hopefully, this should improve as the postings on the blog increase. Thanks for understanding.

Rameshwarm Visit

I recently visited Rameshwaram & Madurai with family. By road the travel is about 650 Kms from Chennai. Route is part of Golden Quadrilateral and as lot of work is presently in progress, the ride is quite bumpy. However, one can realise the benefits of Atal Bihari Vajapayees vision, as the speed, ease & comfort of drive on the completed part was a pleasant experience.

Despite of all the "Ramsetu" controversy, the island temple town goes quietly about its business. People are simple and down to earth. The serene beauty all around and holy atmosphere takes one to different world. With little bit of knowledge about Hindu mythology - Ramayana to be specific - generally helps to co relate things.

Apart from main Shiva temple, the island has few other places of tourist interests. Dhaushkodi is the place from where Lord Rama's bridge to Lanka started, Ram Kunda(lake), Laxman Kund, Panchmukhi Hanuman Temple, Bibhishan temple, etc., and other places help tourists and devotees to relive the story of Ramayana epic.

The main Shiva temple (Ramnathswamy) is one of the biggest temple I have ever seen. It has twenty two kundas( wells) inside the temple and also has world's biggest corridor. The height, pillars, art work, distance between the pillars, the engineering and architecture is amazing. Ramnathswamy temple was built in the 17th century. Situated close to the sea on the eastern side of the island, this temple is famous for its 1200 gigantic granite columns. The 54 metre tall gopuram (gate-tower), 1220 metres of magnificent corridors and the flamboyant columns embellish and render fame to the temple. The water in each of the 22 sacred wells in the temple tastes different, and has distinctly different temperatures.

At Panchmukhi Hanuman temple we saw those floating stones/rocks which were supposedly used by Lord Rama's forces to build a bridge to Lanka. These are coral rock formations, which have pockets of air inside them, due to which irrespective of their size they float on the water. Also the distance from Dhanushkodi to Lanka is shortest and the sea bed shallowest. (As per NASA it is the sea ridge, which is called "Adams' Bridge")

As usual ITDC does little here too for the development of tourism and for the help of tourists and devotees. No centres for registered guides, no prepaid autos, no tourist information centres. 07 Kms route to Dhanushkodi is through sea sand and only private buses go there which are

stuffed with tourists and not at all comfortable. However, hotels are not that costly and auto wallas are reasonable.

However, serenity and peace of mind derived from the visit this island is great

Hi Everybody,

In this inagural post, I would like to assure you that I will be communicating regularly to help you enrich in various aspects of our surroundings. I would certainly like to receive your feedback, to make this experience a mutually rewarding affair.