Malgudi Days - the cute swami

Malgudi Days was a television serial which appeared long back in Doordarshan channel and the little stories set in a typical Indian village is loved by all even today. "Swami and Friends" was a popular series of stories around 'Swami' whose innocent pangs, wonder and mischief touched the hearts of the viewers. The picture shows the child character of Swami (master Manjunath) and inset pic shows the current photo of Manjunath (oops! same as my name)

Download malgudi series videos at http://www.stage6.com/Malgudi-Days---The-series

My new blog

Doesn't every city in the world have its own unique landmarks ? It could be a monument or a shopping complex or park or a palace or a temple or anything else. I decided to go around the internet looking for such uniques city landmarks and publish it in my new blog everyday. I hope I gather interesting photos everyday and at the end of this year, it would be a fine collection!

http://www.wonderlandmarks.blogspot.com

Chalo "Tum Tum"

I am here in Pune for a short term transfer to Infosys Pune for my project work. The first day to my office in Hinjewadi Phase 2 had me travelling in three 6-seater autorikshaws. The first one from my flat near Jagtap Dairy to Danke Chowk, the second from Danke Chowk to Hinjewadi, the third from Hinjewadi to Phase 2.

When I mentioned about the morning travel to my collegue, he said "So you came to office in Tum-Tum ?" I asked him "Tum-Tum ?.. Is it what you call the 6 seater auto ?" He replied "Yes.. its Tum Tum as we call it.."

I recollected my "Tum-Tum" experience- sitting crunchy, shaking sideways, jumping occasionally as the over packed three wheeler zips through the dusty traffic.

A Typhoidical Experience

Some diseases are worth having an experience. Typhoid is certainly one of those which keeps in us a lasting memory of the unfriendly bacterias who have conquered the forts of internal defense systems in the body.
It started in me with a slight shivering and fever. I took a day's off at office assuming to be normal fever. But hospital checkup made it clear that I was infected with Typhoid. It was then a week's stay back at home having only rice water as my stomach is fully disordered and no scope of any digestive mechanisms in place. My fever came down to normal from 102F a week back. I returned to office and continued my rest of days with work, and having food at restaurants.

Meanwhile, the colonies of bacterias had started recovering and was aiming for a second attack to break into my body defense systems. It happened after couple of weeks- me falling sick again with typhoid fever. Typhoid took me more than I cared for. Only after two weeks medication and rest at home, I came back to office work.

Now I won't allow the tiny tiny bacterias for a third attack. I care well for my food and drink only boiled or bottled water. I hope my body has acquired enough immunity to build the damaged fort walls for protection against any such unfriendly incomers.

Right mail at the Right Time gives you too Good Responses

If you had an old school friend whom you are not in touch with for a long time and then you send him a mail of Birthday wishes exactly on the fine morning of his birthday. It's going to bring happiness in his soul.

That's exactly what happened when I mailed all of them in my batch on the morning of Oct 16th - the first anniversary day of OctFT2 batch which was under my batchownership. I got too flattery mails praising my gesture and then there were circulation of good wishes mails. This photo was taken by few of batchmates in Infosys Bangalore when they decided to find time afternoon for a group photo to remember this day.

Touching moment

I felt touched after I saw this photo. It was taken when few of us, 'Soften' volunteers had gone to 'Chaya Devi Ashram' which is a home for oldage and orphan children. I had taken my mandolin and played couple of songs like 'vande mataram', 'mere sapno ki rani', 'jana gana mana', for the old age people there.

The photo clearly shows the glitter in the eyes of the old man and a shining lonely teeth in his mouth. Sometimes you don't realize the beauty of a moment unless it gets captured in the four borders of a photo. This is a clear example for that!

Daud - for a cause

We had a mini Marathon in our campus here in Infosys, Mysore on Oct 16th. It was to raise fund for the social forum, 'SOFTEN', now involved actively in helping the needy.

The event was a huge success with infoscions gearing up to run along. As a surprise, Anil Kumle, Sunil Joshi and few Ranji Cricketers were also running this fun marathon.

I too was involved in a way to this event in designing banners and posters for promoting it. This image shows a 6x3ft large banner designed by me, which was hung in the campus for the event.

The First Touch

Imagine you are exposed to different varieties of art forms while you were a school kid and you happen to like an art passionately ? Probably the life and career chosen would be different now.That is exactly what United Arts Society is trying to do. They help bring in artists from various forms of art - fine arts, theatre, dance etc and conduct interactive sessions with school kids during weekends and thus wake the artist in a child.

I am happy to be part of the 'First Touch' programme held in a playschool 'Kidzee' in Malleswaram, Bangalore to expose school kids to sessions of fine arts (norton collage), basic theatre art and dance as well. The day started with few kids who had registered for the programme turning up at Kidzee with their parents in the morning. The first session was to help the kids make a 'Nortan Collage' which is japanese creative paper design art made by cutting out pieces of paper and sticking it on a chart without throwing away any bits of paper. The kids loved thinking hard to make a design out of the paper given to them and finally after an hour we could see some creativity pasted on the chart paper.The next session was about basics of theatre performance by Vineet (one of founders of the society) and it involved fun games to teach kids the lessons of observation, concentration, attraction and voice modulation. The final session was to teach kids basics of dance with couple of artists asking the kids to follow their movements as they danced.

On whole it was a fun filled day for the kids and for us too, and the idea of waking up talents in kids to help them enjoy art forms better with a series of weekend sessions would be the future plan of United Arts Society.

To know more, visit: http://www.unitedartssociety.com/

Let me play Sitar !

I struck with this not so normal idea of learning sitar after I read about a professional sitarist Manoj Mukherjee in Mysore. I went to his residance near Jaylakshmipuram and was quite taken by the artistic beauty of this fine hindustani musical instrument.

I have now started playing my first 'Sa-Re-Ga-Ma' moving my fingers hard on the long strings of sitar. My sitar master taught the sitting posture for playing sitar and he insisted on my attire to be kurta-pyjama. I was happy to accept my sitar guru after I offered him a thali of coconut, bunch of bananas, beetle leaves, agarbathi and guru dakshina, after which he wore on my right index finger the 'mizrab'.

I am hoping to get along practicing better on sitar with its calm tones of music spreading into my mind each time I strike the strings.

the boys, girls, grandmas and grandpas are well

We had a visit to the orphan boys, girls and the grandmas and grandpas staying in the Chaya Devi Ashram orphanage in Jaynagar, Mysore. The Infosys Foundation, which works for social benefits, funds the ashram and we, as part of SOFTEN, also supports them in some ways.

We were only four, but our appearance brought smiles to the faces of the inmates, and the children were happy to play around with us. I had brought my mandolin and I played few songs including 'jane-gana-mana' and 'vande-mataram'.

The oldage grandmas who live there seem to be cheerful even in their age. I was surprise when one of them enthusiastically shouted 'mere-sapnom-ki rani kaba aayega' when I started with the first line of the song in my mandolin.

We left the orphanage on a happy note and also visited 'sneha makkale mane', which is again a home for orphan kids taken care by a NGO.

to know more about chaya devi ashram : http://www.hohinc.org/chayadevi.html