ಮೊಬೈಲ್ GOD

Recently I visited Belur along with my relatives and witnessed the greatness of Hoysala Architecture. Probably the most creative and sensible engineers were born in those times. To develop chains having stone linkages, stone bangles, sculptures that can be dis-assembled and packed, perfectly symmetric and extremely intricate carvings and what not; to do all these without any machinery is simply outstanding. After a brief look of all the wonderful architecture and some 'really beautiful' sculptures, my cousin wanted to pop up nicotine level in his body which, he thought, had drastically gone down after a longer (relative sense) gap. While our uncles and aunts wanted to see God for a longer duration, we went out and took some tender coconuts, cherishing the taste that I had missed for a long time.

I thought of writing about one little funny incident that i witnessed. Mobile phone is not allowed within the temple premises. The security persons check the people at the entrance and directs them to a place where phones can be safely kept. Needless to say, it is one of the ways to make money. This reminds of so many well-known temples taking money for allowing people to have "darshan" through a 'short-cut' a.k.a 'privileged path'. It so happened once that there were more people in the "special darshan" queue than the regular one!

Anyway... There were 5-6 persons in the queue at Belur. One was asked to keep his mobile phone outside and he was not at all happy with it. A small piece of conversation is as follows.

no mobile guy: ಯೆ ಅಲ್ಲಿ ಮೊಬೈಲ್ ನ ಒಳಗಡೆ ತಗೊಂಡು ಹೋಗಕ್ಕೆ ಬಿಡ್ತಾ ಇಲ್ವಂತೆ ಮಾರಾಯ

mobile guy: ಯಾರು ಅದೆಲ್ಲ ನೋಡ್ತಾರೋ? ನಾನು ತಗೊಂಡು ಹೋಗ್ತೀನಿ, ಫೋಟೋ ತೆಗೀಬೇಕು ಒಳಗಡೆ.

no mobile guy: ಇಲ್ವಂತೆ ಕಣೋ, ಬಿಡಲ್ಲ ಮೊಬೈಲ್ ತಗೊಂಡೋಗಕ್ಕೆ

mobile guy: ಸ್ವಿಚ್ ಆಪ್ ಮಾಡಿ ತೋರ್ಸ್ತೀನಿ

no mobile guy: ಸ್ವಿಚ್ ಆಫು ಇಲ್ಲ, ಗಿಚ್ಚ ಆಫು ಇಲ್ಲ.. ಅವರಿಗೆಲ್ಲ ಬಿಡ್ತಾ ಇಲ್ಲ ನೋಡು..

mobile guy: ಯಾಕೋ?

no mobile guy: ಮೊಬೈಲ್ ಅಲ್ಲಿ ಇವಾಗೆಲ್ಲ ಬಾಂಬ್ ಇಡ್ತಾರಂತೆ. ಅದಿಕ್ಕೆ..

Then they go near the security

security: ಮೊಬೈಲ್ ತೆಗ್ದಿಟ್ಟು ಬನ್ನಿ ಸಾರ್. ಬೋರ್ಡ್ ನೋಡಿ ಇಲ್ಲೆಲ್ಲ ರೂಲ್ಸ್ ಇದೆ.

mobile guy: ನಾನು ಆತರ ಏನಾರ ಮಾಡೋ ಮನಶಾ ಅಲ್ಲ. ಸುಮ್ನೆ ತಗೊಂಡು ಹೋಗ್ತೀನಿ ಬಿಡಿ.

security: ಆಗಲ್ಲಪ್ಪ ಅಂತ ಎಷ್ಟ್ ಸತಿ ಹೇಳದು, ಅರ್ಥ ಆಗಲ್ವೇನ್ರಿ?

mobile guy: ಒಳ್ಳೆ ಕಥೆ ಅಯ್ತಲ ಸಾರ್ ನಿಮ್ಮದು. ನಂ ಮೊಬೈಲ್ ನಾವು ಹಿಡ್ಕೊತಿವಿ. ನಿಮ್ಗೆನು ಕಷ್ಟ?

security: ನಮ್ ತಲೆನೋವು ನಮಗೆ ಇರತ್ತೆ. ಆಯಕ್ಕಿಲ್ಲ ಅಂದ್ರೆ ಅಯಕ್ಕಿಲ್ಲ.

mobile guy: ಒಹ್, ಏನ್ ಮಹಾ ಇವ್ರ್ದೊಬ್ರುದ್ದೆ ದೇವ್ರು. ನನ್ ಮೊಬೈಲ್ ಗಿಂತ ದೇವರೇನು ಹೆಚ್ಚಲ್ಲ. ಬೇಡ ಬಿಡ್ರಿ. ನಾ ಹೋಗ್ತೀನಿ ವಾಪಾಸ್...

!!!

French Open 2009

I am probably billionth guy writing about Roger Federer winning french open and equalling Pete Sampras's record of incredible 14 grand slams. This has been much anticipated especially after Nadal's exit to Robin Soderling who was the runner up and Federer defeated him in straight sets in the final. Federer's service was top class which he had badly missed in the tournament so far. I feel one thing that really worked to Fed's advantage was cloudy and cold weather making his past experience count. Soderling had blasted his opponents before reaching the final and the conditions in final were very different from the rest. Ball did not bounce much, was carried away by the strong wind and the court was slippery once it started to drizzle.

Well, there would be much more professional analysis of such a high-profile match and I am the least qualified to talk about it. But one thing I would like to mention is about the famous Bjorn Borg, who has won 11 grand slams (6 French open and 5 Wimbledon). Apparently he has thanked Robin Soderling for defeating Nadal. Nadal has won 4 consecutinve French open (so did Bjorn Borg) and was knocked out by Soderling in 4th round. If he had gone on to win this time as well he would have broken Borg's record by winning it 5 consecutive times and Borg has thanked Soderling for preserving Borg's record! Wow, what a sportsmanship... Records are always improved in Sports making it more interesting and competetive. A person with such a record should not say things like these. And this is not the first time Borg is doing this. In Wimbledon 2008, Federer was on his way to win 6th consecutive grass court championship and Nadal stopped him. Borg, who also had 5 consecutive Wimbledon wins, thanked Nadal for not letting Federer break his record. Anyway nobody listens to him nowadays. Current tennis is such a clean game, where a player questions umpire's decision even if it is against him.

Let the true spirit rule.

Pigeons

If there is somebody whose laziness can come close to that of Garfield, it has to be the pigeons of our campus. I have been seeing them for nearly three years now and they are probably one the laziest creatures on earth. They hardly use their wings but just sit and watch. So far I have not been able to get any information on what they watch sitting in the hot sun. Perhaps they themselves do not know. Garfield, though lazy, has always shown extreme wit and intelligence to keep itself lazy always. These pigeons are so dumb that I had to think twice before using the word 'Garfield'. Sorry Garfield, you definitely deserve much better comparisons and more sacred place to mention your name.

They find some place to s(h)it and never move from that place throughout the day. One of the funniest things I have seen is that a pigeon tries to sit on a rope (tied by students to dry clothes). Since it is not rigid, it is not possible to balance and it starts oscillating back and forth as though it is trying to fight for its survival. The same thing continues and another pigeon sits on the same rope and now both of them have to overcome additional instability of the rope caused by their movements. They are too lazy to move away and this 'dance' goes on for quite some time. Though its a funny scene, eventually I get bored, but not them. Sometimes when a male pigeon tries to go near its counterpart, the latter simply starts moving from that place in a very slow pace and the male starts following it. This terribly slow 'catch me if you can' game continues for a long time while they cover the whole roof of a hostel wing. Finally the male gives up and returns.

Every room has a balcony here and it is impossible to find a clean one. I wonder how much the cleaners have cursed these creatures for filling the balcony with loads of s.... The ventilation area has a small width where pigeons sit and some guys have covered that width with a paper/cardboard piece fixed in such a way that pigeons would slide down if they make an attempt to sit. What amazes me is that pigeons never try to make space by piercing the paper etc. Some of them even repeatedly try to sit and haplessly slide without realizing whats happening.


There are so many trees here and the pigeons seem to have not realized the fun in building nests, eating fruits / insects etc. Forget fruits, they cant even spot the food items near the place where they stay. I had kept some old biscuits and nuts on the balcony grills and for many days pigeons just flew over them, keeping them untouched. Finally a crow and a squirrel had to finish them. Once I tried to shoo them away when I saw them on my balcony and I realized that they are not just dumb but deaf as well. Nowadays I resort to some paper balls and even then, unless I hit the bull's eye they just dont move. Though "मैंने प्यार किया", "कबूतर जा जा जा ....." did not happen.