Ancient Tamarind trees and Temples

In India there is so much history, that many things of historical importance would be on an average 1000 years old. But tamarind trees close to 1000 years. That would be something. Here is a link to an interesting story about such tamarind trees. I will visit the place when I get the chance.

Vimala and Babu went to a temple near Hospet in North Karnataka that was not so old. The temple was apparently destroyed in bits by Aurangazeb, last of those Moghul emperors. The stone carvings are very fine and extraordinary.

Coconut tree climbing

Look at the hip holster he is carrying just like the ones used for carrying arrows. He carries sickles and his personal things.


In Darwin people cut down coconut trees because they are worried that they may become liable for injuries from a cooconut fall. In India everybody loves a coconut tree. It gives cool coconut drink, coconut kernels, oil, toddy (alcoholic), fibres for rope, fronds for firewood, etc. Safety. Who cares. Coconut falls are natural things and should be expected if you were to stand under a tree. In any case, nobody cares about safety in India. They expect you to look out for yourself. People from Western countries who have not been to India would probably need some trauma counselling while driving or travelling atleast for initial periods.

Coconut climbing is a difficult job. Some engineering organisations have tried to develop a coconut tree climber without much luck. In Indonesia monkeys are trained to pluck coconut without them consuming them. In Tamil Nadu, there are separate tribes to climb coconut trees. The coconut climber will not touch the coconut after they have been dislodged from the trees. Strictly business!

Mythily is enjoying her job as the Principal of a Women's Engineering college near Erode. I am housekeeping and enjoying.

Interesting times

Mythily and I went to the Cauvery river about a km from our house. We met a nomadic family from Central India who have come to labour in the sugarcane fields nearby. With the booming economic situation, the locals are finding difficult get labourers to work in the fields. So they do not mind getting people from faraway places.

Krishna Jayanthi

All over India, amongst Hindus, Lord Krishna's birthday is celebrated with great fervour. However, if you hear about his features he may not fit the traditional Indian 'look'. He is supposed to have been very dark, with curly hair, very strong and brave, very attractive, etc and no doubt he had many girl friends. So these features fit a person of African ancestory. Mind you, in ancient times people from various continents had robust trade and exchange of culture and welcomed everyone. Only in our modern times we need a visa, passport or other identification to even step out of the house.

Did Krishna have African ancestory? May be he did. But Krishna is celebrated as a child and his devotees 'offer' him all sorts of goodies on his birthday. Anyway, it is a good excuse for celebration. Footprints of a child are marked on the floor right from the doorstep to the prayer room in the house wihich is filled with the goodies. Radhesh took this video and I thought it was very nice.

Radhesh's Birthday

Radhesh celebrated his 14 birthday on 29 August. We purchased a nice cake from a rural bakery and they even wrote his name on the cake. But they didn't get his name right. So he was a bit annoyed that nowhere people get his name right. But we had a great time and the cake was very nice to taste.

So what is in a name? With the recent terrorism boogey, spelling names in English has become important. Because most governments have strict border controls, and they do not know whom they can let in, they are quite happy to rely on English spellings. But as you know English is not very suitable for Indian names and most definitely other country names.

However, in India there is a phenomenon called numeralogy which is a system based on the belief that numbers govern our lives. In order to get the right numbers, some alphabets are added to names even if it is not the conventional spelling. The name Raman can be written as Raaman. Although I just do not believe this and believe that this is a waste of time and money, we suggested Radhesh that his name may have been modified for the sake of numeralogy. Radhesh has now become curious about numeralogy.

Engineering Colleges everywhere

In Tamil Nadu alone, there are about 250 engineering colleges. The state has a population of about 65 million. The number of science and arts colleges and polytechnics will be even higher. Around the mid 1980s there were about 10-15 engineering institutions. But why this sudden explosion? It appears that there was a market for education - an engineer or a doctor was a status symbol and many Indian cricketers were engineers. After the government relaxed the norms for private engineering colleges, there was a boom and entrepreneurs just lapped it up. But hear some horror stories in the admission and other procedures(!).

Above are photos of NT parliament and Supreme court buildings in Darwin.

Newton is to blame

David who runs a fun blog mentioned about my blog and thanks to him I seem to have more hits through his readers visiting my blog. I hope to keep updating the blog more often.

David had mentioned about the number of things he would defy especially if they came from the NZ government and other self interest or appointed bodies. Whereas here he can fully feel at home as every rule or legislation is broken by many citizens. But life goes on without much hassles. Is there a sense in all these chaos. For example, the government here in all hopes of reducing head injuries legislated helmets for two wheelers. However, women protested that their hairstyle and flowers in their hair were wasted because of helmets. Later men protested that they are likely to lose hair because of helmets. So the Government rescinded the decision since everyone, well almost, broke the rule. Civil disobedience, if you like. The government has again brought it in and I am told that the pillion riders have been exempted. I do not know if the rule is in place since no one is wearing helmets including the police. The other day I saw a Westerner wearing a helmet while riding a push bike and what a spectacle he was.

The lorry had taken a fall while taking a right turn at a very small roundabout. The lorry was laden with sand and Radhesh's theory is that the sand moved to the left side and increased the centrifugal force. Well, he is right but I blame Newton for inventing gravity. Look at the tyres as smooth as an ice hockey surface.