Bangalore Diaries

I had to visit my ancestral home and kshetram (temples) in Kerala as a follow-up for my father’s varshaaptika (annual death ceremony). Amidst a very hectic 2 day schedule, I had some interesting observations which I thought of penning down, lest I forget them. Civic amenities in major kshetrams needs to improve by huge margins. For toilet, we had to search across a large area before finding only one complex. For the amount of devotees and the money being collected, I am sure many more toilet complexes can be constructed to benefit old and young alike. Small temples, specially those that are attached to specific families are not having enough funds to pay for the salaries of the staff in the temple. Yet, I observe that everyone is performing their duties to their fullest without even a trace of sadness. Devotion trumps everything else. When I visited a kshetra whose priest is related to me (father’s cousin), he immediately recognised my name and remembers my nakshatra. The happiness tha...

When one reads a masterpiece, there is a limit to which one can get marvelled. Imagine, the reader experiences this exuberance not once or twice, but thrice and at the end, has this overwhelming feeling of what was achieved over the course of 120 odd pages of sheer brilliance. To say brilliant or genius is to undermine the oceanic knowledge and utter devotion of Dr. V. Raghavan. As I noted in an earlier review, this type of scholarly work is impossible without some divine blessing and influence. As a reader, I am just overjoyed, swimming in the “Ananda” of the bliss of having read this book. This book is about the 3 major Ramayanas in vogue which are related to, but different from the traditional Valmiki Ramayana. The author chooses Adbhuta , Adhyatma and Ananda Ramayanas, giving a very precise, extremely in-depth analysis of every single of these  versions and provides a very a comprehensive all-rounded analysis for each one of them. One would be inspired to just take up one of ...