Magnificent M and Her Creative World

My niece 'Magnificent M' came to our house for a week and sparkled joy all around us. She is someone who creates fine art from anything and everything. She will be lost in creating designs, building things with Legos for hours.

If she picks up a book to read, she will keep it down only after she is finished reading. This time she read Thea Stilton and the Princess Emerald in about 3 Hours.

This time she blend both Lego and craft and created these tiny beauties..

Joy of paying digitally

Yesterday I purchased something which cost ₹9. Anyways I did not have cash and was wondering if the shop accepts digital payment.

To my surprise, shopwala said okay and flashed a QR code from his machine. I scanned the code with BHIM and paid without any effort. 

This scene would have been different a couple of years ago. When I had to give a change, the treasure hunt from my bag will start off. The hunt will continue in many compartments of the bag and will take a minimum of 5 mins. If this hunt resulted in finding the change then okay.. Else the shop keeper will say ask the neighboring shops. Then I will take a ₹50 or ₹100 currency note and will embark on a different hunt. This time with other shops. Sometimes they will give the change and many times they will demand to buy something in their shop. So I would end up buying something which I may not need.. 

Also, before demonetization, most of the shops in my area accepted only cash and have good discounts. Since there were not many malls nearby, spending Sodexo coupons was much difficult. After many hunts, we found one store which accepted it.. though it sold at only MRP prices, we ended up buying at this store.

With demonetization and then the pandemic which encouraged no-touch shopping many of the shop keepers were forced to switch to digital payment.. This is one of the better side-effects of covid.

Science Girl and Visvesvaraya Museum

Our favorite hangout in Bangalore is the Visvesvaraya Museum. More precisely it's my daughter YoungMM's favorite place than mine. This time we went after a gap of more than a year. It is by far our 7th or 8th visit to the museum. Every time YoungMM gets inside the museum she enjoys each exhibit as though it is the first time she is seeing that. She is excited about the humans and the machines alike and the science behind them. 

We spend a lot of time with each exhibit, analyze, understand the principle. I call her "Sheldon" (from The Big Bang Theory). Like Sheldon in Young Sheldon, she also watched the live telecast of all the Nobel Prize announcement and the award ceremony! 

The museum has made a 2020 Nobel Prize winners gallery. YoungMM happily posed next to the poster of Andrea Ghez, who won Nobel Prize for Physics. She adores her! 

It takes about 3-4 hours to see the museum completely. I particularly like the automation that is done to demonstrate science concepts. It's a great place for all science lovers.

After the museum, a walk near Cubbon park will be relaxing and cool. Truly a treasure in Namma Bengaluru.

                                 

Spark Joy - Marie Kondo Again!

Marie Kondo with her KonMarie method revolutionized living just by posing one simple question - "Does this Spark Joy in you?". This can be a dress, book, a pot, and even a spoon.

I applied her principles to my living spaces as soon I read her book "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing". I have also written about it earlier in my blog here :

https://vaisreflections.blogspot.com/2020/12/life-hack-series-being-tidy.html

Today I read this beautiful article in Deccan Herald which took this concept a step ahead - the clutter of internal kind like fear, anger, worries needs this kind of decluttering too...

Ask your train of thought - Does this Spark Joy?? 

Read the article in the link below:

It is a common observation that if our wardrobe is not crammed full, it’s easier to choose the outfit or if our desks are less cluttered we can focus more on the task at hand. Marie Kondo, Japanese organizing consultant, in her popular TV show, encou...

Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/oasis/less-is-more-949171.html

Tailors and their timelines

Around the place I stay has got tremendous, good tailors. Few tailors are good with designs while few with the right fitting of the dresses.

About ten years ago, I became so obsessed with stitched clothing, that I would go to commercial Street to buy various printed, embroidered fabric and get it stitched into nice Kurtis.

The tailor whom I went to was very good but he was horrible with the Estimated Time to Complete(ETC). He would say he will complete in 2 weeks and would not even start before 2 months. However, I got my dresses stitched from this tailor for about 4 years. Once when he did not return a dress for more than 6 months, I gave up. I collected the dress and decided to look for another tailor.

 

I found another tailor who was just across the street. It was a busy shop. After I gave my fabric, he said he would give it after 8 weeks I thought it is a reasonable time and called them up after 8 weeks...He said in another 2 days it will be ready! Common, after 8 weeks! Again, It was time to change the tailor.

The next tailor and the next one next all were same or even worst with their ETC. But their timelines burdened me and I completely stopped stitching dresses even saree blouses and started to only buy ready-made online or from a nearby mall.

Of late, I found a middle-aged lady Tailor. She was pretty reasonable with the stitching as well as the timing. She stuck to her promised timelines most of the time.

Today I was waiting for her when I typed this post. It's been about 4 months and she has not returned a dress! Well, the timeline the issue with Tailors is surely universal!

 

ಸುಮ್ಮನೇ ಬ್ರಹ್ಮವಾಗುವನೇ - ಎಷ್ಟು ಸರ್ತಿ ಕೇಳಿದರೂ ಕೇಳಬೇಕೆನಿಸುವ ತತ್ವಪದ

ಎಷ್ಟು ಸರ್ತಿ ಕೇಳಿದರೂ ಕೇಳಬೇಕೆನಿಸುವ ತತ್ವಪದ, ಸುಮ್ಮನೇ ಬ್ರಹ್ಮವಾಗುವನೇ ..ಇದನ್ನು ಎಷ್ಟು ಬಾರಿ ಕೇಳಿದ್ದೇನೆ , ಹಾಡಿದ್ದೇನೆ ಅಂದರೆ, ನನ್ನ ಮಗಳು ಇವತ್ತು ಇದನ್ನ ಗುನುಗುತ್ತಿದ್ದಾಗ ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿ  ಅನ್ನಿಸಿತು.

Srivathsa Joshi ಅವರ YouTube ಚಾನೆಲ್ ನಿಂದ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಹಾಕಿದ್ದೇನೆ.

ಶ್ರೀ ಆದಿಶಂಕರಾಚಾರ್ಯರ ಅದ್ವೈತ ಸಿದ್ಧಾಂತವನ್ನು ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ ಬಣ್ಣಿಸುವ ಒಂದು ಸುಂದರ ಪದ್ಯ, ಒಮ್ಮೆ ಕೇಳಿದರೆ ಮತ್ತೊಮ್ಮೆ ಕೇಳಬೇಕು, ಕೇಳಿ ಬಾಯಿಪಾಠ ಮಾಡಿಕೊಂಡು ಹಾಡಬೇಕು, ಮಕ್ಕಳಿಗೂ ಕಲಿಸಬೇಕು ಅಂತನಿಸುವ ಬಹಳ ಚಂದದ ಪದ್ಯ.

ರಚನೆ: ಮೈಸೂರು ಶಿವರಾಮ ಶಾಸ್ತ್ರಿ. ಗಾಯನ: ವೃಂದಗಾನ. * * * ಸುಮ್ಮನೇ ಬ್ರಹ್ಮವಾಗುವನೇ ಮೂಲಾಹಮ್ಮೆಲ್ಲ ಲಯವಾಗಿ ಉಳಿಯದೆ ತಾನೆ ತಾನುಳಿಯದೆ ತಾನೆ || ಪ || ಸುಮ್ಮನಿದ್ದರೂ ಸುಖಿಸುವನೇ ಇದು ನಮ್ಮದೆಂಬುದನು ಕೊಂದಿರುವೊ ಸಾಹಸನೇ ಹೊಂದಿರುವೊ ಚಿದ್ರಸನೇ ಸಮ್ಮಾನವನು ಮೀರಿದವನೇ ಮೃತ್ಯು ಸಂಹಾರಿಯಾಗಿ ತಾಂಡವದೊಳಿರುವನೇ ಕುಂಡಲಿಯ ಮೀರುವನೇ || ಸುಮ್ಮನೆ || ಪುಸ್ತಕವನು ಮುಚ್ಚಲಿಲ್ಲ ತಾನಾ ಪುಸ್ತಕದೊಳಗೆಲ್ಲ ಶಿವನಾಗಲಿಲ್ಲ ಕೇಶವನಾಗಲಿಲ್ಲ ಸುಸ್ತುಗಳ್ ಬಯಲಾಗಲಿಲ್ಲ ಪರ ವಸ್ತುವೆಂಬುವ ನೋಡಿ ಒಳಗಾಗಲಿಲ್ಲ ತನ್ನೊಳಗಾಗಲಿಲ್ಲ | ಸುಮ್ಮನೆ | ಮರಣ ಭೀತಿಯ ಬೇರ ಸುಡದೆ ತನ್ನ ಪರಮಾನಂದವನೆ ಎಲ್ಲೆಲ್ಲಿಯುಂ ನೆಡದೆ ಎಲ್ಲೆಲ್ಲಿಯುಂ ನೆಡದೆ ಶರೀರದೊಳಭಿಮಾನ ಬಿಡದೇ ನಮ್ಮ ಗುರುಶಂಕರನಿಗೆ ಚಿತ್ತವನು ಒಪ್ಪಿಸದೆ ಚಿತ್ತವನು ಒಪ್ಪಿಸದೆ | ಸುಮ್ಮನೆ |

Random Records- Modern day Dilemmas

These days I face a new dilemma... More so if it's any of my friend's and family's birthdays.

Here is how it goes:

Let's say I have a friend to whom I am connected in many channels like Facebook, WhatsApp, with atleast 2 common Whatsapp groups.

When it is someone's birthday, I do DM on WhatsApp...and I get a response.. In the ideal case, the loop should close here..

But...

After a while, I see that people have started to send their wishes in one of the WhatsApp groups... for which my friend responds to them by thanking each one of them who has wished ..

Here is My first dilemma... Should I message again here?

I do not want others to think that I don’t message on someone's birthday...

                      So I send another wish to the Group. and get a response...Now this feels cool 😎

By evening I check my Facebook..

There again there are timeline wishes pouring and again there are responses to each of the messages...Also, I notice that people who had wished on the group also wrote on Facebook...

This was my second dilemma... Should I write on FB Timeline or not?

Then I reasoned that Facebook messages will stay for years and Whatsapp message does not..

So for the sake of longevity, I wish again on the Facebook timeline... Finally!

 I am happy that I am not on Signal, Telegram, Instagram and Twitter!

Why write Everyday?

I did Marathon writing last month on my Blog by writing every day. Today I was posed with the question "Why should I write every day?" I had to reason it out!

It's serendipity! I found this quote by Jodi Picoult saved on my mobile... it's better to write few lines than to just leave it...that's why this post today!