Soma Purana

human body is marvelous. it forced me to rest and sleep a lot and was quietly working furiously inside to heal the injuries and repair the damaged bones and tissues. my job is to provide it all the necessary supplies, basically, a lot of calcium, vitamins, antioxidants. i have been consuming tons of vegetables, milk, vitami d and calcium supplements. i use tumeric, ginger, and garlic liberally in my food. very little carbohydrates. even with zero exercise i have maintained my weight so far. this regimen has worked very well so far. all non-fracture injuries have almost healed. i don't know how well fractures have healed. i would know when i meet the orthopedist in a couple of weeks and he takes new x-rays. i have stopped taking pain killers. i don't like them. they constipate and interfere with healing. sleeping continuously for more than 3-4 hours at night is difficult since i feel co much discomfort with immobile left hand in sling and not being able to turn on the side....

i saw dr. iturbides yesterday. i love him. he is the best doctor and the best human being. he is my doctor for the last 17 years. i consider him my brother. he had called me twice after the accident. he really cares about his patients. he examined me and told me there is no new bad news. so, i have scapular and pelvic fractures and a lot of abrasions, muscle damage, internal swelling, and pain. fortunately no internal organ damage. this is going to take many weeks to heal. after that i start physiotherapy. could be several months before i am back on my bike. i may never recover 100%. i am not mad at the lady who hit me. it was an accident. i believe human body is amazingly adaptive and will heal.

met orthopedist today. he took more x-rays and said i have pelvic bone fracture also. he wants me to see my regular physician dr. iturbides so he can check abdominal area again since i still have some pain there. i am eager to get back on bike. it is going to take some more weeks i am sure. my boss and colleagues are extremely supportive. they have told me i have to focus my health first. but i should be able to get back to my regular work within a few days if not sooner. i am immobile and will be for a while. i cannot drive. pari has to drive me around. fortunately, she has summer break. i am so much dependent on her now. i cannot even button my shirt. after i take my bath she cleans and bandages all the open wounds and puts and buttons my shirt on. i can put on my brief and pants myself. i feel tired easily and has been sleeping most of the time.

what a difference a day makes! when i was riding my bike yesterday morning, i was hit by a car driven by an indian lady. i spent five hours in the emergency department of robertwood johnson hospital. i have suffered scapular fracture and pretty banged up on my left side. i am in terrible pain. i am seeing an orthopedist tomorrow. this is going to be long road to complete recovery. parvathi is helping me a lot. i still went to teach my evening class at mccc. parvathi drove me there. the students were very cooperative. teaching is one thing that will make me forget the severest of pain. i feel so helpless, it is very difficult to do simple things, like putting on a seat belt. i found out there is not much you can do with physically sound right side but messed up left. i have severe abrasions, a lot of swelling on my waist, upper arm, wrist, shoulder. i will get through this with others help over time. i am more afraid of discovering what else may have happened in the shoulder area. ...

Lest someone think I make over 400 Km week every week, let me assure you, it does not happen. My week's goal is 200Km but some weeks I cannot make it because of some reason such as rain or my knees are hurting. When it is ideal I try to put some kilometers in the bank to compensate for bleak weeks (or should I say weak weeks!). When it is raining or snowing, of course I cannot ride, even though I have been caught in the rain after I started in which case I rush back. If it is just a drizzle I don't care, I continue riding. I ride in winter too, just dress up well. If the roads are covered with snow, even slight amount of snow, I don't go. If it is too windy, I don't ride. Riding against wind is so hard.

My bike ride week starts on Sunday and ends on Saturday. The last week (7/1/2012 through 7/7/2012) was probably the best week and deserves a post. Rode the bike all 7 days of the week. 18 hours of riding (average 2.57 Hrs/day) 433 Km (270 mi) Average of 24 Km per hr (or 15 mi per hr) 7645 calories burned 979 fat calories burned  

Watched this movie on TCM. It is a b&w old movie but very enchanting, romantic movie. The acting by Audrey Hepburn, Gary Cooper, and other characters too is absolutely superb. I found out this movie was a commercial failure in the US when it was released but was a huge success in Europe.

When I was an undergraduate engineering student (I think, I was in my 2nd year), I left my bicycle outside my room in BK Mariappa hostel where I was staying and forgot to lock the bike. I dozed off and when I woke up my bike was gone! I was extremely sad. I knew how difficult it was for my parents to buy me a bike and I was careless. My parents were farmers and also ran a morning cafe to supplement their income. My bike's cost was like six months of the cafe income. I knew they would be devastated and worried endlessly how I would break the news to them. Bike was essential to me to commute between my college and hostel and now I had to get up early and start on foot at 6:15 AM for my 7:30 AM class every weekday. I was not worried about that but I was reminded what a financial struggle it was for my father to buy me the bike which I lost. I sat down to write a letter. It took many hours to compose the letter and I cried and cried writing it. Basically I told then what happened an...

I use ginger and turmeric liberally in my every morning oatmeal breakfast. I have my own recipe which is basically a lot of vegetables. What I prepare lasts for three days for me and my wife. The general ingredients are: less than one cup oatmeal 2 big long eggplants 2 big red onions lots of frozen vegetables (beans, corn, peas, tindora, amla) Ginger Turmeric Hot chillies Mustard Peanuts Canola oil Tamarind I don't put garlic since I don't like the taste but I have been taking one 2000 mg garlic pill everyday. It will take some time to clearly understand the effects of all the ingredients in my oatmeal breakfast, but I want to start off very briefly with what turmeric and ginger do in this post. Turmeric : turmeric is at the top of the spice class. It is known for its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, its use as a digestive aid, and it ability to improve circulation. Its benefits are touted to be improving cardiac health, relief of aches and...

Watched last night this beautiful movie based on a true story about a textile factory worker in a small town in North Carolina. The worker starred by Sally Field gets involved in organizing a union and goes through a lot of hurdles and eventually gets fired. But unionizing succeeds. This movie won best actress Oscar for Sally Field. Ron Leibman as the union organizer is superb and should have won the Oscar too. A moving drama.

When I was a toddler I developed an enormous interest in a machine, our village bus. I was truly fascinated by it. When I was like 4 or 5 years old, my everyday routine was to run in the morning around 7AM to the village bus stand and observe goings on in and around the bus. The bus would leave for Chinthamani at 8AM, but most of my interest was in cleaning and preparing the bus to depart. The first activity was to push the bus to the village tank (this was actually a small dam) about 500 yards from the stand. Why the bus was pushed rather than driven, I don't know to this day. Who would push? Under the approval and direction of the Cleaner of the bus it was the kids like me who would do it. It was a privilege for us. Every bus would have three workers, a driver, a conductor whose job was to collect fare, and the cleaner who job was to keep the bus clean, do minor repairs, haul passengers' luggage to the roof of the bus and bring it down, and to yell "Right" when e...

I am proud of my cousin Ananth Kumar (my paternal uncle's son). He went through a traumatic childhood (see my own experience detailed in several stories published in 2006 living with his eccentric and abusive father) and wandered through several stages before realizing his true purpose. For the last ten years or so, he has been running an unconventional school near Mysore and has changed the lives of many a children. He and his wife Padma have dedicated their lives to run this school which is free and admits kids who are dropouts, opportunity deprived, and essentially considered hopelessly uneducatable. Today, Ananth is attracting numerous volunteers and funding support from across the world because nobility of his purpose and purity of his mind. Ananth is an idea machine. His school is called Kaliyuva Mane (Kannada for "the house for learning") and adopts the premise that the school is for children and not the other way around. The strength of this simple premise is h...

When I went to village school in India, there were not too many girls. Most involuntarily dropped out. My own two older sisters were not allowed to go beyond 4th grade. That has changed now. Even in villages, there are lot more girls pursuing high school education. I was pleasantly surprised to see so many top ranks in 2012 obtained by girls. Look at 2012 top SSLC ranks in Karnataka. Max achievable score is 625. Names highlighted are girls' names. Name Marks NAVYA 623 PALLAVI 621 ANUSHA 621 SHREESHA 621 NAMRATHA 620 S Suhas 620 PRIYANKA 619 MEGHA 619 SOUMYA 619 KRITIKA 619 TEJASWINI 619 AKHILA 618 KARTHIK 618 VASUDHA 618 GAYANA 618 LAKSHMI 618 SRIDEVI 618

Neptune is the farthest planet in the solar system after Pluto was demoted to dwarf planet status. It was discovered mathematically first and then by observation in Sep. 1846 (166 years ago). Neptune completes its revolution around the Sun every 165 years. So, it just completed one revolution since the time of its discovery! It has seasonal changes kind of similar to ours but its season lasts for 40 earth years! It has 13 known moons. Triton, the largest of Neptune's moons didn't form in place but was "captured." Triton was going around the Sun like another dwarf planet but fell into Neptune's gravitational pull and became its moon.

I don't know the answer. No one knows. Whatever one believes it can never be proved. But let me present a scenario that is theoretical and could throw some light into the question. Suppose, I am just a set of molecules organized in some very complicated way. This organization of molecules creates me, let us argue. Then it should be possible to create another being with exactly the same organization, complicated nonetheless. Once it is created the new being possesses the same shape and form as me and it exhibits the same thoughts, consciousness, feelings, emotions, knowledge as me. Then the question arises, who is "me"? Is it me or the other being that just got created. Me and the new being can never be the same since, physically it is impossible for both me and the new being to occupy the same space. Exactly where we physically are at a given time also is a variable that affects how we evolve. Then there should be minute but distinguishable changes that occur between...

I was listening to an interview on NPR with an author of a recent book which inspired me to write this post. Have you considered how much your life has benefited from what others have done? Of course, the major effort was by your parents. And your teachers, and many others you may or may not even know about. How about Indian mathematicians who invented zero? And those who invented and perfected domestic agriculture and domestication of animals? And scientists and engineers whose toil resulted in all the modernity we see around and use. The list continues. Great authors of fiction and non-fiction, movie makers, actors, directors, bus drivers, and so on and on. Without the efforts of all the humanity that preceded us, we could, at worst be still living in caves risking being eaten by a wild animal or dying at the age of 27 of natural causes, or at best tending a farm and domestic animals.Much as we always find some thing that is missing in our lives, we live a far superior and enjoyable...

I had watched this before. Excellent movie. Won the best Picture Oscar in 1967. Outstanding performance by Rod Steiger who won the Oscar for best actor. Sidney Poitier is simply superb.

I was in Cleveland, OH for two weeks during 2/13/2012 to 2/25/2012 for some training. My bike rides were interrupted due to this trip. During the first week, my classes started at 6AM and ended at 2:30 PM. I was so busy after classes with conference calls, I couldn't use the gym or walk. However, during the 2nd week, my classes started at 3PM (and went on until 11PM). I decided to not bother with office work during the mornings and instead decided I would walk. I found out Cuyahoga Valley National Park ( http://www.nps.gov/cuva/index.htm ) was close to my hotel. I discovered wonderful trails and other natural beauties and took advantage every day in the 2nd week I was there. The Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail is iconic. It is more than 100 Km long and runs along Ohio and Erie canal that was built in early 1800s. This canal was the source of fabulous growth Ohio enjoyed over a century helping industry and transportation. I always started my walk on this trail at Lock 39 and d...

One reads so many books in their lifetime. Most books are so ordinary, you will forget them easily. Some are very good but still you may not be able to recall the title or the author or the general story line. I remember the following books. These books have captivated my mind. Of course, I have to admit, the books I like, you may not like. The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk: I have read this twice and would like to read it again. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger: This is supposed to be for teenagers, but I like it still. The hot zone by Richard Preston: This is a true story and truly is stranger than fiction. I am reading this now again.

I distinctly remember as a 4-year old until I was about seven or so, there used to be a bigger kid in the village who would tease me everyday. He belonged to a "scheduled" caste. I am not an expert on the caste system in India, but let me relate what I know. In my village about 30% of the people belonged to the scheduled castes. There were two scheduled castes - holeru, madigaru - in our village. I have no idea what the difference is between these castes and the higher castes. Both were considered the lowest castes (they were not even allowed to touch the people of higher caste). If a higher caste person gets accidentally touched by a holeru/madigaru person, they would rush off to get a bath and clean themselves. Holeru and madigaru lived in a separate part of the village and could not mix with higher caste. They basically worked as laborers in the farms owned by higher caste folk. I hadn't seen a single well-off or educated lower caste person in my village. It seemed as ...