Driving

I was looking through some old trips pics when I found these. I was driving, and Shraddha was toying around with my camera.

This was in mid-morning.

This was late in the evening:

No I don’t always drive with my mouth open… only while yawning. We have a trip or two coming up. Hopefully my shutter finger will get some serious exercise!

Update: here’s a “normal” pic of me driving, shot by my sister.

Texas Ashram, Part 3

Continued from Texas Ashram Part 2 and Part 1 before that.

Continuing our walk through the Ashram grounds, we come to the treehouse in the making. A tornado felled this large tree but did not kill it. What you see in the pic below is the starting point of the treehouse being built around the tree. It should be great fun when it’s finished, for kids and adults alike.

Then we come to another quite important area, the kitchen and dining hall. It’s in the same building as Saraswati, but the entrance to the kitchen and dining is from the opposite side of the building. It is aptly named Annapoorna.

In May 2006 Guruji visited the Ashram. That was my fourth time meeting Him. He stayed at the Ashram over most of the weekend. He arrived on Friday evening, but not many people knew that schedule. That evening there was a very small and intimate satsang with Him and only 25 to 30 of us fortunate souls. It was in the meditation hall of the building now called Saraswati, and the mood was quiet and relaxed. We sang a few bhajans slowly and softly by candle-light, and in between songs we would sit and just enjoy the silence in His presence. There was no Q&A or any other talking. After a few songs Guruji told Vishaal to play his Chitravina, and we were treated to a divine recital. That was probably the most divine satsang I’ve attended.

There’s another story I can tell from Saturday evening of Guruji wading in the river near the Ashram, but that merits its own post… some other time.

On Sunday morning (it was the 7th of May I remember) Guruji took a walk on the Ashram grounds, and several of us followed Him. We came to this tennis court…

The court is nice and long, and it’s covered with a roof of sorts. Guruji had said that as the Ashram grows, we will eventually enclose this court with walls, redo the floor and the roof, and convert it into a large meditation hall! It’s large enough to host 400 to 500 people for yoga.

The Bangalore Ashram is full of stories where He had foreseen the uses of spaces for specific buildings years before their time…

Here are some pics of the interiors. Note the detail on the wall on the right on the first picture below.

The above pics are in fact from the interior of Shakti, which is where Guruji will stay whenever He visits. Here are some pics of Shakti.

Below are some pictures from the Navaratri celebrations this year, where we had a 9-day retreat with silence led by our dear Rajshree didi:

All this has been built on the work of many hardworking volunteers, starting with Dean and Shirley who worked to purchase and bring up the ashram in the early days (I don’t have a picture of them to post). Now Vinod and Neelam Patel (Vinod uncle and Neelam aunty as they are fondly known) stay at the ashram much of the time and coordinate the work, and do a lot of the work themselves. Selva and Yamuna (my dear neighbors in Austin) drive to the ashram almost every weekend to put in their volunteer labor and take other people along with them. Here’s a picture of the team that’s currently active (L to R): Jose, Maria, Prakash, Vinod uncle, Selva, Neelam aunty, Yamuna.

Some pics of the Chellams, Selva and Yamuna, that belong here just for the dedication and all the work they’ve put in into the ashram.

Check out the ashram website at http://www.srisriashram.org/. Hope you enjoyed this three-part series, and if you have any specific feedback for me or for the ashram, leave a comment or two.

Meanwhile there are two other exciting updates, both related to Art of Living centers… We now have our own center in Austin! A post on that will follow with pictures. And we are also getting a large center in LA that’s a historic landmark… Check out http://artoflivingwest.org/

Texas Ashram, Part 2

Continued from Texas Ashram, Part 1.

It’s now time to take a walk through the ashram grounds. For those who are ready for a long hike, there are hiking trails on the property that wind their way up and down, across hillocks and meadows. They’re not too frequently used, so in places they’re a little more rugged than the typical state park hiking trail.

There are lots of trees on the property. Some trees were recently planted on the grounds. Those newly planted trees you see in the pictures below include lemon and tangerine. In two to five years most of these will bear fruit! More tree planting is planned in the Ashram, especially on both sides of the long gravel driveway from the main road into the property. At a 15-foot separation between trees, can you guess how many trees we will need for this driveway? The answer will be in my next post.

Walk further along to the vegetable garden, which is fenced in to keep deer and other wildlife out. A lot grows here in summer and fall, and it’s all organic. Weekend visitors to the ashram typically haul back lots of vegetables to the city. A few pictures down you’ll see a table full of vegetables we picked from the garden during our last trip there. And this is in the fag end of the season; I’m told it’s much more bountiful earlier in the year. Take a close look and see how many varieties of vegetables you can identify. If you can name them all, you’re a vegetable genius… I know some of them only by their Indian names!

Some of the neighbors have horses, and they visit the ashram and let the horses graze. That helps us with keeping the grass mowed! In the second pic below if you look carefully you can see deer in the background. The Ashram also houses a couple of sheep and a couple of cats. There used to be two pigs as well who used to hog all the leftovers.

There’s an electric golf cart for getting around from building to building quickly (especially if you’re carrying around tools or paint or bedding or laundry or whatever else). And there’s even a donated van that’s used for the occasional airport shuttle during courses.

Some more views of the buildings below. There’s Buddha, which houses the second meditation hall. Between Buddha and Saraswati, it is feasible now to host two different courses at the same time, which we did a couple of times this year. Buddha also houses the production facility for Shankara Inc. Shankara is a bio-regenesis skin-care system, profits from which go to IAHV development projects. Shankara products are excellent. I use a few myself, especially the moisturizer which comes in very handy for the dryness of the winter months. Their facewash and scrub are very refreshing. I also highly recommend the sacred essence. And when you visit, the products that they will recommend to you are customized for your skin type.

Shiva is one of the housing cottages. There are several more, including a country cabin half a mile down the road. With the recent renovations and new beds and bathrooms, they are very welcoming for participants of courses we conduct at the Ashram.

This rustic shed contains tools, ladders, paint, wood, etc.

Of course no Ashram of the Art of Living is complete without a building called Shakti, which is where Guruji will stay when He visits. Some pics of Shakti to follow in the next post, along with pics of the kitchen and dining hall, more cottages, of the treehouse, of the tennis court and its possibilities, some taken at satsang, and some of the key people behind all this work. If I can dig up some pics from Guruji’s May 2006 visit I’ll add them as well. Stay tuned for Part 3!

Update: Onward to Part 3

Texas Ashram, Part 1

Millions have visited Art of Living’s Ashram in Bangalore, and the ones in Germany and Canada. Not many know about the up and coming Ashram we have in Texas though.

Guruji visited the property in September 2005 and gave the go-ahead to purchase it as our newest Ashram. It used to be a bed-n-breakfast place called Reagan Wells Ranch, nestled in the Texas Hill Country, 90 miles west of the madding crowds of San Antonio. It came as a package of about 150 acres of land, a large hall or two for us to use as meditation halls, a kitchen, a dining hall, and several buildings for housing. It had enough to start from to make it a world-class home for Art of Living family.

My TTC1 was the first course to start at this Ashram, in December 2005. However it wasn’t the first course to be completed there; there was a 4-day silence retreat over the new year weekend that got over before our TTC did.

At the time the buildings were getting old and some of them were in poor condition. We used a small kitchen because the large one wasn’t in good enough shape. Beds, ACs, heaters, and bathrooms were all showing their age. It was a good-sized ranch but it wasn’t an ashram yet. Facilities were a tad raw, funds were limited, and courses were few and far between. It took a while, but then slowly the transformation got under way.

As more courses happened there, funds trickled in. Volunteer labor came from a few dedicated individuals who stayed on the property (or drove there weekend after weekend from their home cities) to work on it. Truckloads of old junk were hauled away. New materials were bought, like flooring, paint, wood, tile, and tools.

Bit by bit the work progressed. On some weekends there were groups of 15 or more, working on different parts of the property, smiling and singing, doing sadhana together in the evening, sharing meals and songs and stories at the end of the day, nursing tired bones and aching limbs. Some weekends there was just one couple or two, toiling away on their own. Through chill winters and searing hot summers they worked.

Every bit of the Ashram you see today is a labor of love.

Cottages like Beretta, Longhorn and Aspen were worked on. One by one the rooms started to get new paint, new floors, updated electrical fixtures, updated plumbing, new beds, new mattresses, and so on. Some walls were torn down and the meditation hall was expanded. Major repairs were done, like to the kitchen floor. New bathrooms were added.

As these buildings took on their new character, they were given new names. The building formerly called the White House now serves as our main meditation hall, and is aptly named Saraswati, after the Indian goddess of learning. This hall is where our courses happen now. Early morning yoga in this hall with the sun’s first rays shining in through the windows is a divine treat.

Time for a photographic interlude, starting with the view of Saraswati as you drive up from the main road:

The area’s history is summarized in a historical marker on the road outside the middle gate (click through and see it in its full resolution to read all the text). The well with mineral water spoken of in the plaque is also on the property.

I have more photos and stories to share, watch for Part 2 and possibly Part 3 later this week.

Update: Onward to Part 2

DropBox for Online Backup and More

DropBox is a cool idea, very well implemented. Thanks to Genotrance for tweeting about it.

It starts with online backup of your data. I’ve wanted this for a while. Install the DropBox client on your system, create an account, and start putting your stuff into “My DropBox”. Everything inside that folder is automatically sync’ed up to their servers. You can even access all folders and files from their website. So far so good.

Then comes sync between two or more computers you own. Once you install the DropBox client on two systems, the data in your DropBox stays synced to both your computers. Modify on one, have it synced magically to the other. Neat!

Next: I have a folder with several files I’m collaborating on with my wife. I add it to my DropBox and share it online with her to her DropBox. Now we can both modify files in that folder from our respective computers. No more emailing attachments back and forth. Cool!

There’s also a “My Pictures” folder inside your DropBox. If you drop your pics to that folder, the website creates a flash-based gallery for you to share with friends and family. Since I’m on Flickr I don’t see myself using that feature much… except for quick-n-dirty picture shares perhaps.

Support for Windows, Mac, and Linux? Check.

Security? They say all data is SSL encrypted during transfer and all files are 256-bit AES-encrypted on disk (Amazon’s S3). Obviously the security of DropBox’s software and architecture also matter a lot. So far I haven’t stored anything sensitive on DropBox. I can see myself using encryption in future. (Some people are storing TrueCrypt volumes on DropBox.)

Free to try? Check. You can keep using it for free with 2GB of space, with paid upgrades to 50GB and 100GB. And if you refer others to it, you get additional space. If you want to try DropBox, click on the image below, and you and I will both get 250 extra megabytes (drool).

Go on, try it. You know you want it.

Saambaar

He told her that it couldn’t be done, and she was sure that it could.

For the two of them he had six dosas to make for dinner. He preferred to make them on a slow flame, patiently roasting each one to crisp perfection. Usually she would eat her three dosas hot off the tawa as he made them, but today she was determined to finish what she had started instead.

Minutes earlier he had got up from his evening meditation to observe with the mildest of irritation that she had dozed off on the couch after her own sadhana. The toor dal was already boiled and was patiently waiting to be made into what she called “saambher” in her annoyingly cute Gujju way. He was sure it would take her longer to make saambaar than it would for him to prepare all the dosas and sit for dinner, and it was already nine. So he told her not to. They would just have dosas without saambaar tonight.

But she was determined. As he was warming up the tawa into the perfect temperature for the first dosa to come off cleanly, she was in a whirlwind of activity with cilantro, tamarind, water, tomatoes, and the bottle of pungent powder that his father had lovingly labeled as “saambaar podi” to distinguish it from rasappodi in the neighboring bottle.

The kitchen of their apartment was just large enough for them both to cozily work together. And work together they did.

As the dosas came off the tawa one by one, the flavor of saambaar in the air grew from a faint hint to a strong certainty.

By half past nine the sixth dosa was rolling off the line, and the saambaar was ready. He accepted defeat, and as he had agreed, proceeded after dinner to post the episode on his blog for all to read.

That, dear reader, is what you’ve been reading.

Austin’s First YES!+

Words cannot express it, so I will post a picture collage instead. Click on the image for a bigger version where you can see the faces clearly.

Must Eat Healthy

The sandwich was home-made and all organic, and contained the best tomatoes, cucumbers, sprouts, artichoke hearts, basil, and a dash of olive oil. She glanced around to check if anyone was watching, then quickly walked over to the homeless man sitting at the corner nearest her office building, and thrust the sandwich into his hands before walking into the Taco Bell nearby.

Her husband meanwhile was walking into the supermarket on his lunch break, and walked straight past the produce section to the one item his wife wouldn’t let him buy on their regular weekend grocery run. Dry roasted jumbo Virginia peanuts. With an odd mix of glee and guilt he quickly paid for the 1-pound bag and smuggled it into his cubicle where he would enjoy it over the week.

Paryushan

Shraddha here… Anoop has been telling me to be a guest blogger on his blog for a while now. He finally gave me the idea to write a post on Paryushan and so I happily used Wikipedia and copy-pasted along with few sentences in my Gujju English. I emailed him the post and today he got around to editing it, or rather, changing it and writing it all over! So here it is, the edited version, or lets say Anoop’s version.

Recently we celebrated Paryushan, the annual 8-day festival of Jains.

I was never an orthodox strict Jain. This year Paryushan rules were particularly difficult to follow, because I’m now staying by myself with my Tamilian husband away from my Jain brood.

During Paryushan, we gather every evening for Pratikraman, or daily prayers. After we moved to the US, my family, my uncles family and my two aunts’ families all gather together for Pratikraman. My parents didn’t want the kids to go to temples for Pratikraman since the scriptures would be read too fast; they wanted us to sit through and understand their true meaning. It was great to perform Pratikraman along with my extended family. We would have dinner before sunset as was prescribed. We would refrain from eating vegetables grown underground (potatoes, onions, garlic, etc.) and during this time, we would also not eat green vegetables. So the week’s diet consists of mostly grains and pulses. The intention is that even through our diet, we hurt as few living beings as possible. Even insects are not harmed; any insects found in the home are picked up and placed outdoors. We don’t even remove cobwebs during these eight days. We do our best to support all forms of life.

The last day is called Samvatsari, where we ask for forgiveness from and grant forgiveness to everyone we know and don’t know, for any misdeeds we may have done. Quarrels and forgotten and relationships are renewed as we fold our hands and say “micchami dukkadam” or “please forgive me”.

Michhami dukkadam!

IITB Memories

Some memories from IIT Bombay I discovered on a CD during home cleanup. These were all taken with my dad’s Canon 35mm camera, and later scanned from 4×6 prints in grad school.