jkmrao's blog

Tomorrow is America's Independence Day - more than two centuries of life as a nation. Much has changed during that time. But the basic tenet of USA remains still the same - life, liberty and pursuit of happiness! Long life is quite important and that is why the traditional blessings are always for a long life (dIrghAyushmAn bhava). Freedom and happiness certainly increases the life span. Whatever may be the deficiencies of this country and however much one may criticise it for its stance, there is no doubt that freedom is valued very much here.

Whenever I think of MJ, the song "We are the world" comes to my mind. Here are the lyrics of this famous song of Michael Jackson. May his soul RIP!

We are the world
We are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let's start giving
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me

When I read about the month of aashADha, I suddenly remembered kAlidAsa's mEghadUtam. In it the second poem talks of the month of aashADha. It was the end of the month of aashADha. The yaksha, cursed by kubEra, was biding his time on the mountains of rAmagiri. He was separated from his wife. Due to worry and sorrow, he was emaciated. Even his golden bracelet was hanging loosely on his hand. His eyes fell on the mountain top and there he saw dark clouds which looked like an elephant ready to play in the stream.

Colour conscience is quite important in designs as well as in science. Let us take the bottom paisley design that I made in
http://www.ikolam.com/node/6030?p=1930

Mother is always there for you, but father is there when you need him. When I was about five, I was always afraid of the strange noises the palm tree, opposite to the house where we lived in Sholinghur, used to make. The intensity of fear was directly proportional to the intensity of darkness. One day my father took me to the base of the tree and showed me how the noise emanated when the wind blew past it. It is not the palm tree that is the culprit, but the wind. Gradually the fear began to evaporate.

There are no Hindu prayers that do not start with the praNava mantra Om. Buddhists and Jains too use Om in their prayer mantras. Of late, Om is a part of all yOga rituals. In fact the word Om is a combination of a, u and m sounds (the conjunction of a and u gives rise to O, called guNa sandhi). Another word that has these sounds is umA. The Om sound has a resonance associated with it and that may be the reason it is used in yOga and also at the beginning of mantras.

Lord Krishna in bhagavadgItA says that among the single letters He is the OmkAra.

As soon as I wake up (usually at about 5 or 5:30 in the morning), I have the
habit of switching on and listening to the NPR (Natl Public Radio, people in
India and abroad may listen to this on the internet). There is a segment in
it called the Daily Almanac, hosted by the incomparable Garrison Keillor. He,
in five minutes, gives the day's significant events in the field of arts

Jayantiji's picture (http://www.ikolam.com/node/6014?p=590) made me write this.
Where love is, there lurks sometimes hate too. Here is a Love-Hate ambigram.
It requires a lot of effort to become loving and noble. It is to that noble effort
that this is dedicated. Regards! - mOhana

As I mentioned earlier, the nAga patterns are very ancient. They are at least 1500 years
old. How do we know that they are so ancient? Poets have written poems fitting the
snake pattern or nAgabandha. On the ikOlam site, Mrs Deepa has presented this
pattern a while ago (see http://www.ikolam.com/node/5136?p=590) and I made a chikku

It is quite late now. Still it is never late. annamAchArya's 600th birthday was
celebrated recently with mass singing and we also were blessed to see the rangOli of
SrImati lakshmI and SrImati bhArati. Of course, the song brahma kaDigina pAdamu
is very famous. I always like annamAchArya. He put lot of emphasis on the lyrics