Onam...Ponnonam ..'Continued'

Not only in college, here in my home and village also I had a grand onam celebration.

Here in Nellayi, we've a gang of friends called 'Changathikoottam'. The gang members range from KG students to college student(that's I :)). We 6 elder members are the leaders and all others subordinates.

On 'Thiruvonam' we made 'pookkalam' in front of the temple, next to my house.


Then we went to a nearby temple by our own cycles. We had made every arrangements for 'kummattikali' on the very same day.

After onasadhya, everybody gathered here and made kummatties ready with their make-up and all. There were 3 kummatties and 1 maveli. We went to all the near-by houses and got a collection, which was not that bad.

Many children joined us in our 'kummatti' song and enjoyed. From many houses we got banana chips, raw banana, ada (dont know the correct english name. Sweet steam cake might be correct) etc. In the evening, we returned back and had all those eatables we got.

Our gang with kummatties infront of my home.


On the 2-nd Onam, we organized an 'Onakkali'- i.e., some games and competitions for children. Everybody except we 6, having 'changathikoottam' badge, participated in musical chair, spoon race, eating neem leaf etc. We gave away prizes for all winners and a special prize for 'over-all' champion.

Many parents were also there. The event turned out to be a great success. The appreciations we got for 'kummatti' and 'onakkali' were beyond our expectations.

On the third day(3-rd onam), we had arranged 2 sets of 'Thiruvathirakkali'. One by senior gang (which incudes all mothers of this locality) and the other by junior gang(that includes me and my friends).

As I was a part of the Thiruvathirakkali, couldn't take a photo of it in my camera :(

All in all, 'Changathikoottam' rocked during these holidays.

I'm really happy and proud to say that the center of every dicussions regarding the celebration happened to be my home. Decision making and execution were also done here itself. May be because my parents are also interested in these enjoyments.

The most sad thing is that we all have to wait 1 long year for the next onam to come. I, amma, achan and all my friends here expect and wish the presence of my chettan during our next onam celebration.

Signing off,
Hailstone.

PS: This post is dedicated to Karthik anna(Black is beautiful).

Onam...Ponnonam..

Today we had our Onam celebration in college. Really superb, fantastic, fabulous, amazing.... etc. the celebration was. Simply 'great'.

In the morning, we made 'pookkalam' in our class. In front of our department, there was another big one, made by our super seniors. Helped with that too. Here is it--



After that, we'd many interesting games (like musical chair and 'vellam kudi matsaram'). There were crackers . Then comes the most important part - 'Onasadhya', with all the dishes and 2 kinds of 'paayasam'. Our seniors served to us and we served them back. Really a good experience it was.

After that, we had some chit-chats and returned home happilly, without having any bitter thoughts of our series exams that finished yesterday.

That's all for today.

You can expect one more post related to 'Onam'.

Signing off,
Hailstone.

PS.1: It is our seniors who made the event such a great success. So, this post is dedicated to them.

PS.2: Advance "Happy Onam" wishes to all of you.

What makes life 100%?

One more week passed, without making any big changes in my routine. A small diversion came for it a couple of days back, when I was caught by a slight fever. Not soooo slight. Went to a hospital and the nurse there gave me a 'flu shot'(injection):( . Doctor prescribed sooo many tablets... Most probably I'll be going for class tomorrow. Thats all special about last week.

A WARM WELCOME to the upcoming week.

And coming to the title of the post - What makes life 100%? ---

Read the folowing from somewhere. May be some of you have read it earlier. Anyway, I liked it and decided to scribble down it here.

Let A,B,C,...,Z have the values 1,2,...,26.

What make 100%??

Hardwork -- H + A + R + D + W + O + R + k = 8 + 1 + 18 + 4 + 23 + 15 + 18 + 11 = 98%

Knowledge -- K + N + O + W + L + E + D + G + E = 11 + 14 + 15 + 23 + 12 + 5 + 4 + 7 + 5 = 96%

Love -- L + O + V + E = 12 + 15 + 22 + 5 = 54% (- Very poor -)

Luck -- L + U + C + K = 12 + 21 + 3 + 11 = 47% (- Don't most of us think this is most important? -)

Money -- M + O + N + E + Y = 13 + 15 + 14 + 5 + 25 = 72%

Leadership -- L + E + A + D + E + R + S + H + I + P = 12 + 5 + 1 + 4 + 5 + 5 + 18 + 19 + 9 + 16 = 89%

Then what makes 100%??

ATTITUDE -- A + T + T + I + T + U + D + E = 1 + 20 + 20 + 9 + 20 + 21 + 4 + 5 ==100%

IT'S OUR ATTITUDE TOWARDS OUR LIFE AND WORK THAT MAKES OUR LIFE 100%

Attitude is everything.
Change your attitude....And you change your life...

That's all for today.

Signing off,
Hailstone.

An EVENTFUL day.

Today, as usual, in the morning went to college and had our first hour - maths class. Next two hours, we were free. As the coming sunday is Friendship day, we had a plan to celebrate it today. We all exchanged frienship bands and all.

2-3 weeks back, we 10-15 from our class had decided to plant some trees in front of our Department and got some seedlings ready to be planted . We were asked to get an approval from the teacher, who is in charge of campus beautification. At last, today we got the approval. We planted 5-6 plants and gave them a protection barrier too. Thus, we managed to execute the first step of algorithm - "How to make a seedling grow to a big tree" properly.

In the afternoon we had no classes. So we decided to celebrate Friendship Day. But we had no plan on 'how to celebrate?' Always we used to have instantaneous plans. All of us decided to visit 'Anappaara', a beautiful place 2-3 kms away from our college. Around 20 of my friends were with me. We walked for almost 1 km and then got a bus and reached Anappaara.

The beauty of the place lies in the big big rocks. On the top there is a huge rock, which looks like an elephant. We all climbed the hill and reached a plain surface. We kept our bags and chappals there. Looking up, we were much more confused--'should we go up or go down?' That much steep was the climb.

We all, except 3 girls and 1 boy, were ready to take much more challenges and started the adventurous climbing. To be frank, I didn't find it as a tiresome job. I and two of my friends (Tony and Bristo) were the first to reach the top of all rocks and finally we conquered the peak of Anappaara. Within a few minutes, rest of us reached the top and felt we were on the top of the world.

The sight from there was really amazing. Fantastic place it is!! I wished I had my camera with me :( We could see the whole Thrissur and our campus from there. We spent there some time and took some photos(mobile ph. cameras).

As there was a chance of raining, we started getting down, which was a little more hard. I managed to get down the hill without the help of others. Some of my friends found it really hard to get down. We all reached down safely, had a short visit to Vivek's house and walked towards the bus stop.

Then it started raining. Oh, it was like nature pouring anger to somebody. Such a heavy rainfall it was!! Thank God, by that time we all reached down. There was a strong wind too.

Within a few minutes, we were wet as if we had a bath in rain. At that time, I had some nostalgic feeling. My mind peeped into the thoughts of my younger days, while I and my chettan used to run and have bath in rain. Everybody cursed the rain. But, I was very very happy, in the thouhts of seedlings we planted in the morning. Got into a bus and reached home at the usual time.

So, for the first time in my life, I celebrated friendship day. And it gave me a fabulous and unforgettable experience with an adventurous trip and could do something for our college on the very same day. I'm really really happy about that.

Signing off,
Hailstone.

PS. 1: The place is really so beautiful.
2: I could see the love, unity and care for friendship among ourselves.
3: As a consequence of our trip, now the whole body is paining very much :(

Simply CONFUSING.

Today Pramode sir gave us some assignments -- just to go through some links and find out some answers. Almost all the links he gave contain the advantages of Free Software and obviously the disadvantages of M$ Windows :) Had a look at some of them.

Sir has asked us to read about the history of Unix and all. I was searching for that. And I saw a link which is damn confusing. Here it is. I doubt anyone other can give a more complicated description than this!! Seeing it (not read), I felt it interesting to give you people a chance for reading (??) it and getting confused :)

How is it ? Is it not interesting ?

Signing off,
Hailstone.

Transition from a 'Villain' to a 'Heroine'...

Today I'm planning to write about an incident that happened yesterday. It's like a story, which is having a happy climax. In the evening, I was sitting with my parents, in the sit-out of our house. Meanwhile, my father could figure out some sounds near the corner of our compound wall. It was a bird (probably mother bird) sitting there calmly with its 11 children. It had some similarity with a duck !! I hurried to take their photo. Took 2-3 snaps.



For getting a 'close-up', I went nearer. They should have got scared by me and my camera-flash, since the parent bird flew away with a high speed. Actually, I was the one who got scared the most and ran back, with a fear of bird's attack, to where my parents stood.

So, now all the 11 children remained inside our compound and the parent got trapped on the road(road with no traffic :)) next to our house, not knowing where his/her children were.. Within 2-3 minutes crows surrounded the area with a thirst of attacking the kids, who were like orphans then. We protected them by throwing stones at crows. After a short interval of time, we could see another big bird on the road with the first one. Should be its 'life-partner'.

Atlast, my father decided to take the babies one by one to the road. He could shift one child to the road. Meanwhile, hearing the noise of their children, both the parents flew back to our compound. So, now the condition became worse -- One child outside and all the other family members together inside.

Our effort in search of the 'odd one out' were in vain. I and my mother were observing (from our terrace) the desperate family, wandering in search of the missing one. I prayed a lot for the union of the family. I was melting like a candle, since I felt -- it was because of me they had such a bad fate.

They were walking to and fro near our boundary. We too had a parallel path on our terrace corresponding to their motion, eager to know 'what is going to happen'. How caring the parents are..One among the parents walked in front, then the babies, finally the other big bird (couldn't identify the gender), seemingly to resist attack from both sides.

-Parents with 10 children-

Climax: After a long time, we could see the missing one on the road. My father was not at home at that time, and we both were not ready to take a bird in our hands. We became bewildered not knowing 'what to do?'. Meanwhile, a stranger passed the way by cycle. We stopped him and requested him to help us. He took the kid and carried it to his/her parents.

We all became happy. Thus we could see the happy family with parents and all the 11 children. Actually, I wished to take a 'family photo', but was not daring enough to go near them, as there was a chance of having a 'personal grudge' against me.

Their minds and face would have filled with joy (- my assumption-). For a long time, we could hear them making noise in glee. Would have celebrated well.
Eventhough I had a role of 'villain' in the initial stage, in the climax I was one among the heroines (the other one -- my amma :)).
There ends the story.

Even now we are not sure about what kind of bird it is..Someone said -it is duck. The other claims are 'Kulakozhi' and 'Eranda'.(dont know the english names)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I want to write one more thing, which is an entirely different subject.

--Today I had my first class at Pramode sir's IC. We had a casual talk with him -- just an informal one. We were allowed to ask questions for which he gave answers. We all have many expectations. Hope those all expectations will be fulfilled by us with his help. Will write more about PCE classes later, knowing about it a bit more.

PS. I tried to shorten the post, but couldn't cutshort 'the story'. Apologize me if it bored you.

Signing off,
Hailstone.

A blank mind (???)

It was my decision to put atleast one post in a week. Seven days have passed since I wrote the last post. I intend to stick on to my decision. So, it's time to write something over here. But, I'm not having anything in my mind, which is ready enough to be written. To be frank, my mind is blank -- a feeling of emptiness masks my thoughts.

Yes, got the topic !!!

Is it possible for a person to remain a short interval of time without having any thoughts??? I mean, I doubt if it is possible to have a 'null' state of mind. Is this state of mind, called meditation ?? I dont know. If that is meditation, I'm sure that I cant meditate. It is not possible for me to remain thoughtless even for a few seconds. I dont think that it is possible for others too. May be possible!!

In Science, we've studied "vacuum fills the space". Vacuum is filling emptiness. Just like that, the thought of 'no thoughts' fills our mind, if we are not involved in some other thoughts. Right ?

Enough for today!!! Otherwise, working out a solution for this paradox will push me in to a state of insanity.

Actually, today I'd a plan only to put a nice(??) picture. Here it is ....
A photo of a beautiful flower (from our garden), taken today evening.


Conclusion: So, my mind was not fully blank, since it had a thought of blankness :)

Signing off,
Hailstone.