Monday, August 03, 2009

BangNoos !!

If there is one thing that unites all Bangaloreans it is the nostalgia and longing for the old Bangalore, with its wide roads and great weather.Indeed, that Bangalore is a thing of the past, and the Bengaluru of today is a monster devouring into our resources every day, growing at such a rapid pace that all our resources: roads, basic civic amenities like water, electricity, drainage, housing and pavements are all waiting to burst under the tremendous pressure.
With the political climate looking extremely favourable and a new Government ready to turn the tide around for this city, everythings being turned upside down to get things in order. Large infrastructure projects, each with their own bunch of litigations, integrated plans to improve the city by BBMP, roadworks, drainage works, Parks, Lakes, Power, Water everythings under the scanner.
Bangalore is making its last ditch effort to salvage its image as the Garden City with great weather and great infrastructure.
It occured to me that it would be great to track these changes to Bangalore, as it tries to pull itself out of the muck its stuck in.
It is with this intention that the blog BangNooS!, short for Bangalore Noos(News), was brought to life.
I hope it will meet its objective of tracking the Civic Life in Bangalore and reach out to all those Bangaloreans across the world, attract comments and be a source of active participation from all those who love this Green City.
All your suggestions and comments are most welcome!.

Sunday, August 02, 2009

Now, thread ceremony via Internet

CHENNAI: Overseas Indians who wish to go through the annual ritual of changing the sacred thread (poonool) on August 5 (for Yajur Veda adherents), need not worry about finding a guru to perform the Upakarma rituals.

All they need to do now is to log on to www.traditionalwisdom.in, and they can find a guru to chant the right mantras.

Designed by two Chennai-based persons, S K Sundararajan, who is concerned about preserving the country’s traditions and heritage, and Ramkumar Ramamurthy, an IT professional, the web initiative will help Brahmins living in four time zones — Australia, Middle-East, the USA and Europe — to go through the Anushthanam with ease at home in front of their PCs.

All one has to do to avail of the services of a guru back home is to register with the website (there is no charge) and keep ready the items required for the ceremony, including the sacred thread, at the time specified on theonline portal.

Although there is a school of thought that anyone going out of this Karma Bhoomi (India) loses the eligibility to perform such rituals, this initiative provides an opportunity for all Brahmins to perform Upakarma all over the world even if finding a guru to chant the mantras in their area is a stupendous task.

Details about the day’s events are available on the website, which also seeks a purely voluntary donation as vadhiyar dakshinai ( a token for the services performed by the guru) and for continuing its research and service in preserving the Indian heritage.