Thunbergia Haircut - Topic of Mid Night Comedy by two rouge teen age cows on their night out!

Ashrama Gardens has been quite a nightmare for the wandering cows these days as the lush green attracting them from a distance leaves them high and dry as the idiot who maintains the greens has shut them out by having no suitable plant for their palate. The disappointed cows leave the space in slow pace, only revenge they can take is to leave no cow shit behind for our garden use.

Yesterday night was special for the two teenager cows (could not check their gender), it looks like the night belonged to them, They went on a night out campaign, the cow shit they left behind at our gate is the proof that they got to eat some good healthy street food much before arriving here.  For a change, these teenagers decided to say no to the usual disappointment waiting for them at our fence and road side gardens. They decided to turn the situation into a mid night stand up comedy. They said, "let us carefully shave off this fellow's fence ornamentation with Thunbergia, and then let us shit all around, drink all the water kept for the pathetic street dogs, and also eat all that yummy glucose biscuits left for these lowly animals and make some merry, rest here for a while to digest and shit, and then slowly drag our feet to wherever next we need to go.

I was distracted with my own work and stayed late into the night, when I came out for the dinner dish out for the dogs before it is my time to sleep, I saw these two teenager guests resting right in front of my gate. Though they were bit startled by me, their siesta slumber laziness post fiesta did not have them quick, and my body language of carefully opening the gate and stretching my ugly legs around them sounded no threat to them, so they carried on their post comedy chillout party with their wildly wagging tongue.  Being busy with my own affairs and due to darkness, I had missed all their comedy and went to bed.

This morning I get up and come out to pick the morning news paper, my first surprise is the Thunbergia haircut on our gates.

 It was done craft-fully, the creepers as such were not pulled out from the gate, but all the leaves, old and new are almost gone. Looked very funny. Came out and saw that good amount of greenery on the fence too is gone. There is quite a mess on their stage, they shat all around as part of their stand up comedy.

The sign board on the compound wall which usually is obscured by the thunbergia,  not helping the hapless strangers looking for the name of the house while searching the address, is quite visible this morning, thanks to their comedy act.

Further funny thing was that the effect of their comedy persisted beyond their night. I was already filled with laughter looking at the funny looks of the gate and the fence with this surprise haircut, so meticulously done with no noise and permanent root damage to the Thunbergia scalp of our compound wall, appreciating their  stealthy stand-up comedy act as a fitting revenge to my unkindly and miserly act of leaving no food for their thoughts around our compound wall, I could not help splitting into loud laughter when I saw the dancing dog (who is very early this morning, meaning I got up quite late), and was very busy making a breakfast out of the comedy shit they had left behind on their stage upon rare performance, also no residual food from previous night's dish out was a major push for this dog to force into celebrating the joke much after the time it was delivered.

Drinking water left for the dogs is quite low here, meaning the cows got hungry and helped themselves with some water to digest the food.

I knew, the final laugh will be mine when we clean up the mess here and take all the shit into our garden games.  Left a huge pile of breakfast treat for the stray dogs, and crashed into the bed for some more sleep I deserved.

But the act of this mid night comedy lingered in my heart and mind, I could not sleep as a result, came out to take pictures, could not help noticing the  agony of this dog, wondering whether to enjoy the delicious glucose biscuits I had left for his kind, or give into the primal instinct of making merry with the cow shit left behind.

As I came in with my camera in hand, noticed that keeping up with the appearances took over on the primal, the same dog pulled the packet of biscuits to the other side, had its share for the morning and walked out.

The official dog food too I leave behind, was kept untouched as usual, as there street dogs, well fed, have become social eaters, so they help themselves for the more tasty but less healthy glucose biscuits, leaving the biscuits feeding bag empty in no time, asking for more. But this official dog food helps me in lowering my guilt, as the real hungry and hopeless dogs wandering for the whole day and accidentally hitting upon this spot with the help of food aroma, helps themselves with the meal of the day and vanish in no time before the territory owners could pounce upon them with loud barks.

Instead of cleaning the stage mess of this mid night comedy quickly, I allowed the disgusting street flies to have their merry with their comedy, as I decided to extend this to you all through this quick write up.

The cows mid night comedy had an useful message too to the eager gardening audience. It seems that even a hungry and adventurous teenage cow  does not want visually tempting Mexican Sunflower leaves as its food fetish for the lustful night.  This is good news for planting Mexican Sunflower by the roadside!

Look forward for more such comedies, day and night, around our urban jungle, Ashrama Gardens!  You will not miss a glimpse of such, will at least report them as an after event recount!


Thank You!

Finally broke the jinx against using commercial cooking oil at home

It is more than three years now since I learned that the commercial cooking oil we buy in the super market is quite adulterated, and it happens under the very nose of government oversight.

The logic is simple to confirm this, the cost of the oil is much less than the actual cost of the raw material (seeds) needed to extract the oil. There are two types of adulteration, the mild one is to add the low cost vegetable oil, but the more harmful one is to add the paraffin oil (the petrolium byproduct).

We use coconut oil and groundnut oil for cooking at present. We used to use the cheaper oil (like sunflower oil) before, but after this knowledge, the first reaction was to throw the cheap oil out, because now we know the source of this cheapness. So, upgraded the cooking oil for frying to groundnut oil (which costs at least 50% more), and there too stuck to one brand (Saffola - not that it is the best, at least the government agency needs to maintain some sanity in its adulteration).

There was no problem with the coconut oil, as I could continue to source the coconut oil from the mills at our native place, where the process is known to be cold pressed.  So, 80% of our oil consumption was unadulterated. I stopped buying commercial coconut oil off the shelf of supermarkets.

I also made virgin coconut oil at home, starting from the scratch. The results were very encouraging, but it is a laborious process and I could not commit time to repeat this process every 15 days.  My attempt to make virgin groundnut oil dint succeed as the oil extracted dint justify the cost economics.

2018 Jan - Dr. Mythri Shankar, one of our OTG friends had arranged a Sankranthi Get Together at her beautiful garden, my instincts told me not to miss. So, I attended. She had arranged a demo of oil extractor from Seed 2 Oil. Very effective demo. Very sleek device, but the asking price was Rs. 22K, felt it bit steep. Also, came up with a logic that the market should throw better options if I wait for another 6 months. So, decision was to wait out for 6 months.

Six months passed, nothing ground shaking changes emerged from the market. Therefore, I decided to use Amazon.in offering as the benchmark as here the customer satisfaction can be tracked. I started tracking, but could not come to any conclusion as there was no convincing review as such either on Amazon or Quora or elsewhere. As I could see, the consumer market around it  is still nascent, and therefore we will be forced to pay a premium to buy now.

I went back to kitchen, looked at our current oil supply, the supply said that you can procrastinate for another three months easily as we will take that much time easily to last. So, I decided to do so hoping for breakthroughs in the market for the right buy.

I had been browsing Amazon for the last four months, but nothing changed. One clarity emerged: there are three well known brands, two from Surat and one from Coimbatore. EPS and Vishwas are the Surat brands and Seed2Oil is the Coimbatore brand.  All had similar prices, but the Seed2Oil had more sophistication and sleek design. So, as a city slicker, the decision should have been with Seed2Oil.  But, I had a feeling, I may need to go against my first instincts here.  So, started working on the logic.

The first logic was how much sleek and automation I needed. Not much, as the sleekness in my kitchen will be stressful for me as I will be forced to redesign my kitchen to match this new crisp outlook. My mindset was similar to the HawkEye (Dr. Pierce) of the famed MASH series who had serious complaints against someone cleaning his swamp (living quarters), I have allowed my life style to come to appreciate this, not just as humor, but also as higher wisdom.

Second point was about the whole demo. The sales person started his story as a recovering individual from serious cancer, and he wanted to do something good for the humanity, and therefore now dedicating his life to promote this Seed2Oil. Sounded nice, but too cheesy. If someone is so impacted, one is likely to go for charity or social service. So, felt this is a perfect sales pitch, in fact, sounding too perfect to trust.  So, started questioning the other claims. 1. It is cold pressed. I notice that all offerings use similar technology, but other two vendors mum about cold press. I could see some weird logic that the heat is to extract the left overs smoothly, and as long as one is below 70 degree Celsius, one can claim to be cold pressed. I agreed with the logic, but decided to give the benefit of doubt to all vendors on this. In fact, I am not such a purist on this issue, I would say, as long as the oil does not reach the boiling point, we are good to go.  Then I looked at other two advantages of Seed2Oil, sophisticated automation and display, sleek design. I decided to write off these two advantages for two reasons: One the capacity of the Seed2Oil machine is bit less, so long term reliability is a question, also the points of failures to service are higher. Therefore, I said the benefits even out with the risks associated. Also, was bit miffed that Seed2Oil had lesser number of review comments when compared to others, while all the three vendors maintained a healthy four star rating of customer satisfaction. (Do not know whether other two vendors had more number supporters to submit positive review, as a conspiracy theory, this can happen you see, therefore, more the number of reviews is a critical measure for me, Seed2Oil came last on this, so this helped me against the guilt of not siding with Seed2Oil).

In the mean time, the market showed no clear polarization on pricing or clarity of objective review. So, I decided to open myself for the price competition. I knew, I had to wait for the sales dhamaka of Dassara or Deepawali, and I knew I will be buying it on Amazon for sure.

Yesterday, one particular brand popped with a discount of sudden 2k discount on the price. Over and above, Amazon threw in 1K cashback, and the SBI card threw its hat too with 10% cashback. Effectively now I have a window now to buy one oil extractor for Rs. 17K instead of 22K, this was good enough for me to close my long pending decision. I placed the order for an EPS 400W machine, quite an ugly and heavy beast (13KG), but my kitchen counter can take this monster.  Went to bed and had a deep good sleep.

Will write objectively after my experience with the machine that is coming in a few days. In the mean time, my cooking oil supply at home is sufficient for another two months. I hope, I will never have to buy oil for kitchen purpose again. Let us see!

I believed all along that all of us deserve an oil extractor in our kitchen for Rs. 8K investment, and I hoped the market would catch up to do so, it is still too early on such a development, I am glad my waiting helped me to save at least Rs. 5K, agree, it is more of a male ego satisfaction than anything else. For me, all capital investments are serious games to achieve best possible wins, I took 10 months to play this game towards closure, hope I will not be proved a jackass again on this investment!

Best regards

Incredible Case of Mexican Sunflower (Tithonia Diversifolia) for Tropical Urban Greening!

Mexican Sunflower is an amazing plant that will serve effectively to increase the urban green content.

Because there is a superstition that the greenery goes against the development mindset, people are made to believe that greenery is an anti-development concept. This is unfortunate. It is possible to maintain perfect harmony between nature and the expensive real estate in urban context, it is an insult to the human ingenuity to do it otherwise.

Of course, it is practically difficult (still possible though) to go for a pupil tree in the middle of the downtown, but it is very important that the civilization needs to take up the question of maximizing green in the urban context by harmonizing both the concrete content and the plant content together for optimal harmony, space leverage, utility, aesthetics and green content (lung space).

Urban forestry is one such concept that needs more attention in urban planning and management. Urban gardening is another important concept. While there is a dire need to expand these concepts for more practical and impacting innovations in urban design, there is a need for one to go opportunistic and leverage easy solutions for maximum impact in the mean time.

Mexican Sunflower is one such plant crying for urban exploitation. This note is to highlight this case.

The Incredible case of Mexican Sunflower:

1. The Mexican Sunflower is well suited for tropical conditions, and is quite native to tropical countries including India. One can see natural vegetation of this plant in natural forests even under shaded / semi-shaded conditions.

2. Mexican Sunflower can be grown both as a trimmed bush or as a wild mini bush tree (Can go up to 25 feet high). So, it is ideal substitute for rearing optimal plant presence instead of having a massive tree which needs more space or maintenance.

3. Mexican Sunflower is soft wood, it can be pruned with bare hands. So, the maintenance of the plant against urban sophistication is easy.

4. Mexican Sunflower is beautiful, both with plenty of lush green leaves and potentially close to hundred sunflower like flowers on one plant in ideal conditions.

5. Mexican Sunflower is convenient to grow, it can be easily propagated with stem cuttings (can also propagate through seeds, less effective though), it grows even in the most neglected areas and has the ability to survive purely on water fed through the rains.  They are also known to be drought tolerant.

6. While the plant thrives better in the sunny condition, it survives and serves its purpose in the shady and semi shady areas too, but with lesser spectacle.

7. Mexican Sunflower leaves and soft stem portions are confirmed to be an effective feed for goats and sheep.  (Its viability as a feed to cows is pending confirmation from the writer's end.)  Therefore, there is a leverage in the animal husbandry too.

8. Because the Mexican Sunflower is of soft wood, when pruned, it serves as an effective urban composting raw material.

9. Mexican Sunflowers do attract certain bees, butterflies, and certain nectar loving birds. Therefore they help to enhance the vibrancy of the eco space it is growing in.

10. It is easy to create an urban jungle with the Mexican Sunflower as it splits into multiple and nested branches. Also it is possible to grow them closely next to each other creating a thick yet easily managable (for pruning) matrix of green. In fact, growing them closer helps them to survive heavy winds otherwise the soft stem could give away and break.

11. Mexican Sunflower plan is suitable for the container gardening too! It may be less spectacular in the containers due to limited space for the roots and nutrition, but it tends to make the best out of the given conditions.  It is a weed in that sense, but quite an useful and beautiful weed though.

12. While there is resistance or ignorance or capability gap on the part of citizens in a community towards greening the locality, Mexican Sunflower is an ideal bet, as even a dummy can grow it with no stress or effort, one needs to just plant a stem cutting. Therefore, it is ideal to extend the green on the road side, vacant sites, neglected parks, schools and other public institutions with lot of empty space and no readiness for enhancing the green, and of course the domestic spaces crying for green but with no readiness for gardening.
 
Other pertinent details:

1. There are different varieties of Mexican Sunflower, the color of the flower varying in different shades of red to orange to yellow.

2. Only care to take while growing is to ensure proper draining of water for the roots, and to prune out the spent branches (after completion of the flowering) to avoid decaying effect of such branches and leaves, and to induce new fresh shoot outs.

3. In conditions like Bengaluru, the plant takes 5-6 months to grow from a humble cutting to full flower bloom upon plantation.

4. Since the plant branches out at multi-level, it is easy to prune the plant and ensure endless propagation without having to lose out the effectiveness of the forestation it can influence. In fact, post flowering pruning of the branches can be directed to further propagation by cutting the branch into two 2-3 feet long stems and planting these stems one foot deep into the soil.  It helps to prune the leaves while planting the stems as the plant can quickly recover the shock and start blooming.

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Keeping the case of Mexican Sunflower for the urban greening in mind, the stem cuttings of these (yellow variety) will be made available in the upcoming OFYT event (Aug 25, 26 2018) in south Bengaluru. Approx. 100 cuttings will be placed in the organizers pavilion (Hall #02) on both the days, visitors could help themselves by picking up these cuttings and help the cause of urban greening by planting them at various urban spaces under their access.
 
Event info:

Added bonus:

As part of this main event, there will be free seeds (saplings and produces too if any) exchange among the garden enthusiasts at the same pavilion during 12.30 noon to 3 pm on the second day only (Sunday, 26th Aug 2018). Typically, this sub-event is quite a fun, like a noisy festival due to the cheers of dedicated gardeners, the spirit of their giving away the excess from their sacred gardens with nothing expected in return, the loving attention the newbees get, and the opportunity they have for networking with gardeners from all over the city corners with scope for lot of follow up help in support, guidance and mentoring through these individuals or the regular local meets organized by more than a dozen area based teams these gardeners are part of. These gardeners are quite active in the social networking space via forums like Facebook and Whatsapp, and a lot more goes on among them, not just gardening, there is a spirit of sustainable living prevalent among them, and also there are dedicated activists, entrepreneurs and merry makers who could help one to bring in newer inspirations, healing, energy, value and purpose in one's life.

Best Regards

From the team of "Paint Bengaluru Green and More"

(ಬೆ೦ಗಳೂರಿಗೆ ಹಸಿರು ಓಕುಳಿ!)

Why I have not been shopping on FlipKart for almost the last two years!

It is because Flipkart does not allow me to do it so, and they are bit fishy about it. They have disabled my email ID in their database against making any purchases, and it is not quite apparent. I can fill the cart, but when I have to confirm the order, it will fail.

I wrote to them, they said to the effect that my email ID has been disabled. I am unable to get satisfactory answer from them, only evasive answers.

This is what actually happened. During Jan - Feb 2016, the MI 4 phones were on instant sale, and there was lot of demand, and I placed for two phones, paid by credit card. The credit card payment went through from the bank but failed at the Flipkart side, very unusual situation. So, I had to cancel the order as I did not get any satisfactory follow up on this issue from Flipkart as they simply said that I have to follow with the bank.

Since I badly needed those phones, as they were really good deal,  this time I placed an order again with cash on delivery, got the phones on cash on delivery.

In the mean time, I did follow up with the Flipkart to ensure proper refund on the failed payment. Since this was an unusual technical problem, nobody really owned it, giving only evasive answers, I did escalate it multiple levels as I was not getting ownership to own this problem and resolve it.

In the mean time, I called the bank people and asked them to withold the payment to protect my interests. I continued to escalate with Flipkart for resolution, but they had no grip on the issue, and I was not relenting on it.

I really do not know what actually happened, either the back office resolved the issue with the bank, or the bank people forced the refund, I will not know as the Flipkart never put me in the loop as to what really happened and how the fix was done. They only argued that everything is looking fine and there is no issue.  Basically, they were hiding the technical glitch, otherwise, probably that will cause some of them to answer to too many people.

I left the issue at that as my payment issue was resolved after a week or so, it was ok if I din't know how exactly.

After an year or so, when I attempted to make another purchase, I was getting an error message that order can not be placed. When I followed up with the service, I learned that my email ID is disabled in a database level, but that aspect is hidden.

What probably might have happened is that because I escalated the problem too many times and was relentless on resolution, some bigwig was getting negative exposure, and decided to screw me with a revenge, silently disabling my Id from further purchase.

When I asked as to what is the valid reason for this disablement, I was given the reason of cancelling an order, which in itself can not be the reason and that cancellation was due to their shortcoming and not mine,  and further follow up and escalation on this even to the CEO level resulted in no amicable resolution. Even I posted this issue publicly on Twitter, even then I did not get the resolution.

I tried to complain to the Consumer Care section of the government agency, the website refused to take my complaint sighting the reason that my complaint is too short in volume of words. I could then make out that there is a probable nexus between the government agency and these bigwigs towards minimizing formal complaints. I decide to let it go, and did not follow up further.

I accepted the fact that Flipkart does not want me as a customer, its business practices are hoax compared to global standards and its customer service is an eye wash.  I have been very happy with the Amazon relation, so I did not miss anything much.  The only regret I had was that I missed to support an Indian company against a foreign company, but I let that too go because Flipkart was adamant not to reform.  The culture of babugiri was very much in its bureaucracy, and that would not change in near future.

So, my aim now became to resist the arrogance of business people, the one prevalent was business people from the north forcing hindi on southern people, because they are considered meek. So, I started refusing to take any tele call from that point onwards, if it started in Hindi. I initially insisted to talk in English or Kannada, but some of them simply ignored the request and continued in Hindi. I started cutting the call on the very first Hindi word hence forth and blocking that number in the phone.

After blocking almost 50 numbers or so in my phone over the three months, the telecalls have gone down, now I need to block 1-3 numbers per month. I feel good about this. An ad agency attempts to call me over approx. twenty different numbers before giving up on it.

In the mean time, if there is any real deal on Flipkart, I can still use the ID of other folks at home, but that need is more of an exception than rule, so I am not missing much.

Now I am curious as to how the internal bureaucracy reforms will occur with the pending Walmart tie up. I will escalate the issue again post Walmart involvement and check whether the Walmart marriage brought any reform for the arrogant outlook of an Indian company, but I am not ready to bet on this reform yet!

Best Regards 

Our Aqua Guard water purifier is now more than 16 years old!

We had a new Aqua Guard water purifier installed 16 years back and it is still functioning!

We take annual contract for its maintenance, which has worked well. The contract includes replacing the filters inside (Carbon as well as the fiber thread based) and fixing it when occasionally its electronics inside fails or the plumbing outside to the filter tank fails.

Now a days, there is far more sophisticated water purifiers available, especially the ROH water purifiers which are not only bit expensive for purchase and maintenance, they waste a lot of water for filtering the metal content in the water. One should plan to reuse the water these filters waste, else it looks criminal for the Indian realities!

The Aqua Gurard water purifier is bit simple compared to today's offerings. It uses three times filter: One through a fiber filter, which needs to be cleaned once a while by changing the direction of flow of water into the separate tank it is kept in. This is a must if the water coming in is too muddy, else this filter can get clogged and water may not flow through it anymore. Second filtering is using carbon charcoal, which absorbs some toxic contents.  Both the filters need replacement once a year, the annual maintenance covers for it. The third filter is to send UV rays across the flowing water, that is why this apparatus needs some electronics and electric supply.

Since, due to grounding issues, the service person had to visit at least three times more than usual to fix the failing apparatus, I asked the service engineer how he rates this old model compared to recent offerings and should we upgrade. He gave an honest answer which I appreciated very much.

What he said is that the old filter is simple but effective. For our health reasons, we should not remove all the minerals from the water. Since ROH removes all the minerals, it is not favorable for long term health. Though this old filter does only 90% of the job compared to new offerings, it helps by retaining the minerals.

I felt that he was right, especially for those homes who are supplied with Kaveri water, which typically contains metal content anywhere between 170-220 ppm, when I tested last in this summer, it was 220 ppm, bit high due to summer (water sources drying).

But, if you are using ground water, you will need ROH filter as the ground water is likely to have 400-500 ppm or more metal content, and that is definitely harmful on longer term use.

When the Aqua Guard filter failed multiple times (fault was ours, the sensitive electronics failed due to grounding issues, which we eventually fixed), the service engineer was even thinking to get a replacement old model for us, and was telling that it is difficult to get such one. Since he could not isolate the reason for electronic failure multiple times, he was thinking this way, but his smarter supervisor caught on to the root cause.

Bottom line, if you have an old Aqua Guard purifier still working at your home and you are happy with it, there is no compulsion to replace it, at least until the company servicing refuses to service it through annual contract.

Our old Aqua Guard water filter now feels as sweet as the older spouse at home!

Viva Older Aqua Guard Old Water Purifiers!

Check the grounding at your home, especially if it is an old home

We live in a home that was constructed in 1987 by a local contractor who is unlikely an engineer. Though we moved in during 1998, we started observing the grounding problem only in 2002, when we started using a computer. The computer used to give a solid shock, further check confirmed that the entire lighting circuit at home had no ground wire. The electrical contractor who was an idiot had gone for convenience than safety. Since all the wires are already hidden in the wall or ceiling, we arranged a competent contractor to take grounding wire to all the lighting switch sockets at home from the outside, thus we made operations of iron box, mixie grinder etc. safer at home, of course the home looked more cluttered with these wires hanging here and there.

Our AEH (All Electric Home, basically a separate circuit for higher ameprage, used for electric stove, grinder, heater etc.) had proper grounding, it could be more fatal to have the AEH circuit operating without grounding. While fixing the grounding for lighting wire, we got two earthing stations dug up, one for the lighting and one for the AEH. Everything was fine.

In 2017, our 15 years old Aqua Guard Water filter electronic circuit failed multiple times. We had annual contract, and the company people were very co-operative to fix it duly. But, upon multiple times failure, the services supervisor called us to check the grounding for the apparatus. We had no computer now as it was replaced by a laptop, so we had no way of knowing grounding issue with first hand experience of solid shock at hand, we were usually used to in the past.

So, called a local electrical contractor, who in no time confirmed that the lighting circuit grounding has not been working. When we checked the grounding station, the thick GI wire was rusted and broken off.  The contractor used an expensive copper wire this time, along with salt and charcoal to recharge the earthing station.

I just wondered what risks the lack of grounding could impose, especially on an AEH circuit which will have capacity for higher amperage before the fuses can blow off or the safety switch can trip.  So, in order not to take any risk further, I asked the contractor to connect the two groundings across AEH and the lighting circuit. Once that was done, we are now having an insurance against one grounding station becoming nonfunctional.

I was surprised that it is not a common practice to connect the multiple grounding stations together to act as an insurance against the failure of the other.  I am writing this note to bring to your attention that the earthing stations in your home to deserve to get interconnected, to minimise the risk of fatal shock to the residents, in case one grounding comes off due to rusting or for some other reason.

It is easy to connect the multiple grounding, there will be a switchboard in the kitchen or toilet where both the lighting and AEH switches could be housed together, inside this switchboard, you connect the two grounding together, that is all.

If you have an electrical contractor visiting your home to do this, please make sure that he tests both the groundings first, only then connects them together. This way, you will ensure that non-functional grounding also gets fixed.

This note is very important to those who have old houses, or got the initial work done through an idiot, or living in a highly corrosive place like coastal area where the salt in the wind and rain water can corrode the old GI wires easily.

This note is the minimum I should do for graduating from electrical engineering! Ha Ha!

Best wishes!

“Paint Bengaluru Green and More” - A day dream to dream and now an opportunity to become a meaningful easy activism in Bengaluru!

 “Paint Bengaluru Green and More” - A day dream to dream and now an opportunity to become a meaningful easy activism in Bengaluru!

My obsession with the green saw me attempting to build an evergreen jungle around our humble abode.  It also allowed me to participate in gardening forums and helping to launch a few area based informal gardening groups. But, my day dreaming around impacting 10 new trees per each of global population remained. (Thanks to the continuing warning signals for the humanity, see relevant TED Talks for more details).  I have come to understand one thing clearly; it is all about love, passion, compassion, inclusion of all, and building bridges across the opposites for more harmony in our reality.  One such effort is to bring village to the city while we take the city to the village. All the best practices of a village deserve their role in the city too, primarily relationships, collaboration, mentoring, guardianship and simply being an angel while having all the fun as a simpleton or an outright idiot. I am one such idiot and I am proud of it!

Paint Bengaluru Green and More is a dream I conceived to do minuscule justice to the spirit behind the day dreams.  This is an online empowered activism and actually counts on the direct participation of green loving citizens and help from dedicated volunteers. The Plant Propagation Project is the first online project launched. More projects to follow soon.

“Easy innovation” is one of my passions.  It is almost like giving a small nudge to one’s wishful thinking hoping that the environment will take care of its expansion further.   I keep attempting such innovations, and most of them do not succeed, but some do, and my focus is to start, hoping that someone more capable will take it further.

I have attempted to make this launch easier by relying on online based forums for information exchange.  Agree, this launch is beyond my abilities in execution and leadership, but I hope to function as a visionary, thought leader and advisor and struggle leading it only until a truly capable leadership team headed by charismatic celebrity leader is assembled and launched, hope that day comes sooner, when that happens my commitment to cause multiple more easy social ventures like this will further take off! 

Until then, need your best wishes, support, participation and contribution through voluntary work, advise, expertise and leadership. Please take the survey attached below to register yourself and look out for more meaningful projects to take off!

https://goo.gl/forms/knoG6omjC7ifiQ5m1

Thanks to the passionate leadership of Basavanagudi OTgians and Uttarahalli Terrace Gardeners with support from other area-wise forums like Bengaluru West OTGians and Cantonment Terrace Gardeners, there will be a unique stall in the upcoming OFYT on Feb 24^th and 25^th (yes, two days) in RR Nagar, and you should visit this stall without a miss, and you will not miss this stall, as this stall is also adopting this activism with bright posters and banners related!

For more information on this mission, please visit our blog at

http://paintblrgreen.blogspot.in/

Thank you very much!

Nataraja Upadhya (An idiot who can’t stop dreaming)

Invitation to join the new free one day workshop – Jnana Vasantha 6: Clarity of Purpose

Invitation to join the new free one day workshop – Jnana Vasantha 6: Clarity of Purpose

Objectives: Catapult the art of living to the next level of maturity where the “clarity” and “purpose” dance together as “clarity of purpose” and “purpose of clarity”!

The last Jnana Vasantha workshop was in January 2016, and was focused on new year planning, but obviously it was much more than that.  Each JnanaVasantha workshop is a milestone in the journey towards maturity of mine, and the participants help by their presence, hence the workshop needs to be free for them.

The journey of Jnana Vasantha workshops started in 2011, with the initial aim to mentor teenagers, primary target among them were my teenage daughters.  But the journey brought a level of clarity soon that the key student was myself and the rest are there for the collateral benefits/damages. From Jnana Vasantha 2 onwards, I had a sense of humility to pair with my usual arrogance that it was the last workshop in the series as I would have run out of topics to share. But amazingly, the nature is submitting me through an unpredictable cycle of creative menstruation to which I need to give a shape of Jnana Vasantha workshop. The development and the occurrence of the workshop ultimately impregnates me for the next milestone of the journey towards new maturities, producing new babies of creativity (and countless bastards not much to talk about).

The inspiration for Jnana Vasantha 6 was bolted to me through the key concept handed over to me through an early morning  dream during mid Dec 2017, I had to intuitively work out the concept and design of the entire workshop while laying on the bed as it was difficult to go back to sleep again that morning.

Now I muster the resolve and courage to shape up a one day workshop event, again at our home.  This time, I like to give more time and space for the participants to express, especially through the second half of the workshop.  We can accommodate up to 40 participants in our space, but may limit the participation to 20, usually no more than 10 sign up to this ordeal which I consider as the minimum strength this workshop needs. The three other souls in our home have already committed their co-operation to participate, I hope, I do not need to beg for a minimum of seven more participants.

This workshop definitely deals with the higher concepts of reality around our being and our environment. It will leverage the concepts already unveiled through the last 5 Jnana Vasantha workshops and builds into the new topic(s).  

The workshop is designed to be as follows:

                Part 1: Morning Sessions (9.30 am – 1 pm)

                                Session 1 (9.30 am -10.30 am): Review of all key relevant topics from the past workshops

                                Exhaustion/Tea Break: (10.30 am – 10.45 am)

                                Session 2: (10.45 am – 11.45 am) Clarity of Purpose – the key theme of this workshop

                                Exhaustion/Tea Break: (11.45 – 12 noon)

        Session 3:  (12 noon - 1 pm - Auxiliary new topics: e.g. The three way reality anchor: Individual, institutions and the Collective)

    Part 2: Lunch Break (1 pm – 2 pm)

                Pot luck optional and not mandatory, otherwise simple catered staple food, chaotic buffet style

                Escape to the terrace garden upstairs for those who like this option       

    Part 3: Afternoon Session (2 pm – 5.30 pm)

                Session 1: (2pm – 3 pm) Relevance of the new topics in the individual life of each participant: Meditative and Interactive

                Exhaustion/Tea Break: (3 pm – 3.15 pm)

                Session 2: (3.15 pm – 4.15 pm) Practice session to apply the new topics in the individual life of each participant towards clarity, purpose, vision, strategy  and plans

                Exhaustion/Tea Break: (4.15 pm – 4.30pm)         

Session 3: Conclusions & Wrap up, both at the level of individual and the workshop as a whole, next steps etc.

     Part 4: Optional Informal hang out (5.30 pm – 7pm) – High energy burst will need time to settle down, give time to settle down for self and the other participants who like to and can afford to; soak in the settle down process with more snacks and beverages and the thoughts /feelings they might or might not further invoke! I definitely will aim for the serials of snacks weaved together with serials of beverages!

Separate groups will be created both in FB and Whatsapp for the potential participants to engage in the development and planning of this workshop. The groups may or may not remain relevant beyond the workshop. The groups are designed with revolving doors, so one need not hesitate to come in and get out irrespective of participation. All further communications related to the workshop planning will be restricted to these groups.

Potential target dates to conduct the workshop: Sunday January 21 2018 or Friday January 26 2018 the Republic Day or Sunday January 28 2018. The day will be decided by January 14 2018 per the most convenient choice of potential participants.

The link to join the groups are given below.

FB Group on Jnana Vasantha 6 - Clarity of Purpose 

Whatsapp Group on Jnana Vasantha 6 Workshop

Thank you for your consideration and time.

The unusual Claimer: No one was hospitalized to a mental institution after attending the past workshops!