Autobiographical musings

The problem with the modern society is, too many desires. The more you satisfy your desires, the more they increase. Our Swami always says, life is like a train journey - the more the luggage, the less comfortable the journey is. So reduce your desires and put a ceiling on desires.  For example, when we started our life after returning from the UK in 1975, we had no phone, no fridge, no TV etc and yet, we were still comfortable. When we start accumulating things, say a TV, we want a mobile and then a laptop, and then a car and the list goes on like that. It is all right, you must have what you need, but not anything and everything to satisfy your ego. It is difficult not to have any desire at all and that is why we must have a " ceiling on desires ", as Bhagawan says. Everybody will be happier when one can cut the desires to essential ones.  We are in Puttaparthi now, without TV (which Swami says is televisham), no gas, only induction cooker, I don't use my own car - Har...

My memories of my father are very scanty as I lost him in 1950 while I was in 7th std. My father was Mr KN Pisharoty, son of Mr Rama Pisharoty who was a Munsiff in Cochin state at Thrissur. Grandfather died while his children were very young. He belonged to Thonnangamath (now PT House) which is Rema's house. Achan (Father) had an elder brother K Krishna Pisharoty, who was only 12 years old when their father died. Achan must have been around 8 or so. He had three sisters too, all younger than him. They had an uncle who, fortunately, looked after all of them. Memories about their school years are blank.  Achan always respected and obeyed his Ettan (elder brother) very much. Achan studied for Law in Trivandrum with limited financial help and had to study at night under street lights. Going from Cochin to Trivandrum was tough in those days - no buses or trains - they had to cross Vembanad lake in a large country boat. Once, while travelling by boat, he developed diarrhea. Since t...

MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY - continued from the earlier post ... At the UK for FRCS   I had to go back to Kannur to sell my car, which fortunately was bought by the son-in-law of Dr Jamaluddin. That night I stayed in the RMO's quarters with Dr Gopala Menon and his wife Dr Sethulaxmi Menon who have a lovely daughter Priya. I had a few friends in Kannur - Dr Abdul Khader (surgeon), Dr Ramachandran (ENT), Dr PMK Nambiar (physician), Dr Gopi Kurup and Mrs Gouri Kurup (Gynaec), and a few others. I bid farewell to all of them.  First leg of journey to UK was to Bombay first. Then, on to Ahmedabad where I stayed to bid farewell to my little fairy Anju and Rema. Then I went back to Bombay to really leave India for the UK on 1st May 1973 by Air India. The flight had stops in Frankfurt and Paris. Frankfurt airport was a big place, like a city in itself, with elevators all over, a really nice place to see and wonder at. When I arrived at Heathrow, Murali (Chowara) had come to receive me along wit...

This is about me - Nandakumaran.  Young days An attempt at writing an autobiography!! I was born in 1937 (ME 1113 Kanni masam Sept 20th Pooroorutathi nakshathram) three years after my father's retirement as Devaswam Commissioner in 1934. Chechi was born in that year. They wanted another girl but were disappointed. Anyway - I was one among many and got care as anyone else. I grew up mostly in my Chechi's company because there was no one else. Since there were seven men as my elder siblings, I was an easy target for all of them to run errands - especially Balachettan to buy snuff powder. I remember how we, being children, used to get Vishukkettam from distant cousins and uncles and Ramuttyettan especially used to collect that money from us! Vishukkettam amount was 4 or 8 annas and very rarely Re 1.  Onam and Vishu were true festivals in those days as that whole week was enjoyment. Even when I had nothing to play and no company I would be loitering in our house compound among tre...

Prof. PR Pisharoty For me to write about him is like an ant measuring an elephant - he was such a gigantic personality with international fame. His knowledge was not confined to Physics and Meteorology alone; he was well versed in Sanskrit literature and cultural subjects. You mention a subject, he would have mastered it. His memory was stupendous and grasping power immense. Here, I will say that my son has inherited these qualities to a certain extent. The number of papers he has written is so large that he himself may not know the exact number.  His advice on many subjects was eagerly sought. Even our Ex-PM Indira Gandhi admired him and took his advice. Ex-President Abdul Kalam also admired him - that shows his greatness. He never showed off and had no pretensions. He was frank in expressing his views and so the demand for his advice on any subject under the sun was great. The first time I spoke to him personally was in Trivandrum when Thumba Rocket station was inaugurated. Sara...

Continuing from earlier - In Linux Lite I could bring back gnome online accout using the terminal by typing gnome-control-center online-accounts Once that is done go ahead and sync your google account. And this brought back GDrive into file system. Latest here is: I made a backup using a utility called Timeshift (System restore Utility) today successfully - works much better than Restore point in Windows. Actually there are many Office apps in Linux with different styles. I use Libre Office suite which is as good or even better than MS Office. For videos, there is nothing better than VLC player. It can stream videos too. For compressing files, Linux has its own built-in compression, whereas for Windows WinZIP app is not free; there is one free utility called 7zip. Learning and using Linux - there is only one way to start-- just install a good distro and start using it. A slight difficulty will be usage of the Terminal, for which I had to read and find out. The rest of the things are n...

This is how I see people: Remesh Here is a superlative genius of the human species. He is honest, straightforward and brave, and at the same time, very diplomatic and soft-spoken. Our relationship is not like friendship, but more like a father-son or guru-shishya one. He is wonderful and pleasant in any company. He goes out of the way to help not only his friends, but anyone who requests help, not only in money matters, but in other ways too. His capacity to work for hours on end has surprised me often. He appreciates anything good and in buying things he selects only the best and costly items. He is my best student in Surgery - learns fast and executes fast, and perfectly too. When I found that I can't stand for long periods of time, he used to come for helping me in Surgery - he used to oblige me whenever I called him. I have a very small circle of friends of which Remesh is the only friend who visits us and calls us regularly and frequently. His parents are no more. He asked the...

Who has not had dreams in this world - we all have dreams aplenty. Dreams can be of mainly two types - the conscious dreams like day dreams, and the unconscious ones during sleep. Anyone can have the former at any time - for eg. 'I wish I could fly like a bird'. The second type is the commonest, which everyone has had. For example, I dreamt last night about writing about dreams - and that was the cause for this write-up. Very often dreams come true partly or in full. Among Sai devotees, to dream about Swami is considered a blessing, and there had been instances of true happenings following such dreams. There had been instances of Bhagawan verifying some dreams involving Swami. Anyway - a dream involving Swami is considered a blessing by devotees. We can only imagine the pleasure experienced by them, which no amount of analysing using the brain can provide. The difference between a rationalist and a believer is that the latter derives happiness out of faith and Bhakthi (devotio...