Birthday party at Ajaybhai's place

Met the Bhatnagar couple last night at Ajay Bhai's place (occasion - little Sania's 7th birthday) and we discussed how well the musical night went on 25th November. He's promised me a cassette of the recording (I plan to take their CD and convert it into mp3)...seems it went off well..well, I sang the same number last night too and my inhibitions have (surprises me too!) gone down to a large extent..but it was a great event and I thanked Dr Bhatnagar for making that event happen..well, thankfully for the presence of Vicky and Betu, the party was fun - we even had some dances thrown in in good measure(Gudiya, Betu and Vicky danced over Beedi Jalai le - then there was this crazy chaotic dance where all the fat ladies and the not-so-fat men jumped in)...some event..wish I could start adding pics too and make this a better blog!..

Painkiller

Just installed Painkiller and played it for the first time - whew! reminded me of Doom, Sanitarium and Diablo2 - with the same dark, gothic look. What really hooked me on was the simplicity and ease of play and the pace - it could scare the living daylights out of anyone and I was playing it in total darkness...a good thing (perhaps a bad thing too) is the gothic industrial metal rock that starts playing everytime a horde of zombies or those skeleton men emerge from tombs in the Cemetary.It, fortunately, doesn't make it that scary..Perhaps what could actually be scary would be a scratchy recording of a turn of the 19th Century recording...I don't know why they don't use that kind of music in horror games, but it can actually scare anyone (remember Mars Attacks!!..:-))...poor Mr Garner (protagonist in the game)...actually, I think hell is closer than we all think - we do not need to subject ourselves to this imagination...keep reading in the newspapers how badly many hostages get tortured before they are killed in Baghdad of today...and then when one sees pictures of holocaust victims...heaven and hell are all around us - its just our karma that decides when we assume the place of the victim and when that of a predator, or an onlooker...whatever...jeez...I am sleepy I think....Painkiller..woow..!!!....too much of gaming today C&C Renegade..then this..

Amma, Ramana Maharishi, Paramhansa Yogananda

This seems like the best time to start blogging again - and I have resolved for the umpteenth time to continue blogging. Today, Swami Tapasyamrita Chaitanya arrived at our place - we went to pick him up from the station at around 5 - 5.30AM... a lot has happened between today and the last time I blogged - Amma came to Indore and went; Shveta, Swami Tapasyamrita, Br. Krishna and a lot many devotees and wellwishers helped make Amma's visit a possibility,Shveta's mom had a minor heart-attack and recovered, ma came to Indore and went, a lot of change happened at the workplace...I and Shveta decided to buy some property too (wow, we sure are going places!)... And now Tapasyamrita swamiji is back to help set up a school here. Swamiji got us a few interesting CDs and literature... The most interesting one was a film on Ramana Maharishi - a compilation of all the movie files shot of the great saint and soul. The movie starts with a 1935 clipping of Ramana Maharishi sitting in a chair, with a disciple standing next to him and Paramhansa Yogananda to his right, along with a westerner - Yoganandaji shaking hands with the westerner while Ramana Maharishi looking at the camera, leg folded, wearing nothing but a tiny loin-cloth. I never thought I would get to see the moving pictures of these realised souls - the movie then goes on to show a somewhat similar ritual - of swamiji (Ramana Maharishi) leaving his ashram for (possibly) a parikrama of the Mt Arunachala and returning back..repeated again and again - through short clips taken by various movie makers in the span of some 15 years. The movie ends with the Government of India newsreel of 1950 showing the Mahasamadhi of Ramana Maharishi. what struck me was the austere and yet so powerful figure of the Maharishi - always wearing nothing more than a loin-cloth, walking down the lanes of the ashram with devotees prostrating on the way...the movie doesn't capture anything of the guru except for his walks, an occassional close-up, affectionately patting a baby, or a cow...
We got to talk a lot today on various things - on the movie, on Lalithasahasranama, Sri Vidya, Amma's visit to the Yogoda Satsanga Society Ashram at Ranchi. It was very interesting. We also got to listen to a rendition of Aum Amriteshwariyae Namah by one Kathy, which was quite quite good - swamji has got a few CDs this time the way he got a few last time...we are truly blessed...I guess I would now start reading Ramana Maharishi's works and Autobiography of a Yogi...I am truly illiterate on this front.:-((