In 2005, I had posted this about Naadi Astrology and this unbelievable palm leaves that had poems that could accurately give all my details from my birth to the point those leaves were destined to be read.
It is now your destiny to be able to hear this !! There was no easy way to upload just an audio to a blog then. Now we have methods!
There was no google in 1997 and even then, getting details about someone including their Indian Horsocope which needs date of birth and place of birth with an accuracy of 4 minutes, time windows, family details, names etc.. all in poetry.. not possible with even today's AI and computing power to write those as recitable poems.
It was just amazing. A lot of folks reached out to me then and I did give them the contact to go find their palm leaves of destiny. However, not everyone who went there, could find their leaf. That is part of the deal.
Some folks went multiple times over a period of years and managed to find it later!
All that said, as part of digitizing audio tapes from years ago, found Naadi tapes from when my parents got my leaf and how years later San found her leaf on a visit to Vaideeswaran Kovil. She rushed it and was impatient as she had to come back to a hungry kid. Still you can see two data points..
Majority of what was said in detail was accurate. Then again, a lot of stuff was vague when it came to the future. We have two girls. In my reading, that was off. In San's reading it was right.
If you have the patience, you can listen to this.. pretty impressive actually for a palm leaf that is a few thousand years old and preserved for generations in a temple!
Maybe our destinies are all pre written.. or maybe there is some time travel involved here. In either case, the beauty of human existence is that we just go about our daily life with amazing selective memory loss. We all assume that we will wake up day after day and do things as we plan them. We put in for vacations 3 months from now, plan weddings, put 5 year FD's, etc.. forgetting that there is no guarantee for anyone for their very next breath! That is actually a good thing, so we can keep moving!
I usually forget this tape exists, except when someone brings up destiny in a conversation. Guess the readers of this blog can scratch their heads after listening..
Not sure if these places are still around and do the leaf readings. Have read articles that there are a lot of fake centers and copies floating around. Still not sure how any fake thing can guess this many details right and come up with limmerics in record time while the person is sitting in front of them.. that too in ancient Tamil script!
If any of you have had recent experiences with "meeting your leaf", do share in comments!
This was out of sight and hearing and out of mind for a good 16 or so years. So it was interesting to listen to after a long time.. especially with Jr. listening in on every word and asking questions.
She was laughing so loud hearing my dad keep interrupting the reader about my wedding plans!
It has been more than 3 months since this blog saw an entry! There are no particular reasons for it. We did go on a bunch of hikes, but mostly to places already visited. Then our hikes came to an end as our group leader had an injury and is recovering slowly but surely.
There were two hectic work trips to India in a space of two months. There was some sporadic singing. Some illness, etc.. basically the usual for this household. Somehow didn't get to put fingers to keyboard in 3 months!
Well, now that there is a break for the next ten days, all those unfinished blog posts will hopefully see the publish button!
This one though, is a fresh post. In early September, my yoga guru Michelle watched me look longingly at my usual spot in the hot yoga room.. her mat was already in that spot! She saw me and said "you can have your spot. I can move!". I should have known then and there that there was a catch.. Michelle makes sure I don't miss my mom when she does things like this.
At the end of the class we are walking out and she goes "you know what will be good for you? try a challenge where you practice in all 48 spots in the room! It will give you a much needed perspective. I recently just finished taking class in every spot in the room and it taught me a lot about my practice and myself!"
I mumbled "okay, sure!".. and got a look that said "mean it!". Was even told that the website for the studio had a pdf of the room layout with all the spots marked!
Came home and printed that out and started on 9th September to do this "Do yoga in every one of the 48 spots in the room" challenge. Called it the "studio tour". Finally finished this challenge on Sunday 18th December. It took me 100 days to cover 48 spots! There were many challenges. If I didn't get to class early enough, all the spots I needed were already taken and I didn't want to ask anyone to move. This went on too long and finally my wife asked my friend to move spots on the last day just so I could be done with this!
Now, for the perspective.. all of you know about my spreadsheet that has my attendance, teacher, time, weight after class etc. for 12 years. Have finished 2642 classes as of this evening. I am guessing 9/10 classes have been in the three corner spots in the right side of the yoga room over all these years!
The corner has more clear views in the front and side mirrors and you have less nearest neighbors! Also I cannot hear well on the other side of the room maybe because my one ear has an issue. Whatever the reasons, I am a creature of habbit and have stuck to that corner.
This was a real challenge for me to go off my comfort zone and try different locations in the room. Now that I am back home.. ie. back my usual spot in the last few days, it is actually the best spot in the room for me. My best practice is when I am close to the front and side mirrors and can hear the teacher clearly. There is no doubt about it. That was my learning. Folks who saw me walk into class everyday with a map wanted me to share the experience.. so here is a summary
Are there other spots in the room I liked? Yes. The ones right in front of the teacher, which no one wants. Those are actually great spots if the teacher doesn't move around the podium during the balancing series.
Are there spots I really did not like? Yes. There are spots where the door or window was behind me. I could not balance well at all in those spots. There are spots where you lie down on the floor and can see the sparrows in the trees outside. Too distracting. I don't know how the yogis used to mediate on one leg in a forest.. with all those damn birds flying around from branch to branch. I love birds and watch them for long times at home drinking tea.. but when you are hanging on for dear life and trying to recover your heartrate after an asana, the birds don't help.. at all!
Then there are spots which are directly in line with the mirror ends. The yoga room has wall mirrors.. when you hit the seam of the mirrors and you try to do asanas in front of the seam, you get split into two parts in the mirror. It is as though I have multiple personalities in front of me. A calm me vs. an irate me.
Did I open my mind to new possibilities with this challenge? Yes and No. Sometimes you have to try things that make you uncomfortable.. at least once.. or say in this case 40 times out of 48. Was hoping to become more tolerant to the other locations. When you have three rows of people in front of you and most of them don't think of the people behind them and fidget around, start the pose too early or too late or lie down, it is good that they are doing what is best for them.. but it is not what is best for me. This made me realized the tremendous impact I have in the first row on the folks behind me. Now I think a lot before sitting down for any pose and try to minimize fidgeting.
Did I gain anything by trying out all those spots? Yes. Made some new friends who were suprised to see me in the other part of the room. This room has as much spread as the world. Turns out there are folks who practice for years on either side of this room and they just nod to each other and say hi on the way in and out but never have conversations with folks from the "dark side".. and to each side the other is the dark side! There are front row people and last row people and there are tempraments, reasons, preferences.
Over the 48 spots, I learned a lot about the folks who call those their "usual spot", and why! That was an interesting social study in itself.
Here is the other weird thing. People thought I was sick or recovering from either flu or covid or was having a tough day to show up in the last row.. or I had to leave early right after class, when I took spots near the door. During the early days of the challenge my teachers would call me and say "there is an open spot in the front for you ?".. then I had to go tell them about this personal challenge!
Would I suggest this challenge to others? Yes. You might be a better person than me when it comes to being a lot more open minded or selfless when it comes to the yoga practice. So please give it a shot. This was harder logistics wise than doing a 60 day challenge. You can't always get the spot you want if you don't come early enough. Some folks show up 30 minutes before class to get their spots! You have to come at a different time to even get those spots.
A big thanks to Michelle for pushing me out of that spot for 3 months, my wife for patiently putting up with my requests to go early to yoga class just to get a certain spot .. on multiple days, especially towards the end and to my friend Natalie for giving up a spot on the last day of the challenge!
Somehow I feel free to be in any spot in the room, after this tour! However, my gut tells me that you will most likely find me in my usual corner.
It has been years since we went to Disney. Given we have been there almost every year, this has been a long break. There have been many Disney or Disney related posts in this blog...
We wanted to go somewhere, anywhere as a family. The only place the Kids agreed to go was Disney! The happiest place on Earth! We had hotel reservations but no confirmed tickets till the last minute. The way it works now is that you check availability on that day and if it opens up, book the tickets. It is total headcount based per San's information! The Disney main park is booked solid. We did get an opening for the California Adventure on Friday for a Sunday visit. We took it!
The road trip itself was fun. I got to drive and drive and clear my head after a long long time. Long drives are cathartic in their own way. The family has a playlist of songs I don't like and I am sure they wanted to play those so I will not try to sing along.
Disney has changed a lot post COVID. First the prices. We expect that from Disney and were not grumpy. Disney tickets are now variable pricing like United. So no surprises there!
Next the mask requirement and enforcement. There are signs everywhere, things being said on the speakers and by the folks who are working the lines, but... there are a lot of folks who simply are not following mask guidelines. So you go at your own risk! Again, expected to see this given the demographic in the US.
Then the demographic of the crowd. Normally we see a colorful crowd. This time the crowd we saw was less than 20% of colored folks. Most of the folks who were working in the restraurants, kiosks and the folks responsible for line management were black/Hispanic/Asian. The walking, riding crowd was not. We saw 4 desi families total from 8AM-4:30 PM in that park! That was interesting. Maybe all the desi folks are risk averse and don't want to risk COVID by coming to Disney? Maybe the ticket prices are ridiculous that not many follks think it is worth the trip? Don't know!
Then there was the fast pass..we could reserve a fixed time window for a ride and go at that time to save time instead of standing in line. There were restrictions but it still worked. You needed some planning skills. Now there is no fast pass. It has been replaced with the "lightning pass". You pay 20 bucks a person and you get to go through this line for the top three rides in the park. Then there is another 20 bucks a person pass for all other rides. Think "special Darshan" queue at Thirupathi..
Initially we thought maybe maybe we could go to guest services and switch the ticket from California Adventure to the main park, but it was not meant to be. So after spending 30 minutes after park opened to try switch tickets, we ended up walking into the California Adventure park. The minute we walked in though, the kids eyes lit up. The Avengers theme area was in this park!! We always wanted to see this since it opened. So we ran to the first big ride and realized the wait time was 90 minutes. We stood in line for 105 minutes to see a 3 minute ride. It was great, but we promptly bought the lighting pass and the other paid fast pass. Then we covered the next two top rides in the next hour. As soon as you use the pass, it lets you book the next ride on the App.
we just love this "Radiator springs" area which Jr. used to call "Gladiator springs".. the attention to detail to the Cars movie series is just amazing!
Between the big rides the kids would take us to the little rides in each area!
The extra money was well spent as we pretty much covered everything by 4:30 PM. The last ride we went to was the Guardians of the Galaxy (which used to be the drop tower now converted to a new themed ride).. except.. except.. instead of one drop, now there is 7 drops and you just keep going up and down for 3 minutes. Haven't screamed like this in a long time and my fingers were white from holding on to the arm grip the whole time. The funny thing is that the lightning pass for this had a wait of 30 minutes. Guess by 4PM everyone paid for a lightning pass! The regular line wait time was 2 hours!! Reminded me of United Airlines again "All group 1 ready to board!" and you see 400 out of the 420 people on the plane line up as group 1! It is just a question of time when they introduce the Thunderbolt pass which is 100 bucks a person and an escort will walk you to the ride and sit you there and put the seat buckle... you heard it here first!
Was telling the family "Thirupathila kooda mottai adichcha sandanam freeaa kudupaanga.. Disneyla sandanam sold separately!" (even in Thirupathi, when you go tonsure your head, they will give you sandalwood paste for free to apply on the head.. if it was up to Disney, they will charge for that separately). They are trying to make up for the park closure during COVID by charging for everything.
The kids were extremely helpful in using the App, planning, making us run from place to place, ordering food on the App, etc. It is great when your kids are old enough and they tell you what to do! Told them that for the first time they moved from the liability to asset column and they both rolled their eyes!
We just decided that there was enough exposure to unmasked people for the day, or for our life and walked out at 4:30. The small parade was fun to watch on the way out!
You can no longer take pictures in front of special props. For every such place, there is a Disney Photographer and a line! They take the picture and you pay for it.. we just clicked pictures as we walked along.. with our phones. For once I didn't even edit these pictures from the phone to post in the blog!
We did not stay back for the fireworks. We had seen it the previous night from the restaurant where we had dinner. The kids were like "we covered everything thanks to the paid pass! Let's go get some rest!"
On the whole it was a nice day, pleasant weather, great rides. The food at Disney sucks and it has gotten worse over the years and the unmasked crowd is a little scary.
They have redone a lot of rides and it was good to go on these.
We will still recommend Disney to anyone as it is guranteed fun for the day! The happiest place on earth is accessible only to folks who can shell out a lot of money at short notice and the more you fork out, the happier you are!
A video of the day.. Have captured the cars thing here.. the kids wanted to go on it again.. so we took the single rider option where we are all separated and went back to the line for 30 minutes and did it twice. This is one ride that makes the California adventure worth it! Truly amazing!
Disney is still king.. just need to improve on the food options, especially for vegetarians! No better place to enjoy the holiday spirit!
Had a nice dinner at a local Italian place to made up for the bad food in the afternoon, and called it a day!
Our drive back was interesting thanks to a great rest stop!
2021 definitely wrapped up nicely with this one day adventure!
The best part for me was to watch the girls talk to each other all day, jointly plan what to do next.. it was like watching them be kids again and that alone was worth all the driving!
