The issue of the purification ritual conducted by the Guruvayur temple priests is hotting up in Kerala. See the Link here. The Guruvayur temple board seems to be going overboard on this. What right do they have to demand a certificate proving oneself to be a Hindu from someone who openly admits that he is one?It is such thinking that had put India back culturally when the West was going through the renaissance. I remember an instance narrated to me by a Kashmiri friend who told me about ...

A syrian christian takes his own name which is the name of his paternal grandfather, the name of his father and his house or ‘tharavad’ name. He may make any of these his surname and hence he may be G.J. Olikara, ‘G’ for Gevarghese (name of paternal grandfather), ‘J’ for John(name of father) and ‘Olikara’ for name of his ancestral house from where the line of his paternal family descends. He may be the son of O.G. John, ‘O’ for Olikara(name of the house), ‘G’ for Gevarghese (name of fath...

The invasion of kerala by Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan of Mysore in the latter half of the 18th century left a deep impact on kerala polity and society. This invasion of the mysoreans and Tipu in particular is called the ‘Padayottam’. Much of it’s effects are visble deep down in the keralite psyche even today. To understand what effect this incursion into kerala had on the syrian christian community, we need to study the timeline of events during those tumultous times between 1766 an...

There is an interesting tradition cherished by the Syrian Christians that they possessed their own king at Valeyadattu or Villarvattom near Udayamperur in Kerala. Tradition records that the first king was named Baliartes or Beliarte, which may be a corruption of the Malayalam Valeyadattu. The kingdom of Villarvattom comes into prominence twice in the course of Nasrani history. While the first is a part of our folklore the second instance has been documented with some concrete evidence. ...

"You can see blood on my sword and sweat on my horse. This is how the war against the moors can be won." El-Cid (Spanish Crusader, 1040-1099) India turned a blind eye to Pakistan when the whole world knew that they were begging, borrowing and stealing nuclear weapon technology in the 80s. A major reason for the Indian inaction was that in the cold war drama, Pakistan was the USA's best friend. Only later would the US learn that it was only feeding milk to a poisonous serpent. If Indi...

The month till now has had it's ups and downs. Tractor sales were great last month and we are on target this month too. However the piaggio basket is still not half filled up yet. And now with us entering the last 2 weks of 2006, I don't see much progress. But yes, we're still keeping our market share. ODS seems up and down at times. Sona & Suyu are hard at it though. I was in B'lore to meet uip with Harsha and seek his expertise on the project. We are in touch with him now on a regular ba...

I met somebody from the public works department who said that out of every Rupees 100 spent on road repair in my town, only 20 Rupees is actually spent on the roads. The rest of the money goes into bribes paid to the local politician, government engineers and the contractor's profit. How pathetic? And Indian leaders keep parroting about us on the way to being one of the world's largest economies. Yes, our sheer size may catapult us into that enviable position. But, can we ever become a cou...

The week that went by had it's share of fun and 'heartburns' too. Sales is happening as planned and both the baskets (JD & Piaggio) are filling up satisfactorily. Nanda from PVPL was here and both of went through the usual Chikmagalur assertions and denials. In the end as I expected & hoped, nothing came of it. However he has some interesting ideas as a sales guy, and let me see, how he could be of help to us. A number of D810 vehicles arived with the engines in bad shape. That was the dif...

I was looking at this particular Link which laments the fact that the christian population in Iraq has fallen by nearly 50% after Saddam's removal from power. Saddam was a tyrant but he did not trouble the christians much as they were a relatively small and more importantly 'politically silent' community The website also documents what seems to be daily occurences of atrocities agains the christians there. All of us know that it is not only the christians of Iraq who suffer there, it is...

Well, I was supposed to talk to Scully today but it seems he couldn't keep the appointment. Will have to reschedule the telecon. The website is up & running. We delivered 2 tractors today. Good show from the team. 3-wheeler sales are also looking up. Will have the lucky draw pamphlets tomorrow. The main priority now is to add members to the sales team. Saddam has been indicted today and will hang. The Americans and their allies in Iraq were to give him his just desserts anyway. No big surp...

I was at Sagar the whole day today. I was there to relieve Poornima and check out how she was handing over her duties to the new incharge there Suneetha. Poornima has done a great job while she was at Sagar and I let her know that too. Sales is picking up there and the new sales guy there, Samad is kicking ass too. On the whole all looks ok. Orange Data website is up today. Need to check out on the mail boxes tomorow with Satyan. No reply from Kiran yet. Maybe our RFI is a wee bit ha...

I started off today comparing our spares order with the spares despatch packing list. Had Moorthy look up the short supplied spares & order them again. Guru from Kappanahalli came down and I explained Venkaiah's accounts to him He left satisfied. Kiran called me saying that he would be interested in the call center we are looking out for. Sent him an RFI. Plan to go to Sagar tomorrow. Have a RT meeting in the morning tomorrow too.

Finally came down to fixing a lucky draw scheme for my customers this Nov-Dec season. I do not want to hear 'New Model' excuses from my sales team. Weve decided to award a 21'' color tv to the winner, 3 runner-ups take 3 DVD players home. 10 others take consolation prizes of nice wristwatches. Everyone else get a surprise gift. The total budhet is about 30k. The boys understand that unless we do 90 we lose out. They and I are confident that we can do it. My bet is that we will touch 100 ...

Check out this Link Ahmadinejad says "I am against saying two children are enough. Our country has a lot of capacity . It has the capacity for many children to grow in it. It even has the capacity for 120 million people. Westerners have got problems. Because their population growth is negative they are worried and fear that if our population increases, we will triumph over them .'' And there are people in the West and also in India who believe that a nuclear Iran under this man wil...

Sunday was uneventful except for the fact that I managed to pull myself out of bed at 8:30 A.M. Way to go! Went to the new church for the first time. I stepped in just as the congregation was leaving the church. Met the priest though and spoke to him. He knows our family in Thottakkad. Promised to be regular to church from next time. After that it was a visit to the lawyer to show him some documents related to the properties I am looking to buy for the company. He was not happy with t...