There is good news. Starting this week there will be a new item in the Ravivar. Pending selection of a suitable name for this section, it is titled “Snapshots from the memory lane”. First of the article for this section has been contributed by Pranesh and he has promised more. Family members are requested to, add/modify/comment on the items presented and also to contribute similar interesting incidents from their memory base.
Lannu has already circulated the photo and details of the Bride groom for Sphurthy. For the sake of record in our family website I am repeating his words here.
Hi Everybody,
I am attaching a photograph of Ravindra,the person Sphurthy is to marry.He is a director of US headquartered Silicus Technologies at Bangalore http://www.silicus.com/Firm_Management_RS.aspx . And it is a wonderful coincidence that the first edition of Ravivar carried news about Ravi! !
Family at Bangalore is busy in connection with the Bavaji’s Punya thithi on 15th(tomorrow). There was a time when his children were spread out from Dehradun to Mysore and arrival and departure of them for the event was by itself a major activity of the proceedings. Now only Pranesh is the farthest to come from Cheenai.( Mandya and Mysore have, now become like extended Bangalore). It is very very rare that any missed the event. Vidya recalls that Kidsamanna, had started counting that there will be three missing this time(Viji, Prakash and Mala ?). No body had imagined that he would be one of the three.
Do you miss a
“Panchanga” (five limbs? Thithi, Vara, Nakshara, Yoga and Karana of the day),
which you can read? Then there is good news for you too. Lannu (Narasimha Rao)
has learnt as a hobby, writing Panchanga, and he has not only brought out for
the benefit of people like you the Panchanga in English, but has also taken
the trouble of putting it on the internet. Cut and paste this link to your
favorites on your browser and the panchanga will be available at your
fingertips.
http://www.geocities.com/panchangaminenglish The downloadable Panchanga
is in Acrobat Reader (.pdf) format. For more information on the subject you
may contact: S. Narasimha Rao,Consultant - Information Systems & Management
Phone:044 - 2485 1192, Mobile: 0 94442 04340 ,email:
snrao@globoteg.com
(The author of this write up is not an expert on this subject. There are many experts in the family on this subject: Rajaram, Vidya, Lannu, Sharmaji, Gopinath etc. and they can be contacted for details and clarifications).
Extracts from Ravivar, 21-03-04
This issue of Ravivar is coming out one day in advance, so that it can join you all in welcoming the New Year, with best wishes for the New Year.
Quite an amount of thinking has gone into our calendar system. In the Roman calendar we are now used to, the year 2004 is running. Then what year it is as per the Hindu system? There are many systems that are followed in our country. In the “Chandramana”, (based on the movement of the moon) system, in which tomorrow happens to be the new year, each year has a name and there are 60 names for 60 years, which keep repeating in a sixty year cycle. First year is Prabhava and the last is Akshaya. We are entering the 18th year “Tharana” on 21-03-04. Normally we do not keep track of the total No. of elapsed years. However from the “Vontikoppal Panchanga” we can see it is the 1926th year after Shalivahna and 5105th year since the start of the Kaliyuga. There is another interesting fact about this system. Though the months in this system are based on the easily noticeable movements of the moon,(first day of the month is the day after the new moon and ends on the full moon day), the fact that 12 such months will not add up to a year has been noticed and each lunar month is not allowed to drift too far away from the Solar month, by introducing “Adhika Masas” (Extra months of the same name) or “Shunya Masas” (Skipping a month) as needed. Because of the orbiting of earth around the Sun, it appears for an observer on earth as if the Sun is shifting from one constellation of stars to the other through out the year and repeating the same course after a year. Our Solar year starts when the sun enters the constellation of “Mesha” corresponding somewhat with the Sun shining directly over our country.
(The author of this write up is not an expert on this subject. There are many experts in the family on this subject: Rajaram, Vidya, Lannu, Sharmaji, Gopinath etc. and they can be contacted for details and clarifications).
How is Ugadi celebrated: This is what “Vontikoppal Panchanga”says.
Get up at dawn, thinking of God, finish your daily routine, decorate the “Dvaramane” and the main door, with “Rangoli” and “Thorana”, take oil bath, finish Sandyavandana etc. keep the new year panchanga, near the God, set up all necessary items for the “Pooja” and worship Ganapathi (first) and the “kula devatha”. After this eat “Bevu Bella” and listen to the Panchanga recitation by the learned, in the company of family and good friends. There is a special sweet for lunch for each of our feasts. It is “Holige” for the Ugadi. (Recipe by Mala is available on our family site).
The significance of eating,” bevu bella” cannot be more evident to us, than this year. The God took away Kidsamanna from us and there were also many who were born in the family or joined the family, last year; bitter and sweet events of immense magnitude, and of different units. We cannot, total them and draw a balance sheet. Each event, as it unfolds has to be, enjoyed or endured as the case may be, and all should get on with the life with the knowledge that by nature life is a mixture of Sweet and bitter events.
Did you like the write up by Pranesh in the last issue? Await the next one from Pranesh, which could not be published this week for want of space. Feedbacks will help to improve In the future issues.
Sphurthy’s marriage will be at Bangalore on 20th of June at the Sathya Pramodha Kalyana mantap near National College.
Extract from Ravivr 28-03-04
There is some good news for the Ravivar readers. There is 100 percent unanimity on the choice of the logo for Ravivar. A suggestion was made by Ragesh that the existing Logo of the family website is good and it may be adopted for the Ravivar also. The Required modifications have been elegantly made by Sharatha, and has been adopted. Similarly the title “ Snapshots from the memory lane” has received the unanimous approval by Vidya and has been adopted. Vidya has also expressed the view that the logo does not matter, what is important is the content. In our context the importance of the Logo lies in the fact that it increases the participative feeling of the readers. The mbfamily logo above was evolved after quite a bit of work by Vidya and Rajaram,(at that time it was a big job even for them as they were still learning the tricks of the art) and even Bindu feels proud of the contribution she has made in its development.
Starting this week Ravivar intends to open a new section “ Forthcoming events”. Please send information from your ends too, so that Ravivar can out grow the image of being a paper of mbfamily family Bangalore chapter only.
News from Bangalore: Ragesh was on a flying visit to Bangalore for the Ugadi feast. His next posting is likely to be in Leeds, England.
News from abroad: RavivaR news desk is not yet very efficient and only you can make it efficient by supplying the news in time. No news is insignificant and every bit will be relished if dished. Bindu reports that though Pranav had learnt to roll over, only after this Ugadi he has taken a liking for it and has started crawling.