All posts in November 2016

IT’S A GIRL Vengrai Parthasarathy Jagan finished his bath in seven minutes flat; not his usual half hour, which included sixteen minutes of off-key yodeling. But he took his own sweet time in choosing his favorite T-shirt to set off his blue denim trousers.. Once he finished fluffing up his hair in a carefully careless…

CONSOLATION PRIZE by Vengrai Parthasarathy Harikrishna had come up in life the hard way. By the time he was forty he knew that he had made good only through the goodwill and help of friends. He wanted to give something back to society as he had much to give by way of service. As a…

 BRITISH FAT CATS…..by Vengrai Parthasarathy On August 15, 1947, he tides of history have washed  away the legacies  of British rule  in India . Those were days when Indians meekly accepted the status of ‘Subject of His Majesty the King’’ before being rousted by Gandhiji with his ‘Quit India’ movement, John Bull is the collective nickname…

Face to Face… By Vengrai Parthasarathy I am not a male chauvinist. I have always believed that while men are superior to women in some respects, women are in others. Simply stated they can never be equal. This is disputed.by, none else than the wife, mine and others. She clings to a meaning-less phrase ‘Better-half”…

ONE-BY-TWO .(In a lighter vein) By Vengrai Parthasarathy Tea is not the only drink that cheers. The wafting aroma of coffee, as you loll in the bed in the wee hours of the morning, is a wake-up call. It sets the blood flowing and prepares even a grouch to face the world—cheerfully. ”Coffee is to…

Saga Of Freedom & Gandhiji– (Bhavan’s Journal) Book Review–Vengrai Parthasarathy ________________________________________ My eyes settled on a random page of “Gandhi-Essential Writings” in a friend’s house, and there was this letter by Gandhiji to Rajaji, which he had signed off with the Tamil words Romba anbudan (which translates to ‘With Much Love’). Tamil is a language…

SEEING GOD IN WOMAN. Vengrai Parthasarathy As someone said God cannot be everywhere; so he created woman as mother. Are we giving woman the respect that is due to her? Let us face it. This is a man’s world and Manu, the law giver, ( whom we like to quote at the drop of a…

Indian Express– Sept. 2011 THE TRAMS RIDES OF A DIFFERENT ERA Vengrai Parthasarathy Those were the days which only Chennaites in their seventies will remember. In the Thirties and Forties the rumblings of trams were heard in all the main arteries of Madras. Those were leisurely days when no one was in a hurry. People…

In the Ewarts School (CEZ Mission) Madras, Remembrance Day was observed on 11 November as in most Commonwealth countries. This was done to recall the end of hostilities of World War I on that date in 1918. Hostilities formally ended “at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month” I recall we…

Sacred Tulasi Vengrai Parthasarathy “Patram Pushpam Phalam Toyam Yo Me Bhaktya Prayacchati; Tadaham Bhaktyupahritamasanami Prayatatmanah” (Meaning: I accept, even a leaf, a flower, a fruit or water if offered with sincere devotion ” says Sri KrishNa in the Bhagavath Gita). The inner message : It is not necessary to offer gold, silver and costly items.…