Naga's Ruminations and Reviews

                       Once Viswamitra who was a Rajarshi (a king who has become self realized) grew envious of Vashista who was a Brahmarshi (a sage who is enlightened and self realized) and decided to become a brahmarshi himself. He reasoned that if he also turned into a brahmarshi, he would become more respectable and sages like Vashista would treat him as an equal. He set off to a forest and started to perform deep penance. For a long time he performed his penance without interruption from the outside world. He grew content with each passing day that he was nearing his goal and would anyday seize the honor he so craved for.                                            Then one day a beautiful celestial maiden Menaka appeared near the hut where Viswamitra was undergoing his daily austerities. She had come to that place to take bath in the nearby lake. Viswamitra accidentally looked at her while she was taking bath in the water. She was scantily clad and had a beautiful smile on h

Rating 2/5 Genre: Investigative journalism, First hand reporting            I thought this is a mediocre tale. I am not sure if I can call it a tale, it is more like a collection of different stories of  women who are locked away in a mental asylum. The tone of the narrative was matter of fact and I would have liked it to have some emotional depth and a visceral quality. It felt like she was hurling the stories at the reader one after the other before there was enough time to process them.                           A journalist,Nellie Bly,pretending to be insane gains entry into a mental asylum on Blackwell's Island. She stays there for ten days and experiences the horrors of the place like the rest of inmates. After coming out, she publishes her report of what she saw and experienced. It causes quite a stir in the society. As a result of her efforts, the government increases funding to the asylum by a significant amount.          The island houses around 1600 women suffe

             King of Himalayas Himavantha had two beautiful daughters Ganga and Uma with his wife Menu.  One day the gods of heaven approach Himavantha and his wife. They ask him to give  his daughter Ganga to them for the welfare and prosperity of the world. Himavantha happily accepts this request and sends Ganga away with the Gods. Ganga starts living among the other damsels and demigods in heaven.               King Bhagiratha is a ruler iof the Ikshvaku dynasty into which Lord Rama will be born later. Several of his ancestors try to bring Ganga to earth and die without succeeding. Bhagiratha is determined to bring Ganga down to earth so that her divine waters could liberate his ancestors. He leaves his kingdom to the management of his ministers and goes to perform severe penance and austerities in the forest. He spends hundreds of years in penance to impress God Brahma. Brahma becomes pleased with his dedication and appears in front of him along with other demi gods. Brahma ask

Rating 3/5  Genre thriller, paranormal, virus, mystery  Definitely a lot more engaging, horrifying and thrilling than most of Stephen King's works. I picked this book because I got to know that there is a mention of a virus called wuhan-400 that resembles the Corona virus covid-19 which is raging a war against the world at present. This wuhan 400 as the rumors go causes pneumonia like symptoms before killing the victims but i am disappointed to find that is not the case. Wuhan 400 in the story kills the victim in less than 24 hours by secreting a neuro toxin at the brain stem and causing failure of organs. These characteristics are in no way similar to Corona virus and the disease it causes, Covid-19.  The story is solid and well rounded. A woman in the show business in Las Vegas, Tina Evans thinks she has lost her son Danny in an accident. But he starts trying to reach out to her through dreams and other paranormal means. She dismisses them as works of a p

Rating 4/5 Genre Religion,Spirituality, Evolution For starters, this is not a science book. It does not lay out a step by step plan for the construction of spacecrafts and satellites to help transmigrate masses of people between planetary systems. Why I am saying this is because the title can be misleading. Srila Prabhupada prescribes perfecting the art of meditation and bhakti yoga in order to develop an ability of moving to higher planets. He presents his case to the readers as to why they should opt the yoga method as opposed to scientific methods for traveling to other planets and calling them home. He calls the endeavours of scientists to reach other planets through spacecrafts a waste of time and whatever success they yearn for as meaningless. It is easy to see why this work of literature rubs a scientific minded person the wrong way. Those who are not acquainted with the teachings of iskcon or haven't read other works of Srila Prabhupada might call it a little extrem

Krishna dancing in the midst of gopis is called rasa dance.  Krishna expands himself into multiple forms - one for each gopi and dances with them. Each gopi thinks that Krishna is dancing with her alone and with no one else. This is kind of a mental and physical illusion Krishna has created to ensure the contentment and happiness of those gopis. The climate is cool and the air is filled with aroma of different flowers of the vrindavan forest. Krishna dances with each gopi and when they are tired, they rest their heads on his shoulders. Krishna and the gopis exchange sweet tender kisses on neck, cheeks and drooping eye lids. Krishna places his hands on their thin waists, shoulders and passes crushed beetlenuts from his mouth to those of the gopis. The moon and heavenly demi gods watch this display of spiritual and transcendental love from the sky with great pleasure and amusement. After the dance, Krishna and the gopis wander off into the river yamuna and spend time splashing

'Atmarama' is someone who is self satisfied. Someone who doesn't depend on anyone else for love or affection and is content to be independent for his/herself.   Lord Krishna   Once gopis ask Krishna how many different types of lovers are there? What are those different types of lovers? What kind of a lover is he ?  And Krishna answers them as follows ( I am explaining it here succinctly):  1. The first kind of lover conducts love like a form of a business. He gives as much love as he is given and doesn't give anything when he gets nothing in return. This form of love is of no use for anyone.  2. The second is kind is a lover who loves his partner unconditionally.  Either the partner loves him or not, is agreeable to his tastes or not, he never stops showing his affection and love towards the partner.   3. The third kind is called atmarama and is self satisfied with himself. He doesn't look outside for love and is indifferent if he gets love f

Rating 5/5 Genre: Mystery, suspense, thriller, art, Mental illness The story is a powerful,gripping page turner. I was quite surprised to note that it is the first novel from the author. He has written it with an air of a veteran novelist. It is also an easy and quick read. I mostly flipped through the pages with a palpitating heart and a mind that kept guessing at what would come next. I accept with a deflated pride that none of my guessing turned out to be true and the story turned out better because of it. Alicia and Gabriel are a happily married couple. She is an artist and he is a fashion photographer. One day Gabriel is murdered and Alicia is arrested for the crime. Instead of defending herself and proclaiming her innocence, she remains silent. Either she wouldn't talk or couldn't talk,they deem her fit to be in a mental institution rather than jail given her past history. The story makes many headlines and a psychotherapist Theo Faber who has followed it close

"Once we look into the eyes of another and see ourselves looking back, we will be able to create a heaven on this earth." When we die, we remove our masks and we rest in our natural state. There is no disappearance, no oblivion. We simply take off our masks, our clothes, and other outer coverings, and we return home to the spiritual realms. Here we are renewed and restored. Here we reflect on the lessons of the life that we have just left. Here we are reunited with our soul companions across the centuries. Here we plan our next lifetime on the earth. When the time and circumstances are right, we don new masks—a baby’s body and brain—and return to the physical state. With a refreshed energy and outlook, we continue learning our spiritual lessons until the need to reincarnate is no longer necessary. Then we can continue to help people from the other side. We have an eternity of time to learn our lessons. Our symptoms and fears have probably carried over from previous lifet

Rating: 4.5/5 Genre: Historical fiction, Drama, mental illness A mesmerizing tale! One of the very good books I have read in a while! A young girl named Grace Marks of sixteen along with a man James is accused of murdering her employer Mr.Kinnear and his mistress in cold blood. They run off to United States from Canada from getting caught. But police eventually get to them and James accuses Grace of instigating him with the murder. Grace tells different versions of her story during her arrest, trial and confession. She also suffers from lapses of memory as to what has happened and how she has ended up in company of James. James gets a death sentence and Grace gets life imprisonment on account of being a young girl who is quite susceptible. So she is locked away in a penitentiary in Canada. When they think she has wild dreams or is quite unsubdued, they commit her to a mental asylum where the conditions of living and treatment are not sanitary and quite harsh. Some respectable persons

GOD = Generating, Operating, Destroying. Brahma is responsible for creation/generation of things(rajo-guna,passion,creation,desire nature). Vishnu is responsible for maintenance/operating and sustaining things (sattva-guna,goodness,prosperity of goddess lakshmi). Lastly, Shiva is responsible for destruction of things(tamo-guna, destruction of desires, hermetic quality with no desire for sansara). Since Vishnu is responsible for the maintenance of peace and order on earth, each time Mother earth faced a problem with plenitude of demons and rakshasas on earth in forms of humans - she along with other demi gods, brahma and vishnu would approach the milky ocean where lord Vishnu resides. Lord Vishnu to alleviate her pain and rid the earth of cruel demons took different avatars/forms at different times. Kali yuga is said to last for 4,32,000 years of which we have so far lived only five thousand years. The day Lord Krishna vanished from this earth was like a candle being put off and it mar

Review of 'The Moon is a harsh Mistress' by Robert A.Heinlein. Rating 3.5/5 Genre: science fiction, humor, war I have finished reading. So yayy! Reading this book has taken me longer than I expected. I know the reviews and ratings are overwhelmingly positive but I didn't find the book exciting. Perhaps it has got to do with the style of prose/language - the narrator Mannie writes it in a dull, passive tone that is occasionally sprinkled with humor and wit. But the storyline is not quite so bad and got me going at crucial points. Instead of humans fighting off extraterrestrial aliens like we see in most movies/books, in this story they are fighting off fellow humans from Moon. In the year 2075 Moon(Luna) is populated with families and descendants of prisoners being shipped from earth(Terra) for over a century. Federated Nations and Lunar authority are the organisations responsible for operating the Luna project and seeing to it that trade(wheat grains cultivated on luna) h