Sathyakama Sharma

      It Takes a Two wheeler to ‘Bang’alore Two wheeler deity or Dwichakreshwara One fine morning if I find a temple built as such on any pavement (where else would you find Gods nowadays?) in Bangalore, I would be least amused, to say the least! A two wheeler is just like an alter ego, or better, an avatar of every Bangalorean! More often than not any art director worth his paint (or an event anchor) would cite Vidhana Soudha as the most common icon of Bangalore. I for one beg to differ. For me it is the two-wheeler.   A two-wheeler is to the Bangaloreans, what a local train is to the Mumbaikars. The Bangaloreans ride on it, pride on it, live on it and sadly, die on it! Nothing, nothing they read, see or feel about global warming seems to have made any dent on their mind-set. It is a prosthetic limb of their anatomy-detachable when one wants! Or unless and until a TW says no to a Bangalorean, he or she just won’t kick it off. It is thei...

                                                     ‘ Beis (+ a few more) Saal Pehley …’ Not all generations are lucky enough to view the future Chief Ministers of their neighboring States on the silver screens. Makkal Thilakam M G Ramachandran and Puratchi Thalaivi Jayalalitha, the inseparable duo of Tamil tinsel world of the 60s and 70s, Nandamoori Tharaka Rama Rao (NT Rama Rao, Lord Krishna’s celluloid avatar)…I had the privilege of seeing them all, even when I was a child in my home-town Kasaragod, both  a cultural melting pot and a communal tinder box! I mean, I was familiar with their acting talents even before they extended the same into the political arena! Kasaragod, culturally a victim of the dualism between Kannada and Malayalam, saw Tamil winning as a dark horse, in the ...

The news ‘In top league: 12-year-old British girl has higher IQ than Einstein’ published on the front page of ‘Deccan Herald’ dated 05-10-2012 came as a shock to me because the image of the genius I have carried so far is just the opposite. A brooding philosopher in the garb of a mere scientist, not in a haste to prove to the world how intelligent he was but always curious about the phenomena in the universe which others took for granted. His passion lied in unravelling the mysteries of the universe, not in achieving academic excellence.   According to his biographers he was not very good in studies and he always regretted his average memory power. Moreover there is nothing on record to say that his IQ was 160. It is all hunch and done posthumously. It is a pity that Einstein is always equated with the so called ‘bright students’ who are good in mugging up, matching a set of questions to a set of answers (so, go by the guide, never read the text book!) and who master the art ...

                                            Chocolate Diaries From dad to dad, the mode of expressing one’s love for one’s children varies a lot. Some   explicit, some implicit. For some it is a routine to carry home chocolates whereas some are at pains to prevent their children from such indulgences. Gandhism, Nihilism, Narcissism, Buddhism, buddu-ism   all come into play in those daily family dramas. Less sinful are the hands of parents going home empty handed whereas more tearful are the eyes of their kids. Those who offer chocolates and other junk food as staple diet feel relieved of their guilt for a moment as the faces of their kids glow in joy. Happiness is a great leveller. For one, I stand on the middle of the road. I do buy chocolates for my son but ...