jkmrao's blog

I have already explained in detail the single line sOnA patterns where the numbers of the dots in rows and columns are relatively prime (they do not share a common divisor). Today I am going to give such sOnA patterns with borders surrounding the original pattern. For this I have chosen two patterns - 3 x 4 (odd-even) and 3 x 5 (odd-odd). The even-even patterns are not single line patterns and the even-odd patterns are nothing but odd-even patterns rotated by 90 degrees. What I did here is to surround the original dots with two more outer layers.

Today I want to explain how we can draw a chikku kOlam and expand it to as big a size as one wants. The basic motif is a simple 3x3 dot motif as shown in Fig. (a). This is indeed a chikku kOlam as shown in Fig. (b). Now five of these 3x3 motifs are placed as shown in Fig. (c). We now get a 7x7 dot chikku kOlam that has only one line. This particular pattern done in my own way with up-and-down weaving motion will be uploaded and displayed in the regular rangOli section. Five of these 7x7 motifs can be placed in the same way as in Fig. (c) to obtain Fig. (d). This has 15x15 dot motif.

Seven steps (saptapadi)

From that day in the distant past
to this day in the misty present
I am always
f
o
l
l
o
w
i
n
g
you

I am doing whatever you ask me to do
I am observing whatever you want me to view
I am listening to all that you utter

I followed you to the bowels of the dense forests
At your command, I jumped into the fire

At the NCI-Frederick campus, we have a series called "Science in Cinema". First of all they'll show a movie related to science and later an expert in the field will offer discussions on the research concerning it. Marking the AIDS day on Dec 1, they screened today the movie "AIDS jaagO". This is a movie for which funds were provided by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the film was produced by Mira Nair. The entire movie consists of four short films, three in Hindi and one in kannaDa. People in India might have seen this extraordinarily well-made movie.

After watching the shocking video posted by SrI maNi, I remembered a poem I wrote some ten years ago. I am giving an English translation to it hereunder. The Telugu original too is given at the bottom.

- The echoes of a new vEda -

"No woman deserved freedom", say the wise old men
Why am I unfit to breathe the refreshing air of freedom?

The first day of December is International AIDS day. This disease, when it made its appearance, seemed to snuff the light of the entire planet. Today it is under control, thanks to the discovery of many new drugs. It all began in 1988 when the first retroviral protease structure was solved in our laboratory, viz., the crystal structure of Rous sarcoma virus protease and later the HIV-1 protease. I consider our effort as that of the proverbial squirrel trying to help the mythological hero rAmA in building the bridge across the sea.

I am reproducing below a short piece, written in the early nineties, on the eve of Thanksgiving Day. This and other inspirational pieces may be found in the collection "Today's Beautiful gem" at http://www.uramamurthy.com/mohan_gems.html

Today's Beautiful Gem: `Thanksgiving'

The festival of nine nights or navarAtri culminates on the tenth day vijayadaSami. This is a day of victory and that is why it is called the tenth day of victory. There are three stories associated with this day. This is the day on which the paaMDavas, the sons of king pAMDu, finished their year of living incognito in the court of king virATa. arjuna, along with uttarakumAra, retrieves his weapons hidden in a Sami tree (vanni or banni) and fights the mighty kaurava army to recover the herds of cows of the king virATa stolen by them.

I have introduced the concept of sOnA extension in http://www.ikolam.com/node/15412?p=10760

After viewing the rangOli of SrImati lakshmIdEvi, it occurred to me that it may be nice to explain the two types of yatIs used in music - gOpucCha (like the tapering of a cow's tail) and srOtOvAha (like the broadening flow of a stream). muuttusvAmi dIkshita is quite famous for these. The song on varalakshmI has the former one (with longer words it reduces to smaller words). Here is a song of mine, if you want it to call so, that has both (ascending and descending). I will give meaning for one, except for one word change the rest follow similar pattern.