Akshardham Swaminarayan Temple, Houston

The following are the images of the Akshardham Swaminarayan temple, Houson. One of them is an upright image; but the other is rotated 180 degrees. Identify them and give as many reasons for the same.

Green Lizard

I spotted this on a nice Saturday morning. It was trying to get back to the hibiscus plant below when I caught it on my cam. I was fast enough to run to my closet and grab the camera.

Expectation

I expect to pass in the exam, said the student. But what have you done for the same, said the teacher. The teacher's stand was fine. But I felt that the teacher could have helped the student long back - when the student's grades were suffering; after all it was the teacher's expectation that all her students learnt something in her class.

Wedding Reception

It was a big queue waiting to give presents, shake hands and pose for pictures. The couple thought "What the heck" and went to the middle of the crowd and started dancing for the beats of the "light" music troop that was playing.

Conflicting plans

They are old and worn out. They want to live their rest of their lives with their son, now that they feel that there is nothing in the world other than their son. The son's work involves travelling. And ...

What colour is the saree :)

Is there a way to find out the colour from black and white pictures?

Chocolate house

As a kid, he liked chocolates - like most kids. Not just "liked", but "adored", I must say. Each day, he would dream of a house of chocolates - chocolates hidden inside couches, beds, shelves and even in the bathrooms. Later on, in his life, he became a manager of a big chocolate company. He liked chocolates no more and did not want chocolates at home. But, he liked his job. :)

An advertisement and its consequence

He advertised in the paper "Wanted a beautiful bride, with long hair, willing to give up her job, if employed". So much for his meticulous search, he did manage to find a girl satisfying his advertisement. For rest of his life he had to deal with lice infection he got from his once beautiful wife; for, she had become one couch potato having no work to do.

What is this?

Guess

This is in my photo collection. Can you guess what this is?

Perseverance!

I collected some melon(cantalope) seeds; planted them in a pot and kept the pot in my balcony. That's all I did! The seeds found their way themselves.

Shopping bags

Biscuit packet covers, vegetable bags, juice and milk cartons, instruction packages - all of them go to trash once you open the supplies. My 20-gallons-trash-can gets filled up in just 2 days.

I wonder how much stuff (plastic bags, bottles, thermocole, paper, etc...) we waste owing to the extra careful packaging that we are used to.

I still prefer Indian style of getting vegetables: take your own bag to the vegetable shop, fill it with all the groceries that you need for a day or two. I saw this in Budapest, Hungary (when I visited last fall). I saw people carrying big jute bags for shopping.

Lost in translation

Situation: You are in a country where English is not a common language. Wendors Vendors, bus drivers, taxi drivers, teachers do not speak any language that you know. Most of the sign boards, grocery labels, newspapers are not in the language which you can read.

How will you communicate?

Solution, anybody?!

Situation: You have an officemate who wears a perfume that distracts you all the time. You have tried telling indirectly to that person in some conversation that some perfumes are distracting especially while at work. Condition more worse : if you have to work with that person most of the time.

What will you do?

Is this a mistake?

They had nothing to talk with each other. So much for marrying and to have gone for an honeymoon... So, she advised her younger sister to get to know her future husband before marrying.

Listen to me :)

Kavitha and her husband had visitors - about 10 relatives from her husband's side. She was looking forward for their visit all week long, sitting and planning on what to cook for them, arranging towels, setting up their bedding etc. When they arrived, she was excited to serve them her meals but was toungue-tied to talk - for all they talked was politics - national politics and familly politics, and she had not much inputs on them. She found that her young niece Sruthi was interested in music and was learning quite a few varnams. So, after tea, when everyone were up, she switched on her keyboard, switched on her sruthi box and started singing with Sruthi. Everyone were spell-bound by her voice and were talking about Kavitha's voice and music for the rest of the stay :)

Memorial for a child

Yesterday, we attended a memorial for a child and her grand-mother. Last year around this time, there was a gas leak in one of the university apartments that I stay. The whole apartment was ripped off, and so was the family that stayed in it. After a few days, on August 2nd, a young child in the family died after suffering from breathing toxic gasses just before the blast. After suffering with fire burns for one month , her grand-mother also passed away. The rest of the family (including the unborn sister of the child who died) survived.

The university did a lot of things to the apartments, like fixing gas monitors, changing stoves etc. since then, but the loss of the innocent people will not be forgotten.

It felt nice to hold a small candle in remembrance of the incident. Our university president presided over the function. All the child's friends - who had played with her had signed up cards for her. They are planning on building a butterfly park with flowering plants in memory of the child - a place where her friends can play in the future.

Stars

I wanted to be out during the night; but had the fear of the dark; until I looked up at the sky and tried to locate the constellations : Corona Borealis, Bootes, Cygnus, Lyra, Orion('s belt), to name a few. We moved to a place more dark to see the milky way, and located other constellations : Aquarius, Libra, Herculus, Leo, Ursa Major, Ursa Minor; admist lots of other stars - Twinkle, twinkle little stars that are million years old!.

My Teacher

He came to class on a Saraswati Pooja day ... and he knew that we all would have come to college just for attendence. Yes, it was a full house, with none of us even with a pen or a paper. He starts a conversation about Topological objects. This led some curious students to ponder deeply, thinking out loud; confusing him quite. Then he talked more and we pondered more; this time everyone. This repeated for quite some while ... and we returned home satisfied for not having wasted our day! The next day, we open our topology text and read the topological theories that we derived on our minds the previous day. WOW I will never ever forget that incident.

PS : Topology is a (Mathematical) subject that deals with sets.

Invitation for an arranged marriage

''You know, my daughter Jaya works for xyz company, in abc,US. There is a temple in her city and she visits it ever week without fail" said a mother, ''We got a marriage propasal for her from the boy's parents. He did his MS in the same university as Jaya and works in xyz in the same city where Jaya stays; the boy is interested in music, just like Rama. So, we thought 'why not?, we have to be a little outward'. We have fixed the marriage on ---, please do come with all the members of the family ". In abc, US, Jaya and Ranjan invite all their friends for their wedding in India - the friends who saw them going around for 3 years.

Who cleans your house?

Switch on any channel on a weekend. You see a lot of advertisements on cleaning. Woman moping the floor, scrubbing the tub, cleaning the dishes, arranging a cramped closet using 'save-space polithene bags'...advertising a wide range of products from vacuum cleaners, disinfectent to dish scrub! I do not know what the market technique is, but I take it that it is the 'lady' in most houses..."Mama's got the magic of Clorox bleach!" :)

Life is like a day

Fresh and light like the morning;
Heavy as the lunch;
Peaceful like the evening;
Dark as the night.

Busy during the day time;
Restful during the night time.

Is there a tommorow?

Marriage

She got married and left to stay with her husband's family in a far-off-land. She lived with his people in a city that her husband grew up. After some years, she visits her family back in her village...

Ending 1: only wishing if her husband had also come along.

Ending 2: not alone; but with her husband and kids.

Death

Some bid farewell, the rest stay for a while to tell the story.

Not the same!

The kid was good in science, botony in particular. It was an anatomy class. The kid drew a nice cross-section of human heart; with veins, articles and lobes shown with detail; not the same as his, for, his heart had an extra hole.

Be Careful!

A cell rings in the classroom. The teacher says "Please switch off your cell pho..." and there rings her cell phone.

Humorous reply

It's been quite a while that I am in a graduate program. So, I hardly attend any departmental tea, departmental seminars, etc.

But the other day, I wanted to remind myself of the people around me. So, I went to the graduate lounge and saw another graduate student who joined with me in the graduate program. It is hard for me to start a conversation, but he asks me "Hey, How are you?". For this I reply, "Hey, good, How are you?". I don't stop there, but go on ... "are you thinking about graduating (soon)?". He immediately goes : "hmmm, yeah I have been thinking about graduating, it feels good...it will be in a couple of years". WOW, how good I feel now :)