Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Witness “The Rare Lunar Eclipse - Super Blue Blood Moon” Today!

A rare celestial phenomenon will occur today as blue moon, super moon and blood moon coincide on a total lunar eclipse day, also called "Chandra Grahanam". Today will be the first lunar eclipse of the year and will be second full moon in the month. This is called "Blue Moon". In addition, the moon will appear crimson in colour. During total lunar eclipse, when the moon gets shadowed by earth, the sunlight passes through the earth's atmosphere and breaks down. The red part of the sunlight gets least refracted, giving moon the tinge of orangish-red. This is called "Blood Moon". Further, when the eclipse happens, the moon will be close to earth by 60,000 km against the average distance between the moon and the earth. It will appear brighter and bigger. This is called "supermoon". The rare spectacle today has been coined as "Super Blue Blood Moon" by NASA, as "Supermoon", "Blood Moon" and "Blue Moon" will coincide on a total lunar eclipse day. This phenomenon will be visible in large parts of the world; that is in USA, Europe, Russia, Asia, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific, and Australia. The rare lunar eclipse will appear for the first time in over 150 years.
In our country (India), the eclipse will commence at 5.18 pm. The duration of the total lunar eclipse will be 76 minutes and it would start at 6.21 pm today and will be visible till 7.37 pm. The partial eclipse will end at 8:41 pm. The duration of the total eclipse will be 1 hour 16 minutes.
Don't forget to witness the rare "Super Blue Blood Moon" today!

Friday, January 26, 2018

Coming face to face with a lookalike.

This is an article by my wife which she wrote after sighting a ‘portrait – drawing’ at an Art Gallery, I found it interesting and I am posting it here for my blog, twitter and facebook friends:
Coming face to face with a lookalike brings about astonishment and smiles…it happened to me twice. The first time was years ago at a wedding. I was at the wedding from the bride’s side and this lookalike was the groom’s elder sister. My relatives were surprised to see this lookalike and pointed out to me. I was astonished and smiled at this similarity. It is not that she resembled me entirely, she was a little elder to me, stout and a little taller, but when it comes to our faces I must say she resembled me by about 75 percent. Anyone who has not seen me for long would mistake her for me.
This lookalike feature was the talk of the wedding among relatives from both sides and I had a cheerful conversation with her. This glaring similarity was noticed by many as both of us were playing a major role in the wedding ceremonies, she as the groom’s sister and me as a close relative of the bride who was responsible for this wedding, at the request of the bride, against the interest of elders in both families.
This is when the talk of similar looking people came up and the belief in several communities and countries of the world; that there are 7 people who more or less look like us somewhere in the world.
I met this lady once again at a function at her brother’s house a few years later and she looked different. We have both aged by then and she a little faster.
And this happened once again recently at an Art Gallery. It was not a person but a sketch. From a distance I and my husband were astonished to see this portrait, a sketch which resembled me, even my spectacles! A closer view showed only about 40 percent resemblance (you can see this portrait at the top of this article). Curious to know whose portrait it is, we got in touch with the painter and he told us that he made few such portraits casually to showcase his art for making portraits of those interested. He tried to sell it to me but I declined. I would have bought it if it looked much closer to me.
Now I have the option of getting my portrait sketched or painted by this artist, but that would not be thrilling, like seeing another person who looks like me.
- N. Lalitha Raghu.

Thursday, January 25, 2018

Happy Republic Day!


HAPPY REPUBLIC DAY!
Our celebration commenced,
A few hours ahead!
As this colorful cake,
Took the center stage,
In our house,
Attracting everyone’s attention,
And there was a discussion,
To decide,
Whether to have the cake,
Today or tomorrow,
And without my telling you,
You know what has happened!

A Statistical and Pictorial Summary of My 1200 Blog Posts!

I am happy to announce that I have just completed posting 'My 1200th article'  to my blog – Raghu’s column! After I posted my first article to this blog site on 20th April 2009, I sent an email to my family, friends and relatives as follows: “Hi! Everyone, I have just started blogging under the title: ‘Raghu’s column!’ I strongly wish and hope I would find time to contribute regularly to this column on wide ranging topics: My views, memoirs, parties, forthcoming events, local issues / news, family announcements and many more topics. Please visit http://srisrilara.blogspot.in/ from time to time, please read my articles and post your comment for me and other’s to benefit”.
At the time when I began blogging, I never thought I would reach a figure of 1200 blog posts. As events came up and ideas, thoughts and memories sprang to my mind I kept writing as and when possible and in these 8 years and 9 months (3202 days), I have posted 1200 articles with well over 12,000 photographs. To see some of these photographs you may click on the following link and scroll down for more:
My youngest son and a nephew with his family who are abroad and similarly a number of my friends, relatives and ex-colleagues who are all far away are very happy to read my posts on current events of Hyderabad and those concerning me and our family. And the blog is serving as a ready reckoner for me, our family and friends over various subjects related to us and I presume it is helping a large number of other visitors reaching my blog in search of information.
I wish to continue blogging as long as possible, as I am thoroughly enjoying this hobby.
With a modest number of registered followers but a very large number of unregistered regular followers and hundreds of random visitors to my blog there have been 1,594,271 pageviews so far, from every nook and corner of the world, as you can see in the blogger statistics I have provided below. Actual pageviews are more than double of 1,594,271…that means well over 3.5 million pageviews! because many computers these days have complex firewall protection which do not allow Blogger to register their pageviews.
Here are pictorial glimpses of my blog statistics and my 1200-blog posts: 























Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Pilgrimage to the hometowns of our ancestors.



This is my blog post No.1200! As I am reaching this milestone of 1200 I have an elated feeling as in cricket; of scoring my 12th century! I wanted my 1200th article to be something special and very closely related to me. I had to do a great deal of thinking to arrive at a topic. And I finally decided that I must write on our unforgettable expedition that occurred less than a month ago, on 30th December 2017.
This event was a much desired but long delayed first time visit to the hometowns of our ancestors, hometown of my ancestors and that of my wife. It was a very thrilling and happy journey which I consider as a memorable pilgrimage. This article is about that journey and those towns.
It is the names of these hometowns that have become our new and current surnames after our ancestors migrated to the twin cities of Secunderabad and Hyderabad. And this was the case with most families in our community who migrated to the twin cities many years ago. Their original surnames got changed to the names of villages and towns from which they migrated to the city.
As some of you are aware my surname is Narayanaraopeta. It is the name of a village in Siddipet Mandal of Siddipet District from where my father’s maternal great-grandfather partially migrated to Secunderabad in the year 1868, holding the property in Narayanaraopeta intact. The family’s original surname was Nallanagula but as they migrated to the city from Narayanaraopeta, local residents of Secunderabad referred to them as people from Narayanaraopeta and this eventually became their surname. According to recorded history of our family my father’s maternal family is associated with Narayanaraopeta since a very long period. My father’s maternal great-grandfather (1824-1905) was born in this village and may be his forefathers too. He migrated to Secunderabad with his son that is my father’s maternal grandfather (1855-1900), as I mentioned earlier; in the year 1868. So is the case with my wife, her maiden surname is Dubbaka. Originally her ancestors surname was Maroju, but as they migrated to Hyderabad from Dubbaka their surname became Dubbaka. 
I and my wife set out from our house in Secunderabad on 30th December 2017 at 7 am to visit Narayanaraopeta and Dubbaka. We first went to Narayanaraopeta which is 14 kms from Siddipet Town and exactly 118 kms from our house in Secunderabad. We spent some time observing and driving through two lanes of the village. I learnt that even today it is a small village spread over 2500 hectares, with about 1500 houses and a population of 7200. We shot a short film of the village as we moved around. We were tempted to take photographs as mementos standing at the village Grama Panchayat Office but with so many inquisitive local people staring at us and our 7-Seater Tata Hexa SUV we were shy of making a scene with our cameras and moved ahead. We stopped for a moment at a sort of Swachh Bharat signboard displaying the name Narayanaraopeta and took few photographs there.
From there we went to Dubbaka the hometown of my wife’s ancestors, a distance of 22 kms from Narayanaraopeta. Dubbaka is a large town and Mandal Head Quarters in Siddipet District. Dubbaka Mandal is spread over 41 villages and 32 Panchayats with 14,500 houses and a population of 71,000 people. We drove through few main streets, stopped at few places to have a closer look and started back to our house in Secunderabad. And we reached home by 4 pm. The entire journey of 268 kms was thrilling. We enjoyed our breakfast and lunch while travelling to these two places. We got to see a number of villages along the route and the life in these villages. Names of some of the villages we came across are familiar to us as our relatives and acquaintances in our city have these names as their surnames.
Having made this interesting and memorable journey to the lands of our ancestors within 9 hours, I remained wondering why I could not make this journey much earlier.
Coming back to another twist in my surname, I have the following to narrate. I have mentioned earlier that my father’s maternal grandfather and great-grandfather were from Narayanaraopeta and that became their surname as they shifted to Secunderabad. But my paternal grandfather’s original surname was Sriramoju, which actually should have become our surname. My paternal grandfather (1882-1940), his father (1824-1899) and his grandfather (1790-1824) are from a village called Singaram in Karimnagar District.  My paternal grandfather was sent by his parents from Singaram to the Narayanaraopeta family in Secunderabad in the year 1895; when he was 13 years old to learn from them our family profession of making gold jewellery. Two years later, in 1897 he got married into their family. And as the sole young male member of their family he inherited their family surname and the modest property owned by them in Secunderabad and Narayanaraopeta.
After my grandfather’s death in 1940, the property in Narayanaraopeta was sold away in 1953 by my uncles. After that no one from our family circle has visited Narayanaraopeta. And now, after a long gap of 64 years it became possible for me to pay homage to my ancestors in their native place, Narayanaraopeta, on 30th December 2017. I am feeling very happy to have made this pilgrimage and I am sure my ancestors watching me and blessing me constantly from heaven are also happy…that I remember them fondly and I have visited their native place with great interest and respect.

 
 
 
 
 
 

Friday, January 19, 2018

Invitation to a lovely warm holiday.


My dear friend,
I pity your situation…
Living in such extreme cold,
Covered in snow,
Surrounded by snow,
And worst,
Your eyelashes covered in frost!
I wouldn’t survive a minute,
In your situation,
Wish I could export;
To your dwelling,
A little of our warm weather,
And ample sunshine.
This would be delicious to you,
And very pleasing to me,
But that is a weird wish,
That would never be fulfilled,
Until scientists invent,
A remedy to your situation.
Earnestly I can only extend,
An invitation,
To you and your family,
To come to Srilekha,
That is our house,
For a warm, comfy,
And a happy vacation,
With our lovely family,
This winter,
And every winter,
Like the migratory birds,
From your country.
Taking very good care of you,
At our house Srilekha,
And in my country; India,
Would be my pleasure,
But, my apologies,
Travel would be at your expense.

Monday, January 15, 2018

Sankranti Festival 2018 - Greetings.

Today is Sankranti festival. On this happy occasion wish you and your family happiness, prosperity, good health, success and peace. Sankranti is celebrated all over India and even in other South Asian countries, with some regional variations. It is celebrated as Sankranti, Makara Sankranti or Makar Sankranti in Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka and Maharashtra. The festival is celebrated as Lohri in Himachal Pradesh and Punjab, as Pongal in Tamil Nadu and as Uttarayan in Gujarat and Rajasthan. In Nepal it is celebrated as Maghi or Maghe Sankranti or Maghe Sakrati. And in Myanmar it is Thingyan, in Laos it is Pi Ma Lao and in Thailand it is Songkran.
Sankranti festival falls on the day when the Sun begins its northward journey and enters the sign of Makara (Capricorn) from the Tropic of Cancer. In local interpretation it means the Sun has commenced to move from Dakshinayana (South) to Uttarayana (North). Every year this event falls on the 14th of January, according to the Solar Calendar, but every fourth year it falls on 15th January. Today onwards the harshness of winter would reduce and the days would get longer. Symbolically, the Sun gradually removes darkness and ushers in the light of knowledge and wisdom.
Though the reasons for the celebration of this festival are plenty, the most important is - it is celebrated as a harvest festival. It is celebrated with a lot of pomp and show with colorful dresses, colorful Muggulu (Rangoli), colorful Kites, Bhogi Pandlu, well decorated houses, lots of entertainment and a variety of food over the three day festival. It is a festival to express gratitude to God for a good harvest and all the material possessions and it is also time for communal camaraderie, thanksgiving and exchange of greetings. So once again wish you all a very Happy Sankranti / Pongal / Makar Sankranti / Uttarayan / Lohri!!!
Here are some pictures of this year’s Sankranti festival, which I am happy to share:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

An appeal as Lok Sabha Elections 2024 schedule is out!

  I n the midst of Lok Sabha's grand affair, With schedules laid out, we're now aware. Excitement brews within my kin and me, To cho...