Every time you write abt sujatha, I feel like I might have missed the best of this tamil versatile writer of my time. I have read his popular short story like bali, idathu orathil?? and a few others.

That said could you suggest his best stories/columns and if I can get these as a collection. I ma leaving for india soon and I plan to keep my eyes open to find sujatha’s books.

TIA

Excellent post!!

Latha,

kaeLvigaLai nee kaetkiraaya alladhu naan kaetkattuma?

One of the important things that happens in old age is memory loss. Although not entirely preventable, some of the more debilitating versions of it (like Alzheimers) can be either avoided or postponed. What did our elders do? They did not know science not did they need explanations with proof or have to check CNN.com for any health reports vetted by the specialists

They followed a lifestyle that first of all was simple, avoiding most stresses and “being regular” in their daily routine. One of the daily routines was “chanting”. They used to chant some Samskrit mantra or thamizh paa(suram) by rote. It was not necessary to know the meaning because for one thing when you know the meaning, you can appreciate something but again a part of your brain is diverted to that aspect whereas simple repeating by rote by itself was “jogging the memory cells” which they were not aware of, but still practised.

They say “if you don’t use it, you lose it”. Our enn kanitham was also based on this idea of using our known “ALU” (like in a CPU ). If our forefathers did not do math in their head (they could have used an abacus even if they did not have a calculator), they would have again not been using that part of their brain, but use they did. And now we have a whole generation that grows up with these aids (and of course AIDS ).

Coming to my point of use vs. lose just as muscles and other organs are made active by exercise and physical jogging, saying a stotra is a mental chanting. Doing this regularly kept their brains active and in a position to remember other things. Short term memory loss happens to people in all age-groups but the young just do not think about it or worry about it. Vallaarai keerai was also a good panacea for supplying oxygen to the brain cells so that they would always be rejuvenated. Shirsasana and Sarvangasana combined with Kapalabhati also kept the blood flowing to these areas which otherwise do not have the advantage of gravity to direct the blood to them.

So, there is no point in worrying now that these things will affect us when we are at that age. Actually this should make us think about what we are not doing in our daily life now to prevent or delay the onset of some of these geriatric problems.