One more curtain raiser! Oh my god!

Most Gracious ILites,

The latest was LOVE ALL. Before that it was A LOVE STORY. Both the stories were on love. And before them were HE and SHE. Before them were THE HAUNTED HOUSE, THE BEAUTY AND THE BRAIN and THE PRICE. All the stories were about love.

‘Oh, Varalotti knows nothing but love’ complained a young ILite in a private message addressed to me. That of course did not look like a complaint to me. It sounded like a compliment, not just a routine compliment but one of the highest order.

Only God, the Azhwars, the Nayanmars and saints like Shankara and Ramanuja deserve that kind of a compliment; not a middle-aged part-time writer sitting in a mofussil town engaged in one of the world’s most materialistic professions. Not in the least.

But I have decided to listen to that young thing. So this time I am removing love…

‘Are you crazy, Varalotti? Is it possible? What the hell are you doing?’

I hear your screams.

Wait.. wait. I am not removing love from the subject of the story. I am just removing it from the title of the serial(?). When love is removed from the title what else can fill its place?

There is only one synonym for love. Or at least this mofussil accountant in the wrong side of fifties knows but one synonym for love. And that is ….

You are perfectly right. The G word. God. God Herself. Nobody else and nothing else can fill up the place of love.

I am going to call my next serial OH MY GOD! OMG for short. I told about this title to my dear wife.

“When something falls on my leg I scream in pain, ‘OH MY GOD!’ When I have to go somewhere in a hurry and my Scooty Pep Plus does not start I yell, OH MY GOD!

"Come on Sridhar, you can surely think of a better title for your project.”

I was lost in thought. I did not want to give a knee-jerk response to my life-partner’s well-founded fears. Only later in the afternoon it did strike me.

Let’s say your DH who has been slogging as the General Manager of a company has been made its Managing Director. And he calls you to convey the happy news.

Won’t you yell over the phone, “OH MY GOD, I can’t believe that.” And some ladies genuinely do not believe that their DHs can make that big. (Now that’s a different story. Definitely not the one to be discussed in this forum.)

Or your daughter comes home, hugs you tight and says, “Ma, I have got 1166 out of 1200 in my Plus Two examinations. I am the First in the whole State, Ma.”

Won’t you exclaim “OH MY GOD” unless of course you are a hardened, hard-core atheist and agnostic?

Like love we pull in God when we are happy and when we are sad. And this project is all about God, when She manifests Herself in the form of true love, in the form of a noble human being and in the form of a benevolent universal trouble shooter.

 

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Part 2!​

Now the format. It is not a serial like A LOVE STORY or LOVE ALL. It is going to be a series. I am sure you ladies know the difference between a serial and a series. Arasi, Kolangal, Kalasam, Mahabharat and saas bhi… are all serials.

The same story moves ahead (at least it is supposed to) in every episode and normally you can’t see a subsequent episode without seeing a prior episode. For instance you could not have appreciated LOVE ALL 14 unless you had read LOVE ALL 13. Because that’s a serial.

CSI (Crime Scene Investigation), Friends, Simpsons, Tom and Jerry.. these are all series. In every episode there will be a different story with a few common characters.

In Tom and Jerry, those two characters – the cat and mouse – will always be there in every episode. The other characters would change. That’s a series. You can read/watch any episode without bothering about the prior episodes.

A serial is like the palatial Bungalow of Sharuk Khan which has more than 25 bed rooms and a host of other rooms. But the entire structure is one housing unit.

A series is like an apartment complex housed in an area as large as the ground area of SRK’s house. The Apartment Complex will have 20 two-bed room flats, each one of them an independent dwelling unit. That is a series.

So OMG is going to be a series. Who will be the common character? Who else but God Herself? What else but LOVE itself?

The inspiration for this series came from… hold your breath ladies…none other than our dear KG. While writing LOVE ALL I had to, on behalf of KG, scout far and wide for a touching religious, love story to write every week for the Religious Forum of WomenWorldWide.com.

Over a period of time KG became much more popular than Varalotti, so much so, that at the end I had no choice other than to make him the hero of the serial.

And you all know that WomenWorldWide.com was restored to its former splendour and Arvind continued to write for the site as KG. I am going to post the stories written by KG in this series.

LOVE ALL and A LOVE STORY are my original creations. But OMG is original only to the extent of the language I will be using to dress the story in. The stories are taken from the life histories of great saints, noble souls, of those whose love was matchless.

Having come to know a lot of them, I am sure they will make you cry. But once again you will be shedding tears of love and joy and not of grief and sorrow. Apart from the stories I have collected I may also post a few stories of mine which have been published.

When I say that the stories are not my creations it does not mean that they are all Forwarded Stories or stories from the Chicken Soup series. These stories exist in the divine literature of the world, mostly <st1:country-region><st1lace>India</st1lace></st1:country-region>, and that too South <st1:country-region><st1lace>India</st1lace></st1:country-region>.

They have not been brought out in plain English so far. At least as far as I know. They are not forwarded mails for sure; but these stories are of such a nature that one day or other they will become forwarded mails themselves.

If LOVE ALL talked about intense love OMG will talk about the most intense form of love, a love that is possible only between Her and us, a love that is possible only between soul-mates, a love that is possible only with the One who is the very substance our souls are made of.

 

Part 3!

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Hitherto all my works in IL were made available to you free of cost. But I cannot afford to do it now. There is going to be a price. But before telling the price let me tell you what’s happening in my life at this moment.

I was such a hardened sinner that God did not send an Acharya my way till I was 50. And then he came in. He walked into my life like a breeze. A person who has done a Doctoral Research on one of the key commentators of Divya Prabandham, he is a soft-spoken man whose mind is filled with love for God and for his students like me.

I approached him to express my life-time longing to learn the secret meanings behind Nammazhwar’s composition, Thiruvaimozhi.

“That’s like doing a post doctoral research, Sridhar. And you can’t do it straightaway. I want you to start properly from the nursery classes.

"I will teach you some other compositions of Azhwars and if at the end, if you still persist on learning Nammazhwar, then let’s think about it.”

The classes have been going on steadily from July 2008. Three times a week.

On 9^th March he declared, “Now I see that you still have interest in Nammazhwar. We will start with the explanation of Ashtaksharam and then start Thiruvaimozhi in all earnestness. We will start Asthaksharam this Saturday, 14^th March.”

And we were off to a pious start on the appointed day. Now the whole exercise from now on will take about 8 to 10 years. And if it has to reach its successful culmination both the Teacher and the Student should be blessed with good health and long life.

There are so many ifs and buts, so many variables that can crop up during these 8 to 10 years and so many uncertainties. But we two have ventured into the journey having nothing else to hold but Her loving hand. When She can manifest as the DGP and rescue Yamini from the clutches of the villains, will She not be there to make sure that I learn what has been told about Her own DH?

And now let’s talk about the price you will have to pay for reading OMG. Please pray for me and my teacher. Please tell the Lord that this enterprise should go on without any hurdles or hassles.

I will be posting a story every Friday evening. As soon as you finish reading it, just when your eyes are full with tears and your heart full with love, please pray to Her that my learning should go on unhindered. That and that alone is the price I demand of you.

In return I promise to bring to every one of you the benefits of my learning to the best of my powers of expression. I would rather love to take each one of you to my Teacher’s feet and make you listen to him.

But nasty logistics comes in the way. We have to settle for a poor substitute this time - Varalotti acting as the go-between.

Arvind, who had earlier donned the role of KG, demanded his in-laws as his dowry. Well, your Varalotti is not as selfless as that. He is extracting a hard price, a precious price - your prayers for the enterprise which I have just commenced. And it is demanded in the name of love.

I am going to post a story every Friday evening around Six. May be a bit early to help those who want to read it in their office itself. Use the week-end that follows to mull over the story, mull over the characters, the words and the expressions.

Every week something will change. Some old problem will go away. Some pain will vanish. Some good will happen. Some new happiness will come in. Somebody around you will understand you better and love you more. But more importantly you will love those around you in a much better way.

For it is told in the great scriptures that those who listen to stories of His Love will always be happy and fulfilled.

With the confidence gained by watching you handle my previous children, I have absolutely no fears in letting this child on your lap. The child is yours. Bless the child, tell her how she should behave, smile, make faces at her, scold her, beat her (but do it gently), but please do not neglect her.

She is even more sensitive than her elder sisters. She will wither faster than her sisters if she does not receive your love. Love in the form of your fb.

And don’t forget the price. I can’t even afford to sell the goods on credit. Advance payment is even more welcome.

May SHE Bless You All.

With Loads Of Love,

 

My Dear Ladies,

You will be surprised by this blank space being reserved by me in the same way we people in Madurai reserve our seats in the mofussil bus - by throwing a towel or kerchief on the seat. Some 'advanced' cases (oh, not me, dears) place their slippers on the bus seat to show that the seats have been taken.

In my case I wanted to make a happy announcement and I want the announcement to closely follow Oh My God! Hence the reservation.

And now the happy news. My first book in English entitled A LOVE STORY - A NOVEL is out. Well I got the advance copies more than a month ago. But the distribution of books to various stores across the country took its own time.

When I learnt that my books have reached the distributors at Chennai I gently reminded my dear friend Mr.Kuppuram who runs a bookshop in the heart of our town. The book-shop is aptly named Turning Point. Out of his love and affection for me, he ordered 50 copies of my book and was kind enough to stack my books throughout his shop.

We had a mini book-release function today. My Big Boss (read my DW) released the book. One ILite flew down from Frankfurt, Germany to receive the first copy. You are right. Sudha (sudhavnarasimhan) was here to receive the first copy.

As you A LOVE STORY came as a serial in IL and I was simply overwhelmed by the response you people gave me. In fact that gave me the courage to go ahead with the publicationn of the book.

And the beauty is that I have been receiving rave reviews about the book. We had a formal review meeting in Madurai about ten days ago. An Anglo-Indian Professor of English reviewed the book. She was almost in tears describing the various incidents in the book.

As of now the book is available in Chennai in the following address:
[FONT=&quot]Jaico Book Distributor[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]No 48 (Old No 73), Arya Gowder Rd., [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]West Mambalan[/FONT][FONT=&quot], Chennai – 600033[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Tel: 2480 3091 / 92 / 93[/FONT]

It will be available in other towns in a few days. We are trying to list the book in Amazon.com and some Indian website as well so that you can buy for Indian currency.

The books are availabe in Bombay with the publisher himself
Frog Books
Leadstart Publishing Pvt Ltd,
Regus Business Centre
Level 1, Trade Centre
Bandra Kurla Complex
Bandra (East), Mumbai – 400 051 India
Telefax : +91-022 -24036439
URL: www.frogbooks.net

In Madurai the books are available at Turning Point, Townhall Road, Madurai.

The book is priced Rs. 250 per copy.

I am posting the cover of the book here.

As Kashvya beautifully put it in another thread, IL is my alter-home. Whenever my books are published I always tell IL. And I for one strongly believe that my books are being published because of the prayers and blessings of nearly 40000 ladies spread throughout the world.

I seek your good wishes and kind blessings.

love,
sridhar

 

Yes, it was a mini-ILites meet too. Indhu and I went to pick up Sudha around 7 in the evening. We then drove to the bookshop gossiping about IL and ILites all the way.

The first ever bill in Madurai was made in the name of Mrs. Sudha Vijayaraghavan which the Book-shop owner gave to Sudha along with a copy of the book.

Picture : Books on Display

 

Here's the picture of my boss releasing the book. Sudha is receiving the first copy.

 

Picture 1: The Book

Picture 2: The Author, his boss and his work

 

Dear bas,

I am very, very happy. In fact as happy as the trader to whom his customer pays the money first and then waits for the delivery of goods.

Thanks for paying the price and the nice fb as well.

And madam about the other reserved postings..well as you know logistics is a problem. Don't worry. By 9 pm or at the latest by 10 pm today it will all be filled up.

love,
Boost