By N.K.A. Ballal, Retd. Sr. Vice-President, ITDC [Continued from Jan. 11] The second festival which we had the privilege to watch during our brief stay in the US was ‘The Thanksgiving’ similar to our Pongal or Sankranti. It is celebrated on the 4th Thursday in the month of November. In 1863, in the midst of…

By N.K.A. Ballal, Retd. Sr. Vice-President, ITDC [Continued from Jan. 4] I was always under a wrong impression that we Indians believed in bhootha, pretha, superstitions, ghosts etc., but I was in for a surprise on this US visit.  Westerners too believe on all the above as much as we do and the only difference…

By N.K.A. Ballal, Retd. Sr. Vice-President, ITDC [Continued from Dec. 28] I travelled about 2,500 miles by road across the US. No humps and unbelievable, only one pothole, and that too in a car park. I was curious to know as to how these roads are maintained so well in spite of such a heavy…

By N.K.A. Ballal, Retd. Sr. Vice-President, ITDC [Continued from Dec. 21] Once I met a doctor at a social gathering and asked him the reason for this over reaction and frightening of the patients. What he told me was amazing. If a patient is told of 10 complications and if by chance he or she gets…

By N.K.A. Ballal, Retd. Sr. Vice-President, ITDC It is exactly five months now. The time I have put pen on paper, literally. Tried it in the US where I had gone for a holiday but failed miserably. There is a folk story of Vikramaditya’s  throne which reads like this: A  simple and illiterate cowherd saw…