Ramanujan and Chola Temples

I fulfilled one of my long-held dreams last week when I visited the home of the great mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan in the town of Kumbakonam. I am a huge admirer of Ramaujan. Visiting his home.. Look through the window besides which he did much of the work on his first notebook.... I was overcome with emotion. 

I had watched the movie 'The man who knew Infinity' and I hated it; it portrays him as a weak and a troubled soul, perhaps because the lead actor specialized in those expressions.  

Most people think of Ramanjuan as this old-time mathematician. On the contrary - Ramanujan's work is a hot topic in current research. His papers have been cited more times in the past decade than ever before ! Infact, his papers have been cited 379 times just in 2019...i.e.99 years after his death !!! I can ramble on and on about Ramanujan...One of my greatest inspirations...

• Along with Kumbakonam, we also visited the beautiful temple towns of Chidambaram and Thanjavur .. the truly magnificient Chola temples built during the times of Raja Raja Chola . The Brihadeshwara , Airateshwar temples. I dont what know what it was this time round - but I couldn't help but wonder what is must have been like 1000 years ago when these incredibly beautiful temples had been newly constructed...And as we were driving, we were listening to this eminent doctor, who's coined this funny acronym - RNI - Resident Non-Indian. By RNI, he was referring to someone who lives in India, but no longer thinks like an Indian :) Maybe it was a mix of the Chola temples, Ramanujan and the doctor - but I feel like I want to learn more about India... 
• My latest phase is one of decluttering . eliminating things I dont need. I always thought I didn't have the habit of hoarding things.. Afterall, we've moved so many times, that we always threw away tons of things during each transition. But I discovered, I hoard atleast 3 kinds of things 

1) Books - that I dont even have the intention of reading in near future, but which I felt were 'too good' to dispose. I donated some of these books to a nearby library, where hopefully they'll find some readers

2)Print-outs - I have this habit of taking a print-out when I want to read any useful article/doc which exceed 5 pages - I found hundreds of pages of printouts . I threw away most of them 

3) Wires - I have't thrown them away yet :) 

But getting deeper into this idea of decluttering, I was looking at what some really productive and sane people say no to, and I found a really nice list, and a bunch of frameworks, which resonated with me.  When you remove things that no longer serve you, you make space for better things to fill up the space.. and time.. I have experimented with numerous things over the last 2 decades ( I never seem to  run out of things to fix in myself;) , but I can say with complete conviction, that there's no better way to start changing one's life than to first decide what to say No to.