Thoughts on my birthday

I share my Birthday with Al Gore and today Theresa Schiavo passed away in her hospice in Florida. Terribly sorry for her friends and family.

I have been thinking of all my birthdays spent till now. I remember when I was in school, my birthday planning use to start a month ago, going to the cloth shop to select a shirt piece and pant piece. Then going to the tailor on my fathers bicycle. The Tailors shop used to be in small lane which used to reek of urine. I could still smell the paan in Mastan's mouth as he used to talk to me taking the measurement of my waist.

On my Birthday, My mum would wake me up a little early, and would give me a good scrub with soap nuts. I would wear my loosely fitting pant and shirt, "Mastan, make the pant and shirt little long, the boy is growing", my father would say to the tailor sitting outside the tailor shop reading a newspaper without even looking up.

My mum would make me sit before the Gods and my father would pray for me. I father would apply holy sandal paste on to my forehead. My mother would pack me a couple of kilos of candy to distribute to my friends in school. On your birthday you are allowed to were 'colour dress' no more drab white and blue colour uniform.

As I would stand in my bus stop, everyone would recognize that today is my birthday. The sabzi wala and the lady who sells cigarettes by the roadside would come and wish me. The feeling was elated, I would feel as if I were on the top of this world. The school day would pass through like a breeze. Everyone is nice to you. Teachers would not make you stand outside the sun for giggling at the back of the class room. Girls would smile at you and come and talk to you, even may be for those candy in you extra long pants' pockets.When I come home, mum would have made my favorite rice pudding and fried onions in batter.

I got an auto email from some website wishing me happy birthday. "Congratulations on your Birthday ...", it said. Congratulations for what? for not killing myself? or for not killing someone else? That made me ponder, what did I achieve? I have been thinking for a while and there is nothing I could recount.

I am reproducing one of favourite poems for your reading pleasure.

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
Robert Frost.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it's queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep

Thank you everyone who has been nice to me and read my blog. Please do keep dropping in.

Our environment...Poor environment

BBC is running an article which says that humans are interfering destructively with the only piece of real estate we can live on. We have no concept tomorrow, we never had. The Easter island civilization was at its best a thousand years ago and then it mysteriously disappeared. The reason archaeologists found out that, they didn't conserve their environment but they exploited it. That led to the resources being scarce and they couldn't evolve fast enough and they died out. We are all going to Easter Islanders soon. What we are doing is really unfortunate and the later generations, if they ever live will blame us.

Canadian Government has allowed the annual BABY seal hunt. That is hunters walk around the ice with CLUBS and club the baby seals to death. No I am not kidding, wish I was. This is the most disgusting thing I have heard. Would you club a puppy? Would you club a puppy?


Is this a hunt? I am sick of this now...

Please go to this website and join the campaign against the seal hunt.

US doesn't want to sign Kyoto protocol because the coal industry wouldn't be profitable. We humans are so sleazy and selfish that what we care is about the wad of dollars in our pockets but not what we are doing to our environment.

Easter Island civilization and Inca happened in the relative history, when will we open our eyes and make an effort? When its too late? When there is nothing left to be done? I am truly sick now, we collectively are going to Hell in a hand basket.

Absolute Truth?

US state department slams India on its dismal rights record says the headline in Rediff and the main concern is the History text books in Gujarat, read on. I agree that we have to do a lot in addressing the rights concerns. But, kettle calling the pot black? Who are you to slam us? Have you checked what's happening in your backyard, just switch on the TV or open the window for a second? Are human rights a western concept?

Does that mean Indian civilization which hasn't been in touch with west for more than 16 centuries didn't have any rights at all? Does that mean the west which didn't have voting rights for women and blacks till 1940s are the beacons for human rights? Does that mean the ancient civilizations who had women ruling them for ages are in the dark muddy swamps? What riles me up is this idea of human rights as a western thought and concept.

Excuse me, isn't this a racist thought?

Anyway I digress, what I was going to talk about was, the main concern of State Department was not the spate of Rapes or the state of Hindu pundits in Kashmir or the fate of Tribals but the Text books in Gujarat. Yes Madam, we want the Chapter 4 of Social sciences of grade 8 to be changed. It states the Mohd Gazni attacked India and plundered the temples 19 times. We want that to be changed, he was just a tourist and he borrowed some money from the temple when he ran out of money to catch the boat back to the desert hole he came from.

Who owns Absosolute Truth? The communists who wrote the history at the beginning? Where they went out of the way to shield all the dirty truths about our history just to sensible to all the minorities and special interest groups. Now the right comes into power and changes the text books and writes what they consider as history. So who should we believe? Is Gazni a plunderer or a just a Camera toting tourist visiting Somnath Temple?

Shouldn't be the State Department be concerned more about the Nuclear Proliferation rather than what grade 6 students in Gujarat are taught? That's what we think, but the people standing on the 'Moral Hill' has to pass a judgment on each and everyone. All they don't know is these Moral Hills have this unfailing tendency to collapse without a warning, watchout guys...

Health education in India

How much of importance do we give to get general population educated on their health? Is government of India at all interested in teaching the general populace? Why aren't we getting educated on the weight management? Why aren't we made aware about the healthy eating? India is one of the countries with the largest number of heart patients in the world. Heart Attack is so prevalent in India that I bet everyone in India has been touched by it. If it such a problem, why isn't there a concerted effort to educate the larger populace?

The reason, as one of my friends expressed is in India, Health care is a business, and not a government responsibility. The government is not bothered at all. Pathetic, I would say. But, to give the governmnet credit where is it due, when I was growing up, the message on the TV and movies was 'smoking is bad and one shouldn't smoke'. I am not sure how much governed was behind this anti smoking campaign, but it was done. There is some effort to give some AIDS education on TV and movies, which is laudable.

TV is such a persuasive medium, just slip minute long lessons into these popular soap operas on how to cook healthy food. How eating Ghee soaked Parathas daily is not a good idea and eating your vegetables is important. What's so difficult about this? The ladies of the families see this and cook healthy food and the whole family health improves.

Are we taught healthy living in school? No, I don't remember anything. I was taught SUPW (socially useful productive work) I don't even remember what crap was that. I think its the communist ideology creeping into the schools. We could have been taught about cholesterol, varieties of it, heart attack etc. One child educated would go back and motivate his whole family. Why aren't we doing this?

These two media of TVs and Schools are very doable but why aren't we doing it? 'Cause we don't care, a few lives lost to Heart attack doesn't really matter as we have a Billion of them!

Where do I stand?

I was having a discussion with my friends on the new patent law passed by the Indian parliament last night and strangely I was defending it. When I started arguing, I was against it and then somehow I saw it made sense.

If India wants to have any thing to do with WTO, we have to follow the rules. No matter how important cheap generic life saving drugs are to the world, we should respect the intellectual property rights of the people who made them. Well, I digress. What I was thinking before I started to right this blog was where do I stand in the political spectrum?

Am I a leftist flaming heart liberal liberal? No, I hate unions and I believe in capitalism.
Am I am a right wing nut? No, I hate religion and I hate corporations.
Am I am a centrist? No, I so opinionated to be playing in the center.

What am I then? No Idea, I keep changing my position depending on the issue. If I ever run for presidency I will sure be greeted with flip-flops. People like predictability, They would like to know where you stand, so that they react ironically 'predictably'.

On a personal note, I have started writing a column in CUE magazine, a local Calgary magazine. Do read it here.

Is there an end to this hypocrisy?

Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | U.S. to Sell Jets to Pakistan; India Upset

If any one needs more proof that USA is governed by the military industrial complex, read no further, pack your boxes and moveout. Such blatant and in the face hypocrisy.

They keep on reiterating how fragile the atmosphere is in the Indian sub continent. Dr.Rice Visited both these countries and we served her chai and rolled and purred before her. What did she do, she promised us that she wouldn't upset the balance, goes home showers and sells 16 F-16s to Pakistan, which are by the way Nuclear capable.

Where is all the mock upset and mock anger on A.Q.Khan, the nuclear terrorist, who sold the secrets to the other two members of 'Axis of Evil'? Gone in a puff of mock benevolence? Has rationality and logic such hard to find qualities in the worlds most powerful nation? Why aren't anyone rising voices against this travesty? A nuclear capable aircraft for known nuclear rogue state? You guys must be freaking out of your mind...or the Boeing must be twisting Dick Cheney's hand real tight if not its already in the crusher. They want to sell more aircraft to India just to maintain the balance. The guys in the State Departments tenth floor water cooler must be laughing their asses off at our stupidity. We have children dying for lack of water and we are buying there expensive toys to posture. Shame on us, both of us.

Its as if selling a known pathological killer a dozen AK-47s because your local neibhorhood gun dealer hasn't made business for a while. I keep hearing these noises about how Pakistanis and Indians have left the bloodied pages of history behind and collectively turned a new white page, the page of peace. Wouldn't it be wonderful if this were really true? No more 7-8% of GDP of bigger guns which wouldn't fire and faster aircrafts which wouldn't fly? Imagine if that money was invested in primary education and infrastructure. Limitless possibilities. But, where are we struck? "Mine is bigger than yours" game with our neighbor.

Nope, I have looked again, there is no hope in the drawer. Yes I have looked again and again. We humans have reached a critical stage and we will destroy each other before anyone or anything does.

We sappy humans...

This Terri Schiavo's melodrama on TV and every where has made me particularly aware how sentimental we are as a species. We cant really stop being sympathetic towards a fellow human being suffering.

Particularly me, show me someone suffering, I will melt. I know Letting Terri go is the right thing, when they arrested those little kids bringing water to Terri,I couldn't stop feeling bad for her. I am truly sorry for her parents. Letting go someone one truly loves is the toughest thing.

One of the earliest acts of sympathy I witnessed as a small kid I still remember happened on a bus. I was traveling somewhere with my father mother and my little sister on a bus. The conductor was collecting money for the tickets. There was this Muslim lady wearing a Burqa with a sad face and four kids sitting at the back of the bus. The smallest one was less than an year old and was constantly crying. The other three kids were constantly pestering her food. The way they all dressed made me realize that they are very poor.

The conductor reached them and was speaking to them, suddenly I heard a whistle and the driver stopped the bus. My father stood up and asked the conductor "what's the matter?" The conductor said that the Muslim lady has almost Rs.50 less than what she needs to travel and they have to get down from the bus. The only problem is the bus is now traveling through a desolate stretch of road. My father immediately said that he will pay the rest and I saw tears in the eyes of the Lady. That act of my father left a lasting impression on me.

As I was talking about earlier, letting go loved ones is tough, My father lost his father to Cancer, my father was devastated looking at his father who was loosing battle to Cancer. I think he made the decision to let him go. A strong man I would say.

For me the true test of love is whether you can let go or not, I don't know what happens after death, and I bet anyone would know too, but I would hazard a guess that Terri would be better anywhere than being in the vegetative state.

All I hope is she wouldn't be used a pawn in the grand scheme of things, and she would end her life peacefully

Manjari Sankurathri Foundation

CBC had a wonderful documentary over the weekend on the work done by Dr.Chandra Sekhar Sankurathri.He lost his wife and little kids in the Air India bombing in 1982. He found his calling and started to do amazing work in Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh, India.You can read all about him and his work on the CBCs website.

The patients at his clinic

They operate upon around 150 poor elderly people per day and cure their cataracts. 80% of blindness in India is due Cataract and he says he doing his little bit. They give the gift of sight back to the thousands of elderly people who have been condemned to the life of darkness.

As soon they have been operated upon and their bandages opened they flock to the windows to see the green fields and the red Hibiscus flowers. This deeply moved me, how lightly do we take the gift of sight? The story of the blind watchman moved me to tears. He is watchman for a godown and has to find his way around using a stick, and he is the only bread winner in his house. He was so exited to he see his grandchildren again. You see the tears in his clear eyes, clear of catract.

An amazing individual, Dr.Sankurathri, who didn't allow his tragedy to burn within and consume him, but turned his family's memories into something which is changing lives of the downtrodden.

How many of us have been consumed by revenge and bad thoughts? Imagine what would happen if we just use this bad energy for a good cause? A smile of a grandmother looking at her little granddaughter playing in her lap is worth.

Another Rape in India...

Yesterday a little girl's body was found in woods in Assam, India. Apparently she was raped tortured and killed. The monster who did this said that he wanted to take revenge on the family.

Raping a little girl to take revenge? This freaking awful man and the thought makes me sick.This is not the only time I heard about this revenge rape, Its a pretty common thing atleast in India. Words are not enough to describe how disgusting it is to hear how common rape is in my homeland and its committed to punish someone.

Is Rape part of our culture? I guess I cant really take the answer as yes. I am not all objective when it come to judging Indian culture. Why doesn't this sort of rape as revenge does'nt happen in western societies? Why is it only in our society we hear and see this? Now now, lets not compare ourselves to those countries which haven't developed at all, I am not taking any names here. All said and done, women are considered property atleast in rural and uneducated parts of India, may this the part of the reason of hurting women to hurt the family psyche

The other reason may be the taboos we have around anything sexual in our society, which may cause lot of repression of ideas and wants and who knows would turn a normal man into a sexual monster. I am not sure about this second reason, but as I said this may be reason for the rapes in India.

This psycologist seems to concur with me

"If we are getting cosmopolitan where sense of belonging is less, there is need for outlets for example in red light areas. The minor is an easy prey. There are a lot of policies for the girl child which perhaps haven't been implemented or even monitored," said Sangita Goswami, a counselling psychologist.

Recently there were a spate of rapes in Delhi, A Swedish diplomat, was raped in the heart of Delhi and Police haven't found the culprit as yet. Can there be any justification for this crime? None in my book, he should be given the punishment of worst kind.

The only solution to this problem as many problems in India is women empowerment. As long we treat women as property there is no way we can be part of the developed world, we will called a third world country no matter how hard we cry.

Mysterious Beasts

I was reading an amusing article about a farmer who shot this mysterious animal and he thought it was Chupacabra, but it was found out to be a coyote. He refusing to believe this.


Chupacabra or an ugly coyote?

This reinforces my hypothesis that we *choose* what to believe. The UFO, ghost and Elvis sightings are mainly by the believers and rarely by the skeptics/scientists?

Our brains have evolved into being one of the most prolific pattern recognition filters. The raw data is fitted with a pattern which we want to fit and as a result we see a pattern, which want to see, if you ask me this whole process is biased extensively and not be believed.

Suppose, if I am walking through a cemetery on a new moon night and I am scared, all I would be hearing are ghostly noises and ghostly sounds, because that's what I want to hear, subconsciously. Every culture has this mystery beast, the Lochness monster keeps the Scots either drunk or sober, the Monkey man keeps Indians dancing and this chupacabra keeps the Mexicans on their tenterhooks.

If this chupacabra is an illusion,Why cant God be an illusion? That's a question for you folks to chew on....

Illegal Immigrants...

I watch Lou Dobbs on CNN on and off while eating my dinner, he is sort of on a Jihad against the illegal immigration from Mexico. He is going on and on about this problem for a week. He even covered a small demonstration of over 10 senior's outside Home Depot in Nowhereville in Southern California.

Yesterday he spinned it in to Homeland Security problem. He said that the Mexican poor laborers have military connection and therefore AlQuida will sneak in their fighters along with them, no, I didn't even understand the connection, you go figure. These poor sobs who sneak at night to clean the washrooms in wale-Marts and Homedepots are the new terrorists, Oh My God The terrorists.

illegal immigration is problem all over the world, even India is facing this problem, those poor Bangadeshis sneak into clean our Washrooms. In India there is no way you identify whether they are illegal or not, so their evacuation is a big contentious issue.

What are the ways to end this illegal immigration? Why does Juan from Mexico city come into Nowhereville to become a janitor? Its the lure of mighty dollar, isn't it? So why not make Mexican dollar the same as US Dollar? Why not make the whole world into one economic zone? Kinda European Union? Adam Smith the author of the seminal book in Economics "Wealth of nations" must be turning in his grave.

I know this is not feasible, some countries have more resources, culture which is open, people more hard working, and I don't know, probably many more reasons... Therefore till there are vast difference in currencies and standard of living, people will be willing to cross the Atlantic hiding in containers for months.

No I don't have a solution..., If had one I wouldn't be blogging, I would be doing something more useful

Musings in a Grocery Store....

I was in a grocery store yesterday late evening, trying to remember how much milk is left in the fridge. As Seinfeild said once, buying milk is one of the toughest balancing acts one performs in a Grocery store, If you don't have enough milk and you don't buy, you will have no milk for the whole week! If you have enough and buy more and you will stuck with drinking milk instead of water. I lucked out, I bought milk and I didn't have any, no more milk gluttony for me this week.

While I was browsing through the stacks of food, I was struck by the choice of foods the shoppers in North America are blessed with. While I was growing up in India, we never had any choice. For a while, essential items such as rice, wheat and sugar were rationed. While I was contemplating and debating on buying Cheetos over Lays, a baby in Sudan must be crying on the dry breast of her mother for the lack of a drop of a milk. Not to sentimental or something, isn't this contrast amazing? While the richest countries main problem is obesity, the poorer countries' problem is mal-nutrition?

The store ran out of bananas and I am a Banana junkie, I have to have my daily dose of a sweet Banana. I searched desperately for some bananas, I didn't find any. My palms started sweating, "is this really happening" I questioned myself looking around. I found the store clerk in a desolated aisle arranging something, as if nothing happened. I quietly approached him. "cough cough" I coughed, he looked around "May I help you"? "Any more of them left?" I asked him in hushed tone. He had a puzzled look for a second and then recovered. "No all sold out" he said sympathetically. The last batch were sold out half an hour ago, he said, "we had almost a riot". I walked away in dejection. So many freaking junkies in this freaking city!

For all those banana junkies, never go on a Sunday night to a grocery night, go on a Friday evening and get your fill for the whole week, that's when then the freshest stocks come! You can thank me, I will be here all week.

Top News Article | Reuters.com: "The cash incentive will be paid to the daughters when they reach 20
years of age, provided their parents have had only one child and have
undertaken birth control operations, officials said on Thursday.

On this bright morning, my head hangs in shame again. The way we Indians treat our women and girls is appalling. No no, please don't compare to the state of women in Afghanistan and S.Arabia and feel good about ourselves. They are just coming out of stone age! If you all have any dreams of becoming a developed society start measuring India in the scale of developed countries.

This is what we do to our ghar ki lakshmis (goddess of the house) we identify their sexes in the 'Lakshmi ultra sound center centre' by paying a thousand or two, and if the baby turns out to be a girl, quietly the mother is taken to the 'Hangar abortion shop' conveniently located besides this ultra sound shop and the baby is aborted. So much for our drum beating of we worship mother goddess and women are treated equally in India. If the baby turns out to be a boy, a feast is called upon! Well, our middle name is hypocrisy.


A young girl In Hyderabad filling up water

I am pretty sure that our Indian society is heading towards to total disaster. If you look at the history and read about collapsed civilizations the main reasons are

1. Killing their own people
2. Over exploiting the resources around them

We are killing our own daughters, and the sex ration has plunged into the deepest crevices, and we are in stage that we have give money to parents not to kill their girl babies. There will be one day when there will be no more women and no more babies, therefore all the men can find someone else to boss around and kill, Bastards.

No, there is no hope, I keep reiterating the fact that we are the last generation to enjoy this beautiful world, our earlier generations and we to certain extent are destroying and raping mother Earth!

I applaud this scheme of paying some money to keep the girl child alive even though it is sickening. I cant do much but to hope that Men will soon learn the importance of women, and stop treating them as slaves and sex objects butrespecting them as human beings who are as much part of the society as they are.

Militant or a Terrorist?

A eternal question in the cafes infested err frequented by the human rights types asked over and over thick cigarette smoke and watery tea "is he a terrorist or a militant?". Well, geez, isn't the answer obvious? Lets see the question is again? "Is Osama Bin laden a terrorist or a militant?" The one who killed more than 3000 people in cold blood?, Sir, I would say, he is a cold blooded murderer and a TERRORIST in caps. But why I do keep hearing terrorists being called militants on and on again and again?

Yesterday Russians shot dead this guy Aslan Maskhadov , who was involved in such illustrious acts as Belsan school siege where these teror'rats' buttered many primary school children and the famous Moscow theater siege. BBC referred to this guy as a Chechen Rebel and a militant! Isn't this ridiculous? May be he is fighting for a worthy cause, may be forming a country based on Islam is worthy enough cause for killing little children, I don't know but calling him a militant? Excuse me, sirs you should go back to drinking and smoking dope!

We Indians had to dodge the same shit for decades. The Kashmiri and punjabi terrorists who were murdering civilians were politely called rebels and militants. They were never called terrorists, those good neighborly militants, just fighting for their worthy cause of forming a country based on their religion and we are a fodder for their cannons. This 'human rights crowd' would march out of their dark, damp, smoky cafes holding on to their cigarettes and march whenever these rats are called terrorists and arrested.

I don't have much respect for these human rights types (HRT), in case you didn't notice, at all. The whole philosophy is hypocrisy, the one fighting the government is always right. No matter what he is fighting for! In Andhra Pradesh these HRTS side with the naxalites when they killed in an encounter with the police, they shout in their top voices into their creaky microphones "Fake encounter". When these naxal'rats' kill a bunch of policemen by detonating a landmine these HRTS are busy drinking their watery tea and there is no squeak!

The bottom line is any one who kills for making a political statement is a terrorist. No matter how worthy the cause is! The Palestinians are terrorists, the Israelis who bomb Palestinian cities are terrorists, the Kashmiris militants are terrorists, the IRA guys are terrorists, EPA Basque are terrorists!

No, USA doesn't publish my guide book for identifying the terrorists. They hypocrisy knows no bounds, people who attack them are terrorists, and the groups who don't bother them are militants!

Animation!

I just attended a lecture by Karan Singh, Prof in U of Toronto. He works on Computer animation. He was the research director of the Oscar winning animation film "Ryan". It's about this ground breaking Candian Animator Ryan Larkin, who fell thru the cracks of society and now pan handles in Montreal. Its a poignant film, do watch it here.
The technology went into this Film is amazing. I saw lot of similarities on what we do in Geophysics and Computer Graphics, the math is the same , the same Matrix inversions, coordinate transformations. The camera angles are a very interesting aspect in graphics, it would be amazing if seismic data can be visualized at different camera angles highlighting different aspects of the data. Amazing possibilities.

A picture showing these 'cords' wrapping around the body

They use this new graphics structure called 'cords' which are sort of ropes which symbolizes the tieing down of the spirit. This is a very simple algo implemented very cleverly, this movie I guess spawned few masters thesis and a PhD thesis even.
I was amazed at the rate at which modeling technology is growing, I asked him a question when will the animation industry pass the "Turing test"? i.e when will the audience wouldn't be able to distinguish whether the scene was live shot or a computer animated shot? His answer is we are almost there, the long shots like battle shots are almost computer animated, but close shots, he says may be atleast a decade away. I cant wait till the all celebrities are gone, and only celebrities left will be the nerds who create them.
This made me wonder, when everything can be modeled in a computer, is there a necessity for the real thing? The question Neo had to answer in Matrix......

Indian Democracy!

This phrase, 'Indian democracy' is sadly turning into an oxymoron, or it should be called democracy Indian ishtyle. We go around beating the drum and singing the same old song of largest democracy in the world.

Look at what's happened in Jharkhand and Bihar. Both of these states are hung, Bihar more hopelessly than Jharkhand. In Jharkhand BJP led alliance has crossed the half way mark and should be called by the governor to form the government, but, what do we idiots know? The governor Rizvi, at allegedly advice of Sonia Gandhi invited Soren who has less than 36 MLAS in his basket to form the government, the plan is too woo the independents with plum ministrial assignments.

This is what democracy cooked in Indian ishtyle. I would be really saddened if Manmohan Singh, who I respect, is involved in this rape of constitution. I believe Sonia is involved. According to Rediff, the main culprits of Jharkhand Mess are Arjun Singh and Foetedar, the main priests in the Temple of Sonia.

Rahul Gandhi, our future prime minister, good for nothing, born with a golden spoon, Prince of India, thought that he will protest against the opposition raising hue and cry in parliament against the governor action in Jharkhand. Was he sleeping or high on Columbian Cocaine when his mother was protesting and leading walk outs everyday when she was the leader of opposition?

Be proud my fellow Indians, British left their governor general saying that we can't govern ourselves, an Amnesty International member told me on my face that "How is it bad when we westerners teach you Indians a thing or two about human rights?" and now what? Pakistanis and Chinese consultants in Indian on matters of Democracy?

My head proudly hangs in shame.

News: World News: Cow Urine Medicines Hot Sellers

We Indians are wackos officially. I can hear Letterman and Leno this night going on about Indians and cow and urine, yep one smelly combination.
Why only cow urine? Wouldn't any mammal urine suffice? Buffalo and Cow are not much different from each other their milk almost tastes the same, may be urine too. This a good business plan for some other enterprising individual. We have more number of buffaloes than cows, therefore you can drive those costly cow urine costs down and no one will know the difference.

After-Shave lotion made with cow urine
Yes sir, that's right, I will sprinkle some of this holy cow urine on my face early in the morning and will walk into the board meeting. That should give me a good shot at the promotion I was hoping for.

I guess the reason for people lapping up this products is, we Hindus believe that Cow is holy. My father who is a historian specializing in Ancient Indian history tells me the reason was economic. At one point in Indian History, there was major drought, and the cow population depleted to a very meager number. People at that time were slaughtering cows left and right to feed themselves, infact beef was a staple deit then. Some smart Alec recognized that at this rate of cow consumption, cows would be 'extinct' pretty soon, so, he made cows holy and sin to consume them.

This holiness of the cow overtook its myth status and became a edict. Everything cow is holy, even its urine. Anyways, this urine is providing a livelihood for some Mela Ram and some Tuka Ram is happy that he is using an 'antiseptic cow urine after shave'. Both parties are happy, who am I to complain? How about a cow urine Mousquito repllent? Wait a second...never mind.