I Blog, therefore I am....

2008-02-25T14:20:00.004-07:00

Day of Murders, Murderers and Turban wearers

The Bouncer guy who attacked young blond women with hammer and smashed their heads in 2006 in London was found guilty today. Bastard!
Remains of children abused and murdered in Jersey are being recovered, as I write. Crazy.
Whats more crazy is Hillary in her desperation released a photo of Obama dressed up as a Somali tribal elder, in one of his many visits to Africa. Oh, my, my, an American leader with empathy for other cultures?

He must be a terrorist, he wears a Turban!
I hope she loses, terribly, such a selfish woman.

2008-02-24T13:51:00.003-07:00

Female Feoticide

In Punjab and Haryana, the female to male ration is so low that it's almost a national disaster. They are importing girls from states as far as Bihar and Assam for thier brides. We are paying for them today, when they are not sale anymore we will go and loot them. That day is not too far.
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RIP little Angel

Various reasons exist to why these little girls are murdered. They mostly have something to do with with our greed, selfishness and warped sense of honour. These baby killers are go unpunished even after many laws have been passed. Various NGOs have been campaigning and trying to make a change.

Please don't kill my sisters

My wife recently has been very touched and affected by this phenomenon and unlike me who just let's out "oomph" and walks to the fridge for a gulp of orange juice, she is doing something to combat this scrounge. She has started to blog about this evil and planning to rise much needed awareness.
India shining would be so bright without any girls, what do you say?

2008-02-23T03:50:00.002-07:00

Living in the UK

I have been living in the south of England for over 15 months now, and I have mixed feelings about this place, like every other place I have lived in. The English culture is ever pervasive, both good and bad aspects of it, unlike Canada. In Canada I never felt Canadian culture hanging in the air, it was as sterile as Hospital ward, culturally that is.
One thing British which I love is Radio 4. Waking up Jim Humphries grilling a politician is ah out of the world, very middle class some of you may snigger. I Love BBC 4 documentaries. The other aspect I love about British are their pubs and Beer, esp. the ales. Horsham, where I live has wonderful micro brewery brewing one of the best range of real ales I have had the fortune of tasting.
I hate the snobbery of the cultured class here, how they look down upon everything which they consider not cultured. The drinking culture among the youth is seen to be believed, they binge of weekend nights and cause huge damage. There are not many negative aspects of British culture.
I have to move to Houston soon, a cultural wasteland, and I will miss all the cultural this great land has to offer.

2006-10-11T14:52:00.000-06:00

Riya

The sweat from her forehead dripped into her eyes and Riya woke up with a jitter. She fumbled for the bottle of water by the bed and took few sips of it, and then she looked at the clock by her bed. 2:00 AM the clock's neon lettering screamed at her, a scorn appeared on her face, "when will this fucking day end" she muttered to herself as she went back to bed again and continued to stare at the white walled ceiling, as if hoping for a miracle or at least hand to lift her off from this misery.

Today is the last exam of her third semester, the last five were miserable. Handied in empty sheets. The life drained out of her, the walk lost its spring, the eyes lost thier gleen, the smile lost its crispness. "Nothing, I am fine" is the only sentence she spoke.

The old bed, which the British left behind, creaked as she tossed hoping to see a Miracle on her left, as if mocking her. The constant creak of springs sounded as if they were singing an ode to her defeat and constantly asking her to give up. She tossed again and they squeaked again. Failure hurts.

Riya Patwardhan, still remembers the day she walked into the college couple of years ago and it seems so long ago. She closed her eyes and the happy Riya flashed before eyes, the dry eyes eyes managed to scoop up few tears from the depths a few tear rolled down her cheeks. She didn't attempt to wipe them away, crying is a luxury for her and she enjoys the scarce tear as a desert enjoys its summer rain.

Her parents were so proud of her, only daughter of two teachers from Raipur. A over achiever since her childhood, she sang rhymes when other kids were fumbling at the alphabets, she did Algebra when other kids were reciting the numbers. She always stood first in her class, she got into the best engineering school.

The first year was a breeze, everyone and everything was under her spell, the profs, the students, the hallways and the flowers. She scored straight A's. Good grades, big dreams, bright smiles, sunny days and tearful farewells; she left home for her summer vacation.

Everything changed the day she got down at the excuse for a railway station at Raipur. The familiar face of her dad looking eagerly for her was absent, "Where are you papa?" she almost muttered impatiently as she got down. A hand touched her shoulder, and when she turned she saw her mum, there is something different about her, something sad, something very sad. "Ma, where is papa?" asked Riya, she never got an answer.

"He has a new home, Riya, he lives with an other woman now" her mum said while travelling in the rickety Auto. The Auto bounced from a huge pothole and that made Riya severely sick. She could feel the whole world around her being sucked into a big whirlpool. The world as she knew collapsed there in the main street of Raipur.

The auto stopped at the only traffic light in Raipur, a motorcycle came and stopped by her auto. Riya recognised the shoes, she lifted her head up, and saw her dad with an other woman with her arm wound around his waist. Riya fainted, and the auto turned towards the Government hospital.

2006-08-15T17:31:00.000-06:00

Media and society, what's the equation?

I am having this discussion with a freind on the media's respoibilty towards the society. She says that the media should play a proactive role in defining the morality and ethics. Well, everything started when she said that karan johar should be more responsible than soiling the "definition of marraige"
This is what i had to say, I start with my premise:

"The media has a Responsibility towards the society; it starts with defining what's the acceptable moral and ethical behaviour is and after defining it, adhering to these standards"

I don't agree with both these counts; media doesn't owe anything to the society. Media is there to make the money, let it do so. The social responsibility clause people tag it with is just hopeless.

Well, Media and society are in a symbiotic relationship, and they evolve together. Media shows what the society want, and the society sees what it wants.

Indian society was supposedly not ready for kissing in early 90s. Pioneers like Raj Kapoor kissed away to the bank. Straight jackets then cried on top their voices that this 'immorality' is corrupting our youth. I watched the side shot of Zeenat Tamman in 'ram teri ganga mailye hogayi' umpteen times, I turned out OK, atleast not bad I guess.

If the society wasn't ready for kissing then it would have voted with their wallets and purses.

Now, this idea of KANK pushing a new paradigm of 'the search for love is eternal' and can be found even after betrothed, even with an other individual outside the nuptial bond, corrupting 16 year old guys, is as unfounded as the above argument (ufff, that was a long sentence, pardon me).

There is this notion called personal responsibility, and it should come first before asking the media to put control on what it has to show. There has to be a line drawn somewhere like, porn and gore, which you wouldn't want to watch on the sidewalk, walking to your bus-stop. If you think your 12 year old daughter is not ready for this movie about screwed up relations, don't take her to it. In fact You yourself don't go and make your friends not go. Let karan know that you are offended.

The same happened with mira nair and her films. A few morons thought they were doing a big favour by destroying her "water" set. I hate her movies too, i never watch them. I don't go about destroying the sets, I don't ask her not to make big generalizations on India. It's her call, her freedom.

To conclude, personal responsibility trumps media social responsibility. Educate your kids show them how to tread in this world full of choices.

2006-08-13T13:56:00.000-06:00

Why does any masala movie do good in NRI and in heartland sectors?

NRI's would watch it, cause that's our only connection to our mother land, no we won't watch Omkara cause it is not 'real india'. Real India is where people live in those Mansions in Newyork, work in fashion magazines. Movies like Omkara doesn't have gorgeous women wearing designer sarees, toned men in their Armani suits. Damn the story, damn the plot, all we need is a colour screen to gawk at, with beautiful people prancing around. Making us realize how beautiful and colourful we are, compared to the white bland folk outside selling watered-down coke and stale popcorn.

Heartland crowd: We never watch a movie for the story, Nahi tho, kabhi nahi. All we need is preity zinta to wear a short skirt and do a dumka. The bigger the arc the hip bone sweeps, the longer the line outside 'pooja talkies' will be.
We need few bhari dialogues from Amitabh bachcan on what a nri should do and all the pallus will be drenched with tears. These movies make us realise our 'Bhrtiyata', i.e. crying over false emotions, whistling at false icons.

2006-08-12T02:52:00.000-06:00

Kabhi Alvida Na kehna , means,Can there be a bigger suck?

Bad bad bad, run for the hills, or just spend some time with your loved ones, don't even go near the cinemas showing this film.

Haven't seen such crowd here in Calgary before, all sorts of washed masses were there, the 'over the hill women' to relive the shah rukh magic, the teenage gilrs in their tight jeans and muffled giggles clutching their little handbags to watch abhishek bacchan and teen aged guys with bleached hair hanging out ogling at these girls. Couples with little children, in fact the aisles were filled with strollers, a major fire hazard as it was blocking the hallway. Crying babies, Roop became so irritated that she asked a mother "why do you bring small babies to movies" all she got is a very mad stare in return.

Well i went in for preity zinta, and her bubbly charm, all i got is a bitch fest. She didn't perform, heck no one performed. All she did was manage a painful smile, her dimples didn't get challenged at all.
Rani lived her role, a cold ice block. well a wooden block would have done the role, there were some sparks in the second half but Karan johar killed them.

Shahrukh khan should call it a day. His character was the most ill defined and badly executed one, he came out as old grumpy old man, which he is. For a few mns when rani and him are in love, which is supposedly his forte, he struggled, felt he was ravi shastri batting when is out of form; Couldn't wait to seem his wickets blown off.

If there is any saving grace, it was the Bachchans, abhishek was much better, I have to grudgingly agree, you end up feeling sorry for him. Both for his part in themovie and ending up in this shit fest. His dad is busy pimpin' in his snoopy dogg getup minus the walking stick. Amithabh did well, but his role would have used more sketching and more meat.

The movie could have been mucho better, Roop and I were discussing and she was telling me that there was so much potential to this movie, if she were the director, she would have worked with other powerful emotions at play there, so true. Karan johar killed it by making it so cheesy it puts a pizza hut to shame.

The movie felt so tedious that It put me to sleep without even realising it. Roop kept figeting in her seat, she is the attentive one, ssshing me everytime. There were not even few sparks of brilliance, no chemistry between actors, everyone is busy being the biggest suck! The screenplay was bad. locations didn't make any sense, why New york, why not nellore? if everything happens in a house?

The story is supposedly about marriages without love, sharukh says at the end of the movie, where he says, marriage is search for love and asks us to keep on searching for it even after marrying (no it didnt make sense to me either); and the concession is that, he hopes/prays that this search path wouldn't be paved with broken hearts. No shit Einstien!

No don't go, give your money to charity, buy an ice cream to the little girl living next door, but a ball to your galli cricket team, EVEN buy yourself a reshimiya's CD, dont goto this movie. This movie sucks more than a black hole.

Aren't there any guy guys in India who would lay him? If not, i could hook him with a few over here. Again, Please if you have loved/love anyone don't goto this movie.

2006-07-27T10:46:00.000-06:00

On ‘doormat wives’ and ‘henpecked husbands’

From my childhood, my father used to and still does ridicule me saying "You will be one heck of a henpecked husband and would be a shame for all men in this word". I never paid any attention to that remark till few months ago. I have been thinking why would he say that?

Let me define what a henpecked husband is (according to me, anyways): A husband, who doesn't have high opinion of himself and "takes orders" from his wife on every matter. Would I do that? No, I am too independent and opinionated for being one. I for one, have been known to stand on my point literally in many debates. But, why would My father call me a henpecked one? I started exploring more and got no where, as always.

I was talking to my friend about this, lamenting that I how I am destined to be a henpecked husband, she laughed and went on her trademark extempore lecture on sociological, anthropological aspects of human relationships. She says Henpeckedness is not that bad as it seems, as any man who cares and respects his wife view point would be called henpecked. Makes sense, at least to me, where the society (at least Indian one, and may be not American one to a lesser extent) expects and calls the husband "the man of the house" and this statement says everything. He takes the decision, he has the final word. If dares to consult his wife in anything, that's it! He will be branded and paraded in the main street, With all cackling sounds and a chicken dance and all that jazz thrown in.

Coming to why my dad calls me one is, he thinks that I am a pansy around women and doesn't voice my opinion enough. I disgree though, may be women make more sense.

Coming to Doormat wives, which I think is very derogatory term by itself, I think women are to be blamed themselves. If a woman has sense of self-worth and self-esteem, she would never end up being a doormat. I grew up in a household with strong women and they know how to earn respect not only from their man but everyone in their household. Remember women, respect is never given, it's hard earned. This, I think is very cyclical process, women growing up in the shadow of strong women end up strong and make their daughters stronger and the cycle goes on. Personally, I can never stand a anyone who lacks confidence and can't carry themselves.

Well, I do have my chicken costume ready and I am certified by my dad that I can be pecked away to glory, any takers?

2006-07-18T23:48:00.000-06:00

Eric Margolis, A Middle East expert?

He was on CBC news today talking with Peter Mansbridge as a Middle expert throwing his 2 cents on who ever cared to lsiten. After listening to what he said, I had a revelation that I too can be an expert on Mongolian culture, if I shout at top of my lungs claiming to be one, around the newspapers' offices.

This is what he said "There are elements in Washington and Israel who want to show who is the boss to Syria and Iran". Wow CBC, can we now officially call a conspiracy theory nut as an expert?

What are his credentials?

Quoting from Amithabh Mattoo's review of his book "Jihadi Journalese"

where his friends include the Pakistan intelligence chief, Lt. General Javed Nasser. His antics apparently provoked the Afghan government enough for President Najibullah to put a price on his head. Consider Margolis' colourful descriptions of the Mujhaideen: "These were the soldiers of Allah, the bravest men on earth... They feared no man and certainly not death. Each man believed that Allah stood at his right shoulder; Allah who was all-merciful, in spite of the cruel world that He had inexplicably created; Allah would carry him to his final rest as a parent would wrap a sleepy child in his arms and take him off to bed."

So a Hippie joining a Jihadi operation now be an expert on it? Doesn't the tag of expert come with the responsibility of being neutral? He is nothing but neutral, I found his another article which is very biased. This is what he has to say about the brutal Pakistani incursion into Indian Kashmir in spring of 2000.

Pakistan staged the operation to internationalize the Kashmir issue, which was fading into obscurity at a time when brutal Indian repression was threatening to extinguish the uprising

So, a brutal incursion into Indian Kashmir and killing in cold blood can be justified for bringing back an issue into the front pages? Should I go now and call Shenanigans?

CBC, couldn't you find anyone more competent that Mr. Margolis, who wears these really colourful glasses, which sure cloud his worldview?

Do listen to his justification on why Hezbollah kidnapped Israeli soldiers:

Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hussein Nasrallah, made clear his attacks were to support the embattled Palestinians in Gaza, who have been ravaged by Israeli air, land, and sea attacks after militants kidnapped an Israeli soldier.

Amazing sir, is this how friends help friends help in your world? Say if I were your friend and get into trouble by abusing drugs, you would support me by doing more drugs?

Why do we Canadians regard this advocate of violence as an expert on a region, whose main problem is senseless violence?

CBC, I always regarded you as one of the balanced sources of news and opinion, I am deeply disturbed by the fact that you had a partisan masquerading as a neutral authority. All I hope is that your programming mangers know his background.

2006-07-16T20:59:00.000-06:00

RESTORE YOUR MANHOOD, Buy a Hummer!

I just saw a an ad buy Hummer where there is guy is waiting in line at a grocery store and He grows impatient. He looks up at a magazine rack and spots a picture of a Hummer. He leaves his groceries on the counter and races to his car, peeling out of the lot. Goes into a Hummer dealer, points to Hummer and the keys get tossed into his hand.
He drives away and the words on the screen -
"RESTORE YOUR MANHOOD"

What the fuck seriously? I always made fun of Humvee drivers of suffering from low self esteem (stemming from their small Penile Size Deficiency (PSD)) and compensating buy buying this monstrosity. Is my observation accurate then? Some psychologist verified it to be true and they made an ad just for these PSD sufferers.
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This ad is disturbing at so many levels, the first absurdity which bothers me is the notion of buying groceries to be "unmanly". Woah! so all the guys i see at the store are unmanly? I bet the women would be very please by calling the men who help them out as wussies?

I hate advertisements, but I like them paying for my Simpsons episodes, but they cravenly exploiting males with PSD to sell them gas guzzling monsters, there you have crossed the line my friend. Well, I don't hate all the advertisements, I liked the Adidas ads for the world cup. Here is the one which I liked the most:

Very realistically done! the best part is Jose is walking away with the ball as soon as him mum calls him, been there done that, albeit with the cricket bat!

2006-07-15T10:25:00.000-06:00

An OP-ED ? In Indian express?

I was reading about the investigation into the 7/11 tragedy in Mumbai and I came across this OP-ED piece written by Saubhik Chakrabarti. Such pure drivel, never seen anything close calling itself op-ed piece in a national paper.

IndianExpress.com :: The 7/11 terrorists lived next door to me

I wasn't able to understand whether it was: satire, sarcasm, news, or just his opinion. Please let me know if this makes sense at all. If it does, I should go back and take basic English comprehension courses.

.... tasked with fixing dysfunctional ferrules. The men—the terrorists and not, I hasten to add, the DJB employees—are/were in Pakistan/Nepal/Bangladesh/Iran.

Are these our newspapers' standards? He doesn't even offer any insight in this very shoddily written piece. He says that he watched news (woah dude!) and felt intimidated by a channel's coverage 'cause it had six reporters reporting simultaneously. Is this suppose to be sarcasm? I thought I understood sarcasm till today, man I was wrong. Either he is 'sarcasm-challenged' or it's me who doesn't, most probably the later.

Questions like should reporters go on air with everything cops and spooks tell them?

Does this sentence mean anything? Did I forget my grammar ? Or is that Indian Express doesn't care anymore for what it prints? or did its editor doze off? Most probably, It's me who is at fault, I forgot my grammar.

I remember how our high school English teacher used to make us read Indian Express's editorial page everyday in its better days. Either Mr Chakraborthy was having a bad day, or Editor had better things to do.

Wait a second I dug deep into his archives as I found this article: "IndianExpress.com :: Subcontinental drift"

This is how the article starts:

Those European politicians have lost. Lakshmi Mittal has acquired Arcelor. Economic logic has trumped political irrationality. All in all, a great day. For the Europeans, that is. We shouldn’t even begin to celebrate.

That must be a record of most number of sentences packed in such a small real estate. Mr Chakrabarti wins. I lose. Indian Express is the best. I have a headache. Good for you.

Man! Indian Express needs better Op-Ed writers or better editors.

2006-06-15T21:36:00.000-06:00

Eye candy

Who ever said that geeks are smelly, fat and mum's basement dwelling men?

I am sure these teams would make world cup more interesting:
Are those legs for real?

2006-06-15T17:11:00.000-06:00

The power of advertising?

With the world cup of soccer underway, I am intrigued by the economics of this huge undertaking. I was struck by the fact all the advertisements on the sideboards are by multi-billion dollar corporations and they are mostly American. For a second I thought, why are these American companies advertising on a world stage?

Being bit slow, slowly I realised that most of the audience of the world cup will be in the third world (South America, Africa and Asia), where McDonald's can sell its healthy fare and Coca-Cola can wash them down with their sugary syrups.

All most all the first world corporations have realised that they have saturated their markets. My favourite, McDonald's have disclosed that they couldn't supersize their profits anymore. They figured that, the only way they could satiate their share holders' hunger for more calories oops dollars is to expand into the developing world. What's a better way than to advertise in this mega event where every self respecting 12 year old soccer player would be parked before the TV set?

Capitalists amongsts us would say, "what's wrong with doing business and making a few bucks?" Read on my fellow capitalists:

FIFA also wants to make sure it has tight control over the 12 official fan festivals in the host cities. Because Coca-Cola is one of the four major sponsors of the fan festivals, even milk became a hotly contested issue for some time. The soft drink maker had secured exclusivity for the entire beverage category, which covers just about anything liquid, except soups, tap water and non-alcoholic beer.

After lengthy negotiations, the US corporate giant magnanimously (emphasis mine) agreed to allow "non-flavored milk beverages" -- in plain language, cows' milk. However, FIFA and Coca-Cola will have the final say on the "branding" of that flavor-free cows' milk.

After reading that, I would'nt able to see the world cup and drink Coke without feeling guilty! Well, on the other hand watching world cup Cricket sponsored by Burger King and drinking Pepsi is still Kosher.

2006-06-14T19:13:00.000-06:00

Job Satisfaction?

On my sister's blog, her friend left the following comment, which I think was interesting. This is what he said:

Think about it. Your first job, your mind was open, open to new challenges, people and your courage level was high.
How do we maintain the same energy throughout? That is what we need to think. I would like to see your thoughts as well on the same. I always try to get into that energy mode everyday and believe me sometimes it works.
Lets say, if you had to feel the same things, you felt, when you got your first job, when you prepared everyday for the classes, when you faced that panel of old professors everyday what would you have to do?
The answer to this would be very interesting in my opinion.
Would like to see a blog from your on this topic.

.

Time for a full disclosure: I haven't had a real job till now, I am still avoiding the real scorch sipping beer (pun intended) in the shade of Grad school.

Well having said that, here are my two cents: Why would anyone lose interest in her job, if that's what she wants to do? Suppose I am really interested, in fact I am very, in being the scientific Officer on Star Ship Enterprise, would I hate to wake up every morning to go and sit in those kick-ass chairs on the bridge? Would I curse my existence when ever Captain sends me on an away-mission? What do think? I would tuck my tricorder and phaser tight in my stretch pants and scream "Beam me down Scotty"

Would I do the same if I end up flipping cow parts on a gas grill in NoWhereVille? I would hate my existence every ****ing day. I would want that nose-driping-Coke-sipping-fries-munching Joe Noone to grill my parts on the grill!

This is what I don't understand, why do people stick with the jobs they don't like? Well, if it's cause you want to keep the stomach juices churning, then may be you shouldn't complain. If you are, probably, you know...., I should stop now, all you folk are smart!

I should go back to my beer sipping and Star trek fantasising. You guys should get back to the rut you are in.

2006-06-13T15:47:00.000-06:00

A Kiss controversy

I have been waiting for this to happen, and it happened. I was about to think that Indian society is not as stupid as I thought it would be. Well, I have been proven wrong again, not surprisingly, both for me and for India.

No, I am not upset about a good for nothing singer, leeching on his brother's fame, kissing a nude tramp! I would be really happy if all the leeches kiss all the tramps and go and jump off the cliff, for all I care. What gets my goat is the 24 hour obsessive coverage this news is getting all over India.

Mumbai, June. 11 (PTI): Bollywood "Item girl" Rakhi Sawant, who was recently in news for alleged obscenity during her stage show at Kolhapur in western Maharashtra, has accused Mika, brother of pop singer Daler Mehendi, of molesting her at a private function here early today, police said.

The infamous kiss is here:

I have this pet theory that the society is going to the dumps, if people become more important than the issues it faces.

No sir, we have'nt solved the AIDS problem and also we dont have clue about the problem of female infanticide, why are we wasting out time talking to you? Let's get back to the telly, Famous Khan has been spotted coming out of Slutty Chopra's house.

I just hope that I don't sound like a ol'fart when I say "These are the end of the times". Well it has happened before, Romans were busy in their orgies when they were overthrown, Moguls were taking communal showers in bath houses when their palaces were cleaned out by British.

This media whoring is pretty common in North America, heck more people voted for American idol than thier presidential polls. The missing white girl Hathaway got 24 hour coverage for more than 100 days. These countries can afford this indulgence in their stupidity, But Can India? Let's ask the striking doctors in AIIMS, the rickshaw puller on the sidewalks of Bombay, the farmer buying pesticide to commit suicide and the prostitute dying with AIDS in a damp and dark corner reeking with urine in a brothel.

2006-06-11T19:27:00.000-06:00

Soccer world cup!

I have also caught this world cup fever and the prognosis I prescribed myself is a heavy dose of soccer. I watched all the six matches this weekend, and I loved all of them. The match i liked the most is the one played between Trinidad and Sweden. Trinidad played awesome defense and didn't allow Sweden any goal. It ended up as a draw and it was wonderful. I was for a second in football heaven and found it to be a bit crowded with other 300 mil people in it, enjoying every bit of it.

I haven't realised how many bitter people are there in this world until I read this blog. The writer is a socialist who thinks that world cup is the manifestation of capitalists on the third world to divert the third world from the real problems they are facing. I sat there with my eyes popping out and thinking how stupid people can think and how outlandish the theories can be.

I read a news that In Somalia, which is torn by the civil strife, there has been no reports of fighting or killing since the world cup has started. The warring groups are staying back at their homes and lapping up all the foot ball they get thier eyes on. The only argument is on wether Ronaldo's kick is better than Beckam's or wether how many years will it take for a African team to wrestle the cup from South America.

For me Sports are the ultimate uniters. If world cup makes Iraq more safe, then heck why not? If Cricket makes Indians and Pakistanis tolerate each other for few days, why not? If Hockey makes Canada and USA forget about their beer wars, who are you to say No?

Happy world cupping everyone!

2006-06-11T00:25:00.000-06:00

A Strange sight!

I was coming out of a parking lot today, there was this Mazda just in front of me. The dude was struggling with the complicated technology of feeding the ticket to the parking lot gate. Suddenly, I noticed something strange, Nimbus (lemons) stringed to a thread and hung on the number plate! "what" I exclaimed, a fellow desi, that too from south India!

I asked my friend to take a picture, and she did, here is the picture.

I just can imagine the smirks on the faces on cops, if they happen to stop him!

This is very common practice in Andhra pradesh, I remember whenever we bought any vehicle, my whole family used to go to the Temple of Ganesha and pray. The priest used string up few lemons and tie it to the vehicle.

I still remember the day I bought my bicycle. I was made to crush a Nimbu, with vermilion stuffed in it, with my front wheel symbolising a sacrifice. Crazy shit, So my piece of cheap ass bicycle is supposed to be blood thirsty monster to be appeased? If it were a monster, would it be happy by this lame sacrifice of a lemon? At least your first born puppy should be offered to my bicycle.

We are a superstitious bunch, aren't we?

2006-06-10T00:45:00.000-06:00

Sankes on a MotherFarking Plane

That's one Motherfarking movie I am waiting for. Yep, you heard it right, this the title of a real movie which is being scheduled to be released on August 18th, and already I have stared marking the days left on the wall by my toilet.

Snakes on plane became an Internet meme overnight and built a cult following even without releasing a shot. All we junkies needed was the title. One interesting tit-bit is the fans were expecting to Jackson to yell " We got Motherfarking snakes" into the radio, The studio resisted it , cause they wanted to get under 14 rating. The fans protested, sat in protest before the studios, slept naked before Jackson's home. Who ever said smelly naked geeks don't make difference should wake and smell the nearest geek.

Yes, my dear snake and plane nerds, Samuel L. Jackson will be flying a plane full snakes in to a theater near you. Fark.com, the place I hang out is holding release parties all over North America, were we would be watching some snakes on the plane and some good ol' fun in a watering hole nearby. Too bad there is no party in Calgary, but there is one in Edmonton. I am so there, can't wait for my snakes served on a plane!

Do check this website to see if there is a "Snakes on a MotherFarking Plane" party in your city.

2006-06-08T12:21:00.001-06:00

Lonely at the top

“Elitism - It's lonely at the top. But it's comforting to look down upon everyone at the bottom.”

-Larry Kersten quotes (American Sociologist and Author. )

I got an email with this very heading, "lonely at the top" from a very good friend asking me to work with him again, as I used to work with him a lot. He is the president of a non-profit organization doing awesome work.

I was shocked by the subject line, well, if he wants me work with him again, why is he gloating that he is at the top and is lonely? Or does he want me to join at the top as it's getting lonely there, but isn't there place for one at the top? If there was room for more than one, it's not "the top" any more, isn't it?

May be, he didn't know the context and he was using it, that doesn't bode well for him too. I always associated the phrase "lonely at the top" as being elitist. I have never associated him with being elitist, he is a very nice person, a very down to earth.

I think he just doesn't know how much baggage this phrase carries around. I were you, my lonely friend, I would let my cronies crow how I am lonely at the top!

I am sure your organization wouldn't end up like this with you at the top, you know I am joking.

2006-06-07T11:25:00.000-06:00

Convocation Speeches

I went to my friend's convocation yesterday at the University of Calgary. László Lovász, a world leading "Graph Theorist" was the guest of honour. He is from Hungary and worked in Harvard and MIT and the likes. He is at present in Microsoft research. An amazing personality, he talked about how mathematics is important in everyday life and no one should be afraid of it.

László Lovász

His main interests are Graph theory and complexity of information. He went on to talk about his life behind the Iron curtain and under authoritarian regimes, and how freedom and democracy are important for growth of science, couldn't agree more.

Speaking of Convocation speakers, While I was going to school in Indian School of Mines, the Guest of Honour was no other than Abdul Kalam, the present president of India. He was then chief scientific advisor to the Prime Minister of India. He flew in an Indian Air Force chetak Helicopter, and landed in our ground near by. He stepped out of his helicopter with his trademark smile.

President Abdul Kalam

His speech was absolutely brilliant. He recited verses from Bhagvadgita and quoted Tiruvalluvar, his favourite Tamil poet. He wanted the young engineers and scientists graduating to work for the progress of India.

Well, Sorry President sir, I have always been a disappointment.

2006-06-06T11:27:00.000-06:00

On Taking Criticism

I frequent this discussion board, where one of the dudes put up his picture with orange overalls. Someone commented that those overalls were very gay and turning him off. It was made very clear that it was joke more than once.

Here is the picture, which I thought was very gay too...

Well, the dude didn't take it as a joke and started insulting this person who made the gay comment. The whole board jumped against this person and it was a gore fest out there within no time.

The point is, why can't anyone take a joke ? Why do they get their panties in a bunch and wrinkle them to pantie hell? If you had the gumption to wear Orange Overalls to a dance club , why would you get upset over someones comments about them being gay?

But generally, I have realised that I started accepting criticism with an open mind. I don't get offensive, abusive,defensive and insecure anymore when someone corrects me or points out the red underwear I wore on my stretch pants ala Superman. May be a side effect of growing up and getting a life. I guess, I have accepted that there are various opinions in this world and yours is the one which is usually wrong.

Seriously, people should grow a funny bone or stop wrinkiling thier panties (better, stop wearing them) and make this a world a better place (well, stop using cliches would work too!).

2006-06-04T00:58:00.000-06:00

Greeters in Wal-Mart

I was in Wal-Mart today and was greeted by a smiley elderly lady "How you doing?". I would have said "Good, how about yourself?" and walked away towards the cereal section. But I stood there by their entrance wondering, why does Wal-Mart pay a person, albeit minimum wage to stand at the entrance greeting all those pass through those automatic doors. Wal-Mart wouldn't be paying minimum wage, without any benefits if there is no tangible ( read a monetary) benefit.

A wal-mart greeter

What could be the benefit though, I have searched the best I could and found that Greeters are not that friendly of what they are supposed to be.

She came up with the idea of posting an employee at the door to check shoppers' items. Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville wasn't willing at the time to pay an employee just to do that job, Richard said, so she suggested employees take turns volunteering a half-hour each day without pay

The Morning News :: Wal - Mart Page

So in other words there are security guards masquerading as greeters, with a disarming smile. But what is funny is they are usually senior citizens. But, I cant imagine a grand ma chasing a pimply faced teenager with a DVD of Star Trek hidden under his T-shirt.

2006-06-02T14:13:00.000-06:00

I am going to be implanted with a chip!

LiveScience.com - Proposal to Implant Tracking Chips in Immigrants

" Responding to the Bush administration's call to know "who is in our country and why they are here," he proposed using VeriChip RFID implants to register workers at the border, and then verify their identities in the workplace. He added, "We have talked to many people in Washington about using it...."

Wouldn't that be something to call home about (pun intended)? Getting implanted with a RFID tag, which would track me where ever I go, what ever I do, judge me on whom I meet, grimace the way I eat and remind to call my mum? I do travel to US often, for conferences and pleasure . Now I am worried and I dont fancy to be branded and tracked, is this what the Land of the free and brave has come to?

Sir Orwell, your 1984 caught up with us in 2006. BTW, it just took us 12 years to prove you right, and you were worried that 1984 would never happen.

Free enough to tag every foreigner and brave enough to be afraid of every one with different (TM) colour skin? Well, this has been done in Europe in 30s and 40s and we all know how well it worked. I guess we will have designated areas for all "branded" to live, oh yeah for our safety and convenience.

If only I could I would never travel to USA again, but It's the country which is forefront of everything, where innovation happens, where Future is made and I want to be the part of the dream. I don't want to be robbed of my share of destiny just because I was born in a different country.

I don't want to be greeted at the Border with "How do you feel to be branded?" I want to be greeted with "Welcome to USA, land the free and brave!"

2006-05-31T21:16:00.000-06:00

Now a robot for me (hic)!

I must have been in the grade school, I fell in love with "Giant Robot", a cheesy Japanese children show. From that day I didn't want a dog, all I wanted is a flying robot. Giant robot would fly whenever summoned by the kids talking into their watches.

Then I fell in love with the ever cute "R2-D2" from Star Wars. I wanted this beeping side-kick.

Now I see this new "Beer pouring" robot, I want it right now. My beer is getting cold and my tongue is itching. Here is the new beer fetching robot, courtesy (robosavvy forum)

When is my cooking robot coming out, or should I just marry? Dont shoot me, it's just a bad joke, as always.

2006-05-30T17:44:00.000-06:00

Trendmeisters

I found this somewehere on the web, when trolling for Ideas on trends.

Serial trendmeisters are professionals who have built huge careers off correctly reading trend after trend after trend, and building business after business around them. One-time trendmeisters are more or less ordinary people who spotted a trend, took the time to really understand it, and then turned that understanding into a fortune.

If you think, most of the succesful people, not only businessmen even scientists sports-persons, are trendmeisters.

Continuing this line of thought, Do trendmeisters differ from trend-setters? I think so. According to me, trendmesiters are trend-spotters, specialing in spotting trend-setters. Almost like the talent scouts scouting the minor leagues for next Barry Bonds or Wayne Gretzky.

I also read somewhere that every company worth its salt employees these trend-spotters hoping to catch the wave early. Then what's the difference between these Trend-spotters and trendmeisters? It would be easy to say that Trendmeisters are successful while these employed trend-spotters are not! Well, who am I to make a judgement anyways?

I suck at spotting trends, I have been in lookout for the next big thing for a while. I thought that the next big thing in car audio would be DVDs with thousands of songs, and I completely missed the boat on iPods. iPods caught me off gaurded, I use my iPod in my car regulaarly and juked all my scartched and scorthced CDs. I now know what I am not going to do for living!

2006-05-13T11:10:00.000-06:00

Emotions!

Vulcans are my favourite race in StarTreck. They are all about logic and they don't have any emotions what so ever, on the other hand Klingon is a warrior race and they are motivated by their raw emotions. We humans are some where in between with a cautious mix of emotions and logic.

Mr. Spock the first officer of USS Enterprise, is half Vulcan and half Human, and there is constant conflict between his logic and emotions. Why are emotions and logic at loggerheads with each other?

I hate being emotional, I want to be as logical as possible, I want to be a rock in the feild, not the leaf on that single lime tree, waiting for the next storm.

I just spoke to my grand father, a man of immense stature. Reading and gaining knowledge was his life long passion. He is my idol, he taught me that world is full of interesting things and there for us to discover. Today he is losing his eyesight. He cant read anymore, his optic nerves are wearing out.

I couldn't control myself from feeling sorry for him, I couldn't control my emotions, I even cried a little. Why should I feel like I did? 'Cuase I am human, not a Vulcan, I love him, and I don't wanna lose him.

Is loving and losing the circle of life?

2006-04-06T14:45:00.000-06:00

Ms. Medha Patkar is news again and everyone is wants to know where I stand on NBA. Here are my thoughts.

>>>>About Medha Patkar:
When the supreme court has given the orders to rise the height of the dam, one has to follow it, would be really hypocritical saying that we will obey supreme court judgement about Ram janma bhoomi and not obeying this judgement. I am aware of the conditionality of the judgement about rehabilitiation of the affected people. I am just commenting on their (medha and arundhati).

>>>>About Dams in general.
nehru was a big fan of dams, he called them them the "Temples of modren India". Dams have played a very important role in modren Indias development, Major ones which transformed the whole region are bakranangal, nagarjuna sagar etc. Before N.sagar came The northen districts of AP were barren and people used to dirt, now its one of richest area sin Andhra pradesh!

>>>>About relative merits and demerits of Dams.
Would one rather worry about a tribe loosing its hunting grounds, sacred places, their culture, or would you rather make the barren lads of Gujarat and madhya pradesh green? What would You chose? The ultra left (arundhati) would want the tribal people to prosper and would hand wave on about some micro-water managemnet techs which work only in their red dreams. The ultra right (captilaists) dont really give a fuck about the tribals.

>>>>Where do I stand?
Middle path! we need to find a balance between our social obligations and development. Let the supreme court, which is the only branch of the Govt , I trust shd step in a nd see no one is short changed.

>>>>Media
If anyone is under the illusion that media has a social responsibilty, please see a eye doctor, they are for profit organizations and they are there to make money. If its by SMS they make money the will SMS, or if publishing half naked chicks they will make them pose, or one day India desides MEdha in her cotton saree is the KNEW KOOL they will do Medha.

2005-11-16T17:10:00.000-07:00

Kushboo Controversy

Reportedly Kushboo said "it is fine for girls to indulge in premarital sex after taking care to keep unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases at bay" and she is arrested and dragged to the court. I don't see any problem with what she said, Last I checked India is a free country and we had right of speech.

Kushboo coming out of the Mettupalayam court, where she is being tried for Libel against Tamil Culture
Anyways what's so wrong about pre-marital sex? The puritans would say it's not the Indian way! Would I want my daughter to have it? No! Would I beat her and kick her out of my home if she has it? No! I would try to talk to her and educate her about safe sexual practices, and make her understand the implications and gravity of the situation.

What the people in Tamil Nadu are doing right now is a big farce, they venerated her by building a temple, when she was gyrating for the loud tunes in the movies, now they are throwing stones at her for denigrating Tamil culture. If you ask me, at the risk of being accused of generalization I would say Tamilians should temper their emotions.

What would any good good come out of dragging Kushboo to court? Would that teach Kushboo to respect 'Tamil culture'? Would that stop girls having pre-marital sex? Would that make all the stone throwers holier than all of us? All I could see is a politician having a nice day by stoking few fires.

What do they do now when their Goddess have wronged? Find an other goddess? What would happen to Tamil culture when one dumb-headed actress has an opinion about it? Would the centuries old culture crumble?

Wait,I have a solution, every one should have chill pill and go and watch a good Kushboo movie.

2005-11-11T11:55:00.000-07:00

Jail in Downtown!

I just came back from Houston, I was there for a conference; thanks for asking My talk went well and I got good feed back. Of all things Houston could amaze me, the Jail building in Downtown Houston captivated me, whenever I would pass by it, I couldn't stop looking at it awestruck. It had these tiny slits for windows, probably reinforced. I could imagine the inmates peering through those tiny slits, longing to be on the road waiting for the light to turn green on the cross walk. To be fair, it's not a jail but a federal detention center, that is a transition facility where the felons wait to get sentenced and sent to a Federal prison.

The federal detention center in Downtown Houston
Being from India, I have never seen a jail as a big building in the center of the city. It's always a big compound in some corner of the city. I never been to a jail and I don't want to be but I was always intrigued by them, whats the sociological significance of locking these people up?

To keep others safe?
To punish them by taking away their freedom?
To teach them to respect laws?

May be it's a combination of all these factors? Wouldn't it be dangerous to put all the "bad" guys together and make it easy for them know each other and increase their knowledge base. There must tons of research on pros and cons of jail system.

The closest I got to be in a jail is while was doing my undergrad in India. It was catholic college and the Jesuits priests believed in strict discipline and they would inculcate that by taking away our freedom for few hours daily. We had to be in our "rooms/pens" by 6 pm and should remain there in those holding pens till next 8 am next day. There were periodic checks and the absentees were punished severely.

My hostel In Vijayawada

I used longingly look out of the window at the cricket ground, waiting to play cricket or just stand on the road and eat sweetmeats as my 'free' friends. I believe that freedom is a fundamental right of every living thing and taking that away is a very big mistake. There are always exceptions like serial killers and child rapists, but where should draw the line? Would you put a sixteen year old bikejacker with a convicted serial killer? As usuall I dont know the answer and would apprciate your thoughts...

2005-11-03T10:19:00.000-07:00

Symbols in Indian Culture

I was in the temple on the day of Deepavali and I suddenly noticed all these symbols around me. The diyas, the flowers on which the gods are standing, etc. Why do we need symbols? In Da Vinci code, a book by Dan brown, the hero is symbologist and a Professor at Harvard.

Obviously symbols are very much ingrained in all the societies of the world. I don't really know about other cultures but surely comment on Indian culture. The main symbols which we identify ourselves are the bindi and the diya. Let me try to understand what these symbols stand for...

Bindi

Tilakam or popularly known as bindi is worn by women, particularly married women on their foreheads between the eyes. This is for sure a symbol, but what does it symbolise? Not the marital state because most of the unmarried girls in south India wear a bindi. Is it a statement of vanity? most people think that it symbolises the third eye, which is suppose to be the eye of knowledge. Tilakam was worn by everyone including all men and it suddenly fell out of fashion and is now worn by women.

A beautiful face with a equally beautiful Bindi

I am sure it must symbolise something. It's a common practice to apply tilakam when one visits a temple, therefore it may symbolise your bhakti or nearness to god, or sharing something which has been offered to Gods. May that's the reason, it is a symbols for your devotion.

Diya

||tamasoma jyotirgamaya||
means let the light from diya fill the darkness. So on Diwali/deepavali people light lamp symbolising the victory of good over evil, knowledge over ignorance.
Diya is lighted almost daily before the god; agni(fire) is supposedly the medium by which one can communicate with the Gods. The fire on the jyoti also represents energy, considered the part of the divine energy source which we one is worshipping; a text book example of symbol.

A bunch beautiful Diyas
There are many such examples of symbols in our daily life; for example Swastiska symbol, which was made infamous by Hitler and The Golden eagle, symbol of the USA. Since prehistoric times, we humans have been drawing symbols, symbolizing rituals, branding ourselves.

2005-10-31T17:20:00.000-07:00

A Haloween Story

"I wouldn't go to the hospital myself" I protested. Nothing of that sort even flies close to my mum, she didn't even budge. "Here, the food is packed" she said arranging the food in the wire basket. I could see a steel lunch box, a flask full of warm milk and some oranges and Bananas. "I will drop this food and comeback, I wont stay there for the night" It was whine now, trying to pluck some sympathy strings in her. "Would you leave your Granny alone?" my mum asked using the same technique at me. "You are not a kid anymore, you are fifteen year old MAN" she stressed the word man, trying to make me feel stronger.

My grand mother was diagnosed with some heart ailment and was admitted to the hospital three days ago. She was in a critical state, we almost lost hopes, she fought back and is now recovering. My dad and mum were there for last three days sleeping on the bench outside in the corridor of ICU. My dad was very happy when he announced to all our relief that granny is released from the ICU and now in the observation room. And it's now my duty to go and sleep in the hospital and keep my granny company. I hate going to hospitals; they spook me even in the day time; I cant even imagine sleeping in one for the whole night.

I started cycling towards the hospital singing a cheesy bollywood song, trying to chase away the scary thoughts with my horrible voice. The hospital was a good 15 mins bike ride; I could see the hospital now, evev the silhouette sacres me, I wanted to turn back and go home. The fear of my father and love of my grandmother made me to park my bike and walk up to the ward.

The staircase was dark, I couldn't even see the steps clearly, the crickets were creaking and the bulb was flickering. Holding my heart in my hand I started slowly climbing up the stairs, suddenly i felt warm breath on my shoulder, I almost dropped the basket in my hand and stopped the scream in my mouth and slowly turned around. There was none around. I looked around, I saw nothing, I noticed something white under the stairs, I leaned on the railings for a close look. I was scared shitless, its was dead body covered in white cloth lying on a stretcher. I ran blindly up the stairs as bumping into many walls and almost breaking the flask.

My uncle was sitting besides my granny's bed. He was trying to talk with her. My granny's eyes lit up seeing me; she beckoned me towards her and held my hands. Tears swelled up in my eyes and started rolling down my cheeks. My uncle quickly fed my granny the food i brought. "You can sleep here" he pointed an empty bed by my granny's bed. There were four beds in that room and all were empty. I nodded my head. A burly nurse came in a glass of water and some tablets. She adjusted my grannies bed and made her swallow the tablets. "My nephew will sleep here" my uncle told the nurse. She brusquely nodded, her face set stiff, I guess for the lack of laughter.

My uncle left leaving me alone with my Granny, I sat besides her holding her hand until she drifted into sleep. I slowly freed my hand, cover her with a sheet and tiptoed to the only window in that room. The ceiling fan was making a constant rhythmic creaking noise, I could hear the crickets in the staircase, as soon as I thought of staircase, i remembered of the dead body lying under it. My heart started beating faster and I started sweating. I wanted to get under the my bed sheet in my room. The room started feeling more and more creepier.

I reluctantly switched off the big light and switched on the night bulb. I then went slowly sat on the bed besides my granny's bed. I could hear her rhythmic breathing, which sounded very reassuring. I slowly closed my eyes and the corpse under the white sheet was before my eyes, startled I opened my eyes. "Who are you" I almost screamed. I saw a lady trying to sleep on a bed on the other side of my grandmothers bed. "This is my bed" she said softly "whats wrong with you " she asked me "you look very young" she sighed with pain. "I am her grandson" I pointed at my grandmother "I am spending this night here" I said.

She was quite for a while. "Come and sit here" she patted on her bed, "I am not able to see you clearly". I went closer, her age was around the age of my grandmother and she looked much paler and eyes were very dull. "Come sit" she said patting the bed again. "I have a grand son too" she said holding my hand. A sudden shill ran through my hand; her hand was very cold. "He is in America, he doesn't have time to see his grandmother" she sighed again. "Are you in pain?" I asked her. "No not anymore" she said smiling. "Whats wrong with you?" an other question. "My heart enlarged" she said making a sign by moving away her arms away from chest. "You should sleep" I said. she smiled in return.

I was getting nervous and my hand stated quivering. "Are you scared, son" she asked by patting my hair. "Yes" I said. "Come lets go to you bed, I will tuck you in", she said. I walked to my bed and she tucked me in. She then sat by my side and slowly stoked my hair. She then started singing a hymn to lord Ganesha in a melodious voice. I don't know when I drifted to sleep.

It was really bright when I woke up; a new nurse was talking to my grandmother. I smiled at both of them. I went near my granny and held her hand. "Did you sleep well?" my granny asked me softly. "Yes" I said and suddenly I remembered about the elderly lady who put me to sleep. "She put me to sleep" I said pointing to that lady's bed. "Who" both my granny and nurse asked looking around the room. "The lady who was on that bed" I pointed to that bed again. The colour drained out of nurse's face. "Are you joking?" she asked. "No" I said, "She is about my grandmother's age and her heart is enlarged" I tried to help her memory. Both of them were staring at me as if they are looking at some strange creature. "She even told me that her grandson in America doesn't have time to visit her". The nurse beacame paler, she walked away from the room silently and my grandma started crying.

My dad and mum came along with my sister. "The lady who was in this bed, who died yesterday morning, her family just came from America." My dad sighed and I saw tears rolling down his eyes. "Apparently they didn't know which hospital she was admitted and were searching all the hospitals it seems, poor lady, died a loner" he said with a loud sigh.

My knees felt weak and I collapsed on the floor.

2005-10-29T19:06:00.000-06:00

Deepavali Reminisces

Every child born and brought up in India has very fond memories of Deepavali or atleast s/he must remember the time s/he spent in the burn ward. Fortunately for me and my mum, I never even had a small burn, I came pretty close though to burning down the house.

For myself and my little sister Deepavali used to start a couple of weeks earlier than the actual festival. We used to use our pocket money to buy the 'fire crackers' and use to light them before our house with a lighted incense stick. My sister was sorta Tomboy, while all other girls would stand back and let the boys do the dirty work, my sister would fight with me, and snatch my share of crackers too.

My dad used take both of us to his friend's grocery shop in the bazaar in Nellore; its no more a grocery shop during the Diwali season, its a fireworks shop and huge one. There were thousands of 'hand-itching' fireworks on display. Its a boy's fantasy come true; "10 lakh Chain" on big box screamed at me, "Double Decker Bombs" another box wanted my attention. The king of all the crackers were "Lakshmi Firecrackers". Literally they packed a punch and only Men of strong heart would light them. My dad became a instant hero to not only to me but to all my friends when he lighted these "Lakshmi crackers" holding this cracker with one hand and lighted with another. The fuse was very short and would burn real fast. Whenever I would light them, I would run real fast after seeing the fuse alight. My dad would wait till the last moment, i.e. when the spark reaches the main body of the bomb. He then with a flourish would throw it in the air and it would explode in mid air, with so much glory, that it can only witnessed and enjoyed.
Lakshmi crackers

Coming to our Diwali shopping, We would fill our baskets trying to optimize our budgets. We wanted to maximise the time spent outside bursting the crackers, if we buy only crackers we would finish in no time at all, so we would fill our baskets with varieties of fireworks like a flower pot, vishnu chakram and such. Then comes the ritual of drying the fireworks in the sun to make them crisp and devoid of any moisture, an age old wisdom passed in the children's world to eliminate duds.

The festivities start a day early, on the day before Deepavali known as Naraka Chaturdasi. My father would wakes up at 4:30 am and would make us brush our teeth, that's one of his pet peeves, he cant stand an un washed mouth in the morning. By the time we finished brushing out teeth, we would realize that its the time to light up our 10% of our cache. We would finish our quota in no time and would have tough time, keeping our hands off from the main cache. Mum would make us take us an elaborate shower with soap nuts, with its acrid juice going and burning our eyes. We would wear our new clothes and would hit the streets looking and inspecting our friends' caches. We would treated with lots of sweats where ever we go.

I hate long posts and this getting too long, time to end it, In a few word: We used to have lots of fun!

2005-10-28T15:07:00.000-06:00

Beauty

Ponder these questions for a minute:

What exactly is beauty?
Why are everyone so hung up on being beautiful?
Why are women turned in objects of appreciation in those "beauty contests"? and
Why is Beauty multi billion $ industry?

I don't know the answers for all the above questions but I know one thing, we humans, I don't know about the other animal take beauty very seriously, but the question why stands there for someone to shed light on her.
Why is Maduri Dixit looks beautiful? where as someone else is ugly? Can we quantify beauty? I remember when we were adolescents we used to assign percentages to girls depending on how good they look, the high scorers and low scorers were sheer walk ins. The problem was the girls who fell in 60-80% category. We fought many battles trying to increase our picks scores. Beauty is so subjective.

"Beauty lies in the eyes of beholder" people have been screaming this on rooftops and top of their lungs from the time immemorial. Lets start a thought experiment, suppose, Tarzan hasn't met Jane at all, and walks out into civilization after 20 years of isolation. If Tarzan is made to sit on the Miss world judging panel, who would he chose? Depends on whether concept of beauty is genetically coded or is a matter of TV teaching us to identify beautiful people. I am sure some one must have done this study.

I went on my own quest to find out the definition of beauty. For a face to be beautiful it has to qualify these two criteria

The facial features should be proportional to the Golden ratio and
The face should be symmetrical

Golden Ratio

Wikepedia defines golden ratio as

The golden ratio is an irrational number, approximately 1.61803..., that possesses many interesting properties. Shapes defined by the golden ratio have long been considered aesthetically pleasing in Western cultures, reflecting nature's balance between symmetry and asymmetry and the ancient Pythagorean belief that reality is a numerical reality, except that numbers were not units as we define them today, but were expressions of ratios. The golden ratio is still used frequently in art and design. The golden ratio is also referred to as the golden mean, golden section, golden number, divine proportion or sectio divina.

Symmetry

Observe this close up picture of Aishwarya Rai, supposedly the most beautiful woen in the world, her left and right halves are mirror images of each other. Look closely and tell me whether I am wrong or not.

I have no idea, whether these notions of beauty are culture related or evolutionary trait, where we tend to equalize beauty to be a sexually fertile and healthy partner? Jared Diamond thinks so, he says that the notion of beauty in the animals is to advertise how healthy and fertile they are.

Now this question, Can people buy beauty? begs attention, according to my definition, one is born beautiful, and there is no way one can buy beauty. Then why is this beauty industry so powerful? No idea, may be the corporations have convinced us that buy using dove some we somehow turn in to those beautiful people who eat chocolates for lunch and blow kisses day and night. If we wont buy they wont sell, as simple as that.

What do you guys think?

2005-10-27T10:34:00.000-06:00

My take on Faith

My last blog generated quite a ruckus (Couple of comments for me is a busy day in the fish market by the sea ).The central question raised was about faith and its help in keeping ones mooring steady. Sorry folks, I wont buy those kind of fish any more, for me faith is the root cause of everything (i typed evil, but resisted plucking the low hanging fruit). Let me illustrate with an example, I have faith in my teacher and believe that my teacher would be 'fair' (again a very subjective word, lets quantify it as a acceptable behaviour in the present day society, by doing which you are not killing any kittens and puppies) and she ends up giving me a bad mark just cause I giggled with her niece. Is my faith misplaced? Should I even have faith in her? Would I have been better by reasoning out that Giggling with teacher's niece would annoy her and she would punish me? Dragging this analogy along, would it better in putting faith in the Lord and riding out the storm or packing and leaving to a better place? This analogy Sucks, but oh well, one has to live with what one has got.

Belief and faith according to me and a recent Guardian article are strong evolutionary traits. Humans while evolving started believing in the big sky daddy who would watch over them, send in the locusts, throw a few lighting bolts and many such things at his children because he is upset over his shaving water being 54 deg rather than 52 deg. This faith in this imaginary deity helped them in time of crisis, praying helped sooth the frayed nerves and this imaginary deity grew in strength, he became GOD of all things.

I never said that I believed in monetary rewards for my prayers and prayed for the winnig Lotto 649 numbers. I said that if there were the power to that prayer, I would have become richer, smarter and prettier just because my mum prays day in day out. Belief and faith in something powerful than us may be good thing, heck it even helped us evolve in to this position, where we are thinking of even time travel. For me, I would pass on Faith, and I would have some more reason.

2005-10-11T14:20:00.000-06:00

This is How I feel about Religion

Well said! A 'Cartoon' is truly worth thounds of hours of discussion.

Over and out, Captain.

2005-10-10T18:04:00.000-06:00

If only God were there!!

I lost my 'faith' sometime in late 2002 and early 2003. I found Dr.Reason and Lady logic more enlightening than Ganesha and Jesus. It has been not so rough sailing since then. I knew my moral bearings, I steered my ship off the obvious disasters which gets attributed to "'disbelievers" likes us.

Yesterday something happened, which may be is probably nothing, made me yearn for the presence of God. As I said earlier, I was a strong believer in a fair God and thought that the world He created is fair. I also believed that I wouldn't not be cheated and if somebody shortchanges me s/he will face 'the payback' some other time. If I were 'good' I will be rewarded by the this just God not only after death but during life time. Now as I have lost faith in this 'God' I feel lost, "is there any hope for being good?" I ended up crying into the empty skies where no flying pink unicorn or a an Elephant god mounted on a mouse were listening.

If only God were there,

Babies wouldn't have died under the rubble of falling buildings

Hitler and Osama Bin Laden wouldn't have existed

I would have got a undue advantage of all the praying, which, my family 'religiously' performs.

My streak of bad luck would have ended long ago

Ganesha would have jumped down from his mouse and would have made my miserable life a bit better

Alas! if only God existed. I so much want God to exist, I so much want a Divine plan to exist, I so much want a master planner sitting up there and making the moves up there.

If anyone else, who by chance, would read this tell me what they think?

2005-10-06T16:41:00.000-06:00

A python ate an alligator!

(continuing my snake series)

And didn't survive to tell the story..."When I was in Florida, I saw this yummy alligator..."

Someone around here swallowed more than it can digest

2005-10-06T09:49:00.000-06:00

Snakes and Me!

I am currently reading this very entertaining book, "The snakebite survivors club". No, I am not one of them. Bur, to be fair I have come very close to be a member of it.

Having grown up in India, I have some snake encounters up my sleeve (pun intended). Well I haven't seen an India who doesn't have a Cobra story or two, real or made-up.

When I was a little kid, One late evening I came home after playing cricket. "Don't even think of stepping into the Kitchen" My mum screamed from kitchen without turning to look at me. I am amazed at her power of sensing before hand what I am going to do, even before I think of it. "Go and take a bath first" she said stirring something. It smelled really good. We had our bathroom outside the house. It was a room constructed outside the house. Most of the older houses were constructed with bathrooms separated from the main house, as they were considered unclean.

I went into the bathroom. it was a damp and dark place. It had a small 40 watt bulb in it. I switched on the light. "I cant see anything in this hole" I muttered to myself. We had to fill a bucket of water from a slowly dripping faucet and then use the water to take a bath. "Where the hell is the bucket"? I asked aloud, as if the broom in the corner would answer my question.

I looked around, and I found it in a dark corner. I went and picked it up. I could never forget what happened next. My worst nightmare came true. I heard a hissing sound and saw something yellow under the bucket. That's it I My heart stopped beating! I threw the bucket on the yellow hissing thing and ran out of the washroom screaming.

Thankfully, both for the public and me, I was not totally in state of full undress. My dad then went into the washroom with a big stick and powerful flashlight. He didn't find the yellow hissing thing. He searched the whole damn bathroom for more than an hour. "You Must have dreamt about it" he teased me. He thinks that I am wussy. "Ya sure I was dreaming in that ****hole" I thought of answering him back, but the precedences urged me earnestly, "DON'T ANSWER BACK!!" I swallowed my pride and went back in to the wash room with that big flash light.

I think the snake in the washrom that day is the common tree sanke, which is very common in India.

The commmon Indian Tree snake

I have encountered snakes very closely in couple of instances. I will write about them later.

2005-10-04T15:08:00.000-06:00

Reading the Tea leaves!

Yessir, I want to be a futurist. In the long list of my 'wannabees' this is the latest addition, just after the 'stand-up comedian' entry. I can see the inquisitive readers eyes scanning for the list, but sorry noble sirs/madams, that's a subject for another entry.

I was reading about this colourful character Ray kurzweil, who calls himself a futurist. If this term isn't self explanatory, I will try to break it up for you, futurist: One who tries to predict the future, see easy isn't it?

So what's the difference between the dude with a dirty beard sitting with a deck of cards and a clipped parrot in cage by the street corner and this Starbucks-sipping, Black-turtle-neck- wearing, Powerbook-donning intellectual? The dirty bearded guy with a parrot would try to predict whether you would be able to that 14 inch colour TV your wife always wanted, while, this powerbook flaunting Californian intellectual spawns such thoughts about whether the machine intelligence would overtakte the human intelligence? If yes, then When? Would that be a 'good' thing or a 'bad' thing?, and, such mundane topics.

Well if Ray can do it, Pavan could too. What do I see in future? *Ducks to pick up the crystal Ball, dusts it off with a dirty socks*. I am Sorry to rain on your parade gentlefolk. I dont see anything bright there. All I see is the replay of the movie "Day after Tommorow", with all the climax scenes from all the doomsday's movies thrown in.

That's what I see

I would be really surprised if we as a humanity sees the year 2100 AD. If a Global Hurricane doesn't blow us off, a deadly mutation of AIDS and common cold would get us. Why am I forgetting the giant asteroid lurking in the Asteroid belt? Wait a second wouldn't the earth be so warm to melt the polar caps and wipe out 60% of the population living on the coast? These are just some small stuff what our benevolent Mother Earth and Merciful Father nature would/could do. That's nothing compared what this monkey sitting on the top of food chain can do.

We did it once in 1942, made humans as fuel for furnaces, dropped couple of Nuclear bombs on cities to test whether they can really form mushroom clouds, released germs in the air to test whether then can really kill people . I am pretty sure that we will do that again. We have More number Nuclear weapons to annihilate earth 100 times over. We have also some really wonderful biological weapons to take care of the rest 50 times to kill the cockroaches left. Some really smelly chemical weapons just for a good measure if the above two fail to kill all the 100%.

I am sure the hatred we have for each other will be sufficient to ensure the dark future I have seen in my crsytal ball. We are doomed, my friendly monkeys, we are one the last few people to rape and pillage our mother earth.

Enough of death and doom for the day, I will now go back to be being an optimistic and to be a greeter at my local Wal-Mart.

2005-09-15T21:50:00.000-06:00

Municipal Elections

A local newspaper from my hometown wanted opinions from Nellorians who settled abroad, regarding the Muncipal elections, which are to be held on 23rd September.

This is mine:

I remember very vividly the 86-87 (please correct) municipal elections. I was in in my sixth or seventh class then, we were living in K.V. Agraharam, which was in 16th ward. We used to play cricket in small vacant plot in our street. One evening we were playing cricket as usual , then suddenly some people came and chased us away from that spot. Then they erected shamianas and then within half an hour tractors started arriving with loads of tribals (Nakkalollu).

As we stood there and watched, these people we fed with Palau and were served desi alcohol. Within no time few of them became really drunk and started shouting loudly, we got really scared and ran home. Later that evening I came to know that Municipal elections were the next day and one candidate wanted these people to vote for him and essentially bought these votes.

I live in Calgary, Canada. The Municipal elections are called 'City Elections' here. The system is almost the same. The "ward member' is known as 'Alderman'. People vote for both their Alderman and Mayor. They are elected for terms of four years.

One thing which strikes as a very significant difference between Canada and India is that the Representatives here take their constituents very seriously. Staring from MP to my Alderman, every sends us their monthly news letters detailing the work they did for us. They list their phone numbers and email addresses where we can reach them. I was told that response time for any concern is actually very little.

What we need in Nellore is accountability. The ward members should be in constant touch with us. They should publish thier public phone numbers where they could be reached. They should share with us the work they did for the ward. In India the party they represent is more important than the people who elected them, which in my opinion should change.

2005-09-14T11:42:00.000-06:00

Seema Cafe, Seema Center, Nellore

Who ever reads my Blog, I guess, would have this question, why did I name my Blog Seema-Cafe? No self respecting person from Nellore would ask me this question. Seema Cafe or Seema ceter is 'The-hangout' place for a Nellorian.

Its in the heart of Nellore, on Trunk road and serves awesome milky tea in the greasy dirty glasses. Sometimes I wonder what gives the tea there that tatse? The grease on the glasses? The unwashed saliva ? The cheap soap with which it was washed? or just the magic of that place? No idea, but anyways the tea tasting is a must for anyone visiting Nellore.

Seema Center is the place where all the barriers are collapsed, economic, social and no i wouldn't say gender. I haven't seen girls and women hanging out there. At least till three years ago, when I visited it last time. You could spot a rickshaw puller arguing about the subtle politics of Telagana moment with the sitting MLA. You could also see a big Landlord and a day labourer standing under same tree and drinking from the same set of greasy glasses discussing the newly released Chiranjeevi movie.

Seema center as whole comes up with a better election results prediction than any Delhi based Psephologist. During the election results time, a local paper would always make a reporter sit there and drink Tea and constantly report the latest predictions from under the tree near Seema Cafe.

I have lost touch with the crowd that hangs out near Seema center. Almost all of my Friends have moved of Nellore and only very few of them hang out there. i therefore dont hangout there that often, but I make it a point to go there when ever I am there and taste the milky tea in the greasy cup.

So my friends that's why I named my Blog Seema-Cafe, part nostalgia, part admiration and part yearning to be standing under the tree and to discuss the fine points of the climax in the latest Chiranjeevi release in Nellore.

2005-09-12T19:48:00.000-06:00

Train and the cow

I must be around 12 or thirteen years old. It was not even a week since our summer vacation started, my mother got sick of me and my sister, our constant fighting over whose turn is to ride the single bicycle, who gets to sleep near the window, and my sis's constant complaints on myself trying to eavesdrop into her secret gossip with her Friends. "That's it" My mum screamed as I went and complained how my sister added a Palm full of salt into sambar, my favourite dish. "You two are not staying together anymore, I will ask your dad to book your ticket to Hyderabad." "You are not fair" My sister screamed at top of her throat. "You are always partial towards your son", she sobbed. It doesn't really matter that she will be getting a special treatment from both my father and mother in my absence. She will go gold and clothes shopping daily, will get her Friends daily to our home and mum will cook for all of them.

Before I even realised I was bundled in the overnight train to Hyderabad. "Don't cause trouble to your grandmother" My mum said combing my hair on the platform. "I wont" I said escaping from her hands. My dad was busy speaking to the guy who waves the red and green flags at trains. "In couple of minutes" my dad said. I guess it was the train. One of my dads childhood wishes was to work for the Railways and he sometimes when he is in the railway station he forgets that he doesn't work for the railways. "The train is blocked" he said. I looked at him worried, "blocked? Am I not going to Hyderabad?" "It has entered our block, we railways say that as blocked" he picked up my bag. As if the engine took the cue, it entered the station majestically, with a loud horn. Everyone reverently moved back a couple of steps back. There was no question on who was the king there. The engine driver acknowledged with a all knowing wave to the green flag waving guy. He look so in control. "I will be an engine driver" I said under my breath with my mouth agape.

"Its the New WAP class from BHEL" said my father looking with admiration at the engine. The boy in him too was enamoured by this majestic beast. I was interested in his Statistics at all, I ignored his long list of its statistics he was narrating to my mum. All i wanted to do is touch the engine and get into its cabin. But the train stops only a few minutes at Nellore, so my father dragged me near my compartment, which was 3rd from the engine.

There was huge crowd to get into the compartment, a Mum was trying to push in her children through the narrow entrance and at the same time trying not to get her starched cotton sari crumpled, a young couple were being sent off by I guess the girls parents, the girl and her mum were crying, the guy was watching goofy at them and nervously at the signal. A Grandpa was shouting at top of his lungs at the crowd because someone was crushing grandma near the entrance. Somehow I got in without getting crushed or screamed at. I navigated myself towards my berth by squeezing thru the crowd and saw a burly man fighting with a thin lady. I couldn't help smiling, would be a very interesting trip indeed. I saw my mum and dad standing on the platform.

"I will give a grandma a call in the morning" My mum said. "Be careful" my dad sad. "Don't stand near the door" he said by patting my hand. I heard a sharp horn from the engine, my father and my mum waved. The train started moving with a small jerk. People came to see off were running with the train as if trying to stop the train. The young bride was bending her head so much that I was fearing that it would snap at any minute. The fat guy and that thin lady stooped screaming at each other just to allow us to enjoy this departure spectacle.

It was 9:30 pm and I could see the Great Bear in the sky travelling with us. I felt so grown up, travelling all by myself to hyderabad. I looked around I was sharing the block of wight berths with The fat dude and his wife, the thin lady and her two eqaully thin twin daughters of some indistinguishable age, and the new couple who havent looked at anything else except at each others eyes. The fat guy and thin lady were apprently fighting over the luggage space. the fat guy has occupied most of the luggage space under seat with his huge gunny bags full of some sort of produce. I didnt even bother to listen to thier agreement or disagreement. The lights in the comprtment were getting switched off one by one, and everyone in my block alsmost settled down. I got into my top berth and went to bed staright. I then imagined of piloting one of these smart engines.

I suddenly felt a sudden jolt and train slowed down suddenly and then stopped. A small child somewhere in the compartment started crying loudly. I looked into my elotronic watch, it was half past one. I jumped down and wore my shoes and went near the exit of the compartment. The door was locked shut. No one was there, and actually very few pople woke up. I tried opening it but it was too heavy and tight for me. As i was fiddling with it, a man may be in his thirties came by, "What happened to this bloody train" he scremed at me, as if I was responsible for it. I shurgged and said, "I dont know". He then opened the door and jumped down. I didnt know what to do, should I jump down and look at what happened or should I saty back in the safety of the train. I peered out into the dark. I couldnt see anything.

My curiosity got better of me and I jumped out. I landed on the loose ballast and had struggle to keep my balance. I started walking towards the eingine and thankfully it was only a few meters away from my comprtment. As I reached the eingine a crowd of already a dozen people have gathered. I walked past this group and was greeted by a very ghastly sight. It was so gruesome that my stomeched churned instaly and i threw up. "hey kid go back and sleep" someone from the group admonished me. I ignored him. I couldnt take my eyes of this macabre scene.

the enigine apprently hit a cow at the speed of 1230-130 KMPH. The was nothing left of the cow. All i could see is flesh lieing on the track wihich was shining red with blood under the powerfull light of "New WAP from BHEL". The driver and his assistant were examing the einigne with a flashlight. "There must be leak somewhere" said the elder amonst the driver and his assitant, he must be main driver. "I dont see any leak" replied his assitnat from under the eingine". I suddenly realised that I am standing besides this incredible beast. I went near and touched the cold steel body of this eingine. I felt the rumble of many egines running inside it. "Wow what a power" I said to myself. "Found it" , the assistant shouted and the main driver went towrdas his assistant.

to be cont...

2005-09-09T13:27:00.000-06:00

Worst disaster??

You decide....
Katrina or Bush??

Some one sent me the following facts comparing the recent floods in Bombay and the floods in New Orleans. I think these are biased and cant be compared at all. But you decide.
India to send US$ 5 Million for help relief after the hurricane.

-Interesting Facts

inches of rain in new orleans due to hurricane katrina... 18

inches of rain in Mumbai (July 27th).... 37.1

population of new orleans... 484,674

population of mumbai.... 12,622,500

deaths in new orleans within 48 hours of katrina...100

deaths in mumbai within 48hours of rain.. 37.

number of people to be evacuated in new orleans... entire city..wohh
number of people evacuated in mumbai...10,000

Cases of shooting and violence in new orleans...Countless

Cases of shooting and violence in mumbai.. NONE

Time taken for US army to reach new orleans... 48hours

Time taken for Indian army and navy to reach mumbai...12hours

status 48hours later...new orleans is still waiting for relief, army
and electricity status 48hours later..mumbai is back on its feet and is
business is as usual

USA...world's most developed nation
India...third world country.

2005-09-08T11:40:00.000-06:00

Whats so evil about EVIL??

Bush Jr. goes on TV and says that ``God has given me the authority to vanquish evil. I will bomb them back to stone age”.
Immediately The bad guy* goes on TV and says than “the evil American empire will be punished severely”

So whats this evil? Someone is evil according to someone else.So Am I evil? what should evil be? Should I have horns? Do I need to have a tail? Hard to check! So what does this say? Creatures with tails and horns are evil? Or should you rob ice cream from a little girl?

Then what exactly is this evil? Is Whats not "good" evil? Then what's good then? Is What's not evil is good. Now we are going in circles trying to catch our own tails!! Welcome to my world of circular reasoning.

So according to Sir Bush (I had to knight him! Well he is so righteous and full of conviction.) whoever opposes him is evil. UN is evil, France is evil too, for baby Ganesha sakes Katrina is evil too. Now every French citizen has two more horns and a tail to care for! I pity the French. They are going thru such a hard time. Their fries are Even renamed as freedom fries. All the Russian sounding names are evil after Katrina.

So Sir, we are still waiting for definition of evil. What’s not republican is evil. well that makes at least 50% of America and rest of the world evil. Why should we sit through this boring incantation of evil every time Americans/Westerners face an enemy ? Is this because they are deeply religious? or because the public could only relate to this talk?

Coming back to the main question, I am trying to come up with an acceptable definition a person/thing (its hard to define is it?) which acts against the progress of a society can be called as an evil?.

Now this becoming dangerous, the concept of collective good. Someone who is different becomes dangerous; someone with different view points becomes dangerous evil. Someone with a different orientation becomes the evil one.. Witches were thought to be detrimental to the society, they are so evil that they were burned. Does mean that being different is evil?

lord Krishna ask us search for evil inside us. Well then lets take me as an example, lets assume that I am a "normal" person. I feel a twinge of hatred. I feel jealousy, I feel all the negative emotions. Does that make me evil? so who is not? Are we all evil?Are all Iraqis evil? are all Americans evil? are all French evil? so who is not evil?

we as a human race need a face for evil. First we had Satan, we had pagans, we had Hitler, we had Mussolini, we had those evil Russians, now we have osama bin laden. Yessir Osama bin Laden is the new evil.

He is a very cruel person. He may be even a pshycotic killer, but not evil in theological sense. Demonetisation of real persons makes them more than men and that fulfills their darkest desires. I wouldn’t go to an extent and say that he had a reason for what he did. Terrorism has no reason and no Justification. He should be shown no mercy worthy of any human, and the same time he shouldn't be made more than a human.

To fight evil one needs a God, that's what i get out from the religious people. So when ever some one says that he is fighting evil does it mean that mean he is God or atleast acting as if he has God's sanction? Bringing god and invoking his name in day to day affairs according to me is not a very efficient governance.

This is how people were ruled in dark ages! By invoking the name of god for subjugation. Are we any better? We are living in the age of knowledge. God and evil belong to ones personal life. But as they they say people sell what we buy.

We want our leaders to talk of God and Evil at every turn, so that we feel secure. May be that's what we want and deserve, this false sense of security. Until we the public demand more governance and less moral lessons we will be continued with this drivel.

The next time you switch on TV and hear the word "evil" please think do we really need these false Gods fighting false Evils in these false battles so that we could enjoy our false freedoms?

2005-09-07T10:53:00.000-06:00

A sad story

I always wanted to try to write a tragedy ala Chekov. This is my attempt at it. I have to complete it yet, so read at it your risk.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Shall we talk to him?” Seenu asked Aarthi who was refilling the oil in the ‘Diya’. Suddenly there was a whiff of air and the flame of ‘Diya’ flickered. Aarthi’s heart missed a beat and she quickly covered the flame with both of her hands. She sobbed out aloud. Tears rolled out of Seenu’s eyes. Seenu held her close. He could see her bloodshot eyes in the faint light of the ‘Diya’. They cried resting on each other’s shoulders. ‘Diya’ burned brightly as if to comfort them in a warm hug of its glow.

Rahul was lost in the land of dreams in the room next door. He was busy chasing butterflies on the Chocolate Mountain. Aarthi always told him about those Chocolate Mountains. “The Evil Dragon and the Chocolate Mountain” is his favourite bedtime story. Seenu and Aarthi made up this story for their bundle of joy.

“When will I go and kill that evil dragon?” Rahul used to sleepily ask before slipping into his dream world. “Soon” Aarthi would kiss him goodnight. She couldn’t stop cursing herself for saying so as Rahul is soon going away to the chocolate mountains forever.

Seenu and Aarthi are married for last eight years. Their joys had no bounds when Rahul arrived into their world. Everything was normal then. When Rahul took his first step their joy leaped. They screamed out of happiness when he uttered his first word. They felt as if they have conquered the whole world when he called them ‘Amma and Nanna’. Everything was so normal. Rahul was 5 years old when something out of normal happened. Rahul fell sick. He lost weight rapidly. He ran fever constantly. None of the doctors had any clue. All the treatments were exhausted in vain.

Dr. Reddy a well-known paediatrician took up the case. He treated Rahul for 2 months. In spite of Dr. Reddy’s assiduous treatment there was no marked improvement in Rahul’s condition. Seenu and Aarthi started praying to all Gods they could come across. “Give our health to our son and his health to us” they would pray.

A week ago Dr. Reddy called both of them to his office. “I am very sorry,” he said mopping of the white hair from his forehead with a grave expression on his face.

“I read and reread the reports and ‘its’ in the final stage,” he said with lot of grief in his voice and a drooping head. Seenu couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He felt numbness creeping all over his body. Aarthi simply gazed through the window behind Dr. Reddy with her lifeless eyes. It’s strange how each one of us reacts in a different way when confronted by our deepest fears.

“I am afraid that medical science is not that advanced to cure. …Rahul” Dr. Reddy said turning towards the window and wiping his tears off.

Dr. Reddy in 30 years of his career has handled many terminally ill patients, but this case became a little too personal for him. He got attached the sweet smile on Rahul’s face. Rahul calls him ‘taattiah’ (grandfather) affectionately. The little one reminds him of his six-year-old grandson whom he has never seen except for the photographs emailed by his son from the far shores of America.

Nothing moved in that office for a long time. Not even air.

“Is there any hope if we take him to the foreign specialists?” Seenu asked praying silently for a ray of hope. Tears rolled down from Aarti’s dim eyes. She didn’t even make and effort to wipe them. Seenu held her hand tight.

Dr. Reddy without turning towards them said, “I have been corresponding with doctors in US working in this area, they also have the same opinion…” His voice trailed off. He took a tissue to wipe his tears off.

Aarathi was as old as Rahul when her grandfather fell ill. Her granny lit a ‘Diya’ and would always stay near it day and night. “Why are you doing this granny?” asked little Aarathi. “This is not a normal Diya sweetie” granny kissed Aarthi on her forehead “this is the light of life, as long as this is lit your grandfather will be with us” Granny said with a moistened eyes. Aarathi never forgot those words.

“If science can’t cure my Rahul, my faith and my love will cure him,” Aarthi said to herself by lighting a small Diya in a corner of her small kitchen, where she worships a couple of framed paintings of Gods whom her Granny gave her before she died.

It has been two days since they came back from Dr. Reddy’s office with the grim news. Since then Aarthi never left the side of her Diya, all she would do is sit and look at the soot coated pictures of Gods as if questioning them “why us?”

Aarthi has always been fighter and never took anything lying down. She wants to fight and save her Rahul but doesn’t know how to or with whom. The sheer helplessness of this situation is making her more insolent and angry. Diya is her statement of defiance against ‘The Fate’.

Seenu is very practical and pragmatic. He took Rahul out everyday to the playground which is a short walk from their home. “Why I am not able to run?” Rahul asked one day with tears in his seeing his friends playing soccer. Seenu had no answer.

to be cont...

2005-09-06T11:55:00.000-06:00

Objectivism

I was having a discussion with my friends on the topic of objectivism, and no one had clear cut definition of what it is!

According to me objectivism is philosophy about self. Achieving the goals set by yourself fro yourself without sacrificing yourself or others. According to an other girl its about choice, its about doing what you want without caring what others think of what you are doing.

Then I went to wikipedia and tried to understand what objectivism really means, I didn't understand a squat! They have five or more points and the main one is about The Fact being absolute, irrespective your emotional state, your social status or anything. The objectivism is about finding out this absolute fact.

Ayn Rand also hates government and doesn't want any government involvement in any sphere. This is where Objectivism equals to anarchism. I came out of it thoroughly confused. The moral of the story is the Individuals in the society should be try to do what they want to irrespective of what others expect! Self is the most important aspect of Human existence.

I would quote Ayn Rand trying to explain Objectivism in Lay man terms, from www.aynrand.org.

At a sales conference at Random House, preceding the publication of Atlas Shrugged, one of the book salesmen asked me whether I could present the essence of my philosophy while standing on one foot. I did as follows:

1. Metaphysics: Objective Reality
2. Epistemology: Reason
3. Ethics: Self-interest
4. Politics: Capitalism

If you want this translated into simple language, it would read: 1. "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed" or "Wishing won't make it so." 2. "You can't eat your cake and have it, too." 3. "Man is an end in himself." 4. "Give me liberty or give me death."

If you held these concepts with total consistency, as the base of your convictions, you would have a full philosophical system to guide the course of your life. But to hold them with total consistencyÃ—to understand, to define, to prove and to apply themÃ—requires volumes of thought. Which is why philosophy cannot be discussed while standing on one footÃ—nor while standing on two feet on both sides of every fence. This last is the predominant philosophical position today, particularly in the field of politics.

Ayn Rand

My philosophy, Objectivism, holds that:

1. Reality exists as an objective absoluteÃ—facts are facts, independent of man's feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.
2. Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses) is man's only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.
3. ManÃ—every manÃ—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.
4. The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man's rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of full capitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.

If anyone understands this philosophy better could you explain it to me please?

2005-09-05T11:30:00.000-06:00

Racism in New Orleans?

Was race involved in the bungling of New Orleans? Are Kanye West and reverend Jackson talking off their assess when they accused of administration of being complacent just because majority of the people involved are blacks? Or is just because the administration is just awful and pathetic when it comes to human suffering?

I belief that the administration is just apthatetic to human suffering. They are pretty equal in dishing injustice to everyone. The bombed the civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq, they killed few Canadians in friendly fire, they cut veteran benefits, they are trying to derail the social security, they are spending billions in a quagmire called Iraq, they have cut spending in science and research. The only people they benefit is their corporate interests. No prize for guessing who got the contract fro cleaning up New Orleans...Haliburton, who else?

The sad fact is majority of blacks are poor and cant fend for themselves. That's the reason they got trapped in that hell hole. Bush was playing guitar while the young girls were getting raped!

Jesse should smoke a joint and relax, blacks are not discriminate against in fact the whole humanity is being disgraced and discriminated against by these inhuman beasts.

2005-09-02T10:22:00.000-06:00

Katrina, You could have been more Merciful!!

See what a Cat 4 hurricane can do it turned a city into a war zone. If you have two pictures of downtown Baghdad and New Orleans(NO) even President cant identify which is which. Its total anarchy there.

Which is which?

Picture 1
Picture 2

Guys Take a guess which is which? Bombay was criticized the media all over the world for the poor response to the floods, what's this then? We are all the same, selfish and self centered sobs.

The guys who didn't evacuate NO and rode out Katrina, immediately started looting the place clean. They have apparently armed themselves and started raping people. That's just out of the world. I have lived through hurricanes in the Hurricane alley of India. We have had more than 150 KMPH winds. I didn't tie a bandanna around my head and loot the grocery shop by my house. I didn't go around shooting at Helicopters trying to drop food!

Why this then? Are humans so uncivilized and so animal like that at drop of a hat we turn into a bunch of marauders? What's wrong here? Are they only a bunch of bad apples? Why would you shoot at the Military helicopters? I understand my Mohammad in Baghdad is shooting at them but why is Nelly shooting at them in NO?

I sincerely don't have an idea, but the book Lord of flies comes into mind. A bunch of boys get stranded in an island, and the book details how these boys organize into groups and almost kill each other. So moral of the story? None we humans have longs ways to go, Darwin has to kick in and expedite our evolution into a better species. Stupid people are breeding in a higher rate than smart ones. This should stop.

On a side note, The name Katarine, Catharine, Katarine means graceful and merciful in German, it seems. But there are other scholars who don't agree with that, they say that these names come from a Greek root which means torture. Talk about confusing between extremes.

Oh well, Katrina should have been more merciful!

2005-09-01T13:22:00.000-06:00

Writer's Block

Diagnosis: severe
Chances of Recovery : Nill to none
Prognosis: Discipline

This is what I got out after examining myself. Why on earth did I get into this rut? I love writing and spouting my opinions starting George Bush style of clearing a shrub in ranch to mums choice of masala in her curry. So why did this opinionated slob kept to himself? Well lot happened.

I had my Candidacy and my friend suffered a personal tragedy. I lost a close friend, no not physically. I have stopped few stories mid stream. The characters are screaming and yelling at me to complete them. I vaguely remember a TV show in India where the characters completly control the life of the writer. Wouldn't that be something? I read somewhere that O'Henry was so involved in creating his characters that he almost fell in love with one of his characters.

So what can be the best way to break the writers block? We don't need an Einstein chairing a scientific committee to answer this, or we don't need a spiritual council to meet in Mecca, or we don't need to perform an yagnyam. The answer is right on my finger- =tips both literally and figuratively. I should make it point to write a few lines every day.

I have to complete the short story I have been trying to write for a while. I haven't read any books lately. I heard lot of good things about Rushdie's new book "Shalimar, The clown" couldn't wait to read it. I checked the local library, they have a mile long line. I don't mind being in it. After I read "midnight children" I was in so much awe of Rushdie. All I wanted to do is to write like him. He weaves a complex tapestry of ideas and emotiosn and one gets trapped in it, believe its very shagedelic, and its a very good feeling.

I envy that dude Rushdie, he lives in the most fashionable quarters of New York, has Padma Lakshmi as his Girl friend and writes absolutely wonderful prose. What else can a man ask for? Well other than a 52 inch television and a comfy couch? and some warm dinner? Don't look at me like that...

For all you dudes out there, this is what Padma looks like...

Padma Lakshmi, and the name sounds so South Indian...
So can I ever be Rushdie? Can I dream of Bookers? The answers are no and yes. Who can stop me from dreaming? Can anyone snatch away your dreams? I read '1984' by Orwell few years ago. The big brother owns your thoughts and dreams. Well we are getting there, now corporations own your ideas, and then surely they would own your dreams.

Well this is good for starters... Will write some more tomorrow.
Adios till then.

2005-06-16T08:45:00.000-06:00

Back to Blogging

Sincerely I got sick of blogging and I took off, where to, you ask? No where I would say. I was hiding or atleast trying to hide from , what, you ask, None, I would say.
what made me to scribble again, Michael Jackson's chimp? nope, nothing actually. I just woke up and started writing. Have you read the news about a three year old Canadian boy murdered in Cambodia by those low life, inbreeding, scumsucking terrorists? No words can describe the pain and agony of the parents, one moment playing and the other moment lying dead in their laps? What would they find when try to search for reason? Where would they end up? In the dark alleys of illogic? In the murky swampy corners of religion? In the shanty towns of poverty? I would say search in the mental asylum of human stupidity
I wanted to start in a positive note, but hey at least I started! you all have a nice day!

2005-03-31T11:47:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-03-30T13:43:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-03-29T09:59:00.001-07:00

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...

2005-03-28T16:36:00.001-07:00

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!

2005-03-26T14:54:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-03-25T17:04:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-03-24T09:42:00.000-07:00

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

2005-03-21T10:21:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-03-17T14:52:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-03-16T13:16:00.000-07:00

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....

2005-03-15T11:58:00.001-07:00

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

2005-03-14T10:55:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-03-10T10:27:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-03-09T10:01:00.000-07:00

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!

2005-03-04T15:51:00.000-07:00

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......

2005-03-03T10:29:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-03-02T09:37:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-02-28T11:18:00.000-07:00

Euthanasia

Million Dollar Baby, The Oscar winning flick by Clint Eastwood is taking in a lot of flak from Right wing moral brigade for supporting the mercy killing, euthanasia. Moral brigade hates taking life and they consider life to be the Gift of God and one doesn't have the right to take it.

They use the same logic to oppose abortions and stem cell research. Is Mercy killing so bad? Imagine that you are in severe pain and the pain need to be drenched in barrel full of pain killers and there is no hope for you to be cured fully. What would you prefer to do? Live this life full of misery or end this misery with dignity?

If I were ever to be in the above situation, I would prefer to die. Then comes the moral question who decides the time to die? Can a doctor decide whether I could live or not? Is it only me and myself who can decide to end my life? If yes, then is committing suicide ethical? Lots of ethical questions come up when the matter is of life and Death and the religion is not far behind.

There is an interesting legal battle going on in Florida. This is the case of Terry Schiavo, she has been in vegetative state on a hospital bed for over fifteen years. Her husband wants to end this misery for her and her parents wants her to keep alive. Florida Court has ordered the food pipe to be removed but Jeb Bush, a conservative Christian, governor of Florida and brother of president Bush stepped in and stopped the food pipe removal.

Why do these Christians who love life so much do cheer for war? Aren't Afghanistan's babies not children of God? Aren't Iraqi girls sleeping in their houses reduced to rubble when Daisy cutters dropped on them, dear to God? Is this typical my God is better than your God argument? Whenever there is religion there is hypocrisy.

What do I think? I am for euthanasia. If the medical opinion says that there is no way Terri or any other would recover and would continue to suffer terrible pain, if the family wants, they should be allowed to let her go.

What if she doesn't want to die and couldn't speak? I don't know. I guess no one knows the answer. The answer is to make a will and state explicitly what your intenstions are. My will would state "Even if there is any doubt that I wouldnt recover from the coma, take my feeding tube off and put the Beer tube in".

2005-02-25T11:21:00.000-07:00

First Impressions!

Yesterday my friend was talking about first impressions in the toastmaster meeting I go to every week. His whole argument was the First Impressions are very important and we should be careful on making a good first impression.

Why should the first impression matter? Can you judge everyone by their smile on their face and the ten dollar el-cheapo wall mart T shirt? No, but this is what every one does in the world. Judging and making first impressions. They say that first impressions are hard to wipe off!

I was always on the receiving end of these negative first impressions. The first thing that comes to beholders mind on seeing me is that I am thug teleported from the streets of Nellore. They think that I am an uneducated, uncouth idiot. I have to work my ass off to wipe that wrong impression.

First Impression have a very strong evolutionary origins. Why do you think peacocks have this huge ornate tail? If I were peacock running away from a predator I would wish I didn't have that huge tail impairing my run for my life. Peacocks figured that by having a beautiful tail they stood a chance of finding mate rather than having none. Peahen's on the other hand could judge whether this potential mate is healthy or not by looking at the peacock's tail.

So we being evolved from peacocks started judging each other not only by how beautiful tails we had but how we behave, the twitch in face muscles when we smile, the twinkle in the eye and the breathing speed. Nothing escapes from the beholder's scrutiny. We gauge the person and place in him our respect totempole.

My dear rebels, there is no hope , evolution conspired against us. If you want a mate, a career, a car and a home in Suburbia, make good impressions. Buy decent clothes and use a decent deodorant.

2005-02-24T09:50:00.000-07:00

Celebrity Fascination!

Why are we mere mortal humans so enamored by the rich and famous? Why are the TV shows about these celebrities most watched? And why do we care so much about them?

I was asking myself these questions this morning as I was reading the TIME magazines article on Prince Charles and his concubine Camilla Parkers's engagement and the impending wedding. On Feb 14th when Windsor Palace announced this, there was no news except this news. How would I care if a snobbish, stiff upper lip, 'I am a royal your a mortal' , philandering prince weds a nymph whose claim of fame is 'my great grandmother was your great grand father's mistress'. I am not joking, this is how she introduced herself to Prince Charles 34 years ago.

Prince Charles with Camilla

Remember the Diana obsessesion we collectively endured a decade ago? She was followed everywhere she went, her every activity was reported for example when did she take a shower and for how long? And what brand of cereal she served. Such a worthy information I dares say. She paid the ultimate price for this status, she got killed while trying to get away from the paperazzi.

The million dollar question right now is, why is this society so hungry for celebrity news?

Is this because our lives so empty and dry, so that we need some spice, even if it is from someone else's backyard?
Is it because we need to know how these people are so rich and famous, so that if we follow these people's daily routine we some how become celebrities?
Or to make ourselves fell better by reading about Jennifer Lopez vapid love life?

All the three reasons seems to very plausible to me at least. May be sociologists have a better researched and more scientific reasons. For me the first reason sounds more interesting than the other two. This is the reason why we watch soap operas, read novels and the natural extension to these activities is our curiosity on how does others dirty laundry smell.

There is this new show on ABC called "Desperate Housewives", which is a very big hit. This soap follows the lives of five suburban housewives. The name leaves nothing to imagination about the content of the show. This show had more ratings than the Grammy awards ceremony and ABC is preemting this show for the Academy Awards ceremony this Sunday.

Well I guess, this celebrity infatuation has a brighter side. It decreases the depression rate and suicide rate. I would rather watch Michael Jackson court trail rather than spending time on answering my collection agency's phone calls! What else are celebrities for?

2005-02-23T11:57:00.000-07:00

NASA disputes 'Indian test topper' story: "NASA disputes 'Indian test topper' story"

Ah! A typical Indian feel good story. A 15 year old boy from UP claimed that he topped the 'NASA" exam in India. Everyone went gaga over it and he was felicitated and promised lot of scholarship. Rediff an online news paper went to NASA to get more info on this story and the bubble as they say burst.

I am not really sure whether the parents were involved too, but my guess is negative, they were not. This kid must have made this up to score few brownie points with his teachers who must be harassing him over the math homework due a week ago, ala Bart Simpson.

We Indians really thirst for feel good stories lapped it up and even international media carried it. Only in India kind of story. No one checks facts, no one checks its veracity, they print as it comes out of horse's mouth. I have almost a similar tale to tell.

While I was at Andhra Loyola College in Vijayawada, we had this non-discript MA student studying social work. A stream with no future by itself. He was just an other PG student no one noticed him and there bunch of over achievers around him.

One day the Principal of the college got a fax that this student has won the 'State wide Nutritional Quiz'. The whole college was gaga over him. We were told that he vanquished the dieticians and doctors with his knowledge of proteins and vitamins. We all started venerating him. He was supposed to go to the national level quiz. He was staying at our hostel and he was given special permission to go and come as he pleases, we mere mortals were punished if we were 5 minutes late to be back to our room from the washroom.

Then an other fax came that he has won the National Level quiz. He was given a hero's reception all over the college. All the local newspapers carried his interview and social clubs in Vijayawada and around vied over each other to felicitate him. In a month or so an other fax came, that he would be representing India in the International Nutritional quiz. He was moved out from the hostel and was given a furnished apartment in the campus.

I even interviewed him for the campus newspaper. He had an air of celebrity around him, girls would swoon over him. He treated as mere mortals but he somehow liked me. I was in trouble with my ward and he talked to him on my behalf and I was excused.

Then cam the most awaited fax again and believe it or not, this dude was the world champion in nutritional matters. He bet all the MDs from all over the world, from USA, UK, Singapore and France and many more countries. That's it our principal knew no bounds, we had a whole day holiday, there was a big feast in the Hostel. Then the summer vacation came and I left for my home.

As soon as I came back, My warden was so serious that he made the rules so strict that , even Nazis would have sympathized with us and freed us. No one knew the reason, one day the local newspaper carried a front page article on this dude detailing how he fooled each and everyone and there was no such quiz at all in the first place. The paper even speculated whether the college was involved with this! That's it our college which prided on its reputation went on a big publicity blitz , filed a police complaint on this dude and made lot of noises about this whole affair.

No one knows what happened to this guy! I was amazed at the length he went to fake it, the international faxes, the names of the contestants and all other minute details.

This 15 year old kid is keeping the long line of con men in India alive and we gullible folks keep dancing to their tunes!

2005-02-22T13:25:00.000-07:00

Russian woman gives birth to Cyclops child - PRAVDA.Ru

The photo of this strange baby preserved in Formalin

2005-02-22T12:23:00.000-07:00

Freedom of Speech!

Has anyone of you ever threatened by speaking your mind? It happened a lot with me, in my school and college, both which were strict missionary run schools. Where do we draw a line with freedom of speech? What is taking truth and what is pure slander? It all depends on which side of the table you are sitting or standing.

My friends and myself were punished just because we showed up to the class with clothes full of 'Holi' colors on the Holi day. For us it was freedom of expression but for our college principal its was against the discipline of the college and 'polluting' other students brains.

China is pretty bad when comes to giving its citizens their freedoms. The internet is heavily regulated and monitored. Imagine the amount of wo/man hours go into filtering the content, keeping tab on the offenders and ensuing strain on the whole machinery. There should be something which the Chinese communists are afraid against, is it Truth? If I am afraid of truth, I must be doing something really wrong and I would go back and give it a good think rather suppress it. Chinese are smart folks, hopefully something will happen soon.

Iran is another notorious example. They have recently killed a Canadian photographer who was taking photographs of some of the sensitive areas. She was tortured and killed by Iranian secret police. Recently Iranians have imprisoned Mojtaba and Arash, bloggers, who were writing blogs about Iran and its politics. Their crime? Speaking truth, its like my principal who didn't want our color laden faces and clothes to influence other students to 'play Holi'. The Iranian Mullahs didn't want these 'impure thoughts' to contaminate other Iranians.

Today is the "Free Mojtaba and Arash Day" and we denizens of Blogosphere are showing solidarity with our brothers.

We people living democracies take our fundamental freedoms for granted. Imagine me getting arrested for writing a blog, protesting on streets. I sure wouldn't like battle tanks firing at me but, Will I stand before one to defend my and my fellow country men? Yes sir I would. Would I like getting tortured? No? Would I mind getting tortured by those cute Female GI's in mini skirts and Tight T-Shirts? who woudnt?
A coloumn on US torture techniques in Gitmo.

2005-02-18T10:53:00.000-07:00

What’s so evil about evil?

George ‘Dubya’ Bush went on TV and says that ‘God has given me the authority to vanquish evil and I will bomb them to Stone Age”.Saddam went on TV and said that “the evil American empire will be punished severely”

What’s this evil? Someone is pure evil according to someone else.

Am I evil? My girl friend thinks so…How should this evil be then? Do it I need to have horns? Do I need to have a tail? What does this mean? Creatures with tails and horns are evil? What is the definition of evil? So what’s not good evil then? Then what is good? What’s not evil is good. Now we are going in circles trying to catch our own tails!!

So according to His Royal Highness Bush (I had to make him a King! Well, he is so righteous and full of conviction), whoever opposes him is evil. UN is evil, France is evil too. Now every French citizen has two more horns and a tail to care for! I pity the French; they are going thru such a hard time. the French fries are renamed as freedom fries. Does that means are fries free from now on?

So Lord Bush, we haven’t had the definition of evil. “Simple” He would smirk and say, “what’s not republican is evil.” Well that makes at least 50% of America and rest of the world evil.

Why Is this incantation of evil starts whenever Americans/westerns face an enemy? Is this because they are deeply religious? Or is it because their public could only relate to this kind of talk? What’s this evil again? I am trying to come up with an acceptable definition a person/thing (its hard to define is it?) is it the one which acts against the progress of a society? Say against collective good?

I think the concept of collective good is dangerous. According to this logic anyone is different becomes dangerous; someone with different view points becomes dangerous and thus evil. It was only couple of centuries ago women who had a different lifestyle were branded as witches and evil and were burned at stake. Does mean that being different is evil? Now the homosexuals are being discriminated against, when will we learn?

I logic behind all this ‘evil business’ is to fight evil we need God. Therefore whenever some one says that he is fighting evil does it mean that mean he is God? Or atleast he has been god sanctioned by god? Bringing god and invoking his name in day to day affairs according to me is not very efficient governance.

This is how people were ruled in dark ages, by invoking the name of god for subjugation. Are we any better? We are living in the age of knowledge. We have uncountable bloody wars and history written in blood to remind us that fighting in the name of God is not a very good idea. God and evil belong in ones personal life. God is a commodity which needs no marketing and people have insatiable hunger for anything God, if have anything hard to sell, sell it in the name of God.

Until we have the public which demands more governance and less moral lessons we will be continued with this drivel. The next time you switch on TV and hear the word evil, please think, do we really need these false Gods fighting false evils in these false battles so that we could enjoy our false freedoms?

2005-02-17T10:49:00.000-07:00

Nellore 13 Km

" Duhd Duhd ..." My Hero Honda went dead. "what the @#$%" I muttered into my breath. The mile stone said “Nellore 13 Km”. “I cant push it for 13 kms” I said to my self. I parked my bike by the side of the road. I looked at the road. There was no one around, not even a bat (could have said an ant but this being a spooky story...). I saw a big bungalow a few hundred feet away from the road, to my left in ruins. As if time has forgotten in about it and with that people too. Strangely, as I was looking at it, I felt that I knew this house very well and had this strong urge of going inside.

I looked at my watch it was exactly 1'o clock on a very hot Nellore afternoon. All I could see were mirages on the Road. I took of my goggles and looked around, nothing but thorny bushes. "Creek creek" The crickets made a hell lot of noise. “It Must be a "Creek Concert” I giggled.

I checked the level of gas in my bike tank. It was half empty ( you guessed right...I am a pessimist). I gave it hard kick again it doesn’t start. I used the time tested Desi technique that is to slant it and then kick it start. “dhud..dhud..” again but no sign of life in the engine.

I looked at my watch again. "Shit its 1:30pm, My father will be back,I am so dead" I thought. It’s an other issue that I used to steal my father’s bike and take it out to my friend’s farm so that we can drink cool toddy on hot summer afternoons.

Then I saw her. She was walking in the middle of the road. It was like as if she was walking on the water as I could see her reflection in the mirage on the road.

She was dressed a bit strange for a village woman. She was wearing a pattu (silk) saree and was wearing lot of golden jewellery which were shining in the bright sunshine. She was dressed up like a bride. The Creek Creek sounds of crickets was increasing every second... She was walking very slowly, as if she was contemplating something.

She must be 50 feet from me...”what is a bride doing here on the middle of a deserted road? I thought. “Hello” I shouted at her. The cricket’s creek sound was so deafening by now that I could hardly hear myself. It was like as if I am being surrounded by an army of crickets. I was terrified by now. I looked at her. She was much closer to me now. I could see her face now. It was glowing brightly and she was exceptionally beautiful.

“I never saw such a majestic woman” I said to myself. She was looking straight into my eyes and she flashed a smile at me. Suddenly a cold frigid wind blew and I started shivering even at those mid afternoon summer temperatures. It was as if some cold hands are playing with me. I couldn’t stop shivering and my legs felt really week.

Then suddenly I heard a farm tractor coming from behind. Suddenly She stopped walking towards me and her look changed from a pleasant to plain terror. Those looks were so cold that they pierced me, as if “Will you get you soon”. She then melted into thin air and disappeared.

By then, the tractor came near me stopped and the driver asked me “what’s the problem saar?” I said “My bike wouldn’t start, let me try again” and I kicked it again. My Honda started without any issue at all. I was so dazed by this strange encounter couldn’t understand anything. In that daze I drove off without even saying a word to the driver of the tractor.

Fast-forward three years. Last summer I again stole my father bike and took it to the farm house. I was returning back to Nellore and it was 7 pm and it just getting dark. My engine died. I got of my bike and looked at the mile stone it said “Nellore 13 Km”. I instantly looked towards my left and there was that house standing! “Creek…Creek” I heard those crickets again.

2005-02-15T09:53:00.000-07:00

Mind, Heart, Soul and Brain....

My friend sent me a quote "The Mind knows nothing, and can speak,
the heart knows everything but cannot speak."
Which I honestly thought was lame. May be I am poetically challenged. Someone told me yesterday on my rant on Valentine’s Day that rational thinking is always no good, and we should leave something as unknowns 'cause we like some mystery with our mayonnaise in our sandwiches.
Me being myself couldn’t resist thinking logically about the above quotation. For this quotaion to be valid there should be some difference between heart and mind. So lets dig into those definitions.
Heart
She obviously didn’t mean the muscular organ which regulates the blood supply around the body, but she meant what Wikipedia describes as "in the Bible, and in much later literature, the heart is used as a metaphor to refer to the moral core of a human being including the intellect and not just the emotions." So the moral core knows everything but cannot speak! Isn’t moral core equivalent to one’s conscience? Isn’t conscience your guide? How can it guide if it can’t speak to you?
Mind
Again Wikipedia says "The mind is the term most commonly used to describe the higher functions of the human brain, particularly those of which humans are subjectively conscious, such as personality, thought, reason, memory, intelligence and emotion. Although other species of animals share some of these mental capacities, the term is usually used only in relation to humans.” Ironically she says that mind knows nothing, in fact it knows everything and 'speaks' to you too...

When we are at it let me talk about Brain and Soul too...
Brain
Brain is the central processing unit (CPU) and controls all the basic and advanced funtions of the body. If brain 'dies' the 'body' dies immediately or pretty soon too. Brain is more a biological definition and mind is more philosophical definition. For me both definitions are interchangeable. Is a brainless person a mindless person too? If you have a high IQ, you must have an active brain, and on the other hand if you have a high EQ (Emotional Quotient) you have a good mind.
Soul
Soul is typically a religious concept. It is your inner self, which can’t be destroyed, part of ‘God’, which defines the essence of life. I don’t believe in any soul at all.

In one sense all these four concepts can be interchanged and can be used as you please. One rule of thumb is when these words, especially mind and soul appear in one sentence; the sentence can usually be ignored and would as a rule contains "feel good" bull.

2005-02-14T09:46:00.000-07:00

On Valentine's Day

Do we really need a day to express our love? Do we need a big corporation to remind us to kiss our significant other ? Is our society so marketed that we need a day for love?
I know it has become a ritual for intellectuals to bash up Valentine's day on every 14th of Feb, so I wouldn't criticize the stupidity of this day but the state of our society. Even yours truly was swept up by this tide of Valentines day. I remember buying crap for this girl who never even smelled those flowers. Such a waste of time and feelings, no sir, I am not bitter.
When you are in love, the dark sky looks blue, the rotten flowers smell sweet, and the stagnant time flows. This what the big corporations want you to feel! Love makes you to do stupid stuff, and makes you buy ridiculous things.
Why are flowers so expensive today ? Why do restaurants and bars become almost impossible to get into? Why? Does it mean that can you buy love with money? May be that they are selling love in Aisle 3 of your local Hallmark today, haven't been shopping there lately, so I don't know.
I have an honest question, Do women really want men to spend money on them on Valentines day? I know couple of girls really well and one of them is my sister whom I grew up with for atleast 20 years. She will hate when anyone spends money for the sake of such a frivolous matter like Valentines day. With this small test sample, I would dare conclude that only very shallow people (see I didn't say girls) fall for this trick of marketing. Anyone with a mind of their own would see through this day's foolish logic ( I like this phrase, foolish logic).
Having said thus, I have a beef with Indian way of expressing love, we never do it. In fact there is a taboo on showing affection, my dad and mom never showed their affection by words or deeds. Just toiled away their life for a better life for me and my sister. That's their way of showing love. I know its shallow to keep on expressing ones love at every possible moment, but once in a while a vocal expression would cool down frayed nerves.
There is famous couplet in Urdu, roughly translated it says "The love is not expressed in the language of words but spoken in the language of eyes".
Love today, Love tomorrow and Love eternal. Peace.

2005-01-28T15:31:00.000-07:00

My friend came from India yesterday. He was talking about the changes he saw there since the last time he was there two years ago. The first thing he noticed is the number of cell phones in smaller cities. This is one change I am really proud of, telephone is no more a symbol of higher status. It was when I was growing up. I remember only couple of my friends had telephones in my school.

This is truly a change for good.

The next change I would look forward too is the spread of internet in India. I was reading an editorial in Hindu, a very well read English paper in India, where they were discussing how much we need internet percolation. The only way anyone could log in right now in India is through dial up. Yikes! that is painfully and its so freaking expensive as your airtime in landline is billed. Why cant the telecommunication companies make high speed internet cheap? That would go along way in crumbling the information divide. We could develop systems in local languages. This could go a long way in combating corruption, and would be a big help to primary education.

that's the change I want this year, lets hope we realize this.

The other thing that got me disturbed is, the number of lewd dances and programs on prime time TV. I am not exactly your text book conservative. I am against rules and regulation on what people should and shouldn't. But teen girls dancing around deliberately showing their underwears is not exactly I want to see on prime time TV. He was saying that a slow romantic song is shot in bed room with lewd scenes. Can't it be shot in beach showing both of the walking hand in hand? Whom am I question the artists choice? No one, but the answer is "I would stoop to any level to sell my wares" Is the price the end of all?

I don't know, I guess there will be always sellers as long as there are buyers. We as a society has always been deprived of sex. There is so much smut out there now, that we are literally stuffing ourselves silly with it. Hopefully we will see how stupid this is and we may change.

Hope my friend, hope eternal!

2005-01-27T11:09:00.000-07:00

Then and Now!

It was 60 years since Russians freed the Jews in the concentration camp in Auschwitz, Poland. Nazis, thought Jews were a pollutants on earth, and went on exterminating them, literally. They were used as fuel for furnaces, human fat was used to make soaps, human hair for carpets etc.

The whole world was appalled, and truly it was so.

A group of boys at the camp in Auschwitz.

So, a 60 years years later, we should have smartened up and would never allow this tragedy, to say the least happen. But, no our hatred to each other is so much that we are allowing this trampling of human rights happen all over again in Dafur, Sudan.

An impoverished baby in Dafur

Earlier Nazis thought that Jews are an inferior race and tried to exterminate them, now Arabs are saying that blacks are inferior and should be treated worst than animals. The women are raped, the children beaten to death, and the villages bombed from air whenever they feel to.

The world is standing around and doing nothing. US is busy giving speeches how it will spread Freedom around the world. EU is busy playing politics with US. China doesn't really care! Indians don't have clue.

May be we can commemorate the deaths in Sudan 60 years later. Hatred for each will be the main cause of down fall of Human race.

2005-01-26T13:55:00.000-07:00

India is celebrating 55^th Republic day today. What’s the significance of this day? What’s the point of celebrating this day?

When we got independence everyone thought that this would be the end of the misery and the golden age would start then and there. I know everyone knows what the answer is?

55 years later after having Jawharlal Nehru’s socialism experiment gone really bad, Gandhi’s secularism mutated nto a bad monster, corruption rampant, what do we have to celebrate? A few missiles? A second hand nuclear submarine? A lot of grandstanding is all what we have to show to the Bhutan’s king. I am sorry, I am bitter.

Missiles being paraded on Rajpath

In the Tsunami relief camps, the people of lower castes were shunted out. In Satara, women and children were trampled. The celebration was cut short to show respect to the Tsunami victims. I shouldn’t say we should stop living just because we had a big tragedy. I have problem when there is pomp, when there is a need for action. What’s the need for the military power? Why are we devoting more than 10% of our GDP on military? Who are we scaring? Not China, not USA, we are scaring that rat of a country Pakistan, the country, which exists on the basis of hatred towards India. Hope they see light soon. This hatred is not a very good business plan. Hatred has never been a good idea to invest in.

Imagine for second if we had universal education and universal health care, everyone would treat us a developed country. We would have enormous respect, which we are trying to buy by buying and building bigger missiles and ships. Whom are we playing this ‘mine is bigger than yours’ game? Am I talking like a commie? If I am, I am sorry, all I want is reduction in infant mortality and every kid to get an education.

Don’t ask me what I am contributing by ranting? If you don’t know, that’s all I do, rant!

What would have been the result if we had invested that 10% in education, in health care? Do we have universal health care in India? Nope! Not even close. What we have these Government hospitals which are understaffed, not monitored and not even functioning. The poor people in turn depend on quacks and homeopathic ‘doctors’. Spending on missiles and war planes is good but I guess Government should also worry about its citizen’s health.

As I always say, we never learn, we never improve, and truly strange people are we!

2005-01-25T13:48:00.000-07:00

A tip to use your generic MP3 player with iTunes:

I have an el-cheapo flash based mp3 player. I catalogue my music using iTunes. I have been trying to figure out using this generic player with iTunes. Apple guys sure make it difficult. I think I figured a round about way to do this. Just follow this step by step procedure.

1. Form a smart play list
2. Goto that playlist
3. Select all
4. Open your flash player as a directory
5. Drag the selected list of songs into this directory
6. Done!

No need for all those fancy drivers or anything.

Stampede in India!

Have you all heard about the Stampede in Maharastra? 300,000 people were crammed into a small temple and a there was rumor of fire, everyone tried to rush out at once, people got trapped in small passageway, that's it, people got crushed down and died.
I have been to Temples where there are literally thousands of people packed into the these holding pens with no exit at all. In Tirupathi, a famous south Indian Temple, as soon as one enters into the queue s/he gets shoved into this holding area for God only know how long. Twelve hours in a stretch is not a exception at all.
I am not really sure , if they have any emergency exits and procedures at all. That's a catastrophe waiting to happen. Hopefully there are smart people managing the queues there in Tirupathi, rather than in Mahrastra.

An Ariel view of crowds in Tirumala during the Brhmostavams, a major festival.

The most who suffer in these queues are the little kids. It is so inhuman to take small children into these dungeons. They don't have enough room, there is no fresh air, they become so hot and then there is no good food and water available.
What can I say? We Indians will never learn. We flock these temples in droves get killed like mosquitoes and justify this by saying that it is in our destiny to die in a temple. We will never grow out of this misery. We will never learn.

Strange people are we!

2005-01-23T22:04:00.000-07:00

Homeopathy and Me

I got thinking about Homeopathy when my friend mentioned how good these homeopathy medicines are! My mum and her father, a very learned and knowledgeable man by the way, are big believers in this Pseudo-Science.
My mum always gave me homeopathy tablets whenever I was sick, and I guess they worked, cause I never doubted them.

I was reading James Randi’s website www.randi.org, Randi is big skeptic and has million dollar challenge for all the charlatans out there, who can prove their gobbledygook. Please do visit his website. Randi wrote how unsubstantiated is the claim of Homeopathy. That got me thinking and I started reading about this sham, I am convinced now this 'alternative medicine' is not at all medicine.

In Homeopathy, the 'mother tincher' which is supposed to be the potent drug is diluted millions of times and then is coated to these sugar pills. The idea apparently is the higher the dilution the more potent the drug is! Crazy. The dilution is so high, that it’s below what any chemical method can recognize. Surely our body can’t recognize that there is chemical intake either. Many scientific studies have shown that homeopathy is nothing more than a placebo effect. Do read the wikipedia article about Homeopathy, they have a pretty neutral viewpoint as apposed to my rants.

What's the scientific principle behind the Homeopathy? There are apparently three basic ones. The one that caught my attention is that the water 'remembers' all the chemicals which it came in contact with and uses that 'memory' when inside the body and fights the germs. Any one with slightest o scientific sense I hope would see through this mockery.

What pisses me off is Indian government supports this pseudo-science. We have government Homeopathy colleges, dispensaries and hospitals. This surely lends credence to this science. I am not sure how many people lost their lives by depending on this 'medicine'. There is very big Government Homeopathy hospital in Hyderabad, and many a times I saw people in a line outside to see their 'medicine man'.

A German named Samuel Hahnemann (1755–1843) 'invented' this technique. It was very popular in Germany, the Germans saw through this and Homeopathy medicines are not covered by their medical insurance anymore. Good for them. Wait, that’s not the end of the story, apparently, what’s not good enough medicines for them are very good for us Indians it seems. German government is promoting the use of Homeopathy medicines in India. I guess, exporting 'mother tinchers' is lucrative business and 'truth and honesty' aren’t really good for business.

German Ambassador with then Deputy Prime minister Advani Honoring Hahnemann, founder of Homeopathy. Copyright: German Embassy, India

Doesn’t this reek of hypocrisy? I guess I can’t blame anyone for our own mess. The firsts step should be taken by the government to derecognize this sham.
As usual I don’t see any hope, we Indians will be queuing up before these charlatans swallowing these sweet sugar pills.

2005-01-20T10:32:00.000-07:00

President Bush took oath as the 44th president of the US of A. The republican's are literally having a ball. It is estimated that they have spent $40 mil. On these festivities. If India were at war and if the government was spending this ostensible amount of money far patting each other backs, there would be huge backlash. The press would have thrown a tantrum. We Indians who are pretty complacent and lazy would become very active if we have to put down someone or something.

When BJP was in power it never had a day easy, there was some issue which would blown up day after each other. In Contrast congress is having it easy because it supposedly secular. I guess I wont get into the match we all Indians like to play "I am more secular than you". Congress has won the match right now with the communist parties lending some key batsmen. It's not a fair observation but whenever I think of communist parties in India, the image of a cunning fox comes into my mind. Its altleast fair for the fox! These parties are truly the bottom scrapers, and they are calling the shots, a truly sad affairs of state.

Would the pride be little lesser if the president took the oath is a little ceremony, and carried on as if its another day in his life and $40 ml. Going to the soilders' families if not for Tsunami victims? Has anyone seen this picture of a blood stained Iraqi girl? Apparently she was traveling with her parents in a car and they couldn't stop when asked to stop at a check stop. They were fired upon and both the parents were killed. One more sad story, I wonder day in day out when will I hear a good story? Or am I blocking out good news?

The injured and bloodied Iraqi Girl

I guess no price is too high to pay for freedom, even freedom itself! One moment playing "I spy" with her mum in the car and the next moment on the pavement in the pool of blood, try to wake her mum from death.

No price too high!

2005-01-19T10:32:00.000-07:00

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Leaving the Brothel Behind

BATTAMBANG, Cambodia

A year ago, a pimp handed me a quivering teenage girl. Her name was Srey Neth, and she was one of the hundreds of thousands of teenagers who are enslaved by the sex trafficking industry worldwide.

Then I did something dreadfully unjournalistic: I bought her.

Nichiolas Kristoff is a columnist for New york Times. I like reading him, he is sensible, rational and very readable. He did a story on prostitutes in Cambodia last year and followed it up this year too.
The story of these teenage girls is very saddening. He gave the girl some money and she started a small shop, the family became jealous and looted the whole shop. Can it get more pathetic? Now they are all hungry. Its like killing the golden goose. The girl became a prostitute in the first place to feed her family. That's the gratitude they have, by looting their daughter shop.

The girl Shrey Net in her store. nytimes

Prostitution is a very big problem in India. Its not only girls from poor background end up in these dark corners of the Society but rich and educated girls do this for the sake of quick money.
My friend sent me this video clip on a sting show in India. These guys were following the rumors which we always heard in India. The models and film actresses moonlight as prostitutes for very high price.
To cut a long story short after many tries they can't believe themselves that this new actress is in their hotel room selling herself. "why are you doing this, you have all the fame and money ?" the journalsit posing as a customer asks. "Easy money" that's its that's her answer.
Compare this actress and the little girl in Cambodia, the Combodian teenager sold her body so that she could feed her family and this actress sis doing so that she could make some quick money. I don't know what to say.
I feel sorry for these girls, who are sold and bought as commodity. Can we stop this from happening? I guess no, as they say it has been the oldest profession and there will sellers as long as there will be customers. A sad fact of life indeed. Atleast we could spare teenage girls from the misery.
I guess I am asking for a lot. It sure doesn't hurt to hope.

2005-01-18T09:41:00.000-07:00

The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Sania creates a flutter: "MELBOURNE, JAN. 17. For all the attention she received, Sania Mirza might have been excused if she felt a bit like a newly-crowned Grand Slam champion here on Monday. The teenager from Hyderabad turned out to be just the right sort of spicy story to kick-start a Grand Slam championship with."

Sania Mirza , a talented Tennis Player from Hyderabad. Rediff

Sania Mirza has advanced into the second round of Australian open. I always believed that the future of India is in the hands of our girls. Not only India, but all over the world, the civilizations which excluded women and made progress exclusively men didn't really progress at all.

After she won the match the press surrounded her and asked her lot of questions. I guess an Indian woman Tennis player is as rare a species as a Tasmanian Tiger. One of the question which made me laugh aloud is whether her parents loathed her for playing tennis? Yeah right, without her parents consent she was able to learn and play tennis to this level so that she could beat a ranked Australian player. Other question included on how many girls in India play Tennis or sports in general, or I guess do Indian men hit women who play , Would be a better question.

We Indians are to blame for this gross mis/dis information our culture. But I guess I have to accept we do have our share of domestic violence. We do burn our brides, we have child marriages, we have our share of Male chauvinist pigs, who believe that they can make decisions on what's good or bad for women.

As I said before, this can be changed by none other than women. They are sure getting empowered and are sure changing their society. I have the privilege of growing with two amazingly strong women, my mother and sister. They never compromised and they were proactive and fought all the way for a change. They are still fighting. Godspeed for all those strong women.

Coming Back to Sania, she basked in the limelight as any Teenager would and handled the press well. Good Luck Sania, show the world what you are made of, and make us all Indians proud.

2005-01-17T17:21:00.000-07:00

The Hindu : Front Page : Godhra fire accidental, says Banerjee panel
As I was reading this news, I kept asking myself this question, is truth absolute? If there is only one truth why are we having so many versions of it?
If Godhra fire was accidental why wasn't this made public then and there itself? The worst riots in Indian history would have never happened. We would have spared the shame of carrying around this Godhra mark in our history text books.
So should I belief this commission now? What if BJP wins again and comes with anew report saying that Godhra was pre-planned cold blooded conspiracy? So, all this killings are justified instantly?
Whom should I believe? The news reports of thousands of Muslims storming the compartment and burning it down? The secular press even offered reasons for this storming, The Hindus kidnapped an young daughter of Muslim tea vendor from Godhra platform. They hit an elderly chai wala when he asked them to ay for the tea they drank. So, now all these stories are false? So no one kidnapped a Muslim girl? No one hit Rahim chacha? So, no Muslims crowd storming the compartment? Why aren't anyone asking questions?
No one feeling betrayed as I am?
In fact the fire was supposedly caused by people cooking inside the compartment it seems. I am believing this report on its face value and I am mad at BJP government then, for jumping into conclusion and allowing this massacre to happen.
Whom can we turn to when people we elect betray us? We have no where to go except to wait for an other election to come along, and after that for an other 5 years. I don't so any hope at all.
Singing off sharing my pessimism...

2005-01-15T13:27:00.000-07:00

Why do Women like shopping so much? That was the question myself and Erin, my roommate were pondering upon over couple of beers. We have two theories why the fairer sex enjoy so much in those malls. Market Mall, one of the bigger malls in advertises with women camping out in the mall's parking lot. I wouldn't be surprised if I saw womencamping out just because a new shop is opening the next morning. Ionce stood in line for tickets for Cherenjeevi's (My favorite Teluguhero) when I was growing up in India. Well, I am digressing.
The two theories we have are
1. The empowerment theory-(Mine)
Have you ever seen a bunch a women going around a mall looking around for deals? You could feel literally the sense of empowerment. As soon as they enter 'GAP' they get mesmerised by the choices. You can see the glee in their eyes as they feel good about themselves for choosing the blue sweater over the green top and saving 5% in the deal. It's all about being in control which they 'perceive' they are not in this big bad male world. The mall is their little refuge.
2. The gatherer theory-Erin's
This theory is by some evolutionary biologists not really Erin's. According to this theory women have evolved to gather berries and nuts when men went out to hunt big wooly mammoths. So that's evolution in action, women need not scour around for ripe berries and nuts anymore so they do it with passion for those 'cute shoes.

Choose your favorite theory and let me know what to you think which one these theories is more plausible. One of my friends the reason most probably is the combination of both of the above theories.

2005-01-13T20:51:00.000-07:00

Waveofdestruction.org - Photos and Videos from the aftermath of the Asia Tsunami.

This website has a amazing collection of videos and photos of December Tsunami in Asia.
I was watching them with my supervisor today, it was a very disturbing experience. In one video shot in Phuket, we watched two guys holding on for life to a pole and then the force got stronger and stronger and they got swept away. It was such a humbling experience watching those videos.
I haven't yet come to accept that a catastrophe of such magnitude happened just in the backyard of where I come from.
Sad, sad and sad. I also saw a family enjoying a sunny day in raft, and suddenly this killer wave came and tossed them like rag dolls. How powerless we are before the nature?
I guess we will forget this tragedy soon and move on with our lives, fighting for Bollywood tickets, bickering with spouses and getting pissed off because our email server is down. The only person whose life will be changed is the fisherman who returned home from a fishing trip to find whole his family was brushed off from this face of the earth. The guy whole lost all his boats and nets and is scared of going back to sea and knows no other way to feed his kids.
We, in turn will be wondering who will Donald 'The chimp' Trump will choose the next apprentice. Human Endurance I bow before thee.

2005-01-12T09:31:00.000-07:00

US RJs abuse Indian girl, air tape on radio- The Times of India

This is the headline I woke up to. Not a bright one by any means. These dudes just for fun sakes and for a few laughs abused a girl in India.
I hate these shock jocks that's what they are called in these parts. There is one guy in Calgary named Jerry Forbes he is on CJ 92. He is on the morning show and he has a potty mouth. He ones called up a old lady trying to sell her refrigerator. Made fun of her and he made her to wake up and down her whole apartment and it was his finest hour.
Would these people behave the same way when speaking with person face to face? Would this guys in Philadelphia call the Indian girl a bitch and a rat eater? A rat eater? Poor girl was just doing her but taking order for some god forsaken beads. Imagine what would have gone through her, I really feel sorry for her.
Coming back to the point, can these guys abuse people face to face? "Look at me I can call a old lady and make fun of her I am so cool" Fools!
Do you know what happened to these Philly guys? There were slapped on the wrist and suspended for day, in other day given a day off. That's what you get for racially and sexually abusing a girl doing her job some where on the other end of the world, a paid day off.
All I can do is just sit back and be amazed by the injustice the world and life serves us.

2005-01-11T16:27:00.000-07:00

Apple released a lot of goodies at its annual jamboree in San Francisco today. The two, I want the most is iPod Shuffle and Mac mini. If only they released this iPod a month ago, I would have bought this flash based player. A month ago, I bought an el-cheapo flash based player for my running purposes. I was almost tempted to buy it this morning as soon they opened the gates, thanks to the battered Apple server, I lost my patience and I didn’t buy it. Now, the initial urge spent up, reason has taken control and I am happy with my old mp3 payer.

iPod Shuffle
copyright Apple

“When is enough is enough?” I have tough time answering the question. This question has been on the menu of philosophers for centuries in both East and West for centuries. Early philosophers both East and West realized that there is no end to these materialistic comforts and preached that the comfort should be taken spiritually and not materialistically. During last 10 centuries or so, some western philosophers started preaching that life is short to be spent about thinking about eternity and started prorogating materialism, live life to it’s fullest was their battle cry. Industrialization and renaissance are the result. West just took off in the pursuit of wealth health and wisdom as they say.
We Easterners were still stuck in the spiritual world, we spnent our time gazing at the sky and looking down upon anyone making money as if they committed a sin akin to murder. It was bound to happen. Westerners came and kicked our asses, enslaved us, took whatever wealth we had, took our women and left us with this complex of hating ourselves.
Hating ourselves? What I am talking about? How many of us Indians hate out dark skin? How we look up to people with fairer skin? How we buy ‘Fair and Lovely’ in dozens so that we turn into ‘Fair and Lovely’ oneday? No, I am not accusing our philosophers for all our ills. What I am saying is we don’t realize what a mess we are in.
We still believe that our culture is the best, our way of living the most pious and our languages the sweetest. May be, but did we ask ourselves a question why is that the lower class people are being shooed away from the relief camps in Tamil Nadu? Why is the relief being diverted and sold to the victims whom it should have reached at the first place?
I understand we can’t change overnight, but we can at least start by question what went wrong, where and how?

2005-01-09T19:55:00.000-07:00

A Love letter...
DP, my very good friend is a quintessential romantic. He fells in Love at every available occasion. At school he has been all over all the inhabitants in the girls hostel even their cook. His Love letters are legendary.
He is a Reuters fellow in Stanford right now and has written a love letter which he says is a 'literary piece' but I have my own doubts.
I couldn't stop laugh after reading this love letter, I bet the girl would laughed out too. The best is when he talks about songs being more meaningful in spite of bad music. Read the letter and enjoy.

Dear Princess,

Yesterday was special. You called me.

I once again feel hopeless in fighting my attraction for you. I dont really know why I am fighting it in the first place. Why am I standing up-or seemingly so- against something perfectly natural?

I think I know now why I love you is such a magic phrase. I just want to whisper it softly to you again and again. Oh, how badly do I want to tell you I love you. Why do I feel so strongly about you, so hopelessly attracted to you. Will I ever be happy without you? Will I ever stop thinking about you..

I feel so miserable at times, that I havent seen you for so long, that I am eventually not going to see you everyday, that I may never really be able to connect with you deeply. How can I be spiritual without meeting you, my spiritual self?

Love is so stupid. The surest way to make yourself miserable, yes I mean it, miserable, unless you are a lucky one. Why cant I just love another girl? Why do I find you so irreplaceable?

I think of these questions everyday. I think of them all the time. I fight my thoughts of you, and fail, everyday. Somewhere inside it secretly makes me happy, because it leaves hope for me. The hope for a day when you will reciprocate my feelings; when you will know how deeply I am in love with you, and that will mean something to you something as precious as I find the soft sound of your breath on the phone.

When I am walking on the roads here, I think of you walking beside me. The roads are good, and I think they deserve you walking on them. You are so naturally elegant, and they are elegant too, though man-made, and in a different way. I am the strange man walking on an elegant road with an elegant, virtual companion.

I suddenly see new meaning in songs. I discover what they really meant, and like them despite the bad music. I like them when they express my soul. I dont imagine myself singing the songs to you. I just find them singing out my heart to you.

I am a fair man, and I believe my love for you is pure and true. That is why it just refuses to subside. It just keeps getting strong and more vigorous everyday.

Why am I making such a big deal of an attraction for you? Isnt this a crush that will pass by? Maybe. But I am not making anything of it, its just beyond my control. Love is complete loss of control. Love is surrendering myself to you, completely. Do whatever you want to me. I am just happy in the beauty of my love for you.

Dont love me if you dont feel like it deep in your heart. Dont ever try to cultivate a love for me. If it doesnt happen by itself, then its not there. If there is a seed of love for me in your heart, nothing can stop it from blossoming. Not even you.

I will take your rejection, but not your pity. Rejection is natural, pity isnt. Just ask me to go away. Just tell me simply, directly. I will take it.

I just hope I will have the courage to show you this letter some day.

Thinking of you morning, day and night. You are with me every moment of my life.

-DP

Dp can be reached at his website www.dpsmiles.org . He is a very good writer too, please do read his stuff.

2005-01-08T13:57:00.000-07:00

Orphans!
Someone forwarded me an email with a photo of a very cute two-year old kid supposedly found in debris in Phuket, Thailand. That photo disturbed me a lot. How fortunate must we be, in our comforts, in our worlds, pissed of that our Coffee had too much cream in it.
Just imagine the happy family playing in the beaches of Phuket, building a sand castle may be, and then in a second the whole castle of dreams shattered. No one knows who the boy is. This is the picture of the little boy.

This is whom to contact if anyone knows about this kid.
Nobody knows what country he comes from. If anybody known him please contact
us by phone 076-249400-4 ext. 1336, 1339 or e- mail : info@phuket-inter-hospital
Your earnest cooperation in this regard shall be highly appreciated.
This kid looks European, if possible please pass this photo around Europe and I sincerely hope that someone recognizes him.

Imagine the number of orphans and the shit they have to cope with. I know from now what I would not mind , a creamer coffee and icier roads.

2005-01-07T14:25:00.000-07:00

An Iceage?
Its freaking cold out there, -20 or something outlandish. I was thinking that committing suicide right now will be very reasonable, and you have a quite a presentable explanation. People would say " yeah, I can understand why that dude hung himself, he is not crazy". So people, that's it, we have a perfect reason to end this misery.
The heartland of Canada is having it worse, -50 C with windchill, since two freaking weeks, and no one knows when will this end. In Calgary usually the winds from the West bring warm tidings. At least for a day or two they warm up this cold hell! I have been looking towards west since last week and nope not a sign of Chinook ( these warm winds, meaning snow eater). Instead we are having these cold hearted winds from north.
I guess the snow Gods feasting in Arctic had enough with Global warming crap, and trying to show who is incharge, or atleast they must be fighting with their last battle against the hole in the ozone layer.
Wouldn't it be funny if this is the start of a new Iceage? The last Iceage in Northern hemisphere was 10,000 years ago and since then we have been warming, and all the global warming advocates are saying that the climb is too steep and we are heading for to big melt down. Now if only this climb is suddenly reversed and we head in to an Iceage.
Glaciers would advance, summers as such four months long would be only couple of months long, the Arctic sheet swallows up the whole of Canada. I guess that's not funny at all.
Lets hope that this is not a mini Ice age or a mega melt down. Hope the powers to be realize that we cant take this planet for granted.

2005-01-06T13:44:00.000-07:00

I reread the post yesterday and boy I was appalled at myself. I am not a good self critique. I don't find faults in myself at all. That posted reeked of anger, anger against the apologists of God. Why should I be angry at them at all? They havent bothered me, they haven't shoved their religion into through out at gun point. Why such hatred? Should I change my name to Bigot?
May be because if we believe in something, we try to make others also believe in the same cool idea. I guess this one the intrinsic traits of humans. If we believe in something, we literally indulge in it. My father does it very overtly. If he buys, say a brand of razor and if he likes it he would make sure that every one he knows would buy that brand.
The Mac zealots have been doing this for decades. They hate everything other than Mac and love everything about Mac.
So shouldn't we propagate what we like? Spew hate on what we don't like? Who are you to tell what to do and what not to do? Sorry sir!
In some religions, sure way to book a window seat to heaven is to spread the word of God. That's where I have problem, converting me for your selfish reasons.
well I babbled enough. I should be a little more tolerant to people who think differently than me. That's what my mum has been teaching me since I was born.
I learnt something today about blogs, there are more number of women bloggers than men bloggers and also women tend to update blogs more regularly than men. I am not surprised, women have always been the sex which wanted to be heard , to be sympathized, to be cooed along with. Thank god they have this media to let their anguish out, now we males ca have our beers in peace!
-True peace at last.

2005-01-05T12:58:00.000-07:00

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | 'Where is God in all this?' - the problem for religions
Every man who prays before 'a' God has an explanation for this mega Tragedy. They are as follows,
1. We have been committing sins so we are getting punished.
2. God had enough with our non/dis belief in HIM/HER, so he showed who is in charge.
3. The Hindu way of explanation that they are paying for their sins in the past birth.
4. or My favorite, God acts in mysterious ways.

so why did this God let this happen? What was the reason? What is your pick? Choose one and lets go back to smug world of ours.
let me try to analyze these reasons I came up.

1. The classic, we are paying for sins reason. What did the 3 day old baby do? Is drinking milk and sleeping sin? I guess the baby is collateral damage. Small price to pay for getting rid of the world of sinners. If this logic holds, all others left are not sinners! I will leave it to the interested readers to blow holes in this reasoning.

2. He could have appeared before everyone in this world and screamed. That would have been enough. He could have eradicated the drought in Africa, got rid of HIV/AIDS,. I don't know killing 200,000 people just to stoke his ego is not particularly a loving God to me.

3. Hindus and their karma, which I was strong believer till recently. So all the millions who have been affected have bad karma account? Is there not one with good karma account? If there is none then did God concentrate all the bad Karma guys at these places? Must have been one logistical nightmare!

4. God and his mysterious ways, All the above explanations for this reason. To teach us resilience? To teach us compassion? So Millions of humans lives worth this?

No doubt there will be thousands of explantions of why God allowed this to happen. I am pretty sure no of this is going to be right. The only answer is we live on a very active planet, and we should be prepared for these natural disasters.

The only lesson is for us humans a imaginary God is more important that our fellow being. If only we had donated money to building a warning system rather than donating to Temples Church and Mosques!

2004-12-18T13:08:00.000-07:00

The new crusade of moral brigade is to bring back 'Christ' back to Christmas. Newyork Times has a good writeup on this topic.
The New York Times > Week in Review > Holiday Wars: Does Christmas Need to Be Saved?
The moral people emboldened by the recent victory in recent US presidential elections, want now to make it "Merry Christmas" not "Happy Holidays". Myseld being not very religious doesn't really mind if anyone wishes me Happy holidays. What upsets me if my tax dollars are used to celebrate any religious holiday. Its ok to celebrate christamas in schools. It should be also ok to celebrate other festivals of there religions too. I for one would welcome this change.
The trend seems to be to bring back the religion into daily life. Thats a slippery slope my friend. Thats what Taliban did, that's what Iran's mullah did, Thats what is happening in Pakistan.
Then teaching evolution would be 'amoral' and the sex education would be a bad thing. Where would the ball stop rolling? Then 'Ten Commandments' would be becopme absolute law. May be I am being paranoid, but if the goal of this brigade is to bring religion back then is there any stoping them?
These people use religion and morality interchangeably, which is my major gripe.
I Guess they would never understnd that morality is not absolute and every culture their own set of moral standards. I guess we have an another dark age looming at us, I dont see much hope....
As Marx said religion is the opium of masses and these days we have this opium in abundance and consumption has increased many times. I just want to be spared of this intoxication. Scary reality is my cup of tea.

2004-12-16T10:10:00.000-07:00

Just a rant
Have you ever have feeling of numbness? Just give up this struggle of what we call life and go somewhere where there is no life at all? No expectations at all? No rules to live by? I don’t know what I am going through, but this slough of feelings is overwhelming. No, this is not the defeatist in me talking, I consider myself to be one of the surviours. I have withered many a storm, weather beaten, I guess but not really adept at surviving these storms.
Smart people before have been running away from the world I just described to establish their own sense of rule free expectation free world of their own, without much success. I have seen a good movie called ‘Ghar’. Farooq Sheik and Shabana Azmi acted in this movie. The protagonist is a rebel in college; he rebels against everything, which has been established. Shabana fells in love with this rebel and they get married. They have a son together and the Hero slowly starts conforming. He works for a book publisher who publishes sleazy books for profit. All for the sake of society, he has to buy a house and rise a kid! What an irony!
I have lost all hopes of running away and establishing my own world. Liberia, a West African nation was established by the former slaves of USA to be the country of the free. Now they have dictator. Fate has a very weird sense of humor, or if there is a God out there he must be very twisted.
What I am running from? Responsibilities? No. Expectations? Yes. I just want to do what I want to do, not what someone wants me to do. Being born into an orthodox family doesn’t help either. I am the first-born, so I am expected to carry my Family’s name on my shoulders so to speak. Is this good idea for my family? No. But strangely, I have this responsibility and the resulting expectations coming along with it.
I know I am not making any sense. I don’t have a clue what am I writing, and I don’t expect anyone to read this rant.
I know I have to face this; the best way to fight a bull is to catch by its horns. I have to confront this shit sometime or other. The shit has to hit the fan, rather than running away from it just prepare for it.
The society doesn’t like outliers. It wants everyone to fit the curve perfectly. I was an outlier once. Now, I try to fit the curve perfectly. Even then, society wants more perfection and lesser deviation. I guess I have no choice. If anyone is looking at me to start a rebellion, move on sir, I am not your kind of person. I am a dull, run of mill, clog in wheel kind of guy who was just born so that this wheel of life can turn on.
It’s a sobering experience when you realize that your existence doesn’t have a consequence other than propagation.

2004-12-15T09:05:00.000-07:00

Over fifty died in a train collision in Punjab, India, yesterday. This proves over and over again. We don't respect human life in India. I guess subconsciously we think, we are billion, so fifty here a hundred doesn't matter. "Its law of large numbers" we mutter together.
BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | Uproar over India train collision
Those A'holes let the two trains run on the same track. That's a disaster waiting to happen.
Now the blame e game has started. The BJP is gunning for Laloo' head. Yeah! Right boys, that would solve the problem of unsafe railway overnight. It all boils down to corruption. Corruption greeds incompetence, it also breeds disregard for authority, it makes dicipline vanish in a woosh!
Laloo is no angel, no infact he is the angel of death! He has ruined Bihar and I for one think that it has no future. It went off the cliff.Now its Railways turn, he is politicizing it, and casts'sizing' it. That's surely a recipe for disaster.
Solution? The only solution is breaking up railways and selling it off private companies. No Idea how to do that, but, it seems working in Britain. Everyone has a responsibility, if shit happens the company will be sued to oblivion.
Nellore, the town I am from has a Railways station, it was built in early 1900s by the British, for their salve trade. It hasn't seen any improvement in since then. Only 2 god forsaken platforms. They recently built half assed good for nothing platform. Again corruption and nepotism.
Bastards! I am so mad. I just hope that one day all those responsible will get stuck under a derailed goods train carrying sulfuricd.

2004-12-14T08:51:00.000-07:00

Pro-Family group (read a Christian group) today said that the death penalty is "Moral'. Man, even the word hypocrisy doesn't have enough potency here.
Pro-Family Group Says Peterson Death Penalty Verdict 'Morally Right'
Acocording to this wacko, Judeo-Christian God would have given the same judgment and killed this man. So, this all-loving God is not that 'all-loving' a toll.
It has been shown that Death penalty is not a deterrent at all. If you compare the crime statistics in the countries which don't have death penalty and the countries which have death penalty there is no noticeable difference. But why do people keep insisting and supporting death penalty?
"Sweet Revenge" I would say. I wrote earlier how we feel good about ourselves when we evict revenge. This is the motive, 'feel-good-about-me' motive.
USA being one of the developed countries has one of the highest population of death row inmates in its jails, does it say something about the country? Oh yeah, I hear the cries "we are moral, we are family oriented" all around. If this country is so moral, why is there 50% divorce rate here? Most of it due to exra marital relationships?
This freak who was defending this death ruling was also demanding to use this ruling as a basis for ruling against abortion (Scott Peterson wife is pregnant when she died). Scary people. They love the fetus but hate humans. How pathetic.
If Scott Peterson really killed his wife and his unborn son, he should spend his whole life paying for it, in an isolatory cell and paying for his existence cleaning washrooms. If he is killed by lethal injection, he would be having it easy.
When do people realise that morality is not absolute! Marriage for you may be moral and God given right for you, but, for me it is just immoral to get tied down to one wo/man when there are thousands out there...

2004-12-13T08:30:00.000-07:00

Isn't it a big ego booster when New york times editorial writes think in the same way as you do? Yessir, I think so. In the last blog, I wrote how women are being effected by AIDS and how they can take control of the situation. The following editorial piece in nations thinks so too.
The New York Times > Opinion > Editorial: The feminization of AIDS

To reiterate and repeat myself, if we have any chance of defeating AIDS, we should bet our lives on educating women. The buck stops with women, not only in war against AIDS but against any other social illness.
I sincerely feel women empowered societies stand much more chance and have stake in future.