Thursday, December 31, 2009

U say g’bye n I say hello

Don’t question me on the title of this post…well OK I’ll still say it. There’s no particular reason, it’s just that the moment I sat down to think that I probably writing the last post of 2009, the Beetle song “You say goodbye and I say hello” started to play in my head. It’s been a long time since I’ve listened to it; I love the song. Though some might say it’s a silly song, it’s a great melody of very simple words that express the situations that I experience almost everyday. I also feel that the New Year is singing this song for me as I bid farewell to 2009 (Duh!) So what’s been the big north-east-west-south these days. Here are a few that caught me attention:
Rathore’s still being chased. New information is being revealed almost daily and today I learnt that a CBI official advised the complainants to “fight their own battle” and not rely on the state. He said that it wouldn’t take Rathore a stitch of an effort to tip things in his favor; this was truly emetic.
Tharoor, our tweety bird, is at it again. His attack on the corrective measures in the form of visa restriction is nothing but logical. They’re taking steps to restrict any two entries into India with at least a minimum of two months gap. Tharoor says that’s a silly step because the perpetrators of 26/11 never had any visas. While the visa restriction rule should also be welcome, stringent steps need to be taken to curb the way in which the terrorists actually planned their act and gave it life. If I have a heart condition and the doctor starts treating my brain, I’d call the doctor a nut case just as I call SM Krishna a nut case. Tharoor is one guy who calls shit as shit in front of everyone and gets the bastinado. Though I don’t fancy being referred to one of the cattle class, I still feel the hog-wash of ministers traveling the cheap way is…hog wash. There are bastards of bureaucrats who don’t vacate their official palatial homes when they should, don’t pay electricity bills to the tune of thousands of crores of rupees, molest women, indulge in violence and other crap. It is these people who should be brought to task and removed from the system and the rest, who have the ability to do their jobs, be allowed to travel business class. Up Tharoor, the charming iconoclast.
Well well well, look who’s landed in a sex scandal, ND Tiwari. This guy should wear the Gandhi cap on his crotch, not his head. I wish I could lay my hands on the video of this old leather bag making out, haven’t seen comedy in a long time. And hey! Look at the newspaper, he’s being welcomed in Dehradun, his hometown. Who’s welcoming him I wonder? Porn stars? No no, it’s our Hero-Worshipping Indian public. I must admit I tried to locate a pic or video of the scandal and just got to see three tiny pics. Ha ha ha ha I fell off the chair laughing. Had I not known this was ND Tiwari’s scandal photos, I might have mistaken them to be of a daughter kissing her father’s dead body on the cheek (well there was just Tiwari’s head and neck and some portion of the girls face in it). I mean come one, there’s Tiwari lying phut like a dead duck and…ah! Like I always say, it would be heart-wrenching was it not so gut-wrenching. I must not make fun of an old man like this, who knows I too might want to do the same at that old an age. I mean come on, if my legs are hanging in the grave, I am the Governor of a state, I have children who’re settled and married with kids and testosterone is still nudging me and Viagra is still available eh!! Heh heh heh heh!! And don’t need to do the sweaty job when you can just lie dead and let things be done to you than vice versa…I mean come on, the guy’s governor not a laborer…heh heh heh heh! (hey Paul McCartney’s shouting “we’re gonna have some tonight” in my PC speakers…what a situational song)
I recall the editorial in The Tribune I read a week or so ago that cerebrated on the issue of legalizing prostitution. Well the Dutch and some Aussies are paying legally for pleasures. It mentioned that studies have revealed that the advantages, the Aussies thought, were going to follow the legalization never followed. Illegal flesh and drug trade still flourished, mafia never budged and the condom enforcement was shrugged off by people who wanted more skin contact. Of course the repercussions are quite thinkable, more young minds growing up thinking that it’s all too normal (fought with your wife? well there’s always the brothel around the corner), more STD cases (Soon there’ll be a need to “celebrate” instead of “observe” World AIDS day…happy happy…one more festival). I know the names of at least three people who would love to back the legalization of prostitution in India: SPS Rathore, John Fernandes and our very own ND Tiwari. Of course Rathore might even want wish to legalize pedophilia. I mean c’mon, then they would just pay (the tax payer’s money) to buy some pleasure. In fact that’s what NDT did.
Down with these people, down also with morons that welcomed Tiwari…Tharoor should be allowed to travel in business class, I mean come on man.
Last but not the least, there’s China! Always in the Indian NEWS, like a hungry mad wolf, glaring down at my land, howling every now and then to remind me of it’s ominous presence and sending shivers down my spine. Tell me something, with people like NDT, JF and SPSR amongst the people running the show, do you think China has anything to worry about…it’d keep sending shivers down my spine for I know my guns are empty and so does the wolf.

HAPPY NEW YEAR SUCKERS!

Whisk-me

Of course it doesn’t take much alcohol anymore to get him drunk, I guess his liver’s sad from all the years of torture, unable to detoxify his blood alcohol the way it once used to. A year or two ago dad got a LFT (Liver Function Test) done. It revealed that his liver was perfect, so I guess it was a thumbs-up signal for him to go on. No he’s not an alcoholic otherwise, only on two occasions: Christmas time and Easter. I guess dad took the mention of wine here and there in the bible too seriously. “Water into wine” now I know why he loves Jesus. I drink socially; only that my society likes to drink more than the amount I personally approve of. At times friends are too pushy, this has been happening of late. I’m developing a small amount of repulsion towards alcohol. There’s just one think I’ve grown more tired of than ‘coke and whiskey’…Diet-coke and whiskey.

Diet coke I hate you but I’ll still consume you; you’re like a beautiful but dumb wife…err actually vice versa would be more appropriate here.
Lastly I apologize to my father for turning him into the subject of my jokes. No offence daddy, I love you (please don’t throw me out of the house if you ever read this) and I even love a little alcohol once in a while.

By the way, it's been in the news that alcohol, in whatever small amount, has NOT proved to be of any therapeutic use, as has been the belief till date. Like all such studies, it has been specified that the study holds good for Indian population. The following is an article from THE TRIBUNE:
A Tribune Exclusive
Alcohol good for heart? Not really
Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service


First-ever study in India dispels alcohol myths
No evidence to suggest alcohol is good for the Indian heart
Avoid sudden and excess drinking
Drinks need to be taken with full meals

New Delhi, December 27
Who says moderate drinking of alcohol helps the heart? The first ever study conducted in India, not yet published, now claims that there is no evidence to suggest the firmly held popular belief that a drink or two protects the heart.

Dr KS Reddy, the Prime Minister’s personal physician who now heads the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), told The Tribune that earlier studies in the West claimed that moderate intake of alcohol protected the heart by enhancing insulin sensitivity and elevating high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, which helps cardiovascular health.

But the claim has failed the Indian test, with the first-ever study on the subject in India showing that alcohol, irrespective of the quantity in which it is consumed, is always harmful and never protective at all. In fact, Indians drinking alcohol have been found to be at two to three fold higher risk of heart disease than non-drinkers.

Led by Dr Reddy, who recently oversaw Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s heart bypass surgery at AIIMS, the study was conducted on employees engaged in 10 major industries across India and their family members.

“We have now shown in the Indian context that alcohol does not exhibit gains to cardiovascular health. Indians who drink face three fold higher risk of heart disease. The belief that moderate drinking helps the heart is not true for Indians,” Dr Reddy told The Tribune while pointing out that doubts are being voiced in the West too about the alleged protective properties of alcohol.

In 2007, the American Diabetic Association had claimed, “In individuals with diabetes, light to moderate alcohol intake (1 or 2 drinks per day; 15 to 30 ml alcohol) is associated with a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease…”

But Dr Reddy’s study, initiated when he was still at AIIMS, looked at people in India with evidence of heart disease. “We found that people with heart disease were more likely to be drinking in the past,” said Dr Reddy, who looked at population from industries ranging from machine tools in Pune and cycles in Ludhiana to the tea estates in Assam.

“Many etymological studies in the West have shown that alcohol is good for the heart. This has something to do with the high fat intake in the food of westerners. While fat is known to increase the tendency towards blood clotting, alcohol is known to reduce the same. But we wanted to study a population where fat intake is not very high, like in India. We concluded that alcohol intake among Indians tended to fuel more electrical excitability of the heart which in turn led to fatal events like heart attacks besides de-stablilising diabetes control,” Dr Reddy said.

Indians also have a tendency to drink at festivals and over weekends. Warning that the ‘Holiday Heart Syndrome’ was extremely pronounced in India, Dr Reddy added, “Sudden and excess drinking must be avoided. Whenever people drink, they should take care to drink with full meal to delay the absorption of alcohol.”

The trend was confirmed by Dr Balbir Singh, chairman, cardiology, Medicity: “We are seeing more patients these days. It may have a relation to binge drinking over festivals. We can, however, say that the incidence of heart attacks is 20 per cent higher in winter.”

Acceptance

I want to come to terms with death. It’s the biggest truth yet we’re never taught how to deal with it. We have to take our lessons first hand. Why do people get hysterical when their loved ones die? Talk about parents, we all know that they’re gonna go and we’re gonna go too. Daljit uncle’s daughter was hysterical; she kept shaking the dead body and urging the father that was once in there to come back. So is there a soul after all? Does it leave the body when a person dies or do we just cease to exist when we die, no soul nothing, total termination? Without a system of belief backing me up, I’m confused about it. Had I followed religion, I would’ve believed that there was no end, there’d be eternity. To me the idea seems fanciful. What will I do for eternity? Will I float around like a cloud of air forever in a beautiful place called heaven or will I burn in hell? Without a body sensing it, will I feel the heat of hell? Will it hurt me if someone would whip me? If in all probability it won’t, how would it matter if I’d be in hell? I’d still be doing nothing much for eternity. What can eternity feel like if these thirty years of my life already feel like eternity? Would the pleasantness of heaven mean anything to me either? I talk about a couch being heavenly, a bike being heavenly, a sight being heavenly only because I have my five senses in place. I know that they’re connected to the brain that makes me respond to stimuli. Without all this, the senses and the brain, how would it matter to me if I’m being lovingly caressed or being punched, smelling the fresh air or putrid stench, watching the stunning milieu or a ghastly one, tasting a cake or dung, listening to music or cacophony whether for two minutes or for eternity. I remember the time I was 6 or 7 and that seems to be two millions years ago already…what is eternity? The other extreme though more logical, sounds sad; final termination, I will cease to exist. I do not wish to deliberate too much on it. Of late, I’m just possessed at the thought of training myself to accept death as a normal part life (or end to life). Something that’s never talked about till it happens. Of course a statement from dad like, “hey son, these are the papers of the house and I’m keeping them there. You know where to find them in case I die today” would sound ridiculous. But I just want to come to terms with the fact that my parents will die someday and very possibly not together. What will the other parent go through in such an event? How will I react? Will I be like Daljit uncle’s daughter, shaking the dead body shouting, “wake up dad, you can’t go away” or will I be quiet, sad and accepting of the fact that he’s gone for good? Heaven or hell, at least for my near and dear ones, I will cease to exist as a person when I die. The man/woman will go, the memories and works will live on. Anyway, no matter how much I prepare myself, I’d never know what it feels like till it actually happens.

I remember the time my dad was waiting to be operated upon. He was on a stretcher and I was sitting next to him on a small stool. I thought they’d take him in soon but it was a 12 hour wait. When I felt the energy sap out from me, I put my head down next to his and held his cold hand. I couldn’t help but think that he might die. I couldn’t hold back the tears so took deep breaths and just let them flow. I thought he was unconscious, he was almost so. I felt sorry for him. I couldn’t imagine being in his place, having a foot run over by a bus. It was mangled beyond recognition. When they opened the bandages for preliminary examination, I couldn’t believe I was looking at a foot; I couldn’t see sole, I couldn’t see toes, just mangled flesh. They assessed the situation and re-bandaged his foot. Then they sent him for operation which was carried out 12 hours from the time he was sent. Here I was sitting next to my dad, the guy I’ve disliked most of my life, the guy who roughed me up almost everyday when I was young, the guy who I feel is unreasonable many a time…here I was shivering at the thought of losing him. I wept quietly. He reached out with his other hand and placed it on my head. That was the time, I wanted to hug him and howl my heart out. I wish I had the power to make him alright. I wished I was the doctor and would take him into the OT that very second and make him alright, I wished I was a magician, I wished I was God and would touch his foot and make it as it was before it came under the bus. I felt helpless, I felt angry, I wanted to lash out at everyone around me. Then I saw guy covered in a bloody white sheet, he was shivering. He was taken into the OT a few hours before my dad. The next day when my dad was in the recovery room, that boy was shifted next to him. He was staring blankly at the ceiling. He was a thirteen year old Nepali boy. He was traveling without ticket in a train and on realizing he was about to get caught, he jumped out of the moving train. He was lying there with two stumps that were once legs; amputated knee below. The world is real, it was real for me, it was real for that boy, what was to happen had happened, we’d just have to accept it and make the best of it; we didn’t have a choice. The Emergency Room is hellish in its own right only that this hell had angels tending to bodies damned by accidents. There’s no one scolding you for being reckless, for not being careful despite knowing the dangers, they’re just out to save you. For me, that makes this world better than any Heaven.

For reasons that I will one day cease to exist for the people who know me, I must do constructive work, something that’s gonna make at least someone happy.

Control yaar

John Fernandez, in the Indian context, the name seems to have come out of a 70s Hindi movie of some nondescript alcoholic servant/taxi driver, who’d sell his soul for another bottle of whiskey. The caricature of such a Christian characters is often depicted with a small bottle of alcohol in his coat, talking in a slurred Hindi, English mixed language. Oh! We Christians with Christian names have never had it easy in here. Since I was a kid, my peer used to wonder and often ask me about what food I eat at home and presume that my dad would be a drunkard with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and rosary in the other. I was considered a motley clown with the skin of a black man, the name of a white man and the life of a…they didn’t really know, just thought it would be different from theirs. Different it was but out of helplessness more than out of religion. Anyway, let’s get back to John Fernandez, this one’s no poor Jesse Samuel; he’s a high profile politician from South Goa. I saw his interview on TV in which he was giving clarifications on the accusation of him having raped a 25 years old Russian girl. His speech was slurred and he fumbled as words rushed out of his mouth like bullets out of a misfiring machine gun. Thank you John Fernandez, now they’ll presume that I’m a sex addict too, crouching to ambush my next victim heh heh heh!! Ah but politicians are loyal to no religion but to each other. You see the brotherhood between politicians, Mr. Shantaram Naik and Mr. Digambar Kamat came out in your support. They way they defended you by counter-attacking the victim saying that she shouldn’t’ve been out late in the night with men, can be aptly interpreted as following:
“When we see beautiful women at night, the normal faculties of our brain cease to function and our bodies are taken over by testosterone. We turn into robots that have been programmed to do only one thing, have intercourse. We are least bothered if the woman is uninterested or even repelled, she has already sealed her fate by being in our vicinity. All women should understand that.”
These are politicians speaking? These are the people we’ve chosen to run our country/parts of it. Now I see why there’s opposition to increasing the number of women MPs, these men would find it difficult to work in the parliament. They might molest somebody in there too.
In our modern city of Chandigarh too, a ride in the local bus any working day would reveal the extent to which school/college going boys, middle aged and old men go to “touch” and “feel” young girls (many of them school-going). It’s gut-wrenching more than heart-wrenching. I’ve been a mute spectator like the hundreds like me that see but are maimed. Who do you go to? The police? They’re the biggest reprobates of them all. How do you fight alone against a group of 10 guys that have ganged up to trouble women? I wish I had a gun but then two wrongs wouldn’t make a right. The popular belief amongst these men is that if you can’t express it the way they do, you’re impotent. They say “it nudges us so we indulge.” Well? Does it mean that I have teeth so I must bite? I have nails to I must claw? I was never taught to be decent so I can’t be. Duh! I also don’t have a brain so don’t expect me to think!! I guess that’s fair enough.
So I keep walking through the dirt and disorder in my room till I trip over the grimy shoes myself. Till it happens to my sister or my partner, I, like a decent Indian man sitting in the bus, not wanting to get into trouble, should put the headphones on, whistle and look out of the window and ignore the events occurring a foot from me in every direction. It’s kinda difficult but I manage, if only with a raised blood pressure. By the way, John Fernandes is obsconding, please check out his photo on the net and be on a lookout. Let’s catch him wherever he is.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

THERE HE IS!!

The hound just spotted him, the chase is on.
Rathore's on his feet. The unconscionable smile he wore, after being gifted six months and one thousand rupees, will wear off soon.
The hounds comprising the public, the media and now even the politicians (heh heh heh!! Always game for cheap publicity eh?) are after the maneater. Will he find his mates on the way and chase the hounds back or will he succumb?
Let's see what how the chase ends.
WE'RE WATCHING!

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Thirty

Shit!!
Today I turned thirty.
When I was twelve and my sister eighteen, I used to wonder if I'd ever grow up to be eighteen. Puh! Silly of me to think so.
Today just happened to be one of the busiest days. It was self induced!
I planned a ton, only because I was superstitious enought to think that today success was ready to kiss my forehead in all my ventures. Silly of me! I screwed up half the work I started. Ah success did kiss my forehead in the other half after kickin my butt. Now I'm sitting writing this post in totally jinxed state of mind. The timer is about to go off; it's time to inactivate ligation.
The work's unending. I'm glad I can take the bull by the horns now, even if I get gored once in a while :)

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Uncivil Servant

There are three things that lead to success in Civil Services: Hard work, hard work and more hard work. The competition is intense. You have to be very knowlegeable, resonably intelligent and totally prepared. If all works out for you, you finally face the interview and if you're selected for any one of the services (IAS, IPS and IFS), you are considered "creme" stuff :)
You work that hard to earn that title of a "civil servant". Of course these days you can't trust servants so much, they commit all kinds of wrong doings. Let's pick the case of one such civil servant. The ex-Haryana DGP, S.P.S Rathore.

Now let's check out what this civil-servant is guilty of?

Nineteen years ago in 1990, when he was serving, he molested Ruchika, a thirteen year old girl!
Wait there's more! he got her suspended from CLTA (Chandigarh Lawn Tennis Association), got her expelled from school, got eleven cases slapped against her brother, got her father to sell off his property in Panchkula and got five cases filed against the victim herself.
The girl committed suicide three years later.

With a "massive: fine one thousand rupees and a "rigorous imprisonment" of six months, the CBI thinks it has done justice.

Who was his his attorney? His own wife, Mrs. Rathore. A formidable team of a lawyer and an IPS officer against the (now older) friend of a dead 13 year old, the competition seems unevenly matched. The Smile on Mrs. Rathore's face (as seen in the local newspaper)proudly displayed the satisfaction she received after her victory over a few pounds of flesh that were burnt in 1993. The flesh, her client, life-partner and possibly father of her children touched everywhere, the hands that should've been locked for good in manacles. To think that there's any conscience residing in Mrs. Rathore would be definitely a wrong conception.
Six months and a thousand bucks (that's like USD 20) is a good enough punishment, so feels the CBI special magistrate, J. S. Sidhu.

CBI loses nothing but the common man's trust (huh! Yeah! like they're bothered)
Rathore's win.
Ruchika loses, but what more can you lose than life.
Another muddy shoe in our room that we'll toss aside.

Keep yourself in Ruchika's shoes for a while and think of all that happened, put yourself in her families shoes, put yourself in her friend's shoes. With people like John Fernandes and S.P.S. Rathore running the show, no one is safe.

Please follow the link
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2009/20091222/main2.htm

Friday, December 18, 2009

Ody-Mel of a ar-schol

Don’t Rebel
Delay’s trivial
Idea Novel
Cast a Spell
This will sell
Patents Revel

Distant Travel
Green grass Dazzle
Destination Final?
Who can tell!

Author in a journal
Egos swell
dreams a Nobel
Life’s a Spiral
Locked in a cell

Look he’s again
stuck in a shell
Ring the bell
Myths Dispel
Do plan big,
execute it well

I look, I don’t see

12/12/09

I read somewhere that we look at various objects around us but many of them don’t necessarily register in our brains. A simple exercise to prove this was given: leave your room right now without looking around at anything and then start to describe your room in detail. Write about every wall and whatever hangs/leans on it, each and every table shelf and the stuff on it. Take your time and when you feel that you’ve done the job to the best of your abilities, return to your room and tally the list with the facts. It is said that most people will, more often than not, be quite surprised if not downright shocked at many things that are either wrong or missing from their list. So we look but don’t see, there might be clutter everywhere but after sometime, the brain stops to register it (ha! It needs to do other stuff not waste resources in what you choose to ignore time and again). So we live on in the clutter, things might get really grimy till we start to notice them. This generally happens when the dirt/clutter starts to create hindrance, say your shoes and slippers are lying scattered on the floor and you trip over them a few times and finally take notice and put them in order, or some may just chose to throw them in some corner. The table might be dirty but not till you sit down to work on it and feel that it’s difficult to do so because of the clutter, will you finally tidy it up. Your vehicle might be dirty but you wouldn’t take notice till one evening you come out of the house all dressed up to realize that you wouldn’t wanna be seen in that dirty cocoon on wheels. It’s either relative to something better (your dirty car at the parking next to a same clean and gleaming model next to it) or the hindrances in daily work (tripping over shoes) that make you see the disorder.
Disorder, anarchy, demagoguery, dirt, mockery of the parliament, filth, hatred, defalcations, bribery, sycophancy, injustice, murder, inequality, discrimination; when will the billion trip over these grimy sneakers in unison to see it all. I look at these everywhere, I chose not to see.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Follow up on Dawkin's Documentary

The audience was fired up after the show; religion, as shown in the documentary, is definitely a problem in the west. I really think such a documentary shouldn't be mass aired, and if it is, it should definitely have a followup in the form of an Indian context. It seemed the sudience found Dawkins to be too agreeable. What people forget is that if Richard Dawkins were to make such a documentary in the Indian Context, he'd probably die in the process, out of an outrage induced high blood pressure.

There were some things that you just couldn't deny in the documentary but it seemed extreme. I think Richard Dawkins should relax; I'm sure his parents did not indoctrinate him about Evolution, but he seems to one it's strongest proponents. Let people believe in what they want to, that's the benefit of living in a secular democracy. If evolution is not taught at school, it wouldn't debilitate people, it'll always be free for people to read and believe in. In fact G.J. Mendel, the father of genetics was actually a monk. That didn't stop him from laying the foundations of genetics in a scientific manner. Besides, it's not like all these schools, Hospitals and Shelters built by various religions around the world are harming people, in fact they're contributing in a positive way to mankind. So religion definitely cannot be the root of all evil. Having said that it cannot be denied either that all religions of the world seem to be getting more and more orthodox, rigid and offensive. Richard Dawkin's point was an extreme too.

When the collar is high and the neck stiff, it's difficult to peep inside.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Discombobulated

Today I watched a documentary titled “The root of all evil: The God delusion”, played at the movie club of our institute. Made by a American scientist, it hit out at the institution of religion, basically Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The man explained how the Theory of Evolution explains all the complexities of life present on the earth. He brought out the contrast of the explanation of genesis of life by religion and by science by pointing to a massive cliff. He said that religion says that the world, its life and man was created by God in six days, so it explains the point from ground (nothing) to another at the top of the cliff (everything) in one simple way: God created it. Then he walks to the backside of the cliff that has a gradual inclination leading to the top of the cliff and says this is the way that science explains it, by evolution, the gradual development of complexity of life on earth over billions of years. He said that the Christians in the US were becoming extremists, preventing evolution from being taught at schools. He drove past a street which had numerous churches and billboards saying Jesus this, Jesus that, and said that there were nothing but four walls meant to mislead the masses and make money. He even drove past and then into the campus of a humungous, billion dollar church being run by a very politically powerful evangelist. Inside of the building was dazzling with halls for music, prayer service etc (frankly I found it sickening too). When this fellow went to interview the evangelist, he was forthcoming at first but as the questions became sharp, so did the answers and tone of the priest. The priest then cross questioned, “I can’t believe that this (pointing to his eye) just happened by accident”, to which the director/interviewer snapped, “We never said that it’s an accident, it’s all been a gradual development. Evolution never says that such things happened by accident, in fact it’s explained in a much better way than the way religion does.” Soon the priest lost his temper and ordered them all to get lost. As they scampered away, he chased them shouting, “get off my property or I’ll have your tapes seized. You can’t tell my flock that they’re animals.” (This was repulsive too).
This scientist guy had some pretty sharp invectives hurled at religion. He then traveled to Jerusalem and found out that the holy city is but fraught hatred of the three religions towards each other. He even interviewed an Islam convert (from Judaism!! He was an American!!) to ask him why was there so much of hatred there. He said that I am an atheist and I don’t hate anybody to which the angry man spontaneously replied, “I hate atheist because they live by the law of man whereas we live by the law of Allah. Why are you doing so many injustices to the Arabs and Muslims? Why do you go around drinking while your women walk in the streets dressed like prostitutes?”
The man replied, “We don’t dress our women, they dress themselves, it’s their business”
The convert replied “Then you should take care of what they wear”
The man asked, “It seems like you want Islam to capture the whole world”
The convert replied “Yes I do and that will happen.”
Then he showed videos of some place in America where the “free minded” atheists lived, almost ostracized by the community. They were all planning to move to Canada.

I watched it all and sighed; I was born and raised in a Christian family. I might be influenced by it but I stay away from any form of “~ism”. I couldn’t help but notice the frequent sneering snuffs from the audience as they watched the documentary. We as Indians should be more reserved in such regards, this is a place where some people are burnt alive, raped, tortured and discriminated against not just on the basis of religion but also on the basis of colour, sex, caste etc. We live in a secular, democratic country and can act the way we want, sometimes without the slightest compunction. This was a documentary, like literature it reflected and was aimed at projecting one part of the story, the side of the evolutionists. Whether to take it as totally correct or totally baseless is at the discretion of the viewer. The debate will never end. Whether Allah will come, or Jesus will come or somebody from the realms of Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism or Jainism will come to save/destroy the world and I really do not see the point in cerebrating over it. I do not know if there’s a God or there’s been a dynamic biological evolution to have finally created me, all I know is that my tea is colder than it was when I started to write. Phuh!
I’ll end this with a brilliant quote by Ashleigh Brilliant “Hate me if you must but please don’t misunderstand me.”

Friday, December 11, 2009

The old box

If Mayuri's seven year old PC is shouting "retirement retirement", my ten year old PC is wheezing "respirator respirator". It cost Rs. 53000/- back then; I could buy a cool laptop with that kind of money now. It's cranium is an AT cabinet, the technology of which was in it's autumn even back then. It's cerebrum is a Pentium III 500MHz which was the state of the art intelligence in 1999. It's bus speed was 133MHz and when I told my friends about the 128Mb SDRAM (100MHz), they drooled (of course, back then). My 15" CRT monitor was bigger than most 14" owned by my peers. I'm talking about the time when the price of a SONY CD-writer drive was 21000/- (yes twenty one thousand rupees). Of course I didn't own one. The hard-disc was an 8GB monster and the cute little niche for the Floopy Drive added a to the beauty of the metal-plastic box. Windows98 was the talk of the time and was marked improvement over Windows95. I fiddled a lot with my comp; opened the box up every now and then to clean it and/or add remove components. I installed and removed various linuxs, Windows 2000, Millenium (the most shitty one) and finally XP (relief at last). The comp went with me to Patiala and stayed there for two years till I completed MSc in 2005. It came back with me and is still serving me well. The upgrades include a second hand 40GB HD that I bought from my friend (he wanted to get rid of it for he was upgrading to a 160GB), a CD writer and a LAN card. Of these 10 years, I've run it without a UPS for almost 5 years and during this period it has bypassed the proper shutdown system innumerable times, with the electricity department snuffing it's life out time and again. Since it refused to die, I rewarded it with a battery replacement of the UPS. Oh I just recalled, this torture did take its toll with the SMPS blowing out one day. The one for AT cabinet was not available so the engineer installed a second-hand repaired SMPS. It roars when started, I've been unable to find the reason so I've just learned to live with it...anyway it becomes silent after 3-4 minutes of running.
The only thing that hasn't gone totally obsolete in this system is the ARTIS 4.1 sound system which are still serving me boomingly well. Well actually nothing's wrong with the computer either. It runs perfectly well and resonable quick with Windows XP, maybe because the only programs I use are MS-WORD, MS-POWERPOINT and media player. So maybe it's not the computer that's wheezing...maybe it's I who's looking down upon it. The fact is that if any of the component malfunctions or is rendered irreparable, it would translate to an expensive or impossible repair (part unavailability).
Anyway it's a world where smaller is better, so a lappie would definitely make me happy. Daddy, it's my 30th B'day and err... Ahem!! I think I know what you're gonna gift me...and NO NO I do not want a bride!!

Thursday, December 10, 2009

A trip down the memory lane

while reading Ashish's post http://iamplural.blogspot.com/2009/11/house-i-left-behind.html I remembered something from last year.

Our last accomodation from where we moved out 19 years ago, was rented (not one provided by the govt.) and I felt algia of the nost (sorry hee hee) everytime I thought about it. The park where I moved out of the house for the first time to make friends, where I'd hide from my dad evertime ma cooked fish (dad'd force me to eat it), the streets where I first learned how to ride a bicycle and scooter, the place where I'd watch the other boys play cricket (I hated it) and then go play with the boys who played with the girls (Ughh!), where I made my first gang of bad boys when I grew bigger (n we all got beaten up by the big boys), where my sister and I spent the summer and winter vacations and she'd bring me loads of comics and storybooks when she came home from her boarding school...sigh! There were so many memories attached to the place. Despite having my own vehicle and being in the vicinity many a time, I never went to that square...till last year.

That night I rode towards the place with memories flashing faster with every meter I covered towards that area. To my dismay, the top floor didn't exist like i knew it, it was all redone in a grand way; beautiful dim lights beckoned through the huge windows covered by semi see-through net-curtains. My little house where I grew up, where I had some of the most memorable times of my life, was history...sob!!

19 years is a long time, the place had changed, and as I moved away, I realized, so had I.