Slow Dance

Have you ever watched kids on a merry-go-round,
Or listened to the rain slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight,
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
You better slow down, don't dance so fast,
Time is short, the music won't last.

Do you run through each day on the fly,
When you ask "How are you?', do you hear the reply?
When the day is done, do you lie in bed,
With next hundred chores running through you head?
You better slow down, don't dance so fast,
Time is short, the music won't last.

Ever told your child "We'll do it tomorrow",
and in your haste not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch, let a good friendship die,
'Cause you never had time to call and say 'Hi'
You better slow down, don't dance so fast,
Time is short, the music won't last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere,
you miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift... thrown away.
Life is not a race, do take it slower,
Hear the music, before the song is over.

Note: I got this poem as a forward. I am not sure who the poet is, but the mail said this was written by a young girl dying of cancer.

Blank Noise

The blank noise project had a blog-a-thon sometime back and truthfully I did not even know there was something called a blank noise project in the offing at that time. But now knowing about the worthy project, I could not resist putting my two cents in.
Coincidently... on women's day, disgusted with the whole brouhaha, I wrote this blog , and in it I had included a link to the blanknoise's blog, without even realising what blank noise was.

LatelyI have been reading many articles posted in the blog-a-thon and they seem to have covered just about everything i wanted to say and more... even the swear words :-)

What is sad is that - as one of the ladies had said, when one girl talks about the harrassment she has suffered, every other girl in the vicinity has one to match hers, some even worse than hers. To sate my curiousity I took a small survey amongst girls/ women I knew and I don't think there was even one woman who could say, "No I have never had to face any abuse or harrassment". Every one had a story. Infact one friend of mine who used to travel alone almost every weekend, told me she always preffered the inside top berth in the trains and climbed up as soon as she got in, but never slept the night. She would miss her sleep, rather than take a chance and sleep in the night in a train.

It was shocking to see how many women take it as a part of life and suffer silently.

A girl's daily schedule almost goes like- get up, get ready to school, get pawed on they way to school/work, school/work (if u r lucky u don't get pawed at school/work), get pawed back home from school/work, and back home (I am not even gonna talk about what could happen at home).

My 3 year old niece is learning karate, when I asked her mother if she was not too young to learn martial arts, pat came the reply "she is going to need it when she grows up and has to go to school by bus or travel anywhere alone".

Just after reading all the different articles my first impression was an impotent rage, I wanted to wring the neck of every man I saw. But I knew I was over reacting. I can't go around blaming all men for the scum that is oozing out of the drudges of the society(OK, oozing out even from the highest echelons of society). I do know some men who are really decent...infact, it was a guy who told me about the blank noise project and asked me to express my solidarity to it.

So kudos to all the women and all the decent men who are striving towards this worthy goal. And I sure hope and pray for its success, so the next generation of women atleast would know the real meaning of freedom.

Here are some of the links to articles I read... (I hope the owners of the links don't mind, as I have not asked your explicit permission)

http://indiauncut.blogspot.com/2006/03/of-many-violations.html
http://hemanginigupta.blogspot.com/2005/06/train-to-chennai.html
http://mumbaigirl.blogspot.com/2005/11/why-did-you-touch-her.html
http://thewitchyangel.blogspot.com/2006/03/blank-noise-iii.html
http://thewitchyangel.blogspot.com/2006/03/blank-noise-ii.html
http://thewitchyangel.blogspot.com/2006/03/blank-noise.html
http://knownturf.blogspot.com/2006/03/streets-stories-strategies.html
http://smitainasia.blogspot.com/2006/02/i-say-no.html
http://shoefiend.blogspot.com/2006/03/blog-thon-for-blank-noise-project.html
http://greatbong.net/2006/03/06/blank-noise-blogathon#comment-3822
http://triya.blogspot.com/2006/03/reality.html

:-p

Reminds me of the first time my bro left for London. At the airport his friends had brought lots of going-away gifts (mostly shirts and jackets) for him and he wanted to take as many of them as possible with him. He had already checked in his baggage and so when there was no more place to stuff anything else in the hand luggage he decided to wear the stuff. The guy at the security check was rather stunned afterhaving asked my brother to remove his outer clothes. Other than the jacket he had on his arm, my bro had on a leather jacket, a sports jacket, a shirt and a T-shirt...we were just grateful no one had gifted him with trousers :-)

Seriously Funky Quotes :-)

There are many ... but they are all cute...

• Someone is boring me… I think it is me. – Dylan Thomas
• Life is like mail sometimes you just don't get it
• I say no to drugs they just don't listen
• The guy who invented the first wheel was an idiot. The guy who invented the other three, he was the genius.
• If you cannot change your mind, are you sure you have one?
• The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate it.
• There are 10 kinds of people…Those who understand Binary; and those who Don’t.!!
• Live everyday as if it's your last day on earth, one day it will come true.
• It is proven that the celebration of birthdays is healthy. Statistics show that those people who celebrate the most birthdays become the oldest
• TEAMWORK means never having to take all the blame yourself.
• The beatings will continue until morale improves.
• Never underestimate the power of very stupid people in large groups.
• We waste time, so you don't have to.
• A snooze button is a poor substitute for no alarm clock at all.
• When the going gets tough, the tough take a coffee break.
• INDECISION is the key to FLEXIBILITY.
• Please, Lord, let me prove that winning the lottery won't spoil me.
• No matter how rich you become, how famous or powerful, when you die the size of your funeral will still pretty much depend on the weather. - Michael Pritchard
• I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me. -- Dave Barry
• I talk to myself because I like dealing with a better class of people
• Quit smoking! Take air pollution straight.
• Finally 21, and Legally Able to Do Everything I've Been Doing Since 15.
• 99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
• Marriages are made in heaven. But so again, are thunder and lightning.
• When you are arguing with an idiot, make sure he isn't doing the same thing
• Don't follow me. I m lost too.........
• Get fired - No one can call you a Quitter !
• They can't fire me, slaves have to be sold.
• It might look like I'm doing nothing, but at the cellular level I'm really quite busy.
• Everyone should have a spouse, because there are a number of things that go wrong that one can't blame on the government.
• Artificial Intelligence is no match to Natural Stupidity
• How long a minute is depends on what side of the bathroom door you're on
• Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.
• Smile - it makes people wonder what you are upto
• I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it.
• I don't break the rules. I merely test their elasticity
• Some men are alive simply because it is against the law to kill them.
• When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained. -mark twain
• Suicide is the most sincere form of self-criticism
• I often have long conversations all by myself, and I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.
• If you can laugh at yourself, you've got a really sick sense of humour.
• If most people said what's on their minds, they'd be speechless
• We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?
• There are two kinds of secrets : one is not worth keeping and the other is too good to keep.
• There should be a better way to start a day than waking up every morning.
• Skill is successfully walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls. Intelligence is not trying.
• Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
• If I worked as much as others, I would do as little as they.
• Many people quit looking for work when they find a job.
• When I'm not in my right mind, my left mind gets pretty crowded.
• Everyone has a photographic memory. Some don't have film.
• I used to have an open mind but my brains kept falling out.
• I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.
• "I have nothing to declare but my genius "---Oscar Wilde at NewYork Customs
• In spite of the cost of living, it's still popular
• To err is human... to blame your computer for your mistakes is even more human; in fact it is downright natural
• Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning
• Sure, I'm crazy. But that used to mean something. Now, everybody's crazy.
• There are two kinds of person in the world. Who's who and who’s he.
• It is better for civilization to be going down the drain than to be coming up it.
• Of course UNIX is user-friendly; it's just choosy about its friends!
• Originality is the art of concealing your source
• Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you
• When you don't know what to do, walk fast and look worried
• A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it sure will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort
• Smoking helps you lose weight ... one lung at a time!
• Wisdom eventually comes to all of us. Someday it might even be your turn.
• You are proof that God has a sense of humour.
• Never be afraid to try something new. Remember professionals built the Titanic…Amateurs built the Arc.
• Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former -Albert Einstein
• He who smiles in a crisis has found someone to blame.
• Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so.-Douglas Adams
• Tell me what you need and I'll tell you how to get along without it.
• In life, it's not who you know that's important, its how your wife found out.-- Joey Adams
• Don't feel bad. A lot of people have no talent.
• Nothing is foolproof for a sufficiently talented fool!
• To iterate is human, to recurse is divine

Heart Vs. Mind

I just attended a training about the culture differences between US and india. I was expecting the trainer to go on about the greatness of US. Actually the people who attended it before I, told me to she would. But i was pleasantly surprised when the lady waxed rather patriotic. She was like " They don't understand you and truthfully they don't care to understand you. you are the alien creature in their habitat ... so when in rome... you don't have to be a roman but atleasr behave like one. Of course there is a question of how long one can pretend before it becomes a habit and a belief.

I came back feeling that the americans were weird people, more self centered machines than humans. everything is logic with them and no emotions. their attitude is I, me , myself - first, middle and last

I do not understand the kind of independence they seem to enjoy. I need poeple ... loads of them. I thrive in crowds (Ah! actually I am claustrophobic...but u get the idea right?!). I was told proactive help is frowned upon, we were told not to offer any unless specifically asked, caselets were read out where people got into trouble for helping others , whereas here we are taught to help even without being asked. (forget the statistics of how many people actually do it).

But the americans love us for our amazing tolerance level. After all we go out of our way to get things done ... even at the cost of our sleep and health.

I remember an instance when a friend of mine was blasted by his american manager. poor guy was flabbergasted. The mistake he had done did not warrant such an extreme reaction from his manager. Later his manager apologised to him and told him that if he had vented his fury on another american, that guy would have quit and sued him :-p... it never even struck my friend to do that.

That's probably coz we have been trained from our childhood that the authority figure is seldom wrong and to blindly obey .. the manager's word is our command... he says jump and we ask how high :-p

Anyways after the training i told myself that now that i know the thinking of the americans and with added help from books i had read, i would also think like one atleast in office... use logic and not emotions. think of myself first..

But at the time of reckoning i found that i just could not think of my colleagues as just colleagues, an entity that sits in the cubicle next to me. They were people to me, people with lives, happiness, sorrows, insecurities, and No i cannot mind my own business. Not just coz i am curious as to what is happening with them but coz i am programmed to offer help when i see someone i know in distress. and i know i will get the same offer when i am in a soup. Yeah! i might have to work a bit later to make up for the time i spent with them, but i don't mind. If nothing else i got to know someone better and maybe made a friend.

I am not trying to say the american way is wrong, it suits them, so good for them! But to think like them is sooo difficult for us... and well, we have to, if we have to work with them.

On the flip side, we also become scape goats, most times agree when asked to do extra work and generally get trodden upon and generally taken advantaged of

But when all is said and done we still think with our heart and not our mind and guess what, in the long run, its ok :-)...it just means we go that extra mile rather than hurt some one and maybe get hurt ourselves in the process ... hmmm! guess thats what makes us humane and indians :-p

PS: Never been to US, don't even have an american friend... so everything i am saying about 'em is heresay.

PPS: My old counter was not free... so had to remove it ...boohoo :'-(

Bogey Man- Medicine Man

Hospitals make me nervous! Common enough complaint! But when your imagination is as rampant and wild as mine and you have additional inputs from books, it is something closer to fear than just nerves.

Robin Cook’s new book Marker was the latest book I have been reading. A good enough book if u are reading a Cook book (pardon the pun :-p) after a long time. Cook has an unfortunate tendency to follow the same tried and tested route over and over again that after couple of books one tends to guess what will happen at the end even as one reads. Of course his Invasion and Mutation were different and good too.

I started reading Cook coz of the popularity of “Coma” but by the time I could get my hands on Coma, I had already read most of his other books and Coma, to say the least, was anticlimactic. Maybe if it was the first book of his I read I might have been equally impressed, but reading it as I did, I could almost foretell what was to come in the next page…and left me wondering what made it that popular.

But Cook, without fail, leaves me frightened sick of hospitals and the mysterious goings on there in.

As such I am not very familiar with what goes on inside my body. Most things I hear about it leaves me gaping with awe, wonder and a tinge of disbelief... you know the surely-things-like-that-are-not-happening-inside-me kinda feeling.
My medicinal knowledge begins and ends with a Saridon for headache, Crocin for fever and Vicks for Cold So I have amazing respect for the people in medical profession. After all they have had the patience to go through 5 years of intensive training and a few more years of internship and have bravely dissected all those cadavers (I remember getting violently ill when I had cockroach dissection in my 9th class.. oh yuck!)… But when all is said and done… it is my body and I am still suspicious of these guys. Sure the docs explain what they are gonna do… but hey! I am medically challenged. Most times I just grin and nod my head very knowledgeably, when actually its all flying way above my head. Of course I get a thrill out of it when the doc gives some real fancy sounding name for what ails me.
But what happens if they forget and stitch their watch inside while suturing after the surgery? (Wasn’t there a movie about this?). How do I know the injection they say they are giving is what they are giving and is gonna make me all better?

And to boot we have this reservation system, which allows students with hardly 50- 55% in their school to get a medical seat, and even there they only have to get the minimal of minimal mark to pass. How do I know the doc I am seeing is not a reservation candidate, who has just learnt to differentiate the scalpel from the kitchen knife?

I remember the time when my bro broke his big toe and had to be operated. We paid big money and what should have been a simple sticking of bones was made so complicated by the doc that the poor kid lost half his big toe…

Gee! Sure is frightening to think how we have to trust our bodies to these strangers and hope and pray that they know what they are doing, coz we sure don’t :-) ..But what's life without a little trust huh?!

*Phew* that sure got the jitters off the system... now y'all can start feeling jittery :-p

.

I am feeling angry, aggravated, annoyed, bedeviled, betrayed, bitter, chafed, choleric, convulsed, crabby, cranky, cross, cussed disappointed, disenchanted, disillusioned, dispirited, displeased, enraged, exacerbated, frayed, frustrated, furious, galled, graveled, harried, ,hassled, huffy, ill-tempered, incensed, indignant, infuriated, irate, irritated, let down, mad, miffed, miserable, nettled, outraged, peeved, pissed, provoked, provoked, rankled, resentful, ,riled, sad, sore, steamed, sulky, sullen, testy, truculent, vexed, wild, wrathful….
AAARGHHHH!!!!!!!

Woman's Day Wishes!!!

These past few years every March 8th there is a big to do about woman's day. Hallmark, Archies and other gift and greeting cards shops mint money. The different magazines and channels wish every woman a happy women's day, I think even the president wished the women. Special offers on everything from feminine accessories to cell phones to trips abroad are offered.

hmmm! does this mean that one day every year women are given accolades and the left to her pathetic state the rest of the year?
What is the concept of a woman's day? Other than a great chance for shops to market their products?

Is it to celebrate the liberation of women? Who should women get liberated from?
Is it to show appreciation to all the things women do? is it to acknowledge that women are a great species?

I just don't get the funda behind all this. Yesterday I probably got about 20 mails wishing me. Do the people who wished me even know what they are celebrating and why.
It’s become an "in-thing", every one wish, so let’s also do it.

Have women really become equals? Is she accorded the same treatment and respect as her male counterparts? Can she travel safely in a public transport without being pawed and abused? Can she really wear anything she wants and not be termed loose or indecent?
If a girl (even one who covers herself from head to toe) is rap*d, she is still held responsible for having "asked" for it and having "seduced" the guy. Even her own relatives are not ready to understand the girl's physical, emotional and psychological torture and stand by her. she becomes a fallen woman by no fault of hers. And where the girls' life is ruined forever, the guy perpetuating this pretty much goes free in most cases, as the girl's family hardly ever complain, fearing the consequences.
It makes my heart ache to see school/college girls being pawed by the old lecherous slobs in buses and other places, and bearing it silently with tears and misery in their eyes.

Female infanticide is still prevalent. In blue collar jobs, men and women in the same cadre have different pay scales. Despite many government giving free education to girls, only a small percentage of them are allowed to enjoy this scheme. Most girls are made to stay home to learn cooking and house keeping.

Just the other day I saw an awareness program in DD. There is this 12 – 13 year old girl playing outside her house and her father comes home from outside and asks her to go inside and start learning cooking and stuff, as he has got a great proposal for her. An old lady enters and advices him not to get the girl married at such an age, instead to let her study. The state of affairs in the country is such that even the childhood of a girl child is dependent on the whims of her elders, and they have to be made aware of their responsibility.

This is not just something faced by women in developing countries; Women even in the so called developed countries face humiliation and discrimination in one form or another.

Is this what we are celebrating on March 8th?
I really don't get it... wish someone would enlighten me.


PS: Y'all might be interested in reading this article too

Heroes or Villians?

Every one has read The Mahabharat or at least have heard the stories from the great epic or thanks to B.R. Chopra seen it in DD. The story deals with the very virtuous Pandavas being oppressed by their wicked and villainous cousins the Kauravas and how the good overcomes evil at the end.

But are the Kauravas really the villainous people they have been depicted as, or the pandavas as pious or virtuous?

Duriyodhana, the eldest Kaurava, was considered the most wicked of the lot. The same Duriyodhana, who befriended, the then low class, Karna and made him king of Anga. It could be argued that he was friendly with Karna only for defeating Arjun. Maybe that was how it started, but there is a sequence in the story where Karna and Duriyodhana’s wife Banumathi are playing chess and Duriyodhana enters the room and Banumati stands up in haste at his sight, Karna whose is back towards him catches her and the ornamental belt around her waist breaks. Any ordinary husband would have been immediately suspicious, but all Duriyodhana asks them is, if he should just collect all the pearls or string them for her also.
And we all know the kind of loyalty given to him by Karna. Can a villainous creature like Duriyodhana really inspire this depth of feeling from an indubitably virtuous person like Karna, or find in himself such trust towards his wife and friend.

One could wonder of course if the Kauravas were such nice people, why would they try to kill their cousins. I don’t doubt for a minute that anyone in the Kauravas place would have done the same thing.

From the time of their birth, they are brought up with the belief that they would be the next rulers. Then in their teens, they are told that their cousins who had been in exile, would be joining them and they would probably be the next rulers, and to add insult to injury, the new cousins are hailed as the next best thing since sliced bread. Where the kauravas were once the favorites of their teachers, they are now ignored for the new cousins and constantly compared with them.

When parents have a second child, the first kid becomes naturally jealous and feels threatened and the parents are counselled to make the first child understand that the presence of a second child will not be a threat to the affection it gets from them. When this is true of children of the same parents, I cannot even gauge the amount of bafflement, resentment and inferiority complex that would have been felt by the kauravas.

Also, as we read about their childhood, we find that every time Bhim or one of the pandavas play a prank on the kauravas, it was laughed away as a childish prank and if the kauravas retaliated, they were punished and called wicked.

And to boot, they had a father who could never show them the right path and was blinded by not only by birth but also by his greed and an uncle who was always ready to steer them on the wrong path.

Seriously, can we blame the Kauravas for being what they were? They were just normal people, whose childish resentment and inferiority complex was left to fester to their adulthood and had no means to let it out but to fight their “so-called” perfect cousins.

Talking of the Kuruksethra war, it can be noticed, not even one of the kaurava warrior was killed in fair war. Karna was killed when he was repairing his chariot. Duriyodhna was killed by being hit in his thighs, when it was considered bad sport to hit below the belt, Drona was beheaded when he was meditating, after hearing the death of his son, which was a lie perpetuated by the oh so pious and virtuous Dharma and Bhishma was shot dead by a eunuch, coz he refused to fight against one, and put down his arms.

The Mahabarat is not really a story of good overcoming evil. It is a lovely epic and it talks about people, just normal people, with complexes and greed and emotions just like anyone. No one is either fully good or evil. It is a story that talks about life in its entirety. Life is grey, there is no black or white in it.

Going Onsite?

Load of stuff has been posted about the questions the single people face when attending a wedding, especially the weddings of relatives. The true and tested formula to irritate them are the questions (it’s mostly followed by a nudge and sly look… like they share are sharing a big secret with us, something no else had even thought up of asking) “Next is your turn isn’t it?” Or “So your route is cleared now”. Sure yeah we were waiting with bated breath for our father’s cousin’s aunt’s twice removed nephew/niece to get married, just so we could get married… Aargh!
It’s especially irritating when we have to face the same question from every elderly person we meet there (and all of them with that same conspiring look on their face) …:-)

But if u r a SWE, Horrors!!! , the interrogation does not end there it continues with “So when are u going to onsite?” , “U have been to onsite right?’ “Nooo??” “My God! U have been working for more than a year right?”
“Almost 2 years and still not been onsite? Maybe u should change the company”

Yes m’am, I shall immediately tender my resignation. How dare they not send me onsite as soon as I join the company? Of course we don’t care about the project requirement? Not at all uncle, it’s ok if its one of the leading companies in the nation and I am getting a nice pay too …

After 10 -15 times of answering the onsite question, one starts to wonder if maybe we are doing something wrong, maybe we should really quit the company… I swear we will get a complex by then.

If the aunt/ uncle has a son/daughter in the IT industry, and God forbid! If she/he is in or going to onsite in the near future and even worse, is younger than u… u r a goner…
They do know something about the industry and are eager to let us know ALL about it with a corresponding sneer and condescending attitude.

When I had just joined my company, a colleague friend of mine used to feel very bad about not having gone onsite yet. And I used to be amused. I could not realize, then, what kind of pressure he was in. But buddy!!! I really do understand what u were trying to tell me then. In fact I am there, right next to u, on the same boat.
:-)

Good One

Hey I came across an article in another blog.
This guy generally writes good blogs.... and i believe he is a reporter for The Hindu
But this I would want u all to check out... something like my blog on India... but more positive :-)

Guard God

We were travelling in the highway-bypass connecting Tanjore and Trichy and we were rushing along as it was already late, when suddenly our driver careened to the shoulder of the road and stopped behind a lorry.

"Oh God! Not another flat tyre..." was the frantic thought in all our minds.
We had just got a flat tyre a half hour back and so did not have any spare and we were in a big hurry.
The driver hopped out and went running around the lorry parked in front of us..Curious by his behaviour we all got out and peeked around the lorry ... and there was a tiny temple.
A rather frightening looking guy, with holy ash all over and huge mushtache and red eyes sitting on the temple step,was giving away more holy ash...guess he was the priest there.

The driver prostrated in front of the deity, got some ash and came rushing back. We all dutifully piled back into the car again only to find that our driver had still not got in. He was busy applying it on all the four tyres, the bonnet etc. He then jumped in , applied some more on the steering wheel and started the car.
By this time we were obviously bursting with curiousity. Turns out the temple is for a "Kaval dhaivam" or a Guard God :-) and all vehicles stop there and pay homage before continuing.It is believed that the God there saved the vehicles from accidents, and He expected the drivers to pay their homage or else...

Skeptical that people would actually believe this, We turned back to see the temple... and true enough there was a queue of vehicles... each stopping before the temple before continuing.

Funny how like the sheep, we are in so many aspects of life, blindly following wherever the person in front of us go. But still it was kinda sweet.

By the people, Of the people and For the people

Americans are known to be some of the dumbest people. Don’t believe me? Ask any person working for a BPO or call center. Despite that they all have an amazingly huge superiority complex for being an American. Which also means that they look down on any person who is not an American. For them US is the world and nothing much exists outside it.
And can u really blame them? I mean they are so feted and favored by Indians everywhere too. Seeing as to how we are the second most populated country on earth, that is a lot of feting and favoring indeed.

Everything they do is approved of. Every time they are hit, millions of Indians cry. Remember the impact of 911 in India? Agreed! Many people had relatives there. But seriously the tears and sadness was over done, since I am sure all of them did not have relatives who worked in and around the WTC. Just couple of weeks before 911 there had been another attack on the kashmiris by the terrorists there. I am very doubtful if anyone here had even noticed it.

Bush annihilated Afghanistan, but hey that’s ok. It was after all done by the US. Thousands of innocent children and families, who probably did not even know who Osama was, were brutally murdered. But that’s only right, as an afghan was responsible for the WTC crash. If we cannot find him, then let’s destroy his country.
But kill one Pakistani and the self same people will be up in the arms against the violent Indian behavior.

I don’t condone violence, but my point is why this blind following? Why cry when someone else is hit and ignore when our own head is bleeding? How can we forget our centuries old culture and heritage and ape west so blindly, especially when they are trying to ape east? How can we forget that when we were building towns and roads and indulging in business in Mohenjodaro and Harrapa, they were probably clubbing each other on their heads and living in caves.
How can we talk about the clean roads in other countries, even as we spit on our roads?
Why cannot we feel proud of our country and want to work for it?
If India is corrupt, then so is US or any other country on earth. But if it is corrupt it is ‘coz we are ready to be corrupted, do we even stop to think about it?
If we feel the same way about India as Americans feel about their country, no one can stop India from being Numero Uno.

The Indian democracy was built by the people, for the people and of the people. But the same people are too busy finding out what else they can ape from the west, to think for themselves. Ask any kid what his plans for the future are. It will go this way – “Finish school, get into engineering, write GRE and go to US and settle”. This is almost a standard reply.
Recently I heard someone say “India is going to the dogs”, well seeing as to how dogs have more loyalty, I can’t help but be glad.

Got this pic as a forward, it somehow it seemed apt for this post

PS: All the above comments are my own and all that blah blah…
Its one of my favorite topics to crib about, and so here it is.

Save the planet? – What a joke!

I am a fan of Michael Crichton and I love the amount of research he puts into every book and the way he makes even the layman understand the complex concepts without sounding condescending. The past weekend I was reading his Jurassic Park and The Lost World for the Nth time. Ian Malcolm, my favorite character in the books is a Chaos theory expert, (For the uninitiated Chaos theory is a part of Mathematics which helps in predicting the unpredictable.) He keeps predicting gloom and doom through out the book and is proved correct at almost every turn of the story.

One of his statements, though, made me sit up and think. It was such a simple statement and so very profound (as simple statements generally are).

We keep talking about saving the planet. Who are we to save the planet when we cannot even save ourselves? And laughably does the earth even need us to save it?
Earth is 4 billion years old and was alive and well long before we came and will be alive and well long after we are gone. If all the creatures that now pervade the earth are removed then another set of beings will, no doubt, emerge.
There have been four or five great extinction of animals in the annals of earth’s history as we know it, Even in the eras of the Dinosaurs, I am told , there was extinction of a large number of mammals, after every era (such as Triassic and Jurassic) and not every extinction was caused by the collision of an asteroid.

Couple of billion years ago, there were small single celled organisms and they were flourishing in the prevalent environment of the then young earth. But when the hot core of the earth cooled it caused cracks in the surface and an extremely poisonous gas got emitted. This gas almost annihilated those living creatures, and this gas was Oxygen. But other creatures that thrived on oxygen slowly emerged until earth became the green world we see today.

The earth keeps changing with various conditions and adapts and accepts whatever challenge is thrown its way and is almost impervious to the damage done by us. After all what are we in the grand scheme of things? Not even a speck worth mentioning.

Maybe, as Ian Malcolm says, the homosapiens were created to clean the earth so as to pave the way for the newer batch of creatures. After all we do such a good job of it!

Aaj ke shaam Shayari ke naam

Here are some shayari's I got thro' SMS

hum dosthi ka farz yoon hi nibathey rahenge
vakth be vakth aapko yaad karte rahenge
dhoova karo uumar lambi ho hamari
nahi tho Bhooth bankar aapko darathe rahenge

aisi dosthi ho hamari ki thum har raah, har dagar, har safar, mein milo
mar bhi jaoon agar, tho bhi dosthi ki kathir thum bagal wali kabr mein milo

koi pathar se na maro mere deewane ko
koi pathar se na maro mere deewane ko
bandhook aur bum ka zamana hai
oodathey saale ko :-D

phoolon se koobsoorat koi nahin
sagar se gahra koi nahin
ab aapki kya thareef karoon
dosthi mein aap jaisa nalayak koi nahin :-)

arz kiya hai...
mohabbat ki deepak jalakar tho dekho
zara dil ki duniya sajakar tho dekho
thumhe ho na jaye mohabbat tho kahna
zara humse nazarein milakar tho dekho
...wah wah wah

kuch fool humpe gire
kuch fool unpe gire
fark ithna tha, ki
woh duniya basa rahe the
hum duniya se ja rahe the

dosthi ka wadha kiya hai marthey dhum thak nibhayenge
moth aaye tho thum se pahle hum jayenge...
marke bhi thum ko na bhool payenge
isliye thumko bhi saath le jayenge :-)

arz kiya hai....
aapki muskurahat ne humein behosh kar diyaa
apki muskurahat ne humein behosh kar diya
hum hosh mein aane hi wale the
ki aapne phir se muskura diya :-)

dil ki hasrath zubaan par aane lagi
thumne dekha aur zindagi muskurane lagi
yeh ishq ki imthehan thi ya meri diwangi
har soorath mein soorath teri nazar aane lagi

har kadam pe imthehan lethi hai zindagi
har vakth nayi sagmein dethi hain zindagi
hum zindagi se shikayath kaise kare
aap sa dosth bhi tho dethi hai zindagi!

Aadabh!!!

Super Man!!! :-)

Oops!! I would have liked to be something more feminine :-)... But hey I love Superman anyways :-p

Your results:
You are Superman

Superman 85% Spider-Man 80% Supergirl 70% Green Lantern 70% Iron Man 70% Wonder Woman 65% Hulk 65% Robin 60% Catwoman 35% Batman 30% The Flash 30%

You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero am I?" quiz...

Up in the smoke..

NDTV had aired an interview with all the crew of ‘Rang De Basanti', and Aamir and Madhavan were asked about the Ban censoring cigarette smoking in Cinemas. They were against it and vociferously so.

I can’t help but agree with them. It does not mean that I am for cigarette smoking… in fact my friends will tell you… that nothing ever irritates me more than seeing a guy smoke in a public place… seriously if they wanna smoke the cancer sticks… they should lock themselves in a room where they can’t harm anyone else and smoke themselves to death..

I read this case sometime back. It was a about a woman in US who was diagnosed with lung cancer, though she was a non-smoker. She then traced back the reason to having worked in a bar, where the air used to be thick with cigar and cigarette smoke. She sued the bar for passive smoking, claimed and won loads of money too… but does it matter? Will the money be able to stop the pain and years of chemotherapy and hospitalization she would suffer. And all because she worked in a place where hedonistic people congregated.

After researching through the matter thoroughly our government came with this really smart idea of helping people…. “Ban smoking….in cinemas” ..Duh uh!
Why? Because the youth of India, Dumbos that they are, see actors like Rajnikanth smoke and try it themselves…
Rajnikanth also kicks the a$$ of 50 villains at the simultaneously… but that is beside the point, right? And then again how would I know? Maybe there are youth who tried that too but did not live to talk about it?

Come on! If the youths are discriminating enough to practice what looks stylish and good and ignore what might harm them, then they have taken up smoking despite knowing the pros and cons. That’s a real stale one man!!!
Public however, cannot blame the government for not doing anything to stop smoking… it can always show the ban as doing something “constructively” and still not harm the coalition.

Of course, if the government were really worried about the after effects of smoking then they would ban cigarettes...period... make it illegal and people will have no other means but to stop.
But hey! That will harm the national income… the cigarette industry is after all, a multi- million dollar one bringing in truck loads of money to the economy.

And if the government ever makes smoking illegal… at least 90% of the IT industry will go into withdrawal symptoms and start clawing at each other for smokes :-)

Remember “The cigarette does the smoking, you are just the sucker.”

PS: A friend read this blog and asked me what I was trying to say here. Do I really have to try to conclude something? This blog is like those Bharathiraja movies… you can conclude what ever u want… but I would really be glad if your conclusion is to give up smoking altogether!!!

My boss

I saw my boss today!!!!
So wats the big deal huh?!
The big deal is that this is the first time I got to see him in over 2 years of our acquaintance.
We talk to each other daily... literally from when I walk into office in the morning to the time I leave in the evening, one issue or other... and never seen his face... just a voice over the fone...
The one time I had gone to his work place, he had been on a temperory transfer to another place and when he had come here I was on vacation.
I was seriously burning with curiousity to see who I had been communicating with for sooo long.
Of course wat pushed my curiousity even higher was that my boss is a real kewl guy! soft spoken with a sense of humour...and even stranger was that everyone had a kind word to say about him...:-0 (trust me!! thats an almost never done thing)
Anyways, the client, bless his heart, wanted a foto of our team
And so finally I have a face to relate to the voice from above ... :-p

Once upon a time....

As we grow older... the simple things in life that used to give us so much pleasure are put into a small corner and left forgotten. But given a chance, its a wonder to see the child in every one surge forward to enjoy life...

As Doctor Who sez "There is no point in being grown up if u cannot be childish sometimes"

We had this competition for decorating the office and needless to say we did not win :-D... but once we cleared the office off all the decorations... Every one got a balloon and immediately started drawing faces and naming them, making up stories about them and throwing them around... even the big bosses. And honestly this was so much more fun than any of the outtings and treats to all those 5 star and 7 star hotels we had been to.(and much more inexpensive too :-))
And amidst the high pressure work we all do... its these flashes of childishness that act as stress relievers and make life worth living. After all, when we talk of the good ol' college days or get nostalgic about something from our childhood wat are we talking about if not them.

sigh!!! it takes me back to....

=>The hot summer when my brothers n I caught squirrels using some "ingenius" traps and then got spanked for it and had to free it again...
=>Going to the first movie with my friends and having a map of all the roads so that we don't get lost and to find we are probably the only people in the theater... (it was flintstones and even kids had not come to watch it :-p)
=?Whitening the front of our desks with chalk powder so when the prof brushes against it, he would have white streaks all over.
=>playing pranks on friends...

Truly... thats life!!!!... and as they say the best things in life are never expensive or hard to find... they are just sitting inside us waiting to be recognised and exploited.

Grrrr....

Trust me when I say there are very few things more irritating than finding, u have worked yourself to a bone and the work is of no use... grrr...

Being the good girl that I am, I wanted to leave early...go home and have fun... i mean it is weekend after all... but No, there are some enthu patani's who come with me who just had to finish their work before closing up for the day.
Looking at them work so hard gave me this sudden enthusiasm to get my work all done and right away too... (I thank the good Lord that I get such spates of enthu very very infrequently)...
so anyways here i was slogging away and getting loads of work done ... i mean i got almost 1.5 weeks work done in just one day...
Thoroughly proud and happy with myself, with dreams of impressing my superiors... i checked back , only to find that this work has already been done and i was working on something redundant ...
No one had bothered to inform me of this great achievement and there goes my full days work down the drain...
Sigh!!! Guess this is wat they call Brain Drain X-(