Thursday, December 27, 2007

In 1965, when Bob Dylan visited England, a reporter asked him what his message was. Bob Dylan replied, "Keep a good head and always carry a lightbulb."
Today, it might seem that man has been unable to keep his head good enough to understand his what is best for his own future. With global warming already reaching alarming levels, the green blanket wearing out fast, and the conflict between the interests of man and the (very few remaining) animals of the planet increasing, the future of the planet may seem dismal. Maybe not. Everyday, in small ways, we can help make this planet a better place, not only for us, but for all the creatures that inhabit it, and for our own future generations. It is small individual efforts, which, aggregated together can bring about a sea change in the health of the planet.
Last year, Greenpeace launched a campaign called "Ban the Bulb" in which Greenpeace projected that about 4% of the carbon emissions of India would reduce if all incandescent lightbulbs were replaced by CFL bulbs. The Greenpeace is still pursuing this cause with the Government of India, urging it to make a law banning the incandescent bulb.
Bob Dylan's message would be more appropriate today if it is changed a little bit: "Keep a good head and always use a CFL bulb!!"
May this new year be good for you, your family and the planet.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a very happy new year.

Friday, September 28, 2007

This is meant to be a sequel to my previous post (although, chronologically, this happened a lot earlier), so, please bear with me for more on religion.
I stay in a place called Shillong, which is a couple of kilometres above the sea level. The closest airport is in the planes, in Guwahati, and from Guwahati, one has to climb up through winding hilly roads for around three hours. It was in one of such arduous climbs, that I happened to meet a theology student; well, although he liked to call himself a student of theology, he was actually a student of evangelism.
All show, always trying to be extra sweet, extra polite, and you could easily make out that he was making an effort to do so, and that wasn't the natural him. He was from Tamil nadu, studying in Shillong (Imagine, travelling all that way to learn how to evangelize). What really pissed me off was that he had the habit of prepending all his sentences with the word 'brother', the problem wasn't that he was calling me brother, the problem was that it was such a condescending 'brother'.
I asked him why he came all the way to Shillong, some four thousand kilometers away, to study, to which he replied, that he had the opportunity of being trained by someone who came from the United States of America. The british left India, but our slavery to the white skin continues. No offence to the person who came down from the US to teach about evangelism, just a reflection on our Indian mentality.
It was Durga Puja, and I told him that I'm going home for the Pujas. He started his evangelization, me his guinea pig, by asking me why we immerse the idols after the pujas are over. I was not to be put down, I know what he was driving at, and he did arrive at it later. I just told him that it is symbolical about the cycle of life, that everything came from Earth and water and thats where everything goes back. Not able to catch me there, he asked me why we worship idols. Now, here, he was caught. I asked him why do Christians have the idol of Jesus over the cross, why Christians light candles in front of the idols of Mother Mary, why Christians wear the cross around their necks. Caught off guard, he told me, "Brother. We don't do it. We are Church of Christ. We don't know if anyone else does it, but we don't put idols of Jesus in our churches". I asked him, that traditional Roman Catholicism also has idols of Jesus in their Church, and he was bold enough to say that the Roman Catholics were not the true followers of Christ. I was made to assume here that only the "Church of Christ" christian is a true Christian, the rest are all pretenders, or worse still, devil worshippers.
By this time, I was really bored with the topic, and I was trying to get away from him all the time, but he clung on. He told, "Brother, I was staying in a Hindu family before. But then, the light was revealed to me!" Great, you found light, did you? Some evangelist paid your electricity bill for a month? "We also study about Hinduism, ChIslam, Buddhism and other faiths when we study. We have to pass all those courses, before we have our certification in Theology." Good. They are professional, aren't they. They make sure that you can go back to Tamil Nadu and convert more Hindus or Buddhists.
"You see brother, Jesus is God. He is the only God." I got him here. I asked him where he learnt that Jesus was a God? He told me that it is so. I asked him, have you even read the old testament? He told me that they mostly read the new testament. I clarified his doubts that Jesus is not God, but he is the son of God, he is an apostle. I also clarified his doubts that Islam, Judaism and Christianity have a common history, and the old testament is common to all three. The fundamental difference between these three religions, I told him, is their belief who the last true prophet is. He obviously, dumbfounded, had no answer. He only told me, "Brother. I will go back and ask my sir about it."
Yea, go back, and ask your american evangelist. But don't get back to me, thats all.
Recently, I happened to talk in depth about Catholics and Protestants with a few friends. I also discussed with them the issues of conversion and so on. I have lived my life in a Shillong, where the majority is of Christian faith. What is wonderful about Shillong that inspite of being a majority, they are very warm and very tolerant people. Moreover, nowhere, will you see them distrubuting pamphlets in your home asking you to read the bible.
There is, I must say a really cheap phenomenon undergoing in South India. Outside churches, you'll find , allow me to use the word, advertisements of Jesus printed in bold letters, as if Jesus Christ needed any advertisements. Also, in the south of the country, you find a lot of people hooked on to religious television where they say things like, "You are having difficulty passing in your examinations. Come to Christ. He will help you pass." Ridiculous!!! No. Blasphemous. Christians should actually crucify these people because they are presenting such a bad picture of the Christian faith. Cheap gimmicks.
I was under the impression that the Catholics were more of an orthodox lot, and they resisted change, resisted female advancement, resisted contraceptives and so on and so forth. However, I was shocked when my friends told me that these religious channels, those called miracle performing evangelists, and other cults are mostly products of Protestantism. Its not that the Catholics don't try to convert people to Christianity, but they do it in a more subtle way, in a way no one point the finger towards them, in a way in which I don't see anything wrong; their way is that of the missionary, that of service, service to mankind and service to God. Their work is comparable to those of the Ramakrishna Mission.
Coming to Islam, or Hinduism, I feel that people belonging to both these faiths are becoming more and more fanatical; they seem to feel more and more insecure, I don't know why. I would normally think that in the twenty-first century, a person's faith should matter the least, because, in this age of consumerism, the fast pace of every aspect of life, one shouldn't have much time for religion, even lesser to show antipathy to other religions. However, I was flawed in thinking in this manner. While the consumerism and the fast pace of life has taken away the time to be with God, and the God-fearingness of the common Hindu and Muslim, it has only increased his fanatism, his antipathy for others, his craving for extremist ways. In addition to that, he employs modern technology in his vendetta - the twin towers of the WTC were a victim of this phenomenon.
The modern fanatic is no longer god fearing. He no longer follows the basic principles his religion teaches him. However, he manages to extract the vicious vices from his religious text, twist them and turn them in order to justify his violence.
This discussion will be quite incomplete if a mention of Iran is not made in this context. I was reading the interviews of the Iranian premier, and he seemed to be a very logical person to me, at least on a lot of occasions, inspite of his being an overly religious person. He seemed to endorse free will and free speech. However, in the past, we have known that all Fatwas originate in Iran. I don't actually think that issuing a fatwa for speaking ill about a religion is an over-reaction, I'm sure any other country would do the same, certain factions from any other religion would do the same. A few days ago, when the Tamil Nadu chief ministers made some comments about Ram, a bus was burnt and two people were killed. At least Iran is clear about who made a slandering statement and who should pay; Hindus are not even certain about that, someone makes the statement, someone else pays.
Satanic Verses work in two ways. In one way, such books are essential, because without such books, important issues will never come to the foreground, obsolete and oppressive customs will never be done away with, and face it, no religion is perfect, and without such books, the imperfectness out of religions will never be purged out. On the other hand, these books themselves add to the insecurity among religious community, which in turn add to the fanatism in those communities.
Think about it again, Islamic fanatism was born out of British and American policies in the Middle East. The Arabs, although warring amongst each others, never hated foreigners including those of a different faith; in fact they were known for their hospitality. However, today, we know that the Middle East is behind most Islamic terrorism.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Abdul Kalam's dream - India to be a super power in 2020.

Abdul Kalam's dreams come true in South Africa. Dhoni leads the way.

A Pakistani player apologizes not only to all Pakistanis but to all Muslims around the world. For losing that is. Wait a minute. There are Muslims in India. Wait a minute more. There were Muslims in the Indian cricket team and they played an instrumental role in India's victory. Why was he apologizing then?

King Khan bleats his lungs out at the stadium. Halal Cut King Khan, the golden bakra voice of the hottest hunk, the Bruce Lee Bodied actor. Where's Karan Johar, or Himesh. Or, who's the new guy? Wait a minute, he is a Muslim too. Come on, you don't have to apologize to King Khan. The King was there to cheer India.

Another Pakistani player congratuled "All the Indian nations". Congrats West Indians. Congrats American Indians. Congrats Aboriginal Indians. Wait a minute, Americans and Aboriginal Indians do not play cricket. I'm confused.

Video con ad. Uniforms of 6 or so countries hanging from a clothes line. Dhoni ne sabka dhulai kar dala. Dhoni with a bit. A videocon washing machine beside him. Wait a minute, if he used his bat to wash the clothes, then where did the washing machine come to picture. I get it, before putting the clothes to the washing machine you need to hit it with a bat, otherwise they don't go clean.

Mithai wallas were the true supporters of India. Through thick and thin. Through rain and puddles in the municipal roads. They made sure that they had sweets stacked. Sweets sold like hotcakes.

Fireworks all over. People dried the damp, rain sogged powder in the fireworks in the Videocon drier. The pollution control board took no readings of the air pollution the next day.

Prime Minister and President congratulated the Indian team. Of course, they have nothing better to do. At least this is one job Pratibha Patil is capable of doing.



Now India doesn't have to play for 3 years.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Midnight again. My old, faithful 'Vim' again. (Guess its time I should move on and get myself a new, fancier dog, Vim 7.0).
I wanted to write this since I don't know when, but I never managed to find the right words. Even now, I scarcely caress the notion that I will be able to express all that I feel effectively, but, you know, I have to do it sometime, and if I don't start, I'll never do it. Maybe I'll write again, but then, its common knowledge that it turns out best when you do it the first time.
"Where is the horse that doth untread again
His tedious measures with the unbated fire
That he did pace them first?"
These, obviously, aren't my words, and Willie Shakespeare quilled them a few hundred years ago.
Unfortunately, what I'm going to write about now, wasn't something that Willie could ever write about, because such a situation never arose during his time.
Ditch England and Willie, and come over to our own backyard - Andhra Pradesh. Well, I, and possibly you may ditch England, but a true Telugu will ditch Andhra, and, by hook or by crook, get a green card. Somehow, a man isn't a man in Andhra unless he has visited the states.
Most of the times it has to do with dowry. A man's value doubles after he returns from the states.
Funny. I've known a lot of Telugu people, and, most of them are highly intelligent people. Yet, unfortunately, very few of them could break out of the shackles of caste and dowry, and yet fewer of the fantasies of migrating to the US.
If you've stayed in Andhra, you would know that films like Hyderabad Blues aren't an exaggeration. In fact, there is a temple which is popularly known as the "visa temple".
Well, I once had a discussion with a person who had moved to the US. She was really urging me to make the move as well, and she gave me arguments like what is good in India, you can do better work in the US, you can earn more money in the US, everything is so much better in the US and so on and so forth. Unfortunately, she never cared to dig below the surface and find out the reason why US is thriving.
Well, what is America without immigrants. The native American (by native, I wouldn't go as far back as red Indians, but by native, I would refer to the whites and blacks who settled more than a hundred years ago) is mostly uneducated, useless scum of the Earth, who, invariably, possesses a gun and is not afraid to use it. He believes that the US has attained an elevated state in this world, and now, it is the duty of the US to elevate the rest of the world. What has he done to elevate either himself or the rest of the world, he won't be able to tell you. In fact, 10% of the Americans are so backward that they think that the Sun revolves around the Earth (When was Copernicus born? They are even more primitive than that).
And yet, America is, today, after the demise of the erstwhile Soviet bloc, the only superpower in the world. I guess I've made my point, but, the question still remains, will the Telugu be able to read between the lines, and, more importantly, change himself and the state in which farmers commit suicide on a yearly basis?

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

I wish I was Jerome Klapka Jerome, because, in relating a funny incident no one can even come close to him. I'm especially badly suited to write what I'm going to write. But then, Jerome is out of my or your reach, and so you, the reader, will have to settle with what you get, or else you can choose to discontinue reading this.
An hour ago, I wouldn't have given a small little mouse much respect, but something happened.
Earlier this evening, at home, I had seen a tail rush from the door to one of the crevices of my bedroom, to hide behind my small little book-shelf. The speed at which the tail took flight hindered my seeing what man, beast, imp or god it belonged to, but, since my house happens to be a tropical paradise for lizards, I assumed it was something that always followed an unusually large lizard. I didn't give much attention to it. I reckoned that lizards are good for my house, as they keep the number of insects down.
It was midnight, and I was, as they say, burning the midnight oil, trying to get a lot of work done, when the shy Mr. Mortimer first showed himself to me. Only for a split-seconed. I immediately realized the urgent necessity of banishing the shy unwelcome guest from my house. My initial reaction was to lunge at it, hit it with my shoe and kill it. I tried that, but Mr. Mortimer was smarter than I was and took refuge in the little nook behind the steel wardrobe that I have. Not able to reach him, I decided to force him out his sanctuary. I fetched my can of cockroach-killer (Hit) and sprayed him on his face. He ran. I thought I had him. A pair of slippers flew, one missing him half a centimeter, the other falling where he had been one-fourth of a second earlier.
Mortimer then ran to the kitchen, took refuge in one of the cupboards. Now I really had him. One by one, I took out the contents of the cupboard, carefully, so as to prevent him from going out of the cupboard, cornering him each time I took out something. When the cupboard was empty, I didn't give Mr. Mortimer a chance, and lunged at him with the slippers. Again, Mr. Mortimer, an expert at the art of dodging took flight and returned to his favourite bedroom, which, until a few hours ago, was still my bedroom, and mine alone.
I ran to the bedroom. By this time I had a strategy in mind. I looked at the bed. It was littered with clothes, and the blanket looked like a mountain range photographed by a satellite. I knew that if Mr. Mouse found his way into this, it would be difficult to ever find him, if I ever did. The four legs on which the bed stood were smooth, and there was no way Mr. Mouse could have climbed that. (He did try this approach once or twice, but my ploy worked). His only way upto the bed would be to climb up the hanging sides of the bed-cover. I denied him this approach. To block his exit from the room, I locked the bathroom door, and the door that led out to the hall.
I moved the steel cupboard and the bookshelf so that there was plenty of space behind them and towards their rear. Mr. Mortimer, you know, had this uncanny nack of finding crevices and lodging himself in there, safe from the probes I launched against him, and I, his opponent, wanted him to have as few of them as possible. The next move was to move the stuff the other stuff that were lying on the ground to the top of the book-shelf; these incuded a few bags, a mat to sit on, and newspapers.
This was the beginning of my exercise for the next half an hour. What followed was a pretty much predictable and cyclic repitition of three things. Mr. Mortimer would hide behind under the steel cupboard. I'd spray Hit to force him out of there. He would then hide under the book-shelf. I'd move the bookshelf here and there, trying to get him out. He would then run to the other end of the room, reach the wall, realize there is nowhere to hide there except the bed. He would then try to jump up and reach the bed, failing which he would try the bathroom door, which was, again, locked. He would then make it back to where he started from - beneath the cupboard. Everytime he was out of cover, I'd lunge at him with doormat in my hand. By now I had lost the desire to kill him on three grounds - fistly I'm an animal lover; secondly, if I killed him, I'd mess my home; and lastly, he was a sweet little mouse, and I had already become a fan of this sweet little intelligent Jerry. I only wanted to catch him now and throw him out of my house, away from the prowl of dogs as well. My strategy was pretty simple, when he was under cover, try to grab his tail by some object (it would usually be my hand covered by a doormat, or a plastic straw), and when he was in the open, try to net him with the doormat. The first didn't work, though, because he always managed to get his tail out of the grip of the straw, and the second almost worked twice, when I had him under the mat and surrounded, but as I tried to catch him firmly, without actually hurting him, he managed to slip out. I didn't want to catch him with my bare hands for I didn't underestimate the gnawing power of a champion tunnel digger.
This continued for half an hour. Mr. Mortimer running the standard 400m Olympic track more than 45 times. I was already sweating. Come on. "Come on, you've got to get tired sometime," I thought. "If Arican bushmen can catch a deer by just running after it and making it run till it tires out and gives up the run, I can tire you out as well." Apparently, I couldn't. It was only my good luck that I managed to banish him out of my house. As I was getting him out from his hideout under the bookshelf once, by moving the bookshelf, all the stuff I had stacked over the bookshelf fell, including the bags. Mr. Mortimer also got scared by the sound of the fall, and jumped into the nearest crevice he could creep into, and that, fortunately, happened to be one of the pockets of my bag.
I lost no time in picking the bag up, and blocking Mortimer's exit from the bag. All the other compartments of the bag were swiftly chained. All contents of the compartments Mr. Mortimer had lodged himself into were quickly but carefully removed. As I was emptying the contents of the compartment, I could see Mr. Mortimer curiously looking up at my face, and wondering what lay ahead of him. The bag was taken outside the house, and with a few good shakes, Mr. Mortimer was out for ever.
I have been reading Frederick Forsyth for a while now, and Mr. Forsyth, if you know him, regards the Mossad and the MI5 very highly. Well Mr. Forsyth, you haven't met my little shy Mr. Mortimer yet.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Although I like tea better, I don't exactly hate coffee but too much of Cafe Coffee Day has done its trick - I don't like being Jailed in their different but rather ordinary brews and American style service.
I happened to stumble into this place in Hyderabad called Finjaan which served wonderful tea - mind it, the shop belongs to a connoisseur, and he simply won't allow you drink your tea with milk - in imported German glass-ware. The moment we went in, we were greeted by a warm smile, two rows of air-tight bottles containing tea leaves at the counter, and two glasses of cool water at the round-table. I could open each air-tight bottle and smell the tea before choosing.
I had one of my friends with me, so I chose a nice smelling Darjeeling tea for him and a white-tea for me. The next course was a white tea called White Peony tea for me, followed by Ginseng tea and Chinese Jade Rings tea.
It felt good to have tea for the smell, rather than the kick, on a hot summer afternoon when the outside temperatures were around 42 degrees Celsius. It also felt good to be in the shop of a connoisseur who made sure that he gave us wonderful treatment - right from the glass of water, to brewing the tea in a glass flask, to serving it in German glassware. He also made sure we knew of all the medicinal properties of the tea we chose - I'm ashamed that I don't remember any of that, but it felt good. I wonder what it takes to be a connoisseur and what feels to be one.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

It is just amazing the way Laxman can capture a certain facet of India so completely in the little corner of the front page of TOI. What is even more amazing is that he not only captures the problem but demands a change. I always marvel at his ability to chrun out such masterpieces with unfailing regularity. What I have done maybe once or twice in my life, and have patted myself on the back for, he does everyday.

Monday, January 01, 2007

One of the most remarkable aspects of human mind is its ability to work even in the most hostile of circumstances. Even when the environment is utterly gloomy, the human mind is capable of producing first class work. Take the case of Kazi Nazrul Islam: he was writing his best songs of the happier mood around the time of the death of his son, because the Gramophone Company of India wanted them.
Or take for instance Richard Feynman. Arlene, his wife, was dying in the hospital, and he was in Project Manhattan working hard five days a week producing first class work, and on the weekends hitch-hiking a ride to the hospital where Arlene was.
Another instance would be that of Louis De Broglie. Dismayed with the way the war was progressing, holed in his room with a pen in hand and loose sheets on his desk, he came up with a paper that made the entire world think again about matter and waves, and how they had treated the two till then.
We can never forget the contribution of Nicholas Copernicus made at a time when the Church governed Science.
Gauss, the King of Mathematics, was born to poor uneducated parents.
I can go on and on listing examples of genius born in despair, but I guess I have already made my point.