Common Wealth Games

The question is ,
Even if the CWG preparations were perfect and the facilities were truly world-class, would any one of us in this cricket obsessed country of ours go to attend the event????

If the Delhi Games is not a success, it would not be because of all the controversy but because we did not even try to make it a success. Some celebrity even suggested that we should boycott the games. That would not be necessary. Since there is no cricket, no one would go to watch in the first place!

We Indians are the type of people who want to be the best but are to lazy to even lift a finger for the betterment of this country. It is no wonder we would rather hero worship the existing sport stars (meaning cricketers) than pushing ourselves or our children towards a career in sports.

Of Food

It doesn't matter whether you are studying in one of the top colleges in the country, if you cannot you cannot eat from a mess just because it doesn't serve the food from your region, you are just another narrow-minded and conservative person just like any other person in India.

Its no surprise that the country has not reached even 10% of its actual potential. When Indians cannot take risks with the food they eat even for one day, how are we supposed to take the big decisions that will take the country forward?

In IISc. you can see the entire story unfolding. People complain about the mess but still wont change to another one even though you can change back if you didn't like it. And the students from each regions have their own dishes which they cannot live without. If it is rice and sambhar for Keralites, then it is the Hilsa fish for the Bengalis and so on.

I used to think that only malayalees were so rigid when it comes to food, not trying anything different. But now I have realized that every Indian is as bad. The ones from the big cities are a little better. But they come with their own set of problems. But that is for another post.

Intruder in Wonderland

I do not know where it was. I cannot recollect when it happened.

Oddly enough, a part of me is happy that I do not remember the details. Another part of me is trying hard to guess them.

I was trotting up the mountain path. The mist was gliding along, hugging the luxuriant slopes in its heavenward gait. I found myself fluxed by the mist: 'practically inside a cloud', i fancied... In a matter of seconds, the whole valley disappeared from view...

Looking around in the mist, I couldn't discern much from the faint silhouettes shimmering a few yards away. They appeared to be signalling something. Directions, perhaps. I took them to be either shrubs or rocks, and kept walking. It felt insanely satisfying. Tiny droplets of water be-dewed me as i ambled along.

Mists are true travelers. They do not plan ahead. Nor do they know of their destination. They listen to the Wind when it grows powerful. They hover around mountains, at times making them look beautiful. This mist, in particular, was in no obvious hurry. Not wanting to miss out on any more views of the valley, I decided to halt and reclined upon a smooth rock. I closed my eyes and felt myself dissolving into the mist.

Percussion.. Rhythmic strokes.. Somewhere in the distance. I stirred slowly from sleep. The rhythmic strokes started again: the sound that a sharp beak makes when it caves in into a hardwood tree. Ah! I'd woken up to the melody of a woodpecker at its day's work. I opened my eyes and scanned the place. The mist had sailed on.

There was not even a suggestion of the mountain path anywhere in the vicinity. I must've strayed off a long way. I discovered that I was near the edge of a mountain. Obviously intrigued, i walked towards the edge and peered down.

If i describe what met my eyes as merely hair-raising, heart-stopping or spine-tingling, I should be punished. It was nothing less than spiritually uplifting!

Flowers: Hundreds and Thousands of them!

Theme: Fragrance and Colour!

Artist: He who created the World.. who left this part of it unknown to Man.. and who momentarily lost vigil: when a man wandered into His finest piece of art, hiding under a cloak in the shape of a mist.

The mist had left pearls on their merry petals. These flowers had seen nothing of the world.. and the world had seen nothing of them.. If ignorance was bliss, it was only theirs.. The ponderer somewhere in me felt troubled.. For whom do these flowers blossom everyday? Apart from the mist, wind and rain, who appreciates their beauty? Why did God even create them, only to keep them a secret unknown to the world? For years and years, the flowers must've bloomed everyday, not knowing how wonderfully charming they are, not knowing that a world of men exists, that a few of these men would admire them endlessly. Why did God have to rob us both of what we deserve?

Thomas Gray's legendary lines came to my mind:

'Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.'

Perhaps He did it for a reason. Midas, as we know, turned everything he touched into gold. Maybe Midas is none other than Man himself.. and just like Midas' own daughter who turned to gold upon his touch.. he ends up losing even those things he holds close to his heart, for Gold.. for materialistic gain and a queer pleasure only Man can identify with..

Perhaps many more such valleys exist, unknown to us.. The more unknown they are, the better..

An eulogy for this dying blog of ours

For the blogs that die an immature death .....

Lemme a  scribble an eulogy .....

When the pens cease leaking,when the keys start choking

When the purses get fatter,when the degrees get longer

Thoughts takes no shape ,nd yu literally gape

@ that old Blog ,Where once you slogged ;)

Of Hostels

Of Hostels
While going through the hostel admission process at IISc, I overheard one of the officials saying that the girls are always taken care of and its only the boys who have to put up with all the issues such as no water, cleanliness, etc. Someone else told me that this was the situation in all colleges. The girls hostel is always better kept than the boys hostel.

But why? Girls have always been known to be more orderly and tidy than boys. Why do they need any extra attention? If anything its the boys who require more attention. With personal experience about the cleanliness of a boys hostel, I would have to say that its a wonder boys don't catch an diseases because of their appalling standards of hygiene. I have seen rooms covered with enough layers of dirt for it to have an archaeological survey done.

That the boys start acting mature and start cleaning up after themselves is not going to happen any time soon. So I urge all the hostel authorities in every hostel take up the issues of boys' hostels before it goes from bad to worse. The future of mankind is at stake here!

Political 'Career'

The recent hiking of the salaries of our MPs has brought with it a storm of criticism from the media and the like. With inflation going unabated why are our leaders eager to to take home fat paychecks than solving the nation's problems? Why is it that they are ready to look like selfish babus just for a rise in income?

But why not? Surely inflation also affect the rich too!! And service starts right from our home and family! But apart from that, Indian legislators are among the lesser paid than their counterparts elsewhere in the world. But that is not an excuse since the 'nation building work' they seem to do may not be worth much.

But isn't politics another career a person may choose? It is also much more riskier and gratifying at the same time than any other profession. In this money driven world where jobs which come with high salaries together with an opportunity to change the world for the better are rare. In this world it may be the best career option too. Of course to succeed in politics takes a lot of hard work as does any other profession bud the rewards are much better. Above all you get the love and respect of the people. Does any other job offer that?!

Indian politics needs fresh faces and not somebody's son/ daughter/ nephew , etc. Maybe this hike in salaries will inspire more people to take politics as a career.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/08/in_silhouette.html

In silhouette .....a photo blog i recommend you to chek out...

Images speaks better ...not me ..chk out

HARtALS Everywhere

Hartals are the same everywhere in India..u curl down with a pillow on the couch and run yur fingers restlessly on the remote buttons.Soon tv channels will have "HARTAL DAY SPECIAL MOVIE" nd shows specially for the festive day break wen movements are still..I woke up to a silent mumbai today..feeling happy for the same,for today has no more monday morning blues ;P;the usual sounds of the rick and the drool of the horns of the BEST buses are missing altogether...arising that UNmumbaish feeling.Well the silence on road has been well compensated by the NOISE on the news channels,with multiple screens from all the four metros flashing fire and fury with zero solution to the problem they were fighting for.As usual ,the fairy tale ends with "AND THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER"...6 TO 6 ie it.

Young Adults

Am I an adult yet?
Is being 21 years old enough to be an adult?
I guess not.
We live in a country where talking about sex is taboo. For some, the act itself is a necessary evil.
So I'd say we are all still children. So lets throw all responsibilities out the window and just enjoy!!

The City of Joy

With names like Esplanade, Park Street and Cornwallis Avenues, one would think they are in London, but a closer look shows that they are in a more beautiful place called Kolkata.

Though the city is one big traffic jam, it is quite a sight. The narrow roads are filled with Ambassador cars, I too went around in one. I was surprised by the size of the car, its huge! Three can sit comfortably in the back without touching each other.

The people are very helpful too. And unlike New Delhi or Mumbai, the youth here are not much of the Pg3 HiFi types.

Got to dip my feet in the Ganga (Hooghly) near the Dakshineshwar temple and hopefully they are free of sin.

The place is more of a girls delight with the large number of saree shops selling the traditional bengali handloom sarees.

World cup controversies !!!

Here is a link to the World cup controversies !!!

http://in.yfittopostblog.com/2010/06/14/footballs-top-world-cup-controversies/

The Value of a Human Life

This is an incident that happened to me on my way back to Trivandrum from Ernakulam by bus. We were on a narrow bridge with two lanes when a motorbike tried to overtake us by going full speed. But unfortunately, there was a car coming from the other side and the rider hit the car. It was quite a gruesome accident. Of course, this being Kerala, the bus stopped and many people got down to see the victim. The licence numbers of the both the car and the bike was noted by the conductor of our bus and one person was trying to get some water for the victim. This enquiring mood did not last long though, in the very words of one of the passengers of the bus, “since the accident did not involve the bus in any way, we need not care at all and the bus should leave.” The infamous Malayalee spirit had taken over. The car involved on the accident waited for the police and so did the bike rider who was unconscious evidently with heavy injuries on his head and spine. The passengers of the bus were told to board the bus as it would be leaving. Inside the bus the discussion about the accident began. There was no doubt that it was the fault of the biker. So the discussion was about why we did not help the victim. Surprisingly, everyone seemed to think on the lines that since the bus was not involved we were not required to help at all.

It is said that God helps those who help themselves. I used to think that this meant that we should learn to take care of ourselves and not be dependent on others. But I have now learnt that this means the we should try our best not to help others and we should not help ourselves either, otherwise we wouldn’t need a god to help us!

As the bus left I could see the bike rider lying on the footpath with his motorbike kept beside him and his bag kept near his hand for easy access. He was unconscious though. And where was I during this whole episode unfolded in front of me. I was worse than the average Malayalee. I did not leave my seat fearing I would lose it. I did not enquire about his condition and just kept on listening to the others.

The value we give to another human’s life is always more than ours. If we think of an unknown person’s life to be highly valuable we would also be right up there. But on the other hand if we deem another person not worthy of our help we too are worthless indeed. If human life could be measured in absolutes then the average of them all would be very low. The life of the common man is quite worthless for if he was worthy of anything then he would not be common at all.

J.K.Rowling's Harvard Commencement Address

Monday, January 18, 2010

J.K.Rowling's Harvard Commencement Address
The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination Harvard University Commencement AddressJ.K. Rowling,
Copyright June 2008


As prepared for delivery



President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates, The first thing I would like to say is 'thank you..' Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I've experienced at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and fool myself into believing I am at the world's best-educated Harry Potter convention.Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can't remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard. You see? If all you remember in years to come is the 'gay wizard' joke, I've still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step towards personal improvement.Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that has expired between that day and this.I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called 'real life', I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.These might seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that could never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents' car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person's idea of success, so high have you already flown academically.Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew. Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies.The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive.You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned.Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone's total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.You might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working in the research department at Amnesty International's headquarters in London.There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to think independently of their government.Visitors to our office included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had been forced to leave behind.I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just given him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country's regime, his mother had been seized and executed.Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard and read.And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have.The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people's minds, imagine themselves into other people's places.Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise. And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid. What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy. One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality. That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people's lives simply by existing.But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people's lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world's only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children's godparents, the people to whom I've been able to turn in times of trouble, friends who have been kind enough not to sue me when I've used their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.So today, I can wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom: As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.
I wish you all very good lives.
Thank you very much.

So long! Farewell! It's time to say goodbye!

At last, the time has come to bid adieu to our alma mater- CET. Four years have meandered by, softly, silently.. moulding us into engineers along the way.. preparing us to face the challenges in life.. empowering us into responsible citizens of the nation.. Yes, i believe CET has done all this devotedly and more..

There's a lot to feel grateful for.. friends, teachers, the facilities, the placements.. the greenery, the old-world charm... the leisurely pace at which life chugs along in the campus.. a strange, but definite, sense of purpose emanating ironically from a seemingly laid-back haven..

and there are a few things that, had they been different, would have helped boost our hopes and aspirations even higher..

Forever obliged to all the people i've met.. 4 years of being together undoubtedly makes u wiser by a jugful & gets u closer to people: knowing and understanding them.. and knowing and understanding yourself.. for every person u meet comes from a different background, and there's always something for u to learn from him/her.. It has opened up new channels of thought, revealed different ways of looking at things, broadened ur horizon, forged amazing relationships..

Four years have showered us with memories to cherish and opportunities to learn.. We've celebrated, laughed and made merry.. in our journey, many a time we've been derailed and we've patched up.. Even at times when the group dynamics didn't seem right, there must've been a collective feeling of pain and a resultant eagerness to make amends.. and now, when it's time to part, there seems to be an unexpressed wave of emotions floating in the air, making its presence felt..

At the end of it all, only when u look back u realise how far u've come.. how far u've progressed.. how much u're richer by.. There's plenty more to write, of course.. these 4 years have been special indeed..

I shall miss the campus, my friends and all that we've been through together.. All the same, i'm looking forward to the next step in life that college has prepared me for..

Proud to be a CETian!

Something 'classy' fROM 'THE CLASS ' to 'my CLASS'

The following is a piece from my all time favorite book THE CLASS 1956 by ERICH SEGAL...

reread it today..and couldnt stop posting this here...

its a story of a class in Harvard ....and dis is a page of the diary of one of the students in that class !! may be some one amongst us too have such a diary ...

I have mailed yu the link to download that book.
ANDREW ELIOT'S DIARY
- October 5, 1954
- The occasions that we thousand-odd will meet together as a class in our entire lifetime are extremely rare. We gather three times while we are in college. First at the Freshman Convocation-sober, serious, and boring. Then at the notoriously gross Freshman Smoker- just the opposite. And, finally, after jumping all the necessary hurdles, one June morning four years hence when we'll receive diplomas. Otherwise, we go through Harvard on our own. They say our
most important meeting is a quarter-century after we all graduate. That would be 1983-impossible to think that faraway. They also say that when we come back for our Twenty-fifth Reunion we'll be feeling something vaguely like fraternity and solidarity. But for now, we're much more like the animals on Noah's Ark. I mean, I don't think the lions had too much to chat about with the lambs. Or with the mice. That's just about the way me and my roommates feel about some of the creatures that are on board with us for this four-year voyage. We live in different cabins and sit on different decks.

Just a common soldier

He was getting old and paunchy and his hair was falling fast,
And he sat around the Legion, telling stories of the past.
Of a war that he had fought in and the deeds that he had done,
In his exploits with his buddies; they were heroes, every one.

And tho' sometimes, to his neighbors, his tales became a joke,
All his Legion buddies listened, for they knew whereof he spoke.
But we'll hear his tales no longer for old Bill has passed away,
And the world's a little poorer, for a soldier died today.

He will not be mourned by many, just his children and his wife,
For he lived an ordinary and quite uneventful life.
Held a job and raised a family, quietly going his own way,
And the world won't note his passing, though a soldier died today.

When politicians leave this earth, their bodies lie in state,
While thousands note their passing and proclaim that they were great.
Papers tell their whole life stories, from the time that they were young,
But the passing of a soldier goes unnoticed and unsung.

Is the greatest contribution to the welfare of our land
A guy who breaks his promises and cons his fellow man?
Or the ordinary fellow who, in times of war and strife,
Goes off to serve his Country and offers up his life?

A politician's stipend and the style in which he lives
Are sometimes disproportionate to the service that he gives.
While the ordinary soldier, who offered up his all,
Is paid off with a medal and perhaps, a pension small.

It's so easy to forget them for it was so long ago,
That the old Bills of our Country went to battle, but we know
It was not the politicians, with their compromise and ploys,
Who won for us the freedom that our Country now enjoys.

Should you find yourself in danger, with your enemies at hand,
Would you want a politician with his ever-shifting stand?
Or would you prefer a soldier, who has sworn to defend
His home, his kin and Country and would fight until the end?

He was just a common soldier and his ranks are growing thin,
But his presence should remind us we may need his like again.
For when countries are in conflict, then we find the soldier's part
Is to clean up all the troubles that the politicians start.

If we cannot do him honor while he's here to hear the praise,
Then at least let's give him homage at the ending of his days.
Perhaps just a simple headline in a paper that would say,
Our Country is in mourning, for a soldier died today.

Excess Baggage will Be Charged

All Indians are born with luggage which we are expected to carry with us throughout our lives. The baggage I am talking about is our cultural baggage. Indians especially carry a very huge and heavy bag, more likely an aluminium trunk. Every ‘learned’ person claims that we have to let go of this cultural bag that we carry if we want to ever develop into a great country. Everyone, from a student of a local engineering college to ex Infosys guy Nandan Nilekani, wants Indians to let go of its past. But do we really have to?

Has anyone ever opened the bag they carry around and actually seen what lies in it? Have we ever read our history books, our scriptures and mythologies not to mug up for exams but to examine our past? We must realize that there is a lot to learn from our past. A lot of good things were told that must be done. A lot of mistakes were made from which we must learn so they are not repeated. It was this past that inspired Indians to overthrow our colonial rulers so we could live our lives the way we wanted to.

Have any of these new-age rationalists ever read any of our scriptures? Because those who have read them would attest to the fact that they have a lot to teach in almost every field from music to politics and can be helpful to all kinds of people in almost every situation imaginable.

Isn’t it hypocrisy to speak about something you don’t know about?

Life Cycle of a Wall

I was walking down the street, with nothing much to do, thinking of ways to waste my time. I had about an hour to my next appointment. As I turned around corner, I saw a man staring at me. As I turned around I realized it was not me but the wall he was staring at. I continued walking. ‘But hold on’, I thought, ‘nobody stares at a wall. Maybe he was just window shopping’. I turned to check but it was a solid red brick wall. There were no windows and definitely no shops. ‘Probably a nutcase’, I thought. That was when I got a bright idea. I sat down on the footpath next the wall. The same wall which was being stared down by the other person. I sat there looking intently at the other person. He was around 35 years of age I guessed. He wore a pair of blue jeans. But I realized “Almost all jeans are some shade of blue. We definitely need more descriptors for jeans than just its colour. Especially since the branded ones cost an average of about Rs.1000.” I came to the conclusion that this pair of jeans the person was wearing was the shade of blue found on the seats of the Indian Railway compartments. The ones which are new. The person wore a cream colour shirt. The cream being, in this case, that of a butterscotch ice cream. When I looked op to the persons face I realized the he was looking back. He looked a bit uncomfortable. “Can’t blame him. He has a person sitting on the floor gawking at him studying the colours of his clothes. But hold on! Isn’t India the land of staring? Everyone stares. So why can’t I too?” But I discovered the truth, “You are allowed to stare only at people who look out of the place. This guy was wearing normal clothes and was normal in every sense.” He started tidying himself up though there was nothing wrong with him. He took out his napkin and wiped his face. And after giving me a sharp glance he walked off. “The converse of the Stare Rule has come into play. If you have someone staring at you, it implies that there is something wrong with you.” My eyes were following the person as he walked away. He turned back to look at me and when his eyes met mine, I gave a mischievous smile. He stopped in his tracks and started adjusting himself again. I thought, “Since this guy was staring intently at the wall, there must be something wrong with the wall.” I turned to look but found nothing interesting. It was a brick wall, comparatively new, probably only a year old. The red colour of the bricks was still shining. The wall was enclosing a school. “Maybe he was waiting to pick up his child from school. But wait. Shouldn’t he be waiting at the gate? How can staring at the wall solve anything? Was he a thief? But what can you steal in a school? Chalk!” I smiled at my own joke. “It is funny now but if I tell it to my friends, it becomes a PoorJoke. I think all jokes are lame if taken out of the context.” “Maybe he is going for the computers and things like that. He’s probably the scout and has come to check the place and make the plans. There may be others members in his gang.” But computers are not that costly and have very little resale value especially if it is stolen. “What else can you steal in a school? Maybe it is the fees collection time, there might be money lying around there. But isn’t this a government school. The fees here is quite low and wont add up to anything substantial.” “Is it possible that he was a Pink Floyd fan and was thinking about the meaning of ‘Another brick in the Wall’?” They referred to the wall that surrounded our minds. Bad teachers were just a part of it. And it was a brick wall just like this. And this was quite a big wall. It was more than five metres high. “Maybe the playground is on the other side and the wall was built to stop balls from flying out. Of course there is a bigger probability of it being built to keep the children from flying out, with the high dropout rates in schools.” At that time the school bell rang. I checked my watch to find that I myself had been staring at the wall for about half an hour. A I turned to move, I found another person staring at me and then at the wall. And I thought “The cycle continues”

The crows connection

Windows and balconies were invented just so that Man could gaze at the world outside and ponder..

Electrical lines and cables were invented just so that birds could perch on them and ponder..

If either of the aforementioned species has the company of another member of the same species, the pondering turns into conversation..

I gazed out of the window.. A crow was perched on an electrical line.. She was obviously pondering.. Another crow came flying by and took perch on the adjacent electrical line..

Crow 1: Hey.. what's up??
Crow 2: Ah! There u r.. heard u finally got a placement on top of Burj Dubai.. congratulations!(offers handshake/wingshake)
Crow 1: wha...backoff!! wingshake? u out of ur senses? We're sitting on electrical lines of different phase voltages.. if u touched me, we'd form a circuit with a voltage difference that would kill bo......
Crow 2: okay, fine! cut the crap!! damn those humans! knives and fire everywhere..
Crow 1: hehe.. thanks, by the way.. yeah, the Burj is indeed spectacular.. but i wonder what humans are really after..
Crow 2: what do u mean??
Crow 1: Look at us..we're such a peaceful lot.. and look at them.. they're so restless..
Crow 2: hmm.. Evolution has been cruel to them, u say?
Crow 1: well, u could put it that way.. they've evolved too much for their own good.. now every man wants to be better than the next..
Crow 2: hmm.. u're right.. chronic restlessness.. the insurmountable itch to 'progress'..
Crow 1: yeah.. and i'm not really comfortable with their definition of 'progress' either.. it's got a lot to do with brute force and brute reason!!
Crow 2: It's like.. where one man gains, another has to lose.. it's like an endless, perpetual see-saw..
Crow 1: Believe me.. this see-saw is incidentally what keeps the world going..
Crow 2: eh? what do u mean? that inequality and imperfection are the hands that run the world??
Crow 1: Not really.. we know that man is, ultimately, selfish.. their world, unlike ours, will never become perfect.. there will always exist differences that'll bother man to insanity.. and these differences keep the see-saw in motion.. and Evolution in action..
Crow 2: hmm.. alright.. and what abt us?
Crow 1: Well, we are different..and way better off.. our happiness is absolute.. if i get my supper and u get yours, we're both happy.. as for man, it's a very complicated relative matrix of needs, passions and emotions.. that are forever trying to balance each other..
Crow 2: ...and the fact that 'it's all relative' makes things as they are?
Crow 1: yeah.. their world needs as fuel - jealousy, anger, lethargy, fear, folly, hatred and imperfection.. otherwise it would crumble down and mankind would fall..
Crow 2: er.. didn't get u at all..
Crow 1: If every man were happy, then civilization would fall.. If every man were contended, his life wouldn't be different from ours.. all he would have to do is eat and sleep..
Crow 2: Eat and sleep and ponder*
Crow 1: hehe.. yeah, right! in such a world, there would be no disease, no crime, no hunger.. Necessity would be a non-existent concept.. Man wouldn't evolve.. he would stay put.. he wouldn't budge.. no art, no culture, no sophistication.. the world would be a very predictable, boring place..
Crow 2: So true.. and it all wonderfully connects! 'All the world's a stage, all the men and women merely players, and all of us crows merely spectators!'
Crow 1: ha! Shakespeare, in all his hurry, left out the last bit.. poor bloke probably thought we crows wouldn't know of it!
Crow 2: Yeah! So much for all the entertainment! Man ought to live! Manwatching is a glorious pastime..
Crow 1: hehe.. Anyway, i'm gonna take off now.. it's been gr8 talking to u.. caw-caw!
Crow 2: Caw-caw!

Pic: The Global Ponderers' Summit

(P.S: Unless you feel guilty abt Not Blogging for 2 months at a stretch, never ever listen to a conversation between crows! Caw-caw!)