Just like Dad

Having counselled my parents all along my life that 'Comparing your kid's grade with * Uncle's kid will do no good to your already largely no-good child', the series of impulsive acts I did today in a similar scenario have put me to shame.

No I don't have a child (yet). But there is this kid whose education I am sponsoring under an Initiative taken by few of my friends ( under  Educate To Empower ). Today was the the day they published the grades of the first term exam of these kids. So this is in brief what happened after ( within a span of 100 seconds) once I saw his grades, and for which I feel like I have became just like my Dad 

00 second :: " 75.9 % ..... hmmm... not bad , Could have done better "

10 second :: " What would be this guy's position in the class? "

30 second:: " 10th in  class of 20. How the hell is he going to get into IIT with these standards !!! "

40 second::  Scan through the grade list for grades of two other kids whom  my  buddy Ujj is sponsoring

70 second:: " So this Ujj's kid have got 82 %. :( ... This kid have no future ".

80 - 90 second ::   Depressed, looking for some silver lining

90 second::     "Hell ... he is lagging behind only in desi languages ... the guy is good in  rozi roti subjects (Math/English) :) ...

Also to those who cannot read between the lines is the fact that I was able to navigate through all these pages within a matter of 40 seconds. Yeah we have Broadband at home :-/

My Bucket list

Imprudent being I am, I guess it would do no harm to ponder on things I want to do before I die. ( Lets see ,  I should be able to muster at-least 5)  ...

1.) ......

2.) ......

3.) .....

4.) ......

5.) ......

...................

DAMN !

(The way I see it , its not full empty. Its 0% full ......)

Hampi, Vijayanagara and Kishkindha

With mind being saturated by natural beauty after my trip to Pune and of which (the nature's beauty I mean)  I could have taken no more (atleast for another couple of months I guess), I was pretty excited when I got a call from my friend for a trip to Hampi.

So we took a trip to the city which not only hosts the ruins of the capital city of Vijayanagara Empire, but also have roots for many mythological stories I have came across my life. 

Birth Place of Hanumana

Forgot what it is..

Walk through the granary market

___Temple. This place tells the entire Ramayana in three parikrama around temple, in the form  of carvings done in three parallel rows (see on walls of RHS structure) , starting from bottom.

Short glimpse in to the vastness of the kingdom

Iconic Stone chariot at Vittala temple 

Sculptor's master piece at Vittala. Depending on how you see it, this can be a  shiva-linga, monkey nursing her baby, monkey carrying his baby, Hanumana carrying sanjevani mountain or frog

The ones who traveled 

Searching Soulmate .. or Look-Alikes.....

So there is this FRIEND of mine who has always been fascinated by the whole process of arranged marriages. In-fact one of the favorite hobby of his school-days was to grab the Sunday paper, search for matrimony column, and eat it  .

Now this FRIEND of mine has reached the age where if you haven't found the soul mate for your self ( or may be you have found one /many  but the feelings are not exactly reciprocated :-/  ) the great Indian arranged marriage process has to start rolling.

So much to the delight  of this FRIEND of mine, his  parents created an profile for him at 'bharatmatrimony.com' couple of days back. And there was a sudden shift of browsing hours from facebook to bm.

Now what caught his fascination were not the profiles of girls/prospective brides, but a peculiar feature offered by the website. Below the every picture of the girl/boy you could find a button "Find-Look Alikes".


 I mean seriously...... Thats how you are supposed to find your girl !!!  If you don't quite fit the bill of some one you like,  you will simply marry someone who just looks like her. Or even take that as one of the criteria.  REALLY.. This is one of the worst example  I (My Friend I mean) have seen of us being so obsessed with beauty being skin-deep (Am stereotyping...) ..Its like if Hrithik Roshan's fanclub is full, you join Harman Baweja's (no offence)..

Of course there were other  technical aspects this FRIEND of mine thought about. Having done his research-internship and BTech project in Image processing he was wondering what technology the genius behind this would have applied. Much to his satisfaction when he tried the feature (Only because of technical curiosity) he didn't found the results quite or in any-ways nearby accurate :) .

Goan-Krishna-Soldier

The girl was crying madly. Apparently her husband has died in some war. She held on to me, cried, wept and asked me again where her husband was . I stood there, my head hung, trying hard to suppress my smile but wasn't quite successful. She looked at me in disgust and moved on; crying in front of another guy standing next to me. 

That was class fourth. I was playing the part of an Indian soldier and the girl was a war-widow. What exactly was my part? To march past the stage on to the tunes of Vande Mataram and standing next to a bawling woman head down. 40-50 mute seconds in total.

My college buddies might not find me quite the Keanu Reeves material, I did had occasional skirmishes with the stage spread out across my school-days. Now that I have grown old, I thought it would be a good idea to jot down those rare moments of my life. Moments, from which If I would have taken cues and pushed my luck in theatre\Hollywood\Tollywood, I very well might have been the 'Slum-Dog ' now.

But first things first and my  humble pranam to Lord Ganesha and Goddess Lakshmi. Why ?  Because thats how my long uneventful tryst with dais started. I was around 4-5 years old, but the images are still crystal clear. My buddy & I dressed as Gods were sitting in center with little girls dancing around us. And not that it is important, but of Lord Ganesha and Mata lakshmi, I wasn't Ganesha!

 Perhaps it was the aura surrounding me. I played little Krishna once during Janamastmi. I remember this because I had punched the guy playing Kansa so hard during the battle-finale, that I, Lord Krishna himself too had to hear a mouthful from his mom after the play. 

Was picked up once during Jagran to be dressed as Lord Shiva and carried around on a human bull . Thanks to generous devotees that was the fastest 200 bucks I have ever made. 

But the one that I cherish most would be the only dance I have ever performed. And for the only dance, it sure had every thing a 10 year could wish of. The dress was English , music was Goan, steps were part Salsa. We looked cute and our dance partners lovely (atleast that's what mom told me). And the dais was - Delhi's Talkatora stadium.  I would have love to post the picture but unfortunately my parents were too mesmerized to click any. Any case I would leave you with this.

Save The Chicks

I have tried a lot many times , but without any success to leave them alone. The longest stretch was perhaps from my high school time to college-first year. But all the noble intentions were gone when I saw couple of my friends relishing them intently . I tried hard but succumbed to the temptation. ....................... the absolute delicacy 'Butter Chicken' is.

Since then I have tried again and again to give up meat and live on veggies, but have failed each and every single time. And right now I am trying once more. History may repeat, principles of simple harmonic motion may apply again, but here is why I believe that I stand a reasonable chance to leave the chicks once and forever this time.

But before going further let me go through couple of the most common (not based on principles of non-violence by MK Gandhi) arguments given by meat-haters to leave the meat to whom it belong

1.  It ups the food pyramid of our consumption. In layman terms, 10 kg of grains that a poultry animal will consume will give 1kg of meat. In a world where we can already feel the pinch of food shortage, this is something not we can afford
2. Conditions in which most of the poultry is  processed to be converted into meat is at best, extreme in-humane.

In fact these have always been the two strong pillars on which I have tried to build my foundation of 'loving the chicks'. And this is exactly where I was wrong.

We humans fortunately/unfortunately have been given strong sense of reasoning. Give 10 bulleted points of reason to any one and one will always find his own ten set of reasons to reason against it. So this this time I asked my self a simple question.

What if some-how one comes up with a genetically modified super-breed of chicken which converts 100 % of the food it consumes to flesh and doesn't feel any pain. What would my stance be then? What would be your stance then?

It is not unless you start to love them, you can truly leave their flesh to their own. Especially if one is bought up in a culture where it is okay to have them served on your meal plate. Once,  void of any reason, if you start to feel the 'not-okay' feeling while devouring them you would have reached the point where the pendulum will not oscillate back. For me it has happened, and thats why I can say this is going to be my last stand.

For at any point of time we all will agree - Love the chicks.

Ramblings of An Environmentalist

Got into a regular chat with one of my old friend, who is hell-bent on saving dear planet earth from the muggles....only this time it became too interesting, somewhat  funny and a bit informative.  Am posting it with his permission.

Note:

• Changed name to OIM Friend..i.e One in a Million Friend. Nothing to do with him being amongst my closest friend..its just that he is one in a million.

OIM Friend: kya kar raha hain be

me: kaam be..aur kya karunga
 tera kaam kaisa chal raha

OIM Friend: abe sahi chal raha hain...
I am putting up windmills and air capture to reduce emissions

me: kahan?

OIM Friend: esme wind ka reanalysis data use karke, remote sensed data per dal ke energy calculate kar raha hoon
 abe desh mein aur kahaan

me: oh ..sim pe

OIM Friend: wht is sim

me: physical windmill ya simulator  ?

OIM Friend: abe simulator...just to calculate the winds potential in different locations
also there is smthin called air capture tool
which sucks in CO2...frm the air

me: and do what with the co2

OIM Friend: put it iwth magnetite or calcium oxide to make cements
as economic models say that ppl will move more towards cities...so they will need more infrastructure
 I am working with smone named Klaus Lacner...
nd the economic models are taught be Jefferey Sachs

me: cool...

OIM Friend: man...our generation is going to face the brunt...

me: reading about klaus
 nope.. we can enjoy, it would be next generation

OIM Friend: also read abt Sachs

OIM Friend: no my plan is to use this model to get carbon credits
and then Olive books to teach vocational training to ppl who woluld migrate to the cities
nd the other project that I am working on is General Circulation model downscaling and building crop models on the same...
 so that farmers could be told whn to sow...nd irrigate on sms

me: am not getting much :-/
 but should be good..

OIM Friend: because of the whole climate change, there has been a lot of variability...
 in rainfall and crops are failing...u could see the food inflation in the market
if crops fail in India...abt 30mn ppl might die of hunger...

me: dude ....calm down..

OIM Friend: and thts true...because conditions of ground water is also very bad
so we might face a major challengs in future...as u can see abt the stress in water and electricity in Bangalore.
 so thr is a big business oppurtunity

me: selling bottled water??

OIM Friend: kuch bada socho
 we will provide education

me: big bottled water

OIM Friend: education to sustainability and development through Olive Books
nd we dont have to chase investors...for we wld make money frm carbon trading

me: dude...how is education related to this business model
 bhag sale...piya hua hai kya :P

OIM Friend: well education is related to everything...
 mein apna project bheju

me: tughe kyun paise milenge carbon trading ke

OIM Friend: kyonki mein energy bacha raha hoon...abe olive books se nahi
 my investing into air capture and windmills
dost ab duniya green ki taraf jaa rahi hain

me: hmm... majboori hai ab.... jana hi padega..

OIM Friend: bas aur hum paisa banayenge
 farmers ko hightech equipments supply karnge
 bacho ko padeyenege
 vocational training denge

me: this is some interesting talk from you.....

OIM Friend: farmers phir IPad use karenge

me: can i quote this in my blog...
 plz

OIM Friend: nop

me: :-X
 will change name
 an nobody reads my blog

Random Thoughts

Was thinking that given a chance to override the melancholy memoirs of my recent past , what would I borrow from a Sci-Fi work .

A Time Machine(2002, based on HG Wells) may be. But given that Dr. Alexander Hartdegen was not able prevent Emma's death, but merely replace it with another means, this I guess would do no good.

This brings me down to only a couple of pieces I could think of.

'Targeted memory erasure' performed by 'Lacuna Incorporated' in 'Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind' to selectively erase the data in the "corrupted" cells.

or

"Soma", the ultimate drug that Aldous Huxley describes in the "BRAVE NEW WORLD". The drug that gives unbound happiness. (courtsey-iwantsoma.blogspot.com)

I am still alive

This is going to be a cry in empty space but ..

I AM ALIVE IN BLOGGING SPACE

Thats it...