Moo Along

Blog Shifted!

2010-05-08T15:32:00.000-07:00

Sorry, for the extended leave of absence guys! The reason for this has been me creating a new site for my blog. I am proud to announce that henceforth my blog is self-hosted at http://moosicalbovine.com/

I hope that you will keep following my blog from its new address and keep spreading the love!

I have a few surprises there like facebook user authorisation to log-in already set up and twitter user log-in coming up shortly!

I will be redirecting this address to my new blog in a week.

I have also started a facebook fanpage to use as an interaction platform for all you lovely people. Do visit it here.

Fool

2010-04-03T11:22:00.000-07:00

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 9; the ninth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. - George Orwell, Animal Farm.

Chapter 1

With rolling hills and lush green fields peppered with wide banyans and tall ashokas with a fair sprinkling of peepul trees, the city can never offer this kind of solitude or the gleeful happiness that fills one up in the close vicinity of nature like the countryside. But, Mooorti was not like others, he always believed that he was not one who follows the herd. He had heard about great misdeeds, and he always felt that he had to do something about them.

Operation White Flood is considered to be one of the biggest successes of the country, it has decreased foul-play, put the power of business back to the people who really work and produce. “Red Cow Milk” is one such product that was an offshoot of this wonderful success. Don’t get me wrong, “Red Cow Milk” is neither red in color nor got from red cows, this is the very unimaginative name of a largely successful co-operative dairy which owes its existence to the model of milk delivery developed during the OWF. It had set up its operations recently in CowCatta and is supplying milk owing to the lately achieved but yet fast development of the MoosCow city.

One day a milk van was passing by a field with two cows. They watch it pass by and then:

Cow 1: Is it really true that their milk is much more nutritious than our milk?

Cow 2: I f it is so? Why are they still keeping us here and sucking the life out of us every day?

Cow 1: I don’t know, but I am glad to atleast get something to eat every day. Hi my name is Moooli.

Cow 2: You call this something? This is the best fodder that I could get since I have been a calf and lived with my mother at the zamindar’s home. My name is Cowmooodi.

Moooli: Isn’t it? I guess it’s worth it, also isn’t Mooorti really something? I have never seen a bull with such grandeur.

Cowmooodi: Yes he is. But he always seems to be distracted and forlorn.

Moooli & Cowmooodi: Moooooooooo! Isn’t that Mooorti! Why is he running behind that van!!

Moooli, Cowmooodi & many other cows: Mooooooooooorteeee! Moooooooooooooorteeee!! Mooooooooooooooooo

Chapter 2

I’ve had enough of these stories,

I need to find Mcdonald.

Who is this guy?

who kills us in cold blood!

I though he had a farm,

where the animals were happy,

not that he meant harm

and become all bones’ snappy.

I used to have three friends

who were sent to McDonald’s farm

only to see their ends

while their udders were still warm

{Old McDonald had a farm

eeeeya eeeya oh

Old McDonald had a farm

eeeya eeeya ooh

The farm is full of pigs,

here a grunt, there a grunt

a grunt, grunt, grunt here and there

The farm is full ducks,

here a quack, there a quack,

a quack, quack, quack here and there}

chimed the simple milk van

as it danced along past the farm

What do I hear now!

I need to go find the farm!

and Mooorti got going behind the “Red Cow Milk”‘s van......

Chapter 3

"Muhahahaha yesssssss, Yessss. I am nearly therrrrreeee. The world is going to see what I can dooooo. Yesssssssss. I have been able to create the Ultimate Weapon v17.3. It has taken me a long time. My friends have dessserted meeee, my colleagues have berated and made fun offff meeeeee. But all that is nooo morrrrrrrreeee. Yessssssss.

69 tries and finallly I am here. My baby, you are going to make your daddy so prrrouuudd.

I can blow up anything I wanttttt. Oooh how much money I can makkkkkkkkke! Every rogue outfit out there would want one of theeeeeeesssssse.

The alchemists of the ancient world could also not create such a thingy, you beautiful little wooogiie wushy thangy thing. (keeps on kissing the Ultimate Weapon v17.3)

Who could havvve bellllieved me! A water bommmmmmmmmb with the capacity of a hundred dynamites! Only upon seeeeerious chemical checking can anyone find out its formulaaaaaaaahhhh! Ofcoursssssssse I tooo need to do that, the amount that I have now is enough only for 5 mini nukeeessssssss, but I have to quickly find out the formula to make more! What a surprisingly wonderful accident it was!"

Chapter 4

“This is RawMeat reporting. He did it Sir. The steaks are set. I am sorry even I did not expect him to at all devise such a thing and that too this quickly. Sorry Sir, I should have. Yes, I understand the gravity of the situation. No Sir, I don’t want to eat shit. Yes I will make sure that the bomb is defused and that he is silenced.”

RawMeat started following BurpMooer, who just devised the Ultimate Bomb v17.3 as he got out of his room in MoosCow. BurpMooer was elated and on cloud 9. He started feeling that all the birds were chirping for him, and the summer sun was out bright, shiny and singing for him. The sweet smell of the grass was wafting across, the trees were in blossom, the butterflies were playing out there and the dragon flies were having fun. Life looked excellent. “Too bad I have with me something which can end the same life for many others, Muhahahahhaha!” quipped BurpMooer a bit too loudly and the passerby hearing the laugh thought that what a big class loser this fellow is.

Chapter 5

Mooorti got exhausted, the wailing animal would not stop at all. “What a strange kind of animal!” he thought, “it doesn’t even need water.”

There is no trace of any water, many animals were zooming by making strange noises, Mooorti could not get out of the road and he was fully surprised with what he was seeing on the road. As you see, Mooorti who was a thorough village-bred saw very few of the vehicles and it all seemed pretty confusing and a bit scary to him.

A pack of dogs started barking at him and he was getting irritated at them. “Wow! Holy Cow!! Holy Cow!! Bow Wow.” their leader quipped and yapped. “I am not a cow you bumbling idiot”, grunted back Mooorti and trudged along. The dogs were irritating him and he was feeling hungry, but there was no grass anywhere, so he dragged along down the road. “Wow. What are you doind here. Bow. Bow Wow.” the leader still pressed on. “I’m on my way to find this McDonald guy and shut down his farm! He has killed enough of my friends” snorted Mooorti with increasing rage and a slight hysterical edge. “Whoa! as you say brother! Go along!” barked the dog and the pack left disturbing the bull with their utterly noisy barks.

He saw that the traffic started increasing along with increasing noises which were turning him crazy. Mooorti was nearing the city of MoosCow after half a day of scampering along the road. He was totally spent and was slowly pushing along while ruminating the sweet grass of his own farm from back home. “Don’t think about it. I need to make sure that justice is done.”, thunk the bull.

Chapter 6

He was running now, BurpMooer didn’t expect that the Government knew what he was doing. Yes, he did used to shout around at his colleagues about his work, but that was because, no one seemed to believe him or in fact care about his existence. “Oh! but why did I do all that!!” thought BurpMooer as he was panting due to the extreme physical exertion on his body from all the running he was doing to escape that Government agent.

He jumped on to an auto and shouted out loud to take him to the Town Square. “Alas! It has come down to this! But I have got to do what I have got to do. I am going to blow up this city, no one acknowledged my existence here anyway and also that is better than to waste away in the gallows”.

RawMeat who heard the crazy scientist shouting Square immediately understood what might happen and became very frightened, “What should I do! Run away from the city? Atleast then I will be alive and he will be dead and there will be no more problem with the formula of the bomb. I am very sure that no one else has seen that formula. But wait, what if he will not blow up the city seeing that I am not chasing him anymore? He might then try to escape to sell the formula. Shit! I need to go after him now!”

Chapter 7

Mooorti was moo-ing continuously now. He mooed about his old farm. He mooed about what he is going to tell McDonald as he is charging into him to finish him off. He mooed about how he hated this city and the noise here. Slowly the streets started becoming more and more dense and congested when he finally stopped to have a drink of water from a nearby puddle. “What a strange looking water”, he thought as he sipped it slowly.

“Mommy, I want to eat Maha Mac today at McDonalds” started an unruly kid wailing and flaying his hands at his mothers face.

“McDonalds! McDonalds!!” perked Mooorti and immediately started charging in the direction the small kid was pointing to when he threw the tantrum. Suddenly the city became silent. Everyone turned and some people started shouting and started running about in the commotion. Mooorti did not care, he somehow felt that he was in the vicinity of his nemesis, and this is the only way he can finish him off.

Chapter 8

“Aaaah! What a good hamburger thesssssse guys make”, thought BurpMooer, “Nothing like a nicccccce final lunnnnnnnch”. He saw that the agent fell far behind and he also knew that it will be very difficult for the agent to find him in these crowds, with such confident thoughts he lazily ate about looking at the crowds, “I am going to finisssssssh you allllll offfffff. Muhahahahahaha!”, he laughed again frightening the young kid at the nearby table making him cry and making his mother swear at him. With such a lazy confidence he finished his burger and came out stretching his hands, Good Morning and Good bye Mooscow he blurted aloud with a wide fanatical grin that he could not hide, when suddenly, “Oh what the!”.

Chapter 9

“Yes sir the threat has been neutralized. Don’t worry about the minor explosion at the Town Square, there have been no extra casualities, just a bull and that devil of a man. Thank you Sir, yes Sir, I suppose, I don’t need to eat any shit for now. Oh, Thank You. Yes Sir, I am on that, I will submit the report. I am starting to work on it immediately.”

That evening at a bar, RawMeat was pretty shaken up, he called out his friend Botulisconi and over a couple of drinks started narrating the events until the point where he reached the TownSquare, when his hands became a bit wobbly, “I never thought I was going to make it in time to stop that fellow, he saw me and was widely grinning at me shouting out some gibberish, which I could not make out over the distance and the rushing crowd. I thought that my time was up and instead of running to stop him, my feet froze to the ground and I started thinking about my wife, parents, childhood, my whole life in no particular order, when suddenly out of the crowd came a big bull barging into BurpMooer finishing him off and setting of the bomb. What seemed like a sense of relief immediately turned into a hollow dread of an impending explosion, but somehow apart from a small pop no other sound came. Did you know that only he and the bull died, and no one else was even injured. I found that he hadn’t yet arranged the charge to set up an explosion. Isn’t that strange?”

THE END

The fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton and links to their respective posts can be checked here. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

Nat Geo's Top 10 photos of the year

2010-03-27T01:23:00.000-07:00

I have below the top 10 Nat Geo photographs for the year 2009. Many photographers are commissioned on projects to capture and illustrate topics given to them through real life photographs. Photography is an art form to express one's own take on a topic, one's own opinion through the emotion one aims to capture. Photographs not only capture an emotion but puts these emotions in place through the canvas of the world that is also included in the backdrop.
I wouldn't blame you if you can think that you can also capture such photographs as those given below, if you had the equipment and the money to travel to exotic places to capture such snaps. But, in reality, the photographers biggest virtues are not just still hands and an excellent eye for locating a moment worth capturing, but patience to wait for days together sometimes and also the much lesser touted but equally important thing called courage and endurance. Have a look at these pictures, I had taken the snapshots from the documentary video to share with the readers, every picture has a very interesting story behind it and also other thousands of snaps which were discarded with....

The R-word

2010-03-09T03:00:00.000-08:00

I’ve been waiting the whole day to write this. Now that the International Women’s Day is done and over with, I have got something to say, heck I do!

Let me just put across that I am neither any male chauvanist pig or any other animal for that matter, nor a misogynist. I have just got some doubts which I consider valid, and the way I see is to justify just plainly troubles me to no end......

Reservations - Holy/Unholy?

In the beginning of time there was Vishnu, it is believed in the Hindu philosphy that the entire universe was created from a single “Anda” that came out of his navel. So everything in this universe, and so in our world, still extending, so in our country should be and is Holy! no?

(I wouldn’t dare to disagree to this if i were you)

But what about..........??!!

Khamosh! No buts! no butts!

Okay maybe it is Holy, but is it good for us, the mango people?

Well it all began with 15% and 7.5% reservations in government aided educational institutions and jobs in government/public sector for SC’s and ST’s for a period of 5 years after which it was to be reviewed. Now nearly 60 years later there are still reservations for SC’s and ST’s and army people, people with disabilities, and also for backward castes and wait for it other backward castes and then god created women.

So, didn’t they review it?

Ofcourse “they” did. They did review it and extended it for another 5 years, and then again and again. Did you know that the clause for reservation in India was meant to stay for only 10 years after which it was to be slowly rolled back.

What happened then?

Well we keep on hearing that Indians are very good at math. Unfortunately this was one time, when we bungled up big time. We didn’t seem to get gist of the 10 part in 10 years, and our understanding was exactly opposite to what was said and they kept on increasing the reservations.

Really!

Yes, really! Rajasthan has recently proposed a 68% reservation!

Is it bad?

This is difficult to say, the basic necessity for reservation is to uplift the sections of the society that have been oppressed for centuries together in the Indian society.

So that means it is good, infact brilliant!

In theory probably yes though I wouldn’t exactly say that. Large disparities still remain in India.

Maybe more reservations and for a longer duration can take care of this......

That will be naive to put it as simply as that. Wouldn't that lead to a fragmented country? This was one of the main contentions which led to the partition of India, separate political constituencies for muslims and hindus.

In reality India is a country laden with corruption (rank 64 as per worldaudit.org). Up from 88 two years, Yippee!

So wassup doc? whaddaya gotta say?

A couple of titbits:

1. The Marathas are agitated since they aren’t being given the Backward castes status.

2. After a National headline catching agitation on the roads leading to New Delhi, the Gujjars got the recognition of “speacial backward caste” and a 5% reservation.

Oh!!Hmmmmmm.......

Don’t you see a disturbing pattern emerging? Forget about the election sops that parties regularly dole in terms of providing to specific communities. Isn’t this dividing the country?

But what you are saying is already heard many times, why did you bring up the Women’s Reservation Bill?

It is disturbing to see that the whole media and the political fraternity is behind this bill providing voracious support to it.

I had been going through different news articles on the run up to this bill, some of the things that I read were very disturbing.

An enlightened journo from ToI stated that India stands somewhere around 130 in 144 countries ranked according to female representation in the parliament. Is this the reason, why the women’s bill is being introduced? To get a better rank in some of the surveyer’s next rankings?

Mulayam and Laloo were alleging that this was a conspiracy against the dalits, muslims and backward castes from entering the parliament and assemblies. It’ been 60 years, aren’t anybody yet thinking about rolling back reservations atleast in some sectors, ofcourse slowly.

Really is reservation for women in the parliament and assemblies going to suddenly empower women who were being oppressed (yes, they are being oppressed)? Remember Rabri Devi, when Laloo got embroiled in cattle fodder scams, she was the dummy through which he ran his empire. Maybe I might not be entirely correct, but think about the stakes that are present with a seat in the parliament or for that matter, an assembly.......These are the domains where the politicos run their fiefdoms and ensure that they win again and again. Just because a women’s reservation bill is enforced, will they be put off? I personally think not, rather on the contrary they will field their wives, daughters, sisters and again run their little kingdoms, as the bill specifies the reservation in a constituency is on a rolling basis, the ladies will literally be the seat warmers for the grand lords to return back.

Reservation is a very important tool in an administrator’s hand to wipe disparities across his land and to let equality prevail. But it is a double edged sword and when such a situation arises when it is considered blasphemous to even think about decreasing reservations, there is something wrong with the democracy. I am not opposing reservation, I understand the sad state of affairs in our country, but wouldn’t it have been better if the powers that are could be a little more imaginative and try to cover these glaring loopholes and ensure that it propers fulfills its utility and then weed it out when the time is right........

(All said and done, if they are still itching to increase reservations, why not provide reservations to women in IIT's? This is one cause I will support :). We can also help in the admissions process then by sifting through the pictures of the applicants, oh! didn't I tell you? Full facial photographs are a must! Now, there I am not a misogynist!)

I would love to see this post as a discussion, I am more interested in knowing your views and opinions on this topic.

If you have liked this post, please vote for it in Indivine in Indiblogger.

Time Travel

2010-03-06T10:16:00.000-08:00

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 8; the eighth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

Time is like the serene waters in a still lake. There is no beginning and there is no end. People who keep saying that in the beginning there was a big bang 13-14 billion years ago and then our universe came into existence are like the croaking frogs in the deep dark well, for whom their ignorance sets the limits to the boundaries of their universe. There was time beyond that point, but it is very difficult for many of us to jump the huge energy barrier that the big bang has caused. There has only been one person Canaan who is said to have done it, but we have not seen him come back again. Time is like the water in the lake, it just spreads in all directions, it is all enveloping, its grandeur is inexplicable and one can move from one point to another just like the fish in the lake. Only, you have to know how to do that, for then you will be one of us. We humans have been gifted with one of the most wonderful gifts in evolution that of the logical brain, but we have been very slow to unravel its mysteries and completely understand its capacity.

As a group we the Time Hoppers aren’t accustomed to many additions to our numbers, infact no one remembers when was the last time we had a person who could break the shackles of his mind and to start traversing time like we do. I am among the youngest in the group, this seems like a sort of an in-house joke, because you see age is not a parameter for us, once when you learn how to traverse in time, you stop ageing, we ourselves haven’t understood it perfectly well as yet, but when one can develop the ability to travel in time like a fish in a pond, it is not that difficult to produce more and more stem cells which provide us with our unfading vitality. We believe so because we are also very quick healing and also possess superhuman strengths and sensory abilities. Thats what we think of ourselves, the Superhumans, the ones that bridge the gap between the normal people and the Gods.

We are a very secretive group and we believe in one supreme power that provides the fuel to run the universe, one which many cultures have agreed to call as soul or as something similar. We believe that we are the guardians of this planet, and of this bank of souls and we follow a certain set of rules. Now, we do need rules because even when a fish glides along the waters in a pond without ever disturbing the water you should understand that it requires but a small overlapse on its part to disturb the water and cause ripples all along the surface. This gains further weight when you can understand that emotions are one part of the brain that we have still been unable to reign in even with the larger capacity of the brain that is being used by us. The biggest rule of them all is to guard the lake (earth) and make sure that there are no anomalies that might develop due to various reasons. It once did happen when one of our kind was killed in Jerusalem, the whole lake was in turbulence then. Things were put back in order and the guy was saved and everyone believed that he returned back from the dead, but once ruffled, things hardly fall back into place as they were, we are no gods, we could only make them only as event free as possible though some of the ripples that we couldn’t control overflowed as religious aggressive terrorism during the 21st century and the world wars during the 20th century. But things could have been much worse. We couldn’t right them more without further plunging the world into chaos.

Though we could remember every thought that has ever passed through our mind, though we hardly ever need rest to recuperate the brain or the body, I have decided to maintain in writing the thoughts that are freely flowing through my mind right now because like I said earlier, we have still not mastered our emotions and the flood of feelings that I am going through now is very unique for me, I have never felt as such before. I am filled with thoughts about what has been, what is, and what might be, because this is one trap I am unable to come out of. I fear for the world, for power without responsibility in a malicious person’s hand never bodes well for the world or in fact the universe.

Of late things have started going slightly astray, I was in 8th century Spain when I began feeling these signals. Very faint signals of something that should not have been happening are happening. Just like ripples being felt by a fish, I got them and decided to investigate these and started following the signals. We cannot just time hop blindly, because it is highly taxing on our bodies and we need sufficient rest between two hops and also in such a big world and large timespace it is very hard to exactly predict the source correctly. Following a signal involves me going back in time very slowly towards the direction where we are perceiving that signal to come from. It was all very confusing, because we have never felt such a signal emanate earlier and also I haven’t come across others of my kind while I was coming in to check the source of the trouble.

One of the major rules for our kind is not to venture into some spots of lake, some regions and time periods. We weren’t given any explanation but promised with the ultimate punishment, to push us onto the time of the big-bang. Not that we needed such a nudge, we were told that these spots are never to be meddled with in order to maintain the world in order or else all hell will break loose and we will not be able to contain it again. Some believed that these were the spots where Canaan had operated before he willingly departed into the otherside. No one knew why he tried such a jump or why we shouldn’t be entering into contact with Canaan. But our elders, the first time hoppers have put these rules for a reason and we are to uphold it.

Did I mention that I am the youngest of the time hoppers? I was also an anomaly because the elders had put constraints on newer entrants for entering into our fold and have managed to maintain as such by going into all the areas of turbulences and picking up the worthy hoppers while making sure that the ones who didn’t make the mark were unable to make the transition. I am told that I am the only one who was helped to make the transition though there was no apparent reason for it, Boraam was the one who stayed with me during my early transition and explained about the new world that I was to experience. He used to say that I am special, I am an anomaly and they hadn’t expected someone like me and I was a blessing for them.

The signal was getting stronger. It was coming from the middle east - mediterranean quadrant from about 500-600 BC. I am suddenly starting to feel week, unable to move faster though I have an idea where I need to go. I had never been to this quadrant as it was one of the forbidden areas. I stopped just outside the forbidden territory and started exploring the surroundings for any abnormalities. Everything seemed just fine, but something is wrong, suddenly I am becoming highly emotional, somehow feeling weaker and.....there was the involuntary jump. I was confused and unable to escape from the quadrant. Is this why people are warned from entering these quadrants?

I met him, I can feel that he is the hopper who was creating all those ripples. I needed to confront him. He was standing in the middle of the crowd, he was much larger than the other hoppers that I have ever come across. It looks like he was commandeering an army and calling onto the other army which was on my side. I was torn apart as to whether should I confront him and undo the damage he is doing or shall I just try to escape from this quadrant? I finally decided to bring this case to an end as I am anyway going to be punished for entering this quadrant, at the least let me stabilize it again for my brethren.

“Can anybody dare to face me?”

“Yes I can!”

Everybody turned to face me. They were astonished. The guy nearest to me admonished:

“You are so puny, how can you even think to stay alive in a fight with him! Are you out of your mind!”

I stayed calm and said, “My name is Nestor, son of Neleus and I plan to rid this region of his menace!” pointing my hand at the other hopper.

He watched me closely and then roared aloud with a haughty smirk, “Do you know who I am oh tiny one?”

“No, but tell me your name if it makes you any more secure”

“Hmmmph such big words for such a small being, prepare for your final moments. Blessed you are for your death is written in the hands of a thousand-bear slayer”

I lay there in a foot soldiers’ tent wearing my armor. I know that I don’t stand much of a chance with Ereuthalion, apart from his visible strength, I understood that he is a time hopper like me too, that means the fight is still tilted in his favor, but something bothered me very much, he didn’t talk or acted like a time hopper, also I don’t think he recognized me as a fellow hopper. Something is really really wrong. I started carrying my sword, a shield, a dagger and entered the ring of men, which was made into a sort of an arena for our fight.

Just as I entered the arena, the champion of my side of the army came near me and said, “I don’t know who you are but if you can win this fight, I know that our kingdom can be saved. Somehow I am feeling that you might win. May the gods bless you and be on your side.”

The fight began and my suspicions quickly were proven right, he was a hopper with much much more strength than me, and he fights with gay abandon without bothering to hide his abilities from normal people. He is someone who stopped following the rules of our people and apparently out to cause trouble. I lost my sword and shield and we were prancing around and fighting with our full strength which was terrorizing the soldiers of both the sides. The ring widened to nearly four times its size as people were afraid to stay near our fight. It was then that he struck me with such force that my armor broke and I fell down.

“Is this the best you puny Pylians can offer!”

He started barging onto me with his iron mace. It was then that I quickly took out the leather belt holding my armor and quickly inserted some huge boulder and threw it on his his head. This is the weakest part of the hopper which doesn’t heal very fast and strong blows can be as fatal as to any normal human.

It worked. He fell down bleeding profusely and I could feel my wobbliness feeling lifting away and my mind becoming much clearer again. I went to his side and asked,

“Why are you doing all this?”

“Whats your real name?”

“I can still help you if you want.”

He didn’t speak but kept on staring with wild eyes onto me and died in my arms. The Arcadians beat a hasty retreat and I proceeded back to my tent, when I saw Boraam in my tent and a deep dread started taking root in my insides and I can clearly hear my heart beating so quickly and loudly as if it will fall out of my mouth. But he gave me a warm smile and said, “I am happy to see you alive and that you have taken care of this turbulence. This story is going to become the fight between David and Goliath.”

I was confused, “But isn’t this quadrant a forbidden part?”

“Don’t worry that rule never applied to you. Don’t you remember that I always used to say that you are very special”

“I am totally confused, please tell me what are you hiding from me.”

“Do you remember Canaan?”

“Yes, is this him!”

“Yes. Did you know that Canaan was also an elder? Infact he was the first timehopper.”

“He was also the strongest of all of us. Unfortunately he didn’t like the concept of governing rules for our brethren and he decided to finish of his brothers one by one so that he will again be the only one who can freely manipulate the world as he sees fit.”

“Then why did he form the brethren in the first case?”

“Forming a brethren and setting up a governing council and rules was never his idea, he was alway opposed to it as he believed that we are the Gods and that there should be no rules for the gods. The method to find other brothers and the tests for their inclusion into our brethren was actually devised by Artemis, he was the second hopper whom Canaan had helped to transcend into hopping from being a normal human. He was a steadfast man of principles. Upon repeated disgression which the council never took lightly even though he was an elder, Canaan grew tired of our brethren and took it upon himself to clean away all our brethren. It was then that with Artemis we all came together to oppose Canaan and then many battles followed which devastated this planet. We fought in Kurukshetra, Sri Lanka, Cyprus, Egypt and Jerusalem and many other places, we could defeat him every time and finally pushed him over the big-bang. But not without considerable loss to our own brethren. We lost Artemis and more than 3/4ths of our elders. I was tasked to rid the world of all his traces which he had left aplenty. But he proved very strong here too and in the end it was only me of the elders who was left who can still fight Canaan. It was then that I stumbled upon you which no one of us foresaw and which has re established order amid the chaos that Canaan had left behind.”

“Me? Why did you always used to say that I am special? I understand that I wouldn’t have become an hopper without your help?”

“You see we could not fight Canaan head on head anymore for we had become weakened. So when we found you, with our remaining prowess we managed to put controls on the minds of the Canaan’s traces left behind and isolated this quadrant and charged some hoppers to maintain a high energy barrier which restricted other hoppers from entering these zones.”

“But that still doesn’t explain why am I special?”

“Canaan had successfully hid one thing from all of us which wouldn’t have come to our notice hadn’t he been overthrown. He had progeny. He bore a child with a woman in the 20th century, the child brain activity even before he converted was enormous.”

“And so you quickly helped him in transcending into the hoppers brethren. And then made sure that I killed my father today..........!!!”

What if.

2010-02-06T09:40:00.000-08:00

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 7; the seventh edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

He just sat there lifeless with unfocussed eyes and the look of someone filled with dread. Flashes were flickering from the cameras in the trembling hands of the reporters who knew that they have a story that they are never going to forget. Some of the police constables were wearing a look of impending doom, a few were even praying for they did not want Raj to be convicted. He shuddered with a tremor passing through and saw up slowly to catch the red and swollen eyes of his sister who was sitting among the huge crowd that has turned out to witness the trial. For this particular incident has jolted the peaceful town of Vizag and sent jitters down to its very core.

It seems like ages since he first met her. Some other time time, some other world, like it was in another life. For he has wasted away so quickly during the last few months, his sister could not stop weeping everytime she came to meet him.

He met her at a friends party.

Who is that angel? Is she for real? Oh God, I will do anything to spend the rest of my life with her. Is she looking at me?

His heart started to race and suddenly his palms and feet became cold and sweaty.

I cannot risk losing her. I don’t know what will I do without her!

Hi, I am Raj. Can I get you something to drink...........

Within a year they were married. Life looked rosy, his company has started to reward his hardwork and finally he started getting the recognition that can take him places in this dog-eat-dog world, he found the love of his life and he said one day to his close friends.

I am living out my dream, what else can a man want.

But then something somewhere went wrong. Horribly wrong. Things started to turn murky, he started to hate everything in his life, his job, his home. He knew that he still loved his wife, but somehow he always ended up snapping at her, which made his mood even darker. The company had sent him off for counseling.

You are suffering from Dysthymia which might in time lead to a Major Depressive Disorder. You see, it runs in your family, your aunt, grandmother also suffered from a similar diagnosis.

I suggest you start taking a medication course.

But the doctor did not mention to him that medication does not always make a patient better, he can only try.

His life then became more like a machine, monotonous with a job that has been reassigned by his company keeping his condition in mind.

Off late, fed up with this life, he secretly started decreasing the dosage of his antidepressants which always seemed to dull up his senses and thinking.

What is happening to me, this is not how I dreamed my life to be. I need to get myself out of this rut. They will not understand why am I doing this right now, but I know I can get better. I have to win her back.

and he threw out his medicines from the car window. He felt justified in doing so, because his marriage was failing. He started to fear if his wife will leave him someday. He had to re-ignite the romance of the old.

Honey, I have a surprise! I have bought a Tempo Traveller so that we can live up your dream of traveling through India and visiting places and still have our home with us.

He said winking.

She also noticed very gladly, the wonderful change that was coming upon her beloved husband.

Maybe the doctor’s fears were wrong, maybe I am witnessing a miracle and he is recovering.

Wow! Really! I love you Raj.

Life again started to look beautiful. Infact he started to feel very bright and chirpy again and he noticed that his wife was also very happy and that she also seemingly ignored visiting their family shrink or if he is still taking his daily dose.

He was bubbling around and was full of life and she started loving every bit of him again. He started loving every bit of himself again. For he is winning her back.

Honey, this is the wondefull city that I had promised to take you too.

This is where I was born.

This was my childhood school. I am taking you to a place that you might actually feel like heaven on earth.

They set up camp at Jungle Bells, a camping site on the eastern ghats near Vizag and started to recapture the love that seemed lost from their lives. When, a group of unruly teenagers came about their camping site. He had quarreled with them, but they never seemed to stop the jeering and name-calling. There wasn’t even any authority in sight.

Hello.

Hello is this the tourism office?

Yes.

We have a problem here at the camping site in Jungle Bells.

Please sir, do tell us.

There is a batch of hoodlums here who are disturbing our vacation.

Sir, we are already short staffed now, can you please try to hold on, we can send you someone within a couple off hours.

But this is not what I paid up for! Please connect me with your superior!

Please sir, don’t get angry, if it is alright for you, why don’t you shift your camp to No. 42 then. We promise that we will send up a team to check on this batch that you have told us about.

Alright, how can I reach there.

Please, take out your map sir...

Yes.

Can you see the...........

Though this was a small incident, on hindsight he was ready to give anything in exchange to have avoided one such as this.

Oh my God! Raj is really shook up by this. Why can’t he understand that I am still alright.

Raj, what you are doing for me is something very special. You took out your time from your job and you gave me by far the best time of my life dear. You do know that I love you more than anything else in this world. More than myself.

Night had fallen and he was sleeping. Then suddenly he heard some rustling sounds and then some low whispering like noises which seemed to come near. What he feared was coming true! Those demons were trying to get back at him! His heart again started to race, he waited for the right moment, so that they will not know that he is awake and waiting to get them.

The moment seemed fine, one had entered his trailer and within his arms reach. He reached out and then attacked with all his force suddenly which had seemed to take it by surprise. His ploy worked and though the rascal seemed to fight back and struggle out of his hold, he wrestled it and bought it into some kind of an improper headlock.

He doesn’t know that I was a karate champion in my college days.

and then he suddenly opened his eyes in the morning, the beautiful sun was streaming by though the window onto his bedside. The golden rays ended beside him on his wife dark and shiny mane.

Wake up Anita, we have got a lot to do today.

He dialed 100 and he was shaking violently while he spoke on.

What have I done? I’ve been trying to wake her. I think I killed her. I think I have killed my wife! Oh my God! I thought someone had broken in. I was fighting with one of those boys, but it was her. What have I done! I must have been dreaming or something. Oh Lord! What have I done? What have I done! Can you send someone.

He was sobbing by the time the call ended.

The police were aghast, they hardly saw much of crime here, a few accidents, yes, but murder by strangulation was too much to take for them. But then also was the behaviour of the repentant husband who did not speak anything except periodical mournful personal lashing that he had killed her, he had killed her.

They went through his belongings and registered a case of homicide against him and informed his sister about the incident. It was her who brought a lawyer and told them that her brother was under psychiatric care. They did not believe her, because this was one defense that every other criminal seemed to hide behind, though the Sub-Inspector who had arrested the man seemed to believe so. So, finally the police chief relented and had the man checked by a psychiatrist.

He suffers from a condition called automatism. It means that during his sleep, his mind is not in control of what the rest of his body is doing. Also this particular incident looks like a perfect example for pavor nocturnus also known as “night terrors”. The patient had stopped taking his antidepressants which had led him to develop a bipolar condition, where the patient experiences mood swings, which might have made his condition more acute.......

But all of this was not important for him. He wished he was punished with the strongest and harshest possible judgement, that of death, because he had lost the will to live. He was unable to pardon himself in his own personal court of justice, he was found guilty for stopping to have his medicines and then letting such a ghastly act happen.

Not Guilty.

The Judge also seemed to know the harshest punishment to Raj, that of life, that of a lifetime of repentance.....

Epilogue

I am not a doctor. I am not a medical student. I hated doing the background work for this story. Why can’t story writing be much easier!

Dysthymia is a chronic long lasting form of depression sharing many characteristic symptoms of major depressive disorder. However, these symptoms tend to be less severe but do fluctuate in intensity.

A person suffering from a unipolar disorder tends to have a consistently low mood whereas one with a bipolar disorder has extremely fluctuating moods.

A dialogue from Watchmen.

Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says "Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up." Man bursts into tears. Says "But, doctor...I am Pagliacci."

Happy Reading!!!

A Few Good Cartoons

2010-02-03T00:57:00.000-08:00

A couple of good cartoons that I got from The Hindu

Have a Good day!

Just Another Travel Story

2010-01-19T12:57:00.000-08:00

His mustache looked weird, too wiry on the edges and too brushy with a stashed-in feel about it every where else, should I ask him if it is a fake one? like some sort of a wig. Fake hair on the head is called a wig, what about the fake hair on the face (read mustache, period) be called? mig? no, not good enough ummm, uh oh, don't divert, shall I ask him if it is a fake one? It wouldn't seem polite, but then, maybe, it might seem to come across a friendly jibe and change that topic of his, now what were we talking about? He had been blabbering along for quite some time now, Gosh! he doesn’t have any idea that I am neither listening nor in the least interested in what he is talking about! I had been half-smiling and half-nodding for the past 15 minutes with periodic "oh"'s and "ahaan"'s with some "hmmm?"'s generously interspersed in between.

He does look like a teddy bear with a beer belly and hair-fall issues. Did Theodore Roosevelt also look really like a teddy bear? or was it just because of his name, that he was called Teddy Roosevelt? I’m diverting again! his physique does look like a teddy bear though, one that we had when we were kids, I got possession of the family teddy bear from my sister who is four years old and I used to sleep with it until one day Tommy decided to make the teddy his breakfast, meal and dinner, long time ago, feels like in another century, another era, like one of those black and white movies. Funny, how I recollected this fact, I think this is the first time that I have recollected this particularly fateful scene from the corners of my rather dusty memory, like they say, time is a great healer of wounds and I shut out this rather ghastly incident from my still infantile memory then. I saw his mannerisms as I was thinking this, but instead of seeing him, I was looking at my old tattered red teddy with a double breasted black suit-like dress, I wiped my eyes to come back to reality and I blurted out an inadvertent laugh and tried to cough and cover it up. He looked up at me questioningly, uh-oh, but instead he assumed that I didn’t get what he was saying and so repeated more slowly

Yes, I have been traveling in this line (Bhubaneshwar Rajdhani) since 1997! (wow! I should suggest his name, next time I meet Mamata, should start a new award for this guy, if only that can shut him up)

A train host passed along our cabin, my seat number is 71 and so I was sitting right near the entrance door to the coach. The poor guy was carrying many food packs on his tray and while trying to balance it was also struggling to open the door to carry them out. Everyone who were chattering, blabbering, puckering, talking, whispering, snoring (okay, I am taking this a bit too far) stopped their chattering, blabbering, puckering, talking, whispering, snoring and looked upon the acrobatics the poor guy was embarking on in order to pull open the door and hold it while at the same time take the tray outside right-side up.

As Murphy always says, a pack of dal (lentils) fell out of the tray, the train host let out a audible sigh and pushed on ahead with his hand-held tray.

You could rather have asked us to open up the door for you to pass. (I thought of saying to him, but rather did the right thing in keeping these thoughts to myself and made a mental note to help the other guys with trays when they pass through again.)

Three pairs of eyes followed the great mishap that had ensued. Mishaps are something which shouldn’t have happened, but once it happened we cannot exactly get around to call it an accident because there is some amount of a lingering possibility all along that events might take such a course, which doesn’t make it exactly an accident.

Indians that we are, we proudly are, we knew the reason for our extra-ordinary resistance to diseases. Call it the Indian Paradox if you want, but if you are not Indian and you see yourself nodding your head in the wrong direction after reading this, then ask anyone who has been to India

Did you ever fall ill during your stay in India? If not, how many antibiotics have you taken while in India?

Well we do eat outside, at the street vendors, where the hygiene is more often than not literally gone to the dogs, our drinking water isn’t as clean as for it to be labelled as “drinkable” in any of the other three quarters of the planet. But still we are a million and still going strong.

Well Indians that we are, the three pairs of eyes followed the train host as he placed his tray on a wall-hanging support outside the doors and came back in to lift the leaking dal pack. So far so fine, but we hung on watching him, because if you are any Indian either you would do that or you had already accepted the laid-back nature of our people. But the three pairs of eyes held on for different agendas of their own. Me out of amusement, the teddy sitting opposite me, for that “I told you so moment” he had been having aplenty with me deciding to be polite with another human being in at least this journey and the elderly man sitting across the aisle who along with his wife is going to the USofA with his daughter and grandson to have a chance at some final potshots at the country that he was born in and grown up (I hoped) rather ungrudgingly. What the train host did then was........to put the leaking dal pack back on the tray and carry it on into the next coach to provide it to some unsuspecting passenger with a smile in order to get some chai-paani karcha (tip) later on when that unsuspecting passenger is about to disembark the train. Yes, horror of horrors! well actually we were all expecting just this thing but still held on hoping against hope that he might drop the dal pack in the trash-bin that was very near to the support where he had earlier placed his food-tray upon.

I chuckled in a what I presumed to be an intelligent yet understanding sort of way, while the old man lamnted

Ye kya Rajdhani hai! yahan par bhi wahi halat! (!What kind of Rajdhani is this? Even here it is the same!)

I chuckled on thinking about the lackadaisical attitude of ours towards basic hygiene, yet being proud of the acquired immunity as a result of our habits. Just because we boarded the Rajdhani, we haven’t been transported immediately to some remote land that hasn’t ever heard of us Indians. I thought on, We are Indians, we are like that only! By now all three of us notice that my seemingly innocuous chuckle had turned into some sort of dry throated croaking and so I quickly stopped.

Mr. Teddy started going on again with whatever he was telling me earlier after a snide y remark about the “happening” and I went on to interject some intelligent remarks and a few insightful observations in our one sided conversations to fight boredom and also to get a chance at properly watching his teddy-like mannerisms with amusement!

This went on for some time and I was getting tired by being bored when suddenly I heard the booming voice of the old man above the general din that generally accompanies any Indian railway coach. I turned around to see the head waiter host for the bogey standing in the aisle.

Old man. The Dal pack fell, why are you giving that to us again!

Old man’s wife. We are three people here, how come you gave only two dinner trays to us?

Head Host. We are getting you another dinner tray Madam.

Teddy. When are you going to get it?

Old Man. We have already been waiting for a long time now!

Head Host. We are getting you the tray right now, immediately Sir!

Old Man’s Daughter. I don’t want this water bottle, I need boiled water.

Old Man’s Wife. Please get our tray quickly.

Old Man. Why are you serving us food that has been picked from the ground after it fell off?

Head Host. What? Sir?

Teddy. These guys, I know them, they are like that only!

Head Host. Please Sir, we are not serving you any bad food.

Old Man’s Daughter. Brother! Please get me the boiled water quickly.

Old Man. One of your boys had earlier picked up a dal pack that fell of his tray and started leaking and put it back in the tray to serve us people.

Train Host 2. What happened?

Head Host. Someone picked up a fallen dal pack from the ground in front of these people and put it back

Teddy. These people are like this only! They serve food which contains cockroaches and fallen down dal packs and when one asks them for the complaint register, it vanishes into thin air!

Train Host 2. (murmurs something to the Head Host.)

Head Host. Please go to the pantry car immediately and get an extra dinner tray.

Head Host. Madam, sorry, we are getting your dinner tray and I will get you boiled water immediately.

Old Man sniggers.

Teddy. Please get me the complaint register.

The Head Host looks at him uncomfortably and wobbles his head in an unintelligible sort of way and then he was off in a jiffy. He supplied the dinner tray to the old lady and the hot water to the woman, so that she can feed to her infant, all the while conspicuously trying to ignore our side of the compartment on the other side of the aisle while Teddy continued in top gear to bore me further. It was during this time that I found the wonderful company of easily accessible internet through mobile which I didn’t know was possible through my piece. Like they say, necessity is the mother of innovation.

Then enter shady character who had earlier been supplying with clean linen and bed sheets to our berths. He comes over, again in true black and white film style of a bygone era and bends sightly between us too and offers free daru (alcohol). Teddy bites his lip, unable to decide and finally deciding otherwise. Mr. Shady then goes on to apologize for any inconvenience and says that if any of us cannot fight off the urge to drink anytime in the night, he is always available just on the other side of the door! Metaphorical that it did sound (crossing the door, getting onto the other side to reach him, who with alcohol, you either got it by now, or not), he put up a straight face, rather a very solemn face and apologized again and again and asked Teddy to not complain against them. Teddy who by now was floating a few visible millimeters above the ground due to the new-found superiority and power to bend the poor rascals to his will was smirking left right and center and couldn’t control it. He said no and when the shady character had understood the package that our dear Mr. Teddy really is, he left feeling secure for himself and his fellow train hosts.

Teddy. That guy was offering daru. I said no. (wide grin on his face)

Me. ahaan!

Teddy. They will do anything to protect their complaint register.

Me. ahaaan! hmmmmm.......

I then went on to brood over other worldly matters like how we are teaching the art of bribery to our children. This was because, my bogey was unfortunately full of pocket-sized demons and I tamed one of the lesser unruly ones by offering it some candy. Where is my cell phone for my new-found love in tweeting......

If you have liked this post, please vote for it in Indivine in Indiblogger.

Training and Placement

2009-11-03T05:13:00.000-08:00

The climate in Kharagpur is cooling down, winter is coming here my friend. But there are smolders inside our campus, the Campus placement scenario is heating up in IIT Kharagpur these days. Many companies have started their pre-placement talks (PPTs) and quite a few have already started doling out pre-placement offers (PPOs).

The skies which are already getting rather congested with all the airlines, sick airlines, soon-to-be-launched airlines and Twitter users are getting murkier and this should be of concern. The new lot, leaving aside the chirping freaks from twitter, are getting a bit unruly, don't get me wrong, by this new lot I mean the different students who received their offers who are getting used to float around on their "cloud 9"s.

The others who haven't yet been lucky are all still looking towards the sky 24/7 to know where each of their limits are. Hope that there is some small wobbly-dibbly little cloud with my name on it!

Everything else is fine.

Not exactly though, the other day I came across something funny. I noticed the latest notice that was put up in our TnP notice board. Here is a screenshot of the placement notice board, don't you think somethings funny?

Yes it is indeed, your eyes aren't mistaken, go ahead, they even seem to have a few pretty "exciting job profiles" on offer.

What were they offering? Below is a copy of their letter:

Ours is an institution that truly believes in "think local, act local" and our actions since the time we have been conceived have been in this direction to achieve our various goals, which you might have already been fairly well educated through the media, ofcourse. We have always held West Bengal in a special place in our heart as well as our minds. Likewise, we always maintained a peaceful presence as the local government could neither oppose us nor support us. Quite a quandary they found themselves in. We also have a wonderful network that can extend into Nepal and China through this state. We underline the importance of this state to stress about the importance that we have given to your highly reputable institute. In line with this reasoning of ours and the recent unfurling of events, where we could have a whole town within our grasp for a few days, and then the rajdhani and other many specialized activities that we could undertake with such success, we would like to offer three different positions to your students:

The Preacher - We know that you guys suck in all forms of writing, but we saw some of your inter-hall dramatics competitions, atleast the students can print-distribute and enact street plays and eke out a living out of that. Also the availability of considerable expertise has been observed in social-networking sites, anyone can do well with a little bit of online chatter, ask Obama.

The Bollywood-Tollywood Liaison - Chemical and Mechanical Engineers wanted. Need to work out how the movie directors could blow up vehicles with such apparent ease. We could do with a little bit more understanding.

The Agricultural Engineer - finding out new ways to grow weed.

The Thinkers - Students from CS and ECE are particularly desired. Job profile includes sitting in corners and thinking without any distractions about what to think for all the time which we are going make available for this post. This is important as all the thinking required by the organization will be done by this set of erudite individuals who will be given unrestricted mind-space to think about anything they want as long as they just keep thinking. Procrastinators from other departments might also want to apply. We would like to receive a portfolio of pictures in your different thinking moods and postures beforehand. Enough weed will be supplied during the written test and personal thinking-view for these individuals.

Birdmen - Preferably Aeronautical Engineers. Daedalus made it possible and Icarus tried it centuries ago, we want to do it now. We are not so naive, we believe that history tends to repeat itself, so we would rather try flying with wax wings in much lower altitudes. We do not need any material science graduates, as we have already got hordes of A1-quality wax from the forest that we control(whom are we kidding, we do control a major chunk of India, though no one seems to accept it!).

We have one of the best corporate cultures around and depending upon the potential of an individual, they can quickly rise through the ranks of the technical team to even host attacks on any body under the sun. Our cause provides cover for any and every opposition that can be mustered. More on that later.

This is a piece of fiction. This is not intended to hurt anyone's feelings. Take it with a pinch of salt or sugar or sugar substitute. Whichever one you prefer best.

Festival of Lights

2009-10-19T10:22:00.000-07:00

I am attaching two videos that I had recently made. "Festival of Lights" seems to perfectly capture their essence. The venue is IIT Kharagpur, a university in India. Every year almost unerringly a competition is held which is fought with much gusto and flair between the students of different "halls of residences". The competitions are called Illumination and Rangoli, more generally referred to as "illu" among us students here. Any Indian will quite clearly understand Rangoli, though for others, it is a bit of a work on my tiny little brain to come up with words to explain it.....why don't you google, or as the latest trend that is catching up, "bing" it? Illumination refers to the competition of lights, putting it as lighting earthen lamps (diyas) might sound a tad too easy. As you have already read untill this point why don't you have a look at these videos, I promise you they are fun!

I am a boarder in one of these hostels/"halls of residence" and these videos are just of my hall for only this year, as a matter of fact, there are 18 halls and this competition is being held since "I don't know when!", now do the math yourself.......

The first of these videos captures a 20-minute time frame, from the frenetic activity that went on just before the judges came along with their "Ahaan! I got you there"-set of maddening rules, till the moment they left. A small glimpse for you getting a little more clarity about these rules, any hall can get disqualified if any one is found visible by the judges who does not belong to the presentation team. I know that I am not one of them and God bless me for not getting caught when I was snapping these pictures. Another of these rules include one of these judges coming on the morning of the competition and getting the structure (structure, what? you'll know when you watch the video!) measured in order to confirm that it maintains with the Limits-in-dimensions rule.........Now this isn't a rule-book, what are you waiting for? Have a look at the video and don't forget to watch it in Full screen mode!

LLR Illumination (Diwali'09) medium from Muralidhar Duvvuri on Vimeo.

The second video, "The Vishwakarmas" has a much bigger time frame, it shows the weeks leading to the competition and the work that had been put in by the boarders of my hall. Some wise guy once said "Rome was not built in one day", but probably I can dare and say that our work had been done in one day! (and many many nights!!). It has some really, really great shots! unfortunately, I have no hand in any of these shots, though I just made the video, the credit for some of the wonderful snaps you are going to witness cannot be mine.....Go on, have a look here to see how great a job, my fellow boarders have done!

The Vishwakarmas from Muralidhar Duvvuri on Vimeo.

Now don't be a snob, and comment! I know you want too......

Tagged - Innocent/Guilty

2009-10-03T10:30:00.000-07:00

Tagged by Karthik

RULE 1- You can only say Guilty or Innocent.

RULE 2- You are not allowed to explain anything unless someone messages you and asks!

RULE 3- Copy and paste this into your notes, delete mine and type in your answers and tag your friends to answer this.

Let me begin…

Asked someone to marry you? Innocent.

Ever kissed someone of the same sex? Innocent.

Danced on a table in a bar? Innocent.

Ever told a lie? Guilty.

Had feelings for someone whom you can’t have back? Guilty.

Kissed a picture? Guilty.

Slept in until 5 PM? Guilty.

Fallen asleep at work/school? Guilty.

Held a snake? Innocent.

Been suspended from school? Innocent.

Worked at a fast food restaurant? Innocent.

Stolen from a store? Innocent.

Been fired from a job? Innocent.

Done something you regret? Innocent.

Laughed until something you were drinking came out your nose? Guilty.

Caught a snowflake on your tongue? Innocent.

Kissed in the rain? Innocent.

Sat on a roof top? Guilty.

Kissed someone you shouldn’t? Innocent.

Sang in the shower? Guilty.

Been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on? Innocent.

Shaved your head? Guilty.

Had a boxing membership? Innocent.

Made a girlfriend cry? Innocent.

Been in a band? Innocent.

Shot a gun? Guilty.

Donated Blood? Innocent.

Eaten alligator meat? Innocent

Eaten cheesecake? Guilty.

Still love someone you shouldn’t? Guilty.

Have/had a tattoo? Innocent.

Liked someone, but will never tell who? Guilty.

Been too honest? Guilty.

Ruined a surprise? Innocent.

Ate in a restaurant and got really bloated that you couldn’t walk afterwards? Guilty.

Erased someone in your friends list? Guilty.

Dressed in a woman’s clothes (if you’re a guy) or man’s clothes (if you’re a girl)? Guilty.

Joined a pageant? Innocent.

Been told that you’re handsome or beautiful by someone who totally meant what they said? Guilty.

Had communication with your ex? Innocent.

Got totally drunk on the night before exam? Innocent.

Got totally angry that you cried so hard? Guilty.

That's it.

I am not tagging anyone in particular, nor in general for that matter. Every beginning needs to have an end. Let this be the end for my chain :)

Whats in a Name?

2009-09-23T03:13:00.000-07:00

She was looking perfect, like an angel from heaven. The woman she was looking at. The woman in the mirror, herself. She just finished adjusting the kajal and the tilak on her face. She was wiping the kajal, she must be happy because this was the day that many girls long for. This was the day of her wedding. Not any kind of wedding, but it had nearly half of the city as guests. Her father was not taking any chances to make this wedding forgettable in any way. Not that she can be complaining, he had been consulting her for every tiny detail too to make this wedding "her" wedding.
She liked him very much, she is not angry with him, she cannot get herself to get angry with him. He would have got the moon for her, had she asked. But still, she was unhappy, no she was more than just unhappy, she had that huge sinking feeling in her life, the feeling that one might get when they know that they had left something pass-by, something they shouldn't have done, something that they might regret their whole life just for doing what they just did. Because this was the exact predicament that she was in. Not that she loved some-one and her love was so strong that she could not leave the guy, nor is there any reason for her to hate the guy her father was hitching her to.

Love hardly ever is as clear as that. It is like a dark cloud whose shape we cannot decide as it keeps on shifting its shapes while it moves across the sky just like our feelings change as time moves on.

She had a friend, Neel, she liked him very much. She liked him so much so that, she always enquired discreetly among her friends about him, whenever she went out. But Neel was no perfect guy, he used to charm her and also irritate her, sometimes, to her bare bones. Probably this was the reason she could not decide upon her love. But Neel, Neel never showed any special interest for her, nor did he ever do anything special for her. Only time would have decided, if there would have been anything between them, when this marriage happened. Her father's best friend who lived abroad came to India and during his visit, he saw her. He asked his father, and his father, her father's dear friend made this proposal that was accepted with much happiness and glee. She could not say no, she could not get herself to say yes.

There was no reason to cry, none at all, there were no happy memories of theirs, truly theirs. But she had this deep dreadful feeling that she is leaving someone who would have been that special someone to her. Tears were welling up, though she did not want to cry. She did not want to ruin this wedding. She was not like this at first, when her father told her about the wedding, she was willing then because she was a proud girl and she thought that when Neel is not approaching her, it's better for her to get on with her life. She also had a feeling inside her that Neel would come begging for her hand, would have been a great ego-rush then. But then, that did not happen, even then she was not crying, she did not mean to cry or feel so overwhelmingly sad until even on the start of her wedding day. But with the wedding-fever catching on and seeing beaming faces all around, this deep sense of regret began to consume her.

She was sitting on the mandap, her heart began to race. Suddenly her she started fearing if she will die of heartache, because of her love for Neel. She did not know what to do. The slokas were being read, the mantras were being chanted, she started hallucinating that she was in a room full of demons shouting and jeering all around. She started sweating. Her eyes became red. But all of this were covered under the inch-thick layer of make up that was applied by the beautician. Everyone who saw her then thought that she looked a lost little duckling. "Isn't she sweet", they thought. Then something happened. Something really stunning had happened. The groom suddenly stood up. He stood up, got out of the mandap, went near his parents and cried out loud, "Enough of this!"

Epilogue:

1. He thought he liked her very much and though his friends taunted him for having an arranged marriage, he believed in the old sub-continental custom that love can be found even after marriage. He never felt anyone interesting back home anyways. It might have been out of desperation, his friends thought. But during the days leading to the marriage he met Nikki. He got to know her and liked her so much so that he proposed to Nikki right after stopping his marriage with Her.

2. She was relieved with the turn of events. She suddenly felt like she was on cloud9 after he started shouting for the marriage to stop. She supported his cause and helped their parents understand.

3. Neel was not her man. She got to know that. But she was happy, because she understood what she wanted. She went out with her father, one day, to the beach and explained to him everything. He accepted to her requests to let her live her life though rather hesitatingly.

I haven't used any names for the main protagonists. Would the story have changed, if they had any names? Or had I given some names, would the story seem different depending on the names that I might have chosen?

Like Shakespeare once said, Whats in a Name?

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Whimsical Cows (Holy Cow!!!)

2009-09-20T11:48:00.000-07:00

The Holy Cows have been made "Front Page Popular" by our MoS - External Affairs, Mr. Shashi Tharoor via his tweeting on twitter.

This made me think.....I do feel like one!

India had been a poor country for the better part of the past two centuries. Atleast. I would not like to comment on the reasons, nor am I inviting any, for this just plainly is beyond the scope of my blog. You see, I am a simple guy, I can do well without any controversies.

Well, India had indeed been a really, REALLY poor country for the better part of two centuries. Many Indian families had been very much entirely dependant upon agriculture and/or textiles, artisan(-ry??), there was no IPL and cricket endorsements back then (DON'T BELIEVE LAGAAN!). But agriculture had been the silver-lining amongst them all. It offered very high returns and a good name in the immediate society. Though, being in the sub-continent, one does understand the importance of the monsoons and the high dependence of agriculture on rainfall for irrigation and the high risk involved.

Most of these families and also many of the other families which were not directly related with agriculture had reared cows (or sometimes even buffaloes). These holy creatures not only provided a free pass to heaven irrespective of how sinned one might be, also provided lots and lots of milk and other cute little cows/oxen which had high commercial value apart from obvious agricultural value. These animals were so important that even in the times of drought and extreme scarcity, the "Holy Cow" used to have the highest position in the family, even if that meant the family members might die due to starvation, it did not deter them from plumping up their sacred bovines. It had to be fed the most, green grass, then dry grass, then that special nutritive water (thoudu in telugu, google it for names in your language) in a cyclical fashion that bordered on insanity.

Now I hope you are getting to understand my feelings, if not, carry on......

I came home after a prolonged absence. Right from the time I put foot inside the house I am being treated with dinner, breakfast, brunch (yes brunch!), then lunch, afternoon snacks, evening snacks, dinner, midnight nibblers, again, breakfast.......

I shared my feelings with my parents about this supposedly disgraceful treatment. Isn't labelling someone a "holy cow" wrong? that's what I understood from the media reports! My progenitors just laughed off my confused feelings and explained -- "Beta, we haven't been able to feed (yes they said feed!) you for the whole year, so this is our way of making up!"

So much for parental love!!!

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Of Cats and Dogs....!

2009-09-05T15:03:00.000-07:00

I'm soggy and drippy,
drenchy and mulchy,
I've been sneezing with wheezing,
just for one late night's dining!

I've got to learn a big lesson today. One should start believing in the meteorology department. If you are anything like me, and think of them as buffoons running a total Farce, then you're in for shit, deep shit, like I was today, just a few minutes back!

YOU HAVE GOT TO START BELIEVING THOSE CLOWNS IN THE METEOROLOGY DEPARTMENT!

They put up this notice saying that there is going to be "heavy to very heavy rainfall". But it has been a downpour since the morning for around 12 hours continuously.

Like any of the 7 nights in a week, 365 nights in a year, I had this little strong innocent midnight craving for food (some call it hunger, nowadays, young-people!).

The result, I had to wade through knee deep water for miles as all the nearby canteens had taken a holiday(or night?).

Don't get me wrong, I totally enjoyed the trip, the toads gave me company with their "WIBBICK"'s, and so did the LGBs (li'l green bastards, if you happen to be from some other universe and did'nt understand me earlier).

This year it hardly rained in India in general and here in Kharagpur compared to last few years, but when it did today, it poured cats and dogs.

There were even tree branches falling! one that fell, just a few centimetres from me when I was busy waliking, sorry wading through the water.

I got my very own near death experience! :P

What about you?
What were you doing?

Its a Mad World!!!

2009-09-03T12:39:00.000-07:00

Had some doubts and views (not so brilliant, but hey, cut me some slack) during my Human Development class today.......

1. Why are all the countries striving to increase the life-expectancy of their populations?
Isn't there supposed to be a population explosion?

2. Who said that the world is biased towards men?
I see that the female life expectancy beats its counterpart's for any given age of a person! Isn't death considered the most intriguing awe-inspiring nerve-wracking and fear inducing of all the events in life?

3. That India is considered as a flawed Democracy!
Amazing after being fed day-after-day by the media reports that the Indian Democracy is the greatest in the world, whereas the world doesn't yet consider it to be a proper democracy at all!

4. Why are "they" calculating the Democracy Index for a country like North Korea (ans = 0.86)?
Someone's gone bonkers! Seriously, aren't we supposed to conserve our resources and do the "Saving the Planet" act?

5. Was the Happy Planet Index invented by the cubans to get back at Americans? Why are the Indians always so happy that they got democracy even though china got development-crazy?
Cuba is ranked 7, China is ranked 20, India is ranked 35 while USA is ranked 114. Obviously the Chinese are even scoring on the happiness front. Where the hell are you, Karma!

PS: I've happened to meet two Cubans during this summer, unfortunately the above mentioned statistic, though official might not be a correct metric.
I've also happened to be an Indian who has met quite a few friendly Chinese people who are very nice and happy, I've got only one thing to say.

We've got Kamasutra, In your FACE!!!

Wake me up when September ends.....

2009-09-01T15:24:00.000-07:00

Version 1:

But first can you sing me a lullaby,
or else, do sprinkle the sleeping dust,
Oh please! do the thing you do best,
That magic of urs whatever it might be......

Version 2:

But first sing me a lullaby,
sprinkle the sleeping dust,
Oh please! do the thing you do the best,
That magic of yours, whatever it might be!

Cheers! This happens to be my first personal post on this blog that I created for this sole purpose. I have to thank Prashant of Tatsat, though, for because of him, did I start blogging after quite a while, again.

Now, the clock shows 3:38 AM and there is not even an ounce of sleep lurking in any corner of my head! Damn the Nestle company. They make such good Iced tea, gulped too much of it, and it's kicking in. So, what do I do? Start blogging!

Do tell me, which version sounds better?

Tatsat - A Scoially Conscious Store

2009-09-01T14:38:00.000-07:00

A Socially conscious shop has been defined as one that sells sustainable, eco-friendly, recycled products. Being a socially conscious shop also means supporting the community, local artists, NGOs and Fair Trade Organisations.

With a focus on triple bottom line, Tatsat a retail store in Hauz Khas works as a bridge between marginalized producers and markets. Established as ‘Shop with a cause’ in Delhi, it offers most of the products sourced from either NGOs or fair trade organizations or green producers. Tatsat offers numerous alternatives to sweatshop production in pottery (glass, stone and ceramic), stationary (paper pulp, recycled paper, elephant poo), jewellery (glass beads, metallic, paper, wooden), and other miscellaneous products for office/ home use (banana fibre, jute, cloth) and handloom fabrics.

By procuring these products from NGOs, self-help groups, fair trade organisations and socially conscious companies, Tatsat offers customers an alternative to sweatshop production bringing them closer to nature and rural artisans. Every purchase you make improves the lives of poor artisans. Here is a list of the various suppliers of Tatsat:

CFM - Community Friendly Movement. As a supply chain manager for many artisan communities CFM provides a one stop shop for retailers and wholesalers who are looking to source quality handmade products from India. They provide handmade jewelry and bags.

AADI - Located at Hauz Khas, AADI works with disabled people. They provide handmade paper products.

Prerana - Prerana is a brand of handicrafts and lifestyle products promoted by ESAF, a registered charitable society working to mainstream the marginalized people through micro-finance and enterprise development. They provide coir and banana fibre products.

Himjoli - A Kumaon based NGO. Provides skin care products and other traditional products like terracotta diyas, terracotta trays.

Mura - A collective that provides Shibori fabric, sarees, salwar kameez fabric duppattas and other textiles.

Two Eco-friendly Companies:

Haathi Chaap! - Provides Environment-friendly, organic and safe paper made from elephant poo.

Green Somethings - Provides Plants and hand-made soaps.

Here is a small video that gives you a walk-through of some of the jewelry that they have put up in their shop: .

Jewelry at Tatsat from Muralidhar Duvvuri on Vimeo.

If you have any interest or queries, please address you mails to tatsat297@gmail.com

IMPORTANT **This post has been written by me for the Weblog, "Tatsat - People, Planet and Profits" in my capacity as a contributor to that weblog. This is just a reproduction. If you liked this post, then please visit http://tatsat297.wordpress.com/ and go through the whole blog.**

Think Global, Act Local

2009-09-01T14:32:00.000-07:00

I came across this piece of reading in a Community Friendly Movement website.

Commercial supply chain dynamics do not by themselves address the challenges of third world employment and quality of life issues. However, it is apparent that global trade, essentially in the worldwide industries can either exploit for unilateral gain, or collaborate to "share gain" for overall development of work force.

Corporate Social Responsibility has become a major issue these days for the many major MNCs, who have been establishing in-house fund-managers and PR managers to mange their Brand Image both in the developing countries where they have their back-ends of their supply chains and also at the destination countries for their goods/services. . . . But then, such an arrangement which is dictated by the market forces cannot always be totally reliable. This is where the Government and the Community can get involved. Since last year a new debate had been cause for lots of firewood being burnt over various intellectuals meeting and discussing about the extent of involvement that the government should be undertaking in both the developmental activities as well as maintaing the economy from falling of a cliff. How much should a Government interfere, and at which segments of its peoples life can it interfere?? . I found this in a recent Swaminomics article, "Cash transfers better than drought relief works"

I became a journalist in 1965, when two successive droughts killed thousands and forced India to beg for US food aid. India's share of global food aid was so large then that a best-selling book claimed that India was unviable and should be left to starve, conserving food aid for viable countries.

A lot has changed since then, we're still being affected by droughts and as has been discussed in the above-mentioned article, the major difference since then till now is that, India has far less percentage of people who are starving. This is because of schemes like NREGS which provided the people in the drought affected regions some much needed purchasing power, this in-turn decreased the sufferings from mass-starvation, though probably not mass-hunger. Maharashtra was the first state to adopt this strategy and succeed. Government involvement in relief works has always proved very controversial, with the Prime Minister himself stating on one occasion that for every rupee that the government spends for the poor, they get the benefits of only 10 paise, the rest being eaten up by the mind-boggling numbered layers of middlemen. Even various Non-Governmental Organizations suffer from these middlemen, probably to different extents. This has been a major reason for the success of the NREGS(National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) where apart from implementing various developmental programmes at the rural level, the purchasing power of the poeple is being increased and the choice is being left to the beneficiaries to utilize their earnings. The benefits can already be felt with various companies setting up shop in the semi-urban and rural areas and taking this segment of the population seriously as one of their major customer segments. Now this is Inclusive Development. The drought that is occuring this year might setback the pace of all these processes, but how the rural customer can overcome this time can determine how fast a domestic market can be nurtured and developed in India.

IMPORTANT **This post has been written by me for the Weblog, "Tatsat - People, Planet and Profits" in my capacity as a contributor to that weblog. This is just a reproduction. If you liked this post, then please visit http://tatsat297.wordpress.com/ and go through the whole blog.**

Breathe In, Breathe Out......

2009-08-26T11:12:00.000-07:00

Video can be a very powerful tool to convey thoughts and ideas. Especially now-a-days with the information explosion, and the huge amounts of advertisements, catchy captions that are being put forward by one and all. A small video can help a long way in garnering the support from the segments of the populace who are traditionally supportive of your cause.

Here is a small video made by the Salvation Army.

This had been released in the "This Ad costs Nothing Campaign". They hit the bulls-eye with such a simple yet powerful way of waking both the sympathizers and the Not-for-profit Organization from their trance. Many NPOs had been sleep-walking where they had been spending insanely high amounts of money to advertise the Good work they are doing, in order to gain public support. YOU DON'T NEED LOTSA MONEY TO GARNER MORE SUPPORT.
For the general public, their view can be seen as a call for voluntary support which need not be financial.

I also wanted to share this video made by Greenpeace International. Another very simple, very small yet powerful video. Especially for this year, which can turn out to be a watershed for our future policymakers regarding Environmental Policy making.

Boasts more than 7 million views. Translated into more than 10 different languages. This 20-minute video has a dedicated website which provides the users with many resources, the interactive video being one among them. This video may not have been simple to make, nor that short, nor too cheap. But it is an educational video, which stresses on educating the viewer through a very novel and original animation and a narrator who takes over the issues regarding the over-consumptive attitudes that are beginning to plague a lot may people all over the world.

So, here, after a very, very boring day, I have come up with three distinct, yet similar, but thoroughly novel videos that can help any organization to gain insights into making a good video in order to convey their message in this ocean of multimedia information.

Adios!

IMPORTANT **This post has been written by me for the Weblog, "Tatsat - People, Planet and Profits" in my capacity as a contributor to that weblog. This is just a reproduction. If you liked this post, then please visit http://tatsat297.wordpress.com/ and go through the whole blog.**

Paper from Poo!!!

2009-08-16T14:35:00.000-07:00

What's on your mind?

No, I am not talking in any way about "Winnie the Pooh", that is Pooh with a "h". Yes, you are seeing it right, there is no apparent problem either with your computer screen, with your eyes or with your spectacles. Now don't say "Eeeeeeeek!", that's very impolite :P

That was the cue for the "Oooooooh" to be said out aloud. Anyways, let me try to Ooh you with some more information about these environmental initiatives that have been started across the globe by a few people. Most of the information that I am sharing here has been lifted, filtered and supplied to you in brevity from the websites of PooPooPaper, Creative Paper, Mr. Ellie Poo and Haathi Chaap.

Did you know that just in 2005, the avergae consumption of paper across the world was 54.48 kg/person/year (Source: FAO). Staggering figures.

These are some of the companies that have taken upon themselves to make this globe a little more colder if not a little less warmer. They make paper from Elephant Poo, Sheep Poo and a company in Wales even claims to produce it from Rein Deer Poo, Ho Ho Ho.

1. This paper is organic.
2. It does not smell of poo (it would have been a stupid idea to sell a mishy-mashy product which stinks of poop and expecting you to actually write on that, no matter how a big a greenhead you are)
3. Lots of dung produced, dung full of fibre, paper production needs fibre taken traditionally from different waxes and saplings, Voila! imagine how much paper can be produced from all this dung produced. Imagine how many trees can be saved from being cut.
4. No artificial colours are generally used, these people are smart enough not to spoil the goodwill that they might be generating for the Organic-products lobbyists! though some of them did accept to trying various imaginative if not a bit eccentric feeding practices to induce more colour into the poop and so in the paper!

They don't just sell notebooks, rather they have a very large repertoire of goods that based on paper that they sell either online or through some specialized/environmentally conscious stores.

If you are staying at New Delhi and want to have a look at these products, the products made by Haathi Chaap can be bought from Tatsat at Hauz Khas.

Teej Bazar

2009-08-10T05:53:00.000-07:00

Here is a short video (1:00 mins) on the recent event, "Teej Bazar" organized by Tatsat along with AADI.

Teej Bazar from Muralidhar Duvvuri on Vimeo.

There was a small problem with a few policemen who hassled the organizers in search of small bribes. But, it was sorted out, though they did not allow any part of the event to be organized out of the store at Hauz Khas. Guess who had the last laugh, Unfortunately!

Another event had been planned for the International Youth Day with a small street play by a group called "Khoj". Guess who is the party-pooper again, the local police wala. Unluckily the performing group is not ready to go through the process of getting a proper police permission, probably because of the immense amount of red-tape involved. Even a garden sale of books was planned for the International Youth Day, I will keep you updated about any more such plans.

P.S. If you have read this post, I would suggest that you better comment, It helps you in going a long way in garnering good karma in your life :D. So long!

IMPORTANT **This post has been written by me for the Weblog, "Tatsat - People, Planet and Profits" in my capacity as a contributor to that weblog. This is just a reproduction. If you liked this post, then please visit http://tatsat297.wordpress.com/ and go through the whole blog.**

Nano Indians?

2009-07-28T13:59:00.000-07:00

"Fevicol Bus Advertisement"

What will the next generation of the upwardly mobile upper-lower classes and the middle classes be called? The Nano Indians?

I might be outrightly naive, I might be poking my eye with my own finger, but still I am going to safely stand by my prediction. The way this Tata's Nano story of birth is turning out to be resilient in the face of the various internal and external strife that it encountered, I am impressed, hopeful that this is going to be a new chapter in the country's way ahead.

The economic crisis, the oscillating global prices and even Mayawati have failed to deter its path towards salvation!

Well now into the serious matter of Tata Nano and the serious environmental implications that this might be holding for India in particular and the world, also in particular! Don't get me wrong I believe myself to be passionate about the environmental issues, but somehow I just cannot get myself to make Nano the burning effigy for all the internal rage that I might be building due to the global warming.

See the numbers.......gosh, I couldn't get my hands on any of the numbers!

Well leave the numbers, one thing that you will accept is going to increase the vehicle population drastically and so increase the greenhouse gases and thus further fuel global warming until the planet melts off.

But we are in India, let us start fine-tuning this doomsday prediction to make it insync with the reality that is India!

1. The lack of proper roads, and the already congested roads (thanks to all the auto bhai's and rickshaw pullers ou there, and then there are the private bus, semi-bus, big truck plyers). Enter Nano, 100 Nanos, 1000 Nanos, 1 million Nanos..........now, don't you see that something smells wrong here, people will get over the new car syndrome when they take the car out for every small chore! Something's gotta give, either the roads or the Tata guys, who need to make adjustments so that the Nano can start flying and stop depending on these clogged arteries which identify themselves as roads. So the number of car users cannot keep on sweeling indefinitely, there will come a time when owning a is neither a luxury, nor a necessity, but is a headache!

2. Yes, now that we put in some reality-check as to the swelling numbers, now with the increased car numbers. This will start putting pressure on the government and the people. On the government to set up a more reliable, stable and comfortable public transport infrastructure. On the people to first start egging the government to establish this infrastructure (it might even become a big electoral issue in the coming years.....the need for infrastructure development) and then to use the public transport and seeing the car as a means for only occasional family trips or likewise!

3. But when we are making all these assumptions, we just cannot forget about the alternative fuels for whose RnD, billions of dollars, rupees, yen, pesos, euros etcetera are being poured into. We might just get that dream car for an environmentalist or not. At the very least, we might hope for cars with much improved mileage.

But for now look at the accidents that can be avoided because of the Nano. Look at the hope it feels into the lives of the people offering them safer means to travel instead of those 4-seater-2-wheeler vehicles which are plying on the road. We need someting like the Nano, if not the Nano, and for now thats all we have got!

Epilogue: Like a friend of mine likes quoting all the time, Change is constant and we all have to change, we have to change in what we expect from the government, we just can't throttle innovation at every step but rather keep on fighting all the ill-effects that are threatening to choke our society, the country and the world!

Just pray for a stronger government which can stand tall on the promises that it makes to the people! A dialogue from Swades comes to my mind, where the farmer Haridas says to Mohan:"Sapne mat dikhaiye Mohan babu"

Well though my signing off statement is just going to be:"In a democracy, the Government can only be as good as its people!".

"Sapne Mat Dikhaiye Mohanbabu!"

IMPORTANT **This post has been written by me for the Weblog, "Tatsat - People, Planet and Profits" in my capacity as a contributor to that weblog. This is just a reproduction. If you liked this post, then please visit http://tatsat297.wordpress.com/ and go through the whole blog.**

Pandu, If only.........

2009-07-27T14:10:00.000-07:00

A small boy who had no worries in his life, a small boy who kept on playing around with his old half broken cricket bat that Sanju bhaiyya had given him when he bought a new one. Anyway, this was already broken and Sanjay would never have found any use out of it. It cannot even be used as a runner's stick as it's size was too small and at the instant when he was about to throw it away after an evening's game while going to his home, when pandu, thats what the small boy was called, I recall it now. When pandu saw this, he had to beg for it. Sanjay was like any other young playful adolscent who after having his share of fun with pandu, he left his broken bat with him. Anyways he didn't care about it anymore.

Pandu would also almost always store the broken rubber balls that the other kids found no use for. They would let pandu play with them only at times when they had to make up numbers or when they needed a ball-boy. They were just young kids and pandu was even too younger to even play properly, but he always happily obliged with beaming smile that could have lit the broken down floodlights during the deccan chargers versus kolkata knightriders encounters during the first IPL! Even on the days when the boys wouldn't have pandu to play with them, he would either watch them play getting their balls or would start playing with one of the younger children who come down to go strut around with proudly, innocently and happily with their tricycles. Pandu becomes the coach in these sessions and would bat to his hearts content, even these tiny tots loved playing with pandu. Pandu is 7 years old.

But during the days when the kids went to school pandu would get bored. Sometimes, he would go the iyengar's home on the first floor because the grandpa and granny there would watch T.V serials all during the afternoons and they would let him sit down near the verandah gate and watch them, even asking him to help out with small chores for the granny. They would give him some tidbits from the afternoon tiffins they used to have. Though grandpa was mostly grumpy, pandu used to like them very much, especially the special vada-pav that granny makes, he is very confident that he has understood and has learnt by rote, what granny calls as her secret recipe for the dish! I used to have a feeling that the Iyengar's used to like him, though they never showed it on the outside. He used to provide them with some human contact when their son and daughter-in-law always used to return very late in the evening even though they used to be among the earliest one's to leave for their jobs.

This did not mean that Pandu did not go to school. He used to go the government elementary school which was 2 kilometres away. I used to see him go hopping and scampering to this school with that ragged bag of his and his mother shouting behind him to complete some last minute chores. Most of the days he would have to return to complete these chores and reach the school a bit late, I supposed! His father was our apartment's watchman, janitor, gardener, handyman an all-in-one man! Everyone used to call him out for any work of theirs.

"Apparao we need a packet of salt!"
"Apparao please get some samosas, we are expecting some guestes shortly"
"Apparao, have you watered the plants today?"
"Apparao, get us some more mil packets, we are making payasam today!"
"Apparao our food has been left-over, do you want it?"

Pandu used to return in time for lunch and never went back to the school during the afternoons, instead preferring to watch the television at the Iyengar's place. Upon questioning him about the teacher's wrath that might befall upon him due to his constant skipping of his classes, he used to say that most of the periods, they never had any teachers, even the teachers who would come wouldn't care much about teaching, rather starting to chat between themselves in the corridors, they did used to take classes itseems, whenever they had a hint that a checking squad might be on its way!

But Pandu was a bright kid, which I used to notice everytime whenever I chatted him up. A kid he was, but a very bright one, though he would like to fly around like a bird in the sky without a worry in the world, he used to love his text books and would also come to my house as also go to almost all other kids houses to collect any of the old books that we would give to him. He used to like to store them and even try to read up some of them. Mostly during the night times beside the small oil-wicker lamp that he used to put up beside his rope-cot. He used to sleep beside his fast asleep mother after reading the books. Whenever I watched this spectacle from the fourth floor balcony of my house I used to get amazed at this young boy's thirst for books. He never seemed tired! Though he did not attend school properly, I believed he did this because he never found anything worthwhile coming out of it.

But then all this is just hogwash!

Pandu was not a happy boy, he was a spirited boy! He always fought against fate to remain happy. Though what all I told about him was true, there was something else I happened to remember about him that probably the 13 year-old me always somehow blocked out.

Pandu just did not fade away from our life, he was a victim of domestic violence. His father used to always drink during the night and used to harass him and his mother during the nights. He had a unquenchable thirst for knowledge, but his father had an unquenchable thirst for tippy, for which he used to nearly use up all his monthly salary for. His wife Gangamma used to be helped by some of the flat-residents who used to give her some measly amounts to let her get through with her life and for her son's upbringing.

I relived a scene recently in which Apparao found pandu in charge of a 50-er and he immediately slapped him hard and took it. Pandu, with tears swelling up in his eyes started asking his father, telling him that he needs to pay his fees for his examination. Apparao just gruntled back to Pandu asking him make himself invisible immediately.

What happened to them?
The flat residents have asked Apparao to go away as he and his tussles every night with his wife had become too much to bear for us. And so in an appartment meeting, it had been decided to get a new handyman(watchman) for the apartment.

I wonder what Pandu is doing now? Is the spirited soul still flickering? Has he started to fulfill the promise he was showing even as a small kid? Many questions!

If only, people can be more sensitive to what is happening in the society around them, how many more pandu's are suffering now!
Why is domestic violence as rampant in India as it is now......?
Is it just because of the illiteracy and the lack of money and a good life for all these Apparao's?
I don't want to be vain and blame it on his drinking habits, I would rather blame his person and his self for what he is turning out to his family, A Monster!

If only............

Fictious, None of the characters are real. But based upon the different experiences, events that I noticed as a kid in the 90's in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. I just tried to wind them all up into one story

If you have liked this post, please vote for it in Indivine in Indiblogger.

IMPORTANT **This post has been written by me for the Weblog, "Tatsat - People, Planet and Profits" in my capacity as a contributor to that weblog. This is just a reproduction. If you liked this post, then please visit http://tatsat297.wordpress.com/ and go through the whole blog.**

Why Limericks?

2009-07-25T12:03:00.000-07:00

Limericks have always fascinated me
So small yet very funny they can be
Make no sense mostly
Reason I like them partly
Thats why Limericks always fascinate me!

Prosody or Propreity, Limerick broke them all,
the nonsense verse by edward lear became popular,
the verse is indeed nonsense
that is the very reason for its dearness
Propreity and Prosody, Limericks never cared for them all

You can write a limerick, Yes YOU CAN
All it needs is some spirit, not the ones in a can
With a pinch of spice
you can get it right
Yes, anyone can write a limerick, why? ask why not! Yes We Can

A Limerick fan I have become
I feel its wonderful n awesome
To join your group
what should i do? drink soup?
Take me in ‘coz A Limerick fan I have become!

Got bored on a saturday afternoon and penned these aweful ones down!

The last one was a request I sent to a Yahoo Group called Limericks and Haiku.

IMPORTANT **This post has been written by me for the Weblog, "Tatsat - People, Planet and Profits" in my capacity as a contributor to that weblog. This is just a reproduction. If you liked this post, then please visit http://tatsat297.wordpress.com/ and go through the whole blog.**

This Feels Like a Dream....

2009-07-22T14:33:00.000-07:00

I am just into my second post and it feels like I am already hitting my writer's block! Or has this become a cliche to put it by every aspiring writer who has got nothing to convey but is excited to do so......!

Why am I excited??

Cadbury has started a new This feels like a dream campaign. Cadbury Dairymilk has officially become Fairtrade certified. It has already started working with various NGO's and trusts in Ghana and also built 365 well inthe communities there. Trying to make a statement i guess.

And to top it, the Teej Bazar at Hauz Khas is about to begin in less than 24 hours! For those who still have no idea about Teej Bazar, it is being organized by Tatsat, AADI and Ujala members. AADI is an NGO working with people with disabilities around New Delhi. There will be a SHRINGAAR (which is a henna and bangles event) and also a Painting Exhibition, "Monsoon Mystique" by Sanjay Biswal. Even if you cannot make it tomorrow that is the 23rd, not to worry, this even is on for two days. If you are in facebook, here is the link to the event and this is the link to the group Tatsat. We also have a fan page here.

Isn't it ironic that the country whose most famous icon had sung praises to the virtue of cottage industries is poised to leap into the stratosphere to find a place among the Titans. Isn't it even more ironic that like the classic tale of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, our country has two Indias. One India Shining....the India that is poised at the precipice of history, to grab the pen of fate to make its own history and share it with the rest of the world, and, the other India which is still coming to terms in living with this stark adversity in the rural areas, in some corners of the country where there isn't even electricity. Some of the parts have been unfortunately dealt by the hand of fate to be in the"epicenter" of terrorism as Mr. Chidambaram puts it. If not terrorism, there is naxalism or separatism or other kinds of desi-isms like (babudom, corruption and bribery) which have eaten into the dreams and aspirations of these people. I was going through an article from Times Of India where the person says to the journalist in question that he (read journalist) does not understand the life there (the village). How farther shall we go before we can unite again? This disparity exists even in the more developed regions of the country!

With such a scenario developing, it might actually turn out to be a blessing in disguise that the USofA sneeze has made the whole world to catch Swine Flu. The economic crisis which is decreasing the exports and foreign demand has forced the government to look into its largely untapped rural segment of the population which has also been dubbed as the Sleeping Tiger in an era of epithets where our erstwhile economy was compared to the Elephant compared to the chinese economy which was dubbed as the Dragon!.

So the world should be beware of the Tiger which is atop an Elephant! Hopefully the new Indian economy which rises by the time the crisis has been deemed over to make the new and real India to be poised not just to share a table with the titans but also to be one of them!

IMPORTANT **This post has been written by me for the Weblog, "Tatsat - People, Planet and Profits" in my capacity as a contributor to that weblog. This is just a reproduction. If you liked this post, then please visit http://tatsat297.wordpress.com/ and go through the whole blog.**

Hello world!

2009-07-16T03:02:00.000-07:00

This is my first post for Tatsat. Well Hello World! Few things are better than doing what one likes to do! And probably this is how it feels when doing such things, that heady feeling of emotion, anxiousness and......and confounded speechlessness!

Now if you are an environmental person, one of the greenheads, this year should be an exciting time for you, even the economic crisis does not seem to hamper the governments which are slugging it out to arrive at an agreement that will have wide reaching and long ranging impact abour how our civilization is going to chart its growth on our planet. So Copenhagen we await!

And well even if you are not one of those damned treehugging greenheads, so what? You might still be having atleast a small bit of space in that rock called heart of yours which might think twice about the people who are being given exploited. Yes there is exploitation in India, atleast for sure in the unorganized sector where the victims are being given the short-hand probably because of their illiteracy or just probably as a result of the circumstances.

If so you should have heard about Triple Bottom Line...........

Errr whats that eh? Then Triple Bottom Line or TBL or 3BL is a ratification provided by the United Nations which measures the organizational and societal success (Source: Wikipedia): economic, ecological and social or better put as People, Planet and Profit. Corporate Social Responsibility is different again, don't get muddled up with all these names!

You can go through the article about Tatsat by Garima Vohra from the recent 16th July edition. If you are interested in art, then do visit the Teej Bazar on 23rd and 24th July at C-50, Shop no. 3, Hauz Khas, New Delhi - 110016. There is going to be a painting exhibition, "Monsoon Mystique", by Sanjay Biswal.

"Hindustan Times Article dated 16th July"

"Teej Bazar by Tatsat on 23rd and 24th July"

"Fair Mart Exhibhition May 9-10th, 2009"

IMPORTANT **This post has been written by me for the Weblog, "Tatsat - People, Planet and Profits" in my capacity as a contributor to that weblog. This is just a reproduction. If you liked this post, then please visit http://tatsat297.wordpress.com/ and go through the whole blog.**