Blog to Defend our Country..

As a blogger of this great nation, we know you have joined thousands of others in expressing your anger, and calling for action to be taken in order to prevent another attack on our national integrity.

I realized that we have a moral responsibility and a unique advantage where we could bring a vastly influential community of bloggers together to make a difference. Thankfully, we found that there already was an initiative, an initiative that does not talk about signatures or candles. This is a mission with an agenda, timeline and an end result that this country desperately needs.

I ask that you all get involved with this mission and help us spread the word by blogging about it.

Where's Raj Thackrey?

Where is Raj Thackeray and his brave Sena?

Tell him that 200 NSG commandos from Delhi (No Marathi manoos! All South & North Indians..!) have been sent to Mumbai to fight the terrorists so that he can sleep peacefully. Please pass this message to all Marathis so that it finally reaches the coward bully.

Be United! Its our motherland for whom we have to defend for...!

Terrorism has no religion..! They are the guttless cowards who punch at the back...!

Its our Right, Duty and Responsibility irrespective of region, religion, caste, creed, race, language to defend our country against terrorism.

When it comes to the extreme like the Mumbai blasts, no ACT or TREATY stands in between our country and others. Lets defend ourselves in an united way..!

A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century

I issue my predictions for the coming century. Featuring robot wars, near annihilation.

NOV. 4, 2008: John McCain takes the U.S. presidency with 277 electoral votes, winning Ohio and Florida by less than 1 percent of the vote. American policy on Iraq does not change.

JULY 14, 2009: While the price of gas hits five dollars per gallon in most American cities, the value of the dollar becomes exactly half the value of the euro. World travel becomes a luxury available only to the rich; on the upside, Northwest Airlines goes bankrupt.

OCT. 4, 2010: Canada legalizes the cloning of livestock for human consumption.

FEB. 1, 2011: North Korea initiates an open, cooperative relationship with Russia.

NOV. 6, 2012: Obama defeats the incumbent McCain in a landslide. However, the most curious aspect of the election is the candidacy of Digger True, a grassroots "blogucrat" who runs as an independent, solely using the Internet. True does not express any concrete views and does not participate in debates. Instead, he produces online supercuts of patriotic aphorisms, set to the music of Collective Soul. To the surprise of many in the mainstream media, True gets 3 percent of the popular vote. Blogucrat disciples begin petition drives advocating the elimination of copyright laws and the option of voting over the Web.

MAY 18, 2013: To the chagrin of his longtime supporters, President Obama concedes that U.S. troops can't be withdrawn from Iraq.

DEC. 31, 2014: Billed as "the floating Dubai," the inaugural space hotel opens its doors. Financed by Google, the cost is $2 million per room, per evening. Kanye West performs in the ballroom on opening night.

JUNE 15, 2015: The Paris Libertines defeat the London Plesiosaurs in the first NBA championship series featuring no American franchises.

SEPT. 12, 2016: Digger True enters the presidential race less than two months before Election Day, this time campaigning with wordless, randomly generated photographs of voters (aggregated from social networks and displayed in rapid, continuous succession on his Web site). Despite never appearing in public, True gets 22 percent of the vote, but Obama wins reelection.

AUG. 20, 2017: The first mainstream use of artificial intelligence becomes popular with consumers -- the ability to have realistic phone sex without another person.

JUNE 2, 2018: Summer movie audiences are entranced and titillated by Lars von Trier's Asking for It, an erotic thriller starring Christian Bale and Scarlett Johansson, set on the 110th floor of the World Trade Center on the morning of 9/11.

APRIL 15, 2019: No longer able to attract voters under the age of forty, the GOP absorbs the blogucratic faction and makes Digger True the de facto Republican candidate for 2020. True announces his reinvention on YouTube 3.1 by uploading a 4-D image of Abraham Lincoln copulating with a MacBook, synchronized to a live version of "Smack My Bitch Up" from the recent Prodigy reunion tour. Congress makes online voting legal in all fifty states.

NOV. 3, 2020: True becomes the first president of America's postliterate era. The outcome is bemoaned by The New York Times and The Washington Post, the only U.S. newspapers still printed on paper. President True does not appear in public for his entire tenure, communicating all public policy via screen grabs of Dakota Fanning, delivered through his Tumblr account.

AUG. 14, 2021: The final performance by the Rock On in Wembley Stadium. Ticket prices start at $18,200, ultimately netting the band $1 billion.

DEC. 31, 2023: The U.S. relaxes after the hottest year in history, contributing to the death of more than eighty thousand citizens.

JUNE 14, 2024: Indian researchers find a cure for AIDS.

AUG. 13, 2025: A surprising announcement comes from SRM University: As it turns out, smoking cigarettes is kind of good for you.

SEPT. 25, 2026: A new folk hero captures the worldwide imagination when twenty-five-year-old British hand model Gretchen Tobias scales the east face of Mount Everest, without oxygen, totally naked.

JUNE 15, 2027: A startling revelation comes in the form of Obama's postpresidential autobiography, Cutting Backdoor: He admits that the decision to keep troops in Iraq was forced upon him by the Bilderberg Group, a secret society of world leaders who control the global economy. The book explains how Bilderberg's leadership concluded that the U.S. would not be prepared for a post-oil society for at least forty years; the only solution was to establish an American presence in the Middle East that provided unlimited access to petroleum, thereby staving off worldwide economic collapse. Three months after the book's release, Obama disappears in a mysterious boating mishap.

NOV. 7, 2028: Tom Brady (R-Michigan) defeats Will Smith (D-California) in the race for the Oval Office.

MAY 24, 2029: Eighty-eight-year-old Bob Dylan celebrates his birthday with the online release of "Oh, By the Way," a fourteen-minute song explicitly explaining the details of his 1966 motorcycle crash, his brief conversion to Christianity during the seventies, and what it was like to have sex with Joan Baez. When asked why he chose to release such personal material at this point in his life, Dylan cryptically replies, "That seems like a question you should be asking Bob Dylan."

MAY 8, 2030: A deathbed confession by George W. Bush reveals that JFK was, in fact, assassinated by the CIA.

SEPT. 2, 2031: A mysterious multiracial seven-foot man who refers to himself only as "B" shows up at NASA in Houston. He claims to be from the year 2131 and possesses blueprints for a time machine that will take a hundred years to build. After a closed-door twelve-minute meeting with President Brady, construction begins immediately.

JUNE 15, 2032: A virtual-reality amusement park in Berlin allows patrons to momentarily experience the sensation of death. Controversy explodes when studies indicate that almost 10 percent of those who participate in the simulation commit suicide within one year.

APRIL 5, 2033: In a moment reminiscent of Texas Western's 1966 victory over Kentucky, the all-black Kentucky Wildcats are upset in the NCAA basketball championship by the University of Portland, a school whose squad is composed entirely of Asians.

SEPT. 2, 2034: Another multiracial seven-foot man (this one calling himself "C") arrives at NASA and begs scientists to discontinue work on the time machine. He cannot explain why. The decision falls to President Brady, who ultimately concludes that the very presence of "B" and "C" dictates that the machine must be completed.

FEB. 14, 2036: Faced with the notion of "potential mammalian annihilation within fifty years," all First World nations agree to make climate change the lead focus of their scientific inquiry. Fearing this will slow down completion of the time machine, "B" anecdotally submits a process that could replenish the ozone layer. Soon after delivering this information, "B" murders "C." "B" chooses not to defend himself during his trial, saying only, "I have no regrets, except for those of all mankind." He is sentenced to prison and spends the next ten years writing his memoir, a manuscript he eventually destroys.

APRIL 8, 2037: Citing flawed financial management and waning public interest, Major League Baseball folds. The top 12 percent of U.S. players join clubs in the Dominican Republic.

DEC. 25, 2038: Working off the rudimentary plans explained by "B," scientists begin to molecularly stitch the ozone hole above the Arctic Circle.

JULY 11, 2039: Bill Clinton, ninety-two, dies... on the same day Indian Democracy II is released.

NOV. 2, 2040: Dana Dukakis (D-New Jersey) becomes the first open hermaphrodite to win a gubernatorial election.

JUNE 11, 2041: In a matter of weeks, the entire Internet is replaced by "news blow," a granular microbe that allows information to be snorted, injected, or smoked. Data can now be synthesized into a water-soluble powder and absorbed directly into the cranial bloodstream, providing users with an instantaneous visual portrait of whatever information they are interested in consuming. (Sadly, this tends to be slow-motion images of minor celebrities going to the bathroom.) Now irrelevant, an ocean of Web pioneers lament the evolution. "What about the craft?" they ask no one in particular. "What about the inherent human pleasure of moving one's mouse across a hyperlink, not knowing what a simple click might teach you? Whatever happened to ironic thirty-word capsule reviews about marginally popular TV shows? Have we lost this forever?" "You just don't get new media," respond the news-blowers. "You just don't get it."

APRIL 3, 2042: Scientists declare that repairs to the ozone layer are a complete success. Polar bears, now extinct in the wild, are reintroduced to their natural habitat.

JUNE 22, 2043: As predicted by Arthur C. Clarke in 3001: The Final Odyssey, the orbiting luxury hotel is connected to Earth by a massive space elevator. Hyperstrong cables anchored to the earth near the equator (as required by physics) stretch 100,000 kilometers into the sky, rising into the hotel's lobby.

SEPT. 19, 2044: Erasto Norman, the first black pope and an avid skiing enthusiast, is killed in an avalanche.

DEC. 1, 2045: A report from the American Medical Association expresses fear over the proliferation of news blow. "It appears," the report concludes, "that prolonged consumption of news blow renders the user incapable of relating to any person not engaged with an identical strain of the substance." Society is no longer separated by geography, culture, or language; humans now group themselves solely through the shared use of specific info drugs. A divide emerges between Americans on the West Coast (who primarily smoke news blow synthesized in rural California) and people living in the East (who snort a more potent strain developed in Baltimore). Over time, people in New York and Los Angeles find themselves unable to communicate about anything -- they now understand the most basic building blocks of information in totally different ways.

JUNE 22, 2046: At the World Games in Helsinki, U.S. sprinter Zeb Lovelace runs the 100 meters in an astounding 8.99 seconds. His record is later disqualified when testing proves that Lovelace had been injecting himself with self-duplicating DNA taken from the bone marrow of cheetahs.

JAN. 1, 2047: News blow continues to splinter society. Though technically still a union, the U.S. splits into two autonomous halves that have no relationship with each other. The same thing happens in Europe (now divided into seven vague provinces), Russia (which fractures into five regions), and Africa (which becomes five superstates, plus Madagascar). Select diplomats attempt to bridge the gaps by consuming multiple strains of news blow simultaneously, but these attempts lead to depression and catatonia.

NOV. 6, 2048: New York industrialist Roger Kracken wins the title of president and moves into the White House; however, he is a relatively unknown figure west of Missouri and wields no power whatsoever on the Pacific coast. The left half of the U.S. is governed by newly named Prime Minister Jamie Lynn Spears. Immigration effectively ends; service-industry jobs are now mostly performed by humanoid robots whose machinery is covered with individually cloned muscle fibers, synthetic skin, and animal hair.

MARCH 18, 2049: Sweden bans the consumption of animal flesh as food.

MAY 22, 2050: The darkest day in world history -- nuclear suitcase bombs are simultaneously detonated in Jerusalem, LAX airport, Moscow, Paris, Tokyo, and (somewhat oddly) Bangor, Maine, killing 370,000 people. Unable to effectively communicate diplomacy and confused by the terrorism's utter randomness, the entire planet adopts a policy of cultural isolationism and lukewarm war.

OCT. 2, 2051: In the new age of global remoteness, military strategy becomes murky. Conventional wisdom suggests Australia is the most important region, as it can only be invaded via Indonesia. Others point to South America, since it is vulnerable only to Central American freedom fighters or North African warlords. Everyone agrees that Europe is a waste of time.

2052 TO 2055: No recorded history.

NOV. 3, 2056: The reconstituted United States of America (once again a complete republic) holds its first meaningful election in twelve years. News blow has been criminalized as America enters the Reactionary Age, a period of intense morality and anti-intellectual rhetoric. The two presidential candidates -- human Tyrone Berkowitz and Cyborgic Construct "Terry 2" -- run clean, issue-oriented campaigns. Terry 2 wins a tight race, punctuating his victory thusly: "Those who attain wisdom through artificial intelligence are no different from the human brothers who offered them authentic life during the war that cannot be spoken of. We are all the better for this."

OCT. 12, 2057: Aided by a world currency that's backed by the diamond standard, global economies boom. The exploding new market is wind, now the primary source of energy in most of the industrialized world.

MAY 17, 2058: The Coca-Cola, a four-piece cyborgic musical act from Manchester, record and release twelve songs at the same time, a format that has not been used in more than four decades. The so-called "album" is titled We Exist Only to Rock You and is constructed after digital analysis of the most pleasing sonic elements off the Beatles' Revolver, Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti, Michael Jackson's Thriller, R.E.M.'s Murmur, and Brenda Kahn's Epiphany in Brooklyn. 

JULY 20, 2059: Exactly ninety years after Armstrong, astronauts from India land on the moon. They, however, do not leave. India immediately installs a community of both humans and robots on the lunar surface. A new space race begins.

JAN. 5, 2061: Indian doctors perform the first successful brain transplant. The patient survives for sixty-one days, mostly in a state of perpetual terror and befuddlement.

AUG. 10, 2062: America lands on the moon. Two months later, Russia does the same. Germany and Japan arrive in December. Suddenly, five small biospheres populate the lunar surface. The purpose of this is unclear and widely debated.

OCT. 30, 2063: A team of Anna University researchers argue that Indian cows can telepathically communicate with one another, often discussing their feelings and their plans for the day. The theory is dismissed.

JUNE 6, 2064: Indian consumers become obsessed with "expectation entertainment": By stimulating obscure areas of the brain with low pulses of electricity, people can be given the sensation of how it feels just beforethe actual experience of something they enjoy (a concert, sex, a delicious meal, etc.). By focusing on the anticipation of an event (as opposed to creating the event itself), audiences are never disappointed.

DEC. 23, 2065: The moon population reaches one million. Its primary industries are mining and tourism.

FEB. 20, 2066: Super Bowl C: Dallas defeats Denver 31-17. The NFL, for whatever reason, is pretty much the same as it always was.

FEB. 27, 2067: A Vandalur Zoo gorilla named Maureen takes a standard IQ test and scores a 92. The Mu Ka Stalin's Society, an Indian animal-rights group, immediately pushes for legislation that would grant citizenship to domesticated creatures.

AUG. 1, 2068: Census figures indicate A.I. cyborgs are now the largest minority in the India, comprising 21 percent of the populace. Hispanics are next at 20 percent, followed by multiracial humans (17 percent), Euro-Indians (13 percent), African-Indians (11 percent), US-Indians (8 percent), and race-neutral clones (3 percent). The total Indian population is 640 million.

AUG. 13, 2069: "B," the mysterious seven-footer who arrived at NASA thirty-eight years before, dies at his home in Reno, Nevada. Diaries discovered in his basement indicate the entire story might have been a hoax. Work on the time machine, however, continues as planned.

JUNE 5, 2070: Wolves in Canada begin hunting humans at an alarming rate. Shark attacks increase 40 percent. Jungle animals begin successfully infiltrating urban areas; a panther kills at least nine people in downtown Dallas. "I don't know why the animals are getting smarter," says zoologist Eli Sperle-Cho, "but it's definitely happening."

OCT. 19, 2071: An army of panda bears attacks Beijing, killing twelve hundred people and wounding thousands more during a bloody four-day onslaught.

APRIL 5, 2072: Animals are banned from the moon. House cats now kill more people than heart disease.

MAY 29, 2073: In a consolidated effort, india, America, China, Great Britain, and Russia declare war against the animals. It is decided that all military maneuvers will be conducted by robots.

2074 TO 2078: Robot vs. Animal War.

MAY 4, 2079: The Robot vs. Animal War concludes with the Kenya Peace Accords. The animals get Africa, North and South America, and Australia. Asian, Europe and Greenland are conceded to humans and nonhuman mechanical life. Antarctica is a free zone. The majority of remaining Earth people migrate to the moon, where overpopulation becomes an immediate problem.

JULY 6, 2080: The moon population hits eight billion. Most live in underground caves. Food is generated by the high-speed cloning of soy, rice, and headless chicken carcasses. Water is the most valuable commodity and backs the lunar currency.

NOV. 5, 2081: To slow oxygen consumption, moon inhabitants are ordered to remain relatively motionless for twenty hours a day. To compensate, every person is allowed to cerebrally download the complete memories of a fictional lifetime once a week; the populace now spends most of its time feeling nostalgic for things they did not actually do.

OCT. 20, 2082: Due to its surplus of frozen moisture, a decision is made to colonize Mars. Robotic and humanoid leaders agree to turn what remains of the moon into a massive military station, poised to resume a sky war against the animals and retake Earth by the turn of the twenty-second century.

SEPT. 15, 2083: The 150th anniversary issue of Immortals' Imperia is made available via memory file -- an instantaneous burst of binary information that's absorbed through the retina from a disposable contact lens. It allows the consumer to "have read" every word from every issue of the publication's entire existence. The robots love it.

Computers: Get Used to Them!

I would argue that the most funny, edgy and entertaining writing in India, does not come from The Hindu, but from high school newspapers. Granted, the humor coming from these may be largely unintentional, but it can be hilarious nonetheless.

As editor of the "Reviews" section of my high school newspaper I was notoriously bad at my job. I rarely attended class and edited my stories with the same attention to detail Stephen gives his wife. My lack of diligence even got the "f-bomb" inadvertently published in my high school paper.

Titled, "Computers, Get Used to Them!" the article says that computers are on their way but we have nothing to fear (as long as we have sledgehammers). The opening line starts by insulting the reader and just keeps getting better. The entire piece appears below.

Unless you're totally ignorant, you have probably noticed that computers are the talk of the early 1990's.

If you're a typical Indian, you are probably also growing tired of hearing how these computers will be running your life in the near future.

You may even have a slight fear of computers. No, I don't mean you wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat screaming, "Don't hurt me, computers!" But I think we all have a slight fear or uneasy feeling over things we are unfamiliar with.

Contrary to what you may have heard, your hands will not fall of when you touch the keyboard of a computer.

I was a little apprehensive when I walked into a computer programming class for the first time this year. All I knew about computers, prior to class, was they had computed my class schedule the last two years.

As I began to become more familiar with computer language and how to write computer programs, my uneasiness went away and I found working with computers enjoyable.

If you are considering taking a computer class (whether you are an adult or a student), I think you'd enjoy it. You may struggle a little at first learning the language and proper usage of statements, but with some persistence on your part, your mind will start picking up the techniques naturally.

You will probably also discover in your early stages of computer study that the computer can be a friend at times or a foe at other times, because of your inexperience.

For example, in computer programming class, when a program you have sweated over and worked on ruthlessly for a considerable length of time is run on the computer screen just as you planned, you might give the computer a nice pat on the top and then proceed to print out "your pride and joy."

On the other hand, when a different program assignment does not run on the computer screen as planned and the screen is showing you what seems like an infinite number of incorrect statements in your program you wish like heck you had a "nice" sledgehammer to make the computer see things your way.

Whether you like or dislike computers or are or aren't interested in them, you had better get used to hearing about them in the media. The experts predict that computers are going to be with us a long time and will be as commonplace in the home as the telephone by the year 2020.

Tribute to a woman

If you tell a beautiful woman that she is beautiful.
What have you given her?
"It is no more than fact and has cost you nothing."
But if you tell an ugly woman that she is beautiful,
You offer her great homage of corrupting the concept of beauty.
"To love a woman for her virtue is meaningless; she has earned it."
It's a payment - not a gift.
But – to love her for her vices is a real gift.
Unearned and undeserved.
To love her for her vices is to defile,
All virtue for her sake and that is the real tribute to love.
Because – you sacrifice
your conscience, your reason,
your integrity and your invaluable self esteem.

All About a Women..! By a Man..!

Women.. by nature...!

..If you kiss her, you are not a gentleman; If you don't, you are not a man.

If you praise her, she thinks you are lying; If you don't, you are good for nothing.

If you agree to all her likes, you are a wimp; If you don't, you are not understanding.

If you visit her often,she thinks it is boring; If you don't , she accuses you of double-crossing .

If you are well dressed, she says you are a playboy; If you don't , you are a dull boy.

If you are jealous, she says it's bad; If you don't, she thinks you do not love her.

If you attempt a romance, she says you didn't respect her; If you don't, she thinks you do not like her.

If you are a minute late, she complains it's hard to wait; If she is late, she says that's a girl's way.

If you visit another woman, you're not putting in "quality time"; If she is visited by another man, "Oh it's natural, we are girls..!"

If you kiss her once in a while, she professes you are cold; If you kiss her often, she yells that you are taking advantage.

If you stare at another woman, she accuses you of flirting; If she is stared by other men, she says that they a just admiring.

If you talk, she wants you to listen; If you listen, she wants you to talk.

So simple, yet so complex!

So weak, yet so powerful!

So confusing, yet so desirable!

So damning, yet so wonderful!

It’s an army out there...

The Indian rickshaw is a deadly combination of a two-wheeler and a four-wheeler. Because the three-wheeled monster gives the impression to riders that - hey - I got a wheel more than you, so be careful. And the very monster turns into a sneaky little mouse, as most rickshaw drivers manage to fit one wheel through a miniscule gap in traffic, under the absurd and dangerous assumption that the two wheels behind will follow suit. The end result? Scratches galore, and enough road-fights.

Of course, that is if His-Highness rickshawaala agrees to transport us.
I had a word with a rick-driver who stays close to home, Suresh Gangadharan. The ‘charioteer’ is one of the rare honest ones out there who relies on the meter, allowing that mounted piece of metal to decide his fate and future. I had heard from another ‘rickie’ that were nearly 150,000 rickshaws in Chennai alone, and it surprised me, so I talked to Suresh to find out more. Some figures he revealed include:

"Over 80% of the rickshaws run on LPG (credit goes to the authorities for enforcing this) although not all have taken steps to reduce pollution. Suresh says that previously, with petrol, many drivers mixed it with kerosene and that was the root cause of increased pollution from the ricks. With gas (and authorities having enforced a good, quality distribution of LPG around the city) fewer ricks can forcibly pollute.

Over a 170,000 rickshaws travel in Chennai alone, each generating an average income of 1,000 rupees per day. Suresh points out, that atleast 80,000 rickshaws spend a full day in the city. Do the math: The city of Chennai spends Rs. 80 million on rickshaw fares, every day.

On an average, each driver works a 12-hour shift, and nearly every rickshaw has two drivers nominated against it. That leaves us with atleast 300,000 rickshaw drivers in the city. Considering the stereotype drivers, that’s a lot of alcohol consumption as well.

The ARDU is the single-largest union representing the drivers. This makes them quite powerful: at any given point, they have potentially 300,000 people and the single most popular means of transportation in Chennai under their control.

Each owner makes anything between 170 to 300 rupees per day, per rickshaw. Each driver makes about 150 rupees per day, and an average of 200 on the weekends. Suresh claims that many generous foreigners have left 50 rupees, and sometimes even 100 rupees as tips when they were in a hurry during tennis matches and rock concerts.

The living conditions for the rickshaw drivers are bad but a margin above the poverty line. Most of the average income goes into liquor, leaving the families distraught, the children uneducated and the wives often have to work as maids to feed the family."

The bottom line?

Much as we might hate them for their stubborness, incompatibility and their pride, these guys run the streets of Chennai. So the next time you drive, and you find this rickshaw crossing your way like a metallic piece of manhood in your serene life, try and refrain from picking a fight, because it’s an army out there. It really is. They’ve taken over.

Truly, if there was ever a vehicle engineered for the roads of India, here it is. But that’s only until namma metro arrives in this Singaara Chennai-city-turned-chaosville. Which is, of course, a long wait.

One of my pointed out that the word Rickshaw has Japanese origins, from the word "jinirikisha" which means ‘human powered vehicle’. Interesting, considering that it’s us who took it to a new level.

When you love someone..

When you love someone..

You only see the good that evokes your passion, and never the bad that could actually make you see sense. And what a folly that is because that is where your downfall begins.

When you love someone, you strive to become compatible. And because you’ve been told that you can never change your lover, you endeavor to change yourself. Indeed, there is no harm in such a cause, especially if it is for the good of not just your love, but of yourself. And so you find yourself giving up this and sacrificing that, until one day you wake up and you don’t know yourself anymore. You don’t know what you’ve become, how you got there, or even why; all because such a drastic overhaul of your ‘self’, of your ‘being’ was achieved for the wrong reasons – not for yourself, but for the pseudo-god who you so desperately wanted to please, but who, more than likely, would never be.

Still, when you love someone, you try to make it work. So every time there’s a problem – and at this point, you’re already honest with yourself enough to admit that there are indeed problems – you find yourself conceding to keep the peace, to keep the status quo intact. This is because even though in your eyes he is now just a man and no longer a pseudo-god, you still do not love him any less. If anything, you might even love him more in this newfound attainability.

So you concede, and all is peaceful until the next conflict where you will concede again and again and again in a never ending cycle of concession for the sake of love and harmony, regardless of who is in the wrong. But when you really think about it, how long can you concede? How long can you give in? How long can you keep apologizing for wrongs that you did not do? Everything - and everyone - has a limit. Surely your ability to concede is no exception.

On the other hand, you can resist taking the path of least resistance and fight for what you believe is right. You can attempt to make him face his inadequacies, instead of mollycoddling him and pointing out your own to make him feel good about himself. You can endeavor to put your lover in his place when he’s done you wrong, and force him into submission for you to finally receive the apology or the appreciation that you so deserve. This is risky because though there is a slight chance that you will accomplish your objective, it is exactly that – slight - and you may invariably do more harm than good, leading to an even earlier demise of the relationship. Is there even a path that doesn’t lead to the relationship’s demise? I do not believe so, for even those who stay together for the rest of their lives eventually die and become no more.

When you love someone, you give him the power to destroy you. And until you start to accept love as it is – fleeting - you will find yourself constantly destroyed throughout your lifetime. You will only emerge whole when you stop believing in forever and start accepting that nothing lasts forever.

Indeed, when you love someone, make every moment count because that’s all you’re ever really going to get – moments.

Does it make you feel good?

You would have probably received this a hunderd times before on a mail.

But it is funny that everytime I read them I just feel happy. So I am just putting them for the record.

Think about them one at a time before going on to the next one . .

• Waking up and realizing you still have a few hours left to sleep.
• Laughing for absolutely no reason at all.
• Finding a 2 dollar bill in your coat from last winter.
• No lines at super market
• Hearing your favourite song on radio
• Midnight phone calls that last for hours
• Having someone play with you hair
• Accidentally overhearing someone say something nice about you.
• Knowing that somebody misses you.
• Knowing you've done the right thing, no matter what other people think.
• Running into an old friend and realizing that some things (good or bad) never change.

Adios.... have a good week ahead :D

Can you please write it and give me...

Recently, I have realized the power and effectiveness of the statement "Can you please write it and give me"..

Let me explain...I have registered for the BSNL broad band connection two months back and have not got it yet. So I went to customer care, and asked the lady behind the counter about the status, and she very casually asked me to go to some other exchange and find out.

"Why cant you do it?" I asked..

"Nopes we dont have any person here who is responsible for the internet connections" she said

"Can you please write it and give me?" I said , "Please write that a customer has come to enquire for net connection and I cant help but ask him to go to some other place"

"No I cant do that", She said

"Why not?" I asked

"Because I am not responsible for the net connections" she said.

"Ok in that case, please write and give me that Customer Care is not responsible for net connections, for this kind of things customers are required to go exchange and find out", I persisted, "See, I dont want to complain, but just I want to figure out where I have to go for what"
Thats it, she started calling some numbers, gave my details, retrieved the information and told me.

Never mind what the information was, but I got some answer, and I avoided running to someother place.

This is the third time that I have employed this technique, First at the railway reservation and second at ICICI, and this time here.I guess it works because people are afraid to give in writing, because they know that it is their responsibility and they are just running away from it.

So if you persist, they would solve the problem for you.

Please use this freely, you dont have to be rude and all. Be nice and very straight. Trust me it works....

Cheers..

To all the girls out there... A humble request

Excerpt from a Secret Dairy of a Secret Guy...

Discliamer: Any resembelence to any person living or dead is purely fictitious.

"The one thing which I dread and am really afraid of is when a girl tells me that I am like a sweet brother to her.... God I hate it, fear it and have wild dreams about it... I wonder why girls are always interested in making brothers, even after they grow up, I wonder what faults that they see with their real brothers that makes them go out looking for more brothers, and even more brothers. I do hate more when most of my sisters' friends or friends' sisters start addressing me as "bhaiya", it becomes kind of default thing to use, and it irritates me. I wish they would ask me my name. And imagine if I turn back and start calling them bahenji, would they not take offence. Girls are funny and they are.

The other set of girls who are not going around forming brothers have one other deadly weapon "I cant look at you in that way", wonder what that is supposed to mean. And thats it, next day I keep looking at myself in mirror while shaving, and wondering if that has got to do with the way I look, the way I have my hair or it has got to do with her vision. And in general girls dont want to argue and discuss this subject, while it is so obvious to them, it seems latin-greek to me and leaves me totally perplexed. The only thing that I get out of them is that I dont appear to be that serious. But the problem is that if I start talking serious stuff then I dont even get this far, I mean then girls will never be interested in me. Because girls like fun-loving easy-going guys. So you see it is vicious circle. and I think the key is to identify the point of transition when I have to change myself from easy-going to hard-tuff, from talking about guitaing and the latest Johny Depp movie to talking about future career prospectus and the real estate pricing.

But the most funniest thing that I find is that the same girl (I mean the same girl who tells me that I am not serioius), when she goes out to meet the guy that parents have chosen for her, by default start seeing him as perspective husband, even though most of the times I find him as idiotic as myself.I guess you girls have to understand that life is difficult for guys with the competition so high and you have to be little considerate. I guess on an average a girl might get proposed 5 times in her bachelorhood... (I have no data on how much on married girls), whereas a guy like me might die to get proposed even once. Now when I have got to think about it I dont think any of my boy-friends (somehow calling boy friends looks little shady, I mean my friends who are guys) have ever got proposed, atleast no one has ever told me about it. And trust me guys also have very little threshold of falling in love, and they pratically fall in love with any girl, I think if guy meets a girl for ten times he would surely fall in love. This is especially true if the guy comes from some testosterone intensive college like IIT.

So please all you girls dont take it very seriously if I ask you out for a cup of coffee, I am just looking for a harmless cup of coffee. Dont make any character based assumptions about me. And I have a very nice and cute sister and I love her. I dont think I can handle more than that. And please dont treat me as agony uncle and start talking about the antics of your new boyfriend, about how he does not pay any attention to you or whatsoever, because I hate your boyfriend, I genuinely hate him. I might listen with lot of enthusiasm but inside my heart breaks, and please dont do it especially when I am sponsoring you a cup of coffee. And if possible do let me know when is the transition point, rather when you would want to see me as hard and macho man.

Cheers.

Innovation Begins with Fascination

In my experience, the origin of innovation is fascination -- the state of being intensely interested in something. Enchanted. Captivated. Spellbound. Absorbed.
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What kids are good at.
Kids and those mavericks at work who make everyone nervous and running for their spreadsheets at the drop of a hat.
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A person who is fascinated does not need to be motivated... or managed... or "incentivized." All that person needs is time, some resources, meaningful collaboration, and periodic reality checks from someone who understands what fascination is all about.
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That's why Google gives its workforce 20% of their time to explore projects on their own. That's why 3M and W.L. Gore do something similar. They know that the root of innovation is fascination.
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If you, or the people who report to you, are not currently in a state of fascination about work it's time to turn things around. That is, IF you want to spark some innovation.
How do you do this?

For starters, here's one simple way, just to get things rolling.

THE SEED OF FASCINATION

1. On a piece of paper, create three parallel headlines -- "What Fascinates Me," "People I Admire," and "What I Would Do If I Had More Time or Knew I Couldn't Fail."
2. Jot down at least TEN responses beneath each headline.
3. Look for intriguing, new connections between your responses. Any insights? New possibilities? Ahas?
4. Now, think about ways you might incorporate these new insights or possibilities into your work life (while staying open to the fact that your company is capable of changing and growing).
5. Jot down your new ideas.
6. Circle your three favorite ideas and brainstorm them with a friend. Then pitch anyone who's influence can help you launch your ideas for how to bring more fascinating projects into your work life.

The Good Thing About Bad Ideas

"You can only be as good as you dare to be bad." - John Barrymore
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One of the inevitable things you will hear at a brainstorming session is something like "there are no bad ideas." Well, guess what? There are plenty of bad ideas. Nazism, for instance. Arena football. Bow ties.
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What well-meaning "keep hope alive" brainstorming aficionados really mean is this: Even bad ideas can lead to good ideas if the idea originators are committed enough to extract the meaning from the "bad." It happens all the time.

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Even diamonds begin as coal.
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The key for aspiring innovators? To find the value in what seems to be a "bad idea" and then use that extracted value as a catalyst for further exploration. The following technique, shows you how to do this. It's a particularly effective method for naysaying, skeptical groups to use. It's also a hoot and a great way to make boring brainstorming sessions come alive.

HOW IT WORKS:

1. Bring a challenge, question, or problem to mind.
2. Conjure up a really bad idea in response to it.
3. Tell another person (or team) about your bad idea.
4. The other person (or team) thinks of something redeemable about your bad idea -- and tells you what it is.
5. Using this redeemable essence as a catalyst, you brainstorm new ideas, solutions, or possibilities that can actually DO something with.

Revolution is very much at hand..

+Five years ago, there was no Orkut, MySpace, Facebook or Twitter, much less any of the myriad tools and applications created to enhance and extend their social networking value.

+Ten years ago, there was no Google or Wikipedia shaping the way the world finds and thinks about information and knowledge.

+Twenty years ago, there was no World Wide Web influencing every aspect of our daily lives.

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I don’t know about you, but it feels alot like revolution to me, and we’re just scratching the surface of what’s transpiring. So while I understand that association leaders prefer to “manage change” incrementally, there’s a problem: it’s a flawed and failing strategy for the 21st century.
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The incremental strategy is ineffective because what we’re experiencing today is unlike the tamer forms of change we’ve known before. It is what I have referred to in the past as “profound, intensifying and accelerating disruption and discontinuity,” or paradigm shift. I realize, of course, that the first phrase is a tongue twister and the second phrase has been devalued by years of speaker abuse. But neither of those issues gives us a free pass to ignore what’s going on. For the first time since the early years of the 20th century, paradigm shift actually is happening, and it will continue to unfold in the years ahead whether or not we choose to acknowledge it.
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The notion of managing paradigm shift incrementally is a proverbial finger-in-the-dike scenario, i.e., it is both dangerous and unsustainable. Associations will find themselves unable to thrive in this century if all they are prepared to do is aim just high enough to survive, or worse, defensively cope with the present while wishing and hoping for an easier future that will never come. Association leaders need to dial back their conservative instincts, soberly assess what is happening in the world around them and then work to rapidly grow their comfort level with radical ideas and revolutionary approaches. The tables have turned, and we can no longer afford the mounting financial and human cost of our community’s risk aversion for risk aversion’s sake.
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If we’re going to harness the forces of paradigm shift and leverage the revolution to our advantage, we must cultivate strategic imagination. Maddie argues that association leaders use strategic imagination everyday. It saddens me to write that my experience has been very much the opposite, to the point that I am genuinely concerned about the lack of capacity for responsible stewardship in organizations of all sizes throughout our community, and I have heard this same concern expressed by other association leaders as well. So after sixteen years of watching associations not deal with the same issues over and over again, rethinking the assumptions that guide the way our organizations create value from the ground up strikes me as precisely the kind of fundamental reinvention that is urgently needed for the association community to have a fighting chance at thriving and growing in the years ahead.
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The gale-force winds of paradigm shift are already whipping, and the seeds of future opportunity are being strewn in every direction. Association leaders who claim not to see or understand what’s happening are either in denial or just not paying attention. But make no mistake about it: the revolution is at hand.

Imagination is the Lifeblood of the Revolution

…The capacity to imagine is being squashed by the hierarchy of risk culture, the doom and gloom corporate system that places an ability to mitigate loss above the blue sky creative capacity. Ideas, knowledge and intercultural imagination are just as valuable as powerful as financial capital.

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Prosperity more and more will depend on creative advantage, a flow of ideas and innovation. The top down corporate structure is giving way to the horizontal open source, peer produced network of ideas. The hierarchical model of organization has been the historically dominant model for our Western institutions such as the Government, Church and military-industrial complex. So pervasive and enduring has this model been that we have assumed there are no alternatives.
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But today companies that make their boundaries porous, and accept input from the global creative sector are the ones best poised to create enduring value. Traditional forms of intellectual property create a walled compound of content, where resources are hidden and companies compete with each other to gain access to vital innovation pools. But increasingly companies are finding that the best way to build vital business structures is to harness a shared foundation of technology and knowledge to accelerate growth and innovation.

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Whether or not we’re ready to accept it, there is a revolution unfolding in our world, and in our association community. No amount of describing what’s happening online as fad changes this current reality, much less the future that is emerging for the next decade and beyond. Paradigm shift isn’t a theoretical construct, but a real-world, life-changing phenomenon, and not all of it is or will be for the better unless we act to make it better. Fortunately, thanks to distributed Web-enabled collaboration, it is now possible to fully capitalize on the near-limitless creative potential of people worldwide to imagine what comes next. Imagination is the lifeblood of this revolution, and it is our imagination that will see us through no matter what challenges we are forced to confront.
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It’s too easy to think of incrementalism as a style choice, a matter of personal preference for those who fear change and need to made comfortable by being brought along more slowly. Sadly, after decades of failing to act because of leadership denial and myopia, organizations have forfeited this “steady as you go” option on behalf of their stakeholders. Fairly or unfairly, this is where we are, and it is now time to embrace the revolution and imagine the association community of the 21st century!

Thackereys are migrants!

Where did that one come from? The pretenders to the throne have been unmasked. So much for crying out for the Marathi Manoos!

If one were to believe the news doing the rounds right now:
“The Thackerays came to Mumbai two generations ago for jobs and as such have no right to assault those coming to the financial capital in search of livelihood.”


Now since the very credibility of being a pure “Maratha” comes under question, I cannot wait for clarifications from the SS/MNS camp to come forward. Maybe Raj Thackerey will come forward and tell his numerous supporters that one should forget the past and concentrate on the current problem of migrants. Or maybe, he will go back to being a ‘pillar’ under the Tiger!


What does one say about all that noise created under the banner of the “Marathi Manoos”, and all the unnecessary trouble caused to the migrants? If nothing else, i think Raj T owes an unconditional apology to all those who had to suffer directly like the labour classes, as well as those who were affected indirectly, like those whose carpenters, Bais, Milkman, Vegetable vendors, disappeared suddenly, leaving everything and everyone in a fix.


What MNS successfully managed to do was create trouble for its own masses. Losses for Maharashtrian businesses. And a lot of anti MNS sentiments. I hope that this incident drills in some sense into this man and he can put an end to his tireless tirade against outsiders.


He forgets, that there is a “Rashtra” in Maharashtra.


I wonder what the MNS supporters have to say now?


Anyone?

Why Raj Thackrey Sucks more

He sucks more than other leaders of his league because he belongs to our generation. He was born in a liberal country and has seen very little prejudice, especially in the city where he was raised. He was educated with people like us, in schools like ours with people of different religions and regions. He has come of age hearing about the expectations of the whole country from his generation. He took the odd step and came into politics and made our generation proud, only to disappoint in a moment.

I remember a time, not so long back, when we were excited about the political scene sans the Sanghs, the filthy criminal politicians, the goon raj and all the self proclaimed moral policing organizations. I remember watching YUVA and how correct it seemed and how, first time in my life, I wanted to believe in a Bollywood flick. I remember a college debate in which one of the participants talked about how five years from then, most or all of the politicians would be either dead or too old to talk and how a young breed of leaders (not politicians) would skyrocket country’s development. In one blow, all that is a goner.

He has single handedly taken all our misconceptions of seeing an India, led by virtuous young breed of pro-development leaders. He has proved once again that doing away with secularism is a small price that leaders today and prospective leaders of tomorrow are ready to pay to stay in power. He has proudly burst our bubble of the image of an India free from caste, religion and regional politics.

Neenaz Ichaporia of IBN Blogs says it all
“What Mumbaikars prize more than anything else about their city, is the ability to step out at any hour, unmolested, and roam the city unharmed……

..…Thackeray and his MNS goons have chipped away at that confidence.”

In fact I am not sure whether we should burn him at the stake or thank him, for he has indeed opened our eyes to the fact that young or not, politicians are politicians and they will never change. My faith in the next generation leaders is FUBARed and I am not sure if I'll be trusting these young-uns anymore, but is it not a lesson we should have learned long back? The youngest country of the world could so easily be led by world’s youngest imbeciles.

Are you in Kerala? Ask "Got Milk?"

If you ever come across any communist in my home state of Kerala (trust me, there are a lot of them around!) and if he/she paints for you a romantic image of communism - please ask him - “Got Milk?”

Communism is flawed. All the means of production can’t be controlled by the government. Not even the politburo can control or manage that. It hasn’t worked anywhere in the world. Why is that our comrades in Kerala get it? Now, don’t get me wrong, I do agree with some of the leftist ideology and I am particularly found of socialism if it is social - but communism is a totally different ball game.

Sure, the comrades will sing praises for Castro, Saddam, Zimbabwe, Iran and Sudan (why? don’t ask) - spite venom on the US and they think is imperialist but they do know how to beg. Last month, the God’s Own Country’s Food and Civil Supplies Minister C. Divakaran started his South Indian Grand Begging Tour - first to Tamil Nadu, Karanataka (for milk!) and now to Maharashtra. Why don’t you ask Castro or Kim in North Korea or the dude in Zimbabwe? What did you say? - Same problem? Hmm… I wonder why?

“Banking” on banks! Whew!

I wonder what has become of public sector banks. I was actually astonished by the number of people opting for private banks these days; banks like HDFC, ICICI etc. spring to mind. There were a few reasons which made me tear my hair as to why this was happening. Firstly these private banks have very complicated rules and regulations governing your transactions and bank accounts. Some even have limits one the number of ATM withdrawals you can do per month before you actually end up paying for them. I don’t think its reasonable for a common man to grasp all these rules and not risk losing his hard earned money inadvertently to the bank. Secondly, the kind of minimum balances required by some of these banks border on the ridiculous. I mean, honestly, minimum balances are the amounts that you never take out of a bank account. So you would want it to be as minimum as possible. The bank is meant to keep your money tenporarily and you’d be better of not donating money at rates of about 2% for this cause. Thirdly, and most importantly, have our public sector banks- nationalized government regulated supposedly “safe” banks- become just not good enough? One visit to one of the public sector banks confirmed the reason to me in striking clarity.

At this stage I have to be honest and tell you that I’m no expert in banking. On the contrary, I’m what they call a “noob” to banking. But it is to the noobs that the fallacies of a system are most obvious. Especially systems which are as old as the banking system. So when I stepped into the bank* with the simple task of obtaining a DD to pay my college fees, I thought it was just a simple task. Note that I had got DDs from banks before and I have a fair idea on the procedure and the amount of time it normally takes. As I moved to where the forms were “supposed to” be kept, there evidently was none. It was kept somewhere hidden behind a pillar on the main desk. Is wastage of couple of small sheets of paper so great a consideration for banks that they keep it well hidden? I had to ask a couple of people before finally finding its location.

The form was simple. The task of filling it not so complex. I had the money with me. I had the filled in form. What next? Here is where being a noob gives you new insights. A regular visitor to the bank would have known exacty what to do. Go to the cash counter, pay up and get a receipt. But then how am I supposed to know that? I was made to ask another of those bank officers who seemed too busy(impolite?) to answer my query. So then I paid up and got my receipt. To my shock I was made to wait more than 1 hour before that simple DD was delivered to me. The reason being the lady who was supposed to give it was chatting with a friend who had come to the bank. If that was half hour, another half hour was taken up in her going for lunch right at the appointed time totally unresponsive to a DD waiting there before her to be signed and despatched. I had paid extra in commission for this, damn it! After all this unnecessary wasting of time, my patience was at an end as I demanded my DD. Can’t they understand I was in a hurry? So finally as I got my DD, my threat of a complaint to high officers brought only the slightest of smirks on her face.

So now I get it. People just don’t come to banks anymore just to safeguard their hard earned money. They have learned that they are the masters and it is their money which earns the bank its profits. So above all they expect a level of SERVICE. Service not as in “servant” but service as in politeness and user friendly. This is what is appealing to the common man. And it is exactly what the private banks specialize at. Be it personalized phone calls to let you know about your recent big transactions or to inform you about their most recent schemes(or to home deliver those DDs that I talked about!) these banks are adept and efficient. Frankly I think most people nowadays know that they are losing a bit of money but as a trade off for the service they’re getting, it might just seem worth it sometimes.

* Just for the record, the bank I went to was a branch of the Indian Overseas Bank.

Nationwide Queer Pride March: An Historical event

Last week I wrote a piece on how its time for the queer people to stand up, stand tall and assert their rights. In this context the queer activism in India just witnessed a landmark event, the first ever nation wide Queer Pride March was concluded on Sunday, 29th June 2008.

Thousands of gay, lesbians, bi-sexuals, transexuals and other non-heterosexual people in Delhi Bangalore and Kolkata came out on the streets to join the march which was “not a protest but a celebration”, as Leselie Esteves, member of the newly formed Delhi Queer Pride committee puts it.

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This was the first of any such pride march in Delhi and Bangalore but for Kolkata this was the 4th gay pride march. The gay pride march is annually held around this time of the year across the world to commemorate the riots that broke out in 1969 in New York city when a Gay bar was raided by police.

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Men wore sparkling saris, women wore rainbow boas and hundreds of people chanted for gay rights in three Indian cities Sunday in the largest display of gay pride in the deeply conservative country where homosexual acts are illegal.
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Gay rights supporters took to the streets of Calcutta, Bangalore and New Delhi to call for an end to discrimination and push for acceptance in a society where intolerance is widespread.

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“This is a national coming-out party,” Alok Gupta, a lawyer from Mumbai, said as he stood among several hundred activists in New Delhi. “This is a simple thing: We are seeking the right to love.”
Source: Herald Tribune (Emphasis added)

Thaindian News also reports,

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Banners with slogans such as “Drop 377″ (referring to section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that considers homosexuality a crime), “Heterosexuality is not normal, it’s common”, “Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Isai, Hetero-Homo Bhai Bhai” and the likes floated above the hundreds of heads on the roads of Connaught Place, the business district and shopping arcade in the heart of the capital.

(Emphasis added)

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To look at the political angle of the issue and to think of the fate of the petition pending before Delhi High Court seeking unconstitutionality of Section 377 of Indian Penal Code, it is interesting to note that, Mr. Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, a senior leader of India’s main Hindu nationalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, said he opposed the gay activists’ march and called homosexuality “unnatural.”
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And then I find the Hindu extremeist blaming Islam for the plight of homosexuals.

Arranged Marriages ONLY!

No, this is not some kind of religious or cultural proclamation BUT what the Government of India has decided to do for all Indians wishing to get married outside India. They need to get a “No Objection Letter" from both sets of parents. If your parents are deceased, you need to produce a death certificate.

A young Indian couple was shocked when their consulate asked for a 'no-objection letter' from their parents to get married. (Gulf News)

So if you are an Indian wishing to get married at the Indian Consulate under the Special Marriages Act, forget it! No chance unless your parents are happy with the “arrangement”.

Oh, and just to add, there is absolutely nothing we (the non resident Indian community) can do about it.

Where is the Hindu Makkal Katchi now?

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Where is the Hindu Makkal Katchi now?



I saw this bookmark at Landmark and a lot of thoughts came into my mind. The ones I can put down here, I am:



Is the HMK’s ire reserved for western wear only?



Do they target only women?



Do they have a problem only with leg show? Does a sari worn 6 inches below the navel & a shoulderless blouse not irk them at all?

Are they silent because Uncle Pai is the epitome of South Indian Brahmanical “Hinduism”? If they target him, they could end up alienating a load of their own supporters?

Or is it simply because they don’t walk into Landmark? Because they don’t read? At least not in the language that would get them jobs that wold keep them busy!

Any answers?

Secularism amidst Religion

With the kind of religious sentiments I see echoed in some of the blogs here, I thought it would be appropriated to talk about one of the finest gestures by a religious institution. A church here in Chennai has invited a Muslim scholar to deliver a speech on “Islam in the modern age” which deserves applause for its sheer boldnesss.
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“Talk” about being really secular. In a broad minded gesture, a church in Chennai invited a Muslim to deliver a talk on Islam on Friday.
A. Faizur Rahman, who is a student of comparative literature and an executive member of Harmony India, was invited by St. Louis Church, Adyar, to talk on “Islam in the modern age.”
Mr. Rahman, who says he has written a number of articles on Islam and Muslims, was particularly proud of his latest assignment. “It is quite broad-minded of a church to invite a Muslim for a lecture on Islam. I am glad to give the liberal view on Islam and the Quran,” he gushed.
The lecture, which went on for an hour and a half was followed by a rather intense question-answer session, according to Edward Aloysius, one of the parishioners of St. Louis Church. He adds that a group of senior citizens who are parishioners of the church banded together as the Wise Folks Forum struck upon the idea of inviting people from other religions to speak about the key features of their own faiths.
The first topic was Islam and other religions will soon follow, he added.
- The Hindu 21/06/2008

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Let’s face it, today there are sections within every religion who preach religious fanaticism. They not only appraise their own religions( there isn’t much wrong in this) but also denounce other faiths. So it has all added up to create an atmosphere of mistrust amongst people of various faiths. The kind of mistrust that we are actually witnessing all over the country here. Hence this is exactly the kind of thing which would go towards eliminating it. Just imagine a Muslim scholar speaking about Islam and the Kuran to an entirely Christian audience. It would go a long way to removing the misbeliefs that plague the society of today.
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And this is not just an one-off but part of a series of guest lectures where the church has planned to invite scholars from other religions to talk about them and have a frank discussion with them. Ofcourse the entire outcome of the whole process depends on the kind of people handling the issues, but with a good rational dialogue it can only promote religious harmony. I would welcome if things like these were to be encouraged rather than denounced for religious sacrilege which it clearly is not. Yes there might be points argued and questions raised but there can be no better platform to resolve these issues than this kind of interaction. Air your comments on this. Would such a thing really work out in practice? Or am I just being too optimistic?

It’s time to stand up and stand tall

Some time back I participated in a Group Discussion in a Business School based in Bangalore, to talk about one of the Blogging initiatives. Before the GD started, I was chit chatting with the other members and casually mentioned the word alternate to sexuality. One immediately shook her head in serious negation conveying me that I shouldn’t talk about it on the GD. And I didn’t because the context never came.
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Nonetheless, I could never stop frowning upon the shallowness of the matter. ‘Normal’ people under ‘normal’ circumstances cannot talk about Sex, more particularly if it is not heterosexuality. It’s a sad state of affairs but there is little we can do.
That is unless the society gets to see an upsurge of people calling themselves gay / lesbian / transgendered / transexual or simply put NOT heterosexual. Only if the number of people calling themselves queer is large enough and the faces known enough will the society realize it is not something so unnatural after all. And this responsibility lies with the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered) people themselves to come out of their closet and be confident of their sexuality. It’s time to stand up and stand tall.

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I see no reason why, an educated person in a free society, who is independent financially and otherwise and is aware of his/her rights, should shy away or feel guilty of his sexuality. Trust me I have come across such young people who are scared to come out. I think enough have been said and written about LGBT rights already and its high time they start asserting their rights themselves. You can’t seek respect from others unless you respect yourself and resepecting yourself would mean being comfortable with your sexuality.
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In this context is worth mentionable the name Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil from who young queer people in India should gain courage and confidence. Prince Manavendra has set an excellent example by coming out with his homosexuality. Being part of the Royal family in Gujarat one can guess how difficult it must have been for him to come out. Although he initially tried to hide it for many years, he even got married like many Indian gay men do, today he admits he made a terrible mistake. Things have not been easy for him, he was disowned by his parents and the royal name in 2006 when he came out, but now he is reunited with them and is loved and respected by all. Taking lessons from his own life he is now engaged in a lot of social activity for the sexual minorities.
Prince Manavendra is also going to make the nation proud by being one of the three opening speakers at the forthcoming EuroPride 2008 in Stockholm.

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Jonah Nylund, President of Stockholm Pride said, “We have chosen Manvendra Singh Gohil because he can give EuroPride visitors an image of the situation for LGBT people in other parts of the world”
Source:Pink News
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Responsibility also lies with the mainstream media today to provide more respectable visibility to queer people. Such achievement such as that of Prince Manavendra must be reported as a national achievement thus giving confidence to the queer citizen of the country.
Last time another such person made queer activists in India proud was Zoltan Parag by participating in the Mr. Gay International contest. This news should have got enough coverage in the mainstream media but they are politically too weak to call a spade a spade. That said, I find it surprising that Zoltan is concerned that the media has exposed him too much.
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“Indian media has exposed me so much that now when I call my friends back home, their parents do not let them talk to me.” Said Zoltan.
Source: Hindustan Times
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My question, why should he be bothered about how is he looked upon by the heteronormative parents of his friends? No one said it is going to be easy, but you’d have to face it and fight it now instead of being scared.
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Its a popular rumour in Bollywood that Mr. Karan Johar is gay. His films also happen to have, very nicely, placed gay people into the mainstream without ridiculing them. Now if he himself is indeed a gay I think he should just come out with it. I personally have a lot of respect for him and I really hope he is honest about his sexuality.

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The taboos, illusions and ridicule about homosexuality would only end when famous and popular faces would declare themselves as queers. There still has been some progress with Gay men, but there isn’t a single Lesbian celebrity in the country. Rumour has it that Rekha is a lesbian, if she is she should assert it.
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Tehelka here has put in a list of cases where doctors try to cure homosexuality by shock therapy. Such disgusting ideas has to come to an end and it would only happen when more queer people would speak and more voices would be heard.

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Some people are also scared to come out because of a common fear in India about homosexuality being illegal. As unconstitutional and unjust this law is, one still needs to understand homosexuality perse is NOT illegal according to this law. An act of ‘carnal intercourse against order of nature’ is illegal. By this definition anal intercourse even between heterosexual man and a woman would be illegal, however the police of the country has ever since its inception only harassed gay couples, male sex workers using this law. But a fear shouldn’t come in the way of asserting human rights.
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To sum up my point, I’d quote what senior lawyer Anand Grover, of the Lawyers Collective HIV/AIDS unit, said while addressing an issue of unsuspecting gay men / tourist being mugged and blackmailed by showing them the fear of an arrest u/s 377 of IPC:
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“Blackmailers succeed simply because these gay men are too closeted to fight back. It’s this desire for secrecy and fear of being ousted that leaves gays open to grave security risks. The answer is to be more open as you can’t be arrested on the basis of your sexual orientation. Beyond that, there’s little refuge in law unless Section 377 is amended.”

Through a Rapist's Eyes (No Joke)

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This is important information for females of ALL ages .

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Guys - please forward to the female members of your family and all your female friends and associates. When this was sent to me, I was told to forward to my lady friends. My men friends have female friends and this information is too important to miss someone. Please pass it along.

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A group of rapists and date rapists in prison were interviewed on what they look for in a potential victim and here are some interesting facts :

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• 1) The first thing men look for in a potential victim is hairstyle. They are most likely to go after a woman with a ponytail, bun, braid or other hairstyle that can easily be grabbed . They are also likely to go after a woman with long hair. Women with short hair are not common targets.
• 2) The second thing men look for is clothing. They will look for women who's clothing is easy to remove quickly . Many of them carry scissors around specifically to cut clothing.
• 3) They also look for women on their cell phone , searching through their purse or doing other activities while walking because they are off guard and can be easily overpowered.
• 4) Men are most likely to attack & rape in the early morning, between 5: 00a.m. and 8:30a.m.
• 5) The number one place women are abducted from/attacked is grocery store parking lots. Number two is office parking lots/garages . Number three is public restrooms.
• 6) The thing about these men is that they are looking to grab a woman and quickly move her to another location where they don't have to worry about getting caught.
• 7) Only 2% said they carried weapons because rape carries a 3-5 year sentence but rape with a weapon is 15-20 years.
• 8) If you put up any kind of a fight at all, they get discouraged because it only takes a minute or two for them to realize that going after you isn't worth it because it will be time-consuming.
• 9) These men said they would not pick on women who have umbrellas , or other similar objects that can be used from a distance, in their hands.Keys are not a deterrent because you have to get really close to the attacker to use them as a weapon. So, the idea is to convince these guys you're not worth it.
• 10) Several defense mechanisms he taught us are: If someone is following behind you on a street or in a garage or with you in an elevator or stairwell, look them in the face and ask them a question , like what time is it, or make general small talk: "I can't believe it is so cold out here", "we're in for a bad winter." Now you've seen their face and could identify them in a line-up; you lose appeal as a target. [Spencer, Leanne Lentz]
• 11) If someone is coming toward you , hold out your hands in front of you and yell STOP or STAY BACK ! Most of the rapists this man talked to said they'd leave a woman alone if she yelled or showed that she would not be afraid to fight back . Again, they are looking for an EASY target.
• 12) If you carry pepper spray (this instructor was a huge advocate of it and carries it with him wherever he goes,) ! yell I HAVE PEPPER SPRAY and holding it out will be a deterrent.
• 13) If someone grabs you , you can't beat them with strength but you can by outsmarting them . If you are grabbed around the waist from behind, pinch the attacker either under the arm (between the elbow and armpit) OR in the upper inner thigh VERY VERY HARD . One woman in a class this guy taught told him she used the underarm pinch on a guy who was trying to date rape her and was so upset she broke through the skin and tore out muscle strands - the guy needed stitches. Try pinching yourself in those places as hard as you can stand it; it hurts.
• 14) After the initial hit, always GO for the GROIN . I know from a particularly unfortunate experience that if you slap a guy's parts it is extremely painful. You might think that you'll anger the guy and! make him want to hurt you more, but the thing these rapists told our instructor is that they want a woman who will not cause a lot of trouble. Start causing trouble, and he's out of there.
• 15) When the guy puts his hands up to you , grab his first two fingers and bend them back as far as possible with as much pressure pushing down on them as possible . The instructor did it to me without using much pressure, and I ended up on my knees and both knuckles cracked audibly.
• 16) Of course the things we always hear still apply. Always be aware of your surroundings, take someone with you if you can and if you see any odd behavior, don't dismiss it, go with your instincts!!! It may feel a little silly at the time, but you'd feel much worse if the guy really was trouble.

PLEASE READ THEN TELL THIS TO EVERY WOMAN YOU KNOW, IT'S SIMPLE STUFF BUT IT COULD SAVE HER LIFE...