2008 - The End!

If I am asked to recollect my 2008, nothing much is coming into my memory. May be its coz it wasn’t a year packed with incidents. But one thing I am sure of:

2008 wasn’t a great year for me.

First thing that comes to my mind is my serious ligament injury that changed my lifestyle itself. For a moment, I thought

“Was it my decision to live like this? Within the four walls of my apartment?.. See what happened when I became active and started mingling with people, He sent me back saying ‘enough, now my dear son go and rest’” .

But I still have hope.

Mom’s first death anniversary…

The biggest terrorist attack still remains in my head, proving that there is a place for everybody in this world, even for dumb ass religious ones (the other day I read some argument telling God is a Jew! ). I don’t know when such people will start treating humans as humans, with respect.

2008 silently witnessed some titles losing colors. The Punching bag….Tatay (father)…. the Kuya (‘BIG brother’) and the confidante… fading fading fading and then vanishing in the thin air…realities wont lose its worth though we close our eyes to it.

A new friendship burnt out even before blossoming, but leaving some lessons. It was more like a reminder than a new lesson.

The start of a new global economic recession…

Barak Obama became the President of the US.

Played lots of badminton…swam a lot ….(yes, something positive)

Our airport got shifted from heart of the city to a far place! Its over 50 km from my house (well, with better facilities, but still it doesn’t sound good)

2008 was the year that I (sort of) kept away from scriptures of any kind, religious or spiritual practices, stopped my daily rosary, supported some atheists…but today is the end of 2008….it is time for a new beginning…

The Wine Story..

I get many junk posts. When our postal address gets leaked out, it’s quite possible. This is the spam version of the snail mail. The most common junks were from charitable organizations. Then these marketing ones. Such junk posts never gave me any surprise. But today?

It really was a surprise when I got a courier. Yes, it wasn’t a normal post but a courier in my name. It was a special invite to become a founding member….it offered a gift from France too. To become a member of what? A wine society !! And the real surprise is the way they address me:

“ Dear Winelover,” !!!

How did they find out that I am a wine lover? No idea. I am lucky that they did not found that I am yet to taste it. May be next time they will send a bottle of wine itself….Who knows?

Merry Christmas !

What is Merry Christmas?

It looks like it can vary from people to people and their perception. But for me, it was very simple. Today is Christmas and my friends gave me a reason to be merry.

Merry Christmas.

Charcoal's Holiday

Another week starts, which is the only full week of the year 2008. In ten days, 2008 goes as a memory. This week will start the holiday season, the biggest commercial holiday season every year has got. Most of my friends will go for vacations. For a person like me, who mostly depend the virtual world for friendship, it might look like ‘oh, something is missing here’. May be or may be not.

So, how will I spent these holiday season? I don’t know yet. I might answer more questions in Yahoo Answer….or may be I will go ahead with learning my programming. Anyway, I have to spend some decent amount of time preparing some question papers and study materials for my son… yes, 10 days will fly just like that. Emotionally, I wish to spend this holiday with a couple of my friends who can’t afford ‘celebrations’. This reminded me of a fact. The poor remains as poor, irrespective of caste, creed, religion or country. People and communities have got funds to spread and impose their faith on to others who don’t believe in that, even at the cost of disturbing the peace of the society. They are gifted with ‘long sight’. They can’t see people who are near them and they have long term goals.

This year, I was more comfortable facing the popular question of ‘why don’t YOU celebrate OUR festival’. I wonder why people can’t understand such simple things. Why doesn’t USA celebrate India’s Independence Day? The logic is so simple..

I want to leave a very small note to a friend of mine, though we are not friends anymore. There was a special moment this week and that was the only moment that pained me, this whole week:

“Friend, you could have at least shown the courtesy to utter one word ‘ Thanks’, when I greeted you for the biggest festival of yours. I understand that it’s nothing but religion that made you wise enough to push me away. But I want to tell you one thing. When I look at your face, I see a friend and not your religion. May be one day you will realize that this virtual man had a heart which understands love that give friendships a meaning. It is easy to preach love but hard to practice. All the best.”

I might look like a charcoal. But at least that is external. Thank God !

An Old Mail to An Old friend..

An old mail to an old friend at a not so old day

........

Since I did not come online yesterday, I had lots of mails to check (not from friends, I hardly get any mail from friends) ..mostly from our residents association forum , then those news letters I subscribe, then this spam mails…now its all over… yes, I did not come online yesterday coz I wasn’t feeling that well. Both physically and mentally or may be more mentally than physically, I don’t know. Now I feel very much better, though there is this nagging headache. As I said, I wasn’t angry with you..after all, I didn’t even knew that you might talk to me yesterday. Usually, its me who gets avoided and I don’t avoid people around me..that’s not my cup of tea. I think I better train my mind…I better get used to this virtual world and its code of contact. This virtual world is not always the right place for an emotional being like me. I know that, but still, sometimes mind hesitates to accept it. or may be it takes sometime for it..How do I know where I stand in the priority list of those around me? I felt silly, but at least I realized it..I understood what I am…I did not try to pretend or fake..that is better than many around….Don’t think I am talking about you, but am talking in general....

Craig Ewert and A Suicide That Sold Out..

Around the world, reality shows are very popular, these days. The other day there happened one such show in a British TV (Sky TV’s Real Lives digital channel). Nobody ever saw such a reality show in their life. It was a suicide. An assisted suicide, to be precise. It (the documentary) was directed by an Oscar winning director, John Zaritsky.

Craig Ewert, a Computer Scientist from the US underwent an assisted suicide in a Swiss euthanasia clinic. His wife was with him, by his side. He was suffering from a degenerative neuron disease which destroys cells that control essential muscle activity such as speaking, walking, breathing and swallowing. He he wanted to televise his death.

He said:

“If I go through with it, I die as I must at some point, If I don’t go through with it, my choice is essentially to suffer, and to inflict suffering on my family, and then die.”

“Some people might say no, suicide is wrong, God has forbidden it. Fine, but you know what? This ventilator is God.”

“I see the plants, and they’re dying, and I’m dying too..” “They’ll be coming back next spring — I’m unlikely to.”

“I think I can take my bow, and say: Thanks, it’s been fun.”

“I would hope that this is not a cause of major distress to those who love me, this is a journey I must make.”

“My dear sweet wife will have the greatest loss, as we have been together for 37 years in the greatest intimacy.”

Yes, he has reasons and it has a message too.

And says his wife:

“He was keen to have it shown because when death is hidden and private, people don’t face their fears about it..”

As a last thing, before he died, his wife told him, with tears:

“Have a safe journey, see you sometime.”

(This really touched my heart and made me sad…I think she loved him very much)

And the Director of the documentary, John Zaritsky said it would have been “less than honest” to make the film without showing the actual suicide because it would have left viewers wondering if the death was unpleasant, cruel, or carried out against Ewert’s will.

Obviously, there were some protests and some even called the TV as ‘Suicide TV’.

Hope somebody will not hire some television crew tomorrow and do a live suicide by hanging from the ceiling fan! Coz the media is ready do anything that sells…..

(May Craig Ewert's soul rest in peace. God bless! )

Finally 3G !

Finally, yes FINALLY, India goes 3G. Yesterday the Prime Minister inaugurated the first 3G service in India. A proud moment, of course. But…

But our politicians should be ashamed of delaying it for such a long period. India is world’s number one software provider (currently) and when technology coming to India, we are years behind even to (many) smaller Asian and Middle East countries.

Strange

Strange, she came to my dream or may be I dreamt of her…whatever. I never was thinking of her in the recent days. But it made me happy. She was my best friend, some long years ago. She looked the same as if she did not age. I know it’s not for real. She can’t be like that now. Good that, in our dreams and memory, people stays just like how they were when we saw them last. They always stay young.

And our physical body? What is strange about it?

Every second new cells are being created and old ones die. But we don’t look new, but we get old. We are getting older and older with the help of newer and newer cells.

God and His ways, it’s all strange…

Being Busy...

What is being busy?

I thought of it when it took a week for a friend of mine to give a reply to my mail…when it took a day for me to give a reply to another friend…when I did not get any reply (for my mail) from another one…when it took two days to get an SMS reply…when I did not get any response to an SMS of mine….

Is it a doctor getting more patients in the case of a doc? Is it a data entry operator having more data to enter? Is it a swimmer has to swim more laps? Is it a programmer getting more stuff to code? A teacher has to give extra lessons? A baker getting more orders?....Does it always mean more work?

Those situations will make them busy, but…

But in reality, being busy is we just getting occupied in some way. We not responding to something has a lot do with our personal priorities. Sometimes it even can be watching a movie for second or third time or reading a book…

Strange, but sometimes being busy is just being busy…

Beauty, Handsome and a Beholder

I am one such person who believes that there exist different types of people in this world. Not just people (and their shape) but culture, eating habit, the way they dress ….. every aspect of human life. And I study people too. This is my blog and I can write whatever I want. But this is not a place to criticize any particular person, especially my friends. But still, there are some limits, right?

Among the people types around me, mostly it is ‘I don’t care’ types. So whenever I end-up in situations where they show the ‘I don’t care’ attitude, I won’t get surprised. But this time, it was a surprise, a real surprise.

It is said that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. But dose it men that there is no ‘international standard’ for it? Yesterday I thought about it bit seriously.

Yes, there are different types of people in this world and their view on beauty can be different. I have seen girls cutting short their beautiful hair and trying to make it ‘more beautiful’. I personally don’t like women sporting men’s hair style. In some cases, when they cut it too short, some people even look like as if they are mentally ill. God did not make any mistake by giving women more hair than men (and He keeps that hair from getting bald too- in general).

Coming back to the ‘beauty is in the eyes of the beholder’ thing and the surprise element. I happened to talk about a Pilipino movie, its actor and its actress to a Pilipino lady. The lead actor or hero was John Lloyd Cruz opposite to Sarah Geronimo. I introduced John as one of the most handsome Pilipino and Sarah as a beautiful and cute lady. Then came the real surprise.

“I don’t think he is that handsome” she was referring to John
“I don’t think Sarah is cute”. She wasn’t even convinced of Sarah’s beauty.

I know some people who don’t like Filipinos. If the comment was from one such person, it wasn’t a surprise, but this is from a Filipino itself.

I am not a gay and hence I don’t get attracted to men in that angle. If John is not handsome, who is handsome? If john is not a handsome Pilipino, no man in this world is handsome. For me, it’s as simple as that.

John

If I am remembering correctly, the person who made this surprising comment considers herself as beautiful. I wanted to convince myself before I write this. So I did a small exercise.

In my social network portal, I have about 124 acquaintances. Out of that, over 100 of them are Filipinos. I checked each and every profile and then, many of their friends (my secondary acquaintances). I did not find a guy as handsome as John. There were beautiful girls but I wasn’t looking for the Gemma Atkinson (or Pamela) aspect of Sarah. That aspect is not that which makes a girl cute.

Sarah

I got convinced myself that Sarah Geronimo IS a beautiful Filipina without any doubt. And we need to accept another fact that she was voted as the third most beautiful woman in her country (in 2006).

And I got convinced that beauty is really in the eyes of the beholder…

But still, there is a limit, no?

Hapi Hapi December

Hapi hapi December, she is hapi in December
She is so excited coz Xmas is on her way
She is singing, she is dancing
She is jumping, she is hoping..
Hapi Hapi December, she is hapi in December

Good Night !

Thank you Lord for the food I ate
Thank you God for the lovely treat
Thank you Lord for the ache you gave
Thank you God for the friend you gave

Bleeding Hearts

Things around him were normal
It had all the normal abnormalities
He could still feel those rules
He could still see those laws
Sometimes, or may be many times
He used to think of it – ‘why’?
Their Do’s were his Don’ts .
He woke up with a hope
He hoped that the world will change one day
And today can be that day, he hoped.
But he did not see any change, today.
Their Do’s were still his Don’ts.
He gathered courage and asked:
'Why did you come close to me and
Why did you come close to my heart?'
Answer wasn’t sufferable for him, but
He remembered the preacher of love and
The bleeding heart given by his pal
It was one among the twelve, yes
It was from one among the twelve.
“I came close to you, because,
I can push you down, and
I came close to your heart,
So that I can break your heart”

Mumbai, 9/11, Terrorist Attack, Pakistan and Israel

I wished to register my concern over the latest terror attack that happened in India, on the same day itself. Then I thought it is too early to comment on it, though it was the worst I have ever seen happening in India.

But I can’t help comment on two things. One, how it’s being reported in Pakistan by most of their media and secondly, some comments by some ‘Israeli Expert’ about how the situation was handled.

About the Pakistan media.

Thy reported it as its being carried out by Hindu terrorists. Absolute nonsense. The most stupid thing I have ever read recently.

They need to understand that there is nothing like Hindu terrorism. Hindu’s don’t have any such enemy to fight with. We are matured enough to respect any other religion that exists in this world or which are going to come. I agree that there are some Hindu extreme groups in India. They are not terrorists. Extremism and Terrorism has difference. What is happening in Thailand now is not terrorism, though one sees violence.

Look at some of the facts:

One terrorist has been caught alive and he himself admitted that he is a Pakistani and they came from Karachi, Pakistan, by sea route.

Intelligence department successfully intercepted (and recorded) the communication between terrorists and they spoke the Pakistani Punjabi with their accent.

He admitted that he is part of LeT, which is a muslim terrorist group.

The mobile phone recovered from the terrorists clearly shows they were in constant touch with somebody in Pakistan.

Look at the names of these terrorists – Abu Ali, Omar Shoib, Umer, Abu Ismail, Abdul Rehman… dose it sound like Hindu names?

They killed Jews deliberately; Hindus here don’t have any issues with Jews at all

They were very well trained (no nation offers such a training for a ‘Hindu terrorist’, in this world)

Their mobile phones (unfortunately for them, they could not clear the call history before they got hit by the commandos), the SIM cards, the GPS device used by them, the credit cards – these are all solid evidences and they did not even point to India.

Some Pakistanis reacted in a strange way - India is just blaming Pakistan as if they want a war with them and says ‘BRING IT ON’

Dear friend, we Indians don’t fancy war with anybody. In the history of India, we never attacked any other nation. And don’t get carried away by the act of these terrorists. So far, India and Pak fought 3 wars (including the one lead by Musharaf in Kargil) and all the time it was India who won.

Now about the Israeli Expert.

I understand that it’s by somebody who was a former official from the Israeli anti terror agency. Well, that means he is supposed to be an expert where as I am not at all an expert in fighting terrorism. His allegation is India’s fight back was ‘Ineffective, premature, too early firing’ etc etc

We all know why Israel responded to the terror attack. Its coz some Jews got killed which included a Rabbi.

I don’t know whether he did watch the live telecast by the media (not just Indian ones but international ones too did live telecast). I did. This was for the first time in my life that I spent this much of time in front of the TV. For the past three days, I got only 8-9 hours of sleep. I was following it up for about 20 hours or more a day.

Once the operation was over at the Jewish building, it was found that the Rabbi was the one who got killed first. That means the terrorist killed him very early, just coz he is a Jew and then he was a Rabbi. If that expert thinks if he was there he could have saved the Jews, he is living in Utopian world and underestimating the skills of the terrorist and the training they got from real professional agencies.

The terrorist came here to kill people. That includes Indians, westerners and yes Jews too. This Jewish institution was selected as a target months ago (as per the admittance of the caught terrorist). This is India and not Israel. We can not make out the difference between a Pakistani and Indian from their looks. Those guys visited this place months ago and planned this act.

That building is in thickly populated and congested area. Not even a single civilian or hostage got killed by the bullet from the commandos. And the commandos did not give any priority to save Indians or Hindus. They did not show any partiality and it is mostly Indians who lost their lives.

It is very easy to blame Indian agencies sitting in some other country. When dead bodies were taken out from the Taj Hotel, it was found that some of them already started decomposing. What does it mean? It clearly shows that terrorists killed many of them very early (it took 60 hours to flush out them).

Why this operation took this much of time? First of all, terrorist were very heavily armed. The checked into the hotel days ago, smuggled in all the arms and explosives well in advance. They had enough stuffs to blow up the entire hotel. The hotel has about 500 rooms. Terrorists had clear idea about the layout of the hotel since they studied it using various methods and then staying as inmates. Terrorist had hostages with them. Commandos had to open up each and every room with the master key, since inmates hesitated to open the door since they were not sure whether it’s the terrorists or the police who are knocking. Then they had to check the credentials of every inmate before taking them out. In some cases, commandos forcefully opened the doors. Every inmate who was rescued were personally accompanied by commandos till the ground floor. Their priority was to rescue as many hostages as possible than risking everything and kill the terrorists. Finally they did foil the terrorist’s plan to blow up the entire hotel.

So, common sense will tell why it took so long. But yes, there was a shameful delay in starting the operations (Shame on you dirty politicians plus bureaucrats and your system).

Mikaeel Jackson !?

It’s official now. We are hearing about this since couple of years. The king of pop got converted into Islam, “the religion of peace”. Michael Jackson is Mikaeel now (I don’t know what happened to the Jackson part, though I read over 5 reports, nobody says anything about it). Some reports say he even bought a palace in Bahrain and donated huge amount to build a mosque near his new residence. (He needed lots of money to settle two cases against him (including child molestation) and he even ended up in debts. Finally he sold his multi million estate in California). I don’t know what made him change his religion. I even doubt whether he had gone through Holy Koran.

What do people think about his brand new faith? I read lots of comments from common people in many different sites. Muslims invited him. Some people wrote against him but the funniest thing I read is by one of his fans. He said he is going to throw away all his Michael Jackson collections. Can Islam offer peace to Jackson?

Terror makes people think of peace.

Atheism and Two of a Kind

One among the most popular atheists this world had seen is Karl Marx. A socialist and an anti-capitalist. He was brainy too. Then there is this man who changed this whole world with his technology, Bill Gates. A capitalist, from world’s number one capitalist country. Two people with one common thing, but with diverse thought patterns.

Bill Gates doesn’t believe in the conventional God theory. And hence this philanthropist doesn't extent his help or service in exchange of religion. He is very logical (obviously). A logical mind naturally hesitates to accept most of the God stories (but I think Gates has very good idea about most of these stories - the why is it there aspect)

I have observed one thing in many (successful) atheists, they believe in themselves. Their belief in their ‘self’ is very strong.

May be its unfortunate that they don’t realize that believing in the self is one way of believing in God and they are closer to understanding God than the conventional believers. (am not referring to the God of common man’s God theory).

Are they better believers than the believers? Aren’t they better humans than many believers?

Coping with Stress at Work

I wrote about stress sometime back. But thought of it again, since a friend of mine was under stress for many weeks. Many a times a promotion comes with more work and responsibility, and more stress to offer. That was what happened here.

There are many ‘usually unnoticed’ factors or stressors in our working environment which can give us stress:

Noise
Congested working area
Very bright lights
Interacting with rude, impolite, uncouth and bossy people
Insecurity of job
Traffic jams and other commuting problems
Taking too much coffee
Company rules and regulations (eg. waiting for their work getting audited etc)
Hectic schedule (mainly with people who don’t know how to manage time)
Overloaded with work
Deadlines
Gossips and negative thoughts
Taking things personally
Being workaholic
Appraisals
Peer competition (competition among people of same level)
Internal politics
Where one has to report to less competitive/capable people (who reach that position by playing politics)
Meetings which leading to nowhere ….

How to handle this?

In many cases we can not change the system or environment. So what we can do is coping it with some life style changes and adjustments. There are many small things that can give good results. Like:

Yoga
Breathing exercises
Taking breaks and going for vacation (not too frequently)
Getting fresh air
Regular physical exercise
Getting enough sleep at night
Including more fresh food in diet (than canned ones, ready made ones, fast foods etc)
Pampering yourself once in a while with massage or similar stuff
Keeping a pet (if you are a pet lover)
Be with nature (at least in my city, it still has lots of trees)
Go to parks and look at the trees and listen to the birds chirping or attend to any natural sound
Have some hobby
Spent some time with friends
When you eat, try to taste the food and enjoy it
Learn relaxation techniques
Practice deep breathing at work, at least a couple of times (if you don’t get any chance, at least fake a ‘I need to use the restroom’)


....coz stress is a silent killer

Good Name

“What is your good name?” Does anybody ask that way?

Yes, sometimes it happens in India. I remember one of my English teachers telling us that it’s a wrong usage in English.

Today I got reminded of this class room session when I read a sarcastic writing by someone who visited India and got surprised by this ‘good name’ thing.

What does it mean? Does it mean that you have two names – one is good and the other one is bad? Nope.

There is a usage in Hindi ‘ Aap ka shubh naam kya hai?’

(aap ka - your; subh – good; naam - name; kya – what ; hai – is )

In Hindi, there are three forms of ‘You’. “Tu” is used to address younger ones or between close friends of equal age. “Tum” is used to address people of same age or even elders, in some cases (eg. a servant who is elder to us). “Aap” is the most respectful form of You. This is used to address the elderly persons, people we want to/have to address with respect etc. But in many civilized families/royal families, they use this even to address younger ones.

So, when somebody is using ‘Aap’ to address you, it should be understood that they are addressing you with most respect. And then comes the good name part. There is this belief in Hindu tradition that all the names we use are just attributes of God’s name. Any name is God’s name, and hence it’s a good name. So, ‘good name’ usage is just asking your name with respect. And this doesn’t mean that you have a bad name too.

Obviously there are people who might ask:

“If all names are good names, why you want to specify it?”

Pope is considered as a holy person. We all know that. Not just one particular pope, but anybody who takes that post. Then why do we need to address him as His Holiness? After all, he is not holier than the Jesus himself (addressed by most of the Christians as just Jesus). Then why? Is that wrong then? Nope. Coz, that is the tradition.

During last month, I read a study which says any two humans in this world can be connected with the help of less than 10 people in between. For example any of my friends can be connected to the CEO of Hewlett Packard thru me. So, the world is becoming small and humans are coming closer. People travel extensively to many parts of the world. Travelling to the USA was a very big thing during my childhood. But now? My brother-in-law travels to the US 4-5 times a year. My son had been to US and Canada. So, that’s how things are these days.

So, if somebody thinks only their customs and way of living is right, that is wrong. When such a thought comes from somebody who is a believer in God, it turns ugly. We need to understand that there exists a world other than our little town. There are thousands of other languages, millions of recipes, thousands of traditional dress forms, thousands of human names, even in the same family members look different, hundreds of forms of worshiping the God……. This world has diversity, coz God loves fun and he did not want to make this place a boring one with only one kind of people and culture.

So, it is better we have some respect for the other fellow humans in this planet irrespective of their country of origin and culture. It is better we don’t laugh at other people’s customs or traditions. Its better we don’t think people from other countries are just stupid. That will only show the level of one’s ignorance. Coz, its all created by a single God (or Nature or Super Natural Force or Higher form of Energy or whatever, but with a reason).

of 'Kind of' Situations ...

There is this theory of us creating situations in our life.

Yesterday I dated numerology. Numerology or any other branch of astrology is quite enough to throw doubt wrt the situation theory. So, let me date something else today. Putting our head into too many things at a time can also make us confused. (This doesn’t mean that one should not do that. It all depends on your ability to multitask). May be this confusion is coz we don’t understand things at the deepest level. But who understands things in a deepest level? Almost nobody.

When our understanding (I mean knowledge) about something (anything - a tree, a seed, a fish, a stone, a cat, a bacterium, a virus, a planet….) becomes 100%, we equal that with the creator. And when that happens it results in a BIG surprise and then WE or I won’t exist anymore.

But the thing is not that. Its about us creating situations. As a Reiki man, I am supposed to believe in that. We can not be sincere to something if we don’t believe in it. If we cant believe 100%, at least don’t start doubting it. In my case, as a man of confusion, I shift the thoughts to fit the situation. When am on Reiki mode, I don’t doubt and when I am in a mood to question astrology, I dare doubting.

I have seen situations being created and happening. But again, the thing is not that. Situations that I did not expect or did not wanted to happen. I did not keep a thought like ‘ I don’t want that situation’ (yep, that has a funny effect). Sometimes such situations lead to misunderstandings and can even weaken relationships where the bond is not strong. One such thing happened the other day, though its silly as an incident.

I was telling to one of my social network friends that I don’t have much (true) friends there.

Then she visits my profile (usually she don't do that or leaves any comment) and with her own eyes views some comments which showed some intimacy. The worst, one of them was ‘ I love you’ ! I don't think I ever got such a one till that day.

And she says ‘ hmm I think you have lots of fans there’

She had visible things to counter my statement.

My ‘they are fake’ explanation wasn’t of much use. Why should somebody post such a fake comment there? Even I don’t understand how people can become such fakes.

I felt helpless. How was my relationship with that person who posted that? We don’t chat, We don’t exchange messages, I don’t have any idea about her other than her profile info. She don’t know anything about me or my family other than my profile info. We aren't even good friends. Still why some people post such comments?

If we look into the details, we can see some people posting the single comment to all their contacts (both male and female) for a particular day. Some posts same comment for a bunch of people. Many a times, the words don’t really MEAN anything. It won’t be coming from their heart. They don’t take this as something serious. Its just fun and time pass. And yes, they did not mean any harm too (talking in general).

At the end? I think she might have thought that it’s me who is pretending… very funny…

I had nothing to say.

It’s up to us to decide to what extend we want to understand others. Sometimes we need to take some extra effort to understand our friends (only if somebody is serious), else it can lead to many misunderstandings.

But the thing is not that..The situation.. Who created it?

Not meeeeeeeeee

("well well well... I seeee" says the man of confusion)

An Email to God

Dearest God,

I have couple of friends who live abroad (don’t ask me what is abroad and try to be funny. You know what I mean). I wish to visit them when I have some hair left on my head. So, you have two choices left.

Arrange funds right away
Re-grow my hair

Thanks! Do take care..

BIG HUGS,

Love,

Jay

Goodbye Sourav !

Farewell to you, Sourav.

It was so nice to see you captaining the team on your last match. And we won the test defeating Australia. Not just test, but we won the series and the Border-Gavaskar trophy comes to us. Thanks a lot for heading this historic win. Wishing you everything best in your future life.

It will be unfair if I don’t mention Dhoni. You are so sweet to hand over the captain’s cap to Sourav. I don’t know whether somebody else could do that. That’s Dhoni.. Keep it up..

Lies Hurt...

Today, two of my friends lied to me. And I felt hurt. I just want to throw it away. But there is nobody (human) to listen to me. So thought I just write it here, straightaway…Its not a complaint…No, I don’t have any complaints..

Now it became more clear to me why and how the ‘stamps’ originated…why registered letters originated…in the electronic era, why mail clients implemented acknowledgement option..and so on.

This reminds me of one of the biggest lies I ever faced. A person asks me to wait at a particular place by 9 am. I, along with my brother-in-law arrive there at 8.45 and waits till 9.30. He did not turn up. Brother-in-law calls up and fixes another appointment and we wait another day. He came and asked me:

“Why you did not come the other day?”

“WHAT? We came on time and waited half an hour. Its YOU who did not turn up”

“NO, I came exactly at 9 YOU did not come.”

“You are lying” there was a change in my tone and my brother-in-law interferes and tells:

“Hey, it’s ok, drop it”

Lies can weaken any relationship, including friendships. Lies when found out causes losing respect. It builds up a gap. Once your lie is caught, you can hardly pretend. And even if you pretend, it won’t look nice; in fact it might look ugly. If you cant help lying, use lies that go with the other person’s intellect and don’t just try to fool others. Before you lie about things where technology is involved, be a little more careful. If the other person is technically good, respect that instead of telling more lies to cover the first one. Coz, for those who have a heat that can feel,

It really hurts…

How to find Yahoo Avatar?

Is it possible to find the yahoo avatar/display image of someone who is not my contact?

Oh yeah… it doesn’t matter whether somebody is your contact or not. Yahoo is a socialist in this aspect. It should work if they don’t change the server. You can use any browser. Just type in the following URL.

http://img.msg.yahoo.com/avatar.php?yids=?(id you want to check)

That is, if the user id you want to check is ‘ yahoo25’, it should be:

http://img.msg.yahoo.com/avatar.php?yids=?yahoo25

Why Knuckle Pop?

“What is that sound we hear when we crack our knuckle?”

I remember my son asking me this, couple of years ago…

I had asked this very same question when I was a kid. That time, I got different answers. Some
said its bones sliding over…some said they don’t know…Some said its a bad habit…Some, told me that it would lead to arthritis and hence asked me to not to do that. But what is the reality?
Instead of telling what not it is, it is better we understand what it is. Simply put, that sound is coz of some gas bubble (mostly nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide) bursting.

Knuckle is a joint and just like any other joint its covered by a capsule form which is called synovial capsule. Inside this capsule there is some fluid called synovial fluid. The major function of this fluid is lubrication. There are many gases dissolved in this fluid. When we crack a knuckle, we stretch the capsule that creates a low pressure inside the joint which results in a vacuum and some already dissolved gas gets released. This vacuum then gets filled by these gases which then form a bubble and finally bursts (at the peak of we applying the pressure to crack) resulting into that funny sound. It take some time for the process of gas getting dissolved in the synovial fluid again and hence we cant crack a knuckle immediately.

Now the ‘what is not’ part. As I mentioned earlier, some people even told me its coz of the ends of two bones touching and slipping over and hence it will lead to arthritis. As far as the bones touching part is concerned, it is wrong. Will it lead to arthritis? As of now, we can’t say. Coz nobody has done a solid study which resulted in sufficient data to prove it. But the health pro people thinks that habitual knuckle cracking can lead to some damage to tendons or ligaments (this can further lead to arthritis, depending on many other factors like age, nature of work etc - a possibility, since that is the case with knee joints ).

I remember, when I was practicing Karate, during the warm-up stretches we used to interlink our fingers and stretch the hand forward resulting in knuckle cracking. Why we do this is coz this makes that joints little more lose and thus flexible. This is not believed to be harmful.

Celeb Me

I live in a small physical world. I don’t have any friends or collogues around me. I don’t even have any relatives around me with whom I am in touch with. But that wasn’t the story before I move into this city. I had a life of a normal office going man. That is not the thing. The thing is the BIG people in the life of this little man. Yes, I happened to have some connections (or memories, better put) with some big and small celebrities in my life so far.

Let me keep aside my Guru from this, the biggest global celebrity this century has seen or the celebrity of celebrities. I know he don’t mind that.

There was this film star called Prem Nazir . He was the biggest name in the Malayalam film industry, as an actor. He holds two Guinness records. One for being the lead actor in most number of films (over 700) and another one for acting opposite to same heroine (more than 100 films). I think he is the first celebrity I could see very close. His sister was living in my neighborhood. One day when I was passing that house and there he stands ! It was a real shock and surprise for me. I think it was a private visit and that is the reason why there weren’t any fans or police.

Then this ‘Thikkurissi’ Sukumaran Nair. He was a poet, actor, playwright, orator, film director etc. Though I never was a fan of his, I had the opportunity to see him up close and even visit his house. The other celebrity who is almost like him (writer, actor, lyricist, director etc etc) and I had seen is Balachandra Menon. Once I had been to his house to collect some funds in connection with some social activity.

The poet and lyricist Bichu Thirumala and then this music director Mohan Sithara, they lived in my neighborhood, for sometime. How can I forget Prof.O.N.V.? The great poet, lyricist and professor.. He was my sister’s professor. I had seen him so many times and I used to greet him. Same is the case with Prof.Vishnu Narayanan Namboothiri…

My State has a long history of social activity related plays which had strong roots to communism. KPAC was the main drama troupe to mention in this connection. When we remember KPAC, we can’t ignore K.S. George. He lived as my neighbor for sometime and his son, Lezy George was my guitar teacher. He wasn’t just a tutor for me and I used to call him ‘Ichayan’ which means elder brother in Christian community of my State.

Last, but NOT the least comes the international figure. Dr.Jane Goodall, the world known primatologist and anthropologist. She is more known for her 45 years of study of Chimpanzee. I got an opportunity to see her close, when I attended a Science and Spirituality open conference.

Sorry, but I want to ignore the politicians I have seen and even spoken to in my life so far, though one even became a minister…

Keygen

How are keygens made?

Ok, applications which ask for a serial number knows which right ones are or which are wrong ones. That means there is some mechanism (a chunk of code) which compares the serial we enter with ‘something’. Here, what is important is that something, which is a valid key/serial.

There are applications like SoftICE (a debugger) which can be used to ‘open’ the application, (or the exe file) and see the code in assembly language. And it allows to keep a break point when this comparison is done. That is, when you enter the serial and when the application compares this with something, the control goes back to the SoftICE and one can see the code.

So, is it that easy? Nope. Many a times some number or alpha numeral is generated using some tough logic. So, it all depends on how well one can understand this part. Then the programmer uses his/her favorite programming language (mostly C (family), VB or Delphi) to code a keygen . Usually they make use of windows API/dll and link them dynamically to make the size of the keygen tiny.

Black Man in the White House..

I wished so…I wanted it to be…and I knew it…

Its Barack Obama. He became the first African American president of the U.S…... Congratulations..

I was just listening to the first public speech given by him after him being elected as the President. Wow! What an orator he is. What a public speaker!

No idea whether he will be as friendly as Bush or Clinton, but we the Indians preferred Obama to win. He carried a lucky charm given to him by the American Indians, the idol of Ganesha, who is the destroyer of obstacles. There were prayers and poojas offered for him in lots of Temples. Personally, I too prayed for him.

It’s a good sign that the people of U.S thought against skin color. He wouldn’t have won had the whites did not vote for him. It’s a comprehensive win and it shows he got lots of white vote (it is said that half the whites voted for him).

It was really surprising for me that some people, who are not considered as white by the real whites, even questioned the purity of his blood. For a moment, I was thinking ‘Are we going back to the Nazi era?’

Is Hitler back? He is not dead.. He still lives in the hearts of many.

Trans Fat

Continued from cholesterol blog..

Is it possible for a common man to understand what Trans fat is? We all are told to avoid it. But if we can’t understand what it is, how can we avoid it? For people from developed countries, it is not that difficult but for others, it’s not that easy, coz it may not be shown on the label.

A major reason for heart related diseases (coronary heart disease (CHD) or coronary artery disease (CAD) whatever it is) is high blood cholesterol and this trans fat is one major contributor to it. And that is the reason why it is said to avoid it or ‘have an eye’ on it. Take the case of the U.S (it is easy to get health related data from that country, coz they HAVE something like that.) it is said that more than 14 million Americans suffer form coronary heart diseases and 500,000 die each year. If that is the case with America, we can guess what it will be like in other underdeveloped nations.

If it is THAT dangerous, why is it still available in the market? Why don’t governments restrict its manufacturing? Why don’t governments keep its price high, so that its misuse will be less? This is the ‘I don’t know’ part for me, as of now.

Understanding these fatty acids are not that easy… Why? Coz, it has a lot to do with chemical bonds.

This is not a scientific article and hence I am not bothered about the deeper aspects, or the carbon-hydrogen bonds. Lets look it from layman’s point of view. Fats (or fatty acids) are mainly classified as ‘saturated’ and ‘unsaturated’ (which again divided into monounsaturated and polyunsaturated). Technically, the major difference between these two is that, in unsaturated fats, there is no ‘double bond’ between the carbon atoms, if we check the chemical structure. How can we find that? Not easy and hence what is used is a different method, to easily distinguish them.

In general, naturally occurring saturated fats (or oils) becomes solid when cooled (congeals) or kept at room temperature (assuming that the room temperature is not too high). Examples are animal fat found in meat and poultry or dairy products. Unsaturated fat (oils) stays as liquid. Best example is olive oil (and many other vegetable oils).

Then where do trans fat stand?

They are actually unsaturated vegetable oil but its not naturally occurring. What they do is to add hydrogen into vegetable oil (under pressure) and thus makes them ‘more saturated’ (with hydrogen) than its natural state. Thus trans fats are man-made (its natural presence is in very little quantities, otherwise). Because of this process, these oils are commonly known as hydrogenated ( or partially hydrogenated )which tells us that hydrogen is added to it. If any label says 'Partially hydrogenated oil' it means it contains trans fat.

If they are not good, why are they used?

Hydrogenation increases the shelf life of food made out of trans fat oils (mainly used in baking and frying). It also helps to stabilize flavor. And many a times, its used instead of saturated fats, as an alternative or as a better option.

The main source of trans fats are cakes, cookies, crackers, pies, bread, animal products, margarine, fried potato, potato chips etc

Among vegetable oils, coconut oil and palm kernel oil are said to be saturated and hence avoided. (I was using coconut oil continuously for 30 years -and my mom for 76 years- so if anybody is using it, don’t get panic, you still have time to shift to another oil)

So, a healthy person should limit the use of saturated fats, trans fats and cholesterol. And someone who already has high blood cholesterol should try to avoid these, to the extent possible.

A Halloween...

Am taking off the blog titled ‘A Halloween I Don’t Understand’. Coz, the issue got settled between us…

Cholesterol

If cholesterol is manufactured in our body itself, why does it go high? Why is it said to avoid fat when there is high blood cholesterol?

Yes, it is the function of the liver to make cholesterol but our body makes more of it when we (over )eat with fat (And in some people, this excess production of cholesterol happens by heredity). Plus, our body is capable of absorbing it from food we eat, though in very small quantities.

When we talk about blood cholesterol, we can not ignore the two main players. LDL and HDL. What are they?

Cholesterol is fat soluble and since blood is not such a medium, it won’t get dissolved in blood and move around. So, our body has a mechanism to carry the cholesterol through blood. It is done by attaching them to protein. This combination is called Lipoproteins. LDL is Low Density Lipoprotein and obviously, HDL is High Density Lipoprotein. In between comes a third one called Very Low Density Lipoprotein or VLDL.

So, LDL and HDL are not fully cholesterol but if we want to measure the cholesterol levels in our blood we have to measure lipoproteins, since cholesterol is attached to them and they are the transporters. And we call them ‘cholesterol’ in general.

LDL is considered as bad mainly coz it clogs the blood vessels. It builds up in the wall making the arteries narrow.

Where as HDL picks up the excess cholesterol in the blood and takes it back to liver. Since its doing a good deed, it’s good cholesterol.

Now it’s clear that why LDL levels should be low and HDL levels should be high.

Then from where does this Triglycerides come from? Why do docs check that?

This is a kind of fat and the specialty of this fat is that more we gain excess weight, more production in our body. There are many other factors that influence the excess production of triglycerides, like smoking, (alcohol) drinking etc. What is observed in general is that people with high triglycerides has high LDL and low HDL and a high total cholesterol level. That is why measuring this is also very important.

Here are the normal values, measured in milligram per deciliter

Total blood cholesterol – less then 200 mg/dL
HDL – 40-50 for men and 50-60 mg/dL for women
DL – less than 100 mg/dL is ideal.
Triglyceride – less than 150 mg/dL

So, should we completely avoid oil, meat and eggs?

What matters is the daily average (usually calculated on a weekly basis). That is, if we included (full) egg for breakfast for two days, and then had fish, lean meat, whole grains, fruits and vegetables for the rest of the days (for all meals), the daily average wont shoot up.

When we gain weight, all other organs wont grow/adapt to it accordingly, especially the heart which is the main organ affected by the extra cholesterol. It won’t develop any extra pumping capability. It doesn’t have any turbo mode. So, when the blood pipes get clogged and becomes narrow, it’s a strain for our heart.

What are the natural ways to keep cholesterol under control?

Regular exercises
Keeping weight under control
Include oatmeal/oat barn, lots of fruits, vegetables, walnut, almond, fish which has high Omega-3 like sardine, mackerel etc
Avoid Trans fats, to the extent possible.

(I will explain the Trans fat next time, coz an one-liner explanation wont look nice).

What is Cholesterol?

“…….It is cholesterol, means fat”

I happened to over hear such a conversation, when I was in the gym. I think many people think that way. ‘Cholesterol is just fat’. Is that really? It is fat like but it is not fat. The last two letters ‘ol’ gives us a clue about what it is.

Cholesterol is actually a waxy alcohol (means hydroxyl (a Hydrogen and Oxygen friendship) group bound to a carbon atom and not alcoholic beverage). In Greek, Chole means ‘Bile’ and Stereos means ‘solid’ and since it is an alcohol the ‘ol’. Thus

Chole + Stereos + Alcohol = Cholesterol

It is made by our liver (and not absorbed from fatty food, though it can absorb some) and present in every cell of our body and is used by the body to build healthy cells, apart from some other functions (like make some hormones and Vitamin D etc).

Then why is it considered as bad? What is this Bad guy (LDL) and good guy (HDL) in cholesterol? Are they really cholesterol?

11.15 pm doesn’t look like a healthy time to talk about cholesterol… let’s look into it later tmrw…

Jesus! Terrorist On the Moon with Gita...

It’s a mixture of events that happened in the last week. I thought I will write about this.... then I thought I will write about that..... And finally I did not write about anything I wanted to write.

One was a mail from somebody about one of my blogs where I am talking about the two communities that were involved in the recent forced conversions that ended in a clash. Initially I suspected that it can be from one of my own friends/acquaintances from a fake mail id. But after exchanging a couple of mails and studying those mails in detail, it looked like real.

I read a real sarcastic article about the India’s mission to moon. The writer asks which is important, filling the craters (potholes) we already have or exploring the ones that moon has. Author feels its real waste of money.

It all depends on people’s perception and it happens when people fail to look around the world and understand how it functions. I have a book on Visual Basic Programming written by the world famous Peter Norton. In that book, he feels mountaineering is nothing but waste of time, energy and money. When the news of the moon mission came, the news paper carried small news too, about female Spiders. Some scientific body spent thousands of dollars to find out why the female spiders eat the male, after mating (not every spider and every species). Non American people have this idea that there are no poor in America. But that’s wrong. Even in the U.S. there is poverty. Had America spent all those money they literally wasted in Iraq to find out the non existing weapons, they could have fed those poor. I still remember, one of my friends from the U.S. sharing her bad moments with me. She wasn’t able to afford insurance and she was living availing social security benefits. She couldn’t even take enough rest after a surgery coz of fear of losing her job.

So, it all happens in this world. Go to a café and see the kind of coffees available and the snacks. The other day I had a Blueberry cheese cake. Lots of people are buying such stuffs from that shop. Do I really need that? Do we need a cappuccino? A frappuccino? Do we need any Moca? Do human beings need beer or wine or any other alcoholic drinks at all? The billions people spent for drinking is more than enough to feed the hungry. And look at the luxuries of people like Benny Hinn (somebody who is into god business), who is just a preacher. He become richer than the Pope himself! He has money to feed every hungry human in the U.S, at least for a couple of days. Is he doing that?

I got couple of comments for my blog in Friendster, which is just a copy paste from here ! I did not get it here. In one of them, somebody asked me to help feed the hungry in India and Africa, by making a donation to a particular fund. Dear friend, I myself is an Indian and I do help the poor around me, in many ways. I don't have to go to Africa or Philippines (recently I saw a video about the poor and street children in that country) to feed a hungry. But thanks a lot for that comment. I got a message...thanks again.

Its a hard truth, but the Vice President of Cisco (Wim Elfrink) lives in my city and he spends 1,700,000 bucks per month just as rent for his home cum personal office. So do many other senior executives. More than enough to feed the hungry Indians, at least one meal.

But I do support science and scientists. It has a place of its own. I too fancy going to Moon!

A headline which was so amusing was this ‘ Terrorists study other scriptures religiously’. Yes, these journalists know how to give proper heading and catch the readers. Police found out Bible and some Hindu scriptures from terrorists. Agreed...What is the truth behind it?

When we read the complete story, it becomes clear. Why they read other scriptures is to just take out those parts which can be misinterpreted or used against Hindus or Christians to confuse them and then convert them into Islam. Since many decades Christian missionaries from around the world came here and bought many people into their religion. And now they got the reply in the same coin. Muslims bought a Varghese Joseph, who was poor and turned him into a Muslim terrorist. Finally this poor boy died in an encounter with police. I strongly believe that he might have done that just for money to help his family, just like most of the Hindus here changed their religion. For a human, when we think at the humanitarian level, the first thing needed is the basic amenities – food , shelter and clothing. Those who cant afford it were more than willing to exchange their poverty with a new religion.

The other day I happened to read a lot about Islam. Why coz, one American was threatened to death by some Indonesians for proposing to a Muslim girl. The girl is a Muslim and the boy was a Christian. Girl liked him but her family asked that American to ‘get lost’ if he want his life. I was wondering why such a stand by Muslims. That research took many deviations and at some point I read this - Abraham was not a Christian but Muslim. Jesus is just a messenger and not the son of God........ Many biblical names appear in Koran but these are not seen in Bible (the contra entry). Now I started understanding why Bin Laden asked the American Christians to embrace Islam or face death.

From all these incidents, one thing is becoming clearer and clearer. We will see more and more brutal killings. Lots and lots of human life will be lost. Blood will be shattered all around, just coz of religion falling into the wrong hands.

This reminds me of once incident that happened 11 years ago. Three people sitting together. Me, a Hindu, Alex, my friend a Christian and Riaz, my friend, a Muslim. What happened then? We were just happy and busy catching up.

This will be the same case if Krishna, Jesus and Mohammed sit together. They will hug each other, crack jokes and enjoy every moment together (well, if its Rama instead of Krishna, tears will come out of his eyes when he hug Jesus, out of joy, for sure…coz, that’s Rama). Believe me, they are all friends...

And here in this earth? I really pity those religious ones who can't even understand why religion originated in the first place and why it is seen in different way in different parts of the world.

I belong to the minority, yes, I understand that…

Om Shanthi ..Shanthi ..Shanti..

Sweet n Cute

If anybody thinks they have found the sweetest person in this world to share their life, a person who is so sweet and nice and cute and this and that and.., well, they are wrong. They better come to the reality. There is no such person in this world who is nothing but goody goody things, whose environment is filled with only goody goody things. They dont exist. Its just a dream…. its not real…come out of it.. Open your eyes and SEE....ASAP

Deepavali - The Festival Of Lights..

Today is Deepavali or Diwali. A festival a child can never forget in his life, even for a grown up child. It is the festival of lights but what stays in the head is the firecrackers. Though I was engaged till 7.45 pm today, after that I joined my son to burst crackers. I just sat there and watched since I am not able to walk fast or run, just in case its needed since its with fire and crackers we are playing with. That sitting brought lots of memories of this festival.

Apart from the new variants of firecrackers, one major difference between the old days and new days is the cost of these stuffs. Unbelievable, but one has to believe. I have never seen anything in this world priced like this. If something is to be sold at 20 bucks (inclusive of margin/profit) in this case, its priced as 100 bucks, at least. That is the maximum retail price. The funny thing is everyone knows that it wont cost that much, coz it cant be. So, shops offer at least 75% discount ! very funny. In my childhood, this practice was not there.

It is a festival which signifies the victory of good over evil. Whether its about Lord Krishna winning over the demonic Narakasura or Lord Rama returning to Ayodhya after 14 years, there is not much difference. I liked the Rama returning thing, though its mostly a north Indian belief. I can imagine how the Ayodhya city looked like since the people welcomed him with lamps, lots and lots of lamps..

The environment in our complex was so festive. It was colorful and people looked happy and smiling. Kids were jumping and running. And then boom boom boom.

Yes, its Deepavali today, the festival of lights, but not JUST festival of LIGHTS, its more than that, a little more deep…

WinZip Alternative

I get technical (computer related) questions from some of my friends and acquaintances, just like I ask about stuffs I don’t know but they know. Many a times it helped me understand some concepts better, or made me think, or sometimes it even demanded some research from my side. It can be useful to others also. So, I thought me blog a couple of them.

Q: I use WinZip evaluation copy.. Can you get me a serial? Is there any other software I can use?

A: It’s not a big deal to get a serial for your WinZip. Yes, there are many WinZip alternatives. If you are not specific about WinZip, I suggest you to ditch the idea of getting a serial and go for an alternative. Why don’t you try 7 Zip? It has three major advantages over WinZip.

It’s free.
It takes 80% less space (WinZip12 takes about 14 MB space where as 7 zip takes less than 3 MB).
Its open source.

If you want high compression rate, you can go for KGB Achiever. Its purpose is not to compress small text files and hence its not resource friendly.

Chandrayaan - India joins Moon Club..

And the wait is over. Yesterday at 6.22 a.m. , PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) C11 thundered into the sky and placed the Chandrayaan into the temporary orbit around the Earth. And thus India became the 6th country in the world to launch a scientific mission to Moon. CONGRATS !!

In the next 15 days, it will move into the higher elliptical orbits, moving away and away from Earth and closer and closer to Moon. Then it will enter into lunar orbit and finally will drop the Moon Impact Probe (a bunch of scientific instruments and cameras) and then these will get activated…

And it’s a nice thing that everything is controlled just 15 km away from my home…

Good Good

Good, Bad, Ugly and The Innocent !

A slow moving traffic turns into a jam. The road was a sloppy one. A Toyota Qualis ‘touched’ an auto-rickshaw. And he just kept his vehicle as if nothing has happened – The Bad

The auto-rickshaw driver gets down (usually many of these guys are rowdies) and scolds the other driver with clenched fist. Then he grabbed the him and slapped – The Ugly

The Qualis driver loses his control and his vehicle starts moving backwards. There is a car behind him and there was another auto-rickshaw next to it. The person who drives the car kept on honking. The passenger in the auto next to him tells that its about to hit. Then the driver of that auto-rickshaw gets down and tries to stop the Qualis, in vain – The Good

The Qualis hits the car behind it and thus stopped. – The Innocent

(Who is that innocent man?)

Shame on you Religion !

Do we need to ban any religion? Do we need to kill some religious leaders for talking nonsense? If somebody had asked me yesterday or if somebody asks me tomorrow, I might say no. but today is one of such days where I might say ‘yes’. Sometimes I get that feeling when I see small kids with polio.

Today I had been to a shop which makes orthopedic shoes and I happened to see some pairs of small shoes made for kids who suffer from polio. In India, we still have that virus. We still cant eradicate polio. Why? One major reason is some religious people not willing to take vaccines. And the government not forcefully imparting that rule. Those stupid religious people believe that praying will help. Praying and clapping your hands won’t help eradicate polio, you fools. You open your eyes and see and understand that the vaccine is provided by none other than God Himself. He is trying to save your kids.

I have seen a man dying a painful death coz he hesitated to take medicines. He just prayed. His prayer group joined him every evening and prayed with him. One among those who prayed for him was one of my friends and what was she doing that time? She was a pharmacy student and she used to take medicine when its needed, may be without her community knowing it.

Its high time those who are against medicine due to religious reasons understand that its God who provided us with doctors and medicine. When you pray, he answers thru them. He will not come as 'God' .

This doesn’t mean that He don’t love us or wont take care of us. That’s why He has kept people around us.

Virtual Lessons...

Do we need to take this life and things connected to it very lightly?

“Yes” is the answer I got from many people. Sometimes I responded to it and sometimes I kept quit and some other times, I just sighed. Many a times people misunderstand or don’t understand the ‘take this life lightly’.

Some takes life real light. During their life, then enjoys many boy/girl friends. They marry so many times. They take relationships lightly. They don’t plan life. They don’t keep time and when others express their dislike towards such an attitude, they think ‘what’s wrong with these guys? Why are they taking everything seriously?’ they don’t think spending quality time with family is that important. They don’t think returning the ‘ok, sir, you can give that one buck next time’ buck is important (after all its just one buck). They don’t think its not very important to keep the word ‘ I will call you tomorrow’ or, ‘ I will drop to your house this weekend’….its a long list.

That is not the meaning of ‘taking life lightly’ it doesn’t mean one should be irresponsible and lazy. It doesn’t mean one should not take responsibilities. It doesn’t mean one should not be committed. It doesn’t mean that we don’t have to take any effort to keep our words. It doesn’t mean many such things and it also doesn’t mean that one should take everything in life very seriously.

One major difference between taking life lightly and taking it seriously is that, if we take it lightly, most of the time it will be others who suffer and if we take it seriously, most of the time its we who get disappointed and frustrated.

Let it be there…should we take our virtual friends seriously?

My personal answer is ‘It depends’, though I got hit many times. My wife asked me to not to take such people very seriously. And once she even dared to say ‘ I think that person doesn’t deserve you as a friend’...... why?

She had seen me spending my personal time, effort, sleep and money for many such people and at the end, sitting very disappointed or got hurt or insulted or ignored... Many a times, they takes it lightly, as if my time is valueless and my efforts are not worth considering…

The extended week which just passed was one such one (from last Saturday till today).

Learn Jay, learn..learn from these lessons…you always like learning new things, na?

God of Perfect Timing...

Today, my appointment with the physiotherapist was at 8 am. (Since they allot time slots, it is always better we keep time. Else we might even lose a session or have to wait for long time. So far, this did not happen to me). I used to keep alarm at 6.30 on days when I have an 8 am appointment, so that I don’t have to hurry and I can be there in time. But since wife said she is working from home today, and she has to get up bit early, I did not keep any alarm and asked her to wake me up at 7 am (I was bit tired yesterday night).

“Get up!, else you will get late” I heard the voice. I opened my eyes and looked at the timepiece. It was 7.20 already!

She did not call me at 7, just coz she ‘thought’ that I am already awake. I knew that there is no point in arguing with her and waste my time. I was sure that I will be late. But I decided to try my level best.

As soon as I was out of my apartment gate, I zoomed. When I connected the main road, there was heavy traffic. I sighed. Then there is this deviation I have to take which goes to the hospital. That road is a narrow road; only one car/medium sized vehicle can ply comfortably if there are pedestrians (there is no footpath). When two cars come, we need to drive carefully, that too at turnings (there are three 90 degree turnings). Close to one such turning there was one water supply tanker parked. I managed to get through and the next moment, what I saw was a Bus!. What timing…

That bus might have created a jam there for sure. And had I did not cross that turning at that time, I would have been held at that point. Thank God!

There were pedestrians on the road, but I decided to drive as fast as I can. When I passed a guy in an inch to inch distance, I even got butterflies. Then? There it is… there is this green car in front of me. He did not give way. I tried my level best, but no use. It looked like he had decided that he will not give way for me. Thus I had no choice left but to drive slowly, since he wasn’t driving in a hurry and overtaking him in that road was a big risk.

As I was about to reach the hospital, I put left indicator hoping that he will move to right and give way. But he too put left indicator and he too entered the hospital. I have this habit of driving fast (both up and down) in the ramps inside that four story parking area, but this guy!

I parked my car and proceeded to physiotherapy department. When I opened the door, there stands my therapist giving me a ‘kind of look’, but smiling.

“Sorry, I am late”
“yes, you ARE late…come”

She was about to go out, thinking that I might not turn up for today. Can’t blame her coz I did that last Saturday. What timing!

Was that car my enemy? If that car wasn’t there in front of me, I am 100% sure that I would have driven very fast inviting trouble….. if he wasn’t there, I would have taken more risks….

At the end, did I miss the session? Nope…
Coz, the timing was perfect.

God, I LOVE YOU!

XP's Hidden Song..

Many a times people hide something from others. It can be many things. Most of the time, it could be personal things. But what is personal about this song?

What song and who hid it?

There is a song that comes with Windows XP, which most of us are not at all aware of. May be Bill Gates wanted this to be played at some windows event? Or may be one of the developer kept this for fun?

It is hidden in this path:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\oobe\images\title.wma

(copy this and paste it in ‘Run’ ( Start-Run) and press Enter)

Is this a completely hidden stuff, we might never listen unless we directly access that folder? Well , that folder is a hidden folder, but it is said that this song is the background song when the user is asked to fill in details during the setup. May be its true. I had installed XP many times, but never got a chance to listen to this song.

Is this a secret? Not anymore.

May be I am a little late in blogging about this, since its an old stuff !!!

Flotation Spas

Since thousands of years ago floating in water is practiced in India, mainly as part of yoga and meditation (many even could walk on water). Now the modern science and research supports it and result is a more convenient way to float. One can not float in a pool if one is not familiar with that technique or swimming. But now, there are flotation spas which offer such facilities. Anybody can float just like that.

Here, water used is salty one. They mix Epsom salt to gain this high density and this salt is a natural disinfectant too. We float just like that in these tubs. The environment is sound proof and light proof too. we can float in a calm environment, without any disturbance at all. An ideal place and way to relax and meditate.

What are the health benefits? They say it has many. Some of them are:

Stress reduction
Helps reduce blood pressure
Helps remove lactic acid and other body toxins
Speeds up healing
Mind becomes clear and more open
Reduces pain
Creates harmonious brain wave patterns (like in a deep meditation)
Enhances creativity……

So, lets floooooat and forget everything…just relax, relax and relax

Saint Alphonsa !

I don’t remember whether I mentioned it in any of my blogs about the pedigree of Indian Christians. But I had thought about it a couple of weeks ago. Christianity here has a tradition of nearing 2000 years (Saint Thomas, the apostle, arrived here in AD 52).

Today was a special day for the Christian community here in India. They got their second Roman Catholic saint (and first woman saint) from this country. From today, sister Alphonsa is Saint Alphonsa.

One more reason to stay where they are. One more reason to not to shop for another new brand of faith group or fellowship.

Hope this moment will make them proud.

Knee Injury

Every organ in our body is important, in one way or another and I don’t think God did any mistake in that creation process (one way circumcision is trying to correct ‘God’s blunder’ by those who think they know about God and His ways better than the God himself!). The way our body works is just amazing. In fact the whole research that’s happening in the field of science and technology is trying to understand the know-how of God’s technologies, in one way or another, knowingly or unknowingly.

What about the knee then? I read an article by somebody (don’t remember his name, can be a doc coz it was technically a good article about the structure of the knee) where he said knee is a faulty design by the God. Knee is the most complicated joint in our body and one of the easily injured one too. For walking, running, standing, kicking, sitting…we need support from knee. We can lift a person of our weight (or more). It goes thru our knee. It can bend, twist and even has the ability to rotate limitedly.

The volume of Arthritis reported among the old and not- so- old and the number of knee replacement surgeries happening around us these days show how this joint can be overused. Injuries to the knee can be of different types. A muscle strain, tendonitis, bursitis , a runners knee …..and in the little more severe cases, it can be tear of ligaments and more.

There are many ligaments in our knee and the most injury prone ones are MCL (Medial Collateral Ligament), ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament) and PCL (Posterior Cruciate Ligament) and LCL (Lateral Collateral Ligament). The role of ligaments are to connect two bones.

What should one do when there is a knee injury? If you check the net for that purpose, almost every site will advise you to do RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation). Is that all? Just be relaxed and take some rest with an ice pack?

Since I did not get the results I expected for my LCL tear, I decided to go for a second opinion with one of the best doc in my city. He was known to me and is a friend of my family doc. He was my son’s doc and at some point of time, my wife also had to consult him. Thus I had an idea about his approach. He always believed in going with the latest technology.

I briefed him about what happened to me and what I did. And then he said (he always speaks very loud):

“See, these days, our approach to knee injuries are very aggressive. The problem with knee injuries are that, if we don’t take care of it properly, it can lead into irreparable osteoarthritis especially in middle age people, in a very short period. When I started my practice about 25 years ago, we never had any equipment to asses the severity of these kind of injuries. If people were old, we used to suggest some pain killers, rehabilitation programme that included wearing a brace that you are wearing now or some exercises or life style change. And if they were young, we had to cut it open and see what it is. But as you know, science is growing fast. Now we have MRI and Arthroscopy to evaluate the injury. I suggest you to go for an MRI and then we will discuss. I don’t want you to end up with arthritis in five years time”

I did MRI and while lying down inside that machine, I was thinking about the reasons why it can lead into arthritis.

Its so simple. It is ligaments that keep the bones together and the joint intact. What happens when that’s torn? The joint becomes unstable and loose. That leads the joint to function in ‘not so normal’ way, which again giving a chance for bone to bone direct contact. Our joints are built in such a way that bone like hard stuffs won’t make direct contact with its counter part and when it happens, the wear and tear starts leading to osteoarthritis.

My MRI showed a chronic tear with wavy fibers to the LCL even after 3-4 months. Not just that, it showed the early symptoms of OA changes (welcome, osteoarthritis)in the patellofemoral. Is that all? Nope it showed Grade I injury to my Medial Meniscus. As per the X-ray I had done earlier, everything looked just normal and it didn’t even show any OA changes in the knee. Thus my old therapist and doc thought my knee cap pain was some radiating pain.(X-rays wont show ligament tear, since ligaments are made of soft tissues)

What does it all mean? Simple. When you end up in a knee injury, don’t take it lightly. Don’t listen to Tom ,Dick and Harry and let a doc examine your knee on day one itself (or next day). This is important coz, the damage due to the delay can not be repaired in many cases. It is always wise to learn from others experience than waiting for things happen to us. So learn from me. The biggest blunders I did with respect to this knee injury are:

Listening to “ I had many such falls. It pains a lot initially and then it goes by itself” from somebody close to me

Not following the RICE principle at all

Self medicating with pain killers/anti inflammatory drugs

Delay in seeing the doc

Meeting the nearest doc just for convenience and thus not getting the right treatment at the right time.

And the result?

(sigh....)

In Me...

In me, the infinite ocean, the ship of the universe moves here and there, driven by the wind of the mind. I do not have any impatience.

In me, the boundless ocean, the waves corresponding to the worlds spontaneously rise and vanish; I experience neither gain nor loss on this account

In me, the limitless ocean, rests the familiar illusion of the world. In this knowledge, I, profound serene and formless, abide.

- Janaka

Mercy !!

As usual, today’s news paper too contained news about death, killing, communal upset, rape etc. But it had something else too. Death of 30 calves (and 15 in fatal condition).

They were being taken to the slaughterhouse, in a van. As per this State’s rule, transporting more than 6 animals in a single van is against law. But here in this case, there were 95 calves. Their mouth was tied to prevent them making noise.

It was a patrolling police inspector who stopped this van at 3 am in the early morning and it was a shock for him. He proved that every policeman is not just corrupt and heartless by taking the van to a animal shelter. What was the condition of the rest of the animals?

The Vet who examined them said they died of respiratory problem and transportation stress. (Do animals feel stress? I have seen them crying during such a transport). They developed high fever out of fear and stress. They were dehydrated too.

Yes, they were being taken to be killed. But is this the way to treat animals? If you want to kill them, kill them but not in a barbaric way. Treat them kindly till they are being killed. There is no point in whispering something from the scriptures to the animal’s ears after treating them this way.

We are humans, only we can be merciful to animals and not the other way.

Indonesian Eid Surprise !

Today Muslims of many parts of the world celebrated Eid. In India, it will be celebrated tomorrow (this depends on the position/visibility of moon).

I had promised one of my friends in Indonesia that I will call her and wish. But in the morning, she asked me (in reply to my sms) to call after two hours and then when I texted asking ‘ can I call you now?’, she did not respond. It was bit disappointing. But when I was busy with some other thing and forgot about this disappointment, there comes her call…..

Today, for the first time in my life so far, I talked to somebody from Indonesia. What is the big deal? Well, in my life, these little little things are happy moments. First of all, apart from the Indonesian element, it had the 'talking to a friend' aspect, which always is nice. Sometimes little things can give big happiness. I still remember, I was soooooo happy when I talked to one of my friends from Philippines for the first time ( She was very happy that time coz she got a salary hike ! )

Thank you God for this gift of surprise..

Eid Mubarak

Let Peace Prevail !

The Digsby Affair

For my blog on Digsby, I got a comment from their side:

The beginning of that sentence says "depending on how you use Digsby" - from within Digsby you can store email addresses for buddies so you can IM them from within the IM window. You can also store SMS numbers so you can send SMS messages from within the IM window. In those cases this information is stored for the feature to work and we wanted to make that clear. We don't just go and store the email address of every buddy we can get to :)

It was Mr.Steve who made that for Digsby. And this is comment back.

Dear Mr. Steve,

First of all, thanks for reading my blog.

In the start of my blog, I clearly mention the situation. Somebody suggesting me digsby to use it as a single application to handle multiple IMs (or mail accounts). I wasn’t discussing about a scenario of two people communicating using the feature within it.

I created an account with digsby and a new yahoo account too. I added my yahoo id and my son’s and wife’s id into it as buddies. Then I linked the new yahoo account to digsby. By default, I can use yahoo to IM with my buddies and even sent mails coz, it stored the mail ids . Can I remove the mail id from it? Then my purpose of getting in touch with my yahoo buddies won’t serve. Is there any other way where I can keep my buddy list private and still be in touch with them using digsby? So what is the choice here? And we are providing the usernames and passwords to third party.

So, if it’s all just for the feature to work, what is the role of digsby here? How does it run as a business organization? How does it bear the costs? Or is it a social service? I don’t think they are registered as a non profit charitable organization (I am not telling that you should not run a business and make profit. Everyone has the freedom to do so)

I believe that majority of its users did not read the privacy policy at all.

And if one clearly goes through my blog, one can find that I am not telling anybody to stop using it or not using it. About the title, I agree that it’s misleading. I can title it as ‘Drums and oranges’ if I want, that’s my freedom. At the end of my blog, what I tell is just my reason for not using it. If anybody wants to use digsby, it’s up to them, and I know very well that it’s none of my business.

My First MRI

So far, I had three fractures and lots of physical injuries in the past 25 years. But this is for the first time that I am undergoing an MRI. My physiotherapist had told me that MRI is kind of scary thing (may be coz she is a she). When she told me that, I did not understand why. May be coz, we will be taken into that ‘cave’ and we are all alone….I don’t know..

(Yes, for people with claustrophobia – the fear of enclosed spaces – MRI can be really scary and MRI machines are very noisy too)

But my personal experience was different. The radiologist asked whether I had taken any MRI in the past and I said no. The MRI room looked clean and neat. The equipment was a SIEMENS make. There was music in the room which wasn’t soothing. He asked me to lie down in the table kinda thing and kept some stuffs here and there so that my leg movement will be minimum. And then he gave me something to hold, it looked like a pump used in the BP apparatus. He told me to press it if I want to communicate with those people, at any point during the scan.

Then the table got lifted and there I go inside the ‘cave’ (it had a similarity to the dead body being moved into the furnace of the electric crematorium). It was amusing for me and I liked it. And then he left the room.

Nothing happened for sometime, so I stared here and there and then I read a warning just above my head

“Do not stare in to the beam. Class II Laser…..”

I said to myself: yep, LASER is not friendly with our eyes, I know, common man, let’s begin.

Well, then started the ride… am I in a gaming room? Funny sounds started coming, one was similar to the gunfire in games. Yes, this is the scary part, at least for kids. I enjoyed it. It came every now and then. Then it became boring to listen to it. So I started thinking many other things and finally it stopped. It took around 20 minutes. And the guy came to the room and took me out from the 'cave' and asked:

“Are you alright?”

I smiled at him and said “ yeah, I am”

So, overall, I enjoyed my first MRI, though it wasn’t that friendly for my wallet!

Why You Should Not Use Digsby

When I said I use yahoo and google talk to keep in touch with people, somebody suggested me to use Digsby. Yes, it has lot of good features, there can be so many reasons why you should be using it, I agree. But the first thing I did was reading their Privacy Policy and it clearly says :

Collection of Your DIGSBY Information

Your DIGSBY information consists of personally identifiable information collected or received about you when you register to use DIGSBY or log in to DIGSBY as a registered user and interact with DIGSBY Products. Depending on how you use DIGSBY Products, your DIGSBY information may include registration-related information (such as e-mail address); information about your visits to DIGSBY Web sites and pages; information about contacts on your Buddy List (such as alias, SMS numbers, and email addresses); information about the features or offerings from DIGSBY that you use, and how frequently you use them; customer service information about you as a DIGSBY user; and other information specifically related to your use of a particular DIGSBY feature or offering.

So, by using Digsby, not only we are exposing some of our info, but we are exposing our contact’s details too to which I have strong objection. We don’t have any right to expose our friend’s mail id or phone number without their consent. That is not ethically right. (Plus, it is to be remembered that we are providing our user ids and passwords of all the connected accounts to a third party) And I don’t know how these information is practically used by them.

That is my one BIG reason why I don’t use Digsby…

Keeping the Hopes Alive !

Sometimes it is like that, things won’t go in our way. After all, why should everything come in our way? There won’t be any fun or challenge in our life, in that case. Now that my elbow welcomed an injury. Right knee and left elbow..it looks like a nice combination. God, sometimes you are really funny. But do you know how frustrating it is? Sometimes it even can give us disappointment and even depression , that too when other things around us go in a not-so-good manner.

Is there any state of mind in our lives where people grow to a level where they gets tired of somebody? I don’t know, may be people grow to such a level. But I never thought I will start thinking in that direction at least at this stage. Isn’t it too early to think so? It’s not a period of clarity but of confusions.

I got reminded of a moment in the past.

I was working as an Audit Assistant with a Chartered Account (CA/CPA). I wasn’t decently paid. Why should I be, in the first place?

(When I approached him, he said he don’t need any staff. I was a fresher. Then I gave him an offer which he could not easily resist.

“You don’t pay me for three months, then if you like my work, then you take me and pay me”

He took me, and he decided to keep me and pay me from the fourth month)

My senior decided to quit all of a sudden since he got a very good offer. In that firm, I was known as his assistant, since I was handling some of his private work and after all it was he who introduced me to my boss.

The day my senior put up his papers. Boss passed me. He stopped for a while and said to me:

“You too can try for another job if you want, you will be paid much better than this” was he bit sarcastic too?

May be he was in a confusion. May be he didn’t want to take another chance. May be he was thinking of a plan B. May be he just expressed his frustration over me. May be he was even my well-wisher, who knows?

Yes, it’s a state of confusion these days. What to do or what not to do… should I or shouldn’t I…… that’s how things will look around you when you are confused. Lack of sleep is a nice thing to help you, if one wants to oil the fire. So I straight away asked a friend of mine:

“i hope you will be my friend even in the years to come..”

Came a reply:

“i will. i promise you”

And she looked confident and smiling.

That made me happy. It’s a nice feeling being happy. But I thought of promises and the act of keeping the promises. Can we keep all our promises? May be the newer situations in our life could dilute it. Or may be those dilutions are acts of necessity.

So?

So , there is at least hope. After all, we don’t have to pay tax to keep a hope in our heart..... After all, that’s why I fixed an appointment with a new doc, this weekend…, coz, my hopes are alive...

Yahoo 9

Yahoo IM 9 is no more in Beta. Other than the old security issues, the beta had new issues like showing wrong status message – offline contacts shown as online after log off - (may be coz of some refresh issue). In version 9 they changed the appearance of the emoticons, which most of the users, including me did not like at all. I had written this to Yahoo. And was even thinking of switching back to previous version.

But there came an update (ver. 9.0.0.1912) and Yahoo fixed it and those good old emoticons are back.

Thanks Yahoo!

Migraine Trivia

• Migraine sufferers lose 1.5 days of work in every three months
  
• Women migraine sufferers lose 2 years life due to disability
  
• 18% of women and 6% of men has it
  
• 3000 migraine attacks occur every day for each million of population
  
• Those who remain at work with migraine are less productive by 40-60 %
  
• Businesses lose 2.4 hours of productive time per week per migraineur
  
• It always may not be one –sided headaches

Who Is A Christian?

“If conversion is under duress, I will not call that person a Christian” – Archbishop Rev Bernard Moras

Forced Conversions - Beginning of the End?

When I wrote about the attack on Christians, I had mentioned the politics behind it. But I never thought next day’s news paper will surprise me.

Today’s headline was that some Churches got attacked, that too in my own city! In the previous episodes, some Hindu outfits openly took the responsibility (and got arrested by the police). But this time they said they don’t have anything to do with the attacks. Some seven culprits got arrested and one policeman got suspended. For what? They not just attacked, but even stole some valuables. Who is behind them?

I also read the news about opposition asking the government to quit (though its only 100 days old). And they demanded President’s rule to be implemented since the government failed to control violence.

Another police officer turned politician had joint meeting with the Christian group who were accused of forced conversions.

Chief Minister openly tells there is conspiracy…

Well well well… overall, It looks like somebody with the help of somebody else is making Christians a scape goat to play some dirty politics, taking advantage of the first incident. Sometimes it even can be those politicians who visited those churches and offered their help! That is politics !! Cheap dirty politics..

It is high-time for people to identify/understand those cunning dirty political animals.

I had also mentioned forced conversions are for real. Today’s news paper also carried the news of 4 such Christians being got caught while they were allegedly trying to take children to admit to a church. They admitted to the police that they already took 56 poor kids (Hindu) to the Church’s hostel (to embrace Christianity). They also admitted that they are getting funds form Andaman (they named a person by name Varghese Mathew) for these activities.

Didn’t I also mention about the ‘pedigreed’ ones not getting involved into the dirty game?

Today’s Times of India carried another news. It was a statement from a Catholic clergy (deputy secretary and official spokes person of the Kerala Catholic Bishop’s Council). He accused the Pentecostal groups and the New Generation Churches for forced conversions and thus bringing bad name for the entire Christian community. Why did he talk to the press in such a way? He said:

“The Catholic Church believes in peaceful co-existence. We want to dispel the notion that Catholics too were involved in converting people”

He also said that the council had decided to enter into a dialogue with Hindu groups to remove any ill will and usher in peace in the country.

Finally, it looks like things will go in the right direction and it will be a tough time for those who are after conversions…

A Friendship Surprise..

Yesterday I got a mail from my sister, which had in interesting story.

She was at a rice mill (a shop where they powder the rice, wheat etc) and there comes a lady in a Honda Scooter (who also came there to grind something) and asked her whether she is my sister!

It was a surprise for my sister since she could not remember who that lady is (my sister knew all my fiends I had at native place). She told my sister that she was my classmate. She mentioned the names of some other students too and then asked her about my whereabouts.

This really was a surprise for me coz, I don’t remember her at all, even after getting her name. She even remembers that I was kind of silent boy and used to come in a bicycle. This lady is now working as a teacher in a school.

Anyway, I liked the overall thing. It is a nice thing to know that some long lost classmate remembers me.

Thank you God for this little pleasent surprise..

Gemma Atkinson and the Truth !!

We all know for what Gemma Atkinson is ‘extremely’ known for.



Today, I read in the news paper that somebody created a fake Gemma Atkinson account in Facebook and she faced some issues coz of that. That news was what made me look into what happened to her. But I ended up reading something interesting.

“In early 2006, Atkinson underwent breast enlargement surgery, which took her bra size to a 34E. She said in an interview that she lost weight due to a fitness regime and her bust size declined. The surgery then gave them the original shape they once were.”

So, what she mean to say is that ‘those’ were like that before she started her fitness regime and she just fixed it back to its original state with the help of a doc !!


I don’t know what (excuse) Pamela has ….