Vishing

There are mainly two categories of people to whom I don’t like to speak over phone. One is Telemarketing people and then the so called Customer Care Support (especially when technical issues sorted out by females). One of my friends is into Telemarketing and no offence meant to her. (The other day I had to deal with some customer care people to fix some issues related to my broadband. The first support executive, a lady, made it worse and messed everything up)….ok, so Vishing…what is that?

Most of us are aware of Phishing, which is mail based fraud and criminal activity. This Vishing is the telephonic version of that. It is a combination of ‘Voice’ and ‘Phishing’ hence Vishing.

They use the VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol – a protocol used to transmit voice through internet) and IVR (Interactive Voice Response – the typical ‘press one to hear your account info or nine to speak to a customer care executive’ kinda software stuff) Many people around the world got cheated by Vishing. And this fraud is picking up fast.

Here, you get a call telling there is some problem with your credit card (in most of the cases, sometimes it can be insurance, vehicle related things etc). In general, they won’t tell which card bearing what number. Sometimes it can be a message left in your voice box/answering machine asking you to call back to a toll free number. Usually, it is recorded voice (this can give a better (though fake) authenticity and then you can’t record the caller’s original voice). Before we speak to the customer care support, we will be asked to enter our credit card info, PIN etc (sometimes they even collect the postal address, pretending as verification)….when all the info is entered, its all over and the person who entered is in big financial trouble…

These guys change their telephone number (from where the call originate), location etc very professionally. They use Caller ID spoofing so that the number displayed on our Caller ID will be wrong. So its not easy for us to trace them. So the best defense against Vishing is to ignore them. Or if you want to clear your doubt, call up the credit card company directly, ALWAYS…

My Death

How might I die and when? I don’t know.

But I thought of my death for a moment, though not for the first time. What could be the cause? Liver Cancer? Or Liver cirrhosis? Will it be painful? I don’t know. So far, I haven’t read much about both. May be its painful.... It can be a heart or kidney failure, it can be anything like that…May be I will die in an accident. Given a choice, I won’t prefer that.

Who will be there with me that time? I don’t know… will I be left alone? I don’t want to…

Death is death but I want it to be a peaceful one. I want to die gracefully….

OMG !

‘Oh My God’ has become just an expression these days, isn’t it so? At least I have used it without remembering God in my mind……Sometimes even a person who don’t believe in God might say it (well, am not sure, to be frank). There is this story of ‘Oh God’…

When a disciple did a great job, he was awarded with a special horse. The head priest told him

"when you want to make the horse move, say ‘Oh God’ and if you say it again, the horse will move more fast and you can stop the horse by saying ‘Thank you God’ "

Disciple mounted the horse and proceeded towards a mountain saying ‘Oh God’… He got excited and said ‘Oh God’ again and again…the horse moved faster and faster and he saw that it is proceeding towards a cliff… He panicked and forgot what to do. Finally he remembered the words to stop the horse and he said :

“Thank you God”

and the horse stopped. He realized that they were standing at the tip of the cliff and it was a narrow escape…. in a relief he said :

“Oh God”

We can guess what might have happened …..

From today on, I will try to remember God, whenever I hear or say ‘ OMG’ ….

Spirituality and Being Spiritual...

Looking at my profile or looking at the way I describe myself, many a times my friends or acquaintances had asked me – what you mean by you are spiritual than religious?

Who is a religious person? If one want to be a religious person, one should believe in his/her religion (in case of many Hindus, they might show interest in some other faith also, at least thy don’t oppose other religions), follow the customs and rituals or believes in it. Reads their scripture (even if it’s a verbal exercise, many a times) and most of the times their faith is blind and not logical…they fear to question it, visits their place of worships on a regular basis…., many a times ‘God fearing’ and not God loving (I remember one recent incident – a relative offers a sweet to my son, which was ‘prasadam’ (sacred food offered from temples or after a puja). He rejected that and that person said – you will get ‘dosham’…. I don’t know the English word for dosham its sort of ‘bad’ or anger from God or deity etc etc). If in a situation where milk or wine or sweets or anything like that which is part of any religious service is offered to a religious person, even if he/she is not medically advised to not to take such things (due to specific reasons like sweet for a diabetic person), he/she might take it, though it will do only harm and not good and this happens mainly coz of fear to reject it. A religious person’s religious activities are external, which has something to do with physical objects and activities….. one way or another they ‘believe’ in a religion, which is mostly founded by a single man ......these are only some of the identities of a ‘religious’ person…

A spiritual person is not ‘bound’ to religion, even though one might stay in a religion. Religion is not the primary thing for him/her. He/she is not ‘God fearing’ but ‘God loving’. They look at the meaning of life than blindly following some rituals. They don’t need a place of worship to pray. They believe in a higher power which is beyond names. Some worship music, nature, some believes in a secular community, they too might pray….. Spirituality doesn’t have s single definition but may be it has more to do with ‘spirit’ than ‘body’…

One major distinction between a spiritual person and a religious person is that, a spiritual person looks inside (at the self) and the religious person looks outside. A spiritual person’s main tool is his/her mind and meditation. There is more silence in spirituality and there is more ‘sound’ in religion…

But these days, efforts are being taken by many religious bodies to bridge the gap and they also started implementing the practice of meditation.

This is only a short note on what I mean by being spiritual than religious. The personal definition of spirituality might change from person to person, but spirituality is a dynamic process and it also is a constantly evolving internal journey………

Friendship - An Investment

What is one of the best investments? Is there any investment that can benefit your health, both physical and mental?

Yes, invest in friendship… having a couple of good friends or having a best friend with whom you can share your good and bad moments can definitely pay off. It is a worth investment in your life. When you are with friends, you don’t feel left alone but it gives you a sense of belonging. After a hectic day or week at work, when you sit with a friend and have a cup of coffee, you can feel the difference. It is a great way to unwind. It is an anti-stress…it is an anti-depressant

Friendships can build resilience. We feel from nobody to somebody, when we are with our friends. There is comfort and companionship in true friendships. We face many emotional pains in our life caused by many different situations like a broken relationship, death of a loved one, losing a job…. Good friends can always ease the trauma from such incidents. I have personally experienced that during the death of my dad and then mom. In both situations, I can not forget the support given by them - friend(s).

Not just that, take any happy moments in our life, a highly paid new job, getting engaged, a new baby in our life, buying a new apartment or car…anything.. when you share such moments with friends, the happiness gets multiplied.

Yes, when you feel hopeless, irritating, stressed out or started behaving indifferently, remember that a friend can help you out…

I know that we can not buy true friends. Friendship just happens. May be sometimes, we need to take some extra effort to build up some friendships…. It may not be always possible to have lots of friends. But at least we can always improve the existing relations……Whether we are the one who is supporting or being supported, friendship is a worth investment…yes, I am talking about true friends….

Kurumba Village Resort - A Trip..

16-apr-08

We had planned to start at 5 am sharp, tomorrow, since we need to reach the resort by noon, the check-in time (I booked/ paid in advance). Wife kept alarm at 4 am. But I asked her, “ should I also set alarm in my fone?” she said

‘No need’ ….

(Our cook had come in the evening and while cooking, saying the weather is hot, she kept the door (to balcony) open and thus mosquitoes already entered the house and hid at tactical places, without my knowledge)

It really was a hot night. I can’t sleep just under the fan as it might give a stiff neck (coz of my cervical spondylosis) . Can’t keep the windows open since there might be some disturbance (honking, police siren, dogs) and I am a light sleeper (who actually needs some sleep)….we decided to go to bed very early….

There came a thought about my friends… it wasn’t pleasant. I felt a lil sad…. then I felt like sending a mail to a friend….but the internet wasn’t working since an hour or so….but then I saw it started working… I sent a one-liner …before I could do anything with the net, it failed again….

I stayed awake for sometime….then I slept, may be by 11 or 11.30 …

Within 10-15 minutes I woke up again… it was hot… I got up and opened the windows.. I saw some dogs running towards my apartment's direction, barking (not at me !) … so I closed the windows … mosquitoes…. Then I decided to sleep in the hall switching on the far off fan, by that time it became 1 am, already… I could not sleep…then I thought of some pleasant moments in my life, to comfort myself…and …

17-apr-08

“Wake up, we are already late!” wife woke me up… so its already 4 am…. “ its 4.20, get up, I woke up at 4 am and thought that I will snooze for a short while but I fell asleep…” said my wife…

“very good…I told you that I will also keep the alarm…”..

The other day , I did some swimming, there was some running around, went to gym at night, did not drink enough water and did not get enough sleep too… so I felt like I just came out of my grave…, tired…

Then for a moment I thought – should I blame her and crib? Then the mood will go…that will spoil the enjoyment of the trip….anyway we cant help , we are late and just accept it and start as early as possible … then I thought of some alternative options, drive a lil more fast (which I couldn’t convince myself), reduce rest in between…. not to drink enough water so that I don’t have to stop to pee many times….

When we all got ready, it became 5.35… and we started by 5.47 sharp. 47 minutes late !!

The result? From my apartment itself, there was traffic, though not that heavy.. I couldn’t reach the main road (to Mysore) in time..

Main road, the Highway, too had traffic, but it wasn’t that heavy…I was the fastest on the road, on that time and I overtook all the vehicles that were in front of me, at some point of time, I touched 150 km/hr, may be the maximum my car can go… I tried to keep some steady speed and the result?



Wife had told me that we need 2 and a half to 3 hours to reach Mysore (she collected this info from the net, reading many trip diaries).. I reached Mysore in one hour and 40 minutes, pretty well. So, now we are not running 47 minutes late.. relief !

The ride through the Bandipur forest region was very good. The road was good (half the way), we were lucky to spot some elephants…



But we weren’t that lucky to spot any leopard or deer or peacocks (if you hit any animal, you straight away go to jail). Forest fire is common here and we saw a stretch like that, with burnt trees.



There were bad roads stretching to 12 km, filled with lots of potholes. I took more than half an hour to cover this. (I love my car - any car that I drive - and hence I never move fast on bad roads).

We stopped at Mysore to have breakfast. I checked mails using my mobile and was happy that I got a reply from a friend and a :) too….

There were 36 hairpin curves to climb up and then 10 to climb down to reach our resort. We reached there well in time, by 12.41 pm, sharp !

The way to (from the road we need to take a side route) the resort was very ‘steeply down’, that too with a sharp curve. For a moment, I thought the tyre might slip and we might hit somewhere and topple. But that did not happen…

Our cottage was near the office/restaurant/pool (I made such a request when I booked). One thing I observed was the use of more wood/bamboo and very less plastic. The door handle, towel rods, lamp units, everything was wooden. Even the electric switches were of Bakelite.







The bath room was very clean. Every cottage had individual electric geyser. So we always had hot water.



My mobile did not work there. It looks like only BSNL connections will work, as of now. TV had very limited channels (one Hindi, one Tamil and one news), no news paper… totally cut from the outside world but in to the deep nature..




We had our lunch. The food was nice( lots of food – sweet corn soup, veg salad, ghee rice, fried rice, plain rice, pulao, roti, dhal thadka, pickles, papad, rasam, pulissery, curd rice, beef fry, fish fry, chicken curry, ice cream, fruits salad, chocolate moose…..).




We took a table at the end so that we can see the hills and forest. The place where this resort is located is not fully natural.




Its mainly an estate. The main plantation is Nutmeg and cloves. But everywhere we turn, its green. Filled with trees.






The place around had a stream (may be coz its summer and later it might become a lil more wider with more water flowing) and then there is pure nature, untouched by humans. It is sort of forest. There were lots of hills around and rocks too….. after all, this is a hill station…..The air was fresh, the weather was cool, though it was summer….




After lunch, we took rest… In the evening, I went to try out the pool. The deep zone was only 5 foot 6 inches, which was safe for me. The pool was good , neat and clear. Initially I did not use any goggles and hence my eyes became red…




Then there was this complementary tea and snacks. Thy were making it fresh. We tell them what we want (from a limited choice like potato baji, onion baji, capsicum baji etc) and the cook will make the snack just for us.

Wife and son borrowed some books and started reading….I spent the time just watching the nature, listening to the sound of the stream, birds etc. ..there were many sight seeing packages which I did not opt for. There were lots of monkeys and birds. There are about 40 types of birds in and around this resort area. I saw only four different types. But we can hear many different types of chirping sounds.



It became night and its dinner time (hot and sour soup, salads, chapatti, noodles, fried rice, plain rice, pepper chicken, beef fry, Chinese chicken, veg cutlet, ice cream, payasam, carrot halwa…)

It became cold. We needed a blanket to cover at night. I enjoyed the cold weather and night….There were lots of glow worms. I managed to catch one and kept it inside my room for a minute to take a pic. But the interesting thing was, as soon as the camera’s focus light fell on it, it stopped glowing…...Good Night…

18-apr-08

I woke up at 6.30 am but stayed in the bed just thinking… …lots of birdie sounds…and the sound of the running stream ….. it was cold and pleasant

A group of monkeys came to visit us... A 'guy' tried to break into the room..He looked like the chief of that group. I gave banana to a couple of them.




We were curious to checkout the breakfast items. There were a lot – corn flake, choco flake, orange juice, pine apple juice, pine apple, papaya, idli, sambar, coconut chutney, tomato and chilly chutney, vada, varieties of dosa and egg items (they will make exclusively for us), puri, potato sagu, chicken sausage, potato fry, tomato fry, bread toast, ragi upma, tea, coffee….

I kept a plate of food on the table and went to take a cup of coffee…and a monkey came and took one puri from my plate, though my wife and son was sitting in the table, they could not do anything… a staff came to take the plate with the rest of the food but I told him I don’t have any issue and I will eat it (share it with monkey). But he did not allow me, he said it’s not healthy and it is unhygienic. He was not ready to take any risk.

Then we visited the stream. Spent lot of time there just playing in the cold water…it was refreshing.. then walked around, rested some time in hammocks, then it became lunch time again….




I did not go to the pool in the evening, but spent time near the stream. I used the pleasant and blessed condition for a quick meditation. It was soo relaxing. …

The thought of ‘we need to leave tomorrow morning’ made all of us a lil disappointed. So we decided not to think about it.

There was camp fire, live music and a housie game at night… it was fun

It became dinner time… it was very cold. I loved that weather. But son did not like it. We did not bring any winter wear even for him…. Back to cottage

19-apr-08

Monkey visit....but nothing to give...

Decided to vacate after breakfast. And also decided to take a different route to go back home. It was said that the new route is more scenic, though we need to travel about 30 km extra. Wife collected this info from somebody’s travel diary. It had also said that, though we need to travel extra distance, the road is much better and there is no hairpin bends. I wasn’t worried about the hairpin curves, which I was very comfortable with. Good road, more scenic and trying a new route… that sounded fine to me…. But?

That was the biggest and only blunder we made during the entire trip (except that we did not carry the charger for the camera). It was scenic, but our camera had no power to take snaps.




The road? Horrible… pathetic…it was nothing but a collection of potholes…At many places, road work is going on…. I was on first and second gear for more than 10- 15 kilometers … thus wasted lots of petrol… now I cant calculate the average mileage my car gave for the trip…. then the wear and tear… car started to produce some creaky sounds… was it only 30 extra kilometers? Nope, at the end, we realized that we travelled at least 50 kilometers extra, that too which had a long stretch of bad roads…

We knew that we wont reach home as per our plan. I don’t like driving at night in the highways coz of two main reasons. One, my car is not fitted with hi-power halogen bulb and the second is most of the vehicles plying will be using those bulbs that too with high beam... so, I decided to take a by-pass which had 10 extra kilometers (than cutting thru the Mysore city) but offered good road. Race ….race …race… race with every car that you see in front of you….. this time, I could not defeat two cars – a Hyundai Terracan and a Skoda Octavia, both high end cars …..

When we reached near our apartment, we stopped to buy dinner and stretch our legs. My knees were paining due to that 10 km of half clutch driving…. But it became OK in a few minutes of walk.

Back home, it was hot…. Fan, cold water bath…. Then wife asked

“ are you not going to check mails?” , she gave a kind of smile…she knew that I was eagerly waiting for that…

“yes, I am” …….

“how many mails are there?”

“46….but mostly from the resident’s association and then the news letters I subscribe…no mails from any of my friends…”

I had told almost every friend I am in touch with that I am going…but, not even a single ‘happy journey’, not even a single ‘ where are you going’ ….not even a single ‘ how are you doing’….not even a single….

Sigh…. Wife looked at me, my face, read something….

“People go for vacations, and sometimes our friends may not wish a happy journey, so forget it”

Sometimes my wife is wise…..

He Was Smiling !

I was sitting, may be thinking
He came to me, smiling…
‘Lets go for a walk’ , He said
We walked; still He was smiling…

We entered a forest, a deep forest
‘Can you see the forest?’, He asked
‘No, I can’t see any forest, but
I only see trees, yes trees’

We were standing near a shore
‘Let’s jump into the sea’ He said
I was scared, though He was with me
But He just smiled, and He giggled

Deep into deep, deep into the sea
I wasn’t scared; still He was smiling..
‘Can you see the sea?’, He asked
‘No, I can not see the sea’…

It was a Banyan tree, under which we sat
He took a fruit, which fell from the tree
It was small, smaller than the tree
He took a seed from it, so tiny it was

With the tiny seen in his hand
He asked, ‘can you see the Tree’?
‘Can you see the Tree?’ He, again
I cried; still, He was smiling…

Krishna !

One of the most popular verses from the Bhagavat Gita is this:

Yada yada hi dharmasya
Glanir bhavati bharata
Abhyutthanam adharmasya
Tadatmanam srjamy aham

- Bhagavat Gita 4:7

What does it mean? One of the most popular translation for this is :

Whenever and wherever there is a decline in religious practice, O descendant of Bharata, and a predominant rise of irreligion--at that time I descend Myself.

May be that is what almost every non-Hindu and most of the Hindu’s believe. I am not saying that is wrong, but I cant simply believe in that, though that translation is by a world known person, who has millions of followers……

Where I am not comfortable is the translation of the word ‘dharma’ into religion. I am not a Sanskrit expert and my knowledge of Sanskrit is zero compared to the person who translated it. But….. that cant be logically correct… Krishna coming whenever religion declines (Sanatana Dharma is not just another religion…all other religion has a single founder, not for Hinduism….it is not a single person’s view on something…) that is hard to digest…

Here is a better looking translation :

Whenever and wherever there is decline of dharma (righteousness) and ascendance of adharma (unrighteousness), at that time I manifest Myself in visible form. For the protection of the righteous and destruction of the wicked, and for the sake of establishing dharma again, I incarnate Myself on earth ages after ages.

Here dharma is translated as righteousness, which I personally think is better than ‘religion’…. But ‘ I manifest myself in visible form’ …well, does the sloka say so? From where does this come?

So, will Krishna come in a horse with a sword? Those who are waiting to witness such a scene will get disappointed, that is what I personally believe. Coz, when I read Gita, I did not feel like Krishna saying so.

So who is Krishna? Is he just the son of Vasudeva? Just an avatar of Vishnu, who was born about 5000 years ago? Will he come back again as Krishna?

Bhagavat Gita has highest depth of psychology. So, if somebody believes Krishna is JUST son of Vasudeva, they have a long way to go…. I think there is a Krishna in us…in every one of us… and He comes when the righteousness in us declines.. how?

When we say/do something ‘wrong’, if we observe, there comes a voice from within…we can feel somebody saying NO, but this is not a very strong feeling that will drag us from doing that, for every one of us…The more clear your mind is, that is, the more you believe in good /God, the more aware we are, the more will be the pull..when we lie, when we cheat, when we deceive, when we ….. Krishna !

That something which tries to guide us to right is nothing but Krishna (or Christ or.., depending on your religion.). That is the God element in you, the Krishna in you…

Instead of looking for a Krishna (well, any ‘God form’ for that matter) outside, FIRST listen to the Krishna/Christ inside you.

(For those who believe in ‘personal forms’ or ‘human forms’ - So those ‘special guys’ will never return? Logically thinking, understand this - during the life time of Rama, Krishna, Jesus.. how many recognized them? Only a few… So? …. May be thy are already there, who knows? )

They say SO

Worry can reduce life
Work can reduce poverty
Anger can reduce friendship
Extravagance can reduce wealth
Economy can reduce dependence

Hunger knows no taste
Desire knows no justice
Lust knows no relationship
Greed knows no limits

Love can not be won by violence
Wisdom can not be won by arrogance
Success can not be won by impatience
Happiness can not be won by hatred

Knowledge is like a river,
The deeper it is, less noise it makes

Rama's Birthday

Somebody asked me whether there is any birth date available for Rama… or is it just a story (friend, I know your intention)…. how many of us doubt the birth date of Jesus? It is not December 25, but still we believe it, isn’t it so? We question only other faith’s belief… Well, here goes the dates:

Rama’s Birth ............. 4th December 7323 BC
He marries Sita on ............. 7th April 7303 BC
Goes to forest on ............ 29th November 7306 BC
Hanuman first arrives in Lanka on ........... 1st September 7292 BC
War btw Rama and Ravana started on ..... 3rd November 7292 BC
Ravana got killed on .......... 15th November 7292 BC
Rama returns to Ayodhya on ........... 6th December 7272 BC

(Courtesy : Dr.P.V.Vartak)

Past is Past...

Past is past. Forget the past…. Is that really true?

If somebody takes it in its literal meaning, it is not a good idea. I had long unhappy days in my life. It continued till I find a Guru in my life (this doesn’t mean that after reading this, one should run around and find a Guru…. Come on!) He did not call me and tell ‘ jay, your problem is…..’ . Nope, nothing like that. But I realized that my sorrows or unhappiness had a lot to do with my attitude. I used to live in the past… I used to get emotional about it. My Guru’s greatest teaching is about the importance of the present moment. This is not a note on my Guru or his teachings, so….. past….. I was talking about past.

Completely ignoring our past is not wise. The positives in the past, the happiness in the past always has the ability to lift up your sprits, even in the present. Sometimes, when I feel low, what I try to do is to think about some good/pleasant/happy moment that happened in my life. It can be a moment with a friend of mine, the memory of me reading a mail, it can be a small and silly chat with someone, a smile, it can be any such ‘silly’ moments, …… it can be anything… you can feel a difference as soon as you go to that kind of memory (memory is nothing but a collection of records about the past). So, your pleasant past can still help you out. It is not just past.

What about the bad/uncomfortable part of the past? Why should we write off these negative past while it has some positives to offer? Ignoring it completely is not wise. One can always learn something from that. Some lessons… all sorts of relationships we entered into (including friendships), stayed in, or got ended up taught us lessons. When going back to those not-so-good memories, one should be bit careful. One need to just observe at those memories and don’t get involved into it once again. As we move on and on, we gain experience of many kinds…..We grew mentally. When you look at the past with that new mindset, with acceptance, it can even heal your past wounds.

Most of the time, we have this habit of blaming. Either we blame others or we blame ourselves…. “it is your mistake…’ ....”so it is my mistake….” ….When some of us see the past, we see mistakes. So, was that only mistakes? Didn’t those experiences teach us anything? Yes, they did teach us, may be we forgot to look at it with acceptance. To have a mind to accept our ‘mistakes’ will help us a lot. May be one mistake we usually make is misunderstanding them as mistakes…

Today (tonight) , let us go to sleep without any blames… don’t forget the past, but forgive it…

Pseudoscience, Scientific Racism and Blood

Which country studied blood extensively, to disprove something? It is the Japan. It all started when the west said that Asian race mostly has the blood type ‘B’ which is common among animals and thus they are the inferior ones in the evolution (not that those with B type are the inferior ones, but the entire race itself). Then Japan started studying that and they found out that that theory is wrong (Japan has more O and A type than B type). But it did not end there; the Japanese were the first who tried to find a link between blood type and personality. It is as popular as zodiac signs. Even now, they consider blood type for many purposes including match making. What do they think about blood types, in general?

A -Type - The Perfectionist people.

Reserved, patient, sensitive, responsible, punctual, calm (mostly outwards), patient, obsessive, stubborn, conservative, tense, sensitive, overcautious, unable to relax, shy, trustworthy, helps others

Most compatible with A and AB type.

B - The Individualist

Creative, passionate, strong, animal loving, optimistic, flexible, wild, unsociable, critical, indecisive, unpredictable, unforgiving, goal oriented, strong minded, usually completes the task they started, finds their own ways in life

Most compatible with B and AB type.

AB - Rationalist

Popular, sociable, cool, controlled, forgetful, indecisive, critical, irresponsible, self-centered, outgoing (and shy ones too, since they are split personality between A and B), confident, timid, wont go well if assigned with too much responsibility, likes to help others,

Most compatible types – all (A, B,AB,O)

O - Leader / hunter

Ambitions, trendsetter, independent, loyal, athletic, robust, passionate, self confident, arrogant, vain, jealous, insensitive, ruthless, outgoing, very social, initiators, they may not always finish the work they started, creative, they like to be the center of attraction, usually very self confident.

God's Religion

I thought I may not write about religion or God for sometime. But...

I happed to chat with a friend of mine after somewhat long gap. She seemed happy (did not tell me the exact reason), so was I, happy. I hoped from the start that she would not drag God or religion into our chat, which mainly had something to do with dating etc. But…

When she dragged God , I said I might disagree and hence I don’t have any comments on what she said. But I also added that I just want to say :

“For God’s sake, please don’t drag God into everything. Coz, He might be expecting we, the humans, to handle at least something”

Obviously, she said I better don’t comment. Usually she used to make some statements and ask me to not to disagree (e.g. once she said ‘there is final judgment, jay, please don’t argue with me’). For many things her mind is closed, not willing even to hear what others have to say. An attitude, which will stand as a hindrance to spiritual or mental growth or any kind of better understanding irrespective of what field it, is. Moreover, she believes her God (or son of god, whatever) is the only real God.

The situation was the process of marriage. Dating many-date one-relationship-marriage….. Why many guys did not date her? or why she remains unmarried even at an age where she was supposed to be playing the role of a mother with at least 3 kids (as per her country’s criteria)?

She partly blamed men and then said, when she prayed to God, it seemed God had some other plans. God told her that way…. ridiculous..

These talking gods are a big problem . These gods are very selfish. They use men and women for carrying out his ‘exclusive’ jobs !!! He doesn’t have any other job?

Sometimes I am rude. But I never can be this rude to tell her :

“You ever looked at your image, in a mirror?”

She needs to understand that she is not beautiful, externally. What about internal beauty? She has very strong views, not ready to bend or adjust. Well, as a man myself, I would say men usually don’t prefer such types. Married life is a lifetime commitment. It is very hard to live with somebody who is not ready for any compromise, or at least not ready to listen. But if somebody is extremely beautiful/handsome, one might at least give it a try (most of the celebrity marriages)

Else, she need to find a man who has very similar views, especially in religion(again if ‘God’ gives different instruction to them, they argue and might split up!). But so far what I have observed is people with very similar views on everything make good friends but not good couple.

Then why drag God into it? Why some people ‘think’ God is assigning jobs to them every now and then?

At least for some people running after God is nothing but escapism. When their deepest desires are not fulfilled….when they had to face some harsh realities….. when their love fails…. Reasons are many, they will select the ‘service’ path. And for some, it also is an easy way of earning their bread, without much effort. But how many of them really serve humans as humans, irrespective of the caste, creed and religion? Very few…

What happens when we ask God : “God, should I get married?” . You will get your deepest desire as the answer. What if you can’t find a man/woman of your choice? Again drag God into it and just say : He has different plans. And in many a cases, these people feels jealous when they see others who live like the way they wanted to live…

Which is the real God? Which religion own Him? Or what is God’s religion? Or to whom is God partial to? To whom He answers? There is one easy way to find. Ask your friends from different religions (if you don’t have friends from other religions, make friends, don’t be that stubborn) about their experience of prayer. Did God respond to any of their prayers?

Almost every one from any religion for that matter might have had at least one such experience. What does it shows? At least my Christian, Jew, Islam, Buddhist and Hindu friends have such experience. I can’t say all except the Hindu is lying.

(I can share one anecdote. For more than six months, I watch one song based reality show, regularly. Now it is the final stage. One guy hardly made into the final. He could not score much during the final segments. He never was exceptionally well throughout the show. But the other day, he sung exceptionally well. It really was stunning. Wonderful….amazing ….and what not? I have never seen him singing like this, so was the condition of even the judges and others. The audience were shocked, the judges got shocked, those who gave him instrumental support got surprised and finally, when he finished, he cried… the judges cried… he got the highest score in the history of that show (yes, I am talking about Tushar, the show is Star Singer and the channel is Asianet) when the hostess asked whether he has got anything to say, he said:

“I think it is not me who sung today… I felt some unknown force behind me… this is for the first time I ended up crying at the end ………….”

And to who did he gave the credit? He gave it to ‘Guruvayoorappan’ a popular Hindu deity in Kerala, which is considered as Lord Vishnu. He said he prayed to that deity and requested to make him sing.

Was he lying?, though I am not a devotee of Guruvayuoorappan, I cant say he is lying. He was true to the core of his belief.)

What does it show? If you happened to read in any particular scripture, any ‘God’ say, ‘I am the only God’ , understand that it means ‘There is only one God’…

(and if the very next thought one getting is ' and that ONLY God is mine..others are worshiping false gods..', that person is in the wrong track)

Here I am not targeting any person. But I am talking about a ‘type’. I am not telling ‘oh this person is wrong, that person is wrong’ and pretending I am the only right one. That friend of mine just happened to be the trigger for these thoughts. And I am thankful for that. She will remain as my friend, even if she drag God into our next talks. Friendship is beyond religion, like God. One can differ with me and I am ready and willing to listen to …..May be God ‘asked me’ to write this and somebody who is totally unknown to me might be looking for this…who knows?

Global Warming

What are the effects of global warming? I can write a few pages , based on what I have read so far. But I don’t want to. There are hundreds of sites which provide more than enough info on that. Is that all true? I don’t know and personally I don’t believe everything I read about it. If anybody thinks nature is that predictable, well, what to say?

Year after year, my city, which was known as the ‘air-conditioned city’ (coz of the pleasant weather round the year) is getting hotter and hotter, it’s a fact. May be it is coz of global warming. But what made me think of global warming, right now?

It was six in the evening, I was standing in the balcony of my apartment and the sight was interesting. It was foggy. No, it is not coz of something wrong with my vision. My city (I can see more than 10 kilometers of my city from the balcony) is about to sleep covering her with a foggy blanket.

For the past couple of days, it rained. Sometimes it rained heavily. It even blessed us with hailstones... What is the big thing in a rain? Coz, it is the start of April and we were supposed to be experiencing a hot summer. In some part of the southern States, it rained that heavily which lead to flood and human fatality.

I don’t have any cynical view on the predictions by those scientists but I don’t hesitate to tell that what I personally experienced is totally against some predictions (which included the year 2008) I read, some years ago. Usually, while sleeping at night, we avoid blanket during March-April. People switch on electric fan or air conditioning equipments (then we might need blanket). But this year, during some nights I had to grab my blanket.

Some predictions give us a feeling that earth and the living creatures on it will end very soon and another set of scientists claim that it will remain for another 4-5 billion years.

So, as a layman, I got confused, sometimes. Luckily, at this point of time, I am not an atheist. Hence the thought of God is comforting. If He can create (did he really ‘create’? my faith and belief has a different view, but for the time being, at least for this blog, lets assume that way) and manage it till date, well, I think, we can trust Him….

(I am not saying ‘just sit and relax’. But the ‘hope’ part is that - New and new ways/ideas/theories/thoughts/etc will emerge in the coming future….)

Jay Learns to Swim !

Among other species, humans are the only one who are not natural swimmers. We need to learn. How good am I as a swimmer? I don’t know… I can’t rate myself since I don’t know how to swim…

Today I took my first swimming lesson…

I first entered a swimming pool some 18 years ago. Some of my friends and a cousin of mine used to go to pool. One day, I accompanied them. It was that cousin of mine who told me that he will teach me how to swim. Every one jumped into the pool and so did I. Man, it was suffocating! The pressure! When I looked around, I saw many grinning faces, those who came with me!

A couple of them gave me some basic lessons. One was how to stay in deep water using the ‘cycling method’ (I don’t know the technical term). The theory session went fine and then my cousin asked me to come to the deep zone which was 14 feet deep, grabbing the sides of the pool. I did that.

Now is the time to put all my cycling theory into practice. I started doing what he said, moving my legs in a cycle riding way and moving my hands in an up and down fashion. And the result?

It was a fantastic experience. I started going down… I started getting drowned…. I tried to call for help, but the sound is not coming….. I drank lots of water…. Down and down…. Then I saw a hand coming towards me and I grabbed it with all my energy… it was my cousin’s hand…he still was grinning, though it looked like he too got scared a lil (otherwise, he is always a smiling guy and cracks joke all the time)…. Luckily, the pool authorities did not ask me to pay for the water I drank !

I never tried the deep zone again, in that way (but I did go there catching the sides of the pool) and there ended the cycling session. Why he tried to teach me that first? He said if you know this, you can at least survive. But I changed my mind and decided to learn how to float and swim. Since the pool wasn’t free, the guys who came with me were busy swimming and I was left alone. But when I call them, they came to me and gave some tips and then disappeared.

Then I finally floated a little….then I started beating my legs….hey, it works…. I moved forward and I was happy about it. So I did that a couple of times and then decided to use my hands too. I started moving using the legs only and then started using my hand…sway …sway… and I hit something. I saw a guy standing in front of me bleeding!!! I hit his face and coz of my nails, he got slightly injured. I said sorry and he didn’t say anything….

In a day or two, others stopped (first was that cousin) going to pool and so did I….

(In between, a few months ago, I went to our pool with my gym trainer, who had no idea how to teach and there ended it)

When I came to know that summer swimming camp is coming again, in our club, I did not think twice. Last year too I enrolled but I could not take up the lessons since I had to travel to Bangkok. This time I didn’t want to miss it.

Today morning I woke up early… i didn’t get enough sleep and hence I felt like I just came out of my grave… but its my first swimming lesson… cant miss it… I had to do some online transaction which was urgent and hence I went online and …. Yes, as I told yesterday, being with friends we like is a boost (what if that friend is a swimmer?)…. YEHEY!

My slot was 7-8 am and I went punctually. I did not see anybody except somebody sitting on a sofa. I asked the security where these swimming people go. And he said that is one of the coaches. So I went to him an introduced myself. Four people were supposed to come and none of them turned up. My coach’s name was Jacob and he was from native State. We waited for 15 minutes and then decided to start the lesson. The coach disappeared for a moment….

I changed into swimming trunk, took a shower and sat on a chair waiting for the coach. It was windy and I started shivering…. Then I saw a man waving hands to me, smiling. I looked at him and I have no idea who he is. There were two others with him, a teenage boy and a kid. I thot, may ne he is waving to somebody behind, I didn’t see anybody behind so I just smiled at him and nodded my head in acknowledgement, wondering what is happening around. Then I thought it out. He is there to take the swimming lessons and he thought I am the coach!!!

(well, I was wearing just swimming trunks sporting my athletic body…. so can’t blame him).

He too sensed the situation based on my cold response. So, he asked :

“Where is the coach?” …..

There came one more coach and he was assigned exclusively for me. I was asked to walk inside the pool…. Then this bubbling, I was asked to take deep breath, take a dip and then breath out slowly keeping my head inside water…. As soon as I went inside the water, I got pushed out and here my head comes up…… then floating lesson….. When I did that, I started getting drowned!!!

God, I love your ways! Very funny !!

HowToBuyANewPhone

How to buy a mobile phone? What are the things to be considered? Some months ago, I bought a new phone, so I can tell how to buy.

First I decided to have a budget. Then I thought of what are the features that I want to have in my new phone. I noted it down. I had decided to go with Nokia, coz I was using Nokia since 5-6 years and I am comfortable with it.

Then I went to Nokia website and checked the phone models. Shortlisted three of them and compared its features. Then read many reviews in many forums. And finally zeroed in to one. Then called up one or two shops to know who gives the best price.

I went to a shop and they didn’t have stock of that model. Then I went to another shop. They also did not have it. Third shop people said it might come by evening. So I revisited them in the evening and then they said the stock did not come but it will come a day or two, or even next day itself.

My usual attitude is if I decided to buy something, I will buy it. So I told them my requirement and asked them to suggest a phone. I went back home with a brand new phone….. How happy I am with that phone?

Well, I am not happy. Now you know how NOT to buy a mobile phone !!!!!

A secret revealed !

I was about to write that I got bored the other day…. But I can’t write it today…. Coz, today wasn’t boring… There is no need to say that spending time with friends we like is something pleasant. It makes us happy and lifts our sprits up.

For about one week, I spent most of the time downloading and then listening to some audio books. I downloaded a crime/suspense fiction novel (more than 300 MB) and started listening to it. It was very interesting, and the climax?

Well, the last file was corrupt, so I could not listen to the last couple of chapters! What a tragedy, I felt like I wasted lots of time. I even suffered headache since I used headphones for long hours….. Sometimes, it happens..

Today I had told ‘her’ that I will tell a secret. I know it was sort of kidding. But here is a genuine secret…

I might have mentioned in my many blogs ‘my then best friend’….was there any nick name for her? Yes, I used to refer her as ‘G’ ….Not when I personally address her, but when I used to write about her in my diary/journel……………only I and she knew of that till now….so?

So, Pssssssssssssssssssst !!

Happy Birthday, Son!

Today is my son’s birthday. Its all over now. This time, he invited only a few of his friends. He decided to ditch those who did not play with him. I did not interfere into that affair. It was settled by him and his mom. But at the time (5.15 pm) of cutting the cake, only one boy was there. But son was very happy, coz, that guy was one of his close friends. Another one came only at night, to keep her word. A couple of them ditched.

One reason I think of is the last minute invitation. May be the parents did not get time to buy any gifts. But anyway, he was happy, except for one thing. He wanted to have pizza for dinner, but it ended in rice, which is not his favorite. He told me that he want surprise gift…. He got that… He got some local, national and international phone calls…



Son, I know, one day you will read this…. So, remember that you were very happy on your 10th birthday, though there weren’t many people to attend it….

Televangelism and ...

(This is a mail to one of my buddies, during Jan 2008)

Dear ....

Hope you people are doing well, including the junior. Ok, directly into your questions…. Yes, televangelism is one of the multi million business. And yes, the man you saw on the television had something to do with me.

No, I wasn’t his student at any point of time. If I remember correctly, my Bible teacher’s name was Matthew (may be a Pastor, not sure). But during my ‘Christianity era’, I used to subscribe some magazines other than the books written by my teacher. And there comes this televangelist. That time he wasn’t a televangelist. But it was ‘radiovangelism’. I might have written to him in response to something and he might have suggested his magazine. Coz, I don’t think my teacher will suggest somebody else’s books since even in faith groups, there exists ego problems.

Now that guy has grown big. He comes in TV. He travels abroad for evangelism. He travels to the US very often. This is a mutual benefit thing by these people’s syndicate. That is people from this place goes abroad and people from abroad (mainly from the US, Italy, Philippines, etc) comes here. Its kinda exchange programme. Yes, he might be very rich by now. His children might have got settled in the US.

I told you sometime ago, how Benny Hinn got exposed in my city. He made an escapade act. He did not even provide the financial help he said he will be providing for the Tsunami victims. Not just that, he even killed a man during his ‘miracle act’. But as you can think, it is not easy to book him for murder in India, where he can buy lots of corrupt and pseudo secular politicians. Thus the police did not take up the complaint filed by a doctor. According to him, idol worship by Hinduism is like prostitution !! He is mum about Christians who keep the idol of Jesus in churches. He is mum about people who keep the picture of Jesus at homes. Why didn’t he go to Philippines where prostitution a big business? Why didn’t he go there and ask the people to close the bars and ask them to stop sex tourism? There he doesn’t have to face any problem since it has more than 95% Christians. He says Jesus talks to him. And I think that will be the last thing Jesus might do. Checkout this:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-999340,prtpage-1.cms

And check out what even Christians themselves say about Hinn, here in Christian Research Service, you get lots of stories about the fake claims by Hinn:

http://www.christianresearchservice.com/Benny_Hinn.htm

He and his ‘gang’ came here in a chartered flight, exclusively for them. He is just one example who is in the multi billion God business. These guys are filthy rich. They think they can do any dirty thing to spread Christianity and spread the good news. That is wrong and Jesus never wanted to force it onto others (especially to India, from where he gained all his knowledge). And if there is the judgment day (which I don’t believe), these evangelists who thot they did a good deed will be in big trouble and most of them will get a seat in the hell.

If Jesus comes right now and see all these godly work, he will say “Thank God, I am not a Christian!.

You might have heard of a TV show called “Out In the Open” by Rick Sanchez, in CNN. Sometime ago, he brought this issue in his show. And it was exposed that most of these televangelist own Rolls-Royce , many of them shit in a $23,000 toilet, the suits they were costs thousands of dollars. Some of them own airplanes. They truly live in super-luxury, yes by cheating people. But it is just like many TV commercial that comes(eg. Fairness creams, where fair models comes with a ‘dark’ makeup first and then they show their original skin), if you got tricked, it’s your problem and not theirs. Coz, its their profession and business.

You can get full transcript of Sanchez’s show in the transcript section of the CNN. You can refer (you must refer) the following link and there, they provide links to that CNN transcript.

http://tabacco.blog-city.com/televangelists_exposed_would_jesus_behave_like_this_do_you.htm

Last year, six such ministries got investigated (owned by Paula White, Joyce Meyer, Creflo Dollar, Eddie Long, Kenneth Copeland and Benny Hinn ) in connection with misappropriation, availing illegal tax exceptions etc.

As you know, there is only one Bible and one Jesus. But you can see more and more ‘ministries’ coming up. Why? More and more faith groups coming up, why? Does it mean that Vatican don’t know anything about Jesus? Pope doesn’t know Bible? Ever heard of Jesus talking directly to Pope? But you hear Jesus talking to many of these new breed of faith group people, who are mostly eccentric. Some of them pretend and fake to sell their idea and some of them have troubled minds.

I have lots of Christian friends. Or I better say, most of my friends are Christians…. Roman Catholics, Latin Catholics, Marthoma, Syrian Catholics, CSI, Pentecost….. Jesus never spoke to any of my proper RC or SC friends, why? Are they not faithful? Why He talks ONLY to the new breed? I think you got it….

(well, if somebody is a hardcore believer and he/she want to do something and he/she asks God what to do and gets the obvious answer which they prefer. Why? These Godly talks are nothing but the conscienceless splitting into two and one playing the God. These are different from sometimes (to some people) getting some ‘clues’ or signs from an unknown force)

There is this published speech by Ole Anthony of Trinity Foundation available. You can go through that too to get an idea how these cheaters really care for humans…

http://www.trinityfi.org/trinity/investi.html

As you know I spent some time with Christianity. You had seen my house that time, there were ‘Jesus saves you’ , ‘ Jesus is the Lord of this House’ kinda stickers stuck on the door/wall of my house. There was this ‘Praise the Lord’ sticker stuck on my two wheeler, even after my marriage. But believe me, I wasn’t part of any evangelism. I never asked anybody to experiment with what I did. It was just my personal choice. I wasn’t part of any such group, though my then best friend was part of some Pentecostal activities. For a Hindu, there is not need to change the religion. It is like searching for a drop of salt when you own an ocean.

Hmmmm I think those people quote something from ‘Bhavishya Punara’ to get a solid grip on Jesus’ birth. I think they are just using that conveniently and I haven’t read any comment from any Indian spiritual teachers on that issue. Jesus did not try to teach Indians, did you observe that? He knew that we don’t need that. He came here (during his ‘missing period’ of 12 years to 30 years) to learn and not to teach. His showing of yogic mudra, walking on water, escaping the crucifixion all these points to India. As you know, Padmapadar walked over water, his guru, Shankaracharya left his body for a short period (entered a dead )and came back (well, Chattambi swami also had this ability), and even in the modern era, that is during Ramakrishna Paramahamsa’s time (1836-1886), there were people who could walk over water (even now, there are lots of yogis who can do many such things).

And finally where did Jesus spent rest of his life and die? He came back to India, or at least that is what some people believe, though this is against the Discovery Channel’s feature ‘ The Lost Tomb of Jesus’, where they say they have found Jesus’s tomb in Jerusalem. They say that Jesus had a son with Mary of Magdalene named Judah. I did not see the movie. Now the DVD is available.

So far, the following site is one of the best which provides some info on “Jesus in India’ . Obviously the Vatican and the US (which is behind almost every evangelical work) will not accept these things since that might uproot all their beliefs. Even if they get evidence, they might not publish it, they will try to fake it, they will try to destroy it and they will try every possible thing they can do…

http://www.tombofjesus.com/2007/home/welcome.html

Don’t forget to explore every tab. There are many videos too, one even about the death of Jesus. But don’t ask much questions about it now..hehehe coz, I am yet to go through everything, when I write this.

You are right about what you heard. Now Jesus is being promoted as a Guru here in India. Old wine in a new bottle. Cos the evangelists fond that that is the best way to sell. The evangelists who come to Punjab, for example, promote Jesus as ‘Satguru’, which is very much appealing for the Sikh community… ….the chorus is called ‘Satsang’ … ever seen a church painted in ‘kavi’ color? Well, goto Punjab… no , I am not joking. And yes, then the money flows… many poor Sikhs became rich by over night…..what they wanted was money and these evangelists gave them money in exchange of faith….. Anything sells here in India, my dear….why? coz, we don’t have even the basic knowledge about our own scriptures…there are millions among us who are ready to do any circus for money, anything at all.

Yes, not even 10% of the Hindus don’t know the basics of our ‘faith’ and that ignorance can be easily used. And you need to understand that these conversions are not purely a change of faith. But people change their religion to get material benefits like money, free education, food, cloth etc etc… These evangelists perform fake dramas too to convince people. They target mostly the illiterate villagers and not educated people like you and me. It is easy for them.

India still have many villages where there is no power and water supply or modern health care system. Many of these evangelists use modern medicines to ‘heal’ the ill and then they say ‘ Jesus healed you’. These poor people don’t know what exactly happened. When this news spreads, sometimes the whole family changes faith…Then why are they doing that? The answer is simple, the coming generations…they will be Christians by default… there are many such ‘stunts’ performed by these people. I don’t know whether these evangelists have got some targets fixed by their sender. Many people come here on visit visa and do evangelism (not religious visa like the one obtained by your neighbor)…..

What happens after conversion? Just have a look at those countries that has a majority of Christian population and you will get an idea. One such nation became a top place for sex tourism and another one is world’s leading consumer of sex toys… you can see all other sorts of crimes in these countries too… and in India, it will take some time…. Some time ago, Tamil Nadu was the main target in the south for evangelism. They had some excellent local evangelists too. (Even my mom attended some speeches by one of them. Then I too listened to him…he speaks beautifully and I still like his presentation skills..these guys are usually very good at speaking…he then became rich, millionaire…then his brother too entered into the business and now it’s a family business for them. You can see them in ‘God TV’)Lots and lots of Dalits got converted .

But sometime ago, a group of 3000 such people threatened the church for returning back to Hinduism. Why? The evangelists did their job and returned (or moved on to catch another set of scape goats)but the already existing church did not considered them as equals and there was discrimination (the RC and SC considers themselves as high caste among Christians) and their life became back to square one or even worse…

May be it is the ‘other side is green’ phenomena. Coz, Buddhism and Hinduism is picking up very fast in the west and at one time, Buddhism was the fastest growing religion in Australia. Yes, it is the Christians who change their religion, AT THEIR WILL. Usually the church is not a supporter of ‘read other scriptures too’ policy. Coz, if they read, well, its trouble for them. Only the Hindu gurus ask us to read other scriptures too and take the good from it.

About that book. That book was first published in 1988 and I still have a copy with me. May be I am lucky. Coz, the author, Father Samuel Nettiyadan got excommunicated. His book got burned, His press got destroyed and the church did whatever thy can to destroy him. But he got support from the society. I don’t know his whereabouts now.

He was part of Mar Thoma Syrian church and a priest for 17 years.

A small interview with the author can be found here:

http://www.hvk.org/articles/0201/115.html

Ok, back to the book. The book has 176 pages and hence it is not easy for me to give a translation for you. I will give you a summary later, after me reading it once again. But what made a priest to write such a novel? In the preface he says something like this (translated in my words, not easy as he writes beautifully):
“
I became very sad when my search about the ‘missing years’ of the Son of God went in vain. At the end of thoughtful hours, I became desperate. I lost my consciousness. I was taken to somewhere. It was bright there but the sun was not there. He welcomed me there…

‘Welcome, why are you sad? ‘ He asked me.

‘The testaments/scriptures are not telling anything about you when you were between 12 to 30.
Why this long 18 years did not get recorded?’

I asked

He smiled. It was a friendly, comforting smile. Then He replied

Teenage was tempting, slippery steps. Shaky legs. Suffocating temptations. I walked through all these. At the start of youth, wandering for the search started. A search for the Rishi traditions and prophet linage. Only the essence of the search got manifested in the open service. And only that part got recorded by those who spread the Good News. The secrets and confusions of the teenage and the search during the youth will only be revealed to you through dream.

His smile stayed like the daylight.

‘Please reveal me those’ I said

Then he took me with Him. We walked backwards in the time. We reached in the beginning of all/everything…..

"
It goes like that…..That means, Fr. Samuel really searched a lot to find out where Jesus was during his 12-30 age period. And finally Jesus gave him an answer… I don’t know, but the preface of the novel makes us think in that direction. If Jesus can talk to hundreds of faith sellers, why can’t he talk to a proper priest? It is very much possible.

In that novel, it is said that Mary got conceived by a Roman soldier (that time, Palestine was under the rule of Roman emperors). When the ‘society’ came to know that Mary is pregnant, the then ‘religious setup’ gave her a death verdict. They decided to stone her to death. On that day, people gathered with stones and they were about to kill her. Then a brave man came forward and grabbed Mary’s hand. It was Joseph. The religious head asked him who he is and he replied

‘ I am the father of the child who this woman is going to give birth’

That is how Mary became Joseph’s wife. She was pregnant when she became his wife. Joseph is considered as the stepfather of Jesus, in that book.

And in the novel, as you saw, Jesus comes to visit Rishis too….

Well, its getting very late for me…. Sorry for the abrupt end of this mail….

I know I still need to comment on many other minor things pointed out by you….. may be next time… bye for now and do take care… God bless !

With prayers,

Earth Hour

Today was the Earth-hour day….. I obliged to it. I switched off all lights except one…. I did not use my car….. I don’t know to what extend it might have helped our mother earth from the Global warming stuff…….

http://www.earthhour.org/

No, I am Not...

“Did you go to church with your family?”, she asked me
“I am not a Christian” I said
“Sorry”
“No, its ok”

That was part of a post Easter chat with a friend of mine. I asked her how her Easter was and she said she went to church with her family. Yes, I greeted every Christian friend of mine with whom I am in touch a ‘ Happy Easter’ and yes, I did not forget to wish my Muslim friends a Happy Mowlid Al Nabi.

(How many of my friends have wished me on my festivals, at least one festival? Only two, if I remember correctly).

What does it show? I mean my attitude? Does it mean that I am a pathless man who is wandering around? Somebody who is still in the look out for a ‘path’? Do I believe Jesus gave his life for me and to wash away my sins? Or was I trying to please my friends?

No, I personally don’t believe in such things. I did/do those coz, I respect other religions too . And in doing so, 'My God' will not get angry but instead, He will be very happy …..

The Almighty Fool !

How easy it is to cheat/ trick/fool/confuse/mislead God? At least for some, it is very easy.

And still they call him Almighty? Yep, and that’s an interesting thing which shows how convenient some people are with respect to religion. One person believes in some religion and it has got a scripture. Scripture is said to be God’s words. But what if many things in the scripture are not suitable for that person? Follow only those part which is convenient and pretend that ‘I did not see/ I don’t know/am not aware of’ to the other part.

This is what I thought about when I was talking to a friend of mine. She said she is going to get married and it was a surprise for me, coz, what I believed was she was already married and has got a kid too. So I asked her

“Are you not married then?, may I ask”
“Yes, I am… but that man is not worth keeping”
“So, you are going to divorce him?”
“No, we can’t divorce as per our religion, its annulment”
“Hope you wont get angry if I ask something”
“No, just ask”
“You married him after a series of dates and a boy friend-girl friend relation, right?”
“Yes”

I did not ask much, which may not be comfortable for her to answer. But I could not resist asking this:

“What difference it makes, in the post annulment or divorce life? What about remarriage?”

“There is no difference, in both case, one can re-marry”

How can somebody ‘nullify’ a marriage? Do they have a time machine to go back to the past to do that? Coz that is the only way to take away the kids that were born from that relationship. Else they always stand as a living proof. God has kept something called DNA within us. And the DNA test can easily tell who the parents are. That is how God has created us. He and his creations are that much sophisticated than we think.

I never thought ‘divorce’ is against her religion coz, it (splitting up) was quite a common thing among them and hence I checked out what ‘some others’ of her religion has to say about it and …:

I married a wrong person
I love someone else
I don’t love my mate
I have fallen out of love
My mate doesn’t love me
I am unhappy, this can’t be what God wants
We are incompatible
We have grown apart
We were not married in God’s eyes
He/she is not religious/saved
I don’t have peace
We serve a forgiving God so, He will forgive me
He/she committed mental adultery
He/she is alcoholic
He/she don’t make love
He/she is mean to kids
He/she smokes
I cant trust him/her
God doesn’t want me in an unhealthy relationship……..

The list is long…. They call all the above as UNSCRIPTUAL EXCUSES for a divorce/annulment !!!

So, its just a way to bypass the scripture or ‘God’s words’ !! Just use a different word and slightly change the routine process and you are done. God won’t be able to find it out…coz He is a …..

When I was having this conversation, what went through my mind was another anecdote. It happened some 6 years ago. I was doing a computer course and I knew most of the classmates by their name and some were more friendly than others (why I say so is coz, none of them were my friends for real. May be coz of our age difference. I was at least 10 years older than all the fellow students). One day, I happened to take one of those friendly guys’ note books and I saw his name written in a different way. That is there was a middle name too. So I said:

“Oh, so your full name is this’
“No” there came another guy’s voice who also happened to be follower of the same religion.
“Then ..” my face was confused…

The book owner smiled at me. He was a handsome guy and he smiles handsomely too. And he said:

“On the judgment day, God will ask who are all there with the name <> and only they will be resurrected.....”

So, how easy it is to fool the God…just keep that name with you and a seat in the heaven is reserved for you, though that name is not part of any records (like his school records, birth certificate, passport etc). Your acts and deeds here don’t matter, one seat is reserved! What about women? They usually dont have that name with them (this again shows the male domination in this world). Are they not created by God? dont he love them too? …. He can be easily tricked ….And still God is?

ALMIGHTY ! And He knows everything !!

Proverbs !!

Once, a school teacher gave the children a test on popular proverbs. It was in the form of fill up the blanks. That is, half of it was there and the kids need to finish the rest.. and the result? Here are some samples:


As you make your bed so
shall you . . . mess it up.

Better to be safe than . . .
hit a teacher.

You can lead a horse
to water but . . . how?


Don’t bite the hand that . . .
looks dirty.

A miss is as good as a . . . mr.

You can’t teach an
old dog . . . maths.

The pen is mightier
than the . . . pigs.

An idle mind is . . .
the best way to relax.

There’s no smoke
without . . . pollution.


A penny saved . . .
is not much.

Two’s company, three’s . . .
the musketeers.

Laugh and the world laughs with
you, cry and . . . you must blow
your own nose.

Children should be seen
and not . . . smacked or grounded.

When the blind
leadeth the
blind . . . best get
out of the way.


Never underestimate the
power of . . . termites.

No news is . . .
impossible.

Love all, trust . . . me.

Don’t put off till tomorrow
what . . . you put on to go to bed.


If at first you don’t succeed . . .
get new batteries.


People in glass
houses shouldn’t . . .
run around naked.

The Late Night Movie !

I could not sleep properly the other night. Why? My neighbor went for a late night movie!!

It is like this: I went to bed a little late than my regular time and as usually, after half and hour or so, I fell asleep. Then I woke up hearing a BIG ‘thud thud’ noise. I thought somebody is banging my door. Then I thought why those fools bang the door instead of using the door bell? So I went to door to check out who it is. As soon as I reached the door, it became evident that thy are not banging at my door but theirs. And it happened at 1 am early morning. What the...?

They went for a movie and when they came back, they cant open the door. The lock got jammed. They tried their level best and they could not open it , then another neighbor, then may be somebody else, or may be the security…. And the process went on for another one and a half hours which disturbed my sleep. Once am awake, it is not easy for me to go back to sleep.

Poor me!

Summer Ways...

Its summer again. Summer always reminds of holidays. Many a times it brings back childhood memories. From the start of a new school year, what we eagerly used to wait for was the yearend holidays…loooooooong holidays. Since my mother was a teacher, she too had holidays during those days. She had to visit the school once or twice a month and that time, I too used to go with her, most of the times. Else I might stay at home with my sister or we both might stay at some relative’s place on that day. Dad never used to take leave during the summer days to take us for a vacation. Thus, in my childhood memories, ‘going for a vacation/holiday’ doesn’t exist.

At my native place, where I spent all my childhood, summer was really hot and sweaty days. But it also was mango time. So, we used to through stones at mango trees (of course to get mangoes). Not only that, those were the days we used to climb trees most often, either to pluck mangoes or tamarind or guava or to play.

Now, in this city, we are lucky to have lots of mango trees in our apartment complex. They all started flowering now. This time, it is not that hot, which is a surprise. May be the hot days are yet to come. But anyway, yesterday it rained and today its very pleasant sitting inside. Its very sunny outside and the cool breeze which comes through the window gives pleasant hugs to make us comfortable, giving us a feeling that God loves us.

Summer time is exam time too. My sister’s eldest daughter is giving her 10th grade exams, which is sort of a turning point in student life. And for my son, it’s the ‘season’ of exams. Whenever he has to give exams like this, I think of the senseless educational systems that prevail in this country. And I also gets a thought ‘ it was a mistake to admit him into ICSE stream’. For us, exams took only 10 days of so. But for his case, it started on 8th and it goes till 25th (yes, there are some holidays too, in between) and he is only in 4th grade !

If we compare our quantity of education with other nations in the world, may be our little ones shoulder the worst burden (quality is also not bad, Indian IIM/IIT Graduates are one of the highest paid ones around the world, and during campus interviews, many MNCs go empty handed for lack of enough candidates). And the stress? Yes, even my son complained of headache due to stress ! is that the end? Nope, I don’t know where India stands in such a statistics, but every year, before exams or after the results, many students commit suicide, mainly coz they could not meet their parents’/teacher’s expectations. Now this is one of the topics we see in daily news papers.

I think it is high time the authorities seriously look into the prevailing educational system and make appropriate changes and moreover, have some uniform/standard system throughout the country.

An Online Lesson !

I am going through a surprisingly strange phase where I am not in touch with my friends, the usual way it was sometime ago. Many of them are busy and some of them stay invisible and even lied to me that they did not come online !! If they thought I can be fooled that way, they are wrong. I really wonder why they did that coz, its upto them to decide to whom they want to talk and to whom they did not want to and I respect that. They could have stayed online and kept their status busy, which is what some other friends of mine did/do. Or, at least, they shouldn't have told me that they never came online, that too without me asking!!. There is no reason for lying that they are not coming online/ they did not come online at all.

Anyway, this gave an opportunity to realize how truthful many of my friends are to me, though it hurt me a little since I considered many of them as very good friends of mine and had spent/'wasted' lot of my personal time for them.

May be I have started looking at the positive side of it than getting worried about it anymore...

Devanahalli Airport

My city’s new Airport is ready. As soon as it got declared as operational, it got closed (till May 10 )by the central agencies saying it is yet to meet many norms.

Why is this hurry to open this airport? And what happened to the old one? There is lots of hue and cry going on about whether to keep the old one or not. People’s surveys showed that they want the old one still functioning, at least for domestic flights. Top business people also expressed similar views.

But the tragedy is the government and other agencies decided to close it (and keep it for defense department and may be for the VIPs (yes that is #$%*&@ politicians), resulting many people becoming unemployed (mainly taxi drivers. Well, on the other side, many others will get some new jobs in the new airport), which resulted in strike by that airport employees since past two days.

Whats mainly wrong with the new airport? Its far from the city and there is no dedicated roads to reach there. One needs to travel at least one and a half hours even for a short 30 minutes air travel. Considering the up and down travel, one has to spend about three hours and at least 2000 bucks extra, coz of the distance. If there is heavy traffic or jam, then things are worse. Then why did they start a new airport without considering how to reach there?

The new airport is situated from where locals hardly travel by air. The old airport’s history is exactly opposite. Even from my own apartment complex, at least one person uses it on a daily basis. City needs that airport very badly, since lots and lots of people who live in the city travel by plane, mainly it being the IT capital of this country. So what happened?

The answer is simple. There are some politicians who are into real estate business, which includes a former Chief Minister and his father , a former Prime Minister (they were farmers but now billionaires). It’s all their crooked idea and plan. They bought acres of land in that village first, and then came out with the idea of airport in that village, near their land. Once everything went fine, they sold their land (or they will sell it very soon) at very high price, which might have made them millionaires. They are not bothered how people reach there coz, they have helicopter to reach the airport. Everyone who lives in this city know this story and its very funny that the media are mum about this.

The AK - 47

Which single weapon killed the maximum number of humans on earth? Without any doubt, it is the AK -47 assault rifle, which was created by a Russian brain called Mikhail Kalashnikov (Михаил Тимофеевич Калашников, Mihail Timofeevič Kalašnikov).




His parents had 18 children and Kalashnikov was the 17th. Well, the fact is only 6 children survived and he is one among them. After 9th grade, he joined the Railways as a technical clerk. Then he joined the Red Army during 1938. He continued his studies at the Army’s Engineering school. He invented many small stuffs from that day onwards (like revolution counter to count the number of shells fired from a Tank). He was with the tank division and during world war II he was the commander of a Tank division.




During that time (1941) he got wounded by shells and confined to a military hospital for months and that was the time he ‘invented’ a new automatic assault rifle, in his mind. When he was out of the hospital, he started working on it. Many trial models came out but it was during 1947 that the gun officially got manufactured and became the standard rifle for the Russian Army. A stands for Avtomat (means Automatic) and K stands for Kalashnikova and 47 is the year of manufacture thus – Avtomat Kalashnikova 1947 or AK-47.

Russia’s main AK-47 factory at Izhmash makes around 100,000 rifles per year but around the world, 900,000 imitations are made every year. This is the weapon of choice by the terrorists. But Kalashnikov clearly says, his guns are sold as per the rules and norms and it is up to the governments to have regulations and control over weapons used in their country, which is absolutely right.

So far, it is the number one assault rifle in the world, though the Americans hesitate to admit it (it is said that even the Americans used AK-47 during the Vietnam war, but they claim that they won the war with their M-16).

Mikhail Kalashnikov won many awards from his country, like - degree of Doctor of engineering science, Orders of Lenin, Order of the Red Banner of Labour, Order of the Great Patriotic War of the First Class, Order of the Red Star etc etc)

So, how rich is Mikhail Kalashnikov, considering the AK-47s circulating around the world? Well, he is not benefited by that number. He just gets a State pension and he sells Vodka of his own brand made at his own Vodka Company (he is the chairman of the Kalashnikov Joint Stock Vodka Co.)!!




How violent is he? He is a peace lover! And he hopes that truth will prevail and the use of weapons will end one day..

Busy Bees

Its busy days. People around me are very busy doing many different things and hence there is very little contacts with them, by means of chat or mail or whatever.

Today, one such busy bee took some time and showed up to say hi. That was nice. And how busy am I, personally? I too became busy. Its my son’s final exam time and hence, I need to spent more time than what I usually used to allocate for this purpose. Teaching, revising, making question papers etc …

Since there is nobody to chat with, most of the time, I got some spare time and hence I decided to study more computer. So far, my experience is, anything related to C family of programming language is a jinx for me. But I allocated sometime for it, once again. I don’t know how things will turn around. In the middle, I got attracted to the rifle, AK-47. I used to keep a file folder (physical one and not computer file) named ‘The Stuff File’. I used to scribble about things which I happened to read/researched and got interested. But since couple of years, I forgot about that file and the other day , once again I happened to see it. So, that diverted me to some other places. I realized that I forgot everything that I read about the ‘String theory’ , which is part of theoretical physics. That file lead me to J.C Bose, Einstein, Kalashnikov, some cameras, and other stuffs and hence came in between my computer studies (grrrrrrrrrrrrrr). But it helped me from getting sucked away by the vacuum created by some of my friends.

I spent thinking about two nonsense things that happened around me. One is the arrest of a arms dealer who succeeded (by giving commission/bribe to many politicians and others) to sell some missiles to the Indian Navy. Those missiles always failed in tests, including the trials. What patriotic politicians India has got, WOW! Hats off to them. If there was some provision, they would have sold India to some other country…. Bloody @#$%$#&*

Yesterday, there happened a BIG traffic jam in my city. It all started when an auto rickshaw jumped a traffic signal. Why did he jump the red light? The driver was carrying his father to hospital and that guy was ‘serious’. The police did not allow him to go and the guy died on the spot. Auto guys are known for bad behaviors/underworld connections/criminal activities etc. Within seconds, the place got filled with auto drivers and ‘crowd’. They beat up the policeman who stopped the rickshaw. And blocked the road till higher-ups showed up. I have personally seen police violating traffic rules. One particular incident I clearly remember is that of a pilot vehicle for a minister crossing the road divider and thus violating the one way rule. All the vehicles that followed that police van violated that rule. That too for a worthless politician.

At least here in this case, he was trying to save his father’s life and the police should have considered it as and emergency and given the privilege of an ambulance.