Islam and A Blue eyed Blonde Jesus !

After I moving to US, somebody from the largest Islamic country asked me couple of questions - How do US treat the muslims? Why many Christians change their religion to Islam etc. The question came with a 'what do you think?' prefix or suffix.. In what way my opinion matter if Christians change their religion to Islam when I do not follow neither of the religions? I don't know.

I had never thought about such a scenario till I face this question. But what do I think, if I have to think?

The outlook of the americans towards muslims changed after that 9/11 incident, thats a fact. Bin Laden even gave a direct message to US to accept Islam or face consequences. Attacking US (India too) is jihad for him/them. I live in a place which has considerable muslim population. This area is said to have the largest Afghan population in this State (or even country, not sure). I do not think they are being discriminated here at least in my locality. Or I better say I never felt so (no such news so far).

Why do Christians convert into Islam? I did not think about it. But this question made me recollect certain things that came and gone through my head. First of all, I am not sure about this conversions. But the person who asked me gave Michael Jackson as an example. Yes, thats true, sometimes back I too had blogged about his conversion. Then I realized that an acquaintance of mine too left Christianity and embraced Wicca. Some more conversions too went through my mind. Two of my acquaintances changed their faith to Islam to marry muslim guys (one Christian and one Hindu. Islam and Hinduism has polar difference at this point. There is no exit clause for Islam. If you change religion, you get death. In Hinduism there is total freedom – you worship Jesus, you worship Allah, you worship this or that, you don’t worship anything at all, you worship Satan, you change religion to a cat's of dog's or even donkey's religion, no questions asked. Hinduism do not believe in forcing religion on to others or even among Hindus). One thing common with couple of these people were that they were African Americans or dark skinned people. Is Islam picking up in African countries? Not sure but if it is, I am not surprised coz...

Last week, I was checking (at the largest online store in here in US/in the world) the list of the top selling books here in US . There was an interesting book which tells us about a boy's near death experience (NDE). What is interesting is that this boy claims that he went to heaven and met Jesus and even God (plus angels and some of his relatives -who died earlier- etc). This book is promoted as a true story and people are buying it and giving very high rating too. Surprisingly, lots of them believe that it is for real (personally, I do not believe because the book is written by his father who is an evangelist and the boy says funny stuffs like Angels always carry sword to fight with Satan etc. Sword? Oh yeah? So, they still live in the iron age? I expected at least a Light Saber...if that boy really had an NDE, I don’t think he is telling lies. But his these sort of experience can be very much explained in terms of psychology/para-psychology). But in what way this is connected to Islam?

How did the Jesus look like? He was tall , white skinned and had blue eyes. So, Jesus is a tall white man with blue eyes (there is a confusion regarding the color of his hair; some say its blonde and some say its chestnut). So, Jesus was probably an American?

I spent a lot of time reading stuffs here and there to find how the americans feel about Jesus. Many of the white people like this 'fact', they believe Jesus was a white man for sure (in reality, if they check Jesus's DNA, it would be closer to Bin Laden and not Gorge Bush !). But the problem here is when Jesus gets promoted as a blue eyed blonde white man, may be it is bit hard for the darker skinned people to digest (I have seen some pictures of Jesus where he was shown as a dark skinned man, may be this was to promote Christianity in Africa). But Prophet Mohammad wasn't a white man plus Islam believes in Jesus (as a messenger).

I have heard it from some of the very popular promoters of Islam that when Jesus comes again, he will be coming to testify to Christians that he never said he is God and he will be coming to re-assure the words of prophet Mohammad, the words or Allah, spoken in the Koran. According to Islam, Jesus's message was exclusively for Israel. I spend about 6 hours to listen to the talks and teachings of one of the 'islamic evangelists'. He speaks convincingly. I think even the celebrity evangelist/televangelist Benny Hinn can not counter his points. He says Jesus was a muslim and muslims are more christians than the present day christians because they follow the teachings of Jesus better than the christians....lots of stuffs like that

So, these new Jesus image and promotions could be one of the reasons why Christians are changing their religion to Islam. At least thats one possibility.

Sleep and the World

Sometime back I wrote about falling asleep during meditation. So, is sleeping heavily bad for spiritual growth? I did not say so. Sleep (at night) is always good. Look at one wonderful thing about sleep (apart from its healing properties).

Science may not accept this at present but at least some people know/think that our thoughts also play some role in creating the environment around us. As we know, thoughts have some connection with our desires because desires can influence our thoughts. Dreams have some connection with our desires. Many dreams, especially the repeated ones,  could be the reflections of our deep rooted desires. When do we dream? We dream when we are asleep.

By observing our dreams, chiefly the repeated ones,  we can trace some of our deep rooted desires residing within us which could play a role in creating ‘our world’.

So, we can use our dreams as a tool to analyze and assess the strength of our desires and modify it to enhance even our spiritual growth.

See?

 

Story of Stories

In every tradition, there are many beliefs and some stories behind it. For example, in India, people used to say

“While sleeping if you keep your head facing towards north, you will die (early)”

To support that they might say the story of how Lord Ganesha got his elephant head (the elephant was sleeping keeping its head facing north. The story has no importance here so I am skipping that). This story will keep kids away from keeping their head towards north.

(Now science has explanation for this belief in terms of magnetism and how our health is affected if we sleep that way)

In my native State,  to get relief from neck sprain there is this belief among the elderly to keep a ‘nazhi’ (a round measuring cup) under the neck and rest. Now docs and physio therapists ask us to roll up a towel and keep it under our neck and rest or use a cervical pillow (btw, some people still do not know the logic and insist in keeping exactly the ‘Nazhi’ …..its their ignorance)

If those ‘wise guys’ of the long past knew the reason behind it,   why didn’t they say it straight instead of making up some stories?

Ever heard of 'grandma stories'? Yes, every one of us. (But what about grandpa stories? Well, at least I am not sure about such stories). In every country and tradition, it was the grannies that used to tell stories. Women were the one who used to take care of the babies and kids. They used to feed them telling stories; they used to put the babies to sleep telling stories. Some stories were just stories and some stories had something within it.

Women in India never used to go to school in the past. Men were the bread earners and women were the ones who took care of the household things. The beauty those old stories is that everybody can understand it, at least the story part. Those old grannies were illiterate but they always had lots and lots of stories to tell. They gave turmeric telling a story and not telling that its an anti-septic.. they gave pepper with another story...there comes garlic with a glass of story...

We don’t need to be educated to listen to such a story or to tell a story. So, those ‘wise ones’ made things simple (well, in India, they also made stories with super depth,  which demands higher understanding, with a different purpose) – instead of trying to explain how things are and making it complicated, they passed the knowledge through stories. It is true that there were lots of people who really did not care for or understood the logic and they kept telling stories ( In this ‘modern' era too many people take even medicines without reading the ingredients!).  

Story time…

“Athazhamundal ara kaatham nadakkanam”

(After having dinner, one must walk a little)

A Parallel World !

Do parallel worlds exist?  Look at this:

I live in the ground floor of a wooden apartment (which has three floors). Somebody lives just above my apartment who always creates some sort of noise…. Stuffs falling, heavy stamping.. From my observation, he works from home and that too at night. When I am in the hall, he stamps and pounds just above me.. At night, when I rest in my bedroom, he too moves to his bed room and starts pacing or stamping just above me creating creaky noises and mild ‘bangs’.

I am convinced that parallel worlds do exist !

Christ and Kali

In some Hindu homes we can see this picture of Goddess Kali. She is the most ferocious and fearful form of God. Her tongue is out and all red.. holds the head of a demon she just killed… holds lots of weapons.. What is the point of having such a God concept? Actually, it is not to scare anybody but to scare away the scary things.

Hinduism teaches to love God. We don’t get scared by those who we love irrespective of their looks. So, when one learns to love such a scary figure treating her as mother, nothing is scary. That is the logic behind it. I personally knew couple of Kali worshippers and they were never scared of the dark. 

But what if that picture scares one and keeps them away from that picture at night? I think such a person should remove that picture from the pooja room/place. Hinduism offers lots of God forms (including the formless) to suit all kinds of worshipers. That person better choose something which is comfortable for him/her ( There is a reason/logic why there are many different forms).

Once a Christian friend of mine told:

“We hate Jews because they crucified our Jesus”

I asked:

“Do you have that cross at home? The crucified Jesus?”

I got the answer “Yes”

The very idea of Jesus in the cross is not to remind who killed him (or that is what I personally believe). So, if what that cross bring is the memory of his killers, I think one better replace that with a picture of Jesus holding a lamb close to his heart. I think His life was there to teach love and not hatred.

Winter Sport !

I have blogged about many of my vacation trips in the past. But I have never done this kind of a trip in my life so far where I almost reached my destination but could not make it…where there were signs/omens but I did not read it…

I was waiting for the winter to come to see some snow and do some winter sport. Since there is no snow in our place, I decided to visit Lake Tahoe where it snows and lot of winter activities happen. 

I booked a hotel well in advance to get a competitive rate. The trip was planned on 20^th of this month (December). On 19^th, I did some last minute purchase (some gloves, caps etc) and we were all set. We wished to reach there before check in time (3 pm) coz the sun sets very early and then it will be difficult to drive since there will be snow fall during evening/night.

I could not sleep well at night and I woke up with severe headache and thus the trip got delayed for 2 hours. When I was about to enter the road from driveway, there came a ‘red’ truck and there came a thought in my mind ‘ is that any warning?’ then I thought ‘how can I be such a superstitious person?’. As soon as I entered the road, there came a red car for which I had to stop. Then I thought maybe these are coincidence or just a warning to be a little careful. So, there we gooooo

Since we started late, I wished ‘if only the traffic lights were all green, I could save lot of time’. The first light was green, so was the second, third, forth, fifth… hey this is great !

We had checked the Google map for planning and I use GPS to drive. GPS showed a different route than the Google one. But we followed the GPS. But all of a sudden, for no reason, the GPS said ‘recalculating’  and came with a different route. Usually this happens when there is traffic jam/block etc and it also depends on the settings. This time, we had no idea (usually it is my wife who handle the GPS and route and I just drive. So she is good with GPS stuff than me but even she could not find out why the route changed). We missed a billboard which gave a warning about some road closure. We did not care much coz our GPS has traffic update and it can tell us which road is closed and where the traffic is heavy.

We started climbing hills. The temperature started dropping. 5, 4, 3, 2 …I was thrilled and kept looking at the thermometer. I was waiting for 0 to come and finally there it is minus one…wow. It was a great feeling and there it is – SNOW. I saw a board ‘Chains required’ but did not see any car with tire chains. I have seen similar boards like 'ICY' and something related to tire chains during summer too. So, I thought these boards are always there.

Before traveling we asked one person who already have done this route and he said he did not use any chain though there was snow. And I read that there are places where we can stop our car and put chains and there will be professional people who we can hire. I had practiced how to put chains but since I did not feel any difficulty in driving and saw nobody is using chains, I went on. I thought there will be BIG snow ahead where we might require chains. On and off, I saw these guys who were removing snow from the road driving bulldozer and some other equipment (I still do not know its name)

Then, the GPS stopped working…it could not load maps. There is no phone signal and hence we can not make any calls, nor any search. I told my wife:

“I wonder why we are the only people in this road”

Then there I saw another black car (mine is black) ahead of me. It was a relief but then I saw him turning back. I went ahead and it looked dead end for me. There is no road but HUGE ice or snow or whatever. And there goes a road on to my right. Wife said she is sure that our road was supposed to be a straight road and there is no need to take right turn. We were just 30 miles or less away from our destination

So, I turned back and asked a driver of one of those bulldozers. He said

‘Lake Tahoe is that way but the road is blocked and it might take a day to open this road. You have to go all the way down…..” and he gave us a different route (which was the Google route, which had less trouble).

Then there came another guy and he told me:

“You are not using chains. If the highway patrol see you, you MIGHT get a ticket”

I said thanks to them , turned back and proceeded. My wife started getting worried coz – it is snowing, we need to climb down all the way and this will take longer than we expected, may be 2-3 hours more and by that time it will be night.. and she said

“This is what that billboard said, I guess…it said this road is closed ”

But then why the GPS did not inform us? No idea..It gave us the worst route..…

Everywhere it is snow and ice and it made me happy rather than worried and the happiness weighed more, may be. But this does not mean that I was not worried. And I felt I better put chains but there came a thought:

“the road is closed so, there is no chance for police patrolling this road and that driver said I MIGHT get a ticket so chains may not be mandatory ” and wife just said “yes” she was not worried about the chains but other things coz I was driving without any problem. Then….

I spotted a police vehicle well ahead of me and I pressed break. I was on the right side, obviously, closer to the center of the road, but the car started moving to left, skidding. I am going in the wrong direction. There is no control even after putting the hand brake. The car moved slowly and hit a huge chunk of snow and stopped (luckily, coz I think else we could have fallen into the valley....I do not know coz everything was covered in snow). I wasn’t worried and did not lose my presence of mind and managed to back it slowly and proceed further. By that time the police van disappeared. But I said:

“I think we need to put the chains”

We were going down and hence I thought I will stop at some level/even place or turn out place. There was one such place but it was already occupied by the cop! And he caught the other black car. I stopped my car and started putting the chain. Then the cop reversed his van and asked what happened and I told him that I am putting chains. Then he said:

"Follow me and pull over there". I did.

He came out of the van, so did I (we are not supposed to come out of the car when a cop stop us. But he will come to us. Not like India). He asked:

“So, you stopped there coz you knew that you cannot pass me without chains, right?”

“No, sir… Those bulldozer drivers asked me to put chains and I was looking for a right place…I am driving on such conditions for the first time in my life”

He stared at me and asked:

“Did you see those board reading chains required?, there were many of them”

“Yes”

“Then why you did not put chains while coming up? You were supposed to do that”

I had no proper answer and I said I did not find a proper place. As a matter of fact, I expected some special places with pros available to help (that is what the internet say). He did not agree:

“No, there were lots of places”

I just said “I am sorry sir” and he said “can I see your driver license, registration and insurance?

So, it is a ticket ! So far I have a clean driving record and here I am going to get my first ticket…This really made me very sad.

He asked me to go ahead with my chain thing and wrote a ticket. I was wearing a normal woolen glove and the temperature was minus 5. BIG mistake. There was a chunk of snow between the tire and the body of the car. I wet my hand…when I finished putting the chains, my hand/fingers froze (then I remembered my Romanian friend saying “if you do not protect yourself in minus temperatures, it will result in frostbite. And even might result in amputation” )

Cop gave me lots of advice and issued a ticket. My hands was paining like hell and became numb. I switched on heater and changed into another thicker glove. Slowly the pain started going away and I can feel my fingers…what a relief…

After sometime, the GPS started working and said some direction and then again it failed. This time it did not even turn on. But last time, what it said was to take a left turn. But that left turn was filled with heavy snow (coz snow wasn't removed).  I turned and my wheels got stuck, I cannot move at all. Wheels started spinning and the car started coming back. I told my wife:

“It is impossible for us, even with chains. Only 4 wheel drive cars can go through this road”

We were already late (coz of the chain I was driving at 20 miles per hour)..the sun started setting, GPS not working, no phones working, no cars passing, no food to eat, there is no restaurants around, no houses around, it’s snowing and the temperature is minus 5 or 6…

I managed to back my car from the snow, safely and started moving very slowly coz the road has become icy. I went further and said:

“I feel like there is no chain”

I stopped the car and checked…the chain is gone ! we need to turn back safely, go up and get it but what if the cop finds me again without chains?

I was sure that it might have lost in that huge snow.. and yes, it was there buried deep inside that snow I pulled it out but it was damaged !! Luckily I had some tool to fix it. But will it last for the entire trip? No idea.

Chain again and there we go…then the road looked better and I decided to remove the chain. There still was snow on the sides of the road but the middle looked fine. I stopped the car, removed the chain and said:

“what about taking a picture of mine?” and my wife became angry and said:

“Are you crazy? I just can’t believe you, really, I just can’t believe you”

“Ok, fine, no photo then.”

I told I want to make this trip and ready to drive through snow at night, taking the risk. But wife said we better go back home. It was a big disappointment for me. But I said:

“Yes, it looks like something tells us to go back… we are going back home…when you can make a call, call up the hotel and tell them that we cannot make it”

GPS started working and it worked all the way till we reach home and then became dead again.

Finally, its home sweet home….

Man ! , what a trip !

Life in the US - Part 2

County Libraries are one of the wonderful things here. The membership is free and we can borrow 75 books at a time! But the same reason becomes a con because people take more books than they want and thus most of the popular books will not be available (we can book a book). Libraries provide almost all info we need, for free. Means, they will provide free internet, info on schools and colleges, the California driver handbook, info about social security, upcoming events in that locality etc. There are lots of big print edition books for the elderly people. They keep lots of magazines and lots of other language books too (like, Hindi, Farsi, Chinese, Tagalog etc). Apart from books we can borrow Audio and Video CDs/DVDs too. With a single membership, we can use the facilities of the other libraries that come under that county.  

One thing when could not avoid noticing here is the lack of electric switches, in most cases. Most of the panel has only sockets but no switch. This is mentioned by Jackie Chan in his latest ‘Karate Kid’ movie. When the kid says ‘we do not have switch in America’ he says ‘keep switch and save the planet’. Yes, we have 24 hours hot water. Electrical equipment are just plugged into the socket and there is no ‘on or off’ concept, in general (of course there is switch for stuffs like in sink garbage disposer)

Unlike India, we cannot directly consult a specialist. As per the ‘system’ we need to consult our primary care physician and then that doc has to refer to respective specialist. If we break this system and visit Urgent Care or Emergency Room, we will end up paying more money. Some basic insurance might not even cover such visits.

Initially I thought I will take up some university course here. But the reality is education is very expensive here. So, most people (citizens) avail educational loans to study. Back in my native place, lots of people have a college degree and here it is not the case. Even in IT field, many of the locals are not computer engineers. That is one of the reasons why Asians dominate here in IT field.

It’s a rich country, but there is poverty and unemployment here in US too. And at present, it’s very high.  Recently the government cut funds for most of the things. But surprisingly they have funds for war, always. One reason for unemployment is the outsourcing. It’s not just some software but lots and lots of other things too. Go to any shop and try to find something ‘Made in USA’ and its tough time to find. Most items are Chinese and Americans really do not like it. They consider it as cheap quality. But there is not much choice left. This might sound surprising, but it’s a reality that Dell do not make any computer here in US, though Dell is a US company. There is not even a single company in US which makes spoons, forks and knives. Same with canned sardine, Levi jeans and cell phones (including iphone4) – none of these are made here. Here the labor cost is high and hence the corporates just invest their money on other countries to double or triple their return.

This country is strange. Here we can find people from almost every other country. Many ‘real’ Americans do not like this (including one of my acquaintances). This country gives citizenship even through lottery system. People from most of the Asian counties like India, Philippines, China etc cannot participate in the lottery system currently since their population is very high here. But people from lots of other country can participate in the lottery and if they win, they can come here and get settled. Looks like the founders of US wanted to make this a cosmopolitan country. 

That’s how things are here….

So? 

So, God bless America !

Life in the US - Part 1

It’s my first ‘living anniversary’ here in US. Time just flew. How was my life here, so far? It’s good, of course. No complaints. I said no complaints coz what I am going to write are not complaints but some of my observations.

This is my first firsthand experience living in a capitalist country. I had read a lot about US before, including some travelogues. But travelogues have a different approach. How similar it is the life here compared to a country like India?

Quarter dollar is an important aspect of those who live here. We need them for using public phones, coin operated laundries, parking lots etc. And hence we can ‘buy’ quarter dollar from most of the grocery stores. It comes rolled and a roll will contain 40 coins. So, if any increment comes in coin operated services, we need to pay at least a quarter dollar extra, not 5 or 10 cents.

The public school system here is very good as far as the easiness of admission and interaction with teachers etc are concerned. Every child here has got a seat in the school for sure and there is no choice but to attend a particular school (not talking about private schools). Unlike India, a job in a public school is not a permanent job. One can get fired. Here the teachers are there to teach and not to play politics. Most of the teachers like teaching and they are not there just to make a living. Every school keeps its own fund and every school district has its own fund. If a school district has to cut funds, it even cut teaching jobs. Dental hygiene is important here. And there are no kids with disarranged teeth (like the one I have). They all align it (this has become a common trend, which is good, around the world, these days) when they are teens and it’s a big business too.   Head lice is also considered as a serious issue here. Kids can even stay home during the lice treatment period (they have to make some arrangements to pick up homework and assignments). 

One aspect I did not understand is the ‘Drugs’ and ‘Drinks’ aspect. One day, when my son told me how to drink wine without getting drunk, I was surprised and I asked who told him that and he said his Physical Education teacher and its part of his job! Drugs are the funniest part. From elementary school they will start issuing the ‘anti-drug’ awareness pamphlets and newsletters. Drugs are a common problem in high schools and some schools are particularly known for drugs. Now, the ‘what I do not understand’ part. It is not a big deal to find out where it comes from, if the police and school authorities work together and use some technology. But why it’s not happening? From where all those drugs are flowing into schools and what is the police doing? Instead of issuing newsletters, why can’t they burst the network? Another ‘I do not understand’ thing is the school bullies. Every year, lots of kids commit suicide here in US coz of bullying. (In India, there is this ‘samam, vedam, krodam and dandam’ principle to up bring kids. Means, first you tell in a way the kid can understand; if that fails, then give advice; if not solved, show anger.. if that too fails, give physical punishment) 

There are no small here in US, in general. Almost all retail shops are chains. Target, Home Depot, Trader Joe’s, H&M, OfficeMax, Best Buy, Macy’s, Starbucks, Costco, Safeway, FoodMaxx, JC Penny, Toys R Us,  Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Denny’s, Wendy’s, Walgreens, CVS….its a long list. Most of these chains have got their in-house brand and they even sell generic drugs in their label, apart from the pharmacy stores like Walgreens and CVS. Pharmacy stores are not just pharmacy stores. They sell all the medicine plus they stock almost everything else including toys, greeting cards and even alcoholic beverages.

Medicine is divided into prescription drugs and over the counter (OTC) drugs. But there is no need to worry if one wants to do self-medication. Almost all the essential drugs are sold OTC, including some ‘sleep aide’ ones. These sleep aides are kind of cheating. They are all mostly antihistamines (anti-allergy drugs) which has the side effect drowsiness. Apart from this, hormones like melatonin, which has a lot to do with sleep, is also sold OTC. Cold medicines come in two versions – day and night. Night one contains something (usually antihistamine or some decongestant) that makes you sleep/drowsy. Anti-biotic comes under prescription drugs and usually the doc sends the prescription directly to the pharmacy (any pharmacy of our choice) and we can pick up the medicine from the pharmacy store; we cannot choose the brand. Knowingly or unknowingly, most of those who live here take vitamins in excess. This is because most of the bread, milk, cereals etc comes with added vitamins, many a times the same vitamins. Plus many of them take vitamin supplements for no reason at all. Again, B group of vitamins along with some minerals are sold as vitamins for nail, hair, skin etc. 

 Speaking about the pharmacy, this country is ‘ruled’ by Pharma and Insurance giants. Every year most people take ‘flu shots’ during winter. Do we really need it? How do the scientists know which virus is going to hit this year? What if we catch a cold/flu even after getting vaccinated? Well, don’t ask such ‘stupid’ questions. If you want, get the vaccine or keep quite…Medicines are ridiculously priced. A small tube of antibacterial cream which can be sold for less than 5 dollars costs more than 10 dollars. We can hardly find anything for less than 5 dollar in medicine category. My son had to do a physical exam, a vaccine and a tester drug before his school admission and the bill was over 500 dollars. They make 10 tablets for less than a dollar (by outsourcing) and sell each for nearly 10 dollars. A TT injection for my son was 110 dollars. How can somebody afford it? Angels comes in the form if Health Insurance.

This ridiculous rate makes insurance a must. Will that policy cover our teeth? Eyes? No, we need to get dental insurance and eye care separately. Almost all the primary care docs have got only the basic medical education (in India, if one has only a bachelor degree in medicine, he/she will face a tough time to get patients). Most of the dental ‘work’ can be paid in EMIs. That tells how expensive it is. If one has to do a consultation, a cleaning and couple of root canal treatment with crown, it is cheaper to go to some other country like India and get it done. Same with many surgeries. This was the reason why medical tourism was picking up in India and then all of a sudden a ‘bug’ originated from India which seriously damaged the medical tourism. From where did that bug come from? Who created that? Shhhhh…

Vehicle insurance is another trick. Here the insurance is not for the vehicle. Vehicle insurance is tagged to a vehicle and a person together. In India, insurance is for the vehicle. Anybody who has a valid driver license can drive a vehicle which is insured. So, if there are 5 members (with valid driver license) in a family, all of them can drive/share the same car without paying any additional amount for insurance. Here the insurance goes up when more people are added up. And different insurance agency will give different rate. If we just take a policy we might end up paying more for no reason at all. Some credit card comes with some basic insurance too. But most people, including me do not know the exact terms and conditions for such coverage. Usually car insurance will cost a few thousand dollars per year; it depends on the make of the car, where we drive, the driver’s driving history, age etc

Among the chain stores one is interesting. Costco. This is a wholesale store but for individuals…weird? We need a membership ($50 per year for the basic membership and $100 for the executive). Things are supposed to be less priced here. To what extend it is less? I asked couple of people, including myself and nobody has got a clear answer. The trick is every item we buy from Costco is specially packed for them, in large quantities. If we want a tooth paste, we need to buy a minimum of 5. If we want to buy milk, we need to buy 2 gallon minimum. If something is comes in 100 grams at a normal store, here it comes at 325 or 475 grams. Who is going to compare gram to gram? I admit that I have not done that kind of a calculation so far and as of now, I do not know any CPA here (they might have tried this for sure). Everybody who go there end up spending at least 100 bucks at a time. What if we don’t go? We get this feeling ‘hey I paid 50 bucks for membership. I need to make use of it’. Some of the branded cloths are specially made for Costco and there is quality difference. I am not saying that there is no saving at all, of course there is this cash back. But there are some under currents. The more we spend on in-house brand (Kirkland) the more we ‘save’, possibly. In US, the maximum retail price is not printed on the products in human readable form but only in barcode. This allows retailers sell things at a price of their choice. For a pack of lay’s chips, we have to pay a lot more if we buy from a gas station (there almost everything cost more). And every gas stations sell same gas at different price. If we live in a posh area, they charge more. The first gas station after we exit from a freeway will charge more. We need to pay more on weekends too.

Mobile phone or wireless phone as we say here is another ‘experience’. We need to pay for everything, including incoming calls and texts (Back in India, all incoming calls and texts are free, for all telephone service). If we want an iphone, we do not have any choice but to get service from AT&T (as of now). Each carrier has their models. We cannot simply buy this or that phone unless we are ready to change service provider too. Basic service is only for basic phones and smart phones comes with mandatory data package (In India, we can buy any handset we want and use with our current service provider. No particular service is compulsory. We can buy a HTC android and still stick to basic service if we want). 

Here, auto mechanics (and lawyers) are known for charging very high fee. Back in India there was something called ‘servicing’ the car. Means, we can give the car to a workshop for ‘service’. They will do complete checkup (bumper to bumper) go for a trial run and fix problems if any. There are pickup and drop service too. Here they cannot pick up or drop coz they do not have insurance for that vehicle and hence cannot go for a trial run on the road too. Here service is part by part, generally. Most of the workshops have this ‘break package’ ‘oil change package’, ‘timing belt package’, 'headlight package' etc. While doing the wheel rotation, they will check the tire pressure of only 4 tires and the spare tire will be spared. Almost all the time, the labor will cost more than the parts. Hence, a lot of people do most of the minor works by themselves, to the extent possible. 

 

Out of the Box

It was about why Indians don’t say ‘I love you’ very often just like the people in the west. I was told:

“I hate it when people don’t say it”

Why a typical Indian don’t say ‘I love you’ to his spouse or kids or friends just like that? And why somebody from the west should hate that Indian attitude?

 I was thinking about that. My father never told “I love you” to me. Nor did my mother or sister. Never heard that from any of my relatives or Indian friends too….Does that mean that they did not love me? I don’t think so..

Take a generation back. What is the divorce rate among old fashioned Indians who almost never said  ‘I love you’ to their spouse? Almost zero (among my parents’ generation, I don’t know even a single relative or acquaintance of mine who got divorced). What about the same with the west? Not much change from the current rate. What does this mean? At least this does NOT mean that those old fashioned Indian did not love their spouse. Btw, this also does not mean that Indians never express their love and care. How do they express is out of scope of this blog.

(I was thinking about my mother tongue. What is the equivalent for ‘I love you’? The closest is – ‘Njan nine premikkunnu’. For us, it is too dramatic. May be we can use it in love notes or in movies but hard to use in a face to face conversation. Of course we can say that in English. But in that case, how can that be part of Indian culture? India speaks over a hundred languages and every language is totally free from English. Zero influence; in fact, Indian language has influence on many other world languages, including English)

There are certain things in this world we should not ‘why’. It is meaningless. For example, in many countries (including India) there is one hand gesture for expressing ‘super’, ‘great’, ‘fantastic’ ‘excellent’ ‘awesome’ etc by touching the thumb and index finger and keeping the other three fingers straight. But this gesture is something filthy in some other countries. If one Indian goes and ‘why’ somebody from that country will that help? Nope. Most of the Asian countries have got traditional dress for wedding. Why can’t they dress like the west, in a ‘modern’ way?

Is there any point in an Indian pointing finger at west and a westerner pointing finger at India without trying to understand the cultures and undercurrents?

Recently Philippines and Indonesia had floods in some parts of their country. When asked, couple of Indonesians started with

“Alhamdulillah…..” (it means all praise only for Allah) 

and Philippinos did not start with any particular expression. Why? May be because they don’t have an equivalent expression, as per their tradition, I don’t know.

Once somebody told me

“I have all the answers in my scripture, so I don’t have to read any other one”

Here that person meant the scriptures of other religions.  

Some people say:

“My God is the only true God”?

So, all ‘other Gods’ are pirated, right? 

Why is it so?

How did ancient Indian Rishis say there is fire deep inside the Earth without even seeing any volcano in their lives, that too thousands of years ago? How did they say it is Earth which is rotating the sun when even glass was not known to humans? (no glass, no telescope). How did they foresee tissue culture, bore well etc? How could they talk about virgins giving birth (thousands of years before Jesus’s birth). How did that happen?

It is the BOX. We all have a box around our ‘thought factory’ the mind or we sit inside a box, when it comes to many things. That is why it is said that we need to think out of the box, at least sometimes.

Albert Einstein stands out from among the past and present scientists (Looking at the earth, he had wondered how earth stays at a perfect distance from the sun so that earth gets the right amount of heat. He could not come out with any equation. He did not think it as a coincidence nor did he believe in the conventional God). So does Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. They were capable of thinking out of the box. Not just them, those ‘rain makers’, inventors, designers, researchers, scientists and most of the ‘successful’ people. If they had seen only the obvious ones, they would not have been there where they are now. Computer, airplane, mobile phone, missile, satellite, submarine….. all those thousands of items around us are there because somebody thought out of the box. Every one of us may not be able to contribute like them. But every one of us has some area where there is scope for a little bit of out of the box thinking….

 

 

 

Keep Moving..

When I posted the psalm 22, I wasn’t just quoting something from the Bible but it had something to do with something else. Well, God gave me this answer:

‘You are on a journey. In this journey you will see many wonderful things but don’t get caught up by something thinking that it is the most beautiful thing. Keep moving. You might see more wonderful things.…”

Some buts…..

Thank you God for walking with me… Thank you for staying with me, when I stopped….Thank you for pushing me further when I felt tired.

I love you…

 

 

Why?

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?


O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.

Psalm 22: 1-2

Read This too:

http://theworldofjayaram.blogspot.com/2010/11/keep-moving.html

Is This World Real?

Some 4-5 years ago, I was reading the Indian scripture Yoga Vasishta . It wasn’t easy to understand. Just like any other scripture, we need a teacher. Rishi Vasistha tells this to prince Ram (Lord Ram’s era was 7600 BC) –   

‘..this world you see is not real’

(not verbatim or translation).

I did not really think much about it when I read that, coz the concept of maya (illusion) wasn’t anything new to me. So, I thought it in that direction, though I knew that Yoga Vasishta is very hard to digest and it has great depths.

Today, I was checking my son’s school bag and there comes a worksheet about Electromagnetic spectrum. I had studied this and still remember some basic things about it. But I happened to stare at the diagram and then it was a real surprise for me.

Look at the range starting from Extremely low frequency. It goes to super low, voice frequency, very low, low, medium, high, very high, super high, extremely high, radio waves, far infrared, mid infrared, near infrared, VISIBLE LIGHT, near ultraviolet, extremely ultraviolet, soft X-rays, hard X-rays and gamma rays. From the range of 1 meter to less than 1 Nano meter, what we humans can see is ONLY 700 to 400 nm. Not even 10 percent of the whole range.

How does a snake see us? Its vision is infrared vision. They see the world in a totally different way than we humans do. We do not know how every species of living things exactly see this world (scientists say bulls are color blind but I have personally been attacked by a cow when I was wearing a red Tshirt. Same thing happened with my wife on another occasion by another street cow. I still do not understand this)

So, what we see with our naked eye is the only reality?

 

 

You and What Army?

Almost every country in this world has got their own defense department with 3 major divisions to take care of their Land, Air and Water borders – Army, Air Force and Navy. Generally speaking, the duty of these soldiers is to protect their nation or fight for their nation.

What about God’s Army? It’s funny that there exist human armies for God.  They are ready to fight for their God (But some do only aggressive marketing of their God). Many of the killings and attacks which have some religious interest were operated by such army men.

May be they never heard of Earthquake/landslide (The Army), Hurricane (The Air Force) and Tsunami/Flood (The Navy)… God speaks through nature and He has his means to handle His things.

You and what army?

 

 

A pain for two...

What could be two possible worst and painful situations in our life? 

A believer in God could not pray

An overnight vanishing act by a close friend, when friendship is at its best and the other person sitting a thousand miles away thinking what is happening at the other end …

Math and Sleep

Some days back, I had to answer a simple mental math question. But it wasn’t easy for me, though I knew how to solve it. It took more than the standard time required. I became sad about it and thought – what is wrong with me? Why is my brain dull today?   

After analyzing how my days were in the past couple of days, I zeroed in to one thing – lack of sleep. I observed how well I am with math whenever I had sleepless nights.  I found out that many a times it even takes more time to understand a question, hard to recollect the formulas and methods...

Then I decided to write down the names of all the people I know who are good at math and check how well they sleep daily. I had to wait for couple of days to get replies form some people.  I knew 15 people who are really good at math and surprisingly, ALL of them sleep very well.  Among those 15, there is one particular guy who is kind of math lover. He still keeps his math text books with him and solves problems when he is bored or after a ‘fight’ with his wife. When I asked his wife how her husband sleeps, her answer was:

“He sleeps like a baby”

Should I tell more?

God and Ocean

The other day I asked one of my contacts how things are at their end. That person knows that we both do not belong to the same religion and responded starting with “my God's blessings…” . That (business) person was very happy because it was festival time and the business was doing well. But again, the festival belonged to people who believed in a different faith than this person. So, most of the money this person received was from people who believed in some other God. And there was no problem in accepting that money. (But I know one lady who asked her son to tear a currency note he received for playing guitar on an occasion held by a different faith group - super faith !!) Isn't it interesting? May be those two Gods made a deal to help their followers, a mutual understanding?

The ‘my God’ in the expression ‘Oh My God’ is different from the ‘my God is taking care of me’ expressed by somebody to a person who believes in another faith.

When the burn a scripture thing was going on, I read a ‘my God can't stand your god anymore' kind of statement. This is sheer ignorance. How stupid it is to believe that God created everything and at the same time He created a set of believers and non-believers and then asked the believers to kill the non-believers to reserve a seat in heaven? But still people believe in that theory in this modern world. And we see the results.

Scriptures are the result of observation of nature and not the other way around (I am talking about the concept and not interpretations). That is, nature is not the result of any scripture but it is THE scripture by itself.

God is like the ocean. It is one water body. It has different names in different geographical locations for a better understanding – The Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean…they are all one and the same.

 

Burn A Koran for Instant Popularity ?

 Pastor Terry Jones

The day is nearing , September the 11 and his popularity got shot up. Pastor Terry Jones fond an easy way to super popularity by declaring an international day for burning Koran – 9/11

Look at the people who commented against this – The Vatican, Hillary Clinton, Angelina Jolie…..unfortunately the list includes the church founded by him in Germany too. 

He wanted to organize this as a major event and hence even applied for a permit with the Florida fire department (but got denied). But he says he will go ahead with his plan. If this event becomes a success, it will result in political issues between US and some Islamic countries. 

This is another example of religion falling in the hands of wrong people. When it happens, a minority or even a single person can cause damage to the majority who might have a different perception.

Isn’t it just a cheap way to instant popularity?

 

Ladder

She asked him to

Hold the ladder

So she will not fall.

He held the ladder

Coz he heard her say

She climbed, up

Up, up and away.

Away she went

Alas! She went.

Still he holds the ladder

Coz he can’t hear her say

 

Science, God and Creation

The other day a book written by a famous theoretical physicist/scientist came in news. Mainly because of his views on God and creation.  He says, the universe is capable of creating itself without God because of the laws of the nature. I am not being sarcastic but it was amusing for me. I don’t have a PhD, I did not win a Nobel either. But I wonder from where did these laws of nature come from? 

Dear scientist, its your ignorance about other cultures and their scriptures that lead you to anti God theory. What you are thinking now was already been thought by some wise men, that too 7000-10000 years back.

Science and religions should go hand in hand and not the other way. If somebody want to keep science and religion separate, all the religions in this world goes to one place labeled as ‘Religion’.  Isn’t it so? If that is the case, understand that, when we consider the essence of all religions together, it do not think that God is an old man sitting up in the sky with stick to punish us for our sins. The forms of God and different ways of worship came in to existence with some reasons. 

My dear scientist, I am not disagreeing with you, but I agree. Your theory about this creation is right. The creator is ‘swyambhu’ which means the one who created himself.  This is not any invention but known to some part of the world, thousands of years ago. 

Thanks for the book, it looks like things are going in the right direction.

May be one day another scientist would say the cause of creation became the creation itself...

 

Ramadan Thought for Whomsoever,,,

This is kind of a long due blog considering my precious response ‘records’. I had a question from one of my acquaintances asking me (mainly) why I didn’t write anything good about her religion (Islam). Plus why I have a pro-Jesus attitude….I am not sure whether that person would come again and check my blogs or not. Still..

I thought about this many times and I don’t know how to express my thoughts in this connection coz this cannot be answered with an one-liner and a lengthy one is not worth the time I need to spend. I lost at least 2 friendships because of my blogs.  As Gibran said, friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity. True friends do not ditch us just because we have a different opinion on something, I know that…Still

There are two things we should avoid discussing with our acquaintances if we want to maintain a healthy relationship – Religion and politics; provided both share the same views.  I lost one friend purely because of one of these reasons. I am an Indian and if I try to explain the whys’, I need to talk both politics and religion and that is the difficult part.

If somebody thinks that I am a pro-Jesus guy, I can’t help it. Sorry, I still love Jesus… This does not mean anything else, especially this does NOT mean that I am against any other religion; after all, I am not a Christian myself (provided the meaning of ‘Christian’ is not somebody who love Jesus).

I am not that religious and I am not against any religion. It’s about how things are getting interpreted and what happens when good things fall into the wrong hands…well, as I said, it’s a loooooooooong topic and its kinda mess.

This is the month of Ramadan. Month of asking forgiveness…. So, please forgive me, if I hurt anybody in anyway…It wasn’t personal or intentional…

Yes , I am asking forgiveness from all of you…