Our Daughter

Our Niece

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…arrived 8 days apart – one at my brother’s place and the other one at our place last night. Cutenesses.

It’s unfortunate that people sleep hungry and even more that I (and possibly you) know that. Few change the aforesaid statement – and only fewer succeed. Narayanan Krishnan is one of the fewest people alive that put other people’s misfortunes to shame. Please vote for him on CNN Heroes and read about his extraordinary feat here.

Update: Anuradha Koirala was finally called out as the CNN Hero of the year; she indeed deserved it though there’s no belittling of the efforts of every one else. Koirala fights sex trafficking in third world countries, something that requires a brave heart and tremendous efforts (you won’t ever find out what she’s going through).

This interview on policewala.in is the harsh gust of reality and fate of Indian police personnel. Since this interview is in Hindi, here is a short summary (all credits due to the interviewers at policewala.in and Amitabh Thakur, IPS).

• Mr. Thakur is of the opinion that the long standing convention of “thinking like criminals” has affected the police adversely, turning some of these men to be more dangerous than the criminals themselves
• He observes that there are two corruption situations to be dealt with separately, one that are of the grievous and serious kind with deep rooted problems – and the other that are notorious and on the street
• He observes how the police personnel are deprived of family life, living in harsh and mentally frustrating situations – and how all police men and women come to appreciate each other and develop a bond since they are victims of the same injury
• Another very important thing brought up was the fact that lower ranks don’t have a career path towards higher positions – the sepoy to  inspector ranks are basically stagnant. This is the most serious issue with the system right now since it cuts off the most basic form of self-motivation.

I have come to believe, that life isn’t sweet as much as it in the unexpected corners. So let’s “uncorner” those things that get ignored just because they are not perfect. I mean, you can make every thing nice and square, but then what’s the fun?

So see this comment, and if you have a little more time, read the whole post (and the comments). I leave it to you to decide on when you want to stop laughing. No rules. No offenses either, just laugh and forward err, forget.

This is some blog-ham, if you don’t mind. Heh.

No, this isn’t a movie review. This is a review of a pre-release promotional event of “My Name is Khan” at “National Bingo Night” hosted by Abhishek Bachchan joined in by Shahrukh K. and Karan J.

The game show, Bingo, is the most useless thing ever to be seen on TV. I envy those who don’t have a TV at home. It certainly becomes more disgusting to see Bachchan junior’s waste of talent at a superbly idiotic and mindless game just for the heck of calling celebrities every weekend for their next week’s film release. That’s the whole idea of this game.

Enter Mr. SRK into Bingo. Reason: My Name is Khan. Ok, so what is the story about “O rock on the moon?”. Here’s an approximate version of what SRK goes on about:

It’s about the minority, that we Khans have become, err., I mean all of us Muslims. We’re the second largest religion in the world – we’re not a minority. It is good that Muslims talk about their religion, they should talk about it and let everyone know, err, everyone should let everybody else know about their religion. It’s about how Muslims are misunderstood, their religion is being misunderstood. More than religion etc., it is about humanity etc. – and Inshah Allah, you all will…

The majority audience in the game show were all Muslims (at least in Muslim attire).

So Mr. Khan is very defensive about his faith and how people wrong-think about it. Let’s look at the number of people who wrong-think about Hinduism – umm, 75% of world?  I have seldom seen a Karan Johar, a Madhur Bhandarkar or a Mira Nair trying to explain that “No, that ain’t that, that is that rather.” That is what is wrong with SRK and his faith. Just cling on dude, you are doing the right thing according to the book, though it is wrong really.

In another interesting tweet by Suraj:

The Prophet said, ‘The freed slave belongs to the people who have freed him.’”

Like wow. I must be wrong about it somewhere.

(Update: My Shakespearean dialect has taken a hit – changed Thou to Thy).

Ok, this doesn’t have anything to do with Pizzas, but with a party I threw out in Pizza Hut a long while ago. Since I have changed a lot of bosses now, I am sure nobody remembers who this ex-boss really is (unless you come picking on me). Here it goes:

Me: Has been 25 minutes already, if they don’t come back with the order in another 5 minutes, we’ll get it free.
Ex-manager: I’m looking at that guy in white shirt, he’s the most useless guy not doing anything at all while these folks serve..
Me: Well, he’s the manager.
[laughter]
[choke] [choke]
[laughter]

Not to be politically correct, but this was really all in good humor.

Was my first time at an annular eclipse (with 100% contact – have been in partial contact once in 2005). Just to be clear, an annular eclipse, contrary to a total eclipse, does not induce darkness due to the increased distance of the moon from the earth. To understand further, you might want to see this image (preview on the right).

Pavan (an active volunteer of BAS) was accompanying me and Raghu on this trip. We drove to Dhanushkodi via Madurai and Rameshwaram (the oncoming two/three wheelers on your side of the lane deserves a separate post). We almost got killed by an oncoming Ambulance. A day’s stop in Madurai on Jan 14 and Jan 15th saw us in Dhanushkodi (DKD). DKD is right across Pamban bridge, some 10 Kms from Rameswaram. It’s a small island, surrounded by the ocean on two sides and extends to the last point of India that just touches Sri Lanka.

Contrary to expectations, DKD was free of an enormous crowd. The Tamil Nadu Science Society was organizing an event there (and quite a few folks from Assam – the Guwahati Planetarium, Gujarat, Bengal etc. were to be seen). Photos were being clicked as the “Media” approached us and we shyed away. Though we were carrying a telescope, due to lack of a filter we could not set it up and missed  the oppurtunity to use it. Pavan got a filter for his camera right on time (though I carved out something with an X-ray sheet, but the mylar sheet filter was definitely a better bet).

First contact of the eclipse was at 11:15 AM – as we put on our eclipse viewers, the sight was stunning.  The intensity of the sunlight decreased by as much as 75% (approximately) and the temperature certainly decreased by at least a couple of degrees (if not more). The sea wasn’t very rough, but the tide certainly had increased a lot more than what it was in the morning.

At about 1:20pm, we saw the ring – a beautiful sight as I kept gazing at it. There’s still a lot of light around you, just that it is white and not the usual yellow light and the intensity is nothing like a sun in a clear sky. The sky was spotless during the maximum eclipse around the sun, but it felt like there’s a cloud covering. Something very unusual, but a characteristic property of an annular eclipse on the ground. To understand how the eclipse traces the path on the ground, see this image.

We came back to Rameshwaram, stayed on till night and hopped back home the next day.

One of those things that nobody likes. Something that irritates the hell out of humans. The one thing that usually brings an end to relationships. It’s waiting for something or someone. Dadi had tremendous patience whenever I saw her waiting for an event. It took years for certain things to happen, and she waited on. Somethings never happened while she was alive, although she still waited for them. They didn’t happen even after she died.

There was this crazy talent-finding bug I had caught where I’d try out different things to see what I was good at. I was trying hard to be a good artist and made Dadi sit for about an hour (may be longer) so that I could sketch a portrait. She sat there waiting for some result. I am one of the worst people at anything drawing or related to art. At least that is one thing I am sure I will never be able to do. After spending about an hour something, I told Dadi that all I did in this whole while was her face. She looked at the crap I had produced and of course thought it was the best piece of art ever. I looked at it again and kept it aside until she went back to doing whatever I had interrupted her in. My agony suddenly increased not at the vacuum of art in me, but at how Dadi was unnecessarily waiting for something she was least interested in.

A few years later, she had a wish to come back home to Lucknow. She waited for it all that she could. When she told me about it, I knew that she probably wanted it more than anything else ever – and she had waited for it to happen for about nearly an year and half. It was the simplest wish ever: get back home. Doesn’t take more than a few thousand bucks and just one night. But, as humans, there are complexities involved – and people have priorities. Finally, her wait came to an end as my mother fulfilled her wish. Probably her last.

One of the simplest goals in life: to see everyone around happy, was what I learned from Dadi. Well, there were hiccups in achieving that, but it is incredibly simple and effective – and requires patience obviously. Although it meant that people misunderstood her at times, but she persisted on what she did – making sure she didn’t make herself look stubborn, and giving in at the right time. Even for patience, she made sure that it was truly patience and didn’t extend to lethargy or procrastination – efforts where needed. Some lessons I picked up.

Today marks the 6th year since Dadi was over phone with me the last time. Yep, I can still hear that you are alright.

So if you have done your history right, it’s time to witness it this time around because it’s gonna repeat.

This article here talks about how China’s threat over New Delhi has been growing while we have been engaged in fruitless activities. This is probably the best time for New Delhi to flex it’s muscles completely over Pakistan and get rid of the placement they find in China. China has already taken over Tibet, is virtually there in Pakistan (guess where the recent war-heads tested their came from?) and dictates to Burma.

As India gave away to the Chinese claims on Tibet, now it’s China asking for Arunachal Pradesh (a sizeable area of the size of Taiwan). We never thought they would be coming for AP, but they always had there eyes on it. What’s more, Sikkim was supposedly accepted by the Chinese to be an Indian state – but recent news has been let off where Sikkim has been mentioned twice over (thus putting light back on to where it was) – and the Chinese obviously want more and more every single day. This is why China wants AP so badly.

Chinese presence in Aksai Chin (that’s the northern portion of India – a part of Kashmir) has been strengthened and so has been Tibet. China has delivered tons of nuclear content to Tibet and has started pointing missiles towards Indian cities. There is a strong possibility that China will be engaging in strong muscle flexing before it explores the possibility of a strike.

It’s now that Indians have to wake up to this threat and start working towards a goal that will take us to the next level. India’s reopening of an Air Force base near the Chinese border is a fact that something is really serious. Time to get really serious guys. Really serious.

So, then what is it that would change India’s game? What can a normal person like you and me do? A lot of stuff.

• Sincerity in everyone. People have to start realizing that there are somethings that ought to be done. Seek out every possible way you can affect the Government and it’s decisions. What are the guys on top doing? Are there plans? Use your “right to information” to develop these questions and throw them out.
• Vote! Vote! Vote!
• Put your prejudices aside, if not get rid of them. We need to counter a bigger threat now. Get rid of your castes and religions for another two years (that’s all we have).
• Start reading up and spread awareness among people about how we’re really going to need a lot of intellectual capacity, strength and any other such help.
• Tell everyone in your family, in local discussions and every possible way that we are going to be affected if we don’t realize.

That’s the first step. Realization that there’s a problem is what we need to spread first. Next thing would be to focus on long-term and short-term goals and objectives.

For once, India is a bloody big state that cannot go down just like that. This is a ten grands old civilization we’re talking about. So let’s be positive and start working it out right away.

Update: In other news, there were Pakistani rockets fired into Punjab from across the border. I guess it might be time soon that we increase our military strength two-folds and finish off these issues with Pakistan right away. In all shamelessness, there are bloody hopes soaring when the Indian High Commissioner sends an invite for iftaar to ISI  master minds.

Pretty recently, three people I know became fathers to their lovely daughters. I feel so joyous about this fact that I couldn’t help writing it up here. About an year and a half back, another close colleague fathered his daughter and that gave me unbound joy.

The scientific fact is that daughters are beneficial to the society in more ways than one (if you can please keep your sexist prejudices aside). This article from NY Times talks about how an increasing male population of the society can actually harm the internal stability of a country. Not surprisingly, both India and China feature in the top two such societies that want more male population than female. Uneducated people are not the only ones though, it’s the socio-cultural fabric which makes this demand from the people. There are highly skilled people who would prefer male over female because of social and religious shit.

There are some spurious (or seemingly so may be) studies too that say that “attractive people are more likely to borne daughters”. This article from associated content talks about one such study and it’s numbers. I feel the numbers are too convoluted and the theory is too good to be true. This other article talks on how evolution is going to make women more beautiful. “But the forecast isn’t so rosy for men.” Heh.

Well, for the close friends and colleagues, I am confident that these daughters would take their families much further ahead than anybody else could. May they always prosper, grow and beat all the guys! (BTW, I don’t have anything against guys. Just that my preference is for the girl child.)