Better to have been loved...

This posted has been moved.

Bangalore's "CITY" tag

Is Bangalore a city? This is an open question to all of us. Do you feel like you are in a city?

Things that put the "scoff" in Bangalore city,

1. No rapid transport system. It takes 45 mins to journey from Andheri to Churchgate, a distance of 20+ kms. It takes a bloody hour to reach Majestic from outer ring road, a distance of between 8-12 kms.

2. Pray that our Chief Minister is able to source and buy power for us. We have daily power outages for 2 hours plus.

3. We have water shortages in a place where it rains every other month and then some.

4. We don't have a night life. Bars and restaurants close by 11.30. If you still want to hang out late night beware of "nakabandi".

5. Dancing is not allowed. There are no discotheques.

6. You cant find a cheap hotel in the city around Rs. 500/-. Yes, there are a couple but thats' only in Shivaji Nagar.

7. If you are waiting for a bus after 9.30. Prepare for a frustrating 2 hour wait and journey back home. Finding buses at that "late an hour" is difficult.

8. If you are relying on returning by auto after 9.30, get ready to be fucked by CITU card carrying autowallas.

9. Bangalore is a pricey. Most other cities are pricey only when in comes to accommodation. Bangalore is pricey in terms of food, shelter and travel. I have traveled by auto, suburban train and auto again to reach home in Mumbai for less than Rs.30 at 1 am.

10. One of the reasons for the higher price is cost of fuel. We pay more for our fuel then any other city in India.

Is Bangalore is city? Based on population size, may be. But it is a dumb idea to put so many people in place which is not geared to meet their needs.

The Egg vs Chicken story... Which came first?

It is a pet theory of mine. I worked it out way back in pre-university days.

Using the theory of evolution and natural selection which CBSE was teaching us – I tried to figure out which came first the Chicken or the Egg. Since none of us were alive to watch the first egg being hatched or the first chicken laying an egg – we go out on a limb with a few assumptions. Man came from Apes, Tigers from Saber-tooths, elephants from the wholly mammoth etc. Lets say the chicken came from hot-lips chicks (yes, disturbing imagery). These were very similar to modern day chickens but these chickens did not have beaks. As a result we cannot call them chickens.

Now it was difficult for these beakless animals to look for food in the tiny holes on the ground. As a result, their numbers were low. Generation after generation, some of these beakless animals’ mouths got calloused. This is a result of aberration in its genes which is still a recessive trait. An individual gets one gene from each of the parents to form a pair. Off the pair usually one is dominant over the other to various degrees. For the color of our skin – 3 pairs of genes decide our skin tone. However, all the skin tone genes carry same weight. Coming back to our calloused friends. They fair better than rest of their lot. As their number increase, the gene pool for this calloused trait increases leading to this recessive trait forming both genes in the pair. This leads to the growth of the early beak in the new hatchling.

The Chicken and the Egg Story – seen above, the arrival of the modern chicken by whatever timeline and sequence begins at the conception. The bringing together of requisite genetic material. The chicken as we know it followed.

Thus, the Egg came first.

Footnote : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/nottinghamshire/5019682.stm
I tried to contact these guys in Nottigham University after reading the article in 2006 but never got a reply.

You want a Drink with that?

That reminds. I cant get drunk. I can get close but I cant get drunk. I have a 2-3 drink limit. 2 drinks is half a bottle of quarter - half a quarter or 1/8th. And I cant have a kingfisher bottle of beer faster than 45mins- 1 hour.

Not that theoretically, I cant get drunk. I can! Yes, I am conterdicting myself. But I got two shots of tequilas in me (there was nothing else at home!! And it is raining outside!!!) and I am wiser now. It is just that after crossing my alcohol threshold, I feel woozy and dizzy and it is not a happy place. The 3 times I have gone too far past, I have forced stuff out with a finger pushed deep into my mouth, had a banana (cant go to sleep in an empty stomach) and woke up fresh as a blue bird.. a male blue bird... I hear they are feisty and horny all the time.

I just wanted the record to be set straight.

The funky Bangalore Weather

Bangalore can be so cold that you need a sweater, so warm that you need to be in a sweat shirt and so wet that you come home drenched.... all in the same day. I have taken to looking up satellite photos on cnn.com to figure out what to expect these days.

Some of my readers (or reader.. he happens to be my best friend) may think I blogged about the weather because there is nothing else to talk about.. kind of like "so how about the weather these days". NOT TRUE!! Not totally anyway. I had been subjected to repeated bouts of headaches and sniffles. I have been totally drenched thrice this week. I have good reason to blog!!!

Here is a good remedy that worked the last time to ward of headache. I had a shot of tequila (at 6pm) when I reached home drenched.

To convert or not to convert.

Funny thing on news these days.. apparently we Hindus are are going out to reconvert converts!! Wow.. really? Can we convert into Hindu? When I was young, I accepted that I was born Hindu and that the cute Ganesh was savior. Today, I except the term Hindu to mean partly my ancient Indian culture, the way in which I pray (that includes praying inside the church with folded hands), traditions, the mythological stories and the philosophy of - for want of a better word - Hinduism, which is written in Vedas and summarized in the Bhagwath Gita.

For most Hindus being a Hindu stops at traditions. Few understand the philosophy of the Vedas / Bhagwath Gita, which describes nature of the universe and ourselves. If you were to ask group of 10 Hindus - how many have read the Gita? Hardly, a couple of hands would go up. Most don't even know that Gita is a part of the story of Mahabharata. On the other hand, most would have read the Bible. It is easy to read. It is available in English and most Indian languages. There are many people who will help you read it. You get to hear it in popular Movies, TV shows and specialized channels. It has stories and a simple message of peace and forgiveness and acceptance of Christ as your saviour. Hindu stories are abound but their message and philosophy does not come through in these and the traditions listed in them are found to be outdated for our modern age.

There does exist a forward movement by many fringe christian groups to actively push their faith / religion on others. You see it in Hospitals when they come to pray by your bed side, in their prayer meetings where they invite you, in subtle exchanges in charity movements, in provision of favour etc. and the outright talk of "Power of christian prayer" and questions of why we don't accept Christ as our savior. It exists. It happens. Having said that I must once again stress 'FRINGE GROUPS'. I study in a Christian College run by Roman Catholic Priests, where "Sri Maha Ganapathim" is sung as easily as a Christian Prayer song and every student is treated same regardless of their religion.

BUT CONVERSION DOES NOT EXIST IN HINDUISM!!!! Hell we don't know much about it to talk. And it cant because there is NO HINDU RELIGION. It is just a label placed upon us by people of other religions. There have been attempts to broadly classify religions such as Hinduism as animist against those borne of the holy texts in Mediterranean and Middle East. This is again going out of our way to over simplify Hinduism. It cant be done.

Seeing Hindus convert into other faiths sometimes makes me feel down. I feel number of people who do things the way I do may be reducing. A part of me wants to ask them to read the Gita (NOT ISKCON FUNNY VERSION!!!!) before converting. But this identification with my "fellow Hindus" goes against what I know about my faith. Gita is not for the faint of heart, the closed mind or the unquestioning character. You must be ready to question yourself, the world around you and the book, which is full of ambiguities. I don't know what each of you will get from that. What I got is a faith that I identify as my own which goes beyond idols, temples and agarbhatis, an understanding with almighty that is personal and a path that I am too afraid to follow.

I called myself a Hindu when I was young, leaned towards Christianity in my teens, became atheist for a short time and then I read the Gita. It is good book. I treat it as a holy relic. I don't think it is. I shouldn't mind using it as a foot rest. It is made up of paper pulp and has a publisher and a commentary that sees it from the view point of a Swami Chidbhavananda. Still I treat it as a holy relic and it never leaves my bed side table. Chubby Ganesha remains my savior and Krishna locket is constantly around my neck. You don't get it? You don't have to. I do. This is my faith. And I cant convert you to it.

Coffee and Sympathy

I attended Meenakshi Madhavan Reddy's reading at the Reliance TimeOut Bookstore. She was on the Bangalore leg of her book tour. Unfortunately, missed her talk. I don't think she is famous yet. I mean she was on time and finished on time and I was late. I thought she would come late... I mean come on.. this is BANGALORE!!! Everyone who is anyone comes late.

I had assumed that her book was an extension of her blog. But it is a fictional work and priced to compete with the pirated books sold at MG road. I have not brought it yet. I wanted to buy it when I would be in a position to finish reading it in a week. Later thought it could be a good birthday gift but I don't know. I mean I was trying to figure out if it was a good book for a 19 year old girl? Now I find myself wishing that I did buy it. I could have got her to sign it with a Happy Birthday message. That would have been cool.

I think people enjoyed her talk (which I missed) and the pile of books behind her had grown smaller by the time I left.