Dharma

One day, worried she asked him to come to Parliament House, looked him straight..
"Everybody says you are taking over"
Shaken but moving forward, putting his long parsi nose close to hers
"what do you think?"
"You can't."
Eyebrows raised
"Do you think I am so incompetent?"
"I didn't mean that Sam. You wouldn't,"
Sliding back into his chair
"You are right I wouldn't. You mind your own business and I'll mind mine. You kiss your own sweetheart and I'll kiss mine. I don't interfere politically as long as nobody interferes with me in the army"

(Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India and Sam Manekshaw, Field Marshal of India )
*Various sources

The OCD Dog

That is not him. He is lovable CK. He was ill so I had gone along with his mum to get him treated at Indiranagar. He had fever earlier and wasn't eating. All better now and eating.

The OCD dog was a dobberman in the room next door. His owners, a young couple, had brought him for a medicated bath and to get a wound on his knee checked. They said he kept licking and biting it. He previously had a similar injury on his other knee. After a brief check, vet was more interested in his house environment like who lived with him. He belonged to girl's mom. She was staying alone. The dog had a companion but he died at the ripe old age of 16 years last year.

The vet diagnosed him to have OCD because lack of companionship or sexual frustration. The 9 year old dobberman had not been neutered. The dobberman was frustrated, licking his knee, causing irritation in tiny cuts leading to more licking and biting. Vet advised constant change of dressing on the wound. He also advised neutering the dog or getting him a companion. At this, the young couple started to argue. The girl said her old mother could not look after two dogs now. The guy wanted the dobberman loose his virginity. "Oh come on! He came into this world. He should experience it". The girl said it wasn't necessary. She felt he should be snipped immediately. The vet said a dobberman would probably be ready to go again after 10 mins and a few more times after. Finally, the couple agreed put off the decision till later.

That and more stories at the vet's. Didn't see one overworked or unhappy doctor there.

Our beagle CK wouldn't eat because he couldn't smell his food. It happens sometimes when a dog gets a fever. The sense of smell comes back in 1 or 2 days.

Someone told Airtel I was single

I have been getting all these ads for finding that special someone and dating etc on my Airtel number. I answered one that was free, was immediately charged and someone called Iamthick asked for my asl! I passed as the charge was Rs. 3/- to reply.

I am studying and in mid thirties. Ofcourse, I had to to be single! But to let that get to me? That was bad... I have no one to blame but myself.

It could have been worse. I could have been suffering from a male equivalent of vulvodynia caused by depression.

I can see a solution to all this. Give up on minoxidil and follow one of my best friends - Start on a course of Finasteride. Solve hair loss and reduce sexual tension.

Land of Kamasutra or the Land of Cold Showers?

India is not the land of the Kamasutra. Sure an Indian, or what goes for a horny holy man living in Banares ages ago, wrote the treatise. But that is not enough. Penquin India had not set up shop in New Delhi. How many people lived in Banares or managed to get a autographed copy of the book? That is the question! Current and historical facts when rewritten by me clearly show that Kerala did not have 100% literacy at that time. Kannada or Tamil did not orginate from Sanskrit (even if influenced a bit later).

no one had heard of the art of Kama. Apart from sadhus, who renounced the world, tried to make sense of politics in palaces of ancient and pre-colonial India, who on failing miserably finally brought up the book of Kamasutra to every ruler from Guptas to Chalukyas to the Mughals who needed it to bring pax Mughal to their harems.  Later, Kamasutra invariably grew in popularity amongst the pre PlayBoy colonial western world.

Come on. The Gauls were clearly way ahead with just their way of saying hello. Sure Kamasutra talks about the ‘nominal’, ‘throbbing’ and ‘touching’ kissing styles but none come sensuously close to Gallic traditional first kiss, which clearly makes the sky fall on your head!

If India were the land of Kamasutra, we would not be drowning in population out of sheer fustration. Tantrics will tell you about the good old ages, when sex was not frowned upon. Ofcourse, no one caught them being naughty with their disciples using hidden cameras.

And so it IS no to JUST sex please, we are Indians.

Drunk Blogging

I love drunk blogging. I sound so interesting and funny ;)

Why drunk blogging? I give you the following...

1) I have bad... very bad grammar. You cant imagine what I scored in 10th finals in English.

2) I write horribly. So I write in small sentences. Less chances of mistakes. I make a lot of mistakes in along sentences.

3) I am very creative, when drunk. I am trying to work on a doggy repelling horn for motor bikes! Have you met anyone who thought of that? No, right? I did and you read it first here. There are a few more but those are money spinners ;)

4) I am a lot funnier drunk. so much so that I crack myself up :)

5) It is cheap... creativity in a bottle. Old monk is the cheapest but then you need those sugary carbonated additives. Better is vodka with citrus juice - very healthy. Or wine but the flavour and zing is missing along with them bubbles.

6) I know you think I should read those English grammar books. It will help me. I just looked at one right now and none of these sentences / points feature in the book!!

7) You should be happy that I am typing all this out. My handwriting... some other day... :(

8) The only two people to have ever read my blog are good writers. I need an excuse.

9) One is my best friend and the other is a girl. I should entertain him and impress her with my vision and creativity... visitivity... (sorry it is lifted from a Barney quote)

10) Am I drunk right now? You bet I am....

Manmohan Singh - My hero lost his shine.

He was my hero. Not my leader, I have none. But he spoke about freedom, providing opportunities and governance free from scandals. His party colleagues backed him by running their ministeries so clean that you could eat off the floor. It could be because they were busy last 6 years fighting each other. But he failed when he could not reign in corrupt cabinet members sent in by coalition partners. He was not a leader.

Millions of Indians go to sleep today without 3 square meals while food rots in our godowns. No need for clothes. Most Indian men love to stand outside their doorways without a shirt on. We can forgive about homes to every citizen. Even 1st world countries find this difficult. But food?! You should be feeding your people. You are not worth saving, if you cant.

Become an intellectual in 10 easy steps

10. Love Mother Teresa.... any person with hint of humanity can be an intellectual.

9. Have coffee at the India Coffee house of your city.

8. Lean left on all things but deny by accusing others of leaning too far right.

7. Your day should begin with finding someone to blame.

6. Now find an issue to blame them with.

5. Accuse your country and people of plotting against those who wish to wage war against it.

4. Write a novel that no one can understand except the booker prize judges.

3. Be an old fan of Jyothi Basu. Accuse Budhadeb of being the cause of all that is wrong for the past 30 years and become a fan of Mamta... it is definitely downhill from here...

2. Use your freedom of expression to accuse your fellow countrymen of being in a sham democracy.

1. Get ready to be gassed for expressing yourself to your old Maoist friends.

The 60 year EcoMani curse.

I watched 5 mins of big debate or fight something on NDTV. It had Mani Shankar Aiyer, MP (RS) talking about how every 60 years or so after birth of industrialisation or some form of large scale economic change, there was a revolution. He gave examples of French revolution, the collapse of Soviet regime and even the changes in downtown London since Oliver Twist asked for more.

I (and Mani) immediately realised that India too was close to something like this. Mani thought that this was manifesting itself in villages as Naxal attacks and that middle class should wake up to the fact before the Naxals come calling in the cities.

But I think Mani was a bit is wrong. Naxalism is how the villages are handling it. Feeling of helplessness, loss of control and the general apathy in the cities may be for different reasons but just as strong as in the villages. We have stopped bothering with participation in elections. Power is out most of the day, many middle class household send out their children to fill containers of water from the local borewell or water tankers, you need to pay a bribe for everything from getting a ration card (state government), running a shop (local police station) to government hospitals... and as far as real estate goes, children are participating in singing contests to win a house not money. Middle class is taxed heavily. Kaun Banega Crorepathi? You cant buy a house in Bangalore! Half the winnings would go in taxes and the rest in stamp duty for the house. You cant write or express what you feel as you may hurt the sentiments of the a particular community. Cant say Tamil Nadu has a point on the water sharing issue in Karnataka as Girish Karnad found out. Cant say Rajnikanth's Robot is the biggest flop since Atlantis. Everyone in city knows money is not enough. It can be taken away with a phone call from Ravi Poojaris and Dawoods. Power, control and freedom are in short supply nowadays. The situation can very easily reach boiling point. A friend of mine said Indians don't complain enough. But we sense the injustice. If we don't or aren't complaining, it is going to eat into our psyche. And it will express itself.

Revolution may be closer then we think and the enemy would be us.

Godzilla for real

I saw the dumb ass version of Mathew Brodderick starer Godzilla last week. Bits and pieces. It was too stupid. This Godzilla hardly breathed fire, didn't really bother to flatten the wonderful New York skyline and was more interested in laying eggs. Why this over grown lizard from ILM, Hollywood would come all the way to NY to lay eggs is more perplexing than the behaviour of smoked Salmon.

In order to get rid of the after taste, I have started to download the original Godzilla. The one who loved attacking downtown and sometimes uptown Tokyo. These Godzilla flicks never starred people you might know except for Raymond Burr, who made a cameo, when he thought Perry Mason was going to be canceled because TV was being introduced. No this Godzilla was real. And his growl... yes sir, crew were watching Japanese porn, when they came up with that.

Politics - What do you watch out for?

Capitalists, which includes Bill Gates, hate people who can make a lot of money, which includes his good buddy Warren Buffet.

Communists, which includes Maoists, hate intellectuals which includes Arundhatie Roy.

Religious types which includes Buddhists, hate new ideas, which includes anything.

People living in a democracy, which includes all of us, hate freedom of expression, which includes anything and everything.

I wish life could be simpler but where is the challenge?

How I met your mother - Barney being eloquent about Bimbos

Lilly gives Barney a choice between Bimbos and Love (Robin)

Barney : I choose bimbos
Lilly : What?!
Barney : Hey Lilly, Bimbos make me happy.
Lilly : (Sharp intake of breath)
Barney : (continues) Bimbos make me feel alive. Bimbos make me want to pretend to be a better man.
Lilly : (Shaking her head knowing she has lost)
Barney : This whole thing with Robin was just a fling but at the end of the day, my heart belongs to Bimbos
Lilly : (fighting back) No no this is just a defense mechanism because you are afraid of getting hurt. You are just confused.
Barney : (rising to a crescendo) Oh, I am not confused Lilly. You know who is confused? Bimbos! They are easily confused. It is one of the thousand little things I love about them. I love their vacant trusting stares. Their sluggish and unencumbered minds. Their unresolved daddy issues. I love them Lilly.. And they love me
Lilly (Lost it now)
Barney : (continues) Bimbos have always been there for me. Through thick and thin. (Thoughtfully) Mostly thin. B men don't do thick crust. Whaddup?! (Raises his hand for a high five).

Lilly walks out.

Its been a long time...

I have not visited my own blog in a while. Been busy with work and workout. Workout stopped due to some back injury this week. There is no constant pain or even anything when I turn but I feel a certain uneasiness in the lower back. Enough horror stories of injuries of this sort to make me want to give a break for a week and see how it goes.

Learn Tamil (my mother tongue), Kannada, Java, Art of Living are some of the plans up ahead. I wonder, if I will be able to do any of them?

Prabhakaran and LTTE are history... Lankan Tamils are not

I had an argument with my uncle, a stanch supporter of LTTE and its late supremo V. Prabhakaran, about whether or not Lankan Tamils were served by Prabhakaran.

The Lankan Tamils were mistreated since Sri Lankan independence from Britain. Their language and culture was not recognized as part of Sri Lankan. They were slowly relegated to second class citizens. Sinhalese leaders did it deliberately and efficiently. The Sinhalese population also rioted against the Tamils over issues such as language. The disenfranchised Tamils started a popular uprising against Sri Lanka. This was supported by India. Their brethren in Tamil Nadu gave them all the support required. The largest of the militant groups fighting in Sri Lanka was the LTTE led by its leader Prabhakaran. By 1980s with Lankan army bogged down by several Tamil militant groups and India receiving constant stream of Lankan Tamil refugees, the Indian government forced Sri Lanka to a peace accord that would allow for devolution of powers and autonomy to Tamil majority areas in the northern and eastern parts of the country. Among the militant groups LTTE was not happy with the accord but agreed to it in theory. By theory, I mean they went ahead with launching attacks against Lankans. There are many storylines of who did what and why. But there is no doubting that Prabhakaran was not in support of the accord and did everything to bury it. He was confident of a military victory. In the end, the Indian peace keeping force ended up fighting the LTTE that India had initially supported with training and material support. History has recorded these events. LTTE retaliated against India by killing Rajiv Gandhi.

Today, the situation is same as before. I support the Lankan Tamils rights. But LTTE is a different matter. It is fascist movement led by a dictatorial leader who killed his own comrades, people and put guns in the hands of little children. Every war crime known to man, he has committed. Democracy is not something he believed in. Majority of the Lankan Tamils did not trust him!!! Even if my uncle did. They never did. He killed off every other popular Tamil leader. He believed that militarily he could win. Killing off friends and making enemies.

Many idiots like Vaiko believed Tamils support for LTTE was as unquestionable as its support for Lankan Tamils. It is NOT. Indian Tamils are Indians first. Our leader was killed. His children tried to make sense of the bloody history by visiting the people who killed their father and forgiving them. Jayalalitha thought Vaiko had found some holy grail during election time. She too tried to drink from it with allegations that Priyanka Gandhi’s visit spurred the Sri Lankan army to hit harder at LTTE.

When the news of Prabhakaran’s death was announced, my sense of sadness was only for the Lankan Tamils. As with all dictators Prabhakaran had killed anyone with a voice of his own and left his people like sheep. They have no leaders to speak for them or to pursue their rights. It is only hopped that the Sri Lankan government understands the war will never end until they address the aspirations of the Lankan Tamils for protection of their rights and autonomy.

New Parliament ups the ante from a MP shaving her head to threat of suicide.

Well the new parliament is up. Kudos on the election of a dalit woman as speaker of the house. Oh, we still have a long way to go on the women’s equality. The self congratulatory and condescending speeches from the males members would be enough to make any self respecting woman in the developed world reach for her bobbit razor.

More women’s empowerment to come. Reservation for women in parliament. That’s where champion of downtrodden through in a spanner in the works. Sharad Yadav threatened to kill himself if the bill was passed in the present form without specifying reservation within the reservation for women from scheduled caste and tribes like the speaker of the Parliament. Needless to say open that can of worms... and the bill would never see the day. Next some MPs will raise the banner of reservation in parliament for men of those classes too. That will bring in people asking for reservation for the minority community. Where will all this leave the actual process of election?

I don’t believe India’s democracy can dance that far out.


PS :- During the last parliament, Sushma Swaraj, dy. leader of opposition threatened to shave her head if foreign born Sonia Gandhi became Prime Minister. Sonia let Manmohan Singh take up the post and Sushma got to keep her hair on.

You get what you did not vote for...

Low voter turnout in Bangalore (my home) and even less in Mumbai (I like that city too). I can see that news channels talking about voter disenchantment with the politicians. Really? I doubt that. Half of the disenchantment did not vote the previous time either. Which probably means they never voted in their life. I don't think "disenchanted and indignant" electorate should be questioning what their MPs did for them in the 5 years they were in office. Especially, when they could not get off their ass once in 5 years to vote!!! People in Kashmir, Naxal infested areas with a lot more to complain have braved violence to perform their civic duty.

Bangaloreans should remember this the next time a political party holds rally for the rural voters in the outskirts of the city. After all, rural majority turned out in larger numbers. It would seem that the urban educated electorate cannot to be counted on to do much for their country.

Oh by the way, we are still getting an MP. Yeah, he represents only a minority. If you had something to say you should have said it today. Now, he is your leader. He will decide if it is alright for your daughter or sister to be molested on the streets for her life's choices. If you are thinking about doing away with politicians altogether? Thats cool too. But remember - that means you get to be fucked by every bureaucrat.

There are no free lunches in the world.

Netbeans Vs Eclipse

I am new to both. I started a month or so ago. And no, I have not tried JBoss or other IDEs out there.

My two cents says, Netbeans miles away from Eclipse.I may be wrong. Eclipse may be great. You will find many developers swearing on Eclipse. I was introduced to Eclipse in college. Trouble began with trying to configure eclipse with Tomcat, setting classpath etc. Every forum I visited raised more questions than gave answers. Netbeans 6.5 comes with Tomcat, MySQL JDBC driver, glassfish v2 and v3, facilitates numerous frameworks including JSF, Hibernate etc. It took me 3 weeks to configure eclipse. It took me a day to write my first web application on netbeans.

In netbeans, you can easily navigate your project, add libraries. Netbeans tutorials help you get started with your project quickly. You can access your database, application servers directly on netbeans.

Do I really believe I am wrong about netbeans? I think not!!

RSS, Taliban, Arundhati Roy...!?

So here is SAT Princeton review

RSS is to Hinduism as

Taliban is to Islam as

Evangelists are to Christianity as

Military Industrial complex is to Capitalism as

Maoists are to Communism as

Arundhati Roy, Medha Patkar etc are to Liberalism

Yes she is all that!! She is known to me as one who supported the accused in the parliamentary attack, justified Mumbai carnage, protested the launch of Nano, among other idiotic / "liberal" activities. She and others like her live to protest in the name of liberalism. But they carry no conscience, no sense of reality and no intelligence. She has a Booker prize to her name. Have you tried to read God of Small things? It is as unreadable as Satanic Verses as Jack Straw (British Foreign Secretary) put it.

PS :- Satanic Verses was written by Salman Rushdie, who won Booker prize for Midnight Children. I don't know about Midnight Children. I have not read it. But Satanic Verses was definitely unreadable.

The Spawn of Menaka

During his vitriolic speech against Muslims, Varun has shown why his grandmother thought so less of his mother. After trying many different ways to showcase herself has inheriting the Gandhi family name, she picked up on animal rights. She ran far with it. Now the fools who swallowed that story should rethink. This is a woman who could not teach her spawn, Varun, to love his fellow human beings.

Both the woman and her spawn are bound by their common hatred. Their ideals are neither Gandhian nor Indian.

The Bastards of Manu.

These last two weeks saw repeated attacks on our freedom by these self-styled custodians of our culture. Who gave these bastards the right to dictate how I should express my culture? I did not. So I call that filth Muthalik of Ram Sene, a bastard and raise questions on his origins, his parents, his mother, his sister, everything that he holds dear.

No, I will not apologize for the words I choose for him. He has impinged on my rights. He does not know me or own me. How dare he do that to anyone? Why shouldn't I insult his parents? The first line of any child's education is his parents. It is said that do not teach a child about religion for it will blind him to faith later in life.

I wish these people could have stayed in country ruled by an absolute monarch. I did. I helped me appreciate the freedoms enshrined in our constitution. But the constitution is not worth the paper it is written on unless our people are civilized enough to appreciate it. The Muthaliks, Advanis, Modis etc in our country are not. They have been raised in their homes on a steady diet of us against them. Sent to RSS schools across the nation, the us among them invariably becomes a smaller and select group.

There are Muslim scholars who will ask you to read the Quran to understand that Islam is peace loving religion. That is so. I have read the Quran and know about Islam's history. However, Islam has had a violent start and growth. There are constant references in the Quran to infidels. This forms the fodder for the most ardent among them to raise against people of other faiths. Its history and such references, are the anger that drives the Osamas. And once you go down that path there is no stopping it - its terror does not even spare fellow Muslims.

The Bible and Christianity's origin is just as violent. There was a period of intolerance, injustice and misuse of the name of god. But over the ages, the quiet majority have slowly spoken up. Gone are the ages of inquisition. Christian institutions are respected around the world. Their priests are respected for their service and advice. Islam must do the same if it wants to survive to the next century. And it must do it fast. Mass media did not exist in the middle ages. It does now. People can see and make up their own mind. There are movements in Egypt and Turkey for reform. Humanity does not need religion to teach it kindness, good living and love. Some systems, we are born with, others we learn from our parents, and the rest from what we see around us and from our religious denomination.

I feel a great sadness and anger when I see the "religion" and culture from which I draw my faith being used in similar manner to assault people for personal gain. These single and depraved assholes, men who used to fester in the streets, are now in the halls of power. Coming elections will show if we Indians are uncivilized as these bastards of Manu.

PS :- Manu is the reference Manusmrithi. An aberration in history of Hindu thought. Its only aim seems to have been to somehow maintain status quo of the writers during a time of change in ancient India.

How far are you willing to go for your dream?

This is actually a review of a movie. The second one back to back. I just wanted to pick out one of the best scenes from another great movie "Gattaca". There is a scene in it that I have watched over and over again. The scene contains the theme and the heart of this really good flick.

How far would you be willing to go to achieve you dreams? How much of yourself are you willing to loose?

Movie is set in a future of designer babies. Every child is an offspring of what is best in each of his parents. Genetically transmitted diseases such as heart problems, diabetes etc are non-existent. Further, the state is able to use the genetic information to decide who would be better sportsman, a scientist or an astronaut. Into this mix is our hero Vincent, who is not genetically designed and is born with a weak heart. His dream is to go to space. But this is impossible. The state would not allow him to enter into the space program with his weak heart. His brother, correct in every genetic sense makes it to be a policeman. Vincent runs away from home to fulfill his dream. He gets help from another would be astronaut, who is confined to his wheel chair as a result of an accident. Together, they pull an impersonation so that Vincent can enter the space program. Story continues, the deadline for the launch approaches. There is a murder at the space center. The brother comes to investigate and catches the murderer. But there is one person, he has not been able to interview throughout his investigation, who has avoided him - Vincent.

The brothers meet. The policeman understands the fraud that Vincent is pulling. The two argue. Vincent tells him that he is no less of a man because of his genetic makeup. Vincent reminds his brother of the day when he had to rescue him during a swimming contest. The dare was to see who can swim out the farthest before turning back. Vincent had always lost, except for that last time. He won and also had to rescue his brother. It was after this incident that Vincent left home.

The two decide on a rematch. Once more they swim way out to the sea. Vincent is not stopping and keeps going further. His brother is exhausted and unable to swim more.

"Vincent, Vincent, where is the shore? We are too far out"

"You want to quit?"

"We are too far out!!"

"You want to quit?"

"No!!"

.....

"Vincent. How are you doing this? How have you done any of this?!"

"You want to know how I am doing it? This is how I did it. I never saved anything for the swim back!!"