Chronicles of Nikhil Baliga

Modern Vikram Betal story

2012-01-15T22:38:00.002+05:30

Swami Nikhilaananda said:
"Remember, if you know the answer and refrain from answering, your head will explode to a thousand pieces - said the Betal to Vikramaditya"

I am sure most of you are familiar with the Vikram Betal stories... And today, I heard a very interesting story that apparently happened in India. So, here's the short narrative, followed by the standard question... And remember, if you know the correct answer, and refrain from saying it, your head will explode to a thousand pieces (Betal's threat)

A traffic constable pulls a car over for jumping the signal. The driver of the car tells the constable in a way of warning, "Do you know who is in the car? It's the big boss" and tells him who the big boss is - Joint secretary or one such hot shot chief... The constable says "It doesn't matter who is in the car. I am just doing my job!" and asks for a fine to be paid.

The joint secretary subsequently contacted the superior of the of the constable and (hold your breath) asks for the constable's name so as to present a cash reward to him for diligence.

I am sure you are all in awe - considering this is a really rare occurrence in the corruption ridden country.

And now for the Betal's question - "Who is the greater of the two? Was it the constable who, in spite of knowing who was in the car, continued to stick to his principles while ordinarily the reaction would be a quick salute and letting the car go away... or was it the joint secretary for not being audacious and egoistic and instead, recognising the effort and principles of the constable and even rewarding him?

Remember, if you know the answer and refrain from answering, your head will explode to a thousand pieces

*** Answers from Modern Vikramadityas to the Modern Betal ***

== Comments from Facebook ==

Hemanth Pai:
Constable is greater ...

Srivathsan Lakshmipuram:
Haha, I'll go with the constable too

Abhishek Kodankiry:

Certainly the constable is greater.!!

Sunil Bhat:
Lo betala, according to me, the act of the Joint Secretary is more praiseworthy.

The constable was doing his dharma and in our religion, honesty is an integral part of everyones job (karma). However, the Joint sec. went out of his way to recommend an award to the constable for refraining himself of doing a wrong act by letting the driver go. Afterall, the joint sec. had a choice to just go away without bothering , or use influence to cause harm to that constable or reward him for his work. He chose the noble option

Aditya Padaki:
Well, I'm digressing here...

Its a sad state of affairs that we need to deem people as 'great' if they stick to the bare minimum honesty... Neither of them are great... Constable was doing his job and the JS was adhering to the law - its indeed very sad that the day has come where we see these basic things as 'great' :P :(

PS: It was just 'nice' on the part of JS to get him an award, but its again ridiculous to get a constable award for doing his job!! :P :)

Of course, if the constable did something which was very brave or valorous like Omble, then its different :P :)

Sunil Bhat:
Adi, as expressed by you at the end, the JS did something nice, and so, was greater than the constable!

My wish, my will

2012-01-03T22:58:00.002+05:30

Swami Gulagulaananda said:
"My wish my will, maybe I will jump off the hill...;
Or maybe another time, I can already feel the chill"

Raj looked at me and said "You know what I want to do? I want to run naked in the sunflower fields". I raised an eyebrow as I looked at him and grinned. "You what? But why?" Raj stared at me without any expressions "Because I can...."

"Okkk... But why sunflower fields?" I asked. This was getting rather curious. "Why not" he asked. I said, "Dude, why don't you run in the city streets? Like one of those marathons for a cause that's often held? Someone might capture videos, organise fund raisers, maybe you will go viral and you can actually help people through charity. Not to forget, you will become famous - you would have done what Poonam Pandey only bluffed about"... Raj seemed to be seriously considering it. "What you say sounds true, but hey, I can't run naked on the streets. People will throw stones at me." Just as he was completing those lines, his girl friend Ria walked in.

"Who would throw stones at you honey?" she asked inquiringly. Raj narrated the conversation to her. "Why would anyone throw stones at you? It is your wish, your will. It is a free country and you should be allowed to do whatever you want" she said, "You want to run babe, you run". My cheeks were beginning to hurt owing to the constant grin I had, listening to a rather bizarre conversation. "Yeah, but people will raise objections to it, no? This will be considered as public nuisance, if he does what he wants to do" I replied, trying to get some sense into the conversation.

"Public nuisance my arse. If they don't want to see and get offended, let them close their eyes. Speaking of my arse, if I was running naked on the roads, I will bet loads of guys would be drooling and fighting to see a naked chick on the road. I mean come on, even when we are fully clothed, we are not spared. To top it, we have those punks coming along and telling us to be dignified in our clothing. Who are they to tell us what to wear and what not to. My wish, my will, I will wear what I want."

"And I will not wear when I want" said Raj puffing his chest, glowing at the fact that his girl friend sounded so cool when she was vehement. He adored her guts. "That's right, your wish, your will" said Ria, and continued "And besides, we live in a free country. And what's with that ban on beef in Madhya Pradesh? I mean, if people want to eat beef, let them eat, and people want to not eat, they will not eat. You know, prerogative" said Ria and Raj pulled out his cellphone to check the meaning of the last word. I was sure she didn't know the meaning either, though she had used it in a nice place.

Satisfying himself with the meaning, Raj said with a drawl "Yeah, it looks like we are going back in time. These people are being way too right winged man. Our thinking should be more modern, more liberal, more open. Our thinking should not be closed like the eye patches those horses are made to wear. Poor things can't see beyond that - no wonder they are drawing carts. If you want to be like a lion, say no to eye patches." Ria giggled as Raj gave a light roar and mauled in the air.

"Alright, let us assume that you are right. If we think along those lines, don't you think the entire law system itself becomes obsolete?" I said, ignoring them. "Say what?" said Raj. "Think about it. What I am trying to say is, if the whole world starts saying 'My Wish, My Will', then it is impossible to come up with any law that will satisfy everyone. There may be a certain number of things that I may want, that you may not like and vice versa..." Ria narrowed her eyes trying to decipher what I was trying to get at when Raj said "Oh, I know where you are going. This is about your support to the police having pubs closed off early while your arch nemesis Times Of India lodges protests against it. And also your strong objection to Slut Walks while some people say that is ok...?" I stared at him trying to figure out if he was deliberately mocking me or if he was really making a point.

Raj was expressionless again, and so I continued "Well, not this time. Let us take the proselytising of the Christian missionaries by inducing people with money, do you think that is agreeable?" Raj kept quiet, and looked at Ria, who looked at me defiantly as she didn't share my views about quite a few things and said "Dude, why not? If they are able to improve their standards of living, why not? And besides, it is not like violence is being used. Their wish - if they want to take the money and convert, it's up to them." Raj nodded, but said "I don't know, that would also have to mean that prostitution has to be legalised, right? Since prostitutes have the will to do what they want, I am guessing they should be allowed to do what they want" Ria retorted, assuming a feminist stance "Bull. Prostitution is not just sex, it seeks to objectify a woman, degrading her to the role of a lust satisfier"

"Now now, look at it objectively Ria" Raj tried to mollify his doll as I smiled looking at the bead of sweat forming on his creased forehead. "Alright, how about cash for votes? It is the same as evangelism, no? Since both parties are going to be satisfied, the parties get their votes, the people get money and politicians are eventually going to recover the money anyway. At least this way, the money will be circulated. In fact, we should have an auction where politicians can start bidding how much money they will give each guy who votes for them. It is a win win situation. We all know it is happening, why not legalise that as well." asked Raj. Ria was staring at the mosaic flooring, wondering how to word her next retort.

"The beauty is", I said, finding a few seconds of awkward silence between the love birds too much to bear, "everyone will have his or her own opinions. We cannot afford to formulate laws to satisfy everyone, because that can never be done. We cannot, as a result of this conundrum, go to the other extreme of removing all laws, because that will take us back to the jungle where might is right, and bring the state to, well, a state of anarchy. True, even now, might is right continues to be the rule on which most things are done. But that would mean that we are legalising everything, thereby removing the necessity of legalities. Going by Ria's my wish my will, I think it will be safe to say it is my wish and will to hire a group of thugs to get you to vacate your house so that I can enjoy the beach side view" I said grinning at Ria as she darted dirty looks at me. If only looks could kill.

"But then, what's the solution?" asked Raj as he began to realise the repercussions of my words. "I don't know, boss. You tell me. My belief is that we need to learn to be civil. If you know your actions are going to hurt someone, don't do it. I for one, am happy that beef is banned. Of course, you may not agree, but cows are sacred in my religion. Someone asked me - what have the chickens done wrong? Frankly, nothing. But then, unfortunately for the chickens, no religious sect or political party (of any wing for that matter, ironically for the bird) seems to want to fight for the cause of the chicken. Or even the fish.

"We need to stop this duplicity in thoughts. The beef ban in MP might be entirely political. But it does bring about a lot of questions - which law is ok and which is not? And who decides them? Lokpal, for instance is supported and opposed by a lot of people. We are supposed to have chosen wise men to rule us, for they represent us. And when they do something (or don't) we have to fight again, through the media and social networking sites. We elect them, and then we oppose them. It is a circle, I feel" Ria looked at me and said "We know all that, why don't you tell me what the damn solution is?" Raj nodded in agreement and said, "Yeah, go ahead and tell us Swami. Or should we just sit around moping that there are no solutions and resign to our fate?"

I said "Let me ask my friends for some opinions before I open my big fat mouth...."

(Note: This conversation didn't really happen. It's only a way to bring about different sides of an argument)

***
Comments from Facebook

Hemanth Pai: Nik , i just want to prolong the post and cover it from a different angle than the dress code , beef and lokpal debates coz it involves the my wish , my will thing and no laws etc.
Its said , " A civilization is defined by its limitations than its permissiveness " ... So they evolve based on a fine mix of the above ingredients. If you notice , roman peril was due to excessive permissiveness while that of the egyptians was excessive limitations . If the mix goes haywire ... Then the existing order will flounder like a headless chicken and ultimately will be replaced by another civilization which may be altogether another entity which will run along till it violates the above law . This is what history has shown us right from time of mahabharata and that is precisely why there is no enduring civilizations ... Else archaelogists would be jobless :D

Coming to your question , we will continue to proceed with our mindless childish games , philosophies and amusements alongside time with no clue to what the hell we are upto until we are specks of dust and some other civilization would be studying our limitations and follies .

Btw "Relationships are like friction - a necessary evil " .. Is this original quote :) . I quite liked it ... Set me thinking for some time :D

Support your supporters

2011-12-28T09:36:00.002+05:30

Swami Gulagulaananda said:
"If your supporters aren't supported by you, what use is of supporters supporting you"

There is a movie called Kurukshetra in which Sanjay Dutt plays the lead role, that of a top cop. In the movie, a poor girl gets raped and murdered by a politicians son. Then starts an epic battle between good and evil (hence the title of the movie) and Sanjay Dutt fights on behalf of the poor parents of the girl. Naturally, politicians being politicians, have a nexus with mafia, and then there is a "good" politician (Oxymoron? You bet) who eventually betrays Sanjay. Throughout the movie, there is an enormous effort put by him, he almost dies, fights bravely and doesn't know whom to trust. Towards the end of the movie, Sanjay Dutt is invitied by the politicians to settle matters. On reaching the home of the politicians, he is taken aback by seeing the father of the girl present there - the politicians try to convince Sanjay to stop fighting this case, fighting for this dead girl, when even her own father has given up - No, he did not yield to threats. Rather, the politicians gave him a lot of money and an apartment in a prime locality. The father says - "So what if she is dead? She can't be brought back to life. But now, we (family) are better off, thanks to the money and the apartment" and the politicians in the backdrop share a smug grin as Sanjay Dutt feels the ground slipping beneath his feet.

Well, in the movie, after this, he flips his wig, and goes and guns down the politicians...

But note the point I am making here - If you are being supported by someone for a cause that you had been fighting for, and this person is a strong force, not yet another brick in the wall, and has been devoting a lot of time and energy for YOUR cause, and is also making progress......... and when you have such a person doing good for YOU, it would be highly unfair when YOU yourself give up on the cause or the person.

The best example that can be given at this juncture is Anna Hazare... The man has been putting enormous efforts for our cause - We have seen all the scams of 2011. The sheer sizes of amounts is greater than money most countries might posses, equals our yearly budget (only one scam was enough!!) and there were several that came out. It is OUR money that these people are stealing - and finally, there has been a movement that seems to be putting pressure on the politicians. And the politicians are coming up with really cheap antics to escape getting caught.

Like introducing reservation - this is perhaps the dumbest and most obvious escape route - What does caste and religion have anything to do with corruption? Corruption is spread evenly across people of all castes and religions, and we don't have to bother. But, by introducing this concept, now the debate starts getting shifted, with some people supporting reservation and some don't, and there is naturally going to be a divide. What we should remember is that we are all fighting for one cause, OUR cause, and Anna Hazare being the mascot, the leader, the face of the movement, we should all support him in all the ways that we can... I was surprised when I saw a Facebook group that asked Anna Hazare and his companions to go to hell, and today's headlines showing a decline in number of people following him.

If this movement fails, and if it doesn't go through - I won't be surprised if a group of people end up getting frustrated like Dutt did in the end of the movie and go about gunning down these politicians, taking law into their own hands, or as in Rang De Basanti, because the law does't support them and the people for whom this movement was for, didn't support the movement. And when that happens, don't call the shooters extremists. Call them as people who did what you didn't have the guts to do, people who took action.

(Note: I am not proposing violent action - I am merely suggesting that violent action may be a repercussion)

--

Expectations and Choices

2011-12-18T11:37:00.001+05:30

Swami Gulagulaananda said:
"When you set your expectations too high, you are bound to be disappointed"

I happened to watch a very interesting video about choices. Today, we have a lot of choices when we are about to do something or purchase something. And while these choices may seem to be a good thing, an excess of choices creates problems. How can choices create problems? The video will answer all the questions.

However, what I wanted to talk about was expectations. As technology and society advances, the kinds of expectations that we have keep going higher and higher. I had some of these experiences personally where I have a really fast internet connection both at home and work. And on one occassion, when I had to access the internet through the mobile internet devices, like Tata Photon Plus, I found the speed pathetically poor. It is not that the speed itself is poor, because I used to have a dial up connection before broadband, and I remember clicking the button, and going to do something else while the page loads, or something else happens. And this is faster than that. But after seeing faster connections, what can actually be considered good becomes dismal.

And with high expectations and choices, we also end up spending (wasting?) a lot of time before picking something to buy. The easiest example is cell phones - When you decide to buy a cell phone, now you have to do a whole lot of computations, and pick one after comparing brands, platform, features and then depending on your budget ensure that you are getting the maximum features in your phone. So you go about asking a lot of people, reading reviews online etc. And after you buy a phone, as usual, within a short time, technology becomes obsolete and therefore that higher end phone that you had eyes on but no money comes to the price range of your phone - and you would have bought that! Had you just waited a little longer. Therefore you start getting disappointed in the choice that you made, though your choice was a good one.

I had this experience where I bought a decent phone as soon as it had released paying close to Rs. 12,000 and around seven months later, that phone is available at Rs. 7,000 from the same site from where I had purchased it. This will definitely make you sad, make you feel that you could have waited, or bought a better phone - that element of satisfaction lost. (It is a different matter that my phone went kaput in the rain and now I am using an ancient phone that can do nothing except call and sms... Well, this feeling is entirely different)

There should be varieties, and the varieties should also improve constantly, but creating too many varieties will create problems when you want to pick. Another example is Linux. I keep hearing newer and newer distributions of Linux every other day, and they also say that the whole thing is fully customisable - If you do something like this, then ensure that always provide a person default settings with recommended options so as to quickly be able to get started. I understand customisation is a great feature, but it is one helluva time consuming task, frankly.

Now that we understand too many choices is bad, why not extrapolate the same concept to politics and multi party system? People keep 'forking' out of parties and starting their own all the time. The result can be that the votes are going to be divided among every party and thereby getting fragmented... Thus forcing a need to form coalitions...

I would like to close this post on expectations - As long as you keep your expectations high, you are bound to be disappointed. I always love the quote by Lord Krishna -

Karmanye Vadhikaraste, Ma phaleshou kada chana,
Ma Karma Phala Hetur Bhurmatey Sangostva Akarmani

- which means, do your work and don't expect fruits. The problem with expecting something is, if you don't get it, you will be saddened. When parents expect good performance from children and when children disappoint them, the parents are disheartened, and thus the child is disheartened and then there are suicides.

Note: Yes, expecting is natural, having expectations is natural, and setting higher standards is definitely the sign of progress and advancement... But they come at a price... They always do.

Viber

2011-12-11T16:25:00.001+05:30

Swami Nikhilaananda said:
"The world is shrinking, along with the thickness of smart devices"

Ever since the release of the fabulous iPhone, the smart phone industry seems to be in a mode of constant innovation. Fabulous apps keep coming out every so often and one that I would like to discuss today, is Viber.

So what's Viber anyway?

The development of phones has gone to such extents that very often we forget the original purpose of the phones - to make calls and send messages. This was the fundamental couple of features from the days of the venerable 3315. However, with a host of features that came along later, which makes your life greatly simplified, such as maps and GPS for navigation, locating places nearby and keeping track of events with synced calendars, one often had problems only in one case - When having to contact someone who is beyond your country.

This was also not really much of an issue with tools like Skype, Fring and Google talk. You can talk to people face to face, as well as chat with them. But two tools seem to have taken this to the next level - One is Whatsapp, and the other is Viber. The main advantages of these is that they use your phone number and can be integrated with smart phones, like iPhone and Android.

Frankly, I came to know about Viber today, and installed them on an Android phone and iPod touch. Once installed, you can place a call to anyone, Viber to Viber, free of cost, as well as send a message to them - all this using phone numbers as contact IDs rather than creating a specific ID which you would have had to do in case of Google, Skype or Fring. You can still make similar calls with Google, Skype and Fring - Frankly, in that sense, I found that the features are very identical - and a message is just like a single message of a chat.

Which is probably why not many people I know seem to be using Viber - Only 4 of my contacts (1 included me :P) used Viber, while a large number of my dad's contacts use Viber. Which either means my friends aren't tech savvy :-O (Yikes!) or they don't know about apps like Viber and Whatsapp, or they just didn't see value in it.

As an app, it has a very clean interface, and can do things like Sending messages, deleting messages, placing calls, showing missed calls, etc. And a couple of features here and there. The biggest advantage, to summarise folks, is that you won't lose any money as long as you have wi-fi around (which is true with most of us these days) or with GPRS and 3G. So what are you waiting for, go get Viber.

Slut Walk

2011-12-06T00:33:00.001+05:30

Swami Nikhilaananda said:
"Prevention is better than cure, it is better to avoid than to lure"

Today's newspaper article showed that the Slut walk campaign that was due to be held in Bangalore got cancelled because there was opposition from some groups against the campaign. I posted a link of one of my previous posts on Facebook, citing that the protest in itself was silly. Since were there were several discussions on that, I thought, let me put a clearer picture, solely dedicated to this protest here.

== Note ==
Read the whole post, do ample research. Knee jerk reactions will be not be commented upon

So, what exactly is Slut Walk?
On January 24, 2011 Constable Michael Sanguinetti spoke on crime prevention at a York University safety forum. He said: "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized." (wikipedia)

Then what happened?
This had happened in Canada. So people protested against it, saying that wearing provocative clothes is not an invitation to rape.

Ok, I got that - So, what's your problem?
Take the following situation - It is a lonely road late in the evening.

There is a woman walking alone on that road wearing a lot of jewellery.
There is a couple walking, woman has a lot of jewellery
Big group of people walking, one woman has a lot of jewellery
It is a busy road, lone woman has a lot of jewellery
It is a busy road, many people walking as a group. Woman has a lot of jewellery
Same cases - only difference is, woman doesn't have any jewellery

My question to you is - What are the chances that she will be mugged? And which case has the highest chances?

The answer is - all cases can have mugging. Depends. There can be a big group of rowdies with weapons and they would have robbed you no matter which case. But the chances of that happening is less. The chances of chain snatching is still a possibility in all cases. However, the chances of a full fledged robbery, and that too by a lone man is highest in the case where she is alone and has a lot of jewellery.

If you don't agree with this argument - stop reading.

If you agree, let's analyse. What are the factors that brought about the robbery?

She was alone (no company)
She had jewellery
There were lesser/no people on the streets

Now, notice that point one and point three are nothing to do with the woman herself. They are merely companions who can defend her in case of problems and also serve as a scare to the predator. However, if she didn't have jewellery (lots of it, as specified before and on display) on her, chances of her being robbed is a lot lesser. It is not that she won't be robbed at all, but is lesser. Why? There is no direct lure.

It is common sense that if you are luring someone - there is bound to be a repercussion. This is also the reason why we lock the doors. It is an attempt to thwart an attempt. What you can call, as a first level of precaution. It is also the same reason why we don't go around advertising how much money we have kept in the safe, or discuss financial matters in front of servants. It is common sense that a prevention is better than cure, and this is why I said that it is sane advice - Avoid wearing skimpy clothes.

If you wear skimpy clothes, there is a higher chance that you will be ogled at. So that brings us to the question, why wear skimpy clothes?

Why wear skimpy clothes?

This is a question I would really like the girls to answer. What I feel is that they are trying to attract male attention and/or show off their body to attract attention. But yeah, mainly, you are trying to attract attention. As discussed previously, keeping a lower profile is more likely going to avoid an unnecessary attention to you.

Heck, I will wear what I want. It's the rapists fault!

Yes, the rapist is at fault at all points of time, and nobody is denying that. However, the question is, does wearing skimpy clothes really draw the attention of a rapist? So typically people say "Studies show that...." and therefore I decided to do a bit of looking up.

According to statistics (and there were loads of them) you can say that there was a 25% chance where rapists raped due to the clothes. Oh see? Not something like 85%, it was just 25%. Fine, I agree, it is not a very high percentage. But those 25% could have been avoided by following a simple precautionary step. Note, for you it is a statistical number. For those women, it was 100% and that is what I am saying. Every little step is a step towards the goal.

Still, what about the remaining large percentage?

The remaining large percentage was partially faults on both sides. Some cases, men wanted to show control over the women and thus they raped. Some cases, women went to bars, got drunk and chatted up men, danced provocatively and teased them, didn't strongly say no, etc. And men were also in a drunken stupour. That said, the questions is - can we prevent this? Yes, this can also be brought down by a large extent by strongly cutting down the pub-culture, something that people are strongly against in Bangalore.

Dude, Bangalore's night life sucks

What happens is - When people get drunk, they lose inhibition. This coupled with the darkness makes it easier because of lesser people. This makes it a lot unsafe for people. You may not be the types who will cause trouble, but not everyone is as gentlemanly or lady like like you are. Think about the perverted punks who booze and have no inhibitions at a time where you, a decent guy are out with your girl friend, sipping breezers at a time when there are no people around to help you defend against a pack of wolves? Isn't it better to shut down parties at more human hours? It is, again, a precautionary measure and works a lot better than having to fight it subsequently through protests.

Ella ok, slut walk against yaake?

Now that I have told you all of this, let us see what it is that ticks me off.

Clothes are a trigger in a certain number of cases. It is sane advice to not wear skimpy clothes
Liquor is an agent that weakens inhibitions, results in all kinds of damage if unchecked
In cases where men wanted to dominate women and thus raped, these protests make no sense.

So should I protest?

Yes! You must. But you don't have to do a slut walk. A slut walk has no relevance here. First, write down what you are protesting against.

If you are protesting by saying that, it is my clothes, my body, I will show off or hide, what's your problem? Then I will say - Prevention is better than cure, you will see that it is safer to avoid trouble than inviting it and then confronting it.

If you are protesting by saying - It is my life, my money, I want to drink when I want, where I want - Then I will say that in a society, it is safer the way it is now in Bangalore.

If you are going to say - The people in Canada did it and people world wide are doing it, I want to do it too! Then I will say that you are doing it because someone else is doing it. You are not doing it because you believe in it, rather, you are doing it because you want to feel like a global citizen.

If you are going to protest by teaching self defence, or by spreading awareness, talking about repercussions, or trying to bring about a stronger punishment against rapists, helping police catch perpetrators by investing the same time and money into something that will aid safety, developing neighbourhood watch systems, etc. then yeah, I would say that this is the way in which you can protest.

La Tomatina - Now wait a minute, what?

The feeling that I get from people is that, there is a tendency to bring about a globalisation of everything. People did La Tomatina somewhere, people decided to bring it here in Bangalore. People did a slut walk somewhere, people decided to bring it here in Banagalore. People did a flash mob somewhere, and they decided to bring it here in Mumbai, Bangalore and other Indian metros. This kind of globalisation is something that I see in all kinds of silly things, which ends up getting a lot of media coverage. These are participated by people who hardly give a damn about what they are participating in - In fact, the zest is to be a part of the global community, and it is frankly no different from KFC or McDonalds where you are participating for the brand - because it is recognised. Later you can say, there's no difference between that of the US and that of India. The World Is Flat, said Thomas Friedman.

You may say - Dude, how can you club a serious social offence like rape with a tomato throwing festival? The answer is that it is the same group of people who will support all these. And the moment there is a protest against it, the immediate culprits are RSS, SRS and right winged saffron parties. I never see the same kind of globalisation when it comes to dedication shown by people in the West for something worthwhile. Anything nonsensical is first supported, anything worthwhile is not.

Attacks against slut walk protesters - Justified?

I am frankly against any physical attacks. But, I really get bored when people say that it s their way of protesting, etc. Everyone has a way of protesting, true, and everyone should really have the freedom to protest against crimes or anything else that they feel like. I agree that we should not stymie protests, because, as in the movie Gangajal, tomorrow, even an honest protest can be stymied by threats.

However, I have absolutely no feelings towards people who protest using ways like slut walks. You may say that it is for a cause, a good cause, even. Frankly, I am all for a protest against rape, even if it is as simple as holding placards and shouting at the government, forcing to make stronger laws against rapists, or shouting to increase patrols (though it is hard due to lack of man power) but a protest like slutwalk where you are a person with no conviction but one who is doing it just to be under an umbrella protest, like a KFC chain or a McDonalds chain, just so as to get some media attention, then you are not a serious protester. You are one who doesn't understand this post.

***
Comments from Facebook

Abhishek Kodankiry: As always, awesomely written!! :)

Anand Bhatia: Thanks for holding sanity's fort..i'd pitched in the other thread if not for my exams.

Ashok Kumar: Nicely put but then underneath it all is the question of equaltiy of sexes and whether society is ready to concede that equality and if yes then how to go about it...

Lavanya Krishnamurthy: This is the consequence of the idea 'anything western/global is cool' without understanding if it fits in with our way of life or is beneficial to us in any way.

***
Comments from cell phone

Poornima Rao: Nice blog. U precisely put. I frankly dun think it applies in indian context. Coz vr more inhibited than west. Wont see many women in skirts even. Plus rare of

Thanks to govt. But if even expression s taken away. Then it becomes a land of powerful n rich in protests only. Common man vl literally hv no say

Minors is on a rise here. Need to address relief n speedy trial of cases. But wat got me upset was tat gangajal thing u said. As it is v hv few rights left

N blore has always been a tolerant city compared to others. Its shockin to seesuch weakness in e police. found it too cumbersome to put it up on fb :)

Inefficient people and broken chains

2011-11-28T21:33:00.001+05:30

Swami Gulagulaananda said:
"A chain will always break at the weakest link"

Let us assume that you are a military commander who is creating a small team of elite warriors. You have decided to create a team of eight people. You have chosen a really elite set of people who clearly stood out from the ordinary, and you are all set to go into enemy territory with a mission to infiltrate, steal some top secret files, and blow up the facility.

And then all of a sudden, your boss gives you a call and suggests and insists (read orders) that you have to take his nephew into the team because he wants to give his nephew an opportunity to get a piece of the action, first hand experience and become a hero. You know his nephew, he's useless. He couldn't even get the basics right, leave alone being one who can match up to the rest of the elite. Taking a guy like him into the team is as good as surrendering to the enemy. You are sure he'll bungle along the way. You are worried, not sure if you should give him an important piece of task that was supposed to be carried out by the guy who was replaced to this guy... Finally, you decide to do one of the following - Either stand up to your boss and end up in a lot of trouble. Or take the klutz in, and jeopardise the safety of the team and the integrity of the mission. Or take him in, ask him to do nothing important, thus he ends up being nothing more than extra baggage. Of course, he is not as benign as baggage, for he consumes resources, food, water, and always poses a risk of getting himself or the rest into trouble. What do you do? Would you not regret having incapable people along with you? Or would you say - He too deserves a chance, not everyone can be an expert from day one.

This brings us to an interesting juncture. There are two things I would like to bring up in this post - A guy who gets a post on the basis of reservation rather than merit (reservation can be caste based, or through influence of some uncle) and an inefficient guy with whom you have to do something - could be your lab partner, your project partner, your co worker, etc.

I have a belief that a chain will always break at the weakest link. Assume that you have an important post - You will obviously expect that that post, if you are an independent third party observer, will be taken up by an efficient and intelligent person. It is ridiculous that you allow a person to occupy such a post simply by the virtue of his caste. I understand that people are being discriminated on the basis of caste and therefore they have trouble getting jobs - I can understand the result being reservation in schools, and maybe, to a certain extent in colleges - But why all colleges? Let us see what happens. Assume that a person X has mediocre intelligence. But, on the basis of his caste, he got into a prestigious institute where an enormous pressure to excel exists, or maybe a competitive environment which is full of intelligent people. If he is one who cannot cope up with that level of pressure or quality, he will naturally succumb subsequently. What will happen? Either he will drop out, or he will go to the extreme and commit suicide. If he drops out, then he is a person who had blocked the seat of an intelligent guy who would have taken that seat and excelled, but couldn't - and therefore ended up being a dog in the manger. Neither did (could) he do anything, nor did he let another who could. And if he commits suicide, then people start blaming colleges for pressure. Suicides are becoming common among students.

Colleges have the provision to expel him in the event he proves to be thoroughly useless. But imagine government jobs that are sought after by several just because getting rid of someone is extremely hard and ends up being an arduous task. If an inefficient guy occupies a seat, he will sit on the files all his life and make a lot of bad calls when it comes to decision making. Even in the work environment, you will notice such problems at times. Things get worse when inefficient people get promoted and those who worked hard and are more capable find it extremely unfair and end up resigning.

But would you, as a person with that power to appoint or fire, keep the person and give him a chance or not? I see a lot of people who say that everyone needs an opportunity to learn - not everyone is good from the beginning, they need a chance, for growth and exposure. The beauty is that, if these people owned their own companies or were a military commander where the result of the weakness of this character could directly affect them or their growth, they would certainly not say that. I agree, not everyone is good from the beginning - at the same time, they also do need chances to grow. So, what needs to be done is, either create sandbox environments for them to mess around and grow, and once ready to take responsibilities should be allowed. However, critical positions should certainly not be allowed to be held by an inefficient guy - He is useless, whether you accept it or not.

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Comments of Facebook

Ashok Kumar: hmm.. you have made an often repeated and more or less a very common refrain against reservation. but please understand that the reservation or positive discrimination is provided to people who have been discriminated aginst for a few generation to say the least.. they need more than basic education to provide them equality in the true sense... all the major leaders of SC ST today (excluding the politicians) are people who got into jobs and higher degrees due to reservation

Sriranga Chidambara: And all those efficient leaders and politicians that you DON'T see are those who althought meritorious, had to give way to less deserving candidates due to reservation!

Would you trust your life to a doctor who graduated solely based on reservation?

The biggest irony of our system is that we are classifying and differentiating people as a solution to 'discrimination'.

Nikhil Baliga: @Ashok - It is not a post against reservation (though I am against reservation as well) - It is a post against an inefficient person occupying a key post. Reservation is one of the ways in which this can happen. Like I said, it can also be because of some influential uncle, etc. It results in a weak system. Reservation and the like should not be applicable to top level of anything.

Ashok Kumar: if only it were so simple and straightforward :( anyways will write more later...

Chiranth Ashok: Influence is the biggest thing one can have out there... influence gives people the power to break rules and to break the chain of command.. simplest case i have seen: a guy riding a bike without a helmet is stopped on the highway by the traffic police and all he does is- says somebody's name and rides away.. did even have a license? was it even his own bike or a stolen one? the policeman cannot ask... its a pity that our society works like this..

Students and Suicide

2011-11-22T22:34:00.001+05:30

Swami Gulagulaananda said:
"No pains, no gains"

Before you read this post, read this post = http://pricelessjunk.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/protest-at-pesit-an-account/

There are a few things that can be noticed of late. Suicides are becoming commonplace. It so happened that today's paper showed a school girl setting herself ablaze because she wanted to become a dancer, and her parents insisted on her continuing as a student - and she was made to stand outside class for not completing homework = Petty reason. Then I saw this article... And a couple of days back, my mother told me that a guy who wanted to become a singer committed suicide because his father asked him to continue studying, but then he wanted to become a singer.

So, what's common? Students and suicide. Now, before you get all 3 Idiots on me, let's get a couple of things straight. India is a country with a population of a billion. And India is a country where, like that joke I remember, even if you are a one in a million guy, there are over a thousand like you. Given this situation, and given a situation where the country is embroiled in corruption, nepotism, favouritism, etc. it has become extremely difficult to grow in a field that you like to excel in. There are thousands of people with the exact same profile as you - look around you, compare yourself with your friends and classmates and peers. If not you, him - this is the policy in various companies. Now, let's take singing as a simple example. I don't know how many of you have watched the auditions of Indian Idol or anything of that genre. You will see the whole country is filled with aspiring people - many of whom are filled with talent. And then, the judges eliminate contestants at every level, and finally declare one person as the winner - The Indian Idol - Who also gets a contract, money, fame, etc. Or at least, he is supposed to get. Take Abhijeeth Sawanth - The first Indian Idol. How many movie songs have you heard him sing? He ended up in a comedy show finally - such a good singer, who even got selected in an all India platform...

The same holds good for most other things - sports is known to be full of corruption and favouritism, where your talent doesn't get recognised at all! And when it does, people screw up their chances with drugs. So, it seems like among all the options available, two of them are most viable - at least, they seem relatively transparent. One is through education, where you study and secure a job. And the other is through business, where you need luck, money, luck, street smartness and the most important ingredient... luck. It is not that you can't succeed in the rest - It is just that the chances of succeeding are slim. And in the end, we all do things for the same set of reasons - Primarily, like the early man, food, clothing, shelter and then the rest of the luxuries, fancy cars, jewellery and what not.

Therefore, it is clear that education is one thing that has always seemed to guarantee that for us - An employment. The world outside colleges is not as easy as within colleges. If you are finding both college and work very easy, you are most likely not a very successful guy or you are doing it wrong (unless you are a prodigy, then you shouldn't read this post). Any average guy you pick, he finds that there is a steep learning curve before he is ready to become productive for a company once outside college. This is the reason why companies always have some kind of training programmes for freshers, and they teach you things that you have already learnt or are supposed to have known. Because you don't know. When in college, most students don't take studies as seriously as it is supposed to be taken - maybe they are not interested at all, maybe they are incapable of understanding, maybe they don't understand the importance. If you are the fellow who is not interested at all, then you shouldn't commit suicide even if you fail - because you don't care either ways. If you are incapable of understanding, you shouldn't commit suicide - it is anyway not going to help anyone anyway. If you are the third category, then you should talk to some seniors and see what the transition is like - and talk to seniors of all types, those who went for higher studies, those who work less and earn less, work more and earn more, work less and earn more and work more and earn less.

People often only see the success part of successful people. They don't see the enormous effort that goes into it, the kind of slogging and effort behind it. They see a batchmate successful - Oh, if he can do it, so can I... Wrong! I still remember my school teacher saying "God has given everyone equal intelligence" (If you are an atheist, skip that) But I think she was telling us that just to keep our morale up. In reality, it is not true and everyone knows it. We all don't have the same capabilities. I myself was not able to match the efforts put in by classmates who became toppers. Why did they become toppers? They put in enormous effort and hard work. No pains, no gains. If you say - I don't like the system, let me change the system, then you are most likely wrong. First get facts right. Never compare yourself or your college with a college that is below your college's level. Your college is above for a reason. You should always compare your college with one higher than yours. If their policies are more lenient and they are still above you, then you can ask for a change. PESIT is a fantastic institute, and any civilised, law abiding student whose primary intention of going to college was to study, just loved the college. It is only the vagabond types who normally have major issues. Those who come in through merit seats will never have issues. Go ahead and do a survey.

And suicide is the worst answer for anything. There are people who go through a lot worse in life, getting beaten up for no fault, getting abused, etc. and even they don't commit suicide, they end up getting tougher and stronger. It's all about YOUR frame of mind. Don't blame external factors. I don't see the point of suicide, unless you are in the absolute dead end where you can't pay off an exceedingly large loan, and people are hunting for you with large axes. Maybe you want to die in a painless way, ok, maybe. But for silly things like not being able to complete education? Education, like I said, is considered to be the Rama's arrow of success - It doesn't fail, it never fails. That said, it is not that it is the only way to success. Go and read the book called "Connect the Dots" by Rashmi Bansal. The very first story is about a man who didn't complete education, started washing dishes, grew up serving tea, started a tea shop, pushed a cart with snacks and today is the owner of an international hotel chain. But at the same time, how many other tea stall guys do you think can become hotel chain owners? So fret not, like my friend says, life always finds a way... There are many alternate ways of doing things, and as long as you can do something (legal) to satisfy your necessities and indulge a bit in luxuries here and there, I believe that you already have satisfied the basic purpose of education - Job.

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Comments from Facebook

Abhishek Kodankiry: Nicely written man. And totally agree with u..
And I cant believe few idiots resorted to vandalism just coz some coward killed himself.. And I dont even see a reason why they lit candles in memory of him, stupidity..

Aditya Kiran: Super. You just mentioned everything that went through my mind when i heard the news. People will always complain, regardless of how lenient the rules are. I guess it also boils down to immaturity and lack of experience. They just dont realize that there are worse shitstorms out there that they are yet to face.

Vishnu Raghav: ‎"Pranay's classmates produced before mediapersons a letter that was sent by the college to Suresh Prasad Singh, Pranay's father, with his marksheet. Singh had been asked to meet the HoD to discuss his son's performance. College, however, denied any pressure on Pranay to perform. " --> Times Of India, a 19-20 year old should be treated as an Adult and not as a kid. Calling his parents or even trying to write a letter to inform them about his performance is absolutely blasphemous. An adult is responsible for his deeds, and some weak beings take offense to this embarrassment(informing parents) which leads to suicide. Any institute indulging in such ridiculous micro management deserves to be ostracized!

Nikhil Baliga: ‎Vishnu Raghav - Till a person is capable of independent existence, he is answerable to his parents. When your parents are paying your fees, how is telling your parents about you micromanagement? It is not that they are calling for the drop of a hat - poor performance and attendance shortages can lead to losing a year subsequently. Then there would be complaints - Well, you knew he was not performing well, and you made no attempt to tell us...

Even when a venture capitalist invests in a company, he is expected to know everything about the company's performance though the company might be run by seasoned managers with years of experience. They are responsible for the company, just like parents are responsible for children.

Vishnu Raghav: Supposedly the government of india gives you the right to vote at 18! And while voting you cannot even tell your parents whom you voted! That's a crime! Clear evidence that even the Government recognizes the fact that 18 is when you are pro-claimed an adult. Secondly it is the "moral" duty of the student to inform his parents, and not of the school!! It's his parents money after all!

Secondly if the student had cleared CET then he's obviously got a good rank which adds to his defense that he is not a poor performer! However if he was given admission on management quota, then PESIT has reduced its standard by giving admission to such people, and then massively contradicts itself by trying to enforce its strict study policy on a well documented poor performer(he got admission in management quota)! How can a poor performer suddenly perform well over a span of 3 semesters? How foolish can they be to think that such an event is possible!!??

Finally assuming that student did get a good rank in CET, there could be 1000s of reasons for him to suddenly under-perform (I have seen this in many students, some of them my good friends, who have done wonderfully well after graduating VTU at 50 odd % with multiple backlogs).. doesn't mean they are bad!! This does not give the college any right to embarrass such students in front of their parents!! the student previously known to be a great performer probably could not tolerate this embarrassment and committed suicide.. Imagine his father had to come from Bihar to meet that dumb HOD.. I am certain PESIT would have given him a deadline and would have forbidden him from attending any classes... Continuous reminders from HOD + Embarrassment of father having to make 2000km journey + embarrassment of excuses father has to give in bihar for reason of this journey = SUICIDE !!! it is well known among the circle of Bangalore colleges how foolish PESIT and its principal can get, and hope they are taught a lesson this time!! Bunch a fools they have bred as teachers!

Nikhil Baliga: ‎Vishnu Raghav - before joining the college, you had the prior knowledge about PES and its rules, which apparently is well known among the circle of Bangalore colleges. If you are not capable, don't join. The college is very reasonable, being an alumnus, I know how the college is. If you have had genuine issues, they are very lenient as well. I don't know what outdated data you base your conclusions on.

That said, I also know several students who have been studying very well, and then couldn't continue, had year backs, quit college, some restarted in a different branch, some gave up education - It is not that you are being driven to do something impossible. Every year, scores of students graduate - none of them seemed to have any urge. And what is so great about Bihar, when we have NRI students studying in PESIT. Why is that nobody else had any issues? If you are unable to sustain yourself in PESIT, don't come to PESIT. You cannot expect to merely reap benefits of an institute if you cannot adhere to and respect the rules. There are plenty of other, more lenient colleges...

Chiranth Ashok: ‎@Vishnu Raghav: Seems to me that you are biased against the college based on hearsay. Having been part of the institution for almost 7 years now, I have not seen a single rule that is outright wrong.

Aditya Padaki: Great read! When I went to PESIT this May, I was totally impressed with the newly formed education system they had. Whether or not they figure in the "ranklists" of top colleges, I can vouch that PESIT's management is striving very hard to improve the standard of education . Certain schemes introduced were comparable to the one's followed among the best institutes in the world! I totally empathize with the student's parents, but buckling under pressure/under-performance should not go into blaming the system/college.

Moreover, I personally feel, PESIT's management is among the friendliest to students. The top management (leave alone Principal) was easily accessible to students to submit their grievances. I am not aware of any other institute being so friendly. And strangely, people outside PESIT seem to have more problem with the rules than people inside PESIT!!! And as AK said, people will always complain about rules!

Rahul Navinchand: destroying college property to show your condolences to someone who just died just shows what wrong with the world today, pesit has some retarded rules but hey no one is perfect, but i think they need to have full time counselors for students on campus if they already do thats great

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Of leaders, greatness and belittlement

2011-11-11T22:03:00.001+05:30

Swami Gulagulaananda said:
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. - Gandhi"

There are a bunch of strange posts circulating lately. What happens in these posts is - An icon is picked, and then a whole lot of mudslinging follows. What kind of mudslinging? It essentially revolves around an icon being put down because someone else was not acknowledged

Here is an example - Steve Jobs.

So, when Steve Jobs died, there were a lot of people who really felt the loss of the icon. Jobs is always considered as one of the icons who revolutionised the IT field. He was and continues to be one of the role models to all tech enthusiasts and programmers worldwide. Imagine how the world would have been if GUI wasn't there. It is not that nobody else could have come up with that, but then again, possibly anyone can come up with anything at any point of time. The fact that Jobs revolutionised the industry is not something you can discard. The era of personal computers began with Jobs and Gates and the continuous innovation their respective companies churned out along with other biggies like IBM.

But after he died, there were some strange responses once the initial mourners stopped posting on Social Networking sites, notably Facebook. First, there were many who compared him to a million people who died of starvation. I wrote a post on it here.

Then came the death of another great, Dennis Ritchie. He was another great man, but unfortunately, his death did not receive as much media coverage as Jobs' did. So, people started belittling Jobs. What had he done? Did he ask that Ritchie shouldn't be hailed? Or does the fact that Ritchie's death was not covered by media and people didn't post much about him on Facebook and other sites make Jobs' achievements and accomplishments any lesser? The ideal response would have been the post Ritchie's photos and probably post about him if you really want to publicly display your sadness. But please don't go around insulting Jobs. They are both greats in their own ways.

Another example is Mahatma Gandhi

It so happened that I saw this photo of Gandhi and saw a whole lot of comments below it. They mainly called him a fraud, said spread the message and show that he was a fraud, etc. Some said that Gandhi and Nehru were enjoying with British women and that there were several others who were dying in the jail. That there many greater people who were in the jail, and Gandhi became a great. And so on.

Now, to start off with, none of us who are currently commenting on him know for a fact the situation 60+ years back. Frankly, everything that we know about the past, is through whatever has been told to us - Either by parents, teachers or textbooks. And they also know it, not through their own knowledge. We hear great stories of great kings - How do you know they were great? We trust accounts of others. And these accounts may or may not be true. If those people were bribed to write good things, and those accounts were found now, one might assume that they were indeed the truth.

Gandhi's accomplishments, again, like that of Jobs cannot be rubbished just because there were hundreds of other freedom fighters in jail. Gandhi himself was in jail on numerous occasions. People who were in prison knew what fate awaited them if they went against the British, and yet they did it, because they had conviction and believed strongly that the freedom of India was what was more important. They were heroes, no doubt. But as it often happens, we always remember the leader always. When the Mahabharata war was fought, thousands of soldiers fought bravely. Same in the Ramayana. Do you know the names of everyone? Why so old? When we say India beat Pakistan in the Kargil war or the 1971 war, do you know the names of the brave soldiers who died? Were they not great? We remember Indira Gandhi and Gen. Sam Manekshaw.

Everyone has vices. Yudhishtira lost the game of dice which led to the war finally anyway. Do we remember his flaws, and does that flaw mar his greatness? Gandhi may be dancing here with some lady, that doesn't mean anything. And even if it did, his great tolerance, leadership and wisdom will not, in any way, become lesser.

Gandhi said - An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

Now even if you hate Gandhi for whatever reasons, do you feel this is a wrong quote? It is a gem of a quote, and his personal shortcomings in no way make his accomplishments any smaller, nor does it undermine those of the other martyrs. Everyone was great in their own ways.

People often insult Gandhi when it comes to Bhagat Singh - again, before you jump to any conclusions, do a thorough research. Even after that if you still feel Gandhi was no good then by all means, go ahead.

***

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Steve Jobs and a million people

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Comments/Debate On Facebook

Raveesh Mayya: I wish to know how this dance make him a fraud !!

Skanda Guruanand: not the dance, the character in him. People worship him blindly, being ignorant of his deeds. In the name of freedom fight he and Nehru enjoyed and the true fighters were being treated in Jails, some even killed for no good reason.

Nikhil Baliga: This is what I don't get. People said Steve Jobs died and a million cried, and millions die in Africa because of starvation and nobody cries for them. Think about it - many people die, that doesn't make Jobs' death any lesser. And Jobs revolutionised technology and is great.

Similarly, Gandhi has done a great deal of awesome things for the freedom of the country. Of all the great things, people pick this pic and start circulating it. Do you think you can have the guts to do some of the things he did? With that level of tolerance and mental strength? You cannot belittle the greatness of a man by a couple of things here and there. Who said Gandhi wasn't jailed? That way, would you belittle Lord Krishna for having many wives? That way, everyone is a fraud, pick any guy in the world.

Nikhil Baliga: A simple example is this - http://rinku.livejournal.com/1020373.html

What appears on the outside needn't be the truth

Sneha Raghunandan: Why idolise someone like this and call him the "father of our nation"? He is highly overrated. People who actually fought the freedom struggle aren't being given due credit!!!

Skanda Guruanand: I do agree to the facts that he did some great things for the freedom of the country. I have no doubt about that. But, I believe that at the cost of other people, for his own good he did many things. 1) What was the necessity for sending Indian soldiers to fight for WW II in support of British. A true patriot wouldn't have even thought about that. 2) During partition-riots in 1947, so many Hindus were massacred by Muslims. A person who fought for independence with Ahimsa for decades couldnt bring his methods then? 3)As u said "with that level of tolerance and mental strength"...where was his mental strength when Sardar Vallabhai Patel won the votes to become the PM, and he negotiated with him to make Nehru as PM. 4) What is the difference in people when fighting for freedom. Gandhi and Nehru were given special treatment in jails. Why was V.D Savarkar sent to Andaman and kept in solitary confinement and ill-treated? I would like to answer your qn "Do you think you can have the guts to do some of the things he did?". My answer is I may not have the guts he had. But I definitely am sensible enough to decide what is right and wrong. I would say ur comparison with Lord Krishna or Steve Jobs as sheer ignorance.

Nikhil Baliga: Skanda - Just because you don't agree with his methodologies doesn't make him wrong. This has become like people talking about what should be done in cricket matches - Send out spinners, no send out pacers. He did what he felt was right. When a person is at the helm of affairs, they are under a lot of pressure - everyone can do armchair debates now that we know how the course went.

About World War 2 - Read this in Wikipedia and see if your facts are right

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_in_World_War_II

"The Indian National Congress, led by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Maulana Azad, took a strong stance against Fascism and Nazism. Gandhi, in an open letter to Adolf Hitler, touted tolerance and viewed Nazism as a source of violence. Several other Indian leaders and politicians expressed concerns over the rise of Fascism and Nazism and supported the British cause.

However, Jawaharlal Nehru pointed out the inherent contradiction in the British argument of going to war with Nazi Germany for the sake of freedom, since India was denied that same freedom. He pointed out that Nazism and the British Raj represented the two core ideologies the Congress was fighting against — imperialism and racism. It was because of this perceived hypocrisy of the British Government, that the Congress refused to align with Britain's fight against the Axis Powers until India was granted independence"

‎2) Partition - What do you want him to do? He did everything he could.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India#1932.E2.80.931942

Nikhil Baliga: Personally, I believe that Patel should have become the prime minister as well. Did Gandhi ask for special treatment in prisons?'

Why is the comparison of Krishna and Jobs ignorant? They are icons, worshipped by millions. They have had their shares of greatness and their shares of losses. Let me know which part you disagree with

Also, if you read the world war post, it says Nehru did the right thing - But you don't like Nehru either... Like I said, they all had their pluses and minuses. In the end, they are what they are - You can agree or disagree. That doesn't make them bad. If everyone of your decisions are perfect when you are at that kind of a position, then perhaps one can make such a remark. When a million people have their hopes on you, and when your actions can affect a million people, things aren't as easy as they sound.

Raveesh Mayya: Quoting 2 of the visionaries from the last 2 centuries :

1) Einstein on Mahatma : "Generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this Earth"

2) Steve Job's brain child, "Think Different Campaign" featured the Mahatma.

‎Skanda, its great to think that having an opinion against established facts makes you a Thinker or a cool guy. But the fact is, the world just doesn't care what you and I have to say about the Mahatma. We are just another brick in the wall, yet we seem to be the noisiest lot.. No point of debating on your wall as we're a bunch of dogmatic individuals.

Ashwin Kumble: I would agree with Skanda Guruanand.

Nikhil Baliga: ‎Ashwin Kumble - I was waiting for you ;-) I knew it :P

Ashwin Kumble: We have had this discussion before! Even when i gave u material from reputed news agencies like the Independent and The Hindu u dont believe a bit. There might be some truth u know :)

The main point is u might be cool to crown Mr. Gandhi with the title of Mahatma with all his defects but many might not want to call him Mahatma when they know the true Gandhi (i am repeating what i stated earlier in our discussion)

I am cool if u consider him Mahatma with his defects but please give a thought that some or many might not!

Skanda Guruanand: Did Gandhi ask for special treatment in prisons?..rather than this..My question is "Why" was Gandhi given special treatment and not other freedom fighters who were equally involved in the struggle. Regarding the comparison, I dint understand why u thought of Krishna, having many wives to compare with Gandhi. (I shared this photo, because I was ashamed to see a leader who guided a nation to freedom, a freedom fighter whom people "believed" in, enjoyed dancing with a British when the entire country was against them). And coming to Steve Jobs, i agree he influenced millions in a big way through technology. You compared Jobs with Gandhi because they are icons. But when I compare people, I look at the work they have done, their contribution to the society and their character and not just because millions worship and I should also do the same.

Bharath Srivatsa: ‎Skanda I agree with just one point you've made. The strong support he offered to Nehru in becoming the PM of free India.

The rest doesnt make much sense as Raveesh has summarised it in the above comment.

For what we may know, MK Gandhi may just be dancing to the tunes of Vande mataram !!!

Skanda Guruanand: Hmm Bharath Srivatsa why does it not make sense to speak about other issues when you know such things have happened? I agree with summaries of what Raveesh and Baliga have made. But honestly, I feel people must know some true facts before they comment. From Baliga's post, he mentions "We trust accounts of others. And these accounts may or may not be true. If those people were bribed to write good things, and those accounts were found now, one might assume that they were indeed the truth." How do you trust that things written in history books are truth? Authors could be sycophants. I'm firm on my stand in the case of Gandhi. And I'm surprised you saying that "MK Gandhi may just be dancing to the tunes of Vande mataram", a song which is sung by millions with respect and not a Bollywood item number. If at all what u said is true then ur comment itself speaks of Gandhi's character.

Vibhav Kumar: We can have different opinions about a person, event anything, but to call someone who's no more to speak for himself a fraud, characterless etc. is disgusting and shameful to say the least. As a mature individuals, we have all the right to disagree but to call anyone names is plain wrong. For all we know, we might know nothing.

Bharath Srivatsa: ‎Skanda I dont know much about the true facts nor can I take a stand on history mislead by intentional manipulation for the interest of one man nor am I saying Gandhi is a Mahatma in the true sense of the word. All am saying is, the old man deserves a little respect for the values he stood for and the cause he fought and the means he employed for the cause. All that we (our generation, with exceptions) have done is made extensive usage of verbose statements on FB and twitter pages to voice out our emotions / arguments. We don't (atleast I don't) have it in us to stand up against whats eating up our nation and face it head on. So, I feel its too disrespectful of us to debate on such an issue, which has resulted because of the sacrifice of millions of martyrs. Gandhi is great, so is Bose, so is Bhagat Singh and so are the million others whose names we don't even know. I don't care who Gandhi is dancing with... the old man starved for us for several days, let him have his share of fun !!!

Vibhav Kumar: Generalizing is perhaps the worst thing we can do. We were fighting against the British - Army, country whatever. But to say that each and every British was our enemy is just against the basic principles of justice. We have fought wars with Pakistan. So should that stop me from having a Pakistani friend? Should I always hate every Pakistani then?

Totally agree with Bharath Srivatsa. If nothing, then at least don't malign and affront. It would be the biggest travesty if we start "comparing" the efforts and sacrifices of our freedom fighters - knowing very well that we can't even do a fraction of what they did for our country.

Trusting a stranger

2011-11-09T22:22:00.000+05:30

Swami Nikhilaananda asked:
"What would you base trust on, when you trust a stranger?"

I have a very interesting experience to share. This happened perhaps a year back. I was riding on the outer ring road, in Marathahalli, where the roads are really broad. I had to go a little beyond my office and then take a U turn to go on the service road and come back a little to reach the office. Since I was on the main road and had to come to the service road, I had slowed down considerably and was on the extreme left, ready to make the turn. The road is really broad and hardly had vehicles. And then suddenly, someone rammed into me from the rear, and I jumped off my bike. I didn't fall, and landed on the pavement, on my feet like a cat. I turned back and saw my bike on the road, and behind it an Activa lying on its side, and a man sprawled, face down, doing the saashtaanga namaskaara.

Within a few seconds a small crowd gathered, asking if we were alright. They picked the vehicles and helped him up. I was a little confused. It was a JD (from Scrubs) moment for me, where I tilted my head to the side and drifted off, imagining - "It was like putting a chair in the middle of a ground, and seeing a man trip over it." The whole road was empty, and he picks me in the side of the road to ram into. One man came to me and said 'Don't leave that man, make sure you collect the money'. A few minutes later, on seeing that both of us were alright, the crowd dispersed, leaving us to our fate. The man, brushed the dust off his clothes, and looked at me. I asked him, "Are you alright?" I was genuinely concerned. The way in which he lay sprawled a few minutes earlier, was like he had died. And he said "Yeah, I am. Ok, see you buddy".

SEE YOU BUDDY? "Hey hey, wait a minute, who's going to pay for my bike?" I asked. "Why should I pay?" He replied. I got annoyed. "You are the one who came and hit me, I was all the way over here" I pointed to the side. "Yeah, so what? Even my bike is damaged" - Seriously?!? I said "Dude! That is also your fault only. What kind of an excuse is that?" Finally, he said "Ok, I am running late for a meeting. Here, take my card. Let me know what the estimate is." He offered his visiting card to me. I took it, looked at the man - he was in formals with a tie, and the card showed he was from a reputed IT company, and was in a good position. "Ok, fine." I said, and he rode away. I had to slowly push my bike to a service centre which was fortunately 200 metres away.

I sent him an email with the cost of repairs and my account number. Called him up and told him. He promptly transferred the amount to my account. Note that I am not as gullible as I might sound. I have a policy of taking photographs of the number plate with my phone, as well as miscellaneous images like probably the other driver, which I did take that day as well. Worst case, I could have filed a hit and run case if he did indeed renege.

Today I was riding home and a car in front of me slammed brakes for some reason. So did I. I was wondering what would have happened if I bumped into him from the rear? Well, I would have had to apologise, say it was my fault, promise him to pay the money. But assume that I had a meeting. I would say "I have a meeting, here, take my card" just like what was told to me. Well, it occurred to me that I was not carrying my card (I don't have one now) but I remembered that I have the card of my personal banker. If I did give him that card, what would have happened?

What I am getting to is, what if that man had given be a card that belonged to someone else? You either trust him or you don't. If you don't, you can create a scene, take him to a service centre and get the money out from him. If he was running late for a meeting, it is his funeral. You didn't ask him to come hit you. That is how you would have thought. Fair enough. But if he did have an urgent meeting, he is in trouble. On the other hand, if you were a trusting person, and he gave you the card of his banker, and you call up subsequently and the banker is as lost as you are after a few minutes of incoherent exchanges of words, you will realise that there is no way to trace that guy if you had not taken down his vehicle number. The banker's card is given to a hundred different people.

Thus, what is the basis of trusting a stranger? There are innumerable cases of strangers duping people. But will you follow a policy of eternal cynicism? Better safe than sorry is a smart approach in my opinion. It is fortunate that a gentleman bumped into me. But if you did encounter a smooth talking, polished looking guy who gave you his card, I would still recommend taking photographs. Almost everyone uses a phone with a camera these days. Never go by face value. In fact, glib people are often slimy.

***
Comments from Facebook

Sriharsha Sistalam M: You can do nothing at that point if he gives a big smile & apologizes sincerely..

Skanda Guruanand: @‎Sriharsha Sistalam M: I think, u can't expect that from a guy. If its a girl, then to some extent it can be possible! :P

Murlidhar Baliga: I believe that in US it is an accepted practice and when bills are presented they are paid too.

Life - A weird journey

2011-11-02T21:57:00.005+05:30

Swami Gulagulaananda said:
"Life is a race - There are no winners or losers; Just the same starting and ending points"

First of all, this is not a philosophical post. Rather, it is an observation - I still remember my school days like they were yesterday. After I was done with my seventh standard, when we had to come to the eighth standard, there was a shuffle - Some of my close friends who were my classmates for nine years were moved to a different class, and some others came to my class. A shuffle is important in the sense that, just like genes also shuffle, a newer environment results in a wider exposure, etc. Yeah, I agree with all that. But then, those who move away from you, make newer friends and aren't as much in contact with you as they were before. And you also make newer friends.

I was watching an anime series in which the protagonist, Kenshin, a great swordsman is asked how one can defeat a large number of people attacking at once. So he says, you run away from the enemies who will pursue you. But because their weights are different, their running speeds will be different. The fat ones are slower and the thin and athletic ones are faster. Over a period of time, they start spreading and so, they tend to get drawn to one on one battles rather than attacking all at once.

After school, people again got divided and shuffled while joining PU colleges. Again while pursuing professional courses. Many joined engineering, some medical, some law, some accounts, pure science and so on. Now, I see some of my friends are doing their masters, among whom some are here, some abroad, some are done with masters and are working, some want to do PhD after masters, some have been working, some joined family businesses, some got married, some got engaged... Some boys got married, some girls, some are committed, some broken up and some have always been single... Some died.

The beauty is, we all started at the same starting line of the race - A race where there are no winners, no losers. We are all running, we all run along different paths and ended up at different places, for the better or for the worse. While some guys are getting married and ready to settle down with their wives, some guys are still not even sure which field they should pursue or don't even have a job or goal, still wondering which is the right one.

What I am saying, is that, we began at the same line, and that the finish line for all is the same - Death. Some will reach it faster and some slower. Along the path, we get separated, divided and move apart - some race ahead, some fall behind, just like the fat and thin ones - only, now it is because of skill, fate, and miscellaneous reasons. Some times, tables turn around. But life is nothing more than the journey between the two points. A journey where our paths constantly cross. There is nothing to learn from this post, except for a sword fighting technique in the second paragraph ;-) This is more of a reflection that people are all different, something we all know already...

Switch To Dvorak

2011-10-28T23:48:00.000+05:30

Baba Gyani Triviani said:
"I don't want a claw for a hand"

Every time I think about the long hours of time spent by a programmer on the computer, I am reminded of the Chandler (from Friends) after playing Pacman (or Ms Chomp) where his hand becomes like a claw. RSI (Repetitive Stress Injury) and Carpel Tunnels Syndrome are two scary after effects of keyboard overuse. I had heard of the Dvorak keyboard quite a long time back, and I thought it is about time I use this. I know a couple of people who use Dvorak and I thought, I think it is time for me to try it out as well.

How to proceed? One is to purchase a Dvorak keyboard. But I am not sure if I will be comfortable replacing the Qwerty. I mean, what if I lose interest after a few days? So, it is better to experiment with the existing keyboard and then if I like it, maybe buy one. So, I thought I should share whatever I found out with you guys to facilitate a switch. If you have some more info, let me know so that I can update my post.

On Windows XP

Open Control Panel, and open Regional and Language Options
Click on the Languages tab.
Click on Details
In the Keyboard section in the Installed services, you will most likely have US. Click on the Add button.
From the Add menu, choose United States-Dvorak
Click on the Key Settings button in the main menu again, and set two short cut keys to switch between the keyboards.
That's it, you are done! Now you can switch between them. Enjoy

On Ubuntu (11.10)

I am using 11.10, but I think it will be similar in the previous ones as well.

Go to System settings. (Choose from menu that appears on clicking on user name on top right)
Select Keyboard Layout from Personal
Click on the Layouts tab
Click on the plus symbol to add a new layout. Choose English (Dvorak)
Click on Options in the same pane
Click on Key(s) to change layout
Choose whatever hotkey(s) you prefer. I went for Scroll Lock since I never use that button.
That's it, you are done!

Other operating systems

When I try on others, I will let you know. Stay tuned. If you find out, let me know so that I can update this post as well.

Der Underdog

2011-10-26T22:14:00.000+05:30

Swami Gulagulaananda said:
"The underdog is always the one that gets support - irrespective of being right or wrong"

For those of you who didn't get the title, there is a movie called Der Untergang (Which is a must watch, by the way) and this post is to do with the underdog.

So, who's an underdog anyway? A dictionary would define it as follows

An underdog is a person or group in a competition, frequently in electoral politics, sports and creative works, who is popularly expected to lose.

One thing that I have noticed is that the public support, the mob support normally tends to go towards the underdog rather than for the powerful. The general feeling in the minds of the people is that the high and mighty, the powerful, the famous, the popular don't need any kind of support... Rather than saying don't need, I think it would be more appropriate to say don't deserve, for it may be right that they don't need.

A simple example is in case of an accident on the road. The underdog is the smaller vehicle, the villain is the bigger vehicle, and it doesn't matter who is wrong. The support always goes to the smaller vehicle, and it doesn't matter who's wrong. If a car hit a two wheeler, and the rider is on the ground, it's the car's fault. It is most likely that the motorcycle came in front of the bike out of nowhere, but heck, that doesn't prevent anyone from scuffling with the driver of the car. I am not talking about obvious situations where people saw the two wheeler's error. And similarly, if a lorry hit a car, it's the lorry's fault. If a man and a woman are fighting and it is no longer verbal, the man is at fault for striking the woman - She may have started the physical assaults, but the man is at fault.

This is how popular public perception is. Similarly, people's perception in the technological field is quite similar. Microsoft is evil, Windows sucks and Linux rocks. Lots of fanboys write this all over the place. I don't really understand why. If you provide technical reasons with memory consumption, space consumed, say that windows hangs a lot, etc. while Linux is relatively stable, etc. then it is valid. And people who can give reasons are not usually the ones who go about making these statements. Just by using Linux for a couple days, people start abusing 'Windoze'. Again, I am not defending either and I use both. Both have advantages and disadvantages and I don't say one is better than the other. They just hate Microsoft.

When there is a riot and civilians torch government property indiscriminately, peace keeping forces need to be deployed. Many people enjoy the anarchy and derive thrill out of destroying someone else's things. When Dr. Rajkumar died, people randomly burnt vehicles. What had those poor vehicle owners done? Do you believe people such as these will yield to reason? Never! And when necessary force is applied, then the so called "educated" people, English media and foreign nations start jumping around saying that civilians are being hit. When poor tribals were indiscriminately being forced to Christianity, and when a Hindu guru was murdered, nobody said anything because Hindus are the majority. The underdog Christian missionaries got enormous support from the same group mentioned previously when there were some attacks on them.

Similarly a lot of people hate Shah Rukh Khan and Ra.One before it is out also. They are constantly making various remarks against the movie before it is even out. They just hate him because he is the most popular guy.

This kind of behaviour is quite interesting in the sense that, it appears like people behave quite opposite to the 'might is right' philosophy or the matsya nyaya. Rather, they support the weaker than eating it. Here, I think, people start off with the understanding that the stronger, more powerful entities don't need support, the weaker one cannot fight and needs support. This is ok if the weaker one was the right one. But if it is the other way around, then the supporters are damn fools! But unfortunately, the trend is such.

Ethics

2011-10-26T13:57:00.001+05:30

Swami Gulagulaananda said:
"A man without ethics is worse than an animal"

In fact, animals have ethics. It is said that man is worse than the wild beasts of the jungle (or grasslands) because they hunt only for food and only when they are hungry. Many times, I used to be surprised while watching wild life shows when I saw gazelles, wildebeest and other animals on the menu of the predators walking and grazing just a few metres away from the big cats who are just lolling and sun bathing, looking lazily into the horizon. I thought, 'Aren't they scared that they may suddenly leap and bite?' Apparently not. It is very clear to the grass eaters when the cats are hungry. At which point, they are in a state of alarm and quickly relay the message to the rest of their herd as well. The cats will hunt when they are hungry, and at other times, they are just yet other entities in the ecospace.

However, in today's world, lesser and lesser people seem to have ethics. This could be a result of various influencing factors. One of the main factors according to me, is education. When young, the child needs to be taught the differences between right and wrong. There is a proverb in Kannada 'ಗಿಡವಾಗಿ ಬಗ್ಗದ್ದು ಮರವಾಗಿ ಬಗ್ಗೀತೆ' which means 'That which doesn't bend when it is a sapling, will it yield when it becomes a tree?'. It is very difficult to teach an old dog new tricks. People, once set in their ways, don't change most often. And therefore, once they taste the easy way of doing things, they start finding the right way of doing things too hard. When I can do it this way, why should I do it the other way?

There are thousands of examples - I am not going to tell you something that you already know like politicians looting the country, policemen taking bribes and examples as these. These are some that you are already quite familiar with, if not experienced it as well. Take a corporate world. Large companies where only very educated people get in, multinational software companies for example, full of software engineers, coders, programmers, and managers from good business schools. I heard from a friend that the largest enterprise company in the world, IBM, had employees pilfering coffee beans from the coffee machine. When the company realised this, they stopped providing this amenity. This clearly affected even honest people. This is what happens quite often. Mistakes of a few take a toll on a bigger population. Coffee beans - Imagine, these guys are really highly paid, and they are educated. They obviously know taking what's not yours is not right and yet, they did it. Could they not afford the coffee beans? Still, people do it.

This is just one example. There are many, where man does things out of greed. The world's second largest enterprise company used to give fruit juices to the employees in tetra packs. People used to sneak in a few boxes into their bags and hold one in their hand while sipping from the other. This also was stopped subsequently. Amenities are provided for the employees - don't misuse them.

We should learn to be satisfied with what we have first. In the sense that, to desire things is not entirely wrong, but as Buddha says, 'Desire is the root cause of all evil.' Rightly put, people should have desires, for it is desires that drive a man to move ahead. If man didn't have desires to become better, to become richer, or have a thirst for knowledge, man would have also been lolling on the grass like the wild cats or maybe hanging from a vine. It is desire that drives a man ahead. But we should also know what limits are - what is right and what is wrong. When you start blurring the line between the two, when you start following the crook of the hook or crook method, that's when you are drifting in the wrong path.

People often tend to think - How is it going to affect a multi billion dollar worth company? A few coffee beans? It may not affect the company in terms of money. People of principles cannot even begin to think of stealing coffee beans. People without principles don't even understand that it is wrong. They think those who don't do it are stupid. Please teach young children what is right and what's wrong. A man of principles is a man who will be respected. What's man without principles and ethics. Worse than an animal. Worthless.

***
Comments from Buzz

Nikhil Narayan: I believe the concept of principles is a highly relative one and the entropy of the concept is way too high....

Relationships - Strength or weakness?

2011-10-26T01:16:00.001+05:30

Baba Gyani Triviani said:
"Relationships are like friction - a necessary evil"

Man is a social animal - one of the most cliched phrases. However, it is a fact. We live in a society. We bond with people, we have circles of friends, we have interactions with people in schools and colleges, at work, with neighbours and with random strangers. Some of these bonds are close and some are not so close, but bonds do form. Over a period of time, comfort levels increase with people with whom you interact a lot.

This is specially true with people who move away from friends and family, especially for their higher studies or work. People normally fly to the US or to Europe or Singapore or Australia, and then end up talking to their parents and friends quite regularly. They repeatedly say that they miss their friends and family, and end up being quite lonely there. Why does this loneliness creep in? And when they meet their friends and family, they feel great again. Why?

Bonds with people is very important for man. With various psychological and other branches of psychoanalysis, with experiments with monkeys and the like, scientists have shown that the behaviour of monkeys is extremely bad and unstable when they didn't have contact with the mother, and shows that a fake mother monkey made of cloth is better than a fake monkey of wire, because the baby can touch and feel better with cloth, but not with the wire. Therefore, contact and touch is important. And when you talk to people, it is better. You feel lighter when you share your sorrows, you can laugh and feel better and so on. Thus, it is normally believed that, relationships are very important for a wholesome growth of a human being.

However, there is a downside to it as well. Monks and secret agents normally don't have families. The reason for this is that, the same families that can be a great support for you during your sad moments can act as heavy baggage when you want to do something radical. A simple example would be when you want to do something totally radical like quit your work tomorrow and go start your own company. People with families normally will think a hundred times, for they have dependants. What will I do about by children's school? What will I tell my wife? What about my parents' hospital bills? But a guy who has no dependants will follow his heart. His shenanigans affect none but him. The repercussions are solely to be faced by him.

You may have watched various movies where there is an upright cop who wants to teach a lesson to the bad old villains. He goes into their lair and kicks their butts. But then, the villain brings the hero to his knees by kidnapping his old mother/girl friend/sister/brother's kid and threatens to kill/rape/rape/kill them respectively. The hero then is either forced to do something against his will or in some movies driven to a rage where he ends up decimating the villain, but that's digressing. The point being that relationships in these cases end up being weaknesses.

This post is totally random - I was just thinking how relationships are... The nature of relationships is such that a bond is formed. The bond is good in many ways, but the word bond itself indicates that you are bound by it, chained, thereby limiting the things you can do. Some times, you may be forced to break bonds and go beyond, or sometimes believe that these bonds are better than being alone. Which is true? It is purely subjective.

God, fate and destiny - A proof?

2011-10-25T01:43:00.002+05:30

Swami Gulagulaananda said:
"One cannot prove nor disprove fate and destiny - They are, thus, equivalent to God, or a parallel maybe. Everything can be God, everything can be fate or destiny..."

Fate and destiny are very interesting concepts. When someone asks - Do you believe in the existence of God, the answers are one of the three. Absolutely yes, absolutely no, or maybe maybe not, I am not sure (Believers, Atheist or Agnostic). The reason for this is the lack of any absolute proof. One can give a long list of things that can't be explained, and one can give explanations with a thousand loopholes that are easy to find.

A simple example was a brilliant show that I watched the other day which had Stephen Hawking explaining about the universe and how it all began. The show was very interesting, and Professor Hawking himself begins by saying that he doesn't want to offend anyone in the process - quite a way to begin, considering there are many who feel only their opinions are right. Proceeding, Hawking goes on to explain about the Black Hole, how it is infinitely dense and that even light cannot pass. But that's not the interesting part. The interesting part is one where he says that time stops in the black hole. If a clock was put in, assuming it could withstand the great pressure, the clock would slow as it approached the black hole and eventually stop. And thus, similarly, according to the big bang theory, everything was in one very dense mass - and there was no time before that. And at an instant, there was a huge explosion at which point, both time began as well as the universe. Since there is no time before that, there can't be a God to create it, he says.

While the explanation is very interesting and though it takes care of a lot of points, I failed to understand some things, which I think Hawking would probably know and can answer, but well, I couldn't figure it out with my basic understanding - Take for example that ultimate mass which was there at the beginning of time. Where was it? When we say a pen on the table, we understand there is a table, on which there is a pen. Similarly table is in the room, room in a house and so on where you ultimately stop at space. Space, we know is constantly growing. The galaxies are known to move farther from one another. Ok, to move somewhere, there should be something. If space is expanding, what is it expanding into? What is beyond it? Or is it expanding into itself? If so, what exactly does that mean? Where was the first ultimate condensed mass? I understand there was no space nor time before it, but then, where was it? I find it exceedingly hard to comprehend these things - I have done no research, of course, but just for a random thought process, I cannot logically come up with anything worthwhile as of now. It is, however, very simple to attribute this to God. God created it - done! :)

Then, what's God? Where does God stay? Actually, in the Hindu philosophy, there are some very interesting points on these, I think studying this would be quite interesting. What I read the other day goes to say that in the beginning, there was the universe and there was Vishnu in the centre resting in the coils of his serpent, the serpent Shesha, known as Adi Shesha. The coils of the snake are known to be infinite, and in the book, it says that the snake always represents time in the Hindu philosophy, because the snake is very motile, just like time. The eternal snake is therefore infinite time. This says that time and space were always there. Vishnu is apparently the consciousness. Before he did get conscious, he is asleep and in the Ananta Shayana (eternal sleep) state when he is known as Narayana. And then there are various explanations beyond which I don't remember clearly. These, I say from my memory which is fairly ok. If you know some mistakes made by me, do let me know.

The beauty of the above paragraphs is that one cannot solidly prove or disprove God. Similarly, what is fate? Whatever has to happen, will happen. This is fate. Can we control fate and destiny? Some people say - All these things about fate and destiny is sheer nonsense. Our future is in our hands. We cannot sit and mope about fate. For, when you put in effort, things will take course. However, assume there was a brilliant boy who worked really hard to become a great doctor. And one day while walking he was mowed down by a drunken lorry driver. Who is to blame? Rational people say lorry driver, some may say bad luck. Some will say - Fate. It was his fate that he was in that place at the inauspicious moment. And if he had survived, people will say Fate - If only he was on the left by a few more inches, he would have died! It was all thanks to his stars. He was destined to serve a lot of people, etc. Either case, it is fate. And no matter what he did, it is fate. For, if he failed, he was destined to fail, and if he succeeded, he was destined to succeed and hard work did it. There are many times that you work exceedingly hard and yet, you don't succeed. And some, by luck (or fathers' contacts) succeed. Did hard work help in succeeding? So, is the solution father's contacts? Therefore, fate, luck and destiny. They are like skeleton keys, just like God. Use it on anything, it will fit and you can't disprove it.

Some may even say fruits of the previous birth determine your destiny and fate here and now. Some may feel fruits of this birth are received in this birth. Some may not believe in fruits at all, but may believe in what goes around comes around (a special case of Karma restricted to the current birth) and so on. However, the bottom line being that one can never prove or disprove the existence of God, or fate, destiny and providence. It is up to you to have faith in God, or to go on a quest to understand God in an intelligent manner, to understand what makes the world tick. But with fate and destiny, my suggestion would be to work hard, and leave the rest to fate. As I always say "Prepare for the worst, hope for the best"

The Black Cauldron

2011-10-22T23:01:00.002+05:30

Swami Gulagulaananda said:
"Know when to stop, lest you shalt drop... For greed is innate"

A very short story for you guys - an old one that I had read a long while ago.

There was, a long time ago, a greedy money lender in a village. He was as rich as he was greedy. He was the richest man among all the villages around his village, and yet, his thirst for money was not quenched. He, therefore, chose a lot of underhanded methods to rob the poor who needed money to grow richer. He would lend money at very high rates of interest, and the poor who needed and borrowed could not repay, and he would cheat them off their land. He would also scam the illiterate into parting with their land. He was despised, but yet, he grew richer.

One day, an interesting bit of news fell on his ears. A wandering mendicant had arrived to a forest near the village. It seemed that the mendicant had mystic powers that he had gained through years of meditation in the Himalayas. Now, he was just wandering from town to town, giving spiritual guidance to those who sought his wisdom. All the villagers went to seek his blessings, and so did the money lender. The mendicant saw the villagers only one at a time, for he didn't want the prying ears of others to hear the problems of his devotees. And when the money lender's turn came, the mendicant said "Son, what seems to be the problem on your mind?" And the money lender said, "I heard that you have a lot of great powers. Please teach me how to convert rock to gold. I want to grow richer." The mendicant looked at him for a few moments, pointed towards a large cauldron and replied "Son, I cannot teach you that, but I can help you for a while. I have a magical cauldron. Whatever you put in it, it will double overnight. You can use it while I am here." Having replied thus, the mendicant closed his eyes and began to meditate. The lender was not convinced with the powers of the ordinary looking cauldron, but decided to try it out anyway. The mendicant was a man who had renounced the world, and didn't desire wealth. But yet, the wary lender didn't want to trust him. Thus, he tossed a silver piece into it, bowed to the mendicant and went home. The next day he came and saw that the mendicant was still in meditation. He went to the cauldron and peered into it and lo! There were two silver pieces in it.

His joy knew no bounds. He dropped in five gold pieces in it, and went home. He couldn't sleep all night, for he wanted to peer into the cauldron. The next day he came and saw the mendicant feeding a deer. "Ah, what brings you here son?" asked the hermit. I just came to take my money, said the lender and bowed into the cauldron and retrieved ecstatically ten gold pieces. Every day for a week, the mendicant added increasingly more and more wealth and harvested double the money. He had already grown significantly richer. The next day when the merchant came, the mendicant told him "I am happy that you come to visit me everyday, my son. I am leaving town in two days. It is time for me to move to the next village"

The merchant was devastated. He asked the mendicant "Oh kind sir. You have helped me so much. But if you leave, how can I double my money? Please leave your cauldron behind" The hermit shook his head and said "No I can't do that, for the cauldron is for the benefit of the world. I can't let only one person benefit out of it." "I will pay a really hefty sum for the cauldron. I am willing to part with half my property for it" said the money lender who knew he could easily recover the money overnight. But the mendicant said "What use is money to a hermit like me? I have given up the entire worldly life. Money, thus, means nothing to me"

The merchant bowed to the hermit and went home. But he couldn't bear the torment. He had only one last chance. He took all his money, and came back. The mendicant was busy meditating. The lender put all the money into the cauldron, bowed to the hermit and went home. Early next morning, as the cock crowed, the merchant went to collect his money one last time. And lo and behold, there was no sign of the mendicant nor anything else around there. However, the large black cauldron was in the same place. The lender felt anxious as he ran to the cauldron and peeked inside. It was empty, save for a piece of paper. The lender's hands became cold and clammy as he read the note on the paper that said:

"You have cheated hundreds of people and robbed them - You never showed any concern nor had any kind feelings. All you eyed was their money and all you cared for was yourself. You had cheated my father ten years ago, and drove him to commit suicide. I grew up cursing you day and night, and wanted to seek my revenge. Your greed has become your downfall. Don't bother tracing me now, you will never find me, for by the time you read this, I would be far far away."

The story and the ending are quite predictable. But the lesson is quite important. A lot of people get trapped into similar scam cases like chit funds. Chit funds are known to give high returns for investment. The problem with this is that, in the beginning, everyone invests very small amounts of money just like the money lender did - just to test. If it works, great and if it failed, no issues - for the amount of money lost is minimal.. But as and when you see the great returns, you wonder - If such a small investment got me a great return, why not invest more and get more? This is what drives people to pour more and more money.

Scamsters know how people think... They also initially repay you with great returns - sometimes legitimate, sometimes through their own pockets, for this is the lure. People who know when to stop will benefit from this great returns and stop. However, the average person is greedy and tries more and more. And the scamster, when he sees that a large enough money has been collected - Suddenly vanishes into thin air. I have seen so many chit fund cases go bad. The money often spent, and when the angry investors yell and get him arrested, he just shrugs and says "I have no money on me. Do what you want" And more likely, he doesn't get caught - rather, he disappears.

One needs to do a thorough research - What is the way in which this guy is going to get my money value up? In case of large banks and mutual funds, all the information is known and they are regulated. The risk is lower, and so is the interest. When the interest is higher, so is the risk - and thus, greed should know where to draw the line.

Conviction and Promise

2011-10-13T22:53:00.000+05:30

Swami Gulagulaananda said:
"When it comes down to it, your behaviour determines your character"

A lot of people often make tall statements. But, unfortunately, when it comes down to it, when they have to act on their beliefs, most people chicken out. A lot of people have the bark, but very very few people have the bite to go through.

When people are in some situations, they tend to make tall promises. A classic example is shown in the Mahabharata when Drupada made bold promises to his best friend, Drona, that he would give half his kingdom to Drona, a poor Brahmin, when Drupada, a prince, would become the king. However, when Drupada was crowned and Drona came to him, Drupada said that he didn't even recognise him. Au contraire, he even insulted him and threw him out.

When it comes down to acting on the promise made, people often back out. People often say that the circumstances under which the promise was made and the circumstances at which they break it are different... But if that's the case, then that's not called as a promise. Another analogy is rules - people make rules, and then make exceptions. The moment you make an exception, it ceases to be a rule. Rules, by definition, are to be enforced.

These are just some simple examples. I have seen a lot of such cases, where people make some promises, and then, when times become harder, they give up, they back off. A simple example would be of people when in love. "No matter what happens, I will never ditch you" And this is very often not the case. Whether the guy found a different girl, or the girl buckled to the pressure of parents, or vice versa for both, or any other reason, all tall promises made are forgotten. What's the point?

When there is trouble, and you don't want to get dirty, messy and not be involved, don't do it. It's perfectly natural to protect yourself. It is perfectly natural to say "Hey, I will definitely try". But, if you cannot do it, then don't promise. Many people take promises seriously. And it will definitely hurt when the other person backs out. So, the next time, you want to make a promise, first think, see if you have the strength and conviction to go through the entire deal - a promise to stick by, is a promise that has to be honoured. If you don't, then don't make a promise.

A guy I know, talks big against China behind their back - but he lacks the will to speak publicly against China out of fear of offending them. People tend to give up on convictions out of fear of repercussions and for wanting to be politically correct. If you are going to change your stance to suit others, then you have no spine, you have no conviction. Then don't talk big. For you lack the strength to support your words.

When I was a child, I used to wonder why the gods showered flowers on Bhishma when he took an oath to never marry. What's the big deal? It was just a promise. But he made a promise, that the gods knew, he would definitely keep. If you are a person, of strength and honour, make promises. If you are not a person of strength, but of honour, don't make a promise...

***
Comments from Facebook

Hemanth Pai:
Worthy follow up to the 'yes man' ... Keep them coming nik ;)

Nikhil Baliga:
‎:) Thanks Hemanth!

Rashmi Prasad
gud one..

Steve Jobs and a million people

2011-10-13T01:13:00.000+05:30

Swami Gulagulaananda repeated:
"You can't compare apples with oranges"

Saw this silly poster making rounds on Facebook. This is one of the dumbest pictures I have seen...

I don't really understand this poster. How can someone compare a man like Steve Jobs with some random dying people... If you want to do that, then nobody is great and worthy of looking up to. People die everyday. And those people are somebody really great to their family and close ones, but to the rest of the world, they are nobodies.

However, once in a while, some people who touch the lives of lakhs of people come around. These people end up being role models to a lot of people. Steve Jobs may not have fed hungry African children, but his achievements, ups and downs, and vision have inspired lakhs of techies and students. If you want to compare a great like Jobs to a hungry kid in Africa, then you will have to erase the very concept of great people and say that every man is equal. Nobody's achievement means anything anymore, because, just because Gandhi got independence to India, doesn't get independence to people in China who are stuck without rights or the harassed people in Myanmar, and just because there are people who have no legs, doesn't make feats of Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps something not worth marvelling.

To summarise, you may not personally think Jobs was great. But for people who do look up to him, he is incredible. And ironically, Swami quips, 'You can't compare apples with oranges'

***
You may also want to read:
Of leaders, greatness and belittlement

200th Post - Milestone!

2011-10-06T03:08:00.000+05:30

Swami Gulagulaananda said:
"Ah, I am still master of my own domain... *chuckles* Seinfeld was always funny"

This is my 200th post, and I wanted something special to be written in the 200th post! So, here it is...

I finally got my own website. Frankly, I don't know what I am going to do with it - But heck, it is fun to say "Go to my site" :-) So, I thought that the very first thing I should do is have a sub-domain for Artistick, like most of the other webcomics. Yes, I do know that I have not done much towards Artistick for quite some time now, but that's not going to be true for long...

So, here is the link - http://artistick.nikhilbaliga.com/ - Check it out. More things will come on the site soon!

Visit Artistick!

Screwing with people with factual statements

2011-10-02T01:02:00.000+05:30

Swami Gulagulaananda said:
"You can tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth to mess with people's lives"

Here is a funny scenario that you can assume to have happened.

There was once a review meeting. And, in the review meeting, the reviewer told the superiors "Well, today Raj has come to office without drinking".

What are the repercussions? The superior will naturally think that Raj is a guy who drinks and comes to office habitually, and today happens to be a one-off day where he has come to office without drinking. Raj, in reality was a teetotaler. And this statement told by the reviewer is indeed factually correct. And yet, the superior takes it in the wrong sense. Is the superior wrong? Not really, because normally, we tend to read between the lines, and draw conclusions because we hard wired to think in those lines. Like, if you talk a lot on the phone, and get less marks, parents would put two and two and make five - You talk a lot on phone, therefore you got less marks...

Take advantage of that train of thoughts... So, next time you want to screw with someone, go ahead and tell the truth - like the one told above. Both the good angelic side of you and the devil side of you will be satisfied in one go. Ease your conscience because you have not lied, and ease the devil by taking revenge :-) Muhuhahaha!

---
You may also like
Media- Not liars, but selective truth tellers - A short post with an Artistick cartoon on how media can misuse this philosophy

VTU Transcripts Procedure

2011-10-01T12:48:00.000+05:30

Baba Gyani Triviani said:
"VTU - Expect the unexpected"

Those of you who need VTU transcripts will find this post useful. Previously, you could obtain them from your respective colleges, but now, you have to go to the VTU regional office, Bangalore.

Before going to the VTU Regional Office, please ensure that you have the following:

Photocopies of marks cards of 1-8 semesters
A DD in favour of Finance Officer, VTU payable at Belgaum. Rs. 250 for the first copy and Rs. 150 for subsequent copies.
Fill out the application form that has to be downloaded from the VTU website. A direct link to the PDF is here. Download it, take print outs of them. The first page also shows the information mentioned above.

Where is the Regional Office?

The VTU Regional Office is not as easy to find as I thought. Your starting position needs to be Dr. Ambedkar Institute of Technology (Dr. AIT) college, Nagarbhavi, Bangalore.

From there, go straight towards BDA complex / KLE school. A road opposite to that, has a very steep slope downwards. Go down straight till the road starts leveling a bit, and then you can see a small board that reads "Way to VTU Regional Office <---" You have to take a left at that point, and you will see a host of buildings getting constructed around there. The newly constructed building, with the sand and stones lying around, is the VTU Regional Office.

The Google Maps are not updated and it is hard for me to find the exact spot. So, here is a link from the VTU site with the exact address and a rough map. Hope this was useful.

[Click on the image to enlarge]

Ruby Postgres script

2011-09-30T00:07:00.000+05:30

Swami Nikhilaananda said:
"Ruby is a gem of a language"

There was a very simple requirement that I had - I wanted to write a script to update a postgres table. On looking up quite a few resources also, I was unable to solve the issue that I was facing. Let me put down the completely stripped down version of the script here first...

#!/usr/bin/ruby
require 'postgres'
conn = PGconn.connect("localhost", 5432, '', '', "tblName", "username", "password")
puts conn

This script is the typical script that you will find on looking up any site. However, the error that you will face on running this is the following:

... `require': no such file to load -- postgres (LoadError) ...

This was quite annoying... Finally I discovered the required solution. So, I thought that this needs to be shared. Though it appears to be trivial, it is definitely not something that I could find with ease :)

#!/usr/bin/ruby
require 'rubygems'
require 'postgres'
conn = PGconn.connect("localhost", 5432, '', '', "tblName", "username", "password")
puts conn

That line needs to come before you add require for others. Then it works like a charm <-- well, everyone uses that line :P So, thought I should too :-)

Do you spend a lot of time on the computer? Click here to learn how to use the Dvorak keyboard

Installing Gnome3 and a couple of tweaks

2011-09-25T13:55:00.000+05:30

Baba Gyani Triviani said:
"Life is always a trade off - You get something, at the cost of something else"

Ubuntu is probably the most commonly used Linux distribution. Ubuntu used to be shipping with Gnome for quite some time; however the latest version had Unity. While Unity appeared to look quite fancy in the beginning, a couple of sessions later, I found it incredibly annoying. There are several annoying features that one can find by running a simple Google search.

However, there is an alternative - Gnome3. Some people may prefer KDE for the beautiful environment considering it is quite familiar, being similar to Windows; Gnome though was my personal favourite (Though Linus Torvalds hates it) for being minimalistic and doing the job right. So, I decided to install Gnome, and found they have a new version Gnome 3.

[Note: From what I understand, you will lose Unity for good - Point of no return]

How to install Gnome 3:
To install Gnome 3, first launch your terminal. Then type the following four commands. As you would have probably guessed, this requires an internet connection.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

sudo apt-get install gnome-shell

Done!

Reboot your system and choose Ubuntu Gnome Shell Desktop at the login screen.

Issues and Fixes (These are some issues, and the resolutions)

No shutdown option! Or is there...?
But, how about Hibernate?
Icons on Desktop
Maximise and Minimise buttons?

After doing this, you will find that the Gnome 3 is up and running smoothly. However, the following are some issues you may see... Don't worry, there are very simple solutions too.

No shutdown option! Or is there...?

So, after installing Gnome 3 and using it, I wanted to shut down my system and I found that there was a Suspend option but there was no shutdown option, nor a hibernate option in the drop down menu on the top right where it was always there. I had to log out, and then at the login screen, press on the power off button from the top right. This was most annoying - Why should I do something in two steps when I used to do it in one? I then started running the command

sudo shutdown -h now

I then found that you can shut down without logging out. When you click on the menu on the top right, keep Alt button pressed. On doing that, you will see that the Suspend button becomes Power Off...

But, how about Hibernate?

If you are like me, you keep a few windows open, and want to resume work the next day. You won't want to power off, and open all of them all over again. So, yeah, Hibernate. But, there is no Hibernate right? To achieve this, as well as fix the previous issue also permanently, you can do the following.

Open the terminal and run the command

sudo apt-get install gnome-shell-extensions-alternative-status-menu

This will add a Power Off option to the menu. And on pressing Alt key now, the Suspend button becomes Hibernate. Easy, no?

Icons on Desktop

Another issue was that icons on the desktop are disabled by default. To solve this, as well as to get control over a lot of things, install dconf-tools. Run the following command in a terminal.

sudo apt-get install dconf-tools

Then, launch the dconf-editor by pressing Alt + F2, and typing in dconf-editor and press enter.

In the window that opens, go to org > gnome > desktop > background and check the box to show desktop icons.

That will get you the Desktop icons back.

You can remove some of the default icons that appear by going to org > gnome > nautilus > desktop and unchecking the icons that you don't want.

Did you know: Windows button + D will minimise all your windows, or restore them - toggle

Do you spend a lot of time on the computer? Click here to learn how to use the Dvorak keyboard

Maximise and Minimise buttons?

The windows don't have a minimise and maximise button by default. Let's proceed to fix that. Open the Terminal and run the following command

sudo apt-get install gnome-tweak-tool

Then, launch gnome-tweak-tool by pressing Alt + F2, and typing in: gnome-tweak-tool and press enter.

In the window that opens, navigate to Shell in the panel on the left, and then in the Arrangement of buttons in the title bar option, choose All.

You can then press Alt + F2, and typing in r and press enter.

Proceed to remove Unity fully.

sudo apt-get remove unity

sudo apt-get remove scrollbar*

I hope you enjoy using Gnome 3... Well, I did. Read about the various features of Gnome 3, and you will discover quite a few yourself.

Bonus: Add Docky - The Mac OSX Dock Doppelganger

If you are a big fan of the Mac OSX dock, which most of us are, then Docky can be an excellent app. Not only is it as smooth as the Mac one and does everything exactly similarly, it also serves as the much missed task bar to which most of us are used to. A beautiful app, a definite recommendation.

[Image taken from http://tanu.wordpress.com/category/ubuntu/]

The Feedback system

2011-09-25T01:19:00.000+05:30

Swami Gulagulaananda observed:
"Control theory says positive feedback results in unstable systems, psychologists say positive feedback results in emotionally stable systems"

People are different, and different people think differently. It is a well known thing about the two people seeing the same glass as half empty and half full. That being said, different people have different ways of leading lives, and they believe in principles of their own, formulate their own philosophies or sometimes follow those set by others and/or by God.

The ability to formulate their own philosophies and principles, is developed after some experiences were had. Like, a man lied to his wife, said that he was with his friend, while instead he was dining with his secretary. Later, he got a bump on his head after the wife discovered the lie on interrogating the friend (sans the overhead glaring lights) She subsequently relayed the illumination gained to him through her rolling pin. This man develops either one of the following principles - Don't lie to wife, or take friend into confidence before going for a clandestine rendezvous, or hide the rolling pin. Suppose he didn't choose option one, and forgot to hide the rolling pin, and the wife happened to see him with her on her way home, then he gets some more experience which will teach him something more. To be more careful, and also to keep the helmet for at least 15 minutes after entering the house.

This lather-rinse-repeat mechanism is based on a simple concept which is the fundamentals in control theory - Feedback.

This figure shows y as the output. The input r is combined with the feedback taken from output and the new output y is again computed. Every time, new behaviour results from the result of past experiences.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Simple_feedback_control_loop2.png)

Feedback, however, is not obtained by a person only through his own experiences. He can learn from someone else's experiences as well. And not only does a person depend on experiences, he also tends to depend on opinions. And this is where the topic begins to get interesting. For, the question is, whose opinion is to be considered and whose to discard.

A worthwhile read would be on two topics - Dunning Kruger effect and Illusory Superiority. A question on technical aspects is normally straightforward - A person knows it, or he doesn't. It's often boolean as the computer engineers like, or digital, as the electronics guys like. Basically, 0 or 1, it is absolute. However, human relations are more complex, and involve a lot of parameters.

A simple example would be a person who wants to be better than what he was yesterday. "Yes, every day, I want to learn something. I don't want to make the mistake I made yesterday. I want to be a better person, one who is adored, loved and respected" and so, he does something interesting, for the feedback system is not applicable all the time. He asks for the opinion of another. Why? The feedback system doesn't work all the time. There is the problem of Social Contract - You don't tell people something that you feel, just because you felt it. How many times have you felt "Dude, you stink, didn't you have a bath?" or "Dude, keep your voice down. Why do you want the whole bus to know that the biriyani that you had with your wife last night was amazing? (Whatever that was supposed to hint)"

There are some things you tell your friend, because, you are friends - Macha, don't pick your nose in public da, it's bad manners... You might say this to your friend. But, if your colleague did that, you wouldn't venture a remark. So, you don't always get honest feedback from people. So, the guy who aspired perfection goes around trying to get it - putting his finger down the throat of others to force it out. What happens as a result? A tactful person may safely evade and circumvent. But some people may decide to be honest, and give an opinion. "Hey, I think you speak with an accent. That's a tad annoying" The guy is now wondering "Oh boy, I didn't know that. Maybe I should flatten my style? Or is this the only guy who feels that? Let's verify". So, he goes around asking other people...

One of the following things can happen -

If he was indeed speaking with an annoying accent, and people are genuine, then they will give honest opinions. He puts it in his feedback loop and corrects himself
If he was indeed speaking with an annoying accent, and people decide to circumvent and change topics "Hey, the weather is great today!" he might think that the first guy was jealous and not correct himself.
If he was not speaking with an accent, and people are genuine, they will give honest opinions, and he concludes that the first guy was jealous or a moron
If he was not speaking with an accent and people say he was, he will wrongly make changes...

Now accent is just an example. But notice that the decision of the person now depends rather heavily on people, their morals, qualities and knowledge. If the people whom he sought advice from have the IQ comparable with a retarded rabbit, then he is in trouble. But even otherwise, he tends to become a people-pleasing person - One, who over a period of time, will align himself to the society in a bid to become acceptable, loses originality, ability to reason, and individuality.

But this doesn't mean that opinions are bad - Opinions of people are always important. Right opinions are very important. For, in times of deep trouble, the brain of a human behaves in ways it wouldn't have, when not under stress. Then, people unaffected by stress continue to hold reason, and they can give sane advice. Again, the person's decision will be affected by qualities of people, and thus, right company becomes sine qua non.

To summarise, a person must develop a strong ability to think rationally on his own - through his own as well as through others' experiences. A person should be able to choose good company, using his reason. The person should know whose opinion matters, and how much weightage is to be given to whose opinion. One must always listen to all opinions, and then decide himself which is the best option and not blindly follow others. Well informed opinions are much better than one taken without adequate data, and data always comes through research as well through other people. Thus, we conclude that the individual needs to be strong and stable, or have a strong and stable partner to depend on.

Environment and effects

2011-09-21T00:32:00.000+05:30

Swami Gulagulaananda said:
"The environment has profound influence on you - Evolution happens, not just as metamorphosis of the body, but also of mind"

I would like to narrate a couple of incidents, using my favourite character Raj again. So here goes:

Raj was done with his exams, and had got his results. He had scored quite good marks, distinction, in fact. Raj was studying in the best college in the state. People around him were some of the best guys in the entire state, and he just sat wondering about his marks. He found that when compared with his classmates, he was exactly in the middle. There were as many people above him, as below him.

As he was thinking about this, his phone rang. He picked it up, and saw that it was his school friend with whom he had not spoken for a long time. "Hey, how have you been? Long time, huh?" They spoke for quite some time, and then the topic about exams had come. The exams being state level, was a common topic. "How much did you score?" asked Raj. "Oh, I got 65%" 65? Wow, that's not even a distinction, and that was more than 12 less than what Raj had got, around 78. "Why so less? Didn't you study well?" asked Raj, for the girl was actually quite clever. "Hey, I did. Well, all my friends here have got the same, more or less, between 62 to 67. So, it's alright, so what else have you been doing?". The college in which this girl was studying was a different one, not at the same level as Raj's college.

The scores that were scored by that girl and her friends - well, just about a handful were there in his college. Most others were way ahead. Which was why Raj felt that the marks she and her friends scored, were very less - he was comparing his marks with people around him, and they being toppers, made his score seem low, though higher than his friend. While she, on comparing with people around her, was satisfied and didn't understand what Raj was saying.

Raj also had similar experiences in several other places. There was one instance where Raj and a close friend of his had studied the exact same topics for a test, and while Raj was happy that he had studied a lot, the friend, who was a topper, was very worried because he felt that he had not studied anything.

Raj also had another revealing experience, when people around him used to praise his knowledge about something a lot all the time, his new teacher chided him for being so far behind - The reason for this difference is that the benchmarks were different. The people who were praising him were far behind compared to him, and the person who chided him was far ahead of him.

Through these instances, we see that the standards of comparison themselves are different. Nobody is right, and nobody is wrong. But standards and benchmarks themselves are set apart.

There was a comment on my blog posts, saying that I come along too strongly on certain things like, for example, I hate Chetan Bhagat's style of writing, which I feel is too simple and drab - I don't even like to put style in the same sentence as one that has Chetan Bhagat. Well, the only reason his books are popular is that they connect well with the common folk, and his sentences don't need them to put stress on their (puny) minds. Rather, the language reminds them of their own everyday lingo, and they are able to connect with stories like '2 states'. (I feel I can write better than him. Here's a link to some short stories I wrote, judge them for yourselves.) Frankly, any person who has read good books will have feelings like 'nails against blackboard' when they read such irritating material. Understand the difference, simplicity is not what I am against. Sudha Murthy writes in very simple English as well, but her books are a delight to read. Now, here, people will say opinions are different - Hey, you like something, what I like and what you like are not necessarily the same. So, yeah, tastes are different. But I say - It is not tastes that are different, it is standards and benchmarks.

This is also the same reason I hate Kannada songs that are being released currently. Frankly, when you compare them with songs of the past, you will see that the "songs" of now are just merely proses that are being sung by incredibly talented singers with incredibly good music. The lyrics as such is ridiculous. If someone does like it, it doesn't talk about opinions - it reflects benchmarks. If your tastes are inherently poor, you liking such a song will not make it good in reality. It will make it seem good to you - And if you are a person who is happy with mediocrity, then so be it.

There can be no debates and discussions on standards and benchmarks, unless people can see superior things and compare. A person who is amidst 65% people will not be able to appreciate the low scores till he sees a person with 90%. If everyone around you looks like that, then you are just ok with it. For, by definition, it makes it average.

Therefore, people's opinions don't matter if their standards are low

Yes Man

2011-09-17T13:55:00.000+05:30

Swami Nikhilaananda said:
"Say Yes"

There is a movie called Yes Man which has Jim Carrey, a loser who is totally depressed in life attending a workshop where the guy there asks him to say Yes to everything, so that he can embrace the positive energy. It's a really nice movie, that shows him getting into trouble in the beginning, but then all the creases get ironed out by the end of the movie.

I have had quite a few experiences that are similar. So, I thought I should share a couple of anecdotes just to show you how things are... The following is part real, part fiction, but you will get the message.

Raj was working in a very large company, but as time passed, he was beginning to feel stagnated. He looked back over the past one year and tried to assess what he had done. He found that he had not learned anything significant in the past year, well, nothing that required a year to learn. He felt that he was learning a lot more in college, amidst the fun, while here, he was like Harold Smith, the villain from Powerpuff girls who felt the work was getting totally monotonous and there was no excitement.

And then, one day, there was a circular that said that there was an event where one could talk about any topic that can benefit others. Raj could have dismissed this as yet another event and let go, but then he remembered the movie 'Yes Man' and decided to give it a shot. He registered to talk with the intent of getting at least a certificate and a time out. While giving the seminar, one among the audience seemed to be really interested in the talk. After the talk, Raj met that person, and was engaged in a pleasant conversation, and subsequently came to know that there was an opening in his team, a team that was way more exciting than Harold Smith's job. And thus, Raj switched teams - this would not have happened if he had not registered for the event... Raj is very happy in his new job

Whether you call this as fate, or anything else, the result is something you will appreciate. And then, one more incident happened in Raj's life.

Raj's friend told that there was a competition, and asked Raj if he wanted to participate. Raj decided to embrace it, and said cool! Raj and his friend decided to participate in the event, where Raj's friend was also supposed to join them. After the event, Raj's friend's friend decided to offer Raj a job in a large company, and that was yet another pleasant surprise. Raj declined the offer politely, but was again reminded of the theory from Yes Man

The beauty of these two anecdotes is that, the objective of going to an event was something, but the benefits came from unexpected sides. Similarly, you never know how things will come to you, but if you decide to sit quietly at home, watching some series, you won't be able to reap benefits that come from connecting with people. It is always better to have a rather positive outlook in life, and give things a shot - What's the worst thing that can happen? Nothing... You will return empty handed.

Therefore, it is better to do work without expectations, as Lord Krishna says, but again, it is better to do work than to not do work, as Swami Nikhilaananda says :-) Have a great weekend guys

The Smitten Kitten

2011-08-25T01:32:00.000+05:30

Swami Nikhilaananda wondered:

"You either pick a girl at a really cool bar,

Or pick her from anywhere with a really fancy car

The problem is not where you pick her up my friend,

Starting to talk is the issue, simple is the end"

Very often, when watching any one of the typical American shows, one sees that a guy liked a girl while sitting in a bar, and then decides to send over a drink to her. She accepts it, the waiter says "A drink from the gentleman over there" and the guy smiles looking at her. If she smiles back, then he walks over to her, engages her in a conversation, and if they hit it off, exchange numbers and start dating. Sounds so simple, right?

Well, here in India, things are not all the time as simple and smooth. If you are a guy who drinks, and the girl also drinks, perhaps you can employ similar tactics. But what if you actually come across a girl you like in some other place? Maybe a bus stop, or your college, or maybe a movie theatre, a restaurant or could be anywhere else. How do you exactly go about? It would be really creepy if you start approaching a girl just like that and say "Hey would you like to have coffee?" because it was totally sudden.

The most difficult part is breaking the ice. If you have a common friend, you typically ask for an "Intro" and move forward. But if you have no mutual friends, what do you do? Suggestions, my friends, that's what is required - It'll be useful to other readers :P What would you do? Would you boldly go up to her and talk? Or use some coy tactics :)

This is not some dumb issue - according to a survey, if you have not found a person by the time you start working, then chances are very high that you won't find the perfect person. The reason is that, unless you are working in a youth filled organisation like perhaps Infosys or Wipro, you will end up being among married people very often. And there are really slim pickings and to get one that you really like and might consider settling is....zero. So, you may want to fine tune your skills. Come on guys, experiment a bit, and share the results here :)

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Comments from Buzz

Niranjan L - Share your result first :)

Causes and Effects

2011-08-17T23:19:00.000+05:30

Swami Gulagulaananda said:

"Sometimes people's struggles for causes have unwanted effects"

People are really interesting. One very interesting thing that I notice among people is how they get all excited when it comes to supporting causes. Many people want to do something - And I am sure, that most of the times, they don't know why they are doing what they are doing, and some know why they are doing but that's not the cause, for sure! Today I saw a dumbass techie standing on the median at the heavily crowded Bellandur junction, holding a cardboard that read "Honk if you support Anna Hazare" and the guy next to him holding both hands up giving the thumbs up symbol like he was a football fan... That's it, four guys were standing amidst thousands of vehicles. Does this serve any purpose? Is this how you support causes? Do you feel that "Hey, they are at least doing SOMETHING, and that my friend, is better than nothing...." or do you feel they are seeking attention? Here's a list that I find peculiar, among others, that has ways in which people support causes.

Slut Walk

Indians often ape the West, and I feel that most Indians don't really get the import of what the Westerners are doing, ending up being as dumb as they are. Slut Walk, is an interesting response by women. Apparently a policeman said that women must not wear skimpy clothes, because that will attract unnecessary attention of sexual predators. While this seemed to be sane advice to me, many women disagreed, and decided to parade themselves (In broad daylight, btw) wearing skimpy clothes, negligees, lingerie writing SLUT all over their bodies...

Now analyse this - In Karnataka, there was a law that said that women bartenders shouldn't be serving drinks beyond a certain (unearthly) hour. People actually campaigned, saying that equality of women is needed. Now tell me, honestly, don't you think that asking women to not wear skimpy clothes is sane advice? And asking women to not be in areas frequented by drunk (obnoxious people who are in the stupour of liquor, who have a tendency to do things that they would regret after they sobered) men and when other sober people aren't around is sane? It's advice given to you for your own good - It's advice given, because the police can't be everywhere, and because humans can't be trusted to not let lust overpower their sense of judgement. Prevention is better than cure. It's not about fighting for freedom of expression, or something like that... for it makes no sense if you are raped. You can't correct the system so easily, so follow directives, that are for your own safety after all.

It's common sense, basically. But NO! Defiant women in Delhi are all set to fight for THIS cause, by using THIS ridiculous way - I am still wondering what purpose it would serve. I mean, if you want to defy them, wear slutty clothes at nights (around drunkard frequented areas) and then say "Oh yeah, I did it. Now STFU"

Nude pose

Another funny way of supporting causes - Going nude. Oh no no no, it's definitely not a publicity stunt. Yeah, they are all done by struggling upcoming models but heyy, it's definitely not to grab eyeballs or unwanted attention. And worst part is, they don't even get fully nude (or show themselves to anyone). Classic example of this is Poonam Pandey. She took the media by storm. And then disappeared. The number one search suggestion in Google search for query "where is" was "Where is Poonam Pandey". Similarly, today's paper had some DJ or model who said that she posed nude for women empowerment. Ok, what the... Oh sorry, she was not nude, she covered her privates with the Tricolour. And then while most sane people said that she could have supported her cause in a better way, Mr. Rohit Barker barked (Why am I not surprised here?) that we are from the land of Kama Sutra and that people should do more of these things to grab eye balls. Seriously? Pashmeena, are you listening?

Hunger Strike

Sure, Anna Hazare is doing a great job for the country. Corruption has been a great issue and it's really difficult to screw over such a large and powerful govt. But still, hunger strikes are reminiscent of children threatening to not eat (Most Indian kids do that) or hold their breath (most kids in the US apparently do that) that would quickly make parents take corrective steps... I am really wondering if the hunger strike is really efficient, or it is the number of people who are on the roads and shouting slogans that makes the difference. I am still going to support Hazare for his cause, but yeah, hunger strikes somehow don't gel well with me. But heck, thousand times better than slut walking and nude poses

Candles

One of the most popular accessories for protests - God knows why people light candles... You want to protest against something, hold up placards and banners. Want to be noisy? Shout slogans as well... What does a candle represent? If it was symbolic even, it would make sense. But yeah, people in the West light candles, so Indians aped again. It's time we think and do something either plain, original or creative - Don't do it just because someone else did it.

Running for cause

People choose to run marathons to show support for a cause. But I am not going to discuss it here, because there is a dedicated blog post for that one.

Facebook Causes and more

People just hit the 'Like' button on some cause... There, they have done their part for the cause. They don't do a thing beyond that. That's not fighting for a cause. Fighting for a cause is a real fight, only if you do some actual work.

Do you want to help children in their quest for Education?

Support your cause in more ways than you can think of, be a part of Covalence - http://sites.google.com/site/covalencepes

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Comments from Facebook

Chiranth Ashok: I agree with you, the "event" is completely useless... But the intention/message behind the event is actually quite real and I am surprised to know that opposition came from women's organisations... I would have expected something SRS or RSS to oppose it....

Nikhil Baliga: What is the intention/message behind the event? And why do you think that RSS would oppose it?

Chiranth Ashok: according to wikipedia, its a protest against explaining or excusing rape by referring to any aspect of a woman's appearance... I did not specifically accuse that the RSS would oppose it- i missed the word "like" in my last comment.. I meant to say that the moral policing brigade would oppose it...

I am not saying that slutwalk should be held... Its a completely useless activity.. All I am saying is its surprising that a women's group has opposed it and said that participants will beaten up with brooms.. If people are not interested in the event, they can choose not to attend it... big deal...

Akshata Krishnamurthy: All the hullabaloo is because the name is "Slutwalk". If it was "Anti-Rape walk" instead, it'd have been supported. There is nothing wrong in the Slutwalk - Look at the original Slutwalk, not the copied Indian ones, to get an idea about what it really means.

Please read this link before jumping to more conclusions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SlutWalk

Anand Bhatia: A thought: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8K1KHqi9bXc

Poornima Rao: Everybody has opinions. Doesn make a different one necessarily wrong or stupid. If some people think its stupid you always have a choice to boycott it or make fun of it on FB even, But no one has the right to say i am going to beat up people who go there and participate. Its their wish how they choose to express . What we really have to think about is the fact that the police - the authority to uphold the rights of a citizen cancelled the walk not because of its reasons but because it was under pressure from some group or expected trouble!! ridiculous.... People always focus on the wrong part of issue and forget the repercussions and message such things send out... I might not believe in slutwalk doesn mean i am gonne go pelt stones at the walk

It's a freakin' dumb concept organised and participated by people with no originality and no common sense - so are political rally's nik...which actually deserve to be pelted with stones. convicts and criminals running the country. thats ridiculous...

Akshata Krishnamurthy: another common misconception about slutwalk: Kids, adults, older men and women, all participate in Slutwalk. Noone dressed up like a "slut".. It's just called Slutwalk, because of the message it carries. Watch this to get a clear idea about what this actually is.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw2wUf9WvGI

Chiranth Ashok: Guess Juliet was not completely right when she said "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
I think we can be quite sure that there was a certain hierarchy to this opposition which may have actually originated from the "Moral Police" and actually came out through the places it came...
When the organisers say that some of them had come down to the starting point to send participants back if they turned up in spite of the latest update, what was the idea behind taking them in to custody??? Won't allow more than 5 ppl to assemble in one place it seems...
The police department in Karnataka seems to have no say in anything that happens here and they certainly have no teeth.. Everything is run from behind the screens..

Nikhil Baliga: Ah, I log into FB now and see a host of comments... :P

Akshata Krishnamurthy - Thanks for the links, it is a pity you didn't read it yourself. You said 'Noone dressed up like a "slut"' and in the Wikipedia link that you posted, you can see - 'mainly by young women, where some dress in ordinary clothing and others dress provocatively, like "sluts." '

You need to do some more research before you randomly post posts and videos. :P And besides, what I am not getting is the message that is carried by walking around like a slut (or not even a slut) - You are hardly addressing comments that I have made in the post. All you did was post a host of links

‎Poornima Rao - Fortunately, you make sense in your comments. One doesn't need to believe in what someone else is doing - Again, this brings us back to the same point of Freedom of Expression. One can do whatever one wants on the road, but let's look at a couple of random arguments, just for the heck of it.

If a guy wants to walk nude on the road, or make out in public, or maybe do a host of other things in public, will you say - "That's his life, his freedom of expression, he feels nature was meant to be this way. Screw the society, dogs do stuff in public, dogs are nude. Man is a social animal, so why not do whatever one pleases?" Again, you may think of this argument as completely insane, but what I am saying is that expression always has limitations - this is just an outset.

Akshata Krishnamurthy: ‎Nikhil Baliga read properly.. I said see the video..noone dressed up like a slut.. stop twisting words to prove ur point..

Nikhil Baliga: Now, the fact that it was not permitted to be done - Whatever threats may be, this maybe debated - This is like Gangajal. I agree on that. However, it still doesn't change the fact, that the protest in itself makes absolutely no sense

Akshata Krishnamurthy: Second point: Who are you to decide if someone is dressed up like a slut or not.. Wikipedia is not God.. See the video and decide for yourself..

Nikhil Baliga: ‎Akshata Krishnamurthy - Who's twisting words? You posted wiki link :P Not me... And one video doesn't prove anything. Do a research before talking next time

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9tY-m1hkGQo/Tcrq5nTuPCI/AAAAAAAAAMA/8oo8Jf01IG8/s1600/Slut_Walk_Boston.sff-853f9e88-679e-4334-baa4-ebd20476cbb0.jpg

Akshata Krishnamurthy: Also, if you don't understand why the protest is being done, it doesn't make the protest senseless..

Nikhil Baliga: So since you have understood, enlighten me

Akshata Krishnamurthy: Firstly, stop pulling out random links.. Talk about Slutwalk Canada.. Thats the original campaign.. The rest in USA and India were just copied senselessly.. Also, if 4 people in a crowd of 40,000 are dressed that way, it doesn't change the meaning of the campaign.. It just gives you a message that people dress for themselves, and its not an invitation for you guys to rape them.. There are men walking in this protest in support of the cause.. Do you think they are also dressed like sluts?

Nikhil Baliga: I am talking about the Indian one :P Du'h! That's what I said - they are copying senselessly. So I guess you agree with me... So stop posting long things to garner attention :P Now you get it, right?

Akshata Krishnamurthy: It's a pity that in a country like India where so many millions of rapes (most unreported) occur, people will never support anything against such a big issue.. You'll instead blog about all the negative points about the way the campaign is being carried out..

Nikhil Baliga: ‎Poornima Rao - Gangajal is a movie where you see that evil is diminished at its earliest stages by a violent attack. While this may seem to be correct, as also in the case of Deathnote Prajwal M Sudarshan listen) the argument is that - Who are YOU to decide what is good and what's not? And that you may destroy evil (or what you perceive as evil, but someone else may not) - However, the point I am making here, is about the nature of the protest, and not what the protest signifies. All people protesting in the ways in which they are protesting in all the protests in the post are all good causes - the question I was asking is - do these protests really make sense?

Akshata Krishnamurthy: People are copying senselessly or not, is not the point.. People are driving a point across.. As long as you make an effort to understand that, it won't bother you..

Nikhil Baliga: ‎Akshata Krishnamurthy - You want to protest against rape? Then yes... You want to protest against sane advice, then no. What's wrong in the advice given by the cop? You address the question, don't beat around the bush

Akshata Krishnamurthy: You don't seem to understand why people started protesting.. you consider the cop's words as "sane advice".. So, it'll take a long time to make you understand the whole issue..

Nikhil Baliga: Doing a slut walk - What is it going to achieve? Ok, fine, you will walk around saying "It is ok to wear skimpy clothes, you shouldn't rape me" It is not like rapists and potential rapists will say - "Yes, I agree. You are entitled to wear skimpy clothes which are by no means intended to pop eyeballs of guys, no sir, it was meant to tastefully exude one's sexuality" and say "I won't rape again, thanks for opening my eyes". Au contraire, this may instead make other people feel that "Yes, skimpy clothes are my janma siddha hakku" and then end up being victims of the very crime they were protesting against.

What one needs to do primarily is take precautionary steps to prevent crimes. First, avoid being a lure. This is also the same reason why people are asked not to wear a lot of jewellery and walk on lonely roads - I agree it s your freedom, but that's meaningless. If you don't wear lots of jewellery, you have a lower chance of being mugged - that's common sense

Akshata Krishnamurthy: I pity that you think this way.. This was not the point of my argument in the first place.. Going by your advice, all girls should sit at home and not go out.. because that would drastically reduce the percentage of women getting raped.. What a solution to all problems in this world!

Nikhil Baliga: ‎:P That's definitely a potential solution...

Akshata Krishnamurthy: Or may be, lock up all guys inside.. That would prevent all atrocious acts including rape..

Nikhil Baliga: ‎Chiranth Ashok - Branding an organisation like RSS as a right winged moral policing organisation is nothing beyond toeing the lines of TOI. I suggest you do a lot more research on the RSS before making allegations :-) And besides, I am guessing that your arguments are along the lines of Poornima's and they have been responded to...

Akshata Krishnamurthy - See? Now you are thinking :P These two are way better than slut walk in my opinion

How about a tougher punishment against convicted rapists? That should scare people right?

Akshata Krishnamurthy: How many are REPORTED in the first place? Conviction hardly ever happens..

Prajwal M Sudarshan: ‎Nikhil Baliga: This is useless and frankly a waste of time according to me, but that doesnt mean that i will condemn the people who are doing it and try to degrade them to prove my point :P.I understand that there is a debate going on about this and i agree with you when you say that this accomplishes nothing.But at the same time,so does fasting and morchas and the other crap that goes on all the time.(you had a blog about his :P) but yet, it is not for us to decide how others lead their lives. the ppl who can decide whether they believe that doing this is going to make a point would not have taken such a step without thinking what it can possibly achieve. Ii cannot, in any way support the other side which say that if this is done, they will be beaten by broomsticks. there is a law against PDA and if it makes someone uncomfortable then the guilty will be persecuted. this does not fall into that category. when ppl can burn statues and can make a racket about political issues on the streets, why cant a few women, who feel that they need to make a point do this??and i do NOT believe that all of them will be skimpily dressed.If a girl is wearing skimpy clothes to a movie,you do not have a problem. but when they pre emptively inform you that they will be taking a walk(SLUT walk is a wrong name according to me.It defeats the purpose of whatever they are trying to do) and ppl come to hit them with broomsticks??The point is, it is not for us to tell what they are doing is right or wrong. but it is definitely wrong for anyone to threaten them unless they are causing a problem to the public in general(and that does not include the male libido,mind you :P)

Nikhil Baliga: Btw, the hunger strike thing is the same post. :P Well, let me summarise it for all of you who have missed the point I am making

A protest is a protest only if you gain something at the end of it - If you are fighting to make laws a lot more stringent for rapists, or if you are going to take an initiative to prevent rapes by probably having a community oriented security setup, neighbourhood watch whatever, or if you are going to teach self defense, etc. then, it will make some sense.

You can go ahead and vent your ire against the setup as well, but then again, you could have done that in the way we have done it for years together, with big banners and marches. The fact that you are protesting in this fashion is basically not a protest - it has become more of a fashion statement. Yeah, I participated in slut walk, rather than having a strong opinion, you merely protest without thought.

According to research (which I have been reading :P), women are raped not chiefly because of clothing, but because of vulnerability - maybe that guy wanted to exhibit control, or because the woman was drunk and was provocatively showing off and tempting (not intending to have sex ultimately) and also because the guy was drunk - Now this means that people should be protesting against these - and if you notice, none of these have much to do with clothes.

I guess we will find a similar statistics on doing research on rapes in India as well - that being the case, why Slut Walk? Should you not be protesting against these kind of attacks?

(Poornima and Prajwal needn't concern yourselves with this post, since your argument is against the protest against the protest)
21 hours ago · Like

Akshata Krishnamurthy: Why are you stealing my points from our chat and putting it here?.. Secondly, like you said, women are not raped solely because of their clothing.. Yet they are branded as sluts when they report the crime.. HENCE THIS PROTEST!.. Do you get it now?

Nikhil Baliga: ‎:P Your points? I did a full research on it. Thoo! So, give me a couple of minutes, I am writing a full post (which will be dedicated to you, go spit on that one and leave this one alone)
http://lifeasiknowit-nik.blogspot.com/2011/12/slut-walk.html

Chiranth Ashok: ‎Nikhil: How about we change the name and go for an antirape-walk?
The point we are trying to make, I think is this- (protesting against a (protest against a heinous crime) is so wrong)... If you are not interested then don't bother with it, just like you wouldn't bother about any other political rally.. End of story...
In western countries dressing like a slut would probably mean a tube top and a mini skirt.. But here in our country, a pair of jeans and a sleeveless top is slutty according to the "moral police".. Every time there is a rape or any sexual assault, the victim is further accused of being slutty and provocating some "man".. You have already covered that clothing is not a factor.. Why does the society blame the woman for getting raped? Slutwalk may have a narrow vision but the bigger picture is that women should not be blamed (there may be exceptions) for getting raped..
Men are animals.. I know I am a man and I still say this with shame.. If you wanna have sex go find a real slut or something.. why rape an innocent passer-by?
(about RSS, i have seen it long enough around me that its a moral policing brigade, they have several wings to do specific activities without getting "RSS" involved.. The same people with some different name.)
And pardon me if any of my research is wrong, I haven't done any research.. Just posting my own opinions along with one sentence from wikipedia cos i couldn't put it into the right words..

Telling women not to dress like sluts is just a superficial solution.. Why don't we all men gang up and decide that rape is wrong and should not be done irrespective of whether a woman is draped in n layers of clothes or running around naked? Maybe if our generation can change for the better and instil the right morals in our future generations, in a few years it will all be better.. till then lets just not buy slutty clothes..

Nikhil Baliga: ‎Chiranth Ashok - The way you are talking, it seems like you have some first hand experience that "moral police" doing these things and that women are accused and blamed all the time. Really, have you done some research on this? I am genuinely asking. or are you basing your thoughts on what is shown in the media?

Arvind S Murthy: ‎@All: Most Rapists are mentally disturbed people.Clear evidence in both ICD-10 and DSM-IV codes.

There are no sophisticated diagnostic techniques to identify these disorders before the rape actually happens.So it is highly impossible to prevent it.

This makes whatever awareness campaigns any one wants to do redundant.Instead they should spread awareness about the silent killer that is mental illness.Better awareness leads to better preparedness.Women should take up self defence classes instead of saying we will walk on the roads how ever we want.

There is no question of equality of rights when it comes to subtle things like mental illness.

It is also a proven fact that most sociopaths are not overtly anti social.Infact in some cases they can be most charming.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Bundy
Case in point.Most women went willingly to Ted Bundy only to end up in garbage bins later on.

So you cant look at a person and say he is a rapist..It is always better to be prepared and to be aware.

Anand Bhatia: ‎@Arvind So boys win? :P

Chiranth Ashok: I have based my comments on my own interactions with ppl- old and young - and the ways they think... its sad that i can't share a link to whatever I've learnt Over the years as a member of this society..

Analysis: How to wipe out Islamic terror

2011-08-03T07:09:00.001+05:30

A very interesting article that I thought should be shared
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Analysis: How to wipe out Islamic terror
Subramanian Swamy | Saturday, July 16, 2011

The terrorist blast in Mumbai on July 13, 2011, requires decisive soul-searching by the Hindus of India. Hindus cannot accept to be killed in this halal fashion, continuously bleeding every day till the nation finally collapses. Terrorism I define here as the illegal use of force to overawe the civilian population to make it do or not do an act against its will and well-being.

Islamic terrorism is India’s number one problem of national security. About this there will be no doubt after 2012. By that year, I expect a Taliban takeover in Pakistan and the Americans to flee Afghanistan. Then, Islam will confront Hinduism to “complete unfinished business”. Already the successor to Osama bin Laden as al-Qaeda leader has declared that India is the priority target for that terrorist organisation and not the USA.

Fanatic Muslims consider Hindu-dominated India “an unfinished chapter of Islamic conquests”. All other countries conquered by Islam 100% converted to Islam within two decades of the Islamic invasion. Undivided India in 1947 was 75% Hindu even after 800 years of brutal Islamic rule. That is jarring for the fanatics.

In one sense, I do not blame the Muslim fanatics for targeting Hindus. I blame Hindus who have taken their individuality permitted in Sanatan Dharma to the extreme. Millions of Hindus can assemble without state patronage for the Kumbh Mela, completely self-organised, but they all leave for home oblivious of the targeting of Hindus in Kashmir, Mau, Melvisharam and Malappuram and do not lift their little finger to help organise Hindus. If half the Hindus voted together, rising above caste and language, a genuine Hindu party would have a two-thirds majority in Parliament and the assemblies.

The first lesson to be learnt from the recent history of Islamic terrorism against India and for tackling terrorism in India is that the Hindu is the target and that Muslims of India are being programmed by a slow reactive process to become radical and thus slide into suicide against Hindus. It is to undermine the Hindu psyche and create the fear of civil war that terror attacks are organised.

Hindus must collectively respond as Hindus against the terrorist and not feel individually isolated or, worse, be complacent because he or she is not personally affected. If one Hindu dies merely because he or she was a Hindu, then a bit of every Hindu also dies. This is an essential mental attitude, a necessary part of a virat (committed) Hindu.

We need a collective mindset as Hindus to stand against the Islamic terrorist. The Muslims of India can join us if they genuinely feel for the Hindu. That they do I will not believe unless they acknowledge with pride that though they may be Muslims, their ancestors were Hindus. If any Muslim acknowledges his or her Hindu legacy, then we Hindus can accept him or her as a part of the Brihad Hindu Samaj (greater Hindu society) which is Hindustan. India that is Bharat that is Hindustan is a nation of Hindus and others whose ancestors were Hindus. Others, who refuse to acknowledge this, or those foreigners who become Indian citizens by registration, can remain in India but should not have voting rights (which means they cannot be elected representatives).

Any policy to combat terrorism must begin with requiring each and every Hindu becoming a virat Hindu. For this, one must have a Hindu mindset that recognises that there is vyaktigat charitra (personal character) and rashtriya charitra (national character). For example, Manmohan Singh has high personal character, but by being a rubber stamp of a semi-literate Sonia Gandhi and waffling on all national issues, he has proved that he has no rashtriya charitra.

The second lesson for combating terrorism is that we must never capitulate or concede any demand, as we did in 1989 (freeing five terrorists in exchange for Mufti Mohammed Sayeed’s daughter Rubaiya) and in 1999, freeing three terrorists after the hijack of Indian Airlines flight IC-814.

The third lesson is that whatever and however small the terrorist incident, the nation must retaliate massively. For example, when the Ayodhya temple was sought to be attacked, we should have retaliated by re-building the Ram temple at the site.

According to bleeding heart liberals, terrorists are born or bred because of illiteracy, poverty, oppression, and discrimination. They argue that instead of eliminating them, the root cause of these four disabilities in society should be removed. This is rubbish. Osama bin laden was a billionaire. In the failed Times Square episode, failed terrorist Shahzad was from a highly placed family in Pakistan and had an MBA from a reputed US university.

It is also a ridiculous idea that terrorists cannot be deterred because they are irrational and willing to die. Terrorist masterminds have political goals and a method in their madness. An effective strategy to deter terrorism is to defeat those political goals and to rubbish them by counter-terrorist action.Thus, I advocate the following strategy to negate the political goals of Islamic terrorism in India.

Goal 1: Overawe India on Kashmir.
Strategy: Remove Article 370 and resettle ex-servicemen in the valley. Create Panun Kashmir for the Hindu Pandit community. Look for or create an opportunity to take over PoK. If Pakistan continues to back terrorists, assist the Baluchis and Sindhis to get their independence.

Goal 2: Blast temples, kill Hindu devotees.
Strategy: Remove the masjid in Kashi Vishwanath temple and the 300 masjids at other temple sites.

Goal 3: Turn India into Darul Islam.
Strategy: Implement the uniform civil code, make learning of Sanskrit and singing of Vande Mataram mandatory, and declare India a Hindu Rashtra in which non-Hindus can vote only if they proudly acknowledge that their ancestors were Hindus. Rename India Hindustan as a nation of Hindus and those whose ancestors were Hindus.

Goal 4: Change India’s demography by illegal immigration, conversion, and refusal to adopt family planning.
Strategy: Enact a national law prohibiting conversion from Hinduism to any other religion. Re-conversion will not be banned. Declare that caste is not based on birth but on code or discipline. Welcome non-Hindus to re-convert to the caste of their choice provided they adhere to the code of discipline. Annex land from Bangladesh in proportion to the illegal migrants from that country staying in India. At present, the northern third from Sylhet to Khulna can be annexed to re-settle illegal migrants.

Goal 5: Denigrate Hinduism through vulgar writings and preaching in mosques, madrassas, and churches to create loss of self-respect amongst Hindus and make them fit for capitulation.
Strategy: Propagate the development of a Hindu mindset.

India can solve its terrorist problem within five years by such a deterrent strategy, but for that we have to learn the four lessons outlined above, and have a Hindu mindset to take bold, risky, and hard decisions to defend the nation. If the Jews could be transformed from lambs walking meekly to the gas chambers to fiery lions in just 10 years, it should not be difficult for Hindus in much better circumstances (after all we are 83% of India), to do so in five years.

Guru Gobind Singh showed us how just five fearless persons under spiritual guidance can transform a society. Even if half the Hindu voters are persuaded to collectively vote as Hindus, and for a party sincerely committed to a Hindu agenda, then we can forge an instrument for change. And that is the bottom line in the strategy to deter terrorism in a democratic Hindustan at this moment of truth.

The writer is president of the Janata Party, a former Union minister, and a professor of economics.

The entire article has been pasted verbatim in this post. You can get the link to the original article here.

Annoying Collaborators

2011-07-23T20:03:00.000+05:30

Swami Nikhilaananda said:

"He who sugarcoats, sugarcoats for a reason"

This has happened not once, not twice... Ok, don't ask me how many times this has happened, for I have lost count. And the problem is, it happens a lot. Either I have gullible sucker written on my forehead, or .... well, it's got to be the gullible sucker thing.

The other day, I had been to a mall with a friend of mine, and while I was waiting till my friend got back from a shop, this gentleman who was waiting for his friend to get back decided to begin a conversation with me just to pass time, till they got back. I was getting bored waiting, and so decided to listen to what he was saying. This man spoke very polished English, seemed sophisticated and smart. He began by talking about the weather and traffic, and later told me what he was doing and asked me what I was doing. He told me that he was working at Honeywell. You might be wondering how long this conversation must have lasted - not over five minutes. He then said that we must stay in touch and asked me for my phone number... Now this is the place where it gets awkward, because I didn't want to say "I don't give my number out to strangers" (An attitude I am now going to change) and so I gave him my number. He gave me a missed call, and I didn't save it. Who cares? Right? My friend came along and asked me who he was, as he went away with his friend, giving me a cheerful wave. I said, "I have no clue, some guy I saw" and I was looking at the "How long was I gone?" expression.

Well, soon enough, as expected, I got a phone call from him two days later. He reminded me that he was the guy I met in the mall, and I said "Oh yeah..." He then said "So, basically the reason I wanted to get in touch with you is because I am doing a business apart from my regular work, along with some friends of mine who are from IITs and IIMs. We are looking for some really bright, intelligent and enterprising people to collaborate with us on this, so that we can improve people relations [insert loads of more blah blah] and that really adds a lot to the regular income. You seemed like a really smart and enterprising guy, so I was wondering if you might be interested to join us"

My brain analysed this as:

Ok, he is flattering me - meaning, it is something unpleasant, and is definitely a trick somewhere. He judged me to be really smart and enterprising in the five minute conversation that was about weather, traffic and companies. He used key words "IIT and IIM" just to add credibility. He used key words 'People Management' - and all of this adds up to...[drum roll] You guessed it - Amway and Ebiz.

So, these pyramid schemes are some of the most annoying things that exist. Suckers are pulled into it (ironic, considering they are suckers) all the time, and once they realise that they have been had, they try to look for more suckers. I quickly told him "Is this anything to do with Amway or Ebiz?" and he paused and said "Yeah, as a matter of fact, it is to do with Amway. Any particular reason that you are asking this?" and I said "Yeah, I am not interested, thank you" and he cut the call.

I have got so many calls from so many random people - they talk, take my number (which I continue to give for some freaking reason - Note to self: stop handing out number to strangers) and then they call up as if they called, you know, to just talk - and then they use the same rehearsed sentences. It's uncanny... Every single guy says "IIT, IIM, People Relationship, Smart, Enterprising, Collaborate, Business"

The next time someone calls me with this, I am definitely going to ask them if they seriously think that this ploy will ever work for them. As for you guys, don't fall for this. Just cut the call.

***

Comments from Facebook

Chiranth Ashok

Glad somebody finally said this... can't believe all those ppl from "iit" and "iim" fell for that though...

Prashanth Harshangi

Swami Gulugulu said - "He who pees, pees for a reason"

Poornima Rao

the name says it all.. CHRONICLES:P

Skanda Guruanand

Hey! I dont know if its the same guy. I also got a call today, infact for the 2nd time in the past few months. Same story of iits and iims.

Nikhil Baliga

Must be the same guy - I got a call today too, and so I decided to "Chronicle" it :)

Skanda Guruanand

Good :)

Poornima Rao

look him up on FB and see if there is MARK AS SPAM option next to him:P

Nikhil Baliga

Haha, I would - Too bad I didn't listen to his name this time either.

Mithun Shroff

Its happened to me too..! I'm sure there are a lotta people who can relate to this..

P.S: I really like your writing style.. You should contemplate on writing a small story or a book (if you haven't already)

Nikhil Baliga

Thanks a lot Mithun :)

Madhura Basavaraju
enjoyed reading this :)

Amod Kumar Pandey
Poor you! But don't share your number like that.

Susheela Sadashivaiah
general impt gyaan..well written :)

Mahesh Saka
hehe, well written.. but good that you've realized those quickly.. I was almost into when I could just prevent that happening :)
and, yes, share mobile no. with them, but not yours, your enemy's ;)

Nikhil Anand
i never said tht ..i said "She who sugarcoats, sugarcoats for no reason"..:P:P:P

Nikhil Baliga
hahahahaha :D Nikhil Anand, what a coincidence :P

Situation, Perception and Reaction

2011-07-14T21:51:00.001+05:30

Swami Gulagulaananda said:
"Before you react to a situation, ensure you perceived it rightly"

A very interesting observation that I had is the way in which people react to a situation. Let us assume we come across a situation or topic of discussion where one of, say, two stances can be taken. Now, say this topic of discussion is a pretty widely discussed topic where people normally take one of two sides. When a new person now makes a point that doesn't seem to align with your thought, it is quickly termed as one that is against your view and a defence quickly gets established. These arguments are very interesting, in the sense that debates that follow either digress or dilute. And quite often, extrapolation and judgements are made based on limited knowledge that is possessed.

There are quite a few examples for this that I have come across personally. A simple example would be this post where I asked if homosexuality was indeed natural. A quick look at the topic will take you to a position where you will sit on a stool, looking at two options - Ok with homos or not ok with homos. The topic will make you think that the post is anti homo, and this culminated in some people saying that being or not being homo is purely a personal choice. Which was funny, considering I have myself written in the post that it is a personal choice. This is the result of improper and biased approaches to topics.

A similar response can be seen for this post where I said that the Indian government is not acting - Acting can be anything, the argument being that a tough stance needs to be taken. The result of this, was arguments were made about neighbouring countries being nuclear. Though examples of attacks were mentioned in the post, no suggestion of attack was made - again, this is an extrapolated inference. These inferences are normally made by people who think in digital and argumentative ways.

A third example can be given in this post where I discussed about how newspapers and media should be unbiased while providing news. If you read the comments in the post, you will see people how people get it grossly wrong, and have deviated significantly from the main point in some cases, while in others just don't have the ability to accept the other side. Just because one side has more supporters, the whole momentum swings towards it. Which is incorrect.

Another important point is tones of argument. Which was previously discussed in this post where emotions creep into arguments, ending up in attacks on persons, name calling and what not. A perfect argument is one that discusses pros and cons and comes to a logical conclusion, much like the principles of Six Thinking Hats.

To summarise, it is easy to wag tongues - But before that, ensure you got the premise of the argument rightly. For you don't want to be barking up the wrong tree. While an argument might, at the outset, seem like it is pointing towards something, it necessarily is not - For language can be used to precisely put information across. As in the case of the homosexuality post, I didn't say it was right nor wrong, but I asked if it was natural - and people got misled...

Terrorists hit Mumbai. So?

2011-07-13T22:10:00.000+05:30

Swami Gulagulaananda said:
"We are men of words and not of deeds... Like a garden full of weeds"

Ok, terrorists strike again. Blasts happen. People die. Others panic. Others in other parts of the country rapidly start tweeting and tweeting more. Then, people go on Facebook and start posting comments about terrorists, asking them to go to hell. Then people comment on those posts, saying that Mumbai will bounce back. Media (News channels) go all hyperactive - Conduct debates after debates. They get Pakistanis and Indians, journalists and generals, ministers and other blah people and get them to talk something big. They analyse. Some time later, people will post pictures and videos.... Few days later, life returns to normalcy - Some people say that Mumbai is city of life, nothing stops blah blah. Yeah, ok, Mumbai sprang back.

Mumbai didn't "spring back" - People who died, are dead. Ask their families if they sprang back. Basically, we are so adjusted to this kind of life, we see the same things happen over and over, and yet, we go through the same cycle as that mentioned in the first paragraph. Read the first paragraph again - we did the same thing for every other attack that happened against India.

Why is it that this is happening so often in India? Why is it that such incidents don't happen in the USA? Why is it that these incidents don't happen in Israel? One attack on these countries, and they go all out against their enemies. USA has been known to be an unscrupulous country, but hell, they destroyed the whole of Afghanistan and half of Pakistan to get one man. We have one man with us for the past couple of years, and apparently lakhs of rupees are being blown to "maintain" him. It's one thing to lose money in scams, and a whole other thing to lose it on maintaining a terrorist. That too, in a country where people are dying of lack of food. They fired a rocket at an Israeli and Israel bombed an entire airport.

Do you notice a trend? These two countries are accused of being unprincipled. They don't care. Look at China. They flout rules left, right and centre. Nobody questions them. Even if you do question them, nothing happens. They have the guts to do it - Something India lacks. We also lack the will to do anything. All we can do is talk and talk, and organise more debates and talk. There is no action, and that's why I am not surprised. We all post and tweet and comment. We lack the will for action... I really pity the state of affairs. We need to learn to be like Israel, USA and China -a country which should not give a damn, a country that others should be in awe of or fear... I really wish we had Sardar Patel or Indira Gandhi at the helm right now. They would have torn apart the enemy. Reminds me of the move "A Wednesday"

***
Comments from Facebook

Pradeep Nayak:
I second that Nikhil Baliga. I have noticed on twitter especially people reacting to the chaos. Keep tweeting and tweeting condolences, a lot of them abusing the system, a few cracking jokes on the situation and the government, and what not..Next there will be debates on news channels, people argue and blame and point fingers. What we lack is RESPONSE... As your rightly said USA responded and that was a intellectual decision and while we only REACTING to the situation which is only instinctive

Aditya Padaki
True. But a direct comparison between USA and India cannot be done. USA doesn't share its borders with any of those countries. India shares with a nuclear power. Israel also does not share a border with nuclear power. To retaliate against India is so much more easy than the others. Infiltration easily takes place, no matter how secure the borders are, it is tough to control infiltration always. There are a lot of such factors. But some solution has to be found out and tough stance should be taken. But direct military options may not be the best choice considering our location.

Moreover, all the other countries you mentioned have a perfect head count of the people in their country and their identities. Its not so in India. So controlling becomes even tougher.

Krishnaraj Bhat
I agree If there was Sardar Patel at that time, things could have been different today in India:-)

Dhanabal Lingasamy
America gives $800 million to pakistan...they ofcourse use it to bomb india..il blame america equally for this blast as terrorist :)

Nikhil Baliga
‎Aditya Padaki This is the same attitude that will keep us down all the time. Understand that Pakistan knows that we think like this. There will always be that nuclear fear, and we will never retaliate in that case. Which will make this to go on and on.

Whether you take a direct stance, an indirect stance, a covert stance or bomb all terrorists... we should have the balls to take a stance. There is no point in just sitting and engaging them in dialogue. That's like 'Pouring water over a rock'

Aditya Padaki
We need to carefully analyze the severe repercussions (if any) of any stance/decision taken. The Japanese are suffering even today (nearly 70 years later) because of what happened then. It is by no means a small thing and we cannot take anything for granted. Understand that they don't in any least manner hesitate to use them; its by no means a difficult decision for them.

There is no point in showing that we deal everything with an iron hand, if we lose the bigger picture. Taking a firm stance is no doubt of at most importance, but choosing what stance we take has to be very carefully done, definitely not as a knee jerk response.

Nikhil Baliga
Haha and that's what's the difference between Patel, Gandhi, me and the rest of them (and you)... Things don't have to be knee jerk - things need to be firm and strong. I don't know if you remember the story of the snake that decided to pursue Ahimsa at the words of a sage, but got beaten up by people. At which, the sage told the snake - I asked you to follow ahimsa, doesn't mean you shouldn't hiss and look threatening...

A nuclear option is easier said than done. Pakistan as a nation will cease to exist. The damage on India as a nation may or may not be large depending on how far they can reach. All of their major cities are too close to the Indian border, and foreign pressure on Pakistan will undoubtedly be too huge for the remaining part (if it is there) of Pak.

Read the post and comments again - the emphasis is not necessarily on, while not entirely ruling out, war, but on a strong reaction rather than dumb ass debates and discussions. What we need is action...

Dolly Singh
First think should be Killing Kasab in public place.. He shouldn't be hanged.. he should be killed slowly.. with lot of pain.. And then attack Pak in such a way that they dont get chance to use their Nuclear power..of course war does not get any good for any one but If Pak wants a war, WTF, give them a war!! Pak map should be removed frm world map..

Aditya Padaki
‎Nikhil Baliga - Dude, look at that nation! It is totally in chaos. Govt. has no control over its military. Fanatics don't hesitate to do anything and they don't think of what would follow. Firm and strong are the need of the hour no doubt, but in what direction is important, is all I am saying. And oh yes! They can reach a very great distance into India. We will win the war, but at what cost? It will an irrepairable damage which will slow the country down by decades. You are only ASSUMING stuff to your convenience (that they will not retaliate in a certain way), which is a very wrong way of deciding anything. You need to take into account the worst case scenarios and analyse their implications for the future while making any important decisions.

Clever (and probably cunning) action is the need of the hour. (on the lnes of Saap bhi mar jaye aur lathi bhi na toote - Yuktihi shaktehe gareeyasi...) I right away agreed with your point that just debates and discussions won't help. What I told was the comparison you drew between India's response and the response of other countries (US, Israel) was wrong. Completely different situations. You cannot compare and take decisions based on them.

Prajwal M Sudarshan
Nikl,we all have different opinions on how the government should treat this issue,and as usual the Govt will do whatver it has done in the past.nothing changes by talking about it,as you yourself expressed.the question is,what should WE do?starting blogs and forums wont help coz vr not Anna Hazare,and ive heard enough about electing youth into the governemt to change it.unless you have a few million stashed away,Entering politics is out of the question.so instead of arguing as to what the government should do,what can we do??

Nikhil Baliga
‎You suddenly went into war - which I said should be an option. You cannot forever keep cowering at their nuclear arsenal and sit is what I saying... You and I can sit and have armchair discussions all day long. For a family that has lost lives, it is pathetic that we are not a strong nation. So many people keep dying, and we do nothing about it and that has to change

Prajwal M Sudarshan - Yup! You are right in all aspects and I agree with you. And your question is a million dollar one :)

Gurudatha Pai
Nikhil Baliga I agree with you but perhaps I agree with Aditya Padaki more. Yes, we need to show a response, a response that has implications far beyond what we as common man perceive the situation. Like you said, war is an option but it is beyond the last option. I say that because, there is too much at stake here. You might want to think India has military superiority over Pakistan, that is if you consider our full military but full military is not available, considering China is a "chaddi dost" of Pakistan and we don't know the alliance of other neighbors. About nuclear arsenal, it is only a "strategic deterrent". It has seized to be a front line weapon for us. It is certainly not the case for our neighbors who once in Kargil claimed that the uniformed soldiers are in-impersonation of their military and are militia. They might just claim they don't have lost control over their nuclear assets and that they have been compromised. And this is not even considering the cost and casualties of war. It is not an easy fight but heck we are not fighting anything right now!

Nikhil Baliga
‎Gurudatha Pai - I repeat... An action is important. If you clearly read the post, you will see that I am not talking about war - I am definitely citing examples of attack, but what I am stressing more on, is an action. Now, what action has to be taken is left to those in power.

At the very outset, you can rest assured that I am fully aware of all of the facts that have been stated above, including Pakistan's nuclear capabilities, China's belligerent attitude towards India, China being Pakistan's all weather friend and all that. I also read the paper where Indian defence chiefs keep talking about worst case scenario being war with two nuclear powers. I am also aware of India's position...

And that's where decision making comes to picture. I have, at no point told that we have to declare war on them. I did say that it is an option. What I am saying is that we seem to have become a soft target, similar to one of those soft professors in colleges, where nobody cares for when she raises meek voices of protest against noise making students. A strict teacher is one people are afraid of - And that is where the fear of repercussions come into picture

Notice that a country which can be bombed time and again, a country that raises meek protests and talks and does nothing is a country that will not be feared. Go ahead and do a Google search on India and nuclear abilities. We are nuclear and so is Pakistan, but we are not a feared nation... People go on and on about abilities of USA, China, Russia, France and Britain. Do you know what separates them from us though we are nuclear powered? Clout - And this clout is what we lack.

Clout is something that India lacks and thus, we will be like the gnat on the bull tail (Aesop's fable) or worse, the gnat on the cartwheel (Aesop's fable again) where we continue to be jingoistic and think we are great, and go on and on about our country's glory (which perhaps ended at the Vedic period). We are not even a regional power with China growing so rapidly next to us, we continue to be compared with Pakistan rather than China. What is it that we lack? Abilities, talent, resources? We are the best in the world in those, aren't we? And yet, we sit and get bombed - and that too in Mumbai, no less... Kashmir, I would have accepted

Homosexuality - It's a queer topic

2011-07-05T21:26:00.000+05:30

Swami Gulagulaananda said:
"I wonder how people call homosexuality natural"

Let me begin by saying that this post is not intended to hurt the sentiments of gay people and/or unhappy people. But I am really curious about the curious (and bi curious) case of ... well, queer people.

Let me be honest. I find it rather queer. I am no well learned person, nor have I done research. So, I'll use simple logic - Nature has two types of organisms in higher life... Males and Females. And they are to be attracted to each other, so that they mate and procreate. Attraction is in order to bring them closer, with the intent of procreation.

Now, this would mean that it is necessary for attraction to be between the opposite sex. And that's why I find it queer to see attraction among people of the same sex. And that's why I find it unnatural.

Next question - If it is was not unnatural, you should have seen homosexual behaviour in at least some other animal as well. If you do find some references to this, please post comments. And don't bother giving me the gay penguin example. Yeah, one of the penguins ditched the other when the female came up. I think that penguin had become gay due to lack of choice - like how many prisoners end up in jails... I am asking for an example where an animal had plenty of opposite sex partners, and CHOSE to be gay.
[Ashwin provided this link. Interesting read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals]

If you say 'It's about emotional bonding and not just procreation' then I would say 'Perhaps'. Because I am talking strictly in terms of physical attraction.

I also wonder why HIV/AIDS is on the rise among homosexual people - What's the reason for 8% Indians who are involved in M2M to be afflicted by HIV/AIDS while the rest of the population are only at 1% ? I mean, don't the same rules of safe sex apply? (I got this statistics from BBC)

Anyway, personally I find it weird to see guys kissing guys - but hell, it's their life. So, if you have an opinion (or no opinion), go ahead and participate in this poll. Just to see what other people think. Don't bother telling me about 'Freedom of Expression' and 'Democracy'. I'll either yawn or barf.

(This post is basically a response to the health minister backtracking after making comments - Mr Minister... Please grow a spine and stick to your points)

An Appeal to Govt of Andhra Pradesh Petition

2011-07-04T22:07:00.000+05:30

An Appeal to Govt of Andhra Pradesh Petition

Google+ : A quick review

2011-07-01T22:11:00.000+05:30

Swami Nikhilaananda said:
"Google+ is awesome, and will definitely dethrone Facebook"

Google finally released Google+ which is Google's response to Facebook. So, is it really worth it? The answer is - YES. Don't worry if you feel this post is biased against Facebook. My focus in this post is to highlight Google+

Ok, how does Google+ stack up against Facebook? First of all, Google+ scores over Facebook for its very clean interface. The font size is decent, similar to what Facebook had till it reduced it. Now its a pain.

Google+ also uses a lot of nice animations here and there - something very nice to see on a web interface. With rotating and sliding and swishing movements, it's a little more lively.

Google+ notifications look a lot like Facebook notifications. However, one thing that I liked in Google+ is that you can see the notification's target page right there in that pane, without having to switch to that page. Something you have to do in FB. Say two friends commented on two different posts of yours, in Facebook, you will get 2 in the notification, and clicking on the links would open only one of them in one page. So, you would have to open them in two tabs - In Google+, you can see it in the notification area, respond, come back and respond to the next. Very neat.

Google+ also felt faster than Facebook.

Google has a lot of advantages over Facebook - Google already has a lot of services in place, including chat, mail, Picasa and the biggie - Android. Facebook released chat and mail a lot later. Google also has video chat already in place. And all these are integrated. You can directly import a lot of data into accounts without creating from scratch - Most of us who have Picasa albums already in place will love this feature.

Circles will prove to be the best feature of Google+ against Facebook. The reason is - When you post status updates and/or photos, many times, we want to limit the viewership. In Facebook, we can choose who we want to hide from, but this is a one by one choosing method, which is tedious when you have hundreds of friends and hundreds of people who you want to hide things from. Even friend lists seem useless on Facebook - I wonder why they didn't do that yet.

Now one of the top questions people will have - How will they get people to use Google+ ? With time, they will succeed for sure. Orkut was so widely used, here in India, that when Facebook was used by people worldwide, Indians were in very large numbers still scrapping. I hated FB at that time due to its very cluttered interface. Today, nobody knows what Orkut is? And if Google develops Google+ rapidly, which they will, FB will start losing out people slowly. Many people are already bored with FB. Google+ should be able to get these people in by introducing innovative features. Then by word of mouth and invitations, they will topple FB.

Half knowledge, science and atheism

2011-06-23T00:24:00.000+05:30

Swami Gulagulaananda said:

"Half knowledge and extrapolating with that is extremely dangerous"

We like to think of ourselves as modern. We like to think of ourselves as people who have a scientific bent of mind. The problem is that, we have reached great levels of complacency in this area - of our confidence to extrapolate our minuscule knowledge to areas that we don't even understand and even go to levels of judging them.

I recently happened to stumble across a post where a man goes on rambling about the Vedas, saying that they are merely literature that have no value per se, saying that they are terribly flawed and are books that can be read by anyone. He goes on to say that the religious people are actually creating a blockade by saying that only enlightened people under enlightened gurus can understand them, and ordinary people can't. He rubbishes all this, and explains his version of what he thinks is right. He also goes on to say that there is nothing deep hidden in them... His name is Neo by the way and here is the post.

Alright, one approach to this is to accept what he says is right. Perhaps it is. However, let's take another approach - The Vedas have always been considered to be the greatest literature of all time. If it was not, there would not be so many great geniuses in the past such that each was writing his own interpretation of the Vedas and related scriptures. If it was as easy as Neo was saying, then my belief is that everyone should have been writing same conclusions. It's like watching a movie or reading yet another novel and asking for their conclusions. Should be the same.

However, it is not always the case - at least not in Hinduism. For one, most of the information is stored in code. The simplest and best example to be given in this respect is the idol of Lord Ganesha. If I were to explain to you, a very complex metaphysical concept which involved terms like transcendental and metaphysical, you would be blown off by the jargon. Leave alone the complex concept. However, if you put all of this into a picture (A picture is worth a thousand words) it is easier to remember the concept. The idol of Ganesha is supposed to indicate a lot of concepts - why His eyes are shown small, why He has one tusk, why He ties a snake around His belly, what does the snake represent, and so on. However, talking about things like Kundalini and other things are very confusing to an average person. So the ancient Hindus decided to make stories - mythological stories that tell you that Ganesha's belly exploded because he overate and thus he tied a snake. It's a simple story for everyone to remember... The underlying concept is now no longer known directly to a person who reads the story.

Note what happened here. Now people only know the stories, not the actual concept that was originally hidden inside for remembering. Or at least inducing faith. Now, the modern Hindu would perhaps denounce it as idol worship or perhaps make fun saying that Hindu Gods were mutants because of their out-of-the-world appearance. Even Vishnu's four arms, what is held in each hand has a great deal of symbolic representation. Similarly Brahma and Shiva.

Another example - there is a hymn which is to Lord Krishna. Yes, at the outset, it is just a hymn. But, in Sanskrit, each letter is given a numeric value (used in Vedic mathematics) and if that is used in the hymn, you get the value of pi up to 61 places. Now tell me, do you think any ordinary guy who reads that hymn will decode it? He will obviously think this is a praise to Krishna.

Now you tell me - do you think you know how many things have been encoded in the Vedas? Do you know which part is encoded and which is literal? And this, perhaps is the very reason why there are so many different interpretations of the same text. Only people who have a vast understanding of concepts can truly appreciate it. Otherwise anyone who knew basic Sanskrit (like Neo) would be reading it. Reading it is not a big deal, understanding is.

**********
Comments from Facebook

Sriranga Chidambara
Neo has encouraged 'common men' to read the vedas. Is it so esoteric that we must only believe what some baba says?

Nikhil Baliga
I have written this at the end

"Only people who have a vast understanding of concepts can truly appreciate it. Otherwise anyone who knew basic Sanskrit (like Neo) would be reading it. Reading it is not a big deal, understanding is."

Even I would encourage you to read it. You would read it like it was poetry/literature. But whether you can truly understand all the concepts of the Vedas is a question. It is not necessary that some baba has to tell it to you. If you are intelligent you can figure it out yourself :)

Sriranga Chidambara
and if you figure out that it's not all mind blowing and earth shattering, you aren't intelligent enough :P

This is the kind of circular reasoning Neo talks about :)

Ramesh Radhakrishna
What makes me lean towards neo is that, everyone goes on praising vedas ... But, I havent seen a 'single' person who comes forward and says this is what it means and hence it is great ... This reminds me of a physics professor who kept saying Quantum physics is amazing, greatest and the most wonderful thing. When approached he would escape giving reasons ... He didn't know what quantum physics meant .. I bet there will be at least 9 in 10 who will follow the hype ... I feel that "might" have happened ..... To really praise vedas and write for it, I feel one has to understand and feel it's greatness first before proclaiming it is great

No. half knowledge about vedas and yet praising vedas is also not so healthy .... -> One of my cousin used to do this and we usually end up having a fight ... :-) :-)

Nikhil Baliga
‎@Ranga - Yeah, but that IS the fact. Like I told you, would you be able to decipher pi to the 60+ places from a sloka dedicated to Krishna? Similarly, you don't have sufficient data to pass a judgement. You just are not intelligent enough, and that is a fact...

@Ramesh - Yeah, I agree. The converse is also true. Which is why Neo is wrong. You just don't know enough to pass judgements on either side. Which is why one must either study it deeply or refrain from commenting.

Ramesh Radhakrishna
But, no wrong in having an opinion and expressing it ... Holds good for arguments on either side ... If 'no/half knowledged' people express and spread their opinion that vedas are the ultimate ... I guess same half knowledged can say vedas are ordinary ... Do correct me if I am wrong ... :-)

Nikhil Baliga
Yes, you are wrong :P I'll correct you.

When a person says something is good, there is a chance that someone will try it. When someone says something is not good, there are very high chances that people won't try it.

If many tell you that SX4 or City is a good car, you might consider it while buying it. If many tell that they are horrible, your mindset is against it. Your inclination towards it drops radically - although logically you should try in either case, that's not how humans are. Am I right?

Nikhil Baliga
http://vedic-dharma.blogspot.com/2006/08/vedic-numerical-code.html

Ramesh Radhakrishna
See ... Now I know more and found the link very interesting .... Very nice link ... People do not know or say the hidden meanings ... How are we supposed to know the real meaning ? Half/No knowledged people speaking highly about vedas are the ones to be blamed.... They blatantly go praising without knowing and once we sit down to see if it is valid we get no data and end up thinking it might not mean much ...

It is these guys who need to be blamed for making people get a feel that vedas are indeed very ordinary ....

Reminds me of KRV ... Going on a donkey to promote a language makes foreigners to the language get a negative feel ...

Do share any other things that you might have ...

Sriranga Chidambara
why did they encode pi in some mantra? That baffles me! If it was read with a religious mindset, I am sure people wouldn't have found about all this. Calling Vedas 'literature' is not an insult! A good thing about them is that no-one claims it is the word of god. We must be proud of human intellect that had the foresight to come up with such good works.

In your post you have called Ganesha, Shiva et al to be symbolic. I like that thought and glad you didn't go on to provide links which prove Ravana actually had 10 heads and a jet!!

Also, we must understand that Vedas are indeed a wealth of knowledge, but everything in it is not necessarily true!! Ancient people thought Earth is the center of the universe! They thought eclipses were some evil force and it took us some time to debunk those myths!

"would you be able to decipher pi to the 60+ places from a sloka dedicated to Krishna?"

No. Never and I would like to know how the person who discovered it knew it would contain the value of pi!

"You just are not intelligent enough, and that is a fact". Again, you are discouraging a person from even attempting to read the vedas! How is one supposed to know that there is hidden information(I wouldn't call it hidden meaning) if the book doesn't give clues about it? If it does, I'd probably figure it out. Who knows!!

So, this is like hiding all the valuable information in the world in a decent movie using something like steganography and calling all those people who watched it, and called it OK, unintelligent coz they didn't understand the hidden meaning! (Extreme example, just so that you get the point!)

Nikhil Baliga
Ok, why they encoded pi? Good question. But they encoded it. So, that means that Vedas and related scriptures do contain a wealth of information. Whether everything in the Vedas is true or not? We don't know. We can't judge it at our current levels of knowledge. That Hindu Gods are symbolic is known to people who go under the surface. Read about concepts like Nirguna Brahman and Vishnu (Brahman with form) - that is truly Hinduism. Puranic stories were created to teach a lot of things, make it truly beautiful instead of making it theory :) I love the stories from the Puranas.

I am not discouraging you from learning. I am discouraging you from judging before learning. Why don't you first stop thinking of yourself as an agnostic/atheist, and keep an open mind. Think of all possibilities. Try and understand what's written, what it could mean, what others took it as... Even then if you felt it was yet another philosophy book, then I will agree to you. Right now, you just don't have adequate knowledge. Maybe Ravana did have a jet :) You don't know.

Aditya Padaki
I agree with Nik when he says we should completely understand OR refrain from commenting. The authenticity and implications may go beyond our understanding on a casual read. Now why Vedas have been encoded in such a complicated manner (with all the steganography ;) ) is a question whose answer we are unsure of. We should be open to the fact that there may indeed be a very solid reason to encode it in such an abstruse manner even if the reason is not evident/obvious.

Just like understanding any science or any form of knowledge needs a concentrated effort and guidance, Vedas also need high amounts of dedication and guidance to completely comprehend them. Vedas are surely not like any general knowledge storehouse that can be understood by a casual read but are very elaborate than that. Unknowingly trivialising such scriptures is definitely not correct.

Sriranga Chidambara
Hey! Just read your comments on the original blog.

The early morning sun rays contains UV rays of a wavelength that split the cow dung into formaldehyde, and that mixed with water gives formalin, a known disinfectant that keeps your surroundings germ free.

I bet my life that the ancient Indians didn't know that UV rays split cow dung into formaldehyde! It was mere experimentation with various stuff around them that has been in use for long and now we know all the science behind it coz we 'questioned' the practice and did not take such practices as 'veda vakya'!

"If you eat a lot of peanuts, you feel thirsty" - so this is my observation! after some years (or already) if someone finds the science behind this, can I claim I knew it all along?

And I think we are digressing here. I don't think everything our ancestors performed as rituals is 'dumb' nor do I feel there is some hidden meaning in every action! We must understand that they, like us were also humans and made mistakes. (ex. eclipses)

Nikhil Baliga
‎@Ranga - You are going back to the square one by saying they didn't know about formaldehyde. How do YOU know what they knew and didn't know? It can never be conclusively proved. You can hypothesise or assume. I am not saying they knew exactly about the UV rays, but they would have seen that germs don't thrive in areas where this is done.

They would have discovered it by accident only, like so many other accidental discoveries. In fact, when I say "experimentation", it means I am trying out something. How would someone know what fruits are poisonous and which herbs are healing? Of course it is trial and error, and they did make mistakes. However, they would have, after a lot of trials and errors, compiled things that they are sure as correct.

Whether it is correct or not - You can go and read and understand and compare it with your test results and see if they match or not. If I tell you that you will die if you fall from the tenth floor, you don't have to try because you know it now. But tell me in reality, if you hadn't read about this, nor seen it, would you? Just like that, the scriptures are means of teaching things so that you don't go through them to discover what is already known.

My point is singular - Don't trash something without knowing it. What might seem ordinary to you MIGHT be having hidden knowledge like the pi one, the rituals MIGHT have originally had some meaning that might be lost subsequently - but YOU don't have adequate knowledge to judge it

Sriranga Chidambara
The ifs, mights and buts! Like someone has posted on Neo's blog - Do you accept if someone says today there is a live pig orbiting the sun? If you don't can I say YOU don't have the knowledge to judge it?

Loved one of the comments on Neo's blogs:

Quoting Bertrand Russel, if u were told that there is a teapot that orbits around the Sun in the solar system, it would be very difficult to disprove it, but to accept it just bcoz it cant be disproved sounds totally insane.

Nikhil Baliga
Just because you don't understand something, doesn't make it wrong. That's what I am saying. Like the tea pot, sure, there could be a tea pot orbiting. Why do you think it is insane?

I'll tell you why you think it is insane. You will wonder how did a tea pot get over there? This is based on the assumption that all tea pots in the universe are from earth, and that someone from earth should have put it there - There! You have already limited your thoughts. Why do you think all tea pots are from earth? Who else will make tea pots you ask?

Doesn't that show a second limitation? You are now assuming that life exists only on earth, only earthlings make tea pots. There are other possibilities. You are not considering them because you are not exposed to them at this point.

A simple example - Would you believe it possible to make a train that weighs several tonnes to float? Leave along float, but to make it float and move? After seeing Maglevs, yes, it is possible. Before Maglev, you would have said it is ridiculous to make a train float... So, similarly, you have no idea - it may sound fancy, impossible and whimsical. Lots of things sounded like that till they were achieved. Do you think a 15th century guy would believe if you would say that you can make a metallic bird? Today we have gone out of the earth. Same way - Just because your knowledge is limited, you are trying to say it is not possible. You don't have adequate data to judge some things. So, refrain from judging it

Sriranga Chidambara
Believing what is possible is different from believing that it already exists! I believe a lot of things are _possible_ but can't believe that Ravana flew a metallic bird just coz I don't have proof against it!

Nikhil Baliga
Why can't you believe it?

Sriranga Chidambara
coz development of an aircraft was not spontaneous. There have been many developments before an aircraft was developed that aided in making of an air craft!

Why can't we begin by assuming it didn't exist and you can go ahead and prove it did. :P

Nikhil Baliga Ok :-) Have you heard about Vymanika Shastra?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaimanika_Shastra

Karna teaches us Charity

2011-06-19T22:28:00.000+05:30

Swami Gulagulaananda said:
"It's human to be fickle... which is why we end up in a pickle"

This is a story from the great epic Mahabharata that I heard when I was a child, and remember it very well.

One morning, Karna was applying oil to his body. He held a golden bowl containing oil in his left hand, and was applying oil with his right hand, when a poor Brahmin came begging for alms. "Please give me something, oh kind Sir" he begged. Karna who was known for his great charity (daana shoora Karna) immediately gave him the golden bowl that he held in his left hand to the Brahmin.

The Brahmin on receiving the bowl, looked a little surprised, and said "One must always hand out things with their right hands. Why are you giving me alms with your left hand?" At which Karna said "By the time I take the bowl from my left hand and transfer it to my right hand, and then give it to you, I might change my mind."

-----
This is a beautiful story that tells us how fickle human nature is. There are many times when you feel that you want to give something to someone, and if you don't act, with time, you start developing an attitude that "It's my money, I earned it by working hard. Why should I part with it?" And this is human nature indeed. Another SMS that I got was "Rs 100 looks so small when you go shopping, and so big when you have to put it in the hundi of a temple"

Jolicloud Web OS - A review

2011-06-19T12:08:00.000+05:30

Swami Nikhilaananda said:

"Try out Joli OS :-)"

My netbook has Windows XP (Pre-installed) and Ubuntu which I installed subsequently. Both of these work really well on my netbook - no lag, very good speed, and both are very powerful operating systems. But still, I wanted to try out a web os to see what's so cool about it.

So I decided to experiment with the much awaited Chrome OS. I went for the sister project Chromium OS. (Do you want to install it? Read here) However, I was facing a lot of issues while trying to install any apps, perhaps because it was a live run from my USB drive. Of course, you can't expect me to install it to my hard drive, since it will use the entire disk. So I was very disappointed with it, since it is useless if I can't install any apps.

Joli OS

Along came Joli Cloud - a really good web OS. I came across this when I was looking for a nice one. Installing it was a cinch. I just downloaded the Windows installer from their website. It's free of cost. I then went into Windows, ran the installer. A very simple process.

It has a very neat interface. Some features that I liked were the following. It has a very small task bar. So, for a netbook where screen size is small, it doesn't waste any space. It has a search bar at the centre where you can search for an app directly without looking for it. Type, and done.

Apps

It has a great repository of apps. You name it, you will find it. For Office, there are shortcuts for both MS Office live and Google Docs - Both great Office apps.

Chrome inside Joli?

And what's best? It runs the Chromium browser and this means all of the Chrome apps are available inside Joli OS as well! Which is the best of all, isn't it? Why would you want to go for Chrome OS now?

Joli inside Chrome

If you want, you can download and run the Joli cloud OS inside your Chrome browser! That's right, there is an app which you can install inside Chrome, and run it. Login with your Joli account and boom! Your desktop should come there. All of these are also connected via the ubiquitous Facebook.

On the downside though, it looks like a persistent internet connection is needed. Which is a great disadvantage... Will put up more stuff as I use it a little more

Try Chrome OS

2011-06-17T00:00:00.000+05:30

Swami Nikhilaananda said:

"Chrome rhymes with loam, foam and Rome. Heh! I hope it is successful for its own good :-) "

There has been a lot of hype and buzz around Google's Operating System called Chrome OS, which is supposed to be a web OS - an OS in a browser. Apparently you can place order for your Chromebooks with Chrome OS pre-built. Place an order from Amazon or Bestbuy or visit Google's Chrome OS site for more into. [What's a Web OS? Learn more]

Since I am not sure about it, I thought it would be better for me to try it out. I already own a netbook [Read review here] and Chrome OS was supposed to be released for netbooks. Since no words are out there, I thought it is better to try out Chromium OS, the sister project of Chrome OS. In fact, there is also a browser called Chromium which is Chrome's sister browser.

To try out Chromium OS without modifying your system, follow the instructions below. You can also install it subsequently on your hard drive if you wish but it will delete everything. There are two ways of trying - Running from Pen Drive or Running in virtual machine. One of the biggest advantages of Chromium OS is that it can load in <8 seconds. No point running as Virtual machine, if I have to first boot the host.

First, obtain Chromium

Visit this website by Hexxeh

You will see the builds in reverse chronological order. Against each build, you will also see VMWare, Virtual Box and USB. The first two are for Virtual Machines. Choose USB and download it. It's a little over 200 Mb.

Next, load it to pen drive

Get a pen drive, erase all the contents. Plug it in. Ensure no application is using the pen drive.

Now, depending on your host OS, follow the instructions given in the website below to load the

Windows instructions

Linux instructions

Mac instructions

Boot machine from pen drive

Restart the machine. Ensure that you have set 'Boot from USB drive' option in the boot options. With the pen drive plugged in, it should start booting from your pen drive. Enjoy!

You may also want to try...

JoliCloud Web OS

Evangelism with lure of money

2011-06-12T13:27:00.000+05:30

Swami Gulagulaananda said:
"Evangelism with lure of money is cheap and underhanded"

This is a very interesting topic - You will find it interesting only if you read this with a completely unprejudiced mindset. Go ahead, comment and post your views.

Christianity as a religion has been very aggressive in its spread. I have had several experiences of attempted conversion and have heard a lot of talk from these evangelists as well. You can see them here.

Modus Operandi
Now, in this post, I would like to talk about christianity trying to spread its tentacles by using money as a bait or lure. How does this work? Simple. There are thousands of people who donate millions of dollars worldwide for the spread of christianity to some missionaries. These missionaries come to places like India, and target poor people. Now, assume there is a destitute who has no money - These people come there and tell them, "We will give you money, you convert to our religion".

So what?
Now comes the interesting part - There are several 'secular' (read pseudo-secular) and 'educated' (read so called scientific bent of mind and so called open minded) people who ask "So what? If they are getting money, that's making them happy right? So how does it matter which religion they belong to?"

Yes, I would be inclined to agree to that point, provided you agree to this - In that case, let's also legalise the following:
Cash for votes - There is a poor man. Rich politician comes up to him and says "We will give you money, you vote for our party". What's wrong in that right? Same logic... They are getting money, that's making them happy. How does it matter then?
Cash for sex - There is a poor woman, and a rich man comes to her and says "I will give you money, come to bed with me" What's wrong in this then? That's making her happy because she is getting money, it's consensual, it's her wish...
Cash for drugs(?) - Ok, there is a poor man. Mafia comes to him and says "Dude, you go peddle drugs, I will give you money". Then there is the son of a rich man who comes to him and says "Give me drugs, and I will give you money" Now what's the problem?
Cash for anything else - Yeah, what's wrong with bribing that friendly neighbourhood traffic policeman? Policeman needs money, you want to avoid fine of Rs 300... Give him Rs 100, both are happy, right?

Ridiculous arguments you say?
Ok, your mindset right now is "Dude, your arguments are ridiculous" How can you equate drugs to the rest of them? It causes harm... Now, who does it cause harm to? To himself, and he is doing it to himself. He takes drugs, and sits in his room, ecstatic. Yeah, he is good for nothing, but heck, he is happy, and the guy from he bought it from, is happy as well - But for some reason, drugs are frowned upon, right? Hey, it is bad, health issues man! Ok, health issues... Then shouldn't we even ban smoking and drinking? In fact, more people smoke and drink than take drugs. In fact, there have been many cases of drunken driving killing innocent people, or murders in stupor, or families ruined because man keeps splurging money in alcohol. Cigarettes also cause harm to others as well as themselves... If you want to ban things that cause harm, then ban them all, right? But that's not happening... If you allow cigarettes (nicotine along with several other narcotics are there anyway) and alcohol (your body can't even process alcohol, which is why your liver goes kaput later, plus you kill others) then why ban drugs?

Cash for whatever - NOT OK!
Ok, now think - If we always keep looking at it with the view that "Hey, both parties are happy, one wants to give money, other wants to take money, and there is a string attached which neither minds" then what happens is that prostitution, cash for votes and drug trade, everything becomes legal... And this is not right. It's not right for all the reasons you know. Which is why religious conversions using lure of money is illegal (though still done)

Same for religion
The same goes for religion - If you want to do social service, do it. Unfortunately, the NGOs that are run by christians are normally focussing on spread of religion. Joyce Meyer ministries, for example, gives education, food, blah blah - makes it sound oh-so-cool and nice, but they also give bibles and abet conversion via lure. Seriously, think about it - If you are so interested in social goodness and wellness, why would you want to introduce religion? If there is an organisation that wants to do good for, say, a poor group of Hindus, don't you think giving them education, food and stopping at that point make them happy? Why introduce religion? It's clear - there is an ulterior motive there.

Learn to respect others for what they are...

An initiative to help children

2011-06-03T21:31:00.000+05:30

Hey,

This is regarding a small initiative that we have started off. It's non profit and for a social cause - It would be great if you can read till the end.

We found a gap
We found that there is a growing gap between poor children and rich children in terms of exposure that they have, by the time they complete schooling. On one hand, we have a bunch of kids from well-to-do families who own iPods, computers, Nintendo Wiis and have used microscopes, telescopes, and study in schools that can show them experiments such as titration and acid-base neutralisation using chemicals, reagents, beakers, test tubes and burettes. On the other hand, we have children from poor backgrounds who only hear and read about these things, but never see them happening and only have to visualise, and have no idea about iPods. Did you know? They don't even know what a beaker looks like! Some government schools have computers, and nobody knows how to operate them!

What we thought
Our idea is essentially to create a platform for them to be more involved - we are thinking about creating a lab, or getting equipment like test tubes, reagents, beakers etc. and showing them experiments and encouraging themhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif to do the same and participate. Another thing that we are thinking about, is to organise some science competitions, where they can create models and present them. We will provide the guidance to them. There are plenty of ways to contribute, and we are totally open to suggestions.

[You can join our group Covalence for brainstorming/discussions. Also, please fill out the form at the end of this post]

This isn't our first time
We have done this several times earlier, and we want to do this again. We have had a really good success earlier, when we went through these initiatives. We had done this under PESIT as part of CDP - Community Development Programme. What we had done then, was organise events such as science competitions, and deliver short presentations by showing videos and live demonstrations. We had given them opportunities to present their models, and gave them lots of prizes and goodies to motivate them. What they are lacking in is exposure, that's all. They are very smart. This time again, we are doing it through PESIT so that we don't have to create an NGO again. PESIT as an institute is going to help out a lot financially as well as other ways by providing space etc. If you are a student or alumnus, here's a great way for you to bond with your institute. If you aren't, don't fret - You don't have to be associated with PESIT in any way to participate. Remember, we chose PESIT, because we have done this through them before, they have been very generous in contributing, willing - and after all, we work for a cause and not for our individual gains.

How can you help?
You can help in any of the following ways.

You can help by volunteering - organise events, demonstrate simple experiments (high school level, should be a cinch to you :P) We will hold the event on a weekend so that you won't be having issues.
You can help by donating money - Any amount, including as low as Rs 25 is appreciated. After all, drops and drops, maketh ocean. Like we said, even showing a small test tube is a big deal for them
If you are not sure if your money will reach the right destination, you can help by giving in kind - You can directly give test tubes, books etc. The requirements of these children is currently being assessed. If you would like to be a part of this, we will let you know when the assessment is complete.
If you would like to help by teaching computers, great! Remember, they don't know the ABC of it.

Transparency
We will try to make the entire process as transparent as possible. Also, we will ensure regular checks on the equipment and chemicals that are donated in order to curtail pilferage as well as replace broken equipment and replenish reagents.

We are open to suggestions
We still have not frozen the entire idea - Like I said, we are still in the brain storming mode. So, all suggestions are welcome. This mail is only to know if you would be willing to contribute in any of the ways mentioned above - If yes how. You don't have to provide specific information right now - like how to volunteer or amount you would like to donate. Just tell us how you would like to contribute. Also, it would be great if you could spread the word. It's open to everyone.

You will receive an official invitation from PESIT subsequently if you are interested.
Faculty Co-ordinator
Smt. Geetha Prakash,
Dept ECE
PESIT

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Phone numbers will never be shared with anyone and is only for contacting you in case we need a response within a shorter time.
Email addresses will not be shared with anyone without your explicit permission.

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Warm Regards,
Nikhil Baliga

Girls are.... funny!

2011-06-02T23:44:00.000+05:30

Swami Nikhilaananda said:

"The chances of me knowing Brahman is higher than me understanding girls"

A very funny story that happened in real life, and reminds me a lot of a particular scene from Friends involving Chandler. But let me narrate it to you as it happened.

Let's call the guy as Raj and the girl as Ria.

Raj and Ria go to a coffee place, and are sipping coffee... and Raj is having a pleasant conversation with Ria about something, when suddenly Ria tells Raj - "Look at that girl, she looks so pretty". Raj instinctively turns around, looks at the girl for a second, turns back and says "Yeah, she's nice... so as I was saying......" and stops looking at the smouldering glare coming out of Ria's eyes. "Ummm something wrong?" he asked, and she said - "You looked? I can't believe you looked!!". And Raj said - "Uh didn't YOU ask me to look? I wasn't even looking in that direction till you asked me to!" and she replied - "Yeah! That was a test! Just because I ask you to look at other girls, you do it, is it?". Raj was confused, because he knew girls also get pissed if you don't do things they want.

So, Raj was determined to show he was right. So, after listening to a lot of complaining from her for looking, he called two of her best friends, and narrated the incident. "... and so, I turned to look at her and - "... "Whoa whoa back up there a little" said one of her friends, "You looked?" And Raj was shocked! What the- Had he missed something? They yelled at him for looking at another girl in front of her while she had a smug expression on her face, satisfied that she was right (as usual :P)

Dejected Raj went to his friends (guys) and told them the story... and all guys had only one response "So, how was she?" And thus ends the difference between guys and girls ;-)

Remember: Girls are always right... Don't bother trying to prove them wrong

Akshaya Patra Scheme - Awesome!

2011-05-26T07:14:00.000+05:30

Baba Gyani Triviani said:

"May the Akshaya Patra bowl of now be like the Akshaya Patra bowl of yore - Neverending, eternal..."

I had heard about the Akshaya Patra scheme. But had not really thought about the great deal of effort that goes on behind the scenes. Check out the fantastic processes that goes on under the hood of the Free Mid Day meals for children of Karnataka. If you would like to contribute, then please visit the Akshaya Patra website to feed a child

The following is from a mail that I got - I thought I should share with the world, the kind of sophistication that is behind the efficient Akshaya Patra.

The kitchen from the outside - a 3 storey building which uses Gravity Flow Mechanism developed in-house by our team. Each kitchen has the capacity to cook between 50,000 to 1,00,000 mid-day meals per day. Costing approximately 9Cr to set up, they are built with funds from public donations.

The kitchen from the inside,consisting of rice cauldrons each of which cooks up to 110kg of rice in 20 minutes. Sambar cauldrons cook up to 1200 lt of sambar in two hours.

It is washed thoroughly on the 2nd floor

Washed rice is sent down the chute to the 1st floor

Rice pours down into steam heated cauldrons for cooking. The entire cooking process takes place on the 1st floor

Super heated steam is used to cook food instead of flame.

When cooking is finished, it is loaded into trolleys

Cooked rice is sent down the chute to the ground floor

It flows down the pipe into containers

Piping hot rice on its way to being loaded into food vans. Around 6000 kilosof rice are cooked daily in each kitchen.

Food materials in Kitchen

Stock in the kitchen

Washed dal and vegetables flows down the chute into sambar cauldron on the 1st floor.

Vegetables and dal ready to be cooked

Sambar being cooked on the first floor

Cooked sambar is packed and sent to the food vans to be loaded.

Chapati dough is mixed

Heavy rollers flatten the dough into thin sheets

Dough is cut into the classic round shape

Making chapatti

Collecting all the chapattis

Transporting akshayapatra food through bus

Happy Kids

Students benifited from akshayapatra

In conclusion, I would like to once again appeal to you to consider contributing at least Rs. 525 that can feed a child for A YEAR! It's a one time pizza for us

Time Travel - A discussion

2011-05-24T22:26:00.001+05:30

Swami Gulagulaananda said:

"You can NEVER alter the past to correct the future - Live your present wisely"

Time travel is a very interesting concept. I had earlier written a different post regarding Time Travel, to see if it was possible. You can read it here.

Time Travel and Fate

Now let's analyse it slightly differently. Assume Time Travel is possible. Assume I make a time machine and I decide to go back in time to save my girl friend who died in a car crash. Now what happens to the current time frame? That does not stop, and continues to move ahead. I moved back in time - and let us assume that some how I prevented her from going in that car, and thus saved her... Now what? Since I altered the past, the current time frame (before time travel) should continue to move ahead without her. But since she is alive in the past, a new thread should spawn from there on.

However if you are a person who believes in fate, then "What has to happen, has to happen" no matter what you do. So, if she was destined to die, she will definitely die around that time (may be a little delayed, may be a little later - the skewing happens because of interference I guess) so quite soon, the two time lines should meet and continue as one again.

Imagine that I made more than one changes - Then, the changes get undone in some way or another such that after some time, all the lines match with the same current line and continue as one again. Meaning, if I saved a girl, killed a terrorist who wanted to bomb my college and jumped a signal - My college might end up getting blown by a different terrorist, and I might get fined for riding without a license - What I am saying is that "What had to happen -" the getting fined and college getting blown up will happen by one way or another... essentially saying that Karma will prevail across time lines, and end up merging all time lines...

Note that this is very much needed - because in the time that I am not in the current time frame and gallivanting in a parallel time frame, where am I in the current time frame? That is, I have to return some time later to ensure there is no imbalance because of my absence.

What if no fate?

Ok, the previous discussion was based on the assumption that Karmic philosophy works and will forcibly merge time lines. What if that doesn't happen? Meaning, what if the girl I saved from the car crash doesn't die any time and ends up marrying me and us living a happy life for the next forty years? So that would mean that a new thread is created and sustained.

Infinite instances?

Going to the future should mean that the time lines are pre-drawn and we are merely going according to it. If you manage to go to the future, there would be another instance of you there. Which means, at every time instant of the future you go to, there will be one instance of you there - which would mean that there are infinite instances of you in the future - and the same should be true about the past. So if you were to look at it from God's perspective - we are all animated characters, with our actions prewritten like an animated character's time line. What action I am doing right now, my instance of the past is going to a little later, and my instance of the future has already done it... and this should happen infinitely.

So if this is true, then if I go to the past - and change something at a point of time... From that point, a new instance thread should get created - Now an interesting problem arises. If I go to a point even earlier than this point to which I went to... That is, let me call the first point as A, and the new point as B as shown below.

Now, from B till the point A, we continue in the same Animation Timeline type behaviour. Assume no changes were made, and life was lived normally (Although remember that there is another instance of you all the time co-existing - and you are again creating copies of yourself across all these instances). When we reach A, which time line gets selected? This is going to be a big problem.

So, to avoid this situation, the moment I go to B, another thread should start off - Which basically means that everytime I go to the past, new threads should keep getting created each and every time. So you can NEVER alter the past to correct the future

And will only end up creating whole new dimensions each and every time. This will mean that a lot of resources are getting consumed every time this is done - and if done beyond a certain number of times, the universe will implode :P Out of memory exception

***

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Petrol and Diesel prices - Graph

2011-05-22T00:05:00.000+05:30

Just in case some of you are interested to solve some Data Interpretation type of questions, here's a graph I prepared...

DI Question: Study the graph (click here to enlarge) and answer the question...

After studying the graph, who according to you got screwed between the years 1991 and 2011?

Access Android wirelessly without USB

2011-05-21T04:39:00.001+05:30

In this small tutorial, I will show you how to access the contents of your Android phone wirelessly.

What I am using in this tutorial is a rooted Samsung Galaxy 3 running Froyo and a computer with Windows XP. Of course, there is Wi-Fi. If you want to know how to root a phone, you can read about it here.

I then installed an app called SSHDroid. There is a free version as well as a paid version available. The free version is ad supported - so it won't work if you have ad blocker app active. If you do have one, then just disable ad blocker for some time. (Restart the phone after disabling ad blocker to ensure it works. It hadn't worked for me before) Turn on your Wi-Fi.

Once you run SSHDroid, your phone is available to be accessed via Wi-Fi. Now you need to access it from your computer - There are various ways of doing this, including command line. I prefer to use WinSCP - The same tool that you use for iPods and iPhones after Jailbreaking. You can download WinSCP from here.

I download the portable version- you can download the other one too. Then just run WinSCP - Enter the IP address of your phone... If you don't know this, SSHDroid will tell you anyway. Enter the user name as 'root' and password as 'admin'. Connect!!

Your phone and computer are connected wirelessly without USB cable.

*CAREFUL*

You can access not only your memory card but everything - including system files! So be careful

In the path, click on the first slash or navigate upwards till you reach the root. Navigate to the SDcard folder - you can see your entire memory card contents there. You can use WinSCP for copying, moving and other operations...

If you are on Linux, then you don't need any extra applications. I just went to th Places menu, and selected Connect to Server. I entered the appropriate details and you can browse through you phone like it is a drive.

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SSH - Android and Linux

2011-05-19T23:56:00.000+05:30

Swami Nikhilaananda said:

"I did a very interesting experiment today - I love Android"

I am no geek, but I really love seeing some fancy things happening. This is one of the things that I tried out and liked - maybe you guys might also like it.

I downloaded an app called ConnectBot which is an SSH client for Android. You can see their page here, and find that on the Android market as well. After installing it, I found there are three options - SSH, Telnet and Local.

Next what I did was, I went to my Linux (I use Ubuntu) and ran the SSH server. To do that, first ensure that you have it on your system. Just run the command

sudo apt-get install openssh-server

Then, I just went to the ConnectBot app and gave my username@IPaddress and said connect. It connected and asked for password - which I provided. Boom, I could browse through my computer through the command prompt - how cool is that? Geeks might not find this great - I was excited :-)

There is also a Terminal Emulator program for Android that can be used to browse and make changes to your Android phone directly, by using it. But you should have rooted your phone for that. See how I rooted my phone.

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Of cricket, farmers and fashion

2011-05-19T21:38:00.001+05:30

Baba Gyani Triviani said:
"Now I know why the CD burner software is called Nero"

One of the best articles that I read - I didn't write this, got it as a mail. But the views are those that I fully endorse. Read it.

---
The Hindu - Open page

Yes, you read it right; to hell with the World Cup; to hell with the celebrations; to hell with all the free land and money being showered by different governments on the players. How can I jump, scream, have gallons of beer and cheer for the nation when a few kilometres away the farmers and feeders of my country are taking their own lives in hordes?

Do you know that, on average, 47 farmers have been committing suicide every single day in the past 16 years in our shining India — the next economic power, progressive with nine per cent growth?

Last month, on March 5, Friday evening, when Bangalore's watering holes were getting filled up, when all the DJs were blaring out deafening music, when we were busy discussing India's chances at the World Cup, sitting in CCDs and Baristas — just 100 km away from Bangalore, Swamy Gowda and Vasanthamma, a young farmer couple, hanged themselves, leaving their three very young children to fend for themselves or, most likely, die of malnutrition.

Why did they do it? Were they fighting? No. Were they drunkards? No.

Did they have incurable diseases? No! Then WHY? Because they were unable to repay a loan of Rs 80,000 (a working IT couple's one month salary? 2-3 months EMI?) for years, which had gradually increased to Rs. 1.2 lakh. Because they knew that now they would never be able to pay it back. Because they were hurt. Hurt by our government which announced a huge reduction in import duty for silk in this year's budget (from 30 per cent to 5 per cent).They were struggling silk farmers and instead of help from the government, they get this!

Decrease in import duty means the markets will now be flooded with cheap Chinese silk (as everything else!) and our own farmers will be left in the lurch.

On average, 17,000 farmers have been committing suicide every year, for the past 15 years on the trot. Can you believe it? Most of us wouldn't know this fact. Why? Because, our great Indian media, the world's biggest media, are not interested in reporting this! Why?

Because they are more interested in covering fashion week extravaganzas. They are more interested in ‘why team India was not practising when Pakistanis were sweating it out in stadium on the eve of the match?' They are more interested in Poonam Pandey.

The media are supposed to be the third eye of democracy and also called the fourth estate, but now they have become real estate. Pure business.

So any attention from the media is out of the question. Who is left then? The government? But we all know how it works. The other day, I was passing by Vidhan Soudha in Bangalore and happened to read the slogan written at the entrance, “Government work is god's work”. Now I know why our government has left all its work to god!

Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa announced plots for all the players. But land? In Bangalore? You must be kidding, Mr. C.M.. So he retracts and now wants to give money. But where will it come from?

Taxes, yours and mine. Don't the poor farmers need the land or money more than those players who are already earning in crores?

A government-owned bank will give you loan at six per cent interest rate if you are buying a Mercedes but if a poor farmer wants to buy a tractor, do you know how much it is charging him? Fifteen per cent!

Look at the depths of inequality. Water is Rs. 15 a litre and a SIM card is for free! For how long can we bite the hand that is feeding us? The recent onion price fiasco was just a trailer. Picture abhi baaki hai doston!

In 2008, Lakme India fashion show venue was in a Mumbai five-star hotel and was covered by 500 journalists and the theme was ‘Cotton'. A few hours drive from there, cotton farmers were committing suicide, 4 or 5, everyday! How many TV journalists covered this? Zero!

Sixty-seventy per cent of India's population is living on less than Rs. 20 a day. A bottle of Diet coke for us? The electricity used in a day-night match could help a farmer irrigate his fields for more than a few weeks! Do you know that loadshedding is also class dependent?

Two hours in metros, 4 in towns and 8 in villages. Now, who needs electricity more? A farmer to look after his crop day and night, irrigate, pump water and use machines or a few bored, young professionals with disposable incomes, to log on to Facebook and watch IPL?

How can we splurge thousands on our birthday parties and zoom past in our AC vehicles and sit in cushy chairs in our AC offices and plan a weekend trip to Coorg when on the way, in those small villages, just a few minutes' walk from the roads, someone might be consuming pesticide or hanging himself from a tree for just Rs.10, 000? How can we?

There was much panic when there was swine flu. Every single death in the country was reported second by second, minute by minute. Why?

Because it directly affected our salaried, ambitious, tech-savvy, middle-class. So there were masks, special relief centres, enquiry centres set up by government to please this section. On the other hand, 47 people are dying, every single day for the past 15 years.

Anybody cared to do anything?

It has been observed that within months of a farmer taking his life, his wife follows, either by poisoning the kids first or leaving them on their own. In Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, a distressed woman farmer went to the government seed shop, bought a bottle of pesticide, on credit, went home and drank it. She was under debt for most of her life and now — even her death was on credit!

Centuries ago, there was a Roman emperor, called Nero. He was a strong ruler and also very fond of parties, art, poetry, drinking and a life full of pleasures. Once he decided to organise a grand party and invited all poets, writers, dancers, painters, artists, intellectuals and thinkers of society. Everybody was having a great time eating, drinking, laughing, and socialising. The party was at its peak when it started getting dark. Nero wanted the party to go on. So he ordered and got all the arrested criminals, who were in his jails, around the garden and put them on fire! Burnt them alive, so that there was enough light for the guests to keep on enjoying! The guests had a gala time though they knew the cost of their enjoyment. Now, what kind of conscience those guests had.

What is happening in our country is not different from Nero's party.

We, the middle-class-young-well-earning-mall-hopping-IPL-watching and celebrating-junta are Nero's guests enjoying at the cost of our farmers. Every budget favours the already rich. More exemptions are being given to them at the cost of grabbing the land of our farmers in the name of SEZs, decrease in import duties in the name of neo-liberal policies, increase in the loan interest rates if the product is not worth lakhs and crores. Yes, that's what we are, Nero's guests!

I'm not against celebrations. I'm not against cricket. I'm not against World Cup. I would be the first person to scream, celebrate and feel proud of any of India's achievements but, only if all fellow countrymen, farmers, villagers also stand with me and cheer; only if they do not take their own lives ruthlessly, only if there is no difference between interest rates for a Mercedes and a tractor. That would be the day I also zoom past on a bike, post-Indian win, with an Indian Flag in hand and screaming Bharat Mata Ki Jai. But no, not today. Not at the cost of my feeders. Until then, this is what I say.

To hell with your malls. To hell with your IPL. To hell with your World Cup. And to hell with your celebrations

***

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The Curious Case Of Rahul Gandhi - By Nitin Gupta (Rivaldo)

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THE CURIOUS CASE OF RAHUL GANDHI - Nitin Gupta(Rivaldo)

2011-05-18T18:50:00.000+05:30

Swami Gulagulaananda said:

"If there is one thing which annoys me more than lying, it's hypocrisy"

An excellent read this is - Share it with everyone. I picked this from a blog and the author of that blog picked it from an email. So anyway, I thought it was appropriate to give credit to the blog - http://shilps882.blogspot.com/2011/05/curious-case-of-rahul-gandhi-nitin.html?spref=fb

------------------------

Got this article via email forwards. The article is signed by journalist Nitin Gupta(Rivaldo) of whom I learnt only today. It is a good read!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DISCLAIMER: I DON'T ENDORSE ANY POLITICAL PARTY.

NOR DO I ENDORSE ANY OF WHAT MAYAWATI IS DOING.

I WAS JUST TAKEN ABACK BY RAHUL GANDHI'S HYPOCRITICAL COMMENT AT THE RECENT FARMER AGITATION IN UTTAR PRADESH.

Rahul Gandhi: "I feel ashamed to call myself an INDIAN after seeing what has happened here in UP".
PLEASE DON'T BE ASHAMED OF U.P. YET

Please don't be ashamed of Uttar Pradesh yet. Congress ruled the State for the Majority of the duration Pre Independence to Post Independence.. from 1939 to 1989 ( barring the Periods of Emergency.. Thanks to your Grand Mom Indira G. and a couple of transitional Governments)

8 out of the total 14 Prime Ministers of India have been from UP, 6 out of those 8 have been from Congress...

I think your party had more than half a century and half a Dozen PM's to build a State...

The Reason Mulayam Singh, subsequently came to Power is because your party wasn't exactly Gandhian in their dealings in the State.. So May be If you look at in totality the present chaos in UP is the outcome of the glorious leadership displayed by Congress in UP for about 50 years!

So Please don't feel ashamed as yet Dear Rahul.. For Mayawati is only using the Land Acquisition Bill which your party had itself used to LOOT the Farmers many times in the Past!

WHY DIDN'T YOUR PARTY CHANGE THE BILL WHEN IT WAS IN POWER FOR SO LONG?

Not that I Endorse what Mayawati is doing.. What Mayawati is doing is Unacceptable..

But the past actions of your party and your recent comments, puts a question mark on your INTENT and CONSISTENCY.

YOU REALLY WANT TO FEEL ASHAMED

But don't be disappointed, I would give you ample reasons to feel ashamed...

You really want to feel Ashamed..?

First Ask Pranav Mukherjee, Why isn't he giving the details of the account holders in the Swiss Banks.

Ask your Mother, Who is impeding the Investigation against Hasan Ali?

Ask her, Who got 60% Kickbacks in the 2G Scam ?

Kalamdi is accused of a Few hundred Crores, Who Pocketed the Rest in the Common Wealth Games?

Ask Praful Patel what he did to the Indian Airlines? Why did Air India let go of the Profitable Routes?

Ask Manmohan Singh. Why/What kept him quiet for so long?

Are Kalmadi and A Raja are Scapegoats to save Big Names like Harshad Mehta was in the 1992 Stock Market Scandal ?

Who let the BHOPAL GAS TRAGEDY Accused go Scot Free? ( 20,000 People died in that Tragedy)

Who ordered the State Sponsored Massacre of SIKHS in 84?

Please read more about, How Indira Gandhi pushed the Nation Under Emergency in 76-77, after the HC declared her election to Lok Sabha Void!

(I bet she had utmost respect for DEMOCRACY and JUDICIARY and FREE PRESS)

I guess you know the answers already. So my question is, why the Double Standards in Judging Mayawati and members of your Family and Party?

I condemn Mayawati. But is she the only one you feel Ashamed for?

What about the ones close to you? For their contribution to the Nation's Misery is beyond comparison.

You talk about the Land being taken away from the Farmers. How many Suicides have happened under your Parties Rule in Vidarbha ? Does that not ashame you ?

THE 72,000 CRORE LOAN WAIVER

Your Party gave those Farmers a 72,000 Crore Loan Waiver. Which didn't even reach the Farmers by the way.

So, Why don't you focus on implementing the policies which your govt. has undertaken, instead of earning brownie points by trying to manufacture consent by bombarding us with pictures of having food with Poor Villagers....

You want to feel ashamed. You can feel ashamed for your Party taking CREDIT for DEBITING the Public Money (72,000 crores) from the Government Coffers and literally Wasting it...

You want to feel ashamed.. Feel ashamed for that...

WHY ONLY HIGHLIGHT THIS ARREST?

Dear Rahul, to refresh your memory, you were arrested/detained by the FBI the BOSTON Airport in September 2001.

You were carrrying with you $ 1,60,000 in Cash ( Similar to the Arrest of Rahet Fateh Ali Khan recently, because you han't decared that Amount) . US allowed $ 10,000 cash at Immigration.

9 HOURS he was kept at the Airport.

He was later freed on the intervention of the then Prime Minister Mr.Vajpayee.. FBI filed an equivalent of an FIR in US and released him.

When FBI was asked to divulge the information for the reasons Rahul was arrested by Right/Freedom to Information Activists... FBI asked for a NO OBJECTION CERTIFICATE from Rahul Gandhi.

So Subramaniyam Swami wrote a Letter to Rahul Gandhi, " If you have NOTHING to HIDE, Give us the Permission"

HE NEVER REPLIED!

Why did that arrest not make Headlines Rahul? You could have gone to the Media and told, "I am ashamed to call myself an INDIAN?".

Or is it that, you only do like to highlight Symbolic Arrests (like in UP) and not Actual Arrests ( In BOSTON)

Because it so happens RAHET FATEH ALI KHAN'S recent arrest was Splashed in the Media and Your arrest in 2001 hardly got a MENTION..

Kindly Clarify.....

In any case, you want to feel ashamed, Read Along...

YOUR MOTHER'S SO CALLED SACRIFICE OF GIVING UP PRIME MINISTER SHIP in 2004.

According to a Provision in the Citizenship Act.

A Foreign National who becomes a Citizen of India, is bounded by the same restrictions, which an Indian would face, If he/she were to become a Citizen of Italy.

(Condition based on principle of reciprocity)

[READ ANNEXURE- 1&2]

Now Since you can't become a PM in Italy, Unless you are born there.

Likewise an Italian Citizen can't become Indian PM, unless He/She is not born here!

Dr. SUBRAMANIYAM SWAMI (The Man who Exposed the 2G Scam) sent a letter to the PRESIDENT OF INDIA bringing the same to his Notice. [READ LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT IN ANNEXURE -3]

PRESIDENT OF INDIA sent a letter to Sonia Gandhi to this effect, the day she was about to get sworn in 2004.

Manmohan Singh was brought in the Picture at the last moment to Save Face!!

Rest of the SACRIFICE DRAMA which she choreographed was an EYE WASH!!!

So She didn't make any Sacrifice, It so happens that SONIA GANDHI couldn't have become the PM of INDIA that time.

You could be Ashamed about that Dear Rahul!!

THINK ABOUT YOURSELF.

You go to Harvard on Donation Quota. ( Hindujas Gave HARVARD 11 million dollars the same year, when Rajiv Gandhi was in Power)

Then you are expelled in 3 Months/ You Dropped out in 3 Months.... ( Sadly Manmohan Singh wasn't the Dean of Harvard that time, else you might have had a chance... Too Bad, there is only one Manmohan Singh!)

Some Accounts say, You had to Drop out because of Rajiv Ji's Assasination.

May be, But Then Why did you go about lying about being Masters in Economics from Harvard .. before finally taking it off your Resume upon questioning by Dr. SUBRAMANIYAM SWAMI (The Gentlemen who exposed the 2G Scam)

At St. Stephens.. You Fail the Hindi Exam.

Hindi Exam!!!

And you are representing the Biggest Hindi Speaking State of the Country?

SONIA GANDHI's EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

Sonia G gave a sworn affidavit as a Candidate that She Studied English at University of Cambridge

[SEE ANNEXURE-6, 7_37a]

According to Cambridge University, there is no such Student EVER! [ SEE ANNEXURE -7_39]

Upon a Case by Dr. Subramaniyam Swami filed against her,

She subsequently dropped the CAMBRIDGE CREDENTIAL from her Affidavit.

Sonia Gandhi didn't even pass High School.

In this sense, She shares a common Educational Background with Karunanidhi

You Fake your Educational Degree, Your Mother Fakes her Educational Degree.

And then you go out saying, " We want Educated Youth into Politics!"

Letters sent by Dr. Swami to EC and then Speaker of Lok Sabha are in ANNEXURE 7_36 &7_35 RESPECTIVELY

Contrast that with Gandhi Ji , who went to South Africa, Became a Barrister, on Merit, Left all that to work for South Africa, then for the Country....

WHY LIE ABOUT EDUCATIONAL CREDENTIALS?

Not that Education is a Prerequisite for being a great Leader, but then you shouldn't have lied about your qualifications!

You could feel a little ashamed about Lying about your Educational Qualifications. You had your reasons I know, because in India, WE RESPECT EDUCATION!

But who cares about Education, when you are a Youth Icon!!

YOUTH ICON

You traveled in the Local Train for the first time at the Age of 38.

You went to some Villages as a part of Election Campaign.

And you won a Youth Icon!! ... That's why You are my Youth Icon.

For 25 Million People travel by train every day. You are the First Person to win a Youth Icon for boarding a Train.

Thousands of Postmen go to remotest of Villages. None of them have yet gotten a Youth Icon.

You were neither Young Nor Iconic.

Still you became a Youth Icon beating Iconic and Younger Contenders like RAHUL DRAVID.

Shakespeare said, what’s in a Name?

Little did he knew, it’s all in the Name, Especially the Surname!

Speaking of Surname..

DO YOU REALLY RESPECT GANDHI, OR IS IT JUST TO CASH IN ON THE GOODWILL OF MAHATMA?

Because the Name on your Passport is RAUL VINCI.

Not RAHUL GANDHI..

May be if you wrote your Surname as Gandhi, you would have experienced, what Gandhi feels like, LITERALLY ( Pun Intended)

But you don't seem to use Gandhi except when you are fighting Elections. (There it makes complete sense).

Imagine fighting by the Name Raul Vinci...Even Leonardo Da Vinci couldn't win an Election in India with that Name!!

It feels sadly Ironic, Gandhi Ji, who inspired Icons like Nelson Mandela ,Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lennon, across the world, Couldn't inspire members of his party/ Nehru's Family, who only seem to use his Surname for the purposes of FIGHTING ELECTIONS and conveniently use a different name on their PASSPORT.

You could feel ashamed for your Double Standards.

YOUTH INTO POLITICS.

Now you want Youth to Join Politics.

I say First you Join Politics.

Because you haven't joined politics. You have joined a Family Business.

First you join Politics. Win an Election fighting as RAUL VINCI and Not Rahul Gandhi, then come and ask the youth and the Educated Brass for more involvement in Politics.

Also till then, Please don't give me examples of Sachin Pilot and Milind Deora and Naveen Jindal as youth who have joined Politics..

They are not Politicians. They just happen to be Politicians.

Much Like Abhishek Bachchan and other Star Sons are not Actors. They just happen to be Actors (For Obvious Reasons)

So, We would appreciate if you stop requesting the Youth to Join Politics till you establish your credentials...

WHY WE CAN'T JOIN POLITICS!

Rahul Baba, Please understand, Your Father had a lot of money in your Family account (in Swiss Bank) when he died.

Ordinary Youth has to WORK FOR A LIVING.

YOUR FAMILY just needs to NETWORK FOR A LIVING

If our Father had left thousands of Crores with us, We might consider doing the same..

But we have to Work. Not just for ourselves. But also for you. So that we can pay 30% of our Income to the Govt. which can then be channelized to the Swiss Banks and your Personal Accounts under some Pseudo Names.

So Rahul, Please don't mind If the Youth doesn't Join Politics. We are doing our best to fund your Election Campaigns and your Chopper Trips to the Villages.

Somebody has to Earn the Money that Politicians Feed On.

INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS

You want to feel ashamed..

Feel Ashamed for what the First Family of Politics has been reduced to...

A Money Laundering Enterprise.

If MONEY is all the Motivation there is, You can Feel Ashamed for Sonia G's 'POVERTY of AMBITION'

You really want to feel Ashamed.

Feel Ashamed for what you ' SO CALLED GANDHI'S' have done to Mahatma's Legacy..

Meanwhile, I would request Sonia Gandhi to change her name to $ONIA GANDHI, and you could replace the 'R' in RAHUL/RAUL by the New Rupee Symbol!!!

RAUL VINCI: I am ashamed to call myself an Indian.

Even we are ashamed to call you so!

P.S: Popular Media is either bought or blackmailed, controlled to Manufacture Consent!

My Guess is Social Media is still a Democratic Platform.

Let's ask these questions, for we deserve some Answers.

For we are all Gandhi's. For he is the Father of the Nation.

To know more, try looking for Dr. SUBRAMANIYAM SWAMI. He is the reason today 2G SCAM is being Investigated!!!

YOURS SINCERELY

NITIN GUPTA (RIVALDO)

***
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Of Cricket, Farmers and Fashion

VMWare and Mother's Day

2011-05-15T21:43:00.000+05:30

Swami Nikhilaananda said:

"*face-palm*"

This is a mail I got from VMWare - Mother's Day Savings....... for VMWare workstation. Blah! What the hell does Mother's Day and VMWare Workstation have to do with each other? These days I am noticing people string a whole lot of crap together for the heck of it. I have highlighted the two ridiculous things I found in this image with red rectangles and that is not part of the ad :P

Running Marathons For A Cause - Useless!

2011-05-13T22:13:00.000+05:30

Baba Gyani Triviani said:

"Why run when you can do better"

A lot of people run marathons for a cause. I frankly don't know why...

So what's the deal with that anyway?

Here's an example of one. Some organisers decide to organise an event where people of various streams can come together and participate in the race. They say that the money that you pay for registration goes towards various NGOs. One marathon that I recently happened to stumble upon even went on to say that all kinds of people, old grandparents to young children, physically challenged can also participate in it. And the distance that these people have to go is 4 kms!!! Seriously? I am really curious to see how many people are going to roll 4 kms... Even Senior Citizens. Wow! I am not saying it is impossible, but anyway that is not what I am here to talk about.

Not all money goes towards charity...

Interestingly, not all of the money goes towards charity. Some of that might go to winners while some might go for organising... and the rest goes towards NGOs. So basically not ALL the money goes towards NGOs. Ok, that's also fine...

NGOs are known to siphon money off?

Now for the money that goes to the NGOs, how much of it is really utilised? There was an article recently in the newspaper as well as in other places about something that was already well known - What is it? It says that these NGOs that are created to resolve problems by collecting money from people themselves siphon off the money and most of the times never reaches the people who need it. Hey, wait a minute, sounds like our politicians... And apparently many NGOs are fronts for money laundering!

Why so many NGOs for same causes?

If you go around and see, you will see that there several 'duplicate entries' of NGOs, in the sense that hundreds of NGOs are fighting for the same cause in the same location... Isn't that strange? Isn't it better to unite all these NGOs into one unit, have these NGOs as departments for administration and then divide and allocate funds evenly across - The way in which each department may want to execute it might differ, thus departments to avoid conflicts, but hell, in the end, you are all fighting for the same cause... What's the point of having several different individual units? We have seen collaboration is always better than running individually. You can also have a greater clout in making the government change incorrect policies because of sheer numbers that you have.

So wait Gyani, what are you proposing then?

What I am proposing is that NGOs of similar types should unite and collect money and share money together - as mentioned above.

Do something more useful and creative

Secondly, stop organising candle light marches and races for every damn thing. Too cliched! Do something more creative and useful... Why don't you get people to do stuff like plant a sapling/tree each. After all, you expect people to participate for donating and not for their return of investment. Moreover, people running around is going to earn us nothing (maybe the fat ones will lose few calories but make it up quite soon anyway) but the rest will have sore feet. This way, you are helping the environment a lot and making the places cooler, repairing damange by Bangalore Metro.

Make NGOs become more transparent.

In this era of technology, how difficult is it for NGOs to make things more transparent? Why can't a system be designed where every time someone contributes, and money is taken out, it gets listed in public domain? The transfer of money needs to be done such that it is instantly reflected. That way, we will know where each rupee goes, just like our bank account via netbanking where we see every single transaction. Clicking on a link can show us more details - come on, this is not at all difficult - pay me a thousand bucks and I will design it for you :P

Do things yourself

And it is better that you do some charity yourself, rather than relying on someone else... I know I told you that you can harness the power of unity and collaboration earlier, but doing things yourself has two advantages - One, you will know the ground reality yourself, and two, you will know exactly how your money is utilised because you are doing it. The benefits of doing something and getting satisfied is much better because the joy is felt directly and is more personal as against behaving like a corporation and being faceless. Be more personally involved. Giving money isn't the end of the problems - seeing to it that it is utilised and ridding ourselves of problems is.

Agree or Disagree? Share your views

If you disagree with me, share your thoughts, and if you agree with me, share the note so that we avoid people commiting mistakes

*****

Comments from Facebook

Ramesh Radhakrishna: Running marathons for fighting obesity in which all the participants are obese is fine man ... :-P

Nikhil Baliga: There's an Artistick cartoon on that - created one year back

http://cartoonsbynikhilbaliga.blogspot.com/2010/05/marathon.html

Ramesh Radhakrishna: I remember that ... But, completely agree with you on running marathons ...

Dhanabal Lingasamy: yeah...when you do anything charitable, doing that yourself is the best way..but there sure are some good NGO's which are not corrupt

Ramesh Radhakrishna: dhanno ... so u want to run alone for charity ??

Ashrith Rao: There is a lot of bad Cholesterol in this world dude..Not a bad cause for a cause,..It is better than fasting for a cause anyway!! :)

Deepthi Shetty: ‎:) I think you got it wrong. It's not running for ONLY a cause. It's first running. Running for fun, maybe. It feels good when you see people from all walks of life taking part. The crowd n the feel of it is different!

Now the good part is, they (referring to the B'lore World 10k) are giving some amount off as charity too. So you don't really have to pooh-pooh it.

Coming to your point:

1) "..And the distance that these people have to go is 4 kms!!! Seriously? I am really curious to see how many people are going to roll 4 kms... Even Senior Citizens. Wow! I am not saying it is impossible, but anyway that is not what I am here to talk about."

Oh great, you were NOT going to talk about it. I wonder why you even mentioned it..

2)"Not all money goes towards charity"

Well of course, a lot of work goes into organizing these stuff. There are people working for it. And they do a clean job out of it. Don't you think they deserve to be paid for it? So yes, the money goes for that. a very silly point.

3)"NGOs are known to siphon money off?"

Well, what do you think can be done? We can't be so paranoid in life. Why don't do a survey and get a list of 'clean' NGOs so that those are the ones to which the amount can go? Or wait, would the event organisers have done that? Damn, didn't think of that.

4)"Why so many NGOs for same causes?"

Why do we have so many software companies doing the same work? Why don't all the companies of the same domain unit into one big thing, so that we have all people working uniformly under the same rules? No right? It isn't possible. The end deliverable is the same, so it doesn't matter how it's done, as long as it's done.

5) "stop organising candle light marches and races for every damn thing"

Well you can say candle light marches is a way of people making a point to the government. And as i said running is not always for a cause.

6)"Make NGOs become more transparent."

you should perhaps move this into a different topic.

7) "Do things yourself"

How? How exactly? when you want to do something and do it sytematically so that it's stabel and works for a long time..you need more than yourself. You will need a group. When there are NGOs already present, why don;t you give them money instead. If you want to see the 'ground reality' you can spend a day or two with NGO and get a glimpse of their routine. So you know what exactly happens.

At the end of it, i think the point i gathered was you have some stigma attached to the word "NGO"! And hence this outrage?

Nikhil Baliga: Run around - nobody stops you. Like I said, my problem is with "Running FOR A CAUSE" :-) So your "giving some amount off as charity *too* " is incorrect, because if you are running for a cause, it is FOR THE CHARITY - which is the reason why people are running. The exercise and getting together is a side show. And I am not pooh-pooh ing it, I am questioning it. If your points are valid, I will spread the message and get more people to run :-) Trust me, I will...

However, your arguments are all flawed in the following manners respectively.

1) haha I mentioned it because I find it ridiculous. Period.

2) No comments - My statement is still correct. That's why I said at the end that *it is fine*.

3) We have to be paranoid. Unfortunately! And you know it is impossible to do a survey - A, because I am not sitting around twiddling my thumbs and B, because you don't know what happens within. It is like giving money to a guy who is a known drunk, because he is poor. So do you expect me to squander money on a poor man, thinking I am helping him and his poor family, when I *know* that he will waste it in drinking? Instead, I will do something that he can't use for drinking, like perhaps directly paying his daughter's fees in school. So, my point is to bypass agencies that are suspected of corruption. You can't not be paranoid when you pour out money, at least I am that type - and I call it careful, not paranoid. Which is why I direct my efforts through places where I see things happening myself.

Regarding organisers checking if things are clean, looks like you didn't read the document fully - They are saying that we can choose our own NGOs. Assume I start my own NGO (for siphoning out money) and ask my friends to run and get others to give my NGO as their chosen NGO, then I get money... What checking can you possibly do there? Besides, it is difficult to do monitoring if you don't have transparent systems - which also I had mentioned

4) You are totally off the mark here - a company and an NGO are not at all similar! A company is not sitting for social service - they are there for profit! This is like comparing apples and oranges. Now, companies coming together for same thing is also not good because by destroying competition, you are destroying quality. In NGOs, you don't have that - there is no competition, there is only a cause. Regarding creativity, that is why I said departments, so that people can continue to be creative in their own ways within the organisation...

5) No comment - These runs are called Run FOR A CAUSE. Otherwise it is Annual Sports Day.

6) This is very much relevant to the topic because of aforementioned reasons

7) Like I said before, you have two options - Be part of the system which is transparent and harness the power of collaboration, or do things on a much smaller scale. NGOs are not the only way to go ahead - especially if they are not fully transparent. I want to know where exactly how much money is going. I struggle to earn money and when I am giving it away just like that, I would like to see it being used properly. Ground reality is very important because of an experience I had recently, maybe another time. But what's more important is to be personally involved once in a while if you want to work individually or with friends. But for collaborative efforts, where money involved is huge, you need transparency. I am not saying huge systems are bad - in fact, I always advocated systems, but transparent ones.

At the end of it, the point you gathered is incorrect. I advocate transparent collaborative systems - not hype

Dhanabal Lingasamy: hey..gymmy.. i would seriously prefer spend my energy in some useful instead of running for cause and routing the money through NGO..if you really want to help..its not necessarily to be through some NGO's

Susheela Sadashivaiah: @‎Nikhil Baliga actually running a marathon is not doing harm to ne1 rite..ppl who r participating in it are willingly participating, maybe friends will get together , run(good for health also!) , have a nice time...and ofcourse the charity, it may not be the best way to donate...still it is def not a bad or harmful way also.. :) even we dont go...just let it be!

Nikhil Baliga: It is not bad or harmful - But instead of diverting a fraction of funds towards award winners of race and organising, you could have saved that much :-)

Like I said, run if you want to - Post stuff on Facebook, rally all your friends and run - You don't have to necessarily club it with causes all the time. That's not my point anyway. My point is transparency in NGOs and more work and less talk. I just don't like things that get hyped and show no results in the end

Susheela Sadashivaiah: not that we really know if there is no work going on in NGOs..there are many NGOs that are doing good work....der is good and bad in evrything..u def knw dat...likewise in NGOs too na...

guess if u luk at the no. of ppl turning out for the event..the prize money is very less compared to donation...it will def help some ppl :)

Nikhil Baliga: @‎Susheela Sadashivaiah - :) I can let things be... However, my blog's description is as follows...

I basically use this blog to maintain a log of things that happen around me and some of my views (generally related to things that happen) - and I try to lay them out in a logical fashion...I don't intend to offend anyone. However, if you feel that you don't agree with any of my entries, please feel free to post a comment.

Read crazy stories, great preachings of the wise Swami Gulagulaananda and *a whole lot of random bashings of random entities*.....

Things that you will stumble across could range from philosophy through geek stuff, from support to the under dog *to blatant stone pelting to the kings*, .....

So I consider it my right to challenge things like these :D I am not saying DON'T DO it. I am asking WHY ARE YOU DOING IT

When we identify the good and bad, it is more efficient. You are again making the same point as Deeps did above. It is more efficient for me to channelise efforts towards *known* clean entities rather than *hoping* it is clean

Susheela Sadashivaiah: @‎Nikhil Baliga yes baba :) u r also asking to share our thoughts..so did...and for knowing clean entities...agreed its always good to know.. but wen u really cannot know...sometimes its good to hope too :)

Nikhil Baliga: @‎Susheela Sadashivaiah - Which part did you disagree with? Are you saying NGOs should not be more transparent than they are and we should be OK with the current state? Or are you saying we should just give money to some NGO that is asking for money because they claim that they are doing some good? Is it better to hope that they are good or is it better to compel and force them to be good through measures of transparency? Isn't that what we want with governments too? Isn't that what we were arguing with RTI and Lokpal? Why not the same with NGOs?

:-) No no, I am not shouting, don't get me wrong hehe :) I just talk like that :P So, still, views are needed, because I get to see others' angles too

Susheela Sadashivaiah: @‎Nikhil Baliga ok Sir! :) i'm just saying ....

1. events like these marathon runs r not useless :)

other Qs....null and void.. i agree with u.....

2. Hoping that a large organization that conducts the event , donates the money to NGO knows that it is doing good work and then giving coz everytime..we cant check evrything..apart from doing something in oder NGOs we knw r doing good work...this may be 1 place ..wen u feel ok..let me go for the run..it will be fun..at the same time i hope they r giving it to a good organization...dats all!

Aditya Padaki: Well, according to me, most of the marathons or candle light assembling is done to create awareness more than anything else. If it creates awareness in a few hundred people and even five or ten of them start working towards it seriously (coz of the awareness s/he got from it), I guess the job of the marathon/gathering is done. There are very few other ways (than public gatherings) without involving heavy money to create awareness among masses.

Reg. uniting all the NGOs for same cause, it may not be a very good idea. Each organisation has its own way of functioning and principles. Nikhil Baliga's NGO does not believe in organising public gatherings where as some other one believes in it (This is just an e.g :P. Extend it to thousands of other things). Should both the organisations unite, there will be heavy differences of opinion. This will only reduce the overall throughput. Rather than uniting, let the organiations individually perform however to the best of their ability. The end result will be more effective this way. :)

Nikhil Baliga: Hahaha I was hoping someone would bring up awareness :-) I'm glad I wasn't disappointed. Tell me, what awareness? The fact that people are poor, uneducated or disabled is very well known. The fact that NGOs exist for that is very well known, and the means of locating NGOs is a matter of minutes with development of search engines. Mind you, the people who are running these marathons are not slum dwellers or ignoramuses - They are very much computer literate and tech savvy, if not programmers! So what awareness? Awareness that we've to donate? Awareness doesn't come into the picture.

Regarding conflicts, I've repeatedly mentioned that departments function independently - so the NGOs continue to work like before and don't get interference in internal management from others - like I said, creativity or anything else for that matter is not hindered. There won't be conflicts and debates. But they have added benefits of collaboration, filling of shortage of volunteers - one dept can loan out to another, fund raising and sharing, greater value and clout because of sheer size, better networking, more inputs - It has all the benefits of co-operative working...

Samsung Galaxy 3 + Froyo + Root + Swype = Awesome

2011-05-10T15:13:00.000+05:30

Samsung Galaxy 3 + Froyo + Root + Swype = Awesome
First of all, you can read a little about Samsung Galaxy 3 here in a review I had written earlier.

Ok, so one of the main problems that I had with my Samsung Galaxy 3 was that it was running on Eclair (Android 2.1) and apparently apps can only be installed on the phone memory which is quite limited. So, I was desperate to move to Froyo (Android 2.2)

Now, the advantages of moving to Froyo were several, and with Google rapidly upgrading Android, I found that it was not possible to upgrade your phone if your phone maker is not supporting the upgrade. Of course, it was possible with some hacks and modding, but that is different... Moreover, I didn't want to risk bricking my phone (I have done a whole lot of modding and even bricked and recovered my Motorola L9, so it is not like I am scared :P) but still...

And then finally Samsung released Froyo for Samsung Galaxy 3 officially. So, all I had to do was download the latest version of Kies and plug in my phone, and *boom* that's it. Interestingly, the version of Kies that had come along with my phone couldn't find the upgrade and that was saying that it was the latest version of Kies. But the one that I downloaded was an altogether different looking application and it immediately said that there was a firmware upgrade available.

After getting the new Froyo on my phone, I started looking around for some differences - the differences are fairly obvious in some cases, like new apps, settings pages are coloured and others are slightly subtle like increased battery life and increased speed (apparently). You can see the list of changes and upgrades in any website.

Swype was gone!
However one major change, that was not needed was the loss of Swype. Swype is an awesome keyboard where we can quickly type without lifting fingers and tapping on each letter. You can read a little more in that review page. Now, one of the main reasons I had picked Samsung over other phones was the fact that it came with Swype. Typing character by character is really slow on touch screens, and with speed you are prone to make errors. Then on searching, I found that many had the same problem, and I found that you could reinstall Swype.

Proceeded to reinstall Swype
So apparently Swype team have released a beta version of Swype online, and all I need to do is uninstall my current version of Swype and install the new one. Sounds simple, right? But it is not. Well, anyway, going by the steps, all you need to do is go to the Swype Beta website, and register - They will send you a link. Now you have to open your mail inbox with your phone, and click on the link, authenticate yourself and then they will provide you with a download - run the downloaded .apk file and you are done...

As simple as it sounds, it was not because uninstalling Swype was not possible, and the new one could not install because the old one was still installed. The uninstall button of Swype in Manage Applications menu was greyed out. So what to do? I downloaded an app called "Uninstaller for Root" which can remove even System apps. But then I realised that I have to have the device in Root mode which is equivalent to Jailbreaking of iPod.

Proceeded to root my device
To get to the root mode, I first tried an app called z4root but then that said it did a lot of things, but didn't do a thing. So, finally the app that worked was SuperOneClick. How to use it? Just download the program - Prerequisites for this are that you have to have a Windows machine, and you have to have the Android SDK installed. These two should suffice I guess but in case you run into trouble you can find other steps to resolve it.

When I tried it on a machine (Windows XP without SDK) it didn't work - I had the SDK on Windows 7 and there it worked. So I guess it is the SDK that was different and also the presence of all the drivers that you can download in worst case... Then just turn on USB debugging option from the settings, unmount your memory card, power down your phone, plug it to the USB cable, run the SuperOneClick app, click on Root button, and power up the device. As the name says it is just one click and it is super. Your device will get rooted, just like mine did. You can read other pages for advanced details.

Proceeded to run Uninstaller For Root
Thereafter it was simple. I gave this app the option to run as Super User, ran it, removed Swype, then used Swype installer to install it - Simple... Now I have a Samsung Galaxy 3 with Froyo, root and Swype. Now I can install some cool apps that I am researching on. Stay tuned :)

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A Day Of Technology

2011-05-08T23:05:00.000+05:30

Swami Nikhilaananda said:

"Applied Technology is my favourite"

Today was an interesting day because it started with me realising that Vodafone screwed with my GPRS settings and I was not able to shut net off and apps on my phone were downloading and refreshing and updating all night resulting in a lot of currency going *poof*. So I decided to go for a great plan that they offer, with 2GB download for Rs. 95.

My tryst with technology

Yeah, I knew most of these things before - but to actually use them together was great fun. I normally used wi-fi with my phone. But today I went full on with GPRS.

I was chatting with two friends - Pavan and Narayan from my phone, when Narayan told me he was traveling. He was using Google Chat from his phone. So I asked him to turn on Google Latitude. Once he did that, I could see where he was on my phone. With a simple touch, I could also get a route - following which I could go meet him. I could see Pavan was lazing in his house.

The next app I decided to use was Layar, and the Google Local Search with it. I searched for Petrol Bunks and ATMs and restaurants and hospitals separately. The list appeared, and my phone camera was turned on. All I did was keep my phone horizontal and I could see the restaurants pop up on my phone when my phone was directly pointing in that direction. I could see the name and distance. Touching the pins gave me more details, with map and reviews - including showing the ratings that I had given earlier.

With Navigation and GPS, I am never lost - and it is phenomenal - the uses of this. In case of an emergency, I know where the nearest hospital is. If I am hungry I can search for restaurants around me. And if I am new to a place, I can search for places nearby with Google Places or Layar's awesome layers.

Instead of conventional messaging and calling, I can now chat and make VoIP calls. I can click on my friends' names, and call, message, chat, VoIP, mail or see their current location!

Own an Android or an iPhone. If you own anything else, you are probably outdated :-)

Chronicles of Nikhil Baliga

Modern Vikram Betal story

My wish, my will

Support your supporters

Expectations and Choices

Viber

Slut Walk

Inefficient people and broken chains

Students and Suicide

Of leaders, greatness and belittlement

Trusting a stranger

Life - A weird journey

Switch To Dvorak

Der Underdog

Ethics

Relationships - Strength or weakness?

God, fate and destiny - A proof?

The Black Cauldron

Conviction and Promise

Steve Jobs and a million people

200th Post - Milestone!

Screwing with people with factual statements

VTU Transcripts Procedure

Ruby Postgres script

Installing Gnome3 and a couple of tweaks

The Feedback system

Environment and effects

Yes Man

The Smitten Kitten

Causes and Effects

Analysis: How to wipe out Islamic terror

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Annoying Collaborators

Situation, Perception and Reaction

Terrorists hit Mumbai. So?

Homosexuality - It's a queer topic

An Appeal to Govt of Andhra Pradesh Petition

Google+ : A quick review

Half knowledge, science and atheism

Karna teaches us Charity

Jolicloud Web OS - A review

Try Chrome OS

Evangelism with lure of money

An initiative to help children

Girls are.... funny!

Akshaya Patra Scheme - Awesome!

Time Travel - A discussion

Petrol and Diesel prices - Graph

Access Android wirelessly without USB

SSH - Android and Linux

Of cricket, farmers and fashion

THE CURIOUS CASE OF RAHUL GANDHI - Nitin Gupta(Rivaldo)

VMWare and Mother's Day

Running Marathons For A Cause - Useless!

Samsung Galaxy 3 + Froyo + Root + Swype = Awesome

A Day Of Technology

Analysis: How to wipe out Islamic terror
Subramanian Swamy | Saturday, July 16, 2011