Power of innocence

This is winter. I see lots of stray puppies here and there. Today I went to see a movie, and I was deeply absorbed talking to my friends in the theater premises. Something touched my ankle and out of reflux I jumped and then tried to see what touched me? It was a small newborn puppy! So innocent and adorable was he, that all my anger and apprehension vanished in seconds. He was still moving around my legs and squeaking as if he doesn't fear me at all. All my emotions transformed into love and care for him and I simply hushed to keep him away.

I realized he was physically vulnerable. He can't protect himself, yet nothing harms him. This is sheer power of innocence.

Why nature created all the newborns so helpless, vulnerable and adorable? All the newborns stretched on this planet follow the same pattern. Isn't it interesting? Even if this has developed due to “Natural selection”, then what is the reason behind that? Does this give better protection to newborns? Why newborns are so helpless and dependent on others?

I am not reaching for any conclusion or giving any theory, all I know is that since that puppy was helpless and innocent, it gave him better chances to survive.

Paradoxically sometimes submission is the best defense :)

Sniffing glue

We have shifted to a new house 6 months back. I was out of my home during this shifting process, and last month itself I came back to visit my home.

The new home is in a less populated area of my city, and in the backside of my house, there is a huge barren ground, eventually used for dumping garbage.

Yesterday evening I was at the rooftop of my house and looking towards the ground with no purpose. I saw a young boy of 5-6 year old, was picking polythene bags from garbage heaps. He was accompanied by another young girl who was around 4-5 year old, and she too was picking polythene bags. After 10 minutes the boy took a small dirty piece of cloth, and emptied a tube of a glue (perhaps quickfix/bonefix) on it. He smeared the glue well on the whole cloth, and then rubbed it vigorously. Then he folded the cloth in form of a small ball, put it on his open mouth, and started pulling hard. After some time, the young girl took the cloth-ball from his hand, and she too started pulling. At first I couldn't understand what was happening, then all of sudden I realized “Oh my God! They are sniffing glue!!”

I had read about glue sniffing before but it was the first time I was witnessing someone doing that. After I realized that those kids were sniffing glue, I was shocked and upset. Great turmoil started in my mind. I was socked because those kids were really very small. I was upset because it was the first time I saw someone doing that, and I didn't know what to do about that?

Later I talked to my mother about the incident. She told me that this is very common in this place. Many a times story about this published in local newspapers, but nothing done afterwards.

This is something very sad that children at this tender age are getting addicted to glue sniffing. They don't even know what they are doing and before they know something, it's too late for them........ Poverty is like black-hole. It brings lots of associated problems like this and it's really hard to break this cycle of poverty. I wish those children were not born in a poor family. I wish if they were going school instead of picking polythene bags from garbage...Lord! please help my country....Lord! please help these children!

Electronic ego

Gradually we are heading towards such an era, where people will entirely be depended on internet for their social life and communication. Hectic work, busy schedule, high goals, pressure for social status and money, all these factor will make a human to have less time to interact directly with friends and family, and so he will tend to use indirect electronic methods more for the purpose of communication.
We are almost there. Look closely around yourself. Family, friends and your loved ones are all living thousands miles apart. You are using e-mails, messengers and social networking sites like Orkut, Facebook, Hi5, Myspace and many like that, to be in touch with your family and friends. Now you even don't find time to 'chat' online, instead you prefer to leave offlines, scrap, or just write a short e-mail.
Problem arises, when you confuse these electronic mode of communications with real face to face interactions. Human face can express millions of emotions precisely, while an offline message can hardly evince any. We are gradually accepting a method of communication, where we are giving less acknowledgment to emotions. Unfortunately human ego couldn't adjust rapidly with the pace of growing technology, and hence sometimes it gets confused.
I am giving some examples. I have a good friend of mine, who of course lives thousands mile apart from the place where I live. Mostly I communicate with her by offline messages on messenger. I sent her few offlines. There was no reply. After few days, I left another batch of offlines, again no reply. Now the third time I sent few more offlines (expressing my resentment for this ignorance) and to my surprise, again no reply. Now my ego came into play. How dare she could ignore and insult me like this? As if I am very free, and she is busy like a president? Now onwards, I am not going to ask about her well being, until she first sends me mail or message. That's it!.......After few days, I was online on a messenger, and she too came online. I saw her, and purposefully ignored her, and didn't send any message first. She messaged me asking my well being, and also complaining why didn't I respond to her previous offlines?......What?? This was the question what I was supposed to ask, instead she is shooting it on me?? So we talked on the issue, and later we both figured out that somehow the offlines didn't deliver because of some internet problem. So the moral of this anecdote is, we should not rely too much on these electronic mediums. At least don't let your ego to generate on the soil of these electronic misunderstandings. I was at the verge of losing a good friend for nothing, so could any one.

But again, we can't avoid these technologies. It's kind of essential evil. What we can do is to avoid our emotions to take over the situation. Here are some suggestions:-

1. Messenger offlines are not perfect: From my experience, I can assert that messengers are not perfect. You certainly might miss offlines. What you can do is to increase your tolerance limit a bit higher. Where you feel that you should be mad after 3 incidents of ignorance, raise it to 10. Even after 10 ignorance, if someone doesn't respond to you, might be he/she is not able to check offlines. Give him a call instead.
2. Onlines are not always online: Sometimes we see that our friends are online, we send messages, and no response. It hurts a bit. We should remember that sometimes people are in such a situation, where they can't message. Probably they are in office or in some other work place. Sometimes we think that we have logged off, while actually we forget to do so. Again our friends can see us as online, while we are enjoying dinner with girlfriend. :)
3. Look carefully before deleting junk mails: Yes, it's true that sometimes your friend's mail can be shrunk amongst those 50 other Viagra selling, lottery winning, and perfect match finding e-mails. So before deleting them, please have a gander on heading, to check if any one of your friend's name is there. If you are deleting them blindly, then probably you are ending up having a friend who thinks that you are ignoring him.
4. Forwarding a mail doesn't cost you a penny: Sometimes there is one of your old school pal, who somehow doesn't mail you anymore. It's OK, he could be too busy in his life. Probably he wants to ignore you as well, but sending him a forwarded mail, with 25 other recipients doesn't hurt you much, right? So go ahead, and let him remember that there is one obstinate person in this world, who doesn't forget him under any circumstances. If he hates you, then these forwarded mails are perfect revenge too. ;)

Remember, technology can never replace human emotions. An 'emoticon' can show that you are smiling, but it can never show if your smile is about love, pain, sarcasm, bliss, satisfaction, pride, gratitude or million other reasons. Life is a beautiful journey, and friends are excellent companions.......Don't let them lose because of filthy ego. :)

Chand Baori

This is Chand Baori, a step well situated in Abhaneri, near Jaipur, India. This is claimed to be one of the largest and deepest step well in India. This step well has approximately 3500 steps.
The water is not suitable to drink anymore, but this is a great example of old Indian architecture and engineering.

To see more photos of Chand Baori, click here.

Stupidity

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I am not sure about the former."




- Albert Einstein

Made in China

I was wandering in a huge supermarket in USA (Costco).......We usually tend to have a look on the various products, and move ahead..........I don't know what struck into my mind, I thought let's see what country these products are made in??..........To my surprise, almost 99% of the products were made in China! You name any product, from buttons to 72” LCD Television, everything was made in China....Bicycle, pen, candles, clothes, CDs, dolls and whatever you can imagine, all made in China....Oh my God, this Play Station 3, a sophisticated and expensive machine.........What? This too made in China?.............To my greatest surprise, I bought a small statue of Lord Ganesha from home improvement section, which was all perfect in face, shape, size, fine detailing on 'Laddu' and the 'Mouse', even the left tusk was half 'broken'........That has to be made in India, there is no way one could match this perfection other than an Indian..........I can bet 100$ bill, that it is made in India.........Let's see?........I looked at the bottom of the statue and I was almost dead for what I saw...................Made in China!!!

How, why and when did this happen?? What is it with China, that others can't match? Why these products were not made in USA, Canada, England, Germany, Australia or India?? What is so special about China?? If it is price, why can't we Indians match that? If it is quality, why can't these developed nations beat that??

USA is a consumer's market........People love to buy buy and more buy....They love to buy so much, that their garage is full of their stuffs.........Now even a new trend has begun, they are renting spaces to store their goods. In a consumer's market like this, the giant companies like Walmart, Costco, Bestbuy, Target, K-mart........and many more, they all want to cater their customers. They must deliver cheap, they must deliver quality.....How could they accomplish these tough challenges? No way this could be done in USA. Here even a floor cleaner would charge more than 2000$ per month, which makes it impossible for them to cut the prices. So they started looking towards China, and China successfully delivered what they were looking for.

I am an Indian, and fortunately this ravenous trend of looking for cheap products couldn't succeed in my country. Few years back, there was flood of Chinese products in India too........bicycle, crackers, plastic goods and things like that........Some how (and for which I feel proud upon India and Indians), we don't want cheap products. These Chinese markets were a big fiasco in India. Whenever a consumer learns that this product is made in China, he prefers to dump it. India is a developing country, where people always want to buy things which could cost less, but still this “made in China virus” was not successful in India.

Thankfully in India we don't see made in China goods more often than USA. But now the next level question, why we Indians can't make products better and cheaper than China? When I wander in some USA market, why don't I see made in India goods?? Where we are lagging? This question is really grave, when I consider my nation's economy. We must find a solution for this. We got everything, resources, good technology, skilled workers, business education, and strong economy. We need to find a way to beat this market. We need to 'work' upon this challenge, where China is capturing all the developed nations market. I am sure, that if we work upon this issue, then we can beat this. All what is required, is some planing and reforms in business sector. And I am cocksure, we Indians are going to do that in near future.

Hypothetical Epilogue: I am walking in a supermarket in Beijing. Thought let's buy some instant noodles for tomorrow's breakfast. I pay in the cash counter, and without any intention, had a gander on the back side of the pack...It made me happy and my noodle even more tastier......it was written “Made in India” :)

Raj thackeray: A Hero

Mrs. Jaya Bacchan wrongly said, “ I don't know who is Raj Thackeray? “ Now everybody can agree upon one issue is that Mr. Raj Thackeray is not 'unknown' at least. Some might label it as 'notorious' and not 'famous', still now he is not 'unknown'.

It is a different issue that how he became 'known' to all. So what if he addresses North-Indians as foreigners? So what if his men brutally beaten up innocent people from North-India and forced them and their families to move out of the divine land Maharashtra? After all they were illegal Indian immigrants, and they didn't have visa/stay-permit to stay in his 'country', Maharashtra?? So what if he became a little ungrateful to those people, who contributed a great deal in Maharashtra's economy? So what if he forgets the fundamental rights of Indian citizens? We too don't remember everything that we read in our childhood??! So what if he forgets that Maharashtra is somewhere within India, and integrity is our pride. After all everybody doesn't have strong geography? So what if he urges North Indians to quit Maharashtra, but on same moral grounds forgets to call back all the Marathi speaking people from rest of the country? A little bit of memory lapse is acceptable everywhere, isn't it?

Look at the rest of the countrymen, who are living with each other peacefully. What a mob of fools! Look at 'Kolkata', where North Indians are more abundant than natives, and still they are living with harmony without any hush. These kolkata natives are bunch of morons, that's why this idea of bigotry didn't strike into their mind! The same is with rest of the country. It is Mr. Raj Thackeray's prudent futuristic vision, that he first implemented this outstanding concept.

Recently some actors from Bollywood also joined Mr. Raj Thackeray's camp. Say for example the great actor Mr. Nana Patekar. He says that Marathi is his pride, and Maharashtra is for Marathi speaking natives. I guess he forgot, that whatever name and bread n butter he has today, is because of 'Hindi' cinena and not 'Marathi'. Whatever you say, he is patriot though. During 'Kargil' war, he took his gun and jumped into border to quench his thirst of lunacy. That's a different issue, that some 50 soldiers were appointed to protect him, as he is a celebrity. I guess those bodyguard soldiers were not from some “Maharashtra regiment”.

Doesn't matter whatever the world says to Mr. Raj Thackeray for his heinous and inhuman deeds, he really did some heroic job. Who has courage to welcome all the slandering remarks from world, just to become 'known'? Who has courage to accept himself called as traitor of the country, a demon, a shame, an inhuman devil and things like that? He is bearing so much burden just for the price of few votes, isn't it bravery? Isn't it heroic?........Yes, Mr. Raj Thackeray, you are indeed a hero.