Dowry dilemma

Dowry is an evil still prevalent in Indian society. It is still common in most of the communities but some of the communities are especially notorious for this practice.

I would like to give an example. Funny but sad........last year one of our family friends were looking for a bride for their young, handsome engineer boy who is well settled in Canada. They belong to a specific community of India, in which dowry is even more vital than oxygen! But the parents of this boy were reluctant to take any dowry, as their son in law refused to take any while asking for their daughter's hand. So the parents were kind of thankful and hence they didn't want to take any dowry for their own son too.

Anyway, last week after a year the parents met us again. We asked for any progress about their son's wedding. Sadly they said, they are finding it very difficult to get a good bride for their son now. They said since they don't want any dowry, so the girl's family would suspect that there must be something wrong with the boy. On top of that some of the family 'friends' would brainwash the girl's father with words like “ You know, the boy is living alone in Canada....and they are not asking for any dowry.....There has to be something wrong with the boy. He must be in some bad company or he must be having some bad habits. Otherwise how is it possible that an engineer boy in our community is not asking for any dowry??”

Sad to say, but now they are not getting a bride because they don't want to take dowry!!

Better half gamers

I love video-games. I love games so much, that sometimes it can be labeled as an 'addiction' for me. That is why most of the time I avoid playing games, because I know once I am into it, then nothing could help me. :)

Anyway, recently I was little free from my mundane life and I started playing an on-line game on PS3. This game is called lost planet, which is kind of interactive war-game with other players who are on-line at the same time. This game is fast, hardcore and violent. The game also provides voice-chat facility with which players can speak to each other and discuss strategy.

To my surprise, when I started playing this game for the first time, I noticed that I am listening 'female' voices amongst rest of the other players.......What? How could a female be playing a hardcore fighting game like this? Games like these are meant for guys only, who seek adventure out of violence? Females are too genteel to play games like this? But gradually in next few days I noticed that females contribute a good chunk of these war-game players, and they enjoy violence and killing to the same extent the guys do. Surprisingly they are too good in these games. I have noticed female gamers are mostly from USA, UK and Japan. They are hardcore gamers as they experience immense pleasure whenever they defeat someone in the game. They discuss strategy and make many comments out of joy like “ I love kicking this guy's a**.......whoa, I just ripped his b**ty” :p

Later I did some research and found this jaw-dropping data that 40% gamers are women!! Please follow the link of entertainment software association survey data.

You can also download the 2008 survey result as .pdf file format from that page to have a better understanding of the data.

So here are some final conclusions.....

1.Everybody likes games. Gender has no role in that.
2.Only males don't have fancy for violence. Females too derive adrenalin out of that.
3.If you are a male and you think that you are a hardcore gamer and no one can defeat you......think again!! :)

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