Neo Valentine Saga

In spite of what you have been told by everyone, the truth is that Valentine’s day originated hundreds of years ago in India and to top it all in Gujarat!
Gujarati men, especially the Patels, continually mistreated and disrespected their wives (Patelianis). One fine day, it happened to be February 14th, one brave Pateliani, having had her enough ‘torture’ from her husband, finally chose to rebel by beating him up with a ‘velan’ (rolling pin). Yes, the same velan which she used daily to make chapattis for him – only this time, instead of the dough, it was the husband who was flattened. This was a momentous occasion for all Gujarati women. A revolt soon spread like wild fire, with thousands of housewives beating up their husbands with their velans.
There was an outburst of moaning by ‘chapatti-ed’ husbands all over Anand and Ahemadabad. The Patel menfolk quickly learnt their lesson and started behaving respectfully with their Patelianis. Thereafter, on February 14th every year, the women of Gujarat would ceremoniously beat up their husbands to commemorate that eventful day. Soon the Gujarati men realized that in order to avoid this ordeal they needed to present gifts to their wives…… and so they brought flowers and sweetmeats. Hence the tradition began.
As Gujarat fell under the influence of Western Culture, that day was called ‘Velan-tine Day’. The ritual soon spread to Britain and many other Western countries, specifically the catchwords “Velantine”. Of course in their foreign tongues, it was first anglicized to ‘Valentine’. And there after, February 14th came to be known as “Valentine’s Day” !

-Take this post with a pinch of salt and an ounce of humor, this is not meant to hurt communal feelings.

When Kids "take over"

I read this post at Mr Rajiv Chakravarty's blog which is about green revolution and clean energy. This is an example as to how a child is the father of man-

All this while I have been writing about trees and green things. Today, I am spell-bound to know that a six year old has done a great thing. Here is an email that was received by Janet's Trees for Free foundation. Friends, if it has touched your heart, join hands with Janet or maybe some other organization for planting trees. Its the need of the hour.

Dear tree planters,

Our daughter, Maaike, just had her 6th birthday party. At her party, she asked friends not to give gifts, but to make donations to their choice of 2 charities. One was an orphanage, the other was planting trees in Bangalore. She has been talking about how to stop pollution in Bangalore. This seemed to me to be something concrete that she could do safely. (She talks about going out and picking up garbage.)

She has raised just about 3500 rupees for planting trees and would like to plant some trees now. We live in Whitefield, so, planting somewhere out here would be easier for us. We have some friends who volunteer at a government school nearby teaching english. That might be a good location for planting. Another idea is that the orphanage that we hope to identify this week might have some need of trees.

Do you know of any good sites in the Whitefield area? How do we proceed with you to organize a planting? We can organize some of her friends and their parents to help.

If a six-year old can think of this I think all of us can think better. Unfortunately I dont have a photograph of this little girl! Anyways, all the best!!

Smile Please

Smile Please. No, I am not going to take a picture of yours but you have not smiled for a while-or have you? Maybe yes, but not in reality, maybe virtually, maybe synthetically, maybe …….
Well, in today’s world, internet, civilization and globalization has given rise to different types of smile. But amidst this sophisticated jungle, man has forgotten the basic instinct that made the animal kingdom jubilant- the expression of happiness, love and gratitude, not the artificial forms, but from your inner heart.
Internet users, who form nearly 57% of world’s population, have invented a new form this expression (smile), they write LOL, i.e., “laugh out loud”, but tell me, do you(even you are one of this species) actually laugh out loud when you read something absolutely hilarious in the chats and respond it with a smiley or simply write LOL. They write ROFL, i.e., rolling on the floor with laughter, but do they actually do that, and even if someone starts doing it, he would be prescribed a medical treatment at a mental sanatorium.
But why is it so? Why can’t we actually express what we actually feel, why can’t we laugh out loud, why can’t we roll on the floor with laughter. It is not that we have never done these in our lives, we did all this when we were kids, rather toddlers, then why not now? What restricts us? Is it the society, the world we live in, which marginalizes our lives into bound rules as we grow up. But why it does so? Aren’t the world leaders trying to bring peace by bringing together people and solving grave issues in friendly terms, with a smile-they say. But where is the smile?
It is lost into oblivion. When was the last time you really had a hearty laugh? For most of us, the recent memory of such a situation might be some months old, if not years.
Today, we have laughing clubs, where people laugh without reason, is it laugh? Yet people attend those clubs, because they say laughter is contagious and it is good for health. Of course it is. So why not inculcate it in our lives, in real situations rather than using its artificial forms unrealistic forms. Each one of us have at least one such situation in our daily life which can bring a smile on our face, but in our fast moving lives we tend to ignore such small moments. Let’s not do that and smile at least once in a day. I think (for most of the people) that can keep the doctor away .

Glorious Namesake

Recently I met one of my old friends from school. We had the usual exchange of info as to who is doing what etc etc. When I asked him what he is doing nowadays, his reply was ,”Oh, I am into a very important job.”
“Oh, is it? What job?”
“I work as a senior graphical content representation editor for a reputed magazine.”
“What is this ‘graphical content representation editor’, I mean what work you have to do?”
“You see, I cut, paste, arrange and try my best to make the crap written by those paltry reporters viewable.”
“You mean, you edit the headline stories and news reports?”
“No, no, the lexical editing, I mean the content editing is done by the chief editor and his assistants. I make the articles sizeable, attach them with the photos and put them on a magazine size paper and make it print ready. Did you get that? Leave it. Log heads like you won’t get.”
Well, well, if he would have said it in a simple language that he is a cut and paste DTP artist with a news magazine, there won’t be any difficulty in actually getting what his profession is. But in a bid to make his profession look more important he stated it in the most audacious jargon.
Whatever work we do is important (atleast for the worker). But to make it further sophisticated, people like my friend adopt long nomenclatures for their profession. For instance, the grocery shopkeeper, just imagine, to follow the same track as my friend’s, starts calling himself as Consumable Disburse System Manager!!!! Ridiculous it might sound, but he is not lying about his profession. Similarly the sweeper as ‘garbage collector’(some java programmers might wake up from their slumber), the cook as ‘canteen officer’, the dhobi as ‘the launderer’, even the cobbler can be elevated to the status of ‘a surgeon unto mens’ shoes’!!
See, how the change in the nomenclature change the drudgery of the occupation and assuage the feeling of the deprived? As for me, since at present I am doing nothing, I can call myself as ‘the explorer of the oddities of life’.
What say?

A Real walk to remember

When I watched this film, I felt that all this sacrifice for love,a person changing himself just to see a twinkle in his beloved's eye or a flicker of smile on her beautiful lips-all this does'nt exist in reality,it looks good in stories and are restricted to films and romantic novels only.But when I came across this,my thinking took a U-turn and all the presumptions and thoughts that my all so wordly and logical mind had developed got erased in a moment. Have a look-
21 year old Katie Kirkpatrick Godwin held off her cancer so she could enjoy the happiest day of her life. She had battled her cancer since her starting teen years.But it always returned and ultimately her body stopped responding to medication.She had to use an oxygen tank to breathe, the strong pain in the back broke through the strong morphine dose and her organs were shutting down.Yet all this was not able to stop her from marrying Nick Godwin who loves her from 11th grade.Katie got married on 15th June,2008, five days later she died.This is how love can beat even the toughest sorrows.

Unlikely Believers

(Contributed by Vipin Buckshey in one of Khushwant Singh's columns.)
In a small town in India,a person decided to open a bar right opposite to a temple.The temple and its congregation started a campaign to block the bar from opening, and prayed daily against the business.Work progressed.However,when it was almost complete and was about to open in a few days' time,a strong lightening struck the bar and it was burnt to the ground.The temple folks were rather smug in their outlook after that,till the bar owner sued the temple authorities on the grounds that the temple,through its congregation and prayers,was ultimately responsible for the demise of his bar shop,either through direct or indirect means.
In its reply to court,the temple authorities vehemently denied all responsibility,or any connection that their prayers might have with the bar's demise.As the case made its way to court,the judge looked over the paperwork at the hearing and commented,"I don't know how I'm going to decide this case,but it appears from the papers,we have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer and we have an entire temple and its devotees who don't."

What is your take on this issue-please do post your comments on the above situation,this is the face of spirituality in Shining India.

Curriculum Vitae

My employer seems to have given me a lot of time to think and read weird things by not calling me for the last 6 months.Following is one of the weirdest resume one of my friends has come up with.

NAME: Greg Bulmash

DESIRED POSITION: Reclining. Ha ha. But seriously, whatever's available. If I was in a position to be picky, I wouldn't be applying here in the first place.

DESIRED SALARY: $185,000 a year plus stock options and a Michael Ovitz style severance package. If that's not possible, make an offer and we can haggle.

EDUCATION: Yes.

LAST POSITION HELD: Target for middle-management hostility.
SALARY: Less than I'm worth.

MOST NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENT:
My incredible collection of stolen pens and post-it notes.

REASON FOR LEAVING: It sucked.

HOURS AVAILABLE TO WORK: Any.

PREFERRED HOURS: 1:30-3:30 p.m., Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday.

DO YOU HAVE ANY SPECIAL SKILLS?:
Yes, but they're better suited to a more intimate environment.

MAY WE CONTACT YOUR CURRENT EMPLOYER?:
If I had one, would I be here?

DO YOU HAVE ANY PHYSICAL CONDITIONS THAT WOULD PROHIBIT YOU FROM LIFTING UP TO 50 LBS?:
Of what?

DO YOU HAVE A CAR?:
I think the more appropriate question here would be "Do you have a car that runs?"

HAVE YOU RECEIVED ANY SPECIAL AWARDS OR RECOGNITION?:
I may already be a winner of the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes.

DO YOU SMOKE?: Only when set on fire.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE DOING IN FIVE YEARS?
Living in Bimini with a fabulously wealthy super model who thinks I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread. Actually, I'd like to be doing that now.

DO YOU CERTIFY THAT THE ABOVE IS TRUE AND COMPLETE TO THE BEST OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE?: No, but I dare you to prove otherwise.

SIGN HERE: Scorpio with Libra rising.