The weather from BCCI

An ordinary crickt fan is not a weatherman, nor is he interested in knowing about the weather as much as in the last known superficial statistical analysis of how many times Sachin sneezed when he fielded in the deep. But the Board of Control for Cricket in India seems to know all about weather. To be fair the entire world of cricket executives seeems to know a lot more about when it would rain than the local weather station. How else would they know when to schedule matches that are spoiled by rain at the right time when you expect something to happen?

It is like they have a magical connection with the elements. The earth does not give them the right pitches, the rain falls when they want, there's no fire in the game anymore and its become just hot air. The Players too are well informed about the weather which they share, for a price, with a bookie working from a shaddy room in a corner of Mumbai, and they play to the weather. There is no other explanation to the way they get out like sheeps jumping streams.

If cricket is religion then Varuna Bahvan, the rain god, is the second god. The first one being Sachin. God's are magical. So is Sachin, not only in the way he bats, and bowls those uncatagorizable spin balls to get the occational wicket, but the magic is that when he scores big, the team looses. A perfect win win situation. Indian fans are happy about Sachin's performance and the opposite team has won.

Varuna bahvan, it seems, is a 'Match Fixer' not to be confused with marriages made in heaven. He sends rain down to make you loose one day and to help save your ass the next day. After all his averages seem to be far better than some players.

Unpredictability is the finest element in a game of cricket and the weather. But the weather has been far more predictable now a days. If you see a perfect game you can predict that rain would fall.

BCCI should try to help farmers by holding matches in drought areas. For god knows how, but it rains for sure when there's a good match that you are watching after 2 years of watching any cricket, awake at 1:45 AM when even the attenders at drive through windows have dozed off for a few seconds.

An ordinary fisherman is not a cricket fan but he sure knows when it would rain by just one look at the sky.

late night humor

"President Bush went to Iraq to boost the new government. That shows you
how rough the situation is in Iraq when a guy with 30% approval rating stops by
to give you a boost." --Jay Leno

"First Lady Laura Bush flew from Washington to New York and instead of flying Air Force One, she took the Delta Shuttle. The first lady said she did this because unlike Air Force One, commercial airlines are cheaper, they waste less gas, and she doesn't get stuck sitting next to a dumb guy." --Conan O'Brien

"Last night was the season finale of 'West Wing.' 'West Wing' is gone. And ABC has cancelled 'Commander In Chief.' So, now the only fictional president is Bush." --David Letterman

"President Bush said catching a 7.5 pound fish was his best moment since becoming president. You know the sad thing, a lot of historians would agree with that." --Jay Leno

"President Bush said that when it comes to hurricane preparedness, step number one is to, quote, 'pray that there's no hurricanes.' Later President Bush admitted, 'Yeah, that's our entire plan.'" --Conan O'Brien

"President Bush is denying that he's planning an air strike on Iran. So, you know what that means? He's planning an air strike on Iran." --David Letterman

"June 1st is the start of the hurricane season. President Bush is already stockpiling excuses." --David Letterman

"Saturday is April Fool's Day and President Bush ... has a great April Fool's joke planned. He's going to put out that old 'Mission Accomplished' banner." --David Letterman

"The president said we must continue to find new sources of oil. The only place he doesn't want any drilling, 'Brokeback Mountain.'" --Jay Leno

"The government is scheduled to launch a mission to Pluto. Apparently this is President Bush's last chance to find those weapons of mass destruction." --Jay Leno

This elephant can dance

This weeks Time has India Inc. in its cover. Snippets from one of the articles.

• In ways big and small, Indians are changing the world.
• (India) the second most populous nation in the world, and projected to be by 2015 the most populous...
• Writers like to attach catchy tags to nations, which is why you have read plenty about the rise of Asian tigers and the Chinese dragon. Now here comes the elephant.
• India's economy is growing more than 8% a year, and the country is modernizing so fast that old friends are bewildered by the changes that occurred between visits.
• During the cold war, relations between New Delhi and Washington were frosty at best, as India cozied up to the Soviet Union and successive U.S. Administrations armed and supported India's regional rival, Pakistan.
• Making friends with India is a good way for the U.S. to hedge its Asia bet.
• Prosperity and progress haven't touched many of the nearly 650,000 villages where more than two-thirds of India's population lives.
• Backbreaking, empty-stomach poverty, which China has been tackling successfully for decades, is still all too common in India. Education for women--the key driver of China's rise to become the workshop of the world--lags terribly in India.
• The nation (India) has more people with HIV/AIDS than any other in the world, but until recently the Indian government was in a disgraceful state of denial about the epidemic.

• Transportation networks and electrical grids, which are crucial to industrial development and job creation, are so dilapidated that it will take many years to modernize them.
• China's key economic reforms took shape in the late 1970s, India's not until the early 1990s. But India is younger and freer than China.
• Many of its companies are already innovative world beaters. India is playing catch-up, for sure, but it has the skills, the people and the sort of hustle and dynamism that Americans respect, to do so.
• It deserves the new notice it has got in the U.S. We're all about to discover: this elephant can dance.

Curry-N-Rice Girl

Check this out maams.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4532245984549289375

Comming to America

Dear friend,

Heard that you are coming to America to work here. I am sure you have heard how tasty the Pizza here is , also how clean the roads are that you can be served food on it, and how about the restaurants where semi naked waitresses rub more than shoulders with you?

Yes there is a lot of fun stuff here. But fun is not the sole purpose of your visit I guess. May be I should let you in on a few secrets – more like tips – that helped me here.

1. Be friendly – People hate strangers, Americans are even afraid of them they instruct their kids not to talk to strangers. So don’t be a stranger. There is this great American custom of saying a ‘Hello’ or smiling at total strangers, a smile indeed takes the ‘strange’ out of the stranger. Also at work befriend people you are working with. They may resist at first but keep trying. Smile with them joke with them. Once you become friends with them then your stay here is going to be easy.

2. Be Sincere – I am sure at offshore you had your own excuses for each time you skipped a meeting, or forgot your ID card, or went a day late after vacation. Forget all that it is better to be sincere than to be caught lying. I have known several people who had career difficulties because they are caught lying to the client.

3. Be communicative – If you want to impress people here you need to have good comm. skills. If you feel that you are average I would suggest you pick it up as fast as you can. It is easy. Start observing how people speak. Make changes to the way you speak very often by adapting. Watch American television often, stay away from J. Springer.

4. Be confident – This is the most important virtue. If you feel confident about yourself, it shows, and it helps. I have seen people with average communication skills being confident too.

5. Be respectful – It is important to realize that you are in entirely new cultural milieu. You may see, hear things that are a shock to you but a very normal thing here. Do not be judgmental of people. Do not stare at people who may look different or do things differently. Remember point number 1.

There is lot more. But I think I covered the bases.

Do not forget to bring the Avakka pickle, Garam Masala powder and a pack of kings.

Cheers.

Prayers for sale

Evangelism - Zealous preaching and advocacy of the gospel (Bible).
Televangelism - Zealous preaching and advocacy of the gospel (Bible) on TV.

Even as a Christian it irritates me to see all these so called evangelistic programs on TV. There’s hardly any difference between QVC and these people, except the evangelists sell Christ and Prayer.

Jesus said “If you want to follow me, bear your cross and follow me”. But none of this coat clad, bible wielding, loud singing, devil chasing, money collecting, tap dancing preachers seems to be bearing any cross.

These guys are devil incarnate compared to Jesus who lived the simplest life possible on earth. There is never a mention of him accepting any wealth or payment. He just went and dined with whoever invited him. There is even an incident where his disciples plucked corn from a field, naturally belonging to someone else, to eat.

Worst thing is how people willingly get cheated. What do these believers get in return? Just a prayer. Well I won’t pay a penny to the guy who even speaks directly to God, leave alone one who says a common prayer for me(But I will pay if I see him speak directly to god).

Most of these evangelists have amassed wealth like hell, pun intended. And as for people, who pay to get a prayer, get a life or HBO.

Thanks Blogdesam

I had started with this blog. after being disappointed over the hit count i stopped. There is no use writing if no one is reading. So I switched to Tamil Blog.

Thanks to Blog Desam I am planning to blog here, in English again. It is amazing what Tamil Manam group is doing. Please continue the good work.

Congratulations on the new site and all the best.

Limbo gone...many more to go?

The Catholic Church has begun coming around. 'Limbo', a semi-heaven, created for children who died without baptism is being officially closed. In Limbo there's eternal bliss, but you could not see God. Hmm... that sounds much like 'earth' to me.

Trying to explain 'everything' about god has led to extensive dogmatization. The Catholic church with its numerous Dogmas and Canons, most of which is not made known to the last Catholic yet, seeks to explain God in simple terms., as if describing ‘how pop corn pops?’.

Limbo is one such answer it came up with when people wondered what would happen to Children who die with original sin, i.e. without Baptism. Today the church realizes that god will not punish innocent children but take them into heaven.

While St. Peter has his work cut out in letting all the souls into heaven, I still want better answers for the following questions,
How is Mary ever virgin?
What do you mean by resurrection of body? I see dead bodies rotting away?
Is there salvation outside church? (I keep standing outside church most Sundays).
Why should an innocent child be born with original sin? Isn’t that a manufacturing defect?
Please explain to me again why Jesus had to die for my sins, which I had not committed at that time.

It is a great thing that a major world religion dares question itself and tries to find new meanings to itself and to its faith in this age.

But Limbo is just the beginning, many more to go.

2005 at a glance

Cartoons of 2005
http://www.cagle.com/news/2005best/main.asp

Best photos of 2005
1 http://www.time.com/time/yip/2005/

2 http://photos.reuters.com/

3 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10467269/

Piece of history - 2005

I have mixed feelings about year 2005. Come to think of it, it is not bad as it seems. If you removed the tsunami, the earthquake, the hurricanes, the hard rains and floods, the war in Iraq and the numerous lives lost due to apathy, this was a pretty decent year. After all don’t we have these every year?

I have not seen any year that has gone by, in the past few years, that was any different from this year. We have had the same news, in different pages, year after year.

May be we have matured as a world. May be humans have had experiences of all possible kinds in this world, that no year seems different from the other.

I believe that history repeats itself, though not in any specific order. We can do only so much with the resources in the world. And we keep doing them again and again.

We are still amazed by what nature can do to us, still fighting the fury of it, just like the cave men. We still go to war. We still fight disease. We still investigate birth and death. We still seek god. Our lives as human beings has not changed much, in most facets.

Our zeal to dominate one another pervades our lives. But nature has a way of reminding us who we are. It exposes our helplessness in ways we cannot imagine.

If we examine history, with rare exceptions, Human History is full of war and disaster stories. Year 2005 was no exception.

Like foot prints on a rainy day
History is but an obscure impression
It will rain again.

Happy New Year

Height of creation

What is the height of creation? Is there such a thing as the height of creation? (assuming there is some one spending time creating all the useless things in the world, including ourselves).

Most often I have read in poems that a woman looked like she's the height of creation, that the creator cannot do better. While I haven't seen any evidence of that yet (“except my wife”, so that I live up to write another damn blog), I have always wondered what could really be the height of creation? Is it beauty? Or is it purpose? Who is better, your secretary or your wife?

A poet is moved by beauty. But a scientist is moved by purpose. A poet’s beautiful wife may not toil at home but to him she’s the height of creation. A scientist sees little organism that helps decay materials, to him god cannot do better than that.

Creativity is of the above two types. There is the art kind of creativity and the science kind. Former for beautiful creations latter for the purposeful creations. Both are inspired from life and its accessories. Is one better than the other?

What would we be without the power to observe beauty? There should have been a certain point in human history where people began to appreciate beauty. I wonder what happened to the guy who stood his ground and stared at the moon when the others went hunting. When did we start appreciating beauty? I think by instinct men (former hunters) were attracted to beauty. We were attracted to fruits, flowers and plants which looked beautiful to our eyes. Even the animals we hunted must have been beautiful to look at.

Even today people go to great lengths to decorate their food. There is more decorative stuff in a plate than eatables (Thanks: The Food Channel). It must be in our instincts to appreciate beauty.

Do animals appreciate beauty? I doubt. See some pet owners for example.

In nature there is more stuff with purpose than beauty. There are more purposeful things in nature than there are beautiful stuff. God created world with a purpose, never did he saw anything beautiful but he saw everything “Good” – The Bible.

God himself is more purposeful than beautiful. At least he/she should be. I would prefer a god who saves me than the god who just shows me a valley full of flowers with a silver river running across it, when I am falling down a hill .

So what does reign high? Beauty or purpose. Who is better your wife or the secretary? I'd go with a beautiful secretary.

Know the hand that receives

Human misery brings about the best in people. Even from people in the middle of it. Disasters, natural and man made, make heroes of unknown souls. People throw themselves at death’s traps to save another from it. Charities begin at home and proceed everywhere.

The year 2005 has seen all of it. It started with an overwhelming reaction to the Tsunami. I was living about 5 miles from Marina Beach, (Chennai, India) when the beach turned disaster area. A gripping earth quake, seemingly a plot from mother nature to unite India and Pakistan, a terrorist attack in London a reminder to the developed nations to fight a war on terrorism and not target just any vulnerable nation, a series of hurricanes in the US announcing Global Warming.

The year that was disastrous was also triumphant. It saw the best being done by people who have it all to people who lost it all.

Media has projected Bill Gates as a ruthless business man for years. But Time has chosen him a the Person of year. With charities over $3.5 billion, the Gates family knows how to give back to the society.

There are way too many charities in India. While they are not enough, (it is never enough), most of them are just bogus.

Most charities run like business. They have no charitable principals but only look at amassing personal wealth. I have experienced this personally. There are Churches that collect money in the name of spreading religion, preachers earn millions in the name of Christ and charity. There are many other charities which give very little to the participants. Foreign funds are never short for these charities. They thrive on this. But the needy receive pittance.

I would suggest the following to any who would like to send money to any charity, religious or not, in India.

1. Participate directly. Depend less on existing social work projects. They may not offer full benefits to the intended.

2. Study the organization. It is not possible for everyone to directly get involved, but it is possible for us to at least gather some knowledge on who is receiving the money. If you are in doubt do not send any money. Try and find a person in your own country who may need some money. I am sure there are many. By sending money to unknown organizations who are crooks you encourage many others to become crooks. Believe it or not this is being done as a business in many parts of India.

3. Gather. Like minded people could come together and pool in aid. When you get organized you could collect more money and also be able to participate directly in the work done in the site.

4. Teach the people to fish. Do not offer fish. This I think is the most important thing in Charity. By offering money you make people feel worthless about themselves. Instead if a small industry is opened that employs offers employment and steady income, you have taken care of the people’s need for a few generations.

There is a adage in my native language, Know the bowl that receives. That is very important.

You may have a lot of money to spare, but strewing it around is not Charity.

Merry Christmas and Happy holidays

One thing I like the most in the US is ‘freedom of speech’. As a concept it is amazes me. Here in US you can say anything you want as long as it is not against Christianity and Dick Cheney.

A big fan of SNL and all those stand up comedians, I have grown fond of speaking my mind out even if it offends the most righteous person known to me. Like any freedom, freedom of speech has had its share of making asses out of people like me.

The recent discussion over Christmas being the only religious national holiday in the US intrigues. In certain democratic(?) countries you will not be able to raise the question at all. But not in the US.

In a multi-religious multi-cultural country like India, all three major religions’ festivals are declared holidays. The three major religions in India being Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. Some minor religious festivals are included too. And then there are the State holidays for local festivals. It is hard to believe that Good Friday is a national holiday in India and not in the US.

While that is one form of secularism another would be to let people handle it themselves. Like let people go on leave for one or two days a year for a specific festival. Even this is a practice in India.
Since Democracy is Rule of the majority it is hard to establish equality. If everything needs to be established by a voting, including Supreme court judgments, then the majority wins always. And anything offered to the minority is looked as a generous offer.

As a catholic I have been a minority all my life, even when I moved to work in the US. Though I would like to acknowledge myself as a global citizen, where I might be a majority member(of something), my passport still says I am an Indian.

Secularism is not to be determined by the government. Can the state and the church (why not the temple) be separate? Yes it can and should be separate.

Look at India for example. It lacks a uniform civil code, which is not an issue in the US. There are different laws for different religions in India, especially laws relating to marriage. How can a democracy allow this? True secularism is for the state to ignore what religion you are from. And just treat you as a citizen of the nation. In the US there is a feel-good situation in this. Most people do not discuss religion, even though they may be very curious about how I have a Christian name. Here even if the society does not treat me equally I have a great hope that the justice system would ignore my skin color and accent.

I am not sure how an argument over happy holidays or merry Christmas, will be answered. But the sheer fact that I am able to argue about it makes me feel happy. If the Christians can step into the shoes of the non-Christians then they would understand what they are talking about.

I am not sure if I did good in this blog but what the hell, I am free to speak my mind out. Hail blog spot. Makes sense?

Relief work

A news from my home town, well it’s a city, struck me today. 42 poor mortals were killed in a stampede while trying to get a flood relief aid. 8 people had died in earlier incidents in similar fashion, during similar relief works.

42 people dying in a stampede? That’s quiet a relief work. Imagine those families loosing their only bread winner for what would have been half their monthly income and a bag of rice. These are people already hit by a rain that would not stop. Menacing their livelihood for the past two months.

I could compare it to what happened in the US during Katrina relief work. The chaos that was. Except for the stampede part everything else compares. Democracies all over the world favor the rich people. Its like this. In a democracy the majority rule. Socially the poor are the majority. Economically the rich overpower. Thus a democracy’s social functions are directed to the poor, and the economic policies are for (and by) the rich.

Look at issues that people discuss during elections. None of them matter to the common man’s free and happy existence in the world.

I have been looking for the ‘F*@$ off ‘ option in a ballot paper for a long time. It should be available or at least a space for me to write that.

Well thanks to the relief work by the government 42 souls have attained eternal bliss. Relief work.. makes sense.

http://www.hindu.com/2005/12/19/stories/2005121912500100.htm

Makes sense

This is what I have been waiting for, other than a decent job and a fat pay check. a blog spot of my own. Oh yeah... to think I could survive any longer without the world knowing what I thought of it, and to let a certain George know he has been screwing around the world. It is scary.

When I started reading the blogs I could only imagine the amount of Energy that is being spent on creating, maintaining and reading the blogs. And this is by people who renamed Web Logs to Blogs. How could one have so much to think? and to record? and to read?

Here I go. Starting to record what I could cough out on mundane stuff, that could make some sense to me and to you.

hmm... having your own blog spot.. makes sense.