Seeing Things

The Bajrang Dal and the VHP are an ugly BLOT on the Hindu community and Hinduisim. Worse, they are a massive threat to the Indian Democracy. And so is anyone who supports them Read this NYT report: Hindu threat to christians: convert or flee PS: this is why i dislike the world's preoccupation with religion

Copy: Life is easier if you don't speak up. Sign-off: Debate It did offend me, at first. Well, it was a mix of an offended feeling and of not seeing any sense in the ad. As I saw it, the line "life is easier if you don't speak up" does not go with their tag line of "debate". I wondered how was one to have a debate without speaking up? I found it plain rude and insensitive to ridicule the lives of these great men. Until Mr. Amit Verma , through whose blog I came across this ad, pointed out to me that the ad was not making fun of but was glorifying them. And then I saw it. Through inverse portrayal, the ad actually emphasizes on the sacrifices these great men made. They could have lived the life portrayed but chose not to. About the meat and beer, I doubt the Dutch team that made this ad were aware of the taboo associated with those. I think they simply wanted to portray these people enjoying a "good" life. Suddenly, the ad became interesting and ...

Fascinating stuff. A mini, scaled down version of the BIG BANG is being staged today by scientists at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research ( CERN ), Switzerland. The team hopes that recreating the explosion that created the world will show how the galaxy formed and how stars and planets came together. They also hope to unlock many puzzles in particle physics such as as dark matter and dark energy etc and to help us learn more about how the universe began. Some scientists fear that this experiment might create black holes which could swallow up the earth. However, a safety review by scientists at CERN and in the United States and Russia, issued at the weekend, rejected the prospect of such outcomes. Lets see. :) CERN is credited with the creation of the world wide web in 1989 - the origins of this blog The Big Bang is most probably the origin of you and me!

In both states certain Hindu mobs went on a mass rampage against non- Hindus in retaliation to a stray incident. In both cases, nobody really knew about the real cause of the stray incident. In both cases Hindu "mobs" were convinced about the cause and angered enough to systematically carry out attacks on non- Hindu groups for days. In both cases the government being able to do little to curb it. Both cases were called "spontaneous" reactions. I find it hard to believe that a spontaneous reaction could carry on for 5 days. In Gujarat, few years ago, a mass massacre of innocents was carried out simply for being Muslim. In Orissa innocent people are being subjugated just for being Christian. read about it here.

I have witnessed many Cat Vs Dog debates. Dogs are accused of requiring toilet-training/maintanance and praised for being man's loyal friend. Cats are accused of being cunning and selfish and praised for being beautiful, cuddly and clean. I am amongst those who loves them both. I have never really had any pets of my own. Except for the rather short-lived ventures with the odd street cat. Yet, they have an amazing calming effect on me. Whenever I find myslef in proximity to one, I find myself talking to them. Believe it or not, I really get the sense that they understand me and reply in their own way, much to my husband's amusement. I guess it's becasue they respond to tones. They can recognize a loving tone or an angry tone or a questioning tone and even a sad tone. Well, I think they do. Dogs and cats use their tails in opposite ways to communicate love and hate. A cat wagging its tail means it hates you. Its vise-versa with Dogs. Similary, Dogs hold their tails up to demo...

So far, I had seen 'complaining' as a good outlet. I thought you feel better about a situation once you have complained about it. But an interview I stumbled upon recently has made me decide to re-engineer myself a bit. Turns out I was wrong. When complaining becomes a habit, you end up becoming a sad person since you only see the worst side of everything. The surprising thing is that if you conciously make an effort to stop articulating your complaints, your mind stops creating them. You end up being happier - no matter what your circumstances are. You will be happier just the way things are . Don't believe it? Well, there's only one way to find out. Try it. Pastor Will Bowen, the man behind the idea, found that it takes 21 days to form a habit. So if you can hold-up not complaining for 21 days you get hooked to it! To make things easier he deviced the purple bracelet method . You could try it out with any bracelet, I'm sure. I am giving it a shot without any b...

We see numerous shampoo ads claiming they can eliminate dandruff. They talk of magic ingredients - lemon extracts, the famous ZPTO, mint etc that supposedly chase away dandruff. Victims of dandruff such as I, in blissfull dreams of an itch-free scalp, see ourselves succumb to the lure of these enticing dandruff-combating brands. One after the other, we try out the never-ending string of variants/options. But, I say, its high time someone got up and asked the question. "Is there really a cure for dandruff?" Why is it that you have to continously use anti-dandruff shampoo to keep dandruff at bay? I have not come across anyone who once had dandruff. If you have dandruff you always will have it. It also explains why shampoo brands invest so much in this segment. Infact. it is profitable for dandruff shampoo brands to keep dandruff alive. (Have I just cracked a freakonomics kind of case? Why anti-dandruff shampoos would rather not cure your dandruff? I know. Not a patch on the...