Innocent and the guilty

Think of a sweet kid, for simplicity sake just imagine your little one or a younger cousin or friend's small wonder. Every time you go to meet that child, it expects something from you, a chocolate at least. In haste, you forget your helmet and other groceries that you purchased for home. Just when you are about to leave, a shrill voice echoes through "Arre baap re, how can you forget your baggage and leave". With the baggage in hand and a smiling face, your heart turns blue and you want to express a lot of things, but your mind refuses to cooperate with your body and you just say from the bottom of your heart "Thank You"

This idealized situation mentioned above unfortunately happens only in dreams and imagination. Not that the kid's behavior has dramatically changed nowadays from the innocent, shy little puppy to a back answering barking machine. The situation has turned to be the reverse, older men gifting death instead of life.

In one recent incident, a known relatives kidnaps a two year old and brutally murders a young one just for the sake of jealousy and a few pounds. What kind of monstrous act would be worse than this, apart from hordes of reports in the past about infant rapes and murders. We need to question, do we live in a civilized society?, if so who can't be trusted ?, if not who can be trusted? . Such questions seem to have no answers in this age of the "Kaliyuga"

A honest boy pays with his life for only one sin of "being honest" and running behind a bunch of monsters for returning their baggage which seemed to have been 'accidentally' dropped off a bike. Little did he realize that his 'sin' would lead him to a plastic bag of doom in front of him.

So, who is to blame, God?
For a moment, we feel that the answer is yes, in God's name, the religious acts and religious terrorism takes place, but the truth is you should "Never even think of such a thing" because we have been given the power to choose what is right or wrong, to punish the guilty and save the innocent. We have been given powers superior to any animal in this world, not for enjoying it but for putting it to good use. We ought to blame ourselves as human beings.
Finally, it is said that God invites the good people from this world at the earliest because he is flattered by the goodness in them. So, we should be more honest, more cheerful and sing out in God's praise louder because only then shall we be called civilized, only then will the guilty be convicted, and only then shall we be invited to his abode.

A midsummer day dream

For once, I felt my dream was coming true. I always dreamt of wild lions and tigers (my favorite) and wanted to do anything possible to see them and have a word with these majestic species. Two chances I had already lost to dogs in the last year, the first was a trip to bandipur last year. Hopelessly, I managed to see just one elephant, a gang of monkeys who tried to steal my meal and spotted deer which are so often spotted in the jungle of IIT. I was really made to feel that tigers are extinct in the area, such haphazard was the situation there.

Imagine going through a dense forest and just chancing on a glimpse of a wild tiger, even for that matter putting your foot on a tiger's footmark. I was so excited in this direction and so the second was a trip to Kalakad forest. Destiny still didnt favour the brave, and I was again back to squares. One thought kept reeling in my mind, "what the hell, is the wild tiger really extinct"

As I couldn't pounce upon any opportunity this year, I was disheartened. But, two chances emerged and I want to capitalize on these because bhagwan jaane kal ho na ho.
The first is an opportunity to walk the forest on moonlit nights, hopefully try for this in december, and the second is an opportunity to adopt a wild animal at a local zoo. Something to cheer forward to atleast.
Hope for the best
and leave the rest
to the best
is the modified saying in Gita. So let me do the first job of "hoping"

Janta ki soch

Continuing with the series of the 'common man' , I thought of sharing what people generally do on social networking sites and their gen thoughts & comments, which of- course are more often than not 'copy pasted items'. Check these status lines of google friends for example

1. The Value lies not within any particular thing, but in the desire placed on that thing

2. Advice is like kissing. It costs nothing and is a pleasant thing to do

3. The axle of a cart loaded only with light peacock feathers can also break, if it is greatly overloaded

4. Love the heart that hurts you.. but never hurt the heart that loves you!!!

5. If you don't Stand for Something.You will Fall for Everything

6. Keep running and never stop, Keep running till my veins go pop, You will get tired and when you do, I may be too far away from you

7. Some intellectual guy reads: "Independence is the equity in freedom of expression that your opponent enjoys in relation to yours."

8. This is a good one: There's a secret part of you that loves being miserable. Life gets easier once you admit that.

9. This one deserves the first prize, it goes like this:
All that a guy wants is a girl who's hot, a girl who's smart, a girl who's caring and understanding. Unfortunately you can have only one girl...

10. But wait, this one is really cool, its from a person who has exams starting from monday and he just has the status line saying "YAAHHHOOOOO!!!!!"

There are loads of such interesting one-liners, I hope somebody replies with those.

No pain no gain

Not referring to the type of pain which the Delhi'ites felt in the past couple of days & Bangaloreans & Gujjus in the recent past during blasts, but this blog is dedicated to sweet pain, felt mostly by students especially those in IIT Madras of all IIT's and specially those in M.B.A & Civil Departments.

Students selected in IITM do not realize that their worst nightmare is yet to come. They feel quite excited after a few days of joining. Reason: tradition of welcoming students is the only thing which is best here, need not comment about the rest. Anyway, new excited students start feeling the miserable heat and start losing interest in lousy Chennai within a few weeks of joining and the glow on their face is about to disappear, but wait.................

It is at this opportune moment that the grand entry of the most hated phenomenon in human history called "pain" creeps in, almost unnoticed in the beginning but nevertheless makes no mistake in creating a big impact on the already confused minds.

Here is a brief excerpt from what can be expected out of a course in a subject called "consumer behaviour" in Management dept. Its so brief that you will feel pain just by reading the excerpt.

Please note that while the instructor will make every effort to adhere to the above schedule, it is not cast in stone and there may be some fine-tuning as we go along. However, what is cast in stone and is absolutely sacrosanct are the due dates for the group activities. Please make a note of the dates in your diaries.

Please make a note of the following points:

1. The workload in this course will not be light. Slackers, this is not the course for you!
2. Please be on time. Punctuality is a highly required virtue and it is best that you practise this from now. Latecomers will not be allowed to class. The instructor will be really strict in this regard.
3. Attendance will be taken. Latecomers will not be allowed to class. They will lose attendance. Anyone clocking below 75% attendance will have to face the bureaucratic wrath of the IIT system. The instructor is serious in this regard.
4. Likewise, the instructor strongly urges students to pay attention in class and avoid communication of any sort (like talking or even passing notes) between themselves. It is extremely rude to talk in class since it disturbs others and the instructor too. The instructor will again come down hard on such undesirable behaviour.
5. You must be present on the day of the assignments. Else, a dim view of the matter will be taken. If your group is presenting and you are not present, you will be marked zero for that particular assignment.
6. You will be divided into groups for the assignments. In his prior experience with students in groups (not just in India, but abroad too), the instructor has observed the phenomenon called social loafing i.e. some students doing all the work and some others “sacking out” and doing nothing/little; finally both sets of students get awarded the same marks. This is a patently unfair situation and to avoid this, this instructor will administer a peer evaluation form. In other words, you will evaluate your other group members in terms of his contribution to the assignment. Likewise, all your other group members will evaluate your contribution. The instructor will make use of this data to assign marks to students. Social loafers, be warned, there ain’t no free lunch.
7. Assignments have to be submitted within 10 minutes of the beginning of the class on the scheduled days. Assignments submitted late will be penalised very heavily – 25 marks (out of 100) will be deducted for a late submission within 1 day after the scheduled day of submission. Students who submit more than one day late will not be marked. They will get a zero for that particular assignment. A late submission is defined as a report that is submitted 10 minutes after class begins. The instructor is a stickler for punctuality and timely submission and hates excuses like “Sir, there was a printer problem and my friend is right now printing in the lab”.
8. The instructor will not accept e-mail attachments. The number of viruses floating around makes this a risky proposition. Therefore, assignment reports have to be on hard copy.

Hats off to the Prof Bob!! (Can't mention real name here, for obvious reasons) .Really, if there was a remote chance of me being a Prof, I would not have thought of such wonderful ideas to kill a dead cow.

But friends, finally it all boils down to the famous saying "No pain, no gain", I believe that this saying is true only if the Prof(the true author of the above excerpt) is ready to recommend the students of the course for a job in say McKinsey or Microsoft or etc big guns, otherwise it is nothing but a national waste and pain for nothing but down the drain.

Movers & Stayers

Really wonder sometimes, how do people spend time in college staying in the shabby hostel during a long weekend. Managed to jot down some interesting findings on the people who stay back(lets call them stayers) and the people who move out during the weekend (lets call them movers)
First the movers

• These guys are more excited about the journey rather than the place called home
• Spend more time outside home anyway traveling within the hometown, meeting friends and relatives
• Always feel 'time flies off dude'!!
• There is always something left over at home which is to be forgotten. Most often forget their only underwear at home, tooth brush is the next common
• Always feel refreshed and reloaded. This plus point just overtakes all the negatives (if any)

Then the stayers

• These guys feel jealous of the movers to some extent
• Curse themselves and their parents as to why their hometown is not nearby
• End up wasting time in holidays
• Curse themselves again for not planning a short trip, for ex Pondy, Mahabalipuram
• Curse their kismat (rotten luck) every time during the long weekend as the internet is always down during this time
• Watch movies like dogs
• Frustrated, every time there is a long weekend and this builds up on the previous frustration just like a pile of bricks

भगवन बचाए दोनों जातियों को!!

Only suggestion is "Rock on!"

SRK & 'Deewana'

My mind went blank about topics to blog about, so many things happening these days i.e, from NSG waiver, Singur drama to India becoming a waste importing destination & impeachment of judges. I thought it was not good to add to people's bustling General knowledge which suddenly seemed to have surged high up.

I thought why not give junta a chill pill and stimulate thinking about something very general. This time its hindi movie star Shah Rukh Khan and his stint with the word Deewana

I just had a dream on one sleepless night thinking whenever SRK used the word deewana or sang it in his movie, the movie went on to be a big hit. Managed to pen down some of the movies and the songs

• DDLJ - Ruk jaa oh dil Deewane
• Kuch Kuch hota hai - Yeh ladki hai deewani
• Om shanti Om - Bas deewangi, deewangi
• English babu desi mem - Deewana, dil tera
• Kabhi haan kabhi naa - Deewana dil deewana
• Baadshah - Hum to deewane huye yaar
  
• Deewana - there should be one dialogue which features the word in the movie titled deewana

Of course, this list is partial, there has to be lots more. Coz, our pal Shahrukh has done so many hit movies, we take him for granted nowadays. Lets give him some research to cheer about

How the common man 'suffers'

Recently, all roads leading to IIT Madras were blocked/ choked due to visit of VIP. This so called 'very important person' becomes so important that all others become too 'common' just like in thermodynamics, everything outside the system becomes the 'surrounding'.

Now, that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be VIP's. But, it makes no sense to trouble innocent civilians in his name. The cause of the trouble is a much debated phenomena in India, the million dollar question is: Is it ethical to disturb regular people who commute between places and suddenly realize they are in for a traffic jam, caused by this creature called 'VIP'.

Worse than this creature are his noble deeds, which do not have anything to do for the welfare of the needy but only one motto called "Make the rich, richer" which serves two purposes

1. Getting famous
2. Networking

So a classic example of 'एक तीर से दो शिकार ' this creature has no idea of what the common man thinks of all this bull shit.

Coming back to the 'thing' which happened a day before yesterday which irked me into writing this post: A VIP visit to an educational institute like IIT Madras for celebrating a hospital's silver jubilee and launch of new so called state of the art hospitals in rural areas

Unfortunately, the VIP referred to here is the prime minister of our country. No marks for guessing the hospital's name which is none other than the famous Apollo, who started the 'business' of healthcare which was hitherto a noble affair. The ads, hoardings on streets, thousands of beggars hired on the road for support and cheering of the VIP, all these speak volumes about a truly high class business concern. Anyway, an ad given by the concern in newspaper read "In our constant endeavour to deliver quality high tech healthcare to rural areas we are launching ..........". How would any sane person react to this ad, think about it. Its not that they are providing services for free, who would afford such high tech in rural areas and at whose cost would be the first question to arise. The answer is so simple that everyone knows it, so I take great pride in anwering such a question myself

Answer - "The common man's pocket will bear everything"

Why did Ganesha ever curse the moon

Generally, I avoid writing stuff which is personal, the main idea of engrossing myself in blogging is to surface things going on around the general masses and how it is affecting them. But, I couldn't resist writing this piece because of the most common thing which affects everyone's daily life. Yes, I am talking about "Superstitions"

Ya, we all know the mythological story which goes like this "One day while travelling round the universe on his rat, Ganesha came to Chandraloka , blah blah....." which I incidentally found while searching for info on google. But, the million dollar question is 'how many of us believe in the story and neglect the moon on the day of Ganesha Chaturthi

I was a kid when I was told to resist watching the moon on this very day because bad luck will haunt you and stuff. The moment somebody says the magic word bad luck, it immediately registers in the mind and you are well positioned to face the challenge of neglecting the moon. Unfortunately, the story doesn't end here. Scientifically speaking, our subconscious mind tries to do the unthinkable that is your mind will always say 'ah, mate; just a little glance at the moon once and see how it looks'. Astronomically speaking, the position of the moon on the fourth day after the new moon is bound to be near horizon, which is at eye level, which makes matters even worse.

So guys, even if you have accidentally glanced the moon, don't plunge into depression by thinking about bad luck. If you don't believe in such superstitions good for you, this article might just be a joke. If you do, then google for the remedy of this curse and you will come up with the story of the "Syamantaka gem" which is a remedy to the "curse".

This brings us to an interesting juncture, do we or don't we believe in superstitions, the answer simply might be a big "yes" because everyone is afraid of death, bad luck and etc. If not, people would have been saturated and ascetic.