Most imp reason we should not lose our Dharma...

Discipline and self-belief arise from a strongly internalised set of beliefs, the moral equivalent of the American vanity of 'manifest destiny'. If we believe, we can work wonders.

- Rajeev Srinivasan in India can be creator of the future

The above statement is the most important reason we, the Indians, should not lose our Dharma today. Our Sanaatana Dharma is the best, and perhaps the only thing, which can inspire the discipline and self-confidence we need.

Through history, we have come up with countless philosophies and ideas. All the ones which succeeded and helped us evolve had their roots in Dharma. They were propounded by people who were immersed in and understood our Dharma very well, and who were not afraid to question.

The ideas that take us down, that set us back, that divide us, do not have a solid Dhaarmic foundation, although often they pretend to. These were/are pseudo-intellectual and spineless ideas such as pseudo-secularism, bhai-bhai foreign policy, rigid and restrictive caste system, etc.

If we lose our Dharma we lose the very roots and foundation on which we have built our civilization and nation over centuries. Areas of Bharatavarsha which lose Dharma have gone down the drain very, very quickly. Eg: Present-day Afghanistan, present-day Pakistan, North-east India.

For a tree to grow big and tall and flourish for centuries, the roots have to be deep and strong. Our Dharma is our root. Let us not lose it.

Heartache for R!

I was at a friend's place this evening. We were drinking and listening to songs in the background. They were playing a CD with recorded songs from Kandukonden Kandukonden, Alai Paayuthe and Kaakka Kaakka. All of these are songs which remind me of R. Felt very sad listening to them.

I met R close to an year ago in a chat room. We hit it off instantly. Our first topic of conversation was the female butt, of all the things in the world! It did not take long for R to have a crush on me without ever having seen me. I was not very convinced because she is about 8 years younger than me.

I met her when I was in India last July. When we were together face to face, the 8 years age difference did not seem like a big thing. We liked each other. We committed to each other.

I came back to the US, having spent barely a month in India. R continued with her final year bachelor's course. Meanwhile, her parents came to know that we loved each other. They disapproved solely because of caste differences. I am sure that if I belonged to their caste, they would have been very happy about our association and given us their blessings.

For me, there were no blessings. Instead, her father sent me a very frank email in which he made it very clear that this relationship would not have his approval and that it would bring down the stature of their family in the community.

I felt very bad to read that email. Nobody who has been associated with me has ever felt that their stature has been lowered. I have always tried to live my life such that people who personally interact with me go away being/feeling enriched or better than they were when they came. And here was somebody who was almost a total stranger telling me that association with me would reduce the stature of his family in society!

It was not a good time for R. She was a very young person, just a student who was dependent on her parents for everything, including the means to communicate with me. There was a coldwar-like atmosphere in her home. She could not talk to me on the phone. She had to get up in the middle of the night and chat with me in stealth, and run away when somebody in the home woke up.

I was not there in India to share things with her. I was not there, close to her or with her. She was with her family, which totally opposed our feelings and interaction. We did not have any opportunities to share our feelings, thoughts and lives like young lovers usually should. All we had was the stealthy chat.

We started to have doubts about the feasibility of our relationship. I had doubts because of the difference in our age. She had doubts about being able to go against her family. We decided to split.

It's been just over 6 months since we decided to split. But it seems so much longer. And I am still sad. I don't know what went wrong. We were both nice, young people. Nothing wrong with either of us. We never desired bad things for others. We never wronged others. We just wanted to be together and share our lives and be happy. What went wrong?

A couple of months or so after we split up, she came back to me, asking to take her back. But I Told her that I did not love her anymore like I used to. I hurt her. And now she thinks we are not meant to be together.

We were/are both appreciative of each other. We really like each other and how we are and our individual talents and natures. She is very pretty, smart, talented and wise. She accepted me as I am, knowing all my shortcomings, my mistakes, my past. She accepted me as I am, with no complaints, without asking for anything about me to be different. She called me an "adorable goundar rapist", with affection. She was the first person to address me as kanna! And, she is the only person to have told me that she wants to bear my children!

I don't know what I ever did to deserve that much love and acceptance. After a long, long time, she was the person whom I really thought of as my wife. I loved referring to her as my girlfriend. I loved belonging to her. I liked being possessive of her and having the feeling returned. I thought I was finally settled for in life.

I don't know what went wrong. All I know is that, neither one of us deserved all that pain. And both of us are unhappy. I miss her youthful enthusiasm and affection and admiration. We are both just nice young people, who never wished anything bad for anyone. We deserved better. My heart aches!

அழகிய திருமுகம் ஒரு தரம் பார்த்தால்...

அழகிய திருமுகம் ஒரு தரம் பார்த்தால்
அமைதியில் நிரைந்திருப்பேன்...

A man & woman have the same IQ score; is the woman smarter?

If a man and a woman have the same IQ score, is the woman smarter?

I think, she is.

It is not a trick question or answer, nor is it an April Fool's joke. Here's my theory:

Almost all IQ tests I have seen are oriented more towards evaluating left-brain (masculine, logical, mathematical) intelligence. There is little or no evaluation of the right half of the brain (feminine, intuitive, artistic). Most people would agree that women have a more active right brain than men. So, if a man and a woman have the same IQ scores, their left-brain intelligence is almost same. Since the woman's right brain is probably more active than the man's, over-all, the woman is probably smarter.

PS1: Like everything, there are surely exceptions to this theory also.

PS2: My theory does not claim that women are smarter than men, in general. It is just that the IQ tests are designed that way. Not only are the tests partial to the left-brain activity, they are also partial towards certain cultures and languages.

SULEKHA SUCKS and SULEKHA knows it!

Update on 3/29/2005 12:30:00 PM:

I posted the link to this blog on Sulekha weblogs on March 28th, 2005 and it was deleted!

Message to Sulekha:
Why was the link to this blog on Sulekha weblogs deleted? Just because it tells the truth and Sulekha knows it? So, Sulekha won't let us tell the truth on their weblogs now. This is yet another reason why Sulekha SUCKS!

Sulekha and I are not the only ones who know that Sulekha SUCKS. Check the comment posted on this blog. Quite a few Sulekha bloggers have moved out and are posting on Dud Sea Scrawls, which is hosted on Blogger.com!

Warning to Sulekha:
The first time, I posted the following only on Sulekha weblogs. Sulekha deleted it. So, I had to host the content here and post a link on Sulekha weblogs. If Sulekha continues to delete the link I post on Sulekha weblogs, I will be compelled to post the link on many more forums on the Net.

Original blog posted on 3/28/2005 06:34:00 PM:

On March 27th 2005, I posted a blog on Sulekha weblogs and someone from Sulekha deleted it! I am reposting the contents of that deleted blog below, as closely as I can remember. To be polite to Sulekha, I originally posted the blog only on Sulekha weblogs and not on my personal blog here on Blogger.com. Sulekha, which knows no respect and courtesy, deleted my blog.

Well, bad move, Sulekha! You leave me with no choice but to post here on Blogger.com that SULEKHA SUCKS AND SULEKHA knows it! Incidentally, the title of the deleted blog was "Notes from my experience with Blogger.com" or something similarly simple and neutral.

What follows is a close reproduction of what I had posted yesterday, March 27th 2005, on Sulekha weblogs:

About a month ago, I stopped hosting my blogs on Sulekha weblogs section (I am deliberately not providing a link to Sulekha here) and moved to Blogger.com. I made this move because Sulekha edited one of my blogs without asking or notifying me. (You can read the background to that here: Moving out of Sulekha weblogs). Following are some of the notes from my month-long experience:

1. The look and feel of this blog, hosted on Blogger.com is much much better than Sulekha's simplistic and primitive weblog.

2. My blog has its own unique URL (http://libranlover.blogspot.com), which makes it very easy and convenient for me to share my blog with people. I can even post my blog's unique URL on message boards, as part of the signature in my emails, and on various other forums which market websites, getting exposure and visits to my blogs. This is so unlike Sulekha blogs where a person has to come and search for your blogs buried among hundreds of others.

3. The editor on Blogger.com is far better than Sulekha's archaic, outdated editor. Blogger.com's editor allows you to play easily with different fonts, sizes, styles, templates to help you get effect you want. It has other tools which make it easy to insert hyperlinks into your blogs, block-quote text, have bullet-lists and numbered-lists. You cannot even compare that with Sulekha's pathetic text-only editor, which is a very very tiny window that displays just 8-lines at a time. Why don't they at least make that window bigger?

4. Blogger.com has the awesome feature to post pictures. Yay! I am more a written words person than a pictures person. So, I have made limited use of this feature. But I would love to see fellow Sulekha bloggers go wild with this feature.

5. You can even post audio on Blogger.com! It is not a very advanced feature though. You have to call a 661 US area code phone number and record your audio blog over the phone. It is not even a toll-free number. I wish they also had the option to record audio blogs through the mic connected to a computer. I sound better when I record my singing through the mic, than on the phone. Well, something is better than nothing! One of these days, I will sing on my blog. However, I think my first audio blog is going to be stupid reports from a party in which we tried to get drunk and failed!

6. My next comment is about my beloved Sulekha readers' comments or rather dearth of it: Ever since I moved to Blogger.com about a month ago, I have had over 800 visits to this blog and I know that most of my readers are my friends from Sulekha. However, the number of comments people have left on this blog are quite low. I wouldn't think much about it, if people generally did not leave comments. But people who are quite unhesitant and prolific about leaving comments on Sulekha weblogs, don't do that on my blog here. I don't understand why. What is the hesitation? Can someone tell me?

7. Anonymous comments! Blogger.com allows one to post comments anonymously. There have been a few anonymous comments on my blogs which are quite personal. It would be nice to know who posted those comments. I am not asking for the reader's name, last name, the whole story with kula-gothra. Just the reader's Sulekha handle would suffice. Imagine getting an anonymous email, which has personal comments in it. Wouldn't you be disconcerted? I don't mind anonymous comments which are non-personal and generic.

8. I am very happy with hosting my blog on Blogger.com. I feel safe and free. I don't have to worry that some insecure, discourteous moron from Sulekha will edit my posts or delete them. It would be great if the Sulekha bloggers tried Blogger.com and experienced the wonderful features for themselves. I know that at least one other Sulekha blogger, d_w, also posts on here. However, he does not share his Blogger.com blog's links on Sulekha, like I do. So, I won't post his blog's link here.

9. If Sulekha cannot provide great features with its own weblog tool, it should seriously consider doing what I am doing: Sulekha should encourage its bloggers to host their blogs on Blogger.com, and share their links on Sulekha weblogs page. Sulekha could easily continue to provide the feature of displaying the blog title, along with the first few lines of the blogs, on its blog listing page. There are simple, ready-to-use tools available to do this. This makes everyone a winner: the bloggers get the best world-class features, Blogger.com gets more users and Sulekha continues to have its vibrant blogger community intact.

10. In its current form, Sulekha's weblog feature SUCKS and Sulekha knows it. To make that worse, SULEKHA SUCKS because of its discourtesy and disregard for its user community, the very same community which makes Sulekha what it is today. I have said this before and I say it again, Sulekha's user community is the probably the only good thing about it.

Freedom of Women & Loss of Womanhood

The following paragraph is from an email sent to me by a dear friend, Priyamvada K, who happens to be a single-mom with an office day-job. I am posting it here with her permission.

Today we claim women are educated, go out do this do that blah blah and how great that is. But the sad part is we don't get to exercise our nurturing side, not to the extent we want to. In the quest for freedom, more education, earning power, money etc - are we losing out on family? Is society or women as a group thinking a woman can do it all, and pushing her to be everything to everyone - that she may not be able to be? I mean, energy is finite. Where is the energy to sit down make someone's favorite dishes, spend hours playing with one's child teaching her stuff, telling stories, taking time to relax, having a place where child comes straight from school and relaxes, the time to swap the day's stories and share.....really share as a family? Instead one is out till 6:30 pm and then in the remaining 2 hours the kid is rushed from one task to another and then off to bed. And the cycle repe! ats. Is this freedom for women? I'm not so sure about that....perhaps its financial insurance for her in this uncertain world where marriage/family structures are changing and men may not be dependable - or don't want to be depended on. But freedom? I think it probably gives less freedom for a woman to be a woman - and exercise her nurturing, feminine self. It seems to me that family life has become like an assembly line - go from task A to task B to task C and finally rest. Somedays my heart weeps at this, but I have no solution at this time.

My heart goes out to Priya and to others like her. At least Priya realizes that she does not have the time and freedom "to be a woman" and she most probably does her best to make up for it. I wonder how many women there are, who don't even realize this, who are quietly losing their womanhood without even being aware of it themselves.

We are in a time and place of increasing androgyny in roles and responsibilities. These days, women also undertake activities which were conventionally considered to be masculine, and similarly, things that were normally done by women are also being done by men. I believe that this is basically good. I think that an amalgamation of the masculine and feminine talents, the union of yin and yang energies leads to an increased awareness and wisdom, accomplishes more and is the higher stage of evolution.

I am not against the education, independence, equality and empowerment of women. I am all for them and have consciously made choices to encourage them in the women in my life. But what is the price we are paying for this to happen? In their drive to be financially independent and "equal" to men, women are certainly losing certain aspects of being a woman. Some losses are welcome - such as the loss of weaknesses which enabled men to oppress women, treat them badly, curtail their freedom, etc. Along with these, we are also losing some things which are invaluable and cannot be replaced, things which have implications at all levels - family, society, the world. It is a case of throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Despite having an active, aware yin-side to my psyche, I am not a woman. I don't know enough about women. So, I would never be able to make a comprehensive list of all the aspects of womanhood that are lost or will be lost in the future. But as a grateful receiver of many blessings from women, I can think of a few things -

• 100% nurturing time and care for the children and family cannot be provided.
• "Quality time" for the family as a whole is greatly reduced.
• Parents may not be aware of everything happening in their children's lives, and of all their needs and requirements.
• Women do not have enough time to take care of themselves and their personal needs, to form sisterly bonds with other women, to gather in women's circles to share, support, gossip and help one another.
• Old recipes are lost. The talent to come up with new ones is eroded. Families are not as nutritiously and healthily fed as they used to be.
• Family lore, traditions and practices are lost. On a wider scale, the traditional cultures of whole societies and nations are getting eroded.
• Home-grown knowledge, wisdom and medicines are vanishing.

That is just a short list that came off the top of my head. I am sure women themselves can add more items to that list, items which are more relevant and valuable to themselves, to their families and societies. As I mentioned before, these are invaluable things which are extremely difficult or almost impossible to replace once they are lost. If you think of more things which can be added to this list, please post them in this blog's comments.

I have to pause here to clarify that all women who work outside the home are not losing all of the above. There are certainly awesome women who do a great job on multiple fronts - career, family, personal, feminine. But looking at society/world as a whole, the erosion and loss of womanhood and feminity is undeniable. The fact that many women do not even perceive the loss, caught up in sweeping societal and global trends is lamentable.

My heart is as sad as Priyamvada's heart, when I think that my sons will not know women in a way that I've known them and my daughters will not be women, in a way that I've known women to be. I mean that in a very good way, especially as excellent care-takers of children and family. However they are, I can only hope that my children will be safe and happy, loving and well loved.

PS: The increasing androgyny in roles and responsibilities is also causing erosion in masculinity, but that is a different discussion.

Beware Girls: I am just another guy!

I am just another guy… with the same damn expectations… with the same damn goals, as someone put it. I don't know if I was always like this and am only now realizing it, or if something changed to turn me into just another guy.

I used to be different before. I used to be more innocent and loving, kind and considerate with women and girls. I genuinely respected, admired and loved them. I treated them with a special feeling which was beyond mere desire or chivalry. It was a genuine appreciation of their value and worth as feminine beings, as representations of the goddess, as someone to be pleased and pampered.

I did not treat them as just sex objects. I did not look at them as inferior or weaker humans. I was into feminism - the real, positive, empowering kind - and more aware of it than most women I knew personally. I was attuned to women's feelings, emotions and aspirations, to their pains, fears and doubts. I was deeply affected when I saw them suffer. I sincerely believed that every woman who comes into my life should have positive experiences. There used to be a time when almost all the girls who knew me thought of me as a different guy, as the "better than others" kinda guy. That is how I tried to live.

All that has changed now. Now I am just one more lecherous guy, with loose principles and barely enough smartness to justify almost anything I do as being right. There is no smartness or wisdom in me to know better. The ability to justify that everything I feel or do is right makes me selfish and inconsiderate. Often unyielding and uncompromising.

Women are no longer representatives of the goddess. They are just sex objects to be taken advantage of whichever way I can. Beyond that I barely think about what to do or share with them. Most of the typical feminine characteristics, fears, hesitations, clumsiness bring out mild contempt and resentment, instead of the fond indulgence and affection I used to feel in the past. If the woman has a strong personality or talks too much or is too assertive or looks too good, the contempt and resentment I feel at her feminine wiles, needs and demands is more than mild.

There is anger towards the attitude of the modern women who expect to have all the good things and preferential treatment that women traditionally had on account of simply being women, plus equal rights and privileges as those of men, plus more. There is bitterness towards the ease with which women get attention, admiration, affection, love and sex, simply because they are women, while the average guy does more than his fair share of donkey's work and may not even get a kind word thrown his way.

When a woman is displeased or angry with me, I no longer feel inspired to do much to make her feel better. Instead, I am ready to ignore her and move on. When I don't get enough attention from her, I am even more ready to move on. Contrast that with the olden days when I would have literally worshipped the girl I loved, made her the queen of everything I have, loved, cherished, pleased and pampered her, and been devastated when I learned she did not reciprocate the affection. All that is in the past.

Today, there are only two groups of women who can expect anything good from me:

1. Those who work with me - I am a no non-sense professional. I look at them as just other professionals who help get the work done. It's only about work. No feelings, no emotions.
2. Those who are in real trouble/pain - I am deeply empathic. When someone is in real trouble/pain, I forget myself and try to do what I can to help them. It's only about them. Not about me or my selfish needs or messed up emotions. So, they are safe.

Every other woman/girl must beware of me. At this stage in my life, I am not good or right for any woman. Any closeness or close interaction will only result in pain for one or both people. I am not in a place of balance and contentment. I am not in a place of love. Nobody deserves that!

Two-Minute Cooking School 2: Lemon Rice

Lemon Rice, Lime Pickle and Chutney Powder! (Click for bigger pic)

Come on over for dinner! :-)

Recipe for Lemon Rice:
Lemon Rice is a rice dish from South India, containing a very simple seasoning, mixed with hot cooked white rice and fresh squeezed lemon juice. It is extremely easy to make. I think it's a fabulous summer dish because it is not too spicy and the fresh squeezed lemon gives it a light, breezy flavor. The following recipe may not be 100% authentic compared to how the dish is made in South Indian homes.

All of the ingredients I use in the following lines must be in just enough proportion to mix in with the quantity of rice you will cook.

Start cooking white rice in a pressure cooker or rice cooker.

While the rice cooks, chop a little onion and tomatoes. Add 2-3 teaspoons of oil into the frying pan and heat. Add some mustard seeds, and when they begin to pop, add minapa pappu, senaga pappu and dried peanuts. Fry these. When they start to turn slightly brown, break a dried red chilli into pieces and add. Fry everything till they turn brown. Be very careful not to burn them. Next add the chopped onion, and fry till it turns a very light brown, losing the pungent smell of onion. Then add a few curry leaves, if you have them, and a pinch of turmeric. Fry slightly. Add the chopped tomatoes and salt, fry some more until the tomatoes are slightly cooked. The lemon rice seasoning is ready!

To the seasoning in the frying pan, add the hot cooked white rice, squeeze fresh lemon juice, mix well adding more salt if necessary. Hot, yummy lemon rice is ready!

It is good to have curry leaves, but even if you don't, that is quite fine. If you want, you can grate some fresh coconut into the rice at the very end.

Sides:
Lime pickle - this was made by a friend, with fresh lime grown in someone's garden in the Phoenix area, Arizona. This is the best lime pickle I have ever tasted! The flavor of the lime is different from the Indian ones and the pickle seems to have preserved the fresh taste and aroma of the lime, in a way that I have not seen any other pickle do. I got a small cup of this pickle from the friend and I made it last as long as I could. When it was over, I moaned about it to the friend and she was kind enough to give me more, in a bigger box. I am gonna make this last and last.

Chutney powder - This is MTR brand chutney powder.

Two-Minute Cooking School 1: Vaangibaath

Vaangibaath and Flamin' Hot Chips! (Click for bigger pic)

Come on over for dinner! :-)

Recipe for Vaangibaath:
Vaangibaath is a rice dish from South India, containing primarily eggplant and some special spices, mixed with hot cooked white rice. The following recipe may not be 100% authentic compared to how the dish is made in South Indian homes.

Chop brinjal (also called eggplant) into medium sized cubes or 2 inch long pieces. Chop onions, just enough to season the amount of brinjal you have.

Heat a few teaspoons of oil in a frying pan. Add some mustard seeds. When the seeds pop, add minapa pappu (Telugu for urad daal) and senaga pappu (Telugu name; I don't know what it is called in Hindi; it is used in South Indian seasoning). Add a dried red-chilli, broken into small pieces. Fry until the pappus and chilli pieces turn brown. Take care not to burn them. Add some chopped onions and fry the whole thing until the onion turns just slightly brown. This is the seasoning. Keep this aside in a plate or cup.

Start cooking white rice in a pressure cooker or rice cooker.

While the rice cooks, add more oil into the frying pan, heat it. Add brinjal pieces and a pinch of turmeric. Fry until the brinjal is cooked. Add a little tamarind extract and salt. Fry just a little bit more, mixing in the tamarind and salt. Add MTR (or any other brand) vaangibaath powder, mix it in with the brinjal, continuing to fry. Lower the flame and add the seasoning of mustard, pappus and onions you kept aside earlier. Stir everything together a little bit more, without removing the frying pan off the stove. The whole mix of vegetables, spices, seasoning and oil is called vaangibaath gojju. When properly done, the gojju should look an exotic reddish-brown, with an awesome aroma and yummy taste.

Add hot cooked rice to this gojju and some grated kobbari (dried coconut). Mix them all together. Squeeze a little lemon juice into it, if you so desire. Garnish with fried cashew nuts. Hot, yummy, vaangibaath is ready!

Vaangibaath is normally spelled vangibath, I just like to spell native Indian words as close to the pronunciation as I can.

MTR Vaangibaath powder ingredients:
Coriander, Black Gram dhal, Chillies, Cumin, Fenugreek, Cinnamon, Refined veg. oil, Cloves and Curry leaves.

Flamin' Hot is a new flavor of potato chips from Lays. It is alright, although not as good as the jalapeno flavor.

Old Groucho Marx joke & The Coolidge Effect

I just don't want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member!

- Woody Allen's characater in the movie Annie Hall

I don't know what context Groucho Marx made a similar statement in, but Woody Allen's character says this in the movie when he realizes that he is avoiding sex with a woman who is good in every way, who likes him and who wants to have sex with him.

This is a situation most people would be familiar with. Somehow, the person who is far from us, who is almost a stranger, who won't have us, who outright rejects us, ends up inducing more interest us, grabbing more of our attention than the person who is close, who is familiar, who is open and available to us. Never mind if in actuality, the former is a very ordinary person and the latter is very special.

It is the age old Chaser-Chasee syndrome. The typical "familiarity breeds contempt" funda. It is the stupid, maddening Coolidge Effect!

And no one tell me it is true for only men and not for women. It may be more obvious among men, but I have known, seen and heard confessions from enough women to know it is true of women also!

Caste System in India

Caste system is not unique to India! It has been practiced by civilizations around the world. It's just that Indian civilization has been around for so long. Hence, the system had more time to become established, institutionalized, percolated into family and social life.

Identifying and differentiating other groups by various factors like economy, education, cultural and religious practices, as well as birth seems to be a way for humans to establish their own identity as well as dominance.

Caste can be used or abused:

Uses: For self identification, for building supportive communities, for preserving tradition and similar positive things. This is good and even necessary.

Abuses: For establishing one group's dominance, suppressing other groups, highlighting the differences and provoking fights, tearing apart society and country, suppressing individual ambitions, suppressing individual relationships, breaking love and marriages. These are obviously very bad things.

The role of caste for the purposes identified in "Uses" section above is becoming increasingly irrelevant in modern times. Supportive communities are built in other ways. Identities are formed in other ways. Tradition... I will come back to this later. The fact is that, we don't need caste for these purposes in today's world.

Unfortunately, the purposes described in "Abuses" section above have gained prominence over the recent centuries and decades in India, with active provocation and support from powerful political, intellectual and economical groups/individuals. Other groups not directly involved in the Indian caste system have taken advantage of this system and may be, also unwittingly (or not) caused it to continue. Examples of such groups are the British, the missionaries, the historians with vested interests, etc. The reality is that today, the caste system has become more representative of the abusive purposes than the useful purposes. For that reason, it has to go.

Ironically, the most precious and permanent casualty of the caste system is our culture and tradition, the very culture and tradition which practitioners of caste think they are protecting. In a new world where everyone can and does almost everything regardless of congenital identities and status, caste system cannot be sustained. With modernization, we are fast losing our culture and tradition. People who have been conditioned by centuries and decades of caste-based thinking, are not able to come up with innovative ideas of preserving culture and tradition. Seemingly educated and intelligent people who nevertheless support caste system, instead of coming up with innovative ways of preserving and continuing our culture, want to stay back or go back to the old system with all it's inherent abuses.

Although untouchability, denial of facilities/services for caste-based reasons and similar practices seem to be almost completely absent in much of Inida, other harmful practices like caste-based reservation for academic and job opportunities, and casteist politics are as strong as ever in our society, across the length and breadth of the country. A surprisingly large percentage of people - even urban, young, educated people - are not free of casteist mentality and thinking in certain aspects of life. Meanwhile our culture and tradition is being irredeemably lost. Loss of culture is a huge loss for our country, for our present generation and for countless future generations to come, for our very Dharma!

Some people argue that the caste system helped India flourish and grow for centuries; so, it is not a bad system and we should continue with it. This argument is analogous to the following: We had a machine that used to function very well. Over the years it degenerated and started causing more harm than good. This machine is on the way to being phased out now. That is not good. Let us clean and repair it and bring it back into usage.

The problem with this argument is that the machine has some inherent design flaws which led to its degeneration and harmful effects, in the first place. These inherent design flaws cannot be discarded or repaired away because that is the nature of this machine.

It is better for intelligent people to realize this, hasten the phasing out of the caste system and think up other innovative systems to preserve our culture. The urgent need is to protect, preserve, help the evolution and adaptation of our Dharma!

Soulmate

Someone asked on a message board:

Soulmate: What the heck does it mean?

My response:

The concept of soulmate(s) is similar to the concept of god(s). Most of the arguments, thoughts and theories about god(s) can be applied to soulmate(s) with little or no modification:

1. Does god / soulmate exist?

2. Is there one god / soulmate or are there many?

3. What is the gender of god / soulmate?

4. People have debated god(s) for centuries. They will continue to do so. Reason: It is impossible to reach any one conclusion which applies to everyone, everywhere, everytime. The same can be said of soulmate(s) also.

5. Any person who argues that their idea / experience of the god(s) is the only true experience is being foolish and short-sighted. The same applies to soulmate(s) too.

6. The experience of god(s) is very personal. For the same person, the experience is different at different times. This is true of love and soulmate(s) also.

So on and so forth.

--- End of Message --

PS: Here's a soulmate story published on this blog: Soulmates

To My Users: Take your business elsewhere!

Dear Users,

Just a note requesting you to stop using me and take your business elsewhere. I wish I could tell this to you personally, but I don't have the heart... nor the guts, I suppose.

You know who you are. If not, check the following list. If one or more of the following applies to you, then this note is addressed to you.

1. You disappear for days, months or even years, with barely a word to me, and then when things are no longer going well, you come back seeking my time, attention, friendship, advice, comfort, whatever.
2. You hardly remember me or think about me when things are going well. You get in touch with me only when things go bad or you are absolutely bored and don't know what else to do. You disappear again the moment things get better for you.
3. It has been a long time since you truly and genuinely wanted to know how I am doing. Even if we keep in regular touch, you don't know exactly how I am.
4. You almost never make time for me. You talk about doing it. But I am the least priority in your busy life, coming even after the hospice for which you volunteer or the refugees to whom you teach. So, of course, you can never find time for me. But when you need my time, you just come and take it for granted, without knowing that even I have a busy life and I make time when friends need it.
5. You flirt, suggest, lead me on, use me for your amusement, use me when you need help, use me when you are feeling low and need a "lift", use me when you want to be reassured that you are still attractive, desirable and have a nice ass.

I admit that I have allowed myself to be used. I did that partly out of love and equally hoping that I would get your nice ass. Now that we know there is no chance of my getting your love or your ass, I ask that you take your business elsewhere. Let me save my time and energy for those users whom I can't avoid (my employer, for example) and for those few people who have some love and some ass for me.

I am starting to feel bitter towards you. Let's stop this before I start hating you.

So long.

Libran-bitter-Lover

Fantasy - My own radio talk show in Bangalore!

One of my favorite fantasies of life on going back to India involves hosting a morning talk show on FM radio in Bangalore. My primary fantasy, of course, is to be a filthy rich writer, wherever I am. But hosting a radio talk show comes right up there, along with owning a successful landmark middle-class-family-institution kinda restaurant.

Hosting a radio talk show in my own city Bangalore, interacting with all kinds of Bangaloreans, having a finger on the pulse of the city, being part of the city's cultural makeup, helping the city get up and get going every morning... how cool would that be!

I think I am well-suited to do that. I am born and brought up in Bangalore. I lived there for the first quarter century of my life. Like a true Bangalorean, I know five different languages, which are most spoken locally in Bangalore. I love interacting with people, facilitating discussions, and I can get them going quite nicely with my ability to see different sides of an issue and my penchant for playing the devil's advocate. I can just see how it would all play out.

I wake up at 4 AM every weekday morning, get ready and go to the radio studio. I am joined there by my team: a young vivacious talkative female co-hostess with plenty of attitude and pizzaz, a totally wacky male co-host who is good at doing all kinds of crazy pranks, a "hottie" female phone operator and a guest host of the month or quarter.

My female co-hostess is smart, quick with the words and more than an effective counterfoil to me. While my views might tend to be idealistic, controversial, playing the devil's advocate, wacky or downright weird, my female co-hostess will be the voice of common sense, reason and sanity. The male prankster is probably the guy who got into all kinds of trouble when you were in school or college. And that is precisely the talent which will come in handy for my show. We will get him to play all kinds of tricks and pranks and dares with our listeners. The phone operator looks and sounds hot. People will call in just to hear her voice, if not anything else. She will effectively field the countless calls we receive day after day after day.

The wild card of our team is the guest host. This is my original idea. We will choose the guest host from countless everyday Bangaloreans who would like to appear on our show. A guest host will be chosen for a period of one month or one quarter, during which they will be on the show with us every single weekday. For the next month or quarter, a new guest host will join us. I will have lunch once or twice a week with people who apply to be our guest host to select a person with the attitude and talent our show needs. The guest host is very important because they will provide us the perspective, the point of view of the everyday Bangalorean. They will bring their background, their culture and conditioning, their language and slang, their attitude, their personality to the show. For example, imagine having a college student on the show daily. S/he would provide the student perspective and the student slang that the rest of us in the team would have lost touch with. The guest host will put us in closer touch with our listeners. Nice idea, huh?

Apart from the core team above, we will of course, have our sound technicians, etc. who are the regular fixtures in the radio station. But what I've described above is the core talk show team.

So, every weekday morning, I will reach the studio at 6 AM and meet my entire team. We'll spend half an hour daily, taking a walk or working out or whatever to get warmed up and get into the groove of one another. We will come back to the studio at 6:30 AM, have our breakfast, coffee, tea and start the show at 7. And for the next three hours, from 7 AM to 10 AM, every weekday morning, we will have all of Bangalore listening to us, laughing with us, being entertained with us. We will play music. We will initiate debates and discussions on myriad interesting and often controversial subjects, including politics, social and family matters, entertainment, sports, religion. We will be frank, we will be bold and we will not compromise on the truth. We will have interviews of celebrities and common people. We will play pranks, practical jokes, experiments on the phone and in real life. We will generally have a ball! And doing all this, we will make a lot of money and hopefully help make things better for Bangalore, India and the world in our own way.

We will end the show at 10 AM, to get out and do whatever each of us does. I probably will write and/or run my own restaurant, do the legwork and preparations for the next day's show, participate in various events in Bangalore in my capacity as a local celebrity. :)

What a fantasy! Now I will go sleep.

Moving out of Sulekha Weblogs!

I have decided not to host my blogs on Sulekha.com Weblogs any more. I have also decided to move all my blogs to this site on Google's Blogger.com. The primary trigger for this is the fact that Sulekha edited my last blog: If Dad is taking a shower with Mom,DO NOT tell your BPO rep!

I had posted a picture at the beginning of the blog so that it would display as an embedded image. The link to that picture is also available at the top of my blog. The original blog looked like this: original look of the blog. Sulekha edited my blog and removed that embedded picture. Without asking my persmission. Without requesting me to remove the picture myself. Without even informing me. Is it too much to expect some basic courtesy from Sulekha towards its user community?

This is uncivilized, unevolved and unprofessional behavior. This is a serious breach of good faith. This is also a violation of my rights to my writing. The fact that I post a blog on Sulekha does not mean they have all rights to my posting and they can edit it.

The only good thing about Sulekha blogs is the user community which gives us a feeling of belonging. The nice close-knit kind which exists (existed?) in village communities. Otherwise, technically, Sulekha weblog section is PRIMITIVE and SUCKS. There is no incentive for staying on here when there are better options and tools available.

Google's Blogger.com is an excellent site I have started to use. It has great tools which are easy to learn to use. You quickly get a hang of them. The editor allows one to easily change font, size, style, color, to create hyperlinks, to align test the way we want them, etc. And it has the awesome option of being able to post pictures. Imagine sharing your pictures with fellow-bloggers, an option Sulekha does not have and does not seem to encourage! There are different blog templates which you can use and customize to suit your style. You can copy your previous blogs from Sulekha, post them here and even set the date-time, so that you continue to keep the original date-time from your blog on Sulekha.

To see what other bloggers are doing on Blogger, go to the top of this blog page where you see the NEXT BLOG link. Use this link to view another random blog. This link appears on every Blogger.com blog and you can keep clicking on it to visit random blogs and see how other people are using Blogger.

As I already mentioned, the best thing about Sulekha weblogs is the user community. We are a happy, close-knit online village. The features and facilities on Sulekha weblogs are also primitive in comparison. Blogger.com is a big international city with the comforts and facilities which come with it. We can continue to maintain our online community ties, and yet enjoy the advantages of Blogger's facilities. There are two ways of doing this:

1. Post your blog on Blogger.com and post a link to that blog on Sulekha weblogs. The Sulekha community can click on your link and see your blog. They can post comments right there on Blogger.com. This way, we continue to maintain our network of friends and readers through Sulekha! This is exactly what I have done with this blog.
2. Get your Blogger.com blog listed/registered (a one-time thing) on other blogger communities like BlogStreet India and Blogwise.com. These communities have thousands of other Indian bloggers from all over the world. Blogwise.com is an international site. Click here for Indian Bloggers on Blogwise.com.

I will no longer host my blogs on Sulekha. I will just post links to my blogs there. It would be great if other Sulekha bloggers joined me. It no longer feels comfortable having my blogs hosted on a site which does not think twice or have the courtesy of getting in touch with me before editing them, a site which has primitive features, and which becomes inexplicably and unapologetically unavailable about once a month or more!

PS: If you have questions or suggestions please post them in the comments section of this blog.

If Dad is taking a shower with mom, DO NOT tell your BPO rep!

BPO Honest Case Log (Click for bigger pic!)

Disclaimer: I cannot vouch for the authenticity of the above screenshot. It could well be a hoax. May be a BPO Urban Legend. But read on...

The above screenshot came to me in an email forwarded to a bunch of people in different parts of the world. Apparently, it is a funny "Example of honest case logging" at the call center of a prominent multinational company, selling computers worldwide, whose name allegedly begins with 'D'. I do not know where the call center is located. It could be anywhere in the world. It is not possible to guess from the name of the BPO representative who created this case log, which part of the world he belongs to.

The humor in the case is apparent and I suppose we could laugh about it. But what concerns me is that, the above screenshot came to me without the personal information of the call center employee and the customer being blacked out. I blacked them out before posting here! And the original screenshot without black-outs is probably being forwarded by people via email to their friends across the world, as I type this. Pretty soon email users around the world would have seen it.

In the original screen shot I received, you could see the customer's first name and last name, his email address and telephone number. You could also see the call center employee's first name and last name. I think it is the employee's true name because it did not sound like a Westernized name which call center people use for their Western customers. I could be wrong, of course.

Just to check further, I called the customer's phone number and asked for him by name. A female voice answered. She told me that he is not home right now and I should call later. So, the customer's information is probably true too!

If you were that customer, the world knows what you were doing with your wife at a particular time, on a particular date. The world also knows your email address and phone number. They can call you or write to you to discuss it with you! Think about it. Scary, huh?

9-year-old stumbles on love!

Love is a thing you keep discovering again and again in different ways... provided you are open to it. One such profound discovery happened when I was 9-10 years old, although I did not know at that time that it was profound.

There used to be a woman in our neighborhood who worked as a maidservant in several houses. Her face was what could be termed simply as "disfigured". I don't know if it was congenital or caused by an accident. It was severely contorted on the left side. The flesh near the left cheekbone was disproportionately swollen, her mouth was stretched back to the left and up somewhat permanently, she had one or two long front teeth, and several other teeth in the front were missing, she could usually be seen with dishevelled hair, wearing old rag-like clothes. She looked like a classic scary witch!

This lady had two beautiful daughters who were teenaged in those days and helped in her work. They were either twins or very close to each other in age. The girls were true South Indian nubile beauties. Dark skinned and long haired, pretty faced and slim built. Even as a 9-year-old boy, their beauty was not lost on me.

The contrast between the mother and her daughters made me wonder, how such an ugly woman could have such pretty daughters. And then I wondered about her husband. How did he feel about her? How did he marry her in the first place? Then it dawned on my little 9 year old heart and mind: he married her probably because he found her acceptable and loveable despite her looks. The thought progressed some more and I concluded that is probably true of every person in the world: no matter how ugly or undesirable they looked to the rest of the world, there must be at least one person who would like them and love them. And then my thoughts drifted to other things.

Years later, as an adult, I remembered those thoughts and conclusions I had about the maidservant in our neighborhood and I was amazed. I figured out how old I must have been at that time based on the circumstances and I was amazed again. I realized that it was truly a profound discovery, and that too for a young boy to stumble on it was a wonderful thing.

Most of us go through life as if we are not deserving enough of love. We are afraid to love or express it because we think we don't deserve it. We hold back love from others because we think they don't deserve it. All of us end up being miserly about love and acting as if there is a great scarcity of it in the world. While the fact all along is that, there is an abundance of love everywhere. Yet, daily we come across people who are malnourished with lack of love.

Scarcity of love in the world, is like the scarcity of food. The problem is not one of production, it is one of distribution. The first step to resolve the problem is to realize what I discovered when I was a 9-year-old boy: everyone is loveable. And then, to live by that realization, to love a little more and spread a little more love everywhere.

I hope the lady and her daughters, who inspired this discovery are content, happy and well-loved, whereever they are now.

Five Years - a simple, real love story!

Just stumbled across this short real love story: Five Years

It's so simply told with no pretences. Sounds so sweet. And I am beginning to sound like a girrrllll!

Transformed From An Ugly Duckling to The Charming Beast

This piece of writing has been long overdue. I have had conversations about this with a few close friends. I am finally inspired to put this down in writing after reading this blog: Chronicles of an Ugly Duckling by mountain_dreamer.

As a child, I have been told frankly by my mother and grandmothers, and at times by assorted aunts, that I was dark, ugly, thin and weak. Apparently, I had been much better looking when I was a chubby, yerra (meaning "red" in Telugu, they meant fair-skinned) baby. For years as a growing child, I was criticized for not looking as nice as I did when I was a baby. They did not hesitate to talk about my bad looks in any place, at any time, in front of anyone. But I heard their rants most often when I made a fuss about eating. As a child, I was very particular about what I ate and how it was cooked. They believed that talking about how bad and weak I looked would encourage me to eat better. They also believed that frankly appreciating someone's good looks would put an evil eye on that person. There is something terrible about the culture of Indian elders which makes them talk more loudly of their kids' shortcomings than of the good things about them.

As an innocent child who is most influenced by the older women in the family, I believed that I was ugly. I often stood in front of the mirror to figure out just why I was ugly. I could never figure out. I had normal eyes, nose, mouth, teeth, face. Where was I ugly? I just could not find out. Nevertheless, I believed I was ugly. Now, in retrospect, I just can't understand how adults could do that to an impressionable child. In the US especially, I see how delicately and sensitively the kids are treated and that makes me wonder just what the hell the elders in my household were thinking.

I don't mean that they did not love me or not treat me well. In fact, they took very good care of me and I was a favored child. It was only when talking about how good or bad the kids looked, more so in the context of eating well, they seemed to think I was not upto the mark. And their opinions stuck in my head.

Things became worse in my teens. I had a bad case of acne. In mid- to late teens, the first "premature" grey hair started to appear. So now, not only did I hear rants about being dark, thin and ugly, I also had to hear about my acne and grey hair. I was acutely aware of looking different from most other boys my age. Different in an unattractive way.

I knew that I did not have the kind of good looks girls would moon over. Unfortunately, I was very interested in girls. Romantically interested too. But none of them liked me. I never got a single girl to like me in those days. I saw so many girls get together with the good-looking guys. I saw the girls being obviously interested in such guys. I have seen girls I had a crush on, in turn have a crush on other guys who seemed to be better than me in looks only.

Not one of the girls who rejected my interests told me why they found me unacceptable. Almost every single one of them just said, "I don't feel that way about you." I was left to wonder and speculate why they did not feel "that way" about me. I could not see anything wrong with any other aspect of myself. I was alright academically and on the career front, had a good home and family. I thought the only thing that was obviously "not good" about me was the way I looked. I was convinced that all the girls I was interested in did not like me because of my looks. Perhaps, I was wrong. But the point is that things became progressively worse for me as I grew from a child to a boy to an adolescent to a young man.

In my early 20's, I thought of myself as The Beast and the girl I was interested in as The Beauty. The Beast archetype became predominant in my consciousness. I was a sad young man who thought the first impression girls would have of me was to be repulsed. Then later, when they got to know me better as a person, may be they might become friendly. But it would all stop there, at friendliness. Needless to say my self-esteem was very very low.

During all those years of adolescence and early 20's when I was down with a bad self-image and low confidence, all it would have taken for me to feel so much better was for just one girl I loved, to love me back and tell me that she found me attractive. Just one girl. I can't believe how much power just one girl would have had. That is the kind of power a lover has.

So, I came to the US as a sad young man, low on self-esteem from years of conditioning, low on self-confidence and emotionally scarred because of all the unsuccessful trysts with romance. The Ugly Duckling. The Beast.

Things changed in the US as if by magic. Within months of landing here, I went out a couple of times with the prettiest white girl on the floor, who said I looked "trim and smart". I pursued other women. The reactions of American women to my interests were refreshingly different. There was no ambiguity in their responses. If they did not like me, they told me frankly. If they liked me, they expressed it even more frankly. In words and in actions. There never was any reason for me to wonder if they liked me or not. They made it very clear at all times. Nor was there any reason for me to wonder why they did not like me. They usually made that clear too. What is more, when it was obvious that they did not like my looks, I could even tell myself, that was only because they were not used to the South Indian looks, and/or they were not adventurous enough to like foreigners. I am really appreciative of the American unambiguous communications.

But more than that, I am deeply grateful to the American women who accepted me. Not all, but some of them did. The ones who did, showed their attraction and appreciation without inhibitions. They made me feel like a worthy man. I still remember the first time one of them told me that I looked "so handsome". I frankly did not believe her. It took some sincere repetitions by her and by others, backed by self-evident actions, to convince me that they really found me attractive and they were not just being kind. It did wonders for my confidence and self-esteem. Since then, I have been complimented for my presentable personality, my smile, my eyes, my butt and other more personal aspects. I have had a girlfriend caress my butt in public and even had gay men hit on me.

If you knew me well, you would realize that I am the devil-may-care kind of person who is not too concerned about what others say. I do not seek external validation for my thoughts and feelings. My sense of self-worth is built on a solid foundation of adequate self-cognition and evident achievements. Despite all that, I was not immune to the conditioning about my looks nor feelings of inadequacy brought on by consistent rejection from Indian girls. I have heard and read the usual lines and phrases: "Looks are not everything", "There is nothing wrong about your looks", "Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder", etc. I have tried to tell myself that I have things going great for me in every other aspect of life and looks don't matter. But none of that helped. When healing came, it came from the solid actions and expressions of others, not from any cliched lines. It came from shared love and passion.

I am indebted to American womanhood. They accepted me with open minds, open hearts, open arms, open eyes and open thighs. They loved me and they healed me. They kissed me and transformed me from An Ugly Duckling to The Charming Beast.

Today, I am secure and content about how I look. I dress the way I want, I style my hair the way I want, I eat the way I want. I have found that no matter how I style myself, there are those who like it and there are those who don't. Even when I grew a beard for 3 months and looked like a barbaric cave dweller, someone told me they found it attractive (BIG grateful thanks to her!) And when I grew my moustache really big and thick like Kamal Haasan in the movie Devar Magan, an ex-girlfriend told me I looked like an adorable rapist (she's a hottie who doesn't know just how hot she is)!

I think it's all good. Very very rarely I fantasize about having the kind of looks which would make all heads in a room turn, which would make any woman fall for me. But sanity comes back soon enough. I am glad that there will always be those who like my looks and those who don't. I think looking too good would have spoilt my mental and emotional health, may be even my physical health. I like the fact that I can never predict a strange woman's reactions to my looks. She may be very repulsed or she may be very attracted, or she may feel anything between those extremes. I like that mystery. It suits me and my looks just fine.

Awesome Break Dance Video

This break dance video is awesome. A MUST SEE!

http://www.el8.net/~gb/breakdance.wmv