Holy Men - Seldom Reverent but Never Omniscient ...

Kate Bracks , a modest mum of three from Orange , Australia catapulted to stardom after winning Master Chef Australia-Season 3 .

But she was in news in India even before Master Chef Australia - Season 3 started airing on Star World India. Reason - she refused to address Dalai Lama , who was on their show as His Holiness. She refuted to the controversy saying , "My belief is that God is the only one that is perfectly holy."

True and logical . It is as simple as that . But , how can we , Indians , who belong to a country where a percentage of the population are holy men and a larger percentage are followers of such holy men , take such a comment lying down and doing nothing? Kate did invite wrath over her stance on holy men.

This reminded me of an incident . At my under grad college, in our third semester , we were given the list of staffs who would handle papers for us . We quickly went through it and found only one lady staff on the list who was incidentally our class in-charge.  How ever we later found out that the electronics paper was also being handled by a lady staff .The intriguing thing about her (besides her teaching that went way over our heads) was her name ; she had a name which  parents would generally name their sons with . Her peculiar name remained a mystery for over a year , till another of her college mate joined our college . It was this teacher who spilled the beans about the popularly peculiar name . When this teacher in question was a baby her parents took her to a holy man and asked him to name the child. The holy man mistook the baby girl to be a baby boy and named it accordingly . The parents realized the mistake but decided not to change the kid's name. After all a reverent holy man had named their kid !!! 

Phew !!! I just couldn't stop wondering how the parents could stand their kid being jeered at and ridiculed for her name throughout her school days , her college life and also at her workplace just because of a mistake by a man who was little better than a stranger .. 

All I could do after this was hope that at least my electronics teacher would realized that holy men may be reverent but not omniscient , they don't know everything , you can't trust them with anything , not even naming your kids !!!

All is Fair in Love and War . Is it?

I spent my entire childhood in Gopalpur-on-sea , a quite and exotic beach along the coast of Bay of Bengal. It was wonderful growing up in that quite and beautiful place where the only noise that graced one's ears was the constant rising and falling of the waves. It is a small place and everyone knows everyone else there. The Gopalpur beach is renowned for a distinct charm of its own which you would realize the moment you see the beach and the wonderful people living there.

 The languorous beach with coconut groves, casuarinas and gentle sand dunes is deserted for most of its stretch. May be the serenity , the divine beauty and the isolation on the beach that made it a preferred suicide destination for many from across the country . 

The fact that people came from far away places to drown their sorrows and merge with the calmness of the blue sea always baffled me. I remember many suicides on the virgin beach , but the one that would always remain with me is that of two lovers who felt that life held no hopes for them .

I vividly remember the walk from the bus stop to home one day in 1999 after school when every person I saw on the way had a strange gloomy expression that I couldn't fathom. I reached home and rushed to my mom and saw the same look  on her face. "Kya hua Ma?" , I spluttered . She informed me the cause of gloom over the entire town. The bodies of two young people who had consumed poison to end their miseries was lying on the shore . My brothers ever the curious lot wanted to go to the sea shore and have a look and they ran off with few of their friends. I dared not to . Mom stayed with me and gave me the details , all that she knew about this, all that locals have been talking of since morning. 

The dead were , a girl hardly 18 or 19 years old and a guy who would be no older than 21 years. They were in college somewhere from northern Orissa. The guy belonged to an Oriya family and the girl was from a Marwadi family (people of Rajasthan). They were madly in love with each other and wanted to have a lifetime of togetherness. The manager of the hotel ,where the guy and the girl had checked into a week earlier and had stated their purpose of visit as honeymoon , described the girl as pretty and short and the guy as handsome who still had the childlike innocence on his face. They were full of life and seemed like a normal newly and  happily married couple. During their stay they had even made a few friends like the owners of the fast food centers where they would have most of their meals , the local guides and photographers , the guy in the PCO booth which they used regularly to make calls. One night after a week's stay , they strolled out of their rooms as usual for dinner at their regular fast food center. After dinner they informed the owner of the fast food center that they would take a walk on the beach and be back to collect their bags and pay the bills. After so many meals at his fast food center , the owner trusted these customers enough to let them go without any doubts. He waited long past his closing time for the return of the customers , less worried about his payment and more worried about the handbag that the girl had left behind. After all , their room key would be in that bag, they would need it to get into their room for the night . But returning for the bags or to their rooms was not what the young married couple had in mind.

The next morning the fishermen who went in early to go fishing , found two bodies on the shore , dead. The police was called. The address the guy had entered in the hotel register was contacted. The parents of the guy and the girl were informed. It was learnt that both the guy and the girl were the only kids of their parents. The girl's family had fixed her marriage to a rich  NRI  and the marriage was just a month later. But that is when the young couple in love planned to elope. The families searched for them but couldn't trace them. And then the night when the couple committed suicide, they both had made calls to their parents and had asked them to come and pick them up from Gopalpur the next day. Both the parents were angry with their kids and both had refused and their kids had promised them that they would be meeting them the next day. What the parents did not know was that they would be seeing the lifeless bodies of their beloved kids the next day. 

The boy's parents were shattered and could not contain their sorrow. From the girl's family only her dad turned up and he was so angry that sorrow did not find an expression . He dumped her body in the ambulance all the time muttering about the disgrace she had brought upon the family.  

The incident rocked the peaceful town. People spoke about it for months. Many of the locals had seen the couple loitering on the beaches. No one had known the despair they had in their hearts. All one talked about in the following days were the foolishness the couple had committed . They were young, they had their entire life reckoning them but they chose to turn away and escape into nothingness. They could have started a new life , at a new place but they lost hopes too soon. They accepted defeat even before the battle had begun. They just quit. Now all is fair in love and war but quitting is definitely not accepted, neither in war nor in love .

Bhagavad Gita Classes to be Made Compulsory in Secular India

Irony , yet again. Why do our politicians generate new instances for us to laugh at every other day ? Guess it is  their way of proving the old proverb , "An idle mind is a devil's workshop " true. As our leaders are least interested in the welfare of the masses they get these peculiar ideas to idle away their time in their posh offices  . At least that is what I feel every time I listen to news like Karnataka government being open to make Bhagavad Gita teaching compulsory in all government schools. However , it is the Education Minister Vishwanath Hegde Kageri  who said  that, those opposing the Gita teaching should quit India, that made me go ROFL . You can't ask me to quit India because I stand for a secular country . By the way is that not what our Constitution aims at ?

So , when our politicians choose to avoid and not abide by the Constitution , I guess it is time we make Constitution classes compulsory  for the politicians . What say Supreme Court of India? 

'A Pat on the Back is not the Solution' - Mumbaikars

A friend of mine has her boy friend working in a top IT company in Mumbai. Because of the serial blasts yesterday , he was stuck in his office till late night and today morning he is back to work. Nothing to cheer about though. He is not showing resilience to terrorism nor has he resolved to defeat terrorism by not letting it panic him . He is very much startled , he is planning on a transfer and he would love to return to his family far away from Mumbai and be safe. But he turns up at work because he has no option . He needs to go to work to survive .

A young guy screamed into the NDTV camera that, "Only the families who lost their loved ones know the intensity of damage done by the blasts.It is easy for others to wake up the next day and go about their businesses. "

Government should take the cue. You cannot always let Mumbai suffer attacks and then pat the backs of Mumbaikars for going to work or school the next day . It is no longer accepted. The very much applauded "Mumbai Spirit" compliment is being taken with a pinch of salt by the people of Mumbai. There is intense anger that they are being targeted over and over and all Government does is praise the people for having carried on with their lives tolerating terrorism .

In reply to my last blog entry this is exactly what one of my friend Chinmaya commented. People get back with their lives only because they have to survive and not because they are Mumbaikars who are 'ever resilient     to terrorism'.

deja vu for Mumbai- Dread and Shame Strikes Us Again

An advertisement of a Tour and Travel agency shows an foreigner stating his purpose of visit to Mumbai as (quoting his words), "I want to find out if Mumbai actually lives up to the international reputation it has."

Poor fellow must have been disappointed . A such an internationally reputed Mumbai can have its core shaken in a matter of minutes. Plant two bombs and make them go off simultaneously in some crowded market or bus stands and Mumbai is on its knees . 

What a shame ! Mumbai police with a strength of over 40,000 personnel and despite being one of the most equipped police force in the country fails miserably to ensure safety of innocent lives . Guess planting a bomb in some crowded bus stands or railway stations ad markets is just cake walk , why else would we have so many incidents over and over?

May be only God and not police men can save this country and help Mumbaikars . 

From the Perfect Life to Self Chosen Imperfections of Life

What does Diya Mirza of the movie 'Rehnaa Hain Terre Dil Mein' , Reema Sen in the movie 'Minnale' and Uma Thurman in the movie 'The Accidental Husband ' have in common?

The answer is they all flaunt  their ability to turn their perfect, comfortable and happy lives into a challenging , hardships filled adventure. Figure it out this way, which girl in her senses would leave a rich and successful  publisher to marry a firefighter? Well , Dr. Emma Lloyd , does that ( Uma Thurman in  'The Accidental Husband ').

How does that in any respect fall short of being a stupidity ?

Well , only one thing kind of justifies it , not completely but it still makes an attempt , a pretty good attempt and that is LOVE .

These characters in the movie did what they did because they are in LOVE , blindly and stupidly in LOVE

I never took these movies seriously, I never believed that people in real world would do things like these only to spend life with someone they think  is perfect for them( mind you , it is only what they think , even they are never sure !). But lately I have been pretty shocked to see girls I know very closely doing Dr. Emma Lloyd kind of  thing .. They are willing to throw away their perfect lives for the love of their lives . And when it comes from the most assertive and self centered girls I can only look at them and barely manage to blurt out in wonder , "Really? You are doing this??"...

The Great Indian Reality Show Drama - Maria Susairaj - Welcome to Stardom

Maria Susairaj , please step out of jail and enter the world of stardom .. The reality shows are awaiting you with a blank cheque (and listen , you can encash it for amount up to 5 crore , yeah 5 crore!!!) .

Cheer Maria, this is what you always wanted .This is why you cane to Mumbai . This is why you got involved with Neeraj Grover in the first place . Now what if you had to spend few years behind bars , you are finally a star.. Yipeee!!!

And Grovers you can  avenge her  by not voting for her when she makes a vote appeal and yup if she is into reality shows where public doesn't vote then just bribe the other contestants on the show to eliminate her, (now this is a better way than spending money on our judicial system which lacks the ability to categorize a crime where a person was killed and his body hacked into 300 pieces as murder!).

And our dear Mr. Ram Gopal Varma aka RGV , is so intellectual that he makes movies which deal with supernatural elements and theories, things which only real intellects can decipher but guess this time his intellect failed to satisfy his curiosity as to why two normal , non psychopath humans can so brutally murder a person. Thus , he has decided to find out the truth for himself from none other than Maria Susairaj herself . Also whilst he is brisking her about the events he has planned to cast her in his movie , you see why waste resources , God RGV definitely rocks .
Grovers , cheer , you have another way to avenge Maria , boycott her movies , burn her posters , ask other ladies in bollywood to spread rumours about her . Wow  , RGV has done it for you again !!

Jerome Mathew, please keep appealing against your sentence. May be they will let you out in another few months. After all you did not plan the murder , it was a crime done in the spur of the moment and jeez , it was not a murder .. So why are you behind the bars??? And yeah , please try to be out before next Big Boss season . If Maria gets 5 crore for helping you , think how much booty you are worth !!

Reading float or int values from a form element(text field) in jsp into the java script

I was really stuck with this one and so when I found out a solution , I thought of posting it.

Now , when you have to read the value from a text box in a form in jsp using a java script , what you get is the first value , i.e

consider a form called to_delivery and consider a text field value in it called to_dispatch, now to get the value of to_dispatch in a java script you use ,

  qty = document.to_delivery.to_dispatch1.value;

The problem here is that it would give only the first number in the text feild, i.e if to_dispatch has a value of 78 , the variable qty will have only 7.

To fix this use the following code

 qty = parseFloat(document.to_delivery.to_dispatch1.value);

The trick is using parseFloat or parseInt  to get the correct value.

I just loved this one....

What a match that was....

Wish we repeat the same on wednesday...

When life asks for a decision , many of us if not most do fail

Indeed , when life comes knocking at our doors , asking for a decision to be made , one path to be chosen , one thing to be opted for over the other,many of us do fail.. 

And I am among the few who fail miserably .. Each time I hope to do better than the previous ones but I end up just as desperate as before...

But I have observed that when destiny takes its own course , without consulting us , it turns out to be better at the end than in case when things are left to our discretion.  

The mantra is to be as confused as possible regarding what is to be done but being confident all the while that what ever happens , happens for the best