Google dominance by 2015?

I found this FLASH movie titled Epic 2015 that demonstrates how Google will eventually control what information we get. This sounds far-fetched but it doesn’t seem totally impossible too.

The 20 most important tools ever

Forbes have compiled a list of the 20 most important tools ever to bring the world where it is today. The topmost tool is the knife of course, or its stone age variant. About the knife they write:

It’s one of the most ancient tools in our arsenal–our ancestors chipped the first ones out of rock more than two million years ago. It’s so useful that five out of our top twenty tools–the chisel, the lathe, the saw, the scythe and the sword–are themselves forms of the knife, specialized for different circumstances. The knife helps feed us, shelter us, defend us and assure our survival. It’s the most reliable, useful and important tool in human history.

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The sycophants

Click to view Rahul baba

Does sycophancy has limits in our country, especially when it comes to the Congress guys and girls? I think they can easily make it to the Guinness Book of World Records for being the most ardent sycophants on the planet. In case you are not aware of the context, in the picture Sonia Gandhi’s image has been super-imposed upon the legendary Rani Laxmi Bai who valiantly fought the British during the 1857 uprising.

I “borrowed” this image from the cover of a national magazine (cannot locate it right now). I clicked the photograph with my digital camera as the scanner is not with me right now.

If I had such spineless party workers I’d be so embarrassed.

If you click on the image you can see with a clearer (but slightly blurred at the same time) perspective, Rahul Baba securely ensconced behind his Amazonian mamma.

A voice of reason after all?

I don’t want to get into the trap of calling everything reasonable that criticizes Islam, but here’s a video that’s been creating quite a stir in the Muslim world. A certain Dr. Wafa Sultan in an interview to the Al Jazeera channel said things about Islam that no Muslim has dared to say openly. I think she echos the popular, silent moderate voice of the average Muslim who wants to live in peace and share the world with people of different faiths.

Here is the text transcript of the video if you cannot view it, and

And here is a reaction that makes sense too.

The funny thing is, she is receiving violent death threats for calling Muslims violent :-).

Saturn has a watery moon

The recent images of a Saturn moon show it spewing ice and water into the outermost ring of the planet. Since there is not much gravity in the moon, most of the volcanic stuff goes up and then doesn’t come down. There is one thing that seems confusing to my non-scientific mind:

You need quite a lot of energy if you are going to produce these geysers, and water boiling off into a vacuum is a good way to do that. If you expose liquid water to a vacuum, it boils explosively and it freezes at the same time. And so it’s a pretty violent event. The boiling point becomes equal to the freezing point. So you get this very explosive boiling and freezing. So that’s plenty of power to shoot stuff off the moon.

How can boiling point be equal to freezing point when heat is totally the opposite of cold? I mean, if heat is an energy, then isn’t cold the opposite of it? Hmmm…I would love to know some opinions.

The gossipy Punjabis

Alka often tells me that it was only after coming to Delhi that she saw males gossiping about other relatives and berating their children in front of other, “grownup” relatives during familial gatherings. Where she comes from (Uttar Pradesh), she says, when “grownup” males get together, they discuss politics and economics of the country or the concerned region. I’ve never visited a UPite gathering, but I take her for her word because I trust her. My only experience with UP is my current stay in NOIDA.

But it’s true that Punjabi males, when they get together, don’t do quality talk (I know, I know, we all have our own definitions of quality talk and here I’m talking according to my definition). Give them two pegs of whisky and they realize God. Being a Punjabi, I’ve seen the culture from the inside. The young talk about girls and various smart-ass feats they’ve accomplished. The middle-aged talk about how much money they are or are not earning and who purchased a new jewelry or that new “kothi”. A bit older talk about how their children have utterly disappointed them and how there remains no hope for them. Drinking lots of liquor and consuming lots of meat is considered bravado and not doing so invites ridicule. If you can carry out non-stop nonsensical gab and scream at the top of your voice you are considered smart otherwise you are a “bewakoof” (moron). I’ve never heard them discussing the national politics, the current affairs, the environment, etc. Agreed, when you meet after months the last thing you want to discuss is country’s socio-economic condition, but what about those cousins, brothers and friends who meet twice or thrice a week and drink together?

I have sat through such gatherings as an observer, not as a judge; because had I tried to judge the way they talk, I would have never been able to endure those long stretches of boredom. In fact sometimes I enjoy, because if you listen to them you’ll observe they are either meekly listening to the greatest bully at the table, or they are all trying to score over each other.

The evil of polio

Sunil Laxman has an excellent article titled The cost of arms, legs or life itself describing at length how difficult it is to eradicate polio in poor countries due to rampant misconceptions. It’s amazing what stupid lies are promulgated sometimes just to keep certain communities backward. He says:

It’s surprising how many people believe that the polio drops are not vaccines, but drops given (especially) to girls to make them sterile and incapable of having children. Other equally powerful rumors float around that these pills make boys impotent, and meek, and will make them servile. Yet other rumors insist that this is a western ploy to destroy Islam. And a lot of these rumors come from local religious leaders, who insist that this is a targeted government campaign to wipe out muslims. And why can’t these people learn from other muslim countries like Egypt or even the extremely poor Bangladesh, where very promising strides have been taken towards polio eradication?

This is really sad because polio is an affliction that can ravage a life forever and that too when it is so easily controllable, as they say ?? ??????? ?????????? ?? (two drops of life) in the government sponsored campaigns. What sort of darkness do people live in to curse the children of their communities with devastating, fatal quite often, but avoidable poliovirus that not only afflicts the host but perpetually tries to colonize other hosts too.

There is an iota of truth in the various conspiracies being floated, and one is that “targeted campaign” thing. Of course there is a targeted campaign; but it is not to eradicate Muslims, but just to keep them in an irrevocable limbo. Sometimes I feel the community itself is its worse enemy.

But the thing is, it affects the other communities too who happen to be living with them. Alka often tells me about this incident in Gorakhpur. She was going to the local market when she saw a few kids — 4-5 in number ranging from 3-8 years in age –, supervised by an 8-year-old sister who seemed to be the eldest. They were the children of the nearby slum dwellers. They looked like a small army brimming with enthusiasm and spirit. Light heartedly Alka asked them where they were heading to. “We are all going to get the polio drops,” the eldest girl replied with a big smile. It’s sad to see that those children could get affected again just because some other families don’t get their children vaccinated.

There is a need for a concerted effort from all the quarters, from all the communities. I think the government is doing a good job. I remember when my mother was a teacher in a government school she used to get assigned to certain slums around the school, and along with other teachers she used to visit the areas to administer polio drops. Almost every two months there are polio eradication campaigns: last month health workers visited our building and went from door to door administering polio drops to children. We try to get Vasudha vaccinated as often as possible. Celebrities, even Muslim celebrities like Bollywood superstars and cricket player, appear on mainstream TV channels and prompt their communities to get their children vaccinated.

I think grassroots level campaigns are more effective, such as street plays, interactive sessions with the communities, making children aware at the primary school level, educating young parents. Above all, the religious leaders — I know it is an extremely uphill task — should be made aware. It should be put across to them in no uncertain terms that polio is a shaitan that is the enemy of their brethren.

How priorities change

I’ve been a major instigator of cockroach deaths in the family. The moment I saw an adult cockroach, it had to be killed, and my mom used to be the knight with the cataclysmic broom. The broom was gradually replaced by the spray can.

Then I grew a simmering guilt. Cockroaches are pests alright, and they do spread diseases by crawling all over the place. But my getting them killed was simply due to the fear factor: it had nothing to do with health hazard. I started thinking: I have seen worse people than cockroaches and I never wanted them killed, so why cockroaches? I started ignoring them.

A few months ago I wrote about how we had to kill a baby snake. I didn’t want the baby snake killed. I wanted to catch it and then release it in the wilderness. Sadly, it had to die.

And today we had a centipede in the house. I found the exact image from Google Images that I’m showing here:

Our immediate concern was to kill the thing before it could harm Vasudha in any way. What if it crawled on to the bed and stung her? The thought of capturing it and throwing it out just came for a few seconds, but it soon got overshadowed by the possibility of it getting away while we tried to catch him. Killing was the sure shot way of making sure it wouldn’t harm Vasudha. So first Alka beat it to pulp then she sprayed the insecticide upon its broken body. It didn’t die. The coup de grace was delivered by Alka’s friend Ritu in the form of unrelenting slipper-blows.

Now that I think about the whole thing, I felt quite relieved. Having a baby changes you considerably. It presents you with the happiest moments of your life, and it also makes you feel vulnerable to many things. Whenever I see things like that centipede, my main concern is to make sure they stay away from Vasudha.

The beginning of the first chapter of my novel

I’m not writing this to create a sensation – my whole life I have stayed away from such unnecessary trivialities. Even when the pal of a remorseful conscience had not shadowed my literary existence, I stayed away from giving stir-arousing statements.

My primary objective is to leave the truth behind in my own words and through the only medium I can convey it with conviction – through this story. I want to leave (if I ever leave, that is) the truth for the posterity to ease the burden on my soul when I breathe my last breath, and to assuage the gradation of moral decay that makes me die spiritually, everyday, but makes me healthier physically, everyday. Only God knows when I’ll breathe my last breath. I’m as sound in body and soul as I was sixty years ago. Can you say if this is my damnation or a blessing?

If you ask for my opinion – I assume you do purely for the sake of discussion – it’s a damnation of an immeasurable depth, believe me. To live with guilt is worse than to die a thousand deaths in a well of molten lava. The guilt burns your individual atoms with microscopic ambers. They are not visible to the outside world. Not even you can see them incinerating your body, but you can feel them, every second of your life.

You must be thinking what I’m gabbing about. After forty years – is it? After all that sanctification, after all that deification, what am I up to?

Oh! Has it been forty years since that cursed book got published? Has it been forty years since it totally changed the way the world looked at itself?

It changed the world not for the worse that much I’m sure of. Perhaps that book was the best thing that could have ever happened to the deviltry-ridden world. So why this crushing guilt? Shouldn’t I be happy to be the cause of that book? Shouldn’t have I let the world put me at the highest pedestal along with the book? Let me come to that part at the opportune moment. I can’t help being a writer, even after not writing for forty years, and not even after being the incumbent of the greatest guilt of the world. Without putting you off, I want to make the truth as tantalizing as possible.

…I have written more; I’ll see whether I should continue posting it here or not.

The coolest car in the world

See more images here