A pit of life and death

Very interesting reading.

Is having sex with a Robot hooker cheating?

I’m referring to this link. Having sex with robot hookers is soon going to be a reality; but don’t they already get sex toys that can be used for sexual gratification and isn’t that a cheating? Than what about masturbation? While masturbating can you guaranty that you are thinking about your partner and not your porn idol?

I think more than technical it is an emotional, psychological issue.  But I think it is a technical issue too; technical in the sense… let us say socio-technical. Why doesn’t one partner agree to the other partner having sex with someone else (I’m talking about conventional couples and not "liberated" and "ultramodern" couples)? It has a lot to do with having a sense of security. Sex is an important aspect in a relationship and lots of our decisions are based on sex.  If you begin to have sex outside of the ongoing relationship on a routine basis then a big binding force is missing.  This binding force often keeps a relationship intact and if it is missing it is very difficult to maintain the bond although I’m not saying that it is not at all possible.

Consciously or unconsciously we also attach sex with giving birth to children and we don’t want to bring up children with just about anybody; we choose the partners very carefully or with lots of social deliberations (as is the case in India where marriages are often arranged by parents and relatives). So since we are possessive about our children we also become possessive about the source, that is, the other partner. We want to preserve that sources exclusively for ourselves.  For instance you won’t like your husband’s kids popping up everywhere in the neighborhood and when your wife becomes pregnant you want to be sure that it is your child and not someone else’s.  This is also because so much effort goes into bringing up a child so you would only like to make so much effort for your own child.

But then a robot hooker will not be producing your kids so that problem gets sorted out on its own.

No matter how open our society becomes sex is still an intimate activity shared by two individuals in the most private corner of their existence. It is a special activity with your most special person. Your partner feels complete when he or she is able to satiate your sexual needs.  When you seek sexual gratification from other sources, for instance, a robot hooker, then it means your partner is not able to provide you that gratification, and this further means a distance developing between you and your partner. The issue is not about having sex with some other person or a robot, the issue is that at that moment you are not having sex with your partner. Your partner has an unwritten right on your every orgasm. The writer in the above link says it’s okay to have sex with a robot hooker because there is no emotional attachment.

Do you agree to that? Share your thoughts in the comment section.

Similarity between Kishore Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan

This thought came to me when I was listening to Darde dil, darde jigar, dil mai jagaya aapne – a Rafi song from the film Karz that became a hit in the  mid-70s. This song explains why Mohammad Rafi’s career had begun to recede while Kishore Kumar was still doing great. Rafi not at all sounds good in this song. Listen to the song:

He sounds bland especially in the lower notes (not to sound boastful I can sing this song better). Compared to that listen to this Kishore Kumar song from Mr. India:

Kishore Kumar must have sung Kaate nahi kat-te almost after 15 years Rafi sang Darde dil and still, he sounds sizzling, just like Roop tera mastana from Aradhna. Kishore Kumar knew how to adapt and still sound classy. Although I’m a die-hard Rafi fan I think after a certain period his singing lost relevance and he was still trapped in the golden age of Man tarpat hari darshan ko aaj and Kuhu-kuhu bole koyaliya – renditions that only Rafi could deliver, of course. Savor both the songs:

Rafi was no doubt the playback god of Indian cinema but his singing style couldn’t adapt to the changing times. Kishore Kumar did this with great ease and was a successful singer till his last breath. He even sang exceptionally well for those cheap Jitendra flicks produced by south Indian producers.

This is exactly what Amitabh Bachchan does when all his contemporaries have vanished into the oblivion. In the 70s and 80s he hit the right cord and became a mega star. Even these days his roles are as contemporary as it gets. So what’s common between Kishore Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan? The ability to adapt.

Adaptability can help you in any sphere of life. When you can easily and quickly adapt, you can survive under any condition.

Making a nation healthy

In my previous post I talked about the food becoming scarce and dear. The thought of food became a catalyst to another thought that has been coming to my mind for a few weeks, and that thought is, why don’t we feed those who don’t have food? This is no social work, this is nation-building.

I’ll talk from India’s point of view; we desperately need a thinking revamp when it comes to feeding ourselves and the others. Yesterday Alka and I were sitting in the balcony observing kids going to their schools, followed by mothers-teachers (in our building most of the mothers are teachers because this building was constructed by the society of teachers from a particular school). The children seemed to have no spirits. It was morning, and ideally they should have been full of vigor and enthusiasm; where was that charm of greeting a new day? We attributed this to food.

In India we stuff our bellies (those who can) but never give a second thought to the kind of food we are eating. We equate eating lots of food with nourishment. This misconception must be changed. We don’t need to eat lots of food, we need to eat good food.

The other thing is, we must routinely feed poor families that cannot afford food. As I mentioned above, this is not social work. There are lots of disparities in our country and that is why we are not progressing the way we should have. The poor family you try to feed might turn out to be a pack of assholes but that’s not the point. Feeding poor families will achieve two things that our country desperately needs:

1. To a tiny extent it will bridge the gap between the haves and the havenots. It will sensitize us towards each other. There is lots of animosity: the rich dislike the poor and the poor dislike the rich and I see this everywhere. Someday this feeling is going to explode and nobody will be able to control the ensuing catastrophe. Knowing the ratio of haves and havenots you can easily make out who will suffer the most at the hands of whom. Feeding will at least initiate a contact.
2. It will improve the health of people around you. With better health they will be able to work more. Take for instance your sweeper, or your maid. If you feed them, even twice a week, it will significantly improve their health and they will do their jobs better. Gradually, may be in the next 5 to 10 years, a small portion (because we cannot reach every nook and corner of the country) of the population will be healthier, happier.

From unhealthy food, and the lack of basic food, stem most of the problems India faces today. I think good food gives rise to good thoughts and good principals.

Sharing food is not as difficult as it seems. Small lifestyle changes can enable you to give food to the poor. If you eat 3 pizzas every month, eat two. If you go to a restaurant 5 times in a month, go 3 times. Don’t throw away the food after parties and marriages: let the poor have it. Be innovative and reduce your electricity bill and use that money for the extra food you need to purchase. Similarly, there are many cost-cuttings you can carry out to arrange enough money to feed a poor family.

Trust is something you should take seriously

I don’t trust people easily, and I don’t take it in the negative sense. My life has taught me pretty good lessons on trust. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t entertain any sort of trust. For instance, these days sometimes I outsource content writing work and then I have to trust that the writers will finish the job in a decent manner, on time. Then, I trust that my clients will pay me for the content I deliver them. But this is as far as it goes: I don’t trust in the goodness of people just like that. This lady did and paid with her life. I trust very close family members though.

How feasible is it to be able to work from anywhere?

I think this could be an ideal situation. In this connected world there should be no need to go to an office and work; you should able to do everything from home. Okay there are certain tasks where you simply cannot avoid commuting, for instance working in a factory (I think even that can be remotely operated), but still there is lots of stuff that you can do without having to go to your workplace.

Danny at the Outlaw Design Blog has decided to manage all his work from a beach in Costa Rica. I remember another person — an SEO consultant — who works from his beach house somewhere in Australia, right now I cannot recall his name. Danny in his blog post has delved upon a few online resources that can help you manage your work from any remote location.

So is it possible for everybody to work from wherever he or she wants to? I think it depends on what occupation you follow. I write content for living and I also program for an ongoing client in PHP. Although I stay in NOIDA (a small satellite town or rather a big city near New Delhi), all my clients are from America and Europe. My livelihood is such that provided I have a decent Internet connection, a laptop, and a place to sit I can work from anywhere. But in India it is easier said than done. There is hardly any decent connectivity at the places I would like to stay. Assuming one day I decide to buy a beach house in Goa (wishful thinking of course, I am long way from that ability) and start working from there; most of my money I am sure will be going towards maintaining my Internet connection because there wouldn’t be an easier, economical way of staying connected 24 x 7.  Or it may still be possible in Goa but I don’t want to go there. I would rather stay in a small, non-happening town somewhere either in Punjab or Uttar Pradesh; even the dial-up connection is not available there sometimes.

The tools that Danny has mentioned in his blog post also depend on the sort of connectivity you have. For instance it will take ages with my current “broadband connection” to manage all my files through a remote server; downloading and uploading files in itself will turn out to be an arduous exercise.

Nonetheless, this is a great idea: to be able to work from wherever you feel like. As technology and infrastructure improves I think most of us will be working from home. Just imagine working from your ancestral home in a small village, for a multinational company with cows and buffaloes mooing around you philosophically. This is not only healthy it is also good for family life and of course it is safe. With so much traffic congestion,  choking pollution, and so many accidents happening routinely, it is better that you stay at home and work from there.

It is much easier to be able to work from anywhere if you work as a freelancer just as I do.

Technorati Tags: freelancing, telecommuting, working from home

Memories of the Republic Day

Today the people of the housing society where we live celebrated the Republic Day by hoisting  the national flag and organizing a small lawn party. We didn’t go but then we normally don’t attend events organized by the society because we find most of the people snobbish (and I’m sure they must find us snobbish). But anyway, this is the first time I’ve seen residents coming together and celebrating events like the Republic Day and the Independence Day. Maybe because it is a teachers’ housing society.

There was a time when the Republic Day used to be a special event at our house too. We were quite young then: 12-15 years. Actually it was our mother who was a great fan of the Republic Day parade that they used to telecast over the state-run TV channel, Doordarshan. Even the anchors that used to give the running commentary were celebrities in themselves. I remember two names: Sukhdev Singh and Komal GB Singh, and of course, Kamleshwar.

Our mother  used to make us get up early in the morning, have baths, get ready and then have a comprehensive breakfast while watching the parade. She used to prepare a special breakfast on that day, many often consisting of puris, chhole, aaloo, halwa, kheer, etc. in various combinations.

The program used to start with the customary arrival of the President in his (we had never had a woman president by that time) horse driven bogey  accompanied by six or seven or maybe nine  bodyguards on horses. That was some British Raj tradition I guess. With the advent of terrorism and I think the assassination of some top leaders like Indira Gandhi, the bogey was replaced by a bullet-proof Mercedes car.

The Presidents, with their bulging bellies (especially Giani Zail Singh) and awry postures, alternately used to stand and sit while the marchers and bands from all the three armed forces, singing or playing kadam kadam badhaija (keep marching forward) etc., would march from Raj Path to India Gate and from there, I guess, to Janpath. They were (I’m always using the past tense because I’m talking about the thing that we used to see on TV — the parade, in its mutated form still takes place) accompanied by  the latest tanks, missiles, guns, helicopters and other warheads that the country had required or indigenously developed that year.

After the military parade came the jhankis (right now, although I know it, I cannot recall the English equivalent of the word). They were like miniature models, placed upon moving vehicles, of the ways people lived, earned their living, and celebrated various festivals in different states.  Some just had figurines and mannequins depicting various activities and traditions and some had human artists performing various acts of living and enjoying. They were always a treat to watch and the best one even won a prize. The Delhi jhanki always used to be made of flowers; once upon a time Delhi used to be the green capital of India, now it is merely an ugly, concrete jungle. Oh yes, the Commonwealth Games.

The jhankis were followed by performances from various Delhi schools and if I remember correctly some representations came also from other adjoining states. The performances mainly consisted of dance items intermingled with visual effects synthesized with the help of cardboard, plants, masks, clothes, rings, etc. Here too the best school performance used to earn a prize.

In the end there used to be a fly-past of a few fighter planes and military helicopters. I remember children used to run out to see the fighter planes because they used to fly over our houses. As a precaution people living in the city were advised not to eat in the open so that not to attract birds. The military helicopters used to throw rose petals at the spectators and hundreds of balloons filled with helium and carrying the colors of the flag were released. And then with the same ceremony, the President, accompanied by the state guest (the way Sarkozy has come this time,  with his model girlfriend), used to leave.

Normally after that they used to show patriotic songs from Bollywood movies. This was the most interesting thing for me because most of the old patriotic songs are excellent compositions sung by the greatest singers India has been blessed with so far.

There is another memory that is attached to this day. The sunny day. I used to dislike, no, hate winters because I am hypothermic. I don’t know why I remember it was always on this day, after having watched the parade on TV, when we used to go out in the small backyard of our house, to sit in the sun, I used to notice that the sun had come up (come up not in the morning way but had risen in altitude as it does as summer approaches) and there used to be more sunshine in the backyard and it stayed there for a longer period.  I used to measure this by the size of the backyard portion with unobstructed sunshine.  There was another row of two-storey flats behind our row and unless the sun was high enough we wouldn’t receive ample sunshine in the backyard. So the more the shadow of the other houses receded, the greater was the indication of the approaching summer.  It was only on the Republic Day that I used to check whether the shadow had crossed the threshold. That used to be the best thing for me on the Republic Day.

Note: a jhanki is a tableau.

Technorati Tags: republic day, india

Thinking About Vegetarianism

For many months I have been thinking of giving up eating meat. Once I didn’t eat non-vegetarian food for almost 6 years but then I don’t remember when and how I again started eating.

Sticking to a vegetarian diet is healthy both physically and mentally because when you’re not eating meat you are not giving toxins to your body; most of the toxins in our bodies come through non-vegetarian intake. Vegetables hardly have toxins. Some people argue that even vegetables these days come polluted with pesticides and other chemicals. I won’t disagree but despite that the vegetarian diet is far more healthy than the non-vegetarian diet and I hope to switch to it soon.

I am already consuming more fruits and vegetables as I mentioned in one of the previous posts that I’m trying to reduce weight. We haven’t had a non-veg meal for almost 2 weeks and we haven’t missed it. In fact both Alka and I prefer eating vegetables — both raw and cooked.

Here is an interesting link the talks about 10 reasons to give up not vegetarian diet.

Technorati Tags: vegetarianism, healthy food, non-vegetarian

Great Words By Martin Luther King, Jr.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Now since I have read these words, I remember that even I wish for such a world for my daughter, a world where people won’t judge her by the color of her skin and by the things she owns and doesn’t own.

I don’t know how much things have changed in America where Martin Luther King fought against racial discrimination and color-based prejudices, but in India they are more or less the same the way they used to be a few hundred years ago: only their manifestation has altered. We still have great attitudinal differences between the haves and the have-not’s; the skin-color does make a big difference to a majority of people; religious and caste confrontations are as rampant as they were in the past. If you don’t wear trendy and expensive clothes, if you don’t possess a big automobile, if you don’t have a big house furnished with all the comforts money can buy, you’re not up to the mark — you have not arrived.

I know to many people such things don’t matter — they don’t matter to me — but to impressionable minds, the minds who still have to develop their own opinions do get affected by the social and media bombardments of psychological propaganda. Things that I have mentioned above are not harmful per se, they become harmful when people become obsessed with them and stop doing things that they should actually do for the pursuit of these things. What if you can be a great painter, a novelist or an athlete but you get stuck with the wrong occupation just because you need to buy that car and that house and you got to be seen in that restaurant sipping that foul-tasting wine? Won’t that be tragic? I don’t want my daughter to ever feel uncomfortable because of her color; I would rather prefer she focuses all her physical and intellectual energies into developing her skills and passions, and of course her personality and attitude.

There is so much to do in life. Why waste precious moments fighting and nurturing prejudices?

The End Of The World

In 1980 I spent a few sleepless nights because someone had said that the world was going to end in that year and it had been predicted in some religious book. I was quite worried and the thought came haunting me every night because I don’t know why that was the only time I remembered the excruciating eventuality, and strangely nobody around me was bothered, I remember. It seems I was the only one who had taken the declaration seriously.

Then there was this Skylab that was supposed to fall on our heads because it had developed some problem. That was too in the early 80s and I was quite young. I worried for my life and the lives of the near and dear ones. Although the faulty satellite could have fallen anywhere in the world (it eventually fell into the ocean) somehow I was sure that the cursed thing would surely land on our block of houses. Among friends we often talked about building protective roofs over the houses but the elders didn’t seem very worried although they did talk about the impending danger.

Then it was supposed to be in 1990. I don’t know if it was a Nostradamus prophecy or what but in that year too the world was supposed to end. I was pretty grown-up by then and had a bag full of problems of my own so the issue just intrigued me but it never actually scared me.

The same kind of excitement was raked up recently when a news channel declared that a meteorite is predicted to hit the earth as early as 2029. They even interviewed a few grim-looking scientists (it seems scientists in India aren’t crazy about keeping clean and shaving regularly) who suggested a few ways of nullifying the approaching rock from the universe. I did some research on the Net and found out — to my great relief — that back in 2004 it had been confirmed that the possibility of the meteorite hitting our planet was remote, and in fact there was no chance of it colliding with the earth and orchestrating an Armageddon scenario.

Although it is relieving, it doesn’t mean that we are safe from future hits. It has been fully confirmed now that the great dinosaurs were made extinct by a massive hit from the skies. The earth has had its share of apocalypses in the past; we haven’t directly faced them because we are, humans I mean, so new here. Dinosaurs walked upon the surface of the earth for at least 100 million years. We haven’t been here properly for even one million years. I think it is the law of probability that has saved us so far. The universe is full of stray comets, meteorites and inexplicable phenomena that can destroy life here within seconds. It’s just that the universe is infinitely vast and there is lots of space for every kind of object in it, right from atoms to constellations. Another thought, what if the laws of the universe change suddenly and every form of matter disintegrates?

Anyway, beyond a certain degree you cannot control life-and-death.