Sunday, April 29, 2007

The Inconvenient Truth

Just finished watching a documentary called "Inconvenient Truth" featuring Al Gore. At first, the name Al Gore put me off big time.

But from Minute 1, one was hooked. Its a strong "Must watch" recommendation. (I got it from the local DVD vala, so you might try your luck there too. )

The documentary is about Global Warming. One has already reached compassion fatigue with this subject.

I really do believe that human beings are digging their mass grave successfully(and rather quickly) with their wombs. If we do not stop exponentially growing, we are all going. But one did not know the extent. From 2 billion after WW2, we are currently at above six billion. As he says in the film, 10,000 generations to reach 2 billion, and one lifetime to multiply that by 3. Super!

There are people who really believe that human beings are a "resource". To produce what? As a species, we are parasites and saprophytes. We produce nothing that is of use to anyone other than our own species. In the utility order, we must be just below the crows because the crows at least serve to clean up their feeding areas. We do the exact opposite!

Then one person once told me "We are a resource because it is the children we produce that are creating the economic resources for this country. The BPO work force is coming from there. Its a matter of how you use this resource." I was dumbfounded. You want to produce children to work in BPOs! How completely selfless!

Seriously, I have nothing against this view. In fact, I quite enjoy the circus that is the human civilisation.

Personally, I am very happy when a natural disaster tries to wake us up. The Earth is really kind, because instead of going for one mega disaster and getting rid of us, it is still trying to give us gentle warnings. The earth will survive the mega disaster. We, apparently, will not.

But there is something that this video does : it gives us hope. It tells us that we might still not be too late. After the hard, irrefutable figures, that hope is a good take home. It lets you sleep at night.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

A Tag by Neihal!

Thank you Neihal, and here's the answer.


Publish 5th paragraph of page 123 of the book you are currently reading. (if the page does not have 5th paragraph, take the last paragraph. And if the book doesn’t have page no. 123, take the last page.)


I read multiple books at the same time. At the moment, these books are

Super Sudoku Puzzles by J. Riley
At Wit's End by Erma Bombeck; and
Raat, Chand aur Main by Gulzar.


Let's choose Gulzar for this tag. (I would have liked to choose Super Sudoku puzzles, but blogger does not support grid paragraphs yet. ;-)).






बस एक पानी की आवाज़ लपलपाती है,
कि घाट छोड़ के मांझी तमाम जा भी चुके


चलो ना चांद की कश्ती मे झील पार करें।

I tag....Artnavy, ITW, Dharma, Chiya and Sugarlips.

I also tag the first 5 visitors to this post. So if you see this post and the no. of comments is less than 5, you are tagged.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

I am a Minority!

I demand full minority protection complete with the benefits!

I belong to a small group called the "WTF" group. We are like this:

1. We see Arjun Singh's "I-am-Krissh-but-why-does-everyone-else-think-I-am-Dr. Dang" histrionics and go "WTF!"

2. We see a lot of new headlines in the papers and find that the myopic vision of 50 years ago on whether 2 ppl can have an inter-religious marriage or not, whether girls are old enough to decide whom to marry at the age of 16 etc.. we see reams of paper and air time wasted on these notions and go "WTF! As if these things are even worth discussing"

3. We see the K series of serials(for abt 2 minutes) during which we see the same expression captured abt 5 times and go "WTF! DD's Hum Log anyday!"

4. We see Rahul Gandhi and Aishwarya Rai trying to appear intelligent and go "WTF!"

5. We see the Sachar Committee Report that is trying to get jobs for a highly entrepreneurial community and go "WTF! Why are the real needs of the community not being addressed?"

The WTFs are a community that is not suited to living in today's India.

We are also completely unfit to watch modern television.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

More thoughts to live by..

More things I read that lead to thinking and peace (none of these is mine): 

अक्सर वो कहते है वो बस मेरे हैं,
अक्सर क्यों कहते हैं, हैरत होती है!

aksar vo kehte hain, vo bas mere hain,
aksar kyun kehte hain, hairat hoti hai.

He, who is mine, often tells me that,
Why does have to tell me often? (bad translation)

गम होते है जहाँ ज़हानत होती है,
दुनिया मे हर शेह की कीमत होती है


Gham hote hain jahaan zahaanat hoti hai,
duniya ein har sheh ki keemat hoti hai.

There is sorrow where there is knowledge.
Everything in the world comes at a price.

हम से दिलचस्प कभी सच्चे नही होते हैं,
अच्छे लगते हैं मगर अच्छे नही होते हैं।

Hum se dilchasp kabhi sachche nahee hote hain,
Acchche lagte hain magar achchhe nahi hote hain..

Those, who are intersting, are seldom honest,
They appear nice, but they are not.

Friday, April 06, 2007

One liners

This is a set of one liners। All of them have been with me a long time, and like good friends, they whisper themselves in the ear at just the right time.


This, Too, Shall Pass....
- Most people think of it in bad times. It helps a lot to remember this in the good times too. We tend to attribute the bad times to fate and the good times to ourselves.

Honesty once pawned is never redeemed

Don’t accept unacceptable behavior.

You have never been given a dream without also being given the power to make it come true.
It took me a lot of years to understand this one. Precisely 10 years. The lesson at the end of 10 years is that maybe, not all dreams are worth fighting for.

Nobody remembers your achievements. They do not usually remember your name either. But what they will never, ever forget, is how you made them feel.

If your mother says you’ll regret it, you probably will.

When something appears too good to be true, it usually is.