Banter from the past ( July to December 2015)

Keep Walking .... and you can be certain that some day you will pass by some fascinating places, meet some amazing people and live with some unforgettable memories .. but for that ' keep walking' is a must !

Rising tides lift all boats, but why did the quote did not say, falling tide , drops all boats. Because when you apply this quote to humans -- rising prosperity will generally improve life for everyone, but when the economy declines, not everyone will suffer equally. So while rising tides lift all boats, a falling tide does not drop all of them !! -- Think

One of those precious moments,, when you are at bliss with yourself !!

Public announcement on an already late running train ,waiting for a change of driver at a station "Sorry for further delay the driver was not informed the train was arriving and he is on his way now" hahaha i am not making this up

On the whole debate on reservation raging in India, logically speaking this is my 2 cents view. Reservation , in moral terms is justified because of wide disparity that existed in the society at the time of independence. Our founding fathers though would have never imagined that such a proud people would one day agitate and find pride in claiming themselves inferior or backward. So they thought (rightly so) that the system of reservation will die its own death as once people got access to education and opportunity, they would want to be considered equal to others, this system of reservation in perpetuity would have made them so uncomfortable. So I suggest to make reservation more balanced and fair, those citizens who have already benefited from reservation once, should be automatically disqualified from claiming that benefit again. For instance if a father got admission in an university basis reservation, his children should not be entitled for reservation , as that family got an opportunity for upward mobility already and now should compete with everyone else. This would ensure that people who are even further down the ladder now get a chance for upward mobility as the pool of people entitled for reservation is reduced. Another option for each individual entitled to reservation gets to use the reservation card once in their life time either for education or government job or social housing etc. that would make it fair as otherwise the same reservation group/ individual grabs all the benefits , while the group/ individual still lower in the pecking order remain marginalized forever. And thirdly reservation should be directly linked to economic status, it is a no-brainer, once a family crosses a certain economic threshold, they should automatically be taken off the reservation. (similar to wealthy families giving up gas subsidy) Reservation was never meant to be an constitutional right in perpetuity especially when it begins to infringe upon someone's else right. And another no brainer is that Supreme court of India should be the final authority on the matter of reservation and not the legislative. Since reservation needs to a scientific argument and not an emotional political one.

By chance stumbled upon this dialogue from the movie' Yadein' . It touched me deeply as it resonates with my own philosophy that purpose of life is to create unforgettable memories.

दुनिया में यु आना, दुनिया से यु जाना 

आओ तो ले आना, जाओ तो दे जाना 

यादे , यादे, यादे

Whether you are arriving or leaving this world

If coming then bring along,

If going then leave behind,

Memories, Memories, Memories

So many love songs, yet so little love

So much religion, yet so little righteousness

So many charitable quotes, yet so little charity

So many wise posts, yet so little wisdom !!

So many humans, yet so little humanity

So much more of everything, yet so little of what truly matters !

Below quote written by Sakshi. At her age I was only copying quotes from a book, so quite delighted that Sakshi is able to create quotes of her own already.

Everyone has an identity but only some have the wisdom to let their identity flow. It gives them the chance to explore who they really are and helps them discover traits that they didn't realize were in them ( like my talent for writing). Most people, however just accept who they are at the time and never figure out what was left for them to accomplish.

Long long time ago ,when most parents could not afford to buy cycles for their young children to learn cycling. It was this very store in Dandia bazzar that enabled all the children in this part of Baroda to learn cycling by renting cycles of all sizes by the hour. Think something like 1Rs. per hour. I still vividly recollect rushing to the shop in the morning to ensure I could rent the best of the kids cycle in their stock. And it was largely Tai and Santosh who taught me to cycle in our backstreet while they rented bigger bikes for themselves

It was in Sep 2011, Sakshi started a new life in a new country, in a new school . She faced numerous hardships around being bulled and mistreated. First year was especially painful , but gradually she learned to deal with it, though even till last month, occasionally she would just burst into tears as the situation became way too much for her to handle emotionally. Today after 4 years Sakshi finished her primary school and will now start the high school (7th grade). However the irony was that even after receiving such difficult reception in the school, she felt very saddened to leave the school behind. Such is life, we get used to circumstances and somehow unknowingly get emotionally attached !! -- Circle of Life continues

There are too many people creating hate, what the world needs is more people creating humor !!

Profound toilet humor # 

All this while we have been making one scientificl mistake when we say "I am going to shit " .. because in reality shit is already made during the process of digestion in the large intestine and feces or shit or stool , which is the final left over from the process is stored in the rectum. So the correct thing to say is

" I am going to TAKE THE SHIT OUT " hahahahahahahah

It comes out even better in Marathi , where for a milenia we have been saying मी शी करायला जातोय but we should be saying मी शी काढायला जातोये instead hahahahhahahahhahha

Indians news channels would be classified under 'Entertainment' category section from 8th December, as per the ruling of the Honorable Supreme Court of India. Passing the judgment , after a 6 month trial on a public interest litigation, the court states that purpose of news channel is to inform, educate and make aware of the current affairs of the world that the news viewer inhabits. However the court has noted that Indian news channel , some of them in particular, have failed miserably in this endeavor and continue to instead act as instigators, Judgement claims that India has the largest number of news channel in the world but the lowest content of actual news. And from 8th December, all news channel reporting on any matter than pure factual, will be obliged to show a disclaimer on the screen that the content being shown is not fact based but opinion piece or work of fiction. Also effective 8th Dec, no news channel will mention religion, ethnicity or caste in any of its reporting and will just identify any individual as an Indian

The punch line of a new drink being launched to relieve constipation 

" होठो से लगाई तो , हंगामा हो गया , हुगाम्मा 

हंगामा हो गया " hahahahahahaha

In recent months I have had an moment of realization , have now fully comprehended why so many countries regulate the news media - Taiwan, Singapore, China, Malaysia, Turkey, Russia ,UAE, Israel to name just a a few. Each of these countries have ethnic, sectarian challenges, and unregulated media could play havoc with the cohesion of the society. They could amplify minor issues / differences into major catastrophe and completely ignore the positive elements of the society, thus controlling the narrative of the entire nation, They push the country into a vicious cycle - where one act of hooliganism by one ethnic group is projected and broadcast with the sole purpose of enticing retaliation from the opposite group and not generating reconciliation. Media has no moral compass, but their TRP's and balance sheet, they do not own their allegiance to the people of the country but to the shareholders who own their company. And an unregulated media is not encumbered with facts, they are happy to report someone's opinion as a fact, without having the need to back it up with data.And the countries who fall prey to this media inflamed hatred , do so at their own peril

Associated Press has reported that what hitherto had been a 'taboo' subject and therefore not included in any debate on climate change , will now be tabled for discussion during the conference on climate change scheduled later this month in Paris. AP in its report has further claimed that for some time now,the scientific community had been acutely aware that this was a major cause of global warming, yet because of inhibition have not tackled this taboo subject. According to 'yet to be published' scientific paper , human fart is the largest contributor to the depletion of the ozone layer, and because of our lifestyle changes and population growth, there has been an unprecedented increase in # of farts generated each year, paper has provided some further data - 1,631,273 (1.6 million) to be precise is the number of farts that humanity produces every second. Annually that amounts to 51,443,825,328,000 farts. (51 trillion) enough gas to launch 100 rockets in space. Some regions clearly fart more than others, but even here scientist have discovered some remarkable similarity in all human beings across the planet .. the proportion of various gases released in a fart, remains the same across the world. When it comes to fart ,, entire humanity is alike, another proof the scientist claim that inside all of us runs the same engine , creating the same kind of exhaust gases, irrespective of our make. hahahahahhahahahahahah

Part 2 - In a radical new proposal being tabled at the Paris climate conference next week, NASA has been roped in to monitoring the fart levels of each country and just like rest of the carbon emission standards, each country will be asked to sign up to the tready contain the fart levels by 2020 It is understood that NASA has already developed and deployed a monitoring software in their advanced satellite system that was launched last year, the system called FDMMS- (Fart detection and multi-modal monitoring system). Basis certain baseline parameters being agreed next week, each country will be asked to reduce their fart emissions by 2020 by 20%. Country would be able to buy fart credits from other countries similar to carbon credits.

Sometimes the waters are calm but the boat is in turmoil --------- meaning sometimes there is nothing ostensibly wrong with our lives but our heart still feels bad.

Human - Queues to buy the latest version of iphone and then follows thousands of years old religions.

Once a good man dies of old age and goes to heaven, he is welcome at the Pearly gate by an Angel and escorted to his spartan but comfortable quarters. Just as he is settling down, a large bell hanging in the courtyard rings, he asks the Angel the reason for that bell to ring, Angel with a gesture asks him to ignore it and explains that everytime someone on earth tries to spread venom, instigate disharmony, tries to further differences among communities ,the bell rings. Every now and then the bell would ring, but reassured the old man went about his business. Then suddenly late in the evening, the bell began ringing vociferously without stopping, now puzzled the old man rushes to the angel inquiring the cause of this non-stop ringing, Angel tells the old man, " Dont worry, it is prime time on Indian news channels "

Breaking News -- Over the last 24 hours, Hubble telescope has picked up a strange variation in the Earth's rotation. NASA is monitoring the situation very closely and their initial analysis indicate that the cause of this variation seems to be the sudden surge of weight in one particular region of the World, which has momentarily slowed the speed of Earth's rotation.People on the Indian sub-continent have collectively gained a staggering 3 billion kg in the past 24 hours ..Happy Diwali everyone... keep those karanjis, anarsas, chakli, fafda, cholafali,, chivda, ladoos, shankarparas, mathiya , bundi ladoo coming ..  smile emoticon

Lets target 10 billion kgs by the weekend , so the Earth's rotation would become sufficiently slow so we will get an extended weekend 

The most enduring legacy you can leave is the legacy of great relationships !

Indian PM at a mass rally " aap sab ko Vikas chahiye " ?
Public " Haan haan chahiye "
Indian PM " aap sab ko Vikas Chahiye ? "
Public now in a frenzy " haan haan chahiye"
Indian PM " Paka aap sab ko Vikas chahiye ? "
Public now reaching an hysteria " Paka hume Vikas Chahiye "

Indian PM " to phir ye lo Vikas "

Sources have revealed that the British Government has made a presentation to the the Department of School Education , Ministry of Human Resources of India to remove all inferences to ' Divide & Rule' phrase related to the British Colonial rule from the school history books. Their submission states that events have shown that it takes very little to divide Indians on the basis of caste, religion, language, color, ethnicity, creed, food habits, et el. and so the Colonial power was being unfairly blamed for divide and rule, since Indians have sufficiently proved after independence, that it does not take a colonial power to divide them, just a news items would do

What our country desperately needs is " The Daily Show"

(a)political satire alert --
Ebay has announced roll out of a new micro auction site in India called Awardwapasi bazzar ( Returned awards market) . Addressing the reporters , its Senior VP claimed they are already seeing brisk bidding for over 30 + national awards returned across the field literature, science and arts. He added that the money raised by the auction site will be used to provide security to anyone eating beef in India. One of the reporters confronted him that in a country where 500 million people live in abject poverty , do not get two square meals , sleep on empty stomach, over 10 million children suffer malnutrition, are you not insulting them by putting this excessive focus on beef instead of campaigning for their cause , trying to improve their plight. Annoyed the Senior VP retorted " When was the last time you organized a debate on poverty or questioned the government on what they are doing about it ?" He further added " Anyway the awards were not returned against the Government inaction to eradicate poverty".

(apolitical) Satire alert :
Alstom Hydro , one of the leading tidal energy companies in the world has dispatched their top 'Tidal power' scientific team to India to check for an new tidal energy source that has been widely reported in the Indian media- the rising tide of intolerance. A press note released by the company reads, that while they do not understand the exact nature of this tide and that there has been no comparative data available year on year to even validate whether the tide was rising or not, also no scientific unbiased assessment of this tide has been done but their algorithm has revealed that the word 'rising tide' has been used across the Indian media 1.3 trillion times in the last 4 weeks, and as a tidal energy company , they cannot ignore this ' rising tide' and are excited at the prospect of harnessing this tidal energy as a renewable energy source.

It feels like the ultimate stage of human evolution will be self destruction !

Our cricketing legends have incredible statistics better than most cricketers , yet our country's win percentage is lower than most regular cricketing nations ! Think

I mis those days gone by, the days of scams and corruption scandals, when news channels had their pound of flesh and plenty of fodder to create breaking news and we were all united against the common enemy -corruption. And therefore I feel what our country needs now is another scam

When you have a billion + people, you are likely to find a million nutters in them. All religions, castes, creed and countries ,suffer their fair share of such nutters. But if the entire discourse is focused on what these nutters are up to, if our narrative only covers actions of these nutters , eventually we will end up making nutters of the other 999 million people.

Navaratri Half Marathon (yes you heard it right)-- This year, United way Garba organizers are sending a wristband containing a timing chip along with the entry pass to garba grounds. Sensors will be located at various points around the circumference of the garba ground, and everytime the Garbarunner ( Garba + runner) passes that sensor wearing that wristband , it will make a record. With the average circumference being between 300 to 350 meters, every 3 rounds, a Garba-er would be completing 1 km , and at roughly 12-15 rounds an hour, cover a distance of 4- 4.5 kms each hour . So any Garbarunner , doing Garba for little over 5 hours , would have covered a half marathon distance (21.1 kms) and large digital screens located on the garba ground will showcase the names , who cover that distance. And Atul Purohit will announce those names in between singing the garba . smile emoticon And at the at the end of the session , basis the timing chip record, those who cover that distance (21.1 kms) in shortest time will get to participate in the maha-Aarti and all participants who completed 21.1 kms distance will receive a Navaratri Half Marathon medal from United Way .. hahhahahaha What an idea Sirji !!